Petrovitch nor his wife since. I am told that they are still living
together.


A WOMAN'S KINGDOM

I

Christmas Eve

HERE was a thick roll of notes. It came from the bailiff at the
forest villa; he wrote that he was sending fifteen hundred roubles,
which he had been awarded as damages, having won an appeal. Anna
Akimovna disliked and feared such words as "awarded damages" and
"won the suit." She knew that it was impossible to do without the
law, but for some reason, whenever Nazaritch, the manager of the
factory, or the bailiff of her villa in the country, both of whom
frequently went to law, used to win lawsuits of some sort for her
benefit, she always felt uneasy and, as it were, ashamed. On this
occasion, too, she felt uneasy and awkward, and wanted to put that
fifteen hundred roubles further away that it might be out of her
sight.

She thought with vexation that other girls of her age--she was
in her twenty-sixth year--were now busy looking after their
households, were weary and would sleep sound, and would wake up
tomorrow morning in holiday mood; many of them had long been married
and had children. Only she, for some reason, was compelled to sit
like an old woman over these letters, to make notes upon them, to
write answers, then to do nothing the whole evening till midnight,