"
Ivanov lingered a while on the doorstep scraping the mud off his
boots, then stretched himself vigorously, working the muscles of his
arms and reflecting that it was high time for him to be in bed, in a
sound healthy sleep, so as to be up at dawn on the morrow.
IV
In the drawing-room a chandelier hung above the sofa and round table
near the piano; it had not been lighted for many years, indeed not
since the last Christmas before the Revolution. Now once again it was
illumined, and the dull yellow flare of its candles--dimly shining
out of their dust-laden pendants--lit up the near side of the room
and its contents; at the further side, however, where doors led into
the hall and a sittingroom, there was a complete wreckage. The
chairs, armchairs, and couches had vanished through the agency of
unknown hands, leaving only fragments of broken furniture, and odds
and ends of utensils heaped together in casual profusion in a dark
corner, only penetrated by grey, ghostlike shadows. The curtains were
closely drawn; outside the rain pattered drearily on the windows.
Lydia Constantinovna played a long while on the piano, at first a
bravura from the operas, then some classical pieces, Liszt's "Twelfth
Rhapsody," and finally ended with the artless music of Oppel's "A
Summer's Night in Berezovka"--a piece she used to play to Ivanov when
she was his fiancee.
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