Ivanovitch.

Shubin laughed and ran away. 'Hi,' shouted Uvar Ivanovitch a quarter of
an hour later, 'you there... a glass of spirits.'

A little page brought the glass of spirits and some salt fish on a tray.
Uvar Ivanovitch slowly took the glass from the tray and gazed a long
while with intense attention at it, as though he could not quite
understand what it was he had in his hand. Then he looked at the page
and asked him, 'Wasn't his name Vaska?' Then he assumed an air of
resignation, drank off the spirit, munched the herring and was slowly
proceeding to get his handkerchief out of his pocket. But the page had
long ago carried off and put away the tray and the decanter, eaten up
the remains of the herring and had time to go off to sleep, curled up in
a great-coat of his master's, while Uvar Ivanovitch still continued to
hold the handkerchief before him in his opened fingers, and with the
same intense attention gazed now at the window, now at the floor and
walls.

IX

Shubin went back to his room in the lodge and was just opening a book,
when Nikolai Artemyevitch's valet came cautiously into his room and
handed him a small triangular note, sealed with a thick heraldic crest.
'I hope,' he found in the note, 'that you as a man of honour will
not allow yourself to hint by so much as a single word at a certain
promissory note which was talked of this morning. You are acquainted
with my position and my rules, the insignificance of the sum in itself
and the other circumstances; there are, in fine, family secrets which
must be respected, and family tranquillity is something so sacred that
only _etres sans cour_ (among whom I have no reason to reckon you) would
repudiate it! Give this note back to me.--N. S.'

Shubin scribbled below in pencil: 'Don't excite yourself, I'm not quite
a sneak yet,' and gave the note back to the man, and again began
upon the book. But it soon slipped out of his hands. He looked at the
reddening-sky, at the two mighty young pines standing apart from the
other trees, thought 'by day pines are bluish, but how magnificently
green they are in the evening,' and went out into the garden, in the
secret hope of meeting Elena there. He was not mistaken. Before him on a
path between the bushes he caught a glimpse of her dress. He went after
her, and when he was abreast with her, remarked:

'Don't look in my direction, I'm not worth it.'

She gave him a cursory glance, smiled cursorily, and wa