Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VII).djvu/126

Rh observed Nezhdanov. 'You know the saying. "If you choose to be a mushroom, you must go in the basket with the rest."'

'I know I know; but the baskets nowadays are so narrow and hard to creep out of!'

'Have you any children?' Marianna asked, to change the conversation.

'Yes; a son. He begins to go to school. I had a little girl too; but she's no more, poor darling! She met with an accident; fell under a wheel. And if only it had killed her at once! But no, she lingered in suffering a long while. Since then I've grown tender-hearted; before then I was as hard as a tree!'

'Why, what of your man Pavel Yegoritch? didn't you love him?'

'Eh! that was a different matter; the feeling of a girl. And how about you, now—do you love your man?'

'Yes.'

'Very much?'

'Yes.'

'Yes?' Tatyana looked at Nezhdanov, then at Marianna, and said no more.

It was again Marianna's lot to change the conversation. She told Tatyana she had given up smoking; the latter approved of her resolution. Then Marianna asked her again about