ld self, strong
as steel, firm as a rock, when now some Andreev, our orthodox clown with
a beard, _peut briser mon existence en deux_"--and so on.

As for Stepan Trofimovitch's son, he had only seen him twice in his
life, the first time when he was born and the second time lately in
Petersburg, where the young man was preparing to enter the university.
The boy had been all his life, as we have said already, brought up by
his aunts (at Varvara Petrovna's expense) in a remote province, nearly
six hundred miles from Skvoreshniki. As for Andreev, he was nothing
more or less than our local shopkeeper, a very eccentric fellow, a
self-taught archaeologist who had a passion for collecting Russian
antiquities and sometimes tried to outshine Stepan Trofimovitch in
erudition and in the progressiveness of his opinions. This worthy
shopkeeper, with a grey beard and silver-rimmed spectacles, still owed
Stepan Trofimovitch four hundred roubles for some acres of timber he had
bought on the latter's little estate (near Skvoreshniki). Though Varvara
Petrovna had liberally provided her friend with funds when she sent him
to Berlin, yet Stepan Trofimovitch had, before starting, particularly
reckoned on getting that four hundred roubles, probably for his secret
expenditure, and was ready to cry when Andreev asked leave to defer
payment for a month, which he had a right to do, since he had brought
the first installments of the money almost six months in advance to meet
Stepan Trofimovitch's special need at the time.

Varvara Petrovna read this first letter greedily, and underlining in
pencil the exclamation: "Where are they both?" numbered it and put it
away in a drawer. He had, of course, referred to his two deceased wives.
The second letter she received from Berlin was in a different strain:

"I am working twelve hours out of the twenty-four." ("Eleven would be
enough," muttered Varvara Petrovna.) "I'm rummaging in the libraries,
collating, copying, rushing about. I've visited the professors. I have
renewed my acquaintance with the delightful Dundasov family. What a
charming creature Lizaveta Nikolaevna is even now! She sends you her
greetings. Her young husband and three nephews are all in Berlin. I
sit up talking till daybreak with the young people and we have almost
Athenian evenings, Athenian, I mean, only in their intellectual subtlety
and refinement. Everything is in noble style; a great deal of music,
Spanish airs, dreams of the r