gradually being soothed. They were unhinged again at dinner-time, though Kallomyetsev was absent, and the ingratiating friendliness of his hostess was unchanged; but that very friendliness rather irritated Nezhdanov. Moreover, his neighbour, the old maiden lady Anna Zaharovna, was obviously sulky and antagonistic, while Marianna was still serious, and Kolya even kicked him rather too unceremoniously. Sipyagin, too, seemed out of spirits. He was very much dissatisfied with the overseer of his paper-mill, a German whom he had engaged at a high salary. Sipyagin began abusing Germans in general, declaring that he was, to a certain extent, a Slavophil, though not a fanatic, and mentioned a young Russian, a certain Solomin, who, it was rumoured, had brought a neighbouring merchant's factory into excellent working order; he had a great desire to make the acquaintance of this Solomin. Towards evening Kallomyetsev, whose property was only eight miles from Arzhano, Sipyagin's village, arrived. There arrived, too, a Mediator, one of those landowners so aptly described by Lermontov in two famous lines:
'A cravat to the ears, and a coat to the heels,
A moustache and a squeak, and eyes muddy and thick.
There came, too, another neighbour with a
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