irst day a cosy nook by the sea, a snug
little garden with shade, with birds, with little brooks, where she
could grow flowers and vegetables, rear ducks and hens, entertain
her neighbours, doctor poor peasants and distribute little books
amongst them. It had turned out that the Caucasus was nothing but
bare mountains, forests, and huge valleys, where it took a long
time and a great deal of effort to find anything and settle down;
that there were no neighbours of any sort; that it was very hot and
one might be robbed. Laevsky had been in no hurry to obtain a piece
of land; she was glad of it, and they seemed to be in a tacit compact
never to allude to a life of hard work. He was silent about it, she
thought, because he was angry with her for being silent about it.

In the second place, she had without his knowledge during those two
years bought various trifles to the value of three hundred roubles
at Atchmianov's shop. She had bought the things by degrees, at one
time materials, at another time silk or a parasol, and the debt had
grown imperceptibly.

"I will tell him about it to-day . . .", she used to decide, but
at once reflected that in Laevsky's present mood it would hardly
be convenient to talk to him of debts.

Thirdly, she had on two occasions in Laevsky's absence received a
visit from Kirilin, the police captain: once in the morning when
Laevsky had gone to bathe, and another time at midnight when he was
playing cards. Remembering this, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna flushed
crimson, and looked round at the cook as though she might overhear
her thoughts. The long, insufferably hot, wearisome days, beautiful
languorous evenings and stifling nights, and the whole manner of
living, when from morning to night one is at a loss to fill up the
useless hours, and the persistent thought that she was the prettiest
young woman in the town, and that her youth was passing and being
wasted, and Laevsky himself, though honest and idealistic, always
the same, always lounging about in his slippers, biting his nails,
and wearying her with his caprices, led by degrees to her becoming
possessed by desire, and as though she were mad, she thought of
nothing else day and night. Breathing, looking, walking, she felt
nothing but desire. The sound of the sea told her she must love;
the darkness of evening--the same; the mountains--the same. . . .
And when Kirilin began paying her attentions, she had neither
the power nor the wish to resist, a