stupor of boredom is the ruin of Russians. Ours is the age for work, and the sickening loafer»…

«But what is all this abuse about?» Lavretsky clamoured in his turn. «Work—doing—you’d better say what is to be done, instead of abusing me, Desmosthenes of Poltava!»

«There, what a thing to ask! I can’t tell you that brother; that every one ought to know for himself,» retorted the Desmosthenes ironically. «A landowner, a nobleman, and not know what to do? You have no faith, or else you would know; no faith—and no intuition.»

«Let me at least have time to breathe; you don’t let me have time to look round,» Lavretsky besought him.

«Not a minute, nor a second!» retorted Mihalevitch with an imperious wave of the hand. «Not one second: death does not delay, and life ought not to delay.»

«And what a time, what a place for men to think of loafing!» he cried at four o’clock, in a voice, however, which showed signs of sleepiness; «among us! now! in Russia where every separate individual has a duty resting upon him, a solemn responsibility to God, to the people, to himself. We are sleeping, and the time is slipping away; we are sleeping.»….

«Permit me to observe,» remarked Lavretsky, «that we are not sleeping at present but rather preventing others from sleeping. We are straining our throats like the cocks—listen! there is one crowing for the third time.»

This sally made Mihalevitch laugh, and calmed him down. «Good-bye till to-morrow,» he said with a smile, and thrust his pipe into his pouch.

«Till to-morrow,» repeated Lavretsky. But the friends talked for more than hour longer. Their voices were no longer raised, however, and their talk was quiet, sad, friendly talk.

Mihalevitch set off the next day, in spite of all Lavretsky’s efforts to keep him. Fedor Ivanitch did not succeed in persuading him to remain; but he talked to him to his heart’s content. Mihalevitch, it appeared, had not a penny to bless himself with. Lavretsky had noticed with pain the evening before all the tokens and habits of years of poverty; his boots were shabby, a button was off on the back of his coat, on his arrival, he had not even thought of asking to wash, and at supper he ate like a shark, tearing his meat in his fingers, and crunching the bones with his strong black teeth. It appeared, too, that he had made nothing out of his employment, that he now rested all his hopes on the contractor who was taking him solely in order to have an «educated man» in his office.

For all that Mihalevitch was not discouraged, but as idealist or cynic, lived on a crust of bread, sincerely rejoicing or grieving over the destinies of humanity, and his own vocation, and troubling himself very little as to how to escape dying of hunger. Mihalevitch was not married: but had been in love times beyond number, and had written poems to all the objects of his adoration; he sang with especial fervour the praises of a mysterious black-tressed «noble Polish lady.» There were rumours, it is true, that this «noble Polish lady» was a simple Jewess, very well known to a good many cavalry officers—but, after all, what do you think—does it really make any difference?

With Lemm, Mihalevitch did not get on; his noisy talk and brusque manners scared the German, who was unused to such behaviour. One poor devil detects another by instinct at once, but in old age he rarely gets on with him, and that is hardly astonishing, he has nothing to share with him, not even hopes.

Before setting off, Mihalevitch had another long discussion with Lavretsky, foretold his ruin, if he did not see the error of his ways, exhorted him to devote himself seriously to the welfare of his peasants, and pointed to himself as an example, saying that he had been purified in the furnace of suffering; and in the same breath called himself several times a happy man, comparing himself with the fowl of the air and the lily of the field.

«A black lily, any way,» observed Lavretsky.

«Ah, brother, don’t be a snob!» retorted Mihalevitch, good-naturedly, «but thank God rather there is a pure plebeian blood in your veins too. But I see that you want some pure, heavenly creature to draw you out of your apathy.»

«Thanks, brother,» remarked Lavretsky. «I have had quite enough of those heavenly creatures.»

«Silence, ceeneec!» cried Mihalevitch.

«Cynic,» Lavretsky corrected him.

«Ceeneec, just so,» repeated Mihalevitch unabashed.

Even when he had taken his seat in the carriage, to which his flat, yellow, strangely light trunk was carried, he still talked; muffled in a kind of Spanish cloak with a collar, brown with age, and a clasp of two lion’s paws; he went on developing his views on the destiny of Russian, and waving his swarthy hand in the air, as though he were sowing the seeds of her future prosperity. The horses started at last.

«Remember my three last words,» he cried, thrusting his whole body out of the carriage and balancing so, «Religion, progress, humanity!… Farewell.»

His head, with a foraging cap pulled down over his eyes, disappeared. Lavretsky was left standing alone on the steps, and he gazed steadily into the distance along the road till the carriage disappeared out of sight. «Perhaps he is right, after all,» he thought as he went back into the house; «perhaps I am a loafer.» Many of Mihalevitch’s words had sunk irresistibly into his heart, though he had disputed and disagreed with him. If a man only has a good heart, no one can resist him.

Chapter XXVI

Two days later, Marya Dmitrievna visited Vassilyevskoe according to her promise, with all her young people. The little girls ran at once into the garden, while Marya Dmitrievna languidly walked through the rooms and languidly admired everything. She regarded her visit to Lavretsky as a sign of great condescension, almost as a deed of charity. She smiled graciously when Anton and Apraxya kissed her hand in the old-fashioned house-servants’ style; and in a weak voice, speaking through her nose, asked for some tea. To the great vexation of Anton, who had put on knitted white gloves for the purpose, tea was not handed to the grand lady visitor by him, but by Lavretsky’s hired valet, who in the old man’s words, had not a notion of what was proper. To make up for this, Anton resumed his rights at dinner: he took up a firm position behind Marya Dmitrievna’s chair; and he would not surrender his post to any one. The appearance of guests after so long an interval at Vassilyevskoe fluttered and delighted the old man. It was a pleasure to him to see that his master was acquainted with such fine gentlefolk. He was not, however, the only one who was fluttered that day; Lemm, too, was in agitation. He had put on a rather short snuff-coloured coat with a swallow-tail, and tied his neck handkerchief stiffly, and he kept incessantly coughing and making way for people with a cordial and affable air. Lavretsky noticed with pleasure that his relations with Lisa were becoming more intimate; she had held out her hand to him affectionately directly she came in. After dinner Lemm drew out of his coat-tail pocket, into which he had continually been fumbling, a small roll of music-paper and compressing his lips he laid it without speaking on the pianoforte. It was a song composed by him the evening before, to some old-fashioned German words, in which mention was made of the stars. Lisa sat down at once to the piano and played at sight the song…. Alas! the music turned out to be complicated and painfully strained; it was clear that the composer had striven to express something passionate and deep, but nothing had come of it; the effort had remained an effort. Lavretsky and Lisa both felt this, and Lemm understood it. Without uttering a single word, he put his song back into his pocket, and in reply to Lisa’s proposal to play it again, he only shook his head and said significantly: «Now—enough!» and shrinking into himself he turned away.

Towards evening the whole party went out to fish. In the pond behind the garden there were plenty of carp and groundlings. Marya Dmitrievna was put in an arm-chair near the banks, in the shade, with a rug under her feet and the best line was given to her. Anton as an old experienced angler offered her his services. He zealously put on the worms, and clapped his hand on them, spat on them and even threw in the line with a graceful forward swing of his whole body. Marya Dmitrievna spoke of him the same day to Fedor Ivanitch in the following phrase, in boarding-school French: «Il n’y a plus maintenant de ces gens comme ca, comme autrefois.» Lemm with the two little girls went off further to the dam of the pond; Lavretsky took up his position near Lisa. The fish were continually biting, the carp were constantly flashing in the air with golden and silvery sides as they were drawn in; the cries of pleasure of the little girls were incessant, even Marya Dmitrievna uttered a little feminine shriek on two occasions. The fewest fish were caught by Lavretsky and Lisa; probably this was because they paid less attention than the others to the angling, and allowed their floats to swim back right up to the bank. The high reddish reeds rustled quietly around, the still water shone quietly before them, and quietly too they talked together. Lisa was standing