"This is the dish—" said Afanasy Ivanovitch when they brought us curds and flour with cream, "—this is the dish—" he continued, and I observed that his voice began to quiver, and that tears were on the point of bursting from his leaden eyes; but he collected all his strength in the effort to repress them: "this is the dish which the—the—the de—ceas—" and his tears suddenly gushed forth, his hand fell upon his plate, the plate was overturned, flew from the table, and was broken. He sat stupidly, holding the spoon, and tears like a never-ceasing fountain flowed, flowed in streams down upon his napkin. He did not live long after this. I heard of his death recently. What was strange, though, was that the circumstances attending it somewhat resembled those connected with the death of Pulkheria Ivanovna. One day, Afanasy Ivanovitch decided to take a short stroll in the garden. As he went slowly down the path with his usual heedlessness, a strange thing happened to him. All at once he heard some one behind him say in a distinct voice, "Afanasy Ivan'itch!" He turned round, but there was no one there. He looked on all sides; he peered into the shrubbery,—no one anywhere. The day was calm and the sun was shining brightly. He pondered for a moment. Then his face lighted up, and at last he cried, "It is Pulkheria Ivanovna calling me!" He surrendered himself utterly to the moral conviction that Pulkheria Ivanovna was calling him. He yielded with the meekness of a submissive child, withered up, coughed, melted away like a candle, and at last expired like it when nothing remains to feed its poor flame. "Lay me beside Pulkheria Ivan'na"—that was all he said before his death. His wish was fulfilled; and they buried him beside the churchyard wall close to Pulkheria Ivanovna's grave. The guests at the funeral were few, but there was a throng of common and poor people. The house was already quite deserted. The enterprising clerk and village elder carried off to their cottages all the old household utensils which the housekeeper did not manage to appropriate. Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature,' by Isabel F. Hapgood [Pg 6475] CARLO GOLDONI. CARLO GOLDONI (1707-1793) BY WILLIAM CRANSTON LAWTON taly is generally felt to be, above all other lands, the natural home of the drama. In acting, as in music, indeed, the sceptre has never wholly passed from her: Ristori and Salvini certainly are not yet forgotten. The Græco-Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence, the rhetorical tragedy of Seneca, have had a far more direct hand in molding the modern dramatists' art than have the loftier creative masterpieces of the great Attic Four. Indeed, Latin has never become in Italy a really dead language, remote from the popular consciousness. The splendor of the Church ritual, the great mass of the educated clergy, the almost purely Latin roots of the vernacular, have made such a loss impossible.