Chapter 2 - Page 2

tinkle of the traveller's bells, after growing louder, had faded
away quickly, and the tumult of barking dogs in the village had calmed
down at last. My uncle, lounging in the corner of a small couch, smoked
his long Turkish chibouk in silence.

"This is an extremely nice writing-table you have got for my room," I
remarked.

"It is really your property," he said, keeping his eyes on me, with
an interested and wistful expression, as he had done ever since I had
entered the house. "Forty years ago your mother used to write at this
very table. In our house in Oratow, it stood in the little sitting-room
which, by a tacit arrangement, was given up to the girls--I mean to
your mother and her sister who died so young. It was a present to them
jointly from your uncle Nicholas B. when your mother was seventeen and
your aunt two years younger. She was a very dear, delightful girl, that
aunt of yours, of whom I suppose you know nothing more than the name.
She did not shine so much by personal beauty and a cultivated mind in
which your mother was far superior. It was her good sense, the admirable
sweetness of her nature, her exceptional facility and ease in daily
relations, that endeared her to every body. Her death was a terrible
grief and a serious moral loss for us all. Had she lived she would have
brought the greatest blessings to the house it would have been her lot
to enter, as wife, mother, and mistress of a household. She would have
created round herself an atmosphere of peace and content which only
those who can love unselfishly are able to evoke. Your mother--of far
greater beauty, exceptionally distinguished in person, manner, and
intellect--had a less easy disposition. Being more brilliantly gifted,
she also expected more from life. At that trying time especially, we
were greatly concerned about her state. Suffering in her health from the
shock of her father's death (she was alone in the house with him when he
died suddenly), she was torn by the inward struggle between her love for
the man whom she was to marry in the end and her knowledge of her dead
father's declared objection to that match. Unable to bring herself
to disregard that cherished memory and that judgment she had always
respected and trusted, and, on the other hand, feeling the impossibility
to resist a sentiment so deep and so true, she could not have been
expected to preserve her mental and moral balance. At war with herself,
she could not give to others that feeling of peace which was not her
own. It was only later, when united at last with the man of her
choice, that she developed those uncommon gifts of mind and heart which
compelled the respect and admiration even of our foes. Meeting with calm
fortitude the