Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy Chapter 9 Page 10

bed and could not get up. Yet it was necessary for him to get up because Ivan Matveich, the police-officer, would soon call for him and he had to go with him — either to bargain for the forest or to put Mukhorty’s breeching straight.

He asked his wife: ‘Nikolaevna, hasn’t he come yet?’ ‘No, he hasn’t,’ she replied. He heard someone drive up to the front steps. ‘It must be him.’ ‘No, he’s gone past.’ ‘Nikolaevna! I say, Nikolaevna, isn’t he here yet?’ ‘No.’ He was still lying on his bed and could not get up, but was always waiting. And this waiting was uncanny and yet joyful. Then suddenly his joy was completed. He whom he was expecting came; not Ivan Matveich the police-officer, but someone else — yet it was he