row streak of
sunlight from a ray which came in at the window and dimly lighted
up the room. Flies were buzzing behind the black curtain at the
window. "It's early," thought the princess, and she closed her eyes.

Stretching and lying snug in her bed, she recalled her meeting
yesterday with the doctor and all the thoughts with which she had
gone to sleep the night before: she remembered she was unhappy.
Then she thought of her husband living in Petersburg, her stewards,
doctors, neighbours, the officials of her acquaintance . . . a long
procession of familiar masculine faces passed before her imagination.
She smiled and thought, if only these people could see into her
heart and understand her, they would all be at her feet.

At a quarter past eleven she called her maid.

"Help me to dress, Dasha," she said languidly. "But go first and
tell them to get out the horses. I must set off for Klavdia
Nikolaevna's."

Going out to get into the carriage, she blinked at the glaring
daylight and laughed with pleasure: it was a wonderfully fine day!
As she scanned from her half-closed eyes the monks who had gathered
round the steps to see her off, she nodded graciously and said:

"Good-bye, my friends! Till the day after tomorrow."

It was an agreeable surprise to her that the doctor was with the
monks by the steps. His face was pale and severe.

"Princess," he said with a guilty smile, taking off his hat, "I've
been waiting here a long time to see you. Forgive me, for God's
sake. . . . I was carried away yesterday by an evil, vindictive
feeling and I talked . . . nonsense. In short, I beg your pardon."

The princess smiled graciously, and held out her hand for him to
kiss. He kissed it, turning red.

Trying to look like a bird, the princess fluttered into the carriage
and nodded in all directions. There was a gay, warm, serene feeling
in her heart, and she felt herself that her smile was particularly
soft and friendly. As the carriage rolled towards the gates, and
afterwards along the dusty road past huts and gardens, past long
trains of waggons and strings of pilgrims on their way to the
monastery, she still screwed up her eyes and smiled softly. She was
thinking there was no higher bliss than to bring warmth, light, and
joy wherever one went, to forgive injuries, to smile graciously on
one's enemies. The peasants she passed bowed to her, the carriage
rustled softly, clouds of dust rose from under the wheels and floated