In the month of September Serge returned, but only for eight days. He brought no dogs nor equipages with him this time. When he saw Mavra he gave her a friendly smile, and then thought no more about her. When he went away his mother accompanied him, and the house was again plunged into solitude long before the usual time. Six weeks later the news arrived that the young count was married.
This announcement was the signal for great rejoicing. According to ancient usage, barrels of sweet beer and hydromel were brewed; white bread and meat were distributed to the whole village. The poor had abundant alms, and the whole retinue of servants had new dresses. Mavra had a handsome blue woolen dress and a silk handkerchief. No one was forgotten; debts in arrear were remitted, and the young girl was suddenly told she might return for the winter to her family, till her father could make new arrangements for the payment in kind of what he owed.
This was no joyful news for the young peasant girl, but resignation is an inherent Russian virtue; she packed up her clothes in a basket, and one fine morning courageously set out on foot for her native village. She was received coolly by her mother. One mouth more to feed! besides which, peasants are sparing of their demonstrations of affection. After a few days Mavra relapsed into her old habits; bent all day over her embroidery frame by the narrow window, in the evening standing leaning against the door, gazing, as was her wont, at the stars. More than ever she loved them; behind these marvelous lights, that she likened to tears—for she was often sad now—she saw the black eyes and handsome, indifferent face that had taken possession of her soul. As long as she was staying in the grand seignorial mansion where the image of her idol met her at every step in familiar attitude, where she had only to close her eyes to see Serge before her, Mavra was happy; she was of those for whom the innocent and daily presence of the beloved makes the whole happiness of life. Here, where nothing spoke of him, she felt for the first time the pain of separation. Uneasy, she asked herself what it was that was torturing her to this degree, and the truth nearly dawned upon her. But she stopped the thought, not daring to sound it further, saying to herself that there must be at the root of all this suffering some great sin she herself was ignorant of. Morning and evening she knelt long before the sacred images, imploring God to deliver her from her pain; and feeling herself soothed by this effusion of mystic tenderness, she kept her sadness to herself, still refusing to fathom it. But she was visibly wasting away: the smoky atmosphere of her home had now the same painful influence upon her that the want of fresh air had formerly when she first left her village. She passed the winter suffering, uncomplaining, unrelaxing in her work. Gradually she gave up looking at the stars. Not only did they more than ever look like tears, but no sooner did she turn her eyes toward the night sky than they filled with tears, so she hardly knew whether it was the fires of heaven or her own tears sparkling beneath her eyelids.
Spring came, though more tardily than usual; then summer with its field labors. The countess seemed to have forgotten Mavra, who thought with ever more and more resigned sadness of this much-loved mistress.
Her indulgence concerning the service-dues of her family appeared to the young girl not a favor, but a punishment. At hay-making as at harvest young lads seek out the girls. Had Mavra wished it, she might have found ten husbands. She was no longer quite young according to the notion of peasants, who marry their daughters at sixteen and their boys at twenty. She was getting on to twenty, and her mother at times reproached her, treating her as a "useless mouth," although Mavra's embroidery was readily bought by the traders from the large towns, who came to the village twice a year.
In the beginning of September, Serge said to his young wife, who was about to make him a father:
"If you follow my advice, you will yourself nurse our child."
"I should like to do so, but then I must have a trained, devoted servant, one endowed with all the virtues," answered the young wife, "and mamma says this is more difficult to find than a suitable nurse."
"It is quite true," said the countess, present at this family council, which had taken place on an average thrice a week for the last four or five months; "but, Serge, now that I think of it, we have Mavra! the sweetest, quietest, most devoted of nurse-tenders!"
"Mavra! the very thing. How is it we never thought of her before? She is not trained, for she is unmarried, but she is very active and intelligent!"