Leo Tolstoy

“ He called his orderly but received no reply, and finding neither of the two orderlies he went into the kitchen, where Marya Dmitrievna -- flushed with a kerchief tied round her head and her sleeves rolled up on her plump white arms -- was rolling pastry, white as her hands, and cutting it into small pieces to make pies of.
"Where have the orderlies gone to?" asked Butler.
"Gone to drink," replied Marya Dmitrievna. "What do you want?"
"To have the front door opened. You have a whole horde of mountaineers in front of your house. Hadji Murad has come!"
"Invent something else!" ”

“ Well, Butler, where do you think we'd better lodge him? Shall we put him in the office?"
Butler had not time to answer before Marya Dmitrievna -- who had come from the kitchen and was standing in the doorway -- said to the major:
"Why? Keep him here! We will give him the guest chamber and the storeroom. Then at any rate he will be within sight," said she, glancing at Hadji Murad; but meeting his eyes she turned quickly away.
"do you know, I think marya Dmitrievna is right," said Butler.
"Now then, now then, get away! Women have no business here," said the major frowning. ”

“ He was thinking of this when his meditations were disturbed by the tramp of many horses' hoofs along the dusty road in front of him, as if several men were riding that way. He looked up and saw at the end of the street a group of horsemen coming towards him at a walk. In front of a score of Cossacks rode two men: one in a white Circassian coat with a tall turban on his head, the other an officer in the Russian service, dark, with an aquiline nose, and much silver on his uniform and weapons. ”