“I have fever every alternate day, and yet I don’t get thin,” said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, licking her lips, which were salt from the bathe, and responding with a smile to the bows of her acquaintances. “I’ve always been plump, and now I believe I’m plumper than ever.”

“That, my dear, is constitutional. If, like me, one has no constitutional tendency to stoutness, no diet is of any use.… But you’ve wetted your hat, my dear.”

“It doesn’t matter; it will dry.”

Nadyezhda Fyodorovna saw again the men in white who were walking on the sea-front and talking French; and again she felt a sudden thrill of joy, and had a vague memory of some big hall in which she had once danced, or of which, perhaps, she had once dreamed. And something at the bottom of her soul dimly and obscurely whispered to her that she was a petty, common, miserable, worthless woman.…

Marya Konstantinovna stopped at her gate and asked her to come in and sit down for a little while.

“Come in, my dear,” she said in an imploring voice, and at the same time she looked at Nadyezhda Fyodorovna with anxiety and hope; perhaps she would refuse and not come in!

“With pleasure,” said Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, accepting. “You know how I love being with you!”

And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinovna sat her down and gave her coffee, regaled her with milk rolls, then showed her photographs of her former pupils, the Garatynskys, who were by now married. She showed her, too, the examination reports of Kostya and Katya. The reports were very good, but to make them seem even better, she complained, with a sigh, how difficult the lessons at school were now.… She made much of her visitor, and was sorry for her, though at the same time she was harassed by the thought that Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a corrupting influence on the morals of Kostya and Katya, and was glad that her Nikodim Alexandritch was not at home. Seeing that in her opinion all men are fond of “women like that,” Nadyezhda Fyodorovna might have a bad effect on Nikodim Alexandritch too.

As she talked to her visitor, Marya Konstantinovna kept remembering that they were to have a picnic that evening, and that Von Koren had particularly begged her to say nothing about it to the “Japanese monkeys”—that is, Laevsky and Nadyezhda Fyodorovna; but she dropped a word about it unawares, crimsoned, and said in confusion:

“I hope you will come too!”

VI

It was agreed to drive about five miles out of town on the road to the south, to stop near a duhan at the junction of two streams—the Black River and the Yellow River—and to cook fish soup. They started out soon after five. Foremost of the party in a char-á-banc drove Samoylenko and Laevsky; they were followed by Marya Konstantinovna, Nadyezhda Fyodorovna, Katya and Kostya, in a coach with three horses, carrying with them the crockery and a basket with provisions. In the next carriage came the police captain, Kirilin, and the young Atchmianov, the son of the shopkeeper to whom Nadyezhda Fyodorovna owed three hundred roubles; opposite them, huddled up on the little seat with his feet tucked under him, sat Nikodim Alexandritch, a neat little man with hair combed on to his temples. Last of all came Von Koren and the deacon; at the deacon’s feet stood a basket of fish.

“R-r-right!” Samoylenko shouted at the top of his voice when he met a cart or a mountaineer riding on a donkey.

“In two years’ time, when I shall have the means and the people ready, I shall set off on an expedition,” Von Koren was telling the deacon. “I shall go by the sea-coast from Vladivostok to the Behring Straits,