And meanwhile our things
will be got ready."

Pretty Pelagueya, dainty and sweet, brought towels and soap, and
Aliokhin led his guests to the bathing-shed.

"Yes," he said, "it is a long time since I had a bath. My bathing-shed
is all right, as you see. My father and I put it up, but somehow I have
no time to bathe."

He sat down on the step and lathered his long hair and neck, and the
water round him became brown.

"Yes. I see," said Ivan Ivanich heavily, looking at his head.

"It is a long time since I bathed," said Aliokhin shyly, as he soaped
himself again, and the water round him became dark blue, like ink.

Ivan Ivanich came out of the shed, plunged into the water with a splash,
and swam about in the rain, flapping his arms, and sending waves back,
and on the waves tossed white lilies; he swam out to the middle of the
pool and dived, and in a minute came up again in another place and kept
on swimming and diving, trying to reach the bottom. "Ah! how delicious!"
he shouted in his glee. "How delicious!" He swam to the mill, spoke to
the peasants, and came back, and in the middle of the pool he lay on his
back to let the rain fall on his face. Bourkin and Aliokhin were already
dressed and ready to go, but he kept on swimming and diving.

"Delicious," he said. "Too delicious!"

"You've had enough," shouted Bourkin.

They went to the house. And only when the lamp was lit in the large
drawing-room up-stairs, and Bourkin and Ivan Ivanich, dressed in silk
dressing-gowns and warm slippers, lounged in chairs, and Aliokhin
himself, washed and brushed, in a new frock coat, paced up and down
evidently delighting in the warmth and cleanliness and dry clothes and
slippers, and pretty Pelagueya, noiselessly tripping over the carpet and
smiling sweetly, brought in tea and jam on a tray, only then did Ivan
Ivanich begin his story, and it was as though he was being listened to
not only by Bourkin and Aliokhin, but also by the old and young ladies
and the officer who looked down so staidly and tranquilly from the
golden frames.

"We are two brothers," he began, "I, Ivan Ivanich, and Nicholai Ivanich,
two years younger. I went in for study and became a veterinary surgeon,
while Nicholai was at the Exchequer Court when he was nineteen. Our
father, Tchimasha-Himalaysky, was a cantonist, but he died with an
officer's rank and left us his title of nobility and a small estate.
After his death the estate went to pay his debts. H