He was a shrewd judge of character, and would laugh at them behind their backs, but he was not a bad man, and might even have passed for a good one. Everyone liked him – everyone, that is, except the local Germans, whom he was fond of making fun of whenever they set about trying to introduce civilized habits among people who were still half savage. ‘He’ll make a monkey of himself,’ he would say – and sure enough, the German would go astray in his calculations and make a monkey of himself. Within five days of his return from Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Aleksandr Ivanovich had bought Barkov Farm from its owner, registered as a merchant in our district town, married off his two sisters and found a wife for his brother. Even before his departure for Germany, he had redeemed the family from its condition of serfdom, and it was now entirely supported by his agency. His brother and brother-in-law both worked for him and drew their salaries from him. He was in the habit of addressing them in a rather stern fashion. It was not that he insulted them; rather, he kept them in a state of fear. He treated the stewards and workmen in a similar manner. Not, again, that he wished to be shown deference; it was simply that he was convinced that ‘servants should not be spoiled’. Having purchased the farm, Aleksandr Ivanovich bought from the same landowner a maidservant called Nastasya Petrovna, and married her. They lived together in the greatest of harmony. People used to say that they lived on ‘love and counsel’. It was said that when Nastasya Petrovna had married, she had ‘rounded out’. She had always been the very epitome of beauty, but after her marriage she blossomed like a sumptuous rose. She was tall, fair-haired, slightly on the plump side, but shapely; she had a high-coloured facial complexion, and large, kindly, blue eyes. Mistress Nastasya Petrovna was extremely good-looking. Her husband was seldom at home for as long as a week on end – he was constantly travelling about in connection with his building projects, and she would busy herself with the upkeep of the farm, detailing the stewards to their tasks and buying in timber and grain, if it were needed at any of the mills. She was Aleksandr Ivanovich’s right hand in everything, and for this reason everyone took her very seriously and treated her with great respect, while her husband for his part had limitless confidence in her and refrained from extending to her his severe standards of behaviour. There was nothing he would have refused her. She, however, made no demands. By her own unaided efforts she taught herself to read, and she was able to sign her name. Aleksandr Ivanovich and she had only two children, two girls: the elder was nine, and the younger seven. They were given instruction by a Russian governess. Nastasya Petrovna would refer to herself, jokingly, as ‘an illiterate noodle’. Yet in actual fact her knowledge was scarcely less extensive than that of many so-called ‘educated ladies’. She knew no French, but devoured Russian books at a simply enormous rate. She had a fearfully long memory. I remember that she could recite Karamzin’s History practically by memory. She also knew a countless number of poems off by heart.