Fathers and Sons [antikvár]

ELL, PYOTR? No sign of them yet?"-a gentleman a little over forty in a dusty coat and ehecked trousers, emerging hatless onto the doorstep of a little country inn on the X- Highway, enquired on May 20th, 1859 of his servant, a round-cheeked youth with a whitish down on his chin and small lacklustre eyes. The servant, in whom everything, from his sleek head of streaky hair and the turquoise earring he affeeted to his suave manners, bespoke a product of the neoteric, model generation, vouchsafed a glancé down the road and retorted: "No sir, no sign yet." "No sign?" repeated his master. "No sir," reiterated the man. The gentleman sighed and seated himself 011 a little bench. Let us introduce him to the reader, while he sits there with his legs tucked away, gazing pensively around. His name was Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. Within fifteen versts of the inn he had a good estate with two hundred souls, or-as he preferred