Page:Pushkin - Russian Romance (King, 1875).djvu/172

160 "And what have the masters got to do with it?" replied Nastia; "besides, I belong to you, and not to your father, and you and young Beréstoff have not yet managed to fall out: let the old people fight it out if it pleases them."

"Do endeavour, Nastia, to see Aleksèy Beréstoff, and tell me what he is like, and what kind of person he is."

Nastia promised; and Lisa spent the day impatiently awaiting her return. In the evening, Nastia appeared.

"Well, Lisavéta Grigórievna," said she on entering the room, "I saw young Beréstoff, and looked at him to my heart's content; we were all day together."

"How was that?—tell me, tell me everything as it occurred!"

"If you please, then; we went, I, Anisia, Egórovna, Nénila, Dunka—"

"All right, I know; well, after that?"

"Allow me, I want to tell you everything as it occurred. We arrived just in time for dinner. The room was full of people. There were the Kolbiúsky, the Zaharévsky, the clerk's wife with her daughters, the Krupiúsky—"

"Well! and Beréstoff?"

"Please to wait. So we sat down to dinner, the clerk's wife at the post of honour, I next to her—the daughters sulked; but much I care about them—"

"Dear me, Nastia, how tiresome thou always art with thy endless particulars!"

"But you are so very impatient! Well, then, we got up from table—and we had sat there three hours, and the dinner was splendid; we had for sweets, blue, red,