Andrey's son, was standing by listening attentively.

It was still and cool in the garden, and dark peaceful shadows lay
on the ground. There was a sound of frogs croaking, far, far away
beyond the town. There was a feeling of May, sweet May! One drew
deep breaths and longed to fancy that not here but far away under
the sky, above the trees, far away in the open country, in the
fields and the woods, the life of spring was unfolding now, mysterious,
lovely, rich and holy beyond the understanding of weak, sinful man.
And for some reason one wanted to cry.

She, Nadya, was already twenty-three. Ever since she was sixteen
she had been passionately dreaming of marriage and at last she was
engaged to Andrey Andreitch, the young man who was standing on the
other side of the window; she liked him, the wedding was already
fixed for July 7, and yet there was no joy in her heart, she was
sleeping badly, her spirits drooped. . . . She could hear from the
open windows of the basement where the kitchen was the hurrying
servants, the clatter of knives, the banging of the swing door;
there was a smell of roast turkey and pickled cherries, and for
some reason it seemed to her that it would be like that all her
life, with no change, no end to it.

Some one came out of the house and stood on the steps; it was
Alexandr Timofeitch, or, as he was always called, Sasha, who had
come from Moscow ten days before and was staying with them. Years
ago a distant relation of the grandmother, a gentleman's widow
called Marya Petrovna, a thin, sickly little woman who had sunk
into poverty, used to come to the house to ask for assistance. She
had a son Sasha. It used for some reason to be said that he had