he wanted to go? Didn't he tell me I was
his wife before God? What am I here for?' She suddenly began to feel shy
of every one, even of Uvar Ivanovitch, who was flourishing his fingers
in more perplexity than ever. Now everything about her seemed neither
sweet nor friendly, nor even a dream, but, like a nightmare, lay,
an immovable dead load, on her heart; seeming to reproach her and be
indignant with her, and not to care to know about her....'You are ours
in spite of everything,' she seemed to hear. Even her poor pets, her
ill-used birds and animals looked at her--so at least she fancied--with
suspicion and hostility. She felt conscience-stricken and ashamed of
her feelings. 'This is my home after all,' she thought, 'my family, my
country.'... 'No, it's no longer your country, nor your family,' another
voice affirmed within her. Terror was overmastering her, and she was
vexed with her own feebleness. The trial was only beginning and she was
losing patience already... Was this what she had promised?

She did not soon gain control of herself. But a week passed and then
another.... Elena became a little calmer, and grew used to her new
position. She wrote two little notes to Insarov, and carried them
herself to the post: she could not for anything--through shame and
through pride--have brought herself to confide in a maid. She was
already beginning to expect him in person.... But instead of Insarov,
one fine morning Nikolai Artemyevitch made his appearance.

XXII

No one in the house of the retired lieutenant of guards, Stahov, had
ever seen him so sour, and at the same time so self-confident and
important as on that day. He walked into the drawing-room in his
overcoat and hat, with long deliberate stride, stamping with his heels;
he approached the looking-glass and took a long look at himself,
shaking his head and biting his lips with imperturbable severity. Anna
Vassilyevna met him with obvious agitation and secret delight (she never
met him otherwise); he did not even take off his hat, nor greet her, and
in silence gave Elena his doe-skin glove to kiss. Anna Vassilyevna began
questioning him about the progress of his cure; he made her no reply.
Uvar Ivanovitch made his appearance; he glanced at him and said, 'bah!'
He usually behaved coldly and haughtily to Uvar Ivanovitch, though
he acknowledged in him 'traces of the true Stahov blood.' Almost all
Russian families of the nobility are convinced, as is well k