The Short Stories of Anton Chekhov

"Well, it's Christmas," she said gaily to Masha. "Now we will try our fortunes."

"Last year, I was to marry an old man. It turned up three times the same."

"Well, God is merciful."

"Well, Anna Akimovna, what I think is, rather than neither one thing nor the other, I'd marry an old man," said Masha mournfully, and she heaved a sigh. "I am turned twenty; it's no joke."

Every one in the house knew that red-haired Masha was in love with Mishenka, the footman, and this genuine, pas- sionate, hopeless love had already lasted three years.

"Come, don't talk nonsense," Anna Akimovna consoled her. "I am going on for thirty, but I am still meaning to marry a young man."

^^ile his mistre^ was dressing, Mishenka, in a new swallow-tail and polished boots, walked about the hall and drawing-room and waited for her to come out, to wish her a happy Christmas. He had a peculiar walk, stepping softly and delicately; looking at his feet, his hands, and the bend of his head, it might be imagined that he was not simply walking, but learning to dance the first figure of a quadrille. In spite of his fine velvety moustache and handsome, rather flashy appearance, he was steady, prudent, and devout as an old man. He said his prayers, bowing down to the ground, and liked burning incense in his room. He respected people of wealth and rank and had a reverence for them; he despised poor people, and all who came to ask favours of any kind_; with all the strength of his cleanly flunkey soul. Under hi? starched shirt he wore a flannel, winter and summer alike, being very careful of his health; his ears were plugged with cotton-wool.

When Anna Akimovna crossed the hall with Masha, he bent his head downwards a little and said in his agreeable, honeyed voice:

"I have the honour to congratulate you, Anna. Akimovna, on the most solemn feast of the birth of our Lord."

Anna Akimovna gave him five roubles, while poor Masha was numb with ecstasy. His holiday get-up, his attitude, his voice, and what he said, impressed her by their beauty and elegance; as she followed her mistress she could think of nothing, could see nothing, she could only smile, first bliss- fuliy and then bitterly. The upper story of the house was called the best or visitors' half, while the name of the business part—old people's or simply women's part—was given to the rooms on the lower story where Aunt Tatyana Ivanovna kept house. In the upper part the gentry and educated visitors were entertained; in the lower story, simpler folk and the aunt's personal friends. Handsome, plump, and healthy, still young and fresh, and feeling she had on a magnificent dress which seemed to her to diffuse a sort of radiance all about her, Anna Akimovna went down to the lower story. Here she was met with reproaches for forgetting God now that she was so highly educated, for sleeping too late for the service, and for not coming downstairs to break the fast, and they all clasped their hands and exclaimed with perfect sincerity that she was lovely, wonderful; and she believed it, laughed, kissed them, gave one a rouble, another three or five according to their position. She liked being downstairs. Wherever one looked there were shrines, ikons, little lamps, portraits oi ecclesiastical personages—the place smelt of monks; there was a rattle of knives in the kitchen, and already a smell of something savoury, exceedingly appetising, was pervading all the rooms. The yellow-painted floors shone, and from the doors narrow rugs with bright blue stripes ran like little paths to the ikon corner, and the sunshine was simply pour- ing in at the windows.

Iu the dining-room some old women, strangers, were sit- ting; in Varvarushka's room, too, there vrere old women, and with them a deaf and dumb girl, who seemed abashed about something and kept saying, "Bli, bli! . . ." Two skinny-looking little girls who had been brought out of the orphanage for Christmas came up to kiss Anna Akimovna's hand, and stood before her transfixed with admiration of her splendid dress; she noticed that one of the girls squinted, and in the midst of her light-hearted holiday mood she felt a sick pang at her heart at the thought that young men would despise the girl, and that she would never marry. In the cook Agafya's room, five huge peasants in new shirts were sitting round the samovar; these were not workmen from the fac- tory, but relations of the cook. Seeing Anna Akimovna, all the p^^nts jumped up from their seats, and from regard for decorum, ceased munching, though their mouths were ful. The cook Stepan, in a white cap, with a knife in his hand, came into the room and gave her his greetings; porters in high felt boots came in, and they, too, offered their greetings.

The water-cairier peeped in with icicles on his beard, but did not venture to come in.

Anna Akimovna walked through the rooms followed by her retinue—the aunt, Varvarushka, Nikandrovna, the sew- ing-maid Marfa Petrovna, and the downstairs :\Iasha. Varva- rushka—a tall, thin, slender woman, taller than any one in the house, dressed all in black, smelling of cypress and coffee —crossed herself in each room before the ikon, bowing down from the waist. And whenever one looked at her one was reminded that she had already prepared her shroud and that lottery tickets were hidden away by her in the same box.

"Anyutinka, be merciful at Christmas," she said, opening the door into the kitchen. "Forgive him, bless the manJ Have done with it!"

The coachman Panteley, who had been dismissed for drunkenness in November, was on his knees in the middle o( the kitchen. He was a good-natured man, but he used to be unruly when he was drunk, and could not go to sleep, but persisted in wandering about the buildings and shouting in a threatening voice, "I know all about it!" Now from his beefy and bloated face and from his bloodshot eyes it could be seen that he had been drinking continually from November till Christmas.

"Forgive me, Anna Akimovna," he brought out in a hoarse voice, striking his forehead on the floor and showing his bull- like neck.

"It was Auntie dismissed you; ask her."

"What about auntie?" said her aunt, walking into the kitchen, breathing heavily; she was very stout, and on her bosom one might have stood a tray of teacups and a samovar. "What about auntie now? You are mistress here, give your own orders; though these rascals might be all dead for all I care. Come, get up, you hog!" she shouted at Panteley, losing patience. "Get out of my sight! It's the last time I forgive ynu, but if you transgress again—don't ask for mercy! "

Then they went into the dining-room to coffee. But they had hardly sat down, when the downstairs Masha rushed headlong in, saying with horror, "The singers! " And ran back again. They heard some one blowing his nose, a low bass cough, and footsteps that sounded like horses' iron-shod hoofs tramping about the entry near the hall. For half a minute all was hushed. . . . The singers burst out so sud- denly and loudly that every one started. While they were singing, the priest from the almshouses with the deacon and the sexton arrived. Putting on the stole, the priest slowly said that when they were ringing for matins it was snowing and not cold, but that the frost was sharper towards morning, God bless it! and now there must be twenty degrees of frost.

"Many people maintain, though, that winter is healthier than summer," said the deacon; then immediately assumed an austere expression and chanted after the priest. "Thy Birth, 0 Christ our Lord. . . ."

Soon the priest from the workmen's hospital came with the deacon, then the Sisters from the hospital, children from the orphanage, and then singing could be heard almost uninter- ruptedly. They sang, had lunch, and went away.

About twenty men from the factory came to offer their Christmas greetings. They were only the foremen, mecha- nicians, and their assistants, the pattern-makers, the account- ant, and so on—all of good appearance, in new black coats. They were all first-rate men, as it were picked men; each one knew his value—that is, knew that if he lost his berth today, people would be glad to take him on at another factory. Evidently they liked Auntie, as they behaved freely in her presence and even smoked, and when they had all trooped in to have something to eat, the accountant put his arm round her immense waist. They were free-and-easy, perhaps, partly also because Varvarushka, who under the old masters had wielded great power and had kept watch over the morals of the clerks, had now no authority whatever in the house; and perhaps because many of them still remembered the time when Auntie Tatyana Ivanovna, whose brothers kept a strict hand over her, had been dressed like a simple peasant woman like Agafya, and when Anna Akimovna used to run about the yard near the factory buildings and every one used to call her Anyutya.

The foremen ate, talked, and kept looking with amaze- ment at Anna Akimovna, how she had grown up and how handsome she had become! But this elegant girl, educatea by governesses and teachers, was a stranger to them; they could not understand her, and they instinctively kept closer to "Auntie," who called them by their names, continually pressed them to eat and drink, and, clinking glasses with them, had already drunk two wineglasses of rowanberry wine with them. Anna Akimovna was always afraid of their think- ing her proud, an upstart, or a crow in peacock's feathers; and now while the foremen were crowding round the food, she did not leave the dining-room, but took part in the conversa- tion. She asked Pimenov, her acquaintance of the previous day:

"Why have you so many clocks in your room?"

"I mend clocks," he answered. "I take the work up be- tween times, on holidays, or when I can't sleep."

"So if my watch goes wrong I can bring it to you to bt- repaired?" Anna Akimovna asked, laughing.

"To be sure, I will do it with pleasure," said Pimenov, and there was an expression of tender devotion in his face, when, not herself knowing why, she unfastened her magnificent watch from its chain and handed it to him; he looked at it in silence and gave it back. "To be sure, I will do it with pleasure," he repeated. "I don't mend watches now. My eyes are weak, and the doctors have forbidden me to do fine work. But for you I can make an exception."

"Doctors talk nonsense," said the accountant. They all laughed. "Don't you believe them," he went on, flattered by the laughing; "last vear a tooth flew out of a cylinder and hit old Kalmykov such a crack on the head that you could see his brains, and the doctor said he would die; but he is alive and working to this day, only he has taken to stammering since that mishap."

"Doctors do talk nonsense they do, but not so much," sighed Auntie. "Pyotr Andreyitch, poor dear, lost his sight. Just like you, he used to work day in day out at the factory near the hot furnace, and he went blind. The eyes don't like heat. But what are we talking about?" she said, rousing her- self. "Come and have a drink. My best wishes for Christmas, my dears. I never drink with any one else, but I drink with you, sinful woman as I am. Please God!"

Anna Akimovna fancied that after yesterday Pimenov despised her as a philanthropist, but was fascinated by her as a woman. She looked at him and thought that he behaved very charmingly and was nicely dressed. It is true that the sleeves of his coat were not quite long enough, and the coat itself seemed short-waisted, and his trousers were not wide and fashionable, but his tie was tied carelessly and with taste and was not as gaudy as the others'. And he seemed to be a good-natured man, for he ate submissively whatever Auntie put on his plate. She remembered how black he had been the day before, and how sleepy, and the thought of it for some reason touched her.

When the men were preparing to go, Anna Akimovna put out her hand to Pimenov. She wanted to ask him to come in sometimes to see her, without ceremony, but she did not know how to—her tongue would not obey her; and that they might not think she was attracted by Pimenov, she shook hands with his companions, too.

Then the boys from the school of which she was a patroness came. They all had their heads closely cropped and all wore grey blouses of the same pattern. The teacher—a tall, beard- less young man with patches of red on his face—was visibly agitated as he formed the boys into rows; the boys sang in tune, but with harsh, disagreeable voices. The manager of the factory, Nazaritch, a bald, sharp-eyed Old Believer, could never get on with the teachers, but the one who was now anxioasly waving his hands he despised and hated, though he could not have said why. He behaved rudely and con- descendingly to the young man, kept back his salary, med- dled with the teaching, and had finally tried to dislodge him by appointing, a fortnight before Christmas, as porter to the school a drunken peasant, a distant relation of his wife's, who disobeyed the teacher and said rude things to him before the boys.

Anna Akimovna was aware of all this, but she could be of no help, for she was afraid of Nazaritch herself. Now she wanted at least to be very nice to the schoolmaster, to tell him .;he was very much pleased with him; but when after the singing he began apologising for something in great confusion, and Auntie began to address him familiarly as she drew him without ceremony to the table, she felt, for some reason, bored and awkward, and giving orders that the children should be given sweets, went upstairs.

"In reality there is something cruel in these Christmas customs," she said a little while afterwards, as it were to herself, looking out of window at the boys, who were flocking from the house to the gates and shivering with cold, putting their coats on as they ran. "At Christmas one wantЈ to rest, to sit at home with one's own people, and the poor boys, the teacher, and the clerks and foremen, are obliged for some reason to go through the frost, then to offer their greetings, show their respect, be put to confusion . . ."

l\1ishenka, who was standing at the door of the drawing- room c.nd overheard this, said:

"It has not come from us, and it will not end with us Of course, I am not an educated man, Anna Akimovna, but I do understand that the poor must always respect the rich It is well said, 'God marks the rogue.' In prisons, night refuges, and pot-houses you never see any but the poor, while decent people, you may notice, are always rich. It has been said of the rich, 'Deep calls to deep.' "

"You always express yourself so tediously and incompre- hensibly," said Anna Akimovna, and she walked to the other end of the big drawing-room.

It was only just past eleven. The stiUness of the big room, only broken by the singing that floated up from below, made her yawn. The bronzes_t the albums, and the pictures on the walls, representing a ship at sea, cows in a meadow, and views of the Rhine, were so absolutely stale that her eyes simply glided over them without observing them. The holiday mood was already growing tedious. As before, Anna Aki- movna felt that she was beautiful, good-natured, and wonder- ful, but now it seemed to her that that was of no use to any one; it seemed to her that she did not know for whom and for what she had put on this expensive dress, too, and, as al- ways happened on all holidavs, she began to be fretted by loneliness and the persistent thought that her beauty, her bealth, and her wealth, were a mere cheat, since she was not wanted, was of no use to any one, and nobody loved her. She walked through all the rooms, humming and looking out of windows; stopping in the drawing-room, she could not resist beginning to talk to Mishenka.

"I don't know what you think of yourself, Misha," she1 said, and heaved a sigh. "Really, God might punisb you for it."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Excuse my meddling in your affairs. But it seems you are spoiling your own life out of obstinacy. You'll admit that it is high time you got married, and she is an excellent and deserving girl. You will never find any one better. She's a beauty, clever, gentle, and de- ;roted. . . . And her appearance! . . . If she belonged to our circle or a higher one, people would be falling in lo\'e with her for her red hair alone. See how beautifully her hair goes with her complexion. Oh, goodness! You don't understand anything, and don't know what you want," Anna Akimovna said bitterly, and tears came into her eyes. "Poor girl, I am so sorry for her! I know you want a wife with money, but I have told you already I will give Masha a dowry."

Mishenka could not picture his future spouse in his im- agination except as a tall, plump, substantial, pious woman, stepping like a peacock, and, for some reason, with a long shawl over her shoulders; while Masha was thin, slender, tightly laced, and walked with little steps, and, worst of all, she wa3 too fascinating and at times extremely attractive to Mishenka, and that, in his opinion, was incongruous with matrimony and only in keeping with loose behaviour. When Anna Akimovna had promised to give Masha a dowry, he haa. hesitated for a time; but once a poor student in a brown overcoat over his uniform, coming with a letter for Anna Akimovna, was fascinated by Masha, and could not resist embracing her near the hat-stand, and she had uttered a faint shriek; Mishenka, standing on the stairs above, had seen this, and from that time had begun to cherish a feeling of disgust for Masha. A poor student! Who knows, if she had been embraced by a rich student or an officer the consequences might have been different.

"Why don't you wish !t?" Anna Akimovna asked. "What more do you want?"

Mishenka was silent and looked at the arm-chair fixedly, and raised his eyebrows.

"Do you love some one else?"

Silence. The red-haired Masha came in with letters and visiting cards on a tray. Guessing that they were talking about her, she blushed to tears.

"The postmen have come," she muttered. "And there is a clerk called Tchalikov waiting below. He says you told him to come to-day for something."

"What insolence! " said Anna Akimovna, moved to anger. "I gave him no orders. Tell him to take himself off; say I am not at home!"

A ring was heard. It was the priest from her parish. They were always shown into the aristocratic part of the houM— that is, upstairs. After the priests, Nazaritch, the manager of the factory, came to pay his visit, and then the factory iloctor; then Mishenka announced the inspector of the ele- uientary schools. Visitors kept arriving.

When there was a moment free, Anna Akimovna sat down in a deep arm-chair in the drawing-room, and shutting her eyes, thought that her loneliness was quite natural because she had not married and never would marry. . . . But that was not her fault. Fate itself had flung her out of the simple working-class surroundings in which, if she could trust her memory, she had felt so snug and at home, into these immense rooms, where she could never think what to do with herself, and could not understand why so many people kept passing before her eyes. What was happening now seemed to her trivial, useless, since it did not and could not give her hap- _)iness for one minute.

"If I could fall in love," she thought, stretching; the very thought of this sent a rush of warmth to her heart. "And if I could escape from the factory . . ." she mused, imagin- ing how the weight of those factory buildings, barracks, and schools would roll off her conscience, roll off her mind . . . . Then she remembered her father, and thought if he had lived longer he would certainly have married her to a working man—to Pimenov, for instance. He would have told her to marry, and that would have been all about it. And it would have been a good thing; then the factory would have passed into capable hands.

She pictured his curly head, his bold profile, his delicate, ironical lips and the strength, the tremendous strength, in his shoulders, in his arms, in his chest, and the tenderness with which he had looked at her watch that day.

"Well," she said, "it would have been all right. ... I would have married him."

"Anna Akimovna," said Mishenka, coming noiselessly into the drawing-room.

"How you frighten me!" she said, trembling all over. "\Vhat do you want?"

"Anna Akimovna," he said, laying his hand on his heart and raising his eyebrows, "you are my mistress and my bene- factress, and no one but you can tell me what I ought to do about marriage, for you are as good as a mother to me. . . • But kindly forbid them to laugh and jeer at me downstairs. They won't let me pass without it."

"How do they jeer at you?"

"They call me Mashenka's Mishenka."

"Pooh, what nonsense!" cried Anna Akimovna indignantly. "How stupid you all are! What a stupid you are, Misha! How :ick I am of you! I can't bear tbe sight of you."

III DINNER

Just as the year before, the last to pay her visits were Krylin, an actual civil councillor, and Lysevitch, a well-known barrister. It was already dark when they arrived. Krylin, a man of sixty, with a wide mouth and with grey whiskers close to his ears, with a face like a lynx, was wearing a uni- form with an Anna ribbon, and white trousers. He held Anna Akimovna's hand in both of his for a long while, looked intently in her face, moved his lips, and at last said, drawling upon one note:

"I used to respect your uncle . . . and your father, and enjoyed the privilege of their friendship. Now I feel it an agreeable duty, as you see, to present my Christmas wishes to their honoured heiress. . . . In spite of my infirmities and the distance I have to come. . . . And I am very glad to see you in good health."

The lawyer Lysevitch, a tall, handsome fair man, with a slight sprinkling of grey on his temples and beard, was dis- tinguished by exceptionally elegant manners; he walked with a swaying step, bowed as it were reluctantly, and shrugged his shoulders as he talked, and all this with an indolent grace, like a spoiled horse fresh from the stable. He was well fed, extremely healthy, and very well off; on one occasion he had won forty thousand roubles, but concealed the fact from his friends. He was fond of good fare, especially cheese, truffles, and grated radish with hemp oil; while in Paris he had eaten, so he said, baked but unwashed guts. He spoke smoothly, fluently, without hesitation, and only occasionally, for the sake of effect, permitted himself to hesitate and snap his fingers as if picking up a word. He had long ceased to believe in anything he had to say in the law courts, or perhaps he did believe in it, but attached no kind of significance to it; it had all so long been familiar, stale, ordinary. . . . He believed in nothing but what was original and unusual. A copy-book moral in an original form would move him to tears. Both his notebooks were filled with extraordinary expressions which he had read in various authors; and when he needed to look up any expression, he would search nervously in both books, and usually failed to find it. Anna Akimovna's father had in a good-humoured moment ostentatiously appointed him legal adviser in matters concerning the factory, and had assigned him a salary of twelve thousand roubles. The legal business of the factory had been confined to two or three trivial actions for recovering debts, which Lysevitch handed to his assistants.

Anna Akimovna knew that he had nothing to do at the factory, but she could not dismiss him—she had not the moral courage; and besides, she was used to him. He used to call himself her legal adviser, and his salary, which he invariably sent for on the first of the month punctually, he used to call "stern prose." Anna Akimovna knew that when, after her father's death, the timber of her forest was sold for railway sleepers, Lysevitch had made more than fifteen thousand out of the transaction, and had shared it with Nazaritch. When first she found out they had cheated her she had wept bitterly, but afterwards she had grown used to it.

Wishing her a happy Christmas, and kissing both her hands, he looked her up and down, and frowned.

"You mustn't," he said with genuine disappointment. "I have told you, my dear, you mustn't!"

"What do you mean, Viktor Nikolaitch?"

"I have told you you mustn't get fat. All your family have an unfortunate tendency to grow fat. You mustn't," he repeated in an imploring voice, and kissed her hand. "You are so handsome! You are so splendid! Here, your Excel- !ency, let me introduce the one woman in the world whom I have ever seriously loved."

"There is nothing surprising in that. To know Anna Aki- movna at your age and not to be in love with her, that would be impossible."

"I adore her," the lawyer continued with perfect sincerity_r but with his usual indolent grace. "I love her, but not be- cause I am a man and she is a woman. When I am with her I always feel as though she belongs to some third sex, and I to a fourth, and we float away together into the domain' of the subtlest shades, and there we blend into the spectrum Leconte de Lisle defines such relations better than any one. He has a superb passage, a marvellous passage. . . .

Lysevitch rummaged in one notebook, then in the other, and, not finding the quotation, subsided. They began talking of the weather, of the opera, of the arrival, expected shortly, of Duse. Anna Akimovna remembered that the year before Lysevitch and, she fancied, Krylin had dined with her, and now when they were getting ready to go away, she began with perfect sincerity pointing out to them in an imploring voice that as they had no more visits to pay, they ought to remain to dinner with her. After some hesitation the visitors agreed.

In addition to the family dinner, consisting of cabbage soup, sucking pig, goose with apples, and so on, a so-called "French" or "chef's" dinner used to be prepared in the kitchen on great holidays, in case any visitor in the upper story wanted a meal. When they heard the clatter of crockery in the dining-room, Lysevitch began to betray a noticeable excitement; he rubbed his hands, shrugged his shoulders, screwed up his eyes, and described with feeling what dinners her father and uncle used to give at one time, and a marvel- lous matelote of turbots the cook here could make: it was not a matelote, but a veritable revelation! He was already gloating over the dinner, already eating it in imagination and enjoying it. When Anna Akimovna took his arm and led him to the dining-room, he tossed off a glass of vodka and put a piece of salmon in his mouth; he positively purred with pleasure. He munched loudly, disgustingly, emitting sounds from his nose, while his eyes grew oily and rapacious.

The hors d'ceuvres were superb; among other things, there were fresh white mushrooms stewed in cream, and sauce provenr;ale made of fried oysters and crayfish, strongly flavoured with some bitter pickles. The dinner, consisting of elaborate holiday dishes, was excellent, and so were the wines. Mishenka waited at table with enthusiasm. When he laid some new dish on the table and lifted the shining cover, or poured out the wine, he did it with the solemnity of a professor of black magic, and, looking at his face and his movements suggesting the first figure of a quadrille, the lawyer thought several times, "What a fool!"

After the third course Lysevitch said, turning to Anna Akimovna:

"The fin de siecle woman—I mean when she is young, and of course wealthy—must be independent, clever, elegant, in- tellectual, bold, and a little depraved. Depraved within limits, a little; for excess, you know, is wearisome. You ought not to vegetate, my dear; you ought not to live like every one else, but to get the full savour of life, and a slight flavour of de- pravity is the sauce of life. Revel among flowers of intoxicat- ing fragrance, breathe the perfume of musk, eat hashish, and best of all, love, love, love. . . . To begin with, in your place

I would set up seven lovers—one for each day of the week; and one I would call Monday, one Tuesday, the third Wednes- day, and so on, so that each might know his day."

This conversation troubled Anna Akimovna; she ate.noth- ing and only drank a glass of wine.

"Let me speak at last," she said. "For myself personally, I can't conceive of love without family life. I am lonely, lonely as the moon in the sky, and a waning moon, too; and whatever you may say, I am convinced, I feel that this waning can only be restored by love in its ordinary sense. It seems to me that such love would define my duties, my work, make clear my conception of life. I want from love peace of soul, tranquillity; I want the very opposite of musk, and spiritual- ism, and fin de siecle . . . in short"—she grew embarrassed —"a husband and children."

"You want to be married? \Vell, you can do that, too,'' Lysevitch assented. "You ought to have all experiences: mar- riage, and jealousy, and the sweetness of the first infidelity, and even children . . . . But make haste and live—make haste, my dear: time is passing; it won't wait."

"Yes, I'll go and get married!" she said, looking angrily at his well-fed, satisfied face. "I will marry in the simplest, most ordinary way and be radiant with happiness. And, would you believe it, I will marry some plain working man, some mechanic or draughtsman."

''There is no harm in that, either. The Duchess Josiana loved Gwinplin, and that was permissible for her because she was a grand duchess. Everything is permissible for you, too, because you are an exceptional woman: if, my dear, you want to love a negro or an Arab, don't scruple; send for a negro. Don't deny yourself anything. You ought to be as bold as your desires; don't fall short of them."

"Can it be so hard to understand me?" Anna Akimovna asked with amazement, and her eyes were bright with tears. "Understand,I have an immense business on my hands^ two thousand workmen, for whom I must answer before God.

The men who work for me grow blind and deaf. I am afraid to go on like this; I am afraid! I am wretched, and you have the cruelty to talk to me of negroes and . . . and you smile!" Anna Akimovna brought her fist down on the table. "To go on living the life I am living now, or to marry some one as idle and incompetent as myself, would be a crime. I go on living like this," she said hotly, "I cannot!" "How handsome she is!" said Lysevitch, fascinated by her. ''My God, how handsome she is! But why are you angry, my dear? Perhaps I am wrong; but surely you don't im- agine that if, for the sake of ideas for which I have the deepest respect, you renounce the joys of life and lead a dreary existence, your workmen will be any the better for it? Not a scrap! No, frivolity, frivolity!" he said decisively. "It's essential for you; it's your duty to be frivolous and depraved! Ponder, that, my dear, ponder it."

Anna Akimovna was glad she had spoken out, and her spirits rose. She was pleased she had spoken so well, and that her ideas were so fine and just, and she was already convinced that if Pimenov, for instance, loved her, she would marry him with pleasure.

Mishenka began to pour out champagne. "You make me angry, Viktor Nikolaitch," she said, clink- ing glasses with the lawyer. "It seems to me you give advice and know nothing of life yourself. According to you, if a man be a mechanic or a draughtsman, he is bound to be a peasant and an ignoramus! But they are the cleverest people! Extraor- dinary people ! "

"Your uncle and father ... I knew them and respected them . . ." Krylin said, pausing for emphasis (he had been sitting upright as a post, and had been eating steadily the whole time), "were people of considerable intelligence and . . . of lofty spiritual qualities."

"Oh, to be sure, we know all about their qualities," the lawyer muttered, and asked permission to smoke.

^^en dinner was over Krylin was led away for a nap.

Lysevitch finished his cigar, and, staggering from repletion, followed Anna Akimovna into her study. Cosy corners with photographs and fans on the walls, and the inevitable pink or pale blue lanterns in the middle of the ceiling, he did not like, as the expression of an insipid and unoriginal character; besides, the memory of certain of his love affairs of which he was now ashamed was associated with such lanterns. Anna Akimovna's study with its bare walls and tasteless furniture pleased him exceedingly. It was snug and comfort- able for him to sit on a Turkish divan and look at Anna Akimovna, who usually sat on the rug before the fire clasp- ing her knees and looking into the fire and thinking of some- thing; and at such moments it seemed to him that her peasant Old Believer blood was stirring within her.

Every time after dinner when coffee and liqueurs were handed, he grew livelier and began telling her various bits of literary gossip. He spoke with eloquence and inspiration, and was carried away by his own stories; and she listened to him and thought every time that for such enjoyment it was worth paying not only twelve thousand, but three time? that sum, and forgave him everything she disliked in him. He sometimes told her the story of some tale or novel he had been reading, and then two or three hours passed un- noticed like a minute. Now he began rather dolefully in a failing voice with his eyes shut.

"It's ages, my dear, since I have read anything," he said when she asked him to tell her something. "Though I do sometimes read Jules Verne."

"I was expecting you to tell me something new."

"H'm! . . . new," Lysevitch muttered sleepily, and he settled himself further back in the corner of the sofa. "None of the new literature, my dear, is any use for you or me. Of course, it is bound to be such as it is, and to refuse to recog- nise it is to refuse to recognise—would mean refusing ta recognise the natural order of things, and I do recognise it, but . . ." Lysevitch seemed to have fallen asleep. But a minute later his voice was heard again:

"AH the new literature moans and howls like the aut^n wind in the chimney. 'Ah, unhappy wretch! Ah, your life may be likened to a prison! Ah, how damp and dark it is in your prison! Ah, you will certainly come to ruin, and there is no chance of escape for you!' That's very fine, but I should prefer a literature that would tell us how to escape from prison. Of all contemporary writers, however, I prefer Maupassant." Lysevitch opened his eyes. "A fine writer, a perfect writer!" Lysevitch shifted in his seat. "A wonderful artist! A terrible, prodigious, supernatural artist!" Lysevitch got up from the sofa and raised his right arm. "Maupassant!'' he said rapturously. "My dear, read Maupassant! one page of his gives you more than all the riches of the earth! Every line is a new horizon. The softest, tenderest impulses of the soul alternate with violent tempestuous sensations; your soul, as though under the weight of forty thousand atmospheres, is transformed into the most insignificant little bit of some great thing of an undefined rosy hue which I fancy, if one could put it on one's tongue, would yield a pungent, voluptu- ous taste. What a fury of transitions, of motives, of melodies! You rest peacefully on the lilies and the roses, and suddenly a thought—a terrible, splendid, irresistible thought—swoops down upon you like a locomotive, and bathes you in hot steam and deafens you with its whistle. Read Maupassant, dear girl; I insist on it."

Lysevitch waved his arms and paced from corner to corner in violent excitement.

"Yes, it is inconceivable," he pronounced, as though in despair; "his last thing overwhelmed me, intoxicated mel But I am afraid you will not care for it. To be carried away by it you must savour it, slowly suck the juice from each line, drink it in. . • . You must drink it in! . . ."

After a long introduction, containing many words such as dremonic scnsuaHty, .1 network of the most delicate nerves. simoon, crystal, and so on, hc bcgan at last tclling thc story of thc novcl. Hc did not tcll thc story so whimsically, bul told it in minutc dctail, quoting from mcmory wholc dc- scriptions and convcrsations; thc charactcrs of thc novcl fascinatcd him, and to dcscribc thcm hc thrcw himsclf inta attitudcs, changcd thc cxprcssion of his facc and voicc like a rcal acto;, Hc laughcd with dclight at onc momcnt in a dccp bass, and at anothcr, on a high shrill notc, claspcd his hands and clutchcd at his hcad with an cxprc.ssion which suggcstcd that it was just going to burst. Anna Akimovna listencd cn- thrallcd, though shc had alrcady rcad thc novcl, and it sccmcd to hcr evcr so much fmcr and morc subtlc in thc lawycr's vcrsion than in thc book itsclf. Hc drcw hcr attcntion to various subtlctics, and cmphasiscd thc fclicitous cxprcssions and thc profound thoughts, but shc saw in it, only lifc, lifc, lifc and hcrsclf, as though shc had bccn a charactcr in thc novcl. Hcr spirits rosc, and shc, too, laughing and clasping hcr hands, thought that shc could not go on living such a lifc, that thcrc was no nccd to havc a wrctchcd lifc whcn onc might havc a splcndid onc. Shc rcmcmbcrcd hcr words and thoughts at dinncr, and was proud of thcm; and whcn l'i- mcnov suddcnly rosc up in hcr imagination, she fclt happy and longcd for him to lovc hcr.

\\'hcn hc had finishcd thc story, Lyscvitch sat down on thc sofa, cxhaustcd.

"How splendid you arc! IIow handsomc!" hc bcgan, a Iittlc whilc afterwards in a faint voicc as if hc wcrc ill. "l am happy ncar you, dear girl, but why am I forty-two instcad of thirty? Your tastes and minc do not coincidc: you ought to bc dcpravcd, and I havc long passcd that phasc, and want a lovc as dclicatc and immatcrial as a ray of sun- shinc—that is, from thc point of vicw of a woman of your age, I am of no carthly usc."

In his own words, hc lovcd Turgcncv, thc singcr of virginai love and purity, of youth, and of the melancholy Russian landscape; bat he loved virginal love, not from knowledge but from hearsay, as something abstract, existing outside real life. Now he assured himself that he loved Anna Akimovna platonically, ideally, though he did not know what those words meant. But he felt comfortable, snug, warm. Anna Akimovna seemed to him enchanting, original, and he im- agined that the pleasant sensation that was aroused in him by these surroundings was the very thing that was called platonic love.

He laid his cheek on her hand and said in the tone com- monly used in coaxing little children:

"My precious, why have you punished me?"

"How? When?"

"I have had no Christmas present from you."

Anna Akimovna had never heard before of their sending

Christmas box to the lawyer, and now she was at a loss bow much to give him. But she must give him something, for he was expecting it, though he Iooked at her with eyes full

love.

"I suppose Nazaritch forgot it," she said, "but it is not too Iate to set it right."

She suddenly remembered the fifteen hundred she had re- ceived the day before, which was now lying in the toilet drawer in her bedroom. And when she brought that ungrate- ful money and gave it to the lawyer, and he put it in his coat pocket with indolent grace, the whole incident passed off charmingly and naturally. The sudden reminder of a Christmas box and this fifteen hundred was not unbecoming in Lysevitch.

"Merci," he said, and kissed her finger.

Krylin came in with blissfuI, sleepy face, but without his decorations.

Lysevitch and he stayed a little longer and drank a glass of tea each, and began to get ready to go. Anna Akimovna was a little embarrassed. . . . She had utterly forgotten in what department Krylin served, and whether she had to give him money or not; and if she had to, whether to give it now or send it afterwards in an envelope.

"Where does he serve?" she whispered to Lysevitch. '

"Goodness knows," muttered Lysevitch, yawning.

She reflected that if Krylin used to visit her father and her uncle and respected them, it was probably not for noth- ing: apparently he had been charitable at their expense, serving in some charitable institution. As she said good-bye she slipped three hundred roubles into his hand; he seemed taken aback, and looked at her for a minute in silence with his pewtery eyes, but then seemed to understand and said:

"The receipt, honoured Anna Akimovna, you can only receive on the New Year."

Lysevitch had become utterly limp and heavy, and he staggered when Mishenka put on his overcoat.

As he went downstairs he looked like a man in the last stage of exhaustion, and it was evident that he would drop asleep as soon as he got into his sledge.

"Your Excellency," he said languidly to Krylin, stopping m the middle of the staircase, "has it ever happened to you to experience a feeling as though some unseen force were drawing you out longer and longer? You are drawn out and turn into the finest wire. Subjectively this finds expression in a curious voluptuous feeling which is impossible to compare with anything."

Anna Akimovna, standing at the top of the stairs, saw each of them give Mishenka a note.

"Good-bye! Come again!" she called to them, and ran into her bedroom.

She quickly threw off her dress, that she was weary of al- ready, put on a dressing-gown, and ran downstairs; and as she ran downstairs she laughed and thumped with her feet like a school-boy; she had a great desire for mischief.

EVENING

Auntie, in a loose print blouse, Varvarushka and two old women, were sitting in the dining-room having supper. A big piece of salt meat, a ham, and various savouries, were lying on the table before them, and clouds of steam were rising from the meat, which looked particularly fat and appetising. Wine was not served on the lower story, but they made up for it with a great number of spirits and home-made liqueurs. Agafyushka, the fat, white-skinned, well-fed cook, was stand- ing with her arms crossed in the doorway and talking to the old women, and the dishes were being handed by the down- stairs Masha, a dark girl with a crimson ribbon in her hair. The old women had had enough to eat before the morning was over, and an hour before supper had had tea and buns, and so they were now eating with effort—as it were, from a sense of duty.

"Oh, my girl!" sighed Auntie, as Anna Akimovna ran into the dining-room and sat down beside her. "You've frightened me to death!"

Every one in the house was pleased when Anna Akimovna was in good spirits and played pranks; this always reminded them that the old men were dead and that the old women had no authority in the house, and any one could do as he liked without any fear of being sharply called to account for it. Only the two old women glanced askance at Anna Aki- movna with amazement: she was humming, and it was a sin to sing at table.

"Our mistress, our beauty, our picture," Agafyushka began chanting with sugary sweetness. "Our precious jewel! The people, the people that have come to-day to look at our queen. Lord have mercy upon us! Generals, and officers and gentlemen. ... I kept looking out of window and counting and counting till I gave it up."

"I'd as soon they did not come at all,'' said Auntie; she looked sadly at her niece and added: "They only waste the time for my poor orphan girl."

Anna Akimovna felt hungry, as she had eaten nothing since the morning. They poured her out some very bittt. liqueur; she drank it off, and tasted the salt meat with mus- tard, and thought it extraordinarily nice. Then the downstairs Masha brought in the turkey, the pickled apnles and the gooseberries. And that pleased her, too. There was only one thing that was disagreeable: there was a draught of hot air from the tiled stove; it was stiflingly close and every one's cheeks were burning. After supper the cloth was taken off and plates of peppermint biscuits, walnuts, and raisins were brought in.

"You sit down, too . . . no need to stand there!" said Auntie to the cook.

Agafyushka sighed and sat down to the table; Masha set a wineglass of liqueur before her too, and Anna Akimovna brgan to feel as though Agafyushka's white neck were giving out heat like the stove. They were all talking of how difficult it was nowadays to get married, and saying that in old days, if men did not court beauty, they paid attention to money, but now there was no making out what they wanted ; and while hunchbacks and cripples used to be left old maids, nowadays men would not have even the beautiful and wealthy. Auntie began to set this down to immorality, and said that people had no fear of God, but she suddenly re- membered that Ivan Ivanitch, her brother, and Varvarushka —both people of holy life—had feared God, but all the same had had children on the sly, and had sent them to the Foundling Asylum. She pulled herself up and changed the conversation, telling them about a suitor she had once had, a factory hand, and how she had loved him, but her brothers had forced her to marry a widower, an ikon-painter, who, thank God, had died two years after. The downstairs Masha sat down to the table, too, and told thprn with a mysteriouo;

air that for the last week some unknown man with a black moustache, in a great-coat with an astrachan collar, had made his appearance every morning in the yard, had stared at the windows of the big house, and had gone on further—to the buildings; the man was all right, nice-looking. . . .

AU this conversation made Anna Akimovna suddenly long to be married—long intensely, painfully; she felt as though she would give half her life and all her fortune onIy to know that upstairs there was a man who was closer to her than any one in the world, that he loved her warmly and was missing her; and the thought of such closeness, ecstatic and inexpressible in words, troubled her soul. And the instinct of youth and health flattered her with lying assurances that the real poetry of life was not over but still to come, and she believed it, and leaning back in her chair (her hair fell down as she did so), she began laughing, and, looking at her, the others laughed, too. And it was a long time before this cause- less laughter died down in the dining-room.

She was informed that the Stinging Beetle had come. This was a pilgrim woman called Pasha or Spiridonovna—a thin little woman of fifty, in a black dress with a white ker- chief, with keen eyes, sharp nose, and a sharp chin; she had sly, viperish eyes and she looked as though she could see right through every one. Her lips were shaped like a heart. Her viperishness and hostility to every one had earned her the nickname of the Stinging Beetle.

Going into the dining-room without looking at any one, she made for the ikons and chanted in a high voice "Thy Holy Birth," then she sang "The Virgin to-day gives birth to the Son," then "Christ is born," then she turned round and bent a piercing gaze upon all of them.

"A happy Christmas," she said, and she kissed Anna Akimovna on the shoulder. "It's all I could do, all I could do to get to you, my kind friends." She kissed Auntie on the shoulder. "I should have come to you this morning, but I went in to some good people to rest on the way. 'Stay, Spiri- donovna, stay,' they said, and I did not notice that evening was coming on."

As she did not eat meat, they gave her salmon and caviar. She ate looking from under her eyelids at the company, and drank three glasses of vodka. When she had finished she said a pr;iyer and bowed down to Anna /ikimovna's feet.

They began to play a game of "kings," as they had done the year before, and the year before that, and all the servants in both stories crowded in at the doors to watch the game. Anna Akimovna fancied she caught a glimpse once or twice of l\Iishenka, with a patronising smile on his face, among the crowd of peasant men and women. The first to be king was Stinging Beetle, and Anna Akimovna as the soldier paid her tribute; and then Auntie was king and Anna Akimovna was peasant, which excited general delight, and Agafyushka was prince, and was quite abashed with pleasure. Another game was got up at the other end of the table—played by the two i\Iashas, Varvarushka, and the sewing-maid Marfa Ptrovna, who was waked on purpose to play "kings," and whose face looked cross and sleepy.

\Yhile they were playing they talked of men, and of how difficult it was to get a good husband nowadays, and which state was to be preferred—that of an old maid or a widow.

"You are a handsome, healthy, sturdy lass," said Stinging Beetle to Anna Akimovna. "But I can't make out for whose sake you are holding back."

"What's to be done if nobody will have me?"

"Or maybe you have taken a vow to remain a maid?" Stinging Beetle went on, as though she did not hear. "Well, that^:s a good deed. . . • Remain one," she repeated, looking intently and maliciously at her cards. "All right, my dear, remain one. . . . Yes . . . only maids, these saintly maids, are not all alike." She heaved a sigh and played the king. "Oh, no, my girl, they are not all alike! Some really watch over themselves like nuns, and butter would not melt in their mouths; and if such a one does sin in an hour of weakness, she is worried to death, poor thing! so it would be a sin to condemn her. While others will go dressed in black and sew their shroud, and yet love rich old men on the sly. Yes, y-es, my canary birds, some hussies will bewitch an old man and rule over him, my doves, rule over him and turn his head; and when they've saved up money and lottery tickets enough, they will bewitch him to his death."

Varvarushka's only response to these hints was to heave a sigh and look towards the ikons. There was an expression of Christian meekness on her countenance.

"I know a maid like that, my bitterest enemy," Stinging Beetle went on, looking round at every one in triumph; "she is always sighing, too, and looking at the ikons, the she-devil. When she used to rule in a certain old man's house, if one went to her she would give one a crust, and bid one bow down to the ikons while she would sing: 'In conception Thou dost abide a Virgin . . . ! ' On holidays she will give one a bite, and on working days she will reproach one for it. But nowa- days I will make merry over her! I will make as merry as I please, my jewel."

Varvarushka glanced at the ikons agein and crossed herself.

"But no one will have me, Spiridonovna," said Anna kimovna to change the conversation. "What's to be done?"

"It's your own fault. You keep waiting for highly educated gentlemen, but you ought to marry one of your own sort, a merchant."

"We don't want a merchant," said Auntie, all ir. a flutter. "Queen of Heaven, preserve us! A gentleman will spend your monev, but then he will be kind to you, you poor little fool. But a merchant will be so strict that you won't feel at home in vour own house. You'll be wanting to fondle him and he will be counting his money, and when you sit down to meals with him, he'll grudge you every mouthful, though it's your own, the lout! . . . Marry a gentleman."

They all talked at once, lotidly interrupting one another, and Auntie tapped on the table with the nutcrackers and said, llushed and angry:

"\'e won't have a merchant; we won't have one! If you choose a merchant I shall go to an almshouse."

'"Sh . . . Sh! ... Hush!" cried Stinging Beetle; when all were silent she screwed up one eye and said: "Do you know what, Annushka, my birdie . . . ? There is no need for you to get married really like every one else. You're rich and free, you are your own mistress; but yet, my child, it doesn't seem the right thing for you to be an old maid. I'il find you, you know, some trumpery and simple-witted man. You'll marry him for appearances and then have your fling, bonny lass! You can hand him five thousand or ten maybe, and pack him off where he came from, and you will be mistress in your own house—you can love whom you like and no one can say anything to you. And then you can love your highly educated gentleman. You'll have a jolly time!" Stinging Beetle snapped her fingers and gave a whistle.

"It's sinful," said Auntie.

"Oh, sinful," laughed Stinging Beetle. "She is educated, she understands. To cut some one's throat or bewitch an old man—that's a sin, that's true; but to love some charming young friend is not a sin at all. And what is there in it, really? There's no sin in it at all! The old pilgrim women have invented all that to make fools of simple folk. I, too, say every- where it's a sin; I don't know myself why it's a sin." Sting- ing Beetle emptied her glass and cleared her throat. "Have your fling, bonny lass," this time evidently addressing herself. "For thirty years, wenches, I have thought of nothing but sins and been afraid, but now I see I have wasted my time, I've let it slip by like a ninny! Ah, I have been a fool, a fool!" She sighed. "A woman's time is short and every day is precious. You are handsome, Annushka, and very rich; but as soon as thirty-five or forty strikes for you your time is up. Don't listen to any one, my girl; live, have your fling fill you are forty, and then you will have time to pray for- giveness—there will be plenty of time to bow down and to sew your shroud. A candle to God and a poker to the devil! You can do both at once! Well, how is it to be? Will you make some little man happy?"

"I will," laughed Anna Akimovna. "I don't care now; I would marry a working man."

"Well, that would do all right! Oh, what a fine fellow you would choose then!" Stinging Beetle screwed up her eyes and shook her head. "0—o—oh!"

"I tell her myself," said Auntie, "it's no good waiting for a gentleman, so she had better marry, not a gentleman, but some one humbler; anyway we should have a man in the house to look after things. And there are lots of good men. She might have some one out of the factory. They are all sober, steady men. . . ."

"I should think so," Stinging Beetle agreed. "They are capital fellows. If you like, Aunt, I will make a match for her with Vassily Lebedinsky?"

"Oh, Vasya's legs are so long," said Auntie seriously. "He is so lanky. He has no looks."

There was laughter in the crowd by the door.

"\Vell, Pimenov? Would you like to marry Pimenov?" Stinging Beetle asked Anna Akimovna.

"Very good. Make a match for me with Pimenov."

"Really?"

"Yes, do!" Anna Akimovna said resolutely, and she struck her fist on the table. "On my honour, I will marry him."

"Really?"

Anna Akimovna suddenly felt ashamed that her cheeks were burning and that every one was looking at her; she flung the cards together on the table and ran out of the room. As she ran up the stairs and, reaching the upper story, sat down to the piano in the drawing-room, a murmur of sound reached her from below like the roar of the sea; most likely they were talking of her and of Pimenov, and perhaps

Stinging Beetle was taking advantage of her absence to in-- sult Varvarushka and was putting no check on her language-

The lamp in the big room was the only light burning in tht' upper story, and it sent a glimmer through the door into the dark drawing-room. It was between nine and ten, not later. Anna Akimovna played a waltz, then another, then a third; she went on playing without stopping. She looked into the dark corner beyond the piano, smiled, and inwardly called to it, and the idea occurred to her that she might drive off to the town to see some one, Lysevitch for instance, and tell him what was passing in her heart. She wanted to talk without ceasing, to laugh, to play the fool, but the dark corner was sullenly silent, and all round in all the rooms of the upper story it was still and desolate.

She was fond of sentimental songs, but she had a harsh, untrained voice, and so she only played the accompaniment and sang hardly audibly, just above her breath. She sang in a whisper one song after another, for the most part about love, separation, and frustrated hopes, and she imagined how she would hold out her hands to him and say with entreaty, with tears, "Pimenov, take this burden from me!" And then, just as though her sins had been forgiven, there would be joy and comfort in her soul, and perhaps a free, happy life would begin. In an anguish of anticipation she leant over the keys, with a passionate longing for the change in her life to come at once without delay, and was terrified at the thought that her old life would go on for some time longer. Then she played again and sang hardly above her breath, and all was stillness about her. There was no noise coming from downstairs now, they must have gone to bed. It had struck ten some time before. A long, solitary, weari- some night was approaching.

Anna Akimovna walked through all the rooms, lay down for a while on the sofa, and read in her study the letters that had come that evening; there were twelve letters of Christmas greetings and three anonymous letters. In one of them some workman complained in a horrible, almost illegible handwrit- ing that Lenten oil sold in the factory shop was rancid and smelt of paraffin; in another, some one respectfully informed her that over a purchase of iron Nazaritch had lately taken a bribe of a thousand roubles from some one; in a third she was abused for her inhumanity.

The excitement of Christmas was passing off, and to keep it up Anna Akimovna sat down at the piano again and softly played one of the new waltzes, then she remembered how cleverly and creditably she had spoken at dinner to-day. She looked round at the dark windows, at the walls with the pic- tures, at the faint light that came from the big room, and all at once she began suddenly crying, and she felt vexed that she was so lonely, and that she had no one to talk to and consult. To cheer herself she tried to picture Pimenov in her imagination, but it was unsuccessful.

It struck twelve. Mishenka, no longer wearing his swallow- tail but in his reefer jacket, came in, and without speaking lighted two candles; then he went out and returned a minute later with a cup of tea on a tray.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked, noticing a smile on his face.

"I was downstairs and heard the jokes you were making about Pimenov . . ." he said, and put his hand before his laughing mouth. "If he were sat down to dinner to-day with Viktor Nikolaevitch and the general, he'd have died of fright." Mishenka's shoulders were shaking with laughter. "He doesn't know even how to hold his fork, I bet."

The footman's laughter and words, his reefer jacket and moustache, gave Anna Akimovna a feeling of uncleanness. She shut her eyes to avoid seeing him, and, against her own will, imagined Pimenov dining with Lysevitch and Krylin, and his timid, unintellectual figure seemed to her pitiful and helpless, and she felt repelled by it. And only now, for the first time in the whole day, she realised clearly that all she had said and thought about Pimenov and marrying a work- man was nonsense, folly, and wilfulness. To convince herself of the opposite, to overcome her repulsion, she tried to recall what she had said at dinner, but now she could not see any- thing in it: shame at her own thoughts and actions, and the fear that she had said something improper during the day, and disgust at her own lack of spirit, overwhelmed her com- pletely. She took up a candle and, as rapidly as if some one were pursuing her, ran downstairs, woke Spiridonovna, and began assuring her she had been joking. Then she went to her bedroom. Red-haired Masha, who was dozing in an arm- chair near the bed, jumped up and began shaking up the pillows. Her face was exhausted and sleepy, and her mag- nificent hair had fallen on one side.

"Tchalikov came again this evening," she said, yawning "but I did not dare to announce him; he was very drunk. He says he will come again to-morrow."

"What does he want with me?" said Anna Akimovna, and she flung her comb on the floor. "I won't see him, J Won't."

She made up her mind she had no one left in life but this Tchalikov, that he would never leave off persecuting her, and \vould remind her every day how uninteresting and absurd her life was. So all she was fit for was to help the poor. Oh, how stupid it was!

She lay down without undressing, and sobbed with shamt iind depression: what seemed to her most vexatious and stupid nf all was that her dreams that day about Pimenov had been l ight, lofty, honourable, but at the same time she felt that Lysevitch and even Krylin were nearer to her than Pimenov and all the workpeople taken together. She thought that if Ihe long day she had just spent could have been represented in a picture, all that had been bad and vulgar—as, for in- stance, the dinner, the lawyer's talk, the game of "kings"— would have been true, while her dreams and talk about Pimenov would have stood out from the whole as something false, as out of drawing; and she thought, too, that it was too late to dream of happiness, that everything was over for her, and it was impossible to go back to the life when she had slept under the same quilt with her mother, or to devise some new special sort of life.

Red-haired Masha was kneeling before the bed, gazing at her in mournful perplexity; then she, too, began crying, and laid her face against her mistress's arm, and without words it was clear why she was so wretched.

"We are fools!" said Anna Akimovna, laughing and crv- ing. "We are fools! Oh, what fools we are!"

THE DOCTOR

It was still in the drawing-room, so still that a house-fly that had flown in from outside could be distinctly heard brushing against the ceiling. Olga Ivanovna, the lady of the villa, was standing by the window, looking out at the flower- beds and thinking. Dr. Tsvyetkov, who was her doctor as well as an old friend, and had been sent for to treat her son Misha, was sitting in an easy chair and swinging his hat, which he held in both hands, and he too was thinking. Except them, there was not a soul in the drawing-room or in the ad- joining rooms. The sun had set, and the shades of evening began settling in the corners under the furniture and on the cornices.

The silence was broken by Olga I"anovna.

"Xo misfortune more terrible can be imagined," she said, without turning from the window. "You know that life has no value for me whatever apart from the boy."

"Yes, I know that," said the doctor.

"No value whatever," said Olga Ivanovna, and her voice quivered. "He is everything to me. He is my joy, my happi- ness, my wealth. And if, as you say, I cease to be a mother, if he . . . dies, there will be nothing left of me but a shadow. I cannot survive it."

Wringing her hands, Olga Ivanovna walked from one win- dow to the other and went on:

"When he was born, I wanted to send him away to the Foundling Hospital, you remember that, but, my God, hoVI can that time be compared with now? Then I was vulgar, stupid, feather-headed, but now I am a mother, do you under-

243

stand? I am a mother, and that's all I care to know. Between the present and the past there is an impassable gulf."

Silence foIlowed again. The doctor shifted his seat from the chair to the sofa and impatiently playing with his hat, kept his eyes fixed upon Olga Ivanovna. From his face it could be seen that he wanted to speak, and was waiting for a fitting moment.

"You are silent, but still I do not give up hope," said the- lady, turning round. "Why are you silent?"

"I should be as glad of any hope as you, Olga, but there is none," Tsvyetkov answered, "we must look the hideous truth in the face. The boy has a tumour on the brain, and we must try to prepare ourselves for his death, for such cases never recover."

"Nikolay, are you certain you are not mistaken?"

"Such questions lead to nothing. I am ready to answer as many as you like, but it will make it no better for us."

Olga Ivanovna pressed her face into the window curtains, and began weeping bitterly. The doctor got up and walked several times up and down the drawing-room, then went to the weeping woman, and lightly touched her arm. Judging from his uncertain movements, from the expression of his gloomy face, which looked dark in the dusk of the evening, he wanted to say something.

"Listen, Olga," he began. "Spare me a minute's attention; there is something I must ask you. You can't attend to me now, though. I'll come later, afterwards. . . ." He sat down again, and sank into thought. The bitter, imploring weeping, like the weeping of a little girl, continued. Without waiting for it to end, Tsvyetkov heaved a sigh and walked out of the drawing-room. He went into the nursery to Misha. The boy was lying on his back as Jefore, staring at one point as though he were listening. The doctor sat down 0:1. his bed and felt his pulse.

"Misha, does your head ache?" he a:;ked.

Misha answered, not at once: "Yes. I keep dreaming/'

"\Vhat do you dream?"

"All sorts of things. . . ."

The doctor, who did not know how to talk with weeping women or with children, stroked his burning head, and mut- tered:

"Never mind, poor boy, never mind . . . . One can't go through life without illness. . . . Misha, who am I—do you know me?"

Misha did not answer.

"Does your head ache very badly?"

"Ve-ery. I keep dreaming."

After examining him and putting a few questions to the maid who was looking after the sick child, the doctor went ;lowly back to the drawing-room. There it was by now dark, and Olga Ivanovna, standing by the window, looked like a silhouette.

"Shall I light up?" asked Tsvyetkov.

No answer followed. The house-fly was still brushing against the ceiling. Not a sound floated in from outside as though the whole world, like the doctor, were thinking, and could not bring itself to speak. Olga Ivanovna was not weep- ing now, but as before, staring at the flower-bed in profound silence. When Tsvyetkov went up to her, and through the twilight glanced at her pale face, exhausted with grief, her expression was such as he had seen before during her attacks of acute, stupefying, sick headache.

"Nikolay Trofimitch!" she addressed him, "and what do you think about a consultation?"

"Very good; I'll arrange it to-morrow."

From the doctor's tone it could be easily seen that he put little faith in the benefit of a consultation. Olga Ivanovna would have asked him something else, but her sobs prevented her. Again she pressed her face into the window curtain. At that moment, the strains of a band playing at the club floated in distinctly. They could hear not only the wind in- struments, but even the violins and the flutes.

"If he is in pain, why is he silent?" asked Olga Ivanovna "All day long, not a sound, he never complains, and never cries. I know God will take the poor boy from us because we have not known how to prize him. Such a treasure!"

The band finished the march, and a minute later began playing a lively waltz for the opening of the ball.

"Good God, can nothing really be done?" moaned Olga Ivanovna. "Nikolay, you are a doctor and ought to know what to do! You must understand that I can't bear the loss of him l I can't survive it."

The doctor, who did not know how to talk to weeping women, heaved a sigh, and paced slowly about the drawing- room. There followed a succession of oppressive pauses in- terspersed with weeping and the questions which lead to nothing. The band had already played a quadrille, a polka, and another quadrille. It got quite dark. In the adjoining room, the maid lighted the lamp; and all the while the doctor kept his hat in his hands, and seemed trying to say something. Several times Olga Ivanovna went off to her son, sat by him for half an hour, and came back again into the drawing-room; she was continually breaking into tears and lamentations. The time dragged agonisingly, and it. seemed as though the evening had no end.

At midnight, when the band had played the cotillion and ceased altogether, the doctor got ready to go.

"I will come again to-morrow," he said, pressing the mother's cold hand. "You go to bed."

After putting on his greatcoat in the passage and picking up his walking-stick, he stopped, thought a minute, and went back into the drawing-room.

"I'll come to-morrow, Olga," he repeated in a quivering voice. "Do you hear?"

She did not answer, and it seemed as though grief had robbed her of all power of speech. In his greatcoat and with his stick still in his hand, the doctor sat down beside her, and began in a soft, tender half-whisper, which was utterly out of keeping with his heavy, dignified figure:

"Olga! For the sake of your sorrow which I share . . . . Now, when falsehood is criminal, I beseech you to tell me the truth. You have always declared that the boy is my son. Is that the truth?"

Olga Ivanovna was silent.

"You have been the one attachment in my life," the doctoi went on, "and you cannot imagine ho-N deeply my feeling is wounded by falsehood. . . . Come, I entreat you, Olga, for once in your life, tell me the truth. . . . At these moments one cannot lie. Tell me that Misha is not my son. I am waiting."

"He is.''

Olga Ivanovna's face could not be seen, but in her voice the doctor could hear hesitation. He sighed.

"Even at such moments you can bring yourseIf to tell a lie," he said in his ordinary voice. "There is nothing sacred to you! Do listen, do understand me. . . . You have been the one only attachment in my life. Yes, you were depraved, vulgar, but I have loved no one else but you in my life. That trivial love, now that I am growing old, is the one solitar) bright spot in my memories. Why do yott darken it with deception? What is it for?"

"I don't understand you."

"Oh my God!" cried Tsvyetkov. "You are lying, you un- derstand very well!" he cried more loudlv, and he began pac- ing about the drawing-room, angrily waving his stick. "Or have you forgotten? Then I will remind you! A father's right= to the boy are equally shared with me by Petrov and Kurovsky the lawyer, who still make you an allowance ior their son's education, just as I do! Yes, indeed! I know all that quite well! I forgive your lying in the past, what does it matter? .But now when you have grown older, at this moment when the boy is dying, your lying stilles me! How sorry I am that t cannot speak, how sorry I am!"

The doctor unbuttoned his overcoat, and still pacing about, ;aid:

"Wretched woman! Even such moments have no effect on her. Even now she lies as freely as nine years ago in the Hermitage Restaurant! She is afraid if she tells me the truth I shall leave off giving her money, she thinks that if she did not lie I should not love the boy ! You are lying! It's con- temptible!"

The doctor rapped the floor with his stick, and cried:

"It's loathsome. Warped, corrupted creature! I must de- spise you, and I ought to be ashamed of my feeling. Yes! Your lying has stuck in my throat these nine years, I have endured it, but now it's too much—too much."

From the dark corner where Olga Ivanovna was sitting there came the sound ot weeping. The doctor ceased speak- ing and cleared bis throat. A silence followed. The doctor slowly buttoned up his overcoat, and began looking for his hat which he had dropped as he walked about.

"I lost my temper," he muttered, bending down to the floor. "I quite lost sight of the fact that you cannot attend to me now. . . . God knows what l have said. . . . Don't take any notice of it, Olga."

He found his hat, and went towards the dark corner.

"I have wounded you," he said in a soft, tender half- whisper, "but once more I entreat you, tell me the truth; there should not be lying between us. ... I blurted it out, and now you know that Petrov and Kurovsky are no secret to me. So now it is easy for you to tell me the truth."

Olga Ivanovna thought a moment, and with perceptible hesitation, said:

"Nikolay, I am not lying—Misha is your child."

"l\Iy God," moaned the doctor, "then I will tell you some- thing more: I have kept your letter to Petrov in which you call him l\Iisha's father! Olga, I know the truth, but I want to hear it from you! Do you hear?"

Olga Ivanovna made no reply, but weot on weeping. After waiting for an answer the doctor shrugged his shoulders and went out.

"I will come to-morrow," he called from the passage.

All the way home, as he sat in his carriage, he was shrugg ing his shoulders and muttering.

"What a pity that I don't know how to speak! I haven't the gift of persuading and convincing. It's evident she does not understand me since she lies! It's evident! How 1 make her see? How?"

A TRIFLING OCCURRENCE

Nikolay Ilyich Bieliayev, a Petersburg landlord, very fond of the racecourse, a well fed, pink young man of about thirty-two, once called towards evening on Madame Irnin— Olgo Ivanovna—with whom he had a liaison, or, to use his own phrase, spun out a long and tedious romance. And in- deed the first pages of his romance, pages of interest and inspiration, had been read long ago; now they dragged on and on, and presented neither novelty nor interest.

Finding that Olga Ivanovna was not at home, my hero lay down a moment on the drawing-room sofa and began to wait.

"Good evening, Nikolay Ilyich," he suddenly heard a child's voice say. ":\!other will be in in a moment. She's gone to the dressmaker's with Sonya."

In the same drawing-room on the sofa lay Olga Ivanovna's son, Aliosha, a boy about eight years old, well built, well looked after, dressed up like a picture in a velvet jacket and long black stockings. He lay on a satin pillow, and apparently imitating an acrobat whom he had lately seen in the circus, lifting up first one leg, then the other. When his elegant legs began to be tired, he moved his hands, or he jumped up impetuously and then went on all fours, trying to stand with his legs in the air. All this he did with a most serious face, breathing heavily, as if he himself found no happiness in God's gift of such a restless body.

"Ah, how do you do, my friend?" said Bieliayev. "Is it you? I didn't notice you. Is your mother well?"

At the moment Aliosha had just taken hold of the toe of his left foot in his right hand and got into a most awkward

250

poa. He turned head over heels, jumped up, and glanced from under the big, fluffy lampshade at Bieliayev.

"How can I put it?" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "As a matter of plain fact Mother is never well. You see she's a woman, and women, Nikolay Ilyich, have always some pain or another."

For something to do, Bieliayev began to examine Aliosha's face. All the time he had been acquainted with Olga Ivanovna he had never once turned his attention to the boy and had completely ignored his existence. A boy is stuck in front of your eyes, but what is he doing here, what is his role?— you don't want to give a single thought to the question.

In the evening dusk Aliosha's face with a pale forehead and steady black eyes unexpectedly reminded Bieliayev of Olga Ivanovna as she was in the first pages of the romance. He had the desire to be affectionate to the boy.

"Come here, whipper-snapper," he said. "Come and let me have a good look at you, quite close."

The boy jumped off the sofa and ran to Bieliayev.

"Well?" Nikolay Ilyich began, putting his hand on the thin shoulders. "And how are things with you?"

"How shall I put it? ... They used to be much better before."

"How?"

"Quite simple. Before, Sonya and I only had to do music and reading, and now we're given French verses to learn. You've had your hair cut lately?"

"Yes, just lately."

"That's why I noticed it. Your beard's shorter. May I touch it . . . Doesn't it. hurt?"

"No, not a bit."

"Why is it that it hurts if you pull one hair and when you pull a whole lot, it doesn't hurt a bit? Ah, ah! You know it's a pity you don't have side-whiskers. You should shave here, and at the sides . . . and leave the hair just here."

The boy pressed close to Bieliayev and began to play witk. his watch-chain.

"When I go to the gymnasium," he said, "Mother is going to buy me a watch. I'll ask her to buy me a chain just like this. What a fine locket! Father has one just the same, but yours has stripes, here, and his has got letters . . . Inside it's Mother's picture. Father has another chain now, not in links, but like a ribbon ..."

"How do you know? Do you see your father?"

"I? Mm . . . no . . . I . . ."

Aliosha blushed and in the violent confusion of being detected in a lie began to scratch the locket busily with his finger-nail. Bieliayev looked steadily at his face and asked:

"Do you see your father?"

"No . . . No!"

"But, be honest—on your honour. Byyour face I can see you're not telling me the truth. If you made a slip of the tongue by mistake, what's the use of shuffling. Tell me, do you see him? As one friend to another."

Aliosha mused.

"And you won't tell Mother?" he asked.

"What next."

"On your word of honour."

"My word of honour."

"Swear an oath."

"What a nuisance you are! What do you take me for? '

Aliosha looked round, made big eyes and began to whisper.

"Only for God's sake don't tell Mother! Never tell it to anyone at all, because it's a secret. God forbid that Mother should ever get to know; then I and Sonya and Pelagueya will pay for it . . . Listen. Sonya and I meet Father every Tuesday and Friday. When Pelagueya takes us for a walk before dinner, we go into Apfel's sweet-shop and Father's waiting for us. He always sits in a separate room, you know, where there's a splendid marble table and an ash-tray shaped like a goose without a back . . ."

''And what do you do there?"

"Nothing!—First, we welcome one another, then we sit down at a little table and Father begins to treat us to coffee and cakes. You know, Sonya eats meat-pies, and I can't bear pies with meat in them! I like them made of cabbage and eggs. We eat so much that afterwards at dinner we try to eat as much as we possibly can so that Mother shan't notice."

"What do you talk about there?"

"To Father? About anything. He kisses us and cuddles us, tells us all kinds of funny stories. You know, he says that he will take us to live with him when we are grown up. Sonya doesn't want to go, but I say 'Yes.' Of course, it'll be lonely without Mother; but I'll write letters to her. How funny: we could go to her for our holidays then— couldn't we? Besides, Father says that he'll buy me a horse. He's a splendid man. I can't understand why Mother doesn't invite him to live with her or why she says we mustn't meet him. He loves Mother very much indeed. He's always asking us how she is and what she's doing. When she was ill, he took hold of his head like this . . . and ran, ran, aU the time. He is always telling us to obey and respect her Tell me, is it true that we're unlucky?"

''H'm . . . how?"

"Father says so. He says: 'You are unlucky children.' It's quite strange to listen to him. He says: 'You are un< happy, I'm unhappy, and Mother's unhappy.' He says: 'Pray to God for yourselves and for her.' "

Aliosha's eyes rested upon the stuffed bird and he mused.

"Exactly . . .'' snorted Bieliayev. "This is what you do. You arnnge conferences in sweet-shops. And your mother doesn't know?"

"No—no . . . How could she know? Pelagueya won't tell for anything. The day before yesterday Father stood us pears. Sweet, like jam. I had two.''

"H'm . . . well, now . . . tell me, doesn't your father speak about me?"

"About you? How shall I put it?"

Aliosha gave a searching glance to Bieliayev's face and shrugged his shoulders.

''He doesn't say anything in particular."

"What does he say, for instance?"

"You won't be offended?"

"What next? Why, does he abuse me?"

"He doesn't abuse you, but you know . . . he is cross with you. He says that it's through you that Mother's un- happy and that you . . . ruined Mother. But he is so queer! I explain to him that you are good and never shout at Mother, but he only shakes his head."

"Does he say those very words: that I ruined her?"

"Yes. Don't be offended, Nikolay Ilyich!" ₍

Bieliayev got up, stood still a moment, and then began⁽ to walk about the drawing-room.

"This is strange, and • . . funny," he murmured, shrug- jing his shoulders and smiling ironically. "He is to blame all round, and now I've ruined her, eh? What an iimocent lamb! Did he say those very words to you: that I ruined your mother?"

"Yes, but . . . you said that you wouldn't get offended."

"I'm not offended, and . . . and it's none of your busi- ness! No, it ... it's quite funny though. I fell into the trap, yet I'm to be blamed as well."

The bell rang. The boy dashed from his place and ran out. In a minute a lady entered the room with a little girl. It was Olga Ivanovna, Aliosha's mother. After her, hopping, humming noisily, and waving his hands, followed Aliosha.

"Of course, who is there to accuse except me?" he mur- mured, sniffing. "He's rignt, he's the injured husband."

"What's the matter?" asked Olga Ivanovna.

"What's the matter! Listen to the kind of sermon your dear husband preaches. It appears I'm a scoundrel and

a murderer, I've ruined you and the children. All of you are unhappy, and only I am awfully happy! Awfully, awfully happy!''

"I don't understand, Nikolay! What is it?"

"Just listen to this young gentleman," Bieliayev said, pointing to Aliosha.

Aliosha blushed, then became pale suddenly, and his whole face was twisted in fright.

"Nikolay Ilvich," he whispered loudly. "Shh!"

"Ask him, i f you please," went on Bieliayev. "That stupid fool Pelagueya of yours, takes them to sweet-shops and ar- rangesmeetings with their dear father there. But that's not the point. The point is that the dear father is a martyr, and I'm a murderer, I'm a scoundrel, \vho broke the lives of both of you. . . ."

"Nikolay Ilyich!" moaned Aliosha. "You gave your word of honour!"

"Ah, let me alone!" Bieliayev waved his hand. "This is something more important than any words of honour. The hypocrisy revolts me, the lie!"

"I don't understand," muttered Olga Ivanovna, and tears began to glimmer in her eyes. "Tell me, Liolka,"—she turned to her son, "Do you see your father?"

Aliosha did not hear and looked with horror at Bieliayev.

"It's impossible," said the mother. "I'll go and ask Pe- lagueya."

Olga Ivanovna went out.

"But, but you gave me your word of honour," Aliosha said, trembling all over.

Bieliayev waved his hand at him and went on walking up and down. He was absorbed in his insult, and now, as before, he did not notice the presence of the boy. He, a big serious man, had nothing to do with boys. And Aliosha sat down in a corner and in terror told Sonya how he had been deceived. He trembled, stammered, wept. This was the first time in his life that he had been set, roughly, face to face with a lie. He ^^ never known before that in this world besides sweet pears and cakes and e^^nsive watches, there exist many other things which have no name in ^Udren's

THE HOLLOW

I

The village of Ukleyevo being situated in a hollow, only *he church-steeple and the chimneys of the calico factories could be seen from the high road and the railway station. When passers-by asked what village it was, they were told: "That is where the Cantor ate all the caviar at a funeral."

It seems, at the obsequies for the mill-owner Kostiukov, the elderly Cantor saw among the hors-d'ceuvres some fresh caviar, and proceeded to gobble it up. His friends tapped hi'l on the shoulder, they pulled him by the sleeve, but he was so literally insensible with enjoyment he felt nothing —he could only swallow. The pot had contained 4 lbs. of :aviar, and Iie ate it all. Ten years had elapsed since then, the Cantor was dead, but everyone remembered about the caviar. Perhaps it was owing to their straitened existence, or perhaps the people were incapable of observation; how- ever it be, this unimportant incident was the only thing re- lated about Ukleyevo.

Fever was in perpetual abode; also a viscous mire, even in summer, particularly by the side of the palings where aged willows hanging their branches cast a shade over the road. Just about there, it always smelt of factory refuse and acetic acid, which was used in preparing the calico-print.

The factories were four in number—three calico-print ones and a tannery. They lay, not in the village, but on the outskirts, a little distance away. They were small fac- tories, each employing about 400 workers. The residuum from the tannery frequently fouled the rivulet, the refuse infected the meadow, the peasants' cattle suffered from Si-

257

berian pl^^e, and the tannerv was ordered to close. It was considered closed, and continued to work secretly, with the assent of the commis^^⁷ of police and the district doctor, to whom the proprietor paid ten rubles a month each.

There were only two decent houses in the whole village; these were built of stone, and each bad a tin roof; in the one were the offices of the Volost, in the other, two-storied, just ^^site the church, lived Tzybukin,—Grigory Petrov.

Grig^' kept a store—that was for the sake of

^^CTances; he really dealt in v^^, cattle, ieather, corn, pigs. He traded in what he required, and when, for instance, ^^^ies were needed abroad for ladies' hats, be made 30 k^^ks on each couple; be would appropriate the felling- rights of a he would lend money on interest. He was,

in fact, an enterprising man.

He had two sons; the elder, Anisim, served in the detective division of police, and was seldom at home. The vounger son, Stepan, went into business to help his father, but, as he suffered from bad health and was deaf, they did not e^^t any real help from him. His wife .^^inva, a handsome svelte woman, wore a hat on holidays and carried a parasol; she rose early and went to ^^ late, and, with her skirts gathered up and rattling her keys, she ran about al day to the store- bo^, or the cellar, or the shop. Old Tzybukin's eves kindled pleasure as be looked at her, and be often wished she ^rried to his elder son, instead of to the younger deaf ^k, who apparently regarded fe^^^ ^autv with indif- ference.

The old ^^ ^^ very domestic, and loved his family more than anything in the world, his elder son and his

daughter-in-law.

^Aksinya ^^ no so^ ^rried to her deaf husband ^^ Jbe revealed an unusual ^pacitv for business, and very s^n ^^^t^ri to whom credit could be given, and to ^tom not.

always kept the keys, not entrusting them even to her ^af husband; she ^ratled accounts, the horses by the teeth like a muzhik; was always bright or abusive; but whatever she did or said, the old man was touched and murmured: "What a daughter-in-law. Hm—yes. Matushka! "

He was a widower, but less than a vear after his son's marriage he could endure his widowhood no longer, and also got married. At thirty versts from Ukleyevo they found an unmarried woman, \'arvara Nikolayevna, of good family, middle-aged, and handsome. Ko sooner had she established herself in the house, on the second floor, than e,-ervthing assumed a brighter hue, just as if new panes had been placed in all the windows. The image-lamps burned clear and un- dimmed, the tables were covered with cloths, or linen white as snow, red flowers appeared in the windows and in the patch in front of the house, and at dinner each had a plate given him instead of feeding out of the stewpot. When Var- vara Xikolayevna smiled her pleasant kind smile, it seemed to be diffused over the whole house. And—it had never hap- pened before—the old, the poor, the pilgrims took to coming- into the yard. Through the windows were heard the sing-song voices of the Ukleyevo women, or the sickly cough of the suffering weak men discharged for drunkenness from the factories. Varvara helped them with money, bread, old clothes, and subsequently, when she got used to the place, she even drew on the grocerv store for supplies. Once, the deaf one saw her carry away two-eighths of a pound of tea; this troubled him.

"::\Iamasha took two-eighths of a pound of tea from here," he communicated to his father—"where shall I write it do\wn?'^:

The old man said nothing; stood still, reflected, knit his brows, and went upstairs to his wife.

"Varvarushka, if you require anvthing from the shop, take it," he said fondly. "Take anything you want—don't mind anyone."

Next day as he crossed the yard, the deaf one called to her:

"Mamasha, if you require anything—take it."

This almsgiving was something new, something bright and cheerful, like the red flowers and the image-lamps. When during carnival, or at the festival of the patron saint, which lasted three days, the peasants had such badly tainted salt- meat foisted on them that it was well-nigh impossible to stand by the barrels, and scythes, women's shawls and hats were pawned by the drunkards, and the factory-hands wallowed in the mire stupefied by bad brandy, and sin hung in the air like fog—then it all seemed somehow easier to bear, at the thought that there in the house was a quiet cleanly woman, who had nothing to do with salt-meat and brandy. Her alms acted in those dark distressful days as a safety-valve in a machine.

They were always very busy in the house of Tzybukin. Before sunrise Aksinya was spluttering over her ablutions in the vestibule, the samovar was boiHng in the kitchen, and hissing as if predicting something unpleasant. Old Grigory Petrov, looking neat and clean, clad in a long black frock- coat and print trousers, wearing high polished boots, walked about the room, tapping his heels like the father-in-law in a well-known song. Then the shop was opened. When it was daylight the little droshky was brought to the door, and away drove this energetic old man. As he sat there, with his cap pulled down to his ears, no one would have crediter! him with fifty-six years. His wife and daughter-in-law always saw him off. When he was wearing his new frock-coat, and driv- ing his big black cob, which had cost 300 rubles, he did not like the peasants to approach him with their requests and complaints. He disliked and despised the peasants, and if he saw any peasant hanging about the gate he would shout angrily at them:

"What are you doing there? Get on with you."

And if it was a beggar he would shout:

"God will help you!"

He was on business bent. Then his wife, wearing a black apron, tidied the rooms or helped in the kitchen; Aksinya attended to work in the shop; across the yard drifted the sound of jingling bottles and money, or laughter and shout- ing or angry words from purchasers whom Aksinya insulted. The secret and clandestine sale of vodka was carried on in the shop at the same time. The deaf one also sat in the shop, or else, hatless, with his hands in his pockets, walked about the streets absently casting glances into the cottages or up at the sky. Tea was drunk six times a day, and four times a day they sat down to meals. In the evening the ac- counts were made up and inscribed, then all went to bed and slept soundly.

The three print factories were joined by the telephone to the domiciles in Ukleyevo of the mill-owners Khrymin Senior, Khrymin Junior, and Kostiukov. The telephone was also put into the offices of the Volost, but there it soon ceased to work, and bugs and cockroaches established themselves in it. The Senior of the Volost was somewhat illiterate, and wrote every word with a capital, so when the telephone broke down he said:

"It will be rather difficult for us now without the tele- phone."

The Senior Khrymins were always at law with the Junior Khrymins, and sometimes the Juniors fought among them- selves, and brought law-suits against each other; then their factory had to close for a month, perhaps two, until peace was restored. This provided a certain amount of distraction for the inhabitants of Ukleyevo, as each row gave rise to much gossip and talk.

Kostiukov and the Junior Khrymins organised some racing for the carnival; they drove furiously through Ukleyevo slaughtering calves in their career. Aksinya, rustling in her starched petticoats, took a turn in the street by the groc:ery store; the Junior Khrymins caught her up, and it looked as if they had forcibly carried her off. Then out came old Tzybukin to show off his new horse, and he took with him Varvara.

In the evening, after the racing ^^ over, and many had betaken themselves to bed, at Khry^m Junior's they made music on an e^rensive harmonium; if the moon was shining, it added to the sounds of joy and gaiety in Ukleyevo, which then seemed less of a hole.

n

Anisim, the eldest son, very seldom came home-—only on the big festivals; on the other hand, he often sent gifts and letters to his people; the letters were written in a strange, magnificent handwriting, and each time on a sheet of paper resembling a petition. The letters were fuU of expressions which Anisim never used in conversation: "My dear father and mother, I send you a pound of green tea for the satisfy- ing of your physical needs." At the end of each letter was scribbled, as if with a broken nib, "Anisim Tzybukin," and below, again in that most excellent handwriting, "Agent." The letters were read aloud several times, and the old man, touched and crimson with emotion, said: "There now, he did not want to live at home; he leit to improve himself—well, quite right! Each destined for his part!"

Just before Shrove-tide there were heavy rain and sleet; the old man and Varvara go to the window to look at it, when lo! who arrives from the station in a sleigh but Anisim. They did not at all expect him. He seemed apprehensive, and uneasy from his first entering into the room, nor did this manner alter during his whole stay, although he affected a certain sprightliness. He was in no hurry to leave them again, and it rather looked as if he had been discharged from the Service. Varvara was pleased at his arrival; she observed him rather shyly, sighed and shook her head:

"Now, how is this, batushka?" she asked. "This lad B already in his twenty-eighth year, and is still dissipating as a bachelor. Oh, fie upon it!"

Her soft, even tones did not carry into the next room. "Oh, fie upon it!" was all they heard. She began to whisper with the old man and Aksinya; their faces assumed the sly, mysterious expression of conspirators. They decided to marry Anisim.

"Oh, fie upon it! ... your brother has been married some time," said Varvara, "while you remain without a mate, like a cock in the market-place. How is that? Get married, with God's help. Go back into the Service if you like, and your wife will stay at home to help us in the work. You lead an irregular life, my lad, and have forgotten what is order, I see. Oh! fie upon you! Shame on you town::.- folk!"

When the Tzybukins married, the most beautiful brides were selected for them, as they are for the rich, so they sought for beauty for Anisim. He himself had an insig- nificant, uninteresting appearance, a weak, unhealthy con- stitution; was short, had puffy, swollen cheeks, just as if he inflated them; he never blinked, which gave him a hard, piercing expression; he had a scant carroty beard, which, when he indulged in thought, he poked into his mouth and nibbled. Added to all this, he frequently indulged in drink, which could be detected by his face and his walk. When, however, they communicated to him the fact that they had found him a bride, a very beautiful one, he said: "Oh! well, there is nothing wrong with me either. Our family of Tzy- bukin, one must allow, are all good-looking."

Quite close to the town was the village of Torguyevo. One half of it had, not long since, been incorporated with the town; the other half remained village. In the former lived a widow in a small house with her sister. The sister was very poor, and was hired by the day. This latter had a daughter, Lipa, who also hired by the day. Lipa's beauty was well recognised in Torguyevo, but her extreme poverty intimidated people. It was concluded, either that some middle- aged man or widower would wed her, regardlea of her poverty, or he would carry her off "without more ado," and she would be able to provide for her mother. Varvara heard of Lipa frorri the other marriage-promoters, and went over to Torguyevo.

later, as is necessary, the formal interview in the aunt's house was agreed upon, with a repast of "zauski" (hors- d'ceuvre) and wine. Lipa was attired in a new pink frock, specially made for the occasion; a crimson ribbon like a flame gleamed in her hair. She was an emaciated little being, pale and weak, with pretty soft features, and a skin tanned by exposure to the weather. The expresssions of her eyes were those of a child, trusting and inquisitive, and she always smiled in a sad timid way. She was quite young—a girl with an undeveloped figure, yet of a marriageable age. She was decidedly pleasing, except for her large masculine hands, which now hung idly by her side like two great claws.

"She has no fortune . . . we don't mind that," said the old man to the aunt. "For our son, Stepan, we also chose a wife from a poor family; now we cannot sufficiently con- gratulate ourselves, in the house or in the business . . . she (s worth her weight in guld."

Lipa stood by the door, and seemed to say: "Do with me what you will, I trust you." But her mother, Praskovya the day-worker, was concealing herself in the kitchen, dying of fright. Once, in her youth, a merchant for whom she washed the floors, stamped on her in his rage, which so frightened her that she swooned away, and for the rest of her life fear lurked in htr breast. Seated in the kitchen, she attempted to hear what the guests were saying, and all the time crossed herself, pressing her fingers to her forehead, and with her eyes fixed on the image of the saint. Anisim, slightly drunk, opened the kitchen-door, and said brightly:

"Why are you sitting here, precious mamasha? It is duU without you."

Praskovya, quailing and pressing her hand to her wasted skinny bosom, said:

"Mercy, what do you want? I am much obliged to you."

After the inspection, the wedding-day was fixed upon.

At home Anisim did nothing but walk about the rooms whistling, then, suddenly remembering something, would stand quite still, absorbed in thought, fixing his eyes on the floor as if he would like to pierce with a look far into the earth. He expressed no satisfaction at getting married, or getting married so soon—the first Monday after Quasimodo Sunday—nor a wish to see his bride-elect again; he just whistled. It was evident that he was only marrying because his father and step-mother wished it, and because in the vil- lage it was customary: sons married to provide workers in the house. He was in no hurry to leave, and behaved alto- gether differently to what he did on former visits. He seemed absent-minded too, and his answers were seldom to the point.

III

In the village dwelt two maiden sisters, sempstresses both. They were given the order for the new dresses for the wed- ding, so they often came over to fit, and stayed a long time partaking of tea. They made a cinnamon-coloured dress trimmed with black lace and jet for Varvara, and a pale green one with a yellow front and a train for Aksinya. When the toilettes were finished, Tzybukin paid the sisters in kind from the shop, and they departed from him with a heavy heart, bearing in their arms a bundle of stearine candles and some sardines which they did not at all want. When they had left the village behind them, they sat on a mound and wept.

Anisim arrived three days before the wedding in a new suit of clothes. He had new goloshes, and, instead of a tie, a red ribbon with a pattern of rings on it; he also had a new cloak, slung over his shoulder. Having solemnlv addressed a prayer to God, he greeted his father, and gave him ten silver rubles and ten so-kopeck pieces; he gave Varvara the same; and to Aksinya he gave twenty 2 5-kopeck pieces. The great charm of this present consisted in the fact that all the money was quite new, as if carefully selected, and gleamed in the sun. Anisim, attempting to appear staid and serious, puffed out his cheeks, twisted his face and smelt of wine—he must have jumped out at every station and run to the buffet. There was still that wouId-be-easy manner, some- thing unnatural, about him. The old man and Anisim drank tea and had a bite, while Varvara turned and re-turned her new rubles in her hand, and asked questions about their felIow-countrymen living in the town.

"They are all right, thank God," answered Anisim. "There has been an event in Ivan Yegorov's family . . . he has lost his old woman, Sofya Nikiforovna, from consumption. The 'repast to her memory,' ordered at the confectioners, was two rubles and a half per head, wine included. What feIIows our countrymen are! For them also it was two and a half rubles—and they ate nothing. Can a peasant appre- date good food?"

"Two and a half!" said the old man, shaking his head.

■•WeII, what of that? It is not the country. You enter a restaurant to take a snack, you ask for this and that, soon there is a group, you drink . . . you look up, why, it is dawn. . . . 'Excuse me, three or four rubIes each to pay.' And when you are with Samarodov, he insists on coffee and cognac to end up with, and cognac is six griveniks ( 60 ko- pecks) a gIass.''

"It's alI lies! It's all lies!" said the oId man ecstatically.

"I am aIways with Samarodov now. It is Samarodov who writes my Ietters to you. He writes spIendidIy. And if I told you, mamasha," gaiIy added Anisim, turning to Varvara, "what sort of a feIIow this Samarodov is, you wouId not believe it. We caIl him Muktar, for he is like an Armenian, quite bIack. I see through him; I know aIl his affairs as well as I do my own five fingers. He feels it too, mamasha, and follows me round, never leaves me, and now we are as inseparable as water. He is rather afraid of me, but cannot exist without me; where I go, he goes. I have right good eyes, mamasha; I go to a rag-fair, I see a peasant selling a shirt. 'Stay, that is a stolen shirt.' And it is true, the shirt was stolen."

"But how do you know?" asks Varvara.

"I don't know, but just my eyes are like that. I don't know what shirt is there, but only that something draws me to it: ii js stolen, that's all. Among us detectives, they say now: 'WelJ, Anisim, go and shoot woodcock.' That means to search for stolen booty. Yes, anyone may steal, but how are they to hide it? The earth is large, but there is nowhere to conceal plunder.''

"In our village, a sheep and two yearling ewes were stolen last week, at Guntoriov's," said Varvara, sighing. "And there was no one to search for them. Fie upon it!"

"Well, what of that? Search can be made—it's nothing, it's quite easy."

The wedding-day arrived; it was a cool, clear, joyous April day. From early morning troikas and pairs were being furiously driven through Ukleyevo; there was a jingle of grelots, and multi-coloured ribbons were flowing from the horses' manes and shaft-bows. The rooks were cawing among the willows, disturbed by this unusual stir and bustle, and the starlings sang unwearyingly as if rejoicing that there was a wedding at the Tzybukins'. In the house a repast was laid out consisting of long fish, hams, stuffed chickens, a variety of salt and pickled foods, and a number of bottles of vodka and wines. Added to this was a smell of smoked sausages and sour lobsters. By the table, stamping his heels and grind- ing one knife on another, stood the old man. Varvara was in constant request; with a hara^ed mien, and breathless, she ran to the kitchen, where Kostiukov's male-cook, and the neat woman-cook from Khrvmin Junior, had been working since dawn. Askinya, with her hair curled, in her stays, with- out a dress, wearing new creaky boots, flew about the yard like a whirlwind, her bare neck and knees gleaming in the ŝunlight. It was all very noisy; there were high words and swearing; the passers-by paused by the wide open gate, feel- ing there was something unusual astir.

"They have gone for the bride," was the rumour.

The horses' bells tinkled, and the sound died far away in the distance. After two o'clock people began running; the bells were heard again: the bride is coming!

The church was full, the candelabra lit, and the choristers, according to the old man's desire, were singing from sheets of music. The glittP.r of lights and the bright dresses dazzled Lipa. It seemed to her that the choristers, with their loud voices, were knocking on her head with hammers. Her stays, which she was wearing for the first time in her life, and her boots, pinched her, and her impression was that of regaining consciousness after a fainting fit; she saw, and could under- stand nothing. Anisim in a black frock-coat, wearing a red ribbon instead of a tie, was pensive, gazing into space; and each time the choir raised their high voices he hastily crossed himself. He felt some emotion in his innermost heart, and ho would have liked to have wept. The chnrch was so familiar to him from his earliest childhood. Long ago his late mother had brought him here for communion. Long ago he had sung in the choir with the other boys. He knew so well each nook and ikon. And now they were marrying him; he must marry for propriety's sake. Then, as if he did not understand it, he forgot altogether about the wedding. Tears prevented him from seeing the ikons; he was very heavy at heart. He prayed, and asked God that the impending misfortunes which were about to engulf him, if not to-day, then to-morrow, should pass over him somehow, like the thunder-clouds during a drought pass over the country without emitting one drop of rain. And although his sins piled up in the past were many, very many, and irreparable ones, so that it seemed ^availing to pray for forgivenessness, yet he prayed, and also sobbed aloud. This nobody heeded, as they merely thought: He is drunk.

A child's plaintive voice was heard:

"Dear Nanny, take me away."

"Silence there!" called the priest.

On their return from the church the bride and bridegroom were followed by a large concourse of people. There were crowds by the shop, by the gate, in the yard, and standing by the house were some women who had come to sing preans to the newly-married. The young couple had hardly crossed the threshold when the choristers, who were already stand- ing in the vestibule with the music in their hands, burst loudly intc song. A band, purposeIy hired from the town, also started to play. Frothy beverages in high beakers were brought round, then the contractor-carpenter Yelizarov, a tall spare man, with such bw:.D.y eyebrows that his eyes were almost invisible, turning to the young couple, said:

"Anisim, and you my child, love one another; be God-fear- ing, my children, and the Queen of Heaven wiIl not abandon you."

He then iell on the old man's neck and wept.

"Grigory Petrov, let us weep, let us weep for joy!" he said in a shrill voice, and immediately and suddenly began to laugh, continuing in a deep bass voice: "Ho, ho, ho! And you have a good sister-in-law. She keeps everything running smooth, there is no rattling, all the machinery is in good repair and well screwed together."

Although born in the district of Yegorycv, he had worked almost since childhood in the factories of Ukleyevo and the surrounding district, and was therefore a resident in these parts. He had been known a long time as a tall and emaciated old man, and had long ago been given the name of the "Crutch." Perhaps it was because he had been occupied for upwards of forty years only on repairs in the factories, that he viewed every man and thing from the one aspect of snund or unsound: Do they want repairing? And now, before sitting down to table, he tried several chairs to see if they were sound, and he even felt the gang-fish.

After a go at the frothy beverages, every one took a seat at the tables. The guests chatted and creaked their chairs, the choristers sang in the vestibule, the band played, the peasant women in a monotone extolled the married couple; all which made such a terrifying noise and wild medley of sound that one's head felt like splitting. The Crutch twisted and turned in his chair, jostled his neighbours with his elbows, interfered with their talk, wept and laughed.

"Ah! girls, girls, girls!" he muttered quickly, "Aksin- yushka, Varvarushka, we will all live in peace and good-will, my little dears."

He drank but little as a rule, and now he was Jrunk after one glass of "English brandy." This distasteful drink, made of no one knows what, numbed the brains of all those who drank it, just as if they were suffering from concussion.

There were priests, factory clerks with their wives, trades- men and publicans from other villages. The Senior of the Volost and his scribe, who had served together for fourteen years, and during all that time had not signed a single paper, nor dismissed from the offices of the Volost a single person, without defrauding them or imposing on them, now sat side by side, both adipose, satiated, and looking so replete with iniquity that even the tissue of their skin had something rascally about it. The wife of the scribe, a wizen, squint-eyed woman, brought with her all her children, and, like a very bird of prey, leered at all the dishes, and seized all that came within her reach, filling her pockets for herself and her children.

Lipa sat like one paralysed, and with the same expre^ion as she had in church. Anisim, from the time of his first ac- quaintance with her, had never addre.ssed her a single word, so that he did not know, up to now. what kind of a voice she had. Sitting now by her side, he still kept silence, drinking "English branuy," and when he had got drunk he said to hig aunt, who sat opposite:

"I have a friend named Samarodov. A very special fellow. He belongs to the first guild of merchants, and so glib! But, auntie, I see through him, and he knows it. Let us drink to the health of Samarodov."

Wearied and confused, Varvara made the round of the tables, serving the guests, but was apparently satisfied that there was so much and such food that no one would be able to find fault.

The sun went down, and the supper continued. The com- pany no longer knew what they ate or what they drank; no one could hear distinctly what was being said; only at intervals, when the music in the yard softened, some woman or other could be heard shouting:

"You have sucked our blood—devils, destruction be on you!"

In the evening there was dancing no music. The Junior Khrymins arrived with their wine, and one of them, while the quadrille was being danced, held a bottle in each hand and a glass in his mouth. This immensely added to the gen- eral hilarity. Between the quadrille they danced their squat- ting-dance. Green Aksinya flitted about, and her train made quite a wind; someone tore away the flounce, and the Crutch exclaimed:

"I say, children, the skirting is down!" Aksinya had grey na"ive eyes which seldom blinked, while an artless smile often lit up her face. With those unblinking eyes, a small head on the end of a long neck, and her slim figure, there was something snake-like about her. In her green dress with the yellow front, and with her peculiar smile, she resembled a viper when it looks out of the young rye in spring, stretching and drawing in its neck at the passer-by. Khrymin's behaviour with her was very free. It had long been noticed that with the elder of them she was on terms of the utmost familiarity. The deaf husband noticed nothing, never looked at her; he sat with his legs crossed, eating nuts, and made such a noise cracking them with his teeth that it sounded each time like a pistol-shot.

And now, Tzybukin himself entered the dancing circle, and waved his handkerchief as a sign that he too wished to dance. Through the house and out into the yard went the acclama- tion:

"Himself wiU dance! Himself!"

Varvara danced while the old man waved his handkerchief and tapped his heels; but the onlookers in the yard, leaning on each other and looking in at the window went into ecstasies, and for a minute forgave him all—his riches and his offences.

"Bravo! Capital fellow, Grigory Petrov!" the crowd vociferated. "Go on!—ha, ha!—you are good for a lot yet!"

AU this was over late, after one o'clock. Anisim, staggering, went up to thank the musicians and singers, and presented them each with a new so-kopeck piece. The old not

staggering, but pausing on each foot, saw the guests off, and told each one:

"The wedding cost two thousand rubles."

\^rhen they had all dispersed, someone was discovered to have exchanged the Shikalovo publican's new "podiovka" (sleeveless coat) for an old one. Anisim at once called out excitedly:

"Wait, I'H find him at once. I know who took it! Wait!"

He ran out into the street, and chased someone. He was captured, brought home, and they shoved him, drunk, red with anger, and sweating, into the room where the aUnt had already helped Lipa to bed.

IV

After the lapse of live days Anisim, about to take de- parture, went upstairs to Varvara to say good-bye. AH the image-lamps were burning, there was a smell of incense,

Varvara herself was seated at the window knitting stockings of red wool.

"You have stayed a very little while with us," she said; "do you find it dull? Fie upon you! We live in comfort, your wedding was celebrated in a very fitting manner. The old man says two thousand rubles were spent on it. In a word we live like tradespeople, only there it is, it's dull here. Then we defraud too many people. It makes my heart ache to cheat so. . . . Oh, my God! Whether we barter a horse, or buy anything, or hire workers, everywhere there is fraud. Fraud, and again fraud. The linseed oil in the grocery store is rancid, putrid; birch-gum would be better for people. Is it impossible, for mercy's sake, to deal in good butter?"

"Each destined for his part, mamasha!"

"But must it mean corruption? Aie, aie! If you spoke to your father . . ."

"But speak to him yourself."

"Nay, but I have, and he uses the same phrase as fOU do: 'Each destined for his part.' In the world beyond you will be tried for that: each destined for his part! God is a just judge."

"But of course there will be no trial," and Anisim sighed. "For you see there is no God, mamasha. Who will there De to judge?"

Varvara looked athim in astonishment, smiled, and clasped her hands. Seeing that she was so genuinely surprised at his words and regarded him as an oddity, he grew troubled:

"It may be that there is a God, but no faith," he said. "When I was married, I did not feel like myself. Look, it is like when you take an egg from under a hen and a chick chirps inside, so my conscience chirped wbile I was being married. I thought: There is a God. And then when I came out of the church the feeling was gone. And how should I know if there is a God or not? No one taught us about Him, the child is hardly weaned from its mother's breast before it learns: Each destined for his part. Papa, you see, does not believe in God either. You said onct that Guntoriov's sheep had been stolen. ... I found the thief; it was a peasant of Shikalovo who stole them. He stole them, and my papa has the hide . . . . There's faith for you!"

Anisim blinked his eyes and shook his head.

"And the Senior of the Volost does not believe in God," he continued, "nor the scribe either, nor the sacristan. And if they go to church and observe the fasts, it is only so that people should not speak ill of them, and in case there may indeed be some last Judgment. It is said, if the end of the world came now, it is because men have grown weak, they honour not their parents, and so forth. That's all nonsense. I, mamasha, understand that all the trouble comes from people having so little conscience. I see clearly, and under- stand. \When a man has stolen a shirt, I can find him. The fellow is sitting in a tavern; to you it may appear that he is merely drinking tea, but I, tea or no tea, can see besides that he has no conscience. Thus you go through the whole day, and don't find a man with a conscience. The whole reason is because they do not know if there is a God or not. . . . Well, mamasha, good-bye, keep well, and bear me no ill-will."

Anisim made Varvara a low bow.

"We thank you for all you have done," he said. "You are a great benefit to our family; you are a very good woman, and I am very grateful to you."

Anisim seemed much affected, went out, then returned again and said:

"Samarodov has involved me in a business matter. Either we shali become rich or we shall be ruined. If anything should happen, you will comfort my father, won't you, mamasha?"

"Oh! come now, what are you saying? Fie upon you! . . • •3od is merciful. But see, Anisim, you should show a little fondness for your wife; you look at each other so crossly; if only you smiled."

"How strange she is," said Anisim, sighing. "She does not seem to understand anything—always remains silent. Sht is very young, we must let her develop."

The big, sleek, white cob and ta.rantass were waiting at the door. Old Tzybukin sprang into it, seated himself alertly, and took the reins. Anisim embraced Varvara, Aksinya, and his brother. Lipa was also standing at the door, standing mo- tionless, looking away, just as if she had not come to see anyone off, as if she were there without a purpose. Anisim went up to her, and touched her on the cheek ever so lightly with his lips. "Good-bye," he said. And she, without looking at him, smiled so strangely; her face quivered, and everyone, for some reason or other, felt sorry for her. Anisim also leapt into his seat, and sat with his arm!. akimbo as if he thought himself very elegant.

When they had climbed out of the hollow, Anisim glanced several times back at the village. It was a warm, clear day. For the first time this year the cattle were being driven out to graze, and girls and women in holiday attire were walking by the herds. A brown bull was bellowing, rejoicing in his freedom, and striking the ground with his fore-feet. The larks were singing everywhere in the air, above, below. Anisim noticed too the pretty white church—it had lately been white- washed—and remembered how he had prayed there five days ago; he glanced at the school with its green roof, at the river where once he used to bathe and fish; and a feeling of joy possessed him—he wished a wall would suddenly rise in front of him out of the ground, and prevent him from goir g any further; then he would remain with only a past.

When they arrived at the station, they went to the buffet and drank a glass of sherry. The old man felt in his pocket for his purse.

"I will treat vou!" said Anisim.

The old man, with a full heart, clapped him on the shoul • der, and winked at the waiter as much as tc. say: "See what a son I have!"

"If you remain at home, Anisim, and attend to the busi- ness, you could name your price! My boy, I would gild you from head to toe! "

"It is quite impossible, papasha."

The sherry was sourish and smelt of sealing-wax, but they drank another glassful.

On his return from the station, just at first the old man hardly recognised his youngest daughter-in-law. As soon as ^ier husband had left, Lipa underwent a change; she suddenly became quite cheerful. Barefooted, in an old worn petticoat, her sleeves turned up to the shoulder, she sang in clear, silvery tones as she scrubbed the stairs; then, as she poured the con- tents of the pail outside, she stood and looked at the sun, smil- ing so brightly that she too seemed akin to the larks.

An old worker passing by the gate shook his head, and croaked:

"That daughter-in-law of yours, Grigory Petrov, was once more sent by God," he said. "They are not women, they are angels."

v

On the 8th of July, a Friday, Yelizarov, nicknamed the Crutch, and Lipa were returning from the village of Kazan- skoe, where they had been for the festival of the patron saint; the Virgin Mary of Kazan. Far behind lagged Praskovya sick and sorry and out of breath. It was towards evening.

"A-aa," said the Crutch in astonishment as he listened to Lipa. 'A-aa, well?"

"l am very fond of jam, Ilya Makarych," said Lipa. "I seat myself in a corner, drink tea and eat jam. Or Varvara Nikolayevna and I drink tea together, and she tells me some pretty tale. They have a lot of jam—four pots. 'Eat, Lipa,' she says, 'don't be afraid.' "

"A-aa . • . four pots!"

"They live so well, tea and white loaves, and as much meat as they want. They live comfortably, but, Ilya Maka- rych, I am frightened. Oh, ee—ee, but I am frightened!"

'•But what are you frightened of, my child?" asked the Crutch, glancing round to see if Praskovya was far behind.

"First, on the day of the wedding I was frightened of Anisim Grigoryich. There was nothing special—he was not •■ude; only when he came near me I felt cold all over me, in 'ill my bones. And I never slept one single night; I shook all over, and prayed to God. And now, Ilya Makarych, I fear Aksinya. There's nothing wrong with her; she is always smiling, only at times she looks out of the window, and her eyes are so angry that they turn green just like those of the sheep in the shed. The Junior Khrymins be-devil her: 'Your old man, they say, has a small estate called Butiokino, 40 deciatins; on the property, they say, there is sand and water, so you. Aksinya, arrange for a brick-kiln to be erected, and we will take shares.' Bricks are now worth twenty rubles a thousand. A very profitable affair. Last evening after supper, Aksinya said to the old man: 'I want,' says she, 'to construct a brick-kiln in Butiokino: I will be superintendent.' So she says, and smiles. Grigory Petrov's face darkened; you could see it did not please him: 'So long as I live we work together.' Her eyes gleamed, and she ground her teeth. We had fritters —she never ate one."

"A-aa!" said the Crutch in astonishment. "She could not eat?"

"And I tell you, when she goes to bed, mercy!" continued Lipa. "After a short half-hour of sleep, up she jumps, walks —walks and peers about to see if a peasant is setting anything on fire, or has stolen anything. It is dreadful to be with her, Ilya :\Iakarych. The Junior Khrymins never went to bed after the wedding; they went into town for some trial. People gossip, and say it is because of Aksinya. Two of the brothers had promised to construct the kiln, the third took offence, so the factory closed for a month, and my uncle Prokhov, out of work, was begging at the doors for crusts. 'You, uncle I begging?' says I, 'you ought to plough, or chop wood, not de- grade yourself in this way.' '1 am off all honest work,' says he. 'I don't understand it, my little Lipa.' "

By a small aspen-grove they stood still to rest and await Praskovya. Yelizarov had for many years been a contractor, but as he kept no horses, he went through the whole district on foot, carrying a small sack which contained bread and onions. He strode along swinging his arms, so it was not easy to walk alongside of him. At the entrance to the grove stood a marestone; Yelizarov tried it to see if it was in good repair. Praskovya reached them panting; her rninkled face, with its timorous expression, to-day was radiant: she had been to church !ike other people, and had gone to the fair, where they had drunk pear-kvass! This was so rare a treat for her, that it seemed to her that she was living in joy for the first time in her life. When they had rested, they all three pro- ceeded on their way side by side. The sun was setting fast, its rays penetrated through the grove and threw light on the stems of the trees. There was a sound of voices in front, the Ukleyevo women had got far ahead, but had stopped in the grove, no doubt to pick mushrooms.

"Hullo! lassies!" called Yelizarov. "Hullo! beauties!"

In answer there came laughter.

"Here is the Crutch! The Crutch! Old Grizzly!"

And the echo also laughed. Soon the grove was behind them, the tops of the factory chimneys appeared, and the cross glittering on the bell-tower. This was the village, the very same village, "where the Cantor ate all the caviar at the funeral." They are very near home now; it only remains to go down into the hollow. Lipa and Praskovya, who were barefooted, sat down on the grass and put on their boots; thL contractor sat down too. When you looked and saw the wil- lows, the white church, and the river, Ukleyevo looked at- tractive and peaceful; it was only the roofs of the factories— painted a dark colour for economy's sake—that were un- sightly. You saw the rye on the declivity on the farther side, and here and there ricks and sheaves as if strewn by a storm.

and some new-mown rye lying in swaths; and the oats toc were ripe, and shone in the sun like mother-of-pearl. It was harvest-time. To-day was a holiday, to-morrow was Satur- day; they would gather in the rye, carry the hay, and then it was Sunday, again a holiday. Every day there was a sound of distant thunder; it was steamy, it looked like rain, and as each one glanced at the fields their thought was: May God grant us time to gather in the corn. And they were cheerful and happy, though a little uneasv.

"Mowers are expensive now," said Praskovya. "One ruble forty a day! "

People were still streaming from the fair at Kazanskoe: women, factory-hands in new caps, mendicants, children. Then a cart went by raising a cloud of dust, behind it gal- loped an unsold horse, as if rejoicing in the fact; then some- one went by leading a stubborn cow by the horn; then again a cart, bearing drunken peasants who were hanging their legs over the side. One old woman was leading by the hand a small boy in a large cap and large high-boots. The boy was exhausted by the heat, and his heavy boots interfered with the flexion of his knees, nevertheless he continued to blow a toy trumpet with all his might. They had already reached the bottom of the hill and were turning into the street, and still the toy trumpet could be heard.

"And our factory-owners are not quite themselves," said Yelizarov. "It's unlucky! Kostiukov raged at me.—'A great number of planks went for the cornice,' he says: 'A great number! '—'As many as were required, Vasily Danilych, and no more,' I say; 'I don't eat planks with my gruel.'—'How dare you,' says he, 'speak to me like that? A blockhead like you! Don't forget I made you contractor!' he screams at me. —'What a wonder!' says I. 'Still, before I was a contractor, I drank tea every day.'—'You are all rogues,' says he. I re- mained silent. We may be rogues in this world, but you will be rogues in the next, I thought—ha—ha—ha! The next day he thawed. 'Don't be .ingry with me for what I said, Makarych

If I said more than was necessary, you see it is my privilege; I am the merchant of a more ancient guild than you—you must keep silent.'—'You are,' I say, 'the merchant of a more ancient guild than I! I am only a carpenter, that's true. But St. Joseph was a carpenter. Our business is honourable and pleasing to God, and if you are pleased to be more ancient, then be gracious to us, Vasily Danilych.' Later I thought— that is, after this conversation—like this I thought: What is more ancient? The merchant of an ancient guild, or a car- penter? Maybe the carpenter, my children!"

The Crutch became thoughtful, then he added: "It is so, children. Whosoever suffers and labours, he is the most honourable."

The sun had set, and over the river, and around the church- yard, and from the open spaces surrounding the fabrics rose a thick mist white as milk. Then, as darkne^ came on apace, one by one the lights began to blink, and at times it seemed as if the mist was hovering over a bottomless abyss. It seemed to Lipa and her mother, who were born poor, and were pre- pared to live so to the end, ready to surrender to others all except their timid gentle souls, that, for a moment perhaps, this was some dream: a great mysterious world, and they stronger and older than anyone, standing in one of the furthest unlimited ridges of life. It was so pleasant up here; they smiled a happy smile, and forgot that it would be neces- sary to return below.

At last they reached home. There were mowers sitting on the ground, at the gate, and by the shop. Usually, those from Ukleyevo did not come and work for Tzybukin, so it was necessary to hire others, and it looked in the darkness as if they were people with long black beards. The shop was still open, and through the door the deaf Stepan was seen playing draughts with the servant-boy. Some of the mowers were softly singing under their breath, others were calling loudly for their wages, without obtaining them, as they were re« quired to work again on the morrow. Old Tzybukin, in shirt- sleeves, was drinking tea with .-\ksinya under the birch trees by the door. A lamp was burning on the table.

"Ga—affer!" the mowers called from the gate provokingly. "Pay at least half! Ga—affer!"

Again there was a sound of laughter, then once more they started singing under their breath.

The Crutch also sat down to have some tea.

"Well, so we have been to the fair,'' he began. "We had an excellent walk, my dears, an excellent walk, thank the- Lord. But an unpleasant incident occurred. Sasha, the far. rier, buys some tobacco and gives the merchant a so-kopeck piece. The money was false," continued the Crutch looking round. He had meant to whisper it, but spoke it in a strangu- lated hoarse voice that was audible to everyone. "The 50- kopeck piece turned out to be false. They ask, where did it come from? 'This,' says he, 'is what Anisim Tzybukin gave me on the occasion of his wedding. . . .' They called for the sergeant; he came. . . . Now, see, Petrovich, whatever hap- pens there will be chatter. . . ."

"Ga—affer!" the voices provokingly called from the gate. "Ga—affer!"

There was silence.

"Ah, children, children, children,'' muttered the Crutch quickly, as he rose from his seat, overcome with sleep. "Thank you for the tea and sugar. It is time to rest; I am nothing but a ruin, my girders are rotting within me. Ha, ha, ha!"

And as he left he gave a sob, and said: "It must be time to die!"

Old Tzybukin did not finish his tea; he sat there buried in thought, and looked as if he was listening to the Crutch's footsteps, who was by now far down the street.

"Sashka the farrier lied, that's all," said Aksinya, guessing his thoughts.

He went into the house, and returned shortly afterwards with a packet; he opened it, and displayed the glittering new rubles. He took one, tried it on his teeth, threw it on the tray; he threw another. . . .

"Beyond doubt these rubles are false," he said incredu- lously to Aksinya. "Anisim brought these same ones with him; they are his wedding-present. Take them, my daugh- ter," he whispered, thrusting the packet into her hand, "take, and throw them into the well. The devil take them! And see that there is no chatter. Whatever happens. . . . Clear away the samovar, put out the lights."

As Lipa and Praskovya sat in the shed, they saw the lights go out one by one; only upstairs in Varvara's room the blue and red image-lamp glimmered, breathing peace, content- ment, and nescience. Praskovya could not get accustomed to the idea that her daughter had married into a rich family, and when she arrived she hung timidly about the vestibule, smiling apologetically, so they sent her away with some tea and sugar. Lipa could not get accustomed to it either, and after her husband had left she did not sleep in a bed, but wherever she happened to be, in the kitchen or the shed. She washed the floors, or did the ironing, which all seemed to her the same as when she was a day-worker. So now, after their return from the pilgrimage, they drank tea in the kitchen with the cook, then went out into the shed and lay against the wall between the sleighs. It was very dark, and smelt of harness. All the lights were out, the ■ deaf one was heard closing the shop, and the mowers settling themselves in the yard for the night. Far away at the Junior Khryrnins they were playing the expensive harmonium. . . . Praskovya and Lipa fell asleep.

They were awakened by some footsteps; the moon was shining brightly, and at the entrance to the shed stood Aksinya with some bedding in her arms.

"It may be cooler here," she said, and entering lay down at the very threshold with the moon shining fuU on her. She did not sleep, she sighed deeply, tossed and flung nearly all her clothing off; by the magic light of the moon what a beautiful, what a proud creature she looked! Some time went by, and again steps were heard; then the old man, very pale, stood in the doorway.

"Aksinya," he called, "are you here? \Vhat?"

"Well?" she answered wrathfully.

"I told you just now to throw the money into the well. Have you done it?"

"Anything else! Throw riches in the water! I paid some of the mowers. . . ."

"My God!" said the old man in astonishment and fear. "Shameless woman! Oh, my God!"

He wrung his hands and went out, and as he went he mut- tered to himself. A little later Aksinya sat up, heaved a deep sigh of dissatisfaction, arose, gathered up her bedding in her arms, and went out.

"Why did you marry me here, mother dear?" asked Lipa.

"Marriage is a necessity, my child, and so not in our control."

. And the consciousness of an inconsolable afiction was pbout to overwhelm them. Then they felt as if Someone was looking down from heaven, those great blue heights from whence the stars keep watch and see all that is going on in Ukleyevo. And, however great be Evil, wondrous and peace- ful is the night, and in God's kingdom Good reigns, and will ever reign peaceful and wondrous; for on earth all is waiting to emerge into right, just as the light of the moon emerges from the night.

They both felt comforted, and, leaning one against the other, they fell asleep.

VI

The news had spread some time that Anisim had been arrested for coining and circulating coanterfeit money. Months went by, some six months, the long winter was over, spring had come, and the inhabitants of his home and thf' village had become accustomed to the idea that Anisim was sitting in prison. When anyone passed the house at night they remembered that Anisim was sitting in prison; when the church-bells tolled for some reason or other, they again remembered that Anisim was sitting in prison and awaiting his sentence.

It seemed as if a shadow lay over the place. The house darkened, the roof grew rusty, the door of the shop, once painted green and heavily bound in iron, looked, as deaf Stepan himself said, "like the disused door of a ruin." Old Tzybukin was a sorry sight, his hair and his beard grew untended, he seated himself heavily in the tarantass, he no longer shouted to the beggars: "God will help you!" His strength declined visibly; people were already less afraid of him, and the sergeant drew up an official report about the shop, but as heretofore he continued to receive the things he required. Tzybukin was summoned three times to the town, to be tried on charges of contraband dealing in wine, and each time the case was deferred on account of the non- appearance of witnesses. So the old man was worn out. H^ frequently went to see his son; engaged someone for some- thing, forwarded petitions to someone or other, offered a banner somewhere. He presented to the inspector of the prison in which Anisim was detained a silver plate with the inscription in enamel, "The heart knows no measure," and a long spoon accompanied this present.

"But make a stir—is there no one to make a stir?" asked Varvara. "Oh, fie upon it! You should ask one of the gentle- men; they might write to the commander-in-chief. . . . If mly they would release him till the trial. The poor lad will be ill in prison."

She was much concerned about it, but at the same time was growing stouter and paler. As heretofore, she trimmed the image-lamps, saw that the house was kept clean and tidy, regaled the guests with jam and apple-pasty. The deaf one and Aksinya attended to the business. They had started a new work, a brick-kiln at Butiokino, whither Aksinya drove every day in the tarantass. She drove herself, and on meeting any acquaintance she stretched out her neck like a viper in unripe rye, and smiled naively and enigmatically. Lipa was always playing with her baby, which was born just before Lent—such a small wizened piteous baby that it was even strange that he should cry, look, and be reckoned a human being, and also go by the name of Nikifor. As he lay in his cradle, Lipa would go to the door, and call out to him:

"Good-day, Nikifor Anisimych!"

Then rush headlong back and kiss him, then again go to the door, and again greet him:

"Good-day, Nikifor Anisimych!"

He would kick his little pink legs in the air, and laugh and cry at the same moment, like the carpenter Yelizarov.

At last the date of the trial was announced. The old man left five days before. Then it became known that people from the village had been called as witnesses; the old work- man went too, also receiving a summons to appear. The trial was on Thursday. Sunday came, and the old man did not return, nor was there any news. On Tuesday, towards even Varvara sat at the open window listening for the old man. In the next room Lipa was playing with her baby, tossing and rocking it, and saying in a transport of joy:

"He will grow big—big. He will be a muzhik, and we will do our day's work together. We will do our day's work to- gether!"

"Come now!" said Varvara offended. "Why do you talk of day-work, you silly? He will be a merchant."

Lipa began singing softly, but soon afterwards forgot, and again said:

"He will grow big—big, he will be a muzhik, and we will do our day-work together."

"Come now! You repeat it too often."

Lipa, with Nikifor in her arms, came to the doorway, and asked:

"Mamenka, why do I love him so? Why am I sorry for him?" she continued in a trembling voice, while tears dimmed her eyes. "Who is he? What is he? Light as a feather, a wee little thing, yet I love him, love him just like a real man. He can do nothing, say nothing, yet I understand all he wants by his little eyes."

Varvara listened: was not that the sound of the evening train arriving at the station? Was the old man coming? She no longer heard or understood what Lipa was saying, no longer knew how the time went by; she was trembling all over, not from fear but out of great curiosity. She saw a cart full of peasants dash by with a great clatter; they were the returning witnesses. As the telega drove by the shop, the old workman jumped out, and went into the yard. She heard people greeting him, and asking him about something.

"Forfeiture of his rights and estates," he said in a loud voice, "and Siberia with penal servitude for six years."

Aksinya emerged from the darkness of the shop, from whence she had just despatched some kerosene; she still held a bottle in one hand, a funnel in the other, and a piece of silver in her mouth.

"And where is papasha?" she lisped.

"At the station," answered the workman. " 'When it is darker,' he said, 'I will come home.' "

When it became known in the yard that Anisim was sen- tenced to penal servitude, the cook, in the kitchen, set up a wailing as if someone were dead, thinking the occasion re- quired it:

"Why did you leave us, Anisim Grigoryich, little falcon dear?"

The dogs barked anxiously; Varvara, much distressed, ran to the window, and called out with all her might to the cook:

"Enough, Stepanida, enough! Don't be in despair, for Christ's sake!"

They forgot to bring the samovar; no one could think of anything. Lipa alone could in no way understand what was the matter, and continued to play with her baby.

When the old man arrived from the station, no one asked him any questions; he greeted them, and walked through all the rooms in silence; he had no supper.

"There was no one to plead for him," began Varvara when they were alone. "I—I told you to ask one of the gen- tlemen; you would not listen. . . . Perhaps a petition. . . ."

"I did petition," said the old man, with a wave of the hand. "When they read the sentence on Anisim I was with the gentleman who defended him: 'No use,' he said, 'it is too late.' And Anisim himself said, 'It is too late.' All the same, as I left the court I spoke to an advocate. I gave him earnest-money. ... I will wait a little, a week, then I'll go again. God have mercy on us!"

The old man again wandered in silence through the rooms; when he returned to Varvara, he said:

"I can't be well. My head feels . . . in a fog. My thoughts are in a muddle."

He closed the door so that Lipa should not hear, and con- tinued in a low voice:

"l\Iy money affairs are in a bad way. You remember be- fore the wedding, Anisim brought me some new rubles and half rubles? I hid one packet, the rest I mixed with my own. . . . Formerly, God rest his soul, when my grand' father, Dmitry Filatych, was alive he used often to go on business to Moscow or the Crimea. He had a wife: this same wife, while he was away on business, used to run riot. There were six children. Now it happened, when my grandfather was drunk, he would joke and say: 'I shall never know which are my children and which are someone else's?' A cheerful nature his! But now I can't make out which is real money and which is counterfeit, it seems to me they are all false coins."

■'•\Vell, I never! God help you! "

"When I take a ticket at the station, I hand three rubles, then I think to myself: Are they false? And I'm frightened. I can't be well."

"They say, we are all in God's hands. . . . Oh dear! Oh dear!" said Varvara, shaking her head. "We ought to remember, too, Petrovicb. . . . Times are bad, and what- ever happens you are no longer a young man. You will die; then see to it that they do not wrong your grandson. Alas, I am afraid they may defraud Nikifor; they will surely. His father one may say no longer exists; his mother is young and foolish. If you left him a bit of land, say Butiokino, for the boy. Do that, Petrovich. Think about it," added Varvara, entreatingly. "He is a nice little boy; I am sorry for him. Look, go to-morrow and sign a paper. What use waiting?''

"I forgot about the grandson," said Tzybukin. "I must go and see him. So you say the boy is all right? Well, may he grow up, God grant it!"

He opened the door, and beckoned with his finger to Lipa. She came to him with the baby in her arms.

"Lipinka, if you want anything, ask for it," he said. "And whatever you have a mind for, eat; we won't complain— only keep well. . . ." He made the sign of the Cross over the child. "And take care of the grandson; though my son is not here, my grandson remains."

Tears rolled down his cheeks; he gave a sob and went out. A little while afterwards he went to bed and slept soundly, having spent seven sleepless nights.

VII

The old man went for a short visit to town. Someone told Aksinya he had been to the notary to make a will, in which he bequeathed Butiokino—that Butiokino where she had established her brick-kiln—to his grandson Nikifor. They communicated this to her one morning, as Varvara and the old man were sitting under the birch trees by the door drink- ing tea. She closed the door of the shop facing the street and the one into the yard; she collected all the keys she had ever had, and flung them at the old man's feet.

"I shall not work any more for you!" she screamed, sud. denly beginning to sob. "I have become not a daughter-in_:law but a worker! All the people jeer; 'See,' they say, 'what a good worker Tzybukin has found.' I am not in your hire! I am not poor, nor a serf, I have a father and a mother.''

Leaving her tears unwiped, she turned on the old man her overflowing eyes full of spite and distorted with anger; her face and neck were crimson and all the muscles strained, as she screamed with all her might:

"I won't serve you any more! I am worn out. It's work day in day out, sitting in the shop, smuggling vodka at night, that's what I have to do, while all the beneiits are for the convict's wife and her brat. She is mistress here and gentle- woman, and I am her servant! Give it all to the prisoner's wife till she stifles, I am going home. Find for yourselves another fool—damned Herods!"

The old man never once in his life had scolded or punished his children, never even entertained the thought that anyone in the family could speak rudely to him, or behave themselve^ in an unseemly manner; and now he was so frightened that he ran into the house and hid himself behind the cupboard. And Varvara was so panic-stricken that she could not get up from her seat, and waved both hands as if she were defending herself from bees.

"What's the meaning of this? Batiushka!" she murmured in horror. "How can she scream like that? Oh, fie upon it! The people will hear! Ai, ai! Softly, softly!"

"You have given up Butiokino to the convict's wife," Aksinya continued to scream. "Give her everything; I want nothing from you, plague you! You are all of one gang. I've seen enough of it, it will do—you rob the passer-by, the traveller, the thief, the old, the young! And who sells vodka without a license? And circulates false coins! You have filled a chest with false coins."

By the wide open gates a crowd had already assembled, and were looking into the yard.

"Let them all look! " screamed Aksinya. "I disgrace you, do I? You blush with shame for me? You are humbled by my conduct? Hie, Stepan," she called to her deaf husband. "In a moment we will be off home, I will go to my father and mother, I won't stay any longer with a convict's people. Be quick!"

The linen was hanging in the yard, she wrenched down her own skirt and camisole, which were still wet, and flung them into the deaf one's arms; throwing herself in a frenzy ..Jn the linen which was not hers, she tore it down, flung it on the ground, and trampled on it.

"Ai, ai! Batiushka! stop her," moaned Varvara. "What's all this? Let her have Butiokino, let her have it, for Christ's sake!"

"What a woman!" they said at the gate. "Wha—at a woman! She has lost her senses."

Aksinya rushed into the kitchen where the washing was being done. Lipa was washing, while the cook had gone to the brook to rinse some of the linen. The cauldron was steaming on the stove, the trough was also steaming, and the kitchen itself was full of steam. On the floor lay a heap of unwashed linen, and by it, on a seat, so that if he fell he would not hurt himself, stretching his pink legs, lay Nikifor. Just as Aksinya entered Lipa had taken her chemise out of the heap, put it in the trough, and had already stretched out her hand for the large scoop full of boiling water which stood on the table.

"Give it here," said Aksinya, looking at her with a look of hatred, and taking the chemise out of the trough. "It is not your business to touch my linen, you are a convict's wife, and it behoves you to know your place !"

Lipa looked at her panic-stricken, without understanding what she meant, then caught the look which she threw at the child, suddenly understood, and turned into stone.

"You have taken my land—that's for you!"

Saying which, Aksinya seized the scoop with the boiling water and dashed it over Nikifor.

Then was heard a scream such as never before had been heard in Ukleyevo; no one thought a small weak creature like Lipa could ,ave uttered such a scream. A silence fell over the yard. Askinya returned into the house without a word, smiling naively as heretofore. The deaf one walked about the yard for some time holding the linen in his arms, then without haste began hanging it up again. Until the cook came back from the brook, no one could make up their mind to go into the kitchen and find out what had happend.

viii

They carried Nikifor to the local hospital, where at eve- ning he died. Lipa did not wait till they came to fetch her, but wrapped the little dead body in a blanket, and carried it away. The hospital was quite new, having only been recently built; it had large windows, and stood on a hill: the glow of the setting sun on the glass almost gave it the appearance of being on fire. Below the hospital was a small village. Lipa came down the road before leaving the village, and sat down by its pond. Some woman or other brought a horse to drink; the horse refused to drink.

"What more do you want?" said the woman, softly and perplexed. "^^at is the matter with you?"

A boy in a red shirt sat by the water cleaning his father's boots. Not another soul was to be seen in the village or on the hill.

"It won't drink . . ." said Lipa, looking at the horse.

Then the woman and the boy went away, and there was no one to be seen. The sun set under a brocade of purple and gold, while long red and lilac clouds, stretching over all the sky, kept watch over him. Somewhere in the distance a bittern made a doleful and bellowing noise, just like a cow confined to its shed. The cry of this mysterious bird was heard every spring, but no one knew what kind of a bird it was, nor where it lived. Above the hospital, by the pond, in the bushes, behind the village, and all around in the fields, the nightingales were singing and trilling. The cuckoo was counting some one's age, was always getting mixed in the leckoning, and began again. The frogs, bursting with anger, were calling to one another, and you could distinctly hear the words: "e—te—takova, e—te—takova" (and you also! and you also) I What a noise there was! It seemed as if all these creatures were crying and singing on purpose, so that no one should sleep this spring night; so that everyone, even the angry frogs, should appreciate and enjoy every minute of it; for we only live once!

Lipa did not remember how long she had sat by the pond, but when she arose the silver crescent of the moon was shining in the sky, as well as a great number of stars. All in the village slept, and there was not one light anywhere. It was twelve versts home, but she did not think of her strength, nor whither she went; the moon shone sometimes in front of her, sometimes to the right, the same cuckoo cried in a hoarse-growing voice and with a seemingly derisive laugh: See, where are you going?

Lipa walked so fast that she lost her head-kerchief. She looked at the sky, and thought. Where was her little boy's soul, was it following her, or was it up above among the stars, and no longer thinking of his mother? Oh! how lonely to be in the fields at night, in the midst of these songs when you yourself could not sing, in the midst of these incessant cries of joy when you yourself could not rejoice; when the stars were watching in the skies, also lonely and indifferent as to whether it was spring or winter, as to whether people were alive or dead. When your soul is oppressed with grief,

it is worse to be alone. If only her mother were with her, the Crutch, or the cook, or at least a muzhik.

"Bo^^o," cried the bittern. "Boo—oo."

Then, suddenly, a human voice it was that said distinctly: "Yoke them, Vavila."

A few paces in front, by the side of the road, a wood-fire was burning—that is to say, the red embers were glowing, there were flames. Some horses seemed to be munching; the outline of two carts could be discerned in the darkness; on one cart was a barrel, on the other some sacks, and by the carts were two men. One man was just putting a horse to, the other was standing motionless by the fire with his hands behind his back. Some dogs began to growl by the side of the carts. He who led the horse stopped, and said:

"It sounds as if someone were on the road."

"Sharik, be quiet," called the otl:ler to the dog.

By his voice you could tell the other was an old man. Lipa stayed her steps, and said: "God is our help!"

The old man went up to her, and said to her after a pause:

"Good even!"

"Your dog won't bite, gaffer?"

"No, it's all right, he won't hurt."

"I have come from the hospital," said Lipa, after a mo- ment's silence. "My little boy died there. See, I am taking him home."

The old man must have heard this with displeasure, for he moved away, and replied hurriedly:

"That's all right, my dear. God's will be done! Lad, you are dawdling," he said, turning to his fellow-traveller. "You might hurry! "

"Can't find the shaft-bow," said the lad. "Have you seen it?"

"You arrant Vavila!"

The old man took the brand from the fire, blew on it, thus lighting up his own face; then, when they had found the shaft bow, he turned the light on Lipa. He looked at her, and his look was full of compassion and tenderness.

"You are a mother," he said—"every mother grieves ior her child."

After that he sighed and shook his head. Vavila threw something on the fire, stamped it out, and darkness reigned. The visions disappeared and as a little while before there were only the fields and the star-filled sky, the sound of birds interfering with each other's sleep, and there where there had been a fire a corn-crake seemed to be twittering.

After a moment's darkness the carts, the old man, and the lanky Vavila became visible again: soon the telega started forward with a screech.

"Are you saints?" Lipa asked the old man.

"No, we are from Firsanov."

"The way you looked at me just now touched my heart. The lad too is gentle. I thought, 'they must be saints.' "

"Have you far to go?"

"To Ukleyevo.''

"Seat yourself; we will take you to Kuzmenok. Then you go to the right and we go to the left."

Vavila got into the cart with the barrel, the old man and Lipa got into the other. They proceeded at a foot's pace with Vavila leading.

"My little son was in pain all day," said Lipa. "He looked at me with his little eyes and made no sound; he wanted :o speak and could not. Father in Heaven have mercy on nis soul! I fell to the floor in my anguish, I stood up, and fell by the bedside. Tell me, gaffer, why does a child suffer before death? When a man suffers, or a muzhik, or a woman. it is for the remittance of their sins, but a child, when it has no sin? Why?"

"Who can tell?" answered the old man.

They continued their way for half an hour in silence.

"It is impossible to know everything, the why, the where- fore," said the old man. "Birds are given two wings, not four, because it is more convenient to fly with two; so it is with man to know, not everything, but a half or even a quarter. Just so much as is necessary for him to live, that much he knows."

"Gaffer, I would find it easier to walk, for my heart feels like breaking."

"No, no, sit down."

The old man yawned and made the sign of the Cross over his mouth:

"Nichevo," he repeated, "'your grief is a great grief, but life is long, and there will be more good and more bad, there will be all sorts. Great is our Mother Russia!" he said, glanc- ing on both siaes of the road. "I have been all over Russia, and see everything therein, and believe my words, my dear: there will be good and there will be bad. I have tramped through Siberia, and to the region of the Amoor, and to Altai, and settled in Siberia, tilled the ground, then grew a longing for Mother Russia, and back I came to my native village. Back I came to Russia on foot, and I remember, as we were on the ferry-boat, I, a bag of bones, in rags, bare. footed, starving, sucking a crust, a passing gentleman come.s on board—may God give his soul peace when he dies—and he looks at me pityingly, with tears in his eyes: ^:Poor fel- low,' says he, 'you eat black bread and see but dark days. . . .' I came back, without a peg to call my own; I had a wife, she stayed in Siberia, we buried her there. So I lived as best I could. Well, I tell you there was good and bad. X have no wish to die, I could live another twenty years —that means, there has been more good than bad. And great is our Mother Russia!" he said again, taking a look on both sides of the road.

"Gaffer," asked Lipa, "when a man dies, how many day!> after does his soul remain on earth?"

"Ah, who can tell? Here, we will ask Vavila; he has been to school. They teach them everything now. Vavila!" calk(l the old man.

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"Eh?"

"Vavila, when a man dies, how many days after does his soul remain on earth?"

Vavila stopped his horse, and answered at once:

"Nine days. My grandfather Cyril died, his soul stayed in our cottage thirteen days."

"How do you know?"

"There was a knocking in the stove for thirteen days."

"All right. Go on," said the old man; he evidently did not believe a word of it.

At Kuzmenok the carts turned on to the chaussee, and Lipa went her way. It was dawn, yet when she descended into the hollow the huts and church of Ukleyevo were hidden in mist. It was cold, and it seemed to her that the same cuckoo was calling. When Lipa reached the house everyone was still sleeping, and the cattle had not been taken out to graze. She sat on the doorstep and waited. The old man was the first to come out; he at once, at a glance, understood ivhat had happened, and for a long while was unable to utter a word, he only moved his lips.

"Alas, Lipa," he said, "you have not kept the grand- aon. . . ."

They awoke Varvara, who wrung her hands, wept, and at once began to arrange the baby for burial.

"It was a nice little child. Alas, alas!" she added, "he was the only boy, and she did not keep him, dear oh dear!"

There was a requiem for him in the morning and in the evening; the next day they buried him. After the burial the guests and the clergy ate a great deal, just as if they had not eaten for a long while. Lipa served the guests, and the priest raising his fork on which he held a piece of salted orange-agaric, said to her:

"Don't fret for the child. Of such are the Kingdom of Heaven."

it was only when everyone had dispersed that Lipa realized what had happened; that Nikifor was no more, nor would be again; she understood and wept. She did not know in »V'hich room to retire and weep, as she felt now after the death of her child there was no longer any place for her in the house; she was superfluous, and the others also felt it.

"Here, what is this noise you are making?' suddenly Aksinya called out, appearing in the doorway. At the funeral she had worn new black clothes, and was powdered. "Be quiet!"

Lipa tried to stop, but being unable to she only sobbed the louder.

"Do you hear?" cried Aksinya as she stamped with rage. "To whom am I speaking? Out you go in the yard, and don't put foot inside here again, convict's wife! Off with you!"

"Now, now," rather anxiously said old Tzybukin. "Aksiuta, mutashka, be calm. . . . She is weeping, quite naturally . . . her baby has died. . . ."

"Quite naturally . . ." mocked Aksinya. "Let her stay the night, and to-morrow, may no trace of her remain. Quite naturally!" she mocked again, and with a laugh directed her steps towards the shop.

Next day, early in the morning, Lipa retired to Torguyevo to her mother.

IX

In the course of time, the roof and the door of the shop were repainted and looked like new; geraniums flowered as before in the window-sills; and all that which had hap- pened three years ago in the house of Tzybukin was almost forgotten.

Then, and now, Grigory Petrovich is reckoned the master, but in reality everything is in the hands of Aksinya; she sells and buys, nothing is done without her consent. The brick- kiln is working well; and since the railway has required bricks, the price has gone up to twenty-four rubles a thou" sand; women and girls carry the bricks to the station, and load wagons, for which employment they receive a quarter ruble (25 kopecks) a day.

Aksinya has shares in the business with the Khrymins, and it is called "Khrvmin Junior & Co." They opened an inn by the station; and it is there they now play the expen- sive harmonium. The post-master and the station-master often frequent the inn; they also are doing a bit of business. Khrymin Junior has given a gold watch to deaf Stepan, which every now and again he extracts from his pocket and puts to his ear.

In the village they say Aksinya has acquired fresh vigour; and verily if you saw her as she drives to the brick-kiln in the morning, with the usual smile on her face, looking hand- some and happy, and if you saw her as she attended to business at the kiln, you would feel she had indeed a great vitality. They are all afraid of her in the house, in the village, at the kiln. When she arrives at the post-office, the post- master jumps up and says to her:

"Pray, pray take a seat, Aksinya Abramovna."

There was one middle-aged landlord, a swell, who wore a sleeveless coat of fine cloth and high-polished boots, who ;old horses to her and was so captivated by her conversation that he conceded to her all she wished, held her hand in his .or quite a while, and gazing into her bright, cunning, naive "'yes, said:

"For a woman like you, Aksinya Abramovna, I am pre- pared to render any service. Only tell me, when can we meet alone, without interference?"

"Oh, whenever you like."

So now, the middle-aged swell comes nearly erery day to the shop to drink beer. The beer is frightfully bitter, like wormwood, the landowner screws up his face but drinks it.

Old Tzybukin no longer interferes with the business. He does not even keep the money. He does not mention the fact, but he (cannot be sure which is the true and which is the false coin; he s^^s to no one of his failine. He has gron very forgetful, and if he is not given food he does not ask for it; they are quite accustomed to dine without him, and Varvara often says:

"Our old man went to bed again last night without food." This she says quite calmly for they are used to it. In summer or winter he walks about in a thick fur-lined pelisse. But in the very hot weather he stays at home. He usually puts on his pelisse, turns up the collar, wraps the cloak round him, and walks about the country or along the road to the station, or sits from morning to evening on the bench by the church gates. Here he sits motionless; passers-by greet him, he does not answer; as ever he dislikes the muzhik. If he is asked any question he answers quite sensibly and civilly, although briefly.

In the village gossip has it that his daughter-in-law has driven him out of his own home and does not allow him any« thing to eat, that he is supported by the charity of others; ::rne people rejoice at this, others pity him.

Varvara has grown still stouter and paler and continue. her good works, which Aksinya does not interfere with. There is so much jam now that they do not manage to eat it all before the fresh lot comes; it candies, and Varvara not knowing what to do with it almost weeps.

They were beginning to forget Anisim, when one day a letter came from him written in verse on a large sheet of paper looking like a petition, and in the same wonderful handwriting as before. Apparently his friend Samarodov was also wiping out his offences in prison. Below the verses, writ- ten in an ugly, hardly decipherable handwriting was one sentence: "I am ill, wretched; send help for Christ's sake."

One day—it was a bright autumn day, towards evening— old Tzybukin sat by the church gates with the collar of his pelisse turned up, so that all that was visible was his nose and the visor of his cap. At the other end of the long bench sat Yelizarov, and by his side sat the school-factotum, Yakov, an old toothless septuagenarian. The Crutch and the factotum • Nere talking.

"Young people should support the aged; honour their father and mother." Yakov spoke irascibly. "And this here daughter- in-law has driven her father-in-law out of his own house. The old man has neither eaten nor drunk for three days. What will happen to him?"

"For three days?" said the Crutch in astonishment.

"There he sits without opening his mouth; he has grown very weak. Why remain silent? He ought to complain in court—she would not be exonerated."

"Who was exonerated in court?" asked the Crutch, not listening.

"What for?"

"The woman is all right, she is energetic; it is impossible to carry on their business without, . . . well, without fraud."

"From his own house," continued Yakov irascibly. "To make a home and then be driven out, just think what ado! Plague on it! "

Tzybukin listened without moving.

"Your own house or someone else's, it is all the same provided it is warm and the women don't get angry," said the Crutch with a smile. "When I was young I very much regretted my Nastasya; she was so gentle and it was always: 'Makarych, buy a house; Makarych, buy a horse.' And as she was dying she still said: 'Makarych, buy yourself a little droshky, so as you do not have to walk.' And the only thing I ever bought her was some gingerbread."

"The husband is deaf and stupid," continued Yakov, not listening to the Crutch. "Such a fool, that he is no better than a goose. Can he understand anything? Strike a goose on the head with a stick it won't understand either."

The Crutch arose to return to the factory, Yakov also got up, and they both left still talking. When they had gone about fifteen steps away, old Tzybukin also rose and with uncertain tread, as if he were on slippery ice, followed them.

The light of evening was descending on the village; the last rays of the sun still shone on the road above; an old woman and some children were returning from the woods carrying baskets of yellow and brown mushrooms. There were crowds of women and girls going to the station with bricks; all of them had their noses and cheeks covered in thick red brick- dust, and they sang as they went. In front walked Lipa, singing at the top of her high-pitched voice, looking op at the sky with a look of rapture and triumph, that the day, thank God, was over and they were going to rest. Her mother, Praskovya, was also in the crowd; she was carrying a small bundle and was out of breath.

"Good even, Makarych," said Lipa, catching sight of the Crutch. "Good evening, my dove!"

"Good even, Lipynka," said the Crutch, pleased to see her. "Women, girls, be fond of the rich carpenter! Ha, ha! My children, my children"—the Crutch heaved a sigh—"my Iittle dears."

The Crutcl: and Yakov passed on, still talking. Then the crowd met old Tzybukin, and there was a sudden silence. Lipa and Praskovya lagged a little behind, and when thn old man came in line with them Lipa bowed low to him and said:

"Good even, Petrovich."

Her mother did likewise. The old man stopped, and with out answering looked at them both; his lips trembled and his eyes filled with tears. Lipa reached for a bit of porridge- paste from her mother's bundle and handed it to him. He took and ate it.

The sun had set, its rays had disappeared from the road above; it was getting dark and cold; Lipa and Praskovya passed on, and long afterwards were seen making the sign of the Cross.

AFTER THE THEATRE

Nadya Zelenina had just returned with her mother from the theatre, where they had been to see a performance of "Yevgeny Oniegin." Entering her room, she quickly threw .Dff her dress, loosened her hair, and sat down hurriedly in her petticoat and a white blouse to write a letter in the style of Tatyana.

"I love you,"—she wrote—"but you don't love me; no, you don't!"

The moment she had written this, she smiled.

She was only sixteen years old, and so far she had not been in love. She knew that Gorny, the officer, and Gronsdev, the student, loved her; but now, after the theatre, she wanted to doubt their love. To be unloved and unhappy— how interesting. There is something beautiful, affecting, ro- mantic in the fact that one loves deeply while the other is indifferent. Oniegin is interesting because he does not love at all, and Tatyana is delightful because she is very much in iove; but if they loved each other equally and were happy, they would seem boring, instead.

"Don't go on protesting that you love me," Nadya wrote on, thinking of Gorny, the officer, "I can't believe you. You're very clever, educated, serious ; you have a great talent, and perhaps, a splendid future waiting, but I am an uninter- esting poor-spirited girl, and you yourself know quite well that I shall only be a drag upon your life. It's true I carried you off your feet, and you thought you had. met your ideal in me, but that was a mistake. Already you are asking your- self in despair, 'Why did I meet this girl?' Only your kind- ness prevents you from confessing it."

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Nadya pitied herself. She wept and went on.

"If it were not so difficult for me to leave mother and brother I would put on a nun's gown and go where my eyes direct me. You would then be free to love another. If I were to die! "

Through her tears she could not make out what she had written. Brief rainbows trembled on the table, on the floor and the ceiling, as though Nadya were looking through r. prism. Impossible to write. She sank back in her chair and began to think of Gorny.

Oh, how fascinating, how interesting men are! Nadya remembered the beautiful expression of Gorny's face, ap- pealing, guilty, and tender, when someone discussed music with him,—the efforts he made to prevent the passion from sounding in his voice. Passion must be concealed in a society where cold reserve and indifference are the signs of good breeding. And he does try to conceal it, but he does not succeed, and everybody knows quite well that he has a passion for music. Never-ending discussions about music, blundering pronouncements by men who do not understand—keep him in incessant tension. He is scared, timid, silent. He plays superbly, as an ardent pianist. If he were not an officer, he would be a famous musician.

The tears dried in her eyes. Nadya remembered how Gorny told her of his love at a symphony concert, and again downstairs by the cloak-room.

"I am so glad you have at last made the acquaintance of the student Gronsdev," she continued to write. "He is a very clever man, and you are sure to love him. Yesterday he was sitting with us till two o'clock in the morning. We were all so happy. I was sorry that you hadn't come to us. He said a lot of remarkable things."

Nadya laid her hands on the table and lowered her head. Her hair covered the letter. She remembered that Gronsdev also loved her, and that he had the same right to her letter as Gorny. Perhaps she had better write to Gronsdev? For no cause, a happiness began to quicken in her breast. At first it wa!> a little one, rolling about in her breast like a rubber ball. Then it grew broader and bigger, and broke forth like a wave. Nadya had already forgotten about Gorny and Gronsdev. Her thoughts became confused. The happiness grew more and more. From her breast it ran into her arms and legs, and it seemed that a light fresh breeze blew over her head, stirring her hair. Her shoulders trembled with quiet laughter. The table and the lampglass trembled. Tears from her eyes splashed the letter. She was powerless to stop her laughter; and to convince herself that she had a reason for it, she hastened to remember something funny.

"What a funny poodle!" she cried, feeling that she was choking with laughter. "What a funny poodle!"

She remembered how Gronsdev was playing with Maksim the poodle after tea yesterday; how he told a story after- wards of a very clever poodle who was chasing a crow in the yard. The crow gave him a look and said:

"Oh, you swindler!"

The poodle did not know he had to do with a learned n'Ow. He was terribly confused, and ran away dumiounded. Afterwards he began to bark.

"No, I'd better love Gronsdev," Nadya decided, and tore up the letter.

She began to think of the student, of his love, of her own love, with the result that the thoughts in her head swam apart and she thought about everything, about her mother, the street, the pencil, the piano. She was happy thinking, and found that everything was good, magnificent. Her happiness told her that this was not all, that a little later it would be still better. Soon it will be spring, summer. They will go with mother to Gorbiky in the country. Gorny will come for his 1J.olidays. He will walk in the orchard with her, and make love to her. Gronsdev will come too. He will play croquet with her and bowls. He will tell funny, wonderful stories. She passionately longed for the orchard, the darkness, the pure sky, the stars. Again her shoulders trembled with laugh- ter and she seemerl to awaken to a smell of wormwood in the room; and a branch was tapping at the window.

She went to her bed and sat down. She did not know what to do with her great happiness. It overwhelmed her. She stared at the crucifix which hung at the head of hei hed and saying:

"Dear Goa, ŭear God, dear God,"

THE RUNAWAY

!t was an endless affair. Pashka and his mother, dr^nched with rain, tramped mile after mile, first across stubble fields, then by soft woodland paths where yellow leaves stuck to his boots, and on and on till daybreak. After that he stood two hours in a dark entrance-hall, and waited for the doors to open. In the hall, of course, it was warmer and drier than outside; but even there the piercing wind carried the rain- drops in. And as the hall slowly filled with patients, Pashka, wedging his way through the crowd, pressed his face against a sheepskin coat which smelt strongly of salted fish, and slumbered.

At last the bolt slipped, the door opened, and Pashka and his mother found themselves in the waiting-room. Yet an- other long delay! The patients sat on benches; no one stirred; no one opened his mouth. Pashka stared at the crowd, and likewise held his tongue, though he witnessed many ludicrous, inexplicable things. But once when a boy hopped into the room on one leg, he nudged his mother's side, grinned in his sleeve, and exclaimed—

"Look, mother—a sparrow! "

"Don't talk, child, don't talk!"

At a little window appeared the feldsclter's sleepy face. "Come and give your names."

The waiting patients, among them the funny, hopping boy, crowded round the window. Of each the feldscher asked name and patronymic, age, village, dates of illness, and other questions. From his mother's answer, Pashka learnt that his name was Pavl Galaktionoff, that he was seven years old, and \hat he had been ill since Easter.

306

^^en the names were entered there was another short de- lay; and then through the waiting-room walked the doctor, in white apron, with a towel on his shoulder. As he passed the hopping boy, he shrugged his shoulders, and said in a sing-song voice—

"You're a donkey! Now aren't you a donkey? I told you Monday, and you come on Friday! Don't worry yourself so far as I'm concerned, but if you're not careful, fool, you'U lose your leg! "

The hopping boy blinked, grimaced piteously as if asking for alms, and began—

"Ivan Nikolaitch, be so kind . . ." "None of your Ivan Nikolaitch!" said the doctor teas- ingly. "I told you Monday—you should obey! You're a donkey, that's all."

The reception began. The doctor sat in his room, and called for the patients in turn. Now and then from the room came shrill exclamations, the sobs of children, and the doc- tor's angty exclamations— "Don't howl. I won't murder you! Sit quiet!" At last came Pashka's turn. "Pavl Galaktionoff!" cried the doctor. Pashka's mother at first seemed dazed, as if the sum- mons were unexpected; but she recovered herself, took Pashka's hand, and led him into the doctor's room. The doc- tor sat on a table, and tapped mechanically with a mallet a thick book.

"\What is the matter?" he asked, without looking at his visitors.

"l\Iy boy has a boil, batiushka, on his elbow," answered Pashka's mother; and her expression implied that she herself was suffering from Pashka's boil. "Take off his clothes!"

Pashka, panting, untied his neckerchief, rubbed his nose on his sleeve, and began to unbutton his coat.

"Woman! have you come to pay me a visit?" said the doc- tor irritably. "Why don't you hurry? Are you the only one waiting?"

Pashka hurriedly threw his coat on the floor, and, with his mother's help, took off his shirt. The doctor iooked at him absent-mindedly, and slapped him on the bare stomach.

"Serious, brother Pashka," he exclaimed. "You have out- grown your corporation!" When he had said this, he sighed, and added, "Show me your elbow!"

Pashka took fright at a bowl of blood-tinged water, looked at the doctor's apron, and began to cry.

"For shame!" said the doctor mockingly. "He's big enough to get married, yet he begins to howl. For shame!"

Pashka tried to stop his tears. He looked at his mother, .and his expression said, "Don't tell them at home that I cried at the hospital."

The doctor examined the elbow, pinched it, sighed, smacked his lips, and again felt the elbow.

"You ought to be whipped, woman!" he said. "Why didn't you bring him sooner? His arm is nearly gone! Look at him, idiot, can't you see that the joint is diseased?"

"It is you who know best, batiushkal" said Pashka's mother.

"Batiushkal the lad's arm is rotting off, and you with your batiushkal What sort of a workman will he make without arms? You'll have to nurse him all his life! If you've got a pimple on your nose you run off here for treatment, but you Jet your own child rot for six months! You people are all the eame!"

He lighted a cigarette. While it burned away he scolded Pashka's mother, hummed a tune, shook his head rhythmi- cally, and thought something out. Naked Pashka stood be- fore him, listened to the tune, and watched the smoke. When the cigarette went out the doctor started, and said in a low voice—

"Listen, woman! Ointments and mixtures are no use in this case; you must leave him here."

"If it must be so, batiushka, so be it."

"We must have an operation. . . . And you, Pashka, you must stay," said the doctor, patting his shoulder. "We will let mother go, but you, brother, you will stay with me. It is not bad here, brother! I have raspberry bushes. You and I, Pashka, as soon as we get better, will go and catch thrushes, and I will show you a fox. We shall pay visits together. Eh? Will you stay? And mother will come for you to-morrow."

Pashka looked questioningly at his mother.

"You must stay, child," she said.

"Of course he'll stay," said the doctor merrily. "There is nothing to argue about! I'll show him a live fox. We'll drive to the fair and buy sugar-candy. Marya Denisovna, take him upstairs!"

The doctor was certainly a merry, talkative man; and Pashka was attracted, all the more because he had never been at a fair, and wanted to see a live fox. But his mother? He thought the problem out, and decided to ask the doctot to let his mother remain with him; but before he could open his mouth the nurse was leading him upstairs. With mouth wide open, he looked around. The stairs, the floors, the door- posts, all were painted a beautiful yellow; and everywhere there was a tempting smell of fast-butter. Everywhere hung lamps, everywhere lay carpets; and brass water-taps pro- jected from every wall. But most of all Pashka was pleased by his bed with its grey, shaggy counterpane. He felt the pillows and the counterpane, and came to the conclusion that the doctor had a very nice house.

It was a little waPd with only three cots. The first was vacant, the second Pashka's; and on the third sat a very old man with sour eyes, who coughed without cease, and spat into a bowl. From his bed Pashka could see through the open door part of another ward with two beds; on one lay a thin, very pallid man with a caoutchouc bladder on his head. A Deasant, arms apart, with bandaged head, looking very Jik., an old woman, sat on the other.

Having set Pashka on his bed, the nurse left him. She re- t^rad immediately with an armful of clothes. "These are lor you," she said to him. "Put them on."

Pashka took off his old clothes, and, not without pleasure, arrayed himself in his new garments. After donning a shirt, a pair of trousers, and a grey dressing-gown, he looked at himself complacently, and thought how he would like to walk down the village street in his new clothes. Imagination painted his mother sending him to the kitchen garden by the river, to pluck cabbage leavcs for the pig, while the village boys and girls stood round him and gaped enviously at his dressing- gown.

When next the nurse returned she brought two tin bowls, two spoons, and two slices of bread. She gave one bowl to the old man, and the other to Pashka. "Eat!" she said.

When Pashka examined the bowl he found it full of greasy soup with a piece of meat at the bottom; and again he rea- soned that the doctor lived comfortably, and was not half as angry as he seemed. He dallied over the soup, licked the spoon after each mouthful, and when nothing remained but the meat, cast a sidelong glance at the old man, and felt envy. With a sigh, he began the meat, trying to make it last as long as possible. But his efforts were in vain; the meat vanished speedily. There remained only the bread. Bread without condiment is tasteless food, but there was no remedy; after weighing the problem he ate the bread also. And just as he had finished it the nurse arrived with two more bowls. This time the bowls contained roast beef and potatoes.

"^ftere is your bread?" she asked. Pashka did not answer, but distended his cheeks and puffed out the air.

"You've gobbled it up?" said the nurse reproachfully. "^ftat will you eat your meat with?" She left him, 2-nd re- turned with more bread. Never in his life had Pashka eaten roast beef, and, trying it now, he found it very tasty. But it disappeared in a few seconds; and again only the bread was \eft, a bigger slice than the first. The old man, having finished his dinner, hid his bread in a drawer; and Pashka resolved to do the same, but after a moment's hesitation, he ate it up.

After dinner he set out to explore. In the next ward he found four men, in addition to those he had seen from his bed. Only one drew his attention. This was a tall, skeleton peasant, morose and hairy-faced, who sat on his bed, shook his head incessantly, and waved his arms pendulum-wise. Pashka could not tear his eyes away. At first the peasant's measured pendulum movements seemed droll, and made for the amusement of onlookers; but when Pashka looked at the peasant's face, he understood that this meant intolerable pain, and he felt sorry. In the third ward were two men with dark-red faces—red as if plastered with clay. They sat up motionless in bed, and, with their strange faces and nearly hidden features, resembled heathen gods.

"Auntie, why are they like that?" he asked the nurse.

"They are small-pox patients, laddie."

When Pashka returned to his own room he sat on his bed, and waited for the doctor to come and catch thrushes or drive to the fair. But the doctor tarried. At the door of the next. ward the feldscher stood for a moment He bent over the patient with the icebag, and cried—

"Mikhailo!"

But sleeping Mikhailo did not hear. The feldscher waved his hand, and went away. While waiting for the doctor, Pashka looked at his neighbour. The old man continued to cough, and spit into the bowl, and his cough was drawn-out and wheezy. But one thing pleased Pashka intensely. When the old man, having coughed, inhaled a breath, something whistled in his chest, and sang in different notes.

"Grandfather, what is that whistling in your inside?" asked Pashka.

The old man did not answer. Pashka waited a minute, and began again.

"Grandfather, where is the fox?"

"What fox?"

"The live one."

"Where should it be? In the wood, of course."

The hours slipped by, but no doctor came. At last the nurse brought Pashka's tea, and scolded him for having eaten the bread; the jeldscher returned and tried to waken Mikhailo; the lamps were lighted; but still no doctor. It was already too late to drive to the fair or catch thrushes. Pashka stretched himself on his bed and began to think. He thought of the doctor's promised sugar-candy, of his mother's face and voice, of the darkness in the cabin at home, of querulous Yegorovna. And he suddenly felt tedium and grief. But re- membering that his mother would come in the morning, he smiled, and fell asleep.

He was awakened by a noise. Men walked in the adjoining ward and spoke in whispers. The dim gleam of nightlights and lamps showed three figures moving near Mikhailo's bed.

"Shall we take him on the mattress, or as he is?" asked one.

"As he is. There's no room for the mattress. Akh, he's dead at a bad hour, heaven rest his soul!"

Then—one of the figures taking Mikhailo's shoulders, another his feet—they lifted him and the folds of his dressing- gown hung limply in the air. The third—it was the woman- like peasant—crossed himself; and all three, shuffling their feet, tripping in the folds of the dressing-gown, went out of the ward.

The sleeping man's chest whistled, and sang in different notes. Pashka heard it, looked in fright at the black windows, and jumped out of bed in panic.

"Mother!" he screamed.

And, without awaiting an answer, he rushed into the ad- joining ward. The lamps and nightlights barely banished the gloom; the patients, agitated by Mikhailo's death, were sitting up in their beds. Grim, dishevelled, haunted by shades, they looked like giants; they seemed to increase in size; and far away in a dark corner sat a peasant nodding his head and swinging his pendulous hands. Without seeing the door, Pashka tore through the small-pox ward into the corridor, thence into an endless chamber full of long-haired monsters with ancient faces. He flew through the women's ward, again reached the corridor, recognised the balustrade, and rushed downstairs. And there, finding himself in the waiting-room where be had sat that morning, he looked wildly for the door.

The latch rattled, a cold wind blew, and Pashka, stumbling, sped into the yard, in his head a single thought: to flee, to flee! He did not know the road, but felt that it was enough to run without cease and that he would soon be at home with his mother. The moon shone through the clouds of an overcast sky. Pashka ran straight ahead, dashed round a shed into the shrubbery, stood a second in doubt, then rushed back to the hospital and ran around it. But there he stopped in indecision, for suddenly before his eyes rose the white crosses of a grave- yard.

":i\Iother!" he screamed, and turned back again.

And at last, as he dashed past the black, menacing build- ing he saw a lighted window.

In the darkness, the bright red patch breathed terror. But Pashka, mad with panic, unknowing whither to flee, turned towards it with relief. Beside the window were steps and a hall door with a white notice-board. Pashka rushed up the steps, and looked through the window. A sharp, breathless joy suddenly seized him. For there in the window at a table sat the merry, talkative doctor with a book in his hands. Pashka laughed with joy; he tried to cry out; but some irre- sistible force suppressed his breath, and struck him on the legs, and he staggered and fell senseless on the steps.

When he came to himself it was quite light; and the sing- song voice that had promised the fair, the thrushes, and the live fox whispered in his ear—