“Just as you please to order, madam! Only it would be a pity if it’s the Doútlofs. They’re all good fellows, and one of them must go if we don’t send at least one of the domestic serfs,” said the steward. “As it is, everyone is hinting at them. … But it’s just as you please, madam!”
And he placed his right hand over his left in front of him, inclined his head towards the other shoulder, drew in—almost with a smack—his thin lips, rolled up his eyes, and said no more, evidently intending to keep silent for a long time, and to listen without reply to all the absurdities his mistress was sure to utter.
The steward—clean-shaven, and dressed in a long coat of a peculiar steward-like cut—who had come to report to his proprietress that autumn evening, was by origin a domestic serf.
The report, from the lady’s point of view, meant listening to a statement of the business done on her estate, and giving instructions for further business. From Egór Miháylovitch’s (the steward’s) point of view, “reporting” was a ceremony of standing straight on both feet, with turned-out toes, in a corner facing the sofa, and listening to all sorts of chatter unconnected with business, and by different ways and means getting the mistress into a state of mind in which she would quickly and impatiently say, “All right, all right!” to all that Egór Miháylovitch proposed.
Recruiting was the business under consideration. The Pokróvsk estate had to supply three recruits. Two of them seemed to have been marked out by Fate itself, by a coincidence of family, moral, and economic circumstances. As far as they were concerned, there could be no hesitation or dispute either on the part of the proprietress, the