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RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD 17
her yesterday, and she gave me these preserves for
doing it. Only she ordered me, ’Don’t show them to
nurse, or she will scold, and say that I am spoiling
you,’" Feklusha continued to asseverate.
" Come, that will do; we ’11 investigate that
to-morrow," said nurse decisively, and she locked Feklusha
up to await the morning in a dark lumber-room,
whence her sobs long continued to resound. The
next morning an investigation was begun.
Marya Vasilievna was a seamstress who had lived
many years in our house. She was not a serf, but a
free peasant, and enjoyed great respect among the
rest of the servants. She had a room to herself,
where she dined on food sent from the master’s
table.1 She bore herself very loftily, and was never
intimate with any of the other servants. We valued
her highly in the house because she was so clever in
her work. " Her hands are simply golden," they said
of her. I think she was about forty years of age.
Her face was thin, sickly, with large, dark eyes. She
was not pretty, but I remember that my elders always
said that she was very distinguished in appearance.
"You would never dream that she was a common
seamstress." She always dressed cleanly and
precisely, and kept her room very neat, with even some
pretensions to elegance. Several pots with geraniums
always stood on her window-sill, the walls were hung
with cheap pictures, and on a shelf in the corner
various porcelain trifles were set out — a swan with
a gilded beak, a slipper all covered with little pink
flowers — over which I went into ecstasies in my
childhood.
1 Servants are generally fed on food specially prepared for
them, such as cabbage soup, buckwheat groats, cucumbers,
black bread, etc.— Trans.
2
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