“How do you feel now?” Ipátoff asked her.
“I am well,”—she replied; and sat down at the table, on which the samovár was already bubbling.
Vladímir Sergyéitch was pretty thoroughly bored that evening. But no one was in good spirits. The conversation persisted in taking a cheerless turn.
“Just listen,”—said Ipátoff, among other things, as he lent an ear to the howling of the wind;—“what notes it emits! The summer is long since past; and here is autumn passing, too, and winter is at the door. Again we shall be buried in snow-drifts. I hope the snow will fall very soon. Otherwise, when you go out into the garden, melancholy descends upon you.... Just as though there were some sort of a ruin there. The branches of the trees clash together.... Yes, the fine days are over!”
“They are over,”—repeated Iván Ílitch.
Márya Pávlovna stared silently out of the window.
“God willing, they will return,”—remarked Ipátoff.
No one answered him.
“Do you remember how finely they sang songs here that time?”—said Vladímir Sergyéitch.
“I should think they did,”—replied the old man, with a sigh.