Three weeks after Kurnatovsky's first visit, Anna Vassilyevna, to
Elena's great delight, returned to Moscow, to her large wooden house
near Prechistenka; a house with columns, white lyres and wreaths over
every window, with an attic, offices, a palisade, a huge green court,
a well in the court and a dog's kennel near the well. Anna
Vassilyevna had never left her country villa so early, but this year
with the first autumn chills her face swelled; Nikolai Artemyevitch
for his part, having finished his cure, began to want his wife;
besides, Augustina Christianovna had gone away on a visit to her
cousin in Revel; a family of foreigners, known as 'living statues,'
_des poses plastiques_, had come to Moscow, and the description of them
in the _Moscow Gazette_ had aroused Anna Vassilye
