said he! And he told me to thank you for all your goodness, and to give you … this … see, this little thing (she took a small packet out of her pocket) which he always had about him…. And Mihail Andreitch said, if you would be pleased to accept it in memory of him, if you would not disdain it…. «There’s nothing else,» said he, «I can give him» … that is, you….’

In the packet there was a little silver cup with the monogram of Misha’s mother. This cup I had often seen in Misha’s hands, and once he had even said to me, speaking of some poor fellow, that he really was destitute, since he had neither cup nor bowl, ‘while I, see, have this anyway.’

I thanked her, took the cup, and asked:

‘Of what complaint had Misha died? No doubt….’

Then I bit my tongue … but the young woman understood my unuttered hint…. She took a swift glance at me, then looked down again, smiled mournfully, and said at once: ‘Oh no! he had quite given that up, ever since he got to know me … But he had no health at all! … It was shattered quite. As soon as he gave up drink, he fell into ill health directly. He became so steady; he always wanted to help father in his land or in the garden, … or any other work there might be … in spite of his being of noble birth. But how could he get the strength? … At writing, too, he tried to work; as you know, he could do that work capitally, but his hands shook, and he couldn’t hold the pen properly. … He was always finding fault with himself; «I’m a white-handed poor creature,» he would say; «I’ve never done any good to anybody, never helped, never laboured!» He worried himself very much about that…. He used to say that our people labour,—but what use are we? … Ah, Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a good man—and he was fond of me … and I… Ah, pardon me….’

Here the young woman wept outright. I would have consoled her, but I did not know how.

‘Have you a child left you?’ I asked at last.

She sighed. ‘No, no child…. Is it likely?’ And her tears flowed faster than ever.

‘And so that was how Misha’s troubled wanderings had ended,’ the old man P. wound up his narrative. ‘You will agree with me, I am sure, that I’m right in calling him a desperate character; but you will most likely agree too that he was not like the desperate characters of to-day; still, a philosopher, you must admit, would find a family likeness between him and them. In him and in them there’s the thirst for self-destruction, the wretchedness, the dissatisfaction…. And what it all comes from, I leave the philosopher to decide.’

BOUGIVALLE, November 1881.

A STRANGE STORY

Fifteen years ago—began H.—official duties compelled me to spend a few days in the principal town of the province of T——. I stopped at a very fair hotel, which had been established six months before my arrival by a Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that it did not flourish long, which is often the case with us; but I found it still in its full splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like pistol-shots at night; the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of soap, and the painted floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the opinion of the waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean individual, tended to prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former valet of Prince G.’s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and his self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and slippers trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and had a multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of his moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in life with a rather disillusioned eye. ‘No doubt about it,’ he said to me one day; ‘ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying any day!’ His name was Ardalion.

I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the joints; but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an heraldic crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a country gentleman, an old friend of my father’s, who had been a long time settled in the town…. I had not met him for twenty years; he had had time to get married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a widower and to make his fortune. His business was with government monopolies, that is to say, he lent contractors for monopolies loans at heavy interest…. ‘There is always honour in risk,’ they say, though indeed the risk was small.

In the course of our conversation there came into the room with hesitating steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of about seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. ‘Here,’ said my acquaintance, ‘is my eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She takes my poor wife’s place, looks after the house, and takes care of her brothers and sisters.’ I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in (she meanwhile dropped into a chair without speaking), and thought to myself that she did not look much like housekeeping or looking after children. Her face was quite childish, round, with small, pleasing, but immobile features; the blue eyes, under high, also immobile and irregular eyebrows, had an intent, almost astonished look, as though they had just observed something unexpected; the full little mouth with the lifted upper lip, not only did not smile, but seemed as though altogether innocent of such a practice; the rosy flush under the tender skin stood in soft, diffused patches on the cheeks, and neither paled nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in light clusters each side of the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, and her arms were pressed somehow awkwardly and severely against her narrow waist. Her blue gown fell without folds—like a child’s—to her little feet. The general impression this girl made upon me was not one of morbidity, but of something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a shy, provincial miss, but a creature of a special type—that I could not make out. This type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully understand it, and only felt that I had never come across a nature more sincere. Pity … yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the sight of this young, serious, keenly alert life—God knows why! ‘Not of this earth,’ was my thought, though there was nothing exactly ‘ideal’ in the expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had obviously come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady of the house to which her father had referred.

He began to talk of life in the town of T——, of the social amusements and advantages it offered. ‘We’re very quiet here,’ he observed; ‘the governor’s a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province is a bachelor. But there’ll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the day after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here. And you’ll see all our intelligentsi too.’

My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with respect. Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with respectability, developes a certain thoughtfulness in men.

‘Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?’ I said, turning to my friend’s daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice.

‘Papa intends to go,’ she answered, ‘and I with him.’

Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated every syllable fully, as though she were puzzled.

‘In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.’

She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile.

I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed steadily upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked over my shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing she was looking at behind my back.

I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied ‘soupe-julienne,’ cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry, black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my old acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom.

‘There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our town,’ he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at the same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty dinner-napkin—a practice peculiar, as you’re doubtless aware, to servants of superior education. ‘Very little!’

He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its white face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words: ‘Ve-ry! ve-ry!’ it ticked. ‘No concerts, nor theatres,’ pursued Ardalion (he had travelled abroad with his master, and