There was a note of astonishment in her voice, as though it seemed to her incredible that she, too, could feel light-hearted.  It was the first time in my life I had seen her so happy.  She actually looked prettier.  In profile she did not look nice; her nose and mouth seemed to stick out and had an expression as though she were pouting, but she had beautiful dark eyes, a pale, very delicate complexion, and a touching expression of goodness and melancholy, and when she talked she seemed charming and even beautiful.  We both, she and I, took after our mother, were broad shouldered, strongly built, and capable of endurance, but her pallor was a sign of ill-health; she often had a cough, and I sometimes caught in her face that look one sees in people who are seriously ill, but for some reason conceal the fact.  There was something naive and childish in her gaiety now, as though the joy that had been suppressed and smothered in our childhood by harsh education had now suddenly awakened in her soul and found a free outlet.

But when evening came on and the horses were brought round, my sister sank into silence and looked thin and shrunken, and she got into the brake as though she were going to the scaffold.

When they had all gone, and the sound had died away . . .  I remembered that Anyuta Blagovo had not said a word to me all day.

“She is a wonderful girl!” I thought.  “Wonderful girl!”

St. Peter’s fast came, and we had nothing but Lenten dishes every day.  I was weighed down by physical depression due to idleness and my unsettled position, and dissatisfied with myself.  Listless and hungry, I lounged about the garden and only waited for a suitable mood to go away.

Towards evening one day, when Radish was sitting in the lodge, Dolzhikov, very sunburnt and grey with dust, walked in unexpectedly.  He had been spending three days on his land, and had come now to Dubetchnya by the steamer, and walked to us from the station.  While waiting for the carriage, which was to come for him from the town, he walked round the grounds with his bailiff, giving orders in a loud voice, then sat for a whole hour in our lodge, writing letters.  While he was there telegrams came for him, and he himself tapped off the answers.  We three stood in silence at attention.

“What a muddle!” he said, glancing contemptuously at a record book.  “In a fortnight I am transferring the office to the station, and I don’t know what I am to do with you, my friends.”

“I do my best, your honour,” said Tcheprakov.

“To be sure, I see how you do your best.  The only thing you can do is to take your salary,” the engineer went on, looking at me; “you keep relying on patronage to faire le carriere as quickly and as easily as possible.  Well, I don’t care for patronage.  No one took any trouble on my behalf.  Before they gave me a railway contract I went about as a mechanic and worked in Belgium as an oiler.  And you, Panteley, what are you doing here?” he asked, turning to Radish.  “Drinking with them?”