The Precipice | Page 9

assistant, and together they brought the children to breakfast.
Never knowing which of the two to kiss first, Tatiana Markovna would begin: "Well, my birdies, how are you? Veroshka, darling, you have brushed your hair?"
"And me, Granny, me," Marfinka would cry.
"Why are Marfinka's eyes red? Has she been crying?" Tatiana Markovna inquired anxiously of the maid. "The sun has dazzled her. Are her curtains well drawn, you careless girl? I must see."
In the maid's room sat three or four young girls who sat all day long sewing, or making bobbin lace, without once stretching their limbs all day, because the mistress did not like to see idle hands. In the ante-room there sat idly the melancholy Yakob, Egorka, who was sixteen and always laughing, with two or three lackeys. Yakob did nothing but wait at table, where he idly flicked away the flies, and as idly changed the plates. He was almost too idle to speak, and when the visitors addressed him he answered in a tone indicating excessive boredom or a guilty conscience. Because he was quiet, never seriously drunk, and did not smoke, his master had made him butler; he was also very zealous at church.
[1] Tatiana Markovna was addressed by her grand-nieces and her grand-nephew as Grandmother.

CHAPTER III
Boris came in on his aunt during the children's breakfast. Tatiana Markovna clapped her hands and all but jumped from her chair; the plates were nearly shaken off the table.
"Borushka, tiresome boy! You have not even written, but descend like a thunderclap. How you frightened me!"
She took his head in her hands, looked for a full minute into his face, and would have wept, but she glanced away at his mother's portrait, and sighed.
"Well, well!" she seemed to say, but in fact said nothing, but smiled and wiped away her tears with her handkerchief. "Your mother's boy," she cried, "her very image! See how lovely she was, look, Vassilissa! Do you remember? Isn't he like her?"
With youthful appetite Boris devoured coffee, tea, cakes and bread, his aunt watching all the while.
"Call the people, tell the Starost and everybody that the Master is here, the real Master, the owner. Welcome, little father, welcome home!" she said, with an ironic air of humility, laughing and mimicking the pleasant speech. "Forsake us not with your favour. Tatiana Markovna insults us, ruins us, take us over into your charge.... Ha! Ha! Here are the keys, the accounts, at your service, demand a reckoning from the old lady. Ask her what she has done with the estate money, why the peasants' huts are in ruins. See how the Malinovka peasants beg in the streets of the town. Ha! Ha! Under your guardian and uncle in the new estate, I believe, the peasants wear polished boots and red shirts, and live in two-storied houses. Well, Sir, why this silence? Why do you not ask for the accounts? Have your breakfast, and then I will show you everything."
After breakfast Tatiana Markovna took her sunshade, put on her thick-soled shoes, covered her head with a light hood, and went to show Boris the garden.
"Now, Sir, keep your eyes wide open, and if there is anything wrong, don't spare your Grandmother. You will see I have just planted out the beds in front of the house. Veroshka and Marfinka play here under my eyes, in the sand. One cannot trust any nurse."
They reached the yard.
"Kirusha, Eromka, Matroshka, where have you all hidden yourselves? One of you come here."
Matroshka appeared, and announced that Kirusha and Eromka had gone into the village to fetch the peasants.
"Here is Matroshka. Do you remember her? What are you staring there for, fool. Kiss your Master's hand."
Matroshka came nearer. "I dare not," she said.
Boris shyly embraced the girl.
"You have built a new wing to the buildings, Grandmother," he said.
"You noticed that. Do you remember the old one? It was quite rotten, had holes in the floors as broad as my hand, and the dirt and the soot! And now look!"
They went into the new wing. His aunt showed Boris the alterations in the stables, the horses and the separate space for fowls, the laundry and byres.
"Here is the new kitchen which I built detached so that the kitchen range is outside the house, and the servants have more room. Now each has his own corner. Here is the pantry, there the new ice-cellar. What are you standing there for?" she said, turning to Matrona. "Go and tell Egorka to run into the village and say to the Starost that we are going over there."
In the garden his aunt showed him every tree and every bush, led him through the alleys, looked down from the top of the precipice into the brushwood, and went with him into the village. It was a warm day, and the winter