If any of her people fell sick, Tatiana got up in the night, sent him spirits and embrocation, but next day she would send him either to the infirmary or oftener to the “wise woman,” but she did not send for a doctor. But if one of her own relatives, her “grandchildren” showed a bad tongue, or a swollen face, Kirusha or Vlass must immediately ride post haste to the town for the doctor. The “wise woman” was a woman in the suburbs who treated the “people” with simple remedies, and rapidly relieved them of their maladies. It did, indeed, happen that many a man remained crippled for life after her treatment. One lost his voice and could only crow, another lost an eye, or a piece of his jawbone, but the pain was gone and he went back to work. That seemed satisfactory to the patient as well as the proprietor of the estate. And as the “wise woman” only concerned herself with humble people, with serfs and the poorer classes, the medical profession did not interfere with her. Tatiana Markovna fed her servants decently with cabbage soup and groats, on feast-days with rye and mutton; at Christmas geese and pigs were roasted. She allowed nothing out of the common on the servants’ table or in their dress, but she gave the surplus from her own table now to one woman, now to another. Vassilissa drank tea immediately after her mistress; after her came the maids in the house, and last old Yakob. On feast days, on account of the hardness of their work, a glass of brandy was handed to the coachman, the menservants and the Starost. As soon as the tea was cleared away in the morning a stout, chubby-faced woman pushed her way into the room, always smiling. She was maid to the grandchildren, Veroshka and Marfinka. Close at her heels the twelve-year-old assistant, and together they brought the children to breakfast. Never knowing which of the two to kiss first, Tatiana Markovna would begin: “Well, my birdies, how are you? Veroshka, darling, you have brushed your hair?” “And me, Granny, me,” Marfinka would cry. “Why are Marfinka’s eyes red? Has she been crying?” Tatiana Markovna inquired anxiously of the maid. “The sun has dazzled her. Are her curtains well drawn, you careless girl? I must see.” In the maid’s room sat three or four young girls who sat all day long sewing, or making bobbin lace, without once stretching their limbs all day, because the mistress did not like to see idle hands. In the ante-room there sat idly the melancholy Yakob, Egorka, who was sixteen and always laughing, with two or three lackeys. Yakob did nothing but wait at table, where he idly flicked away the flies, and as idly changed the plates. He was almost too idle to speak, and when the visitors addressed him he answered in a tone indicating excessive boredom or a guilty conscience. Because he was quiet, never seriously drunk, and did not smoke, his master had made him butler; he was also very zealous at church.