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With her indeed he not infrequently fell into discussion upon

physics, the theory of agriculture, and especially philosophy;

philosophy was Agafea Mihalovna's favorite subject.

Spring was slow in unfolding. For the last few weeks it had been

steadily fine frosty weather. In the daytime it thawed in the

sun, but at night there were even seven degrees of frost. There

was such a frozen surface on the snow that they drove the wagons

anywhere off the roads. Easter came in the snow. Then all of a

sudden, on Easter Monday, a warm wind sprang up, storm clouds

swooped down, and for three days and three nights the warm,

driving rain fell in streams. On Thursday the wind dropped, and a

thick gray fog brooded over the land as though hiding the

mysteries of the transformations that were being wrought in

nature. Behind the fog there was the flowing of water, the

cracking and floating of ice, the swift rush of turbid, foaming

torrents; and on the following Monday, in the evening, the fog

parted, the storm clouds split up into little curling crests of

cloud, the sky cleared, and the real spring had come.