ockbrokers and such
people of all kinds, who can do nothing but drink and get into rows
at the club. . . . A girl married like that, at random. . . . And
what is her life like afterwards? You can understand: a well-educated,
cultured woman is living with a stupid, boorish man; if she meets
a cultivated man, an officer, an actor, or a doctor--well, she
gets to love him, her life becomes unbearable to her, and she runs
away from her husband. And one can't condemn her!'

"'If that is so, Kisotchka, why get married?' I asked.

"'Yes, of course,' said Kisotchka with a sigh, 'but you know every
girl fancies that any husband is better than nothing. . . . Altogether
life is horrid here, Nikolay Anastasyevitch, very horrid! Life is
stifling for a girl and stifling when one is married. . . . Here
they laugh at Sonya for having run away from her husband, but if
they could see into her soul they would not laugh. . . .'"

Azorka began barking outside again. He growled angrily at some one,
then howled miserably and dashed with all his force against the
wall of the hut. . . . Ananyev's face was puckered with pity; he
broke off his story and went out. For two minutes he could be heard
outside comforting his dog. "Good dog! poor dog!"

"Our Nikolay Anastasyevitch is fond of talking," said Von Schtenberg,
laughing. "He is a good fellow," he added after a brief silence.

Returning to the hut, the engineer filled up our glasses and, smiling
and stroking his chest, went on:

"And so my attack was unsuccessful. There was nothing for it, I put
off my unclean thoughts to a more favourable occasion, resigned
myself to my failure and, as the saying is, waved my hand. What is
more, under the influence of Kisotchka's voice, the evening air,
and the stillness, I gradually myself fell into a quiet sentimental
mood. I remember I sat in an easy chair by the wide-open window and
glanced at the trees and darkened sky. The outlines of the acacias
and the lime trees were just the same as they had been eight years
before; just as then, in the days of my childhood, somewhere far
away there was the tinkling of a wretched piano, and the public had
just the same habit of sauntering to and fro along the avenues, but
the people were not the same. Along the avenues there walked now
not my comrades and I and the object of my adoration, but schoolboys
and young ladies who were strangers. And I felt melancholy. When
to my inquiries about acquaintances I five