your sober features. Well, now, I suppose you
want to remind me of Annushka. What of it? I don't deny it. Annushkas
are on my poor level. And long life to all Annushkas and Zoyas and even
Augustina Christianovnas! You go to Elena now, and I will make my way
to--Annushka, you fancy? No, my dear fellow, worse than that; to Prince
Tchikurasov. He is a Maecenas of a Kazan-Tartar stock, after the style
of Volgin. Do you see this note of invitation, these letters, R.S.V.P.?
Even in the country there's no peace for me. Addio!' Bersenyev listened
to Shubin's tirade in silence, looking as though he were just a little
ashamed of him. Then he went into the courtyard of the Stahovs' house.
And Shubin did really go to Prince Tchikurasov, to whom with the most
cordial air he began saying the most insulting things. The Maecenas of
the Tartars of Kazan chuckled; the Maecenas's guests laughed, but no one
felt merry, and every one was in a bad temper when the party broke up.
So two gentlemen slightly acquainted may be seen when they meet on the
Nevsky Prospect suddenly grinning at one another and pursing up their
eyes and noses and cheeks, and then, directly they have passed one
another, they resume their former indifferent, often cross, and
generally sickly, expression.

X

Elena met Bersenyev cordially, though not in the garden, but the
drawing-room, and at once, almost impatiently, renewed the conversation
of the previous day. She was alone; Nikolai Artemyevitch had quietly
slipped away. Anna Vassilyevna was lying down upstairs with a wet
bandage on her head. Zoya was sitting by her, the folds of her skirt
arranged precisely about her, and her little hands clasped on her knees.
Uvar Ivanovitch was reposing in the attic on a wide and comfortable
divan, known as a 'samo-son' or 'dozer.' Bersenyev again mentioned his
father; he held his memory sacred. Let us, too, say a few words about
him.

The owner of eighty-two serfs, whom he set free before his death, an
old Gottingen student, and disciple of the 'Illuminati,' the author of
a manuscript work on 'transformations or typifications of the spirit in
the world'--a work in which Schelling's philosophy, Swedenborgianism
and republicanism were mingled in the most original fashion--Bersenyev's
father brought him, while still a boy, to Moscow immediately after his
mother's death, and at once himself undertook his education. He
prepared himself for each lesson, exerted himself with