great world, went to balls, where she sat in a corner, painted and
dressed in old-fashioned style, like a deformed but indispensable
ornament of the ballroom; all the guests on entering approached her
and made a profound bow, as if in accordance with a set ceremony,
but after that nobody took any further notice of her. She received
the whole town at her house, and observed the strictest etiquette,
although she could no longer recognize the faces of people. Her
numerous domestics, growing fat and old in her antechamber and
servants' hall, did just as they liked, and vied with each other in
robbing the aged Countess in the most bare-faced manner. Lizaveta
Ivanovna was the martyr of the household. She made tea, and was
reproached with using too much sugar; she read novels aloud to the
Countess, and the faults of the author were visited upon her head;
she accompanied the Countess in her walks, and was held answerable
for the weather or the state of the pavement. A salary was
attached to the post, but she very rarely received it, although she
was expected to dress like everybody else, that is to say, like
very few indeed. In society she played the most pitiable role.
Everybody knew her, and nobody paid her any attention. At balls
she danced only when a partner was wanted, and ladies would only
take hold of her arm when it was necessary to lead her out of the
room to attend to their dresses. She was very self-conscious, and
felt her position keenly, and she looked about her with impatience
for a deliverer to come to her rescue; but the young men,
calculating in their giddiness, honored her with but very little
attention, although Lizaveta Ivanovna was a hundred times prettier
than the bare-faced, cold-hearted marriageable girls around whom
they hovered. Many a time did she quietly slink away from the
glittering, but wearisome, drawing-room, to go and cry in her own
poor little room, in which stood a screen, a chest of drawers, a