d her
mistress, assured her that everything would _come round_ (it was
her expression, and Matvey had borrowed it from her), and without
fuss or hurry proceeded to set to work herself. She had
immediately made friends with the bailiff's wife, and on the very
first day she drank tea with her and the bailiff under the
acacias, and reviewed all the circumstances of the position.
Very soon Marya Philimonovna had established her club, so to say,
under the acacias, and there it was, in this club, consisting of
the bailiff's wife, the village elder, and the counting house
clerk, that the difficulties of existence were gradually smoothed
away, and in a week's time everything actually had come round.
The roof was mended, a kitchen maid was found--a crony of the
village elder's--hens were bought, the cows began giving milk,
the garden hedge was stopped up with stakes, the carpenter made a
mangle, hooks were put in the cupboards, and they ceased to burst
open spontaneously, and an ironing-board covered with army cloth
was placed across from the arm of a chair to the chest of
drawers, and there was a smell of flatirons in the maids' room.

"Just see, now, and you were quite in despair," said Marya
Philimonovna, pointing to the ironing-board. They even rigged up
a bathing-shed of straw hurdles. Lily began to bathe, and Darya
Alexandrovna began to realize, if only in part, her expectations,
if not of a peaceful, at least of a comfortable, life in the
country. Peaceful with six children Darya Alexandrovna could not
be. One would fall ill, another might easily become so, a third
would be without something necessary, a fourth would show
symptoms of a bad disposition, and so on. Rare indeed were the
brief periods of peace. But these cares and anxieties were for
Darya Alexandrovna the sole happiness possible. Had it not been
for them, she would have been left alone to brood over her
husband who did not love her. And besides, hard though it was
for the mother to bear the dread of illness, the illnesses
themselves, and the grief of seeing signs of evil propensities in
her children--the children themselves were even now repaying her
in small joys for her sufferings. Those joys were so small that
they passed unnoticed, like gold in sand, and at bad moments she
could see nothing but the pain, nothing but sand; but there were
good moments too when she saw nothing but the joy, nothing but
gold.

Now in the solitude of the country,