light-hearted holiday mood took possession of all. 'Oh, how beautiful;
oh, how beautiful!' Anna Vassilyevna repeated incessantly; Uvar
Ivanovitch kept nodding his head approvingly in response to her
enthusiastic exclamations, and once even articulated: 'To be sure! to
be sure!' From time to time Elena exchanged a few words with Insarov;
Zoya held the brim of her large hat with two fingers while her little
feet, shod in light grey shoes with rounded toes, peeped coquettishly
out from under her pink barege dress; she kept looking to each side
and then behind her. 'Hey!' cried Shubin suddenly in a low voice,
'Zoya Nikitishna is on the lookout, it seems. I will go to her. Elena
Nikolaevna despises me now, while you, Andrei Petrovitch, she esteems,
which comes to the same thing. I am going; I'm tired of being glum. I
should advise you, my dear fellow, to do some botanising; that's the
best thing you could hit on in your position; it might be useful, too,
from a scientific point of view. Farewell!' Shubin ran up to Zoya,
offered her his arm, and saying: '_Ihre Hand, Madame_' caught hold of
her hand, and pushed on ahead with her. Elena stopped, called to
Bersenyev, and also took his arm, but continued talking to Insarov.
She asked him the words for lily-of-the-valley, clover, oak, lime, and
so on in his language. . . 'Bulgaria's in it!' thought poor Andrei
Petrovitch.

Suddenly a shriek was heard in front; every one looked up. Shubin's
cigar-case fell into a bush, flung by Zoya's hand. 'Wait a minute, I'll
pay you out!' he shouted, as he crept into the bushes; he found
his cigar-case, and was returning to Zoya; but he had hardly reached
her side when again his cigar-case was sent flying across the road.
Five times this trick was repeated, he kept laughing and threatening
her, but Zoya only smiled slyly and drew herself together, like a
little cat. At last he snatched her fingers, and squeezed them so