Tíkhonovna entered the room, there were there the cook, a white, ruddy-faced, fat, manorial woman, with the sleeves of her chintz dress rolled up, who with difficulty was moving a pot in the oven with an oven-fork; then a young, small coachman, who was learning to play the balalaika; an old man with an unshaven, soft white beard, who was sitting on a bed place with his bare feet and, holding a skein of silk between his lips, was sewing on some fine, good material, and a shaggy-haired, swarthy young man, in a shirt and blue trousers, with a coarse face, who, chewing bread, was sitting on a bench at the oven and leaning his head on both his arms, which were steadied against his knees.
Barefoot Nástka with sparkling eyes ran into the room with her lithe, bare feet, in front of the old woman, jerking open the door, which stuck fast from the steam within, and squeaking in her thin voice:
“Aunty Marína, Simónych sends this old woman, and says that she should be fed. She is from our parts: she has been with Paramónovna to worship the saints. Paramónovna is having tea.—Vlásevna has sent for her—”
The garrulous little girl would have gone on talking for quite awhile yet; the words just poured forth from her and, apparently, it gave her pleasure to hear her own voice. But Marína, who was in a perspiration, and who had not yet succeeded in pushing away the pot with the beet soup, which had caught in the hearth, shouted angrily at her:
“Stop your babbling! What old woman am I to feed now? I have enough to do to feed our own people. Shoot you!” she shouted to the pot, which came very near falling down, as she removed it from the spot where it was caught.
But when she was satisfied in regard to the pot, she looked around and, seeing trim Tíkhonovna with her wallet and correct peasant attire, making the sign of the cross and bowing low toward the front corner, felt