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 Commune, or of public opinion. But who the third was to be, was a debatable point. The steward was anxious to defend the Doútlofs (in which family there were three men of an age to be recruited), and to send Polikoúshka, a married domestic serf with a very bad reputation, who had been caught more than once stealing sacks, reins, and hay; but the proprietress, who often petted Polikoúshka’s ragged children, and improved his morals by exhortations from the Bible, did not wish to send him. Neither did she wish to injure the Doútlofs, whom she did not know and had never even seen. But somehow she did not seem able to grasp the fact, and the steward could not make up his mind to tell her straight out, that if Polikoúshka did not go, one of the Doútlofs would have to.

“But I don’t wish the Doútlofs any ill!” she said feelingly.