in the hot-houses. But even the flowers along the avenues, and here
and there in the flower-beds, were enough to make one feel, as one
walked about the garden, as though one were in a realm of tender
colours, especially in the early morning when the dew was glistening
on every petal.

What was the decorative part of the garden, and what Pesotsky
contemptuously spoke of as rubbish, had at one time in his childhood
given Kovrin an impression of fairyland.

Every sort of caprice, of elaborate monstrosity and mockery at
Nature was here. There were espaliers of fruit-trees, a pear-tree
in the shape of a pyramidal poplar, spherical oaks and lime-trees,
an apple-tree in the shape of an umbrella, plum-trees trained into
arches, crests, candelabra, and even into the number 1862--the
year when Pesotsky first took up horticulture. One came across,
too, lovely, graceful trees with strong, straight stems like palms,
and it was only by looking intently that one could recognise these
trees as gooseberries or currants. But what made the garden most
cheerful and gave it a lively air, was the continual coming and
going in it, from early morning till evening; people with wheelbarrows,
shovels, and watering-cans swarmed round the trees and bushes, in
the avenues and the flower-beds, like ants. . . .

Kovrin arrived at Pesotsky's at ten o'clock in the evening. He found
Tanya and her father, Yegor Semyonitch, in great anxiety. The clear
starlight sky and the thermometer foretold a frost towards morning,
and meanwhile Ivan Karlovitch, the gardener, had gone to the town,
and they had no one to rely upon. At supper they talked of nothing
but the morning frost, and it was settled that Tanya should not go