CHAPTER VI.
Volodia Ivanovitch's house stood close to the village street, so that as Elena looked from her windows she could see the long stretch of white road—the snow piled up in great walls on either side—the two rows of straggling, half-finished log huts, ending with the ruined Church, and the new posting-house.
In the distance, the flat surface of the frozen lake, the dark green of the pine forest, and the wide stretches of level country; broken here and there by the tops of the scattered wooden fences.
Up the street the sledges ran evenly, the horses jangling the bells on their great arched collars, the drivers in their leather fur-lined coats, cracking their whips and shouting.
Now and then a woman, in a thick pelisse, a bright-coloured handkerchief on her head, would come by; dragging a load of wood or carrying a child in her arms.
The air was stilly cold, with a sparkling clearness; the sky as blue and brilliant as midsummer.
Elena felt cheered by the exhilarating brightness. She was young, and gradually she rose from the state of indifference into which she had fallen, and began to take her old interest in all that was going on about her.
"I want to ask you something, Uncle Volodia," she said one day, as they sat round the samivar,[C] for she had begged that they might have at least one meal together, in the sitting-room.
[C] Tea-urn.