if not to-day, outraged and
destroyed by these modern Huns. . . ."

After supper they all went into the drawing-room. Genya and Iraida
lighted the candles on the piano, got out their music. . . . But
their father still went on talking, and there was no telling when
he would leave off. They looked with misery and vexation at their
egoist-father, to whom the pleasure of chattering and displaying
his intelligence was evidently more precious and important than his
daughters' happiness. Meier, the only young man who ever came to
their house, came--they knew--for the sake of their charming,
feminine society, but the irrepressible old man had taken possession
of him, and would not let him move a step away.

"Just as the knights of the west repelled the invasions of the
Mongols, so we, before it is too late, ought to unite and strike
together against our foe," Rashevitch went on in the tone of a
preacher, holding up his right hand. "May I appear to the riff-raff
not as Pavel Ilyitch, but as a mighty, menacing Richard Coeur-de-Lion.
Let us give up sloppy sentimentality; enough of it! Let us all make
a compact, that as soon as a plebeian comes near us we fling some
careless phrase straight in his ugly face: 'Paws off! Go back to
your kennel, you cur!' straight in his ugly face," Rashevitch went
on gleefully, flicking his crooked finger in front of him. "In his
ugly face!"

"I can't do that," Meier brought out, turning away.

"Why not?" Rashevitch answered briskly, anticipating a prolonged
and interesting argument. "Why not?"

"Because I am of the artisan class myself!"

As he said this Meier turned crimson, and his neck seemed to swell,
and tears actually gleamed in his eyes.

"My father was a simple workman," he said, in a rough, jerky voice,
"but I see no harm in that."

Rashevitch was fearfully confused. Dumbfoundered, as though he had
been caught in the act of a crime, he gazed helplessly at Meier,
and did not know what to say. Genya and Iraida flushed crimson, and
bent over their music; they were ashamed of their tactless father.
A minute passed in silence, and there was a feeling of unbearable
discomfort, when all at once with a sort of painful stiffness and
inappropriateness, there sounded in the air the words:

"Yes, I am of the artisan class, and I am proud of it!"

Thereupon Meier, stumbling awkwardly among the furniture, took his
leave, and walked rapidly into the hall, though his carriage was
not yet at