Everything bespoke the vast scale on which estate life had once gone on here, and everything now looked dismal. Nothing to enliven the picture could be noticed: no doors opening, no people coming out from anywhere, no lively household hustle and bustle! Only the main gates were open, and that because a muzhik had driven in with a loaded cart covered with bast matting, appearing as if by design to enliven this desolate place; at other times the gates, too, were tightly locked, for a giant padlock was hanging in the iron staple.
