, and a cray-fish
was twisting about, clawing upwards with its pincers.

"Let them go," said Masha. "Let them be happy too."

Because we got up so early and afterwards did nothing, that day
seemed very long, the longest day in my life. Towards evening Stepan
came back and I went home.

"Your father came to-day," said Masha.

"Where is he?" I asked.

"He has gone away. I would not see him."

Seeing that I remained standing and silent, that I was sorry for
my father, she said:

"One must be consistent. I would not see him, and sent word to him
not to trouble to come and see us again."

A minute later I was out at the gate and walking to the town to
explain things to my father. It was muddy, slippery, cold. For the
first time since my marriage I felt suddenly sad, and in my brain
exhausted by that long, grey day, there was stirring the thought
that perhaps I was not living as I ought. I was worn out; little
by little I was overcome by despondency and indolence, I did not
want to move or think, and after going on a little I gave it up
with a wave of my hand and turned back.

The engineer in a leather overcoat with a hood was standing in the
middle of the yard.

"Where's the furniture? There used to be lovely furniture in the
Empire style: there used to be pictures, there used to be vases,
while now you could play ball in it! I bought the place with the
furniture. The devil take her!"

Moisey, a thin pock-marked fellow of twenty-five, with insolent
little eyes, who was in the service of the general's widow, stood
near him crumpling up his cap in his hands; one of his cheeks was
bigger than the other, as though he had lain too long on it.

"Your honour was graciously pleased to buy the place without the
furniture," he brought out irresolutely; "I remember."

"Hold your tongue!" shouted the engineer; he turned crimson and
shook with anger . . . and the echo in the garden loudly repeated
his shout.

XII

When I was doing anything in the garden or the yard, Moisey would
stand beside me, and folding his arms behind his back he would stand
lazily and impudently staring at me with his little eyes. And this
irritated me to such a degree that I threw up my work and went away.

From Stepan we heard that Moisey was Madame Tcheprakov's lover. I
noticed that when people came to her to borrow money they addressed
themselves first to Moisey, and once I saw a peasant, black from
head to foot--he must have been a coalh