“How beautifully fresh the air is, Aliosha!”
“Yes,” the peasant replied, “there’ll be a heavy dew!”
There was already such a heavy dew that the axles of the cart wheels as they caught in the tall grass along the roadside shook off whole showers of tiny drops and the grass looked silver-grey.
Mariana again trembled from the cold.
“How cold it is!” she said gaily. “But freedom, Aliosha, freedom!”
XXVII
Solomin rushed out to the factory gates as soon as he was informed that some sort of gentleman, with a lady, who had arrived in a cart, was asking for him. Without a word of greeting to his visitors, merely nodding his head to them several times, he told the peasant to drive into the yard, and asking him to stop before his own little dwelling, helped Mariana out of the cart. Nejdanov jumped out after her. Solomin conducted them both through a long dark passage, up a narrow, crooked little staircase at the back of the house, up to the second floor. He opened a door and they all went into a tiny neat little room with two windows.
“I’m so glad you’ve come!” Solomin exclaimed, with his habitual smile, which now seemed even broader and brighter than usual.
“Here are your rooms. This one and another adjoining it. Not much to look at, but never mind, one can live here and there’s no one to spy on you. Just under your window there is what my employer calls a flower garden, but which I should call a kitchen garden. It lies right up against the wall and there are hedges to right and left. A quiet little spot. Well, how are you, my dear lady? And how are you, Nejdanov?”
He shook hands with them both. They stood motionless, not taking off their things, and with silent, half-bewildered, half-joyful emotion gazed straight in front of them.