at me with no trace of severity.
His face looked worn and wizened, and was all wrinkles; there were
bags under his eyes; his hair was dyed; and it was impossible to
tell from his appearance how old he was--forty or sixty.

"I trust," he went on, "that you appreciate the delicacy of our
honoured Alexandr Pavlovitch, who has addressed himself to me not
officially, but privately. I, too, have asked you to come here
unofficially, and I am speaking to you, not as a Governor, but from
a sincere regard for your father. And so I beg you either to alter
your line of conduct and return to duties in keeping with your rank,
or to avoid setting a bad example, remove to another district where
you are not known, and where you can follow any occupation you
please. In the other case, I shall be forced to take extreme
measures."

He stood for half a minute in silence, looking at me with his mouth
open.

"Are you a vegetarian?" he asked.

"No, your Excellency, I eat meat."

He sat down and drew some papers towards him. I bowed and went out.

It was not worth while now to go to work before dinner. I went home
to sleep, but could not sleep from an unpleasant, sickly feeling,
induced by the slaughter house and my conversation with the Governor,
and when the evening came I went, gloomy and out of sorts, to Mariya
Viktorovna. I told her how I had been at the Governor's, while she
stared at me in perplexity as though she did not believe it, then
suddenly began laughing gaily, loudly, irrepressibly, as only
good-natured laughter-loving people can.

"If only one could tell that in Petersburg!" she brought out, almost
falling over with laughter, and propping herself against the table.
"If one could tell that in Petersburg!"

IX

Now we used to see each other often, sometimes twice a day. She
used to come to the cemetery almost every day after dinner, and
read the epitaphs on the crosses and tombstones while she waited
for me. Sometimes she would come into the church, and, standing by
me, would look on while I worked. The stillness, the naive work of
the painters and gilders, Radish's sage reflections, and the fact
that I did not differ externally from the other workmen, and worked
just as they did in my waistcoat with no socks on, and that I was
addressed familiarly by them--all this was new to her and touched
her. One day a workman, who was painting a dove on the ceiling,
called out to me in her presence:

"Misail, hand me up the