conversations with him, but this did not alarm him, but, on the
contrary, delighted him, as he was now firmly persuaded that such
apparitions only visited the elect few who rise up above their
fellows and devote themselves to the service of the idea.

One day the monk appeared at dinner-time and sat in the dining-room
window. Kovrin was delighted, and very adroitly began a conversation
with Yegor Semyonitch and Tanya of what might be of interest to the
monk; the black-robed visitor listened and nodded his head graciously,
and Yegor Semyonitch and Tanya listened, too, and smiled gaily
without suspecting that Kovrin was not talking to them but to his
hallucination.

Imperceptibly the fast of the Assumption was approaching, and soon
after came the wedding, which, at Yegor Semyonitch's urgent desire,
was celebrated with "a flourish"--that is, with senseless festivities
that lasted for two whole days and nights. Three thousand roubles'
worth of food and drink was consumed, but the music of the wretched
hired band, the noisy toasts, the scurrying to and fro of the
footmen, the uproar and crowding, prevented them from appreciating
the taste of the expensive wines and wonderful delicacies ordered
from Moscow.

VII

One long winter night Kovrin was lying in bed, reading a French
novel. Poor Tanya, who had headaches in the evenings from living
in town, to which she was not accustomed, had been asleep a long
while, and, from time to time, articulated some incoherent phrase
in her restless dreams.