Chapter 1 - Page 2

he had fired, at Kounavino, such a
broadside that he could describe it only in the other's ear.

The clerk began to laugh noisily. The old man laughed too, showing two
long yellow teeth. Their conversation not interesting me, I left the car
to stretch my legs. At the door I met the lawyer and his lady.

"You have no more time," the lawyer said to me. "The second bell is
about to ring."

Indeed I had scarcely reached the rear of the train when the bell
sounded. As I entered the car again, the lawyer was talking with his
companion in an animated fashion. The merchant, sitting opposite them,
was taciturn.

"And then she squarely declared to her husband," said the lawyer with a
smile, as I passed by them, "that she neither could nor would live with
him, because" . . .

And he continued, but I did not hear the rest of the sentence, my
attention being distracted by the passing of the conductor and a new
traveller. When silence was restored, I again heard the lawyer's
voice. The conversation had passed from a special case to general
considerations.

"And afterward comes discord, financial difficulties, disputes between
the two parties, and the couple separate. In the good old days that
seldom happened. Is it not so?" asked the lawyer of the two merchants,
evidently trying to drag them into the conversation.

Just then the train started, and the old man, without answering, took
off his cap, and crossed himself three times while muttering a prayer.
When he had finished, he clapped his cap far down on his head, and said:

"Yes, sir, that happened in former times also, but not as often. In the
present day it is bound to happen more frequently. People have become
too learned."

The lawyer made some reply to the old man, but the train, ever
increasing its speed, made such a clatter upon the rails that I could
no longer hear distinctly. As I was interested in what the old man was
saying, I drew nearer. My neighbor, the nervous gentleman, was evidently
interested also, and, without changing his seat, he lent an ear.

"But what harm is there in education?" asked the lady, with a smile that
was scarcely perceptible. "Would it be better to marry as in the old
days, when the bride and bridegroom did not even see each other before
marriage?" she continued, answering, as is the habit of our ladies, not
the words that her interlocutor had spoken, but the words she believed
he was going to speak. "Women did not know whether they would love or
would be loved, and they were married to the first comer, and suffered
all their lives. Then you think it was better so?" she continued,
evidently