The Party and other stories

could hardly get into the boats. Three boats were crammed with passengers, while two stood empty. The keys for unfastening these two boats had been somehow mislaid, and messengers were continually

ting one another down. Pyotr Dmitritch paced

to be lying in the hall window! Who has dared to take them

pacing about the bank, jumped into a long, narrow boat hollowed out of the trunk of a poplar, and, lurching from side to side and almost falling

the birds flying across it. The bank on which the house and gardens stood was high, steep, and covered with trees; on the other, which was sloping, stretched broad green water-meadows with sheets of water glistening in th

setting their nets for the night. In one of these boats was th

p”— while Pyotr Dmitritch, for some reason, called it Penderaklia— flew along quickly; it had a brisk, crafty expression, as though it hated its heavy occupant and was looking out for a favourable moment to glide away from under his feet. Olga Mihalovna kept looking at her husband, and she loa

eart fluttered with terror. “Sit down! We

y and came to live in the district, but he already talks of himself as ‘we active members of the Zemstvo.’ But in another year he will be bored like so many others and go off to Petersburg, and to justify running away, will tell every one that the Zemstvos are good-for-nothing, and that he has been deceived in them. While from the other boat his young wife keeps her eyes fixed on him, and believes that he is ‘an active member of the Zemstvo,’ just as in a year she will believe that the Zemstvo is good-for-nothing. And that stout, care

ld not remember one person of whom one could say or think anything good. They all seemed to her mediocre, insipid, unintelligent, narrow, false, heartless; they all said what they did not think

yotr Dmitritch in to

s chimed in. “Olga Mihalovn

ht moment and to catch bold of his boat by the chain at the beak. When she

on’t catch co

d the child, why do you tormen

umped from the Penderaklia into the boat which was overful already, and jumped

trembling, as she supposed, from boredom, vexation from the strain of smiling and the discomfort she felt all

,” she thought, “I shall sa

were smoking, and Vassily and Grigory, in their swallow-tails and white knitted gloves, were already busy with the tea-things. On the other bank, opposite the “Island of Good Hope,” there stood the carriages which had come with the provisions. The baskets and par

ugar, another wanted it stronger, another weak, a fourth declined another glass. And all this Olga Mihalovna had to remember, and then to call, “Ivan Petrovitch, is it without sugar for you?” or, “Gentlemen, which of you wanted it weak?” But the guest who had asked for weak tea, or no sugar, had by now forgotten it, and, absorbed in agreeable conversation, took the first glass that came. Depressed-looking figur

r young man sipped his tea through a lump of sugar, and kept saying, “Sinful man that I am, I love to indulge myself with the Chinese herb.” He kept asking with a heavy sigh: “Another tiny dish of tea more, if you please.” He drank a great deal, nibbled his sugar, and thought it all very

hildren who hung round the table; she was irritated at Vata’s being like Nata, at Kolya’s being like Mitya, so that one could not tell which of them had had tea and whi

riends,” cr

looked a

. .” Pyotr Dmitritch ass

f. At first they all wanted to drive home in the carriages, but changed their minds and made for the boats. On the pretext that she had to

e she drove through the village, and with an angry face acknowledged the bows of the peasants she

do all these people hustle each other here and pretend that they are

d voices. The visi

t Olga Mihalovna; “I sh

servant cam

ryevna is go

p, tidied her hair and

” she began in an injured voice, going to meet M

stayed too long as it is; my c

Why didn’t you bring y

I will bring them on some o

our children are so sweet! Kiss them all for me. . . . But, really, I

Good-bye, dear. Take care of yourse

ge, Olga Mihalovna went in to the ladies in the drawing-room. There the lamps we