"Who can tell? Maybe. My master and mistress were exiles, too. The sergeant told me so."
"Yes, who nowadays hasn't been an exile?" exclaimed the cook. "I lived at Popov's, an engineer, a rich man. He had his own house and horses and was getting ready to marry. Suddenly the gendarmes came at night, seized him, and broke up everything, and then he was sent off to Siberia."
"I don't condemn my people," Liza interrupted, "not a bit of it. They are good folks. They don't scold. They're not grasping. Altogether they're not like other people. And they're very interesting. They know everything and speak about everything."
Yevsey looked at Masha's ruddy face, and thought:
"I'd better go; I'll ask her about her master next time. But I can't make up my mind to go. If only she kept quiet, the silly!"
"Our people understand everything, too," Masha announced with pride.
"When that affair happened, that revolt in St. Petersburg," Liza began with animation, "they stayed up nights at a time talking."
"Why our people were in your house then," observed the nurse.
"Yes, indeed, there were lots of people at the house. They talked, and wrote complaints. One of them even began to cry. Upon my word!"
"There's enough to cry about," sighed the cook.