Ivanov declined tea with a wave of his hand.
All through the years of the Revolution Lydia Constantinovna had lived in the Crimea, coming to Marin-Brod for a fortnight the previous summer, afterwards leaving for Moscow. Now she had returned for the Easter holidays, but not alone—the artist Mintz accompanied her. Ivanov had never heard of him before.
Mintz was clean-shaven and had long fair hair; he wore steel-rimmed pince-nez over his cold grey eyes which he often took off and put on again; when he did so his eyes changed, looking helpless and malicious without the glasses, like those of little owlets in daylight; his thin, shaven lips were closely compressed, and there was often an expression of mistrust and decrepitude in his face; his conversation and movements were noisy.
Lydia Constantinovna had arrived with Mintz the day before at dusk; Ivanov was not at home. They had gone for a walk in the evening, returning only at two o'clock when dawn was just about to break, and a cold mist hung over the earth like a soft grey veil. They were met by barking dogs which were quickly silenced by the lash of Ignat's whip.
Ivanov had come home earlier, at eleven o'clock, and sat by his study window alone, listening to the gentle sounds of night and the ceaseless hootings of the owls in the park. Lydia Constantinovna did not come to him, nor did he go in to her.
It was in the daytime that Ivanov first saw the artist. Mintz was sitting in the park on a dried turf-bench, and gazing intently at the river. Ivanov passed him. The artist's shrunken ruffled figure had an air of desolation and abandonment.
The drawing-room was next to Ivanov's study. There still remained out of the ruin a carpet and some armchairs near the large, dirty windows, an old piano stood unmoved, and some portraits still hung on the walls.
Lydia Constantinovna and Mintz came in from the back-room. Lydia walked with her usual brisk, even tread, carrying herself with the smooth, elastic bearing and graceful swing of her beautiful body that Ivanov remembered so well.
She raised the piano-cover and began playing a dashing bravura that was strikingly out of place in the dismantled room, then she closed the piano-lid with a slam.
Aganka entered with the tea on a tray.