It was in consequence of these reflections that Maria Alexandrovna was now hastening with all speed towards her village, in order to bring back Afanassy Matveyevitch, whose presence she considered absolutely necessary at this crisis. It was desirable that her husband should appear and invite the prince down to the country: she relied upon the appearance of the father of the family, in dress-coat and white tie, hastening up to town on the first rumours of the prince’s arrival there, to produce a very favourable impression upon the old man’s self-respect: it would flatter him; and after such a courteous action, followed by a polite and warmly-couched invitation to the country, the prince would hardly refuse to go. At last the carriage stopped at the door of a long low wooden house, surrounded by old lime trees. This was the country house, Maria Alexandrovna’s village residence. Lights were burning inside. “Where’s my old fool?” cried Maria Alexandrovna bursting like a hurricane into the sitting-room. “Whats this towel lying here for?—Oh!—he’s been wiping his head, has he. What, the baths again! and tea—of course tea!—always tea! Well, what are you winking your eyes at me for, you old fool?—Here, why is his hair not cropped? Grisha, Grisha!—here; why didn’t you cut your master’s hair, as I told you?” Maria Alexandrovna, on entering the room, had intended to greet her husband more kindly than this; but seeing that he had just been to the baths and that he was drinking tea with great satisfaction, as usual, she could not restrain her irritable feelings. She felt the contrast between her own activity and intellectual energy, and the stolid indifference and sheep-like contentedness of her husband, and it went to her heart! Meanwhile the “old fool,” or to put it more politely, he who had been addressed by that title, sat at the tea-urn, and stared with open mouth, in abject alarm, opening and shutting his lips as he gazed at the wife of his bosom, who had almost petrified him by her sudden appearance. At the door stood the sleepy, fat Grisha, looking on at the scene, and blinking both eyes at periodical intervals. “I couldn’t cut his hair as you wished, because he wouldn’t let me!” he growled at last. “ ‘You’d better let me do it!’—I said, ‘or the mistress’ll be down one of these days, and then we shall both catch it!’ ” “No,” he says, “I want it like this now, and you shall cut it on Sunday. I like it long!” “What!—So you wish to curl it without my leave, do you! What an idea—as if you could wear curls with your sheep-face underneath! Good gracious, what a mess you’ve made of the place; and what’s the smell—what have you been doing, idiot, eh!” cried Maria Alexandrovna, waxing more and more angry, and turning furiously upon the wretched and perfectly innocent Afanassy! “Mam—mammy!” muttered the poor frightened master of the house, gazing with frightened eyes at the mistress, and blinking with all his might—“mammy!”