And the whole world, the whole of life, seemed to Ryabovitch an
unintelligible, aimless jest. . . . And turning his eyes from the
water and looking at the sky, he remembered again how fate in the
person of an unknown woman had by chance caressed him, he remembered
his summer dreams and fancies, and his life struck him as extraordinarily
meagre, poverty-stricken, and colourless. . . .

When he went back to his hut he did not find one of his comrades.
The orderly informed him that they had all gone to "General von
Rabbek's, who had sent a messenger on horseback to invite them. . . ."

For an instant there was a flash of joy in Ryabovitch's heart, but
he quenched it at once, got into bed, and in his wrath with his
fate, as though to spite it, did not go to the General's.

'ANNA ON THE NECK'

I

AFTER the wedding they had not even light refreshments; the happy
pair simply drank a glass of champagne, changed into their travelling
things, and drove to the station. Instead of a gay wedding ball and
supper, instead of music and dancing, they went on a journey to
pray at a shrine a hundred and fifty miles away. Many people commended
this, saying that Modest Alexeitch was a man high up in the service
and no longer young, and that a noisy wedding might not have seemed
quite suitable; and music is apt to sound dreary when a government
official of fifty-two marries a girl who is only just eighteen.
People said, too, that Modest Alexeitch, being a man of principle,
had arranged this visit to the monastery expressly in order to make
his young bride realize that even in marriage he put religion and
morality above everything.

The happy pair were seen off at the station. The crowd of relations
and colleagues in the service stood, with glasses in their hands,
waiting for the train to start to shout "Hurrah!" and the bride's
father, Pyotr Leontyitch, wearing a top-hat and the uniform of a
teacher, already drunk and very pale, kept craning towards the
window, glass in hand and saying in an imploring voice:

"Anyuta! Anya, Anya! one word!"

Anna bent out of the window to him, and he whispered something to
her, enveloping her in a stale smell of alcohol, blew into her ear
--she could make out nothing--and made the sign of the cross
over her face, her bosom, and her hands; meanwhile he was breathing
in gasps and tears were shining in his eyes. And the schoolboys,
Anna's brothers, Petya and Andrusha, pulled at his coat from behin