And the carriage drove on further in the direction of the station.
It was a grey, dull-looking morning, and a thick, fine rain beat against the windows when the ladies woke up as they neared Petersburg.
Rain, rain, rain.... A melancholy grey sky.... The villas round Petersburg with their fir-tree plantations; the muddy, swampy roads with the ditches at the edge and the thickly-grown bracken pass before them ..., Moss, bilberry bushes, marsh and fog....
Here are the well-known market-gardens with the cabbages, and the barracks, and the platform of the Petersburg railway station; the rain has stopped and the sun is shining on the wet platform.
There is Spiridon Ivanovitch's orderly and there is Aunt Julia's footman.
And here stands Spiridon Ivanovitch himself, resplendent, like a peony, in his crimson-lined overcoat.... Mamma joyfully taps on the window-pane to him. He has seen them, seen them and recognised them!
Mimotchka's heart sinks. How old he looks, and what a stranger he seems to her, what a stranger!... She wishes the train would not stop, but would go on further and further and carry her away past.... But the train slackens speed, it stops. They must get out.
Here's Mdme. Lambert with Zina, and, oh my goodness, here's baby with his nurse! He has come to meet his mamma! How he has grown, how he has improved, and how sunburnt he has got, dear little mite! And just look, he isn't a bit shy; he smiles, he says, "how-do-you-do" to them all, stretches out his lips to be kissed by his mother and grandmother and Vava.... And he salutes, yes, he has learnt how to make a military salute, putting up his little hand to his head and saying, "I wish you good health!" Oh, what a darling!
And grandmamma smothers baby with kisses, and tears of pride and tenderness rise to her eyes, when baby, drawing himself up straight in front of her, says to her, "I wish you good health, your excellency!" And Spiridon Ivanovitch enfolds Mimotchka in his ample embrace.