r. She gave us the list for us to write our names, put it
away, and began to say good-bye.

"You have completely forgotten us, Piotr Petrovich," she said to
Bielokurov, as she gave him her hand. "Come and see us, and if Mr. N.
(she said my name) would like to see how the admirers of his talent live
and would care to come and see us, then mother and I would be very
pleased."

I bowed.

When she had gone Piotr Petrovich began to tell me about her. The girl,
he said, was of a good family and her name was Lydia Volchaninov, and
the estate, on which she lived with her mother and sister, was called,
like the village on the other side of the pond, Sholkovka. Her father
had once occupied an eminent position in Moscow and died a privy
councillor. Notwithstanding their large means, the Volchaninovs always
lived in the village, summer and winter, and Lydia was a teacher in the
Zemstvo School at Sholkovka and earned twenty-five roubles a month. She
only spent what she earned on herself and was proud of her independence.

"They are an interesting family," said Bielokurov. "We ought to go and
see them. They will be very glad to see you."

One afternoon, during a holiday, we remembered the Volchaninovs and went
over to Sholkovka. They were all at home. The mother, Ekaterina
Pavlovna, had obviously once been handsome, but now she was stouter
than her age warranted, suffered from asthma, was melancholy and
absent-minded as she tried to entertain me with talk about painting.
When she heard from her daughter that I might perhaps come over to
Sholkovka, she hurriedly called to mind a few of my landscapes which she
had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now she asked what I had tried to
express in them. Lydia, or as she was called at home, Lyda, talked more
to Bielokurov than to me. Seriously and without a smile, she asked him
why he did not work for the Zemstvo and why up till now he had never
been to a Zemstvo meeting.

"It is not right of you, Piotr Petrovich," she said reproachfully. "It
is not right. It is a shame."

"True, Lyda, true," said her mother. "It is not right."

"All our district is in Balaguin's hands," Lyda went on, turning to me.
"He is the chairman of the council and all the jobs in the district are
given to his nephews and brothers-in-law, and he does exactly as he
likes. We ought to fight him. The young people ought to form a strong
party; but you see what our young men are like. It is a shame, Piotr
Petrovic