rong, confident, be not weary in well-doing! There is no happiness,
and there ought not to be; but if there is a meaning and an object
in life, that meaning and object is not our happiness, but something
greater and more rational. Do good!"

And all this Ivan Ivanovitch said with a pitiful, imploring smile, as
though he were asking him a personal favour.

Then all three sat in arm-chairs at different ends of the drawing-room
and were silent. Ivan Ivanovitch's story had not satisfied either Burkin
or Alehin. When the generals and ladies gazed down from their gilt
frames, looking in the dusk as though they were alive, it was dreary to
listen to the story of the poor clerk who ate gooseberries. They felt
inclined, for some reason, to talk about elegant people, about women.
And their sitting in the drawing-room where everything--the
chandeliers in their covers, the arm-chairs, and the carpet under their
feet--reminded them that those very people who were now looking down
from their frames had once moved about, sat, drunk tea in this room,
and the fact that lovely Pelagea was moving noiselessly about was better
than any story.

Alehin was fearfully sleepy; he had got up early, before three o'clock
in the morning, to look after his work, and now his eyes were closing;
but he was afraid his visitors might tell some interesting story after
he had gone, and he lingered on. He did not go into the question whether
what Ivan Ivanovitch had just said was right and true. His visitors did
not talk of groats, nor of hay, nor of tar, but of something that had no
direct bearing on his life, and he was glad and wanted them to go on.

"It's bed-time, though," said Burkin, getting up. "Allow me to wish you
good-night."

Alehin said good-night and went downstairs to his own domain, while the
visitors remained upstairs. They were both taken for the night to a big
room where there stood two old wooden beds decorated with carvings, and
in the corner was an ivory crucifix. The big cool beds, which had been
made by the lovely Pelagea, smelt agreeably of clean linen.

Ivan Ivanovitch undressed in silence and got into bed.

"Lord forgive us sinners!" he said, and put his head under the quilt.

His pipe lying on the table smelt strongly of stale tobacco, and
Burkin could not sleep for a long while, and kept wondering where the
oppressive smell came from.

The rain was pattering on the window-panes all night.

ABOUT LOVE

AT lunc