ind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukovs joined the
mummers.

Pelageya Danilovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the
visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs,
went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering
into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any of
them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostovs she failed to recognize,
she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late husband's,
dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.

"And who is this?" she asked her governess, peering into the face of her
own daughter dressed up as a Kazan-Tartar. "I suppose it is one of the
Rostovs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?" she asked
Natasha. "Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!" she ordered the
butler who was handing things round. "That's not forbidden by his law."

Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by the
dancers, who--having decided once for all that being disguised, no one
would recognize them--were not at all shy, Pelageya Danilovna hid
her face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with
irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter.

"My little Sasha! Look at Sasha!" she said.

After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelageya Danilovna made
the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a string, and a
silver ruble were fetched and they all played games together.

In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked
eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring, flushed, and
merry faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize the mummers, admired
their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly how they suited the
young ladies, and she thanked them all for having entertained her so
well. The visitors were invited to supper in the drawing room, and the
serfs had something served to them in the ballroom.

"Now to tell one's fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!" said
an old maid who lived with the Melyukovs, during supper.

"Why?" said the eldest Melyukov girl.

"You wouldn't go, it takes courage..."

"I'll go," said Sonya.

"Tell what happened to the young lady!" said the second Melyukov girl.

"Well," began the old maid, "a young lady once went out, took a cock,
laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting a
while, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh