colored
rushes. The traces of a human life that is past soon disappear.
Glafira's manor-house had not yet grown wild, but it seemed to have
become already immersed in that quiet slumber which all that is
earthly sleeps, whenever it is not affected by the restlessness of
humanity.

Lavretsky also went through the village. The women looked at him from
the door-ways of their cottages, each resting her cheek upon her hand.
The men bowed low from afar, the children ran Out of sight, the dogs
barked away at their ease. At last he felt hungry, but he did not
expect his cook and the other servants till the evening. The waggon
bringing provisions from Lavriki had not yet arrived. It was
necessary to have recourse to Anton. The old man immediately made his
arrangements. He caught an ancient fowl, and killed and plucked it.
Apraxia slowly squeezed and washed it, scrubbing it as if it had been
linen for the wash, before putting it into the stewpan. When at
last it was ready, Anton laid the table, placing beside the dish a
three-footed plated salt-cellar, blackened with age, and a cut glass
decanter, with a round glass stopper in its narrow neck. Then, in a
kind of chant, he announced to Lavretsky that dinner was ready, and
took his place behind his master's chair, a napkin wound around
his right hand, and a kind of air of the past, like the odor of
cypress-wood hanging about him. Lavretsky tasted the broth, and took
the fowl out of it. The bird's skin was covered all over with round
blisters, a thick tendon ran up each leg, and the flesh was as tough
as wood, and had a flavor like that which pervades a laundry. After
dinner Lavretsky said that he would take tea if--

"I will bring it in a moment," broke in the old man, and he kept his
promise. A few pinches of tea were found rolled up in a scrap of red
paper. Also a small, but very zealous and noisy little _samovar_[A]
was discovered, and some sugar in minute pieces, which looked as if
they had been all but melted away. Lavretsky drank his tea out of a
large cup. From his earliest childhood he remembered this cup, on
which playing cards were painted, and from which only visitors were
allowed to drink; and now he drank from it, like a visitor.

[Footnote A: Urn.]

Towards the evening came the servants. Lavretsky did not like to sleep
in his aunt's bed, so he had one made up for him in the dining-room.
After putting out the candle, he lay for a long time looking around
him, and