times received from
Kisotchka the answer, 'He is dead,' my melancholy changed into the
feeling one has at the funeral service of a good man. And sitting
there at the window, looking at the promenading public and listening
to the tinkling piano, I saw with my own eyes for the first time
in my life with what eagerness one generation hastens to replace
another, and what a momentous significance even some seven or eight
years may have in a man's life!

"Kisotchka put a bottle of red wine on the table. I drank it off,
grew sentimental, and began telling a long story about something
or other. Kisotchka listened as before, admiring me and my cleverness.
And time passed. The sky was by now so dark that the outlines of
the acacias and lime trees melted into one, the public was no longer
walking up and down the avenues, the piano was silent and the only
sound was the even murmur of the sea.

"Young people are all alike. Be friendly to a young man, make much
of him, regale him with wine, let him understand that he is attractive
and he will sit on and on, forget that it is time to go, and talk
and talk and talk. . . . His hosts cannot keep their eyes open,
it's past their bedtime, and he still stays and talks. That was
what I did. Once I chanced to look at the clock; it was half-past
ten. I began saying good-bye.

"'Have another glass before your walk,' said Kisotchka.

"I took another glass, again I began talking at length, forgot it
was time to go, and sat down. Then there came the sound of men's
voices, footsteps and the clank of spurs.

"'I think my husband has come in . . . .' said Kisotchka listening.

"The door creaked, two voices came now from the passage and I saw
two men pass the door that led into the dining-room: one a stout,
solid, dark man with a hooked nose, wearing a straw hat, and the
other a young officer in a white tunic. As they passed the door
they both glanced casually and indifferently at Kisotchka and me,
and I fancied both of them were drunk.

"'She told you a lie then, and you believed her!' we heard a loud
voice with a marked nasal twang say a minute later. 'To begin with,
it wasn't at the big club but at the little one.'

"'You are angry, Jupiter, so you are wrong . . . .' said another
voice, obviously the officer's, laughing and coughing. 'I say, can
I stay the night? Tell me honestly, shall I be in your way?'

"'What a question! Not only you can, but you must. What will you
have, beer or wi