"Nothing to despise her for! no, uncle, that's beyond everything ! The Count, he did not know! but she ! Who is to blame then ? I ? "

" Well, almost so, but in reality no one is to blame. Tell me, why do you despise her?"

" For her base conduct."

"In what does it consist?"

"In repaying with ingratitude a lofty, an unbounded passion."

"What has gratitude to do with it? did you love her for her sake, to oblige her ? did you want to do her a service, eh ? According to that you should have loved your mother a little better."

Alexandr looked at him and did not know what to say.

" You ought not to have displayed your feeling in its full strength before her; a woman begins to grow cool when a man comes out altogether. You ought to have found out

A

her character and behaved in accordance with it, and not have lain down at her feet like a dog. How is one to get on without understanding the companion with whom you have to do in any relation ? You would have seen then that you must not expect more from her. She had played her romance with you to the end, just as she is playing it with the Count, and as she very likely will play it again with some one else; she cannot go deeper or further! that's not in such a nature; and God only knows what you are expecting."

" But why did she love another?" interposed Alexandr with bitterness.

" What a crime you have discovered ! what a sensible question ! Ah, you primitive creature ! Why did you love her ? Come, get over loving her as easily!"

" Does it depend on me ? "

"Well, then, did her loving the Count depend on her? You maintained yourself that the impulses of the heart ought not to be held in check, but as soon as you are touched by it yourself then you ask why did she love him ! Why did so-and-so die ? Why did what's-her-name go out of her mind ? how is one to answer such questions? Love must end some time; it can't last for ever."

" .Oh, I will be revenged on her!" said Alexandr.

" You are ungrateful," continued Piotr Ivanitch, " it's too bad ! Remember that for a year and a half you have been ready to fall on every one's neck with joy, and haven't known what to do for happiness ! a year and a half of unbroken pleasure ! Whatever you say—you are ungrateful!"

" Ah, uncle, for me there was nothing in the world so sacred as love—life without her is not life!"

"Ah!" Piotr Ivanitch,. broken with vexation, " I am sick of listening to such nonsense !"

"I could have worshipped Nadinka," continued Alexandr, " and I would not have grudged her any happiness in the world; I had dreamed of spending my whole life with Nadinka—and what has happened ? What has become of that sublime, immense passion of which I dreamed ? it has been transformed into a stupid petty comedy of sighs and scenes—jealousy, lying, and hypocrisy — oh, my God!"

" Why did you imagine what does not happen ? Didn't I

^

A COMMON STORY 141

tell you plainly that up to now you have been trying to live a kind of life that's never possible ? According to you a man's only business was to be a lover, a husband, father . . . . and of anything else you won't even hear. Man is something beyond this; he is a citizen as well, and has a calling, an occupation of some kind—he's an author, a landowner, a soldier, an official, or a manufacturer. You have read novels, and listened to your auntie out there in the wilds, and have come up here full of these ideas. You still imagined— a sublime passion.

" Yes, sublime !"

" Oh, please, stop ! is a sublime passion possible ? "

" What ? "

" Why this. By a passion we mean, I suppose, when feeling, inclination, attraction has reached such a pitch that it ceases to be guided by reason? Well, what is there sublime in that ? I don't understand it; it's only a madness—the man falls below the dignity of man. And why do you present only one side of the medal ? I am speaking of love—turn the other side and you will see that love was not such a bad thing. Remember your moments of happiness; you keep buzzing into my ears "

" Oh, don't remind me, don't remind me!" said Alexandr, with a gesture of his hand, " it's very well for you to reason so, because you believe in the woman you love; I should like to see what you would have done in my place."

" What should I have done? I should have sought distraction .... at the factory. Won't you like to try tomorrow ? "

" No, I can't feel at one with you in anything," Alexandr exclaimed mournfully; " your views do not reconcile me to life, but make me more averse to it. It makes me miserable, it is a chill breath in my soul. Hitherto love has saved me from this chill; it is no more—and now there is torture in my heart—I am frightened, I am weary."

41 Turn to work."

" It is all true, uncle, you and those like you can reason so. You are a cold man by nature. You think, feel, and speak just as a steam-engine rolls along a railway line— evenly, smoothly, easily."

" I hope there's no harm in that; it's better than dashing

off the track, pitching into the ditch, as you are now, and not knowing how to keep upright."

Piotr Ivanitch looked at his nephew and stopped short at once.

" What is it ? I do believe you're crying !" he said, and his face grew dark ; that is to say, he blushed. Alexandr did not answer. He remembered his lost happiness, and all that was now so different. And the tears streamed down his cheeks.

" Oh, oh ! for shame !" said Piotr Ivanitch; " are you a man ? Don't cry, for goodness' sake, before me ! "

" Uncle! remember the years of your youth," said Alexandr sobbing; " could you have calmly and indifferently endured the bitterest injury which Fate ever sends upon a man ? To live for a year and a half such a full life and all to end so suddenly—nothing—emptiness ! If I had the consolation," he went on, "of having lost her through circumstance—if they had forced her against her will—even if she had died—then it would have been easier to bear—but that another!—that's terrible, insufferable! What am I to do ? I am suffocating, I am ill—it's torture, agony! I shall die. I shall shoot

myself." "~ "

"—^fte leaned his elbows on the table, covered his head with his hand, and sobbed aloud.

Piotr Ivanitch's self-possession was gone. He walked up and down the room twice, then stopped opposite Alexandr and scratched his head, not knowing how to begin.

" Drink a little wine, Alexandr," said Piotr Ivanitch, as gently as he could ; " perhaps that "

Alexandr did nothing, but his head and shoulders shook convulsively; he kept on sobbing. Piotr Ivanitch frowned, and with a wave of the hand went out of the room.

" What am I do with Alexandr ?" he said to his wife. " He is sobbing there in my room and has driven me out; I am quite worn out with him."

" And did you leave him like that ? " she said, " poor boy! Let me, I will go to him."

" But you will do no good; he is such a nature—just like his aunt; she was just as lacrymose; I have been arguing with him not a little already."

■v-

" Only arguing ? "

" And convincing him ; he agreed with me."

"Oh, I don't doubt it; you are so clever—and hypocritical !" she added.

" Thank goodness, if I am; that, I should suppose, is all that was wanted."

" Ah, I dare say you would, still he is crying."

" I'm not to blame; I did everything to comfort him."

" What did you do ? "

" What didn't I ? I've been talking a whole hour—my throat's quite sore. I laid down the whole theory of love as plain as possible—and offered him money—and tried him with supper and wine."

u And he's still crying."

" Yes, and groaning more than ever."

u That's astonishing! Let me try, and you meanwhile ' t think out your new method."

n " What, what ? "

fiut she had glided like a shadow from the room.

Atexandr was still sitting with his head dropped on his arms. Some one touched his shoulder. He lifted his head; J before him stood a young and beautiful woman, in a dressing-gown and a cap d la Finoise*

"Ma tantel" he said.

She took a seat near him and looked steadily at him, as only women can, and kissed him on the forehead, and he pressed his lips to her hand. They talked a long while.

An hour later he had gone away thoughtful but with a smile, and slept soundly for the first time after many sleepless nights. She returned to her bedroom with tear-stained eyes. Piotr Ivanitch had long ago been snoring.

». •«

J

CHAPTER VII

ABOUTa year had passed -since the scenes and events relateoTTn the last chapter. Alexandr changed by slow degrees from the depths of despair to the numbness of despondency.

. 144 A COMMON STORY

V Lizave ta Alexandrovna consoled him with all the tender-nesS Of sffriend anci a sister. He willingly yielded himself

v

jj v v " I to this sweet guardianship. All such natures as his love to give their will into the keeping of another. For them a nurse is a necessity.

Passion had at last died away in him, his genuine grief had passed, but he was sorry to part with it; he kept ^ it up by force or, better to say, created an artificial sorrow for himself, played with it, beautified it and revelled in it.

It pleased him somehow to play the part of a victim. He

was subdued, dignified, gloomy, like a man supporting, in

his own words, " a blow from fate."

.—^Lizaveta Alexandrovna listened indulgently to his lamen-

1 tations and comforted him as she could. It was not

I altogether disagreeable perhaps to her, because in spite of

1 everything, she found in her nephew sympathy for her own

J heart, she heard in his complaint against love the expression

/ of sufferings not unfamiliar to her.

^ She eagerly listened to the utterances of his grief, and an w .reFed them with imperceptible sighs and tears unseen by any one. * *She even found for her nephew's feigned and mawkish sorrows, words of consolation in a like tone and spirit; but Alexandr would not even listen.

" Oh, don't speak to me, ma tante? was his reply, " I don't want to dishonour the holy name of love by using it

for my relations with that " Here he made a disdainful

face and was ready, like Piotr Ivanitch, to say " that—what's-her-name ? "

" However," he would add, with still greater disdain, " it was pardonable in her; I was on a higher level than she and the Count and all their pitiful and petty circle; it is not strange that I remained misunderstood by her.

"My uncle declares that I ought to be grateful to Nadinka," he continued," for what ? Her love was all vulgarity and commonplaceness. Was there any heroism or self-sacrifice to be seen in it ? No, everything was carried on by her almost with her mother's knowledge! Did she once for my sake overstep the conventions of the world and duty ? never! That—love indeed !"

" What kind of love would you expect from a woman ?" asked Lizaveta Alexandrovna.

/

A COMMON STORY 145

" What!" replied Alexandr, " I should expect from her the first place in her heart. The woman I love ought not to notice, not to see any man except me; every minute not spent with me should be for her a minute lost."

Lizaveta Alexandrovna tried to conceal a smile. Alexandr did not notice it.

" For my sake," he went on, with flashing eyes, " she ought to be ready to sacrifice every pitiful consideration of profit and advantage, throw off the despotic yoke of her mother, or her husband; flee with me, if need be, to the ends of the earth ; bear resolutely every privation—that is love ! but "

" And how would you have rewarded such love !" asked his aunt.

"I? Oh!" began Alexandr, casting his eyes up to heaven, " I would have consecrated my whole life to her; I would have lain down at her feet. But did I not show Nadinka how I could love ? "

So you don't believe in feeling at all, when it i^not shown as you wish it to be ? Strong feeling is often^on-cealed." *.

"You don't want to persuade me, ma tante, that such is V the feeling concealed by my uncle, for instance ? " V^ Lizaveta Alexandrovna suddenly blushed. She could not put agree inwardly with her nephew, that emotion without any kind of expression was a somewhat dubious thing, that possibly it was non-existent altogether, that if it did exist it /vould have forced its way out; and that over and above love itself its external manifestations were possessed of an inexpressible charrri.

Here she passed in mental review every period of her married life and fell into a deep reverie. Her nephew's indiscreet hint stirred in her heart the secret which she was hiding in its depths and roused it to the question—was she happy ?

She had no right to complain ; all the outward conditions of happiness, of which the world is in pursuit, were fulfilled according to the programme laid down.

Her husband had worked untiringly and continued still to do so. But what was the real aim of his labours ? Did he work for the common ends of humanity, fulfilling the task laid on him by destiny, or only for petty objects to attain the consideration of rank and wealth among people, or

K

perhaps that he might not become the slave of poverty, of circumstance ? God only knew.

Lizaveta Alexandrovna could only come to the mournful conclusion that she and love for her were not the sole aim of his effort and activity. He had toiled as much before his marriage, before he knew anything of his wife. He neither spoke to her of his love nor asked for love from her; and he met her questions on the subject with a joke or an epigram. Soon after his acquaintance with her he had begun to talk of marriage, as though giving her to conclude that love was an understood thing in it, and that it was useless to talk much about it.

He had an aversion to scenes of all kinds—that was well enough; but he did not like genuine demonstrations of feeling, and did not believe in the need of them in others. Meanwhile he might by a single glance, a single word, have created in her a deep passion for him ; but he did not say the word, he did not care to. The fact did not even flatter his vanity.

She tried to arouse his jealousy, thinking that then love must find expression. Nothing came of it. Directly he noticed that she preferred the society of a certain young man, he hastened to invite him to the house and show him friendliness, was untiring in his praise of his character, and was not afraid of leaving him alone with his wife.

Lizaveta Alexandrovna sometimes deceived herself, imagining that perhaps Piotr Ivanitch was acting from policy; might not his secret method consist in maintaining perpetual doubt in her, and in that way maintaining love itself? But at her husband's first mention of love she was immediately disillusioned.

If he had been coarse, unpolished, narrow, slow-witted, one of those husbands whose name is legion, whom it is so excusable, so necessary, so consoling to deceive, for their own sakes even, who seem to have been created for their wives, to look round them and fall in love with their diametrical opposites—then it would have been a different matter; she would very likely have behaved as the majority of wives do behave in like case. But Piotr Ivanitch was a man of an intelligence and tact not often to be met with. He was subtle, quickwitted, skilful. He understood all the agitations of the heart and troubles of the soul, but he under-

A COMMON STORY 147

stood them—and nothing more. A complete index to the affairs of the heart was in his head, but not in his heart. In his reasoning on this subject it was clear that he was talking as of something he had heard and learnt by rote, but had not felt at all.

Lizaveta Alexandrovna felt his intellectual superiority to all surrounding him and was tortured by it. " If only he were not so clever," she thought, "I should have been saved."

[e was bent on positive aims, that was clear, and he expected that his wife should not lead a life of dreams.

" But, my God!" thought Lizaveta, " if he only married to have a lady at the head of his 4iouse, to give his bachelor [uarters the fulness and dignity of a family home, so as to f have greater weight in society ! A housekeeper—a wife— in the most prosaic sense of these words ! But with all his intelligence, didn't he understand that love is present even ^n the positive aims of a woman ? . . . . Oh, let me pay for pSSsion in agony, let me endure every suffering that is inseparable from love, if only I may live a complete life, if only I may feel that I am living and not stagnating."

She looked at her luxurious furniture and all the toys and costly knicknacks of her boudoir, and all this luxury seemed to her a cold mockery of real happiness. She had to look on at two monstrous extremes—in her husband and her nephew. One enthusiastic to folly—the other frozen to / hardness.

" How little both of them—and the greater part of men— understand real feeling, and how well I understand it!" she thought. " And what is the good of it ? why ! oh, if only n

She hid her eyes and stayed so some instants, then uncovered them, looked round, sighed heavily and at once resumed her ordinary calm demeanour. Unhappy woman ! No one knew of it, no one saw it.

One day Alexandr came to his aunt in a paroxysm of ill-humour with the whole human species. Lizaveta Alexandrovna began to inquire the cause.

"You want to know," he began in a subdued, rapt tone, "' what is now my frenzied ill ?'" I will tell you; you know I had a friend whom I had not seen for some years, but who had always kept a niche in my heart When I was first here, uncle forced me to write a queer letter to him, in

*

which were inserted his favourite maxims and ways of thinking: but I tore it up and sent another, as it happened, so there was no lessening of our friendship from that After that letter our correspondence dropped, and I lost sight of my friend. What has happened now? Three days ago, walking along the Nevsky Prospect, I suddenly saw him. I was on fire in a minute, and tears were starting into my eyes. I stretched out my hands to him, but could not utter a word for joy; I was quite faint. He took one hand and shook it. " How are you, Adouev!" he said in a voice as though we had parted only the day before. " Have you been here long ? " He was surprised that we had not met before, lightly inquired what I was doing? what office I was in, thought it needful to inform me at length that he had a splendid position and liked his work, his superiors, and his companions, and everybody, and his fate; then said he had no time to spare, that he was hurrying to a dinner party he had been invited to. Do you hear, ma tante ? meeting a friend after this long separation, he could not put off a dinnerparty."

"But perhaps they would have been waiting for him," observed his aunt; " propriety does not permit "

"Propriety against friendship! and you too, ma tante/ but there is something more I had better tell you. He pressed his address into my hand, said that he would expect me the evening of the next day, and was gone. ' So be it then,' I thought, 'I will go.' I arrived. There were some ten people there, friends of his. He held out his hand to me in a more friendly way than the day before, it's true, but then, without uttering a word, at once proposed that we should sit down to cards. I said that I did not play, and took a seat alone on the sofa, expecting that he would throw down his cards and come to me. 'Don't you play?' said he in surprise—' what will you do then ?' A nice question ! So I waited an hour, two hours; he did not come to me; I reached the limit of my patience. He offered me first a cigar, then a pipe, regretted that I did not play, that I was bored, tried to occupy me—how, do you imagine?—by constantly turning to me and describing every successful and unsuccessful card he played. At last I could bear it no longer; I went up to him and asked, did he intend to devote any time to me that evening ? And my heart seemed boiling

<

V

A COMMON STORY 149

within me, my voice shook. It seemed to surprise him. He looked at me curiously. " Very well," he said, " let us finish the rubber." As this was all he said to me, I seized my hat and was about to go, but he noticed it and stopped me. "The rubber is just over," he said, "we will have supper directly." At last they finished the game. He took a seat near me and yawned; that was how our friendly conversation began. "You wanted to say something to me ? " he inquired. This was said in such a matter-of-fact, unfeeling voice that I simply gazed at him with a mournful smile. Then he suddenly seemed to thaw and began to ply me with questions : * What's the matter with you ? isn't there something you are in want of ? Couldn't I be of use to you in your official work ?'—and so on. I shook my head, and told him that I did not want to talk to him of my work but of what was nearer to my heart. Then I began to tell him of my love, of my sufferings, of the emptiness of my heart. I began to be carried away and thought that the story of my sufferings was breaking through the crust of ice, that his eyes were not quite unbedewed by tears, when suddenly he burst out laughing ! I looked at him, he had a handkerchief in his hands; he had been trying to control himself all the time I was talking, at last he could hold out no longer. I stopped in dismay.

"Enough, enough," he said, "better drink some vodka and we will have supper. Boy ! some vodka. Come, come, ha, ha, ha !—there's some capital roast—ha, ha, ha !—roast beef."

He was going to take me by the hand, but I tore myself away and fled from the monster.

"There, that's what men are like, ma tante" said Alexandr in conclusion, then, with a wave of the hand, he was gone.

Lizaveta Alexandrovna felt pity for Alexandr.

" Piotr Ivanitch !" she said to him affectionately one day, " I have a request to make of you ? "

" What is it ? "

" Guess."

" Tell me; you know your requests are never refused. I daresay it's about a country villa; well, it's still rather early."

"No I" said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. "Alexandr was with me the day before yesterday."

"Ah, I feel there's something wrong!" interposed Piotr Ivanitch, "well?"

Then Lizaveta Alexandrovna told him all she had heard from her nephew. Piotr Ivanitch gave a vigorous shrug.

" What do you want me to do in the matter ? you see what a fellow he is !"

" You show him sympathy; ask him what is the state of his heart."

"You don't want me to weep with him? "

" It would do no harm."

" Ugh, that Alexandr; he is a burden !" said Piotr Ivanitch.

"A terrible burden; once a month to receive a letter from an old lady and to throw it—without reading it—under the table, or to talk a little to your nephew? Why, it keeps you from your whist! You men, you men h If you have a good dinner, Lafitte with a gold label and cards, it's everything; and no trouble about any one! If you have a chance of boasting and showing off as well, then you are happy!"

"Just what flirtation is for you," observed Piotr Ivanitch; " every one to his taste, my dear! What more would you have?"

" Why, some heart! of that there is never anything. It's vexing and sad to see you," said Lizaveta under her breath.

" Come, come, don't be angry; I will do all you tell me, only teach me how ! " said Piotr Ivanitch.

Explain to him in a kind way what can be asked and expected of friends in these days; tell him that his friend is not so much to blame as he imagines. But can I teach you? You are so clever, and so good at dissembling," added Lizaveta Alexandrovna.

Piotr Ivanitch knitted his brows a little at the last word.

" Have you been going in for * sincere outbursts,' pray ? " he said with irritation, " and now you want to drag me into it!"

" It's for the last time, however," said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. " I hope that after this he will be pacified."

Piotr Ivanitch shook his head incredulously.

" There's some one rang the bell, isn't it he ? What am I

t )

A COMMON STORY 151

to do ? tell me again : give him a lecture—what else; money ? "

" A lecture indeed! why, you'll make it worse. I asked you to talk a little of friendship, of affection, but more kindly, more sympathetically."

Alexandr made his bow in silence and in silence ate a hearty dinner, and between the courses rolled up little pellets of bread and looked from under his eyebrows at the bottles and decanters. After dinner he was going to take his hat again.

" Where are you off to ? " said Piotr Ivanitch, " sit with us a little."

Alexandr obeyed in silence. Piotr Ivanitch thought how he could approach the subject in a gentle and discreet manner, and at once asked, speaking briskly: " I have heard, Alexandr, that your friend has treated you badly in some way ? "

At these unexpected words Alexandr drew back his head, as though he had been wounded, and bent a gaze full of reproach upon his aunt. She too had not anticipated such a crude opening of the subject, and at first let her head droop over her work, then looked also with reproach at her husband; bat he was under the combined influence of digestion and drowsiness, and did not perceive the import of these looks.

Alexandr answered his question by a scarcely audible sigh.

" Seriously," continued Piotr Ivanitch, " what treachery! what a friend ! he had not seen him for five years, and when they met he did not smother his friend with embraces, but invited him in the evening, tried to make him play cards, and to give him supper. And then—treacherous creature !—noticed the sulky looks on his friend's face, and set to questioning him about his affairs, his circumstances, his needs—what base curiosity ! no sincere outpourings! awful! awful! Please let me see this monster, bring him on Friday to dine ! But what stakes does he play for?"

" I don't know," said Alexandr angrily. " You may laugh,

uncle; you are right; I alone am to blame. To believe

in men—to seek sympathy—in whom ? to cast pearls—

I before whom ? All around me is baseness, cowardice,

* pettiness, and I still kept my youthful faith in goodness,

Piotr Ivanitch was tranquilly beginning to nod.

" Piotr Ivanitch!" said Lizaveta Alexandrovna sotte voce, taking his hand, " you are asleep ? "

" Me asleep! " said Piotr Ivanitch, rousing himself. " I heard everything—' virtue, constancy ;' when did I fall asleep ? "

" Don't disturb my uncle, ma tante? remarked Alexandr; "he won't go to sleep, then his digestion will be deranged, and man is lord of creation, no doubt, but he is also the slave of his stomach. 1 '

At this he tried to smile bitterly, but only succeeded in smiling sourly.

" Tell me what you wanted from your friend ? sacrifices of some sort, I suppose; did you want him to climb over a wall or jump out of a window ? How do you understand friendship ? " asked Piotr Ivanitch.

" Now I ask no sacrifices—don't alarm yourself. Thanks to others, I have been brought down to a pitiful comprehension of friendship as well as of grief," said Alexandr. " I feel in myself the power of loving and I am proud of it. My unhappiness only results from my not having met a creature capable of such love and endowed with the power of loving."

" Power of loving ! " repeated Piotr Ivanitch a it's just as if you said the power of weakness."

" It's not your way, Piotr Ivanitch" observed Lizaveta Alexandrovna; " you are not willing to believe in the existence of such love even in others."

" And you, is it possible you believe in it ?" demanded Piotr Ivanitch, going up to her; " but no ! you are joking! Do men love in that sentimental way ? "

Lizaveta Alexandrovna paused in her work. "How then?" she asked in an undertone, taking his hand and drawing him to her.

Piotr Ivanitch quietly loosened his hand from hers and pointed at Alexandr, who was standing at the window with his back to them and then began again his interrupted pacing of the room.

" How !" he said, " as though you had not heard how men love!"

" Oh, they love!" she repeated gloomily, and slowly took up her work again. .

The silence lasted a quarter of an hour. Piotr Ivanitch was the first to break it.

" You are rather bitter against men. Is it your love for that—what's-her-name ? has made you so ? "

" Oh! I had really forgotten about that foolishness."

" You see, it's just as I told you. What has made you so averse to men in general ? "

" What indeed! Their baseness, their pettiness of soul."

" But what concern is it of yours ? Do you want to correct mankind, pray ? "

"What concern of mine? Am not I myself bespattered by the filth in which mankind is wallowing ? You know what has been my experience— after all that, how can I help hating, despising my fellow-creatures !"

"What has been your experience ?"

" Infidelity in love, hard, cold neglect in friendship."

" You've an attack of the spleen ! You ought to busy yourself with work," said Piotr Ivanitch, " then you won't abuse mankind for nothing. What's wrong with the people j you know ? they're all decent people."

Alexandr made a gesture of supreme disgust. /^r *Jf£Well, but what of yourself?" asked Piotr Ivanitch.

"I have done no harm to my fellow-men!" Alexandr retorted with dignity, " I have a loving heart; I opened my eyes wide to people, but how have they treated me?"

"What next! how ridiculously he talks!" observed Piotr Ivanitch turning to his wife.

" Everything is ridiculous to you !" she replied.

" And I myself did not ask from people," continued Alexandr, " either heroic achievements, or greatness of soul, or self-sacrifice. I only asked what was my due by every right."

"So you are all right? You have come out of things quite unspotted. Allow me to show it in a fresh light."

Lizaveta Alexandrovna noticed that her husband was beginning to speak in a stern voice and she trembled.

" Piotr Ivanitch," she whispered, " do stop."

" No, let him hear the truth. I will finish in a minute. Kindly tell me, Alexandr, when you stigmatised all your friends as cold and neglectful, did you feel something uneasy in your heart like a prick of conscience ? "

« Why, uncle ? "

" Oh, well, let us go a step further. You say you have no friends, but I always thought you had three."

" Three ?" cried Alexandr, " I once had one and he "

" Three," repeated Piotr Ivanitch persistently.

"The first—let us begin with the oldest—is this one. Any other man after not having seen you for some years, would have turned his back on you, but he invited you to go and see him, and when you arrived with sulky looks, he asked you sympathetically, whether you were in want of anything, began to offer you his services and his help, and I'm convinced he would have given you money—yes ! in our times not every feeling stands that test; no, you must make me acquainted with him; I see he's a good fellow .... though you think him a traitor."

Alexandr stood with downcast head.

" Well, and who do you thin^c is your second friend ?" asked Piotr Ivanitch.

" Who ? " repeated Alexandr quite at a loss, " why, no one."

" He's no conscience ! " broke in Piotr Ivanitch, " eh ? Liza, and he doesn't blush ! and what am I reckoned for, allow me to ask? It's too bad, Alexandr; this is a trait which even in school copy-books is called base?

" But you have always repulsed me," said Alexandr, timidly, not raising his eyes.

" Yes, when you tried to embrace me."

" You have laughed at me, at my feelings,"

" Ah, it is out at last! " Sit down; I have not finished yet! " said Piotr Ivanitch coldly. " YQu r third and best ( friend I hope you will name yourself." """"

V ""Alexandr gazed at him again and seemed to ask " Who \is it ? " Piotr Ivanitch pointed to his wife.

" Here she is."'

"Piotr Ivanitch," interposed Iizaveta^.Alj^ajidroxna, " don't f>e clever; for goodness' sa£e, stop."

" No, don't interfere."

" I know how to value my aunt's friendship," murmured Alexandr indistinctly.

" No, you don't { if you did, you would not have looked up to the ceiling for a friend, but would have pointed to her.

If you had appreciated her friendship, you would have valued her qualities too well to have despised men in general. She alone would have redeemed in your eyes the failings of others. Who has dried your tears and wept with you ? Who has shown you sympathy in every foolishness, and what a sympathy ! I suppose only your mother could have taken so warmly to heart everything that concerned you, and she would not have known how to do it. If you had felt it, you would not have talked of nothing but " hard cold neglect in friendship."

"Ah, matan.tel" said Alexandr, overwhelmed and utterly annihilated by this reproach, " do you suppose that I don't value this and don't reckon you as a shining exception to the common herd ? My God, I swear "

" I believe you, I believe you, Alexandr !" she answered ; " don't listen to Piotr Ivanitch ; he makes a mountain out of a molehill: he likes an opportunity of showing his clever-ness. Leave off, for heaven's sake, Piotr Ivanitch."

" Directly: I will finish directly— one utterance more—the last I You said that you performed everything demanded by your duties to others ? "

Alexandr did not answer another word nor raise his eyes.

" C ome, tell me, do you love your mother ?_" 4 N Atexanar woke up at once.

" What a question ? " he said; " whom should I love if not ? I am devoted to her, I woul d lay down my life for her."

" Good?' "YOETnlust'"tnow very"weTT ll'iat slie lives Only

\ for you, that every pleasure, every pain of yours, is a pleasure

and a pain for her. She does not count time now by

months, nor weeks, but by the news of you, or from you.

TV11 mg, ig it Imjgr ginrf| yr\n wrntP tO her ? "

Ale xanQf gave a start.

" Tfir ee w eeks/' he murmured.

""No,*Tour months! What am I to call such behaviour? The cfa lady fc> ill Wffh sorrow."

" Is it possible ? Good God !"

" It's not true, not true!" said Lizaveta Alexandrovna, and running at once to the bureau she brought out from it a letter which she handed to Alexandr. " She is not ill, but she is very worried."

" You are spoiling him, Liza," said Piotr Ivanitch.

'\

" And you are severe to excess. Alexandr has had affairs which have for a time drawn him away."

"Forget his mother for the sake of a bit of a girl

Important affairs, on my word!"

" Well, that's enough," she said persuasively, with a gesture at her nephew.

" Alexandr, after reading his mother's letter, had hidden his face behind it

" Don't check my uncle, ma tante; let him thunder in reproaches ; I have deserved worse; lama monster!" he said, with a face of despair.

"Come, calm yourself, Alexandr!" said Piotr Ivanitch; " there are many such monsters. You have been led away by foolishness and have forgotten your mother for a time— that is natural; love for a mother is a quiet feeling. She had one thing in the world—it's natural she should be grieved. There is no reason to hang you for that That's all. Well, I will go and have a nap."

" Uncle ! are you angry ? " said Alexandr in a voice of deep penitence.

"What makes you imagine that? What have I to be vexed about ? I never even thought of being angry. Well, have I done well ? Liza, eh ? "

He tried, in passing, to kiss her, but she turned away.

" I fancy I carried out your behests exactly," added Piotr Ivanitch ; " what is it ? Oh, I forgot one thing; what's the state of your heart, Alexandr ? " he asked.

Alexandr made no answer.

" What must my uncle think of me ? " said Alexandr after a pause.

" Just what he did before," replied Lizaveta Alexandrovna. " Do you suppose he said all this to you from his heart— feeling it ? "

" But do you, ma tante, cease to respect me ? Good God! poor mamma!"

Lizaveta Alexandrovna gave him her hand. " I shall not cease to respect your heart, Alexandr," said she ; " it is feeling which leads it into errors, and so I shall always pardon them."

" Ah, ma tante, you ideal woman !"

" No; simply a woman."

Alexandr was powerfully affected by his uncle's reproof. Sitting with his aunt he sank into painful reflections. He felt as though he had had a bucket of cold water poured over him.

" What is it ? why are you like this ? " inquired his aunt.

" Nothing, ma tante; there is melancholy in my heart. My uncle has let me understand myself; he was a splendid interpreter!"

" Don't you pay attention to him; he sometimes doesn't speak the truth."

" No, don't try to comfort me. I am disgusted with myself now. I have been despising and hating others, and now I despise myself as well. One can escape from other people, but where is one to take refuge from oneself? "

" Ah, that Piotr Ivanitch!" exclaimed Lizaveta Alexan-drovna with a deep sigh; "he would drive any one to melancholy!"

" Only one negative consolation I still have, that I have not deceived anyone; I have not been inconstant in love or in friendship."

"You have not found people able to value you," his aunt replied; " but believe me, a heart will be found to appreciate you; I will guarantee that. You are still so young,

forget all this and set to work; you have talent; write

Are you writing anything now ? "

" No."

" Begin to write."

" I'm afraid, ma tante?

" Don't pay attention to Piotr Ivanitch; you will write, won't you ? "

" Very well."

" You* will begin soon ? "

" As soon as I can. It's all I have left to hope for."

Piotr Ivanitch, awakened from his nap, came up to him in full dress, his hat in his hand. He too advised Alexandr to set to work in his office, and at the subject of agricultural economy for the journal.

" I will try, uncle," answered Alexandr, " but I have just promised my aunt "

Lizaveta Alexandrovna made a sign to him to be silent, but Piotr Ivanitch noticed it.

" What is it ? what have you promised ? " he asked.

" To bring me some new music," she replied.

" No, it's not true ; what was it, Alexandr ? "

" To write a novel or something."

" Haven't you yet given up literature ?" said Piotr Ivanitch, picking a grain of dust off his clothes; " and you, Liza, lead him wrong—all to no purpose!"

" I have not the right to give it up," observed Alexandr.

" Who wants to prevent you ?"

" One hope in the world remains to me, and am I to destroy that too ? If I waste what has been entrusted me from above, then I waste myself."

" But what is it has been entrusted to you, explain to me, please."

" That, uncle, I cannot explain to you. One needs to understand it of oneself. Have you felt a tempest of passion in you; has your fancy fermented and created artistic visions for you which craved embodiment ? "

"High flown! Well, what of this?" asked Piotr Ivanitch.

" Why, that to the man who has not felt this it is impossible to explain the desire to write when some restless spirit keeps repeating to one day and night, asleep and awake: write, write."

" But when you haven't the ability to write ?"

" Enough, Piotr Ivanitch; you haven't the ability yourself, so why interfere with any one else?" said Lizaveta Alexandrovna.

" Excuse me, uncle, if I remark that you are not a judge in this matter."

" Who is a judge ? is she ? "

Piotr Ivanitch pointed to his wife.

" She says it to make fun of you, and you believe her," he added.

" But you yourself, when I first arrived here, advised me to try—to try myself."

" Well, what of it ? You tried—nothing came of it, and you should throw it aside."

" Ah !" said Lizaveta Alexandrovna with annoyance, turning away to the table.

" As for the emotions and the rest of it—who does not feel it?"

" You, I should think for the first!" observed his wife.

" Come, now ! But you know even I have been in ecstasy."

" Over what ? I've no recollection of it."

" Every one experiences such things," continued Piotr

. Ivanitch, turning to his nephew, " every one has been stirred

■ by the silence or the darkness of night, or what not, by the

1 sound of the forest, by a garden, or lake, or the sea. If

! none but artists felt it, there would be no one to under-

! stand them. But to reflect all these sensations in their

works—is a different matter; talent is needed for it; and

that, I fancy, you have not."

" Piotr Ivanitch! it's time you started," said Lizaveta Alexandrovna.

" Directly. You want to be distinguished ?" he continued, " you have something by means of which you may be distinguished. The editor praises you; he says that your articles on agriculture are capitally worked up; that there is thought in them—they all show a trained hand, and not an amateur. I was delighted. Bah! thought I, the Adouevs were all good heads! you see even I have vanity! You ; may both gain distinction in your official work and win a I reputation as a writer."

" A fine reputation; a writer on manure."

\ " Every one in his place; one man is destined to soar into

7 Jieavenly regions, another to burrow in manure and extract

* > a treasure from it. I don't understand why one should

^ .(despise the humbler calling ? it, too, has its po etry, j You

would do your work as an official, gain money Dy your

[

iwuuiu. \x\j jvjui wi/iA. as aii uiuv^uu, gain uiuutj uy j\j\xi

Jabours, marry suitably, like most people. I don't know wHaT more you want ? You do your duty, your life is passed with honour and industry—that's what happiness consists in ! in my opinion it is so. Here am I, councillor of state by official rank, a manufacturer by trade ; offer me the title of greatest poet in exchange, and, God knows, I would not take it!"

"Piotr Ivanitch, you really will be late!" interrupted Lizaveta Alexandrovna; " it will soon be ten o'clock."

" Indeed, it's time. Well, au revoir. But as for imagining ourselves—God only knows why—exceptional people," muttered Piotr Ivanitch, as he went out; * it's the . . . ."

CHAPTER VIII

' ■>

v .

After this conversation Alexandr began again to create a

world of his own—rather a wiser one than the first. His

aunt encouraged this inclination in him, but secretly, when

Fiotr Ivanitch was asleep, or had gone out to the factory

or to the English Club.

r She questioned Alexandr about his occupations. And

r~ how this delighted him now! He explained to her the

J , plan of his works and sometimes asked—under the guise of

advice for her approval.

She often differed from him, still oftener agreed.

Alexandr clung to his work, as one clings to the last hope.

" After this," he said to his aunt, " there is nothing for me;

then the barren desert, without water, without greenness,

^obscurity, emptiness—what will life be then ? a living

tomb !" And he worked without ceasing.

He spent over it a great deal of reflection, and feeling and sheer hard work and nearly half a year of time. At last ^ / the no vel wa s finished, corrected, and a fair copy written ^ . out.-^fiis aunt was enraptured.

< In this novel the scene wa§ not laid in America, but in a

village of Tambov ; the persons of the plot were ordinary people: slanderers, liars, and wretches of every kind in frockcoats, jilts in corsets and hats. Everything respectable, and in place.

" I think, ma tante^ this I might show to my uncle."

" Yes, yes, of course, she replied," but, however, wouldn't it be better to send it to be published as it is without him ?"

" No, better show it! " answered Alexandr ; " after your criticism, and my own judgment, I am afraid of nobody."

They showed it. Piotr Ivanitch frowned a little when he saw the manuscript and slightly shook his head.

" Wait a little before you shake your head," said his wife,

"and just hear it Read it aloud to us, Alexandr.

Only listen attentively, don't go to sleep, and afterwards tell us your opinion of it. One can find defects everywhere if you like to look for them. But you must make allow-

ances."

" No, why ? only be impartial," added Alexandr. "There's nothing for it; I will listen," said Piotr Ivanitch

with a sigh," only on condition, first, that you don't read directly after dinner, or else I cannot pledge myself not to fall asleep—don't take that to yourself, Alexandr; whatever is read to me directly after dinner I begin to get sleepy— and secondly, if there is anything good in it, I will say what I think of it; if not, I will only say nothing, and then you will do as you choose. ,,

The reading was begun. Piotr Ivanitch didn't once fall asleep; he listened without taking his eyes off Alexandr, once or even twice smiled, and twice nodded his head approvingly.

" You see," said his wife in a whisper, " I told you so."

He nodded to her too.

The reading continued for two evenings in succession. On the first evening after the reading, Piotr Ivanitch, to his wife's astonishment, told them all that was to happen later.

"But how do you know?" she asked.

"Is it so strange ! It's not a new idea—that has been written of a thousand times over. It would not be necessary to read further, only we will see how it is developed by him."

On the second evening, while Alexandr was reading the last page, Piotr Ivanitch rang. A servant appeared.

"I am ready to dress," he said; "excuse me, Alexandr, for interrupting. I am in a hurry, I am late for whist at the club."

Alexandr finished. Piotr Ivanitch was going away at once.

" Well, au revoir/" he said to his wife and Alexandr; " 1 shall not look in here again."

"Stop,stop," cried his wife; "whyare you saying nothing about the novel ? "

Ci I ought not by the agreement," he replied, and was just going.

" It's obstinacy!" she said, " oh, he is obstinate. I know him ! Don't think about it, Alexandr."

" It's ill-natured!" thought Alexandr; " he wants to drag , , me into the dust, to pull me down to his sphere. All the J same, he is a clever official, a manufacturer, and nothing more; but I am a poet."

^

"This is beyond everything, Piotr Ivanitch," began his wife, scarcely able to restrain her tears. "Say something at least. I saw you nodded in token of approval, so you liked it a little. Only you won't acknowledge it out of obstinacy. How can we acknowledge that we like the novel! We are too clever for that. Confess that it's good."

u I nodded; because even from this novel one can see Alexandr is clever; but he did not do a clever thing in writing it."

" However, uncle, justice of some kind."

" Listen ; of course you won't believe me, and it's useless to dispute, we had better await the result. I will do something to put an end to this between us for ever. I will call myself the author of the novel, and will send it off to my friend, who is on a journal: we shall see what he says. You know him, and certainly would have confidence in his opinion. He is a man of experience."

" Very well, we shall see."

Piotr Ivanitch sat down to the table and at once wrote a few lines, then passed the letter to Alexandr.

"In my old age I have taken to authorship," he had written; "what's to be done: I want to be famous, to succeed in it—I have gone a little crazy! I have sent the novel enclosed. Look at it, and if it is suitable print it in your journal, for payment, of course; you know I don't like working for nothing. You will see it and hardly believe it's mine, but I authorise you to sign my name to it, to prove I am telling the truth."

Relying upon a favourable reply about the novel, Alexandr awaited the answer tranquilly.

Three weeks passed by, however, still there was no answer. At last one morning a large parcel and letter was brought in to Piotr Ivanitch.

" Ah ! they have sent it back !" he said, glancing slyly at his wife.

He did not break open the note nor show it to his wife, as she did not ask to see it. That same evening before going to the club he himself started to his nephew.

The door was not closed. He went in; Yevsay was snoring, stretched diagonally across the entry on the floor. The candle wanted snuffing badly and hung down out of the

—-i

candlestick. He looked into the inner room—it was dark.

" Oh, the provinces !" muttered Piotr Ivanitch.

He roused Yevsay, showed him the door and the candle, and threatened him with a stick. In the third room Alex-andr was sitting, his arms on the table and his head on his arms; he too was asleep. Some papers were lying before him. Piotr Ivanitch looked—verses.

He took a sheet and read as follows :

" My springtide fair is over now, Love s burning moment's gone for ever; Love in my heart is deeply slumbering, Nor stirs with fiery breath my blood. Upon her altar-shrine deserted Another deity I've raised, To whom I pray.'*

" He is deeply slumbering himself too ! Go on praying, my dear boy, don't be lazy!" said Piotr Ivanitch aloud. " Your own verses, but how they have exhausted you! What need of any other opinion ? You have spoken for yourself! "

" Ah !" said Alexandr, stretching, " you are always hostile to my compositions ! Tell me candidly, uncle, what makes you so persistently persecute talent when you cannot help confessing "

" Envy, to be sure, Alexandr. I have lived my life quietly, obscurely, have only fulfilled my duty, and was even proud and happy in it. When I am dead, that is when I shall feel and know nothing, the harps of minstrel seers shall not tell of me. How different with you? do you know that your future fame, your immortality is in my pocket ?— what glory !"

" The answer to your note. Ah, for Heaven's sake, give it me directly; what does he write ?"

" I haven't read it; read it yourself aloud."

Alexandr began to read aloud, while Piotr Ivanitch tapped his boot with his finger. This is what was in the letter:

"What mystification is this, my dear Piotr Ivanitch? You writing novels! And you thought you could catch an old bird like me? But if you had really produced the novel lying before me, then I should tell you that the

most fragile products of your factory have far more solidity than this creation."

Alexandras voice suddenly dropped.

" But I repudiate anything so insulting to you," he went on in timid and subdued tone.

"I don't hear, Alexandr, a litde louder!" said Piotr Ivanitch.

Alexandr continued in a low voice.

" Since you take an interest in the author of the novel, you no doubt wish to know my opinion of it. Here it is. The author must be young. He is not stupid; but is not very happily at feud with the whole world. He is truly disillusioned. Oh, Lord, when will the race be extinct? What a pity that through a false view of life so much ability among us is wasted in empty, profitless dreams, in vain efforts after what they are not fitted for."

Alexandr paused and took breath. Piotr Ivanitch began to smoke a cigar and blew a ring of smoke. His face, as usual, expressed perfect calm. Alexandr continued to read in a low, hardly audible voice.

"Vanity, sentimentality, premature emotionalism with their inevitable consequence—indolence—these are the causes of this evil. Discipline, work, practical business— that's what our sickly and indolent young people want to sober them."

" The whole matter might have been made clear in three lines," said Piotr Ivanitch looking at his watch, " but he is writing a complete essay in a letter to a friend ! isn't he a pedant ? Are you going to read any more, Alexandr? throw it away; it's a bore. There is something I want to say to you."

" No, uncle, let me drink the cup to the dregs; I will read to the end."

" Well, I hope it will do you good!"

"This lamentable bent of mind," Alexandr read, "is apparent in every line of the novel you have sent me. Tell your protigk that an author only writes successfully, in the first place, when he is not under the sway of his personal feelings and passions. He must survey with calm untroubled gaze the world and life generally; otherwise, he will express only his Ego, with whom no one else has any concern. This defect is glaringly apparent in the novel. The second and

i

i

i

principal condition—which, pray, do not tell the author, out of compassion for his youth and vanity of authorship—talent, is essential, and he has no trace of it. The language, however, is throughout correct and good; the author even shows a sense of style."

With difficulty could Alexandr read to the end.

"At last he comes to the point," said Piotr Ivanitch, "and what a rigmarole first! Let us discuss the rest without him."

Alexandr let his hands hang limp. In silence, like a man stunned by an unexpected blow, he gazed with hazy eyes at the opposite well.

"Come, Alexandr, how do you feel now?" asked Piotr Ivanitch.

Alexandr did not hear this observation.

" Can it, too, be a dream ? has this, too, cheated me ? " he muttered. " A bitter loss I What, can't one get used to being deceived! But why, I can't understand, was this overmastering impulse to creative art entrusted to me ? "

" Come, come, the impulse was entrusted to you, but the creative art itself they forgot to entrust to you," said Piotr Ivanitch. " Fve explained it! "

Alexander answered by a sigh, and sank into thought Then suddenly he rushed vehemently to open all the drawers, took out several manuscript books, sheets of paper, and scraps, and began in exasperation to throw them into the stove.

" Here, don't forget this!" said Piotr Ivanitch, passing him the sheet of unfinished verses that lay on the table.

" That too may go !" said Alexander in despair, throwing the verses into the stove.

" Is there nothing more ? Look round thoroughly," said Piotr Ivanitch, glajicing round him; " for once you will be doing a sensible thing. There, what's that in the cupboard in a bundle ? "

" In with it," said Alexandr, taking it; " it's my articles on agriculture."

" Don't burn that! give it to me!" said Piotr Ivanitch, holding out his hand, "that's not rubbish."

But Alexandr did not heed him. No!" he said bitterly, "since the great power of J

u

creation has failed me in the sphere of art, I don't want it

/

V

166 A COMMON STORY

in the sphere of industry. Fate shall not subdue me to that!"

And the bundle flew into the hearth.

"That's a pity !" observed Piotr Ivanitch, while he rummaged with a finger under the table, to see whether there was not something more to throw in the fire.

" But what shall we do with the novel, Alexandr ? It's at home."

" Don't you want it to paste on screens ? "

" No, not now. Shouldn't we send Yevsay for it ? He has gone to sleep again; look out or they will steal my greatcoat under your very nose! Go to my rooms, ask Vassily there for the thick manuscript-book which is lying in the study on the bureau, and bring it here ? "

Alexandr sat, leaning on his elbows, and gazed into the stove. The manuscript was brought. Alexandr looked at the fruit of his six months' labours and grew thoughtful. Piotr Ivanitch noticed it.

" Come, make an end, Alexandr," he said " and then let us talk of something else."

" In with it then, too;" shrieked Alexandr flinging the book into the grate.

Both began to look at it burning, Piotr Ivanitch apparently with satisfaction, Alexandr with grief, almost with tears. Now the uppermost page quivered and started up, as though an unseen hand had turned it back; its edges scorched, it grew black, then contracted and suddenly caught fire; quickly after it a second and a third caught, and then suddenly a few sprang up and burnt in a mass, while those following after them were still white, and two seconds later they, too, began to blacken at the edges.

Alexandr, however, had time to read: " Chapter III." He remembered what was in that chapter, and was smitten with compunction. He rose from his chair and clutched the snuffers to save the fragments of his work. " Perhaps, still " hope murmured to him.

" Stop, I will do it better with my stick," said Piotr Ivanitch. " You will burn your fingers."

He moved the book into the furthest recesses of the stove, right into the corner. Alexandr stopped in hesitation. The book was thick and not readily subdued by the action of the fire. A thick smoke began to appear

from under it; the flame sometimes would snatch it from below, lick it at the edge, leave a black stain and sink down again. It was still possible to save it. Alexandr stretched out his hand, but at that very second the flames threw a bright glare upon the chair and Piotr Ivanitch's face and the table; the whole book was alight and in a minute was burnt up, leaving a heap of black ash amongst which in parts crept little snakes of fire. Alexandr threw down the snuffers.

" All is over I" he siid.

" It is over!" repeated Piotr Ivauitch.

" Ah !" ejaculated Alexandr, " I am free !"

" Now I have helped you a second time to clear your rooms," said Piotr Ivanitch, " I hope that this time "

" It is irrevocable, uncle."

" Amen !" said his uncle, laying his hand on his shoulder. " Come, Alexandr, I advise you not to delay: write at once to Ivan Ivanitch, to send you work on the subject of agriculture. He always says, what is your nephew about ? "

Alexandr shook his head mournfully. " I cannot," he a said, " no, I cannot; all is over."

" What are you going to do now ? "

" What ?" he asked and relapsed into gloom—" now there is nothing to do."

"But it's only in the provinces people are able to do nothing, but here .... why did you come here ? It's incomprehensible ! Meantime enough about that. I have a request to make to you."

Alexandr slowly raised his head and looked inquiringly at his uncle.

a I think you know," began Piotr Ivanitch, moving his armchair up to Alexandr, " my partner Surkoff ? "

Alexandr nodded assent.

u He is a good fellow, but rather frivolous. His ruling weakness is women. Unluckily, as you have seen for yourself, he's not bad-looking; that's to say, he is rosy, sleek, tall, always curled and scented, dressed like a fashion-plate; and so he imagines all the women are out of their senses over him—yes, the coxcomb! directly he's smitten by a fresh flame, he begins spending money. Then he is taken up with surprises, presents, polite services; he gives himself up, too, to extravagant smartness, begins to get new

carriages, horses—it's simply ruin! He even ran after my wife. I used not to trouble to send a servant to get theatre tickets; Surkoff was certain to send them-^-he was invaluable! you couldn't get such a man for any salary; but he bored my wife so I was obliged to get rid of him. Now when he abandons himself to extravagance in this way, his income is not enough for him; he begins to ask me for money—to talk about his capital. " What's your factory to me ?" he says ; " I never have any cash to spend!" It would be all very well if he would fix on some—hm—but no: he always seeks his liaisons in society; he says to me, "I must have an honourable intrigue; I can't live without love !" Isn't he an ass ? Not far off forty, and he can't live without love ! "

Alexandr thought of himself and smiled gloomily.

" Meantime, continued Piotr Ivanitch, " the result is that these so-called honourable intrigues—curse them !—are far more expensive than dishonourable ones. It's not worth the cost, the idiot! "

" What is all this leading up to, uncle ? " asked Alexandr. " I don't see what I can do in the matter."

"You shall see. The young wi dow, Julia Pavlovna Taphaev, ha s lately returned here from abroad, ane is 'ratner gooa-looking. Surkoff and I were friends of her husband's. Taphaev died abroad. Come, do you guess at last ? "

" I guess so much; Surkoff has fallen in love with the widow."

" Yes, he is completely crazy ! but what more ? "

" More ! I don't know."

" What a fellow! Come, I will tell you; Surkoff has twice announced to me that he will soon want money. I at once surmised what this meant, only which quarter the wind was in I couldn't conjecture. I tried to find out what he wanted money for. He hesitated and hesitated; at last said he wanted to rent a suite of rooms in Litaynoy Street, and I recollected that Madame Taphaev lived there, and just opposite the place he has fixed on. Trouble is threatening, and no escape unless you aid me. Now do you guess ? "

"Surkoff is asking for money; "you have none. You want me to " He did not say what.

A COMMON STORY 169

Piotr Ivanitch smiled. Alexandr did not finish the sentence, and looked at his uncle in perplexity.

" No, not at all!" said Piotr Ivanitch. " Am I ever without money ? Try applying, when you want some; you will see! But this is what it is ; Madame Taphaev through him reminded me of my acquaintance with her husband. I went to see her. She asked me to go often; I promised to do so and said I would bring you ^ come, now, I hope you understand ? "

" Me ?" repeated Alexandr, looking with round eyes at his uncle. " I'll be banged if I understand." \ " This is the matter in question; y ou are to make Madame 1 Taphaev fall, injove with^ou." "~

Alexandr raised his eyebrows at once and looked at his uncle.

"You are joking, uncle? it's absurd! " he said.

" What is there absurd in it ? This is all I want you to do. Lay yourself out to please Madame Taphaev; be attentive, don't let Surkoff be with her tite-d-tete —in fact, to put it simply, make him angry. He is vain to folly. Then he will not want his new apartments; his capital will not be touched; the factory business will go on its usual course ; come, do you understand? This will be the fifth time I have played him a trick; before, when I was unmarried and rather younger, I used to do it myself, but since now I can't, I get one of my friends to."

" But I am not acquainted with her," said Alexandr.

"For that reason I will introduce you on Wednesday. On Wednesday some of her old friends meet at her house."

" But if she responds to SurkofFs love, then you must allow that my civilities and attentions will make her too angry."

" Oh, that's enough ! She is a good sort of woman ; when she sees he is a fool, she will cease to take any notice of him, especially before others: her vanity would not allow her to. In this case another will be at hand, cleverer and better-looking; she will be persuaded to get rid of him the quicker. That's why I fixed on you."

Alexandr bowed.

" Surkoff is not so formidable," continued his uncle; but Madame Taphaev sees very few people, so that he might perhaps in her little circle pass for a great man and a wit.

Externals produce a great effect upon women. Even clever women fall in love when a man commits follies for their sake, especially expensive follies.' 1

" But Surkoff, very likely, will not be there on Wednesdays. I might interfere with him a little on Wednesdays; but how about other days ? "

" Find out all that for yourself! You must flatter her a bit, play the lover a little. The next time she will invite you, not for Wednesday, but for Thursday or Friday; you redouble your civility, and I will prepare her a little. I will drop a hint as if you were really .... she seems—as far as I can observe—so emotional—she must be over-nervous; she too, I fancy, is not averse to sympathy—outpourings."

" How is it possible ? " said Alexandr, ruminating. " If I could fall in love myself. . . . but since I cannot there can be no success for the scheme."

" On the contrary, for that very reason it will be successful. If you fell in love, you could not play your part; she would notice it at once and would proceed to make fools of you both. As it is, you have only to make Surkoff angry; as soon as he sees that he won't gain the day, he won't spend his money for nothing, and that's all I want. Let me tell you, Alexandr, this is a very important matter to me; if you do this, you remember those two vases you liked in the factory ? they shall be yours."

" Really, uncle, can you imagine that I "

" But why should you take trouble and waste your time for nothing ? That's a fine idea ! No! the vases are very handsome."

" It's a strange commission!" said Alexandr irresolutely.

" I hope you won't refuse to carry it out for me. I am ready on my part to do what I can for you ; when you want money, apply to me. So on Wednesday! This business will last a month or two. I will tell you when it will not be necessary to do more, then drop it.

" Certainly, uncle, I am ready; but it's a queer 1 won't

answer for the success .... if I could fall in love myself .... then, but since I can't . . . ."

" Indeed, it's very well you can't, that would spoil the whole thing. I answer for the success of it myself. Goodbye."

He went away, and Alexandr sat long by the fire over the ashes of his treasures.

When Piotr Ivanitch returned home, his wife asked him: " How was Alexandr, what of his novel, would he ever be a writer ? "

" No, I have cured him of that for ever."

Adouev told her the contents of the letter he had received with the manuscript, and related how they had burnt everything.

" You have no pity, Piotr Ivanitch !" said Lizaveta Alexandrovna.

" You did well indeed to set him scribbling! do you mean to tell me he has talent ? "

" No." ^ .

Piotr Ivanitch looked at her in surprise.

" Then why did you ? "

" Why, didn't you understand, didn't you guess, all this time ? "

He was silent.

" He doesn't understand, and yet he's a very clever man ! Why has he been cheerful—well, almost happy all this time ? Because he had something to hope for."

" So you have been playing a part with him throughout!"

* I consider it justifiable. But what have you done? You are absolutely pitiless; you have taken away his last hope."

" Nonsense! what last hope ? He has plenty of absurdities still before him."

" What is he to do now ? Will he go about again with downcast looks ? "

" No ! he won't; it won't come to that: I have given him work to do."

" What ? some translation again about potato-starch ? Do you suppose that can occupy a young man, especially an ardent, enthusiastic one ? With you the head only needs occupation."

u No, my dear, it's not about potato-starch, but something concerning the factory.''

CHAPTER IX

V-

Wednesday arrived. Twelve or fifteen guests were gathered together in Julia Paylovnaj s drawing-room. Four young ladies, two bearded foreigners, who had made the hostess' acquaintance abroad, and an officer, formed one group.

Apart from them in an easy-chair was sitting an old man, obviously a retired military officer, with two tufts of grizzled hair under his nose and a number of decorations in his button-hole. He was arguing with an elderly man about some impending contracts.

In the other room an old lady and two men were playing cards. At the piano was seated a very young girl, another was talking to a student.

The Adouevs made their appearance. Few men knew how to enter a drawing-room with such ease and dignity as Piotr Ivanitch. After him, with a certain air of indecision, walked Alexandr.

What a contrast there was between them ! One a whole head taller, well-built, stout, a man of robust temperament with self-confidence in his eyes and manners. But not by a single glance T nor_gesture^ jaflauxgrd could one puess ffife tnought or character oF Piotr IvanitcK—all'was s o veiled by his polished manners and powjer of controllin g s h imsel f. It sefcmed as if even his gestures and glances were the result of calculation.

In Alexandr, on the contrary, there was every sign of a weak and soft temperament, and in the changing expression of his face and a certain indolence or slowness and uneven-ness in his movement, and his Lack-lustre eyes, which at once revealed what emotion was agitating his heart, or what thought was stirring in his head. He was of medium height, but thin and pale—pale not by nature, like Piotr Ivanitch, but from the continual agitation of his feelings. His hair did not grow like his uncle's, in bushy thickness on his head and cheeks, but hung down over his temples and on his neck in thin, weak, but exceedingly soft and silky locks of a light-coloured bright hue.

The uncle presented his nephew,

" But is not my friend SurkofF here ? " asked Piotr Ivan-itch, looking round with surprise; "he has forgotten you."

" Oh, no ! " replied their hostess ; " he often comes to see me. You know, except my late husband's intimate friends, I scarcely see any one."

" Where is he then ? »

" He will be here directly. Only imagine, he has promised my cousin and me to get us a box without fail for to-morrow's performance, though they say there's not a chance of getting one, and he has gone about it."

" And he has got it, I will answer for him ; he is a genius at that. He will always get one for me, when no influence or favour are of use. How he manages it, and with what money, is his secret."

Surkoff came in. His clothes were new, and in every fold of his linen, in every detail, was clearly discernible the pretension to be a dandy, to excel in every fashion, and even to excel the fashion itself.

" Well, have you got it ? " sounded from all sides.

Surkoff was just going to answer, but catching sight of Adouev and his nephew he suddenly paused and looked at them with surprise.

"He suspects!" said Piotr Ivanitch, sotto voce^ to his nephew.

He pointed out of window at the house opposite.

" Remember that the vases are yours, and be bold," he added. s cp "Have you tickets for the performance to-morrow?" ^ ^ Surko ff asked Madame T aphaev, going up to her with an air ^.:■•< of triumph.

"No."

" Permit me to hand them to you ! " he continued, and repeated the whole speech of Zagoryetsky from "Sorrow from Wisdom." -

The officer's lips were slightly relaxed in a smile. Piotr Ivanitch looked meaningly at his nephew, and Julia Pavlovna blushed. She began to invite Piotr Ivanitch to her box.

" I am very grateful," he said, " but I shall be in attendance on my wife at the theatre to-morrow; but let me present a young man as a substitute."

He indicated Alexandr.

u I should have liked to ask him too; we are only three, my cousin and I."

v-j

" He will make a good substitute for me as well," said Piotr Ivanitch, " and for this scapegrace too, if necessary."

He pointed to Surkoff, and began to say something in an undertone to her. She twice stole a look at Alexandr and smiled while she did so.

" Thank you," replied Surkoff, " only it would have been as well to have proposed such an exchange a little sooner, before the tickets were taken ; I would have considered then how I should be replaced."

" Ah, I thank you very much for your kindness ! " said the hostess quickly to Surkoff, " but I did not invite you to the box because you have a stall. You certainly prefer to be just opposite the stage .... especially at a ballet."

" No, no, you are making fun of me; you did not think that; give up a place by you—not for anything !"

" But it is already promised."

"How? To whom?"

" M. Rene.

She indicated one of the bearded foreigners.

" Oui, madame, m'a fait cet honneur," the latter promptly murmured.

Surkoff gazed open-mouthed at him and then at Madame Taphaev.

" I will change with him; I will offer him my stall," he said.

" You can try."

The bearded one gesticulated the negative in every limb.

" Allow me to thank you !" said Surkoff to Piotr Ivanitch, with a sidelong look at Alexandr; u I am indebted to you for this."

" Don't mention it. But won't you care to use my box ? there are only two of us, my wife and I; you have seen nothing of her for a long while; you may pay your court to her."

Surkoff turned his back on him in vexation. Piotr Ivanitch quietly took his leave. Julia made Alexandr sit by her and talked to him for a whole hour. Surkoff broke in on the conversation several times, but always in some infelicitous manner. He began to make some remark about the ballet and received the answer " yes " when it ought to have been " no " and vice versd; it was clear that she was not attending to him.

Then he made a sudden transition to oysters, expressing the conviction he had eaten in the morning a hundred and seventy, and did not even receive a glance. He uttered a few commonplaces more and, as nothing came of them, seized his hat and stood about close to Julia, so that she might observe that he was not pleased and was preparing to take his leave. But she did not notice it.

"I am just off!" He said at last expressively, " Good-bye!"

His ill-concealed annoyance was perceptible in his voice.

" So soon ? " she replied. " Let us see you to-morrow in the box, if only for one minute"."

" What treachery ! One minute, when you know that I would not give up a place by you for a place in Paradise."

" If it were a place in a theatre, I believe you."

Now he did not want to go. His vexation vanished at the friendly words Julia had uttered at leave-taking. But every one had seen him make his bow; he had to go, however unw&lingly.

T ulia Pay jognajyas^twenty-three or twenty : four years old. Piotr Ivanitch's surmise had been correct; she was, in fact, dn a nervous temperament, but this did not prevent her from being a very pretty, clever, and graceful woman. But she was timid, dreamy, sensitive, like most nervous women. Her features were soft and refined, her glance mild, and always thoughtful, often sad without reason, or, if you like, by reason of her nerves.

Her views on life and the world were not at all optimistic; she reflected on the problem of her existence, and arrived at the conclusion that she was not needed here. The bright side of life quite escaped her notice. At the theatre she always chose to see a tragedy, seldom a comedy, never a farce; she was deaf to the strains of any lively song which chanced to reach her, she never smiled at a joke. At times her face expressed exhaustion, not the exhaustion of suffering, or of illness, but rather a luxurious exhaustion. One could see she had been through an inward conflict with some seductive dream, and had been too weak for it. After such a conflict she was a long while silent, mournful, and then all at once would fall into an unaccountable liveliness of spirits, always preserving her characteristic temperament however. What made her lively would not have made any one else lively. All her nerves 1

a>

" How well you have divined me," said Madame Taphaev to Alexandr at parting. " No man, not even my husband^ has been able to understand my character fully."

The fact was that Alexandr was not far from being of the same type himself. No wonder he felt in his element with /her.

" Au revoir."

She gave him her hand.

" I hope now you will find the way here without your uncle ? " she added.

The winter came. It had been AlexanoVs habit to dine with his uncle every Friday. But four Fridays had now gone by without his making his appearance, nor did he come any other day instead. Lizaveta Alexandrovna grew vexed; Piotr Ivanitch grumbled at his keeping them waiting half an hour beyond dinner-time for him for nothing.

(Meanwhile Alexandr was not without occupation; he was carrying out his uncle's commission. Surkoff had long ago given up going to Madame Taphaev's, and declared everywhere that all was over between them. In a stormy interview with Piotr Ivanitch he complained bitterly of AlexanoVs treachery and informed the uncle that his nephew was head over ears in love with Madame Taphaev and spent his whole time with her.

S Surkoff had not spoken fdsely; Alexandr loved Julia. Almost with dread he had felt the first symptoms of this passion, as though they were the symptoms of some plague. He was tortured both by fear and by shame—fear of being again at the mercy of all the caprices of his own and of another's heart; shame before other people, above all before his uncle. He would have given a great deal to be able to hide it from him. Was it long—only three months back—since he had so proudly, so decisively forsworn love, had even written in verse an epitaph on this disturbing passion which his uncle had read, and had above all shown openly his contempt for women, and all at once he was again at a woman's feet

He would gladly have run away to avoid his new passion. But how could he run away ? What a contrast between his love for Nadinka and his love for Julia. His first love was nothing more than an unfortunate mistake of a heart which craved for food, and at that age the heart has so little

discrimination; it takes what comes first. But Julia ! she was not a capricious girl, who did not understand him, or herself, or love. She was a woman in full maturity, weak in body, but ardent in spirit—for love; she was all love ! She recognised no other conditions as needful for happiness and life. People say love is a pastime; no, it is a gift; and Julia had a genius for it. This was the love he had dreamed of—a love conscious, intelligent, but still overmastering, heeding nothing outside its own sphere. Like a rightful sovereign he had stepped proudly into possession of the wealth that was his heritage, and had been recognised with submissive loyalty. What consolation, what bliss, thought Alexandr to know that there is a being in the world, who, wherever she may be, whatever she may be doing, is remembering me, is bending all her thoughts, all her occupations, all her actions to one end and one idea—that of her beloved one ! It is like a second self. Whatever he hears or sees, whatever he comes near, or comes near him, every impression is confided to the other, his second self; the impression is shared by both, both teach each other, and then the impression confided in this way is received and imprinted on the soul in indelible characters. The second self would renounce her own sensations if they could not be shared or adopted by the other. She likes what the other likes, and hates what the other hates. They exist inseparably in one thought, one feeling; they have one spiritual sight, one hearing, one mind, one soul.

Julia loved Alexandr still more fervently than he did her.^ She was not even conscious of the full force of her passion, and did not meditate upon it. She was in love for the first time—that would have been nothing, for there is no real falling in love a second time—but the misfortune was that her heart had been over-developed to an impossible degree, cultivated by romances, and prepared not so much for first love as for that romantic passion which exists only . in some novels, not in nature, and which therefore is bound ■ always to be unhappy because it is not possible in fact. I She could never imagine a calm simple love without tempestuous demonstrations and excesses of tenderness.

Hence arose the romanticism, in which she created a world of her own. Directly anything in the real world was done not in accordance with the canons of her world, her

M

heart rose in revolt and she was wretched. Her feminine organisation, weak enough without this strain, endured a shock, often a very violent one. Repeated emotions shook her nerves, and at last reduced them to a state of complete derangement. This is the reason of the pensiveness and melancholy without cause, the pessimistic view of life in so many women; this is why the order of human existence, marvellously and harmoniously framed and carried on according to immutable laws, seems to them a heavy bondage ; in a word, this is why they are frightened by reality. ! She had been educated on French novels, music, and theatre going. At eighteen she had first tasted the sweet-i ness of Russian poetry and her imagination was in quest ^ i now of an Onegin, now of some hero of a masterpiece of I the new school—pale, melancholy, disillusioned.

When she had been displayed to the world in the drawing-rooms, with a constantly melancholy gaze, an interesting pallor, an ethereal shape, and slender foot, she attracted the notice of Taphaev, a man with every qualification of a suitor; that is to say, of respectable rank, good circumstances, with a decoration on his breast—in fact, with a career and a fortune.

The pale, melancholy girl, through some strange inconsistency in his robust temperament, made a strong impression on him. He retreated from the cards at evening parties and fell into unwonted reverie gazing at the half-ethereal shape that flitted before him. When her languid glance fell, of course accidentally, upon him, tried fencer in drawing-room conversation as he was, he grew abashed before the timid girl, attempted to say something to her sometimes and could not. This annoyed him and he resolved to act with more decision through the medium of several aunts.

His inquiries concerning her dowry seemed fairly satisfactory. " Why, we are well matched!" he argued with himself. " I am only forty-five, she is eighteen; with our fortunes more than two can live comfortably. As to externals she is rather pretty, and I am what is called presentable. Yes, we are a suitable match."

And so, directly Julia had emerged from childhood, there met her at the very first step a most grievous actuality—an ordinary husband ! How far removed he was from those heroes created for her by her fancy and the poets !

She had passed five years in this weary dream, as she called marriage without love, and suddenly freedom and love had appeared. She smiled and stretched out her arms to fold it in feverish embraces, and abandoned herself to her passion as a rider at a fast gallop abandons himself to his horse. He is borne along by the powerful beast, heedless of distance. Breathless, with all things racing past, with the wind blowing fresh in the face, the heart is almost overmastered by the voluptuous sensation. The romantic moment of life had come at last for her; she began to love that bitter-sweet shudder of the soul, to seek emotion for its own sake, to devise both torture and bliss for herself. She had become a slave to her passion, as men become the slaves of opium, and eagerly drank the sweet poison.

One evening Julia was already agitated by expectation. She stood at the window, and her impatience grew greater every minute. She was pulling a China rose to pieces and throwing the petals on to the ground in her vexation, but her heart failed her; it was one of her moments of torture. She played a mental game of question and answer; would he come or would he not, all the power of her mind was bent on solving that hard problem. If it gave an affirmative answer, she smiled, when it did not, she grew pale.

When Alexandr arrived, she had sunk pale and exhausted into an armchair, so powerfully her nerves wrought upon her. When he came up to her .... impossible to describe the look with which she met him, the rapture which lighted up every feature in an instant, as though they had not met for a year; though they had seen each other the evening before. Without speaking, she pointed to the clock on the wall; but he had hardly opened his lips to explain, before she accepted his words without listening to them and forgave him and, forgetting all the agony of suspense, gave him her hand, and they sat long talking and silently gazing at one another. Had not the servant reminded them, they would infallibly have forgotten to have dinner.

What blissfulness! Alexandr had never dreamed of such full perfection of " sincere outpourings of the heart." In the summer they took walks alone together out of the town; if people were thronging together anywhere attracted by music, or fireworks, they hovered afar off among the trees, walking hand in hand. In the winter Alexandr arrived at

A COMMON STORY

dinner-time and afterwards they sat side by side by the fire till midnight. Sometimes they ordered a sledge to be brought round, and after flying through the dark streets they hastened back to continue their unfinished conversation by the samovar. Everything that presented itself, every passing stir of thought or feeling—all was felt and done in common.

Alexandr feared meeting with his uncle above all things. He sometimes went to see Lizaveta Alexandrovna, but she never succeeded in moving him to confidences. He was always uneasy lest his uncle should appear and should make him figure in some scene of comedy again and so he always cut his visits short.

/ Was he happy ? Of other men in the like case one may answer yes and no at once, but of him one can only say no. With him love began with suffering. At moments when he succeeded in forgetting the past, he believed in the possibility of happiness, in Julia and in her love. At another time he would grow troubled in the midst of the fire of the most sincere outpourings, and would listen with apprehension to her passionate enthusiastic rhapsodies. He fancied that she must certainly change to him, or some other blow from destiny would lay waste his glorious world of bliss. Even while he was enjoying the moment of happiness, he knew that it must be bought with suffering, and melancholy took hold of him again.

The winter passed however, summer came, and his love still continued. Julia had become still more fervently devoted to him. There was no change on her part nor any blow from destiny; what did happen was altogether different His face grew more serene. He had grown used to the idea of the possibility of a permanent attachment. " Though this love is not now so passionate," he thought one day, as he looked at Julia, " yet in compensation it is lasting, perhaps eternal! Yes, there is no doubt of it. Ah, at last I understand thee, Destiny! Thou wouldst atone to me for my past sufferings and lead me, after long wanderings, into a quiet harbour at last. So here is the haven of happiness—Julia !" he cried aloud.

She started. • "What is it?" she asked.

" Nothing ! only—~ w

"Nothing! tell me; you had some idea." Aiexandr was obstinate. She continued to press him.

" I thought that to make our happiness complete there is wanting "

" What?" she asked with anxiety.

"Oh, nothing! an idea occurred to me." Julia was troubled.

" Ah ! don't torture me, tell me directly !" she said.

Aiexandr spoke musingly in an undertone as though to himself. "To gain the right, not to leave her for an instant, not to go away home—to be everywhere and always with her. To be her rightful protector before the eyes of the world .... she to call me hers aloud, without blushing or turning pale .... and to be so all our lives, and to take pride in it for ever."

Speaking in this lofty strain, a word at a time, he at last reached the word marriage. Julia trembled, then burst into tears.

She gave him her hand with a feeling of unutterable tenderness and gratitude, and they both revived and both began talking at once. It was decided that Aiexandr should talk to his aunt and beg for her aid in this complicated matter.

They did not know what to do for joy. It was a glorious, lovely evening. They started off to a place out of town, a wood, and succeeding after much pains in finding a little hillock, where they sat the whole evening looking at the setting sun, and fancying their future way of life, they made plans to limit themselves to a narrow circle of acquaintances and not to waste their time in useless visiting.

They then returned home and began to discuss the future arrangement of their house, the distribution of their rooms, and so on. They got as far as furnishing them. Aiexandr proposed to turn her dressing-room into his study so that it might be near their bedroom.

" What kind of furniture would you like in the study ? " she said.

" I should like walnut-wood with blue velvet draperies." "That would be pretty and would not get dirty; one must be sure to choose dark colours for a man's study; light colours are so soon spoiled by smoking. But here, in the little passage which leads from your future study to the bedroom, I will arrange a conservatory—won't it be lovely ?

There I shall place one easy-chair, so that I could sit there to read or work and see you in the study."

"I shall not have to part from you much longer/' said Alexandr at parting.

She put her hand over his mouth.

The next day Alexandr set off to see Lizaveta Alex-androvna, to disclose to her what she had long been aware of, and to beg her advice and assistance; begging her, till the matter was concluded, not to say a word about it to Piotr Ivanitch.

The summer was quickly over, and the dull autumn too dragged slowly to an end. Another winter had began. Adouev's visits to Julia were still as frequent.

It seemed as though she kept a strict account of the days, hours, and minutes which could possibly be spent together. She let no opportunity pass.

"Shall you start early for the office to-morrow?" she would ask sometimes.

"At eleven."

" Then come to me at ten; we will have breakfast together. But could not you stay away altogether. As though they could not do without you !"

"What? duty to one's country," Alexandr would begin.

" A fine idea! Vou must say that you love and are beloved./ Can it be that your chief has never loved ? If he has a heart, he will understand or bring your work here; who hinders you from working here ? "

Another time she would not let him go to the theatre, and as for seeing friends, she almost always absolutely prevented it. When Lizaveta Alexandrovna came to call on her, for long after Julia could not get over the discovery that Alexandras aunt was so young and handsome. She had imagined her as an aunt after her own fancy, elderly and plain, like the majority of aunts, and here, if you please, was, a woman of six or seven and twenty and a beauty ! She had a scene with Alexandr, and from that time permitted him very rarely to go to his uncle's !

But what was her jealousy and tyranny compared with Alexandr's tyrannising ! He was by now convinced of her attachment and saw that her nature did not admit of change or diminution of feeling and still .... was jealous; and what a

jealousy! It was not the jealousy that comes of too much love—the jealousy of tears and sighs and complaint springing from the pangs of a heart that dreads to lose its happiness—no, it was a hard, cold, cruel jealousy. He tyrannised over the poor woman from love more than others would have done through hate. He would fancy, for instance, some evening, in the presence of guests, that she did not look long and tenderly or often enough at him, and then, if there were any young man near Julia, or even not a young man, simply a man, or a woman, sometimes even a thing, then woe betide her! Insult, bitterness, the blackest scorn and reproach were showered upon her. Then she was forced to exculpate herself and to make atonement by various sacrifices and unqualified submission; she had to give up speaking with this person, give up staying in one place, give up going to another, to put up with the significant smiles and whispers of the slily observant, to blush, to grow pale, to be compromised.

If she received an invitation to go anywhere, before replying she would turn a questioning look on him, and he need only frown for her to decline instantly, pale and trembling. Sometimes he would give her permission—she would prepare, be dressed and ready to get into the carriage —when suddenly, from some caprice of the moment, he would pronounce a threatening veto ! and she would take off her things and countermand the carriage. Afterwards he would, very likely, begin to beg her forgiveness, and offer to go, but too late to dress and order the carriage again. So it had to be given up. He was jealous not only of handsome or intelligent or talented people, but even of the most unattractive, and at last simply of those whose faces he did not like.

But Julia put up with it all. She cut herself off from friends, never went out anywhere, and sat alone with Alex-andr. They went on—now of set design—living upon their bliss. Having come to the end of all the natural ordinary delights, she began to devise fresh ones, to diversify that world which is rich enough in pleasures without such aid. What an inventive faculty Julia displayed! But even that power was exhausted. Repetitions were reached. There was nothing left to desire or to experience.

They had learnt each other's feelings, ways of think-

m & powers and limitations, and nothing now hindered them from carrying out the plan they had formed.

Sincere outpourings grew less frequent. They sometimes sat for hours together without saying a word. But Julia was happy even in silence. At times she would address Alexandr with a question and receive a " yes " or " no " and be content; if she did not receive even this, she would fasten her eyes upon him; he would smile, and she would be happy again. If he did not smile nor make any reply, she would begin to watch every movement, every look, and interpret it in her own way, and then reproaches would follow.

They had ceased talking of the future because Alexandr was conscious on that subject of an embarrassment, a discomfort which he could not explain to himself and he tried to change the conversation. He began to ponder, to grow thoughtful. The magic circle in which his life was enclosed by love was broken through in places, and the faces of his friends appeared to him from afar, together with a whole sequence of stormy dissipation; at times brilliant balls with crowds of pretty girls, at other times his ever-occupied and busy uncle, his own neglected pursuits.

In such a mood he was sitting one evening at Julia's. There was a snowstorm outside. The snow drifted on the window and stuck in frozen lumps on the panes.

The wind rushed up the chimney and whistled mournfully. In the room the only sound was the monotonous ticking of the clock on the table and now and then a sigh from Julia.

Alexandr, from want of anything to do, cast a glance round the room, then looked at the clock—ten, and he would have to stay another two hours; he yawned. His eyes rested on Julia.

She stood leaning with her back to the fireplace; her white face bent over her shoulder, and followed Alexandr with her eyes, but not with an expression of doubt or interrogation, but one of tenderness, love and happiness. It was clear that she was struggling against a secret emotion, with some dream of sweetness, and she seemed worn out by it.

Her nerves wrought so powerfully upon her that even the thrill of tenderness itself reacted on her with the exhaustion of illness; torture and bliss were inseparable for her.

Alexandr responded with a cold uneasy stare. He went up to the windows and began to drum lightly on the pane with his finger, looking into the street.

From the street a mingled sound of voices and the rattle of carriages reached them. At all the windows were bright lights and flitting shadows. He fancied that where the light was brightest there was a lively party assembled ; there, most likely, there was a lively interchange of thoughts and ardent, versatile feelings, there life was noisy and merry. And over there at that dimly lighted window no doubt some noble, hardworking man was sitting busily occupied. And Alexandr began to reflect that for two years now he had been dragging on an indolent, senseless existence—two years gone from the sum-total of life—and all through love ! Here he began an onslaught on love.

" And what a love !" he thought, " a sleepy, spiritless sort of love. This woman gave way to her feelings without a struggle, without an effort, without opposition, like an unresisting victim. A weak woman, lacking character, she would have bestowed her love on the first man who came across her; if it had not been me, she would have loved Surkoff exactly the same, indeed she had already begun to love him. Yes, it's no good for her to justify herself, I saw it! If some one had appeared a little more adroit and active than I, she would have yielded to him; it's simply immorality ! Is that love ? Where is the sympathy of souls of which sentimental people are always preaching? and what an a ffinity of souj s there seemed to be in our case! it seemed as L tfiough they would be one for ever, and what has it come to ? Devil knows what it is, there's no understanding it!" he muttered with irritation.

"What are you doing there? what are you thinking about ? " asked Julia.

" Oh, nothing !" he said yawning, and sat down on the sofa rather further from her, clutching with one hand a corner of the embroidered cushion.

" Sit here, closer."

He did not move, and made no answer.

" What is the matter with you?" she said, going up to him ; "you are unbearable to-day."

" I don't know," he said drowsily; " I'm somehow—as if I "

He did not know what answer to make to her and to himself. He had not yet made thoroughly clear to himself what was happening to him.

*She sat down near him, began to talk of the future, and by degrees grew animated. She drew a happy picture of family life, jestingly for a little time, but with a very tender conclusion.

"You—my husband! look," she said, pointing round, A " so on all this will be yours. Y ou will be the mas ter here

in the house, as you are already in my heart. Now I am incIependefiV 1 "Can-do what I like, and go wherever I please, but then nothing here can stir from its place without your permission; I myself shall be in bondage to your will. What a sweet slavery ! Rivet the chains as soon as may be; when is it to be ?

" All my life I dreamed of such a man, of such a love, and now my dream has come true, and happiness is near. I can scarcely believe it. Do you know it seems like a dream to me. Is it not a recompense for all my past sufferings ? "

^was torture to Alexandr to listen to these words.

u But suppose I got tired of you ? " he asked suddenly, j trying to give a jesting accent to his voice.

r " I should box your ears," she said, pinching his ear;then she sighed and grew pensive even at the suggestion in jest. He did not speak.

" But what's the matter with you ? " she asked suddenly and insistently; " you don't speak, you scarcely hear what I say, you look away."

Then she moved up to him and, laying her hand on his shoulder, began to speak softly, almost in a whisper, on the same subject, but not so positively. She recalled the beginning of their intimacy, the beginning of their love, her first feelings and first happiness. She almost fainted from the tenderness of her emotion; and in her pale cheeks there were two spots of crimson, which by degrees grew hot, her eyes glowed, then grew languid and half-closed ; her bosom heaved. She spoke hardly audibly, and with one hand played with Alexandr's soft hair, then looked straight into his eyes. He gently disengaged his head from her hand, drew a comb out of his pocket, and carefully combed the locks she had ruffled. She got up and looked fixedly at him.

"What is the matter with you, Alexandr?" she said uneasily.

" There she is at it again ! how can I tell ? " he thought, but did not speak.

" Are you bored ? " she said, and in her voice was a tone of question and of doubt.

" Bored !" he thought, " the word is found! Yes, it's terrible deadly boredom! that's the worm which has been gnawing at my heart for months. Good God, what am I to do? and she talks of love, of marriage. How can I undeceive her!"

She sat down to the piano and began to play some of his favourite pieces. He did not listen, but kept thinking his own thoughts.

Julia let her hands fall. She sighed, wrapped herself in a shawl, and flung herself into the other corner of the sofa, and from there watched Alexandr with mournful eyes.

He took up his hat.

" Where are you going ? " she said with surprise.

" Home/'

" It is not eleven o'clock yet."

" I have to write to mamma; I haven't written to her for a long while."

" A long while! you wrote the day before yesterday." He did not speak ; there was nothing for him to say. He really had written and had incidentally mentioned it to her at the time, but had forgotten it; but love does not forget the smallest detail. In the eyes of love everything which relates to the beloved object is a fact of importance. A complex web is woven in a lover's mind from observations, subtle imaginations, recollections, and surmises about everything which surrounds the beloved, which takes place in his sphere, or has any bearing upon him. One word, a hint—no need of a hint! a glance, a scarcely perceptible movement of the lips—is enough for love to found a conjecture on, then to pass from it to imagination, and thence to a decisive conclusion, and then to suffer torture or to be blissful in his own thoughts. The logic of lovers, sometimes false, sometimes amazingly correct, quickly builds up an edifice of conjectures and suspicions, but the strength of love still more quickly levels it to the ground; often a single

smile is enough for this, a tear, two or three words, and the suspicions are gone.

This kind of supervision there is no means of lulling to sleep or deceiving. The lover at one time suddenly takes some idea into his head which no one else would have thought of in his wildest dreams, at another time he fails to see what is taking place under his nose ; at one time acute to clairvoyance, at another_shor>sighted to blindness.,

Julia leaped up from the sofa, like a cat and seized him by the hand.

"What does it mean? where are you going?" she asked.

" Nothing, nothing, I assure you; there, I simply want to go to bed; I have had too little sleep lately: that's all"

"Too little sleep! when you told me only this morning that you had had nine hours' sleep, and that you even had a headache from too much sleep ? "

Unlucky again.

"Well, my head does ache," he said, a little taken aback, " and that's why I am going."

" But after dinner you said your headache had gone."

" Good Heavens, what a memory you have ! It's unbearable ! Very well, I simply want to go home."

" Aren't you comfortable here ? What have you there, at home?"

Looking him in the eyes, she shook her head incredulously. He succeeded somehow in quieting her and went away.

" What if I don't go to Julia's to-day ? " was the question Alexandr put to himself when he waked up the next morning.

He paced three times up and down the room. " I declare I won't go !" he announced resolutely.

"Yevsay, bring me my things." And he went out to stroll about the town.

" How nice, how jolly it is to be walking alone!" he thought; " to go wherever one pleases, to stop to read the sign-boards, to look into the shop windows, to walk to and fro—it's really very pleasant! Freedom is a precious thing! Yes ! that's just it; freedom in a broad high sense means —walking alone !"

He tapped with his stick on the pavement, and gaily

greeted his acquaintance. As he walked down the Morskaya Street, he saw a face he knew at the window of one of the houses. His acquaintance beckoned to him to come in. He looked and saw it was the Duomo and went in, dined there and stayed till the evening; in the evening he set off for the theatre and from the theatre to supper. He tried not to remember home at all; he knew what was awaiting him there.

As he anticipated on his return he found some half-a-dozen notes on the table and a page asleep in the hall. The boy had been ordered not to go away till he had seen him. The notes were full of reproaches, questions and traces of tears. The next day he had to go and make his excuses. He talked about business at the office. They arrived at some sort of a reconciliation.

Every three days, the same thing was repeated in one direction or another. And so again and again. Julia began to grow thinner, never went out and saw no one, but she said nothing, for Alexandr was irritated by reproaches.

A fortnight later Alexandr had arranged to spend the day with friends, but in the morning he received a note from Julia, begging him to spend the whole day with her and to come rather earlier. She wrote that she was ill and in low spirits, that her nerves were out of order, &c. He was irritated; however, he went to inform her that he could not stay with her, that he had a lot of business to attend to.

"Oh, of course: a dinner at the theatre, tobogganing— very important business," she said languidly.

" What does that mean ? " he asked, with annoyance; " so, you spy upon me, it seems; that I won't put up with."

He got up and was going.

" Stop a minute, listen !" she said, " I have something to say."

" Fve no time."

" One minute; sit down."

Unwillingly he sat down on the edge of a chair.

Clasping her hands she gazed uneasily at him, as though she were trying first to read on his face the answer to what she wanted to ask.

He writhed in his seat from impatience.

" Make haste! I've no time to spare!" drily.

She sighed. *

" You don't love me then ? * she asked, with a slight movement of the head.

"The old story!" he said, stroking his hat with his hands.

" How sick you are of it!" she answered.

He got up and with rapid strides began to walk up and down the room. In an instant a sob was heard.

" That is all that was wanting!" he said almost violently, standing still near her, " you have tortured me enough !"

u I torture you !" she cried, and sobbed the more.

"It's unendurable!" said Alexandr, getting ready to

go.

" There, I won't, I won't!" she said, hurriedly wiping away her tears; " see, I am not crying, only don't go away, sit down."

^Sne tried to smile, but the tears would still trickle down her cheeks. Alexandr felt sorry for her. He sat down and swung his legs. He began to put question after question to / himself, and arrived at the conclusion that h e had grown ^ L cold and did not l o ve Ju lia. But why ? God only knows! She loved him more passionately every day; was it not because of that ? Good Heavens, what an irony of fate! All the conditions of happiness were there. There was no obstacle to hinder them, there was not even any other feeling to draw him away, yet he had grown cold! Oh, life ! But how should he soothe Julia ? Was he to sacrifice himself? to drag through a long wearisome existence with her; to play a part he could not, but not to play a part would mean every minute to see tears, to hear reproaches, to torture her and himself. .... Should he begin to explain to her at once his uncle's theories about the changeable nature of the feelings—a likely idea! she was weeping already, when she knew nothing—but there! What was to be done ?

Julia, seeing that he did not speak, took his hand and gazed into his eyes. He slowly turned away and gently disengaged his hand. He not only felt no attraction, but at her touch a cold and unpleasant shiver ran through his frame. She redoubled her caresses. He did not respond to them, and grew even more cold and sullen. She suddenly snatched her hand away from him and grew crimson. Womanly pride, outraged self-love, shame were stirred in

her. She raised her head, drew herself up, and blushed from vexation.

" Leave me!" she said in broken tones.

He went off at once without any kind of reply. But as the sound of his steps began to die away she rushed after him !

"Alexandr Fedoritch! Alexandr Fedoritch!" she cried.

He came back.

" Where are you going ? "

" Why, you just told me to go."

" And you were glad to escape. Stop!"

" I've no time ! "

She took him by the hand, and again melted into tender, tearful words and prayers. He showed no sympathy in look, or word, or gesture, but stood as though he were made of wood, shifting from one leg to the other. His coldness drove her to frenzy. Threats and reproaches were showered on him. Who would have recognised in her the gentle, nervous woman? Her hair fell down in disorder, her eyes glowed with feverish brilliance, her cheeks were flushed, her features were strangely distorted—" How ugly s he is ! " thought Alexandr, looking at her with a grimace.

" 1 will be revenged on you !" sne said. a Do you think [ you can so easily trifle with a woman's destiny ? and you shall see what I will do! you will be sick of your life!

How consoling now to hear of your ruin I could kill

you myself!" she shrieked wildly, furiously.

" How stupid it is, how absurd!" thought Alexandr, shrugging his shoulders.

Seeing that Alexandr remained unmoved by her threats, she suddenly changed to a gentle, pathetic tone, then gazed silently at him.

" Have pity on me !" she began to say ; "don't cast me aside; what can I do now without you ? I could not bear separation. I should die! Think a little: women love very differently from men; more tenderly, more passionately. For them love is everything; and especially is it so for me; other women like flirtation, society, bustle and activity; I was never suited for that—mine is a different character. I love quiet, solitude, books, music, and you more than everything in the world."

u-"

Alexandr showed his impatience.

" Very well! you do not love me," she went on more quickly, "but fulfil your promise; marry me, only be mine* you shall be free: do what you like, even love whom you like, if only I may sometimes—now and then—see you. Oh, for God's sake, pity me, pity me !"

She burst into tears and could not go on. Her emotion had exhausted her; she fell on to the sofa, her eyes closed and her teeth clenched, while her mouth worked convulsively. She fell into hysterics. An hour later she recovered and came to herself. Her maid was bustling about near her. She looked round. "But where?" .... she asked.

" He has gone away ! "

" Gone away!" she repeated dejectedly, and sat a long while silent and motionless.

The next day note after note was despatched to Alexandr. He did not make his appearance nor send any answer. The third and the fourth day it was the same. Julia wrote to Piotr Ivanitch, and asked him to come to her about important business; his wife she did not like, because she was young and handsome, and happened to be Alexandras aunt.

Piotr Ivanitch found her seriously ill, almost at death's door. He set off to see Alexandr.

" What a hypocrite ! fie !" he said.

" How so! " said Alexandr.

" Just look at him, as though it were no concern of his ! He does not know how to make a woman love him indeed ! why, he's driven her wild about him !"

" I don't understand, uncle "

" What is there you don't understand ? you understand well enough! I have been at Madame Taphaev's; she has told me all."

"What!" stammered Alexandr in violent confusion. " She has told you all! '*

"Yes, all. How she loves you ! You lucky fellow ! Well, you were always lamenting that you could not find passion; here you have passion; b6 comforted ! "

" What did you go to see her about ? "

" She asked me, and complained to me of you. Certainly I wonder you're not ashamed to neglect her like this ? for four days you have not set eyes on her .... it's no

joking matter. She is pale, dying ! Come, go directly to her."

" What did you say to her ? "

" Oh, the ordinary things, that you, too, love her to distraction, that you have long been seeking a sympathetic heart; that you are passionately fond of sincere outpourings ; and that you, too, cannot live without love. I said that she was uneasy without cause; that you would come back. I advised her not to coop you up too much, to let you amuse yourself a little sometimes, else, I told her, you will begin to bore each other—in fact, what is usually said on such occasions. I cheered her up so that she proceeded to tell me you had decided to be married, that my wife had already helped in the matter. But never a word to me—these women ! Well, thank God she has something of her own ; you can spend it between you. I told her that you would

certainly carry out your engagement I did my best for

you just now, Alexandr, in gratitude for the service you did me. I convinced her that you love so passionately, so tenderly. ,,

" What have you done, uncle!" said Alexandr, changing countenance. " I—I don't love her any more ! I don't want to marry her ! I feel cold to her, as cold as ice ! I'd sooner drown myself than "

" Pooh, pooh !" said Piotr Ivanitch, with simulated incredulity ; " is it you I am listening to ? Didn't you say—do you remember ?—that you despise human nature, especially feminine human nature; that there was no heart in the world deserving of you? What more did you say? Let me remember "

" For Heaven's sake, not a word more, uncle; that is reproach enough; what need to moralise farther ? Do you think I don't understand. O man, man !"

He suddenly began to laugh, and his uncle joined in.

" Weil, that's better !" said Piotr Ivanitch; " I said you would come to laugh at yourself, and here "

And both laughed again.

" But I say," Piotr Ivanitch went on, " what is your opinion now of that—what's-her-name—Pashenka, was it ?—with the wart ? "

" Uncle that's not magnanimous."

N

" No; I only speak of it to discover whether you still despise her just the same ? "

" Stop that, for Heaven's sake, and help me instead to get out of an awful position. You are so sensible, so judicious "

" Oh, now for compliments and flattery ! No, you get along and marry her."

" Not for anything, uncle! I entreat you, aid me."

" Come, don't worry; I have helped you already," said his uncle. "Don't be uneasy; Madame Taphaev will not trouble you further."

" What have you done ? What have you told her ? "

"It's too long to repeat, Alexandr; it would be tedious."

" But most likely you have been saying all sorts of things to her. She will hate and despise me."

" What does it matter to you ? I quieted her—that was enough ; I told her that you weren't capable of love; that it wasn't worth while troubling about you."

" What did she say ? "

"She is positively glad now that you have deserted her."

" What! glad!" said Alexandr gloomily.

"Yes, glad."

"Did you notice no regret, no grief in her? was she indifferent ? This is beyond everything."

He began to pace the room uneasily.

" Glad, calm !" he repeated; " that's a nice idea! I will go to her this instant."

" Here's a man !" observed Piotr Ivanitch, " this is the heart; you may live among men—you will be all right But were you not afraid of her sending for you ? did you not beg for assistance ? and now you are upset because she isn't dying of grief at being separated from you."

" How mean I am, how worthless !" said Alexandr, falter-ingly ; " I have no heart! I am pitiful, base in spirit!"

" And all through love!" interposed Piotr Iv anitch . " Such a stupid pursuit; leave it to fellows like £iirkol But you are a sensible boy; you might busy yourself-wtth something of more consequence. You have done enough running after women."

" But you love your wife, I suppose ? "

" Yes, of course. I am very well suited to her, but it

does not prevent me from doing my work. Well, good-bye,

come in."

Alexandr sat perplexed and gloomy. Yevsay stole up to him with a boot, into which he thrust his hand.

" Kindly look at it, sir," he said tenderly, " what blacking! you can shine it like a mirror, but it costs only sixpence !"

Alexandr started, looked mechanically at the boot, then at Yevsay.

" Get away !" he said, " you idiot!"

" We ought to send some to the country," Yevsay began again.

" Get away, I tell you, go away ! " shrieked Alexai almost in tears ; " you bother me ... . you and youi/fioog will worry me into my grave .... you're .... a savage!"

Yevsay quickly vanished into the ante-room.

CHAPTER X.

" Why is it Alexandr does not come to see us ? I haven't seen him these three months," said Piotr Ivanitch to his wife as he came home one day.

" I have quite given up the idea of ever seeing him," she replied.

" Why, what's the matter with him ? Is he in love again, or what ? "

" I don't know."

" Is he quite well ? "

" Yes."

" Please write to him that I want to have a little conversation with him. There will be changes among them at his office again, and I fancy he does not know it.«, I don't understand such carelessness."

" I have written and invited him ten times already. He says he has no time, but all the same he plays draughts with some queer companions and goes out angling. You had better go yourself; you would find out what's wrong with him."

" What is he up to now ? There is no help for it, I will go. But it's the last time, I declare."

Piotr Ivanitch, too, found Alexandr on the sofa. On his uncle's entrance he got up and took a seat.

" Are you unwell ? " inquired Piotr Ivanitch.

" So, so/' replied Alexandr, yawning.

" What are you doing ? "

" Nothing."

" And you can exist without doing anything ? "

" Yes."

" I've been told to-day, Alexandr, that Ivanoff is leaving your department!"

" Yes, he's leaving."

" Who will succeed him ? "

" They say Ichenko."

" And what about you ? "

" They don't think enough of me. And probably I am not fitted for it."

" Good Heavens, Alexandr, you must bestir yourself. You ought to go and see the director."

" No," said Alexandr, shaking his head.

u But this is now the third time you've been passed over."

" I don't care ; so be it."

" Come, think a little, what will you say when your former subordinate begins to give you orders, or when he comes in and you have to get up and salute him ? "

" Why, I shall get up and salute him."

" But your self-respect ? "

" I have none."

" But you have some interests of some kind in life ? "

" None at all. I had and they are over."

"That cannot be; one set of interests replaces another. Why are they over for you, and not over for other people ? It would be rather early for that, I should say ; you are not yet thirty."

Alexandr shrugged his shoulders.

u Do remember that you, like every one else, ought to make for yourself a career of some kind. Do you sometimes think of that ? "

" Of course I I have made it already."

" How so ? "

" I have marked out for myself a sphere of activity and I don't wish to go beyond it. I am a householder here ; that's my career. 1 am fed and clothed; I have enough for that."

"And very badly clothed now," remarked his uncle. " And is that all you want ? "

« Yes, all."

" But the attraction of intellectual and spiritual pleasures, and art?" Piotr Ivanitch was beginning mimicking Alexandra intonation. " You might go forwards; yours is a higher vocation; your duty summons you to noble activity. And your strivings for what is higher—have you forgotten ? "

" Confound them ! " said Alexandr uneasily. " You too, uncle have begun to be high-flown. This never attacked you before. Isn't it for my benefit ? It's trouble thrown away ! I did strive for something .... do you recollect what came ofit?"

" I remember that you wanted to be a minister all of a sudden, and then an author. Still you have proved that you can work and be something in time. But it's long and weary waiting, we want it all at once; we don't succeed, and we lose heart"

"But I don't want to strive for something higher. I have found a place for myself, and I shall stay there for ever. I have found some simple, unsophisticated people; it's no matter that they're limited in intellect. I play draughts and go fishing with them—and it's capital! Let me be punished, as you consider, for it, let me be deprived of rewards, honour, money, a higher vocation—and all that you are so in love with. I have renounced for ever "

"You want, Alexandr, to pretend to be contented and indifferent to everything, but your vexation effervesces even in your words; you are speaking as though with tears instead of words. You are full of bitterness; you don't know what to vent it on, because you alone are to blame."

" So be it! " said Alexandr.

Piotr Ivanitch looked at him without speaking. He had_ g rown thin again. His eyes were sunk en. On his cheeks and brows premature wnnkles were visible.

His uncle was alarmed. Spiritual suffering he scarcely believed in, but he was afraid that the beginning of some physical disease lay hid under this exhaustion. " I declare," he thought, " the boy is going out of his mind, and then to break it to his mother; what a correspondence ! she would be certain to come up here too."

" Come in and see us," he said; " my wife is very anxious to see you."

" I can't, uncle."

" Is it nice of you to forget her ? "

" Perhaps it's very nasty of me, but, for goodness* sake, excuse me and don't expect me now. Wait a little while longer, I will come."

"Well, as you please," said Piotr Ivanitch. With a wave of the hand he went off home.

He told his wife he gave up Alexandr and that he must do as he likes—that he, Piotr Ivanitch, had done all he could, and now washed his hands of him.

After his rupture with Julia, Alexandr had flung himself into a whirl of riotous amusements.

In a little while his freedom with noisy festivities and a life without care made him forget Julia and his troubles. But all this constant repetition of suppers at restaurants, with the same blear-eyed faces, of the stupid and drunken talk of his companions day after day, with his stomach constantly out of order into the bargain—no, this was not to his taste. The delicate organisation of body and soul in Alexandr, attuned to a note of melancholy and pathos, could not endure these dissipations.

He shut himself up alone in his room, in solitude with his forgotten books. But his book fell out of his hands, and his pen refused to obey the breath of inspiration. Schiller, Goethe, Byron showed him the dark side of mankind; the bright side he did not notice—that he had not attained to.

But how happy he had been at times in that room ! he had not been alone then; a vision of splendour had been near him then, by day it had beckoned him to earnest work, by night it had kept watch over his pillow. Dreams had been his companions in those days, the future had been clothed in mist, but not a gloomy mist presaging storm, but the mist of morning veiling the brilliance of dawn. Behind this mist something was hidden, doubtless, happiness. But now, not his room only, but the whole world was empty for him, and within himself all was chill dreariness.

Looking at life, questioning his heart and his head, he perceived with horror that there was neither within or without a single ideal left nor a single bright hope; all now lay

behind him ; the mist had parted ; behind it stretched the desert of bald reality. Good Heavens! what an immense void ! what a dreary comfortless prospect 1

The past was over, the future was ruined, happiness was not; all had been a dream, and still he had to live !

What he wanted he did not know himself; but how much he did not want!

His head seemed as though it were in a fog. He did not sleep, but seemed in a lethargy. Disquieting thoughts were drawn out in an unending series in his brain. He thought: "what could attract him? Seductive hope, happy heedlessness, was no more! he knew all that was before him. Success, a struggle along the path that leads to honour? What was there in that for him? Was it worth while for twenty or thirty years to fight like a fish against the ice ? And would it cheer his heart ? A consolation truly to the spirit for a few men to bow low to one while they are cursing one very likely in their hearts!

What of love ? Ah, that was worse! He knew it by heart, and had lost even the power of loving. And as though in irony his memory officiously recalled to him Nadinka, not the innocent, simple-hearted Nadinka—that was never recalled to him—but invariably Nadinka the traitress, with all her surroundings : the trees, the little path, the flowers, and among all this the wily one, with the smile he knew so well, with her blush of shame and passion—and all for another, not for him !

With a frown he clutched at his heart. He believed in no one and nothing, and never forgot himself in enjoyment; he tasted pleasure as a man without appetite tastes dainties, coldly, knowing that satiety presses close upon it, that nothing can ever fill up the void in his heart; that if one trusts oneself to passion, it will deceive one and only agitate the heart, and add fresh wounds to the old ones. When he saw people united by love forgetting everything in their happiness, he smiled ironically and thought: "Wait a little, you will change your minds."

He dreaded feeling a desire, knowing that often at the moment of attaining what one desires, Fate snatches happiness out of one's hands, and substitutes something altogether

different, some wretched thing which one does not want at all, and if in the end it does grant one's desire, it first tortures, wearies out, and degrades one in one's eyes, and then throws it as men throw sop to a dog after just making him crawl to the dainty morsel, look at it, balance it on his nose, roll it in the dust, stand on his hind paws and then— good dog, have it!

He dreaded the periodical interchange of happiness and unhappiness in life. He foresaw no pleasures, but pain was always inevitably before one; there was no escaping that— all men were subject to that general law; to all, as he thought, there were allotted equal parts of pain and happiness. Happiness was over for him ; and what kind of happiness was it? A phantom, a cheat. Only pain was real, and that was all before him. There were sickness and old age, and losses and perhaps even want. All these strokes of destiny, as his auntie in the country called them, were in store for him ; and what were the compensations ? His high poetic vocation had forsaken him ; they impose a wearisome burden on him, and call it duty! All that is left him are the pitiful rewards—money, comfort, rank. Confound them!

So he brooded in melancholy, and saw no outlet from this slough of doubt.

His despair drew the tears from his eyes—'tears of mortification, envy, ill-will to all men—the bitterest of tears. He felt acute regret that he had not listened to his moth er, an d jiad ever left his obscure Country place.

il My moFherTiacTa presentiment at heart of sorrow \ n cpme, M he thought; " there these unquiet moods would have slept an eternal sleep; there there would have been none of the troubled ferment of this complex life. There, too, all the human passions and feelings would have come to me; vanity and pride and ambition—all would have occupied my thoughts on a small scale within the narrow limits of the district, and all would have been satisfied. The first in the district. Yes, all is relative. The divine spark of heavenly fire which in greater or less degree burns in all of us, would have shone there unseen in me, and would quickly have been extinguished in a life of indolence, or would have passed into the warmth of attachment to wife and children. Existence would not hav« been polluted. I

tamm

should have pursued my way proudly; the path of life would have been easy: it would have seemed simple and comprehensible to me; life would have been within my powers : I should not have come into conflict with it. And love ? It would have blossomed happily and have filled my whole life. Sophia would have gone on loving me tranquilly. I should not have lost faith in anything, I should have picked the roses without recognising the thorns, without knowing anything of jealousy for want of a rival! Why was I so blindly and overmasteringly drawn to what was far off and obscure, to unequal and uncertain conflict with destiny ? And how well I understood men and life in those days! There I should have understood them still as well without an inkling of anything. I expected so much of life there, and without a persistent analysis of it I should have been expecting something of it still even up to now. How many treasures I discovered in my soul ; what has become of them ? I have bartered them with the world, I have given away the sincerity of my heart, my first innermost passion ; and what have I received for it ? a bitter disillusionment. I have learnt that all is a cheat, all is transitory, that one cannot depend either on oneself or on others, and I have begun to be afraid of others and of myself. And in the midst of this analysis I cannot acknowledge the pettiness of life and yet be contented, like my uncle and many others. And that's my present position !"

Now he desired only one thing—forgetfulness of the past, tranquillity, the slumber of the soul. He grew more and more indifferent to life, and looked at everything with drowsy eyes. From crowds of people and the noise of assemblies he found only ennui, and he fled from them, but ennui followed him.

He was amazed that people could be light-hearted and incessantly occupy themselves with something or other, and everyday be attracted by fresh interests. It seemed strange to him that all men did not go about as wearily as he, did not weep, and did not—instead of chattering about the weather—talk of their pain and their respective sufferings— if they did talk of it, it was always of a pain in their legs or some other part, rheumatism or some such ailment. They were only anxious about their body—as for their soul—it was never even mentioned ! " Empty, wretched creatures—

animals!" he thought. Yet sometimes he fell to pondering deeply. "There are so many of them, these wretched creatures," he said to himself with some uneasiness, " and I am only one; can it be—all of them are empty—wrong— and I?"

Then it struck him that it might almost be that he alone -^ was to blame, and this made him even more unhappy.

His old acquaintances he ceased to visit; meeting new faces chilled him. After his conversation with his uncle, he sank into still deeper lethargy ; his soul was wrapped in complete slumber. He fell into a kind of stony indifference, lived in indolence, and obstinately cut himself off from everything that even reminded him of the civilised world.

" What does it matter how one lives so long as one lives!" he said. " Every one is free to take life as he likes, and then to die."

He sought the society of men of sour turn of mind, of embittered feelings, and found relief for his heart in listening to their spiteful epigrams on destiny; or wasted his time with people inferior to him both in intelligence and education, most frequently of all with Kostyakoff, the old man whom Zayeshaloff had tried to introduce to riotr Ivanitch. Kostyakoff lived in Peskae, and walked about the street there in a shiny cap and a dressing-gown, tied round the waist with a pocket-handkerchief. With him lived a cook with whom he used to play cribbage in the evening.

If a fire broke out, he was the first man to be on the spot and the last to go away. If he passed by a church where a funeral service was being conducted, he would force his way through the crowd to take a look at the face of the corpse, and then would proceed to follow the funeral to the cemetery.

He was devoted to ceremonies of every kind, whether mournful or festive in character; he liked also to be present at any extraordinary events, such as street brawls, fatal accidents, roofs falling in, &c, and read with peculiar enjoyment the account of such occurrences in the newspapers. Besides this, he used to read medical books, " so as to know what is in man/ he used to say. In the winter Alexandr used to play draughts with him, and in the summer he used to make excursions out of town to go fishing with him. The old man would talk of one thing and another. When

they went into a field, he talked of the crop and of sowing; on the bank of the river he talked of fish, of navigation; in the street, he made remarks about the houses, about architecture, and building materials and rents .... no abstract ideas of any kind. He looked on life as a good thing if he had money, and vice versd. Such a man was quite without danger for Alexandr; he could not awaken any spiritual emotion.

Alexandr tried as zealously to mortify the spiritual element in himself as hermits try to mortify the flesh. At the office he was silent; if he met acquaintances he exchanged two or three words and, on the pretext of want of time, made his escape. His friend Kostyakoff, however, he saw every day. Sometimes the old man would spend the whole day at Adouev's, sometimes he would invite him home to eat cabbage soup. He had already taught Alexandr to make beverages and to cook pickled cabbage and tripe. Later they would set off together somewhere in the surrounding neighbourhood to the open country. Kostyakoff had many acquaintances everywhere. With the peasants, he would talk about their way of living, with the women he would joke, and was precisely the merry fellow that Zayeshaloff had eulogised him for being. Alexandr gave him full liberty to talk, but for his part was mostly silent.

He already felt that ideas of the world he had abandoned visited him less frequently, moved more slowly through his head, and meeting nothing to reflect them or resist them in his surroundings, did not find utterance and died away without coming to anything. His soul was in as wild and sterile a condition as an overgrown garden. He had still not quite attained the state of complete petrifaction. A few months more, and it would be over! But this is what happened.

One day Alexandr had gone fishing with Kostyakoff. Kostyakoff in a full-skirted overcoat and leather foraging cap, after setting on the bank several hooks of various sizes, with floats and little bells and reels, was smoking a short pipe, and without daring so much as to wink, was keeping guard over the whole battery of hooks, including Adouev's as well, for Alexandr was standing leaning against a tree and gazing in an opposite direction. They stood thus a long while in silence.

"You've got a bite! look, Alexandr Fedoritch," said Kostyakoff suddenly in a whisper.

Adouev looked at the water, and turned away again.

" No, it's the current makes you think so," he said.

" Look, look !" cried Kostyakoff; " it's a bite, upon my soul, it's a bite. Ah, ah ! pull it up, pull it up ! hold it!"

The float did actually plunge under water, and after it the line, and after the line the rod too began to slip from behind the bushes. Alexandr clutched the rod, and then the line.

" Softly, gently there, not so . . . . what are you doing ? " cried Kostyakoff, laying hold of the line. " My dear sir, what a weight; don't hold it; let it go, let it go, or it will break. There so, to the right, to the left; here, to the bank. Let it go! further; now draw it up, draw it up, only not all at once; that's the way—so."

A huge pike appeared above the surface of the water. It twisted quickly with a flash of silver scales, beat its tail to right and to left, and sprinkled them both with drops. Kostyakoff was quite pale with excitement.

" What a pike !" he cried almost in tones of awe, and stretching over the water he fell down stumbling over his hooks, and with both hands tried to capture the pike as it was wriggling back to the water.

" Come to the bank, this way, further! there now, it's ours, and no wriggling back. See, it's as slippery as the devil! Ah, what a pike ! "

" Ah !" some one repeated from behind.

Alexandr turned round. Two paces from them stood an old man, and on his arm a tall pretty young girl, with her head uncovered and a sunshade in her hands. Her brows were slightly knitted. She was bending a little forward and following every movement of Kostyakoff with great interest. She had not even noticed Alexandr.

This unexpected apparition rather disturbed Adouev. He let the rod slip out of his hands, the pike went flop into the water, gracefully shook its tail, and was off into the depths, drawing the line after it. All this took place in a second.

" Alexandr Fedoritch ! what are you doing," Kostyakoff shouted like a madman, beginning to seize the line. He kept hold of it, but drew out only the end, without the hook and without the pike.

Quite pale, he turned to Alexandr, showed him the end of the line, and looked furiously at him for a minute without speaking, then he spat on the ground.

" I will never go fishing with you again; I'll be damned if I do," he ejaculated, and turned away to his own hooks.

Meanwhile the young girl had noticed that Alexandr was looking at her; she blushed and was stepping away. The old man, apparently her father, bowed to Adouev. Adouev responded sullenly to his salutation, threw down the hooks and sat down some ten paces away on a bench under a tree.

" Even here there is no peace !" he thought. " Here is some CEdipus with an Antigone. Woman again ! There's no escaping them anywhere. Good Heavens ! what heaps of them there are everywhere."

" Call yourself an angler !" said Kostyakoff meanwhile, setting his hooks in order, and looking angrily at Alexandr from time to time; how are you going to catch fish ? You'd better catch mice sitting at home on your sofa ; but come to really catching fish ! How are you going to catch it, now it's slipped out of your hands ; it was almost in your mouth all but cooked. It's a wonder your fish don't slip off your plate."

" Do you get many bites ? " asked the old man.

" Well, you see here," answered Kostyakoff, " here on my six hooks scarcely a wretched gremille has bitten in mockery; but there meanwhile with his one ordinary line, a pike of ten pounds or so, and then he let it slip. Well, they say the game runs to meet the sportsman. But it's not so; if it had broken away from me, I should have caught it in the water; but there's the pike hiding in the stream while we're asleep—and call himself an angler. What sort of angler's that ? are anglers generally like that ? No, a real angler would have fallen on it like a cannon-ball, he would have stopped to look at it. And that an angler! You'll never catch fish !"

The young girl meanwhile had time to observe that Alexandr was altogether a different kind of person from Kostyakoff. Alexandr's dress was not like KostyakorFs, nor his figure, nor his age, nor his manners, nor anything. She quickly noticed signs of education in him; she read thoughtfulness in his face; even the shade of melancholy did not escape her.

" But why has he run away!" she thought; "it's a strange thing. I didn't think I was the sort of person to run away from."

She drew herself up haughtily, and dropped her eyelids, then raising them she gazed with no friendly expression at Alexandr. Already she was offended. She drew her father away, and haughtily came near Adouev. The old man again greeted Alexandr; but the daughter did not vouchsafe him even a glance.

" Let him understand that people aren't paying the least attention to him !" she thought with a sidelong glance to see whether Adouev was looking.

Though' Alexandr was not looking at her, he involuntarily assumed a rather more becoming attitude.

" Why! he isn't even looking !" thought the young girl; " what impertinence!"

The next day Kostyakoff took Alexandr fishing again, and in that way incurred damnation through his own curse.

For two days nothing disturbed their solitude. Alexandr had at first looked about him, almost with apprehension; but seeing no one he grew easy again. The second day he pulled up a huge perch. Kostyakoff was half reconciled to him.

" But still it's not the pike !" he said with a sigh; " you had luck in your hands, and did not know how to profit by it; that won't happen twice. And again I have nothing! six hooks set, and nothing!"

" But why don't you ring the bells ? " said a peasant, who had stopped as he passed to look how the fishing progressed; "perhaps the fish will think it's time to go to church!"

Kostyakoff looked angrily at him.

" Hold your tongue, you ignorant man!" he said, " you boor!"

The peasant walked away.

" Blockhead!" Kostyakoff called after him; "a brute, yes, a brute he is. He'd have his joke with me, damn him ! a brute, I tell you, a boor!"

It's a serious matter to provoke a sportsman at the moment of failure!

The third day, while they were fishing in silence, their eyes bent fixedly on the water, a noise was heard behind

them. Alexandr turned round and started as if a mosquito had stung him. The old man and the young girl were there.

AdoueY, bending sideways towards them, made only the slightest response to the old man's greetings, but he seemed to have been expecting this meeting. As a rule he went fishing in a very slovenly attire; but this time he had put on a new great-coat, and had tied a blue cravat smartly round his throat; he had arranged his hair and even seemed to be posing a little as the idyllic angler. After remaining only as long as politeness required, he went away and sat down under the tree!

"Cela passe toute permission 1" thought Antigone, growing hot with anger.

" I beg your pardon !" said (Edipus to Alexandr; " we have disturbed you perhaps ? "

" No!" answered Adouev; "lam tired."

" Have you had any bites ?" the old man inquired of Kostyakoff.

"What bites can one expect when people shout close by," replied the latterwrathfully. "Some damned fool came up and went bawling close at hand, and not a bite since then. You live near these parts, I suppose ?" he inquired of (Edipus.

" Over there is our country-house with the balcony," he replied.

" You pay a big rent, I daresay ? "

" Five hundred roubles a year."

" It looks a good house, well arranged, and a lot of buildings in the court Thirty thousand, I daresay, it cost the owner to build."

" Yes, nearly that."

"Ah, and is. that your daughter?"

" Yes, she's my daughter."

" Ah, a fine young lady! You are out for a walk ? "

" Yes, we are taking a walk. If one lives in the country, one must take walks."

"To be sure, to be sure, why not, indeed? it's the best time for walking : not at all like last week ; what weather it was, oh, oh ! God preserve us ! It's done for the winter-corn, I expect."

" It will get over it, please God."

God grant it may! "

So you have caught nothing so far !"

" I've nothing, but pray look what he has/'

He showed the perch.

" I assure you," he went on, u it's singular how lucky he is ! It's a pity he doesn't give his mind to it; with his luck I should never have gone away empty-handed. To let such a pike slip!"

He sighed.

Antigone had begun to listen more eagerly, but Kostyakoff said no more.

The visits of the old man and his daughter were repeated more and more frequently. Even Adouev deigned to pay them some attention. He sometimes exchanged a word or two with the old man, and never a word with the daughter. At first she was piqued, then offended, at last depressed by it. Had Adouev talked a little to her, or even paid her ordinary attention—she would have forgotten him; but now it was quite otherwise. The human heart seems to live on contradictions.

Antigone constantly deliberated on some awful plan of vengeance, but later on she gradually gave it up.

One day when the old man and his daughter had drawn near our friends, Alexandr, after a brief interval, had laid his rod on the bushes and gone, according to his habit, to sit in his usual place, and was mechanically gazing now at the father, now at the daughter.

They stood with profile turned to him. In the father he did not discover anything out of the ordinary. A white blouse, nankeen trousers, and a low wide-brimmed hat, trimmed with green plush. But the daughter now! how gracefully she hung on her father's arm ! The wind would now and then lift a curl from her face as though on purpose to show Alexandr her lovely profile and white neck, and then raise her silk mantle and give a glimpse of her slender figure, or would playfully stir her dress and reveal a tiny ankle. She was gazing dreamily at the water.

For a long while Alexandr could not take his eyes off her, and he felt a feverish shiver run through him, He turned away from temptation and began to knock off the heads of the flowers with a switch.

" Ah ! I know what it means," he thought, " let it have its way and it would pass off! There's love ready-made!— imbecility! My uncle is right. But mere animal instinct shall not carry me away—no, I am not fallen so low as that!"

" Can I fish a little !" the young girl asked Kostyakoff timidly.

" Oh yes, miss; why not ? " he replied, giving her Adouev's rod.

" There now, you have a partner in the business ! " said her father to Kostyakoff and, leaving his daughter, he began to wander off further along the bank.

" Liza, mind you catch some fish for supper," he added.

The silence lasted a few minutes.

"Why is your partner so cross?" Liza inquired of Kostyakoff in a low voice.

" He's been passed over for the third time in his office, miss."

"What?" she asked, slightly frowning, u y It's the third time they haven't promoted him."

She shook her head.

" No ; it can't be!" she thought, " that's not it!"

" Don't you believe me, miss ? on my oath ! That pike too, you remember, he let slip through it."

" It's not so, not so," she thought now with conviction, " I know why he let the pike go."

" Ah ! ah !" she cried suddenly, " look, it's stirring, it's stirring."

She pulled it out and had caught nothing.

" It has got away !" said Kostyakoff, looking at the hook. x^*"See how it has torn off the worm; it must have been a big 1 pike. But you haven't learnt the art, miss; yo u didn't let

\ him bite prop erly." " ~^-

yi> "^Why, is there an art to learn in that ?"

^^ " Ye s7 as in everything," s aid A lexandr mechanically.

She started and quickly Turned roundj TrTher t\uil~tetting the rod slip into the water. But Alexandr was now looking in a different direction.

"How is one to arrive at learning it?" she said with a slight tremor in her voice.

" By practising oftener," replied Alexandr.

o

"Oh, is that it!" she thought, with a flutter of delight; " that means I am to come here oftener. I understand! Very well, I will come, but I shall pay you out, sir misanthrope, for all your impertinence."

This was how the spirit of coquetry interpreted Alexandras reply to her, but on that day he said nothing more.

" She's fancying, God knows what all, I daresay! " he said to himself; " she is going to put on airs and flirt .... how imbecile!"

From that day the visits of the old man and the young girl were repeated every day. Sometimes Liza came with her nurse, without the old man. She brought work and books with her and sat down under a tree, with an appearance of complete unconsciousness of Alexandra existence.

She thought in this way to pique his vanity and, as she expressed it, " to pay him out." She talked aloud to her nurse about her home and household affairs, to show that she did not even see Adouev. And he sometimes actually did not see her, and when he saw her, bowed coolly without a word.

Seeing that this ordinary method availed her nothing, she changed her plan of attack, and on two occasions volunteered a remark herself; sometimes she took a rod from him.

Alexandr, by degrees, became more talkative with her, but was thoroughly on his guard, and did not give vent to any kind of "sincere outburst;" whether through prudence on his part or that his old wounds were still not healed, as he expressed it, he was rather chilly even in conversation with her.

One day the old man had a samovar sent down to the river-bank. Liza poured out tea. Alexandr at once refused any tea, saying that he did not drink it in the evening.

" All this tea-drinking leads up to acquaintance with them —intimacy—no, thank you !" he thought.

" What's the matter with you ? why, yesterday you drank four glasses," said Kostyakoff.

" I never drink out of doors," Alexandr added hastily.

w What a mistake !" said Kostyakoff, " most capital tea, prime, cost fifteen roubles, I should say. If you please, a little more, miss, and how good it would be with rum."

Rum, too, was brought.

The old man invited Alexandr to go and see him, but he flatly declined. Liza bit her lip when she heard his refusal. She began to try to discover from him the reason of his unsociability. However artfully she turned the conversation to this topic, Alexandr still more artfully got out of it.

This mystery only^excited curiosity and possibly some other emotion in (^izaj) Her face, hitherto as clear as a summer sky, began to wear an expression of anxiety and thoughtfulness. She often turned a melancholy glance on Alexandr, removed her eyes from him with a sigh, and bent them on the ground, and seemed to be thinking to herself, " You are unhappy, perhaps deceived. Oh, how well I should have known how to make you happy; how I would have cherished you and loved you. I would have guarded you from fate itself—and so on."

This is how most women think, and most of them deceive those who trust in this siren's song. Alexandr apparently noticed nothing. He talked to her as he would have talked to a friend, or to his uncle, without a shade of that tenderness which involuntarily enters into the friendship of a man and a woman, and makes these relations unlike ^^fri^ndship. This is why it is said that friendship between a man and woman is impossible, because what is called friendship between them is either the beginning or the end of love, or else indeed is love itself. But seeing Adouev's attitude to Liza, one might almost believe that such a friendship did exist.

Once only he partly revealed or wanted to reveal his way

of thinking to her. He took up from the bench the book

she had brought with her and turned over the pages. It was

V--"" Childe Harold " in the French translation. Alexandr shook

his head, sighed and put the book- down without speaking.

"Don't you like Byron ? Have you an antipathy to Byron?" she said. "Byron was such a great poet—and you don't like him !"

" I have said nothing and you attack me," he replied.

" Why did you shake your head ? "

" Oh, I'm sorry that book has fallen into your hands."

" Who are you sorry for—the book or me ? "

Alexandr did not answer.

" Why should I not read Byron ? " she asked.

" For two reasons," said Alexandr, after a short pause.

He laid his hand on hers, to emphasise his words perhaps, or perhaps because her little hand was very white and soft, and he began to speak in soft and measured tones, fixing his eyes first on Liza's curls, then on her neck, then on her waist As he progressed through these stages his voice gradually rose.

" In the first place," he said, " because you are reading Byron in French and consequently the beauty and force of the poet's language is lost for you. Only see how pale and colourless and poor the language is in this! This is the mere ashes of a great poet; his ideas seemed to have been melted into a solution. In the second place, I should not have advised you to read Byron at all, because he will perhaps stir chords in your heart which might else have been for ever silent"

Here he squeezed her hand warmly and expressively, as though he wished to add weight to his words.

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