edily, and have already learnt all the theory to the tiniest
detail. My dream, my darling wish, is to go to our Dubetchnya as
soon as March is here. It's marvellous there, exquisite, isn't it?
The first year I shall have a look round and get into things, and
the year after I shall begin to work properly myself, putting my
back into it as they say. My father has promised to give me Dubetchnya
and I shall do exactly what I like with it."

Flushed, excited to tears, and laughing, she dreamed aloud how she
would live at Dubetchnya, and what an interesting life it would be!
I envied her. March was near, the days were growing longer and
longer, and on bright sunny days water dripped from the roofs at
midday, and there was a fragrance of spring; I, too, longed for the
country.

And when she said that she should move to Dubetchnya, I realized
vividly that I should remain in the town alone, and I felt that I
envied her with her cupboard of books and her agriculture. I knew
nothing of work on the land, and did not like it, and I should have
liked to have told her that work on the land was slavish toil, but
I remembered that something similar had been said more than once
by my father, and I held my tongue.

Lent began. Viktor Ivanitch, whose existence I had begun to forget,
arrived from Petersburg. He arrived unexpectedly, without even a
telegram to say he was coming. When I went in, as usual in the
evening, he was walking about the drawing-room, telling some story
with his face freshly washed and shaven, looking ten years younger:
his daughter was kneeling on the floor, taking out of his trunks
boxes, bottles, and books, and handing them to Pavel the footman.
I involuntarily drew back a step when I saw the engineer, but he
held out both hands to me and said, smiling, showing his strong
white teeth that looked like a sledge-driver's:

"Here he is, here he is! Very glad to see you, Mr. House-painter!
Masha has told me all about it; she has been singing your praises.
I quite understand and approve," he went on, taking my arm. "To be
a good workman is ever so much more honest and more sensible than
wasting government paper and wearing a cockade on your head. I
myself worked in Belgium with these very hands and then spent two
years as a mechanic. . . ."

He was wearing a short reefer jacket and indoor slippers; he walked
like a man with the gout, rolling slightly from side to side and
rubbing his hands. Humming something he sof