tory of my life, but I must confess that I
prepared a little story in anticipation of my turn."

Nastasia smiled amiably at him; but evidently her depression and
irritability were increasing with every moment. Totski was dreadfully
alarmed to hear her promise a revelation out of her own life.

"I, like everyone else," began the general, "have committed certain not
altogether graceful actions, so to speak, during the course of my life.
But the strangest thing of all in my case is, that I should consider the
little anecdote which I am now about to give you as a confession of
the worst of my 'bad actions.' It is thirty-five years since it all
happened, and yet I cannot to this very day recall the circumstances
without, as it were, a sudden pang at the heart.

"It was a silly affair--I was an ensign at the time. You know
ensigns--their blood is boiling water, their circumstances generally
penurious. Well, I had a servant Nikifor who used to do everything for
me in my quarters, economized and managed for me, and even laid hands on
anything he could find (belonging to other people), in order to augment
our household goods; but a faithful, honest fellow all the same.

"I was strict, but just by nature. At that time we were stationed in
a small town. I was quartered at an old widow's house, a lieutenant's
widow of eighty years of age. She lived in a wretched little wooden
house, and had not even a servant, so poor was she.

"Her relations had all died off--her husband was dead and buried forty
years since; and a niece, who had lived with her and bullied her up to
three years ago, was dead too; so that she was quite alone.

"Well, I was precious dull with her, especially as she was so childish
that there was nothing to be got out of her. Eventually, she stole a
fowl of mine; the business is a mystery to this day; but it could have
been no one but herself. I requested to be quartered somewhere else,
and was shifted to the other end of the town, to the house of a merchant
with a large family, and a long beard, as I remember him. Nikifor and I
were delighted to go; but the old lady was not pleased at our departure.

"Well, a day or two afterwards, when I returned from drill, Nikifor
says to me: 'We oughtn't to have left our tureen with the old lady, I've
nothing to serve the soup in.'

"I asked how it came about that the tureen had been left. Nikifor
explained that the old lady refused to give it up, because, she said,
we h