At three o’clock they had dinner together:  in the evening they learned their lessons together and cried.  When she put him to bed, she would stay a long time making the Cross over him and murmuring a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty future when Sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a carriage, would get married and have children. . . .  She would fall asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring beside her:  “Mrr, mrr, mrr.”

Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate.

Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing.  Half a minute later would come another knock.

“It must be a telegram from Harkov,” she would think, beginning to tremble from head to foot.  “Sasha’s mother is sending for him from Harkov. . . .  Oh, mercy on us!”

She was in despair.  Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in the world.  But another minute would pass, voices would be heard:  it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the club.

“Well, thank God!” she would think.

And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would feel at ease.  She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep: 

“I’ll give it you!  Get away!  Shut up!”

ARIADNE

On the deck of a steamer sailing from Odessa to Sevastopol, a rather good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me to smoke, and said: 

“Notice those Germans sitting near the shelter?  Whenever Germans or Englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price of wool, or their personal affairs.  But for some reason or other when we Russians get together we never discuss anything but women and abstract subjects—­but especially women.”

This gentleman’s face was familiar to me already.  We had returned from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at Volotchisk when the luggage was being examined by the Customs, I saw him standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies’ clothes, and I noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and threatened to make a complaint.  Afterwards, on the way to Odessa, I saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies’ compartment.

It was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had retired to their cabins.

The gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and continued: