Anton went out with Lavretsky’s servant to open the stable and coach-house doors.  In his stead appeared an old woman, almost as old as himself, her hair covered by a handkerchief, which came down to her very eyebrows.  Her head shook and her eyes seemed dim; but they wore, also, an expression of zealous obedience, habitual and implicit, and, at the same time, of a kind of respectful condolence.  She kissed Lavretsky’s hand, and then remained near the door, awaiting his orders.  He could not remember what her name was, nor even whether he had ever seen her before.  It turned out that her name was Apraxia.  Some forty years previously, Glafira Petrovna had struck her off the list of the servants who lived in the house, and had ordered her to become a poultry-maid.  She seldom spoke, seemed half idiotic, and always wore a servile look.  Besides this old couple, and three paunchy little children in long shirts, Anton’s great-grandchildren, there lived also in the seigniorial household an untaxable[A] moujik, who had only one arm.  He cackled like a black-cock, and was fit for nothing.  Of very little more use was the infirm old hound which had saluted Lavretsky’s return by its barking.  For ten whole years it had been fastened to a heavy chain, purchased by order of Glafira Petrovna, a burden under which it was now scarcely able to move.

[Footnote A:  One who had not received the usual grant of land from the community, and was not subject to rates like the rest.]

Having examined the house, Lavretsky went out into the garden, and was well pleased with it.  It was all overgrown with steppe grass, with dandelions, and with gooseberry and raspberry bushes; but there was plenty of shade in it, a number of old lime-trees growing there, of singularly large stature, with eccentrically ordered branches.  They had been planted too close together, and a hundred years seemed to have elapsed since they were pruned.  At the end of the garden was a small, clear lake, surrounded by a fringe of high, reddish-colored rushes.  The traces of a human life that is past soon disappear.  Glafira’s manor-house had not yet grown wild, but it seemed to have become already immersed in that quiet slumber which all that is earthly sleeps, whenever it is not affected by the restlessness of humanity.

Lavretsky also went through the village.  The women looked at him from the door-ways of their cottages, each resting her cheek upon her hand.  The men bowed low from afar, the children ran Out of sight, the dogs barked away at their ease.  At last he felt hungry, but he did not expect his cook and the other servants till the evening.  The waggon bringing provisions from Lavriki had not yet arrived.  It was necessary to have recourse to Anton.  The old man immediately made his arrangements.  He caught an ancient fowl, and killed and plucked it.  Apraxia slowly squeezed and washed it, scrubbing it as if it had been linen for the wash, before putting