The next morning Nejdanov called at Sipiagin's townhouse and was
shown into a magnificent study, furnished in a rather severe
style, but quite in keeping with the dignity of a statesman of
liberal views. The gentleman himself was sitting before an
enormous bureau, piled up with all sorts of useless papers,
arrayed in the strictest order, and numerous ivory paper-knives,
which had never been known to cut anything. During the space of
an hour Nejdanov listened to the wise, courteous, patronising
speeches of his host, received a hundred roubles, and ten days
later was leaning back in the plush seat of a reserved first-
class compartment, side by side with this same wise, liberal
politician, being borne along to Moscow on the jolting lines of
the Nikolaevsky Railway.

V

IN the drawing room of a large stone house with a Greek front--
built in the twenties of the present century by Sipiagin's
father, a well-known landowner, who was distinguished by the free
use of his fists--Sipiagin's wife, Valentina Mihailovna, a very
beautiful woman, having been informed by telegram of her
husband's arrival, sat expecting him every moment. The room was
decorated in the best modern taste. Everything in it was charming
and inviting, from the wails hung in variegated cretonne and
beautiful curtains, to the various porcelain, bronze, and crystal
knickknacks arranged upon the tables and cabinets; the whole
blending together into a subdued harmony and brightened by the
rays of the May sun, which was streaming in through the wide-open
windows. The still air, laden with the scent of lily-of-the-
valley (large bunches of these beautiful spring flowers were