We happened once to go into the hut of a peasant-woman who had just lost her only, passionately loved son, and to our considerable astonishment we found her perfectly calm, almost cheerful. ‘Let her be,’ said her husband, to whom probably our astonishment was apparent, ‘she is gone numb now.’ And Litvinov had in the same way ‘gone numb.’ The same sort of calm came over him during the first few hours of the journey. Utterly crushed, hopelessly wretched as he was, still he was at rest, at rest after the agonies and sufferings of the last few weeks, after all the blows which had fallen one after another upon his head. They had been the more shattering for him that he was little fitted by nature for such tempests. Now he really hoped for nothing, and tried not to remember, above all not to remember. He was going to Russia ... he had to go somewhere; but he was making no kind of plans regarding his own personality. He did notrecognise himself, he did not comprehend his own actions, he had positively lost his real identity, and, in fact, he took very little interest in his own identity. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was taking his own corpse home, and only the bitter spasms of irremediable spiritual pain passing over him from time to time brought him back to a sense of still being alive. At times it struck him as incomprehensible that a man—a man!—could let a woman, let love, have such power over him ... ‘Ignominious weakness!’ he muttered, and shook back his cloak, and sat up more squarely; as though to say, the past is over, let’s begin fresh ... a moment, and he could only smile bitterly and wonder at himself. He fell to looking out of the window. It was grey and damp; there was no rain, but the fog still hung about; and low clouds trailed across the sky. The wind blew facing the train; whitish clouds of steam, some singly, others mingled with other darker clouds of smoke, whirled in endless file past the window at which Litvinov was sitting. He began to watch this steam, this smoke. Incessantly mounting, rising and falling, twisting and hooking on to the grass, to the bushes as though in sportive antics, lengthening out, and hiding away, clouds upon clouds flew by ... they were for ever changing andstayed still the same in their monotonous, hurrying, wearisome sport! Sometimes the wind changed, the line bent to right or left, and suddenly the whole mass vanished, and at once reappeared at the opposite window; then again the huge tail was flung out, and again it veiled Litvinov’s view of the vast plain of the Rhine. He gazed and gazed, and a strange reverie came over him.... He was alone in the compartment; there was no one to disturb him. ‘Smoke, smoke,’ he repeated several times; and suddenly it all seemed as smoke to him, everything, his own life, Russian life—everything human, especially everything Russian. All smoke and steam, he thought; all seems for ever changing, on all sides new forms, phantoms flying after phantoms, while in reality it is all the same and the same again; everything hurrying, flying towards something, and everything vanishing without a trace, attaining to nothing; another wind blows, and all is dashing in the opposite direction, and there again the same untiring, restless—and useless gambols! He remembered much that had taken place with clamour and flourish before his eyes in the last few years ... ‘Smoke,’ he whispered, ‘smoke’; he remembered the hot disputes, the wrangling, the clamour at Gubaryov’s, and in other sets of men, of high andlow degree, advanced and reactionist, old and young ... ‘Smoke,’ he repeated, ‘smoke and steam’; he remembered, too, the fashionable picnic, and he remembered various opinions and speeches of other political personages—even all Potugin’s sermonising ... ‘Smoke, smoke, nothing but smoke.’ And what of his own struggles and passions and agonies and dreams? He could only reply with a gesture of despair.
And meanwhile the train dashed on and on; by now Rastadt, Carlsruhe, and Bruchsal had long been left far behind; the mountains on the right side of the line swerved aside, retreated into the distance, then moved up again, but not so high, and more thinly covered with trees.... The train made a sharp turn ... and there was Heidelberg. The carriage rolled in under the cover of the station; there was the shouting of newspaper-boys, selling papers of all sorts, even Russian; passengers began bustling in their seats, getting out on to the platform, but Litvinov did not leave his corner, and still sat on with downcast head. Suddenly some one called him by name; he raised his eyes; Bindasov’s ugly phiz was thrust in at the window; and behind him—or was he dreaming, no, it was really so—all the familiar Baden faces;there was Madame Suhantchikov, there was Voroshilov, and Bambaev too; they all rushed up to him, while Bindasov bellowed:
‘But where’s Pishtchalkin? We were expecting him; but it’s all the same, hop out, and we’ll be off to Gubaryov’s.’
‘Yes, my boy, yes, Gubaryov’s expecting us,’ Bambaev confirmed, making way for him, ‘hop out.’
Litvinov would have flown into a rage, but for a dead load lying on his heart. He glanced at Bindasov and turned away without speaking.
‘I tell you Gubaryov’s here,’ shrieked Madame Suhantchikov, her eyes fairly starting out of her head.
Litvinov did not stir a muscle.
‘Come, do listen, Litvinov,’ Bambaev began at last, ‘there’s not only Gubaryov here, there’s a whole phalanx here of the most splendid, most intellectual young fellows, Russians—and all studying the natural sciences, all of the noblest convictions! Really you must stop here, if it’s only for them. Here, for instance, there’s a certain ... there, I’ve forgotten his surname, but he’s a genius! simply!’
‘Oh, let him be, let him be, Rostislav Ardalionovitch,’ interposed Madame Suhantchikov,‘let him be! You see what sort of a fellow he is; and all his family are the same. He has an aunt; at first she struck me as a sensible woman, but the day before yesterday I went to see her here—she had only just before gone to Baden and was back here again before you could look round—well, I went to see her; began questioning her.... Would you believe me, I couldn’t get a word out of the stuck-up thing. Horrid aristocrat!’
Poor Kapitolina Markovna an aristocrat! Could she ever have anticipated such a humiliation?
But Litvinov still held his peace, turned away, and pulled his cap over his eyes. The train started at last.
‘Well, say something at parting at least, you stonyhearted man!’ shouted Bambaev, ‘this is really too much!’
‘Rotten milksop!’ yelled Bindasov. The carriages were moving more and more rapidly, and he could vent his abuse with impunity. ‘Niggardly stick-in-the-mud.’
Whether Bindasov invented this last appellation on the spot, or whether it had come to him second-hand, it apparently gave great satisfaction to two of the noble young fellows studying natural science, who happened to be standing by, for only a few days later itappeared in the Russian periodical sheet, published at that time at Heidelberg under the title:A tout venant je crache!2or, ‘We don’t care a hang for anybody!’
But Litvinov repeated again, ‘Smoke, smoke, smoke! Here,’ he thought, ‘in Heidelberg now are over a hundred Russian students; they’re all studying chemistry, physics, physiology—they won’t even hear of anything else ... but in five or six years’ time there won’t be fifteen at the lectures by the same celebrated professors; the wind will change, the smoke will be blowing ... in another quarter ... smoke ... smoke...!’3
Heidelberg.Heidelberg.
Heidelberg.
Towards nightfall he passed by Cassel. With the darkness intolerable anguish pounced like a hawk upon him, and he wept, burying himself in the corner of the carriage. For a long time his tears flowed, not easing his heart, but torturing him with a sort of gnawing bitterness; while at the same time, in one of the hotels of Cassel, Tatyana was lying in bed feverishly ill.
Kapitolina Markovna was sitting beside her. ‘Tanya,’ she was saying, ‘for God’s sake, let me send a telegram to Grigory Mihalitch, do let me, Tanya!’
‘No, aunt,’ she answered; ‘you mustn’t; don’t be frightened, give me some water; it will soon pass.’
And a week later she did, in fact, recover, and the two friends continued their journey.
Stopping neither at Petersburg nor at Moscow, Litvinov went back to his estate. He was dismayed when he saw his father; the latter was so weak and failing. The old man rejoiced to have his son, as far as a man can rejoice who is just at the close of life; he at once gave over to him the management of everything, which was in great disorder, and lingering on a few weeks longer, he departed from this earthly sphere. Litvinov was left alone in his ancient little manor-house, and with a heavy heart, without hope, without zeal, and without money, he began to work the land. Working the land is a cheerless business, as many know too well; we will not enlarge on how distasteful it seemed to Litvinov. As for reforms and innovations, there was, of course, no question even of them; the practical application of the information he had gathered abroad was put off for an indefinite period; poverty forced him to make shift from day to day, to consent to allsorts of compromises—both material and moral. The new had ‘begun ill,’ the old had lost all power; ignorance jostled up against dishonesty; the whole agrarian organisation was shaken and unstable as quagmire bog, and only one great word, ‘freedom,’ was wafted like the breath of God over the waters. Patience was needed before all things, and a patience not passive, but active, persistent, not without tact and cunning at times.... For Litvinov, in his frame of mind, it was doubly hard. He had but little will to live left in him.... Where was he to get the will to labour and take trouble?
But a year passed, after it another passed, the third was beginning. The mighty idea was being realised by degrees, was passing into flesh and blood, the young shoot had sprung up from the scattered seed, and its foes, both open and secret, could not stamp it out now. Litvinov himself, though he had ended by giving up the greater part of his land to the peasants on the half-profit system, that’s to say, by returning to the wretched primitive methods, had yet succeeded in doing something; he had restored the factory, set up a tiny farm with five free hired labourers—he had had at different times fully forty—and had paid his principal private debts.... And his spirit had gained strength; he had begun to be like the oldLitvinov again. It’s true, a deeply buried melancholy never left him, and he was too quiet for his years; he shut himself up in a narrow circle and broke off all his old connections ... but the deadly indifference had passed, and among the living he moved and acted as a living man again. The last traces, too, had vanished of the enchantment in which he had been held; all that had passed at Baden appeared to him dimly as in a dream.... And Irina? even she had paled and vanished too, and Litvinov only had a faint sense of something dangerous behind the mist that gradually enfolded her image. Of Tatyana news reached him from time to time; he knew that she was living with her aunt on her estate, a hundred and sixty miles from him, leading a quiet life, going out little, and scarcely receiving any guests—cheerful and well, however. It happened on one fine May day, that he was sitting in his study, listlessly turning over the last number of a Petersburg paper; a servant came to announce the arrival of an old uncle. This uncle happened to be a cousin of Kapitolina Markovna and had been recently staying with her. He had bought an estate in Litvinov’s vicinity and was on his way thither. He stayed twenty-four hours with his nephew and told him a great deal about Tatyana’s manner of life. The next day after his departureLitvinov sent her a letter, the first since their separation. He begged for permission to renew her acquaintance, at least by correspondence, and also desired to learn whether he must for ever give up all idea of some day seeing her again? Not without emotion he awaited the answer ... the answer came at last. Tatyana responded cordially to his overture. ‘If you are disposed to pay us a visit,’ she finished up, ‘we hope you will come; you know the saying, “even the sick are easier together than apart.”’ Kapitolina Markovna joined in sending her regards. Litvinov was as happy as a child; it was long since his heart had beaten with such delight over anything. He felt suddenly light and bright.... Just as when the sun rises and drives away the darkness of night, a light breeze flutters with the sun’s rays over the face of the reviving earth. All that day Litvinov kept smiling, even while he went about his farm and gave his orders. He at once began making arrangements for the journey, and a fortnight later he was on his way to Tatyana.
He drove rather slowly by cross tracks, without any special adventures; only once the tire of a hind wheel broke; a blacksmith hammered and welded it, swearing both at the tire and at himself, and positively flung up the job; luckily it turned out that among us one can travel capitally even with a tire broken, especially on the ‘soft,’ that’s to say on the mud. On the other hand, Litvinov did come upon some rather curious chance-meetings. At one place he found a Board of Mediators sitting, and at the head of it Pishtchalkin, who made on him the impression of a Solon or a Solomon, such lofty wisdom characterised his remarks, and such boundless respect was shown him both by landowners and peasants.... In exterior, too, he had begun to resemble a sage of antiquity; his hair had fallen off the crown of his head, and his full face had completely set in a sort of solemn jelly of positively blatant virtue. He expressed his pleasure atLitvinov’s arrival in—‘if I may make bold to use so ambitious an expression, my own district,’ and altogether seemed fairly overcome by an excess of excellent intentions. One piece of news he did, however, succeed in communicating, and that was about Voroshilov; the hero of the Golden Board had re-entered military service, and had already had time to deliver a lecture to the officers of his regiment on Buddhism or Dynamism, or something of the sort—Pishtchalkin could not quite remember. At the next station it was a long while before the horses were in readiness for Litvinov; it was early dawn, and he was dozing as he sat in his coach. A voice, that struck him as familiar, waked him up; he opened his eyes.... Heavens! wasn’t it Gubaryov in a grey pea-jacket and full flapping pyjamas standing on the steps of the posting hut, swearing?... No, it wasn’t Mr. Gubaryov.... But what a striking resemblance!... Only this worthy had a mouth even wider, teeth even bigger, the expression of his dull eyes was more savage and his nose coarser, and his beard thicker, and the whole countenance heavier and more repulsive.
‘Scou-oundrels, scou-oundrels!’ he vociferated slowly and viciously, his wolfish mouth gaping wide. ‘Filthy louts.... Here youhave ... vaunted freedom indeed ... and can’t get horses ... scou-oundrels!’
‘Scou-oundrels, scou-oundrels!’ thereupon came the sound of another voice from within, and at the same moment there appeared on the steps—also in a grey smoking pea-jacket and pyjamas—actually, unmistakably, the real Gubaryov himself, Stepan Nikolaevitch Gubaryov. ‘Filthy louts!’ he went on in imitation of his brother (it turned out that the first gentleman was his elder brother, the man of the old school, famous for his fists, who had managed his estate). ‘Flogging’s what they want, that’s it; a tap or two on the snout, that’s the sort of freedom for them.... Self-government indeed.... I’d let them know it.... But where is that M’sieu Roston?... What is he thinking about?... It’s his business, the lazy scamp ... to see we’re not put to inconvenience.’
‘Well, I told you, brother,’ began the elder Gubaryov, ‘that he was a lazy scamp, no good in fact! But there, for the sake of old times, you ... M’sieu Roston, M’sieu Roston!... Where have you got to?’
‘Roston! Roston!’ bawled the younger, the great Gubaryov. ‘Give a good call for him, do brother Dorimedont Nikolaitch!’
‘Well, I am shouting for him, Stepan Nikolaitch! M’sieu Roston!’
‘Here I am, here I am, here I am!’ was heard a hurried voice, and round the corner of the hut skipped Bambaev.
Litvinov fairly gasped. On the unlucky enthusiast a shabby braided coat, with holes in the elbows, dangled ruefully; his features had not exactly changed, but they looked pinched and drawn together; his over-anxious little eyes expressed a cringing timorousness and hungry servility; but his dyed whiskers stood out as of old above his swollen lips. The Gubaryov brothers with one accord promptly set to scolding him from the top of the steps; he stopped, facing them below, in the mud, and with his spine curved deprecatingly, he tried to propitiate them with a little nervous smile, kneading his cap in his red fingers, shifting from one foot to the other, and muttering that the horses would be here directly.... But the brothers did not cease, till the younger at last cast his eyes upon Litvinov. Whether he recognised Litvinov, or whether he felt ashamed before a stranger, anyway he turned abruptly on his heels like a bear, and gnawing his beard, went into the station hut; his brother held his tongue at once, and he too, turning like a bear, followed him in. The great Gubaryov, evidently, had not lost his influence even in his own country.
Bambaev was slowly moving after the brothers.... Litvinov called him by his name. He looked round, lifted up his head, and recognising Litvinov, positively flew at him with outstretched arms; but when he had run up to the carriage, he clutched at the carriage door, leaned over it, and began sobbing violently.
‘There, there, Bambaev,’ protested Litvinov, bending over him and patting him on the shoulder.
But he went on sobbing. ‘You see ... you see ... to what....’ he muttered brokenly.
‘Bambaev!’ thundered the brothers from the hut.
Bambaev raised his head and hurriedly wiped his tears.
‘Welcome, dear heart,’ he whispered, ‘welcome and farewell!... You hear, they are calling me.’
‘But what chance brought you here?’ inquired Litvinov, ‘and what does it all mean? I thought they were calling a Frenchman....’
‘I am their ... house-steward, butler,’ answered Bambaev, and he pointed in the direction of the hut. ‘And I’m turned Frenchman for a joke. What could I do, brother? You see, I’d nothing to eat, I’d lost my last farthing, and so one’s forced to put one’s head under the yoke. One can’t afford to be proud.’
‘But has he been long in Russia? and how did he part from his comrades?’
‘Ah, my boy, that’s all on the shelf now.... The wind’s changed, you see.... Madame Suhantchikov, Matrona Semyonovna, he simply kicked out. She went to Portugal in her grief.’
‘To Portugal? How absurd!’
‘Yes, brother, to Portugal, with two Matronovtsys.’
‘With whom?’
‘The Matronovtsys; that’s what the members of her party are called.’
‘Matrona Semyonovna has a party of her own? And is it a numerous one?’
‘Well, it consists of precisely those two. And he will soon have been back here six months. Others have got into difficulties, but he was all right. He lives in the country with his brother, and you should just hear him now....’
‘Bambaev!’
‘Coming, Stepan Nikolaitch, coming. And you, dear old chap, are flourishing, enjoying yourself! Well, thank God for that! Where are you off to now?... There, I never thought, I never guessed.... You remember Baden? Ah, that was a place to live in! By the way, you remember Bindasov too? Only fancy, he’s dead. He turned exciseman, and was in a row in a public-house; he got his headbroken with a billiard-cue. Yes, yes, hard times have come now! But still I say, Russia ... ah, our Russia! Only look at those two geese; why, in the whole of Europe there’s nothing like them! The genuine Arzamass breed!’
And with this last tribute to his irrepressible desire for enthusiasm, Bambaev ran off to the station hut, where again, seasoned with opprobrious epithets, his name was shouted.
Towards the close of the same day, Litvinov was nearly reaching Tatyana’s village. The little house where his former betrothed lived stood on the slope of a hill, above a small river, in the midst of a garden recently planted. The house, too, was new, lately built, and could be seen a long way off across the river and the open country. Litvinov caught sight of it more than a mile and a half off, with its sharp gable, and its row of little windows, gleaming red in the evening sun. At starting from the last station he was conscious of a secret agitation; now he was in a tremor simply—a happy tremor, not unmixed with dread. ‘How will they meet me?’ he thought, ‘how shall I present myself?’... To turn off his thoughts with something, he began talking with his driver, a steady peasant with a grey beard, who charged him, however, for twenty-five miles, when thedistance was not twenty. He asked him, did he know the Shestov ladies?
‘The Shestov ladies? To be sure! Kind-hearted ladies, and no doubt about it! They doctor us too. It’s the truth I’m telling you. Doctors they are! People go to them from all about. Yes, indeed. They fairly crawl to them. If any one, take an example, falls sick, or cuts himself or anything, he goes straight to them and they’ll give him a lotion directly, or powders, or a plaster, and it’ll be all right, it’ll do good. But one can’t show one’s gratitude, we won’t consent to that, they say; it’s not for money. They’ve set up a school too.... Not but what that’s a foolish business!’
While the driver talked, Litvinov never took his eyes off the house.... Out came a woman in white on to the balcony, stood a little, stood and then disappeared.... ‘Wasn’t it she?’ His heart was fairly bounding within him. ‘Quicker, quicker!’ he shouted to the driver; the latter urged on the horses. A few instants more ... and the carriage rolled in through the opened gates.... And on the steps Kapitolina Markovna was already standing, and beside herself with joy, was clapping her hands crying, ‘I heard him, I knew him first! It’s he! it’s he!... I knew him!’
Litvinov jumped out of the carriage, withoutgiving the page who ran up time to open the door, and hurriedly embracing Kapitolina Markovna, dashed into the house, through the hall, into the dining-room.... Before him, all shamefaced, stood Tatyana. She glanced at him with her kind caressing eyes (she was a little thinner, but it suited her), and gave him her hand. But he did not take her hand, he fell on his knees before her. She had not at all expected this and did not know what to say, what to do.... The tears started into her eyes. She was frightened, but her whole face beamed with delight.... ‘Grigory Mihalitch, what is this, Grigory Mihalitch?’ she said ... while he still kissed the hem of her dress ... and with a thrill of tenderness he recalled that at Baden he had been in the same way on his knees before her.... But then—and now!
‘Tanya!’ he repeated, ‘Tanya! you have forgiven me, Tanya!’
‘Aunt, aunt, what is this?’ cried Tatyana turning to Kapitolina Markovna as she came in.
‘Don’t hinder him, Tanya,’ answered the kind old lady. ‘You see the sinner has repented.’
But it is time to make an end; and indeed there is nothing to add; the reader can guess the rest by himself.... But what of Irina?
She is still as charming, in spite of herthirty years; young men out of number fall in love with her, and would fall in love with her even more, if ... if....
Reader, would you care to pass with us for a few instants to Petersburg into one of the first houses there? Look; before you is a spacious apartment, we will not say richly—that is too low an expression—but grandly, imposingly, inspiringly decorated. Are you conscious of a certain flutter of servility? Know that you have entered a temple, a temple consecrated to the highest propriety, to the loftiest philanthropy, in a word, to things unearthly.... A kind of mystic, truly mystic, hush enfolds you. The velvet hangings on the doors, the velvet curtains on the window, the bloated, spongy rug on the floor, everything as it were destined and fitted beforehand for subduing, for softening all coarse sounds and violent sensations. The carefully hung lamps inspire well-regulated emotions; a discreet fragrance is diffused in the close air; even the samovar on the table hisses in a restrained and modest manner. The lady of the house, an important personage in the Petersburg world, speaks hardly audibly; she always speaks as though there were some one dangerously ill, almost dying in the room; the other ladies, following her example, faintly whisper; while her sister, pouring out tea, moves her lips soabsolutely without sound that a young man sitting before her, who has been thrown by chance into the temple of decorum, is positively at a loss to know what she wants of him, while she for the sixth time breathes to him, ‘Voulez-vous une tasse de thé?’ In the corners are to be seen young, good-looking men; their glances are brightly, gently ingratiating; unruffled gentleness, tinged with obsequiousness, is apparent in their faces; a number of the stars and crosses of distinction gleam softly on their breasts. The conversation is always gentle; it turns on religious and patriotic topics, the Mystic Drop, F. N. Glinka, the missions in the East, the monasteries and brotherhoods in White Russia. At times, with muffled tread over the soft carpets, move footmen in livery; their huge calves, cased in tight silk stockings, shake noiselessly at every step; the respectful motion of the solid muscles only augments the general impression of decorum, of solemnity, of sanctity.
It is a temple, a temple!
‘Have you seen Madame Ratmirov to-day?’ one great lady queries softly.
‘I met her to-day at Lise’s,’ the hostess answers with her Æolian note. ‘I feel so sorry for her.... She has a satirical intellect ...elle n’a pas la foi.’
‘Yes, yes,’ repeats the great lady ... ‘thatI remember, Piotr Ivanitch said about her, and very true it is,qu’elle a ... qu’elle aan ironical intellect.’
‘Elle n’a pas la foi,’ the hostess’s voice exhaled like the smoke of incense,—‘C’est une âme égarée.She has an ironical mind.’
And that is why the young men are not all without exception in love with Irina.... They are afraid of her ... afraid of her ‘ironical intellect.’ That is the current phrase about her; in it, as in every phrase, there is a grain of truth. And not only the young men are afraid of her; she is feared by grown men too, and by men in high places, and even by the grandest personages. No one can so truly and artfully scent out the ridiculous or petty side of a character, no one else has the gift of stamping it mercilessly with the never-forgotten word.... And the sting of that word is all the sharper that it comes from lovely, sweetly fragrant lips.... It’s hard to say what passes in that soul; but in the crowd of her adorers rumour does not recognise in any one the position of a favoured suitor.
Irina’s husband is moving rapidly along the path which among the French is called the path of distinction. The stout general has shot past him; the condescending one is left behind.And in the same town in which Irina lives, lives also our friend Sozont Potugin; he rarely sees her, and she has no special necessity to keep up any connection with him.... The little girl who was committed to his care died not long ago.
THE END
Printed by T. and A.Constable, Printers to His Majesty, at the Edinburgh University Press
FOOTNOTES:[1]Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio: sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.—Catull.lxxxvi.[2]A historical fact.[3]Litvinov’s presentiments came true. In 1866 there were in Heidelberg thirteen Russian students entered for the summer, and twelve for the winter session.
[1]Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio: sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.—Catull.lxxxvi.
[1]Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. Nescio: sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.—Catull.lxxxvi.
[2]A historical fact.
[2]A historical fact.
[3]Litvinov’s presentiments came true. In 1866 there were in Heidelberg thirteen Russian students entered for the summer, and twelve for the winter session.
[3]Litvinov’s presentiments came true. In 1866 there were in Heidelberg thirteen Russian students entered for the summer, and twelve for the winter session.
Transcriber's Note:Punctuation has been standardised and obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation, and obsolete or variant spelling have all been preserved.The Table of Contents was added by the transcriber.The following changes have also been made:Page 17, eat =>ate.Page 28, Yakovlevna =>Yakovlovna.Page 84, Devonshirse =>Devonshire.
Transcriber's Note:
Punctuation has been standardised and obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation, and obsolete or variant spelling have all been preserved.
The Table of Contents was added by the transcriber.
The following changes have also been made:
Page 17, eat =>ate.
Page 28, Yakovlevna =>Yakovlovna.
Page 84, Devonshirse =>Devonshire.