tch, and he could
not go on: he drank off the wine; they, too, drank off their glasses.
'Now you should drink, gentlemen,' he added, turning to Shubin and
Bersenyev, but at that instant the driver started the horses. Nikolai
Artemyevitch ran beside the sledge. 'Mind and write to us,' he said in
a broken voice. Elena put out her head, saying: 'Good-bye, papa, Andrei
Petrovitch, Pavel Yakovlitch, good-bye all, good-bye, Russia!' and
dropped back in her place. The driver flourished his whip, and gave a
whistle; the sledge, its runners crunching on the snow, turned out of
the gates to the right and disappeared.

XXXIII

It was a bright April day. On the broad lagoon which separates Venice
from the narrow strip of accumulated sea sand, called the Lido, a
gondola was gliding--swaying rhythmically at every push made by the
gondolier as he leaned on the big pole. Under its low awning, on soft
leather cushions, were sitting Elena and Insarov.

Elena's features had not changed much since the day of her departure
from Moscow, but their expression was different; it was more thoughtful
and more severe, and her eyes had a bolder look. Her whole figure had
grown finer and more mature, and the hair seemed to lie in greater
thickness and luxuriance along her white brow and her fresh cheeks. Only
about her lips, when she was not smiling, a scarcely perceptible line
showed the presence of a hidden constant anxiety. In Insarov's face, on
the contrary, the expression had remained the same, but his features had
undergone a cruel change. He had grown thin, old, pale and bent; he was
constantly coughing a short dry cough, and his sunken eyes shone with
a strange brilliance. On the way from Russia, Insarov had lain ill for
almost two months at Vienna, and only at the end of March had he been
able to come with his wife to Venice; from there he was hoping to
make his way through Zara to Servia, to Bulgaria; the other roads were
closed. The war was now at its height about the Danube; England and
France had declared war on Russia, all the Slavonic countries were
roused and were preparing for an uprising.

The gondola put in to the inner shore of the Lido. Elena and Insarov
walked along the narrow sandy road planted with sickly trees (every year
they plant them and every year they die) to the outer shore of the Lido,
to the sea.

They walked along the beach. The Adriatic rolled its muddy-blue waves
before them; they raced into the shor