"You?" asked Mayakin, casting a brief glance at her; he then became
silent, thought awhile and said:

"That's all right. That's even better! Write to him. Ask him whether he
isn't married, how he lives, what he thinks. But then I'll tell you what
to write when the time has come."

"Do it at once, papa," said the girl.

"It is necessary to marry you off the sooner. I am keeping an eye on
a certain red-haired fellow. He doesn't seem to be stupid. He's been
polished abroad, by the way.

"Is it Smolin, papa?" asked Lubov, inquisitively and anxiously.

"And supposing it is he, what of it?" inquired Yakov Tarasovich in a
business-like tone.

"Nothing, I don't know him," replied Lubov, indefinitely.

"We'll make you acquainted. It's time, Lubov, it's time. Our hopes for
Foma are poor, although I do not give him up."

"I did not reckon on Foma--what is he to me?"

"That's wrong. If you had been cleverer perhaps he wouldn't have gone
astray! Whenever I used to see you together, I thought: 'My girl will
attract the fellow to herself! That will be a fine affair!' But I was
wrong. I thought that you would know what is to your advantage
without being told of it. That's the way, my girl!" said the father,
instructively.

She became thoughtful as she listened to his impressive speech. Robust
and strong, Lubov was thinking of marriage more and more frequently
of late, for she saw no other way out of her loneliness. The desire to
forsake her father and go away somewhere in order to study something,
to do something. This desire she had long since overcome, even as she
conquered in herself many another longing just as keen, but shallow
and indefinite. From the various books she had read a thick sediment
remained within her, and though it was something live it had the life
of a protoplasm. This sediment developed in the girl a feeling of
dis-satisfaction with her life, a yearning toward personal independence,
a longing to be freed from the heavy guardianship of her father, but she
had neither the power to realize these desires, nor the clear conception
of their realization. But nature had its influence on her, and at the
sight of young mothers with children in their arms Lubov often felt a
sad and mournful languor within her. At times stopping before the mirror
she sadly scrutinized in it her plump, fresh face with dark circles
around her eyes, and she felt sorry for herself. She felt that life was
going past her, forgetting h