ng them. The holiday mood was already growing tedious. As
before, Anna Akimovna felt that she was beautiful, good-natured,
and wonderful, but now it seemed to her that that was of no use to
any one; it seemed to her that she did not know for whom and for
what she had put on this expensive dress, too, and, as always
happened on all holidays, she began to be fretted by loneliness and
the persistent thought that her beauty, her health, and her wealth,
were a mere cheat, since she was not wanted, was of no use to any
one, and nobody loved her. She walked through all the rooms, humming
and looking out of window; stopping in the drawing-room, she could
not resist beginning to talk to Mishenka.

"I don't know what you think of yourself, Misha," she said, and
heaved a sigh. "Really, God might punish you for it."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Excuse my meddling in your affairs. But it
seems you are spoiling your own life out of obstinacy. You'll admit
that it is high time you got married, and she is an excellent and
deserving girl. You will never find any one better. She's a beauty,
clever, gentle, and devoted. . . . And her appearance! . . . If she
belonged to our circle or a higher one, people would be falling in
love with her for her red hair alone. See how beautifully her hair
goes with her complexion. Oh, goodness! You don't understand anything,
and don't know what you want," Anna Akimovna said bitterly, and
tears came into her eyes. "Poor girl, I am so sorry for her! I know
you want a wife with money, but I have told you already I will give
Masha a dowry."

Mishenka could not picture his future spouse in his imagination
except as a tall, plump, substantial, pious woman, stepping like a
peacock, and, for some reason, with a long shawl over her shoulders;
while Masha was thin, slender, tightly laced, and walked with little
steps, and, worst of all, she was too fascinating and at times
extremely attractive to Mishenka, and that, in his opinion, was
incongruous with matrimony and only in keeping with loose behaviour.
When Anna Akimovna had promised to give Masha a dowry, he had
hesitated for a time; but once a poor student in a brown overcoat
over his uniform, coming with a letter for Anna Akimovna, was
fascinated by Masha, and could not resist embracing her near the
hat-stand, and she had uttered a faint shriek; Mishenka, standing
on the stairs above, had seen this, and from that time had begun
to cherish