The day after their arrival there was a heavy fall of rain, and in the night the water came through in the corridor and in the nursery, so that the beds had to be carried into the drawing room.  There was no kitchen maid to be found; of the nine cows, it appeared from the words of the cowherd-woman that some were about to calve, others had just calved, others were old, and others again hard-uddered; there was not butter nor milk enough even for the children.  There were no eggs.  They could get no fowls; old, purplish, stringy cocks were all they had for roasting and boiling.  Impossible to get women to scrub the floors—­all were potato-hoeing.  Driving was out of the question, because one of the horses was restive, and bolted in the shafts.  There was no place where they could bathe; the whole of the river-bank was trampled by the cattle and open to the road; even walks were impossible, for the cattle strayed into the garden through a gap in the hedge, and there was one terrible bull, who bellowed, and therefore might be expected to gore somebody.  There were no proper cupboards for their clothes; what cupboards there were either would not close at all, or burst open whenever anyone passed by them.  There were no pots and pans; there was no copper in the washhouse, nor even an ironing-board in the maids’ room.

Finding instead of peace and rest all these, from her point of view, fearful calamities, Darya Alexandrovna was at first in despair.  She exerted herself to the utmost, felt the hopelessness of the position, and was every instant suppressing the tears that started into her eyes.  The bailiff, a retired quartermaster, whom Stepan Arkadyevitch had taken a fancy to and had appointed bailiff on account of his handsome and respectful appearance as a hall-porter, showed no sympathy for Darya Alexandrovna’s woes.  He said respectfully, “nothing can be done, the peasants are such a wretched lot,” and did nothing to help her.

The position seemed hopeless.  But in the Oblonskys’ household, as in all families indeed, there was one inconspicuous but most valuable and useful person, Marya Philimonovna.  She soothed her mistress, assured her that everything would come round (it was her expression, and Matvey had borrowed it from her), and without fuss or hurry proceeded to set to work herself.  She had immediately made friends with the bailiff’s wife, and on the very first day she drank tea with her and the bailiff under the acacias, and reviewed all the circumstances of the position.  Very soon Marya Philimonovna had established her club, so to say, under the acacias, and there it was, in this club, consisting of the bailiff’s wife, the village elder, and the counting house clerk, that the difficulties of existence were gradually smoothed away, and in a week’s time everything actually had come round.  The roof was mended, a kitchen maid was found—­a crony of the village elder’s—­hens were bought, the cows began giving milk, the garden hedge was stopped up with stakes, the carpenter made a mangle, hooks were put in the cupboards, and they ceased to burst open spontaneously, and an ironing-board covered with army cloth was placed across from the arm of a chair to the chest of drawers, and there was a smell of flatirons in the maids’ room.