THE SACRIFICE

THE BORODINS LIVE ON THEIR ESTATE AT AN UNSETTLED TIME IN RUSSIA—THE REVOLUTION OF 1905 HAS SPREAD TO THE COUNTRYSIDE, WHERE REBELLIOUS PEASANTS ATTACK THE WEALTHY LANDOWNERS AND THREATEN EXPROPRIATION, DEMANDING THEIR SHARE OF LAND. Now anyone who’s ever been to Blagodatnoe will in all good conscience, without lying, say good things about the old Borodin nest. Its name, given in the mists of time, was not a joke. You couldn’t come up with a better one, no matter how you try. And even though grapes were not growing and ripening in its gardens and birds of paradise were