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A NOBLEMAN'S NEST
I

The brilliant, spring day was inclining toward the evening, tiny
rose-tinted cloudlets hung high in the heavens, and seemed not to be
floating past, but retreating into the very depths of the azure.

In front of the open window of a handsome house, in one of the outlying
streets of O * * * the capital of a Government, sat two women; one
fifty years of age, the other seventy years old, and already aged.

The former was named Marya Dmitrievna Kalitin. Her husband, formerly
the governmental procurator, well known in his day as an active
official--a man of energetic and decided character, splenetic and
stubborn--had died ten years previously. He had received a fairly good
education, had studied at the university, but, having been born in a
poverty-stricken class of society, he had early comprehended the
necessity of opening up a way for himself, and of accumulating money.
Marya Dmitrievna had married him for love; he was far from uncomely in
appearance, he was clever, and, when he chose, he could be very amiable.
Marya Dmitrievna (her maiden name had been Pestoff) had lost her
parents in early childhood, had spent several years in Moscow, in a
government educational institute, and, on returning thence, had lived
fifty versts from O * * *, in her native village, Pokrovskoe, with
her aunt and her elder brother. This brother soon removed to Petersburg
on service, and kept his sister and his aunt on short commons, until his
sudden death put an end to his career. Marya Dmitrievna inherited
Pokrovskoe, but did not live there long; during the second year after
her marriage to Kalitin, who succeeded in conquering her heart in the
course of a few days, Pokrovskoe was exchanged for another estate, much
more profitable, but ugly and without a manor-house, and, at the same
time, Kalitin acquired a house in the town of O * * *, and settled
down there permanently with his wife. A large garden was attached to the
house; on one side, it joined directly on to the open fields, beyond the
town. Kalitin,--who greatly disliked the stagnation of the country,--had
evidently made up his mind, that there was no reason for dragging out
existence on the estate. Marya Dmitrievna, many a time, in her own mind
regretted her pretty Pokrovskoe, with its merry little stream, its broad
mead