eu!"

He touched his cap again and walked off, making his way between the
bushes. After a short interval Atchmianov approached hesitatingly.

"What a fine evening!" he said with a slight Armenian accent.

He was nice-looking, fashionably dressed, and behaved unaffectedly
like a well-bred youth, but Nadyezhda Fyodorovna did not like him
because she owed his father three hundred roubles; it was displeasing
to her, too, that a shopkeeper had been asked to the picnic, and
she was vexed at his coming up to her that evening when her heart
felt so pure.

"The picnic is a success altogether," he said, after a pause.

"Yes," she agreed, and as though suddenly remembering her debt, she
said carelessly: "Oh, tell them in your shop that Ivan Andreitch
will come round in a day or two and will pay three hundred roubles
. . . . I don't remember exactly what it is."

"I would give another three hundred if you would not mention that
debt every day. Why be prosaic?"

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna laughed; the amusing idea occurred to her that
if she had been willing and sufficiently immoral she might in one
minute be free from her debt. If she, for instance, were to turn
the head of this handsome young fool! How amusing, absurd, wild it
would be really! And she suddenly felt a longing to make him love
her, to plunder him, throw him over, and then to see what would
come of it.

"Allow me to give you one piece of advice," Atchmianov said timidly.
"I beg you to beware of Kirilin. He says horrible things about you
everywhere."

"It doesn't interest me to know what every fool says of me," Nadyezhda
Fyodorovna said coldly, and the amusing thought of playing with
handsome young Atchmianov suddenly lost its charm.

"We must go down," she said; "they're calling us."

The fish soup was ready by now. They were ladling it out by platefuls,
and eating it with the religious solemnity with which this is only
done at a picnic; and every one thought the fish soup very good,
and thought that at home they had never eaten anything so nice. As
is always the case at picnics, in the mass of dinner napkins,
parcels, useless greasy papers fluttering in the wind, no one knew
where was his glass or where his bread. They poured the wine on the
carpet and on their own knees, spilt the salt, while it was dark
all round them and the fire burnt more dimly, and every one was too
lazy to get up and put wood on. They all drank wine, and even gave
Kostya and Katya ha