The great day, the nineteenth of February, we welcomed enthusiastically, and for a long time beforehand drank toasts in its honour.

But that was long ago, before the advent of Shatov or Virginsky, when Stepan Trofimovitch was still living in the same house with Varvara Petrovna.

For some time before the great day Stepan Trofimovitch fell into the habit of muttering to himself well-known, though rather far-fetched, lines which must have been written by some liberal landowner of the past: _"The peasant with his axe is coming,_ _Something terrible will happen."_ Something of that sort, I don't remember the exact words.

Varvara Petrovna overheard him on one occasion, and crying, "Nonsense, nonsense!" she went out of the room in a rage.

Liputin, who happened to be present, observed malignantly to Stepan Trofimovitch: "It'll be a pity if their former serfs really do some mischief to _messieurs les_ landowners to celebrate the occasion," and he drew his forefinger round his throat.
"_Cher ami,_" Stepan Trofimovitch observed, "believe me that--this (he repeated the gesture) will never be of any use to our landowners nor to any of us in general.