end, Nikolay Stepanovitch," Katya interrupts me. "Let us
make a compact once for all; we will talk about actors, actresses, and
authors, but we will let art alone. You are a splendid and rare person,
but you don't know enough about art sincerely to think it sacred. You
have no instinct or feeling for art. You have been hard at work all your
life, and have not had time to acquire that feeling. Altogether... I
don't like talk about art," she goes on nervously. "I don't like it!
And, my goodness, how they have vulgarized it!"

"Who has vulgarized it?"

"They have vulgarized it by drunkenness, the newspapers by their
familiar attitude, clever people by philosophy."

"Philosophy has nothing to do with it."

"Yes, it has. If any one philosophizes about it, it shows he does not
understand it."

To avoid bitterness I hasten to change the subject, and then sit a
long time silent. Only when we are driving out of the wood and turning
towards Katya's villa I go back to my former question, and say:

"You have still not answered me, why you don't want to go on the stage."

"Nikolay Stepanovitch, this is cruel!" she cries, and suddenly flushes
all over. "You want me to tell you the truth aloud? Very well, if...
if you like it! I have no talent! No talent and... and a great deal of
vanity! So there!"

After making this confession she turns her face away from me, and to
hide the trembling of her hands tugs violently at the reins.

As we are driving towards her villa we see Mihail Fyodorovitch walking
near the gate, impatiently awaiting us.

"That Mihail Fyodorovitch again!" says Katya with vexation. "Do rid me
of him, please! I am sick and tired of him... bother him!"

Mihail Fyodorovitch ought to have gone abroad long ago, but he puts off
going from week to week. Of late there have been certain changes in
him. He looks, as it were, sunken, has taken to drinking until he is
tipsy, a thing which never used to happen to him, and his black eyebrows
are beginning to turn grey. When our chaise stops at the gate he does
not conceal his joy and his impatience. He fussily helps me and Katya
out, hurriedly asks questions, laughs, rubs his hands, and that gentle,
imploring, pure expression, which I used to notice only in his eyes, is
now suffused all over his face. He is glad and at the same time he is
ashamed of his gladness, ashamed of his habit of spending every evening
with Katya. And he thinks it necessary to explain his visit by