"It was much better in Mamma's time--she used to put an umbrella in the corner instead of me."
Nadezhda Vassilyevna's aunt lived with her. She was a characterless, decrepit woman with no voice in the household affairs. Nadezhda Vassilyevna chose her acquaintances with great care. Peredonov was very seldom in her house and only his lack of real acquaintance with her could have given birth to his idea of getting her to marry Volodin. She was therefore extremely astonished at their unexpected visit, but she received the uninvited guests quite graciously. She had to amuse them, and it seemed to her that the most likely and pleasant method of entertaining an instructor of the Russian language would be to talk of educational conditions, school reform, the training of children, literature, Symbolism and the Russian literary periodicals. She touched upon all these themes, but received no response beyond enigmatic remarks, which showed that these questions had no interest for her guests.
She soon saw that only one subject was possible--town gossip. But Nadezhda Vassilyevna nevertheless made one more attempt.
"Have you read the 'Man in the Case,' by Chekhov?" she asked. "It's a clever piece of work, isn't it?"
As she turned with this question to Volodin he smiled pleasantly and asked:
"It's a short story," exclaimed Nadezhda.
"Did you say it was by Mister Chekhov?" inquired Volodin.
"Yes, Chekhov," said Nadezhda and smiled.
"Where was it published?" asked Volodin curiously.
"In the 'Russkaya Misl,'" the young woman explained graciously.
"I can't quite remember. I think it was in one of the summer numbers," replied Nadezhda, still graciously but with some astonishment.
A schoolboy suddenly appeared from behind the door.
"It was published in the May number," he said, with his hand on the door-knob, glancing at his sister and her guests with cheerful blue eyes.
"You're too young to read novels!" growled Peredonov angrily. "You ought to work instead of reading indecent stories."
Nadezhda Vassilyevna looked sternly at her brother.
"It is a nice thing to stand behind doors and listen," she remarked, and lifting her hands crossed her little fingers at a right angle.
The boy made a wry face and disappeared. He went into his own room, stood in the corner and gazed at the clock; two little fingers crossed was a sign that he should stand in the corner for ten minutes. "No," he thought sadly, "it was much better when Mamma was alive. She only put an umbrella in the corner."