He, he, he! it was Silla who had thought of that!  He would tell her he had seen that at once as soon as she told him.

He shook his head; for a moment he felt immensely re-assured, and relapsed into the bitter thoughts about his mother.

But—­it would not be so out of the way if he went and looked for them; they might have taken it into their heads to stand outside and listen to the music.

The kettle-drums at the place of amusement were rattling out delight far into the air.  From the menagerie close by brayed a shrieking trumpet, and the street outside was black with people.

It is not easy to say why it should have been so, but uneasiness again took possession of him.

In the illuminated entrance the strings and lines of lamps shone with an uncertain light in the raw gusty evening air; whole and half lines grew dim and almost went out, and then flared up again with a glare over the snow and the inpouring streams of people.

He could only advance at a foot’s pace here; but while he slowly worked his way in, he looked all round.  He only needed to see the outline of the figure he was looking for.

She was not among the people standing outside.

It was almost tiresome, now he had made up his mind he should see her.

He began to think of going to the booths to look for her there, and his glance wandered indifferently over the people.

She?—­that rosy, laughing girl in there in the garden, with the round hat and the bit of boa round her neck over her jacket, was no other than Gunda!

He held his breath, as if he expected the next moment to see others in the crowd there among the lamps.

“Have you a ticket?  Garden or ball?” he was asked at the entrance.

Nikolai would like to have taken tickets for the whole thing; but the pence he had about him were only enough for the garden.

The row of lamps lighted up the snowy road to a crowded restaurant, from the first floor windows of which came the shrieks of a woman’s soprano, followed every now and then by a storm of applause.  Farther on, a roundabout, crammed with people, was going round under an illuminated roof to the accompaniment of shrill music.

On both sides was a moving and, as regards the male portion, very miscellaneous and mixed crowd of fair-frequenters.

He searched the garden through, but in the darker paths outside the principal one, only a few loitering, shivering figures were to be seen, who seemed hovering like longing moths about the light.

It was down in that building, from which came sounds of music, the one to which all the people streamed and stood in a dense crowd outside, that the ball was going on.

All the blood in him seemed suddenly to stand still, and he approached slowly and hesitatingly, his face grey with apprehension.

He stood outside for a long time, gazing in at the large, lighted windows.  Dark shadows passed behind the blinds, an unceasing variety of heads and shoulders.