“It’s our Fyokla,” said Marya, recognizing her.  “She has been over the river to the manor yard.  To the stewards.  She is a shameless hussy and foul-mouthed—­fearfully!”

Fyokla, young and vigorous as a girl, with her black eyebrows and her loose hair, jumped off the bank and began splashing the water with her feet, and waves ran in all directions from her.

“Shameless—­dreadfully!” repeated Marya.

The river was crossed by a rickety little bridge of logs, and exactly below it in the clear, limpid water was a shoal of broad-headed mullets.  The dew was glistening on the green bushes that looked into the water.  There was a feeling of warmth; it was comforting!  What a lovely morning!  And how lovely life would have been in this world, in all likelihood, if it were not for poverty, horrible, hopeless poverty, from which one can find no refuge!  One had only to look round at the village to remember vividly all that had happened the day before, and the illusion of happiness which seemed to surround them vanished instantly.

They reached the church.  Marya stood at the entrance, and did not dare to go farther.  She did not dare to sit down either.  Though they only began ringing for mass between eight and nine, she remained standing the whole time.

While the gospel was being read the crowd suddenly parted to make way for the family from the great house.  Two young girls in white frocks and wide-brimmed hats walked in; with them a chubby, rosy boy in a sailor suit.  Their appearance touched Olga; she made up her mind from the first glance that they were refined, well-educated, handsome people.  Marya looked at them from under her brows, sullenly, dejectedly, as though they were not human beings coming in, but monsters who might crush her if she did not make way for them.

And every time the deacon boomed out something in his bass voice she fancied she heard “Ma-arya!” and she shuddered.

III

The arrival of the visitors was already known in the village, and directly after mass a number of people gathered together in the hut.  The Leonytchevs and Matvyeitchevs and the Ilyitchovs came to inquire about their relations who were in service in Moscow.  All the lads of Zhukovo who could read and write were packed off to Moscow and hired out as butlers or waiters (while from the village on the other side of the river the boys all became bakers), and that had been the custom from the days of serfdom long ago when a certain Luka Ivanitch, a peasant from Zhukovo, now a legendary figure, who had been a waiter in one of the Moscow clubs, would take none but his fellow-villagers into his service, and found jobs for them in taverns and restaurants; and from that time the village of Zhukovo was always called among the inhabitants of the surrounding districts Slaveytown.  Nikolay had been taken to Moscow when he was eleven, and Ivan Makaritch, one of the Matvyeitchevs, at that time a headwaiter in the “Hermitage” garden, had put him into a situation.  And now, addressing the Matvyeitchevs, Nikolay said emphatically: