V. LOVE.
V.
Love.
And thus a few more years went by. There were no changes in the peaceful mansion. The beech-trees in the garden rustled as of old, only their foliage seemed to have grown darker and thicker; the white walls, although they had warped and settled more or less, shone precisely as they used; the thatched roofs frowned the same as ever; and even the well-known sound of Joachim’s pipe might be heard at the usual hour from the direction of the stable. But Joachim himself, still a bachelor, and grown gray in the service as groom, chose rather to listen to the Panitch when he played either the piano or the pipe, it mattered not which. Maxim too, had grown still more gray. The Popèlski had no other children, and therefore their first-born, the blind boy, remained as ever the central object of interest, around which clustered the life of the whole mansion. It was for his sake that the family had thus isolated itself within its own narrow circle, contented with its tranquil existence, whose current had now united with the equally placid life of the Possessor’s “cabin.”