Stepan Arkadyevich

Stepan Arkadyevich could not answer, as the barber was at work on his upper lip, and he raised one finger. Matvei nodded at the looking glass.
`Alone. Is the room to be got ready upstairs?'
`Inform Darya Alexandrovna: where she orders.'
`Darya Alexandrovna?' Matvei repeated, as though in doubt.
`Yes, inform her. Here, take the telegram; give it to her, and then do what she tells you.'
`You want to try it out,' Matvei guessed, but only said: `Yes, sir.'
Stepan Arkadyevich was already washed and combed and ready to be dressed, when Matvei, stepping slowly in his creaky boots, came back into the room with the telegram in his hand. The barber had gone.
`Darya Alexandrovna told me to inform you that she is going away. ``Let him'' - that is you - ``do as he likes,''' he said, laughing only with his eyes, and, putting his hands in his pockets, he watched his master with his head on one side. Stepan Arkadyevich was silent a minute. Then a good-humored and rather pitiful smile showed itself on his handsome face.
`Eh, Matvei?' he said, shaking his head.
`Never mind, sir; everything will come round,' said Matvei.
`Come round?'
`Just so, sir.'
`Do you think so? - Who's there?' asked Stepan Arkadyevich, hearing the rustle of a woman's dress at the door.
`It's I,' said a firm, pleasant feminine voice, and the stern, pockmarked face of Matriona Philimonovna, the nurse, was thrust in at the door.
`Well, what's the matter, Matriosha?' queried Stepan Arkadyevich, meeting her in the doorway.
Although Stepan Arkadyevich was completely in the wrong as regards his wife, and was conscious of this himself, almost everyone in the house (even the nurse, Darya Alexandrovna's chief ally) was on his side.
`Well, what now?' he asked cheerlessly.
`Go to her, sir; own your fault again. Maybe God will aid you. She is suffering so, it's pitiful to see her; and besides, everything in the house is topsy-turvy. You must have pity, sir, on the children. Beg her forgiveness, sir. There's no help for it! One must pay the piper....'
`But she won't see me.'
`You do your part. God is merciful; pray to God, sir - pray to God.'
`Come, that'll do, you can go,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, blushing suddenly. `Well, now, let's dress,' he turned to Matvei and resolutely threw off his dressing gown.
Matvei was already holding up the shirt like a horse's collar, and, blowing off some invisible speck, he slipped it with obvious pleasure over the well-cared-for person of his master.