rtaking her peeped under her hat.

"Mashurina!" he exclaimed in an undertone.

The lady looked at him haughtily and walked on without saying a word.

"Dear Mashurina, I recognised you at once," Paklin continued, hobbling
along beside her; "don't be afraid, I won't give you away! I am so glad
to see you! I'm Paklin, Sila Paklin, you know, Nejdanov's friend. Do
come home with me. I live quite near here. Do come!"

"Io sono contessa Rocca di Santo Fiume!" the lady said softly, but in a
wonderfully pure Russian accent.

"Contessa! nonsense! Do come in and let us talk about old times--"

"Where do you live?" the Italian countess asked suddenly in Russian.
"I'm in a hurry."

"In this very street; in that grey three-storied house over there. It's
so nice of you not to have snubbed me! Give me your hand, come on. Have
you been here long? How do you come to be a countess? Have you married
an Italian count?"

Mashurina had not married an Italian count. She had been provided with
a passport made out in the name of a certain Countess Rocca di Santo
Fiume, who had died a short time ago, and had come quite calmly to
Russia, though she did not know a single word of Italian and had the
most typical of Russian faces.

Paklin brought her to his humble little lodging. His humpbacked sister
who shared it with him came out to greet them from behind the partition
dividing the kitchen from the passage.

"Here, Snapotchka," he said, "let me introduce you to a great friend of
mine. We should like some tea as soon as you can get it."

Mashurina, who would on no account have come had not Paklin mentioned
Nejdanov, bowed, then taking off her hat and passing her masculine hand
through her closely cropped hair, sat down in silence. She had scarcely
changed at all; even her dress was the same she had worn two years ago;
only her eyes wore a fixed, sad expression, giving a pathetic look to
her usually hard face. Snandulia went out for the samovar, while Paklin
sat down opposite Mashurina and stroked her knee sympathetically. His
head dropped on his breast, he could not speak from choking, and the
tears glistened in his eyes. Mashurina sat erect and motionless, gazing
severely to one side.

"Those were times!" Paklin began at last. "As I look at you everything
comes back to me, the living and the dead. Even my little poll-parrots
are no more...I don't think you knew them, by the way. They both died
on the same day, as I always predicted t