thinking what were not joyous thoughts. He experienced the
sensations which every one knows who has had to spend the night
for the first time in a long uninhabited room. He fancied that the
darkness which pressed in upon him from all sides could not accustom
itself to the new tenant--that the very walls of the house were
astonished at him. At last he sighed, pulled the counterpane well over
him, and went to sleep. Anton remained on his legs long after every
one else had gone to bed. For some time he spoke in a whisper to
Apraxia, sighing low at intervals, and three times he crossed himself.
The old servants had never expected that their master would settle
down among them at Vasilievskoe, when he had such a fine estate, with
a well-appointed manor-house close by. They did not suspect what was
really the truth, that Lavriki was repugnant to its owner, that
it aroused in his mind too painful recollections. After they had
whispered to each other enough, Anton took a stick, and struck the
watchman's board, which had long hung silently by the barn. Then
he lay down in the open yard, without troubling himself about any
covering for his white head. The May night was calm and soothing, and
the old man slept soundly.

XX.

The next day Lavretsky rose at a tolerably early hour, chatted with
the _starosta_,[A] visited the rick-yard, and had the chain taken off
the yard dog, which just barked a little, but did not even come out
of its kennel. Then, returning home, he fell into a sort of quiet
reverie, from which he did not emerge all day. "Here I am, then, at
the very bottom of the river!"[B] he said to himself more than once.
He sat near the window without stirring, and seemed to listen to the
flow of the quiet life which surrounded him, to the rare sounds which
came from the village solitude. Behind the nettles some one was
singing with a thin, feeble voice; a gnat seemed to be piping a second
to it The voice stopped, but the gnat still went on piping. Through
the monotonous and obtrusive buzzing of the flies might be heard the
humming of a large humble bee, which kept incessantly striking its
head against the ceiling. A cock crowed in the street, hoarsely
protracting its final note, a cart rattled past, a gate creaked in the
village. "What?" suddenly screeched a woman's voice. "Ah, young lady!"
said Anton to a little girl of two years old whom he was carrying in
his arms. "Bring the _kvass_ here," continued the same w