Darvid was in splendid humor—he had bought at auction a house and broad grounds very reasonably. He cared little for the house—it was a rubbishy old pile which he would remove very soon—but the grounds, covered then with an extensive garden, represented an uncommonly profitable transaction. Situated near one of the railroad stations, he would, of course, receive a high price for it, because of the need to put there a great public edifice.
Darvid would sell the ground to those who needed it, and then make proposals to build the edifice. This was the third undertaking which had fallen to him since his return, a few months before. What of that, when the most important, for which he would have given the other three willingly, had not fallen yet to him, and he did not know well what had been done concerning it? This affair did not let him sleep sometimes, still it did not disincline him from working at that which he had begun already.
The day was clear, slightly frosty, myriads of brilliants were glittering in the white rime which covered the trees, and in the snow which lay on the extensive garden. Darvid, in company with a surveyor, an engineer, and an architect, walked through the garden, but the object of his walk was in no way the contemplation of nature bound up under marbles, and alabasters sprinkled with brilliants. The engineer brought him a plan for the purchase of the place, and supported the interests of his employers energetically; the surveyor and the architect spoke of their part, pointed out with gestures the proportions and various points of the open area. Darvid, in a closely fitting fur coat, finished with an original and very costly collar, with a shining hat on his head, walked over the ground with even tread; he listened rather than spoke, there was a silent satisfaction in his smile, when suddenly an immense brightness reflected from a tree, directly in front, dazzled his eyesight. The tree, which resembled a lofty pillar, had on each of its branches a plume, cut as it were delicately from alabaster, every feather of this plume flamed like a torch lighted in a rainbow. Sheafs of rainbow gleams shot out of that wonderful carving, and from that fountain of many-colored light. Darvid put his glasses on his nose suddenly, and said with a painful twist of the mouth:
"What unendurable light!"
The architect looked at the tree and said, with a smile:
"No man, not even a Greek master, has ever finished a pillar like that."
"The only pity is that it cannot be used," replied Darvid, smiling also.
"You are not a lover of nature, that is true; while I—" began the engineer.
"On the contrary, on the contrary. During intervals I have looked at nature here and there," said Darvid, playfully. "But to become her lover, as you say, I have not had leisure. To love nature is a luxury which iron toil does not know—a luxury which must have leisure."
With these words he turned from the beautiful work of nature and intended to go on, but again he halted. He found himself at the picket fence, which divided the garden from the street, and in the movement of the street he saw something which occupied him greatly.