alled. She dressed quickly and went
down into the drawing-room. Soon after Artynov, His Excellency
called to thank her for her assistance in the bazaar. With a sugary
smile, chewing his lips, he kissed her hand, and asking her permission
to come again, took his leave, while she remained standing in the
middle of the drawing-room, amazed, enchanted, unable to believe
that this change in her life, this marvellous change, had taken
place so quickly; and at that moment Modest Alexeitch walked in
. . . and he, too, stood before her now with the same ingratiating,
sugary, cringingly respectful expression which she was accustomed
to see on his face in the presence of the great and powerful; and
with rapture, with indignation, with contempt, convinced that no
harm would come to her from it, she said, articulating distinctly
each word:

"Be off, you blockhead!"

From this time forward Anna never had one day free, as she was
always taking part in picnics, expeditions, performances. She
returned home every day after midnight, and went to bed on the floor
in the drawing-room, and afterwards used to tell every one, touchingly,
how she slept under flowers. She needed a very great deal of money,
but she was no longer afraid of Modest Alexeitch, and spent his
money as though it were her own; and she did not ask, did not demand
it, simply sent him in the bills. "Give bearer two hundred roubles,"
or "Pay one hundred roubles at once."

At Easter Modest Alexeitch received the Anna of the second grade.
When he went to offer his thanks, His Excellency put aside the paper
he was reading and settled himself more comfortably in his chair.

"So now you have three Annas," he said, scrutinizing his white hands
and pink nails--"one on your buttonhole and two on your neck."

Modest Alexeitch put two fingers to his lips as a precaution against
laughing too loud and said:

"Now I have only to look forward to the arrival of a little Vladimir.
I make bold to beg your Excellency to stand godfather."

He was alluding to Vladimir of the fourth grade, and was already
imagining how he would tell everywhere the story of this pun, so
happy in its readiness and audacity, and he wanted to say something
equally happy, but His Excellency was buried again in his newspaper,
and merely gave him a nod.

And Anna went on driving about with three horses, going out hunting
with Artynov, playing in one-act dramas, going out to supper, and
was more and more rare