over his face. Lutchkov swayed up and down in his low chair, screwed up his eyes, stretched, and putting down Kister’s emotion to jealousy, was almost gasping with delight. But it was not jealousy that was torturing Kister; he was wounded, not by the fact itself, but by Avdey’s coarse carelessness, his indifferent and contemptuous references to Masha. He was still staring intently at the bully, and it seemed as if for the first time he was thoroughly seeing his face. So this it was he had been scheming for! This for which he had sacrificed his own inclinations! Here it was, the blessed influence of love.

‘Avdey… do you mean to say you don’t care for her?’ he muttered at last.

‘O innocence! O Arcadia!’ responded Avdey, with a malignant chuckle.

Kister in the goodness of his heart did not give in even then; perhaps, thought he, Avdey is in a bad temper and is ‘humbugging’ from old habit… he has not yet found a new language to express new feelings. And was there not in himself some other feeling lurking under his indignation? Did not Lutchkov’s avowal strike him so unpleasantly simply because it concerned Masha? How could one tell, perhaps Lutchkov really was in love with her…. Oh, no! no! a thousand times no! That man in love?… That man was loathsome with his bilious, yellow face, his nervous, cat-like movements, crowing with conceit… loathsome! No, not in such words would Kister have uttered to a devoted friend the secret of his love…. In overflowing happiness, in dumb rapture, with bright, blissful tears in his eyes would he have flung himself on his bosom….

‘Well, old man,’ queried Avdey, ‘own up now you didn’t expect it, and now you feel put out. Eh? jealous? Own up, Fedya. Eh? eh?’

Kister was about to speak out, but he turned with his face to the wall. ‘Speak openly… to him? Not for anything!’ he whispered to himself. ‘He wouldn’t understand me… so be it! He supposes none but evil feelings in me—so be it!…’

Avdey got up.

‘I see you’re sleepy,’ he said with assumed sympathy: ‘I don’t want to be in your way. Pleasant dreams, my boy… pleasant dreams!’

And Lutchkov went away, very well satisfied with himself.

Kister could not get to sleep before the morning. With feverish persistence he turned over and over and thought over and over the same single idea—an occupation only too well known to unhappy lovers.

‘Even if Lutchkov doesn’t care for her,’ he mused, ‘if she has flung herself at his head, anyway he ought not even with me, with his friend, to speak so disrespectfully, so offensively of her! In what way is she to blame? How could any one have no feeling for a poor, inexperienced girl?

‘But can she really have a secret appointment with him? She has—yes, she certainly has. Avdey’s not a liar, he never tells a lie. But perhaps it means nothing, a mere freak….

‘But she does not know him…. He is capable, I dare say, of insulting her. After to-day, I wouldn’t answer for anything…. And wasn’t it I myself that praised him up and exalted him? Wasn’t it I who excited her curiosity?… But who could have known this? Who could have foreseen it?…

‘Foreseen what? Has he so long ceased to be my friend?… But, after all, was he ever my friend? What a disenchantment! What a lesson!’

All the past turned round and round before Kister’s eyes. ‘Yes, I did like him,’ he whispered at last. ‘Why has my liking cooled so suddenly?… And do I dislike him? No, why did I ever like him? I alone?’

Kister’s loving heart had attached itself to Avdey for the very reason that all the rest avoided him. But the good-hearted youth did not know himself how great his good-heartedness was.

‘My duty,’ he went on, ‘is to warn Marya Sergievna. But how? What right have I to interfere in other people’s affairs, in other people’s love? How do I know the nature of that love? Perhaps even in Lutchkov…. No, no!’ he said aloud, with irritation, almost with tears, smoothing out his pillow, ‘that man’s stone….

‘It is my own fault… I have lost a friend…. A precious friend, indeed! And she’s not worth much either!… What a sickening egoist I am! No, no! from the bottom of my soul I wish them happiness…. Happiness! but he is laughing at her!… And why does he dye his moustaches? I do, really, believe he does…. Ah, how ridiculous I am!’ he repeated, as he fell asleep.

VII

The next morning Kister went to call on the Perekatovs. When they met, Kister noticed a great change in Masha, and Masha, too, found a change in him, but neither spoke of it. The whole morning they both, contrary to their habit, felt uncomfortable. Kister had prepared at home a number of hints and phrases of double meaning and friendly counsels… but all this previous preparation turned out to be quite thrown away. Masha was vaguely aware that Kister was watching her; she fancied that he pronounced some words with intentional significance; but she was conscious, too, of her own excitement, and did not trust her own observations. ‘If only he doesn’t mean to stay till evening!’ was what she was thinking incessantly, and she tried to make him realise that he was not wanted. Kister, for his part, took her awkwardness and her uneasiness for obvious signs of love, and the more afraid he was for her the more impossible he found it to speak of Lutchkov; while Masha obstinately refrained from uttering his name. It was a painful experience for poor Fyodor Fedoritch. He began at last to understand his own feelings. Never had Masha seemed to him more charming. She had, to all appearances, not slept the whole night. A faint flush stood in patches on her pale face; her figure was faintly drooping; an unconscious, weary smile never left her lips; now and then a shiver ran over her white shoulders; a soft light glowed suddenly in her eyes, and quickly faded away. Nenila Makarievna came in and sat with them, and possibly with intention mentioned Avdey Ivanovitch. But in her mother’s presence Masha was armed jusqu’aux dents, as the French say, and she did not betray herself at all. So passed the whole morning.

‘You will dine with us?’ Nenila Makarievna asked Kister.

Masha turned away.

‘No,’ Kister said hurriedly, and he glanced towards Masha. ‘Excuse me… duties of the service…’

Nenila Makarievna duly expressed her regret. Mr. Perekatov, following her lead, also expressed something or other. ‘I don’t want to be in the way,’ Kister wanted to say to Masha, as he passed her, but he bowed down and whispered instead: ‘Be happy… farewell… take care of yourself…’ and was gone.

Masha heaved a sigh from the bottom of her heart, and then felt panic-stricken at his departure. What was it fretting her? Love or curiosity? God knows; but, we repeat, curiosity alone was enough to ruin Eve.

VIII

Long Meadow was the name of a wide, level stretch of ground on the right of the little stream Sniezhinka, nearly a mile from the Perekatovs’ property. The left bank, completely covered by thick young oak bushes, rose steeply up over the stream, which was almost overgrown with willow bushes, except for some small ‘breeding-places,’ the haunts of wild ducks. Half a mile from the stream, on the right side of Long Meadow, began the sloping, undulating uplands, studded here and there with old birch-trees, nut bushes, and guelder-roses.

The sun was setting. The mill rumbled and clattered in the distance, sounding louder or softer according to the wind. The seignorial drove of horses was lazily wandering about the meadows; a shepherd walked, humming a tune, after a flock of greedy and timorous sheep; the sheepdogs, from boredom, were running after the crows. Lutchkov walked up and down in the copse, with his arms folded. His horse, tied up near by, more than once whinnied in response to the sonorous neighing of the mares and fillies in the meadow. Avdey was ill-tempered and shy, as usual. Not yet convinced of Masha’s love, he felt wrathful with her and annoyed with himself… but his excitement smothered his annoyance. He stopped at last before a large nut bush, and began with his riding-whip switching off the leaves at the ends of the twigs….

He heard a light rustle… he raised his head…. Ten paces from him stood Masha, all flushed from her rapid walk, in a hat, but with no gloves, in a white dress, with a hastily tied kerchief round her neck. She dropped her eyes instantly, and softly nodded….

Avdey went awkwardly up to her with a forced smile.

‘How happy I am…’ he was beginning, scarcely audibly.

‘I am very glad… to meet you…’ Masha interrupted breathlessly. ‘I usually walk here in the evening… and you…’

But Lutchkov had not the sense even to spare her modesty, to keep up her innocent deception.

‘I believe, Marya Sergievna,’ he pronounced with dignity, ‘you yourself suggested…’

‘Yes… yes…’ rejoined Masha hurriedly. ‘You wished to see me, you wanted…’ Her voice died away.

Lutchkov did not speak. Masha timidly raised her eyes.

‘Excuse me,’ he began, not looking at her, ‘I’m a plain man, and not used to talking freely… to ladies… I… I wished to tell you… but, I fancy, you ‘re not in the humour to listen to me….’

‘Speak.’

‘Since you tell me to… well, then, I tell you frankly that for a long while now, ever since I had the honour of making your acquaintance…’

Avdey stopped. Masha waited for the conclusion of his sentence.

‘I don’t know, though,