But I must make some answer, and I say: 

“You have too much free time, my dear; you absolutely must take up some occupation.  After all, why shouldn’t you be an actress again if it is your vocation?”

“I cannot!”

“Your tone and manner suggest that you are a victim.  I don’t like that, my dear; it is your own fault.  Remember, you began with falling out with people and methods, but you have done nothing to make either better.  You did not struggle with evil, but were cast down by it, and you are not the victim of the struggle, but of your own impotence.  Well, of course you were young and inexperienced then; now it may all be different.  Yes, really, go on the stage.  You will work, you will serve a sacred art.”

“Don’t pretend, Nikolay Stepanovitch,” Katya interrupts me.  “Let us make a compact once for all; we will talk about actors, actresses, and authors, but we will let art alone.  You are a splendid and rare person, but you don’t know enough about art sincerely to think it sacred.  You have no instinct or feeling for art.  You have been hard at work all your life, and have not had time to acquire that feeling.  Altogether...  I don’t like talk about art,” she goes on nervously.  “I don’t like it!  And, my goodness, how they have vulgarized it!”

“Who has vulgarized it?”

“They have vulgarized it by drunkenness, the newspapers by their familiar attitude, clever people by philosophy.”

“Philosophy has nothing to do with it.”

“Yes, it has.  If any one philosophizes about it, it shows he does not understand it.”

To avoid bitterness I hasten to change the subject, and then sit a long time silent.  Only when we are driving out of the wood and turning towards Katya’s villa I go back to my former question, and say: 

“You have still not answered me, why you don’t want to go on the stage.”

“Nikolay Stepanovitch, this is cruel!” she cries, and suddenly flushes all over.  “You want me to tell you the truth aloud?  Very well, if... if you like it!  I have no talent!  No talent and... and a great deal of vanity!  So there!”

After making this confession she turns her face away from me, and to hide the trembling of her hands tugs violently at the reins.

As we are driving towards her villa we see Mihail Fyodorovitch walking near the gate, impatiently awaiting us.

“That Mihail Fyodorovitch again!” says Katya with vexation.  “Do rid me of him, please!  I am sick and tired of him... bother him!”

Mihail Fyodorovitch ought to have gone abroad long ago, but he puts off going from week to week.  Of late there have been certain changes in him.  He looks, as it were, sunken, has taken to drinking until he is tipsy, a thing which never used to happen to him, and his black eyebrows are beginning to turn grey.  When our chaise stops at the gate he does not conceal his joy and his impatience.  He fussily