great vexation of Anton, who had put on knitted white gloves for the purpose, tea was not handed to the grand lady visitor by him, but by Lavretsky’s hired valet, who in the old man’s words, had not a notion of what was proper.  To make up for this, Anton resumed his rights at dinner:  he took up a firm position behind Marya Dmitrievna’s chair; and he would not surrender his post to any one.  The appearance of guests after so long an interval at Vassilyevskoe fluttered and delighted the old man.  It was a pleasure to him to see that his master was acquainted with such fine gentlefolk.  He was not, however, the only one who was fluttered that day; Lemm, too, was in agitation.  He had put on a rather short snuff-coloured coat with a swallow-tail, and tied his neck handkerchief stiffly, and he kept incessantly coughing and making way for people with a cordial and affable air.  Lavretsky noticed with pleasure that his relations with Lisa were becoming more intimate; she had held out her hand to him affectionately directly she came in.  After dinner Lemm drew out of his coat-tail pocket, into which he had continually been fumbling, a small roll of music-paper and compressing his lips he laid it without speaking on the pianoforte.  It was a song composed by him the evening before, to some old-fashioned German words, in which mention was made of the stars.  Lisa sat down at once to the piano and played at sight the song . . . .  Alas! the music turned out to be complicated and painfully strained; it was clear that the composer had striven to express something passionate and deep, but nothing had come of it; the effort had remained an effort.  Lavretsky and Lisa both felt this, and Lemm understood it.  Without uttering a single word, he put his song back into his pocket, and in reply to Lisa’s proposal to play it again, he only shook his head and said significantly:  “Now—­enough!” and shrinking into himself he turned away.

Towards evening the whole party went out to fish.  In the pond behind the garden there were plenty of carp and groundlings.  Marya Dmitrievna was put in an arm-chair near the banks, in the shade, with a rug under her feet and the best line was given to her.  Anton as an old experienced angler offered her his services.  He zealously put on the worms, and clapped his hand on them, spat on them and even threw in the line with a graceful forward swing of his whole body.  Marya Dmitrievna spoke of him the same day to Fedor Ivanitch in the following phrase, in boarding-school French:  “Il n’y a plus maintenant de ces gens comme ca, comme autrefois.”  Lemm with the two little girls went off further to the dam of the pond; Lavretsky took up his position near Lisa.  The fish were continually biting, the carp were constantly flashing in the air with golden and silvery sides as they were drawn in; the cries of pleasure of the little girls were incessant, even Marya Dmitrievna uttered a little feminine shriek on two occasions.  The fewest fish were caught