already
beginning to advance threateningly upon me, but now he suddenly stopped
short, his face instantaneously became distorted, and flushed up; he
smote his breast, tears gushed from his eyes, and he stammered,
--"Uncle!--Angel! I am a lost man, you see!---Thanks! Thanks!"--He
seized the bank-note and rushed out of the room.

An hour later he was already seated in a cart, again clad in his
Circassian coat, again rosy and jolly; and when the horses started off
he uttered a yell, tore off his tall kazak cap, and waving it above his
head, he made bow after bow. Immediately before his departure he
embraced me long and warmly, stammering:--"Benefactor, benefactor!... It
was impossible to save me!" He even ran in to see the ladies, and kissed
their hands over and over again, went down on his knees, appealed to
God, and begged forgiveness! I found Katya in tears later on.

But the coachman who had driven Misha reported to me, on his return,
that he had taken him to the first drinking establishment on the
highway, and that there he "had got stranded," had begun to stand treat
to every one without distinction, and had soon arrived at a state of
inebriation.

Since that time I have never met Misha, but I learned his final fate in
the following manner.

VIII

Three years later I again found myself in the country; suddenly a
servant entered and announced that Madame Polteff was inquiring for me.
I knew no Madame Polteff, and the servant who made the announcement was
grinning in a sarcastic sort of way, for some reason or other. In reply
to my questioning glance he said that the lady who was asking for me was
young, poorly clad, and had arrived in a peasant-cart drawn by one
horse which she was driving herself! I ordered that Madame Polteff
should be requested to do me the favour to step into my study.

I beheld a woman of five-and-twenty,--belonging to the petty burgher
class, to judge from her attire,--with a large kerchief on her head. Her
face was simple, rather round in contour, not devoid of agreeability;
her gaze was downcast and rather melancholy, her movements were
embarrassed.

"Are you Madame Polteff?" I asked, inviting her to be seated.

"Just so, sir," she answered, in a low voice, and without sitting
down.--"I am the widow of your nephew, Mikhail Andreevitch Polteff."

"Is Mikhail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long?--But sit down, I
beg of you."

She dropped down on a chair.

"This is the