that girl, that delicate soul,
would not have run away from us, would not have slipped off like a fish
to the water! What's the meaning of it, Uvar Ivanovitch? When will our
time come? When will men be born among us?'

'Give us time,' answered Uvar Ivanovitch; 'they will be----'

'They will be? soil of our country! force of the black earth! thou hast
said: they will be. Look, I will write down your words. But why are you
putting out the candle?'

'I'm going to sleep; good-bye.'

XXXI

Shubin had spoken truly. The unexpected news of Elena's marriage nearly
killed Anna Vassilyevna. She took to her bed. Nikolai Artemyevitch
insisted on her not admitting her daughter to her presence; he seemed to
be enjoying the opportunity of showing himself in the fullest sense the
master of the house, with all the authority of the head of the family;
he made an incessant uproar in the household, storming at the servants,
and constantly saying: 'I will show you who I am, I will let you
know--you wait a little!' While he was in the house, Anna Vassilyevna
did not see Elena, and had to be content with Zoya, who waited on
her very devotedly, but kept thinking to herself: '_Diesen Insarof
vorziehen--und wem?_' But directly Nikolai Artemyevitch went out--and
that happened pretty often, Augustina Christianovna had come back in
sober earnest--Elena went to her mother, and a long time her mother
gazed at her in silence and in tears.

This dumb reproach, more deeply than any other, cut Elena to the heart;
at such moments she felt, not remorse, but a deep, boundless pity akin
to remorse.

'Mamma, dear mamma!' she would repeat, kissing her hands; 'what was I to
do? I'm not to blame, I loved him, I could not have acted differently.
Throw the blame on fate for throwing me with a man whom papa doesn't
like, and who is taking me away from you.'

'Ah!' Anna Vassilyevna cut her short, 'don't remind me of that. When I
think where you mean to go, my heart is ready to burst!'

'Dear mamma,' answered Elena, 'be comforted; at least, it might have
been worse; I might have died.'

'But, as it is, I don't expect to see you again. Either you will end
your days there in a tent somewhere'--Anna Vassilyevna pictured Bulgaria
as something after the nature of the Siberian swamps,--'or I shall not
survive the separation----'

'Don't say that, mamma dearest, we shall see each other again, please
God. There are towns in Bulgaria just as there are her