Akím's former owner, Lizavéta Prókhorovna Kuntze, who had been left a widow by her husband, a staff-officer of German extraction, was herself a native of the town of Mittau, where she had passed the early days of her childhood, and where she still had a very numerous and needy family, concerning whom, however, she troubled herself very little, especially since one of her brothers, an officer in an army infantry regiment, had unexpectedly presented himself at her house and on the following day had raised such an uproar that he had all but thrashed the mistress of the house herself, and had addressed her, into the bargain, as "du Lumpenmamsell!" while on the preceding evening he had himself called her in broken Russian: "sister and benefactress." Lizavéta Prókhorovna hardly ever left the nice little estate acquired by the efforts of her spouse, who had been an architect;[37] she herself managed it, and managed it far from badly. Lizavéta Prókhorovna did not let slip the smallest source of profit; she derived advantage to herself from everything; and in this point, as well as in that of remarkable cleverness in making one kopék serve instead of two, her German nationality betrayed itself; in everything else she had become extremely Russified. She had a considerable number of domestic serfs; in particular, she kept a great many maids, who, however, did not eat the bread of idleness: from morning until night their backs were bowed over work.[38] She was fond of driving out in her carriage with liveried lackeys on the foot-board; she was fond of having people retail gossip to her and play the sycophant; and she herself was a first-rate gossip; she was fond of loading a man down with her favours, and suddenly stunning him with disgrace—in a word, Lizavéta Prókhorovna conducted herself exactly like a nobly-born dame.—She favoured Akím,—he paid her a good round quit-rent with punctuality,—she chatted graciously with him, and even, in jest, invited him to be her guest ... but it was precisely in the manor-house that calamity awaited Akím.
Among the number of Lizavéta Prókhorovna's maids, there was one young girl of twenty, an orphan, Dunyásha by name. She was not ill-favoured, was well formed and clever; her features, although not regular, were calculated to please; her fresh complexion, her thick, fair hair, her red lips, and a certain dashing, half-sneering, half-challenging expression of face, were all quite charming in their way. Moreover, in spite of her orphaned state, she bore herself staidly, almost haughtily; she was descended from an ancient line of house-serfs; her late father, Aréfy, had been major-domo for thirty years, and her grandfather, Stepán, had served as valet to a gentleman long since deceased, a sergeant of the Guards and a prince. She dressed neatly, and was proud of her hands, which really were extremely handsome. Dunyásha showed great disdain for all her admirers, listened to their sweet sayings with a conceited smile, and if she answered them, it was chiefly by exclamation only, in the nature of: "Yes! certainly! catch me doing that! the idea!"... These exclamations scarcely ever left her tongue. Dunyásha had spent about three years in Moscow, under instruction, where she had acquired those peculiar grimaces and manners which characterise chambermaids who have sojourned in the capitals. People spoke of her as a conceited girl (a great encomium in the mouths of domestics) who, although she had seen much of life, had not lowered her dignity. She sewed far from badly, moreover; but, nevertheless, Lizavéta Prókhorovna had no particular liking for her, thanks to the head maid, Kiríllovna, a woman no longer young, sly, and fond of intrigue. Kiríllovna profited by her great influence over her mistress, and contrived very artfully to keep rivals out of the way.
And it was with this Dunyásha that Akím fell in love! And in a way such as he had never loved before. He beheld her for the first time in church; she had only just returned from Moscow;.... then he met her several times in the manor-house; at last he spent a whole evening with her at the overseer's, whither he had been invited to tea, along with other honourable personages. The house-serfs did not look down on him, although he did not belong to their social class, and wore a beard;[39] but he was a cultured man, could read and write, and—chief thing of all—he had money; moreover, he did not dress in peasant fashion, but wore a long kaftan of black cloth, boots of dressed calf-leather, and a small kerchief round his neck. To tell the truth, some of the house-serfs did make remarks among themselves to the effect, "'t is plain, nevertheless, that he is not one of us," but to his face they almost flattered him. That evening at the overseer's, Dunyásha completed the conquest of Akím's amorous heart, although she positively did not reply by a single word to all his ingratiating speeches, and only now and then cast a side-long glance at him, as though astonished at seeing that peasant there. All this only inflamed Akím the more. He went off home, thought, and thought, and made up his mind to obtain her hand.... So thoroughly had she "bewitched" him. But how shall we describe Dunyásha's wrath and indignation when, five days later, Kiríllovna, affectionately calling her into her room, announced to her that Akím (and evidently he had understood how to set about the business),—that that beard-wearer and peasant Akím, to sit beside whom she had regarded as an insult,—was courting her!
At first Dunyásha flushed hot all over, then she emitted a forced laugh, then fell to weeping; but Kiríllovna conducted the attack so artfully, so clearly made her feel her position in the house, so cleverly hinted at Akím's decent appearance, wealth, and blind devotion, and, in conclusion, so significantly alluded to the mistress's own wishes, that Dunyásha left the room with hesitation depicted on her face, and encountering Akím, merely gazed intently into his eyes, but did not turn away. The fabulously lavish gifts of this enamoured man dispelled her last doubts.... Lizavéta Prókhorovna, to whom Akím, in his joy, had presented a hundred peaches on a large silver salver, gave her consent to his marriage with Dunyásha, and the wedding took place. Akím spared no expense—and the bride, who on the eve of the wedding had sat in the maids' room like one on the verge of expiring, and had done nothing but cry on the very morning of the wedding, while Kiríllovna was dressing her for the ceremony, was speedily comforted.... Her mistress gave her her own shawl to wear in church—and that very same day Akím gave her another of the same sort, only almost better.
So then Akím married, and transported his young wife to his inn.... They began to live. Dunyásha proved to be a bad housekeeper, a poor helpmeet for her husband. She never looked after anything, she grieved, was bored, unless some passing officer was attentive to her and paid court to her, as he sat behind the capacious samovár; she frequently absented herself, sometimes going to the town to shop, sometimes to the mistress's manor-house, which lay four versts distant from the inn. In the manor-house she refreshed herself; there people of her own sort surrounded her; the maids envied her smart attire; Kiríllovna treated her to tea; Lizavéta Prókhorovna herself chatted with her.... But even these visits did not pass off without bitter emotions for Dunyásha.... For instance, being a house-serf, she was not allowed to wear a bonnet, and was obliged to muffle her head up in a kerchief .... "like a merchant's wife," as the crafty Kiríllovna said to her.... "Like the wife of a petty burgher," thought Dunyásha to herself.
More than once there recurred to Akím's mind the words of his only relative, an aged uncle, an inveterate peasant, a man without family or land: "Well, brother, Akímushka," he had said to him, when he met him in the street, "I have heard that thou 'rt a-courting...."
"Well, yes, I am; what of it?"
"Ekh, Akím, Akím! Thou 'rt no mate for us peasants now, there 's no denying it; neither is she a mate for thee."
"But why is n't she a mate for me?"
"Why, for this reason, at least,"—returned the other, pointing to Akím's beard, which he, to please his bride, had begun to clip close—he would not consent to shave it off entirely.... Akím dropped his eyes; and the old man turned away, wrapped about him the skirts of his sheepskin coat, which was ragged on the shoulders, and went his way, shaking his head.