IVaN SERGeYEVITCH three times visited Yasnaya
Polyana within my memory, in: August and September, 1878,
and the third and last time at the beginning of May, 1880. I can
remember all these visits, although it is quite possible that
some details have escaped me.
I remember that when we expected Turgenieff on his
first visit, it was a great occasion, and the most anxious and
excited of all the household about it was my mother. She told us
that my father had quarreled with Turgenieff and had
once challenged him to a duel, and that he was now coming at my
father's invitation to effect a reconciliation.
Turgenieff spent all the time sitting with my father,
who during his visit put aside even his work, and once in the
middle of the day my mother collected us all at a quite unusual
hour in the drawing-room, where Ivan Sergeyevitch
read us his story of "The Dog."
I can remember his tall, stalwart figure, his gray, silky,
yellowish hair, his soft tread, rather waddling walk, and his
piping voice, quite out of keeping with his majestic exterior. He
had a chuckling kind of laugh, like a child's, and when he laughed
his voice was more piping than ever.
In the evening, after dinner, we all gathered in the
zala. At that time Uncle Seryozha, Prince
Leonid Dmitryevitch Urusof, Vice-Governor of
the Province of Tula; Uncle Sasha Behrs and his young wife, the
handsome Georgian Patty; and the whole family of the
Kuzminskys, were staying at Yasnaya.
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