Early Stories

'Can't play if you've no money,' says Grisha.

Andrey rummages through his pockets once more just to make quite certain. But when he fails to find anything except crumbs and a chewed-up pencil-stub, his lower lip trembles and he blinks in dis- tress. Any moment now he'll burst into tears . ..

Tll put in a kopeck for you,' says Sonya, unable to bear his expression of suffering. 'Only mind you give it me back later.'

The stakes are placed and the game continues.

'Can you hear bells?' asks Anya, wide-eyed.

They all stop playing and stare at the dark window with open mouths. Beyond the darkness glimmers the reflection of the lamp.

'You're hearing things.'

'When it's night they only ring bells in the cemetery . ..' says Andrey.

'What do they do that for?'

'So that robbers won't break into the church. They're scared of bells.'

'Yes, but what do robbers want to break into the church for?' asks Sonya.

'To murder the watchmen, of course.'

A minute passes in silence. Then they glance at one another, shudder and carry on playing. This time Andrey wins.

'Cheat!' blum out Alyosha in his deep voice.

'No I'm nm, you liar!'

Andrey turns pale, his lower lip trembles, and.wallop! - he gives Alyosha one right on the head. Alyosha glares with rage, jumps up, puts one knee on the table, and wallop! - gives Andrcy one right on the cheek. They each give the other one more slap in the face and burst out howling. All these dreadful goings-on arc too much for Sonya, she too begins to cry, and the dining-room resounds to a cacophony of sobs. Do not imagi"nc, though, that this puts an end to the game. Five minutes later the children arc laughing away again and chaning peaceably. Their faces arc tear-stained, but this doesn't stop them smiling. And Alyosha is positively happy: there's been a good squabble after all!

Into the dining-room comes Vasya, the fifth-former. He looks sleepy and disgruntled.

'What a disgrace!' he thinks, as he watches Grisha squeezing his pocketful of jingling kopecks. 'Fancy letting children have money! And fancy allowing them to play games of chancel Really, I don't know what education is coming to. It's a downright disgrace.'

But the children arc playing with such relish that he too feels an urge to sit down with them and try his luck.

'Hang on,' he says, 'I'll come and have a game.'

'Put your kopeck in first!'

'All right.' he says, rummaging in his pockets. 'I haven't got a kopeck, but here's a rouble. I'll put in a rouble.'

'No, no, no, it must be a kopeck!'

'Don't be silly, a rouble's worth more than a kopeck.' explains the fifth-former. 'Whoever wins can give me change.'

'No, no, we're sorry, but you can't play!'

The fifth-former shrugs his shoulders and goes into the kitchen to get some change from the servants. But there isn't a kopeck to be had in the kitchen either.

'You'll just have to change a rouble for me,' he tackles Grisha again on his return. 'I'll give you commission. No? Then I'll buy ten kopecks from you for a rouble.'

Grisha looks up suspiciously at Vasya. Is it some kind of trick? Is he being swindled?

'Don't want ro,' he says, keeping a right hold on his pocket.

Vasya begins to lose his temper and shout at the players, calling

them oafs and dimwits.

'It's all right, Vasya, I'll put a kopeck in for you,' says Sonya. 'You can sit down.'

The fifth-former takes a seat and places two cards in frontof him. Anya starcs calling the numbers.

'I've dropped a kopeck!' Grisha suddenly announces in alarm. 'Stop the game!'

They unhook the lamp and crawl under the table to look for the kopeck. They grab at old bits of food and nutshells, they bang their heads together, but there's no sign of the kopeck. They start looking all over again and carry on searching until finally Vasya snatches the lamp from Grisha and puts it back in position. Grisha goes on searching in the dark.

But at last the kopeck has been founJ. The players sit down and are about to resume playing.

'Sonya's asleep!' announces Alyosha.

With her curly head resting on her arms, Sonya is enjoying a sweet, untroubled slumber, as though she'd fallen asleep an hour ago. She dropped off by accident, while the others were looking for the kopeck.

'Come and lie down on Mamma's bed,' says Anya, leading her out of the dining-room. 'This way!'

They all troop out with Sonya, and some five minutes later Mamma's bed presents a curious spectacle. Sonya is lying there asleep. Beside her is Alyosha, snoring softly. With their heads resting on the younger children's legs, Grisha and Anya are also sleeping. Andrey, the cook's son, has managed to find room for himself on the bed, too. Scattered all around lie the kopecks, their fascination quite forgotten until the next game. Pleasant dreams!

Revenge

Mr ^ro Tunnanov, an ordmary fellow, with a tidy linle sum in the bank, a young wife and a dignified bald patch, was playing vint at a fnend's binhdav pany. After a panicularly bad hand which made him break into a cold sweat, he suddenly remembered that it was high nmc he had some more vodka. He got up, tiptoed his way the tables with a dignified, rolling gait, negotiated the drawmg-room where the young people were dancing (here he smiled condescendingly at a weedy young chemist and gavc him a fatherly pat on the shoulder), then nip^^ smanly through a small door into the pantry. Here on a small round table stood bottles and vodka decanters, while on a nearby plate, amid the other delicacies, a half^ten hernng peped out from its green trimmings of chive and pal'liley ... After pouring himself some vodka and [Widdling his fingel'li in the air as if about to make a speech, knocked it back, pulled a frightful face, and had just stuck a fork into the herring when he heard voices on the other side of the wall ...

'Yes, by all means,' a woman's voice was saying pertly. 'Only is it to be?'

'My wife,' thought 'But who's she v.ith?'

'Wbenever you like, dear,' replied a deep, fruiry baK. 'Today's scarcely con\'enient, tomorrow I'm busy the whole blessed day ...'

'Why, that's Mool'liky!' thought Tunnanov, recognising the ba^ voice as that of a friend of his. 'Јt tu, Bn^te! So she's got her claws into )'ou as well, has she? What a restless, insatiable crearure! Can't let a day go by without some ne-w affair!'

'Yes, I'm busy tomorrow,' the bass voice continued. 'But why not drop me a line instead? I'd look forward to that ... Only we must decide how we're going to communicate, think up a good dodge. The ordinary post is scarcely convenient. If I write to you., your old paunch of a husband may intercept the lener from the postman, and if you write to me, it'll arrive when I'm out and my bener half is sure to open iL'

'^^at shall we do then?'

'We must think up a good dod^. It's no use relying on the servants, either, ^rause Double-Chins is bound to have your maid and footman under his thumb . . . Where is he, by the way, playing cards?'

'Yes. Still keeps losing, the poor fool!'

'Unlucky at cards, lucky in love,' said Moorsky, laughing. 'Now here's what I suggest, my pet . . . Tomorrow evening, when I leave the office, I shall walk through the park at exactly six o'clock on my way toseethe keeper. What you must do, love, is put your note by six o'clock at the latest inside that marble urn -you know, the one to the left of the vine arbour . . .'

'Yes, f^s, I know the one . . .'

'It'll be novel, poetic and mysterious . . . Old Pot-Belly won't find out, nor will my dearly beloved. All right?'

Leo downed another glass and made his way back to the card- table. His discovery had not shocked or surprised him or even upset him at all. The days when he became worked up, made a scene, used bad language and even fought duels, were long since past; he had given that up and now turned a blind eye to his wife's giddy affairs. But all the same he felt put out. Such phrases as 'Old Paunch', 'Double-Chins' and 'Pot-Belly' were a blow to his self-esteem.

'What a scoundrel that Moorsky is!' he thought, chalking up his losses. 'Meet him in the street and he's all smiles, taps you on the stomach, pretends he's your best friend -and now look at the names he comes out with! Calls me friend to my face, but behind my back I'm nothing but "Paunch" and "Pot-Belly" . . .'

As his ghastly losses kept mounting, so his feeling of injured pride grew . ..

'Upstart,' he thought, angrily breaking the piece of chalk. 'Whipper-snapper . .. If I didn't want to keep out of it, I'd give you Double-Chins!'

Over supper he couldn't stand having to look at Moorsky's face, but the latter seemed to be going out of his way to pester him with questions: had he been winning? why was he so d'own in the mouth? etcetera. And he even had the nerve - speaking as an old friend, of course -to reproach Turmanov's wife in a loud voice for not looking after her husband's health properly. As forhis wife, she j ust gave him her usual come-hither look, laughed cheerfully and chattered away innocently, so that the devil himself would never have suspected her of being unfaithful.

Returning home, Leofeltangry and dissatisfied, as ifhe'd eaten an old pair of galoshes instead of veal at supper. He might have man- aged to rcstrain himself and forget all about it, had not his wife's chatter and smiles constantly reminded him of 'Paunch', 'Fattie', 'Pot-Belly' . . .

Td likP. to slap the blighter's chceks,' hc thought. 'Insult him in public.'

And he thought how pleasant it would be to give Moorsky a thrashing, to wmg him in a ducl like a sparrow . . . have him turfed out of his job, or put something foul and revolting in the marble urn — likc a dead rat, for examplc . . . Or how about stealing his wife's letter from the urn in advance, and substituting for it some smutry poem signed 'Eliza', or somcthing of that kind?

Turmanov paced up and down the bedroom for a long time, indulging in similar pleasing fancies. Suddenly he stopped and clap- ped his hand to his head.

'Got it, I've got it,' he exclaimed, and his whole face beamed with pleasure. 'That'll be perfcct, ab-so-lutely perfect!'

When his wife had gone to sleep, he sat down at his desk and after much thought, disguising his handwriting and concocung various mistakes, wrote as follows:

'To the merchant Dulinov. Dcar Sir! If before six this evening the rwelth ofseptember you have not dipposited rwo hundrid roubles in the marbel vase what stands in the park to the left of the vine arber you will be killed and your abbingdashery shop blown up.'

On completing the letter, Leo jumped for joy.

'What a brainwave!' he muttered, rubbing his hands. 'Superb! Old Nick himself couldn't have thought up a better revenge. The old merchant boy's sure to take fright and run straight round to the police, and they'II be lying in wait at six in the bushes . .. then as soon as you go poking round for your letter, lad, they'll nab you! He'll get the shock of his life! And while they're sorting it all out, just think what the scoundrel will have to go through, sitting there in the cells . . . Oh, excellcnt!'

Leo stuck on the stamp and took the letter round to the post-box himself. He fell asleep with a most blissful smile on his lips and slept more sweetly than he had done for years. When he woke up next morning and remembered his plan, he purred merrily and even chucked his unfaithful wife under the chin.

On his way to work and then sitting at his office desk, he kept on smiling and picturing to himself Moorsky's horror when the trap was sprung . ..

After five he could bear it no longer and hurried off to the park to feast his eyes on the desperate plight of his enemy.

'A-hah . . .' he said to himself, as he passed a policeman.

On reaching the vine arbour, he hid behind a bush and gazing avidly at the urn, settled down to wait. His impatience knew no bounds.

Moorsky appeared on the stroke of six. The young man was obviously in a most excellent frame of mind. His top-hat was perched jauntily on the back of his head, and his coat was thrown wide open, so that not just his waistcoat but his very soul seemed to be displayed to the world. He was whistling and smoking a cigar . . .

'Now we'll see about Double-Chins and Pot-Belly!' thought Tur- manov, with malicious glee. 'Just you wait!'

Moorsky went up to the urn and casually put his hand inside . .. Leo half rose, fastening his eyes on him .. . The young man pulled out of the urn a small packet, examined it this way and that, and shrugged his shoulders; then he unsealed it hesitantly, shrugging his shoulders yet again; and then the expression on his face changed to one of complete astonishment: the packet contained two multi- coloured hundred-rouble notes!

Moorsky studied these notes for a long time. Eventually, still shrugging his shoulders, he stuffed them into his pocket and said: 'Merci!'

The unfortunate Leoheard that word. All the rest ofthe evcninghe spent standing opposite Dulinov's shop, shaking his fist at the sign and muttering indignantly:

'Coward! Money-grubber! Jumped-up little merchant! Chicken! Pot-bellied little coward! . . .'

Easter Night

I was standing on the bank of the Goltva, waiting for the ferry to come over from the other side. At normal times the Goltva is a river of no great pretensions, taciturn and pensive, glinting meekly from behind thick rushes; now, a whole lake lay spread before me. The rampant spring waters had swept over both banks and flooded large areas on either side, capturing marshes, hay fields and vegetable plots, so that it was quite common to encounter on the surface lone poplars and bushes sticking out like grim crags in the darkness.

The weather struck me as magnificent. It was dark, yet even so I could see the trees, the water, and human beings . .. The world was lit by stars, bestrewing every corner of the sky. I don't think I have ever seen so many stars. Literally, you couldn't have stuck a pin between them. There were ones as big as goose eggs and others as tiny as hempseed . .. Each and every one of them, from great to small, had come out to parade for the festival, washed, refurbished and jubilant, and each and every one was quietly twinkling. The sky lay reflected in the water; the stars bathed in its dark depths and trembled with the faint ripples on the surface. The air was warm and still .. . Far away on the other bank, in impenetrable dark, several bright red fires were blazing furiously. ..

Close by me stood the dark silhouette ofa peasant in a tall hat and holding a short, knobbly staff.

'The ferry's taking a long time, isn't it?' I said.

'Yes, about time it was here,' the silhouette answered.

'Are you waiting for the ferry too?'

'No .. .'yawned thepeasant, 'I'm just waiting for theluminations. I'd go, but I ain't got the five kopecks for the ferry.'

'I'll give you them.'

'Thank you kindly sir, but I'd rather you put up a candle for me there in the monastery, with those five kopecks . . . That'll be more interesting, with me standing here. Where's that ferry got to - has it vanished or something?'

The peasant went down to the water's edge, seized the ferry rope, and yelled:

'leronim! leron-i-m!'

As though in answer to his shout, a long peal from a great bell came to us from the other bank. The peal was rich and deep, like the thickest string on a double-bass: it was as though the darkness itself had given a hoarse cough. Immediately a shot rang out from a cannon. It rolled away in the darkness and petered out somewhere far behind me. The peasant took off his hat and crossed himself.

'Christ is Risen!' he said.

Hardly had the waves from the firstpeal of the bell died on the air, when a second one resounded, hard on it a third, and suddenly the darkness was filled with a continuous, vibrant din. Beside the red fires new ones blazed up, and they all started moving together and flickering restlessly.

'leroni-m!' came a long echoing cry.

'They're shouting for him from the other bank,' said the peasant. 'So the ferry's not there either. He's fallen asleep, our leronim.'

The fires and the velvety tolling of the bell were calling me ... I was beginning to get impatient and fidgety. Finally, though, peering into the dark distance, I saw the silhouette ofsomething very similar to a gallows. It was the long-awaited ferry. It was approaching with such slowness that had it not been for the gradual sharpening of its outlines, one might have thought it was standing still, or, indeed, going towards the other bank.

'Come on, leronim!' shouted my peasant. 'There's a gendeman waiting!'

The ferry crept up to the bank, lurched, and creaked to a halt. On it, holding the rope, stood a tall man in a monk's cassock and a conical cap.

'What kept you?' I asked him, leaping onto the ferry.

'Forgive me for the Lord's sake,' replied leronim quietly. 'Anyone else?'

'No, just me . ..'

leronim grasped the rope with both hands, bent himself into the shape of a question-mark, and let out a groan. The ferry creaked and lurched. The silhouette of the peasant in the tall hat began slowly to recede from me: so the ferry was under way. Soon leronim straigh- tened up and began to work the rope with one hand. We gazed silently at the bank iowards which we were floating. There the 'luminations' the peasant was waiting for had already begun. At the water's edge barrels of tar were blazing like enormous bonfires. Their reflections, as ruddy as a rising moon, crept out towards us in long wide strips. The burning barrels lit up their own smoke and the long shadows of people flirting about by the fires, but the area to either side of the barrels and beyond them, whence came the velvety tolling of the bell, was all dense black gloom still. Suddenly, slashing the dark^s, a rocket shot up to the sky in a golden streamer; it described an arc., and as ifsmashingagamst thesky disintegrated in a crackle of sparks. A roar went up from the bank, like a distant 'hurrah'.

'Beautiful!' I said.

'Yes, beaunful beyond words!' sighed leronim. 'It's that kind of night, sir! Another time and we wouldn't even pay any arrention to rockets, but tonight we rejoice at every vain thing. And where might you be from?'

I told him.

'Mmm. . .it's a joyful day today . . .' continued leromm in a sighmg lirrle high-pitched \'oice like that of someone recovering from an illness. '^ta sky rejoices, and the earth, and all that is under the earth. All creation is celebrating. Only tell me, sir: why is it that even in the midst ofgreatrejoicinga man cannot forget hissorrows?'

I was afraid that this unexpected question was inviting me to join m one of those protracted. uplifting discussions that monks who are idle and bored are so partial to. I was not much disposed to conversa- tion, so I merely asked:

'\'hat sorrows do you have, father?'

'Usually the same as everyone else's, your honour, good sir, but this day a particular sorrow has befallen the monastery: at the liturgy itself, during the lessons, Nikolay the monk died . ..'

'Well, it's God will!' I said, affecting the monastic tone. 'We all must die. Shouldn't you rather be rejoicing? . .. They say that anyone who dies at Easter, or during Eastertide, is sure to go to the kingdom of heaven.'

'That's true.'

We fell sdent. The silhouerre of the tall-harred peasant merged with the features of the bank. The tar barrels blazed higher and higher.

'The scriptures make clear to us the vanity of sorrow, as does contemplation,' leronim broke the silence. 'But why will the soul still grieve and not listen to reason? Why d^ one want to weep so bitterlv ?'

Ieronim shrugged his shoulders, turned to me, and spoke rapidly:

'Ifit was me had died, or someone else, perhaps no one would have so much as noticed, but it was Nikolay who died! Nikolay, of all people! It's hard to believe, even, that he's no longer in the world! I stand here on the ferry and I keep thinking to myself that his voice is going to call out to me from the bank. So that I wouldn't be scared on my own on the ferry, he would always come down to the riverbank and hail me. He would get out of bed every night specially. A kind soul he was! God knows, how kind and considerate! Many a mother's not as kind to her own children as Nikolay was to me! The Lord save his soul!'

leronim took hold of the rope, but immediately turned to me again.

'Oh, and what a brilliant mind, your honour!' he said liltingly. 'What sweet and melodious speech! It was just as they'll be singing soon at the mass: "O how loving-kind! O most sweet is Thy voice!" And apart from all his other human qualities, he had an extraordi- nary gift!'

'What was that?' I asked.

The monk eyed me carefully, then, as if persuaded that I could be trusted with a secret, he chuckled.

'He had the gift of writing canticles . ..' he said. 'It was a miracle, sir, no less! You'll scarcely believe it if I tell you. Reverend Father, our archimandrite, is from Moscow, our Father Vicar graduated from the Kazan Academy, and we have learned monks in orders here, and elders, but let me assure you, sir, there isn't one of them who could write things himself - yet Nikolay, a simple monk, a mere deacon, who hadn't studied anywhere and was nothing at all to look at, he could! It was a miracle, a veritable miracle!'

leronim clasped his hands and forgetting all about the rope, con- tinued excitedly:

'Our FatherVicar finds it difficult putting sermons together, when he was writing the history of our monastery he made our lives a misery and had to drive into town a dozen times. Nikolay, though, could write canticles! Canticles! That's a different matter from a sermon or a history!'

'Are canticles so hard to write, then?' I asked.

'V-ery hard .. .' said leronim with a roll of the head. 'It doesn't matter how wise or saintly you are, ifGod hasn't given you the gift. Monks who don't know what they're talking about reckon all you have to do is know the life of the saint you're writing it to, and model it on nll the other canticlcs. But that's not correct, sir. Of course, anyone who writes a canticle has to know thc saint's life inside out, down to the last minutest detail. He must consult the other canticlcs, too, to know how to begin and what to write about. To give you an example, the first collect-hymn always hegins with the words "Most High Elect" or "The Chosen One" . . . The first ikos must always begin with an angel. I don't know if you're interested, but in the canticle to Jesus the Most Sweet the ikos bcgins like this: "Angels' Creator and Lord of Hosts!", in the canticle to the Most Holy Mother ofGod it's "An Angel was sent down from the Heavens to be a Messenger", and to St Nicholas the Miracle-Worker - "Angel in form, though in substance an Earthly Being", and so on. It always begins with an angel. Of course, you do have to consult the other canticles, but it isn't the saint's life or how the canticle compares with other ones that maners - it's the beauty and sweetness of the thing. Everything in it must be graceful, brief, and pregnant with meaning. Every tiny line must breathe a softness, a gentleness, a tcnderness; there mustn't be a single word that's coarse, harsh, or out of place. You must write in such a way that the worshipper re|oices in his heart and weeps, and his mind is shaken and he's all a-tremble. In the canticle to the Holy Mother ofGod there are the words: "Rejoice, O Thou too high for the mind of man to scale: rejoice, O Thou too deep for the eyes of Angels to fathom!" Elsewhere in the same canticle it says: "Rejoice, O Tree of fairest Fruit that nourishest the faithful: rejoice, O Tree of benign Canopy that shelterest the multitudes!" '

As though taking fright at something, or suddenly overcome with shame, leronim covered his face with his hands and rocked his head from side to side.

'Tree of fairest Fruit . . . Tree of benign Canopy . . .' he muttered to himself. 'To find such words! Only the Lord bestows such a power! For brevity he'd link several words and thoughts together — and how smooth and pregnant he succeeds in making them! "Thou an a light-enduing Beacon to the people . . ." it says in the canticle to Jesus the Most Sweet. "Light-enduing"! You won't find that word in conversation or in books - yet he managed to think ;t up, to find it in his own mind! As well as smoothness and felicit«mess, sir, every line must also be adorned in divers ways - with flowers and lightning and wind and sun and all the objects of the visible world. And you have to compose every exclamation so that it falls smoothly and easily on the ear. "Rejoice, thou Lily thatdwellest in the heavens!" it says in the canticle to St Nicholas the Miracle-Worker. Not j ust "Lily of heaven", but "Lily that dwellest in the heavens!" That way it's smoother and sweeter on the ear. And that's how Nikolay used to write, too! Just like that! Oh, I can't begin to tell you how he used to write!'

'Well, in that case it's a pity he's died,' I said. 'But let's carry on across, father, or we shall be late . ..'

leronim started out of his thoughts and scurried to the rope. On the bank all the bells were beginning to peal out. Probably the procession was already under way near the monastery, for the whole of the dark area beyond the tar barrels was now dotted with moving lights.

'Did Nikolay have his canticles printed?' I asked leronim.

'How could he?' he sighed. 'And it would have seemed strange, too. For what purpose? No one in our monastery's interested in that sort of thing. They don't approve. They knew that Nikolay wrote them, but they ignored them. Nowadays, sir, no one thinks very highly of new writings!'

'They're prejudiced against them?'

'That's right. If Nikolay had been an elder, well then perhaps the brotherhood would have taken some interest, but he wasn't yet forty. There were those that laughed at his writing, and even held it a sin.'

'Why did he write, then?'

'Well, more for his own consolation. Ofall the brotherhood I was the only one who actually read his canticles. I'd slip along to him without letting the others see and he'd be so glad that I took an interest. He would hug me, stroke my head, and call me affectionate names, as though I were a little child. He would shut up his cell, sit me down next to him, and we'd read away . ..'

Ieronim left the rope and came up to me.

'He and I were like friends, somehow,' he whispered, looking at me with gleaming eyes. 'Wherever he went, I went too. When I wasn't there, he would miss me. And he loved me more than anyone else, and all because I used to weep over the canticles he wrote. It's touching to think of! Now I feel j ust like an orphan or a widow. You see, they're all good, kind, devout people in our monastery, but ... none of them has that softness and gentility, they're more like commonfolk. They all talk loudly and clump their feet, they make a lot of noise and are always clearing their throats, whereas Nikolay always spokc quietly, affectionately, and if he noticed that someone was slceping or praying, then he would creep past as though he werc a little fly, or a gnat. And his face was loving and compassionatc . . .'

leronim gave a deep sigh and took up the rope again. By now we were approaching the bank. We wcre drifting out of thc darkness and the stillness of the river straight into an enchanted rcalm full of choking smoke, crackling light and uproar. Round the tar barrels one could now clearly see people moving. The flickering of the fire gave their red faces and forms a strange, almost fantastic, appear- ance. Occasionally among the heads and faces one glimpsed the muzzles of horses, as motionless as if cast in red copper.

'Thcy'll be singing the Easter Canon in a moment . . .' said leronim, 'but Nikolay isn't there, so there's no one to really take it in . . . Nothing that was written was sweeter to him than that canon. He would enter mto every word of it! You're going to be there, sir, so you listen closely to what they sing: it'll take your breath away!'

'Aren't you going to be in the church yourself?'

'I can't, sir .. .I've got to work the ferry .. .'

'But can't someone take over from you?'

'I don't know . . . Someone should have relieved me at eight, but they haven't, as you see! . . . And I must confess, I'd like to be in church . . .'

'You are a monk?'

'Yes . . . that is, I'm a lay-brother.'

The ferry ran into the bank and stopped. I thrust a five-kopeck piece into leronim's hand and jumped ashore. Immediately, a cart with a little boy and a sleeping peasant woman in it trundled creakily onto the ferry. leronim, who was lit faintly by the fires, took up the rope, bent himself double, and set the ferry in motion . ..

I took a few steps through mud, then was able to walk on a soft, freshly trodden path. This footpath led to the dark, cavern-like gates of the monastery through clouds of smoke and a jumbled mass of people, unharnessed horses, cans and britchkas. The whole assort- ment was creaking, snorting and laughing, and over it all played a ruddy light and the billowy shadows of the smoke ... h was utter chaos! And to think that in this crush they could still find room to load a small cannon and to sell gingerbreads!

On the other side of the wall, in the precinct, no less of a commo- tion was going on, but there was a greatersense oforder and dignity. The air smelt of juniper leaves and benzoin incensc. People talked loud!y, but there was no sound of laughter or horses' snorting. Around the tombstones and crosses huddled people with Easter cakes and bundles. Evidently many of them had come from far away to have their Easter cakes blessed, and were now weary. Young lay-brothers scampered to and fro over the cast-iron slabs that lay in a solid strip from the gates to the church door, their boots ringingon the metal. In the belfry, too, they were bustling about and shouting.

'What a night of turmoil!' I thought. 'How superb!'

It was tempting to see the same turmoil and sleeplessness in everything around, from the night dark to the iron slabs, the crosses on the graves and the trees beneath which people were bustling. But nowhere were the excitement and turmoil so evident as inside the church. At the entrance a ceaseless struggle was going on between the ebb and the flow. Some were going in, others coming out and shortly returning, only to stand for a while and move off again. People were darting aimlessly all over the place, apparently looking for some- thing. A wave would start from the entrance and travel the length of the church, unsettling even the front rows where the solid, respect- able people were standing. There could be no question of concen- trated prayer. There were no prayers at all, only sheer, spontaneous childlike joy seeking a pretext to burst out and express itself in any form of movement, be it only the non-stop roaming and jostling.

The same extraordinary activity strikes you in the Easter service itself. The sanctuary gates are wide open in all the side-chapels, and dense clouds of incense float about the chandelier in the nave; all around you are lights and the blaze and crackle of candles . . . There is no provision for readings; the singing goes on briskly and cheer- fully to the very end of the service; after each hymn of the canon, the clergy change their vestments and come out to cense, and this is repeated nearly every ten minutes.

I had just squeezed in, when a wave surged up from the front and hurled me back. Before me passed a ta!l, portly deacon holding a long red candle; behind him hurried the archimandrite, grey-haired, wearing a gold mitre, and swinging his censer. Once they had disap- peared, the crowd pushed me back to my previous place. But in !ess than ten minutes another wave surged and again the deacon appeared. This time he was followed by the Father Vicar, the very one whom leronim had described as writing the history of the monastery.

Merging with the crowd and infected by the universal jubilation and excitement, I felt unbearable piry for leronim. Why would no one rdieve him? Why couldn't somwne less feeling and less impres- sionable be sent to the ferry?

'Cast thine eyes about thee, O Zion, and behold!' they were singing in the choir. 'For lo! from the West and from the Nonh, and from the Sea and from the East, as to a light by God illumined, have thy children assembled unto thee . . .'

I looked at the faces. They were all radiant with triumph; but nota single person was listening to and taking in what was being sung, and none of them was feding his 'breath taken away'. Why would no one relieve leronim? I could imagine this leronim standing humbly somewhere by the wall, hunched up and snatching greedily at the beaury ofeach sacred phrase. All that was now glancing past the ears of those standing about me, he would have drunk in thirstily with his sensitive soul, he would have drunk himself into ecstasies - till his breath was taken away - and there would not have been a happier man in the whole building. Now, though, he was plying back and fonh on the dark river and grieving for his dead brother and friend.

Behind me another wave surged forward. A stout, smiling monk fiddling with a rosary and looking over his shoulder squeezed past me sideways, clearing the way for a lady in a hat and velvet cloak. Behind the lady, holding a chair above our heads, hurried a monas- tery servant.

I came out of the church. I wanted to have a look at the dead N'ikolay, the unacclaimed writer of canticles. I strolled round the precinct, where a row of monks' cells stretched along the monastery wall, I looked in through several windows, and, seeing nothing, turned back. Now I do not regret not havingseen Nikolay; goodness knows, perhaps if I had seen him I should have lost the image that my imagination now paints ofhim. I picture this attractive, poetical man who would come out at night to call to leronim, who-besprinkled his canticles with flowers, stars and sunbeams, and was completely alone and not understood, as shy, pale, with soft, meek and sad features. As well as intelligence, his eyes surely glowed with affection and that barely restrainable childlike rapture that I had heard in leronim's voice, when he quoted to me pieces from the canticles.

When we emerged from the church after mass, the night was already gone. Morning was breaking. The stars had faded and the sky was now a sombre greyish-blue. The cast-iron slabs, the tomb- stones and the buds on the trees were coated with dew. It was distinctly fresh. Beyond the monastery wall there was no longer the animation that I had seen at night. The horses and people looked weary, sleepy, they scarcely moved, whilst all that was left of the tar barrels was a few heaps of black ash. When a person feels weary and wants to sleep, he thinks that nature is experiencing the same state. It seemed to me that the trees and the young grass were sleeping. It seemed that even the bells were not ringing so loudly and cheerfully as in the night. The turmoil was over and of the excitement only a pleasant languor remained, a craving for warmth and sleep.

Now I could see the river and both its banks. Above it, here and there, drifted humps of thin mist. A grim chill wafted from the river. When I jumped onto the ferry, someone's britchka was already standing on it, and a couple of dozen men and women. The rope, which was damp and, it seemed to me, sleepy, stretched away far across the broad river and disappeared in places in the white mist.

'Christ is Risen! Anyone else?' asked a quiet voice.

I recognised Ieronim's voice. Now the darkness of the night no longer prevented me from making out the monk's appearance. He was a tall, narrow-shouldered man of about thirty-five, with large rounded features, half-closed, listlessly-peering eyes, and an unkempt little spade beard. He looked extremely sad and weary.

'Haven't they relieved you yet?' I asked in surprise.

'Me?' he asked back, turning his numbed, dew-covered face to me, and smiling. 'There's no one to take my place now till morn. They'll all be going to the father archimandrite soon to break the fast.'

He and a strange linle peasant in an orange fur hat resembling one of the limewood tubs they sell honey in, applied themselves to the rope, gave a groan in unison, and the ferry moved off.

We floated across, disturbing on our way the lazily rising mist. Everyone was silent. Ieronim worked the rope mechanically with one hand. For a long time his meek, bleary eyes roamed all over us, then he brought his gaze to rest on the rosy, black-browed face of a young merchant's wife, who was standing on the ferry next to me, hunched up silently in the enveloping mist. He did not take his eyes off her face the whole way.

There was linle that was masculine in that prolonged gaze. In the woman's face I feel Ieronim was searching for the soft and loving features of his late-lamented friend.

The Little ]oke

Noon, on a clear winter's day . . . The frost is hard, the air crackles, and silvery crystals cover the curls on Nadenka's brow and the light down on her hp. She is holding my arm. We are Standing at the top of a hill: from our fcet to the ground below stretches a smooth incline, like a mirror in which the sun is looking at itself. Beside us is a little toboggan, covered in bright red cloth.

'Come on, let's go down, Nadezhda Petrovna!' l implore her. 'Just once! No harm'll come to us, I assure you, we shall be quite safe.'

But Nadenka is afraid. The whole distance from her little over- shoes to the bottom of the hill of ice seems to her a terrible, unfathomable abyss. She catches her breath, she can't breathe when she looks down, when I so much as suggest sining on the toboggan. And whatever will it be like if she dares to fly down into the abyss! She will die, she will go mad.

'Please, please!' I say. 'You mustn't be afraid! It's sheer cowar- dice!'

In the end, Nadenka yields, although I can see from her face that she still yields in fear of her life. I seat her pale and trembling on the toboggan, I put my arm around her, and together we hurtle into the abyss.

The toboggan goes like a bullet. It slices through the air and the wind beats in our faces, roars, whistles in our ears, tears at us, and mps us painfully in its rage, as though it wanted to wrench our heads off. The blast is so strong we can't even breathe. It is as though the devil himself had got us in his clutches and was dragging us roaring down to hell. Everything round us merges into one long strip rushing by ... Another moment, it seems, and we shall perish!

'I love you, Nadya!' I say under my breath.

The toboggan runs quieter and quieter now, the roar ofthe wind and the hiss of the runners are no longer so terrible, we can breathe freely again, and finally we are at the bonom. Nadenka is neither dead nor alive. She is pale, scarcely able to breathe ... I help her to get up.

'I shall never ever do that again!' she says, looking at me wide-eyed with terror. 'Not for anvthing in the world! I nearly died!'

After a while, however, she comes to herself again and looks me questioningly in the eyes: did I say those four words, or did she just think she heard them, in the rushing wind? I stand beside her, smoking, and am carefully examining my glove.

She takes my arm and for a long rime we walk about the bonom of the hill. The mystery obviously gives her no peace. Were those words said or not? Yes, or no? Yes, or no? Thc question is one that touches her self-esteem, her honour, her life, her happiness, it's a question of life and death, the most important question in the whole world. Nadenka looks impatiently, sadly, penetratingly into my face and answers my questions haphazardly, waiting to see if I will speak first. Oh, the emotions that play across that dear face! I can see that she is struggling with herself, she desperately wants to say something, to ask something, but she can't find the words, she feels awkward, scared, her very joy prevents her ...

'You know what?' she says, not looking at me.

'What?' I ask.

'Let's .. . let's go down again.'

So we climb up the steps beside the hill. Again I seat Nadenka pale and trembling on the toboggan, again we hurtle into the terrible abyss, again the wind roars and the runners hiss, and again just as we are travelling fastest and the noise of the toboggan is at its height, I say under my breath:

'I love you, Nadenka !'

When the toboggan comes to a halt, Nadenka glances quickly back up the hill, then stares me in the face for a long time and listens hard to my indifferent, emotionless voice, and all of her, even her muff, her very hood, her whole figure, expresses the most extreme perplexity. And written all over her face is:

'What's going on? Who said those words? Was it him, or did I just think I heard them?'

The uncertainty nags her, she can't bear not to know. The poor girl doesn't answer my questions, frowns, is on the point of bursting into tears.

'Perhaps we should be going home?' I ask.

'I .. • I quite like tobogganing,' she says, blushing. 'Couldn't we go down once more?'

She 'likes' tobogganing, yet just as before, when she sits down on the toboggan she is pale, can scarcely breathe for fear, and is trembl- ing all over.

We go down a third time, and I can see that she is looking at my face to see if my lips move. But I put a handkerchief to my mouth, cough, and just as we re.ach the middle of the slope I manage to say the worih:

'I love you, N.adya!'

And the mystery remams a mystery! Nadenka is silent, thinking abom something . . . When I accompany her home from the slopes, she tries to make us take our time, slows down her pace, and keeps waiting to see if I will say those words to her. And I can see her soul suffering, I can see she is making a tremendons effort to stop herself saymg:

'It couldn't possibly have been the wind that said them! And I don't want it to have been the wind, either!'

The next morning I receive a note, which reads: 'Ifyou are going to the slopes today, please call for me. N.' And thenceforth I start going out to the slopes with Nadenka every day, and each time as we hurtle downwards on the toboggan I say under my brcnth the same words:

'I love you, Nadya !'

Before long Nadenka has grown addicted to this phrase, as though it were wine, or morphinc. She can't live without it. True, she is as fnghtened of flying down the hill as ever, but now the fear and danger add a special charm to these words about love, words which remain a mystery as before, and make her soul ache. She still suspects the same two of saying them - myself and the wind . . . Which of these two is declaring his love for her, she does not know, but obviously she doesn't care, either: any vessel's good enough, when you just want to get drunk.

Once, at midday, I wentout to the slopes alone. Minglingwith the crowd, I suddenly see Nadenka come up to the hill and start looking round for me ... Then she timidly climbs the steps up the side . . . Oh, it's so frightening to go down on one's own, so frightening! She is pale as the snow, trembling, looks as though she is climbing the scaffold, yet she climbs on without looking back, quite resolved. So at last she has decided to find out for herself whether she will still hear those amazing, sweet words when I am not there. I watch her sit on the toboggan, face pale and mouth parted in fear; she closes her eyes, and, bidding the Earth farewell forever, moves off . . . ZHZHZHzhzhzhshshsss . . . hiss the runners. Whether Nadenka hears those words, I don't know . . . All I see is that she gets off the toboggan looking quite faint and exhausted. And I can see from her face that she doesn't know herself whether she heard anything or not. Her fear as she was plummeting downwards made her incapable of hearing, of distinguishing the sounds, taking anything in ...

But now March comes, and with it the spring . . . The sun becomes gentler. Our hill of ice darkens, loses its shine, and finally melts away. We stop going out tobogganing. Now there is nowhere left for poor Nadenka to hear those words, and no one to say them, either, for the wind is silent and I am about to leave for Petersburg for a long time, if not for ever.

At dusk one evening, a couple of days before my departure, I am sitting in our garden, which is separated from Nadenka's house by a high fence topped with nails . . . It is still fairly cold, there is still snow beneath the manure on the garden, the trees are dead, but spring is already in the air, and the rooks caw noisily as they settle for the night. I go over to the fence and peep through a crack in it for a long time. I see Nadenka come out onto the porch and gaze sadly, yearn- ingly into the sky . .. The spring breeze is blowing straight into her pale, dejected face . . . It reminds her of the wind that roared past us those times on the slope, when she used to hear those four words, and her face grows sad, so sad, and a tear trickles down her cheek . . . And the poor girl stretches out her hands as though begging the breeze to send her those words again. And I wait for the wind to pick up, and just at that moment I say in a low voice:

'I love you, Nadya!'

Goodness, what a change that brings to Nadenka! Shegives a little scream, smiles all over her face, and stretches her arms out to the wind, joyful, full of happiness, beautiful.

I go off and start to pack . ..

That was a long time ago. Now Nadenka is married: she was given away to -or herselfchose, it makes no difference -the secretary of a court of wards of the nobility, and has three children. She hasn't forgotten how we used to go tobogganing every day and how the wind whispered to her 'I love you, Nadenka'; now this is the hap- piest, tenderest and most beautiful memory of her life ...

And now that I am older, I cannot understand why I said those words, why I played that joke on her ...

The Objet d'Art

Holding under his arm an object carefully wrapped up in No. 223 of the Stock Exchange Gazette, Sasha Smirnoff (an only son) pulled a long face and walked into Doctor Florinsky's consulting-room.

'Ah, my young friend!' the doctor greeted him. 'And how are we today? En-rythmg wcll, I trust?'

Sasha hlinkcd his eyes, pressed his hand to his hcart and said in a voice trembling with emotion:

'Mum scnds her rcgards, Doctor, and tuld me to thank you . .. I'm a mother's only son and you saved my life -cured me of a dangerous illness . . . .and Mum and me simply don't know how to thank you.'

'Nonsense, lad,' interrupted the doctor, simpering with delight. 'Anyone clse would have done the same in my place.'

'I'm a mother's only son . . . We'rc poor folk, Mum and me, and of course we can't pay you for your services . . . and we feel very bad ahout it, Doctor, but all the same, we - Mum and me, that is, her one and only — we do beg you most earnestly to accept as a token of our gratitude this . . . this object here, which . . . lt's a very valuable amique bronze - an exceptional work of an.'

'No, rcally,' said the doctor, frowning. 'I couldn't possibly.'

'Yes, yes, you simply must accept it!' Sasha mumbled away as he unwrapped the parcel. 'If you rcfuse, we'll be offended, M urn and me . . . lt's a very fine piece . . . an antique bronze . .. lt came to us when Dad died and we've kept it as a precious memento . .. Dad used to buy up antique bronzes and sell them to collectors . . . Now Mum and me are running the business . ..'

Sasha finished unwrapping the object and placed it triumphantly on the table. ltwas a small, finely modelled old bronzecandelabrum. On its pedestal two female figures were standing in a state of nature and in poses that I am neither bold nor hot-blooded enough to describe. The figures were smiling coquenishly, and altogether seemed to suggest that but for the need to go on supporting the candlestick, they would leap off the pedestal and turn the room into a scene of such wild debauch that the mere thought of it, gentle reader, would bring a blush t0 your cheek.

After glancing at the present, the doctor slowly scratched the back

of his ear, cleared his throat and blew his nose uncertainly.

'Yes, it's a beautiful object all right,' he mumbled, 'but, well, how shall I put it? ... You couldn't say it was exactly tasteful ... I mean, decollete's one thing, but this is really going too far . . .'

'How do you mean, going too far?'

'The Arch-Tempter himself couldn't have thought up anything more vile. Why, if I were to put a fandangle like that on the table, I'd feel I was polluting the whole house!'

'Whata strange view ofart you have, Doctor!' said Sasha, sound- ing hurt. 'Why, this is a work of inspiration! Look at all that beauty and elegance -docsn't it fill you with awe and bring a lump to your throat? You forget all about worldly things when you contemplate beauty like that . . . Why, look at the movement there, Doctor, look at all the air and expression!'

'I appreciatc thatonly too well, my friend,' interruptcd the doctor, 'but you're forgening, I'm a family man - think of my small children running about, think of the ladies.'

'Of course, if you're going to look at it through the eyes of the masses,' said Sasha, 'then of course this highly artistic creation docs appear in a different light . . . But you must raise yourself above the masses, Doctor, especially as Mum and me'll be deeply offended if you refuse. I'm a mother's only son - you saved my life . . . We're giving you our most treasured possession . . . and my only regret is that we don't have another one to make the pair . . .'

'Thank you, dear boy, I'm very grateful . . . Give Mum my regards, but just put yourself in my place - think of the children running about, think of the ladies . . . Oh, all right then, let it stay! I can see I'm not going to convince you.'

'There's nothing to convince me of,' Sasha replied joyfully. 'You must stand the candelabrum here, next to this vase. What a pity there isn't the pair! What a pity! Goodbye, then, Doctor!'

When Sasha had left, the doctor spent a long time gazing at the candelabrum, scratching the back of his ear and pondering.

'lt's a superb thing, no two ways about that,' he thought, 'and it's a shame to let it go ... But there's no question of keeping it here . . . Hmm, quite a problem! Who can I give it to or unload it on?'

After lengthy consideration he thought of his good friend Harkin the solicitor, to whom he was indebted for professional services.

'Yes, that's the answer,' the doctor decided. 'As a friend it's awkward for him to accept money from me, but if I make him a present of this object, that'll be very comme il faut. Yes, I'll take this diabolical creation round to him - after all, he's a bachelor, doesn't take life seriously . . .'

Without further ado, the doctor put on ^his coat, picked up the candelabrum and set off for Harkin's.

'Greetings!' he said, finding the solicitor at home. Tve come to thank you, old man, for all that help you gave me - I know you don't like taking money, but perhaps you'd be willing to accept this little trifle . . . here you are, my dear chap - it's really rather special!'

When hc saw the little trifle, thc solicitor went into transports of delight.

'Oh, my word, yes!' he roared. 'How do they think such things up? Supcrb! Entrancing! Wherever did you get hold of such a gem?'

Having exhausted his expressions of delight, the solicitor glanced round nervously at the door and said:

'Only be a good chap and take it back, will you? I can't accept it . . .'

'Why ever not?' said the doctor in alarm.

'Obvious reasons . . . Think of my mothercoming in, think of my clients . . . And how could I look the servants in the face?'

'No, no, no, don't you dare refuse!' said the doctor, waving his arms at him. 'You're being a boor! This is a work of inspiration — look at the movement there . . . the expression . . . Any more fuss and I shall be offended!'

'If only it was daubed over or had some fig leaves stuck on . . .'

But the doctor waved his arms at him even more vigorously, nipped smartly out of the apartment and returned home, highly pleased that he'd managed to get the present off his hands . ..

When his friend had gone, Harkin studied the candelabrum closely, kept touching it all over, and like the doctor, racked his brains for a long time wondering what was to be done with it.

'It's a fine piece of work,' he reflected, 'and it'd be a shame to let it go, but keepmg it here would be most improper. The best thing would be to give it to someone . .. Yes, I know - there's a benefit performance tonight for Shashkin, the comic actor. I'll take the candelabrum round to him as a present -after all, the old rascal loves that kind of thing . . .'

No sooner said than done. That evening the candelabrum, pains- takingly wrapped, was presented to the comic actor Shashkin. The whole evening the actor's dressing-room was besieged by male vis- itors coming to admire the present; all evening the dressing-room was filled with a hubbub of rapturous exclamationsand laughter like the whinnying of a horse. Whenever one of the actresses knocked on the door and asked if she could come in, the actor's husky voice would immediately reply:

'Not just now, darling, I'm changing.'

After the show the actor hunched his shoulders, threw up his hands in perplexity and said:

'Where the hell can I put this obscenity? After all, I live in a private apartment - think ofthe actresses who come to see me! It's not like a photograph, you can't shove it into a desk drawer!'

'Why notsell it, sir?' advised the wig-maker who was helping him offwith his costume. 'There's an old woman in thisarea whobuysup bronzes like that . : . Just ask for Mrs Smirnoff — everyone knows her.'

The comic actor took his advice . . .

Two days later Doctor Florinsky was sitting in his consulting- room with one finger pressed to his forehead, and was thinking about the acids of the bile. Suddenly the door flew open and in rushed Sasha Smirnoff. He was smiling, beaming, and his whole figure radiated happiness . . . In his hands he was holding something wrapped up in newspaper.

'Doctor!' he began, gasping for breath. 'I'm so delighted! You won't believe your luck - we've managed to find another candelab- rum to make your pair! . .. Mum's thrilled to bits . . . I'm a mother's only son - you saved my life .. .'

And Sasha, all aquiver with gratitude, placed the candelabrum in front of the doctor. The doctor's mouth dropped, he tried to say something but nothing came out: he was speechless.

The Chorus-Girl

Once, when she was youngc:r and prettier and still had a good voice, she: was entertaining an admirer of hers, Nikolay Petrovich Kol- pakov, at her summc:r datcha. They were sitting at the back in the entresol.The weather was unbearably hot and sultry. Kolpakov had just finished his meal. He had drunk a whole bottle ofcheap pon and was feeling bad-tempered and out of sorts. Both of them were bored; they were w.iiting for the heat to die down before taking a walk.

Suddc:nly there was a ring at the front door. They were not expecting anyone and Kolpakov, who was in shirtsleeves and slip- pers, jumped up and looked at Pasha.

'Must be the postman, or maybe one of the girls,' said the singer.

Kolpakov was nm afraid of being seen by postmen or Pasha's girl friends, but to be on the safe side he gathered up his clothes and went ino the connecting room, while Pasha ran to open the door. To her great astonishment, instead of the postman or one of her friends, an unknown woman was standing there, young, beautiful, dressed like a ladv and judging by her appearance highly respectable.

The stranger was pale and breathing heavily, as if she had just climbed a long fight of stairs.

'What can I do for you?' asked Pasha.

The lady did not reply at once. She took a step forward, slowly looked round the room and sat down, as if too tired or unwell to remain standing; then her pale lips quivered for a long time, as she tried to form her words.

'Is my husband with you.?' she finally asked, raising her large eyes, their lids red from crying, and looking at Pasha.

'Husband?' Pasha managed to whisper and suddenly felt so scared that her arms and legs turned cold. 'Husband?' she repeated, begin- ning to tremble.

'My husband . . . Nikolay Petrcvich Kolpakov.'

'N-no, madam ... I . . . I don't know any husband.'

A minute wem by in silence. Several times the stranger passed a handkerchief across her pale lips, and to stop herself trembling inside she kept holding her breath, while Pasha swod rooted to the spot in front of her, gazing at her in fear and bewilderment.

'So you say he's not here?' the lady asked in a voice now firm, and smiled oddly.

'1 — I don't know who you're talking about.'

'You loathsome, foul creature . . .' muttered the stranger, looking Pasha up and down with hatred and revulsion. 'Yes, foul - that's what you are. At last I can have the pleasure of telling you so!'

Pasha had the feeling that to this lady in black, with the angry eyes and slender white fingers, she really did look foul and disfigured, and shebegan to feel ashamed ofher plump red cheeks, her pock-marked nose and the quiff of hair that refused to be combed back. And it seemed to her that ifshe were thin and not made up and did not have the quiff, she might have concealed the fact that she was not respect- able, and would not have felt so terrified and ashamed standing in front of this mysterious, unknown lady.

'Where is my husband?' continued the lady. 'Not that it matters to me whether he's here or not - but I should tell you they've found out the money's missingand they're looking forNikolay Petrovich. They mean to arrest him. That's what you've succeeded in doing!'

The lady stood up and began walking about the room in great agitation. Pasha gazed at her and was too scared to understand anything.

'They'll find him today and arrest him,' said the lady, giving a sob of wounded pride and vexation. 'I know who's got him into this awful mess! You foul, base woman! Disgusting, mercenary crea- ture!' (The lady's lips twisted and her nose wrinkled up with revul- sion.) 'I am weak - listen to me, you base woman! - I am weak . . . you are stronger than I am ... but there is One who will stand up for me and my children! God sees everything! He is just! He will make you pay for every tear of mine, for all my sleepless nights! The time will come whl'"n you will remember me!'

Another silence fol!owed. Thelady walked up and down the room wringing her hands, while Pasha continued to stare blankly at her in bewilderment, unable to follow the lady's words but anticipating something dreadful.

'I don't know what you're talking about, madam,' she said and suddenly burst into tears.

'You liar!' shouted the lady and her eyes flashed at her angrily. 'I know everything! I've known about you for a long time! I know he's been coming here every day for the past month!'

'So what? What if he has? I have many visitors but I don't force

anyone. It's a free world.'

'But don't you sce, they've found out the money's missmg! He's been embezzling other people's money from the office! For the sakc of a . . . a woman like you, hc was even prcpared to break the law. Listen,' said the lady in a decisive tone, stopping in front of Pasha. 'You cannot have any principles, you exist solely in order to promote evil, that's your aim in life, but I cannot bclieve you have fallen so low as to lose all trace of human feeling! He has a wife and children . . . If he is convicted and sent to Siberia, the children and I will starve to death - do you realise that? But there is still a way open to save him and us from penury and humiliation. If I pay in nine hundred roubles today, they'll leave him alone. Only nine hundred roubles!'

'Ninehundred roubles?' Pasha asked quietly. '1-1don't know what you mcan ... I didn't take them.'

'I'm not asking you for nine hundred roubles. You don't have any money and I wouldn't touch it if you had. I'm asking you for something else . . . Usually, men give women like you expensive presents. Simply give me back the presents you've had from my husband!'

'But, madam, the gentleman never gave me any presents!' squealed Pasha, beginning to follow.

'So where is the money? He's got through his own money, my money and other people's . . . Where's it all gone? Listen to me, I beg you! I was worked up just now and said a lot of unpleasant things to you, but I apologise. I know you must hate me, but ifyou are capable of sympathy, put yourself in my position ! Give me back the presents, I implore you!'

'Mm . . .' said Pasha, shrugging her shoulders. 'I'd be glad to, but as God's my judge, the gentleman never gave me anything. That's the truth. Ah no, you're right,' the singer added, flustered. 'He did once bring me two little things. You can have them if you like . . .'

Pasha opened one of the small drawers in her dressing-table and took out a hollow gilt bracelet and a thin little ring with a ruby.

'Here you are,' she said, handing the objects to the visitor.

The lady flushed and her face trembled. She was insulted.

'These are no good,' she said. 'I'm not asking you for charity, I'm askingyou for what doesn't belong to you . . . for what you squeezed out of my husband by exploiting your position -that weak, unfortu- nate man . . . When I saw you with him on Thursday at the landing- stage, you were wearing expensive brooches and bracelets. So don't try playing the innocent with me! I'm asking you for the last time: will you give me back the presents or not?'

'You're a funny one, you really are,' said Pasha, beginning to take offence herself. 'I swear to you, I never had anything from your Nikolay Petrovich other than the ring and the bracelet. All he ever brought me was fancy pastries.'

'Fancy pastries,' said the stranger with a bitter smile. 'At home the children are starving, and here you're eating fancy pastries. So you absolutely refuse to give me back the .presents?'

Receiving no reply, the lady sat down and began staring straight ahead, thinking.

'What am I to do now?' she said. 'If I can't get the nine hundred roubles, he's finished, and the children and me with him. Which am I to do: kill this vile creature or go down on my knees to her?'

The lady pressed her handkerchief to her face and burst into tears.

'I implore you!' she said through her sobs. 'You're the one who's ruined and destroyed my husband, you must save him . . . You may have no sympathy for him, but the children . . . what of them? What have they done to deserve this?'

Pasha had a picture of small children standingon the street crying with hunger, and she too burst into tears.

'But what can I do, madam?' she said. 'You say I'm a vile creature and I've ruined Nikolay Petrovich, but I'm telling you the gospel truth ... I swear I haven't had anything out of him. Motya's the only one in our chorus with a rich man to keep her, the rest of us just live from hand to mouth. Nikolay Petrovich is an educated, refined gentleman, so, I made him welcome. We're not allowed to say no.'

'It's the presents I'm asking for! Give me thc presents! I'm crying, I'm humiliating myself . . . Do you want me to go down on my knees to you? Do you?'

Pashagave a frightened shriek and threw up her arms. She fdt that this pale, beautiful lady, who was expressingherselfso nobly that she might have been on stage, really was capable of going down on her knees to her, precisely because she was so proud and noble and wanted to exalt herself and humiliate the chorus-girl.

'All right,' said Pasha, jumping up and wiping her eyes. 'I'll give you the presents. All right. Only they aren't from Nikolay Petrovich ... I had them from other visitors. But if that's how you want it . . .'

Pasha went over to a chest ofdrawers, pulled out the top one, took out a diamond brooch, a coral necklace, several rings and a bracelet, and handed them all w the lady.

'I never had a thing from your husband, hut you take them: take them and grow rich!' Pasha continued, offendrd by the lady's threat to go down on her knees to her. 'And if you're his respcctablc, lawful wedded wife, how come you couldn't keep him? It stands to reason! I didn't seck him out, he came to me .. .'

Through her tears the lady looked the objects over and said:

'Where are the rest? . .. These won't fetch five hundred.'

In a fit of emotion Pasha furiously tossed out a gold watch, a cigarene-case and a pair of cuff-links from the drawer, threw up her hands and said:

'That's the lot ... You can search the place if you like!'

The visitor sighed, picked up the objects with trembling hands, wrapped them in a handkerchief, and without so much as a word or ..:ven a nod, left.

The door from the next room opened and Kolpakov came in. He was pale and was shaking his head nervously from side to side, as if hehad just swallowed something very bitter; tears were glistening in his eyes.

'Presents! What presents?' said Pasha, flying at him. 'When did you ever give me anything?'

'Oh what do presents maner?' Kolpakov replied and shook his head. 'My God - she cried in front of you, humiliated herself . . .'

'What presents did you ever give me, I'm asking you?' Pasha shouted.

'My God, a decent, proud, pure being l ike that was even prepared to kneel down before this . .. this whore! And I brought her to it! I let it happen !'

He seized his head in his hands and groaned:

'No, I shall never forgive myself! Never! Get away from me, you- you trash!' he shouted with loathing, backing away from Pasha and pushing her aside with trembling hands. 'She was about to go down on her knees, and to whom? To you! Oh God!'

Dressing quickly andstepping round Pasha in hisdisgust, he made his way to the door and left.

Pasha lay down and sobbed loudly. She was already beginning to regret giving away her things in the heat of the moment, and she felt hurt. She remembered how three years ago, for no rhyme or reason, a merchant had given her a beating, and sobbed even louder.

Dreams

Two village constables - one black-bearded, stocky, and with such peculiarly short legs that from behind they appear to start much lower down than everyone else's, the other long, thin and straight as a stick, with a sparse little dark-red beard - are escorting to the nearest town a tramp who will not divulge his name. The first waddles along looking from side to side, one moment chewing a straw, the next his own sleeve, slapping his thighs and humming to himself, and in general has a happy-go-lucky air; the other, despite his drawn face and narrow shoulders, looks solid, serious and sub- stantial, and in build and bearing his whole figure resembles that of an Old Believer priest or a warrior of the kind one sees on very old icons; 'for the increase of his wisdom God has extended his brow', i.e. he is going bald, and this emphasises the similarity even more. The first is called Andrey Ptakha, the second Nikandr Sapozhnikov.

The person they are escorting does not at all conform to the popular notion of a tramp. He is a puny little man, feeble and sickly-looking, with small, drab, extremely nondescript features. His eyebrows are scanty, his look mild and submissive, and his beard hardly shows through, although the tramp must be over thirty. He treads timidly, stooping and with his hands tucked into his sleeves. The collar of his threadbare little serge coat, which is not that of a peasant, is turned right up, touching his cap, so that only a red point of a nose ventures to look out on the world. He speaks in a thin, high-pitched, wheedling voice, constantly clearing his throat. It is hard, very hard, to think of him as a tramp concealing his identity. He looks more like some impoverished, down-and-out son of a priest, a clerk dismissed for drunkenness, or a merchant's son or nephew who has tried his meagre talents on the stage and is now going home to play out the last act of the parable of the prodigal son; perhaps, judging from the grim perseverance with which he is battl- ing against the impossible autumn mud, he is a fanatic - some monastic servant roaming the monasteries of Russia in stubborn search of 'a life ofpeace free from all sin', which he never finds . . .

By now the travellers have been going a long time, but still they cannot get off the small patch ofearth on which they are walking. In front of them stretches thirty feet of mud-hound, brownish-black road, behmd them as much ag.iin, and beyond, vvherever you look, is an impenctrable wall of white mist. They waik and walk, but the earth is still the same, the wall gets no closer, and the patch remains a patch. A jagged white piece of cobblestone, a gully, or a sheaf of hay someone has dropped, appearsfor a moment, a dingy puddle gleams briefly, then all of a sudden a shadow of uncertain outline looms ahead unexpectedly; the closer to it they get, the smaller and darker it becomes; closer still, and the travellers make out a leaning post with the number of versts half erascd, or a pathetic little birch tree, drenched and bare like a wayside beggar. The birch tree whispers something with its remaining yellow leaves, one leaf breaks off, and floats lethargically to the earth . . . Then there is nothing but mist again, mud, and the brown grass along the edges of the road. On the grass hang bleary, cheerless tears. These are not the tears of quiet joy that the earth weeps as it welcomes and bids farewell to the summer sun, and which it gives the quails, the corncrakes and the slender, long-billed curlew to drink at dawn! The travellers' feet drag in the heavy, clinging mud. Evcry step is hard work.

Andrey Ptakha is somewhat agitated. He keeps eyeing the tramp and striving to understand how a living, sober human being can fail to remember his own name.

'But you're a Russian Orthodox, aren't you?' he asks.

'I am,' the tramp answers mildly.

'Hm! . . . So you were christened then?'

'Of course - I'm not a Turk, am I? I go to church, I fast for the sacrament, I only eat what's proper in Lent, I observe all the practicu- lars of religion . . .'

'Well then, what's your name?'

'Call me what you will, lad.'

Ptakha shrugs his shoulders and in utter bewilderment slaps his thighs. The other constable, though, Nikandr Sapozhnikov, main- tains a lofty silence. He is not as naive as Ptakha and evidently has a very good idea of the kind of reasons that might induce a normal Orthodox person to conceal his name from people. His face is manifestly cold and severe. He walks apart, does not deign to chat idly with his fellows, and seems to be trying to demonstrate his gravity and wisdom to all and sundry, even the mist.

'God knows what to make of you!' Ptakha continues to press. 'You're neither peasant nor gent, but a sort of in-between . .. The other day, I was washing some sieves in the pond when I caught this creepy-crawly thing -so long, the size of your finger, with gills and a tail. First I thought it was a fish, then I looked at it and - blow me if it didn't have little paws! It weren't a fish, it weren't a viper, damned if I know what it was . . . And you're just the same . .. What's your official status?'

'I'm a peasant, I'm ofpeasant stock,' sighs the tramp. 'My mamma was a house serf. I don't much look like a peasant, I know, because that was how fate treated me, kind sir. My mamma was a nursemaid to the gentry and had every comfort and I'm, well, her flesh and blood, and I lived with her in the big house. She pampered me and spoilt me and set her heart on lifting me out ofthe lower orders and making a gentleman of me. I slept in a bed, every day I ate a proper dinner, and I wore trousers and half-boots like any little lord. What- ever my mamma had to eat, I had the same; ifthey gave her cloth for a dress, she'd make clothes for me out of it . .. Oh, we lived well! The sweets and gingerbreads I scoffed in the days of my childhood - if you sold them now, they'd buy you a decent horse. My mamma taught me to read and write, she made me fear God from an early age, and she trained me so well that now I can't bring myself to use any ungenteel, peasant word. I don't drink vodka, either, lad, and I dress neat, and know how to behave properly in good society. If she is still alive, then God give her health, and if she's died, then grant rest unto her soul, O Lord, in thy kingdom where all the righteous do find rest!'

The tramp bares his head, with its sparse tufts ofbristles, raises his eyes, and signs himself twice with the cross.

'Bring her, O Lord, to a verdant pasture, a place of repose!' he intones in a voice more like an old woman's than a man's. 'Teach her, O Lord, thy servant Kseniya, thy statutes! If it weren't for my kind mamma, I'd be just a simple peasant with no clue about anything! Now though, lad, you can ask me about anything you like and I'll tell you - whether it's profane writings, or holy writ, your prayers or your catechism. And I live by the good Book,too . . . I harm noone, I keep my body in purity and chastity, I observe the fasts, I eat at the appointed times. Another man might have no pleasure in life but vodka and lewd talk, but if I have any spare"time I sit down in a little corner and read a book. I read, and cry and cry . . .'

'What do you cry for?'

'They write so sadly ! A book might not cost you more than five

kopecks, yet you can cry and groan over it no end.'

'Is your father dead?' asks Ptakha.

'I don't know, lad. No harm in telling you -1 don't know who my parent was. The way I see it, I was my mamma's illegitimate child. My mamma lived all her life with the gentry and didn't wish to marry an ordinary peasant -'

'So she set her sights on the master instead,' grins Ptakha.

'She transgressed, that she did. She was devout, God-fearing, but she did not preserve her maidenhood. It's a sin, ofcourse, a great sin, no denying it, but then maybe there's noble blood in me as a result. Maybe I'm only a peasant in rank, underneath it I'm a noble gentle- man.'

The 'noble gentleman' says all this in a soft, treacly high-pitched voice, furrowing his narrow little brow and emitting little squeaks through his frozen red nose. Ptakha listens, squints at him amazed, and never ceases shrugging his shoulders.

After walking nearly six versts, the constables and the tramp sit down on a mound to rest.

'Even a dog remembers its own name,' Ptakha mutters. 'I'm called Andryushka, he's called Nikandra -every man has his holy name, and that name must never be forgot! Never!'

'Who needs to know my name?' sighs the tramp, propping his cheek on his fist. 'And what good will it do me? Maybe, if they'd let me go where I like . . . but as it is it'd only make matters worse. My brothers in the faith, I know the law. Now I'm just a tramp, anonym- ous, and at worst they'll send me to East Siberia and give me thirty or forty lashes. But if I tell them my real name and statusthey'll pack me off to hard labour again. I know!'

'You mean to say you were doing hard labour?'

'I was, dear friend. Four years I went round with my head shaven and with irons on.'

'What were you there for?'

'For murder, kindsir! When I wasjust a lad, about eighteen or so, by accident my mamma put arsenic in the master's glass instead of soda and acid. There were lots of different medicine boxes in the storeroom, it wasn't difficult to muddle them up ...'

The tramp sighs, wags his head, and says:

'She was devout all right, but who can really tell-another'ssoul is a dense forest! Maybe it was an accident, but maybe in her heart she couldn't bear the insult of the master taking another maidservant unto him . . . Maybe she pnt it in on purpose, who knows! I was young then and didn't understand it all ... Come to think of it, the master did take another paramour, and my mamma was sorely put out about it. Nearlytwo years ittook them totry us . .. My mamma was sentenced to twenty years' hard labour and myselfjust to seven, because I was under age.'

'Why did they sentence yo«?'

'Asan accomplice. I took him theglass. That's howit always was: my mamma used to mix the soda, and I took it to him. Mind you, brothers, I'm only telling you this as one Christian to another, as I would before God, don't go telling anyone . . .'

'Oh, no one'll ask us,' says Ptakha. 'So you escaped from the penal colony, is that it?'

'l did, dear friend. There was about fourteen of us bolted. God bless them for it, they'd decided to run away themselves, and they took me with them. So you work it out, lad, and tell me honestly, why should I reveal my origins? They'll send me straight back to hard labour! And what kind of a convict am I? I'm delicate, I'm not very well, I like it to be clean where I eat and sleep. When I say my prayers, I like to light a little lamp or candle, and there must be no noise roundabout. When I do my bows to the ground, there must be no litter or spittle on the floor. And I do forty every morning and evening, you know, for my mamma.'

The tramp takes off his cap and crosses himself.

'But let 'em send me to East Siberia,' he says. 'I'm not afraid of that!'

'Is that better, then?'

'It's a completely different story! In the penal colony you're like crayfish stuffed in a basket - cramped and crushed together, you can't even draw breath, may the Holy Mother spare us such hell! You're a criminal, and that's how they treat you, worse than a dog. You can't eat or sleep or pray properly there. But it's different in a settlement. In a senlement the first thing that happens is I become a member of the community like everyone else. The authorities have to give me my share by law . . . oh yes! Land there, they say, costs no more than snow - you take as much as you want! They'll give me land to till, lad, land for my vegetables, and land to build on ... I'll plough and sow just like other people, I'll keep cattle and the whole lot— bees, sheep, dogs . .. And a Siberian cat to stop the rats and mice eating my goods . .. I'll put up a log hut, brothers, I'll buy myself icons .. . God willing, I'll get married and have my own little children.'

The tramp mumbles all this looking not at his listeners but some- where to one side. For all their naivety, he voices these fantasies with such smcerity and inner conviction that it is hard not to believe them. The tramp's little mouth has slanted into a smile, whilst his eyes and nose and whole face are set hard in blissful anticipation of that far->ff happiness. The constables listen and regard him seriously, not without sympathy. They too believe.

'No, I'm not afraid of Siberia,' the tramp goes on mumbling. 'Siberia's all part of the same Russia, it's got the same God and Tsar as we have, they talk the same Orthodox tongue as you and me. Only there's more scope there, people are better off. Everything's better there. The rivers, for instance, are far better than the ones here! As for fish and game and what have you - it's teeming with them! And my Number One pleasure in life, brothers, is fishing. I'm happy to go without bread, so long as I can sit with a rod. I mean it. I fish with a rod and with pike-lines, I set creels, and when the ice is under way I fish with a cast-net. I'm not strong enough to lift it myself, so I pay a peasant five kopecks to do it for me. Lord, what sport that is! To catch a burbot or chub, say, is like coming across your own long-lost brother! And every fish has its own mentality, you know: one of them you catch with a live-bait, another with a grub, another with a frog or a grasshopper. You've got to know all about that! Take the burbot, for example. The burbot's not a choosy fish, she'll go for a ruffe even, whilst the pike is fond of a gudgeon and the asp a butterfly. As for chub, there's no better pleasure than fishing for them in a swift stream. You let out about seventy foot of line with no sinker, and a butterfly or beetle on the end, make sure the bait floats on top, then stand in the water with your trousers off, let it go downstream, and - jerk! - you've got a chub. Only you must watch he doesn't whip the bait off, the rascal. Assoon as he jiggles your line, you must strike, don't hang about. Goodgrief, the fish I've caught in my time! When we were on the run and the other prisoners were asleep in the forest, I'd be wide awake itching to get down to the river. And the rivers there are broad and fast, and goodness the banks are steep! Along the banks it's nothing but dense forest. The trees are so tall you only have to look at their tops and your head swims. By prices hereabouts, each pine tree would fetch ten roubles or so.'

Overcome by the welter of day-dreams, artistically powerful images of thc past, and sweet prescntiments of happiness, the poor man falls silent and merely moves his lips, as though whispering to himself. The blissful set smile does not leave his face. Thc constables are silent. They are deep in thought, their heads bowed. In the autumn stillness, when the cold grim mist off the land settles on your soul, when it looms before your eyes like a prison wall, and con- stantly reminds you how restricted is man's free will, it is sweet to think of broad, fast rivers with banks that are open to the sky, impenetrable forests and boundless steppes. Slowly and calmly the imagination paints you a picture of early morning, when the bloom of dawn still lingers in the sky, and a man no bigger than a speck is making his way along a steep, deserted river bank; theage-old masts of pines, piled high in terraces on either side of the torrent, stare grimly at the free man, and grumble moodily; roots, huge boulders and thorny bushes bar his way, hut he is strong in body and bold of spirit, he does not fear pines, boulders, his own loneliness, or the rumbling echo that repeats his every stcp.

The constables paint to themselves pictures of a free life such as thev have never lived. Perhaps they are dimly recalling images of something they heard of long ago, or perhaps they inherited their ideas of this free life with their own flesh and blood from distant forebears who were themselves free. Who knows?

The first to break the silence is Nikandr Sapozhnikov, who has not uttered a singleword until now. Whether he has suddenly envied the tramp his illusory happiness, or feels in his heart that thesedreams of happiness do not accord with the grey mist and the brownish-black mud - either way, he looks sternly at the tramp and says:

'Be that as it may, that's all well and good, brother, only you're not going to get to them places of freedom and plenty. You don't stand a chance. You'II have had it before you've gone three hundred versts. Look how weedy you are! You've only done six versts and you're struggling to get your wind!'

The tramp turns slowly towards Nikandr and the blissful smile vanishes from his face. He looks at the grave face of the constable apprehensively and sheepishly, evidently begins to recall something, and hangs his head. Again they are silent . . . All three are thinking. The constables are straining their imaginations to encompass what probably God alone can imagine, namely the terrible expanse that separates them from the realm of freedom. The tramp's head, though, is crowded with clear, distinct pictures that are more terrible by far than that cxpanse. Befor: hun me vivid images of all the legal delays, the transfa prisons and the penal colony prisons, the con- victs' barges, the exhausting stups en route, the freezmg hard win- ters, the illnesses and dcarhs of fellow-prisoners . . .

The tramp blmks sheepishly, brushes the tiny beads of sweat from his forehcad with his sleeve, and blows out a long breath, as though he has just |umpcd our of a sweltering hot bath-house, then he wipes his forehead with the other sleeve, and looks around fearfully.

'Too right you won't get there!' agrees Prakha. 'What kind of a walker arc you? Look at yourself: all skin and bones! You'll die first, brother!'

'Of courst he will! He doesn't stand a chance!' says Nikandr. 'They'll pur him straight in the infirmary . . . I'm telling you!'

The man with no name looks in terror at the severe, impassive faces uf his hostile companions and, without raking his cap off, hurriedly crosses himself, his eyes staring . . . He trembles all over, his head shakes, and the whole of him begins to writhe like a caterpillar that has bcen trodden on. . .

'Right, time to go,' says Nikandr, getting up. 'We've had our rest!'

A minute later and the travellers arc trudging along the muddy road. The tramp has hunchcd himself up even more and shoved his hands even further into his sleeves. Ptakha is silent.

The Orator

One fine morning they buried Collegiate Assessor Kirill lvanovich Babylonov. He died oftwo complaints so frequently encountered in our native land: a nagging wife and alcoholism. When the funeral procession moved off from the church on its way to the cemetery, one of the deceased's colleag:.^es, a certain Poplavsky, hailed a cab and dashed round to his friend, Grigory Petrovich Vodkin. Vodkin is a young man, but has already made quite a name for himself. As many readers will know, he possesses a rare gift foi making impromptu speeches at weddings, anniversaries and funerals. He can speak in any condition: half-asleep, on an empty stomach, drunk as a lord, or in a raging fever. Words flow as smoothly and evenly from his mouth as water from a drainpipe, and as copiously; black beetles in a tavern are not more numerous than the maudlin words in his vocabulary. He always speaks eloquently and at great length, so that sometimes, particularly at merchant weddings, the only way to stop him is to summon the police.

'I've come to ask you a favour, old man,' began Poplavsky, finding him at home. 'Put your coat on straight away and let's go. One ofour lot has died, we're just seeing him off to the next world, and some- one's got to whiffle a few words of farewell . . . We're banking on you, old man. We wouldn't have bothered you for one of the small fry, but this time it's our secretary - a pillar of the department, you might say. You can't bury a big shot like that without a speech.'

'Your secretary?' yawned Vodkin. 'The one who was aiways drunk?'

'Yes, him. There'll be pancakes and a good spread . . . cab fares on us. Come on, old son! Spin us some Ciceronian palaver by the grave, and we'll give you a right royal thank-you!'

Vodkin gladly agreed. He ruffled up his hair, put on a melancholy face and left with Poplavsky.

'I remember that secretary of yours,' he said, seating himself in the cab. 'You'd have to go a long way to find a bigger cheat and swindler, God rest his soul.'

'Now then Grisha, one shouldn't speak ill of the dead.'

'Of course not - aut mortttis «ifcil - but the man's still a crook.'

The friends caught up with the funeral procession and |oined it. Thc dcad man was bcingborne along slowly, so that before reaching the cemetcry thcy had time to nip into scvcral pubs 01nd knock back a quick one for the good of Babylonov's soul.

At the cemetery a short service of committal was held. Mother-in- law, wife and sister-m-law, following established custom, wept pro- fusely. As the coffin was being lowered into the grave, the wife even shouted: 'Stand back - let me join him!' - but did not, probably remembering the pension. Vodkin waited until everything had quietened down, then stepped forward, took in all his listeners at a glance, and began:

'Surely our eyes and ears deceive us.^; This grave, these tcar-stained faces, this moaning and wailmg: is it not all some terrible dream? Alas, it is no dream andour vision doth not deceive us! He whom we saw only the other day so cheerful, so youthfully fresh and pure, who only the other day, like the indefatigable bee, before our very eyes was bearmg his honey to the hive of his country's common weal, he who - who - that man has now been reduced to dust, to an objective vacuum. Implacable Death placed its withering hand upon him at a time when, for all his ripeness of years, he was still at the height of his powers and fullof the most radiant hopes. Oh, irreparable loss! Who can possibly replace him? We have no dearth of good civil servants, but there was only one Prokofy Osipych. He was devoted to his honourable duties heart and soul, never did he spare himself, many were the sleepless nights he spent, he was unselfish and incorruptible . . . How he despised those who tried to suborn him to the detriment of the common good, who sought with life's little comforts to lure him into betraying his duty! Why, with our very eyes we have seen Prokofy Osipych divide his meagre salary among his poorest col- leagues, and you yourselves have just heard the wailing of the widows and orphans who depended upon his charity. Devoted as he was to the call of dury and to good works, he was a stranger to the joys of life and even turned his back on domestic felicity; as you know, he remained a bachelor to the end of his days! And who will replace him as a colleague ? How clearly I can see before me now that tender, clean-shaven face, turned towards us with a kindly smile, how clearly I can hear the note of loving friendship in that gentle mice! May you rest in peace, Prokofy Osipych! Sleep well — thou true and faithful servant!'

As Vodkin proceeded, his listeners began to whisper among them- selves. Everyone liked the speech, it even extracted a few tears, but there was a lot in it that seemed odd. First, no one could understand why the orator called the dead man Prokofy Osipovich, instead of Kirill Ivanovich. Secondly, evervone knew that the deceased had spent a lifetime warring with his lawful wedded wife and could not therefore be termed a bachelor; and thirdly, he had a bushy ginger beard and had never once used a razor, so that it was a mystery why the orator should describe him as dean-shaven. Perplexed, the lis- teners exchanged glances and shrugged.

'Prokofy Osipych !' continued the orator, staring raptly into the grave. 'Your face was plain - shall I say ugly? - you were stern and unbending, but we all knew that behind that outer shell there beat a heart of purest gold!'

Soon the audience ^^an to notice something odd about the orator, too. His eyes were fixed on one point, he fidgeted restlessly and he himself began to shrug his shoulders. Suddenly he dried up, his mouth fell open in astonishment, and he turned round to Pop- lavsky.

'But he's alive!' he said, staring in horror.

'Who is?'

'Prokofy Osipych! He's standing over there by the headstone!'

'He's not the one who's dead, it's Kirill lvanych !'

'But you said yourself your secretary had died!'

'Kirill lvanych was our secretary - you've mixed them up, you clown! Prokofy Osipych was our secretary before, that's right, but he was transferred two years ago to the second section as head clerk.'

'Ah, God knows!'

'Why aren't you going on? This is gerting embarrassing!'

Vodkin turned back to the grave and resumed with all his previous eloquence. Prokofy Osipych, an elderly civil servant with a clean- shaven countenance, was indeed standing by the headstone, looking at the orator and scowling.

'You put your foot in it there!' laughed the civil servants on their way back from the funeral with Vodkin. 'Fancy burving someone who's still alive.'

'A poor show, young fellow!' growled Prokofy Osipych. 'That kind of speech may be all right when someone's dead, but when they're still alive — it's just poking fun, sir! How did you put it, for heaven's sake? Unselfish, incorruptible, doesn't take bribes! To say that ofa living person you have to be joking, sir. And who asked you, young man, to sound off about my face? Plain and ugly it may be, but why draw the attention ofall and sundry to it? No sir, I'm offendcd!'

Vanka

Vanka Zhukov, a boy of nmc apprenticed three months ago to Alyakhin the shoemaker, did not go to bed on Christmas Eve. He waited until his master and mistress and the older apprentices had left for the early morning service, then he fetched a little bottle of ink and .1 pen with a rusty nib from his master's cupboard, spread a crumpled sheet of paper in front of him, and began to write. Before forming the first letter, he looked round nervously several times at the doors and windows, glanced up at the dark i.:on, to left and right of which stretched shelves of lasts, and sighed brokenly. He was kneelmg in front of a work bench, on which lay his sheet of paper.

'Dear Grandad Konstantin Makarych,' he wrote. 'I'm writing you this letter. I wish you a Happy Christmas and all God's blessings. I have no father or mummy, you're the only person I have left.'

Vanka turned to look at the dark window, in which flickered the reflection of his candle, and vividly imagined to himself his grand- father Konstantin Makarych, who worked as a night-watchman on the Zhivaryovs' estate. He was a skinny little old man of about sixry-five, but amazingly lively and nimble, with a face that was always laughing and drunken eyes. During the daytime he slept in the servants' kitchen or played the fool with the cooks; at night, wrap- ped in his voluminous fu!l-length sheepskin, he went the rounds of the estate beating with his watchman's clapper. Behind him, their heads hung low, walked old Kashtanka and Loacher, named after the fish on account of his dark back and long, weasel-like body. Loacher is an extremely deferential and affectionate dog, he gives the same adoring look to friend and stranger alike, but his reputation is nil. Behind that deference and docility there lurks the most Jesuitical cunning. No one knows better than he how to creep up and nip you in the leg, slip into the ice-house, or steal a peasant's chicken. Many is the time he has nearly had his back legs broken, a couple oftimes he has been strung up, and every week he is beaten within an inch ofhis life; but he always bounces back.

Now Grandfather was sure to be standing at the gates of the village church, squinting at its bright red windows, stamping up and down in his big felt boots, and fooling about with the servants. His watchman's clapper hangs at his belt. He waves his arms around, hugs himself to keep warm, and with an impish old chuckle keeps going up to the housemaids and cooks and pinching them.

'Why don't we have some snuff?' he says, offering the girls his snuff-box.

The girls take a pinch and sneeze. This sends grandfather into indescribable raptures, he breaks into peals of merry laughter, and cries:

'Wipe the stuff off, it's freezing to you!'

They hold the box out to the dogs, as well. Kashtanka sneezes, shakes her muzzle about and walks away, offended. Loacher is too polite to sneeze and wags his tail instead. The weather is superb. The air is still, transparent, and crisp. It is a dark night, but the whole village can be seen clearly: the white roofs with plumes of smoke rising from their chimneys, the trees silvered with rime, the deep snowdrifts. The whole sky is strewn with gaily twinkling stars, and the Milky Way shines forth so clearly that you would think it had been washed and polished with snow for Christmas . . .

Vanka sighed, dipped his pen in the ink, and carried on writing:

'And yesterday I got a thrashing. The master dragged me out into the yard by my hair and walloped me with a strap, because I was rocking their baby in it's cradle and went and dropped off. And last week the mistress told me to gut a herring and I started from the tail so she took hold ofthe herringand wiped it's snout all over my mug. The older apprentices are always making fun of me they send me to the tavern for vodka and make me steal the master's gherkins and the master beats me with the first thing comes to hand. And there's nothing to eat here at all. They give me bread in the morning porridge for dinner and bread again for supper but the master and mistress they guzzle all the tea and cabbage soup. And they make me sleep in the passage and when their baby's crying I don't sieep at all but have to rock the cradle. Dear Grandad, for the Dear Lord's sake take me away from here take me home to the village I can't stand it any longer ... I beg and beseech you and will pray for you always take me away from here or I'll die -'

Vanka's mouth trembled, he wiped his eyes with his grubby fist, and gave a sob.

'- I'll grind your snuff for you,' he continued, 'I'll pray to God for you, and if I do anything bad you can beat the hide off me. And if you're worried I won't have a job to do then I'll beg the steward to take Christian pity on me and let me clean boots or I'll take over from Fedka as shepherd-boy. Dear Grandpa, I can't stand it any longer its killing me. I was going to run away to the village, but I don't have any boots and I'm scared of the frost. And when I grow up l'll look after you in return and won't let anyone harm you and when you die I'll pray for your soul just as I do for Pelageya my mummy.

'\1oscow is a very big town. All the houses are gents' houses and there are lots of horses but no sheep and the dogs aren't fierce at all. The boys don't go about with the star here at Christmas and they won't let people go up and sing in the choir and once I saw some hooks for sale in a shop window with line on them and for all sorts of fish, very fine they weretoo and there was even one strong enough to hold a forty-pound wels. Also I've seen shops with all sons of guns like the master's at home they'd be about a hundred roubles each I reckon . . . Also in the butcher's shops there are black-cock and hazel grouse and hares but where they shoot them the butchers don't say.

'Dear Grandad, when they have the Christmas tree with presents on at the big house get one of the gold walnuts for me will you and put it away in the green chest. Ask Miss Olga lgnatyevna, say its for Vanka.'

Vanka let out a deep sigh and once more gazed at the window- pane. He remembered that it was always his grandfather who went into the forest to get the Christmas tree for the big house, taking Vanka with him. Oh what fun that was! Grandfather crackled, the frost crackled, and looking at them Vanka crackled too. Before felling the tree, his grandfather would smoke a pipe, take his time over a pinch of snuff, and laugh at little Vanka shivering there . . . The young fir-trees clothed in rime stood motionless, waiting to see which of them was to die. Then, goodness knows where from, a hare shoots across the snowdrifts like an arrow . . . Grandfather can never resist shouting:

'Catch him, catch him! Catch the bob-tailed rascal!'

After cutting down the fir-tree, grandfather would drag it off to the house. There they would set about decorating it ... Miss Olga lgnatyevna, Vanka's favourite, bustled about most. When Varika's mother Pelageya was still alive and worked for the Zhivaryovs as a housemaid, Olga Ignatyevna used to give Vanka sweets, and amused herself by teaching him to read, write, count to a hundred and even dance a quadrille. But when Pelageya died, the orphaned Vanka was packed off to his grandfather in the servants' kitchen, and thence to Moscow to Alyakhin the shoemaker . ,.

'Come and fetch me dear Grandad,' Vanka continued. 'I beg you in Christ's name to take me away from here. Have pity on me a poor orphan or they'll go on clouting me and I'm hungry all day long and I'm so miserable I can'ttell you I cry all the time. And once the master hit me on the head with a last and I fell down and nearly didn't wake up. My life's so awful worse than any dog's . . . Please give my love also to Alyona One-Eyed Yegorka and the coachmen and don't give my concertina away to anyone. I remain your grandson Ivan Zhukov. Dear Grandad come.'

Vanka folded the closely-written sheet in four and put it into an envelope that he had bought for a kopeck the previous day . . . He thought for a moment, dipped his pen, and wrotedown the address:

The Village. To Grandad.

Then he scratched his head, thought again, and added: ' - Kons- tantin Makarych.' Pleased not to have been disturbed while writing, he grabbed his cap and without bothering to put a coat on over his shirt, dashed out into the street . . .

The men at the butcher's shop, in answer to his questions the day before, had told him that letters are dropped into post-boxes, then carried from the post-boxes to all the ends of the earth on mail troikas with drunken drivers and tinkling bells. Vanka ran up to the nearest post-box and pushed his precious letter through the opening .. .

An hour later, lulled by fond hopes, he was fast asleep. He dreamt he saw the stove. On it was sitting his grandfather, dangling his bare feet and reading the letter to the cooks . .. Round the stove walked Loacher, wagging his tail . . .

Verochka

Ivan Alekseyevith Ognyov remembcrs how the glass door rang ashe opened it that August evening and stepped out onto the verandah. He was wearing a light cape and the same broad-brimmed straw h.at that is now gathering dust under his bed along with his Hessian boots. In one hand he was holding a large bundle of books and exercise-books, in the other a stout, knobbly walking-stick.

Standing in the doorway, guiding him with a lamp, was the owner of the house, Kuznetsov, a bald-headed old man with a long grey beard and a snow-white pique waistcoat. He was smiling and nod- ding benignly.

'Goodbye, old friend!' Ognyov shouted to him.

Kuznetsov put the lamp down on a table and came out onto the verandah. Two long thin shadows strode across the steps to the flower-beds, wobbled and bumped their heads against the trunks of the lime-trees.

'Goodbye and thank you again, old chap!' said Ivan Alekseich. 'Thank you for being so generous, so kind and so affectionate ... I shall never ever forget your hospitality. You're a fine person, your daughter's a fine person, and all of you here are so kind and cheerful and warm-hearted . .. You're such a marvellous crowd, I can't begin to tell you.'

Carried away by his emotions and by the effects of the home- brewed vodka he had just drunk, Ognyov intoned his words like a young priest, and was so overcome that he expressed his feelings more by blinking his eyes and twitching his shoulders than by words. Kuznetsov, who was also tipsy and emotionally overcome, leaned forward to the young man and exchanged kisses with him.

1887

'I've become like a faithful old gun-dog to you!' Ognyov con- tinued. 'Almost every day I've wandered over here, a dozen times I've stopped the night, and I shudder to think how much of your vodka I must have drunk. But what I'm most grateful to you for, Gavriil Petrovich, is your help and co-operation. Without you I should have been messing about here with my statistics until October. And that's what I'll say in my foreword: "I consider it my duty to express my gratitude to Chairman ofthe Rural Council of N., Kuznetsov,for hiskind co-operation." What a fan-tastic future statistics has! Give Vera Gavrilovna my humblest regards, and tell the doctors, the two magistrates and your secretary that I shall never forget the help they gave me! And now, old friend, let us embrace each other in a final, farewell kiss.'

Overwhelmed with sentiment, Ognyov exchanged kisses once more with the old man and began to descend the steps. On the last one he looked round and asked:

'Shall we ever meet again?'

'Heaven knows!' replied the old man. 'I doubt it.'

'So do I. Nothing on earth will tempt you to Petersburg, and I don't expect I'll ever come to this district again. Farewell, then!'

'You could have left your books here!' Kuznetsov shouted after him. 'What do you want to drag that load around for? I could have got one of the servants to bring them tomorrow.'

But Ognyov was walking briskly away and no longer listening. Primed by the liquor, he felt at once cheerful, warm, and melancholy . . . As he walked along, he thought how often in life one comes across fine people, and how sad it is that of these encounters nothing remains but memories. A flock of cranes appears suddenly on the horizon, a faint breeze brings you their mournfully exultant cry, but a minute later, however avidly you peer into the blue distance, not a speck is to be seen, not a sound heard; so too human beings, with their faces and voices, appear briefly in our lives and disappear into our past, leaving nothing but a few trivial scraps of memory. After living in the N. district since early spring and visiting the kind- hearted Kuznetsovs almost every day, Ivan Alekseich had come to think ofthe old man, his daughter and the servants as his own fgmily, had become familiar with every nook and cranny of the house, the cosy verandah, the twists in the paths, and the silhouettes ofthe trees above the kitchen and the bath-house; but as soon as he closed the garden gate behind him, all this would turn into a memory and lose its vital significance for ever, while in a year or two's time all these dear images would fade in his mind and be indistinguishable from the fruits and fancies of imagination.

'It's people who are most precious in life!' thoughtOgnyov, feeling very moved, as he strode along the path towards the gate. 'People!'

In the garden it was warm and quiet. The smell of still-flowering tobacco-plants, heliotrope and mignonette wafted to him from the beds. The spaces between the shrubs and tree-trunks were filled with a soft, airy mist suffused with moonlight, and Ognyov would long remember how wraith-like wisps stole one by one, slowly but per- ceptibly, across the pathways. The moon stood high above the garden, while below it translucent patchesof mist raced towards the cast. The whole world seemed to be made up of nothing but black silhouettes and floating white shapes, and Ognyov, who was seeinga misty moonlit August night for practically the first time in his life, felt that he was looking not at nature but at some stage set on which incompetent pyrotechnists, attcmpung to illuminate the garden with white Bengal lights, had stationed themselves behind the shrubs and succeeded in filling the air not only with light but with white smoke as well.

As Ognyov was approaching the garden gate, a dark shadow detached itself from the low paling fence and came towards him.

'Vera Gavrilovna !' he exclaimed joyfully. 'Sothat'swhere you are! I've been looking for you everywhere, I wanted to say farewell ... I'm just off!'

'So soon? But it's only eleven o'clock.'

'No, I must be going. It's five vems there and I still have to pack. Got to be up early tomorrow . . .'

Standing in front of Ognyov was Kuznetsov's daughter Vera, a girl of rwenry-one, as usual sad-looking, casually dressed and appealing. Girls who dream to themselves a lot and spend days on end lying around lazily reading everything that comes their way, who are bored and feel sad, generally do dress casually. This touch of infor- mality lends an especial charm to those of them who are endowed with good taste and an instinct for beauty. Ognyov, at any rate, when he came to recall later how pretty Verochka was, could not picture her without the loose-fitting blouse, creased into deep folds at the waist but still not touching her figure, or the curl that had worked itself loose from her piled-up hair and was hanging over her brow, or the red knitted shawl with the shaggy bobbles round the edges, which in the evenings hung dejectedly on Verochka's shoulder like a flag in calm weather, and during the day lay crumpled up in the hall next to the men's caps or on a chest in the dining-room, where it was uncere^niously slept on by the old cat. The shawl and the creases in the blouse conveyed an air of relaxation and placid domesticity. Perhaps because Ognyov liked Vera, for him every button and frill that she wore held something warm, cosy and good, a naivery and poetry that are so conspicuously absent in women who are artificial, devoid of a feeling for beauty, and essentially cold.

Verochka had a good figure, a straight profile and attractive curly hair. Ognyov, who had not seen many women in his lifetime, thought her beautiful.

'So I'm leaving!' he said, bidding her farewell by the gate. 'Think kindly of me, won't you; and thank you for everything!'

In the same chanting voice in which he had talked to the old man, blinking and twitching his shoulders as before, he began to thank Vera for being so kind, hospitable and welcoming.

'I mentioned you every time I wrote home to my mother,' he said. 'If everyone in the world was like you and your papa, we'd be living in a seventh heaven! You're such a marvellous crowd here! So simple, warm-hearted and sincere.'

'Where are you off to now?' asked Vera.

'First to see my mother in Oryol and spend a couple ofweeks with her, then back to work in Petersburg.'

'And after that?'

'After that? I'llbe working right through the winter, then off again in the spring to the provinces somewhere to collect material. Well then, all the best, long life to you ... think kindly of me. We shan't meet again.'

Ognyov bent over and kissed Verochka's hand. Then, at a loss for words, he straightened his cape, took a better grip on his bundle of books, and after a further pause said:

'What a lot of mist's collected!'

'Yes. Are you sure you haven't left anything?'

'Left anything? I don't think so . . .'

Ognyov stood there in silence for several seconds, then turned awkwardly towards the garden gate and went out.

'Just a moment,' said Vera, running after him, Tll come with you as far as our wood.'

They set off along the track. There were no trees to shut out the view now, so one could see the sky and the fardistance.The whole of nature was veiled in a gauzy, transparent haze, which made its beauty all the more appealing. The thicker, whiter mist, lying unevenly round the ricks and bushes or floating in wisps across the track, hugged the ground, as if trying not to obscure the view. Through the haze the whole of the track could be seen as far as the wood, with dark ditches on either side in which grew small bushes that hindered the passage of the floating wisps. The dark strip of the

Kuznetsovs' wood began half a verst from the gate.

'Why's she come with me? I'll have to see her back,' thought Ognyov, but glancing at Vera's profile, he smiled affectionately and said:

'One doesn't feel like leavmg on a night like this! It's a real romantic night, what with the moon, the siltnce and all the trim- mings. Shall I tell you something, Vera Gavrilovna? I'm twenty-nine and I've never had a single romance. Not a single romantic episode in my whole hfe - so I only know about such things as garden trysts, avenues of sighs, and kisses at second-hand. It's not normal! When you're sitting in a room in town, you're not aware you've missed out on something, but here in the countryside you become very con- scious of it ... and it's rather hurtful!'

'And why are you like this?'

'I don't know. Probably because I've never had the time, but maybe because I've simply not come across the kind of women who . . . The fact is, I don't have many friends and I never go out.'

For about three hundred paces the young people walked along in silence. Ognyov kept glancing at Verochka's bare head and shawl, and one after another the memories of days in spring and summer came flooding back to him. Far from his dismal Petersburg room, revelling in nature, the kind attentions of good people and his favourite work, he had not been aware ofone day following the next, how first the nightingale, then the quail, and a little later the corn- crake, fell silent, presaging the end of summer . . . Time had sped by unnoticed, so life must have been easy and good ... He began recallingaloud how unwillingly he had come here to N. district at the end of April, a young man of modest means unused to travel and to people, and how he was expecting to find boredom, loneliness and an indifference to statistics, which in his opinion now occupied the foremost position among the sciences. Arriving one April morning at the little district town of N., he had put up at the inn run by the Old Believer Ryabukhin, where for twenty kopecks a day he was given a clean, bright room with the condition that he smoke out of doors. After resting and finding out who was the Chairman of the Rural Council, he had immediately set offon foot to see Gavriil Petrovich. The route had taken him through four versts of luxuriant meadows and young woodland. Skylarks hovered beneath the very clouds, filling the air with silvery notes, while rooks sailed across the green- sprouting fields, flapping their wings solemnly and sedately.

'Gracious,' Ognyov had thought with surprise, 'do they always breathe this air here, or have they laid it on specially today for my arrival?'

Expecting a dry, official reception, he had entered the Kuznetsovs' house timidly, looking askance and tugging shyly at his beard. At first the old man furrowed his brow and did not understand how the Rural Council could be of use to this young man and his statistics, but when Ognyov gave him a full explanation of what statistical material was and where it was to be collected, Gavriil Petrovich perked up, beamed, and started to look at Ognyov's exercise-books with boyish curiosity . . . That same evening Ivan Alekseich was already dining with the Kuznetsovs. The potent vodka quickly went to his head, and as he watched the calm faces and lazy movements of his new friends, his whole body was filled with d sweet indolence that makes you feel like falling asleep, stretching yourself, or smiling. And the new friends studied him with kindly attention and asked him if his mother and father were still alive, how much he earned a month, and whether he often went to the theatre . . .

Ognyov recalled his journeys round the outlying districts, the picnics and fishing parties, and the group excursion to the nunnery to see the Abbess Martha, who gave each of the visitors a bead-purse; and he recalled those heated, interminable, typically Russian argu- ments, when the debaters, spluttering and banging their fists on the table, misunderstand and interrupt one another, contradict them- selves at every turn without noticing, keep changing the subject and after two or three hours of argument, laugh it all off saying:

'Heaven knows what set us arguing! We started in sunshine and ended in rain.'

'Do you remember when you and I and the doctor rode over to Shestovo?' Ivan Alekseich said. to Vera, as they approached the wood. 'That was the day we came across the holy fool. I gave him a five-kopeck piece and he crossed himself three times and threw it into the rye. Gracious, I'm taking so many impressions away with me that if one could turn them into a solid mass, they'd make a sizeable gold ingot! I don't understand why intelligent and sensitive people should want to herd together in the big cities and not come out here. Is there really more room to breathe and more truth to be found on the Nevsky and in those great big damp houses? I must say, my kind of life in furnished apartmems, chock-a-block with artists, academics and journalists, has always struck me as totally false.'

Twenry paces from the wood was a narrow footbridge over a sunken lane, with small pillars at the corners. This was always used hy the Kuznetsovs and their vjsitors as a hrief.stopping-place during evening walks. From here those so indinc-d could call out the echo from the wood, and the track could he seen disappearing into the dark cutting bctween the trces.

'Here we are at the bridge,' said Ognyov. 'Time for you to turn hack . . .'

Vera stopped and drew a deep hreath.

'Let"s sit here for a while,' she said, sitting down on one of the pillars. 'Usually everyone sits down when people are saying farewell before a departure.'

Ognyov settled himself beside her on his pilc of hooks and went on talking. She was breathing hard after the walk and was not looking at Ivan Alekseich but to one side, so that he could not see her face.

'And suppose we suddenly meet in ten years' time,' he was saying. "What shall we he like then? You'll he the respected mother of a family, and I'll be the author of some respected, totally unread collection ofstatistics as fat as forty thousand others. We'll meet .and remember the old days . . . Now we're experiencing the present, it ahsorhs and excites us, but when we meet then, we shan't remember the date or the month or even the year when we last saw each other on this bridge. You'll be a different person, I expect . .. don't you think you'll he a different person?'

Vera gave a start and turned her face towards him.

'What?' she asked.

'I was just asking you -'

'I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you were saying.'

Only now did Ognyov notice the change in Vera. She was pale, breathing in starts, and her tremblingconveyed itselfto her arms, lips and head, so that two curls rather than the usual one had escaped from her hair . . . She was evidently trying to avoid looking him straight in the eye, and in an effort to disguise her agitation kept adjusting her collar as if it were too tight, or shifting her red shawl from shoulder to shoulder . . .

'You must be cold,' said Ognyov. 'Sitting in the mist isn't exactly healthy. Let me see you nach Hause.'

Vera did not reply.

'What's the matter?' Ivan Alekseich asked with a smile. 'Why don't you say anything or answer my questions? Are you ill, or angry? Tell me.'

Vera pressed the palm of her hand firmly against the cheek that was turned towards Ognyov and immediately drew it away again sharply.

'It's terrible . . .' shc whispered, with an expression of acute pain on her face. 'Terrible!'

'What's terrible?' asked Ognyov, shrugging his shoulders and making no secret of his astonishment. 'What's the matter?'

Still breathing hardand with shoulders trembling, Vera turned her back to him, looked at the sky for half a minute and said:

'I must have a talk with you, Ivan Alekseich . . .'

'I'm listening.'

'You may find this strange . . . You'll be surprised, but I can't help it . . .'

Ognyov shrugged his shoulders once more and prepared to listen.

'It's like this,' Verochka began, bowing her head and fiddling with a bobble on her shawl. 'You see, what I wanted to tell you . . . was that . . . You may find this strange and . . . silly, but I . . . I can't bear it any more.'

Vera's words turned into a vague mumble and suddenly broke off in sobs. The young girl hid her face in her shawl, bowed her head even lower and sobbed bitterly. Ivan Alekseich cleared his throat in embarrassment, and too taken aback to know what to say or do, looked about him helplessly. Being unused to sobs and tears, he felt his own eyes beginning to prickle.

'This is awful,' he began mumbling desperately. 'Vera Gavrilovna, whatever's the matter? Are you - are you ill, my dear? Has someone offended you? You must tell me, perhaps I can ... I may be able to help . . .'

When, in an attempt to console her, he allowed himself to take her hands carefully away from her face, she smiled at him through her tears and said:

'I ... I love you.'

These simple ordinary words were spoken in simple human lan- guage, yet Ognyov turned away from Vera in utter confusion, stood up, and felt his confusion change to fear.

The sad, warm, sentimental mood induced in him by the farewell and Kuznetsov's vodka had suddenly vanished, leaving an acutely unpleasant feeling ofawkwardness in its stead. Asifall his affections had been turned upside down, he almost glared at Vera, and now that she had declared her love for him and cast off that inaccessibility which so becomes a woman, she seemed to him shorter, plainer, darker.

"What a thing to happen,' he thought to himself, aghast. 'But do 1 - do I love her, or not? That"s the problem!'

Vera, meanwhile, now that the most important and difficult thing had at last been said, was breathing easily and freely again. She too std up and looking Ivan Alekseich straight in the face, spoke rapidly, ardently and without restraint.

Just as someone who has had a sudden fright cannot recall .lfter- wards the order in which he heard the sounds of the disaster that stunned him, so Ognyo\" cannot remember Vera's words and sen- tences. All that he does remember is their general impon, Vera herself and the feeling that her words produced in him. He remem- bers her voice, which sounded stifled and somewhat hoarse with emotion, and her unusually musical, passionate intonation. Crying, laughing, with tears glistening on her eyelashes, she told him that from the very first days of their acquaintance she had been struck by his originaliry and intellect, his kind, clever eyes, and the aims and tasks he had set himself in life; that she had fallen in love with him passionately, madly and deeply; that when she used to come into the house from the garden during the summer and saw his cape in the hall or heard his voice from a distance, she would feel her heart go numb at the prospect of happiness; even his feeblest jokes made her laugh, to her every number in his exercise-books appeared unusually wise and exalted, and his knobbly walking-stick was to her more beautiful than the trees themseh es.

The wood, the wisps of mist and the dark ditches on either side of the track seemed to be hushed listening to her, but in Ognyov's hean something strange and disagreeable was taking place . . . Vera was enchantingly pretry as she declared her love, she spoke beautifully and passionately, but instead of the pleasure and joy at being alive that he would have liked to feel, he felt only sympathy for her, pain and regret that a good person should be suffering on his account. Whether he was prompted in this by abstract reason, or by that incurable habit of being objective which so often prevents people from really living, Heaven alone knows, but the fact remained that Vera's raptures and suffering seemed to him cloying, not to be taken seriously; yet at the same time feeling rebelled within him and whispered that so far as nature and personal happiness were con- cerned, everything that he was seeing and hearing now was more serious than all his statistics, books and half-truths put together . . . And he felt angry and reproached himself, though with what he did not exactly know.

To crown his embarrassment, he had absolutely no idea what to say, and to say something was essential. It was not within his power to say straight out 'I do not love you', and he could not say 'Yes', because, search as he might, he could find not the faintest glimmer . . .

He remained silent, and in the mean time she was saying that for her there was no greater happiness than to see him, to follow him, straight away if he liked, wherever he wished, to be his wife and helper, and that if he were to leave her, she would die of despair . . .

' I can't go on living here,' she said, wringing her hands. 'I'm sick of the house, this wood, the very air. I can't stand this perpetual calm, this aimless life, I can't stand the people here, they're all so colourless and insipid, you can't tell one from the other. They're all sincere and well-meaning, but that's because they're satisfied, they've nothing to suffer or struggle for ... I want to go to those great big damp houses ofyours, where people are suffering and ground down by hard work and privation .. .'

This too struck Ognyov as cloying and not really serious. When Vera had finished, he still had no idea what to say, but since he could not say nothing, he began mumbling:

'Vera Gavrilovna, I'm very grateful to you, although I feel I've done nothing to deserve this - this feeling - on your pan. Secondly, as an honest man, I am bound to say that . .. that happiness is based on reciprocity, that is, when both parties . .. love equally . . .'

But Ognyov was immediately ashamed of his mumbling and fell silent. He felt that the expression on his face as he said these things was stupid, lifeless and apologetic, that it was false and strained . . . Vera must have been able to read in his face the truth, because she suddenly became serious, turned pale and bowed her head.

'You must forgive me,' Ognyov mumbled, unable to endure the silence any longer. 'I have so much respect for you, that . . . this is painful for me!'

Vera turned on her heel and walked rapidly towards the estate. Ognyov followed her.

'No, don't bother!' said Vera, waving him away with her hand. 'There's no need, I can go by myself .. .'

'Yes, but even so ... I can't not sec you back.'

Every single word he spoke struck Ognyov as trite and nauseating. His feeling of guilt increased with each step. He fumed, clenched his fists and cursed his coldness and ineptitude with women. In an attempt to rouse his feelings, he looked at Verochka's attractive figure, her plait and the prints left by her small feet on the dusty track, he relivcd her words and tears, but all this he found no more than touching; it did not inflame his soul.

'But one can't make oneself fall in love!' he told himself, and at the same time thought: 'And when am I going to fall in love without making myself? I'm nearly thirty! I've never met anyone better than Vera and I never will . . . Oh, damned old age! To be too old at thirty!'

Ahead of him Vera was walking faster and faster, not looking round and with head bowed. She seemed to him in her grief to have become thinner, narrower in the shoulders . ..

'I can just imagine what's going on inside her now,' he thought, looking at her back. 'She must feel so ashamed and miserable she wishes she were dead. Heavens, there's enough life and poetry and meaning in all this to melt a stone, but I'm - I'm just stupid and ridiculous!'

At the gate Vera glanced back at him for a moment, pulled the shawl more tightly round her hunched shoulders, and hurried along the path.

Ivan Alekseich was left alone. He walked slowly back to the wood, pausing continually to look back at the gate, and his whole bearing seemed to express incredulity at what he had done. His eyes scanned the track for Vera's footprints, and he could not believe that a girl whom he liked so much had just declared her love to him, and he had so crudely and clumsily 'turned her down'! For the first time in his life he had learned from experience howlittlea man'sactions depend on his good will, and had found himself in the position of a decent, sincere man, who against his will has caused cruel and unwarranted suffering to his neighbour.

His conscience worried him, and when Vera had disappeared from sight he began to feel that he had lost something very close and precious that he would never recover. He felt that with Vera part of his youth had slipped away, and that the minutes which he had just lived through so fruitlessly would never be repeated.

On reaching the little bridge, he paused and reflected. He wanted to discover the reason for his strange coldness. It was clear that it did not lie outside himself, but within. He frankly admitted that it was not the rational kind of coldness that clever people often boast of having, or the coldness of the foolish egoist, but simply an impotence of the soul, an inability to respond deeply to beauty, and the prema- ture onset of old age due to his upbringing, his desperate struggle to earn a living and his bachelor existence in furnished rooms.

From the bridge he walked slowly, as if reluctantly, into the wood. Here, where the occasional sharp outlines of patches of moonlight showed through the thick black darkness, and he was conscious of nothing except his own thoughts, he felt a passionate longing to regain what he had lost.

And Ivan Alekseich remembers how he turned back. Spurring himself on with memories, forcing himself to conjure up Vera's image, he strode quickly towards the garden. The track and garden were both free of mist now, the bright, high moon looked down as if newly washed, but in the east it was still misty and overcast . . . Ognyov remembers his cautious footsteps, the dark windows and the heavy scent of heliotrope and mignonette. The familiar Caro, wagging his tail in friendlygreeting, came up and sniffed his hand . . . He was the only living creature who saw Ognyov walk twice round the house, stand for a while beneath Vera's darkened window, then give up and leave the garden with a deep sigh.

An hour later he was already in the town. Weary and dejected, he leaned his body and burning face against the gates of the inn, and banged on the knocker. Somewhere in the town a dog woke up and barked, and as if in answer to Ognyov's knock, someone struck the piece of iron hanging by the church . . .

'Gadding about at night again . . .' grumbled the Old Believer innkeeper as he opened the gates for him in a long garment like a woman's nightdress. 'You ought to be praying to God.'

Ivan Alekseich went into his room, sank down on his bed and for a long, long time stared at the lamp. Then he shook his head and began packing . ..

A Drama

'If you please, sir, therc's this lady wants to speak toyou,' announced Luka. 'She's been waiting a good hour . . .'

Pavel Vasilyevich had just finished lunch. Hearing of the lady, he frowned and said:

'To hell with her! Say I'm busy.'

'But she's been here four times already, sir. Says she simply must speak ro you . . . Almost m tears, she is.'

'Hm . . . Oh well, all right, ask her into the study.'

Taking his time, Pavel Vasilyevich put on his frock-coat, picked up a pen in one hand and a book in the other, and givingthe appearance of being exrremely busy, walked into the study. His visitor had already been shown in: a large stout lady with fleshy red cheeks and wearing glasses, clearly a person of extreme respectability and more than respectably dressed (she was wearing a four-flounced bustle and a tall hat surmounted by a ginger bird). On seeing the master of the house, she rolled her eyes heavenward and clasped her hands together as if in prayer.

'You won't remember me, of course,' she began in a kind of mannish falsetto, visibly agitated. '1-1 had the pleasure of making your acquaintance at the Khrutskys . . . My name is Medusina . . .'

'Ah . . . aha . . .mm ... Dotake a seat! And how can I be of service to you?'

'Well, you see, I ... I . . .' the lady continued, sitting down and becoming even more agitated. 'You won't remember me . .. My name is Medusina . .. You see, I'm a great admirer of your talent and always read your articles with such enjoyment . .. Please don't think I say that to flatter - Heaven forbid - I'm only giving credit where credit's due ... I read every word of yours. I am not a complete stranger to authorship myself . . . That's to say, I naturally wouldn't dare call myself a writer . . . but nevertheless I have added my own drop of honey to the comb. I've had three children'sstories published at various times - you won't have read them, of course . .. and a number of translarions . . . and my late brother worked on The Cause.'

'Aha . . . mm . . . And how can 1 be of service to you?'

'Well, you see,' (Medusina looked down bashfully and blushed) 'knowing your talent . . . and your views, Pavel Vasilyevich, I should like to find out your opinion, or should I say, seek your advice. I must tell you that I have recently -pardo« pour /'expressio« — conceived and brought forth a drama, and before sending it to the censor, I should like to have your opinion.'

Fluttering about like a trapped bird, Medusina began rummaging nervously in her skirts and pulled out a huge fat exercise-book.

Pavel Vasilyevich liked only his own articles, and whenever he had to read or listen to other people's, he always felt as if the mouth of a cannon were being aimed straight at his head. Scared by the sight of the exercise-book, he said quickly:

'Very well, leave it with me ... I'll read it.'

'Pavel Vasilyevich!' moaned Medusina, rising to her feet and clasping her hands together as if in prayer.' I know how busy you are, how every minute is precious to you . . . and I know that in your heart of hearts you must be cursing me at this moment, but please let me read my drama to you now . .. Please!'

'I'd be delighted,' stammered Pavel Vasilyevich, 'but my dear lady, I'm . . . I'm busy . .. I'm about to - about to leave town.'

'Pavel Vasilyevich,' the good lady groaned, and her eyes filled with tears. 'I'm asking for a sacrifice. Call me brazen and importunate, but be magnanimous! I'm leaving for Kazan tomorrow and that's why I'd like to hear your opinion today. Spare me your attention for half an hour - just half an hour! I implore you!'

Pavel Vasilyevich was a spineless fellow and did not know how to refuse; so when the lady seemed on the point of bursting into tears and falling on her knees, he lost his nerve and mumbled helplessly:

'Very well then, please do ... I'm listening ... I can spare half an hour.'

With a squeal of delight, Medusina took off her hat, settled herself more comfortably and began to read. First she read how a maid and a footman, as they were tidying up a magnificent drawing-room, had a long conversation about their young mistress, Anna Sergeyevna, who had just built a school and a hospital for the village peasants. When the footman had gone off, the maid delivered a monologue on the theme that 'knowledge is light and ignorance darkness'; then Medusina brought the footman back into the drawing-room and made him recite a long monologue on their master, the General, who could not abide his daughter's convictions, intended to marry her to a rich Groom of the Chamber, and believed that the salvation of the peasantry lay in total ignorance. After the servants had made their exit, the young lady herself entered and informed the audience that she had lain awake all night thinking of Valentinelvanovich, the son of the impecunious schoolmaster, who assisted his sick father with no thought of reward. Valentine had studied all the sciences, but believed neither in love nor friendship, had no aim in life and longed for death, and therefore she, the young lady, had to save him.

Pavel Vasilyevich listened and thought back fondly to his sofa. He glared at Medusina, felt his eardrums being battered by hcr strident voice, took in nothing and thought to himself:

'Why pick on me? . . . Why should I have to listen to your drivel ? Is it my fault you've written this "drama"? Heavens, look how fat that exercise-book is! This is torture!'

Pavel Vasilyevich glanced at his wife's portrait which hung be- tween the windows, and remembered that she had instructed him to buy four yards of braid, a pound of cheese and some toothpaste, and bring them back with him to their datcha.

'Hope to goodness I haven't lost the sample for the braid,' he thought. 'Where did I put it? In my blue jacket, I think . . . Those wretched flies have sprinkled full stops all over her portrait again. I must tell Olga to wipe the glass . . . She's on to Scene Twelve, so it'll soon be the end of Act One. How could anyone be inspired in this heat, let alone a mountain of flesh like her? Instead of writing dramas, she'd be better offdrinkingiced soup and having a nap in the cellar . . .'

'You don't find this monologue a trifle long.?' Medusina asked suddenly, looking up.

Pavel Vasilyevich had not heard the monologue. Caught off his guard, he answered so apologetically that one might have thought the monologue had been written by him, not the lady.

'No, indeed, not in the least . . . It's most charming.'

Medusina beamed with happiness and continued reading:

'Anna. Analysis has eaten into your soul. You ceased too soon living by the heart and put all your faith in the intellect. Valentine. What do you mean by the heart? It's a concept in anatomy. As a conventional term to describe what are referred to as the feelings, I refuse to acknowledge it. Anna (in confusion). And love? Is that too only a product of the association of ideas? Tell me frankly: have you ever loved? Valentine (bitterly). Let us not open up old wounds, wounds yet barely healed. (Pause.) What are you thinking about.⁵ Anna. It seems to me that you are unhappy.'

During the course of Scene Sixteen Pavel Vasilyevich yawned, and his teeth inadvertently produced the kind of noise that dogs make when they are snapping at flies. Scared by the impropriety of this noise, he tried to cover it up by assuming an expression of rapt attention.

'Scene Seventeen. When on earth's it going to finish?' he thought. 'Good God, if this torment goes on another ten minutes, I'll have to shout for help. This is too much!'

But now at last the good lady began reading faster and more loudly, raised her pitch and announced: 'Curtain.'

Pavel Vasilyevich breathed a sigh of reliefand was abouttoget up, but straight away Medusina turned over the page and carried on reading:

'Act Two. The stage represents the village street. Right a school, left a hospital. On the steps of thc hospital sit the village lads and lasses.'

'Pardon me for interrupting,' said Pavel Vasilycvich, 'but how many acts are there altogether?'

'Five,' answered Medusina, and straight away, as if fearing her listener might leave the room, hurried on: 'Valentine is looking out of a window in the school. Upstage villagers can be seen taking their goods and chattels into the village tavern.'

Like a condemned man who knows he cannot be reprieved, Pavel Vasilyevich abandoned all hope, gave up wondering when the play would end, and was concerned only to keep his eyes from sticking together and to preserve the expression of interest on his face. The future, when this lady would finish reading and depart, seemed so remote that he could not even contemplate it.

'A-blah-bla-bla-bla . . .' Medusina's voice reverberated in his ears. 'Blah-bla-bla . . . Zzzzz '

'I forgot to take my soda,' he thought.'. .. Er, what was that? Oh yes, my soda . . . I've probably got a stomach ulcer . . . It's an extraordinary thing, Smirnovsky guzzles vodka all day long, and his stomach'sstill all right . . . Some little bird's settled on the window- sill . . . A sparrow . . .'

Pavel Vasilyevich forced himself to keep his aching, drooping eyelids apart, yawned without opening his mouth and looked at Medusina. She was becoming blurred, starred wobbling, grew three

heads, towered up and touched the ceiling . ..

'Valentme. No, you must allow me to go away . . . Anna (alarmed). But why? Volent/ne (aside). She blanched! (fo Anna.) Do not force me to explain my reasons. I would rather die than let you know those reasons. Anna (after a pjusej. You cannot leave now . . .'

Medusina began to swell again, expanded to gigantic proportions and merged with the grey atmosphere of the study; all he saw now was her mouth opening and closing; then suddenly she became very small, like a bottle, started to wobble and together with the desk receded to the far end of the room . . .

'Valentine (holdrng Anna in his armsj. You have resurrected me, you have shown me life's purpose! You have revived me as the spring rain revives the awakening earth! But it is too late - ah, too late! An' incurable malady gnaws at my breast . . .'

Pavel Vasilyevich gave a start and stared at Medusina with dull, bleary eyes; for a whole minute he gazed at her fixedly, as if in a complete stupor . ..

'Scene Eleven. Enter the Baron and a police officer with witnewes. Valentme. Take me away! Anna. I am his!Take me too! Yes, take me too! I love him, love him more than my own life. The Baron. Anna Sergeyevna, does your father's suffering mean nothing to you -'

Medusina began to swell again . . . Gazing round wildly, Pavel Vasilyevich half rose, gave a deep-chested, unnatural yell, seized a heavy paperweight from the table and completely beside himself, swung it round with all his strength at Medusina's head . . .

'Tie me up, I've killed her!' he said when the servants ran in a minute later.

He was acquitted.

Typhus

Young Lieutenant Klimov was travelling in a smoking compartment of the mail train from Petersburg to Moscow. Opposite him sat an elderly man with the dean-shaven face of a ship's master, a well-to- do Finn or Swede to judge by his appearance, who spent the entire journey sucking on his pipe and going over the same topic of conver- sation:

'Ha, you are officer! My brother also is officer but he is sailor. He is sailor stationed at Kronstadt. Why are you going to Moscow?'

Tm stationed there.'

'Ha! And are you family man?'

'No, I live with my aunt and sister.'

'My brother also is officer, sailor, but he is family man, has wife and three children. Ha!'

The Finn seemed constantly astonished by something, gave a broad, fatuous grin every time he exclaimed 'Ha !', and kept puffing away at his stinking pipe. Klimov, who was feeling unwell and found it hard work answering his questions, loathed him from the bottom of his hean. He imagined how pleasant it would be to snatch the hissing pipe out of his hands and fling it under the seat, then drive the Finn himself into another carriage.

'They're a disgusting race, these Finns . .. and the Greeks,' he thought. 'A useless, superfluous, disgusting race. They just take up living space. What use are they?'

And the thought of Finns and Greeks made him feel a kind of nausea all over. By way of comparison he tried to think about the French and Italians, but for some reason the only images that these races conjured up in his mind were of organ-grinders, naked women and the foreign oleographs that hung above his aunt's chest of drawers at home.

Altogether, the officer did not feel his normal self. Even though he was occupying the whole of a seat, he somehow could not make his arms and legs comfortable on it, his mouth felt dry and sticky, and a thick fog filled his mind; his thoughts seemed to be wandering about not only inside his skull but outside it as well, among the seats and passengers shrouded in gloom. Through his clouded mind, as in a dream, he heard the mutter of voices, the clatter of wheels, the banging of doors. Bells rang, the guard blew his whistle, and passen- gers scurried along the platform - all more frequently than usual. Time Aew by quickly, imperceptibly, so that thp train seemed to be stopping at a station every minute, and metallic voices were con- stantly shouting from outside:

'Mail aboard?'

'All aboard!'

The stove-attendant seemed to come in too often to glance at the thermometer, and the noise of trains passing in the other direction and the rumble of wheels as they crossed a bridge seemed to go on without a break. The noises and whistles, the Finn, the tobacco smoke - all these, mixed up with those menacing, Aeeting, shadowy images, whose shape and meaning arc beyond the recall of a healthy person, pressed in on Khmov like an intolerable nightmare. In terr- ible anguish he raised his heavy head and looked at the lantern, in whose rays shadows and misty spotswereswirling; he wanted to ask for some water, but his parched tongue would scarcely move and he was barely strong enough to answer the Finn's questions. He tried to scnlc himself more comfortably and go to sleep, but to no avail; the Finn dropped off several times, woke up and re-lit his pipe, addressed him with his inevitable 'Ha!' and dropped off again, but the lieuten- ant was still quite unable to find a comfortable position for his legs, and the menacing images still Aoated before his eyes.

At Spirovo he got out and went into the station for a glass of water. Some people were sitting at a table, having a quick meal.

'How can they bear to eat?' he thought, trying not to breathe in the smell of fried meat or look at the chewing mouths, all of which disgusted him to the point of nausea.

A beautiful lady was carrying on a loud conversation with a military man in a red peak-cap and showing a set of magnificent white teeth whenever she smiled; the smile, the teeth and the lady herselfproduced in Klimov the same feeling ofdisgustas the smoked bacon and fried cutlets. He could not understand how the military man in the red cap could possibly bear to sit beside her and look at her healthy, smiling face.

He finished his water and returned to the carriage. The Finn was sining up smoking. His pipe was hissing and wheezing like a leaky galosh in wet weather.

'Ha!' he said with astonishment. 'What station is this?'

'I don't know,' Klimov replied, lying down and covering his mouth, so as not to inhale the acrid tobacco smoke.

'And when shall we be in Tver?'

'I don't know. I'm sorry, but I ... I can't talk. I'm ill, I've caught a chill today.'

The Finn knocked his pipe out on the window-frame and began talking about his brother, the sailor. Klimov was not listening any more. He was thinking longingly of his soft, comfortable bed, his carafe of cold water and his sister Katya, who was so good at putting him to bed, soothing him and handing him his water. He even smiled as an image flashed through his mind of his batman Pavel, taking off his master's heavy, thickly-lined boots and placing the water on his bedside table. All he needed to do, he felt, was to lie down in his own bed and drink some water, and this nightmare would give way to a deep, healthy sleep.

'Mail aboard.⁵' a hollow voice shouted from a distance.

'All aboard!' replied a deep voice almost beneath the window.

They were already two or three stations beyond Spirovo.

Time flew by quickly, in jumps, and the bells, the whistles and the stops seemed never-ending. In despair Klimov buried his face in the corner of the seat, wrapped his hands round his head and began thinking again about his sister Katya and his batman Pavel, but sister and batman became mixed up with the shadowy images, spun round with them, and disappeared. His hot breath, reflected off the back of the seat, burned his face, his legs were lying uncomfortably and his back was in a draught from the window, but no matter how agonis- ing his position, he no longer had any wish to change it . . . A heavy, nightmarish inertia gradually overwhelmed him and fettered his limbs.

When he finally ventured to raise his head, the carriage was already light. The passengers were putting on their outdoor coats and moving about. The train was stationary. Porters in white aprons and wearing numbered discs were bustling round the passengers, grabbing their suitcases. Klimov put on his greatcoat and mechani- cally followed the other passengers out of the carriage, and it was as if someone other than himself were moving in his place, some stranger, and he felt that his fever, his thirst and those menacing images which had given him no sleep all night, had come out of the carriage with him. Mechanically he collected his luggage and hired a cab. The driver demanded a rouble and a quarter to take him to

Povarskaya Street, but he didn't haggle and took his seat on the sledgc obediently and without demur. He was aware still of being ovcrcharged, but money no longer had the slightest value for him.

At home Klimov was met by his aunt and sister Katya, a girl of eighteen. Katya greeted him holding an exercise-book and a pencil, and he remembered that she was preparing for her teacher's exami- nation. Without replying to their questions and greetings, he walked blindly right through the apanment, panting feverishly, and on reaching his bed collapsed onto the pillow. The Finn, the red cap, the lady with the white teeth, the smell of fried meat and thc flickering spots of light took over his senses completely, and he no longer knew where he was or heard the anxious voices round him.

When he came to, he saw that he was lying in his own bed, undressed, he saw the carafe of water and Pavel, but none of this made him feel any cooler, more relaxed or more comfortable. He still could not find the right position for his armsand legs, his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth, and he could hear the wheezing of the Finn's pipe. A doctor with a black beard was fussing by his bedside and his ample, solid back kept bumping into Pavel.

'Don't worry, lad,' he mumbled, 'don't worry! Well done, well done .. . Goot, goot .. .'

The doctor kept calling Klimov 'lad' and saying 'goot' instead of 'good' and 'ya' for 'yes'.

'Ya, ya, ya,' he babbled on. 'Goot, goot . .. Well done, lad ... Keep your spirits up!'

The doctor's brisk, offhand way of speaking, his well-fed face and his condescending use of 'lad' irritated Klimov.

'Why do you keep calling me "lad"?' he groaned. 'Damned cheek!'

And the sound of his own voice scared him. It was such a dry, weak, singsong voice that he could not recognise it.

'Well done, well done,' mumbled the doctor, not in the least offended. 'Try not to get angry . . . Ya, ya, ya . ..'

Time flew by just as amazingly quickly at home as in the railway carriage. Daylight in the bedroom kept changing to dusk. The doctor seemed to be there all the time, saying 'ya, ya, ya' every minute. An unbroken procession of people filed through the bedroom. There was Pavel, the Finn, Captain Yaroshevich, Sergeant-Major Mak- simenko, the red peak-cap, the lady with the white teeth, and the doctor. They were all taiking, waving their arms about, smoking and eating. Once, in daylight, Klimov even saw his regimental priest,

Father Alexander, wearing his stole and with a prayer-book in his hands, standing at the foot of the bed mumbling something and looking more serious than Klimov had ever seen before. The lieuten- ant remembered that Father Alexander referred jovially to all the Catholic officers as 'Polacks', and wanting to make him laugh, he shouted:

'Father, Yaroshevich the Polack's run off to the Pole!'

But Father Alexander, a cheerful man who was easily amused, did not burst out laughing but became even more serious and made the sign of the cross over Klimov. At night two noiseless shadows came and went from the room in turn. They belonged to his aunt and his sister. His sister's shadow knelt down and began praying, and when she bowed to the icon, her grey shadow on the wall bowed with her, so that there were two shadows praying to God. All the time Klimov could smell fried meat and the Finn's pipe, but on one occasion he became aware of a strong smell of incense. His stomach began to heave and he shouted:

'The incense! Take away the incense!'

There was no reply. The only sounds were of priests chanting softly somewhere and ofsomeone running down the main stairs . . .

When Klimov emerged from his delirium, there was not a soul in the bedroom. The morning sun was flooding through the lowered curtain, and a trembling beam, as fine and graceful as a rapier, was playing on the carafe. The clatter of wheels could be heard - so he knew the snow must have gone from the streets. The lieutenant looked at the beam of sunlight, at the familiar furniture and the door, and the first thing he did was to start laughing. His chest and stomach quivered with sweet, happy, tickling laughter. His whole being was seized from head to foot by a sensation of boundless happiness and joy at being alive, like that which the first man probably experienced when he was created and saw the world for the first time. Klimov longed passionately for movement, for people, for human speech. He was lying flat on his back, he could move nothing but his arms, but- he scarcely noticed this and concentrated all his attention on little things. He delighted in his own breathing and laughter, delighted in the existence of the carafe, the ceiling, the sunbeam and the braid on the curtain. Even in a cramped little corner like the bedroom, God's world seemed to him beautiful, varied and magnificent. When the doctor appeared, the lieutenant thought what a marvellous thing medicine was, what a charming and sympathetic man the doctor was, and how good and intercsting pcoplc were gcnerally.

'Ya, ya, ya,' the doctor babbled on. 'Well done,well done . . .Now we're all right again . . . Goot, goot.'

The lieutenant was listening and laughing joyfully. He remem- bered the Finn, the lady with thc white teeth, thc smoked bacon, and suddenly he fclt the urge to eat and smoke.

'Doctor,' he said, 'tell them to bring me a crust of ryc bread and salt and . . . and some sardines.'

But the doctor refused, nor would Pavel obey his ordcr and go for the bread. This was too much for thc lieutenant, and he burst into tears like a spoilt child.

'Ah, poor little baby!' said the doctor, laughing. 'Hushaby, mummy's baby!'

Klimov also began laughing and after the doctor's departure fell sound aslcep. He woke up with the same feeling of joy and happiness as bcfore. His aunt was sitting by his bedside.

'Auntie!' he exclaimcd blissfully. 'What's been the matter with me?'

'You'vc had typhus.'

'Really? But I feel fine now, fine! Where's Katya?'

'She's out. I expect she called in to see someone after her exam.'

Theold lady said these words and bentdown over the stocking she was knitting; her lips began to tremble, she turned aside and sud- denly burst out sobbing.

'Oh Katya, Katya !' she said, in her despair forgetting all that the doctor had told her. 'Our angel's gone! Gone!'

She dropped the stocking and bent down to pick it up, and as she did so, her cap fell off her head. Looking at her grey hair and not understanding anything, Klimov felt scared for Katya and asked:

'But where is she? Auntie!'

The old lady, who was no longer thinking about Klimov but only of her own grief, said:

'She caught typhus from you and . . . and died. She was buried the day before yesterday.'

This terrible and unexpected news entercd fully into Klimov's consciousness, but however terrible and compelling it might be, it could not overcome the feeling of animal joy that filled the lieutenant as he regained his strength. He cried, he laughed, and soon he began swearing because he was not allowed to eat.

It was only the week after, when he walked over to the window in his dressing-gown leaning on Pavel's arm, looked out at the dull spring sky and listened to the unpleasant clanging of some old rails being carried past in the street, that he felt sick at heart, burst into tears, and pressed his forehead against the window-frame.

'Lord, how unhappy I am,' he murmured. 'How unhappy!'

And his joy gave way to a fceling of mundane boredom and a sense of irreparable loss.

Notes from the journal of a Quick-Tempered Man

I am a serious person with a philosophical turn of mind. An accoun- tant by profession, I am studying fiscal law and writing a thesis entitled: 'The Dog-Tax: its Past and Future.' It's quite obvious I can have absolutely no interest in young ladies, love songs, the moon and suchlike nonsense.

At 10 a.m. my maman poured my coffee. I drank it and went out on to the balcony to get down to work on my thesis right away. I took a fresh sheet of paper, dipped my pen in the ink and put down the title: 'The Dog-Tax: its Past and Future.' Then, after thinking for a while, I wrote: 'Historical Survey. Judging from certain passing references to be found in Herodotus and Xenophon, the dog-tax arose from — '

But at that point I heard footsteps of a highly suspicious nature. Looking down from the balcony I saw a young lady with an elon- gated face and elongated figure. I believe she is called Nadenka or Varenka (however, that is absolutely irrelevant). She was looking for something, pretending not to have noticed me, and singing: 'Dost thou recall that melody so full, so full of bliss . ..'

I re-read what I had written and was about to continue when the young lady suddenly pretended she had just noticed me and said plaintively:

'Oh good morning, Nikolay Andrcich! I'm awfully upset. I must havc lost a baublc from my bract-lc.-t whcn I was out walking ycstcr- day.' '

I read thc opening phrase of my thcsisonce again, touched up the crossbar on a 't' and was about to resume - but the young lady was not to bc put off so easily.

'Nikolay Andreich,' shc said, 'please come and see me back to the house. I'm so scared of passing that enormous dog of the Karelins I daren't go on my own.'

Well, there was no way out, so I replaced my pen and went down. Nadcnka (or Varenka) took my arm and wc set off towards her datcha.

Whenever it falls to my lot rn have to walk arm-in-arm with a young girl or a lady, for some reason I always fcel like a hook on which someone ha.s hung a large fur coat. Nadenka (or Varenka) - who, bctwccn oursclves, has rather a passionate nature (her grand- father was Armenian) - is gifted with a way of leaning on your arm with the whole weight of hcr body and pressing herself to your side like a leech. So that was how we proceedcd . . . As we walked past the Karelins' l saw their large dog. That reminded me of the dog-tax and I sighed wistfully as I recalled my opening sentence.

'Why are you sighing?' askcd Nadenka (or Varenka), and herself breathed a deep sigh.

A word of explanation here. Nadenka or Varenka (but now I seem to recall that her name is, in fact, Mashenka) for some reason has got it into her head that I am in love with her, and therefore considers it her duty, on humanitarian grounds, always to look at me with compassion in her eyes and to minister verbally to my wounded soul.

She stopped and said; 'Oh, I know why you are sighing. You love someone, that's what it is! But in the name of our friendship I beg you to bclieve that the girl whom you love holds you in great respect! She cannot answer your affection with like, but is the fault hers if her heart has long belonged to another?'

Mashenka's nose flushed and began to look puffy, and tears welled up in her eyes. She obviously expected me to reply, but fortunately just at that moment we arrived at her house ... Mashenka's maman was sitting on the verandah. She is a kind woman, but with some funny ideas. Observing the signs of emotion in her daughter's face, she gave me a long hard look and sighed, as if to say; 'Ah, youth, youth! Too innocent even to conceal your feel- ings!' Apart from her there were several variegated young ladies sitting on the verandah, and in their midst the fellow who lives in the datcha next door to mine — an ex-army officer wounded during the last war in the left temple and right hip. Like me, this unfortunate had made up his mind to devote the summer to literary activity. He was writing the 'Memoirs of a Military Man'. Like me, he would set about his honourable task every morning and never get further than writing: 'I was born in .. .' when some Varenka or Mashenka would appear beneath his balcony and carry offthe wounded warrior under escort.

The whole party sitting on the verandah were preparing some kind of ghastly berries for jam-making. I bowed with the intention of leaving them, but the variegated damsels seized my hat with a squeal and insisted I stay. So I sat down. I was given a plateful of berries and a hairpin. I started stoning the berries.

The variegated young ladies were discoursing on the subject of men: Mr. A. was awfully sweet, Mr. B. was good-looking but not very attractive, Mr. C. wasn't good-looking but he was attractive, Mr. D. wouldn't be bad if his nose wasn't so like a thimble, and so on.

'And you, monsieur Nicolas,' Varenka's tmaman said turning to me, 'aren't good-looking but you are attractive. You've an interest- ing face . .. But of course,' she sighed, 'the most important thing in a man isn't his looks but his brain . . .'

The young ladies all sighed and looked at the floor . .. They too clearly agreed that the most important thing in a man wasn't his looks but his brain. At this point I took a sidelong glance at myselfin the mirror to check how attractive I was. What I saw was a shaggy head of hair, a shaggy beard, moustache, eyebrows, hair on my cheeks, hairs under my eyes — a perfect thicket with a substantial nose sticking out of it like a forester's watch-tower. A fine-looking chap, I must say!

'But of course, Nicolas, it is your spiritual qualities that will win the day,' sighed Nadenka's maman, as if confirming some secret thought of her own.

Nadenka was sitting there suffering visibly on my behalf, but at the same time it clearly gave her the greatestsatisfaction to know that opposite her was a man who was deeply in love with her. After they had finished with men, the young ladies got on to love. Then after a long conversation about love one of them stood up and left. The others immediately set about tearing her to pieces. They all agreed she was stupid, unbearable, a sight, and that one of her shoulder- blades stuck out.

Then at last, thank God, a maid appeared sent by my maman to call me for lunch. Now I could leave this objectionable company and go and get on with my thesis. So I stood up and bowed. But Var- enka's matan, Varenka herself, and all the variegated young ladies surrounded me and declared I had no right at all to leave as I had firmly promised the previous day to have lunch and go out to the woods with them to pick mushrooms. So I bowed and sat down . .. Hatred seethed within my breast-another minute of this and I felt I would not be answerable for myself, there would be an explosion. But a sense of delicacy and my fear of offending against social decorum always make me defer to the ladies. So I deferred.

We sat down for lunch. The ex-officer, whose jaws had seized up because of the wound in his head, ate as if he had a bit between his teeth. I rolled my bread into balls, thought about the dog-tax, and knowing my tendency to be quick-tempered, tried not to say any- thing. Nadenka looked at me compassionately. There wascold soup, tongue with boiled peas, roast chicken and stewed fruit. I didn't feel like eating, but did so out of a sense of delicacy. After lunch, as I stood alone on the verandah smoking, Mashenka's maman came up to me, squeezed my hand and said in a breathless voice:

'Don't despair, Nicolas . . . Ah, what a loving nature she has, what a loving nature!'

So we went tothewoods to pick mushrooms . .. Varenka hungon my arm andclungto my side. It was inexpressible torment, but I put up with it.

We entered the wood.

'Tell me, monsieur Nicolas,' sighed Nadenka, 'why is your face so sad? Why don't you speak?'

Whatan odd girl -what wasthere tospeak toher about? What did we have in common?

'Please do say something,' she insisted.

I tried to think of some popular topic which she might be capable of understanding. So after much thought I said: 'The felling of forests is causing enormous havoc in Russia . . .'

'Oh, Nicolas,' Varenka sighed, and her nose began to flush. 'Nicolas, I see you're avoiding a heart-to-heart conversation . .. It's as if you wanted to punish me with your silence. Your emotion is unrequited and you want to suffer in silence, alone . .. It's awful, Nicolas!' she exclaimed, suddenly grabbing me by the hand, and I could see her nose beginning to go puffy. 'But what would you say if the girl whom you love were to offer you Eternal Friendship?'

I mumbled something incoherent because I hadn't the faintest idea what to say to her . . . For goodness' sake - in the first place I wasn't in love with anyone, in the second place what on earth did I want with Eternal Friendship? And thirdly - I'm an extremely quick- tempered person. Mashenka (or Varenka) hid her face in her hands and said in an undertone, as if to herself:

'He does not answer . . . He obviously wants me to make a sacrifice. But how can I love him if I still love another! And yet ... I'll thinkabout it . . . Yes, I shall thinkabout it . . . I shall summon up all the spiritual resources at my command and - perhaps, even at the cost of my own happiness, deliver this man from his suffering!'

It was all double Dutch to me. Some kind of mumbo-jumbo. We went on a bit further and started picking mushrooms. We said nothing. There were signs of inner conflict on Nadenka's face. I heard some dogs barking: that reminded me of my thesis and I sighed deeply. I saw the ex-officer between the tree-trunks. The poor fellow was limping painfully on both sides: he had his wounded hip on the right side and one ofthe variegated young ladies clinging to him on the left. His face expressed submission to Fate.

After the mushroom-picking we went back to the datcha for tea, then played croquet and listened to one of the variegated damsels singing a ballad: 'Sweet is my love, so sweet, so sweet!' Every time she sang 'sweet' her mouth curled right up to her ear.

'Channanf/'the other young ladies moaned in chorus. 'Charunt !'

Darkness fell. The revolting moon was creeping up from behind the shrubbery. The air was still, with an unpleasant smell of fresh hay. I picked up my hat with the intention of going home.

'I have something to tell you,' Mashenka whispered to me signific- antly. 'Don't go.'

I had a nasty foreboding, but waited out of a sense of delicacy. Mashenka took my arm and led me off somewhere down an avenue of trees. Her whole being now expressed an inner conflict. She was pale, she breathedheavily and seemed intent on pulling my right arm off. What was the matter with the girl?

'I want to tell you,' she murmured. 'No, I can't . . . No, no.'

She wanted to say something, but kepthesitating. Then I saw from the expression on her face that she had made up her mind. With her eyes flashing and her nose all puffy she grabbcd .me by the hand and gasped: Nicolas, I am yours! I cannot love you, but I promise to be faithful.'

She pressed herself up agamst my chest, then suddenly sprang back.

'Someonc's coming,' she whispered. 'Farewcll ... I shall be in the summer-house tomorrow at eleven o'clock . . . Farewell -darling!'

And off she went. Completely at a loss, with my heart palpitating terribly, I made my way homeward. There 'The Past and Future of the Dog-Tax' awaited me, but I couldn't do any work. I was furious. I would evcn go so far as to say I was fearsome in my wrath. Damn it, I will not permit people to treat me like a little boy! I'm quick- tempered, and woe bctide anyone who plays games with me! When the maid came in to call me to supper I yelled at her: 'Get out!' Such quick-temperedness hodes ill.

Ncxt morning we had typical summer holiday weather, i.e. temp- eraturc below freezing point, a cold, biting wind, rain, mud and the smell of mothballs caused by my maman dragging all her winter coats out of the chest. An absolutely foul morning. It was, to be precise, the 7th of August 1887, when there was to be an eclipse of the sun. I must point out that every one of us can do enormously important work during an eclipse even if we are not astronomers. For instance, each of us can: I) measure the diameter of the sun and the moon, 2) sketch the sun's corona, 3) measure the temperature, 4) observe the behaviour of animals and plants at the moment oftotal eclipse, 5) note down his own personal impressions, etc. This was a matter of such importance that for the time being I decided to set aside 'The Past and Future of the Dog-Tax' and observe the eclipse instead. We all got up very early. I had allocated the tasks to be performed as follows: I myself was to measure the diameter of the sun and moon, the wounded officer was t0 sketch the corona, and everything else was the responsibility of Mashenka and the varieg- ated young ladies. So there we all were, waiting for it to begin.

'Why do eclipses happen?' Mashenka enquired.

I replied: 'An eclipse of the sun occurs when the moon, passing through the plane of the ecliptic, assumes a position upon the line joining the centres of the sun and the earth.'

'What does ecliptic mean?'

I explained. Mashenka listened attentively, then she asked:'When you look through the smoked glass can you see the line joining the centres of the sun and the earth?'

I explained that this line is imaginary.

'But if it's imaginary,' said Varenka, completely bewildered, 'how can the moon assume a position on it?'

I did not answer. I could feel my spleen beginning to swell at the naivety of such a question.

'All that's rubbish,' said Varenka's maman. 'No one can possibly foretell the future, and anyway you've never been in the sky, so how can you know what's going to happen to the moon and the sun? It's all make-believe.'

But soon a black spot began to move across the sun. The result was general consternation. Cows, sheep and horses bolted all over the fields with their tails in the air and bellowed in terror. Dogs howled. Bedbugs, thinking it was night again, crept out of their crannies and began biting anyone who was asleep. A local cleric, who was bring- ing home a load ofcucumbers from his allotment, panicked, jumped off his can and hid under a bridge, while his horse pulled the cart into someone else's yard where the cucumbers were devoured by pigs. An excise cfficer, who had been spending the night at a certain lady's datcha, ran out among the crowd in just his underwear, shouting wildly: 'Every man for himself!'

Many of the female occupants of the datchas, even some of the young and pretty ones, were woken by the noise and dashed out with no shoes on. And all sorts ofotherthingsoccurred which I hesitate to recount.

'Ooh, I am scared!' squealed the variegated young ladies. 'Oh, isn't it awful!'

'Mesdames, please carry out your observations!' I shouted. 'Time is precious!'

I myselfwas makinghastetomeasure the diameter . . . Remember- ing about the corona I looked for the ex-officer. He was standing doing nothing.

'What are you standing there for?' I shouted. 'What about the corona?'

He shrugged his shoulders and glanced down helplessly. Varieg- ated damsels were clinging to both of the poor fellow's arms, pres- sing up against him in terror and preventing him from working. I took my pencil and noted the time precisely to the second: that was important. I noted down the geographical location of the observa- tion point: that too was important. I was about to measure the diameter when Mashenka caught my arm and said: 'Don't forget: this morning at eleven!' ,

I freed my arm and knowing that every second counted, attempted to continue my observations, but Varenka seized my arm convul- sively .and pressed herself to my side. Everything - my pencil, my dark glasses and my drawings - fell on to the grass. For crying out loud! Whencver was this girl going to realise that I'm quick- tempered and once roused I go berserk and cannot answer for my actions?

I couldn't wait to continue — but the eclipse was already over!

'Look at me!' she whispered tenderly.

Oh, this was the absolute limit! It's perfectly obvious that anyone who tries a man's patience like that has got it coming to them. If I murder someone, don't blame me! Dammit, I will not allow myself to be made a fool of, and by God, when my hackles are up, I wouldn't advise anyone to come within a mile of me! I'm capable ofanything!

One of the damsels, presumably seeing by my face that I was furious and obviously intending to mollify me, said:'/ did as you told me, Nikolay Andreyevich. I observed the mammals. Just before the eclipse I saw a grey dog chasing a cat. Then it wagged its tail for a long nme afterwards.'

So the eclipse came to nothing. I went home. But as it was raining I didn't go out on to the balcony to work. The wounded officer had risked coming out on to his and even got as far as writing 'I was born in . . .' when I saw one of the variegated damsels dragging him off to her datcha. I couldn't work because I was still livid and could feel my heart thumping. Nor did I go to the summer-house. Maybe that wasn't polite, but it's perfectly obvious I couldn't be expected to go in the rain, could I? At twelve o'clock I got a letter from Mashenka written as if we were the most intimate of friends, full of reproaches, and asking me to come to the summer-house . .. At one o'clock I received a second letter, at two yet another ... I would have to go. But first I would have to consider what to say to her. I would act in an honourable manner. Firstly, I would tell her she was wrong in imagining that I loved her. Yetonecannot really say a thing like that to a woman. To say to a woman 'I do not love you' is as tactless as saying to a writer: 'You don't know how to write'. The best thing would be to explain to Varenka my views on marriage. So I put on my warm overcoat, took my umbrella and made my way to the summer-house. Knowing how quick-tempered I am, I was afraid of what I might come out with. I would try to restrain myself.

She was there in the summer-house waiting for me. Nadenka's face was pale and tcar-stained. When she saw me she gave a shriek of joy and flung her arms round my neck, saying: 'Oh, at last! You're trying my patience so badly. I didn't sleep all night . .. I was thinking and thinking. And I feel if I got to know you better I would ... would come to love you.'

I sat down and began to expound my viewson marriage. To avoid going tov) deeply into the subject and in order to be as concise as possible, I put things briefly into their historical perspective. I spoke about marriage among the Hindus and Egyptians, then came on to more recent times with a few of Schopenhauer's ideas. Mashenka listened attentively, but suddenly she felt obliged to interrupt me with a curious non seqMitMr.

'Nicolas, give me a kiss!'

I was so embarrassed I didn't know what to say to her. She repeated her demand. So there was nothing else for it - I got up and put my lips to her elongated face, experiencing the same sensation I had as a child when I was made to kiss my dead grandmother's face at her funeral. Not satisfied with the kiss I had given her, Varenka leapt to her feet and impetuously flung her arms around me. At that moment Mashenka's maman appeared at the summer-house door .. . She gave us a startled glance and saying to someone behind her: 'Shhhh!', vanished like Mephistopheles down a stage trapdoor.

I went back home feeling furious and embarrassed, only to find Varenka'srnaman there embracing my raaman with tears in her eyes. My maman was saying tearfully: 'My dream has come true!'

And then - well, would you believe it? - Nadenka'smaman came up to me, put her arms around me and said:

'May God bless you both! Take good care of her . .. Never forget the sacrifice she is making . . .'

Sonow I'mabout tobemarried. As I write these lines the best man is looming over me telling me to hurry up. These people just don't know who they're dealing with! I am extremely quick-tempered and I can't answer for my actions! Dammit, you'd better watch out! Leading a quick-tempered, violent man to the altar - so far as I'm concerned it's as rash as sticking your hand into a frenzied tiger's cage. You'd better watch out, I tell you!

So here I am married. Everybody congratulates me and Varcnka keeps pressing up to me and saying: 'Oh, to think that now you arc mine, minc! Tcll me you love me! Tell me, darling!'

And her nose goes all puffy.

I learned from the best man that the wounded officer had escaped Hymen's clutches by a cunning ruse. He produced for his variegatcd young lady a medical ccrtificate to prove that as a rcsult of the wound in his templc he was non compos mentis and therefore lcgally barred from getting married. Brilliant! I could have got a certificate too. Onc of my uncles drank like a fish, another was extremely absent-minded (he once put a lady's muff on his head instead of his fur hat) and my aunt was always playing the grand piano and sticking her tongue out at men in the street. Then there's my extremc quick-temperedness — that's another very dubious symptom. But why is it that good idcas always come too late? Why, why?

The Reed-Pipe

Stifled by the cloying air of the fir plantation and all covered in spiders' webs and fir-needles, Meliton Shishkin, the bailiff from the Dementyevs' farm, was slowly working his way to the edge of the wood, his shot-gun in his hand. His dog Lady, a cross between a mongrel and a setter, extremely thin and heavy with young, was trailing along behind her master with her wet tail between her legs, and doing her best not to get her nose pricked. It was a dull, overcast morning. Great splashes of water fell from the mist-shrouded trees and the bracken, and the damp wood exuded a pungent odour of decay.

Ahead, where the plantation came to an end, stood silver birches, and between their trunks and branches the misty horizon could be seen. Beyond the birches someone was playing on a shepherd's rustic pipe. They were playing no more than five or six notes, drawing them out lazily and making no effort to combine them into a tune, yet in the high-pitched wail of the pipe there was something both sombre and singularly mournful.

When the plantation began to thin out and the firs mingled with young birch-trees, Meliton saw a herd. Cows, sheep and hobbled horses were wandering among the bushes and snuffing the grass in the wood, crackling branches underfoot. At the wood's edge, leaning against a dripping birch-tree, stood an old shepherd, gaunt, bare- headed and wearing a coarse, tattered smock. He was staring at the ground, thinking about something, and evidently playing the pipe quite mechanically.

'Morning, gaffer! God save you!' Meliton greeted him in a thin, husky little voice that wascompletelyout ofkeepingwith his enorm- ous stature and fat, fleshy face. 'You've got the knack of that whistle! Whose herd is that you're minding?'

'The Artamonovs',' replied the old man grudgingly, and put the pipe away inside the front of his smock.

'So this must be their wood, too?' asked Meliton, looking around him. 'Weil l never, so it is ... I was nearly lost, I reckon. Scratched my face to pieces on those firs.'

He sat down on the damp earth and began to roll a cigarette from a scrap of newspaper.

Like his thin little voice, everything about this man was on a small scale - his smile, his beady eyes, his buttons and the little cap perched precariously on his greasy, shaven head — and seemed at variance with his height, his broadness, and his fleshy face. When he spoke and smiled, his smooth, pudgy face, and his whole appearance, seemed somehow womanish, timid and submissive.

'God help us, what weather!' he said with a roll of the head. 'They haven't got the oats in yet and this wretched rain looks as i fit's hired itself out for the season.'

The shepherd glanced at the drizzling sky, the wood, and the bailiff's sodden clothes, pondered, and said nothing.

'It's been like this all summer . ..' sighed Meliton. 'Bad for the peasants, and no joy for the masters either.'

The shepherd glanced at the sky again, pondered, and said delib- erately, as though chewing over every word:

'It's all heading one way . .. No good'll come of it.'

'What are things like here?' asked Meliton, lighting his cigarette. 'Seen any grouse coveys in the Artamonovs' scrub?'

The shepherd did not answer at once. Again he glanced at the sky and to left and right, pondered, and blinked . .. Evidently he attached no small importance to his words, and to lend them more weight endeavoured to deliver them slowly and with a certain sol- emnity. His face bore all the angularity and gravity of age, and because his nose had a deep, saddle-shaped bridge to it and his nostrils curled slightly upwards, its expression seemed sly and quiz- zical.

'No, I can't say as I have,' he answered. 'Our huntsman Yeryomka said he put up a covey on Elijah's Day, by Pustoshye, but I dare say he was lying. There aren't the birds about.'

'No, brother, there aren't . . . It's the same everywhere! When you come down to it, the hunting's paltry these days, a waste of time. There's no game at all, and what there is, isn't worth soiling your hands for - it's not even full-grown! Such tiny stuff, you feel quite sorry for it.'

Meliton gave a contemptuous laugh.

'Yes, the way the world's going these days is downright daft! The birds don't know what they're doing, they sit on their eggs late and some of them, I swear, aren't off the nest by St Peter's Day!'

'It's all headingone way,' said the shepherd, raisinghis head. 'Past year there weren't much game about, this year there's even less, and mark my words, in another fivethere'll be none at all. As I see it, soon there won't be birds of any kind about, let alone game-birds.'

'Yes,' agreed Meliton after a moment's thought. 'You're right.'

The shepherd chuckled bitterly and shook his head.

'It beats me!' he said. 'Where've they all gone to? Twenty odd years back, I remember, there were geese here, cranes, duck and black grouse - it was teeming with them! The gents would go out hunting and all you'd hear was "Bang-bang! Bang-bang!" There was no end to the woodcock, snipe and curlew, and as for teal and the little pipers, they were as common as starlings, or sparrows say - any number there were! And where've they all gone to? You don't even see a bird of prey these days. Eagles, falcons, the big eagle owls — they've all gone . .. There's less of every beast about. Nowadays, brother, you're lucky if you see a wolf or a fox, let alone a bear or a mink. And in the old days there were even elk! Forty years I've been giving an eye to the ways of God's world, year in, year out, and as I look at it, everything's heading one way.'

'One way?'

'To the bad, my boy. To ruination, I reckon . . . The days of God's world are numbered.'

The old man put on his cap and began to stare at the sky.

'It's a sad thing!' he sighed after a short silence. 'Dear God but it's sad! Of course, it's the will ofGod, it wasn't us made the world, but even so, brother, it's sad. Ifa single tree withers or, say, one of your cowsdies, you feel sorry, don't you, so what will it be like, friend, to see the whole world go to wrack and ruin? There's such goodness in it all, Lord Jesus Christ! The sun, the sky, the forests, the rivers, the animals - they've all been created, fashioned, fitted to each other, haven't they? Each has been allotted its task and knows its rightful place. And all this must come to naught!'

A melancholy smile flickered across the shepherd's face and his eyelids trembled.

'You say the earth is heading for ruin . . .' said Meliton, thinking. 'Perhaps you're right, the end of the world is nigh, but you can't judge just from the birds. You can hardly take the birds as an indication.'

'It's not just the birds,' said the shepherd. 'It's the beasts too, the cattle, the bees, the fish . .. If you don't believe me, ask the old men. They'll aU tell you the fish aren't a bit like they used to be. Every year there are less and less of them — in the seas, in the lakes, in the rivers. Here in the Peschanka, I remember, you used to catch pike a good two foot long, and there were burbot, ide and bream, all decent-size fish too, but now you're grateful if you catch a jack-pike or a perch six inches long. You don't see a proper ruffe even. It's worse and worse with every year that passes, and in a little while there won't be any fish at all. Then take the rivers . .. They're all drying up!'

'That's true, they are.'

'To be sure they are. Each year they get shallower and shallower, and there are none ofthe good deep pools there used to be, brother. You see those bushes yonder?' asked the old man, pointing to one side. 'There's an old stream-bed behind them, called "the backwa- ter". In my father's time, that's where the Peschanka flowed, but now look where the devil's led it! She keeps changing course and you see - she'll change it so much, in the end she'll dry up. Back of Kurgasovo there used to be ponds and marshes, but where are they now? And what's become of all the streams, eh? Here in this wood there used to be a running stream, and it was so full that the peasants would set their creels in it and catch pike, and the wild duck used to winter by it; but now there's no water in n worthy thc name even at the spring flood. Yes, my boy, everywhere you look things are bad. Everywhere!'

There was silence. Meliton stared before him in a reverie. He was trying to think of a single area of nature that had not yet been touched by the all-consuming disaster. Flecks of light glided over the mist and the slanting bands of rain, as though over opalescent glass, but immediately melted away: the rising sun was trving to break through the clouds and catch a glimpse of the earth.

'h's the same with the forests . . .' muttered Meliton.

'Same with them . . .' echoed the shepherd. 'They're all being felled, they keep catching fire, they dry up, and there's no new growth in their place. What does grow is straighrway cut down again, it comes up one day and the next day people have cut it down — and so it'll go on, until nothing's left. I've been minding the village's herd, friend, since we got our freedom, before then I was a shepherd of the master's, and always in this same spot, and I can't remember a single summer day when I haven't been here. And all the time I give an eye to God's works. I've had time to watch them well, brother, in my life, and the way I look at it now, all things that grow are on the wane. Be it rye, or vegetables, or flowers of any sort, it's all heading one way.'

'People are better, though,' observed the bailiff.

'How, better?'

'They're cleverer.'

'Cleverer they may be, lad, true enough, but what's the good of that? What fine use is cleverness to people on the verge of ruin? You don't need brains to perish. What's a hunter want brains for, if there's no game to shoot anyway? What I think is, God's made folk cleverer, but He's taken away their strength, that's what. Folks have become feeble, exceeding feeble. Now I know I'm not worth a groat, I'm the lowliest peasant in the whole village, but all the same, I've got strength, lad. You think: I'm in my sixties, but I mind the herd fair weather and foul, and I do nightwatching for a couple of kopecks, and I don't fall asleep or feel the cold, but if you was to put my son, who's cleverer than me, in my place, why, next day he'd be asking for a rise, or going to the doctor. Ye-s ... I eat nothing but bread - "give us this day our daily bread", it says - and my father ate nothing but bread, and my grandfather before him, but the peasants these days, they've got to have tea and vodka and white loaves, they've got to sleep from dusk till dawn, go to doctors, and be pampered in every way. And why? Because they've grown feeble, they haven't the strength to stick things out. They don't want to fall asleep, but their eyes start aching and that's that.'

'It's true,' Meliton agreed. 'The peasant's good for nothing these days.'

'Might as well admit it, we get worser every year. And take the gentry now — they've grown feebler than the peasants even. Gents these days have learnt everything, they know things they'd be better off not knowing— and what good does it do? They make you sorry to look on 'em . . . Skinny, weedy, like some Frenchie or Magyar, there's no presence to them, no dignity — they're only gents in name. Poor creatures, they've no place in the world, no work to do, you can't make out what they do want. Either they sit around with a rod catching fish, or they're flat on their backs reading books, or they're hanging about with the peasants trying to put ideas in their heads; and those as are starving take jobs as clerks. So they idle their time away and never think ofgetting down to a proper job of work. Half the gents in theold days were generals, but nowadays they're just — dross!'

'They're badly off these days,' Meliton said.

'And the reason is, God's taken their strength away. You can't go against God.'

Meliton stared fixedly before him again. After thinking a while, he sighed the way staid, sober-minded people do, wagged his head, and said:

■ 'And you know why all this is? Because we sin so much, we've forgotten God . .. so now the time's come for it all to end. You can't expect the world to last for ever anyway, can you? Enough's enough.'

The shepherd sighed and, as iftocut short a conversation that he found disagreeable, he moved away from the birch and began count- ing the cattle over silently.

'Hey-hey, halloo!' he shouted. 'Hey-hey! Damn you, where d'you think you're all going? What the devil's made them go into the firs? Halloa-loa-loa !'

He scowled and went over to the bushes to gather the herd together. Meliton rose and ambled quietly along the edge of the wood. As he walked, he stared at the ground beneath his feet: he was still trying to think of at least something that had not yet been touched by death. Again bright flecks crcpt ovcr the slanting bands of rain; they d.mccd into the tops of the trces, and mcltcd away in thcir wet foliage. Lady discovered a hcdgchog undcr a hush and tricd to attract her mastcr's attention to it by howling and barking.

'Have an eclipse reccntly, did you?' the shepherd callcd out from behind thc hushes.

'We did!' rcplied Mcliton.

'Thought as much, pcople evcrywhere arc complaining there was one. So there's disorder in the hcavenstoo, brother! And no wondcr . . . Hey-hcy! Hup!'

Whcn he had drivcn the hcrd hack out of the wood, the shepherd I cant against a birch, looked up at thc sky, calmly took his pipe out of his smock and started to play. As bcfore, he played mechanically, producing no more than five or six notes; he might havc been handling the pipe for thc first timc in his life, thc sounds issued so uncertainly, haphazardly and tunelcssly; hut for Meliton, who was still thinking of the downfall of the world, his playing seemcd to contain something desperately mournful and harrowing, which he would rather not have heard. The highest, shrillest notes, which trcmbled, thcn broke off abruptly, seemed to be sobbing inconsol- ably, as though the pipe were sick, or frightened; whilst the lowest reminded him for somc reason of the mist itself, the forbidding trees and the grey sky. The music seemed to go with the weather, thc old man, and what he had bcen talking about.

Meliton felt an urge to complain. He went over to the old man and, gazing at his sad, quizzical face and at the reed-pipe, mumbled:

'And life's got harder, too, old friend. Life's barely livable, what with the bad harvests, the poverty . . . the cattle sickness all the time, illness . . . We're at the end of our tether.'

The bailiff's pudgy face flushed crimson and took on a woeful, womanish expression. He twiddled his fingers in the air as though groping for words to convey his indeterminate feelings, and con- tinued:

'I've got eight children and a wife to support, my mother's still alive . . . and all I get is ten roubles a month without board. The poverty's made my wife a proper shrew . . . and I'm always hitting the bottle. Really I'm a steady,sober-minded sortofchap, I've had an education. I ought to be sitting in the quiet of my home, but all day I spend wandering about with my gun, like a stray dog, because I can't abide it, I loathe my own home!'

Realising that his tongue was babbling something totally different from what he had intended to tell the old man, the bailiffgave up and said with bitterness:

'If the world's going to perish, then the sooner the better! There's no point in hanging about and making people suffer for nothing . ..'

The old man took the pipe away from his lips and, screwing up one eye, looked down its small mouthpiece. His face was sad, and covered with large splashes like tears. He smiled and said:

'It's a pity though, brother! Oh Lord the pity of it! The earth, the forest, tbe sky . . . animals - they've all been created and fashioned, haven't they, there's a sense running through it all. And it's all to come to naught. But it's the people I feel sorriest for.'

A heavy squall of rain rustled through the wood towards where they were standing. Meliton looked in the direction of the sound, did up all the buttons of his coat, and said:

'I'm off to the village. Cheerio, gaffer. What's your name?' 'Poor Luke.'

'Well, goodbye, Luke! Thanks for the conversation. Lady -ici!' Meliton left the shepherd, sauntered along the edge of the wood and then down to a meadow, which gradually turned into marsh. The water squelched beneath his boots, and the russet-headed sedge, whose stems were still green and lush, bowed earthwards as though afraid of being trodden on. Beyond the marsh, on the banks of the Peschanka of which the old man had spoken, stood a line ofwillows, and beyond the willows the squire's threshing-barn showed blue through the mist. One could sense the proximity of that cheerless time which nothing can avert, when the fields become dark and the earth is muddy and chill; when the weeping willow seems to be sadder than ever and the tears trickle down her trunk; when only the cranes can flee from the all-pervading disaster and even they, as though afraid of offending morose nature by declaring their happi- ness, fill the skies with mournful, melancholy song.

Meliton wandered towards the river and could hear the sounds of the pipe slowly dying away behind him. He still felt the urge to complain. Sadly he looked to right and left, and felt unbearably sorry for the sky, the earth, the sun, the forest, and his dog Lady; and when the pipe's top note suddenly pierced the air and hung there trembl- ing, like the voice of a person weeping, he felt full of bitterness and resentment at the disorder manifest in nature. The top note trembled, broke off, and the pipe fell silent.