Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/113

Rh garden enjoying the shade of the old trees, the freshness of the air, the song of the birds; the booming of the gong summoned him to the house, and he found the whole party in the dining-room. Valentina Mihalovna behaved very affably to him; in her morning dress she struck him as perfectly beautiful. Marianna's face wore its usual absorbed and sullen expression. At ten o'clock exactly the first lesson took place in the presence of Valentina Mihalovna; she had first inquired of Nezhdanov whether she would be in his way, and she behaved the whole time very discreetly. Kolya turned out to be an intelligent boy; after the first inevitable awkwardness and hesitation, the lesson went off satisfactorily. Valentina Mihalovna was left apparently well content with Nezhdanov, and several times she addressed him in an ingratiating manner. He held off but not too much so. Valentina Mihalovna was present also at the second lesson, on Russian history. She declared with a smile that on that subject she needed a teacher no less than Kolya himself, and behaved as quietly and sedately as during the first lesson. From three till five o'clock, Nezhdanov sat in his own room, wrote letters to Petersburg, and felt neither well nor ill: he was free from boredom and from depression; his overwrought nerves were