d with glossy grey stuff, threadbare and rickety,
vividly suggested the days of Catherine; in the drawing-room, too, stood
the mistress's favourite arm-chair, with high straight back, against
which she never leaned even in her old age. On the principal wall hung
a very old portrait of Fedor's great-grandfather, Andrey Lavretsky;
the dark yellow face was scarcely distinguishable from the warped
and blackened background; the small cruel eyes looked grimly out from
beneath the eyelids, which dropped as if they were swollen; his black
unpowdered hair rose bristling above his heavy indented brow. In the
corner of the portrait hung a wreath of dusty immortelles. "Glafira
Petrovna herself was pleased to make it," Anton announced. In the
bedroom stood a narrow bedstead, under a canopy of old-fashioned and
very good striped material; a heap of faded cushions and a thin quilted
counterpane lay on the bed, and at the head hung a picture of the
Presentation in the Temple of the Holy Mother of God; it was the very
picture which the old maid, dying alone and forgotten by every one, had
for the last time pressed to her chilling lips. A little toilet table
of inlaid wood, with brass fittings and a warped looking-glass in a
tarnished frame stood in the window. Next to the bedroom was the little
ikon room with bare walls and a heavy case of holy images in the corner;
on the floor lay a threadbare rug spotted with wax; Glafira Petrovna
used to pray bowing to the ground upon it. Anton went away with
Lavretsky's groom to unlock the stable and coach-house; to replace him
appeared an old woman of about the same age, with a handkerchief tied
round to her very eyebrows; her head shook, and her eyes were dim, but
they expressed zeal, the habit of years of submissive service, and at
the same time a kind of respectful commiseration. She kissed Lavretsky's
hand and stood still in the doorway awaiting his orders. He positively
could not recollect her name and did not even remember whether he had
ever seen her. Her name, it appeared, was Apraxya; forty years before,
Glafira Petrovna had put her out of the master's house and ordered that
she should be a poultry woman. She said little, however; she seemed
to have lost her senses from old age, and could only gaze at him
obsequiously. Besides these two old creatures and three pot-bellied
children in long smocks, Anton's great-grandchildren, there was also
living in the manor-house a one-armed peasant, who