felt the whole day as if she had been sewn into a sack. She only seemed
to be happy when, smeared and wet with washing the boards, the windows,
the silver, or the doors, she had become almost unrecognisable, and had,
if she wanted to rub her nose or her eyebrows, to use her elbow.

Vassilissa, on the contrary, respected herself, and was the only tidy
woman among all the servants. She had been in the service of her
mistress since her earliest days as her personal maid, had never been
separated from her, knew every detail of her life, and now lived with
her as housekeeper and confidential servant. The two women communicated
with one another in monosyllables. Tatiana Markovna hardly needed to
give instructions to Vassilissa, who knew herself what had to be done.
If something unusual was required, her mistress did not give orders, but
suggested that this or that should be done.

Vassilissa was the only one of her subjects whom Tatiana Markovna
addressed by her full name. If she did address them by their baptismal
names they were names that could not be compressed nor clipped, as for
example Ferapont or Panteleimon. The village elder she did indeed
address as Stepan Vassilich, but the others were to her Matroshka,
Mashutka, Egorka and so on. The unlucky individual whom she addressed
with his Christian name and patronymic knew that a storm was impending.
"Here, Egor Prokhorich! where were you all day yesterday?" Or "Simeon
Vassilich, you smoked a pipe yesterday in the hayrick. Take care!"

She would get up in the middle of the night to convince herself that a
spark from a pipe had not set fire to anything, or that there was not
someone walking about the yard or the coachhouse with a lantern.

Under no consideration could the gulf between the "people" and the