cat lay purring
beside her: "Mrr, mrr, mrr."

Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate.

Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing.
Half a minute later would come another knock.

"It must be a telegram from Harkov," she would think, beginning to
tremble from head to foot. "Sasha's mother is sending for him from
Harkov. . . . Oh, mercy on us!"

She was in despair. Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn
chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in
the world. But another minute would pass, voices would be heard:
it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the
club.

"Well, thank God!" she would think.

And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would
feel at ease. She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay
sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep:

"I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!"

ARIADNE

ON the deck of a steamer sailing from Odessa to Sevastopol, a rather
good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me
to smoke, and said:

"Notice those Germans sitting near the shelter? Whenever Germans
or Englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price
of wool, or their personal affairs. But for some reason or other
when we Russians get together we never discuss anything but women
and abstract subjects--but especially women."

This gentleman's face was familiar to me already. We had returned
from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at Volotchisk
when the luggage was being examined by the Customs, I saw him
standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect
mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies' clothes, and I
noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty
on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and
threatened to make a complaint. Afterwards, on the way to Odessa,
I saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies' compartment.

It was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had
retired to their cabins.

The gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and
continued:

"Yes, when Russians come together they discuss nothing but abstract
subjects and women. We are so intellectual, so solemn, that we utter
nothing but truths and can discuss only questions of a lofty order.
The Russian actor does not know how to be funny; he acts with
profundity