a man in a nankeen kaftan, with a head as white as snow;
shielding his eyes with his hand, he stared at the tarantas, suddenly
slapped himself on both thighs, at first danced about a little on one
spot, then ran to open the gate. The tarantas drove into the yard, the
wheels rustling against the nettles, and halted in front of the porch.
The white-headed man, very nimble, to all appearances, was already
standing, with his feet planted very wide apart and very crooked, on the
last step; and having unbuttoned the apron, convulsively held up the
leather and aided the master to descend to the earth, and then kissed his
hand.

"Good-day, good-day, brother,"--said Lavretzky,--"I think thy name is
Anton? Thou art still alive?"

The old man bowed in silence, and ran to fetch the keys. While he was
gone, the postilion sat motionless, bending sideways and gazing at the
locked door; but Lavretzky's lackey remained standing as he had sprung
down, in a picturesque pose, with one hand resting on the box. The old
man brought the keys, and quite unnecessarily writhing like a serpent,
raising his elbows on high, he unlocked the door, stepped aside, and
again bowed to his girdle.

"Here I am at home, here I have got back,"--said Lavretzky to himself,
as he entered the tiny anteroom, while the shutters were opened, one
after the other, with a bang and a squeak, and the daylight penetrated
into the deserted rooms.

XIX

The tiny house where Lavretzky had arrived, and where, two years
previously, Glafira Petrovna had breathed her last, had been built in
the previous century, out of sturdy pine lumber; in appearance it was
decrepit, but was capable of standing another fifty years or more.
Lavretzky made the round of all the rooms, and, to the great
discomfiture of the aged, languid flies, with white dust on their backs,
who were sitting motionless under the lintels of the doors, he ordered
all the windows to be opened; no one had opened them since the death of
Glafira Petrovna. Everything in the house remained as it had been: the
small, spindle-legged couches in the drawing-room, covered with glossy
grey material, worn through and flattened down, vividly recalled the days
of Katherine II; in the drawing-room, also, stood the mistress's
favourite chair, with a tall, straight back, against which, even in her
old age, she had not leaned. On the principal wall hung an ancient
portrait of Feodor's g