strained every effort to penetrate into that mysterious gloom…. So children stare a long while into a deep well, till at last they make out at the very bottom the still, black water.

On Lutchkov’s coming into the drawing-room alone, Masha was at first scared… but then she felt delighted. She had more than once fancied that there existed some sort of misunderstanding between Lutchkov and her, that he had not hitherto had a chance of revealing himself. Lutchkov mentioned the cause of Kister’s absence; the parents expressed their regret, but Masha looked incredulously at Avdey, and felt faint with expectation. After dinner they were left alone; Masha did not know what to say, she sat down to the piano; her fingers flitted hurriedly and tremblingly over the keys; she was continually stopping and waiting for the first word… Lutchkov did not understand nor care for music. Masha began talking to him about Rossini (Rossini was at that time just coming into fashion) and about Mozart…. Avdey Ivanovitch responded: ‘Quite so,’ ‘by no means,’ ‘beautiful,’ ‘indeed,’ and that was all. Masha played some brilliant variations on one of Rossini’s airs. Lutchkov listened and listened… and when at last she turned to him, his face expressed such unfeigned boredom, that Masha jumped up at once and closed the piano. She went up to the window, and for a long while stared into the garden; Lutchkov did not stir from his seat, and still remained silent. Impatience began to take the place of timidity in Masha’s soul. ‘What is it?’ she wondered, ‘won’t you… or can’t you?’ It was Lutchkov’s turn to feel shy. He was conscious again of his miserable, overwhelming diffidence; already he was raging!… ‘It was the devil’s own notion to have anything to do with the wretched girl,’ he muttered to himself…. And all the while how easy it was to touch Masha’s heart at that instant! Whatever had been said by such an extraordinary though eccentric man, as she imagined Lutchkov, she would have understood everything, have excused anything, have believed anything…. But this burdensome, stupid silence! Tears of vexation were standing in her eyes. ‘If he doesn’t want to be open, if I am really not worthy of his confidence, why does he go on coming to see us? Or perhaps it is that I don’t set the right way to work to make him reveal himself?’… And she turned swiftly round, and glanced so inquiringly, so searchingly at him, that he could not fail to understand her glance, and could not keep silence any longer….

‘Marya Sergievna,’ he pronounced falteringly; ‘I… I’ve… I ought to tell you something….’

‘Speak,’ Masha responded rapidly.

Lutchkov looked round him irresolutely.

‘I can’t now…’

‘Why not?’

‘I should like to speak to you… alone….’

‘Why, we are alone now.’

‘Yes… but… here in the house….’

Masha was at her wits’ end…. ‘If I refuse,’ she thought, ‘it’s all over.’… Curiosity was the ruin of Eve….

‘I agree,’ she said at last.

‘When then? Where?’

Masha’s breathing came quickly and unevenly.

‘To-morrow… in the evening. You know the copse above the Long Meadow?’…

‘Behind the mill?’

Masha nodded.

‘What time?’

‘Wait…’

She could not bring out another word; her voice broke… she turned pale and went quickly out of the room.

A quarter of an hour later, Mr. Perekatov, with his characteristic politeness, conducted Lutchkov to the hall, pressed his hand feelingly, and begged him ‘not to forget them’; then, having let out his guest, he observed with dignity to the footman that it would be as well for him to shave, and without awaiting a reply, returned with a careworn air to his own room, with the same careworn air sat down on the sofa, and guilelessly dropped asleep on the spot.

‘You’re a little pale to-day,’ Nenila Makarievna said to her daughter, on the evening of the same day. ‘Are you quite well?’

‘Yes, mamma.’

Nenila Makarievna set straight the kerchief on the girl’s neck.

‘You are very pale; look at me,’ she went on, with that motherly solicitude in which there is none the less audible a note of parental authority: ‘there, now, your eyes look heavy too. You’re not well, Masha.’

‘My head does ache a little,’ said Masha, to find some way of escape.

‘There, I knew it.’ Nenila Makarievna put some scent on Masha’s forehead. ‘You’re not feverish, though.’

Masha stooped down, and picked a thread off the floor.

Nenila Makarievna’s arms lay softly round Masha’s slender waist.

‘It seems to me you have something you want to tell me,’ she said caressingly, not loosing her hands.

Masha shuddered inwardly.

‘I? Oh, no, mamma.’

Masha’s momentary confusion did not escape her mother’s attention.

‘Oh, yes, you do…. Think a little.’

But Masha had had time to regain her self-possession, and instead of answering, she kissed her mother’s hand with a laugh.

‘And so you’ve nothing to tell me?’

‘No, really, nothing.’

‘I believe you,’ responded Nenila Makarievna, after a short silence. ‘I know you keep nothing secret from me…. That’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Of course, mamma.’

Masha could not help blushing a little, though.

‘You do quite rightly. It would be wrong of you to keep anything from me…. You know how I love you, Masha.’

‘Oh yes, mamma.’

And Masha hugged her.

‘There, there, that’s enough.’ (Nenila Makarievna walked about the room.) ‘Oh tell me,’ she went on in the voice of one who feels that the question asked is of no special importance; ‘what were you talking about with Avdey Ivanovitch to-day?’

‘With Avdey Ivanovitch?’ Masha repeated serenely. ‘Oh, all sorts of things….’

‘Do you like him?’

‘Oh yes, I like him.’

‘Do you remember how anxious you were to get to know him, how excited you were?’

Masha turned away and laughed.

‘What a strange person he is!’ Nenila Makarievna observed good-humouredly.

Masha felt an inclination to defend Lutchkov, but she held her tongue.

‘Yes, of course,’ she said rather carelessly; ‘he is a queer fish, but still he’s a nice man!’

‘Oh, yes!… Why didn’t Fyodor Fedoritch come?’

‘He was unwell, I suppose. Ah! by the way, Fyodor Fedoritch wanted to make me a present of a puppy…. Will you let me?’

‘What? Accept his present?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course.’

‘Oh, thank you!’ said Masha, ‘thank you, thank you!’

Nenila Makarievna got as far as the door and suddenly turned back again.

‘Do you remember your promise, Masha?’

‘What promise?’

‘You were going to tell me when you fall in love.’

‘I remember.’

‘Well… hasn’t the time come yet?’ (Masha laughed musically.) ‘Look into my eyes.’

Masha looked brightly and boldly at her mother.

‘It can’t be!’ thought Nenila Makarievna, and she felt reassured. ‘As if she could deceive me!… How could I think of such a thing!… She’s still a perfect baby….’

She went away….

‘But this is really wicked,’ thought Masha.

VI

Kister had already gone to bed when Lutchkov came into his room. The bully’s face never expressed one feeling; so it was now: feigned indifference, coarse delight, consciousness of his own superiority… a number of different emotions were playing over his features.

‘Well, how was it? how was it?’ Kister made haste to question him.

‘Oh! I went. They sent you greetings.’

‘Well? Are they all well?’

‘Of course, why not?’

‘Did they ask why I didn’t come?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

Lutchkov stared at the ceiling and hummed out of tune. Kister looked down and mused.

‘But, look here,’ Lutchkov brought out in a husky, jarring voice, ‘you’re a clever fellow, I dare say, you’re a cultured fellow, but you’re a good bit out in your ideas sometimes for all that, if I may venture to say so.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Why, look here. About women, for instance. How you’re always cracking them up! You’re never tired of singing their praises! To listen to you, they’re all angels…. Nice sort of angels!’

‘I like and respect women, but———’

‘Oh, of course, of course,’ Avdey cut him short. ‘I am not going to argue with you. That’s quite beyond me! I’m a plain man.’

‘I was going to say that… But why just to-day… just now,… are you talking about women?’

‘Oh, nothing!’ Avdey smiled with great meaning. ‘Nothing!’

Kister looked searchingly at his friend. He imagined (simple heart!) that Masha had been treating him badly; had been torturing him, perhaps, as only women can….

‘You are feeling hurt, my poor Avdey; tell me…’

Lutchkov went off into a chuckle.

‘Oh, well, I don’t fancy I’ve much to feel hurt about,’ he said, in a drawling tone, complacently stroking his moustaches. ‘No, only, look here, Fedya,’ he went on with the manner of a preceptor, ‘I was only going to point out that you’re altogether out of it about women, my lad. You believe me, Fedya, they ‘re all alike. One’s only got to take a little trouble, hang about them a bit, and you’ve got things in your own hands. Look at Masha Perekatov now….’

‘Oh!’

Lutchkov tapped his foot on the floor and shook his head.

‘Is there anything so specially attractive about me, hey? I shouldn’t have thought there was anything. There isn’t anything, is there? And here, I’ve a clandestine appointment for to-morrow.’

Kister sat up, leaned on his elbow, and stared in amazement at Lutchkov.

‘For the evening, in a wood…’ Avdey Ivanovitch continued serenely. ‘Only don’t you go and imagine it means much. It’s only a bit of fun. It’s slow here, don’t you know. A pretty little girl,… well, says I, why not? Marriage, of course, I’m not going in for… but there, I like to recall my young days. I don’t care for hanging about petticoats—but I may as well humour the baggage. We can listen to the nightingales together. Of course, it’s really more in your line; but the wench has no eyes, you see. I should have thought I wasn’t worth looking at beside you.’

Lutchkov talked on a long while. But Kister did not hear him. His head was going round. He turned pale and passed his hand