wishing to challenge him,
but I am a ludicrous figure to challenge any one, as I very well know.
Semyonov had been to see me that morning, and he had just sat there
without saying anything. I couldn't endure that very long, so I asked
him what he came for and he said, 'Oh, nothing.' I felt as though he
were spying and I became uneasy. Why should he come so often now? And I
was beginning to think of him when he wasn't there. It was as though he
thought he had a right over all of us, and that irritated me.... Well,
that was Monday. They all came late in the afternoon and told me all the
news. They had been at the Astoria. The whole town seemed to be in
revolt, so they said.

"But even then I didn't realise it. I was thinking of Vera just the
same. I looked at her all the evening just as Semyonov had looked at me.
And didn't say anything.... I never wanted her so badly before. I made
her sleep with me all that night. She hadn't done that for a long time,
and I woke up early in the morning to hear her crying softly to herself.
She never used to cry. She was so proud. I put my arms round her, and
she stopped crying and lay quite still. It wasn't fair what I did, but I
felt as though Alexei Petrovitch had challenged me to do it. He always
hated Vera I knew. I got up very early and went to my wood. You can
imagine I wasn't very happy....

"Then suddenly I thought I'd go out into the streets, and see what was
happening. I couldn't believe really that there had been any change. So
I went out.

"Do you know of recent years I've walked out very seldom? What was it? A
kind of shyness. I knew when I was in my own house, and I knew whom I
was with. Then I was never a man who cared greatly about exercise, and
there was no one outside whom I wanted very much to see. So when I went
out that morning it was as though I didn't know Petrograd at all, and
had only just arrived there. I went over the Ekateringofsky Bridge,
through the Square, and to the left down the Sadovaya.

"Of course the first thing that I noticed was that there were no trams,
and that there were multitudes of people walking along and that they
were all poor people and all happy.' And I _was_ glad when I saw that.
Of course I'm a fool, and life can't be as I want it, but that's always
what I had thought life ought to be--all the streets filled with poor
people, all free and happy. And here they were!... with the snow crisp
under their feet, and the sun shining, and