Page:More Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/200

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he went to bed after vint, especially when he had won a little (it was unpleasant to win a good deal), Ivan Il'ich would lie down to sleep in particularly good spirits.

Thus they lived. The very best circle formed around them, and important people and young people were among their visitors.

As regards the circle of their acquaintances, husband, wife, and daughter were quite agreed, and by tacit consent they shook off and rid themselves of all former various acquaintances and kinsfolks — the rabble, so to speak, who, along with the new people, flitted about the drawing-room with the new Japanese plaques on the walls. Very soon the second-rate friends ceased altogether to flit about their drawing-room, and only the very best people frequented the house of the Golivins. Young people came courting little Lizanka,[1] and Petrishchev, the son of Dmitry Ivanovich Petrishchev, the judge, and his sole heir, began to pay attention to Liza, so that Ivan Il'ich already began to consult Praskov'ya Thedorovna as to whether they should let them go out driving together in a troika, or make a scene? Thus they continued to live. And everything went on as if it would ever be so, and everything was very good.



IV

They were all well. Ivan Il'ich sometimes said indeed that he had a bad taste in his mouth, and something was not quite right, but one could hardly call tha

  1. Little Liza.