of hunger!"

"Very well," said Silin. "Come, you shall stay three days, and then
we shall see."

"Certainly, sir," said Forty Martyrs, overjoyed. "I'll come today,
sir."

It was a five miles' drive home. Dmitri Petrovitch, glad that he
had at last opened his heart to his friend, kept his arm round my
waist all the way; and speaking now, not with bitterness and not
with apprehension, but quite cheerfully, told me that if everything
had been satisfactory in his home life, he should have returned to
Petersburg and taken up scientific work there. The movement which
had driven so many gifted young men into the country was, he said,
a deplorable movement. We had plenty of rye and wheat in Russia,
but absolutely no cultured people. The strong and gifted among the
young ought to take up science, art, and politics; to act otherwise
meant being wasteful. He generalized with pleasure and expressed
regret that he would be parting from me early next morning, as he
had to go to a sale of timber.

And I felt awkward and depressed, and it seemed to me that I was
deceiving the man. And at the same time it was pleasant to me. I
gazed at the immense crimson moon which was rising, and pictured
the tall, graceful, fair woman, with her pale face, always well-dressed
and fragrant with some special scent, rather like musk, and for
some reason it pleased me to think she did not love her husband.

On reaching home, we sat down to supper. Marya Sergeyevna, laughing,