Someone called to him in a quick, quiet voice:
"Ardalyon Borisitch, come in to us."
Peredonov raised his gloomy eyes, and looked angrily beyond the hedge. In the garden behind the gate stood Natalya Afanasyevna Vershina, a small, slender, dark-skinned woman, black-browed and black-eyed, and all in black. She was smoking a cigarette, in a dark, cherry-wood mouthpiece, and smiling lightly, as though she knew something that was not to be said, but to be smiled at. Not so much by words, as by her light, quick movements, she asked Peredonov into her garden; she opened the gate and stood aside, smiled invitingly, and at the same time motioned persuasively with her hands, as if to say: "Enter, why do you stand there?"
And Peredonov entered, submitting to her witching, silent movements. But he soon paused on the sand path where a few broken twigs caught his eye, and he looked at his watch.
"It's time for lunch," he grumbled.
Though his watch had served him a long time, yet even now, in the presence of people, he would glance with satisfaction at its large gold case. It was twenty minutes to twelve. Peredonov decided that he would remain for a short time. He walked morosely after Vershina along the garden-path, past the neglected clumps of raspberry canes and currants with their red and black clusters.
The garden was growing yellow and variegated with fruits and late flowers. There were many fruit and other trees and bushes; low-spreading apple trees, round-leafed pear trees, lindens, cherry trees with smooth, glossy leaves, plum trees and honeysuckle. The elderberry trees were red with berries. Close to the fence was a dense growth of Siberian geraniums—small pale-rose flowers with purple veins. Thorny purple buds stood out with intense vividness among the bushes. A small, one-storey, grey, wooden house stood near by, and a path at its door opened out wide into the garden. It seemed charming and cosy. A part of the vegetable garden was visible behind it. The dry poppy heads rocked there, as well as the large, white-yellow caps of camomile. The yellow heads of sunflowers were beginning to droop with ripeness, while among the useful herbs, some hemlock lifted its white, and the hemlock geranium its pale purple umbrellas. Here bright yellow buttercups and small slipper flowers also flourished.
"Were you at Mass?" asked Vershina.
"Yes, I was," answered Peredonov gruffly.
"I hear Marta has just returned also," said Vershina. "She often goes to our church. I often laugh at her. 'On whose account,' I say to her, 'do you go to our church?' She blushes and says nothing. Let us go and sit in the summer-house," she added abruptly.