to England, coming to Tansley Street; unconsciously bringing her her share in his longed-for arrival and its fulfilments. She watched as he talked, marvelling at the undeserved wealth offered to her in the little figure discoursing so eagerly over the cumbrous volume, and at this moment the strange Russian book was probably waiting for them. It was a big thick book. Miriam sat down before it. The lights had come on. The book lay in a pool of sharp yellow light; Tolstoy, surrounded by a waiting gloom; the secret of Tolstoy standing at her side, rapidly taking off his overcoat. He drew up the chair from the next place and sat close, flattening out the book at the first chapter and beginning to read at once, bent low over the book. She bent too, stretching her hands out beyond her knees to make herself narrow, and fastening on the title. Her anticipations fell dead. It was the name of a woman...... Anna; of all names. Karenine. The story of a woman told by a man with a man’s ideas about people. But Anna Karenine was not what Tolstoy had written. Behind the ugly feebleness of the substituted word was something quite different, strong and beautiful; a whole legend in itself. Why had the translator altered the surname? Anna Kar_ay_ninna was a line of Russian poetry. His word was nothing, neither English nor French, and sounded like a face-cream. She scanned sceptically up and down the pages of English words, chilled by the fear of detecting the trail of the translator. Mr. Shatov read steadily, breathing his enthusiasm in gusts, pausing as each fresh name appeared, to pronounce it in Russian and to explain the three names belonging to each character. They were all expressive; easy to remember because of their expressiveness. The three-fold name, giving each character three faces, each turned towards a different part of his world, was fascinating..... Conversation began almost at once and kept breaking out; strange abrupt conversation different to any she had read elsewhere.... What was it? She wanted to hold the pages and find out; but Mr. Shatov read on and on, steadily turning the leaves. She skipped, fastening upon the patches of dialogue on her side of the open page, reading them backwards and forwards, glancing at the solid intervening portions to snatch an idea of the background. What was the mysterious difference? Why did she feel she could hear the tone of the voices and the pauses between the talk; the curious feeling of things moving and changing in the air that is always there in all conversations? Her excitement grew, drawing her upright to stare her question into the gloom beyond the lamp. “Well?” demanded Mr. Shatov. “It’s fascinating.”