his son. 'They won't pay their rent.
What is one to do?'

'But do you like your hired labourers?'

'Yes,' said Nikolai Petrovitch between his teeth. 'They're being set
against me, that's the mischief; and they don't do their best. They
spoil the tools. But they have tilled the land pretty fairly. When
things have settled down a bit, it will be all right. Do you take an
interest in farming now?'

'You've no shade; that's a pity,' remarked Arkady, without answering
the last question.

'I have had a great awning put up on the north side over the balcony,'
observed Nikolai Petrovitch; 'now we can have dinner even in the open
air.'

'It'll be rather too like a summer villa.... Still, that's all
nonsense. What air though here! How delicious it smells! Really I fancy
there's nowhere such fragrance in the world as in the meadows here! And
the sky too.'

Arkady suddenly stopped short, cast a stealthy look behind him, and
said no more.

'Of course,' observed Nikolai Petrovitch, 'you were born here, and so
everything is bound to strike you in a special----'

'Come, dad, that makes no difference where a man is born.'

'Still----'

'No; it makes absolutely no difference.'

Nikolai Petrovitch gave a sidelong glance at his son, and the carriage
went on a half-a-mile further before the conversation was renewed
between them.

'I don't recollect whether I wrote to you,' began Nikolai Petrovitch,
'your old nurse, Yegorovna, is dead.'

'Really? Poor thing! Is Prokofitch still living?'

'Yes, and not a bit changed. As grumbling as ever. In fact, you won't
find many changes at Maryino.'

'Have you still the same bailiff?'

'Well, to be sure there is a change there. I decided not to keep about
me any freed serfs, who have been house servants, or, at least, not to
intrust them with duties of any responsibility.' (Arkady glanced
towards Piotr.) '_Il est libre, en effet_,' observed Nikolai Petrovitch
in an undertone; 'but, you see, he's only a valet. Now I have a
bailiff, a townsman; he seems a practical fellow. I pay him two hundred
and fifty roubles a year. But,' added Nikolai Petrovitch, rubbing his
forehead and eyebrows with his hand, which was always an indication
with him of inward embarrassment, 'I told you just now that you would
not find changes at Maryino.... That's not quite correct. I think it my
duty to prepare you, though....'

He hesitated for an instant, and then went on in French.

'A severe moralist wo