shed now to the world that
called to him, who shall write? Torn mother-love stares not out from
paper pages, in the cold black and white of print. Poor Princess! She
was strong in neither mind nor body. Trained to a fashionable young
ladyhood of delicacy, vapors and graceful fainting-fits, there had been
little in her married life to build up fortitude and the courage to
endure unwelcome griefs. From day to day her little store of bravery had
been drawn upon, extravagantly. For in Sophia, fear bred no angry pride,
but rather a flat despair. And it had come to a point at last where even
the hauteur of her class would no longer suffice to cover the
humiliations of her daily life. Now that the final climax had come, it
found her quite denuded of all force, all strength, all hope. Her one
_raison d'etre_ was to be removed, her single prop drawn from her.
Therefore she fell, quietly, with scarcely a word of protest, only an
instant of tottering. This the metaphor. To speak plainly, so complete
was her desolation that, outwardly, she betrayed nothing. Ivan was drawn
to wonder at it; but he left her, perhaps, with the less anxiety, being
too inexperienced in the ways of grief to worry as a woman might have
done over this attitude towards their parting. Nevertheless, the memory
of their last evening together lay graven so ineffaceably upon Ivan's
heart, that he recalled it clearly, in its every incident, during the
last hour of his life.

It was a Sunday--the evening of the day of Ludmillo's departure. Ivan
had been summoned to his mother's room, where he found her sitting,
rather wearily, he thought, before a table on which steamed a brightly
polished samovar, surrounded by the dishes of a tempting meal, devised
by Masha to suit the respective tastes of her lady and the young Prince.
Darkness had fallen an hour before, and the room, with its quaint old
furniture, tapestry-hung walls, and old oaken floor strewn with Bokhara
rugs, was lighted by three swinging-lamps that cast red reflections upon
the polished wood of wainscot and floor. Mother and son sat side by side
at the table, and, while they ate, made little attempt at conversation.
Instinctively, each was waiting for the other to speak.

But the inevitable talk, at thought of which Sophia's heart fluttered
till her breath was all but gone, was not allowed a natural beginning.
After a time there came from below the first of a crescendo of
sounds--that noise of muffled voi