They were however soon back at Yásnaya. In February Fet visited them there, and found them overflowing with life and happiness. On 15th May, after the Tolstoys and Fet had by some chance just missed meeting at the house of a neighbouring proprietor, Tolstoy wrote to his friend: We just missed seeing you, and how sorry I am that we did! How much I want to talk over with you. Not a day passes without our mentioning you several times. My wife is not at all 'playing with dolls.' Don't you insult her. She is my serious helpmate, though now bearing a burden from which she hopes to be free early in July. What won't she do afterwards? We are _ufanizing_[48] little by little. I have made an important discovery, which I hasten to impart to you. Clerks and overseers are only a hindrance to the management of an estate. Try the experiment of dismissing them all; then sleep ten hours a day, and be assured that everything will get along _not worse_. I have made the experiment and am quite satisfied with its success. [48] This word, when first invented by Nicholas Tolstoy, meant ploughing, but it had by now come to mean farming in general. How, oh how, are we to see one another? If you go to Moscow with Márya Petróvna and do not come to visit us, it will be dreadful offensive. (My wife, who was reading this letter, prompted that sentence.) I wanted to write much, but time lacks. I embrace you with all my heart; my wife bows profoundly to you, and I to your wife. _Business_: When you are in Orél, buy me 20 poods [720 lbs.] of various kinds of twine, reins, and shaft-traces, if they cost less than Rs. 2.30 per pood including carriage, and send them me by a carter. The money shall be paid at once. Fet soon availed himself of the invitation, and after driving past the low towers which mark the entrance to the birch alley leading to the house, he came upon Tolstoy eagerly directing the dragging of a lake and taking all possible care that the carp should not escape. The Countess, in a white dress, came running down the alley, with a huge bundle of barn-door keys hanging at her waist. After cordially greeting the visitor, she, notwithstanding her 'exceedingly interesting condition,' leapt over the low railing between the alley and the pond. It will however be better to quote Fet's own account of his visit: 'Sónya, tell Nestérka to fetch a sack from the barn, and let us go back to the house,' said Tolstoy--who had already greeted me warmly, without losing sight of the carp-capturing operations the while. The Countess immediately detached a huge key from her belt and gave it to a boy, who started at a run to fulfil the order. 'There,' remarked the Count, 'you have an example of our method. We keep the keys ourselves; and all the estate business is carried on by boys.'