The number of Varvara Pavlovna's admirers has decreased; but they have not transferred their allegiance: she will, in all probability, retain several of them to the end of her life. The most ardent of them, of late, has been a certain Zakurdalo-Skubyrnikoff, one of the retired dandies of the Guards, a man of eight and thirty, of remarkably robust build. The Frenchmen who frequent Mme. Lavretzky's salon call him "_le gros taureau de l'Ukraine_"; Varvara Pavlovna never invites him to her fashionable evening gatherings, but he enjoys her favour in the fullest measure. So ... eight years have passed. Again the sky is breathing forth the beaming happiness of spring; again it is smiling upon the earth and upon men; again, beneath its caress, everything has burst into blossom, into love and song. The town of O * * * has undergone very little change in the course of those eight years; but Marya Dmitrievna's house seems to have grown young: its recently painted walls shine as in welcome, and the panes of the open windows are crimsoning and glittering in the rays of the setting sun. Through these windows, out upon the street, are wafted the sounds of ringing young voices, of incessant laughter; the whole house seems bubbling with life, and overflowing the brim with merriment. The mistress of the house herself has long since gone to her grave: Marya Dmitrievna died two years after Liza's profession as a nun; and Marfa Timofeevna did not long survive her niece; they rest side by side in the town cemetery. Nastasya Karpovna, also, is dead; the faithful old woman went, every week, for the space of several years, to pray over the ashes of her friend.... Her time came, and her bones also were laid in the damp earth. But Marya Dmitrievna's house has not passed into the hands of strangers, has not left her family; the nest has not been destroyed: Lyenotchka, who has become a stately, beautiful young girl, and her betrothed, a fair-haired officer of hussars; Marya Dmitrievna's son, who has just been married in Petersburg, and has come with his young wife to spend the spring in O * * *; his wife's sister, an Institute-girl of sixteen, with brilliantly scarlet cheeks and clear eyes; Schurotchka, who has also grown up and become pretty--these are the young folks who are making the walls of the Kalitin house re-echo with laughter and chatter. Everything about it has been changed, everything has been brought into accord with the new inhabitants. Beardless young house-servants, who grin and jest, have taken the places of the former sedate old servitors; where overgrown Roska was wont to stroll, two setters are chasing madly about, and leaping over the divans; the stable has been filled with clean-limbed amblers, high-spirited shaft-horses, fiery trace-horses with braided manes, and riding-horses from the Don; the hours for breakfast, dinner, and supper have become mixed up and confused; according to the expression