n't be hard on me; I'm a townsman, conventional; I do keep count of
calls."

"I am delighted, my dear fellow. I am an old man; I like respect....
Yes."

From his voice and his blissfully smiling face, I could see that he was
greatly flattered by my visit. Two peasant women helped me off with my
coat in the entry, and a peasant in a red shirt hung it on a hook, and
when Ivan Ivanitch and I went into his little study, two barefooted
little girls were sitting on the floor looking at a picture-book; when
they saw us they jumped up and ran away, and a tall, thin old woman
in spectacles came in at once, bowed gravely to me, and picking up a
pillow from the sofa and a picture-book from the floor, went away. From
the adjoining rooms we heard incessant whispering and the patter of bare
feet.

"I am expecting the doctor to dinner," said Ivan Ivanitch. "He promised
to come from the relief centre. Yes. He dines with me every Wednesday,
God bless him." He craned towards me and kissed me on the neck.
"You have come, my dear fellow, so you are not vexed," he whispered,
sniffing. "Don't be vexed, my dear creature. Yes. Perhaps it is
annoying, but don't be cross. My only prayer to God before I die is to
live in peace and harmony with all in the true way. Yes."

"Forgive me, Ivan Ivanitch, I will put my feet on a chair," I said,
feeling that I was so exhausted I could not be myself; I sat further
back on the sofa and put up my feet on an arm-chair. My face was burning
from the snow and the wind, and I felt as though my whole body were
basking in the warmth and growing weaker from it.

"It's very nice here," I went on--"warm, soft, snug... and goose-feather
pens," I laughed, looking at the writing-table; "sand instead of
blotting-paper."

"Eh? Yes... yes.... The writing-table and the mahogany cupboard here
were made for my father by a self-taught cabinet-maker--Glyeb Butyga, a
serf of General Zhukov's. Yes... a great artist in his own way."

Listlessly and in the tone of a man dropping asleep, he began telling me
about cabinet-maker Butyga. I listened. Then Ivan Ivanitch went into the
next room to show me a polisander wood chest of drawers remarkable for
its beauty and cheapness. He tapped the chest with his fingers, then
called my attention to a stove of patterned tiles, such as one never
sees now. He tapped the stove, too, with his fingers. There was an
atmosphere of good-natured simplicity and well-fed abundance about
the ches