Toward the end of luncheon the post arrives. Grisha, a
fourteen-year-old youngster, goes for it daily to the station on
horseback. Raising clouds of dust he jumps off briskly at the gate.
Leaving his horse he enters the garden carrying a black leather bag,
and smiles broadly at something or other. Ascending the long steps of
the terrace he announces loudly and joyously:
“I’ve fetched the post!”
He is cheery, sunburnt, perspiring. He smells of the sun, of the soil,
of dust and tar. His hands and feet are as large as a man’s. His lips
are soft and pouting, like those of a sweet-tempered foal. At the
opening of his shirt, cut on the slant, buttons are missing, exposing a
strip of his sunburnt chest and a piece of grey string.
Sofia Alexandrovna rises abruptly from her place. She takes the bag
from Grisha, and throws it quickly on the table. A pile of stamped
wrappers comes pouring upon the white cloth. The three women bend over
the table and rummage for letters. But letters come only rarely.
Knitting her brows Natasha looks at the smiling youngster and asks:
“No letters, Grisha?”
Grisha, shuffling his feet, brick-red from the sun, smiles and answers,
as always, in the same words:
“The letters are being written, _barishnya_.”
Sofia Alexandrovna says impatiently:
“You may go, Grisha.”
Grisha goes. The women open their newspapers.
Sofia Alexandrovna takes up the _Rech_ and scans it rapidly,
occasionally mentioning something that has attracted her notice.
Natasha is looking over _Slovo_. She reads silently, slowly, and
attentively.
Elena Kirillovna has the _Russkiya Vedomosti._ She tears the wrapper
open slowly and spreads the entire sheet on the table. She reads on,
quickly running her eyes over the lines.