“Is the mistress asleep or not?” suddenly asked a deep peasant voice close to Aksyúta.
She opened her eyes, which she had kept shut, and saw a figure that appeared taller than the serfs’ house. She screeched, and flew back so fast that her skirts floated behind her. With one bound she was in the porch, with another in the maids’ room—where she threw herself, wildly yelling, on her bed.
Dounyásha, her aunt, and the other maid were paralyzed with fear, and before they had time to recover they heard heavy, slow, and uncertain steps in the passage and by their door.
Dounyásha rushed to her mistress, spilling the melted wax. The second maid hid among the petticoats that hung on the wall; the aunt, a more determined character, was going to keep the door to the passage closed, but it opened, and a peasant came into the room.
It was Doútlof, with his boat-like shoes. Paying no heed to the maids’ fears, he looked round for an icon, and, not seeing the tiny saint’s picture in the left-hand corner of the room, he crossed himself in front of a cupboard in which teacups were kept, laid his cap on the windowsill, and, thrusting his arm so deep into the bosom of his coat that it looked as if he were going to scratch under his other arm, he pulled out a letter with five brown seals, stamped with an anchor.
Dounyásha’s aunt held her hands to her heart, and with difficulty brought out the words:
“Well, you have given me a fright! I can’t bring out a wo … ord! I quite thought my last moment had come!”