ou!"

We talked a little longer and I gave in. I said that the thought of
working on the railway had never come into my head, and that I was ready
to try.

She smiled happily through her tears and clasped my hand, and still she
cried, because she could not stop, and I went into the kitchen for
paraffin.

II

Among the supporters of amateur theatricals, charity concerts, and
_tableaux vivants_ the leaders were the Azhoguins, who lived in their
own house in Great Gentry house the Street. They used to lend their
house and assume the necessary trouble and expense. They were a rich
landowning family, and had about three thousand _urskins_, with a
magnificent farm in the neighbourhood, but they did not care for village
life and lived in the town summer and winter. The family consisted of a
mother, a tall, spare, delicate lady, who had short hair, wore a blouse
and a plain skirt a l'Anglais, and three daughters, who were spoken of,
not by their names, but as the eldest, the middle, and the youngest;
they all had ugly, sharp chins, and they were short-sighted,
high-shouldered, dressed in the same style as their mother, had an
unpleasant lisp, and yet they always took part in every play and were
always doing something for charity--acting, reciting, singing. They were
very serious and never smiled, and even in burlesque operettas they
acted without gaiety and with a businesslike air, as though they were
engaged in bookkeeping.

I loved our plays, especially the rehearsals, which were frequent,
rather absurd, and noisy, and we were always given supper after them. I
had no part in the selection of the pieces and the casting of the
characters. I had to look after the stage. I used to design the scenery
and copy out the parts, and prompt and make up. And I also had to look
after the various effects such as thunder, the singing of a nightingale,
and so on. Having no social position, I had no decent clothes, and
during rehearsals had to hold aloof from the others in the darkened
wings and shyly say nothing.

I used to paint the scenery in the Azhoguins' coach-house or yard. I was
assisted by a house-painter, or, as he called himself, a decorating
contractor, named Andrey Ivanov, a man of about fifty, tall and very
thin and pale, with a narrow chest, hollow temples, and dark rings under
his eyes, he was rather awful to look at. He had some kind of wasting
disease, and every spring and autumn he was said to be on the point of