Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/331

 knew, at the fair, but the old man interrupted him, and himself told of past carousals at Kunávin, in which he had taken part. He was apparently proud of the part taken by him in them, and was telling with obvious joy how once he and this acquaintance of his were drunk in Kunávin and did something of such a nature that it was necessary to tell it in a whisper, whereat the clerk roared so that he could be heard through the whole car, and the old man laughed, displaying his yellow teeth.

As I did not expect to hear anything interesting, I got up to walk up and down the platform until the departure of the train. I met the lawyer and the lady in the door, who were with animation talking about something, while making for the car.

"You will have no time," the affable lawyer said to me. "The second bell will ring in a minute."

And so it was. I had not reached the end of the train when the bell rang out. When I returned, the animated conversation between the lady and the lawyer was still in progress. The old merchant sat silently opposite them, sternly looking in front of him, and now and then disapprovingly gnashing his teeth.

"Then she frankly informed her husband," the lawyer was saying, with a smile, just as I passed by him, "that she could not and would not live with him because—"

He continued to tell her the rest, but I could not make out what he was saying. After me, other passengers passed in; then the conductor; then a porter ran in, and there was a din for quite awhile, so that their conversation could not be heard. When all had quieted down, and I again heard the lawyer's voice, the conversation had evidently passed from the particular case to generalizations.

The lawyer was saying that the question of divorce now occupied public opinion in Europe, and that such cases were becoming ever more frequent in our country. Upon