ere was so much
tender devotion, reverent obedience, and love in her pensive eyes. She
at once feared him, and yet she dared not cry, and inwardly she bade him
farewell, and admired him for the last time; and he lay there, stretched
out like a sultan, and endured her admiration with magnanimous patience
and condescension. I confess I was filled with indignation as I looked
at his red face, which betrayed satisfied selfishness through his
feigned contempt and indifference. Akulina was so beautiful at this
moment. All her soul opened before him trustingly and passionately;--it
reached out to him, caressed him, and he--He dropped the cornflowers on
the grass, took out from the side-pocket of his coat a round glass in a
bronze frame and began to force it into his eye; but no matter how hard
he tried to hold it with his knitted brow, his raised cheek, and even
with his nose, the glass dropped out and fell into his hands.

"What's this?" asked Akulina at last, with surprise.

"A lorgnette," he replied importantly.

"What is it for?"

"To see better."

"Let me see it."

Victor frowned, but gave her the glass.

"Look out; don't break it."

"Don't be afraid, I'll not break it." She lifted it timidly to her eye.

"I can't see anything," she said naively.

"Shut your eye," he retorted in the tone of a dissatisfied teacher. She
closed the eye before which she held the glass.

"Not that eye, not that one, you fool! The other one!" exclaimed Victor,
and, not allowing her to correct her mistake, he took the lorgnette away
from her.

Akulina blushed, laughed slightly, and turned away.

"It seems it's not for us."

"Of course not!"

The poor girl maintained silence, and heaved a deep sigh.

"Oh, Victor Alexandrich, how will I get along without you?" she said
suddenly.

Victor wiped the lorgnette and put it back into his pocket.

"Yes, yes," he said at last. "At first it will really be hard for you."
He tapped her on the shoulder condescendingly; she quietly took his hand
from her shoulder and kissed it. "Well, yes, yes, you are indeed a good
girl," he went on, with a self-satisfied smile; "but it can't be helped!
Consider it yourself! My master and I can't stay here, can we? Winter is
near, and to pass the winter in the country is simply nasty--you know
it yourself. It's a different thing in St. Petersburg! There are such
wonders over there that you could not imagine even in your dreams, you
silly--What houses, w