XIV

Vexation with Tyeglev and with myself succeeded the amazement with which I was overcome at first.

"Your master is mad!" I blurted out to Semyon, "raving mad! He galloped off to Petersburg, then came back and is running about all over the place! I did get hold of him and brought him right up to the gate--and here he has given me the slip again! To go out of doors on a night like this! He has chosen a nice time for a walk!"

"And why did I let go of his hand?" I reproached myself. Semyon looked at me in silence, as though intending to say something--but after the fashion of servants in those days he simply shifted from one foot to the other and said nothing.

"What time did he set off for town?" I asked sternly.

"At six o'clock in the morning."

"And how was he--did he seem anxious, depressed?" Semyon looked down. "Our master is a deep one," he began. "Who can make him out? He told me to get out his new uniform when he was going out to town--and then he curled himself."

"Curled himself?"

"Curled his hair. I got the curling tongs ready for him."

That, I confess, I had not expected. "Do you know a young lady," I asked Semyon, "a friend of Ilya Stepanitch's. Her name is Masha."

"To be sure I know Marya Anempodistovna! A nice young lady."

"Is your master in love with this Marya ... et cetera?"

Semyon heaved a sigh. "That young lady is Ilya Stepanitch's undoing. For he is desperately in love with her--and can't bring himself to marry her--and sorry to give her up, too. It's all his honour's faintheartedness. He is very fond of her."

"What is she like then, pretty?" I inquired.

Semyon assumed a grave air. "She is the sort that the gentry like."

"And you?"

"She is not the right sort for us at all."

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