‘Why don’t you go to bed?’ observed Anna Vassilyevna, who was always drowsy in the evening herself, and consequently always eager to send the others to bed. ‘Say good-night to me, and go in God’s name; Andrei Petrovitch will excuse you.’ Elena kissed her mother, bowed to all and went away. Shubin accompanied her to the door. ‘Elena Nikolaevna,’ he whispered to her in the doorway, ‘you trample on Monsieur Paul, you mercilessly walk over him, but Monsieur Paul blesses you and your little feet, and the slippers on your little feet, and the soles of your little slippers.’ Elena shrugged her shoulders, reluctantly held out her hand to him--not the one Insarov had kissed--and going up to her room, at once undressed, got into bed, and fell asleep. She slept a deep, unstirring sleep, as even children rarely sleep--the sleep of a child convalescent after sickness, when its mother sits near its cradle and watches it, and listens to its breathing. XX ‘Come to my room for a minute,’ Shubin said to Bersenyev, directly the latter had taken leave of Anna Vassilyevna: ‘I have something to show you.’ Bersenyev followed him to his attic. He was surprised to see a number of studies, statuettes, and busts, covered with damp cloths, set about in all the corners of the room. ‘Well I see you have been at work in earnest,’ he observed to Shubin. ‘One must do something,’ he answered. ‘If one thing doesn’t do, one must try another. However, like a true Corsican, I am more concerned with revenge than with pure art. _Trema, Bisanzia!_’ ‘I don’t understand you,’ said Bersenyev. ‘Well, wait a minute. Deign to look this way, gracious friend and benefactor, my vengeance number one.’ Shubin uncovered one figure, and Bersenyev saw a capital bust of Insarov, an excellent likeness. The features of the face had been correctly caught by Shubin to the minutest detail, and he had given him a fine expression, honest, generous, and bold. Bersenyev went into raptures over it. ‘That’s simply exquisite!’ he cried. ‘I congratulate you. You must send it to the exhibition! Why do you call that magnificent work your vengeance?’ ‘Because, sir, I intended to offer this magnificent work as you call it to Elena Nikolaevna on her name day. Do you see the allegory? We are not blind, we see what goes on about us, but we are gentlemen, my dear sir, and we take our revenge like gentlemen.... But here,’ added Shubin, uncovering another figure, ‘as the artist according to modern aesthetic principles enjoys the enviable privilege of embodying in himself every sort of baseness which he can turn into a gem of creative art, we in the production of this gem, number two, have taken vengeance not as gentlemen, but simply _en canaille_.’