were turning into the avenue of
birch-trees which led to the house, but it did not really wet us. I only
knew that it was raining by the fact that I felt a drop fall, first on
my nose, and then on my hand, and heard something begin to patter upon
the young, viscous leaves of the birch-trees as, drooping their curly
branches overhead, they seemed to imbibe the pure, shining drops with an
avidity which filled the whole avenue with scent. We descended from the
carriage, so as to reach the house the quicker through the garden, but
found ourselves confronted at the entrance-door by four ladies, two of
whom were knitting, one reading a book, and the fourth walking to and
fro with a little dog. Thereupon, Dimitri began to present me to his
mother, sister, and aunt, as well as to Lubov Sergievna. For a moment
they remained where they were, but almost instantly the rain became
heavier.

"Let us go into the verandah; you can present him to us there," said the
lady whom I took to be Dimitri's mother, and we all of us ascended the
entrance-steps.

XXIII. THE NECHLUDOFFS

From the first, the member of this company who struck me the most was
Lubov Sergievna, who, holding a lapdog in her arms and wearing stout
laced boots, was the last of the four ladies to ascend the staircase,
and twice stopped to gaze at me intently and then kiss her little dog.
She was anything but good-looking, since she was red-haired, thin,
short, and slightly crooked. What made her plain face all the plainer
was the queer way in which her hair was parted to one side (it looked
like the wigs which bald women contrive for themselves). However much I
should have liked to applaud my friend, I could not find a single comely
feature in her. Even her brown eyes, though expressive of good-humour,
were small and dull--were, in fact, anything but pretty; while her hands
(those most characteristic of features), were though neither large nor
ill-shaped, coarse and red.

As soon as we reached the verandah, each of the ladies, except Dimitri's
sister Varenika--who also had been regarding me attentively out of
her large, dark-grey eyes--said a few words to me before resuming her
occupation, while Varenika herself began to read aloud from a book which
she held on her lap and steadied with her finger.

The Princess Maria Ivanovna was a tall, well-built woman of forty. To
judge by the curls of half-grey hair which descended below her cap one
might have taken her for