Page 570 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

at first in despair. She exerted herself to the utmost, felt
the hopelessness of the position, and was every instant
suppressing the tears that started into her eyes. The bailiff,
a retired quartermaster, whom Stepan Arkadyevitch had

taken a fancy to and had appointed bailiff on account of
his handsome and respectful appearance as a hall-porter,
showed no sympathy for Darya Alexandrovna’s woes. He
said respectfully, ‘nothing can be done, the peasants are
such a wretched lot,’ and did nothing to help her.
The position seemed hopeless. But in the Oblonskys’
household, as in all families indeed, there was one
inconspicuous but most valuable and useful person, Marya
Philimonovna. She soothed 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,

569 of 1759