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Updated: September 2, 2025
At the table in the next room were Rashevitch's daughters, Genya and Iraida, girls of four-and-twenty and two-and-twenty respectively, both very pale, with black eyes, and exactly the same height. Genya had her hair down, and Iraida had hers done up high on her head.
All was quiet outside: the village on the other side of the pond was already asleep, not a single light was to be seen, and on the pond there was only the faint reflection of the stars. By the gate with the stone lions stood Genya, waiting to accompany me. "The village is asleep," I said, trying to see her face in the darkness, and I could see her dark sad eyes fixed on me.
I walked through the park, avoiding the house, looking for mushrooms, which were very plentiful that summer, and marking them so as to pick them later with Genya. A warm wind was blowing. I met Genya and her mother, both in bright Sunday dresses, going home from church, and Genya was holding her hat against the wind. They told me they were going to have tea on the terrace.
"My life is tedious, dull, monotonous, because I am a painter, a queer fish, and have been worried all my life with envy, discontent, disbelief in my work: I am always poor, I am a vagabond, but you are a wealthy, normal man, a landowner, a gentleman why do you live so tamely and take so little from life? Why, for instance, haven't you fallen in love with Lyda or Genya?"
Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on the terrace, looking drowsy and carrying a fan. "Oh, mother," said Genya, kissing her hand, "it's not good for you to sleep in the day." They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other would stand on the terrace, and, looking towards the trees, call "Aa oo, Genya!" or "Mother, where are you?"
We are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise the whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we should in the end become like gods. But that will never be mankind will degenerate till no traces of genius remain." When the gates were out of sight, Genya stopped and shook hands with me.
I went on sitting there wondering whether Genya would come out; I listened and fancied I heard voices talking upstairs. About an hour passed. The green light went out, and the shadows were no longer visible.
My dear fellow, what our forefathers gained in the course of ages will be to-morrow, if not to-day, outraged and destroyed by these modern Huns. . . ." After supper they all went into the drawing-room. Genya and Iraida lighted the candles on the piano, got out their music. . . . But their father still went on talking, and there was no telling when he would leave off.
And she listened, believed, and did not ask for proofs. As we were going home she stopped suddenly and said: "Our Lida is a remarkable person isn't she? I love her very dearly, and would be ready to give my life for her any minute. But tell me" Genya touched my sleeve with her finger "tell me, why do you always argue with her? Why are you irritated?" "Because she is wrong."
"He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he has distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and sons-in-law; and he does as he likes. He ought to be opposed. The young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young men among us are like. It's a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!" The younger sister, Genya, was silent while they were talking of the Zemstvo.
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