On the Eve

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 tightly that she shrieked, and for a long time afterwards breathed on her hand, pretending to be angry, while he murmured something in her ears.

'Mischievous things, young people,' Anna Vassilyevna observed gaily to Uvar Ivanovitch.

He flourished his fingers in reply.

'What a girl Zoya Nikitishna is!' said Bersenyev to Elena.

'And Shubin? What of him?' she answered.

Meanwhile the whole party went into the arbour, well known as Pleasant View arbour, and stopped to admire the view of the Tsaritsino lakes. They stretched one behind the other for several miles, overshadowed by thick woods. The bright green grass, which covered the hill sloping down to the largest lake, gave the water itself an extraordinarily vivid emerald colour. Even at the water's edge not a ripple stirred the smooth surface. One might fancy it a solid mass of glass lying heavy and shining in a huge font; the sky seemed to drop into its depths, while the leafy trees gazed motionless into its transparent bosom. All were absorbed in long and silent admiration of the view; even Shubin was still; even Zoya was impressed. At last, all with one mind, began to wish to go upon the water. Shubin, Insarov, and Bersenyev raced each other over the grass. They succeeded in finding a large painted boat and two boatmen, and beckoned to the ladies. The ladies stepped into the boat; Uvar Ivanovitch cautiously lowered himself into it after them. Great was the mirth while he got in and took his seat. 'Look out, master, don't drown us,' observed one of the boatmen, a snubnosed young fellow in a gay print shirt. 'Get along, you swell!' said Uvar Ivanovitch. The boat pushed off. The young men took up the oars, but Insarov was the oniy one of them who could row. Shubin suggested that they should sing some Russian song in chorus, and struck up: 'Down the river Volga'... Bersenyev, Zoya, and even Anna Vassilyevna, joined in—Insarov could not sing—but they did not keep together; at the third verse the singers were all wrong. Only Bersenyev tried to go on in the bass, 'Nothing on the waves is seen,' but he, too, was soon in difficulties. The boatmen looked at one another and grinned in silence.

'Eh?' said Shubin, turning to them, 'the gentlefolks can't sing, you say?' The boy in the print shirt only shook his head. 'Wait a little snubnose,' retorted Shubin, 'we will show you. Zoya Nikitishna, sing us Le lac of Niedermeyer. Stop rowing!' The wet oars stood still, lifted in the air like wings, and their splash died away with a tuneful drip; the boat drifted on a little, then stood still, rocking lightly on the water like a swan. Zoya affected to refuse at first.... 'Allons' said Anna Vassilyevna genially.... Zoya took off her hat and began to sing: 'O lac, l'annee a peine a fini sa carriere!'

Her small, but pure voice, seemed to dart over the surface of the lake; every word echoed far off in the woods; it sounded as though some one were singing there, too, in a distinct, but mysterious and unearthly voice. When Zoya finished, a loud bravo was heard from an arbour near the bank, from which emerged several red-faced Germans who were picnicking at Tsaritsino. Several of them had their coats off, their ties, and even their waistcoats; and they shouted 'bis!' with such unmannerly insistence that Anna Vassilyevna told the boatmen to row as quickly as possible to the other end of the lake. But before the boat reached the bank, Uvar Ivanovitch once more succeeded in surprising his friends; having noticed that in one part of the wood the echo repeated every sound with peculiar distinctness, he suddenly began to call like a quail. At first every one was startled, but they listened directly with real pleasure, especially as Uvar Ivanovitch imitated the quail's cry with great correctness. Spurred on by this, he tried mewing like a cat; but this did not go off so well; and after one more quail-call, he looked at them all and stopped. Shubin threw himself on him to kiss him; he pushed him off. At that instant the boat touched the bank, and all the party got out and went on shore.

Meanwhile the coachman, with the groom and the maid, had brought the baskets out of the coach, and made dinner ready on the grass under the old lime-trees. They sat down round the outspread tablecloth, and fell upon the pies and other dainties. They all had excellent appetites, while Anna Vassilyevna, with unflagging hospitality, kept urging the guests to eat more, assuring them that nothing was more wholesome than eating in the open air. She even encouraged Uvar Ivanovitch with such assurances. 'Don't trouble about me!' he grunted with his mouth full. 'Such a lovely day is a God-send, indeed!' she repeated constantly. One would not have known her; she seemed fully twenty years younger. Bersenyev said as much to her. 'Yes, yes.' she said; 'I could hold my own with any one in my day.' Shubin attached himself to Zoya, and kept pouring her out wine; she refused it, he pressed her, and finished by drinking the glass himself, and again pressing her to take another; he also declared that he longed to lay his head on her knee; she would on no account permit him 'such a liberty.' Elena seemed the most serious of the party, but in her heart there was a wonderful sense of peace, such as she had not known for long. She felt filled with boundless goodwill and kindness, and wanted to keep not only Insarov, but Bersenyev too, always at her side.... Andrei Petrovitch dimly understood what this meant, and secretly he sighed.

The hours flew by; the evening was coming on. Anna Vassilyevna suddenly took alarm. 'Ah, my dear friends, how late it is!' she cried. 'All good things must have an end; it's time to go home.' She began bustling about, and they all hastened to get up and walk towards the castle, where the carriages were. As they walked past the lakes, they stopped to admire Tsaritsino for the last time. The landscape on all sides was glowing with the vivid hues of early evening; the sky was red, the leaves were flashing with changing colours as they stirred in the rising wind; the distant waters shone in liquid gold; the reddish turrets and arbours scattered about the garden stood out sharply against the dark green of the trees. 'Farewell, Tsaritsino, we shall not forget to-day's excursion!' observed Anna Vassilyevna.... But at that instant, and as though in confirmation of her words, a strange incident occurred, which certainly was not likely to be forgotten.

This was what happened. Anna Vassilyevna had hardly sent her farewell greeting to Tsaritsino, when suddenly, a few paces from her, behind a high bush of lilac, were heard confused exclamations, shouts, and laughter; and a whole mob of disorderly men, the same devotees of song who had so energetically applauded Zoya, burst out on the path. These musical gentlemen seemed excessively elevated. They stopped at the sight of the ladies; but one of them, a man of immense height, with a bull neck and a bull's goggle eyes, separated from his companions, and, bowing clumsily and staggering unsteadily in his gait, approached Anna Vassilyevna, who was petrified with alarm.

'Bonzhoor, madame,' he said thickly, 'how are you?'

Anna Vassilyevna started back.

'Why wouldn't you,' continued the giant in vile Russian, 'sing again when our party shouted bis, and bravo?'

'Yes, why?' came from the ranks of his comrades.

Insarov was about to step forward, but Shubin stopped him, and himself screened Anna Vassilyevna.

'Allow me,' he began, 'honoured stranger, to express to you the heartfelt amazement, into which you have thrown all of us by your conduct. You belong, as far as I can judge, to the Saxon branch of the Caucasian race; consequently we are bound to assume your acquaintance with the customs of society, yet you address a lady to whom you have not been introduced. I assure you that I individually should be delighted another time to make your acquaintance, since I observe in you a phenomenal development of the muscles, biceps, triceps and deltoid, so that, as a sculptor, I should esteem it a genuine happiness to have you for a model; but on this occasion kindly leave us alone.'