"Here, then, I'll show thee," roared the gentleman, "whether thou wilt be my servant or not!"--And after having cruelly flogged Ivan, he nevertheless ordered that the troika of Vyatka horses should be placed in his charge, and appointed him a coachman at the stables. Ivan submitted, to all appearances; he began to drive as coachman. As he was a proficient in that line his master speedily took a fancy to him,--the more so as Ivan behaved very discreetly and quietly, and the horses throve under his care; he tended them so that they became as plump as cucumbers,--one could never leave off admiring them! The master began to drive out more frequently with him than with the other coachmen. He used to ask: "Dost thou remember, Ivan, how unpleasant was thy first meeting with me? I think thou hast got rid of thy folly?" But to these words Ivan never made any reply. So, then, one day, just before the Epiphany, the master set out for the town with Ivan in his troika with bells, in a broad sledge lined with rugs. The horses began to ascend a hill at a walk, while Ivan descended from the box and went back to the sledge, as though he had dropped something.--The cold was very severe. The master sat there all wrapped up, and with his beaver cap drawn down over his ears. Then Ivan pulled a hatchet out from under the skirts of his coat, approached his master from behind, knocked off his cap, and saying: "I warned thee, Piotr Petrovitch--now thou hast thyself to thank for this!"--he laid open his head with one slash. Then he brought the horses to a standstill, put the cap back on his murdered master's head, and again mounting the box, he drove him to the town, straight to the court-house. "Here's the general from Sukhoy for you, murdered; and I killed him.--I told him I would do it, and I have done it. Bind me!" They seized Ivan, tried him, condemned him to the knout and then to penal servitude.--The merry, bird-like dancer reached the mines--and there vanished forever.... Yes; involuntarily--although in a different sense,--one repeats with Alexyei Sergyeitch:--"The old times were good ... well, yes, but God be with them! I want nothing to do with them!" THE SONG OF LOVE TRIUMPHANT (1881) MDXLII DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Wage du zu irren und zu traeumen! SCHILLER. The following is what I read in an Italian manuscript: I