se. I never go to see him.

During an epidemic of cholera Prokofy doctored some of the shopkeepers
with pepper cordial and pitch, and took money for doing so, and,
as I learned from the newspapers, was flogged for abusing the doctors
as he sat in his shop. His shop boy Nikolka died of cholera. Karpovna
is still alive and, as always, she loves and fears her Prokofy.
When she sees me, she always shakes her head mournfully, and says
with a sigh: "Your life is ruined."

On working days I am busy from morning till night. On holidays, in
fine weather, I take my tiny niece (my sister reckoned on a boy,
but the child is a girl) and walk in a leisurely way to the cemetery.
There I stand or sit down, and stay a long time gazing at the grave
that is so dear to me, and tell the child that her mother lies here.

Sometimes, by the graveside, I find Anyuta Blagovo. We greet each
other and stand in silence, or talk of Kleopatra, of her child, of
how sad life is in this world; then, going out of the cemetery we
walk along in silence and she slackens her pace on purpose to walk
beside me a little longer. The little girl, joyous and happy, pulls
at her hand, laughing and screwing up her eyes in the bright sunlight,
and we stand still and join in caressing the dear child.

When we reach the town Anyuta Blagovo, agitated and flushing crimson,
says good-bye to me and walks on alone, austere and respectable. . . .
And no one who met her could, looking at her, imagine that she
had just been walking beside me and even caressing the child.

AT A COUNTRY HOUSE

PAVEL ILYITCH RASHEVITCH walked up and down, stepping softly on the
floor covered with little Russian plaids, and casting a long shadow
on the wall and ceiling while his guest, Meier, the deputy examining
magistrate, sat on the sofa with one leg drawn up under him smoking
and listening. The clock already pointed to eleven, and there were
sounds of the table being laid in the room next to the study.

"Say what you like," Rashevitch was saying, "from the standpoint
of fraternity, equality, and the rest of it, Mitka, the swineherd,
is perhaps a man the same as Goethe and Frederick the Great; but
take your stand on a scientific basis, have the courage to look
facts in the face, and it will be obvious to you that blue blood
is not a mere prejudice, that it is not a feminine invention. Blue
blood, my dear fellow, has an historical justification, and to
refuse to recognize it is, to my