questions, and were not disturbed. Kirsánof was a bad help-meet; he was more; even entirely, on the side of the ladies, and they all three played, sang, laughed, till late into the night, and then, becoming tired, they finally separated, even the immovable enthusiasts for serious conversation.
III.
VIÉRA PAVLOVNA'S SECOND DREAM.
And here Viéra Pavlovna falls asleep, and Viéra Pavlovna dreams a dream.
A field, and across the field goes a man, namely, her mílenki, together with Alekséi Petróvitch, and her mílenki says: "You are interested in knowing why some dirt brings forth wheat so white, and pure, and delicate, while other dirt does not bring it forth at all. You will soon see the difference yourself. Look at the root of this beautiful ear of wheat. Around the root is dirt, but this dirt is just pulled up, you might even call it clean; you smell a moist odor, disagreeable, but not foul, and not putrid. You know that in the philosophical language which you and I use, this clean dirt is called actual dirt. It is dirt, to be sure; but look at it attentively and you will see that all the elements of which it is composed are healthy in themselves. When they are gathered together, they make dirt; but let the atoms change in some degree their relative co-ordination, and something else will take its place, and all that takes its place will be healthy, because the fundamental elements are healthy. Whence comes the healthy element of this dirt? Just notice the situation of this little field: you see that there is a ditch here for the water to run, and therefore there can be no rottenness here."
"Yes, motion is reality," says Alekséi Petróvitch, "because motion is life; and reality and life are one and the same thing. But the main element of life is labor, and therefore, the main element of reality is labor, and the truest sign of reality is activity."
"So you see, Alekséi Petróvitch, when the sun begins to warm this dirt, and the warmth begins to transfer its elements into a more complicated chemical correlation, into the correlation of higher forms, the wheat ear which grows out of
