NEJDANOV awoke early and, without waiting for a servant, dressed and went out into the garden. It was very large and beautiful this garden, and well kept. Hired labourers were scraping the paths with their spades, through the bright green shrubs a glimpse of kerchiefs could be seen on the heads of the peasant girls armed with rakes. Nejdanov wandered down to the pond; the early morning mist had already lifted, only a few curves in its banks still remained in obscurity. The sun, not yet far above the horizon, threw a rosy light over the steely silkiness of its broad surface. Five carpenters were busy about the raft, a newly- painted boat was lightly rocking from side to side, creating a gentle ripple over the water. The men rarely spoke, and then in somewhat preoccupied tones. Everything was submerged in the morning stillness, and everyone was occupied with the morning work; the whole gave one a feeling of order and regularity of everyday life. Suddenly, at the other end of the avenue, Nejdanov got a vision of the very incarnation of order and regularity — Sipiagin himself.
He wore a brown coat, something like a dressing gown, and a checkered cap; he was leaning on an English bamboo cane, and his newly-shaven face shone with satisfaction; he was on the round of inspecting his estate. Sipiagin greeted Nejdanov kindly.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “I see you are one of the early birds!” (He evidently wanted to express his approval by this old saying, which was a little out of place, of the fact that Nejdanov, like himself, did not like lying in bed long.) “At eight o’clock we all take tea in the dining room, and we usually breakfast at twelve. I should like you to give Kolia his first lesson in Russian grammar at ten o’clock, and a lesson in history at two. I don’t want him to have any lessons tomorrow, as it will he his name-day, hut I would like you to begin today.”
Nejdanov bowed his head, and Sipiagin took leave of him in the French fashion, quickly lifting his hand several times to his lips and nose, and walked away, whistling and waving his cane energetically, not at all like an important official and state dignitary, but like a jolly Russian country gentleman.
Until eight o’clock Nejdanov stayed in the garden, enjoying the shadows cast by the old trees, the fresh air, the singing of the birds, until the sound of a gong called him to the house. On his entrance he found the whole company already assembled in the dining room. Valentina Mihailovna greeted him in a friendly manner; she seemed to him marvellously beautiful in her morning gown. Mariana looked stern and serious as usual.
Exactly at ten o’clock Nejdanov gave Kolia his first lesson before Valentina Mihailovna, who had asked him if she might he present, and sat very quietly the whole time. Kolia proved an intelligent boy; after the inevitable moments of incertitude and discomfort, the lesson went off very well, and Valentina Mihailovna was evidently satisfied with Nejdanov, and spoke to him several times kindly. He tried to hold aloof a little — but not too much so. Valentina Mihailovna was also present at the second lesson, this time on Russian history. She announced, with a smile, that in this subject she needed instruction almost as much as Kolia. She conducted herself just as quietly as she had done at the first lesson.
Between two and five o’clock Nejdanov stayed in his own room writing letters to his St. Petersburg friends. He was neither bored nor in despair; his overstrained nerves had calmed down somewhat. However, they were set on edge again at dinner, although Kollomietzev was not present, and the kind attention of host and hostess remained unchanged; but it was this very attention that made Nejdanov angry. To make matters worse, the old maiden lady, Anna Zaharovna, was obviously antagonistic, Mariana continued serious, and Kolia rather unceremoniously kicked him under the table. Sipiagin also seemed out of sorts. He was extremely dissatisfied with the manager of his paper mill, a German, to whom he paid a large salary. Sipiagin began by abusing Germans in general, then announced that he was somewhat of a Slavophil, though not a fanatic, and mentioned a certain young Russian, by the name of Solomin, who, it was said, had successfully established another mill belonging to a neighbouring merchant; he was very anxious to meet this Solomin.
Kollomietzev came in the evening; his own estate was only about ten miles away from “Arjanov,” the name of Sipiagin’s village. There also came a certain justice of the peace, a squire, of the kind so admirably described in the two famous lines of Lermontov —
Behind a cravat, frock coat to the heels Moustache, squeaky voice — and heavy glance.
Another guest arrived, with a dejected look, without a tooth in his head, but very accurately dressed. After him came the local doctor, a very bad doctor, who was fond of coming out with learned expressions. He assured everyone, for instance, that he liked Kukolnik better than Pushkin because there was a great deal of “protoplasm” about him. They all sat down to play cards. Nejdanov retired to his own room, and read and wrote until midnight.
The following day, the 9th of May, was Kolia’s patron-saint’s day.
Although the church was not a quarter of a mile off, the whole household drove to mass in three open carriages with footmen at the back. Everything was very festive and gorgeous. Sipiagin decorated himself with his order, Valentina Mihailovna was dressed in a beautiful pale lavender-coloured Parisian gown, and during the service read her prayers out of a tiny little prayer hook bound in red velvet. This little book was a matter of great concern among several old peasants, one of whom, unable to contain himself any longer, asked of his neighbour: “What is she doing? Lord have mercy on us! Is she casting a spell? “ The sweet scent of the flowers, which filled the whole church, mingled with the smell of the peasant’s coats, tarred boots and shoes, the whole being drowned by the delicious, overpowering scent of incense.
In the choir the clerks and sacristans tried their very hardest to sing well, and with the help of the men from the factory attempted something like a concert! There was a moment when an almost painful sensation came over the congregation. The tenor’s voice (it belonged to one of the men from the factory, who was in the last stages of consumption) rose high above the rest, and without the slightest restraint trilled out long chromatic flat minor notes; they were terrible these notes! but to stop them would have meant the whole concert going to pieces. . . . However, the thing went off without any mishap. Father Kiprian, a priest of the most patriarchal appearance, dressed in the full vestments of the church, delivered his sermon out of a copy-book. Unfortunately, the conscientious father had considered it necessary to introduce the names of several very wise Assyrian kings, which caused him some trouble in pronunciation. He succeeded in showing a certain amount of learning, but perspired very much in the effort!
Nejdanov, who for a long time had not been inside a church, stood in a corner amidst the peasant women, who kept casting sidelong glances at him in between crossing themselves, bowing piously to the ground, and wiping their babies’ noses. But the peasant girls in their new coats and beaded head-dresses, and the boys in their embroidered shirts, with girdles round their waists, stared intently at the new worshipper, turning their faces straight towards him . . . Nejdanov, too, looked at them, and many things rose up in his mind.
After mass, which lasted a very long time — the service of St. Nikolai the Miraculous is well known to he one of the longest in the Orthodox Church — all the clergy, at Sipiagin’s invitation, returned to his house, and, after going through several additional ceremonies, such as sprinkling the room with holy water, they all sat down to an abundant breakfast, interspersed with the usual congratulations and rather wearisome talk. The host and hostess, who never took breakfast at such an early hour, broke the rule on this occasion. Sipiagin even went so far as to relate an anecdote, quite proper, of course, but nevertheless amusing, in spite of his dignity and red ribbon, and caused Father Kiprian to be filled with gratitude and amazement. To show that he, too, could tell something worth hearing on occasion, the good father related a conversation he had had with the bishop, when the latter, on a tour round his diocese, had invited all the clergy of the district to come and see him at the monastery in the town. “ He is very severe with us,” Father Kiprian assured everyone. “First he questioned us about our parish, about ou............