Sayfa 744 / 2288

"Why did you nurse her so long?"

"It's our custom; for three fasts...."

And the conversation became most interesting to Darya

Alexandrovna. What sort of time did she have? What was the matter

with the boy? Where was her husband? Did it often happen?

Darya Alexandrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant women,

so interesting to her was their conversation, so completely

identical were all their interests. What pleased her most of all

was that she saw clearly what all the women admired more than

anything was her having so many children, and such fine ones. The

peasant women even made Darya Alexandrovna laugh, and offended

the English governess, because she was the cause of the laughter

she did not understand. One of the younger women kept staring at

the Englishwoman, who was dressing after all the rest, and when

she put on her third petticoat she could not refrain from the

remark, "My, she keeps putting on and putting on, and she'll

never have done!" she said, and they all went off into roars.