yielding. By that smile alone, I should have known my Zina�da of old days. My father shrugged his shoulders, and straightened his hat on his head, which was always a sign of impatience with him� . Then I caught the words: ‘Vous devez vous s�parer de cette� ’ Zina�da sat up, and stretched out her arm� . Suddenly, before my very eyes, the impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from crying out; while Zina�da shuddered, looked without a word at my father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of red upon it. My father flung away the whip, and running quickly up the steps, dashed into the house� . Zina�da turned round, and with outstretched arms and downcast head, she too moved away from the window.