built a school at the works.  Yes, he had built a school out of the old bricks at the works for some eight hundred roubles, and they sang the prayer for “long life” to him when the building was opened, but there was no chance of his giving up his shares, and it certainly never entered his head that the peasants were human beings like himself, and that they, too, needed university teaching, and not merely lessons in these wretched schools.

And Vera felt full of anger against herself and every one else.  She took up a book again and tried to read it, but soon afterwards sat down and thought again.  To become a doctor?  But to do that one must pass an examination in Latin; besides, she had an invincible repugnance to corpses and disease.  It would be nice to become a mechanic, a judge, a commander of a steamer, a scientist; to do something into which she could put all her powers, physical and spiritual, and to be tired out and sleep soundly at night; to give up her life to something that would make her an interesting person, able to attract interesting people, to love, to have a real family of her own. . . .  But what was she to do?  How was she to begin?

One Sunday in Lent her aunt came into her room early in the morning to fetch her umbrella.  Vera was sitting up in bed clasping her head in her hands, thinking.

“You ought to go to church, darling,” said her aunt, “or people will think you are not a believer.”

Vera made no answer.

“I see you are dull, poor child,” said Auntie Dasha, sinking on her knees by the bedside; she adored Vera.  “Tell me the truth, are you bored?”

“Dreadfully.”

“My beauty, my queen, I am your willing slave, I wish you nothing but good and happiness. . . .  Tell me, why don’t you want to marry Nestchapov?  What more do you want, my child?  You must forgive me, darling; you can’t pick and choose like this, we are not princes . . . .  Time is passing, you are not seventeen. . . .  And I don’t understand it!  He loves you, idolises you!”

“Oh, mercy!” said Vera with vexation.  “How can I tell?  He sits dumb and never says a word.”

“He’s shy, darling. . . .  He’s afraid you’ll refuse him!”

And when her aunt had gone away, Vera remained standing in the middle of her room uncertain whether to dress or to go back to bed.  The bed was hateful; if one looked out of the window there were the bare trees, the grey snow, the hateful jackdaws, the pigs that her grandfather would eat. . . .

“Yes, after all, perhaps I’d better get married!” she thought.

III

For two days Auntie Dasha went about with a tear-stained and heavily powdered face, and at dinner she kept sighing and looking towards the ikon.  And it was impossible to make out what was the matter with her.  But at last she made up her mind, went in to Vera, and said in a casual way: