After supper Andrey Andreitch played the fiddle and Nina Ivanovna
accompanied him on the piano. Ten years before he had taken his
degree at the university in the Faculty of Arts, but had never held
any post, had no definite work, and only from time to time took
part in concerts for charitable objects; and in the town he was
regarded as a musician.

Andrey Andreitch played; they all listened in silence. The samovar
was boiling quietly on the table and no one but Sasha was drinking
tea. Then when it struck twelve a violin string suddenly broke;
everyone laughed, bustled about, and began saying good-bye.

After seeing her fiancé out, Nadya went upstairs where she and her
mother had their rooms (the lower storey was occupied by the
grandmother). They began putting the lights out below in the
dining-room, while Sasha still sat on drinking tea. He always spent
a long time over tea in the Moscow style, drinking as much as seven
glasses at a time. For a long time after Nadya had undressed and
gone to bed she could hear the servants clearing away downstairs
and Granny talking angrily. At last everything was hushed, and
nothing could be heard but Sasha from time to time coughing on a
bass note in his room below.

II

When Nadya woke up it must have been two o'clock, it was beginning
to get light. A watchman was tapping somewhere far away. She was
not sleepy, and her bed felt very soft and uncomfortable. Nadya sat
up in her bed and fell to thinking as she had done every night in
May. Her thoughts were the same as they had been the night before,