-----; his wife's sister, a
school-girl of sixteen, with glowing cheeks and bright eyes; Shurotchka,
grown up and also pretty, made up the youthful household, whose laughter
and talk set the walls of the Kalitins' house resounding. Everything
in the house was changed, everything was in keeping with its new
inhabitants. Beardless servant lads, grinning and full of fun, had
replaced the sober old servants of former days. Two setter dogs dashed
wildly about and gambolled over the sofas, where the fat Roska had at
one time waddled in solemn dignity. The stables were filled with slender
racers, spirited carriage horses, fiery out-riders with plaited manes,
and riding horses from the Don. The breakfast, dinner, and supper-hours
were all in confusion and disorder; in the words of the neighbours,
"unheard-of arrangements" were made.

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 merry-making 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 the