“Later on ... I will show them to you later on. We can do it all at the same time.”
The carriage moved.
“Hold yourself in readiness!” Markelov’s voice was heard again, as he stood on the doorstep. And by his side, with the same hopeless dejection in his face, straightening his bent back, his hands clasped behind him, diffusing an odour of rye bread and mustiness, not hearing a single word that was being said around him, stood the model servant, his grandfather’s decrepit old valet.
Mashurina sat smoking silently all the way, but when they reached the town gates she gave a loud sigh.
“I feel so sorry for Sergai Mihailovitch,” she remarked, her face darkening.
“He is over-worked, and it seems to me his affairs are in a bad way,” Nejdanov said.
“I was not thinking of that.”
“What were you thinking of then?”
“He is so unhappy and so unfortunate. It would be difficult to find a better man than he is, but he never seems to get on.”
Nejdanov looked at her.