Klavdiya Arkhipovna is greatly excited: her brother Ivan Arkhipovich Gundasov, who is a privy councillor, with the rank of a general, has informed her in a letter that due to financial difficulties, instead of his usual trip to Marienbad he was going to spend the summer with her and her family in their Kochuyevka village. Much effort goes into the preparations, most of the culinary order. The house is cleaned, washed and turned inside out, and the boy, Andrey, and his tutor Pobedimsky receive new costumes, made by the local tailor.
