XVIII.
THE MAID'S CHAMBER
I felt more and more lonely, and my chief pleasures were solitary meditations and observations. I shall tell in the next chapter of the subject of my meditations ; but the scene of my observations was preëminently the maids' chamber, where a pathetic romance took place, which interested me very much. The heroine of this romance, of course, was Másha. She was in love with Vasíli, who had known her when she was still at liberty, and who had promised to marry her. Fate, which had separated them five years before, had again brought them together in grandmother's house, but had placed a barrier to their mutual love in the person of Nikoláy, Másha's uncle, who would not listen to Másha's marrying Vasíli, whom he called a weak-brained and reckless man.
This barrier had the result that Vasíli, who heretofore had been cold and careless in his relations to Másha, now fell in love with her, and he fell in love as much as a man is capable of such a sentiment, when he has been a tailor in manorial service, wearing a rose-coloured blouse and waxing his hair with pomatum.
Although his manifestations of love were very strange and awkward (for example, whenever he met Másha he tried to cause her pain: either he pinched her, or struck her with the palm of his hand, or squeezed her with such power that she scarcely could draw breath), his love was sincere, which is proved even by this, that from the very
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