II

It was a lovely August evening.  The sun, set in a golden background lightly flecked with purple, stood above the western horizon on the point of sinking behind the far-away tumuli.  In the garden, shadows and half-shadows had vanished, and the air had grown damp, but the golden light was still playing on the tree-tops. . . .  It was warm. . . .  Rain had just fallen, and made the fresh, transparent fragrant air still fresher.

I am not describing the August of Petersburg or Moscow, foggy, tearful, and dark, with its cold, incredibly damp sunsets.  God forbid!  I am not describing our cruel northern August.  I ask the reader to move with me to the Crimea, to one of its shores, not far from Feodosia, the spot where stands the villa of one of our heroes.  It is a pretty, neat villa surrounded by flower-beds and clipped bushes.  A hundred paces behind it is an orchard in which its inmates walk. . . .  Groholsky pays a high rent for that villa, a thousand roubles a year, I believe. . . .  The villa is not worth that rent, but it is pretty. . . .  Tall, with delicate walls and very delicate parapets, fragile, slender, painted a pale blue colour, hung with curtains, portieres, draperies, it suggests a charming, fragile Chinese lady. . . .

On the evening described above, Groholsky and Liza were sitting on the verandah of this villa.  Groholsky was reading Novoye Vremya and drinking milk out of a green mug.  A syphon of Seltzer water was standing on the table before him.  Groholsky imagined that he was suffering from catarrh of the lungs, and by the advice of Dr. Dmitriev consumed an immense quantity of grapes, milk, and Seltzer water.  Liza was sitting in a soft easy chair some distance from the table.  With her elbows on the parapet, and her little face propped on her little fists, she was gazing at the villa opposite. . . .  The sun was playing upon the windows of the villa opposite, the glittering panes reflected the dazzling light. . . .  Beyond the little garden and the few trees that surrounded the villa there was a glimpse of the sea with its waves, its dark blue colour, its immensity, its white masts. . . .  It was so delightful!  Groholsky was reading an article by Anonymous, and after every dozen lines he raised his blue eyes to Liza’s back. . . .  The same passionate, fervent love was shining in those eyes still. . . .  He was infinitely happy in spite of his imaginary catarrh of the lungs. . . .  Liza was conscious of his eyes upon her back, and was thinking of Mishutka’s brilliant future, and she felt so comfortable, so serene . . . .

She was not so much interested by the sea, and the glittering reflection on the windows of the villa opposite as by the waggons which were trailing up to that villa one after another.

The waggons were full of furniture and all sorts of domestic articles.  Liza watched the trellis gates and big glass doors of the villa being opened and the men bustling about the furniture and wrangling incessantly.  Big armchairs and a sofa covered with dark raspberry coloured velvet, tables for the hall, the drawing-room and the dining-room, a big double bed and a child’s cot were carried in by the glass doors; something big, wrapped up in sacking, was carried in too.  A grand piano, thought Liza, and her heart throbbed.