“Whom do you want?” she asked severely, looking at him over her spectacles.

Before Nekhludoff had time to answer, an expression of fright and joy appeared on her face.

“Oh, Prince!” she exclaimed, wiping her hands on her apron.  “But why have you come the back way?  Our Benefactor!  I am her mother.  They have nearly killed my little girl.  You have saved us,” she said, catching hold of Nekhludoff’s hand and trying to kiss it.

“I went to see you yesterday.  My sister asked me to.  She is here.  This way, this way, please,” said Shoustova’s mother, as she led the way through a narrow door, and a dark passage, arranging her hair and pulling at her tucked-up skirt.  “My sister’s name is Kornilova.  You must have heard of her,” she added, stopping before a closed door.  “She was mixed up in a political affair.  An extremely clever woman!”

Shoustova’s mother opened the door and showed Nekhludoff into a little room where on a sofa with a table before it sat a plump, short girl with fair hair that curled round her pale, round face, which was very like her mother’s.  She had a striped cotton blouse on.

Opposite her, in an armchair, leaning forward, so that he was nearly bent double, sat a young fellow with a slight, black beard and moustaches.

“Lydia, Prince Nekhludoff!” he said.

The pale girl jumped up, nervously pushing back a lock of hair behind her ear, and gazing at the newcomer with a frightened look in her large, grey eyes.

“So you are that dangerous woman whom Vera Doukhova wished me to intercede for?” Nekhludoff asked, with a smile.

“Yes, I am,” said Lydia Shoustova, her broad, kind, child-like smile disclosing a row of beautiful teeth.  “It was aunt who was so anxious to see you.  Aunt!” she called out, in a pleasant, tender voice through a door.

“Your imprisonment grieved Vera Doukhova very much,” said Nekhludoff.

“Take a seat here, or better here,” said Shoustova, pointing to the battered easy-chair from which the young man had just risen.

“My cousin, Zakharov,” she said, noticing that Nekhludoff looked at the young man.

The young man greeted the visitor with a smile as kindly as Shoustova’s, and when Nekhludoff sat down he brought himself another chair, and sat by his side.  A fair-haired schoolboy of about 10 also came into the room and silently sat down on the window-sill.

“Vera Doukhova is a great friend of my aunt’s, but I hardly know her,” said Shoustova.

Then a woman with a very pleasant face, with a white blouse and leather belt, came in from the next room.

“How do you do?  Thanks for coming,” she began as soon as she had taken the place next Shoustova’s on the sofa.

“Well, and how is Vera.  You have seen her?  How does she bear her fate?”

“She does not complain,” said Nekhludoff.  “She says she feels perfectly happy."’