the house, to murder or to rob, I could not have hired a better
accomplice.

In my novel surroundings I felt very uncomfortable for the first
week at Orlov's before I got used to being addressed as "thou," and
being constantly obliged to tell lies (saying "My master is not at
home" when he was). In my flunkey's swallow-tail I felt as though
I were in armour. But I grew accustomed to it in time. Like a genuine
footman, I waited at table, tidied the rooms, ran and drove about
on errands of all sorts. When Orlov did not want to keep an appointment
with Zinaida Fyodorovna, or when he forgot that he had promised to
go and see her, I drove to Znamensky Street, put a letter into her
hands and told a lie. And the result of it all was quite different
from what I had expected when I became a footman. Every day of this
new life of mine was wasted for me and my cause, as Orlov never
spoke of his father, nor did his visitors, and all I could learn
of the stateman's doings was, as before, what I could glean from
the newspapers or from correspondence with my comrades. The hundreds
of notes and papers I used to find in the study and read had not
the remotest connection with what I was looking for. Orlov was
absolutely uninterested in his father's political work, and looked
as though he had never heard of it, or as though his father had
long been dead.

III

Every Thursday we had visitors.

I ordered a piece of roast beef from the restaurant and telephoned
to Eliseyev's to send us caviare, cheese, oysters, and so on. I