"Very well, then that's all right. But throw over your chess. Let us play a game of chance."
They sat down and played it for the entire day, only interrupting the game to go to their rooms for dinner.
Whenever Sergius had to pay a fine he would say:
"Anyhow, Kirill Lvovich, you have an objectionable manner."
"Now, now, greenhorn!" the general would reply.
They had not a penny between them. Katerina Andreevna had been appointed guardian of their possessions. The men refused to recognise her authority and called it merely a "femocracy." Only Sergius still had some capital, the proceeds of an estate he had sold before the Revolution. Therefore he could well afford to keep a servant.
Upstairs with Katerina were two girls who had thrown up their careers on principle—the one her college studies, the other her Conservatoire courses. They kept up a desultory conversation while helping to clean potatoes. Presently Anna and Lina joined them, and they all went down to the storeroom and began rummaging through their grandparents' old wardrobes. They turned over a variety of crinolines, farthingales, bustles and wigs, laying on one side the articles of silver, bronze and porcelain—for the Tartars were coming after dinner. The storeroom smelt of rats. Packed along its walls were boxes, coffers, trunks, and a huge pair of rusty scales.
They all gathered together on the arrival of the Tartars, who greeted them with handshakes. The general snorted. One of the Tartars, an old man wearing new goloshes over felt boots, spoke to Katerina:
"How d'ye do, Barina?"
The general leisurely swung one leg over the other, and said stiffly: