“Where does she live now?”

The old woman tucked up her sleeves and, stretching out her bare arm to point, shouted in a shrill piercing voice: 

“Go straight on, straight on, straight on.  You will pass a little red house, then you will see a little alley on your left.  Turn down that little alley, and it will be the third gate on the right. . . .”

Ivan Ivanitch and Yegorushka reached the little red house, turned to the left down the little alley, and made for the third gate on the right.  On both sides of this very old grey gate there was a grey fence with big gaps in it.  The first part of the fence was tilting forwards and threatened to fall, while on the left of the gate it sloped backwards towards the yard.  The gate itself stood upright and seemed to be still undecided which would suit it best —­to fall forwards or backwards.  Ivan Ivanitch opened the little gate at the side, and he and Yegorushka saw a big yard overgrown with weeds and burdocks.  A hundred paces from the gate stood a little house with a red roof and green shutters.  A stout woman with her sleeves tucked up and her apron held out was standing in the middle of the yard, scattering something on the ground and shouting in a voice as shrill as that of the woman selling fruit: 

“Chick! . . .  Chick! . . .  Chick!”

Behind her sat a red dog with pointed ears.  Seeing the strangers, he ran to the little gate and broke into a tenor bark (all red dogs have a tenor bark).

“Whom do you want?” asked the woman, putting up her hand to shade her eyes from the sun.

“Good-morning!” Ivan Ivanitch shouted, too, waving off the red dog with his stick.  “Tell me, please, does Nastasya Petrovna Toskunov live here?”

“Yes!  But what do you want with her?”

“Perhaps you are Nastasya Petrovna?”

“Well, yes, I am!”

“Very pleased to see you. . . .  You see, your old friend Olga Ivanovna Knyasev sends her love to you.  This is her little son.  And I, perhaps you remember, am her brother Ivan Ivanitch. . . .  You are one of us from N. . . .  You were born among us and married there. . . .”

A silence followed.  The stout woman stared blankly at Ivan Ivanitch, as though not believing or not understanding him, then she flushed all over, and flung up her hands; the oats were scattered out of her apron and tears spurted from her eyes.

“Olga Ivanovna!” she screamed, breathless with excitement.  “My own darling!  Ah, holy saints, why am I standing here like a fool?  My pretty little angel. . . .”

She embraced Yegorushka, wetted his face with her tears, and broke down completely.

“Heavens!” she said, wringing her hands, “Olga’s little boy!  How delightful!  He is his mother all over!  The image of his mother!  But why are you standing in the yard?  Come indoors.”

Crying, gasping for breath and talking as she went, she hurried towards the house.  Her visitors trudged after her.