rolled up to the house of a landowner called Gryabov.
Fyodor Andreitch Otsov, the district Marshal of Nobility, jumped
out of the carriage. A drowsy footman met him in the hall.

"Are the family at home?" asked the Marshal.

"No, sir. The mistress and the children are gone out paying visits,
while the master and mademoiselle are catching fish. Fishing all
the morning, sir."

Otsov stood a little, thought a little, and then went to the river
to look for Gryabov. Going down to the river he found him a mile
and a half from the house. Looking down from the steep bank and
catching sight of Gryabov, Otsov gushed with laughter. . . . Gryabov,
a large stout man, with a very big head, was sitting on the sand,
angling, with his legs tucked under him like a Turk. His hat was
on the back of his head and his cravat had slipped on one side.
Beside him stood a tall thin Englishwoman, with prominent eyes like
a crab's, and a big bird-like nose more like a hook than a nose.
She was dressed in a white muslin gown through which her scraggy
yellow shoulders were very distinctly apparent. On her gold belt
hung a little gold watch. She too was angling. The stillness of the
grave reigned about them both. Both were motionless, as the river
upon which their floats were swimming.

"A desperate passion, but deadly dull!" laughed Otsov. "Good-day,
Ivan Kuzmitch."

"Ah . . . is that you ?" asked Gryabov, not taking his eyes off the
water. "Have you come?"

"As you see . . . . And you are still taken up with your crazy
nonsense! Not given it up yet?"

"The devil's in it. . . . I begin in the morning and fish all day
. . . . The fishing is not up to much to-day. I've caught nothing and
this dummy hasn't either. We sit on and on and not a devil of a
fish! I could scream!"

"Well, chuck it up then. Let's go and have some vodka!"

"Wait a little, maybe we shall catch something. Towards evening the
fish bite better . . . . I've been sitting here, my boy, ever since
the morning! I can't tell you how fearfully boring it is. It was
the devil drove me to take to this fishing! I know that it is rotten
idiocy for me to sit here. I sit here like some scoundrel, like a
convict, and I stare at the water like a fool. I ought to go to the
haymaking, but here I sit catching fish. Yesterday His Holiness
held a service at Haponyevo, but I didn't go. I spent the day here
with this . . . with this she-devil."

"But . . . have you taken leave of your senses