We all meet together and wait.

“What is the cause of the eclipse?” asks Mashenka.

I reply:  “A solar eclipse occurs when the moon, moving in the plane of the ecliptic, crosses the line joining the centres of the sun and the earth.”

“And what does the ecliptic mean?”

I explain.  Mashenka listens attentively.

“Can one see through the smoked glass the line joining the centres of the sun and the earth?” she enquires.

I reply that this is only an imaginary line, drawn theoretically.

“If it is only an imaginary line, how can the moon cross it?” Varenka says, wondering.

I make no reply.  I feel my spleen rising at this naive question.

“It’s all nonsense,” says Mashenka’s maman.  “Impossible to tell what’s going to happen.  You’ve never been in the sky, so what can you know of what is to happen with the sun and moon?  It’s all fancy.”

At that moment a black patch begins to move over the sun.  General confusion follows.  The sheep and horses and cows run bellowing about the fields with their tails in the air.  The dogs howl.  The bugs, thinking night has come on, creep out of the cracks in the walls and bite the people who are still in bed.

The deacon, who was engaged in bringing some cucumbers from the market garden, jumped out of his cart and hid under the bridge; while his horse walked off into somebody else’s yard, where the pigs ate up all the cucumbers.  The excise officer, who had not slept at home that night, but at a lady friend’s, dashed out with nothing on but his nightshirt, and running into the crowd shouted frantically:  “Save yourself, if you can!”

Numbers of the lady visitors, even young and pretty ones, run out of their villas without even putting their slippers on.  Scenes occur which I hesitate to describe.

“Oh, how dreadful!” shriek the variegated young ladies.  “It’s really too awful!”

“Mesdames, watch!” I cry.  “Time is precious!”

And I hasten to measure the diameters.  I remember the corona, and look towards the wounded officer.  He stands doing nothing.

“What’s the matter?” I shout.  “How about the corona?”

He shrugs his shoulders and looks helplessly towards his arms.  The poor fellow has variegated young ladies on both sides of him, clinging to him in terror and preventing him from working.  I seize a pencil and note down the time to a second.  That is of great importance.  I note down the geographical position of the point of observation.  That, too, is of importance.  I am just about to measure the diameter when Mashenka seizes my hand, and says: 

“Do not forget to-day, eleven o’clock.”

I withdraw my hand, feeling every second precious, try to continue my observations, but Varenka clutches my arm and clings to me.  Pencil, pieces of glass, drawings—­all are scattered on the grass.  Hang it!  It’s high time the girl realized that I am a man of violent temper, and when I am roused my fury knows no bounds, I cannot answer for myself.