. . . do you understand? I beg you! Why this squeamishness,
I can't understand . . . especially when a man . . . is ill . . .
How absurdly _zierlich manierlich_ you are really . . . at your
age. . . ."

"I to your wife shall tell. . . . Will not leave an honest maiden
in peace. . . . When I was at Baron Anzig's, and the baron try to
come to me for matches, I understand at once what his matches mean
and tell to the baroness. . . . I am an honest maiden."

"Hang your honesty! I am ill I tell you . . . and asking you for
drops. Do you understand? I'm ill!"

"Your wife is an honest, good woman, and you ought her to love!
_Ja!_ She is noble! . . . I will not be her foe!"

"You are a fool! simply a fool! Do you understand, a fool?"

Vaxin leaned against the door-post, folded his arms and waited for
his panic to pass off. To return to his room where the lamp flickered
and his uncle stared at him from his frame was more than he could
face, and to stand at the governess's door in nothing but his
night-shirt was inconvenient from every point of view. What could
he do?

It struck two o'clock and his terror had not left him. There was
no light in the passage and something dark seemed to be peeping out
from every corner. Vaxin turned so as to face the door-post, but
at that instant it seemed as though somebody tweaked his night-shirt
from behind and touched him on the shoulder.

"Damnation! . . . Rosalia Karlovna!"

No answer. Vaxin hesitatingly opened the door and peeped into the
room. The virtuous German was sweetly slumbering. The tiny flame
of a night-light threw her solid buxom person into relief. Vaxin
stepped into the room and sat down on a wickerwork trunk near the
door. He felt better in the presence of a living creature, even
though that creature was asleep.

"Let the German idiot sleep," he thought, "I'll sit here, and when
it gets light I'll go back. . . . It's daylight early now."

Vaxin curled up on the trunk and put his arm under his head to await
the coming of dawn.

"What a thing it is to have nerves!" he reflected. "An educated,
intelligent man! . . . Hang it all! . . . It's a perfect disgrace!"

As he listened to the gentle, even breathing of Rosalia Karlovna,
he soon recovered himself completely.

At six o'clock, Vaxin's wife returned from the all-night service,
and not finding her husband in their bedroom, went to the governess
to ask her for some change for the cabman.

On entering the Germa