f the word, in the
sense in which it exists now--that evil will not exist then,
because every man will believe and every man will know what he is
living for and no one will seek moral support in the crowd. Dear
Nadya, darling girl, go away! Show them all that you are sick of
this stagnant, grey, sinful life. Prove it to yourself at least!"

"I can't, Sasha, I'm going to be married."

"Oh nonsense! What's it for!"

They went out into the garden and walked up and down a little.

"And however that may be, my dear girl, you must think, you must
realize how unclean, how immoral this idle life of yours is," Sasha
went on. "Do understand that if, for instance, you and your mother
and your grandmother do nothing, it means that someone else is
working for you, you are eating up someone else's life, and is that
clean, isn't it filthy?"

Nadya wanted to say "Yes, that is true"; she wanted to say that she
understood, but tears came into her eyes, her spirits drooped, and
shrinking into herself she went off to her room.

Towards evening Andrey Andreitch arrived and as usual played the
fiddle for a long time. He was not given to much talk as a rule,
and was fond of the fiddle, perhaps because one could be silent
while playing. At eleven o'clock when he was about to go home and
had put on his greatcoat, he embraced Nadya and began greedily
kissing her face, her shoulders, and her hands.

"My dear, my sweet, my charmer," he muttered. "Oh how happy I am!
I am beside myself with rapture!"

And it seemed to her as though she had heard that long, long ago,
or had read it somewhere . . . in some old tattered novel thrown
away long ago. In the dining-room Sasha was sitting at the table
drinking tea with the saucer poised on his five long fingers; Granny
was laying out patience; Nina Ivanovna was reading. The flame
crackled in the ikon lamp and everything, it seemed, was quiet and
going well. Nadya said good-night, went upstairs to her room, got
into bed and fell asleep at once. But just as on the night before,
almost before it was light, she woke up. She was not sleepy, there
was an uneasy, oppressive feeling in her heart. She sat up with her
head on her knees and thought of her fiance and her marriage. . . .
She for some reason remembered that her mother had not loved her
father and now had nothing and lived in complete dependence on her
mother-in-law, Granny. And however much Nadya pondered she could
not imagine why she had hith