played tricks on her. Sometimes at night we would be having a bit of fun and she would suddenly go off in a dead faint. Quite terrible it was!”

His soft husky voice had a melodious sound; it mingled tirelessly and intimately in the warm evening air with the smell of grass, the sighs of the wind, the rustle of leaves, the soft patter of the brook on the pebbles. Had he kept still, the night would not have been so complete, so beautiful, so sweet to the soul.

Savel spoke with a remarkable ease, showing no effort in finding the right words, dressing up his thoughts lovingly, as a little girl does her dolls. I had listened to many a Russian talker, men who, intoxicated with flowery words, often, almost always, lose the fine thread of truth in the intricate web of speech. This one spun his yarn with such convincing simplicity, with such limpid sincerity, that I feared to interrupt him with questions. Watching the play of his words, I realized that the old man was the possessor of living gems, able to conceal all filthy and criminal lies with their bewitching power; I realized all that and nevertheless yielded to the magic of his speech.

“The whole dirty business began then, my friend: a doctor was summoned, he examined Tasha thoroughly with his shameless eyes, and he had another fop with him, a baldish man with gold buttons—an investigator, I suppose, asking questions: as to who and when? She just kept silent, she was so ashamed. They arrested me and took me to the district prison. There I sat. The bald one says to me: ‘Confess and you’ll get off lightly!’ So I reply obligingly: ‘Let me go to Kiev, Your Honor, to the holy relics, and pray for the forgiveness of my sins!’ ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘now you’ve confessed all right!’ Believing he’d caught me, the bald cat! I hadn’t confessed anything, of course, just dropped the words from sheer boredom. I was very bored in jail, uncomfortable, too, what with the thieves and murderers and other foul people around; besides, I couldn’t help wondering what they were doing to Tasha. The whole blasted business lasted over a year before the trial came. And then, behold, Tasha appeared at it, with gloves and smart little boots and all—very unusual! A blue frock like a cloud—her soul shining through it. All the jury staring at her and the crowd and all of it just like a dream, my friend. At Tanya’s side—Madame Antzyferova, our lady of the manor, a woman sharp as a pike, sly as a fox. Hm, I thought to myself—this one will put me to the rack and worry me to death.”

He laughed with great good humor.

“She had a son, Matvey Alexevich—I always believed him to be a bit wrong in the head—a dull youth. Not a drop of blood in his face, a pair of spectacles on his nose, hair down to his shoulders, no beard to speak of, and all he ever did was to write down songs and fairy-tales in a little book. A heart of gold—he’d give you anything you asked for. The peasants around all made use of it: one would ask for a scythe, the other for some timber, the third for bread, taking anything going whether they wanted it or not. I would say to him: ‘Why do you give everything away, Alexevich? Your fathers and grandfathers piled it all up, grew rich, stripped people to the skin regardless of sin, and you give it all away without rhyme or reason. Aren’t you wasting human labor?’—‘I feel I must do it!’ he said. Not a very clever lad, but gentle natured, anyway. Later on the Deputy Governor packed him off to China—he was rude to the Governor, so to China he had to go.

“Well—then came the trial. My counsel spoke for two hours, waving his hands about. Tasha stuck up for me, too.”

“But was there ever actually anything between you two?”

He thought for a moment as though trying to remember, then said, unconcernedly watching the flight of a hawk with his naked eyes:

‘That happens sometimes—between rathers and daughters. There was even a saint once who lived with two of them, and the prophets Abraham and Isaac were born to them. I will not say I did so myself. I played about with her, that is true, in the long, dreary, winter nights. Dreary they are indeed, all the