THE TALES OF CHEKHOV

VOLUME 11

THE SCHOOLMASTER AND OTHER STORIES

BY

ANTON TCHEKHOV

Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT

CONTENTS

THE SCHOOLMASTERENEMIESTHE EXAMINING MAGISTRATEBETROTHEDFROM THE DIARY OF A VIOLENT-TEMPERED MANIN THE DARKA PLAYA MYSTERYSTRONG IMPRESSIONSDRUNKTHE MARSHAL'S WIDOWA BAD BUSINESSIN THE COURTBOOTSJOYLADIESA PECULIAR MANAT THE BARBER'SAN INADVERTENCETHE ALBUMOH! THE PUBLICA TRIPPING TONGUEOVERDOING ITTHE ORATORMALINGERERSIN THE GRAVEYARDHUSH!IN AN HOTELIN A STRANGE LAND

THE SCHOOLMASTER

FYODOR LUKITCH SYSOEV, the master of the factory school maintainedat the expense of the firm of Kulikin, was getting ready for theannual dinner. Every year after the school examination the boardof managers gave a dinner at which the inspector of elementaryschools, all who had conducted the examinations, and all the managersand foremen of the factory were present. In spite of their officialcharacter, these dinners were always good and lively, and the guestssat a long time over them; forgetting distinctions of rank andrecalling only their meritorious labours, they ate till they werefull, drank amicably, chattered till they were all hoarse and partedlate in the evening, deafening the whole factory settlement withtheir singing and the sound of their kisses. Of such dinners Sysoevhad taken part in thirteen, as he had been that number of yearsmaster of the factory school. 

Now, getting ready for the fourteenth, he was trying to make himselflook as festive and correct as possible. He had spent a whole hourbrushing his new black suit, and spent almost as long in front ofa looking-glass while he put on a fashionable shirt; the studs wouldnot go into the button-holes, and this circumstance called forth aperfect storm of complaints, threats, and reproaches addressed tohis wife. 

His poor wife, bustling round him, wore herself out with her efforts. And indeed he, too, was exhausted in the end. When his polishedboots were brought him from the kitchen he had not strength to pullthem on. He had to lie down and have a drink of water. 

"How weak you have grown!" sighed his wife. "You ought not to goto this dinner at all. "

"No advice, please!" the schoolmaster cut her short angrily. 

He was in a very bad temper, for he had been much displeased withthe recent examinations. The examinations had gone off splendidly;all the boys of the senior division had gained certificates andprizes; both the managers of the factory and the government officialswere pleased with the results; but that was not enough for theschoolmaster. He was vexed that Babkin, a boy who never made amistake in writing, had made three mistakes in the dictation;Sergeyev, another boy, had been so excited that he could not rememberseventeen times thirteen; the inspector, a young and inexperiencedman, had chosen a difficult article for dictation, and Lyapunov, the master of a neighbouring school, whom the inspector had askedto dictate, had not behaved like "a good comrade"; but in dictatinghad, as it were, swallowed the words and had not pronounced themas written. 

After pulling on his boots with the assistance of his wife, andlooking at himself once more in the looking-glass, the schoolmastertook his gnarled stick and set off for the dinner. Just before thefactory manager's house, where the festivity was to take place, hehad a little mishap. He was taken with a violent fit of coughing. . . . He was so shaken by it that the cap flew off his head and thestick dropped out of his hand; and when the school inspector andthe teachers, hearing his cough, ran out of the house, he was sittingon the bottom step, bathed in perspiration. 

"Fyodor Lukitch, is that you?" said the inspector, surprised. "You. . . Have come?"

"Why not?"

"You ought to be at home, my dear fellow. You are not at all wellto-day. . . . "

"I am just the same to-day as I was yesterday. And if my presenceis not agreeable to you, I can go back. "

"Oh, Fyodor Lukitch, you must not talk like that! Please come in. Why, the function is really in your honour, not ours. And we aredelighted to see you. Of course we are! . . . "

Within, everything was ready for the banquet. In the big dining-roomadorned with German oleographs and smelling of geraniums and varnishthere were two tables, a larger one for the dinner and a smallerone for the hors-d'oeuvres. The hot light of midday faintly percolatedthrough the lowered blinds. . . . The twilight of the room, theSwiss views on the blinds, the geraniums, the thin slices of sausageon the plates, all had a naïve, girlishly-sentimental air, and itwas all in keeping with the master of the house, a good-naturedlittle German with a round little stomach and affectionate, oilylittle eyes. Adolf Andreyitch Bruni (that was his name) was bustlinground the table of hors-d'oeuvres as zealously as though it were ahouse on fire, filling up the wine-glasses, loading the plates, andtrying in every way to please, to amuse, and to show his friendlyfeelings. He clapped people on the shoulder, looked into their eyes, chuckled, rubbed his hands, in fact was as ingratiating as a friendlydog. 

"Whom do I behold? Fyodor Lukitch!" he said in a jerky voice, onseeing Sysoev. "How delightful! You have come in spite of yourillness. Gentlemen, let me congratulate you, Fyodor Lukitch hascome!"

The school-teachers were already crowding round the table and eatingthe hors-d'oeuvres. Sysoev frowned; he was displeased that hiscolleagues had begun to eat and drink without waiting for him. Henoticed among them Lyapunov, the man who had dictated at theexamination, and going up to him, began:

"It was not acting like a comrade! No, indeed! Gentlemanly peopledon't dictate like that!"

"Good Lord, you are still harping on it!" said Lyapunov, and hefrowned. "Aren't you sick of it?"

"Yes, still harping on it! My Babkin has never made mistakes! Iknow why you dictated like that. You simply wanted my pupils to befloored, so that your school might seem better than mine. I knowall about it! . . . "

"Why are you trying to get up a quarrel?" Lyapunov snarled. "Whythe devil do you pester me?"

"Come, gentlemen, " interposed the inspector, making a woebegoneface. "Is it worth while to get so heated over a trifle? Threemistakes . . . Not one mistake . . . Does it matter?"

"Yes, it does matter. Babkin has never made mistakes. "

"He won't leave off, " Lyapunov went on, snorting angrily. "He takesadvantage of his position as an invalid and worries us all to death. Well, sir, I am not going to consider your being ill. "

"Let my illness alone!" cried Sysoev, angrily. "What is it to dowith you? They all keep repeating it at me: illness! illness!illness! . . . As though I need your sympathy! Besides, where haveyou picked up the notion that I am ill? I was ill before theexaminations, that's true, but now I have completely recovered, there is nothing left of it but weakness. "

"You have regained your health, well, thank God, " said the scriptureteacher, Father Nikolay, a young priest in a foppish cinnamon-colouredcassock and trousers outside his boots. "You ought to rejoice, butyou are irritable and so on. "

"You are a nice one, too, " Sysoev interrupted him. "Questions oughtto be straightforward, clear, but you kept asking riddles. That'snot the thing to do!"

By combined efforts they succeeded in soothing him and making himsit down to the table. He was a long time making up his mind whatto drink, and pulling a wry face drank a wine-glass of some greenliqueur; then he drew a bit of pie towards him, and sulkily pickedout of the inside an egg with onion on it. At the first mouthfulit seemed to him that there was no salt in it. He sprinkled salton it and at once pushed it away as the pie was too salt. 

At dinner Sysoev was seated between the inspector and Bruni. Afterthe first course the toasts began, according to the old-establishedcustom. 

"I consider it my agreeable duty, " the inspector began, "to proposea vote of thanks to the absent school wardens, Daniel Petrovitchand . . . And . . . And . . . "

"And Ivan Petrovitch, " Bruni prompted him. 

"And Ivan Petrovitch Kulikin, who grudge no expense for the school, and I propose to drink their health. . . . "

"For my part, " said Bruni, jumping up as though he had been stung, "I propose a toast to the health of the honoured inspector ofelementary schools, Pavel Gennadievitch Nadarov!"

Chairs were pushed back, faces beamed with smiles, and the usualclinking of glasses began. 

The third toast always fell to Sysoev. And on this occasion, too, he got up and began to speak. Looking grave and clearing his throat, he first of all announced that he had not the gift of eloquence andthat he was not prepared to make a speech. Further he said thatduring the fourteen years that he had been schoolmaster there hadbeen many intrigues, many underhand attacks, and even secret reportson him to the authorities, and that he knew his enemies and thosewho had informed against him, and he would not mention their names, "for fear of spoiling somebody's appetite"; that in spite of theseintrigues the Kulikin school held the foremost place in the wholeprovince not only from a moral, but also from a material point ofview. "

"Everywhere else, " he said, "schoolmasters get two hundred or threehundred roubles, while I get five hundred, and moreover my househas been redecorated and even furnished at the expense of the firm. And this year all the walls have been repapered. . . . "

Further the schoolmaster enlarged on the liberality with which thepupils were provided with writing materials in the factory schoolsas compared with the Zemstvo and Government schools. And for allthis the school was indebted, in his opinion, not to the heads ofthe firm, who lived abroad and scarcely knew of its existence, butto a man who, in spite of his German origin and Lutheran faith, wasa Russian at heart. 

Sysoev spoke at length, with pauses to get his breath and withpretensions to rhetoric, and his speech was boring and unpleasant. He several times referred to certain enemies of his, tried to drophints, repeated himself, coughed, and flourished his fingersunbecomingly. At last he was exhausted and in a perspiration andhe began talking jerkily, in a low voice as though to himself, andfinished his speech not quite coherently: "And so I propose thehealth of Bruni, that is Adolf Andreyitch, who is here, among us. . . Generally speaking . . . You understand . . . "

When he finished everyone gave a faint sigh, as though someone hadsprinkled cold water and cleared the air. Bruni alone apparentlyhad no unpleasant feeling. Beaming and rolling his sentimental eyes, the German shook Sysoev's hand with feeling and was again as friendlyas a dog. 

"Oh, I thank you, " he said, with an emphasis on the _oh_, layinghis left hand on his heart. "I am very happy that you understandme! I, with my whole heart, wish you all things good. But I oughtonly to observe; you exaggerate my importance. The school owes itsflourishing condition only to you, my honoured friend, FyodorLukitch. But for you it would be in no way distinguished from otherschools! You think the German is paying a compliment, the Germanis saying something polite. Ha-ha! No, my dear Fyodor Lukitch, Iam an honest man and never make complimentary speeches. If we payyou five hundred roubles a year it is because you are valued by us. Isn't that so? Gentlemen, what I say is true, isn't it? We shouldnot pay anyone else so much. . . . Why, a good school is an honourto the factory!"

"I must sincerely own that your school is really exceptional, " saidthe inspector. "Don't think this is flattery. Anyway, I have nevercome across another like it in my life. As I sat at the examinationI was full of admiration. . . . Wonderful children! They know agreat deal and answer brightly, and at the same time they are somehowspecial, unconstrained, sincere. . . . One can see that they loveyou, Fyodor Lukitch. You are a schoolmaster to the marrow of yourbones. You must have been born a teacher. You have all the gifts--innate vocation, long experience, and love for your work. . . . It's simply amazing, considering the weak state of your health, what energy, what understanding . . . What perseverance, do youunderstand, what confidence you have! Some one in the school committeesaid truly that you were a poet in your work. . . . Yes, a poet youare!"

And all present at the dinner began as one man talking of Sysoev'sextraordinary talent. And as though a dam had been burst, therefollowed a flood of sincere, enthusiastic words such as men do notutter when they are restrained by prudent and cautious sobriety. Sysoev's speech and his intolerable temper and the horrid, spitefulexpression on his face were all forgotten. Everyone talked freely, even the shy and silent new teachers, poverty-stricken, down-troddenyouths who never spoke to the inspector without addressing him as"your honour. " It was clear that in his own circle Sysoev was aperson of consequence. 

Having been accustomed to success and praise for the fourteen yearsthat he had been schoolmaster, he listened with indifference to thenoisy enthusiasm of his admirers. 

It was Bruni who drank in the praise instead of the schoolmaster. The German caught every word, beamed, clapped his hands, and flushedmodestly as though the praise referred not to the schoolmaster butto him. 

"Bravo! bravo!" he shouted. "That's true! You have grasped mymeaning! . . . Excellent! . . . " He looked into the schoolmaster'seyes as though he wanted to share his bliss with him. At last hecould restrain himself no longer; he leapt up, and, overpoweringall the other voices with his shrill little tenor, shouted:

"Gentlemen! Allow me to speak! Sh-h! To all you say I can make onlyone reply: the management of the factory will not be forgetful ofwhat it owes to Fyodor Lukitch! . . . "

All were silent. Sysoev raised his eyes to the German's rosy face. 

"We know how to appreciate it, " Bruni went on, dropping his voice. "In response to your words I ought to tell you that . . . FyodorLukitch's family will be provided for and that a sum of money wasplaced in the bank a month ago for that object. "

Sysoev looked enquiringly at the German, at his colleagues, asthough unable to understand why his family should be provided forand not he himself. And at once on all the faces, in all themotionless eyes bent upon him, he read not the sympathy, not thecommiseration which he could not endure, but something else, somethingsoft, tender, but at the same time intensely sinister, like aterrible truth, something which in one instant turned him cold allover and filled his soul with unutterable despair. With a pale, distorted face he suddenly jumped up and clutched at his head. Fora quarter of a minute he stood like that, stared with horror at afixed point before him as though he saw the swiftly coming deathof which Bruni was speaking, then sat down and burst into tears. 

"Come, come! . . . What is it?" he heard agitated voices saying. "Water! drink a little water!"

A short time passed and the schoolmaster grew calmer, but the partydid not recover their previous liveliness. The dinner ended ingloomy silence, and much earlier than on previous occasions. 

When he got home Sysoev first of all looked at himself in the glass. 

"Of course there was no need for me to blubber like that!" hethought, looking at his sunken cheeks and his eyes with dark ringsunder them. "My face is a much better colour to-day than yesterday. I am suffering from anemia and catarrh of the stomach, and my coughis only a stomach cough. "

Reassured, he slowly began undressing, and spent a long time brushinghis new black suit, then carefully folded it up and put it in thechest of drawers. 

Then he went up to the table where there lay a pile of his pupils'exercise-books, and picking out Babkin's, sat down and fell tocontemplating the beautiful childish handwriting. . . . 

And meantime, while he was examining the exercise-books, the districtdoctor was sitting in the next room and telling his wife in a whisperthat a man ought not to have been allowed to go out to dinner whohad not in all probability more than a week to live. 

ENEMIES

BETWEEN nine and ten on a dark September evening the only son ofthe district doctor, Kirilov, a child of six, called Andrey, diedof diphtheria. Just as the doctor's wife sank on her knees by thedead child's bedside and was overwhelmed by the first rush of despairthere came a sharp ring at the bell in the entry. 

All the servants had been sent out of the house that morning onaccount of the diphtheria. Kirilov went to open the door just ashe was, without his coat on, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, withoutwiping his wet face or his hands which were scalded with carbolic. It was dark in the entry and nothing could be distinguished in theman who came in but medium height, a white scarf, and a large, extremely pale face, so pale that its entrance seemed to make thepassage lighter. 

"Is the doctor at home?" the newcomer asked quickly. 

"I am at home, " answered Kirilov. "What do you want?"

"Oh, it's you? I am very glad, " said the stranger in a tone ofrelief, and he began feeling in the dark for the doctor's hand, found it and squeezed it tightly in his own. "I am very . . . Veryglad! We are acquainted. My name is Abogin, and I had the honourof meeting you in the summer at Gnutchev's. I am very glad I havefound you at home. For God's sake don't refuse to come back withme at once. . . . My wife has been taken dangerously ill. . . . Andthe carriage is waiting. . . . "

From the voice and gestures of the speaker it could be seen thathe was in a state of great excitement. Like a man terrified by ahouse on fire or a mad dog, he could hardly restrain his rapidbreathing and spoke quickly in a shaking voice, and there was anote of unaffected sincerity and childish alarm in his voice. Aspeople always do who are frightened and overwhelmed, he spoke inbrief, jerky sentences and uttered a great many unnecessary, irrelevant words. 

"I was afraid I might not find you in, " he went on. "I was in aperfect agony as I drove here. Put on your things and let us go, for God's sake. . . . This is how it happened. Alexandr SemyonovitchPaptchinsky, whom you know, came to see me. . . . We talked a littleand then we sat down to tea; suddenly my wife cried out, clutchedat her heart, and fell back on her chair. We carried her to bed and. . . And I rubbed her forehead with ammonia and sprinkled her withwater . . . She lay as though she were dead. . . . I am afraid itis aneurism . . . . Come along . . . Her father died of aneurism. "

Kirilov listened and said nothing, as though he did not understandRussian. 

When Abogin mentioned again Paptchinsky and his wife's father andonce more began feeling in the dark for his hand the doctor shookhis head and said apathetically, dragging out each word:

"Excuse me, I cannot come . . . My son died . . . Five minutes ago!"

"Is it possible!" whispered Abogin, stepping back a pace. "My God, at what an unlucky moment I have come! A wonderfully unhappy day . . . Wonderfully. What a coincidence. . . . It's as though it wereon purpose!"

Abogin took hold of the door-handle and bowed his head. He wasevidently hesitating and did not know what to do--whether to goaway or to continue entreating the doctor. 

"Listen, " he said fervently, catching hold of Kirilov's sleeve. "Iwell understand your position! God is my witness that I am ashamedof attempting at such a moment to intrude on your attention, butwhat am I to do? Only think, to whom can I go? There is no otherdoctor here, you know. For God's sake come! I am not asking you formyself. . . . I am not the patient!"

A silence followed. Kirilov turned his back on Abogin, stood stilla moment, and slowly walked into the drawing-room. Judging from hisunsteady, mechanical step, from the attention with which he setstraight the fluffy shade on the unlighted lamp in the drawing-roomand glanced into a thick book lying on the table, at that instanthe had no intention, no desire, was thinking of nothing and mostlikely did not remember that there was a stranger in the entry. Thetwilight and stillness of the drawing-room seemed to increase hisnumbness. Going out of the drawing-room into his study he raisedhis right foot higher than was necessary, and felt for the doorpostswith his hands, and as he did so there was an air of perplexityabout his whole figure as though he were in somebody else's house, or were drunk for the first time in his life and were now abandoninghimself with surprise to the new sensation. A broad streak of lightstretched across the bookcase on one wall of the study; this lightcame together with the close, heavy smell of carbolic and etherfrom the door into the bedroom, which stood a little way open. . . . The doctor sank into a low chair in front of the table; for aminute he stared drowsily at his books, which lay with the lighton them, then got up and went into the bedroom. 

Here in the bedroom reigned a dead silence. Everything to thesmallest detail was eloquent of the storm that had been passedthrough, of exhaustion, and everything was at rest. A candle standingamong a crowd of bottles, boxes, and pots on a stool and a big lampon the chest of drawers threw a brilliant light over all the room. On the bed under the window lay a boy with open eyes and a look ofwonder on his face. He did not move, but his open eyes seemed everymoment growing darker and sinking further into his head. The motherwas kneeling by the bed with her arms on his body and her headhidden in the bedclothes. Like the child, she did not stir; butwhat throbbing life was suggested in the curves of her body and inher arms! She leaned against the bed with all her being, pressingagainst it greedily with all her might, as though she were afraidof disturbing the peaceful and comfortable attitude she had foundat last for her exhausted body. The bedclothes, the rags and bowls, the splashes of water on the floor, the little paint-brushes andspoons thrown down here and there, the white bottle of lime water, the very air, heavy and stifling--were all hushed and seemedplunged in repose. 

The doctor stopped close to his wife, thrust his hands in his trouserpockets, and slanting his head on one side fixed his eyes on hisson. His face bore an expression of indifference, and only from thedrops that glittered on his beard it could be seen that he had justbeen crying. 

That repellent horror which is thought of when we speak of deathwas absent from the room. In the numbness of everything, in themother's attitude, in the indifference on the doctor's face therewas something that attracted and touched the heart, that subtle, almost elusive beauty of human sorrow which men will not for a longtime learn to understand and describe, and which it seems only musiccan convey. There was a feeling of beauty, too, in the austerestillness. Kirilov and his wife were silent and not weeping, asthough besides the bitterness of their loss they were conscious, too, of all the tragedy of their position; just as once their youthhad passed away, so now together with this boy their right to havechildren had gone for ever to all eternity! The doctor was forty-four, his hair was grey and he looked like an old man; his faded andinvalid wife was thirty-five. Andrey was not merely the only child, but also the last child. 

In contrast to his wife the doctor belonged to the class of peoplewho at times of spiritual suffering feel a craving for movement. After standing for five minutes by his wife, he walked, raising hisright foot high, from the bedroom into a little room which was halffilled up by a big sofa; from there he went into the kitchen. Afterwandering by the stove and the cook's bed he bent down and went bya little door into the passage. 

There he saw again the white scarf and the white face. 

"At last, " sighed Abogin, reaching towards the door-handle. "Letus go, please. "

The doctor started, glanced at him, and remembered. . . . 

"Why, I have told you already that I can't go!" he said, growingmore animated. "How strange!"

"Doctor, I am not a stone, I fully understand your position . . . I feel for you, " Abogin said in an imploring voice, laying his handon his scarf. "But I am not asking you for myself. My wife is dying. If you had heard that cry, if you had seen her face, you wouldunderstand my pertinacity. My God, I thought you had gone to getready! Doctor, time is precious. Let us go, I entreat you. "

"I cannot go, " said Kirilov emphatically and he took a step intothe drawing-room. 

Abogin followed him and caught hold of his sleeve. 

"You are in sorrow, I understand. But I'm not asking you to a caseof toothache, or to a consultation, but to save a human life!" hewent on entreating like a beggar. "Life comes before any personalsorrow! Come, I ask for courage, for heroism! For the love ofhumanity!"

"Humanity--that cuts both ways, " Kirilov said irritably. "In thename of humanity I beg you not to take me. And how queer it is, really! I can hardly stand and you talk to me about humanity! I amfit for nothing just now. . . . Nothing will induce me to go, andI can't leave my wife alone. No, no. . . "

Kirilov waved his hands and staggered back. 

"And . . . And don't ask me, " he went on in a tone of alarm. "Excuseme. By No. XIII of the regulations I am obliged to go and you havethe right to drag me by my collar . . . Drag me if you like, but . . . I am not fit . . . I can't even speak . . . Excuse me. "

"There is no need to take that tone to me, doctor!" said Abogin, again taking the doctor by his sleeve. "What do I care about No. XIII! To force you against your will I have no right whatever. Ifyou will, come; if you will not--God forgive you; but I am notappealing to your will, but to your feelings. A young woman isdying. You were just speaking of the death of your son. Who shouldunderstand my horror if not you?"

Abogin's voice quivered with emotion; that quiver and his tone werefar more persuasive than his words. Abogin was sincere, but it wasremarkable that whatever he said his words sounded stilted, soulless, and inappropriately flowery, and even seemed an outrage on theatmosphere of the doctor's home and on the woman who was somewheredying. He felt this himself, and so, afraid of not being understood, did his utmost to put softness and tenderness into his voice sothat the sincerity of his tone might prevail if his words did not. As a rule, however fine and deep a phrase may be, it only affectsthe indifferent, and cannot fully satisfy those who are happy orunhappy; that is why dumbness is most often the highest expressionof happiness or unhappiness; lovers understand each other betterwhen they are silent, and a fervent, passionate speech deliveredby the grave only touches outsiders, while to the widow and childrenof the dead man it seems cold and trivial. 

Kirilov stood in silence. When Abogin uttered a few more phrasesconcerning the noble calling of a doctor, self-sacrifice, and soon, the doctor asked sullenly: "Is it far?"

"Something like eight or nine miles. I have capital horses, doctor!I give you my word of honour that I will get you there and back inan hour. Only one hour. "

These words had more effect on Kirilov than the appeals to humanityor the noble calling of the doctor. He thought a moment and saidwith a sigh: "Very well, let us go!"

He went rapidly with a more certain step to his study, and afterwardscame back in a long frock-coat. Abogin, greatly relieved, fidgetedround him and scraped with his feet as he helped him on with hisovercoat, and went out of the house with him. 

It was dark out of doors, though lighter than in the entry. Thetall, stooping figure of the doctor, with his long, narrow beardand aquiline nose, stood out distinctly in the darkness. Abogin'sbig head and the little student's cap that barely covered it couldbe seen now as well as his pale face. The scarf showed white onlyin front, behind it was hidden by his long hair. 

"Believe me, I know how to appreciate your generosity, " Aboginmuttered as he helped the doctor into the carriage. "We shall getthere quickly. Drive as fast as you can, Luka, there's a good fellow!Please!"

The coachman drove rapidly. At first there was a row of indistinctbuildings that stretched alongside the hospital yard; it was darkeverywhere except for a bright light from a window that gleamedthrough the fence into the furthest part of the yard while threewindows of the upper storey of the hospital looked paler than thesurrounding air. Then the carriage drove into dense shadow; herethere was the smell of dampness and mushrooms, and the sound ofrustling trees; the crows, awakened by the noise of the wheels, stirred among the foliage and uttered prolonged plaintive cries asthough they knew the doctor's son was dead and that Abogin's wifewas ill. Then came glimpses of separate trees, of bushes; a pond, on which great black shadows were slumbering, gleamed with a sullenlight--and the carriage rolled over a smooth level ground. Theclamour of the crows sounded dimly far away and soon ceased altogether. 

Kirilov and Abogin were silent almost all the way. Only once Aboginheaved a deep sigh and muttered:

"It's an agonizing state! One never loves those who are near oneso much as when one is in danger of losing them. "

And when the carriage slowly drove over the river, Kirilov startedall at once as though the splash of the water had frightened him, and made a movement. 

"Listen--let me go, " he said miserably. "I'll come to you later. I must just send my assistant to my wife. She is alone, you know!"

Abogin did not speak. The carriage swaying from side to side andcrunching over the stones drove up the sandy bank and rolled on itsway. Kirilov moved restlessly and looked about him in misery. Behindthem in the dim light of the stars the road could be seen and theriverside willows vanishing into the darkness. On the right lay aplain as uniform and as boundless as the sky; here and there in thedistance, probably on the peat marshes, dim lights were glimmering. On the left, parallel with the road, ran a hill tufted with smallbushes, and above the hill stood motionless a big, red half-moon, slightly veiled with mist and encircled by tiny clouds, which seemedto be looking round at it from all sides and watching that it didnot go away. 

In all nature there seemed to be a feeling of hopelessness and pain. The earth, like a ruined woman sitting alone in a dark room andtrying not to think of the past, was brooding over memories ofspring and summer and apathetically waiting for the inevitablewinter. Wherever one looked, on all sides, nature seemed like adark, infinitely deep, cold pit from which neither Kirilov norAbogin nor the red half-moon could escape. . . . 

The nearer the carriage got to its goal the more impatient Aboginbecame. He kept moving, leaping up, looking over the coachman'sshoulder. And when at last the carriage stopped before the entrance, which was elegantly curtained with striped linen, and when he lookedat the lighted windows of the second storey there was an audiblecatch in his breath. 

"If anything happens . . . I shall not survive it, " he said, goinginto the hall with the doctor, and rubbing his hands in agitation. "But there is no commotion, so everything must be going well sofar, " he added, listening in the stillness. 

There was no sound in the hall of steps or voices and all the houseseemed asleep in spite of the lighted windows. Now the doctor andAbogin, who till then had been in darkness, could see each otherclearly. The doctor was tall and stooped, was untidily dressed andnot good-looking. There was an unpleasantly harsh, morose, andunfriendly look about his lips, thick as a negro's, his aquilinenose, and listless, apathetic eyes. His unkempt head and sunkentemples, the premature greyness of his long, narrow beard throughwhich his chin was visible, the pale grey hue of his skin and hiscareless, uncouth manners--the harshness of all this was suggestiveof years of poverty, of ill fortune, of weariness with life andwith men. Looking at his frigid figure one could hardly believethat this man had a wife, that he was capable of weeping over hischild. Abogin presented a very different appearance. He was athick-set, sturdy-looking, fair man with a big head and large, softfeatures; he was elegantly dressed in the very latest fashion. Inhis carriage, his closely buttoned coat, his long hair, and hisface there was a suggestion of something generous, leonine; hewalked with his head erect and his chest squared, he spoke in anagreeable baritone, and there was a shade of refined almost feminineelegance in the manner in which he took off his scarf and smoothedhis hair. Even his paleness and the childlike terror with which helooked up at the stairs as he took off his coat did not detractfrom his dignity nor diminish the air of sleekness, health, andaplomb which characterized his whole figure. 

"There is nobody and no sound, " he said going up the stairs. "Thereis no commotion. God grant all is well. "

He led the doctor through the hall into a big drawing-room wherethere was a black piano and a chandelier in a white cover; fromthere they both went into a very snug, pretty little drawing-roomfull of an agreeable, rosy twilight. 

"Well, sit down here, doctor, and I . . . Will be back directly. Iwill go and have a look and prepare them. "

Kirilov was left alone. The luxury of the drawing-room, the agreeablysubdued light and his own presence in the stranger's unfamiliarhouse, which had something of the character of an adventure, didnot apparently affect him. He sat in a low chair and scrutinizedhis hands, which were burnt with carbolic. He only caught a passingglimpse of the bright red lamp-shade and the violoncello case, andglancing in the direction where the clock was ticking he noticed astuffed wolf as substantial and sleek-looking as Abogin himself. 

It was quiet. . . . Somewhere far away in the adjoining rooms someoneuttered a loud exclamation:

"Ah!" There was a clang of a glass door, probably of a cupboard, and again all was still. After waiting five minutes Kirilov leftoff scrutinizing his hands and raised his eyes to the door by whichAbogin had vanished. 

In the doorway stood Abogin, but he was not the same as when he hadgone out. The look of sleekness and refined elegance had disappeared--his face, his hands, his attitude were contorted by a revoltingexpression of something between horror and agonizing physical pain. His nose, his lips, his moustache, all his features were moving andseemed trying to tear themselves from his face, his eyes looked asthough they were laughing with agony. . . . 

Abogin took a heavy stride into the drawing-room, bent forward, moaned, and shook his fists. 

"She has deceived me, " he cried, with a strong emphasis on thesecond syllable of the verb. "Deceived me, gone away. She fell illand sent me for the doctor only to run away with that clownPaptchinsky! My God!"

Abogin took a heavy step towards the doctor, held out his soft whitefists in his face, and shaking them went on yelling:

"Gone away! Deceived me! But why this deception? My God! My God!What need of this dirty, scoundrelly trick, this diabolical, snakishfarce? What have I done to her? Gone away!"

Tears gushed from his eyes. He turned on one foot and began pacingup and down the drawing-room. Now in his short coat, his fashionablenarrow trousers which made his legs look disproportionately slim, with his big head and long mane he was extremely like a lion. Agleam of curiosity came into the apathetic face of the doctor. Hegot up and looked at Abogin. 

"Excuse me, where is the patient?" he said. 

"The patient! The patient!" cried Abogin, laughing, crying, andstill brandishing his fists. "She is not ill, but accursed! Thebaseness! The vileness! The devil himself could not have imaginedanything more loathsome! She sent me off that she might run awaywith a buffoon, a dull-witted clown, an Alphonse! Oh God, bettershe had died! I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it!"

The doctor drew himself up. His eyes blinked and filled with tears, his narrow beard began moving to right and to left together withhis jaw. 

"Allow me to ask what's the meaning of this?" he asked, lookinground him with curiosity. "My child is dead, my wife is in griefalone in the whole house. . . . I myself can scarcely stand up, Ihave not slept for three nights. . . . And here I am forced to playa part in some vulgar farce, to play the part of a stage property!I don't . . . Don't understand it!"

Abogin unclenched one fist, flung a crumpled note on the floor, andstamped on it as though it were an insect he wanted to crush. 

"And I didn't see, didn't understand, " he said through his clenchedteeth, brandishing one fist before his face with an expression asthough some one had trodden on his corns. "I did not notice thathe came every day! I did not notice that he came today in a closedcarriage! What did he come in a closed carriage for? And I did notsee it! Noodle!"

"I don't understand . . . " muttered the doctor. "Why, what's themeaning of it? Why, it's an outrage on personal dignity, a mockeryof human suffering! It's incredible. . . . It's the first time inmy life I have had such an experience!"

With the dull surprise of a man who has only just realized that hehas been bitterly insulted the doctor shrugged his shoulders, flungwide his arms, and not knowing what to do or to say sank helplesslyinto a chair. 

"If you have ceased to love me and love another--so be it; butwhy this deceit, why this vulgar, treacherous trick?" Abogin saidin a tearful voice. "What is the object of it? And what is thereto justify it? And what have I done to you? Listen, doctor, " hesaid hotly, going up to Kirilov. "You have been the involuntarywitness of my misfortune and I am not going to conceal the truthfrom you. I swear that I loved the woman, loved her devotedly, likea slave! I have sacrificed everything for her; I have quarrelledwith my own people, I have given up the service and music, I haveforgiven her what I could not have forgiven my own mother or sister. . . I have never looked askance at her. . . . I have never gainsaidher in anything. Why this deception? I do not demand love, but whythis loathsome duplicity? If she did not love me, why did she notsay so openly, honestly, especially as she knows my views on thesubject? . . . "

With tears in his eyes, trembling all over, Abogin opened his heartto the doctor with perfect sincerity. He spoke warmly, pressingboth hands on his heart, exposing the secrets of his private lifewithout the faintest hesitation, and even seemed to be glad thatat last these secrets were no longer pent up in his breast. If hehad talked in this way for an hour or two, and opened his heart, he would undoubtedly have felt better. Who knows, if the doctor hadlistened to him and had sympathized with him like a friend, he mightperhaps, as often happens, have reconciled himself to his troublewithout protest, without doing anything needless and absurd. . . . But what happened was quite different. While Abogin was speakingthe outraged doctor perceptibly changed. The indifference and wonderon his face gradually gave way to an expression of bitter resentment, indignation, and anger. The features of his face became even harsher, coarser, and more unpleasant. When Abogin held out before his eyesthe photograph of a young woman with a handsome face as cold andexpressionless as a nun's and asked him whether, looking at thatface, one could conceive that it was capable of duplicity, thedoctor suddenly flew out, and with flashing eyes said, rudely rappingout each word:

"What are you telling me all this for? I have no desire to hear it!I have no desire to!" he shouted and brought his fist down on thetable. "I don't want your vulgar secrets! Damnation take them! Don'tdare to tell me of such vulgar doings! Do you consider that I havenot been insulted enough already? That I am a flunkey whom you caninsult without restraint? Is that it?"

Abogin staggered back from Kirilov and stared at him in amazement. 

"Why did you bring me here?" the doctor went on, his beard quivering. "If you are so puffed up with good living that you go and get marriedand then act a farce like this, how do I come in? What have I todo with your love affairs? Leave me in peace! Go on squeezing moneyout of the poor in your gentlemanly way. Make a display of humaneideas, play (the doctor looked sideways at the violoncello case)play the bassoon and the trombone, grow as fat as capons, but don'tdare to insult personal dignity! If you cannot respect it, you mightat least spare it your attention!"

"Excuse me, what does all this mean?" Abogin asked, flushing red. 

"It means that it's base and low to play with people like this! Iam a doctor; you look upon doctors and people generally who workand don't stink of perfume and prostitution as your menials and_mauvais ton_; well, you may look upon them so, but no one has givenyou the right to treat a man who is suffering as a stage property!"

"How dare you say that to me!" Abogin said quietly, and his facebegan working again, and this time unmistakably from anger. 

"No, how dared you, knowing of my sorrow, bring me here to listento these vulgarities!" shouted the doctor, and he again banged onthe table with his fist. "Who has given you the right to make amockery of another man's sorrow?"

"You have taken leave of your senses, " shouted Abogin. "It isungenerous. I am intensely unhappy myself and . . . And . . . "

"Unhappy!" said the doctor, with a smile of contempt. "Don't utterthat word, it does not concern you. The spendthrift who cannot raisea loan calls himself unhappy, too. The capon, sluggish fromover-feeding, is unhappy, too. Worthless people!"

"Sir, you forget yourself, " shrieked Abogin. "For saying thingslike that . . . People are thrashed! Do you understand?"

Abogin hurriedly felt in his side pocket, pulled out a pocket-book, and extracting two notes flung them on the table. 

"Here is the fee for your visit, " he said, his nostrils dilating. "You are paid. "

"How dare you offer me money?" shouted the doctor and he brushedthe notes off the table on to the floor. "An insult cannot be paidfor in money!"

Abogin and the doctor stood face to face, and in their wrath continuedflinging undeserved insults at each other. I believe that never intheir lives, even in delirium, had they uttered so much that wasunjust, cruel, and absurd. The egoism of the unhappy was conspicuousin both. The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, andless capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappinessdoes not bring people together but draws them apart, and even whereone would fancy people should be united by the similarity of theirsorrow, far more injustice and cruelty is generated than incomparatively placid surroundings. 

"Kindly let me go home!" shouted the doctor, breathing hard. 

Abogin rang the bell sharply. When no one came to answer the bellhe rang again and angrily flung the bell on the floor; it fell onthe carpet with a muffled sound, and uttered a plaintive note asthough at the point of death. A footman came in. 

"Where have you been hiding yourself, the devil take you?" Hismaster flew at him, clenching his fists. "Where were you just now?Go and tell them to bring the victoria round for this gentleman, and order the closed carriage to be got ready for me. Stay, " hecried as the footman turned to go out. "I won't have a single traitorin the house by to-morrow! Away with you all! I will engage freshservants! Reptiles!"

Abogin and the doctor remained in silence waiting for the carriage. The first regained his expression of sleekness and his refinedelegance. He paced up and down the room, tossed his head elegantly, and was evidently meditating on something. His anger had not cooled, but he tried to appear not to notice his enemy. . . . The doctorstood, leaning with one hand on the edge of the table, and lookedat Abogin with that profound and somewhat cynical, ugly contemptonly to be found in the eyes of sorrow and indigence when they areconfronted with well-nourished comfort and elegance. 

When a little later the doctor got into the victoria and drove offthere was still a look of contempt in his eyes. It was dark, muchdarker than it had been an hour before. The red half-moon had sunkbehind the hill and the clouds that had been guarding it lay indark patches near the stars. The carriage with red lamps rattledalong the road and soon overtook the doctor. It was Abogin drivingoff to protest, to do absurd things. . . . 

All the way home the doctor thought not of his wife, nor of hisAndrey, but of Abogin and the people in the house he had just left. His thoughts were unjust and inhumanly cruel. He condemned Aboginand his wife and Paptchinsky and all who lived in rosy, subduedlight among sweet perfumes, and all the way home he hated anddespised them till his head ached. And a firm conviction concerningthose people took shape in his mind. 

Time will pass and Kirilov's sorrow will pass, but that conviction, unjust and unworthy of the human heart, will not pass, but willremain in the doctor's mind to the grave. 

THE EXAMINING MAGISTRATE

A DISTRICT doctor and an examining magistrate were driving one finespring day to an inquest. The examining magistrate, a man of fiveand thirty, looked dreamily at the horses and said:

"There is a great deal that is enigmatic and obscure in nature; andeven in everyday life, doctor, one must often come upon phenomenawhich are absolutely incapable of explanation. I know, for instance, of several strange, mysterious deaths, the cause of which onlyspiritualists and mystics will undertake to explain; a clear-headedman can only lift up his hands in perplexity. For example, I knowof a highly cultured lady who foretold her own death and died withoutany apparent reason on the very day she had predicted. She saidthat she would die on a certain day, and she did die. "

"There's no effect without a cause, " said the doctor. "If there'sa death there must be a cause for it. But as for predicting itthere's nothing very marvellous in that. All our ladies--all ourfemales, in fact--have a turn for prophecies and presentiments. "

"Just so, but my lady, doctor, was quite a special case. There wasnothing like the ladies' or other females' presentiments about herprediction and her death. She was a young woman, healthy and clever, with no superstitions of any sort. She had such clear, intelligent, honest eyes; an open, sensible face with a faint, typically Russianlook of mockery in her eyes and on her lips. There was nothing ofthe fine lady or of the female about her, except--if you like--her beauty! She was graceful, elegant as that birch tree; she hadwonderful hair. That she may be intelligible to you, I will add, too, that she was a person of the most infectious gaiety andcarelessness and that intelligent, good sort of frivolity which isonly found in good-natured, light-hearted people with brains. Canone talk of mysticism, spiritualism, a turn for presentiment, oranything of that sort, in this case? She used to laugh at all that. "

The doctor's chaise stopped by a well. The examining magistrate andthe doctor drank some water, stretched, and waited for the coachmanto finish watering the horses. 

"Well, what did the lady die of?" asked the doctor when the chaisewas rolling along the road again. 

"She died in a strange way. One fine day her husband went in to herand said that it wouldn't be amiss to sell their old coach beforethe spring and to buy something rather newer and lighter instead, and that it might be as well to change the left trace horse and toput Bobtchinsky (that was the name of one of her husband's horses)in the shafts. 

"His wife listened to him and said:

"'Do as you think best, but it makes no difference to me now. Before the summer I shall be in the cemetery. '

"Her husband, of course, shrugged his shoulders and smiled. 

"'I am not joking, ' she said. 'I tell you in earnest that I shallsoon be dead. '

"'What do you mean by soon?'

"'Directly after my confinement. I shall bear my child and die. '

"The husband attached no significance to these words. He did notbelieve in presentiments of any sort, and he knew that ladies inan interesting condition are apt to be fanciful and to give way togloomy ideas generally. A day later his wife spoke to him again ofdying immediately after her confinement, and then every day shespoke of it and he laughed and called her a silly woman, afortune-teller, a crazy creature. Her approaching death became an_idée fixé_ with his wife. When her husband would not listen to hershe would go into the kitchen and talk of her death to the nurseand the cook. 

"'I haven't long to live now, nurse, ' she would say. 'As soon asmy confinement is over I shall die. I did not want to die so early, but it seems it's my fate. '

"The nurse and the cook were in tears, of course. Sometimes thepriest's wife or some lady from a neighbouring estate would comeand see her and she would take them aside and open her soul to them, always harping on the same subject, her approaching death. She spokegravely with an unpleasant smile, even with an angry face whichwould not allow any contradiction. She had been smart and fashionablein her dress, but now in view of her approaching death she becameslovenly; she did not read, she did not laugh, she did not dreamaloud. What was more she drove with her aunt to the cemetery andselected a spot for her tomb. Five days before her confinement shemade her will. And all this, bear in mind, was done in the best ofhealth, without the faintest hint of illness or danger. A confinementis a difficult affair and sometimes fatal, but in the case of whichI am telling you every indication was favourable, and there wasabsolutely nothing to be afraid of. Her husband was sick of thewhole business at last. He lost his temper one day at dinner andasked her:

"'Listen, Natasha, when is there going to be an end of thissilliness?'

"'It's not silliness, I am in earnest. '

"'Nonsense, I advise you to give over being silly that you may notfeel ashamed of it afterwards. '

"Well, the confinement came. The husband got the very best midwifefrom the town. It was his wife's first confinement, but it couldnot have gone better. When it was all over she asked to look at herbaby. She looked at it and said:

"'Well, now I can die. '

"She said good-bye, shut her eyes, and half an hour later gave upher soul to God. She was fully conscious up to the last moment. Anyway when they gave her milk instead of water she whispered softly:

"'Why are you giving me milk instead of water?'

"So that is what happened. She died as she predicted. "

The examining magistrate paused, gave a sigh and said:

"Come, explain why she died. I assure you on my honour, this is notinvented, it's a fact. "

The doctor looked at the sky meditatively. 

"You ought to have had an inquest on her, " he said. 

"Why?"

"Why, to find out the cause of her death. She didn't die becauseshe had predicted it. She poisoned herself most probably. "

The examining magistrate turned quickly, facing the doctor, andscrewing up his eyes, asked:

"And from what do you conclude that she poisoned herself?"

"I don't conclude it, but I assume it. Was she on good terms withher husband?"

"H'm, not altogether. There had been misunderstandings soon aftertheir marriage. There were unfortunate circumstances. She had foundher husband on one occasion with a lady. She soon forgave himhowever. "

"And which came first, her husband's infidelity or her idea ofdying?"

The examining magistrate looked attentively at the doctor as thoughhe were trying to imagine why he put that question. 

"Excuse me, " he said, not quite immediately. "Let me try andremember. " The examining magistrate took off his hat and rubbed hisforehead. "Yes, yes . . . It was very shortly after that incidentthat she began talking of death. Yes, yes. "

"Well, there, do you see? . . . In all probability it was at thattime that she made up her mind to poison herself, but, as mostlikely she did not want to kill her child also, she put it off tillafter her confinement. "

"Not likely, not likely! . . . It's impossible. She forgave him atthe time. "

"That she forgave it quickly means that she had something bad inher mind. Young wives do not forgive quickly. "

The examining magistrate gave a forced smile, and, to conceal histoo noticeable agitation, began lighting a cigarette. 

"Not likely, not likely, " he went on. "No notion of anything of thesort being possible ever entered into my head. . . . And besides. . . He was not so much to blame as it seems. . . . He was unfaithfulto her in rather a queer way, with no desire to be; he came homeat night somewhat elevated, wanted to make love to somebody, hiswife was in an interesting condition . . . Then he came across alady who had come to stay for three days--damnation take her--an empty-headed creature, silly and not good-looking. It couldn'tbe reckoned as an infidelity. His wife looked at it in that wayherself and soon . . . Forgave it. Nothing more was said aboutit. . . . "

"People don't die without a reason, " said the doctor. 

"That is so, of course, but all the same . . . I cannot admit thatshe poisoned herself. But it is strange that the idea has neverstruck me before! And no one thought of it! Everyone was astonishedthat her prediction had come to pass, and the idea . . . Of such adeath was far from their mind. And indeed, it cannot be that shepoisoned herself! No!"

The examining magistrate pondered. The thought of the woman who haddied so strangely haunted him all through the inquest. As he noteddown what the doctor dictated to him he moved his eyebrows gloomilyand rubbed his forehead. 

"And are there really poisons that kill one in a quarter of an hour, gradually, without any pain?" he asked the doctor while the latterwas opening the skull. 

"Yes, there are. Morphia for instance. "

"H'm, strange. I remember she used to keep something of the sort. . . . But it could hardly be. "

On the way back the examining magistrate looked exhausted, he keptnervously biting his moustache, and was unwilling to talk. 

"Let us go a little way on foot, " he said to the doctor. "I am tiredof sitting. "

After walking about a hundred paces, the examining magistrate seemedto the doctor to be overcome with fatigue, as though he had beenclimbing up a high mountain. He stopped and, looking at the doctorwith a strange look in his eyes, as though he were drunk, said:

"My God, if your theory is correct, why it's. . . It was cruel, inhuman! She poisoned herself to punish some one else! Why, was thesin so great? Oh, my God! And why did you make me a present of thisdamnable idea, doctor!"

The examining magistrate clutched at his head in despair, and wenton:

"What I have told you was about my own wife, about myself. Oh, myGod! I was to blame, I wounded her, but can it have been easier todie than to forgive? That's typical feminine logic--cruel, mercilesslogic. Oh, even then when she was living she was cruel! I recallit all now! It's all clear to me now!"

As the examining magistrate talked he shrugged his shoulders, thenclutched at his head. He got back into the carriage, then walkedagain. The new idea the doctor had imparted to him seemed to haveoverwhelmed him, to have poisoned him; he was distracted, shatteredin body and soul, and when he got back to the town he said good-byeto the doctor, declining to stay to dinner though he had promisedthe doctor the evening before to dine with him. 

BETROTHED

I

IT was ten o'clock in the evening and the full moon was shiningover the garden. In the Shumins' house an evening service celebratedat the request of the grandmother, Marfa Mihalovna, was just over, and now Nadya--she had gone into the garden for a minute--couldsee the table being laid for supper in the dining-room, and hergrandmother bustling about in her gorgeous silk dress; Father Andrey, a chief priest of the cathedral, was talking to Nadya's mother, Nina Ivanovna, and now in the evening light through the window hermother for some reason looked very young; Andrey Andreitch, FatherAndrey's son, was standing by listening attentively. 

It was still and cool in the garden, and dark peaceful shadows layon the ground. There was a sound of frogs croaking, far, far awaybeyond the town. There was a feeling of May, sweet May! One drewdeep breaths and longed to fancy that not here but far away underthe sky, above the trees, far away in the open country, in thefields and the woods, the life of spring was unfolding now, mysterious, lovely, rich and holy beyond the understanding of weak, sinful man. And for some reason one wanted to cry. 

She, Nadya, was already twenty-three. Ever since she was sixteenshe had been passionately dreaming of marriage and at last she wasengaged to Andrey Andreitch, the young man who was standing on theother side of the window; she liked him, the wedding was alreadyfixed for July 7, and yet there was no joy in her heart, she wassleeping badly, her spirits drooped. . . . She could hear from theopen windows of the basement where the kitchen was the hurryingservants, the clatter of knives, the banging of the swing door;there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled cherries, and forsome reason it seemed to her that it would be like that all herlife, with no change, no end to it. 

Some one came out of the house and stood on the steps; it wasAlexandr Timofeitch, or, as he was always called, Sasha, who hadcome from Moscow ten days before and was staying with them. Yearsago a distant relation of the grandmother, a gentleman's widowcalled Marya Petrovna, a thin, sickly little woman who had sunkinto poverty, used to come to the house to ask for assistance. Shehad a son Sasha. It used for some reason to be said that he hadtalent as an artist, and when his mother died Nadya's grandmotherhad, for the salvation of her soul, sent him to the Komissarovskyschool in Moscow; two years later he went into the school of painting, spent nearly fifteen years there, and only just managed to scrapethrough the leaving examination in the section of architecture. Hedid not set up as an architect, however, but took a job at alithographer's. He used to come almost every year, usually veryill, to stay with Nadya's grandmother to rest and recover. 

He was wearing now a frock-coat buttoned up, and shabby canvastrousers, crumpled into creases at the bottom. And his shirt hadnot been ironed and he had somehow all over a look of not beingfresh. He was very thin, with big eyes, long thin fingers and aswarthy bearded face, and all the same he was handsome. With theShumins he was like one of the family, and in their house felt hewas at home. And the room in which he lived when he was there hadfor years been called Sasha's room. Standing on the steps he sawNadya, and went up to her. 

"It's nice here, " he said. 

"Of course it's nice, you ought to stay here till the autumn. "

"Yes, I expect it will come to that. I dare say I shall stay withyou till September. "

He laughed for no reason, and sat down beside her. 

"I'm sitting gazing at mother, " said Nadya. "She looks so youngfrom here! My mother has her weaknesses, of course, " she added, after a pause, "but still she is an exceptional woman. "

"Yes, she is very nice . . . " Sasha agreed. "Your mother, in herown way of course, is a very good and sweet woman, but . . . Howshall I say? I went early this morning into your kitchen and thereI found four servants sleeping on the floor, no bedsteads, and ragsfor bedding, stench, bugs, beetles . . . It is just as it was twentyyears ago, no change at all. Well, Granny, God bless her, what elsecan you expect of Granny? But your mother speaks French, you know, and acts in private theatricals. One would think she might understand. "

As Sasha talked, he used to stretch out two long wasted fingersbefore the listener's face. 

"It all seems somehow strange to me here, now I am out of the habitof it, " he went on. "There is no making it out. Nobody ever doesanything. Your mother spends the whole day walking about like aduchess, Granny does nothing either, nor you either. And your AndreyAndreitch never does anything either. "

Nadya had heard this the year before and, she fancied, the yearbefore that too, and she knew that Sasha could not make any othercriticism, and in old days this had amused her, but now for somereason she felt annoyed. 

"That's all stale, and I have been sick of it for ages, " she saidand got up. "You should think of something a little newer. "

He laughed and got up too, and they went together toward the house. She, tall, handsome, and well-made, beside him looked very healthyand smartly dressed; she was conscious of this and felt sorry forhim and for some reason awkward. 

"And you say a great deal you should not, " she said. "You've justbeen talking about my Andrey, but you see you don't know him. "

"My Andrey. . . . Bother him, your Andrey. I am sorry for youryouth. "

They were already sitting down to supper as the young people wentinto the dining-room. The grandmother, or Granny as she was calledin the household, a very stout, plain old lady with bushy eyebrowsand a little moustache, was talking loudly, and from her voice andmanner of speaking it could be seen that she was the person of mostimportance in the house. She owned rows of shops in the market, andthe old-fashioned house with columns and the garden, yet she prayedevery morning that God might save her from ruin and shed tears asshe did so. Her daughter-in-law, Nadya's mother, Nina Ivanovna, afair-haired woman tightly laced in, with a pince-nez, and diamondson every finger, Father Andrey, a lean, toothless old man whoseface always looked as though he were just going to say somethingamusing, and his son, Andrey Andreitch, a stout and handsome youngman with curly hair looking like an artist or an actor, were alltalking of hypnotism. 

"You will get well in a week here, " said Granny, addressing Sasha. "Only you must eat more. What do you look like!" she sighed. "Youare really dreadful! You are a regular prodigal son, that is whatyou are. "

"After wasting his father's substance in riotous living, " saidFather Andrey slowly, with laughing eyes. "He fed with senselessbeasts. "

"I like my dad, " said Andrey Andreitch, touching his father on theshoulder. "He is a splendid old fellow, a dear old fellow. "

Everyone was silent for a space. Sasha suddenly burst out laughingand put his dinner napkin to his mouth. 

"So you believe in hypnotism?" said Father Andrey to Nina Ivanovna. 

"I cannot, of course, assert that I believe, " answered Nina Ivanovna, assuming a very serious, even severe, expression; "but I must ownthat there is much that is mysterious and incomprehensible innature. "

"I quite agree with you, though I must add that religion distinctlycurtails for us the domain of the mysterious. "

A big and very fat turkey was served. Father Andrey and Nina Ivanovnawent on with their conversation. Nina Ivanovna's diamonds glitteredon her fingers, then tears began to glitter in her eyes, she grewexcited. 

"Though I cannot venture to argue with you, " she said, "you mustadmit there are so many insoluble riddles in life!"

"Not one, I assure you. "

After supper Andrey Andreitch played the fiddle and Nina Ivanovnaaccompanied him on the piano. Ten years before he had taken hisdegree at the university in the Faculty of Arts, but had never heldany post, had no definite work, and only from time to time tookpart in concerts for charitable objects; and in the town he wasregarded as a musician. 

Andrey Andreitch played; they all listened in silence. The samovarwas boiling quietly on the table and no one but Sasha was drinkingtea. Then when it struck twelve a violin string suddenly broke;everyone laughed, bustled about, and began saying good-bye. 

After seeing her fiancé out, Nadya went upstairs where she and hermother had their rooms (the lower storey was occupied by thegrandmother). They began putting the lights out below in thedining-room, while Sasha still sat on drinking tea. He always spenta long time over tea in the Moscow style, drinking as much as sevenglasses at a time. For a long time after Nadya had undressed andgone to bed she could hear the servants clearing away downstairsand Granny talking angrily. At last everything was hushed, andnothing could be heard but Sasha from time to time coughing on abass note in his room below. 

II

When Nadya woke up it must have been two o'clock, it was beginningto get light. A watchman was tapping somewhere far away. She wasnot sleepy, and her bed felt very soft and uncomfortable. Nadya satup in her bed and fell to thinking as she had done every night inMay. Her thoughts were the same as they had been the night before, useless, persistent thoughts, always alike, of how Andrey Andreitchhad begun courting her and had made her an offer, how she hadaccepted him and then little by little had come to appreciate thekindly, intelligent man. But for some reason now when there washardly a month left before the wedding, she began to feel dread anduneasiness as though something vague and oppressive were beforeher. 

"Tick-tock, tick-tock . . . " the watchman tapped lazily. ". . . Tick-tock. "

Through the big old-fashioned window she could see the garden andat a little distance bushes of lilac in full flower, drowsy andlifeless from the cold; and the thick white mist was floating softlyup to the lilac, trying to cover it. Drowsy rooks were cawing inthe far-away trees. 

"My God, why is my heart so heavy?"

Perhaps every girl felt the same before her wedding. There was noknowing! Or was it Sasha's influence? But for several years pastSasha had been repeating the same thing, like a copybook, and whenhe talked he seemed naïve and queer. But why was it she could notget Sasha out of her head? Why was it?

The watchman left off tapping for a long while. The birds weretwittering under the windows and the mist had disappeared from thegarden. Everything was lighted up by the spring sunshine as by asmile. Soon the whole garden, warm and caressed by the sun, returnedto life, and dewdrops like diamonds glittered on the leaves and theold neglected garden on that morning looked young and gaily decked. 

Granny was already awake. Sasha's husky cough began. Nadya couldhear them below, setting the samovar and moving the chairs. Thehours passed slowly, Nadya had been up and walking about the gardenfor a long while and still the morning dragged on. 

At last Nina Ivanovna appeared with a tear-stained face, carryinga glass of mineral water. She was interested in spiritualism andhomeopathy, read a great deal, was fond of talking of the doubtsto which she was subject, and to Nadya it seemed as though therewere a deep mysterious significance in all that. 

Now Nadya kissed her mother and walked beside her. 

"What have you been crying about, mother?" she asked. 

"Last night I was reading a story in which there is an old man andhis daughter. The old man is in some office and his chief falls inlove with his daughter. I have not finished it, but there was apassage which made it hard to keep from tears, " said Nina Ivanovnaand she sipped at her glass. "I thought of it this morning and shedtears again. "

"I have been so depressed all these days, " said Nadya after a pause. "Why is it I don't sleep at night!"

"I don't know, dear. When I can't sleep I shut my eyes very tightly, like this, and picture to myself Anna Karenin moving about andtalking, or something historical from the ancient world. . . . "

Nadya felt that her mother did not understand her and was incapableof understanding. She felt this for the first time in her life, andit positively frightened her and made her want to hide herself; andshe went away to her own room. 

At two o'clock they sat down to dinner. It was Wednesday, a fastday, and so vegetable soup and bream with boiled grain were setbefore Granny. 

To tease Granny Sasha ate his meat soup as well as the vegetablesoup. He was making jokes all through dinner-time, but his jestswere laboured and invariably with a moral bearing, and the effectwas not at all amusing when before making some witty remark heraised his very long, thin, deathly-looking fingers; and when oneremembered that he was very ill and would probably not be muchlonger in this world, one felt sorry for him and ready to weep. 

After dinner Granny went off to her own room to lie down. NinaIvanovna played on the piano for a little, and then she too wentaway. 

"Oh, dear Nadya!" Sasha began his usual afternoon conversation, "ifonly you would listen to me! If only you would!"

She was sitting far back in an old-fashioned armchair, with hereyes shut, while he paced slowly about the room from corner tocorner. 

"If only you would go to the university, " he said. "Only enlightenedand holy people are interesting, it's only they who are wanted. Themore of such people there are, the sooner the Kingdom of God willcome on earth. Of your town then not one stone will be left, everything will he blown up from the foundations, everything willbe changed as though by magic. And then there will be immense, magnificent houses here, wonderful gardens, marvellous fountains, remarkable people. . . . But that's not what matters most. Whatmatters most is that the crowd, in our sense of the word, in thesense in which it exists now--that evil will not exist then, because every man will believe and every man will know what he isliving for and no one will seek moral support in the crowd. DearNadya, darling girl, go away! Show them all that you are sick ofthis stagnant, grey, sinful life. Prove it to yourself at least!"

"I can't, Sasha, I'm going to be married. "

"Oh nonsense! What's it for!"

They went out into the garden and walked up and down a little. 

"And however that may be, my dear girl, you must think, you mustrealize how unclean, how immoral this idle life of yours is, " Sashawent on. "Do understand that if, for instance, you and your motherand your grandmother do nothing, it means that someone else isworking for you, you are eating up someone else's life, and is thatclean, isn't it filthy?"

Nadya wanted to say "Yes, that is true"; she wanted to say that sheunderstood, but tears came into her eyes, her spirits drooped, andshrinking into herself she went off to her room. 

Towards evening Andrey Andreitch arrived and as usual played thefiddle for a long time. He was not given to much talk as a rule, and was fond of the fiddle, perhaps because one could be silentwhile playing. At eleven o'clock when he was about to go home andhad put on his greatcoat, he embraced Nadya and began greedilykissing her face, her shoulders, and her hands. 

"My dear, my sweet, my charmer, " he muttered. "Oh how happy I am!I am beside myself with rapture!"

And it seemed to her as though she had heard that long, long ago, or had read it somewhere . . . In some old tattered novel thrownaway long ago. In the dining-room Sasha was sitting at the tabledrinking tea with the saucer poised on his five long fingers; Grannywas laying out patience; Nina Ivanovna was reading. The flamecrackled in the ikon lamp and everything, it seemed, was quiet andgoing well. Nadya said good-night, went upstairs to her room, gotinto bed and fell asleep at once. But just as on the night before, almost before it was light, she woke up. She was not sleepy, therewas an uneasy, oppressive feeling in her heart. She sat up with herhead on her knees and thought of her fiancé and her marriage. . . . She for some reason remembered that her mother had not loved herfather and now had nothing and lived in complete dependence on hermother-in-law, Granny. And however much Nadya pondered she couldnot imagine why she had hitherto seen in her mother something specialand exceptional, how it was she had not noticed that she was asimple, ordinary, unhappy woman. 

And Sasha downstairs was not asleep, she could hear him coughing. He is a queer, naïve man, thought Nadya, and in all his dreams, inall those marvellous gardens and wonderful fountains one felt therewas something absurd. But for some reason in his naïveté, in thisvery absurdity there was something so beautiful that as soon as shethought of the possibility of going to the university, it sent acold thrill through her heart and her bosom and flooded them withjoy and rapture. 

"But better not think, better not think . . . " she whispered. "Imust not think of it. "

"Tick-tock, " tapped the watchman somewhere far away. "Tick-tock. . . Tick-tock. . . . "

III

In the middle of June Sasha suddenly felt bored and made up hismind to return to Moscow. 

"I can't exist in this town, " he said gloomily. "No water supply, no drains! It disgusts me to eat at dinner; the filth in the kitchenis incredible. . . . "

"Wait a little, prodigal son!" Granny tried to persuade him, speakingfor some reason in a whisper, "the wedding is to be on the seventh. "

"I don't want to. "

"You meant to stay with us until September!"

"But now, you see, I don't want to. I must get to work. "

The summer was grey and cold, the trees were wet, everything in thegarden looked dejected and uninviting, it certainly did make onelong to get to work. The sound of unfamiliar women's voices washeard downstairs and upstairs, there was the rattle of a sewingmachine in Granny's room, they were working hard at the trousseau. Of fur coats alone, six were provided for Nadya, and the cheapestof them, in Granny's words, had cost three hundred roubles! Thefuss irritated Sasha; he stayed in his own room and was cross, buteveryone persuaded him to remain, and he promised not to go beforethe first of July. 

Time passed quickly. On St. Peter's day Andrey Andreitch went withNadya after dinner to Moscow Street to look once more at the housewhich had been taken and made ready for the young couple some timebefore. It was a house of two storeys, but so far only the upperfloor had been furnished. There was in the hall a shining floorpainted and parqueted, there were Viennese chairs, a piano, a violinstand; there was a smell of paint. On the wall hung a big oilpainting in a gold frame--a naked lady and beside her a purplevase with a broken handle. 

"An exquisite picture, " said Andrey Andreitch, and he gave arespectful sigh. "It's the work of the artist Shismatchevsky. "

Then there was the drawing-room with the round table, and a sofaand easy chairs upholstered in bright blue. Above the sofa was abig photograph of Father Andrey wearing a priest's velvet cap anddecorations. Then they went into the dining-room in which there wasa sideboard; then into the bedroom; here in the half dusk stood twobedsteads side by side, and it looked as though the bedroom hadbeen decorated with the idea that it would always be very agreeablethere and could not possibly be anything else. Andrey Andreitch ledNadya about the rooms, all the while keeping his arm round herwaist; and she felt weak and conscience-stricken. She hated all therooms, the beds, the easy chairs; she was nauseated by the nakedlady. It was clear to her now that she had ceased to love AndreyAndreitch or perhaps had never loved him at all; but how to saythis and to whom to say it and with what object she did not understand, and could not understand, though she was thinking about it all dayand all night. . . . He held her round the waist, talked soaffectionately, so modestly, was so happy, walking about this houseof his; while she saw nothing in it all but vulgarity, stupid, naïve, unbearable vulgarity, and his arm round her waist felt ashard and cold as an iron hoop. And every minute she was on the pointof running away, bursting into sobs, throwing herself out of awindow. Andrey Andreitch led her into the bathroom and here hetouched a tap fixed in the wall and at once water flowed. 

"What do you say to that?" he said, and laughed. "I had a tankholding two hundred gallons put in the loft, and so now we shallhave water. "

They walked across the yard and went out into the street and tooka cab. Thick clouds of dust were blowing, and it seemed as thoughit were just going to rain. 

"You are not cold?" said Andrey Andreitch, screwing up his eyes atthe dust. 

She did not answer. 

"Yesterday, you remember, Sasha blamed me for doing nothing, " hesaid, after a brief silence. "Well, he is right, absolutely right!I do nothing and can do nothing. My precious, why is it? Why is itthat the very thought that I may some day fix a cockade on my capand go into the government service is so hateful to me? Why do Ifeel so uncomfortable when I see a lawyer or a Latin master or amember of the Zemstvo? O Mother Russia! O Mother Russia! What aburden of idle and useless people you still carry! How many likeme are upon you, long-suffering Mother!"

And from the fact that he did nothing he drew generalizations, seeing in it a sign of the times. 

"When we are married let us go together into the country, my precious;there we will work! We will buy ourselves a little piece of landwith a garden and a river, we will labour and watch life. Oh, howsplendid that will be!"

He took off his hat, and his hair floated in the wind, while shelistened to him and thought: "Good God, I wish I were home!"

When they were quite near the house they overtook Father Andrey. 

"Ah, here's father coming, " cried Andrey Andreitch, delighted, andhe waved his hat. "I love my dad really, " he said as he paid thecabman. "He's a splendid old fellow, a dear old fellow. "

Nadya went into the house, feeling cross and unwell, thinking thatthere would be visitors all the evening, that she would have toentertain them, to smile, to listen to the fiddle, to listen to allsorts of nonsense, and to talk of nothing but the wedding. 

Granny, dignified, gorgeous in her silk dress, and haughty as shealways seemed before visitors, was sitting before the samovar. Father Andrey came in with his sly smile. 

"I have the pleasure and blessed consolation of seeing you inhealth, " he said to Granny, and it was hard to tell whether he wasjoking or speaking seriously. 

IV

The wind was beating on the window and on the roof; there was awhistling sound, and in the stove the house spirit was plaintivelyand sullenly droning his song. It was past midnight; everyone inthe house had gone to bed, but no one was asleep, and it seemed allthe while to Nadya as though they were playing the fiddle below. There was a sharp bang; a shutter must have been torn off. A minutelater Nina Ivanovna came in in her nightgown, with a candle. 

"What was the bang, Nadya?" she asked. 

Her mother, with her hair in a single plait and a timid smile onher face, looked older, plainer, smaller on that stormy night. Nadyaremembered that quite a little time ago she had thought her motheran exceptional woman and had listened with pride to the things shesaid; and now she could not remember those things, everything thatcame into her mind was so feeble and useless. 

In the stove was the sound of several bass voices in chorus, andshe even heard "O-o-o my G-o-od!" Nadya sat on her bed, and suddenlyshe clutched at her hair and burst into sobs. 

"Mother, mother, my own, " she said. "If only you knew what ishappening to me! I beg you, I beseech you, let me go away! I beseechyou!"

"Where?" asked Nina Ivanovna, not understanding, and she sat downon the bedstead. "Go where?"

For a long while Nadya cried and could not utter a word. 

"Let me go away from the town, " she said at last. "There must notand will not be a wedding, understand that! I don't love that man. . . I can't even speak about him. "

"No, my own, no!" Nina Ivanovna said quickly, terribly alarmed. "Calm yourself--it's just because you are in low spirits. It willpass, it often happens. Most likely you have had a tiff with Andrey;but lovers' quarrels always end in kisses!"

"Oh, go away, mother, oh, go away, " sobbed Nadya. 

"Yes, " said Nina Ivanovna after a pause, "it's not long since youwere a baby, a little girl, and now you are engaged to be married. In nature there is a continual transmutation of substances. Beforeyou know where you are you will be a mother yourself and an oldwoman, and will have as rebellious a daughter as I have. "

"My darling, my sweet, you are clever you know, you are unhappy, "said Nadya. "You are very unhappy; why do you say such very dull, commonplace things? For God's sake, why?"

Nina Ivanovna tried to say something, but could not utter a word;she gave a sob and went away to her own room. The bass voices begandroning in the stove again, and Nadya felt suddenly frightened. Shejumped out of bed and went quickly to her mother. Nina Ivanovna, with tear-stained face, was lying in bed wrapped in a pale bluequilt and holding a book in her hands. 

"Mother, listen to me!" said Nadya. "I implore you, do understand!If you would only understand how petty and degrading our life is. My eyes have been opened, and I see it all now. And what is yourAndrey Andreitch? Why, he is not intelligent, mother! Mercifulheavens, do understand, mother, he is stupid!"

Nina Ivanovna abruptly sat up. 

"You and your grandmother torment me, " she said with a sob. "I wantto live! to live, " she repeated, and twice she beat her little fistupon her bosom. "Let me be free! I am still young, I want to live, and you have made me an old woman between you!"

She broke into bitter tears, lay down and curled up under the quilt, and looked so small, so pitiful, so foolish. Nadya went to her room, dressed, and sitting at the window fell to waiting for the morning. She sat all night thinking, while someone seemed to be tapping onthe shutters and whistling in the yard. 

In the morning Granny complained that the wind had blown down allthe apples in the garden, and broken down an old plum tree. It wasgrey, murky, cheerless, dark enough for candles; everyone complainedof the cold, and the rain lashed on the windows. After tea Nadyawent into Sasha's room and without saying a word knelt down beforean armchair in the corner and hid her face in her hands. 

"What is it?" asked Sasha. 

"I can't . . . " she said. "How I could go on living here before, Ican't understand, I can't conceive! I despise the man I am engagedto, I despise myself, I despise all this idle, senseless existence. "

"Well, well, " said Sasha, not yet grasping what was meant. "That'sall right . . . That's good. "

"I am sick of this life, " Nadya went on. "I can't endure anotherday here. To-morrow I am going away. Take me with you for God'ssake!"

For a minute Sasha looked at her in astonishment; at last heunderstood and was delighted as a child. He waved his arms and beganpattering with his slippers as though he were dancing with delight. 

"Splendid, " he said, rubbing his hands. "My goodness, how fine thatis!"

And she stared at him without blinking, with adoring eyes, as thoughspellbound, expecting every minute that he would say somethingimportant, something infinitely significant; he had told her nothingyet, but already it seemed to her that something new and great wasopening before her which she had not known till then, and alreadyshe gazed at him full of expectation, ready to face anything, evendeath. 

"I am going to-morrow, " he said after a moment's thought. "You cometo the station to see me off. . . . I'll take your things in myportmanteau, and I'll get your ticket, and when the third bell ringsyou get into the carriage, and we'll go off. You'll see me as faras Moscow and then go on to Petersburg alone. Have you a passport?"

"Yes. "

"I can promise you, you won't regret it, " said Sasha, with conviction. "You will go, you will study, and then go where fate takes you. When you turn your life upside down everything will be changed. Thegreat thing is to turn your life upside down, and all the rest isunimportant. And so we will set off to-morrow?"

"Oh yes, for God's sake!"

It seemed to Nadya that she was very much excited, that her heartwas heavier than ever before, that she would spend all the timetill she went away in misery and agonizing thought; but she hadhardly gone upstairs and lain down on her bed when she fell asleepat once, with traces of tears and a smile on her face, and sleptsoundly till evening. 

V

A cab had been sent for. Nadya in her hat and overcoat went upstairsto take one more look at her mother, at all her belongings. Shestood in her own room beside her still warm bed, looked about her, then went slowly in to her mother. Nina Ivanovna was asleep; it wasquite still in her room. Nadya kissed her mother, smoothed her hair, stood still for a couple of minutes . . . Then walked slowlydownstairs. 

It was raining heavily. The cabman with the hood pulled down wasstanding at the entrance, drenched with rain. 

"There is not room for you, Nadya, " said Granny, as the servantsbegan putting in the luggage. "What an idea to see him off in suchweather! You had better stop at home. Goodness, how it rains!"

Nadya tried to say something, but could not. Then Sasha helped Nadyain and covered her feet with a rug. Then he sat down beside her. 

"Good luck to you! God bless you!" Granny cried from the steps. "Mind you write to us from Moscow, Sasha!"

"Right. Good-bye, Granny. "

"The Queen of Heaven keep you!"

"Oh, what weather!" said Sasha. 

It was only now that Nadya began to cry. Now it was clear to herthat she certainly was going, which she had not really believedwhen she was saying good-bye to Granny, and when she was lookingat her mother. Good-bye, town! And she suddenly thought of it all:Andrey, and his father and the new house and the naked lady withthe vase; and it all no longer frightened her, nor weighed uponher, but was naïve and trivial and continually retreated furtheraway. And when they got into the railway carriage and the trainbegan to move, all that past which had been so big and seriousshrank up into something tiny, and a vast wide future which tillthen had scarcely been noticed began unfolding before her. The rainpattered on the carriage windows, nothing could be seen but thegreen fields, telegraph posts with birds sitting on the wires flittedby, and joy made her hold her breath; she thought that she was goingto freedom, going to study, and this was just like what used, agesago, to be called going off to be a free Cossack. 

She laughed and cried and prayed all at once. 

"It's a-all right, " said Sasha, smiling. "It's a-all right. "

VI

Autumn had passed and winter, too, had gone. Nadya had begun to bevery homesick and thought every day of her mother and her grandmother;she thought of Sasha too. The letters that came from home were kindand gentle, and it seemed as though everything by now were forgivenand forgotten. In May after the examinations she set off for homein good health and high spirits, and stopped on the way at Moscowto see Sasha. He was just the same as the year before, with thesame beard and unkempt hair, with the same large beautiful eyes, and he still wore the same coat and canvas trousers; but he lookedunwell and worried, he seemed both older and thinner, and keptcoughing, and for some reason he struck Nadya as grey and provincial. 

"My God, Nadya has come!" he said, and laughed gaily. "My darlinggirl!"

They sat in the printing room, which was full of tobacco smoke, andsmelt strongly, stiflingly of Indian ink and paint; then they wentto his room, which also smelt of tobacco and was full of the tracesof spitting; near a cold samovar stood a broken plate with darkpaper on it, and there were masses of dead flies on the table andon the floor. And everything showed that Sasha ordered his personallife in a slovenly way and lived anyhow, with utter contempt forcomfort, and if anyone began talking to him of his personal happiness, of his personal life, of affection for him, he would not haveunderstood and would have only laughed. 

"It is all right, everything has gone well, " said Nadya hurriedly. "Mother came to see me in Petersburg in the autumn; she said thatGranny is not angry, and only keeps going into my room and makingthe sign of the cross over the walls. "

Sasha looked cheerful, but he kept coughing, and talked in a crackedvoice, and Nadya kept looking at him, unable to decide whether hereally were seriously ill or whether it were only her fancy. 

"Dear Sasha, " she said, "you are ill. "

"No, it's nothing, I am ill, but not very . . . "

"Oh, dear!" cried Nadya, in agitation. "Why don't you go to a doctor?Why don't you take care of your health? My dear, darling Sasha, "she said, and tears gushed from her eyes and for some reason thererose before her imagination Andrey Andreitch and the naked ladywith the vase, and all her past which seemed now as far away as herchildhood; and she began crying because Sasha no longer seemed toher so novel, so cultured, and so interesting as the year before. "Dear Sasha, you are very, very ill . . . I would do anything tomake you not so pale and thin. I am so indebted to you! You can'timagine how much you have done for me, my good Sasha! In realityyou are now the person nearest and dearest to me. "

They sat on and talked, and now, after Nadya had spent a winter inPetersburg, Sasha, his works, his smile, his whole figure had forher a suggestion of something out of date, old-fashioned, done withlong ago and perhaps already dead and buried. 

"I am going down the Volga the day after tomorrow, " said Sasha, "and then to drink koumiss. I mean to drink koumiss. A friend andhis wife are going with me. His wife is a wonderful woman; I amalways at her, trying to persuade her to go to the university. Iwant her to turn her life upside down. "

After having talked they drove to the station. Sasha got her teaand apples; and when the train began moving and he waved hishandkerchief at her, smiling, it could be seen even from his legsthat he was very ill and would not live long. 

Nadya reached her native town at midday. As she drove home from thestation the streets struck her as very wide and the houses verysmall and squat; there were no people about, she met no one but theGerman piano-tuner in a rusty greatcoat. And all the houses lookedas though they were covered with dust. Granny, who seemed to havegrown quite old, but was as fat and plain as ever, flung her armsround Nadya and cried for a long time with her face on Nadya'sshoulder, unable to tear herself away. Nina Ivanovna looked mucholder and plainer and seemed shrivelled up, but was still tightlylaced, and still had diamonds flashing on her fingers. 

"My darling, " she said, trembling all over, "my darling!"

Then they sat down and cried without speaking. It was evident thatboth mother and grandmother realized that the past was lost andgone, never to return; they had now no position in society, noprestige as before, no right to invite visitors; so it is when inthe midst of an easy careless life the police suddenly burst in atnight and made a search, and it turns out that the head of thefamily has embezzled money or committed forgery--and goodbye thento the easy careless life for ever!

Nadya went upstairs and saw the same bed, the same windows withnaïve white curtains, and outside the windows the same garden, gayand noisy, bathed in sunshine. She touched the table, sat down andsank into thought. And she had a good dinner and drank tea withdelicious rich cream; but something was missing, there was a senseof emptiness in the rooms and the ceilings were so low. In theevening she went to bed, covered herself up and for some reason itseemed to her to be funny lying in this snug, very soft bed. 

Nina Ivanovna came in for a minute; she sat down as people who feelguilty sit down, timidly, and looking about her. 

"Well, tell me, Nadya, " she enquired after a brief pause, "are youcontented? Quite contented?"

"Yes, mother. "

Nina Ivanovna got up, made the sign of the cross over Nadya and thewindows. 

"I have become religious, as you see, " she said. "You know I amstudying philosophy now, and I am always thinking and thinking. . . . And many things have become as clear as daylight to me. It seemsto me that what is above all necessary is that life should pass asit were through a prism. "

"Tell me, mother, how is Granny in health?"

"She seems all right. When you went away that time with Sasha andthe telegram came from you, Granny fell on the floor as she readit; for three days she lay without moving. After that she was alwayspraying and crying. But now she is all right again. "

She got up and walked about the room. 

"Tick-tock, " tapped the watchman. "Tick-tock, tick-tock. . . . "

"What is above all necessary is that life should pass as it werethrough a prism, " she said; "in other words, that life in consciousnessshould be analyzed into its simplest elements as into the sevenprimary colours, and each element must be studied separately. "

What Nina Ivanovna said further and when she went away, Nadya didnot hear, as she quickly fell asleep. 

May passed; June came. Nadya had grown used to being at home. Grannybusied herself about the samovar, heaving deep sighs. Nina Ivanovnatalked in the evenings about her philosophy; she still lived in thehouse like a poor relation, and had to go to Granny for everyfarthing. There were lots of flies in the house, and the ceilingsseemed to become lower and lower. Granny and Nina Ivanovna did notgo out in the streets for fear of meeting Father Andrey and AndreyAndreitch. Nadya walked about the garden and the streets, lookedat the grey fences, and it seemed to her that everything in thetown had grown old, was out of date and was only waiting either forthe end, or for the beginning of something young and fresh. Oh, ifonly that new, bright life would come more quickly--that life inwhich one will be able to face one's fate boldly and directly, toknow that one is right, to be light-hearted and free! And sooneror later such a life will come. The time will come when of Granny'shouse, where things are so arranged that the four servants can onlylive in one room in filth in the basement--the time will comewhen of that house not a trace will remain, and it will be forgotten, no one will remember it. And Nadya's only entertainment was fromthe boys next door; when she walked about the garden they knockedon the fence and shouted in mockery: "Betrothed! Betrothed!"

A letter from Sasha arrived from Saratov. In his gay dancinghandwriting he told them that his journey on the Volga had been acomplete success, but that he had been taken rather ill in Saratov, had lost his voice, and had been for the last fortnight in thehospital. She knew what that meant, and she was overwhelmed with aforeboding that was like a conviction. And it vexed her that thisforeboding and the thought of Sasha did not distress her so muchas before. She had a passionate desire for life, longed to be inPetersburg, and her friendship with Sasha seemed now sweet butsomething far, far away! She did not sleep all night, and in themorning sat at the window, listening. And she did in fact hearvoices below; Granny, greatly agitated, was asking questions rapidly. Then some one began crying. . . . When Nadya went downstairs Grannywas standing in the corner, praying before the ikon and her facewas tearful. A telegram lay on the table. 

For some time Nadya walked up and down the room, listening toGranny's weeping; then she picked up the telegram and read it. 

It announced that the previous morning Alexandr Timofeitch, or moresimply, Sasha, had died at Saratov of consumption. 

Granny and Nina Ivanovna went to the church to order a memorialservice, while Nadya went on walking about the rooms and thinking. She recognized clearly that her life had been turned upside downas Sasha wished; that here she was, alien, isolated, useless andthat everything here was useless to her; that all the past had beentorn away from her and vanished as though it had been burnt up andthe ashes scattered to the winds. She went into Sasha's room andstood there for a while. 

"Good-bye, dear Sasha, " she thought, and before her mind rose thevista of a new, wide, spacious life, and that life, still obscureand full of mysteries, beckoned her and attracted her. 

She went upstairs to her own room to pack, and next morning saidgood-bye to her family, and full of life and high spirits left thetown--as she supposed for ever. 

FROM THE DIARY OF A VIOLENT-TEMPERED MAN

I AM a serious person and my mind is of a philosophic bent. Myvocation is the study of finance. I am a student of financial lawand I have chosen as the subject of my dissertation--the Past andFuture of the Dog Licence. I need hardly point out that young ladies, songs, moonlight, and all that sort of silliness are entirely outof my line. 

Morning. Ten o'clock. My _maman_ pours me out a cup of coffee. Idrink it and go out on the little balcony to set to work on mydissertation. I take a clean sheet of paper, dip the pen into theink, and write out the title: "The Past and Future of the DogLicence. "

After thinking a little I write: "Historical Survey. We may deducefrom some allusions in Herodotus and Xenophon that the origin ofthe tax on dogs goes back to . . . . "

But at that point I hear footsteps that strike me as highly suspicious. I look down from the balcony and see below a young lady with a longface and a long waist. Her name, I believe, is Nadenka or Varenka, it really does not matter which. She is looking for something, pretends not to have noticed me, and is humming to herself:

"Dost thou remember that song full of tenderness?"

I read through what I have written and want to continue, but theyoung lady pretends to have just caught sight of me, and says in amournful voice:

"Good morning, Nikolay Andreitch. Only fancy what a misfortune Ihave had! I went for a walk yesterday and lost the little ball offmy bracelet!"

I read through once more the opening of my dissertation, I trim upthe tail of the letter "g" and mean to go on, but the young ladypersists. 

"Nikolay Andreitch, " she says, "won't you see me home? The Karelinshave such a huge dog that I simply daren't pass it alone. "

There is no getting out of it. I lay down my pen and go down toher. Nadenka (or Varenka) takes my arm and we set off in the directionof her villa. 

When the duty of walking arm-in-arm with a lady falls to my lot, for some reason or other I always feel like a peg with a heavy cloakhanging on it. Nadenka (or Varenka), between ourselves, of an ardenttemperament (her grandfather was an Armenian), has a peculiar artof throwing her whole weight on one's arm and clinging to one'sside like a leech. And so we walk along. 

As we pass the Karelins', I see a huge dog, who reminds me of thedog licence. I think with despair of the work I have begun and sigh. 

"What are you sighing for?" asks Nadenka (or Varenka), and heavesa sigh herself. 

Here I must digress for a moment to explain that Nadenka or Varenka(now I come to think of it, I believe I have heard her calledMashenka) imagines, I can't guess why, that I am in love with her, and therefore thinks it her duty as a humane person always to lookat me with compassion and to soothe my wound with words. 

"Listen, " said she, stopping. "I know why you are sighing. You arein love, yes; but I beg you for the sake of our friendship to believethat the girl you love has the deepest respect for you. She cannotreturn your love; but is it her fault that her heart has long beenanother's?"

Mashenka's nose begins to swell and turn red, her eyes fill withtears: she evidently expects some answer from me, but, fortunately, at this moment we arrive. Mashenka's mamma, a good-natured womanbut full of conventional ideas, is sitting on the terrace: glancingat her daughter's agitated face, she looks intently at me and sighs, as though saying to herself: "Ah, these young people! they don'teven know how to keep their secrets to themselves!"

On the terrace with her are several young ladies of various coloursand a retired officer who is staying in the villa next to ours. Hewas wounded during the last war in the left temple and the righthip. This unfortunate man is, like myself, proposing to devote thesummer to literary work. He is writing the "Memoirs of a MilitaryMan. " Like me, he begins his honourable labours every morning, butbefore he has written more than "I was born in . . . " some Varenkaor Mashenka is sure to appear under his balcony, and the woundedhero is borne off under guard. 

All the party sitting on the terrace are engaged in preparing somemiserable fruit for jam. I make my bows and am about to beat aretreat, but the young ladies of various colours seize my hat witha squeal and insist on my staying. I sit down. They give me a plateof fruit and a hairpin. I begin taking the seeds out. 

The young ladies of various colours talk about men: they say thatSo-and-So is nice-looking, that So-and-So is handsome but not nice, that somebody else is nice but ugly, and that a fourth would nothave been bad-looking if his nose were not like a thimble, and soon. 

"And you, _Monsieur Nicolas_, " says Varenka's mamma, turning to me, "are not handsome, but you are attractive. . . . There is somethingabout your face. . . . In men, though, it's not beauty but intelligencethat matters, " she adds, sighing. 

The young ladies sigh, too, and drop their eyes . . . They agreethat the great thing in men is not beauty but intelligence. I steala glance sideways at a looking-glass to ascertain whether I reallyam attractive. I see a shaggy head, a bushy beard, moustaches, eyebrows, hair on my cheeks, hair up to my eyes, a perfect thicketwith a solid nose sticking up out of it like a watch-tower. Attractive!h'm!

"But it's by the qualities of your soul, after all, that you willmake your way, _Nicolas_, " sighs Nadenka's mamma, as though affirmingsome secret and original idea of her own. 

And Nadenka is sympathetically distressed on my account, but theconviction that a man passionately in love with her is sittingopposite is obviously a source of the greatest enjoyment to her. 

When they have done with men, the young ladies begin talking aboutlove. After a long conversation about love, one of the young ladiesgets up and goes away. Those that remain begin to pick her to pieces. Everyone agrees that she is stupid, unbearable, ugly, and that oneof her shoulder-blades sticks out in a shocking way. 

But at last, thank goodness! I see our maid. My _maman_ has senther to call me in to dinner. Now I can make my escape from thisuncongenial company and go back to my work. I get up and make mybows. 

Varenka's _maman_, Varenka herself, and the variegated young ladiessurround me, and declare that I cannot possibly go, because Ipromised yesterday to dine with them and go to the woods to lookfor mushrooms. I bow and sit down again. My soul is boiling withrage, and I feel that in another moment I may not be able to answerfor myself, that there may be an explosion, but gentlemanly feelingand the fear of committing a breach of good manners compels me toobey the ladies. And I obey them. 

We sit down to dinner. The wounded officer, whose wound in thetemple has affected the muscles of the left cheek, eats as thoughhe had a bit in his mouth. I roll up little balls of bread, thinkabout the dog licence, and, knowing the ungovernable violence ofmy temper, try to avoid speaking. Nadenka looks at me sympathetically. 

Soup, tongue and peas, roast fowl, and compôte. I have no appetite, but eat from politeness. 

After dinner, while I am standing alone on the terrace, smoking, Nadenka's mamma comes up to me, presses my hand, and says breathlessly:

"Don't despair, _Nicolas!_ She has such a heart, . . . Such a heart!. . . "

We go towards the wood to gather mushrooms. Varenka hangs on my armand clings to my side. My sufferings are indescribable, but I bearthem in patience. 

We enter the wood. 

"Listen, Monsieur Nicolas, " says Nadenka, sighing. "Why are you somelancholy? And why are you so silent?"

Extraordinary girl she is, really! What can I talk to her about?What have we in common?

"Oh, do say something!" she begs me. 

I begin trying to think of something popular, something within therange of her understanding. After a moment's thought I say:

"The cutting down of forests has been greatly detrimental to theprosperity of Russia. . . . "

"Nicolas, " sighs Nadenka, and her nose begins to turn red, "Nicolas, I see you are trying to avoid being open with me. . . . You seemto wish to punish me by your silence. Your feeling is not returned, and you wish to suffer in silence, in solitude . . . It is tooawful, Nicolas!" she cries impulsively seizing my hand, and I seeher nose beginning to swell. "What would you say if the girl youlove were to offer you her eternal friendship?"

I mutter something incoherent, for I really can't think what to sayto her. 

In the first place, I'm not in love with any girl at all; in thesecond, what could I possibly want her eternal friendship for? and, thirdly, I have a violent temper. 

Mashenka (or Varenka) hides her face in her hands and murmurs, asthough to herself:

"He will not speak; . . . It is clear that he will have me make thesacrifice! I cannot love him, if my heart is still another's . . . But . . . I will think of it. . . . Very good, I will think of it. . . I will prove the strength of my soul, and perhaps, at thecost of my own happiness, I will save this man from suffering!" . . . 

I can make nothing out of all this. It seems some special sort ofpuzzle. 

We go farther into the wood and begin picking mushrooms. We areperfectly silent the whole time. Nadenka's face shows signs ofinward struggle. I hear the bark of dogs; it reminds me of mydissertation, and I sigh heavily. Between the trees I catch sightof the wounded officer limping painfully along. The poor fellow'sright leg is lame from his wound, and on his left arm he has oneof the variegated young ladies. His face expresses resignation todestiny. 

We go back to the house to drink tea, after which we play croquetand listen to one of the variegated young ladies singing a song:"No, no, thou lovest not, no, no. " At the word "no" she twists hermouth till it almost touches one ear. 

"_Charmant!_" wail the other young ladies, "_Charmant!_"

The evening comes on. A detestable moon creeps up behind the bushes. There is perfect stillness in the air, and an unpleasant smell offreshly cut hay. I take up my hat and try to get away. 

"I have something I must say to you!" Mashenka whispers to mesignificantly, "don't go away!"

I have a foreboding of evil, but politeness obliges me to remain. Mashenka takes my arm and leads me away to a garden walk. By thistime her whole figure expresses conflict. She is pale and gaspingfor breath, and she seems absolutely set on pulling my right armout of the socket. What can be the matter with her?

"Listen!" she mutters. "No, I cannot! No! . . . " She tries to saysomething, but hesitates. Now I see from her face that she has cometo some decision. With gleaming eyes and swollen nose she snatchesmy hand, and says hurriedly, "_Nicolas_, I am yours! Love you Icannot, but I promise to be true to you!"

Then she squeezes herself to my breast, and at once springs away. 

"Someone is coming, " she whispers. "Farewell! . . . To-morrow ateleven o'clock I will be in the arbour. . . . Farewell!"

And she vanishes. Completely at a loss for an explanation of herconduct and suffering from a painful palpitation of the heart, Imake my way home. There the "Past and Future of the Dog Licence"is awaiting me, but I am quite unable to work. I am furious. . . . I may say, my anger is terrible. Damn it all! I allow no one totreat me like a boy, I am a man of violent temper, and it is notsafe to trifle with me!

When the maid comes in to call me to supper, I shout to her: "Goout of the room!" Such hastiness augurs nothing good. 

Next morning. Typical holiday weather. Temperature below freezing, a cutting wind, rain, mud, and a smell of naphthaline, because my_maman_ has taken all her wraps out of her trunks. A devilishmorning! It is the 7th of August, 1887, the date of the solareclipse. I may here remark that at the time of an eclipse every oneof us may, without special astronomical knowledge, be of the greatestservice. Thus, for example, anyone of us can (1) take the measurementof the diameters of the sun and the moon; (2) sketch the corona ofthe sun; (3) take the temperature; (4) take observations of plantsand animals during the eclipse; (5) note down his own impressions, and so on. 

It is a matter of such exceptional importance that I lay aside the"Past and Future of the Dog Licence" and make up my mind to observethe eclipse. 

We all get up very early, and I divide the work as follows: I amto measure the diameter of the sun and moon; the wounded officeris to sketch the corona; and the other observations are undertakenby Mashenka and the variegated young ladies. 

We all meet together and wait. 

"What is the cause of the eclipse?" asks Mashenka. 

I reply: "A solar eclipse occurs when the moon, moving in the planeof the ecliptic, crosses the line joining the centres of the sunand the earth. "

"And what does the ecliptic mean?"

I explain. Mashenka listens attentively. 

"Can one see through the smoked glass the line joining the centresof the sun and the earth?" she enquires. 

I reply that this is only an imaginary line, drawn theoretically. 

"If it is only an imaginary line, how can the moon cross it?" Varenkasays, wondering. 

I make no reply. I feel my spleen rising at this naïve question. 

"It's all nonsense, " says Mashenka's _maman_. "Impossible to tellwhat's going to happen. You've never been in the sky, so what canyou know of what is to happen with the sun and moon? It's all fancy. "

At that moment a black patch begins to move over the sun. Generalconfusion follows. The sheep and horses and cows run bellowing aboutthe fields with their tails in the air. The dogs howl. The bugs, thinking night has come on, creep out of the cracks in the wallsand bite the people who are still in bed. 

The deacon, who was engaged in bringing some cucumbers from themarket garden, jumped out of his cart and hid under the bridge;while his horse walked off into somebody else's yard, where thepigs ate up all the cucumbers. The excise officer, who had not sleptat home that night, but at a lady friend's, dashed out with nothingon but his nightshirt, and running into the crowd shouted frantically:"Save yourself, if you can!"

Numbers of the lady visitors, even young and pretty ones, run outof their villas without even putting their slippers on. Scenes occurwhich I hesitate to describe. 

"Oh, how dreadful!" shriek the variegated young ladies. "It's reallytoo awful!"

"Mesdames, watch!" I cry. "Time is precious!"

And I hasten to measure the diameters. I remember the corona, andlook towards the wounded officer. He stands doing nothing. 

"What's the matter?" I shout. "How about the corona?"

He shrugs his shoulders and looks helplessly towards his arms. Thepoor fellow has variegated young ladies on both sides of him, clinging to him in terror and preventing him from working. I seizea pencil and note down the time to a second. That is of greatimportance. I note down the geographical position of the point ofobservation. That, too, is of importance. I am just about to measurethe diameter when Mashenka seizes my hand, and says:

"Do not forget to-day, eleven o'clock. "

I withdraw my hand, feeling every second precious, try to continuemy observations, but Varenka clutches my arm and clings to me. Pencil, pieces of glass, drawings--all are scattered on the grass. Hang it! It's high time the girl realized that I am a man of violenttemper, and when I am roused my fury knows no bounds, I cannotanswer for myself. 

I try to continue, but the eclipse is over. 

"Look at me!" she whispers tenderly. 

Oh, that is the last straw! Trying a man's patience like that canbut have a fatal ending. I am not to blame if something terriblehappens. I allow no one to make a laughing stock of me, and, Godknows, when I am furious, I advise nobody to come near me, damn itall! There's nothing I might not do! One of the young ladies, probably noticing from my face what a rage I am in, and anxious topropitiate me, says:

"I did exactly what you told me, Nikolay Andreitch; I watched theanimals. I saw the grey dog chasing the cat just before the eclipse, and wagging his tail for a long while afterwards. "

So nothing came of the eclipse after all. 

I go home. Thanks to the rain, I work indoors instead of on thebalcony. The wounded officer has risked it, and has again got asfar as "I was born in . . . " when I see one of the variegated youngladies pounce down on him and bear him off to her villa. 

I cannot work, for I am still in a fury and suffering from palpitationof the heart. I do not go to the arbour. It is impolite not to, but, after all, I can't be expected to go in the rain. 

At twelve o'clock I receive a letter from Mashenka, a letter fullof reproaches and entreaties to go to the arbour, addressing me as"thou. " At one o'clock I get a second letter, and at two, a third. . . . I must go. . . . But before going I must consider what I amto say to her. I will behave like a gentleman. 

To begin with, I will tell her that she is mistaken in supposingthat I am in love with her. That's a thing one does not say to alady as a rule, though. To tell a lady that one's not in love withher, is almost as rude as to tell an author he can't write. 

The best thing will be to explain my views of marriage. 

I put on my winter overcoat, take an umbrella, and walk to thearbour. 

Knowing the hastiness of my temper, I am afraid I may be led intospeaking too strongly; I will try to restrain myself. 

I find Nadenka still waiting for me. She is pale and in tears. Onseeing me she utters a cry of joy, flings herself on my neck, andsays:

"At last! You are trying my patience. . . . Listen, I have not sleptall night. . . . I have been thinking and thinking. . . . I believethat when I come to know you better I shall learn to love you. . . . "

I sit down, and begin to unfold my views of marriage. To begin with, to clear the ground of digressions and to be as brief as possible, I open with a short historical survey. I speak of marriage in ancientEgypt and India, then pass to more recent times, a few ideas fromSchopenhauer. Mashenka listens attentively, but all of a sudden, through some strange incoherence of ideas, thinks fit to interruptme:

"Nicolas, kiss me!" she says. 

I am embarrassed and don't know what to say to her. She repeats herrequest. There seems no avoiding it. I get up and bend over herlong face, feeling as I do so just as I did in my childhood when Iwas lifted up to kiss my grandmother in her coffin. Not contentwith the kiss, Mashenka leaps up and impulsively embraces me. Atthat instant, Mashenka's _maman_ appears in the doorway of thearbour. . . . She makes a face as though in alarm, and saying "sh-sh"to someone with her, vanishes like Mephistopheles through thetrapdoor. 

Confused and enraged, I return to our villa. At home I find Varenka's_maman_ embracing my _maman_ with tears in her eyes. And my _maman_weeps and says:

"I always hoped for it!"

And then, if you please, Nadenka's _maman_ comes up to me, embracesme, and says:

"May God bless you! . . . Mind you love her well. . . . Rememberthe sacrifice she is making for your sake!"

And here I am at my wedding. At the moment I write these last words, my best man is at my side, urging me to make haste. These peoplehave no idea of my character! I have a violent temper, I cannotalways answer for myself! Hang it all! God knows what will come ofit! To lead a violent, desperate man to the altar is as unwise asto thrust one's hand into the cage of a ferocious tiger. We shallsee, we shall see!

 * * * * *

And so, I am married. Everybody congratulates me and Varenka keepsclinging to me and saying:

"Now you are mine, mine; do you understand that? Tell me that youlove me!" And her nose swells as she says it. 

I learn from my best man that the wounded officer has very cleverlyescaped the snares of Hymen. He showed the variegated young lady amedical certificate that owing to the wound in his temple he wasat times mentally deranged and incapable of contracting a validmarriage. An inspiration! I might have got a certificate too. Anuncle of mine drank himself to death, another uncle was extremelyabsent-minded (on one occasion he put a lady's muff on his head inmistake for his hat), an aunt of mine played a great deal on thepiano, and used to put out her tongue at gentlemen she did not like. And my ungovernable temper is a very suspicious symptom. 

But why do these great ideas always come too late? Why?

IN THE DARK

A FLY of medium size made its way into the nose of the assistantprocurator, Gagin. It may have been impelled by curiosity, or havegot there through frivolity or accident in the dark; anyway, thenose resented the presence of a foreign body and gave the signalfor a sneeze. Gagin sneezed, sneezed impressively and so shrillyand loudly that the bed shook and the springs creaked. Gagin's wife, Marya Mihalovna, a full, plump, fair woman, started, too, and wokeup. She gazed into the darkness, sighed, and turned over on theother side. Five minutes afterwards she turned over again and shuther eyes more firmly but she could not get to sleep again. Aftersighing and tossing from side to side for a time, she got up, creptover her husband, and putting on her slippers, went to the window. 

It was dark outside. She could see nothing but the outlines of thetrees and the roof of the stables. There was a faint pallor in theeast, but this pallor was beginning to be clouded over. There wasperfect stillness in the air wrapped in slumber and darkness. Eventhe watchman, paid to disturb the stillness of night, was silent;even the corncrake--the only wild creature of the feathered tribethat does not shun the proximity of summer visitors--was silent. 

The stillness was broken by Marya Mihalovna herself. Standing atthe window and gazing into the yard, she suddenly uttered a cry. She fancied that from the flower garden with the gaunt, clippedpoplar, a dark figure was creeping towards the house. For the firstminute she thought it was a cow or a horse, then, rubbing her eyes, she distinguished clearly the outlines of a man. 

Then she fancied the dark figure approached the window of the kitchenand, standing still a moment, apparently undecided, put one footon the window ledge and disappeared into the darkness of the window. 

"A burglar!" flashed into her mind and a deathly pallor overspreadher face. 

And in one instant her imagination had drawn the picture so dreadedby lady visitors in country places--a burglar creeps into thekitchen, from the kitchen into the dining-room . . . The silver inthe cupboard . . . Next into the bedroom . . . An axe . . . Theface of a brigand . . . Jewelry. . . . Her knees gave way under herand a shiver ran down her back. 

"Vassya!" she said, shaking her husband, "_Basile!_ Vassily Prokovitch!Ah! mercy on us, he might be dead! Wake up, _Basile_, I beseechyou!"

"W-well?" grunted the assistant procurator, with a deep inwardbreath and a munching sound. 

"For God's sake, wake up! A burglar has got into the kitchen! I wasstanding at the window looking out and someone got in at the window. He will get into the dining-room next . . . The spoons are in thecupboard! _Basile!_ They broke into Mavra Yegorovna's last year. "

"Wha--what's the matter?"

"Heavens! he does not understand. Do listen, you stupid! I tell youI've just seen a man getting in at the kitchen window! Pelagea willbe frightened and . . . And the silver is in the cupboard!"

"Stuff and nonsense!"

"_Basile_, this is unbearable! I tell you of a real danger and yousleep and grunt! What would you have? Would you have us robbed andmurdered?"

The assistant procurator slowly got up and sat on the bed, fillingthe air with loud yawns. 

"Goodness knows what creatures women are!" he muttered. "Can't leaveone in peace even at night! To wake a man for such nonsense!"

"But, _Basile_, I swear I saw a man getting in at the window!"

"Well, what of it? Let him get in. . . . That's pretty sure to bePelagea's sweetheart, the fireman. "

"What! what did you say?"

"I say it's Pelagea's fireman come to see her. "

"Worse than ever!" shrieked Marya Mihalovna. "That's worse than aburglar! I won't put up with cynicism in my house!"

"Hoity-toity! We are virtuous! . . . Won't put up with cynicism?As though it were cynicism! What's the use of firing off thoseforeign words? My dear girl, it's a thing that has happened eversince the world began, sanctified by tradition. What's a firemanfor if not to make love to the cook?"

"No, _Basile!_ It seems you don't know me! I cannot face the ideaof such a . . . Such a . . . In my house. You must go this minuteinto the kitchen and tell him to go away! This very minute! Andto-morrow I'll tell Pelagea that she must not dare to demean herselfby such proceedings! When I am dead you may allow immorality inyour house, but you shan't do it now! . . . Please go!"

"Damn it, " grumbled Gagin, annoyed. "Consider with your microscopicfemale brain, what am I to go for?"

"_Basile_, I shall faint! . . . "

Gagin cursed, put on his slippers, cursed again, and set off to thekitchen. It was as dark as the inside of a barrel, and the assistantprocurator had to feel his way. He groped his way to the door ofthe nursery and waked the nurse. 

"Vassilissa, " he said, "you took my dressing-gown to brush lastnight--where is it?"

"I gave it to Pelagea to brush, sir. "

"What carelessness! You take it away and don't put it back--nowI've to go without a dressing-gown!"

On reaching the kitchen, he made his way to the corner in which ona box under a shelf of saucepans the cook slept. 

"Pelagea, " he said, feeling her shoulder and giving it a shake, "Pelagea! Why are you pretending? You are not asleep! Who was itgot in at your window just now?"

"Mm . . . M . . . Good morning! Got in at the window? Who could getin?"

"Oh come, it's no use your trying to keep it up! You'd better tellyour scamp to clear out while he can! Do you hear? He's no businessto be here!"

"Are you out of your senses, sir, bless you? Do you think I'd besuch a fool? Here one's running about all day long, never a minuteto sit down and then spoken to like this at night! Four roubles amonth . . . And to find my own tea and sugar and this is all thecredit I get for it! I used to live in a tradesman's house, andnever met with such insult there!"

"Come, come--no need to go over your grievances! This very minuteyour grenadier must turn out! Do you understand?"

"You ought to be ashamed, sir, " said Pelagea, and he could hear thetears in her voice. "Gentlefolks . . . Educated, and yet not anotion that with our hard lot . . . In our life of toil"--sheburst into tears. "It's easy to insult us. There's no one to standup for us. "

"Come, come . . . I don't mind! Your mistress sent me. You may leta devil in at the window for all I care!"

There was nothing left for the assistant procurator but to acknowledgehimself in the wrong and go back to his spouse. 

"I say, Pelagea, " he said, "you had my dressing-gown to brush. Whereis it?"

"Oh, I am so sorry, sir; I forgot to put it on your chair. It'shanging on a peg near the stove. "

Gagin felt for the dressing-gown by the stove, put it on, and wentquietly back to his room. 

When her husband went out Marya Mihalovna got into bed and waited. For the first three minutes her mind was at rest, but after thatshe began to feel uneasy. 

"What a long time he's gone, " she thought. "It's all right if heis there . . . That immoral man . . . But if it's a burglar?"

And again her imagination drew a picture of her husband going intothe dark kitchen . . . A blow with an axe . . . Dying withoututtering a single sound . . . A pool of blood! . . . 

Five minutes passed . . . Five and a half . . . At last six. . . . A cold sweat came out on her forehead. 

"_Basile!_" she shrieked, "_Basile!_"

"What are you shouting for? I am here. " She heard her husband'svoice and steps. "Are you being murdered?"

The assistant procurator went up to the bedstead and sat down onthe edge of it. 

"There's nobody there at all, " he said. "It was your fancy, youqueer creature. . . . You can sleep easy, your fool of a Pelageais as virtuous as her mistress. What a coward you are! What a . . . . "

And the deputy procurator began teasing his wife. He was wide awakenow and did not want to go to sleep again. 

"You are a coward!" he laughed. "You'd better go to the doctorto-morrow and tell him about your hallucinations. You are a neurotic!"

"What a smell of tar, " said his wife--"tar or something . . . Onion . . . Cabbage soup!"

"Y-yes! There is a smell . . . I am not sleepy. I say, I'll lightthe candle. . . . Where are the matches? And, by the way, I'll showyou the photograph of the procurator of the Palace of Justice. Hegave us all a photograph when he said good-bye to us yesterday, with his autograph. "

Gagin struck a match against the wall and lighted a candle. Butbefore he had moved a step from the bed to fetch the photographshe heard behind him a piercing, heartrending shriek. Looking round, he saw his wife's large eyes fastened upon him, full of amazement, horror, and wrath. . . . 

"You took your dressing-gown off in the kitchen?" she said, turningpale. 

"Why?"

"Look at yourself!"

The deputy procurator looked down at himself, and gasped. 

Flung over his shoulders was not his dressing-gown, but the fireman'sovercoat. How had it come on his shoulders? While he was settlingthat question, his wife's imagination was drawing another picture, awful and impossible: darkness, stillness, whispering, and so on, and so on. 

A PLAY

"PAVEL VASSILYEVITCH, there's a lady here, asking for you, " Lukaannounced. "She's been waiting a good hour. . . . "

Pavel Vassilyevitch had only just finished lunch. Hearing of thelady, he frowned and said:

"Oh, damn her! Tell her I'm busy. "

"She has been here five times already, Pavel Vassilyevitch. Shesays she really must see you. . . . She's almost crying. "

"H'm . . . Very well, then, ask her into the study. "

Without haste Pavel Vassilyevitch put on his coat, took a pen inone hand, and a book in the other, and trying to look as though hewere very busy he went into the study. There the visitor was awaitinghim--a large stout lady with a red, beefy face, in spectacles. She looked very respectable, and her dress was more than fashionable(she had on a crinolette of four storeys and a high hat with areddish bird in it). On seeing him she turned up her eyes and foldedher hands in supplication. 

"You don't remember me, of course, " she began in a high masculinetenor, visibly agitated. "I . . . I have had the pleasure of meetingyou at the Hrutskys. . . . I am Mme. Murashkin. . . . "

"A. . . A . . . A . . . H'm . . . Sit down! What can I do for you?"

"You . . . You see . . . I . . . I . . . " the lady went on, sittingdown and becoming still more agitated. "You don't remember me. . . . I'm Mme. Murashkin. . . . You see I'm a great admirer of yourtalent and always read your articles with great enjoyment. . . . Don't imagine I'm flattering you--God forbid!--I'm only givinghonour where honour is due. . . . I am always reading you . . . Always! To some extent I am myself not a stranger to literature--that is, of course . . . I will not venture to call myself anauthoress, but . . . Still I have added my little quota . . . Ihave published at different times three stories for children. . . . You have not read them, of course. . . . I have translated a gooddeal and . . . And my late brother used to write for _The Cause_. "

"To be sure . . . Er--er--er----What can I do for you?"

"You see . . . (the lady cast down her eyes and turned redder) Iknow your talents . . . Your views, Pavel Vassilyevitch, and I havebeen longing to learn your opinion, or more exactly . . . To askyour advice. I must tell you I have perpetrated a play, my first-born--_pardon pour l'expression!_--and before sending it to theCensor I should like above all things to have your opinion on it. "

Nervously, with the flutter of a captured bird, the lady fumbledin her skirt and drew out a fat manuscript. 

Pavel Vassilyevitch liked no articles but his own. When threatenedwith the necessity of reading other people's, or listening to them, he felt as though he were facing the cannon's mouth. Seeing themanuscript he took fright and hastened to say:

"Very good, . . . Leave it, . . . I'll read it. "

"Pavel Vassilyevitch, " the lady said languishingly, clasping herhands and raising them in supplication, "I know you're busy. . . . Your every minute is precious, and I know you're inwardly cursingme at this moment, but . . . Be kind, allow me to read you my play. . . . Do be so very sweet!"

"I should be delighted . . . " faltered Pavel Vassilyevitch; "but, Madam, I'm . . . I'm very busy . . . . I'm . . . I'm obliged to setoff this minute. "

"Pavel Vassilyevitch, " moaned the lady and her eyes filled withtears, "I'm asking a sacrifice! I am insolent, I am intrusive, butbe magnanimous. To-morrow I'm leaving for Kazan and I should liketo know your opinion to-day. Grant me half an hour of your attention. . . Only one half-hour . . . I implore you!"

Pavel Vassilyevitch was cotton-wool at core, and could not refuse. When it seemed to him that the lady was about to burst into sobsand fall on her knees, he was overcome with confusion and mutteredhelplessly. 

"Very well; certainly . . . I will listen . . . I will give youhalf an hour. "

The lady uttered a shriek of joy, took off her hat and settlingherself, began to read. At first she read a scene in which a footmanand a house maid, tidying up a sumptuous drawing-room, talked atlength about their young lady, Anna Sergyevna, who was building aschool and a hospital in the village. When the footman had left theroom, the maidservant pronounced a monologue to the effect thateducation is light and ignorance is darkness; then Mme. Murashkinbrought the footman back into the drawing-room and set him utteringa long monologue concerning his master, the General, who dislikedhis daughter's views, intended to marry her to a rich _kammerjunker_, and held that the salvation of the people lay in unadulteratedignorance. Then, when the servants had left the stage, the younglady herself appeared and informed the audience that she had notslept all night, but had been thinking of Valentin Ivanovitch, whowas the son of a poor teacher and assisted his sick father gratuitously. Valentin had studied all the sciences, but had no faith in friendshipnor in love; he had no object in life and longed for death, andtherefore she, the young lady, must save him. 

Pavel Vassilyevitch listened, and thought with yearning anguish ofhis sofa. He scanned the lady viciously, felt her masculine tenorthumping on his eardrums, understood nothing, and thought:

"The devil sent you . . . As though I wanted to listen to your tosh!It's not my fault you've written a play, is it? My God! what a thickmanuscript! What an infliction!"

Pavel Vassilyevitch glanced at the wall where the portrait of hiswife was hanging and remembered that his wife had asked him to buyand bring to their summer cottage five yards of tape, a pound ofcheese, and some tooth-powder. 

"I hope I've not lost the pattern of that tape, " he thought, "wheredid I put it? I believe it's in my blue reefer jacket. . . . Thosewretched flies have covered her portrait with spots already, I musttell Olga to wash the glass. . . . She's reading the twelfth scene, so we must soon be at the end of the first act. As though inspirationwere possible in this heat and with such a mountain of flesh, too!Instead of writing plays she'd much better eat cold vinegar hashand sleep in a cellar. . . . "

"You don't think that monologue's a little too long?" the lady askedsuddenly, raising her eyes. 

Pavel Vassilyevitch had not heard the monologue, and said in a voiceas guilty as though not the lady but he had written that monologue:

"No, no, not at all. It's very nice. . . . "

The lady beamed with happiness and continued reading:

ANNA: You are consumed by analysis. Too early you have ceased tolive in the heart and have put your faith in the intellect. 

VALENTIN: What do you mean by the heart? That is a concept ofanatomy. As a conventional term for what are called the feelings, I do not admit it. 

ANNA _(confused)_: And love? Surely that is not merely a productof the association of ideas? Tell me frankly, have you ever loved?

VALENTIN _(bitterly)_: Let us not touch on old wounds not yet healed. _(A pause. )_ What are you thinking of?

ANNA: I believe you are unhappy. 

During the sixteenth scene Pavel Vassilyevitch yawned, and accidentlymade with his teeth the sound dogs make when they catch a fly. Hewas dismayed at this unseemly sound, and to cover it assumed anexpression of rapt attention. 

"Scene seventeen! When will it end?" he thought. "Oh, my God! Ifthis torture is prolonged another ten minutes I shall shout for thepolice. It's insufferable. "

But at last the lady began reading more loudly and more rapidly, and finally raising her voice she read _"Curtain. "_

Pavel Vassilyevitch uttered a faint sigh and was about to get up, but the lady promptly turned the page and went on reading. 

ACT II. --_Scene, a village street. On right, School. On left, Hospital. _ Villagers, _male and female, sitting on the hospitalsteps. _

"Excuse me, " Pavel Vassilyevitch broke in, "how many acts are there?"

"Five, " answered the lady, and at once, as though fearing heraudience might escape her, she went on rapidly. 

VALENTIN _is looking out of the schoolhouse window. In the background_Villagers _can be seen taking their goods to the Inn. _

Like a man condemned to be executed and convinced of the impossibilityof a reprieve, Pavel Vassilyevitch gave up expecting the end, abandoned all hope, and simply tried to prevent his eyes fromclosing, and to retain an expression of attention on his face. . . . The future when the lady would finish her play and depart seemedto him so remote that he did not even think of it. 

"Trooo--too--too--too . . . " the lady's voice sounded in his ears. "Troo--too--too . . . Sh--sh--sh--sh . . . "

"I forgot to take my soda, " he thought. "What am I thinking about?Oh--my soda. . . . Most likely I shall have a bilious attack. . . . It's extraordinary, Smirnovsky swills vodka all day long andyet he never has a bilious attack. . . . There's a bird settled onthe window . . . A sparrow. . . . "

Pavel Vassilyevitch made an effort to unglue his strained and closingeyelids, yawned without opening his mouth, and stared at Mme. Murashkin. She grew misty and swayed before his eyes, turned intoa triangle and her head pressed against the ceiling. . . . 

VALENTIN No, let me depart. 

ANNA _(in dismay)_: Why?

VALENTIN _(aside)_: She has turned pale! _(To her)_ Do not forceme to explain. Sooner would I die than you should know the reason. 

ANNA _(after a pause)_: You cannot go away. . . . 

The lady began to swell, swelled to an immense size, and meltedinto the dingy atmosphere of the study--only her moving mouth wasvisible; then she suddenly dwindled to the size of a bottle, swayedfrom side to side, and with the table retreated to the further endof the room . . . 

VALENTIN _(holding ANNA in his arms)_: You have given me new life!You have shown me an object to live for! You have renewed me as theSpring rain renews the awakened earth! But . . . It is too late, too late! The ill that gnaws at my heart is beyond cure. . . . 

Pavel Vassilyevitch started and with dim and smarting eyes staredat the reading lady; for a minute he gazed fixedly as thoughunderstanding nothing. . . . 

SCENE XI. --_The same. The_ BARON _and the_ POLICE INSPECTOR _withassistants. _

VALENTIN: Take me!

ANNA: I am his! Take me too! Yes, take me too! I love him, I lovehim more than life!

BARON: Anna Sergyevna, you forget that you are ruining your father. . . . 

The lady began swelling again. . . . Looking round him wildly PavelVassilyevitch got up, yelled in a deep, unnatural voice, snatchedfrom the table a heavy paper-weight, and beside himself, broughtit down with all his force on the authoress's head. . . . 

 * * * * *

"Give me in charge, I've killed her!" he said to the maidservantwho ran in, a minute later. 

The jury acquitted him. 

A MYSTERY

ON the evening of Easter Sunday the actual Civil Councillor, Navagin, on his return from paying calls, picked up the sheet of paper onwhich visitors had inscribed their names in the hall, and went withit into his study. After taking off his outer garments and drinkingsome seltzer water, he settled himself comfortably on a couch andbegan reading the signatures in the list. When his eyes reached themiddle of the long list of signatures, he started, gave an ejaculationof astonishment and snapped his fingers, while his face expressedthe utmost perplexity. 

"Again!" he said, slapping his knee. "It's extraordinary! Again!Again there is the signature of that fellow, goodness knows who heis! Fedyukov! Again!"

Among the numerous signatures on the paper was the signature of acertain Fedyukov. Who the devil this Fedyukov was, Navagin had nota notion. He went over in his memory all his acquaintances, relationsand subordinates in the service, recalled his remote past but couldrecollect no name like Fedyukov. What was so strange was that this_incognito_, Fedyukov, had signed his name regularly every Christmasand Easter for the last thirteen years. Neither Navagin, his wife, nor his house porter knew who he was, where he came from or whathe was like. 

"It's extraordinary!" Navagin thought in perplexity, as he pacedabout the study. "It's strange and incomprehensible! It's likesorcery!"

"Call the porter here!" he shouted. 

"It's devilish queer! But I will find out who he is!"

"I say, Grigory, " he said, addressing the porter as he entered, "that Fedyukov has signed his name again! Did you see him?"

"No, your Excellency. "

"Upon my word, but he has signed his name! So he must have been inthe hall. Has he been?"

"No, he hasn't, your Excellency. "

"How could he have signed his name without being there?"

"I can't tell. "

"Who is to tell, then? You sit gaping there in the hall. Try andremember, perhaps someone you didn't know came in? Think a minute!"

"No, your Excellency, there has been no one I didn't know. Ourclerks have been, the baroness came to see her Excellency, thepriests have been with the Cross, and there has been no one else. . . . "

"Why, he was invisible when he signed his name, then, was he?"

"I can't say: but there has been no Fedyukov here. That I will swearbefore the holy image. . . . "

"It's queer! It's incomprehensible! It's ex-traordinary!" musedNavagin. "It's positively ludicrous. A man has been signing hisname here for thirteen years and you can't find out who he is. Perhaps it's a joke? Perhaps some clerk writes that name as wellas his own for fun. "

And Navagin began examining Fedyukov's signature. 

The bold, florid signature in the old-fashioned style with twirlsand flourishes was utterly unlike the handwriting of the othersignatures. It was next below the signature of Shtutchkin, theprovincial secretary, a scared, timorous little man who wouldcertainly have died of fright if he had ventured upon such animpudent joke. 

"The mysterious Fedyukov has signed his name again!" said Navagin, going in to see his wife. "Again I fail to find out who he is. "

Madame Navagin was a spiritualist, and so for all phenomena innature, comprehensible or incomprehensible, she had a very simpleexplanation. 

"There's nothing extraordinary about it, " she said. "You don'tbelieve it, of course, but I have said it already and I say itagain: there is a great deal in the world that is supernatural, which our feeble intellect can never grasp. I am convinced thatthis Fedyukov is a spirit who has a sympathy for you . . . If Iwere you, I would call him up and ask him what he wants. "

"Nonsense, nonsense!"

Navagin was free from superstitions, but the phenomenon whichinterested him was so mysterious that all sorts of uncanny devilryintruded into his mind against his will. All the evening he wasimagining that the incognito Fedyukov was the spirit of some long-deadclerk, who had been discharged from the service by Navagin's ancestorsand was now revenging himself on their descendant; or perhaps itwas the kinsman of some petty official dismissed by Navagin himself, or of a girl seduced by him. . . . 

All night Navagin dreamed of a gaunt old clerk in a shabby uniform, with a face as yellow as a lemon, hair that stood up like a brush, and pewtery eyes; the clerk said something in a sepulchral voiceand shook a bony finger at him. And Navagin almost had an attackof inflammation of the brain. 

For a fortnight he was silent and gloomy and kept walking up anddown and thinking. In the end he overcame his sceptical vanity, andgoing into his wife's room he said in a hollow voice:

"Zina, call up Fedyukov!"

The spiritualistic lady was delighted; she sent for a sheet ofcardboard and a saucer, made her husband sit down beside her, andbegan upon the magic rites. 

Fedyukov did not keep them waiting long. . . . 

"What do you want?" asked Navagin. 

"Repent, " answered the saucer. 

"What were you on earth?"

"A sinner. . . . "

"There, you see!" whispered his wife, "and you did not believe!"

Navagin conversed for a long time with Fedyukov, and then calledup Napoleon, Hannibal, Askotchensky, his aunt Klavdya Zaharovna, and they all gave him brief but correct answers full of deepsignificance. He was busy with the saucer for four hours, and fellasleep soothed and happy that he had become acquainted with amysterious world that was new to him. After that he studiedspiritualism every day, and at the office, informed the clerks thatthere was a great deal in nature that was supernatural and marvellousto which our men of science ought to have turned their attentionlong ago. 

Hypnotism, mediumism, bishopism, spiritualism, the fourth dimension, and other misty notions took complete possession of him, so thatfor whole days at a time, to the great delight of his wife, he readbooks on spiritualism or devoted himself to the saucer, table-turning, and discussions of supernatural phenomena. At his instigation allhis clerks took up spiritualism, too, and with such ardour that theold managing clerk went out of his mind and one day sent a telegram:"Hell. Government House. I feel that I am turning into an evilspirit. What's to be done? Reply paid. Vassily Krinolinsky. "

After reading several hundreds of treatises on spiritualism Navaginhad a strong desire to write something himself. For five months hesat composing, and in the end had written a huge monograph, entitled:_My Opinion_. When he had finished this essay he determined to sendit to a spiritualist journal. 

The day on which it was intended to despatch it to the journal wasa very memorable one for him. Navagin remembers that on thatnever-to-be-forgotten day the secretary who had made a fair copyof his article and the sacristan of the parish who had been sentfor on business were in his study. Nayagin's face was beaming. Helooked lovingly at his creation, felt between his fingers how thickit was, and with a happy smile said to the secretary:

"I propose, Filipp Sergeyitch, to send it registered. It will besafer. . . . " And raising his eyes to the sacristan, he said: "Ihave sent for you on business, my good man. I am putting my youngestson to the high school and I must have a certificate of baptism;only could you let me have it quickly?"

"Very good, your Excellency!" said the sacristan, bowing. "Verygood, I understand. . . . "

"Can you let me have it by to-morrow?"

"Very well, your Excellency, set your mind at rest! To-morrow itshall be ready! Will you send someone to the church to-morrow beforeevening service? I shall be there. Bid him ask for Fedyukov. I amalways there. . . . "

"What!" cried the general, turning pale. 

"Fedyukov. "

"You, . . . You are Fedyukov?" asked Navagin, looking at him withwide-open eyes. 

"Just so, Fedyukov. "

"You. . . . You signed your name in my hall?"

"Yes . . . " the sacristan admitted, and was overcome with confusion. "When we come with the Cross, your Excellency, to grand gentlemen'shouses I always sign my name. . . . I like doing it. . . . Excuseme, but when I see the list of names in the hall I feel an impulseto sign mine. . . . "

In dumb stupefaction, understanding nothing, hearing nothing, Navaginpaced about his study. He touched the curtain over the door, threetimes waved his hands like a _jeune premier_ in a ballet when hesees _her_, gave a whistle and a meaningless smile, and pointedwith his finger into space. 

"So I will send off the article at once, your Excellency, " said thesecretary. 

These words roused Navagin from his stupour. He looked blankly atthe secretary and the sacristan, remembered, and stamping, his footirritably, screamed in a high, breaking tenor:

"Leave me in peace! Lea-eave me in peace, I tell you! What you wantof me I don't understand. "

The secretary and the sacristan went out of the study and reachedthe street while he was still stamping and shouting:

"Leave me in peace! What you want of me I don't understand. Lea-eaveme in peace!"

STRONG IMPRESSIONS

IT happened not so long ago in the Moscow circuit court. The jurymen, left in the court for the night, before lying down to sleep fellinto conversation about strong impressions. They were led to thisdiscussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begunto stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymendecided that before going to sleep, each one of them should ransackamong his memories and tell something that had happened to him. Man's life is brief, but yet there is no man who cannot boast thatthere have been terrible moments in his past. 

One juryman told the story of how he was nearly drowned; anotherdescribed how, in a place where there were neither doctors norchemists, he had one night poisoned his own son through giving himzinc vitriol by mistake for soda. The child did not die, but thefather nearly went out of his mind. A third, a man not old but inbad health, told how he had twice attempted to commit suicide: thefirst time by shooting himself and the second time by throwinghimself before a train. 

The fourth, a foppishly dressed, fat little man, told us the followingstory:

"I was not more than twenty-two or twenty-three when I fell headover ears in love with my present wife and made her an offer. NowI could with pleasure thrash myself for my early marriage, but atthe time, I don't know what would have become of me if Natasha hadrefused me. My love was absolutely the real thing, just as it isdescribed in novels--frantic, passionate, and so on. My happinessoverwhelmed me and I did not know how to get away from it, and Ibored my father and my friends and the servants, continually talkingabout the fervour of my passion. Happy people are the most sickeningbores. I was a fearful bore; I feel ashamed of it even now. . . . 

"Among my friends there was in those days a young man who wasbeginning his career as a lawyer. Now he is a lawyer known all overRussia; in those days he was only just beginning to gain recognitionand was not rich and famous enough to be entitled to cut an oldfriend when he met him. I used to go and see him once or twice aweek. We used to loll on sofas and begin discussing philosophy. 

"One day I was lying on his sofa, arguing that there was no moreungrateful profession than that of a lawyer. I tried to prove thatas soon as the examination of witnesses is over the court can easilydispense with both the counsels for the prosecution and for thedefence, because they are neither of them necessary and are onlyin the way. If a grown-up juryman, morally and mentally sane, isconvinced that the ceiling is white, or that Ivanov is guilty, tostruggle with that conviction and to vanquish it is beyond the powerof any Demosthenes. Who can convince me that I have a red moustachewhen I know that it is black? As I listen to an orator I may perhapsgrow sentimental and weep, but my fundamental conviction, based forthe most part on unmistakable evidence and fact, is not changed inthe least. My lawyer maintained that I was young and foolish andthat I was talking childish nonsense. In his opinion, for one thing, an obvious fact becomes still more obvious through light beingthrown upon it by conscientious, well-informed people; for another, talent is an elemental force, a hurricane capable of turning evenstones to dust, let alone such trifles as the convictions of artisansand merchants of the second guild. It is as hard for human weaknessto struggle against talent as to look at the sun without winking, or to stop the wind. One simple mortal by the power of the wordturns thousands of convinced savages to Christianity; Odysseus wasa man of the firmest convictions, but he succumbed to the Syrens, and so on. All history consists of similar examples, and in lifethey are met with at every turn; and so it is bound to be, or theintelligent and talented man would have no superiority over thestupid and incompetent. 

"I stuck to my point, and went on maintaining that convictions arestronger than any talent, though, frankly speaking, I could nothave defined exactly what I meant by conviction or what I meant bytalent. Most likely I simply talked for the sake of talking. 

"'Take you, for example, ' said the lawyer. 'You are convinced atthis moment that your fiancée is an angel and that there is not aman in the whole town happier than you. But I tell you: ten ortwenty minutes would be enough for me to make you sit down to thistable and write to your fiancée, breaking off your engagement. 

"I laughed. 

"'Don't laugh, I am speaking seriously, ' said my friend. 'If Ichoose, in twenty minutes you will be happy at the thought that youneed not get married. Goodness knows what talent I have, but youare not one of the strong sort. '

"'Well, try it on!' said I. 

"'No, what for? I am only telling you this. You are a good boy andit would be cruel to subject you to such an experiment. And besidesI am not in good form to-day. '

"We sat down to supper. The wine and the thought of Natasha, mybeloved, flooded my whole being with youth and happiness. My happinesswas so boundless that the lawyer sitting opposite to me with hisgreen eyes seemed to me an unhappy man, so small, so grey. . . . 

"'Do try!' I persisted. 'Come, I entreat you!

"The lawyer shook his head and frowned. Evidently I was beginningto bore him. 

"'I know, ' he said, 'after my experiment you will say, thank you, and will call me your saviour; but you see I must think of yourfiancée too. She loves you; your jilting her would make her suffer. And what a charming creature she is! I envy you. '

"The lawyer sighed, sipped his wine, and began talking of howcharming my Natasha was. He had an extraordinary gift of description. He could knock you off a regular string of words about a woman'seyelashes or her little finger. I listened to him with relish. 

"'I have seen a great many women in my day, ' he said, 'but I giveyou my word of honour, I speak as a friend, your Natasha Andreyevnais a pearl, a rare girl. Of course she has her defects--many ofthem, in fact, if you like--but still she is fascinating. '

"And the lawyer began talking of my fiancée's defects. Now Iunderstand very well that he was talking of women in general, oftheir weak points in general, but at the time it seemed to me thathe was talking only of Natasha. He went into ecstasies over herturn-up nose, her shrieks, her shrill laugh, her airs and graces, precisely all the things I so disliked in her. All that was, to histhinking, infinitely sweet, graceful, and feminine. 

"Without my noticing it, he quickly passed from his enthusiastictone to one of fatherly admonition, and then to a light and derisiveone. . . . There was no presiding judge and no one to check thediffusiveness of the lawyer. I had not time to open my mouth, besides, what could I say? What my friend said was not new, it waswhat everyone has known for ages, and the whole venom lay not inwhat he said, but in the damnable form he put it in. It really wasbeyond anything!

"As I listened to him then I learned that the same word has thousandsof shades of meaning according to the tone in which it is pronounced, and the form which is given to the sentence. Of course I cannotreproduce the tone or the form; I can only say that as I listenedto my friend and walked up and down the room, I was moved toresentment, indignation, and contempt together with him. I evenbelieved him when with tears in his eyes he informed me that I wasa great man, that I was worthy of a better fate, that I was destinedto achieve something in the future which marriage would hinder!

"'My friend!' he exclaimed, pressing my hand. 'I beseech you, Iadjure you: stop before it is too late. Stop! May Heaven preserveyou from this strange, cruel mistake! My friend, do not ruin youryouth!'

"Believe me or not, as you choose, but the long and the short ofit was that I sat down to the table and wrote to my fiancée, breakingoff the engagement. As I wrote I felt relieved that it was not yettoo late to rectify my mistake. Sealing the letter, I hastened outinto the street to post it. The lawyer himself came with me. 

"'Excellent! Capital!' he applauded me as my letter to Natashadisappeared into the darkness of the box. 'I congratulate you withall my heart. I am glad for you. '

"After walking a dozen paces with me the lawyer went on:

"'Of course, marriage has its good points. I, for instance, belongto the class of people to whom marriage and home life is everything. '

"And he proceeded to describe his life, and lay before me all thehideousness of a solitary bachelor existence. 

"He spoke with enthusiasm of his future wife, of the sweets ofordinary family life, and was so eloquent, so sincere in his ecstasiesthat by the time we had reached his door, I was in despair. 

"'What are you doing to me, you horrible man?' I said, gasping. 'You have ruined me! Why did you make me write that cursed letter?I love her, I love her!'

"And I protested my love. I was horrified at my conduct which nowseemed to me wild and senseless. It is impossible, gentlemen, toimagine a more violent emotion than I experienced at that moment. Oh, what I went through, what I suffered! If some kind person hadthrust a revolver into my hand at that moment, I should have put abullet through my brains with pleasure. 

"'Come, come . . . ' said the lawyer, slapping me on the shoulder, and he laughed. 'Give over crying. The letter won't reach yourfiancée. It was not you who wrote the address but I, and I muddledit so they won't be able to make it out at the post-office. It willbe a lesson to you not to argue about what you don't understand. '

"Now, gentlemen, I leave it to the next to speak. "

The fifth juryman settled himself more comfortably, and had justopened his mouth to begin his story when we heard the clock strikeon Spassky Tower. 

"Twelve . . . " one of the jurymen counted. "And into which class, gentlemen, would you put the emotions that are being experiencednow by the man we are trying? He, that murderer, is spending thenight in a convict cell here in the court, sitting or lying downand of course not sleeping, and throughout the whole sleepless nightlistening to that chime. What is he thinking of? What visions arehaunting him?"

And the jurymen all suddenly forgot about strong impressions; whattheir companion who had once written a letter to his Natasha hadsuffered seemed unimportant, even not amusing; and no one saidanything more; they began quietly and in silence lying down tosleep. 

DRUNK

A MANUFACTURER called Frolov, a handsome dark man with a roundbeard, and a soft, velvety expression in his eyes, and Almer, hislawyer, an elderly man with a big rough head, were drinking in oneof the public rooms of a restaurant on the outskirts of the town. They had both come to the restaurant straight from a ball and sowere wearing dress coats and white ties. Except them and the waitersat the door there was not a soul in the room; by Frolov's ordersno one else was admitted. 

They began by drinking a big wine-glass of vodka and eating oysters. 

"Good!" said Almer. "It was I brought oysters into fashion for thefirst course, my boy. The vodka burns and stings your throat andyou have a voluptuous sensation in your throat when you swallow anoyster. Don't you?"

A dignified waiter with a shaven upper lip and grey whiskers put asauceboat on the table. 

"What's that you are serving?" asked Frolov. 

"Sauce Provençale for the herring, sir. . . . "

"What! is that the way to serve it?" shouted Frolov, not lookinginto the sauceboat. "Do you call that sauce? You don't know how towait, you blockhead!"

Frolov's velvety eyes flashed. He twisted a corner of the table-clothround his finger, made a slight movement, and the dishes, thecandlesticks, and the bottles, all jingling and clattering, fellwith a crash on the floor. 

The waiters, long accustomed to pot-house catastrophes, ran up tothe table and began picking up the fragments with grave and unconcernedfaces, like surgeons at an operation. 

"How well you know how to manage them!" said Almer, and he laughed. "But . . . Move a little away from the table or you will step inthe caviare. "

"Call the engineer here!" cried Frolov. 

This was the name given to a decrepit, doleful old man who reallyhad once been an engineer and very well off; he had squandered allhis property and towards the end of his life had got into a restaurantwhere he looked after the waiters and singers and carried out variouscommissions relating to the fair sex. Appearing at the summons, heput his head on one side respectfully. 

"Listen, my good man, " Frolov said, addressing him. "What's themeaning of this disorder? How queerly you fellows wait! Don't youknow that I don't like it? Devil take you, I shall give up comingto you!"

"I beg you graciously to excuse it, Alexey Semyonitch!" said theengineer, laying his hand on his heart. "I will take steps immediately, and your slightest wishes shall be carried out in the best andspeediest way. "

"Well, that'll do, you can go. . . . "

The engineer bowed, staggered back, still doubled up, and disappearedthrough the doorway with a final flash of the false diamonds on hisshirt-front and fingers. 

The table was laid again. Almer drank red wine and ate with relishsome sort of bird served with truffles, and ordered a matelote ofeelpouts and a sterlet with its tail in its mouth. Frolov only drankvodka and ate nothing but bread. He rubbed his face with his openhands, scowled, and was evidently out of humour. Both were silent. There was a stillness. Two electric lights in opaque shades flickeredand hissed as though they were angry. The gypsy girls passed thedoor, softly humming. 

"One drinks and is none the merrier, " said Frolov. "The more I pourinto myself, the more sober I become. Other people grow festivewith vodka, but I suffer from anger, disgusting thoughts, sleeplessness. Why is it, old man, that people don't invent some other pleasurebesides drunkenness and debauchery? It's really horrible!"

"You had better send for the gypsy girls. "

"Confound them!"

The head of an old gypsy woman appeared in the door from the passage. 

"Alexey Semyonitch, the gypsies are asking for tea and brandy, "said the old woman. "May we order it?"

"Yes, " answered Frolov. "You know they get a percentage from therestaurant keeper for asking the visitors to treat them. Nowadaysyou can't even believe a man when he asks for vodka. The people areall mean, vile, spoilt. Take these waiters, for instance. They havecountenances like professors, and grey heads; they get two hundredroubles a month, they live in houses of their own and send theirgirls to the high school, but you may swear at them and give yourselfairs as much as you please. For a rouble the engineer will gulpdown a whole pot of mustard and crow like a cock. On my honour, ifone of them would take offence I would make him a present of athousand roubles. "

"What's the matter with you?" said Almer, looking at him withsurprise. "Whence this melancholy? You are red in the face, youlook like a wild animal. . . . What's the matter with you?"

"It's horrid. There's one thing I can't get out of my head. It seemsas though it is nailed there and it won't come out. "

A round little old man, buried in fat and completely bald, wearinga short reefer jacket and lilac waistcoat and carrying a guitar, walked into the room. He made an idiotic face, drew himself up, andsaluted like a soldier. 

"Ah, the parasite!" said Frolov, "let me introduce him, he has madehis fortune by grunting like a pig. Come here!" He poured vodka, wine, and brandy into a glass, sprinkled pepper and salt into it, mixed it all up and gave it to the parasite. The latter tossed itoff and smacked his lips with gusto. 

"He's accustomed to drink a mess so that pure wine makes him sick, "said Frolov. "Come, parasite, sit down and sing. "

The old man sat down, touched the strings with his fat fingers, andbegan singing:

 "Neetka, neetka, Margareetka. . . . "

After drinking champagne Frolov was drunk. He thumped with his fiston the table and said:

"Yes, there's something that sticks in my head! It won't give me aminute's peace!"

"Why, what is it?"

"I can't tell you. It's a secret. It's something so private that Icould only speak of it in my prayers. But if you like . . . As asign of friendship, between ourselves . . . Only mind, to no one, no, no, no, . . . I'll tell you, it will ease my heart, but forGod's sake . . . Listen and forget it. . . . "

Frolov bent down to Almer and for a minute breathed in his ear. 

"I hate my wife!" he brought out. 

The lawyer looked at him with surprise. 

"Yes, yes, my wife, Marya Mihalovna, " Frolov muttered, flushingred. "I hate her and that's all about it. "

"What for?"

"I don't know myself! I've only been married two years. I marriedas you know for love, and now I hate her like a mortal enemy, likethis parasite here, saving your presence. And there is no cause, no sort of cause! When she sits by me, eats, or says anything, mywhole soul boils, I can scarcely restrain myself from being rudeto her. It's something one can't describe. To leave her or tell herthe truth is utterly impossible because it would be a scandal, andliving with her is worse than hell for me. I can't stay at home! Ispend my days at business and in the restaurants and spend my nightsin dissipation. Come, how is one to explain this hatred? She is notan ordinary woman, but handsome, clever, quiet. "

The old man stamped his foot and began singing:

"I went a walk with a captain bold, And in his ear my secrets told. "

"I must own I always thought that Marya Mihalovna was not at allthe right person for you, " said Almer after a brief silence, andhe heaved a sigh. 

"Do you mean she is too well educated? . . . I took the gold medalat the commercial school myself, I have been to Paris three times. I am not cleverer than you, of course, but I am no more foolishthan my wife. No, brother, education is not the sore point. Let metell you how all the trouble began. It began with my suddenlyfancying that she had married me not from love, but for the sakeof my money. This idea took possession of my brain. I have done allI could think of, but the cursed thing sticks! And to make it worsemy wife was overtaken with a passion for luxury. Getting into asack of gold after poverty, she took to flinging it in all directions. She went quite off her head, and was so carried away that she usedto get through twenty thousand every month. And I am a distrustfulman. I don't believe in anyone, I suspect everybody. And the morefriendly you are to me the greater my torment. I keep fancying Iam being flattered for my money. I trust no one! I am a difficultman, my boy, very difficult!"

Frolov emptied his glass at one gulp and went on. 

"But that's all nonsense, " he said. "One never ought to speak ofit. It's stupid. I am tipsy and I have been chattering, and now youare looking at me with lawyer's eyes--glad you know some oneelse's secret. Well, well! . . . Let us drop this conversation. Letus drink! I say, " he said, addressing a waiter, "is Mustafa here?Fetch him in!"

Shortly afterwards there walked into the room a little Tatar boy, aged about twelve, wearing a dress coat and white gloves. 

"Come here!" Frolov said to him. "Explain to us the following fact:there was a time when you Tatars conquered us and took tribute fromus, but now you serve us as waiters and sell dressing-gowns. Howdo you explain such a change?"

Mustafa raised his eyebrows and said in a shrill voice, with asing-song intonation: "The mutability of destiny!"

Almer looked at his grave face and went off into peals of laughter. 

"Well, give him a rouble!" said Frolov. "He is making his fortuneout of the mutability of destiny. He is only kept here for the sakeof those two words. Drink, Mustafa! You will make a gre-eat rascal!I mean it is awful how many of your sort are toadies hanging aboutrich men. The number of these peaceful bandits and robbers is beyondall reckoning! Shouldn't we send for the gypsies now? Eh? Fetch thegypsies along!"

The gypsies, who had been hanging about wearily in the corridorsfor a long time, burst with whoops into the room, and a wild orgybegan. 

"Drink!" Frolov shouted to them. "Drink! Seed of Pharaoh! Sing!A-a-ah!"

"In the winter time . . . O-o-ho! . . . The sledge was flying . . . "

The gypsies sang, whistled, danced. In the frenzy which sometimestakes possession of spoilt and very wealthy men, "broad natures, "Frolov began to play the fool. He ordered supper and champagne forthe gypsies, broke the shade of the electric light, shied bottlesat the pictures and looking-glasses, and did it all apparentlywithout the slightest enjoyment, scowling and shouting irritably, with contempt for the people, with an expression of hatred in hiseyes and his manners. He made the engineer sing a solo, made thebass singers drink a mixture of wine, vodka, and oil. 

At six o'clock they handed him the bill. 

"Nine hundred and twenty-five roubles, forty kopecks, " said Almer, and shrugged his shoulders. "What's it for? No, wait, we must gointo it!"

"Stop!" muttered Frolov, pulling out his pocket-book. "Well! . . . Let them rob me. That's what I'm rich for, to be robbed! . . . Youcan't get on without parasites! . . . You are my lawyer. You getsix thousand a year out of me and what for? But excuse me, . . . Idon't know what I am saying. "

As he was returning home with Almer, Frolov murmured:

"Going home is awful to me! Yes! . . . There isn't a human being Ican open my soul to. . . . They are all robbers . . . Traitors. . . . Oh, why did I tell you my secret? Yes . . . Why? Tell me why?"

At the entrance to his house, he craned forward towards Almer and, staggering, kissed him on the lips, having the old Moscow habit ofkissing indiscriminately on every occasion. 

"Good-bye . . . I am a difficult, hateful man, " he said. "A horrid, drunken, shameless life. You are a well-educated, clever man, butyou only laugh and drink with me . . . There's no help from any ofyou. . . . But if you were a friend to me, if you were an honestman, in reality you ought to have said to me: 'Ugh, you vile, hatefulman! You reptile!'"

"Come, come, " Almer muttered, "go to bed. "

"There is no help from you; the only hope is that, when I am in thecountry in the summer, I may go out into the fields and a stormcome on and the thunder may strike me dead on the spot. . . . Good-bye. "

Frolov kissed Almer once more and muttering and dropping asleep ashe walked, began mounting the stairs, supported by two footmen. 

THE MARSHAL'S WIDOW

ON the first of February every year, St. Trifon's day, there is anextraordinary commotion on the estate of Madame Zavzyatov, the widowof Trifon Lvovitch, the late marshal of the district. On that day, the nameday of the deceased marshal, the widow Lyubov Petrovna hasa requiem service celebrated in his memory, and after the requiema thanksgiving to the Lord. The whole district assembles for theservice. There you will see Hrumov the present marshal, Marfutkin, the president of the Zemstvo, Potrashkov, the permanent member ofthe Rural Board, the two justices of the peace of the district, thepolice captain, Krinolinov, two police-superintendents, the districtdoctor, Dvornyagin, smelling of iodoform, all the landowners, greatand small, and so on. There are about fifty people assembled inall. 

Precisely at twelve o'clock, the visitors, with long faces, maketheir way from all the rooms to the big hall. There are carpets onthe floor and their steps are noiseless, but the solemnity of theoccasion makes them instinctively walk on tip-toe, holding out theirhands to balance themselves. In the hall everything is alreadyprepared. Father Yevmeny, a little old man in a high faded cap, puts on his black vestments. Konkordiev, the deacon, already in hisvestments, and as red as a crab, is noiselessly turning over theleaves of his missal and putting slips of paper in it. At the doorleading to the vestibule, Luka, the sacristan, puffing out hischeeks and making round eyes, blows up the censer. The hall isgradually filled with bluish transparent smoke and the smell ofincense. 

Gelikonsky, the elementary schoolmaster, a young man with big pimpleson his frightened face, wearing a new greatcoat like a sack, carriesround wax candles on a silver-plated tray. The hostess, LyubovPetrovna, stands in the front by a little table with a dish offuneral rice on it, and holds her handkerchief in readiness to herface. There is a profound stillness, broken from time to time bysighs. Everybody has a long, solemn face. . . . 

The requiem service begins. The blue smoke curls up from the censerand plays in the slanting sunbeams, the lighted candles faintlysplutter. The singing, at first harsh and deafening, soon becomesquiet and musical as the choir gradually adapt themselves to theacoustic conditions of the rooms. . . . The tunes are all mournfuland sad. . . . The guests are gradually brought to a melancholymood and grow pensive. Thoughts of the brevity of human life, ofmutability, of worldly vanity stray through their brains. . . . They recall the deceased Zavzyatov, a thick-set, red-cheeked manwho used to drink off a bottle of champagne at one gulp and smashlooking-glasses with his forehead. And when they sing "With ThySaints, O Lord, " and the sobs of their hostess are audible, theguests shift uneasily from one foot to the other. The more emotionalbegin to feel a tickling in their throat and about their eyelids. Marfutkin, the president of the Zemstvo, to stifle the unpleasantfeeling, bends down to the police captain's ear and whispers:

"I was at Ivan Fyodoritch's yesterday. . . . Pyotr Petrovitch andI took all the tricks, playing no trumps. . . . Yes, indeed. . . . Olga Andreyevna was so exasperated that her false tooth fell outof her mouth. "

But at last the "Eternal Memory" is sung. Gelikonsky respectfullytakes away the candles, and the memorial service is over. Thereuponthere follows a momentary commotion; there is a changing of vestmentsand a thanksgiving service. After the thanksgiving, while FatherYevmeny is disrobing, the visitors rub their hands and cough, whiletheir hostess tells some anecdote of the good-heartedness of thedeceased Trifon Lvovitch. 

"Pray come to lunch, friends, " she says, concluding her story witha sigh. 

The visitors, trying not to push or tread on each other's feet, hasten into the dining-room. . . . There the luncheon is awaitingthem. The repast is so magnificent that the deacon Konkordiev thinksit his duty every year to fling up his hands as he looks at it and, shaking his head in amazement, say:

"Supernatural! It's not so much like human fare, Father Yevmeny, as offerings to the gods. "

The lunch is certainly exceptional. Everything that the flora andfauna of the country can furnish is on the table, but the only thingsupernatural about it, perhaps, is that on the table there iseverything except . . . Alcoholic beverages. Lyubov Petrovna hastaken a vow never to have in her house cards or spirituous liquors--the two sources of her husband's ruin. And the only bottlescontain oil and vinegar, as though in mockery and chastisement ofthe guests who are to a man desperately fond of the bottle, andgiven to tippling. 

"Please help yourselves, gentlemen!" the marshal's widow pressesthem. "Only you must excuse me, I have no vodka. . . . I have nonein the house. "

The guests approach the table and hesitatingly attack the pie. Butthe progress with eating is slow. In the plying of forks, in thecutting up and munching, there is a certain sloth and apathy. . . . Evidently something is wanting. 

"I feel as though I had lost something, " one of the justices of thepeace whispers to the other. "I feel as I did when my wife ran awaywith the engineer. . . . I can't eat. "

Marfutkin, before beginning to eat, fumbles for a long time in hispocket and looks for his handkerchief. 

"Oh, my handkerchief must be in my greatcoat, " he recalls in a loudvoice, "and here I am looking for it, " and he goes into the vestibulewhere the fur coats are hanging up. 

He returns from the vestibule with glistening eyes, and at onceattacks the pie with relish. 

"I say, it's horrid munching away with a dry mouth, isn't it?" hewhispers to Father Yevmeny. "Go into the vestibule, Father. There'sa bottle there in my fur coat. . . . Only mind you are careful;don't make a clatter with the bottle. "

Father Yevmeny recollects that he has some direction to give toLuka, and trips off to the vestibule. 

"Father, a couple of words in confidence, " says Dvornyagin, overtakinghim. 

"You should see the fur coat I've bought myself, gentlemen, " Hrumovboasts. "It's worth a thousand, and I gave . . . You won't believeit . . . Two hundred and fifty! Not a farthing more. "

At any other time the guests would have greeted this informationwith indifference, but now they display surprise and incredulity. In the end they all troop out into the vestibule to look at the furcoat, and go on looking at it till the doctor's man Mikeshka carriesfive empty bottles out on the sly. When the steamed sturgeon isserved, Marfutkin remembers that he has left his cigar case in hissledge and goes to the stable. That he may not be lonely on thisexpedition, he takes with him the deacon, who appropriately feelsit necessary to have a look at his horse. . . . 

On the evening of the same day, Lyubov Petrovna is sitting in herstudy, writing a letter to an old friend in Petersburg:

"To-day, as in past years, " she writes among other things, "I hada memorial service for my dear husband. All my neighbours came tothe service. They are a simple, rough set, but what hearts! I gavethem a splendid lunch, but of course, as in previous years, withouta drop of alcoholic liquor. Ever since he died from excessivedrinking I have vowed to establish temperance in this district andthereby to expiate his sins. I have begun the campaign for temperanceat my own house. Father Yevmeny is delighted with my efforts, andhelps me both in word and deed. Oh, _ma chère_, if you knew howfond my bears are of me! The president of the Zemstvo, Marfutkin, kissed my hand after lunch, held it a long while to his lips, and, wagging his head in an absurd way, burst into tears: so much feelingbut no words! Father Yevmeny, that delightful little old man, satdown by me, and looking tearfully at me kept babbling somethinglike a child. I did not understand what he said, but I know how tounderstand true feeling. The police captain, the handsome man ofwhom I wrote to you, went down on his knees to me, tried to readme some verses of his own composition (he is a poet), but . . . Hisfeelings were too much for him, he lurched and fell over . . . Thathuge giant went into hysterics, you can imagine my delight! The daydid not pass without a hitch, however. Poor Alalykin, the presidentof the judges' assembly, a stout and apoplectic man, was overcomeby illness and lay on the sofa in a state of unconsciousness fortwo hours. We had to pour water on him. . . . I am thankful toDoctor Dvornyagin: he had brought a bottle of brandy from hisdispensary and he moistened the patient's temples, which quicklyrevived him, and he was able to be moved. . . . "

A BAD BUSINESS

"WHO goes there?"

No answer. The watchman sees nothing, but through the roar of thewind and the trees distinctly hears someone walking along the avenueahead of him. A March night, cloudy and foggy, envelopes the earth, and it seems to the watchman that the earth, the sky, and he himselfwith his thoughts are all merged together into something vast andimpenetrably black. He can only grope his way. 

"Who goes there?" the watchman repeats, and he begins to fancy thathe hears whispering and smothered laughter. "Who's there?"

"It's I, friend . . . " answers an old man's voice. 

"But who are you?"

"I . . . A traveller. "

"What sort of traveller?" the watchman cries angrily, trying todisguise his terror by shouting. "What the devil do you want here?You go prowling about the graveyard at night, you ruffian!"

"You don't say it's a graveyard here?"

"Why, what else? Of course it's the graveyard! Don't you see itis?"

"O-o-oh . . . Queen of Heaven!" there is a sound of an old mansighing. "I see nothing, my good soul, nothing. Oh the darkness, the darkness! You can't see your hand before your face, it is dark, friend. O-o-oh. . . "

"But who are you?"

"I am a pilgrim, friend, a wandering man. "

"The devils, the nightbirds. . . . Nice sort of pilgrims! They aredrunkards . . . " mutters the watchman, reassured by the tone andsighs of the stranger. "One's tempted to sin by you. They drink theday away and prowl about at night. But I fancy I heard you were notalone; it sounded like two or three of you. "

"I am alone, friend, alone. Quite alone. O-o-oh our sins. . . . "

The watchman stumbles up against the man and stops. 

"How did you get here?" he asks. 

"I have lost my way, good man. I was walking to the Mitrievsky Milland I lost my way. "

"Whew! Is this the road to Mitrievsky Mill? You sheepshead! For theMitrievsky Mill you must keep much more to the left, straight outof the town along the high road. You have been drinking and havegone a couple of miles out of your way. You must have had a dropin the town. "

"I did, friend . . . Truly I did; I won't hide my sins. But how amI to go now?"

"Go straight on and on along this avenue till you can go no farther, and then turn at once to the left and go till you have crossed thewhole graveyard right to the gate. There will be a gate there. . . . Open it and go with God's blessing. Mind you don't fall into theditch. And when you are out of the graveyard you go all the way bythe fields till you come out on the main road. "

"God give you health, friend. May the Queen of Heaven save you andhave mercy on you. You might take me along, good man! Be merciful!Lead me to the gate. "

"As though I had the time to waste! Go by yourself!"

"Be merciful! I'll pray for you. I can't see anything; one can'tsee one's hand before one's face, friend. . . . It's so dark, sodark! Show me the way, sir!"

"As though I had the time to take you about; if I were to play thenurse to everyone I should never have done. "

"For Christ's sake, take me! I can't see, and I am afraid to goalone through the graveyard. It's terrifying, friend, it's terrifying;I am afraid, good man. "

"There's no getting rid of you, " sighs the watchman. "All rightthen, come along. "

The watchman and the traveller go on together. They walk shoulderto shoulder in silence. A damp, cutting wind blows straight intotheir faces and the unseen trees murmuring and rustling scatter bigdrops upon them. . . . The path is almost entirely covered withpuddles. 

"There is one thing passes my understanding, " says the watchmanafter a prolonged silence--"how you got here. The gate's locked. Did you climb over the wall? If you did climb over the wall, that'sthe last thing you would expect of an old man. "

"I don't know, friend, I don't know. I can't say myself how I gothere. It's a visitation. A chastisement of the Lord. Truly avisitation, the evil one confounded me. So you are a watchman here, friend?"

"Yes. "

"The only one for the whole graveyard?"

There is such a violent gust of wind that both stop for a minute. Waiting till the violence of the wind abates, the watchman answers:

"There are three of us, but one is lying ill in a fever and theother's asleep. He and I take turns about. "

"Ah, to be sure, friend. What a wind! The dead must hear it! Ithowls like a wild beast! O-o-oh. "

"And where do you come from?"

"From a distance, friend. I am from Vologda, a long way off. I gofrom one holy place to another and pray for people. Save me andhave mercy upon me, O Lord. "

The watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe. He stoops downbehind the traveller's back and lights several matches. The gleamof the first match lights up for one instant a bit of the avenueon the right, a white tombstone with an angel, and a dark cross;the light of the second match, flaring up brightly and extinguishedby the wind, flashes like lightning on the left side, and from thedarkness nothing stands out but the angle of some sort of trellis;the third match throws light to right and to left, revealing thewhite tombstone, the dark cross, and the trellis round a child'sgrave. 

"The departed sleep; the dear ones sleep!" the stranger mutters, sighing loudly. "They all sleep alike, rich and poor, wise andfoolish, good and wicked. They are of the same value now. And theywill sleep till the last trump. The Kingdom of Heaven and peaceeternal be theirs. "

"Here we are walking along now, but the time will come when we shallbe lying here ourselves, " says the watchman. 

"To be sure, to be sure, we shall all. There is no man who will notdie. O-o-oh. Our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful!Sins, sins! My soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy andlustful! I have angered the Lord and there is no salvation for mein this world and the next. I am deep in sins like a worm in theearth. "

"Yes, and you have to die. "

"You are right there. "

"Death is easier for a pilgrim than for fellows like us, " says thewatchman. 

"There are pilgrims of different sorts. There are the real ones whoare God-fearing men and watch over their own souls, and there aresuch as stray about the graveyard at night and are a delight to thedevils. . . Ye-es! There's one who is a pilgrim could give you acrack on the pate with an axe if he liked and knock the breath outof you. "

"What are you talking like that for?"

"Oh, nothing . . . Why, I fancy here's the gate. Yes, it is. Openit, good man. "

The watchman, feeling his way, opens the gate, leads the pilgrimout by the sleeve, and says:

"Here's the end of the graveyard. Now you must keep on through theopen fields till you get to the main road. Only close here therewill be the boundary ditch--don't fall in. . . . And when youcome out on to the road, turn to the right, and keep on till youreach the mill. . . . "

"O-o-oh!" sighs the pilgrim after a pause, "and now I am thinkingthat I have no cause to go to Mitrievsky Mill. . . . Why the devilshould I go there? I had better stay a bit with you here, sir. . . . "

"What do you want to stay with me for?"

"Oh . . . It's merrier with you! . . . . "

"So you've found a merry companion, have you? You, pilgrim, arefond of a joke I see. . . . "

"To be sure I am, " says the stranger, with a hoarse chuckle. "Ah, my dear good man, I bet you will remember the pilgrim many a longyear!"

"Why should I remember you?"

"Why I've got round you so smartly. . . . Am I a pilgrim? I am nota pilgrim at all. "

"What are you then?"

"A dead man. . . . I've only just got out of my coffin. . . . Doyou remember Gubaryev, the locksmith, who hanged himself in carnivalweek? Well, I am Gubaryev himself! . . . "

"Tell us something else!"

The watchman does not believe him, but he feels all over such acold, oppressive terror that he starts off and begins hurriedlyfeeling for the gate. 

"Stop, where are you off to?" says the stranger, clutching him bythe arm. "Aie, aie, aie . . . What a fellow you are! How can youleave me all alone?"

"Let go!" cries the watchman, trying to pull his arm away. 

"Sto-op! I bid you stop and you stop. Don't struggle, you dirtydog! If you want to stay among the living, stop and hold your tonguetill I tell you. It's only that I don't care to spill blood or youwould have been a dead man long ago, you scurvy rascal. . . . Stop!"

The watchman's knees give way under him. In his terror he shuts hiseyes, and trembling all over huddles close to the wall. He wouldlike to call out, but he knows his cries would not reach any livingthing. The stranger stands beside him and holds him by the arm. . . . Three minutes pass in silence. 

"One's in a fever, another's asleep, and the third is seeing pilgrimson their way, " mutters the stranger. "Capital watchmen, they areworth their salary! Ye-es, brother, thieves have always been clevererthan watchmen! Stand still, don't stir. . . . "

Five minutes, ten minutes pass in silence. All at once the windbrings the sound of a whistle. 

"Well, now you can go, " says the stranger, releasing the watchman'sarm. "Go and thank God you are alive!"

The stranger gives a whistle too, runs away from the gate, and thewatchman hears him leap over the ditch. 

With a foreboding of something very dreadful in his heart, thewatchman, still trembling with terror, opens the gate irresolutelyand runs back with his eyes shut. 

At the turning into the main avenue he hears hurried footsteps, andsomeone asks him, in a hissing voice: "Is that you, Timofey? Whereis Mitka?"

And after running the whole length of the main avenue he notices alittle dim light in the darkness. The nearer he gets to the lightthe more frightened he is and the stronger his foreboding of evil. 

"It looks as though the light were in the church, " he thinks. "Andhow can it have come there? Save me and have mercy on me, Queen ofHeaven! And that it is. "

The watchman stands for a minute before the broken window and lookswith horror towards the altar. . . . A little wax candle which thethieves had forgotten to put out flickers in the wind that burstsin at the window and throws dim red patches of light on the vestmentsflung about and a cupboard overturned on the floor, on numerousfootprints near the high altar and the altar of offerings. 

A little time passes and the howling wind sends floating over thechurchyard the hurried uneven clangs of the alarm-bell. . . . 

IN THE COURT

AT the district town of N. In the cinnamon-coloured government housein which the Zemstvo, the sessional meetings of the justices of thepeace, the Rural Board, the Liquor Board, the Military Board, andmany others sit by turns, the Circuit Court was in session on oneof the dull days of autumn. Of the above-mentioned cinnamon-colouredhouse a local official had wittily observed:

"Here is Justitia, here is Policia, here is Militia--a regularboarding school of high-born young ladies. "

But, as the saying is, "Too many cooks spoil the broth, " and probablythat is why the house strikes, oppresses, and overwhelms a freshunofficial visitor with its dismal barrack-like appearance, itsdecrepit condition, and the complete absence of any kind of comfort, external or internal. Even on the brightest spring days it seemswrapped in a dense shade, and on clear moonlight nights, when thetrees and the little dwelling-houses merged in one blur of shadowseem plunged in quiet slumber, it alone absurdly and inappropriatelytowers, an oppressive mass of stone, above the modest landscape, spoils the general harmony, and keeps sleepless vigil as though itcould not escape from burdensome memories of past unforgiven sins. Inside it is like a barn and extremely unattractive. It is strangeto see how readily these elegant lawyers, members of committees, and marshals of nobility, who in their own homes will make a sceneover the slightest fume from the stove, or stain on the floor, resign themselves here to whirring ventilation wheels, the disgustingsmell of fumigating candles, and the filthy, forever perspiringwalls. 

The sitting of the circuit court began between nine and ten. Theprogramme of the day was promptly entered upon, with noticeablehaste. The cases came on one after another and ended quickly, likea church service without a choir, so that no mind could form acomplete picture of all this parti-coloured mass of faces, movements, words, misfortunes, true sayings and lies, all racing by like ariver in flood. . . . By two o'clock a great deal had been done:two prisoners had been sentenced to service in convict battalions, one of the privileged class had been sentenced to deprivation ofrights and imprisonment, one had been acquitted, one case had beenadjourned. 

At precisely two o'clock the presiding judge announced that thecase "of the peasant Nikolay Harlamov, charged with the murder ofhis wife, " would next be heard. The composition of the court remainedthe same as it had been for the preceding case, except that theplace of the defending counsel was filled by a new personage, abeardless young graduate in a coat with bright buttons. The presidentgave the order--"Bring in the prisoner!"

But the prisoner, who had been got ready beforehand, was alreadywalking to his bench. He was a tall, thick-set peasant of aboutfifty-five, completely bald, with an apathetic, hairy face and abig red beard. He was followed by a frail-looking little soldierwith a gun. 

Just as he was reaching the bench the escort had a trifling mishap. He stumbled and dropped the gun out of his hands, but caught it atonce before it touched the ground, knocking his knee violentlyagainst the butt end as he did so. A faint laugh was audible in theaudience. Either from the pain or perhaps from shame at his awkwardnessthe soldier flushed a dark red. 

After the customary questions to the prisoner, the shuffling of thejury, the calling over and swearing in of the witnesses, the readingof the charge began. The narrow-chested, pale-faced secretary, fartoo thin for his uniform, and with sticking plaster on his check, read it in a low, thick bass, rapidly like a sacristan, withoutraising or dropping his voice, as though afraid of exerting hislungs; he was seconded by the ventilation wheel whirring indefatigablybehind the judge's table, and the result was a sound that gave adrowsy, narcotic character to the stillness of the hall. 

The president, a short-sighted man, not old but with an extremelyexhausted face, sat in his armchair without stirring and held hisopen hand near his brow as though screening his eyes from the sun. To the droning of the ventilation wheel and the secretary hemeditated. When the secretary paused for an instant to take breathon beginning a new page, he suddenly started and looked round atthe court with lustreless eyes, then bent down to the ear of thejudge next to him and asked with a sigh:

"Are you putting up at Demyanov's, Matvey Petrovitch?"

"Yes, at Demyanov's, " answered the other, starting too. 

"Next time I shall probably put up there too. It's really impossibleto put up at Tipyakov's! There's noise and uproar all night! Knocking, coughing, children crying. . . . It's impossible!"

The assistant prosecutor, a fat, well-nourished, dark man with goldspectacles, with a handsome, well-groomed beard, sat motionless asa statue, with his cheek propped on his fist, reading Byron's "Cain. "His eyes were full of eager attention and his eyebrows rose higherand higher with wonder. . . . From time to time he dropped back inhis chair, gazed without interest straight before him for a minute, and then buried himself in his reading again. The council for thedefence moved the blunt end of his pencil about the table and musedwith his head on one side. . . . His youthful face expressed nothingbut the frigid, immovable boredom which is commonly seen on theface of schoolboys and men on duty who are forced from day to dayto sit in the same place, to see the same faces, the same walls. He felt no excitement about the speech he was to make, and indeedwhat did that speech amount to? On instructions from his superiorsin accordance with long-established routine he would fire it offbefore the jurymen, without passion or ardour, feeling that it wascolourless and boring, and then--gallop through the mud and therain to the station, thence to the town, shortly to receiveinstructions to go off again to some district to deliver anotherspeech. . . . It was a bore!

At first the prisoner turned pale and coughed nervously into hissleeve, but soon the stillness, the general monotony and boredominfected him too. He looked with dull-witted respectfulness at thejudges' uniforms, at the weary faces of the jurymen, and blinkedcalmly. The surroundings and procedure of the court, the expectationof which had so weighed on his soul while he was awaiting them inprison, now had the most soothing effect on him. What he met herewas not at all what he could have expected. The charge of murderhung over him, and yet here he met with neither threatening facesnor indignant looks nor loud phrases about retribution nor sympathyfor his extraordinary fate; not one of those who were judging himlooked at him with interest or for long. . . . The dingy windowsand walls, the voice of the secretary, the attitude of the prosecutorwere all saturated with official indifference and produced anatmosphere of frigidity, as though the murderer were simply anofficial property, or as though he were not being judged by livingmen, but by some unseen machine, set going, goodness knows how orby whom. . . . 

The peasant, reassured, did not understand that the men here wereas accustomed to the dramas and tragedies of life and were as bluntedby the sight of them as hospital attendants are at the sight ofdeath, and that the whole horror and hopelessness of his positionlay just in this mechanical indifference. It seemed that if he werenot to sit quietly but to get up and begin beseeching, appealingwith tears for their mercy, bitterly repenting, that if he were todie of despair--it would all be shattered against blunted nervesand the callousness of custom, like waves against a rock. 

When the secretary finished, the president for some reason passedhis hands over the table before him, looked for some time with hiseyes screwed up towards the prisoner, and then asked, speakinglanguidly:

"Prisoner at the bar, do you plead guilty to having murdered yourwife on the evening of the ninth of June?"

"No, sir, " answered the prisoner, getting up and holding his gownover his chest. 

After this the court proceeded hurriedly to the examination ofwitnesses. Two peasant women and five men and the village policemanwho had made the enquiry were questioned. All of them, mud-bespattered, exhausted with their long walk and waiting in the witnesses' room, gloomy and dispirited, gave the same evidence. They testified thatHarlamov lived "well" with his old woman, like anyone else; thathe never beat her except when he had had a drop; that on the ninthof June when the sun was setting the old woman had been found inthe porch with her skull broken; that beside her in a pool of bloodlay an axe. When they looked for Nikolay to tell him of the calamityhe was not in his hut or in the streets. They ran all over thevillage, looking for him. They went to all the pothouses and huts, but could not find him. He had disappeared, and two days later cameof his own accord to the police office, pale, with his clothes torn, trembling all over. He was bound and put in the lock-up. 

"Prisoner, " said the president, addressing Harlamov, "cannot youexplain to the court where you were during the three days followingthe murder?"

"I was wandering about the fields. . . . Neither eating nor drinking. . . . "

"Why did you hide yourself, if it was not you that committed themurder?

"I was frightened. . . . I was afraid I might be judged guilty. . . . "

"Aha! . . . Good, sit down!"

The last to be examined was the district doctor who had made apost-mortem on the old woman. He told the court all that he rememberedof his report at the post-mortem and all that he had succeeded inthinking of on his way to the court that morning. The presidentscrewed up his eyes at his new glossy black suit, at his foppishcravat, at his moving lips; he listened and in his mind the languidthought seemed to spring up of itself:

"Everyone wears a short jacket nowadays, why has he had his madelong? Why long and not short?"

The circumspect creak of boots was audible behind the president'sback. It was the assistant prosecutor going up to the table to takesome papers. 

"Mihail Vladimirovitch, " said the assistant prosecutor, bendingdown to the president's ear, "amazingly slovenly the way thatKoreisky conducted the investigation. The prisoner's brother wasnot examined, the village elder was not examined, there's no makinganything out of his description of the hut. . . . "

"It can't be helped, it can't be helped, " said the president, sinkingback in his chair. "He's a wreck . . . Dropping to bits!"

"By the way, " whispered the assistant prosecutor, "look at theaudience, in the front row, the third from the right . . . A facelike an actor's . . . That's the local Croesus. He has a fortuneof something like fifty thousand. "

"Really? You wouldn't guess it from his appearance. . . . Well, dear boy, shouldn't we have a break?"

"We will finish the case for the prosecution, and then. . . . "

"As you think best. . . . Well?" the president raised his eyes tothe doctor. "So you consider that death was instantaneous?"

"Yes, in consequence of the extent of the injury to the brainsubstance. . . . "

When the doctor had finished, the president gazed into the spacebetween the prosecutor and the counsel for the defence and suggested:

"Have you any questions to ask?"

The assistant prosecutor shook his head negatively, without liftinghis eyes from "Cain"; the counsel for the defence unexpectedlystirred and, clearing his throat, asked:

"Tell me, doctor, can you from the dimensions of the wound form anytheory as to . . . As to the mental condition of the criminal? Thatis, I mean, does the extent of the injury justify the suppositionthat the accused was suffering from temporary aberration?"

The president raised his drowsy indifferent eyes to the counsel forthe defence. The assistant prosecutor tore himself from "Cain, " andlooked at the president. They merely looked, but there was no smile, no surprise, no perplexity-their faces expressed nothing. 

"Perhaps, " the doctor hesitated, "if one considers the force withwhich . . . Er--er--er . . . The criminal strikes the blow. . . . However, excuse me, I don't quite understand your question. . . . "

The counsel for the defence did not get an answer to his question, and indeed he did not feel the necessity of one. It was clear evento himself that that question had strayed into his mind and foundutterance simply through the effect of the stillness, the boredom, the whirring ventilator wheels. 

When they had got rid of the doctor the court rose to examine the"material evidences. " The first thing examined was the full-skirtedcoat, upon the sleeve of which there was a dark brownish stain ofblood. Harlamov on being questioned as to the origin of the stainstated:

"Three days before my old woman's death Penkov bled his horse. Iwas there; I was helping to be sure, and . . . And got smeared withit. . . . "

"But Penkov has just given evidence that he does not remember thatyou were present at the bleeding. . . . "

"I can't tell about that. "

"Sit down. "

They proceeded to examine the axe with which the old woman had beenmurdered. 

"That's not my axe, " the prisoner declared. 

"Whose is it, then?"

"I can't tell . . . I hadn't an axe. . . . "

"A peasant can't get on for a day without an axe. And your neighbourIvan Timofeyitch, with whom you mended a sledge, has given evidencethat it is your axe. . . . "

"I can't say about that, but I swear before God (Harlamov held outhis hand before him and spread out the fingers), before the livingGod. And I don't remember how long it is since I did have an axeof my own. I did have one like that only a bit smaller, but my sonProhor lost it. Two years before he went into the army, he droveoff to fetch wood, got drinking with the fellows, and lost it. . . . "

"Good, sit down. "

This systematic distrust and disinclination to hear him probablyirritated and offended Harlamov. He blinked and red patches cameout on his cheekbones. 

"I swear in the sight of God, " he went on, craning his neck forward. "If you don't believe me, be pleased to ask my son Prohor. Proshka, what did you do with the axe?" he suddenly asked in a rough voice, turning abruptly to the soldier escorting him. "Where is it?"

It was a painful moment! Everyone seemed to wince and as it wereshrink together. The same fearful, incredible thought flashed likelightning through every head in the court, the thought of possiblyfatal coincidence, and not one person in the court dared to lookat the soldier's face. Everyone refused to trust his thought andbelieved that he had heard wrong. 

"Prisoner, conversation with the guards is forbidden . . . " thepresident made haste to say. 

No one saw the escort's face, and horror passed over the hall unseenas in a mask. The usher of the court got up quietly from his placeand tiptoeing with his hand held out to balance himself went outof the court. Half a minute later there came the muffled sounds andfootsteps that accompany the change of guard. 

All raised their heads and, trying to look as though nothing hadhappened, went on with their work. . . . 

BOOTS

A PIANO-TUNER called Murkin, a close-shaven man with a yellow face, with a nose stained with snuff, and cotton-wool in his ears, cameout of his hotel-room into the passage, and in a cracked voicecried: "Semyon! Waiter!"

And looking at his frightened face one might have supposed that theceiling had fallen in on him or that he had just seen a ghost inhis room. 

"Upon my word, Semyon!" he cried, seeing the attendant runningtowards him. "What is the meaning of it? I am a rheumatic, delicateman and you make me go barefoot! Why is it you don't give me myboots all this time? Where are they?"

Semyon went into Murkin's room, looked at the place where he wasin the habit of putting the boots he had cleaned, and scratched hishead: the boots were not there. 

"Where can they be, the damned things?" Semyon brought out. "I fancyI cleaned them in the evening and put them here. . . . H'm! . . . Yesterday, I must own, I had a drop. . . . I must have put them inanother room, I suppose. That must be it, Afanasy Yegoritch, theyare in another room! There are lots of boots, and how the devil isone to know them apart when one is drunk and does not know what oneis doing? . . . I must have taken them in to the lady that's nextdoor . . . The actress. . . . "

"And now, if you please, I am to go in to a lady and disturb herall through you! Here, if you please, through this foolishness Iam to wake up a respectable woman. "

Sighing and coughing, Murkin went to the door of the next room andcautiously tapped. 

"Who's there?" he heard a woman's voice a minute later. 

"It's I!" Murkin began in a plaintive voice, standing in the attitudeof a cavalier addressing a lady of the highest society. "Pardon mydisturbing you, madam, but I am a man in delicate health, rheumatic. . . . The doctors, madam, have ordered me to keep my feet warm, especially as I have to go at once to tune the piano at Madame laGénérale Shevelitsyn's. I can't go to her barefoot. "

"But what do you want? What piano?"

"Not a piano, madam; it is in reference to boots! Semyon, stupidfellow, cleaned my boots and put them by mistake in your room. Beso extremely kind, madam, as to give me my boots!"

There was a sound of rustling, of jumping off the bed and theflapping of slippers, after which the door opened slightly and aplump feminine hand flung at Murkin's feet a pair of boots. Thepiano-tuner thanked her and went into his own room. 

"Odd . . . " he muttered, putting on the boots, "it seems as thoughthis is not the right boot. Why, here are two left boots! Both arefor the left foot! I say, Semyon, these are not my boots! My bootshave red tags and no patches on them, and these are in holes andhave no tags. "

Semyon picked up the boots, turned them over several times beforehis eyes, and frowned. 

"Those are Pavel Alexandritch's boots, " he grumbled, squinting atthem. He squinted with the left eye. 

"What Pavel Alexandritch?"

"The actor; he comes here every Tuesday. . . . He must have put onyours instead of his own. . . . So I must have put both pairs inher room, his and yours. Here's a go!"

"Then go and change them!"

"That's all right!" sniggered Semyon, "go and change them. . . . Where am I to find him now? He went off an hour ago. . . . Go andlook for the wind in the fields!"

"Where does he live then?"

"Who can tell? He comes here every Tuesday, and where he lives Idon't know. He comes and stays the night, and then you may waittill next Tuesday. . . . "

"There, do you see, you brute, what you have done? Why, what am Ito do now? It is time I was at Madame la Générale Shevelitsyn's, you anathema! My feet are frozen!"

"You can change the boots before long. Put on these boots, go aboutin them till the evening, and in the evening go to the theatre. . . . Ask there for Blistanov, the actor. . . . If you don't care togo to the theatre, you will have to wait till next Tuesday; he onlycomes here on Tuesdays. . . . "

"But why are there two boots for the left foot?" asked the piano-tuner, picking up the boots with an air of disgust. 

"What God has sent him, that he wears. Through poverty . . . Whereis an actor to get boots? I said to him 'What boots, Pavel Alexandritch!They are a positive disgrace!' and he said: 'Hold your peace, ' sayshe, 'and turn pale! In those very boots, ' says he, 'I have playedcounts and princes. ' A queer lot! Artists, that's the only word forthem! If I were the governor or anyone in command, I would get allthese actors together and clap them all in prison. "

Continually sighing and groaning and knitting his brows, Murkindrew the two left boots on to his feet, and set off, limping, toMadame la Générale Shevelitsyn's. He went about the town all daylong tuning pianos, and all day long it seemed to him that everyonewas looking at his feet and seeing his patched boots with heelsworn down at the sides! Apart from his moral agonies he had tosuffer physically also; the boots gave him a corn. 

In the evening he was at the theatre. There was a performance of_Bluebeard_. It was only just before the last act, and then onlythanks to the good offices of a man he knew who played a flute inthe orchestra, that he gained admittance behind the scenes. Goingto the men's dressing-room, he found there all the male performers. Some were changing their clothes, others were painting their faces, others were smoking. Bluebeard was standing with King Bobesh, showinghim a revolver. 

"You had better buy it, " said Bluebeard. "I bought it at Kursk, abargain, for eight roubles, but, there! I will let you have it forsix. . . . A wonderfully good one!"

"Steady. . . . It's loaded, you know!"

"Can I see Mr. Blistanov?" the piano-tuner asked as he went in. 

"I am he!" said Bluebeard, turning to him. "What do you want?"

"Excuse my troubling you, sir, " began the piano-tuner in an imploringvoice, "but, believe me, I am a man in delicate health, rheumatic. The doctors have ordered me to keep my feet warm . . . "

"But, speaking plainly, what do you want?"

"You see, " said the piano-tuner, addressing Bluebeard. "Er . . . You stayed last night at Buhteyev's furnished apartments . . . No. 64 . . . "

"What's this nonsense?" said King Bobesh with a grin. "My wife isat No. 64. "

"Your wife, sir? Delighted. . . . " Murkin smiled. "It was she, yourgood lady, who gave me this gentleman's boots. . . . After thisgentleman--" the piano-tuner indicated Blistanov--"had gone awayI missed my boots. . . . I called the waiter, you know, and he said:'I left your boots in the next room!' By mistake, being in a stateof intoxication, he left my boots as well as yours at 64, " saidMurkin, turning to Blistanov, "and when you left this gentleman'slady you put on mine. "

"What are you talking about?" said Blistanov, and he scowled. "Haveyou come here to libel me?"

"Not at all, sir--God forbid! You misunderstand me. What am Italking about? About boots! You did stay the night at No. 64, didn'tyou?"

"When?"

"Last night!"

"Why, did you see me there?"

"No, sir, I didn't see you, " said Murkin in great confusion, sittingdown and taking off the boots. "I did not see you, but this gentleman'slady threw out your boots here to me . . . Instead of mine. "

"What right have you, sir, to make such assertions? I say nothingabout myself, but you are slandering a woman, and in the presenceof her husband, too!"

A fearful hubbub arose behind the scenes. King Bobesh, the injuredhusband, suddenly turned crimson and brought his fist down upon thetable with such violence that two actresses in the next dressing-roomfelt faint. 

"And you believe it?" cried Bluebeard. "You believe this worthlessrascal? O-oh! Would you like me to kill him like a dog? Would youlike it? I will turn him into a beefsteak! I'll blow his brainsout!"

And all the persons who were promenading that evening in the townpark by the Summer theatre describe to this day how just before thefourth act they saw a man with bare feet, a yellow face, andterror-stricken eyes dart out of the theatre and dash along theprincipal avenue. He was pursued by a man in the costume of Bluebeard, armed with a revolver. What happened later no one saw. All that isknown is that Murkin was confined to his bed for a fortnight afterhis acquaintance with Blistanov, and that to the words "I am a manin delicate health, rheumatic" he took to adding, "I am a woundedman. . . . "

JOY

IT was twelve o'clock at night. 

Mitya Kuldarov, with excited face and ruffled hair, flew into hisparents' flat, and hurriedly ran through all the rooms. His parentshad already gone to bed. His sister was in bed, finishing the lastpage of a novel. His schoolboy brothers were asleep. 

"Where have you come from?" cried his parents in amazement. "Whatis the matter with you?

"Oh, don't ask! I never expected it; no, I never expected it! It's. . . It's positively incredible!"

Mitya laughed and sank into an armchair, so overcome by happinessthat he could not stand on his legs. 

"It's incredible! You can't imagine! Look!"

His sister jumped out of bed and, throwing a quilt round her, wentin to her brother. The schoolboys woke up. 

"What's the matter? You don't look like yourself!"

"It's because I am so delighted, Mamma! Do you know, now all Russiaknows of me! All Russia! Till now only you knew that there was aregistration clerk called Dmitry Kuldarov, and now all Russia knowsit! Mamma! Oh, Lord!"

Mitya jumped up, ran up and down all the rooms, and then sat downagain. 

"Why, what has happened? Tell us sensibly!"

"You live like wild beasts, you don't read the newspapers and takeno notice of what's published, and there's so much that is interestingin the papers. If anything happens it's all known at once, nothingis hidden! How happy I am! Oh, Lord! You know it's only celebratedpeople whose names are published in the papers, and now they havegone and published mine!"

"What do you mean? Where?"

The papa turned pale. The mamma glanced at the holy image and crossedherself. The schoolboys jumped out of bed and, just as they were, in short nightshirts, went up to their brother. 

"Yes! My name has been published! Now all Russia knows of me! Keepthe paper, mamma, in memory of it! We will read it sometimes! Look!"

Mitya pulled out of his pocket a copy of the paper, gave it to hisfather, and pointed with his finger to a passage marked with bluepencil. 

"Read it!"

The father put on his spectacles. 

"Do read it!"

The mamma glanced at the holy image and crossed herself. The papacleared his throat and began to read: "At eleven o'clock on theevening of the 29th of December, a registration clerk of the nameof Dmitry Kuldarov . . . "

"You see, you see! Go on!"

". . . A registration clerk of the name of Dmitry Kuldarov, comingfrom the beershop in Kozihin's buildings in Little Bronnaia in anintoxicated condition. . . "

"That's me and Semyon Petrovitch. . . . It's all described exactly!Go on! Listen!"

". . . Intoxicated condition, slipped and fell under a horse belongingto a sledge-driver, a peasant of the village of Durikino in theYuhnovsky district, called Ivan Drotov. The frightened horse, stepping over Kuldarov and drawing the sledge over him, togetherwith a Moscow merchant of the second guild called Stepan Lukov, whowas in it, dashed along the street and was caught by some house-porters. Kuldarov, at first in an unconscious condition, was taken to thepolice station and there examined by the doctor. The blow he hadreceived on the back of his head. . . "

"It was from the shaft, papa. Go on! Read the rest!"

". . . He had received on the back of his head turned out not tobe serious. The incident was duly reported. Medical aid was givento the injured man. . . . "

"They told me to foment the back of my head with cold water. Youhave read it now? Ah! So you see. Now it's all over Russia! Giveit here!"

Mitya seized the paper, folded it up and put it into his pocket. 

"I'll run round to the Makarovs and show it to them. . . . I mustshow it to the Ivanitskys too, Natasya Ivanovna, and AnisimVassilyitch. . . . I'll run! Good-bye!"

Mitya put on his cap with its cockade and, joyful and triumphant, ran into the street. 

LADIES

FYODOR PETROVITCH the Director of Elementary Schools in the N. District, who considered himself a just and generous man, was oneday interviewing in his office a schoolmaster called Vremensky. 

"No, Mr. Vremensky, " he was saying, "your retirement is inevitable. You cannot continue your work as a schoolmaster with a voice likethat! How did you come to lose it?"

"I drank cold beer when I was in a perspiration. . . " hissed theschoolmaster. 

"What a pity! After a man has served fourteen years, such a calamityall at once! The idea of a career being ruined by such a trivialthing. What are you intending to do now?"

The schoolmaster made no answer. 

"Are you a family man?" asked the director. 

"A wife and two children, your Excellency . . . " hissed theschoolmaster. 

A silence followed. The director got up from the table and walkedto and fro in perturbation. 

"I cannot think what I am going to do with you!" he said. "A teacheryou cannot be, and you are not yet entitled to a pension. . . . Toabandon you to your fate, and leave you to do the best you can, israther awkward. We look on you as one of our men, you have servedfourteen years, so it is our business to help you. . . . But howare we to help you? What can I do for you? Put yourself in my place:what can I do for you?"

A silence followed; the director walked up and down, still thinking, and Vremensky, overwhelmed by his trouble, sat on the edge of hischair, and he, too, thought. All at once the director began beaming, and even snapped his fingers. 

"I wonder I did not think of it before!" he began rapidly. "Listen, this is what I can offer you. Next week our secretary at the Homeis retiring. If you like, you can have his place! There you are!"

Vremensky, not expecting such good fortune, beamed too. 

"That's capital, " said the director. "Write the application to-day. "

Dismissing Vremensky, Fyodor Petrovitch felt relieved and evengratified: the bent figure of the hissing schoolmaster was no longerconfronting him, and it was agreeable to recognize that in offeringa vacant post to Vremensky he had acted fairly and conscientiously, like a good-hearted and thoroughly decent person. But this agreeablestate of mind did not last long. When he went home and sat down todinner his wife, Nastasya Ivanovna, said suddenly:

"Oh yes, I was almost forgetting! Nina Sergeyevna came to see meyesterday and begged for your interest on behalf of a young man. Iam told there is a vacancy in our Home. . . . "

"Yes, but the post has already been promised to someone else, " saidthe director, and he frowned. "And you know my rule: I never giveposts through patronage. "

"I know, but for Nina Sergeyevna, I imagine, you might make anexception. She loves us as though we were relations, and we havenever done anything for her. And don't think of refusing, Fedya!You will wound both her and me with your whims. "

"Who is it that she is recommending?"

"Polzuhin!"

"What Polzuhin? Is it that fellow who played Tchatsky at the partyon New Year's Day? Is it that gentleman? Not on any account!"

The director left off eating. 

"Not on any account!" he repeated. "Heaven preserve us!"

"But why not?"

"Understand, my dear, that if a young man does not set to workdirectly, but through women, he must be good for nothing! Why doesn'the come to me himself?"

After dinner the director lay on the sofa in his study and beganreading the letters and newspapers he had received. 

"Dear Fyodor Petrovitch, " wrote the wife of the Mayor of the town. "You once said that I knew the human heart and understood people. Now you have an opportunity of verifying this in practice. K. N. Polzuhin, whom I know to be an excellent young man, will call uponyou in a day or two to ask you for the post of secretary at ourHome. He is a very nice youth. If you take an interest in him youwill be convinced of it. " And so on. 

"On no account!" was the director's comment. "Heaven preserve me!"

After that, not a day passed without the director's receiving lettersrecommending Polzuhin. One fine morning Polzuhin himself, a stoutyoung man with a close-shaven face like a jockey's, in a new blacksuit, made his appearance. . . . 

"I see people on business not here but at the office, " said thedirector drily, on hearing his request. 

"Forgive me, your Excellency, but our common acquaintances advisedme to come here. "

"H'm!" growled the director, looking with hatred at the pointedtoes of the young man's shoes. "To the best of my belief your fatheris a man of property and you are not in want, " he said. "What inducesyou to ask for this post? The salary is very trifling!"

"It's not for the sake of the salary. . . . It's a government post, any way . . . "

"H'm. . . . It strikes me that within a month you will be sick ofthe job and you will give it up, and meanwhile there are candidatesfor whom it would be a career for life. There are poor men for whom. . . "

"I shan't get sick of it, your Excellency, " Polzuhin interposed. "Honour bright, I will do my best!"

It was too much for the director. 

"Tell me, " he said, smiling contemptuously, "why was it you didn'tapply to me direct but thought fitting instead to trouble ladiesas a preliminary?"

"I didn't know that it would be disagreeable to you, " Polzuhinanswered, and he was embarrassed. "But, your Excellency, if youattach no significance to letters of recommendation, I can give youa testimonial. . . . "

He drew from his pocket a letter and handed it to the director. Atthe bottom of the testimonial, which was written in official languageand handwriting, stood the signature of the Governor. Everythingpointed to the Governor's having signed it unread, simply to getrid of some importunate lady. 

"There's nothing for it, I bow to his authority. . . I obey . . . "said the director, reading the testimonial, and he heaved a sigh. 

"Send in your application to-morrow. . . . There's nothing to bedone. . . . "

And when Polzuhin had gone out, the director abandoned himself toa feeling of repulsion. 

"Sneak!" he hissed, pacing from one corner to the other. "He hasgot what he wanted, one way or the other, the good-for-nothingtoady! Making up to the ladies! Reptile! Creature!"

The director spat loudly in the direction of the door by whichPolzuhin had departed, and was immediately overcome with embarrassment, for at that moment a lady, the wife of the Superintendent of theProvincial Treasury, walked in at the door. 

"I've come for a tiny minute . . . A tiny minute. . . " began thelady. "Sit down, friend, and listen to me attentively. . . . Well, I've been told you have a post vacant. . . . To-day or to-morrowyou will receive a visit from a young man called Polzuhin. . . . "

The lady chattered on, while the director gazed at her with lustreless, stupefied eyes like a man on the point of fainting, gazed and smiledfrom politeness. 

And the next day when Vremensky came to his office it was a longtime before the director could bring himself to tell the truth. Hehesitated, was incoherent, and could not think how to begin or whatto say. He wanted to apologize to the schoolmaster, to tell him thewhole truth, but his tongue halted like a drunkard's, his earsburned, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with vexation and resentmentthat he should have to play such an absurd part--in his own office, before his subordinate. He suddenly brought his fist down on thetable, leaped up, and shouted angrily:

"I have no post for you! I have not, and that's all about it! Leaveme in peace! Don't worry me! Be so good as to leave me alone!"

And he walked out of the office. 

A PECULIAR MAN

BETWEEN twelve and one at night a tall gentleman, wearing a top-hatand a coat with a hood, stops before the door of Marya PetrovnaKoshkin, a midwife and an old maid. Neither face nor hand can bedistinguished in the autumn darkness, but in the very manner of hiscoughing and the ringing of the bell a certain solidity, positiveness, and even impressiveness can be discerned. After the third ring thedoor opens and Marya Petrovna herself appears. She has a man'sovercoat flung on over her white petticoat. The little lamp withthe green shade which she holds in her hand throws a greenish lightover her sleepy, freckled face, her scraggy neck, and the lank, reddish hair that strays from under her cap. 

"Can I see the midwife?" asks the gentleman. 

"I am the midwife. What do you want?"

The gentleman walks into the entry and Marya Petrovna sees facingher a tall, well-made man, no longer young, but with a handsome, severe face and bushy whiskers. 

"I am a collegiate assessor, my name is Kiryakov, " he says. "I cameto fetch you to my wife. Only please make haste. "

"Very good . . . " the midwife assents. "I'll dress at once, and Imust trouble you to wait for me in the parlour. "

Kiryakov takes off his overcoat and goes into the parlour. Thegreenish light of the lamp lies sparsely on the cheap furniture inpatched white covers, on the pitiful flowers and the posts on whichivy is trained. . . . There is a smell of geranium and carbolic. The little clock on the wall ticks timidly, as though abashed atthe presence of a strange man. 

"I am ready, " says Marya Petrovna, coming into the room five minuteslater, dressed, washed, and ready for action. "Let us go. "

"Yes, you must make haste, " says Kiryakov. "And, by the way, it isnot out of place to enquire--what do you ask for your services?"

"I really don't know . . . " says Marya Petrovna with an embarrassedsmile. "As much as you will give. "

"No, I don't like that, " says Kiryakov, looking coldly and steadilyat the midwife. "An arrangement beforehand is best. I don't wantto take advantage of you and you don't want to take advantage ofme. To avoid misunderstandings it is more sensible for us to makean arrangement beforehand. "

"I really don't know--there is no fixed price. "

"I work myself and am accustomed to respect the work of others. Idon't like injustice. It will be equally unpleasant to me if I payyou too little, or if you demand from me too much, and so I insiston your naming your charge. "

"Well, there are such different charges. "

"H'm. In view of your hesitation, which I fail to understand, I amconstrained to fix the sum myself. I can give you two roubles. "

"Good gracious! . . . Upon my word! . . . " says Marya Petrovna, turning crimson and stepping back. "I am really ashamed. Ratherthan take two roubles I will come for nothing . . . . Five roubles, if you like. "

"Two roubles, not a kopeck more. I don't want to take advantage ofyou, but I do not intend to be overcharged. "

"As you please, but I am not coming for two roubles. . . . "

"But by law you have not the right to refuse. "

"Very well, I will come for nothing. "

"I won't have you for nothing. All work ought to receive remuneration. I work myself and I understand that. . . . "

"I won't come for two roubles, " Marya Petrovna answers mildly. "I'llcome for nothing if you like. "

"In that case I regret that I have troubled you for nothing. . . . I have the honour to wish you good-bye. "

"Well, you are a man!" says Marya Petrovna, seeing him into theentry. "I will come for three roubles if that will satisfy you. "

Kiryakov frowns and ponders for two full minutes, looking withconcentration on the floor, then he says resolutely, "No, " and goesout into the street. The astonished and disconcerted midwife fastensthe door after him and goes back into her bedroom. 

"He's good-looking, respectable, but how queer, God bless the man!. . . " she thinks as she gets into bed. 

But in less than half an hour she hears another ring; she gets upand sees the same Kiryakov again. 

"Extraordinary the way things are mismanaged. Neither the chemist, nor the police, nor the house-porters can give me the address of amidwife, and so I am under the necessity of assenting to your terms. I will give you three roubles, but . . . I warn you beforehand thatwhen I engage servants or receive any kind of services, I make anarrangement beforehand in order that when I pay there may be notalk of extras, tips, or anything of the sort. Everyone ought toreceive what is his due. "

Marya Petrovna has not listened to Kiryakov for long, but alreadyshe feels that she is bored and repelled by him, that his even, measured speech lies like a weight on her soul. She dresses andgoes out into the street with him. The air is still but cold, andthe sky is so overcast that the light of the street lamps is hardlyvisible. The sloshy snow squelches under their feet. The midwifelooks intently but does not see a cab. 

"I suppose it is not far?" she asks. 

"No, not far, " Kiryakov answers grimly. 

They walk down one turning, a second, a third. . . . Kiryakov stridesalong, and even in his step his respectability and positiveness isapparent. 

"What awful weather!" the midwife observes to him. 

But he preserves a dignified silence, and it is noticeable that hetries to step on the smooth stones to avoid spoiling his goloshes. At last after a long walk the midwife steps into the entry; fromwhich she can see a big decently furnished drawing-room. There isnot a soul in the rooms, even in the bedroom where the woman islying in labour. . . . The old women and relations who flock incrowds to every confinement are not to be seen. The cook rushesabout alone, with a scared and vacant face. There is a sound ofloud groans. 

Three hours pass. Marya Petrovna sits by the mother's bedside andwhispers to her. The two women have already had time to make friends, they have got to know each other, they gossip, they sigh together. . . . 

"You mustn't talk, " says the midwife anxiously, and at the sametime she showers questions on her. 

Then the door opens and Kiryakov himself comes quietly and stolidlyinto the room. He sits down in the chair and strokes his whiskers. Silence reigns. Marya Petrovna looks timidly at his handsome, passionless, wooden face and waits for him to begin to talk, buthe remains absolutely silent and absorbed in thought. After waitingin vain, the midwife makes up her mind to begin herself, and uttersa phrase commonly used at confinements. 

"Well now, thank God, there is one human being more in the world!"

"Yes, that's agreeable, " said Kiryakov, preserving the woodenexpression of his face, "though indeed, on the other hand, to havemore children you must have more money. The baby is not born fedand clothed. "

A guilty expression comes into the mother's face, as though she hadbrought a creature into the world without permission or throughidle caprice. Kiryakov gets up with a sigh and walks with soliddignity out of the room. 

"What a man, bless him!" says the midwife to the mother. "He's sostern and does not smile. "

The mother tells her that _he_ is always like that. . . . He ishonest, fair, prudent, sensibly economical, but all that to suchan exceptional degree that simple mortals feel suffocated by it. His relations have parted from him, the servants will not stay morethan a month; they have no friends; his wife and children are alwayson tenterhooks from terror over every step they take. He does notshout at them nor beat them, his virtues are far more numerous thanhis defects, but when he goes out of the house they all feel better, and more at ease. Why it is so the woman herself cannot say. 

"The basins must be properly washed and put away in the storecupboard, " says Kiryakov, coming into the bedroom. "These bottlesmust be put away too: they may come in handy. "

What he says is very simple and ordinary, but the midwife for somereason feels flustered. She begins to be afraid of the man andshudders every time she hears his footsteps. In the morning as sheis preparing to depart she sees Kiryakov's little son, a pale, close-cropped schoolboy, in the dining-room drinking his tea. . . . Kiryakov is standing opposite him, saying in his flat, even voice:

"You know how to eat, you must know how to work too. You have justswallowed a mouthful but have not probably reflected that thatmouthful costs money and money is obtained by work. You must eatand reflect. . . . "

The midwife looks at the boy's dull face, and it seems to her asthough the very air is heavy, that a little more and the very wallswill fall, unable to endure the crushing presence of the peculiarman. Beside herself with terror, and by now feeling a violent hatredfor the man, Marya Petrovna gathers up her bundles and hurriedlydeparts. 

Half-way home she remembers that she has forgotten to ask for herthree roubles, but after stopping and thinking for a minute, witha wave of her hand, she goes on. 

AT THE BARBER'S

MORNING. It is not yet seven o'clock, but Makar Kuzmitch Blyostken'sshop is already open. The barber himself, an unwashed, greasy, butfoppishly dressed youth of three and twenty, is busy clearing up;there is really nothing to be cleared away, but he is perspiringwith his exertions. In one place he polishes with a rag, in anotherhe scrapes with his finger or catches a bug and brushes it off thewall. 

The barber's shop is small, narrow, and unclean. The log walls arehung with paper suggestive of a cabman's faded shirt. Between thetwo dingy, perspiring windows there is a thin, creaking, ricketydoor, above it, green from the damp, a bell which trembles and givesa sickly ring of itself without provocation. Glance into thelooking-glass which hangs on one of the walls, and it distorts yourcountenance in all directions in the most merciless way! The shavingand haircutting is done before this looking-glass. On the littletable, as greasy and unwashed as Makar Kuzmitch himself, there iseverything: combs, scissors, razors, a ha'porth of wax for themoustache, a ha'porth of powder, a ha'porth of much watered eau deCologne, and indeed the whole barber's shop is not worth more thanfifteen kopecks. 

There is a squeaking sound from the invalid bell and an elderly manin a tanned sheepskin and high felt over-boots walks into the shop. His head and neck are wrapped in a woman's shawl. 

This is Erast Ivanitch Yagodov, Makar Kuzmitch's godfather. At onetime he served as a watchman in the Consistory, now he lives nearthe Red Pond and works as a locksmith. 

"Makarushka, good-day, dear boy!" he says to Makar Kuzmitch, whois absorbed in tidying up. 

They kiss each other. Yagodov drags his shawl off his head, crosseshimself, and sits down. 

"What a long way it is!" he says, sighing and clearing his throat. "It's no joke! From the Red Pond to the Kaluga gate. "

"How are you?"

"In a poor way, my boy. I've had a fever. "

"You don't say so! Fever!"

"Yes, I have been in bed a month; I thought I should die. I hadextreme unction. Now my hair's coming out. The doctor says I mustbe shaved. He says the hair will grow again strong. And so, Ithought, I'll go to Makar. Better to a relation than to anyone else. He will do it better and he won't take anything for it. It's ratherfar, that's true, but what of it? It's a walk. "

"I'll do it with pleasure. Please sit down. "

With a scrape of his foot Makar Kuzmitch indicates a chair. Yagodovsits down and looks at himself in the glass and is apparently pleasedwith his reflection: the looking-glass displays a face awry, withKalmuck lips, a broad, blunt nose, and eyes in the forehead. MakarKuzmitch puts round his client's shoulders a white sheet with yellowspots on it, and begins snipping with the scissors. 

"I'll shave you clean to the skin!" he says. 

"To be sure. So that I may look like a Tartar, like a bomb. Thehair will grow all the thicker. "

"How's auntie?"

"Pretty middling. The other day she went as midwife to the major'slady. They gave her a rouble. "

"Oh, indeed, a rouble. Hold your ear. "

"I am holding it. . . . Mind you don't cut me. Oy, you hurt! Youare pulling my hair. "

"That doesn't matter. We can't help that in our work. And how isAnna Erastovna?"

"My daughter? She is all right, she's skipping about. Last week onthe Wednesday we betrothed her to Sheikin. Why didn't you come?"

The scissors cease snipping. Makar Kuzmitch drops his hands andasks in a fright:

"Who is betrothed?"

"Anna. "

"How's that? To whom?"

"To Sheikin. Prokofy Petrovitch. His aunt's a housekeeper inZlatoustensky Lane. She is a nice woman. Naturally we are alldelighted, thank God. The wedding will be in a week. Mind you come;we will have a good time. "

"But how's this, Erast Ivanitch?" says Makar Kuzmitch, pale, astonished, and shrugging his shoulders. "It's . . . It's utterlyimpossible. Why, Anna Erastovna . . . Why I . . . Why, I cherishedsentiments for her, I had intentions. How could it happen?"

"Why, we just went and betrothed her. He's a good fellow. "

Cold drops of perspiration come on the face of Makar Kuzmitch. Heputs the scissors down on the table and begins rubbing his nosewith his fist. 

"I had intentions, " he says. "It's impossible, Erast Ivanitch. I. . . I am in love with her and have made her the offer of my heart. . . . And auntie promised. I have always respected you as thoughyou were my father. . . . I always cut your hair for nothing. . . . I have always obliged you, and when my papa died you took thesofa and ten roubles in cash and have never given them back. Do youremember?"

"Remember! of course I do. Only, what sort of a match would you be, Makar? You are nothing of a match. You've neither money nor position, your trade's a paltry one. "

"And is Sheikin rich?"

"Sheikin is a member of a union. He has a thousand and a half lenton mortgage. So my boy . . . . It's no good talking about it, thething's done. There is no altering it, Makarushka. You must lookout for another bride. . . . The world is not so small. Come, cutaway. Why are you stopping?"

Makar Kuzmitch is silent and remains motionless, then he takes ahandkerchief out of his pocket and begins to cry. 

"Come, what is it?" Erast Ivanitch comforts him. "Give over. Fie, he is blubbering like a woman! You finish my head and then cry. Take up the scissors!"

Makar Kuzmitch takes up the scissors, stares vacantly at them fora minute, then drops them again on the table. His hands are shaking. 

"I can't, " he says. "I can't do it just now. I haven't the strength!I am a miserable man! And she is miserable! We loved each other, we had given each other our promise and we have been separated byunkind people without any pity. Go away, Erast Ivanitch! I can'tbear the sight of you. "

"So I'll come to-morrow, Makarushka. You will finish me to-morrow. "

"Right. "

"You calm yourself and I will come to you early in the morning. "

Erast Ivanitch has half his head shaven to the skin and looks likea convict. It is awkward to be left with a head like that, but thereis no help for it. He wraps his head in the shawl and walks out ofthe barber's shop. Left alone, Makar Kuzmitch sits down and goeson quietly weeping. 

Early next morning Erast Ivanitch comes again. 

"What do you want?" Makar Kuzmitch asks him coldly. 

"Finish cutting my hair, Makarushka. There is half the head leftto do. "

"Kindly give me the money in advance. I won't cut it for nothing. "

Without saying a word Erast Ivanitch goes out, and to this day hishair is long on one side of the head and short on the other. Heregards it as extravagance to pay for having his hair cut and iswaiting for the hair to grow of itself on the shaven side. 

He danced at the wedding in that condition. 

AN INADVERTENCE

PYOTR PETROVITCH STRIZHIN, the nephew of Madame Ivanov, the colonel'swidow--the man whose new goloshes were stolen last year, --camehome from a christening party at two o'clock in the morning. Toavoid waking the household he took off his things in the lobby, made his way on tiptoe to his room, holding his breath, and begangetting ready for bed without lighting a candle. 

Strizhin leads a sober and regular life. He has a sanctimoniousexpression of face, he reads nothing but religious and edifyingbooks, but at the christening party, in his delight that LyubovSpiridonovna had passed through her confinement successfully, hehad permitted himself to drink four glasses of vodka and a glassof wine, the taste of which suggested something midway betweenvinegar and castor oil. Spirituous liquors are like sea-water andglory: the more you imbibe of them the greater your thirst. And nowas he undressed, Strizhin was aware of an overwhelming craving fordrink. 

"I believe Dashenka has some vodka in the cupboard in the right-handcorner, " he thought. "If I drink one wine-glassful, she won't noticeit. "

After some hesitation, overcoming his fears, Strizhin went to thecupboard. Cautiously opening the door he felt in the right-handcorner for a bottle and poured out a wine-glassful, put the bottleback in its place, then, making the sign of the cross, drank itoff. And immediately something like a miracle took place. Strizhinwas flung back from the cupboard to the chest with fearful forcelike a bomb. There were flashes before his eyes, he felt as thoughhe could not breathe, and all over his body he had a sensation asthough he had fallen into a marsh full of leeches. It seemed to himas though, instead of vodka, he had swallowed dynamite, which blewup his body, the house, and the whole street. . . . His head, hisarms, his legs--all seemed to be torn off and to be flying awaysomewhere to the devil, into space. 

For some three minutes he lay on the chest, not moving and scarcelybreathing, then he got up and asked himself:

"Where am I?"

The first thing of which he was clearly conscious on coming tohimself was the pronounced smell of paraffin. 

"Holy saints, " he thought in horror, "it's paraffin I have drunkinstead of vodka. "

The thought that he had poisoned himself threw him into a coldshiver, then into a fever. That it was really poison that he hadtaken was proved not only by the smell in the room but also by theburning taste in his mouth, the flashes before his eyes, the ringingin his head, and the colicky pain in his stomach. Feeling theapproach of death and not buoying himself up with false hopes, hewanted to say good-bye to those nearest to him, and made his wayto Dashenka's bedroom (being a widower he had his sister-in-lawcalled Dashenka, an old maid, living in the flat to keep house forhim). 

"Dashenka, " he said in a tearful voice as he went into the bedroom, "dear Dashenka!"

Something grumbled in the darkness and uttered a deep sigh. 

"Dashenka. "

"Eh? What?" A woman's voice articulated rapidly. "Is that you, PyotrPetrovitch? Are you back already? Well, what is it? What has thebaby been christened? Who was godmother?"

"The godmother was Natalya Andreyevna Velikosvyetsky, and thegodfather Pavel Ivanitch Bezsonnitsin. . . . I . . . I believe, Dashenka, I am dying. And the baby has been christened Olimpiada, in honour of their kind patroness. . . . I . . . I have just drunkparaffin, Dashenka!"

"What next! You don't say they gave you paraffin there?"

"I must own I wanted to get a drink of vodka without asking you, and . . . And the Lord chastised me: by accident in the dark I tookparaffin. . . . What am I to do?"

Dashenka, hearing that the cupboard had been opened without herpermission, grew more wide-awake. . . . She quickly lighted a candle, jumped out of bed, and in her nightgown, a freckled, bony figurein curl-papers, padded with bare feet to the cupboard. 

"Who told you you might?" she asked sternly, as she scrutinized theinside of the cupboard. "Was the vodka put there for you?"

"I . . . I haven't drunk vodka but paraffin, Dashenka . . . " mutteredStrizhin, mopping the cold sweat on his brow. 

"And what did you want to touch the paraffin for? That's nothingto do with you, is it? Is it put there for you? Or do you supposeparaffin costs nothing? Eh? Do you know what paraffin is now? Doyou know?"

"Dear Dashenka, " moaned Strizhin, "it's a question of life anddeath, and you talk about money!"

"He's drunk himself tipsy and now he pokes his nose into thecupboard!" cried Dashenka, angrily slamming the cupboard door. "Oh, the monsters, the tormentors! I'm a martyr, a miserable woman, nopeace day or night! Vipers, basilisks, accursed Herods, may yousuffer the same in the world to come! I am going to-morrow! I am amaiden lady and I won't allow you to stand before me in yourunderclothes! How dare you look at me when I am not dressed!"

And she went on and on. . . . Knowing that when Dashenka was enragedthere was no moving her with prayers or vows or even by firing acannon, Strizhin waved his hand in despair, dressed, and made uphis mind to go to the doctor. But a doctor is only readily foundwhen he is not wanted. After running through three streets andringing five times at Dr. Tchepharyants's, and seven times at Dr. Bultyhin's, Strizhin raced off to a chemist's shop, thinking possiblythe chemist could help him. There, after a long interval, a littledark and curly-headed chemist came out to him in his dressing gown, with drowsy eyes, and such a wise and serious face that it waspositively terrifying. 

"What do you want?" he asked in a tone in which only very wise anddignified chemists of Jewish persuasion can speak. 

"For God's sake . . . I entreat you . . . " said Strizhin breathlessly, "give me something. I have just accidentally drunk paraffin, I amdying!"

"I beg you not to excite yourself and to answer the questions I amabout to put to you. The very fact that you are excited preventsme from understanding you. You have drunk paraffin. Yes?"

"Yes, paraffin! Please save me!"

The chemist went coolly and gravely to the desk, opened a book, became absorbed in reading it. After reading a couple of pages heshrugged one shoulder and then the other, made a contemptuous grimaceand, after thinking for a minute, went into the adjoining room. Theclock struck four, and when it pointed to ten minutes past thechemist came back with another book and again plunged into reading. 

"H'm, " he said as though puzzled, "the very fact that you feelunwell shows you ought to apply to a doctor, not a chemist. "

"But I have been to the doctors already. I could not ring them up. "

"H'm . . . You don't regard us chemists as human beings, and disturbour rest even at four o'clock at night, though every dog, everycat, can rest in peace. . . . You don't try to understand anything, and to your thinking we are not people and our nerves are likecords. "

Strizhin listened to the chemist, heaved a sigh, and went home. 

"So I am fated to die, " he thought. 

And in his mouth was a burning and a taste of paraffin, there weretwinges in his stomach, and a sound of boom, boom, boom in his ears. Every moment it seemed to him that his end was near, that his heartwas no longer beating. 

Returning home he made haste to write: "Let no one be blamed formy death, " then he said his prayers, lay down and pulled thebedclothes over his head. He lay awake till morning expecting death, and all the time he kept fancying how his grave would be coveredwith fresh green grass and how the birds would twitter over it. . . . 

And in the morning he was sitting on his bed, saying with a smileto Dashenka:

"One who leads a steady and regular life, dear sister, is unaffectedby any poison. Take me, for example. I have been on the verge ofdeath. I was dying and in agony, yet now I am all right. There isonly a burning in my mouth and a soreness in my throat, but I amall right all over, thank God. . . . And why? It's because of myregular life. "

"No, it's because it's inferior paraffin!" sighed Dashenka, thinkingof the household expenses and gazing into space. "The man at theshop could not have given me the best quality, but that at threefarthings. I am a martyr, I am a miserable woman. You monsters! Mayyou suffer the same, in the world to come, accursed Herods. . . . "

And she went on and on. . . . 

THE ALBUM

KRATEROV, the titular councillor, as thin and slender as the Admiraltyspire, stepped forward and, addressing Zhmyhov, said:

"Your Excellency! Moved and touched to the bottom of our hearts bythe way you have ruled us during long years, and by your fatherlycare. . . . "

"During the course of more than ten years. . . " Zakusin prompted. 

"During the course of more than ten years, we, your subordinates, on this so memorable for us . . . Er . . . Day, beg your Excellencyto accept in token of our respect and profound gratitude this albumwith our portraits in it, and express our hope that for the durationof your distinguished life, that for long, long years to come, toyour dying day you may not abandon us. . . . "

"With your fatherly guidance in the path of justice and progress. . . "added Zakusin, wiping from his brow the perspiration that hadsuddenly appeared on it; he was evidently longing to speak, and inall probability had a speech ready. "And, " he wound up, "may yourstandard fly for long, long years in the career of genius, industry, and social self-consciousness. "

A tear trickled down the wrinkled left cheek of Zhmyhov. 

"Gentlemen!" he said in a shaking voice, "I did not expect, I hadno idea that you were going to celebrate my modest jubilee. . . . I am touched indeed . . . Very much so. . . . I shall not forgetthis moment to my dying day, and believe me . . . Believe me, friends, that no one is so desirous of your welfare as I am . . . And if there has been anything . . . It was for your benefit. "

Zhmyhov, the actual civil councillor, kissed the titular councillorKraterov, who had not expected such an honour, and turned pale withdelight. Then the chief made a gesture that signified that he couldnot speak for emotion, and shed tears as though an expensive albumhad not been presented to him, but on the contrary, taken from him. . . . Then when he had a little recovered and said a few more wordsfull of feeling and given everyone his hand to shake, he wentdownstairs amid loud and joyful cheers, got into his carriage anddrove off, followed by their blessings. As he sat in his carriagehe was aware of a flood of joyous feelings such as he had neverknown before, and once more he shed tears. 

At home new delights awaited him. There his family, his friends, and acquaintances had prepared him such an ovation that it seemedto him that he really had been of very great service to his country, and that if he had never existed his country would perhaps havebeen in a very bad way. The jubilee dinner was made up of toasts, speeches, and tears. In short, Zhmyhov had never expected that hismerits would be so warmly appreciated. 

"Gentlemen!" he said before the dessert, "two hours ago I wasrecompensed for all the sufferings a man has to undergo who is theservant, so to say, not of routine, not of the letter, but of duty!Through the whole duration of my service I have constantly adheredto the principle;--the public does not exist for us, but we forthe public, and to-day I received the highest reward! My subordinatespresented me with an album . . . See! I was touched. "

Festive faces bent over the album and began examining it. 

"It's a pretty album, " said Zhmyhov's daughter Olya, "it must havecost fifty roubles, I do believe. Oh, it's charming! You must giveme the album, papa, do you hear? I'll take care of it, it's sopretty. "

After dinner Olya carried off the album to her room and shut it upin her table drawer. Next day she took the clerks out of it, flungthem on the floor, and put her school friends in their place. Thegovernment uniforms made way for white pelerines. Kolya, hisExcellency's little son, picked up the clerks and painted theirclothes red. Those who had no moustaches he presented with greenmoustaches and added brown beards to the beardless. When there wasnothing left to paint he cut the little men out of the card-board, pricked their eyes with a pin, and began playing soldiers with them. After cutting out the titular councillor Kraterov, he fixed him ona match-box and carried him in that state to his father's study. 

"Papa, a monument, look!"

Zhmyhov burst out laughing, lurched forward, and, looking tenderlyat the child, gave him a warm kiss on the cheek. 

"There, you rogue, go and show mamma; let mamma look too. "

OH! THE PUBLIC

"HERE goes, I've done with drinking! Nothing. . . N-o-thing shalltempt me to it. It's time to take myself in hand; I must buck upand work. . . You're glad to get your salary, so you must do yourwork honestly, heartily, conscientiously, regardless of sleep andcomfort. Chuck taking it easy. You've got into the way of taking asalary for nothing, my boy--that's not the right thing . . . Notthe right thing at all. . . . "

After administering to himself several such lectures Podtyagin, thehead ticket collector, begins to feel an irresistible impulse toget to work. It is past one o'clock at night, but in spite of thathe wakes the ticket collectors and with them goes up and down therailway carriages, inspecting the tickets. 

"T-t-t-ickets . . . P-p-p-please!" he keeps shouting, brisklysnapping the clippers. 

Sleepy figures, shrouded in the twilight of the railway carriages, start, shake their heads, and produce their tickets. 

"T-t-t-tickets, please!" Podtyagin addresses a second-class passenger, a lean, scraggy-looking man, wrapped up in a fur coat and a rug andsurrounded with pillows. "Tickets, please!"

The scraggy-looking man makes no reply. He is buried in sleep. Thehead ticket-collector touches him on the shoulder and repeatsimpatiently: "T-t-tickets, p-p-please!"

The passenger starts, opens his eyes, and gazes in alarm at Podtyagin. 

"What? . . . Who? . . . Eh?"

"You're asked in plain language: t-t-tickets, p-p-please! If youplease!"

"My God!" moans the scraggy-looking man, pulling a woebegone face. "Good Heavens! I'm suffering from rheumatism. . . . I haven't sleptfor three nights! I've just taken morphia on purpose to get tosleep, and you . . . With your tickets! It's merciless, it's inhuman!If you knew how hard it is for me to sleep you wouldn't disturb mefor such nonsense. . . . It's cruel, it's absurd! And what do youwant with my ticket! It's positively stupid!"

Podtyagin considers whether to take offence or not--and decidesto take offence. 

"Don't shout here! This is not a tavern!"

"No, in a tavern people are more humane. . . " coughs the passenger. "Perhaps you'll let me go to sleep another time! It's extraordinary:I've travelled abroad, all over the place, and no one asked for myticket there, but here you're at it again and again, as though thedevil were after you. . . . "

"Well, you'd better go abroad again since you like it so much. "

"It's stupid, sir! Yes! As though it's not enough killing thepassengers with fumes and stuffiness and draughts, they want tostrangle us with red tape, too, damn it all! He must have the ticket!My goodness, what zeal! If it were of any use to the company--buthalf the passengers are travelling without a ticket!"

"Listen, sir!" cries Podtyagin, flaring up. "If you don't leave offshouting and disturbing the public, I shall be obliged to put youout at the next station and to draw up a report on the incident!"

"This is revolting!" exclaims "the public, " growing indignant. "Persecuting an invalid! Listen, and have some consideration!"

"But the gentleman himself was abusive!" says Podtyagin, a littlescared. "Very well. . . . I won't take the ticket . . . As you like. . . . Only, of course, as you know very well, it's my duty to doso. . . . If it were not my duty, then, of course. . . You can askthe station-master . . . Ask anyone you like. . . . "

Podtyagin shrugs his shoulders and walks away from the invalid. Atfirst he feels aggrieved and somewhat injured, then, after passingthrough two or three carriages, he begins to feel a certain uneasinessnot unlike the pricking of conscience in his ticket-collector'sbosom. 

"There certainly was no need to wake the invalid, " he thinks, "thoughit was not my fault. . . . They imagine I did it wantonly, idly. They don't know that I'm bound in duty . . . If they don't believeit, I can bring the station-master to them. " A station. The trainstops five minutes. Before the third bell, Podtyagin enters thesame second-class carriage. Behind him stalks the station-masterin a red cap. 

"This gentleman here, " Podtyagin begins, "declares that I have noright to ask for his ticket and . . . And is offended at it. I askyou, Mr. Station-master, to explain to him. . . . Do I ask fortickets according to regulation or to please myself? Sir, " Podtyaginaddresses the scraggy-looking man, "sir! you can ask the station-masterhere if you don't believe me. "

The invalid starts as though he had been stung, opens his eyes, andwith a woebegone face sinks back in his seat. 

"My God! I have taken another powder and only just dozed off whenhere he is again. . . Again! I beseech you have some pity on me!"

"You can ask the station-master . . . Whether I have the right todemand your ticket or not. "

"This is insufferable! Take your ticket. . . Take it! I'll pay forfive extra if you'll only let me die in peace! Have you never beenill yourself? Heartless people!"

"This is simply persecution!" A gentleman in military uniform growsindignant. "I can see no other explanation of this persistence. "

"Drop it . . . " says the station-master, frowning and pullingPodtyagin by the sleeve. 

Podtyagin shrugs his shoulders and slowly walks after the station-master. 

"There's no pleasing them!" he thinks, bewildered. "It was for hissake I brought the station-master, that he might understand and bepacified, and he . . . Swears!"

Another station. The train stops ten minutes. Before the secondbell, while Podtyagin is standing at the refreshment bar, drinkingseltzer water, two gentlemen go up to him, one in the uniform ofan engineer, and the other in a military overcoat. 

"Look here, ticket-collector!" the engineer begins, addressingPodtyagin. "Your behaviour to that invalid passenger has revoltedall who witnessed it. My name is Puzitsky; I am an engineer, andthis gentleman is a colonel. If you do not apologize to the passenger, we shall make a complaint to the traffic manager, who is a friendof ours. "

"Gentlemen! Why of course I . . . Why of course you . . . " Podtyaginis panic-stricken. 

"We don't want explanations. But we warn you, if you don't apologize, we shall see justice done to him. "

"Certainly I . . . I'll apologize, of course. . . To be sure. . . . "

Half an hour later, Podtyagin having thought of an apologetic phrasewhich would satisfy the passenger without lowering his own dignity, walks into the carriage. "Sir, " he addresses the invalid. "Listen, sir. . . . "

The invalid starts and leaps up: "What?"

"I . . . What was it? . . . You mustn't be offended. . . . "

"Och! Water . . . " gasps the invalid, clutching at his heart. "I'djust taken a third dose of morphia, dropped asleep, and . . . Again!Good God! when will this torture cease!"

"I only . . . You must excuse . . . "

"Oh! . . . Put me out at the next station! I can't stand any more. . . . I . . . I am dying. . . . "

"This is mean, disgusting!" cry the "public, " revolted. "Go away!You shall pay for such persecution. Get away!"

Podtyagin waves his hand in despair, sighs, and walks out of thecarriage. He goes to the attendants' compartment, sits down at thetable, exhausted, and complains:

"Oh, the public! There's no satisfying them! It's no use workingand doing one's best! One's driven to drinking and cursing it all. . . . If you do nothing--they're angry; if you begin doing yourduty, they're angry too. There's nothing for it but drink!"

Podtyagin empties a bottle straight off and thinks no more of work, duty, and honesty!

A TRIPPING TONGUE

NATALYA MIHALOVNA, a young married lady who had arrived in themorning from Yalta, was having her dinner, and in a never-ceasingflow of babble was telling her husband of all the charms of theCrimea. Her husband, delighted, gazed tenderly at her enthusiasticface, listened, and from time to time put in a question. 

"But they say living is dreadfully expensive there?" he asked, amongother things. 

"Well, what shall I say? To my thinking this talk of its being soexpensive is exaggerated, hubby. The devil is not as black as heis painted. Yulia Petrovna and I, for instance, had very decent andcomfortable rooms for twenty roubles a day. Everything depends onknowing how to do things, my dear. Of course if you want to go upinto the mountains . . . To Aie-Petri for instance . . . If youtake a horse, a guide, then of course it does come to something. It's awful what it comes to! But, Vassitchka, the mountains there!Imagine high, high mountains, a thousand times higher than thechurch. . . . At the top--mist, mist, mist. . . . At the bottom--enormous stones, stones, stones. . . . And pines. . . . Ah, Ican't bear to think of it!"

"By the way, I read about those Tatar guides there, in some magazinewhile you were away . . . . Such abominable stories! Tell me isthere really anything out of the way about them?"

Natalya Mihalovna made a little disdainful grimace and shook herhead. 

"Just ordinary Tatars, nothing special . . . " she said, "thoughindeed I only had a glimpse of them in the distance. They werepointed out to me, but I did not take much notice of them. You know, hubby, I always had a prejudice against all such Circassians, Greeks. . . Moors!"

"They are said to be terrible Don Juans. "

"Perhaps! There are shameless creatures who . . . . "

Natalya Mihalovna suddenly jumped up from her chair, as though shehad thought of something dreadful; for half a minute she lookedwith frightened eyes at her husband and said, accentuating eachword:

"Vassitchka, I say, the im-mo-ral women there are in the world! Ah, how immoral! And it's not as though they were working-class ormiddle-class people, but aristocratic ladies, priding themselveson their _bon-ton!_ It was simply awful, I could not believe my owneyes! I shall remember it as long as I live! To think that peoplecan forget themselves to such a point as . . . Ach, Vassitchka, Idon't like to speak of it! Take my companion, Yulia Petrovna, forexample. . . . Such a good husband, two children . . . She movesin a decent circle, always poses as a saint--and all at once, would you believe it. . . . Only, hubby, of course this is _entrenous_. . . . Give me your word of honour you won't tell a soul?"

"What next! Of course I won't tell. "

"Honour bright? Mind now! I trust you. . . . "

The little lady put down her fork, assumed a mysterious air, andwhispered:

"Imagine a thing like this. . . . That Yulia Petrovna rode up intothe mountains . . . . It was glorious weather! She rode on aheadwith her guide, I was a little behind. We had ridden two or threemiles, all at once, only fancy, Vassitchka, Yulia cried out andclutched at her bosom. Her Tatar put his arm round her waist or shewould have fallen off the saddle. . . . I rode up to her with myguide. . . . 'What is it? What is the matter?' 'Oh, ' she cried, 'Iam dying! I feel faint! I can't go any further' Fancy my alarm!'Let us go back then, ' I said. 'No, _Natalie_, ' she said, 'I can'tgo back! I shall die of pain if I move another step! I have spasms. 'And she prayed and besought my Suleiman and me to ride back to thetown and fetch her some of her drops which always do her good. "

"Stay. . . . I don't quite understand you, " muttered the husband, scratching his forehead. "You said just now that you had only seenthose Tatars from a distance, and now you are talking of someSuleiman. "

"There, you are finding fault again, " the lady pouted, not in theleast disconcerted. "I can't endure suspiciousness! I can't endureit! It's stupid, stupid!"

"I am not finding fault, but . . . Why say what is not true? If yourode about with Tatars, so be it, God bless you, but . . . Whyshuffle about it?"

"H'm! . . . You are a queer one!" cried the lady, revolted. "He isjealous of Suleiman! as though one could ride up into the mountainswithout a guide! I should like to see you do it! If you don't knowthe ways there, if you don't understand, you had better hold yourtongue! Yes, hold your tongue. You can't take a step there withouta guide. "

"So it seems!"

"None of your silly grins, if you please! I am not a Yulia. . . . I don't justify her but I . . . ! Though I don't pose as a saint, I don't forget myself to that degree. My Suleiman never oversteppedthe limits. . . . No-o! Mametkul used to be sitting at Yulia's allday long, but in my room as soon as it struck eleven: 'Suleiman, march! Off you go!' And my foolish Tatar boy would depart. I madehim mind his p's and q's, hubby! As soon as he began grumbling aboutmoney or anything, I would say 'How? Wha-at? Wha-a-a-t?' And hisheart would be in his mouth directly. . . . Ha-ha-ha! His eyes, youknow, Vassitchka, were as black, as black, like coals, such anamusing little Tatar face, so funny and silly! I kept him in order, didn't I just!"

"I can fancy . . . " mumbled her husband, rolling up pellets ofbread. 

"That's stupid, Vassitchka! I know what is in your mind! I knowwhat you are thinking . . . But I assure you even when we were onour expeditions I never let him overstep the limits. For instance, if we rode to the mountains or to the U-Chan-Su waterfall, I wouldalways say to him, 'Suleiman, ride behind! Do you hear!' And healways rode behind, poor boy. . . . Even when we . . . Even at themost dramatic moments I would say to him, 'Still, you must notforget that you are only a Tatar and I am the wife of a civilcouncillor!' Ha-ha. . . . "

The little lady laughed, then, looking round her quickly and assumingan alarmed expression, whispered:

"But Yulia! Oh, that Yulia! I quite see, Vassitchka, there is noreason why one shouldn't have a little fun, a little rest from theemptiness of conventional life! That's all right, have your flingby all means--no one will blame you, but to take the thingseriously, to get up scenes . . . No, say what you like, I cannotunderstand that! Just fancy, she was jealous! Wasn't that silly?One day Mametkul, her _grande passion_, came to see her . . . Shewas not at home. . . . Well, I asked him into my room . . . Therewas conversation, one thing and another . . . They're awfullyamusing, you know! The evening passed without our noticing it. . . . All at once Yulia rushed in. . . . She flew at me and at Mametkul--made such a scene . . . Fi! I can't understand that sort ofthing, Vassitchka. "

Vassitchka cleared his throat, frowned, and walked up and down theroom. 

"You had a gay time there, I must say, " he growled with a disdainfulsmile. 

"How stu-upid that is!" cried Natalya Mihalovna, offended. "I knowwhat you are thinking about! You always have such horrid ideas! Iwon't tell you anything! No, I won't!"

The lady pouted and said no more. 

OVERDOING IT

GLYEB GAVRILOVITCH SMIRNOV, a land surveyor, arrived at the stationof Gnilushki. He had another twenty or thirty miles to drive beforehe would reach the estate which he had been summoned to survey. (Ifthe driver were not drunk and the horses were not bad, it wouldhardly be twenty miles, but if the driver had had a drop and hissteeds were worn out it would mount up to a good forty. )

"Tell me, please, where can I get post-horses here?" the surveyorasked of the station gendarme. 

"What? Post-horses? There's no finding a decent dog for seventymiles round, let alone post-horses. . . . But where do you want togo?"

"To Dyevkino, General Hohotov's estate. "

"Well, " yawned the gendarme, "go outside the station, there aresometimes peasants in the yard there, they will take passengers. "

The surveyor heaved a sigh and made his way out of the station. 

There, after prolonged enquiries, conversations, and hesitations, he found a very sturdy, sullen-looking pock-marked peasant, wearinga tattered grey smock and bark-shoes. 

"You have got a queer sort of cart!" said the surveyor, frowningas he clambered into the cart. "There is no making out which is theback and which is the front. "

"What is there to make out? Where the horse's tail is, there's thefront, and where your honour's sitting, there's the back. "

The little mare was young, but thin, with legs planted wide apartand frayed ears. When the driver stood up and lashed her with awhip made of cord, she merely shook her head; when he swore at herand lashed her once more, the cart squeaked and shivered as thoughin a fever. After the third lash the cart gave a lurch, after thefourth, it moved forward. 

"Are we going to drive like this all the way?" asked the surveyor, violently jolted and marvelling at the capacity of Russian driversfor combining a slow tortoise-like pace with a jolting that turnsthe soul inside out. 

"We shall ge-et there!" the peasant reassured him. "The mare isyoung and frisky. . . . Only let her get running and then there isno stopping her. . . . No-ow, cur-sed brute!"

It was dusk by the time the cart drove out of the station. On thesurveyor's right hand stretched a dark frozen plain, endless andboundless. If you drove over it you would certainly get to the otherside of beyond. On the horizon, where it vanished and melted intothe sky, there was the languid glow of a cold autumn sunset. . . . On the left of the road, mounds of some sort, that might be lastyear's stacks or might be a village, rose up in the gatheringdarkness. The surveyor could not see what was in front as his wholefield of vision on that side was covered by the broad clumsy backof the driver. The air was still, but it was cold and frosty. 

"What a wilderness it is here, " thought the surveyor, trying tocover his ears with the collar of his overcoat. "Neither post norpaddock. If, by ill-luck, one were attacked and robbed no one wouldhear you, whatever uproar you made. . . . And the driver is not oneyou could depend on. . . . Ugh, what a huge back! A child of naturelike that has only to move a finger and it would be all up withone! And his ugly face is suspicious and brutal-looking. "

"Hey, my good man!" said the surveyor, "What is your name?"

"Mine? Klim. "

"Well, Klim, what is it like in your parts here? Not dangerous? Anyrobbers on the road?"

"It is all right, the Lord has spared us. . . . Who should go robbingon the road?"

"It's a good thing there are no robbers. But to be ready for anythingI have got three revolvers with me, " said the surveyor untruthfully. "And it doesn't do to trifle with a revolver, you know. One canmanage a dozen robbers. . . . "

It had become quite dark. The cart suddenly began creaking, squeaking, shaking, and, as though unwillingly, turned sharply to the left. 

"Where is he taking me to?" the surveyor wondered. "He has beendriving straight and now all at once to the left. I shouldn't wonderif he'll take me, the rascal, to some den of thieves . . . And. . . . Things like that do happen. "

"I say, " he said, addressing the driver, "so you tell me it's notdangerous here? That's a pity. . . I like a fight with robbers. . . . I am thin and sickly-looking, but I have the strength of a bull. . . . Once three robbers attacked me and what do you think? I gaveone such a dressing that. . . That he gave up his soul to God, youunderstand, and the other two were sent to penal servitude inSiberia. And where I got the strength I can't say. . . . One gripsa strapping fellow of your sort with one hand and . . . Wipes himout. "

Klim looked round at the surveyor, wrinkled up his whole face, andlashed his horse. 

"Yes . . . " the surveyor went on. "God forbid anyone should tackleme. The robber would have his bones broken, and, what's more, hewould have to answer for it in the police court too. . . . I knowall the judges and the police captains, I am a man in the Government, a man of importance. Here I am travelling and the authorities know. . . They keep a regular watch over me to see no one does me amischief. There are policemen and village constables stuck behindbushes all along the road. . . . Sto . . . Sto . . . . Stop!" thesurveyor bawled suddenly. "Where have you got to? Where are youtaking me to?"

"Why, don't you see? It's a forest!"

"It certainly is a forest, " thought the surveyor. "I was frightened!But it won't do to betray my feelings. . . . He has noticed alreadythat I am in a funk. Why is it he has taken to looking round at meso often? He is plotting something for certain. . . . At first hedrove like a snail and now how he is dashing along!"

"I say, Klim, why are you making the horse go like that?"

"I am not making her go. She is racing along of herself. . . . Onceshe gets into a run there is no means of stopping her. It's nopleasure to her that her legs are like that. "

"You are lying, my man, I see that you are lying. Only I advise younot to drive so fast. Hold your horse in a bit. . . . Do you hear?Hold her in!"

"What for?"

"Why . . . Why, because four comrades were to drive after me fromthe station. We must let them catch us up. . . . They promised toovertake us in this forest. It will be more cheerful in theircompany. . . . They are a strong, sturdy set of fellows. . . . Andeach of them has got a pistol. Why do you keep looking round andfidgeting as though you were sitting on thorns? eh? I, my goodfellow, er . . . My good fellow . . . There is no need to lookaround at me . . . There is nothing interesting about me. . . . Except perhaps the revolvers. Well, if you like I will take themout and show you. . . . "

The surveyor made a pretence of feeling in his pockets and at thatmoment something happened which he could not have expected with allhis cowardice. Klim suddenly rolled off the cart and ran as fastas he could go into the forest. 

"Help!" he roared. "Help! Take the horse and the cart, you devil, only don't take my life. Help!"

There was the sound of footsteps hurriedly retreating, of twigssnapping--and all was still. . . . The surveyor had not expectedsuch a _dénouement_. He first stopped the horse and then settledhimself more comfortably in the cart and fell to thinking. 

"He has run off . . . He was scared, the fool. Well, what's to bedone now? I can't go on alone because I don't know the way; besidesthey may think I have stolen his horse. . . . What's to be done?"

"Klim! Klim, " he cried. 

"Klim, " answered the echo. 

At the thought that he would have to sit through the whole nightin the cold and dark forest and hear nothing but the wolves, theecho, and the snorting of the scraggy mare, the surveyor began tohave twinges down his spine as though it were being rasped with acold file. 

"Klimushka, " he shouted. "Dear fellow! Where are you, Klimushka?"

For two hours the surveyor shouted, and it was only after he wasquite husky and had resigned himself to spending the night in theforest that a faint breeze wafted the sound of a moan to him. 

"Klim, is it you, dear fellow? Let us go on. "

"You'll mu-ur-der me!"

"But I was joking, my dear man! I swear to God I was joking! Asthough I had revolvers! I told a lie because I was frightened. Forgoodness sake let us go on, I am freezing!"

Klim, probably reflecting that a real robber would have vanishedlong ago with the horse and cart, came out of the forest and wenthesitatingly up to his passenger. 

"Well, what were you frightened of, stupid? I . . . I was jokingand you were frightened. Get in!"

"God be with you, sir, " Klim muttered as he clambered into the cart, "if I had known I wouldn't have taken you for a hundred roubles. Ialmost died of fright. . . . "

Klim lashed at the little mare. The cart swayed. Klim lashed oncemore and the cart gave a lurch. After the fourth stroke of the whipwhen the cart moved forward, the surveyor hid his ears in his collarand sank into thought. 

The road and Klim no longer seemed dangerous to him. 

THE ORATOR

ONE fine morning the collegiate assessor, Kirill Ivanovitch Babilonov, who had died of the two afflictions so widely spread in our country, a bad wife and alcoholism, was being buried. As the funeral processionset off from the church to the cemetery, one of the deceased'scolleagues, called Poplavsky, got into a cab and galloped off tofind a friend, one Grigory Petrovitch Zapoikin, a man who thoughstill young had acquired considerable popularity. Zapoikin, as manyof my readers are aware, possesses a rare talent for impromptuspeechifying at weddings, jubilees, and funerals. He can speakwhenever he likes: in his sleep, on an empty stomach, dead drunkor in a high fever. His words flow smoothly and evenly, like waterout of a pipe, and in abundance; there are far more moving wordsin his oratorical dictionary than there are beetles in any restaurant. He always speaks eloquently and at great length, so much so thaton some occasions, particularly at merchants' weddings, they haveto resort to assistance from the police to stop him. 

"I have come for you, old man!" began Poplavsky, finding him athome. "Put on your hat and coat this minute and come along. One ofour fellows is dead, we are just sending him off to the other world, so you must do a bit of palavering by way of farewell to him. . . . You are our only hope. If it had been one of the smaller fry itwould not have been worth troubling you, but you see it's thesecretary . . . A pillar of the office, in a sense. It's awkwardfor such a whopper to be buried without a speech. "

"Oh, the secretary!" yawned Zapoikin. "You mean the drunken one?"

"Yes. There will be pancakes, a lunch . . . You'll get your cab-fare. Come along, dear chap. You spout out some rigmarole like a regularCicero at the grave and what gratitude you will earn!"

Zapoikin readily agreed. He ruffled up his hair, cast a shade ofmelancholy over his face, and went out into the street with Poplavsky. 

"I know your secretary, " he said, as he got into the cab. "A cunningrogue and a beast--the kingdom of heaven be his--such as youdon't often come across. "

"Come, Grisha, it is not the thing to abuse the dead. "

"Of course not, _aut mortuis nihil bene_, but still he was a rascal. "

The friends overtook the funeral procession and joined it. Thecoffin was borne along slowly so that before they reached thecemetery they were able three times to drop into a tavern and imbibea little to the health of the departed. 

In the cemetery came the service by the graveside. The mother-in-law, the wife, and the sister-in-law in obedience to custom shed manytears. When the coffin was being lowered into the grave the wifeeven shrieked "Let me go with him!" but did not follow her husbandinto the grave probably recollecting her pension. Waiting tilleverything was quiet again Zapoikin stepped forward, turned hiseyes on all present, and began:

"Can I believe my eyes and ears? Is it not a terrible dream thisgrave, these tear-stained faces, these moans and lamentations? Alas, it is not a dream and our eyes do not deceive us! He whom we haveonly so lately seen, so full of courage, so youthfully fresh andpure, who so lately before our eyes like an unwearying bee bore hishoney to the common hive of the welfare of the state, he who . . . He is turned now to dust, to inanimate mirage. Inexorable death haslaid his bony hand upon him at the time when, in spite of his bowedage, he was still full of the bloom of strength and radiant hopes. An irremediable loss! Who will fill his place for us? Good governmentservants we have many, but Prokofy Osipitch was unique. To thedepths of his soul he was devoted to his honest duty; he did notspare his strength but worked late at night, and was disinterested, impervious to bribes. . . . How he despised those who to the detrimentof the public interest sought to corrupt him, who by the seductivegoods of this life strove to draw him to betray his duty! Yes, before our eyes Prokofy Osipitch would divide his small salarybetween his poorer colleagues, and you have just heard yourselvesthe lamentations of the widows and orphans who lived upon his alms. Devoted to good works and his official duty, he gave up the joysof this life and even renounced the happiness of domestic existence;as you are aware, to the end of his days he was a bachelor. And whowill replace him as a comrade? I can see now the kindly, shavenface turned to us with a gentle smile, I can hear now his softfriendly voice. Peace to thine ashes, Prokofy Osipitch! Rest, honest, noble toiler!"

Zapoikin continued while his listeners began whispering together. His speech pleased everyone and drew some tears, but a good manythings in it seemed strange. In the first place they could not makeout why the orator called the deceased Prokofy Osipitch when hisname was Kirill Ivanovitch. In the second, everyone knew that thedeceased had spent his whole life quarelling with his lawful wife, and so consequently could not be called a bachelor; in the third, he had a thick red beard and had never been known to shave, and sono one could understand why the orator spoke of his shaven face. The listeners were perplexed; they glanced at each other and shruggedtheir shoulders. 

"Prokofy Osipitch, " continued the orator, looking with an air ofinspiration into the grave, "your face was plain, even hideous, youwere morose and austere, but we all know that under that outer huskthere beat an honest, friendly heart!"

Soon the listeners began to observe something strange in the oratorhimself. He gazed at one point, shifted about uneasily and beganto shrug his shoulders too. All at once he ceased speaking, andgaping with astonishment, turned to Poplavsky. 

"I say! he's alive, " he said, staring with horror. 

"Who's alive?"

"Why, Prokofy Osipitch, there he stands, by that tombstone!"

"He never died! It's Kirill Ivanovitch who's dead. "

"But you told me yourself your secretary was dead. "

"Kirill Ivanovitch was our secretary. You've muddled it, you queerfish. Prokofy Osipitch was our secretary before, that's true, buttwo years ago he was transferred to the second division as headclerk. "

"How the devil is one to tell?"

"Why are you stopping? Go on, it's awkward. "

Zapoikin turned to the grave, and with the same eloquence continuedhis interrupted speech. Prokofy Osipitch, an old clerk with aclean-shaven face, was in fact standing by a tombstone. He lookedat the orator and frowned angrily. 

"Well, you have put your foot into it, haven't you!" laughed hisfellow-clerks as they returned from the funeral with Zapoikin. "Burying a man alive!"

"It's unpleasant, young man, " grumbled Prokofy Osipitch. "Yourspeech may be all right for a dead man, but in reference to a livingone it is nothing but sarcasm! Upon my soul what have you beensaying? Disinterested, incorruptible, won't take bribes! Such thingscan only be said of the living in sarcasm. And no one asked you, sir, to expatiate on my face. Plain, hideous, so be it, but whyexhibit my countenance in that public way! It's insulting. "

MALINGERERS

MARFA PETROVNA PETCHONKIN, the General's widow, who has beenpractising for ten years as a homeopathic doctor, is seeing patientsin her study on one of the Tuesdays in May. On the table before herlie a chest of homeopathic drugs, a book on homeopathy, and billsfrom a homeopathic chemist. On the wall the letters from somePetersburg homeopath, in Marfa Petrovna's opinion a very celebratedand great man, hang under glass in a gilt frame, and there also isa portrait of Father Aristark, to whom the lady owes her salvation--that is, the renunciation of pernicious allopathy and the knowledgeof the truth. In the vestibule patients are sitting waiting, forthe most part peasants. All but two or three of them are barefoot, as the lady has given orders that their ill-smelling boots are tobe left in the yard. 

Marfa Petrovna has already seen ten patients when she calls theeleventh: "Gavrila Gruzd!"

The door opens and instead of Gavrila Gruzd, Zamuhrishen, aneighbouring landowner who has sunk into poverty, a little old manwith sour eyes, and with a gentleman's cap under his arm, walksinto the room. He puts down his stick in the corner, goes up to thelady, and without a word drops on one knee before her. 

"What are you about, Kuzma Kuzmitch?" cries the lady in horror, flushing crimson. "For goodness sake!"

"While I live I will not rise, " says Zamuhrishen, bending over herhand. "Let all the world see my homage on my knees, our guardianangel, benefactress of the human race! Let them! Before the goodfairy who has given me life, guided me into the path of truth, andenlightened my scepticism I am ready not merely to kneel but topass through fire, our miraculous healer, mother of the orphan andthe widowed! I have recovered. I am a new man, enchantress!"

"I . . . I am very glad . . . " mutters the lady, flushing withpleasure. "It's so pleasant to hear that. . . Sit down please! Why, you were so seriously ill that Tuesday. "

"Yes indeed, how ill I was! It's awful to recall it, " says Zamuhrishen, taking a seat. "I had rheumatism in every part and every organ. Ihave been in misery for eight years, I've had no rest from it . . . By day or by night, my benefactress. I have consulted doctors, and I went to professors at Kazan; I have tried all sorts ofmud-baths, and drunk waters, and goodness knows what I haven'ttried! I have wasted all my substance on doctors, my beautiful lady. The doctors did me nothing but harm. They drove the disease inwards. Drive in, that they did, but to drive out was beyond their science. All they care about is their fees, the brigands; but as for thebenefit of humanity--for that they don't care a straw. Theyprescribe some quackery, and you have to drink it. Assassins, that'sthe only word for them. If it hadn't been for you, our angel, Ishould have been in the grave by now! I went home from you thatTuesday, looked at the pilules that you gave me then, and wonderedwhat good there could be in them. Was it possible that those littlegrains, scarcely visible, could cure my immense, long-standingdisease? That's what I thought--unbeliever that I was!--and Ismiled; but when I took the pilule--it was instantaneous! It wasas though I had not been ill, or as though it had been lifted offme. My wife looked at me with her eyes starting out of her head andcouldn't believe it. 'Why, is it you, Kolya?' 'Yes, it is I, ' Isaid. And we knelt down together before the ikon, and fell to prayingfor our angel: 'Send her, O Lord, all that we are feeling!'"

Zamuhrishen wipes his eyes with his sleeve gets up from his chair, and shows a disposition to drop on one knee again; but the ladychecks him and makes him sit down. 

"It's not me you must thank, " she says, blushing with excitementand looking enthusiastically at the portrait of Father Aristark. "It's not my doing. . . . I am only the obedient instrument . . It's really a miracle. Rheumatism of eight years' standing by onepilule of scrofuloso!"

"Excuse me, you were so kind as to give me three pilules. One Itook at dinner and the effect was instantaneous! Another in theevening, and the third next day; and since then not a touch! Not atwinge anywhere! And you know I thought I was dying, I had writtento Moscow for my son to come! The Lord has given you wisdom, ourlady of healing! Now I am walking, and feel as though I were inParadise. The Tuesday I came to you I was hobbling, and now I amready to run after a hare. . . . I could live for a hundred years. There's only one trouble, our lack of means. I'm well now, butwhat's the use of health if there's nothing to live on? Povertyweighs on me worse than illness. . . . For example, take this . . . It's the time to sow oats, and how is one to sow it if one hasno seed? I ought to buy it, but the money . . . Everyone knows howwe are off for money. . . . "

"I will give you oats, Kuzma Kuzmitch. . . . Sit down, sit down. You have so delighted me, you have given me so much pleasure thatit's not you but I that should say thank you!"

"You are our joy! That the Lord should create such goodness! Rejoice, Madam, looking at your good deeds! . . . While we sinners have nocause for rejoicing in ourselves. . . . We are paltry, poor-spirited, useless people . . . A mean lot. . . . We are only gentry in name, but in a material sense we are the same as peasants, only worse. . . . We live in stone houses, but it's a mere make-believe . . . Forthe roof leaks. And there is no money to buy wood to mend it with. "

"I'll give you the wood, Kuzma Kuzmitch. "

Zamuhrishen asks for and gets a cow too, a letter of recommendationfor his daughter whom he wants to send to a boarding school, and. . . Touched by the lady's liberality he whimpers with excess offeeling, twists his mouth, and feels in his pocket for his handkerchief. . . . 

Marfa Petrovna sees a red paper slip out of his pocket with hishandkerchief and fall noiselessly to the floor. 

"I shall never forget it to all eternity . . . " he mutters, "and Ishall make my children and my grandchildren remember it . . . Fromgeneration to generation. 'See, children, ' I shall say, 'who hassaved me from the grave, who . . . '"

When she has seen her patient out, the lady looks for a minute atFather Aristark with eyes full of tears, then turns her caressing, reverent gaze on the drug chest, the books, the bills, the armchairin which the man she had saved from death has just been sitting, and her eyes fall on the paper just dropped by her patient. Shepicks up the paper, unfolds it, and sees in it three pilules--thevery pilules she had given Zamuhrishen the previous Tuesday. 

"They are the very ones, " she thinks puzzled. ". . . The paper isthe same. . . . He hasn't even unwrapped them! What has he takenthen? Strange. . . . Surely he wouldn't try to deceive me!"

And for the first time in her ten years of practice a doubt creepsinto Marfa Petrovna's mind. . . . She summons the other patients, and while talking to them of their complaints notices what hashitherto slipped by her ears unnoticed. The patients, every one ofthem as though they were in a conspiracy, first belaud her for theirmiraculous cure, go into raptures over her medical skill, and abuseallopath doctors, then when she is flushed with excitement, beginholding forth on their needs. One asks for a bit of land to plough, another for wood, a third for permission to shoot in her forests, and so on. She looks at the broad, benevolent countenance of FatherAristark who has revealed the truth to her, and a new truth beginsgnawing at her heart. An evil oppressive truth. . . . 

The deceitfulness of man!

IN THE GRAVEYARD

"THE wind has got up, friends, and it is beginning to get dark. Hadn't we better take ourselves off before it gets worse?"

The wind was frolicking among the yellow leaves of the old birchtrees, and a shower of thick drops fell upon us from the leaves. One of our party slipped on the clayey soil, and clutched at a biggrey cross to save himself from falling. 

"Yegor Gryaznorukov, titular councillor and cavalier . . " he read. "I knew that gentleman. He was fond of his wife, he wore the Stanislavribbon, and read nothing. . . . His digestion worked well . . . . Life was all right, wasn't it? One would have thought he had noreason to die, but alas! fate had its eye on him. . . . The poorfellow fell a victim to his habits of observation. On one occasion, when he was listening at a keyhole, he got such a bang on the headfrom the door that he sustained concussion of the brain (he had abrain), and died. And here, under this tombstone, lies a man whofrom his cradle detested verses and epigrams. . . . As though tomock him his whole tombstone is adorned with verses. . . . Thereis someone coming!"

A man in a shabby overcoat, with a shaven, bluish-crimson countenance, overtook us. He had a bottle under his arm and a parcel of sausagewas sticking out of his pocket. 

"Where is the grave of Mushkin, the actor?" he asked us in a huskyvoice. 

We conducted him towards the grave of Mushkin, the actor, who haddied two years before. 

"You are a government clerk, I suppose?" we asked him. 

"No, an actor. Nowadays it is difficult to distinguish actors fromclerks of the Consistory. No doubt you have noticed that. . . . That's typical, but it's not very flattering for the governmentclerk. "

It was with difficulty that we found the actor's grave. It hadsunken, was overgrown with weeds, and had lost all appearance of agrave. A cheap, little cross that had begun to rot, and was coveredwith green moss blackened by the frost, had an air of aged dejectionand looked, as it were, ailing. 

". . . Forgotten friend Mushkin . . . " we read. 

Time had erased the _never_, and corrected the falsehood of man. 

"A subscription for a monument to him was got up among actors andjournalists, but they drank up the money, the dear fellows . . . "sighed the actor, bowing down to the ground and touching the wetearth with his knees and his cap. 

"How do you mean, drank it?"

That's very simple. They collected the money, published a paragraphabout it in the newspaper, and spent it on drink. . . . I don't sayit to blame them. . . . I hope it did them good, dear things! Goodhealth to them, and eternal memory to him. "

"Drinking means bad health, and eternal memory nothing but sadness. God give us remembrance for a time, but eternal memory--whatnext!"

"You are right there. Mushkin was a well-known man, you see; therewere a dozen wreaths on the coffin, and he is already forgotten. Those to whom he was dear have forgotten him, but those to whom hedid harm remember him. I, for instance, shall never, never forgethim, for I got nothing but harm from him. I have no love for thedeceased. "

"What harm did he do you?"

"Great harm, " sighed the actor, and an expression of bitter resentmentoverspread his face. "To me he was a villain and a scoundrel--theKingdom of Heaven be his! It was through looking at him and listeningto him that I became an actor. By his art he lured me from theparental home, he enticed me with the excitements of an actor'slife, promised me all sorts of things--and brought tears andsorrow. . . . An actor's lot is a bitter one! I have lost youth, sobriety, and the divine semblance. . . . I haven't a half-pennyto bless myself with, my shoes are down at heel, my breeches arefrayed and patched, and my face looks as if it had been gnawed bydogs. . . . My head's full of freethinking and nonsense. . . . Herobbed me of my faith--my evil genius! It would have been somethingif I had had talent, but as it is, I am ruined for nothing. . . . It's cold, honoured friends. . . . Won't you have some? There isenough for all. . . . B-r-r-r. . . . Let us drink to the rest ofhis soul! Though I don't like him and though he's dead, he was theonly one I had in the world, the only one. It's the last time Ishall visit him. . . . The doctors say I shall soon die of drink, so here I have come to say good-bye. One must forgive one's enemies. "

We left the actor to converse with the dead Mushkin and went on. It began drizzling a fine cold rain. 

At the turning into the principal avenue strewn with gravel, we meta funeral procession. Four bearers, wearing white calico sashes andmuddy high boots with leaves sticking on them, carried the browncoffin. It was getting dark and they hastened, stumbling and shakingtheir burden. . . . 

"We've only been walking here for a couple of hours and that is thethird brought in already. . . . Shall we go home, friends?"

HUSH!

IVAN YEGORITCH KRASNYHIN, a fourth-rate journalist, returns homelate at night, grave and careworn, with a peculiar air of concentration. He looks like a man expecting a police-raid or contemplating suicide. Pacing about his rooms he halts abruptly, ruffles up his hair, andsays in the tone in which Laertes announces his intention of avenginghis sister:

"Shattered, soul-weary, a sick load of misery on the heart . . . And then to sit down and write. And this is called life! How is itnobody has described the agonizing discord in the soul of a writerwho has to amuse the crowd when his heart is heavy or to shed tearsat the word of command when his heart is light? I must be playful, coldly unconcerned, witty, but what if I am weighed down with misery, what if I am ill, or my child is dying or my wife in anguish!"

He says this, brandishing his fists and rolling his eyes. . . . Then he goes into the bedroom and wakes his wife. 

"Nadya, " he says, "I am sitting down to write. . . . Please don'tlet anyone interrupt me. I can't write with children crying or cookssnoring. . . . See, too, that there's tea and . . . Steak orsomething. . . . You know that I can't write without tea. . . . Teais the one thing that gives me the energy for my work. "

Returning to his room he takes off his coat, waistcoat, and boots. He does this very slowly; then, assuming an expression of injuredinnocence, he sits down to his table. 

There is nothing casual, nothing ordinary on his writing-table, down to the veriest trifle everything bears the stamp of a stern, deliberately planned programme. Little busts and photographs ofdistinguished writers, heaps of rough manuscripts, a volume ofByelinsky with a page turned down, part of a skull by way of anash-tray, a sheet of newspaper folded carelessly, but so that apassage is uppermost, boldly marked in blue pencil with the word"disgraceful. " There are a dozen sharply-pointed pencils and severalpenholders fitted with new nibs, put in readiness that no accidentalbreaking of a pen may for a single second interrupt the flight ofhis creative fancy. 

Ivan Yegoritch throws himself back in his chair, and closing hiseyes concentrates himself on his subject. He hears his wife shufflingabout in her slippers and splitting shavings to heat the samovar. She is hardly awake, that is apparent from the way the knife andthe lid of the samovar keep dropping from her hands. Soon the hissingof the samovar and the spluttering of the frying meat reaches him. His wife is still splitting shavings and rattling with the doorsand blowers of the stove. 

All at once Ivan Yegoritch starts, opens frightened eyes, and beginsto sniff the air. 

"Heavens! the stove is smoking!" he groans, grimacing with a faceof agony. "Smoking! That insufferable woman makes a point of tryingto poison me! How, in God's Name, am I to write in such surroundings, kindly tell me that?"

He rushes into the kitchen and breaks into a theatrical wail. Whena little later, his wife, stepping cautiously on tiptoe, brings himin a glass of tea, he is sitting in an easy chair as before withhis eyes closed, absorbed in his article. He does not stir, drumslightly on his forehead with two fingers, and pretends he is notaware of his wife's presence. . . . His face wears an expressionof injured innocence. 

Like a girl who has been presented with a costly fan, he spends along time coquetting, grimacing, and posing to himself before hewrites the title. . . . He presses his temples, he wriggles, anddraws his legs up under his chair as though he were in pain, orhalf closes his eyes languidly like a cat on the sofa. At last, notwithout hesitation, he stretches out his hand towards the inkstand, and with an expression as though he were signing a death-warrant, writes the title. . . . 

"Mammy, give me some water!" he hears his son's voice. 

"Hush!" says his mother. "Daddy's writing! Hush!"

Daddy writes very, very quickly, without corrections or pauses, hehas scarcely time to turn over the pages. The busts and portraitsof celebrated authors look at his swiftly racing pen and, keepingstock still, seem to be thinking: "Oh my, how you are going it!"

"Sh!" squeaks the pen. 

"Sh!" whisper the authors, when his knee jolts the table and theyare set trembling. 

All at once Krasnyhin draws himself up, lays down his pen andlistens. . . . He hears an even monotonous whispering. . . . It isFoma Nikolaevitch, the lodger in the next room, saying his prayers. 

"I say!" cries Krasnyhin. "Couldn't you, please, say your prayersmore quietly? You prevent me from writing!"

"Very sorry. . . . " Foma Nikolaevitch answers timidly. 

After covering five pages, Krasnyhin stretches and looks at hiswatch. 

"Goodness, three o'clock already, " he moans. "Other people areasleep while I . . . I alone must work!"

Shattered and exhausted he goes, with his head on one side, to thebedroom to wake his wife, and says in a languid voice:

"Nadya, get me some more tea! I . . . Feel weak. "

He writes till four o'clock and would readily have written till sixif his subject had not been exhausted. Coquetting and posing tohimself and the inanimate objects about him, far from any indiscreet, critical eye, tyrannizing and domineering over the little anthillthat fate has put in his power are the honey and the salt of hisexistence. And how different is this despot here at home from thehumble, meek, dull-witted little man we are accustomed to see inthe editor's offices!

"I am so exhausted that I am afraid I shan't sleep . . . " he saysas he gets into bed. "Our work, this cursed, ungrateful hard labour, exhausts the soul even more than the body. . . . I had better takesome bromide. . . . God knows, if it were not for my family I'dthrow up the work. . . . To write to order! It is awful. "

He sleeps till twelve or one o'clock in the day, sleeps a sound, healthy sleep. . . . Ah! how he would sleep, what dreams he wouldhave, how he would spread himself if he were to become a well-knownwriter, an editor, or even a sub-editor!

"He has been writing all night, " whispers his wife with a scaredexpression on her face. "Sh!"

No one dares to speak or move or make a sound. His sleep is somethingsacred, and the culprit who offends against it will pay dearly forhis fault. 

"Hush!" floats over the flat. "Hush!"

IN AN HOTEL

"LET me tell you, my good man, " began Madame Nashatyrin, the colonel'slady at No. 47, crimson and spluttering, as she pounced on thehotel-keeper. "Either give me other apartments, or I shall leaveyour confounded hotel altogether! It's a sink of iniquity! Mercyon us, I have grown-up daughters and one hears nothing but abominationsday and night! It's beyond everything! Day and night! Sometimes hefires off such things that it simply makes one's ears blush!Positively like a cabman. It's a good thing that my poor girls don'tunderstand or I should have to fly out into the street with them. . . He's saying something now! You listen!"

"I know a thing better than that, my boy, " a husky bass floated infrom the next room. "Do you remember Lieutenant Druzhkov? Well, that same Druzhkov was one day making a drive with the yellow intothe pocket and as he usually did, you know, flung up his leg. . . . All at once something went crrr-ack! At first they thought he hadtorn the cloth of the billiard table, but when they looked, my dearfellow, his United States had split at every seam! He had made sucha high kick, the beast, that not a seam was left. . . . Ha-ha-ha, and there were ladies present, too . . . Among others the wife ofthat drivelling Lieutenant Okurin. . . . Okurin was furious. . . . 'How dare the fellow, ' said he, 'behave with impropriety in thepresence of my wife?' One thing led to another . . . You know ourfellows! . . . Okurin sent seconds to Druzhkov, and Druzhkov said'don't be a fool' . . . Ha-ha-ha, 'but tell him he had better sendseconds not to me but to the tailor who made me those breeches; itis his fault, you know. ' Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha. . . . "

Lilya and Mila, the colonel's daughters, who were sitting in thewindow with their round cheeks propped on their fists, flushedcrimson and dropped their eyes that looked buried in their plumpfaces. 

"Now you have heard him, haven't you?" Madame Nashatyrin went on, addressing the hotel-keeper. "And that, you consider, of noconsequence, I suppose? I am the wife of a colonel, sir! My husbandis a commanding officer. I will not permit some cabman to uttersuch infamies almost in my presence!"

"He is not a cabman, madam, but the staff-captain Kikin. . . . Agentleman born. "

"If he has so far forgotten his station as to express himself likea cabman, then he is even more deserving of contempt! In short, don't answer me, but kindly take steps!"

"But what can I do, madam? You are not the only one to complain, everybody's complaining, but what am I to do with him? One goes tohis room and begins putting him to shame, saying: 'Hannibal Ivanitch, have some fear of God! It's shameful! and he'll punch you in theface with his fists and say all sorts of things: 'there, put thatin your pipe and smoke it, ' and such like. It's a disgrace! He wakesup in the morning and sets to walking about the corridor in nothing, saving your presence, but his underclothes. And when he has had adrop he will pick up a revolver and set to putting bullets into thewall. By day he is swilling liquor and at night he plays cards likemad, and after cards it is fighting. . . . I am ashamed for theother lodgers to see it!"

"Why don't you get rid of the scoundrel?"

"Why, there's no getting him out! He owes me for three months, butwe don't ask for our money, we simply ask him to get out as a favour. . . . The magistrate has given him an order to clear out of therooms, but he's taking it from one court to another, and so it dragson. . . . He's a perfect nuisance, that's what he is. And, goodLord, such a man, too! Young, good-looking and intellectual. . . . When he hasn't had a drop you couldn't wish to see a nicer gentleman. The other day he wasn't drunk and he spent the whole day writingletters to his father and mother. "

"Poor father and mother!" sighed the colonel's lady. 

"They are to be pitied, to be sure! There's no comfort in havingsuch a scamp! He's sworn at and turned out of his lodgings, and nota day passes but he is in trouble over some scandal. It's sad!"

"His poor unhappy wife!" sighed the lady. 

"He has no wife, madam. A likely idea! She would have to thank Godif her head were not broken. . . . "

The lady walked up and down the room. 

"He is not married, you say?"

"Certainly not, madam. "

The lady walked up and down the room again and mused a little. 

"H'm, not married . . . " she pronounced meditatively. "H'm. Lilyaand Mila, don't sit at the window, there's a draught! What a pity!A young man and to let himself sink to this! And all owing to what?The lack of good influence! There is no mother who would. . . . Notmarried? Well . . . There it is. . . . Please be so good, " the ladycontinued suavely after a moment's thought, "as to go to him andask him in my name to . . . Refrain from using expressions. . . . Tell him that Madame Nashatyrin begs him. . . . Tell him she isstaying with her daughters in No. 47 . . . That she has come upfrom her estate in the country. . . . "

"Certainly. "

"Tell him, a colonel's lady and her daughters. He might even comeand apologize. . . . We are always at home after dinner. Oh, Mila, shut the window!"

"Why, what do you want with that . . . Black sheep, mamma?" drawledLilya when the hotel-keeper had retired. "A queer person to invite!A drunken, rowdy rascal!"

"Oh, don't say so, ma chère! You always talk like that; and there. . . Sit down! Why, whatever he may be, we ought not to despisehim. . . . There's something good in everyone. Who knows, " sighedthe colonel's lady, looking her daughters up and down anxiously, "perhaps your fate is here. Change your dresses anyway. . . . "

IN A STRANGE LAND

SUNDAY, midday. A landowner, called Kamyshev, is sitting in hisdining-room, deliberately eating his lunch at a luxuriously furnishedtable. Monsieur Champoun, a clean, neat, smoothly-shaven, oldFrenchman, is sharing the meal with him. This Champoun had oncebeen a tutor in Kamyshev's household, had taught his children goodmanners, the correct pronunciation of French, and dancing: afterwardswhen Kamyshev's children had grown up and become lieutenants, Champoun had become something like a _bonne_ of the male sex. Theduties of the former tutor were not complicated. He had to beproperly dressed, to smell of scent, to listen to Kamyshev's idlebabble, to eat and drink and sleep--and apparently that was all. For this he received a room, his board, and an indefinite salary. 

Kamyshev eats and as usual babbles at random. 

"Damnation!" he says, wiping away the tears that have come into hiseyes after a mouthful of ham thickly smeared with mustard. "Ough!It has shot into my head and all my joints. Your French mustardwould not do that, you know, if you ate the whole potful. "

"Some like the French, some prefer the Russian. . . " Champoun assentsmildly. 

"No one likes French mustard except Frenchmen. And a Frenchman willeat anything, whatever you give him--frogs and rats and blackbeetles. . . Brrr! You don't like that ham, for instance, becauseit is Russian, but if one were to give you a bit of baked glass andtell you it was French, you would eat it and smack your lips. . . . To your thinking everything Russian is nasty. "

"I don't say that. "

"Everything Russian is nasty, but if it's French--o say trayzholee! To your thinking there is no country better than France, but to my mind. . . Why, what is France, to tell the truth aboutit? A little bit of land. Our police captain was sent out there, but in a month he asked to be transferred: there was nowhere toturn round! One can drive round the whole of your France in oneday, while here when you drive out of the gate--you can see noend to the land, you can ride on and on. . . "

"Yes, monsieur, Russia is an immense country. "

"To be sure it is! To your thinking there are no better people thanthe French. Well-educated, clever people! Civilization! I agree, the French are all well-educated with elegant manners. . . That istrue. . . . A Frenchman never allows himself to be rude: he handsa lady a chair at the right minute, he doesn't eat crayfish withhis fork, he doesn't spit on the floor, but . . . There's not thesame spirit in him! not the spirit in him! I don't know how toexplain it to you but, however one is to express it, there's nothingin a Frenchman of . . . Something . . . (the speaker flourishes hisfingers) . . . Of something . . . Fanatical. I remember I have readsomewhere that all of you have intelligence acquired from books, while we Russians have innate intelligence. If a Russian studiesthe sciences properly, none of your French professors is a matchfor him. "

"Perhaps, " says Champoun, as it were reluctantly. 

"No, not perhaps, but certainly! It's no use your frowning, it'sthe truth I am speaking. The Russian intelligence is an inventiveintelligence. Only of course he is not given a free outlet for it, and he is no hand at boasting. He will invent something--and breakit or give it to the children to play with, while your Frenchmanwill invent some nonsensical thing and make an uproar for all theworld to hear it. The other day Iona the coachman carved a littleman out of wood, if you pull the little man by a thread he playsunseemly antics. But Iona does not brag of it. . . . I don't likeFrenchmen as a rule. I am not referring to you, but speakinggenerally. . . . They are an immoral people! Outwardly they looklike men, but they live like dogs. Take marriage for instance. Withus, once you are married, you stick to your wife, and there is notalk about it, but goodness knows how it is with you. The husbandis sitting all day long in a café, while his wife fills the housewith Frenchmen, and sets to dancing the can-can with them. "

"That's not true!" Champoun protests, flaring up and unable torestrain himself. "The principle of the family is highly esteemedin France. "

"We know all about that principle! You ought to be ashamed to defendit: one ought to be impartial: a pig is always a pig. . . . We mustthank the Germans for having beaten them. . . . Yes indeed, Godbless them for it. "

"In that case, monsieur, I don't understand. . . " says the Frenchmanleaping up with flashing eyes, "if you hate the French why do youkeep me?"

"What am I to do with you?"

"Let me go, and I will go back to France. "

"Wha-at? But do you suppose they would let you into France now?Why, you are a traitor to your country! At one time Napoleon's yourgreat man, at another Gambetta. . . . Who the devil can make youout?"

"Monsieur, " says Champoun in French, spluttering and crushing uphis table napkin in his hands, "my worst enemy could not have thoughtof a greater insult than the outrage you have just done to myfeelings! All is over!"

And with a tragic wave of his arm the Frenchman flings his dinnernapkin on the table majestically, and walks out of the room withdignity. 

Three hours later the table is laid again, and the servants bringin the dinner. Kamyshev sits alone at the table. After the preliminaryglass he feels a craving to babble. He wants to chatter, but he hasno listener. 

"What is Alphonse Ludovikovitch doing?" he asks the footman. 

"He is packing his trunk, sir. "

"What a noodle! Lord forgive us!" says Kamyshev, and goes in to theFrenchman. 

Champoun is sitting on the floor in his room, and with tremblinghands is packing in his trunk his linen, scent bottles, prayer-books, braces, ties. . . . All his correct figure, his trunk, his bedsteadand the table--all have an air of elegance and effeminacy. Greattears are dropping from his big blue eyes into the trunk. 

"Where are you off to?" asks Kamyshev, after standing still for alittle. 

The Frenchman says nothing. 

"Do you want to go away?" Kamyshev goes on. "Well, you know, but. . . I won't venture to detain you. But what is queer is, how areyou going to travel without a passport? I wonder! You know I havelost your passport. I thrust it in somewhere between some papers, and it is lost. . . . And they are strict about passports among us. Before you have gone three or four miles they pounce upon you. "

Champoun raises his head and looks mistrustfully at Kamyshev. 

"Yes. . . . You will see! They will see from your face you haven'ta passport, and ask at once: Who is that? Alphonse Champoun. Weknow that Alphonse Champoun. Wouldn't you like to go under policeescort somewhere nearer home!"

"Are you joking?"

"What motive have I for joking? Why should I? Only mind now; it'sa compact, don't you begin whining then and writing letters. I won'tstir a finger when they lead you by in fetters!"

Champoun jumps up and, pale and wide-eyed, begins pacing up anddown the room. 

"What are you doing to me?" he says in despair, clutching at hishead. "My God! accursed be that hour when the fatal thought ofleaving my country entered my head! . . . "

"Come, come, come . . . I was joking!" says Kamyshev in a lowertone. "Queer fish he is; he doesn't understand a joke. One can'tsay a word!"

"My dear friend!" shrieks Champoun, reassured by Kamyshev's tone. "I swear I am devoted to Russia, to you and your children. . . . To leave you is as bitter to me as death itself! But every word youutter stabs me to the heart!"

"Ah, you queer fish! If I do abuse the French, what reason have youto take offence? You are a queer fish really! You should follow theexample of Lazar Isaakitch, my tenant. I call him one thing andanother, a Jew, and a scurvy rascal, and I make a pig's ear out ofmy coat tail, and catch him by his Jewish curls. He doesn't takeoffence. "

"But he is a slave! For a kopeck he is ready to put up with anyinsult!"

"Come, come, come . . . That's enough! Peace and concord!"

Champoun powders his tear-stained face and goes with Kamyshev tothe dining-room. The first course is eaten in silence, after thesecond the same performance begins over again, and so Champoun'ssufferings have no end.