is light; ignorance, darkness.' If I had been a well-educated woman, would it have been with me as it is now? I'd have got my husband into favor with the generals; I would have got a place for him in the department of supplies, or somewhere else just as good! Nu! of course I should have done the business myself with the contractors! the idea of his doing it—rubbish! I'd have built a much better house than this. I'd have bought more than a thousand souls [dushi, serfs]. But now I cannot. It is necessary to get a recommendation first in the society of generals; and how can I do that? I can't speak French, nor any other language of theirs. They'll say, 'She hain't got any manners; all she's good for is to make an uproar on the hay-market!' So I am no good! 'Ignorance is darkness.' Indeed 'knowledge is light; ignorance is darkness.'"
Now it was just this conversation that Marya Alekséyevna had overheard that brought her to the conviction that Dmitri Sergéitch's conversation was not only not dangerous for Viérotchka,—she had been inclined to think that before,—but was even likely to do her good, to lighten her own labors in overcoming Viérotchka's foolish, inexperienced, girlish, thoughts, and hasten the mystical benediction in the affair with Mikhaïl Ivanuitch.
IX.
The relations of Marya Alekséyevna to Lopukhóf resemble a farce; Marya Alekséyevna's character is exposed by them in a ridiculous way. Both these facts are quite against my will. If I had wanted to preserve a high standard of art, I should have concealed Marya Alekséyevna's relations to Lopukhóf, the description of which gives this part of my story the nature of a vaudeville. To hide them would have been easy. The essential element of the matter could have been expressed without them. Would it have been at all surprising if the tutor, even if he had not entered into this friendship with Marya Alekséyevna, had found occasion sometimes, though seldom, to say a few words with the daughter of a family where he is giving lessons? Does it take many words to engender love? There was no need of Marya Alekséyevna putting in a hand to help along this result which was brought about by the meeting of Viérotchka with Lopukhóf. But I am telling this story, not as it would be necessary if I wanted to win an artistic reputation, but simply in
