gan ringing for matins.

"Goodness," wailed Sasha. "He won't let me sleep with his talking!"

"Oh, yes!" said Liharev, startled. "I am sorry, darling, sleep,
sleep. . . . I have two boys besides her," he whispered. "They are
living with their uncle, Madam, but this one can't exist a day
without her father. She's wretched, she complains, but she sticks
to me like a fly to honey. I have been chattering too much, Madam,
and it would do you no harm to sleep. Wouldn't you like me to make
up a bed for you?"

Without waiting for permission he shook the wet pelisse, stretched
it on a bench, fur side upwards, collected various shawls and
scarves, put the overcoat folded up into a roll for a pillow, and
all this he did in silence with a look of devout reverence, as
though he were not handling a woman's rags, but the fragments of
holy vessels. There was something apologetic, embarrassed about his
whole figure, as though in the presence of a weak creature he felt
ashamed of his height and strength. . . .

When Mlle. Ilovaisky had lain down, he put out the candle and sat
down on a stool by the stove.

"So, Madam," he whispered, lighting a fat cigarette and puffing the
smoke into the stove. "Nature has put into the Russian an extraordinary
faculty for belief, a searching intelligence, and the gift of
speculation, but all that is reduced to ashes by irresponsibility,
laziness, and dreamy frivolity. . . . Yes. . . ."

She gazed wonderingly into the darkness, and saw only a spot of red
on the ikon and the flicker of the light of the stove on Liharev's
face. The darkness, the chime of the bells, the roar of the storm,
the lame boy, Sasha with her fretfulness, unhappy Liharev and his
sayings--all this was mingled together, and seemed to grow into
one huge impression, and God's world seemed to her fantastic, full
of marvels and magical forces. All that she had heard was ringing
in her ears, and human life presented itself to her as a beautiful
poetic fairy-tale without an end.

The immense impression grew and grew, clouded consciousness, and
turned into a sweet dream. She was asleep, though she saw the little
ikon lamp and a big nose with the light playing on it.

She heard the sound of weeping.

"Daddy, darling," a child's voice was tenderly entreating, "let's
go back to uncle! There is a Christmas-tree there! Styopa and Kolya
are there!"

"My darling, what can I do?" a man's bass persuaded softly. "Understand
me! Come, unde