mighty lake, whose waters, dammed back for a
while, are rising slowly, but are still some way from the brim. How long
will it take to the overflow? Nobody knows; but when the long winter
of Russia's dark internal policy shall be broken up, will the snows,
melting on the mountains, stream south-west, inundating the Valley of
the Danube? Or, as the national poet, Pushkin, has sung, will there be
a pouring of many Slavonian rivulets into the Russian sea, a powerful
attraction of the Slav races towards a common centre to create an era of
peace and development within, whereby Russia may rise free and rejoicing
to face her great destinies? Hard and bitter is the shaping of nations.
Uvar Ivanovitch still fixes his enigmatical stare into the far distance.

EDWARD GARNETT

January 1895.

THE NAMES OF THE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK

NIKOLA'I [Nicolas] ARTE'MYEVITCH STA'HOV.

A'NNA VASSI'LYEVNA.

ELE'NA [LE'NOTCHKA, Helene] NIKOLA'EVNA.

ZO'YA [Zoe] NIKI'TISHNA MU'LLER.

ANDRE'I PETRO'VITCH BERSE'NYEV.

PA'VEL [Paul] YA'KOVLITCH (or YA'KOVITCH) SHU'BIN.

DMI'TRI NIKANO'ROVITCH (or NIKANO'RITCH) INSA'ROV.

YEGO'R ANDRE'ITCH KURNATO'VSKY.

UVA'R IVA'NOVITCH STA'HOV.

AUGUSTI'NA CHRISTIA'NOVNA.

A'NNUSHKA.

In transcribing the Russian names into English--

a has the sound of a in father. e,,.............a in pane.
i,,.............ee. u,,............. oo. y is always consonantal except
when it is the last letter of the word.
g is always hard.

I

On one of the hottest days of the summer of 1853, in the shade of a tall
lime-tree on the bank of the river Moskva, not far from Kuntsovo, two
young men were lying on the grass. One, who looked about twenty-three,
tall and swarthy, with a sharp and rather crooked nose, a high forehead,
and a restrained smile on his wide mouth, was lying on his back and
gazing meditatively into the distance, his small grey eyes half closed.
The other was lying on his chest, his curly, fair head propped on his
two hands; he, too, was looking away into the distance. He was three
years older than his companion, but seemed much younger. His moustache
was only just growing, and his chin was covered with a light curly down.
There was something childishly pretty, something attractively delicate,
in the small features of his fresh round face, in his soft brown eyes,
lovely pouting lips, and little white hands. Everything about him
was suggestive of the happy light-heartedness