II.

Everything is comparative in this world, and there is for man no situation so utterly bad that nothing could be worse.

On a bright day, toward the end of September, Captain Aristíd Kuválda was sitting, as was his wont, in his arm-chair at the door of the night lodging-house, and as he gazed at the stone[1] building erected by merchant Petúnnikoff, next door to Vavíloff's tavern, he meditated.

The building, which was still surrounded by scaffolding, was intended for a candle-factory, and had long been an eye-sore to the captain, with the empty and dark hollows of its long row of windows, and that spider's web of wood, which surrounded it, from foundation to roof. Red, as though it were smeared with blood, it resembled some cruel machine, which was not yet in working-order, but which had already opened a row of deep, yawning maws, and was ready to engulf, masticate, and devour. Vavíloff's gray wooden tavern, with its crooked roof, overgrown with moss, leaned against one of the brick walls of the factory, and looked like some huge parasite, which was driving its suckers into it.

[1] "A stone building" does not mean literally stone in Russia, as it does elsewhere. "Stone," in this connection, means brick, rubble, or any other substance, with an external dressing of mastic, washed with white or any gay hue. Briefly, not of wood.--Translator.

The captain reflected, that they would soon begin to build on the site of the old house also. They would tear down the lodging-house, too. He would be compelled to seek other quarters, and no others, so convenient and so cheap, could be found. It was a pity, it was rather sad, to move away from a place where he had been so long. But move he must, merely because a certain merchant had taken it into his head to manufacture candles and soap. And the captain felt, that if any opportunity should present itself to him, of ruining the life of that enemy, even temporarily--oh! with what delight would he ruin it!

On the previous evening, merchant Iván Andréevitch Petúnnikoff had been in the courtyard of the night lodging-house with the architect and his son. They had measured the courtyard, and had stuck little sticks everywhere in the ground, which, after Petúnnikoff had departed, the captain ordered The Meteor to pull out of the ground and throw away.

Before the captain's eyes stood that merchant--small, gaunt, in a long garment which simultaneously resembled both an overcoat and an undercoat, in a velvet cap, and tall, brilliantly-polished boots. His bony face, with high cheek-bones, with its gray, wedge-shaped beard, with a lofty brow furrowed with wrinkles, from beneath which sparkled small, narrow, gray eyes, which always appeared to be on the watch for something.... A pointed, cartilaginous nose, a small mouth, with thin lips.... Altogether, the merchant's aspect was piously-rapacious, and respectably-evil.

"A damned mixture of fox and hog!"--swore the captain to himself, and recalled to mind Petúnnikoff's first phrase with regard to himself. The merchant had come with a member of the town court to purchase the house, and, catching sight of the captain, he had asked of his guide, in alert Kostromá dialect:

"Isn't he a candle-end himself ... that lodger of yours?"

And from that day forth--now eighteen months gone by--they had vied with one another in their cleverness at insulting man.

And on the preceding evening, a little "drill in vituperation," as the captain designated his conversation with the merchant, had taken place between them. After he had seen the architect off, the merchant had stepped up to the captain.

"You're sitting?"--he asked, tugging with his hand at the visor of his cap so that it was not possible to understand whether he was adjusting it or intended to express a salutation.

"You're trotting about?"--said the captain, imitating his tone, and made a movement with his lower jaw, which caused his beard to waggle, and which a person who was not exacting might take for a bow, or for a desire on the part of the captain to shift his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other.

"I have a great deal of money--so I trot about. Money demands that it shall be put out in life, so I'm giving it circulation...." the merchant mocked the captain a little, cunningly narrowing his little eyes.

"The ruble doesn't serve you, that is to say, but you serve the ruble,"--commented Kuválda, contending with a desire to give the merchant a kick in the belly.

"Isn't it all the same thing? With it, with money, everything is agreeable.... But if you haven't any...."

And the merchant eyed the captain over, with shamelessly-counterfeit compassion. The captain's upper lip twitched, disclosing his large, wolfish teeth.

"A man who has brains and conscience can get along without it ... It generally makes its appearance precisely at the time when a man's conscience begins to dry up ... The less conscience, the more money....

"That's true....? But, on the other hand, there are people who have neither money, nor conscience...."

"Were you just the same when you were young?"--inquired Kuválda innocently. It was now the turn of Petúnnikoff's nose to twitch. Iván Andréevitch sighed, screwed up his little eyes, and said:

"In my youth, o-okh! I was forced to raise great weights!"

"I think...."

"I worked, okh, how I worked!"

"And you worked up a good many people!"

"Such as you? Noblemen? Never mind ... they learned plenty of prayers to Christ from me...."

"You didn't murder, you merely stole?"--said the captain sharply. Petúnnikoff turned green, and found it expedient to change the subject.

"You're a bad host, you sit, while your guest stands."

"Let him sit down, too," Kuválda gave permission.

"But there's nothing to sit on, you see...."

"Sit on the earth ... the earth accepts all sorts of rubbish...."

"I see that, from you.... But I shall leave you, you scold," said Petúnnikoff, in a calm, equable voice, but his eyes poured forth cold poison on the captain.

And he took his departure, leaving Kuválda with the pleasing consciousness that the merchant was afraid of him. If he had not been afraid of him, he would long ago have driven him out of the night lodging-house. He would not have refrained from expelling him for those five rubles a month! And the captain found it pleasant to stare at Petúnnikoff's back, as he slowly left the courtyard. Then the captain watched the merchant walk around his factory, walk over the scaffoldings, upstairs and down. And he longed greatly to have the merchant fall and break his bones. How many clever combinations he had made of the fall, and the injuries, as he gazed at Petúnnikoff climbing over the scaffoldings of his factory, like a spider over his web! On the preceding evening, it had even seemed to him that one plank trembled under the merchant's feet, and the captain sprang from his seat in excitement.... But nothing happened.

And to-day, as always, before the eyes of Aristíd Kuválda rose aloft that red building, so well-built, and solid, which had laid as firm a hold upon the earth as though it were already sucking the juices out of it. And it seemed to be laughing coldly and gloomily at the captain, with the yawning holes of its walls. The sun poured its autumnal rays upon it as lavishly as upon the wretched hovels of Vyézhaya Street.

"Is it really going to happen!"--exclaimed the captain mentally, as he measured the wall of the factory with his eye.--"Akh, you rascal, devil take you! If ..." and all startled and excited by his thought, Aristíd Kuválda sprang up, and went hastily into Vavíloff's tavern, smiling and muttering something to himself.

Vavíloff met him at the lunch-counter, with the friendly exclamation:

"We wish health to Your Well-Born!"

Of medium height, with a bald head surrounded by a wreath of curly gray hair, with smoothly-shaven cheeks, and a mustache which bristled straight up, clad in a greasy leather jacket, by his every movement he permitted one to discern in him the former non-commissioned officer.

"Egór! Have you the deed of sale and the plan of the house?" inquired Kuválda hastily.

"I have."

Vavíloff suspiciously narrowed his knavish eyes, and rivetted them intently on the face of the captain, in which he perceived something

## particular.

"Show them to me!"--cried the captain, banging the counter with his fist, and dropping upon a stool alongside it.

"Why?"--asked Vavíloff, who had made up his mind, on beholding Kuválda's excitement, that he would be on his guard.

"Bring them here quick, you blockhead!"

Vavíloff wrinkled up his brow, and raised his eyes scrutinizingly to the ceiling.

"Where have I put them, those same papers?"

He found on the ceiling no information on that point; then the non-commissioned officer fixed his eyes on his stomach, and with an aspect of anxious meditation, began to drum on the bar with his fingers.

"Stop making faces!" shouted the captain at him, for he did not like the man, considering the former soldier to be more adapted for a thief than for a tavern-keeper. "Well, I've just called it to mind,'Ristíd Fómitch. It appears that they were left in the district court. When I entered into possession....

"Drop that, Egórka![2] In view of your own profit, show me immediately the plan, the deed of purchase, and everything there is! Perhaps you'll make several hundred rubles out of this--do you understand?"

[2] Diminutive of Egór (George).--Translator.

Vavíloff understood nothing, but the captain spoke so impressively, with such a serious mien, that the underofficer's eyes began to blaze with burning curiosity, and, saying that he would look and see whether he had not the documents packed away in the house, he went out of the door behind the lunch-counter. Two minutes later, he returned with the documents in his hands, and with an expression of extreme amazement on his face.

"On the contrary, the cursed things were in the house!"

"Ekh, you ... clown from a show-booth! And yet he used to be a soldier ... Kuválda did not let slip the opportunity to reproach him, as he snatched from his hands a calico-covered pasteboard box, with the blue title-deed. Then, unfolding the papers in front of him and still further exciting the curiosity of Vavíloff, the captain began to read, scrutinize, and at the same time to bellow in a very significant manner. At last he rose with decision, and went to the door, leaving the documents on the bar, and nodded to Vavíloff.

"Hold on ... don't put them away...."

Vavíloff gathered up the documents, laid them in the drawer of the counter, locked it and gave it a jerk with his hand,--to make sure that it was locked. Then, thoughtfully rubbing his bald spot, he emerged on the porch of the tavern. There he beheld the captain, after pacing off the front of the building, snap his fingers and again begin to measure off the same line, anxious but not satisfied.

Vavíloff's face assumed a rather strained expression, then relaxed, then suddenly beamed with joy.

"'Ristíd Fómitch! Is it possible?"--he exclaimed, when the captain came opposite him.

"There's no 'is it possible' about it! More than an arshín[3] has been cut off. That's on the front line, and as to the depth, I'll find that out directly...."

[3] An _arshín_ (the Russian equivalent of the yard) is twenty-eight inches.--Translator.

"The depth?... ten fathoms, twenty-eight inches!"

"So you've caught the idea, you shaven-face?"

"Certainly,' Ristíd Fómitch! Well, what an eye you have--you can see three arshíns into the earth!" cried Vavíloff in ecstasy.

A few minutes later, they were sitting opposite each other in Vavíloff's room, and the captain, as he annihilated beer in huge gulps, said to the tavern-keeper:

"So, all the walls of the factory stand on your land. Act without any mercy. The teacher will come, and we'll draw up a petition in haste to the district judge. In order not to waste money on stamped paper, we'll fix the value of the suit at the most modest figure, and we'll ask to have the building tom down. This, you fool, is infringing on the boundaries of another man's property ... a very pleasant event for you! Tear away! And to tear down and remove such a huge thing is an expensive job. Effect a compromise! You just squeeze Judas! We'll reckon up, in the most accurate manner, how much it will cost to tear it down--with the pressed brick, and the pit under the new foundation ... we'll reckon it all up! We'll even take our time into account! And--please to hand over two tho-ou-sand rubles, pious Judas!"

"He won't give it!"--said Vavíloff slowly, anxiously, winking his eyes, which were sparkling with greedy fire.

"You're mistaken! He will give it! Stir up your brains--what can he do? Tear it down? But--see here, Egórka, don't you lower your price! They'll buy you--don't sell yourself cheap! They'll try to frighten you--don't be afraid! Trust in us...."

The captain's eyes blazed with savage joy, and his face, crimson with excitement, twitched convulsively. He had kindled the tavern-keeper's greed, and exhorting him to act as promptly as possible, he went away, triumphant and implacably-ferocious.

*

In the evening, all the men with pasts learned of the captain's discovery, and, as they hotly discussed the future actions of Petúnnikoff, they depicted, in vivid colors, his amazement and wrath on the day when the messenger of the court should hand him a copy of the complaint. The captain felt himself a hero. He was happy, and everyone around him was contented. The big throng of dark figures, clad in rags, lay in the courtyard, and buzzed, and exulted, being enlivened by the event. They all knew merchant Petúnnikoff, who had passed before them many a time. Scornfully screwing up his eyes, he bestowed upon them the same sort of attention that he did on any other sort of rubbish, strewn about the courtyard. He reeked with good living, which irritated them, and even his boots shone with scorn for them all. And now, one of them was about to deal this merchant a severe blow in his pocket and his self-conceit. Wasn't that good?

Mischief, in the eyes of these people, had much that was attractive about it. It was the sole weapon which fitted their hand and their strength. Each one of them had long ago reared up within him a half-conscious, confused sentiment of keen hostility toward all people who were well-fed and were not clad in rags, and in each one of them this sentiment was in a different stage of its development. This it was, which evoked in all the men with pasts a burning interest in the war that Kuválda had declared against merchant Petúnnikoff.

For two weeks the night lodging-house lived in expectation of fresh occurrences, and during that whole period Petúnnikoff never once made his appearance at the new building. They found out that he was not in town, and that the copy of the petition had not yet been served on him. Kuválda battered away at the practice of the town court procedure. It is not probable that that merchant has been ever, or by anyone awaited with such strained impatience as that with which the vagrants awaited him.

"He cometh not, he cometh not, my da-ar-ling...."

"Ekh, it means that he lo-o-oves me not!"--sang Deacon Tarás, thrusting out his cheek in humorously-afflicted fashion, as he gazed up the hill.

And lo! one day, toward evening, Petúnnikoff made his appearance. He arrived in a well-built little cart, with his son in the rôle of coachman--a rosy-cheeked young fellow, in a long, checked overcoat, and dark glasses. They tied their horse to the scaffolding;--the son took from his pocket a tape-measure in a case, gave the end to his father, and they began to measure off the land, both silent and anxious.

"Aha-a!" ejaculated the captain triumphantly.

All who were present in the lodging-house poured out to the gate, and looked on, audibly expressing their opinions as to what was taking place.

"That's the result of being in the habit of stealing--a man steals even by mistake, without any desire to steal, at the risk of losing more than he steals.. condoled the captain, calling forth laughter and a series of similar remarks from his staff.

"Oï, young fellow!"--exclaimed Petúnnikoff, at last, irritated by the sneers,--" look out that I don't drag you before the judge of the peace for your words!"

"Nothing will come of that without witnesses ... your own son can't testify on behalf of his father...." said the captain warningly.

"Well, look out, all the same! You're a gallant bandit-chief, but we'll manage to get satisfaction from you, nevertheless!"

And Petúnnikoff made a menacing gesture with his finger.... His son, composed and absorbed in his calculations, paid no heed to this pack of shady individuals, who were maliciously amusing themselves at his father's expense. He did not so much as once glance in their direction.

"The young spider has had good training,"--remarked The Gnawed Bone, who was minutely watching all the actions and movements of the younger Petúnnikoff. After taking the measurements of everything that was required, Iván Andréevitch scowled, seated himself in silence in his cart, and drove off, but his son went, with firm tread, toward Vavíloff's tavern, and disappeared inside it.

"Oho! He's a resolute young thief ... yes! Come now, what will happen next?" asked Kuválda.

"The next thing is, that Petúnnikoff junior will buy Egór Vavíloff...." said The Gnawed Bone confidently, and he smacked his lips delicately, expressing complete satisfaction on his sharp face.

"You're glad of that, are you?"--inquired Kuválda harshly.

"It pleases me to see how folks are deceived in their reckoning," explained The Gnawed Bone with delight, screwing up his eyes and rubbing his hands.

The captain spat angrily, and made no reply. And all of them, as they stood at the gateway of the half-ruined house, maintained silence, and stared at the door of the tavern. An hour and more passed in this expectant silence. Then the door of the tavern opened, and Petúnnikoff emerged from it, as calm as when he had entered it. He halted for a minute, coughed, turned up his coat-collar, glanced at the men who were watching him, and went up the street toward the town.

The captain followed him with his eyes, and, turning to The Gnawed Bone, he grinned.

"I guess you were right, you son of a scorpion and a wood-louse.... You have a good nose for everything rascally ... that you have.... It's evident, from the ugly phiz of that young sharper alone, that he has got his own way.... How much did Egórka get out of them? He got something.... He's a bird of the same feather as they. He took something, may I he thrice damned if he didn't! I arranged things for him.' Tis bitter for me to realize my stupidity. Yes, life is all against us, my brethren, scoundrels! And even when you spit in your neighbor's eye, the spittle flies back into your own eyes."

Comforting himself with this sentiment, the worthy captain inspected his staff. All were disenchanted, for all felt that what had taken place between Vavíloff and Petúnnikoff had not been what they had anticipated. And all were incensed at this. The consciousness of inability to cause evil is more offensive to a man than the consciousness of the impossibility to do good, because it is so easy and simple to do evil.

"So,--what are we staying here for? There's nothing more for us to expect ... except the bargain-treat, which I'm going to get out of Egórka ..." said the captain, staring at the tavern with a scowl...." The end has come to our prosperous and peaceful life[4] under the roof of Judas. Judas will trample us under foot.... Of which. I make announcement to the department of the unclad vagabonds entrusted to my care...."

[4] "Prosperous and peaceful life" is a (sarcastic) quotation from the "Many Years" (Long Life), which is proclaimed in church, at the end of the service, on special occasions, in honor of royal or distinguished persons.--Translator.

The End laughed gloomily.

"What are you laughing at, you jail-warden?"--inquired Kuválda.

"Where am I to go?"

"That's a big question, my dear soul.... Your fate will answer it for you, don't be uneasy,"--said the captain thoughtfully, as he went toward the lodging-house. The men with pasts moved slowly after him.

"We will await the critical moment," said the captain, as he walked along among them.--"When they pitch us out of this, we'll hunt up another den for ourselves. But, in the meanwhile, it doesn't pay to spoil life with such thoughts.... At critical moments, a man becomes more energetic ... and if life, with all its combinations, would make the critical moment more frequent, if a man were forced every second to tremble for the safety of his sound pate ... by God, life would be more lively, and people would be more interesting!"

"That is to say, they would gnaw at one another's throats with more fury,"--explained The Gnawed Bone, with a smile.

"Well, and what if they did?"--angrily exclaimed the captain, who was not fond of having his ideas explained.

"Why, nothing ... that's good. When people want to get anywhere more quickly, they lash the horses with the whip, and exasperate machines with fire."

"Well, that's it! Let everything gallop to the devil far away! It would please me if the earth were suddenly to blaze up, and bum to ashes, or explode into fragments ... on condition that I was the last to perish, and might look on at the others first...."

"That's savage!" grinned The Gnawed Bone.

"What of it? I'm a man who has seen better days ... isn't that so? I'm an outcast--which means, that I'm free from all beaten paths and fetters.... It means, that I don't care a fig for anything! By the manner of my life, I'm bound to fling aside everything old ... all manners and modes of relations to folks who exist well-fed, and finely dressed, and who despise me because I've fallen behind them in the matter of enough food and of costume ... and I'm bound to breed within me something new--understand? The sort of thing, you know, which will make the lords of life, after the pattern of Judas Petúnnikoff, who pass me, feel a cold chill in their livers at the sight of my imposing form!"

"What a brave tongue you've got!"--laughed The Gnawed Bone.

"Ekh, you ... paltry creature...." Kuválda eyed him over disdainfully. "What do you understand? What do you know? Do you know how to think? But I have thought ... and I've read books, in which you wouldn't be able to understand a single word."

"I should think so! I couldn't sup cabbage-soup with a bast-slipper.... But though you have read books and thought, and I haven't done either, we've come out pretty close together...."

"Go to the devil!"--shouted Kuválda.

His conversations with The Gnawed Bone always wound up in this manner. On the whole, without the teacher--and he was aware of this himself--his speeches only spoiled the air, and were dispersed on it without bringing him either appreciation or attention; but he could not refrain from talking. And now, after swearing at his interlocutor, he felt himself alone among his own people. But he wanted to talk, and therefore he turned to Símtzoff with the question:

"Well, and you, Alexéi Maxímovitch--where shall you lay your gray head?"

The old man smiled good-naturedly, rubbed his nose with his hand, and said:

"I don't know ... I'll see about it! I'm of no great importance: I've had a good time, and I shall again!"

"A worthy, though simple problem,"--the captain lauded him.

Símtzoff added, after a pause, that he would get settled more promptly than the rest, because the women were very fond of him. This was true: the old man always had two or three mistresses among the women of the town, who supported him, for two or three days at a stretch, on their scanty earnings. They frequently beat him, but he bore it stoically; for some reason or other, they could not hurt him much--perhaps, because they were sorry for him. He was a passionate lover of women, and was wont to relate, that women were the cause of all his misfortunes in life. The intimacy of his relations to women, and the character of their relations to him were confirmed, both by his frequent illnesses, and by his clothing, which was always well mended, and cleaner than the clothing of his comrades. And now, as he sat on the ground, at the door of the lodging-house, in a circle of his comrades, he began boastfully to relate, that he had long since been invited by The Radish to live with her, but he would not go to her, he did not wish to desert the company.

He was listened to with interest, and not without envy. They all knew The Radish--she lived not far away, under the hill, and only a short time before this had spent several months in prison for her second case of theft. She was a wet-nurse, who "had seen better days," a tall, plump country woman, with a pock-marked face, and very handsome, though always drunken, eyes.

"You don't say so, you old devil!"--swore The Gnawed Bone, as he gazed at Símtzoff, who was smiling conceitedly.

"And why do they love me? Because I know what their souls delight in...."

"We-ell?"--exclaimed Kuválda, interrogatively.

"I know how to make them feel sorry for me.... And when a woman feels compassion--she'll even go so far as to cut a throat out of compassion. Weep before her, beg her to kill you, she'll take compassion on you and kill you...."

"I'll kill!" declared Martyánoff, resolutely, grinning in his gloomy style.

"Whom?"--inquired The Gnawed Bone, moving away from him.

"It doesn't matter ... Petúnnikoff ... Egórka ... even you'd do!"

"Why?"--queried Kuválda, with great interest.

"I want to go to Siberia ... I'm tired of this ... mean life.... But there a fellow will find out how he ought to live...."

"Ye-es, they'll show you there, in detail,"--assented the captain in a melancholy way.

Nothing more was said about Petúnnikoff, and their approaching expulsion from the night lodging-house. All of them were already convinced that this expulsion was near at hand--at a distance of two or three days, perhaps, and they regarded it as superfluous to bother themselves with discussions on that subject. Discussing the matter would not improve the situation, and, in conclusion, the weather was not cold yet, although the rains were beginning--it was still possible to sleep on any clod of earth, outside the town.

Arranging themselves in a circle on the grass, these men idly conducted a long conversation on various subjects, passing freely from one theme to another, and wasting just so much attention on the other man's words as was required to keep up the conversation without a break. It was tiresome to remain silent, but it was also tiresome to listen attentively. This company of men with pasts had one great merit: in it no one put any constraint upon himself, in the effort to appear better than he was, and no one incited the others to exercise such constraint over himself.

The August sun assiduously warmed the rags of these men, who had turned to it their backs and their uncombed heads--a chaotic combination of the vegetable kingdom with the mineral and the animal. In the corners of the courtyard the grass grew luxuriantly,--tall burdocks sown with clinging burs, and some other plants, which were of no use to anybody, delighted the eyes of the men who were of no use to anybody.

*

But in Vavíloff's tavern the following scene had been enacted.

Petúnnikoff junior had entered it, in a leisurely manner, had looked about him, frowned fastidiously, and slowly removing from his head his gray hat, he had inquired of the tavern-keeper, who greeted him with a respectful bow, and an amiable grin:

"Egór Teréntievitch Vavíloff--are you he?"

"Exactly so!"[5] replied the non-commissioned officer, resting both hands on the counter, as though preparing to leap over it.

[5] The regulation reply, in the army, to a superior, is not plain "da" (yes), but "tótchno tak!" The negative is correspondingly regulated.--Translator.

"I have some business with you,"--announced Petúnnikoff.

"Perfectly delighted.... Please come to my rooms!"

They entered his rooms, and seated themselves--the visitor on the waxed-cloth divan in front of the round table, the host on a chair facing him. In one corner of the room burned a shrine-lamp in front of a huge, treble-panelled image-case, around which, on the wall, more holy pictures were also suspended. Their vestments were brilliantly polished, and shone like new ones. In the room, closely set with trunks, and ancient furniture of various sorts, there was an odor of olive oil, tobacco, and sour cabbage. Petúnnikoff surveyed things, and again made a grimace. Vavíloff, with a sigh, glanced at the holy pictures, and then they fixedly regarded each other, and both made a mutually good impression. Vavíloff's frankly-knavish eyes pleased Petúnnikoff. Petúnnikoff's open, cold, resolute face, with its broad, strong cheek-bones, and closely set white teeth, pleased Vavíloff.

"Well, sir, you know me, of course, and you can guess what I am going to talk to you about!" began Petúnnikoff.

"About the suit ... I assume,"--said the non-commissioned officer deferentially.

"Precisely. It is pleasant to see that you make no pretences, but go straight to the point, like a man with a straight-forward soul,"--Petúnnikoff encouraged his interlocutor.

"I'm a soldier, sir...." said the latter, modestly.

"That's evident. So, we will conduct the business in a simple, straight-forward manner, in order to get through with it the more promptly."

"Just so...."

"Very good.... Your suit is entirely legal, and, as a matter of course, you will win it--that is the first thing which I consider it necessary to state to you."

"I thank you sincerely,"--said the non-commissioned officer, winking his eyes, in order to conceal the smile in them.

"But, tell me, why was it necessary for you to make acquaintance with us, your future neighbors, in so harsh a manner ... straight from the courts?..."

Vavíloff shrugged his shoulders, and made no reply.

"It would have been simpler to come to us, and arrange everything peaceably ... wouldn't it? What do you think about it?"

"Of course, that would be more agreeable. But, you see ... there's one hitch about it.... I did not act of my own free will ... but I was instigated to do it.... Afterward, when I understood what would have been the better way, it was already too late."

"Just so.... I assume that some lawyer or other put you up to it?"

"Something of that sort...."

"Aha! Well, sir, and so you wish to conclude the affair peaceably?"

"With the greatest pleasure!" exclaimed the soldier. Petúnnikoff paused, looked at him, and then inquired, coldly and dryly:

"And why do you wish that?"

Vavíloff had not expected such a question, and could not reply at once. In his opinion, it was an absurd question, and the soldier, with a consciousness of his superiority, laughed in Petúnnikoff's face.

"It's plain enough why ... one must try to live at peace with people."

"Come,"--Petúnnikoff interrupted him,--"that's not precisely the fact. I perceive that you do not clearly understand why you wished to make peace with us.... I will tell you why."

The soldier was somewhat astonished. This young fellow, all clad in checked material, and presenting a rather ridiculous figure in it, talked just as company commander Rakshín had been wont to talk, after he had, with angry hand, knocked out the soldiers' teeth, three at a time.

"You want to make peace with us, because our vicinity is very profitable to you! And it is profitable because we shall have not less than one hundred and fifty workmen in our factory,--in course of time, more. If one hundred of them drink a glass apiece after each weekly pay-day, you will sell, in the course of a month, four hundred glasses more than you are selling now. I have put it at the lowest figure. Moreover, you have your eating-house. Apparently, you are anything but stupid, and you are a man of experience; consider for yourself the advantages of our proximity."

"That's true, sir...." Vavíloff nodded assent,--"I knew that."

"And what then?"--the merchant inquired loudly.

"Nothing, sir ... Let's make peace."

"I am very glad that you make up your mind so promptly. Here, I have furnished myself with a notification to the courts of the withdrawal of your claims against my father. Read it over, and sign it."

Vavíloff stared, with round eyes, at his interlocutor, and trembled, foreseeing something very bad indeed.

"Excuse me ... I am to sign it? What does that mean?"

"Simply, you are to write your baptismal name and your surname, and nothing more,"--explained Petúnnikoff, obligingly pointing out with his finger the place where he was to sign.

"No--what's the meaning of tha-at! I wasn't talking about that.... I meant to say--what compensation are you going to give me for my land?"

"But the land is of no use to you!" said Petúnnikoff, soothingly.

"Nevertheless, it's mine!" exclaimed the soldier.

"Of course.... How much do you want?"

"Why ... what is stated in the complaint...."

"What is written there,"--said Vavíloff timidly.

"Six hundred?"--Petúnnikoff laughed softly.--"Akh, you comical fellow!"

"I have the right ... I might even demand two thousand ... I can insist on your tearing down.... That's what I will do.... For the value of the suit is so small. I demand--that you shall tear the building down!"

"Go ahead.... Perhaps we will tear it down ... three years hence, after having involved you in great expense for the suit. And after we have paid, we'll open our own little dram-shop and eating-house,--better ones than yours--and you'll be ruined, like the Swede at Poltáva.[6] You shall be ruined, my good man, we'll take care of that. We might begin to take steps about the dram-shop now, only it's a bother, and time is valuable to us. And we're sorry for you--why take the bread away from a man, for no cause whatever?"

[6] Charles XII of Sweden, defeated at Poltáva by Peter the Great.--Translator.

Egór Teréntievitch set his teeth firmly, stared at his visitor, and felt conscious that the visitor was the master of his fate. Vavíloff commiserated himself, in the presence of this coldly-composed, implacable figure in the ridiculous checked costume.

"Being in such close vicinity to us, and living in peace with us, my old soldier, you might do a fine business. We would take care of that, also. For example, I will even recommend you on the spot, to open a little shop ... you know--cheap tobacco, matches, bread, cucumbers, and so on.... All that would have a ready sale."

Vavíloff listened, and being anything but a stupid young fellow, he comprehended that the very best thing he could do would be to yield to his magnanimous enemy. He ought, properly, to have begun with that. And, not knowing how to get rid of his wrath and sense of injury, he swore aloud at Kuválda:

"You drunkard, an-athema, may the devil give it to you!"

"You're swearing at the lawyer who drew up your petition?"--calmly inquired Petúnnikoff, and added, with a sigh:--"as a matter of fact, he might have played you a sorry trick ... if we had not taken pity on you."

"Ekh!" and the mortified soldier waved his hand in despair. "There are two of them.... One planned, the other wrote.... The damned correspondent!"

"And why do you call him a correspondent?"

"He writes in the newspapers.... They're your lodgers.... Nice people, truly! Get rid of them, drive them away, for Christ's sake! Robbers! They stir up everybody here in this street, they urge them on. There's no living for them ... they're desperate men--the first you know, they'll rob you or set fire to your house!"

"And that correspondent--who is he?" Petúnnikoff asked with interest.

"He? A drunkard! He used to be a teacher--they turned him out. He drank up all he owned,... and now he writes for the papers, and composes petitions. He's a very mean man!"

"Hm! And so he wrote your petition for you? Exactly so! Evidently, it was he, also, who wrote about the disorders in construction--he found that the scaffolding was not properly placed, or something of that sort."

"It was he! I know it, it was he, the dog! He read it here, himself, and bragged--'Here, I've caused Petúnnikoff a loss,' says he."

"We-ell.... Come, sir, so we intend to make peace?"

"I make peace?"

The soldier hung his head and meditated.

"Ekh, thou gloomy life of ours!"--he exclaimed, in an injured tone, as he scratched the nape of his neck.

"You must get some education," Petúnnikoff advised him, as he lighted a cigarette.

"Get some education? That's not the point, my good sir! There's no liberty, that's what's the trouble! No, look here, what sort of a life do I lead? I live in trepidation,... continually looking around me ... completely deprived of freedom in the movements I wish to make! And why? I'm afraid ... that spectre of a teacher writes about me in the newspapers ... he brings the sanitary inspectors down on me, I have to pay fines.... The first you know, those lodgers of yours will bum down, murder, rob.... What can I do against them? They're not afraid of the police.... If the police locked them up, they'd even be glad of it--they'd get their bread for nothing...."

"We'll get rid of them ... if we unite with you," promised Petúnnikoff.

"How are we to unite?" asked Vavíloff sadly and sullenly.

"Name your terms."

"But why? Give ... six hundred, as stated in the claim...."

"Won't you take one hundred?"--inquired the merchant calmly, carefully scrutinizing his interlocutor, and smiling gently, he added:--"I won't give a ruble more."

After that, he removed his glasses, and began slowly to wipe them, with a handkerchief which he took from his pocket. Vavíloff gazed at him with grief in his heart, and, at the same time, was impressed with respect for him. In the calm countenance of young Petúnnikoff, in his gray eyes, in his broad cheek-bones, in the whole of his well-built figure, there was a great deal of strength, self-reliant and well disciplined by his brain. The way Petúnnikoff had talked to him also pleased Vavíloff: simply with friendly tones in his voice, without any pretensions to superiority, as though with his own brother, although Vavíloff understood that he, a soldier, was not the peer of that man. As he scrutinized him, almost admired him, the soldier, at last, could not hold out, and feeling within him an impulse of curiosity, which, for the moment, smothered all his sentiments, he deferentially asked Petúnnikoff:

"Where were you pleased to be educated?"

"In the technological institute. Why?" and the latter turned smiling eyes upon him.

"Nothing, sir, I only ... excuse me!"--The soldier dropped his head, and suddenly, with ecstasy, envy, and even inspiration, he exclaimed:--"We-ell! Here's education for you! In one word--science--light! But people of my sort are like owls in the sunlight in this world.... Ekh-ma! Your Well-Born! Come on, let's finish that business!"

With a resolute gesture, he offered his hand to Petúnnikoff, and said in a suppressed way:

"Well ... five hundred?"

"Not more than one hundred, Egór Teréntievitch,"--as though regretting that he could not give more. Petúnnikoff shrugged his shoulders, as he slapped his large, white hand into the hairy hand of the soldier.

They soon concluded the business, for the soldier suddenly advanced to meet Petúnnikoff's wishes in great leaps, and the latter was immovably firm. And when Vavíloff had received one hundred rubles, and had signed the document, he flung the pen on the table, in exasperation, and exclaimed:

"Well, now it remains for me to deal with that golden horde! They'll ridicule me, and put me to shame, the devils!"

"Tell them that I have paid you the full sum mentioned in the suit,"--suggested Petúnnikoff, calmly emitting from his mouth slender streams of smoke and watching them.

"But will they believe that? They're clever scoundrels, also, just as bad as ..." Vavíloff halted in time, disconcerted by the comparison which he had almost uttered, and glanced in alarm at the merchant's son. The latter smoked on, and was entirely absorbed in that occupation. He soon took his departure, after promising Vavíloff, as he said farewell, that he would destroy the nest of those restless people. Vavíloff looked after him, and sighed, feeling strongly inclined to shout something spiteful and insulting at the back of this man, who, with firm steps, was mounting the hill along the road filled with pits and obstructed with rubbish.

*

In the evening, the captain presented himself in the tavern. His brows were severely contracted, and his right hand was energetically clenched into a fist. Vavíloff smiled apologetically as he greeted him.

"We-ell, you worthy descendant of Cain and Judas, tell me...."

"We've come to a settlement...." said Vavíloff, sighing and lowering his eyes.

"I don't doubt it. How many rubles did you get?" "Four hundred...."

"You're certainly lying.... But that's all the better for me.... Without further words, Egórka, pay me ten per cent for the discovery, four rubles to the teacher for writing your petition, a bucket of vódka to all of us, and a decent amount of luncheon. Hand over the money instantly, the vódka and the rest at eight o'clock."

Vavíloff turned green, and stared at Kuválda with widely-opened eyes.

"That's nonsense! That's robbery! I won't give it.... What are you thinking of, Aristíd Fómitch! No, you'd better restrain your appetite until the next feast-day! What a man you are! No, now I'm in a position not to fear you. Now I'm...."

Kuválda looked at his watch.

"I'll give you, Egórka, ten minutes for your dirty conversation. Put an end to the wanderings of your tongue in that time, and give what I demand. If you don't give it--I'll eat you alive! Did The End sell you something? Did you read in the newspaper about the robbery at Básoff's? You understand? You won't succeed in hiding anything--we'll prevent that. And this very night.... Do you understand?"

"Aristíd Fómitch! What is this for?"--wailed the retired non-commissioned officer.

"No words! Do you understand or not?"

Tall, gray-haired Kuválda, with his brows impressively knit, spoke in an undertone, and his hoarse bass hummed ominously in the empty tavern. Vavíloff had always been a little afraid of him, both as a former military man and as a man who had nothing to lose. But now Kuválda presented himself in a new light to him: he did not talk much and hurriedly, as usual, and in what he did say in the tone of a commander, who is confident that he will be obeyed, there resounded a threat not uttered in jest. And Vavíloff felt that the captain would ruin him, if he chose, would ruin him with pleasure. He must yield to force. But, with a fierce trepidation in his heart, the soldier made one more effort to escape punishment. He heaved a deep sigh, and began submissively:

"Evidently, the saying is true: 'The peasant woman beats herself if she doesn't reap clean....' I told you a lie about myself, Aristíd Fómitch.... I wanted to appear cleverer than I am.... I received only one hundred rubles...."

"Go on...." Kuválda flung at him.

"And not four hundred, as I told you.... Which signifies...."

"Which signifies nothing. I don't know when you were lying--a while ago, or now. I get sixty-five rubles from you. That's moderate.... Well?..."

"Ekh, oh Lord my God! Aristíd Fómitch! I have always shown regard for Your Well-Born, as far as was in my power."

"Well? Drop your talk, Egórka, grandson of Judas!"

"Very well.... I'll give it....? Only, God will punish you for this."

"Hold your tongue, you rotten pimple on the face of the earth!"--bawled the captain, rolling his eyes ferociously.--"I am chastised by God.... He has placed me under the necessity of seeing you, of talking with you.... I'll mash you on the spot, like a fly!" He shook his fist under Vavíloff's nose, and gnashed his teeth, displaying them in a snarl.

When he went away, Vavíloff began to grin awry, and wink his eyes at frequent intervals. Then, down his cheeks trickled two big tears. They were of a grayish hue, and when they disappeared in his mustache, two others made their appearance to replace them. Then Vavíloff went off to his own room, took up his stand there in front of the holy pictures, and there he stood for a long time, without moving or wiping away the tears from his wrinkled, cinnamon-brown cheeks.

Deacon Tarás, who was always drawn to the forests and fields, proposed to the men with pasts that they should go out on the plain, to a certain ravine, and there, in the lap of Nature, drink up Vavíloff's vódka. But the captain and all the others unanimously cursed the deacon and Nature, and decided to drink it at home, in their own courtyard.

"One, two, three ..." counted Aristíd Fómitch,--"our sum total is thirteen; the teacher isn't here ... well, and several jolly dogs will join us. We'll reckon it at twenty persons. At two cucumbers and a half per brother, and a pound of bread and meat apiece--it won't be so bad! We must have a bottle of vódka apiece ... there's sour cabbage, and apples, and three watermelons. The question is, what the devil more do we need, my fellow-scoundrels? So we'll make ready to devour Egórka Vavíloff, for all this is his flesh and blood!"

They spread out the remains of some garments or other on the ground, on them laid out the viands and liquor, and seated themselves around them,--seated themselves sedately and in silence, with difficulty restraining their greedy desire to drink which beamed in their eyes.

Evening drew near, its shadows descended upon the ground in the courtyard of the lodging-house, disfigured with scraps, and the last rays of the sun lighted up the roof of the half-ruined edifice. It was cool and still.

"Let's start in, brothers!"--the captain gave the word of command.--"How many cups have we? Six ... and there are thirteen of us.... Alexéi Maxímovitch! Pour! Ready? Co-ome on, first platoon ... fire!"

They drank, grunted, and began to eat.

"And the teacher isn't here ... this is the third day that I haven't seen him. Has anybody seen him?"--inquired Kuválda.

"Nobody...."

"That's not like him! Well, no matter. Let's have another drink!... Let's drink to the health of Aristíd Kuválda, my only friend, who, all my life long, has never left me alone for a minute. Although, devil take him, I should have been the gainer if he had deprived me of his society for a while!"

"That's witty,"--said The Gnawed Bone, and coughed.

The captain, with a consciousness of his superiority, gazed at his comrade, but said nothing, for he was eating.

After taking two drinks, the company grew lively all of a sudden--the portions were inspiring. Tarás-and-a-Half expressed a desire to listen to a story, but the deacon had got into a dispute with The Peg-top about the advantages of thin women over fat ones, and paid no attention to the other man's words, but demonstrated his views to The Peg-top with the obduracy and heat of a man who is profoundly convinced of the justice of his views. The ingenuous face of The Meteor, who was lying on his stomach beside him, expressed emotion, as he relished the heady little words of the deacon. Martyánoff, clasping his knees with his huge hands, overgrown with black hair, stared silently and gloomily at a bottle of vódka, and fished for his mustache with his tongue, in the endeavor to bite it with his teeth. The Gnawed Bone was teasing Tyápa.

"I've already observed, you sorcerer, where you hide your money!"

"You're lucky...." said Tyápa hoarsely.

"I'm going to snatch it away ..."

"Take it...."

These people bored Kuválda: there was not among them a single companion worthy to listen to his eloquence and capable of comprehending him.

"Where can the teacher be?"--he meditated aloud.

Martyánoff looked at him, and said:

"He'll come ..."

"I'm convinced that he'll come--but he won't drive up in a carriage. Future convict, let's drink to your future. If you murder a man with money, share it with me.... Then, my dear fellow, I'll go to America, to those ... what's their name? Lampas?... Pampas! I'll go there, and I'll wind up as president of the states. Then I'll declare war on all Europe, and give it a sound drubbing. I'll buy an army ... in Europe, also ... I'll invite the French, the Germans, the Turks, and so forth, and with them I'll beat their own relatives ... as Ilyá of Muróm beat the Tatár with a Tatár.... With money, one can be an Ilyá also ... and annihilate Europe, and hire Judas Petúnnikoff as a lackey.... He'll do it ... give him a hundred rubles a month, and he'll do it! But he'll make a bad lackey, for he'll begin to steal...."

"And a thin woman is better than a fat one in this respect also, she comes cheaper,"--said the deacon argumentatively. "My first wife used to buy twelve arshíns for a dress, the second bought ten.... And so it was with the food, also...."

Tarás-and-a-Half laughed apologetically, turned his head toward the deacon, fixed his eyes on the latter's face, and said, in confusion:

"I, also, had a wife...."

"That may happen to anybody,"--remarked Kuválda.--"Continue your lies...."

"She was thin, but she ate a great deal.... And she even died of that...."

"You poisoned her, cock-eye!"--said The Gnawed Bone, with conviction.

"No, by God I didn't! She overate herself on sturgeon,"--said Tarás-and-a-Half.

"And I tell you--that you poisoned her!"--reiterated The Gnawed Bone, decisively.

It often happened thus with him: when he had once uttered some piece of folly, he began to reiterate it, without quoting any grounds in confirmation, and though he talked, at first, in a capriciously-childish tone, he gradually worked up almost to a state of frenzy.

The deacon stood up for his friend.

"No, he is incapable of poisoning ... there was no cause...."

"And I say that he did poison her!"--squealed The Gnawed Bone.

"Hold your tongues!"--shouted the captain menacingly. His ill-humor had been converted into morose wrath. He stared at his friends with savage eyes, and not descrying in their ugly physiognomies, already half-drunk, anything which could supply further food for his wrath, he hung his head on his breast, sat thus for a few minutes, and then lay down on the ground, face upward. The Meteor was nibbling at a cucumber. He had taken the cucumber into his hand, without looking at it, thrust it up to the middle in his mouth, and immediately began to chew it with his large, yellow teeth, so that the brine from the cucumber spattered in all directions, bedewing his cheeks. Evidently, he was not hungry, but this process of eating diverted him. Martyánoff sat motionless as a statue, in the same attitude in which he had seated himself on the ground, and he, also, was staring in a concentrated, gloomy way, at a six-quart bottle of vódka, which was already half empty. Tyápa was staring at the ground, and noisily chewing meat, which did not yield to his aged teeth. The Gnawed Bone lay on his stomach, and coughed, with his whole tiny body curled up in a ball. The rest--all taciturn, obscure figures--were sitting and lying in various attitudes, and all these men together, clad in their rags and the evening twilight, were hardly distinguishable from the heaps of rubbish scattered over the courtyard and overgrown with tall grass. Their ungainly attitudes and their rags made them resemble deformed animals, created by a rough, fantastic power, as a travesty on man.

"There lived and dwelt in Súzdal town A gentlewoman of no account. And she was seized with a fit of cramps, Of mo-st unpleasant cramps!"

the deacon began to hum, in an undertone, as he embraced Alexéi Maxímovitch, smiling beatifically into the latter's face. Tarás-and-a-Half giggled voluptuously.

Night was at hand. In the sky, the stars were quietly kindling--up on the hill, in the town, the lights in the street-lamps. The mournful whistles of the steamers were wafted from the river, the door of Vavíloff's tavern opened with a creaking and crashing of glass. Two dark figures entered the courtyard, approached the group of men gathered round the bottle, and one of them asked, hoarsely:

"Are you drinking?"

And the other, in an undertone, with envy and joy, said:

"Oh, what devils!"

Then a hand was extended across the head of the deacon, and grasped the bottle, and the characteristic gurgling of vódka became audible, as it was poured from the bottle into a cup. Then there was a loud grunting noise ...

"Well, this is melancholy!"--ejaculated the deacon.--"Cock-eye! Let's call to mind days of yore, let's sing 'By the rivers of Babylon!'"

"Does he know how?" inquired Símtzoff.

"He? He used to be a soloist in the Bishop's choir, my good fellow.... Come on, Cock-eye.... O-on-the-e-ri-i-iv-ers ...."

The deacon's voice was wild, hoarse, cracked, and his friend sang in a squeaking falsetto.

Enveloped in the gloom, the empty house seemed to have increased in size, or to have moved its whole mass of half-decayed wood nearer to these men, who were awaking in it a dull echo by their wild singing. A cloud, magnificent and dark, was slowly floating across the sky above it. Some one of the men with pasts was snoring, the rest, still not sufficiently intoxicated, were either eating and drinking in silence, or chatting in an undertone, broken with prolonged pauses. None of them were accustomed to this dejected mood at a banquet, which was rare as to the abundance of vódka and of viands. For some reason or other, the boisterous animation characteristic of the lodging-house's inhabitants over a bottle did not flare up for a long time.

"You're ... dogs! Stop your howling," said the captain to the singers, raising his head from the ground, and listening.--"Someone is driving in this direction ... in a drozhky...."

A drozhky at that hour in Vyézhaya Street could not fail to arouse general attention. Who from the town would run the risk of driving over the ruts and pit-holes of the street--who was it, and why? All raised their heads and listened. In the nocturnal silence the rumbling of the wheels, as they came in contact with the splashers, was plainly audible. It grew nearer and nearer. A voice rang out, roughly inquiring:

"Well, where is it?"

Someone answered:

"It must be that house, yonder."

"I won't go any further...."

"They're coming here!" exclaimed the captain.

"The police!" a tremulous murmur ran round.

"In a carriage! The fool!"--said Martyánoff in a dull tone.

Kuválda rose, and went to the gate.

The Gnawed Bone, stretching his head after him, began to listen.

"Is this the night lodging-house?" inquired someone, in a shaking voice.

"Yes, Aristíd Kuválda's.. boomed the dissatisfied bass voice of the captain.

"There, there now ... has Títoff the reporter been living here?"

"Aha! Have you brought him?"

"Yes...."

"Drunk?"

"Ill!"

"That means, that he's very drunk. Hey there, teacher! get up!"

"Wait! I'll help you ... he's very ill. He has been lying ill in my house for two days. Grasp him under the arm-pits.... The doctor has been. He's in a very bad way...."

Tyápa rose, and slowly walked to the gate, but The Gnawed Bone grinned and took a drink.

"Light up, there!" shouted the captain.

The Meteor went into the lodging-house and lighted the lamp. Then from the door of the house a broad streak of light streamed across the courtyard, and the captain, in company with a small man, led the teacher along it to the lodging-house. His head hung flabbily on his breast, his legs dragged along the ground, and his arms dangled in the air, as though they were broken. With the aid of Tyápa, they laid him in a heap on the sleeping-shelf, and he, trembling all over, stretched himself out on it, with a quiet groan.

"He and I have been working on the same newspaper.... He's very unfortunate. I said:--'Pray lie at my house, you will not incommode me ...' But he entreated me--'Take me home!' He got excited.... I thought that was injurious to him, and so I have brought him ... home! He really belongs here, does he?"

"And, in your opinion, has he a home somewhere else?" asked Kuválda roughly, as he stared intently at his friend. "Tyápa, go and fetch some cold water!"

"So now...." hesitated the little man.... "I suppose ... he does not need me?"

"You?"--and the captain examined him critically.

The little man was dressed in a sack-coat, much the worse for wear, and carefully buttoned clear up to the chin. There was fringe on the edges of his trousers, his hat was red with age and crumpled, as was also his gaunt, hungry face.

"No, he doesn't need you ... there are a great many of your sort here...." said the captain, turning away from the little man.

"Farewell for the present, then!"--The little man went to the door, and from that spot he quietly asked:

"If anything should happen ... please give notice at the editorial office.... My name is Rýzhoff. I should like to write a brief obituary ... for, after all, you know, he was a worker on the press...."

"Hm! An obituary, you say? Twenty lines--twenty kopéks? I'll do better: when he dies, I'll cut off one of his legs and send it to the editorial office, addressed to you. That will be more profitable to you than an obituary, It'll last you for two or three days ... his legs are thick.... You've all been devouring him alive, surely you will eat him when he's dead ... also,...."

The man gave a queer sort of snort, and vanished. The captain sat down on the sleeping-shelf beside the teacher, felt the latter's brow and breast with his hand, and called him by name:

"Philip!"

The dull sound re-echoed from the dirty walls of the night lodging-house, and died away.

"This is awkward, brother!"--said the captain, softly smoothing the dishevelled hair of the teacher with his hand. Then the captain listened to his breathing, which was hot and spasmodic, scrutinized his face, which was sunken and earthy in hue, sighed, and frowning harshly, glanced around. The lamp was a bad one: its flame flickered, and black shadows danced silently over the walls of the lodging-house. The captain began to stare stubbornly at their silent play, and to stroke his beard.

Tyápa arrived with a bucket of water, set it on the sleeping-shelf by the teacher's head, and, taking his hand, he raised it on his own hand, as though weighing it.

"The water is not needed," and the captain waved his hand.

"The priest is needed," announced the old rag-picker confidently.

"Nothing is needed," decided the captain.

They fell silent, gazing at the teacher.

"Let's go and have a drink, you old devil!"

"And he?"

"Can you help him?"

Tyápa turned his back on the teacher, and both of them went out into the courtyard, to their company.

"What's going on there?"--inquired The Gnawed Bone, turning his sharp face to the captain.

"Nothing in particular.... The man is dying ...." the captain curtly informed him.

"Have they been beating him?" asked The Gnawed Bone, with interest.

The captain made no reply, for he was drinking vódka at the moment.

"It seems as though he knew that we have something wherewith to hold a feast in commemoration of him," said The Gnawed Bone, as he lighted a cigarette.

Someone laughed, someone else sighed deeply. But, on the whole, the conversation between the captain and The Gnawed Bone did not produce upon these men any perceptible impression; at all events, it could not be seen that it had disturbed anyone, interested anyone, or set anyone to thinking. All of them had treated the teacher as though he were a remarkable man, but now many were already drunk, while others still remained calm outwardly. The deacon alone suddenly straightened himself up, made a noise with his lips, rubbed his forehead, and howled wildly:

"Whe-ere the just re-po-o-ose!"[8]

"Here, you!"--hissed The Gnawed Bone,--"what's that you're roaring?"

"Give him a whack in his ugly face!"--counselled the captain.

[8] A quotation from the Funeral and Requiem Services.--Translator.

"Fool!" rang out Tyápa's hoarse voice. "When a man is dyings one should hold his tongue ... there should be quiet...."

It was quiet enough: both in heaven, which was covered with storm-clouds and threatened rain, and on earth, enveloped in the gloomy darkness of the autumnal night. From time to time the snores of those who had fallen asleep, the gurgling of the vódka as it was poured out, and munching were audible. The deacon kept muttering something. The storm-clouds floated low, as though they were on the point of striking the roof of the old house and overturning it on top of the group of men.

"Ah ... one's soul feels badly when a man whom he knows is dying," remarked the captain, with a hiccough, and bowed his head upon his breast.

No one answered him.

"He was the best ... among us ... the cleverest,... the most decent.... I'm sorry for him...."

"Gi-i-ive re-est wi-i-ith the Sa-a-aints[9] ... sing, you cock-eyed rogue!"--blustered the deacon, punching the ribs of his friend who was slumbering by his side.

"Shut up!... you!"--exclaimed The Gnawed Bone in a whisper, as he sprang to his feet.

[9] From the Funeral and Requiem Services.--Translator.

"I'll hit him over the noddle,"--suggested Martyánoff, raising his head from the ground.

"Aren't you asleep?"--said Aristíd Fómitch, with unusual amiability.--" Did you hear? The teacher's here...."

Martyánoff fidgeted heavily about on the ground, rose, looked at the strip of light which proceeded from the door and windows of the lodging-house, waggled his head, and sat down in silence by the captain's side.

"Shall we take a drink?" suggested the latter.

Having found some glasses by the sense of feeling, they took a drink.

"I'll go and take a look.. said Tyápa; "perhaps he needs something...."

"He needs a coffin...." grinned the captain.

"Don't you talk about that," entreated The Gnawed Bone, in a low voice.

After Tyápa, The Meteor rose from the ground. The deacon, also, attempted to rise, but rolled over on his side, and swore loudly.

When Tyápa went away the captain slapped Martyánoff on the shoulder, and said in a low voice:

"So now, Martyánoff.... You ought to feel it more than the others.... You were ... however, devil take it. Are you sorry for Philip?"

"No,"--replied the former jail-warden, after a pause.--"I don't feel anything of that sort, brother.... I've got out of the habit.... It's abominable to live so. I'm speaking seriously when I say that I'll murder somebody...."

"Yes?"--said the captain vaguely. "Well ... what of that? Let's have another drink!"

"W-we are in-in-sig-ni-fi-cant fo-olks. I've had a drink--but I'll take ano-therrr!"

Símtzoff now awoke, and began to sing in a blissful voice.

"Brethren! Who's there? Pour out a cupful for the old man!"

They poured it and handed it to him. After drinking it, he again rolled over in a heap, knocking his head against someone's side.

The silence lasted for a couple of minutes--a silence as gloomy and painful as the autumnal night. Then someone whispered....

"What?" the question rang out.

"I say, that he was a splendid fellow. Such a quiet head...." they said in an undertone.

"And he had money, too,... and he didn't spare it for the fellows...." and again silence reigned.

"He's dying!" Tyápa's shout resounded over the captain's head.

Aristíd Fómitch rose, and moving his feet with forced steadiness, he went to the lodging-house.

"What are you going for?" Tyápa stopped him.--"Don't go. For you're drunk ... and it isn't a good thing...."

The captain halted and meditated.

"What is good on this earth? Go to the devil!" And he gave Tyápa a shove.

The shadows were still leaping along the walls of the night lodging-house, as though engaged in mute conflict with one another. On the sleeping-shelf, stretched out at full length[10] lay the teacher, rattling in the throat. His eyes were wide open, his bare chest heaved violently, froth was oozing from the corners of his mouth, and on his face there was a strained expression, as though he were making an effort to say something great, difficult--and was not able, and was suffering inexpressibly in consequence.

The captain stood in front of him, with his hands clasped behind his back, and stared at him for about a minute. Then he began to speak, painfully contracting his brows:

"Philip! Say something to me ... throw a word of comfort to your friend!... I love you, brother.... All men are beasts, but you were for me--a man ... although you were a drunkard. Akh, how you did drink vódka! Philip! It was exactly that which has ruined you.... And why? You ought to have known how to control yourself ... and listen to me. D-didn't I use to tell you...."

The mysterious, all-annihilating power called Death, as though insulted by the presence of this intoxicated man at the gloomy and solemn scene of its conflict with life, decided to make as speedy an end as possible of its business, and the teacher, heaving a deep sigh, moaned softly, shuddered, stretched himself out, and died.

The captain reeled on his legs, as he continued his speech.

"What's the matter with you? Do you want me to bring you some vódka? But better not drink it, Philip.... Restrain yourself, conquer yourself.... If you can't--drink! Why restrain yourself, to speak plainly.... For whose sake, Philip? Isn't that so? For whose sake?..."

He grasped his foot, and drew him toward him.

"Ah, you are asleep, Philip? Well ... sleep on.... A quiet night to you ... to-morrow I'll explain it all to you, and you'll be convinced that it isn't necessary to deny yourself anything.... But now--sleep ... if you are not dead...."

He went out, accompanied by silence, and when he came to his men he announced:

"He's asleep ... or dead ... I don't know ... I'm a l-lit-tle drunk...."

Tyápa bent over still further, making the sign of the cross on his breast. Martyánoff writhed quietly, and lay down on the ground. The Meteor, that stupid lad, began to whimper, softly and plaintively, like an affronted woman. The Gnawed Bone began to wriggle swiftly over the ground, saying in a low, spiteful, and sorrowful tone:

"The devil take the whole lot of you! Tormentors.... Well, he's dead! Come, what of that? I ... why need I know that? Why must I be told about that? The time will come ... when I shall die myself ... just as much as he ... I, as much as the rest."

"That's true!" said the captain loudly, dropping heavily to the ground.--"The time will come, and we shall all die, like the rest ... ha-ha! How we pass our lives ... is a trifling matter! But we shall die--like everybody. Therein lies the goal of life, believe my words. For a man lives in order that he may die.... And he dies.... And if that is so, what difference does it make why and how he dies, and how he has lived? Am I right, Martyánoff? Let's have another drink ... and another, as long as we are alive...."

The rain began to fall. Dense, stifling gloom covered the forms of the men, as they wallowed on the earth, curled up in slumber or intoxication. The streak of light proceeding from the lodging-house paled, flickered, and suddenly vanished. Evidently, the wind had blown out the lamp or the kerosene in it had burned down. The raindrops tapped timidly, irresolutely, as they fell upon the iron roof of the lodging-house. From the town, at the top of the hill, melancholy, occasional strokes of a bell were wafted--it was the churches being guarded.

The brazen sound, floating from the belfry, floated softly through the darkness, and slowly died away in it, but before the darkness could engulf its last, tremulously-sobbing note, another stroke began, and again, through the silence of the night, the melancholy sigh of the metal was borne forth.

*

Tyápa was the first to awaken in the morning.

Turning over on his back, he stared at the sky--only in this posture did his deformed neck permit him to see the heaven overhead.

On that morning the sky was uniformly gray. There, on high, the dark, cold gloom had thickened, it had extinguished the sun, and covering the blue infinity, poured forth melancholy upon the earth. Tyápa crossed himself, and raised himself on his elbow, in order to see whether any of the vódka anywhere remained. The bottle was there, but it was empty. Crawling across his comrades, Tyápa began to inspect the cups from which they had drunk. He found one of them almost full, drank it down, wiped his lips with his sleeve, and began to shake the captain by the shoulder.

"Get up ... hey there! Do you hear?"

The captain raised his head, gazing at him with dim eyes.

"We must inform the police ... come, then, get up!"

"What's the matter?"--asked the captain, sleepily and angrily.

"The matter is, that he's dead...."

"Who's dead?"

"The learned man...."

"Philip? Ye-es!"

"And you've forgotten--ekhma!"--grunted Tyápa reproachfully.

The captain rose to his feet, yawned with a whizzing noise, and stretched himself so hard that his bones creaked.

"Then, you go and report...."

"I won't go ... I don't like them,"--said Tyápa in a surly tone.

"Well, then, wake up the deacon yonder.... And I'll go and see about things...."

"All right ... get up, deacon!"

The captain went into the lodging-house, and stood at the teacher's feet. The dead man was lying stretched out at full length: his left hand was on his breast, his right was flung back in such a manner as though he had been flourishing it preparatory to dealing someone a blow. The captain reflected, that if the teacher were to rise now, he would be as tall as Tarás-and-a-Half. Then he seated himself on the sleeping-shelf, at the feet of his friend, and calling to mind that they had lived together for three years, he sighed. Tyápa entered, holding his head, as a goat does, when he is about to butt. He sat down on the other side of the teacher's feet, gazed at the latter's dark, calm, serious face, with its tightly closed eyes, and said hoarsely:

"Yes ... there he is dead.... I shall die soon...."

"It's time you did,"--said the captain morosely.

"It is time!"--assented Tyápa.--"And you must die also.... Anyhow, it's better than...."

"Perhaps it's worse? How do you know?"

"It can't be worse. You'll die, you'll have to deal with God.... But with the people here.... But what do people signify?"

"Well, all right, don't rattle in your throat like that ..." Kuválda angrily interrupted him.

And in the gloom which filled the night lodging-house an impressive silence reigned.

For a long time they sat there in silence, at the feet of their dead comrade, and glanced at him, now and then, both absorbed in thought. Then Tyápa inquired:

"Shall you bury him?"

"I? No! Let the police bury him."

"Well! You'd better bury him, I think ... you know, you took his money from Vavíloff for writing that petition.... I'll contribute, if there isn't enough...."

"I have his money ... but I won't bury him."

"That's not well. You're robbing a corpse. I'll just tell everybody that you want to devour his money...." menaced Tyápa.

"You're stupid, you old devil!"--said Kuválda scornfully.

"I'm not stupid.... Only, that isn't good, I say, not a friendly thing to do."

"Well, it's all right, anyway. Get away with you!"

"You don't say so! And how much money is there?"

"Four rubles...." said Kuválda abstractedly.

"There, now! You might give me five rubles...."

"What a rascally old fellow you are ..." and the captain swore at Tyápa, looking him indifferently in the face.

"What of that? Really, now, give it...."

"Go to the devil!... I'm going to build him a monument with the money."

"What's the good of that to him?"

"I'll buy a mill-stone and an anchor. I'll put the millstone on the grave, and I'll fasten the anchor to it with a chain.... It will be very heavy...."

"What for? You're getting whimsical...."

"Well ... it's no business of yours."

"I'll tell, see if I don't...." threatened Tyápa again.

Aristíd Fómitch gazed dully at him and made no reply. And again, for a long time, they sat in silence, which always assumes an impressive and mysterious coloring in the presence of the dead.

"Hark, there ... somebody's driving up!"--said Tyápa, as he rose, and left the lodging-house.

The police captain of the district, the coroner, and the doctor soon made their appearance at the door. All three, one after the other, approached the teacher, and after taking a look at him went out, rewarding Kuválda with sidelong and suspicious glances. He sat there, paying no attention to them, until the police captain asked him, nodding toward the teacher:

"What did he die of?"

"Ask him ... I think, from lack of practice...."

"What's that you say?"--inquired the police captain.

"I say--he died, in my opinion, from lack of practice, because he wasn't used to the illness that seized upon him...."

"Hm ... yes! And was he ill long?"

"We might drag him out here, we can't see anything in there," suggested the doctor, in a bored tone.--"Perhaps there are traces...."

"Here, you, there, call someone to carry him out,"--the police captain ordered Kuválda.

"Call them yourself.... He doesn't bother me where he is...." retorted Kuválda indifferently.

"Get along, there!"--shouted the policeman, with a savage face.

"Whoa!" parried Kuválda, not stirring from the spot and calmly disclosing his teeth in a vicious snarl.

"I'll give it to you, devil take you!"--shouted the police captain, enraged to such a degree that his face became suffused with blood.--"I won't overlook this!..."

"A very good-morning, honored sirs!"--said merchant Petúnnikoff, in a sweet voice, as he made his appearance in the doorway.

Taking them all in with one sharp glance, he shuddered, retreated a pace, and removing his cap, began to cross himself vehemently. Then a smile of malevolent triumph flitted across his countenance, and staring point-blank at Kuválda he inquired respectfully:

"What's this here?--Can they have murdered the man?"

"Why, something of that sort," the coroner replied.

Petúnnikoff heaved a deep sigh, then crossed himself again, and said, in a tone of distress:

"Ah, Lord my God! This is just what I was afraid of! Every time I dropped in here to take a look ... áï, áï, áï! And when I got home, I kept having such visions--God preserve everyone from such an experience!--Many a time I have felt like turning that gentleman yonder ... the commander-in-chief of the golden horde, out of his quarters, but I was always afraid to ... you know ... it's better to yield to that sort of people ... I said to myself,... otherwise...."

He made an easy gesture with his hand in the air, then drew it across his face, gathered his beard in his fist, and sighed again.

"Dangerous people. And that gentleman there is a sort of commander over them ... a regular bandit chieftain."

"And we're going to examine him," said the police captain in an extremely significant tone, as he gazed at the cavalry captain with revengeful eyes. "He is well known to me!..."

"Yes, brother, you and I are old acquaintances...." assented Kuválda, in a familiar tone.--"What a lot of bribes I've paid to you and to your sprouts of under-officials to hold your tongues!"

"Gentlemen!"--cried the police captain,--"you hear him? I request that you will bear this in mind! I won't overlook this.... Ah ... ah! So that's it? Well, I'll give you cause to remember me! I'll ... put an end to you, my friend!"

"Don't brag when you set out for the wars ... my friend,"--said Aristíd Fómitch coolly.

The doctor, a young man in spectacles, stared at him with curiosity, the coroner with ominous attention, Petúnnikoff with triumph, but the police captain shouted and dashed about, as he flung himself on him.

The sinister form of Martyánoff made its appearance in the doorway of the lodging-house. He stepped up quietly and stood behind Petúnnikoff, so that his chin was just over the merchant's crown. On one side, from behind him, peered the deacon, his small, swollen, red eyes opened to their fullest extent.

"Come on, let's do something, gentlemen," suggested the doctor.

Martyánoff made a terrible grimace, and suddenly sneezed straight on Petúnnikoff's head. Hie latter shrieked, squatted down, and sprang to one side, almost knocking the police captain off his feet, as the latter supported him, having opened his arms wide to receive him.

"You see?"--said the merchant, pointing at Martyánoff. "That's the sort of people they are! Hey?"

Kuválda broke out into a roar of laughter. The doctor and the coroner laughed, and new forms kept constantly approaching the door of the night lodging-house. The half-awake, bloated physiognomies, with red, swollen eyes, with dishevelled heads, unceremoniously scrutinized the doctor, the coroner, and the police captain.

"Where are you crawling to!"--the policeman exhorted them, tugging at their rags and pushing them away from the door. But he was one, and they were many, and paying no heed to him, silent and threatening they continued to advance, exhaling an odor of stale vódka. Kuválda looked at them, then at the authorities, who were somewhat disconcerted by the size of this ugly audience, and, with a grin, he remarked to the authorities:

"Gentlemen! Perhaps you would like to make the acquaintance of my lodgers and friends? You would? Never mind ... sooner or later, you'll be forced to make acquaintance with them, in the discharge of your duties...."

The doctor laughed in an embarrassed way. The coroner pressed his lips tightly together, and the police captain saw what it was necessary to do, and shouted outside:

"Sídoroff! Whistle ... when the men arrive, tell them to get a cart ..."

"Well, I must be going!"--said Petúnnikoff, moving forward from somewhere in the corner.--"You will vacate my quarters to-day, sir.... I'm going to have this old shanty torn down.... Look out, or I'll apply to the police ..."

The shrill whistle of the policeman rang out in the courtyard. At the door of the night lodging-house its denizens stood in a dense mass, yawning and scratching their heads.

"So, you don't want to make acquaintance?... That's impolite!..." laughed Aristíd Kuválda.

Petúnnikoff took his purse out of his pocket, fumbled in it, pulled out two five-kopék pieces, and, crossing himself, laid them at the feet of the corpse.

"Bless, oh Lord ... for the burial of the sinner's dust...."

"Wha-at!" bawled the cavalry captain.--"You? For his burial? Take it away! Take it away, I tell you ... you scou-oundrel! You dare to contribute your stolen pennies to the burial of an honest man.... I'll tear you to bits!"

"Your Well-Born!" shouted the merchant in alarm, seizing the police captain by the elbow. The doctor and the coroner rushed out, the police captain shouted loudly:

"Sídoroff, come here!"

The men with pasts formed a wall across the door, and with interest lighting up their rumpled faces they watched and listened.

Kuválda shook his fist over Petúnnikoff's head, and roared, rolling his blood-shot eyes ferociously. "Scoundrel and thief! Take your money! You dirty creature ... take it, I say ... if you don't, I'll ram those five-kopék pieces into your eyeballs--take it!"

Petúnnikoff stretched out a trembling hand toward his mite, and fending off Kuválda's fist with the other hand, he said:

"Bear witness, Mr. Police Captain, and you, my good people."

"We're bad people, merchant," rang out The Gnawed Bone's trembling voice.

The police captain, puffing out his face like a bladder, whistled desperately, and held his other hand in the air over the head of Petúnnikoff, who was wriggling about in front of him exactly as though he were about to jump upon his body.

"If you like, Ill make you kiss the feet of this corpse, you base viper? D-do you want to?"

And grasping Petúnnikoff by the collar, Kuválda hurled him to the door, as though he had been a kitten. The men with pasts hastily stepped aside, to make room for Petúnnikoff to fall. And he sprawled at their feet, howling in rage and terror:

"Murder! Police ... I'm killed!"

Martyánoff slowly raised his foot, and took aim with it at the merchant's head. The Gnawed Bone, with a voluptuous expression on his countenance, spat in Petúnnikoff's face. The merchant contracted himself into a small ball, and rolled, on all fours, into the courtyard, encouraged by a roar of laughter. But two policemen had already made their appearance in the courtyard, and the police captain, pointing at Kuválda, shouted triumphantly:

"Arrest him! Bind him!"

"Bind him, my dear men!"--entreated Petúnnikoff.

"Don't you dare! I won't run away ... I'll go of myself, wherever it's necessary...." said Kuválda, waving aside the policemen, who had run up to him.

The men with pasts vanished, one by one. A cart drove into the courtyard. Several dejected tatterdemalions had already carried the teacher out of the lodging-house.

"I'll g-give it to you, my dear fellow ... just wait!"--the police captain menaced Kuválda.

"Well, you bandit chief!"--inquired Petúnnikoff venomously, excited and happy at the sight of his enemy, whose hands had been bound.

"Lead him off!" said the police captain, pointing at the cavalry captain.

Kuválda, making no protest, silent and with knitted brows, moved from the yard, and as he passed the teacher he bowed his head, but did not look at him. Martyánoff, with his stony face, followed him. Merchant Petúnnikoff's courtyard was speedily emptied.

"Go on, now!" and the cab-driver shook his reins over his horse's crupper.

The cart moved off, jolting over the uneven ground of the courtyard. The teacher, covered with some rag or other, lay stretched out in it, face upward, and his belly quivered. It seemed as though the teacher were laughing, in a quiet, satisfied way, delighted that, at last, he was to leave the night lodging-house, never to return there again.... Petúnnikoff, as he accompanied him with a glance, crossed himself piously, and then began with his cap to beat off the dust and rubbish which had clung to his clothing. And, in proportion as the dust disappeared from his coat, a calm expression of satisfaction with himself and confidence in himself made its appearance on his countenance. From the courtyard he could see Aristíd Fómitch Kuválda walking along the street, up the hill, with his hands bound behind him, tall, gray-haired, in a cap with a red band, which resembled a streak of blood.

Petúnnikoff smiled the smile of the conqueror, and went into the night lodging-house, but suddenly halted, shuddering. In the door, facing him, with a stick in his hand and a huge sack on his shoulder, stood a terrible old man, bristling like a hedgehog with the rags which covered his long body, bent beneath the weight of his burden, and with his head bowed upon his breast exactly as though he were about to hurl himself at the merchant.

"What do you want?" shouted Petúnnikoff.--"Who are you?"

"A man..." rang out a dull, hoarse voice.

This hoarse rattle rejoiced and reassured Petúnnikoff. He even smiled.

"A man! Akh, you queer fellow ... do such men exist?"

And stepping aside, he let the old man pass him, as the latter marched straight at him, and muttered dully: "There are various sorts of men ... as God wills.... There are worse men than I ... worse than I ... yes!"

The overcast sky gazed silently into the dirty courtyard, and at the clean man, with the small, pointed, gray beard, who was walking over the ground, measuring something with his footsteps and with his sharp little eyes. On the roof of the old house a crow sat and croaked triumphantly, as it stretched out its neck, and rocked to and fro. In the stern, gray storm-clouds, which thickly covered the sky, there was something strained and implacable, as though they, in preparing to discharge a downpour of rain, were firmly resolved to wash away all the filth from this unhappy, tortured, melancholy earth.

THE INSOLENT MAN

The irritated, angry editor was running to and fro in the large, light editorial office of the "N---- Gazette," crumpling in his hand a copy of the publication, spasmodically shouting and swearing. It was a tiny figure, with a sharp, thin face, decorated with a little beard and gold eyeglasses. Stamping loudly with his thin legs, encased in gray trousers, he fairly whirled about the long table, which stood in the middle of the room, and was loaded down with crumpled newspapers, galley-proofs, and fragments of manuscript. At the table, with one hand resting upon it, while with the other he wiped his brow, stood the publisher--a tall, stout, fair-haired man, of middle age, and with a faint grin on his white, well-fed face, he watched the editor with merry, brilliant eyes. The maker-up, an angular man, with a yellow face and a sunken chest, in a light-brown coat, which was very dirty and far too long for him, was shrinking closely against the wall. He raised his brows, and gazed at the ceiling with staring eyes, as though trying to recall something, or in meditation, but a moment later, wrinkled up his nose in a disenchanted way, and dropped his head dejectedly on his breast. In the doorway stood the form of the office boy; men with anxious, dissatisfied countenances kept entering and disappearing, jostling him on their way. The voice of the editor, cross, irritated, and ringing, sometimes rose to a squeal, and made the publisher frown and the maker-up shudder in affright.

"No ... this is such a rascally piece of business! I'll start a criminal suit against this scoundrel.... Has the proof-reader arrived? Devil take it,--I ask--has the proof-reader arrived? Call all the compositors here! Have you told them? No, just imagine, what will happen now! All the newspapers will take it up.... Dis-grrrace! All Russia will hear of it.... I won't let that scoundrel off!"

And raising his hands which held the newspaper to his head, the editor stood rooted to the spot, as though endeavoring to wrap his head in the paper, and thus protect it from the anticipated disgrace.

"Find him first,..." advised the publisher, with a dry laugh.

"I'll f-find him, sir! I'll f-find him!"--the editor's eyes blazed, and starting on his gallop once more, and pressing the newspaper to his breast, he began to tousle it fiercely.--"I'll find him, and I'll roast him.... And where's that proof-reader?... Aha!... Here.... Now, sir, I beg that you will favor me with your company, my dear sirs! Hm!... 'The peaceful commanders of the leaden armies ...' ha, ha! Pass in ... there, that's it!"

One after another the compositors entered the room. They already knew what the trouble was, and each one of them had prepared himself to play the part of the culprit, in view of which fact, they all unanimously expressed in their grimy faces, impregnated with lead dust, complete immobility and a sort of wooden composure. They huddled together, in the corner of the room, in a dense group. The editor halted in front of them, with his hands, clutching the newspaper, thrown behind his back. He was shorter in stature than they, and he was obliged to hold back his head, in order to look them in the face. He made this movement too quickly, and his spectacles flew up on his forehead; thinking that they were about to fall, he flung his hand into the air to catch them, but, at that moment, they fell back again on the bridge of his nose.

"Devil take you..." he gritted his teeth.

Happy smiles beamed on the grimy countenances of the compositors. Someone uttered a suppressed laugh. "I have not summoned you hither that you may show your teeth at me!"--shouted the editor viciously, turning livid.--"I should think you had disgraced the newspaper enough already.... If there be an honest man among you, who understands what a newspaper is, what the press is, let him tell who was the author of this.... In the leading article...." The editor began nervously to unfold the paper.

"But what's it all about?" said a voice, in which nothing but simple curiosity was audible.

"Ah! You don't know? Well, then ... here ... 'Our factory legislation has always served the press as a subject for hot discussion ... that is to say, for the talking of stupid trash and nonsense!...' There, now! Are you satisfied? Will the man who added that 'talking' be pleased ... and, particularly--the word 'talking'! how grammatical and witty!--well, sirs, which of you is the author of that 'stupid trash and non-sense'?"

"Whose article is it? Yours? Well, and you are the author of all the nonsense that is said in it,"--rang out the same calm voice which had previously put the question to the editor.

This was insolent, and all involuntarily assumed that the person who was to blame for the affair had been found. A movement took place in the hall: the publisher drew nearer to the group, the editor raised himself on tiptoe, in the endeavor to see over the heads of the compositors into the face of the speaker. The compositors separated. Before the editor stood a stoutly-built young fellow, in a blue blouse, with a pock-marked face, and curling locks of hair which stood up in a crest above his left temple. He stood with his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his trousers, and, indifferently riveting his gray, mischievous eyes on the editor, he smiled faintly from out of his curling, light-brown beard. Everybody looked at him:--the publisher, with brows contracted in a scowl, the editor with amazement and wrath, the maker-up with a suppressed smile. The faces of the compositors expressed both badly-concealed satisfaction and alarm and curiosity.

"So ... it's you?"--inquired the editor, at last, pointing at the pock-marked compositor with his finger and compressing his lips in a highly significant manner.

"Yes ... it's I...." replied the latter, grinning in a particularly simple and offensive manner.

"A-ah!... Very glad to know it! So it's you? Why did you put it in, permit me to inquire?"

"But have I said that I did put it in?"--and the compositor glanced at his comrades.

"It certainly was he, Mítry[1] Pávlovitch," the maker-up remarked to the editor.

[1] Mítry--colloquial abbreviation of Dmítry.--Translator.

"Well, if I did, I did,"--assented the compositor, not without a certain good-nature, and waving his hand he smiled again.

Again all remained silent. No one had expected so prompt and calm a confession, and it acted upon them all as a surprise. Even the editor's wrath was converted, for a moment, into amazement. The space around the pock-marked man grew wider, the maker-up went off quickly to the table, the compositors stepped aside ...

"Then you did it deliberately, intentionally?" inquired the publisher, smiling, and staring at the pock-marked man with eyes round with astonishment.

"Be so good as to answer!"--shouted the editor, flourishing the crumpled newspaper.

"Don't shout ... I'm not afraid. A great many people have yelled at me, and all without any cause! ..." and in the compositor's eyes sparkled a daring, impudent light.... "Exactly so ..." he went on, shifting from foot to foot, and now addressing the publisher,--"I put in the words deliberately...."

"You hear?"--the editor appealed to the audience.

"Well, as a matter of fact, what did you mean by it, you devil's doll!"--the publisher suddenly flared up.--"Do you understand how much harm you have done me?"

"It's nothing to you.... I think it must even have increased the retail sales. But here's the editor ... really, that bit didn't exactly suit his taste."

The editor was fairly petrified with indignation; he stood in front of that cool, malicious man, and flashed his eyes in silence, finding no words wherewith to express his agitated feelings.

"Well, it will be the worse for you, brother, on account of this!"--drawled the publisher malevolently, and, suddenly softening, he slapped his knee with his hand.

In reality, he was pleased with what had happened, and with the workman's insolent reply: the editor had always treated him rather patronizingly, making no effort to conceal his consciousness of his own mental superiority, and now he, that same conceited, self-confident man, was thrown prostrate in the dust ... and by whom?

"I'll pay you off for your insolence to me, my dear soul!" he added.

"Why, you certainly won't overlook it so!" assented the compositor.

This tone and these words again produced a sensation. The compositors exchanged glances with one another, the maker-up elevated his eyebrows, and seemed to shrivel up, the editor retreated to the table, and supporting himself on it with his hands, more disconcerted and offended than angry, he stared intently at his foe.

"What's your name?" inquired the publisher, taking his notebook from his pocket.

"Nikólka[2] Gvózdeff, Vasíly Ivánovitch!" the maker-up promptly stated.

[2] Colloquial for Nikolái.--Translator.

"And you, you lackey of Judas the Traitor, hold your tongue when you're not spoken to,"--said the compositor, with a surly glance at the maker-up.--"I have a tongue of my own,... I answer for myself.... My name is Nikoláï Semyónovitch Gvózdeff. My residence ...."

"We'll find that out!"--promised the publisher.--"And now, take yourself off to the devil! Get out, all of you!..."

With a heavy shuffling of feet, the compositors departed. Gvózdeff followed them.

"Stop ... if you please...." said the editor softly, but distinctly, and stretched out his hand after Gvózdeff.

Gvózdeff turned toward him, with an indolent movement leaned against the door-jamb, and, as he twisted his beard, he riveted his insolent eyes upon the editor's face.

"I want to ask you about something,"--began the editor. He tried to maintain his composure, but this he did not succeed in doing: his voice broke, and rose to a shriek.--"You have confessed ... that in creating this scandal ... you had me in view. Yes? What is the meaning of that? revenge on me? I ask you--what did you do it for? Do you understand me? Can you answer me?"

Gvózdeff twitched his shoulders, curled his lips, and dropping his head, remained silent for a minute. The publisher tapped his foot impatiently, the maker-up stretched his neck forward, and the editor bit his lips, and nervously cracked his fingers. All waited.

"I'll tell you, if you like.... Only, as I'm an uneducated man, perhaps it won't be intelligible to you ... Well, in that case, pray excuse me!... Now, here's the way the matter stands. You write various articles, and inculcate on everybody philanthropy and all that sort of thing.... I can't tell you all this in detail--I'm not much of a hand at reading and writing.... I think you know yourself, what you discourse about every day.... Well, and so I read your articles. You make comments on us workingmen ... and I read it all.... And it disgusts me to read it, for it's nothing but nonsense. Mere shameless words, Mítry Pávlovitch! ... because you write--don't steal, but what goes on in your own printing-office? Last week, Kiryákoff worked three days and a half, earned three rubles and eighty kopéks[3] and fell ill. His wife comes to the counting-room for the money, but the manager tells her, that he won't give it to her, and that she owes one ruble and twenty kopéks in fines. Now talk about not stealing! Why don't you write about these ways of doing things? And about how the manager yells, and thrashes the poor little boys for every trifle?... You can't write about that, because you pursue the same policy yourself.... You write that life in the world is hard for folks--and I'll just tell you, that the reason you write all that, is because you don't know how to do anything else. That's the whole truth of the matter.... And that's why you don't see any of the brutal things that go on right under your nose, but you narrate very well about the brutalities of the Turks. So aren't they nonsense--those articles of yours? I've been wanting this long time to put some words into your articles, just to shame you. And it oughtn't to be needed again!"

[3] About $1.90.--Translator.

Gvózdeff felt himself a hero. He puffed out his chest proudly, held his head very high, and without attempting to conceal his triumph, he looked the editor straight in the face. But the editor shrank close against the table, clutched it with his hands, flung himself back, paling and flushing by turns, and smiling persistently in a scornful, confused, vicious, and suffering manner. His widely-opened eyes winked fast.

"A socialist?"--inquired the publisher, with apprehension and interest, in a low voice, addressing the editor. The latter smiled a sickly smile, but made no reply, and hung his head.

The maker-up went off to the window, where stood a tub in which grew a huge filodendron, that cast upon the floor a pattern of shade, took up his post behind the tub, and thence watched them all, with eyes which were as small, black, and shifty as those of a mouse. They expressed a certain impatient expectation, and now and then a little flash of joy lighted them up. The publisher stared at the editor. The latter was conscious of this, raised his head, and with an uneasy gleam in his eyes, and a nervous quiver in his face, he shouted after the departing Gvózdeff:

"Stop ... if you please! You have insulted me. But you are not in the right--I hope you feel that? I am grateful to you for ... y-your ... straightforwardness, with which you have spoken out, hut, I repeat...."

He tried to speak ironically, but instead of irony, something wan and false rang in his words, and he paused, in order to tune himself up to a defence which should be worthy of himself and of this judge, as to whose right to sit in judgment upon him, the editor, he had never before entertained a thought.

"Of course!"--and Gvózdeff nodded his head.--"The only one who is right is the one who can say a great deal."

And, as he stood in the doorway, he cast a glance around him, with an expression on his face which plainly showed how impatient he was to get away from there.

"No, excuse me!"--cried the editor, elevating his tone, and raising his hand.--"You have brought forward an accusation against me, but before that, you arbitrarily punished me for what you regard as a fault toward you on my part.... I have a right to defend myself, and I request that you will listen to me."

"But what business have you with me? Defend yourself to the publisher, if necessary. But what have you to say to me? If I have insulted you, drag me before the justice of the peace. But--defend yourself--that's another matter! Good-bye!"--He turned sharply about, and putting his hands behind his back, he left the room.

He had on his feet heavy boots with large heels, with which he tramped noisily, and his footsteps echoed resoundingly in the vast, shed-like editorial room.

"There you have history and geography--a detailed statement of the case!"--exclaimed the publisher, when Gvózdeff had slammed the door behind him.

"Vasíly Ivánovitch, I am not to blame in this matter ...." began the maker-up, throwing his hands apart apologetically, as he approached the publisher with short, cautious steps. "I make up the pages, and I can't possibly tell what the man on duty has put into them. I'm on my feet all night.... I'm here, while my wife lies ill at home, and my children ... three of them ... have no one to look after them.... I may say that I sell my blood, drop by drop, for thirty rubles a month.... And when Gvózdeff was hired, I said to Feódor Pávlovitch: 'Feódor Pávlovitch,' says I, 'I've known Nikólka ever since he was a little boy, and I'm bound to tell you, that Nikólka is an insolent fellow and a thief, a man without conscience. He has already been tried in the district court,' says I, 'and has even been in prison....'"

"What was he in prison for?"--inquired the editor thoughtfully, without looking at the narrator.

"For pigeons, sir ... that is to say, not because of the pigeons, but for smashing locks. He smashed the locks of seven dove-cotes in one night, sir!... and set all the flocks at liberty--scattered all the birds, sir! A pair of dark-gray ones belonging to me disappeared also,--one fancy tumbler, and a pouter. They were very valuable birds."

"Did he steal them?"--inquired the publisher with curiosity.

"No, he doesn't pamper himself in that way. He was tried for theft, but he was acquitted. So he's--an insolent fellow..... He released the birds, and delighted in it, and jeered at us fanciers.... He has been thrashed more than once already. Once he even had to go to the hospital after the thrashing.... And when he came out, he bred devils in my gossip's stove."[4]

[4] The word means "fellow sponsor" or intimate friend--the precise sense does not always appear from the context. But it is worth noting that a man and a woman who stand sponsors for a child in baptism, in the Eastern Catholic Church, thereby place themselves within the forbidden degrees of relationship, and can never marry each other.--Translator.

"Devils!" said the publisher in amazement.

"What twaddle!"--the editor shrugged his shoulders, knit his brows, and again biting his lips, he relapsed into thought.

"It's perfectly true, only I didn't say it just right,"--said the maker-up abashed.--"You see, he, Nikólka, is a stove-builder. He's a jack-of-all-trades: he understands the lithographic trade, he has been an engraver, and a plumber, also.... Well, then, my gossip--she has a house of her own, and belongs to the ecclesiastical class--and she hired him to rebuild her stove. Well, he rebuilt it all right; only, the rascally fellow, he cemented into the wall a bottle filled with quicksilver and needles ... and he put something else in, too. This produced a sound--such a peculiar sound, you know, like a groan and a sigh; and then folks began to say that devils had bred in the house. When they heated the stove, the quicksilver in the bottle warmed up, and began to roam about in it. And the needles scratched against the glass, just as though somebody were gnashing his teeth. Besides the needles, he had put various iron objects into the bottle, and they made noises, too, after their own fashion,--the needle after its fashion, the nail after its fashion, and the result was a regular devil's music.... My gossip even tried to sell her house, but nobody would buy it--who likes to have devils round, sir? She had three prayer-services with blessing of holy water celebrated--it did no good. The woman bawled; she had a daughter of marriageable age, a hundred head of fowl, two cows, and a good farm ... and these devils must needs spoil everything! She struggled and struggled, so that it was pitiful to see. But I must say that Nikólka rescued her. 'Give me fifty rubles,' says he, 'and I'll drive out the devils!' She gave him four to start with,--and afterward, when he had pulled out the bottle, and confessed what the matter was--well, good-bye! She's a very clever woman, and she wanted to hand him over to the police, but he persuaded her not to.... And he has a lot of other artful dodges."

"And for one of those charming 'artful dodges' yesterday I shall have to pay. I!"--ejaculated the editor nervously, and tearing himself from his place, he again began to fling himself about the room.--"Oh my God! How stupid, how coarse, how trivial it all is...."

"We-ell, you're making a great fuss over it!"--said the publisher soothingly.--"Make a correction, explain how it happened.... He's a very interesting young fellow, deuce take him! He put devils in the stove, ha, ha! No, by heaven! We'll teach him a lesson, but he's a rascal with a brain, and he arouses for himself some feeling of ... you know!"--the publisher snapped his fingers over his head, and cast a glance at the ceiling.

"Does it interest you?"--cried the editor sharply.

"Well, why not? Isn't it amusing? And he described you pretty thoroughly. He's got wit, the beast!"--the publisher said, taking revenge on the editor for his shout.--"How do you intend to pay him off?"

The editor suddenly ran close up to the publisher.

"I shall not pay him off, sir! I can't, Vasíly Ivánovitch, because that manufacturer of devils is in the right! The devil knows what goes on in your printing-office, do you hear? But we!... but I have to play the fool, thanks to you. He's in the right, a thousand times over!"

"And also in the addition which he made to your article?"--inquired the publisher venomously, and pursed up his lips ironically.

"Well, and what if he was? And he was right, in that also, yes! You must understand, Vasíly Ivánovitch, for, you know, we're a liberal newspaper...."

"And we print an edition of two thousand, reckoning in those gratuitously distributed and the exchanges,"--dryly interposed the publisher.--"But our competitor disposes of nine thousand!"

"We-ell, sir?"

"I have nothing more to say!"

The editor waved his hand hopelessly, and again, with dimming eyes, he began to pace up and down the room.

"A charming situation!"--he muttered, shrugging his shoulders.--"A sort of universal chase! All the dogs hunting down one, and that one muzzled! Ha, ha! And that unfortunate w-workman! Oh my God!"

"Why, spit on the whole business, my dear fellow, don't get worked up over it!"--counselled Vasíly Ivánovitch suddenly, with a good-natured grin, as though tired out with emotions and recriminations.--"It has come and it will go, and you will re-establish your honor. The affair is far more ridiculous than dramatic." He pacifically offered the editor his plump hand, and was on the point of quitting the room for the office.

All at once, the door leading into the office opened, and Gvózdeff made his appearance on the threshold. He had his cap on, and smiled not without a certain amount of courtesy.

"I have come to tell you, Mr. Editor, that if you want to sue me, say so--for I'm going away from here, and I don't want to be brought back, by stages, by the police."

"Take yourself off!"--howled the editor, almost sobbing with wrath, and rushed to the other end of the room.

"That means, we're quits,"--said Gvózdeff, adjusting his cap on his head, and coolly wheeling round on the threshold, he disappeared.

"O-oh, the beast!"--sighed Vasíly Ivánovitch, in rapture, to Gvózdeff's back, and with a blissful smile he began, in a leisurely manner, to put on his overcoat.

*

Two days after the scene described above, Gvózdeff, in a blue blouse, confined with a leather strap, in trousers hanging freely, and laced shoes, in a white cap worn over one ear, and the nape of his neck, and with a knobby stick in his hand, was walking staidly along the "Hill."

The "Hill" presented a sloping descent to the river. In ancient times, this slope had been covered with a dense grove. Now, almost the whole of the grove had been felled, the gnarled oaks and elms, shattered by thunderstorms, reared heavenward their aged hollow boles, spreading far abroad their knotted boughs. Around their roots twined the young sprouts, small bushes clung to their trunks, and everywhere amid the greenery the rambling public had trodden winding paths, which crept downward to the river all flooded with the radiance of the sun. Horizontally intersecting the "Hill" ran a broad avenue--an abandoned post-road,--and along this, chiefly, the public strolled, promenading in two files, one going in each direction.

Gvózdeff had always been very fond of strolling back and forth along this avenue, with the public, and of feeling himself one of them, and, like them, freely breathing the air impregnated with the fragrance of the foliage, of freely and lazily moving along, and being a part of something great, and feeling himself equal to all the rest.

On this day, he was on the verge of being tipsy, and his resolute, pock-marked face had a good-natured, sociable expression. From his left temple his chestnut forelocks curled upward. Handsomely shading his ear, they lay on the band of his cap, imparting to Gvózdeff the dashing air of a young artisan, who is satisfied with himself, and even ready, on the instant, to sing a song, to dance, and to fight, and not averse to drinking every minute. With these characteristic forelocks Nature herself seemed to be desirous of recommending Nikólka Gvózdeff to everyone as a fiery young fellow, who was conscious of his own value. Glancing about him approvingly, with his gray eyes puckered up, Gvózdeff, in a perfectly peaceable manner, jostled the public, bore its nudges with entire equanimity, excused himself, when he trod on the ladies' trains, in company with the rest swallowed the thick dust, and felt extremely well. Athwart the foliage of the trees, the sun could be seen setting in the meadows beyond the river. The sky there was purple, warm, and caressing, alluring one thither to the spot where it touched the rim of the dark green fields. Beneath the feet of the promenaders lay a tracery of shadows, and the throng of people trod upon them, without noticing their beauty. Foppishly thrusting a cigarette into the left corner of his lips, and idly emitting from the right corner little streams of smoke, Gvózdeff scanned the public, feeling within him a genuine desire to have a chat with someone, over a couple of mugs of beer in the restaurant, at the foot of the "Hill." He encountered none of his acquaintances, and no suitable opportunity for picking up a new acquaintance presented itself; for some reason, the public was gloomy, in spite of its being a festival and with clear weather, and did not respond to his communicative mood, although he had, already, more than once, stared into the faces of the people he met with a good-natured smile, and with an expression of perfect readiness to enter into conversation. All at once, in the mass of people's backs, there flashed before his eyes the back of a head which was familiar to him, smoothly clipped and flat as though chopped off--the nape of the neck belonging to the editor--Dmítry Pávlovitch Istómin. Gvózdeff smiled, when he remembered how he had ill-treated that man, and began to gaze with pleasure at Dmítry Pávlovitch's low-crowned, gray hat. Now and then the editor's hat disappeared behind other hats, and, for some reason, this disquieted Gvózdeff; he raised himself on tiptoe, to catch sight of it, and when he found it, he smiled again.

Thus, following the editor, he walked along, and recalled the time when he, Gvózdeff, had been Nikólka the locksmith, and the editor--was Mítka,[4] the deacon's son. They had had another comrade, Míshka,[5] whom they had nicknamed the Sugar-bowl. There had also been Váska[6] Zhúkoff, the son of an official, from the last house in the street. It was a nice house,--old, all overgrown with moss, all stuck around with additions. Váska's father had a very fine flock of pigeons. The courtyard of the house was a fine place in which to play at hide-and-seek, because Váska's father was miserly, and saved up in his yard all sorts of rubbish--broken carriages, and casks, and boxes. Now Váska was a physician, in the country, and on the site of the old house stood railway freight-houses.... They had had other chums--all little boys of from eight to ten years of age. They had all resided on the outskirts of the town, in Back Damp Street, had lived on friendly terms with each other, and in constant hostility with the horrid little boys of the other streets. They had devastated gardens and vegetable patches, they had played at knuckle-bones, at tip-cat, and other games, and had studied in the parish school.... Twenty-five years had elapsed since that time.

[4] Mítka--colloquial diminutive for Dmítry.--Translator.

[5] Míshka--colloquial diminutive for Mikháïl.--Translator.

[6] Váska--colloquial diminutive for Vasíly.--Translator.

Time had been--and passed, the little boys had been as saucy and grimy-faced as Nikólka the locksmith,--and now they had become persons of importance. But Nikólka the locksmith had stuck fast in Back Damp Street. They, when they had finished the parish school, had got into the gymnasium,--he had not got in.... And how would it do if he were to address the editor? Say good-afternoon, and enter into conversation? He might begin by begging pardon for the row, and then talk--so, about life in general.

The editor's hat kept flitting in front of Gvózdeff's eyes, as though alluring him to itself, and Gvózdeff made up his mind. Just at that moment, the editor was walking alone, in a free space, which had formed in the crowd. He was stepping along with his thin legs in their light trousers, his head kept turning from side to side, his short-sighted eyes were screwed up, as he scanned the public. Gvózdeff came almost alongside of him, gazed askance at his face in an amiable way, awaiting a favorable moment, in order to wish him a good-afternoon, and, at the same time, experiencing a keen desire to know how the editor would bear himself toward him.

"Good-afternoon, Mítry Pávlovitch!"

The editor turned toward him, with one hand raised his hat, with the other adjusted the eyeglasses on his nose, surveyed Gvózdeff, and scowled.

But this did not daunt Nikoláï Gvózdeff,--on the contrary, he leaned toward the editor, in the most agreeable way possible, and flooding him with the odor of vódka, he inquired:

"Are you taking a stroll?"

For a second, the editor halted; his lips and nostrils quivered scornfully, and he nodded curtly at Gvózdeff:

"What do you want?"

"I? Nothing! I just thought ... it's fine weather to-day! And I'm very anxious to have a talk with you about that occurrence."

"I don't wish to talk about anything with you!"--declared the editor, hastening his steps.

Gvózdeff did the same.

"You don't wish to? I understand.. you are right--I understand that very well indeed.... As I put you to confusion, of course, you must have a grudge against me...."

"You, simply ... you're drunk...." the editor halted once more.--"And if you don't leave me in peace, I'll summon the police."

Gvózdeff smiled affectionately.

"Well, why?"

The editor looked askance at him, with the anxious glance of a man who has fallen into an unpleasant position, and does not know how to extricate himself from it. The public were already staring at them with curiosity. Several persons pricked up their ears, scenting an approaching row. Istómin cast a helpless glance around him.

Gvózdeff observed it.

"Let's turn aside,"--said he, and, without awaiting the other's consent, with his shoulder he dexterously thrust Istómin to one side, away from the broad avenue, into a narrow path, which descended the hill between the bushes. The editor made no protest against this manoeuvre,--perhaps because he had no time, perhaps because, away from the public, entirely alone, he hoped to rid himself more promptly and simply of his companion. He walked quietly down the path, cautiously planting his cane on the ground, and Gvózdeff followed him, and breathed on his hat.

"There's a fallen tree not far from here, we'll sit on that.... Don't be angry with me, Mítry Pávlovitch, for this conduct of mine. Excuse me! For I did it out of anger.... Anger sometimes torments fellows like me to such a degree that you can't extinguish it with liquor.... Well, and at such times, one gets insolent to somebody: he strikes a passer-by in the snout, or does something else.... I don't repent, what's done is done; but, perhaps, I understand very well indeed, that I didn't keep within bounds that time ... I went too far...."

Whether this sincere explanation touched the editor, or whether Gvózdeff's personality aroused his curiosity, or whether he comprehended that he could not get rid of this man, at all events, he asked Gvózdeff:

"What is it that you want to talk about?"

"Why ... about everything! My soul is afflicted within me, because I feel that I'm an offence to myself.... Here, let's sit down."

"I have no time...."

"I know ... the newspaper! It's eating up half your life, you're squandering all your health on it.... You see, I understand! What's he, the publisher? He has put his money into the paper, but you have put your blood!. You have already written your eyes out.... Sit down!"

Along the path, in front of them, lay a large stump--the half-decayed remains of what had once been a mighty oak. The branches of a hazel-bush bent over the tree, forming a green tent; athwart the branches gleamed the sky, already arrayed in the hues of sunset; the spicy odor of fresh foliage filled the air. Gvózdeff seated himself, and turning to the editor, who still continued to stand, gazing about him with indecision, he began again:

"I have been drinking a little to-day ... I find life tiresome, Mítry Pávlovitch! I've lagged behind my comrades, the workingmen; somehow, my thoughts take an entirely different direction. I caught sight of you to-day, and remembered that you used to be a chum of mine, you know ... ha, ha!"

He laughed, because the editor looked at him with a swift change of expression on his face, which rendered him really ridiculous.

"A chum? When?"

"Long ago, Mítry Pávlovitch.... We used to live in Back Damp Street then ... do you remember? We lived across the courtyard from each other. And opposite us Míshka the Sugar-bowl--at the present time, Mikháïl Efímovitch Khruléff, the examining magistrate,--deigned to have his residence with his stem papa.... Do you remember Efímitch? He used to shake you and me by our top-knots.... Come, sit down, do."

The editor nodded his head affirmatively, and seated himself by the side of Gvózdeff. He regarded him with the intense gaze of a man who is recalling to mind something that took place long ago, and has been entirely forgotten, and he rubbed his forehead.

But Gvózdeff was carried away by his memories.

"What a life we led then! And why can't a man remain a child all his life long? He grows up ... why? Then he grows into the earth. All his life long he endures divers misfortunes ... he becomes irritated, savage ... nonsense! He lives, he lives and--at the end of his life, there's nothing to show but trash.... A coffin ... and nothing more.... But we used to live on then without any dark thoughts, merrily,--like little birds--that's all that can be said of it! We flew over the fences after the fruits of other people's labors.... Do you remember, one day, in Mrs. Petróvsky's vegetable-patch, on a thieving expedition, I stuffed a cucumber up your nose? You set up a yell, and I--took to my heels.... You came with your mamma to my father, to complain, and my father whipped me in proper style.... But Míshka--Mikháïl Efímovitch...."

The editor listened, and against his will he smiled. He wished to preserve his seriousness and dignity in the presence of this man who had evinced an inclination to be familiar. But in these stories of the bright days of childhood there was something touching, and in Gvózdeff's tone, so far, the notes which menaced Dmítry Pávlovitch's vanity did not ring out with especial sharpness. And everything round about was delightful. Somewhere up above, shuffled the feet of the promenading public on the sands of the paths, their voices were barely audible, and once in a while a laugh resounded; but the breeze was sighing,--and all those faint sounds were drowned in the melancholy rustling of the foliage. And when the rustling died away, there ensued moments of complete silence, as though everything round about were lending an attentive ear to the words of Nikoláï Gvózdeff, as he confusedly related the story of his youth....

"Do you remember Várka, the daughter of Kolokóltzoff the house-painter? She's married now to Shapóshnikoff the printer. Such a fine lady ... it scares one to pass her.... She was a sickly little lass in those days.... Do you remember, how she disappeared one day, and all we boys, from the whole street, searched the fields and ravines for her? We found her in the camp and led her home through the plain.... There was an awful uproar! Kolokóltzoff treated us to gingerbread, and Várka, when she saw her mother, said: 'I've been with the well-born wife of an officer, and she wants me to be her daughter!' He, he!... Her daughter!... She was a splendid little girl!..."

From the river were wafted certain sounds, as though someone's mighty, grief-laden breast were moaning. A steamer was passing, and in the air floated the tumult of the water, churned up by its wheels. The sky was rose-colored, but around Gvózdeff and the editor the twilight was thickening.... The spring night drew gradually on. The silence became complete, profound, and Gvózdeff lowered his voice, as though yielding to its influence.... The editor listened to him mutely, calling up in his mind pictures of the distant past. All this had been.... And all this had been better than what was now. Only in childhood is a free soul, which does not notice the weight of the chains that are called the conditions of life, possible. Childhood knows not the sharp inflammations of conscience, knows no other falsehood save the harmless falsehood of the child. How much is unknown in the days of childhood, and how good is that ignorance! One lives ... and gradually the comprehension of life is enlarged ... why is it enlarged, if one dies, without having understood anything?

"So you see, Mítry Pávlovitch, it turns out, that you and I are birds from one and the same nest ... yes! But our flights are different.... And when I recollect, that surely all the difference between me and my former comrades lies in the fact that I did not sit in the gymnasium over my books,--I feel bitter and disgusted.... Does that constitute a man? A man consists of his soul, of his relations to his neighbor, as it is said.... Well, then,--you are my neighbor, and what value do I possess for you? None whatever!--Isn't that so?"

The editor, enticed away by his own thoughts, must have misunderstood his companion's question.

"It is!"--he said, in a sincere, abstracted tone. But Gvózdeff burst out laughing, and he caught himself up:

"That is to say, excuse me? What, precisely, are you asking about?"

"Isn't it true that to you I'm--an empty spot.... Whether I exist or not is all one to you--you don't care a fig.... What is my soul to you? I live alone in the world, and all the people who know me are very tired of me. Because, I have an evil character, and I'm very fond of playing all sorts of practical jokes. But, you see, I have feeling and brains too ... I feel offence in my position. In what way am I worse than you? Only in my occupation...."

"Ye-es ... that is sad!" said the editor, contracting his brow, then he paused, and resumed, in a rather soothing tone:--"But, you see, another point of view must be applied to the case...."

"Mítry Pávlovitch! Why a point of view? One man should not pay attention to another man according to the point of view, but according to the impulse of the heart! What's that point of view? Is it possible to cast me aside because of some point of view or other? But I am cast aside in life--I make no headway in it.... Why? Because I'm not learned? But surely, if you learned folks would not judge from a point of view, but in some other way,--you ought not to forget me, a berry from the same field as yourselves, but draw me up toward you from below, where I rot in ignorance and exasperation of my feelings? Or--from the point of view--oughtn't you to do it?"

Gvózdeff screwed up his eyes, and gazed triumphantly into the face of his companion. He felt that he was showing himself to the best advantage, and emitted all his philosophy, which he had thought out during the long years of his laborious, unsystematic, and sterile life. The editor was disconcerted by his companion's attack, and tried simultaneously to decide--what sort of a man this was, and what reply he ought to make to his speech. But Gvózdeff, intoxicated with himself, continued:

"You clever people will give me a hundred answers, and the sum total of them will be--no, you ought not! But I say--you ought! Why? Because I and you folks are from one street and from one origin.... You are not the real lords of life ... you're not noblemen.... From them, fellows of my sort have nothing to gain. Those men would say: 6 Go to the devil'--and you'd go. Because--they're aristocrats from ancient times, but you're only aristocrats because you know grammar, and that sort of thing.... But you--are my equal, and I can demand from you information about my path in life. I'm of the petty burgher class, and so is Khruléff, and you ... are a deacon's son...."

"But, permit me ..." said the editor beseechingly, "am I denying your right to demand?"

But Gvózdeff was not in the least interested to know what the editor denied or what he admitted; he wanted to have his say, and he felt himself, at that moment, capable of expressing everything which had ever agitated him....

"Now, you will be pleased to permit me!"--he said, in a mysterious sort of whisper, bending closer to the editor, and flashing his excited eyes.--"Do you think it's easy for me to toil now for my comrades, to whom, in days gone by, I used to give bloody noses? Is it easy for me to receive forty kopéks as a tip from examining-magistrate Khruléff, for whom I put in a water-closet a year ago? Surely, he's a man of the same rank as myself.... And his name was Míshka the Sugar-bowl ... he has rotten teeth now, just as he had then...."

A heavy, choking lump rose in his throat: he paused for a moment, and burst out swearing--with such loud and repulsively-cynical oaths that the editor shuddered, and moved away from him. When he had got through, swearing, Gvózdeff seemed to weaken, as though the fire within him had died out. He listened to himself, and no longer felt conscious of anything within him which he wished to say.

"That's all!"--he ejaculated dully.

He had suddenly become inwardly empty, and this sensation of emptiness produced irritation in him.

The editor gazed askance at him in a thoughtful way, and silently considered--what should he say to this young fellow? He must say something nice, just, and sincere. But Dmítry Pávlovitch Istómin found nothing of what was required in his head, at the given moment, nor in his heart. For a long time past, all ideal and high-flown discussions of "questions" had evoked in him a feeling of boredom and exhaustion. He had come out to-day to rest, he had purposely avoided meeting his acquaintances,--and all of a sudden, here was this man with his harangues. Of course, there was a modicum of truth in his harangues, as there is in everything which people say. They were curious, and might serve as a very interesting theme for a feuilleton.... But, nevertheless, he must say something to him.

"Everything you have said--is not new, you know,"--he began....--"The injustice of man's relations to man, has long been a topic of discussion.... But, really, these speeches of yours do present one novelty--in the sense, that they were formerly uttered by people of another sort.... You formulate your thoughts in a somewhat one-sided and inaccurate manner...."

"There's your point of view again!"--laughed Gvózdeff faintly.--"Ekh-ma, gentlemen, gentlemen! You are endowed with brains, but as to heart evidently ... tell me something which will suit my complaint on the spot ... so there, now!"

Having spoken thus, he hung his head, and awaited the answer. Sadness had seized upon him.

Again Istómin glanced at him, with frowning brow, and conscious of a strong desire to get away. It seemed to him that Gvózdeff was drunk, and for that reason had weakened after his excited speeches. He looked at the white cap, which had fallen on the nape of Gvózdeff's neck, at his pock-marked face and aggressive top-knot; with a glance he measured his whole powerful, sinewy figure, and thought to himself, that this was a very typical workingman, and if....

"Well, what is it?"--inquired Gvózdeff.

"But what can I say to you? To speak frankly, I do not perceive at all clearly, what you wish to hear."

"There, that's it exactly!... You can't make me any answer!"--grinned Gvózdeff.

The editor heaved a sigh of relief, justly assuming that the conversation was at an end, and that Gvózdeff would assault him with no further questions.... And all at once he thought:

"And what if he beats me? He's so vicious!"

He recalled the expression of Gvózdeff's face yonder, in the editorial room, during that stupid scene. And he cast a furtive glance of suspicion at him.

It was already dark. The silence was broken by the sounds of songs, wafted from afar on the river. People were singing in chorus, and the tenor voices were very distinctly audible. Large beetles hurtled through the air with a metallic ring. Through the foliage of the trees the stars were visible ... now and then, one branch or another over their heads began to quiver, for some reason, and the soft trembling of the leaves made itself heard. "There will be dew...." said the editor, cautiously. Gvózdeff shuddered, and turned toward him.

"What did you say?"

"There will be dew, I say; it's harmful...."

"A-ah!"

They fell silent. On the river resounded the shout: "Háy-eï! Ba-a-arge a-ho-oo-oy!"

"I think I shall go. Farewell for the present." "And shan't we have a drink of beer together?"--suggested Gvózdeff suddenly, and added, with a grin:--"Do me the honor!"

"No, excuse me, I cannot just now. And then, it's time for me to be going, you know...."

Gvózdeff rose from the tree, and stared sullenly at the editor.

The latter, rising also, offered him his hand. "So you don't want to have a drink of beer with me? Well, devil take you!"--Gvózdeff cut the interview short, slapping his cap in place with a harsh gesture.--"Aristocracy! At two kopéks the pair! I'll get drunk by myself...."

The editor bravely turned his back on his companion, and walked up the path, without uttering a word. As he passed Gvózdeff, he drew his head down strangely between his shoulders, as though afraid of hitting it against something. Gvózdeff descended the hill with huge strides. From the river resounded a cracked voice:

"Ba-a-arge a-ho-oy! De-e-evils!... Send off a bo-o-o-oat!"

And among the trees rang the faint echo:

"O-o-oat!"

VÁRENKA ÓLESOFF

I

... A few days after his appointment as instructor in one of the provincial universities, Ippolít Sergyéevitch Polkánoff received a telegram from his sister, from her estate in a distant forest district on the Vólga.

The telegram briefly announced:

"My husband is dead. For God's sake, come at once to my assistance. Elizavéta."

This alarming summons unpleasantly agitated Ippolít Sergyéevitch, interfering with his projects and his frame of mind. He had already decided to spend the summer in the country, at the house of one of his comrades, and to do a great deal of work there, in order to prepare himself to do justice to his lectures; and now, here it was necessary to travel more than a thousand versts from St. Petersburg and from the place of his appointment, in order to comfort a woman who had lost her husband, with whom, judging from her own letters, her life had been far from sweet.

He had seen his sister, for the last time, four years previously, had corresponded with her rarely, and dong ago there had been established between them those purely formal relations which are so common between two relatives who are separated by distance, and by dissimilarity of their life-interests.

The telegram evoked in him the memory of his sister's husband. The latter was a stout, good-natured man, fond of eating and drinking. His face was round, covered with a network of red veins, and his eyes were merry and small; he had a way of roguishly screwing up his left eye, and smiling sweetly, as he sang in atrocious French:

"Regardez par ci, regardez par là...."

And Ippolít Sergyéevitch found it difficult to believe, that that jolly young fellow was dead, because common-place people usually live a long time.

His sister had borne herself toward the weaknesses of this man with a half-scornful condescension; being anything but a stupid woman, she had comprehended, that if you shoot at a stone, you merely lose your arrows. And it was not likely that she was greatly afflicted by his death.

But, nevertheless, it was not easy to refuse her request. He could work at her house quite as well as anywhere else....

After further meditation in this direction, Ippolít Sergyéevitch decided to go, and, a couple of weeks later, on a warm June evening, fatigued with a journey of forty versts[1] by posting-wagon, from the wharf to the village, he was seated at the table opposite his sister, on a terrace which overlooked the park, drinking exquisite tea.

Along the balustrade of the terrace, lilac and acacia bushes grew luxuriantly; the slanting rays of the sun, penetrating through the foliage, quivered in the air, in slender, golden ribbons. A tracery of shadows lay upon the table, closely set with country viands; the air was filled with the fragrance of the lindens, the lilacs, and the damp earth, heated by the sun. In the park birds were chirping noisily; now and then a bee or a wasp flew to the terrace and buzzed anxiously, as it hovered about the table. Elizavéta Sergyéevna took a napkin in her hand, and flourished it in the air, in vexation, chasing the bees and the wasps off into the park.

[1] A verst is two-thirds of a mile.--Translator.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch had already succeeded in convincing himself that his sister had not been particularly shocked by the fact of her husband's death, that she was gazing at him, her brother, in a searching way, and as she chatted with him, was concealing something from him. He had become accustomed to think of her, as a woman entirely engrossed in the cares of housekeeping, broken down with the disorders of her wedded life, and he had expected to behold her nervous, pale and exhausted. But now, as he looked at her oval face, covered with healthy sunburn, calm, confident, and extremely enlivened by the intelligent gleam of her large, bright eyes, he felt that he was pleasantly disappointed; and as he lent an ear to her remarks, he tried to hear the undercurrent, and to understand what it was she was withholding from him.

"I was prepared for this,--" she said, in a high, calm contralto, and her voice vibrated charmingly on the upper notes.--"After his second shock, he complained almost daily of pains in the heart, of its irregular beating, of insomnia ... but, nevertheless, when they brought him home from the fields--I could scarcely stand on my feet.... They tell me that he got very excited out there, and shouted...? and on the day before he had been to visit Ólesoff--a landed proprietor, a retired colonel, a drunkard and a cynic, broken down with the gout. By the way, he has a daughter--there's a treasure, I can tell you I--You must make her acquaintance...."

"If it cannot be avoided," interposed Ippolít Sergyéevitch, glancing at his sister with a smile.

"It cannot! She is often at our house ... but now, of course, she will come here more frequently than ever,--" she replied to him, with a smile also.

"Is she on the lookout for a husband? I'm not fitted for the part."

His sister looked him steadily in the face, which was oval, thin, with small, pointed, black beard, and a lofty, white brow.

"Why are you not fitted for the part? Of course, I am speaking in general, without any idea in connection with Miss Ólesoff,--you will understand why when you see her ... but, surely, you are thinking of marrying?"

"Not just yet,--" he answered her briefly, raising from his glass his light-gray eyes with a cold gleam.

"Yes,--" said Elizavéta Sergyéevna thoughtfully,--"at the age of thirty it is both late and early, for a man to take that step...."

It pleased him that she had ceased to speak of her husband's death, but why had she summoned him to her so loudly and in so frightened a manner?

"A man should marry at twenty or at forty," she said pensively,--"in that way, there is less risk of deceiving oneself or of deceiving another person ... but if you do make a mistake, then, in the first case, you pay for it with the freshness of your feelings, and in the second ... at least by your outward position, which is almost always solid in the case of a man of forty."

It struck him that she was saying this more for herself than for him, and he did not interrupt her, but leaned back in his arm-chair and deeply inhaled the aromatic air.

"As I was saying--he had been at Ólesoff's on the day before, and, of course, he drank there. Well, and so...." Elizavéta Sergyéevna shook her head sadly.--"Now ... I am left alone ... although, after the second year of my life with him, I felt myself inwardly quite alone. But now my position is so strange! I am twenty-eight years old, I have not lived, I have merely been attached to the service of my husband and children,... the children are dead. And I ... what am I now? What am I to do, and how am I to live? I would sell this estate, and go abroad, but his brother lays claim to the inheritance, and there may be a lawsuit. I will not give up what belongs to me, without legal grounds for so doing, and I see none in the claim of his brother. What do you think about it?..."

"I am not a lawyer, you know,--" laughed Ippolít Sergyéevitch.--"But ... tell me all about this, and we shall see. That brother--has he written to you?"

"Yes ... and quite roughly. He is a gambler, a ruined man, who has sunk very low ... my husband did not like him, although they had much in common."

"We shall see!--" said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, and rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He was delighted to know why his sister needed him, he did not like anything that was not clear and definite. His first care was the preservation of his inward equanimity, and if anything obscure perturbed that equanimity,--a troubled disquietude and irritation arose in his soul, which anxiously incited him to clear up the thing he did not understand as promptly as possible.

"To speak frankly,"--explained Elizavéta softly, and without looking at her brother,--"this stupid claim has alarmed me. I am so worn out, Ippolít, I do so want to rest ... and here, something is beginning again."

She sighed heavily, and taking his glass, she continued in a melancholy tone, which tickled her brother's ears unpleasantly:

"Eight years of life with such a man as my deceased husband give me the right, I think, to a rest. Any other woman in my place,--a woman with a less developed sense of duty and respectability--would long ago have broken that heavy chain, but I wore it, although I fainted under its weight. But the death of my children--ah, Ippolít, if you only knew what I endured when I lost them!"

He looked into her face with an expression of sympathy, but her plaints did not touch his soul. He did not like her language, a bookish sort of language, which was not natural to a person who feels deeply, and her bright eyes flitted strangely from side to side, rarely coming to a pause on anything. Her gestures were soft, and cautious, and an inward chill breathed forth from her whole finely-formed figure.

Some sort of a merry bird perched on the balustrade of the terrace, twittering, hopped along it, and flew away. The brother and sister followed it with their eyes, as they sat a few seconds in silence.

"Does anyone come to see you? Do you read?"--asked the brother, as he lighted a cigarette, thinking how delightful it would be to sit in silence, on that magnificent quiet evening, in a comfortable easy-chair, there on the terrace, listening to the quiet rustling of the foliage and waiting for the night, which would come, and extinguish the sounds, and light up the stars.

"Várenka comes, and once in a while, Mrs. Banártzeff ... do you remember her? Liudmila Vasílievna ... she, also, is not happy with her husband.. hut she understands how to avoid taking offence. A great many men used to come to see my husband,--but not a single one of them was interesting! Decidedly, there is not a soul with whom to exchange a word ... agriculture, hunting, county tittle-tattle, gossip--that is all they talk about.... However, there is one ... a bachelor of law--Benkóvsky ... young, and very highly educated. You remember the Benkóvskys? Wait! I think someone is coming."

"Who is coming ... that Benkóvsky?"--inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

For some reason, his query set his sister to laughing; as she laughed, she rose from her chair, and said in a voice that was new to him:

"Várenka!"

"Ah!"

"Let us see what you will say about her.... Here she has made the conquest of everybody. But what a monster she is, from a spiritual point of view! How-ever--you shall see for yourself."

"I don't care about it," he declared indifferently, stretching himself out in his arm-chair.

"I will be back directly,"--said Elizavéta Sergyéevna, as she went away.

"But she will present herself without your help," he said with concern.

"Yes, I'll be back directly!" his sister called to him from the room.

He frowned, and remained in his chair, gazing into the park. The swift beat of a horse's hoofs became audible, and the rumble of wheels on the ground.

Before Ippolít Sergyéevitch's eyes stood rows of aged, gnarled linden trees, maples, and oaks, enveloped in the evening twilight. Their angular branches were interwoven one with another, forming overhead a thick roof of fragrant verdure, and all of them, decrepit with time, with rifted bark and broken boughs, seemed to form a living and friendly family of beings, closely united in an aspiration upward, toward the light. But their bark was thickly covered with a yellow efflorescence of mould, at their roots young trees had sprung up luxuriantly, and from this cause, on the old trees there were many dead branches, which swung in the air like lifeless skeletons.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch gazed at them, and felt an inclination to doze off there in his arm-chair, under the breath of the ancient park.

Between the trunks and boughs gleamed crimson patches of the horizon, and against this vivid background, the trees seemed still more gloomy, and wasted away. Along the avenue, which ran from the terrace into the dusky distance, the thick shadows were slowly moving, and the stillness increased every minute, inspiring confused fancies. Ippolít Sergyéevitch' imagination, yielding to the sorcery of the evening, depicted from the shadows the silhouette of a woman whom he knew, and his own by her side. They walked in silence down the avenue, into the distance, she pressed closely to him, and he felt the warmth of her body.

"How do you do!"--rang out a thick chest voice.

He sprang to his feet, and looked round, somewhat disconcerted.

Before him stood a young girl, of medium stature, in a gray gown, over her head was thrown something white and airy, like a bridal veil,--that was all he noticed in that first moment.

She offered him her hand, inquiring:

"Ippolít Sergyéevitch, is it not? Miss Ólesoff.. I already knew that you were to arrive to-day, and came to see what you were like. I have never seen any learned men,--and I did not know what they might be like."

A strong, warm, little hand pressed his hand, and he, somewhat abashed by this unexpected attack, bowed to her in silence, was angry at himself for his confusion, and thought that, when he should look at her face, he would find there frank and coarse coquetry. But when he did look at it, he beheld large, dark eyes, which were smiling artlessly and caressingly, illuminating the handsome face. Ippolít Sergyéevitch remembered that he had seen just that sort of a face, proud with healthy beauty, in an old Italian picture. The same little mouth with splendid lips, the same brow, arched and lofty, and the huge eyes beneath it.

"Permit me ... I will order some lights ... pray be seated...." he requested her.

"Don't trouble yourself, I am quite at home here," she said, seating herself in his chair....

He stood at the table facing her, and gazed at her, feeling that this was awkward, and that it behooved him to speak. But she, not in the least confused by his steady gaze, spoke herself. She asked him how he had come, whether he liked the country, whether he would remain there long; he answered her in monosyllables, and various fragmentary thoughts flashed through his mind. He was stunned, as it were, by a blow, and his brain, always clear, now grew turbid in the presence of feelings suddenly and chaotically aroused by force. His enchantment with her struggled with irritation at himself, and curiosity struggled with something that was akin to fear. But this young girl, blooming with health, sat opposite him, leaning against the back of her chair, closely enveloped in the material of her costume, which permitted a glimpse of the magnificent outlines of her shoulders, bosom and torso, and in a melodious voice full of masterful notes, uttered to him some trivialities, such as are usual when two unacquainted persons meet for the first time. Her dark chestnut hair curled charmingly, and her eyebrows and eyes were darker than her hair. On her dark neck, around her rosy, transparent ear, the skin quivered, announcing the swift circulation of the blood in her veins, a dimple made its appearance every time a smile disclosed her small, white teeth, and every fold of her garments breathed forth an exasperating seduction. There was something rapacious in the arch of her nose, and in her small teeth, which shone forth from between ripe lips, and her attitude, full of unstudied charm, reminded one of the grace of well-fed and petted kittens.

It seemed to Ippolít Sergyéevitch that he had become two persons: one half of his being was absorbed in this sensual beauty, and was slavishly contemplating it, the second half was mechanically noting the existence of the first, and feeling that it had lost its power over it. He replied to the girl's questions, and put some questions to her himself, not being in a condition to tear his eyes from her entrancing figure. He had already called her, to himself, a luxurious female, and had inwardly laughed at himself, but this did not annihilate his double existence. Thus it went on, until his sister made her appearance on the terrace, with the exclamation:

"See what a clever creature! I was hunting for her yonder, and she is already...."

"I went round by the park."

"Have you made each other's acquaintance?"

"Oh, yes! I thought that Ippolít Sergyéevitch was bald, at least!"

"Shall I pour you some tea?"

"Please do."

Ippolít Sergyéevitch withdrew a little apart from them, and stood near the steps which led down into the park. He passed his hand over his face, and then drew his fingers across his eyes, as though he were wiping the dust from his face and eyes. He was ashamed of himself for having yielded to a burst of emotion, and this shame soon gave way to irritation against the young girl. To himself, he characterized the scene with her as a Kazák attack on a prospective husband, and he felt like announcing himself to her as a man who was utterly indifferent to her challenging beauty.

"I'm going to stay over night with you, and spend all day to-morrow here.." she said to his sister.

"And how about Vasíly Stepánovitch?" asked his sister, in surprise.

"Aunt Lutchítzky is visiting us, she will look after him.... You know, that papa is very fond of her."

"Excuse me,..." said Ippolít Sergyéevitch drily,--"I am extremely fatigued, and will go and rest...."

He bowed and departed, and Várenka's exclamation of approbation followed him:

"You ought to have done so long ago!"

In the tone of her exclamation he detected only good nature, but he set it down as an attempt to ingratiate herself, and as false.

The room which had served his sister's husband as a study had been prepared for him. In the middle of it stood a heavy, awkward writing-table, before which was an oaken arm-chair; along one of the walls, almost for its entire length, stretched a broad, ragged Turkish divan, on the other, a harmonium, and two book-cases. Several large, soft chairs, a small smoking table beside the divan, and a chess-table at the window, completed the furniture of the room. The ceiling was low and blackened with smoke. From the walls dark spots, which were pictures and engravings of some sort, in coarse, gilded frames, peered forth--everything was heavy, old, and emitted a disagreeable odor. On the table stood a large lamp with a blue shade, and the light from it fell upon the floor.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch halted at the edge of this circle of light, and feeling a sensation of confused trepidation, glanced at the windows of the room. There were two of them, and outside, in the gloom of evening the dark silhouettes of the trees were outlined. He went to the windows, and opened both of them. Then the room was filled with the fragrance of the blossoming lindens, and with it floated in a burst of hearty laughter in a chest voice.

On the divan a bed had been made up for him, and it occupied a little more than half of the divan. He glanced at it, and began to undo his necktie; but then, with an abrupt movement, he pushed an arm-chair to the window, and seated himself in it, with a scowl.

This sensation of incomprehensible trepidation disquieted his mind, and irritated him. The feeling of dissatisfaction with himself rarely presented itself to him, but when it did, it never seized hold upon him powerfully, or for long--he managed to get rid of it promptly. He was convinced that a man should and can understand his emotions, and develop or suppress them; and when people talked to him about the mysterious complication of man's psychical life, he grinned ironically, and called such opinions metaphysics. It was all the worse for him now to feel that he was entering the sphere of some incomprehensible emotions or other.

He asked himself: Is it possible that the meeting with this healthy and handsome young girl--who must be extremely sensual and stupid,--was it possible that this meeting could have such a strange influence upon him? And after having carefully scrutinized the series of impressions of that day, he was compelled to answer himself in the affirmative. Yes, it was so because she had taken his mind unawares, because he was extremely fatigued with the journey, and had been in a dreamy mood which was quite unusual for him at the moment when she made her appearance before him.

This reflection somewhat soothed him, and she immediately presented herself to his eyes in her splendid, maidenly beauty. He contemplated her, closing his eyes and nervously inhaling the smoke of his cigarette, but as he contemplated her, he criticised.

"In reality,"--he reflected,--"she is vulgar: there is too much blood and muscle in her healthy body, and there are too few nerves. Her ingenuous face is not intelligent, and the pride which beams in the frank gaze of her deep, dark eyes is the pride of a woman who is convinced of her beauty, and is spoiled by the admiration of men. My sister said that this Várenka makes a conquest of everybody."--Of course, she was trying to make a conquest of him, also. But he had come hither to work, and not to frolic, and she would soon understand that.

"But am not I thinking a great deal about her, for a first encounter?"--flashed through his mind.

The disk of the moon, huge and blood-red in hue, was rising somewhere, far away behind the trees of the park: it gazed forth from the darkness like the eye of a monster, born of it. Faint sounds, coming from the direction of the village, were borne upon the air.... Now and then, in the grass beneath the window, a rustling resounded; it must be a tortoise or a hedgehog on the prowl. A nightingale was singing somewhere. And the moon mounted slowly in the sky, as though the fateful necessity of its movement was understood by it and wearied it.

Flinging his cigarette, which had gone out, from the window, Ippolít Sergyéevitch rose, undressed, and extinguished the lamp. Then the darkness poured into the room from the garden, the trees moved up to the windows, as though desirous of looking in; on the floor lay two streaks of moonlight, still faint and turbid.

The springs of the divan creaked shrilly under the body of Ippolít Sergyéevitch, and overcome by the pleasant coolness of the linen sheets, he stretched himself out, and lay still on his back. Soon he was dozing, and under his window he heard someone's cautious footsteps and a thick whisper:

"... Má-arya ... Are you there? Hey?" ...

With a smile, he fell fast asleep.

And in the morning, when he awoke in the brilliant sunlight, which filled his room, he smiled again at the memory of the preceding evening, and of the young girl. He presented himself at tea carefully dressed, cold and serious, as was befitting a learned man; but when he saw that his sister was seated alone at the table, he involuntarily burst out:

"But where is...."

His sister's sly smile stopped him before he had finished his question, and he seated himself, in silence, at the table. Elizavéta Sergyéevna scrutinized his costume in detail, smiling all the while, and paying no heed to his involuntary scowl. Her significant smile enraged him.

"She rose long ago, and she and I have been to bathe, and she must be in the park now ... and will soon make her appearance,--" explained Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

"How circumstantial you are,--" he said, with a laugh.--"Please give orders to have my things unloaded immediately after tea."

"And have them taken out?"

"No, no, that's not necessary, I'll do that myself, otherwise everything will get mixed up.... There are books and candy for you...."

"Thanks! That's nice of you ... and here comes Várenka!"

She made her appearance in the doorway, in a thin, white gown, which fell from her shoulders to her feet in rich folds. Her costume resembled a child's blouse, and in it she looked like a child. Pausing for a second at the door, she asked:

"Have you been waiting for me?--" and approached the table as noiselessly as a cloud.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch bowed to her in silence, and as he shook her hand, her arm being bared to the elbow, he perceived a delicate odor of violets which emanated from her.

"How you have scented yourself!" exclaimed Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

"Is it any more than I always do? You are fond of perfumes, Ippolít Sergyéevitch? I am--awfully! When the violets are in bloom, I pluck them every morning after my bath, and rub them in my hands,--I learned that in the pro-gymnasium.... Do you like violets?"

He drank his tea, and did not glance at her, but he felt her eyes on his face.

"I really have never thought about it--whether I like them or not,--" he said drily, shrugging his shoulders, but as he involuntarily glanced at her, he smiled.

Shaded by the snow-white material of her gown, her face flamed with a magnificent flush, and her deep eyes beamed with clear joy. She breathed forth health, freshness, unconscious happiness. She was as good as a bright May morning in the north.

"You haven't thought about it?"--she exclaimed.--"But how is that ... seeing that you are a botanist."

"But not a floriculturist,--" he explained briefly, and involuntarily reflecting that this might be rude, he turned his eyes away from her face.

"But are not botany and floriculture one and the same?--" she inquired, after a pause.

His sister laughed unrestrainedly. And he suddenly became conscious that this laugh made him writhe, for some reason, and he exclaimed pityingly to himself:

"Yes, she is stupid!"

But later on, as he explained to her the difference between botany and floriculture, he softened his verdict, and pronounced her merely ignorant. As she listened to his intelligent and serious remarks, she gazed at him with the eyes of an attentive pupil, and this pleased him. As he talked, he often turned his eyes from her face to his sister's, and in her gaze, which was immovably fixed on Várenka's face, he discerned eager envy. This interfered with the speech, as it called forth in him a sentiment allied to disdain for his sister.

"Ye-es,--" said the young girl slowly,--"so that's how it is! And is botany an interesting science?"

"Hm! you see, one must look upon science from the point of view of its utility to men,--" he explained, with a sigh. Her lack of development, allied with her beauty, increased his compassion for her. But she, meditatively tapping the edge of her cup with her teaspoon, asked him:

"Of what utility can it be, that you know how burdock grows?

"The same which we deduce from studying the phenomena of life in any one man."

"A man and a burdock...." she smiled. "Does one man live like all the rest?"

He found it strange that this uninteresting conversation did not fatigue him.

"Do I eat and drink in the same way as the peasants?" she continued seriously, contracting her brows. "And do many people live as I do?"

"How do you live?"--he inquired, foreseeing that this question would change the course of the conversation. He wished to do so, because a malicious, sneering element had now been added to the envy in the gaze which his sister had fastened upon Várenka.

"How do I live?--" the girl suddenly flushed up.--"Well!--" And she even closed her eyes with satisfaction. "You know, I wake up in the morning, and if the day is bright, I immediately feel dreadfully gay! It is as though I had received a costly and beautiful gift, which I had long been wanting to possess.... I run and take my bath--we have a river with springs--the water is cold, and it fairly nips the body! There are very deep spots, and I plunge straight into them, head first, from the bank--splash! It fairly bums one, all over.. you fly into the water as from a precipice, and there is a ringing in your head.... You come to the surface, tear yourself out of the water, and the sun looks down at you and laughs! Then I go home through the forest, I gather flowers, I inhale the forest air until I am intoxicated; when I arrive, tea is ready! I drink tea, and before me stand flowers.. and the sun gazes at me.... Ah, if you only knew how I love the sun! Then the day advances, and housekeeping cares begin.. everyone loves me at home, they all understand and obey at once,--and everything whirls on like a wheel until the evening .. then the sun sets, the moon and the stars make their appearance ... how beautiful and how new this always is! you understand! I cannot say it intelligibly.. why it is so good to live!... But perhaps you feel just the same yourself, do you? Surely, you understand why such a life is good and interesting?"

"Yes ... of course!--" he assented, ready to wipe the venomous smile from his sister's face with his hand.

He looked at Várenka, and did not restrain himself from admiring her, as she quivered with the desire to impart to him the strength of the exultation which filled her being, but this ecstasy of hers heightened his feeling of pity for her to the degree of a painfully-poignant sensation. He beheld before him a being permeated with the charm of vegetable life, full of rough poetry, overwhelmingly beautiful, but not ennobled by brains. "And in the winter? Are you fond of winter? It is all white, healthy, stimulating, it challenges you to contend with it...."

A sharp ring of the bell interrupted her speech. Elizavéta Sergyéevna had rung, and when a tall maid, with a round, kind face, and roguish eyes, flew into the room, she said to her, in a weary voice:

"Clear away the dishes, Másha!"

Then she began to walk up and down the room, in a preoccupied way, shuffling her feet.

All this somewhat sobered the enthusiastic young girl; she twitched her shoulders as though she were shaking something from them, and rather abashed she asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch:

"Have I bored you with my stupid tales?"

"Come, how can you say so?"--he protested.

"No, seriously,--I have made myself appear stupid to you?"--she persisted.

"But why?!"--exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch and was surprised that he had said it so warmly and sincerely.

"I am wild ... that is to say, I am not cultivated ..." she said apologetically.--"But I am very glad to talk with you ... because you are a learned man, and so ... unlike what I imagined you to be."

"And what did you imagine me to be like?"--he queried, with a smile.

"I thought you would always be talking about various wise things.. why, and how, and this is not so, but this other way, and everybody is stupid, and I alone am wise.... Papa had a friend visiting him, he was a colonel too, like papa, and he was learned, like you.. But he was a military learned man ... what do you call it ... of the General Staff...? and he was frightfully puffed up ... in my opinion, he did not even know anything, but simply bragged...."

"And you imagined that I was like that?"--enquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

She was disconcerted, blushed, and springing from her chair, she ran about the room in an absurd way, saying in confusion:

"Akh, how can you think so ... now, could I...."

"Well, see here, my dear children...." remarked Elizavéta Sergyéevna, scanning them with her eyes screwed up,--"I'm going off to attend to something about the housekeeping, and I leave you ... to the will of God!"

And she vanished, with a laugh, rustling her skirts as she went. Ippolít Sergyéevitch looked after her reproachfully, and reflected, that he must have a talk with her about her way of behaving toward this really very charming, though undeveloped young girl.

"Do you know, I have an idea--would you like to go in the boat? We will drive to the forest, and then have a stroll there, and be back by dinner-time. Shall we? I'm awfully glad that the day is so bright, and that I'm not at home.... For papa has another attack of gout, and I should have been obliged to fuss about him. And papa is capricious when he is ill."

Amazed at her frank egotism, he did not immediately reply to her in the affirmative, and when he did reply, he recalled the intention, which had arisen in him the evening before, and with which he had emerged from his chamber that morning. But, surely, she had afforded no ground, so far, for suspicion of a desire to conquer his heart? In her speeches, everything was perceptible except coquetry. And, in conclusion, why not spend one day with such ... an undoubtedly original young girl?

"And do you know how to row? Never mind if you do it badly ... I will do it myself, I am strong. And the boat is so light. Shall we go?"

They went out upon the terrace, and descended into the park. By the side of his tall, thin figure, she appeared shorter and more plump. He offered her his arm, but she declined it.

"Why? It is nice when one is tired, but otherwise, it only hinders one in walking."

He smiled as he looked at her through his eyeglasses, and walked on, adjusting his stride to her pace, which greatly pleased him. Her walk was light and graceful,--her white gown floated around her form, but not a single fold undulated. In one hand she held a parasol, with the other she gesticulated freely and gracefully, as she told him about the beauty of the suburbs of the village. Her arm, hared to the elbow, was strong and brown, covered with a golden down, and as it moved through the air, it compelled Ippolít Sergyéevitch's eyes to follow it attentively.... And again, in the dark depths of his soul, a confused, incomprehensible apprehension of something began to tremble. He tried to annihilate it, asking himself: What had prompted him to follow this young girl? And he answered himself:--curiosity, a calm and pure desire to contemplate her beauty.

"Yonder is the river! Go and take your seat in the boat, and I will get the oars at once...."

And she disappeared among the trees before he could ask her to show him where he could find the oars.

In the still, cold water of the river, the trees were reflected upside down; he seated himself in the boat, and gazed at them. These spectral images were more splendid and beautiful than the living trees, which stood on the bank, shading the water with their curved and gnarled branches. Their reflection flattered them, thrusting into the background what was deformed, and creating in the water a clear and harmonious fantasy, on the foundation of the paltry reality, disfigured by time.

As he admired the transparent picture, surrounded by the silence and the gleam of the sun which was not yet hot, and drank in along with the air the songs of the larks full of the joy of existence, Ippolít Sergyéevitch felt springing into life within him a sensation of repose which was novel and agreeable to him, which caressed his brain, and lulled to sleep its constant and rebellious striving to understand and to explain. Quiet peace reigned around, not a leaf quivered on the trees, and in this peace the mute triumph of nature was unceasingly in progress, life, always smitten with death but invincible, was being soundlessly created, and death was working quietly, smiting all things, but never winning the victory. And the blue sky shone in triumphant beauty.

In the background of the picture in the water of the river, a white beauty, with a smile on her face, made her appearance. She stood there, with the oars in her hands, as though inviting him to go to her, mute, very lovely, and she seemed to have dropped down from the sky.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch knew that it was Várenka, emerging from the park, and that she was looking at him, but he did not wish to destroy the enchantment by a sound or a movement.

"Say, what a dreamer you are!--" her astonished exclamation rang out on the air.

Then, with regret, he turned away from the water, glanced at the girl, who was descending vivaciously and easily to the shore, down the steep path from the park. And his regret vanished with this glance at her, for this girl was, in reality, enchantingly beautiful.

"I could not possibly have imagined that you were fond of dreaming! You have such a stem, serious face.. You will steer: is that right? We will row upstream.. it is more beautiful there ... and, in general, it is more interesting to go against the current, because then you row, you get exercise, you feel yourself...."

The boat, pushed out from the shore, rocked lazily on the sleepy water, but a powerful stroke of the oars immediately put it alongside of the bank, and rolling from side to side under a second stroke, it glided lightly forward.

"We will row under the hilly shore, because it is shady there.." said the young girl, as she cut the water with skilful strokes. "Only, the current is weak here,... but on the Dnyépr,--Aunt Lutchítzky has an estate there--it's a terror, I can tell you! It fairly tears the oars out of your hands ... you haven't seen the rapids of the Dnyépr?..."

"Only the threshold of the door,"[2] Ippolít Sergyéevitch tried to pun.

[2] _Poróg_, a threshold,--porogt, rapide, in Russian.--Translator.

"I have been through them," she said, laughing.--"It was fine! One day, they came near smashing the boat, and in that case, we should infallibly have been drowned...."

"Well, that would not have been fine at all," said Ippolít Sergyéevitch seriously.

"What of that? I'm not in the least afraid of death .. although I love to live. Perhaps it will be as interesting there as it is here on earth...."

"And perhaps there is nothing at all there.." he said, glancing at her with curiosity.

"Well, how can there help being!"--she exclaimed, with conviction. --"Of course there is!"

He decided not to interfere with her--let her go on philosophizing; at the proper moment he would stop her, and make her spread out before him the whole miserable little world of her imagination. She sat opposite him, with her small feet resting against a cross-bar, nailed to the bottom of the boat, and with every stroke of the oars, she bent her body backward. Then, beneath the thin material of her gown, her virgin bosom was outlined in relief, high, springy, quivering with the exercise.

"She does not wear corsets," said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself, dropping his eyes. But there they rested on her tiny feet. Pressed against the bottom of the boat, her legs were tensely stretched, and at such times their outlines were visible to the knees.

"Did she put on that idiotic dress on purpose?"--he said to himself in vexation, and turned away, to look at the high shore.

They had passed the park, and now they were floating under a steep cliff; from it swung curly pea-vines, the long slender wreaths of pumpkin, with their velvety leaves, large yellow circles of the sunflower, standing on the edge of the abyss, looked down into the water. The other shore, low and smooth, stretched away into the distance, to the green walls of the forest, and was thickly covered with grass, succulent and brilliant in hue; pale blue and dark blue flowers, as pretty as the eyes of children, peered caressingly forth from it at the boat. And ahead of them stood the dark-green forest--and the river pierced its way into it, like a piece of cold steel.

"Aren't you warm?" asked Várenka.

He glanced at her, and felt abashed:--upon her brow, beneath her crown of waving hair, glistened drops of perspiration, and her breast heaved high and rapidly.

"Pray forgive me!"--he exclaimed penitently.--"I forgot myself in looking about me ... you are tired ... give me the oars!"

"I will not give them to you! Do you think I am tired? That is an insult to me! We haven't gone two versts yet.... No, keep your seat ... we will land presently, and take a stroll."

It was evident from her face, that it was useless to argue with her, and shrugging his shoulders with vexation, he made no reply, thinking to himself with displeasure: "It is plain that she considers me weak."

"You see--this is the road to our house,--" she pointed it out to him on the shore, with a nod of her head.--"Here is the ford across the river, and from here to our house is fourteen versts. It is fine on our place, also, more beautiful than on your Polkánovka."

"Do you live in the country during the winter?" he asked.

"Why not? You see, I have the entire charge of the housekeeping, papa never rises from his chair.... He is carried through the rooms."

"But you must find it tiresome to live in that way?"

"Why? I have an awful lot to do ... and only one assistant--Nikon, papa's orderly. He is already an old man, and he drinks, besides, but he's awfully strong, and knows his business. The peasants are afraid of him he beats them, and they also once beat him terribly ... very terribly! He is remarkably honest, and he's devoted to papa and me ... he loves us like a dog! And I love him, too. Perhaps you have read a romance, where the hero is an officer, Count Grammont, and he had an orderly also, Sadi-Coco?"

"I have not read it,--" confessed the young savant modestly.

"You must be sure to read it--it is a good romance,--" she advised him with conviction.--"When Nikon pleases me, I call him Sadi-Coco. At first he used to get angry with me for that, but one day I read that romance to him, and now he knows that it is flattering for him to be like Sadi-Coco."

Ippolít Sergyéevitch looked at her, as a European looks at a delicately executed but fantastically-deformed statue of a Chinaman; with a mixture of amazement, compassion and curiosity. But she, with ardor, related to him the feats of Sadi-Coco, filled with disinterested devotion to Count Louis Grammont.

"Excuse me, Varvára[3] Vasílievna," he interrupted her,--"but have you read the romances of the Russian writers?"

[3] Várenka it the caressing diminutive of Varvára.--Translator.

"Oh, yes! But I don't like them--they are tiresome, very tiresome! And they always write things which I know just as well as they do. They cannot invent anything interesting, and almost everything they say is true."

"But don't you like the truth?"--asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch kindly.

"Ah, no indeed! I always speak the truth, straight to people's faces, and...."

She paused, reflected, and inquired:

"What is there to like in that? It is my habit, how can one like it?"

He did not manage to say anything to her on this point, because she quickly and loudly gave the command:

"Steer to the right ... be quick! To that oak-tree, yonder.... Aï, how awkward you are!"

The boat did not obey his hand, and ran ashore broadside on, although he churned the water forcibly with his oar.

"Never mind, never mind," she said, and suddenly rising to her feet, she sprang over the side.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch uttered a low shriek, and stretched his arms toward her, but she was standing uninjured on the shore, holding the chain of the boat in her hands, and apologetically asking him:

"Did I frighten you?"

"I thought you would fall into the water,--" he said, softly.

"But could anyone fall there? And moreover, the water is not deep there,--" she defended herself, dropping her eyes, and drawing the boat to the bank. And he, as he sat at the stem, reflected that he ought to have done that.

"Do you see what a forest there is?--" she said, when he had stepped out on the bank, and stood beside her.--"Isn't it fine here? There are no such beautiful forests around St. Petersburg, are there?"

In front of them lay a narrow road, hemmed in on both sides by tree trunks of different sizes. Under their feet the gnarled roots, crushed by the wheels of peasant-carts, lay outstretched, and over them was a thick tent of boughs, with here and there, high aloft, blue scraps of sky. The rays of sunlight, slender as violin-strings, quivered in the air, obliquely intersecting this narrow, green corridor. The odor of rotting foliage, of mushrooms and birch trees, surrounded them. Birds flitted past, disturbing the solemn stillness of the forest with their lively songs and anxious twittering. A woodpecker was tapping somewhere, a bee was buzzing, and in front of them, as though showing them the road, two butterflies fluttered, in pursuit of each other.

They strolled slowly on. Ippolít Sergyéevitch was silent, and did not interfere with Várenka's finding words wherewith to express her thoughts, while she said warmly to him:

"I don't like to read about the peasants; what can there be that is interesting in their lives? I know them, I live with them, and I see that people do not write accurately, do not write the truth about them. They are described as such wretched creatures, but they are only base, and there is nothing to pity them for. They want only one thing--to cheat us, to steal something from us. They are always importuning us, always moaning, they're disgusting, dirty ... and they're clever, oh! they're even very cunning. Oh, if you only knew how they torture me sometimes!"

She had warmed up to her theme now, and wrath and bad humor were expressed on her face. Evidently, the peasants occupied a large place in her life; she rose to hatred, as she depicted them. Ippolít Sergyéevitch was astonished at the violence of her agitation but, as he did not care to hear these sallies from the master's point of view, he interrupted the young girl:

"You were speaking of the French writers...."

"Ah, yes! That is to say, about the Russian writers,--" she corrected him, calming down,--"you ask, why the Russians write worse than they,--that is dear enough! because they do not invent anything interesting. The French writers have real heroes, who do not talk like everybody else, and who behave differently. They are always brave, in love, jolly ... but with us, the heroes are simple little men, without daring, without fiery feelings,--ugly, pitiful little creatures--the most real sort of men, and nothing more! Why are they heroes? You will never understand that in a Russian book. The Russian hero is a stupid, sluggish sort of fellow, he's always disgusted with something, he's always thinking of something incomprehensible, and he pities everybody, and he himself is pitiful, ve-ery pi-tiful indeed! He meditates, and talks and then he goes to make a declaration of love, and then he meditates again until he gets married ... and when he is married, he says sour nonsense to his wife, and abandons her.... What is there interesting in that? It even angers me, because it resembles a deception--instead of a hero, there is always some sort of a stuffed scarecrow stuck up in a romance! And never, while you are reading a Russian book, can you forget real life,--is that nice? But when you read the works of a Frenchman--you shudder for the heroes, you pity them, you hate, you want to fight when they fight, you weep when they perish ... you wait for the end of the romance with passionate interest, and when you read it--you almost cry with vexation, because that is all. You live--but in Russian books, it is utterly incomprehensible why men live. Why write books, if you cannot narrate anything unusual? Really, it is strange!"

"There is a great deal which might be said in reply to you, Varvára Vasílievna,--" he stemmed the stormy tide of her speech.

"Well then, reply!--" she burst out, with a smile.--"Of course, you will rout me!"

"I shall try. First of all, what Russian authors have you read?"

"Various ... but they are all alike. Take Saliás, for example ... he imitates the French, but badly. However, he has Russian heroes also, and can one write anything interesting about them? And I have read a great many others--Mórdovtzeff, Márkevitch, Pazúkhin, I think--you see, even from their names it is plain that they cannot write well! You haven't read them? But have you read Fortuné de Boisgobey? Ponson du Terrail? Arsène Houssaye? Pierre Zaconné? Dumas, Gaboriau, Borne? How fine, good heavens! Wait ... do you know what pleases me most in romances is the villains, those who so artfully weave various spiteful plots, who murder and poison,... they're clever, strong ... and when, at last, they are caught,--rage seizes upon me, and I even go so far as to cry. Everybody hates the villain, everybody is against him--he is alone against them all! That's--a hero! And those others, the virtuous people, become disgusting, when they win.... And, in general, do you know, people please me so long as they strongly desire something, march forward somewhere, seek something, torment themselves ... but if they have reached their goal, and have come to a halt, then they are no longer interesting ... they are even insipid!"

Excited, and, probably, proud of what she had said to him, she walked slowly by his side, raising her head prettily, and flashing her eyes.

He looked into her face, and nervously twisting his head, he sought for a retort which should, at one stroke, tear from her mind that coarse veil of dust which enveloped it. But, while feeling himself bound to reply to her, he wished to listen longer to her ingenuous and original chatter, to behold her again carried away with her opinions, and sincerely laying bare her soul before him. He had never heard such speeches; they were hideous and impossible in his eyes, but, at the same time, everything she had said harmonized, to perfection, with her rather rapacious beauty. Before him was an unpolished mind, which offended him by its roughness, and a woman who was seductively beautiful, who irritated his sensuality. These two forces crushed him down with all the energy of their directness, and he must set up something in opposition to them, otherwise, he felt--they might drive him out of the wonted ruts of those views and moods, with which he had dwelt in peace until he met her. He possessed a clear sense of logic, and he had argued well with persons of his own circle. But how was he to talk with her, and what ought he say to her, in order to urge her mind into the right road, and ennoble her soul, which had been deformed by stupid novels, and the society of the peasants, and of that soldier, her drunken father?

"Ugh, how foolishly I have been talking!--" she exclaimed, with a sigh.--"I have bored you, haven't I?"

"No, but...."

"You see, I'm very glad to know you. Until you came, I had no one to talk with. Your sister does not like me, and is always angry with me ... it must be became I give my father vódka, and because I thrashed Nikon...."

"You?! You thrashed him? Eh.. how did you do that?"--said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, in amazement.

"Very simply, I lashed him with papa's kazák whip, that's all! You know, they were threshing the grain, there was an awful hurry, and he, the beast, was drunk! Wasn't I angry! How dared he get drunk when the work was seething, and his eyes were needed in every direction? Those peasants, they...."

"But, listen, Varvára Vasílievna,--" he began, impressively and as gently as possible,--"is it nice to beat a servant? Is that noble? Reflect! Did those heroes, whom you adore, beat their admirers?... Sadi-Coco...."

"Oh, indeed they did! One day, Count Louis gave Coco such a box on the ear, that I even felt sorry for the poor little soldier. And what can I do with them, except beat them? It's a good thing I am able to do it ... for I am strong! Feel what muscles I've got!"

Bending her arm at the elbow, she proudly offered it to him. He laid his hand on her arm above her elbow, and pressed it hard with his fingers, but immediately recollected himself, and in confusion, blushing crimson, he looked around him. Everywhere the trees stood in silence, and only....

In general, he was not modest with women, but this woman, by her simplicity and trustfulness made him so, although she kindled in him a feeling which was perilous to him.

"You have enviable health,--" he said, staring intently and thoughtfully at her little, sun-burned hand, as it adjusted the folds of her gown on her bosom.--"And I think that you have a very good heart,--" he broke out, unexpectedly to himself.

"I don't know!"--she retorted, shaking her head.--"Hardly,--I have no character: sometimes I feel sorry for people, even for those whom I do not like."

"Only sometimes?--" he laughed.--"But, surely, they are always deserving of pity and sympathy."

"What for?"--she inquired, smiling also.

"Cannot you see how unhappy they are? Take those peasants of yours, for example. How difficult it is for them to live, and how much injustice, woe, torture there is in their lives."

This burst hotly from him, and she looked attentively at his face, as she said:

"You must be very good, if you speak like that. But, you see, you don't know the peasants, you have not lived in the country. They are unhappy, it is true--but who is to blame for that? They are crafty, and no one prevents their becoming happy."

"But they have not even bread enough to satisfy their hunger!"

"I should think not! See what a lot of them there are...."

"Yes, there are a great many of them! But there is a great deal of land, also ... for there are people who own tens of thousands of desyatinas.[4] For instance, how much have you?"

[4] A _desyatína_ is 2.70 acres.--Translator.

"Five hundred and seventy-three desyatinas.. Well, and what of that? Is it possible ... come, listen to me! Is it possible to give it to them?"

She gazed at him with the look of an adult on a child, and laughed softly. This laughter confused and angered him.... There flashed up within him the desire to convince her of the errors of her mind.

And, pronouncing his words distinctly, even sharply, he began to talk to her about the injustice of the distribution of wealth, about the majority of men's lack of rights, about the fatal struggle for a place in life and for a morsel of bread, about the power of the rich and the helplessness of the poor, and about the mind--the guide in life, crushed by century-long injustice, and the host of prejudices, which are advantageous to the powerful minority of people.

She maintained silence, as she walked along by his side, and gazed at him with curiosity and surprise.

Around them reigned the dusky tranquillity of the forest, that tranquillity across which sounds seem to slide, without disturbing its melancholy harmony. The leaves of the aspens quivered nervously, as though the trees were impatiently awaiting something passionately longed for.

"The duty of every honest man," said Ippolít Sergyéevitch impressively, "is to contribute to the conflict on behalf of the enslaved all his brain, and all his heart, endeavoring either to put an end to the tortures of the conflict, or to hasten its progress. For that genuine heroism is required, and precisely in this conflict is where you ought to look for it. Outside of it--there is no heroism. The heroes of this fight are the only ones who are worthy of admiration and imitation ... and you ought to direct your attention precisely to this spot, Varvára Vasílievna, seek your heroes here, expend your strength here ... it seems to me, that you might become a notably-steadfast defender of the truth! But, first of all, you must read a great deal, you must learn to understand life in its real aspect, unadorned by fancy ... you must fling all those stupid romances into the fire...." He paused, and wiping the perspiration from his brow, he waited--wearied with his long speech--to see what she would say.

She was gazing into the distance, straight ahead of her, with her eyes narrowed, and on her face quivered shadows. Five minutes of silence were broken by her quiet exclamation:

"How well you talk!... Is it possible that everybody in the university can talk so well?"

The young savant heaved a hopeless sigh, and expectation of her answer gave place within him to a dull irritation against her, and compassion for himself. Why would not she accept what was so logically clear for every being endowed with the very smallest reasoning powers? What, precisely, was lacking in his remarks, that they failed to strike home to her feelings?

"You talk very well!--" she sighed, without waiting for him to reply, and in her eyes he read genuine satisfaction.

"But do I speak truthfully?"--he asked.

"No!--" replied the young girl, without stopping to think.--"Although you are a learned man, I shall argue with you. For, you see, I also understand some things!--You speak so that it appears.. as though people were building a house, and all of them were equals in the work. And even not they only, but everything:--the bricks, and the carpenters, and the trees, and the master of the house--with you, everything is equal to everything else. But is that possible? The peasant must work, you must teach, and the Governor must watch, to see if everybody does what is necessary. And then you said, that life is a battle ... well, where is it? On the contrary, people live very peaceably. But if it is a battle, then there must be vanquished people. But the general utility is something that I cannot understand. You say that general utility consists in the equality of all men. But that is not true! My papa is a colonel--how is he the equal of Nikon or of a peasant? And you--you are a learned man, but are you the equal of our teacher of the Russian language, who drank vódka, who was red-headed, stupid, and blew his nose loudly, like a trumpet? Aha!"

She exulted, regarding her arguments as irresistible, while he admired her joyous agitation, and felt satisfied with himself, because he had caused her this joy.

But his mind strove to solve the problem why the solid thought, unassailed by analysis, which he had aroused, worked in a direction exactly opposite to the one in which he had thrust it?

"I like you and I do not like some other person ... where is the equality?"

"You like me?--" Ippolít Sergyéevitch inquired, rather abruptly.

"Yes ... very much!" she nodded her head affirmatively, and immediately asked:

"What of it?"

He was frightened for himself in the presence of the abyss of ingenuousness which looked forth at him from her clear gaze.

"Can this be her way of coquetting?"--he thought--"she has read romances enough, apparently, to understand herself as a woman...."

"Why do you ask about that?--" she persisted, gazing into his face with curious eyes.

Her gaze confused him.

"Why?"--He shrugged his shoulders,--"I think it is natural. You are a woman ... I am a man...." he explained, as calmly as he could.

"Well, and what of that? All the same, there is no reason why you should know. You see, you are not preparing to marry me!"

She said this so simply, that he was not even disconcerted. It merely struck him, that some power, with which it was useless to contend in view of its blind, elemental character, was altering the work of his brain from one direction to another. And, with a shade of playfulness, he said to her:

"Who knows?... And then ... the desire to please, and the desire to marry, or to get married--are not identical, as you surely must know."

She suddenly burst out into a loud laugh, and he immediately cooled under her laughter, and mutely cursed both himself and her. Her bosom quivered with rich, sincere mirth, which merrily shook the air, but he remained silent, guiltily awaiting a retort to his playfulness.

"Okh! well, what sort ... what sort of a wife ... should I make for you! It's as ridiculous ... as the ostrich and the bee! Ha, ha, ha!"

And he, also, broke into laughter,--not at her queer comparison, but at his own failure to comprehend the springs which governed the movements of her soul.

"You are a charming girl!"--he broke out sincerely.

"Give me your hand ... you walk very slowly, and I will pull you along! It is time for us to turn back ... high time! We have been roaming for four hours ... and Elizavéta Sergyéevna will be displeased with us, because we are late for dinner...."

They went back. Ippolít Sergyéevitch felt himself bound to return to his explanation of her errors, which did not permit him to feel as free by her side as he would have liked to be. But first it was necessary to suppress within himself that obscure uneasiness, which was dully fermenting in him, impeding his intention to listen calmly to her arguments, and to controvert them with decision. It would be so easy for him to cut away the abnormal excrescence from her brain by the cold logic of his mind, if that strange, enervating, nameless sensation did not embarrass him. What was it? It resembled a disinclination to introduce into the spiritual realm of this young girl ideas which were foreign to her.... But such an evasion of his obligations would be shameful in a man who was steadfast in his principles. And he regarded himself in that light, and was profoundly convinced of the power of his mind, and of its supremacy over feeling. "Is to-day Tuesday?" she said.--"Yes, of course. That means, that three days hence the little black gentleman will arrive...."

"Who will arrive, and where, did you say?"

"The little black gentleman, Benkóvsky, will come to us on Saturday."

"Why?"

She began to laugh, gazing searchingly at him.

"Don't you know? He's an official...."

"Ah! yes, my sister told me...."

"She told you?" said Várenka, becoming animated.--

"Well, tell me then--will they be married soon?"

"What do you mean by that? Why should they marry?"--asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch disconcerted.

"Why?"--said Várenka, in amazement, with a vivid blush.--"Why, I don't know. It's the regulation thing to do! But, oh Lord! Can it be possible that you did not know about that?"

"I know nothing!--" ejaculated Ippolít Sergyéevitch with decision.

"And I have told you!"--she cried, in despair.--"A pretty thing, truly! Please, my dear Ippolít Sergyéevitch, don't know anything about it now ... as though I had not said anything!"

"Very well! But permit me; I really do not know anything. I have understood one thing--that my sister is going to marry Mr. Benkóvsky.. is that it?"

"Well, yes! That is to say, if she herself has not told you that, perhaps it will not take place. You will not tell her about this?"

"I will not tell her, of course!" promised he.--"I came hither to a funeral, and have hit upon a wedding, it seems? That is pleasant!"

"Please don't say a word about the wedding!--" she entreated him.--"You don't know anything."

"That is perfectly true.--What sort of a person is this Mr. Benkóvsky? May I inquire?"

"You may, about him! He's rather black of complexion, rather sweet, and rather taciturn. He has little eyes, a little mustache, little lips, little hands and a little fiddle. He loves tender little songs, and little cheese patties. I always feel like rapping him over his little snout."

"Well, you don't love him!" exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch, feeling sorry for Mr. Benkóvsky at this humiliating description of his exterior.

"And he does not love me! I ... I can't endure little, sweet, unassuming men. A man ought to be tall, and strong; he ought to talk loudly, his eyes should be large, fiery, and his emotions should be bold, and know no impediments. He should will a thing and do it--that's a man!"

"Apparently, there are no more such!" said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with a dry laugh, feeling that her ideal of a man was repulsive to him, and irritated him.

"There must be some!" she exclaimed with confidence.

"But Varvára Vasílievna, you have depicted a sort of wild beast! What is there attractive about such a monster?"

"He's not a wild beast at all, but a strong man! Strength--that is what is attractive. The men nowadays are born with rheumatism, with a cough, with various diseases--is that nice? Would I find it interesting, for example, to have for a husband a gentleman with pimples on his face, like County Chief Kokóvitch? or a pretty little gentleman, like Benkóvsky? Ora round-shouldered, gaunt hop-pole, like court-usher Múkhin? Or Grísha Tchernonéboff, the merchant's son, a fat man, with the asthma, and a bald head, and a red nose? What sort of children could such trashy husbands have? For, you see, one must think of that ... mustn't one? For the children are a very important consideration! But those men don't think.... They love nothing. They are good for nothing, and I ... I would beat my husband if I were married to any of those men!"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch stopped her, demonstrating that her judgment of men was, in general, incorrect, because she had seen too few people. And the men she had mentioned must not be regarded from the external point of view alone--that was unjust. A man may have an ugly nose, but a fine soul, pimples on his face, but a brilliant mind. He found it tiresome and difficult to enunciate these elementary truths; until his meeting with her, he had so rarely remembered their existence, that now they all appeared to him musty and threadbare. He felt that all this did not suit her, and that she would not accept it.

"There is the river!" she exclaimed joyfully, interrupting his speech.

And Ippolít Sergyéevitch reflected:

"She rejoices, because I am silenced."

Again they floated along the river, seated facing each other. Várenka took possession of the oars, and rowed hastily, powerfully; the water involuntarily gurgled under the boat, little waves flowed to the shores. Ippolít Sergyéevitch watched the shores moving to meet the boat, and felt exhausted with all he had said and heard during the course of this expedition.

"See, how fast the boat is going!" Várenka said to him.

"Yes," he replied briefly, without turning his eyes to her. It made no difference even without seeing her, he could picture to himself how seductively her body was bending and her bosom was heaving.

The park came in sight ... Soon they were walking up its avenue, and the graceful figure of Elizavéta Sergyéevna was coming to meet them, with a significant smile. She held some papers in her hands, and said:

"Well, you _have_ had a long walk!"

"Have we been gone long! On the other hand, I have such an appetite, that I--ugh! I could eat you!"

And Várenka, encircling Elizavéta Sergyéevna's waist, whirled her lightly round her, laughing at the latter's cries.

The dinner was tasteless and tiresome, because Várenka was engrossed with the process of satisfying her hunger, and maintained silence, and Elizavéta Sergyéevna was angry with her brother, who observed the searching glances which she directed at his face, every now and then. Soon after dinner, Várenka drove off homeward, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch went to his room, lay down on the divan, and began to meditate, summing up the impressions of the day. He recalled the most trivial details of the walk, and felt that a turbid sediment was being formed from them, which was eating into his stable equilibrium of mind and feeling. He even felt the physical novelty of his mood, in the shape of a strange weight, which oppressed his heart--as though his blood had coagulated during that time, and was circulating more slowly than was its wont. This resembled fatigue, inclined him to revery, and formed the preface to some desire which had not yet assumed form. And this was disagreeable only because it remained a nameless sensation, despite Ippolít Sergyéevitch's efforts to give it a name.

"I must wait to analyze it, until the fermentation has subsided...." he came to the conclusion.

But a feeling of keen dissatisfaction with himself presented itself, and he simultaneously reproached himself for having lost the ability to control his emotions, and for having that day conducted himself in a manner unbecoming a serious man. Alone with himself, he was always firm and stem with himself, more so than when with other people. Accordingly, he now began to scrutinize himself.

Indisputably, that young girl was stupefyingly beautiful, but to behold her, and instantly to enter in the dark circle of some troubled sensation or other--was too much for her, and was disgraceful for him, for that was wantonness, a lack of strength of character. She strongly stirred his sensuality,--yes, but he must contend against that.

"Must I?"--suddenly flashed into his head the curt, poignant question.

He frowned, and bore himself toward the question as though it had been put by someone outside of himself. In any case, what was going on within him was not the beginning of a passion for a woman, rather was it a protest of his mind, which had been affronted by the encounter from which he had not emerged as the conqueror, although his opponent had been as weak as a child. He ought to have talked to that girl figuratively, for it was evident that she did not understand a logical argument. His duty was to exterminate her wild conceptions, to destroy all those coarse and stupid fancies, with which her brain was soaked. He must strip her mind of all those errors, purify, empty her soul, and then she would be capable of accepting the truth and of holding it within her.

"Can I do that?"--an irrelevant question again flashed up within him. And again he evaded it.... What would she be like, when she had accepted something new, and contrary to what was already in her? And it seemed to him, that when her soul, freed from the captivity of error, should have become permeated with harmonious teaching, foreign to everything obscure and blinding,--that young girl would be doubly beautiful.

When he was called to tea, he had already firmly made up his mind to reconstruct her world, imposing this decision upon himself as a direct obligation. Now he would meet her coldly and composedly, and would impart to his intercourse with her a character of stem criticism of everything that she should say, or should do.

"Well, how do you like Várenka?"--inquired his sister, when he emerged on the terrace.

"Very charming girl," he replied, elevating his brows.

"Yes? So, that's it ... I thought you would be struck by her lack of development."

"I really am rather surprised at that side of her,--" he assented.--"But, to speak frankly, she is, in many ways, better than the girls who are developed and who put on airs over that fact."

"Yes, she is handsome.. and a desirable bride ... she has five hundred desyatinas of very fine land, about one hundred of building timber. And, in addition, she will inherit a solid estate from her aunt. And neither estate is mortgaged...."

He perceived that his sister was determined not to understand him, but he did not care to explain to himself why she found this necessary.

"I do not look at her from that point of view,--" said he.

"Do so, then ... I seriously advise it."

"Thanks."

"You are a little out of temper, apparently?"

"On the contrary. But what of that?"

"Nothing. I want to know it, as an anxious sister."

She smiled prettily, and rather ingratiatingly. That smile reminded him of Mr. Benkóvsky, and he, also, smiled at her.

"What are you laughing at?--" she inquired.

"And you, what are you laughing at?"

"I feel merry."

"I feel merry also, although I did not bury my wife two weeks ago,--" he said, with a laugh.

But she put on a serious face, and sighed, as she said:

"Perhaps, in your soul, you condemn me for lack of feeling toward my deceased husband. You think that I am egotistical? But, Ippolít, you know what my husband was, I wrote to you what my life was like. And I often said to myself:--'My God! and was I created merely for the purpose of pleasing the coarse appetites of Nikoláï Stepánovitch Banártzeff, when he has drunk himself into such a state of intoxication that he cannot distinguish his wife from a simple peasant woman, or a woman of the street?'"

"You don't say so!" ... exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch, recalling her letters, in which she had talked a great deal about her husband's lack of character, his fondness for liquor, his indolence, and of all vices except debauchery.

"Do you doubt it?--" she inquired reproachfully, and sighed. --"Nevertheless, it is a fact. He was often in such a condition.... I do not assert that he betrayed me, but I admit it. Could he be conscious, whether I was with him, or some other woman, when he mistook the window for the door? Yes.. and that was the way I lived for years...." She talked long and tediously to him about her sad life, and he listened and waited for her to tell him the thing that she wished to tell. And it involuntarily occurred to him, that Várenka would never be likely to complain of her life, however it might turn out for her.

"It seems to me that fate ought to reward me for those long years of grief.... Perhaps it is near--my recompense."

Elizavéta Sergyéevna paused, and casting an interrogative glance at her brother, she blushed slightly.

"What do you mean to say?"--he inquired, affectionately, bending toward her.

"You see ... perhaps I shall ... marry again!"

"And you will do exactly right! I congratulate you!... But why are you so disconcerted?"

"Really, I do not know!"

"Who is he?"

"I think I have mentioned him to you ... Benkóvsky ... the future procurator ... and, in the meantime, a poet and dreamer.... Perhaps you have come across his verses? He prints them...."

"I do not read verses. Is he a good man? However, of course he is good...."

"I am sufficiently clever not to answer in the affirmative; but I think I may say, without self-delusion, that he is capable of making up to me for the past. He loves me.... I have invented a little philosophy for myself ... perhaps it will seem rather harsh to you."

"Philosophize without fear, that's the fashion at present ..." jested Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"Men and women are two tribes, which are everlastingly at war" said the woman softly,... "Confidence, friendship and other feelings of that sort, are hardly possible between me and a man. But love is possible.... And love is the victory of the one who loves the least over the one who loves the most.... I have been conquered once, and have paid for it ... now I have won the victory, and shall enjoy the fruits of conquest...."

"It is a tolerably fierce sort of philosophy,..." Ippolít Sergyéevitch interrupted her, feeling, with satisfaction, that Várenka could not philosophize in that manner.

"Life has taught it to me.... You see, he is four years younger than I am,... he has only just finished at the university,... I know that that is dangerous for me ... and, how shall I express it?... I should like to arrange matters with him in such a way, that my property-right shall not be subjected to any risk."

"Yes ... so what then?" inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, becoming attentive.

"So, you are to advise me as to how this is to be arranged. I do not wish to give him any legal rights over my property ... and I would not give him any over my person, if that could be avoided."

"It strikes me that that could be effected by a civil marriage. However...."

"No, I reject a civil marriage...."

He looked at her, and thought, with a feeling of fastidiousness: "Well, she is wise! If God created men, life re-creates them so easily, that they certainly must have long ago become repulsive to him."

And his sister convincingly explained to him her view of marriage.

"Marriage ought to be a reasonable contract, excluding every risk. That is precisely how I mean to deal with Benkóvsky. But, before taking that step, I should like to clear up the legality of that vexatious brother's claim. Please look over these documents."

"Will you permit me to undertake this matter to-morrow"--he inquired.

"Of course, when you like."

She continued, for a long time, to set forth her ideas to him, then she told him a great deal about Benkóvsky. Of him she spoke condescendingly, with a smile flitting over her lips, and, for some reason, with her eyes puckered up, Ippolít listened to her, and was amazed at the utter absence in himself of all sympathy for her fate, or interest in her remarks.

The sun had already set when they parted, he, exhausted by her, to his own room; she, animated by the conversation, with a confident sparkle in her eyes,--to attend to her housekeeping.

When he arrived in his own quarters, Ippolít lighted the lamp, got a book, and tried to read; but with the very first page, he comprehended that it would please him equally well if he closed the book. Stretching himself luxuriously, he closed it, and fidgetted about in his arm-chair, seeking a comfortable attitude, but the chair was hard; then he betook himself to the divan, and lay down on it. At first, he thought of nothing at all; then, with vexation, he remembered, that he would soon be obliged to make the acquaintance of Mr. Benkóvsky, and immediately he smiled, as he recalled the sketch which Várenka had given of that gentleman.

And soon she alone occupied his thoughts and his imagination. Among other things, he thought:

"And what if I were to marry such a charming monster? I think she might prove a very interesting wife if only for the reason that one does not hear from her mouth the cheap wisdom of the popular books...."

But after having surveyed his position, in the character of Várenka's husband, from all sides, he began to laugh, and categorically answered himself:

"Never!"

And after that, he felt sad.

II

On Saturday morning, a little unpleasantness began for Ippolít Sergyéevitch: as he was dressing himself, he had knocked the lamp off of the little table to the floor, it had flown into fragments, and several drops of kerosene from the broken reservoir had fallen into one of his shoes, which he had not yet put on his feet. The shoes, of course, had been cleaned, but it began to seem to Ippolít Sergyéevitch that a repulsive, oily odor was streaming upon the air from the tea, the bread, the butter, and even from the beautifully dressed hair of his sister.

This spoiled his temper.

"Take off the shoe, and set it in the sun, then the kerosene will evaporate,--" his sister advised him.--"And, in the meantime, put on my husband's slippers, there is one pair which is perfectly new."

"Please don't worry. It will soon disappear."

"It is of the greatest importance to wait until it disappears. Really, shall not I order the slippers to be brought?"

"No ... I don't want them. Throw them away."

"Why? They are nice slippers, of velvet ... they are fit to use."

He wanted to argue, the kerosene irritated him.

"What will they be good for? You will not wear them."

"Of course I shall not, but Alexander will."

"Who is he?"

"Why, Benkóvsky."

"Aha!--" he gave way to a hard laugh.--"That is very touching fidelity on the part of your dead husband's slippers. And practical."

"You are malicious to-day."

She looked at him somewhat offended, but very searchingly, and, he, catching that expression in her eyes, thought unpleasantly:

"She certainly imagines that I am irritated by Várenka's absence."

"Benkóvsky will arrive in time for dinner, probably,--" she informed him, after a pause.

"I'm very glad to hear it,--" he replied, as he commented to himself:

"She wants me to be amiable toward my future brother-in-law."

And his irritation was augmented by a feeling of oppressive boredom. But Elizavéta Sergyéevna said, as she carefully spread a thin layer of butter on her bread:

"Practicalness, in my opinion, is a very praiseworthy quality. Especially at the present moment, when impoverishment so oppresses our brethren, who live upon the fruits of the earth. Why should not Benkóvsky wear the slippers of my deceased husband?..."

"And his shroud also, if you removed the shroud from him, and have preserved it,"--said Ippolít Sergyéevitch venomously to himself, concentrating his attention upon the operation of transferring the boiled cream from the cream-jug to his glass.

"And, altogether, my husband has left a very extensive and appropriate wardrobe. And Benkóvsky is not spoiled. For you know how many of them there are--three young fellows besides Alexander, and five young girls. And the estate has about ten mortgages on it. You know, I purchased their library, on very advantageous terms;--there are some very valuable things in it. Look it over, and perhaps you will find something you need.... Alexander subsists on a very paltry salary."

"Have you known him long?--" he asked her;--it was necessary to talk about Benkóvsky, although he did not wish to do so.

"Four years, altogether, and so ... intimately, seven or eight months. You will see that he is very nice. He is so tender, so easily excited, and something of an idealist, a decadent, I think. However, all the young generation are inclined to decadentism.... Some fall on the side of idealism, others on the side of materialism ... and both sorts seem very clever to me."

"There are men who profess 'scepticism of a hundred horse power,' as one of my comrades has defined it,--" said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, bending his face over his glass.

She laughed, as she said:

"That is witty, though it is also rather coarse. Really, I am on the verge of scepticism myself, the healthy scepticism, you know, which fetters the wings of all possible impulses, and seems to me indispensable for ... the acquisition of correct views as to the life of people."

He made haste to finish his tea, and went away, announcing that he had to sort over the books which he had brought with him. But the odor of kerosene lingered still in his chamber, in spite of the open doors. He scowled, and taking a book, he went out into the park. There, in the closely clustered family of ancient trees, wearied with gales and thunderstorms, reigned a melancholy silence, which enervated the mind, and he walked on, without opening his book, down the principal avenue, thinking of nothing, desiring nothing.

Here was the river and the boat. Here he had seen Várenka reflected in the water, and angelically beautiful in that reflection.

"Well, I'm just like a boy from the gymnasium!" he cried to himself, conscious that the memory of her was agreeable to him.

After halting for a moment by the side of the river, he stepped into the boat, seated himself in the stern, and began to gaze at that picture in the water, which had been so lovely three days before. It was equally beautiful to-day, but to-day, on its transparent background the white figure of that strange young girl did not make its appearance. Polkánoff lighted a cigarette, and immediately flung it into the water, reflecting that, perhaps, he had done a foolish thing in coming hither. As a matter of fact, of what use was he there? Apparently, only for the sake of preserving his sister's good name, to speak more simply, in order to enable his sister to receive Mr. Benkóvsky into her house, without offending the proprieties. It was not an important rôle.... And that Benkóvsky could not be very clever if he really did love Polkánoff's sister, who was, if anything, too clever.

After having sat there for three hours in a semi-meditative condition, his thoughts paralyzed, in a certain way, and gliding over subjects, without sitting in judgment upon them, he rose, and went slowly to the house, angry with himself for the uselessly wasted time, and firmly resolving to set to work as speedily as possible. As he approached the terrace, he beheld a slender young man, in a white blouse, girt with a strap. The young man was standing with his back to the avenue, and was looking at something, as he bent over the table. Ippolít Sergyéevitch slackened his pace, wondering whether this could possibly be Benkóvsky? Then the young man straightened up, with a graceful gesture flung back the long locks of curling hair from his brow, and turned his face toward the avenue.

"Why, he's a page of the Middle Ages!" exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself.

Benkóvsky's face was oval, of a dead-white hue, and appeared jaded, because of the strained gleam of his large, almond-shaped, black eyes, deeply sunken in their orbits. His beautifully formed mouth was shaded by a small, black mustache, and his arched brow by locks of carelessly dishevelled, waving hair. He was small, below middle stature, but his willowy figure, elegantly built, and finely proportioned, concealed this defect. He looked at Ippolít Sergyéevitch as short-sighted persons look, and there was something sympathetic, but sickly, about his pale face. In a velvet beretta and costume, he really would seem like a page who had escaped from a picture representing a court of the Middle Ages.

"Benkóvsky!"--he said, in a low tone, offering his white hand, with the long, slender fingers of a musician, to Ippolít Sergyéevitch, as the latter ascended the steps of the terrace.

The young savant shook his hand cordially.

For a moment, both preserved an awkward silence, then Ippolít Sergyéevitch began to talk about the beauty of the park. The young man answered him briefly, being anxious, evidently, merely to comply with the demands of politeness, and exhibiting no interest whatever in his companion.

Elizavéta Sergyéevna soon made her appearance, in a loose white gown, with black lace on the collar, and girt at the waist with a long, black cord, terminating in tassels. This costume harmonized well with her calm countenance, imparting a majestic expression to its small, but regular features. On her cheeks played a flush of satisfaction, and her cold eyes had an animated look.

"Dinner will be ready at once,--" she announced.--"I am going to treat you to ice-cream. But why are you so bored, Alexander Petróvitch? Yes! You have not forgotten Schubert?"

"I have brought Schubert and the books,--" he replied frankly, and meditatively admiring her.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch observed the expression of his face, and felt awkward, comprehending that this charming young man must have made a vow to himself not to recognize his existence.

"That's fine!"--exclaimed Elizavéta Sergyéevna, smiling at Benkóvsky.--"Shall we play it after dinner?"

"If you like!"--and he bowed his head before her. This was gracefully done, but, nevertheless, it made Ippolít Sergyéevitch grin inwardly.

"It does please me very much,"--declared his sister coquettishly.

"And are you fond of Schubert?"--inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"I love Beethoven best of all--he is the Shakspear of music,"--replied Benkóvsky, turning his profile toward him.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch had heard Beethoven called the Shakspear of music before, and the difference between him and Schubert constituted one of those mysteries which did not interest him in the least. But this boy did interest him, and he seriously inquired:

"Why do you place Beethoven, in particular, at the head of all?"

"Because he is more of an idealist than all the other musical composers put together."

"Really? Do you, also, take that as the true view of the world?"

"Undoubtedly. And I know that you are an extreme materialist,--" explained Benkóvsky, and his eyes gleamed strangely.

"He wants to argue!" thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch,--"But he's a nice young fellow, straightforward, and, probably, strictly honorable."

And his sympathy for this idealist, who was condemned to wear the dead man's slippers, increased.

"So, you and I are enemies?"--he inquired, with a smile.

"Gentlemen!"--Elizavéta Sergyéevna called to them from the room.--"Don't forget that you have only just made each other's acquaintance...."

Másha, the maid, was setting the table, with a clatter of dishes, and she cast a furtive glance at Benkóvsky with eyes in which sparkled artless rapture. Ippolít also gazed at him, reflecting that he must treat this young fellow with all possible delicacy, and that it would be well to avoid "ideal" conversations with him, because he would, in all probability, get excited to the point of rage in arguments. But Benkóvsky stared at him with a burning glitter in his eyes, and a nervous quiver on his face.... Evidently, he was passionately anxious to talk, and he restrained his desire with difficulty. Ippolít Sergyéevitch made up his mind to confine himself to the bounds of strictly official courtesy.

His sister, who was already seated at the table, tossed insignificant phrases, in a jesting tone, now to one, now to the other: the men made brief replies--one with the careless familiarity of a relative, the other with the respect of the lover. And all three were seized with a certain feeling of awkwardness and embarrassment, which made them keep watch over one another, and over themselves.

Másha brought the first course out on the terrace.

"Please come to dinner, gentlemen!"--Elizavéta Sergyéevna invited them, as she armed herself with the soup-ladle.--"Will you have a glass of vódka?"

"Yes, I will!"--said Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"And I will not, if you will excuse me," declared Benkóvsky.

"I willingly excuse you. But you will drink, will you not?"

"I do not wish to...."

"Touch glasses with a materialist,--" thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

Either the savory soup with patties, or Ippolít Sergyéevitch's ceremonious manner seemed somewhat to cool and soften the sullen gleam of the young man's black eyes, and when the second course was served he began to talk:

"Perhaps my exclamation, in reply to your question, struck you as a challenge--are we enemies? Perhaps it is impolite, but I assume that people's relations to one another should be free from their official falsehood, which everyone has accepted as the rule."

"I entirely agree with you," answered Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with a smile.--"The more simply, the better. And your straightforward declaration only pleased me, if you will permit me to express myself in that way."

Benkóvsky smiled sadly, as he said:

"We really are enemies in the realm of ideas, but that defines itself at once, of itself. Now, you say--c the more simply, the better,' and I think so too, but I put one construction on those words, while you put another...."

"Do we?"--inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"Undoubtedly, if you proceed in the straight line of logic from the views set forth in your article."

"Of course I do...."

"There, you see.... And from my point of view, your idea of simplicity would be coarse. But let us drop that question.... Tell me, in regarding life merely as a mechanism, which has worked out everything, including ideas, do not you feel conscious of an inward chill, and is there not in your soul a single drop of compassion for all the mysterious and enchantingly beautiful, which we degrade to simple chemistry, to a commingling of atoms of material?"

"Hm!... I do not feel that chill, for my place is clear to me, in the great mechanism of life, which is more poetical than all fantasies.... As for the metaphysical fermentation of sentiment and mind, that, you know, is a matter of taste. So far, no one knows what beauty is. In any case, it is proper to assume that it is a physiological sensation."

One talked in a low tone, full of pensiveness and sorrowful notes of pity for his erring interlocutor; the other spoke calmly, with a consciousness of his mental superiority, and with a desire not to employ words which wounded the vanity of his opponent--words which are so frequent in a discussion between two well-bred men, as to whose truth is the nearer to the real truth. Elizavéta Sergyéevna smiled slightly, as she watched the play of their countenances, and composedly ate her dinner, carefully gnawing the bones of her game. Másha peeped from behind the door, and, evidently, wished to understand what the gentlemen were saying, for her face wore a strained expression, and her eyes had become round, and lost their wonted expression of cunning and amiability.

"You say--actuality, but what is it, when everything around us, and we ourselves are merely chemistry and mechanism, working without cessation? Everywhere motion, and everything is motion, and there is not the hundredth part of a second of rest.--How shall I seize actuality, how shall I recognize it, if I myself, at any given moment, am not what I was, am not what I shall be the following moment? You, I, we--are we merely material? But some day we shall lie beneath the holy pictures, filling the air with the vile stench of corruption.... All that will remain of us on earth will be, perhaps, some faded photographs, and they can never tell anyone about the joys and torments of our existence, which has been swallowed up by the unknown. Is it not terrible to believe that all we thinking and suffering beings live only for the purpose of decaying?"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch listened attentively to his speech, and said to himself:

"If you were convinced of the truth of your belief, you would be at ease. But here you are, shouting. And it is not because you are an idealist that you shout, my good fellow, but because you have weak nerves."

But Benkóvsky, gazing into his face, with flaming eyes, went on:

"You talk about science,--very good!--I bow down before it as before a mighty power which will loose the bonds of the mystery that fetters me.... But by the light of it I behold myself on the same spot where stood my distant ancestor, who believed that the thunder rumbles thanks to the prophet Elijah. I do not believe in Elijah; I know that it is caused by the action of electricity, but how is that any clearer than Elijah? In that it is more complicated? It is as inexplicable as motion, and all the other powers, which people are unsuccessfully trying to substitute for one. And it sometimes seems to me, that the entire business of science amounts to complicating conceptions--that is all! I think, that it is good to believe; people laugh at me, they say: 'It is not necessary to believe, but to know,' I want to know what matter is, and they answer me, literally, thus: 'Matter is what is contained in that locality of space, in which we render objective the cause of the sensations that we receive,' Why talk like that? Can that be given out as the answer to the question? It is a sneer at those who are passionately and sincerely seeking an answer to the anxious queries of their spirits.... I want to know the aim of existence--that aspiration of my spirit is also ridiculed. But I am living, life is not easy, and it gives me a right to demand a categorical answer from the monopolists of wisdom--why do I live?"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch cast a sidelong glance at the face of Benkóvsky, which was glowing with emotion, and recognized the fact that that young man must be answered with words which should correspond with his own words, in the matter of the strength of stormy feeling injected into them. But, while he recognized this fact, he felt within himself a desire to retort. But the poet's huge eyes grew still larger, a passionate melancholy burned within them. He sighed, and his white, elegant right hand, fluttered swiftly through the air, now convulsively clenched into a fist and menacing, now as though clutching at something in space, which it was powerless to grasp.

"But, while giving nothing, how much you have taken from life I You reply to that with scorn.... But in it rings--what? The impossibility of retorting with confidence, and, in addition, your inability to pity people. For men are asking from you spiritual bread, and you are offering them the stone of negation! You have stolen the soul of life, and if there are in it no great feats of love and suffering, you are to blame for that, for, the slaves of reason, you have surrendered your soul into its power, and now it has turned cold, and is dying, ill and poverty-stricken! But life is just as gloomy as ever, and its torments, its woe, demand heroes.... Where are they?"

"What a hysterical creature he is!" exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself, as with an unpleasant shiver, he gazed at this little hall of nerves, which was quivering before him with melancholy excitement.--He tried to stem the stormy eloquence of his future brother-in-law, but did not succeed, for, possessed by the inspiration of his protest, the young man heard nothing and, apparently, saw nothing. He must have carried these complaints, which poured forth from his soul, about in him for a long time, and was glad that he could have his say to one of the men who, in his opinion, had ruined life.

Elizavéta Sergyéevna admired him, screwing up her light eyes, and in them burned a spark of sensual desire.

"In all that you have so powerfully and beautifully said,--" began Ippolít Sergyéevitch, in measured and amiable tones, taking advantage of the involuntary pause of the weary orator, and desirous of soothing him,--"in all this there indisputably does ring much true feeling, much searching reason...."

"What can I say to him that is chilling and conciliatory?--" he said to himself, with renewed force, as he wove his web of compliments.

But his sister rescued him from his trying situation. She had already eaten her fill, and sat there, leaning against the back of her chair. Her dark hair was arranged in antique fashion, but this coiffure, in the form of a diadem, was very becoming to the masterful expression of her countenance. Her lips, quivering with laughter, displayed a strip of white teeth, as thin as the edge of a knife, and stopping her brother with a graceful gesture, she said:

"Permit me to say a word! I know an apothegm of a certain wise man, and it runs: 'Those are not in the right who speak--there is the truth, neither are they in the right who reply to them--that is a lie, but only Sabbaoth and Satan are right, in whose existence I do not believe, but who must exist somewhere, for it is they who have organized life in such a dual form, and it is life which has created them. You do not understand? Yet I am speaking the same human language as you are. But I compress the entire wisdom of the ages into one phrase, in order that you may perceive the nothingness of your wisdom."

When she had finished her speech, she asked the men, with an enchantingly brilliant smile:

"What do you think of that?"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch shrugged his shoulders in silence,--his sister's words perturbed him, but he was delighted that she had curbed Benkóvsky.

But something strange happened with Benkóvsky. When Elizavéta Sergyéevna began to speak, his face flamed with ecstasy, and, paling at every word she uttered, it expressed something akin to terror at the moment, when she put her question. He tried to make her some reply, his lips trembled nervously, but no words proceeded from them. And she, magnificent in her composure, watched the play of his face, and it must have pleased her to behold the effect of her words on him, for satisfaction beamed from her eyes.

"To me, at least, it seems as though the entire sumtotal of huge folios of philosophy are contained in these words," she said, after a pause.

"You are right, up to a certain point,--" said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with a wry smile,--"but, at the same time...."

"So, is it possible that a man is bound to quench the last sparks of the Promethean fire which still burn in his soul, ennobling his strivings?--" exclaimed Benkóvsky, gazing sadly at her.

"Why, if they yield anything positive ... anything agreeable to you!--" she said, with a smile. "It seems to me that you are taking a very dangerous criterion for the definition of the positive,--" drily remarked her brother.

"Elizavéta Sergyéevna! You are a woman, tell me:--what echoes does the great intellectual movement of woman awaken in your soul?--" inquired Benkóvsky, warming up again.

"It is interesting...."

"Only that?"

"But I think that it ... how shall I express it to you?.. that it is the aspiration of the superfluous women. They have remained outside the bulwarks of life, because they are homely, or because they do not recognize the power of their beauty, do not know the taste of power over men.... They are superfluous, from a mass of causes!... But--ice-cream is a necessity!" In silence he took the little green dish out of her hands, and setting it in front of him, he began to stare intently at the cold, white mass, nervously rubbing his brow with his hand, which was trembling with suppressed emotion.

"There, you see that philosophy spoils not only the taste for life, but even the appetite,--" jested Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

But her brother looked at her and thought, that she was playing an unworthy game with that boy. In him the whole conversation had evoked a dawning sensation of boredom, and, although he pitied Benkóvsky, this pity did not comprise any warmth of heart, and therefore it was devoid of energy.

"Sic visum Veneri!"--he decided, as he rose from the table, and lighted a cigarette.

"Shall we play?" Elizavéta Sergyéevna asked Benkóvsky.

And when, in reply to her words, he bent his head submissively, they went from the terrace into the house, whence soon resounded the chords of the piano, and the sounds of a violin being tuned. Ippolít Sergyéevitch sat in a comfortable arm-chair near the railing of the terrace, protected from the sun by a lace-like curtain of wild grapevine, which had climbed from the ground to the roof on cords that had been strung for it, and heard everything which his sister and Benkóvsky said.

"Have you written anything lately?"--inquired Elizavéta Sergyéevna, as she struck the note for the violin.

"Yes, a little piece."

"Recite it!"

"Really, I do not wish to."

"Do you want me to entreat you?"

"Do I? No.... But I should like to recite the verses which are now composing themselves within me...."

"Pray do!"

"Yes, I will recite them.... But they have only just presented themselves.. and you have called them into life...."

"How agreeable it is to me to hear that!"

"I do not know.... Perhaps you are speaking with sincerity.... I do not know...."

"Really, ought not I to go away?"--thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch. But he was too indolent to move, and he remained, consoling himself with the thought that they must be aware of his presence on the terrace.

"Of thy calm beauty The cold gleam doth trouble me...."[1]

[1] These lines are very irregular, as to both rhyme and rhythm in the original. They are hardly of sufficient merit to warrant a poetical version.--Translator.

rang out the low voice of Benkóvsky.

"Wilt thou laugh at my dreams? Thou understandest me not, perchance?"

mournfully inquired the youth.

"I'm afraid it's rather late in the day for you to ask about that,"--thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with a sceptical smile.

"In thine eyes there is no happiness, In thy words,--cold laughter do I hear. And strange to thee is the delirium mad I Of my soul...."

Benkóvsky paused, from emotion, or from lack of a rhyme.

"But it is so splendid! In it is a whirlwind of songs, in it is my life! All permeated is it with stormy passion To solve the enigma of existence, To find for all men the road to happiness...."

"I must go!--" decided Ippolít Sergyéevitch, involuntarily brought to his feet by the young man's hysterical moans, in which simultaneously resounded a touching "farewell!" to the peace of his soul, and a despairing "have mercy!" addressed to the woman.

"Thy slave,--to thee I've raised a throne In the madness of my heart.... And I await...."

"Your ruin, for--sic visum Veneri!"--Ippolít Sergyéevitch completed the verse, as he walked down the avenue through the park.

He was astonished at his sister:--she did not seem handsome enough to arouse such love in the young man. She certainly must have effected it by the tactics of opposition. Then, one must acknowledge her steadfast bearing, for Benkóvsky was handsome.... Perhaps he, as her brother, and a well-bred man, ought to speak to her about the true character of her relations to this boy, glowing with red-hot passion? But to what could such a conversation lead, now? And he was not enough of an authority on matters of Cupid and Venus to meddle with this affair.... But, nevertheless, he must point out to Elizavéta the probable ruin of that gentleman, if he, with her aid, did not succeed in quenching pretty promptly the flame of his transports, and did not learn to feel more normally, and to argue in a more healthy manner.

"And what would happen, if that torch of passion were to flare up before Várenka's heart?"

But, after putting this question to himself, Ippolít Sergyéevitch did not try to solve it, but began to wonder what the young girl was doing at that particular moment? Perhaps she was slapping her Nikon in the face, or rolling her sick father through the rooms in his arm-chair. And as he represented her to himself engaged in those occupations, he was offended, on her account. Yes, it was indispensably necessary to open the eyes of that girl, to actuality, to acquaint her with the intellectual tendencies of the day. What a pity that she lived so far away, and it was impossible to see her more frequently, so that, day by day, he might shake loose everything which barred off her mind from the

## action of logic!

The park was full of stillness, and of fragrant coolness, from the house floated the singing sounds of the violin, and the nervous notes of the piano. One after another phrases of sweet entreaty, of tender summons, of stormy ecstasy were showered over the park.

Music poured from heaven also--there the larks were singing. With rumpled plumage, and black as a piece of coal, a starling sat on a linden bough, and bristling up the feathers on his breast, he whistled significantly, staring sidewise at the meditative man, who was strolling slowly along the avenue, with his hands clasped behind his back, and staring far away into the distance, with smiling eyes.

At tea, Benkóvsky was more reserved, and not so much like a crazy man; Elizavéta Sergyéevna, also seemed to be warmed up by something.

On observing this, Ippolít Sergyéevitch felt himself guaranteed against the breaking out of any abstract discussions, and so felt less embarrassed.

"You tell me nothing about St. Petersburg, Ippolít,--" said Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

"What is there to say about it? It is a very large and lively city.... The weather is damp there, but...."

"But the people are dry,"--interrupted Benkóvsky.

"Not all of them, by any means. There are many who have grown perfectly soft, and are covered with the mould of very ancient moods; people everywhere are tolerably varied!"

"Thank God that it is so!" exclaimed Benkóvsky.

"Yes, life would be intolerably tedious if it were not so!" assented Elizavéta Sergyéevna.--"But in what favor does the country stand with young people. Are they still speculating on a fall in stocks?"

"Yes, they are becoming somewhat disillusioned."

"That is a characteristic phenomenon for the educated class of our days,--" said Benkóvsky, with a laugh.--"When the majority of that class were of the nobility, it had no existence. But now-a-days, when the son of every low-born extortioner, merchant or official, who has read two or three popular little books, also belongs to the educated class,--the country cannot arouse the interest of such an 'intelligéntzia,'[2] Do they know anything about it? Can it be for them anything except a good place in which to spend the summer? For them the country is a suburban villa ... and altogether, they are villa-residents, by virtue of the essential quality of their souls. They make their appearance, live on, and disappear, leaving behind them in life divers papers, bits, scraps--the usual traces of their sojourn, which villa-residents leave behind them in country fields. Others will follow after them and annihilate this rubbish, and with it the memory of the ignominious, soulless and impotent educated people of these years of 1890."

[2] The popular word for the class in question. I leave it untranslated here for the benefit of those who have already met with the word.--Translator.

"And are those others repaired noblemen?" asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"You have understood me, apparently,... in a way that is far from flattering to you, if you will excuse me for saying so!" Benkóvsky flared up.

"I merely inquired who these coming people are to be?" replied Ippolít Sergyéevitch, shrugging his shoulders.

"They are--the young country! Its reformed generation, men who already possess the developed sentiment of human dignity, who thirst for knowledge, who are of an investigative turn of mind, ready to introduce themselves to notice."

"I welcome them in advance," said Ippolít Sergyéevitch indifferently.

"Yes, it must be confessed, that the country is beginning to produce a new impression on the world,--a conciliatory impression," remarked Elizavéta Sergyéevna.--"I have here some very interesting children,--Iván and Grigóry Shákhoff, who have read almost half of my library, and Akim Sozýreff, a man 'who understands everything,' as he asserts. As a matter of fact, he has brilliant ideas! I put him to the test--I gave him a work on physics, and said to him--' read this, and explain to me the laws of the lever and of equilibrium and one week later, he passed my examination with so much effect, that I was simply astounded! And moreover, in reply to my commendations, he said: 'What of that? You understand this, consequently, no one forbids me to do the same-?--books are written for everybody!, What do you think of that? But you see ... their idea of their dignity has been developed, so far, only to the point of insolence and churlishness. They apply these newly-born properties even to me, but I endure it, and do not complain to the county chief, because I understand what fiery flowers might blossom forth on that soil ... very likely, some fine morning, one might wake up with nothing but the ashes of one's manor left."

Ippolít Sergyéevitch smiled. Benkóvsky glanced, sadly at the woman.

Touching superficially on themes, and not attacking one another's vanity strongly, they conversed until ten o'clock, and then Elizavéta Sergyéevna and Benkóvsky went off again to play, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch bade them good night and retired to his own room, observing that his future brother-in-law made not the slightest effort to conceal the satisfaction he felt at getting rid of his betrothed's brother.

... One discovers what he wishes to discover, and ennui makes its appearance, as though by way of reward for an investigative turn of mind. It was precisely this enervating sensation which Ippolít Sergyéevitch experienced, when he seated himself at the table in his chamber, with the intention of writing several letters to his acquaintances. He understood the motives of his sister's peculiar relations toward Benkóvsky, he understood, also, his rôle in her game. All this was not nice, but, at the same time, it was all foreign to him, in a way, and his soul was not disturbed by the parody on the story of Pygmalion and Galatea which was being enacted in his presence, although, in his mind, he condemned his sister. Tapping the handle of his pen, in a melancholy way, against the table, he turned down the light, and when the room was plunged in obscurity, he began to look out of the window.

Dead silence reigned in the park, which was illuminated by the moon, and through the window-panes, the moon had a greenish hue.

Under the windows, a shadow flitted past, and vanished, leaving behind it a soft sound of rustling branches, quivering at the contact. Stepping to the window, Ippolít Sergyéevitch opened it, and looked out,--beyond the trees glimmered the white gown of Másha, the maid.

"What of that?"--he said to himself, with a smile,--"let the maid love, if the mistress is only playing at love."

*

Slowly the days vanished--drops of time in the boundless ocean of eternity--and they were all tediously monotonous. There were hardly any impressions, and it was difficult to work, because the sultry blaze of the sun, the narcotic perfumes of the park, and the pensive, moonlight nights, all aroused meditative indolence in the soul. Ippolít Sergyéevitch calmly enjoyed this purely-vegetable existence, postponing from day to day his resolve to set to work seriously. Sometimes he felt bored, he reproached himself for his inactivity, his lack of will, but all this did not arouse in him the desire to work, and he explained to himself his indolence as the effort of his organism to amass energy. In the morning, on awaking from a deep, healthy slumber, he noted, as he stretched himself luxuriously, how springy his muscles were, how elastic was his skin, and how deeply and freely his lungs breathed.

The sad habit of philosophizing, which too frequently revealed itself in his sister, irritated him, at first, but he gradually became reconciled to this defect in Elizavéta Sergyéevna, and managed, so cleverly and inoffensively to demonstrate to her the inutility of philosophy, that she grew more reticent. Her inclination to argue about everything produced an unpleasant impression on him--he perceived that his sister was arguing, not from a natural impulse to explain to herself her relation to life, but merely from a provident desire to destroy and overthrow everything which might perturb the cold repose of her soul. She had worked out for herself a scheme of practice, but theories only interested her in so far as they were able to smooth over before him her hard, sceptical, and even ironical relations toward life and people. Although Ippolít Sergyéevitch comprehended all this, he did not feel within him the slightest desire to reproach and shame his sister; he condemned her in his own mind, but there was not in it that something which would have permitted him to express aloud his condemnation, for, as a matter of fact, his heart was no warmer than his sister's.

Thus, almost every time, after a visit from Benkóvsky, Ippolít Sergyéevitch promised himself that he would speak to his sister about her relations toward that young man, but he did not keep his promise, imperceptibly to himself refraining from meddling with that affair. For, as yet, no one could tell which would be the suffering side, when sound sense should awaken in that highly inflamed young man. And this would happen--the young man was blazing too violently, and must, infallibly, burn out. And his sister was bearing it firmly in mind, that he was younger than she, so there was no cause for anxiety on her score. But if she got her punishment--what then? That was quite proper, if life is just....

Várenka came frequently. They rowed on the river, together, or in company with his sister, but never with Benkóvsky; they strolled in the forest, and once they drove to a monastery, twenty versts away. The young girl continued to please him, and to upset him with her odd remarks, but he always found her society agreeable. Her ingenuousness perplexed him, and restrained the man within him; the integrity of her nature aroused his amazement, but the simple-hearted straightforwardness with which she put aside everything wherewith he attempted to unsettle the peace of her soul, wounded his self-love.

And more and more frequently did he ask himself:

"But is it possible that I have not sufficient energy to drive out of her head all these errors and stupidities?"

When he did not see her, he clearly felt the indispensable necessity of liberating her mind from abnormal paths, he imposed this necessity upon himself as an obligation, but when Várenka made her appearance--he did not exactly forget his resolve, but he never placed it in the foremost rank in his relations toward her. Sometimes he caught himself listening to her, exactly as though he were desirous of learning something from her, and he admitted that there was something about her which hampered the freedom of his mind. It happened, on occasion, that when he had ready prepared a retort which, by stunning her with its dearness and force, would have convinced her of the obviousness of her error,--he locked this retort up within him, as though afraid to utter it. When he caught himself at this, he thought:

"Can this proceed from lack of confidence in my truth?"

And, of course, he convinced himself of the contrary. Another reason why he found it difficult to talk to her was, that she hardly knew even the alphabet of the generally accepted views. It was necessary to begin at the foundations, and her persistent questions: "why?" and "what for?" constantly led him off into the thickets of abstractions, where she understood absolutely nothing. One day, worn out with his contradictions, she set forth her philosophy to him in these words:

"God created me, like other people, in His own image and likeness ... which signifies, that everything I do, I do according to His will, and I live--as He wants me to.... Surely, He knows how I live? Well, and that is all there is to be said, and it is useless for you to try to pick a quarrel with me!"

More and more frequently did she irritate in him the glowing sensation of the male, but he kept watch on himself, and with swift efforts, which demanded from him constantly increasing consciousness, he extinguished in himself these flashes of sensuality, he even endeavored to conceal them from himself, and when he could no longer conceal them, he said to himself, with a guilty laugh:

"What of it?--That's natural ... considering her beauty.... But I am a man, and every day my organism is growing stronger under the influence of this sun and air.. It is natural, but her oddities completely guarantee me against being carried away by her...."

Season becomes incredibly active and pliable, when man's feeling requires a mask, behind which to hide the crude truth of his questions. Feeling, like every other power, straightforward and upright, when it is shattered by life, or broken by excessive efforts to restrain its outbursts with the cold bridle of reason, loses both uprightness and straightforwardness, and remains merely crude. And then, being in need of a screen for its weakness and coarseness, it betakes itself for aid to the great capacity which reason possesses of imparting to a lie the physiognomy of the truth. This capacity was well developed in Ippolít Sergyéevitch, and with its aid, he successfully imparted to his attraction toward Várenka the character of interest in her, pure and free from all impulses. He would not have had the strength to love her,--he knew that, but in the depths of his mind there flashed up the hope of possessing her; without himself being aware of it, he expected that she would be captivated by him. And as he argued with himself about everything which did not lower him in his own eyes, he succeeded in concealing within himself everything which might have evoked in him a doubt as to his good breeding....

One day, at evening tea, his sister announced to him:

"Do you know--to-morrow is Várenka Ólesoff's birthday. We must drive over there. I want to have a drive.... And it will be good for the horses, too."

"Do drive over ... and congratulate her on my behalf,--" he said, feeling that he, also, would like to go.

"But will not you drive with me?--" she inquired, glancing at him, with curiosity.

"I? I don't know whether I care to.... I think I don't. But I may go, all the same."

"It is not obligatory!--" remarked Elizavéta Sergyéevna, and dropped her eyelids, to conceal the smile which gleamed in her eyes.

"I know that,--" said he, displeased.

A long pause ensued, during which Ippolít Sergyéevitch remarked to himself, with severity, that he was conducting himself toward that young girl exactly as though he were afraid that his self-control would not resist her charms.

"She told me--that Várenka--that they have a very beautiful site there,--" he said, and turned scarlet, knowing that his sister understood him. But she did not betray this in any way--on the contrary, she began to persuade him.

"Let us go, do, please! You will see, it really is magnificent at their place. And it will be less awkward for me if you are there.... We will not stay long, is that right?"

He assented, but his mood was spoiled.

"Why did I find it necessary to lie? What is there disgraceful or unnatural in my wanting to see a pretty young girl once more?--" he asked himself angrily. And he made no reply to these questions.

On the following morning, he awoke early, and the first sounds of the day which his ear caught, were his sister's words:

.... "Ippolít will be astonished!"

They were accompanied by a loud laugh--only Várenka could laugh like that. Ippolít Sergyéevitch, sitting up in bed, threw off the sheet, and listened, smiling the while. That which instantaneously invaded him and filled his soul could hardly be called joy, rather was it a foreboding of joy near at hand, which pleasantly titillated the nerves. And springing from his bed, he began to dress himself with a swiftness which confused and perplexed him. What had happened? Could it be that she, on her birthday, had come to invite him and his sister to her house? What a darling girl!

When he entered the dining-room, Várenka dropped her eyes before him with a penitently-comical manner, and without taking the hand which he offered her, she began, in a timid voice:

"I am afraid, that you...."

"Just imagine!--" exclaimed Elizavéta Sergyéevna,--"she has run away from home!"

"What do you mean by that?"--her brother asked her.

"On the sly--" explained Várenka.

"Ha, ha, ha!--" laughed Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

"But ... why?"--persisted Ippolít.

"I have run away from my suitors...." the young girl confessed, and began to laugh also.--"Imagine, what frightful faces they will make! Aunt Lutchítzky is awfully anxious to drive me into marriage!--she sent them solemn invitations, and cooked and baked as much for them as though I'd had a hundred wooers! And I helped her do it ... but to-day I woke up, and jumped on my horse--and march! hither. I left them a note to say that I had gone to the Shtcherbákoffs ... you understand? twenty-three versts away, in exactly the opposite direction!"

He looked at her, and laughed, with a laugh which evoked a pleasing warmth in his breast. Again she was clad in a full, white gown, whose folds fell in tender streams from her shoulders to her feet, enveloping her body in a cloud, as it were. Clear laughter quivered in her eyes, and on her face played an animated flush.

"You do not like it?"--she asked him.

"What?"--he inquired briefly.

"What I have done? It was impolite, I understand that,--" she said, becoming serious, and immediately burst out laughing again....

"I can imagine them! All dressed up, scented ... they'll get drunk with grief--heavens, how drunk!"

"Are there many of them?--" asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"Four...."

"The tea is poured!" announced Elizavéta Sergyéevna.

"You will have to pay for this prank, Várya.... Have you thought of that?"

"No ... and I don't want to!--" she replied with decision, as she seated herself at the table.--"That will take place--when I return to them ... that is to say, this evening, for I'm going to spend the day with you. Why should I think from morning on about what will not happen until the evening? And who can do anything to me, and what can they do? Papa? He will growl, but I can go away and not listen to, him.... Aunty?--she loves me passionately! They, do you think? Why, I can make them crawl round me on all fours ... ha, ha, ha! That would be ... ridiculous! I will try ... Tchernonéboff can't, because he has a big belly!"

"Várya! You are losing your wits!"--Elizavéta Sergyéevna endeavored to stop her.

"No, I shall not!--" promised the girl through her laughter, but she did not stop soon, and kept on depicting her suitors, and captivating the brother and sister by the genuineness of her animation.

Laughter resounded during the whole time they were drinking tea. Elizavéta Sergyéevna laughed with a tinge of condescension toward Várya. Ippolít Sergyéevitch tried to restrain himself, but could not. After tea, they began to discuss how they should fill up the day which had begun so merrily. Várenka suggested that they should row in the boat, to the forest, and drink tea there, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch immediately agreed with her. But his sister assumed a troubled expression, and announced:

"I cannot take part in that--I must drive to Sánino to-day, and cannot defer it. I had intended to drive to your house, Várya, and turn off there on the way ... but now it is necessary that I should make the trip expressly...."

Ippolít Sergyéevitch cast a suspicious glance at her--it struck him that she had that moment invented this, for the purpose of leaving Várya alone with him. But her face expressed nothing except dissatisfaction and anxiety.

Várenka was grieved by her words, but soon recovered her animation:

"Well, what of that? So much the worse for you ... and we'll go, all the same! Won't we? To-day I want to go far.... Only, see here--can Grigóry and Másha go with us?"

"Grigóry can, of course! But Másha ... who will serve dinner?"

"And who will eat the dinner? You are going to the Benkóvskys, we shall not return until evening."

"Very well, take Másha also."

Várenka hurried off somewhere or other. Ippolít Sergyéevitch lighted a cigarette, went out on the terrace, and began to pace up and down it. This expedition charmed him, but Grigóry and Másha seemed to him superfluous. They would embarrass him--there was no doubt about that, and he would not be able to talk freely in their presence.

Half an hour had not elapsed before Ippolít Sergyéevitch and Várya were standing by the boat, while around it bustled Grigóry--a red-haired, blue-eyed young fellow, with freckles on his face, and an aquiline nose. Másha, as she packed the samovár and the various bundles in the boat, said to him:

"Move quicker, you red-head; don't you see, the quality are waiting."

"Everything will be ready in a minute," replied the young fellow, in a high tenor voice, as he fastened the row-locks, and winked at Másha.

Ippolít Sergyéevitch saw it, and divined who it was that had been flitting past his windows by night.

"Do you know,--" said Várya, as she seated herself in the boat, and indicated Grigóry by a nod,--"he also has the reputation of being a learned man, with us.... He's a lawyer."

"You're just talking, Varvára Vasílievna,--" laughed Grigóry, showing his strong white teeth.--"A lawyer!"

"Seriously, Ippolít Sergyéevitch, he knows all the Russian laws...."

"Do you, really, Grigóry?" asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with interest.

"The lady is joking ... the idea! Nobody knows them all, Varvára Vasílievna."

"And how about the person who wrote them?"

"Mr. Speránsky? He died long, long ago...."[3]

[3] The well-known statesman, who influenced Alexander I between the years 1806 and 1812.--Speránsky, the son of a poor village priest, and socially (though not legally) on the level of the peasants, was educated at an ecclesiastical academy, and became the professor of mathematics and philosophy in the ecclesiastical school of St Alexander Névsky, in St. Petersburg. Thence his rise was as follows: he became the tutor of a nobleman's children; secretary to the Chancellor of the Imperial Council; Secretary of State. He was an ardent admirer of Napoleon I., as was Alexander I., and to this, no doubt, was due much of his influence over the Emperor. The Code Napoléon was his ideal of legislation, and formed the foundation for a scheme of reforms and laws which he carried into effect, in part. He thereby antagonized all classes of society: the aristocracy were offended by his boldness, which they resented in a man of such low extraction, the peasants were enraged by the increase in their taxes; and so forth. He was suddenly sent into polite exile, as the governor of Nizhni Nóvgorod Province, in March, 1812, but was speedily deprived of his office, and subjected to strict surveillance. Later on, for a couple of years, his exile took the form of the governorship of Siberia, whence he returned to St. Petersburg in 1821. But he never recovered his standing or influence. He had been created a Count by Alexander I., and, as the male line of his descendants died out, his descendants in the female line,--the Russian branch of the Princes Kantakiúzin (Cantacuzéne),--petitioned the Emperor, in 1872, for permission to add the title of "Count Speránsky" to their own title, which was granted.--Translator.

"Why, do you read?"--inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, attentively scanning the intelligent, eagle-like face of the young man, who was lightly tossing the oars into the boat.

"And as for the laws, as she say,"--and Grigóry indicated Várya with his bold eyes.--"The tenth volume of them fell into my hands by accident ... I looked through it, and saw that it was interesting and necessary. I began to read.... And now I have the first volume...." The first article in it is so straight, and says: 'no one,' it says, 'can excuse himself through ignorance of the laws,' Well, so I thought to myself, that nobody does know them, and it isn't necessary for everybody to know them all.... And the teacher is soon going to get me the statutes about the peasants;--it's very interesting to read--and see what they are like...."

"You see what he is?"--inquired Várenka.

"And do you read much?--" Ippolít Sergyéevitch pursued his inquiry, as he recalled Gógol's Petrúshka.

"I read, when I have time. There are a great many little books here.... Elizavéta Sergyéevna alone must have as many as a thousand. Only, hers are all romances, and various stories...."

The boat floated smoothly against the current, the shores moved to meet it, and all around was intoxicatingly beautiful: bright, still, fragrant. Ippolít Sergyéevitch gazed at Várenka's face, which was turned with curiosity toward the broad-chested rower, while the latter, cutting the mirror-like surface of the river in measured strokes, chatted about his literary tastes, content that the learned gentleman so gladly listened to him. Love and pride beamed in the eyes of Másha, who was watching them from beneath her drooping lashes.

"I don't like to read about how the sun sets and rises ... and, in general, about nature. I have seen those sunrises more than a thousand times, I think.... I know all about the woods and the rivers, also; why should I read about them? But that sort of thing is in every book ... and, in my opinion, it's entirely superfluous.... Everybody understands the sunset after his own fashion.... And everybody has his own eyes for that purpose. But about the life of people--that's interesting. You read, and you say to yourself:--' and what would you do yourself, if you were placed on that line?' Although you know that the whole of it is false."

"What is false?"--asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"Why, the little books. They're invented. About the peasant, for example.... Are they the sort of folks they appear in books? Everybody writes about them compassionately, and makes them out to be such petty fools ... it isn't well! Folks read, and think and, as a matter of fact, they can't understand the peasant ... because in the books he's ... terribly stupid, and bad...."

Várenka must have found these remarks tiresome, for she began to sing, in a low tone, as she gazed at the shores with dimming eyes.

"See here--Ippolít Sergyéevitch, let's get out and go on foot through the forest. But here we are, sitting and baking in the sun--is that the way to take a pleasure trip? Grigóry and Másha can row on to Savyóloff dell, land there, and prepare tea for us, and meet us.... Grigóry, bring the boat to the shore. I'm awfully fond of eating and drinking in the forest, in the air, in the sunshine.... One, somehow, feels like a free vagabond...."

"There, you see," she said, with animation, as she sprang from the boat upon the sandy shore,--"you touch earth, and immediately there is something which ... raises the soul in revolt. Here I've got my boots full of sand ... and have wet one foot in the water.... That's unpleasant and pleasant, that means--it is good, because it makes one feel oneself.... Look, how swiftly the boat has moved on!"

The river lay at their feet, and disturbed by the boat, it plashed softly against the shore. The boat flew, like an arrow, in the direction of the forest, leaving behind it a long wake, which glittered like silver in the sunlight. They could see that Grigóry was laughing, as he looked at Másha, while she was threatening him with her fist.

"That's a pair of lovers,"--remarked Várenka, with a smile;--"Másha has already asked Elizavéta Sergyéevna's permission to marry Grigóry. But Elizavéta Sergyéevna will not allow it, for the present; she does not like married servants. But Grigóry's term of service ends in the autumn, and then he'll take Másha away from you ... They're both splendid people. Grigóry is begging me to sell him a small plot of ground to be paid for in instalments ... or to let him have it on a long lease ... he wants ten desyatinas. But I cannot, as long as papa is alive, and it's a pity ... I know that he would pay me all, and very punctually ... he's a good hand at everything ... a locksmith, and a blacksmith, and he's serving at your place as under-coachman.... Kokóvitch--the county chief, and my suitor--says this to me about him: 6 that's a dangerous beast, do you know--he doesn't respect his superiors!'"

"Who is that Kokóvitch? A Pole?"[4]--inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, admiring her grimaces.

[4] Várenka has mimicked Kokóvitch's pronunciation, which leads to this question.--Translator.

"A Mordvinian, a Tchuvásh--I don't know! He has a frightfully long and thick tongue, there isn't room for it in his mouth, and it interferes with his speech.... Ugh! What mud!"

Their path was blocked by a puddle of water covered with green scum, and surrounded by a border of greasy mud. Ippolít Sergyéevitch inspected his feet, remarking:

"We must go around it."

"Aren't you going to jump over it? I thought it was already dried up...." exclaimed Várenka, indignantly, stamping her foot.... "It is a long way round, and then, I shall tear my gown there.... Try to leap across it! It's easy, see--o-one!"

She sprang, and flung herself forward; it seemed to him that her gown had been tom from her shoulders, and was fluttering through the air. But she stood on the other side of the puddle, and cried, with regret:

"Aï, how I have spattered myself! Ho, do you go round it ... fie, how horrid!"

He looked at her, and smiled wanly, catching within him a dark thought which stimulated him, and feeling that his feet were sinking into the sticky dampness. On the other side of the mud, Várenka was shaking her gown, it emitted a soft rustle, and amid its fluttering, Ippolít Sergyéevitch caught sight of dainty, striped stockings on the well-formed little feet. For an instant, it seemed to him as though the mud which separated them from each other, held a sense of warning for him or for her. But he roughly tore himself away, calling this prick in the heart stupid childishness, and hastily stepped aside from the road, into the bushes which bordered it, where, nevertheless, he was obliged to walk through water concealed by the grass. With wet feet, and a resolve which was not yet clear to himself, he emerged beside her, and she, showing him her gown, with a grimace, said:

"Look at that--is that nice? Bah!"

He looked--large, black spots smote the eye, as they triumphantly decorated the white material.

"I love, and am accustomed to behold thee so sacredly pure, that even a spot of mud on thy gown would cast a black shadow on my soul ..." said Ippolít Sergyéevitch slowly, and ceasing, he began to gaze into the astonished face of Várenka with a smile hovering over his lips. Her eyes rested questioningly on his face, but he felt as though his breast were filling up with burning froth, which was on the point of being converted into wondrous words, such as he had never yet uttered to anyone, for he had never known them until that moment.

"What was that you said?"--inquired Várenka firmly.

He shuddered, for her question sounded stem, and endeavoring to be calm, he began seriously to explain to her: "I was reciting verses ... in Russian they sound like prose ... but you hear that they are verses, do you not? They are Italian verses, I think ... really, I do not remember.... However, perhaps it was prose, from some romance.... It just happened to come into my head...."

"How did it go--say it again?" she asked him, suddenly becoming thoughtful.

"I love...." he paused, and wiped his brow with his hand.--"Will you believe it? I have forgotten what I said! On my word of honor--I have forgotten!"

"Well ... let us go on!--" and she moved forward with decision.

For several minutes Ippolít Sergyéevitch tried to understand and explain to himself this strange scene, which had placed between him and the young girl a barrier of mutual distrust--tried, and could get nothing out of himself, except a consciousness of awkwardness before Várenka. She walked by his side, in silence, and with bowed head, not looking at him.

"How am I to explain it all to her?" Ippolít Sergyéevitch reflected.

Her silence was crushing; it seemed as though she were thinking of him, and not thinking well of him. And unable to devise any explanation of his outburst, he suddenly remarked, with forced cheerfulness:

"Your suitors ought to know how you are spending your time!"

She glanced at him, as though, by his words, he had called her back from somewhere far away, but gradually, her face changed from seriousness to simplicity, and an expression of childlike sweetness.

"Yes! It would--offend them! But they shall know, oh! they shall know! And, perhaps they ... will think ill of me!"

"Are you afraid of that?"

"I? Of them?--" she inquired, softly but angrily.

"Pardon me for the question."

"Never mind.... You see, you do not know me ... you do not know how repulsive they all are to me! Sometimes I feel like hurling them under my feet, and trampling on their faces ... treading on their lips, so that they could not say anything. Ugh! How detestable they all are!"

Wrath and heartlessness sparkled so clearly in her eyes, that it made him uncomfortable to look at her, and he turned away, saying to her:

"How sad, that you are compelled to live among people whom you detest.... Can it be, that there is not one among them who would ... strike you as well-bred...."

"No! You know, there are frightfully few interesting people in the world.... Everybody is so stupid, so uninspired, so repulsive...."

He smiled at her complaint, and said with a touch of irony, which was incomprehensible even to himself:

"It is early yet for you to talk in that way. But wait a little, and you will meet a man who will satisfy you ... you will find him interesting in every way...."

"Who is he?"--she asked quickly, and even halted.

"Your future husband."

"But who is he?"

"How can I know that?--" Ippolít Sergyéevitch shrugged his shoulders, feeling displeased at the animation of her questions.

"But tell me!"--she sighed, and moved on.

They were walking through bushes, which barely reached their shoulders; the road ran through this underbrush, like a lost ribbon, all in capricious curves. Now, in front of them, the dense forest made its appearance. "And do you wish to marry?"--asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch. "Yes.... I don't know! I'm not thinking about that...." she replied simply. The glance of her beautiful eyes, fixed on the far distance, was as concentrated as though she were recalling something far away and dear to her.

"You ought to spend the winter in town,--there your beauty would attract to you universal attention, and you would soon find what you want.... For many would strongly desire to call you their wife,--" he said, slowly, in a low tone, as he thoughtfully scanned her figure.

"It would be necessary that I should permit that!"

"How can you forbid men to desire it?"

"Ah, yes! Of course ... let them desire it...."

They walked a few steps in silence.

She, pensively gazing into the distance, still was intent on recalling something, but he, for some reason, was counting the spots of mud on the front of her gown. There were seven of them: three large ones, which resembled stars, two, like commas in shape, and one, like a daub from a brush. By their black color, and their arrangement on the material, they signified something to him. But what--he did not know.

"Have you been in love?"--her voice suddenly rang out, serious and searching.

"I?"--shuddered Ippolít Sergyéevitch.--"Yes ... only, it was long ago, when I was a young fellow...."

"So have I, long ago," she informed him.

"Ah ... who was he?--" inquired Polkánoff,[5] not conscious of the awkwardness of the question, and tearing off a branch which came under his hand, he flung it far away from himself.

[5] It must be borne in mind that the surname is not used in Russian speech or novels nearly as often as the Christian name followed by the patronymic, which is more definite as to the precise individual, and the precise member of the family.--Translator.

"He? He was a horse-thief.... Three years have passed since I saw him last, I was seventeen years old then.... They caught him one day, beat him, and brought him to our court-yard. He lay there, bound with ropes, and said nothing, but looked at me.... I was standing on the porch of the house. I remember, it was such a bright morning--it was early in the morning, and everyone at our house was still asleep...."

She paused, buried in her memories.

"Under the cart there was a pool of blood--such a thick pool--and into it fell heavy drops from him.... His name was Sáshka Rémezoff. The peasants came into the court-yard, and as they looked at him, they growled like dogs. All of them had evil eyes, but he, that Sáshka, stared at them all quite calmly.... And I felt that he--although he was beaten and bound--considered himself better than all of them. He looked so ... his eyes were large, and brown. I felt sorry for him, and afraid of him.... I went into the house, and poured him out a glass of vódka.... Then I went out and gave it to him. But his hands were bound, and he could not drink it ... and he said to me, raising his head a little--and his head was all covered with blood: 'Put it in my mouth, my lady,' I held it to his lips, and he drank so slowly, so slowly, and said: 'Thank you, my lady! God grant you happiness!'--Then, all at once, I whispered to him: 'Run!' But he answered aloud:--'If I live, I certainly will run. You may trust me for that!'--And I was awfully pleased, that he had said it so loudly, that, everyone in the court-yard heard him. Then he said: 'My lady! Order them to wash my face!, I told Dúnya, and she washed it ... although his face remained blue and swollen from the blows ... yes! They soon carried him away, and when the cart drove out of the courtyard, I looked at him, and he bowed to me, and smiled with his eyes ... although he was very badly bruised.... How I wept for him! How I prayed to God that he might run away...."

"Do you mean ..." Ippolít Sergyéevitch ironically interrupted her,--"that perhaps you are waiting for him to make his escape and present himself before you, and then ... you will marry him?"

She either did not hear or did not understand the irony, for she answered simply:

"Well, and why should he show himself here?"

"But if he did--would you marry him?"

"Marry a peasant? I don't know ...? no, I think not!"

Polkánoff waxed angry.

"You have ruined your brain with your romances, that's what I have to say to you, Varvára Vasílievna.--" he remarked severely.

At the sound of his harsh voice, she glanced at his face with amazement, and began, silently and attentively, to listen to his stem, almost castigating words. And he demonstrated to her, how that literature which she loved depraved mind and soul, always distorted reality, was foreign to ennobling ideas, was indifferent to the sad truth of life, to the desires and tortures of mankind. His voice rang out harshly in the silence of the forest which surrounded them, and frequently, in the wayside branches, a timorous rustling resounded--some one was hiding there. From the foliage fragrant twilight peered forth upon the road, now and then, athwart the forest, a prolonged sound was wafted, which resembled a stifled sigh, and the foliage quivered faintly, as in slumber.

"You must read and respect only those books which teach you to understand the meaning of life, to understand the aspirations of men, and the true motives of their actions. To understand people means,--to pardon them their defects. You must know how badly people live, and how well they might live, if they were only more sensible, and if they paid more respect to the rights of one another. For, of course, all men desire one thing--happiness, but they proceed toward it by different paths, and those paths are, sometimes, very ignominious, but that is only because they do not understand in what happiness consists. Hence, it is the duty of all practical and honest literature, to explain to men in what happiness consists, and how to attain to it. But those books which you read, do not occupy themselves with such problems.. they merely lie, and lie crudely. Here, they have inculcated in you ... an uncivilized notion of heroism.. And what is the result? Now you will be seeking in life such people as those in the books...."

"No, of course I shall not!..." said the young girl seriously.--"I know that there are no such men. But the books are nice precisely for the reason that they depict that which does not exist. The commonplace is everywhere ... all life is commonplace.... There is a great deal said about suffering.... That certainly is false, but if it is false--why is it not a good thing to say a great deal about that of which there is so little! Here, you say, that in books one must seek?... exemplary feelings and thoughts,... and that all men err, and do not understand themselves.... But, surely, the books are written by men, also! And how am I to know what I ought to believe, and what is best? And in those books, which you assail, there is a great deal that is noble...."

"You have not understood me...." he exclaimed, with vexation.

"Really? And you are angry with me for that?--" she asked, in a penitent tone.

"No! Of course, I am not angry ... as if there could be any question of such a thing!"

"You are angry, I know it, I know it! For, you see, I always get provoked myself, when people do not agree with me! But why do you find it necessary that I should agree with you? And I think, also.... In general, why does everybody always quarrel and insist that others should agree with them? Then there would be nothing whatever to talk about."

She laughed, and in the midst of her laugh, she concluded:

"It's exactly as though everybody wanted to have only one word left out of all the words--'yes!' It's awfully amusing!"

"You ask, why I find it necessary...."

"No, I understand; you have got used to teaching, so you regard it as indispensable that no one should impede you with objections."

"That's not so at all!--" exclaimed Polkánoff bitterly.--"I wish to arouse in you the faculty of criticising everything that goes on around you, and in your own soul."

"Why?"--she inquired, ingenuously looking him straight in the eye.

"Good heavens! What do you mean by 'why'? In order that you may know how to scrutinize your emotions, your thoughts, your actions.. in order that you may bear yourself reasonably toward life, toward yourself."

"Well, that must be ... difficult. To scrutinize oneself, to criticise oneself.. what for? And how is it to be done? Am I to split myself in two, pray? I don't understand at all! You make it out, that truth is known to you alone.... Let us assume that I know some truth, and that everybody else knows some.... But, it appears, everyone is mistaken! For you say, that truth is one for all men, don't you?... But look--see what a beautiful glade!"

He gazed, and made no reply to her words. Within him raged a feeling of dissatisfaction with himself, for his reason had been insulted by this girl, who would not yield to his efforts to subdue her, to bring her thoughts to a halt even for a moment, and then turn her into the right road, directly opposed to the one along which she had been proceeding up to this time, without encountering any opposition. He had become accustomed to regard as stupid those people who did not agree with him; at best, he set them down as devoid of the capacity of development beyond that point, on which their mind already stood,--and toward such people, he always bore himself with disdain, mingled with compassion. But this young girl did not strike him as stupid, and did not arouse in him his customary sentiments toward his opponents. Why was this so, and what was she? And he answered himself: "Undoubtedly merely, because she was so stunningly handsome.... Her wild speeches might, really, not be regarded as a fault ... simply because they were original, and originality, on the whole, is rarely met with, especially in women."

As a man of lofty culture, he outwardly bore himself toward women as beings who were mentally his equals, but in the depths of his own soul, like all men, he thought of women sceptically and with irony. In the heart of man there is much space for faith, but very little for conviction.

They strolled slowly across the broad, almost perfectly circular glade. The road cut across it, in two dark lines of wheel-ruts, and disappeared again in the forest. In the centre of the glade, stood a small clump of graceful young birch-trees, casting lace-like shadows on the blades of the mown grass. Not far away from them, a half-ruined hut, constructed of branches, bowed toward the earth; inside it one could catch a glimpse of hay, and on it perched two daws. To Ippolít Sergyéevitch they appeared entirely unnecessary and absurd, in the midst of this tiny, lovely wilderness, surrounded on all sides by the dark walls of the mysteriously mute forest. But the daws cast sidelong glances at the people who were walking along the road, and in their attitude there was a certain fearlessness and confidence,--as though, perched there upon the hut, they were guarding the entrance to it, and were conscious that they were thereby discharging their duty.

"Are not you fatigued?"--inquired Polkánoff, with a feeling akin to anger, as he stared at the daws, pompous and sullen in their immobility.

"I? Fatigued with walking? It is a downright insult to hear that! Moreover, it is not more than one verst further to the place where they are awaiting us ... we shall enter the forest in a moment, and the road runs down hill."

She told him how beautiful was the spot which was their goal, and he felt that a soft, agreeable indolence was taking possession of him, which prevented his paying due heed to her remarks.

"It is a pine forest there, and stands on a hillock, and is called Savyóloff's Crest. The pine-trees are huge, and there are no branches on their boles, except that away up aloft, each one has a dark-green canopy. It is quiet in that forest, even painfully quiet, the ground is all carpeted with pine needles, and the forest seems to have been swept up neatly. When I ramble in it, I always think of God, for some reason or other ... it must be awe-inspiring like that around His throne ... and the angels do not sing praises to Him--that is not true! What need has He of praises? Does not He know of Himself how great He is?"

A brilliant thought flashed through Ippolít Sergyéevitch's mind:

"What if I were to take advantage of dogma, to plough up the virgin soil of her soul?"

But he instantly, and proudly rejected this involuntary confession of his weakness before her. It would not be honorable to employ a force, in whose existence he did not believe.

"You ... do not believe in God?"--she inquired, as though divining his thought.

"What makes you think that?"

"Why ... none of the learned men do believe...."

"None of them, indeed!" he laughed, not caring to talk to her on that subject. But she would not let him off.

"Isn't it true that all are unbelievers? But how is it that they do not believe? Please to tell me about those who do not believe in Him at all.... I do not understand how that can be. Whence has all this made its appearance?"

He paused, arousing his mind, which had fallen into a sweet doze beneath the sounds of her voice. Then he began to talk about the origin of the world, as he understood it:

"Mighty, unknown powers are eternally moving, coming into conflict, and their vast movement gives rise to the world which we see, in which the life of thought and of the grass-blade are subjected to the same, identical laws. This movement had no beginning, and will have no end...."

The young girl listened attentively to him, and frequently asked him to explain one point or another. He explained with pleasure, perceiving the tension of thought in her face. She was thinking, thinking! But when he had finished, she asked him ingenuously, after pausing for a minute:

"So it was not begun from the beginning! But in the beginning was God. How is that? There is simply no mention of Him there, and can that be what is meant by not believing in Him?"

He wanted to retort, but he understood, from the expression of her face, that that was useless at the moment. She was a believer--to that her eyes, which were blazing with mystical fire, bore witness. Softly, timidly, she told him something strange. He did not catch the beginning of her speech.

"When you look at people, and see how hateful everything about them is, and then remember God and the Last Judgment--your heart fairly contracts! Because, assuredly, He can demand an accounting at any time-to-day, to-morrow, an hour hence.... And, you know, it sometimes seems to me--that it will be soon! It will be by day ... and first the sun will be extinguished ... and then a new flame will flash up, and in it He will appear."

Ippolít Sergyéevitch listened to her ravings, and said to himself:

"She possesses everything except the one thing which she ought to have...."

Her remarks called forth pallor on her face, and there was terror in her eyes. In this low-spirited condition she walked on for a long time, so that the curiosity with which Ippolít Sergyéevitch had been listening to her, began to die out, and give place to weariness.

But her delirium suddenly vanished, when a loud laugh was wafted to their ears, as it rang out somewhere in the immediate vicinity.

"Do you hear that? It is Másha ... We have arrived!"

She hastened her pace, and shouted:

"Másha, á-oo!"

"Why does she shout?" thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch compassionately.

They emerged upon the bank of the river; it sloped down to the water, and on it cheerful clumps of birch-trees and aspens were capriciously scattered. And on the opposite shore, at the very water's edge, stood the lofty, silent pines, filling the air with their heavy, resinous fragrance. There everything was gloomy, motionless, monotonous, and permeated with stem dignity, but on this side--the graceful birch-trees rocked their supple branches to and fro, the silvery foliage of the aspens quivered; the wild snow-ball, and hazel bushes stood in luxuriant masses, reflected in the water; yonder the sand gleamed yellow, sprinkled with reddish pine-needles; here, under their feet, the second growth of grass, barely peeping forth from among the shorn stalks, showed green, and the scent of new-mown hay emanated from the haycocks which had been tossed up under the trees. The river, calm and cold, reflected like a mirror these two worlds, so unlike one to the other.

In the shade of a group of birches a gay-colored rug had been spread, on it stood the samovár, emitting clouds of steam and blue smoke, and beside it, squatting on her heels, Másha was busying herself, teapot in hand. Her face was red and happy, her hair was damp.

"Have you been in bathing?" Várenka asked her, "And where is Grigóry?"

"He has gone to take a bath also. He'll soon be back."

"Well, I don't want him. I want to eat, drink, and ... eat and drink! That I do! And how about you, Ippolít Sergyéevitch?"

"I shall not refuse, you know,--" he laughed.

"Be quick, Másha!"

"What do you command first? Chicken, the pasty...."

"Serve everything at once, and you may disappear! Perhaps someone is waiting for you?"

"Just nobody at all," smiled Másha softly, gazing at her with grateful eyes.

"Well, all right, go on pretending!"

*

"How simply she says all that," thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch, attacking the chicken.--"Can it be that she is acquainted with the sense and the details of such relations? Very likely, seeing that the country is so frank and coarse in that sphere."

But Várenka, with a laugh, jested away to the confusion of Másha, who stood before her with downcast eyes, and with a smile of happiness on her face.

"Wait, he'll take you in hand!"--she threatened.

"Of co-ourse! And I shall give myself to him!... I ... you know ... I put him...." and covering her face with her apron, she rocked to and fro, in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.--"On the way, I pushed him into the water!"

"Did you! That's a clever girl! And what did he do?"

"He swam after the boat.. and ... and he kept beseeching me, to ... let him ... into the boat ... but I ... flung him ... a rope, from the stern!"

The infectious laughter of the two women forced Ippolít Sergyéevitch to burst into laughter also. He laughed not because he imagined to himself Grigóry swimming after the boat, but because it did him good to laugh. A sensation of freedom from himself pervaded him, and, now and then, he seemed to be surprised at himself from somewhere in the distance, that he had never before been so simply joyous as at that moment. Then Másha vanished, and again they remained alone together.

Várenka half reclined on the rug, and drank tea, while Ippolít Sergyéevitch gazed at her, as through the mist of dreams. Around them reigned stillness, only the samovár hummed a pensive melody, and, from time to time, something rustled in the grass.

"What makes you so taciturn?" inquired Várenka, casting an anxious glance at him. "Perhaps you are bored?"

"No, I'm enjoying myself," he said slowly, "but I don't feel like talking."

"That's the way I feel, too," and the girl grew animated,--"when it is still, I don't like at all to chatter. For with words you cannot say much, because there are feelings for which there are no words at all. And when people say--'silence,' it is nonsense:--one cannot speak of silence without destroying it,... can one?"

She paused, gazed at the pine forest, and pointing at it with her hand, she said, with a quiet smile:

"See, the pines seem to be listening to something. There, among them, it is still, so still. Sometimes it seems to me that the best way to live is like that, in silence. But it is fine, too, in a thunderstorm ... akh, how fine! The sky is black, the lightning is vicious, it is dark, the wind roars.. at such times I feel like going out into the fields, and standing there, and singing--singing loudly, or running through the rain, against the wind. It's the same in winter. Do you know, I once got lost in a snow-storm and came near freezing to death."

"Tell me, how that happened," he requested her. He found it pleasant to listen to her,--it seemed as though she were talking in a language which was new to him, although comprehensible.

"I was driving from the town, late at night," she began, moving nearer to him, and fixing her softly-smiling eyes upon his face.--"The coachman was Yákoff, such a stem old peasant. And the snow-storm began, a snow-storm of terrible force, and blew straight in our faces. The wind came in gusts, and hurled a whole cloud of snow on us, so that the horses backed, and Yákoff reeled on the box. Everything around seethed as though in a kettle, and we were in a cold foam. We drove and drove, and then I saw Yákoff take his cap from his head and cross himself. 'What's the matter?'--'Pray, my lady, to the Lord and to Varvára the Great Martyr, she will help against sudden death.' He spoke simply, and without fear, so that I was not frightened: I asked--'Have we lost our way?'--'Yes,' said he.--'But perhaps we shall escape?'--'How are we to escape, in such a blizzard! Now, I'm going to let go of the reins, and perhaps the horses will find the way themselves; but do you call God to mind, all the same!' He is very devout, that Yákoff. The horses halted, and stood still, and the snow drifted over us. How cold it was! The snow cut our faces. Yákoff moved from the box, and sat beside me, so that both of us might be warmer, and we put the rug that was in the sledge over our heads. I sat there and thought: 'Well, I am lost! And I shall not eat the bonbons I have brought from the town....' But I was not afraid, because Yákoff kept talking all the while. I remember that he said: 'I'm sorry for you, my lady![6] 'Why should you perish?--' 'Why, you will be frozen also?--' 'I'm of no consequence, I've lived my life, but here are you ...' and he kept on about me. He is very fond of me, he even scolds sometimes, you know, growls at me, he's so cross-grained:--'akh, you impious creature, you mad-cap, you shameless weathercock!..."

[6] _Bárynya_, for a married woman of noble birth, _báryshmsya_, for an unmarried woman, are more nearly equivalent to "mistress" and "young mistress." But these are inconvenient, in many instances. In general, they are used precisely as "my lady" is used by English people of the lower class to those of superior rank.--Translator.

She assumed a surly mien, and spoke in a deep bass voice, drawling out her words. The memory of Yákoff had diverted her from her story, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch was obliged to ask her:

"And how did you find the road?"

"Why, the horses got chilled, and started ahead of their own accord, and they went on, and on until they reached a village thirteen versts away from ours. You know, our village is near here, about four versts distant. If you were to go along the shore, and then by the footpath, through the forest, to the right, you would come upon a hollow, and our home-farm would be in sight. But by the highway, it is ten versts from here."

Several saucy birds hovered around them, and perching upon the branches of the bushes, twittered valiantly, as though imparting to one another their impressions concerning these two persons, alone there in the heart of the forest. From afar laughter, talking and the splash of oars was wafted to them,--probably from Grigóry and Másha as they rowed on the river.

"Suppose we call them, and go in that direction, among the pines?"--suggested Várenka.

He assented, and placing her hand to her mouth like a trumpet, she began to shout:

"Row thi-is wa-ay!"

Her bosom strained with the cry, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch admired her in silence. He had to think of some-thing--of something very serious, he felt,--but he did not wish to think, and this faint appeal of his mind did not prevent his calmly and freely resigning himself to the more powerful command of his feelings.

The boat came in sight. Grigóry's face was sly and rather guilty; Másha's bore a fictitious expression of anger; but Várenka, as she took her seat in the boat, glanced at them, and laughed, and then they both began to laugh, confused and happy.

"Venus and her petted slaves," said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself.

In the pine forest it was solemn and still as in a temple, and the mighty, stately tree-trunks stood like columns, supporting a heavy vault of dark verdure. A warm, heavy odor of resin filled the air, and under their feet the dry pine-needles crackled softly. In front, behind, on every side, stood the reddish pines, and only here and there, at their roots, through a layer of needles, did a pallid green force its way. In the stillness and in silence the two people strolled slowly amid this dumb life, turning now to the right, now to the left, to avoid trees which barred their path.

"We shall not go astray?"--inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch.

"I go astray?" said Várenka in surprise.--"I can always, everywhere find the way I require ... all one has to do is to look at the sun."

He did not ask her how the sun pointed out the road to her, he did not, in the least, wish to speak, although he felt, at times, that he might say a very great deal to her. But these were internal impulses of desire, flashing up on the surface of his calm mood, and dying out again in a second, without agitating him. Várenka walked by his side, and on her face he beheld the reflection of quiet ecstasy.

"Is this nice?" she asked him, now and then, and a caressing smile caused her lips to quiver.

"Yes, very," he replied briefly, and again they fell silent, as they roamed through the forest. It seemed to him that he was a young man, devoutly in love, a stranger to sinful intentions, and to all inward conflict with himself. But every time that his eyes fell upon the spots of mud on her gown, a disquieting shadow fell upon his soul. And he did not understand how this happened, that suddenly, all in a moment, when such a shadow enveloped his consciousness, with a deep sigh, as though casting off a weight, he said to her:

"What a beauty you are!"

She looked at him in amazement.

"What ails you? You have held your peace, held your peace--and then, suddenly, you say that!"

Ippolít Sergyéevitch smiled faintly, disarmed by her composure.

"It is so beautiful here.. you know! The forest is beautiful ... and you are like a fairy in it ... or, you are a goddess, and the forest is your temple."

"No," she replied, with a smile, "it is not my forest, it belongs to the Crown, but our forest is yonder, down the river."

And she pointed with her hand somewhere to one side.

"Is she jesting, or ... does not she understand?--" said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself, and a persistent desire to talk to her about her beauty began to blaze up within him. But she was pensive, calm, and this restrained him during the entire time of their stroll.

They rambled on for a long time, but said little, for the soft, peaceful impressions of that day had breathed into their souls a sweet languor, in which all desires had sunk to rest, except the desire to meditate in silence upon something inexpressible in words.

On their return home, they learned that Elizavéta Sergyéevna had not yet arrived, and they began to drink tea, which Másha hastily prepared. Immediately after tea, Várenka rode off homeward, having exacted from him a promise to come to their manor with Elizavéta Sergyéevna. He saw her off, and as he reached the terrace, he surprised in himself a mournful sensation of having lost something which was indispensable to him. As he sat at the table, whereon still stood his glass of tea, which had grown cold, he sternly tried to bring himself up short, to suppress this whole play of emotions excited by the day, but pity for himself made its appearance, and he rejected all operations on himself.

"Why?" he said to himself--"can all this be serious? It is a frolic, nothing more. It will not hurt her, it cannot hurt her, even if I wished it. It somewhat interferes with my life ... but there is so much that is young and beautiful about it...."

Then, smiling condescendingly to himself, he recalled his firm resolve to develop her mind, and his unsuccessful efforts to do so.

"No, evidently, one must use different words with her. These unadulterated natures are more inclined to yield their directness to metaphysics ... defending themselves against logic by the armor of blind, primitive feeling.... She is a strange girl!"

His sister found him engrossed in thoughts about her. She made her appearance in noisy, animated mood,--such as he had not beheld her hitherto. After ordering Másha to boil the samovár, she seated herself opposite her brother, and began to tell him about the Benkóvskys. "Forth from all the cracks of their ancient house peer the cruel eyes of poverty, which is celebrating its victory over that family. In the house, to all appearances, there is not a kopék of money, nor any provisions; they sent to the village to get eggs for dinner. There was no meat at dinner, and so old Benkóvsky talked a great deal about vegetarianism, and about the possibility of the moral regeneration of people on that basis. The whole place reeks of decay, and they are all bad-tempered--from hunger, probably." She had gone to them with the proposition that they should sell her a small plot of land which cut into her estate.

"Why did you do that?" inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with interest.

"Well, you can hardly appreciate the calculations which I am carrying out. Imagine--it is on account of my future children,--" she said, laughing. "Well, and how have you passed the time?"

"Agreeably."

She said nothing, but eyed him askance.

"Excuse me for the question ... aren't you a little bit afraid of being captivated by Várenka?"

"What is there to fear?" he inquired, with an interest which was incomprehensible to himself.

"The possibility of being strongly carried away?"

"Well, I am hardly capable of that.." he replied sceptically, and he believed that he was speaking the truth.

"And if that is the case, it is very good indeed. A little--that is all well enough, but you are rather cold ... too serious.. for your years. And really.... I shall be glad if she stirs you up a little.... Perhaps you would like to see her more frequently?..."

"She made me promise to go to their house, and begged you to do so...." Ippolít Sergyéevitch informed her.

"When do you wish to go?"

"It makes no difference to me ... Whenever you find it convenient. You are in good spirits to-day...."

"Is that very noticeable?"--she laughed.--"What of it? I have passed the day pleasantly. On the whole ... I am afraid it will seem cynical to you ... but the truth is, that since the day of my husband's funeral, I feel that I am reviving to new life ... I am egotistical--of course! But it is the joyous egotism of a person who has been released from prison to freedom.... Condemn me ... but be just."

"How many accusations for such a short speech! You are glad and ... go on being glad...." laughed Ippolít Sergyéevitch amiably.

"And you are kind and charming to-day," said she.--"You see--a little happiness--and a person immediately becomes better, kinder. But some over-wise people think that sufferings purify us ... I should like to have life, by applying that theory to them, purify their minds from error...."

"But if you were to make Várenka suffer--what would become of her?" Ippolít Sergyéevitch asked himself.

They soon parted. She began to play, and he, going off to his own room, lay down on his couch and began to reflect,--what sort of an idea of him had that young girl formed? Did she consider him handsome? Or clever? What was there about him that could please her? Something attracted her to him--that was evident to him. But it was not likely that he possessed in her eyes any value as a clever, learned man; she so lightly brushed aside all his theories, views, exhortations. It was more probable that he pleased her simply as a man.

And on arriving at this conclusion, Ippolít Sergyéevitch flushed with proud joy. Closing his eyes, with a smile of satisfaction, he pictured to himself this girl as submissive to him, conquered by him, ready to do anything for him, timidly entreating him to take her, and teach her to think, to live, to love.