. And he was ashamed to let his wife see that he
was worried, and it vexed her.

"They say you have been in the province of Poltava?" Lubotchka
questioned him.

"Yes," answered Pyotr Dmitritch. "I came back the day before
yesterday."

"I expect it is very nice there."

"Yes, it is very nice, very nice indeed; in fact, I arrived just
in time for the haymaking, I must tell you, and in the Ukraine the
haymaking is the most poetical moment of the year. Here we have a
big house, a big garden, a lot of servants, and a lot going on, so
that you don't see the haymaking; here it all passes unnoticed.
There, at the farm, I have a meadow of forty-five acres as flat as
my hand. You can see the men mowing from any window you stand at.
They are mowing in the meadow, they are mowing in the garden. There
are no visitors, no fuss nor hurry either, so that you can't help
seeing, feeling, hearing nothing but the haymaking. There is a smell
of hay indoors and outdoors. There's the sound of the scythes from
sunrise to sunset. Altogether Little Russia is a charming country.
Would you believe it, when I was drinking water from the rustic
wells and filthy vodka in some Jew's tavern, when on quiet evenings
the strains of the Little Russian fiddle and the tambourines reached
me, I was tempted by a fascinating idea--to settle down on my
place and live there as long as I chose, far away from Circuit
Courts, intellectual conversations, philosophizing women, long
dinners. . . ."

Pyotr Dmitritch was not lying. He was unhappy and really longed to
rest. And he had visited his Poltava property simply to avoid seeing
his study, his servants, his acquaintances, and everything that
could remind him of his wounded vanity and his mistakes.

Lubotchka suddenly jumped up and waved her hands about in horror.

"Oh! A bee, a bee!" she shrieked. "It will sting!"

"Nonsense; it won't sting," said Pyotr Dmitritch. "What a coward
you are!"

"No, no, no," cried Lubotchka; and looking round at the bees, she
walked rapidly back.

Pyotr Dmitritch walked away after her, looking at her with a softened
and melancholy face. He was probably thinking, as he looked at her,
of his farm, of solitude, and--who knows?--perhaps he was even
thinking how snug and cosy life would be at the farm if his wife
had been this girl--young, pure, fresh, not corrupted by higher
education, not with child. . . .

When the sound of their footsteps had died away, Olga Mihalovna
ca