t the candle was almost blown out.
In her own domain upstairs Yulia Sergeyevna went the round of all
the rooms, making the sign of the cross over every door and window;
the wind howled, and it sounded as though some one were walking on
the roof. Never had it been so dreary, never had she felt so lonely.

She asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man,
simply because his appearance did not attract her. It was true he
was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing
forever her dreams, her conceptions of happiness in married life,
but would she ever meet the man of whom she dreamed, and would he
love her? She was twenty-one already. There were no eligible young
men in the town. She pictured all the men she knew--government
clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some of them were married
already, and their domestic life was conspicuous for its dreariness
and triviality; others were uninteresting, colourless, unintelligent,
immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man, had taken his degree at
the university, spoke French. He lived in the capital, where there
were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise
and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate
dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written that
a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to
love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of
the question to enter upon married life without love? It was said,
of course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left
but habit, and that the object of married life was not to be found
in love, nor in happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up
of one's children, the care of one's household, and so on. And
perhaps what was meant in the Bible was love for one's husband as
one's neighbour, respect for him, charity.

At night Yulia Sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively,
then knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the
flame of the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling:

"Give me understanding, Holy Mother, our Defender! Give me
understanding, O Lord!"

She had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies,
poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and
openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the
past. Would not the same thing happen to her? Had not she better
go into a convent or become a Sister of Mercy?

She