sily out of a mass of greenery,
and caught the eye like a great stone thrown on the velvety turf.
At the chief entrance I was met by a fat old footman in a green
swallow-tail coat and big silver-rimmed spectacles; without making
any announcement, only looking contemptuously at my dusty figure,
he showed me in. As I mounted the soft carpeted stairs there was,
for some reason, a strong smell of india-rubber. At the top I was
enveloped in an atmosphere found only in museums, in signorial
mansions and old-fashioned merchant houses; it seemed like the smell
of something long past, which had once lived and died and had left
its soul in the rooms. I passed through three or four rooms on my
way from the entry to the drawing-room. I remember bright yellow,
shining floors, lustres wrapped in stiff muslin, narrow, striped
rugs which stretched not straight from door to door, as they usually
do, but along the walls, so that not venturing to touch the bright
floor with my muddy boots I had to describe a rectangle in each
room. In the drawing-room, where the footman left me, stood
old-fashioned ancestral furniture in white covers, shrouded in
twilight. It looked surly and elderly, and, as though out of respect
for its repose, not a sound was audible.

Even the clock was silent . . . it seemed as though the Princess
Tarakanov had fallen asleep in the golden frame, and the water and
the rats were still and motionless through magic. The daylight,
afraid of disturbing the universal tranquillity, scarcely pierced
through the lowered blinds, and lay on the soft rugs in pale,
slumbering streaks.

Three minutes passed and a big, elderly woman in black, with her
cheek bandaged up, walked noiselessly into the drawing-room. She
bowed to me and pulled up the blinds. At once, enveloped in the
bright sunlight, the rats and water in the picture came to life and
movement, Princess Tarakanov was awakened, and the old chairs frowned
gloomily.

"Her honour will be here in a minute, sir . . ." sighed the old
lady, frowning too.

A few more minutes of waiting and I saw Nadyezhda Lvovna. What
struck me first of all was that she certainly was ugly, short,
scraggy, and round-shouldered. Her thick, chestnut hair was
magnificent; her face, pure and with a look of culture in it, was
aglow with youth; there was a clear and intelligent expression in
her eyes; but the whole charm of her head was lost through the
thickness of her lips and the over-acute faci