nd when I pass a church I remember my childhood, and am overcome
with horror. I was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight
years old. I worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health,
for I used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to
the high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after
dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went
on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know Yartsev, and
he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That Yartsev did a great
deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev, and he laughed with
pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit at once. He's a very
fine fellow! How touched he will be!"

VII

On a Saturday in November Anton Rubinstein was conducting in a
symphony concert. It was very hot and crowded. Laptev stood behind
the columns, while his wife and Kostya Kotchevoy were sitting in
the third or fourth row some distance in front. At the very beginning
of an interval a "certain person," Polina Nikolaevna Razsudin, quite
unexpectedly passed by him. He had often since his marriage thought
with trepidation of a possible meeting with her. When now she looked
at him openly and directly, he realised that he had all this time
shirked having things out with her, or writing her two or three
friendly lines, as though he had been hiding from her; he felt
ashamed and flushed crimson. She pressed his hand tightly and
impulsively and asked:

"Have you seen Yartsev?"

And without waiting for an answer she went striding on impetuously
as though some one were pushing her on from behind.

She was very thin and plain, with a long nose; her face always
looked tired, and exhausted, and it seemed as though it were an
effort to her to keep her eyes open, and not to fall down. She had
fine, dark eyes, and an intelligent, kind, sincere expression, but
her movements were awkward and abrupt. It was hard to talk to her,
because she could not talk or listen quietly. Loving her was not
easy. Sometimes when she was alone with Laptev she would go on
laughing for a long time, hiding her face in her hands, and would
declare that love was not the chief thing in life for her, and would
be as whimsical as a girl of seventeen; and before kissing her he
would have to put out all the candles. She was thirty. She was
married to a schoolmaster, but had not lived with her husband for
years. She earned her living by giving music lessons and pla