garden could still be seen with
its platform, little tables, and swings, and the crows' nests were
visible, looking like big hats. The party dismounted near a table
and asked for seltzer-water. People they knew, walking about the
garden, came up to them. Among them the army doctor in high boots,
and the conductor of the band, waiting for the musicians. The doctor
must have taken Nikitin for a student, for he asked: "Have you come
for the summer holidays?"

"No, I am here permanently," answered Nikitin. "I am a teacher at
the school."

"You don't say so?" said the doctor, with surprise. "So young and
already a teacher?"

"Young, indeed! My goodness, I'm twenty-six!

"You have a beard and moustache, but yet one would never guess you
were more than twenty-two or twenty-three. How young-looking you
are!"

"What a beast!" thought Nikitin. "He, too, takes me for a
whipper-snapper!"

He disliked it extremely when people referred to his youth, especially
in the presence of women or the schoolboys. Ever since he had come
to the town as a master in the school he had detested his own
youthful appearance. The schoolboys were not afraid of him, old
people called him "young man," ladies preferred dancing with him
to listening to his long arguments, and he would have given a great
deal to be ten years older.

From the garden they went on to the Shelestovs' farm. There they
stopped at the gate and asked the bailiff's wife, Praskovya, to
bring some new milk. Nobody drank the milk; they all looked at one
another, laughed, and galloped back. As they rode back the band was
playing in the suburban garden; the sun was setting behind the
cemetery, and half the sky was crimson from the sunset.

Masha again rode beside Nikitin. He wanted to tell her how passionately
he loved her, but he was afraid he would be overheard by the officers
and Varya, and he was silent. Masha was silent, too, and he felt
why she was silent and why she was riding beside him, and was so
happy that the earth, the sky, the lights of the town, the black
outline of the brewery--all blended for him into something very
pleasant and comforting, and it seemed to him as though Count Nulin
were stepping on air and would climb up into the crimson sky.

They arrived home. The samovar was already boiling on the table,
old Shelestov was sitting with his friends, officials in the Circuit
Court, and as usual he was criticizing something.

"It's loutishness!" he said. "L