On the evening of which we are speaking, the inhabitants of the Kalitins’ house (the eldest of them, Lenotchka’s betrothed, was only twenty-four) were engaged in a game, which, though not of a very complicated nature, was, to judge from their merry laughter, exceedingly entertaining to them; they were running about the rooms, chasing one another; the dogs, too, were running and barking, and the canaries, hanging in cages above the windows, were straining their throats in rivalry and adding to the general uproar by the shrill trilling of their piercing notes. At the very height of this deafening merrymaking a mud-bespattered carriage stopped at the gate, and a man of five-and-forty, in a travelling dress, stepped out of it and stood still in amazement. He stood a little time without stirring, watching the house with attentive eyes; then went through the little gate in the courtyard, and slowly mounted the steps. In the hall he met no one; but the door of a room was suddenly flung open, and out of it rushed Shurotchka, flushed and hot, and instantly, with a ringing shout, all the young party in pursuit of her. They stopped short at once and were quiet at the sight of a stranger; but their clear eyes fixed on him wore the same friendly expression, and their fresh faces were still smiling as Marya Dmitreivna’s son went up to the visitor and asked him cordially what he could do for him.
“I am Lavretsky,” replied the visitor.
He was answered by a shout in chorus—and not because these young people were greatly delighted at the arrival of a distant, almost forgotten relation, but simply because they were ready to be delighted and make noise at every opportunity. They surrounded Lavretsky at once; Lenotchka, as an old acquaintance, was the first to mention her own name, and assured him that in a little while she would have certainly recognised him. She presented him to the rest of the party, calling each, even her betrothed, by their pet names. They all trooped through the dining-room into the drawing-room. The walls of both rooms had been repapered; but the furniture remained the same. Lavretsky recognised the piano; even the embroidery-frame in the window was just the same, and in the same position, and it seemed with the same unfinished embroidery on it, as eight years ago. They made him sit down in a comfortable armchair; all sat down politely in a circle round him. Questions, exclamations, and anecdotes followed.
“It’s a long time since we have seen you,” observed Lenotchka simply, “and Varvara Pavlovna we have seen nothing of either.”
“Well, no wonder!” her brother hastened to interpose. “I carried you off to Petersburg, and Fedor Ivanitch has been living all the time in the country.”
“Yes, and mamma died soon after then.”
“And Marfa Timofyevna,” observed Shurotchka.
“And Nastasya Karpovna,” added Lenotchka, “and Monsier Lemm.”
“What? is Lemm dead?” inquired Lavretsky.
“Yes,” replied young Kalitin, “he left here for Odessa; they say someone enticed him there; and there he died.”
“You don’t happen to know, … did he leave any music?”
“I don’t know; not very likely.”
All were silent and looked about them. A slight cloud of melancholy flitted over all the young faces.
“But Matross is alive,” said Lenotchka suddenly.
“And Gedeonovsky,” added her brother.
At Gedeonovsky’s name a merry laugh broke out at once.
“Yes, he is alive, and as great a liar as ever,” Marya Dmitrievna’s son continued; “and only fancy, yesterday this madcap”—pointing to the schoolgirl, his wife’s sister—“put some pepper in his snuffbox.”
“How he did sneeze!” cried Lenotchka, and again there was a burst of unrestrained laughter.
“We have had news of Lisa lately,” observed young Kalitin, and again a hush fell upon all; “there was good news of her; she is recovering her health a little now.”
“She is still in the same convent?” Lavretsky asked, not without some effort.
“Yes, still in the same.”
“Does she write to you?”
“No, never; but we get news through other people.”
A sudden and profound silence followed. “A good angel is passing over,” all were thinking.
“Wouldn’t you like to go into the garden?” said Kalitin, turning to Lavretsky; “it is very nice now, though we have let it run wild a little.”
Lavretsky went out into the garden, and the first thing that met his eyes was the very garden seat on which he had once spent with Lisa those few blissful moments, never repeated; it had grown black and warped; but he recognised it, and his soul was filled with that emotion, unequalled for sweetness and for bitterness—the emotion of keen sorrow for vanished youth, for the happiness which has once been possessed.
He walked along the avenues with the young people; the lime-trees looked hardly older or taller in the eight years, but their shade was thicker; on the other hand, all the bushes had sprung up, the raspberry bushes had grown strong, the hazels were tangled thicket, and from all sides rose the fresh scent of the trees and grass and lilac.
“This would be a nice place for Puss-in-the-Corner,” cried Lenotchka suddenly, as they came upon a small green lawn, surrounded by lime-trees, “and we are just five, too.”
“Have you forgotten Fedor Ivanitch?” replied her brother, … “or didn’t you count yourself?”
Lenotchka blushed slightly.
“But would Fedor Ivanitch, at his age—” she began.
“Please, play your games,” Lavretsky hastened to interpose; “don’t pay attention to me. I shall
