At midnight Laptev said good-night to her, and as he went away he took with him the parasol that Yulia Sergeyevna had forgotten.  In spite of the late hour, the servants, male and female, were drinking tea in the dining-room.  How disorderly!  The children were not in bed, but were there in the dining-room, too.  They were all talking softly in undertones, and had not noticed that the lamp was smoking and would soon go out.  All these people, big and little, were disturbed by a whole succession of bad omens and were in an oppressed mood.  The glass in the hall had been broken, the samovar had been buzzing every day, and, as though on purpose, was even buzzing now.  They were describing how a mouse had jumped out of Nina Fyodorovna’s boot when she was dressing.  And the children were quite aware of the terrible significance of these omens.  The elder girl, Sasha, a thin little brunette, was sitting motionless at the table, and her face looked scared and woebegone, while the younger, Lida, a chubby fair child of seven, stood beside her sister looking from under her brows at the light.

Laptev went downstairs to his own rooms in the lower storey, where under the low ceilings it was always close and smelt of geraniums.  In his sitting-room, Panaurov, Nina Fyodorovna’s husband, was sitting reading the newspaper.  Laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite.  Both sat still and said nothing.  They used to spend whole evenings like this without speaking, and neither of them was in the least put out by this silence.

The little girls came down from upstairs to say good-night.  Deliberately and in silence, Panaurov made the sign of the cross over them several times, and gave them his hand to kiss.  They dropped curtsies, and then went up to Laptev, who had to make the sign of the cross and give them his hand to kiss also.  This ceremony with the hand-kissing and curtsying was repeated every evening.

When the children had gone out Panaurov laid aside the newspaper and said: 

“It’s not very lively in our God-fearing town!  I must confess, my dear fellow,” he added with a sigh, “I’m very glad that at last you’ve found some distraction.”

“What do you mean?” asked Laptev.

“I saw you coming out of Dr. Byelavin’s Just now.  I expect you don’t go there for the sake of the papa.”

“Of course not,” said Laptev, and he blushed.

“Well, of course not.  And by the way, you wouldn’t find such another old brute as that papa if you hunted by daylight with a candle.  You can’t imagine what a foul, stupid, clumsy beast he is!  You cultured people in the capitals are still interested in the provinces only on the lyrical side, only from the paysage and Poor Anton point of view, but I can assure you, my boy, there’s nothing logical about it; there’s nothing but barbarism, meanness, and nastiness—­that’s all.  Take the local devotees of science—­the local intellectuals, so to speak.  Can you imagine