peated; 'it makes you seem
older.'

"The next day I lunched at the Luganovitchs'. After lunch they drove
out to their summer villa, in order to make arrangements there for the
winter, and I went with them. I returned with them to the town, and at
midnight drank tea with them in quiet domestic surroundings, while the
fire glowed, and the young mother kept going to see if her baby girl
was asleep. And after that, every time I went to town I never failed to
visit the Luganovitchs. They grew used to me, and I grew used to them.
As a rule I went in unannounced, as though I were one of the family.

"'Who is there?' I would hear from a faraway room, in the drawling
voice that seemed to me so lovely.

"'It is Pavel Konstantinovitch,' answered the maid or the nurs e.

"Anna Alexyevna would come out to me with an anxious face, and would ask
every time:

"'Why is it so long since you have been? Has anything happened?'

"Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the
way she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same
impression on me of something new and extraordinary in my life, and very
important. We talked together for hours, were silent, thinking each our
own thoughts, or she played for hours to me on the piano. If there were
no one at home I stayed and waited, talked to the nurse, played with the
child, or lay on the sofa in the study and read; and when Anna Alexyevna
came back I met her in the hall, took all her parcels from her, and for
some reason I carried those parcels every time with as much love, with
as much solemnity, as a boy.

"There is a proverb that if a peasant woman has no troubles she will buy
a pig. The Luganovitchs had no troubles, so they made friends with
me. If I did not come to the town I must be ill or something must have
happened to me, and both of them were extremely anxious. They were
worried that I, an educated man with a knowledge of languages, should,
instead of devoting myself to science or literary work, live in the
country, rush round like a squirrel in a rage, work hard with never a
penny to show for it. They fancied that I was unhappy, and that I only
talked, laughed, and ate to conceal my sufferings, and even at cheerful
moments when I felt happy I was aware of their searching eyes fixed upon
me. They were particularly touching when I really was depressed, when
I was being worried by some creditor or had not money enough to pay
interest on the p