it all
with the same rapidity and with the same ironical expression in his
eyes.

* I.e., Tchertkov and others, publishers of Tolstoy, who issued
good literature for peasants' reading.

After ten o'clock he carefully dressed, often in evening dress,
very rarely in his _kammer-junker_'s uniform, and went out, returning
in the morning.

Our relations were quiet and peaceful, and we never had any
misunderstanding. As a rule he did not notice my presence, and when
he talked to me there was no expression of irony on his face--he
evidently did not look upon me as a human being.

I only once saw him angry. One day--it was a week after I had
entered his service--he came back from some dinner at nine o'clock;
his face looked ill-humoured and exhausted. When I followed him
into his study to light the candles, he said to me:

"There's a nasty smell in the flat."

"No, the air is fresh," I answered.

"I tell you, there's a bad smell," he answered irritably.

"I open the movable panes every day."

"Don't argue, blockhead!" he shouted.

I was offended, and was on the point of answering, and goodness
knows how it would have ended if Polya, who knew her master better
than I did, had not intervened.

"There really is a disagreeable smell," she said, raising her
eyebrows. "What can it be from? Stepan, open the pane in the
drawing-room, and light the fire."

With much bustle and many exclamations, she went through all the
rooms, rustling her skirts and squeezing the sprayer with a hissing
sound. And Orlov was still out of humour; he was obviously restraining
himself not to vent his ill-temper aloud. He was sitting at the
table and rapidly writing a letter. After writing a few lines he
snorted angrily and tore it up, then he began writing again.

"Damn them all!" he muttered. "They expect me to have an abnormal
memory!"

At last the letter was written; he got up from the table and said,
turning to me:

"Go to Znamensky Street and deliver this letter to Zinaida Fyodorovna
Krasnovsky in person. But first ask the porter whether her husband
--that is, Mr. Krasnovsky--has returned yet. If he has returned,
don't deliver the letter, but come back. Wait a minute! . . . If
she asks whether I have any one here, tell her that there have been
two gentlemen here since eight o'clock, writing something."

I drove to Znamensky Street. The porter told me that Mr. Krasnovsky
had not yet come in, and I made my way up to the third store