“My darling, my darling!” cried her aunt, shrieking as though she were in hysterics.  “Our real mistress has come!  You must understand you are our mistress, you are our queen!  Here everything is yours!  My darling, my beauty, I am not your aunt, but your willing slave!”

Vera had no relations but her aunt and her grandfather; her mother had long been dead; her father, an engineer, had died three months before at Kazan, on his way from Siberia.  Her grandfather had a big grey beard.  He was stout, red-faced, and asthmatic, and walked leaning on a cane and sticking his stomach out.  Her aunt, a lady of forty-two, drawn in tightly at the waist and fashionably dressed with sleeves high on the shoulder, evidently tried to look young and was still anxious to be charming; she walked with tiny steps with a wriggle of her spine.

“Will you love us?” she said, embracing Vera, “You are not proud?”

At her grandfather’s wish there was a thanksgiving service, then they spent a long while over dinner—­and Vera’s new life began.  She was given the best room.  All the rugs in the house had been put in it, and a great many flowers; and when at night she lay down in her snug, wide, very soft bed and covered herself with a silk quilt that smelt of old clothes long stored away, she laughed with pleasure.  Auntie Dasha came in for a minute to wish her good-night.

“Here you are home again, thank God,” she said, sitting down on the bed.  “As you see, we get along very well and have everything we want.  There’s only one thing:  your grandfather is in a poor way!  A terribly poor way!  He is short of breath and he has begun to lose his memory.  And you remember how strong, how vigorous, he used to be!  There was no doing anything with him. . . .  In old days, if the servants didn’t please him or anything else went wrong, he would jump up at once and shout:  ‘Twenty-five strokes!  The birch!’ But now he has grown milder and you never hear him.  And besides, times are changed, my precious; one mayn’t beat them nowadays.  Of course, they oughtn’t to be beaten, but they need looking after.”

“And are they beaten now, auntie?” asked Vera.

“The steward beats them sometimes, but I never do, bless their hearts!  And your grandfather sometimes lifts his stick from old habit, but he never beats them.”

Auntie Dasha yawned and crossed herself over her mouth and her right ear.

“It’s not dull here?” Vera inquired.

“What shall I say?  There are no landowners living here now, but there have been works built near, darling, and there are lots of engineers, doctors, and mine managers.  Of course, we have theatricals and concerts, but we play cards more than anything.  They come to us, too.  Dr. Neshtchapov from the works comes to see us—­such a handsome, interesting man!  He fell in love with your photograph.  I made up my mind:  he is Verotchka’s destiny, I thought.  He’s young, handsome, he has