picnic," he said; "is that all right?"

My sister and Anyuta wanted to ask how I was getting on here, but
both were silent, and simply gazed at me. I was silent too. They
saw that I did not like the place, and tears came into my sister's
eyes, while Anyuta Blagovo turned crimson.

We went into the garden. The doctor walked ahead of us all and said
enthusiastically:

"What air! Holy Mother, what air!"

In appearance he was still a student. And he walked and talked like
a student, and the expression of his grey eyes was as keen, honest,
and frank as a nice student's. Beside his tall and handsome sister
he looked frail and thin; and his beard was thin too, and his voice,
too, was a thin but rather agreeable tenor. He was serving in a
regiment somewhere, and had come home to his people for a holiday,
and said he was going in the autumn to Petersburg for his examination
as a doctor of medicine. He was already a family man, with a wife
and three children, he had married very young, in his second year
at the University, and now people in the town said he was unhappy
in his family life and was not living with his wife.

"What time is it?" my sister asked uneasily. "We must get back in
good time. Papa let me come to see my brother on condition I was
back at six."

"Oh, bother your papa!" sighed the doctor.

I set the samovar. We put down a carpet before the verandah of the
great house and had our tea there, and the doctor knelt down, drank
out of his saucer, and declared that he now knew what bliss was.
Then Tcheprakov came with the key and opened the glass door, and
we all went into the house. There it was half dark and mysterious,
and smelt of mushrooms, and our footsteps had a hollow sound as
though there were cellars under the floor. The doctor stopped and
touched the keys of the piano, and it responded faintly with a
husky, quivering, but melodious chord; he tried his voice and sang
a song, frowning and tapping impatiently with his foot when some
note was mute. My sister did not talk about going home, but walked
about the rooms and kept saying:

"How happy I am! How happy I am!"

There was a note of astonishment in her voice, as though it seemed
to her incredible that she, too, could feel light-hearted. It was
the first time in my life I had seen her so happy. She actually
looked prettier. In profile she did not look nice; her nose and
mouth seemed to stick out and had an expression as though she were
pouting,