It was the end of November. As far as eye could see the ground was covered with a white shroud. A blizzard reigned in the night outdoors; the biting wind drove the snow, piled up huge snow-drifts in an instant, lashed the snow higher and higher, covering every object and filling the air with a wailing. The village, the church, the nearby woods, all vanished in the whirling snowy mist. The wind howled in the trees of the ancient Golovliovo orchard. But inside the landlord's manor it was warm and cozy. In the dining-room there was a samovar on the table. Around it were Arina Petrovna, Porfiry Vladimirych, and Yevpraksia. To one side stood a card-table with tattered cards on it. The open door from the dining-room led on one side to the ikon room, all flooded with light from the ikon lamps, on the other, to the master's study, where an ikon lamp was also burning before an image. The rooms were overheated and stuffy, the odor of olive oil and of the charcoal burning in the samovar filled the air. Yevpraksia, seated in front of the samovar, was engaged in rinsing the cups and drying them with a dish towel. The samovar made spirited music, now humming aloud with all its might, now falling into a doze, as it were, and snoring. Clouds of steam escaped from under the cover and wrapped the tea-pot in a mist. The three at the table were conversing. "Well, how many times were you the 'fool' to-day?" Arina Petrovna asked Yevpraksia. "I shouldn't have been fool once if I hadn't given in. I wanted to please you, you see," answered Yevpraksia. "Fiddlesticks! I remember how pleased you were last time when I bombarded you with threes and fives. You see, I am not Porfiry Vladimirych. He makes it easy for you, hands only one at a time, but I, my dear, have no reason to." "Yes, indeed! You were playing foul!" "Well, I say! I never do such things." "No? Who was it I caught a little while ago? Who wanted to slip through a seven of clubs and an eight of hearts and call them a pair? Well, I saw it myself and I myself showed you up!" While talking Yevpraksia rose to remove the tea-pot from the samovar and turned her back to Arina Petrovna. "My, what a back you have! God bless you!" Arina Petrovna exclaimed, in involuntary admiration. "Yes, a wonderful back," Yudushka repeated mechanically. "My back again! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? What has my back done to you?" Yevpraksia turned her back first to the right, then to the left, and smiled. Her back was her joy. A few days before even the cook Savelich, an old man, had looked at her admiringly and said: "Well, well, what a back! Just like a hearth-plate!" She did not, be it noticed, complain to Porfiry Vladimirych about the cook's remark. The cups were filled with tea over and over again, and the samovar grew silent. Meanwhile the snowstorm became fiercer and fiercer. A veritable cataract of snow struck the windowpanes every now and then, and wild sobs ran at intervals down the chimney flue.