in with his fingers.

'Elena Nikolaevna,' he began at last, and his voice was much lower than
usual, which almost frightened Elena, 'I understand what man you are
referring to. No, I did not meet him, and thank God I did not! I did not
try to find him. I did not try to find him: not because I did not
think I had a right to kill him--I would kill him with a very easy
conscience--but because now is not the time for private revenge, when
we are concerned with the general national vengeance--or no, that is not
the right word--when we are concerned with the liberation of a people.
The one would be a hindrance to the other. In its own time that, too,
will come... that too will come,' he repeated, and he shook his head.

Elena looked at him from the side.

'You love your country very dearly?' she articulated timidly.

'That remains to be shown,' he answered. 'When one of us dies for her,
then one can say he loved his country.'

'So that, if you were cut off all chance of returning to Bulgaria,'
continued Elena, 'would you be very unhappy in Russia?'

Insarov looked down.

'I think I could not bear that,' he said.

'Tell me,' Elena began again, 'is it difficult to learn Bulgarian?'

'Not at all. It's a disgrace to a Russian not to know Bulgarian. A
Russian ought to know all the Slavonic dialects. Would you like me
to bring you some Bulgarian books? You will see how easy it is. What
ballads we have! equal to the Servian. But stop a minute, I will
translate to you one of them. It is about... But you know a little of
our history at least, don't you?'

'No, I know nothing of it,' answered

Elena.

'Wait a little and I will bring you a book. You will learn the principal
facts at least from it. Listen to the ballad then.... But I had better
bring you a written translation, though. I am sure you will love us, you
love all the oppressed. If you knew what a land of plenty ours is! And,
meanwhile, it has been downtrodden, it has been ravaged,' he went on,
with an involuntary movement of his arm, and his face darkened; 'we
have been robbed of everything; everything, our churches, our laws, our
lands; the unclean Turks drive us like cattle, butcher us----'

'Dmitri Nikanorovitch!' cried Elena.

He stopped.

'I beg your pardon. I can't speak of this coolly. But you asked me just
now whether I love my country. What else can one love on earth? What is
the one thing unchanging, what is above all doubts, what is it--next to
G