oubles for it, then
drank some tea and gave another hundred--all this without saying
a word, as he was short of breath through asthma. . . . Anna invited
purchasers and got money out of them, firmly convinced by now that
her smiles and glances could not fail to afford these people great
pleasure. She realized now that she was created exclusively for
this noisy, brilliant, laughing life, with its music, its dancers,
its adorers, and her old terror of a force that was sweeping down
upon her and menacing to crush her seemed to her ridiculous: she
was afraid of no one now, and only regretted that her mother could
not be there to rejoice at her success.

Pyotr Leontyitch, pale by now but still steady on his legs, came
up to the stall and asked for a glass of brandy. Anna turned crimson,
expecting him to say something inappropriate (she was already ashamed
of having such a poor and ordinary father); but he emptied his
glass, took ten roubles out of his roll of notes, flung it down,
and walked away with dignity without uttering a word. A little later
she saw him dancing in the grand chain, and by now he was staggering
and kept shouting something, to the great confusion of his partner;
and Anna remembered how at the ball three years before he had
staggered and shouted in the same way, and it had ended in the
police-sergeant's taking him home to bed, and next day the director
had threatened to dismiss him from his post. How inappropriate that
memory was!

When the samovars were put out in the stalls and the exhausted
ladies handed over their takings to the middle-aged lady with the
stone in her mouth, Artynov took Anna on his arm to the hall where
supper was served to all who had assisted at the bazaar. There were
some twenty people at supper, not more, but it was very noisy. His
Excellency proposed a toast:

"In this magnificent dining-room it will be appropriate to drink
to the success of the cheap dining-rooms, which are the object of
today's bazaar."

The brigadier-general proposed the toast: "To the power by which
even the artillery is vanquished," and all the company clinked
glasses with the ladies. It was very, very gay.

When Anna was escorted home it was daylight and the cooks were going
to market. Joyful, intoxicated, full of new sensations, exhausted,
she undressed, dropped into bed, and at once fell asleep. . . .

It was past one in the afternoon when the servant waked her and
announced that M. Artynov had c