was the circumspect, droll, magnanimous, somewhat wondering love, and the careful concern, of a kind elephant for a frail, helpless, yellow-downed chick. The reading was a delectation for both of them, and here again the choice of works was directed by the taste of Liubka, while Soloviev only followed its current and its sinuosities. Thus, for example, Liubka did not overcome Don Quixote, tired, and, finally, turning away from him, with pleasure heard Robinson Crusoe through, and wept with especial copiousness over the scene of his meeting with his relatives. She liked Dickens, and very easily grasped his radiant humour; but the features of English manners were foreign to her and incomprehensible. They also read Chekhov more than once, and Liubka very freely, without difficulty, penetrated the beauty of his design, his smile and his sadness. Stories for children moved her, touched her to such a degree that it was laughable and joyous to look at her. Once Soloviev read to her Chekhov’s story, The Fit, in which, as it is known, a student for the first time finds himself in a brothel; and afterwards, on the next day, writhes about, as in a fit, in the spasms of a keen psychic suffering and the consciousness of common guilt. Soloviev himself did not expect that tremendous impression which this narrative would make upon her. She cried, swore, wrung her hands, and exclaimed all the while: “Lord! Where does he take all that stuff from, and so skillfully! Why, it’s every bit just the way it is with us!” Once he brought with him a book entitled THE HISTORY OF MANON LESCAUT AND THE CHEVALIER DE GRIEUX, the work of Abbe Prevost. It must be said that Soloviev himself was reading this remarkable book for the first time. But still, Liubka appraised it far more deeply and finely. The absence of a plot, the naiveness of the telling, the surplus of sentimentality, the olden fashion of the style—all this taken together cooled Soloviev; whereas Liubka received the joyous, sad, touching and flippant details of this quaint immortal novel not only through her ears, but as though with her eyes and with all her naively open heart. “‘Our intention of espousal was forgotten at St. Denis,’” Soloviev was reading, bending his tousled, golden-haired head, illuminated by the shade of the lamp, low over the book; “‘we transgressed against the laws of the church and, without thinking of it, became espoused.’” “What are they at? Of their own will, that is? Without a priest? Just so?” asked Liubka in uneasiness, tearing herself away from her artificial flowers. “Of course. And what of it? Free love, and that’s all there is to it. Like you and Lichonin, now.” “Oh, me! That’s an entirely different matter. You know yourself where he took me from. But she’s an innocent and genteel young lady. That’s a low-down thing for him to do. And, believe me, Soloviev, he’s sure to leave her later. Ah, the poor girl. Well, well, well, read on.”