beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved
this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature.

After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to
his other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov
was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant,
dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences,
the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets
of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression.

After saying good-bye to him Laptev returned home without hurrying.
The moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw
on the ground, and Laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing
his bare head, as though some one were passing a feather over his
hair.

"I love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run
to overtake Panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him
a present of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open
country, into a wood, to run on and on without looking back.

At home he saw lying on the chair the parasol Yulia Sergeyevna had
forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. The parasol
was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. The
handle was a cheap one, of white bone. Laptev opened it over him,
and he felt as though there were the fragrance of happiness about
him.

He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping
hold of the parasol, began writing to Moscow to one of his friends:

"DEAR PRECIOUS KOSTYA,

"Here is news for you: I'm in love again! I say _again_, because
six years ago I fell in love with a Moscow actress, though I didn't
even succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and
a half I have been living with a certain person you know--a woman
neither young nor good-looking. Ah, my dear boy, how unlucky I am
in love. I've never had any success with women, and if I say _again_
it's simply because it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge
even to myself that my youth has passed entirely without love, and
that I'm in love in a real sense now for the first time in my life,
at thirty-four. Let it stand that I love _again_.

"If only you knew what a girl she was! She couldn't be called a
beauty--she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful
expression of goodness she has when she smiles! When she speaks,
her voice is as clear as a bell. She never carries on a conversa