!" Yakov called him. "The lady
is very ill downstairs; Anna Iurievna, the general's daughter! I was
out to order the flowers; I come back, and see the lady lying in a
faint in the entrance. She had just arrived, and asked; and they
answered her that he was dead, without the slightest preparation! And
she could not bear it, and fainted."

Yakov said all this as they went.

"Actress!" angrily thought Olga Vseslavovna. And immediately she added
mentally, "Well, she may stand on her head now, it is all the same to
me!"

IV

Whether it was all the same to her or not, the deep despair of the
daughter, who had not been in time to bid her father farewell, had not
been in time to receive his blessing, after many years of anger, which
had borne heavily on the head of the blameless young woman, was so
evidently sincere, and produced such a deep impression on everyone,
that her stepmother also was moved.

Anna Iurievna resembled her father, as much as a young, graceful,
pretty woman can resemble an elderly man with strongly-marked features
and athletic frame, such as was General Nazimoff. But in spite of the
delicacy of her form, and the gentleness of her eyes, her glance
sometimes flashed fire in a manner very like the flashing eyes of her
father, and in her strong will, firm character, and inflexible
adherence to what she believed to be necessary and right, Anna was
exactly like her father.

For nearly ten years his daughter had obediently borne his anger; from
the day of her marriage to the man she loved, whom evil-minded people
had succeeded in calumniating in the general's mind. Though writing
incessantly to him, begging him to pardon her, to understand that he
had made a mistake, that her husband was a man of honor, and that she
would be fully and perfectly happy, but for the burden of her father's
wrath, and of the separation from him, she had never until the last
few weeks received a reply from him. But quite recently something
mysterious had happened. Not only had her father written to her that
he wished to see her and her children in St. Petersburg, whither he
was just setting out, but a few days later he had written again, a
long, tender letter, in which he had asked her forgiveness. Without
giving any explanations, he said that he had received indubitable
proofs of the innocence and chivalrous honor of her husband; that he
felt himself deeply guilty toward him, and was miserable on account of
the injustice he