mands of the body multiply, but we are still a long way from the
truth and man still remains the most rapacious and unseemly of animals,
and everything tends to make the majority of mankind degenerate and more
and more lacking in vitality. Under such conditions the life of an
artist has no meaning and the more talented he is, the more strange and
incomprehensible his position is, since it only amounts to his working
for the amusement of the predatory, disgusting animal, man, and
supporting the existing state of things. And I don't want to work and
will not.... Nothing is wanted, so let the world go to hell."

"Missyuss, go away," said Lyda to her sister, evidently thinking my
words dangerous to so young a girl.

Genya looked sadly at her sister and mother and went out.

"People generally talk like that," said Lyda, "when they want to excuse
their indifference. It is easier to deny hospitals and schools than to
come and teach."

"True, Lyda, true," her mother agreed.

"You say you will not work," Lyda went on. "Apparently you set a high
price on your work, but do stop arguing. We shall never agree, since I
value the most imperfect library or pharmacy, of which you spoke so
scornfully just now, more than all the landscapes in the world." And at
once she turned to her mother and began to talk in quite a different
tone: "The Prince has got very thin, and is much changed since the last
time he was here. The doctors are sending him to Vichy."

She talked to her mother about the Prince to avoid talking to me. Her
face was burning, and, in order to conceal her agitation, she bent over
the table as if she were short-sighted and made a show of reading the
newspaper. My presence was distasteful to her. I took my leave and went
home.

IV

All was quiet outside: the village on the other side of the pond was
already asleep, not a single light was to be seen, and on the pond
there was only the faint reflection of the stars. By the gate with the
stone lions stood Genya, waiting to accompany me.

"The village is asleep," I said, trying to see her face in the darkness,
and I could see her dark sad eyes fixed on me. "The innkeeper and the
horse-stealers are sleeping quietly, and decent people like ourselves
quarrel and irritate each other."

It was a melancholy August night--melancholy because it already smelled
of the autumn: the moon rose behind a purple cloud and hardly lighted
the road and the dark fields of winter corn