[CHAPTER III.]
On driving up to the house, Tchichikoff soon perceived a human figure, who began to converse with the peasant who had just arrived with his telega. For a long while he could not discover to what sex this figure belonged; whether it was an old woman or a mouzhik. The dress was absolutely shapeless, but nevertheless very much like a female's garb, the head-dress was a kind of colpack, as worn by the aged village crones, yet the voice seemed to him to be too loud for a woman's.
"Oh,'tis an old woman!" he thought for a moment to himself, and immediately added: "oh, no. To be sure,'tis a woman," he said at last, after a closer examination.
The figure, on its side, also looked very attentively at Tchichikoff. A guest or a stranger seemed to be to it a wonderful apparition, because it not only looked at him alone, but also at Selifan and the horses, beginning from their tails, and ending with their heads. To judge by the keys which were hanging down its left side by a broad belt, and because it was scolding the poor peasant of the cart in a very loud voice, Tchichikoff came to the conclusion that this figure was obviously the housekeeper.
"Halloa, old mother," said he, as he got out of his britchka, "where is your master?"
"Not at home," the housekeeper interrupted him, not waiting even for the question to be finished, but a moment later she added: "and what do you want?"
"I have some business with him."
"Will you then walk into this room," said the housekeeper, turning round and showing him her back covered all over with flour, and the lower portion of her garb torn beneath.
He entered a large and dark passage, the air in which was as cold and damp as in a cellar. From the passage he emerged into a small room, also very dark, scarcely enlivened by a glimpse of light, which shone through a large crevice in the lower portion of the door opposite. On opening this broken door before him, he at last entered an apartment in which real daylight greeted him, though the disorder which prevailed in it surprised him considerably.