her things which she had given away so impulsively, and her feelings
were hurt. She remembered how three years ago a merchant had beaten
her for no sort of reason, and she wailed more loudly than ever.

VEROTCHKA

IVAN ALEXEYITCH OGNEV remembers how on that August evening he opened
the glass door with a rattle and went out on to the verandah. He
was wearing a light Inverness cape and a wide-brimmed straw hat,
the very one that was lying with his top-boots in the dust under
his bed. In one hand he had a big bundle of books and notebooks,
in the other a thick knotted stick.

Behind the door, holding the lamp to show the way, stood the master
of the house, Kuznetsov, a bald old man with a long grey beard, in
a snow-white pique jacket. The old man was smiling cordially and
nodding his head.

"Good-bye, old fellow!" said Ognev.

Kuznetsov put the lamp on a little table and went out to the verandah.
Two long narrow shadows moved down the steps towards the flower-beds,
swayed to and fro, and leaned their heads on the trunks of the
lime-trees.

"Good-bye and once more thank you, my dear fellow!" said Ivan
Alexeyitch. "Thank you for your welcome, for your kindness, for
your affection. . . . I shall never forget your hospitality as long
as I live. You are so good, and your daughter is so good, and
everyone here is so kind, so good-humoured and friendly . . . Such
a splendid set of people that I don't know how to say what I feel!"

From excess of feeling and under the influence of the home-made
wine he had just drunk, Ognev talked in a singing voice like a
divinity student, and was so touched that he expressed his feelings
not so much by words as by the blinking of his eyes and the twitching
of his shoulders. Kuznetsov, who had also drunk a good deal and was
touched, craned forward to the young man and kissed him.

"I've grown as fond of you as if I were your dog," Ognev went on.
"I've been turning up here almost every day; I've stayed the night
a dozen times. It's dreadful to think of all the home-made wine
I've drunk. And thank you most of all for your co-operation and
help. Without you I should have been busy here over my statistics
till October. I shall put in my preface: 'I think it my duty to
express my gratitude to the President of the District Zemstvo of
N----, Kuznetsov, for his kind co-operation.' There is a brilliant
future before statistics! My humble respects to Vera Gavrilovna,
and tell the doctors, both