ad, looked at him with respect and envy,
and gave expression to some familiar fact, such as:

"Men cannot live without food."

After school Nikitin went straight to give his private lessons, and
when at last by six o'clock he got home, he felt excited and anxious,
as though he had been away for a year. He would run upstairs
breathless, find Masha, throw his arms round her, and kiss her and
swear that he loved her, that he could not live without her, declare
that he had missed her fearfully, and ask her in trepidation how
she was and why she looked so depressed. Then they would dine
together. After dinner he would lie on the sofa in his study and
smoke, while she sat beside him and talked in a low voice.

His happiest days now were Sundays and holidays, when he was at
home from morning till evening. On those days he took part in the
naive but extraordinarily pleasant life which reminded him of a
pastoral idyl. He was never weary of watching how his sensible and
practical Masha was arranging her nest, and anxious to show that
he was of some use in the house, he would do something useless--
for instance, bring the chaise out of the stable and look at it
from every side. Masha had installed a regular dairy with three
cows, and in her cellar she had many jugs of milk and pots of sour
cream, and she kept it all for butter. Sometimes, by way of a joke,
Nikitin would ask her for a glass of milk, and she would be quite
upset because it was against her rules; but he would laugh and throw
his arms round her, saying:

"There, there; I was joking, my darling! I was joking!"

Or he would laugh at her strictness when, finding in the cupboard
some stale bit of cheese or sausage as hard as a stone, she would
say seriously:

"They will eat that in the kitchen."

He would observe that such a scrap was only fit for a mousetrap,
and she would reply warmly that men knew nothing about housekeeping,
and that it was just the same to the servants if you were to send
down a hundredweight of savouries to the kitchen. He would agree,
and embrace her enthusiastically. Everything that was just in what
she said seemed to him extraordinary and amazing; and what did not
fit in with his convictions seemed to him naive and touching.

Sometimes he was in a philosophical mood, and he would begin to
discuss some abstract subject while she listened and looked at his
face with curiosity.

"I am immensely happy with you, my joy," he used to say, pla