had no money, her
wedding-dress had been bought on credit, and when her father and
brothers had been saying good-bye, she could see from their faces
that they had not a farthing. Would they have any supper that day?
And tomorrow? And for some reason it seemed to her that her father
and the boys were sitting tonight hungry without her, and feeling
the same misery as they had the day after their mother's funeral.

"Oh, how unhappy I am!" she thought. "Why am I so unhappy?"

With the awkwardness of a man with settled habits, unaccustomed to
deal with women, Modest Alexeitch touched her on the waist and
patted her on the shoulder, while she went on thinking about money,
about her mother and her mother's death. When her mother died, her
father, Pyotr Leontyitch, a teacher of drawing and writing in the
high school, had taken to drink, impoverishment had followed, the
boys had not had boots or goloshes, their father had been hauled
up before the magistrate, the warrant officer had come and made an
inventory of the furniture. . . . What a disgrace! Anna had had to
look after her drunken father, darn her brothers' stockings, go to
market, and when she was complimented on her youth, her beauty, and
her elegant manners, it seemed to her that every one was looking
at her cheap hat and the holes in her boots that were inked over.
And at night there had been tears and a haunting dread that her
father would soon, very soon, be dismissed from the school for his
weakness, and that he would not survive it, but would die, too,
like their mother. But ladies of their acquaintance had taken the
matter in hand and looked about for a good match for Anna. This
Modest Alexevitch, who was neither young nor good-looking but had
money, was soon found. He had a hundred thousand in the bank and
the family estate, which he had let on lease. He was a man of
principle and stood well with His Excellency; it would be nothing
to him, so they told Anna, to get a note from His Excellency to the
directors of the high school, or even to the Education Commissioner,
to prevent Pyotr Leontyitch from being dismissed.

While she was recalling these details, she suddenly heard strains
of music which floated in at the window, together with the sound
of voices. The train was stopping at a station. In the crowd beyond
the platform an accordion and a cheap squeaky fiddle were being
briskly played, and the sound of a military band came from beyond
the villas and the