,
clinked glasses with Stytchkin.

"Well," said the happy railway guard, "now allow me to explain to
you the behaviour and manner of life I desire from you. . . . I am
a strict, respectable, practical man. I take a gentlemanly view of
everything. And I desire that my wife should be strict also, and
should understand that to her I am a benefactor and the foremost
person in the world."

He sat down, and, heaving a deep sigh, began expounding to his
bride-elect his views on domestic life and a wife's duties.

THE LOOKING-GLASS

NEW YEAR'S EVE. Nellie, the daughter of a landowner and general, a
young and pretty girl, dreaming day and night of being married, was
sitting in her room, gazing with exhausted, half-closed eyes into
the looking-glass. She was pale, tense, and as motionless as the
looking-glass.

The non-existent but apparent vista of a long, narrow corridor with
endless rows of candles, the reflection of her face, her hands, of
the frame--all this was already clouded in mist and merged into
a boundless grey sea. The sea was undulating, gleaming and now and
then flaring crimson. . . .

Looking at Nellie's motionless eyes and parted lips, one could
hardly say whether she was asleep or awake, but nevertheless she
was seeing. At first she saw only the smile and soft, charming
expression of someone's eyes, then against the shifting grey
background there gradually appeared the outlines of a head, a face,
eyebrows, beard. It was he, the destined one, the object of long
dreams and hopes. The destined one was for Nellie everything, the
significance of life, personal happiness, career, fate. Outside
him, as on the grey background of the looking-glass, all was dark,
empty, meaningless. And so it was not strange that, seeing before
her a handsome, gently smiling face, she was conscious of bliss,
of an unutterably sweet dream that could not be expressed in speech
or on paper. Then she heard his voice, saw herself living under the
same roof with him, her life merged into his. Months and years flew
by against the grey background. And Nellie saw her future distinctly
in all its details.

Picture followed picture against the grey background. Now Nellie
saw herself one winter night knocking at the door of Stepan Lukitch,
the district doctor. The old dog hoarsely and lazily barked behind
the gate. The doctor's windows were in darkness. All was silence.

"For God's sake, for God's sake!" whispered Nellie.

But at last