tillness
came back again as though nothing had happened, the cloud hid, the
sun-baked hills frowned submissively, the air grew calm, and only
somewhere the troubled lapwings wailed and lamented their destiny. . . .

Soon after that the evening came on.

III

In the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, with a rusty iron
roof and with dark windows, came into sight. This house was called
a posting-inn, though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood
in the middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure round it. A
little to one side of it a wretched little cherry orchard shut in
by a hurdle fence made a dark patch, and under the windows stood
sleepy sunflowers drooping their heavy heads. From the orchard came
the clatter of a little toy windmill, set there to frighten away
hares by the rattle. Nothing more could be seen near the house, and
nothing could be heard but the steppe. The chaise had scarcely
stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when from the house
there came the sound of cheerful voices, one a man's, another a
woman's; there was the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall
gaunt figure, swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was standing
by the chaise. This was the innkeeper, Moisey Moisevitch, a man no
longer young, with a very pale face and a handsome beard as black
as charcoal. He was wearing a threadbare black coat, which hung
flapping on his narrow shoulders as though on a hatstand, and
fluttered its skirts like wings every time Moisey Moisevitch flung
up his hands in delight or horror. Besides his coat the innkeeper
was wearing full white trousers, not stuck into his boots, and a
velvet waistcoat with brown flowers on it that looked like gigantic
bugs.

Moisey Moisevitch was at first dumb with excess of feeling on
recognizing the travellers, then he clasped his hands and uttered
a moan. His coat swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and
his pale face twisted into a smile that suggested that to see the
chaise was not merely a pleasure to him, but actually a joy so sweet
as to be painful.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" he began in a thin sing-song voice, breathless,
fussing about and preventing the travellers from getting out of the
chaise by his antics. "What a happy day for me! Oh, what am I to
do now? Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! What a pretty little
gentleman sitting on the box, God strike me dead! Oh, my goodness!
why am I standing here instead of asking the visitor