The pleasure of kissing the nurse fell to the lot of Shebaldin. They all crowded round him, took him to the nursery, and laughing and clapping their hands, made him kiss the nurse. There was a great uproar and shouting.

‘Not so ardently!’ cried Shelestov with tears of laughter. ‘Not so ardently!’

It was Nikitin’s ‘fate’ to hear the confessions of all. He sat on a chair in the middle of the drawing-room. A shawl was brought and put over his head. The first who came to confess to him was Varya.

‘I know your sins,’ Nikitin began, looking in the darkness at her stern profile. ‘Tell me, madam, how do you explain your walking with Polyansky every day? Oh, it’s not for nothing she walks with an hussar!’

‘That’s poor,’ said Varya, and walked away.

Then under the shawl he saw the shine of big motionless eyes, caught the lines of a dear profile in the dark, together with a familiar, precious fragrance which reminded Nikitin of Masha’s room.

‘Marie Godefroi,’ he said, and did not know his own voice, it was so soft and tender, ‘what are your sins?’

Masha screwed up her eyes and put out the tip of her tongue at him, then she laughed and went away. And a minute later she was standing in the middle of the room, clapping her hands and crying:

‘Supper, supper, supper!’

And they all streamed into the dining-room. At supper Varya had another argument, and this time with her father. Polyansky ate stolidly, drank red wine, and described to Nikitin how once in a winter campaign he had stood all night up to his knees in a bog; the enemy was so near that they were not allowed to speak or smoke, the night was cold and dark, a piercing wind was blowing. Nikitin listened and stole side-glances at Masha. She was gazing at him immovably, without blinking, as though she was pondering something or was lost in a reverie. … It was pleasure and agony to him both at once.

‘Why does she look at me like that?’ was the question that fretted him. ‘It’s awkward. People may notice it. Oh, how young, how naïve she is!’

The party broke up at midnight. When Nikitin went out at the gate, a window opened on the first floor, and Masha showed herself at it.

‘Sergey Vassilitch!’ she called.

‘What is it?’

‘I tell you what …’ said Masha, evidently thinking of something to say. ‘I tell you what. … Polyansky said he would come in a day or two with his camera and take us all. We must meet here.’

‘Very well.’

Masha vanished, the window was slammed, and someone immediately began playing the piano in the house.

‘Well, it is a house!’ thought Nikitin while he crossed the street. ‘A house in which there is no moaning except from Egyptian pigeons, and they only do it because they have no other means of expressing their joy!’

But the Shelestovs were not the only festive household. Nikitin had not gone two hundred paces before he heard the strains of a piano from another house. A little further he met a peasant playing the balalaika at the gate. In the gardens the band struck up a potpourri of Russian songs.