At this moment Mary Pavlovna came out into the passage.
"How can one talk here?" she said; "go in, Vera is alone there," and she went in at the second door, and entered a tiny room, evidently meant for a solitary cell, which was now placed at the disposal of the political women prisoners, Vera Doukhova lay covered up, head and all, on the bed.
"She has got a headache, and is asleep, so she cannot hear you, and I will go away," said Mary Pavlovna.
"On the contrary, stay here," said Simonson; "I have no secrets from any one, certainly none from you."
"All right," said Mary Pavlovna, and moving her whole body from side to side, like a child, so as to get farther back on to the bed, she settled down to listen, her beautiful hazel eyes seeming to look somewhere far away.
"Well, then, this is my business," Simonson repeated. "Knowing of your relations to Katerina Maslova, I consider myself bound to explain to you my relations to her."
Nekhludoff could not help admiring the simplicity and truthfulness with which Simonson spoke to him.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I should like to marry Katerina Maslova--"
"How strange!" said Mary Pavlovna, fixing her eyes on Simonson.
"--And so I made up my mind to ask her to be my wife," Simonson continued.
"What can I do? It depends on her," said Nekhludoff.
"Yes; but she will not come to any decision without you."
"Why?"
"Because as long as your relations with her are unsettled she cannot make up her mind."
"As far as I am concerned, it is finally settled. I should like to do what I consider to be my duty and also to lighten her fate, but on no account would I wish to put any restraint on her."
"Yes, but she does not wish to accept your sacrifice."