Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/98



spacious and comfortable room to which the servant conducted Nezhdanov looked out on the garden. Its windows were open and a light breeze was faintly fluttering the white blinds; they swelled out like sails, rose and fell again. Gleams of golden light glided slowly over the ceiling; the whole room was full of a fresh, rather moist fragrance of spring. Nezhdanov began by dismissing the servant, unpacking his trunk, washing and changing his clothes. The journey had utterly exhausted him; the constant presence for two whole days of a stranger, with whom he had had much varied and aimless talk, had worked upon his nerves; something bitter, not quite weariness nor quite anger, was secretly astir in the very bottom of his soul; he raged against his faint-heartedness, and still his heart sank.

He went up to the window and began looking at the garden. It was an old-world garden, of rich black soil, such a garden as one does not see