‘You’ve a good horse,’ he began in his lisping voice, as he assisted me to get into the saddle; ‘I ought to have a horse like that! But where can I get one? I’ve no such luck. If you’d ask your mamma, now--remind her.’ ‘Why, has she promised you one?’ ‘Promised? No; but I thought that in her great kindness----’ ‘You should apply to Martin Petrovitch.’ ‘To Martin Petrovitch?’ Sletkin repeated, dwelling on each syllable. ‘To him I’m no better than a worthless page, like Maximka. He keeps a tight hand on us, that he does, and you get nothing from him for all your toil.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yes, by God. He’ll say, “My word’s sacred!”--and there, it’s as though he’s chopped it off with an axe. You may beg or not, it’s all one. Besides, Anna Martinovna, my wife, is not in such favour with him as Evlampia Martinovna. O merciful God, bless us and save us!’ he suddenly interrupted himself, flinging up his hands in despair. ‘Look! what’s that? A whole half-rood of oats, our oats, some wretch has gone and cut. The villain! Just see! Thieves! thieves! It’s a true saying, to be sure, don’t trust Eskovo, Beskovo, Erino, and Byelino! (these were the names of four villages near). Ah, ah, what a thing! A rouble and a half’s worth, or, maybe, two roubles’ loss!’ In Sletkin’s voice, one could almost hear sobs. I gave my horse a poke in the ribs and rode away from him. Sletkin’s ejaculations still reached my hearing, when suddenly at a turn in the road, I came upon the second daughter of Harlov, Evlampia, who had, in the words of Anna Martinovna, gone into the fields to get cornflowers. A thick wreath of those flowers was twined about her head. We exchanged bows in silence. Evlampia, too, was very good-looking; as much so as her sister, though in a different style. She was tall and stoutly built; everything about her was on a large scale: her head, and her feet and hands, and her snow-white teeth, and especially her eyes, prominent, languishing eyes, of the dark blue of glass beads. Everything about her, while still beautiful, had positively a monumental character (she was a true daughter of Martin Petrovitch). She did not, it seemed, know what to do with her massive fair mane, and she had twisted it in three plaits round her head. Her mouth was charming, crimson and fresh as a rose, and as she talked her upper lip was lifted in the middle in a very fascinating way. But there was something wild and almost fierce in the glance of her huge eyes. ‘A free bird, wild Cossack breed,’ so Martin Petrovitch used to speak of her. I was in awe of her.… This stately beauty reminded one of her father.