Mashenka made no answer.
" I took my wife's brooch," Nikolay Sergeitch said quickly. " Is that enough now? Are you satisfied? Yes, I • . . took it. . . . But, ofcourse, I count on your discretion. . • . For God's sake, not a word,. not half a hint to any one I "
Mashenka, amazed and frightened, went on pack- ing; she snatched her things, crumpled them up, and thrust them anyhow into the box and the basket. Now, after this candid avowal on the part of Nikolay Sergeitch, she could not remain another minute, and could not understand how she could have gone on living in the house before.
" And it's nothing to wonder at," Nikolay Ser- geitch went on after a pause. " It's an everyday story I I need money, and she . . . won't give it to me. It was my father's money that bought this house and everything, you know I It's all mine, and the brooch belonged to my mother, and . . . it's all mine I And she took it, took possession of every- thing . ... I can't go to law with her, you'll admit. . . . I beg you most earnestly, overlook it ... stay on. Tout comprendre, tout pardonner. Will you stay? "
" No I " said Mashenka resolutely, beginning to tremble. " Let me alone, I entreat you I "
" Well, God bless you! " sighed Nikolay Sergeitch, sitting down on the stool near the box. " I must own I like people who still can feel resentment, con- tempt, and so on. I could sit here forever and look at your indignant face. . . . So you won't stay, then? I understand. . . . It's bound to be so. . . • Yes, of course . . . . It's all right for you, but for me — wo-o-o-o I ... I can't stir a step out of this cellar. I'd go off to one of our estates, but in every one of them there are some of my wife's rascals . . . stewards, experts, damn them all! They mortgage and remortgage. . . . You mustn't catch fish, must keep off the grass, mustn't break the trees."
" Nikolay Sergeitch! " his wife's voice called from the drawing-room. " Agnia, call your master! "
" Then you won't stay ? " asked Nikolay Sergeitch, getting up quickly and going towards the door. " You might as well stay, really. In the evenings I could come and have a talk with you. Eh? Stay! If you go, there won't be a human face left in the house. It's awful ! "
Nikolay Sergeitch's pale, exhausted face besought her, but Mashenka shook her head, and with a wave of his hand he went out.
Half an hour later she was on her way.
NEIGHBOURS
PYOTR Mihalitch Ivashin was very much out of humour: his sister, a young girl, had gone away to live with Vlassitch, a married man. To shake off the despondency and depression which pursued him at home and in the fields, he called to his aid his sense of justice, his genuine and noble ideas — he had always defended free-love I — but this was of no avail, and he always came back to the same con- clusion as their foolish old nurse, that his sister had acted wrongly and that Vlassitch had abducted his sister. And that was distressing.
His mother did not leave her room all day long; the old nurse kept sighing and speaking in whispers; his aunt had been on the point of taking her de- parture every day, and her trunks were continually being brought down to the hall and carried up again to her room. In the house, in the yard, and in the garden it was as still as though there were some one dead in the house. His aunt, the servants, and even the peasants, so it seemed to Pyotr Mihalitch, looked at him enigmatically and with perplexity, as though they wanted to say " Your sister has been seduced; why are you doing nothing? " And he reproached himself for inactivity, though he did not know pre- cisely what action he ought to have taken.
So passed six days. On the seventh — it was Sunday afternoon — a messenger on horseback brought a letter. The address was in a familiar feminine handwriting: " Her Excy. Anna Niko- laevna Ivashin." Pyotr Mihalitch fancied that there was something defiant, provocative, in the handwriting and in the abbreviation " Excy." And advanced ideas in women are obstinate, ruthless, cruel.
" She'd rather die than make any concession to her unhappy mother, or beg her forgiveness," thought Pyotr Mihalitch, as he went to his mother with the letter.
His mother was lying on her bed, dressed. See- ing her son, she rose impulsively, and straightening her grey hair, which had fallen from under her cap, asked quickly:
" What is it? What is it? " " This has come . . ." said her son, giving her the letter.
Zina's name, and even the pronoun " she " was not uttered in the house. Zina was spoken of im- personally: " this has come," " Gone away," and so on. . . . The mother recognised her daughter's handwriting, and her face grew ugly and unpleasant, and her grey hair escaped again from her cap.
" No I " she said, with a motion of her hands, as though the letter scorched her fi.ngers. " No, no, never I Nothing would induce me ! ''
The mother broke into hysterical sobs of grief and shame; she evidently longed to read the letter, but her pride prevented her. Pyotr Mihalitch real- ised that he ought to open the letter himself and read it aloud, but he was overcome by anger such as he had never felt before; he ran out into the yard and shouted to the messenger:
" Say there will be no answer I There will be no answer! Tell them that, you beast I "
And he tore up the letter; then tears came into his eyes, and feeling that he was cruel, miserable, and to blame, he went out into the fields.
He was only twenty-seven, but he was already stout. He dressed like an old man in loose, roomy clothes, and suffered from asthma. He already seemed to be developing the characteristics of an elderly country bachelor. He never fell in love, never thought of marriage, and loved no one but his mother, his sister, his old nurse, and the gardener, Vassilitch. He was fond of good fare, of his nap after dinner, and of talking about politics and ex- alted subjects. He had in his day taken his degree at the university, but he now looked upon his studies as though in them he had discharged a duty incum- bent upon young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-fi.ve; at any rate, the ideas which now strayed every day through his mind had nothing in common with the university or the subjects he had studied there.
In the fields it was hot and still, as though rain were commg. It was steaming in the wood, and there was a heavy fragrant scent from the pines and rotting leaves. Pyotr Mihalitch stopped several times and wiped his wet brow. He looked at his winter corn and his spring oats, walked round the clover-fi.eld, and twice drove away a partridge with its chicks which had strayed in from the wood. And all the while he was thinking that this insufferable state of things could not go on for ever, and that he must end it one way or another. End it stupidly, madly, but he must end it.