The Little Russian Servant

Excerpt

LITTLE RUSSIAN SERVANT.

"Who's that?" said the countess, stopping in front of a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, bent over an embroidery frame. The young girl rose, prostrated herself thrice before her mistress, then, getting up, remained standing, her hands hanging by her side, her head slightly bent forward under the investigating gaze of the countess, who through her eyeglass closely scrutinized her.

"It is the new girl, your highness," answered the head lady's maid, coming forward with the air of importance that thirty years' employment gives to no matter what functionary. "She is the daughter of Foma, of the village of Ikonine. She is come in her turn to pay her father's obrok—he is in Moscow."

"These peasant girls can do nothing," said the countess, with a wearied air: "what do you expect to get out of this one?"

"She doesn't embroider badly, your highness; pray look yourself. She can be put to the embroideries—not to the ground, but to the trimmings. This is for the toilet table of Madame la Comtesse."

The noble lady, who could hardly see, being short-sighted from her birth, examined the embroidery frame so closely that the tip of her nose grazed the cloth.

"That's not bad," she said. "Come here, little girl."

The little girl advanced, and the countess inspected her as minutely as she had done the embroidery.

"How pretty she is! What's your name?"

"Mavra."

The word came like a breath from the rosy lips.

"You must speak louder if you want us to hear you," said the head lady's maid angrily.

Mavra turned her large, blue, startled eyes toward her, let them drop, and said nothing.

"Sit down to your work," said the countess, amused at her new toy. With a quick, graceful movement, the young girl resumed her seat on the wooden chair, and the needle, firmly held between her agile fingers, went in and out of the stuff with that short, sharp noise that stimulates the action of the hand.

"That's right, you may go on," said the countess, her nerves irritated by the regularity of the movement.

Then, turning her back upon the young girl and trailing the heavy, sumptuous folds of her dressing-gown along the carefully-washed pine-wood floor, she disappeared through the door, which was respectfully closed after her by the head lady's maid. 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 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. Some of the women were washing, others ironing, some cleaning and turning upside down everything in the private apartment the countess had just left. The young peasant girl, with her needle uplifted, rested her ruddy hand upon the edge of the frame and looked around her.

What multitudes of embroidered gowns with their rich lace trimmings hung there on the wall, waiting some slight repairs!—what endless petticoats with their ornamented flounces all freshly ironed on cords along the huge room!—what countless lace caps, worn hardly an hour, pinned to a pincushion as large as a pillow, used only for this purpose!...