Boris’s aunt wondered, as she saw him gay and serious by turns, what occupied his mind; she wondered what he did all day long. In answer Boris showed his sketching folio; then he would play her quadrilles, mazurkas, excerpts from opera, and finally his own improvisations. Tatiana Markovna’s astonishment remained. “Just like your mother,” she said. “She was just as restless, always sighing as if she expected something to happen. Then she would begin to play and was gay again. See, Vassilissa, he has sketched you and me, like life! When Tiet Nikonich comes, hide yourself and make a sketch of him, and next day we will send it him, and it can hang on the study wall. What a boy you are! And you play as well as the French emigré who used to live with your Aunt. Only it is impossible to talk to you about the farm; you are still too young.” She always wished to go through the accounts with him. “The accounts for Veroshka and Marfinka are separate, you see,” she said. “You need not think that a penny of your money goes to them. See....” But he never listened. He merely watched how his aunt wrote, how she looked at him over her spectacles, observed the wrinkles in her face, her birthmark, her eyes, her smile, and then burst out laughing, and, throwing himself into her arms, kissed her, and begged to go and look at the old house. She could refuse him nothing; so she unwillingly gave him the keys and he went to look at the rooms where he was born and had spent his childhood, of which he retained only a confused memory. “I am going with Cousin Boris,” said Marfinka. “Where, my darling? It is uncanny over there,” said Tatiana Markovna. Marfinka was frightened. Veroshka said nothing, but when Boris reached the old house, she was already standing at the door, with her hand on the latch, as if she feared she might be driven away. Boris shuddered as he entered the ante-room, and cast an anxious glance into the neighbouring hall, supported by pillars. Veroshka had run on in front. “Where are you off to, Veroshka?”