ants in livery. In that carriage sat a man
of thirty years, at sight of whom Kranitski pushed forward as if
to rush after him, as if to fly like the wind to him. This young
man was the son of Count Alfred, of him whom Kranitski had nursed
with endless devotion during illness under the sky of Italy. In
those days the young man was a child, and remembered little of
the hours in which Kranitski had occupied in his family the place
of the best of friends, and somewhat that of the most faithful of
servants. Afterward he forgot those hours completely, and put
away by degrees "that excellent Kranitski," who was growing old;
and though this Kranitski, on a time, had rendered some sort of
service to the young man's father, he had been rewarded richly by
resorting to the house for years, and, very likely, by loans of
money given frequently and with no thought of payment. Very
wealthy and a frequent traveller, Count Arthur's son had too many
affairs on his head, and too many in it to cherish any desire of
stuffing it further with old-fashioned trumpery. Kranitski soon
observed this frame of mind in the young son of his former friend
and protector, and he had long considered that house as lost and
its master as a stranger. This did not sadden him at first over
much, for he had a port, which he entered with, full sail at all
times. But now the passing sight of that young man struck his
heart with something which cut and burned at the same instant.
Services are forgotten, ties are broken, the past is rejected;
oh, the ingratitude of mankind! And still with what delight would
he have ridden through the streets of the city on such a spring
day in that carriage with rubber ties, bearing the persons within
it on yielding cushions, with the soft movement of a cradle. With
a still greater feeling of delight would he have conversed while
going with someone who possessed the same habits, tastes, and
relations which he had; with what vivid satisfaction would he
halt before one of the best restaurants of that city to have an
exquisite lunch, between walls decorated with taste, and amid
sounds of joyfulness. But all those things which on a time were
as cheap as good-morning, are now as remote and unattainable as
the blue sky above him.

In his closely drawn coat, and bent over so much that his
shoulders took the form of a half-circle; in his hat, from
beneath which black hair was visible and a row of furrows above
his dark brows, he gazed at