The lieutenant in his turn looked searchingly at Kryukov and laughed.

“You’ve guessed right, Alyosha,” he said, reddening.  “It was to her I meant to ride.  Yesterday evening when the washerwoman gave me that damned tunic, the one I was wearing then, and it smelt of jasmine, why . . .  I felt I must go!”

“You must go away.”

“Yes, certainly.  And my furlough’s just over.  I really will go to-day!  Yes, by Jove!  However long one stays, one has to go in the end. . . .  I’m going!”

The post-horses were brought after dinner the same day; the lieutenant said good-bye to the Kryukovs and set off, followed by their good wishes.

Another week passed.  It was a dull but hot and heavy day.  From early morning Kryukov walked aimlessly about the house, looking out of window, or turning over the leaves of albums, though he was sick of the sight of them already.  When he came across his wife or children, he began grumbling crossly.  It seemed to him, for some reason that day, that his children’s manners were revolting, that his wife did not know how to look after the servants, that their expenditure was quite disproportionate to their income.  All this meant that “the master” was out of humour.

After dinner, Kryukov, feeling dissatisfied with the soup and the roast meat he had eaten, ordered out his racing droshky.  He drove slowly out of the courtyard, drove at a walking pace for a quarter of a mile, and stopped.

“Shall I . . . drive to her . . . that devil?” he thought, looking at the leaden sky.

And Kryukov positively laughed, as though it were the first time that day he had asked himself that question.  At once the load of boredom was lifted from his heart, and there rose a gleam of pleasure in his lazy eyes.  He lashed the horse. . . .

All the way his imagination was picturing how surprised the Jewess would be to see him, how he would laugh and chat, and come home feeling refreshed. . . .

“Once a month one needs something to brighten one up . . . something out of the common round,” he thought, “something that would give the stagnant organism a good shaking up, a reaction . . . whether it’s a drinking bout, or . . .  Susanna.  One can’t get on without it.”

It was getting dark when he drove into the yard of the vodka distillery.  From the open windows of the owner’s house came sounds of laughter and singing: 

“‘Brighter than lightning, more burning than flame. . . .’”

sang a powerful, mellow, bass voice.

“Aha! she has visitors,” thought Kryukov.

And he was annoyed that she had visitors.

“Shall I go back?” he thought with his hand on the bell, but he rang all the same, and went up the familiar staircase.  From the entry he glanced into the reception hall.  There were about five men there—­all landowners and officials of his acquaintance; one, a tall, thin gentleman, was sitting at the piano, singing, and striking the keys with his long, thin fingers.  The others were listening and grinning with enjoyment.  Kryukov looked himself up and down in the looking-glass, and was about to go into the hall, when Susanna Moiseyevna herself darted into the entry, in high spirits and wearing the same black dress. . . .  Seeing Kryukov, she was petrified for an instant, then she uttered a little scream and beamed with delight.