Give me your hand, gentle reader, and come along with
me. It is glorious weather; there is a tender
blue in the May sky; the smooth young leaves of the
willows glisten as though they had been polished; the
wide even road is all covered with that delicate grass
with the little reddish stalk that the sheep are so
fond of nibbling; to right and to left, over the long
sloping hillsides, the green rye is softly waving;
the shadows of small clouds glide in thin long streaks
over it. In the distance is the dark mass of
forests, the glitter of ponds, yellow patches of village;
larks in hundreds are soaring, singing, falling headlong
with outstretched necks, hopping about the clods;
the crows on the highroad stand still, look at you,
peck at the earth, let you drive close up, and with
two hops lazily move aside. On a hill beyond a
ravine a peasant is ploughing; a piebald colt, with
a cropped tail and ruffled mane, is running on unsteady
legs after its mother; its shrill whinnying reaches
us. We drive on into the birch wood, and drink
in the strong, sweet, fresh fragrance. Here we
are at the boundaries. The coachman gets down;
the horses snort; the trace-horses look round; the
centre horse in the shafts switches his tail, and
turns his head up towards the wooden yoke above it...
the great gate opens creaking; the coachman seats
himself.... Drive on! the village is before us.
Passing five homesteads, and turning off to the right,
we drop down into a hollow and drive along a dyke,
the farther side of a small pond; behind the round
tops of the lilacs and apple-trees a wooden roof,
once red, with two chimneys, comes into sight; the
coachman keeps along the hedge to the left, and to
the spasmodic and drowsy baying of three pug dogs
he drives through the wide open gates, whisks smartly
round the broad courtyard past the stable and the
barn, gallantly salutes the old housekeeper, who is
stepping sideways over the high lintel in the open
doorway of the storehouse, and pulls up at last before
the steps of a dark house with light windows....
We are at Tatyana Borissovna’s. And here
she is herself opening the window and nodding at us....
‘Good day, ma’am!’
Tatyana Borissovna is a woman of fifty, with large,
prominent grey eyes, a rather broad nose, rosy cheeks
and a double chin. Her face is brimming over
with friendliness and kindness. She was once married,
but was soon left a widow. Tatyana Borissovna
is a very remarkable woman. She lives on her
little property, never leaving it, mixes very little
with her neighbours, sees and likes none but young
people. She was the daughter of very poor landowners,
and received no education; in other words, she does
not know French; she has never been in Moscow—and
in spite of all these defects, she is so good and
simple in her manners, so broad in her sympathies
and ideas, so little infected with the ordinary prejudices
