fact," said Vlassitch, and he looked with wide-open
eyes at Pyotr Mihalitch. "Sometime in the forties this place was
let to a Frenchman called Olivier. The portrait of his daughter is
lying in an attic now--a very pretty girl. This Olivier, so my
father told me, despised Russians for their ignorance and treated
them with cruel derision. Thus, for instance, he insisted on the
priest walking without his hat for half a mile round his house, and
on the church bells being rung when the Olivier family drove through
the village. The serfs and altogether the humble of this world, of
course, he treated with even less ceremony. Once there came along
this road one of the simple-hearted sons of wandering Russia,
somewhat after the style of Gogol's divinity student, Homa Brut.
He asked for a night's lodging, pleased the bailiffs, and was given
a job at the office of the estate. There are many variations of the
story. Some say the divinity student stirred up the peasants, others
that Olivier' s daughter fell in love with him. I don't know which
is true, only one fine evening Olivier called him in here and
cross-examined him, then ordered him to be beaten. Do you know, he
sat here at this table drinking claret while the stable-boys beat
the man. He must have tried to wring something out of him. Towards
morning the divinity student died of the torture and his body was
hidden. They say it was thrown into Koltovitch's pond. There was
an inquiry, but the Frenchman paid some thousands to some one in
authority and went away to Alsace. His lease was up just then, and
so the matter ended."

"What scoundrels!" said Zina, shuddering.

"My father remembered Olivier and his daughter well. He used to say
she was remarkably beautiful and eccentric. I imagine the divinity
student had done both--stirred up the peasants and won the
daughter's heart. Perhaps he wasn't a divinity student at all, but
some one travelling incognito."

Zina grew thoughtful; the story of the divinity student and the
beautiful French girl had evidently carried her imagination far
away. It seemed to Pyotr Mihalitch that she had not changed in the
least during the last week, except that she was a little paler. She
looked calm and just as usual, as though she had come with her
brother to visit Vlassitch. But Pyotr Mihalitch felt that some
change had taken place in himself. Before, when she was living at
home, he could have spoken to her about anything, and now he did
not f