od--one must believe in? And when that country needs. ... Think; the
poorest peasant, the poorest beggar in Bulgaria, and I have the same
desire. All of us have one aim. You can understand what strength, what
confidence that gives!'

Insarov was silent for an instant; then he began again to talk of
Bulgaria. Elena listened to him with absorbed, profound, and mournful
attention. When he had finished, she asked him once more:

'Then you would not stay in Russia for anything?'

And when he went away, for a long time she gazed after him. On that day
he had become a different man for her. When she walked back with him
through the garden, he was no longer the man she had met two hours
before.

From that day he began to come more and more often, and Bersenyev less
and less often. A strange feeling began to grow up between the two
friends, of which they were both conscious, but to which they could
not give a name, and which they feared to analyse. In this way a month
passed.

XV

Anna Vassilyevna, as the reader knows already, liked staying at home;
but at times she manifested, quite unexpectedly, an irresistible longing
for something out of the common, some extraordinary _partie du
plaisir_, and the more troublesome the _partie du plaisir_ was, the
more preparations and arrangements it required, and the greater Anna
Vassilyevna's own agitation over it, the more pleasure it gave her. If
this mood came upon her in winter, she would order two or three boxes
to be taken side by side, and, inviting all her acquaintances, would set
off to the theatre or even to a masquerade; in summer she would drive
for a trip out of town to some spot as far off as possible. The next day
she would complain of a headache, groan and keep her bed; but within two
months the same craving for something 'out of the common' would break
out in her again. That was just what happened now. Some one chanced
to refer to the beautiful scenery of Tsaritsino before her, and Anna
Vassilyevna suddenly announced an intention of driving to Tsaritsino the
day after tomorrow. The household was thrown into a state of bustle;
a messenger galloped off to Moscow for Nikolai Artemyevitch; with him
galloped the butler to buy wines, pies, and all sorts of provisions;
Shubin was commissioned to hire an open carriage--the coach alone was
not enough--and to order relays of horses to be ready; a page was
twice despatched to Bersenyev and Insarov with two different n