𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟐

so that the spider's web is comfortably hanging in its

place to this day. I only at last this morning realized what was wrong. Aie! Why,

they are giving me the slip and making off to their summer villas! Forgive the

triviality of the expression, but I am in no mood for fine language ... for

everything that had been in Petersburg had gone or was going away for the

holidays; for every respectable gentleman of dignified appearance who took a

cab was at once transformed, in my eyes, into a respectable head of a household

who after his daily duties were over, was making his way to the bosom of his

family, to the summer villa; for all the passers-by had now quite a peculiar air

which seemed to say to every one they met: "We are only here for the moment,

gentlemen, and in another two hours we shall be going off to the summer villa."

If a window opened after delicate fingers, white as snow, had tapped upon the

pane, and the head of a pretty girl was thrust out, calling to a street-seller with

pots of flowers-at once on the spot I fancied that those flowers were being

bought not simply in order to enjoy the flowers and the spring in stuffy town

lodgings, but because they would all be very soon moving into the country and

could take the flowers with them. What is more, I made such progress in my new

peculiar sort of investigation that I could distinguish correctly from the mere air

of each in what summer villa he was living. The inhabitants of Kamenny and

Aptekarsky Islands or of the Peterhof Road were marked by the studied elegance

of their manner, their fashionable summer suits, and the fine carriages in which

they drove to town. Visitors to Pargolovo and places further away impressed one

at first sight by their reasonable and dignified air; the tripper to Krestovsky

Island could be recognized by his look of irrepressible gaiety. If I chanced to

meet a long procession of waggoners walking lazily with the reins in their hands

beside waggons loaded with regular mountains of furniture, tables, chairs,

ottomans and sofas and domestic utensils of all sorts, frequently with a decrepit

cook sitting on the top of it all, guarding her master's property as though it were

the apple of her eye; or if I saw boats heavily loaded with household goods

crawling along the Neva or Fontanka to the Black River or the Islands-the

waggons and the boats were multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold, in my eyes. I

fancied that everything was astir and moving, everything was going in regular

caravans to the summer villas. It seemed as though Petersburg threatened to

become a wilderness, so that at last I felt ashamed, mortified and sad that I had