The old butler called Kseniya Ippolytovna at eight; then served her
with coffee. After she had taken it, he said austerely:

"You will have to go round the house and arrange things, Barina; then
go into the study to read books and work out the expenses and write
out recipes for your house-party. The old gentry always did that."

She carried out all her instructions, adhering rigorously to former
rules. She was wonderfully quiet, submissive, and sad. She read
thick, simply-written books--those in which the old script for _sh_
is confused with that for _t_. Now and then, however, she rang up
Polunin behind the old man's back, talking to him long and fretfully,
with mingled love, grief, and hatred.

In the holidays they drove about together in droskies, and told
fortunes: Kseniya Ippolytovna was presented with a waxen cradle. They
drove to town with some mummers, and attended an amateur performance
in a club. Polunin dressed up as a wood-spirit, Kseniya as a wood-
spirit's daughter--out of a birch-grove. Then they visited the
neighbouring landowners.

The Christmas holidays were bright and frosty, with a red morning
glow from the east, the daylight waxy in the sun, and with long blue,
crepuscular evenings.

IV

The old butler made a great ado in the house at the approach of the
New Year. In preparation for a great ball, he cleared the inlaid