Uncle's Dream / Дядюшкин сон

The nurse accompanied him, and a few yards behind walked a manservant, while a carriage was in attendance on the high road at the side. When any peasant happened to meet him, and with low bow, and hat in hand, said, “Good morning, your highness – our beloved Sun, and Father of us all,” or some such Russian greeting, he would stick his eye-glass in his eye, nod his head and say, with great urbanity, and in French, “Bon jour, mon ami, bon jour!”

Lots of other rumours there were – in fact, our folks could not forget that the prince lived so near them.

What, then, must have been the general amazement when one fine day it was trumpeted abroad that the prince – their curious old hermit-prince, had arrived at Mordasoff, and put up at Maria Alexandrovna’s house!

Agitation and bewilderment were the order of the day; everybody waited for explanations, and asked one another what could be the meaning of this mystery? Some proposed to go and see for themselves; all agreed that it was most extraordinary.

The ladies wrote notes to each other, came and whispered to one another, and sent their maids and husbands to п¬Ѓnd out more.

What was particularly strange was, why had the prince put up at Maria Alexandrovna’s, and not somewhere else? This fact annoyed everyone; but, most of all, Mrs. Antipova, who happened to be a distant relative of the prince.

However, in order to clear up all these mysteries and п¬Ѓnd an answer to all these questions, we must ourselves go and see Maria Alexandrovna.

Will you follow me in, kind reader? It is only ten in the morning, certainly, as you point out; but I daresay she will receive such intimate friends, all the same. Oh, yes; she’ll see us all right.

Chapter III

It is ten o’clock in the morning, and we are at Maria Alexandrovna’s, and in that room which the mistress calls her “salon” on great occasions; she has a boudoir besides.

In this salon the walls are prettily papered, and the floor is nicely painted; the furniture is mostly red; there is a fireplace, and on the mantelpiece a bronze clock with some figure – a Cupid – upon it, in dreadfully bad taste.

There are large looking-glasses between the windows. Against the back wall there stands a magnificent grand piano – Zina’s – for Zina is a musician. On a table in the middle of the room hisses a silver tea-urn, with a very pretty tea-set alongside of it.