would deal with
"The Story of the Expedition of Igor," Varvara Petrovna suddenly got up
and announced that there would be no more lessons. Stepan Trofimovitch
winced, but said nothing, and Dasha flushed crimson. It put a stop to
the scheme, however. This had happened just three years before Varvara
Petrovna's unexpected fancy.

Poor Stepan Trofimovitch was sitting alone free from all misgivings.
Plunged in mournful reveries he had for some time been looking out of
the window to see whether any of his friends were coming. But nobody
would come. It was drizzling. It was turning cold, he would have to have
the stove heated. He sighed. Suddenly a terrible apparition flashed upon
his eyes:

Varvara Petrovna in such weather and at such an unexpected hour to see
him! And on foot! He was so astounded that he forgot to put on his
coat, and received her as he was, in his everlasting pink-wadded
dressing-jacket.

_"Ma bonne amie!"_ he cried faintly, to greet her. "You're alone; I'm
glad; I can't endure your friends. How you do smoke! Heavens, what an
atmosphere! You haven't finished your morning tea and it's nearly twelve
o'clock. It's your idea of bliss--disorder! You take pleasure in dirt.
What's that torn paper on the floor? Nastasya, Nastasya! What is
your Nastasya about? Open the window, the casement, the doors, fling
everything wide open. And we'll go into the drawing-room. I've come to
you on a matter of importance. And you sweep up, my good woman, for once
in your life."

"They make such a muck!" Nastasya whined in a voice of plaintive
exasperation.

"Well, you must sweep, sweep it up fifteen times a day! You've a
wretched drawing-room" (when they had gone into the drawing-room). "Shut
the door properly. She'll be listening. You must have it repapered.
Didn't I send a paperhanger to you with patterns? Why didn't you choose
one? Sit down, and listen. Do sit down, I beg you. Where are you off to?
Where are you off to? Where are you off to?

"I'll be back directly," Stepan Trofimovitch cried from the next room.
"Here I am again."

"Ah,--you've changed your coat." She scanned him mockingly. (He had
flung his coat on over the dressing-jacket.) "Well, certainly that's
more suited to our subject. Do sit down, I entreat you."

She told him everything at once, abruptly and impressively She hinted at
the eight thousand of which he stood in such terrible need. She told him
in detail of the dowry. Stepan Trofimovitch sat tr