"Madame Kushkin is in a fit, most likely, or else she has quarrelled
with her husband," thought Mashenka.

In the hall and in the corridor she met maid-servants. One of them
was crying. Then Mashenka saw, running out of her room, the master
of the house himself, Nikolay Sergeitch, a little man with a flabby
face and a bald head, though he was not old. He was red in the face
and twitching all over. He passed the governess without noticing
her, and throwing up his arms, exclaimed:

"Oh, how horrible it is! How tactless! How stupid! How barbarous!
Abominable!"

Mashenka went into her room, and then, for the first time in her
life, it was her lot to experience in all its acuteness the feeling
that is so familiar to persons in dependent positions, who eat the
bread of the rich and powerful, and cannot speak their minds. There
was a search going on in her room. The lady of the house, Fedosya
Vassilyevna, a stout, broad-shouldered, uncouth woman with thick
black eyebrows, a faintly perceptible moustache, and red hands, who
was exactly like a plain, illiterate cook in face and manners, was
standing, without her cap on, at the table, putting back into
Mashenka's workbag balls of wool, scraps of materials, and bits of
paper. . . . Evidently the governess's arrival took her by surprise,
since, on looking round and seeing the girl's pale and astonished
face, she was a little taken aback, and muttered:

"_Pardon_. I . . . I upset it accidentally. . . . My sleeve caught
in it. . ."