made the stairs and the cupboard tremble; Masha, in a dark dress, ran in with a piece of blue material in her hand, and, not noticing Nikitin, darted towards the stairs.

‘Stay …’ said Nikitin, stopping her. ‘Good-evening, Godefroi.… Allow me.…’

He gasped, he did not know what to say; with one hand he held her hand and with the other the blue material. And she was half frightened, half surprised, and looked at him with big eyes.

‘Allow me …’ Nikitin went on, afraid she would go away. ‘There’s something I must say to you.… Only … it’s inconvenient here. I cannot, I am incapable.… Understand, Godefroi, I can’t—that’s all.…’

The blue material slipped on to the floor, and Nikitin took Masha by the other hand. She turned pale, moved her lips, then stepped back from Nikitin and found herself in the corner between the wall and the cupboard.

‘On my honour, I assure you…’ he said softly. ‘Masha, on my honour.…’

She threw back her head and he kissed her lips, and that the kiss might last longer he put his fingers to her cheeks; and it somehow happened that he found himself in the corner between the cupboard and the wall, and she put her arms round his neck and pressed her head against his chin.

Then they both ran into the garden. The Shelestovs had a garden of nine acres. There were about twenty old maples and lime-trees in it; there was one fir-tree, and all the rest were fruit-trees: cherries, apples, pears, horse-chestnuts, silvery olive-trees.… There were heaps of flowers, too.

Nikitin and Masha ran along the avenues in silence, laughed, asked each other from time to time disconnected questions which they did not answer. A crescent moon was shining over the garden, and drowsy tulips and irises were stretching up from the dark grass in its faint light, as though entreating for words of love for them, too.

When Nikitin and Masha went back to the house, the officers and the young ladies were already assembled and dancing the mazurka. Again Polyansky led the grand chain through all the rooms, again after dancing they played ‘fate’. Before supper, when the visitors had gone into the dining-room, Masha, left alone with Nikitin, pressed close to him and said:

‘You must speak to papa and Varya yourself; I am ashamed.’

After supper he talked to the old father. After listening to him, Shelestov thought a little and said:

‘I am very grateful for the honour you do me and my daughter, but let me speak to you as a friend. I will speak to you, not as a father, but as one gentleman to another. Tell me, why do you want to be married so young? Only peasants are married so young, and that, of course, is loutishness. But why should you? Where’s the satisfaction of putting on the fetters at your age?’

‘I am not young!’ said Nikitin, offended. ‘I am in my twenty-seventh year.’

‘Papa, the farrier has come!’ cried Varya from the other room.

And the conversation broke off. Varya, Masha, and Polyansky saw Nikitin home. When they reached his gate, Varya said:

‘Why is it your mysterious Metropolit Metropolititch never shows himself anywhere? He might come and see us.’

The mysterious Ippolit Ippolititch was sitting on his bed, taking off his trousers, when Nikitin went in to him.