which seemed very pleasant and mournful
in the distance. It was the evening service. In the dark windows
where the little lamps glowed gently, in the shadows, in the figure
of the old monk sitting at the church door with a collecting-box,
there was such unruffled peace that the princess felt moved to
tears.

Outside the gate, in the walk between the wall and the birch-trees
where there were benches, it was quite evening. The air grew rapidly
darker and darker. The princess went along the walk, sat on a seat,
and sank into thought.

She thought how good it would be to settle down for her whole life
in this monastery where life was as still and unruffled as a summer
evening; how good it would be to forget the ungrateful, dissipated
prince; to forget her immense estates, the creditors who worried
her every day, her misfortunes, her maid Dasha, who had looked at
her impertinently that morning. It would be nice to sit here on the
bench all her life and watch through the trunks of the birch-trees
the evening mist gathering in wreaths in the valley below; the rooks
flying home in a black cloud like a veil far, far away above the
forest; two novices, one astride a piebald horse, another on foot
driving out the horses for the night and rejoicing in their freedom,
playing pranks like little children; their youthful voices rang out
musically in the still air, and she could distinguish every word.
It is nice to sit and listen to the silence: at one moment the wind
blows and stirs the tops of the birch-trees, then a frog rustles
in last year's leaves, then the clock on the belfry strikes the
quarter. . . . One might sit without moving, listen and think, and
think. . . .

An old woman passed by with a wallet on her back. The princess
thought that it would be nice to stop the old woman and to say
something friendly and cordial to her, to help her. . . . But the
old woman turned the corner without once looking round.

Not long afterwards a tall man with a grey beard and a straw hat
came along the walk. When he came up to the princess, he took off
his hat and bowed. From the bald patch on his head and his sharp,
hooked nose the princess recognised him as the doctor, Mihail
Ivanovitch, who had been in her service at Dubovki. She remembered
that some one had told her that his wife had died the year before,
and she wanted to sympathise with him, to console him.

"Doctor, I expect you don't recognise me?" she said with an affable
sm