One day Lavretsky, according to his habit, was at the Kalitins'.

After an exhaustingly hot day, such a lovely evening had set in that Marya Dmitrievna, in spite of her aversion to a draught, ordered all the windows and doors into the garden to be thrown open, and declared that she would not play cards, that it was a sin to play cards in such weather, and one ought to enjoy nature.

Panshin was the only guest.

He was stimulated by the beauty of the evening, and conscious of a flood of artistic sensations, but he did not care to sing before Lavretsky, so he fell to reading poetry; he read aloud well, but too self-consciously and with unnecessary refinements, a few poems of Lermontov (Pushkin had not then come into fashion again).

Then suddenly, as though ashamed of his enthusiasm, began, a propos of the well-known poem, "A Reverie," to attack and fall foul of the younger generation.