One morning soon afterwards, as Byelokurov and I were walking near the house, a carriage drove unexpectedly into the yard, rustling over the grass, and in it was sitting one of those girls.  It was the elder one.  She had come to ask for subscriptions for some villagers whose cottages had been burnt down.  Speaking with great earnestness and precision, and not looking at us, she told us how many houses in the village of Siyanovo had been burnt, how many men, women, and children were left homeless, and what steps were proposed, to begin with, by the Relief Committee, of which she was now a member.  After handing us the subscription list for our signatures, she put it away and immediately began to take leave of us.

“You have quite forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovitch,” she said to Byelokurov as she shook hands with him.  “Do come, and if Monsieur N. (she mentioned my name) cares to make the acquaintance of admirers of his work, and will come and see us, mother and I will be delighted.”

I bowed.

When she had gone Pyotr Petrovitch began to tell me about her.  The girl was, he said, of good family, and her name was Lidia Voltchaninov, and the estate on which she lived with her mother and sister, like the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka.  Her father had once held an important position in Moscow, and had died with the rank of privy councillor.  Although they had ample means, the Voltchaninovs lived on their estate summer and winter without going away.  Lidia was a teacher in the Zemstvo school in her own village, and received a salary of twenty-five roubles a month.  She spent nothing on herself but her salary, and was proud of earning her own living.

“An interesting family,” said Byelokurov.  “Let us go over one day.  They will be delighted to see you.”

One afternoon on a holiday we thought of the Voltchaninovs, and went to Shelkovka to see them.  They—­the mother and two daughters —­were at home.  The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation about painting.  Having heard from her daughter that I might come to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I meant to express by them.  Lidia, or as they called her Lida, talked more to Byelokurov than to me.  Earnest and unsmiling, she asked him why he was not on the Zemstvo, and why he had not attended any of its meetings.

“It’s not right, Pyotr Petrovitch,” she said reproachfully.  “It’s not right.  It’s too bad.”

“That’s true, Lida—­that’s true,” the mother assented.  “It isn’t right.”

“Our whole district is in the hands of Balagin,” Lida went on, addressing me.  “He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he has distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and sons-in-law; and he does as he likes.  He ought to be opposed.  The young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young men among us are like.  It’s a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!”