“Well, goodbye!” said Prince Andréy, bending over to Alpátych. “You must go away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go to the Ryazán estate or to the one near Moscow.”

Alpátych clung to Prince Andréy’s leg and burst into sobs. Gently disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the avenue at a gallop.

The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on which he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out from the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked from the trees there, came upon Prince Andréy. On seeing the young master, the elder one with frightened look clutched her younger companion by the hand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up some green plums they had dropped.