grave, though at the same time it beamed with a kind of triumph.
Pelageya, the cook, was busy at the stove, and was apparently trying
to hide her face. And on her face Grisha saw a regular illumination:
it was burning and shifting through every shade of colour, beginning
with a crimson purple and ending with a deathly white. She was
continually catching hold of knives, forks, bits of wood, and rags
with trembling hands, moving, grumbling to herself, making a clatter,
but in reality doing nothing. She did not once glance at the table
at which they were drinking tea, and to the questions put to her
by the nurse she gave jerky, sullen answers without turning her
face.

"Help yourself, Danilo Semyonitch," the nurse urged him hospitably.
"Why do you keep on with tea and nothing but tea? You should have
a drop of vodka!"

And nurse put before the visitor a bottle of vodka and a wine-glass,
while her face wore a very wily expression.

"I never touch it. . . . No . . ." said the cabman, declining.
"Don't press me, Aksinya Stepanovna."

"What a man! . . . A cabman and not drink! . . . A bachelor can't
get on without drinking. Help yourself!"

The cabman looked askance at the bottle, then at nurse's wily face,
and his own face assumed an expression no less cunning, as much as
to say, "You won't catch me, you old witch!"

"I don't drink; please excuse me. Such a weakness does not do in