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unpleasant conversation and yield magnanimously, Varvara Alexeevna turned to Yevgeny and said: “Well, and have you sprinkled the phosphates?”
    Liza ran to fetch the cream.
    “But I don’t want it. I don’t want it.”
    “Liza, Liza, go gently,” said Marya Pavlovna. “Such rapid movements do her harm.”
    “Nothing does harm if one’s mind is at peace,” said Varvara Alexeevna as if referring to something, though she knew that there was nothing her words could refer to.
    Liza returned with the cream and Yevgeny drank his coffee and listened morosely. He was accustomed to these conversations, but today he was particularly annoyed by its lack of sense. He wanted to think over what had happened to him but this chatter disturbed him. Having finished her coffee Varvara Alexeevna went away in a bad humour. Liza, Yevgeny, and Marya Pavlovna stayed behind, and their conversation wassimple and pleasant. But Liza, being sensitive, at once noticed that something was tormenting Yevgeny, and she asked him whether anything unpleasant had happened. He was not prepared for this question and hesitated a little before replying that there had been nothing. This reply made Liza think all the more. That something was tormenting him, and greatly tormenting, was as evident to her as that a fly had fallen into the milk, yet he would not speak of it. What could it be?

XI
    After breakfast they all dispersed. Yevgeny as usual went to his study, but instead of beginning to read or write his letters, he sat smoking one cigarette after another and thinking. He was terribly surprised and disturbed by the unexpected recrudescence within him of the bad feeling from which he had thought himself free since his marriage. Since then he had not once experienced that feeling, either for her—the woman he had known—or for any other woman except his wife. He had often felt glad of this emancipation, and now suddenly a chance meeting, seemingly so unimportant, revealed to him the fact that he was not free. What now tormented him was not that he was yielding to that feeling and desired her—he did not dream of so doing—but that the feeling was awake within him and he had to be on his guard against it. He had no doubt but that he would suppress it.
    He had a letter to answer and a paper to write, and sat down at his writing table and began to work. Having finished it and quite forgotten what had disturbed him, he went out to go to the stables. And again as ill-luck would have it, either by unfortunate chance or intentionally, as soon as he stepped from the porch a red skirt and a red kerchief appeared from round the corner, and she went past him swinging her arms and swaying her body. She not only went past him, but on passing him ran, as if playfully, to overtake her fellow-servant.
    Again the bright midday, the nettles, the back of Danila’s hut, and in the shade of the plant-trees hersmiling face biting some leaves, rose in his imagination.
    “No, it is impossible to let matters continue so,” he said to himself, and waiting till the women had passed out of sight he went to the office.
    It was just the dinner-hour and he hoped to find the steward still there, and so it happened. The steward was just waking up from his after-dinner nap, and stretching himself and yawning was standing in the office, looking at the herdsman who was telling him something.
    “Vasily Nikolaevich!” said Yevgeny to the steward.
    “What is your pleasure?”
    “Just finish what you are saying.”
    “Aren’t you going to bring it in?” said Vasily Nikolaevich to the herdsman.
    “It’s heavy, Vasily Nikolaevich.”
    “What is it?” asked Yevgeny.
    “Why, a cow has calved in the meadow. Well, all right, I’ll order them to harness a horse at once. Tell Nikolay Lysukh to get out the dray cart.”
    The herdsman went out.
    “Do you know,” began Yevgeny, flushing and conscious that he was doing so, “do you know, Vasily Nikolaevich, while I was a bachelor I