When the child had been undressed and pacified a silence reigned again.  The young lady seated herself at the window, and looked round wonderingly at the room of the inn, at the ikon, at the stove. . . .  Apparently the room and the little girl with the thick nose, in her short boy’s nightgown, and the child’s father, all seemed strange to her.  This strange man was sitting in a corner; he kept looking about him helplessly, as though he were drunk, and rubbing his face with the palm of his hand.  He sat silent, blinking, and judging from his guilty-looking figure it was difficult to imagine that he would soon begin to speak.  Yet he was the first to begin.  Stroking his knees, he gave a cough, laughed, and said: 

“It’s a comedy, it really is. . . .  I look and I cannot believe my eyes:  for what devilry has destiny driven us to this accursed inn?  What did she want to show by it?  Life sometimes performs such ’salto mortale,’ one can only stare and blink in amazement.  Have you come from far, Madam?”

“No, not from far,” answered the young lady.  “I am going from our estate, fifteen miles from here, to our farm, to my father and brother.  My name is Ilovaisky, and the farm is called Ilovaiskoe.  It’s nine miles away.  What unpleasant weather!”

“It couldn’t be worse.”

The lame boy came in and stuck a new candle in the pomatum pot.

“You might bring us the samovar, boy,” said the man, addressing him.

“Who drinks tea now?” laughed the boy.  “It is a sin to drink tea before mass. . . .”

“Never mind boy, you won’t burn in hell if we do. . . .”

Over the tea the new acquaintances got into conversation.

Mlle. Ilovaisky learned that her companion was called Grigory Petrovitch Liharev, that he was the brother of the Liharev who was Marshal of Nobility in one of the neighbouring districts, and he himself had once been a landowner, but had “run through everything in his time.”  Liharev learned that her name was Marya Mihailovna, that her father had a huge estate, but that she was the only one to look after it as her father and brother looked at life through their fingers, were irresponsible, and were too fond of harriers.

“My father and brother are all alone at the farm,” she told him, brandishing her fingers (she had the habit of moving her fingers before her pointed face as she talked, and after every sentence moistened her lips with her sharp little tongue).  “They, I mean men, are an irresponsible lot, and don’t stir a finger for themselves.  I can fancy there will be no one to give them a meal after the fast!  We have no mother, and we have such servants that they can’t lay the tablecloth properly when I am away.  You can imagine their condition now!  They will be left with nothing to break their fast, while I have to stay here all night.  How strange it all is.”

She shrugged her shoulders, took a sip from her cup, and said: