families with whom one could make acquaintance. And they used to
point to the family of the Turkins as the most highly cultivated
and talented.

This family lived in their own house in the principal street, near
the Governor's. Ivan Petrovitch Turkin himself--a stout, handsome,
dark man with whiskers--used to get up amateur performances for
benevolent objects, and used to take the part of an elderly general
and cough very amusingly. He knew a number of anecdotes, charades,
proverbs, and was fond of being humorous and witty, and he always
wore an expression from which it was impossible to tell whether he
were joking or in earnest. His wife, Vera Iosifovna--a thin,
nice-looking lady who wore a pince-nez--used to write novels and
stories, and was very fond of reading them aloud to her visitors.
The daughter, Ekaterina Ivanovna, a young girl, used to play on the
piano. In short, every member of the family had a special talent.
The Turkins welcomed visitors, and good-humouredly displayed their
talents with genuine simplicity. Their stone house was roomy and
cool in summer; half of the windows looked into a shady old garden,
where nightingales used to sing in the spring. When there were
visitors in the house, there was a clatter of knives in the kitchen
and a smell of fried onions in the yard--and that was always a
sure sign of a plentiful and savoury supper to follow.

And as soon as Dmitri Ionitch Startsev was appointed the district
doctor, and took up his abode at Dyalizh, six miles from S----, he,
too, was told that as a cultivated man it was essential for him to
make the acquaintance of the Turkins. In the winter he was introduced
to Ivan Petrovitch in the street; they talked about the weather,
about the theatre, about the cholera; an invitation followed. On a