The Golovlyov Family
Publisher: Signet Classics
ISBN-13: 9780451501073
First sentence: ONE DAY WHEN Anton Vassilyev, the bailiff of a distant estate, had finished telling his lady, Arina Petrovna Golovlyov, about his journey to Moscow to collect the tax from her serfs living there, and she had given him leave to go, he lingered as though he had something else to report and hesitated to do so.