“Daddy, here’s Platon Mikhailovitch coming,” said Alexasha, looking out of the window.

“Mounted on his brown horse,” added Nikolasha, leaning over the sill.

“Where, where?” cried Pyetukh, approaching the window.

“Who is this Platon Mikhailovitch?” inquired Tchitchikoff of Alexasha.

“Our neighbour, Platon Mikhailovitch Platonoff, a very handsome man,” answered Alexasha.

In the meantime, Platonoff himself had entered the room: he was a handsome fellow, with a fine figure and glossy light hair, which curled naturally. A heavy-jawed terror of a dog, by the name of Yarb, followed him, rattling his brass collar.

“Have you dined?” inquired the host.

“Yes.”

“What have you come for then—to laugh at me? What can I do with you when you have dined?”

The visitor laughed, and replied, “I will console you by admitting that I ate nothing at dinner: I had no appetite at all.”

“And we have had such a catch! If you could only have seen it! Such sturgeons! Such carp and karasishtchi!”¹

“It’s vexatious enough to hear you tell me about it. Why are you always so cheerful?”

“And why should one be bored, if you please?” asked the master of the house.

“Why be bored? Because things are tiresome.”

“You eat too little; that’s all. Try to make a good dinner. It’s only lately that boredom was invented. Nobody used to get bored in former times.”

“Well, enough of your boasting! Just as if you were never bored!”

“I never am. And upon my word there’s no time to be bored. One wakes up in the morning, and there’s the cook on the spot, and dinner must be ordered: then comes tea, and then the overseer, and then the fishing, and then dinner. After dinner, and before one has a chance to snore, there’s the cook again, and supper must be ordered. How has one any time to feel bored?”

During the whole of this conversation, Tchitchikoff had been observing the new-comer, who had amazed him by his remarkably good looks, his slender, picturesque figure, the freshness, indeed, the feminine clearness of his complexion, which was not defaced by a single blemish. Neither passion nor grief, nor anything in the nature of emotion, had dared to lay a finger on his face, which was as pure as a young girl’s, nor to imprint even a wrinkle upon it, although that might have given it a look of life, for it was a rather sleepy face in spite of the ironical smile which lighted it up at times.

“And I, permit me to remark,” said Tchitchikoff, “am unable to understand how a man can mope when he has such a personal appearance as yours. Of course, if he lacks money, or has enemies—and there are people who are always ready to make attempts even on the life of a man.”

“Believe me,” interrupted the handsome man, “I should sometimes like a little anxiety, for the sake of variety. If some one would only put me in a passion! But there’s no one to do so. It’s a bore, and that’s all there is about it.”

“Then, you have not a sufficient amount of land in your estate, or the number of your serfs is small?”