in accordance with
invariable custom, Milka, with her ears pricked as she watched the flies
promenading the lighted space. Seated on a settee, Katenka would be
knitting or reading aloud as from time to time she gave her white
sleeves (looking almost transparent in the sunshine) an impatient shake,
or tossed her head with a frown to drive away some fly which had settled
upon her thick auburn hair and was now buzzing in its tangles. Lubotshka
would either be walking up and down the room (her hands clasped behind
her) until the moment should arrive when a movement would be made
towards the garden, or playing some piece of which every note had long
been familiar to me. For my own part, I would sit down somewhere, and
listen to the music or the reading until such time as I myself should
have an opportunity of performing on the piano. After luncheon I would
condescend to take the girls out riding (since to go for a mere walk
at that hour seemed to me unsuitable to my years and position in
the world), and these excursions of ours--in which I often took my
companions through unaccustomed spots and dells--were very pleasant.
Indeed, on some of these occasions I grew quite boyish, and the
girls would praise my riding and daring, and pretend that I was their
protector. In the evening, if we had no guests with us, tea (served in
the dim verandah), would be followed by a walk round the homestead with
Papa, and then I would stretch myself on my usual settee, and read and
ponder as of old, as I listened to Katenka or Lubotshka playing. At
other times, if I was alone in the drawing-room and Lubotshka was
performing some old-time air, I would find myself laying my book down,
and gazing through the open doorway on to the balcony at the pendent,
sinuous branches of the tall birch-trees where they stood overshadowed
by the coming night, and at the clear sky where, if one looked at it
intently enough, misty, yellowish spots would appear suddenly, and then
disappear again. Next, as I listened to the sounds of the music wafted
from the salon, and to the creaking of gates and the voices of the
peasant women when the cattle returned to the village, I would suddenly
bethink me of Natalia Savishna and of Mamma and of Karl Ivanitch, and
become momentarily sad. But in those days my spirit was so full of life
and hope that such reminiscences only touched me in passing, and soon
fled away again.

After supper and (sometimes) a night stroll with some