THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
I said to Ovsyanikov that Mr. Lubozvonov must certainly be ill.
'Ill, indeed! He's as broad as he's long, and a face like this—God bless him!—and bearded, though he is so young. . . . Well, God knows!' And Ovsyanikov gave a deep sigh.
'Come, putting the nobles aside,' I began, 'what have you to tell me about the peasant proprietors, Luka Petrovitch?'
'No, you must let me off that,' he said hurriedly. 'Truly. . . . I could tell you . . . but what's the use!' (with a wave of his hand). "We had better have some tea. . . . We are common peasants and nothing more; but when we come to think of it, what else could we be?'
He ceased talking. Tea was served. Tatyana Ilyinitchna rose from her place and sat down rather nearer to us. In the course of the evening she several times went noiselessly out and as quietly returned. Silence reigned in the room. Ovsyanikov drank cup after cup with gravity and deliberation.
'Mitya has been to see us to-day,' said Tatyana Ilyinitchna in a low voice.
Ovsyanikov frowned.
'What does he want?'
'He came to ask forgiveness.'
Ovsyanikov shook his head.
'Come, tell me,' he went on, turning to me, 'what is one to do with relations? And to abandon them altogether is impossible. . . . Here
103
