As he moved forward he remembered that his stroll had an aim. He wondered how Leonid Koslov was, whether he had changed, or whether he had remained what he had been before, a child for all his learning. He too was a good subject for an artist. Raisky thought of Leonti’s beautiful wife, whose acquaintance he had made during his student days in Moscow, when she was a young girl. She used to call Leonti her fiancé, without any denial on his part, and five years after he had left the University he made the journey to Moscow, and married her. He loved his wife as a man loves air and warmth; absorbed in the life and art of the ancients, his lover’s eyes saw in her the antique ideal of beauty. The lines of her neck and bosom charmed him, and her head recalled to him Roman heads seen on bas-reliefs and cameos. Leonti did not recognise Raisky, when his friend suddenly entered his study. “I have not the honour,” he began. But when Boris Pavlovich opened his lips he embraced him. “Wife! Ulinka!” he cried into the garden. “Come quickly, and see who has come to see us.” She came hastily, and kissed Raisky. “What a man you have grown, and how much more handsome you are!” she said, her eyes flashing. Her eyes, her mien, her whole figure betrayed audacity. Just over thirty years old, she gave the impression of a splendidly developed specimen of blooming womanhood. “Have you forgotten me?” she asked. “How should he forget you?” broke in Leonti. “But Ulinka is right. You have altered, and are hardly recognisable with your beard. How delighted your Aunt must have been to see you.” “Ah! his Aunt!” remarked Juliana Andreevna in a tone of displeasure. “I don’t like her.” “Why not?” “She is despotic and censorious.” “Yes, she is a despot,” answered Raisky. “That comes from intercourse with serfs. Old customs!” “According to Tatiana Markovna,” continued Juliana Andreevna, “everybody should stay on one spot, turn his head neither to right nor left, and never exchange a word with his neighbours. She is a past mistress in fault-finding; nevertheless she and Tiet Nikonich are inseparable, he spends his days and nights with her.” Raisky laughed and said, “She is a saint nevertheless, whatever you may find to say about her.” “A saint perhaps, but nothing is right for her. Her world is in her two nieces, and who knows how they will turn out? Marfinka plays with her canaries and her flowers, and the other sits in the corner like the family ghost, and not a word can be got from her. We shall see what will become of her.” “Veroshka? I haven’t seen her yet. She is away on a visit on the other side of the Volga.” “And who knows what her business is there?” “I love my Aunt as if she were my Mother,” said Raisky emphatically. “She is wise, honourable, just! She has strength and individuality, and there is nothing commonplace about her.”