In the mornings she wore a wide white blouse with a girdle and big
pockets; in the afternoon she put on a brown dress, and on feast days a
heavy rustling silk dress that gleamed like silver, and over it a
valuable shawl which only Vassilissa, her housekeeper, was allowed to
take out of the press.

"Uncle Ivan Kusmich brought it from the East," she used to boast. "It
cost three hundred gold roubles, and now no money would buy it."

At her girdle hung a bunch of keys, so that Grandmother could he heard
from afar like a rattlesnake when she crossed the yard or the garden. At
the sound the coachmen hid their pipes in their boots, because the
mistress feared nothing so much as fire, and for that reason counted
smoking as the greatest of crimes. The cooks seized the knife, the spoon
or the broom; Kirusha, who had been joking with Matrona, hurried to the
door, while Matrona hurried to the byre.

If the approaching clatter gave warning that the mistress was returning
to the house Mashutka quickly took off her dirty apron and wiped her
hands on a towel or a bit of rag, as the case might be. Spitting on her
hands she smoothed down her dry, rebellious hair, and covered the round
table with the finest of clean tablecloths. Vassilissa, silent, serious,
of the same age as her mistress, buxom, but faded with much confinement
indoors, would bring in the silver service with the steaming coffee.

Mashutka effaced herself as far as possible in a corner. The mistress
insisted on cleanliness in her servants, but Mashutka had no gift for
keeping herself spotless. When her hands were clean she could do nothing,
but felt as if everything would slip through her fingers. If she was
told to do her hair on Sunday, to wash and to put on tidy clothes, she