erto seen in her mother something special
and exceptional, how it was she had not noticed that she was a
simple, ordinary, unhappy woman.

And Sasha downstairs was not asleep, she could hear him coughing.
He is a queer, naive man, thought Nadya, and in all his dreams, in
all those marvellous gardens and wonderful fountains one felt there
was something absurd. But for some reason in his naivete, in this
very absurdity there was something so beautiful that as soon as she
thought of the possibility of going to the university, it sent a
cold thrill through her heart and her bosom and flooded them with
joy and rapture.

"But better not think, better not think . . ." she whispered. "I
must not think of it."

"Tick-tock," tapped the watchman somewhere far away. "Tick-tock
. . . tick-tock. . . ."

III

In the middle of June Sasha suddenly felt bored and made up his
mind to return to Moscow.

"I can't exist in this town," he said gloomily. "No water supply,
no drains! It disgusts me to eat at dinner; the filth in the kitchen
is incredible. . . ."

"Wait a little, prodigal son!" Granny tried to persuade him, speaking
for some reason in a whisper, "the wedding is to be on the seventh."

"I don't want to."

"You meant to stay with us until September!"

"But now, you see, I don't want to. I must get to work."

The summer was grey and cold, the trees were wet, everything in the
garden looked dejected and uninviting, it certainly did make one
long to get to work. The sound of unfamiliar women's voices was
heard downstairs and upstairs, there was the rattle of a sewing
machine in Granny's room, they were working hard at the trousseau.
Of fur coats alone, six were provided for Nadya, and the cheapest
of them, in Granny's words, had cost three hundred roubles! The
fuss irritated Sasha; he stayed in his own room and was cross, but
everyone persuaded him to remain, and he promised not to go before
the first of July.

Time passed quickly. On St. Peter's day Andrey Andreitch went with
Nadya after dinner to Moscow Street to look once more at the house
which had been taken and made ready for the young couple some time
before. It was a house of two storeys, but so far only the upper
floor had been furnished. There was in the hall a shining floor
painted and parqueted, there were Viennese chairs, a piano, a violin
stand; there was a smell of paint. On the wall hung a big oil
painting in a gold frame--a naked lady and beside her