ve so hated life, that I have wondered
whether we were not all to die at once. I remember one day, for
instance, when I was with the regiment; the band was playing, and I had
such a fit of melancholy that I never even thought of going to the
promenade."

"How well I understand that! I recollect once," Natacha went on, "once
when I was a little girl, I was punished for having eaten some plums, I
think. I had not done it, and you were all dancing, and I was left
alone in the school-room. How I cried! cried because I was so sorry for
myself, and so vexed with you all for making me so unhappy."

"I remember; and I went to comfort you and did not know how; we were
funny children then; I had a toy with bells that jingled, and I made you
a present of it."

"Do you remember," said Natacha, "long before that, when we were no
bigger than my hand, my uncle called us into his room, where it was
quite dark, and suddenly we saw----"

"A negro!" interrupted Nicolas, smiling at her recollection. "To be
sure. I can see him now; and to this day I wonder whether it was a dream
or a reality, or mere fancy invented afterwards."

"He had white teeth and stared at us with his black eyes."

"Do you remember him, Sonia?"

"Yes, yes--but very dimly."

"But papa and mamma have always declared that no negro ever came to the
house. And the eggs; do you remember the eggs we used to roll up at
Easter; and one day how two little grinning old women came up through
the floor and began to spin round the table?"

"Of course. And how papa used to put on his fur coat and fire off his
gun from the balcony. And don t you remember----?" And so they went on
recalling, one after the other, not the bitter memories of old age, but
the bright pictures of early childhood, which float and fade on a
distant horizon of poetic vagueness, midway between reality and dreams.
Sonia remembered being frightened once at the sight of Nicolas in his
braided jacket, and her nurse promising her that she should some day
have a frock trimmed from top to bottom.

"And they told me you had been found in the garden under a cabbage,"
said Natacha. "I dared not say it was not true, but it puzzled me
tremendously."

A door opened, and a woman put in her head, exclaiming, "Mademoiselle,
mademoiselle, they have fetched the cock!"

"I do not want it now; send it away again, Polia." said Natacha.

Dimmler, who had meanwhile come into the room, went up to the harp,
which stood