CHAPTER IV.

Colonel Nicolai Yegorovitch Svarogitsch who lived in the little town
awaited the arrival of his son, a student at the Moscow Polytechnic.

The latter was under the surveillance of the police and had been
expelled from Moscow as a suspected person. It was thought that he was
in league with revolutionists. Yourii Svarogitsch had already written
to his parents informing them of his arrest, his six months'
imprisonment, and his expulsion from the capital, so that they were
prepared for his return. Though Nicolai Yegorovitch looked upon the
whole thing as a piece of boyish folly, he was really much grieved, for
he was very fond of his son, whom he received with open arms, avoiding
any allusion to this painful subject. For two whole days Yourii had
travelled third-class, and owing to the bad air, the stench, and the
cries of children, he got no sleep at all. He was utterly exhausted,
and had no sooner greeted his father and his sister Ludmilla (who was
always called Lialia) than he lay down on her bed, and fell asleep.

He did not wake until evening, when the sun was near the horizon, and
its slanting rays, falling through the panes, threw rosy squares upon
the wall. In the next room there was a clatter of spoons and glasses;
he could hear Lialia's merry laugh, and also a man's voice both
pleasant and refined which he did not know. At first it seemed to him
as if he were still in the railway-carriage and heard the noise of the
train, the rattle of the window-panes and the voices of travellers in
the next compartment. But he quickly remembered where he was, and sat