'You are not sufficiently prepared?' inquired Madame Sipyagin with a quiver of irony in her voice.
'Perhaps not.'
'What?' Kallomyetsev exclaimed again. 'What do I hear? Merciful heavens! is preparation needed to teach the little peasant wenches their A B C?'
But at that instant Kolya ran into the drawing-room shouting: 'Mamma! mamma! papa is coming!' and after him there came rolling in on her fat little feet a grey-haired lady in a cap and yellow shawl, and she too announced that dear Boris would be here directly! This lady was Sipyagin's aunt, Anna Zaharovna by name. All the persons who were in the drawing-room jumped up from their places and rushed into the anteroom, and from there down the stairs out to the principal entrance. A long avenue of lopped fir-trees led from the highroad straight to this entrance; already a carriage was dashing along it, drawn by four horses. Valentina Mihalovna, standing in front of all, waved her handkerchief, Kolya uttered a piercing shout; the coachman deftly drew up the heated horses, the groom flew headlong from the box and almost tore the carriage door off, lock, hinges, and all; and, with an amiable smile on his lips, in his eyes,
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