Lizaveta Ivanovna remained alone: she abandoned her work and started looking out the window. Soon a young officer appeared from around the corner of a house on the other side of the street. A flush came to her cheeks: she picked up her work again and bent her head over the canvas. Just then the countess came out, fully dressed.
“Order the carriage, Lizanka,” she said, “and we’ll go for a ride.”
Lizanka got up from her embroidery and started putting her work away.
“What is it, old girl? Are you deaf or something?” the countess cried. “Tell them to hurry up with the carriage.”
“At once!” the young lady replied quietly and ran to the front hall.
A servant came in and handed the countess some books from Count Pavel Alexandrovich.
“Very good! Thank him,” said the countess. “Lizanka, Lizanka! Where are you running to?”
“To get dressed.”
“There’s no rush, old girl. Sit here. Open the first volume; read aloud…”
The young lady took the book and read out a few lines.
“Louder!” said the countess. “What’s wrong with you, old girl? Lost your voice, or something?…Wait: move that footstool towards me…closer…really!”
Lizaveta Ivanovna read two more pages. The countess yawned.
“Enough of this book,” she said. “What nonsense! Send it back to Prince Pavel and tell them to thank him…Well, what about the carriage?”
“The carriage is ready,” Lizaveta Ivanovna said, looking outside.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” said the countess. “I always have to wait for you! It’s quite insufferable, old girl!”
Liza ran to her room. Two minutes had not gone by before the countess began to ring with all her might. Three maids came running through one door and the valet through the other.
“Why don’t you come when you’re called?” said the countess. “Tell Lizaveta Ivanovna I’m waiting for her.”
Lizaveta Ivanovna came in wearing a cape and a bonnet.
“At last, old girl!” said the countess. “What an outfit! Why this?…Whom do you want to entice?…And what’s the weather like? Windy, it seems.”
“Not at all, Your Ladyship! It’s quite calm!” replied the valet.
“You always talk at random! Open the window. Just so: wind! And very cold, too! Unhitch the carriage! We’re not going, Lizanka: there was no point dressing up.”
“And that’s my life!” thought Lizaveta Ivanovna.
Indeed, Lizaveta Ivanovna was a most unfortunate creature. Bitter is another’s bread, says Dante, and hard it is climbing another’s stairs,6 and who knows the bitterness of dependency if not the poor ward of an aristocratic old woman? Countess * * *, of course, did not have a wicked soul; but she was capricious, as a woman spoiled by high society, stingy, and sunk in cold egoism, like all old people, whose time for love is in the past, and who are strangers to the present. She took part in all the vain bustle of high society, dragged herself to balls, where she sat in a corner, all rouged and dressed in the old fashion, like an ugly but necessary ornament of the ballroom. The arriving guests, as if by an established ritual, approached her with low bows, and afterwards no one paid any attention to her. She received the whole town at her house, observing strict etiquette and not recognizing anyone’s face. Her numerous servants, having grown fat and gray in her front hall and maids’ quarters, did whatever they liked, outdoing each other in robbing the dying old woman. Lizaveta Ivanovna was the household martyr. She poured tea and was reprimanded for using too much sugar; she read novels aloud and was to blame for all the author’s mistakes; she accompanied the countess on her walks and was answerable for the weather and the pavement. She had a fixed salary, which was never paid in full; and meanwhile she was required to dress like everyone else—that is, like the very few. In society she played a most pitiable role. Everyone knew her and no one noticed her; at balls she danced only when there was a lack of
