“In the boat. The calèche was brought over on the ferry.”
“Yakob, Egorovna, Petrushka? Where are you? Why don’t you come when you are called? Take out the horses, give them fodder, and see that the coachman is well looked after.”
The servants, who had rushed in to answer the summons, hurried out. Of course the horses had been taken out while Tatiana Markovna was dressing, and the coachman was already sitting in the servants’ room, doing full justice to the beer set before him.
“No, no, Tatiana Markovna,” protested the visitor, “I have come for half an hour on business.”
“Do you think you will be allowed to go?” asked Tatiana Markovna in a voice that permitted no reply. “You have come a long way from over the Volga. Is this the first year of our acquaintance? Do you want to insult me?”
“Ah, Tatiana Markovna, I am so grateful to you, so grateful! You are just like a relative, and how you have spoilt my Nikolai!”
“I feel sometimes as if he were my own son,” burst from Tatiana Markovna, whose dignity could hold out no longer against these friendly advances.
“Yes, you are so kind to him, Tatiana Markovna, that, presuming on your kindness, he has taken it into his head....”
“Well?”
“He begged me to come over to see you, and he asks for the hand of Marfa Vassilievna. Marfa Vassilievna agrees; she loves Nikolai.”