all the rooms, lay down for a while
on the sofa, and read in her study the letters that had come that
evening; there were twelve letters of Christmas greetings and three
anonymous letters. In one of them some workman complained in a
horrible, almost illegible handwriting that Lenten oil sold in the
factory shop was rancid and smelt of paraffin; in another, some one
respectfully informed her that over a purchase of iron Nazaritch
had lately taken a bribe of a thousand roubles from some one; in a
third she was abused for her inhumanity.

The excitement of Christmas was passing off, and to keep it up Anna
Akimovna sat down at the piano again and softly played one of the
new waltzes, then she remembered how cleverly and creditably she
had spoken at dinner today. She looked round at the dark windows,
at the walls with the pictures, at the faint light that came from
the big room, and all at once she began suddenly crying, and she
felt vexed that she was so lonely, and that she had no one to talk
to and consult. To cheer herself she tried to picture Pimenov in
her imagination, but it was unsuccessful.

It struck twelve. Mishenka, no longer wearing his swallow-tail but
in his reefer jacket, came in, and without speaking lighted two
candles; then he went out and returned a minute later with a cup
of tea on a tray.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked, noticing a smile on his face.

"I was downstairs and heard the jokes you were making about Pimenov
. . ." he said, and put his hand before his laughing mouth. "If he
were sat down to dinner today with Viktor Nikolaevitch and the
general, he'd have died of fright." Mishenka's shoulders were shaking
with laughter. "He doesn't know even how to hold his fork, I bet."

The footman's laughter and words, his reefer jacket and moustache,
gave Anna Akimovna a feeling of uncleanness. She shut her eyes to
avoid seeing him, and, against her own will, imagined Pimenov dining
with Lysevitch and Krylin, and his timid, unintellectual figure
seemed to her pitiful and helpless, and she felt repelled by it.
And only now, for the first time in the whole day, she realized
clearly that all she had said and thought about Pimenov and marrying
a workman was nonsense, folly, and wilfulness. To convince herself
of the opposite, to overcome her repulsion, she tried to recall
what she had said at dinner, but now she could not see anything in
it: shame at her own thoughts and actions, and the fear that