On the eve of the decisive day Maria Gavrilovna hardly slept at all. She spent the night in packing some linens and dresses to take with her; and wrote a long letter to a sentimental girl friend, and another to her parents. She bade them farewell in the most touching terms, and excused her action on grounds of a terrible overruling passion, concluding by saying that she should consider it the most blessed moment of her life when she should be permitted to throw herself at the feet of her beloved parents. Having sealed both letters with a Toula seal, on which were engraved two flaming hearts, accompanied by an appropriate inscription, she threw herself on her bed just before daybreak, and dozed off. Terrible dreams, however, kept crowding upon her and constantly awakened her. Now it seemed to her that the very moment she entered the sledge for her journey her father stopped her and with a most painful rapidity dragged her over the snow and cast her into a dark, bottomless abyss.... Then she flew about precipitately, with an indescribable oppression of the heart. Then she saw Vladimir lying on the grass, pale, bleeding. Dying, he entreated her in shrill voice to make haste to wed him.... Still other shapeless, incoherent visions continued to pass before her. In the end she arose, looking more pale than usual, with a real headache. Her father and her mother noticed her agitation; their gentle solicitude and their ceaseless inquiries, “What is the matter with you, Masha? Are you ill, Masha?” rent her heart. She tried to quiet them, to appear cheerful, but she could not. The evening came. The thought that this was the last day she would spend in the midst of her family oppressed her. She scarcely could breathe. Secretly she was bidding each one a separate farewell, as well as all the objects which surrounded her. When the supper was announced her heart beat violently. In a trembling voice she said that she could not eat, and wished her father and her mother good-night. They kissed her and, according to their custom, also blessed her. Once in her own room, she threw herself into the arm-chair and wept. Her maid tried to prevail upon her to be calm and to take courage; everything was ready--in another half-hour Masha would leave forever her paternal home, her room, her quiet, girlish life.... Outdoors, the snow was falling; the wind howled, the shutters rattled and shook; all seemed to her to assume the aspect of a warning, the sad presaging of disaster. Soon everything in the house grew quiet and sank into slumber.