Mother clutched at her head and ran into the kitchen.  The governor’s sudden visit stirred and overwhelmed the whole household.  A ferocious slaughter followed.  A dozen fowls, five turkeys, eight ducks, were killed, and in the fluster the old gander, the progenitor of our whole flock of geese and a great favourite of mother’s, was beheaded.  The coachmen and the cook seemed frenzied, and slaughtered birds at random, without distinction of age or breed.  For the sake of some wretched sauce a pair of valuable pigeons, as dear to me as the gander was to mother, were sacrificed.  It was a long while before I could forgive the governor their death.

In the evening, when the governor and his suite, after a sumptuous dinner, had got into their carriages and driven away, I went into the house to look at the remains of the feast.  Glancing into the drawing-room from the passage, I saw my uncle and my mother.  My uncle, with his hands behind his back, was walking nervously up and down close to the wall, shrugging his shoulders.  Mother, exhausted and looking much thinner, was sitting on the sofa and watching his movements with heavy eyes.

“Excuse me, sister, but this won’t do at all,” my uncle grumbled, wrinkling up his face.  “I introduced the governor to you, and you didn’t offer to shake hands.  You covered him with confusion, poor fellow!  No, that won’t do....  Simplicity is a very good thing, but there must be limits to it....  Upon my soul!  And then that dinner!  How can one give people such things?  What was that mess, for instance, that they served for the fourth course?”

“That was duck with sweet sauce...” mother answered softly.

“Duck!  Forgive me, sister, but... but here I’ve got heartburn!  I am ill!”

My uncle made a sour, tearful face, and went on: 

“It was the devil sent that governor!  As though I wanted his visit!  Pff!... heartburn!  I can’t work or sleep...  I am completely out of sorts....  And I can’t understand how you can live here without anything to do... in this boredom!  Here I’ve got a pain coming under my shoulder-blade!...”

My uncle frowned, and walked about more rapidly than ever.

“Brother,” my mother inquired softly, “what would it cost to go abroad?”

“At least three thousand...” my uncle answered in a tearful voice.  “I would go, but where am I to get it?  I haven’t a farthing.  Pff!... heartburn!”

My uncle stopped to look dejectedly at the grey, overcast prospect from the window, and began pacing to and fro again.

A silence followed....  Mother looked a long while at the ikon, pondering something, then she began crying, and said: 

“I’ll give you the three thousand, brother....”

Three days later the majestic boxes went off to the station, and the privy councillor drove off after them.  As he said good-bye to mother he shed tears, and it was a long time before he took his lips from her hands, but when he got into his carriage his face beamed with childlike pleasure....  Radiant and happy, he settled himself comfortably, kissed his hand to my mother, who was crying, and all at once his eye was caught by me.  A look of the utmost astonishment came into his face.