'Well, if you like; it's the truth, if you absolutely insist upon it,' he said at last.

Maria Nikolaevna shook her head. 'Quite so, quite so. Well, and did you ask yourself, you who can swim, what could be the reason of such a strange ... step on the part of a woman, not poor ... and not a fool ... and not ugly? All that does not interest you, perhaps, but no matter. I'll tell you the reason not this minute, but directly the entr'acte is over. I am in continual uneasiness for fear some one should come in....'

Maria Nikolaevna had hardly uttered this last word when the outer door actually was half opened, and into the box was thrust a head--red, oily, perspiring, still young, but toothless; with sleek long hair, a pendent nose, huge ears like a bat's, with gold spectacles on inquisitive dull eyes, and a pince-nez over the spectacles. The head looked round, saw Maria Nikolaevna, gave a nasty grin, nodded.... A scraggy neck craned in after it....

Maria Nikolaevna shook her handkerchief at it. 'I'm not at home! Ich bin nicht zu Hause, Herr P....! Ich bin nicht zu Hause.... Ksh-sk! ksh-sh-sh!'

The head was disconcerted, gave a forced laugh, said with a sort of sob, in imitation of Liszt, at whose feet he had once reverently grovelled, 'Sehr gut, sehr gut!' and vanished.

'What is that object?' inquired Sanin.

'Oh, a Wiesbaden critic. A literary man or a flunkey, as you like. He is in the pay of a local speculator here, and so is bound to praise everything and be ecstatic over every one, though for his part he is soaked through and through with the nastiest venom, to which he does not dare to give vent. I am afraid he's an awful scandalmonger; he'll run at once to tell every one I'm in the theatre. Well, what does it matter?'

The orchestra played through a waltz, the curtain floated up again.... The grimacing and whimpering began again on the stage.

'Well,' began Maria Nikolaevna, sinking again on to the sofa. 'Since you are here and obliged to sit with me, instead of enjoying the society of your betrothed--don't turn away your eyes and get cross--I understand you, and have promised already to let you go to the other end of the earth--but now hear my confession. Do you care to know what I like more than anything?'

'Freedom,' hazarded Sanin.

Maria Nikolaevna laid her hand on his hand.

'Yes, Dimitri Pavlovitch,' she said, and in her voice there was a note of something special, a sort of unmistakable sincerity and gravity, 'freedom, more than all and before all. And don't imagine I am boasting of this--there is nothing praiseworthy in it; only it's so and always will be so with me to the day of my death. I suppose it must have been that I saw a great deal of slavery in my childhood and suffered enough from it. Yes, and Monsieur Gaston, my tutor, opened my eyes too. Now you can, perhaps, understand why I married Ippolit Sidoritch: with him I'm free, perfectly free as air, as the wind.... And I knew that before marriage; I knew that with him I should be a free Cossack!'

Maria Nikolaevna paused and flung her fan aside.

'I will tell you one thing more; I have no distaste for reflection ... it's amusing, and indeed our brains are given us for that; but on the consequences of what I do I never reflect, and if I suffer I don't pity myself--not a little bit; it's not worth it. I have a favourite saying: Cela ne tire pas à conséquence,--I don't know how to say that in Russian. And after all, what does tire à consequence? I shan't be asked to give an account of myself here, you see--in this world; and up there (she pointed upwards with her finger), well, up there--let them manage as best they can. When they come to judge me up there, I shall not be I! Are you listening to me? Aren't you bored?'

Sanin was sitting bent up. He raised his head. 'I'm not at all bored, Maria Nikolaevna, and I am listening to you with curiosity.