The first impression in all was a feeling that they would never get out of that place again.  On all sides wherever they looked, the mountains rose up and towered above them, and the shadows of evening were stealing rapidly, rapidly from the duhan and dark cypress, making the narrow winding valley of the Black River narrower and the mountains higher.  They could hear the river murmuring and the unceasing chirrup of the grasshoppers.

“Enchanting!” said Marya Konstantinovna, heaving deep sighs of ecstasy.  “Children, look how fine!  What peace!”

“Yes, it really is fine,” assented Laevsky, who liked the view, and for some reason felt sad as he looked at the sky and then at the blue smoke rising from the chimney of the duhan.  “Yes, it is fine,” he repeated.

“Ivan Andreitch, describe this view,” Marya Konstantinovna said tearfully.

“Why?” asked Laevsky.  “The impression is better than any description.  The wealth of sights and sounds which every one receives from nature by direct impression is ranted about by authors in a hideous and unrecognisable way.”

“Really?” Von Koren asked coldly, choosing the biggest stone by the side of the water, and trying to clamber up and sit upon it.  “Really?” he repeated, looking directly at Laevsky.  “What of ’Romeo and Juliet’?  Or, for instance, Pushkin’s ‘Night in the Ukraine’?  Nature ought to come and bow down at their feet.”

“Perhaps,” said Laevsky, who was too lazy to think and oppose him.  “Though what is ‘Romeo and Juliet’ after all?” he added after a short pause.  “The beauty of poetry and holiness of love are simply the roses under which they try to hide its rottenness.  Romeo is just the same sort of animal as all the rest of us.”

“Whatever one talks to you about, you always bring it round to . . .”  Von Koren glanced round at Katya and broke off.

“What do I bring it round to?” asked Laevsky.

“One tells you, for instance, how beautiful a bunch of grapes is, and you answer:  ’Yes, but how ugly it is when it is chewed and digested in one’s stomach!’ Why say that?  It’s not new, and . . . altogether it is a queer habit.”

Laevsky knew that Von Koren did not like him, and so was afraid of him, and felt in his presence as though every one were constrained and some one were standing behind his back.  He made no answer and walked away, feeling sorry he had come.

“Gentlemen, quick march for brushwood for the fire!” commanded Samoylenko.

They all wandered off in different directions, and no one was left but Kirilin, Atchmianov, and Nikodim Alexandritch.  Kerbalay brought chairs, spread a rug on the ground, and set a few bottles of wine.

The police captain, Kirilin, a tall, good-looking man, who in all weathers wore his great-coat over his tunic, with his haughty deportment, stately carriage, and thick, rather hoarse voice, looked like a young provincial chief of police; his expression was mournful and sleepy, as though he had just been waked against his will.