There were only three ladies in the room: the lady of the house, her eyebrowless sister, and Virginsky's sister, a girl who had just arrived from Petersburg.

Arina Prohorovna, a good-looking and buxom woman of seven-and-twenty, rather dishevelled, in an everyday greenish woollen dress, was sitting scanning the guests with her bold eyes, and her look seemed in haste to say, "You see I am not in the least afraid of anything." Miss Virginsky, a rosy-cheeked student and a nihilist, who was also good-looking, short, plump and round as a little ball, had settled herself beside Arina Prohorovna, almost in her travelling clothes.

She held a roll of paper in her hand, and scrutinised the guests with impatient and roving eyes.

Virginsky himself was rather unwell that evening, but he came in and sat in an easy chair by the tea-table.

All the guests were sitting down too, and the orderly way in which they were ranged on chairs suggested a meeting.