Stories

Sofya Petrovna was the wife of Lubyantsev the notary. She was a handsome young woman of five-and-twenty.

She was walking slowly along a track with Ilyin, a lawyer who was spending the summer in the neighbourhood.

It was five o'clock in the evening. Feathery-white masses of cloud stood overhead and patched of bright blue sky peeped out between them. The clouds stood motionless, as though they had caught in the tops of the tall old pine- trees. It was still and sultry. Farther on, the track was crossed by a low railway embankment on which a sential with a gun was for some reason pacing up and down. Just beyond the embankment there was a large white church with six domes and a rusty roof.

I did not expect to meet you here and now ı am glad we have met. said Sofya Petrovna. She was looking at the ground and prodding at the last year's leaves with the tip of her parasol.

I want to speak to you seriously and once for all. I beg you, Ivan Mihalovitch, if you really love and respect me, please make an end of this pursuit of me! You follow me about like a shadow. You are continually looking at me not in a nice way, making love to me, writing me strange letters, and... and I don't know where it's all going to end! Why, what can come of it?