Henry Gréville

“ It is not often the countess takes a fancy like that at first sight."
"Is she, then, unkind?" innocently inquired the girl.
"Unkind! Oh, no; capricious, like all mistresses, but the kindest lady in the world, and generous! Besides, this is a rich house; nothing is counted—nothing at all. This is better than your [Pg 19] village," continued Dacka, proud of belonging to such noble masters, and desirous to impress on the mind of the simple peasant girl the importance and dignity of the functions she was promoted to.
"It is more beautiful," replied Mavra, bending intently over her work. ”

“ The countess thought for a moment.
"Ah! I know," said she; "it's Mavra—a virtue—my dear child. A strange little creature, who adores me."
"She is quite right," replied the son respectfully. "What do you do with her?"
"She embroiders in the afternoon, and in the morning she attends [Pg 40] on me; but, Serge, you must be prudent. My house is strictly kept; don't you go and amuse yourself making gallant speeches to my girls."
"Oh, mother! what do you take me for?" carelessly replied the young man. "I think of a woman only when she is in a casket suited to her style of beauty. ”

“ Mavra returned to her embroidery frame, no longer under the [Pg 62] orders of the good Dacka, but under the capricious, fitful superintendence of a housekeeper charged in the interval with the workroom department. Life was not so easy, but what mattered it to Mavra that there should be more harshness or less kindness? She did not live in the present. Her waking hours were passed in an innocent ecstasy that wore [Pg 63] her away without suffering. She did not know that this was love. Had she known it, no amount of prayers or tears would have been enough to expiate her unpardonable sin. ”

“ The countess seemed to have forgotten Mavra, who thought with ever more and more resigned sadness of this much-loved mistress.
Her indulgence concerning the service-dues of her family appeared to the young girl not a favor, but a punishment. At hay-making [Pg 80] as at harvest young lads seek out the girls. Had Mavra wished it, she might have found ten husbands. She was no longer quite young according to the notion of peasants, who marry their daughters at sixteen and their boys at twenty. ”

“ She passed the winter suffering, uncomplaining, unrelaxing in her work. Gradually she gave up looking at the stars. Not only did they more than ever look like tears, but no sooner did she turn her eyes toward the night sky than they filled with tears, so she hardly knew whether it was the fires of heaven or her own tears sparkling beneath her eyelids. ”

“ The countess, an accomplished house-mistress, made a practice of paying a daily visit to this room, which was reserved for the women of her service. Mavra was left alone in the workroom, a large, well-lighted chamber, furnished simply with tables and [Pg 13] chairs for the use of the innumerable women and girls invariably attached to the service of those noble ladies who knew so well how to maintain their rank in that blessed time of serfdom. At this hour the workroom was empty. ”

“ One morning at the end of August, as Mavra, who had risen early, was crossing the courtyard to go waken up the laundress, [Pg 35] who had overslept herself, she saw, galloping along the inclosure a troika of black horses, with their heads covered with bells. "It's the young master!" ”

“ But Russians of the grande monde are so constituted that [Pg 42] when they have no vice, they take all imaginable trouble to affect it.
On leaving the dining room the countess and her son directed their steps toward the garden. In front of the house, in the courtyard, they met Mavra stooping under the weight of an enormous pile of linen, which she was carrying from the laundry. ”

“ And all this for [Pg 16] one person! without counting the silk stockings in that other basket, and the rings by dozens worn by the countess on her thin fingers. In this world of living beings under God's heaven, what importance given to one person, who needed so many other persons to serve her! And how the nothingness of these was made more emphatic by the dominance [Pg 17] of that! Mavra sat wonder-stricken. The head lady's maid coming into the room found her still in a state of stupefaction, stupefied above all at having made these reflections. ”

“ A. Conan Doyle.
22. Love's Ransom Shot. Wilkie Collins.
23. Love Finds the Way. Walter Besant and Jas. Rice.
24. The Little Russian Servant. Henri Greville.
25. The New Adam and Eve. Nathaniel Hawthorne. ”