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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sportsman's Sketches, by Ivan Turgenev
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: A Sportsman's Sketches
+       Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Translator: Constance Garnett
+
+Posting Date: October 13, 2014 [EBook #8597]
+Release Date: July, 2005
+First Posted: July 26, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             A SPORTSMAN'S
+                                SKETCHES
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+
+                             IVAN TURGENEV
+
+
+                     _Translated from the Russian
+                         By CONSTANCE GARNETT_
+
+
+
+                                VOLUME I
+
+
+       CONTENTS
+
+    I. HOR AND KALINITCH
+   II. YERMOLAÏ AND THE MILLER'S WIFE
+  III. RASPBERRY SPRING
+   IV. THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
+    V. MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOV
+   VI. THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
+  VII. LGOV
+ VIII. BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
+   IX. KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
+    X. THE AGENT
+   XI. THE COUNTING-HOUSE
+  XII. BIRYUK
+ XIII. TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
+  XIV. LEBEDYAN
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+                           HOR AND KALINITCH
+
+
+Anyone who has chanced to pass from the Bolhovsky district into the
+Zhizdrinsky district, must have been impressed by the striking
+difference between the race of people in the province of Orel and the
+population of the province of Kaluga. The peasant of Orel is not tall,
+is bent in figure, sullen and suspicious in his looks; he lives in
+wretched little hovels of aspen-wood, labours as a serf in the fields,
+and engages in no kind of trading, is miserably fed, and wears slippers
+of bast: the rent-paying peasant of Kaluga lives in roomy cottages of
+pine-wood; he is tall, bold, and cheerful in his looks, neat and clean
+of countenance; he carries on a trade in butter and tar, and on
+holidays he wears boots. The village of the Orel province (we are
+speaking now of the eastern part of the province) is usually situated
+in the midst of ploughed fields, near a water-course which has been
+converted into a filthy pool. Except for a few of the
+ever-accommodating willows, and two or three gaunt birch-trees, you do
+not see a tree for a mile round; hut is huddled up against hut, their
+roofs covered with rotting thatch.... The villages of Kaluga, on the
+contrary, are generally surrounded by forest; the huts stand more
+freely, are more upright, and have boarded roofs; the gates fasten
+closely, the hedge is not broken down nor trailing about; there are no
+gaps to invite the visits of the passing pig.... And things are much
+better in the Kaluga province for the sportsman. In the Orel province
+the last of the woods and copses will have disappeared five years
+hence, and there is no trace of moorland left; in Kaluga, on the
+contrary, the moors extend over tens, the forest over hundreds of
+miles, and a splendid bird, the grouse, is still extant there; there
+are abundance of the friendly larger snipe, and the loud-clapping
+partridge cheers and startles the sportsman and his dog by its abrupt
+upward flight.
+
+On a visit to the Zhizdrinsky district in search of sport, I met in the
+fields a petty proprietor of the Kaluga province called Polutikin, and
+made his acquaintance. He was an enthusiastic sportsman; it follows,
+therefore, that he was an excellent fellow. He was liable, indeed, to a
+few weaknesses; he used, for instance, to pay his addresses to every
+unmarried heiress in the province, and when he had been refused her
+hand and house, broken-hearted he confided his sorrows to all his
+friends and acquaintances, and continued to shower offerings of sour
+peaches and other raw produce from his garden upon the young lady's
+relatives; he was fond of repeating one and the same anecdote, which,
+in spite of Mr. Polutikin's appreciation of its merits, had certainly
+never amused anyone; he admired the works of Akim Nahimov and the novel
+_Pinna_; he stammered; he called his dog Astronomer; instead of
+'however' said 'howsomever'; and had established in his household a
+French system of cookery, the secret of which consisted, according to
+his cook's interpretation, in a complete transformation of the natural
+taste of each dish; in this _artiste's_ hands meat assumed the flavour
+of fish, fish of mushrooms, macaroni of gunpowder; to make up for this,
+not a single carrot went into the soup without taking the shape of a
+rhombus or a trapeze. But, with the exception of these few and
+insignificant failings, Mr. Polutikin was, as has been said already, an
+excellent fellow.
+
+On the first day of my acquaintance with Mr. Polutikin, he invited me
+to stay the night at his house.
+
+'It will be five miles farther to my house,' he added; 'it's a long way
+to walk; let us first go to Hor's.' (The reader must excuse my omitting
+his stammer.)
+
+'Who is Hor?'
+
+'A peasant of mine. He is quite close by here.'
+
+We went in that direction. In a well-cultivated clearing in the middle
+of the forest rose Hor's solitary homestead. It consisted of several
+pine-wood buildings, enclosed by plank fences; a porch ran along the
+front of the principal building, supported on slender posts. We went
+in. We were met by a young lad of twenty, tall and good-looking.
+
+'Ah, Fedya! is Hor at home?' Mr. Polutikin asked him.
+
+'No. Hor has gone into town,' answered the lad, smiling and showing a
+row of snow-white teeth. 'You would like the little cart brought out?'
+
+'Yes, my boy, the little cart. And bring us some kvas.'
+
+We went into the cottage. Not a single cheap glaring print was pasted
+up on the clean boards of the walls; in the corner, before the heavy,
+holy picture in its silver setting, a lamp was burning; the table of
+linden-wood had been lately planed and scrubbed; between the joists and
+in the cracks of the window-frames there were no lively Prussian
+beetles running about, nor gloomy cockroaches in hiding. The young lad
+soon reappeared with a great white pitcher filled with excellent kvas,
+a huge hunch of wheaten bread, and a dozen salted cucumbers in a wooden
+bowl. He put all these provisions on the table, and then, leaning with
+his back against the door, began to gaze with a smiling face at us. We
+had not had time to finish eating our lunch when the cart was already
+rattling before the doorstep. We went out. A curly-headed, rosy-cheeked
+boy of fifteen was sitting in the cart as driver, and with difficulty
+holding in the well-fed piebald horse. Round the cart stood six young
+giants, very like one another, and Fedya.
+
+'All of these Hor's sons!' said Polutikin.
+
+'These are all Horkies' (_i.e._ wild cats), put in Fedya, who had come
+after us on to the step; 'but that's not all of them: Potap is in the
+wood, and Sidor has gone with old Hor to the town. Look out, Vasya,' he
+went on, turning to the coachman; 'drive like the wind; you are driving
+the master. Only mind what you're about over the ruts, and easy a
+little; don't tip the cart over, and upset the master's stomach!'
+
+The other Horkies smiled at Fedya's sally. 'Lift Astronomer in!' Mr.
+Polutikin called majestically. Fedya, not without amusement, lifted the
+dog, who wore a forced smile, into the air, and laid her at the bottom
+of the cart. Vasya let the horse go. We rolled away. 'And here is my
+counting-house,' said Mr. Polutikin suddenly to me, pointing to a
+little low-pitched house. 'Shall we go in?' 'By all means.' 'It is no
+longer used,' he observed, going in; 'still, it is worth looking at.'
+The counting-house consisted of two empty rooms. The caretaker, a
+one-eyed old man, ran out of the yard. 'Good day, Minyaitch,' said Mr.
+Polutikin; 'bring us some water.' The one-eyed old man disappeared, and
+at once returned with a bottle of water and two glasses. 'Taste it,'
+Polutikin said to me; 'it is splendid spring water.' We drank off a
+glass each, while the old man bowed low. 'Come, now, I think we can go
+on,' said my new Friend. 'In that counting-house I sold the merchant
+Alliluev four acres of forest-land for a good price.' We took our seats
+in the cart, and in half-an-hour we had reached the court of the
+manor-house.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I asked Polutikin at supper; 'why does Hor live
+apart from your other peasants?'
+
+'Well, this is why; he is a clever peasant. Twenty-five years ago his
+cottage was burnt down; so he came up to my late father and said:
+"Allow me, Nikolai Kouzmitch," says he, "to settle in your forest, on
+the bog. I will pay you a good rent." "But what do you want to settle
+on the bog for?" "Oh, I want to; only, your honour, Nikolai Kouzmitch,
+be so good as not to claim any labour from me, but fix a rent as you
+think best." "Fifty roubles a year!" "Very well." "But I'll have no
+arrears, mind!" "Of course, no arrears"; and so he settled on the bog.
+Since then they have called him Hor' (_i.e._ wild cat).
+
+'Well, and has he grown rich?' I inquired.
+
+'Yes, he has grown rich. Now he pays me a round hundred for rent, and I
+shall raise it again, I dare say. I have said to him more than once,
+"Buy your freedom, Hor; come, buy your freedom." ... But he declares,
+the rogue, that he can't; has no money, he says.... As though that were
+likely....'
+
+The next day, directly after our morning tea, we started out hunting
+again. As we were driving through the village, Mr. Polutikin ordered
+the coachman to stop at a low-pitched cottage and called loudly,
+'Kalinitch!' 'Coming, your honour, coming' sounded a voice from the
+yard; 'I am tying on my shoes.' We went on at a walk; outside the
+village a man of about forty over-took us. He was tall and thin, with a
+small and erect head. It was Kalinitch. His good-humoured; swarthy
+face, somewhat pitted with small-pox, pleased me from the first glance.
+Kalinitch (as I learnt afterwards) went hunting every day with his
+master, carried his bag, and sometimes also his gun, noted where game
+was to be found, fetched water, built shanties, and gathered
+strawberries, and ran behind the droshky; Mr. Polutikin could not stir
+a step without him. Kalinitch was a man of the merriest and gentlest
+disposition; he was constantly singing to himself in a low voice, and
+looking carelessly about him. He spoke a little through his nose, with
+a laughing twinkle in his light blue eyes, and he had a habit of
+plucking at his scanty, wedge-shaped beard with his hand. He walked not
+rapidly, but with long strides, leaning lightly on a long thin staff.
+He addressed me more than once during the day, and he waited on me
+without, obsequiousness, but he looked after his master as if he were a
+child. When the unbearable heat drove us at mid-day to seek shelter, he
+took us to his beehouse in the very heart of the forest. There
+Kalinitch opened the little hut for us, which was hung round with
+bunches of dry scented herbs. He made us comfortable on some dry hay,
+and then put a kind of bag of network over his head, took a knife, a
+little pot, and a smouldering stick, and went to the hive to cut us out
+some honey-comb. We had a draught of spring water after the warm
+transparent honey, and then dropped asleep to the sound of the
+monotonous humming of the bees and the rustling chatter of the leaves.
+A slight gust of wind awakened me.... I opened my eyes and saw
+Kalinitch: he was sitting on the threshold of the half-opened door,
+carving a spoon with his knife. I gazed a long time admiring his face,
+as sweet and clear as an evening sky. Mr. Polutikin too woke up. We did
+not get up at once. After our long walk and our deep sleep it was
+pleasant to lie without moving in the hay; we felt weary and languid in
+body, our faces were in a slight glow of warmth, our eyes were closed
+in delicious laziness. At last we got up, and set off on our wanderings
+again till evening. At supper I began again to talk of Hor and
+Kalinitch. 'Kalinitch is a good peasant,' Mr. Polutikin told me; 'he is
+a willing and useful peasant; he can't farm his land properly; I am
+always taking him away from it. He goes out hunting every day with
+me.... You can judge for yourself how his farming must fare.'
+
+I agreed with him, and we went to bed.
+
+The next day Mr. Polutikin was obliged to go to town about some
+business with his neighbour Pitchukoff. This neighbour Pitchukoff had
+ploughed over some land of Polutikin's, and had flogged a peasant woman
+of his on this same piece of land. I went out hunting alone, and before
+evening I turned into Hor's house. On the threshold of the cottage I
+was met by an old man--bald, short, broad-shouldered, and stout--Hor
+himself. I looked with curiosity at the man. The cut of his face
+recalled Socrates; there was the same high, knobby forehead, the same
+little eyes, the same snub nose. We went into the cottage together. The
+same Fedya brought me some milk and black bread. Hor sat down on a
+bench, and, quietly stroking his curly beard, entered into conversation
+with me. He seemed to know his own value; he spoke and moved slowly;
+from time to time a chuckle came from between his long moustaches.
+
+We discussed the sowing, the crops, the peasant's life.... He always
+seemed to agree with me; only afterwards I had a sense of awkwardness
+and felt I was talking foolishly.... In this way our conversation was
+rather curious. Hor, doubtless through caution, expressed himself very
+obscurely at times.... Here is a specimen of our talk.
+
+"Tell me, Hor," I said to him, "why don't you buy your freedom from
+your master?"
+
+"And what would I buy my freedom for? Now I know my master, and I know
+my rent.... We have a good master."
+
+'It's always better to be free,' I remarked. Hor gave me a dubious look.
+
+'Surely,' he said.
+
+'Well, then, why don't you buy your freedom?' Hor shook his head.
+
+'What would you have me buy it with, your honour?'
+
+'Oh, come, now, old man!'
+
+'If Hor were thrown among free men,' he continued in an undertone, as
+though to himself, 'everyone without a beard would be a better man than
+Hor.'
+
+'Then shave your beard.'
+
+'What is a beard? a beard is grass: one can cut it.'
+
+'Well, then?'
+
+'But Hor will be a merchant straight away; and merchants have a fine
+life, and they have beards.'
+
+'Why, do you do a little trading too?' I asked him.
+
+'We trade a little in a little butter and a little tar.... Would your
+honour like the cart put to?'
+
+'You're a close man and keep a tight rein on your tongue,' I thought to
+myself. 'No,' I said aloud, 'I don't want the cart; I shall want to be
+near your homestead to-morrow, and if you will let me, I will stay the
+night in your hay-barn.'
+
+'You are very welcome. But will you be comfortable in the barn? I will
+tell the women to lay a sheet and put you a pillow.... Hey, girls!' he
+cried, getting up from his place; 'here, girls!... And you, Fedya, go
+with them. Women, you know, are foolish folk.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later Fedya conducted me with a lantern to the
+barn. I threw myself down on the fragrant hay; my dog curled himself up
+at my feet; Fedya wished me good-night; the door creaked and slammed
+to. For rather a long time I could not get to sleep. A cow came up to
+the door, and breathed heavily twice; the dog growled at her with
+dignity; a pig passed by, grunting pensively; a horse somewhere near
+began to munch the hay and snort.... At last I fell asleep.
+
+At sunrise Fedya awakened me. This brisk, lively young man pleased me;
+and, from what I could see, he was old Hor's favourite too. They used
+to banter one another in a very friendly way. The old man came to meet
+me. Whether because I had spent the night under his roof, or for some
+other reason, Hor certainly treated me far more cordially than the day
+before.
+
+'The samovar is ready,' he told me with a smile; 'let us come and have
+tea.'
+
+We took our seats at the table. A robust-looking peasant woman, one of
+his daughters-in-law, brought in a jug of milk. All his sons came one
+after another into the cottage.
+
+'What a fine set of fellows you have!' I remarked to the old man.
+
+'Yes,' he said, breaking off a tiny piece of sugar with his teeth; 'me
+and my old woman have nothing to complain of, seemingly.'
+
+'And do they all live with you?'
+
+'Yes; they choose to, themselves, and so they live here.'
+
+'And are they all married?'
+
+'Here's one not married, the scamp!' he answered, pointing to Fedya,
+who was leaning as before against the door. 'Vaska, he's still too
+young; he can wait.'
+
+'And why should I get married?' retorted Fedya; 'I'm very well off as I
+am. What do I want a wife for? To squabble with, eh?'
+
+'Now then, you ... ah, I know you! you wear a silver ring.... You'd
+always be after the girls up at the manor house.... "Have done, do, for
+shame!"' the old man went on, mimicking the servant girls. 'Ah, I know
+you, you white-handed rascal!'
+
+'But what's the good of a peasant woman?'
+
+'A peasant woman--is a labourer,' said Hor seriously; 'she is the
+peasant's servant.'
+
+'And what do I want with a labourer?'
+
+'I dare say; you'd like to play with the fire and let others burn their
+fingers: we know the sort of chap you are.'
+
+'Well, marry me, then. Well, why don't you answer?'
+
+'There, that's enough, that's enough, giddy pate! You see we're
+disturbing the gentleman. I'll marry you, depend on it.... And you,
+your honour, don't be vexed with him; you see, he's only a baby; he's
+not had time to get much sense.'
+
+Fedya shook his head.
+
+'Is Hor at home?' sounded a well-known voice; and Kalinitch came into
+the cottage with a bunch of wild strawberries in his hands, which he
+had gathered for his friend Hor. The old man gave him a warm welcome. I
+looked with surprise at Kalinitch. I confess I had not expected such a
+delicate attention on the part of a peasant.
+
+That day I started out to hunt four hours later than usual, and the
+following three days I spent at Hor's. My new friends interested me. I
+don't know how I had gained their confidence, but they began to talk to
+me without constraint. The two friends were not at all alike. Hor was a
+positive, practical man, with a head for management, a rationalist;
+Kalinitch, on the other hand, belonged to the order of idealists and
+dreamers, of romantic and enthusiastic spirits. Hor had a grasp of
+actuality--that is to say, he looked ahead, was saving a little money,
+kept on good terms with his master and the other authorities; Kalinitch
+wore shoes of bast, and lived from hand to mouth. Hor had reared a
+large family, who were obedient and united; Kalinitch had once had a
+wife, whom he had been afraid of, and he had had no children. Hor took
+a very critical view of Mr. Polutikin; Kalinitch revered his master.
+Hor loved Kalinitch, and took protecting care of him; Kalinitch loved
+and respected Hor. Hor spoke little, chuckled, and thought for himself;
+Kalinitch expressed himself with warmth, though he had not the flow of
+fine language of a smart factory hand. But Kalinitch was endowed with
+powers which even Hor recognised; he could charm away haemorrhages,
+fits, madness, and worms; his bees always did well; he had a light
+hand. Hor asked him before me to introduce a newly bought horse to his
+stable, and with scrupulous gravity Kalinitch carried out the old
+sceptic's request. Kalinitch was in closer contact with nature; Hor
+with men and society. Kalinitch had no liking for argument, and
+believed in everything blindly; Hor had reached even an ironical point
+of view of life. He had seen and experienced much, and I learnt a good
+deal from him. For instance, from his account I learnt that every year
+before mowing-time a small, peculiar-looking cart makes its appearance
+in the villages. In this cart sits a man in a long coat, who sells
+scythes. He charges one rouble twenty-five copecks--a rouble and a half
+in notes--for ready money; four roubles if he gives credit. All the
+peasants, of course, take the scythes from him on credit. In two or
+three weeks he reappears and asks for the money. As the peasant has
+only just cut his oats, he is able to pay him; he goes with the
+merchant to the tavern, and there the debt is settled. Some landowners
+conceived the idea of buying the scythes themselves for ready money and
+letting the peasants have them on credit for the same price; but the
+peasants seemed dissatisfied, even dejected; they had deprived them of
+the pleasure of tapping the scythe and listening to the ring of the
+metal, turning it over and over in their hands, and telling the
+scoundrelly city-trader twenty times over, 'Eh, my friend, you won't
+take me in with your scythe!' The same tricks are played over the sale
+of sickles, only with this difference, that the women have a hand in
+the business then, and they sometimes drive the trader himself to the
+necessity--for their good, of course--of beating them. But the women
+suffer most ill-treatment through the following circumstances.
+Contractors for the supply of stuff for paper factories employ for the
+purchase of rags a special class of men, who in some districts are
+called eagles. Such an 'eagle' receives two hundred roubles in
+bank-notes from the merchant, and starts off in search of his prey.
+But, unlike the noble bird from whom he has derived his name, he does
+not swoop down openly and boldly upon it; quite the contrary; the
+'eagle' has recourse to deceit and cunning. He leaves his cart
+somewhere in a thicket near the village, and goes himself to the
+back-yards and back-doors, like someone casually passing, or simply a
+tramp. The women scent out his proximity and steal out to meet him. The
+bargain is hurriedly concluded. For a few copper half-pence a woman
+gives the 'eagle' not only every useless rag she has, but often even
+her husband's shirt and her own petticoat. Of late the women have
+thought it profitable to steal even from themselves, and to sell hemp
+in the same way--a great extension and improvement of the business for
+the 'eagles'! To meet this, however, the peasants have grown more
+cunning in their turn, and on the slightest suspicion, on the most
+distant rumors of the approach of an 'eagle,' they have prompt and
+sharp recourse to corrective and preventive measures. And, after all,
+wasn't it disgraceful? To sell the hemp was the men's business--and
+they certainly do sell it--not in the town (they would have to drag it
+there themselves), but to traders who come for it, who, for want of
+scales, reckon forty handfuls to the pood--and you know what a
+Russian's hand is and what it can hold, especially when he 'tries his
+best'! As I had had no experience and was not 'country-bred' (as they
+say in Orel) I heard plenty of such descriptions. But Hor was not
+always the narrator; he questioned me too about many things. He learned
+that I had been in foreign parts, and his curiosity was aroused....
+Kalinitch was not behind him in curiosity; but he was more attracted by
+descriptions of nature, of mountains and waterfalls, extraordinary
+buildings and great towns; Hor was interested in questions of
+government and administration. He went through everything in order.
+'Well, is that with them as it is with us, or different?... Come, tell
+us, your honour, how is it?' 'Ah, Lord, thy will be done!' Kalinitch
+would exclaim while I told my story; Hor did not speak, but frowned
+with his bushy eyebrows, only observing at times, 'That wouldn't do for
+us; still, it's a good thing--it's right.' All his inquiries, I cannot
+recount, and it is unnecessary; but from our conversations I carried
+away one conviction, which my readers will certainly not anticipate ...
+the conviction that Peter the Great was pre-eminently a
+Russian--Russian, above all, in his reforms. The Russian is so
+convinced of his own strength and powers that he is not afraid of
+putting himself to severe strain; he takes little interest in his past,
+and looks boldly forward. What is good he likes, what is sensible he
+will have, and where it comes from he does not care. His vigorous sense
+is fond of ridiculing the thin theorising of the German; but, in Hor's
+words, 'The Germans are curious folk,' and he was ready to learn from
+them a little. Thanks to his exceptional position, his practical
+independence, Hor told me a great deal which you could not screw or--as
+the peasants say--grind with a grindstone, out of any other man. He
+did, in fact, understand his position. Talking with Hor, I for the
+first time listened to the simple, wise discourse of the Russian
+peasant. His acquirements were, in his own opinion, wide enough; but he
+could not read, though Kalinitch could. 'That ne'er-do-weel has
+school-learning,' observed Hor, 'and his bees never die in the winter.'
+'But haven't you had your children taught to read?' Hor was silent a
+minute. 'Fedya can read.' 'And the others?' 'The others can't.' 'And
+why?' The old man made no answer, and changed the subject. However,
+sensible as he was, he had many prejudices and crotchets. He despised
+women, for instance, from the depths of his soul, and in his merry
+moments he amused himself by jesting at their expense. His wife was a
+cross old woman who lay all day long on the stove, incessantly
+grumbling and scolding; her sons paid no attention to her, but she kept
+her daughters-in-law in the fear of God. Very significantly the
+mother-in-law sings in the Russian ballad: 'What a son art thou to me!
+What a head of a household! Thou dost not beat thy wife; thou dost not
+beat thy young wife....' I once attempted to intercede for the
+daughters-in-law, and tried to rouse Hor's sympathy; but he met me with
+the tranquil rejoinder, 'Why did I want to trouble about such ...
+trifles; let the women fight it out. ... If anything separates them, it
+only makes it worse ... and it's not worth dirtying one's hands over.'
+Sometimes the spiteful old woman got down from the stove and called the
+yard dog out of the hay, crying, 'Here, here, doggie'; and then beat it
+on its thin back with the poker, or she would stand in the porch and
+'snarl,' as Hor expressed it, at everyone that passed. She stood in awe
+of her husband though, and would return, at his command, to her place
+on the stove. It was specially curious to hear Hor and Kalinitch
+dispute whenever Mr. Polutikin was touched upon.
+
+'There, Hor, do let him alone,' Kalinitch would say. 'But why doesn't
+he order some boots for you?' Hor retorted. 'Eh? boots!... what do I
+want with boots? I am a peasant.' 'Well, so am I a peasant, but look!'
+And Hor lifted up his leg and showed Kalinitch a boot which looked as
+if it had been cut out of a mammoth's hide. 'As if you were like one of
+us!' replied Kalinitch. 'Well, at least he might pay for your bast
+shoes; you go out hunting with him; you must use a pair a day.' 'He
+does give me something for bast shoes.' 'Yes, he gave you two coppers
+last year.'
+
+Kalinitch turned away in vexation, but Hor went off into a chuckle,
+during which his little eyes completely disappeared.
+
+Kalinitch sang rather sweetly and played a little on the balalaëca. Hor
+was never weary of listening to him: all at once he would let his head
+drop on one side and begin to chime in, in a lugubrious voice. He was
+particularly fond of the song, 'Ah, my fate, my fate!' Fedya never lost
+an opportunity of making fun of his father, saying, 'What are you so
+mournful about, old man?' But Hor leaned his cheek on his hand, covered
+his eyes, and continued to mourn over his fate.... Yet at other times
+there could not be a more active man; he was always busy over
+something--mending the cart, patching up the fence, looking after the
+harness. He did not insist on a very high degree of cleanliness,
+however; and, in answer to some remark of mine, said once, 'A cottage
+ought to smell as if it were lived in.'
+
+'Look,' I answered, 'how clean it is in Kalinitch's beehouse.'
+
+'The bees would not live there else, your honour,' he said with a sigh.
+
+'Tell me,' he asked me another time, 'have you an estate of your own?'
+'Yes.' 'Far from here?' 'A hundred miles.' 'Do you live on your land,
+your honour?' 'Yes.'
+
+'But you like your gun best, I dare say?'
+
+'Yes, I must confess I do.' 'And you do well, your honour; shoot grouse
+to your heart's content, and change your bailiff pretty often.'
+
+On the fourth day Mr. Polutikin sent for me in the evening. I was sorry
+to part from the old man. I took my seat with Kalinitch in the trap.
+'Well, good-bye, Hor--good luck to you,' I said; 'good-bye, Fedya.'
+
+'Good-bye, your honour, good-bye; don't forget us.' We started; there
+was the first red glow of sunset. 'It will be a fine day to-morrow,' I
+remarked looking at the clear sky. 'No, it will rain,' Kalinitch
+replied; 'the ducks yonder are splashing, and the scent of the grass is
+strong.' We drove into the copse. Kalinitch began singing in an
+undertone as he was jolted up and down on the driver's seat, and he
+kept gazing and gazing at the sunset.
+
+The next day I left the hospitable roof of Mr. Polutikin.
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+                     YERMOLAÏ AND THE MILLER'S WIFE
+
+
+One evening I went with the huntsman Yermolaï 'stand-shooting.' ... But
+perhaps all my readers may not know what 'stand-shooting' is. I will
+tell you.
+
+A quarter of an hour before sunset in spring-time you go out into the
+woods with your gun, but without your dog. You seek out a spot for
+yourself on the outskirts of the forest, take a look round, examine
+your caps, and glance at your companion. A quarter of an hour passes;
+the sun has set, but it is still light in the forest; the sky is clear
+and transparent; the birds are chattering and twittering; the young
+grass shines with the brilliance of emerald.... You wait. Gradually the
+recesses of the forest grow dark; the blood-red glow of the evening sky
+creeps slowly on to the roots and the trunks of the trees, and keeps
+rising higher and higher, passes from the lower, still almost leafless
+branches, to the motionless, slumbering tree-tops.... And now even the
+topmost branches are darkened; the purple sky fades to dark-blue. The
+forest fragrance grows stronger; there is a scent of warmth and damp
+earth; the fluttering breeze dies away at your side. The birds go to
+sleep--not all at once--but after their kinds; first the finches are
+hushed, a few minutes later the warblers, and after them the yellow
+buntings. In the forest it grows darker and darker. The trees melt
+together into great masses of blackness; in the dark-blue sky the first
+stars come timidly out. All the birds are asleep. Only the redstarts
+and the nuthatches are still chirping drowsily.... And now they too are
+still. The last echoing call of the pee-wit rings over our heads; the
+oriole's melancholy cry sounds somewhere in the distance; then the
+nightingale's first note. Your heart is weary with suspense, when
+suddenly--but only sportsmen can understand me--suddenly in the deep
+hush there is a peculiar croaking and whirring sound, the measured
+sweep of swift wings is heard, and the snipe, gracefully bending its
+long beak, sails smoothly down behind a dark bush to meet your shot.
+
+That is the meaning of 'stand-shooting.' And so I had gone out
+stand-shooting with Yermolaï; but excuse me, reader: I must first
+introduce you to Yermolaï.
+
+Picture to yourself a tall gaunt man of forty-five, with a long thin
+nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, a bristling head of hair,
+and thick sarcastic lips. This man wore, winter and summer alike, a
+yellow nankin coat of German cut, but with a sash round the waist; he
+wore blue pantaloons and a cap of astrakhan, presented to him in a
+merry hour by a spendthrift landowner. Two bags were fastened on to his
+sash, one in front, skilfully tied into two halves, for powder and for
+shot; the other behind for game: wadding Yermolaï used to produce out
+of his peculiar, seemingly inexhaustible cap. With the money he gained
+by the game he sold, he might easily have bought himself a
+cartridge-box and powder-flask; but he never once even contemplated
+such a purchase, and continued to load his gun after his old fashion,
+exciting the admiration of all beholders by the skill with which he
+avoided the risks of spilling or mixing his powder and shot. His gun
+was a single-barrelled flint-lock, endowed, moreover, with a villainous
+habit of 'kicking.' It was due to this that Yermolaï's right cheek was
+permanently swollen to a larger size than the left. How he ever
+succeeded in hitting anything with this gun, it would take a shrewd man
+to discover--but he did. He had too a setter-dog, by name Valetka, a
+most extraordinary creature. Yermolaï never fed him. 'Me feed a dog!'
+he reasoned; 'why, a dog's a clever beast; he finds a living for
+himself.' And certainly, though Valetka's extreme thinness was a shock
+even to an indifferent observer, he still lived and had a long life;
+and in spite of his pitiable position he was not even once lost, and
+never showed an inclination to desert his master. Once indeed, in his
+youth, he had absented himself for two days, on courting bent, but this
+folly was soon over with him. Valetka's most noticeable peculiarity was
+his impenetrable indifference to everything in the world.... If it were
+not a dog I was speaking of, I should have called him 'disillusioned.'
+He usually sat with his cropped tail curled up under him, scowling and
+twitching at times, and he never smiled. (It is well known that dogs
+can smile, and smile very sweetly.) He was exceedingly ugly; and the
+idle house-serfs never lost an opportunity of jeering cruelly at his
+appearance; but all these jeers, and even blows, Valetka bore with
+astonishing indifference. He was a source of special delight to the
+cooks, who would all leave their work at once and give him chase with
+shouts and abuse, whenever, through a weakness not confined to dogs, he
+thrust his hungry nose through the half-open door of the kitchen,
+tempting with its warmth and appetising smells. He distinguished
+himself by untiring energy in the chase, and had a good scent; but if
+he chanced to overtake a slightly wounded hare, he devoured it with
+relish to the last bone, somewhere in the cool shade under the green
+bushes, at a respectful distance from Yermolaï, who was abusing him in
+every known and unknown dialect. Yermolaï belonged to one of my
+neighbours, a landowner of the old style. Landowners of the old style
+don't care for game, and prefer the domestic fowl. Only on
+extraordinary occasions, such as birthdays, namedays, and elections,
+the cooks of the old-fashioned landowners set to work to prepare some
+long-beaked birds, and, falling into the state of frenzy peculiar to
+Russians when they don't quite know what to do, they concoct such
+marvellous sauces for them that the guests examine the proffered dishes
+curiously and attentively, but rarely make up their minds to try them.
+Yermolaï was under orders to provide his master's kitchen with two
+brace of grouse and partridges once a month. But he might live where
+and how he pleased. They had given him up as a man of no use for work
+of any kind--'bone lazy,' as the expression is among us in Orel. Powder
+and shot, of course, they did not provide him, following precisely the
+same principle in virtue of which he did not feed his dog. Yermolaï was
+a very strange kind of man; heedless as a bird, rather fond of talking,
+awkward and vacant-looking; he was excessively fond of drink, and never
+could sit still long; in walking he shambled along, and rolled from
+side to side; and yet he got over fifty miles in the day with his
+rolling, shambling gait. He exposed himself to the most varied
+adventures: spent the night in the marshes, in trees, on roofs, or
+under bridges; more than once he had got shut up in lofts, cellars, or
+barns; he sometimes lost his gun, his dog, his most indispensable
+garments; got long and severe thrashings; but he always returned home,
+after a little while, in his clothes, and with his gun and his dog. One
+could not call him a cheerful man, though one almost always found him
+in an even frame of mind; he was looked on generally as an eccentric.
+Yermolaï liked a little chat with a good companion, especially over a
+glass, but he would not stop long; he would get up and go. 'But where
+the devil are you going? It's dark out of doors.' 'To Tchaplino.' 'But
+what's taking you to Tchaplino, ten miles away?' 'I am going to stay
+the night at Sophron's there.' 'But stay the night here.' 'No, I
+can't.' And Yermolaï, with his Valetka, would go off into the dark
+night, through woods and water-courses, and the peasant Sophron very
+likely did not let him into his place, and even, I am afraid, gave him
+a blow to teach him 'not to disturb honest folks.' But none could
+compare with Yermolaï in skill in deep-water fishing in spring-time, in
+catching crayfish with his hands, in tracking game by scent, in snaring
+quails, in training hawks, in capturing the nightingales who had the
+greatest variety of notes. ... One thing he could not do, train a dog;
+he had not patience enough. He had a wife too. He went to see her once
+a week. She lived in a wretched, tumble-down little hut, and led a
+hand-to-mouth existence, never knowing overnight whether she would have
+food to eat on the morrow; and in every way her lot was a pitiful one.
+Yermolaï, who seemed such a careless and easy-going fellow, treated his
+wife with cruel harshness; in his own house he assumed a stern, and
+menacing manner; and his poor wife did everything she could to please
+him, trembled when he looked at her, and spent her last farthing to buy
+him vodka; and when he stretched himself majestically on the stove and
+fell into an heroic sleep, she obsequiously covered him with a
+sheepskin. I happened myself more than once to catch an involuntary
+look in him of a kind of savage ferocity; I did not like the expression
+of his face when he finished off a wounded bird with his teeth. But
+Yermolaï never remained more than a day at home, and away from home he
+was once more the same 'Yermolka' (i.e. the shooting-cap), as he was
+called for a hundred miles round, and as he sometimes called himself.
+The lowest house-serf was conscious of being superior to this
+vagabond--and perhaps this was precisely why they treated him with
+friendliness; the peasants at first amused themselves by chasing him
+and driving him like a hare over the open country, but afterwards they
+left him in God's hands, and when once they recognised him as 'queer,'
+they no longer tormented him, and even gave him bread and entered into
+talk with him.... This was the man I took as my huntsman, and with him
+I went stand-shooting to a great birch-wood on the banks of the Ista.
+
+Many Russian rivers, like the Volga, have one bank rugged and
+precipitous, the other bounded by level meadows; and so it is with the
+Ista. This small river winds extremely capriciously, coils like a
+snake, and does not keep a straight course for half-a-mile together; in
+some places, from the top of a sharp declivity, one can see the river
+for ten miles, with its dykes, its pools and mills, and the gardens on
+its banks, shut in with willows and thick flower-gardens. There are
+fish in the Ista in endless numbers, especially roaches (the peasants
+take them in hot weather from under the bushes with their hands);
+little sand-pipers flutter whistling along the stony banks, which are
+streaked with cold clear streams; wild ducks dive in the middle of the
+pools, and look round warily; in the coves under the overhanging cliffs
+herons stand out in the shade.... We stood in ambush nearly an hour,
+killed two brace of wood snipe, and, as we wanted to try our luck again
+at sunrise (stand-shooting can be done as well in the early morning),
+we resolved to spend the night at the nearest mill. We came out of the
+wood, and went down the slope. The dark-blue waters of the river ran
+below; the air was thick with the mists of night. We knocked at the
+gate. The dogs began barking in the yard.
+
+'Who is there?' asked a hoarse and sleepy voice.
+
+'We are sportsmen; let us stay the night.' There was no reply. 'We will
+pay.'
+
+'I will go and tell the master--Sh! Curse the dogs! Go to the devil
+with you!'
+
+We listened as the workman went into the cottage; he soon came back to
+the gate. 'No,' he said; 'the master tells me not to let you in.'
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'He is afraid; you are sportsmen; you might set the mill on fire;
+you've firearms with you, to be sure.'
+
+'But what nonsense!'
+
+'We had our mill on fire like that last year; some fish-dealers stayed
+the night, and they managed to set it on fire somehow.'
+
+'But, my good friend, we can't sleep in the open air!'
+
+'That's your business.' He went away, his boots clacking as he walked.
+
+Yermolaï promised him various unpleasant things in the future. 'Let us
+go to the village,' he brought out at last, with a sigh. But it was two
+miles to the village.
+
+'Let us stay the night here,' I said, 'in the open air--the night is
+warm; the miller will let us have some straw if we pay for it.'
+
+Yermolaï agreed without discussion. We began again to knock.
+
+'Well, what do you want?' the workman's voice was heard again; 'I've
+told you we can't.'
+
+We explained to him what we wanted. He went to consult the master of
+the house, and returned with him. The little side gate creaked. The
+miller appeared, a tall, fat-faced man with a bull-neck, round-bellied
+and corpulent. He agreed to my proposal. A hundred paces from the mill
+there was a little outhouse open to the air on all sides. They carried
+straw and hay there for us; the workman set a samovar down on the grass
+near the river, and, squatting on his heels, began to blow vigorously
+into the pipe of it. The embers glowed, and threw a bright light on his
+young face. The miller ran to wake his wife, and suggested at last that
+I myself should sleep in the cottage; but I preferred to remain in the
+open air. The miller's wife brought us milk, eggs, potatoes and bread.
+Soon the samovar boiled, and we began drinking tea. A mist had risen
+from the river; there was no wind; from all round came the cry of the
+corn-crake, and faint sounds from the mill-wheels of drops that dripped
+from the paddles and of water gurgling through the bars of the lock. We
+built a small fire on the ground. While Yermolaï was baking the
+potatoes in the embers, I had time to fall into a doze. I was waked by
+a discreetly-subdued whispering near me. I lifted my head; before the
+fire, on a tub turned upside down, the miller's wife sat talking to my
+huntsman. By her dress, her movements, and her manner of speaking, I
+had already recognised that she had been in domestic service, and was
+neither peasant nor city-bred; but now for the first time I got a clear
+view of her features. She looked about thirty; her thin, pale face
+still showed the traces of remarkable beauty; what particularly charmed
+me was her eyes, large and mournful in expression. She was leaning her
+elbows on her knees, and had her face in her hands. Yermolaï was
+sitting with his back to me, and thrusting sticks into the fire.
+
+'They've the cattle-plague again at Zheltonhiny,' the miller's wife was
+saying; 'father Ivan's two cows are dead--Lord have mercy on them!'
+
+'And how are your pigs doing?' asked Yermolaï, after a brief pause.
+
+'They're alive.'
+
+'You ought to make me a present of a sucking pig.'
+
+The miller's wife was silent for a while, then she sighed.
+
+'Who is it you're with?' she asked.
+
+'A gentleman from Kostomarovo.'
+
+Yermolaï threw a few pine twigs on the fire; they all caught fire at
+once, and a thick white smoke came puffing into his face.
+
+'Why didn't your husband let us into the cottage?'
+
+'He's afraid.'
+
+'Afraid! the fat old tub! Arina Timofyevna, my darling, bring me a
+little glass of spirits.'
+
+The miller's wife rose and vanished into the darkness. Yermolaï began
+to sing in an undertone--
+
+     'When I went to see my sweetheart,
+      I wore out all my shoes.'
+
+
+Arina returned with a small flask and a glass. Yermolaï got up, crossed
+himself, and drank it off at a draught. 'Good!' was his comment.
+
+The miller's wife sat down again on the tub.
+
+'Well, Arina Timofyevna, are you still ill?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'My cough troubles me at night.'
+
+'The gentleman's asleep, it seems,' observed Yermolaï after a short
+silence. 'Don't go to a doctor, Arina; it will be worse if you do.'
+
+'Well, I am not going.'
+
+'But come and pay me a visit.'
+
+Arina hung down her head dejectedly.
+
+'I will drive my wife out for the occasion,' continued Yermolaï 'Upon
+my word, I will.'
+
+'You had better wake the gentleman, Yermolaï Petrovitch; you see, the
+potatoes are done.'
+
+'Oh, let him snore,' observed my faithful servant indifferently; 'he's
+tired with walking, so he sleeps sound.'
+
+I turned over in the hay. Yermolaï got up and came to me. 'The potatoes
+are ready; will you come and eat them?'
+
+I came out of the outhouse; the miller's wife got up from the tub and
+was going away. I addressed her.
+
+'Have you kept this mill long?'
+
+'It's two years since I came on Trinity day.'
+
+'And where does your husband come from?'
+
+Arina had not caught my question.
+
+'Where's your husband from?' repeated Yermolaï, raising his voice.
+
+'From Byelev. He's a Byelev townsman.'
+
+'And are you too from Byelev?'
+
+'No, I'm a serf; I was a serf.'
+
+'Whose?'
+
+'Zvyerkoff was my master. Now I am free.'
+
+'What Zvyerkoff?'
+
+'Alexandr Selitch.'
+
+'Weren't you his wife's lady's maid?'
+
+'How did you know? Yes.'
+
+I looked at Arina with redoubled curiosity and sympathy.
+
+'I know your master,' I continued.
+
+'Do you?' she replied in a low voice, and her head drooped.
+
+I must tell the reader why I looked with such sympathy at Arina. During
+my stay at Petersburg I had become by chance acquainted with Mr.
+Zvyerkoff. He had a rather influential position, and was reputed a man
+of sense and education. He had a wife, fat, sentimental, lachrymose and
+spiteful--a vulgar and disagreeable creature; he had too a son, the
+very type of the young swell of to-day, pampered and stupid. The
+exterior of Mr. Zvyerkoff himself did not prepossess one in his favour;
+his little mouse-like eyes peeped slyly out of a broad, almost square,
+face; he had a large, prominent nose, with distended nostrils; his
+close-cropped grey hair stood up like a brush above his scowling brow;
+his thin lips were for ever twitching and smiling mawkishly. Mr.
+Zvyerkoff's favourite position was standing with his legs wide apart
+and his fat hands in his trouser pockets. Once I happened somehow to be
+driving alone with Mr. Zvyerkoff in a coach out of town. We fell into
+conversation. As a man of experience and of judgment, Mr. Zvyerkoff
+began to try to set me in 'the path of truth.'
+
+'Allow me to observe to you,' he drawled at last; 'all you young people
+criticise and form judgments on everything at random; you have little
+knowledge of your own country; Russia, young gentlemen, is an unknown
+land to you; that's where it is!... You are for ever reading German.
+For instance, now you say this and that and the other about anything;
+for instance, about the house-serfs.... Very fine; I don't dispute it's
+all very fine; but you don't know them; you don't know the kind of
+people they are.' (Mr. Zvyerkoff blew his nose loudly and took a pinch
+of snuff.) 'Allow me to tell you as an illustration one little
+anecdote; it may perhaps interest you.' (Mr. Zvyerkoff cleared his
+throat.) 'You know, doubtless, what my wife is; it would be difficult,
+I should imagine, to find a more kind-hearted woman, you will agree.
+For her waiting-maids, existence is simply a perfect paradise, and no
+mistake about it.... But my wife has made it a rule never to keep
+married lady's maids. Certainly it would not do; children come--and one
+thing and the other--and how is a lady's maid to look after her
+mistress as she ought, to fit in with her ways; she is no longer able
+to do it; her mind is in other things. One must look at things through
+human nature. Well, we were driving once through our village, it must
+be--let me be correct--yes, fifteen years ago. We saw, at the
+bailiff's, a young girl, his daughter, very pretty indeed; something
+even--you know--something attractive in her manners. And my wife said
+to me: "Kokó"--you understand, of course, that is her pet name for
+me--"let us take this girl to Petersburg; I like her, Kokó...." I said,
+"Let us take her, by all means." The bailiff, of course, was at our
+feet; he could not have expected such good fortune, you can imagine....
+Well, the girl of course cried violently. Of course, it was hard for
+her at first; the parental home ... in fact ... there was nothing
+surprising in that. However, she soon got used to us: at first we put
+her in the maidservants' room; they trained her, of course. And what do
+you think? The girl made wonderful progress; my wife became simply
+devoted to her, promoted her at last above the rest to wait on herself
+... observe.... And one must do her the justice to say, my wife had
+never such a maid, absolutely never; attentive, modest, and
+obedient--simply all that could be desired. But my wife, I must
+confess, spoilt her too much; she dressed her well, fed her from our
+own table, gave her tea to drink, and so on, as you can imagine! So she
+waited on my wife like this for ten years. Suddenly, one fine morning,
+picture to yourself, Arina--her name was Arina--rushes unannounced into
+my study, and flops down at my feet. That's a thing, I tell you
+plainly, I can't endure. No human being ought ever to lose sight of
+their personal dignity. Am I not right? What do you say? "Your honour,
+Alexandr Selitch, I beseech a favour of you." "What favour?" "Let me be
+married." I must confess I was taken aback. "But you know, you stupid,
+your mistress has no other lady's maid?" "I will wait on mistress as
+before." "Nonsense! nonsense! your mistress can't endure married lady's
+maids," "Malanya could take my place." "Pray don't argue." "I obey your
+will." I must confess it was quite a shock, I assure you, I am like
+that; nothing wounds me so--nothing, I venture to say, wounds me so
+deeply as ingratitude. I need not tell you--you know what my wife is;
+an angel upon earth, goodness inexhaustible. One would fancy even the
+worst of men would be ashamed to hurt her. Well, I got rid of Arina. I
+thought, perhaps, she would come to her senses; I was unwilling, do you
+know, to believe in wicked, black ingratitude in anyone. What do you
+think? Within six months she thought fit to come to me again with the
+same request. I felt revolted. But imagine my amazement when, some time
+later, my wife comes to me in tears, so agitated that I felt positively
+alarmed. "What has happened?" "Arina.... You understand ... I am
+ashamed to tell it." ... "Impossible! ... Who is the man?" "Petrushka,
+the footman." My indignation broke out then. I am like that. I don't
+like half measures! Petrushka was not to blame. We might flog him, but
+in my opinion he was not to blame. Arina.... Well, well, well! what
+more's to be said? I gave orders, of course, that her hair should be
+cut off, she should be dressed in sackcloth, and sent into the country.
+My wife was deprived of an excellent lady's maid; but there was no help
+for it: immorality cannot be tolerated in a household in any case.
+Better to cut off the infected member at once. There, there! now you
+can judge the thing for yourself--you know that my wife is ... yes,
+yes, yes! indeed!... an angel! She had grown attached to Arina, and
+Arina knew it, and had the face to ... Eh? no, tell me ... eh? And
+what's the use of talking about it. Any way, there was no help for it.
+I, indeed--I, in particular, felt hurt, felt wounded for a long time by
+the ingratitude of this girl. Whatever you say--it's no good to look
+for feeling, for heart, in these people! You may feed the wolf as you
+will; he has always a hankering for the woods. Education, by all means!
+But I only wanted to give you an example....'
+
+And Mr. Zvyerkoff, without finishing his sentence, turned away his
+head, and, wrapping himself more closely into his cloak, manfully
+repressed his involuntary emotion.
+
+The reader now probably understands why I looked with sympathetic
+interest at Arina.
+
+'Have you long been married to the miller?' I asked her at last.
+
+'Two years.'
+
+'How was it? Did your master allow it?'
+
+'They bought my freedom.'
+
+'Who?'
+
+'Savely Alexyevitch.'
+
+'Who is that?'
+
+'My husband.' (Yermolaï smiled to himself.) 'Has my master perhaps
+spoken to you of me?' added Arina, after a brief silence.
+
+I did not know what reply to make to her question.
+
+'Arina!' cried the miller from a distance. She got up and walked away.
+
+'Is her husband a good fellow?' I asked Yermolaï.
+
+'So-so.'
+
+'Have they any children?'
+
+'There was one, but it died.'
+
+'How was it? Did the miller take a liking to her? Did he give much to
+buy her freedom?'
+
+'I don't know. She can read and write; in their business it's of use. I
+suppose he liked her.'
+
+'And have you known her long?'
+
+'Yes. I used to go to her master's. Their house isn't far from here.'
+
+'And do you know the footman Petrushka?'
+
+'Piotr Vassilyevitch? Of course, I knew him.'
+
+'Where is he now?'
+
+'He was sent for a soldier.'
+
+We were silent for a while.
+
+'She doesn't seem well?' I asked Yermolaï at last.
+
+'I should think not! To-morrow, I say, we shall have good sport. A
+little sleep now would do us no harm.'
+
+A flock of wild ducks swept whizzing over our heads, and we heard them
+drop down into the river not far from us. It was now quite dark, and it
+began to be cold; in the thicket sounded the melodious notes of a
+nightingale. We buried ourselves in the hay and fell asleep.
+
+
+
+                                   III
+
+                            RASPBERRY SPRING
+
+
+At the beginning of August the heat often becomes insupportable. At
+that season, from twelve to three o'clock, the most determined and
+ardent sportsman is not able to hunt, and the most devoted dog begins
+to 'clean his master's spurs,' that is, to follow at his heels, his
+eyes painfully blinking, and his tongue hanging out to an exaggerated
+length; and in response to his master's reproaches he humbly wags his
+tail and shows his confusion in his face; but he does not run forward.
+I happened to be out hunting on exactly such a day. I had long been
+fighting against the temptation to lie down somewhere in the shade, at
+least for a moment; for a long time my indefatigable dog went on
+running about in the bushes, though he clearly did not himself expect
+much good from his feverish activity. The stifling heat compelled me at
+last to begin to think of husbanding our energies and strength. I
+managed to reach the little river Ista, which is already known to my
+indulgent readers, descended the steep bank, and walked along the damp,
+yellow sand in the direction of the spring, known to the whole
+neighbourhood as Raspberry Spring. This spring gushes out of a cleft in
+the bank, which widens out by degrees into a small but deep creek, and,
+twenty paces beyond it, falls with a merry babbling sound into the
+river; the short velvety grass is green about the source: the sun's
+rays scarcely ever reach its cold, silvery water. I came as far as the
+spring; a cup of birch-wood lay on the grass, left by a passing peasant
+for the public benefit. I quenched my thirst, lay down in the shade,
+and looked round. In the cave, which had been formed by the flowing of
+the stream into the river, and hence marked for ever with the trace of
+ripples, two old men were sitting with their backs to me. One, a rather
+stout and tall man in a neat dark-green coat and lined cap, was
+fishing; the other was thin and little; he wore a patched fustian coat
+and no cap; he held a little pot full of worms on his knees, and
+sometimes lifted his hand up to his grizzled little head, as though he
+wanted to protect it from the sun. I looked at him more attentively,
+and recognised in him Styopushka of Shumihino. I must ask the reader's
+leave to present this man to him.
+
+A few miles from my place there is a large village called Shumihino,
+with a stone church, erected in the name of St. Kosmo and St. Damian.
+Facing this church there had once stood a large and stately
+manor-house, surrounded by various outhouses, offices, workshops,
+stables and coach-houses, baths and temporary kitchens, wings for
+visitors and for bailiffs, conservatories, swings for the people, and
+other more or less useful edifices. A family of rich landowners lived
+in this manor-house, and all went well with them, till suddenly one
+morning all this prosperity was burnt to ashes. The owners removed to
+another home; the place was deserted. The blackened site of the immense
+house was transformed into a kitchen-garden, cumbered up in parts by
+piles of bricks, the remains of the old foundations. A little hut had
+been hurriedly put together out of the beams that had escaped the fire;
+it was roofed with timber bought ten years before for the construction
+of a pavilion in the Gothic style; and the gardener, Mitrofan, with his
+wife Axinya and their seven children, was installed in it. Mitrofan
+received orders to send greens and garden-stuff for the master's table,
+a hundred and fifty miles away; Axinya was put in charge of a Tyrolese
+cow, which had been bought for a high price in Moscow, but had not
+given a drop of milk since its acquisition; a crested smoke-coloured
+drake too had been left in her hands, the solitary 'seignorial' bird;
+for the children, in consideration of their tender age, no special
+duties had been provided, a fact, however, which had not hindered them
+from growing up utterly lazy. It happened to me on two occasions to
+stay the night at this gardener's, and when I passed by I used to get
+cucumbers from him, which, for some unknown reason, were even in summer
+peculiar for their size, their poor, watery flavour, and their thick
+yellow skin. It was there I first saw Styopushka. Except Mitrofan and
+his family, and the old deaf churchwarden Gerasim, kept out of charity
+in a little room at the one-eyed soldier's widow's, not one man among
+the house-serfs had remained at Shumihino; for Styopushka, whom I
+intend to introduce to the reader, could not be classified under the
+special order of house-serfs, and hardly under the genus 'man' at all.
+
+Every man has some kind of position in society, and at least some ties
+of some sort; every house-serf receives, if not wages, at least some
+so-called 'ration.' Styopushka had absolutely no means of subsistence
+of any kind; had no relationship to anyone; no one knew of his
+existence. This man had not even a past; there was no story told of
+him; he had probably never been enrolled on a census-revision. There
+were vague rumours that he had once belonged to someone as a valet; but
+who he was, where he came from, who was his father, and how he had come
+to be one of the Shumihino people; in what way he had come by the
+fustian coat he had worn from immemorial times; where he lived and what
+he lived on--on all these questions no one had the least idea; and, to
+tell the truth, no one took any interest in the subject. Grandfather
+Trofimitch, who knew all the pedigrees of all the house-serfs in the
+direct line to the fourth generation, had once indeed been known to say
+that he remembered that Styopushka was related to a Turkish woman whom
+the late master, the brigadier Alexy Romanitch had been pleased to
+bring home from a campaign in the baggage waggon. Even on holidays,
+days of general money-giving and of feasting on buckwheat dumplings and
+vodka, after the old Russian fashion--even on such days Styopushka did
+not put in an appearance at the trestle-tables nor at the barrels; he
+did not make his bow nor kiss the master's hand, nor toss off to the
+master's health and under the master's eye a glass filled by the fat
+hands of the bailiff. Some kind soul who passed by him might share an
+unfinished bit of dumpling with the poor beggar, perhaps. At Easter
+they said 'Christ is risen!' to him; but he did not pull up his greasy
+sleeve, and bring out of the depths of his pocket a coloured egg, to
+offer it, panting and blinking, to his young masters or to the mistress
+herself. He lived in summer in a little shed behind the chicken-house,
+and in winter in the ante-room of the bathhouse; in the bitter frosts
+he spent the night in the hayloft. The house-serfs had grown used to
+seeing him; sometimes they gave him a kick, but no one ever addressed a
+remark to him; as for him, he seems never to have opened his lips from
+the time of his birth. After the conflagration, this forsaken creature
+sought a refuge at the gardener Mitrofan's. The gardener left him
+alone; he did not say 'Live with me,' but he did not drive him away.
+And Styopushka did not live at the gardener's; his abode was the
+garden. He moved and walked about quite noiselessly; he sneezed and
+coughed behind his hand, not without apprehension; he was for ever busy
+and going stealthily to and fro like an ant; and all to get
+food--simply food to eat. And indeed, if he had not toiled from morning
+till night for his living, our poor friend would certainly have died of
+hunger. It's a sad lot not to know in the morning what you will find to
+eat before night! Sometimes Styopushka sits under the hedge and gnaws a
+radish or sucks a carrot, or shreds up some dirty cabbage-stalks; or he
+drags a bucket of water along, for some object or other, groaning as he
+goes; or he lights a fire under a small pot, and throws in some little
+black scraps which he takes from out of the bosom of his coat; or he is
+hammering in his little wooden den--driving in a nail, putting up a
+shelf for bread. And all this he does silently, as though on the sly:
+before you can look round, he's in hiding again. Sometimes he suddenly
+disappears for a couple of days; but of course no one notices his
+absence.... Then, lo and behold! he is there again, somewhere under the
+hedge, stealthily kindling a fire of sticks under a kettle. He had a
+small face, yellowish eyes, hair coming down to his eyebrows, a sharp
+nose, large transparent ears, like a bat's, and a beard that looked as
+if it were a fortnight's growth, and never grew more nor less. This,
+then, was Styopushka, whom I met on the bank of the Ista in company
+with another old man.
+
+I went up to him, wished him good-day, and sat down beside him.
+Styopushka's companion too I recognised as an acquaintance; he was a
+freed serf of Count Piotr Ilitch's, one Mihal Savelitch, nicknamed
+Tuman (_i.e._ fog). He lived with a consumptive Bolhovsky man, who kept
+an inn, where I had several times stayed. Young officials and other
+persons of leisure travelling on the Orel highroad (merchants, buried
+in their striped rugs, have other things to do) may still see at no
+great distance from the large village of Troitska, and almost on the
+highroad, an immense two-storied wooden house, completely deserted,
+with its roof falling in and its windows closely stuffed up. At mid-day
+in bright, sunny weather nothing can be imagined more melancholy than
+this ruin. Here there once lived Count Piotr Ilitch, a rich grandee of
+the olden time, renowned for his hospitality. At one time the whole
+province used to meet at his house, to dance and make merry to their
+heart's content to the deafening sound of a home-trained orchestra, and
+the popping of rockets and Roman candles; and doubtless more than one
+aged lady sighs as she drives by the deserted palace of the boyar and
+recalls the old days and her vanished youth. The count long continued
+to give balls, and to walk about with an affable smile among the crowd
+of fawning guests; but his property, unluckily, was not enough to last
+his whole life. When he was entirely ruined, he set off to Petersburg
+to try for a post for himself, and died in a room at a hotel, without
+having gained anything by his efforts. Tuman had been a steward of his,
+and had received his freedom already in the count's lifetime. He was a
+man of about seventy, with a regular and pleasant face. He was almost
+continually smiling, as only men of the time of Catherine ever do
+smile--a smile at once stately and indulgent; in speaking, he slowly
+opened and closed his lips, winked genially with his eyes, and spoke
+slightly through his nose. He blew his nose and took snuff too in a
+leisurely fashion, as though he were doing something serious.
+
+'Well, Mihal Savelitch,' I began, 'have you caught any fish?'
+
+'Here, if you will deign to look in the basket: I have caught two perch
+and five roaches.... Show them, Styopka.'
+
+Styopushka stretched out the basket to me.
+
+'How are you, Styopka?' I asked him.
+
+'Oh--oh--not--not--not so badly, your honour,' answered Stepan,
+stammering as though he had a heavy weight on his tongue.
+
+'And is Mitrofan well?'
+
+'Well--yes, yes--your honour.'
+
+The poor fellow turned away.
+
+'But there are not many bites,' remarked Tuman; 'it's so fearfully hot;
+the fish are all tired out under the bushes; they're asleep. Put on a
+worm, Styopka.' (Styopushka took out a worm, laid it on his open hand,
+struck it two or three times, put it on the hook, spat on it, and gave
+it to Tuman.) 'Thanks, Styopka.... And you, your honour,' he continued,
+turning to me, 'are pleased to be out hunting?'
+
+'As you see.'
+
+'Ah--and is your dog there English or German?'
+
+The old man liked to show off on occasion, as though he would say, 'I,
+too, have lived in the world!'
+
+'I don't know what breed it is, but it's a good dog.'
+
+'Ah! and do you go out with the hounds too?'
+
+'Yes, I have two leashes of hounds.'
+
+Tuman smiled and shook his head.
+
+'That's just it; one man is devoted to dogs, and another doesn't want
+them for anything. According to my simple notions, I fancy dogs should
+be kept rather for appearance' sake ... and all should be in style too;
+horses too should be in style, and huntsmen in style, as they ought to
+be, and all. The late count--God's grace be with him!--was never, I
+must own, much of a hunter; but he kept dogs, and twice a year he was
+pleased to go out with them. The huntsmen assembled in the courtyard,
+in red caftans trimmed with galloon, and blew their horns; his
+excellency would be pleased to come out, and his excellency's horse
+would be led up; his excellency would mount, and the chief huntsman
+puts his feet in the stirrups, takes his hat off, and puts the reins in
+his hat to offer them to his excellency. His excellency is pleased to
+click his whip like this, and the huntsmen give a shout, and off they
+go out of the gate away. A huntsman rides behind the count, and holds
+in a silken leash two of the master's favourite dogs, and looks after
+them well, you may fancy.... And he, too, this huntsman, sits up high,
+on a Cossack saddle: such a red-cheeked fellow he was, and rolled his
+eyes like this.... And there were guests too, you may be sure, on such
+occasions, and entertainment, and ceremonies observed.... Ah, he's got
+away, the Asiatic!' He interrupted himself suddenly, drawing in his
+line.
+
+'They say the count used to live pretty freely in his day?' I asked.
+
+The old man spat on the worm and lowered the line in again.
+
+'He was a great gentleman, as is well-known. At times the persons of
+the first rank, one may say, at Petersburg, used to visit him. With
+coloured ribbons on their breasts they used to sit down to table and
+eat. Well, he knew how to entertain them. He called me sometimes.
+"Tuman," says he, "I want by to-morrow some live sturgeon; see there
+are some, do you hear?" "Yes, your excellency." Embroidered coats,
+wigs, canes, perfumes, _eau de Cologne_ of the best sort, snuff-boxes,
+huge pictures: he would order them all from Paris itself! When he gave
+a banquet, God Almighty, Lord of my being! there were fireworks, and
+carriages driving up! They even fired off the cannon. The orchestra
+alone consisted of forty men. He kept a German as conductor of the
+band, but the German gave himself dreadful airs; he wanted to eat at
+the same table as the masters; so his excellency gave orders to get rid
+of him! "My musicians," says he, "can do their work even without a
+conductor." Of course he was master. Then they would fall to dancing,
+and dance till morning, especially at the écossaise-matrador. ...
+Ah--ah--there's one caught!' (The old man drew a small perch out of the
+water.) 'Here you are, Styopka! The master was all a master should be,'
+continued the old man, dropping his line in again, 'and he had a kind
+heart too. He would give you a blow at times, and before you could look
+round, he'd forgotten it already. There was only one thing: he kept
+mistresses. Ugh, those mistresses! God forgive them! They were the ruin
+of him too; and yet, you know, he took them most generally from a low
+station. You would fancy they would not want much? Not a bit--they must
+have everything of the most expensive in all Europe! One may say, "Why
+shouldn't he live as he likes; it's the master's business" ... but
+there was no need to ruin himself. There was one especially; Akulina
+was her name. She is dead now; God rest her soul! the daughter of the
+watchman at Sitoia; and such a vixen! She would slap the count's face
+sometimes. She simply bewitched him. My nephew she sent for a soldier;
+he spilt some chocolate on a new dress of hers ... and he wasn't the
+only one she served so. Ah, well, those were good times, though!' added
+the old man with a deep sigh. His head drooped forward and he was
+silent.
+
+'Your master, I see, was severe, then?' I began after a brief silence.
+
+'That was the fashion then, your honour,' he replied, shaking his head.
+
+'That sort of thing is not done now?' I observed, not taking my eyes
+off him.
+
+He gave me a look askance.
+
+'Now, surely it's better,' he muttered, and let out his line further.
+
+We were sitting in the shade; but even in the shade it was stifling.
+The sultry atmosphere was faint and heavy; one lifted one's burning
+face uneasily, seeking a breath of wind; but there was no wind. The sun
+beat down from blue and darkening skies; right opposite us, on the
+other bank, was a yellow field of oats, overgrown here and there with
+wormwood; not one ear of the oats quivered. A little lower down a
+peasant's horse stood in the river up to its knees, and slowly shook
+its wet tail; from time to time, under an overhanging bush, a large
+fish shot up, bringing bubbles to the surface, and gently sank down to
+the bottom, leaving a slight ripple behind it. The grasshoppers chirped
+in the scorched grass; the quail's cry sounded languid and reluctant;
+hawks sailed smoothly over the meadows, often resting in the same spot,
+rapidly fluttering their wings and opening their tails into a fan. We
+sat motionless, overpowered with the heat. Suddenly there was a sound
+behind us in the creek; someone came down to the spring. I looked
+round, and saw a peasant of about fifty, covered with dust, in a smock,
+and wearing bast slippers; he carried a wickerwork pannier and a cloak
+on his shoulders. He went down to the spring, drank thirstily, and got
+up.
+
+'Ah, Vlass!' cried Tuman, staring at him; 'good health to you, friend!
+Where has God sent you from?'
+
+'Good health to you, Mihal Savelitch!' said the peasant, coming nearer
+to us; 'from a long way off.'
+
+'Where have you been?' Tuman asked him.
+
+'I have been to Moscow, to my master.'
+
+'What for?'
+
+'I went to ask him a favour.'
+
+'What about?'
+
+'Oh, to lessen my rent, or to let me work it out in labour, or to put
+me on another piece of land, or something.... My son is dead--so I
+can't manage it now alone.'
+
+'Your son is dead?'
+
+'He is dead. My son,' added the peasant, after a pause, 'lived in
+Moscow as a cabman; he paid, I must confess, rent for me.'
+
+'Then are you now paying rent?'
+
+'Yes, we pay rent.'
+
+'What did your master say?'
+
+'What did the master say! He drove me away! Says he, "How dare you come
+straight to me; there is a bailiff for such things. You ought first,"
+says he, "to apply to the bailiff ... and where am I to put you on
+other land? You first," says he, "bring the debt you owe." He was angry
+altogether.'
+
+'What then--did you come back?'
+
+'I came back. I wanted to find out if my son had not left any goods of
+his own, but I couldn't get a straight answer. I say to his employer,
+"I am Philip's father"; and he says, "What do I know about that? And
+your son," says he, "left nothing; he was even in debt to me." So I
+came away.'
+
+The peasant related all this with a smile, as though he were speaking
+of someone else; but tears were starting into his small, screwed-up
+eyes, and his lips were quivering.
+
+'Well, are you going home then now?'
+
+'Where can I go? Of course I'm going home. My wife, I suppose, is
+pretty well starved by now.'
+
+'You should--then,' Styopushka said suddenly. He grew confused, was
+silent, and began to rummage in the worm-pot.
+
+'And shall you go to the bailiff?' continued Tuman, looking with some
+amazement at Styopka.
+
+'What should I go to him for?--I'm in arrears as it is. My son was ill
+for a year before his death; he could not pay even his own rent. But it
+can't hurt me; they can get nothing from me.... Yes, my friend, you can
+be as cunning as you please--I'm cleaned out!' (The peasant began to
+laugh.) 'Kintlyan Semenitch'll have to be clever if--'
+
+Vlass laughed again.
+
+'Oh! things are in a sad way, brother Vlass,' Tuman ejaculated
+deliberately.
+
+'Sad! No!' (Vlass's voice broke.) 'How hot it is!' he went on, wiping
+his face with his sleeve.
+
+'Who is your master?' I asked him.
+
+'Count Valerian Petrovitch.'
+
+'The son of Piotr Ilitch?'
+
+'The son of Piotr Ilitch,' replied Tuman. 'Piotr Hitch gave him Vlass's
+village in his lifetime.'
+
+'Is he well?'
+
+'He is well, thank God!' replied Vlass. 'He has grown so red, and his
+face looks as though it were padded.'
+
+'You see, your honour,' continued Tuman, turning to me, 'it would be
+very well near Moscow, but it's a different matter to pay rent here.'
+
+'And what is the rent for you altogether?'
+
+'Ninety-five roubles,' muttered Vlass.
+
+'There, you see; and it's the least bit of land; all there is is the
+master's forest.'
+
+'And that, they say, they have sold,' observed the peasant.
+
+'There, you see. Styopka, give me a worm. Why, Styopka, are you
+asleep--eh?'
+
+Styopushka started. The peasant sat down by us. We sank into silence
+again. On the other bank someone was singing a song--but such a
+mournful one. Our poor Vlass grew deeply dejected.
+
+Half-an-hour later we parted.
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+                           THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
+
+
+One day in autumn on my way back from a remote part of the country I
+caught cold and fell ill. Fortunately the fever attacked me in the
+district town at the inn; I sent for the doctor. In half-an-hour the
+district doctor appeared, a thin, dark-haired man of middle height. He
+prescribed me the usual sudorific, ordered a mustard-plaster to be put
+on, very deftly slid a five-rouble note up his sleeve, coughing drily
+and looking away as he did so, and then was getting up to go home, but
+somehow fell into talk and remained. I was exhausted with feverishness;
+I foresaw a sleepless night, and was glad of a little chat with a
+pleasant companion. Tea was served. My doctor began to converse freely.
+He was a sensible fellow, and expressed himself with vigour and some
+humour. Queer things happen in the world: you may live a long while
+with some people, and be on friendly terms with them, and never once
+speak openly with them from your soul; with others you have scarcely
+time to get acquainted, and all at once you are pouring out to him--or
+he to you--all your secrets, as though you were at confession. I don't
+know how I gained the confidence of my new friend--any way, with
+nothing to lead up to it, he told me a rather curious incident; and
+here I will report his tale for the information of the indulgent
+reader. I will try to tell it in the doctor's own words.
+
+'You don't happen to know,' he began in a weak and quavering voice (the
+common result of the use of unmixed Berezov snuff); 'you don't happen
+to know the judge here, Mylov, Pavel Lukitch?... You don't know him?...
+Well, it's all the same.' (He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes.)
+'Well, you see, the thing happened, to tell you exactly without
+mistake, in Lent, at the very time of the thaws. I was sitting at his
+house--our judge's, you know--playing preference. Our judge is a good
+fellow, and fond of playing preference. Suddenly' (the doctor made
+frequent use of this word, suddenly) 'they tell me, "There's a servant
+asking for you." I say, "What does he want?" They say, "He has brought
+a note--it must be from a patient." "Give me the note," I say. So it is
+from a patient--well and good--you understand--it's our bread and
+butter. ... But this is how it was: a lady, a widow, writes to me; she
+says, "My daughter is dying. Come, for God's sake!" she says; "and the
+horses have been sent for you." ... Well, that's all right. But she was
+twenty miles from the town, and it was midnight out of doors, and the
+roads in such a state, my word! And as she was poor herself, one could
+not expect more than two silver roubles, and even that problematic; and
+perhaps it might only be a matter of a roll of linen and a sack of
+oatmeal in payment. However, duty, you know, before everything: a
+fellow-creature may be dying. I hand over my cards at once to
+Kalliopin, the member of the provincial commission, and return home. I
+look; a wretched little trap was standing at the steps, with peasant's
+horses, fat--too fat--and their coat as shaggy as felt; and the
+coachman sitting with his cap off out of respect. Well, I think to
+myself, "It's clear, my friend, these patients aren't rolling in
+riches." ... You smile; but I tell you, a poor man like me has to take
+everything into consideration.... If the coachman sits like a prince,
+and doesn't touch his cap, and even sneers at you behind his beard, and
+flicks his whip--then you may bet on six roubles. But this case, I saw,
+had a very different air. However, I think there's no help for it; duty
+before everything. I snatch up the most necessary drugs, and set off.
+Will you believe it? I only just managed to get there at all. The road
+was infernal: streams, snow, watercourses, and the dyke had suddenly
+burst there--that was the worst of it! However, I arrived at last. It
+was a little thatched house. There was a light in the windows; that
+meant they expected me. I was met by an old lady, very venerable, in a
+cap. "Save her!" she says; "she is dying." I say, "Pray don't distress
+yourself--Where is the invalid?" "Come this way." I see a clean little
+room, a lamp in the corner; on the bed a girl of twenty, unconscious.
+She was in a burning heat, and breathing heavily--it was fever. There
+were two other girls, her sisters, scared and in tears. "Yesterday,"
+they tell me, "she was perfectly well and had a good appetite; this
+morning she complained of her head, and this evening, suddenly, you
+see, like this." I say again: "Pray don't be uneasy." It's a doctor's
+duty, you know--and I went up to her and bled her, told them to put on
+a mustard-plaster, and prescribed a mixture. Meantime I looked at her;
+I looked at her, you know--there, by God! I had never seen such a
+face!--she was a beauty, in a word! I felt quite shaken with pity. Such
+lovely features; such eyes!... But, thank God! she became easier; she
+fell into a perspiration, seemed to come to her senses, looked round,
+smiled, and passed her hand over her face.... Her sisters bent over
+her. They ask, "How are you?" "All right," she says, and turns away. I
+looked at her; she had fallen asleep. "Well," I say, "now the patient
+should be left alone." So we all went out on tiptoe; only a maid
+remained, in case she was wanted. In the parlour there was a samovar
+standing on the table, and a bottle of rum; in our profession one can't
+get on without it. They gave me tea; asked me to stop the night. ... I
+consented: where could I go, indeed, at that time of night? The old
+lady kept groaning. "What is it?" I say; "she will live; don't worry
+yourself; you had better take a little rest yourself; it is about two
+o'clock." "But will you send to wake me if anything happens?" "Yes,
+yes." The old lady went away, and the girls too went to their own room;
+they made up a bed for me in the parlour. Well, I went to bed--but I
+could not get to sleep, for a wonder! for in reality I was very tired.
+I could not get my patient out of my head. At last I could not put up
+with it any longer; I got up suddenly; I think to myself, "I will go
+and see how the patient is getting on." Her bedroom was next to the
+parlour. Well, I got up, and gently opened the door--how my heart beat!
+I looked in: the servant was asleep, her mouth wide open, and even
+snoring, the wretch! but the patient lay with her face towards me, and
+her arms flung wide apart, poor girl! I went up to her ... when
+suddenly she opened her eyes and stared at me! "Who is it? who is it?"
+I was in confusion. "Don't be alarmed, madam," I say; "I am the doctor;
+I have come to see how you feel." "You the doctor?" "Yes, the doctor;
+your mother sent for me from the town; we have bled you, madam; now
+pray go to sleep, and in a day or two, please God! we will set you on
+your feet again." "Ah, yes, yes, doctor, don't let me die.... please,
+please." "Why do you talk like that? God bless you!" She is in a fever
+again, I think to myself; I felt her pulse; yes, she was feverish. She
+looked at me, and then took me by the hand. "I will tell you why I
+don't want to die; I will tell you.... Now we are alone; and only,
+please don't you ... not to anyone ... Listen...." I bent down; she
+moved her lips quite to my ear; she touched my cheek with her hair--I
+confess my head went round--and began to whisper.... I could make out
+nothing of it.... Ah, she was delirious!... She whispered and
+whispered, but so quickly, and as if it were not in Russian; at last
+she finished, and shivering dropped her head on the pillow, and
+threatened me with her finger: "Remember, doctor, to no one." I calmed
+her somehow, gave her something to drink, waked the servant, and went
+away.'
+
+At this point the doctor again took snuff with exasperated energy, and
+for a moment seemed stupefied by its effects.
+
+'However,' he continued, 'the next day, contrary to my expectations,
+the patient was no better. I thought and thought, and suddenly decided
+to remain there, even though my other patients were expecting me....
+And you know one can't afford to disregard that; one's practice suffers
+if one does. But, in the first place, the patient was really in danger;
+and secondly, to tell the truth, I felt strongly drawn to her. Besides,
+I liked the whole family. Though they were really badly off, they were
+singularly, I may say, cultivated people.... Their father had been a
+learned man, an author; he died, of course, in poverty, but he had
+managed before he died to give his children an excellent education; he
+left a lot of books too. Either because I looked after the invalid very
+carefully, or for some other reason; any way, I can venture to say all
+the household loved me as if I were one of the family.... Meantime the
+roads were in a worse state than ever; all communications, so to say,
+were cut off completely; even medicine could with difficulty be got
+from the town.... The sick girl was not getting better. ... Day after
+day, and day after day ... but ... here....' (The doctor made a brief
+pause.) 'I declare I don't know how to tell you.' ... (He again took
+snuff, coughed, and swallowed a little tea.) 'I will tell you without
+beating about the bush. My patient ... how should I say?... Well, she
+had fallen in love with me ... or, no, it was not that she was in love
+... however ... really, how should one say?' (The doctor looked down
+and grew red.) 'No,' he went on quickly, 'in love, indeed! A man should
+not over-estimate himself. She was an educated girl, clever and
+well-read, and I had even forgotten my Latin, one may say, completely.
+As to appearance' (the doctor looked himself over with a smile) 'I am
+nothing to boast of there either. But God Almighty did not make me a
+fool; I don't take black for white; I know a thing or two; I could see
+very clearly, for instance, that Alexandra Andreevna--that was her
+name--did not feel love for me, but had a friendly, so to say,
+inclination--a respect or something for me. Though she herself perhaps
+mistook this sentiment, any way this was her attitude; you may form
+your own judgment of it. But,' added the doctor, who had brought out
+all these disconnected sentences without taking breath, and with
+obvious embarrassment, 'I seem to be wandering rather--you won't
+understand anything like this.... There, with your leave, I will relate
+it all in order.'
+
+He drank off a glass of tea, and began in a calmer voice.
+
+'Well, then. My patient kept getting worse and worse. You are not a
+doctor, my good sir; you cannot understand what passes in a poor
+fellow's heart, especially at first, when he begins to suspect that the
+disease is getting the upper hand of him. What becomes of his belief in
+himself? You suddenly grow so timid; it's indescribable. You fancy then
+that you have forgotten everything you knew, and that the patient has
+no faith in you, and that other people begin to notice how distracted
+you are, and tell you the symptoms with reluctance; that they are
+looking at you suspiciously, whispering.... Ah! it's horrid! There must
+be a remedy, you think, for this disease, if one could find it. Isn't
+this it? You try--no, that's not it! You don't allow the medicine the
+necessary time to do good.... You clutch at one thing, then at another.
+Sometimes you take up a book of medical prescriptions--here it is, you
+think! Sometimes, by Jove, you pick one out by chance, thinking to
+leave it to fate.... But meantime a fellow-creature's dying, and
+another doctor would have saved him. "We must have a consultation," you
+say; "I will not take the responsibility on myself." And what a fool
+you look at such times! Well, in time you learn to bear it; it's
+nothing to you. A man has died--but it's not your fault; you treated
+him by the rules. But what's still more torture to you is to see blind
+faith in you, and to feel yourself that you are not able to be of use.
+Well, it was just this blind faith that the whole of Alexandra
+Andreevna's family had in me; they had forgotten to think that their
+daughter was in danger. I, too, on my side assure them that it's
+nothing, but meantime my heart sinks into my boots. To add to our
+troubles, the roads were in such a state that the coachman was gone for
+whole days together to get medicine. And I never left the patient's
+room; I could not tear myself away; I tell her amusing stories, you
+know, and play cards with her. I watch by her side at night. The old
+mother thanks me with tears in her eyes; but I think to myself, "I
+don't deserve your gratitude." I frankly confess to you--there is no
+object in concealing it now--I was in love with my patient. And
+Alexandra Andreevna had grown fond of me; she would not sometimes let
+anyone be in her room but me. She began to talk to me, to ask me
+questions; where I had studied, how I lived, who are my people, whom I
+go to see. I feel that she ought not to talk; but to forbid her to--to
+forbid her resolutely, you know--I could not. Sometimes I held my head
+in my hands, and asked myself, "What are you doing, villain?" ... And
+she would take my hand and hold it, give me a long, long look, and turn
+away, sigh, and say, "How good you are!" Her hands were so feverish,
+her eyes so large and languid.... "Yes," she says, "you are a good,
+kind man; you are not like our neighbours.... No, you are not like
+that. ... Why did I not know you till now!" "Alexandra Andreevna, calm
+yourself," I say.... "I feel, believe me, I don't know how I have
+gained ... but there, calm yourself.... All will be right; you will be
+well again." And meanwhile I must tell you,' continued the doctor,
+bending forward and raising his eyebrows, 'that they associated very
+little with the neighbours, because the smaller people were not on
+their level, and pride hindered them from being friendly with the rich.
+I tell you, they were an exceptionally cultivated family; so you know
+it was gratifying for me. She would only take her medicine from my
+hands ... she would lift herself up, poor girl, with my aid, take it,
+and gaze at me.... My heart felt as if it were bursting. And meanwhile
+she was growing worse and worse, worse and worse, all the time; she
+will die, I think to myself; she must die. Believe me, I would sooner
+have gone to the grave myself; and here were her mother and sisters
+watching me, looking into my eyes ... and their faith in me was wearing
+away. "Well? how is she?" "Oh, all right, all right!" All right,
+indeed! My mind was failing me. Well, I was sitting one night alone
+again by my patient. The maid was sitting there too, and snoring away
+in full swing; I can't find fault with the poor girl, though; she was
+worn out too. Alexandra Andreevna had felt very unwell all the evening;
+she was very feverish. Until midnight she kept tossing about; at last
+she seemed to fall asleep; at least, she lay still without stirring.
+The lamp was burning in the corner before the holy image. I sat there,
+you know, with my head bent; I even dozed a little. Suddenly it seemed
+as though someone touched me in the side; I turned round.... Good God!
+Alexandra Andreevna was gazing with intent eyes at me ... her lips
+parted, her cheeks seemed burning. "What is it?" "Doctor, shall I die?"
+"Merciful Heavens!" "No, doctor, no; please don't tell me I shall live
+... don't say so.... If you knew.... Listen! for God's sake don't
+conceal my real position," and her breath came so fast. "If I can know
+for certain that I must die ... then I will tell you all--all!"
+"Alexandra Andreevna, I beg!" "Listen; I have not been asleep at all
+... I have been looking at you a long while.... For God's sake! ... I
+believe in you; you are a good man, an honest man; I entreat you by all
+that is sacred in the world--tell me the truth! If you knew how
+important it is for me.... Doctor, for God's sake tell me.... Am I in
+danger?" "What can I tell you, Alexandra Andreevna, pray?" "For God's
+sake, I beseech you!" "I can't disguise from you," I say, "Alexandra
+Andreevna; you are certainly in danger; but God is merciful." "I shall
+die, I shall die." And it seemed as though she were pleased; her face
+grew so bright; I was alarmed. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! I am
+not frightened of death at all." She suddenly sat up and leaned on her
+elbow. "Now ... yes, now I can tell you that I thank you with my whole
+heart ... that you are kind and good--that I love you!" I stare at her,
+like one possessed; it was terrible for me, you know. "Do you hear, I
+love you!" "Alexandra Andreevna, how have I deserved--" "No, no, you
+don't--you don't understand me." ... And suddenly she stretched out her
+arms, and taking my head in her hands, she kissed it.... Believe me, I
+almost screamed aloud.... I threw myself on my knees, and buried my
+head in the pillow. She did not speak; her fingers trembled in my hair;
+I listen; she is weeping. I began to soothe her, to assure her.... I
+really don't know what I did say to her. "You will wake up the girl," I
+say to her; "Alexandra Andreevna, I thank you ... believe me ... calm
+yourself." "Enough, enough!" she persisted; "never mind all of them;
+let them wake, then; let them come in--it does not matter; I am dying,
+you see.... And what do you fear? why are you afraid? Lift up your
+head.... Or, perhaps, you don't love me; perhaps I am wrong.... In that
+case, forgive me." "Alexandra Andreevna, what are you saying!... I love
+you, Alexandra Andreevna." She looked straight into my eyes, and opened
+her arms wide. "Then take me in your arms." I tell you frankly, I don't
+know how it was I did not go mad that night. I feel that my patient is
+killing herself; I see that she is not fully herself; I understand,
+too, that if she did not consider herself on the point of death, she
+would never have thought of me; and, indeed, say what you will, it's
+hard to die at twenty without having known love; this was what was
+torturing her; this was why, in despair, she caught at me--do you
+understand now? But she held me in her arms, and would not let me go.
+"Have pity on me, Alexandra Andreevna, and have pity on yourself," I
+say. "Why," she says; "what is there to think of? You know I must die."
+... This she repeated incessantly.... "If I knew that I should return
+to life, and be a proper young lady again, I should be ashamed ... of
+course, ashamed ... but why now?" "But who has said you will die?" "Oh,
+no, leave off! you will not deceive me; you don't know how to lie--look
+at your face." ... "You shall live, Alexandra Andreevna; I will cure
+you; we will ask your mother's blessing ... we will be united--we will
+be happy." "No, no, I have your word; I must die ... you have promised
+me ... you have told me." ... It was cruel for me--cruel for many
+reasons. And see what trifling things can do sometimes; it seems
+nothing at all, but it's painful. It occurred to her to ask me, what is
+my name; not my surname, but my first name. I must needs be so unlucky
+as to be called Trifon. Yes, indeed; Trifon Ivanitch. Every one in the
+house called me doctor. However, there's no help for it. I say,
+"Trifon, madam." She frowned, shook her head, and muttered something in
+French--ah, something unpleasant, of course!--and then she
+laughed--disagreeably too. Well, I spent the whole night with her in
+this way. Before morning I went away, feeling as though I were mad.
+When I went again into her room it was daytime, after morning tea. Good
+God! I could scarcely recognise her; people are laid in their grave
+looking better than that. I swear to you, on my honour, I don't
+understand--I absolutely don't understand--now, how I lived through
+that experience. Three days and nights my patient still lingered on.
+And what nights! What things she said to me! And on the last
+night--only imagine to yourself--I was sitting near her, and kept
+praying to God for one thing only: "Take her," I said, "quickly, and me
+with her." Suddenly the old mother comes unexpectedly into the room. I
+had already the evening before told her--the mother--there was little
+hope, and it would be well to send for a priest. When the sick girl saw
+her mother she said: "It's very well you have come; look at us, we love
+one another--we have given each other our word." "What does she say,
+doctor? what does she say?" I turned livid. "She is wandering," I say;
+"the fever." But she: "Hush, hush; you told me something quite
+different just now, and have taken my ring. Why do you pretend? My
+mother is good--she will forgive--she will understand--and I am
+dying.... I have no need to tell lies; give me your hand." I jumped up
+and ran out of the room. The old lady, of course, guessed how it was.
+
+'I will not, however, weary you any longer, and to me too, of course,
+it's painful to recall all this. My patient passed away the next day.
+God rest her soul!' the doctor added, speaking quickly and with a sigh.
+'Before her death she asked her family to go out and leave me alone
+with her.'
+
+'"Forgive me," she said; "I am perhaps to blame towards you ... my
+illness ... but believe me, I have loved no one more than you ... do
+not forget me ... keep my ring."'
+
+The doctor turned away; I took his hand.
+
+'Ah!' he said, 'let us talk of something else, or would you care to
+play preference for a small stake? It is not for people like me to give
+way to exalted emotions. There's only one thing for me to think of; how
+to keep the children from crying and the wife from scolding. Since
+then, you know, I have had time to enter into lawful wed-lock, as they
+say.... Oh ... I took a merchant's daughter--seven thousand for her
+dowry. Her name's Akulina; it goes well with Trifon. She is an
+ill-tempered woman, I must tell you, but luckily she's asleep all
+day.... Well, shall it be preference?'
+
+We sat down to preference for halfpenny points. Trifon Ivanitch won two
+roubles and a half from me, and went home late, well pleased with his
+success.
+
+
+
+                                    V
+
+                          MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOV
+
+
+For the autumn, woodcocks often take refuge in old gardens of
+lime-trees. There are a good many such gardens among us, in the
+province of Orel. Our forefathers, when they selected a place for
+habitation, invariably marked out two acres of good ground for a
+fruit-garden, with avenues of lime-trees. Within the last fifty, or
+seventy years at most, these mansions--'noblemen's nests,' as they call
+them--have gradually disappeared off the face of the earth; the houses
+are falling to pieces, or have been sold for the building materials;
+the stone outhouses have become piles of rubbish; the apple-trees are
+dead and turned into firewood, the hedges and fences are pulled up.
+Only the lime-trees grow in all their glory as before, and with
+ploughed fields all round them, tell a tale to this light-hearted
+generation of 'our fathers and brothers who have lived before us.'
+
+A magnificent tree is such an old lime-tree.... Even the merciless axe
+of the Russian peasant spares it. Its leaves are small, its powerful
+limbs spread wide in all directions; there is perpetual shade under
+them.
+
+Once, as I was wandering about the fields after partridges with
+Yermolaï, I saw some way off a deserted garden, and turned into it. I
+had hardly crossed its borders when a snipe rose up out of a bush with
+a clatter. I fired my gun, and at the same instant, a few paces from
+me, I heard a shriek; the frightened face of a young girl peeped out
+for a second from behind the trees, and instantly disappeared. Yermolaï
+ran up to me: 'Why are you shooting here? there is a landowner living
+here.'
+
+Before I had time to answer him, before my dog had had time to bring
+me, with dignified importance, the bird I had shot, swift footsteps
+were heard, and a tall man with moustaches came out of the thicket and
+stopped, with an air of displeasure, before me. I made my apologies as
+best I could, gave him my name, and offered him the bird that had been
+killed on his domains.
+
+'Very well,' he said to me with a smile; 'I will take your game, but
+only on one condition: that you will stay and dine with us.'
+
+I must confess I was not greatly delighted at his proposition, but it
+was impossible to refuse.
+
+'I am a landowner here, and your neighbour, Radilov; perhaps you have
+heard of me?' continued my new acquaintance; 'to-day is Sunday, and we
+shall be sure to have a decent dinner, otherwise I would not have
+invited you.'
+
+I made such a reply as one does make in such circumstances, and turned
+to follow him. A little path that had lately been cleared soon led us
+out of the grove of lime-trees; we came into the kitchen-garden.
+Between the old apple-trees and gooseberry bushes were rows of curly
+whitish-green cabbages; the hop twined its tendrils round high poles;
+there were thick ranks of brown twigs tangled over with dried peas;
+large flat pumpkins seemed rolling on the ground; cucumbers showed
+yellow under their dusty angular leaves; tall nettles were waving along
+the hedge; in two or three places grew clumps of tartar honeysuckle,
+elder, and wild rose--the remnants of former flower-beds. Near a small
+fish-pond, full of reddish and slimy water, we saw the well, surrounded
+by puddles. Ducks were busily splashing and waddling about these
+puddles; a dog blinking and twitching in every limb was gnawing a bone
+in the meadow, where a piebald cow was lazily chewing the grass, from
+time to time flicking its tail over its lean back. The little path
+turned to one side; from behind thick willows and birches we caught
+sight of a little grey old house, with a boarded roof and a winding
+flight of steps. Radilov stopped short.
+
+'But,' he said, with a good-humoured and direct look in my face,' on
+second thoughts ... perhaps you don't care to come and see me, after
+all.... In that case--'
+
+I did not allow him to finish, but assured him that, on the contrary,
+it would be a great pleasure to me to dine with him.
+
+'Well, you know best.'
+
+We went into the house. A young man in a long coat of stout blue cloth
+met us on the steps. Radilov at once told him to bring Yermolaï some
+vodka; my huntsman made a respectful bow to the back of the munificent
+host. From the hall, which was decorated with various parti-coloured
+pictures and check curtains, we went into a small room--Radilov's
+study. I took off my hunting accoutrements, and put my gun in a corner;
+the young man in the long-skirted coat busily brushed me down.
+
+'Well, now, let us go into the drawing-room.' said Radilov cordially.
+'I will make you acquainted with my mother.'
+
+I walked after him. In the drawing-room, in the sofa in the centre of
+the room, was sitting an old lady of medium height, in a
+cinnamon-coloured dress and a white cap, with a thinnish, kind old
+face, and a timid, mournful expression.
+
+'Here, mother, let me introduce to you our neighbour....'
+
+The old lady got up and made me a bow, not letting go out of her
+withered hands a fat worsted reticule that looked like a sack.
+
+'Have you been long in our neighbourhood?' she asked, in a weak and
+gentle voice, blinking her eyes.
+
+'No, not long.'
+
+'Do you intend to remain here long?'
+
+'Till the winter, I think.'
+
+The old lady said no more.
+
+'And here,' interposed Radilov, indicating to me a tall and thin man,
+whom I had not noticed on entering the drawing-room, 'is Fyodor
+Miheitch. ... Come, Fedya, give the visitor a specimen of your art. Why
+have you hidden yourself away in that corner?'
+
+Fyodor Miheitch got up at once from his chair, fetched a wretched
+little fiddle from the window, took the bow--not by the end, as is
+usual, but by the middle--put the fiddle to his chest, shut his eyes,
+and fell to dancing, singing a song, and scraping on the strings. He
+looked about seventy; a thin nankin overcoat flapped pathetically about
+his dry and bony limbs. He danced, at times skipping boldly, and then
+dropping his little bald head with his scraggy neck stretched out as if
+he were dying, stamping his feet on the ground, and sometimes bending
+his knees with obvious difficulty. A voice cracked with age came from
+his toothless mouth.
+
+Radilov must have guessed from the expression of my face that Fedya's
+'art' did not give me much pleasure.
+
+'Very good, old man, that's enough,' he said. 'You can go and refresh
+yourself.'
+
+Fyodor Miheitch at once laid down the fiddle on the window-sill, bowed
+first to me as the guest, then to the old lady, then to Radilov, and
+went away.
+
+'He too was a landowner,' my new friend continued, 'and a rich one too,
+but he ruined himself--so he lives now with me.... But in his day he
+was considered the most dashing fellow in the province; he eloped with
+two married ladies; he used to keep singers, and sang himself, and
+danced like a master.... But won't you take some vodka? dinner is just
+ready.'
+
+A young girl, the same that I had caught a glimpse of in the garden,
+came into the room.
+
+'And here is Olga!' observed Radilov, slightly turning his head; 'let
+me present you.... Well, let us go into dinner.'
+
+We went in and sat down to the table. While we were coming out of the
+drawing-room and taking our seats, Fyodor Miheitch, whose eyes were
+bright and his nose rather red after his 'refreshment,' sang 'Raise the
+cry of Victory.' They laid a separate cover for him in a corner on a
+little table without a table-napkin. The poor old man could not boast
+of very nice habits, and so they always kept him at some distance from
+society. He crossed himself, sighed, and began to eat like a shark. The
+dinner was in reality not bad, and in honour of Sunday was accompanied,
+of course, with shaking jelly and Spanish puffs of pastry. At the table
+Radilov, who had served ten years in an infantry regiment and had been
+in Turkey, fell to telling anecdotes; I listened to him with attention,
+and secretly watched Olga. She was not very pretty; but the tranquil
+and resolute expression of her face, her broad, white brow, her thick
+hair, and especially her brown eyes--not large, but clear, sensible and
+lively--would have made an impression on anyone in my place. She seemed
+to be following every word Radilov uttered--not so much sympathy as
+passionate attention was expressed on her face. Radilov in years might
+have been her father; he called her by her Christian name, but I
+guessed at once that she was not his daughter. In the course of
+conversation he referred to his deceased wife--'her sister,' he added,
+indicating Olga. She blushed quickly and dropped her eyes. Radilov
+paused a moment and then changed the subject. The old lady did not
+utter a word during the whole of dinner; she ate scarcely anything
+herself, and did not press me to partake. Her features had an air of
+timorous and hopeless expectation, that melancholy of old age which it
+pierces one's heart to look upon. At the end of dinner Fyodor Miheitch
+was beginning to 'celebrate' the hosts and guests, but Radilov looked
+at me and asked him to be quiet; the old man passed his hand over his
+lips, began to blink, bowed, and sat down again, but only on the very
+edge of his chair. After dinner I returned with Radilov to his study.
+
+In people who are constantly and intensely preoccupied with one idea,
+or one emotion, there is something in common, a kind of external
+resemblance in manner, however different may be their qualities, their
+abilities, their position in society, and their education. The more I
+watched Radilov, the more I felt that he belonged to the class of such
+people. He talked of husbandry, of the crops, of the war, of the gossip
+of the district and the approaching elections; he talked without
+constraint, and even with interest; but suddenly he would sigh and drop
+into a chair, and pass his hand over his face, like a man wearied out
+by a tedious task. His whole nature--a good and warm-hearted one
+too--seemed saturated through, steeped in some one feeling. I was
+amazed by the fact that I could not discover in him either a passion
+for eating, nor for wine, nor for sport, nor for Kursk nightingales,
+nor for epileptic pigeons, nor for Russian literature, nor for
+trotting-hacks, nor for Hungarian coats, nor for cards, nor billiards,
+nor for dances, nor trips to the provincial town or the capital, nor
+for paper-factories and beet-sugar refineries, nor for painted
+pavilions, nor for tea, nor for trace-horses trained to hold their
+heads askew, nor even for fat coachmen belted under their very
+armpits--those magnificent coachmen whose eyes, for some mysterious
+reason, seem rolling and starting out of their heads at every
+movement.... 'What sort of landowner is this, then?' I thought. At the
+same time he did not in the least pose as a gloomy man discontented
+with his destiny; on the contrary, he seemed full of indiscrimating
+good-will, cordial and even offensive readiness to become intimate with
+every one he came across. In reality you felt at the same time that he
+could not be friends, nor be really intimate with anyone, and that he
+could not be so, not because in general he was independent of other
+people, but because his whole being was for a time turned inwards upon
+himself. Looking at Radilov, I could never imagine him happy either now
+or at any time. He, too, was not handsome; but in his eyes, his smile,
+his whole being, there was a something, mysterious and extremely
+attractive--yes, mysterious is just what it was. So that you felt you
+would like to know him better, to get to love him. Of course, at times
+the landowner and the man of the steppes peeped out in him; but all the
+same he was a capital fellow.
+
+We were beginning to talk about the new marshal of the district, when
+suddenly we heard Olga's voice at the door: 'Tea is ready.' We went
+into the drawing-room. Fyodor Miheitch was sitting as before in his
+corner between the little window and the door, his legs curled up under
+him. Radilov's mother was knitting a stocking. From the opened windows
+came a breath of autumn freshness and the scent of apples. Olga was
+busy pouring out tea. I looked at her now with more attention than at
+dinner. Like provincial girls as a rule, she spoke very little, but at
+any rate I did not notice in her any of their anxiety to say something
+fine, together with their painful consciousness of stupidity and
+helplessness; she did not sigh as though from the burden of unutterable
+emotions, nor cast up her eyes, nor smile vaguely and dreamily. Her
+look expressed tranquil self-possession, like a man who is taking
+breath after great happiness or great excitement. Her carriage and her
+movements were resolute and free. I liked her very much.
+
+I fell again into conversation with Radilov. I don't recollect what
+brought us to the familiar observation that often the most
+insignificant things produce more effect on people than the most
+important.
+
+'Yes,' Radilov agreed, 'I have experienced that in my own case. I, as
+you know, have been married. It was not for long--three years; my wife
+died in child-birth. I thought that I should not survive her; I was
+fearfully miserable, broken down, but I could not weep--I wandered
+about like one possessed. They decked her out, as they always do, and
+laid her on a table--in this very room. The priest came, the deacons
+came, began to sing, to pray, and to burn incense; I bowed to the
+ground, and hardly shed a tear. My heart seemed turned to stone--and my
+head too--I was heavy all over. So passed my first day. Would you
+believe it? I even slept in the night. The next morning I went in to
+look at my wife: it was summer-time, the sunshine fell upon her from
+head to foot, and it was so bright. Suddenly I saw ...' (here Radilov
+gave an involuntary shudder) 'what do you think? One of her eyes was
+not quite shut, and on this eye a fly was moving.... I fell down in a
+heap, and when I came to myself, I began to weep and weep ... I could
+not stop myself....'
+
+Radilov was silent. I looked at him, then at Olga.... I can never
+forget the expression of her face. The old lady had laid the stocking
+down on her knees, and taken a handkerchief out of her reticule; she
+was stealthily wiping away her tears. Fyodor Miheitch suddenly got up,
+seized his fiddle, and in a wild and hoarse voice began to sing a song.
+He wanted doubtless to restore our spirits; but we all shuddered at his
+first note, and Radilov asked him to be quiet.
+
+'Still what is past, is past,' he continued; 'we cannot recall the
+past, and in the end ... all is for the best in this world below, as I
+think Voltaire said,' he added hurriedly.
+
+'Yes,' I replied, 'of course. Besides, every trouble can be endured,
+and there is no position so terrible that there is no escape from it.'
+
+'Do you think so?' said Radilov. 'Well, perhaps you are right. I
+recollect I lay once in the hospital in Turkey half dead; I had typhus
+fever. Well, our quarters were nothing to boast of--of course, in time
+of war--and we had to thank God for what we had! Suddenly they bring in
+more sick--where are they to put them? The doctor goes here and
+there--there is no room left. So he comes up to me and asks the
+attendant, "Is he alive?" He answers, "He was alive this morning." The
+doctor bends down, listens; I am breathing. The good man could not help
+saying, "Well, what an absurd constitution; the man's dying; he's
+certain to die, and he keeps hanging on, lingering, taking up space for
+nothing, and keeping out others." Well, I thought to myself, "So you
+are in a bad way, Mihal Mihalitch...." And, after all, I got well, and
+am alive till now, as you may see for yourself. You are right, to be
+sure.'
+
+'In any case I am right,' I replied; 'even if you had died, you would
+just the same have escaped from your horrible position.'
+
+'Of course, of course,' he added, with a violent blow of his fist on
+the table. 'One has only to come to a decision.... What is the use of
+being in a horrible position?... What is the good of delaying,
+lingering.'
+
+Olga rose quickly and went out into the garden.
+
+'Well, Fedya, a dance!' cried Radilov.
+
+Fedya jumped up and walked about the room with that artificial and
+peculiar motion which is affected by the man who plays the part of a
+goat with a tame bear. He sang meanwhile, 'While at our Gates....'
+
+The rattle of a racing droshky sounded in the drive, and in a few
+minutes a tall, broad-shouldered and stoutly made man, the peasant
+proprietor, Ovsyanikov, came into the room.
+
+But Ovsyanikov is such a remarkable and original personage that, with
+the reader's permission, we will put off speaking about him till the
+next sketch. And now I will only add for myself that the next day I
+started off hunting at earliest dawn with Yermolaï, and returned home
+after the day's sport was over ... that a week later I went again to
+Radilov's, but did not find him or Olga at home, and within a fortnight
+I learned that he had suddenly disappeared, left his mother, and gone
+away somewhere with his sister-in-law. The whole province was excited,
+and talked about this event, and I only then completely understood the
+expression of Olga's face while Radilov was telling us his story. It
+was breathing, not with sympathetic suffering only: it was burning with
+jealousy.
+
+Before leaving the country I called on old Madame Radilov. I found her
+in the drawing-room; she was playing cards with Fyodor Miheitch.
+
+'Have you news of your son?' I asked her at last.
+
+The old lady began to weep. I made no more inquiries about Radilov.
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+                    THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
+
+
+Picture to yourselves, gentle readers, a stout, tall man of seventy,
+with a face reminding one somewhat of the face of Kriloff, clear and
+intelligent eyes under overhanging brows, dignified in bearing, slow in
+speech, and deliberate in movement: there you have Ovsyanikov. He wore
+an ample blue overcoat with long sleeves, buttoned all the way up, a
+lilac silk-handkerchief round his neck, brightly polished boots with
+tassels, and altogether resembled in appearance a well-to-do merchant.
+His hands were handsome, soft, and white; he often fumbled with the
+buttons of his coat as he talked. With his dignity and his composure,
+his good sense and his indolence, his uprightness and his obstinacy,
+Ovsyanikov reminded me of the Russian boyars of the times before Peter
+the Great.... The national holiday dress would have suited him well. He
+was one of the last men left of the old time. All his neighbours had a
+great respect for him, and considered it an honour to be acquainted
+with him. His fellow peasant-proprietors almost worshipped him, and
+took off their hats to him from a distance: they were proud of him.
+Generally speaking, in these days, it is difficult to tell a
+peasant-proprietor from a peasant; his husbandry is almost worse than
+the peasant's; his calves are wretchedly small; his horses are only
+half alive; his harness is made of rope. Ovsyanikov was an exception to
+the general rule, though he did not pass for a wealthy man. He lived
+alone with his wife in a clean and comfortable little house, kept a few
+servants, whom he dressed in the Russian style and called his
+'workmen.' They were employed also in ploughing his land. He did not
+attempt to pass for a nobleman, did not affect to be a landowner;
+never, as they say, forgot himself; he did not take a seat at the first
+invitation to do so, and he never failed to rise from his seat on the
+entrance of a new guest, but with such dignity, with such stately
+courtesy, that the guest involuntarily made him a more deferential bow.
+Ovsyanikov adhered to the antique usages, not from superstition (he was
+naturally rather independent in mind), but from habit. He did not, for
+instance, like carriages with springs, because he did not find them
+comfortable, and preferred to drive in a racing droshky, or in a pretty
+little trap with leather cushions, and he always drove his good bay
+himself (he kept none but bay horses). His coachman, a young,
+rosy-cheeked fellow, his hair cut round like a basin, in a dark blue
+coat with a strap round the waist, sat respectfully beside him.
+Ovsyanikov always had a nap after dinner and visited the bath-house on
+Saturdays; he read none but religious books and used gravely to fix his
+round silver spectacles on his nose when he did so; he got up, and went
+to bed early. He shaved his beard, however, and wore his hair in the
+German style. He always received visitors cordially and affably, but he
+did not bow down to the ground, nor fuss over them and press them to
+partake of every kind of dried and salted delicacy. 'Wife!' he would
+say deliberately, not getting up from his seat, but only turning his
+head a little in her direction, 'bring the gentleman a little of
+something to eat.' He regarded it as a sin to sell wheat: it was the
+gift of God. In the year '40, at the time of the general famine and
+terrible scarcity, he shared all his store with the surrounding
+landowners and peasants; the following year they gratefully repaid
+their debt to him in kind. The neighbours often had recourse to
+Ovsyanikov as arbitrator and mediator between them, and they almost
+always acquiesced in his decision, and listened to his advice. Thanks
+to his intervention, many had conclusively settled their boundaries....
+But after two or three tussles with lady-landowners, he announced that
+he declined all mediation between persons of the feminine gender. He
+could not bear the flurry and excitement, the chatter of women and the
+'fuss.' Once his house had somehow got on fire. A workman ran to him in
+headlong haste shrieking, 'Fire, fire!' 'Well, what are you screaming
+about?' said Ovsyanikov tranquilly, 'give me my cap and my stick.' He
+liked to break in his horses himself. Once a spirited horse he was
+training bolted with him down a hillside and over a precipice. 'Come,
+there, there, you young colt, you'll kill yourself!' said Ovsyanikov
+soothingly to him, and an instant later he flew over the precipice
+together with the racing droshky, the boy who was sitting behind, and
+the horse. Fortunately, the bottom of the ravine was covered with heaps
+of sand. No one was injured; only the horse sprained a leg. 'Well, you
+see,' continued Ovsyanikov in a calm voice as he got up from the
+ground, 'I told you so.' He had found a wife to match him. Tatyana
+Ilyinitchna Ovsyanikov was a tall woman, dignified and taciturn, always
+dressed in a cinnamon-coloured silk dress. She had a cold air, though
+none complained of her severity, but, on the contrary, many poor
+creatures called her their little mother and benefactress. Her regular
+features, her large dark eyes, and her delicately cut lips, bore
+witness even now to her once celebrated beauty. Ovsyanikov had no
+children.
+
+I made his acquaintance, as the reader is already aware, at Radilov's,
+and two days later I went to see him. I found him at home. He was
+reading the lives of the Saints. A grey cat was purring on his
+shoulder. He received me, according to his habit, with stately
+cordiality. We fell into conversation.
+
+'But tell me the truth, Luka Petrovitch,' I said to him, among other
+things; 'weren't things better of old, in your time?'
+
+'In some ways, certainly, things were better, I should say,' replied
+Ovsyanikov; 'we lived more easily; there was a greater abundance of
+everything. ... All the same, things are better now, and they will be
+better still for your children, please God.'
+
+'I had expected you, Luka Petrovitch, to praise the old times.'
+
+'No, I have no special reason to praise old times. Here, for instance,
+though you are a landowner now, and just as much a landowner as your
+grandfather was, you have not the same power--and, indeed, you are not
+yourself the same kind of man. Even now, some noblemen oppress us; but,
+of course, it is impossible to help that altogether. Where there are
+mills grinding there will be flour. No; I don't see now what I have
+experienced myself in my youth.'
+
+'What, for instance?'
+
+'Well, for instance, I will tell you about your grandfather. He was an
+overbearing man; he oppressed us poorer folks. You know,
+perhaps--indeed, you surely know your own estates--that bit of land
+that runs from Tchepligin to Malinina--you have it under oats now....
+Well, you know, it is ours--it is all ours. Your grandfather took it
+away from us; he rode by on his horse, pointed to it with his hand, and
+said, "It's my property," and took possession of it. My father (God
+rest his soul!) was a just man; he was a hot-tempered man, too; he
+would not put up with it--indeed, who does like to lose his
+property?--and he laid a petition before the court. But he was alone:
+the others did not appear--they were afraid. So they reported to your
+grandfather that "Piotr Ovsyanikov is making a complaint against you
+that you were pleased to take away his land." Your grandfather at once
+sent his huntsman Baush with a detachment of men.... Well, they seized
+my father, and carried him to your estate. I was a little boy at that
+time; I ran after him barefoot. What happened? They brought him to your
+house, and flogged him right under your windows. And your grandfather
+stands on the balcony and looks on; and your grandmother sits at the
+window and looks on too. My father cries out, "Gracious lady, Marya
+Vasilyevna, intercede for me! have mercy on me!" But her only answer
+was to keep getting up to have a look at him. So they exacted a promise
+from my father to give up the land, and bade him be thankful they let
+him go alive. So it has remained with you. Go and ask your
+peasants--what do they call the land, indeed? It's called "The
+Cudgelled Land," because it was gained by the cudgel. So you see from
+that, we poor folks can't bewail the old order very much.'
+
+I did not know what answer to make Ovsyanikov, and I had not the
+courage to look him in the face.
+
+'We had another neighbour who settled amongst us in those days, Komov,
+Stepan Niktopolionitch. He used to worry my father out of his life;
+when it wasn't one thing, it was another. He was a drunken fellow, and
+fond of treating others; and when he was drunk he would say in French,
+"_Say bon_," and "Take away the holy images!" He would go to all the
+neighbours to ask them to come to him. His horses stood always in
+readiness, and if you wouldn't go he would come after you himself at
+once!... And he was such a strange fellow! In his sober times he was
+not a liar; but when he was drunk he would begin to relate how he had
+three houses in Petersburg--one red, with one chimney; another yellow,
+with two chimneys; and a third blue, with no chimneys; and three sons
+(though he had never even been married), one in the infantry, another
+in the cavalry, and the third was his own master.... And he would say
+that in each house lived one of his sons; that admirals visited the
+eldest, and generals the second, and the third only Englishmen! Then he
+would get up and say, "To the health of my eldest son; he is the most
+dutiful!" and he would begin to weep. Woe to anyone who refused to
+drink the toast! "I will shoot him!" he would say; "and I won't let him
+be buried!" ... Then he would jump up and scream, "Dance, God's people,
+for your pleasure and my diversion!" Well, then, you must dance; if you
+had to die for it, you must dance. He thoroughly worried his serf-girls
+to death. Sometimes all night long till morning they would be singing
+in chorus, and the one who made the most noise would have a prize. If
+they began to be tired, he would lay his head down in his hands, and
+begins moaning: "Ah, poor forsaken orphan that I am! They abandon me,
+poor little dove!" And the stable-boys would wake the girls up at once.
+He took a liking to my father; what was he to do? He almost drove my
+father into his grave, and would actually have driven him into it, but
+(thank Heaven!) he died himself; in one of his drunken fits he fell off
+the pigeon-house. ... There, that's what our sweet little neighbours
+were like!'
+
+'How the times have changed!' I observed.
+
+'Yes, yes,' Ovsyanikov assented. 'And there is this to be said--in the
+old days the nobility lived more sumptuously. I'm not speaking of the
+real grandees now. I used to see them in Moscow. They say such people
+are scarce nowadays.'
+
+'Have you been in Moscow?'
+
+'I used to stay there long, very long ago. I am now in my seventy-third
+year; and I went to Moscow when I was sixteen.'
+
+Ovsyanikov sighed.
+
+'Whom did you see there?'
+
+'I saw a great many grandees--and every one saw them; they kept open
+house for the wonder and admiration of all! Only no one came up to
+Count Alexey Grigoryevitch Orlov-Tchesmensky. I often saw Alexey
+Grigoryevitch; my uncle was a steward in his service. The count was
+pleased to live in Shabolovka, near the Kaluga Gate. He was a grand
+gentleman! Such stateliness, such gracious condescension you can't
+imagine! and it's impossible to describe it. His figure alone was worth
+something, and his strength, and the look in his eyes! Till you knew
+him, you did not dare come near him--you were afraid, overawed indeed;
+but directly you came near him he was like sunshine warming you up and
+making you quite cheerful. He allowed every man access to him in
+person, and he was devoted to every kind of sport. He drove himself in
+races and out-stripped every one, and he would never get in front at
+the start, so as not to offend his adversary; he would not cut it
+short, but would pass him at the finish; and he was so pleasant--he
+would soothe his adversary, praising his horse. He kept tumbler-pigeons
+of a first-rate kind. He would come out into the court, sit down in an
+arm-chair, and order them to let loose the pigeons; and his men would
+stand all round on the roofs with guns to keep off the hawks. A large
+silver basin of water used to be placed at the count's feet, and he
+looked at the pigeons reflected in the water. Beggars and poor people
+were fed in hundreds at his expense; and what a lot of money he used to
+give away!... When he got angry, it was like a clap of thunder.
+Everyone was in a great fright, but there was nothing to weep over;
+look round a minute after, and he was all smiles again! When he gave a
+banquet he made all Moscow drunk!--and see what a clever man he was!
+you know he beat the Turk. He was fond of wrestling too; strong men
+used to come from Tula, from Harkoff, from Tamboff, and from everywhere
+to him. If he threw any one he would pay him a reward; but if any one
+threw him, he perfectly loaded him with presents, and kissed him on the
+lips.... And once, during my stay at Moscow, he arranged a hunting
+party such as had never been in Russia before; he sent invitations to
+all the sportsmen in the whole empire, and fixed a day for it, and gave
+them three months' notice. They brought with them dogs and grooms:
+well, it was an army of people--a regular army!
+
+'First they had a banquet in the usual way, and then they set off into
+the open country. The people flocked there in thousands! And what do
+you think?... Your father's dog outran them all.'
+
+'Wasn't that Milovidka?' I inquired.
+
+'Milovidka, Milovidka!... So the count began to ask him, "Give me your
+dog," says he; "take what you like for her." "No, count," he said, "I
+am not a tradesman; I don't sell anything for filthy lucre; for your
+sake I am ready to part with my wife even, but not with Milovidka.... I
+would give myself into bondage first." And Alexey Grigoryevitch praised
+him for it. "I like you for it," he said. Your grandfather took her
+back in the coach with him, and when Milovidka died, he buried her in
+the garden with music at the burial--yes, a funeral for a dog--and put
+a stone with an inscription on it over the dog.'
+
+'Then Alexey Grigoryevitch did not oppress anyone,' I observed.
+
+'Yes, it is always like that; those who can only just keep themselves
+afloat are the ones to drag others under.'
+
+'And what sort of a man was this Baush?' I asked after a short silence.
+
+'Why, how comes it you have heard about Milovidka, and not about Baush?
+He was your grandfather's chief huntsman and whipper-in. Your
+grandfather was as fond of him as of Milovidka. He was a desperate
+fellow, and whatever order your grandfather gave him, he would carry it
+out in a minute--he'd have run on to a sword at his bidding.... And
+when he hallooed ... it was something like a tally-ho in the forest.
+And then he would suddenly turn nasty, get off his horse, and lie down
+on the ground ... and directly the dogs ceased to hear his voice, it
+was all over! They would give up the hottest scent, and wouldn't go on
+for anything. Ay, ay, your grandfather did get angry! "Damn me, if I
+don't hang the scoundrel! I'll turn him inside out, the antichrist!
+I'll stuff his heels down his gullet, the cut-throat!" And it ended by
+his going up to find out what he wanted; why he wouldn't halloo to the
+hounds? Usually, on such occasions, Baush asked for some vodka, drank
+it up, got on his horse, and began to halloo as lustily as ever again.'
+
+'You seem to be fond of hunting too, Luka Petrovitch?'
+
+'I should have been--certainly, not now; now my time is over--but in my
+young days.... But you know it was not an easy matter in my position.
+It's not suitable for people like us to go trailing after noblemen.
+Certainly you may find in our class some drinking, good-for-nothing
+fellow who associates with the gentry--but it's a queer sort of
+enjoyment.... He only brings shame on himself. They mount him on a
+wretched stumbling nag, keep knocking his hat off on to the ground and
+cut at him with a whip, pretending to whip the horse, and he must laugh
+at everything, and be a laughing-stock for the others. No, I tell you,
+the lower your station, the more reserved must be your behaviour, or
+else you disgrace yourself directly.'
+
+'Yes,' continued Ovsyanikov with a sigh, 'there's many a gallon of
+water has flowed down to the sea since I have been living in the world;
+times are different now. Especially I see a great change in the
+nobility. The smaller landowners have all either become officials, or
+at any rate do not stop here; as for the larger owners, there's no
+making them out. I have had experience of them--the larger
+landowners--in cases of settling boundaries. And I must tell you; it
+does my heart good to see them: they are courteous and affable. Only
+this is what astonishes me; they have studied all the sciences, they
+speak so fluently that your heart is melted, but they don't understand
+the actual business in hand; they don't even perceive what's their own
+interest; some bailiff, a bondservant, drives them just where he
+pleases, as though they were in a yoke. There's Korolyov--Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch--for instance; you know him, perhaps--isn't he every
+inch a nobleman? He is handsome, rich, has studied at the 'versities,
+and travelled, I think, abroad; he speaks simply and easily, and shakes
+hands with us all. You know him?... Well, listen then. Last week we
+assembled at Beryozovka at the summons of the mediator, Nikifor Ilitch.
+And the mediator, Nikifor Ilitch, says to us: "Gentlemen, we must
+settle the boundaries; it's disgraceful; our district is behind all the
+others; we must get to work." Well, so we got to work. There followed
+discussions, disputes, as usual; our attorney began to make objections.
+But the first to make an uproar was Porfiry Ovtchinnikov.... And what
+had the fellow to make an uproar about?... He hasn't an acre of ground;
+he is acting as representative of his brother. He bawls: "No, you shall
+not impose on me! no, you shan't drive me to that! give the plans here!
+give me the surveyor's plans, the Judas's plans here!" "But what is
+your claim, then?" "Oh, you think I'm a fool! Indeed! do you suppose I
+am going to lay bare my claim to you offhand? No, let me have the plans
+here--that's what I want!" And he himself is banging his fist on the
+plans all the time. Then he mortally offended Marfa Dmitrievna. She
+shrieks out, "How dare you asperse my reputation?" "Your reputation,"
+says he; "I shouldn't like my chestnut mare to have your reputation."
+They poured him out some Madeira at last, and so quieted him; then
+others begin to make a row. Alexandr Vladimirovitch Korolyov, the dear
+fellow, sat in a corner sucking the knob of his cane, and only shook
+his head. I felt ashamed; I could hardly sit it out. "What must he be
+thinking of us?" I said to myself. When, behold! Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch has got up, and shows signs of wanting to speak. The
+mediator exerts himself, says, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch wishes to speak." And I must do them this credit; they
+were all silent at once. And so Alexandr Vladimirovitch began and said
+"that we seemed to have forgotten what we had come together for; that,
+indeed, the fixing of boundaries was indisputably advantageous for
+owners of land, but actually what was its object? To make things easier
+for the peasant, so that he could work and pay his dues more
+conveniently; that now the peasant hardly knows his own land, and often
+goes to work five miles away; and one can't expect too much of him."
+Then Alexandr Vladimirovitch said "that it was disgraceful in a
+landowner not to interest himself in the well-being of his peasants;
+that in the end, if you look at it rightly, their interests and our
+interests are inseparable; if they are well-off we are well-off, and if
+they do badly we do badly, and that, consequently, it was injudicious
+and wrong to disagree over trifles" ... and so on--and so on.... There,
+how he did speak! He seemed to go right to your heart.... All the
+gentry hung their heads; I myself, faith, it nearly brought me to
+tears. To tell the truth, you would not find sayings like that in the
+old books even.... But what was the end of it? He himself would not
+give up four acres of peat marsh, and wasn't willing to sell it. He
+said, "I am going to drain that marsh for my people, and set up a
+cloth-factory on it, with all the latest improvements. I have already,"
+he said, "fixed on that place; I have thought out my plans on the
+subject." And if only that had been the truth, it would be all very
+well; but the simple fact is, Alexandr Vladimirovitch's neighbour,
+Anton Karasikov, had refused to buy over Korolyov's bailiff for a
+hundred roubles. And so we separated without having done anything. But
+Alexandr Vladimirovitch considers to this day that he is right, and
+still talks of the cloth-factory; but he does not start draining the
+marsh.'
+
+'And how does he manage in his estate?'
+
+'He is always introducing new ways. The peasants don't speak well of
+him--but it's useless to listen to them. Alexandr Vladimirovitch is
+doing right.'
+
+'How's that, Luka Petrovitch? I thought you kept to the old ways.'
+
+'I--that's another thing. You see I am not a nobleman or a landowner.
+What sort of management is mine?... Besides, I don't know how to do
+things differently. I try to act according to justice and the law, and
+leave the rest in God's hands! Young gentlemen don't like the old
+method; I think they are right.... It's the time to take in ideas. Only
+this is the pity of it; the young are too theoretical. They treat the
+peasant like a doll; they turn him this way and that way; twist him
+about and throw him away. And their bailiff, a serf, or some overseer
+from the German natives, gets the peasant under his thumb again. Now,
+if any one of the young gentlemen would set us an example, would show
+us, "See, this is how you ought to manage!" ... What will be the end of
+it? Can it be that I shall die without seeing the new methods?... What
+is the proverb?--the old is dead, but the young is not born!'
+
+I did not know what reply to make to Ovsyanikov. He looked round, drew
+himself nearer to me, and went on in an undertone:
+
+'Have you heard talk of Vassily Nikolaitch Lubozvonov?'
+
+'No, I haven't.'
+
+'Explain to me, please, what sort of strange creature he is. I can't
+make anything of it. His peasants have described him, but I can't make
+any sense of their tales. He is a young man, you know; it's not long
+since he received his heritage from his mother. Well, he arrived at his
+estate. The peasants were all collected to stare at their master.
+Vassily Nikolaitch came out to them. The peasants looked at
+him--strange to relate! the master wore plush pantaloons like a
+coachman, and he had on boots with trimming at the top; he wore a red
+shirt and a coachman's long coat too; he had let his beard grow, and
+had such a strange hat and such a strange face--could he be drunk? No,
+he wasn't drunk, and yet he didn't seem quite right. "Good health to
+you, lads!" he says; "God keep you!" The peasants bow to the ground,
+but without speaking; they began to feel frightened, you know. And he
+too seemed timid. He began to make a speech to them: "I am a Russian,"
+he says, "and you are Russians; I like everything Russian.... Russia,"
+says he, "is my heart, and my blood too is Russian".... Then he
+suddenly gives the order: "Come, lads, sing a Russian national song!"
+The peasants' legs shook under them with fright; they were utterly
+stupefied. One bold spirit did begin to sing, but he sat down at once
+on the ground and hid himself behind the others.... And what is so
+surprising is this: we have had landowners like that, dare-devil
+gentlemen, regular rakes, of course: they dressed pretty much like
+coachmen, and danced themselves and played on the guitar, and sang and
+drank with their house-serfs and feasted with the peasants; but this
+Vassily Nikolaitch is like a girl; he is always reading books or
+writing, or else declaiming poetry aloud--he never addresses any one;
+he is shy, walks by himself in his garden; seems either bored or sad.
+The old bailiff at first was in a thorough scare; before Vassily
+Nikolaitch's arrival he was afraid to go near the peasants' houses; he
+bowed to all of them--one could see the cat knew whose butter he had
+eaten! And the peasants were full of hope; they thought, 'Fiddlesticks,
+my friend!--now they'll make you answer for it, my dear; they'll lead
+you a dance now, you robber!' ... But instead of this it has turned
+out--how shall I explain it to you?--God Almighty could not account for
+how things have turned out! Vassily Nikolaitch summoned him to his
+presence and says, blushing himself and breathing quick, you know: "Be
+upright in my service; don't oppress any one--do you hear?" And since
+that day he has never asked to see him in person again! He lives on his
+own property like a stranger. Well, the bailiff's been enjoying
+himself, and the peasants don't dare to go to Vassily Nikolaitch; they
+are afraid. And do you see what's a matter for wonder again; the master
+even bows to them and looks graciously at them; but he seems to turn
+their stomachs with fright! 'What do you say to such a strange state of
+things, your honour? Either I have grown stupid in my old age, or
+something.... I can't understand it.'
+
+I said to Ovsyanikov that Mr. Lubozvonov must certainly be ill.
+
+'Ill, indeed! He's as broad as he's long, and a face like this--God
+bless him!--and bearded, though he is so young.... Well, God knows!'
+And Ovsyanikov gave a deep sigh.
+
+'Come, putting the nobles aside,' I began, 'what have you to tell me
+about the peasant proprietors, Luka Petrovitch?'
+
+'No, you must let me off that,' he said hurriedly. 'Truly.... I could
+tell you ... but what's the use!' (with a wave of his hand). 'We had
+better have some tea.... We are common peasants and nothing more; but
+when we come to think of it, what else could we be?'
+
+He ceased talking. Tea was served. Tatyana Ilyinitchna rose from her
+place and sat down rather nearer to us. In the course of the evening
+she several times went noiselessly out and as quietly returned. Silence
+reigned in the room. Ovsyanikov drank cup after cup with gravity and
+deliberation.
+
+'Mitya has been to see us to-day,' said Tatyana Ilyinitchna in a low
+voice.
+
+Ovsyanikov frowned.
+
+'What does he want?'
+
+'He came to ask forgiveness.'
+
+Ovsyanikov shook his head.
+
+'Come, tell me,' he went on, turning to me, 'what is one to do with
+relations? And to abandon them altogether is impossible.... Here God
+has bestowed on me a nephew. He's a fellow with brains--a smart
+fellow--I don't dispute that; he has had a good education, but I don't
+expect much good to come of him. He went into a government office;
+threw up his position--didn't get on fast enough, if you please....
+Does he suppose he's a noble? And even noblemen don't come to be
+generals all at once. So now he is living without an occupation.... And
+that, even, would not be such a great matter--except that he has taken
+to litigation! He gets up petitions for the peasants, writes memorials;
+he instructs the village delegates, drags the surveyors over the coals,
+frequents drinking houses, is seen in taverns with city tradesmen and
+inn-keepers. He's bound to come to ruin before long. The constables and
+police-captains have threatened him more than once already. But he
+luckily knows how to turn it off--he makes them laugh; but they will
+boil his kettle for him some day.... But, there, isn't he sitting in
+your little room?' he added, turning to his wife; 'I know you, you see;
+you're so soft-hearted--you will always take his part.'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna dropped her eyes, smiled, and blushed.
+
+'Well, I see it is so,' continued Ovsyanikov. 'Fie! you spoil the boy!
+Well, tell him to come in.... So be it, then; for the sake of our good
+guest I will forgive the silly fellow.... Come, tell him, tell him.'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna went to the door, and cried 'Mitya!'
+
+Mitya, a young man of twenty-eight, tall, well-made, and curly-headed,
+came into the room, and seeing me, stopped short in the doorway. His
+costume was in the German style, but the unnatural size of the puffs on
+his shoulders was enough alone to prove convincingly that the tailor
+who had cut it was a Russian of the Russians.
+
+'Well, come in, come in,' began the old man; 'why are you bashful? You
+must thank your aunt--you're forgiven.... Here, your honour, I commend
+him to you,' he continued, pointing to Mitya; 'he's my own nephew, but
+I don't get on with him at all. The end of the world is coming!' (We
+bowed to one another.) 'Well, tell me what is this you have got mixed
+up in? What is the complaint they are making against you? Explain it to
+us.'
+
+Mitya obviously did not care to explain matters and justify himself
+before me.
+
+'Later on, uncle,' he muttered.
+
+'No, not later--now,' pursued the old man.... 'You are ashamed, I see,
+before this gentleman; all the better--it's only what you deserve.
+Speak, speak; we are listening.'
+
+'I have nothing to be ashamed of,' began Mitya spiritedly, with a toss
+of his head. 'Be so good as to judge for yourself, uncle. Some peasant
+proprietors of Reshetilovo came to me, and said, "Defend us, brother."
+"What is the matter?"' "This is it: our grain stores were in perfect
+order--in fact, they could not be better; all at once a government
+inspector came to us with orders to inspect the granaries. He inspected
+them, and said, 'Your granaries are in disorder--serious neglect; it's
+my duty to report it to the authorities.' 'But what does the neglect
+consist in?' 'That's my business,' he says.... We met together, and
+decided to tip the official in the usual way; but old Prohoritch
+prevented us. He said, 'No; that's only giving him a taste for more.
+Come; after all, haven't we the courts of justice?' We obeyed the old
+man, and the official got in a rage, and made a complaint, and wrote a
+report. So now we are called up to answer to his charges." "But are
+your granaries actually in order?" I asked. "God knows they are in
+order; and the legal quantity of corn is in them." "Well, then," say I,
+"you have nothing to fear"; and I drew up a document for them.... And
+it is not yet known in whose favour it is decided.... And as to the
+complaints they have made to you about me over that affair--it's very
+easy to understand that--every man's shirt is nearest to his own skin.
+
+'Everyone's, indeed--but not yours seemingly,' said the old man in an
+undertone. 'But what plots have you been hatching with the
+Shutolomovsky peasants?'
+
+'How do you know anything of it?'
+
+'Never mind; I do know of it.'
+
+'And there, too, I am right--judge for yourself again. A neighbouring
+landowner, Bezpandin, has ploughed over four acres of the Shutolomovsky
+peasants' land. "The land's mine," he says. The Shutolomovsky people
+are on the rent-system; their landowner has gone abroad--who is to
+stand up for them? Tell me yourself? But the land is theirs beyond
+dispute; they've been bound to it for ages and ages. So they came to
+me, and said, "Write us a petition." So I wrote one. And Bezpandin
+heard of it, and began to threaten me. "I'll break every bone in that
+Mitya's body, and knock his head off his shoulders...." We shall see
+how he will knock it off; it's still on, so far.'
+
+'Come, don't boast; it's in a bad way, your head,' said the old man.
+'You are a mad fellow altogether!'
+
+'Why, uncle, what did you tell me yourself?'
+
+'I know, I know what you will say,' Ovsyanikov interrupted him; 'of
+course a man ought to live uprightly, and he is bound to succour his
+neighbour. Sometimes one must not spare oneself.... But do you always
+behave in that way? Don't they take you to the tavern, eh? Don't they
+treat you; bow to you, eh? "Dmitri Alexyitch," they say, "help us, and
+we will prove our gratitude to you." And they slip a silver rouble or
+note into your hand. Eh? doesn't that happen? Tell me, doesn't that
+happen?'
+
+'I am certainly to blame in that,' answered Mitya, rather confused;
+'but I take nothing from the poor, and I don't act against my
+conscience.'
+
+'You don't take from them now; but when you are badly off yourself,
+then you will. You don't act against your conscience--fie on you! Of
+course, they are all saints whom you defend!... Have you forgotten
+Borka Perohodov? Who was it looked after him? Who took him under his
+protection--eh?'
+
+'Perohodov suffered through his own fault, certainly.'
+
+'He appropriated the public moneys.... That was all!'
+
+'But, consider, uncle: his poverty, his family.'
+
+'Poverty, poverty.... He's a drunkard, a quarrelsome fellow; that's
+what it is!'
+
+'He took to drink through trouble,' said Mitya, dropping his voice.
+
+'Through trouble, indeed! Well, you might have helped him, if your
+heart was so warm to him, but there was no need for you to sit in
+taverns with the drunken fellow yourself. Though he did speak so finely
+... a prodigy, to be sure!'
+
+'He was a very good fellow.'
+
+'Every one is good with you.... But did you send him?' ... pursued
+Ovsyanikov, turning to his wife; 'come; you know?'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna nodded.
+
+'Where have you been lately?' the old man began again.
+
+'I have been in the town.'
+
+'You have been doing nothing but playing billiards, I wager, and
+drinking tea, and running to and fro about the government offices,
+drawing up petitions in little back rooms, flaunting about with
+merchants' sons? That's it, of course?... Tell us!'
+
+'Perhaps that is about it,' said Mitya with a smile.... 'Ah! I had
+almost forgotten--Funtikov, Anton Parfenitch asks you to dine with him
+next Sunday.'
+
+'I shan't go to see that old tub. He gives you costly fish and puts
+rancid butter on it. God bless him!'
+
+'And I met Fedosya Mihalovna.'
+
+'What Fedosya is that?'
+
+'She belongs to Garpentchenko, the landowner, who bought Mikulino by
+auction. Fedosya is from Mikulino. She lived in Moscow as a
+dress-maker, paying her service in money, and she paid her
+service-money accurately--a hundred and eighty two-roubles and a half a
+year.... And she knows her business; she got good orders in Moscow. But
+now Garpentchenko has written for her back, and he retains her here,
+but does not provide any duties for her. She would be prepared to buy
+her freedom, and has spoken to the master, but he will not give any
+decisive answer. You, uncle, are acquainted with Garpentchenko ... so
+couldn't you just say a word to him?... And Fedosya would give a good
+price for her freedom.'
+
+'Not with your money I hope? Hey? Well, well, all right; I will speak
+to him, I will speak to him. But I don't know,' continued the old man
+with a troubled face; 'this Garpentchenko, God forgive him! is a shark;
+he buys up debts, lends money at interest, purchases estates at
+auctions.... And who brought him into our parts? Ugh, I can't bear
+these new-comers! One won't get an answer out of him very quickly....
+However, we shall see.'
+
+'Try to manage it, uncle.'
+
+'Very well, I will see to it. Only you take care; take care of
+yourself! There, there, don't defend yourself.... God bless you! God
+bless you!... Only take care for the future, or else, Mitya, upon my
+word, it will go ill with you.... Upon my word, you will come to
+grief.... I can't always screen you ... and I myself am not a man of
+influence. There, go now, and God be with you!'
+
+Mitya went away. Tatyana Ilyinitchna went out after him.
+
+'Give him some tea, you soft-hearted creature,' cried Ovsyanikov after
+her. 'He's not a stupid fellow,' he continued, 'and he's a good heart,
+but I feel afraid for him.... But pardon me for having so long kept you
+occupied with such details.'
+
+The door from the hall opened. A short grizzled little man came in, in
+a velvet coat.
+
+'Ah, Frantz Ivanitch!' cried Ovsyanikov, 'good day to you. Is God
+merciful to you?'
+
+Allow me, gentle reader, to introduce to you this gentleman.
+
+Frantz Ivanitch Lejeune, my neighbour, and a landowner of Orel, had
+arrived at the respectable position of a Russian nobleman in a not
+quite ordinary way. He was born in Orleans of French parents, and had
+gone with Napoleon, on the invasion of Russia, in the capacity of a
+drummer. At first all went smoothly, and our Frenchman arrived in
+Moscow with his head held high. But on the return journey poor Monsieur
+Lejeune, half-frozen and without his drum, fell into the hands of some
+peasants of Smolensk. The peasants shut him up for the night in an
+empty cloth factory, and the next morning brought him to an ice-hole
+near the dyke, and began to beg the drummer '_de la Grrrrande Armée_'
+to oblige them; in other words, to swim under the ice. Monsieur Lejeune
+could not agree to their proposition, and in his turn began to try to
+persuade the Smolensk peasants, in the dialect of France, to let him go
+to Orleans. 'There, messieurs,' he said, '_my mother is living, une
+tendre mère_' But the peasants, doubtless through their ignorance of
+the geographical position of Orleans, continued to offer him a journey
+under water along the course of the meandering river Gniloterka, and
+had already begun to encourage him with slight blows on the vertebrae
+of the neck and back, when suddenly, to the indescribable delight of
+Lejeune, the sound of bells was heard, and there came along the dyke a
+huge sledge with a striped rug over its excessively high dickey,
+harnessed with three roan horses. In the sledge sat a stout and
+red-faced landowner in a wolfskin pelisse.
+
+'What is it you are doing there?' he asked the peasants.
+
+'We are drowning a Frenchman, your honour.'
+
+'Ah!' replied the landowner indifferently, and he turned away.
+
+'Monsieur! Monsieur!' shrieked the poor fellow.
+
+'Ah, ah!' observed the wolfskin pelisse reproachfully, 'you came with
+twenty nations into Russia, burnt Moscow, tore down, you damned
+heathen! the cross from Ivan the Great, and now--mossoo, mossoo,
+indeed! now you turn tail! You are paying the penalty of your sins!...
+Go on, Filka!'
+
+The horses were starting.
+
+'Stop, though!' added the landowner. 'Eh? you mossoo, do you know
+anything of music?'
+
+'_Sauvez-moi, sauvez-moi, mon bon monsieur!_' repeated Lejeune.
+
+'There, see what a wretched people they are! Not one of them knows
+Russian! Muzeek, muzeek, savey muzeek voo? savey? Well, speak, do!
+Compreny? savey muzeek voo? on the piano, savey zhooey?'
+
+Lejeune comprehended at last what the landowner meant, and persistently
+nodded his head.
+
+'_Oui, monsieur, oui, oui, je suis musicien; je joue tous les
+instruments possibles! Oui, monsieur.... Sauvez-moi, monsieur!_'
+
+'Well, thank your lucky star!' replied the landowner. 'Lads, let him
+go: here's a twenty-copeck piece for vodka.'
+
+'Thank you, your honour, thank you. Take him, your honour.'
+
+They sat Lejeune in the sledge. He was gasping with delight, weeping,
+shivering, bowing, thanking the landowner, the coachman, the peasants.
+He had nothing on but a green jacket with pink ribbons, and it was
+freezing very hard. The landowner looked at his blue and benumbed
+shoulders in silence, wrapped the unlucky fellow in his own pelisse,
+and took him home. The household ran out. They soon thawed the
+Frenchman, fed him, and clothed him. The landowner conducted him to his
+daughters.
+
+'Here, children!' he said to them, 'a teacher is found for you. You
+were always entreating me to have you taught music and the French
+jargon; here you have a Frenchman, and he plays on the piano.... Come,
+mossoo,' he went on, pointing to a wretched little instrument he had
+bought five years before of a Jew, whose special line was eau de
+Cologne, 'give us an example of your art; zhooey!'
+
+Lejeune, with a sinking heart, sat down on the music-stool; he had
+never touched a piano in his life.
+
+'Zhooey, zhooey!' repeated the landowner.
+
+In desperation, the unhappy man beat on the keys as though on a drum,
+and played at hazard. 'I quite expected,' he used to tell afterwards,
+'that my deliverer would seize me by the collar, and throw me out of
+the house.' But, to the utmost amazement of the unwilling improvisor,
+the landowner, after waiting a little, patted him good-humouredly on
+the shoulder.
+
+'Good, good,' he said; 'I see your attainments; go now, and rest
+yourself.'
+
+Within a fortnight Lejeune had gone from this landowner's to stay with
+another, a rich and cultivated man. He gained his friendship by his
+bright and gentle disposition, was married to a ward of his, went into
+a government office, rose to the nobility, married his daughter to
+Lobizanyev, a landowner of Orel, and a retired dragoon and poet, and
+settled himself on an estate in Orel.
+
+It was this same Lejeune, or rather, as he is called now, Frantz
+Ivanitch, who, when I was there, came in to see Ovsyanikov, with whom
+he was on friendly terms....
+
+But perhaps the reader is already weary of sitting with me at the
+Ovsyanikovs', and so I will become eloquently silent.
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+                                  LGOV
+
+
+'Let us go to Lgov,' Yermolaï, whom the reader knows already, said to
+me one day; 'there we can shoot ducks to our heart's content.'
+
+Although wild duck offers no special attraction for a genuine
+sportsman, still, through lack of other game at the time (it was the
+beginning of September; snipe were not on the wing yet, and I was tired
+of running across the fields after partridges), I listened to my
+huntsman's suggestion, and we went to Lgov.
+
+Lgov is a large village of the steppes, with a very old stone church
+with a single cupola, and two mills on the swampy little river Rossota.
+Five miles from Lgov, this river becomes a wide swampy pond, overgrown
+at the edges, and in places also in the centre, with thick reeds. Here,
+in the creeks or rather pools between the reeds, live and breed a
+countless multitude of ducks of all possible kinds--quackers,
+half-quackers, pintails, teals, divers, etc. Small flocks are for ever
+flitting about and swimming on the water, and at a gunshot, they rise
+in such clouds that the sportsman involuntarily clutches his hat with
+one hand and utters a prolonged Pshaw! I walked with Yermolaï along
+beside the pond; but, in the first place, the duck is a wary bird, and
+is not to be met quite close to the bank; and secondly, even when some
+straggling and inexperienced teal exposed itself to our shots and lost
+its life, our dogs were not able to get it out of the thick reeds; in
+spite of their most devoted efforts they could neither swim nor tread
+on the bottom, and only cut their precious noses on the sharp reeds for
+nothing.
+
+'No,' was Yermolaï's comment at last, 'it won't do; we must get a
+boat.... Let us go back to Lgov.'
+
+We went back. We had only gone a few paces when a rather
+wretched-looking setter-dog ran out from behind a bushy willow to meet
+us, and behind him appeared a man of middle height, in a blue and
+much-worn greatcoat, a yellow waistcoat, and pantaloons of a
+nondescript grey colour, hastily tucked into high boots full of holes,
+with a red handkerchief round his neck, and a single-barrelled gun on
+his shoulder. While our dogs, with the ordinary Chinese ceremonies
+peculiar to their species, were sniffing at their new acquaintance, who
+was obviously ill at ease, held his tail between his legs, dropped his
+ears back, and kept turning round and round showing his teeth--the
+stranger approached us, and bowed with extreme civility. He appeared to
+be about twenty-five; his long dark hair, perfectly saturated with
+kvas, stood up in stiff tufts, his small brown eyes twinkled genially;
+his face was bound up in a black handkerchief, as though for toothache;
+his countenance was all smiles and amiability.
+
+'Allow me to introduce myself,' he began in a soft and insinuating
+voice; 'I am a sportsman of these parts--Vladimir.... Having heard of
+your presence, and having learnt that you proposed to visit the shores
+of our pond, I resolved, if it were not displeasing to you, to offer
+you my services.'
+
+The sportsman, Vladimir, uttered those words for all the world like a
+young provincial actor in the _rôle_ of leading lover. I agreed to his
+proposition, and before we had reached Lgov I had succeeded in learning
+his whole history. He was a freed house-serf; in his tender youth had
+been taught music, then served as valet, could read and write, had
+read--so much I could discover--some few trashy books, and existed now,
+as many do exist in Russia, without a farthing of ready money; without
+any regular occupation; fed by manna from heaven, or something hardly
+less precarious. He expressed himself with extraordinary elegance, and
+obviously plumed himself on his manners; he must have been devoted to
+the fair sex too, and in all probability popular with them: Russian
+girls love fine talking. Among other things, he gave me to understand
+that he sometimes visited the neighbouring landowners, and went to stay
+with friends in the town, where he played preference, and that he was
+acquainted with people in the metropolis. His smile was masterly and
+exceedingly varied; what specially suited him was a modest, contained
+smile which played on his lips as he listened to any other man's
+conversation. He was attentive to you; he agreed with you completely,
+but still he did not lose sight of his own dignity, and seemed to wish
+to give you to understand that he could, if occasion arose, express
+convictions of his own. Yermolaï, not being very refined, and quite
+devoid of 'subtlety,' began to address him with coarse familiarity. The
+fine irony with which Vladimir used 'Sir' in his reply was worth seeing.
+
+'Why is your face tied up? 'I inquired; 'have you toothache?'
+
+'No,' he answered; 'it was a most disastrous consequence of
+carelessness. I had a friend, a good fellow, but not a bit of a
+sportsman, as sometimes occurs. Well, one day he said to me, "My dear
+friend, take me out shooting; I am curious to learn what this diversion
+consists in." I did not like, of course, to refuse a comrade; I got him
+a gun and took him out shooting. Well, we shot a little in the ordinary
+way; at last we thought we would rest I sat down under a tree; but he
+began instead to play with his gun, pointing it at me meantime. I asked
+him to leave off, but in his inexperience he did not attend to my
+words, the gun went off, and I lost half my chin, and the first finger
+of my right hand.'
+
+We reached Lgov. Vladimir and Yermolaï had both decided that we could
+not shoot without a boat.
+
+'Sutchok (_i.e._ the twig) has a punt,' observed Vladimir, 'but I don't
+know where he has hidden it. We must go to him.'
+
+'To whom?' I asked.
+
+'The man lives here; Sutchok is his nickname.'
+
+Vladimir went with Yermolaï to Sutchok's. I told them I would wait for
+them at the church. While I was looking at the tombstones in the
+churchyard, I stumbled upon a blackened, four-cornered urn with the
+following inscription, on one side in French: 'Ci-git Théophile-Henri,
+Vicomte de Blangy'; on the next; 'Under this stone is laid the body of
+a French subject, Count Blangy; born 1737, died 1799, in the 62nd year
+of his age': on the third, 'Peace to his ashes': and on the fourth:--
+
+   'Under this stone there lies from France an emigrant.
+     Of high descent was he, and also of talent.
+     A wife and kindred murdered he bewailed,
+     And left his land by tyrants cruel assailed;
+     The friendly shores of Russia he attained,
+     And hospitable shelter here he gained;
+     Children he taught; their parents' cares allayed:
+     Here, by God's will, in peace he has been laid.'
+
+
+The approach of Yermolaï with Vladimir and the man with the strange
+nickname, Sutchok, broke in on my meditations.
+
+Barelegged, ragged and dishevelled, Sutchok looked like a discharged
+stray house-serf of sixty years old.
+
+'Have you a boat?' I asked him.
+
+'I have a boat,' he answered in a hoarse, cracked voice; 'but it's a
+very poor one.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Its boards are split apart, and the rivets have come off the cracks.'
+
+'That's no great disaster!' interposed Yermolaï; 'we can stuff them up
+with tow.'
+
+'Of course you can,' Sutchok assented.
+
+'And who are you?'
+
+'I am the fisherman of the manor.'
+
+'How is it, when you're a fisherman, your boat is in such bad
+condition?'
+
+'There are no fish in our river.'
+
+'Fish don't like slimy marshes,' observed my huntsman, with the air of
+an authority.
+
+'Come,' I said to Yermolaï, 'go and get some tow, and make the boat
+right for us as soon as you can.'
+
+Yermolaï went off.
+
+'Well, in this way we may very likely go to the bottom,' I said to
+Vladimir. 'God is merciful,' he answered. 'Anyway, we must suppose that
+the pond is not deep.'
+
+'No, it is not deep,' observed Sutchok, who spoke in a strange,
+far-away voice, as though he were in a dream, 'and there's sedge and
+mud at the bottom, and it's all overgrown with sedge. But there are
+deep holes too.'
+
+'But if the sedge is so thick,' said Vladimir, 'it will be impossible
+to row.'
+
+'Who thinks of rowing in a punt? One has to punt it. I will go with
+you; my pole is there--or else one can use a wooden spade.'
+
+'With a spade it won't be easy; you won't touch the bottom perhaps in
+some places,' said Vladimir.
+
+'It's true; it won't be easy.'
+
+I sat down on a tomb-stone to wait for Yermolaï. Vladimir moved a
+little to one side out of respect to me, and also sat down. Sutchok
+remained standing in the same place, his head bent and his hands
+clasped behind his back, according to the old habit of house-serfs.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I began, 'have you been the fisherman here long?'
+
+'It is seven years now,' he replied, rousing himself with a start.
+
+'And what was your occupation before?'
+
+'I was coachman before.'
+
+'Who dismissed you from being coachman?'
+
+'The new mistress.'
+
+'What mistress?'
+
+'Oh, that bought us. Your honour does not know her; Alyona Timofyevna;
+she is so fat ... not young.'
+
+'Why did she decide to make you a fisherman?'
+
+'God knows. She came to us from her estate in Tamboff, gave orders for
+all the household to come together, and came out to us. We first kissed
+her hand, and she said nothing; she was not angry.... Then she began to
+question us in order; "How are you employed? what duties have you?" She
+came to me in my turn; so she asked: "What have you been?" I say,
+"Coachman." "Coachman? Well, a fine coachman you are; only look at you!
+You're not fit for a coachman, but be my fisherman, and shave your
+beard. On the occasions of my visits provide fish for the table; do you
+hear?" ... So since then I have been enrolled as a fisherman. "And mind
+you keep my pond in order." But how is one to keep it in order?'
+
+'Whom did you belong to before?'
+
+'To Sergaï Sergiitch Pehterev. We came to him by inheritance. But he
+did not own us long; only six years altogether. I was his coachman ...
+but not in town, he had others there--only in the country.'
+
+'And were you always a coachman from your youth up?'
+
+'Always a coachman? Oh, no! I became a coachman in Sergaï Sergiitch's
+time, but before that I was a cook--but not town-cook; only a cook in
+the country.'
+
+'Whose cook were you, then?'
+
+'Oh, my former master's, Afanasy Nefeditch, Sergaï Sergiitch's uncle.
+Lgov was bought by him, by Afanasy Nefeditch, but it came to Sergaï
+Sergiitch by inheritance from him.'
+
+'Whom did he buy it from?'
+
+'From Tatyana Vassilyevna.'
+
+'What Tatyana Vassilyevna was that?'
+
+'Why, that died last year in Bolhov ... that is, at Karatchev, an old
+maid.... She had never married. Don't you know her? We came to her from
+her father, Vassily Semenitch. She owned us a goodish while ... twenty
+years.'
+
+'Then were you cook to her?'
+
+'At first, to be sure, I was cook, and then I was coffee-bearer.'
+
+'What were you?'
+
+'Coffee-bearer.'
+
+'What sort of duty is that?'
+
+'I don't know, your honour. I stood at the sideboard, and was called
+Anton instead of Kuzma. The mistress ordered that I should be called
+so.'
+
+'Your real name, then, is Kuzma?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And were you coffee-bearer all the time?'
+
+'No, not all the time; I was an actor too.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'Yes, I was.... I played in the theatre. Our mistress set up a theatre
+of her own.'
+
+'What kind of parts did you take?'
+
+'What did you please to say?'
+
+'What did you do in the theatre?'
+
+'Don't you know? Why, they take me and dress me up; and I walk about
+dressed up, or stand or sit down there as it happens, and they say,
+"See, this is what you must say," and I say it. Once I represented a
+blind man.... They laid little peas under each eyelid.... Yes, indeed.'
+
+'And what were you afterwards?'
+
+'Afterwards I became a cook again.'
+
+'Why did they degrade you to being a cook again?'
+
+'My brother ran away.'
+
+'Well, and what were you under the father of your first mistress?'
+
+'I had different duties; at first I found myself a page; I have been a
+postilion, a gardener, and a whipper-in.'
+
+'A whipper-in?... And did you ride out with the hounds?'
+
+'Yes, I rode with the hounds, and was nearly killed; I fell off my
+horse, and the horse was injured. Our old master was very severe; he
+ordered them to flog me, and to send me to learn a trade to Moscow, to
+a shoemaker.'
+
+'To learn a trade? But you weren't a child, I suppose, when you were a
+whipper-in?'
+
+'I was twenty and over then.'
+
+'But could you learn a trade at twenty?'
+
+'I suppose one could, some way, since the master ordered it. But he
+luckily died soon after, and they sent me back to the country.'
+
+'And when were you taught to cook?'
+
+Sutchok lifted his thin yellowish little old face and grinned.
+
+'Is that a thing to be taught?... Old women can cook.'
+
+'Well,' I commented, 'you have seen many things, Kuzma, in your time!
+What do you do now as a fisherman, seeing there are no fish?'
+
+'Oh, your honour, I don't complain. And, thank God, they made me a
+fisherman. Why another old man like me--Andrey Pupir--the mistress
+ordered to be put into the paper factory, as a ladler. "It's a sin,"
+she said, "to eat bread in idleness." And Pupir had even hoped for
+favour; his cousin's son was clerk in the mistress's counting-house: he
+had promised to send his name up to the mistress, to remember him: a
+fine way he remembered him!... And Pupir fell at his cousin's knees
+before my eyes.'
+
+'Have you a family? Have you married?'
+
+'No, your honour, I have never been married. Tatyana Vassilyevna--God
+rest her soul!--did not allow anyone to marry. "God forbid!" she said
+sometimes, "here am I living single: what indulgence! What are they
+thinking of!"'
+
+'What do you live on now? Do you get wages?'
+
+'Wages, your honour!... Victuals are given me, and thanks be to Thee,
+Lord! I am very contented. May God give our lady long life!'
+
+Yermolaï returned.
+
+'The boat is repaired,' he announced churlishly. 'Go after your
+pole--you there!'
+
+Sutchok ran to get his pole. During the whole time of my conversation
+with the poor old man, the sportsman Vladimir had been staring at him
+with a contemptuous smile.
+
+'A stupid fellow,' was his comment, when the latter had gone off; 'an
+absolutely uneducated fellow; a peasant, nothing more. One cannot even
+call him a house-serf, and he was boasting all the time. How could he
+be an actor, be pleased to judge for yourself! You were pleased to
+trouble yourself for no good in talking to him.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later we were sitting in Sutchok's punt. The dogs
+we left in a hut in charge of my coachman. We were not very
+comfortable, but sportsmen are not a fastidious race. At the rear end,
+which was flattened and straight, stood Sutchok, punting; I sat with
+Vladimir on the planks laid across the boat, and Yermolaï ensconced
+himself in front, in the very beak. In spite of the tow, the water soon
+made its appearance under our feet. Fortunately, the weather was calm
+and the pond seemed slumbering.
+
+We floated along rather slowly. The old man had difficulty in drawing
+his long pole out of the sticky mud; it came up all tangled in green
+threads of water-sedge; the flat round leaves of the water-lily also
+hindered the progress of our boat last we got up to the reeds, and then
+the fun began. Ducks flew up noisily from the pond, scared by our
+unexpected appearance in their domains, shots sounded at once after
+them; it was a pleasant sight to see these short-tailed game turning
+somersaults in the air, splashing heavily into the water. We could not,
+of course, get at all the ducks that were shot; those who were slightly
+wounded swam away; some which had been quite killed fell into such
+thick reeds that even Yermolaï's little lynx eyes could not discover
+them, yet our boat was nevertheless filled to the brim with game for
+dinner.
+
+Vladimir, to Yermolaï's great satisfaction, did not shoot at all well;
+he seemed surprised after each unsuccessful shot, looked at his gun and
+blew down it, seemed puzzled, and at last explained to us the reason
+why he had missed his aim. Yermolaï, as always, shot triumphantly;
+I--rather badly, after my custom. Sutchok looked on at us with the eyes
+of a man who has been the servant of others from his youth up; now and
+then he cried out: 'There, there, there's another little duck'; and he
+constantly rubbed his back, not with his hands, but by a peculiar
+movement of the shoulder-blades. The weather kept magnificent; curly
+white clouds moved calmly high above our heads, and were reflected
+clearly in the water; the reeds were whispering around us; here and
+there the pond sparkled in the sunshine like steel. We were preparing
+to return to the village, when suddenly a rather unpleasant adventure
+befel us.
+
+For a long time we had been aware that the water was gradually filling
+our punt. Vladimir was entrusted with the task of baling it out by
+means of a ladle, which my thoughtful huntsman had stolen to be ready
+for any emergency from a peasant woman who was staring away in another
+direction. All went well so long as Vladimir did not neglect his duty.
+But just at the end the ducks, as if to take leave of us, rose in such
+flocks that we scarcely had time to load our guns. In the heat of the
+sport we did not pay attention to the state of our punt--when suddenly,
+Yermolaï, in trying to reach a wounded duck, leaned his whole weight on
+the boat's-edge; at his over-eager movement our old tub veered on one
+side, began to fill, and majestically sank to the bottom, fortunately
+not in a deep place. We cried out, but it was too late; in an instant
+we were standing in the water up to our necks, surrounded by the
+floating bodies of the slaughtered ducks. I cannot help laughing now
+when I recollect the scared white faces of my companions (probably my
+own face was not particularly rosy at that moment), but I must confess
+at the time it did not enter my head to feel amused. Each of us kept
+his gun above his head, and Sutchok, no doubt from the habit of
+imitating his masters, lifted his pole above him. The first to break
+the silence was Yermolaï.
+
+'Tfoo! curse it!' he muttered, spitting into the water; 'here's a go.
+It's all you, you old devil!' he added, turning wrathfully to Sutchok;
+'you've such a boat!'
+
+'It's my fault,' stammered the old man.
+
+'Yes; and you're a nice one,' continued my huntsman, turning his head
+in Vladimir's direction; 'what were you thinking of? Why weren't you
+baling out?--you, you?'
+
+But Vladimir was not equal to a reply; he was shaking like a leaf, his
+teeth were chattering, and his smile was utterly meaningless. What had
+become of his fine language, his feeling of fine distinctions, and of
+his own dignity!
+
+The cursed punt rocked feebly under our feet... At the instant of our
+ducking the water seemed terribly cold to us, but we soon got hardened
+to it, when the first shock had passed off. I looked round me; the
+reeds rose up in a circle ten paces from us; in the distance above
+their tops the bank could be seen. 'It looks bad,' I thought.
+
+'What are we to do?' I asked Yermolaï.
+
+'Well, we'll take a look round; we can't spend the night here,' he
+answered. 'Here, you, take my gun,' he said to Vladimir.
+
+Vladimir obeyed submissively.
+
+'I will go and find the ford,' continued Yermolaï, as though there must
+infallibly be a ford in every pond: he took the pole from Sutchok, and
+went off in the direction of the bank, warily sounding the depth as he
+walked.
+
+'Can you swim?' I asked him.
+
+'No, I can't,' his voice sounded from behind the reeds.
+
+'Then he'll be drowned,' remarked Sutchok indifferently. He had been
+terrified at first, not by the danger, but through fear of our anger,
+and now, completely reassured, he drew a long breath from time to time,
+and seemed not to be aware of any necessity for moving from his present
+position.
+
+'And he will perish without doing any good,' added Vladimir piteously.
+
+Yermolaï did not return for more than an hour. That hour seemed an
+eternity to us. At first we kept calling to him very energetically;
+then his answering shouts grew less frequent; at last he was completely
+silent. The bells in the village began ringing for evening service.
+There was not much conversation between us; indeed, we tried not to
+look at one another. The ducks hovered over our heads; some seemed
+disposed to settle near us, but suddenly rose up into the air and flew
+away quacking. We began to grow numb. Sutchok shut his eyes as though
+he were disposing himself to sleep.
+
+At last, to our indescribable delight, Yermolaï returned.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'I have been to the bank; I have found the ford.... Let us go.'
+
+We wanted to set off at once; but he first brought some string out of
+his pocket out of the water, tied the slaughtered ducks together by
+their legs, took both ends in his teeth, and moved slowly forward;
+Vladimir came behind him, and I behind Vladimir, and Sutchok brought up
+the rear. It was about two hundred paces to the bank. Yermolaï walked
+boldly and without stopping (so well had he noted the track), only
+occasionally crying out: 'More to the left--there's a hole here to the
+right!' or 'Keep to the right--you'll sink in there to the left....'
+Sometimes the water was up to our necks, and twice poor Sutchok, who
+was shorter than all the rest of us, got a mouthful and spluttered.
+'Come, come, come!' Yermolaï shouted roughly to him--and Sutchok,
+scrambling, hopping and skipping, managed to reach a shallower place,
+but even in his greatest extremity was never so bold as to clutch at
+the skirt of my coat. Worn out, muddy and wet, we at last reached the
+bank.
+
+Two hours later we were all sitting, as dry as circumstances would
+allow, in a large hay barn, preparing for supper. The coachman
+Yehudiil, an exceedingly deliberate man, heavy in gait, cautious and
+sleepy, stood at the entrance, zealously plying Sutchok with snuff (I
+have noticed that coachmen in Russia very quickly make friends);
+Sutchok was taking snuff with frenzied energy, in quantities to make
+him ill; he was spitting, sneezing, and apparently enjoying himself
+greatly. Vladimir had assumed an air of languor; he leaned his head on
+one side, and spoke little. Yermolaï was cleaning our guns. The dogs
+were wagging their tails at a great rate in the expectation of
+porridge; the horses were stamping and neighing in the out-house....
+The sun had set; its last rays were broken up into broad tracts of
+purple; golden clouds were drawn out over the heavens into finer and
+ever finer threads, like a fleece washed and combed out. ... There was
+the sound of singing in the village.
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+                            BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
+
+
+It was a glorious July day, one of those days which only come after
+many days of fine weather. From earliest morning the sky is clear; the
+sunrise does not glow with fire; it is suffused with a soft roseate
+flush. The sun, not fiery, not red-hot as in time of stifling drought,
+not dull purple as before a storm, but with a bright and genial
+radiance, rises peacefully behind a long and narrow cloud, shines out
+freshly, and plunges again into its lilac mist. The delicate upper edge
+of the strip of cloud flashes in little gleaming snakes; their
+brilliance is like polished silver. But, lo! the dancing rays flash
+forth again, and in solemn joy, as though flying upward, rises the
+mighty orb. About mid-day there is wont to be, high up in the sky, a
+multitude of rounded clouds, golden-grey, with soft white edges. Like
+islands scattered over an overflowing river, that bathes them in its
+unbroken reaches of deep transparent blue, they scarcely stir; farther
+down the heavens they are in movement, packing closer; now there is no
+blue to be seen between them, but they are themselves almost as blue as
+the sky, filled full with light and heat. The colour of the horizon, a
+faint pale lilac, does not change all day, and is the same all round;
+nowhere is there storm gathering and darkening; only somewhere rays of
+bluish colour stretch down from the sky; it is a sprinkling of
+scarce-perceptible rain. In the evening these clouds disappear; the
+last of them, blackish and undefined as smoke, lie streaked with pink,
+facing the setting sun; in the place where it has gone down, as calmly
+as it rose, a crimson glow lingers long over the darkening earth, and,
+softly flashing like a candle carried carelessly, the evening star
+flickers in the sky. On such days all the colours are softened, bright
+but not glaring; everything is suffused with a kind of touching
+tenderness. On such days the heat is sometimes very great; often it is
+even 'steaming' on the slopes of the fields, but a wind dispels this
+growing sultriness, and whirling eddies of dust--sure sign of settled,
+fine weather--move along the roads and across the fields in high white
+columns. In the pure dry air there is a scent of wormwood, rye in
+blossom, and buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall there is no
+moisture in the air. It is for such weather that the farmer longs, for
+harvesting his wheat....
+
+On just such a day I was once out grouse-shooting in the Tchern
+district of the province of Tula. I started and shot a fair amount of
+game; my full game-bag cut my shoulder mercilessly; but already the
+evening glow had faded, and the cool shades of twilight were beginning
+to grow thicker, and to spread across the sky, which was still bright,
+though no longer lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, when I at
+last decided to turn back homewards. With swift steps I passed through
+the long 'square' of underwoods, clambered up a hill, and instead of
+the familiar plain I expected to see, with the oakwood on the right and
+the little white church in the distance, I saw before me a scene
+completely different, and quite new to me. A narrow valley lay at my
+feet, and directly facing me a dense wood of aspen-trees rose up like a
+thick wall. I stood still in perplexity, looked round me.... 'Aha!' I
+thought, 'I have somehow come wrong; I kept too much to the right,' and
+surprised at my own mistake, I rapidly descended the hill. I was at
+once plunged into a disagreeable clinging mist, exactly as though I had
+gone down into a cellar; the thick high grass at the bottom of the
+valley, all drenched with dew, was white like a smooth tablecloth; one
+felt afraid somehow to walk on it. I made haste to get on the other
+side, and walked along beside the aspenwood, bearing to the left. Bats
+were already hovering over its slumbering tree-tops, mysteriously
+flitting and quivering across the clear obscure of the sky; a young
+belated hawk flew in swift, straight course upwards, hastening to its
+nest. 'Here, directly I get to this corner,' I thought to myself, 'I
+shall find the road at once; but I have come a mile out of my way!'
+
+I did at last reach the end of the wood, but there was no road of any
+sort there; some kind of low bushes overgrown with long grass extended
+far and wide before me; behind them in the far, far distance could be
+discerned a tract of waste land. I stopped again. 'Well? Where am I?' I
+began ransacking my brain to recall how and where I had been walking
+during the day.... 'Ah! but these are the bushes at Parahin,' I cried
+at last; 'of course! then this must be Sindyev wood. But how did I get
+here? So far?... Strange! Now I must bear to the right again.'
+
+I went to the right through the bushes. Meantime the night had crept
+close and grown up like a storm-cloud; it seemed as though, with the
+mists of evening, darkness was rising up on all sides and flowing down
+from overhead. I had come upon some sort of little, untrodden,
+overgrown path; I walked along it, gazing intently before me. Soon all
+was blackness and silence around--only the quail's cry was heard from
+time to time. Some small night-bird, flitting noiselessly near the
+ground on its soft wings, almost flapped against me and skurried away
+in alarm. I came out on the further side of the bushes, and made my way
+along a field by the hedge. By now I could hardly make out distant
+objects; the field showed dimly white around; beyond it rose up a
+sullen darkness, which seemed moving up closer in huge masses every
+instant. My steps gave a muffled sound in the air, that grew colder and
+colder. The pale sky began again to grow blue--but it was the blue of
+night. The tiny stars glimmered and twinkled in it.
+
+What I had been taking for a wood turned out to be a dark round
+hillock. 'But where am I, then?' I repeated again aloud, standing still
+for the third time and looking inquiringly at my spot and tan English
+dog, Dianka by name, certainly the most intelligent of four-footed
+creatures. But the most intelligent of four-footed creatures only
+wagged her tail, blinked her weary eyes dejectedly, and gave me no
+sensible advice. I felt myself disgraced in her eyes and pushed
+desperately forward, as though I had suddenly guessed which way I ought
+to go; I scaled the hill, and found myself in a hollow of no great
+depth, ploughed round.
+
+A strange sensation came over me at once. This hollow had the form of
+an almost perfect cauldron, with sloping sides; at the bottom of it
+were some great white stones standing upright--it seemed as though they
+had crept there for some secret council--and it was so still and dark
+in it, so dreary and weird seemed the sky, overhanging it, that my
+heart sank. Some little animal was whining feebly and piteously among
+the stones. I made haste to get out again on to the hillock. Till then
+I had not quite given up all hope of finding the way home; but at this
+point I finally decided that I was utterly lost, and without any
+further attempt to make out the surrounding objects, which were almost
+completely plunged in darkness, I walked straight forward, by the aid
+of the stars, at random.... For about half-an-hour I walked on in this
+way, though I could hardly move one leg before the other. It seemed as
+if I had never been in such a deserted country in my life; nowhere was
+there the glimmer of a fire, nowhere a sound to be heard. One sloping
+hillside followed another; fields stretched endlessly upon fields;
+bushes seemed to spring up out of the earth under my very nose. I kept
+walking and was just making up my mind to lie down somewhere till
+morning, when suddenly I found myself on the edge of a horrible
+precipice.
+
+I quickly drew back my lifted foot, and through the almost opaque
+darkness I saw far below me a vast plain. A long river skirted it in a
+semi-circle, turned away from me; its course was marked by the steely
+reflection of the water still faintly glimmering here and there. The
+hill on which I found myself terminated abruptly in an almost
+overhanging precipice, whose gigantic profile stood out black against
+the dark-blue waste of sky, and directly below me, in the corner formed
+by this precipice and the plain near the river, which was there a dark,
+motionless mirror, under the lee of the hill, two fires side by side
+were smoking and throwing up red flames. People were stirring round
+them, shadows hovered, and sometimes the front of a little curly head
+was lighted up by the glow.
+
+I found out at last where I had got to. This plain was well known in
+our parts under the name of Byezhin Prairie.... But there was no
+possibility of returning home, especially at night; my legs were
+sinking under me from weariness. I decided to get down to the fires and
+to wait for the dawn in the company of these men, whom I took for
+drovers. I got down successfully, but I had hardly let go of the last
+branch I had grasped, when suddenly two large shaggy white dogs rushed
+angrily barking upon me. The sound of ringing boyish voices came from
+round the fires; two or three boys quickly got up from the ground. I
+called back in response to their shouts of inquiry. They ran up to me,
+and at once called off the dogs, who were specially struck by the
+appearance of my Dianka. I came down to them.
+
+I had been mistaken in taking the figures sitting round the fires for
+drovers. They were simply peasant boys from a neighbouring village, who
+were in charge of a drove of horses. In hot summer weather with us they
+drive the horses out at night to graze in the open country: the flies
+and gnats would give them no peace in the daytime; they drive out the
+drove towards evening, and drive them back in the early morning: it's a
+great treat for the peasant boys. Bare-headed, in old fur-capes, they
+bestride the most spirited nags, and scurry along with merry cries and
+hooting and ringing laughter, swinging their arms and legs, and leaping
+into the air. The fine dust is stirred up in yellow clouds and moves
+along the road; the tramp of hoofs in unison resounds afar; the horses
+race along, pricking up their ears; in front of all, with his tail in
+the air and thistles in his tangled mane, prances some shaggy chestnut,
+constantly shifting his paces as he goes.
+
+I told the boys I had lost my way, and sat down with them. They asked
+me where I came from, and then were silent for a little and turned
+away. Then we talked a little again. I lay down under a bush, whose
+shoots had been nibbled off, and began to look round. It was a
+marvellous picture; about the fire a red ring of light quivered and
+seemed to swoon away in the embrace of a background of darkness; the
+flame flaring up from time to time cast swift flashes of light beyond
+the boundary of this circle; a fine tongue of light licked the dry
+twigs and died away at once; long thin shadows, in their turn breaking
+in for an instant, danced right up to the very fires; darkness was
+struggling with light. Sometimes, when the fire burnt low and the
+circle of light shrank together, suddenly out of the encroaching
+darkness a horse's head was thrust in, bay, with striped markings or
+all white, stared with intent blank eyes upon us, nipped hastily the
+long grass, and drawing back again, vanished instantly. One could only
+hear it still munching and snorting. From the circle of light it was
+hard to make out what was going on in the darkness; everything close at
+hand seemed shut off by an almost black curtain; but farther away hills
+and forests were dimly visible in long blurs upon the horizon.
+
+The dark unclouded sky stood, inconceivably immense, triumphant, above
+us in all its mysterious majesty. One felt a sweet oppression at one's
+heart, breathing in that peculiar, overpowering, yet fresh
+fragrance--the fragrance of a summer night in Russia. Scarcely a sound
+was to be heard around.... Only at times, in the river near, the sudden
+splash of a big fish leaping, and the faint rustle of a reed on the
+bank, swaying lightly as the ripples reached it ... the fires alone
+kept up a subdued crackling.
+
+The boys sat round them: there too sat the two dogs, who had been so
+eager to devour me. They could not for long after reconcile themselves
+to my presence, and, drowsily blinking and staring into the fire, they
+growled now and then with an unwonted sense of their own dignity; first
+they growled, and then whined a little, as though deploring the
+impossibility of carrying out their desires. There were altogether five
+boys: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya. (From their talk I
+learnt their names, and I intend now to introduce them to the reader.)
+
+The first and eldest of all, Fedya, one would take to be about
+fourteen. He was a well-made boy, with good-looking, delicate, rather
+small features, curly fair hair, bright eyes, and a perpetual
+half-merry, half-careless smile. He belonged, by all appearances, to a
+well-to-do family, and had ridden out to the prairie, not through
+necessity, but for amusement. He wore a gay print shirt, with a yellow
+border; a short new overcoat slung round his neck was almost slipping
+off his narrow shoulders; a comb hung from his blue belt. His boots,
+coming a little way up the leg, were certainly his own--not his
+father's. The second boy, Pavlusha, had tangled black hair, grey eyes,
+broad cheek-bones, a pale face pitted with small-pox, a large but
+well-cut mouth; his head altogether was large--'a beer-barrel head,' as
+they say--and his figure was square and clumsy. He was not a
+good-looking boy--there's no denying it!--and yet I liked him; he
+looked very sensible and straightforward, and there was a vigorous ring
+in his voice. He had nothing to boast of in his attire; it consisted
+simply of a homespun shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third,
+Ilyusha, was rather uninteresting; it was a long face, with
+short-sighted eyes and a hook nose; it expressed a kind of dull,
+fretful uneasiness; his tightly-drawn lips seemed rigid; his contracted
+brow never relaxed; he seemed continually blinking from the firelight.
+His flaxen--almost white--hair hung out in thin wisps under his low
+felt hat, which he kept pulling down with both hands over his ears. He
+had on new bast-shoes and leggings; a thick string, wound three times
+round his figure, carefully held together his neat black smock. Neither
+he nor Pavlusha looked more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya,
+a boy of ten, aroused my curiosity by his thoughtful and sorrowful
+look. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed at the chin
+like a squirrel's; his lips were barely perceptible; but his great
+black eyes, that shone with liquid brilliance, produced a strange
+impression; they seemed trying to express something for which the
+tongue--his tongue, at least--had no words. He was undersized and
+weakly, and dressed rather poorly. The remaining boy, Vanya, I had not
+noticed at first; he was lying on the ground, peacefully curled up
+under a square rug, and only occasionally thrust his curly brown head
+out from under it: this boy was seven years old at the most.
+
+So I lay under the bush at one side and looked at the boys. A small pot
+was hanging over one of the fires; in it potatoes were cooking.
+Pavlusha was looking after them, and on his knees he was trying them by
+poking a splinter of wood into the boiling water. Fedya was lying
+leaning on his elbow, and smoothing out the skirts of his coat. Ilyusha
+was sitting beside Kostya, and still kept blinking constrainedly.
+Kostya's head drooped despondently, and he looked away into the
+distance. Vanya did not stir under his rug. I pretended to be asleep.
+Little by little, the boys began talking again.
+
+At first they gossiped of one thing and another, the work of to-morrow,
+the horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha, and, as though taking
+up again an interrupted conversation, asked him:
+
+'Come then, so you've seen the domovoy?'
+
+'No, I didn't see him, and no one ever can see him,' answered Ilyusha,
+in a weak hoarse voice, the sound of which was wonderfully in keeping
+with the expression of his face; 'I heard him.... Yes, and not I alone.'
+
+'Where does he live--in your place?' asked Pavlusha.
+
+'In the old paper-mill.'
+
+'Why, do you go to the factory?'
+
+'Of course we do. My brother Avdushka and I, we are paper-glazers.'
+
+'I say--factory-hands!'
+
+'Well, how did you hear it, then?' asked Fedya.
+
+'It was like this. It happened that I and my brother Avdushka, with
+Fyodor of Mihyevska, and Ivashka the Squint-eyed, and the other Ivashka
+who comes from the Red Hills, and Ivashka of Suhorukov too--and there
+were some other boys there as well--there were ten of us boys there
+altogether--the whole shift, that is--it happened that we spent the
+night at the paper-mill; that's to say, it didn't happen, but Nazarov,
+the overseer, kept us. 'Why,' said he, "should you waste time going
+home, boys; there's a lot of work to-morrow, so don't go home, boys."
+So we stopped, and were all lying down together, and Avdushka had just
+begun to say, "I say, boys, suppose the domovoy were to come?" And
+before he'd finished saying so, some one suddenly began walking over
+our heads; we were lying down below, and he began walking upstairs
+overhead, where the wheel is. We listened: he walked; the boards seemed
+to be bending under him, they creaked so; then he crossed over, above
+our heads; all of a sudden the water began to drip and drip over the
+wheel; the wheel rattled and rattled and again began to turn, though
+the sluices of the conduit above had been let down. We wondered who
+could have lifted them up so that the water could run; any way, the
+wheel turned and turned a little, and then stopped. Then he went to the
+door overhead and began coming down-stairs, and came down like this,
+not hurrying himself; the stairs seemed to groan under him too....
+Well, he came right down to our door, and waited and waited ... and all
+of a sudden the door simply flew open. We were in a fright; we
+looked--there was nothing.... Suddenly what if the net on one of the
+vats didn't begin moving; it got up, and went rising and ducking and
+moving in the air as though some one were stirring with it, and then it
+was in its place again. Then, at another vat, a hook came off its nail,
+and then was on its nail again; and then it seemed as if some one came
+to the door, and suddenly coughed and choked like a sheep, but so
+loudly!... We all fell down in a heap and huddled against one
+another.... Just weren't we in a fright that night!'
+
+'I say!' murmured Pavel, 'what did he cough for?'
+
+'I don't know; perhaps it was the damp.'
+
+All were silent for a little.
+
+'Well,' inquired Fedya, 'are the potatoes done?'
+
+Pavlusha tried them.
+
+'No, they are raw.... My, what a splash!' he added, turning his face in
+the direction of the river; 'that must be a pike.... And there's a star
+falling.'
+
+'I say, I can tell you something, brothers,' began Kostya, in a shrill
+little voice; 'listen what my dad told me the other day.'
+
+'Well, we are listening,' said Fedya with a patronising air.
+
+'You know Gavrila, I suppose, the carpenter up in the big village?'
+
+'Yes, we know him.'
+
+'And do you know why he is so sorrowful always, never speaks? do you
+know? I'll tell you why he's so sorrowful; he went one day, daddy said,
+he went, brothers, into the forest nutting. So he went nutting into the
+forest and lost his way; he went on--God only can tell where he got to.
+So he went on and on, brothers--but 'twas no good!--he could not find
+the way; and so night came on out of doors. So he sat down under a
+tree. "I'll wait till morning," thought he. He sat down and began to
+drop asleep. So as he was falling asleep, suddenly he heard some one
+call him. He looked up; there was no one. He fell asleep again; again
+he was called. He looked and looked again; and in front of him there
+sat a russalka on a branch, swinging herself and calling him to her,
+and simply dying with laughing; she laughed so.... And the moon was
+shining bright, so bright, the moon shone so clear--everything could be
+seen plain, brothers. So she called him, and she herself was as bright
+and as white sitting on the branch as some dace or a roach, or like
+some little carp so white and silvery.... Gavrila the carpenter almost
+fainted, brothers, but she laughed without stopping, and kept beckoning
+him to her like this. Then Gavrila was just getting up; he was just
+going to yield to the russalka, brothers, but--the Lord put it into his
+heart, doubtless--he crossed himself like this.... And it was so hard
+for him to make that cross, brothers; he said, "My hand was simply like
+a stone; it would not move." ... Ugh! the horrid witch.... So when he
+made the cross, brothers, the russalka, she left off laughing, and all
+at once how she did cry.... She cried, brothers, and wiped her eyes
+with her hair, and her hair was green as any hemp. So Gavrila looked
+and looked at her, and at last he fell to questioning her. "Why are you
+weeping, wild thing of the woods?" And the russalka began to speak to
+him like this: "If you had not crossed yourself, man," she says, "you
+should have lived with me in gladness of heart to the end of your days;
+and I weep, I am grieved at heart because you crossed yourself; but I
+will not grieve alone; you too shall grieve at heart to the end of your
+days." Then she vanished, brothers, and at once it was plain to Gavrila
+how to get out of the forest.... Only since then he goes always
+sorrowful, as you see.'
+
+'Ugh!' said Fedya after a brief silence; 'but how can such an evil
+thing of the woods ruin a Christian soul--he did not listen to her?'
+
+'And I say!' said Kostya. 'Gavrila said that her voice was as shrill
+and plaintive as a toad's.'
+
+'Did your father tell you that himself?' Fedya went on.
+
+'Yes. I was lying in the loft; I heard it all.'
+
+'It's a strange thing. Why should he be sorrowful?... But I suppose she
+liked him, since she called him.'
+
+'Ay, she liked him!' put in Ilyusha. 'Yes, indeed! she wanted to tickle
+him to death, that's what she wanted. That's what they do, those
+russalkas.'
+
+'There ought to be russalkas here too, I suppose,' observed Fedya.
+
+'No,' answered Kostya, 'this is a holy open place. There's one thing,
+though: the river's near.'
+
+All were silent. Suddenly from out of the distance came a prolonged,
+resonant, almost wailing sound, one of those inexplicable sounds of the
+night, which break upon a profound stillness, rise upon the air,
+linger, and slowly die away at last. You listen: it is as though there
+were nothing, yet it echoes still. It is as though some one had uttered
+a long, long cry upon the very horizon, as though some other had
+answered him with shrill harsh laughter in the forest, and a faint,
+hoarse hissing hovers over the river. The boys looked round about
+shivering....
+
+'Christ's aid be with us!' whispered Ilyusha.
+
+'Ah, you craven crows!' cried Pavel, 'what are you frightened of? Look,
+the potatoes are done.' (They all came up to the pot and began to eat
+the smoking potatoes; only Vanya did not stir.) 'Well, aren't you
+coming?' said Pavel.
+
+But he did not creep out from under his rug. The pot was soon
+completely emptied.
+
+'Have you heard, boys,' began Ilyusha, 'what happened with us at
+Varnavitsi?'
+
+'Near the dam?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Yes, yes, near the dam, the broken-down dam. That is a haunted place,
+such a haunted place, and so lonely. All round there are pits and
+quarries, and there are always snakes in pits.'
+
+'Well, what did happen? Tell us.'
+
+'Well, this is what happened. You don't know, perhaps, Fedya, but there
+a drowned man was buried; he was drowned long, long ago, when the water
+was still deep; only his grave can still be seen, though it can only
+just be seen ... like this--a little mound.... So one day the bailiff
+called the huntsman Yermil, and says to him, "Go to the post, Yermil."
+Yermil always goes to the post for us; he has let all his dogs die;
+they never will live with him, for some reason, and they have never
+lived with him, though he's a good huntsman, and everyone liked him. So
+Yermil went to the post, and he stayed a bit in the town, and when he
+rode back, he was a little tipsy. It was night, a fine night; the moon
+was shining.... So Yermil rode across the dam; his way lay there. So,
+as he rode along, he saw, on the drowned man's grave, a little lamb, so
+white and curly and pretty, running about. So Yermil thought, "I will
+take him," and he got down and took him in his arms. But the little
+lamb didn't take any notice. So Yermil goes back to his horse, and the
+horse stares at him, and snorts and shakes his head; however, he said
+"wo" to him and sat on him with the lamb, and rode on again; he held
+the lamb in front of him. He looks at him, and the lamb looks him
+straight in the face, like this. Yermil the huntsman felt upset. "I
+don't remember," he said, "that lambs ever look at any one like that";
+however, he began to stroke it like this on its wool, and to say,
+"Chucky! chucky!" And the lamb suddenly showed its teeth and said too,
+"Chucky! chucky!"'
+
+The boy who was telling the story had hardly uttered this last word,
+when suddenly both dogs got up at once, and, barking convulsively,
+rushed away from the fire and disappeared in the darkness. All the boys
+were alarmed. Vanya jumped up from under his rug. Pavlusha ran shouting
+after the dogs. Their barking quickly grew fainter in the distance....
+There was the noise of the uneasy tramp of the frightened drove of
+horses. Pavlusha shouted aloud: 'Hey Grey! Beetle!' ... In a few
+minutes the barking ceased; Pavel's voice sounded still in the
+distance.... A little time more passed; the boys kept looking about in
+perplexity, as though expecting something to happen.... Suddenly the
+tramp of a galloping horse was heard; it stopped short at the pile of
+wood, and, hanging on to the mane, Pavel sprang nimbly off it. Both the
+dogs also leaped into the circle of light and at once sat down, their
+red tongues hanging out.
+
+'What was it? what was it?' asked the boys.
+
+'Nothing,' answered Pavel, waving his hand to his horse; 'I suppose the
+dogs scented something. I thought it was a wolf,' he added, calmly
+drawing deep breaths into his chest.
+
+I could not help admiring Pavel. He was very fine at that moment. His
+ugly face, animated by his swift ride, glowed with hardihood and
+determination. Without even a switch in his hand, he had, without the
+slightest hesitation, rushed out into the night alone to face a
+wolf.... 'What a splendid fellow!' I thought, looking at him.
+
+'Have you seen any wolves, then?' asked the trembling Kostya.
+
+'There are always a good many of them here,' answered Pavel; 'but they
+are only troublesome in the winter.'
+
+He crouched down again before the fire. As he sat down on the ground,
+he laid his hand on the shaggy head of one of the dogs. For a long
+while the flattered brute did not turn his head, gazing sidewise with
+grateful pride at Pavlusha.
+
+Vanya lay down under his rug again.
+
+'What dreadful things you were telling us, Ilyusha!' began Fedya, whose
+part it was, as the son of a well-to-do peasant, to lead the
+conversation. (He spoke little himself, apparently afraid of lowering
+his dignity.) 'And then some evil spirit set the dogs barking....
+Certainly I have heard that place was haunted.'
+
+'Varnavitsi?... I should think it was haunted! More than once, they
+say, they have seen the old master there--the late master. He wears,
+they say, a long skirted coat, and keeps groaning like this, and
+looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimitch met
+him. "What," says he, "your honour, Ivan Ivanitch, are you pleased to
+look for on the ground?"'
+
+'He asked him?' put in Fedya in amazement.
+
+'Yes, he asked him.'
+
+'Well, I call Trofimitch a brave fellow after that.... Well, what did
+he say?'
+
+'"I am looking for the herb that cleaves all things," says he. But he
+speaks so thickly, so thickly. "And what, your honour, Ivan Ivanitch,
+do you want with the herb that cleaves all things?" "The tomb weighs on
+me; it weighs on me, Trofimitch: I want to get away--away."'
+
+'My word!' observed Fedya, 'he didn't enjoy his life enough, I suppose.'
+
+'What a marvel!' said Kosyta. 'I thought one could only see the
+departed on All Hallows' day.'
+
+'One can see the departed any time,' Ilyusha interposed with
+conviction. From what I could observe, I judged he knew the village
+superstitions better than the others.... 'But on All Hallows' day you
+can see the living too; those, that is, whose turn it is to die that
+year. You need only sit in the church porch, and keep looking at the
+road. They will come by you along the road; those, that is, who will
+die that year. Last year old Ulyana went to the porch.'
+
+'Well, did she see anyone?' asked Kostya inquisitively.
+
+'To be sure she did. At first she sat a long, long while, and saw no
+one and heard nothing ... only it seemed as if some dog kept whining
+and whining like this somewhere.... Suddenly she looks up: a boy comes
+along the road with only a shirt on. She looked at him. It was Ivashka
+Fedosyev.'
+
+'He who died in the spring?' put in Fedya.
+
+'Yes, he. He came along and never lifted up his head. But Ulyana knew
+him. And then she looks again: a woman came along. She stared and
+stared at her.... Ah, God Almighty! ... it was herself coming along the
+road; Ulyana herself.'
+
+'Could it be herself?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Yes, by God, herself.'
+
+'Well, but she is not dead yet, you know?' 'But the year is not over
+yet. And only look at her; her life hangs on a thread.'
+
+All were still again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on to the
+fire. They were soon charred by the suddenly leaping flame; they
+cracked and smoked, and began to contract, curling up their burning
+ends. Gleams of light in broken flashes glanced in all directions,
+especially upwards. Suddenly a white dove flew straight into the bright
+light, fluttered round and round in terror, bathed in the red glow, and
+disappeared with a whirr of its wings.
+
+'It's lost its home, I suppose,' remarked Pavel. 'Now it will fly till
+it gets somewhere, where it can rest till dawn.'
+
+'Why, Pavlusha,' said Kostya, 'might it not be a just soul flying to
+heaven?'
+
+Pavel threw another handful of twigs on to the fire.
+
+'Perhaps,' he said at last.
+
+'But tell us, please, Pavlusha,' began Fedya, 'what was seen in your
+parts at Shalamovy at the heavenly portent?'
+
+[Footnote: This is what the peasants call an eclipse.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'When the sun could not be seen? Yes, indeed.'
+
+'Were you frightened then?'
+
+'Yes; and we weren't the only ones. Our master, though he talked to us
+beforehand, and said there would be a heavenly portent, yet when it got
+dark, they say he himself was frightened out of his wits. And in the
+house-serfs' cottage the old woman, directly it grew dark, broke all
+the dishes in the oven with the poker. 'Who will eat now?' she said;
+'the last day has come.' So the soup was all running about the place.
+And in the village there were such tales about among us: that white
+wolves would run over the earth, and would eat men, that a bird of prey
+would pounce down on us, and that they would even see Trishka.'
+
+[Footnote: The popular belief in Trishka is probably derived from some
+tradition of Antichrist.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'What is Trishka?' asked Kostya.
+
+'Why, don't you know?' interrupted Ilyusha warmly. 'Why, brother, where
+have you been brought up, not to know Trishka? You're a stay-at-home,
+one-eyed lot in your village, really! Trishka will be a marvellous man,
+who will come one day, and he will be such a marvellous man that they
+will never be able to catch him, and never be able to do anything with
+him; he will be such a marvellous man. The people will try to take him;
+for example, they will come after him with sticks, they will surround
+him, but he will blind their eyes so that they fall upon one another.
+They will put him in prison, for example; he will ask for a little
+water to drink in a bowl; they will bring him the bowl, and he will
+plunge into it and vanish from their sight. They will put chains on
+him, but he will only clap his hands--they will fall off him. So this
+Trishka will go through villages and towns; and this Trishka will be a
+wily man; he will lead astray Christ's people ... and they will be able
+to do nothing to him.... He will be such a marvellous, wily man.'
+
+'Well, then,' continued Pavel, in his deliberate voice, 'that's what he
+'s like. And so they expected him in our parts. The old men declared
+that directly the heavenly portent began, Trishka would come. So the
+heavenly portent began. All the people were scattered over the street,
+in the fields, waiting to see what would happen. Our place, you know,
+is open country. They look; and suddenly down the mountain-side from
+the big village comes a man of some sort; such a strange man, with such
+a wonderful head ... that all scream: "Oy, Trishka is coming! Oy,
+Trishka is coming!" and all run in all directions! Our elder crawled
+into a ditch; his wife stumbled on the door-board and screamed with all
+her might; she terrified her yard-dog, so that he broke away from his
+chain and over the hedge and into the forest; and Kuzka's father,
+Dorofyitch, ran into the oats, lay down there, and began to cry like a
+quail. 'Perhaps' says he, 'the Enemy, the Destroyer of Souls, will
+spare the birds, at least.' So they were all in such a scare! But he
+that was coming was our cooper Vavila; he had bought himself a new
+pitcher, and had put the empty pitcher over his head.'
+
+All the boys laughed; and again there was a silence for a while, as
+often happens when people are talking in the open air. I looked out
+into the solemn, majestic stillness of the night; the dewy freshness of
+late evening had been succeeded by the dry heat of midnight; the
+darkness still had long to lie in a soft curtain over the slumbering
+fields; there was still a long while left before the first whisperings,
+the first dewdrops of dawn. There was no moon in the heavens; it rose
+late at that time. Countless golden stars, twinkling in rivalry, seemed
+all running softly towards the Milky Way, and truly, looking at them,
+you were almost conscious of the whirling, never--resting motion of the
+earth.... A strange, harsh, painful cry, sounded twice together over
+the river, and a few moments later, was repeated farther down....
+
+Kostya shuddered. 'What was that?'
+
+'That was a heron's cry,' replied Pavel tranquilly.
+
+'A heron,' repeated Kostya.... 'And what was it, Pavlusha, I heard
+yesterday evening,' he added, after a short pause; 'you perhaps will
+know.'
+
+'What did you hear?'
+
+'I will tell you what I heard. I was going from Stony Ridge to
+Shashkino; I went first through our walnut wood, and then passed by a
+little pool--you know where there's a sharp turn down to the
+ravine--there is a water-pit there, you know; it is quite overgrown
+with reeds; so I went near this pit, brothers, and suddenly from this
+came a sound of some one groaning, and piteously, so piteously; oo-oo,
+oo-oo! I was in such a fright, my brothers; it was late, and the voice
+was so miserable. I felt as if I should cry myself.... What could that
+have been, eh?'
+
+'It was in that pit the thieves drowned Akim the forester, last
+summer,' observed Pavel; 'so perhaps it was his soul lamenting.'
+
+'Oh, dear, really, brothers,' replied Kostya, opening wide his eyes,
+which were round enough before, 'I did not know they had drowned Akim
+in that pit. Shouldn't I have been frightened if I'd known!'
+
+'But they say there are little, tiny frogs,' continued Pavel, 'who cry
+piteously like that.'
+
+'Frogs? Oh, no, it was not frogs, certainly not. (A heron again uttered
+a cry above the river.) Ugh, there it is!' Kostya cried involuntarily;
+'it is just like a wood-spirit shrieking.'
+
+'The wood-spirit does not shriek; it is dumb,' put in Ilyusha; 'it only
+claps its hands and rattles.'
+
+'And have you seen it then, the wood-spirit?' Fedya asked him
+ironically.
+
+'No, I have not seen it, and God preserve me from seeing it; but others
+have seen it. Why, one day it misled a peasant in our parts, and led
+him through the woods and all in a circle in one field.... He scarcely
+got home till daylight.'
+
+'Well, and did he see it?'
+
+'Yes. He says it was a big, big creature, dark, wrapped up, just like a
+tree; you could not make it out well; it seemed to hide away from the
+moon, and kept staring and staring with its great eyes, and winking and
+winking with them....'
+
+'Ugh!' exclaimed Fedya with a slight shiver, and a shrug of the
+shoulders; 'pfoo.'
+
+'And how does such an unclean brood come to exist in the world?' said
+Pavel; 'it's a wonder.'
+
+'Don't speak ill of it; take care, it will hear you,' said Ilyusha.
+
+Again there was a silence.
+
+'Look, look, brothers,' suddenly came Vanya's childish voice; 'look at
+God's little stars; they are swarming like bees!'
+
+He put his fresh little face out from under his rug, leaned on his
+little fist, and slowly lifted up his large soft eyes. The eyes of all
+the boys were raised to the sky, and they were not lowered quickly.
+
+'Well, Vanya,' began Fedya caressingly, 'is your sister Anyutka well?'
+
+'Yes, she is very well,' replied Vanya with a slight lisp.
+
+'You ask her, why doesn't she come to see us?'
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+'You tell her to come.'
+
+'Very well.'
+
+'Tell her I have a present for her.'
+
+'And a present for me too?'
+
+'Yes, you too.'
+
+Vanya sighed.
+
+'No; I don't want one. Better give it to her; she is so kind to us at
+home.'
+
+And Vanya laid his head down again on the ground. Pavel got up and took
+the empty pot in his hand.
+
+'Where are you going?' Fedya asked him.
+
+'To the river, to get water; I want some water to drink.'
+
+The dogs got up and followed him.
+
+'Take care you don't fall into the river!' Ilyusha cried after him.
+
+'Why should he fall in?' said Fedya. 'He will be careful.'
+
+'Yes, he will be careful. But all kinds of things happen; he will stoop
+over, perhaps, to draw the water, and the water-spirit will clutch him
+by the hand, and drag him to him. Then they will say, "The boy fell
+into the water." ... Fell in, indeed! ... "There, he has crept in among
+the reeds," he added, listening.
+
+The reeds certainly 'shished,' as they call it among us, as they were
+parted.
+
+'But is it true,' asked Kostya, 'that crazy Akulina has been mad ever
+since she fell into the water?'
+
+'Yes, ever since.... How dreadful she is now! But they say she was a
+beauty before then. The water-spirit bewitched her. I suppose he did
+not expect they would get her out so soon. So down there at the bottom
+he bewitched her.'
+
+(I had met this Akulina more than once. Covered with rags, fearfully
+thin, with face as black as a coal, blear-eyed and for ever grinning,
+she would stay whole hours in one place in the road, stamping with her
+feet, pressing her fleshless hands to her breast, and slowly shifting
+from one leg to the other, like a wild beast in a cage. She understood
+nothing that was said to her, and only chuckled spasmodically from time
+to time.)
+
+'But they say,' continued Kostya, 'that Akulina threw herself into the
+river because her lover had deceived her.'
+
+'Yes, that was it.'
+
+'And do you remember Vasya? added Kostya, mournfully.
+
+'What Vasya?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Why, the one who was drowned,' replied Kostya,' in this very river.
+Ah, what a boy he was! What a boy he was! His mother, Feklista, how she
+loved him, her Vasya! And she seemed to have a foreboding, Feklista
+did, that harm would come to him from the water. Sometimes, when Vasya
+went with us boys in the summer to bathe in the river, she used to be
+trembling all over. The other women did not mind; they passed by with
+the pails, and went on, but Feklista put her pail down on the ground,
+and set to calling him, 'Come back, come back, my little joy; come
+back, my darling!' And no one knows how he was drowned. He was playing
+on the bank, and his mother was there haymaking; suddenly she hears, as
+though some one was blowing bubbles through the water, and behold!
+there was only Vasya's little cap to be seen swimming on the water. You
+know since then Feklista has not been right in her mind: she goes and
+lies down at the place where he was drowned; she lies down, brothers,
+and sings a song--you remember Vasya was always singing a song like
+that--so she sings it too, and weeps and weeps, and bitterly rails
+against God.'
+
+'Here is Pavlusha coming,' said Fedya.
+
+Pavel came up to the fire with a full pot in his hand.
+
+'Boys,' he began, after a short silence, 'something bad happened.'
+
+'Oh, what?' asked Kostya hurriedly.
+
+'I heard Vasya's voice.'
+
+They all seemed to shudder.
+
+'What do you mean? what do you mean?' stammered Kostya.
+
+'I don't know. Only I went to stoop down to the water; suddenly I hear
+my name called in Vasya's voice, as though it came from below water:
+"Pavlusha, Pavlusha, come here." I came away. But I fetched the water,
+though.'
+
+'Ah, God have mercy upon us!' said the boys, crossing themselves.
+
+'It was the water-spirit calling you, Pavel,' said Fedya; 'we were just
+talking of Vasya.'
+
+'Ah, it's a bad omen,' said Ilyusha, deliberately.
+
+'Well, never mind, don't bother about it,' Pavel declared stoutly, and
+he sat down again; 'no one can escape his fate.'
+
+The boys were still. It was clear that Pavel's words had produced a
+strong impression on them. They began to lie down before the fire as
+though preparing to go to sleep.
+
+'What is that?' asked Kostya, suddenly lifting his head.
+
+Pavel listened.
+
+'It's the curlews flying and whistling.'
+
+'Where are they flying to?'
+
+'To a land where, they say, there is no winter.'
+
+'But is there such a land?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Is it far away?'
+
+'Far, far away, beyond the warm seas.'
+
+Kostya sighed and shut his eyes.
+
+More than three hours had passed since I first came across the boys.
+The moon at last had risen; I did not notice it at first; it was such a
+tiny crescent. This moonless night was as solemn and hushed as it had
+been at first.... But already many stars, that not long before had been
+high up in the heavens, were setting over the earth's dark rim;
+everything around was perfectly still, as it is only still towards
+morning; all was sleeping the deep unbroken sleep that comes before
+daybreak. Already the fragrance in the air was fainter; once more a dew
+seemed falling.... How short are nights in summer!... The boys' talk
+died down when the fires did. The dogs even were dozing; the horses, so
+far as I could make out, in the hardly-perceptible, faintly shining
+light of the stars, were asleep with downcast heads.... I fell into a
+state of weary unconsciousness, which passed into sleep.
+
+A fresh breeze passed over my face. I opened my eyes; the morning was
+beginning. The dawn had not yet flushed the sky, but already it was
+growing light in the east. Everything had become visible, though dimly
+visible, around. The pale grey sky was growing light and cold and
+bluish; the stars twinkled with a dimmer light, or disappeared; the
+earth was wet, the leaves covered with dew, and from the distance came
+sounds of life and voices, and a light morning breeze went fluttering
+over the earth. My body responded to it with a faint shudder of
+delight. I got up quickly and went to the boys. They were all sleeping
+as though they were tired out round the smouldering fire; only Pavel
+half rose and gazed intently at me.
+
+I nodded to him, and walked homewards beside the misty river. Before I
+had walked two miles, already all around me, over the wide dew-drenched
+prairie, and in front from forest to forest, where the hills were
+growing green again, and behind, over the long dusty road and the
+sparkling bushes, flushed with the red glow, and the river faintly blue
+now under the lifting mist, flowed fresh streams of burning light,
+first pink, then red and golden.... All things began to stir, to
+awaken, to sing, to flutter, to speak. On all sides thick drops of dew
+sparkled in glittering diamonds; to welcome me, pure and clear as
+though bathed in the freshness of morning, came the notes of a bell,
+and suddenly there rushed by me, driven by the boys I had parted from,
+the drove of horses, refreshed and rested....
+
+Sad to say, I must add that in that year Pavel met his end. He was not
+drowned; he was killed by a fall from his horse. Pity! he was a
+splendid fellow!
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+                        KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
+
+
+I was returning from hunting in a jolting little trap, and overcome by
+the stifling heat of a cloudy summer day (it is well known that the
+heat is often more insupportable on such days than in bright days,
+especially when there is no wind), I dozed and was shaken about,
+resigning myself with sullen fortitude to being persecuted by the fine
+white dust which was incessantly raised from the beaten road by the
+warped and creaking wheels, when suddenly my attention was aroused by
+the extraordinary uneasiness and agitated movements of my coachman, who
+had till that instant been more soundly dozing than I. He began tugging
+at the reins, moved uneasily on the box, and started shouting to the
+horses, staring all the while in one direction. I looked round. We were
+driving through a wide ploughed plain; low hills, also ploughed over,
+ran in gently sloping, swelling waves over it; the eye took in some
+five miles of deserted country; in the distance the round-scolloped
+tree-tops of some small birch-copses were the only objects to break the
+almost straight line of the horizon. Narrow paths ran over the fields,
+disappeared into the hollows, and wound round the hillocks. On one of
+these paths, which happened to run into our road five hundred paces
+ahead of us, I made out a kind of procession. At this my coachman was
+looking.
+
+It was a funeral. In front, in a little cart harnessed with one horse,
+and advancing at a walking pace, came the priest; beside him sat the
+deacon driving; behind the cart four peasants, bareheaded, carried the
+coffin, covered with a white cloth; two women followed the coffin. The
+shrill wailing voice of one of them suddenly reached my ears; I
+listened; she was intoning a dirge. Very dismal sounded this chanted,
+monotonous, hopelessly-sorrowful lament among the empty fields. The
+coachman whipped up the horses; he wanted to get in front of this
+procession. To meet a corpse on the road is a bad omen. And he did
+succeed in galloping ahead beyond this path before the funeral had had
+time to turn out of it into the high-road; but we had hardly got a
+hundred paces beyond this point, when suddenly our trap jolted
+violently, heeled on one side, and all but overturned. The coachman
+pulled up the galloping horses, and spat with a gesture of his hand.
+
+'What is it?' I asked.
+
+My coachman got down without speaking or hurrying himself.
+
+'But what is it?'
+
+'The axle is broken ... it caught fire,' he replied gloomily, and he
+suddenly arranged the collar on the off-side horse with such
+indignation that it was almost pushed over, but it stood its ground,
+snorted, shook itself, and tranquilly began to scratch its foreleg
+below the knee with its teeth.
+
+I got out and stood for some time on the road, a prey to a vague and
+unpleasant feeling of helplessness. The right wheel was almost
+completely bent in under the trap, and it seemed to turn its
+centre-piece upwards in dumb despair.
+
+'What are we to do now?' I said at last.
+
+'That's what's the cause of it!' said my coachman, pointing with his
+whip to the funeral procession, which had just turned into the highroad
+and was approaching us. 'I have always noticed that,' he went on; 'it's
+a true saying--"Meet a corpse"--yes, indeed.'
+
+And again he began worrying the off-side horse, who, seeing his
+ill-humour, resolved to remain perfectly quiet, and contented itself
+with discreetly switching its tail now and then. I walked up and down a
+little while, and then stopped again before the wheel.
+
+Meanwhile the funeral had come up to us. Quietly turning off the road
+on to the grass, the mournful procession moved slowly past us. My
+coachman and I took off our caps, saluted the priest, and exchanged
+glances with the bearers. They moved with difficulty under their
+burden, their broad chests standing out under the strain. Of the two
+women who followed the coffin, one was very old and pale; her set face,
+terribly distorted as it was by grief, still kept an expression of
+grave and severe dignity. She walked in silence, from time to time
+lifting her wasted hand to her thin drawn lips. The other, a young
+woman of five-and-twenty, had her eyes red and moist and her whole face
+swollen with weeping; as she passed us she ceased wailing, and hid her
+face in her sleeve.... But when the funeral had got round us and turned
+again into the road, her piteous, heart-piercing lament began again. My
+coachman followed the measured swaying of the coffin with his eyes in
+silence. Then he turned to me.
+
+'It's Martin, the carpenter, they're burying,' he said; 'Martin of
+Ryaby.'
+
+'How do you know?'
+
+'I know by the women. The old one is his mother, and the young one's
+his wife.'
+
+'Has he been ill, then?'
+
+'Yes ... fever. The day before yesterday the overseer sent for the
+doctor, but they did not find the doctor at home. He was a good
+carpenter; he drank a bit, but he was a good carpenter. See how upset
+his good woman is.... But, there; women's tears don't cost much, we
+know. Women's tears are only water ... yes, indeed.'
+
+And he bent down, crept under the side-horse's trace, and seized the
+wooden yoke that passes over the horses' heads with both hands.
+
+'Any way,' I observed, 'what are we going to do?'
+
+My coachman just supported himself with his knees on the shaft-horse's
+shoulder, twice gave the back-strap a shake, and straightened the pad;
+then he crept out of the side-horse's trace again, and giving it a blow
+on the nose as he passed, went up to the wheel. He went up to it, and,
+never taking his eyes off it, slowly took out of the skirts of his coat
+a box, slowly pulled open its lid by a strap, slowly thrust into it his
+two fat fingers (which pretty well filled it up), rolled and rolled up
+some snuff, and creasing up his nose in anticipation, helped himself to
+it several times in succession, accompanying the snuff-taking every
+time by a prolonged sneezing. Then, his streaming eyes blinking
+faintly, he relapsed into profound meditation.
+
+'Well?' I said at last.
+
+My coachman thrust his box carefully into his pocket, brought his hat
+forward on to his brows without the aid of his hand by a movement of
+his head, and gloomily got up on the box.
+
+'What are you doing?' I asked him, somewhat bewildered.
+
+'Pray be seated,' he replied calmly, picking up the reins.
+
+'But how can we go on?'
+
+'We will go on now.'
+
+'But the axle.'
+
+'Pray be seated.'
+
+'But the axle is broken.'
+
+'It is broken; but we will get to the settlement ... at a walking pace,
+of course. Over here, beyond the copse, on the right, is a settlement;
+they call it Yudino.'
+
+'And do you think we can get there?'
+
+My coachman did not vouchsafe me a reply.
+
+'I had better walk,' I said.
+
+'As you like....' And he nourished his whip. The horses started.
+
+We did succeed in getting to the settlement, though the right front
+wheel was almost off, and turned in a very strange way. On one hillock
+it almost flew off, but my coachman shouted in a voice of exasperation,
+and we descended it in safety.
+
+Yudino settlement consisted of six little low-pitched huts, the walls
+of which had already begun to warp out of the perpendicular, though
+they had certainly not been long built; the back-yards of some of the
+huts were not even fenced in with a hedge. As we drove into this
+settlement we did not meet a single living soul; there were no hens
+even to be seen in the street, and no dogs, but one black crop-tailed
+cur, which at our approach leaped hurriedly out of a perfectly dry and
+empty trough, to which it must have been driven by thirst, and at once,
+without barking, rushed headlong under a gate. I went up to the first
+hut, opened the door into the outer room, and called for the master of
+the house. No one answered me. I called once more; the hungry mewing of
+a cat sounded behind the other door. I pushed it open with my foot; a
+thin cat ran up and down near me, her green eyes glittering in the
+dark. I put my head into the room and looked round; it was empty, dark,
+and smoky. I returned to the yard, and there was no one there
+either.... A calf lowed behind the paling; a lame grey goose waddled a
+little away. I passed on to the second hut. Not a soul in the second
+hut either. I went into the yard....
+
+In the very middle of the yard, in the glaring sunlight, there lay,
+with his face on the ground and a cloak thrown over his head, a boy, as
+it seemed to me. In a thatched shed a few paces from him a thin little
+nag with broken harness was standing near a wretched little cart. The
+sunshine falling in streaks through the narrow cracks in the
+dilapidated roof, striped his shaggy, reddish-brown coat in small bands
+of light. Above, in the high bird-house, starlings were chattering and
+looking down inquisitively from their airy home. I went up to the
+sleeping figure and began to awaken him.
+
+He lifted his head, saw me, and at once jumped up on to his feet....
+'What? what do you want? what is it?' he muttered, half asleep.
+
+I did not answer him at once; I was so much impressed by his appearance.
+
+Picture to yourself a little creature of fifty years old, with a little
+round wrinkled face, a sharp nose, little, scarcely visible, brown
+eyes, and thick curly black hair, which stood out on his tiny head like
+the cap on the top of a mushroom. His whole person was excessively thin
+and weakly, and it is absolutely impossible to translate into words the
+extraordinary strangeness of his expression.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked me again. I explained to him what was the
+matter; he listened, slowly blinking, without taking his eyes off me.
+
+'So cannot we get a new axle?' I said finally; 'I will gladly pay for
+it.'
+
+'But who are you? Hunters, eh?' he asked, scanning me from head to foot.
+
+'Hunters.'
+
+'You shoot the fowls of heaven, I suppose?... the wild things of the
+woods?... And is it not a sin to kill God's birds, to shed the innocent
+blood?'
+
+The strange old man spoke in a very drawling tone. The sound of his
+voice also astonished me. There was none of the weakness of age to be
+heard in it; it was marvellously sweet, young and almost feminine in
+its softness.
+
+'I have no axle,' he added after a brief silence. 'That thing will not
+suit you.' He pointed to his cart. 'You have, I expect, a large trap.'
+
+'But can I get one in the village?'
+
+'Not much of a village here!... No one has an axle here.... And there
+is no one at home either; they are all at work. You must go on,' he
+announced suddenly; and he lay down again on the ground.
+
+I had not at all expected this conclusion.
+
+'Listen, old man,' I said, touching him on the shoulder; 'do me a
+kindness, help me.'
+
+'Go on, in God's name! I am tired; I have driven into the town,' he
+said, and drew his cloak over his head.
+
+'But pray do me a kindness,' I said. 'I ... I will pay for it.' 'I
+don't want your money.'
+
+'But please, old man.'
+
+He half raised himself and sat up, crossing his little legs.
+
+'I could take you perhaps to the clearing. Some merchants have bought
+the forest here--God be their judge! They are cutting down the forest,
+and they have built a counting-house there--God be their judge! You
+might order an axle of them there, or buy one ready made.'
+
+'Splendid!' I cried delighted; 'splendid! let us go.'
+
+'An oak axle, a good one,' he continued, not getting up from his place.
+
+'And is it far to this clearing?'
+
+'Three miles.'
+
+'Come, then! we can drive there in your trap.'
+
+'Oh, no....'
+
+'Come, let us go,' I said; 'let us go, old man! The coachman is waiting
+for us in the road.'
+
+The old man rose unwillingly and followed me into the street. We found
+my coachman in an irritable frame of mind; he had tried to water his
+horses, but the water in the well, it appeared, was scanty in quantity
+and bad in taste, and water is the first consideration with
+coachmen.... However, he grinned at the sight of the old man, nodded
+his head and cried: 'Hallo! Kassyanushka! good health to you!'
+
+'Good health to you, Erofay, upright man!' replied Kassyan in a
+dejected voice.
+
+I at once made known his suggestion to the coachman; Erofay expressed
+his approval of it and drove into the yard. While he was busy
+deliberately unharnessing the horses, the old man stood leaning with
+his shoulders against the gate, and looking disconsolately first at him
+and then at me. He seemed in some uncertainty of mind; he was not very
+pleased, as it seemed to me, at our sudden visit.
+
+'So they have transported you too?' Erofay asked him suddenly, lifting
+the wooden arch of the harness.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Ugh!' said my coachman between his teeth. 'You know Martin the
+carpenter.... Of course, you know Martin of Ryaby?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, he is dead. We have just met his coffin.'
+
+Kassyan shuddered.
+
+'Dead?' he said, and his head sank dejectedly.
+
+'Yes, he is dead. Why didn't you cure him, eh? You know they say you
+cure folks; you're a doctor.'
+
+My coachman was apparently laughing and jeering at the old man.
+
+'And is this your trap, pray?' he added, with a shrug of his shoulders
+in its direction.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, a trap ... a fine trap!' he repeated, and taking it by the
+shafts almost turned it completely upside down. 'A trap!... But what
+will you drive in it to the clearing?... You can't harness our horses
+in these shafts; our horses are all too big.'
+
+'I don't know,' replied Kassyan, 'what you are going to drive; that
+beast perhaps,' he added with a sigh.
+
+'That?' broke in Erofay, and going up to Kassyan's nag, he tapped it
+disparagingly on the back with the third finger of his right hand.
+'See,' he added contemptuously, 'it's asleep, the scare-crow!'
+
+I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as he could. I wanted to drive
+myself with Kassyan to the clearing; grouse are fond of such places.
+When the little cart was quite ready, and I, together with my dog, had
+been installed in the warped wicker body of it, and Kassyan huddled up
+into a little ball, with still the same dejected expression on his
+face, had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up to me and whispered
+with an air of mystery:
+
+'You did well, your honour, to drive with him. He is such a queer
+fellow; he's cracked, you know, and his nickname is the Flea. I don't
+know how you managed to make him out....'
+
+I tried to say to Erofay that so far Kassyan had seemed to me a very
+sensible man; but my coachman continued at once in the same voice:
+
+'But you keep a look-out where he is driving you to. And, your honour,
+be pleased to choose the axle yourself; be pleased to choose a sound
+one.... Well, Flea,' he added aloud, 'could I get a bit of bread in
+your house?'
+
+'Look about; you may find some,' answered Kassyan. He pulled the reins
+and we rolled away.
+
+His little horse, to my genuine astonishment, did not go badly. Kassyan
+preserved an obstinate silence the whole way, and made abrupt and
+unwilling answers to my questions. We quickly reached the clearing, and
+then made our way to the counting-house, a lofty cottage, standing by
+itself over a small gully, which had been dammed up and converted into
+a pool. In this counting-house I found two young merchants' clerks,
+with snow-white teeth, sweet and soft eyes, sweet and subtle words, and
+sweet and wily smiles. I bought an axle of them and returned to the
+clearing. I thought that Kassyan would stay with the horse and await my
+return; but he suddenly came up to me.
+
+'Are you going to shoot birds, eh?' he said.
+
+'Yes, if I come across any.'
+
+'I will come with you.... Can I?'
+
+'Certainly, certainly.'
+
+So we went together. The land cleared was about a mile in length. I
+must confess I watched Kassyan more than my dogs. He had been aptly
+called 'Flea.' His little black uncovered head (though his hair,
+indeed, was as good a covering as any cap) seemed to flash hither and
+thither among the bushes. He walked extraordinarily swiftly, and seemed
+always hopping up and down as he moved; he was for ever stooping down
+to pick herbs of some kind, thrusting them into his bosom, muttering to
+himself, and constantly looking at me and my dog with such a strange
+searching gaze. Among low bushes and in clearings there are often
+little grey birds which constantly flit from tree to tree, and which
+whistle as they dart away. Kassyan mimicked them, answered their calls;
+a young quail flew from between his feet, chirruping, and he chirruped
+in imitation of him; a lark began to fly down above him, moving his
+wings and singing melodiously: Kassyan joined in his song. He did not
+speak to me at all....
+
+The weather was glorious, even more so than before; but the heat was no
+less. Over the clear sky the high thin clouds were hardly stirred,
+yellowish-white, like snow lying late in spring, flat and drawn out
+like rolled-up sails. Slowly but perceptibly their fringed edges, soft
+and fluffy as cotton-wool, changed at every moment; they were melting
+away, even these clouds, and no shadow fell from them. I strolled about
+the clearing for a long while with Kassyan. Young shoots, which had not
+yet had time to grow more than a yard high, surrounded the low
+blackened stumps with their smooth slender stems; and spongy funguses
+with grey edges--the same of which they make tinder--clung to these;
+strawberry plants flung their rosy tendrils over them; mushrooms
+squatted close in groups. The feet were constantly caught and entangled
+in the long grass, that was parched in the scorching sun; the eyes were
+dazzled on all sides by the glaring metallic glitter on the young
+reddish leaves of the trees; on all sides were the variegated blue
+clusters of vetch, the golden cups of bloodwort, and the half-lilac,
+half-yellow blossoms of the heart's-ease. In some places near the
+disused paths, on which the tracks of wheels were marked by streaks on
+the fine bright grass, rose piles of wood, blackened by wind and rain,
+laid in yard-lengths; there was a faint shadow cast from them in
+slanting oblongs; there was no other shade anywhere. A light breeze
+rose, then sank again; suddenly it would blow straight in the face and
+seem to be rising; everything would begin to rustle merrily, to nod, to
+shake around one; the supple tops of the ferns bow down gracefully, and
+one rejoices in it, but at once it dies away again, and all is at rest
+once more. Only the grasshoppers chirrup in chorus with frenzied
+energy, and wearisome is this unceasing, sharp dry sound. It is in
+keeping with the persistent heat of mid-day; it seems akin to it, as
+though evoked by it out of the glowing earth.
+
+Without having started one single covey we at last reached another
+clearing. There the aspen-trees had only lately been felled, and lay
+stretched mournfully on the ground, crushing the grass and small
+undergrowth below them: on some the leaves were still green, though
+they were already dead, and hung limply from the motionless branches;
+on others they were crumpled and dried up. Fresh golden-white chips lay
+in heaps round the stumps that were covered with bright drops; a
+peculiar, very pleasant, pungent odour rose from them. Farther away,
+nearer the wood, sounded the dull blows of the axe, and from time to
+time, bowing and spreading wide its arms, a bushy tree fell slowly and
+majestically to the ground.
+
+For a long time I did not come upon a single bird; at last a corncrake
+flew out of a thick clump of young oak across the wormwood springing up
+round it. I fired; it turned over in the air and fell. At the sound of
+the shot, Kassyan quickly covered his eyes with his hand, and he did
+not stir till I had reloaded the gun and picked up the bird. When I had
+moved farther on, he went up to the place where the wounded bird had
+fallen, bent down to the grass, on which some drops of blood were
+sprinkled, shook his head, and looked in dismay at me.... I heard him
+afterwards whispering: 'A sin!... Ah, yes, it's a sin!'
+
+The heat forced us at last to go into the wood. I flung myself down
+under a high nut-bush, over which a slender young maple gracefully
+stretched its light branches. Kassyan sat down on the thick trunk of a
+felled birch-tree. I looked at him. The leaves faintly stirred
+overhead, and their thin greenish shadows crept softly to and fro over
+his feeble body, muffled in a dark coat, and over his little face. He
+did not lift his head. Bored by his silence, I lay on my back and began
+to admire the tranquil play of the tangled foliage on the background of
+the bright, far away sky. A marvellously sweet occupation it is to lie
+on one's back in a wood and gaze upwards! You may fancy you are looking
+into a bottomless sea; that it stretches wide below you; that the trees
+are not rising out of the earth, but, like the roots of gigantic weeds,
+are dropping--falling straight down into those glassy, limpid depths;
+the leaves on the trees are at one moment transparent as emeralds, the
+next, they condense into golden, almost black green. Somewhere, afar
+off, at the end of a slender twig, a single leaf hangs motionless
+against the blue patch of transparent sky, and beside it another
+trembles with the motion of a fish on the line, as though moving of its
+own will, not shaken by the wind. Round white clouds float calmly
+across, and calmly pass away like submarine islands; and suddenly, all
+this ocean, this shining ether, these branches and leaves steeped in
+sunlight--all is rippling, quivering in fleeting brilliance, and a
+fresh trembling whisper awakens like the tiny, incessant plash of
+suddenly stirred eddies. One does not move--one looks, and no word can
+tell what peace, what joy, what sweetness reigns in the heart. One
+looks: the deep, pure blue stirs on one's lips a smile, innocent as
+itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, as it were, with them, happy
+memories pass in slow procession over the soul, and still one fancies
+one's gaze goes deeper and deeper, and draws one with it up into that
+peaceful, shining immensity, and that one cannot be brought back from
+that height, that depth....
+
+'Master, master!' cried Kassyan suddenly in his musical voice.
+
+I raised myself in surprise: up till then he had scarcely replied to my
+questions, and now he suddenly addressed me of himself.
+
+'What is it?' I asked.
+
+'What did you kill the bird for?' he began, looking me straight in the
+face.
+
+'What for? Corncrake is game; one can eat it.'
+
+'That was not what you killed it for, master, as though you were going
+to eat it! You killed it for amusement.'
+
+'Well, you yourself, I suppose, eat geese or chickens?'
+
+'Those birds are provided by God for man, but the corncrake is a wild
+bird of the woods: and not he alone; many they are, the wild things of
+the woods and the fields, and the wild things of the rivers and marshes
+and moors, flying on high or creeping below; and a sin it is to slay
+them: let them live their allotted life upon the earth. But for man
+another food has been provided; his food is other, and other his
+sustenance: bread, the good gift of God, and the water of heaven, and
+the tame beasts that have come down to us from our fathers of old.'
+
+I looked in astonishment at Kassyan. His words flowed freely; he did
+not hesitate for a word; he spoke with quiet inspiration and gentle
+dignity, sometimes closing his eyes.
+
+'So is it sinful, then, to kill fish, according to you?' I asked.
+
+'Fishes have cold blood,' he replied with conviction. 'The fish is a
+dumb creature; it knows neither fear nor rejoicing. The fish is a
+voiceless creature. The fish does not feel; the blood in it is not
+living.... Blood,' he continued, after a pause, 'blood is a holy thing!
+God's sun does not look upon blood; it is hidden away from the light
+... it is a great sin to bring blood into the light of day; a great sin
+and horror.... Ah, a great sin!'
+
+He sighed, and his head drooped forward. I looked, I confess, in
+absolute amazement at the strange old man. His language did not sound
+like the language of a peasant; the common people do not speak like
+that, nor those who aim at fine speaking. His speech was meditative,
+grave, and curious.... I had never heard anything like it.
+
+'Tell me, please, Kassyan,' I began, without taking my eyes off his
+slightly flushed face, 'what is your occupation?'
+
+He did not answer my question at once. His eyes strayed uneasily for an
+instant.
+
+'I live as the Lord commands,' he brought out at last; 'and as for
+occupation--no, I have no occupation. I've never been very clever from
+a child: I work when I can: I'm not much of a workman--how should I be?
+I have no health; my hands are awkward. In the spring I catch
+nightingales.'
+
+'You catch nightingales?... But didn't you tell me that we must not
+touch any of the wild things of the woods and the fields, and so on?'
+
+'We must not kill them, of a certainty; death will take its own without
+that. Look at Martin the carpenter; Martin lived, and his life was not
+long, but he died; his wife now grieves for her husband, for her little
+children.... Neither for man nor beast is there any charm against
+death. Death does not hasten, nor is there any escaping it; but we must
+not aid death.... And I do not kill nightingales--God forbid! I do not
+catch them to harm them, to spoil their lives, but for the pleasure of
+men, for their comfort and delight.'
+
+'Do you go to Kursk to catch them?'
+
+'Yes, I go to Kursk, and farther too, at times. I pass nights in the
+marshes, or at the edge of the forests; I am alone at night in the
+fields, in the thickets; there the curlews call and the hares squeak
+and the wild ducks lift up their voices.... I note them at evening; at
+morning I give ear to them; at daybreak I cast my net over the
+bushes.... There are nightingales that sing so pitifully sweet ... yea,
+pitifully.'
+
+'And do you sell them?'
+
+'I give them to good people.'
+
+'And what are you doing now?'
+
+'What am I doing?'
+
+'Yes, how are you employed?'
+
+The old man was silent for a little.
+
+'I am not employed at all.... I am a poor workman. But I can read and
+write.'
+
+'You can read?'
+
+'Yes, I can read and write. I learnt, by the help of God and good
+people.'
+
+'Have you a family?'
+
+'No, not a family.'
+
+'How so?... Are they dead, then?'
+
+'No, but ... I have never been lucky in life. But all that is in God's
+hands; we are all in God's hands; and a man should be righteous--that
+is all! Upright before God, that is it.'
+
+'And you have no kindred?'
+
+'Yes ... well....'
+
+The old man was confused.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I began: 'I heard my coachman ask you why you did
+not cure Martin? You cure disease?'
+
+'Your coachman is a righteous man,' Kassyan answered thoughtfully. 'I
+too am not without sin. They call me a doctor.... Me a doctor, indeed!
+And who can heal the sick? That is all a gift from God. But there are
+... yes, there are herbs, and there are flowers; they are of use, of a
+certainty. There is plantain, for instance, a herb good for man; there
+is bud-marigold too; it is not sinful to speak of them: they are holy
+herbs of God. Then there are others not so; and they may be of use, but
+it's a sin; and to speak of them is a sin. Still, with prayer, may
+be.... And doubtless there are such words.... But who has faith, shall
+be saved,' he added, dropping his voice.
+
+'You did not give Martin anything?' I asked.
+
+'I heard of it too late,' replied the old man. 'But what of it! Each
+man's destiny is written from his birth. The carpenter Martin was not
+to live; he was not to live upon the earth: that was what it was. No,
+when a man is not to live on the earth, him the sunshine does not warm
+like another, and him the bread does not nourish and make strong; it is
+as though something is drawing him away.... Yes: God rest his soul!'
+
+'Have you been settled long amongst us?' I asked him after a short
+pause.
+
+Kassyan started.
+
+'No, not long; four years. In the old master's time we always lived in
+our old houses, but the trustees transported us. Our old master was a
+kind heart, a man of peace--the Kingdom of Heaven be his! The trustees
+doubtless judged righteously.'
+
+'And where did you live before?'
+
+'At Fair Springs.'
+
+'Is it far from here?'
+
+'A hundred miles.'
+
+'Well, were you better off there?'
+
+'Yes ... yes, there there was open country, with rivers; it was our
+home: here we are cramped and parched up.... Here we are strangers.
+There at home, at Fair Springs, you could get up on to a hill--and ah,
+my God, what a sight you could see! Streams and plains and forests, and
+there was a church, and then came plains beyond. You could see far,
+very far. Yes, how far you could look--you could look and look, ah,
+yes! Here, doubtless, the soil is better; it is clay--good fat clay, as
+the peasants say; for me the corn grows well enough everywhere.'
+
+'Confess then, old man; you would like to visit your birth-place again?'
+
+'Yes, I should like to see it. Still, all places are good. I am a man
+without kin, without neighbours. And, after all, do you gain much,
+pray, by staying at home? But, behold! as you walk, and as you walk,'
+he went on, raising his voice, 'the heart grows lighter, of a truth.
+And the sun shines upon you, and you are in the sight of God, and the
+singing comes more tunefully. Here, you look--what herb is growing; you
+look on it--you pick it. Here water runs, perhaps--spring water, a
+source of pure holy water; so you drink of it--you look on it too. The
+birds of heaven sing.... And beyond Kursk come the steppes, that
+steppes-country: ah, what a marvel, what a delight for man! what
+freedom, what a blessing of God! And they go on, folks tell, even to
+the warm seas where dwells the sweet-voiced bird, the Hamayune, and
+from the trees the leaves fall not, neither in autumn nor in winter,
+and apples grow of gold, on silver branches, and every man lives in
+uprightness and content. And I would go even there.... Have I journeyed
+so little already! I have been to Romyon and to Simbirsk the fair city,
+and even to Moscow of the golden domes; I have been to Oka the good
+nurse, and to Tsna the dove, and to our mother Volga, and many folks,
+good Christians have I seen, and noble cities I have visited.... Well,
+I would go thither ... yes ... and more too ... and I am not the only
+one, I a poor sinner ... many other Christians go in bast-shoes,
+roaming over the world, seeking truth, yea!... For what is there at
+home? No righteousness in man--it's that.'
+
+These last words Kassyan uttered quickly, almost unintelligibly; then
+he said something more which I could not catch at all, and such a
+strange expression passed over his face that I involuntarily recalled
+the epithet 'cracked.' He looked down, cleared his throat, and seemed
+to come to himself again. 'What sunshine!' he murmured in a low voice.
+'It is a blessing, oh, Lord! What warmth in the woods!'
+
+He gave a movement of the shoulders and fell into silence. With a vague
+look round him he began softly to sing. I could not catch all the words
+of his slow chant; I heard the following:
+
+             'They call me Kassyan,
+               But my nickname's the Flea.'
+
+
+'Oh!' I thought, 'so he improvises.' Suddenly he started and ceased
+singing, looking intently at a thick part of the wood. I turned and saw
+a little peasant girl, about seven years old, in a blue frock, with a
+checked handkerchief over her head, and a woven bark-basket in her
+little bare sunburnt hand. She had certainly not expected to meet us;
+she had, as they say, 'stumbled upon' us, and she stood motionless in a
+shady recess among the thick foliage of the nut-trees, looking dismayed
+at me with her black eyes. I had scarcely time to catch a glimpse of
+her; she dived behind a tree.
+
+'Annushka! Annushka! come here, don't be afraid!' cried the old man
+caressingly.
+
+'I'm afraid,' came her shrill voice.
+
+'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid; come to me.'
+
+Annushka left her hiding place in silence, walked softly round--her
+little childish feet scarcely sounded on the thick grass--and came out
+of the bushes near the old man. She was not a child of seven, as I had
+fancied at first, from her diminutive stature, but a girl of thirteen
+or fourteen. Her whole person was small and thin, but very neat and
+graceful, and her pretty little face was strikingly like Kassyan's own,
+though he was certainly not handsome. There were the same thin
+features, and the same strange expression, shy and confiding,
+melancholy and shrewd, and her gestures were the same.... Kassyan kept
+his eyes fixed on her; she took her stand at his side.
+
+'Well, have you picked any mushrooms?' he asked.
+
+'Yes,' she answered with a shy smile.
+
+'Did you find many?'
+
+'Yes.' (She stole a swift look at him and smiled again.)
+
+'Are they white ones?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Show me, show me.... (She slipped the basket off her arm and
+half-lifted the big burdock leaf which covered up the mushrooms.) 'Ah!'
+said Kassyan, bending down over the basket; 'what splendid ones! Well
+done, Annushka!'
+
+'She's your daughter, Kassyan, isn't she?' I asked. (Annushka's face
+flushed faintly.)
+
+'No, well, a relative,' replied Kassyan with affected indifference.
+'Come, Annushka, run along,' he added at once, 'run along, and God be
+with you! And take care.'
+
+'But why should she go on foot?' I interrupted. 'We could take her with
+us.'
+
+Annushka blushed like a poppy, grasped the handle of her basket with
+both hands, and looked in trepidation at the old man.
+
+'No, she will get there all right,' he answered in the same languid and
+indifferent voice. 'Why not?... She will get there.... Run along.'
+
+Annushka went rapidly away into the forest. Kassyan looked after her,
+then looked down and smiled to himself. In this prolonged smile, in the
+few words he had spoken to Annushka, and in the very sound of his voice
+when he spoke to her, there was an intense, indescribable love and
+tenderness. He looked again in the direction she had gone, again smiled
+to himself, and, passing his hand across his face, he nodded his head
+several times.
+
+'Why did you send her away so soon?' I asked him. 'I would have bought
+her mushrooms.'
+
+'Well, you can buy them there at home just the same, sir, if you like,'
+he answered, for the first time using the formal 'sir' in addressing me.
+
+'She's very pretty, your girl.'
+
+'No ... only so-so,' he answered, with seeming reluctance, and from
+that instant he relapsed into the same uncommunicative mood as at first.
+
+Seeing that all my efforts to make him talk again were fruitless, I
+went off into the clearing. Meantime the heat had somewhat abated; but
+my ill-success, or, as they say among us, my 'ill-luck,' continued, and
+I returned to the settlement with nothing but one corncrake and the new
+axle. Just as we were driving into the yard, Kassyan suddenly turned to
+me.
+
+'Master, master,' he began, 'do you know I have done you a wrong; it
+was I cast a spell to keep all the game off.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Oh, I can do that. Here you have a well-trained dog and a good one,
+but he could do nothing. When you think of it, what are men? what are
+they? Here's a beast; what have they made of him?'
+
+It would have been useless for me to try to convince Kassyan of the
+impossibility of 'casting a spell' on game, and so I made him no reply.
+Meantime we had turned into the yard.
+
+Annushka was not in the hut: she had had time to get there before us,
+and to leave her basket of mushrooms. Erofay fitted in the new axle,
+first exposing it to a severe and most unjust criticism; and an hour
+later I set off, leaving a small sum of money with Kassyan, which at
+first he was unwilling to accept, but afterwards, after a moment's
+thought, holding it in his hand, he put it in his bosom. In the course
+of this hour he had scarcely uttered a single word; he stood as before,
+leaning against the gate. He made no reply to the reproaches of my
+coachman, and took leave very coldly of me.
+
+Directly I turned round, I could see that my worthy Erofay was in a
+gloomy frame of mind.... To be sure, he had found nothing to eat in the
+country; the only water for his horses was bad. We drove off. With
+dissatisfaction expressed even in the back of his head, he sat on the
+box, burning to begin to talk to me. While waiting for me to begin by
+some question, he confined himself to a low muttering in an undertone,
+and some rather caustic instructions to the horses. 'A village,' he
+muttered; 'call that a village? You ask for a drop of kvas--not a drop
+of kvas even.... Ah, Lord!... And the water--simply filth!' (He spat
+loudly.) 'Not a cucumber, nor kvas, nor nothing.... Now, then!' he
+added aloud, turning to the right trace-horse; 'I know you, you
+humbug.' (And he gave him a cut with the whip.) 'That horse has learnt
+to shirk his work entirely, and yet he was a willing beast once. Now,
+then--look alive!'
+
+'Tell me, please, Erofay,' I began, 'what sort of a man is Kassyan?'
+
+Erofay did not answer me at once: he was, in general, a reflective and
+deliberate fellow; but I could see directly that my question was
+soothing and cheering to him.
+
+'The Flea?' he said at last, gathering up the reins; 'he's a queer
+fellow; yes, a crazy chap; such a queer fellow, you wouldn't find
+another like him in a hurry. You know, for example, he's for all the
+world like our roan horse here; he gets out of everything--out of work,
+that's to say. But, then, what sort of workman could he be?... He's
+hardly body enough to keep his soul in ... but still, of course....
+He's been like that from a child up, you know. At first he followed his
+uncle's business as a carrier--there were three of them in the
+business; but then he got tired of it, you know--he threw it up. He
+began to live at home, but he could not keep at home long; he's so
+restless--a regular flea, in fact. He happened, by good luck, to have a
+good master--he didn't worry him. Well, so ever since he has been
+wandering about like a lost sheep. And then, he's so strange; there's
+no understanding him. Sometimes he'll be as silent as a post, and then
+he'll begin talking, and God knows what he'll say! Is that good
+manners, pray? He's an absurd fellow, that he is. But he sings well,
+for all that.'
+
+'And does he cure people, really?'
+
+'Cure people!... Well, how should he? A fine sort of doctor! Though he
+did cure me of the king's evil, I must own.... But how can he? He's a
+stupid fellow, that's what he is,' he added, after a moment's pause.
+
+'Have you known him long?'
+
+'A long while. I was his neighbour at Sitchovka up at Fair Springs.'
+
+'And what of that girl--who met us in the wood, Annushka--what relation
+is she to him?'
+
+Erofay looked at me over his shoulder, and grinned all over his face.
+
+'He, he!... yes, they are relations. She is an orphan; she has no
+mother, and it's not even known who her mother was. But she must be a
+relation; she's too much like him.... Anyway, she lives with him. She's
+a smart girl, there's no denying; a good girl; and as for the old man,
+she's simply the apple of his eye; she's a good girl. And, do you know,
+you wouldn't believe it, but do you know, he's managed to teach
+Annushka to read? Well, well! that's quite like him; he's such an
+extraordinary fellow, such a changeable fellow; there's no reckoning on
+him, really.... Eh! eh! eh!' My coachman suddenly interrupted himself,
+and stopping the horses, he bent over on one side and began sniffing.
+'Isn't there a smell of burning? Yes! Why, that new axle, I do
+declare!... I thought I'd greased it.... We must get on to some water;
+why, here is a puddle, just right.'
+
+And Erofay slowly got off his seat, untied the pail, went to the pool,
+and coming back, listened with a certain satisfaction to the hissing of
+the box of the wheel as the water suddenly touched it.... Six times
+during some eight miles he had to pour water on the smouldering axle,
+and it was quite evening when we got home at last.
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+                               THE AGENT
+
+
+Twelve miles from my place lives an acquaintance of mine, a landowner
+and a retired officer in the Guards--Arkady Pavlitch Pyenotchkin. He
+has a great deal of game on his estate, a house built after the design
+of a French architect, and servants dressed after the English fashion;
+he gives capital dinners, and a cordial reception to visitors, and,
+with all that, one goes to see him reluctantly. He is a sensible and
+practical man, has received the excellent education now usual, has been
+in the service, mixed in the highest society, and is now devoting
+himself to his estate with great success. Arkady Pavlitch is, to judge
+by his own words, severe but just; he looks after the good of the
+peasants under his control and punishes them--for their good. 'One has
+to treat them like children,' he says on such occasions; 'their
+ignorance, _mon cher; il faut prendre cela en considération_.' When
+this so-called painful necessity arises, he eschews all sharp or
+violent gestures, and prefers not to raise his voice, but with a
+straight blow in the culprit's face, says calmly, 'I believe I asked
+you to do something, my friend?' or 'What is the matter, my boy? what
+are you thinking about?' while he sets his teeth a little, and the
+corners of his mouth are drawn. He is not tall, but has an elegant
+figure, and is very good-looking; his hands and nails are kept
+perfectly exquisite; his rosy cheeks and lips are simply the picture of
+health. He has a ringing, light-hearted laugh, and there is sometimes a
+very genial twinkle in his clear brown eyes. He dresses in excellent
+taste; he orders French books, prints, and papers, though he's no great
+lover of reading himself: he has hardly as much as waded through the
+_Wandering Jew_. He plays cards in masterly style. Altogether, Arkady
+Pavlitch is reckoned one of the most cultivated gentlemen and most
+eligible matches in our province; the ladies are perfectly wild over
+him, and especially admire his manners. He is wonderfully well
+conducted, wary as a cat, and has never from his cradle been mixed up
+in any scandal, though he is fond of making his power felt,
+intimidating or snubbing a nervous man, when he gets a chance. He has a
+positive distaste for doubtful society--he is afraid of compromising
+himself; in his lighter moments, however, he will avow himself a
+follower of Epicurus, though as a rule he speaks slightingly of
+philosophy, calling it the foggy food fit for German brains, or at
+times, simply, rot. He is fond of music too; at the card-table he is
+given to humming through his teeth, but with feeling; he knows by heart
+some snatches from _Lucia_ and _Somnambula_, but he is always apt to
+sing everything a little sharp. The winters he spends in Petersburg.
+His house is kept in extraordinarily good order; the very grooms feel
+his influence, and every day not only rub the harness and brush their
+coats, but even wash their faces. Arkady Pavlitch's house-serfs have,
+it is true, something of a hang-dog look; but among us Russians there's
+no knowing what is sullenness and what is sleepiness. Arkady Pavlitch
+speaks in a soft, agreeable voice, with emphasis and, as it were, with
+satisfaction; he brings out each word through his handsome perfumed
+moustaches; he uses a good many French expressions too, such as: _Mais
+c'est impayable! Mais comment donc_? and so so. For all that, I, for
+one, am never over-eager to visit him, and if it were not for the
+grouse and the partridges, I should probably have dropped his
+acquaintance altogether. One is possessed by a strange sort of
+uneasiness in his house; the very comfort is distasteful to one, and
+every evening when a befrizzed valet makes his appearance in a blue
+livery with heraldic buttons, and begins, with cringing servility,
+drawing off one's boots, one feels that if his pale, lean figure could
+suddenly be replaced by the amazingly broad cheeks and incredibly thick
+nose of a stalwart young labourer fresh from the plough, who has yet
+had time in his ten months of service to tear his new nankin coat open
+at every seam, one would be unutterably overjoyed, and would gladly run
+the risk of having one's whole leg pulled off with the boot....
+
+In spite of my aversion for Arkady Pavlitch, I once happened to pass a
+night in his house. The next day I ordered my carriage to be ready
+early in the morning, but he would not let me start without a regular
+breakfast in the English style, and conducted me into his study. With
+our tea they served us cutlets, boiled eggs, butter, honey, cheese, and
+so on. Two footmen in clean white gloves swiftly and silently
+anticipated our faintest desires. We sat on a Persian divan. Arkady
+Pavlitch was arrayed in loose silk trousers, a black velvet smoking
+jacket, a red fez with a blue tassel, and yellow Chinese slippers
+without heels. He drank his tea, laughed, scrutinised his finger-nails,
+propped himself up with cushions, and was altogether in an excellent
+humour. After making a hearty breakfast with obvious satisfaction,
+Arkady Pavlitch poured himself out a glass of red wine, lifted it to
+his lips, and suddenly frowned.
+
+'Why was not the wine warmed?' he asked rather sharply of one of the
+footmen.
+
+The footman stood stock-still in confusion, and turned white.
+
+'Didn't I ask you a question, my friend?' Arkady Pavlitch resumed
+tranquilly, never taking his eyes off the man.
+
+The luckless footman fidgeted in his place, twisted the napkin, and
+uttered not a word.
+
+Arkady Pavlitch dropped his head and looked up at him thoughtfully from
+under his eyelids.
+
+'_Pardon, mon cher_', he observed, patting my knee amicably, and again
+he stared at the footman. 'You can go,' he added, after a short
+silence, raising his eyebrows, and he rang the bell.
+
+A stout, swarthy, black-haired man, with a low forehead, and eyes
+positively lost in fat, came into the room.
+
+'About Fyodor ... make the necessary arrangements,' said Arkady
+Pavlitch in an undertone, and with complete composure.
+
+'Yes, sir,' answered the fat man, and he went out.
+
+'_Voilà, mon cher, les désagréments de la campagne_,' Arkady Pavlitch
+remarked gaily. 'But where are you off to? Stop, you must stay a
+little.'
+
+'No,' I answered; 'it's time I was off.'
+
+'Nothing but sport! Oh, you sportsmen! And where are you going to shoot
+just now?'
+
+'Thirty-five miles from here, at Ryabovo.'
+
+'Ryabovo? By Jove! now in that case I will come with you. Ryabovo's
+only four miles from my village Shipilovka, and it's a long while since
+I've been over to Shipilovka; I've never been able to get the time.
+Well, this is a piece of luck; you can spend the day shooting in
+Ryabovo and come on in the evening to me. We'll have supper
+together--we'll take the cook with us, and you'll stay the night with
+me. Capital! capital!' he added without waiting for my answer.
+
+'_C'est arrangé_.... Hey, you there! Have the carriage brought out, and
+look sharp. You have never been in Shipilovka? I should be ashamed to
+suggest your putting up for the night in my agent's cottage, but you're
+not particular, I know, and at Ryabovo you'd have slept in some
+hayloft.... We will go, we will go!'
+
+And Arkady Pavlitch hummed some French song.
+
+'You don't know, I dare say,' he pursued, swaying from side to side;
+'I've some peasants there who pay rent. It's the custom of the
+place--what was I to do? They pay their rent very punctually, though. I
+should, I'll own, have put them back to payment in labour, but there's
+so little land. I really wonder how they manage to make both ends meet.
+However, _c'est leur affaire_. My agent there's a fine fellow, _une
+forte tête_, a man of real administrative power! You shall see....
+Really, how luckily things have turned out!'
+
+There was no help for it. Instead of nine o'clock in the morning, we
+started at two in the afternoon. Sportsmen will sympathise with my
+impatience. Arkady Pavlitch liked, as he expressed it, to be
+comfortable when he had the chance, and he took with him such a supply
+of linen, dainties, wearing apparel, perfumes, pillows, and
+dressing-cases of all sorts, that a careful and self-denying German
+would have found enough to last him for a year. Every time we went down
+a steep hill, Arkady Pavlitch addressed some brief but powerful remarks
+to the coachman, from which I was able to deduce that my worthy friend
+was a thorough coward. The journey was, however, performed in safety,
+except that, in crossing a lately-repaired bridge, the trap with the
+cook in it broke down, and he got squeezed in the stomach against the
+hind-wheel.
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was alarmed in earnest at the sight of the fall of
+Karem, his home-made professor of the culinary art, and he sent at once
+to inquire whether his hands were injured. On receiving a reassuring
+reply to this query, his mind was set at rest immediately. With all
+this, we were rather a long time on the road; I was in the same
+carriage as Arkady Pavlitch, and towards the end of the journey I was a
+prey to deadly boredom, especially as in a few hours my companion ran
+perfectly dry of subjects of conversation, and even fell to expressing
+his liberal views on politics. At last we did arrive--not at Ryabovo,
+but at Shipilovka; it happened so somehow. I could have got no shooting
+now that day in any case, and so, raging inwardly, I submitted to my
+fate.
+
+The cook had arrived a few minutes before us, and apparently had had
+time to arrange things and prepare those whom it concerned, for on our
+very entrance within the village boundaries we were met by the village
+bailiff (the agent's son), a stalwart, red-haired peasant of seven
+feet; he was on horseback, bareheaded, and wearing a new overcoat, not
+buttoned up. 'And where's Sofron?' Arkady Pavlitch asked him. The
+bailiff first jumped nimbly off his horse, bowed to his master till he
+was bent double, and said: 'Good health to you, Arkady Pavlitch, sir!'
+then raised his head, shook himself, and announced that Sofron had gone
+to Perov, but they had sent after him.
+
+'Well, come along after us,' said Arkady Pavlitch. The bailiff
+deferentially led his horse to one side, clambered on to it, and
+followed the carriage at a trot, his cap in his hand. We drove through
+the village. A few peasants in empty carts happened to meet us; they
+were driving from the threshing-floor and singing songs, swaying
+backwards and forwards, and swinging their legs in the air; but at the
+sight of our carriage and the bailiff they were suddenly silent, took
+off their winter caps (it was summer-time) and got up as though waiting
+for orders. Arkady Pavlitch nodded to them graciously. A flutter of
+excitement had obviously spread through the hamlet. Peasant women in
+check petticoats flung splinters of wood at indiscreet or over-zealous
+dogs; an old lame man with a beard that began just under his eyes
+pulled a horse away from the well before it had drunk, gave it, for
+some obscure reason, a blow on the side, and fell to bowing low. Boys
+in long smocks ran with a howl to the huts, flung themselves on their
+bellies on the high door-sills, with their heads down and legs in the
+air, rolled over with the utmost haste into the dark outer rooms, from
+which they did not reappear again. Even the hens sped in a hurried
+scuttle to the turning; one bold cock with a black throat like a satin
+waistcoat and a red tail, rumpled up to his very comb, stood his ground
+in the road, and even prepared for a crow, then suddenly took fright
+and scuttled off too. The agent's cottage stood apart from the rest in
+the middle of a thick green patch of hemp. We stopped at the gates. Mr.
+Pyenotchkin got up, flung off his cloak with a picturesque motion, and
+got out of the carriage, looking affably about him. The agent's wife
+met us with low curtseys, and came up to kiss the master's hand. Arkady
+Pavlitch let her kiss it to her heart's content, and mounted the steps.
+In the outer room, in a dark corner, stood the bailiff's wife, and she
+too curtsied, but did not venture to approach his hand. In the cold
+hut, as it is called--to the right of the outer room--two other women
+were still busily at work; they were carrying out all the rubbish,
+empty tubs, sheepskins stiff as boards, greasy pots, a cradle with a
+heap of dish-clouts and a baby covered with spots, and sweeping out the
+dirt with bathbrooms. Arkady Pavlitch sent them away, and installed
+himself on a bench under the holy pictures. The coachmen began bringing
+in the trunks, bags, and other conveniences, trying each time to subdue
+the noise of their heavy boots.
+
+Meantime Arkady Pavlitch began questioning the bailiff about the crops,
+the sowing, and other agricultural subjects. The bailiff gave
+satisfactory answers, but spoke with a sort of heavy awkwardness, as
+though he were buttoning up his coat with benumbed fingers. He stood at
+the door and kept looking round on the watch to make way for the nimble
+footman. Behind his powerful shoulders I managed to get a glimpse of
+the agent's wife in the outer room surreptitiously belabouring some
+other peasant woman. Suddenly a cart rumbled up and stopped at the
+steps; the agent came in.
+
+This man, as Arkady Pavlitch said, of real administrative power, was
+short, broad-shouldered, grey, and thick-set, with a red nose, little
+blue eyes, and a beard of the shape of a fan. We may observe, by the
+way, that ever since Russia has existed, there has never yet been an
+instance of a man who has grown rich and prosperous without a big,
+bushy beard; sometimes a man may have had a thin, wedge-shape beard all
+his life; but then he begins to get one all at once, it is all round
+his face like a halo--one wonders where the hair has come from! The
+agent must have been making merry at Perov: his face was unmistakably
+flushed, and there was a smell of spirits about him.
+
+'Ah, our father, our gracious benefactor!' he began in a sing-song
+voice, and with a face of such deep feeling that it seemed every minute
+as if he would burst into tears; 'at last you have graciously deigned
+to come to us ... your hand, your honour's hand,' he added, his lips
+protruded in anticipation. Arkady Pavlitch gratified his desire. 'Well,
+brother Sofron, how are things going with you?' he asked in a friendly
+voice.
+
+'Ah, you, our father!' cried Sofron; 'how should they go ill? how
+should things go ill, now that you, our father, our benefactor,
+graciously deign to lighten our poor village with your presence, to
+make us happy till the day of our death? Thank the Lord for thee,
+Arkady Pavlitch! thank the Lord for thee! All is right by your gracious
+favour.'
+
+At this point Sofron paused, gazed upon his master, and, as though
+carried away by a rush of feeling (tipsiness had its share in it too),
+begged once more for his hand, and whined more than before.
+
+'Ah, you, our father, benefactor ... and ... There, God bless me! I'm a
+regular fool with delight.... God bless me! I look and can't believe my
+eyes! Ah, our father!'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch glanced at me, smiled, and asked: '_N'est-ce pas que
+c'est touchant?_'
+
+'But, Arkady Pavlitch, your honour,' resumed the indefatigable agent;
+'what are you going to do? You'll break my heart, your honour; your
+honour didn't graciously let me know of your visit. Where are you to
+put up for the night? You see here it's dirty, nasty.'
+
+'Nonsense, Sofron, nonsense!' Arkady Pavlitch responded, with a smile;
+'it's all right here.'
+
+'But, our father, all right--for whom? For peasants like us it's all
+right; but for you ... oh, our father, our gracious protector! oh, you
+... our father!... Pardon an old fool like me; I'm off my head, bless
+me! I'm gone clean crazy.'
+
+Meanwhile supper was served; Arkady Pavlitch began to eat. The old man
+packed his son off, saying he smelt too strong.
+
+'Well, settled the division of land, old chap, hey?' enquired Mr.
+Pyenotchkin, obviously trying to imitate the peasant speech, with a
+wink to me.
+
+'We've settled the land shares, your honour; all by your gracious
+favour. Day before yesterday the list was made out. The Hlinovsky folks
+made themselves disagreeable about it at first ... they were
+disagreeable about it, certainly. They wanted this ... and they wanted
+that ... and God knows what they didn't want! but they're a set of
+fools, your honour!--an ignorant lot. But we, your honour, graciously
+please you, gave an earnest of our gratitude, and satisfied Nikolai
+Nikolaitch, the mediator; we acted in everything according to your
+orders, your honour; as you graciously ordered, so we did, and nothing
+did we do unbeknown to Yegor Dmitritch.'
+
+'Yegor reported to me,' Arkady Pavlitch remarked with dignity.
+
+'To be sure, your honour, Yegor Dmitritch, to be sure.'
+
+'Well, then, now I suppose you 're satisfied.'
+
+Sofron had only been waiting for this.
+
+'Ah, you are our father, our benefactor!' he began, in the same
+sing-song as before. 'Indeed, now, your honour ... why, for you, our
+father, we pray day and night to God Almighty.... There's too little
+land, of course....'
+
+Pyenotchkin cut him short.
+
+'There, that'll do, that'll do, Sofron; I know you're eager in my
+service.... Well, and how goes the threshing?'
+
+Sofron sighed.
+
+'Well, our father, the threshing's none too good. But there, your
+honour, Arkady Pavlitch, let me tell you about a little matter that
+came to pass.' (Here he came closer to Mr. Pyenotchkin, with his arms
+apart, bent down, and screwed up one eye.) 'There was a dead body found
+on our land.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'I can't think myself, your honour; it seems like the doing of the evil
+one. But, luckily, it was found near the boundary; on our side of it,
+to tell the truth. I ordered them to drag it on to the neighbour's
+strip of land at once, while it was still possible, and set a watch
+there, and sent word round to our folks. "Mum's the word," says I. But
+I explained how it was to the police officer in case of the worst. "You
+see how it was," says I; and of course I had to treat him and slip some
+notes into his hand.... Well, what do you say, your honour? We shifted
+the burden on to other shoulders; you see a dead body's a matter of two
+hundred roubles, as sure as ninepence.'
+
+Mr. Pyenotchkin laughed heartily at his agent's cunning, and said
+several times to me, indicating him with a nod, '_Quel gaillard_, eh!'
+
+Meantime it was quite dark out of doors; Arkady Pavlitch ordered the
+table to be cleared, and hay to be brought in. The valet spread out
+sheets for us, and arranged pillows; we lay down. Sofron retired after
+receiving his instructions for the next day. Arkady Pavlitch, before
+falling asleep, talked a little more about the first-rate qualities of
+the Russian peasant, and at that point made the observation that since
+Sofron had had the management of the place, the Shipilovka peasants had
+never been one farthing in arrears.... The watchman struck his board; a
+baby, who apparently had not yet had time to be imbued with a sentiment
+of dutiful self-abnegation, began crying somewhere in the cottage ...
+we fell asleep.
+
+The next morning we got up rather early; I was getting ready to start
+for Ryabovo, but Arkady Pavlitch was anxious to show me his estate, and
+begged me to remain. I was not averse myself to seeing more of the
+first-rate qualities of that man of administrative power--Sofron--in
+their practical working. The agent made his appearance. He wore a blue
+loose coat, tied round the waist with a red handkerchief. He talked
+much less than on the previous evening, kept an alert, intent eye on
+his master's face, and gave connected and sensible answers. We set off
+with him to the threshing-floor. Sofron's son, the seven-foot bailiff,
+by every external sign a very slow-witted fellow, walked after us also,
+and we were joined farther on by the village constable, Fedosyitch, a
+retired soldier, with immense moustaches, and an extraordinary
+expression of face; he looked as though he had had some startling shock
+of astonishment a very long while ago, and had never quite got over it.
+We took a look at the threshing-floor, the barn, the corn-stacks, the
+outhouses, the windmill, the cattle-shed, the vegetables, and the
+hempfields; everything was, as a fact, in excellent order; only the
+dejected faces of the peasants rather puzzled me. Sofron had had an eye
+to the ornamental as well as the useful; he had planted all the ditches
+with willows, between the stacks he had made little paths to the
+threshing-floor and strewn them with fine sand; on the windmill he had
+constructed a weathercock of the shape of a bear with his jaws open and
+a red tongue sticking out; he had attached to the brick cattle-shed
+something of the nature of a Greek facade, and on it inscribed in white
+letters: 'Construt in the village Shipilovky 1 thousand eight Hunderd
+farthieth year. This cattle-shed.' Arkady Pavlitch was quite touched,
+and fell to expatiating in French to me upon the advantages of the
+system of rent-payment, adding, however, that labour-dues came more
+profitable to the owner--'but, after all, that wasn't everything.' He
+began giving the agent advice how to plant his potatoes, how to prepare
+cattle-food, and so on. Sofron heard his master's remarks out with
+attention, sometimes replied, but did not now address Arkady Pavlitch
+as his father, or his benefactor, and kept insisting that there was too
+little land; that it would be a good thing to buy more. 'Well, buy some
+then,' said Arkady Pavlitch; 'I've no objection; in my name, of
+course.' To this Sofron made no reply; he merely stroked his beard.
+'And now it would be as well to ride down to the copse,' observed Mr.
+Pyenotchkin. Saddle-horses were led out to us at once; we went off to
+the copse, or, as they call it about us, the 'enclosure.' In this
+'enclosure' we found thick undergrowth and abundance of wild game, for
+which Arkady Pavlitch applauded Sofron and clapped him on the shoulder.
+In regard to forestry, Arkady Pavlitch clung to the Russian ideas, and
+told me on that subject an amusing--in his words--anecdote, of how a
+jocose landowner had given his forester a good lesson by pulling out
+nearly half his beard, by way of a proof that growth is none the
+thicker for being cut back. In other matters, however, neither Sofron
+nor Arkady Pavlitch objected to innovations. On our return to the
+village, the agent took us to look at a winnowing machine he had
+recently ordered from Moscow. The winnowing machine did certainly work
+beautifully, but if Sofron had known what a disagreeable incident was
+in store for him and his master on this last excursion, he would
+doubtless have stopped at home with us.
+
+This was what happened. As we came out of the barn the following
+spectacle confronted us. A few paces from the door, near a filthy pool,
+in which three ducks were splashing unconcernedly, there stood two
+peasants--one an old man of sixty, the other, a lad of twenty--both in
+patched homespun shirts, barefoot, and with cord tied round their
+waists for belts. The village constable Fedosyitch was busily engaged
+with them, and would probably have succeeded in inducing them to retire
+if we had lingered a little longer in the barn, but catching sight of
+us, he grew stiff all over, and seemed bereft of all sensation on the
+spot. Close by stood the bailiff gaping, his fists hanging irresolute.
+Arkady Pavlitch frowned, bit his lip, and went up to the suppliants.
+They both prostrated themselves at his feet in silence.
+
+'What do you want? What are you asking about?' he inquired in a stern
+voice, a little through his nose. (The peasants glanced at one another,
+and did not utter a syllable, only blinked a little as if the sun were
+in their faces, and their breathing came quicker.)
+
+'Well, what is it?' Arkady Pavlitch said again; and turning at once to
+Sofron, 'Of what family?'
+
+'The Tobolyev family,' the agent answered slowly.
+
+'Well, what do you want?' Mr. Pyenotchkin said again; 'have you lost
+your tongues, or what? Tell me, you, what is it you want?' he added,
+with a nod at the old man. 'And don't be afraid, stupid.'
+
+The old man craned forward his dark brown, wrinkled neck, opened his
+bluish twitching lips, and in a hoarse voice uttered the words,
+'Protect us, lord!' and again he bent his forehead to the earth. The
+young peasant prostrated himself too. Arkady Pavlitch looked at their
+bent necks with an air of dignity, threw back his head, and stood with
+his legs rather wide apart. 'What is it? Whom do you complain of?'
+
+'Have mercy, lord! Let us breathe.... We are crushed, worried,
+tormented to death quite. (The old man spoke with difficulty.)
+
+'Who worries you?'
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch, your honour.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was silent a minute.
+
+'What's your name?'
+
+'Antip, your honour.'
+
+'And who's this?'
+
+'My boy, your honour.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was silent again; he pulled his moustaches.
+
+'Well! and how has he tormented you?' he began again, looking over his
+moustaches at the old man.
+
+'Your honour, he has ruined us utterly. Two sons, your honour, he's
+sent for recruits out of turn, and now he is taking the third also.
+Yesterday, your honour, our last cow was taken from the yard, and my
+old wife was beaten by his worship here: that is all the pity he has
+for us!' (He pointed to the bailiff.)
+
+'Hm!' commented Arkady Pavlitch.
+
+'Let him not destroy us to the end, gracious protector!'
+
+Mr. Pyenotchkin scowled, 'What's the meaning of this?' he asked the
+agent, in a low voice, with an air of displeasure.
+
+'He's a drunken fellow, sir,' answered the agent, for the first time
+using this deferential address, 'and lazy too. He's never been out of
+arrears this five years back, sir.'
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch paid the arrears for me, your honour,' the old man
+went on; 'it's the fifth year's come that he's paid it, he's paid
+it--and he's brought me into slavery to him, your honour, and here--'
+
+'And why did you get into arrears?' Mr. Pyenotchkin asked
+threateningly. (The old man's head sank.) 'You're fond of drinking,
+hanging about the taverns, I dare say.' (The old man opened his mouth
+to speak.) 'I know you,' Arkady Pavlitch went on emphatically; 'you
+think you've nothing to do but drink, and lie on the stove, and let
+steady peasants answer for you.'
+
+'And he's an impudent fellow, too,' the agent threw in.
+
+'That's sure to be so; it's always the way; I've noticed it more than
+once. The whole year round, he's drinking and abusive, and then he
+falls at one's feet.'
+
+'Your honour, Arkady Pavlitch,' the old man began despairingly, 'have
+pity, protect us; when have I been impudent? Before God Almighty, I
+swear it was beyond my strength. Sofron Yakovlitch has taken a dislike
+to me; for some reason he dislikes me--God be his judge! He will ruin
+me utterly, your honour.... The last ... here ... the last boy ... and
+him he....' (A tear glistened in the old man's wrinkled yellow eyes).
+'Have pity, gracious lord, defend us!'
+
+'And it's not us only,' the young peasant began....
+
+Arkady Pavlitch flew into a rage at once.
+
+'And who asked your opinion, hey? Till you're spoken to, hold your
+tongue.... What's the meaning of it? Silence, I tell you, silence!...
+Why, upon my word, this is simply mutiny! No, my friend, I don't advise
+you to mutiny on my domain ... on my ... (Arkady Pavlitch stepped
+forward, but probably recollected my presence, turned round, and put
+his hands in his pockets ...) '_Je vous demande bien pardon, mon
+cher_,' he said, with a forced smile, dropping his voice significantly.
+'_C'est le mauvais côté de la médaille_ ... There, that'll do, that'll
+do,' he went on, not looking at the peasants: 'I say ... that'll do,
+you can go.' (The peasants did not rise.) 'Well, haven't I told you ...
+that'll do. You can go, I tell you.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch turned his back on them. 'Nothing but vexation,' he
+muttered between his teeth, and strode with long steps homewards.
+Sofron followed him. The village constable opened his eyes wide,
+looking as if he were just about to take a tremendous leap into space.
+The bailiff drove a duck away from the puddle. The suppliants remained
+as they were a little, then looked at each other, and, without turning
+their heads, went on their way.
+
+Two hours later I was at Ryabovo, and making ready to begin shooting,
+accompanied by Anpadist, a peasant I knew well. Pyenotchkin had been
+out of humour with Sofron up to the time I left. I began talking to
+Anpadist about the Shipilovka peasants, and Mr. Pyenotchkin, and asked
+him whether he knew the agent there.
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch? ... ugh!'
+
+'What sort of man is he?'
+
+'He's not a man; he's a dog; you couldn't find another brute like him
+between here and Kursk.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'Why, Shipilovka's hardly reckoned as--what's his name?--Mr.
+Pyenotchkin's at all; he's not the master there; Sofron's the master.'
+
+'You don't say so!'
+
+'He's master, just as if it were his own. The peasants all about are in
+debt to him; they work for him like slaves; he'll send one off with the
+waggons; another, another way.... He harries them out of their lives.'
+
+'They haven't much land, I suppose?'
+
+'Not much land! He rents two hundred acres from the Hlinovsky peasants
+alone, and two hundred and eighty from our folks; there's more than
+three hundred and seventy-five acres he's got. And he doesn't only
+traffic in land; he does a trade in horses and stock, and pitch, and
+butter, and hemp, and one thing and the other.... He's sharp, awfully
+sharp, and rich too, the beast! But what's bad--he beats them. He's a
+brute, not a man; a dog, I tell you; a cur, a regular cur; that's what
+he is!'
+
+'How is it they don't make complaints of him?'
+
+'I dare say, the master'd be pleased! There's no arrears; so what does
+he care? Yes, you'd better,' he added, after a brief pause; 'I should
+advise you to complain! No, he'd let you know ... yes, you'd better try
+it on.... No, he'd let you know....'
+
+I thought of Antip, and told him what I had seen.
+
+'There,' commented Anpadist, 'he will eat him up now; he'll simply eat
+the man up. The bailiff will beat him now. Such a poor, unlucky chap,
+come to think of it! And what's his offence?... He had some wrangle in
+meeting with him, the agent, and he lost all patience, I suppose, and
+of course he wouldn't stand it.... A great matter, truly, to make so
+much of! So he began pecking at him, Antip. Now he'll eat him up
+altogether. You see, he's such a dog. Such a cur--God forgive my
+transgressions!--he knows whom to fall upon. The old men that are a bit
+richer, or've more children, he doesn't touch, the red-headed devil!
+but there's all the difference here! Why he's sent Antip's sons for
+recruits out of turn, the heartless ruffian, the cur! God forgive my
+transgressions!'
+
+We went on our way.
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+                           THE COUNTING-HOUSE
+
+
+It was autumn. For some hours I had been strolling across country with
+my gun, and should probably not have returned till evening to the
+tavern on the Kursk high-road where my three-horse trap was awaiting
+me, had not an exceedingly fine and persistent rain, which had worried
+me all day with the obstinacy and ruthlessness of some old maiden lady,
+driven me at last to seek at least a temporary shelter somewhere in the
+neighbourhood. While I was still deliberating in which direction to go,
+my eye suddenly fell on a low shanty near a field sown with peas. I
+went up to the shanty, glanced under the thatched roof, and saw an old
+man so infirm that he reminded me at once of the dying goat Robinson
+Crusoe found in some cave on his island. The old man was squatting on
+his heels, his little dim eyes half-closed, while hurriedly, but
+carefully, like a hare (the poor fellow had not a single tooth), he
+munched a dry, hard pea, incessantly rolling it from side to side. He
+was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice my entrance.
+
+'Grandfather! hey, grandfather!' said I. He ceased munching, lifted his
+eyebrows high, and with an effort opened his eyes.
+
+'What?' he mumbled in a broken voice.
+
+'Where is there a village near?' I asked.
+
+The old man fell to munching again. He had not heard me. I repeated my
+question louder than before.
+
+'A village?... But what do you want?'
+
+'Why, shelter from the rain.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Shelter from the rain.'
+
+'Ah!' (He scratched his sunburnt neck.) 'Well, now, you go,' he said
+suddenly, waving his hands indefinitely, 'so ... as you go by the
+copse--see, as you go--there'll be a road; you pass it by, and keep
+right on to the right; keep right on, keep right on, keep right on....
+Well, there will be Ananyevo. Or else you'd go to Sitovka.'
+
+I followed the old man with difficulty. His moustaches muffled his
+voice, and his tongue too did not obey him readily.
+
+'Where are you from?' I asked him.
+
+'What?'
+
+'Where are you from?'
+
+'Ananyevo.'
+
+'What are you doing here?'
+
+'I'm watchman.'
+
+'Why, what are you watching?'
+
+'The peas.'
+
+I could not help smiling.
+
+'Really!--how old are you?'
+
+'God knows.'
+
+'Your sight's failing, I expect.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Your sight's failing, I daresay?'
+
+'Yes, it's failing. At times I can hear nothing.'
+
+'Then how can you be a watchman, eh?'
+
+'Oh, my elders know about that.'
+
+'Elders!' I thought, and I gazed not without compassion at the poor old
+man. He fumbled about, pulled out of his bosom a bit of coarse bread,
+and began sucking it like a child, with difficulty moving his sunken
+cheeks.
+
+I walked in the direction of the copse, turned to the right, kept on,
+kept right on as the old man had advised me, and at last got to a large
+village with a stone church in the new style, _i.e._ with columns, and
+a spacious manor-house, also with columns. While still some way off I
+noticed through the fine network of falling rain a cottage with a deal
+roof, and two chimneys, higher than the others, in all probability the
+dwelling of the village elder; and towards it I bent my steps in the
+hope of finding, in this cottage, a samovar, tea, sugar, and some not
+absolutely sour cream. Escorted by my half-frozen dog, I went up the
+steps into the outer room, opened the door, and instead of the usual
+appurtenances of a cottage, I saw several tables, heaped up with
+papers, two red cupboards, bespattered inkstands, pewter boxes of
+blotting sand weighing half a hundred-weight, long penholders, and so
+on. At one of the tables was sitting a young man of twenty with a
+swollen, sickly face, diminutive eyes, a greasy-looking forehead, and
+long straggling locks of hair. He was dressed, as one would expect, in
+a grey nankin coat, shiny with wear at the waist and the collar.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked me, flinging his head up like a horse
+taken unexpectedly by the nose.
+
+'Does the bailiff live here... or--'
+
+'This is the principal office of the manor,' he interrupted. 'I'm the
+clerk on duty.... Didn't you see the sign-board? That's what it was put
+up for.'
+
+'Where could I dry my clothes here? Is there a samovar anywhere in the
+village?'
+
+'Samovars, of course,' replied the young man in the grey coat with
+dignity; 'go to Father Timofey's, or to the servants' cottage, or else
+to Nazar Tarasitch, or to Agrafena, the poultry-woman.'
+
+'Who are you talking to, you blockhead? Can't you let me sleep, dummy!'
+shouted a voice from the next room.
+
+'Here's a gentleman's come in to ask where he can dry himself.'
+
+'What sort of a gentleman?'
+
+'I don't know. With a dog and a gun.'
+
+A bedstead creaked in the next room. The door opened, and there came in
+a stout, short man of fifty, with a bull neck, goggle-eyes,
+extraordinarily round cheeks, and his whole face positively shining
+with sleekness.
+
+'What is it you wish?' he asked me.
+
+'To dry my things.'
+
+'There's no place here.'
+
+'I didn't know this was the counting-house; I am willing, though, to
+pay...'
+
+'Well, perhaps it could be managed here,' rejoined the fat man; 'won't
+you come inside here?' (He led me into another room, but not the one he
+had come from.) 'Would this do for you?'
+
+'Very well.... And could I have tea and milk?'
+
+'Certainly, at once. If you'll meantime take off your things and rest,
+the tea shall be got ready this minute.'
+
+'Whose property is this?'
+
+'Madame Losnyakov's, Elena Nikolaevna.'
+
+He went out I looked round: against the partition separating my room
+from the office stood a huge leather sofa; two high-backed chairs, also
+covered in leather, were placed on both sides of the solitary window
+which looked out on the village street. On the walls, covered with a
+green paper with pink patterns on it, hung three immense oil paintings.
+One depicted a setter-dog with a blue collar, bearing the inscription:
+'This is my consolation'; at the dog's feet flowed a river; on the
+opposite bank of the river a hare of quite disproportionate size with
+ears cocked up was sitting under a pine tree. In another picture two
+old men were eating a melon; behind the melon was visible in the
+distance a Greek temple with the inscription: 'The Temple of
+Satisfaction.' The third picture represented the half-nude figure of a
+woman in a recumbent position, much fore-shortened, with red knees and
+very big heels. My dog had, with superhuman efforts, crouched under the
+sofa, and apparently found a great deal of dust there, as he kept
+sneezing violently. I went to the window. Boards had been laid across
+the street in a slanting direction from the manor-house to the
+counting-house--a very useful precaution, as, thanks to our rich black
+soil and the persistent rain, the mud was terrible. In the grounds of
+the manor-house, which stood with its back to the street, there was the
+constant going and coming there always is about manor-houses: maids in
+faded chintz gowns flitted to and fro; house-serfs sauntered through
+the mud, stood still and scratched their spines meditatively; the
+constable's horse, tied up to a post, lashed his tail lazily, and with
+his nose high up, gnawed at the hedge; hens were clucking; sickly
+turkeys kept up an incessant gobble-gobble. On the steps of a dark
+crumbling out-house, probably the bath-house, sat a stalwart lad with a
+guitar, singing with some spirit the well-known ballad:
+
+         'I'm leaving this enchanting spot
+             To go into the desert.'
+
+The fat man came into the room.
+
+'They're bringing you in your tea,' he told me, with an affable smile.
+
+The young man in the grey coat, the clerk on duty, laid on the old
+card-table a samovar, a teapot, a tumbler on a broken saucer, a jug of
+cream, and a bunch of Bolhovo biscuit rings. The fat man went out.
+
+'What is he?' I asked the clerk; 'the steward?'
+
+'No, sir; he was the chief cashier, but now he has been promoted to be
+head-clerk.'
+
+'Haven't you got a steward, then?'
+
+'No, sir. There's an agent, Mihal Vikulov, but no steward.'
+
+'Is there a manager, then?'
+
+'Yes; a German, Lindamandol, Karlo Karlitch; only he does not manage
+the estate.'
+
+'Who does manage it, then?'
+
+'Our mistress herself.'
+
+'You don't say so. And are there many of you in the office?'
+
+The young man reflected.
+
+'There are six of us.'
+
+'Who are they?' I inquired.
+
+'Well, first there's Vassily Nikolaevitch, the head cashier; then
+Piotr, one clerk; Piotr's brother, Ivan, another clerk; the other Ivan,
+a clerk; Konstantin Narkizer, another clerk; and me here--there's a lot
+of us, you can't count all of them.'
+
+'I suppose your mistress has a great many serfs in her house?'
+
+'No, not to say a great many.'
+
+'How many, then?'
+
+'I dare say it runs up to about a hundred and fifty.'
+
+We were both silent for a little.
+
+'I suppose you write a good hand, eh?' I began again.
+
+The young man grinned from ear to ear, went into the office and brought
+in a sheet covered with writing.
+
+'This is my writing,' he announced, still with the same smile on his
+face.
+
+I looked at it; on the square sheet of greyish paper there was written,
+in a good bold hand, the following document:--
+
+     ORDER
+
+     From the Chief Office of the Manor of Ananyevo to
+     the Agent, Mihal Vikulov.
+
+     No. 209.
+
+'Whereas some person unknown entered the garden at Ananyevo last night
+in an intoxicated condition, and with unseemly songs waked the French
+governess, Madame Engêne, and disturbed her; and whether the watchmen
+saw anything, and who were on watch in the garden and permitted such
+disorderliness: as regards all the above-written matters, your orders
+are to investigate in detail, and report immediately to the Office.'
+
+                                     '_Head-Clerk_, NIKOLAI HVOSTOV.'
+
+A huge heraldic seal was attached to the order, with the inscription:
+'Seal of the chief office of the manor of Ananyevo'; and below stood
+the signature: 'To be executed exactly, Elena Losnyakov.'
+
+'Your lady signed it herself, eh?' I queried.
+
+'To be sure; she always signs herself. Without that the order would be
+of no effect.'
+
+'Well, and now shall you send this order to the agent?'
+
+'No, sir. He'll come himself and read it. That's to say, it'll be read
+to him; you see, he's no scholar.' (The clerk on duty was silent again
+for a while.) 'But what do you say?' he added, simpering; 'is it well
+written?'
+
+'Very well written.'
+
+'It wasn't composed, I must confess, by me. Konstantin is the great one
+for that.'
+
+'What?... Do you mean the orders have first to be composed among you?'
+
+'Why, how else could we do? Couldn't write them off straight without
+making a fair copy.'
+
+'And what salary do you get?' I inquired.
+
+'Thirty-five roubles, and five roubles for boots.'
+
+'And are you satisfied?'
+
+'Of course I am satisfied. It's not everyone can get into an office
+like ours. It was God's will, in my case, to be sure; I'd an uncle who
+was in service as a butler.'
+
+'And you're well-off?'
+
+'Yes, sir. Though, to tell the truth,' he went on, with a sigh, 'a
+place at a merchant's, for instance, is better for the likes of us. At
+a merchant's they're very well off. Yesterday evening a merchant came
+to us from Venev, and his man got talking to me.... Yes, that's a good
+place, no doubt about it; a very good place.'
+
+'Why? Do the merchants pay more wages?'
+
+'Lord preserve us! Why, a merchant would soon give you the sack if you
+asked him for wages. No, at a merchant's you must live on trust and on
+fear. He'll give you food, and drink, and clothes, and all. If you give
+him satisfaction, he'll do more.... Talk of wages, indeed! You don't
+need them.... And a merchant, too, lives in plain Russian style, like
+ourselves; you go with him on a journey--he has tea, and you have it;
+what he eats, you eat. A merchant ... one can put up with; a merchant's
+a very different thing from what a gentleman is; a merchant's not
+whimsical; if he's out of temper, he'll give you a blow, and there it
+ends. He doesn't nag nor sneer.... But with a gentleman it's a woeful
+business! Nothing's as he likes it--this is not right, and that he
+can't fancy. You hand him a glass of water or something to eat: "Ugh,
+the water stinks! positively stinks!" You take it out, stay a minute
+outside the door, and bring it back: "Come, now, that's good; this
+doesn't stink now." And as for the ladies, I tell you, the ladies are
+something beyond everything!... and the young ladies above all!...'
+
+'Fedyushka!' came the fat man's voice from the office.
+
+The clerk went out quickly. I drank a glass of tea, lay down on the
+sofa, and fell asleep. I slept for two hours.
+
+When I woke, I meant to get up, but I was overcome by laziness; I
+closed my eyes, but did not fall asleep again. On the other side of the
+partition, in the office, they were talking in subdued voices.
+Unconsciously I began to listen.
+
+'Quite so, quite so, Nikolai Eremyitch,' one voice was saying; 'quite
+so. One can't but take that into account; yes, certainly!... Hm!' (The
+speaker coughed.)
+
+'You may believe me, Gavrila Antonitch,' replied the fat man's voice:
+'don't I know how things are done here? Judge for yourself.'
+
+'Who does, if you don't, Nikolai Eremyitch? you're, one may say, the
+first person here. Well, then, how's it to be?' pursued the voice I did
+not recognise; 'what decision are we to come to, Nikolai Eremyitch?
+Allow me to put the question.'
+
+'What decision, Gavrila Antonitch? The thing depends, so to say, on
+you; you don't seem over anxious.'
+
+'Upon my word, Nikolai Eremyitch, what do you mean? Our business is
+trading, buying; it's our business to buy. That's what we live by,
+Nikolai Eremyitch, one may say.'
+
+'Eight roubles a measure,' said the fat man emphatically.
+
+A sigh was audible.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch, sir, you ask a heavy price.' 'Impossible, Gavrila
+Antonitch, to do otherwise; I speak as before God Almighty; impossible.'
+
+Silence followed.
+
+I got up softly and looked through a crack in the partition. The fat
+man was sitting with his back to me. Facing him sat a merchant, a man
+about forty, lean and pale, who looked as if he had been rubbed with
+oil. He was incessantly fingering his beard, and very rapidly blinking
+and twitching his lips.
+
+'Wonderful the young green crops this year, one may say,' he began
+again; 'I've been going about everywhere admiring them. All the way
+from Voronezh they've come up wonderfully, first-class, one may say.'
+
+'The crops are pretty fair, certainly,' answered the head-clerk; 'but
+you know the saying, Gavrila Antonitch, autumn bids fair, but spring
+may be foul.'
+
+'That's so, indeed, Nikolai Eremyitch; all is in God's hands; it's the
+absolute truth what you've just remarked, sir.... But perhaps your
+visitor's awake now.'
+
+The fat man turned round ... listened....
+
+'No, he's asleep. He may, though....'
+
+He went to the door.
+
+'No, he's asleep,' he repeated and went back to his place.
+
+'Well, so what are we to say, Nikolai Eremyitch?' the merchant began
+again; 'we must bring our little business to a conclusion.... Let it be
+so, Nikolai Eremyitch, let it be so,' he went on, blinking incessantly;
+'two grey notes and a white for your favour, and there' (he nodded in
+the direction of the house), 'six and a half. Done, eh?'
+
+'Four grey notes,' answered the clerk.
+
+'Come, three, then.'
+
+'Four greys, and no white.'
+
+'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Three and a half, and not a farthing less.'
+
+'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'You're not talking sense, Gavrila Antonitch.'
+
+'My, what a pig-headed fellow!' muttered the merchant. 'Then I'd better
+arrange it with the lady herself.'
+
+'That's as you like,' answered the fat man; 'far better, I should say.
+Why should you worry yourself, after all?... Much better, indeed!'
+
+'Well, well! Nikolai Eremyitch. I lost my temper for a minute! That was
+nothing but talk.'
+
+'No, really, why?...'
+
+'Nonsense, I tell you.... I tell you I was joking. Well, take your
+three and a half; there's no doing anything with you.'
+
+'I ought to have got four, but I was in too great a hurry--like an
+ass!' muttered the fat man.
+
+'Then up there at the house, six and a half, Nikolai Eremyitch; the
+corn will be sold for six and a half?'
+
+'Six and a half, as we said already.'
+
+'Well, your hand on that then, Nikolai Eremyitch' (the merchant clapped
+his outstretched fingers into the clerk's palm). 'And good-bye, in
+God's name!' (The merchant got up.) 'So then, Nikolai Eremyitch, sir,
+I'll go now to your lady, and bid them send up my name, and so I'll say
+to her, "Nikolai Eremyitch," I'll say, "has made a bargain with me for
+six and a half."'
+
+'That's what you must say, Gavrila Antonitch.'
+
+'And now, allow me.'
+
+The merchant handed the manager a small roll of notes, bowed, shook his
+head, picked up his hat with two fingers, shrugged his shoulders, and,
+with a sort of undulating motion, went out, his boots creaking after
+the approved fashion. Nikolai Eremyitch went to the wall, and, as far
+as I could make out, began sorting the notes handed him by the
+merchant. A red head, adorned with thick whiskers, was thrust in at the
+door.
+
+'Well?' asked the head; 'all as it should be?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'How much?'
+
+The fat man made an angry gesture with his hand, and pointed to my room.
+
+'Ah, all right!' responded the head, and vanished.
+
+The fat man went up to the table, sat down, opened a book, took out a
+reckoning frame, and began shifting the beads to and fro as he counted,
+using not the forefinger but the third finger of his right hand, which
+has a much more showy effect.
+
+The clerk on duty came in.
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Sidor is here from Goloplek.'
+
+'Oh! ask him in. Wait a bit, wait a bit.... First go and look whether
+the strange gentleman's still asleep, or whether he has waked up.'
+
+The clerk on duty came cautiously into my room. I laid my head on my
+game-bag, which served me as a pillow, and closed my eyes.
+
+'He's asleep,' whispered the clerk on duty, returning to the
+counting-house.
+
+The fat man muttered something.
+
+'Well, send Sidor in,' he said at last.
+
+I got up again. A peasant of about thirty, of huge stature, came in--a
+red-cheeked, vigorous-looking fellow, with brown hair, and a short
+curly beard. He crossed himself, praying to the holy image, bowed to
+the head-clerk, held his hat before him in both hands, and stood erect.
+
+'Good day, Sidor,' said the fat man, tapping with the reckoning beads.
+
+'Good-day to you, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Well, what are the roads like?'
+
+'Pretty fair, Nikolai Eremyitch. A bit muddy.' (The peasant spoke
+slowly and not loud.)
+
+'Wife quite well?'
+
+'She's all right!'
+
+The peasant gave a sigh and shifted one leg forward. Nikolai Eremyitch
+put his pen behind his ear, and blew his nose.
+
+'Well, what have you come about?' he proceeded to inquire, putting his
+check handkerchief into his pocket.
+
+'Why, they do say, Nikolai Eremyitch, they're asking for carpenters
+from us.'
+
+'Well, aren't there any among you, hey?'
+
+'To be sure there are, Nikolai Eremyitch; our place is right in the
+woods; our earnings are all from the wood, to be sure. But it's the
+busy time, Nikolai Eremyitch. Where's the time to come from?'
+
+'The time to come from! Busy time! I dare say, you're so eager to work
+for outsiders, and don't care to work for your mistress.... It's all
+the same!'
+
+'The work's all the same, certainly, Nikolai Eremyitch ... but....'
+
+'Well?'
+
+'The pay's ... very....'
+
+'What next! You've been spoiled; that's what it is. Get along with you!'
+
+'And what's more, Nikolai Eremyitch, there'll be only a week's work,
+but they'll keep us hanging on a month. One time there's not material
+enough, and another time they'll send us into the garden to weed the
+path.'
+
+'What of it? Our lady herself is pleased to give the order, so it's
+useless you and me talking about it.'
+
+Sidor was silent; he began shifting from one leg to the other.
+
+Nikolai Eremyitch put his head on one side, and began busily playing
+with the reckoning beads.
+
+'Our ... peasants ... Nikolai Eremyitch....' Sidor began at last,
+hesitating over each word; 'sent word to your honour ... there is ...
+see here....' (He thrust his big hand into the bosom of his coat, and
+began to pull out a folded linen kerchief with a red border.)
+
+'What are you thinking of? Goodness, idiot, are you out of your
+senses?' the fat man interposed hurriedly. 'Go on; go to my cottage,'
+he continued, almost shoving the bewildered peasant out; 'ask for my
+wife there ... she'll give you some tea; I'll be round directly; go on.
+For goodness' sake, I tell you, go on.'
+
+Sidor went away.
+
+'Ugh!... what a bear!' the head clerk muttered after him, shaking his
+head, and set to work again on his reckoning frame.
+
+Suddenly shouts of 'Kuprya! Kuprya! there's no knocking down Kuprya!'
+were heard in the street and on the steps, and a little later there
+came into the counting-house a small man of sickly appearance, with an
+extraordinarily long nose and large staring eyes, who carried himself
+with a great air of superiority. He was dressed in a ragged little old
+surtout, with a plush collar and diminutive buttons. He carried a
+bundle of firewood on his shoulder. Five house-serfs were crowding
+round him, all shouting, 'Kuprya! there's no suppressing Kuprya!
+Kuprya's been turned stoker; Kuprya's turned a stoker!' But the man in
+the coat with the plush collar did not pay the slightest attention to
+the uproar made by his companions, and was not in the least out of
+countenance. With measured steps he went up to the stove, flung down
+his load, straightened himself, took out of his tail-pocket a
+snuff-box, and with round eyes began helping himself to a pinch of dry
+trefoil mixed with ashes. At the entrance of this noisy party the fat
+man had at first knitted his brows and risen from his seat, but, seeing
+what it was, he smiled, and only told them not to shout. 'There's a
+sportsman,' said he, 'asleep in the next room.' 'What sort of
+sportsman?' two of them asked with one voice.
+
+'A gentleman.'
+
+'Ah!'
+
+'Let them make a row,' said the man with the plush collar, waving his
+arms; 'what do I care, so long as they don't touch me? They've turned
+me into a stoker....'
+
+'A stoker! a stoker!' the others put in gleefully.
+
+'It's the mistress's orders,' he went on, with a shrug of his
+shoulders; 'but just you wait a bit ... they'll turn you into
+swineherds yet. But I've been a tailor, and a good tailor too, learnt
+my trade in the best house in Moscow, and worked for generals ... and
+nobody can take that from me. And what have you to boast of?... What?
+you're a pack of idlers, not worth your salt; that's what you are! Turn
+me off! I shan't die of hunger; I shall be all right; give me a
+passport. I'd send a good rent home, and satisfy the masters. But what
+would you do? You'd die off like flies, that's what you'd do!'
+
+'That's a nice lie!' interposed a pock-marked lad with white eyelashes,
+a red cravat, and ragged elbows. 'You went off with a passport sharp
+enough, but never a halfpenny of rent did the masters see from you, and
+you never earned a farthing for yourself, you just managed to crawl
+home again and you've never had a new rag on you since.'
+
+'Ah, well, what could one do! Konstantin Narkizitch,' responded Kuprya;
+'a man falls in love--a man's ruined and done for! You go through what
+I have, Konstantin Narkizitch, before you blame me!'
+
+'And you picked out a nice one to fall in love with!--a regular fright.'
+
+'No, you must not say that, Konstantin Narkizitch.'
+
+'Who's going to believe that? I've seen her, you know; I saw her with
+my own eyes last year in Moscow.'
+
+'Last year she had gone off a little certainly,' observed Kuprya.
+
+'No, gentlemen, I tell you what,' a tall, thin man, with a face spotted
+with pimples, a valet probably, from his frizzed and pomatumed head,
+remarked in a careless and disdainful voice; 'let Kuprya Afanasyitch
+sing us his song. Come on, now; begin, Kuprya Afanasyitch.
+
+'Yes! yes!' put in the others. 'Hoorah for Alexandra! That's one for
+Kuprya; 'pon my soul ... Sing away, Kuprya!... You're a regular brick,
+Alexandra!' (Serfs often use feminine terminations in referring to a
+man as an expression of endearment.) 'Sing away!'
+
+'This is not the place to sing,' Kuprya replied firmly; 'this is the
+manor counting-house.'
+
+'And what's that to do with you? you've got your eye on a place as
+clerk, eh?' answered Konstantin with a coarse laugh. 'That's what it
+is!'
+
+'Everything rests with the mistress,' observed the poor wretch.
+
+'There, that's what he's got his eye on! a fellow like him! oo! oo! a!'
+
+And they all roared; some rolled about with merriment. Louder than all
+laughed a lad of fifteen, probably the son of an aristocrat among the
+house-serfs; he wore a waistcoat with bronze buttons, and a cravat of
+lilac colour, and had already had time to fill out his waistcoat.
+
+'Come tell us, confess now, Kuprya,' Nikolai Eremyitch began
+complacently, obviously tickled and diverted himself; 'is it bad being
+stoker? Is it an easy job, eh?'
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch,' began Kuprya, 'you're head-clerk among us now,
+certainly; there's no disputing that, no; but you know you have been in
+disgrace yourself, and you too have lived in a peasant's hut.'
+
+'You'd better look out and not forget yourself in my place,' the fat
+man interrupted emphatically; 'people joke with a fool like you; you
+ought, you fool, to have sense, and be grateful to them for taking
+notice of a fool like you.'
+
+'It was a slip of the tongue, Nikolai Eremyitch; I beg your pardon....'
+
+'Yes, indeed, a slip of the tongue.'
+
+The door opened and a little page ran in.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch, mistress wants you.'
+
+'Who's with the mistress?' he asked the page.
+
+'Aksinya Nikitishna, and a merchant from Venev.'
+
+'I'll be there this minute. And you, mates,' he continued in a
+persuasive voice, 'better move off out of here with the newly-appointed
+stoker; if the German pops in, he'll make a complaint for certain.'
+
+The fat man smoothed his hair, coughed into his hand, which was almost
+completely hidden in his coat-sleeve, buttoned himself, and set off
+with rapid strides to see the lady of the manor. In a little while the
+whole party trailed out after him, together with Kuprya. My old friend,
+the clerk-on duty, was left alone. He set to work mending the pens, and
+dropped asleep in his chair. A few flies promptly seized the
+opportunity and settled on his mouth. A mosquito alighted on his
+forehead, and, stretching its legs out with a regular motion, slowly
+buried its sting into his flabby flesh. The same red head with whiskers
+showed itself again at the door, looked in, looked again, and then came
+into the office, together with the rather ugly body belonging to it.
+
+'Fedyushka! eh, Fedyushka! always asleep,' said the head.
+
+The clerk on duty opened his eyes and got up from his seat.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch has gone to the mistress?'
+
+'Yes, Vassily Nikolaevitch.'
+
+'Ah! ah!' thought I; 'this is he, the head cashier.'
+
+The head cashier began walking about the room. He really slunk rather
+than walked, and altogether resembled a cat. An old black frock-coat
+with very narrow skirts hung about his shoulders; he kept one hand in
+his bosom, while the other was for ever fumbling about his high, narrow
+horse-hair collar, and he turned his head with a certain effort. He
+wore noiseless kid boots, and trod very softly.
+
+'The landowner, Yagushkin, was asking for you to-day,' added the clerk
+on duty.
+
+'Hm, asking for me? What did he say?'
+
+'Said he'd go to Tyutyurov this evening and would wait for you. "I want
+to discuss some business with Vassily Nikolaevitch," said he, but what
+the business was he didn't say; "Vassily Nikolaevitch will know," says
+he.'
+
+'Hm!' replied the head cashier, and he went up to the window.
+
+'Is Nikolai Eremyitch in the counting-house?' a loud voice was heard
+asking in the outer room, and a tall man, apparently angry, with an
+irregular but bold and expressive face, and rather clean in his dress,
+stepped over the threshold.
+
+'Isn't he here?' he inquired, looking rapidly round.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch is with the mistress,' responded the cashier. 'Tell
+me what you want, Pavel Andreitch; you can tell me.... What is it you
+want?'
+
+'What do I want? You want to know what I want?' (The cashier gave a
+sickly nod.) 'I want to give him a lesson, the fat, greasy villain, the
+scoundrelly tell-tale!... I'll give him a tale to tell!'
+
+Pavel flung himself into a chair.
+
+'What are you saying, Pavel Andreitch! Calm yourself.... Aren't you
+ashamed? Don't forget whom you're talking about, Pavel Andreitch!'
+lisped the cashier.
+
+'Forget whom I'm talking about? What do I care for his being made
+head-clerk? A fine person they've found to promote, there's no denying
+that! They've let the goat loose in the kitchen garden, you may say!'
+
+'Hush, hush, Pavel Andreitch, hush! drop that ... what rubbish are you
+talking?'
+
+'So Master Fox is beginning to fawn? I will wait for him,' Pavel said
+with passion, and he struck a blow on the table. 'Ah, here he's
+coming!' he added with a look at the window; 'speak of the devil. With
+your kind permission!' (He, got up.)
+
+Nikolai Eremyitch came into the counting-house. His face was shining
+with satisfaction, but he was rather taken aback at seeing Pavel
+Andreitch.
+
+'Good day to you, Nikolai Eremyitch,' said Pavel in a significant tone,
+advancing deliberately to meet him.
+
+The head-clerk made no reply. The face of the merchant showed itself in
+the doorway.
+
+'What, won't you deign to answer me?' pursued Pavel. 'But no ... no,'
+he added; 'that's not it; there's no getting anything by shouting and
+abuse. No, you'd better tell me in a friendly way, Nikolai Eremyitch;
+what do you persecute me for? what do you want to ruin me for? Come,
+speak, speak.'
+
+'This is no fit place to come to an understanding with you,' the
+head-clerk answered in some agitation, 'and no fit time. But I must say
+I wonder at one thing: what makes you suppose I want to ruin you, or
+that I'm persecuting you? And if you come to that, how can I persecute
+you? You're not in my counting-house.'
+
+'I should hope not,' answered Pavel; 'that would be the last straw! But
+why are you hum-bugging, Nikolai Eremyitch?... You understand me, you
+know.'
+
+'No, I don't understand.'
+
+'No, you do understand.'
+
+'No, by God, I don't understand!'
+
+'Swearing too! Well, tell us, since it's come to that: have you no fear
+of God? Why can't you let the poor girl live in peace? What do you want
+of her?'
+
+'Whom are you talking of?' the fat man asked with feigned amazement.
+
+'Ugh! doesn't know; what next? I'm talking of Tatyana. Have some fear
+of God--what do you want to revenge yourself for? You ought to be
+ashamed: a married man like you, with children as big as I am; it's a
+very different thing with me.... I mean marriage: I'm acting
+straight-forwardly.'
+
+'How am I to blame in that, Pavel Andreitch? The mistress won't permit
+you to marry; it's her seignorial will! What have I to do with it?'
+
+'Why, haven't you been plotting with that old hag, the housekeeper, eh?
+Haven't you been telling tales, eh? Tell me, aren't you bringing all
+sorts of stories up against the defenceless girl? I suppose it's not
+your doing that she's been degraded from laundrymaid to washing dishes
+in the scullery? And it's not your doing that she's beaten and dressed
+in sackcloth?... You ought to be ashamed, you ought to be ashamed--an
+old man like you! You know there's a paralytic stroke always hanging
+over you.... You will have to answer to God.'
+
+'You're abusive, Pavel Andreitch, you're abusive.... You shan't have a
+chance to be insolent much longer.'
+
+Pavel fired up.
+
+'What? You dare to threaten me?' he said passionately. 'You think I'm
+afraid of you. No, my man, I'm not come to that! What have I to be
+afraid of?... I can make my bread everywhere. For you, now, it's
+another thing! It's only here you can live and tell tales, and
+filch....'
+
+'Fancy the conceit of the fellow!' interrupted the clerk, who was also
+beginning to lose patience; 'an apothecary's assistant, simply an
+apothecary's assistant, a wretched leech; and listen to him--fie upon
+you! you're a high and mighty personage!'
+
+'Yes, an apothecary's assistant, and except for this apothecary's
+assistant you'd have been rotting in the graveyard by now.... It was
+some devil drove me to cure him,' he added between his teeth.
+
+'You cured me?... No, you tried to poison me; you dosed me with aloes,'
+the clerk put in.
+
+'What was I to do if nothing but aloes had any effect on you?'
+
+'The use of aloes is forbidden by the Board of Health,' pursued
+Nikolai. 'I'll lodge a complaint against you yet.... You tried to
+compass my death--that was what you did! But the Lord suffered it not.'
+
+'Hush, now, that's enough, gentlemen,' the cashier was beginning....
+
+'Stand off!' bawled the clerk. 'He tried to poison me! Do you
+understand that?'
+
+'That's very likely.... Listen, Nikolai Eremyitch,' Pavel began in
+despairing accents. 'For the last time, I beg you.... You force me to
+it--can't stand it any longer. Let us alone, do you hear? or else, by
+God, it'll go ill with one or other of us--I mean with you!'
+
+The fat man flew into a rage.
+
+'I'm not afraid of you!' he shouted; 'do you hear, milksop? I got the
+better of your father; I broke his horns--a warning to you; take care!'
+
+'Don't talk of my father, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Get away! who are you to give me orders?'
+
+'I tell you, don't talk of him!'
+
+'And I tell you, don't forget yourself.... However necessary you think
+yourself, if our lady has a choice between us, it's not you'll be kept,
+my dear! None's allowed to mutiny, mind!' (Pavel was shaking with
+fury.) 'As for the wench, Tatyana, she deserves ... wait a bit, she'll
+get something worse!'
+
+Pavel dashed forward with uplifted fists, and the clerk rolled heavily
+on the floor.
+
+'Handcuff him, handcuff him,' groaned Nikolai Eremyitch....
+
+I won't take upon myself to describe the end of this scene; I fear I
+have wounded the reader's delicate susceptibilities as it is.
+
+The same day I returned home. A week later I heard that Madame
+Losnyakov had kept both Pavel and Nikolai in her service, but had sent
+away the girl Tatyana; it appeared she was not wanted.
+
+
+
+                                   XII
+
+                                 BIRYUK
+
+
+I was coming back from hunting one evening alone in a racing droshky. I
+was six miles from home; my good trotting mare galloped bravely along
+the dusty road, pricking up her ears with an occasional snort; my weary
+dog stuck close to the hind-wheels, as though he were fastened there. A
+tempest was coming on. In front, a huge, purplish storm-cloud slowly
+rose from behind the forest; long grey rain-clouds flew over my head
+and to meet me; the willows stirred and whispered restlessly. The
+suffocating heat changed suddenly to a damp chilliness; the darkness
+rapidly thickened. I gave the horse a lash with the reins, descended a
+steep slope, pushed across a dry water-course overgrown with brushwood,
+mounted the hill, and drove into the forest. The road ran before me,
+bending between thick hazel bushes, now enveloped in darkness; I
+advanced with difficulty. The droshky jumped up and down over the hard
+roots of the ancient oaks and limes, which were continually intersected
+by deep ruts--the tracks of cart wheels; my horse began to stumble. A
+violent wind suddenly began to roar overhead; the trees blustered; big
+drops of rain fell with slow tap and splash on the leaves; there came a
+flash of lightning and a clap of thunder. The rain fell in torrents. I
+went on a step or so, and soon was forced to stop; my horse foundered;
+I could not see an inch before me. I managed to take refuge somehow in
+a spreading bush. Crouching down and covering my face, I waited
+patiently for the storm to blow over, when suddenly, in a flash of
+lightning, I saw a tall figure on the road. I began to stare intently
+in that direction--the figure seemed to have sprung out of the ground
+near my droshky.
+
+'Who's that?' inquired a ringing voice.
+
+'Why, who are you?'
+
+'I'm the forester here.'
+
+I mentioned my name.
+
+'Oh, I know! Are you on your way home?'
+
+'Yes. But, you see, in such a storm....'
+
+'Yes, there is a storm,' replied the voice.
+
+A pale flash of lightning lit up the forester from head to foot; a
+brief crashing clap of thunder followed at once upon it. The rain
+lashed with redoubled force.
+
+'It won't be over just directly,' the forester went on.
+
+'What's to be done?'
+
+'I'll take you to my hut, if you like,' he said abruptly.
+
+'That would be a service.'
+
+'Please to take your seat'
+
+He went up to the mare's head, took her by the bit, and pulled her up.
+We set off. I held on to the cushion of the droshky, which rocked 'like
+a boat on the sea,' and called my dog. My poor mare splashed with
+difficulty through the mud, slipped and stumbled; the forester hovered
+before the shafts to right and to left like a ghost. We drove rather a
+long while; at last my guide stopped. 'Here we are home, sir,' he
+observed in a quiet voice. The gate creaked; some puppies barked a
+welcome. I raised my head, and in a flash of lightning I made out a
+small hut in the middle of a large yard, fenced in with hurdles. From
+the one little window there was a dim light. The forester led his horse
+up to the steps and knocked at the door. 'Coming, coming!' we heard in
+a little shrill voice; there was the patter of bare feet, the bolt
+creaked, and a girl of twelve, in a little old smock tied round the
+waist with list, appeared in the doorway with a lantern in her hand.
+
+'Show the gentleman a light,' he said to her 'and I will put your
+droshky in the shed.'
+
+The little girl glanced at me, and went into the hut. I followed her.
+
+The forester's hut consisted of one room, smoky, low-pitched, and
+empty, without curtains or partition. A tattered sheepskin hung on the
+wall. On the bench lay a single-barrelled gun; in the corner lay a heap
+of rags; two great pots stood near the oven. A pine splinter was
+burning on the table flickering up and dying down mournfully. In the
+very middle of the hut hung a cradle, suspended from the end of a long
+horizontal pole. The little girl put out the lantern, sat down on a
+tiny stool, and with her right hand began swinging the cradle, while
+with her left she attended to the smouldering pine splinter. I looked
+round--my heart sank within me: it's not cheering to go into a
+peasant's hut at night. The baby in the cradle breathed hard and fast.
+
+'Are you all alone here?' I asked the little girl.
+
+'Yes,' she uttered, hardly audibly.
+
+'You're the forester's daughter?'
+
+'Yes,' she whispered.
+
+The door creaked, and the forester, bending his head, stepped across
+the threshold. He lifted the lantern from the floor, went up to the
+table, and lighted a candle.
+
+'I dare say you're not used to the splinter light?' said he, and he
+shook back his curls.
+
+I looked at him. Rarely has it been my fortune to behold such a comely
+creature. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and in marvellous proportion.
+His powerful muscles stood out in strong relief under his wet homespun
+shirt. A curly, black beard hid half of his stern and manly face; small
+brown eyes looked out boldly from under broad eyebrows which met in the
+middle. He stood before me, his arms held lightly akimbo.
+
+I thanked him, and asked his name.
+
+'My name's Foma,' he answered, 'and my nickname's Biryuk' (_i.e._
+wolf). [Footnote: The name Biryuk is used in the Orel province to
+denote a solitary, misanthropic man.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'Oh, you're Biryuk.'
+
+I looked with redoubled curiosity at him. From my Yermolaï and others I
+had often heard stories about the forester Biryuk, whom all the
+peasants of the surrounding districts feared as they feared fire.
+According to them there had never been such a master of his business in
+the world before. 'He won't let you carry off a handful of brushwood;
+he'll drop upon you like a fall of snow, whatever time it may be, even
+in the middle of the night, and you needn't think of resisting
+him--he's strong, and cunning as the devil.... And there's no getting
+at him anyhow; neither by brandy nor by money; there's no snare he'll
+walk into. More than once good folks have planned to put him out of the
+world, but no--it's never come off.'
+
+That was how the neighbouring peasants spoke of Biryuk.
+
+'So you're Biryuk,' I repeated; 'I've heard talk of you, brother. They
+say you show no mercy to anyone.'
+
+'I do my duty,' he answered grimly; 'it's not right to eat the master's
+bread for nothing.'
+
+He took an axe from his girdle and began splitting splinters.
+
+'Have you no wife?' I asked him.
+
+'No,' he answered, with a vigorous sweep of the axe.
+
+'She's dead, I suppose?'
+
+'No ... yes ... she's dead,' he added, and turned away. I was silent;
+he raised his eyes and looked at me.
+
+'She ran away with a travelling pedlar,' he brought out with a bitter
+smile. The little girl hung her head; the baby waked up and began
+crying; the little girl went to the cradle. 'There, give it him,' said
+Biryuk, thrusting a dirty feeding-bottle into her hand. 'Him, too, she
+abandoned,' he went on in an undertone, pointing to the baby. He went
+up to the door, stopped, and turned round.
+
+'A gentleman like you,' he began, 'wouldn't care for our bread, I dare
+say, and except bread, I've--'
+
+'I'm not hungry.'
+
+'Well, that's for you to say. I would have heated the samovar, but I've
+no tea.... I'll go and see how your horse is getting on.'
+
+He went out and slammed the door. I looked round again, the hut struck
+me as more melancholy than ever. The bitter smell of stale smoke choked
+my breathing unpleasantly. The little girl did not stir from her place,
+and did not raise her eyes; from time to time she jogged the cradle,
+and timidly pulled her slipping smock up on to shoulder; her bare legs
+hung motionless.
+
+'What's your name?' I asked her.
+
+'Ulita,' she said, her mournful little face drooping more than ever.
+
+The forester came in and sat down on the bench.
+
+'The storm 's passing over,' he observed, after a brief silence; 'if
+you wish it, I will guide you out of the forest.'
+
+I got up; Biryuk took his gun and examined the firepan.
+
+'What's that for?' I inquired.
+
+'There's mischief in the forest.... They're cutting a tree down on
+Mares' Ravine,' he added, in reply to my look of inquiry.
+
+'Could you hear it from here?'
+
+'I can hear it outside.'
+
+We went out together. The rain had ceased. Heavy masses of storm-cloud
+were still huddled in the distance; from time to time there were long
+flashes of lightning; but here and there overhead the dark blue sky was
+already visible; stars twinkled through the swiftly flying clouds. The
+outline of the trees, drenched with rain, and stirred by the wind,
+began to stand out in the darkness. We listened. The forester took off
+his cap and bent his head.... 'Th ... there!' he said suddenly, and he
+stretched out his hand: 'see what a night he's pitched on.' I had heard
+nothing but the rustle of the leaves. Biryuk led the mare out of the
+shed. 'But, perhaps,' he added aloud, 'this way I shall miss him.'
+'I'll go with you ... if you like?' 'Certainly,' he answered, and he
+backed the horse in again; 'we'll catch him in a trice, and then I'll
+take you. Let's be off.' We started, Biryuk in front, I following him.
+Heaven only knows how he found out his way, but he only stopped once or
+twice, and then merely to listen to the strokes of the axe. 'There,' he
+muttered, 'do you hear? do you hear?' 'Why, where?' Biryuk shrugged his
+shoulders. We went down into the ravine; the wind was still for an
+instant; the rhythmical strokes reached my hearing distinctly. Biryuk
+glanced at me and shook his head. We went farther through the wet
+bracken and nettles. A slow muffled crash was heard....
+
+'He's felled it,' muttered Biryuk. Meantime the sky had grown clearer
+and clearer; there was a faint light in the forest. We clambered at
+last out of the ravine.
+
+'Wait here a little,' the forester whispered to me. He bent down, and
+raising his gun above his head, vanished among the bushes. I began
+listening with strained attention. Across the continual roar of the
+wind faint sounds from close by reached me; there was a cautious blow
+of an axe on the brushwood, the crash of wheels, the snort of a
+horse....
+
+'Where are you off to? Stop!' the iron voice of Biryuk thundered
+suddenly. Another voice was heard in a pitiful shriek, like a trapped
+hare.... _A struggle was beginning._
+
+'No, no, you've made a mistake,' Biryuk declared panting; 'you're not
+going to get off....' I rushed in the direction of the noise, and ran
+up to the scene of the conflict, stumbling at every step. A felled tree
+lay on the ground, and near it Biryuk was busily engaged holding the
+thief down and binding his hands behind his back with a kerchief. I
+came closer. Biryuk got up and set him on his feet. I saw a peasant
+drenched with rain, in tatters, and with a long dishevelled beard. A
+sorry little nag, half covered with a stiff mat, was standing by,
+together with a rough cart. The forester did not utter a word; the
+peasant too was silent; his head was shaking.
+
+'Let him go,' I whispered in Biryuk's ears; 'I'll pay for the tree.'
+
+Without a word Biryuk took the horse by the mane with his left hand; in
+his right he held the thief by the belt. 'Now turn round, you rat!' he
+said grimly.
+
+'The bit of an axe there, take it,' muttered the peasant.
+
+'No reason to lose it, certainly,' said the forester, and he picked up
+the axe. We started. I walked behind.... The rain began sprinkling
+again, and soon fell in torrents. With difficulty we made our way to
+the hut. Biryuk pushed the captured horse into the middle of the yard,
+led the peasant into the room, loosened the knot in the kerchief, and
+made him sit down in a corner. The little girl, who had fallen asleep
+near the oven, jumped up and began staring at us in silent terror. I
+sat down on the locker.
+
+'Ugh, what a downpour!' remarked the forester; 'you will have to wait
+till it's over. Won't you lie down?'
+
+'Thanks.'
+
+'I would have shut him in the store loft, on your honour's account,' he
+went on, indicating the peasant; 'but you see the bolt--'
+
+'Leave him here; don't touch him,' I interrupted.
+
+The peasant stole a glance at me from under his brows. I vowed inwardly
+to set the poor wretch free, come what might. He sat without stirring
+on the locker. By the light of the lantern I could make out his worn,
+wrinkled face, his overhanging yellow eyebrows, his restless eyes, his
+thin limbs.... The little girl lay down on the floor, just at his feet,
+and again dropped asleep. Biryuk sat at the table, his head in his
+hands. A cricket chirped in the corner ... the rain pattered on the
+roof and streamed down the windows; we were all silent.
+
+'Foma Kuzmitch,' said the peasant suddenly in a thick, broken voice;
+'Foma Kuzmitch!'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Let me go.'
+
+Biryuk made no answer.
+
+'Let me go ... hunger drove me to it; let me go.'
+
+'I know you,' retorted the forester severely; 'your set's all
+alike--all thieves.'
+
+'Let me go,' repeated the peasant. 'Our manager ... we 're ruined,
+that's what it is--let me go!'
+
+'Ruined, indeed!... Nobody need steal.'
+
+'Let me go, Foma Kuzmitch.... Don't destroy me. Your manager, you know
+yourself, will have no mercy on me; that's what it is.'
+
+Biryuk turned away. The peasant was shivering as though he were in the
+throes of fever. His head was shaking, and his breathing came in broken
+gasps.
+
+'Let me go,' he repeated with mournful desperation. 'Let me go; by God,
+let me go! I'll pay; see, by God, I will! By God, it was through
+hunger!... the little ones are crying, you know yourself. It's hard for
+us, see.'
+
+'You needn't go stealing, for all that.'
+
+'My little horse,' the peasant went on, 'my poor little horse, at least
+... our only beast ... let it go.'
+
+'I tell you I can't. I'm not a free man; I'm made responsible. You
+oughtn't to be spoilt, either.'
+
+'Let me go! It's through want, Foma Kuzmitch, want--and nothing
+else--let me go!'
+
+'I know you!'
+
+'Oh, let me go!'
+
+'Ugh, what's the use of talking to you! sit quiet, or else you'll catch
+it. Don't you see the gentleman, hey?'
+
+The poor wretch hung his head.... Biryuk yawned and laid his head on
+the table. The rain still persisted. I was waiting to see what would
+happen.
+
+Suddenly the peasant stood erect. His eyes were glittering, and his
+face flushed dark red. 'Come, then, here; strike yourself, here,' he
+began, his eyes puckering up and the corners of his mouth dropping;
+'come, cursed destroyer of men's souls! drink Christian blood, drink.'
+
+The forester turned round.
+
+'I'm speaking to you, Asiatic, blood-sucker, you!'
+
+'Are you drunk or what, to set to being abusive?' began the forester,
+puzzled. 'Are you out of your senses, hey?'
+
+'Drunk! not at your expense, cursed destroyer of souls--brute, brute,
+brute!'
+
+'Ah, you----I'll show you!'
+
+'What's that to me? It's all one; I'm done for; what can I do without a
+home? Kill me--it's the same in the end; whether it's through hunger or
+like this--it's all one. Ruin us all--wife, children ... kill us all at
+once. But, wait a bit, we'll get at you!'
+
+Biryuk got up.
+
+'Kill me, kill me,' the peasant went on in savage tones; 'kill me;
+come, come, kill me....' (The little girl jumped up hastily from the
+ground and stared at him.) 'Kill me, kill me!'
+
+'Silence!' thundered the forester, and he took two steps forward.
+
+'Stop, Foma, stop,' I shouted; 'let him go.... Peace be with him.'
+
+'I won't be silent,' the luckless wretch went on. 'It's all the
+same--ruin anyway--you destroyer of souls, you brute; you've not come
+to ruin yet.... But wait a bit; you won't have long to boast of;
+they'll wring your neck; wait a bit!'
+
+Biryuk clutched him by the shoulder. I rushed to help the peasant....
+
+'Don't touch him, master!' the forester shouted to me.
+
+I should not have feared his threats, and already had my fist in the
+air; but to my intense amazement, with one pull he tugged the kerchief
+off the peasant's elbows, took him by the scruff of the neck, thrust
+his cap over his eyes, opened the door, and shoved him out.
+
+'Go to the devil with your horse!' he shouted after him; 'but mind,
+next time....'
+
+He came back into the hut and began rummaging in the corner.
+
+'Well, Biryuk,' I said at last, 'you've astonished me; I see you're a
+splendid fellow.'
+
+'Oh, stop that, master,' he cut me short with an air of vexation;
+'please don't speak of it. But I'd better see you on your way now,' he
+added; 'I suppose you won't wait for this little rain....'
+
+In the yard there was the rattle of the wheels of the peasant's cart.
+
+'He's off, then!' he muttered; 'but next time!'
+
+Half-an-hour later he parted from me at the edge of the wood.
+
+
+
+                                  XIII
+
+                         TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
+
+
+I have already had the honour, kind readers, of introducing to you
+several of my neighbours; let me now seize a favourable opportunity (it
+is always a favourable opportunity with us writers) to make known to
+you two more gentlemen, on whose lands I often used to go
+shooting--very worthy, well-intentioned persons, who enjoy universal
+esteem in several districts.
+
+First I will describe to you the retired General-major Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch Hvalinsky. Picture to yourselves a tall and once slender
+man, now inclined to corpulence, but not in the least decrepit or even
+elderly, a man of ripe age; in his very prime, as they say. It is true
+the once regular and even now rather pleasing features of his face have
+undergone some change; his cheeks are flabby; there are close wrinkles
+like rays about his eyes; a few teeth are not, as Saadi, according to
+Pushkin, used to say; his light brown hair--at least, all that is left
+of it--has assumed a purplish hue, thanks to a composition bought at
+the Romyon horse-fair of a Jew who gave himself out as an Armenian; but
+Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch has a smart walk and a ringing laugh, jingles
+his spurs and curls his moustaches, and finally speaks of himself as an
+old cavalry man, whereas we all know that really old men never talk of
+being old. He usually wears a frock-coat buttoned up to the top, a high
+cravat, starched collars, and grey sprigged trousers of a military cut;
+he wears his hat tilted over his forehead, leaving all the back of his
+head exposed. He is a good-natured man, but of rather curious notions
+and principles. For instance, he can never treat noblemen of no wealth
+or standing as equals. When he talks to them, he usually looks sideways
+at them, his cheek pressed hard against his stiff white collar, and
+suddenly he turns and silently fixes them with a clear stony stare,
+while he moves the whole skin of his head under his hair; he even has a
+way of his own in pronouncing many words; he never says, for instance:
+'Thank you, Pavel Vasilyitch,' or 'This way, if you please, Mihalo
+Ivanitch,' but always 'Fanks, Pa'l 'Asilitch,' or ''Is wy, please, Mil'
+'Vanitch.' With persons of the lower grades of society, his behaviour
+is still more quaint; he never looks at them at all, and before making
+known his desires to them, or giving an order, he repeats several times
+in succession, with a puzzled, far-away air: 'What's your name?...
+what, what's your name?' with extraordinary sharp emphasis on the first
+word, which gives the phrase a rather close resemblance to the call of
+a quail. He is very fussy and terribly close-fisted, but manages his
+land badly; he had chosen as overseer on his estate a retired
+quartermaster, a Little Russian, and a man of really exceptional
+stupidity. None of us, though, in the management of land, has ever
+surpassed a certain great Petersburg dignitary, who, having perceived
+from the reports of his steward that the cornkilns in which the corn
+was dried on his estate were often liable to catch fire, whereby he
+lost a great deal of grain, gave the strictest orders that for the
+future they should not put the sheaves in till the fire had been
+completely put out! This same great personage conceived the brilliant
+idea of sowing his fields with poppies, as the result of an apparently
+simple calculation; poppy being dearer than rye, he argued, it is
+consequently more profitable to sow poppy. He it was, too, who ordered
+his women serfs to wear tiaras after a pattern bespoken from Moscow;
+and to this day the peasant women on his lands do actually wear the
+tiaras, only they wear them over their skull-caps.... But let us return
+to Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch is a devoted
+admirer of the fair sex, and directly he catches sight of a pretty
+woman in the promenade of his district town, he is promptly off in
+pursuit, but falls at once into a sort of limping gait--that is the
+remarkable feature of the case. He is fond of playing cards, but only
+with people of a lower standing; they toady him with 'Your Excellency'
+in every sentence, while he can scold them and find fault to his
+heart's content. When he chances to play with the governor or any
+official personage, a marvellous change comes over him; he is all nods
+and smiles; he looks them in the face; he seems positively flowing with
+honey.... He even loses without grumbling. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch
+does not read much; when he is reading he incessantly works his
+moustaches and eyebrows up and down, as if a wave were passing from
+below upwards over his face. This undulatory motion in Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch's face is especially marked when (before company, of
+course) he happens to be reading the columns of the _Journal des
+Débats_. In the assemblies of nobility he plays a rather important
+part, but on grounds of economy he declines the honourable dignity of
+marshal. 'Gentlemen,' he usually says to the noblemen who press that
+office upon him, and he speaks in a voice filled with condescension and
+self-sufficiency: 'much indebted for the honour; but I have made up my
+mind to consecrate my leisure to solitude.' And, as he utters these
+words, he turns his head several times to right and to left, and then,
+with a dignified air, adjusts his chin and his cheek over his cravat.
+In his young days he served as adjutant to some very important person,
+whom he never speaks of except by his Christian name and patronymic;
+they do say he fulfilled other functions than those of an adjutant;
+that, for instance, in full parade get-up, buttoned up to the chin, he
+had to lather his chief in his bath--but one can't believe everything
+one hears. General Hvalinsky is not, however, fond of talking himself
+about his career in the army, which is certainly rather curious; it
+seems that he had never seen active service. General Hvalinsky lives in
+a small house alone; he has never known the joys of married life, and
+consequently he still regards himself as a possible match, and indeed a
+very eligible one. But he has a house-keeper, a dark-eyed, dark-browed,
+plump, fresh-looking woman of five-and-thirty with a moustache; she
+wears starched dresses even on week-days, and on Sundays puts on muslin
+sleeves as well. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch is at his best at the large
+invitation dinners given by gentlemen of the neighbourhood in honour of
+the governor and other dignitaries: then he is, one may say, in his
+natural element. On these occasions he usually sits, if not on the
+governor's right hand, at least at no great distance from him; at the
+beginning of dinner he is more disposed to nurse his sense of personal
+dignity, and, sitting back in his chair, he loftily scans the necks and
+stand-up collars of the guests, without turning his head, but towards
+the end of the meal he unbends, begins smiling in all directions (he
+had been all smiles for the governor from the first), and sometimes
+even proposes the toast in honour of the fair sex, the ornament of our
+planet, as he says. General Hvalinsky shows to advantage too at all
+solemn public functions, inspections, assemblies, and exhibitions; no
+one in church goes up for the benediction with such style. Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch's servants are never noisy and clamorous on the breaking
+up of assemblies or in crowded thoroughfares; as they make a way for
+him through the crowd or call his carriage, they say in an agreeable
+guttural baritone: 'By your leave, by your leave allow General
+Hvalinsky to pass,' or 'Call for General Hvalinsky's carriage.' ...
+Hvalinsky's carriage is, it must be admitted, of a rather queer design,
+and the footmen's liveries are rather threadbare (that they are grey,
+with red facings, it is hardly necessary to remark); his horses too
+have seen a good deal of hard service in their time; but Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch has no pretensions to splendour, and goes so far as to
+think it beneath his rank to make an ostentation of wealth. Hvalinsky
+has no special gift of eloquence, or possibly has no opportunity of
+displaying his rhetorical powers, as he has a particular aversion, not
+only for disputing, but for discussion in general, and assiduously
+avoids long conversation of all sorts, especially with young people.
+This was certainly judicious on his part; the worst of having to do
+with the younger generation is that they are so ready to forget the
+proper respect and submission due to their superiors. In the presence
+of persons of high rank Hvalinsky is for the most part silent, while
+with persons of a lower rank, whom to judge by appearances he despises,
+though he constantly associates with them, his remarks are sharp and
+abrupt, expressions such as the following occurring incessantly:
+'That's a piece of folly, what you're saying now,' or 'I feel myself
+compelled, sir, to remind you,' or 'You ought to realise with whom you
+are dealing,' and so on. He is peculiarly dreaded by post-masters,
+officers of the local boards, and superintendents of posting stations.
+He never entertains any one in his house, and lives, as the rumour
+goes, like a screw. For all that, he's an excellent country gentleman,
+'An old soldier, a disinterested fellow, a man of principle, _vieux
+grognard_,' his neighbours say of him. The provincial prosecutor alone
+permits himself to smile when General Hvalinsky's excellent and solid
+qualities are referred to before him--but what will not envy drive men
+to!...
+
+However, we will pass now to another landed proprietor.
+
+Mardary Apollonitch Stegunov has no sort of resemblance to Hvalinsky; I
+hardly think he has ever served under government in any capacity, and
+he has never been reckoned handsome. Mardary Apollonitch is a little,
+fattish, bald old man of a respectable corpulence, with a double chin
+and little soft hands. He is very hospitable and jovial; lives, as the
+saying is, for his comfort; summer and winter alike, he wears a striped
+wadded dressing-gown. There's only one thing in which he is like
+General Hvalinsky; he too is a bachelor. He owns five hundred souls.
+Mardary Apollonitch's interest in his estate is of a rather superficial
+description; not to be behind the age, he ordered a threshing-machine
+from Butenop's in Moscow, locked it up in a barn, and then felt his
+mind at rest on the subject. Sometimes on a fine summer day he would
+have out his racing droshky, and drive off to his fields, to look at
+the crops and gather corn-flowers. Mardary Apollonitch's existence is
+carried on in quite the old style. His house is of an old-fashioned
+construction; in the hall there is, of course, a smell of kvas, tallow
+candles, and leather; close at hand, on the right, there is a sideboard
+with pipes and towels; in the dining-room, family portraits, flies, a
+great pot of geraniums, and a squeaky piano; in the drawing-room, three
+sofas, three tables, two looking-glasses, and a wheezy clock of
+tarnished enamel with engraved bronze hands; in the study, a table
+piled up with papers, and a bluish-coloured screen covered with
+pictures cut out of various works of last century; a bookcase full of
+musty books, spiders, and black dust; a puffy armchair; an Italian
+window; a sealed-up door into the garden.... Everything, in short, just
+as it always is. Mardary Apollonitch has a multitude of servants, all
+dressed in the old-fashioned style; in long blue full coats, with high
+collars, shortish pantaloons of a muddy hue, and yellow waistcoats.
+They address visitors as 'father.' His estate is under the
+superintendence of an agent, a peasant with a beard that covers the
+whole of his sheepskin; his household is managed by a stingy, wrinkled
+old woman, whose face is always tied up in a cinnamon-coloured
+handkerchief. In Mardary Apollonitch's stable there are thirty horses
+of various kinds; he drives out in a coach built on the estate, that
+weighs four tons. He receives visitors very cordially, and entertains
+them sumptuously; in other words, thanks to the stupefying powers of
+our national cookery, he deprives them of all capacity for doing
+anything but playing preference. For his part, he never does anything,
+and has even given up reading the _Dream-book_. But there are a good
+many of our landed gentry in Russia exactly like this. It will be
+asked: 'What is my object in talking about him?...' Well, by way of
+answering that question, let me describe to you one of my visits at
+Mardary Apollonitch's.
+
+I arrived one summer evening at seven o'clock. An evening service was
+only just over; the priest, a young man, apparently very timid, and
+only lately come from the seminary, was sitting in the drawing-room
+near the door, on the extreme edge of a chair. Mardary Apollonitch
+received me as usual, very cordially; he was genuinely delighted to see
+any visitor, and indeed he was the most good-natured of men altogether.
+The priest got up and took his hat.
+
+'Wait a bit, wait a bit, father,' said Mardary Apollonitch, not yet
+leaving go of my hand; 'don't go ... I have sent for some vodka for
+you.'
+
+'I never drink it, sir,' the priest muttered in confusion, blushing up
+to his ears.
+
+'What nonsense!' answered Mardary Apollonitch; 'Mishka! Yushka! vodka
+for the father!'
+
+Yushka, a tall, thin old man of eighty, came in with a glass of vodka
+on a dark-coloured tray, with a few patches of flesh-colour on it, all
+that was left of the original enamel.
+
+The priest began to decline.
+
+'Come, drink it up, father, no ceremony; it's too bad of you,' observed
+the landowner reproachfully.
+
+The poor young man had to obey.
+
+'There, now, father, you may go.'
+
+The priest took leave.
+
+'There, there, that'll do, get along with you....'
+
+'A capital fellow,' pursued Mardary Apollonitch, looking after him, 'I
+like him very much; there's only one thing--he's young yet. But how are
+you, my dear sir?... What have you been doing? How are you? Let's come
+out on to the balcony--such a lovely evening.'
+
+We went out on the balcony, sat down, and began to talk. Mardary
+Apollonitch glanced below, and suddenly fell into a state of tremendous
+excitement.
+
+'Whose hens are those? whose hens are those?' he shouted: 'Whose are
+those hens roaming about in the garden?... Whose are those hens? How
+many times I've forbidden it! How many times I've spoken about it!'
+
+Yushka ran out.
+
+'What disorder!' protested Mardary Apollonitch; 'it's horrible!'
+
+The unlucky hens, two speckled and one white with a topknot, as I still
+remember, went on stalking tranquilly about under the apple-trees,
+occasionally giving vent to their feelings in a prolonged clucking,
+when suddenly Yushka, bareheaded and stick in hand, with three other
+house-serfs of mature years, flew at them simultaneously. Then the fun
+began. The hens clucked, flapped their wings, hopped, raised a
+deafening cackle; the house-serfs ran, tripping up and tumbling over;
+their master shouted from the balcony like one possessed: 'Catch 'em,
+catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em!'
+
+At last one servant succeeded in catching the hen with the topknot,
+tumbling upon her, and at the very same moment a little girl of eleven,
+with dishevelled hair, and a dry branch in her hand, jumped over the
+garden-fence from the village street.
+
+'Ah, we see now whose hens!' cried the landowner in triumph. 'They're
+Yermil, the coachman's, hens! he's sent his Natalka to chase them
+out.... He didn't send his Parasha, no fear!' the landowner added in a
+low voice with a significant snigger. 'Hey, Yushka! let the hens alone;
+catch Natalka for me.'
+
+But before the panting Yushka had time to reach the terrified little
+girl the house-keeper suddenly appeared, snatched her by the arm, and
+slapped her several times on the back....
+
+'That's it! that's it!' cried the master, 'tut-tut-tut!... And carry
+off the hens, Avdotya,' he added in a loud voice, and he turned with a
+beaming face to me; 'that was a fine chase, my dear sir, hey?--I'm in a
+regular perspiration: look.'
+
+And Mardary Apollonitch went off into a series of chuckles.
+
+We remained on the balcony. The evening was really exceptionally fine.
+
+Tea was served us.
+
+'Tell me,' I began, 'Mardary Apollonitch: are those your peasants'
+huts, out there on the highroad, above the ravine?'
+
+'Yes ... why do you ask?'
+
+'I wonder at you, Mardary Apollonitch? It's really sinful. The huts
+allotted to the peasants there are wretched cramped little hovels;
+there isn't a tree to be seen near them; there's not a pond even;
+there's only one well, and that's no good. Could you really find no
+other place to settle them?... And they say you're taking away the old
+hemp-grounds, too?'
+
+'And what is one to do with this new division of the lands?' Mardary
+Apollonitch made answer. 'Do you know I've this re-division quite on my
+mind, and I foresee no sort of good from it. And as for my having taken
+away the hemp-ground, and their not having dug any ponds, or what
+not--as to that, my dear sir, I know my own business. I'm a plain
+man--I go on the old system. To my ideas, when a man's master--he's
+master; and when he's peasant--he's peasant. ... That's what I think
+about it.'
+
+To an argument so clear and convincing there was of course no answer.
+
+'And besides,' he went on, 'those peasants are a wretched lot; they're
+in disgrace. Particularly two families there; why, my late father--God
+rest his soul--couldn't bear them; positively couldn't bear them. And
+you know my precept is: where the father's a thief, the son's a thief;
+say what you like.... Blood, blood--oh, that's the great thing!'
+
+Meanwhile there was a perfect stillness in the air. Only rarely there
+came a gust of wind, which, as it sank for the last time near the
+house, brought to our ears the sound of rhythmically repeated blows,
+seeming to come from the stable. Mardary Apollonitch was in the act of
+lifting a saucer full of tea to his lips, and was just inflating his
+nostrils to sniff its fragrance--no true-born Russian, as we all know,
+can drink his tea without this preliminary--but he stopped short,
+listened, nodded his head, sipped his tea, and laying the saucer on the
+table, with the most good-natured smile imaginable, he murmured as
+though involuntarily accompanying the blows: 'Tchuki-tchuki-tchuk!
+Tchuki-tchuk!'
+
+'What is it?' I asked puzzled. 'Oh, by my order, they're punishing a
+scamp of a fellow.... Do you happen to remember Vasya, who waits at the
+sideboard?'
+
+'Which Vasya?'
+
+'Why, that waited on us at dinner just now. He with the long whiskers.'
+
+The fiercest indignation could not have stood against the clear mild
+gaze of Mardary Apollonitch.
+
+'What are you after, young man? what is it?' he said, shaking his head.
+'Am I a criminal or something, that you stare at me like that? "Whom he
+loveth he chasteneth"; you know that.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later I had taken leave of Mardary Apollonitch. As
+I was driving through the village I caught sight of Vasya. He was
+walking down the village street, cracking nuts. I told the coachman to
+stop the horses and called him up.
+
+'Well, my boy, so they've been punishing you to-day?' I said to him.
+
+'How did you know?' answered Vasya.
+
+'Your master told me.'
+
+'The master himself?'
+
+'What did he order you to be punished for?'
+
+'Oh, I deserved it, father; I deserved it. They don't punish for
+trifles among us; that's not the way with us--no, no. Our master's not
+like that; our master ... you won't find another master like him in all
+the province.'
+
+'Drive on!' I said to the coachman.' There you have it, old Russia!' I
+mused on my homeward way.
+
+
+
+                                  XIV
+
+                                LEBEDYAN
+
+
+One of the principal advantages of hunting, my dear readers, consists
+in its forcing you to be constantly moving from place to place, which
+is highly agreeable for a man of no occupation. It is true that
+sometimes, especially in wet weather, it's not over pleasant to roam
+over by-roads, to cut 'across country,' to stop every peasant you meet
+with the question, 'Hey! my good man! how are we to get to Mordovka?'
+and at Mordovka to try to extract from a half-witted peasant woman (the
+working population are all in the fields) whether it is far to an inn
+on the high-road, and how to get to it--and then when you have gone on
+eight miles farther, instead of an inn, to come upon the deserted
+village of Hudobubnova, to the great amazement of a whole herd of pigs,
+who have been wallowing up to their ears in the black mud in the middle
+of the village street, without the slightest anticipation of ever being
+disturbed. There is no great joy either in having to cross planks that
+dance under your feet; to drop down into ravines; to wade across boggy
+streams: it is not over-pleasant to tramp twenty-four hours on end
+through the sea of green that covers the highroads or (which God
+forbid!) stay for hours stuck in the mud before a striped milestone
+with the figures 22 on one side and 23 on the other; it is not wholly
+pleasant to live for weeks together on eggs, milk, and the rye-bread
+patriots affect to be so fond of.... But there is ample compensation
+for all these inconveniences and discomforts in pleasures and
+advantages of another sort. Let us come, though, to our story.
+
+After all I have said above, there is no need to explain to the reader
+how I happened five years ago to be at Lebedyan just in the very thick
+of the horse-fair. We sportsmen may often set off on a fine morning
+from our more or less ancestral roof, in the full intention of
+returning there the following evening, and little by little, still in
+pursuit of snipe, may get at last to the blessed banks of Petchora.
+Besides, every lover of the gun and the dog is a passionate admirer of
+the noblest animal in the world, the horse. And so I turned up at
+Lebedyan, stopped at the hotel, changed my clothes, and went out to the
+fair. (The waiter, a thin lanky youth of twenty, had already informed
+me in a sweet nasal tenor that his Excellency Prince N----, who
+purchases the chargers of the--regiment, was staying at their house;
+that many other gentlemen had arrived; that some gypsies were to sing
+in the evenings, and there was to be a performance of _Pan Tvardovsky_
+at the theatre; that the horses were fetching good prices; and that
+there was a fine show of them.)
+
+In the market square there were endless rows of carts drawn up, and
+behind the carts, horses of every possible kind: racers, stud-horses,
+dray horses, cart-horses, posting-hacks, and simple peasants' nags.
+Some fat and sleek, assorted by colours, covered with striped
+horse-cloths, and tied up short to high racks, turned furtive glances
+backward at the too familiar whips of their owners, the horse-dealers;
+private owners' horses, sent by noblemen of the steppes a hundred or
+two hundred miles away, in charge of some decrepit old coachman and two
+or three headstrong stable-boys, shook their long necks, stamped with
+ennui, and gnawed at the fences; roan horses, from Vyatka, huddled
+close to one another; race-horses, dapple-grey, raven, and sorrel, with
+large hindquarters, flowing tails, and shaggy legs, stood in majestic
+immobility like lions. Connoisseurs stopped respectfully before them.
+The avenues formed by the rows of carts were thronged with people of
+every class, age, and appearance; horse-dealers in long blue coats and
+high caps, with sly faces, were on the look-out for purchasers;
+gypsies, with staring eyes and curly heads, strolled up and down, like
+uneasy spirits, looking into the horses' mouths, lifting up a hoof or a
+tail, shouting, swearing, acting as go-betweens, casting lots, or
+hanging about some army horse-contracter in a foraging-cap and military
+cloak, with beaver collar. A stalwart Cossack rode up and down on a
+lanky gelding with the neck of a stag, offering it for sale 'in one
+lot,' that is, saddle, bridle, and all. Peasants, in sheepskins torn at
+the arm-pits, were forcing their way despairingly through the crowd, or
+packing themselves by dozens into a cart harnessed to a horse, which
+was to be 'put to the test,' or somewhere on one side, with the aid of
+a wily gypsy, they were bargaining till they were exhausted, clasping
+each other's hands a hundred times over, each still sticking to his
+price, while the subject of their dispute, a wretched little jade
+covered with a shrunken mat, was blinking quite unmoved, as though it
+was no concern of hers.... And, after all, what difference did it make
+to her who was to have the beating of her? Broad-browed landowners,
+with dyed moustaches and an expression of dignity on their faces, in
+Polish hats and cotton overcoats pulled half-on, were talking
+condescendingly with fat merchants in felt hats and green gloves.
+Officers of different regiments were crowding everywhere; an
+extraordinarily lanky cuirassier of German extraction was languidly
+inquiring of a lame horse-dealer 'what he expected to get for that
+chestnut.' A fair-haired young hussar, a boy of nineteen, was choosing
+a trace-horse to match a lean carriage-horse; a post-boy in a
+low-crowned hat, with a peacock's feather twisted round it, in a brown
+coat and long leather gloves tied round the arm with narrow, greenish
+bands, was looking for a shaft-horse. Coachmen were plaiting the
+horses' tails, wetting their manes, and giving respectful advice to
+their masters. Those who had completed a stroke of business were
+hurrying to hotel or to tavern, according to their class.... And all
+the crowd were moving, shouting, bustling, quarrelling and making it up
+again, swearing and laughing, all up to their knees in the mud. I
+wanted to buy a set of three horses for my covered trap; mine had begun
+to show signs of breaking down. I had found two, but had not yet
+succeeded in picking up a third. After a hotel dinner, which I cannot
+bring myself to describe (even Aeneas had discovered how painful it is
+to dwell on sorrows past), I repaired to a _café_ so-called, which was
+the evening resort of the purchasers of cavalry mounts, horse-breeders,
+and other persons. In the billiard-room, which was plunged in grey
+floods of tobacco smoke, there were about twenty men. Here were
+free-and-easy young landowners in embroidered jackets and grey
+trousers, with long curling hair and little waxed moustaches, staring
+about them with gentlemanly insolence; other noblemen in Cossack dress,
+with extraordinarily short necks, and eyes lost in layers of fat, were
+snorting with distressing distinctness; merchants sat a little apart on
+the _qui-vive_, as it is called; officers were chatting freely among
+themselves. At the billiard-table was Prince N---- a young man of
+two-and-twenty, with a lively and rather contemptuous face, in a coat
+hanging open, a red silk shirt, and loose velvet pantaloons; he was
+playing with the ex-lieutenant, Viktor Hlopakov.
+
+The ex-lieutenant, Viktor Hlopakov, a little, thinnish, dark man of
+thirty, with black hair, brown eyes, and a thick snub nose, is a
+diligent frequenter of elections and horse-fairs. He walks with a skip
+and a hop, waves his fat hands with a jovial swagger, cocks his cap on
+one side, and tucks up the sleeves of his military coat, showing the
+blue-black cotton lining. Mr. Hlopakov knows how to gain the favour of
+rich scapegraces from Petersburg; smokes, drinks, and plays cards with
+them; calls them by their Christian names. What they find to like in
+him it is rather hard to comprehend. He is not clever; he is not
+amusing; he is not even a buffoon. It is true they treat him with
+friendly casualness, as a good-natured fellow, but rather a fool; they
+chum with him for two or three weeks, and then all of a sudden do not
+recognise him in the street, and he on his side, too, does not
+recognise them. The chief peculiarity of Lieutenant Hlopakov consists
+in his continually for a year, sometimes two at a time, using in season
+and out of season one expression, which, though not in the least
+humorous, for some reason or other makes everyone laugh. Eight years
+ago he used on every occasion to say, "'Umble respecks and duty," and
+his patrons of that date used always to fall into fits of laughter and
+make him repeat ''Umble respecks and duty'; then he began to adopt a
+more complicated expression: 'No, that's too, too k'essk'say,' and with
+the same brilliant success; two years later he had invented a fresh
+saying: '_Ne voo_ excite _voo_self _pa_, man of sin, sewn in a
+sheepskin,' and so on. And strange to say! these, as you see, not
+overwhelmingly witty phrases, keep him in food and drink and clothes.
+(He has run through his property ages ago, and lives solely upon his
+friends.) There is, observe, absolutely no other attraction about him;
+he can, it is true, smoke a hundred pipes of Zhukov tobacco in a day,
+and when he plays billiards, throws his right leg higher than his head,
+and while taking aim shakes his cue affectedly; but, after all, not
+everyone has a fancy for these accomplishments. He can drink, too ...
+but in Russia it is hard to gain distinction as a drinker. In short,
+his success is a complete riddle to me.... There is one thing, perhaps;
+he is discreet; he has no taste for washing dirty linen away from home,
+never speaks a word against anyone.
+
+'Well,' I thought, on seeing Hlopakov, 'I wonder what his catchword is
+now?'
+
+The prince hit the white.
+
+'Thirty love,' whined a consumptive marker, with a dark face and blue
+rings under his eyes.
+
+The prince sent the yellow with a crash into the farthest pocket.
+
+'Ah!' a stoutish merchant, sitting in the corner at a tottering little
+one-legged table, boomed approvingly from the depths of his chest, and
+immediately was overcome by confusion at his own presumption. But
+luckily no one noticed him. He drew a long breath, and stroked his
+beard.
+
+'Thirty-six love!' the marker shouted in a nasal voice.
+
+'Well, what do you say to that, old man?' the prince asked Hlopakov.
+
+'What! rrrrakaliooon, of course, simply rrrrakaliooooon!'
+
+The prince roared with laughter.
+
+'What? what? Say it again.'
+
+'Rrrrrakaliooon!' repeated the ex-lieutenant complacently.
+
+'So that's the catchword!' thought I.
+
+The prince sent the red into the pocket.
+
+'Oh! that's not the way, prince, that's not the way,' lisped a
+fair-haired young officer with red eyes, a tiny nose, and a babyish,
+sleepy face. 'You shouldn't play like that ... you ought ... not that
+way!'
+
+'Eh?' the prince queried over his shoulder.
+
+'You ought to have done it ... in a triplet.'
+
+'Oh, really?' muttered the prince.
+
+'What do you say, prince? Shall we go this evening to hear the
+gypsies?' the young man hurriedly went on in confusion. 'Styoshka will
+sing ... Ilyushka....'
+
+The prince vouchsafed no reply.
+
+'Rrrrrakaliooon, old boy,' said Hlopakov, with a sly wink of his left
+eye.
+
+And the prince exploded.
+
+'Thirty-nine to love,' sang out the marker.
+
+'Love ... just look, I'll do the trick with that yellow.' ... Hlopakov,
+fidgeting his cue in his hand, took aim, and missed.
+
+'Eh, rrrakalioon,' he cried with vexation.
+
+The prince laughed again.
+
+'What, what, what?'
+
+'Your honour made a miss,' observed the marker. 'Allow me to chalk the
+cue.... Forty love.'
+
+'Yes, gentlemen,' said the prince, addressing the whole company, and
+not looking at any one in particular; 'you know, Verzhembitskaya must
+be called before the curtain to-night.'
+
+'To be sure, to be sure, of course,' several voices cried in rivalry,
+amazingly flattered at the chance of answering the prince's speech;
+'Verzhembitskaya, to be sure....'
+
+'Verzhembitskaya's an excellent actress, far superior to Sopnyakova,'
+whined an ugly little man in the corner with moustaches and spectacles.
+Luckless wretch! he was secretly sighing at Sopnyakova's feet, and the
+prince did not even vouchsafe him a look.
+
+'Wai-ter, hey, a pipe!' a tall gentleman, with regular features and a
+most majestic manner--in fact, with all the external symptoms of a
+card-sharper--muttered into his cravat.
+
+A waiter ran for a pipe, and when he came back, announced to his
+excellency that the groom Baklaga was asking for him.
+
+'Ah! tell him to wait a minute and take him some vodka.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+Baklaga, as I was told afterwards, was the name of a youthful,
+handsome, and excessively depraved groom; the prince loved him, made
+him presents of horses, went out hunting with him, spent whole nights
+with him.... Now you would not know this same prince, who was once a
+rake and a scapegrace.... In what good odour he is now; how
+straight-laced, how supercilious! How devoted to the government--and,
+above all, so prudent and judicious!
+
+However, the tobacco smoke had begun to make my eyes smart. After
+hearing Hlopakov's exclamation and the prince's chuckle one last time
+more, I went off to my room, where, on a narrow, hair-stuffed sofa
+pressed into hollows, with a high, curved back, my man had already made
+me up a bed.
+
+The next day I went out to look at the horses in the stables, and began
+with the famous horsedealer Sitnikov's. I went through a gate into a
+yard strewn with sand. Before a wide open stable-door stood the
+horsedealer himself--a tall, stout man no longer young, in a hareskin
+coat, with a raised turnover collar. Catching sight of me, he moved
+slowly to meet me, held his cap in both hands above his head, and in a
+sing-song voice brought out:
+
+'Ah, our respects to you. You'd like to have a look at the horses, may
+be?'
+
+'Yes; I've come to look at the horses.'
+
+'And what sort of horses, precisely, I make bold to ask?'
+
+'Show me what you have.'
+
+'With pleasure.'
+
+We went into the stable. Some white pug-dogs got up from the hay and
+ran up to us, wagging their tails, and a long-bearded old goat walked
+away with an air of dissatisfaction; three stable-boys, in strong but
+greasy sheepskins, bowed to us without speaking. To right and to left,
+in horse-boxes raised above the ground, stood nearly thirty horses,
+groomed to perfection. Pigeons fluttered cooing about the rafters.
+
+'What, now, do you want a horse for? for driving or for breeding?'
+Sitnikov inquired of me.
+
+'Oh, I'll see both sorts.'
+
+'To be sure, to be sure,' the horsedealer commented, dwelling on each
+syllable. 'Petya, show the gentleman Ermine.'
+
+We came out into the yard.
+
+'But won't you let them bring you a bench out of the hut?... You don't
+want to sit down.... As you please.'
+
+There was the thud of hoofs on the boards, the crack of a whip, and
+Petya, a swarthy fellow of forty, marked by small-pox, popped out of
+the stable with a rather well-shaped grey stallion, made it rear, ran
+twice round the yard with it, and adroitly pulled it up at the right
+place. Ermine stretched himself, snorted, raised his tail, shook his
+head, and looked sideways at me.
+
+'A clever beast,' I thought.
+
+'Give him his head, give him his head,' said Sitniker, and he stared at
+me.
+
+'What may you think of him?' he inquired at last.
+
+'The horse's not bad--the hind legs aren't quite sound.'
+
+'His legs are first-rate!' Sitnikov rejoined, with an air of
+conviction;' and his hind-quarters ... just look, sir ... broad as an
+oven--you could sleep up there.' 'His pasterns are long.'
+
+'Long! mercy on us! Start him, Petya, start him, but at a trot, a trot
+... don't let him gallop.'
+
+Again Petya ran round the yard with Ermine. None of us spoke for a
+little.
+
+'There, lead him back,' said Sitnikov,' and show us Falcon.'
+
+Falcon, a gaunt beast of Dutch extraction with sloping hind-quarters,
+as black as a beetle, turned out to be little better than Ermine. He
+was one of those beasts of whom fanciers will tell you that 'they go
+chopping and mincing and dancing about,' meaning thereby that they
+prance and throw out their fore-legs to right and to left without
+making much headway. Middle-aged merchants have a great fancy for such
+horses; their action recalls the swaggering gait of a smart waiter;
+they do well in single harness for an after-dinner drive; with mincing
+paces and curved neck they zealously draw a clumsy droshky laden with
+an overfed coachman, a depressed, dyspeptic merchant, and his lymphatic
+wife, in a blue silk mantle, with a lilac handkerchief over her head.
+Falcon too I declined. Sitnikov showed me several horses.... One at
+last, a dapple-grey beast of Voyakov breed, took my fancy. I could not
+restrain my satisfaction, and patted him on the withers. Sitnikov at
+once feigned absolute indifference.
+
+"Well, does he go well in harness?" I inquired. (They never speak of a
+trotting horse as "being driven.")
+
+"Oh, yes," answered the horsedealer carelessly.
+
+"Can I see him?"
+
+"If you like, certainly. Hi, Kuzya, put Pursuer into the droshky!"
+
+Kuzya, the jockey, a real master of horsemanship, drove three times
+past us up and down the street. The horse went well, without changing
+its pace, nor shambling; it had a free action, held its tail high, and
+covered the ground well.
+
+"And what are you asking for him?"
+
+Sitnikov asked an impossible price. We began bargaining on the spot in
+the street, when suddenly a splendidly-matched team of three
+posting-horses flew noisily round the corner and drew up sharply at the
+gates before Sitnikov's house. In the smart little sportsman's trap sat
+Prince N----; beside him Hlopakov. Baklaga was driving ... and how he
+drove! He could have driven them through an earring, the rascal! The
+bay trace-horses, little, keen, black-eyed, black-legged beasts, were
+all impatience; they kept rearing--a whistle, and off they would have
+bolted! The dark-bay shaft-horse stood firmly, its neck arched like a
+swan's, its breast forward, its legs like arrows, shaking its head and
+proudly blinking.... They were splendid! No one could desire a finer
+turn out for an Easter procession!
+
+'Your excellency, please to come in!' cried Sitnikov.
+
+The prince leaped out of the trap. Hlopakov slowly descended on the
+other side.
+
+'Good morning, friend ... any horses.'
+
+'You may be sure we've horses for your excellency! Pray walk in....
+Petya, bring out Peacock! and let them get Favourite ready too. And
+with you, sir,' he went on, turning to me, 'we'll settle matters
+another time.... Fomka, a bench for his excellency.'
+
+From a special stable which I had not at first observed they led out
+Peacock. A powerful dark sorrel horse seemed to fly across the yard
+with all its legs in the air. Sitnikov even turned away his head and
+winked.
+
+'Oh, rrakalion!' piped Hlopakov; 'Zhaymsah (_j'aime ça_.)'
+
+The prince laughed.
+
+Peacock was stopped with difficulty; he dragged the stable-boy about
+the yard; at last he was pushed against the wall. He snorted, started
+and reared, while Sitnikov still teased him, brandishing a whip at him.
+
+'What are you looking at? there! oo!' said the horsedealer with
+caressing menace, unable to refrain from admiring his horse himself.
+
+'How much?' asked the prince.
+
+'For your excellency, five thousand.'
+
+'Three.'
+
+'Impossible, your excellency, upon my word.'
+
+'I tell you three, rrakalion,' put in Hlopakov.
+
+I went away without staying to see the end of the bargaining. At the
+farthest corner of the street I noticed a large sheet of paper fixed on
+the gate of a little grey house. At the top there was a pen-and-ink
+sketch of a horse with a tail of the shape of a pipe and an endless
+neck, and below his hoofs were the following words, written in an
+old-fashioned hand:
+
+'Here are for sale horses of various colours, brought to the Lebedyan
+fair from the celebrated steppes stud of Anastasei Ivanitch Tchornobai,
+landowner of Tambov. These horses are of excellent sort; broken in to
+perfection, and free from vice. Purchasers will kindly ask for
+Anastasei Ivanitch himself: should Anastasei Ivanitch be absent, then
+ask for Nazar Kubishkin, the coachman. Gentlemen about to purchase,
+kindly honour an old man.'
+
+I stopped. 'Come,' I thought, 'let's have a look at the horses of the
+celebrated steppes breeder, Mr. Tchornobai.'
+
+I was about to go in at the gate, but found that, contrary to the
+common usage, it was locked. I knocked.
+
+'Who's there?... A customer?' whined a woman's voice.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Coming, sir, coming.'
+
+The gate was opened. I beheld a peasant-woman of fifty, bareheaded, in
+boots, and a sheepskin worn open.
+
+'Please to come in, kind sir, and I'll go at once, and tell Anastasei
+Ivanitch ... Nazar, hey, Nazar!'
+
+'What?' mumbled an old man's voice from the stable.
+
+'Get a horse ready; here's a customer.'
+
+The old woman ran into the house.
+
+'A customer, a customer,' Nazar grumbled in response; 'I've not washed
+all their tails yet.'
+
+'Oh, Arcadia!' thought I.
+
+'Good day, sir, pleased to see you,' I heard a rich, pleasant voice
+saying behind my back. I looked round; before me, in a long-skirted
+blue coat, stood an old man of medium height, with white hair, a
+friendly smile, and fine blue eyes.
+
+'You want a little horse? By all means, my dear sir, by all means....
+But won't you step in and drink just a cup of tea with me first?'
+
+I declined and thanked him.
+
+'Well, well, as you please. You must excuse me, my dear sir; you see
+I'm old-fashioned.' (Mr. Tchornobai spoke with deliberation, and in a
+broad Doric.) 'Everything with me is done in a plain way, you know....
+Nazar, hey, Nazar!' he added, not raising his voice, but prolonging
+each syllable. Nazar, a wrinkled old man with a little hawk nose and a
+wedge-shaped beard, showed himself at the stable door.
+
+'What sort of horses is it you're wanting, my dear sir?' resumed Mr.
+Tchornobai.
+
+'Not too expensive; for driving in my covered gig.'
+
+'To be sure ... we have got them to suit you, to be sure.... Nazar,
+Nazar, show the gentleman the grey gelding, you know, that stands at
+the farthest corner, and the sorrel with the star, or else the other
+sorrel--foal of Beauty, you know.'
+
+Nazar went back to the stable.
+
+'And bring them out by their halters just as they are,' Mr. Tchornobai
+shouted after him. 'You won't find things with me, my good sir,' he
+went on, with a clear mild gaze into my face, 'as they are with the
+horse-dealers; confound their tricks! There are drugs of all sorts go
+in there, salt and malted grains; God forgive them! But with me, you
+will see, sir, everything's above-board; no underhandedness.'
+
+The horses were led in; I did not care for them.
+
+'Well, well, take them back, in God's name,' said Anastasei Ivanitch.
+'Show us the others.'
+
+Others were shown. At last I picked out one, rather a cheap one. We
+began to haggle over the price. Mr. Tchornobai did not get excited; he
+spoke so reasonably, with such dignity, that I could not help
+'honouring' the old man; I gave him the earnest-money.
+
+'Well, now,' observed Anastasei Ivanitch, 'allow me to give over the
+horse to you from hand to hand, after the old fashion.... You will
+thank me for him ... as sound as a nut, see ... fresh ... a true child
+of the steppes! Goes well in any harness.'
+
+He crossed himself, laid the skirt of his coat over his hand, took the
+halter, and handed me the horse.
+
+'You're his master now, with God's blessing.... And you still won't
+take a cup of tea?'
+
+'No, I thank you heartily; it's time I was going home.'
+
+'That's as you think best.... And shall my coachman lead the horse
+after you?'
+
+'Yes, now, if you please.'
+
+'By all means, my dear sir, by all means.... Vassily, hey, Vassily!
+step along with the gentleman, lead the horse, and take the money for
+him. Well, good-bye, my good sir; God bless you.'
+
+'Good-bye, Anastasei Ivanitch.'
+
+They led the horse home for me. The next day he turned out to be
+broken-winded and lame. I tried having him put in harness; the horse
+backed, and if one gave him a flick with the whip he jibbed, kicked,
+and positively lay down. I set off at once to Mr. Tchornobai's. I
+inquired: 'At home?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What's the meaning of this?' said I; 'here you've sold me a
+broken-winded horse.'
+
+'Broken-winded?... God forbid!'
+
+'Yes, and he's lame too, and vicious besides.'
+
+'Lame! I know nothing about it: your coachman must have ill-treated him
+somehow.... But before God, I--'
+
+'Look here, Anastasei Ivanitch, as things stand, you ought to take him
+back.'
+
+'No, my good sir, don't put yourself in a passion; once gone out of the
+yard, is done with. You should have looked before, sir.'
+
+I understood what that meant, accepted my fate, laughed, and walked
+off. Luckily, I had not paid very dear for the lesson.
+
+Two days later I left, and in a week I was again at Lebedyan on my way
+home again. In the _café_ I found almost the same persons, and again I
+came upon Prince N---- at billiards. But the usual change in the
+fortunes of Mr. Hlopakov had taken place in this interval: the
+fair-haired young officer had supplanted him in the prince's favours.
+The poor ex-lieutenant once more tried letting off his catchword in my
+presence, on the chance it might succeed as before; but, far from
+smiling, the prince positively scowled and shrugged his shoulders. Mr.
+Hlopakov looked downcast, shrank into a corner, and began furtively
+filling himself a pipe....
+
+                           END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sportsman's Sketches, by Ivan Turgenev
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sportsman's Sketches, by Ivan Turgenev
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+Title: A Sportsman's Sketches
+       Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Translator: Constance Garnett
+
+Posting Date: October 13, 2014 [EBook #8597]
+Release Date: July, 2005
+First Posted: July 26, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             A SPORTSMAN'S
+                                SKETCHES
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+
+                             IVAN TURGENEV
+
+
+                     _Translated from the Russian
+                         By CONSTANCE GARNETT_
+
+
+
+                                VOLUME I
+
+
+       CONTENTS
+
+    I. HOR AND KALINITCH
+   II. YERMOLAI AND THE MILLER'S WIFE
+  III. RASPBERRY SPRING
+   IV. THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
+    V. MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOV
+   VI. THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
+  VII. LGOV
+ VIII. BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
+   IX. KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
+    X. THE AGENT
+   XI. THE COUNTING-HOUSE
+  XII. BIRYUK
+ XIII. TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
+  XIV. LEBEDYAN
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+                           HOR AND KALINITCH
+
+
+Anyone who has chanced to pass from the Bolhovsky district into the
+Zhizdrinsky district, must have been impressed by the striking
+difference between the race of people in the province of Orel and the
+population of the province of Kaluga. The peasant of Orel is not tall,
+is bent in figure, sullen and suspicious in his looks; he lives in
+wretched little hovels of aspen-wood, labours as a serf in the fields,
+and engages in no kind of trading, is miserably fed, and wears slippers
+of bast: the rent-paying peasant of Kaluga lives in roomy cottages of
+pine-wood; he is tall, bold, and cheerful in his looks, neat and clean
+of countenance; he carries on a trade in butter and tar, and on
+holidays he wears boots. The village of the Orel province (we are
+speaking now of the eastern part of the province) is usually situated
+in the midst of ploughed fields, near a water-course which has been
+converted into a filthy pool. Except for a few of the
+ever-accommodating willows, and two or three gaunt birch-trees, you do
+not see a tree for a mile round; hut is huddled up against hut, their
+roofs covered with rotting thatch.... The villages of Kaluga, on the
+contrary, are generally surrounded by forest; the huts stand more
+freely, are more upright, and have boarded roofs; the gates fasten
+closely, the hedge is not broken down nor trailing about; there are no
+gaps to invite the visits of the passing pig.... And things are much
+better in the Kaluga province for the sportsman. In the Orel province
+the last of the woods and copses will have disappeared five years
+hence, and there is no trace of moorland left; in Kaluga, on the
+contrary, the moors extend over tens, the forest over hundreds of
+miles, and a splendid bird, the grouse, is still extant there; there
+are abundance of the friendly larger snipe, and the loud-clapping
+partridge cheers and startles the sportsman and his dog by its abrupt
+upward flight.
+
+On a visit to the Zhizdrinsky district in search of sport, I met in the
+fields a petty proprietor of the Kaluga province called Polutikin, and
+made his acquaintance. He was an enthusiastic sportsman; it follows,
+therefore, that he was an excellent fellow. He was liable, indeed, to a
+few weaknesses; he used, for instance, to pay his addresses to every
+unmarried heiress in the province, and when he had been refused her
+hand and house, broken-hearted he confided his sorrows to all his
+friends and acquaintances, and continued to shower offerings of sour
+peaches and other raw produce from his garden upon the young lady's
+relatives; he was fond of repeating one and the same anecdote, which,
+in spite of Mr. Polutikin's appreciation of its merits, had certainly
+never amused anyone; he admired the works of Akim Nahimov and the novel
+_Pinna_; he stammered; he called his dog Astronomer; instead of
+'however' said 'howsomever'; and had established in his household a
+French system of cookery, the secret of which consisted, according to
+his cook's interpretation, in a complete transformation of the natural
+taste of each dish; in this _artiste's_ hands meat assumed the flavour
+of fish, fish of mushrooms, macaroni of gunpowder; to make up for this,
+not a single carrot went into the soup without taking the shape of a
+rhombus or a trapeze. But, with the exception of these few and
+insignificant failings, Mr. Polutikin was, as has been said already, an
+excellent fellow.
+
+On the first day of my acquaintance with Mr. Polutikin, he invited me
+to stay the night at his house.
+
+'It will be five miles farther to my house,' he added; 'it's a long way
+to walk; let us first go to Hor's.' (The reader must excuse my omitting
+his stammer.)
+
+'Who is Hor?'
+
+'A peasant of mine. He is quite close by here.'
+
+We went in that direction. In a well-cultivated clearing in the middle
+of the forest rose Hor's solitary homestead. It consisted of several
+pine-wood buildings, enclosed by plank fences; a porch ran along the
+front of the principal building, supported on slender posts. We went
+in. We were met by a young lad of twenty, tall and good-looking.
+
+'Ah, Fedya! is Hor at home?' Mr. Polutikin asked him.
+
+'No. Hor has gone into town,' answered the lad, smiling and showing a
+row of snow-white teeth. 'You would like the little cart brought out?'
+
+'Yes, my boy, the little cart. And bring us some kvas.'
+
+We went into the cottage. Not a single cheap glaring print was pasted
+up on the clean boards of the walls; in the corner, before the heavy,
+holy picture in its silver setting, a lamp was burning; the table of
+linden-wood had been lately planed and scrubbed; between the joists and
+in the cracks of the window-frames there were no lively Prussian
+beetles running about, nor gloomy cockroaches in hiding. The young lad
+soon reappeared with a great white pitcher filled with excellent kvas,
+a huge hunch of wheaten bread, and a dozen salted cucumbers in a wooden
+bowl. He put all these provisions on the table, and then, leaning with
+his back against the door, began to gaze with a smiling face at us. We
+had not had time to finish eating our lunch when the cart was already
+rattling before the doorstep. We went out. A curly-headed, rosy-cheeked
+boy of fifteen was sitting in the cart as driver, and with difficulty
+holding in the well-fed piebald horse. Round the cart stood six young
+giants, very like one another, and Fedya.
+
+'All of these Hor's sons!' said Polutikin.
+
+'These are all Horkies' (_i.e._ wild cats), put in Fedya, who had come
+after us on to the step; 'but that's not all of them: Potap is in the
+wood, and Sidor has gone with old Hor to the town. Look out, Vasya,' he
+went on, turning to the coachman; 'drive like the wind; you are driving
+the master. Only mind what you're about over the ruts, and easy a
+little; don't tip the cart over, and upset the master's stomach!'
+
+The other Horkies smiled at Fedya's sally. 'Lift Astronomer in!' Mr.
+Polutikin called majestically. Fedya, not without amusement, lifted the
+dog, who wore a forced smile, into the air, and laid her at the bottom
+of the cart. Vasya let the horse go. We rolled away. 'And here is my
+counting-house,' said Mr. Polutikin suddenly to me, pointing to a
+little low-pitched house. 'Shall we go in?' 'By all means.' 'It is no
+longer used,' he observed, going in; 'still, it is worth looking at.'
+The counting-house consisted of two empty rooms. The caretaker, a
+one-eyed old man, ran out of the yard. 'Good day, Minyaitch,' said Mr.
+Polutikin; 'bring us some water.' The one-eyed old man disappeared, and
+at once returned with a bottle of water and two glasses. 'Taste it,'
+Polutikin said to me; 'it is splendid spring water.' We drank off a
+glass each, while the old man bowed low. 'Come, now, I think we can go
+on,' said my new Friend. 'In that counting-house I sold the merchant
+Alliluev four acres of forest-land for a good price.' We took our seats
+in the cart, and in half-an-hour we had reached the court of the
+manor-house.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I asked Polutikin at supper; 'why does Hor live
+apart from your other peasants?'
+
+'Well, this is why; he is a clever peasant. Twenty-five years ago his
+cottage was burnt down; so he came up to my late father and said:
+"Allow me, Nikolai Kouzmitch," says he, "to settle in your forest, on
+the bog. I will pay you a good rent." "But what do you want to settle
+on the bog for?" "Oh, I want to; only, your honour, Nikolai Kouzmitch,
+be so good as not to claim any labour from me, but fix a rent as you
+think best." "Fifty roubles a year!" "Very well." "But I'll have no
+arrears, mind!" "Of course, no arrears"; and so he settled on the bog.
+Since then they have called him Hor' (_i.e._ wild cat).
+
+'Well, and has he grown rich?' I inquired.
+
+'Yes, he has grown rich. Now he pays me a round hundred for rent, and I
+shall raise it again, I dare say. I have said to him more than once,
+"Buy your freedom, Hor; come, buy your freedom." ... But he declares,
+the rogue, that he can't; has no money, he says.... As though that were
+likely....'
+
+The next day, directly after our morning tea, we started out hunting
+again. As we were driving through the village, Mr. Polutikin ordered
+the coachman to stop at a low-pitched cottage and called loudly,
+'Kalinitch!' 'Coming, your honour, coming' sounded a voice from the
+yard; 'I am tying on my shoes.' We went on at a walk; outside the
+village a man of about forty over-took us. He was tall and thin, with a
+small and erect head. It was Kalinitch. His good-humoured; swarthy
+face, somewhat pitted with small-pox, pleased me from the first glance.
+Kalinitch (as I learnt afterwards) went hunting every day with his
+master, carried his bag, and sometimes also his gun, noted where game
+was to be found, fetched water, built shanties, and gathered
+strawberries, and ran behind the droshky; Mr. Polutikin could not stir
+a step without him. Kalinitch was a man of the merriest and gentlest
+disposition; he was constantly singing to himself in a low voice, and
+looking carelessly about him. He spoke a little through his nose, with
+a laughing twinkle in his light blue eyes, and he had a habit of
+plucking at his scanty, wedge-shaped beard with his hand. He walked not
+rapidly, but with long strides, leaning lightly on a long thin staff.
+He addressed me more than once during the day, and he waited on me
+without, obsequiousness, but he looked after his master as if he were a
+child. When the unbearable heat drove us at mid-day to seek shelter, he
+took us to his beehouse in the very heart of the forest. There
+Kalinitch opened the little hut for us, which was hung round with
+bunches of dry scented herbs. He made us comfortable on some dry hay,
+and then put a kind of bag of network over his head, took a knife, a
+little pot, and a smouldering stick, and went to the hive to cut us out
+some honey-comb. We had a draught of spring water after the warm
+transparent honey, and then dropped asleep to the sound of the
+monotonous humming of the bees and the rustling chatter of the leaves.
+A slight gust of wind awakened me.... I opened my eyes and saw
+Kalinitch: he was sitting on the threshold of the half-opened door,
+carving a spoon with his knife. I gazed a long time admiring his face,
+as sweet and clear as an evening sky. Mr. Polutikin too woke up. We did
+not get up at once. After our long walk and our deep sleep it was
+pleasant to lie without moving in the hay; we felt weary and languid in
+body, our faces were in a slight glow of warmth, our eyes were closed
+in delicious laziness. At last we got up, and set off on our wanderings
+again till evening. At supper I began again to talk of Hor and
+Kalinitch. 'Kalinitch is a good peasant,' Mr. Polutikin told me; 'he is
+a willing and useful peasant; he can't farm his land properly; I am
+always taking him away from it. He goes out hunting every day with
+me.... You can judge for yourself how his farming must fare.'
+
+I agreed with him, and we went to bed.
+
+The next day Mr. Polutikin was obliged to go to town about some
+business with his neighbour Pitchukoff. This neighbour Pitchukoff had
+ploughed over some land of Polutikin's, and had flogged a peasant woman
+of his on this same piece of land. I went out hunting alone, and before
+evening I turned into Hor's house. On the threshold of the cottage I
+was met by an old man--bald, short, broad-shouldered, and stout--Hor
+himself. I looked with curiosity at the man. The cut of his face
+recalled Socrates; there was the same high, knobby forehead, the same
+little eyes, the same snub nose. We went into the cottage together. The
+same Fedya brought me some milk and black bread. Hor sat down on a
+bench, and, quietly stroking his curly beard, entered into conversation
+with me. He seemed to know his own value; he spoke and moved slowly;
+from time to time a chuckle came from between his long moustaches.
+
+We discussed the sowing, the crops, the peasant's life.... He always
+seemed to agree with me; only afterwards I had a sense of awkwardness
+and felt I was talking foolishly.... In this way our conversation was
+rather curious. Hor, doubtless through caution, expressed himself very
+obscurely at times.... Here is a specimen of our talk.
+
+"Tell me, Hor," I said to him, "why don't you buy your freedom from
+your master?"
+
+"And what would I buy my freedom for? Now I know my master, and I know
+my rent.... We have a good master."
+
+'It's always better to be free,' I remarked. Hor gave me a dubious look.
+
+'Surely,' he said.
+
+'Well, then, why don't you buy your freedom?' Hor shook his head.
+
+'What would you have me buy it with, your honour?'
+
+'Oh, come, now, old man!'
+
+'If Hor were thrown among free men,' he continued in an undertone, as
+though to himself, 'everyone without a beard would be a better man than
+Hor.'
+
+'Then shave your beard.'
+
+'What is a beard? a beard is grass: one can cut it.'
+
+'Well, then?'
+
+'But Hor will be a merchant straight away; and merchants have a fine
+life, and they have beards.'
+
+'Why, do you do a little trading too?' I asked him.
+
+'We trade a little in a little butter and a little tar.... Would your
+honour like the cart put to?'
+
+'You're a close man and keep a tight rein on your tongue,' I thought to
+myself. 'No,' I said aloud, 'I don't want the cart; I shall want to be
+near your homestead to-morrow, and if you will let me, I will stay the
+night in your hay-barn.'
+
+'You are very welcome. But will you be comfortable in the barn? I will
+tell the women to lay a sheet and put you a pillow.... Hey, girls!' he
+cried, getting up from his place; 'here, girls!... And you, Fedya, go
+with them. Women, you know, are foolish folk.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later Fedya conducted me with a lantern to the
+barn. I threw myself down on the fragrant hay; my dog curled himself up
+at my feet; Fedya wished me good-night; the door creaked and slammed
+to. For rather a long time I could not get to sleep. A cow came up to
+the door, and breathed heavily twice; the dog growled at her with
+dignity; a pig passed by, grunting pensively; a horse somewhere near
+began to munch the hay and snort.... At last I fell asleep.
+
+At sunrise Fedya awakened me. This brisk, lively young man pleased me;
+and, from what I could see, he was old Hor's favourite too. They used
+to banter one another in a very friendly way. The old man came to meet
+me. Whether because I had spent the night under his roof, or for some
+other reason, Hor certainly treated me far more cordially than the day
+before.
+
+'The samovar is ready,' he told me with a smile; 'let us come and have
+tea.'
+
+We took our seats at the table. A robust-looking peasant woman, one of
+his daughters-in-law, brought in a jug of milk. All his sons came one
+after another into the cottage.
+
+'What a fine set of fellows you have!' I remarked to the old man.
+
+'Yes,' he said, breaking off a tiny piece of sugar with his teeth; 'me
+and my old woman have nothing to complain of, seemingly.'
+
+'And do they all live with you?'
+
+'Yes; they choose to, themselves, and so they live here.'
+
+'And are they all married?'
+
+'Here's one not married, the scamp!' he answered, pointing to Fedya,
+who was leaning as before against the door. 'Vaska, he's still too
+young; he can wait.'
+
+'And why should I get married?' retorted Fedya; 'I'm very well off as I
+am. What do I want a wife for? To squabble with, eh?'
+
+'Now then, you ... ah, I know you! you wear a silver ring.... You'd
+always be after the girls up at the manor house.... "Have done, do, for
+shame!"' the old man went on, mimicking the servant girls. 'Ah, I know
+you, you white-handed rascal!'
+
+'But what's the good of a peasant woman?'
+
+'A peasant woman--is a labourer,' said Hor seriously; 'she is the
+peasant's servant.'
+
+'And what do I want with a labourer?'
+
+'I dare say; you'd like to play with the fire and let others burn their
+fingers: we know the sort of chap you are.'
+
+'Well, marry me, then. Well, why don't you answer?'
+
+'There, that's enough, that's enough, giddy pate! You see we're
+disturbing the gentleman. I'll marry you, depend on it.... And you,
+your honour, don't be vexed with him; you see, he's only a baby; he's
+not had time to get much sense.'
+
+Fedya shook his head.
+
+'Is Hor at home?' sounded a well-known voice; and Kalinitch came into
+the cottage with a bunch of wild strawberries in his hands, which he
+had gathered for his friend Hor. The old man gave him a warm welcome. I
+looked with surprise at Kalinitch. I confess I had not expected such a
+delicate attention on the part of a peasant.
+
+That day I started out to hunt four hours later than usual, and the
+following three days I spent at Hor's. My new friends interested me. I
+don't know how I had gained their confidence, but they began to talk to
+me without constraint. The two friends were not at all alike. Hor was a
+positive, practical man, with a head for management, a rationalist;
+Kalinitch, on the other hand, belonged to the order of idealists and
+dreamers, of romantic and enthusiastic spirits. Hor had a grasp of
+actuality--that is to say, he looked ahead, was saving a little money,
+kept on good terms with his master and the other authorities; Kalinitch
+wore shoes of bast, and lived from hand to mouth. Hor had reared a
+large family, who were obedient and united; Kalinitch had once had a
+wife, whom he had been afraid of, and he had had no children. Hor took
+a very critical view of Mr. Polutikin; Kalinitch revered his master.
+Hor loved Kalinitch, and took protecting care of him; Kalinitch loved
+and respected Hor. Hor spoke little, chuckled, and thought for himself;
+Kalinitch expressed himself with warmth, though he had not the flow of
+fine language of a smart factory hand. But Kalinitch was endowed with
+powers which even Hor recognised; he could charm away haemorrhages,
+fits, madness, and worms; his bees always did well; he had a light
+hand. Hor asked him before me to introduce a newly bought horse to his
+stable, and with scrupulous gravity Kalinitch carried out the old
+sceptic's request. Kalinitch was in closer contact with nature; Hor
+with men and society. Kalinitch had no liking for argument, and
+believed in everything blindly; Hor had reached even an ironical point
+of view of life. He had seen and experienced much, and I learnt a good
+deal from him. For instance, from his account I learnt that every year
+before mowing-time a small, peculiar-looking cart makes its appearance
+in the villages. In this cart sits a man in a long coat, who sells
+scythes. He charges one rouble twenty-five copecks--a rouble and a half
+in notes--for ready money; four roubles if he gives credit. All the
+peasants, of course, take the scythes from him on credit. In two or
+three weeks he reappears and asks for the money. As the peasant has
+only just cut his oats, he is able to pay him; he goes with the
+merchant to the tavern, and there the debt is settled. Some landowners
+conceived the idea of buying the scythes themselves for ready money and
+letting the peasants have them on credit for the same price; but the
+peasants seemed dissatisfied, even dejected; they had deprived them of
+the pleasure of tapping the scythe and listening to the ring of the
+metal, turning it over and over in their hands, and telling the
+scoundrelly city-trader twenty times over, 'Eh, my friend, you won't
+take me in with your scythe!' The same tricks are played over the sale
+of sickles, only with this difference, that the women have a hand in
+the business then, and they sometimes drive the trader himself to the
+necessity--for their good, of course--of beating them. But the women
+suffer most ill-treatment through the following circumstances.
+Contractors for the supply of stuff for paper factories employ for the
+purchase of rags a special class of men, who in some districts are
+called eagles. Such an 'eagle' receives two hundred roubles in
+bank-notes from the merchant, and starts off in search of his prey.
+But, unlike the noble bird from whom he has derived his name, he does
+not swoop down openly and boldly upon it; quite the contrary; the
+'eagle' has recourse to deceit and cunning. He leaves his cart
+somewhere in a thicket near the village, and goes himself to the
+back-yards and back-doors, like someone casually passing, or simply a
+tramp. The women scent out his proximity and steal out to meet him. The
+bargain is hurriedly concluded. For a few copper half-pence a woman
+gives the 'eagle' not only every useless rag she has, but often even
+her husband's shirt and her own petticoat. Of late the women have
+thought it profitable to steal even from themselves, and to sell hemp
+in the same way--a great extension and improvement of the business for
+the 'eagles'! To meet this, however, the peasants have grown more
+cunning in their turn, and on the slightest suspicion, on the most
+distant rumors of the approach of an 'eagle,' they have prompt and
+sharp recourse to corrective and preventive measures. And, after all,
+wasn't it disgraceful? To sell the hemp was the men's business--and
+they certainly do sell it--not in the town (they would have to drag it
+there themselves), but to traders who come for it, who, for want of
+scales, reckon forty handfuls to the pood--and you know what a
+Russian's hand is and what it can hold, especially when he 'tries his
+best'! As I had had no experience and was not 'country-bred' (as they
+say in Orel) I heard plenty of such descriptions. But Hor was not
+always the narrator; he questioned me too about many things. He learned
+that I had been in foreign parts, and his curiosity was aroused....
+Kalinitch was not behind him in curiosity; but he was more attracted by
+descriptions of nature, of mountains and waterfalls, extraordinary
+buildings and great towns; Hor was interested in questions of
+government and administration. He went through everything in order.
+'Well, is that with them as it is with us, or different?... Come, tell
+us, your honour, how is it?' 'Ah, Lord, thy will be done!' Kalinitch
+would exclaim while I told my story; Hor did not speak, but frowned
+with his bushy eyebrows, only observing at times, 'That wouldn't do for
+us; still, it's a good thing--it's right.' All his inquiries, I cannot
+recount, and it is unnecessary; but from our conversations I carried
+away one conviction, which my readers will certainly not anticipate ...
+the conviction that Peter the Great was pre-eminently a
+Russian--Russian, above all, in his reforms. The Russian is so
+convinced of his own strength and powers that he is not afraid of
+putting himself to severe strain; he takes little interest in his past,
+and looks boldly forward. What is good he likes, what is sensible he
+will have, and where it comes from he does not care. His vigorous sense
+is fond of ridiculing the thin theorising of the German; but, in Hor's
+words, 'The Germans are curious folk,' and he was ready to learn from
+them a little. Thanks to his exceptional position, his practical
+independence, Hor told me a great deal which you could not screw or--as
+the peasants say--grind with a grindstone, out of any other man. He
+did, in fact, understand his position. Talking with Hor, I for the
+first time listened to the simple, wise discourse of the Russian
+peasant. His acquirements were, in his own opinion, wide enough; but he
+could not read, though Kalinitch could. 'That ne'er-do-weel has
+school-learning,' observed Hor, 'and his bees never die in the winter.'
+'But haven't you had your children taught to read?' Hor was silent a
+minute. 'Fedya can read.' 'And the others?' 'The others can't.' 'And
+why?' The old man made no answer, and changed the subject. However,
+sensible as he was, he had many prejudices and crotchets. He despised
+women, for instance, from the depths of his soul, and in his merry
+moments he amused himself by jesting at their expense. His wife was a
+cross old woman who lay all day long on the stove, incessantly
+grumbling and scolding; her sons paid no attention to her, but she kept
+her daughters-in-law in the fear of God. Very significantly the
+mother-in-law sings in the Russian ballad: 'What a son art thou to me!
+What a head of a household! Thou dost not beat thy wife; thou dost not
+beat thy young wife....' I once attempted to intercede for the
+daughters-in-law, and tried to rouse Hor's sympathy; but he met me with
+the tranquil rejoinder, 'Why did I want to trouble about such ...
+trifles; let the women fight it out. ... If anything separates them, it
+only makes it worse ... and it's not worth dirtying one's hands over.'
+Sometimes the spiteful old woman got down from the stove and called the
+yard dog out of the hay, crying, 'Here, here, doggie'; and then beat it
+on its thin back with the poker, or she would stand in the porch and
+'snarl,' as Hor expressed it, at everyone that passed. She stood in awe
+of her husband though, and would return, at his command, to her place
+on the stove. It was specially curious to hear Hor and Kalinitch
+dispute whenever Mr. Polutikin was touched upon.
+
+'There, Hor, do let him alone,' Kalinitch would say. 'But why doesn't
+he order some boots for you?' Hor retorted. 'Eh? boots!... what do I
+want with boots? I am a peasant.' 'Well, so am I a peasant, but look!'
+And Hor lifted up his leg and showed Kalinitch a boot which looked as
+if it had been cut out of a mammoth's hide. 'As if you were like one of
+us!' replied Kalinitch. 'Well, at least he might pay for your bast
+shoes; you go out hunting with him; you must use a pair a day.' 'He
+does give me something for bast shoes.' 'Yes, he gave you two coppers
+last year.'
+
+Kalinitch turned away in vexation, but Hor went off into a chuckle,
+during which his little eyes completely disappeared.
+
+Kalinitch sang rather sweetly and played a little on the balalaeca. Hor
+was never weary of listening to him: all at once he would let his head
+drop on one side and begin to chime in, in a lugubrious voice. He was
+particularly fond of the song, 'Ah, my fate, my fate!' Fedya never lost
+an opportunity of making fun of his father, saying, 'What are you so
+mournful about, old man?' But Hor leaned his cheek on his hand, covered
+his eyes, and continued to mourn over his fate.... Yet at other times
+there could not be a more active man; he was always busy over
+something--mending the cart, patching up the fence, looking after the
+harness. He did not insist on a very high degree of cleanliness,
+however; and, in answer to some remark of mine, said once, 'A cottage
+ought to smell as if it were lived in.'
+
+'Look,' I answered, 'how clean it is in Kalinitch's beehouse.'
+
+'The bees would not live there else, your honour,' he said with a sigh.
+
+'Tell me,' he asked me another time, 'have you an estate of your own?'
+'Yes.' 'Far from here?' 'A hundred miles.' 'Do you live on your land,
+your honour?' 'Yes.'
+
+'But you like your gun best, I dare say?'
+
+'Yes, I must confess I do.' 'And you do well, your honour; shoot grouse
+to your heart's content, and change your bailiff pretty often.'
+
+On the fourth day Mr. Polutikin sent for me in the evening. I was sorry
+to part from the old man. I took my seat with Kalinitch in the trap.
+'Well, good-bye, Hor--good luck to you,' I said; 'good-bye, Fedya.'
+
+'Good-bye, your honour, good-bye; don't forget us.' We started; there
+was the first red glow of sunset. 'It will be a fine day to-morrow,' I
+remarked looking at the clear sky. 'No, it will rain,' Kalinitch
+replied; 'the ducks yonder are splashing, and the scent of the grass is
+strong.' We drove into the copse. Kalinitch began singing in an
+undertone as he was jolted up and down on the driver's seat, and he
+kept gazing and gazing at the sunset.
+
+The next day I left the hospitable roof of Mr. Polutikin.
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+                     YERMOLAI AND THE MILLER'S WIFE
+
+
+One evening I went with the huntsman Yermolai 'stand-shooting.' ... But
+perhaps all my readers may not know what 'stand-shooting' is. I will
+tell you.
+
+A quarter of an hour before sunset in spring-time you go out into the
+woods with your gun, but without your dog. You seek out a spot for
+yourself on the outskirts of the forest, take a look round, examine
+your caps, and glance at your companion. A quarter of an hour passes;
+the sun has set, but it is still light in the forest; the sky is clear
+and transparent; the birds are chattering and twittering; the young
+grass shines with the brilliance of emerald.... You wait. Gradually the
+recesses of the forest grow dark; the blood-red glow of the evening sky
+creeps slowly on to the roots and the trunks of the trees, and keeps
+rising higher and higher, passes from the lower, still almost leafless
+branches, to the motionless, slumbering tree-tops.... And now even the
+topmost branches are darkened; the purple sky fades to dark-blue. The
+forest fragrance grows stronger; there is a scent of warmth and damp
+earth; the fluttering breeze dies away at your side. The birds go to
+sleep--not all at once--but after their kinds; first the finches are
+hushed, a few minutes later the warblers, and after them the yellow
+buntings. In the forest it grows darker and darker. The trees melt
+together into great masses of blackness; in the dark-blue sky the first
+stars come timidly out. All the birds are asleep. Only the redstarts
+and the nuthatches are still chirping drowsily.... And now they too are
+still. The last echoing call of the pee-wit rings over our heads; the
+oriole's melancholy cry sounds somewhere in the distance; then the
+nightingale's first note. Your heart is weary with suspense, when
+suddenly--but only sportsmen can understand me--suddenly in the deep
+hush there is a peculiar croaking and whirring sound, the measured
+sweep of swift wings is heard, and the snipe, gracefully bending its
+long beak, sails smoothly down behind a dark bush to meet your shot.
+
+That is the meaning of 'stand-shooting.' And so I had gone out
+stand-shooting with Yermolai; but excuse me, reader: I must first
+introduce you to Yermolai.
+
+Picture to yourself a tall gaunt man of forty-five, with a long thin
+nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, a bristling head of hair,
+and thick sarcastic lips. This man wore, winter and summer alike, a
+yellow nankin coat of German cut, but with a sash round the waist; he
+wore blue pantaloons and a cap of astrakhan, presented to him in a
+merry hour by a spendthrift landowner. Two bags were fastened on to his
+sash, one in front, skilfully tied into two halves, for powder and for
+shot; the other behind for game: wadding Yermolai used to produce out
+of his peculiar, seemingly inexhaustible cap. With the money he gained
+by the game he sold, he might easily have bought himself a
+cartridge-box and powder-flask; but he never once even contemplated
+such a purchase, and continued to load his gun after his old fashion,
+exciting the admiration of all beholders by the skill with which he
+avoided the risks of spilling or mixing his powder and shot. His gun
+was a single-barrelled flint-lock, endowed, moreover, with a villainous
+habit of 'kicking.' It was due to this that Yermolai's right cheek was
+permanently swollen to a larger size than the left. How he ever
+succeeded in hitting anything with this gun, it would take a shrewd man
+to discover--but he did. He had too a setter-dog, by name Valetka, a
+most extraordinary creature. Yermolai never fed him. 'Me feed a dog!'
+he reasoned; 'why, a dog's a clever beast; he finds a living for
+himself.' And certainly, though Valetka's extreme thinness was a shock
+even to an indifferent observer, he still lived and had a long life;
+and in spite of his pitiable position he was not even once lost, and
+never showed an inclination to desert his master. Once indeed, in his
+youth, he had absented himself for two days, on courting bent, but this
+folly was soon over with him. Valetka's most noticeable peculiarity was
+his impenetrable indifference to everything in the world.... If it were
+not a dog I was speaking of, I should have called him 'disillusioned.'
+He usually sat with his cropped tail curled up under him, scowling and
+twitching at times, and he never smiled. (It is well known that dogs
+can smile, and smile very sweetly.) He was exceedingly ugly; and the
+idle house-serfs never lost an opportunity of jeering cruelly at his
+appearance; but all these jeers, and even blows, Valetka bore with
+astonishing indifference. He was a source of special delight to the
+cooks, who would all leave their work at once and give him chase with
+shouts and abuse, whenever, through a weakness not confined to dogs, he
+thrust his hungry nose through the half-open door of the kitchen,
+tempting with its warmth and appetising smells. He distinguished
+himself by untiring energy in the chase, and had a good scent; but if
+he chanced to overtake a slightly wounded hare, he devoured it with
+relish to the last bone, somewhere in the cool shade under the green
+bushes, at a respectful distance from Yermolai, who was abusing him in
+every known and unknown dialect. Yermolai belonged to one of my
+neighbours, a landowner of the old style. Landowners of the old style
+don't care for game, and prefer the domestic fowl. Only on
+extraordinary occasions, such as birthdays, namedays, and elections,
+the cooks of the old-fashioned landowners set to work to prepare some
+long-beaked birds, and, falling into the state of frenzy peculiar to
+Russians when they don't quite know what to do, they concoct such
+marvellous sauces for them that the guests examine the proffered dishes
+curiously and attentively, but rarely make up their minds to try them.
+Yermolai was under orders to provide his master's kitchen with two
+brace of grouse and partridges once a month. But he might live where
+and how he pleased. They had given him up as a man of no use for work
+of any kind--'bone lazy,' as the expression is among us in Orel. Powder
+and shot, of course, they did not provide him, following precisely the
+same principle in virtue of which he did not feed his dog. Yermolai was
+a very strange kind of man; heedless as a bird, rather fond of talking,
+awkward and vacant-looking; he was excessively fond of drink, and never
+could sit still long; in walking he shambled along, and rolled from
+side to side; and yet he got over fifty miles in the day with his
+rolling, shambling gait. He exposed himself to the most varied
+adventures: spent the night in the marshes, in trees, on roofs, or
+under bridges; more than once he had got shut up in lofts, cellars, or
+barns; he sometimes lost his gun, his dog, his most indispensable
+garments; got long and severe thrashings; but he always returned home,
+after a little while, in his clothes, and with his gun and his dog. One
+could not call him a cheerful man, though one almost always found him
+in an even frame of mind; he was looked on generally as an eccentric.
+Yermolai liked a little chat with a good companion, especially over a
+glass, but he would not stop long; he would get up and go. 'But where
+the devil are you going? It's dark out of doors.' 'To Tchaplino.' 'But
+what's taking you to Tchaplino, ten miles away?' 'I am going to stay
+the night at Sophron's there.' 'But stay the night here.' 'No, I
+can't.' And Yermolai, with his Valetka, would go off into the dark
+night, through woods and water-courses, and the peasant Sophron very
+likely did not let him into his place, and even, I am afraid, gave him
+a blow to teach him 'not to disturb honest folks.' But none could
+compare with Yermolai in skill in deep-water fishing in spring-time, in
+catching crayfish with his hands, in tracking game by scent, in snaring
+quails, in training hawks, in capturing the nightingales who had the
+greatest variety of notes. ... One thing he could not do, train a dog;
+he had not patience enough. He had a wife too. He went to see her once
+a week. She lived in a wretched, tumble-down little hut, and led a
+hand-to-mouth existence, never knowing overnight whether she would have
+food to eat on the morrow; and in every way her lot was a pitiful one.
+Yermolai, who seemed such a careless and easy-going fellow, treated his
+wife with cruel harshness; in his own house he assumed a stern, and
+menacing manner; and his poor wife did everything she could to please
+him, trembled when he looked at her, and spent her last farthing to buy
+him vodka; and when he stretched himself majestically on the stove and
+fell into an heroic sleep, she obsequiously covered him with a
+sheepskin. I happened myself more than once to catch an involuntary
+look in him of a kind of savage ferocity; I did not like the expression
+of his face when he finished off a wounded bird with his teeth. But
+Yermolai never remained more than a day at home, and away from home he
+was once more the same 'Yermolka' (i.e. the shooting-cap), as he was
+called for a hundred miles round, and as he sometimes called himself.
+The lowest house-serf was conscious of being superior to this
+vagabond--and perhaps this was precisely why they treated him with
+friendliness; the peasants at first amused themselves by chasing him
+and driving him like a hare over the open country, but afterwards they
+left him in God's hands, and when once they recognised him as 'queer,'
+they no longer tormented him, and even gave him bread and entered into
+talk with him.... This was the man I took as my huntsman, and with him
+I went stand-shooting to a great birch-wood on the banks of the Ista.
+
+Many Russian rivers, like the Volga, have one bank rugged and
+precipitous, the other bounded by level meadows; and so it is with the
+Ista. This small river winds extremely capriciously, coils like a
+snake, and does not keep a straight course for half-a-mile together; in
+some places, from the top of a sharp declivity, one can see the river
+for ten miles, with its dykes, its pools and mills, and the gardens on
+its banks, shut in with willows and thick flower-gardens. There are
+fish in the Ista in endless numbers, especially roaches (the peasants
+take them in hot weather from under the bushes with their hands);
+little sand-pipers flutter whistling along the stony banks, which are
+streaked with cold clear streams; wild ducks dive in the middle of the
+pools, and look round warily; in the coves under the overhanging cliffs
+herons stand out in the shade.... We stood in ambush nearly an hour,
+killed two brace of wood snipe, and, as we wanted to try our luck again
+at sunrise (stand-shooting can be done as well in the early morning),
+we resolved to spend the night at the nearest mill. We came out of the
+wood, and went down the slope. The dark-blue waters of the river ran
+below; the air was thick with the mists of night. We knocked at the
+gate. The dogs began barking in the yard.
+
+'Who is there?' asked a hoarse and sleepy voice.
+
+'We are sportsmen; let us stay the night.' There was no reply. 'We will
+pay.'
+
+'I will go and tell the master--Sh! Curse the dogs! Go to the devil
+with you!'
+
+We listened as the workman went into the cottage; he soon came back to
+the gate. 'No,' he said; 'the master tells me not to let you in.'
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'He is afraid; you are sportsmen; you might set the mill on fire;
+you've firearms with you, to be sure.'
+
+'But what nonsense!'
+
+'We had our mill on fire like that last year; some fish-dealers stayed
+the night, and they managed to set it on fire somehow.'
+
+'But, my good friend, we can't sleep in the open air!'
+
+'That's your business.' He went away, his boots clacking as he walked.
+
+Yermolai promised him various unpleasant things in the future. 'Let us
+go to the village,' he brought out at last, with a sigh. But it was two
+miles to the village.
+
+'Let us stay the night here,' I said, 'in the open air--the night is
+warm; the miller will let us have some straw if we pay for it.'
+
+Yermolai agreed without discussion. We began again to knock.
+
+'Well, what do you want?' the workman's voice was heard again; 'I've
+told you we can't.'
+
+We explained to him what we wanted. He went to consult the master of
+the house, and returned with him. The little side gate creaked. The
+miller appeared, a tall, fat-faced man with a bull-neck, round-bellied
+and corpulent. He agreed to my proposal. A hundred paces from the mill
+there was a little outhouse open to the air on all sides. They carried
+straw and hay there for us; the workman set a samovar down on the grass
+near the river, and, squatting on his heels, began to blow vigorously
+into the pipe of it. The embers glowed, and threw a bright light on his
+young face. The miller ran to wake his wife, and suggested at last that
+I myself should sleep in the cottage; but I preferred to remain in the
+open air. The miller's wife brought us milk, eggs, potatoes and bread.
+Soon the samovar boiled, and we began drinking tea. A mist had risen
+from the river; there was no wind; from all round came the cry of the
+corn-crake, and faint sounds from the mill-wheels of drops that dripped
+from the paddles and of water gurgling through the bars of the lock. We
+built a small fire on the ground. While Yermolai was baking the
+potatoes in the embers, I had time to fall into a doze. I was waked by
+a discreetly-subdued whispering near me. I lifted my head; before the
+fire, on a tub turned upside down, the miller's wife sat talking to my
+huntsman. By her dress, her movements, and her manner of speaking, I
+had already recognised that she had been in domestic service, and was
+neither peasant nor city-bred; but now for the first time I got a clear
+view of her features. She looked about thirty; her thin, pale face
+still showed the traces of remarkable beauty; what particularly charmed
+me was her eyes, large and mournful in expression. She was leaning her
+elbows on her knees, and had her face in her hands. Yermolai was
+sitting with his back to me, and thrusting sticks into the fire.
+
+'They've the cattle-plague again at Zheltonhiny,' the miller's wife was
+saying; 'father Ivan's two cows are dead--Lord have mercy on them!'
+
+'And how are your pigs doing?' asked Yermolai, after a brief pause.
+
+'They're alive.'
+
+'You ought to make me a present of a sucking pig.'
+
+The miller's wife was silent for a while, then she sighed.
+
+'Who is it you're with?' she asked.
+
+'A gentleman from Kostomarovo.'
+
+Yermolai threw a few pine twigs on the fire; they all caught fire at
+once, and a thick white smoke came puffing into his face.
+
+'Why didn't your husband let us into the cottage?'
+
+'He's afraid.'
+
+'Afraid! the fat old tub! Arina Timofyevna, my darling, bring me a
+little glass of spirits.'
+
+The miller's wife rose and vanished into the darkness. Yermolai began
+to sing in an undertone--
+
+     'When I went to see my sweetheart,
+      I wore out all my shoes.'
+
+
+Arina returned with a small flask and a glass. Yermolai got up, crossed
+himself, and drank it off at a draught. 'Good!' was his comment.
+
+The miller's wife sat down again on the tub.
+
+'Well, Arina Timofyevna, are you still ill?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'My cough troubles me at night.'
+
+'The gentleman's asleep, it seems,' observed Yermolai after a short
+silence. 'Don't go to a doctor, Arina; it will be worse if you do.'
+
+'Well, I am not going.'
+
+'But come and pay me a visit.'
+
+Arina hung down her head dejectedly.
+
+'I will drive my wife out for the occasion,' continued Yermolai 'Upon
+my word, I will.'
+
+'You had better wake the gentleman, Yermolai Petrovitch; you see, the
+potatoes are done.'
+
+'Oh, let him snore,' observed my faithful servant indifferently; 'he's
+tired with walking, so he sleeps sound.'
+
+I turned over in the hay. Yermolai got up and came to me. 'The potatoes
+are ready; will you come and eat them?'
+
+I came out of the outhouse; the miller's wife got up from the tub and
+was going away. I addressed her.
+
+'Have you kept this mill long?'
+
+'It's two years since I came on Trinity day.'
+
+'And where does your husband come from?'
+
+Arina had not caught my question.
+
+'Where's your husband from?' repeated Yermolai, raising his voice.
+
+'From Byelev. He's a Byelev townsman.'
+
+'And are you too from Byelev?'
+
+'No, I'm a serf; I was a serf.'
+
+'Whose?'
+
+'Zvyerkoff was my master. Now I am free.'
+
+'What Zvyerkoff?'
+
+'Alexandr Selitch.'
+
+'Weren't you his wife's lady's maid?'
+
+'How did you know? Yes.'
+
+I looked at Arina with redoubled curiosity and sympathy.
+
+'I know your master,' I continued.
+
+'Do you?' she replied in a low voice, and her head drooped.
+
+I must tell the reader why I looked with such sympathy at Arina. During
+my stay at Petersburg I had become by chance acquainted with Mr.
+Zvyerkoff. He had a rather influential position, and was reputed a man
+of sense and education. He had a wife, fat, sentimental, lachrymose and
+spiteful--a vulgar and disagreeable creature; he had too a son, the
+very type of the young swell of to-day, pampered and stupid. The
+exterior of Mr. Zvyerkoff himself did not prepossess one in his favour;
+his little mouse-like eyes peeped slyly out of a broad, almost square,
+face; he had a large, prominent nose, with distended nostrils; his
+close-cropped grey hair stood up like a brush above his scowling brow;
+his thin lips were for ever twitching and smiling mawkishly. Mr.
+Zvyerkoff's favourite position was standing with his legs wide apart
+and his fat hands in his trouser pockets. Once I happened somehow to be
+driving alone with Mr. Zvyerkoff in a coach out of town. We fell into
+conversation. As a man of experience and of judgment, Mr. Zvyerkoff
+began to try to set me in 'the path of truth.'
+
+'Allow me to observe to you,' he drawled at last; 'all you young people
+criticise and form judgments on everything at random; you have little
+knowledge of your own country; Russia, young gentlemen, is an unknown
+land to you; that's where it is!... You are for ever reading German.
+For instance, now you say this and that and the other about anything;
+for instance, about the house-serfs.... Very fine; I don't dispute it's
+all very fine; but you don't know them; you don't know the kind of
+people they are.' (Mr. Zvyerkoff blew his nose loudly and took a pinch
+of snuff.) 'Allow me to tell you as an illustration one little
+anecdote; it may perhaps interest you.' (Mr. Zvyerkoff cleared his
+throat.) 'You know, doubtless, what my wife is; it would be difficult,
+I should imagine, to find a more kind-hearted woman, you will agree.
+For her waiting-maids, existence is simply a perfect paradise, and no
+mistake about it.... But my wife has made it a rule never to keep
+married lady's maids. Certainly it would not do; children come--and one
+thing and the other--and how is a lady's maid to look after her
+mistress as she ought, to fit in with her ways; she is no longer able
+to do it; her mind is in other things. One must look at things through
+human nature. Well, we were driving once through our village, it must
+be--let me be correct--yes, fifteen years ago. We saw, at the
+bailiff's, a young girl, his daughter, very pretty indeed; something
+even--you know--something attractive in her manners. And my wife said
+to me: "Koko"--you understand, of course, that is her pet name for
+me--"let us take this girl to Petersburg; I like her, Koko...." I said,
+"Let us take her, by all means." The bailiff, of course, was at our
+feet; he could not have expected such good fortune, you can imagine....
+Well, the girl of course cried violently. Of course, it was hard for
+her at first; the parental home ... in fact ... there was nothing
+surprising in that. However, she soon got used to us: at first we put
+her in the maidservants' room; they trained her, of course. And what do
+you think? The girl made wonderful progress; my wife became simply
+devoted to her, promoted her at last above the rest to wait on herself
+... observe.... And one must do her the justice to say, my wife had
+never such a maid, absolutely never; attentive, modest, and
+obedient--simply all that could be desired. But my wife, I must
+confess, spoilt her too much; she dressed her well, fed her from our
+own table, gave her tea to drink, and so on, as you can imagine! So she
+waited on my wife like this for ten years. Suddenly, one fine morning,
+picture to yourself, Arina--her name was Arina--rushes unannounced into
+my study, and flops down at my feet. That's a thing, I tell you
+plainly, I can't endure. No human being ought ever to lose sight of
+their personal dignity. Am I not right? What do you say? "Your honour,
+Alexandr Selitch, I beseech a favour of you." "What favour?" "Let me be
+married." I must confess I was taken aback. "But you know, you stupid,
+your mistress has no other lady's maid?" "I will wait on mistress as
+before." "Nonsense! nonsense! your mistress can't endure married lady's
+maids," "Malanya could take my place." "Pray don't argue." "I obey your
+will." I must confess it was quite a shock, I assure you, I am like
+that; nothing wounds me so--nothing, I venture to say, wounds me so
+deeply as ingratitude. I need not tell you--you know what my wife is;
+an angel upon earth, goodness inexhaustible. One would fancy even the
+worst of men would be ashamed to hurt her. Well, I got rid of Arina. I
+thought, perhaps, she would come to her senses; I was unwilling, do you
+know, to believe in wicked, black ingratitude in anyone. What do you
+think? Within six months she thought fit to come to me again with the
+same request. I felt revolted. But imagine my amazement when, some time
+later, my wife comes to me in tears, so agitated that I felt positively
+alarmed. "What has happened?" "Arina.... You understand ... I am
+ashamed to tell it." ... "Impossible! ... Who is the man?" "Petrushka,
+the footman." My indignation broke out then. I am like that. I don't
+like half measures! Petrushka was not to blame. We might flog him, but
+in my opinion he was not to blame. Arina.... Well, well, well! what
+more's to be said? I gave orders, of course, that her hair should be
+cut off, she should be dressed in sackcloth, and sent into the country.
+My wife was deprived of an excellent lady's maid; but there was no help
+for it: immorality cannot be tolerated in a household in any case.
+Better to cut off the infected member at once. There, there! now you
+can judge the thing for yourself--you know that my wife is ... yes,
+yes, yes! indeed!... an angel! She had grown attached to Arina, and
+Arina knew it, and had the face to ... Eh? no, tell me ... eh? And
+what's the use of talking about it. Any way, there was no help for it.
+I, indeed--I, in particular, felt hurt, felt wounded for a long time by
+the ingratitude of this girl. Whatever you say--it's no good to look
+for feeling, for heart, in these people! You may feed the wolf as you
+will; he has always a hankering for the woods. Education, by all means!
+But I only wanted to give you an example....'
+
+And Mr. Zvyerkoff, without finishing his sentence, turned away his
+head, and, wrapping himself more closely into his cloak, manfully
+repressed his involuntary emotion.
+
+The reader now probably understands why I looked with sympathetic
+interest at Arina.
+
+'Have you long been married to the miller?' I asked her at last.
+
+'Two years.'
+
+'How was it? Did your master allow it?'
+
+'They bought my freedom.'
+
+'Who?'
+
+'Savely Alexyevitch.'
+
+'Who is that?'
+
+'My husband.' (Yermolai smiled to himself.) 'Has my master perhaps
+spoken to you of me?' added Arina, after a brief silence.
+
+I did not know what reply to make to her question.
+
+'Arina!' cried the miller from a distance. She got up and walked away.
+
+'Is her husband a good fellow?' I asked Yermolai.
+
+'So-so.'
+
+'Have they any children?'
+
+'There was one, but it died.'
+
+'How was it? Did the miller take a liking to her? Did he give much to
+buy her freedom?'
+
+'I don't know. She can read and write; in their business it's of use. I
+suppose he liked her.'
+
+'And have you known her long?'
+
+'Yes. I used to go to her master's. Their house isn't far from here.'
+
+'And do you know the footman Petrushka?'
+
+'Piotr Vassilyevitch? Of course, I knew him.'
+
+'Where is he now?'
+
+'He was sent for a soldier.'
+
+We were silent for a while.
+
+'She doesn't seem well?' I asked Yermolai at last.
+
+'I should think not! To-morrow, I say, we shall have good sport. A
+little sleep now would do us no harm.'
+
+A flock of wild ducks swept whizzing over our heads, and we heard them
+drop down into the river not far from us. It was now quite dark, and it
+began to be cold; in the thicket sounded the melodious notes of a
+nightingale. We buried ourselves in the hay and fell asleep.
+
+
+
+                                   III
+
+                            RASPBERRY SPRING
+
+
+At the beginning of August the heat often becomes insupportable. At
+that season, from twelve to three o'clock, the most determined and
+ardent sportsman is not able to hunt, and the most devoted dog begins
+to 'clean his master's spurs,' that is, to follow at his heels, his
+eyes painfully blinking, and his tongue hanging out to an exaggerated
+length; and in response to his master's reproaches he humbly wags his
+tail and shows his confusion in his face; but he does not run forward.
+I happened to be out hunting on exactly such a day. I had long been
+fighting against the temptation to lie down somewhere in the shade, at
+least for a moment; for a long time my indefatigable dog went on
+running about in the bushes, though he clearly did not himself expect
+much good from his feverish activity. The stifling heat compelled me at
+last to begin to think of husbanding our energies and strength. I
+managed to reach the little river Ista, which is already known to my
+indulgent readers, descended the steep bank, and walked along the damp,
+yellow sand in the direction of the spring, known to the whole
+neighbourhood as Raspberry Spring. This spring gushes out of a cleft in
+the bank, which widens out by degrees into a small but deep creek, and,
+twenty paces beyond it, falls with a merry babbling sound into the
+river; the short velvety grass is green about the source: the sun's
+rays scarcely ever reach its cold, silvery water. I came as far as the
+spring; a cup of birch-wood lay on the grass, left by a passing peasant
+for the public benefit. I quenched my thirst, lay down in the shade,
+and looked round. In the cave, which had been formed by the flowing of
+the stream into the river, and hence marked for ever with the trace of
+ripples, two old men were sitting with their backs to me. One, a rather
+stout and tall man in a neat dark-green coat and lined cap, was
+fishing; the other was thin and little; he wore a patched fustian coat
+and no cap; he held a little pot full of worms on his knees, and
+sometimes lifted his hand up to his grizzled little head, as though he
+wanted to protect it from the sun. I looked at him more attentively,
+and recognised in him Styopushka of Shumihino. I must ask the reader's
+leave to present this man to him.
+
+A few miles from my place there is a large village called Shumihino,
+with a stone church, erected in the name of St. Kosmo and St. Damian.
+Facing this church there had once stood a large and stately
+manor-house, surrounded by various outhouses, offices, workshops,
+stables and coach-houses, baths and temporary kitchens, wings for
+visitors and for bailiffs, conservatories, swings for the people, and
+other more or less useful edifices. A family of rich landowners lived
+in this manor-house, and all went well with them, till suddenly one
+morning all this prosperity was burnt to ashes. The owners removed to
+another home; the place was deserted. The blackened site of the immense
+house was transformed into a kitchen-garden, cumbered up in parts by
+piles of bricks, the remains of the old foundations. A little hut had
+been hurriedly put together out of the beams that had escaped the fire;
+it was roofed with timber bought ten years before for the construction
+of a pavilion in the Gothic style; and the gardener, Mitrofan, with his
+wife Axinya and their seven children, was installed in it. Mitrofan
+received orders to send greens and garden-stuff for the master's table,
+a hundred and fifty miles away; Axinya was put in charge of a Tyrolese
+cow, which had been bought for a high price in Moscow, but had not
+given a drop of milk since its acquisition; a crested smoke-coloured
+drake too had been left in her hands, the solitary 'seignorial' bird;
+for the children, in consideration of their tender age, no special
+duties had been provided, a fact, however, which had not hindered them
+from growing up utterly lazy. It happened to me on two occasions to
+stay the night at this gardener's, and when I passed by I used to get
+cucumbers from him, which, for some unknown reason, were even in summer
+peculiar for their size, their poor, watery flavour, and their thick
+yellow skin. It was there I first saw Styopushka. Except Mitrofan and
+his family, and the old deaf churchwarden Gerasim, kept out of charity
+in a little room at the one-eyed soldier's widow's, not one man among
+the house-serfs had remained at Shumihino; for Styopushka, whom I
+intend to introduce to the reader, could not be classified under the
+special order of house-serfs, and hardly under the genus 'man' at all.
+
+Every man has some kind of position in society, and at least some ties
+of some sort; every house-serf receives, if not wages, at least some
+so-called 'ration.' Styopushka had absolutely no means of subsistence
+of any kind; had no relationship to anyone; no one knew of his
+existence. This man had not even a past; there was no story told of
+him; he had probably never been enrolled on a census-revision. There
+were vague rumours that he had once belonged to someone as a valet; but
+who he was, where he came from, who was his father, and how he had come
+to be one of the Shumihino people; in what way he had come by the
+fustian coat he had worn from immemorial times; where he lived and what
+he lived on--on all these questions no one had the least idea; and, to
+tell the truth, no one took any interest in the subject. Grandfather
+Trofimitch, who knew all the pedigrees of all the house-serfs in the
+direct line to the fourth generation, had once indeed been known to say
+that he remembered that Styopushka was related to a Turkish woman whom
+the late master, the brigadier Alexy Romanitch had been pleased to
+bring home from a campaign in the baggage waggon. Even on holidays,
+days of general money-giving and of feasting on buckwheat dumplings and
+vodka, after the old Russian fashion--even on such days Styopushka did
+not put in an appearance at the trestle-tables nor at the barrels; he
+did not make his bow nor kiss the master's hand, nor toss off to the
+master's health and under the master's eye a glass filled by the fat
+hands of the bailiff. Some kind soul who passed by him might share an
+unfinished bit of dumpling with the poor beggar, perhaps. At Easter
+they said 'Christ is risen!' to him; but he did not pull up his greasy
+sleeve, and bring out of the depths of his pocket a coloured egg, to
+offer it, panting and blinking, to his young masters or to the mistress
+herself. He lived in summer in a little shed behind the chicken-house,
+and in winter in the ante-room of the bathhouse; in the bitter frosts
+he spent the night in the hayloft. The house-serfs had grown used to
+seeing him; sometimes they gave him a kick, but no one ever addressed a
+remark to him; as for him, he seems never to have opened his lips from
+the time of his birth. After the conflagration, this forsaken creature
+sought a refuge at the gardener Mitrofan's. The gardener left him
+alone; he did not say 'Live with me,' but he did not drive him away.
+And Styopushka did not live at the gardener's; his abode was the
+garden. He moved and walked about quite noiselessly; he sneezed and
+coughed behind his hand, not without apprehension; he was for ever busy
+and going stealthily to and fro like an ant; and all to get
+food--simply food to eat. And indeed, if he had not toiled from morning
+till night for his living, our poor friend would certainly have died of
+hunger. It's a sad lot not to know in the morning what you will find to
+eat before night! Sometimes Styopushka sits under the hedge and gnaws a
+radish or sucks a carrot, or shreds up some dirty cabbage-stalks; or he
+drags a bucket of water along, for some object or other, groaning as he
+goes; or he lights a fire under a small pot, and throws in some little
+black scraps which he takes from out of the bosom of his coat; or he is
+hammering in his little wooden den--driving in a nail, putting up a
+shelf for bread. And all this he does silently, as though on the sly:
+before you can look round, he's in hiding again. Sometimes he suddenly
+disappears for a couple of days; but of course no one notices his
+absence.... Then, lo and behold! he is there again, somewhere under the
+hedge, stealthily kindling a fire of sticks under a kettle. He had a
+small face, yellowish eyes, hair coming down to his eyebrows, a sharp
+nose, large transparent ears, like a bat's, and a beard that looked as
+if it were a fortnight's growth, and never grew more nor less. This,
+then, was Styopushka, whom I met on the bank of the Ista in company
+with another old man.
+
+I went up to him, wished him good-day, and sat down beside him.
+Styopushka's companion too I recognised as an acquaintance; he was a
+freed serf of Count Piotr Ilitch's, one Mihal Savelitch, nicknamed
+Tuman (_i.e._ fog). He lived with a consumptive Bolhovsky man, who kept
+an inn, where I had several times stayed. Young officials and other
+persons of leisure travelling on the Orel highroad (merchants, buried
+in their striped rugs, have other things to do) may still see at no
+great distance from the large village of Troitska, and almost on the
+highroad, an immense two-storied wooden house, completely deserted,
+with its roof falling in and its windows closely stuffed up. At mid-day
+in bright, sunny weather nothing can be imagined more melancholy than
+this ruin. Here there once lived Count Piotr Ilitch, a rich grandee of
+the olden time, renowned for his hospitality. At one time the whole
+province used to meet at his house, to dance and make merry to their
+heart's content to the deafening sound of a home-trained orchestra, and
+the popping of rockets and Roman candles; and doubtless more than one
+aged lady sighs as she drives by the deserted palace of the boyar and
+recalls the old days and her vanished youth. The count long continued
+to give balls, and to walk about with an affable smile among the crowd
+of fawning guests; but his property, unluckily, was not enough to last
+his whole life. When he was entirely ruined, he set off to Petersburg
+to try for a post for himself, and died in a room at a hotel, without
+having gained anything by his efforts. Tuman had been a steward of his,
+and had received his freedom already in the count's lifetime. He was a
+man of about seventy, with a regular and pleasant face. He was almost
+continually smiling, as only men of the time of Catherine ever do
+smile--a smile at once stately and indulgent; in speaking, he slowly
+opened and closed his lips, winked genially with his eyes, and spoke
+slightly through his nose. He blew his nose and took snuff too in a
+leisurely fashion, as though he were doing something serious.
+
+'Well, Mihal Savelitch,' I began, 'have you caught any fish?'
+
+'Here, if you will deign to look in the basket: I have caught two perch
+and five roaches.... Show them, Styopka.'
+
+Styopushka stretched out the basket to me.
+
+'How are you, Styopka?' I asked him.
+
+'Oh--oh--not--not--not so badly, your honour,' answered Stepan,
+stammering as though he had a heavy weight on his tongue.
+
+'And is Mitrofan well?'
+
+'Well--yes, yes--your honour.'
+
+The poor fellow turned away.
+
+'But there are not many bites,' remarked Tuman; 'it's so fearfully hot;
+the fish are all tired out under the bushes; they're asleep. Put on a
+worm, Styopka.' (Styopushka took out a worm, laid it on his open hand,
+struck it two or three times, put it on the hook, spat on it, and gave
+it to Tuman.) 'Thanks, Styopka.... And you, your honour,' he continued,
+turning to me, 'are pleased to be out hunting?'
+
+'As you see.'
+
+'Ah--and is your dog there English or German?'
+
+The old man liked to show off on occasion, as though he would say, 'I,
+too, have lived in the world!'
+
+'I don't know what breed it is, but it's a good dog.'
+
+'Ah! and do you go out with the hounds too?'
+
+'Yes, I have two leashes of hounds.'
+
+Tuman smiled and shook his head.
+
+'That's just it; one man is devoted to dogs, and another doesn't want
+them for anything. According to my simple notions, I fancy dogs should
+be kept rather for appearance' sake ... and all should be in style too;
+horses too should be in style, and huntsmen in style, as they ought to
+be, and all. The late count--God's grace be with him!--was never, I
+must own, much of a hunter; but he kept dogs, and twice a year he was
+pleased to go out with them. The huntsmen assembled in the courtyard,
+in red caftans trimmed with galloon, and blew their horns; his
+excellency would be pleased to come out, and his excellency's horse
+would be led up; his excellency would mount, and the chief huntsman
+puts his feet in the stirrups, takes his hat off, and puts the reins in
+his hat to offer them to his excellency. His excellency is pleased to
+click his whip like this, and the huntsmen give a shout, and off they
+go out of the gate away. A huntsman rides behind the count, and holds
+in a silken leash two of the master's favourite dogs, and looks after
+them well, you may fancy.... And he, too, this huntsman, sits up high,
+on a Cossack saddle: such a red-cheeked fellow he was, and rolled his
+eyes like this.... And there were guests too, you may be sure, on such
+occasions, and entertainment, and ceremonies observed.... Ah, he's got
+away, the Asiatic!' He interrupted himself suddenly, drawing in his
+line.
+
+'They say the count used to live pretty freely in his day?' I asked.
+
+The old man spat on the worm and lowered the line in again.
+
+'He was a great gentleman, as is well-known. At times the persons of
+the first rank, one may say, at Petersburg, used to visit him. With
+coloured ribbons on their breasts they used to sit down to table and
+eat. Well, he knew how to entertain them. He called me sometimes.
+"Tuman," says he, "I want by to-morrow some live sturgeon; see there
+are some, do you hear?" "Yes, your excellency." Embroidered coats,
+wigs, canes, perfumes, _eau de Cologne_ of the best sort, snuff-boxes,
+huge pictures: he would order them all from Paris itself! When he gave
+a banquet, God Almighty, Lord of my being! there were fireworks, and
+carriages driving up! They even fired off the cannon. The orchestra
+alone consisted of forty men. He kept a German as conductor of the
+band, but the German gave himself dreadful airs; he wanted to eat at
+the same table as the masters; so his excellency gave orders to get rid
+of him! "My musicians," says he, "can do their work even without a
+conductor." Of course he was master. Then they would fall to dancing,
+and dance till morning, especially at the ecossaise-matrador. ...
+Ah--ah--there's one caught!' (The old man drew a small perch out of the
+water.) 'Here you are, Styopka! The master was all a master should be,'
+continued the old man, dropping his line in again, 'and he had a kind
+heart too. He would give you a blow at times, and before you could look
+round, he'd forgotten it already. There was only one thing: he kept
+mistresses. Ugh, those mistresses! God forgive them! They were the ruin
+of him too; and yet, you know, he took them most generally from a low
+station. You would fancy they would not want much? Not a bit--they must
+have everything of the most expensive in all Europe! One may say, "Why
+shouldn't he live as he likes; it's the master's business" ... but
+there was no need to ruin himself. There was one especially; Akulina
+was her name. She is dead now; God rest her soul! the daughter of the
+watchman at Sitoia; and such a vixen! She would slap the count's face
+sometimes. She simply bewitched him. My nephew she sent for a soldier;
+he spilt some chocolate on a new dress of hers ... and he wasn't the
+only one she served so. Ah, well, those were good times, though!' added
+the old man with a deep sigh. His head drooped forward and he was
+silent.
+
+'Your master, I see, was severe, then?' I began after a brief silence.
+
+'That was the fashion then, your honour,' he replied, shaking his head.
+
+'That sort of thing is not done now?' I observed, not taking my eyes
+off him.
+
+He gave me a look askance.
+
+'Now, surely it's better,' he muttered, and let out his line further.
+
+We were sitting in the shade; but even in the shade it was stifling.
+The sultry atmosphere was faint and heavy; one lifted one's burning
+face uneasily, seeking a breath of wind; but there was no wind. The sun
+beat down from blue and darkening skies; right opposite us, on the
+other bank, was a yellow field of oats, overgrown here and there with
+wormwood; not one ear of the oats quivered. A little lower down a
+peasant's horse stood in the river up to its knees, and slowly shook
+its wet tail; from time to time, under an overhanging bush, a large
+fish shot up, bringing bubbles to the surface, and gently sank down to
+the bottom, leaving a slight ripple behind it. The grasshoppers chirped
+in the scorched grass; the quail's cry sounded languid and reluctant;
+hawks sailed smoothly over the meadows, often resting in the same spot,
+rapidly fluttering their wings and opening their tails into a fan. We
+sat motionless, overpowered with the heat. Suddenly there was a sound
+behind us in the creek; someone came down to the spring. I looked
+round, and saw a peasant of about fifty, covered with dust, in a smock,
+and wearing bast slippers; he carried a wickerwork pannier and a cloak
+on his shoulders. He went down to the spring, drank thirstily, and got
+up.
+
+'Ah, Vlass!' cried Tuman, staring at him; 'good health to you, friend!
+Where has God sent you from?'
+
+'Good health to you, Mihal Savelitch!' said the peasant, coming nearer
+to us; 'from a long way off.'
+
+'Where have you been?' Tuman asked him.
+
+'I have been to Moscow, to my master.'
+
+'What for?'
+
+'I went to ask him a favour.'
+
+'What about?'
+
+'Oh, to lessen my rent, or to let me work it out in labour, or to put
+me on another piece of land, or something.... My son is dead--so I
+can't manage it now alone.'
+
+'Your son is dead?'
+
+'He is dead. My son,' added the peasant, after a pause, 'lived in
+Moscow as a cabman; he paid, I must confess, rent for me.'
+
+'Then are you now paying rent?'
+
+'Yes, we pay rent.'
+
+'What did your master say?'
+
+'What did the master say! He drove me away! Says he, "How dare you come
+straight to me; there is a bailiff for such things. You ought first,"
+says he, "to apply to the bailiff ... and where am I to put you on
+other land? You first," says he, "bring the debt you owe." He was angry
+altogether.'
+
+'What then--did you come back?'
+
+'I came back. I wanted to find out if my son had not left any goods of
+his own, but I couldn't get a straight answer. I say to his employer,
+"I am Philip's father"; and he says, "What do I know about that? And
+your son," says he, "left nothing; he was even in debt to me." So I
+came away.'
+
+The peasant related all this with a smile, as though he were speaking
+of someone else; but tears were starting into his small, screwed-up
+eyes, and his lips were quivering.
+
+'Well, are you going home then now?'
+
+'Where can I go? Of course I'm going home. My wife, I suppose, is
+pretty well starved by now.'
+
+'You should--then,' Styopushka said suddenly. He grew confused, was
+silent, and began to rummage in the worm-pot.
+
+'And shall you go to the bailiff?' continued Tuman, looking with some
+amazement at Styopka.
+
+'What should I go to him for?--I'm in arrears as it is. My son was ill
+for a year before his death; he could not pay even his own rent. But it
+can't hurt me; they can get nothing from me.... Yes, my friend, you can
+be as cunning as you please--I'm cleaned out!' (The peasant began to
+laugh.) 'Kintlyan Semenitch'll have to be clever if--'
+
+Vlass laughed again.
+
+'Oh! things are in a sad way, brother Vlass,' Tuman ejaculated
+deliberately.
+
+'Sad! No!' (Vlass's voice broke.) 'How hot it is!' he went on, wiping
+his face with his sleeve.
+
+'Who is your master?' I asked him.
+
+'Count Valerian Petrovitch.'
+
+'The son of Piotr Ilitch?'
+
+'The son of Piotr Ilitch,' replied Tuman. 'Piotr Hitch gave him Vlass's
+village in his lifetime.'
+
+'Is he well?'
+
+'He is well, thank God!' replied Vlass. 'He has grown so red, and his
+face looks as though it were padded.'
+
+'You see, your honour,' continued Tuman, turning to me, 'it would be
+very well near Moscow, but it's a different matter to pay rent here.'
+
+'And what is the rent for you altogether?'
+
+'Ninety-five roubles,' muttered Vlass.
+
+'There, you see; and it's the least bit of land; all there is is the
+master's forest.'
+
+'And that, they say, they have sold,' observed the peasant.
+
+'There, you see. Styopka, give me a worm. Why, Styopka, are you
+asleep--eh?'
+
+Styopushka started. The peasant sat down by us. We sank into silence
+again. On the other bank someone was singing a song--but such a
+mournful one. Our poor Vlass grew deeply dejected.
+
+Half-an-hour later we parted.
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+                           THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
+
+
+One day in autumn on my way back from a remote part of the country I
+caught cold and fell ill. Fortunately the fever attacked me in the
+district town at the inn; I sent for the doctor. In half-an-hour the
+district doctor appeared, a thin, dark-haired man of middle height. He
+prescribed me the usual sudorific, ordered a mustard-plaster to be put
+on, very deftly slid a five-rouble note up his sleeve, coughing drily
+and looking away as he did so, and then was getting up to go home, but
+somehow fell into talk and remained. I was exhausted with feverishness;
+I foresaw a sleepless night, and was glad of a little chat with a
+pleasant companion. Tea was served. My doctor began to converse freely.
+He was a sensible fellow, and expressed himself with vigour and some
+humour. Queer things happen in the world: you may live a long while
+with some people, and be on friendly terms with them, and never once
+speak openly with them from your soul; with others you have scarcely
+time to get acquainted, and all at once you are pouring out to him--or
+he to you--all your secrets, as though you were at confession. I don't
+know how I gained the confidence of my new friend--any way, with
+nothing to lead up to it, he told me a rather curious incident; and
+here I will report his tale for the information of the indulgent
+reader. I will try to tell it in the doctor's own words.
+
+'You don't happen to know,' he began in a weak and quavering voice (the
+common result of the use of unmixed Berezov snuff); 'you don't happen
+to know the judge here, Mylov, Pavel Lukitch?... You don't know him?...
+Well, it's all the same.' (He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes.)
+'Well, you see, the thing happened, to tell you exactly without
+mistake, in Lent, at the very time of the thaws. I was sitting at his
+house--our judge's, you know--playing preference. Our judge is a good
+fellow, and fond of playing preference. Suddenly' (the doctor made
+frequent use of this word, suddenly) 'they tell me, "There's a servant
+asking for you." I say, "What does he want?" They say, "He has brought
+a note--it must be from a patient." "Give me the note," I say. So it is
+from a patient--well and good--you understand--it's our bread and
+butter. ... But this is how it was: a lady, a widow, writes to me; she
+says, "My daughter is dying. Come, for God's sake!" she says; "and the
+horses have been sent for you." ... Well, that's all right. But she was
+twenty miles from the town, and it was midnight out of doors, and the
+roads in such a state, my word! And as she was poor herself, one could
+not expect more than two silver roubles, and even that problematic; and
+perhaps it might only be a matter of a roll of linen and a sack of
+oatmeal in payment. However, duty, you know, before everything: a
+fellow-creature may be dying. I hand over my cards at once to
+Kalliopin, the member of the provincial commission, and return home. I
+look; a wretched little trap was standing at the steps, with peasant's
+horses, fat--too fat--and their coat as shaggy as felt; and the
+coachman sitting with his cap off out of respect. Well, I think to
+myself, "It's clear, my friend, these patients aren't rolling in
+riches." ... You smile; but I tell you, a poor man like me has to take
+everything into consideration.... If the coachman sits like a prince,
+and doesn't touch his cap, and even sneers at you behind his beard, and
+flicks his whip--then you may bet on six roubles. But this case, I saw,
+had a very different air. However, I think there's no help for it; duty
+before everything. I snatch up the most necessary drugs, and set off.
+Will you believe it? I only just managed to get there at all. The road
+was infernal: streams, snow, watercourses, and the dyke had suddenly
+burst there--that was the worst of it! However, I arrived at last. It
+was a little thatched house. There was a light in the windows; that
+meant they expected me. I was met by an old lady, very venerable, in a
+cap. "Save her!" she says; "she is dying." I say, "Pray don't distress
+yourself--Where is the invalid?" "Come this way." I see a clean little
+room, a lamp in the corner; on the bed a girl of twenty, unconscious.
+She was in a burning heat, and breathing heavily--it was fever. There
+were two other girls, her sisters, scared and in tears. "Yesterday,"
+they tell me, "she was perfectly well and had a good appetite; this
+morning she complained of her head, and this evening, suddenly, you
+see, like this." I say again: "Pray don't be uneasy." It's a doctor's
+duty, you know--and I went up to her and bled her, told them to put on
+a mustard-plaster, and prescribed a mixture. Meantime I looked at her;
+I looked at her, you know--there, by God! I had never seen such a
+face!--she was a beauty, in a word! I felt quite shaken with pity. Such
+lovely features; such eyes!... But, thank God! she became easier; she
+fell into a perspiration, seemed to come to her senses, looked round,
+smiled, and passed her hand over her face.... Her sisters bent over
+her. They ask, "How are you?" "All right," she says, and turns away. I
+looked at her; she had fallen asleep. "Well," I say, "now the patient
+should be left alone." So we all went out on tiptoe; only a maid
+remained, in case she was wanted. In the parlour there was a samovar
+standing on the table, and a bottle of rum; in our profession one can't
+get on without it. They gave me tea; asked me to stop the night. ... I
+consented: where could I go, indeed, at that time of night? The old
+lady kept groaning. "What is it?" I say; "she will live; don't worry
+yourself; you had better take a little rest yourself; it is about two
+o'clock." "But will you send to wake me if anything happens?" "Yes,
+yes." The old lady went away, and the girls too went to their own room;
+they made up a bed for me in the parlour. Well, I went to bed--but I
+could not get to sleep, for a wonder! for in reality I was very tired.
+I could not get my patient out of my head. At last I could not put up
+with it any longer; I got up suddenly; I think to myself, "I will go
+and see how the patient is getting on." Her bedroom was next to the
+parlour. Well, I got up, and gently opened the door--how my heart beat!
+I looked in: the servant was asleep, her mouth wide open, and even
+snoring, the wretch! but the patient lay with her face towards me, and
+her arms flung wide apart, poor girl! I went up to her ... when
+suddenly she opened her eyes and stared at me! "Who is it? who is it?"
+I was in confusion. "Don't be alarmed, madam," I say; "I am the doctor;
+I have come to see how you feel." "You the doctor?" "Yes, the doctor;
+your mother sent for me from the town; we have bled you, madam; now
+pray go to sleep, and in a day or two, please God! we will set you on
+your feet again." "Ah, yes, yes, doctor, don't let me die.... please,
+please." "Why do you talk like that? God bless you!" She is in a fever
+again, I think to myself; I felt her pulse; yes, she was feverish. She
+looked at me, and then took me by the hand. "I will tell you why I
+don't want to die; I will tell you.... Now we are alone; and only,
+please don't you ... not to anyone ... Listen...." I bent down; she
+moved her lips quite to my ear; she touched my cheek with her hair--I
+confess my head went round--and began to whisper.... I could make out
+nothing of it.... Ah, she was delirious!... She whispered and
+whispered, but so quickly, and as if it were not in Russian; at last
+she finished, and shivering dropped her head on the pillow, and
+threatened me with her finger: "Remember, doctor, to no one." I calmed
+her somehow, gave her something to drink, waked the servant, and went
+away.'
+
+At this point the doctor again took snuff with exasperated energy, and
+for a moment seemed stupefied by its effects.
+
+'However,' he continued, 'the next day, contrary to my expectations,
+the patient was no better. I thought and thought, and suddenly decided
+to remain there, even though my other patients were expecting me....
+And you know one can't afford to disregard that; one's practice suffers
+if one does. But, in the first place, the patient was really in danger;
+and secondly, to tell the truth, I felt strongly drawn to her. Besides,
+I liked the whole family. Though they were really badly off, they were
+singularly, I may say, cultivated people.... Their father had been a
+learned man, an author; he died, of course, in poverty, but he had
+managed before he died to give his children an excellent education; he
+left a lot of books too. Either because I looked after the invalid very
+carefully, or for some other reason; any way, I can venture to say all
+the household loved me as if I were one of the family.... Meantime the
+roads were in a worse state than ever; all communications, so to say,
+were cut off completely; even medicine could with difficulty be got
+from the town.... The sick girl was not getting better. ... Day after
+day, and day after day ... but ... here....' (The doctor made a brief
+pause.) 'I declare I don't know how to tell you.' ... (He again took
+snuff, coughed, and swallowed a little tea.) 'I will tell you without
+beating about the bush. My patient ... how should I say?... Well, she
+had fallen in love with me ... or, no, it was not that she was in love
+... however ... really, how should one say?' (The doctor looked down
+and grew red.) 'No,' he went on quickly, 'in love, indeed! A man should
+not over-estimate himself. She was an educated girl, clever and
+well-read, and I had even forgotten my Latin, one may say, completely.
+As to appearance' (the doctor looked himself over with a smile) 'I am
+nothing to boast of there either. But God Almighty did not make me a
+fool; I don't take black for white; I know a thing or two; I could see
+very clearly, for instance, that Alexandra Andreevna--that was her
+name--did not feel love for me, but had a friendly, so to say,
+inclination--a respect or something for me. Though she herself perhaps
+mistook this sentiment, any way this was her attitude; you may form
+your own judgment of it. But,' added the doctor, who had brought out
+all these disconnected sentences without taking breath, and with
+obvious embarrassment, 'I seem to be wandering rather--you won't
+understand anything like this.... There, with your leave, I will relate
+it all in order.'
+
+He drank off a glass of tea, and began in a calmer voice.
+
+'Well, then. My patient kept getting worse and worse. You are not a
+doctor, my good sir; you cannot understand what passes in a poor
+fellow's heart, especially at first, when he begins to suspect that the
+disease is getting the upper hand of him. What becomes of his belief in
+himself? You suddenly grow so timid; it's indescribable. You fancy then
+that you have forgotten everything you knew, and that the patient has
+no faith in you, and that other people begin to notice how distracted
+you are, and tell you the symptoms with reluctance; that they are
+looking at you suspiciously, whispering.... Ah! it's horrid! There must
+be a remedy, you think, for this disease, if one could find it. Isn't
+this it? You try--no, that's not it! You don't allow the medicine the
+necessary time to do good.... You clutch at one thing, then at another.
+Sometimes you take up a book of medical prescriptions--here it is, you
+think! Sometimes, by Jove, you pick one out by chance, thinking to
+leave it to fate.... But meantime a fellow-creature's dying, and
+another doctor would have saved him. "We must have a consultation," you
+say; "I will not take the responsibility on myself." And what a fool
+you look at such times! Well, in time you learn to bear it; it's
+nothing to you. A man has died--but it's not your fault; you treated
+him by the rules. But what's still more torture to you is to see blind
+faith in you, and to feel yourself that you are not able to be of use.
+Well, it was just this blind faith that the whole of Alexandra
+Andreevna's family had in me; they had forgotten to think that their
+daughter was in danger. I, too, on my side assure them that it's
+nothing, but meantime my heart sinks into my boots. To add to our
+troubles, the roads were in such a state that the coachman was gone for
+whole days together to get medicine. And I never left the patient's
+room; I could not tear myself away; I tell her amusing stories, you
+know, and play cards with her. I watch by her side at night. The old
+mother thanks me with tears in her eyes; but I think to myself, "I
+don't deserve your gratitude." I frankly confess to you--there is no
+object in concealing it now--I was in love with my patient. And
+Alexandra Andreevna had grown fond of me; she would not sometimes let
+anyone be in her room but me. She began to talk to me, to ask me
+questions; where I had studied, how I lived, who are my people, whom I
+go to see. I feel that she ought not to talk; but to forbid her to--to
+forbid her resolutely, you know--I could not. Sometimes I held my head
+in my hands, and asked myself, "What are you doing, villain?" ... And
+she would take my hand and hold it, give me a long, long look, and turn
+away, sigh, and say, "How good you are!" Her hands were so feverish,
+her eyes so large and languid.... "Yes," she says, "you are a good,
+kind man; you are not like our neighbours.... No, you are not like
+that. ... Why did I not know you till now!" "Alexandra Andreevna, calm
+yourself," I say.... "I feel, believe me, I don't know how I have
+gained ... but there, calm yourself.... All will be right; you will be
+well again." And meanwhile I must tell you,' continued the doctor,
+bending forward and raising his eyebrows, 'that they associated very
+little with the neighbours, because the smaller people were not on
+their level, and pride hindered them from being friendly with the rich.
+I tell you, they were an exceptionally cultivated family; so you know
+it was gratifying for me. She would only take her medicine from my
+hands ... she would lift herself up, poor girl, with my aid, take it,
+and gaze at me.... My heart felt as if it were bursting. And meanwhile
+she was growing worse and worse, worse and worse, all the time; she
+will die, I think to myself; she must die. Believe me, I would sooner
+have gone to the grave myself; and here were her mother and sisters
+watching me, looking into my eyes ... and their faith in me was wearing
+away. "Well? how is she?" "Oh, all right, all right!" All right,
+indeed! My mind was failing me. Well, I was sitting one night alone
+again by my patient. The maid was sitting there too, and snoring away
+in full swing; I can't find fault with the poor girl, though; she was
+worn out too. Alexandra Andreevna had felt very unwell all the evening;
+she was very feverish. Until midnight she kept tossing about; at last
+she seemed to fall asleep; at least, she lay still without stirring.
+The lamp was burning in the corner before the holy image. I sat there,
+you know, with my head bent; I even dozed a little. Suddenly it seemed
+as though someone touched me in the side; I turned round.... Good God!
+Alexandra Andreevna was gazing with intent eyes at me ... her lips
+parted, her cheeks seemed burning. "What is it?" "Doctor, shall I die?"
+"Merciful Heavens!" "No, doctor, no; please don't tell me I shall live
+... don't say so.... If you knew.... Listen! for God's sake don't
+conceal my real position," and her breath came so fast. "If I can know
+for certain that I must die ... then I will tell you all--all!"
+"Alexandra Andreevna, I beg!" "Listen; I have not been asleep at all
+... I have been looking at you a long while.... For God's sake! ... I
+believe in you; you are a good man, an honest man; I entreat you by all
+that is sacred in the world--tell me the truth! If you knew how
+important it is for me.... Doctor, for God's sake tell me.... Am I in
+danger?" "What can I tell you, Alexandra Andreevna, pray?" "For God's
+sake, I beseech you!" "I can't disguise from you," I say, "Alexandra
+Andreevna; you are certainly in danger; but God is merciful." "I shall
+die, I shall die." And it seemed as though she were pleased; her face
+grew so bright; I was alarmed. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! I am
+not frightened of death at all." She suddenly sat up and leaned on her
+elbow. "Now ... yes, now I can tell you that I thank you with my whole
+heart ... that you are kind and good--that I love you!" I stare at her,
+like one possessed; it was terrible for me, you know. "Do you hear, I
+love you!" "Alexandra Andreevna, how have I deserved--" "No, no, you
+don't--you don't understand me." ... And suddenly she stretched out her
+arms, and taking my head in her hands, she kissed it.... Believe me, I
+almost screamed aloud.... I threw myself on my knees, and buried my
+head in the pillow. She did not speak; her fingers trembled in my hair;
+I listen; she is weeping. I began to soothe her, to assure her.... I
+really don't know what I did say to her. "You will wake up the girl," I
+say to her; "Alexandra Andreevna, I thank you ... believe me ... calm
+yourself." "Enough, enough!" she persisted; "never mind all of them;
+let them wake, then; let them come in--it does not matter; I am dying,
+you see.... And what do you fear? why are you afraid? Lift up your
+head.... Or, perhaps, you don't love me; perhaps I am wrong.... In that
+case, forgive me." "Alexandra Andreevna, what are you saying!... I love
+you, Alexandra Andreevna." She looked straight into my eyes, and opened
+her arms wide. "Then take me in your arms." I tell you frankly, I don't
+know how it was I did not go mad that night. I feel that my patient is
+killing herself; I see that she is not fully herself; I understand,
+too, that if she did not consider herself on the point of death, she
+would never have thought of me; and, indeed, say what you will, it's
+hard to die at twenty without having known love; this was what was
+torturing her; this was why, in despair, she caught at me--do you
+understand now? But she held me in her arms, and would not let me go.
+"Have pity on me, Alexandra Andreevna, and have pity on yourself," I
+say. "Why," she says; "what is there to think of? You know I must die."
+... This she repeated incessantly.... "If I knew that I should return
+to life, and be a proper young lady again, I should be ashamed ... of
+course, ashamed ... but why now?" "But who has said you will die?" "Oh,
+no, leave off! you will not deceive me; you don't know how to lie--look
+at your face." ... "You shall live, Alexandra Andreevna; I will cure
+you; we will ask your mother's blessing ... we will be united--we will
+be happy." "No, no, I have your word; I must die ... you have promised
+me ... you have told me." ... It was cruel for me--cruel for many
+reasons. And see what trifling things can do sometimes; it seems
+nothing at all, but it's painful. It occurred to her to ask me, what is
+my name; not my surname, but my first name. I must needs be so unlucky
+as to be called Trifon. Yes, indeed; Trifon Ivanitch. Every one in the
+house called me doctor. However, there's no help for it. I say,
+"Trifon, madam." She frowned, shook her head, and muttered something in
+French--ah, something unpleasant, of course!--and then she
+laughed--disagreeably too. Well, I spent the whole night with her in
+this way. Before morning I went away, feeling as though I were mad.
+When I went again into her room it was daytime, after morning tea. Good
+God! I could scarcely recognise her; people are laid in their grave
+looking better than that. I swear to you, on my honour, I don't
+understand--I absolutely don't understand--now, how I lived through
+that experience. Three days and nights my patient still lingered on.
+And what nights! What things she said to me! And on the last
+night--only imagine to yourself--I was sitting near her, and kept
+praying to God for one thing only: "Take her," I said, "quickly, and me
+with her." Suddenly the old mother comes unexpectedly into the room. I
+had already the evening before told her--the mother--there was little
+hope, and it would be well to send for a priest. When the sick girl saw
+her mother she said: "It's very well you have come; look at us, we love
+one another--we have given each other our word." "What does she say,
+doctor? what does she say?" I turned livid. "She is wandering," I say;
+"the fever." But she: "Hush, hush; you told me something quite
+different just now, and have taken my ring. Why do you pretend? My
+mother is good--she will forgive--she will understand--and I am
+dying.... I have no need to tell lies; give me your hand." I jumped up
+and ran out of the room. The old lady, of course, guessed how it was.
+
+'I will not, however, weary you any longer, and to me too, of course,
+it's painful to recall all this. My patient passed away the next day.
+God rest her soul!' the doctor added, speaking quickly and with a sigh.
+'Before her death she asked her family to go out and leave me alone
+with her.'
+
+'"Forgive me," she said; "I am perhaps to blame towards you ... my
+illness ... but believe me, I have loved no one more than you ... do
+not forget me ... keep my ring."'
+
+The doctor turned away; I took his hand.
+
+'Ah!' he said, 'let us talk of something else, or would you care to
+play preference for a small stake? It is not for people like me to give
+way to exalted emotions. There's only one thing for me to think of; how
+to keep the children from crying and the wife from scolding. Since
+then, you know, I have had time to enter into lawful wed-lock, as they
+say.... Oh ... I took a merchant's daughter--seven thousand for her
+dowry. Her name's Akulina; it goes well with Trifon. She is an
+ill-tempered woman, I must tell you, but luckily she's asleep all
+day.... Well, shall it be preference?'
+
+We sat down to preference for halfpenny points. Trifon Ivanitch won two
+roubles and a half from me, and went home late, well pleased with his
+success.
+
+
+
+                                    V
+
+                          MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOV
+
+
+For the autumn, woodcocks often take refuge in old gardens of
+lime-trees. There are a good many such gardens among us, in the
+province of Orel. Our forefathers, when they selected a place for
+habitation, invariably marked out two acres of good ground for a
+fruit-garden, with avenues of lime-trees. Within the last fifty, or
+seventy years at most, these mansions--'noblemen's nests,' as they call
+them--have gradually disappeared off the face of the earth; the houses
+are falling to pieces, or have been sold for the building materials;
+the stone outhouses have become piles of rubbish; the apple-trees are
+dead and turned into firewood, the hedges and fences are pulled up.
+Only the lime-trees grow in all their glory as before, and with
+ploughed fields all round them, tell a tale to this light-hearted
+generation of 'our fathers and brothers who have lived before us.'
+
+A magnificent tree is such an old lime-tree.... Even the merciless axe
+of the Russian peasant spares it. Its leaves are small, its powerful
+limbs spread wide in all directions; there is perpetual shade under
+them.
+
+Once, as I was wandering about the fields after partridges with
+Yermolai, I saw some way off a deserted garden, and turned into it. I
+had hardly crossed its borders when a snipe rose up out of a bush with
+a clatter. I fired my gun, and at the same instant, a few paces from
+me, I heard a shriek; the frightened face of a young girl peeped out
+for a second from behind the trees, and instantly disappeared. Yermolai
+ran up to me: 'Why are you shooting here? there is a landowner living
+here.'
+
+Before I had time to answer him, before my dog had had time to bring
+me, with dignified importance, the bird I had shot, swift footsteps
+were heard, and a tall man with moustaches came out of the thicket and
+stopped, with an air of displeasure, before me. I made my apologies as
+best I could, gave him my name, and offered him the bird that had been
+killed on his domains.
+
+'Very well,' he said to me with a smile; 'I will take your game, but
+only on one condition: that you will stay and dine with us.'
+
+I must confess I was not greatly delighted at his proposition, but it
+was impossible to refuse.
+
+'I am a landowner here, and your neighbour, Radilov; perhaps you have
+heard of me?' continued my new acquaintance; 'to-day is Sunday, and we
+shall be sure to have a decent dinner, otherwise I would not have
+invited you.'
+
+I made such a reply as one does make in such circumstances, and turned
+to follow him. A little path that had lately been cleared soon led us
+out of the grove of lime-trees; we came into the kitchen-garden.
+Between the old apple-trees and gooseberry bushes were rows of curly
+whitish-green cabbages; the hop twined its tendrils round high poles;
+there were thick ranks of brown twigs tangled over with dried peas;
+large flat pumpkins seemed rolling on the ground; cucumbers showed
+yellow under their dusty angular leaves; tall nettles were waving along
+the hedge; in two or three places grew clumps of tartar honeysuckle,
+elder, and wild rose--the remnants of former flower-beds. Near a small
+fish-pond, full of reddish and slimy water, we saw the well, surrounded
+by puddles. Ducks were busily splashing and waddling about these
+puddles; a dog blinking and twitching in every limb was gnawing a bone
+in the meadow, where a piebald cow was lazily chewing the grass, from
+time to time flicking its tail over its lean back. The little path
+turned to one side; from behind thick willows and birches we caught
+sight of a little grey old house, with a boarded roof and a winding
+flight of steps. Radilov stopped short.
+
+'But,' he said, with a good-humoured and direct look in my face,' on
+second thoughts ... perhaps you don't care to come and see me, after
+all.... In that case--'
+
+I did not allow him to finish, but assured him that, on the contrary,
+it would be a great pleasure to me to dine with him.
+
+'Well, you know best.'
+
+We went into the house. A young man in a long coat of stout blue cloth
+met us on the steps. Radilov at once told him to bring Yermolai some
+vodka; my huntsman made a respectful bow to the back of the munificent
+host. From the hall, which was decorated with various parti-coloured
+pictures and check curtains, we went into a small room--Radilov's
+study. I took off my hunting accoutrements, and put my gun in a corner;
+the young man in the long-skirted coat busily brushed me down.
+
+'Well, now, let us go into the drawing-room.' said Radilov cordially.
+'I will make you acquainted with my mother.'
+
+I walked after him. In the drawing-room, in the sofa in the centre of
+the room, was sitting an old lady of medium height, in a
+cinnamon-coloured dress and a white cap, with a thinnish, kind old
+face, and a timid, mournful expression.
+
+'Here, mother, let me introduce to you our neighbour....'
+
+The old lady got up and made me a bow, not letting go out of her
+withered hands a fat worsted reticule that looked like a sack.
+
+'Have you been long in our neighbourhood?' she asked, in a weak and
+gentle voice, blinking her eyes.
+
+'No, not long.'
+
+'Do you intend to remain here long?'
+
+'Till the winter, I think.'
+
+The old lady said no more.
+
+'And here,' interposed Radilov, indicating to me a tall and thin man,
+whom I had not noticed on entering the drawing-room, 'is Fyodor
+Miheitch. ... Come, Fedya, give the visitor a specimen of your art. Why
+have you hidden yourself away in that corner?'
+
+Fyodor Miheitch got up at once from his chair, fetched a wretched
+little fiddle from the window, took the bow--not by the end, as is
+usual, but by the middle--put the fiddle to his chest, shut his eyes,
+and fell to dancing, singing a song, and scraping on the strings. He
+looked about seventy; a thin nankin overcoat flapped pathetically about
+his dry and bony limbs. He danced, at times skipping boldly, and then
+dropping his little bald head with his scraggy neck stretched out as if
+he were dying, stamping his feet on the ground, and sometimes bending
+his knees with obvious difficulty. A voice cracked with age came from
+his toothless mouth.
+
+Radilov must have guessed from the expression of my face that Fedya's
+'art' did not give me much pleasure.
+
+'Very good, old man, that's enough,' he said. 'You can go and refresh
+yourself.'
+
+Fyodor Miheitch at once laid down the fiddle on the window-sill, bowed
+first to me as the guest, then to the old lady, then to Radilov, and
+went away.
+
+'He too was a landowner,' my new friend continued, 'and a rich one too,
+but he ruined himself--so he lives now with me.... But in his day he
+was considered the most dashing fellow in the province; he eloped with
+two married ladies; he used to keep singers, and sang himself, and
+danced like a master.... But won't you take some vodka? dinner is just
+ready.'
+
+A young girl, the same that I had caught a glimpse of in the garden,
+came into the room.
+
+'And here is Olga!' observed Radilov, slightly turning his head; 'let
+me present you.... Well, let us go into dinner.'
+
+We went in and sat down to the table. While we were coming out of the
+drawing-room and taking our seats, Fyodor Miheitch, whose eyes were
+bright and his nose rather red after his 'refreshment,' sang 'Raise the
+cry of Victory.' They laid a separate cover for him in a corner on a
+little table without a table-napkin. The poor old man could not boast
+of very nice habits, and so they always kept him at some distance from
+society. He crossed himself, sighed, and began to eat like a shark. The
+dinner was in reality not bad, and in honour of Sunday was accompanied,
+of course, with shaking jelly and Spanish puffs of pastry. At the table
+Radilov, who had served ten years in an infantry regiment and had been
+in Turkey, fell to telling anecdotes; I listened to him with attention,
+and secretly watched Olga. She was not very pretty; but the tranquil
+and resolute expression of her face, her broad, white brow, her thick
+hair, and especially her brown eyes--not large, but clear, sensible and
+lively--would have made an impression on anyone in my place. She seemed
+to be following every word Radilov uttered--not so much sympathy as
+passionate attention was expressed on her face. Radilov in years might
+have been her father; he called her by her Christian name, but I
+guessed at once that she was not his daughter. In the course of
+conversation he referred to his deceased wife--'her sister,' he added,
+indicating Olga. She blushed quickly and dropped her eyes. Radilov
+paused a moment and then changed the subject. The old lady did not
+utter a word during the whole of dinner; she ate scarcely anything
+herself, and did not press me to partake. Her features had an air of
+timorous and hopeless expectation, that melancholy of old age which it
+pierces one's heart to look upon. At the end of dinner Fyodor Miheitch
+was beginning to 'celebrate' the hosts and guests, but Radilov looked
+at me and asked him to be quiet; the old man passed his hand over his
+lips, began to blink, bowed, and sat down again, but only on the very
+edge of his chair. After dinner I returned with Radilov to his study.
+
+In people who are constantly and intensely preoccupied with one idea,
+or one emotion, there is something in common, a kind of external
+resemblance in manner, however different may be their qualities, their
+abilities, their position in society, and their education. The more I
+watched Radilov, the more I felt that he belonged to the class of such
+people. He talked of husbandry, of the crops, of the war, of the gossip
+of the district and the approaching elections; he talked without
+constraint, and even with interest; but suddenly he would sigh and drop
+into a chair, and pass his hand over his face, like a man wearied out
+by a tedious task. His whole nature--a good and warm-hearted one
+too--seemed saturated through, steeped in some one feeling. I was
+amazed by the fact that I could not discover in him either a passion
+for eating, nor for wine, nor for sport, nor for Kursk nightingales,
+nor for epileptic pigeons, nor for Russian literature, nor for
+trotting-hacks, nor for Hungarian coats, nor for cards, nor billiards,
+nor for dances, nor trips to the provincial town or the capital, nor
+for paper-factories and beet-sugar refineries, nor for painted
+pavilions, nor for tea, nor for trace-horses trained to hold their
+heads askew, nor even for fat coachmen belted under their very
+armpits--those magnificent coachmen whose eyes, for some mysterious
+reason, seem rolling and starting out of their heads at every
+movement.... 'What sort of landowner is this, then?' I thought. At the
+same time he did not in the least pose as a gloomy man discontented
+with his destiny; on the contrary, he seemed full of indiscrimating
+good-will, cordial and even offensive readiness to become intimate with
+every one he came across. In reality you felt at the same time that he
+could not be friends, nor be really intimate with anyone, and that he
+could not be so, not because in general he was independent of other
+people, but because his whole being was for a time turned inwards upon
+himself. Looking at Radilov, I could never imagine him happy either now
+or at any time. He, too, was not handsome; but in his eyes, his smile,
+his whole being, there was a something, mysterious and extremely
+attractive--yes, mysterious is just what it was. So that you felt you
+would like to know him better, to get to love him. Of course, at times
+the landowner and the man of the steppes peeped out in him; but all the
+same he was a capital fellow.
+
+We were beginning to talk about the new marshal of the district, when
+suddenly we heard Olga's voice at the door: 'Tea is ready.' We went
+into the drawing-room. Fyodor Miheitch was sitting as before in his
+corner between the little window and the door, his legs curled up under
+him. Radilov's mother was knitting a stocking. From the opened windows
+came a breath of autumn freshness and the scent of apples. Olga was
+busy pouring out tea. I looked at her now with more attention than at
+dinner. Like provincial girls as a rule, she spoke very little, but at
+any rate I did not notice in her any of their anxiety to say something
+fine, together with their painful consciousness of stupidity and
+helplessness; she did not sigh as though from the burden of unutterable
+emotions, nor cast up her eyes, nor smile vaguely and dreamily. Her
+look expressed tranquil self-possession, like a man who is taking
+breath after great happiness or great excitement. Her carriage and her
+movements were resolute and free. I liked her very much.
+
+I fell again into conversation with Radilov. I don't recollect what
+brought us to the familiar observation that often the most
+insignificant things produce more effect on people than the most
+important.
+
+'Yes,' Radilov agreed, 'I have experienced that in my own case. I, as
+you know, have been married. It was not for long--three years; my wife
+died in child-birth. I thought that I should not survive her; I was
+fearfully miserable, broken down, but I could not weep--I wandered
+about like one possessed. They decked her out, as they always do, and
+laid her on a table--in this very room. The priest came, the deacons
+came, began to sing, to pray, and to burn incense; I bowed to the
+ground, and hardly shed a tear. My heart seemed turned to stone--and my
+head too--I was heavy all over. So passed my first day. Would you
+believe it? I even slept in the night. The next morning I went in to
+look at my wife: it was summer-time, the sunshine fell upon her from
+head to foot, and it was so bright. Suddenly I saw ...' (here Radilov
+gave an involuntary shudder) 'what do you think? One of her eyes was
+not quite shut, and on this eye a fly was moving.... I fell down in a
+heap, and when I came to myself, I began to weep and weep ... I could
+not stop myself....'
+
+Radilov was silent. I looked at him, then at Olga.... I can never
+forget the expression of her face. The old lady had laid the stocking
+down on her knees, and taken a handkerchief out of her reticule; she
+was stealthily wiping away her tears. Fyodor Miheitch suddenly got up,
+seized his fiddle, and in a wild and hoarse voice began to sing a song.
+He wanted doubtless to restore our spirits; but we all shuddered at his
+first note, and Radilov asked him to be quiet.
+
+'Still what is past, is past,' he continued; 'we cannot recall the
+past, and in the end ... all is for the best in this world below, as I
+think Voltaire said,' he added hurriedly.
+
+'Yes,' I replied, 'of course. Besides, every trouble can be endured,
+and there is no position so terrible that there is no escape from it.'
+
+'Do you think so?' said Radilov. 'Well, perhaps you are right. I
+recollect I lay once in the hospital in Turkey half dead; I had typhus
+fever. Well, our quarters were nothing to boast of--of course, in time
+of war--and we had to thank God for what we had! Suddenly they bring in
+more sick--where are they to put them? The doctor goes here and
+there--there is no room left. So he comes up to me and asks the
+attendant, "Is he alive?" He answers, "He was alive this morning." The
+doctor bends down, listens; I am breathing. The good man could not help
+saying, "Well, what an absurd constitution; the man's dying; he's
+certain to die, and he keeps hanging on, lingering, taking up space for
+nothing, and keeping out others." Well, I thought to myself, "So you
+are in a bad way, Mihal Mihalitch...." And, after all, I got well, and
+am alive till now, as you may see for yourself. You are right, to be
+sure.'
+
+'In any case I am right,' I replied; 'even if you had died, you would
+just the same have escaped from your horrible position.'
+
+'Of course, of course,' he added, with a violent blow of his fist on
+the table. 'One has only to come to a decision.... What is the use of
+being in a horrible position?... What is the good of delaying,
+lingering.'
+
+Olga rose quickly and went out into the garden.
+
+'Well, Fedya, a dance!' cried Radilov.
+
+Fedya jumped up and walked about the room with that artificial and
+peculiar motion which is affected by the man who plays the part of a
+goat with a tame bear. He sang meanwhile, 'While at our Gates....'
+
+The rattle of a racing droshky sounded in the drive, and in a few
+minutes a tall, broad-shouldered and stoutly made man, the peasant
+proprietor, Ovsyanikov, came into the room.
+
+But Ovsyanikov is such a remarkable and original personage that, with
+the reader's permission, we will put off speaking about him till the
+next sketch. And now I will only add for myself that the next day I
+started off hunting at earliest dawn with Yermolai, and returned home
+after the day's sport was over ... that a week later I went again to
+Radilov's, but did not find him or Olga at home, and within a fortnight
+I learned that he had suddenly disappeared, left his mother, and gone
+away somewhere with his sister-in-law. The whole province was excited,
+and talked about this event, and I only then completely understood the
+expression of Olga's face while Radilov was telling us his story. It
+was breathing, not with sympathetic suffering only: it was burning with
+jealousy.
+
+Before leaving the country I called on old Madame Radilov. I found her
+in the drawing-room; she was playing cards with Fyodor Miheitch.
+
+'Have you news of your son?' I asked her at last.
+
+The old lady began to weep. I made no more inquiries about Radilov.
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+                    THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
+
+
+Picture to yourselves, gentle readers, a stout, tall man of seventy,
+with a face reminding one somewhat of the face of Kriloff, clear and
+intelligent eyes under overhanging brows, dignified in bearing, slow in
+speech, and deliberate in movement: there you have Ovsyanikov. He wore
+an ample blue overcoat with long sleeves, buttoned all the way up, a
+lilac silk-handkerchief round his neck, brightly polished boots with
+tassels, and altogether resembled in appearance a well-to-do merchant.
+His hands were handsome, soft, and white; he often fumbled with the
+buttons of his coat as he talked. With his dignity and his composure,
+his good sense and his indolence, his uprightness and his obstinacy,
+Ovsyanikov reminded me of the Russian boyars of the times before Peter
+the Great.... The national holiday dress would have suited him well. He
+was one of the last men left of the old time. All his neighbours had a
+great respect for him, and considered it an honour to be acquainted
+with him. His fellow peasant-proprietors almost worshipped him, and
+took off their hats to him from a distance: they were proud of him.
+Generally speaking, in these days, it is difficult to tell a
+peasant-proprietor from a peasant; his husbandry is almost worse than
+the peasant's; his calves are wretchedly small; his horses are only
+half alive; his harness is made of rope. Ovsyanikov was an exception to
+the general rule, though he did not pass for a wealthy man. He lived
+alone with his wife in a clean and comfortable little house, kept a few
+servants, whom he dressed in the Russian style and called his
+'workmen.' They were employed also in ploughing his land. He did not
+attempt to pass for a nobleman, did not affect to be a landowner;
+never, as they say, forgot himself; he did not take a seat at the first
+invitation to do so, and he never failed to rise from his seat on the
+entrance of a new guest, but with such dignity, with such stately
+courtesy, that the guest involuntarily made him a more deferential bow.
+Ovsyanikov adhered to the antique usages, not from superstition (he was
+naturally rather independent in mind), but from habit. He did not, for
+instance, like carriages with springs, because he did not find them
+comfortable, and preferred to drive in a racing droshky, or in a pretty
+little trap with leather cushions, and he always drove his good bay
+himself (he kept none but bay horses). His coachman, a young,
+rosy-cheeked fellow, his hair cut round like a basin, in a dark blue
+coat with a strap round the waist, sat respectfully beside him.
+Ovsyanikov always had a nap after dinner and visited the bath-house on
+Saturdays; he read none but religious books and used gravely to fix his
+round silver spectacles on his nose when he did so; he got up, and went
+to bed early. He shaved his beard, however, and wore his hair in the
+German style. He always received visitors cordially and affably, but he
+did not bow down to the ground, nor fuss over them and press them to
+partake of every kind of dried and salted delicacy. 'Wife!' he would
+say deliberately, not getting up from his seat, but only turning his
+head a little in her direction, 'bring the gentleman a little of
+something to eat.' He regarded it as a sin to sell wheat: it was the
+gift of God. In the year '40, at the time of the general famine and
+terrible scarcity, he shared all his store with the surrounding
+landowners and peasants; the following year they gratefully repaid
+their debt to him in kind. The neighbours often had recourse to
+Ovsyanikov as arbitrator and mediator between them, and they almost
+always acquiesced in his decision, and listened to his advice. Thanks
+to his intervention, many had conclusively settled their boundaries....
+But after two or three tussles with lady-landowners, he announced that
+he declined all mediation between persons of the feminine gender. He
+could not bear the flurry and excitement, the chatter of women and the
+'fuss.' Once his house had somehow got on fire. A workman ran to him in
+headlong haste shrieking, 'Fire, fire!' 'Well, what are you screaming
+about?' said Ovsyanikov tranquilly, 'give me my cap and my stick.' He
+liked to break in his horses himself. Once a spirited horse he was
+training bolted with him down a hillside and over a precipice. 'Come,
+there, there, you young colt, you'll kill yourself!' said Ovsyanikov
+soothingly to him, and an instant later he flew over the precipice
+together with the racing droshky, the boy who was sitting behind, and
+the horse. Fortunately, the bottom of the ravine was covered with heaps
+of sand. No one was injured; only the horse sprained a leg. 'Well, you
+see,' continued Ovsyanikov in a calm voice as he got up from the
+ground, 'I told you so.' He had found a wife to match him. Tatyana
+Ilyinitchna Ovsyanikov was a tall woman, dignified and taciturn, always
+dressed in a cinnamon-coloured silk dress. She had a cold air, though
+none complained of her severity, but, on the contrary, many poor
+creatures called her their little mother and benefactress. Her regular
+features, her large dark eyes, and her delicately cut lips, bore
+witness even now to her once celebrated beauty. Ovsyanikov had no
+children.
+
+I made his acquaintance, as the reader is already aware, at Radilov's,
+and two days later I went to see him. I found him at home. He was
+reading the lives of the Saints. A grey cat was purring on his
+shoulder. He received me, according to his habit, with stately
+cordiality. We fell into conversation.
+
+'But tell me the truth, Luka Petrovitch,' I said to him, among other
+things; 'weren't things better of old, in your time?'
+
+'In some ways, certainly, things were better, I should say,' replied
+Ovsyanikov; 'we lived more easily; there was a greater abundance of
+everything. ... All the same, things are better now, and they will be
+better still for your children, please God.'
+
+'I had expected you, Luka Petrovitch, to praise the old times.'
+
+'No, I have no special reason to praise old times. Here, for instance,
+though you are a landowner now, and just as much a landowner as your
+grandfather was, you have not the same power--and, indeed, you are not
+yourself the same kind of man. Even now, some noblemen oppress us; but,
+of course, it is impossible to help that altogether. Where there are
+mills grinding there will be flour. No; I don't see now what I have
+experienced myself in my youth.'
+
+'What, for instance?'
+
+'Well, for instance, I will tell you about your grandfather. He was an
+overbearing man; he oppressed us poorer folks. You know,
+perhaps--indeed, you surely know your own estates--that bit of land
+that runs from Tchepligin to Malinina--you have it under oats now....
+Well, you know, it is ours--it is all ours. Your grandfather took it
+away from us; he rode by on his horse, pointed to it with his hand, and
+said, "It's my property," and took possession of it. My father (God
+rest his soul!) was a just man; he was a hot-tempered man, too; he
+would not put up with it--indeed, who does like to lose his
+property?--and he laid a petition before the court. But he was alone:
+the others did not appear--they were afraid. So they reported to your
+grandfather that "Piotr Ovsyanikov is making a complaint against you
+that you were pleased to take away his land." Your grandfather at once
+sent his huntsman Baush with a detachment of men.... Well, they seized
+my father, and carried him to your estate. I was a little boy at that
+time; I ran after him barefoot. What happened? They brought him to your
+house, and flogged him right under your windows. And your grandfather
+stands on the balcony and looks on; and your grandmother sits at the
+window and looks on too. My father cries out, "Gracious lady, Marya
+Vasilyevna, intercede for me! have mercy on me!" But her only answer
+was to keep getting up to have a look at him. So they exacted a promise
+from my father to give up the land, and bade him be thankful they let
+him go alive. So it has remained with you. Go and ask your
+peasants--what do they call the land, indeed? It's called "The
+Cudgelled Land," because it was gained by the cudgel. So you see from
+that, we poor folks can't bewail the old order very much.'
+
+I did not know what answer to make Ovsyanikov, and I had not the
+courage to look him in the face.
+
+'We had another neighbour who settled amongst us in those days, Komov,
+Stepan Niktopolionitch. He used to worry my father out of his life;
+when it wasn't one thing, it was another. He was a drunken fellow, and
+fond of treating others; and when he was drunk he would say in French,
+"_Say bon_," and "Take away the holy images!" He would go to all the
+neighbours to ask them to come to him. His horses stood always in
+readiness, and if you wouldn't go he would come after you himself at
+once!... And he was such a strange fellow! In his sober times he was
+not a liar; but when he was drunk he would begin to relate how he had
+three houses in Petersburg--one red, with one chimney; another yellow,
+with two chimneys; and a third blue, with no chimneys; and three sons
+(though he had never even been married), one in the infantry, another
+in the cavalry, and the third was his own master.... And he would say
+that in each house lived one of his sons; that admirals visited the
+eldest, and generals the second, and the third only Englishmen! Then he
+would get up and say, "To the health of my eldest son; he is the most
+dutiful!" and he would begin to weep. Woe to anyone who refused to
+drink the toast! "I will shoot him!" he would say; "and I won't let him
+be buried!" ... Then he would jump up and scream, "Dance, God's people,
+for your pleasure and my diversion!" Well, then, you must dance; if you
+had to die for it, you must dance. He thoroughly worried his serf-girls
+to death. Sometimes all night long till morning they would be singing
+in chorus, and the one who made the most noise would have a prize. If
+they began to be tired, he would lay his head down in his hands, and
+begins moaning: "Ah, poor forsaken orphan that I am! They abandon me,
+poor little dove!" And the stable-boys would wake the girls up at once.
+He took a liking to my father; what was he to do? He almost drove my
+father into his grave, and would actually have driven him into it, but
+(thank Heaven!) he died himself; in one of his drunken fits he fell off
+the pigeon-house. ... There, that's what our sweet little neighbours
+were like!'
+
+'How the times have changed!' I observed.
+
+'Yes, yes,' Ovsyanikov assented. 'And there is this to be said--in the
+old days the nobility lived more sumptuously. I'm not speaking of the
+real grandees now. I used to see them in Moscow. They say such people
+are scarce nowadays.'
+
+'Have you been in Moscow?'
+
+'I used to stay there long, very long ago. I am now in my seventy-third
+year; and I went to Moscow when I was sixteen.'
+
+Ovsyanikov sighed.
+
+'Whom did you see there?'
+
+'I saw a great many grandees--and every one saw them; they kept open
+house for the wonder and admiration of all! Only no one came up to
+Count Alexey Grigoryevitch Orlov-Tchesmensky. I often saw Alexey
+Grigoryevitch; my uncle was a steward in his service. The count was
+pleased to live in Shabolovka, near the Kaluga Gate. He was a grand
+gentleman! Such stateliness, such gracious condescension you can't
+imagine! and it's impossible to describe it. His figure alone was worth
+something, and his strength, and the look in his eyes! Till you knew
+him, you did not dare come near him--you were afraid, overawed indeed;
+but directly you came near him he was like sunshine warming you up and
+making you quite cheerful. He allowed every man access to him in
+person, and he was devoted to every kind of sport. He drove himself in
+races and out-stripped every one, and he would never get in front at
+the start, so as not to offend his adversary; he would not cut it
+short, but would pass him at the finish; and he was so pleasant--he
+would soothe his adversary, praising his horse. He kept tumbler-pigeons
+of a first-rate kind. He would come out into the court, sit down in an
+arm-chair, and order them to let loose the pigeons; and his men would
+stand all round on the roofs with guns to keep off the hawks. A large
+silver basin of water used to be placed at the count's feet, and he
+looked at the pigeons reflected in the water. Beggars and poor people
+were fed in hundreds at his expense; and what a lot of money he used to
+give away!... When he got angry, it was like a clap of thunder.
+Everyone was in a great fright, but there was nothing to weep over;
+look round a minute after, and he was all smiles again! When he gave a
+banquet he made all Moscow drunk!--and see what a clever man he was!
+you know he beat the Turk. He was fond of wrestling too; strong men
+used to come from Tula, from Harkoff, from Tamboff, and from everywhere
+to him. If he threw any one he would pay him a reward; but if any one
+threw him, he perfectly loaded him with presents, and kissed him on the
+lips.... And once, during my stay at Moscow, he arranged a hunting
+party such as had never been in Russia before; he sent invitations to
+all the sportsmen in the whole empire, and fixed a day for it, and gave
+them three months' notice. They brought with them dogs and grooms:
+well, it was an army of people--a regular army!
+
+'First they had a banquet in the usual way, and then they set off into
+the open country. The people flocked there in thousands! And what do
+you think?... Your father's dog outran them all.'
+
+'Wasn't that Milovidka?' I inquired.
+
+'Milovidka, Milovidka!... So the count began to ask him, "Give me your
+dog," says he; "take what you like for her." "No, count," he said, "I
+am not a tradesman; I don't sell anything for filthy lucre; for your
+sake I am ready to part with my wife even, but not with Milovidka.... I
+would give myself into bondage first." And Alexey Grigoryevitch praised
+him for it. "I like you for it," he said. Your grandfather took her
+back in the coach with him, and when Milovidka died, he buried her in
+the garden with music at the burial--yes, a funeral for a dog--and put
+a stone with an inscription on it over the dog.'
+
+'Then Alexey Grigoryevitch did not oppress anyone,' I observed.
+
+'Yes, it is always like that; those who can only just keep themselves
+afloat are the ones to drag others under.'
+
+'And what sort of a man was this Baush?' I asked after a short silence.
+
+'Why, how comes it you have heard about Milovidka, and not about Baush?
+He was your grandfather's chief huntsman and whipper-in. Your
+grandfather was as fond of him as of Milovidka. He was a desperate
+fellow, and whatever order your grandfather gave him, he would carry it
+out in a minute--he'd have run on to a sword at his bidding.... And
+when he hallooed ... it was something like a tally-ho in the forest.
+And then he would suddenly turn nasty, get off his horse, and lie down
+on the ground ... and directly the dogs ceased to hear his voice, it
+was all over! They would give up the hottest scent, and wouldn't go on
+for anything. Ay, ay, your grandfather did get angry! "Damn me, if I
+don't hang the scoundrel! I'll turn him inside out, the antichrist!
+I'll stuff his heels down his gullet, the cut-throat!" And it ended by
+his going up to find out what he wanted; why he wouldn't halloo to the
+hounds? Usually, on such occasions, Baush asked for some vodka, drank
+it up, got on his horse, and began to halloo as lustily as ever again.'
+
+'You seem to be fond of hunting too, Luka Petrovitch?'
+
+'I should have been--certainly, not now; now my time is over--but in my
+young days.... But you know it was not an easy matter in my position.
+It's not suitable for people like us to go trailing after noblemen.
+Certainly you may find in our class some drinking, good-for-nothing
+fellow who associates with the gentry--but it's a queer sort of
+enjoyment.... He only brings shame on himself. They mount him on a
+wretched stumbling nag, keep knocking his hat off on to the ground and
+cut at him with a whip, pretending to whip the horse, and he must laugh
+at everything, and be a laughing-stock for the others. No, I tell you,
+the lower your station, the more reserved must be your behaviour, or
+else you disgrace yourself directly.'
+
+'Yes,' continued Ovsyanikov with a sigh, 'there's many a gallon of
+water has flowed down to the sea since I have been living in the world;
+times are different now. Especially I see a great change in the
+nobility. The smaller landowners have all either become officials, or
+at any rate do not stop here; as for the larger owners, there's no
+making them out. I have had experience of them--the larger
+landowners--in cases of settling boundaries. And I must tell you; it
+does my heart good to see them: they are courteous and affable. Only
+this is what astonishes me; they have studied all the sciences, they
+speak so fluently that your heart is melted, but they don't understand
+the actual business in hand; they don't even perceive what's their own
+interest; some bailiff, a bondservant, drives them just where he
+pleases, as though they were in a yoke. There's Korolyov--Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch--for instance; you know him, perhaps--isn't he every
+inch a nobleman? He is handsome, rich, has studied at the 'versities,
+and travelled, I think, abroad; he speaks simply and easily, and shakes
+hands with us all. You know him?... Well, listen then. Last week we
+assembled at Beryozovka at the summons of the mediator, Nikifor Ilitch.
+And the mediator, Nikifor Ilitch, says to us: "Gentlemen, we must
+settle the boundaries; it's disgraceful; our district is behind all the
+others; we must get to work." Well, so we got to work. There followed
+discussions, disputes, as usual; our attorney began to make objections.
+But the first to make an uproar was Porfiry Ovtchinnikov.... And what
+had the fellow to make an uproar about?... He hasn't an acre of ground;
+he is acting as representative of his brother. He bawls: "No, you shall
+not impose on me! no, you shan't drive me to that! give the plans here!
+give me the surveyor's plans, the Judas's plans here!" "But what is
+your claim, then?" "Oh, you think I'm a fool! Indeed! do you suppose I
+am going to lay bare my claim to you offhand? No, let me have the plans
+here--that's what I want!" And he himself is banging his fist on the
+plans all the time. Then he mortally offended Marfa Dmitrievna. She
+shrieks out, "How dare you asperse my reputation?" "Your reputation,"
+says he; "I shouldn't like my chestnut mare to have your reputation."
+They poured him out some Madeira at last, and so quieted him; then
+others begin to make a row. Alexandr Vladimirovitch Korolyov, the dear
+fellow, sat in a corner sucking the knob of his cane, and only shook
+his head. I felt ashamed; I could hardly sit it out. "What must he be
+thinking of us?" I said to myself. When, behold! Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch has got up, and shows signs of wanting to speak. The
+mediator exerts himself, says, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch wishes to speak." And I must do them this credit; they
+were all silent at once. And so Alexandr Vladimirovitch began and said
+"that we seemed to have forgotten what we had come together for; that,
+indeed, the fixing of boundaries was indisputably advantageous for
+owners of land, but actually what was its object? To make things easier
+for the peasant, so that he could work and pay his dues more
+conveniently; that now the peasant hardly knows his own land, and often
+goes to work five miles away; and one can't expect too much of him."
+Then Alexandr Vladimirovitch said "that it was disgraceful in a
+landowner not to interest himself in the well-being of his peasants;
+that in the end, if you look at it rightly, their interests and our
+interests are inseparable; if they are well-off we are well-off, and if
+they do badly we do badly, and that, consequently, it was injudicious
+and wrong to disagree over trifles" ... and so on--and so on.... There,
+how he did speak! He seemed to go right to your heart.... All the
+gentry hung their heads; I myself, faith, it nearly brought me to
+tears. To tell the truth, you would not find sayings like that in the
+old books even.... But what was the end of it? He himself would not
+give up four acres of peat marsh, and wasn't willing to sell it. He
+said, "I am going to drain that marsh for my people, and set up a
+cloth-factory on it, with all the latest improvements. I have already,"
+he said, "fixed on that place; I have thought out my plans on the
+subject." And if only that had been the truth, it would be all very
+well; but the simple fact is, Alexandr Vladimirovitch's neighbour,
+Anton Karasikov, had refused to buy over Korolyov's bailiff for a
+hundred roubles. And so we separated without having done anything. But
+Alexandr Vladimirovitch considers to this day that he is right, and
+still talks of the cloth-factory; but he does not start draining the
+marsh.'
+
+'And how does he manage in his estate?'
+
+'He is always introducing new ways. The peasants don't speak well of
+him--but it's useless to listen to them. Alexandr Vladimirovitch is
+doing right.'
+
+'How's that, Luka Petrovitch? I thought you kept to the old ways.'
+
+'I--that's another thing. You see I am not a nobleman or a landowner.
+What sort of management is mine?... Besides, I don't know how to do
+things differently. I try to act according to justice and the law, and
+leave the rest in God's hands! Young gentlemen don't like the old
+method; I think they are right.... It's the time to take in ideas. Only
+this is the pity of it; the young are too theoretical. They treat the
+peasant like a doll; they turn him this way and that way; twist him
+about and throw him away. And their bailiff, a serf, or some overseer
+from the German natives, gets the peasant under his thumb again. Now,
+if any one of the young gentlemen would set us an example, would show
+us, "See, this is how you ought to manage!" ... What will be the end of
+it? Can it be that I shall die without seeing the new methods?... What
+is the proverb?--the old is dead, but the young is not born!'
+
+I did not know what reply to make to Ovsyanikov. He looked round, drew
+himself nearer to me, and went on in an undertone:
+
+'Have you heard talk of Vassily Nikolaitch Lubozvonov?'
+
+'No, I haven't.'
+
+'Explain to me, please, what sort of strange creature he is. I can't
+make anything of it. His peasants have described him, but I can't make
+any sense of their tales. He is a young man, you know; it's not long
+since he received his heritage from his mother. Well, he arrived at his
+estate. The peasants were all collected to stare at their master.
+Vassily Nikolaitch came out to them. The peasants looked at
+him--strange to relate! the master wore plush pantaloons like a
+coachman, and he had on boots with trimming at the top; he wore a red
+shirt and a coachman's long coat too; he had let his beard grow, and
+had such a strange hat and such a strange face--could he be drunk? No,
+he wasn't drunk, and yet he didn't seem quite right. "Good health to
+you, lads!" he says; "God keep you!" The peasants bow to the ground,
+but without speaking; they began to feel frightened, you know. And he
+too seemed timid. He began to make a speech to them: "I am a Russian,"
+he says, "and you are Russians; I like everything Russian.... Russia,"
+says he, "is my heart, and my blood too is Russian".... Then he
+suddenly gives the order: "Come, lads, sing a Russian national song!"
+The peasants' legs shook under them with fright; they were utterly
+stupefied. One bold spirit did begin to sing, but he sat down at once
+on the ground and hid himself behind the others.... And what is so
+surprising is this: we have had landowners like that, dare-devil
+gentlemen, regular rakes, of course: they dressed pretty much like
+coachmen, and danced themselves and played on the guitar, and sang and
+drank with their house-serfs and feasted with the peasants; but this
+Vassily Nikolaitch is like a girl; he is always reading books or
+writing, or else declaiming poetry aloud--he never addresses any one;
+he is shy, walks by himself in his garden; seems either bored or sad.
+The old bailiff at first was in a thorough scare; before Vassily
+Nikolaitch's arrival he was afraid to go near the peasants' houses; he
+bowed to all of them--one could see the cat knew whose butter he had
+eaten! And the peasants were full of hope; they thought, 'Fiddlesticks,
+my friend!--now they'll make you answer for it, my dear; they'll lead
+you a dance now, you robber!' ... But instead of this it has turned
+out--how shall I explain it to you?--God Almighty could not account for
+how things have turned out! Vassily Nikolaitch summoned him to his
+presence and says, blushing himself and breathing quick, you know: "Be
+upright in my service; don't oppress any one--do you hear?" And since
+that day he has never asked to see him in person again! He lives on his
+own property like a stranger. Well, the bailiff's been enjoying
+himself, and the peasants don't dare to go to Vassily Nikolaitch; they
+are afraid. And do you see what's a matter for wonder again; the master
+even bows to them and looks graciously at them; but he seems to turn
+their stomachs with fright! 'What do you say to such a strange state of
+things, your honour? Either I have grown stupid in my old age, or
+something.... I can't understand it.'
+
+I said to Ovsyanikov that Mr. Lubozvonov must certainly be ill.
+
+'Ill, indeed! He's as broad as he's long, and a face like this--God
+bless him!--and bearded, though he is so young.... Well, God knows!'
+And Ovsyanikov gave a deep sigh.
+
+'Come, putting the nobles aside,' I began, 'what have you to tell me
+about the peasant proprietors, Luka Petrovitch?'
+
+'No, you must let me off that,' he said hurriedly. 'Truly.... I could
+tell you ... but what's the use!' (with a wave of his hand). 'We had
+better have some tea.... We are common peasants and nothing more; but
+when we come to think of it, what else could we be?'
+
+He ceased talking. Tea was served. Tatyana Ilyinitchna rose from her
+place and sat down rather nearer to us. In the course of the evening
+she several times went noiselessly out and as quietly returned. Silence
+reigned in the room. Ovsyanikov drank cup after cup with gravity and
+deliberation.
+
+'Mitya has been to see us to-day,' said Tatyana Ilyinitchna in a low
+voice.
+
+Ovsyanikov frowned.
+
+'What does he want?'
+
+'He came to ask forgiveness.'
+
+Ovsyanikov shook his head.
+
+'Come, tell me,' he went on, turning to me, 'what is one to do with
+relations? And to abandon them altogether is impossible.... Here God
+has bestowed on me a nephew. He's a fellow with brains--a smart
+fellow--I don't dispute that; he has had a good education, but I don't
+expect much good to come of him. He went into a government office;
+threw up his position--didn't get on fast enough, if you please....
+Does he suppose he's a noble? And even noblemen don't come to be
+generals all at once. So now he is living without an occupation.... And
+that, even, would not be such a great matter--except that he has taken
+to litigation! He gets up petitions for the peasants, writes memorials;
+he instructs the village delegates, drags the surveyors over the coals,
+frequents drinking houses, is seen in taverns with city tradesmen and
+inn-keepers. He's bound to come to ruin before long. The constables and
+police-captains have threatened him more than once already. But he
+luckily knows how to turn it off--he makes them laugh; but they will
+boil his kettle for him some day.... But, there, isn't he sitting in
+your little room?' he added, turning to his wife; 'I know you, you see;
+you're so soft-hearted--you will always take his part.'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna dropped her eyes, smiled, and blushed.
+
+'Well, I see it is so,' continued Ovsyanikov. 'Fie! you spoil the boy!
+Well, tell him to come in.... So be it, then; for the sake of our good
+guest I will forgive the silly fellow.... Come, tell him, tell him.'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna went to the door, and cried 'Mitya!'
+
+Mitya, a young man of twenty-eight, tall, well-made, and curly-headed,
+came into the room, and seeing me, stopped short in the doorway. His
+costume was in the German style, but the unnatural size of the puffs on
+his shoulders was enough alone to prove convincingly that the tailor
+who had cut it was a Russian of the Russians.
+
+'Well, come in, come in,' began the old man; 'why are you bashful? You
+must thank your aunt--you're forgiven.... Here, your honour, I commend
+him to you,' he continued, pointing to Mitya; 'he's my own nephew, but
+I don't get on with him at all. The end of the world is coming!' (We
+bowed to one another.) 'Well, tell me what is this you have got mixed
+up in? What is the complaint they are making against you? Explain it to
+us.'
+
+Mitya obviously did not care to explain matters and justify himself
+before me.
+
+'Later on, uncle,' he muttered.
+
+'No, not later--now,' pursued the old man.... 'You are ashamed, I see,
+before this gentleman; all the better--it's only what you deserve.
+Speak, speak; we are listening.'
+
+'I have nothing to be ashamed of,' began Mitya spiritedly, with a toss
+of his head. 'Be so good as to judge for yourself, uncle. Some peasant
+proprietors of Reshetilovo came to me, and said, "Defend us, brother."
+"What is the matter?"' "This is it: our grain stores were in perfect
+order--in fact, they could not be better; all at once a government
+inspector came to us with orders to inspect the granaries. He inspected
+them, and said, 'Your granaries are in disorder--serious neglect; it's
+my duty to report it to the authorities.' 'But what does the neglect
+consist in?' 'That's my business,' he says.... We met together, and
+decided to tip the official in the usual way; but old Prohoritch
+prevented us. He said, 'No; that's only giving him a taste for more.
+Come; after all, haven't we the courts of justice?' We obeyed the old
+man, and the official got in a rage, and made a complaint, and wrote a
+report. So now we are called up to answer to his charges." "But are
+your granaries actually in order?" I asked. "God knows they are in
+order; and the legal quantity of corn is in them." "Well, then," say I,
+"you have nothing to fear"; and I drew up a document for them.... And
+it is not yet known in whose favour it is decided.... And as to the
+complaints they have made to you about me over that affair--it's very
+easy to understand that--every man's shirt is nearest to his own skin.
+
+'Everyone's, indeed--but not yours seemingly,' said the old man in an
+undertone. 'But what plots have you been hatching with the
+Shutolomovsky peasants?'
+
+'How do you know anything of it?'
+
+'Never mind; I do know of it.'
+
+'And there, too, I am right--judge for yourself again. A neighbouring
+landowner, Bezpandin, has ploughed over four acres of the Shutolomovsky
+peasants' land. "The land's mine," he says. The Shutolomovsky people
+are on the rent-system; their landowner has gone abroad--who is to
+stand up for them? Tell me yourself? But the land is theirs beyond
+dispute; they've been bound to it for ages and ages. So they came to
+me, and said, "Write us a petition." So I wrote one. And Bezpandin
+heard of it, and began to threaten me. "I'll break every bone in that
+Mitya's body, and knock his head off his shoulders...." We shall see
+how he will knock it off; it's still on, so far.'
+
+'Come, don't boast; it's in a bad way, your head,' said the old man.
+'You are a mad fellow altogether!'
+
+'Why, uncle, what did you tell me yourself?'
+
+'I know, I know what you will say,' Ovsyanikov interrupted him; 'of
+course a man ought to live uprightly, and he is bound to succour his
+neighbour. Sometimes one must not spare oneself.... But do you always
+behave in that way? Don't they take you to the tavern, eh? Don't they
+treat you; bow to you, eh? "Dmitri Alexyitch," they say, "help us, and
+we will prove our gratitude to you." And they slip a silver rouble or
+note into your hand. Eh? doesn't that happen? Tell me, doesn't that
+happen?'
+
+'I am certainly to blame in that,' answered Mitya, rather confused;
+'but I take nothing from the poor, and I don't act against my
+conscience.'
+
+'You don't take from them now; but when you are badly off yourself,
+then you will. You don't act against your conscience--fie on you! Of
+course, they are all saints whom you defend!... Have you forgotten
+Borka Perohodov? Who was it looked after him? Who took him under his
+protection--eh?'
+
+'Perohodov suffered through his own fault, certainly.'
+
+'He appropriated the public moneys.... That was all!'
+
+'But, consider, uncle: his poverty, his family.'
+
+'Poverty, poverty.... He's a drunkard, a quarrelsome fellow; that's
+what it is!'
+
+'He took to drink through trouble,' said Mitya, dropping his voice.
+
+'Through trouble, indeed! Well, you might have helped him, if your
+heart was so warm to him, but there was no need for you to sit in
+taverns with the drunken fellow yourself. Though he did speak so finely
+... a prodigy, to be sure!'
+
+'He was a very good fellow.'
+
+'Every one is good with you.... But did you send him?' ... pursued
+Ovsyanikov, turning to his wife; 'come; you know?'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna nodded.
+
+'Where have you been lately?' the old man began again.
+
+'I have been in the town.'
+
+'You have been doing nothing but playing billiards, I wager, and
+drinking tea, and running to and fro about the government offices,
+drawing up petitions in little back rooms, flaunting about with
+merchants' sons? That's it, of course?... Tell us!'
+
+'Perhaps that is about it,' said Mitya with a smile.... 'Ah! I had
+almost forgotten--Funtikov, Anton Parfenitch asks you to dine with him
+next Sunday.'
+
+'I shan't go to see that old tub. He gives you costly fish and puts
+rancid butter on it. God bless him!'
+
+'And I met Fedosya Mihalovna.'
+
+'What Fedosya is that?'
+
+'She belongs to Garpentchenko, the landowner, who bought Mikulino by
+auction. Fedosya is from Mikulino. She lived in Moscow as a
+dress-maker, paying her service in money, and she paid her
+service-money accurately--a hundred and eighty two-roubles and a half a
+year.... And she knows her business; she got good orders in Moscow. But
+now Garpentchenko has written for her back, and he retains her here,
+but does not provide any duties for her. She would be prepared to buy
+her freedom, and has spoken to the master, but he will not give any
+decisive answer. You, uncle, are acquainted with Garpentchenko ... so
+couldn't you just say a word to him?... And Fedosya would give a good
+price for her freedom.'
+
+'Not with your money I hope? Hey? Well, well, all right; I will speak
+to him, I will speak to him. But I don't know,' continued the old man
+with a troubled face; 'this Garpentchenko, God forgive him! is a shark;
+he buys up debts, lends money at interest, purchases estates at
+auctions.... And who brought him into our parts? Ugh, I can't bear
+these new-comers! One won't get an answer out of him very quickly....
+However, we shall see.'
+
+'Try to manage it, uncle.'
+
+'Very well, I will see to it. Only you take care; take care of
+yourself! There, there, don't defend yourself.... God bless you! God
+bless you!... Only take care for the future, or else, Mitya, upon my
+word, it will go ill with you.... Upon my word, you will come to
+grief.... I can't always screen you ... and I myself am not a man of
+influence. There, go now, and God be with you!'
+
+Mitya went away. Tatyana Ilyinitchna went out after him.
+
+'Give him some tea, you soft-hearted creature,' cried Ovsyanikov after
+her. 'He's not a stupid fellow,' he continued, 'and he's a good heart,
+but I feel afraid for him.... But pardon me for having so long kept you
+occupied with such details.'
+
+The door from the hall opened. A short grizzled little man came in, in
+a velvet coat.
+
+'Ah, Frantz Ivanitch!' cried Ovsyanikov, 'good day to you. Is God
+merciful to you?'
+
+Allow me, gentle reader, to introduce to you this gentleman.
+
+Frantz Ivanitch Lejeune, my neighbour, and a landowner of Orel, had
+arrived at the respectable position of a Russian nobleman in a not
+quite ordinary way. He was born in Orleans of French parents, and had
+gone with Napoleon, on the invasion of Russia, in the capacity of a
+drummer. At first all went smoothly, and our Frenchman arrived in
+Moscow with his head held high. But on the return journey poor Monsieur
+Lejeune, half-frozen and without his drum, fell into the hands of some
+peasants of Smolensk. The peasants shut him up for the night in an
+empty cloth factory, and the next morning brought him to an ice-hole
+near the dyke, and began to beg the drummer '_de la Grrrrande Armee_'
+to oblige them; in other words, to swim under the ice. Monsieur Lejeune
+could not agree to their proposition, and in his turn began to try to
+persuade the Smolensk peasants, in the dialect of France, to let him go
+to Orleans. 'There, messieurs,' he said, '_my mother is living, une
+tendre mere_' But the peasants, doubtless through their ignorance of
+the geographical position of Orleans, continued to offer him a journey
+under water along the course of the meandering river Gniloterka, and
+had already begun to encourage him with slight blows on the vertebrae
+of the neck and back, when suddenly, to the indescribable delight of
+Lejeune, the sound of bells was heard, and there came along the dyke a
+huge sledge with a striped rug over its excessively high dickey,
+harnessed with three roan horses. In the sledge sat a stout and
+red-faced landowner in a wolfskin pelisse.
+
+'What is it you are doing there?' he asked the peasants.
+
+'We are drowning a Frenchman, your honour.'
+
+'Ah!' replied the landowner indifferently, and he turned away.
+
+'Monsieur! Monsieur!' shrieked the poor fellow.
+
+'Ah, ah!' observed the wolfskin pelisse reproachfully, 'you came with
+twenty nations into Russia, burnt Moscow, tore down, you damned
+heathen! the cross from Ivan the Great, and now--mossoo, mossoo,
+indeed! now you turn tail! You are paying the penalty of your sins!...
+Go on, Filka!'
+
+The horses were starting.
+
+'Stop, though!' added the landowner. 'Eh? you mossoo, do you know
+anything of music?'
+
+'_Sauvez-moi, sauvez-moi, mon bon monsieur!_' repeated Lejeune.
+
+'There, see what a wretched people they are! Not one of them knows
+Russian! Muzeek, muzeek, savey muzeek voo? savey? Well, speak, do!
+Compreny? savey muzeek voo? on the piano, savey zhooey?'
+
+Lejeune comprehended at last what the landowner meant, and persistently
+nodded his head.
+
+'_Oui, monsieur, oui, oui, je suis musicien; je joue tous les
+instruments possibles! Oui, monsieur.... Sauvez-moi, monsieur!_'
+
+'Well, thank your lucky star!' replied the landowner. 'Lads, let him
+go: here's a twenty-copeck piece for vodka.'
+
+'Thank you, your honour, thank you. Take him, your honour.'
+
+They sat Lejeune in the sledge. He was gasping with delight, weeping,
+shivering, bowing, thanking the landowner, the coachman, the peasants.
+He had nothing on but a green jacket with pink ribbons, and it was
+freezing very hard. The landowner looked at his blue and benumbed
+shoulders in silence, wrapped the unlucky fellow in his own pelisse,
+and took him home. The household ran out. They soon thawed the
+Frenchman, fed him, and clothed him. The landowner conducted him to his
+daughters.
+
+'Here, children!' he said to them, 'a teacher is found for you. You
+were always entreating me to have you taught music and the French
+jargon; here you have a Frenchman, and he plays on the piano.... Come,
+mossoo,' he went on, pointing to a wretched little instrument he had
+bought five years before of a Jew, whose special line was eau de
+Cologne, 'give us an example of your art; zhooey!'
+
+Lejeune, with a sinking heart, sat down on the music-stool; he had
+never touched a piano in his life.
+
+'Zhooey, zhooey!' repeated the landowner.
+
+In desperation, the unhappy man beat on the keys as though on a drum,
+and played at hazard. 'I quite expected,' he used to tell afterwards,
+'that my deliverer would seize me by the collar, and throw me out of
+the house.' But, to the utmost amazement of the unwilling improvisor,
+the landowner, after waiting a little, patted him good-humouredly on
+the shoulder.
+
+'Good, good,' he said; 'I see your attainments; go now, and rest
+yourself.'
+
+Within a fortnight Lejeune had gone from this landowner's to stay with
+another, a rich and cultivated man. He gained his friendship by his
+bright and gentle disposition, was married to a ward of his, went into
+a government office, rose to the nobility, married his daughter to
+Lobizanyev, a landowner of Orel, and a retired dragoon and poet, and
+settled himself on an estate in Orel.
+
+It was this same Lejeune, or rather, as he is called now, Frantz
+Ivanitch, who, when I was there, came in to see Ovsyanikov, with whom
+he was on friendly terms....
+
+But perhaps the reader is already weary of sitting with me at the
+Ovsyanikovs', and so I will become eloquently silent.
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+                                  LGOV
+
+
+'Let us go to Lgov,' Yermolai, whom the reader knows already, said to
+me one day; 'there we can shoot ducks to our heart's content.'
+
+Although wild duck offers no special attraction for a genuine
+sportsman, still, through lack of other game at the time (it was the
+beginning of September; snipe were not on the wing yet, and I was tired
+of running across the fields after partridges), I listened to my
+huntsman's suggestion, and we went to Lgov.
+
+Lgov is a large village of the steppes, with a very old stone church
+with a single cupola, and two mills on the swampy little river Rossota.
+Five miles from Lgov, this river becomes a wide swampy pond, overgrown
+at the edges, and in places also in the centre, with thick reeds. Here,
+in the creeks or rather pools between the reeds, live and breed a
+countless multitude of ducks of all possible kinds--quackers,
+half-quackers, pintails, teals, divers, etc. Small flocks are for ever
+flitting about and swimming on the water, and at a gunshot, they rise
+in such clouds that the sportsman involuntarily clutches his hat with
+one hand and utters a prolonged Pshaw! I walked with Yermolai along
+beside the pond; but, in the first place, the duck is a wary bird, and
+is not to be met quite close to the bank; and secondly, even when some
+straggling and inexperienced teal exposed itself to our shots and lost
+its life, our dogs were not able to get it out of the thick reeds; in
+spite of their most devoted efforts they could neither swim nor tread
+on the bottom, and only cut their precious noses on the sharp reeds for
+nothing.
+
+'No,' was Yermolai's comment at last, 'it won't do; we must get a
+boat.... Let us go back to Lgov.'
+
+We went back. We had only gone a few paces when a rather
+wretched-looking setter-dog ran out from behind a bushy willow to meet
+us, and behind him appeared a man of middle height, in a blue and
+much-worn greatcoat, a yellow waistcoat, and pantaloons of a
+nondescript grey colour, hastily tucked into high boots full of holes,
+with a red handkerchief round his neck, and a single-barrelled gun on
+his shoulder. While our dogs, with the ordinary Chinese ceremonies
+peculiar to their species, were sniffing at their new acquaintance, who
+was obviously ill at ease, held his tail between his legs, dropped his
+ears back, and kept turning round and round showing his teeth--the
+stranger approached us, and bowed with extreme civility. He appeared to
+be about twenty-five; his long dark hair, perfectly saturated with
+kvas, stood up in stiff tufts, his small brown eyes twinkled genially;
+his face was bound up in a black handkerchief, as though for toothache;
+his countenance was all smiles and amiability.
+
+'Allow me to introduce myself,' he began in a soft and insinuating
+voice; 'I am a sportsman of these parts--Vladimir.... Having heard of
+your presence, and having learnt that you proposed to visit the shores
+of our pond, I resolved, if it were not displeasing to you, to offer
+you my services.'
+
+The sportsman, Vladimir, uttered those words for all the world like a
+young provincial actor in the _role_ of leading lover. I agreed to his
+proposition, and before we had reached Lgov I had succeeded in learning
+his whole history. He was a freed house-serf; in his tender youth had
+been taught music, then served as valet, could read and write, had
+read--so much I could discover--some few trashy books, and existed now,
+as many do exist in Russia, without a farthing of ready money; without
+any regular occupation; fed by manna from heaven, or something hardly
+less precarious. He expressed himself with extraordinary elegance, and
+obviously plumed himself on his manners; he must have been devoted to
+the fair sex too, and in all probability popular with them: Russian
+girls love fine talking. Among other things, he gave me to understand
+that he sometimes visited the neighbouring landowners, and went to stay
+with friends in the town, where he played preference, and that he was
+acquainted with people in the metropolis. His smile was masterly and
+exceedingly varied; what specially suited him was a modest, contained
+smile which played on his lips as he listened to any other man's
+conversation. He was attentive to you; he agreed with you completely,
+but still he did not lose sight of his own dignity, and seemed to wish
+to give you to understand that he could, if occasion arose, express
+convictions of his own. Yermolai, not being very refined, and quite
+devoid of 'subtlety,' began to address him with coarse familiarity. The
+fine irony with which Vladimir used 'Sir' in his reply was worth seeing.
+
+'Why is your face tied up? 'I inquired; 'have you toothache?'
+
+'No,' he answered; 'it was a most disastrous consequence of
+carelessness. I had a friend, a good fellow, but not a bit of a
+sportsman, as sometimes occurs. Well, one day he said to me, "My dear
+friend, take me out shooting; I am curious to learn what this diversion
+consists in." I did not like, of course, to refuse a comrade; I got him
+a gun and took him out shooting. Well, we shot a little in the ordinary
+way; at last we thought we would rest I sat down under a tree; but he
+began instead to play with his gun, pointing it at me meantime. I asked
+him to leave off, but in his inexperience he did not attend to my
+words, the gun went off, and I lost half my chin, and the first finger
+of my right hand.'
+
+We reached Lgov. Vladimir and Yermolai had both decided that we could
+not shoot without a boat.
+
+'Sutchok (_i.e._ the twig) has a punt,' observed Vladimir, 'but I don't
+know where he has hidden it. We must go to him.'
+
+'To whom?' I asked.
+
+'The man lives here; Sutchok is his nickname.'
+
+Vladimir went with Yermolai to Sutchok's. I told them I would wait for
+them at the church. While I was looking at the tombstones in the
+churchyard, I stumbled upon a blackened, four-cornered urn with the
+following inscription, on one side in French: 'Ci-git Theophile-Henri,
+Vicomte de Blangy'; on the next; 'Under this stone is laid the body of
+a French subject, Count Blangy; born 1737, died 1799, in the 62nd year
+of his age': on the third, 'Peace to his ashes': and on the fourth:--
+
+   'Under this stone there lies from France an emigrant.
+     Of high descent was he, and also of talent.
+     A wife and kindred murdered he bewailed,
+     And left his land by tyrants cruel assailed;
+     The friendly shores of Russia he attained,
+     And hospitable shelter here he gained;
+     Children he taught; their parents' cares allayed:
+     Here, by God's will, in peace he has been laid.'
+
+
+The approach of Yermolai with Vladimir and the man with the strange
+nickname, Sutchok, broke in on my meditations.
+
+Barelegged, ragged and dishevelled, Sutchok looked like a discharged
+stray house-serf of sixty years old.
+
+'Have you a boat?' I asked him.
+
+'I have a boat,' he answered in a hoarse, cracked voice; 'but it's a
+very poor one.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Its boards are split apart, and the rivets have come off the cracks.'
+
+'That's no great disaster!' interposed Yermolai; 'we can stuff them up
+with tow.'
+
+'Of course you can,' Sutchok assented.
+
+'And who are you?'
+
+'I am the fisherman of the manor.'
+
+'How is it, when you're a fisherman, your boat is in such bad
+condition?'
+
+'There are no fish in our river.'
+
+'Fish don't like slimy marshes,' observed my huntsman, with the air of
+an authority.
+
+'Come,' I said to Yermolai, 'go and get some tow, and make the boat
+right for us as soon as you can.'
+
+Yermolai went off.
+
+'Well, in this way we may very likely go to the bottom,' I said to
+Vladimir. 'God is merciful,' he answered. 'Anyway, we must suppose that
+the pond is not deep.'
+
+'No, it is not deep,' observed Sutchok, who spoke in a strange,
+far-away voice, as though he were in a dream, 'and there's sedge and
+mud at the bottom, and it's all overgrown with sedge. But there are
+deep holes too.'
+
+'But if the sedge is so thick,' said Vladimir, 'it will be impossible
+to row.'
+
+'Who thinks of rowing in a punt? One has to punt it. I will go with
+you; my pole is there--or else one can use a wooden spade.'
+
+'With a spade it won't be easy; you won't touch the bottom perhaps in
+some places,' said Vladimir.
+
+'It's true; it won't be easy.'
+
+I sat down on a tomb-stone to wait for Yermolai. Vladimir moved a
+little to one side out of respect to me, and also sat down. Sutchok
+remained standing in the same place, his head bent and his hands
+clasped behind his back, according to the old habit of house-serfs.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I began, 'have you been the fisherman here long?'
+
+'It is seven years now,' he replied, rousing himself with a start.
+
+'And what was your occupation before?'
+
+'I was coachman before.'
+
+'Who dismissed you from being coachman?'
+
+'The new mistress.'
+
+'What mistress?'
+
+'Oh, that bought us. Your honour does not know her; Alyona Timofyevna;
+she is so fat ... not young.'
+
+'Why did she decide to make you a fisherman?'
+
+'God knows. She came to us from her estate in Tamboff, gave orders for
+all the household to come together, and came out to us. We first kissed
+her hand, and she said nothing; she was not angry.... Then she began to
+question us in order; "How are you employed? what duties have you?" She
+came to me in my turn; so she asked: "What have you been?" I say,
+"Coachman." "Coachman? Well, a fine coachman you are; only look at you!
+You're not fit for a coachman, but be my fisherman, and shave your
+beard. On the occasions of my visits provide fish for the table; do you
+hear?" ... So since then I have been enrolled as a fisherman. "And mind
+you keep my pond in order." But how is one to keep it in order?'
+
+'Whom did you belong to before?'
+
+'To Sergai Sergiitch Pehterev. We came to him by inheritance. But he
+did not own us long; only six years altogether. I was his coachman ...
+but not in town, he had others there--only in the country.'
+
+'And were you always a coachman from your youth up?'
+
+'Always a coachman? Oh, no! I became a coachman in Sergai Sergiitch's
+time, but before that I was a cook--but not town-cook; only a cook in
+the country.'
+
+'Whose cook were you, then?'
+
+'Oh, my former master's, Afanasy Nefeditch, Sergai Sergiitch's uncle.
+Lgov was bought by him, by Afanasy Nefeditch, but it came to Sergai
+Sergiitch by inheritance from him.'
+
+'Whom did he buy it from?'
+
+'From Tatyana Vassilyevna.'
+
+'What Tatyana Vassilyevna was that?'
+
+'Why, that died last year in Bolhov ... that is, at Karatchev, an old
+maid.... She had never married. Don't you know her? We came to her from
+her father, Vassily Semenitch. She owned us a goodish while ... twenty
+years.'
+
+'Then were you cook to her?'
+
+'At first, to be sure, I was cook, and then I was coffee-bearer.'
+
+'What were you?'
+
+'Coffee-bearer.'
+
+'What sort of duty is that?'
+
+'I don't know, your honour. I stood at the sideboard, and was called
+Anton instead of Kuzma. The mistress ordered that I should be called
+so.'
+
+'Your real name, then, is Kuzma?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And were you coffee-bearer all the time?'
+
+'No, not all the time; I was an actor too.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'Yes, I was.... I played in the theatre. Our mistress set up a theatre
+of her own.'
+
+'What kind of parts did you take?'
+
+'What did you please to say?'
+
+'What did you do in the theatre?'
+
+'Don't you know? Why, they take me and dress me up; and I walk about
+dressed up, or stand or sit down there as it happens, and they say,
+"See, this is what you must say," and I say it. Once I represented a
+blind man.... They laid little peas under each eyelid.... Yes, indeed.'
+
+'And what were you afterwards?'
+
+'Afterwards I became a cook again.'
+
+'Why did they degrade you to being a cook again?'
+
+'My brother ran away.'
+
+'Well, and what were you under the father of your first mistress?'
+
+'I had different duties; at first I found myself a page; I have been a
+postilion, a gardener, and a whipper-in.'
+
+'A whipper-in?... And did you ride out with the hounds?'
+
+'Yes, I rode with the hounds, and was nearly killed; I fell off my
+horse, and the horse was injured. Our old master was very severe; he
+ordered them to flog me, and to send me to learn a trade to Moscow, to
+a shoemaker.'
+
+'To learn a trade? But you weren't a child, I suppose, when you were a
+whipper-in?'
+
+'I was twenty and over then.'
+
+'But could you learn a trade at twenty?'
+
+'I suppose one could, some way, since the master ordered it. But he
+luckily died soon after, and they sent me back to the country.'
+
+'And when were you taught to cook?'
+
+Sutchok lifted his thin yellowish little old face and grinned.
+
+'Is that a thing to be taught?... Old women can cook.'
+
+'Well,' I commented, 'you have seen many things, Kuzma, in your time!
+What do you do now as a fisherman, seeing there are no fish?'
+
+'Oh, your honour, I don't complain. And, thank God, they made me a
+fisherman. Why another old man like me--Andrey Pupir--the mistress
+ordered to be put into the paper factory, as a ladler. "It's a sin,"
+she said, "to eat bread in idleness." And Pupir had even hoped for
+favour; his cousin's son was clerk in the mistress's counting-house: he
+had promised to send his name up to the mistress, to remember him: a
+fine way he remembered him!... And Pupir fell at his cousin's knees
+before my eyes.'
+
+'Have you a family? Have you married?'
+
+'No, your honour, I have never been married. Tatyana Vassilyevna--God
+rest her soul!--did not allow anyone to marry. "God forbid!" she said
+sometimes, "here am I living single: what indulgence! What are they
+thinking of!"'
+
+'What do you live on now? Do you get wages?'
+
+'Wages, your honour!... Victuals are given me, and thanks be to Thee,
+Lord! I am very contented. May God give our lady long life!'
+
+Yermolai returned.
+
+'The boat is repaired,' he announced churlishly. 'Go after your
+pole--you there!'
+
+Sutchok ran to get his pole. During the whole time of my conversation
+with the poor old man, the sportsman Vladimir had been staring at him
+with a contemptuous smile.
+
+'A stupid fellow,' was his comment, when the latter had gone off; 'an
+absolutely uneducated fellow; a peasant, nothing more. One cannot even
+call him a house-serf, and he was boasting all the time. How could he
+be an actor, be pleased to judge for yourself! You were pleased to
+trouble yourself for no good in talking to him.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later we were sitting in Sutchok's punt. The dogs
+we left in a hut in charge of my coachman. We were not very
+comfortable, but sportsmen are not a fastidious race. At the rear end,
+which was flattened and straight, stood Sutchok, punting; I sat with
+Vladimir on the planks laid across the boat, and Yermolai ensconced
+himself in front, in the very beak. In spite of the tow, the water soon
+made its appearance under our feet. Fortunately, the weather was calm
+and the pond seemed slumbering.
+
+We floated along rather slowly. The old man had difficulty in drawing
+his long pole out of the sticky mud; it came up all tangled in green
+threads of water-sedge; the flat round leaves of the water-lily also
+hindered the progress of our boat last we got up to the reeds, and then
+the fun began. Ducks flew up noisily from the pond, scared by our
+unexpected appearance in their domains, shots sounded at once after
+them; it was a pleasant sight to see these short-tailed game turning
+somersaults in the air, splashing heavily into the water. We could not,
+of course, get at all the ducks that were shot; those who were slightly
+wounded swam away; some which had been quite killed fell into such
+thick reeds that even Yermolai's little lynx eyes could not discover
+them, yet our boat was nevertheless filled to the brim with game for
+dinner.
+
+Vladimir, to Yermolai's great satisfaction, did not shoot at all well;
+he seemed surprised after each unsuccessful shot, looked at his gun and
+blew down it, seemed puzzled, and at last explained to us the reason
+why he had missed his aim. Yermolai, as always, shot triumphantly;
+I--rather badly, after my custom. Sutchok looked on at us with the eyes
+of a man who has been the servant of others from his youth up; now and
+then he cried out: 'There, there, there's another little duck'; and he
+constantly rubbed his back, not with his hands, but by a peculiar
+movement of the shoulder-blades. The weather kept magnificent; curly
+white clouds moved calmly high above our heads, and were reflected
+clearly in the water; the reeds were whispering around us; here and
+there the pond sparkled in the sunshine like steel. We were preparing
+to return to the village, when suddenly a rather unpleasant adventure
+befel us.
+
+For a long time we had been aware that the water was gradually filling
+our punt. Vladimir was entrusted with the task of baling it out by
+means of a ladle, which my thoughtful huntsman had stolen to be ready
+for any emergency from a peasant woman who was staring away in another
+direction. All went well so long as Vladimir did not neglect his duty.
+But just at the end the ducks, as if to take leave of us, rose in such
+flocks that we scarcely had time to load our guns. In the heat of the
+sport we did not pay attention to the state of our punt--when suddenly,
+Yermolai, in trying to reach a wounded duck, leaned his whole weight on
+the boat's-edge; at his over-eager movement our old tub veered on one
+side, began to fill, and majestically sank to the bottom, fortunately
+not in a deep place. We cried out, but it was too late; in an instant
+we were standing in the water up to our necks, surrounded by the
+floating bodies of the slaughtered ducks. I cannot help laughing now
+when I recollect the scared white faces of my companions (probably my
+own face was not particularly rosy at that moment), but I must confess
+at the time it did not enter my head to feel amused. Each of us kept
+his gun above his head, and Sutchok, no doubt from the habit of
+imitating his masters, lifted his pole above him. The first to break
+the silence was Yermolai.
+
+'Tfoo! curse it!' he muttered, spitting into the water; 'here's a go.
+It's all you, you old devil!' he added, turning wrathfully to Sutchok;
+'you've such a boat!'
+
+'It's my fault,' stammered the old man.
+
+'Yes; and you're a nice one,' continued my huntsman, turning his head
+in Vladimir's direction; 'what were you thinking of? Why weren't you
+baling out?--you, you?'
+
+But Vladimir was not equal to a reply; he was shaking like a leaf, his
+teeth were chattering, and his smile was utterly meaningless. What had
+become of his fine language, his feeling of fine distinctions, and of
+his own dignity!
+
+The cursed punt rocked feebly under our feet... At the instant of our
+ducking the water seemed terribly cold to us, but we soon got hardened
+to it, when the first shock had passed off. I looked round me; the
+reeds rose up in a circle ten paces from us; in the distance above
+their tops the bank could be seen. 'It looks bad,' I thought.
+
+'What are we to do?' I asked Yermolai.
+
+'Well, we'll take a look round; we can't spend the night here,' he
+answered. 'Here, you, take my gun,' he said to Vladimir.
+
+Vladimir obeyed submissively.
+
+'I will go and find the ford,' continued Yermolai, as though there must
+infallibly be a ford in every pond: he took the pole from Sutchok, and
+went off in the direction of the bank, warily sounding the depth as he
+walked.
+
+'Can you swim?' I asked him.
+
+'No, I can't,' his voice sounded from behind the reeds.
+
+'Then he'll be drowned,' remarked Sutchok indifferently. He had been
+terrified at first, not by the danger, but through fear of our anger,
+and now, completely reassured, he drew a long breath from time to time,
+and seemed not to be aware of any necessity for moving from his present
+position.
+
+'And he will perish without doing any good,' added Vladimir piteously.
+
+Yermolai did not return for more than an hour. That hour seemed an
+eternity to us. At first we kept calling to him very energetically;
+then his answering shouts grew less frequent; at last he was completely
+silent. The bells in the village began ringing for evening service.
+There was not much conversation between us; indeed, we tried not to
+look at one another. The ducks hovered over our heads; some seemed
+disposed to settle near us, but suddenly rose up into the air and flew
+away quacking. We began to grow numb. Sutchok shut his eyes as though
+he were disposing himself to sleep.
+
+At last, to our indescribable delight, Yermolai returned.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'I have been to the bank; I have found the ford.... Let us go.'
+
+We wanted to set off at once; but he first brought some string out of
+his pocket out of the water, tied the slaughtered ducks together by
+their legs, took both ends in his teeth, and moved slowly forward;
+Vladimir came behind him, and I behind Vladimir, and Sutchok brought up
+the rear. It was about two hundred paces to the bank. Yermolai walked
+boldly and without stopping (so well had he noted the track), only
+occasionally crying out: 'More to the left--there's a hole here to the
+right!' or 'Keep to the right--you'll sink in there to the left....'
+Sometimes the water was up to our necks, and twice poor Sutchok, who
+was shorter than all the rest of us, got a mouthful and spluttered.
+'Come, come, come!' Yermolai shouted roughly to him--and Sutchok,
+scrambling, hopping and skipping, managed to reach a shallower place,
+but even in his greatest extremity was never so bold as to clutch at
+the skirt of my coat. Worn out, muddy and wet, we at last reached the
+bank.
+
+Two hours later we were all sitting, as dry as circumstances would
+allow, in a large hay barn, preparing for supper. The coachman
+Yehudiil, an exceedingly deliberate man, heavy in gait, cautious and
+sleepy, stood at the entrance, zealously plying Sutchok with snuff (I
+have noticed that coachmen in Russia very quickly make friends);
+Sutchok was taking snuff with frenzied energy, in quantities to make
+him ill; he was spitting, sneezing, and apparently enjoying himself
+greatly. Vladimir had assumed an air of languor; he leaned his head on
+one side, and spoke little. Yermolai was cleaning our guns. The dogs
+were wagging their tails at a great rate in the expectation of
+porridge; the horses were stamping and neighing in the out-house....
+The sun had set; its last rays were broken up into broad tracts of
+purple; golden clouds were drawn out over the heavens into finer and
+ever finer threads, like a fleece washed and combed out. ... There was
+the sound of singing in the village.
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+                            BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
+
+
+It was a glorious July day, one of those days which only come after
+many days of fine weather. From earliest morning the sky is clear; the
+sunrise does not glow with fire; it is suffused with a soft roseate
+flush. The sun, not fiery, not red-hot as in time of stifling drought,
+not dull purple as before a storm, but with a bright and genial
+radiance, rises peacefully behind a long and narrow cloud, shines out
+freshly, and plunges again into its lilac mist. The delicate upper edge
+of the strip of cloud flashes in little gleaming snakes; their
+brilliance is like polished silver. But, lo! the dancing rays flash
+forth again, and in solemn joy, as though flying upward, rises the
+mighty orb. About mid-day there is wont to be, high up in the sky, a
+multitude of rounded clouds, golden-grey, with soft white edges. Like
+islands scattered over an overflowing river, that bathes them in its
+unbroken reaches of deep transparent blue, they scarcely stir; farther
+down the heavens they are in movement, packing closer; now there is no
+blue to be seen between them, but they are themselves almost as blue as
+the sky, filled full with light and heat. The colour of the horizon, a
+faint pale lilac, does not change all day, and is the same all round;
+nowhere is there storm gathering and darkening; only somewhere rays of
+bluish colour stretch down from the sky; it is a sprinkling of
+scarce-perceptible rain. In the evening these clouds disappear; the
+last of them, blackish and undefined as smoke, lie streaked with pink,
+facing the setting sun; in the place where it has gone down, as calmly
+as it rose, a crimson glow lingers long over the darkening earth, and,
+softly flashing like a candle carried carelessly, the evening star
+flickers in the sky. On such days all the colours are softened, bright
+but not glaring; everything is suffused with a kind of touching
+tenderness. On such days the heat is sometimes very great; often it is
+even 'steaming' on the slopes of the fields, but a wind dispels this
+growing sultriness, and whirling eddies of dust--sure sign of settled,
+fine weather--move along the roads and across the fields in high white
+columns. In the pure dry air there is a scent of wormwood, rye in
+blossom, and buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall there is no
+moisture in the air. It is for such weather that the farmer longs, for
+harvesting his wheat....
+
+On just such a day I was once out grouse-shooting in the Tchern
+district of the province of Tula. I started and shot a fair amount of
+game; my full game-bag cut my shoulder mercilessly; but already the
+evening glow had faded, and the cool shades of twilight were beginning
+to grow thicker, and to spread across the sky, which was still bright,
+though no longer lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, when I at
+last decided to turn back homewards. With swift steps I passed through
+the long 'square' of underwoods, clambered up a hill, and instead of
+the familiar plain I expected to see, with the oakwood on the right and
+the little white church in the distance, I saw before me a scene
+completely different, and quite new to me. A narrow valley lay at my
+feet, and directly facing me a dense wood of aspen-trees rose up like a
+thick wall. I stood still in perplexity, looked round me.... 'Aha!' I
+thought, 'I have somehow come wrong; I kept too much to the right,' and
+surprised at my own mistake, I rapidly descended the hill. I was at
+once plunged into a disagreeable clinging mist, exactly as though I had
+gone down into a cellar; the thick high grass at the bottom of the
+valley, all drenched with dew, was white like a smooth tablecloth; one
+felt afraid somehow to walk on it. I made haste to get on the other
+side, and walked along beside the aspenwood, bearing to the left. Bats
+were already hovering over its slumbering tree-tops, mysteriously
+flitting and quivering across the clear obscure of the sky; a young
+belated hawk flew in swift, straight course upwards, hastening to its
+nest. 'Here, directly I get to this corner,' I thought to myself, 'I
+shall find the road at once; but I have come a mile out of my way!'
+
+I did at last reach the end of the wood, but there was no road of any
+sort there; some kind of low bushes overgrown with long grass extended
+far and wide before me; behind them in the far, far distance could be
+discerned a tract of waste land. I stopped again. 'Well? Where am I?' I
+began ransacking my brain to recall how and where I had been walking
+during the day.... 'Ah! but these are the bushes at Parahin,' I cried
+at last; 'of course! then this must be Sindyev wood. But how did I get
+here? So far?... Strange! Now I must bear to the right again.'
+
+I went to the right through the bushes. Meantime the night had crept
+close and grown up like a storm-cloud; it seemed as though, with the
+mists of evening, darkness was rising up on all sides and flowing down
+from overhead. I had come upon some sort of little, untrodden,
+overgrown path; I walked along it, gazing intently before me. Soon all
+was blackness and silence around--only the quail's cry was heard from
+time to time. Some small night-bird, flitting noiselessly near the
+ground on its soft wings, almost flapped against me and skurried away
+in alarm. I came out on the further side of the bushes, and made my way
+along a field by the hedge. By now I could hardly make out distant
+objects; the field showed dimly white around; beyond it rose up a
+sullen darkness, which seemed moving up closer in huge masses every
+instant. My steps gave a muffled sound in the air, that grew colder and
+colder. The pale sky began again to grow blue--but it was the blue of
+night. The tiny stars glimmered and twinkled in it.
+
+What I had been taking for a wood turned out to be a dark round
+hillock. 'But where am I, then?' I repeated again aloud, standing still
+for the third time and looking inquiringly at my spot and tan English
+dog, Dianka by name, certainly the most intelligent of four-footed
+creatures. But the most intelligent of four-footed creatures only
+wagged her tail, blinked her weary eyes dejectedly, and gave me no
+sensible advice. I felt myself disgraced in her eyes and pushed
+desperately forward, as though I had suddenly guessed which way I ought
+to go; I scaled the hill, and found myself in a hollow of no great
+depth, ploughed round.
+
+A strange sensation came over me at once. This hollow had the form of
+an almost perfect cauldron, with sloping sides; at the bottom of it
+were some great white stones standing upright--it seemed as though they
+had crept there for some secret council--and it was so still and dark
+in it, so dreary and weird seemed the sky, overhanging it, that my
+heart sank. Some little animal was whining feebly and piteously among
+the stones. I made haste to get out again on to the hillock. Till then
+I had not quite given up all hope of finding the way home; but at this
+point I finally decided that I was utterly lost, and without any
+further attempt to make out the surrounding objects, which were almost
+completely plunged in darkness, I walked straight forward, by the aid
+of the stars, at random.... For about half-an-hour I walked on in this
+way, though I could hardly move one leg before the other. It seemed as
+if I had never been in such a deserted country in my life; nowhere was
+there the glimmer of a fire, nowhere a sound to be heard. One sloping
+hillside followed another; fields stretched endlessly upon fields;
+bushes seemed to spring up out of the earth under my very nose. I kept
+walking and was just making up my mind to lie down somewhere till
+morning, when suddenly I found myself on the edge of a horrible
+precipice.
+
+I quickly drew back my lifted foot, and through the almost opaque
+darkness I saw far below me a vast plain. A long river skirted it in a
+semi-circle, turned away from me; its course was marked by the steely
+reflection of the water still faintly glimmering here and there. The
+hill on which I found myself terminated abruptly in an almost
+overhanging precipice, whose gigantic profile stood out black against
+the dark-blue waste of sky, and directly below me, in the corner formed
+by this precipice and the plain near the river, which was there a dark,
+motionless mirror, under the lee of the hill, two fires side by side
+were smoking and throwing up red flames. People were stirring round
+them, shadows hovered, and sometimes the front of a little curly head
+was lighted up by the glow.
+
+I found out at last where I had got to. This plain was well known in
+our parts under the name of Byezhin Prairie.... But there was no
+possibility of returning home, especially at night; my legs were
+sinking under me from weariness. I decided to get down to the fires and
+to wait for the dawn in the company of these men, whom I took for
+drovers. I got down successfully, but I had hardly let go of the last
+branch I had grasped, when suddenly two large shaggy white dogs rushed
+angrily barking upon me. The sound of ringing boyish voices came from
+round the fires; two or three boys quickly got up from the ground. I
+called back in response to their shouts of inquiry. They ran up to me,
+and at once called off the dogs, who were specially struck by the
+appearance of my Dianka. I came down to them.
+
+I had been mistaken in taking the figures sitting round the fires for
+drovers. They were simply peasant boys from a neighbouring village, who
+were in charge of a drove of horses. In hot summer weather with us they
+drive the horses out at night to graze in the open country: the flies
+and gnats would give them no peace in the daytime; they drive out the
+drove towards evening, and drive them back in the early morning: it's a
+great treat for the peasant boys. Bare-headed, in old fur-capes, they
+bestride the most spirited nags, and scurry along with merry cries and
+hooting and ringing laughter, swinging their arms and legs, and leaping
+into the air. The fine dust is stirred up in yellow clouds and moves
+along the road; the tramp of hoofs in unison resounds afar; the horses
+race along, pricking up their ears; in front of all, with his tail in
+the air and thistles in his tangled mane, prances some shaggy chestnut,
+constantly shifting his paces as he goes.
+
+I told the boys I had lost my way, and sat down with them. They asked
+me where I came from, and then were silent for a little and turned
+away. Then we talked a little again. I lay down under a bush, whose
+shoots had been nibbled off, and began to look round. It was a
+marvellous picture; about the fire a red ring of light quivered and
+seemed to swoon away in the embrace of a background of darkness; the
+flame flaring up from time to time cast swift flashes of light beyond
+the boundary of this circle; a fine tongue of light licked the dry
+twigs and died away at once; long thin shadows, in their turn breaking
+in for an instant, danced right up to the very fires; darkness was
+struggling with light. Sometimes, when the fire burnt low and the
+circle of light shrank together, suddenly out of the encroaching
+darkness a horse's head was thrust in, bay, with striped markings or
+all white, stared with intent blank eyes upon us, nipped hastily the
+long grass, and drawing back again, vanished instantly. One could only
+hear it still munching and snorting. From the circle of light it was
+hard to make out what was going on in the darkness; everything close at
+hand seemed shut off by an almost black curtain; but farther away hills
+and forests were dimly visible in long blurs upon the horizon.
+
+The dark unclouded sky stood, inconceivably immense, triumphant, above
+us in all its mysterious majesty. One felt a sweet oppression at one's
+heart, breathing in that peculiar, overpowering, yet fresh
+fragrance--the fragrance of a summer night in Russia. Scarcely a sound
+was to be heard around.... Only at times, in the river near, the sudden
+splash of a big fish leaping, and the faint rustle of a reed on the
+bank, swaying lightly as the ripples reached it ... the fires alone
+kept up a subdued crackling.
+
+The boys sat round them: there too sat the two dogs, who had been so
+eager to devour me. They could not for long after reconcile themselves
+to my presence, and, drowsily blinking and staring into the fire, they
+growled now and then with an unwonted sense of their own dignity; first
+they growled, and then whined a little, as though deploring the
+impossibility of carrying out their desires. There were altogether five
+boys: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya. (From their talk I
+learnt their names, and I intend now to introduce them to the reader.)
+
+The first and eldest of all, Fedya, one would take to be about
+fourteen. He was a well-made boy, with good-looking, delicate, rather
+small features, curly fair hair, bright eyes, and a perpetual
+half-merry, half-careless smile. He belonged, by all appearances, to a
+well-to-do family, and had ridden out to the prairie, not through
+necessity, but for amusement. He wore a gay print shirt, with a yellow
+border; a short new overcoat slung round his neck was almost slipping
+off his narrow shoulders; a comb hung from his blue belt. His boots,
+coming a little way up the leg, were certainly his own--not his
+father's. The second boy, Pavlusha, had tangled black hair, grey eyes,
+broad cheek-bones, a pale face pitted with small-pox, a large but
+well-cut mouth; his head altogether was large--'a beer-barrel head,' as
+they say--and his figure was square and clumsy. He was not a
+good-looking boy--there's no denying it!--and yet I liked him; he
+looked very sensible and straightforward, and there was a vigorous ring
+in his voice. He had nothing to boast of in his attire; it consisted
+simply of a homespun shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third,
+Ilyusha, was rather uninteresting; it was a long face, with
+short-sighted eyes and a hook nose; it expressed a kind of dull,
+fretful uneasiness; his tightly-drawn lips seemed rigid; his contracted
+brow never relaxed; he seemed continually blinking from the firelight.
+His flaxen--almost white--hair hung out in thin wisps under his low
+felt hat, which he kept pulling down with both hands over his ears. He
+had on new bast-shoes and leggings; a thick string, wound three times
+round his figure, carefully held together his neat black smock. Neither
+he nor Pavlusha looked more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya,
+a boy of ten, aroused my curiosity by his thoughtful and sorrowful
+look. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed at the chin
+like a squirrel's; his lips were barely perceptible; but his great
+black eyes, that shone with liquid brilliance, produced a strange
+impression; they seemed trying to express something for which the
+tongue--his tongue, at least--had no words. He was undersized and
+weakly, and dressed rather poorly. The remaining boy, Vanya, I had not
+noticed at first; he was lying on the ground, peacefully curled up
+under a square rug, and only occasionally thrust his curly brown head
+out from under it: this boy was seven years old at the most.
+
+So I lay under the bush at one side and looked at the boys. A small pot
+was hanging over one of the fires; in it potatoes were cooking.
+Pavlusha was looking after them, and on his knees he was trying them by
+poking a splinter of wood into the boiling water. Fedya was lying
+leaning on his elbow, and smoothing out the skirts of his coat. Ilyusha
+was sitting beside Kostya, and still kept blinking constrainedly.
+Kostya's head drooped despondently, and he looked away into the
+distance. Vanya did not stir under his rug. I pretended to be asleep.
+Little by little, the boys began talking again.
+
+At first they gossiped of one thing and another, the work of to-morrow,
+the horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha, and, as though taking
+up again an interrupted conversation, asked him:
+
+'Come then, so you've seen the domovoy?'
+
+'No, I didn't see him, and no one ever can see him,' answered Ilyusha,
+in a weak hoarse voice, the sound of which was wonderfully in keeping
+with the expression of his face; 'I heard him.... Yes, and not I alone.'
+
+'Where does he live--in your place?' asked Pavlusha.
+
+'In the old paper-mill.'
+
+'Why, do you go to the factory?'
+
+'Of course we do. My brother Avdushka and I, we are paper-glazers.'
+
+'I say--factory-hands!'
+
+'Well, how did you hear it, then?' asked Fedya.
+
+'It was like this. It happened that I and my brother Avdushka, with
+Fyodor of Mihyevska, and Ivashka the Squint-eyed, and the other Ivashka
+who comes from the Red Hills, and Ivashka of Suhorukov too--and there
+were some other boys there as well--there were ten of us boys there
+altogether--the whole shift, that is--it happened that we spent the
+night at the paper-mill; that's to say, it didn't happen, but Nazarov,
+the overseer, kept us. 'Why,' said he, "should you waste time going
+home, boys; there's a lot of work to-morrow, so don't go home, boys."
+So we stopped, and were all lying down together, and Avdushka had just
+begun to say, "I say, boys, suppose the domovoy were to come?" And
+before he'd finished saying so, some one suddenly began walking over
+our heads; we were lying down below, and he began walking upstairs
+overhead, where the wheel is. We listened: he walked; the boards seemed
+to be bending under him, they creaked so; then he crossed over, above
+our heads; all of a sudden the water began to drip and drip over the
+wheel; the wheel rattled and rattled and again began to turn, though
+the sluices of the conduit above had been let down. We wondered who
+could have lifted them up so that the water could run; any way, the
+wheel turned and turned a little, and then stopped. Then he went to the
+door overhead and began coming down-stairs, and came down like this,
+not hurrying himself; the stairs seemed to groan under him too....
+Well, he came right down to our door, and waited and waited ... and all
+of a sudden the door simply flew open. We were in a fright; we
+looked--there was nothing.... Suddenly what if the net on one of the
+vats didn't begin moving; it got up, and went rising and ducking and
+moving in the air as though some one were stirring with it, and then it
+was in its place again. Then, at another vat, a hook came off its nail,
+and then was on its nail again; and then it seemed as if some one came
+to the door, and suddenly coughed and choked like a sheep, but so
+loudly!... We all fell down in a heap and huddled against one
+another.... Just weren't we in a fright that night!'
+
+'I say!' murmured Pavel, 'what did he cough for?'
+
+'I don't know; perhaps it was the damp.'
+
+All were silent for a little.
+
+'Well,' inquired Fedya, 'are the potatoes done?'
+
+Pavlusha tried them.
+
+'No, they are raw.... My, what a splash!' he added, turning his face in
+the direction of the river; 'that must be a pike.... And there's a star
+falling.'
+
+'I say, I can tell you something, brothers,' began Kostya, in a shrill
+little voice; 'listen what my dad told me the other day.'
+
+'Well, we are listening,' said Fedya with a patronising air.
+
+'You know Gavrila, I suppose, the carpenter up in the big village?'
+
+'Yes, we know him.'
+
+'And do you know why he is so sorrowful always, never speaks? do you
+know? I'll tell you why he's so sorrowful; he went one day, daddy said,
+he went, brothers, into the forest nutting. So he went nutting into the
+forest and lost his way; he went on--God only can tell where he got to.
+So he went on and on, brothers--but 'twas no good!--he could not find
+the way; and so night came on out of doors. So he sat down under a
+tree. "I'll wait till morning," thought he. He sat down and began to
+drop asleep. So as he was falling asleep, suddenly he heard some one
+call him. He looked up; there was no one. He fell asleep again; again
+he was called. He looked and looked again; and in front of him there
+sat a russalka on a branch, swinging herself and calling him to her,
+and simply dying with laughing; she laughed so.... And the moon was
+shining bright, so bright, the moon shone so clear--everything could be
+seen plain, brothers. So she called him, and she herself was as bright
+and as white sitting on the branch as some dace or a roach, or like
+some little carp so white and silvery.... Gavrila the carpenter almost
+fainted, brothers, but she laughed without stopping, and kept beckoning
+him to her like this. Then Gavrila was just getting up; he was just
+going to yield to the russalka, brothers, but--the Lord put it into his
+heart, doubtless--he crossed himself like this.... And it was so hard
+for him to make that cross, brothers; he said, "My hand was simply like
+a stone; it would not move." ... Ugh! the horrid witch.... So when he
+made the cross, brothers, the russalka, she left off laughing, and all
+at once how she did cry.... She cried, brothers, and wiped her eyes
+with her hair, and her hair was green as any hemp. So Gavrila looked
+and looked at her, and at last he fell to questioning her. "Why are you
+weeping, wild thing of the woods?" And the russalka began to speak to
+him like this: "If you had not crossed yourself, man," she says, "you
+should have lived with me in gladness of heart to the end of your days;
+and I weep, I am grieved at heart because you crossed yourself; but I
+will not grieve alone; you too shall grieve at heart to the end of your
+days." Then she vanished, brothers, and at once it was plain to Gavrila
+how to get out of the forest.... Only since then he goes always
+sorrowful, as you see.'
+
+'Ugh!' said Fedya after a brief silence; 'but how can such an evil
+thing of the woods ruin a Christian soul--he did not listen to her?'
+
+'And I say!' said Kostya. 'Gavrila said that her voice was as shrill
+and plaintive as a toad's.'
+
+'Did your father tell you that himself?' Fedya went on.
+
+'Yes. I was lying in the loft; I heard it all.'
+
+'It's a strange thing. Why should he be sorrowful?... But I suppose she
+liked him, since she called him.'
+
+'Ay, she liked him!' put in Ilyusha. 'Yes, indeed! she wanted to tickle
+him to death, that's what she wanted. That's what they do, those
+russalkas.'
+
+'There ought to be russalkas here too, I suppose,' observed Fedya.
+
+'No,' answered Kostya, 'this is a holy open place. There's one thing,
+though: the river's near.'
+
+All were silent. Suddenly from out of the distance came a prolonged,
+resonant, almost wailing sound, one of those inexplicable sounds of the
+night, which break upon a profound stillness, rise upon the air,
+linger, and slowly die away at last. You listen: it is as though there
+were nothing, yet it echoes still. It is as though some one had uttered
+a long, long cry upon the very horizon, as though some other had
+answered him with shrill harsh laughter in the forest, and a faint,
+hoarse hissing hovers over the river. The boys looked round about
+shivering....
+
+'Christ's aid be with us!' whispered Ilyusha.
+
+'Ah, you craven crows!' cried Pavel, 'what are you frightened of? Look,
+the potatoes are done.' (They all came up to the pot and began to eat
+the smoking potatoes; only Vanya did not stir.) 'Well, aren't you
+coming?' said Pavel.
+
+But he did not creep out from under his rug. The pot was soon
+completely emptied.
+
+'Have you heard, boys,' began Ilyusha, 'what happened with us at
+Varnavitsi?'
+
+'Near the dam?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Yes, yes, near the dam, the broken-down dam. That is a haunted place,
+such a haunted place, and so lonely. All round there are pits and
+quarries, and there are always snakes in pits.'
+
+'Well, what did happen? Tell us.'
+
+'Well, this is what happened. You don't know, perhaps, Fedya, but there
+a drowned man was buried; he was drowned long, long ago, when the water
+was still deep; only his grave can still be seen, though it can only
+just be seen ... like this--a little mound.... So one day the bailiff
+called the huntsman Yermil, and says to him, "Go to the post, Yermil."
+Yermil always goes to the post for us; he has let all his dogs die;
+they never will live with him, for some reason, and they have never
+lived with him, though he's a good huntsman, and everyone liked him. So
+Yermil went to the post, and he stayed a bit in the town, and when he
+rode back, he was a little tipsy. It was night, a fine night; the moon
+was shining.... So Yermil rode across the dam; his way lay there. So,
+as he rode along, he saw, on the drowned man's grave, a little lamb, so
+white and curly and pretty, running about. So Yermil thought, "I will
+take him," and he got down and took him in his arms. But the little
+lamb didn't take any notice. So Yermil goes back to his horse, and the
+horse stares at him, and snorts and shakes his head; however, he said
+"wo" to him and sat on him with the lamb, and rode on again; he held
+the lamb in front of him. He looks at him, and the lamb looks him
+straight in the face, like this. Yermil the huntsman felt upset. "I
+don't remember," he said, "that lambs ever look at any one like that";
+however, he began to stroke it like this on its wool, and to say,
+"Chucky! chucky!" And the lamb suddenly showed its teeth and said too,
+"Chucky! chucky!"'
+
+The boy who was telling the story had hardly uttered this last word,
+when suddenly both dogs got up at once, and, barking convulsively,
+rushed away from the fire and disappeared in the darkness. All the boys
+were alarmed. Vanya jumped up from under his rug. Pavlusha ran shouting
+after the dogs. Their barking quickly grew fainter in the distance....
+There was the noise of the uneasy tramp of the frightened drove of
+horses. Pavlusha shouted aloud: 'Hey Grey! Beetle!' ... In a few
+minutes the barking ceased; Pavel's voice sounded still in the
+distance.... A little time more passed; the boys kept looking about in
+perplexity, as though expecting something to happen.... Suddenly the
+tramp of a galloping horse was heard; it stopped short at the pile of
+wood, and, hanging on to the mane, Pavel sprang nimbly off it. Both the
+dogs also leaped into the circle of light and at once sat down, their
+red tongues hanging out.
+
+'What was it? what was it?' asked the boys.
+
+'Nothing,' answered Pavel, waving his hand to his horse; 'I suppose the
+dogs scented something. I thought it was a wolf,' he added, calmly
+drawing deep breaths into his chest.
+
+I could not help admiring Pavel. He was very fine at that moment. His
+ugly face, animated by his swift ride, glowed with hardihood and
+determination. Without even a switch in his hand, he had, without the
+slightest hesitation, rushed out into the night alone to face a
+wolf.... 'What a splendid fellow!' I thought, looking at him.
+
+'Have you seen any wolves, then?' asked the trembling Kostya.
+
+'There are always a good many of them here,' answered Pavel; 'but they
+are only troublesome in the winter.'
+
+He crouched down again before the fire. As he sat down on the ground,
+he laid his hand on the shaggy head of one of the dogs. For a long
+while the flattered brute did not turn his head, gazing sidewise with
+grateful pride at Pavlusha.
+
+Vanya lay down under his rug again.
+
+'What dreadful things you were telling us, Ilyusha!' began Fedya, whose
+part it was, as the son of a well-to-do peasant, to lead the
+conversation. (He spoke little himself, apparently afraid of lowering
+his dignity.) 'And then some evil spirit set the dogs barking....
+Certainly I have heard that place was haunted.'
+
+'Varnavitsi?... I should think it was haunted! More than once, they
+say, they have seen the old master there--the late master. He wears,
+they say, a long skirted coat, and keeps groaning like this, and
+looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimitch met
+him. "What," says he, "your honour, Ivan Ivanitch, are you pleased to
+look for on the ground?"'
+
+'He asked him?' put in Fedya in amazement.
+
+'Yes, he asked him.'
+
+'Well, I call Trofimitch a brave fellow after that.... Well, what did
+he say?'
+
+'"I am looking for the herb that cleaves all things," says he. But he
+speaks so thickly, so thickly. "And what, your honour, Ivan Ivanitch,
+do you want with the herb that cleaves all things?" "The tomb weighs on
+me; it weighs on me, Trofimitch: I want to get away--away."'
+
+'My word!' observed Fedya, 'he didn't enjoy his life enough, I suppose.'
+
+'What a marvel!' said Kosyta. 'I thought one could only see the
+departed on All Hallows' day.'
+
+'One can see the departed any time,' Ilyusha interposed with
+conviction. From what I could observe, I judged he knew the village
+superstitions better than the others.... 'But on All Hallows' day you
+can see the living too; those, that is, whose turn it is to die that
+year. You need only sit in the church porch, and keep looking at the
+road. They will come by you along the road; those, that is, who will
+die that year. Last year old Ulyana went to the porch.'
+
+'Well, did she see anyone?' asked Kostya inquisitively.
+
+'To be sure she did. At first she sat a long, long while, and saw no
+one and heard nothing ... only it seemed as if some dog kept whining
+and whining like this somewhere.... Suddenly she looks up: a boy comes
+along the road with only a shirt on. She looked at him. It was Ivashka
+Fedosyev.'
+
+'He who died in the spring?' put in Fedya.
+
+'Yes, he. He came along and never lifted up his head. But Ulyana knew
+him. And then she looks again: a woman came along. She stared and
+stared at her.... Ah, God Almighty! ... it was herself coming along the
+road; Ulyana herself.'
+
+'Could it be herself?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Yes, by God, herself.'
+
+'Well, but she is not dead yet, you know?' 'But the year is not over
+yet. And only look at her; her life hangs on a thread.'
+
+All were still again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on to the
+fire. They were soon charred by the suddenly leaping flame; they
+cracked and smoked, and began to contract, curling up their burning
+ends. Gleams of light in broken flashes glanced in all directions,
+especially upwards. Suddenly a white dove flew straight into the bright
+light, fluttered round and round in terror, bathed in the red glow, and
+disappeared with a whirr of its wings.
+
+'It's lost its home, I suppose,' remarked Pavel. 'Now it will fly till
+it gets somewhere, where it can rest till dawn.'
+
+'Why, Pavlusha,' said Kostya, 'might it not be a just soul flying to
+heaven?'
+
+Pavel threw another handful of twigs on to the fire.
+
+'Perhaps,' he said at last.
+
+'But tell us, please, Pavlusha,' began Fedya, 'what was seen in your
+parts at Shalamovy at the heavenly portent?'
+
+[Footnote: This is what the peasants call an eclipse.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'When the sun could not be seen? Yes, indeed.'
+
+'Were you frightened then?'
+
+'Yes; and we weren't the only ones. Our master, though he talked to us
+beforehand, and said there would be a heavenly portent, yet when it got
+dark, they say he himself was frightened out of his wits. And in the
+house-serfs' cottage the old woman, directly it grew dark, broke all
+the dishes in the oven with the poker. 'Who will eat now?' she said;
+'the last day has come.' So the soup was all running about the place.
+And in the village there were such tales about among us: that white
+wolves would run over the earth, and would eat men, that a bird of prey
+would pounce down on us, and that they would even see Trishka.'
+
+[Footnote: The popular belief in Trishka is probably derived from some
+tradition of Antichrist.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'What is Trishka?' asked Kostya.
+
+'Why, don't you know?' interrupted Ilyusha warmly. 'Why, brother, where
+have you been brought up, not to know Trishka? You're a stay-at-home,
+one-eyed lot in your village, really! Trishka will be a marvellous man,
+who will come one day, and he will be such a marvellous man that they
+will never be able to catch him, and never be able to do anything with
+him; he will be such a marvellous man. The people will try to take him;
+for example, they will come after him with sticks, they will surround
+him, but he will blind their eyes so that they fall upon one another.
+They will put him in prison, for example; he will ask for a little
+water to drink in a bowl; they will bring him the bowl, and he will
+plunge into it and vanish from their sight. They will put chains on
+him, but he will only clap his hands--they will fall off him. So this
+Trishka will go through villages and towns; and this Trishka will be a
+wily man; he will lead astray Christ's people ... and they will be able
+to do nothing to him.... He will be such a marvellous, wily man.'
+
+'Well, then,' continued Pavel, in his deliberate voice, 'that's what he
+'s like. And so they expected him in our parts. The old men declared
+that directly the heavenly portent began, Trishka would come. So the
+heavenly portent began. All the people were scattered over the street,
+in the fields, waiting to see what would happen. Our place, you know,
+is open country. They look; and suddenly down the mountain-side from
+the big village comes a man of some sort; such a strange man, with such
+a wonderful head ... that all scream: "Oy, Trishka is coming! Oy,
+Trishka is coming!" and all run in all directions! Our elder crawled
+into a ditch; his wife stumbled on the door-board and screamed with all
+her might; she terrified her yard-dog, so that he broke away from his
+chain and over the hedge and into the forest; and Kuzka's father,
+Dorofyitch, ran into the oats, lay down there, and began to cry like a
+quail. 'Perhaps' says he, 'the Enemy, the Destroyer of Souls, will
+spare the birds, at least.' So they were all in such a scare! But he
+that was coming was our cooper Vavila; he had bought himself a new
+pitcher, and had put the empty pitcher over his head.'
+
+All the boys laughed; and again there was a silence for a while, as
+often happens when people are talking in the open air. I looked out
+into the solemn, majestic stillness of the night; the dewy freshness of
+late evening had been succeeded by the dry heat of midnight; the
+darkness still had long to lie in a soft curtain over the slumbering
+fields; there was still a long while left before the first whisperings,
+the first dewdrops of dawn. There was no moon in the heavens; it rose
+late at that time. Countless golden stars, twinkling in rivalry, seemed
+all running softly towards the Milky Way, and truly, looking at them,
+you were almost conscious of the whirling, never--resting motion of the
+earth.... A strange, harsh, painful cry, sounded twice together over
+the river, and a few moments later, was repeated farther down....
+
+Kostya shuddered. 'What was that?'
+
+'That was a heron's cry,' replied Pavel tranquilly.
+
+'A heron,' repeated Kostya.... 'And what was it, Pavlusha, I heard
+yesterday evening,' he added, after a short pause; 'you perhaps will
+know.'
+
+'What did you hear?'
+
+'I will tell you what I heard. I was going from Stony Ridge to
+Shashkino; I went first through our walnut wood, and then passed by a
+little pool--you know where there's a sharp turn down to the
+ravine--there is a water-pit there, you know; it is quite overgrown
+with reeds; so I went near this pit, brothers, and suddenly from this
+came a sound of some one groaning, and piteously, so piteously; oo-oo,
+oo-oo! I was in such a fright, my brothers; it was late, and the voice
+was so miserable. I felt as if I should cry myself.... What could that
+have been, eh?'
+
+'It was in that pit the thieves drowned Akim the forester, last
+summer,' observed Pavel; 'so perhaps it was his soul lamenting.'
+
+'Oh, dear, really, brothers,' replied Kostya, opening wide his eyes,
+which were round enough before, 'I did not know they had drowned Akim
+in that pit. Shouldn't I have been frightened if I'd known!'
+
+'But they say there are little, tiny frogs,' continued Pavel, 'who cry
+piteously like that.'
+
+'Frogs? Oh, no, it was not frogs, certainly not. (A heron again uttered
+a cry above the river.) Ugh, there it is!' Kostya cried involuntarily;
+'it is just like a wood-spirit shrieking.'
+
+'The wood-spirit does not shriek; it is dumb,' put in Ilyusha; 'it only
+claps its hands and rattles.'
+
+'And have you seen it then, the wood-spirit?' Fedya asked him
+ironically.
+
+'No, I have not seen it, and God preserve me from seeing it; but others
+have seen it. Why, one day it misled a peasant in our parts, and led
+him through the woods and all in a circle in one field.... He scarcely
+got home till daylight.'
+
+'Well, and did he see it?'
+
+'Yes. He says it was a big, big creature, dark, wrapped up, just like a
+tree; you could not make it out well; it seemed to hide away from the
+moon, and kept staring and staring with its great eyes, and winking and
+winking with them....'
+
+'Ugh!' exclaimed Fedya with a slight shiver, and a shrug of the
+shoulders; 'pfoo.'
+
+'And how does such an unclean brood come to exist in the world?' said
+Pavel; 'it's a wonder.'
+
+'Don't speak ill of it; take care, it will hear you,' said Ilyusha.
+
+Again there was a silence.
+
+'Look, look, brothers,' suddenly came Vanya's childish voice; 'look at
+God's little stars; they are swarming like bees!'
+
+He put his fresh little face out from under his rug, leaned on his
+little fist, and slowly lifted up his large soft eyes. The eyes of all
+the boys were raised to the sky, and they were not lowered quickly.
+
+'Well, Vanya,' began Fedya caressingly, 'is your sister Anyutka well?'
+
+'Yes, she is very well,' replied Vanya with a slight lisp.
+
+'You ask her, why doesn't she come to see us?'
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+'You tell her to come.'
+
+'Very well.'
+
+'Tell her I have a present for her.'
+
+'And a present for me too?'
+
+'Yes, you too.'
+
+Vanya sighed.
+
+'No; I don't want one. Better give it to her; she is so kind to us at
+home.'
+
+And Vanya laid his head down again on the ground. Pavel got up and took
+the empty pot in his hand.
+
+'Where are you going?' Fedya asked him.
+
+'To the river, to get water; I want some water to drink.'
+
+The dogs got up and followed him.
+
+'Take care you don't fall into the river!' Ilyusha cried after him.
+
+'Why should he fall in?' said Fedya. 'He will be careful.'
+
+'Yes, he will be careful. But all kinds of things happen; he will stoop
+over, perhaps, to draw the water, and the water-spirit will clutch him
+by the hand, and drag him to him. Then they will say, "The boy fell
+into the water." ... Fell in, indeed! ... "There, he has crept in among
+the reeds," he added, listening.
+
+The reeds certainly 'shished,' as they call it among us, as they were
+parted.
+
+'But is it true,' asked Kostya, 'that crazy Akulina has been mad ever
+since she fell into the water?'
+
+'Yes, ever since.... How dreadful she is now! But they say she was a
+beauty before then. The water-spirit bewitched her. I suppose he did
+not expect they would get her out so soon. So down there at the bottom
+he bewitched her.'
+
+(I had met this Akulina more than once. Covered with rags, fearfully
+thin, with face as black as a coal, blear-eyed and for ever grinning,
+she would stay whole hours in one place in the road, stamping with her
+feet, pressing her fleshless hands to her breast, and slowly shifting
+from one leg to the other, like a wild beast in a cage. She understood
+nothing that was said to her, and only chuckled spasmodically from time
+to time.)
+
+'But they say,' continued Kostya, 'that Akulina threw herself into the
+river because her lover had deceived her.'
+
+'Yes, that was it.'
+
+'And do you remember Vasya? added Kostya, mournfully.
+
+'What Vasya?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Why, the one who was drowned,' replied Kostya,' in this very river.
+Ah, what a boy he was! What a boy he was! His mother, Feklista, how she
+loved him, her Vasya! And she seemed to have a foreboding, Feklista
+did, that harm would come to him from the water. Sometimes, when Vasya
+went with us boys in the summer to bathe in the river, she used to be
+trembling all over. The other women did not mind; they passed by with
+the pails, and went on, but Feklista put her pail down on the ground,
+and set to calling him, 'Come back, come back, my little joy; come
+back, my darling!' And no one knows how he was drowned. He was playing
+on the bank, and his mother was there haymaking; suddenly she hears, as
+though some one was blowing bubbles through the water, and behold!
+there was only Vasya's little cap to be seen swimming on the water. You
+know since then Feklista has not been right in her mind: she goes and
+lies down at the place where he was drowned; she lies down, brothers,
+and sings a song--you remember Vasya was always singing a song like
+that--so she sings it too, and weeps and weeps, and bitterly rails
+against God.'
+
+'Here is Pavlusha coming,' said Fedya.
+
+Pavel came up to the fire with a full pot in his hand.
+
+'Boys,' he began, after a short silence, 'something bad happened.'
+
+'Oh, what?' asked Kostya hurriedly.
+
+'I heard Vasya's voice.'
+
+They all seemed to shudder.
+
+'What do you mean? what do you mean?' stammered Kostya.
+
+'I don't know. Only I went to stoop down to the water; suddenly I hear
+my name called in Vasya's voice, as though it came from below water:
+"Pavlusha, Pavlusha, come here." I came away. But I fetched the water,
+though.'
+
+'Ah, God have mercy upon us!' said the boys, crossing themselves.
+
+'It was the water-spirit calling you, Pavel,' said Fedya; 'we were just
+talking of Vasya.'
+
+'Ah, it's a bad omen,' said Ilyusha, deliberately.
+
+'Well, never mind, don't bother about it,' Pavel declared stoutly, and
+he sat down again; 'no one can escape his fate.'
+
+The boys were still. It was clear that Pavel's words had produced a
+strong impression on them. They began to lie down before the fire as
+though preparing to go to sleep.
+
+'What is that?' asked Kostya, suddenly lifting his head.
+
+Pavel listened.
+
+'It's the curlews flying and whistling.'
+
+'Where are they flying to?'
+
+'To a land where, they say, there is no winter.'
+
+'But is there such a land?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Is it far away?'
+
+'Far, far away, beyond the warm seas.'
+
+Kostya sighed and shut his eyes.
+
+More than three hours had passed since I first came across the boys.
+The moon at last had risen; I did not notice it at first; it was such a
+tiny crescent. This moonless night was as solemn and hushed as it had
+been at first.... But already many stars, that not long before had been
+high up in the heavens, were setting over the earth's dark rim;
+everything around was perfectly still, as it is only still towards
+morning; all was sleeping the deep unbroken sleep that comes before
+daybreak. Already the fragrance in the air was fainter; once more a dew
+seemed falling.... How short are nights in summer!... The boys' talk
+died down when the fires did. The dogs even were dozing; the horses, so
+far as I could make out, in the hardly-perceptible, faintly shining
+light of the stars, were asleep with downcast heads.... I fell into a
+state of weary unconsciousness, which passed into sleep.
+
+A fresh breeze passed over my face. I opened my eyes; the morning was
+beginning. The dawn had not yet flushed the sky, but already it was
+growing light in the east. Everything had become visible, though dimly
+visible, around. The pale grey sky was growing light and cold and
+bluish; the stars twinkled with a dimmer light, or disappeared; the
+earth was wet, the leaves covered with dew, and from the distance came
+sounds of life and voices, and a light morning breeze went fluttering
+over the earth. My body responded to it with a faint shudder of
+delight. I got up quickly and went to the boys. They were all sleeping
+as though they were tired out round the smouldering fire; only Pavel
+half rose and gazed intently at me.
+
+I nodded to him, and walked homewards beside the misty river. Before I
+had walked two miles, already all around me, over the wide dew-drenched
+prairie, and in front from forest to forest, where the hills were
+growing green again, and behind, over the long dusty road and the
+sparkling bushes, flushed with the red glow, and the river faintly blue
+now under the lifting mist, flowed fresh streams of burning light,
+first pink, then red and golden.... All things began to stir, to
+awaken, to sing, to flutter, to speak. On all sides thick drops of dew
+sparkled in glittering diamonds; to welcome me, pure and clear as
+though bathed in the freshness of morning, came the notes of a bell,
+and suddenly there rushed by me, driven by the boys I had parted from,
+the drove of horses, refreshed and rested....
+
+Sad to say, I must add that in that year Pavel met his end. He was not
+drowned; he was killed by a fall from his horse. Pity! he was a
+splendid fellow!
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+                        KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
+
+
+I was returning from hunting in a jolting little trap, and overcome by
+the stifling heat of a cloudy summer day (it is well known that the
+heat is often more insupportable on such days than in bright days,
+especially when there is no wind), I dozed and was shaken about,
+resigning myself with sullen fortitude to being persecuted by the fine
+white dust which was incessantly raised from the beaten road by the
+warped and creaking wheels, when suddenly my attention was aroused by
+the extraordinary uneasiness and agitated movements of my coachman, who
+had till that instant been more soundly dozing than I. He began tugging
+at the reins, moved uneasily on the box, and started shouting to the
+horses, staring all the while in one direction. I looked round. We were
+driving through a wide ploughed plain; low hills, also ploughed over,
+ran in gently sloping, swelling waves over it; the eye took in some
+five miles of deserted country; in the distance the round-scolloped
+tree-tops of some small birch-copses were the only objects to break the
+almost straight line of the horizon. Narrow paths ran over the fields,
+disappeared into the hollows, and wound round the hillocks. On one of
+these paths, which happened to run into our road five hundred paces
+ahead of us, I made out a kind of procession. At this my coachman was
+looking.
+
+It was a funeral. In front, in a little cart harnessed with one horse,
+and advancing at a walking pace, came the priest; beside him sat the
+deacon driving; behind the cart four peasants, bareheaded, carried the
+coffin, covered with a white cloth; two women followed the coffin. The
+shrill wailing voice of one of them suddenly reached my ears; I
+listened; she was intoning a dirge. Very dismal sounded this chanted,
+monotonous, hopelessly-sorrowful lament among the empty fields. The
+coachman whipped up the horses; he wanted to get in front of this
+procession. To meet a corpse on the road is a bad omen. And he did
+succeed in galloping ahead beyond this path before the funeral had had
+time to turn out of it into the high-road; but we had hardly got a
+hundred paces beyond this point, when suddenly our trap jolted
+violently, heeled on one side, and all but overturned. The coachman
+pulled up the galloping horses, and spat with a gesture of his hand.
+
+'What is it?' I asked.
+
+My coachman got down without speaking or hurrying himself.
+
+'But what is it?'
+
+'The axle is broken ... it caught fire,' he replied gloomily, and he
+suddenly arranged the collar on the off-side horse with such
+indignation that it was almost pushed over, but it stood its ground,
+snorted, shook itself, and tranquilly began to scratch its foreleg
+below the knee with its teeth.
+
+I got out and stood for some time on the road, a prey to a vague and
+unpleasant feeling of helplessness. The right wheel was almost
+completely bent in under the trap, and it seemed to turn its
+centre-piece upwards in dumb despair.
+
+'What are we to do now?' I said at last.
+
+'That's what's the cause of it!' said my coachman, pointing with his
+whip to the funeral procession, which had just turned into the highroad
+and was approaching us. 'I have always noticed that,' he went on; 'it's
+a true saying--"Meet a corpse"--yes, indeed.'
+
+And again he began worrying the off-side horse, who, seeing his
+ill-humour, resolved to remain perfectly quiet, and contented itself
+with discreetly switching its tail now and then. I walked up and down a
+little while, and then stopped again before the wheel.
+
+Meanwhile the funeral had come up to us. Quietly turning off the road
+on to the grass, the mournful procession moved slowly past us. My
+coachman and I took off our caps, saluted the priest, and exchanged
+glances with the bearers. They moved with difficulty under their
+burden, their broad chests standing out under the strain. Of the two
+women who followed the coffin, one was very old and pale; her set face,
+terribly distorted as it was by grief, still kept an expression of
+grave and severe dignity. She walked in silence, from time to time
+lifting her wasted hand to her thin drawn lips. The other, a young
+woman of five-and-twenty, had her eyes red and moist and her whole face
+swollen with weeping; as she passed us she ceased wailing, and hid her
+face in her sleeve.... But when the funeral had got round us and turned
+again into the road, her piteous, heart-piercing lament began again. My
+coachman followed the measured swaying of the coffin with his eyes in
+silence. Then he turned to me.
+
+'It's Martin, the carpenter, they're burying,' he said; 'Martin of
+Ryaby.'
+
+'How do you know?'
+
+'I know by the women. The old one is his mother, and the young one's
+his wife.'
+
+'Has he been ill, then?'
+
+'Yes ... fever. The day before yesterday the overseer sent for the
+doctor, but they did not find the doctor at home. He was a good
+carpenter; he drank a bit, but he was a good carpenter. See how upset
+his good woman is.... But, there; women's tears don't cost much, we
+know. Women's tears are only water ... yes, indeed.'
+
+And he bent down, crept under the side-horse's trace, and seized the
+wooden yoke that passes over the horses' heads with both hands.
+
+'Any way,' I observed, 'what are we going to do?'
+
+My coachman just supported himself with his knees on the shaft-horse's
+shoulder, twice gave the back-strap a shake, and straightened the pad;
+then he crept out of the side-horse's trace again, and giving it a blow
+on the nose as he passed, went up to the wheel. He went up to it, and,
+never taking his eyes off it, slowly took out of the skirts of his coat
+a box, slowly pulled open its lid by a strap, slowly thrust into it his
+two fat fingers (which pretty well filled it up), rolled and rolled up
+some snuff, and creasing up his nose in anticipation, helped himself to
+it several times in succession, accompanying the snuff-taking every
+time by a prolonged sneezing. Then, his streaming eyes blinking
+faintly, he relapsed into profound meditation.
+
+'Well?' I said at last.
+
+My coachman thrust his box carefully into his pocket, brought his hat
+forward on to his brows without the aid of his hand by a movement of
+his head, and gloomily got up on the box.
+
+'What are you doing?' I asked him, somewhat bewildered.
+
+'Pray be seated,' he replied calmly, picking up the reins.
+
+'But how can we go on?'
+
+'We will go on now.'
+
+'But the axle.'
+
+'Pray be seated.'
+
+'But the axle is broken.'
+
+'It is broken; but we will get to the settlement ... at a walking pace,
+of course. Over here, beyond the copse, on the right, is a settlement;
+they call it Yudino.'
+
+'And do you think we can get there?'
+
+My coachman did not vouchsafe me a reply.
+
+'I had better walk,' I said.
+
+'As you like....' And he nourished his whip. The horses started.
+
+We did succeed in getting to the settlement, though the right front
+wheel was almost off, and turned in a very strange way. On one hillock
+it almost flew off, but my coachman shouted in a voice of exasperation,
+and we descended it in safety.
+
+Yudino settlement consisted of six little low-pitched huts, the walls
+of which had already begun to warp out of the perpendicular, though
+they had certainly not been long built; the back-yards of some of the
+huts were not even fenced in with a hedge. As we drove into this
+settlement we did not meet a single living soul; there were no hens
+even to be seen in the street, and no dogs, but one black crop-tailed
+cur, which at our approach leaped hurriedly out of a perfectly dry and
+empty trough, to which it must have been driven by thirst, and at once,
+without barking, rushed headlong under a gate. I went up to the first
+hut, opened the door into the outer room, and called for the master of
+the house. No one answered me. I called once more; the hungry mewing of
+a cat sounded behind the other door. I pushed it open with my foot; a
+thin cat ran up and down near me, her green eyes glittering in the
+dark. I put my head into the room and looked round; it was empty, dark,
+and smoky. I returned to the yard, and there was no one there
+either.... A calf lowed behind the paling; a lame grey goose waddled a
+little away. I passed on to the second hut. Not a soul in the second
+hut either. I went into the yard....
+
+In the very middle of the yard, in the glaring sunlight, there lay,
+with his face on the ground and a cloak thrown over his head, a boy, as
+it seemed to me. In a thatched shed a few paces from him a thin little
+nag with broken harness was standing near a wretched little cart. The
+sunshine falling in streaks through the narrow cracks in the
+dilapidated roof, striped his shaggy, reddish-brown coat in small bands
+of light. Above, in the high bird-house, starlings were chattering and
+looking down inquisitively from their airy home. I went up to the
+sleeping figure and began to awaken him.
+
+He lifted his head, saw me, and at once jumped up on to his feet....
+'What? what do you want? what is it?' he muttered, half asleep.
+
+I did not answer him at once; I was so much impressed by his appearance.
+
+Picture to yourself a little creature of fifty years old, with a little
+round wrinkled face, a sharp nose, little, scarcely visible, brown
+eyes, and thick curly black hair, which stood out on his tiny head like
+the cap on the top of a mushroom. His whole person was excessively thin
+and weakly, and it is absolutely impossible to translate into words the
+extraordinary strangeness of his expression.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked me again. I explained to him what was the
+matter; he listened, slowly blinking, without taking his eyes off me.
+
+'So cannot we get a new axle?' I said finally; 'I will gladly pay for
+it.'
+
+'But who are you? Hunters, eh?' he asked, scanning me from head to foot.
+
+'Hunters.'
+
+'You shoot the fowls of heaven, I suppose?... the wild things of the
+woods?... And is it not a sin to kill God's birds, to shed the innocent
+blood?'
+
+The strange old man spoke in a very drawling tone. The sound of his
+voice also astonished me. There was none of the weakness of age to be
+heard in it; it was marvellously sweet, young and almost feminine in
+its softness.
+
+'I have no axle,' he added after a brief silence. 'That thing will not
+suit you.' He pointed to his cart. 'You have, I expect, a large trap.'
+
+'But can I get one in the village?'
+
+'Not much of a village here!... No one has an axle here.... And there
+is no one at home either; they are all at work. You must go on,' he
+announced suddenly; and he lay down again on the ground.
+
+I had not at all expected this conclusion.
+
+'Listen, old man,' I said, touching him on the shoulder; 'do me a
+kindness, help me.'
+
+'Go on, in God's name! I am tired; I have driven into the town,' he
+said, and drew his cloak over his head.
+
+'But pray do me a kindness,' I said. 'I ... I will pay for it.' 'I
+don't want your money.'
+
+'But please, old man.'
+
+He half raised himself and sat up, crossing his little legs.
+
+'I could take you perhaps to the clearing. Some merchants have bought
+the forest here--God be their judge! They are cutting down the forest,
+and they have built a counting-house there--God be their judge! You
+might order an axle of them there, or buy one ready made.'
+
+'Splendid!' I cried delighted; 'splendid! let us go.'
+
+'An oak axle, a good one,' he continued, not getting up from his place.
+
+'And is it far to this clearing?'
+
+'Three miles.'
+
+'Come, then! we can drive there in your trap.'
+
+'Oh, no....'
+
+'Come, let us go,' I said; 'let us go, old man! The coachman is waiting
+for us in the road.'
+
+The old man rose unwillingly and followed me into the street. We found
+my coachman in an irritable frame of mind; he had tried to water his
+horses, but the water in the well, it appeared, was scanty in quantity
+and bad in taste, and water is the first consideration with
+coachmen.... However, he grinned at the sight of the old man, nodded
+his head and cried: 'Hallo! Kassyanushka! good health to you!'
+
+'Good health to you, Erofay, upright man!' replied Kassyan in a
+dejected voice.
+
+I at once made known his suggestion to the coachman; Erofay expressed
+his approval of it and drove into the yard. While he was busy
+deliberately unharnessing the horses, the old man stood leaning with
+his shoulders against the gate, and looking disconsolately first at him
+and then at me. He seemed in some uncertainty of mind; he was not very
+pleased, as it seemed to me, at our sudden visit.
+
+'So they have transported you too?' Erofay asked him suddenly, lifting
+the wooden arch of the harness.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Ugh!' said my coachman between his teeth. 'You know Martin the
+carpenter.... Of course, you know Martin of Ryaby?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, he is dead. We have just met his coffin.'
+
+Kassyan shuddered.
+
+'Dead?' he said, and his head sank dejectedly.
+
+'Yes, he is dead. Why didn't you cure him, eh? You know they say you
+cure folks; you're a doctor.'
+
+My coachman was apparently laughing and jeering at the old man.
+
+'And is this your trap, pray?' he added, with a shrug of his shoulders
+in its direction.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, a trap ... a fine trap!' he repeated, and taking it by the
+shafts almost turned it completely upside down. 'A trap!... But what
+will you drive in it to the clearing?... You can't harness our horses
+in these shafts; our horses are all too big.'
+
+'I don't know,' replied Kassyan, 'what you are going to drive; that
+beast perhaps,' he added with a sigh.
+
+'That?' broke in Erofay, and going up to Kassyan's nag, he tapped it
+disparagingly on the back with the third finger of his right hand.
+'See,' he added contemptuously, 'it's asleep, the scare-crow!'
+
+I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as he could. I wanted to drive
+myself with Kassyan to the clearing; grouse are fond of such places.
+When the little cart was quite ready, and I, together with my dog, had
+been installed in the warped wicker body of it, and Kassyan huddled up
+into a little ball, with still the same dejected expression on his
+face, had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up to me and whispered
+with an air of mystery:
+
+'You did well, your honour, to drive with him. He is such a queer
+fellow; he's cracked, you know, and his nickname is the Flea. I don't
+know how you managed to make him out....'
+
+I tried to say to Erofay that so far Kassyan had seemed to me a very
+sensible man; but my coachman continued at once in the same voice:
+
+'But you keep a look-out where he is driving you to. And, your honour,
+be pleased to choose the axle yourself; be pleased to choose a sound
+one.... Well, Flea,' he added aloud, 'could I get a bit of bread in
+your house?'
+
+'Look about; you may find some,' answered Kassyan. He pulled the reins
+and we rolled away.
+
+His little horse, to my genuine astonishment, did not go badly. Kassyan
+preserved an obstinate silence the whole way, and made abrupt and
+unwilling answers to my questions. We quickly reached the clearing, and
+then made our way to the counting-house, a lofty cottage, standing by
+itself over a small gully, which had been dammed up and converted into
+a pool. In this counting-house I found two young merchants' clerks,
+with snow-white teeth, sweet and soft eyes, sweet and subtle words, and
+sweet and wily smiles. I bought an axle of them and returned to the
+clearing. I thought that Kassyan would stay with the horse and await my
+return; but he suddenly came up to me.
+
+'Are you going to shoot birds, eh?' he said.
+
+'Yes, if I come across any.'
+
+'I will come with you.... Can I?'
+
+'Certainly, certainly.'
+
+So we went together. The land cleared was about a mile in length. I
+must confess I watched Kassyan more than my dogs. He had been aptly
+called 'Flea.' His little black uncovered head (though his hair,
+indeed, was as good a covering as any cap) seemed to flash hither and
+thither among the bushes. He walked extraordinarily swiftly, and seemed
+always hopping up and down as he moved; he was for ever stooping down
+to pick herbs of some kind, thrusting them into his bosom, muttering to
+himself, and constantly looking at me and my dog with such a strange
+searching gaze. Among low bushes and in clearings there are often
+little grey birds which constantly flit from tree to tree, and which
+whistle as they dart away. Kassyan mimicked them, answered their calls;
+a young quail flew from between his feet, chirruping, and he chirruped
+in imitation of him; a lark began to fly down above him, moving his
+wings and singing melodiously: Kassyan joined in his song. He did not
+speak to me at all....
+
+The weather was glorious, even more so than before; but the heat was no
+less. Over the clear sky the high thin clouds were hardly stirred,
+yellowish-white, like snow lying late in spring, flat and drawn out
+like rolled-up sails. Slowly but perceptibly their fringed edges, soft
+and fluffy as cotton-wool, changed at every moment; they were melting
+away, even these clouds, and no shadow fell from them. I strolled about
+the clearing for a long while with Kassyan. Young shoots, which had not
+yet had time to grow more than a yard high, surrounded the low
+blackened stumps with their smooth slender stems; and spongy funguses
+with grey edges--the same of which they make tinder--clung to these;
+strawberry plants flung their rosy tendrils over them; mushrooms
+squatted close in groups. The feet were constantly caught and entangled
+in the long grass, that was parched in the scorching sun; the eyes were
+dazzled on all sides by the glaring metallic glitter on the young
+reddish leaves of the trees; on all sides were the variegated blue
+clusters of vetch, the golden cups of bloodwort, and the half-lilac,
+half-yellow blossoms of the heart's-ease. In some places near the
+disused paths, on which the tracks of wheels were marked by streaks on
+the fine bright grass, rose piles of wood, blackened by wind and rain,
+laid in yard-lengths; there was a faint shadow cast from them in
+slanting oblongs; there was no other shade anywhere. A light breeze
+rose, then sank again; suddenly it would blow straight in the face and
+seem to be rising; everything would begin to rustle merrily, to nod, to
+shake around one; the supple tops of the ferns bow down gracefully, and
+one rejoices in it, but at once it dies away again, and all is at rest
+once more. Only the grasshoppers chirrup in chorus with frenzied
+energy, and wearisome is this unceasing, sharp dry sound. It is in
+keeping with the persistent heat of mid-day; it seems akin to it, as
+though evoked by it out of the glowing earth.
+
+Without having started one single covey we at last reached another
+clearing. There the aspen-trees had only lately been felled, and lay
+stretched mournfully on the ground, crushing the grass and small
+undergrowth below them: on some the leaves were still green, though
+they were already dead, and hung limply from the motionless branches;
+on others they were crumpled and dried up. Fresh golden-white chips lay
+in heaps round the stumps that were covered with bright drops; a
+peculiar, very pleasant, pungent odour rose from them. Farther away,
+nearer the wood, sounded the dull blows of the axe, and from time to
+time, bowing and spreading wide its arms, a bushy tree fell slowly and
+majestically to the ground.
+
+For a long time I did not come upon a single bird; at last a corncrake
+flew out of a thick clump of young oak across the wormwood springing up
+round it. I fired; it turned over in the air and fell. At the sound of
+the shot, Kassyan quickly covered his eyes with his hand, and he did
+not stir till I had reloaded the gun and picked up the bird. When I had
+moved farther on, he went up to the place where the wounded bird had
+fallen, bent down to the grass, on which some drops of blood were
+sprinkled, shook his head, and looked in dismay at me.... I heard him
+afterwards whispering: 'A sin!... Ah, yes, it's a sin!'
+
+The heat forced us at last to go into the wood. I flung myself down
+under a high nut-bush, over which a slender young maple gracefully
+stretched its light branches. Kassyan sat down on the thick trunk of a
+felled birch-tree. I looked at him. The leaves faintly stirred
+overhead, and their thin greenish shadows crept softly to and fro over
+his feeble body, muffled in a dark coat, and over his little face. He
+did not lift his head. Bored by his silence, I lay on my back and began
+to admire the tranquil play of the tangled foliage on the background of
+the bright, far away sky. A marvellously sweet occupation it is to lie
+on one's back in a wood and gaze upwards! You may fancy you are looking
+into a bottomless sea; that it stretches wide below you; that the trees
+are not rising out of the earth, but, like the roots of gigantic weeds,
+are dropping--falling straight down into those glassy, limpid depths;
+the leaves on the trees are at one moment transparent as emeralds, the
+next, they condense into golden, almost black green. Somewhere, afar
+off, at the end of a slender twig, a single leaf hangs motionless
+against the blue patch of transparent sky, and beside it another
+trembles with the motion of a fish on the line, as though moving of its
+own will, not shaken by the wind. Round white clouds float calmly
+across, and calmly pass away like submarine islands; and suddenly, all
+this ocean, this shining ether, these branches and leaves steeped in
+sunlight--all is rippling, quivering in fleeting brilliance, and a
+fresh trembling whisper awakens like the tiny, incessant plash of
+suddenly stirred eddies. One does not move--one looks, and no word can
+tell what peace, what joy, what sweetness reigns in the heart. One
+looks: the deep, pure blue stirs on one's lips a smile, innocent as
+itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, as it were, with them, happy
+memories pass in slow procession over the soul, and still one fancies
+one's gaze goes deeper and deeper, and draws one with it up into that
+peaceful, shining immensity, and that one cannot be brought back from
+that height, that depth....
+
+'Master, master!' cried Kassyan suddenly in his musical voice.
+
+I raised myself in surprise: up till then he had scarcely replied to my
+questions, and now he suddenly addressed me of himself.
+
+'What is it?' I asked.
+
+'What did you kill the bird for?' he began, looking me straight in the
+face.
+
+'What for? Corncrake is game; one can eat it.'
+
+'That was not what you killed it for, master, as though you were going
+to eat it! You killed it for amusement.'
+
+'Well, you yourself, I suppose, eat geese or chickens?'
+
+'Those birds are provided by God for man, but the corncrake is a wild
+bird of the woods: and not he alone; many they are, the wild things of
+the woods and the fields, and the wild things of the rivers and marshes
+and moors, flying on high or creeping below; and a sin it is to slay
+them: let them live their allotted life upon the earth. But for man
+another food has been provided; his food is other, and other his
+sustenance: bread, the good gift of God, and the water of heaven, and
+the tame beasts that have come down to us from our fathers of old.'
+
+I looked in astonishment at Kassyan. His words flowed freely; he did
+not hesitate for a word; he spoke with quiet inspiration and gentle
+dignity, sometimes closing his eyes.
+
+'So is it sinful, then, to kill fish, according to you?' I asked.
+
+'Fishes have cold blood,' he replied with conviction. 'The fish is a
+dumb creature; it knows neither fear nor rejoicing. The fish is a
+voiceless creature. The fish does not feel; the blood in it is not
+living.... Blood,' he continued, after a pause, 'blood is a holy thing!
+God's sun does not look upon blood; it is hidden away from the light
+... it is a great sin to bring blood into the light of day; a great sin
+and horror.... Ah, a great sin!'
+
+He sighed, and his head drooped forward. I looked, I confess, in
+absolute amazement at the strange old man. His language did not sound
+like the language of a peasant; the common people do not speak like
+that, nor those who aim at fine speaking. His speech was meditative,
+grave, and curious.... I had never heard anything like it.
+
+'Tell me, please, Kassyan,' I began, without taking my eyes off his
+slightly flushed face, 'what is your occupation?'
+
+He did not answer my question at once. His eyes strayed uneasily for an
+instant.
+
+'I live as the Lord commands,' he brought out at last; 'and as for
+occupation--no, I have no occupation. I've never been very clever from
+a child: I work when I can: I'm not much of a workman--how should I be?
+I have no health; my hands are awkward. In the spring I catch
+nightingales.'
+
+'You catch nightingales?... But didn't you tell me that we must not
+touch any of the wild things of the woods and the fields, and so on?'
+
+'We must not kill them, of a certainty; death will take its own without
+that. Look at Martin the carpenter; Martin lived, and his life was not
+long, but he died; his wife now grieves for her husband, for her little
+children.... Neither for man nor beast is there any charm against
+death. Death does not hasten, nor is there any escaping it; but we must
+not aid death.... And I do not kill nightingales--God forbid! I do not
+catch them to harm them, to spoil their lives, but for the pleasure of
+men, for their comfort and delight.'
+
+'Do you go to Kursk to catch them?'
+
+'Yes, I go to Kursk, and farther too, at times. I pass nights in the
+marshes, or at the edge of the forests; I am alone at night in the
+fields, in the thickets; there the curlews call and the hares squeak
+and the wild ducks lift up their voices.... I note them at evening; at
+morning I give ear to them; at daybreak I cast my net over the
+bushes.... There are nightingales that sing so pitifully sweet ... yea,
+pitifully.'
+
+'And do you sell them?'
+
+'I give them to good people.'
+
+'And what are you doing now?'
+
+'What am I doing?'
+
+'Yes, how are you employed?'
+
+The old man was silent for a little.
+
+'I am not employed at all.... I am a poor workman. But I can read and
+write.'
+
+'You can read?'
+
+'Yes, I can read and write. I learnt, by the help of God and good
+people.'
+
+'Have you a family?'
+
+'No, not a family.'
+
+'How so?... Are they dead, then?'
+
+'No, but ... I have never been lucky in life. But all that is in God's
+hands; we are all in God's hands; and a man should be righteous--that
+is all! Upright before God, that is it.'
+
+'And you have no kindred?'
+
+'Yes ... well....'
+
+The old man was confused.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I began: 'I heard my coachman ask you why you did
+not cure Martin? You cure disease?'
+
+'Your coachman is a righteous man,' Kassyan answered thoughtfully. 'I
+too am not without sin. They call me a doctor.... Me a doctor, indeed!
+And who can heal the sick? That is all a gift from God. But there are
+... yes, there are herbs, and there are flowers; they are of use, of a
+certainty. There is plantain, for instance, a herb good for man; there
+is bud-marigold too; it is not sinful to speak of them: they are holy
+herbs of God. Then there are others not so; and they may be of use, but
+it's a sin; and to speak of them is a sin. Still, with prayer, may
+be.... And doubtless there are such words.... But who has faith, shall
+be saved,' he added, dropping his voice.
+
+'You did not give Martin anything?' I asked.
+
+'I heard of it too late,' replied the old man. 'But what of it! Each
+man's destiny is written from his birth. The carpenter Martin was not
+to live; he was not to live upon the earth: that was what it was. No,
+when a man is not to live on the earth, him the sunshine does not warm
+like another, and him the bread does not nourish and make strong; it is
+as though something is drawing him away.... Yes: God rest his soul!'
+
+'Have you been settled long amongst us?' I asked him after a short
+pause.
+
+Kassyan started.
+
+'No, not long; four years. In the old master's time we always lived in
+our old houses, but the trustees transported us. Our old master was a
+kind heart, a man of peace--the Kingdom of Heaven be his! The trustees
+doubtless judged righteously.'
+
+'And where did you live before?'
+
+'At Fair Springs.'
+
+'Is it far from here?'
+
+'A hundred miles.'
+
+'Well, were you better off there?'
+
+'Yes ... yes, there there was open country, with rivers; it was our
+home: here we are cramped and parched up.... Here we are strangers.
+There at home, at Fair Springs, you could get up on to a hill--and ah,
+my God, what a sight you could see! Streams and plains and forests, and
+there was a church, and then came plains beyond. You could see far,
+very far. Yes, how far you could look--you could look and look, ah,
+yes! Here, doubtless, the soil is better; it is clay--good fat clay, as
+the peasants say; for me the corn grows well enough everywhere.'
+
+'Confess then, old man; you would like to visit your birth-place again?'
+
+'Yes, I should like to see it. Still, all places are good. I am a man
+without kin, without neighbours. And, after all, do you gain much,
+pray, by staying at home? But, behold! as you walk, and as you walk,'
+he went on, raising his voice, 'the heart grows lighter, of a truth.
+And the sun shines upon you, and you are in the sight of God, and the
+singing comes more tunefully. Here, you look--what herb is growing; you
+look on it--you pick it. Here water runs, perhaps--spring water, a
+source of pure holy water; so you drink of it--you look on it too. The
+birds of heaven sing.... And beyond Kursk come the steppes, that
+steppes-country: ah, what a marvel, what a delight for man! what
+freedom, what a blessing of God! And they go on, folks tell, even to
+the warm seas where dwells the sweet-voiced bird, the Hamayune, and
+from the trees the leaves fall not, neither in autumn nor in winter,
+and apples grow of gold, on silver branches, and every man lives in
+uprightness and content. And I would go even there.... Have I journeyed
+so little already! I have been to Romyon and to Simbirsk the fair city,
+and even to Moscow of the golden domes; I have been to Oka the good
+nurse, and to Tsna the dove, and to our mother Volga, and many folks,
+good Christians have I seen, and noble cities I have visited.... Well,
+I would go thither ... yes ... and more too ... and I am not the only
+one, I a poor sinner ... many other Christians go in bast-shoes,
+roaming over the world, seeking truth, yea!... For what is there at
+home? No righteousness in man--it's that.'
+
+These last words Kassyan uttered quickly, almost unintelligibly; then
+he said something more which I could not catch at all, and such a
+strange expression passed over his face that I involuntarily recalled
+the epithet 'cracked.' He looked down, cleared his throat, and seemed
+to come to himself again. 'What sunshine!' he murmured in a low voice.
+'It is a blessing, oh, Lord! What warmth in the woods!'
+
+He gave a movement of the shoulders and fell into silence. With a vague
+look round him he began softly to sing. I could not catch all the words
+of his slow chant; I heard the following:
+
+             'They call me Kassyan,
+               But my nickname's the Flea.'
+
+
+'Oh!' I thought, 'so he improvises.' Suddenly he started and ceased
+singing, looking intently at a thick part of the wood. I turned and saw
+a little peasant girl, about seven years old, in a blue frock, with a
+checked handkerchief over her head, and a woven bark-basket in her
+little bare sunburnt hand. She had certainly not expected to meet us;
+she had, as they say, 'stumbled upon' us, and she stood motionless in a
+shady recess among the thick foliage of the nut-trees, looking dismayed
+at me with her black eyes. I had scarcely time to catch a glimpse of
+her; she dived behind a tree.
+
+'Annushka! Annushka! come here, don't be afraid!' cried the old man
+caressingly.
+
+'I'm afraid,' came her shrill voice.
+
+'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid; come to me.'
+
+Annushka left her hiding place in silence, walked softly round--her
+little childish feet scarcely sounded on the thick grass--and came out
+of the bushes near the old man. She was not a child of seven, as I had
+fancied at first, from her diminutive stature, but a girl of thirteen
+or fourteen. Her whole person was small and thin, but very neat and
+graceful, and her pretty little face was strikingly like Kassyan's own,
+though he was certainly not handsome. There were the same thin
+features, and the same strange expression, shy and confiding,
+melancholy and shrewd, and her gestures were the same.... Kassyan kept
+his eyes fixed on her; she took her stand at his side.
+
+'Well, have you picked any mushrooms?' he asked.
+
+'Yes,' she answered with a shy smile.
+
+'Did you find many?'
+
+'Yes.' (She stole a swift look at him and smiled again.)
+
+'Are they white ones?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Show me, show me.... (She slipped the basket off her arm and
+half-lifted the big burdock leaf which covered up the mushrooms.) 'Ah!'
+said Kassyan, bending down over the basket; 'what splendid ones! Well
+done, Annushka!'
+
+'She's your daughter, Kassyan, isn't she?' I asked. (Annushka's face
+flushed faintly.)
+
+'No, well, a relative,' replied Kassyan with affected indifference.
+'Come, Annushka, run along,' he added at once, 'run along, and God be
+with you! And take care.'
+
+'But why should she go on foot?' I interrupted. 'We could take her with
+us.'
+
+Annushka blushed like a poppy, grasped the handle of her basket with
+both hands, and looked in trepidation at the old man.
+
+'No, she will get there all right,' he answered in the same languid and
+indifferent voice. 'Why not?... She will get there.... Run along.'
+
+Annushka went rapidly away into the forest. Kassyan looked after her,
+then looked down and smiled to himself. In this prolonged smile, in the
+few words he had spoken to Annushka, and in the very sound of his voice
+when he spoke to her, there was an intense, indescribable love and
+tenderness. He looked again in the direction she had gone, again smiled
+to himself, and, passing his hand across his face, he nodded his head
+several times.
+
+'Why did you send her away so soon?' I asked him. 'I would have bought
+her mushrooms.'
+
+'Well, you can buy them there at home just the same, sir, if you like,'
+he answered, for the first time using the formal 'sir' in addressing me.
+
+'She's very pretty, your girl.'
+
+'No ... only so-so,' he answered, with seeming reluctance, and from
+that instant he relapsed into the same uncommunicative mood as at first.
+
+Seeing that all my efforts to make him talk again were fruitless, I
+went off into the clearing. Meantime the heat had somewhat abated; but
+my ill-success, or, as they say among us, my 'ill-luck,' continued, and
+I returned to the settlement with nothing but one corncrake and the new
+axle. Just as we were driving into the yard, Kassyan suddenly turned to
+me.
+
+'Master, master,' he began, 'do you know I have done you a wrong; it
+was I cast a spell to keep all the game off.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Oh, I can do that. Here you have a well-trained dog and a good one,
+but he could do nothing. When you think of it, what are men? what are
+they? Here's a beast; what have they made of him?'
+
+It would have been useless for me to try to convince Kassyan of the
+impossibility of 'casting a spell' on game, and so I made him no reply.
+Meantime we had turned into the yard.
+
+Annushka was not in the hut: she had had time to get there before us,
+and to leave her basket of mushrooms. Erofay fitted in the new axle,
+first exposing it to a severe and most unjust criticism; and an hour
+later I set off, leaving a small sum of money with Kassyan, which at
+first he was unwilling to accept, but afterwards, after a moment's
+thought, holding it in his hand, he put it in his bosom. In the course
+of this hour he had scarcely uttered a single word; he stood as before,
+leaning against the gate. He made no reply to the reproaches of my
+coachman, and took leave very coldly of me.
+
+Directly I turned round, I could see that my worthy Erofay was in a
+gloomy frame of mind.... To be sure, he had found nothing to eat in the
+country; the only water for his horses was bad. We drove off. With
+dissatisfaction expressed even in the back of his head, he sat on the
+box, burning to begin to talk to me. While waiting for me to begin by
+some question, he confined himself to a low muttering in an undertone,
+and some rather caustic instructions to the horses. 'A village,' he
+muttered; 'call that a village? You ask for a drop of kvas--not a drop
+of kvas even.... Ah, Lord!... And the water--simply filth!' (He spat
+loudly.) 'Not a cucumber, nor kvas, nor nothing.... Now, then!' he
+added aloud, turning to the right trace-horse; 'I know you, you
+humbug.' (And he gave him a cut with the whip.) 'That horse has learnt
+to shirk his work entirely, and yet he was a willing beast once. Now,
+then--look alive!'
+
+'Tell me, please, Erofay,' I began, 'what sort of a man is Kassyan?'
+
+Erofay did not answer me at once: he was, in general, a reflective and
+deliberate fellow; but I could see directly that my question was
+soothing and cheering to him.
+
+'The Flea?' he said at last, gathering up the reins; 'he's a queer
+fellow; yes, a crazy chap; such a queer fellow, you wouldn't find
+another like him in a hurry. You know, for example, he's for all the
+world like our roan horse here; he gets out of everything--out of work,
+that's to say. But, then, what sort of workman could he be?... He's
+hardly body enough to keep his soul in ... but still, of course....
+He's been like that from a child up, you know. At first he followed his
+uncle's business as a carrier--there were three of them in the
+business; but then he got tired of it, you know--he threw it up. He
+began to live at home, but he could not keep at home long; he's so
+restless--a regular flea, in fact. He happened, by good luck, to have a
+good master--he didn't worry him. Well, so ever since he has been
+wandering about like a lost sheep. And then, he's so strange; there's
+no understanding him. Sometimes he'll be as silent as a post, and then
+he'll begin talking, and God knows what he'll say! Is that good
+manners, pray? He's an absurd fellow, that he is. But he sings well,
+for all that.'
+
+'And does he cure people, really?'
+
+'Cure people!... Well, how should he? A fine sort of doctor! Though he
+did cure me of the king's evil, I must own.... But how can he? He's a
+stupid fellow, that's what he is,' he added, after a moment's pause.
+
+'Have you known him long?'
+
+'A long while. I was his neighbour at Sitchovka up at Fair Springs.'
+
+'And what of that girl--who met us in the wood, Annushka--what relation
+is she to him?'
+
+Erofay looked at me over his shoulder, and grinned all over his face.
+
+'He, he!... yes, they are relations. She is an orphan; she has no
+mother, and it's not even known who her mother was. But she must be a
+relation; she's too much like him.... Anyway, she lives with him. She's
+a smart girl, there's no denying; a good girl; and as for the old man,
+she's simply the apple of his eye; she's a good girl. And, do you know,
+you wouldn't believe it, but do you know, he's managed to teach
+Annushka to read? Well, well! that's quite like him; he's such an
+extraordinary fellow, such a changeable fellow; there's no reckoning on
+him, really.... Eh! eh! eh!' My coachman suddenly interrupted himself,
+and stopping the horses, he bent over on one side and began sniffing.
+'Isn't there a smell of burning? Yes! Why, that new axle, I do
+declare!... I thought I'd greased it.... We must get on to some water;
+why, here is a puddle, just right.'
+
+And Erofay slowly got off his seat, untied the pail, went to the pool,
+and coming back, listened with a certain satisfaction to the hissing of
+the box of the wheel as the water suddenly touched it.... Six times
+during some eight miles he had to pour water on the smouldering axle,
+and it was quite evening when we got home at last.
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+                               THE AGENT
+
+
+Twelve miles from my place lives an acquaintance of mine, a landowner
+and a retired officer in the Guards--Arkady Pavlitch Pyenotchkin. He
+has a great deal of game on his estate, a house built after the design
+of a French architect, and servants dressed after the English fashion;
+he gives capital dinners, and a cordial reception to visitors, and,
+with all that, one goes to see him reluctantly. He is a sensible and
+practical man, has received the excellent education now usual, has been
+in the service, mixed in the highest society, and is now devoting
+himself to his estate with great success. Arkady Pavlitch is, to judge
+by his own words, severe but just; he looks after the good of the
+peasants under his control and punishes them--for their good. 'One has
+to treat them like children,' he says on such occasions; 'their
+ignorance, _mon cher; il faut prendre cela en consideration_.' When
+this so-called painful necessity arises, he eschews all sharp or
+violent gestures, and prefers not to raise his voice, but with a
+straight blow in the culprit's face, says calmly, 'I believe I asked
+you to do something, my friend?' or 'What is the matter, my boy? what
+are you thinking about?' while he sets his teeth a little, and the
+corners of his mouth are drawn. He is not tall, but has an elegant
+figure, and is very good-looking; his hands and nails are kept
+perfectly exquisite; his rosy cheeks and lips are simply the picture of
+health. He has a ringing, light-hearted laugh, and there is sometimes a
+very genial twinkle in his clear brown eyes. He dresses in excellent
+taste; he orders French books, prints, and papers, though he's no great
+lover of reading himself: he has hardly as much as waded through the
+_Wandering Jew_. He plays cards in masterly style. Altogether, Arkady
+Pavlitch is reckoned one of the most cultivated gentlemen and most
+eligible matches in our province; the ladies are perfectly wild over
+him, and especially admire his manners. He is wonderfully well
+conducted, wary as a cat, and has never from his cradle been mixed up
+in any scandal, though he is fond of making his power felt,
+intimidating or snubbing a nervous man, when he gets a chance. He has a
+positive distaste for doubtful society--he is afraid of compromising
+himself; in his lighter moments, however, he will avow himself a
+follower of Epicurus, though as a rule he speaks slightingly of
+philosophy, calling it the foggy food fit for German brains, or at
+times, simply, rot. He is fond of music too; at the card-table he is
+given to humming through his teeth, but with feeling; he knows by heart
+some snatches from _Lucia_ and _Somnambula_, but he is always apt to
+sing everything a little sharp. The winters he spends in Petersburg.
+His house is kept in extraordinarily good order; the very grooms feel
+his influence, and every day not only rub the harness and brush their
+coats, but even wash their faces. Arkady Pavlitch's house-serfs have,
+it is true, something of a hang-dog look; but among us Russians there's
+no knowing what is sullenness and what is sleepiness. Arkady Pavlitch
+speaks in a soft, agreeable voice, with emphasis and, as it were, with
+satisfaction; he brings out each word through his handsome perfumed
+moustaches; he uses a good many French expressions too, such as: _Mais
+c'est impayable! Mais comment donc_? and so so. For all that, I, for
+one, am never over-eager to visit him, and if it were not for the
+grouse and the partridges, I should probably have dropped his
+acquaintance altogether. One is possessed by a strange sort of
+uneasiness in his house; the very comfort is distasteful to one, and
+every evening when a befrizzed valet makes his appearance in a blue
+livery with heraldic buttons, and begins, with cringing servility,
+drawing off one's boots, one feels that if his pale, lean figure could
+suddenly be replaced by the amazingly broad cheeks and incredibly thick
+nose of a stalwart young labourer fresh from the plough, who has yet
+had time in his ten months of service to tear his new nankin coat open
+at every seam, one would be unutterably overjoyed, and would gladly run
+the risk of having one's whole leg pulled off with the boot....
+
+In spite of my aversion for Arkady Pavlitch, I once happened to pass a
+night in his house. The next day I ordered my carriage to be ready
+early in the morning, but he would not let me start without a regular
+breakfast in the English style, and conducted me into his study. With
+our tea they served us cutlets, boiled eggs, butter, honey, cheese, and
+so on. Two footmen in clean white gloves swiftly and silently
+anticipated our faintest desires. We sat on a Persian divan. Arkady
+Pavlitch was arrayed in loose silk trousers, a black velvet smoking
+jacket, a red fez with a blue tassel, and yellow Chinese slippers
+without heels. He drank his tea, laughed, scrutinised his finger-nails,
+propped himself up with cushions, and was altogether in an excellent
+humour. After making a hearty breakfast with obvious satisfaction,
+Arkady Pavlitch poured himself out a glass of red wine, lifted it to
+his lips, and suddenly frowned.
+
+'Why was not the wine warmed?' he asked rather sharply of one of the
+footmen.
+
+The footman stood stock-still in confusion, and turned white.
+
+'Didn't I ask you a question, my friend?' Arkady Pavlitch resumed
+tranquilly, never taking his eyes off the man.
+
+The luckless footman fidgeted in his place, twisted the napkin, and
+uttered not a word.
+
+Arkady Pavlitch dropped his head and looked up at him thoughtfully from
+under his eyelids.
+
+'_Pardon, mon cher_', he observed, patting my knee amicably, and again
+he stared at the footman. 'You can go,' he added, after a short
+silence, raising his eyebrows, and he rang the bell.
+
+A stout, swarthy, black-haired man, with a low forehead, and eyes
+positively lost in fat, came into the room.
+
+'About Fyodor ... make the necessary arrangements,' said Arkady
+Pavlitch in an undertone, and with complete composure.
+
+'Yes, sir,' answered the fat man, and he went out.
+
+'_Voila, mon cher, les desagrements de la campagne_,' Arkady Pavlitch
+remarked gaily. 'But where are you off to? Stop, you must stay a
+little.'
+
+'No,' I answered; 'it's time I was off.'
+
+'Nothing but sport! Oh, you sportsmen! And where are you going to shoot
+just now?'
+
+'Thirty-five miles from here, at Ryabovo.'
+
+'Ryabovo? By Jove! now in that case I will come with you. Ryabovo's
+only four miles from my village Shipilovka, and it's a long while since
+I've been over to Shipilovka; I've never been able to get the time.
+Well, this is a piece of luck; you can spend the day shooting in
+Ryabovo and come on in the evening to me. We'll have supper
+together--we'll take the cook with us, and you'll stay the night with
+me. Capital! capital!' he added without waiting for my answer.
+
+'_C'est arrange_.... Hey, you there! Have the carriage brought out, and
+look sharp. You have never been in Shipilovka? I should be ashamed to
+suggest your putting up for the night in my agent's cottage, but you're
+not particular, I know, and at Ryabovo you'd have slept in some
+hayloft.... We will go, we will go!'
+
+And Arkady Pavlitch hummed some French song.
+
+'You don't know, I dare say,' he pursued, swaying from side to side;
+'I've some peasants there who pay rent. It's the custom of the
+place--what was I to do? They pay their rent very punctually, though. I
+should, I'll own, have put them back to payment in labour, but there's
+so little land. I really wonder how they manage to make both ends meet.
+However, _c'est leur affaire_. My agent there's a fine fellow, _une
+forte tete_, a man of real administrative power! You shall see....
+Really, how luckily things have turned out!'
+
+There was no help for it. Instead of nine o'clock in the morning, we
+started at two in the afternoon. Sportsmen will sympathise with my
+impatience. Arkady Pavlitch liked, as he expressed it, to be
+comfortable when he had the chance, and he took with him such a supply
+of linen, dainties, wearing apparel, perfumes, pillows, and
+dressing-cases of all sorts, that a careful and self-denying German
+would have found enough to last him for a year. Every time we went down
+a steep hill, Arkady Pavlitch addressed some brief but powerful remarks
+to the coachman, from which I was able to deduce that my worthy friend
+was a thorough coward. The journey was, however, performed in safety,
+except that, in crossing a lately-repaired bridge, the trap with the
+cook in it broke down, and he got squeezed in the stomach against the
+hind-wheel.
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was alarmed in earnest at the sight of the fall of
+Karem, his home-made professor of the culinary art, and he sent at once
+to inquire whether his hands were injured. On receiving a reassuring
+reply to this query, his mind was set at rest immediately. With all
+this, we were rather a long time on the road; I was in the same
+carriage as Arkady Pavlitch, and towards the end of the journey I was a
+prey to deadly boredom, especially as in a few hours my companion ran
+perfectly dry of subjects of conversation, and even fell to expressing
+his liberal views on politics. At last we did arrive--not at Ryabovo,
+but at Shipilovka; it happened so somehow. I could have got no shooting
+now that day in any case, and so, raging inwardly, I submitted to my
+fate.
+
+The cook had arrived a few minutes before us, and apparently had had
+time to arrange things and prepare those whom it concerned, for on our
+very entrance within the village boundaries we were met by the village
+bailiff (the agent's son), a stalwart, red-haired peasant of seven
+feet; he was on horseback, bareheaded, and wearing a new overcoat, not
+buttoned up. 'And where's Sofron?' Arkady Pavlitch asked him. The
+bailiff first jumped nimbly off his horse, bowed to his master till he
+was bent double, and said: 'Good health to you, Arkady Pavlitch, sir!'
+then raised his head, shook himself, and announced that Sofron had gone
+to Perov, but they had sent after him.
+
+'Well, come along after us,' said Arkady Pavlitch. The bailiff
+deferentially led his horse to one side, clambered on to it, and
+followed the carriage at a trot, his cap in his hand. We drove through
+the village. A few peasants in empty carts happened to meet us; they
+were driving from the threshing-floor and singing songs, swaying
+backwards and forwards, and swinging their legs in the air; but at the
+sight of our carriage and the bailiff they were suddenly silent, took
+off their winter caps (it was summer-time) and got up as though waiting
+for orders. Arkady Pavlitch nodded to them graciously. A flutter of
+excitement had obviously spread through the hamlet. Peasant women in
+check petticoats flung splinters of wood at indiscreet or over-zealous
+dogs; an old lame man with a beard that began just under his eyes
+pulled a horse away from the well before it had drunk, gave it, for
+some obscure reason, a blow on the side, and fell to bowing low. Boys
+in long smocks ran with a howl to the huts, flung themselves on their
+bellies on the high door-sills, with their heads down and legs in the
+air, rolled over with the utmost haste into the dark outer rooms, from
+which they did not reappear again. Even the hens sped in a hurried
+scuttle to the turning; one bold cock with a black throat like a satin
+waistcoat and a red tail, rumpled up to his very comb, stood his ground
+in the road, and even prepared for a crow, then suddenly took fright
+and scuttled off too. The agent's cottage stood apart from the rest in
+the middle of a thick green patch of hemp. We stopped at the gates. Mr.
+Pyenotchkin got up, flung off his cloak with a picturesque motion, and
+got out of the carriage, looking affably about him. The agent's wife
+met us with low curtseys, and came up to kiss the master's hand. Arkady
+Pavlitch let her kiss it to her heart's content, and mounted the steps.
+In the outer room, in a dark corner, stood the bailiff's wife, and she
+too curtsied, but did not venture to approach his hand. In the cold
+hut, as it is called--to the right of the outer room--two other women
+were still busily at work; they were carrying out all the rubbish,
+empty tubs, sheepskins stiff as boards, greasy pots, a cradle with a
+heap of dish-clouts and a baby covered with spots, and sweeping out the
+dirt with bathbrooms. Arkady Pavlitch sent them away, and installed
+himself on a bench under the holy pictures. The coachmen began bringing
+in the trunks, bags, and other conveniences, trying each time to subdue
+the noise of their heavy boots.
+
+Meantime Arkady Pavlitch began questioning the bailiff about the crops,
+the sowing, and other agricultural subjects. The bailiff gave
+satisfactory answers, but spoke with a sort of heavy awkwardness, as
+though he were buttoning up his coat with benumbed fingers. He stood at
+the door and kept looking round on the watch to make way for the nimble
+footman. Behind his powerful shoulders I managed to get a glimpse of
+the agent's wife in the outer room surreptitiously belabouring some
+other peasant woman. Suddenly a cart rumbled up and stopped at the
+steps; the agent came in.
+
+This man, as Arkady Pavlitch said, of real administrative power, was
+short, broad-shouldered, grey, and thick-set, with a red nose, little
+blue eyes, and a beard of the shape of a fan. We may observe, by the
+way, that ever since Russia has existed, there has never yet been an
+instance of a man who has grown rich and prosperous without a big,
+bushy beard; sometimes a man may have had a thin, wedge-shape beard all
+his life; but then he begins to get one all at once, it is all round
+his face like a halo--one wonders where the hair has come from! The
+agent must have been making merry at Perov: his face was unmistakably
+flushed, and there was a smell of spirits about him.
+
+'Ah, our father, our gracious benefactor!' he began in a sing-song
+voice, and with a face of such deep feeling that it seemed every minute
+as if he would burst into tears; 'at last you have graciously deigned
+to come to us ... your hand, your honour's hand,' he added, his lips
+protruded in anticipation. Arkady Pavlitch gratified his desire. 'Well,
+brother Sofron, how are things going with you?' he asked in a friendly
+voice.
+
+'Ah, you, our father!' cried Sofron; 'how should they go ill? how
+should things go ill, now that you, our father, our benefactor,
+graciously deign to lighten our poor village with your presence, to
+make us happy till the day of our death? Thank the Lord for thee,
+Arkady Pavlitch! thank the Lord for thee! All is right by your gracious
+favour.'
+
+At this point Sofron paused, gazed upon his master, and, as though
+carried away by a rush of feeling (tipsiness had its share in it too),
+begged once more for his hand, and whined more than before.
+
+'Ah, you, our father, benefactor ... and ... There, God bless me! I'm a
+regular fool with delight.... God bless me! I look and can't believe my
+eyes! Ah, our father!'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch glanced at me, smiled, and asked: '_N'est-ce pas que
+c'est touchant?_'
+
+'But, Arkady Pavlitch, your honour,' resumed the indefatigable agent;
+'what are you going to do? You'll break my heart, your honour; your
+honour didn't graciously let me know of your visit. Where are you to
+put up for the night? You see here it's dirty, nasty.'
+
+'Nonsense, Sofron, nonsense!' Arkady Pavlitch responded, with a smile;
+'it's all right here.'
+
+'But, our father, all right--for whom? For peasants like us it's all
+right; but for you ... oh, our father, our gracious protector! oh, you
+... our father!... Pardon an old fool like me; I'm off my head, bless
+me! I'm gone clean crazy.'
+
+Meanwhile supper was served; Arkady Pavlitch began to eat. The old man
+packed his son off, saying he smelt too strong.
+
+'Well, settled the division of land, old chap, hey?' enquired Mr.
+Pyenotchkin, obviously trying to imitate the peasant speech, with a
+wink to me.
+
+'We've settled the land shares, your honour; all by your gracious
+favour. Day before yesterday the list was made out. The Hlinovsky folks
+made themselves disagreeable about it at first ... they were
+disagreeable about it, certainly. They wanted this ... and they wanted
+that ... and God knows what they didn't want! but they're a set of
+fools, your honour!--an ignorant lot. But we, your honour, graciously
+please you, gave an earnest of our gratitude, and satisfied Nikolai
+Nikolaitch, the mediator; we acted in everything according to your
+orders, your honour; as you graciously ordered, so we did, and nothing
+did we do unbeknown to Yegor Dmitritch.'
+
+'Yegor reported to me,' Arkady Pavlitch remarked with dignity.
+
+'To be sure, your honour, Yegor Dmitritch, to be sure.'
+
+'Well, then, now I suppose you 're satisfied.'
+
+Sofron had only been waiting for this.
+
+'Ah, you are our father, our benefactor!' he began, in the same
+sing-song as before. 'Indeed, now, your honour ... why, for you, our
+father, we pray day and night to God Almighty.... There's too little
+land, of course....'
+
+Pyenotchkin cut him short.
+
+'There, that'll do, that'll do, Sofron; I know you're eager in my
+service.... Well, and how goes the threshing?'
+
+Sofron sighed.
+
+'Well, our father, the threshing's none too good. But there, your
+honour, Arkady Pavlitch, let me tell you about a little matter that
+came to pass.' (Here he came closer to Mr. Pyenotchkin, with his arms
+apart, bent down, and screwed up one eye.) 'There was a dead body found
+on our land.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'I can't think myself, your honour; it seems like the doing of the evil
+one. But, luckily, it was found near the boundary; on our side of it,
+to tell the truth. I ordered them to drag it on to the neighbour's
+strip of land at once, while it was still possible, and set a watch
+there, and sent word round to our folks. "Mum's the word," says I. But
+I explained how it was to the police officer in case of the worst. "You
+see how it was," says I; and of course I had to treat him and slip some
+notes into his hand.... Well, what do you say, your honour? We shifted
+the burden on to other shoulders; you see a dead body's a matter of two
+hundred roubles, as sure as ninepence.'
+
+Mr. Pyenotchkin laughed heartily at his agent's cunning, and said
+several times to me, indicating him with a nod, '_Quel gaillard_, eh!'
+
+Meantime it was quite dark out of doors; Arkady Pavlitch ordered the
+table to be cleared, and hay to be brought in. The valet spread out
+sheets for us, and arranged pillows; we lay down. Sofron retired after
+receiving his instructions for the next day. Arkady Pavlitch, before
+falling asleep, talked a little more about the first-rate qualities of
+the Russian peasant, and at that point made the observation that since
+Sofron had had the management of the place, the Shipilovka peasants had
+never been one farthing in arrears.... The watchman struck his board; a
+baby, who apparently had not yet had time to be imbued with a sentiment
+of dutiful self-abnegation, began crying somewhere in the cottage ...
+we fell asleep.
+
+The next morning we got up rather early; I was getting ready to start
+for Ryabovo, but Arkady Pavlitch was anxious to show me his estate, and
+begged me to remain. I was not averse myself to seeing more of the
+first-rate qualities of that man of administrative power--Sofron--in
+their practical working. The agent made his appearance. He wore a blue
+loose coat, tied round the waist with a red handkerchief. He talked
+much less than on the previous evening, kept an alert, intent eye on
+his master's face, and gave connected and sensible answers. We set off
+with him to the threshing-floor. Sofron's son, the seven-foot bailiff,
+by every external sign a very slow-witted fellow, walked after us also,
+and we were joined farther on by the village constable, Fedosyitch, a
+retired soldier, with immense moustaches, and an extraordinary
+expression of face; he looked as though he had had some startling shock
+of astonishment a very long while ago, and had never quite got over it.
+We took a look at the threshing-floor, the barn, the corn-stacks, the
+outhouses, the windmill, the cattle-shed, the vegetables, and the
+hempfields; everything was, as a fact, in excellent order; only the
+dejected faces of the peasants rather puzzled me. Sofron had had an eye
+to the ornamental as well as the useful; he had planted all the ditches
+with willows, between the stacks he had made little paths to the
+threshing-floor and strewn them with fine sand; on the windmill he had
+constructed a weathercock of the shape of a bear with his jaws open and
+a red tongue sticking out; he had attached to the brick cattle-shed
+something of the nature of a Greek facade, and on it inscribed in white
+letters: 'Construt in the village Shipilovky 1 thousand eight Hunderd
+farthieth year. This cattle-shed.' Arkady Pavlitch was quite touched,
+and fell to expatiating in French to me upon the advantages of the
+system of rent-payment, adding, however, that labour-dues came more
+profitable to the owner--'but, after all, that wasn't everything.' He
+began giving the agent advice how to plant his potatoes, how to prepare
+cattle-food, and so on. Sofron heard his master's remarks out with
+attention, sometimes replied, but did not now address Arkady Pavlitch
+as his father, or his benefactor, and kept insisting that there was too
+little land; that it would be a good thing to buy more. 'Well, buy some
+then,' said Arkady Pavlitch; 'I've no objection; in my name, of
+course.' To this Sofron made no reply; he merely stroked his beard.
+'And now it would be as well to ride down to the copse,' observed Mr.
+Pyenotchkin. Saddle-horses were led out to us at once; we went off to
+the copse, or, as they call it about us, the 'enclosure.' In this
+'enclosure' we found thick undergrowth and abundance of wild game, for
+which Arkady Pavlitch applauded Sofron and clapped him on the shoulder.
+In regard to forestry, Arkady Pavlitch clung to the Russian ideas, and
+told me on that subject an amusing--in his words--anecdote, of how a
+jocose landowner had given his forester a good lesson by pulling out
+nearly half his beard, by way of a proof that growth is none the
+thicker for being cut back. In other matters, however, neither Sofron
+nor Arkady Pavlitch objected to innovations. On our return to the
+village, the agent took us to look at a winnowing machine he had
+recently ordered from Moscow. The winnowing machine did certainly work
+beautifully, but if Sofron had known what a disagreeable incident was
+in store for him and his master on this last excursion, he would
+doubtless have stopped at home with us.
+
+This was what happened. As we came out of the barn the following
+spectacle confronted us. A few paces from the door, near a filthy pool,
+in which three ducks were splashing unconcernedly, there stood two
+peasants--one an old man of sixty, the other, a lad of twenty--both in
+patched homespun shirts, barefoot, and with cord tied round their
+waists for belts. The village constable Fedosyitch was busily engaged
+with them, and would probably have succeeded in inducing them to retire
+if we had lingered a little longer in the barn, but catching sight of
+us, he grew stiff all over, and seemed bereft of all sensation on the
+spot. Close by stood the bailiff gaping, his fists hanging irresolute.
+Arkady Pavlitch frowned, bit his lip, and went up to the suppliants.
+They both prostrated themselves at his feet in silence.
+
+'What do you want? What are you asking about?' he inquired in a stern
+voice, a little through his nose. (The peasants glanced at one another,
+and did not utter a syllable, only blinked a little as if the sun were
+in their faces, and their breathing came quicker.)
+
+'Well, what is it?' Arkady Pavlitch said again; and turning at once to
+Sofron, 'Of what family?'
+
+'The Tobolyev family,' the agent answered slowly.
+
+'Well, what do you want?' Mr. Pyenotchkin said again; 'have you lost
+your tongues, or what? Tell me, you, what is it you want?' he added,
+with a nod at the old man. 'And don't be afraid, stupid.'
+
+The old man craned forward his dark brown, wrinkled neck, opened his
+bluish twitching lips, and in a hoarse voice uttered the words,
+'Protect us, lord!' and again he bent his forehead to the earth. The
+young peasant prostrated himself too. Arkady Pavlitch looked at their
+bent necks with an air of dignity, threw back his head, and stood with
+his legs rather wide apart. 'What is it? Whom do you complain of?'
+
+'Have mercy, lord! Let us breathe.... We are crushed, worried,
+tormented to death quite. (The old man spoke with difficulty.)
+
+'Who worries you?'
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch, your honour.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was silent a minute.
+
+'What's your name?'
+
+'Antip, your honour.'
+
+'And who's this?'
+
+'My boy, your honour.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was silent again; he pulled his moustaches.
+
+'Well! and how has he tormented you?' he began again, looking over his
+moustaches at the old man.
+
+'Your honour, he has ruined us utterly. Two sons, your honour, he's
+sent for recruits out of turn, and now he is taking the third also.
+Yesterday, your honour, our last cow was taken from the yard, and my
+old wife was beaten by his worship here: that is all the pity he has
+for us!' (He pointed to the bailiff.)
+
+'Hm!' commented Arkady Pavlitch.
+
+'Let him not destroy us to the end, gracious protector!'
+
+Mr. Pyenotchkin scowled, 'What's the meaning of this?' he asked the
+agent, in a low voice, with an air of displeasure.
+
+'He's a drunken fellow, sir,' answered the agent, for the first time
+using this deferential address, 'and lazy too. He's never been out of
+arrears this five years back, sir.'
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch paid the arrears for me, your honour,' the old man
+went on; 'it's the fifth year's come that he's paid it, he's paid
+it--and he's brought me into slavery to him, your honour, and here--'
+
+'And why did you get into arrears?' Mr. Pyenotchkin asked
+threateningly. (The old man's head sank.) 'You're fond of drinking,
+hanging about the taverns, I dare say.' (The old man opened his mouth
+to speak.) 'I know you,' Arkady Pavlitch went on emphatically; 'you
+think you've nothing to do but drink, and lie on the stove, and let
+steady peasants answer for you.'
+
+'And he's an impudent fellow, too,' the agent threw in.
+
+'That's sure to be so; it's always the way; I've noticed it more than
+once. The whole year round, he's drinking and abusive, and then he
+falls at one's feet.'
+
+'Your honour, Arkady Pavlitch,' the old man began despairingly, 'have
+pity, protect us; when have I been impudent? Before God Almighty, I
+swear it was beyond my strength. Sofron Yakovlitch has taken a dislike
+to me; for some reason he dislikes me--God be his judge! He will ruin
+me utterly, your honour.... The last ... here ... the last boy ... and
+him he....' (A tear glistened in the old man's wrinkled yellow eyes).
+'Have pity, gracious lord, defend us!'
+
+'And it's not us only,' the young peasant began....
+
+Arkady Pavlitch flew into a rage at once.
+
+'And who asked your opinion, hey? Till you're spoken to, hold your
+tongue.... What's the meaning of it? Silence, I tell you, silence!...
+Why, upon my word, this is simply mutiny! No, my friend, I don't advise
+you to mutiny on my domain ... on my ... (Arkady Pavlitch stepped
+forward, but probably recollected my presence, turned round, and put
+his hands in his pockets ...) '_Je vous demande bien pardon, mon
+cher_,' he said, with a forced smile, dropping his voice significantly.
+'_C'est le mauvais cote de la medaille_ ... There, that'll do, that'll
+do,' he went on, not looking at the peasants: 'I say ... that'll do,
+you can go.' (The peasants did not rise.) 'Well, haven't I told you ...
+that'll do. You can go, I tell you.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch turned his back on them. 'Nothing but vexation,' he
+muttered between his teeth, and strode with long steps homewards.
+Sofron followed him. The village constable opened his eyes wide,
+looking as if he were just about to take a tremendous leap into space.
+The bailiff drove a duck away from the puddle. The suppliants remained
+as they were a little, then looked at each other, and, without turning
+their heads, went on their way.
+
+Two hours later I was at Ryabovo, and making ready to begin shooting,
+accompanied by Anpadist, a peasant I knew well. Pyenotchkin had been
+out of humour with Sofron up to the time I left. I began talking to
+Anpadist about the Shipilovka peasants, and Mr. Pyenotchkin, and asked
+him whether he knew the agent there.
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch? ... ugh!'
+
+'What sort of man is he?'
+
+'He's not a man; he's a dog; you couldn't find another brute like him
+between here and Kursk.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'Why, Shipilovka's hardly reckoned as--what's his name?--Mr.
+Pyenotchkin's at all; he's not the master there; Sofron's the master.'
+
+'You don't say so!'
+
+'He's master, just as if it were his own. The peasants all about are in
+debt to him; they work for him like slaves; he'll send one off with the
+waggons; another, another way.... He harries them out of their lives.'
+
+'They haven't much land, I suppose?'
+
+'Not much land! He rents two hundred acres from the Hlinovsky peasants
+alone, and two hundred and eighty from our folks; there's more than
+three hundred and seventy-five acres he's got. And he doesn't only
+traffic in land; he does a trade in horses and stock, and pitch, and
+butter, and hemp, and one thing and the other.... He's sharp, awfully
+sharp, and rich too, the beast! But what's bad--he beats them. He's a
+brute, not a man; a dog, I tell you; a cur, a regular cur; that's what
+he is!'
+
+'How is it they don't make complaints of him?'
+
+'I dare say, the master'd be pleased! There's no arrears; so what does
+he care? Yes, you'd better,' he added, after a brief pause; 'I should
+advise you to complain! No, he'd let you know ... yes, you'd better try
+it on.... No, he'd let you know....'
+
+I thought of Antip, and told him what I had seen.
+
+'There,' commented Anpadist, 'he will eat him up now; he'll simply eat
+the man up. The bailiff will beat him now. Such a poor, unlucky chap,
+come to think of it! And what's his offence?... He had some wrangle in
+meeting with him, the agent, and he lost all patience, I suppose, and
+of course he wouldn't stand it.... A great matter, truly, to make so
+much of! So he began pecking at him, Antip. Now he'll eat him up
+altogether. You see, he's such a dog. Such a cur--God forgive my
+transgressions!--he knows whom to fall upon. The old men that are a bit
+richer, or've more children, he doesn't touch, the red-headed devil!
+but there's all the difference here! Why he's sent Antip's sons for
+recruits out of turn, the heartless ruffian, the cur! God forgive my
+transgressions!'
+
+We went on our way.
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+                           THE COUNTING-HOUSE
+
+
+It was autumn. For some hours I had been strolling across country with
+my gun, and should probably not have returned till evening to the
+tavern on the Kursk high-road where my three-horse trap was awaiting
+me, had not an exceedingly fine and persistent rain, which had worried
+me all day with the obstinacy and ruthlessness of some old maiden lady,
+driven me at last to seek at least a temporary shelter somewhere in the
+neighbourhood. While I was still deliberating in which direction to go,
+my eye suddenly fell on a low shanty near a field sown with peas. I
+went up to the shanty, glanced under the thatched roof, and saw an old
+man so infirm that he reminded me at once of the dying goat Robinson
+Crusoe found in some cave on his island. The old man was squatting on
+his heels, his little dim eyes half-closed, while hurriedly, but
+carefully, like a hare (the poor fellow had not a single tooth), he
+munched a dry, hard pea, incessantly rolling it from side to side. He
+was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice my entrance.
+
+'Grandfather! hey, grandfather!' said I. He ceased munching, lifted his
+eyebrows high, and with an effort opened his eyes.
+
+'What?' he mumbled in a broken voice.
+
+'Where is there a village near?' I asked.
+
+The old man fell to munching again. He had not heard me. I repeated my
+question louder than before.
+
+'A village?... But what do you want?'
+
+'Why, shelter from the rain.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Shelter from the rain.'
+
+'Ah!' (He scratched his sunburnt neck.) 'Well, now, you go,' he said
+suddenly, waving his hands indefinitely, 'so ... as you go by the
+copse--see, as you go--there'll be a road; you pass it by, and keep
+right on to the right; keep right on, keep right on, keep right on....
+Well, there will be Ananyevo. Or else you'd go to Sitovka.'
+
+I followed the old man with difficulty. His moustaches muffled his
+voice, and his tongue too did not obey him readily.
+
+'Where are you from?' I asked him.
+
+'What?'
+
+'Where are you from?'
+
+'Ananyevo.'
+
+'What are you doing here?'
+
+'I'm watchman.'
+
+'Why, what are you watching?'
+
+'The peas.'
+
+I could not help smiling.
+
+'Really!--how old are you?'
+
+'God knows.'
+
+'Your sight's failing, I expect.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Your sight's failing, I daresay?'
+
+'Yes, it's failing. At times I can hear nothing.'
+
+'Then how can you be a watchman, eh?'
+
+'Oh, my elders know about that.'
+
+'Elders!' I thought, and I gazed not without compassion at the poor old
+man. He fumbled about, pulled out of his bosom a bit of coarse bread,
+and began sucking it like a child, with difficulty moving his sunken
+cheeks.
+
+I walked in the direction of the copse, turned to the right, kept on,
+kept right on as the old man had advised me, and at last got to a large
+village with a stone church in the new style, _i.e._ with columns, and
+a spacious manor-house, also with columns. While still some way off I
+noticed through the fine network of falling rain a cottage with a deal
+roof, and two chimneys, higher than the others, in all probability the
+dwelling of the village elder; and towards it I bent my steps in the
+hope of finding, in this cottage, a samovar, tea, sugar, and some not
+absolutely sour cream. Escorted by my half-frozen dog, I went up the
+steps into the outer room, opened the door, and instead of the usual
+appurtenances of a cottage, I saw several tables, heaped up with
+papers, two red cupboards, bespattered inkstands, pewter boxes of
+blotting sand weighing half a hundred-weight, long penholders, and so
+on. At one of the tables was sitting a young man of twenty with a
+swollen, sickly face, diminutive eyes, a greasy-looking forehead, and
+long straggling locks of hair. He was dressed, as one would expect, in
+a grey nankin coat, shiny with wear at the waist and the collar.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked me, flinging his head up like a horse
+taken unexpectedly by the nose.
+
+'Does the bailiff live here... or--'
+
+'This is the principal office of the manor,' he interrupted. 'I'm the
+clerk on duty.... Didn't you see the sign-board? That's what it was put
+up for.'
+
+'Where could I dry my clothes here? Is there a samovar anywhere in the
+village?'
+
+'Samovars, of course,' replied the young man in the grey coat with
+dignity; 'go to Father Timofey's, or to the servants' cottage, or else
+to Nazar Tarasitch, or to Agrafena, the poultry-woman.'
+
+'Who are you talking to, you blockhead? Can't you let me sleep, dummy!'
+shouted a voice from the next room.
+
+'Here's a gentleman's come in to ask where he can dry himself.'
+
+'What sort of a gentleman?'
+
+'I don't know. With a dog and a gun.'
+
+A bedstead creaked in the next room. The door opened, and there came in
+a stout, short man of fifty, with a bull neck, goggle-eyes,
+extraordinarily round cheeks, and his whole face positively shining
+with sleekness.
+
+'What is it you wish?' he asked me.
+
+'To dry my things.'
+
+'There's no place here.'
+
+'I didn't know this was the counting-house; I am willing, though, to
+pay...'
+
+'Well, perhaps it could be managed here,' rejoined the fat man; 'won't
+you come inside here?' (He led me into another room, but not the one he
+had come from.) 'Would this do for you?'
+
+'Very well.... And could I have tea and milk?'
+
+'Certainly, at once. If you'll meantime take off your things and rest,
+the tea shall be got ready this minute.'
+
+'Whose property is this?'
+
+'Madame Losnyakov's, Elena Nikolaevna.'
+
+He went out I looked round: against the partition separating my room
+from the office stood a huge leather sofa; two high-backed chairs, also
+covered in leather, were placed on both sides of the solitary window
+which looked out on the village street. On the walls, covered with a
+green paper with pink patterns on it, hung three immense oil paintings.
+One depicted a setter-dog with a blue collar, bearing the inscription:
+'This is my consolation'; at the dog's feet flowed a river; on the
+opposite bank of the river a hare of quite disproportionate size with
+ears cocked up was sitting under a pine tree. In another picture two
+old men were eating a melon; behind the melon was visible in the
+distance a Greek temple with the inscription: 'The Temple of
+Satisfaction.' The third picture represented the half-nude figure of a
+woman in a recumbent position, much fore-shortened, with red knees and
+very big heels. My dog had, with superhuman efforts, crouched under the
+sofa, and apparently found a great deal of dust there, as he kept
+sneezing violently. I went to the window. Boards had been laid across
+the street in a slanting direction from the manor-house to the
+counting-house--a very useful precaution, as, thanks to our rich black
+soil and the persistent rain, the mud was terrible. In the grounds of
+the manor-house, which stood with its back to the street, there was the
+constant going and coming there always is about manor-houses: maids in
+faded chintz gowns flitted to and fro; house-serfs sauntered through
+the mud, stood still and scratched their spines meditatively; the
+constable's horse, tied up to a post, lashed his tail lazily, and with
+his nose high up, gnawed at the hedge; hens were clucking; sickly
+turkeys kept up an incessant gobble-gobble. On the steps of a dark
+crumbling out-house, probably the bath-house, sat a stalwart lad with a
+guitar, singing with some spirit the well-known ballad:
+
+         'I'm leaving this enchanting spot
+             To go into the desert.'
+
+The fat man came into the room.
+
+'They're bringing you in your tea,' he told me, with an affable smile.
+
+The young man in the grey coat, the clerk on duty, laid on the old
+card-table a samovar, a teapot, a tumbler on a broken saucer, a jug of
+cream, and a bunch of Bolhovo biscuit rings. The fat man went out.
+
+'What is he?' I asked the clerk; 'the steward?'
+
+'No, sir; he was the chief cashier, but now he has been promoted to be
+head-clerk.'
+
+'Haven't you got a steward, then?'
+
+'No, sir. There's an agent, Mihal Vikulov, but no steward.'
+
+'Is there a manager, then?'
+
+'Yes; a German, Lindamandol, Karlo Karlitch; only he does not manage
+the estate.'
+
+'Who does manage it, then?'
+
+'Our mistress herself.'
+
+'You don't say so. And are there many of you in the office?'
+
+The young man reflected.
+
+'There are six of us.'
+
+'Who are they?' I inquired.
+
+'Well, first there's Vassily Nikolaevitch, the head cashier; then
+Piotr, one clerk; Piotr's brother, Ivan, another clerk; the other Ivan,
+a clerk; Konstantin Narkizer, another clerk; and me here--there's a lot
+of us, you can't count all of them.'
+
+'I suppose your mistress has a great many serfs in her house?'
+
+'No, not to say a great many.'
+
+'How many, then?'
+
+'I dare say it runs up to about a hundred and fifty.'
+
+We were both silent for a little.
+
+'I suppose you write a good hand, eh?' I began again.
+
+The young man grinned from ear to ear, went into the office and brought
+in a sheet covered with writing.
+
+'This is my writing,' he announced, still with the same smile on his
+face.
+
+I looked at it; on the square sheet of greyish paper there was written,
+in a good bold hand, the following document:--
+
+     ORDER
+
+     From the Chief Office of the Manor of Ananyevo to
+     the Agent, Mihal Vikulov.
+
+     No. 209.
+
+'Whereas some person unknown entered the garden at Ananyevo last night
+in an intoxicated condition, and with unseemly songs waked the French
+governess, Madame Engene, and disturbed her; and whether the watchmen
+saw anything, and who were on watch in the garden and permitted such
+disorderliness: as regards all the above-written matters, your orders
+are to investigate in detail, and report immediately to the Office.'
+
+                                     '_Head-Clerk_, NIKOLAI HVOSTOV.'
+
+A huge heraldic seal was attached to the order, with the inscription:
+'Seal of the chief office of the manor of Ananyevo'; and below stood
+the signature: 'To be executed exactly, Elena Losnyakov.'
+
+'Your lady signed it herself, eh?' I queried.
+
+'To be sure; she always signs herself. Without that the order would be
+of no effect.'
+
+'Well, and now shall you send this order to the agent?'
+
+'No, sir. He'll come himself and read it. That's to say, it'll be read
+to him; you see, he's no scholar.' (The clerk on duty was silent again
+for a while.) 'But what do you say?' he added, simpering; 'is it well
+written?'
+
+'Very well written.'
+
+'It wasn't composed, I must confess, by me. Konstantin is the great one
+for that.'
+
+'What?... Do you mean the orders have first to be composed among you?'
+
+'Why, how else could we do? Couldn't write them off straight without
+making a fair copy.'
+
+'And what salary do you get?' I inquired.
+
+'Thirty-five roubles, and five roubles for boots.'
+
+'And are you satisfied?'
+
+'Of course I am satisfied. It's not everyone can get into an office
+like ours. It was God's will, in my case, to be sure; I'd an uncle who
+was in service as a butler.'
+
+'And you're well-off?'
+
+'Yes, sir. Though, to tell the truth,' he went on, with a sigh, 'a
+place at a merchant's, for instance, is better for the likes of us. At
+a merchant's they're very well off. Yesterday evening a merchant came
+to us from Venev, and his man got talking to me.... Yes, that's a good
+place, no doubt about it; a very good place.'
+
+'Why? Do the merchants pay more wages?'
+
+'Lord preserve us! Why, a merchant would soon give you the sack if you
+asked him for wages. No, at a merchant's you must live on trust and on
+fear. He'll give you food, and drink, and clothes, and all. If you give
+him satisfaction, he'll do more.... Talk of wages, indeed! You don't
+need them.... And a merchant, too, lives in plain Russian style, like
+ourselves; you go with him on a journey--he has tea, and you have it;
+what he eats, you eat. A merchant ... one can put up with; a merchant's
+a very different thing from what a gentleman is; a merchant's not
+whimsical; if he's out of temper, he'll give you a blow, and there it
+ends. He doesn't nag nor sneer.... But with a gentleman it's a woeful
+business! Nothing's as he likes it--this is not right, and that he
+can't fancy. You hand him a glass of water or something to eat: "Ugh,
+the water stinks! positively stinks!" You take it out, stay a minute
+outside the door, and bring it back: "Come, now, that's good; this
+doesn't stink now." And as for the ladies, I tell you, the ladies are
+something beyond everything!... and the young ladies above all!...'
+
+'Fedyushka!' came the fat man's voice from the office.
+
+The clerk went out quickly. I drank a glass of tea, lay down on the
+sofa, and fell asleep. I slept for two hours.
+
+When I woke, I meant to get up, but I was overcome by laziness; I
+closed my eyes, but did not fall asleep again. On the other side of the
+partition, in the office, they were talking in subdued voices.
+Unconsciously I began to listen.
+
+'Quite so, quite so, Nikolai Eremyitch,' one voice was saying; 'quite
+so. One can't but take that into account; yes, certainly!... Hm!' (The
+speaker coughed.)
+
+'You may believe me, Gavrila Antonitch,' replied the fat man's voice:
+'don't I know how things are done here? Judge for yourself.'
+
+'Who does, if you don't, Nikolai Eremyitch? you're, one may say, the
+first person here. Well, then, how's it to be?' pursued the voice I did
+not recognise; 'what decision are we to come to, Nikolai Eremyitch?
+Allow me to put the question.'
+
+'What decision, Gavrila Antonitch? The thing depends, so to say, on
+you; you don't seem over anxious.'
+
+'Upon my word, Nikolai Eremyitch, what do you mean? Our business is
+trading, buying; it's our business to buy. That's what we live by,
+Nikolai Eremyitch, one may say.'
+
+'Eight roubles a measure,' said the fat man emphatically.
+
+A sigh was audible.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch, sir, you ask a heavy price.' 'Impossible, Gavrila
+Antonitch, to do otherwise; I speak as before God Almighty; impossible.'
+
+Silence followed.
+
+I got up softly and looked through a crack in the partition. The fat
+man was sitting with his back to me. Facing him sat a merchant, a man
+about forty, lean and pale, who looked as if he had been rubbed with
+oil. He was incessantly fingering his beard, and very rapidly blinking
+and twitching his lips.
+
+'Wonderful the young green crops this year, one may say,' he began
+again; 'I've been going about everywhere admiring them. All the way
+from Voronezh they've come up wonderfully, first-class, one may say.'
+
+'The crops are pretty fair, certainly,' answered the head-clerk; 'but
+you know the saying, Gavrila Antonitch, autumn bids fair, but spring
+may be foul.'
+
+'That's so, indeed, Nikolai Eremyitch; all is in God's hands; it's the
+absolute truth what you've just remarked, sir.... But perhaps your
+visitor's awake now.'
+
+The fat man turned round ... listened....
+
+'No, he's asleep. He may, though....'
+
+He went to the door.
+
+'No, he's asleep,' he repeated and went back to his place.
+
+'Well, so what are we to say, Nikolai Eremyitch?' the merchant began
+again; 'we must bring our little business to a conclusion.... Let it be
+so, Nikolai Eremyitch, let it be so,' he went on, blinking incessantly;
+'two grey notes and a white for your favour, and there' (he nodded in
+the direction of the house), 'six and a half. Done, eh?'
+
+'Four grey notes,' answered the clerk.
+
+'Come, three, then.'
+
+'Four greys, and no white.'
+
+'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Three and a half, and not a farthing less.'
+
+'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'You're not talking sense, Gavrila Antonitch.'
+
+'My, what a pig-headed fellow!' muttered the merchant. 'Then I'd better
+arrange it with the lady herself.'
+
+'That's as you like,' answered the fat man; 'far better, I should say.
+Why should you worry yourself, after all?... Much better, indeed!'
+
+'Well, well! Nikolai Eremyitch. I lost my temper for a minute! That was
+nothing but talk.'
+
+'No, really, why?...'
+
+'Nonsense, I tell you.... I tell you I was joking. Well, take your
+three and a half; there's no doing anything with you.'
+
+'I ought to have got four, but I was in too great a hurry--like an
+ass!' muttered the fat man.
+
+'Then up there at the house, six and a half, Nikolai Eremyitch; the
+corn will be sold for six and a half?'
+
+'Six and a half, as we said already.'
+
+'Well, your hand on that then, Nikolai Eremyitch' (the merchant clapped
+his outstretched fingers into the clerk's palm). 'And good-bye, in
+God's name!' (The merchant got up.) 'So then, Nikolai Eremyitch, sir,
+I'll go now to your lady, and bid them send up my name, and so I'll say
+to her, "Nikolai Eremyitch," I'll say, "has made a bargain with me for
+six and a half."'
+
+'That's what you must say, Gavrila Antonitch.'
+
+'And now, allow me.'
+
+The merchant handed the manager a small roll of notes, bowed, shook his
+head, picked up his hat with two fingers, shrugged his shoulders, and,
+with a sort of undulating motion, went out, his boots creaking after
+the approved fashion. Nikolai Eremyitch went to the wall, and, as far
+as I could make out, began sorting the notes handed him by the
+merchant. A red head, adorned with thick whiskers, was thrust in at the
+door.
+
+'Well?' asked the head; 'all as it should be?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'How much?'
+
+The fat man made an angry gesture with his hand, and pointed to my room.
+
+'Ah, all right!' responded the head, and vanished.
+
+The fat man went up to the table, sat down, opened a book, took out a
+reckoning frame, and began shifting the beads to and fro as he counted,
+using not the forefinger but the third finger of his right hand, which
+has a much more showy effect.
+
+The clerk on duty came in.
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Sidor is here from Goloplek.'
+
+'Oh! ask him in. Wait a bit, wait a bit.... First go and look whether
+the strange gentleman's still asleep, or whether he has waked up.'
+
+The clerk on duty came cautiously into my room. I laid my head on my
+game-bag, which served me as a pillow, and closed my eyes.
+
+'He's asleep,' whispered the clerk on duty, returning to the
+counting-house.
+
+The fat man muttered something.
+
+'Well, send Sidor in,' he said at last.
+
+I got up again. A peasant of about thirty, of huge stature, came in--a
+red-cheeked, vigorous-looking fellow, with brown hair, and a short
+curly beard. He crossed himself, praying to the holy image, bowed to
+the head-clerk, held his hat before him in both hands, and stood erect.
+
+'Good day, Sidor,' said the fat man, tapping with the reckoning beads.
+
+'Good-day to you, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Well, what are the roads like?'
+
+'Pretty fair, Nikolai Eremyitch. A bit muddy.' (The peasant spoke
+slowly and not loud.)
+
+'Wife quite well?'
+
+'She's all right!'
+
+The peasant gave a sigh and shifted one leg forward. Nikolai Eremyitch
+put his pen behind his ear, and blew his nose.
+
+'Well, what have you come about?' he proceeded to inquire, putting his
+check handkerchief into his pocket.
+
+'Why, they do say, Nikolai Eremyitch, they're asking for carpenters
+from us.'
+
+'Well, aren't there any among you, hey?'
+
+'To be sure there are, Nikolai Eremyitch; our place is right in the
+woods; our earnings are all from the wood, to be sure. But it's the
+busy time, Nikolai Eremyitch. Where's the time to come from?'
+
+'The time to come from! Busy time! I dare say, you're so eager to work
+for outsiders, and don't care to work for your mistress.... It's all
+the same!'
+
+'The work's all the same, certainly, Nikolai Eremyitch ... but....'
+
+'Well?'
+
+'The pay's ... very....'
+
+'What next! You've been spoiled; that's what it is. Get along with you!'
+
+'And what's more, Nikolai Eremyitch, there'll be only a week's work,
+but they'll keep us hanging on a month. One time there's not material
+enough, and another time they'll send us into the garden to weed the
+path.'
+
+'What of it? Our lady herself is pleased to give the order, so it's
+useless you and me talking about it.'
+
+Sidor was silent; he began shifting from one leg to the other.
+
+Nikolai Eremyitch put his head on one side, and began busily playing
+with the reckoning beads.
+
+'Our ... peasants ... Nikolai Eremyitch....' Sidor began at last,
+hesitating over each word; 'sent word to your honour ... there is ...
+see here....' (He thrust his big hand into the bosom of his coat, and
+began to pull out a folded linen kerchief with a red border.)
+
+'What are you thinking of? Goodness, idiot, are you out of your
+senses?' the fat man interposed hurriedly. 'Go on; go to my cottage,'
+he continued, almost shoving the bewildered peasant out; 'ask for my
+wife there ... she'll give you some tea; I'll be round directly; go on.
+For goodness' sake, I tell you, go on.'
+
+Sidor went away.
+
+'Ugh!... what a bear!' the head clerk muttered after him, shaking his
+head, and set to work again on his reckoning frame.
+
+Suddenly shouts of 'Kuprya! Kuprya! there's no knocking down Kuprya!'
+were heard in the street and on the steps, and a little later there
+came into the counting-house a small man of sickly appearance, with an
+extraordinarily long nose and large staring eyes, who carried himself
+with a great air of superiority. He was dressed in a ragged little old
+surtout, with a plush collar and diminutive buttons. He carried a
+bundle of firewood on his shoulder. Five house-serfs were crowding
+round him, all shouting, 'Kuprya! there's no suppressing Kuprya!
+Kuprya's been turned stoker; Kuprya's turned a stoker!' But the man in
+the coat with the plush collar did not pay the slightest attention to
+the uproar made by his companions, and was not in the least out of
+countenance. With measured steps he went up to the stove, flung down
+his load, straightened himself, took out of his tail-pocket a
+snuff-box, and with round eyes began helping himself to a pinch of dry
+trefoil mixed with ashes. At the entrance of this noisy party the fat
+man had at first knitted his brows and risen from his seat, but, seeing
+what it was, he smiled, and only told them not to shout. 'There's a
+sportsman,' said he, 'asleep in the next room.' 'What sort of
+sportsman?' two of them asked with one voice.
+
+'A gentleman.'
+
+'Ah!'
+
+'Let them make a row,' said the man with the plush collar, waving his
+arms; 'what do I care, so long as they don't touch me? They've turned
+me into a stoker....'
+
+'A stoker! a stoker!' the others put in gleefully.
+
+'It's the mistress's orders,' he went on, with a shrug of his
+shoulders; 'but just you wait a bit ... they'll turn you into
+swineherds yet. But I've been a tailor, and a good tailor too, learnt
+my trade in the best house in Moscow, and worked for generals ... and
+nobody can take that from me. And what have you to boast of?... What?
+you're a pack of idlers, not worth your salt; that's what you are! Turn
+me off! I shan't die of hunger; I shall be all right; give me a
+passport. I'd send a good rent home, and satisfy the masters. But what
+would you do? You'd die off like flies, that's what you'd do!'
+
+'That's a nice lie!' interposed a pock-marked lad with white eyelashes,
+a red cravat, and ragged elbows. 'You went off with a passport sharp
+enough, but never a halfpenny of rent did the masters see from you, and
+you never earned a farthing for yourself, you just managed to crawl
+home again and you've never had a new rag on you since.'
+
+'Ah, well, what could one do! Konstantin Narkizitch,' responded Kuprya;
+'a man falls in love--a man's ruined and done for! You go through what
+I have, Konstantin Narkizitch, before you blame me!'
+
+'And you picked out a nice one to fall in love with!--a regular fright.'
+
+'No, you must not say that, Konstantin Narkizitch.'
+
+'Who's going to believe that? I've seen her, you know; I saw her with
+my own eyes last year in Moscow.'
+
+'Last year she had gone off a little certainly,' observed Kuprya.
+
+'No, gentlemen, I tell you what,' a tall, thin man, with a face spotted
+with pimples, a valet probably, from his frizzed and pomatumed head,
+remarked in a careless and disdainful voice; 'let Kuprya Afanasyitch
+sing us his song. Come on, now; begin, Kuprya Afanasyitch.
+
+'Yes! yes!' put in the others. 'Hoorah for Alexandra! That's one for
+Kuprya; 'pon my soul ... Sing away, Kuprya!... You're a regular brick,
+Alexandra!' (Serfs often use feminine terminations in referring to a
+man as an expression of endearment.) 'Sing away!'
+
+'This is not the place to sing,' Kuprya replied firmly; 'this is the
+manor counting-house.'
+
+'And what's that to do with you? you've got your eye on a place as
+clerk, eh?' answered Konstantin with a coarse laugh. 'That's what it
+is!'
+
+'Everything rests with the mistress,' observed the poor wretch.
+
+'There, that's what he's got his eye on! a fellow like him! oo! oo! a!'
+
+And they all roared; some rolled about with merriment. Louder than all
+laughed a lad of fifteen, probably the son of an aristocrat among the
+house-serfs; he wore a waistcoat with bronze buttons, and a cravat of
+lilac colour, and had already had time to fill out his waistcoat.
+
+'Come tell us, confess now, Kuprya,' Nikolai Eremyitch began
+complacently, obviously tickled and diverted himself; 'is it bad being
+stoker? Is it an easy job, eh?'
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch,' began Kuprya, 'you're head-clerk among us now,
+certainly; there's no disputing that, no; but you know you have been in
+disgrace yourself, and you too have lived in a peasant's hut.'
+
+'You'd better look out and not forget yourself in my place,' the fat
+man interrupted emphatically; 'people joke with a fool like you; you
+ought, you fool, to have sense, and be grateful to them for taking
+notice of a fool like you.'
+
+'It was a slip of the tongue, Nikolai Eremyitch; I beg your pardon....'
+
+'Yes, indeed, a slip of the tongue.'
+
+The door opened and a little page ran in.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch, mistress wants you.'
+
+'Who's with the mistress?' he asked the page.
+
+'Aksinya Nikitishna, and a merchant from Venev.'
+
+'I'll be there this minute. And you, mates,' he continued in a
+persuasive voice, 'better move off out of here with the newly-appointed
+stoker; if the German pops in, he'll make a complaint for certain.'
+
+The fat man smoothed his hair, coughed into his hand, which was almost
+completely hidden in his coat-sleeve, buttoned himself, and set off
+with rapid strides to see the lady of the manor. In a little while the
+whole party trailed out after him, together with Kuprya. My old friend,
+the clerk-on duty, was left alone. He set to work mending the pens, and
+dropped asleep in his chair. A few flies promptly seized the
+opportunity and settled on his mouth. A mosquito alighted on his
+forehead, and, stretching its legs out with a regular motion, slowly
+buried its sting into his flabby flesh. The same red head with whiskers
+showed itself again at the door, looked in, looked again, and then came
+into the office, together with the rather ugly body belonging to it.
+
+'Fedyushka! eh, Fedyushka! always asleep,' said the head.
+
+The clerk on duty opened his eyes and got up from his seat.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch has gone to the mistress?'
+
+'Yes, Vassily Nikolaevitch.'
+
+'Ah! ah!' thought I; 'this is he, the head cashier.'
+
+The head cashier began walking about the room. He really slunk rather
+than walked, and altogether resembled a cat. An old black frock-coat
+with very narrow skirts hung about his shoulders; he kept one hand in
+his bosom, while the other was for ever fumbling about his high, narrow
+horse-hair collar, and he turned his head with a certain effort. He
+wore noiseless kid boots, and trod very softly.
+
+'The landowner, Yagushkin, was asking for you to-day,' added the clerk
+on duty.
+
+'Hm, asking for me? What did he say?'
+
+'Said he'd go to Tyutyurov this evening and would wait for you. "I want
+to discuss some business with Vassily Nikolaevitch," said he, but what
+the business was he didn't say; "Vassily Nikolaevitch will know," says
+he.'
+
+'Hm!' replied the head cashier, and he went up to the window.
+
+'Is Nikolai Eremyitch in the counting-house?' a loud voice was heard
+asking in the outer room, and a tall man, apparently angry, with an
+irregular but bold and expressive face, and rather clean in his dress,
+stepped over the threshold.
+
+'Isn't he here?' he inquired, looking rapidly round.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch is with the mistress,' responded the cashier. 'Tell
+me what you want, Pavel Andreitch; you can tell me.... What is it you
+want?'
+
+'What do I want? You want to know what I want?' (The cashier gave a
+sickly nod.) 'I want to give him a lesson, the fat, greasy villain, the
+scoundrelly tell-tale!... I'll give him a tale to tell!'
+
+Pavel flung himself into a chair.
+
+'What are you saying, Pavel Andreitch! Calm yourself.... Aren't you
+ashamed? Don't forget whom you're talking about, Pavel Andreitch!'
+lisped the cashier.
+
+'Forget whom I'm talking about? What do I care for his being made
+head-clerk? A fine person they've found to promote, there's no denying
+that! They've let the goat loose in the kitchen garden, you may say!'
+
+'Hush, hush, Pavel Andreitch, hush! drop that ... what rubbish are you
+talking?'
+
+'So Master Fox is beginning to fawn? I will wait for him,' Pavel said
+with passion, and he struck a blow on the table. 'Ah, here he's
+coming!' he added with a look at the window; 'speak of the devil. With
+your kind permission!' (He, got up.)
+
+Nikolai Eremyitch came into the counting-house. His face was shining
+with satisfaction, but he was rather taken aback at seeing Pavel
+Andreitch.
+
+'Good day to you, Nikolai Eremyitch,' said Pavel in a significant tone,
+advancing deliberately to meet him.
+
+The head-clerk made no reply. The face of the merchant showed itself in
+the doorway.
+
+'What, won't you deign to answer me?' pursued Pavel. 'But no ... no,'
+he added; 'that's not it; there's no getting anything by shouting and
+abuse. No, you'd better tell me in a friendly way, Nikolai Eremyitch;
+what do you persecute me for? what do you want to ruin me for? Come,
+speak, speak.'
+
+'This is no fit place to come to an understanding with you,' the
+head-clerk answered in some agitation, 'and no fit time. But I must say
+I wonder at one thing: what makes you suppose I want to ruin you, or
+that I'm persecuting you? And if you come to that, how can I persecute
+you? You're not in my counting-house.'
+
+'I should hope not,' answered Pavel; 'that would be the last straw! But
+why are you hum-bugging, Nikolai Eremyitch?... You understand me, you
+know.'
+
+'No, I don't understand.'
+
+'No, you do understand.'
+
+'No, by God, I don't understand!'
+
+'Swearing too! Well, tell us, since it's come to that: have you no fear
+of God? Why can't you let the poor girl live in peace? What do you want
+of her?'
+
+'Whom are you talking of?' the fat man asked with feigned amazement.
+
+'Ugh! doesn't know; what next? I'm talking of Tatyana. Have some fear
+of God--what do you want to revenge yourself for? You ought to be
+ashamed: a married man like you, with children as big as I am; it's a
+very different thing with me.... I mean marriage: I'm acting
+straight-forwardly.'
+
+'How am I to blame in that, Pavel Andreitch? The mistress won't permit
+you to marry; it's her seignorial will! What have I to do with it?'
+
+'Why, haven't you been plotting with that old hag, the housekeeper, eh?
+Haven't you been telling tales, eh? Tell me, aren't you bringing all
+sorts of stories up against the defenceless girl? I suppose it's not
+your doing that she's been degraded from laundrymaid to washing dishes
+in the scullery? And it's not your doing that she's beaten and dressed
+in sackcloth?... You ought to be ashamed, you ought to be ashamed--an
+old man like you! You know there's a paralytic stroke always hanging
+over you.... You will have to answer to God.'
+
+'You're abusive, Pavel Andreitch, you're abusive.... You shan't have a
+chance to be insolent much longer.'
+
+Pavel fired up.
+
+'What? You dare to threaten me?' he said passionately. 'You think I'm
+afraid of you. No, my man, I'm not come to that! What have I to be
+afraid of?... I can make my bread everywhere. For you, now, it's
+another thing! It's only here you can live and tell tales, and
+filch....'
+
+'Fancy the conceit of the fellow!' interrupted the clerk, who was also
+beginning to lose patience; 'an apothecary's assistant, simply an
+apothecary's assistant, a wretched leech; and listen to him--fie upon
+you! you're a high and mighty personage!'
+
+'Yes, an apothecary's assistant, and except for this apothecary's
+assistant you'd have been rotting in the graveyard by now.... It was
+some devil drove me to cure him,' he added between his teeth.
+
+'You cured me?... No, you tried to poison me; you dosed me with aloes,'
+the clerk put in.
+
+'What was I to do if nothing but aloes had any effect on you?'
+
+'The use of aloes is forbidden by the Board of Health,' pursued
+Nikolai. 'I'll lodge a complaint against you yet.... You tried to
+compass my death--that was what you did! But the Lord suffered it not.'
+
+'Hush, now, that's enough, gentlemen,' the cashier was beginning....
+
+'Stand off!' bawled the clerk. 'He tried to poison me! Do you
+understand that?'
+
+'That's very likely.... Listen, Nikolai Eremyitch,' Pavel began in
+despairing accents. 'For the last time, I beg you.... You force me to
+it--can't stand it any longer. Let us alone, do you hear? or else, by
+God, it'll go ill with one or other of us--I mean with you!'
+
+The fat man flew into a rage.
+
+'I'm not afraid of you!' he shouted; 'do you hear, milksop? I got the
+better of your father; I broke his horns--a warning to you; take care!'
+
+'Don't talk of my father, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Get away! who are you to give me orders?'
+
+'I tell you, don't talk of him!'
+
+'And I tell you, don't forget yourself.... However necessary you think
+yourself, if our lady has a choice between us, it's not you'll be kept,
+my dear! None's allowed to mutiny, mind!' (Pavel was shaking with
+fury.) 'As for the wench, Tatyana, she deserves ... wait a bit, she'll
+get something worse!'
+
+Pavel dashed forward with uplifted fists, and the clerk rolled heavily
+on the floor.
+
+'Handcuff him, handcuff him,' groaned Nikolai Eremyitch....
+
+I won't take upon myself to describe the end of this scene; I fear I
+have wounded the reader's delicate susceptibilities as it is.
+
+The same day I returned home. A week later I heard that Madame
+Losnyakov had kept both Pavel and Nikolai in her service, but had sent
+away the girl Tatyana; it appeared she was not wanted.
+
+
+
+                                   XII
+
+                                 BIRYUK
+
+
+I was coming back from hunting one evening alone in a racing droshky. I
+was six miles from home; my good trotting mare galloped bravely along
+the dusty road, pricking up her ears with an occasional snort; my weary
+dog stuck close to the hind-wheels, as though he were fastened there. A
+tempest was coming on. In front, a huge, purplish storm-cloud slowly
+rose from behind the forest; long grey rain-clouds flew over my head
+and to meet me; the willows stirred and whispered restlessly. The
+suffocating heat changed suddenly to a damp chilliness; the darkness
+rapidly thickened. I gave the horse a lash with the reins, descended a
+steep slope, pushed across a dry water-course overgrown with brushwood,
+mounted the hill, and drove into the forest. The road ran before me,
+bending between thick hazel bushes, now enveloped in darkness; I
+advanced with difficulty. The droshky jumped up and down over the hard
+roots of the ancient oaks and limes, which were continually intersected
+by deep ruts--the tracks of cart wheels; my horse began to stumble. A
+violent wind suddenly began to roar overhead; the trees blustered; big
+drops of rain fell with slow tap and splash on the leaves; there came a
+flash of lightning and a clap of thunder. The rain fell in torrents. I
+went on a step or so, and soon was forced to stop; my horse foundered;
+I could not see an inch before me. I managed to take refuge somehow in
+a spreading bush. Crouching down and covering my face, I waited
+patiently for the storm to blow over, when suddenly, in a flash of
+lightning, I saw a tall figure on the road. I began to stare intently
+in that direction--the figure seemed to have sprung out of the ground
+near my droshky.
+
+'Who's that?' inquired a ringing voice.
+
+'Why, who are you?'
+
+'I'm the forester here.'
+
+I mentioned my name.
+
+'Oh, I know! Are you on your way home?'
+
+'Yes. But, you see, in such a storm....'
+
+'Yes, there is a storm,' replied the voice.
+
+A pale flash of lightning lit up the forester from head to foot; a
+brief crashing clap of thunder followed at once upon it. The rain
+lashed with redoubled force.
+
+'It won't be over just directly,' the forester went on.
+
+'What's to be done?'
+
+'I'll take you to my hut, if you like,' he said abruptly.
+
+'That would be a service.'
+
+'Please to take your seat'
+
+He went up to the mare's head, took her by the bit, and pulled her up.
+We set off. I held on to the cushion of the droshky, which rocked 'like
+a boat on the sea,' and called my dog. My poor mare splashed with
+difficulty through the mud, slipped and stumbled; the forester hovered
+before the shafts to right and to left like a ghost. We drove rather a
+long while; at last my guide stopped. 'Here we are home, sir,' he
+observed in a quiet voice. The gate creaked; some puppies barked a
+welcome. I raised my head, and in a flash of lightning I made out a
+small hut in the middle of a large yard, fenced in with hurdles. From
+the one little window there was a dim light. The forester led his horse
+up to the steps and knocked at the door. 'Coming, coming!' we heard in
+a little shrill voice; there was the patter of bare feet, the bolt
+creaked, and a girl of twelve, in a little old smock tied round the
+waist with list, appeared in the doorway with a lantern in her hand.
+
+'Show the gentleman a light,' he said to her 'and I will put your
+droshky in the shed.'
+
+The little girl glanced at me, and went into the hut. I followed her.
+
+The forester's hut consisted of one room, smoky, low-pitched, and
+empty, without curtains or partition. A tattered sheepskin hung on the
+wall. On the bench lay a single-barrelled gun; in the corner lay a heap
+of rags; two great pots stood near the oven. A pine splinter was
+burning on the table flickering up and dying down mournfully. In the
+very middle of the hut hung a cradle, suspended from the end of a long
+horizontal pole. The little girl put out the lantern, sat down on a
+tiny stool, and with her right hand began swinging the cradle, while
+with her left she attended to the smouldering pine splinter. I looked
+round--my heart sank within me: it's not cheering to go into a
+peasant's hut at night. The baby in the cradle breathed hard and fast.
+
+'Are you all alone here?' I asked the little girl.
+
+'Yes,' she uttered, hardly audibly.
+
+'You're the forester's daughter?'
+
+'Yes,' she whispered.
+
+The door creaked, and the forester, bending his head, stepped across
+the threshold. He lifted the lantern from the floor, went up to the
+table, and lighted a candle.
+
+'I dare say you're not used to the splinter light?' said he, and he
+shook back his curls.
+
+I looked at him. Rarely has it been my fortune to behold such a comely
+creature. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and in marvellous proportion.
+His powerful muscles stood out in strong relief under his wet homespun
+shirt. A curly, black beard hid half of his stern and manly face; small
+brown eyes looked out boldly from under broad eyebrows which met in the
+middle. He stood before me, his arms held lightly akimbo.
+
+I thanked him, and asked his name.
+
+'My name's Foma,' he answered, 'and my nickname's Biryuk' (_i.e._
+wolf). [Footnote: The name Biryuk is used in the Orel province to
+denote a solitary, misanthropic man.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'Oh, you're Biryuk.'
+
+I looked with redoubled curiosity at him. From my Yermolai and others I
+had often heard stories about the forester Biryuk, whom all the
+peasants of the surrounding districts feared as they feared fire.
+According to them there had never been such a master of his business in
+the world before. 'He won't let you carry off a handful of brushwood;
+he'll drop upon you like a fall of snow, whatever time it may be, even
+in the middle of the night, and you needn't think of resisting
+him--he's strong, and cunning as the devil.... And there's no getting
+at him anyhow; neither by brandy nor by money; there's no snare he'll
+walk into. More than once good folks have planned to put him out of the
+world, but no--it's never come off.'
+
+That was how the neighbouring peasants spoke of Biryuk.
+
+'So you're Biryuk,' I repeated; 'I've heard talk of you, brother. They
+say you show no mercy to anyone.'
+
+'I do my duty,' he answered grimly; 'it's not right to eat the master's
+bread for nothing.'
+
+He took an axe from his girdle and began splitting splinters.
+
+'Have you no wife?' I asked him.
+
+'No,' he answered, with a vigorous sweep of the axe.
+
+'She's dead, I suppose?'
+
+'No ... yes ... she's dead,' he added, and turned away. I was silent;
+he raised his eyes and looked at me.
+
+'She ran away with a travelling pedlar,' he brought out with a bitter
+smile. The little girl hung her head; the baby waked up and began
+crying; the little girl went to the cradle. 'There, give it him,' said
+Biryuk, thrusting a dirty feeding-bottle into her hand. 'Him, too, she
+abandoned,' he went on in an undertone, pointing to the baby. He went
+up to the door, stopped, and turned round.
+
+'A gentleman like you,' he began, 'wouldn't care for our bread, I dare
+say, and except bread, I've--'
+
+'I'm not hungry.'
+
+'Well, that's for you to say. I would have heated the samovar, but I've
+no tea.... I'll go and see how your horse is getting on.'
+
+He went out and slammed the door. I looked round again, the hut struck
+me as more melancholy than ever. The bitter smell of stale smoke choked
+my breathing unpleasantly. The little girl did not stir from her place,
+and did not raise her eyes; from time to time she jogged the cradle,
+and timidly pulled her slipping smock up on to shoulder; her bare legs
+hung motionless.
+
+'What's your name?' I asked her.
+
+'Ulita,' she said, her mournful little face drooping more than ever.
+
+The forester came in and sat down on the bench.
+
+'The storm 's passing over,' he observed, after a brief silence; 'if
+you wish it, I will guide you out of the forest.'
+
+I got up; Biryuk took his gun and examined the firepan.
+
+'What's that for?' I inquired.
+
+'There's mischief in the forest.... They're cutting a tree down on
+Mares' Ravine,' he added, in reply to my look of inquiry.
+
+'Could you hear it from here?'
+
+'I can hear it outside.'
+
+We went out together. The rain had ceased. Heavy masses of storm-cloud
+were still huddled in the distance; from time to time there were long
+flashes of lightning; but here and there overhead the dark blue sky was
+already visible; stars twinkled through the swiftly flying clouds. The
+outline of the trees, drenched with rain, and stirred by the wind,
+began to stand out in the darkness. We listened. The forester took off
+his cap and bent his head.... 'Th ... there!' he said suddenly, and he
+stretched out his hand: 'see what a night he's pitched on.' I had heard
+nothing but the rustle of the leaves. Biryuk led the mare out of the
+shed. 'But, perhaps,' he added aloud, 'this way I shall miss him.'
+'I'll go with you ... if you like?' 'Certainly,' he answered, and he
+backed the horse in again; 'we'll catch him in a trice, and then I'll
+take you. Let's be off.' We started, Biryuk in front, I following him.
+Heaven only knows how he found out his way, but he only stopped once or
+twice, and then merely to listen to the strokes of the axe. 'There,' he
+muttered, 'do you hear? do you hear?' 'Why, where?' Biryuk shrugged his
+shoulders. We went down into the ravine; the wind was still for an
+instant; the rhythmical strokes reached my hearing distinctly. Biryuk
+glanced at me and shook his head. We went farther through the wet
+bracken and nettles. A slow muffled crash was heard....
+
+'He's felled it,' muttered Biryuk. Meantime the sky had grown clearer
+and clearer; there was a faint light in the forest. We clambered at
+last out of the ravine.
+
+'Wait here a little,' the forester whispered to me. He bent down, and
+raising his gun above his head, vanished among the bushes. I began
+listening with strained attention. Across the continual roar of the
+wind faint sounds from close by reached me; there was a cautious blow
+of an axe on the brushwood, the crash of wheels, the snort of a
+horse....
+
+'Where are you off to? Stop!' the iron voice of Biryuk thundered
+suddenly. Another voice was heard in a pitiful shriek, like a trapped
+hare.... _A struggle was beginning._
+
+'No, no, you've made a mistake,' Biryuk declared panting; 'you're not
+going to get off....' I rushed in the direction of the noise, and ran
+up to the scene of the conflict, stumbling at every step. A felled tree
+lay on the ground, and near it Biryuk was busily engaged holding the
+thief down and binding his hands behind his back with a kerchief. I
+came closer. Biryuk got up and set him on his feet. I saw a peasant
+drenched with rain, in tatters, and with a long dishevelled beard. A
+sorry little nag, half covered with a stiff mat, was standing by,
+together with a rough cart. The forester did not utter a word; the
+peasant too was silent; his head was shaking.
+
+'Let him go,' I whispered in Biryuk's ears; 'I'll pay for the tree.'
+
+Without a word Biryuk took the horse by the mane with his left hand; in
+his right he held the thief by the belt. 'Now turn round, you rat!' he
+said grimly.
+
+'The bit of an axe there, take it,' muttered the peasant.
+
+'No reason to lose it, certainly,' said the forester, and he picked up
+the axe. We started. I walked behind.... The rain began sprinkling
+again, and soon fell in torrents. With difficulty we made our way to
+the hut. Biryuk pushed the captured horse into the middle of the yard,
+led the peasant into the room, loosened the knot in the kerchief, and
+made him sit down in a corner. The little girl, who had fallen asleep
+near the oven, jumped up and began staring at us in silent terror. I
+sat down on the locker.
+
+'Ugh, what a downpour!' remarked the forester; 'you will have to wait
+till it's over. Won't you lie down?'
+
+'Thanks.'
+
+'I would have shut him in the store loft, on your honour's account,' he
+went on, indicating the peasant; 'but you see the bolt--'
+
+'Leave him here; don't touch him,' I interrupted.
+
+The peasant stole a glance at me from under his brows. I vowed inwardly
+to set the poor wretch free, come what might. He sat without stirring
+on the locker. By the light of the lantern I could make out his worn,
+wrinkled face, his overhanging yellow eyebrows, his restless eyes, his
+thin limbs.... The little girl lay down on the floor, just at his feet,
+and again dropped asleep. Biryuk sat at the table, his head in his
+hands. A cricket chirped in the corner ... the rain pattered on the
+roof and streamed down the windows; we were all silent.
+
+'Foma Kuzmitch,' said the peasant suddenly in a thick, broken voice;
+'Foma Kuzmitch!'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Let me go.'
+
+Biryuk made no answer.
+
+'Let me go ... hunger drove me to it; let me go.'
+
+'I know you,' retorted the forester severely; 'your set's all
+alike--all thieves.'
+
+'Let me go,' repeated the peasant. 'Our manager ... we 're ruined,
+that's what it is--let me go!'
+
+'Ruined, indeed!... Nobody need steal.'
+
+'Let me go, Foma Kuzmitch.... Don't destroy me. Your manager, you know
+yourself, will have no mercy on me; that's what it is.'
+
+Biryuk turned away. The peasant was shivering as though he were in the
+throes of fever. His head was shaking, and his breathing came in broken
+gasps.
+
+'Let me go,' he repeated with mournful desperation. 'Let me go; by God,
+let me go! I'll pay; see, by God, I will! By God, it was through
+hunger!... the little ones are crying, you know yourself. It's hard for
+us, see.'
+
+'You needn't go stealing, for all that.'
+
+'My little horse,' the peasant went on, 'my poor little horse, at least
+... our only beast ... let it go.'
+
+'I tell you I can't. I'm not a free man; I'm made responsible. You
+oughtn't to be spoilt, either.'
+
+'Let me go! It's through want, Foma Kuzmitch, want--and nothing
+else--let me go!'
+
+'I know you!'
+
+'Oh, let me go!'
+
+'Ugh, what's the use of talking to you! sit quiet, or else you'll catch
+it. Don't you see the gentleman, hey?'
+
+The poor wretch hung his head.... Biryuk yawned and laid his head on
+the table. The rain still persisted. I was waiting to see what would
+happen.
+
+Suddenly the peasant stood erect. His eyes were glittering, and his
+face flushed dark red. 'Come, then, here; strike yourself, here,' he
+began, his eyes puckering up and the corners of his mouth dropping;
+'come, cursed destroyer of men's souls! drink Christian blood, drink.'
+
+The forester turned round.
+
+'I'm speaking to you, Asiatic, blood-sucker, you!'
+
+'Are you drunk or what, to set to being abusive?' began the forester,
+puzzled. 'Are you out of your senses, hey?'
+
+'Drunk! not at your expense, cursed destroyer of souls--brute, brute,
+brute!'
+
+'Ah, you----I'll show you!'
+
+'What's that to me? It's all one; I'm done for; what can I do without a
+home? Kill me--it's the same in the end; whether it's through hunger or
+like this--it's all one. Ruin us all--wife, children ... kill us all at
+once. But, wait a bit, we'll get at you!'
+
+Biryuk got up.
+
+'Kill me, kill me,' the peasant went on in savage tones; 'kill me;
+come, come, kill me....' (The little girl jumped up hastily from the
+ground and stared at him.) 'Kill me, kill me!'
+
+'Silence!' thundered the forester, and he took two steps forward.
+
+'Stop, Foma, stop,' I shouted; 'let him go.... Peace be with him.'
+
+'I won't be silent,' the luckless wretch went on. 'It's all the
+same--ruin anyway--you destroyer of souls, you brute; you've not come
+to ruin yet.... But wait a bit; you won't have long to boast of;
+they'll wring your neck; wait a bit!'
+
+Biryuk clutched him by the shoulder. I rushed to help the peasant....
+
+'Don't touch him, master!' the forester shouted to me.
+
+I should not have feared his threats, and already had my fist in the
+air; but to my intense amazement, with one pull he tugged the kerchief
+off the peasant's elbows, took him by the scruff of the neck, thrust
+his cap over his eyes, opened the door, and shoved him out.
+
+'Go to the devil with your horse!' he shouted after him; 'but mind,
+next time....'
+
+He came back into the hut and began rummaging in the corner.
+
+'Well, Biryuk,' I said at last, 'you've astonished me; I see you're a
+splendid fellow.'
+
+'Oh, stop that, master,' he cut me short with an air of vexation;
+'please don't speak of it. But I'd better see you on your way now,' he
+added; 'I suppose you won't wait for this little rain....'
+
+In the yard there was the rattle of the wheels of the peasant's cart.
+
+'He's off, then!' he muttered; 'but next time!'
+
+Half-an-hour later he parted from me at the edge of the wood.
+
+
+
+                                  XIII
+
+                         TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
+
+
+I have already had the honour, kind readers, of introducing to you
+several of my neighbours; let me now seize a favourable opportunity (it
+is always a favourable opportunity with us writers) to make known to
+you two more gentlemen, on whose lands I often used to go
+shooting--very worthy, well-intentioned persons, who enjoy universal
+esteem in several districts.
+
+First I will describe to you the retired General-major Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch Hvalinsky. Picture to yourselves a tall and once slender
+man, now inclined to corpulence, but not in the least decrepit or even
+elderly, a man of ripe age; in his very prime, as they say. It is true
+the once regular and even now rather pleasing features of his face have
+undergone some change; his cheeks are flabby; there are close wrinkles
+like rays about his eyes; a few teeth are not, as Saadi, according to
+Pushkin, used to say; his light brown hair--at least, all that is left
+of it--has assumed a purplish hue, thanks to a composition bought at
+the Romyon horse-fair of a Jew who gave himself out as an Armenian; but
+Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch has a smart walk and a ringing laugh, jingles
+his spurs and curls his moustaches, and finally speaks of himself as an
+old cavalry man, whereas we all know that really old men never talk of
+being old. He usually wears a frock-coat buttoned up to the top, a high
+cravat, starched collars, and grey sprigged trousers of a military cut;
+he wears his hat tilted over his forehead, leaving all the back of his
+head exposed. He is a good-natured man, but of rather curious notions
+and principles. For instance, he can never treat noblemen of no wealth
+or standing as equals. When he talks to them, he usually looks sideways
+at them, his cheek pressed hard against his stiff white collar, and
+suddenly he turns and silently fixes them with a clear stony stare,
+while he moves the whole skin of his head under his hair; he even has a
+way of his own in pronouncing many words; he never says, for instance:
+'Thank you, Pavel Vasilyitch,' or 'This way, if you please, Mihalo
+Ivanitch,' but always 'Fanks, Pa'l 'Asilitch,' or ''Is wy, please, Mil'
+'Vanitch.' With persons of the lower grades of society, his behaviour
+is still more quaint; he never looks at them at all, and before making
+known his desires to them, or giving an order, he repeats several times
+in succession, with a puzzled, far-away air: 'What's your name?...
+what, what's your name?' with extraordinary sharp emphasis on the first
+word, which gives the phrase a rather close resemblance to the call of
+a quail. He is very fussy and terribly close-fisted, but manages his
+land badly; he had chosen as overseer on his estate a retired
+quartermaster, a Little Russian, and a man of really exceptional
+stupidity. None of us, though, in the management of land, has ever
+surpassed a certain great Petersburg dignitary, who, having perceived
+from the reports of his steward that the cornkilns in which the corn
+was dried on his estate were often liable to catch fire, whereby he
+lost a great deal of grain, gave the strictest orders that for the
+future they should not put the sheaves in till the fire had been
+completely put out! This same great personage conceived the brilliant
+idea of sowing his fields with poppies, as the result of an apparently
+simple calculation; poppy being dearer than rye, he argued, it is
+consequently more profitable to sow poppy. He it was, too, who ordered
+his women serfs to wear tiaras after a pattern bespoken from Moscow;
+and to this day the peasant women on his lands do actually wear the
+tiaras, only they wear them over their skull-caps.... But let us return
+to Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch is a devoted
+admirer of the fair sex, and directly he catches sight of a pretty
+woman in the promenade of his district town, he is promptly off in
+pursuit, but falls at once into a sort of limping gait--that is the
+remarkable feature of the case. He is fond of playing cards, but only
+with people of a lower standing; they toady him with 'Your Excellency'
+in every sentence, while he can scold them and find fault to his
+heart's content. When he chances to play with the governor or any
+official personage, a marvellous change comes over him; he is all nods
+and smiles; he looks them in the face; he seems positively flowing with
+honey.... He even loses without grumbling. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch
+does not read much; when he is reading he incessantly works his
+moustaches and eyebrows up and down, as if a wave were passing from
+below upwards over his face. This undulatory motion in Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch's face is especially marked when (before company, of
+course) he happens to be reading the columns of the _Journal des
+Debats_. In the assemblies of nobility he plays a rather important
+part, but on grounds of economy he declines the honourable dignity of
+marshal. 'Gentlemen,' he usually says to the noblemen who press that
+office upon him, and he speaks in a voice filled with condescension and
+self-sufficiency: 'much indebted for the honour; but I have made up my
+mind to consecrate my leisure to solitude.' And, as he utters these
+words, he turns his head several times to right and to left, and then,
+with a dignified air, adjusts his chin and his cheek over his cravat.
+In his young days he served as adjutant to some very important person,
+whom he never speaks of except by his Christian name and patronymic;
+they do say he fulfilled other functions than those of an adjutant;
+that, for instance, in full parade get-up, buttoned up to the chin, he
+had to lather his chief in his bath--but one can't believe everything
+one hears. General Hvalinsky is not, however, fond of talking himself
+about his career in the army, which is certainly rather curious; it
+seems that he had never seen active service. General Hvalinsky lives in
+a small house alone; he has never known the joys of married life, and
+consequently he still regards himself as a possible match, and indeed a
+very eligible one. But he has a house-keeper, a dark-eyed, dark-browed,
+plump, fresh-looking woman of five-and-thirty with a moustache; she
+wears starched dresses even on week-days, and on Sundays puts on muslin
+sleeves as well. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch is at his best at the large
+invitation dinners given by gentlemen of the neighbourhood in honour of
+the governor and other dignitaries: then he is, one may say, in his
+natural element. On these occasions he usually sits, if not on the
+governor's right hand, at least at no great distance from him; at the
+beginning of dinner he is more disposed to nurse his sense of personal
+dignity, and, sitting back in his chair, he loftily scans the necks and
+stand-up collars of the guests, without turning his head, but towards
+the end of the meal he unbends, begins smiling in all directions (he
+had been all smiles for the governor from the first), and sometimes
+even proposes the toast in honour of the fair sex, the ornament of our
+planet, as he says. General Hvalinsky shows to advantage too at all
+solemn public functions, inspections, assemblies, and exhibitions; no
+one in church goes up for the benediction with such style. Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch's servants are never noisy and clamorous on the breaking
+up of assemblies or in crowded thoroughfares; as they make a way for
+him through the crowd or call his carriage, they say in an agreeable
+guttural baritone: 'By your leave, by your leave allow General
+Hvalinsky to pass,' or 'Call for General Hvalinsky's carriage.' ...
+Hvalinsky's carriage is, it must be admitted, of a rather queer design,
+and the footmen's liveries are rather threadbare (that they are grey,
+with red facings, it is hardly necessary to remark); his horses too
+have seen a good deal of hard service in their time; but Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch has no pretensions to splendour, and goes so far as to
+think it beneath his rank to make an ostentation of wealth. Hvalinsky
+has no special gift of eloquence, or possibly has no opportunity of
+displaying his rhetorical powers, as he has a particular aversion, not
+only for disputing, but for discussion in general, and assiduously
+avoids long conversation of all sorts, especially with young people.
+This was certainly judicious on his part; the worst of having to do
+with the younger generation is that they are so ready to forget the
+proper respect and submission due to their superiors. In the presence
+of persons of high rank Hvalinsky is for the most part silent, while
+with persons of a lower rank, whom to judge by appearances he despises,
+though he constantly associates with them, his remarks are sharp and
+abrupt, expressions such as the following occurring incessantly:
+'That's a piece of folly, what you're saying now,' or 'I feel myself
+compelled, sir, to remind you,' or 'You ought to realise with whom you
+are dealing,' and so on. He is peculiarly dreaded by post-masters,
+officers of the local boards, and superintendents of posting stations.
+He never entertains any one in his house, and lives, as the rumour
+goes, like a screw. For all that, he's an excellent country gentleman,
+'An old soldier, a disinterested fellow, a man of principle, _vieux
+grognard_,' his neighbours say of him. The provincial prosecutor alone
+permits himself to smile when General Hvalinsky's excellent and solid
+qualities are referred to before him--but what will not envy drive men
+to!...
+
+However, we will pass now to another landed proprietor.
+
+Mardary Apollonitch Stegunov has no sort of resemblance to Hvalinsky; I
+hardly think he has ever served under government in any capacity, and
+he has never been reckoned handsome. Mardary Apollonitch is a little,
+fattish, bald old man of a respectable corpulence, with a double chin
+and little soft hands. He is very hospitable and jovial; lives, as the
+saying is, for his comfort; summer and winter alike, he wears a striped
+wadded dressing-gown. There's only one thing in which he is like
+General Hvalinsky; he too is a bachelor. He owns five hundred souls.
+Mardary Apollonitch's interest in his estate is of a rather superficial
+description; not to be behind the age, he ordered a threshing-machine
+from Butenop's in Moscow, locked it up in a barn, and then felt his
+mind at rest on the subject. Sometimes on a fine summer day he would
+have out his racing droshky, and drive off to his fields, to look at
+the crops and gather corn-flowers. Mardary Apollonitch's existence is
+carried on in quite the old style. His house is of an old-fashioned
+construction; in the hall there is, of course, a smell of kvas, tallow
+candles, and leather; close at hand, on the right, there is a sideboard
+with pipes and towels; in the dining-room, family portraits, flies, a
+great pot of geraniums, and a squeaky piano; in the drawing-room, three
+sofas, three tables, two looking-glasses, and a wheezy clock of
+tarnished enamel with engraved bronze hands; in the study, a table
+piled up with papers, and a bluish-coloured screen covered with
+pictures cut out of various works of last century; a bookcase full of
+musty books, spiders, and black dust; a puffy armchair; an Italian
+window; a sealed-up door into the garden.... Everything, in short, just
+as it always is. Mardary Apollonitch has a multitude of servants, all
+dressed in the old-fashioned style; in long blue full coats, with high
+collars, shortish pantaloons of a muddy hue, and yellow waistcoats.
+They address visitors as 'father.' His estate is under the
+superintendence of an agent, a peasant with a beard that covers the
+whole of his sheepskin; his household is managed by a stingy, wrinkled
+old woman, whose face is always tied up in a cinnamon-coloured
+handkerchief. In Mardary Apollonitch's stable there are thirty horses
+of various kinds; he drives out in a coach built on the estate, that
+weighs four tons. He receives visitors very cordially, and entertains
+them sumptuously; in other words, thanks to the stupefying powers of
+our national cookery, he deprives them of all capacity for doing
+anything but playing preference. For his part, he never does anything,
+and has even given up reading the _Dream-book_. But there are a good
+many of our landed gentry in Russia exactly like this. It will be
+asked: 'What is my object in talking about him?...' Well, by way of
+answering that question, let me describe to you one of my visits at
+Mardary Apollonitch's.
+
+I arrived one summer evening at seven o'clock. An evening service was
+only just over; the priest, a young man, apparently very timid, and
+only lately come from the seminary, was sitting in the drawing-room
+near the door, on the extreme edge of a chair. Mardary Apollonitch
+received me as usual, very cordially; he was genuinely delighted to see
+any visitor, and indeed he was the most good-natured of men altogether.
+The priest got up and took his hat.
+
+'Wait a bit, wait a bit, father,' said Mardary Apollonitch, not yet
+leaving go of my hand; 'don't go ... I have sent for some vodka for
+you.'
+
+'I never drink it, sir,' the priest muttered in confusion, blushing up
+to his ears.
+
+'What nonsense!' answered Mardary Apollonitch; 'Mishka! Yushka! vodka
+for the father!'
+
+Yushka, a tall, thin old man of eighty, came in with a glass of vodka
+on a dark-coloured tray, with a few patches of flesh-colour on it, all
+that was left of the original enamel.
+
+The priest began to decline.
+
+'Come, drink it up, father, no ceremony; it's too bad of you,' observed
+the landowner reproachfully.
+
+The poor young man had to obey.
+
+'There, now, father, you may go.'
+
+The priest took leave.
+
+'There, there, that'll do, get along with you....'
+
+'A capital fellow,' pursued Mardary Apollonitch, looking after him, 'I
+like him very much; there's only one thing--he's young yet. But how are
+you, my dear sir?... What have you been doing? How are you? Let's come
+out on to the balcony--such a lovely evening.'
+
+We went out on the balcony, sat down, and began to talk. Mardary
+Apollonitch glanced below, and suddenly fell into a state of tremendous
+excitement.
+
+'Whose hens are those? whose hens are those?' he shouted: 'Whose are
+those hens roaming about in the garden?... Whose are those hens? How
+many times I've forbidden it! How many times I've spoken about it!'
+
+Yushka ran out.
+
+'What disorder!' protested Mardary Apollonitch; 'it's horrible!'
+
+The unlucky hens, two speckled and one white with a topknot, as I still
+remember, went on stalking tranquilly about under the apple-trees,
+occasionally giving vent to their feelings in a prolonged clucking,
+when suddenly Yushka, bareheaded and stick in hand, with three other
+house-serfs of mature years, flew at them simultaneously. Then the fun
+began. The hens clucked, flapped their wings, hopped, raised a
+deafening cackle; the house-serfs ran, tripping up and tumbling over;
+their master shouted from the balcony like one possessed: 'Catch 'em,
+catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em!'
+
+At last one servant succeeded in catching the hen with the topknot,
+tumbling upon her, and at the very same moment a little girl of eleven,
+with dishevelled hair, and a dry branch in her hand, jumped over the
+garden-fence from the village street.
+
+'Ah, we see now whose hens!' cried the landowner in triumph. 'They're
+Yermil, the coachman's, hens! he's sent his Natalka to chase them
+out.... He didn't send his Parasha, no fear!' the landowner added in a
+low voice with a significant snigger. 'Hey, Yushka! let the hens alone;
+catch Natalka for me.'
+
+But before the panting Yushka had time to reach the terrified little
+girl the house-keeper suddenly appeared, snatched her by the arm, and
+slapped her several times on the back....
+
+'That's it! that's it!' cried the master, 'tut-tut-tut!... And carry
+off the hens, Avdotya,' he added in a loud voice, and he turned with a
+beaming face to me; 'that was a fine chase, my dear sir, hey?--I'm in a
+regular perspiration: look.'
+
+And Mardary Apollonitch went off into a series of chuckles.
+
+We remained on the balcony. The evening was really exceptionally fine.
+
+Tea was served us.
+
+'Tell me,' I began, 'Mardary Apollonitch: are those your peasants'
+huts, out there on the highroad, above the ravine?'
+
+'Yes ... why do you ask?'
+
+'I wonder at you, Mardary Apollonitch? It's really sinful. The huts
+allotted to the peasants there are wretched cramped little hovels;
+there isn't a tree to be seen near them; there's not a pond even;
+there's only one well, and that's no good. Could you really find no
+other place to settle them?... And they say you're taking away the old
+hemp-grounds, too?'
+
+'And what is one to do with this new division of the lands?' Mardary
+Apollonitch made answer. 'Do you know I've this re-division quite on my
+mind, and I foresee no sort of good from it. And as for my having taken
+away the hemp-ground, and their not having dug any ponds, or what
+not--as to that, my dear sir, I know my own business. I'm a plain
+man--I go on the old system. To my ideas, when a man's master--he's
+master; and when he's peasant--he's peasant. ... That's what I think
+about it.'
+
+To an argument so clear and convincing there was of course no answer.
+
+'And besides,' he went on, 'those peasants are a wretched lot; they're
+in disgrace. Particularly two families there; why, my late father--God
+rest his soul--couldn't bear them; positively couldn't bear them. And
+you know my precept is: where the father's a thief, the son's a thief;
+say what you like.... Blood, blood--oh, that's the great thing!'
+
+Meanwhile there was a perfect stillness in the air. Only rarely there
+came a gust of wind, which, as it sank for the last time near the
+house, brought to our ears the sound of rhythmically repeated blows,
+seeming to come from the stable. Mardary Apollonitch was in the act of
+lifting a saucer full of tea to his lips, and was just inflating his
+nostrils to sniff its fragrance--no true-born Russian, as we all know,
+can drink his tea without this preliminary--but he stopped short,
+listened, nodded his head, sipped his tea, and laying the saucer on the
+table, with the most good-natured smile imaginable, he murmured as
+though involuntarily accompanying the blows: 'Tchuki-tchuki-tchuk!
+Tchuki-tchuk!'
+
+'What is it?' I asked puzzled. 'Oh, by my order, they're punishing a
+scamp of a fellow.... Do you happen to remember Vasya, who waits at the
+sideboard?'
+
+'Which Vasya?'
+
+'Why, that waited on us at dinner just now. He with the long whiskers.'
+
+The fiercest indignation could not have stood against the clear mild
+gaze of Mardary Apollonitch.
+
+'What are you after, young man? what is it?' he said, shaking his head.
+'Am I a criminal or something, that you stare at me like that? "Whom he
+loveth he chasteneth"; you know that.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later I had taken leave of Mardary Apollonitch. As
+I was driving through the village I caught sight of Vasya. He was
+walking down the village street, cracking nuts. I told the coachman to
+stop the horses and called him up.
+
+'Well, my boy, so they've been punishing you to-day?' I said to him.
+
+'How did you know?' answered Vasya.
+
+'Your master told me.'
+
+'The master himself?'
+
+'What did he order you to be punished for?'
+
+'Oh, I deserved it, father; I deserved it. They don't punish for
+trifles among us; that's not the way with us--no, no. Our master's not
+like that; our master ... you won't find another master like him in all
+the province.'
+
+'Drive on!' I said to the coachman.' There you have it, old Russia!' I
+mused on my homeward way.
+
+
+
+                                  XIV
+
+                                LEBEDYAN
+
+
+One of the principal advantages of hunting, my dear readers, consists
+in its forcing you to be constantly moving from place to place, which
+is highly agreeable for a man of no occupation. It is true that
+sometimes, especially in wet weather, it's not over pleasant to roam
+over by-roads, to cut 'across country,' to stop every peasant you meet
+with the question, 'Hey! my good man! how are we to get to Mordovka?'
+and at Mordovka to try to extract from a half-witted peasant woman (the
+working population are all in the fields) whether it is far to an inn
+on the high-road, and how to get to it--and then when you have gone on
+eight miles farther, instead of an inn, to come upon the deserted
+village of Hudobubnova, to the great amazement of a whole herd of pigs,
+who have been wallowing up to their ears in the black mud in the middle
+of the village street, without the slightest anticipation of ever being
+disturbed. There is no great joy either in having to cross planks that
+dance under your feet; to drop down into ravines; to wade across boggy
+streams: it is not over-pleasant to tramp twenty-four hours on end
+through the sea of green that covers the highroads or (which God
+forbid!) stay for hours stuck in the mud before a striped milestone
+with the figures 22 on one side and 23 on the other; it is not wholly
+pleasant to live for weeks together on eggs, milk, and the rye-bread
+patriots affect to be so fond of.... But there is ample compensation
+for all these inconveniences and discomforts in pleasures and
+advantages of another sort. Let us come, though, to our story.
+
+After all I have said above, there is no need to explain to the reader
+how I happened five years ago to be at Lebedyan just in the very thick
+of the horse-fair. We sportsmen may often set off on a fine morning
+from our more or less ancestral roof, in the full intention of
+returning there the following evening, and little by little, still in
+pursuit of snipe, may get at last to the blessed banks of Petchora.
+Besides, every lover of the gun and the dog is a passionate admirer of
+the noblest animal in the world, the horse. And so I turned up at
+Lebedyan, stopped at the hotel, changed my clothes, and went out to the
+fair. (The waiter, a thin lanky youth of twenty, had already informed
+me in a sweet nasal tenor that his Excellency Prince N----, who
+purchases the chargers of the--regiment, was staying at their house;
+that many other gentlemen had arrived; that some gypsies were to sing
+in the evenings, and there was to be a performance of _Pan Tvardovsky_
+at the theatre; that the horses were fetching good prices; and that
+there was a fine show of them.)
+
+In the market square there were endless rows of carts drawn up, and
+behind the carts, horses of every possible kind: racers, stud-horses,
+dray horses, cart-horses, posting-hacks, and simple peasants' nags.
+Some fat and sleek, assorted by colours, covered with striped
+horse-cloths, and tied up short to high racks, turned furtive glances
+backward at the too familiar whips of their owners, the horse-dealers;
+private owners' horses, sent by noblemen of the steppes a hundred or
+two hundred miles away, in charge of some decrepit old coachman and two
+or three headstrong stable-boys, shook their long necks, stamped with
+ennui, and gnawed at the fences; roan horses, from Vyatka, huddled
+close to one another; race-horses, dapple-grey, raven, and sorrel, with
+large hindquarters, flowing tails, and shaggy legs, stood in majestic
+immobility like lions. Connoisseurs stopped respectfully before them.
+The avenues formed by the rows of carts were thronged with people of
+every class, age, and appearance; horse-dealers in long blue coats and
+high caps, with sly faces, were on the look-out for purchasers;
+gypsies, with staring eyes and curly heads, strolled up and down, like
+uneasy spirits, looking into the horses' mouths, lifting up a hoof or a
+tail, shouting, swearing, acting as go-betweens, casting lots, or
+hanging about some army horse-contracter in a foraging-cap and military
+cloak, with beaver collar. A stalwart Cossack rode up and down on a
+lanky gelding with the neck of a stag, offering it for sale 'in one
+lot,' that is, saddle, bridle, and all. Peasants, in sheepskins torn at
+the arm-pits, were forcing their way despairingly through the crowd, or
+packing themselves by dozens into a cart harnessed to a horse, which
+was to be 'put to the test,' or somewhere on one side, with the aid of
+a wily gypsy, they were bargaining till they were exhausted, clasping
+each other's hands a hundred times over, each still sticking to his
+price, while the subject of their dispute, a wretched little jade
+covered with a shrunken mat, was blinking quite unmoved, as though it
+was no concern of hers.... And, after all, what difference did it make
+to her who was to have the beating of her? Broad-browed landowners,
+with dyed moustaches and an expression of dignity on their faces, in
+Polish hats and cotton overcoats pulled half-on, were talking
+condescendingly with fat merchants in felt hats and green gloves.
+Officers of different regiments were crowding everywhere; an
+extraordinarily lanky cuirassier of German extraction was languidly
+inquiring of a lame horse-dealer 'what he expected to get for that
+chestnut.' A fair-haired young hussar, a boy of nineteen, was choosing
+a trace-horse to match a lean carriage-horse; a post-boy in a
+low-crowned hat, with a peacock's feather twisted round it, in a brown
+coat and long leather gloves tied round the arm with narrow, greenish
+bands, was looking for a shaft-horse. Coachmen were plaiting the
+horses' tails, wetting their manes, and giving respectful advice to
+their masters. Those who had completed a stroke of business were
+hurrying to hotel or to tavern, according to their class.... And all
+the crowd were moving, shouting, bustling, quarrelling and making it up
+again, swearing and laughing, all up to their knees in the mud. I
+wanted to buy a set of three horses for my covered trap; mine had begun
+to show signs of breaking down. I had found two, but had not yet
+succeeded in picking up a third. After a hotel dinner, which I cannot
+bring myself to describe (even Aeneas had discovered how painful it is
+to dwell on sorrows past), I repaired to a _cafe_ so-called, which was
+the evening resort of the purchasers of cavalry mounts, horse-breeders,
+and other persons. In the billiard-room, which was plunged in grey
+floods of tobacco smoke, there were about twenty men. Here were
+free-and-easy young landowners in embroidered jackets and grey
+trousers, with long curling hair and little waxed moustaches, staring
+about them with gentlemanly insolence; other noblemen in Cossack dress,
+with extraordinarily short necks, and eyes lost in layers of fat, were
+snorting with distressing distinctness; merchants sat a little apart on
+the _qui-vive_, as it is called; officers were chatting freely among
+themselves. At the billiard-table was Prince N---- a young man of
+two-and-twenty, with a lively and rather contemptuous face, in a coat
+hanging open, a red silk shirt, and loose velvet pantaloons; he was
+playing with the ex-lieutenant, Viktor Hlopakov.
+
+The ex-lieutenant, Viktor Hlopakov, a little, thinnish, dark man of
+thirty, with black hair, brown eyes, and a thick snub nose, is a
+diligent frequenter of elections and horse-fairs. He walks with a skip
+and a hop, waves his fat hands with a jovial swagger, cocks his cap on
+one side, and tucks up the sleeves of his military coat, showing the
+blue-black cotton lining. Mr. Hlopakov knows how to gain the favour of
+rich scapegraces from Petersburg; smokes, drinks, and plays cards with
+them; calls them by their Christian names. What they find to like in
+him it is rather hard to comprehend. He is not clever; he is not
+amusing; he is not even a buffoon. It is true they treat him with
+friendly casualness, as a good-natured fellow, but rather a fool; they
+chum with him for two or three weeks, and then all of a sudden do not
+recognise him in the street, and he on his side, too, does not
+recognise them. The chief peculiarity of Lieutenant Hlopakov consists
+in his continually for a year, sometimes two at a time, using in season
+and out of season one expression, which, though not in the least
+humorous, for some reason or other makes everyone laugh. Eight years
+ago he used on every occasion to say, "'Umble respecks and duty," and
+his patrons of that date used always to fall into fits of laughter and
+make him repeat ''Umble respecks and duty'; then he began to adopt a
+more complicated expression: 'No, that's too, too k'essk'say,' and with
+the same brilliant success; two years later he had invented a fresh
+saying: '_Ne voo_ excite _voo_self _pa_, man of sin, sewn in a
+sheepskin,' and so on. And strange to say! these, as you see, not
+overwhelmingly witty phrases, keep him in food and drink and clothes.
+(He has run through his property ages ago, and lives solely upon his
+friends.) There is, observe, absolutely no other attraction about him;
+he can, it is true, smoke a hundred pipes of Zhukov tobacco in a day,
+and when he plays billiards, throws his right leg higher than his head,
+and while taking aim shakes his cue affectedly; but, after all, not
+everyone has a fancy for these accomplishments. He can drink, too ...
+but in Russia it is hard to gain distinction as a drinker. In short,
+his success is a complete riddle to me.... There is one thing, perhaps;
+he is discreet; he has no taste for washing dirty linen away from home,
+never speaks a word against anyone.
+
+'Well,' I thought, on seeing Hlopakov, 'I wonder what his catchword is
+now?'
+
+The prince hit the white.
+
+'Thirty love,' whined a consumptive marker, with a dark face and blue
+rings under his eyes.
+
+The prince sent the yellow with a crash into the farthest pocket.
+
+'Ah!' a stoutish merchant, sitting in the corner at a tottering little
+one-legged table, boomed approvingly from the depths of his chest, and
+immediately was overcome by confusion at his own presumption. But
+luckily no one noticed him. He drew a long breath, and stroked his
+beard.
+
+'Thirty-six love!' the marker shouted in a nasal voice.
+
+'Well, what do you say to that, old man?' the prince asked Hlopakov.
+
+'What! rrrrakaliooon, of course, simply rrrrakaliooooon!'
+
+The prince roared with laughter.
+
+'What? what? Say it again.'
+
+'Rrrrrakaliooon!' repeated the ex-lieutenant complacently.
+
+'So that's the catchword!' thought I.
+
+The prince sent the red into the pocket.
+
+'Oh! that's not the way, prince, that's not the way,' lisped a
+fair-haired young officer with red eyes, a tiny nose, and a babyish,
+sleepy face. 'You shouldn't play like that ... you ought ... not that
+way!'
+
+'Eh?' the prince queried over his shoulder.
+
+'You ought to have done it ... in a triplet.'
+
+'Oh, really?' muttered the prince.
+
+'What do you say, prince? Shall we go this evening to hear the
+gypsies?' the young man hurriedly went on in confusion. 'Styoshka will
+sing ... Ilyushka....'
+
+The prince vouchsafed no reply.
+
+'Rrrrrakaliooon, old boy,' said Hlopakov, with a sly wink of his left
+eye.
+
+And the prince exploded.
+
+'Thirty-nine to love,' sang out the marker.
+
+'Love ... just look, I'll do the trick with that yellow.' ... Hlopakov,
+fidgeting his cue in his hand, took aim, and missed.
+
+'Eh, rrrakalioon,' he cried with vexation.
+
+The prince laughed again.
+
+'What, what, what?'
+
+'Your honour made a miss,' observed the marker. 'Allow me to chalk the
+cue.... Forty love.'
+
+'Yes, gentlemen,' said the prince, addressing the whole company, and
+not looking at any one in particular; 'you know, Verzhembitskaya must
+be called before the curtain to-night.'
+
+'To be sure, to be sure, of course,' several voices cried in rivalry,
+amazingly flattered at the chance of answering the prince's speech;
+'Verzhembitskaya, to be sure....'
+
+'Verzhembitskaya's an excellent actress, far superior to Sopnyakova,'
+whined an ugly little man in the corner with moustaches and spectacles.
+Luckless wretch! he was secretly sighing at Sopnyakova's feet, and the
+prince did not even vouchsafe him a look.
+
+'Wai-ter, hey, a pipe!' a tall gentleman, with regular features and a
+most majestic manner--in fact, with all the external symptoms of a
+card-sharper--muttered into his cravat.
+
+A waiter ran for a pipe, and when he came back, announced to his
+excellency that the groom Baklaga was asking for him.
+
+'Ah! tell him to wait a minute and take him some vodka.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+Baklaga, as I was told afterwards, was the name of a youthful,
+handsome, and excessively depraved groom; the prince loved him, made
+him presents of horses, went out hunting with him, spent whole nights
+with him.... Now you would not know this same prince, who was once a
+rake and a scapegrace.... In what good odour he is now; how
+straight-laced, how supercilious! How devoted to the government--and,
+above all, so prudent and judicious!
+
+However, the tobacco smoke had begun to make my eyes smart. After
+hearing Hlopakov's exclamation and the prince's chuckle one last time
+more, I went off to my room, where, on a narrow, hair-stuffed sofa
+pressed into hollows, with a high, curved back, my man had already made
+me up a bed.
+
+The next day I went out to look at the horses in the stables, and began
+with the famous horsedealer Sitnikov's. I went through a gate into a
+yard strewn with sand. Before a wide open stable-door stood the
+horsedealer himself--a tall, stout man no longer young, in a hareskin
+coat, with a raised turnover collar. Catching sight of me, he moved
+slowly to meet me, held his cap in both hands above his head, and in a
+sing-song voice brought out:
+
+'Ah, our respects to you. You'd like to have a look at the horses, may
+be?'
+
+'Yes; I've come to look at the horses.'
+
+'And what sort of horses, precisely, I make bold to ask?'
+
+'Show me what you have.'
+
+'With pleasure.'
+
+We went into the stable. Some white pug-dogs got up from the hay and
+ran up to us, wagging their tails, and a long-bearded old goat walked
+away with an air of dissatisfaction; three stable-boys, in strong but
+greasy sheepskins, bowed to us without speaking. To right and to left,
+in horse-boxes raised above the ground, stood nearly thirty horses,
+groomed to perfection. Pigeons fluttered cooing about the rafters.
+
+'What, now, do you want a horse for? for driving or for breeding?'
+Sitnikov inquired of me.
+
+'Oh, I'll see both sorts.'
+
+'To be sure, to be sure,' the horsedealer commented, dwelling on each
+syllable. 'Petya, show the gentleman Ermine.'
+
+We came out into the yard.
+
+'But won't you let them bring you a bench out of the hut?... You don't
+want to sit down.... As you please.'
+
+There was the thud of hoofs on the boards, the crack of a whip, and
+Petya, a swarthy fellow of forty, marked by small-pox, popped out of
+the stable with a rather well-shaped grey stallion, made it rear, ran
+twice round the yard with it, and adroitly pulled it up at the right
+place. Ermine stretched himself, snorted, raised his tail, shook his
+head, and looked sideways at me.
+
+'A clever beast,' I thought.
+
+'Give him his head, give him his head,' said Sitniker, and he stared at
+me.
+
+'What may you think of him?' he inquired at last.
+
+'The horse's not bad--the hind legs aren't quite sound.'
+
+'His legs are first-rate!' Sitnikov rejoined, with an air of
+conviction;' and his hind-quarters ... just look, sir ... broad as an
+oven--you could sleep up there.' 'His pasterns are long.'
+
+'Long! mercy on us! Start him, Petya, start him, but at a trot, a trot
+... don't let him gallop.'
+
+Again Petya ran round the yard with Ermine. None of us spoke for a
+little.
+
+'There, lead him back,' said Sitnikov,' and show us Falcon.'
+
+Falcon, a gaunt beast of Dutch extraction with sloping hind-quarters,
+as black as a beetle, turned out to be little better than Ermine. He
+was one of those beasts of whom fanciers will tell you that 'they go
+chopping and mincing and dancing about,' meaning thereby that they
+prance and throw out their fore-legs to right and to left without
+making much headway. Middle-aged merchants have a great fancy for such
+horses; their action recalls the swaggering gait of a smart waiter;
+they do well in single harness for an after-dinner drive; with mincing
+paces and curved neck they zealously draw a clumsy droshky laden with
+an overfed coachman, a depressed, dyspeptic merchant, and his lymphatic
+wife, in a blue silk mantle, with a lilac handkerchief over her head.
+Falcon too I declined. Sitnikov showed me several horses.... One at
+last, a dapple-grey beast of Voyakov breed, took my fancy. I could not
+restrain my satisfaction, and patted him on the withers. Sitnikov at
+once feigned absolute indifference.
+
+"Well, does he go well in harness?" I inquired. (They never speak of a
+trotting horse as "being driven.")
+
+"Oh, yes," answered the horsedealer carelessly.
+
+"Can I see him?"
+
+"If you like, certainly. Hi, Kuzya, put Pursuer into the droshky!"
+
+Kuzya, the jockey, a real master of horsemanship, drove three times
+past us up and down the street. The horse went well, without changing
+its pace, nor shambling; it had a free action, held its tail high, and
+covered the ground well.
+
+"And what are you asking for him?"
+
+Sitnikov asked an impossible price. We began bargaining on the spot in
+the street, when suddenly a splendidly-matched team of three
+posting-horses flew noisily round the corner and drew up sharply at the
+gates before Sitnikov's house. In the smart little sportsman's trap sat
+Prince N----; beside him Hlopakov. Baklaga was driving ... and how he
+drove! He could have driven them through an earring, the rascal! The
+bay trace-horses, little, keen, black-eyed, black-legged beasts, were
+all impatience; they kept rearing--a whistle, and off they would have
+bolted! The dark-bay shaft-horse stood firmly, its neck arched like a
+swan's, its breast forward, its legs like arrows, shaking its head and
+proudly blinking.... They were splendid! No one could desire a finer
+turn out for an Easter procession!
+
+'Your excellency, please to come in!' cried Sitnikov.
+
+The prince leaped out of the trap. Hlopakov slowly descended on the
+other side.
+
+'Good morning, friend ... any horses.'
+
+'You may be sure we've horses for your excellency! Pray walk in....
+Petya, bring out Peacock! and let them get Favourite ready too. And
+with you, sir,' he went on, turning to me, 'we'll settle matters
+another time.... Fomka, a bench for his excellency.'
+
+From a special stable which I had not at first observed they led out
+Peacock. A powerful dark sorrel horse seemed to fly across the yard
+with all its legs in the air. Sitnikov even turned away his head and
+winked.
+
+'Oh, rrakalion!' piped Hlopakov; 'Zhaymsah (_j'aime ca_.)'
+
+The prince laughed.
+
+Peacock was stopped with difficulty; he dragged the stable-boy about
+the yard; at last he was pushed against the wall. He snorted, started
+and reared, while Sitnikov still teased him, brandishing a whip at him.
+
+'What are you looking at? there! oo!' said the horsedealer with
+caressing menace, unable to refrain from admiring his horse himself.
+
+'How much?' asked the prince.
+
+'For your excellency, five thousand.'
+
+'Three.'
+
+'Impossible, your excellency, upon my word.'
+
+'I tell you three, rrakalion,' put in Hlopakov.
+
+I went away without staying to see the end of the bargaining. At the
+farthest corner of the street I noticed a large sheet of paper fixed on
+the gate of a little grey house. At the top there was a pen-and-ink
+sketch of a horse with a tail of the shape of a pipe and an endless
+neck, and below his hoofs were the following words, written in an
+old-fashioned hand:
+
+'Here are for sale horses of various colours, brought to the Lebedyan
+fair from the celebrated steppes stud of Anastasei Ivanitch Tchornobai,
+landowner of Tambov. These horses are of excellent sort; broken in to
+perfection, and free from vice. Purchasers will kindly ask for
+Anastasei Ivanitch himself: should Anastasei Ivanitch be absent, then
+ask for Nazar Kubishkin, the coachman. Gentlemen about to purchase,
+kindly honour an old man.'
+
+I stopped. 'Come,' I thought, 'let's have a look at the horses of the
+celebrated steppes breeder, Mr. Tchornobai.'
+
+I was about to go in at the gate, but found that, contrary to the
+common usage, it was locked. I knocked.
+
+'Who's there?... A customer?' whined a woman's voice.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Coming, sir, coming.'
+
+The gate was opened. I beheld a peasant-woman of fifty, bareheaded, in
+boots, and a sheepskin worn open.
+
+'Please to come in, kind sir, and I'll go at once, and tell Anastasei
+Ivanitch ... Nazar, hey, Nazar!'
+
+'What?' mumbled an old man's voice from the stable.
+
+'Get a horse ready; here's a customer.'
+
+The old woman ran into the house.
+
+'A customer, a customer,' Nazar grumbled in response; 'I've not washed
+all their tails yet.'
+
+'Oh, Arcadia!' thought I.
+
+'Good day, sir, pleased to see you,' I heard a rich, pleasant voice
+saying behind my back. I looked round; before me, in a long-skirted
+blue coat, stood an old man of medium height, with white hair, a
+friendly smile, and fine blue eyes.
+
+'You want a little horse? By all means, my dear sir, by all means....
+But won't you step in and drink just a cup of tea with me first?'
+
+I declined and thanked him.
+
+'Well, well, as you please. You must excuse me, my dear sir; you see
+I'm old-fashioned.' (Mr. Tchornobai spoke with deliberation, and in a
+broad Doric.) 'Everything with me is done in a plain way, you know....
+Nazar, hey, Nazar!' he added, not raising his voice, but prolonging
+each syllable. Nazar, a wrinkled old man with a little hawk nose and a
+wedge-shaped beard, showed himself at the stable door.
+
+'What sort of horses is it you're wanting, my dear sir?' resumed Mr.
+Tchornobai.
+
+'Not too expensive; for driving in my covered gig.'
+
+'To be sure ... we have got them to suit you, to be sure.... Nazar,
+Nazar, show the gentleman the grey gelding, you know, that stands at
+the farthest corner, and the sorrel with the star, or else the other
+sorrel--foal of Beauty, you know.'
+
+Nazar went back to the stable.
+
+'And bring them out by their halters just as they are,' Mr. Tchornobai
+shouted after him. 'You won't find things with me, my good sir,' he
+went on, with a clear mild gaze into my face, 'as they are with the
+horse-dealers; confound their tricks! There are drugs of all sorts go
+in there, salt and malted grains; God forgive them! But with me, you
+will see, sir, everything's above-board; no underhandedness.'
+
+The horses were led in; I did not care for them.
+
+'Well, well, take them back, in God's name,' said Anastasei Ivanitch.
+'Show us the others.'
+
+Others were shown. At last I picked out one, rather a cheap one. We
+began to haggle over the price. Mr. Tchornobai did not get excited; he
+spoke so reasonably, with such dignity, that I could not help
+'honouring' the old man; I gave him the earnest-money.
+
+'Well, now,' observed Anastasei Ivanitch, 'allow me to give over the
+horse to you from hand to hand, after the old fashion.... You will
+thank me for him ... as sound as a nut, see ... fresh ... a true child
+of the steppes! Goes well in any harness.'
+
+He crossed himself, laid the skirt of his coat over his hand, took the
+halter, and handed me the horse.
+
+'You're his master now, with God's blessing.... And you still won't
+take a cup of tea?'
+
+'No, I thank you heartily; it's time I was going home.'
+
+'That's as you think best.... And shall my coachman lead the horse
+after you?'
+
+'Yes, now, if you please.'
+
+'By all means, my dear sir, by all means.... Vassily, hey, Vassily!
+step along with the gentleman, lead the horse, and take the money for
+him. Well, good-bye, my good sir; God bless you.'
+
+'Good-bye, Anastasei Ivanitch.'
+
+They led the horse home for me. The next day he turned out to be
+broken-winded and lame. I tried having him put in harness; the horse
+backed, and if one gave him a flick with the whip he jibbed, kicked,
+and positively lay down. I set off at once to Mr. Tchornobai's. I
+inquired: 'At home?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What's the meaning of this?' said I; 'here you've sold me a
+broken-winded horse.'
+
+'Broken-winded?... God forbid!'
+
+'Yes, and he's lame too, and vicious besides.'
+
+'Lame! I know nothing about it: your coachman must have ill-treated him
+somehow.... But before God, I--'
+
+'Look here, Anastasei Ivanitch, as things stand, you ought to take him
+back.'
+
+'No, my good sir, don't put yourself in a passion; once gone out of the
+yard, is done with. You should have looked before, sir.'
+
+I understood what that meant, accepted my fate, laughed, and walked
+off. Luckily, I had not paid very dear for the lesson.
+
+Two days later I left, and in a week I was again at Lebedyan on my way
+home again. In the _cafe_ I found almost the same persons, and again I
+came upon Prince N---- at billiards. But the usual change in the
+fortunes of Mr. Hlopakov had taken place in this interval: the
+fair-haired young officer had supplanted him in the prince's favours.
+The poor ex-lieutenant once more tried letting off his catchword in my
+presence, on the chance it might succeed as before; but, far from
+smiling, the prince positively scowled and shrugged his shoulders. Mr.
+Hlopakov looked downcast, shrank into a corner, and began furtively
+filling himself a pipe....
+
+                           END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sportsman's Sketches, by Ivan Turgenev
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sportsman's Sketches, by Ivan Turgenev
+#6 in our series by Ivan Turgenev
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+Title: A Sportsman's Sketches
+       Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8597]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 26, 2003]
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+                             A SPORTSMAN'S
+                                SKETCHES
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+
+                             IVAN TURGENEV
+
+
+                     _Translated from the Russian
+                         By CONSTANCE GARNETT_
+
+
+
+                                VOLUME I
+
+
+       CONTENTS
+
+    I. HOR AND KALINITCH
+   II. YERMOLAI AND THE MILLER'S WIFE
+  III. RASPBERRY SPRING
+   IV. THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
+    V. MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOV
+   VI. THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
+  VII. LGOV
+ VIII. BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
+   IX. KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
+    X. THE AGENT
+   XI. THE COUNTING-HOUSE
+  XII. BIRYUK
+ XIII. TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
+  XIV. LEBEDYAN
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+                           HOR AND KALINITCH
+
+
+Anyone who has chanced to pass from the Bolhovsky district into the
+Zhizdrinsky district, must have been impressed by the striking
+difference between the race of people in the province of Orel and the
+population of the province of Kaluga. The peasant of Orel is not tall,
+is bent in figure, sullen and suspicious in his looks; he lives in
+wretched little hovels of aspen-wood, labours as a serf in the fields,
+and engages in no kind of trading, is miserably fed, and wears slippers
+of bast: the rent-paying peasant of Kaluga lives in roomy cottages of
+pine-wood; he is tall, bold, and cheerful in his looks, neat and clean
+of countenance; he carries on a trade in butter and tar, and on
+holidays he wears boots. The village of the Orel province (we are
+speaking now of the eastern part of the province) is usually situated
+in the midst of ploughed fields, near a water-course which has been
+converted into a filthy pool. Except for a few of the ever-
+accommodating willows, and two or three gaunt birch-trees, you do not
+see a tree for a mile round; hut is huddled up against hut, their roofs
+covered with rotting thatch.... The villages of Kaluga, on the
+contrary, are generally surrounded by forest; the huts stand more
+freely, are more upright, and have boarded roofs; the gates fasten
+closely, the hedge is not broken down nor trailing about; there are no
+gaps to invite the visits of the passing pig.... And things are much
+better in the Kaluga province for the sportsman. In the Orel province
+the last of the woods and copses will have disappeared five years
+hence, and there is no trace of moorland left; in Kaluga, on the
+contrary, the moors extend over tens, the forest over hundreds of
+miles, and a splendid bird, the grouse, is still extant there; there
+are abundance of the friendly larger snipe, and the loud-clapping
+partridge cheers and startles the sportsman and his dog by its abrupt
+upward flight.
+
+On a visit to the Zhizdrinsky district in search of sport, I met in the
+fields a petty proprietor of the Kaluga province called Polutikin, and
+made his acquaintance. He was an enthusiastic sportsman; it follows,
+therefore, that he was an excellent fellow. He was liable, indeed, to a
+few weaknesses; he used, for instance, to pay his addresses to every
+unmarried heiress in the province, and when he had been refused her
+hand and house, broken-hearted he confided his sorrows to all his
+friends and acquaintances, and continued to shower offerings of sour
+peaches and other raw produce from his garden upon the young lady's
+relatives; he was fond of repeating one and the same anecdote, which,
+in spite of Mr. Polutikin's appreciation of its merits, had certainly
+never amused anyone; he admired the works of Akim Nahimov and the novel
+_Pinna_; he stammered; he called his dog Astronomer; instead of
+'however' said 'howsomever'; and had established in his household a
+French system of cookery, the secret of which consisted, according to
+his cook's interpretation, in a complete transformation of the natural
+taste of each dish; in this _artiste's_ hands meat assumed the flavour
+of fish, fish of mushrooms, macaroni of gunpowder; to make up for this,
+not a single carrot went into the soup without taking the shape of a
+rhombus or a trapeze. But, with the exception of these few and
+insignificant failings, Mr. Polutikin was, as has been said already, an
+excellent fellow.
+
+On the first day of my acquaintance with Mr. Polutikin, he invited me
+to stay the night at his house.
+
+'It will be five miles farther to my house,' he added; 'it's a long way
+to walk; let us first go to Hor's.' (The reader must excuse my omitting
+his stammer.)
+
+'Who is Hor?'
+
+'A peasant of mine. He is quite close by here.'
+
+We went in that direction. In a well-cultivated clearing in the middle
+of the forest rose Hor's solitary homestead. It consisted of several
+pine-wood buildings, enclosed by plank fences; a porch ran along the
+front of the principal building, supported on slender posts. We went
+in. We were met by a young lad of twenty, tall and good-looking.
+
+'Ah, Fedya! is Hor at home?' Mr. Polutikin asked him.
+
+'No. Hor has gone into town,' answered the lad, smiling and showing a
+row of snow-white teeth. 'You would like the little cart brought out?'
+
+'Yes, my boy, the little cart. And bring us some kvas.'
+
+We went into the cottage. Not a single cheap glaring print was pasted
+up on the clean boards of the walls; in the corner, before the heavy,
+holy picture in its silver setting, a lamp was burning; the table of
+linden-wood had been lately planed and scrubbed; between the joists and
+in the cracks of the window-frames there were no lively Prussian
+beetles running about, nor gloomy cockroaches in hiding. The young lad
+soon reappeared with a great white pitcher filled with excellent kvas,
+a huge hunch of wheaten bread, and a dozen salted cucumbers in a wooden
+bowl. He put all these provisions on the table, and then, leaning with
+his back against the door, began to gaze with a smiling face at us. We
+had not had time to finish eating our lunch when the cart was already
+rattling before the doorstep. We went out. A curly-headed, rosy-cheeked
+boy of fifteen was sitting in the cart as driver, and with difficulty
+holding in the well-fed piebald horse. Round the cart stood six young
+giants, very like one another, and Fedya.
+
+'All of these Hor's sons!' said Polutikin.
+
+'These are all Horkies' (_i.e._ wild cats), put in Fedya, who had come
+after us on to the step; 'but that's not all of them: Potap is in the
+wood, and Sidor has gone with old Hor to the town. Look out, Vasya,' he
+went on, turning to the coachman; 'drive like the wind; you are driving
+the master. Only mind what you're about over the ruts, and easy a
+little; don't tip the cart over, and upset the master's stomach!'
+
+The other Horkies smiled at Fedya's sally. 'Lift Astronomer in!' Mr.
+Polutikin called majestically. Fedya, not without amusement, lifted the
+dog, who wore a forced smile, into the air, and laid her at the bottom
+of the cart. Vasya let the horse go. We rolled away. 'And here is my
+counting-house,' said Mr. Polutikin suddenly to me, pointing to a
+little low-pitched house. 'Shall we go in?' 'By all means.' 'It is no
+longer used,' he observed, going in; 'still, it is worth looking at.'
+The counting-house consisted of two empty rooms. The caretaker, a one-
+eyed old man, ran out of the yard. 'Good day, Minyaitch,' said Mr.
+Polutikin; 'bring us some water.' The one-eyed old man disappeared, and
+at once returned with a bottle of water and two glasses. 'Taste it,'
+Polutikin said to me; 'it is splendid spring water.' We drank off a
+glass each, while the old man bowed low. 'Come, now, I think we can go
+on,' said my new Friend. 'In that counting-house I sold the merchant
+Alliluev four acres of forest-land for a good price.' We took our seats
+in the cart, and in half-an-hour we had reached the court of the manor-
+house.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I asked Polutikin at supper; 'why does Hor live
+apart from your other peasants?'
+
+'Well, this is why; he is a clever peasant. Twenty-five years ago his
+cottage was burnt down; so he came up to my late father and said:
+"Allow me, Nikolai Kouzmitch," says he, "to settle in your forest, on
+the bog. I will pay you a good rent." "But what do you want to settle
+on the bog for?" "Oh, I want to; only, your honour, Nikolai Kouzmitch,
+be so good as not to claim any labour from me, but fix a rent as you
+think best." "Fifty roubles a year!" "Very well." "But I'll have no
+arrears, mind!" "Of course, no arrears"; and so he settled on the bog.
+Since then they have called him Hor' (_i.e._ wild cat).
+
+'Well, and has he grown rich?' I inquired.
+
+'Yes, he has grown rich. Now he pays me a round hundred for rent, and I
+shall raise it again, I dare say. I have said to him more than once,
+"Buy your freedom, Hor; come, buy your freedom." ... But he declares,
+the rogue, that he can't; has no money, he says.... As though that were
+likely....'
+
+The next day, directly after our morning tea, we started out hunting
+again. As we were driving through the village, Mr. Polutikin ordered
+the coachman to stop at a low-pitched cottage and called loudly,
+'Kalinitch!' 'Coming, your honour, coming' sounded a voice from the
+yard; 'I am tying on my shoes.' We went on at a walk; outside the
+village a man of about forty over-took us. He was tall and thin, with a
+small and erect head. It was Kalinitch. His good-humoured; swarthy
+face, somewhat pitted with small-pox, pleased me from the first glance.
+Kalinitch (as I learnt afterwards) went hunting every day with his
+master, carried his bag, and sometimes also his gun, noted where game
+was to be found, fetched water, built shanties, and gathered
+strawberries, and ran behind the droshky; Mr. Polutikin could not stir
+a step without him. Kalinitch was a man of the merriest and gentlest
+disposition; he was constantly singing to himself in a low voice, and
+looking carelessly about him. He spoke a little through his nose, with
+a laughing twinkle in his light blue eyes, and he had a habit of
+plucking at his scanty, wedge-shaped beard with his hand. He walked not
+rapidly, but with long strides, leaning lightly on a long thin staff.
+He addressed me more than once during the day, and he waited on me
+without, obsequiousness, but he looked after his master as if he were a
+child. When the unbearable heat drove us at mid-day to seek shelter, he
+took us to his beehouse in the very heart of the forest. There
+Kalinitch opened the little hut for us, which was hung round with
+bunches of dry scented herbs. He made us comfortable on some dry hay,
+and then put a kind of bag of network over his head, took a knife, a
+little pot, and a smouldering stick, and went to the hive to cut us out
+some honey-comb. We had a draught of spring water after the warm
+transparent honey, and then dropped asleep to the sound of the
+monotonous humming of the bees and the rustling chatter of the leaves.
+A slight gust of wind awakened me.... I opened my eyes and saw
+Kalinitch: he was sitting on the threshold of the half-opened door,
+carving a spoon with his knife. I gazed a long time admiring his face,
+as sweet and clear as an evening sky. Mr. Polutikin too woke up. We did
+not get up at once. After our long walk and our deep sleep it was
+pleasant to lie without moving in the hay; we felt weary and languid in
+body, our faces were in a slight glow of warmth, our eyes were closed
+in delicious laziness. At last we got up, and set off on our wanderings
+again till evening. At supper I began again to talk of Hor and
+Kalinitch. 'Kalinitch is a good peasant,' Mr. Polutikin told me; 'he is
+a willing and useful peasant; he can't farm his land properly; I am
+always taking him away from it. He goes out hunting every day with
+me.... You can judge for yourself how his farming must fare.'
+
+I agreed with him, and we went to bed.
+
+The next day Mr. Polutikin was obliged to go to town about some
+business with his neighbour Pitchukoff. This neighbour Pitchukoff had
+ploughed over some land of Polutikin's, and had flogged a peasant woman
+of his on this same piece of land. I went out hunting alone, and before
+evening I turned into Hor's house. On the threshold of the cottage I
+was met by an old man--bald, short, broad-shouldered, and stout--Hor
+himself. I looked with curiosity at the man. The cut of his face
+recalled Socrates; there was the same high, knobby forehead, the same
+little eyes, the same snub nose. We went into the cottage together. The
+same Fedya brought me some milk and black bread. Hor sat down on a
+bench, and, quietly stroking his curly beard, entered into conversation
+with me. He seemed to know his own value; he spoke and moved slowly;
+from time to time a chuckle came from between his long moustaches.
+
+We discussed the sowing, the crops, the peasant's life.... He always
+seemed to agree with me; only afterwards I had a sense of awkwardness
+and felt I was talking foolishly.... In this way our conversation was
+rather curious. Hor, doubtless through caution, expressed himself very
+obscurely at times.... Here is a specimen of our talk.
+
+"Tell me, Hor," I said to him, "why don't you buy your freedom from
+your master?"
+
+"And what would I buy my freedom for? Now I know my master, and I know
+my rent.... We have a good master."
+
+'It's always better to be free,' I remarked. Hor gave me a dubious
+look.
+
+'Surely,' he said.
+
+'Well, then, why don't you buy your freedom?' Hor shook his head.
+
+'What would you have me buy it with, your honour?'
+
+'Oh, come, now, old man!'
+
+'If Hor were thrown among free men,' he continued in an undertone, as
+though to himself, 'everyone without a beard would be a better man than
+Hor.'
+
+'Then shave your beard.'
+
+'What is a beard? a beard is grass: one can cut it.'
+
+'Well, then?'
+
+'But Hor will be a merchant straight away; and merchants have a fine
+life, and they have beards.'
+
+'Why, do you do a little trading too?' I asked him.
+
+'We trade a little in a little butter and a little tar.... Would your
+honour like the cart put to?'
+
+'You're a close man and keep a tight rein on your tongue,' I thought to
+myself. 'No,' I said aloud, 'I don't want the cart; I shall want to be
+near your homestead to-morrow, and if you will let me, I will stay the
+night in your hay-barn.'
+
+'You are very welcome. But will you be comfortable in the barn? I will
+tell the women to lay a sheet and put you a pillow.... Hey, girls!' he
+cried, getting up from his place; 'here, girls!... And you, Fedya, go
+with them. Women, you know, are foolish folk.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later Fedya conducted me with a lantern to the
+barn. I threw myself down on the fragrant hay; my dog curled himself up
+at my feet; Fedya wished me good-night; the door creaked and slammed
+to. For rather a long time I could not get to sleep. A cow came up to
+the door, and breathed heavily twice; the dog growled at her with
+dignity; a pig passed by, grunting pensively; a horse somewhere near
+began to munch the hay and snort.... At last I fell asleep.
+
+At sunrise Fedya awakened me. This brisk, lively young man pleased me;
+and, from what I could see, he was old Hor's favourite too. They used
+to banter one another in a very friendly way. The old man came to meet
+me. Whether because I had spent the night under his roof, or for some
+other reason, Hor certainly treated me far more cordially than the day
+before.
+
+'The samovar is ready,' he told me with a smile; 'let us come and have
+tea.'
+
+We took our seats at the table. A robust-looking peasant woman, one of
+his daughters-in-law, brought in a jug of milk. All his sons came one
+after another into the cottage.
+
+'What a fine set of fellows you have!' I remarked to the old man.
+
+'Yes,' he said, breaking off a tiny piece of sugar with his teeth; 'me
+and my old woman have nothing to complain of, seemingly.'
+
+'And do they all live with you?'
+
+'Yes; they choose to, themselves, and so they live here.'
+
+'And are they all married?'
+
+'Here's one not married, the scamp!' he answered, pointing to Fedya,
+who was leaning as before against the door. 'Vaska, he's still too
+young; he can wait.'
+
+'And why should I get married?' retorted Fedya; 'I'm very well off as I
+am. What do I want a wife for? To squabble with, eh?'
+
+'Now then, you ... ah, I know you! you wear a silver ring.... You'd
+always be after the girls up at the manor house.... "Have done, do, for
+shame!"' the old man went on, mimicking the servant girls. 'Ah, I know
+you, you white-handed rascal!'
+
+'But what's the good of a peasant woman?'
+
+'A peasant woman--is a labourer,' said Hor seriously; 'she is the
+peasant's servant.'
+
+'And what do I want with a labourer?'
+
+'I dare say; you'd like to play with the fire and let others burn their
+fingers: we know the sort of chap you are.'
+
+'Well, marry me, then. Well, why don't you answer?'
+
+'There, that's enough, that's enough, giddy pate! You see we're
+disturbing the gentleman. I'll marry you, depend on it.... And you,
+your honour, don't be vexed with him; you see, he's only a baby; he's
+not had time to get much sense.'
+
+Fedya shook his head.
+
+'Is Hor at home?' sounded a well-known voice; and Kalinitch came into
+the cottage with a bunch of wild strawberries in his hands, which he
+had gathered for his friend Hor. The old man gave him a warm welcome. I
+looked with surprise at Kalinitch. I confess I had not expected such a
+delicate attention on the part of a peasant.
+
+That day I started out to hunt four hours later than usual, and the
+following three days I spent at Hor's. My new friends interested me. I
+don't know how I had gained their confidence, but they began to talk to
+me without constraint. The two friends were not at all alike. Hor was
+a positive, practical man, with a head for management, a rationalist;
+Kalinitch, on the other hand, belonged to the order of idealists and
+dreamers, of romantic and enthusiastic spirits. Hor had a grasp of
+actuality--that is to say, he looked ahead, was saving a little money,
+kept on good terms with his master and the other authorities; Kalinitch
+wore shoes of bast, and lived from hand to mouth. Hor had reared a
+large family, who were obedient and united; Kalinitch had once had a
+wife, whom he had been afraid of, and he had had no children. Hor took
+a very critical view of Mr. Polutikin; Kalinitch revered his master.
+Hor loved Kalinitch, and took protecting care of him; Kalinitch loved
+and respected Hor. Hor spoke little, chuckled, and thought for himself;
+Kalinitch expressed himself with warmth, though he had not the flow of
+fine language of a smart factory hand. But Kalinitch was endowed with
+powers which even Hor recognised; he could charm away haemorrhages,
+fits, madness, and worms; his bees always did well; he had a light
+hand. Hor asked him before me to introduce a newly bought horse to his
+stable, and with scrupulous gravity Kalinitch carried out the old
+sceptic's request. Kalinitch was in closer contact with nature; Hor
+with men and society. Kalinitch had no liking for argument, and
+believed in everything blindly; Hor had reached even an ironical point
+of view of life. He had seen and experienced much, and I learnt a good
+deal from him. For instance, from his account I learnt that every year
+before mowing-time a small, peculiar-looking cart makes its appearance
+in the villages. In this cart sits a man in a long coat, who sells
+scythes. He charges one rouble twenty-five copecks--a rouble and a half
+in notes--for ready money; four roubles if he gives credit. All the
+peasants, of course, take the scythes from him on credit. In two or
+three weeks he reappears and asks for the money. As the peasant has
+only just cut his oats, he is able to pay him; he goes with the
+merchant to the tavern, and there the debt is settled. Some landowners
+conceived the idea of buying the scythes themselves for ready money and
+letting the peasants have them on credit for the same price; but the
+peasants seemed dissatisfied, even dejected; they had deprived them of
+the pleasure of tapping the scythe and listening to the ring of the
+metal, turning it over and over in their hands, and telling the
+scoundrelly city-trader twenty times over, 'Eh, my friend, you won't
+take me in with your scythe!' The same tricks are played over the sale
+of sickles, only with this difference, that the women have a hand in
+the business then, and they sometimes drive the trader himself to the
+necessity--for their good, of course--of beating them. But the women
+suffer most ill-treatment through the following circumstances.
+Contractors for the supply of stuff for paper factories employ for the
+purchase of rags a special class of men, who in some districts are
+called eagles. Such an 'eagle' receives two hundred roubles in bank-
+notes from the merchant, and starts off in search of his prey. But,
+unlike the noble bird from whom he has derived his name, he does not
+swoop down openly and boldly upon it; quite the contrary; the 'eagle'
+has recourse to deceit and cunning. He leaves his cart somewhere in a
+thicket near the village, and goes himself to the back-yards and back-
+doors, like someone casually passing, or simply a tramp. The women
+scent out his proximity and steal out to meet him. The bargain is
+hurriedly concluded. For a few copper half-pence a woman gives the
+'eagle' not only every useless rag she has, but often even her
+husband's shirt and her own petticoat. Of late the women have thought
+it profitable to steal even from themselves, and to sell hemp in the
+same way--a great extension and improvement of the business for the
+'eagles'! To meet this, however, the peasants have grown more cunning
+in their turn, and on the slightest suspicion, on the most distant
+rumors of the approach of an 'eagle,' they have prompt and sharp
+recourse to corrective and preventive measures. And, after all, wasn't
+it disgraceful? To sell the hemp was the men's business--and they
+certainly do sell it--not in the town (they would have to drag it there
+themselves), but to traders who come for it, who, for want of scales,
+reckon forty handfuls to the pood--and you know what a Russian's hand
+is and what it can hold, especially when he 'tries his best'! As I had
+had no experience and was not 'country-bred' (as they say in Orel) I
+heard plenty of such descriptions. But Hor was not always the narrator;
+he questioned me too about many things. He learned that I had been in
+foreign parts, and his curiosity was aroused.... Kalinitch was not
+behind him in curiosity; but he was more attracted by descriptions of
+nature, of mountains and waterfalls, extraordinary buildings and great
+towns; Hor was interested in questions of government and
+administration. He went through everything in order. 'Well, is that
+with them as it is with us, or different?... Come, tell us, your
+honour, how is it?' 'Ah, Lord, thy will be done!' Kalinitch would
+exclaim while I told my story; Hor did not speak, but frowned with his
+bushy eyebrows, only observing at times, 'That wouldn't do for us;
+still, it's a good thing--it's right.' All his inquiries, I cannot
+recount, and it is unnecessary; but from our conversations I carried
+away one conviction, which my readers will certainly not anticipate ...
+the conviction that Peter the Great was pre-eminently a Russian--
+Russian, above all, in his reforms. The Russian is so convinced of his
+own strength and powers that he is not afraid of putting himself to
+severe strain; he takes little interest in his past, and looks boldly
+forward. What is good he likes, what is sensible he will have, and
+where it comes from he does not care. His vigorous sense is fond of
+ridiculing the thin theorising of the German; but, in Hor's words, 'The
+Germans are curious folk,' and he was ready to learn from them a
+little. Thanks to his exceptional position, his practical independence,
+Hor told me a great deal which you could not screw or--as the peasants
+say--grind with a grindstone, out of any other man. He did, in fact,
+understand his position. Talking with Hor, I for the first time
+listened to the simple, wise discourse of the Russian peasant. His
+acquirements were, in his own opinion, wide enough; but he could not
+read, though Kalinitch could. 'That ne'er-do-weel has school-learning,'
+observed Hor, 'and his bees never die in the winter.' 'But haven't you
+had your children taught to read?' Hor was silent a minute. 'Fedya can
+read.' 'And the others?' 'The others can't.' 'And why?' The old man
+made no answer, and changed the subject. However, sensible as he was,
+he had many prejudices and crotchets. He despised women, for instance,
+from the depths of his soul, and in his merry moments he amused himself
+by jesting at their expense. His wife was a cross old woman who lay all
+day long on the stove, incessantly grumbling and scolding; her sons
+paid no attention to her, but she kept her daughters-in-law in the fear
+of God. Very significantly the mother-in-law sings in the Russian
+ballad: 'What a son art thou to me! What a head of a household! Thou
+dost not beat thy wife; thou dost not beat thy young wife....' I once
+attempted to intercede for the daughters-in-law, and tried to rouse
+Hor's sympathy; but he met me with the tranquil rejoinder, 'Why did I
+want to trouble about such ... trifles; let the women fight it out. ...
+If anything separates them, it only makes it worse ... and it's not
+worth dirtying one's hands over.' Sometimes the spiteful old woman got
+down from the stove and called the yard dog out of the hay, crying,
+'Here, here, doggie'; and then beat it on its thin back with the poker,
+or she would stand in the porch and 'snarl,' as Hor expressed it, at
+everyone that passed. She stood in awe of her husband though, and would
+return, at his command, to her place on the stove. It was specially
+curious to hear Hor and Kalinitch dispute whenever Mr. Polutikin was
+touched upon.
+
+'There, Hor, do let him alone,' Kalinitch would say. 'But why doesn't
+he order some boots for you?' Hor retorted. 'Eh? boots!... what do I
+want with boots? I am a peasant.' 'Well, so am I a peasant, but look!'
+And Hor lifted up his leg and showed Kalinitch a boot which looked as
+if it had been cut out of a mammoth's hide. 'As if you were like one of
+us!' replied Kalinitch. 'Well, at least he might pay for your bast
+shoes; you go out hunting with him; you must use a pair a day.' 'He
+does give me something for bast shoes.' 'Yes, he gave you two coppers
+last year.'
+
+Kalinitch turned away in vexation, but Hor went off into a chuckle,
+during which his little eyes completely disappeared.
+
+Kalinitch sang rather sweetly and played a little on the balalaeca. Hor
+was never weary of listening to him: all at once he would let his head
+drop on one side and begin to chime in, in a lugubrious voice. He was
+particularly fond of the song, 'Ah, my fate, my fate!' Fedya never lost
+an opportunity of making fun of his father, saying, 'What are you so
+mournful about, old man?' But Hor leaned his cheek on his hand, covered
+his eyes, and continued to mourn over his fate.... Yet at other times
+there could not be a more active man; he was always busy over
+something--mending the cart, patching up the fence, looking after the
+harness. He did not insist on a very high degree of cleanliness,
+however; and, in answer to some remark of mine, said once, 'A cottage
+ought to smell as if it were lived in.'
+
+'Look,' I answered, 'how clean it is in Kalinitch's beehouse.'
+
+'The bees would not live there else, your honour,' he said with a sigh.
+
+'Tell me,' he asked me another time, 'have you an estate of your own?'
+'Yes.' 'Far from here?' 'A hundred miles.' 'Do you live on your land,
+your honour?' 'Yes.'
+
+'But you like your gun best, I dare say?'
+
+'Yes, I must confess I do.' 'And you do well, your honour; shoot grouse
+to your heart's content, and change your bailiff pretty often.'
+
+On the fourth day Mr. Polutikin sent for me in the evening. I was sorry
+to part from the old man. I took my seat with Kalinitch in the trap.
+'Well, good-bye, Hor--good luck to you,' I said; 'good-bye, Fedya.'
+
+'Good-bye, your honour, good-bye; don't forget us.' We started; there
+was the first red glow of sunset. 'It will be a fine day to-morrow,' I
+remarked looking at the clear sky. 'No, it will rain,' Kalinitch
+replied; 'the ducks yonder are splashing, and the scent of the grass is
+strong.' We drove into the copse. Kalinitch began singing in an
+undertone as he was jolted up and down on the driver's seat, and he
+kept gazing and gazing at the sunset.
+
+The next day I left the hospitable roof of Mr. Polutikin.
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+                     YERMOLAI AND THE MILLER'S WIFE
+
+
+One evening I went with the huntsman Yermolai 'stand-shooting.' ... But
+perhaps all my readers may not know what 'stand-shooting' is. I will
+tell you.
+
+A quarter of an hour before sunset in spring-time you go out into the
+woods with your gun, but without your dog. You seek out a spot for
+yourself on the outskirts of the forest, take a look round, examine
+your caps, and glance at your companion. A quarter of an hour passes;
+the sun has set, but it is still light in the forest; the sky is clear
+and transparent; the birds are chattering and twittering; the young
+grass shines with the brilliance of emerald.... You wait. Gradually the
+recesses of the forest grow dark; the blood-red glow of the evening sky
+creeps slowly on to the roots and the trunks of the trees, and keeps
+rising higher and higher, passes from the lower, still almost leafless
+branches, to the motionless, slumbering tree-tops.... And now even the
+topmost branches are darkened; the purple sky fades to dark-blue. The
+forest fragrance grows stronger; there is a scent of warmth and damp
+earth; the fluttering breeze dies away at your side. The birds go to
+sleep--not all at once--but after their kinds; first the finches are
+hushed, a few minutes later the warblers, and after them the yellow
+buntings. In the forest it grows darker and darker. The trees melt
+together into great masses of blackness; in the dark-blue sky the first
+stars come timidly out. All the birds are asleep. Only the redstarts
+and the nuthatches are still chirping drowsily.... And now they too are
+still. The last echoing call of the pee-wit rings over our heads; the
+oriole's melancholy cry sounds somewhere in the distance; then the
+nightingale's first note. Your heart is weary with suspense, when
+suddenly--but only sportsmen can understand me--suddenly in the deep
+hush there is a peculiar croaking and whirring sound, the measured
+sweep of swift wings is heard, and the snipe, gracefully bending its
+long beak, sails smoothly down behind a dark bush to meet your shot.
+
+That is the meaning of 'stand-shooting.' And so I had gone out stand-
+shooting with Yermolai; but excuse me, reader: I must first introduce
+you to Yermolai.
+
+Picture to yourself a tall gaunt man of forty-five, with a long thin
+nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, a bristling head of hair,
+and thick sarcastic lips. This man wore, winter and summer alike, a
+yellow nankin coat of German cut, but with a sash round the waist; he
+wore blue pantaloons and a cap of astrakhan, presented to him in a
+merry hour by a spendthrift landowner. Two bags were fastened on to his
+sash, one in front, skilfully tied into two halves, for powder and for
+shot; the other behind for game: wadding Yermolai used to produce out
+of his peculiar, seemingly inexhaustible cap. With the money he gained
+by the game he sold, he might easily have bought himself a cartridge-
+box and powder-flask; but he never once even contemplated such a
+purchase, and continued to load his gun after his old fashion, exciting
+the admiration of all beholders by the skill with which he avoided the
+risks of spilling or mixing his powder and shot. His gun was a single-
+barrelled flint-lock, endowed, moreover, with a villainous habit of
+'kicking.' It was due to this that Yermolai's right cheek was
+permanently swollen to a larger size than the left. How he ever
+succeeded in hitting anything with this gun, it would take a shrewd man
+to discover--but he did. He had too a setter-dog, by name Valetka, a
+most extraordinary creature. Yermolai never fed him. 'Me feed a dog!'
+he reasoned; 'why, a dog's a clever beast; he finds a living for
+himself.' And certainly, though Valetka's extreme thinness was a shock
+even to an indifferent observer, he still lived and had a long life;
+and in spite of his pitiable position he was not even once lost, and
+never showed an inclination to desert his master. Once indeed, in his
+youth, he had absented himself for two days, on courting bent, but this
+folly was soon over with him. Valetka's most noticeable peculiarity was
+his impenetrable indifference to everything in the world.... If it were
+not a dog I was speaking of, I should have called him 'disillusioned.'
+He usually sat with his cropped tail curled up under him, scowling and
+twitching at times, and he never smiled. (It is well known that dogs
+can smile, and smile very sweetly.) He was exceedingly ugly; and the
+idle house-serfs never lost an opportunity of jeering cruelly at his
+appearance; but all these jeers, and even blows, Valetka bore with
+astonishing indifference. He was a source of special delight to the
+cooks, who would all leave their work at once and give him chase with
+shouts and abuse, whenever, through a weakness not confined to dogs, he
+thrust his hungry nose through the half-open door of the kitchen,
+tempting with its warmth and appetising smells. He distinguished
+himself by untiring energy in the chase, and had a good scent; but if
+he chanced to overtake a slightly wounded hare, he devoured it with
+relish to the last bone, somewhere in the cool shade under the green
+bushes, at a respectful distance from Yermolai, who was abusing him in
+every known and unknown dialect. Yermolai belonged to one of my
+neighbours, a landowner of the old style. Landowners of the old style
+don't care for game, and prefer the domestic fowl. Only on
+extraordinary occasions, such as birthdays, namedays, and elections,
+the cooks of the old-fashioned landowners set to work to prepare some
+long-beaked birds, and, falling into the state of frenzy peculiar to
+Russians when they don't quite know what to do, they concoct such
+marvellous sauces for them that the guests examine the proffered dishes
+curiously and attentively, but rarely make up their minds to try them.
+Yermolai was under orders to provide his master's kitchen with two
+brace of grouse and partridges once a month. But he might live where
+and how he pleased. They had given him up as a man of no use for work
+of any kind--'bone lazy,' as the expression is among us in Orel. Powder
+and shot, of course, they did not provide him, following precisely the
+same principle in virtue of which he did not feed his dog. Yermolai was
+a very strange kind of man; heedless as a bird, rather fond of talking,
+awkward and vacant-looking; he was excessively fond of drink, and never
+could sit still long; in walking he shambled along, and rolled from
+side to side; and yet he got over fifty miles in the day with his
+rolling, shambling gait. He exposed himself to the most varied
+adventures: spent the night in the marshes, in trees, on roofs, or
+under bridges; more than once he had got shut up in lofts, cellars, or
+barns; he sometimes lost his gun, his dog, his most indispensable
+garments; got long and severe thrashings; but he always returned home,
+after a little while, in his clothes, and with his gun and his dog. One
+could not call him a cheerful man, though one almost always found him
+in an even frame of mind; he was looked on generally as an eccentric.
+Yermolai liked a little chat with a good companion, especially over a
+glass, but he would not stop long; he would get up and go. 'But where
+the devil are you going? It's dark out of doors.' 'To Tchaplino.' 'But
+what's taking you to Tchaplino, ten miles away?' 'I am going to stay
+the night at Sophron's there.' 'But stay the night here.' 'No, I
+can't.' And Yermolai, with his Valetka, would go off into the dark
+night, through woods and water-courses, and the peasant Sophron very
+likely did not let him into his place, and even, I am afraid, gave him
+a blow to teach him 'not to disturb honest folks.' But none could
+compare with Yermolai in skill in deep-water fishing in spring-time, in
+catching crayfish with his hands, in tracking game by scent, in snaring
+quails, in training hawks, in capturing the nightingales who had the
+greatest variety of notes. ... One thing he could not do, train a dog;
+he had not patience enough. He had a wife too. He went to see her once
+a week. She lived in a wretched, tumble-down little hut, and led a
+hand-to-mouth existence, never knowing overnight whether she would have
+food to eat on the morrow; and in every way her lot was a pitiful one.
+Yermolai, who seemed such a careless and easy-going fellow, treated his
+wife with cruel harshness; in his own house he assumed a stern, and
+menacing manner; and his poor wife did everything she could to please
+him, trembled when he looked at her, and spent her last farthing to buy
+him vodka; and when he stretched himself majestically on the stove and
+fell into an heroic sleep, she obsequiously covered him with a
+sheepskin. I happened myself more than once to catch an involuntary
+look in him of a kind of savage ferocity; I did not like the expression
+of his face when he finished off a wounded bird with his teeth. But
+Yermolai never remained more than a day at home, and away from home he
+was once more the same 'Yermolka' (i.e. the shooting-cap), as he was
+called for a hundred miles round, and as he sometimes called himself.
+The lowest house-serf was conscious of being superior to this vagabond
+--and perhaps this was precisely why they treated him with
+friendliness; the peasants at first amused themselves by chasing him
+and driving him like a hare over the open country, but afterwards they
+left him in God's hands, and when once they recognised him as 'queer,'
+they no longer tormented him, and even gave him bread and entered into
+talk with him.... This was the man I took as my huntsman, and with him
+I went stand-shooting to a great birch-wood on the banks of the Ista.
+
+Many Russian rivers, like the Volga, have one bank rugged and
+precipitous, the other bounded by level meadows; and so it is with the
+Ista. This small river winds extremely capriciously, coils like a
+snake, and does not keep a straight course for half-a-mile together; in
+some places, from the top of a sharp declivity, one can see the river
+for ten miles, with its dykes, its pools and mills, and the gardens on
+its banks, shut in with willows and thick flower-gardens. There are
+fish in the Ista in endless numbers, especially roaches (the peasants
+take them in hot weather from under the bushes with their hands);
+little sand-pipers flutter whistling along the stony banks, which are
+streaked with cold clear streams; wild ducks dive in the middle of the
+pools, and look round warily; in the coves under the overhanging cliffs
+herons stand out in the shade.... We stood in ambush nearly an hour,
+killed two brace of wood snipe, and, as we wanted to try our luck again
+at sunrise (stand-shooting can be done as well in the early morning),
+we resolved to spend the night at the nearest mill. We came out of the
+wood, and went down the slope. The dark-blue waters of the river ran
+below; the air was thick with the mists of night. We knocked at the
+gate. The dogs began barking in the yard.
+
+'Who is there?' asked a hoarse and sleepy voice.
+
+'We are sportsmen; let us stay the night.' There was no reply. 'We will
+pay.'
+
+'I will go and tell the master--Sh! Curse the dogs! Go to the devil
+with you!'
+
+We listened as the workman went into the cottage; he soon came back to
+the gate. 'No,' he said; 'the master tells me not to let you in.'
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'He is afraid; you are sportsmen; you might set the mill on fire;
+you've firearms with you, to be sure.'
+
+'But what nonsense!'
+
+'We had our mill on fire like that last year; some fish-dealers stayed
+the night, and they managed to set it on fire somehow.'
+
+'But, my good friend, we can't sleep in the open air!'
+
+'That's your business.' He went away, his boots clacking as he walked.
+
+Yermolai promised him various unpleasant things in the future. 'Let us
+go to the village,' he brought out at last, with a sigh. But it was two
+miles to the village.
+
+'Let us stay the night here,' I said, 'in the open air--the night is
+warm; the miller will let us have some straw if we pay for it.'
+
+Yermolai agreed without discussion. We began again to knock.
+
+'Well, what do you want?' the workman's voice was heard again; 'I've
+told you we can't.'
+
+We explained to him what we wanted. He went to consult the master of
+the house, and returned with him. The little side gate creaked. The
+miller appeared, a tall, fat-faced man with a bull-neck, round-bellied
+and corpulent. He agreed to my proposal. A hundred paces from the mill
+there was a little outhouse open to the air on all sides. They carried
+straw and hay there for us; the workman set a samovar down on the grass
+near the river, and, squatting on his heels, began to blow vigorously
+into the pipe of it. The embers glowed, and threw a bright light on his
+young face. The miller ran to wake his wife, and suggested at last that
+I myself should sleep in the cottage; but I preferred to remain in the
+open air. The miller's wife brought us milk, eggs, potatoes and bread.
+Soon the samovar boiled, and we began drinking tea. A mist had risen
+from the river; there was no wind; from all round came the cry of the
+corn-crake, and faint sounds from the mill-wheels of drops that dripped
+from the paddles and of water gurgling through the bars of the lock. We
+built a small fire on the ground. While Yermolai was baking the
+potatoes in the embers, I had time to fall into a doze. I was waked by
+a discreetly-subdued whispering near me. I lifted my head; before the
+fire, on a tub turned upside down, the miller's wife sat talking to my
+huntsman. By her dress, her movements, and her manner of speaking, I
+had already recognised that she had been in domestic service, and was
+neither peasant nor city-bred; but now for the first time I got a clear
+view of her features. She looked about thirty; her thin, pale face
+still showed the traces of remarkable beauty; what particularly charmed
+me was her eyes, large and mournful in expression. She was leaning her
+elbows on her knees, and had her face in her hands. Yermolai was
+sitting with his back to me, and thrusting sticks into the fire.
+
+'They've the cattle-plague again at Zheltonhiny,' the miller's wife was
+saying; 'father Ivan's two cows are dead--Lord have mercy on them!'
+
+'And how are your pigs doing?' asked Yermolai, after a brief pause.
+
+'They're alive.'
+
+'You ought to make me a present of a sucking pig.'
+
+The miller's wife was silent for a while, then she sighed.
+
+'Who is it you're with?' she asked.
+
+'A gentleman from Kostomarovo.'
+
+Yermolai threw a few pine twigs on the fire; they all caught fire at
+once, and a thick white smoke came puffing into his face.
+
+'Why didn't your husband let us into the cottage?'
+
+'He's afraid.'
+
+'Afraid! the fat old tub! Arina Timofyevna, my darling, bring me a
+little glass of spirits.'
+
+The miller's wife rose and vanished into the darkness. Yermolai began
+to sing in an undertone--
+
+     'When I went to see my sweetheart,
+      I wore out all my shoes.'
+
+
+Arina returned with a small flask and a glass. Yermolai got up, crossed
+himself, and drank it off at a draught. 'Good!' was his comment.
+
+The miller's wife sat down again on the tub.
+
+'Well, Arina Timofyevna, are you still ill?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'My cough troubles me at night.'
+
+'The gentleman's asleep, it seems,' observed Yermolai after a short
+silence. 'Don't go to a doctor, Arina; it will be worse if you do.'
+
+'Well, I am not going.'
+
+'But come and pay me a visit.'
+
+Arina hung down her head dejectedly.
+
+'I will drive my wife out for the occasion,' continued Yermolai 'Upon
+my word, I will.'
+
+'You had better wake the gentleman, Yermolai Petrovitch; you see, the
+potatoes are done.'
+
+'Oh, let him snore,' observed my faithful servant indifferently; 'he's
+tired with walking, so he sleeps sound.'
+
+I turned over in the hay. Yermolai got up and came to me. 'The potatoes
+are ready; will you come and eat them?'
+
+I came out of the outhouse; the miller's wife got up from the tub and
+was going away. I addressed her.
+
+'Have you kept this mill long?'
+
+'It's two years since I came on Trinity day.'
+
+'And where does your husband come from?'
+
+Arina had not caught my question.
+
+'Where's your husband from?' repeated Yermolai, raising his voice.
+
+'From Byelev. He's a Byelev townsman.'
+
+'And are you too from Byelev?'
+
+'No, I'm a serf; I was a serf.'
+
+'Whose?'
+
+'Zvyerkoff was my master. Now I am free.'
+
+'What Zvyerkoff?'
+
+'Alexandr Selitch.'
+
+'Weren't you his wife's lady's maid?'
+
+'How did you know? Yes.'
+
+I looked at Arina with redoubled curiosity and sympathy.
+
+'I know your master,' I continued.
+
+'Do you?' she replied in a low voice, and her head drooped.
+
+I must tell the reader why I looked with such sympathy at Arina. During
+my stay at Petersburg I had become by chance acquainted with Mr.
+Zvyerkoff. He had a rather influential position, and was reputed a man
+of sense and education. He had a wife, fat, sentimental, lachrymose and
+spiteful--a vulgar and disagreeable creature; he had too a son, the
+very type of the young swell of to-day, pampered and stupid. The
+exterior of Mr. Zvyerkoff himself did not prepossess one in his favour;
+his little mouse-like eyes peeped slyly out of a broad, almost square,
+face; he had a large, prominent nose, with distended nostrils; his
+close-cropped grey hair stood up like a brush above his scowling brow;
+his thin lips were for ever twitching and smiling mawkishly. Mr.
+Zvyerkoff's favourite position was standing with his legs wide apart
+and his fat hands in his trouser pockets. Once I happened somehow to be
+driving alone with Mr. Zvyerkoff in a coach out of town. We fell into
+conversation. As a man of experience and of judgment, Mr. Zvyerkoff
+began to try to set me in 'the path of truth.'
+
+'Allow me to observe to you,' he drawled at last; 'all you young people
+criticise and form judgments on everything at random; you have little
+knowledge of your own country; Russia, young gentlemen, is an unknown
+land to you; that's where it is!... You are for ever reading German.
+For instance, now you say this and that and the other about anything;
+for instance, about the house-serfs.... Very fine; I don't dispute it's
+all very fine; but you don't know them; you don't know the kind of
+people they are.' (Mr. Zvyerkoff blew his nose loudly and took a pinch
+of snuff.) 'Allow me to tell you as an illustration one little
+anecdote; it may perhaps interest you.' (Mr. Zvyerkoff cleared his
+throat.) 'You know, doubtless, what my wife is; it would be difficult,
+I should imagine, to find a more kind-hearted woman, you will agree.
+For her waiting-maids, existence is simply a perfect paradise, and no
+mistake about it.... But my wife has made it a rule never to keep
+married lady's maids. Certainly it would not do; children come--and one
+thing and the other--and how is a lady's maid to look after her
+mistress as she ought, to fit in with her ways; she is no longer able
+to do it; her mind is in other things. One must look at things through
+human nature. Well, we were driving once through our village, it must
+be--let me be correct--yes, fifteen years ago. We saw, at the
+bailiff's, a young girl, his daughter, very pretty indeed; something
+even--you know--something attractive in her manners. And my wife said
+to me: "Koko"--you understand, of course, that is her pet name for me--
+"let us take this girl to Petersburg; I like her, Koko...." I said,
+"Let us take her, by all means." The bailiff, of course, was at our
+feet; he could not have expected such good fortune, you can imagine....
+Well, the girl of course cried violently. Of course, it was hard for
+her at first; the parental home ... in fact ... there was nothing
+surprising in that. However, she soon got used to us: at first we put
+her in the maidservants' room; they trained her, of course. And what do
+you think? The girl made wonderful progress; my wife became simply
+devoted to her, promoted her at last above the rest to wait on herself
+... observe.... And one must do her the justice to say, my wife had never
+such a maid, absolutely never; attentive, modest, and obedient--simply
+all that could be desired. But my wife, I must confess, spoilt her too
+much; she dressed her well, fed her from our own table, gave her tea to
+drink, and so on, as you can imagine! So she waited on my wife like
+this for ten years. Suddenly, one fine morning, picture to yourself,
+Arina--her name was Arina--rushes unannounced into my study, and flops
+down at my feet. That's a thing, I tell you plainly, I can't endure. No
+human being ought ever to lose sight of their personal dignity. Am I
+not right? What do you say? "Your honour, Alexandr Selitch, I beseech a
+favour of you." "What favour?" "Let me be married." I must confess I
+was taken aback. "But you know, you stupid, your mistress has no other
+lady's maid?" "I will wait on mistress as before." "Nonsense! nonsense!
+your mistress can't endure married lady's maids," "Malanya could take
+my place." "Pray don't argue." "I obey your will." I must confess it
+was quite a shock, I assure you, I am like that; nothing wounds me so--
+nothing, I venture to say, wounds me so deeply as ingratitude. I need
+not tell you--you know what my wife is; an angel upon earth, goodness
+inexhaustible. One would fancy even the worst of men would be ashamed
+to hurt her. Well, I got rid of Arina. I thought, perhaps, she would
+come to her senses; I was unwilling, do you know, to believe in wicked,
+black ingratitude in anyone. What do you think? Within six months she
+thought fit to come to me again with the same request. I felt revolted.
+But imagine my amazement when, some time later, my wife comes to me in
+tears, so agitated that I felt positively alarmed. "What has happened?"
+"Arina.... You understand ... I am ashamed to tell it." ...
+"Impossible! ... Who is the man?" "Petrushka, the footman." My
+indignation broke out then. I am like that. I don't like half measures!
+Petrushka was not to blame. We might flog him, but in my opinion he was
+not to blame. Arina.... Well, well, well! what more's to be said? I
+gave orders, of course, that her hair should be cut off, she should be
+dressed in sackcloth, and sent into the country. My wife was deprived
+of an excellent lady's maid; but there was no help for it: immorality
+cannot be tolerated in a household in any case. Better to cut off the
+infected member at once. There, there! now you can judge the thing for
+yourself--you know that my wife is ... yes, yes, yes! indeed!... an
+angel! She had grown attached to Arina, and Arina knew it, and had the
+face to ... Eh? no, tell me ... eh? And what's the use of talking about
+it. Any way, there was no help for it. I, indeed--I, in particular,
+felt hurt, felt wounded for a long time by the ingratitude of this
+girl. Whatever you say--it's no good to look for feeling, for heart, in
+these people! You may feed the wolf as you will; he has always a
+hankering for the woods. Education, by all means! But I only wanted to
+give you an example....'
+
+And Mr. Zvyerkoff, without finishing his sentence, turned away his
+head, and, wrapping himself more closely into his cloak, manfully
+repressed his involuntary emotion.
+
+The reader now probably understands why I looked with sympathetic
+interest at Arina.
+
+'Have you long been married to the miller?' I asked her at last.
+
+'Two years.'
+
+'How was it? Did your master allow it?'
+
+'They bought my freedom.'
+
+'Who?'
+
+'Savely Alexyevitch.'
+
+'Who is that?'
+
+'My husband.' (Yermolai smiled to himself.) 'Has my master perhaps
+spoken to you of me?' added Arina, after a brief silence.
+
+I did not know what reply to make to her question.
+
+'Arina!' cried the miller from a distance. She got up and walked away.
+
+'Is her husband a good fellow?' I asked Yermolai.
+
+'So-so.'
+
+'Have they any children?'
+
+'There was one, but it died.'
+
+'How was it? Did the miller take a liking to her? Did he give much to
+buy her freedom?'
+
+'I don't know. She can read and write; in their business it's of use. I
+suppose he liked her.'
+
+'And have you known her long?'
+
+'Yes. I used to go to her master's. Their house isn't far from here.'
+
+'And do you know the footman Petrushka?'
+
+'Piotr Vassilyevitch? Of course, I knew him.'
+
+'Where is he now?'
+
+'He was sent for a soldier.'
+
+We were silent for a while.
+
+'She doesn't seem well?' I asked Yermolai at last.
+
+'I should think not! To-morrow, I say, we shall have good sport. A
+little sleep now would do us no harm.'
+
+A flock of wild ducks swept whizzing over our heads, and we heard them
+drop down into the river not far from us. It was now quite dark, and it
+began to be cold; in the thicket sounded the melodious notes of a
+nightingale. We buried ourselves in the hay and fell asleep.
+
+
+
+                                   III
+
+                            RASPBERRY SPRING
+
+
+At the beginning of August the heat often becomes insupportable. At
+that season, from twelve to three o'clock, the most determined and
+ardent sportsman is not able to hunt, and the most devoted dog begins
+to 'clean his master's spurs,' that is, to follow at his heels, his
+eyes painfully blinking, and his tongue hanging out to an exaggerated
+length; and in response to his master's reproaches he humbly wags his
+tail and shows his confusion in his face; but he does not run forward.
+I happened to be out hunting on exactly such a day. I had long been
+fighting against the temptation to lie down somewhere in the shade, at
+least for a moment; for a long time my indefatigable dog went on
+running about in the bushes, though he clearly did not himself expect
+much good from his feverish activity. The stifling heat compelled me at
+last to begin to think of husbanding our energies and strength. I
+managed to reach the little river Ista, which is already known to my
+indulgent readers, descended the steep bank, and walked along the damp,
+yellow sand in the direction of the spring, known to the whole
+neighbourhood as Raspberry Spring. This spring gushes out of a cleft in
+the bank, which widens out by degrees into a small but deep creek, and,
+twenty paces beyond it, falls with a merry babbling sound into the
+river; the short velvety grass is green about the source: the sun's
+rays scarcely ever reach its cold, silvery water. I came as far as the
+spring; a cup of birch-wood lay on the grass, left by a passing peasant
+for the public benefit. I quenched my thirst, lay down in the shade,
+and looked round. In the cave, which had been formed by the flowing of
+the stream into the river, and hence marked for ever with the trace of
+ripples, two old men were sitting with their backs to me. One, a rather
+stout and tall man in a neat dark-green coat and lined cap, was
+fishing; the other was thin and little; he wore a patched fustian coat
+and no cap; he held a little pot full of worms on his knees, and
+sometimes lifted his hand up to his grizzled little head, as though he
+wanted to protect it from the sun. I looked at him more attentively,
+and recognised in him Styopushka of Shumihino. I must ask the reader's
+leave to present this man to him.
+
+A few miles from my place there is a large village called Shumihino,
+with a stone church, erected in the name of St. Kosmo and St. Damian.
+Facing this church there had once stood a large and stately manor-
+house, surrounded by various outhouses, offices, workshops, stables and
+coach-houses, baths and temporary kitchens, wings for visitors and for
+bailiffs, conservatories, swings for the people, and other more or less
+useful edifices. A family of rich landowners lived in this manor-house,
+and all went well with them, till suddenly one morning all this
+prosperity was burnt to ashes. The owners removed to another home; the
+place was deserted. The blackened site of the immense house was
+transformed into a kitchen-garden, cumbered up in parts by piles of
+bricks, the remains of the old foundations. A little hut had been
+hurriedly put together out of the beams that had escaped the fire; it
+was roofed with timber bought ten years before for the construction of
+a pavilion in the Gothic style; and the gardener, Mitrofan, with his
+wife Axinya and their seven children, was installed in it. Mitrofan
+received orders to send greens and garden-stuff for the master's table,
+a hundred and fifty miles away; Axinya was put in charge of a Tyrolese
+cow, which had been bought for a high price in Moscow, but had not
+given a drop of milk since its acquisition; a crested smoke-coloured
+drake too had been left in her hands, the solitary 'seignorial' bird;
+for the children, in consideration of their tender age, no special
+duties had been provided, a fact, however, which had not hindered them
+from growing up utterly lazy. It happened to me on two occasions to
+stay the night at this gardener's, and when I passed by I used to get
+cucumbers from him, which, for some unknown reason, were even in summer
+peculiar for their size, their poor, watery flavour, and their thick
+yellow skin. It was there I first saw Styopushka. Except Mitrofan and
+his family, and the old deaf churchwarden Gerasim, kept out of charity
+in a little room at the one-eyed soldier's widow's, not one man among
+the house-serfs had remained at Shumihino; for Styopushka, whom I
+intend to introduce to the reader, could not be classified under the
+special order of house-serfs, and hardly under the genus 'man' at all.
+
+Every man has some kind of position in society, and at least some ties
+of some sort; every house-serf receives, if not wages, at least some
+so-called 'ration.' Styopushka had absolutely no means of subsistence
+of any kind; had no relationship to anyone; no one knew of his
+existence. This man had not even a past; there was no story told of
+him; he had probably never been enrolled on a census-revision. There
+were vague rumours that he had once belonged to someone as a valet; but
+who he was, where he came from, who was his father, and how he had come
+to be one of the Shumihino people; in what way he had come by the
+fustian coat he had worn from immemorial times; where he lived and what
+he lived on--on all these questions no one had the least idea; and, to
+tell the truth, no one took any interest in the subject. Grandfather
+Trofimitch, who knew all the pedigrees of all the house-serfs in the
+direct line to the fourth generation, had once indeed been known to say
+that he remembered that Styopushka was related to a Turkish woman whom
+the late master, the brigadier Alexy Romanitch had been pleased to
+bring home from a campaign in the baggage waggon. Even on holidays,
+days of general money-giving and of feasting on buckwheat dumplings and
+vodka, after the old Russian fashion--even on such days Styopushka did
+not put in an appearance at the trestle-tables nor at the barrels; he
+did not make his bow nor kiss the master's hand, nor toss off to the
+master's health and under the master's eye a glass filled by the fat
+hands of the bailiff. Some kind soul who passed by him might share an
+unfinished bit of dumpling with the poor beggar, perhaps. At Easter
+they said 'Christ is risen!' to him; but he did not pull up his greasy
+sleeve, and bring out of the depths of his pocket a coloured egg, to
+offer it, panting and blinking, to his young masters or to the mistress
+herself. He lived in summer in a little shed behind the chicken-house,
+and in winter in the ante-room of the bathhouse; in the bitter frosts
+he spent the night in the hayloft. The house-serfs had grown used to
+seeing him; sometimes they gave him a kick, but no one ever addressed a
+remark to him; as for him, he seems never to have opened his lips from
+the time of his birth. After the conflagration, this forsaken creature
+sought a refuge at the gardener Mitrofan's. The gardener left him
+alone; he did not say 'Live with me,' but he did not drive him away.
+And Styopushka did not live at the gardener's; his abode was the
+garden. He moved and walked about quite noiselessly; he sneezed and
+coughed behind his hand, not without apprehension; he was for ever busy
+and going stealthily to and fro like an ant; and all to get food--
+simply food to eat. And indeed, if he had not toiled from morning till
+night for his living, our poor friend would certainly have died of
+hunger. It's a sad lot not to know in the morning what you will find to
+eat before night! Sometimes Styopushka sits under the hedge and gnaws a
+radish or sucks a carrot, or shreds up some dirty cabbage-stalks; or he
+drags a bucket of water along, for some object or other, groaning as he
+goes; or he lights a fire under a small pot, and throws in some little
+black scraps which he takes from out of the bosom of his coat; or he is
+hammering in his little wooden den--driving in a nail, putting up a
+shelf for bread. And all this he does silently, as though on the sly:
+before you can look round, he's in hiding again. Sometimes he suddenly
+disappears for a couple of days; but of course no one notices his
+absence.... Then, lo and behold! he is there again, somewhere under the
+hedge, stealthily kindling a fire of sticks under a kettle. He had a
+small face, yellowish eyes, hair coming down to his eyebrows, a sharp
+nose, large transparent ears, like a bat's, and a beard that looked as
+if it were a fortnight's growth, and never grew more nor less. This,
+then, was Styopushka, whom I met on the bank of the Ista in company
+with another old man.
+
+I went up to him, wished him good-day, and sat down beside him.
+Styopushka's companion too I recognised as an acquaintance; he was a
+freed serf of Count Piotr Ilitch's, one Mihal Savelitch, nicknamed
+Tuman (_i.e._ fog). He lived with a consumptive Bolhovsky man, who kept
+an inn, where I had several times stayed. Young officials and other
+persons of leisure travelling on the Orel highroad (merchants, buried
+in their striped rugs, have other things to do) may still see at no
+great distance from the large village of Troitska, and almost on the
+highroad, an immense two-storied wooden house, completely deserted,
+with its roof falling in and its windows closely stuffed up. At mid-day
+in bright, sunny weather nothing can be imagined more melancholy than
+this ruin. Here there once lived Count Piotr Ilitch, a rich grandee of
+the olden time, renowned for his hospitality. At one time the whole
+province used to meet at his house, to dance and make merry to their
+heart's content to the deafening sound of a home-trained orchestra, and
+the popping of rockets and Roman candles; and doubtless more than one
+aged lady sighs as she drives by the deserted palace of the boyar and
+recalls the old days and her vanished youth. The count long continued
+to give balls, and to walk about with an affable smile among the crowd
+of fawning guests; but his property, unluckily, was not enough to last
+his whole life. When he was entirely ruined, he set off to Petersburg
+to try for a post for himself, and died in a room at a hotel, without
+having gained anything by his efforts. Tuman had been a steward of his,
+and had received his freedom already in the count's lifetime. He was a
+man of about seventy, with a regular and pleasant face. He was almost
+continually smiling, as only men of the time of Catherine ever do
+smile--a smile at once stately and indulgent; in speaking, he slowly
+opened and closed his lips, winked genially with his eyes, and spoke
+slightly through his nose. He blew his nose and took snuff too in a
+leisurely fashion, as though he were doing something serious.
+
+'Well, Mihal Savelitch,' I began, 'have you caught any fish?'
+
+'Here, if you will deign to look in the basket: I have caught two perch
+and five roaches.... Show them, Styopka.'
+
+Styopushka stretched out the basket to me.
+
+'How are you, Styopka?' I asked him.
+
+'Oh--oh--not--not--not so badly, your honour,' answered Stepan,
+stammering as though he had a heavy weight on his tongue.
+
+'And is Mitrofan well?'
+
+'Well--yes, yes--your honour.'
+
+The poor fellow turned away.
+
+'But there are not many bites,' remarked Tuman; 'it's so fearfully hot;
+the fish are all tired out under the bushes; they're asleep. Put on a
+worm, Styopka.' (Styopushka took out a worm, laid it on his open hand,
+struck it two or three times, put it on the hook, spat on it, and gave
+it to Tuman.) 'Thanks, Styopka.... And you, your honour,' he continued,
+turning to me, 'are pleased to be out hunting?'
+
+'As you see.'
+
+'Ah--and is your dog there English or German?'
+
+The old man liked to show off on occasion, as though he would say, 'I,
+too, have lived in the world!'
+
+'I don't know what breed it is, but it's a good dog.'
+
+'Ah! and do you go out with the hounds too?'
+
+'Yes, I have two leashes of hounds.'
+
+Tuman smiled and shook his head.
+
+'That's just it; one man is devoted to dogs, and another doesn't want
+them for anything. According to my simple notions, I fancy dogs should
+be kept rather for appearance' sake ... and all should be in style too;
+horses too should be in style, and huntsmen in style, as they ought to
+be, and all. The late count--God's grace be with him!--was never, I
+must own, much of a hunter; but he kept dogs, and twice a year he was
+pleased to go out with them. The huntsmen assembled in the courtyard,
+in red caftans trimmed with galloon, and blew their horns; his
+excellency would be pleased to come out, and his excellency's horse
+would be led up; his excellency would mount, and the chief huntsman
+puts his feet in the stirrups, takes his hat off, and puts the reins in
+his hat to offer them to his excellency. His excellency is pleased to
+click his whip like this, and the huntsmen give a shout, and off they
+go out of the gate away. A huntsman rides behind the count, and holds
+in a silken leash two of the master's favourite dogs, and looks after
+them well, you may fancy.... And he, too, this huntsman, sits up high,
+on a Cossack saddle: such a red-cheeked fellow he was, and rolled his
+eyes like this.... And there were guests too, you may be sure, on such
+occasions, and entertainment, and ceremonies observed.... Ah, he's got
+away, the Asiatic!' He interrupted himself suddenly, drawing in his
+line.
+
+'They say the count used to live pretty freely in his day?' I asked.
+
+The old man spat on the worm and lowered the line in again.
+
+'He was a great gentleman, as is well-known. At times the persons of
+the first rank, one may say, at Petersburg, used to visit him. With
+coloured ribbons on their breasts they used to sit down to table and
+eat. Well, he knew how to entertain them. He called me sometimes.
+"Tuman," says he, "I want by to-morrow some live sturgeon; see there
+are some, do you hear?" "Yes, your excellency." Embroidered coats,
+wigs, canes, perfumes, _eau de Cologne_ of the best sort, snuff-boxes,
+huge pictures: he would order them all from Paris itself! When he gave
+a banquet, God Almighty, Lord of my being! there were fireworks, and
+carriages driving up! They even fired off the cannon. The orchestra
+alone consisted of forty men. He kept a German as conductor of the
+band, but the German gave himself dreadful airs; he wanted to eat at
+the same table as the masters; so his excellency gave orders to get rid
+of him! "My musicians," says he, "can do their work even without a
+conductor." Of course he was master. Then they would fall to dancing,
+and dance till morning, especially at the ecossaise-matrador. ... Ah--
+ah--there's one caught!' (The old man drew a small perch out of the
+water.) 'Here you are, Styopka! The master was all a master should be,'
+continued the old man, dropping his line in again, 'and he had a kind
+heart too. He would give you a blow at times, and before you could look
+round, he'd forgotten it already. There was only one thing: he kept
+mistresses. Ugh, those mistresses! God forgive them! They were the ruin
+of him too; and yet, you know, he took them most generally from a low
+station. You would fancy they would not want much? Not a bit--they must
+have everything of the most expensive in all Europe! One may say, "Why
+shouldn't he live as he likes; it's the master's business" ... but
+there was no need to ruin himself. There was one especially; Akulina
+was her name. She is dead now; God rest her soul! the daughter of the
+watchman at Sitoia; and such a vixen! She would slap the count's face
+sometimes. She simply bewitched him. My nephew she sent for a soldier;
+he spilt some chocolate on a new dress of hers ... and he wasn't the
+only one she served so. Ah, well, those were good times, though!' added
+the old man with a deep sigh. His head drooped forward and he was
+silent.
+
+'Your master, I see, was severe, then?' I began after a brief silence.
+
+'That was the fashion then, your honour,' he replied, shaking his head.
+
+'That sort of thing is not done now?' I observed, not taking my eyes
+off him.
+
+He gave me a look askance.
+
+'Now, surely it's better,' he muttered, and let out his line further.
+
+We were sitting in the shade; but even in the shade it was stifling.
+The sultry atmosphere was faint and heavy; one lifted one's burning
+face uneasily, seeking a breath of wind; but there was no wind. The sun
+beat down from blue and darkening skies; right opposite us, on the
+other bank, was a yellow field of oats, overgrown here and there with
+wormwood; not one ear of the oats quivered. A little lower down a
+peasant's horse stood in the river up to its knees, and slowly shook
+its wet tail; from time to time, under an overhanging bush, a large
+fish shot up, bringing bubbles to the surface, and gently sank down to
+the bottom, leaving a slight ripple behind it. The grasshoppers chirped
+in the scorched grass; the quail's cry sounded languid and reluctant;
+hawks sailed smoothly over the meadows, often resting in the same spot,
+rapidly fluttering their wings and opening their tails into a fan. We
+sat motionless, overpowered with the heat. Suddenly there was a sound
+behind us in the creek; someone came down to the spring. I looked
+round, and saw a peasant of about fifty, covered with dust, in a smock,
+and wearing bast slippers; he carried a wickerwork pannier and a cloak
+on his shoulders. He went down to the spring, drank thirstily, and got
+up.
+
+'Ah, Vlass!' cried Tuman, staring at him; 'good health to you, friend!
+Where has God sent you from?'
+
+'Good health to you, Mihal Savelitch!' said the peasant, coming nearer
+to us; 'from a long way off.'
+
+'Where have you been?' Tuman asked him.
+
+'I have been to Moscow, to my master.'
+
+'What for?'
+
+'I went to ask him a favour.'
+
+'What about?'
+
+'Oh, to lessen my rent, or to let me work it out in labour, or to put
+me on another piece of land, or something.... My son is dead--so I
+can't manage it now alone.'
+
+'Your son is dead?'
+
+'He is dead. My son,' added the peasant, after a pause, 'lived in
+Moscow as a cabman; he paid, I must confess, rent for me.'
+
+'Then are you now paying rent?'
+
+'Yes, we pay rent.'
+
+'What did your master say?'
+
+'What did the master say! He drove me away! Says he, "How dare you come
+straight to me; there is a bailiff for such things. You ought first,"
+says he, "to apply to the bailiff ... and where am I to put you on
+other land? You first," says he, "bring the debt you owe." He was angry
+altogether.'
+
+'What then--did you come back?'
+
+'I came back. I wanted to find out if my son had not left any goods of
+his own, but I couldn't get a straight answer. I say to his employer,
+"I am Philip's father"; and he says, "What do I know about that? And
+your son," says he, "left nothing; he was even in debt to me." So I
+came away.'
+
+The peasant related all this with a smile, as though he were speaking
+of someone else; but tears were starting into his small, screwed-up
+eyes, and his lips were quivering.
+
+'Well, are you going home then now?'
+
+'Where can I go? Of course I'm going home. My wife, I suppose, is
+pretty well starved by now.'
+
+'You should--then,' Styopushka said suddenly. He grew confused, was
+silent, and began to rummage in the worm-pot.
+
+'And shall you go to the bailiff?' continued Tuman, looking with some
+amazement at Styopka.
+
+'What should I go to him for?--I'm in arrears as it is. My son was ill
+for a year before his death; he could not pay even his own rent. But it
+can't hurt me; they can get nothing from me.... Yes, my friend, you can
+be as cunning as you please--I'm cleaned out!' (The peasant began to
+laugh.) 'Kintlyan Semenitch'll have to be clever if--'
+
+Vlass laughed again.
+
+'Oh! things are in a sad way, brother Vlass,' Tuman ejaculated
+deliberately.
+
+'Sad! No!' (Vlass's voice broke.) 'How hot it is!' he went on, wiping
+his face with his sleeve.
+
+'Who is your master?' I asked him.
+
+'Count Valerian Petrovitch.'
+
+'The son of Piotr Ilitch?'
+
+'The son of Piotr Ilitch,' replied Tuman. 'Piotr Hitch gave him Vlass's
+village in his lifetime.'
+
+'Is he well?'
+
+'He is well, thank God!' replied Vlass. 'He has grown so red, and his
+face looks as though it were padded.'
+
+'You see, your honour,' continued Tuman, turning to me, 'it would be
+very well near Moscow, but it's a different matter to pay rent here.'
+
+'And what is the rent for you altogether?'
+
+'Ninety-five roubles,' muttered Vlass.
+
+'There, you see; and it's the least bit of land; all there is is the
+master's forest.'
+
+'And that, they say, they have sold,' observed the peasant.
+
+'There, you see. Styopka, give me a worm. Why, Styopka, are you asleep
+--eh?'
+
+Styopushka started. The peasant sat down by us. We sank into silence
+again. On the other bank someone was singing a song--but such a
+mournful one. Our poor Vlass grew deeply dejected.
+
+Half-an-hour later we parted.
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+                           THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
+
+
+One day in autumn on my way back from a remote part of the country I
+caught cold and fell ill. Fortunately the fever attacked me in the
+district town at the inn; I sent for the doctor. In half-an-hour the
+district doctor appeared, a thin, dark-haired man of middle height. He
+prescribed me the usual sudorific, ordered a mustard-plaster to be put
+on, very deftly slid a five-rouble note up his sleeve, coughing drily
+and looking away as he did so, and then was getting up to go home, but
+somehow fell into talk and remained. I was exhausted with feverishness;
+I foresaw a sleepless night, and was glad of a little chat with a
+pleasant companion. Tea was served. My doctor began to converse freely.
+He was a sensible fellow, and expressed himself with vigour and some
+humour. Queer things happen in the world: you may live a long while
+with some people, and be on friendly terms with them, and never once
+speak openly with them from your soul; with others you have scarcely
+time to get acquainted, and all at once you are pouring out to him--or
+he to you--all your secrets, as though you were at confession. I don't
+know how I gained the confidence of my new friend--any way, with
+nothing to lead up to it, he told me a rather curious incident; and
+here I will report his tale for the information of the indulgent
+reader. I will try to tell it in the doctor's own words.
+
+'You don't happen to know,' he began in a weak and quavering voice (the
+common result of the use of unmixed Berezov snuff); 'you don't happen
+to know the judge here, Mylov, Pavel Lukitch?... You don't know him?...
+Well, it's all the same.' (He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes.)
+'Well, you see, the thing happened, to tell you exactly without
+mistake, in Lent, at the very time of the thaws. I was sitting at his
+house--our judge's, you know--playing preference. Our judge is a good
+fellow, and fond of playing preference. Suddenly' (the doctor made
+frequent use of this word, suddenly) 'they tell me, "There's a servant
+asking for you." I say, "What does he want?" They say, "He has brought
+a note--it must be from a patient." "Give me the note," I say. So it is
+from a patient--well and good--you understand--it's our bread and
+butter. ... But this is how it was: a lady, a widow, writes to me; she
+says, "My daughter is dying. Come, for God's sake!" she says; "and the
+horses have been sent for you." ... Well, that's all right. But she was
+twenty miles from the town, and it was midnight out of doors, and the
+roads in such a state, my word! And as she was poor herself, one could
+not expect more than two silver roubles, and even that problematic; and
+perhaps it might only be a matter of a roll of linen and a sack of
+oatmeal in payment. However, duty, you know, before everything: a
+fellow-creature may be dying. I hand over my cards at once to
+Kalliopin, the member of the provincial commission, and return home. I
+look; a wretched little trap was standing at the steps, with peasant's
+horses, fat--too fat--and their coat as shaggy as felt; and the
+coachman sitting with his cap off out of respect. Well, I think to
+myself, "It's clear, my friend, these patients aren't rolling in
+riches." ... You smile; but I tell you, a poor man like me has to take
+everything into consideration.... If the coachman sits like a prince,
+and doesn't touch his cap, and even sneers at you behind his beard, and
+flicks his whip--then you may bet on six roubles. But this case, I saw,
+had a very different air. However, I think there's no help for it; duty
+before everything. I snatch up the most necessary drugs, and set off.
+Will you believe it? I only just managed to get there at all. The road
+was infernal: streams, snow, watercourses, and the dyke had suddenly
+burst there--that was the worst of it! However, I arrived at last. It
+was a little thatched house. There was a light in the windows; that
+meant they expected me. I was met by an old lady, very venerable, in a
+cap. "Save her!" she says; "she is dying." I say, "Pray don't distress
+yourself--Where is the invalid?" "Come this way." I see a clean little
+room, a lamp in the corner; on the bed a girl of twenty, unconscious.
+She was in a burning heat, and breathing heavily--it was fever. There
+were two other girls, her sisters, scared and in tears. "Yesterday,"
+they tell me, "she was perfectly well and had a good appetite; this
+morning she complained of her head, and this evening, suddenly, you
+see, like this." I say again: "Pray don't be uneasy." It's a doctor's
+duty, you know--and I went up to her and bled her, told them to put on
+a mustard-plaster, and prescribed a mixture. Meantime I looked at her;
+I looked at her, you know--there, by God! I had never seen such a
+face!--she was a beauty, in a word! I felt quite shaken with pity. Such
+lovely features; such eyes!... But, thank God! she became easier; she
+fell into a perspiration, seemed to come to her senses, looked round,
+smiled, and passed her hand over her face.... Her sisters bent over
+her. They ask, "How are you?" "All right," she says, and turns away. I
+looked at her; she had fallen asleep. "Well," I say, "now the patient
+should be left alone." So we all went out on tiptoe; only a maid
+remained, in case she was wanted. In the parlour there was a samovar
+standing on the table, and a bottle of rum; in our profession one can't
+get on without it. They gave me tea; asked me to stop the night. ... I
+consented: where could I go, indeed, at that time of night? The old
+lady kept groaning. "What is it?" I say; "she will live; don't worry
+yourself; you had better take a little rest yourself; it is about two
+o'clock." "But will you send to wake me if anything happens?" "Yes,
+yes." The old lady went away, and the girls too went to their own room;
+they made up a bed for me in the parlour. Well, I went to bed--but I
+could not get to sleep, for a wonder! for in reality I was very tired.
+I could not get my patient out of my head. At last I could not put up
+with it any longer; I got up suddenly; I think to myself, "I will go
+and see how the patient is getting on." Her bedroom was next to the
+parlour. Well, I got up, and gently opened the door--how my heart beat!
+I looked in: the servant was asleep, her mouth wide open, and even
+snoring, the wretch! but the patient lay with her face towards me, and
+her arms flung wide apart, poor girl! I went up to her ... when
+suddenly she opened her eyes and stared at me! "Who is it? who is it?"
+I was in confusion. "Don't be alarmed, madam," I say; "I am the doctor;
+I have come to see how you feel." "You the doctor?" "Yes, the doctor;
+your mother sent for me from the town; we have bled you, madam; now
+pray go to sleep, and in a day or two, please God! we will set you on
+your feet again." "Ah, yes, yes, doctor, don't let me die.... please,
+please." "Why do you talk like that? God bless you!" She is in a fever
+again, I think to myself; I felt her pulse; yes, she was feverish. She
+looked at me, and then took me by the hand. "I will tell you why I
+don't want to die; I will tell you.... Now we are alone; and only,
+please don't you ... not to anyone ... Listen...." I bent down; she
+moved her lips quite to my ear; she touched my cheek with her hair--I
+confess my head went round--and began to whisper.... I could make out
+nothing of it.... Ah, she was delirious!... She whispered and
+whispered, but so quickly, and as if it were not in Russian; at last
+she finished, and shivering dropped her head on the pillow, and
+threatened me with her finger: "Remember, doctor, to no one." I calmed
+her somehow, gave her something to drink, waked the servant, and went
+away.'
+
+At this point the doctor again took snuff with exasperated energy, and
+for a moment seemed stupefied by its effects.
+
+'However,' he continued, 'the next day, contrary to my expectations,
+the patient was no better. I thought and thought, and suddenly decided
+to remain there, even though my other patients were expecting me....
+And you know one can't afford to disregard that; one's practice suffers
+if one does. But, in the first place, the patient was really in danger;
+and secondly, to tell the truth, I felt strongly drawn to her. Besides,
+I liked the whole family. Though they were really badly off, they were
+singularly, I may say, cultivated people.... Their father had been a
+learned man, an author; he died, of course, in poverty, but he had
+managed before he died to give his children an excellent education; he
+left a lot of books too. Either because I looked after the invalid very
+carefully, or for some other reason; any way, I can venture to say all
+the household loved me as if I were one of the family.... Meantime the
+roads were in a worse state than ever; all communications, so to say,
+were cut off completely; even medicine could with difficulty be got
+from the town.... The sick girl was not getting better. ... Day after
+day, and day after day ... but ... here....' (The doctor made a brief
+pause.) 'I declare I don't know how to tell you.' ... (He again took
+snuff, coughed, and swallowed a little tea.) 'I will tell you without
+beating about the bush. My patient ... how should I say?... Well, she
+had fallen in love with me ... or, no, it was not that she was in love
+... however ... really, how should one say?' (The doctor looked down
+and grew red.) 'No,' he went on quickly, 'in love, indeed! A man should
+not over-estimate himself. She was an educated girl, clever and well-
+read, and I had even forgotten my Latin, one may say, completely. As to
+appearance' (the doctor looked himself over with a smile) 'I am nothing
+to boast of there either. But God Almighty did not make me a fool; I
+don't take black for white; I know a thing or two; I could see very
+clearly, for instance, that Alexandra Andreevna--that was her name--did
+not feel love for me, but had a friendly, so to say, inclination--a
+respect or something for me. Though she herself perhaps mistook this
+sentiment, any way this was her attitude; you may form your own
+judgment of it. But,' added the doctor, who had brought out all these
+disconnected sentences without taking breath, and with obvious
+embarrassment, 'I seem to be wandering rather--you won't understand
+anything like this.... There, with your leave, I will relate it all in
+order.'
+
+He drank off a glass of tea, and began in a calmer voice.
+
+'Well, then. My patient kept getting worse and worse. You are not a
+doctor, my good sir; you cannot understand what passes in a poor
+fellow's heart, especially at first, when he begins to suspect that the
+disease is getting the upper hand of him. What becomes of his belief in
+himself? You suddenly grow so timid; it's indescribable. You fancy then
+that you have forgotten everything you knew, and that the patient has
+no faith in you, and that other people begin to notice how distracted
+you are, and tell you the symptoms with reluctance; that they are
+looking at you suspiciously, whispering.... Ah! it's horrid! There must
+be a remedy, you think, for this disease, if one could find it. Isn't
+this it? You try--no, that's not it! You don't allow the medicine the
+necessary time to do good.... You clutch at one thing, then at another.
+Sometimes you take up a book of medical prescriptions--here it is, you
+think! Sometimes, by Jove, you pick one out by chance, thinking to
+leave it to fate.... But meantime a fellow-creature's dying, and
+another doctor would have saved him. "We must have a consultation," you
+say; "I will not take the responsibility on myself." And what a fool
+you look at such times! Well, in time you learn to bear it; it's
+nothing to you. A man has died--but it's not your fault; you treated
+him by the rules. But what's still more torture to you is to see blind
+faith in you, and to feel yourself that you are not able to be of use.
+Well, it was just this blind faith that the whole of Alexandra
+Andreevna's family had in me; they had forgotten to think that their
+daughter was in danger. I, too, on my side assure them that it's
+nothing, but meantime my heart sinks into my boots. To add to our
+troubles, the roads were in such a state that the coachman was gone for
+whole days together to get medicine. And I never left the patient's
+room; I could not tear myself away; I tell her amusing stories, you
+know, and play cards with her. I watch by her side at night. The old
+mother thanks me with tears in her eyes; but I think to myself, "I
+don't deserve your gratitude." I frankly confess to you--there is no
+object in concealing it now--I was in love with my patient. And
+Alexandra Andreevna had grown fond of me; she would not sometimes let
+anyone be in her room but me. She began to talk to me, to ask me
+questions; where I had studied, how I lived, who are my people, whom I
+go to see. I feel that she ought not to talk; but to forbid her to--to
+forbid her resolutely, you know--I could not. Sometimes I held my head
+in my hands, and asked myself, "What are you doing, villain?" ... And
+she would take my hand and hold it, give me a long, long look, and turn
+away, sigh, and say, "How good you are!" Her hands were so feverish,
+her eyes so large and languid.... "Yes," she says, "you are a good,
+kind man; you are not like our neighbours.... No, you are not like
+that. ... Why did I not know you till now!" "Alexandra Andreevna, calm
+yourself," I say.... "I feel, believe me, I don't know how I have
+gained ... but there, calm yourself.... All will be right; you will be
+well again." And meanwhile I must tell you,' continued the doctor,
+bending forward and raising his eyebrows, 'that they associated very
+little with the neighbours, because the smaller people were not on
+their level, and pride hindered them from being friendly with the rich.
+I tell you, they were an exceptionally cultivated family; so you know
+it was gratifying for me. She would only take her medicine from my
+hands ... she would lift herself up, poor girl, with my aid, take it,
+and gaze at me.... My heart felt as if it were bursting. And meanwhile
+she was growing worse and worse, worse and worse, all the time; she
+will die, I think to myself; she must die. Believe me, I would sooner
+have gone to the grave myself; and here were her mother and sisters
+watching me, looking into my eyes ... and their faith in me was wearing
+away. "Well? how is she?" "Oh, all right, all right!" All right,
+indeed! My mind was failing me. Well, I was sitting one night alone
+again by my patient. The maid was sitting there too, and snoring away
+in full swing; I can't find fault with the poor girl, though; she was
+worn out too. Alexandra Andreevna had felt very unwell all the evening;
+she was very feverish. Until midnight she kept tossing about; at last
+she seemed to fall asleep; at least, she lay still without stirring.
+The lamp was burning in the corner before the holy image. I sat there,
+you know, with my head bent; I even dozed a little. Suddenly it seemed
+as though someone touched me in the side; I turned round.... Good God!
+Alexandra Andreevna was gazing with intent eyes at me ... her lips
+parted, her cheeks seemed burning. "What is it?" "Doctor, shall I die?"
+"Merciful Heavens!" "No, doctor, no; please don't tell me I shall live
+... don't say so.... If you knew.... Listen! for God's sake don't
+conceal my real position," and her breath came so fast. "If I can know
+for certain that I must die ... then I will tell you all--all!"
+"Alexandra Andreevna, I beg!" "Listen; I have not been asleep at all
+... I have been looking at you a long while.... For God's sake! ... I
+believe in you; you are a good man, an honest man; I entreat you by all
+that is sacred in the world--tell me the truth! If you knew how
+important it is for me.... Doctor, for God's sake tell me.... Am I in
+danger?" "What can I tell you, Alexandra Andreevna, pray?" "For God's
+sake, I beseech you!" "I can't disguise from you," I say, "Alexandra
+Andreevna; you are certainly in danger; but God is merciful." "I shall
+die, I shall die." And it seemed as though she were pleased; her face
+grew so bright; I was alarmed. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! I am
+not frightened of death at all." She suddenly sat up and leaned on her
+elbow. "Now ... yes, now I can tell you that I thank you with my whole
+heart ... that you are kind and good--that I love you!" I stare at her,
+like one possessed; it was terrible for me, you know. "Do you hear, I
+love you!" "Alexandra Andreevna, how have I deserved--" "No, no, you
+don't--you don't understand me." ... And suddenly she stretched out her
+arms, and taking my head in her hands, she kissed it.... Believe me, I
+almost screamed aloud.... I threw myself on my knees, and buried my
+head in the pillow. She did not speak; her fingers trembled in my hair;
+I listen; she is weeping. I began to soothe her, to assure her.... I
+really don't know what I did say to her. "You will wake up the girl," I
+say to her; "Alexandra Andreevna, I thank you ... believe me ... calm
+yourself." "Enough, enough!" she persisted; "never mind all of them;
+let them wake, then; let them come in--it does not matter; I am dying,
+you see.... And what do you fear? why are you afraid? Lift up your
+head.... Or, perhaps, you don't love me; perhaps I am wrong.... In that
+case, forgive me." "Alexandra Andreevna, what are you saying!... I love
+you, Alexandra Andreevna." She looked straight into my eyes, and opened
+her arms wide. "Then take me in your arms." I tell you frankly, I don't
+know how it was I did not go mad that night. I feel that my patient is
+killing herself; I see that she is not fully herself; I understand,
+too, that if she did not consider herself on the point of death, she
+would never have thought of me; and, indeed, say what you will, it's
+hard to die at twenty without having known love; this was what was
+torturing her; this was why, in despair, she caught at me--do you
+understand now? But she held me in her arms, and would not let me go.
+"Have pity on me, Alexandra Andreevna, and have pity on yourself," I
+say. "Why," she says; "what is there to think of? You know I must die."
+... This she repeated incessantly.... "If I knew that I should return
+to life, and be a proper young lady again, I should be ashamed ... of
+course, ashamed ... but why now?" "But who has said you will die?" "Oh,
+no, leave off! you will not deceive me; you don't know how to lie--look
+at your face." ... "You shall live, Alexandra Andreevna; I will cure
+you; we will ask your mother's blessing ... we will be united--we will
+be happy." "No, no, I have your word; I must die ... you have promised
+me ... you have told me." ... It was cruel for me--cruel for many
+reasons. And see what trifling things can do sometimes; it seems
+nothing at all, but it's painful. It occurred to her to ask me, what is
+my name; not my surname, but my first name. I must needs be so unlucky
+as to be called Trifon. Yes, indeed; Trifon Ivanitch. Every one in the
+house called me doctor. However, there's no help for it. I say,
+"Trifon, madam." She frowned, shook her head, and muttered something in
+French--ah, something unpleasant, of course!--and then she laughed--
+disagreeably too. Well, I spent the whole night with her in this way.
+Before morning I went away, feeling as though I were mad. When I went
+again into her room it was daytime, after morning tea. Good God! I
+could scarcely recognise her; people are laid in their grave looking
+better than that. I swear to you, on my honour, I don't understand--I
+absolutely don't understand--now, how I lived through that experience.
+Three days and nights my patient still lingered on. And what nights!
+What things she said to me! And on the last night--only imagine to
+yourself--I was sitting near her, and kept praying to God for one thing
+only: "Take her," I said, "quickly, and me with her." Suddenly the old
+mother comes unexpectedly into the room. I had already the evening
+before told her--the mother--there was little hope, and it would be
+well to send for a priest. When the sick girl saw her mother she said:
+"It's very well you have come; look at us, we love one another--we have
+given each other our word." "What does she say, doctor? what does she
+say?" I turned livid. "She is wandering," I say; "the fever." But she:
+"Hush, hush; you told me something quite different just now, and have
+taken my ring. Why do you pretend? My mother is good--she will forgive
+--she will understand--and I am dying.... I have no need to tell lies;
+give me your hand." I jumped up and ran out of the room. The old lady,
+of course, guessed how it was.
+
+'I will not, however, weary you any longer, and to me too, of course,
+it's painful to recall all this. My patient passed away the next day.
+God rest her soul!' the doctor added, speaking quickly and with a sigh.
+'Before her death she asked her family to go out and leave me alone
+with her.'
+
+'"Forgive me," she said; "I am perhaps to blame towards you ... my
+illness ... but believe me, I have loved no one more than you ... do
+not forget me ... keep my ring."'
+
+The doctor turned away; I took his hand.
+
+'Ah!' he said, 'let us talk of something else, or would you care to
+play preference for a small stake? It is not for people like me to give
+way to exalted emotions. There's only one thing for me to think of; how
+to keep the children from crying and the wife from scolding. Since
+then, you know, I have had time to enter into lawful wed-lock, as they
+say.... Oh ... I took a merchant's daughter--seven thousand for her
+dowry. Her name's Akulina; it goes well with Trifon. She is an ill-
+tempered woman, I must tell you, but luckily she's asleep all day....
+Well, shall it be preference?'
+
+We sat down to preference for halfpenny points. Trifon Ivanitch won two
+roubles and a half from me, and went home late, well pleased with his
+success.
+
+
+
+                                    V
+
+                          MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOV
+
+
+For the autumn, woodcocks often take refuge in old gardens of lime-
+trees. There are a good many such gardens among us, in the province of
+Orel. Our forefathers, when they selected a place for habitation,
+invariably marked out two acres of good ground for a fruit-garden, with
+avenues of lime-trees. Within the last fifty, or seventy years at most,
+these mansions--'noblemen's nests,' as they call them--have gradually
+disappeared off the face of the earth; the houses are falling to
+pieces, or have been sold for the building materials; the stone
+outhouses have become piles of rubbish; the apple-trees are dead and
+turned into firewood, the hedges and fences are pulled up. Only the
+lime-trees grow in all their glory as before, and with ploughed fields
+all round them, tell a tale to this light-hearted generation of 'our
+fathers and brothers who have lived before us.'
+
+A magnificent tree is such an old lime-tree.... Even the merciless axe
+of the Russian peasant spares it. Its leaves are small, its powerful
+limbs spread wide in all directions; there is perpetual shade under
+them.
+
+Once, as I was wandering about the fields after partridges with
+Yermolai, I saw some way off a deserted garden, and turned into it. I
+had hardly crossed its borders when a snipe rose up out of a bush with
+a clatter. I fired my gun, and at the same instant, a few paces from
+me, I heard a shriek; the frightened face of a young girl peeped out
+for a second from behind the trees, and instantly disappeared. Yermolai
+ran up to me: 'Why are you shooting here? there is a landowner living
+here.'
+
+Before I had time to answer him, before my dog had had time to bring
+me, with dignified importance, the bird I had shot, swift footsteps
+were heard, and a tall man with moustaches came out of the thicket and
+stopped, with an air of displeasure, before me. I made my apologies as
+best I could, gave him my name, and offered him the bird that had been
+killed on his domains.
+
+'Very well,' he said to me with a smile; 'I will take your game, but
+only on one condition: that you will stay and dine with us.'
+
+I must confess I was not greatly delighted at his proposition, but it
+was impossible to refuse.
+
+'I am a landowner here, and your neighbour, Radilov; perhaps you have
+heard of me?' continued my new acquaintance; 'to-day is Sunday, and we
+shall be sure to have a decent dinner, otherwise I would not have
+invited you.'
+
+I made such a reply as one does make in such circumstances, and turned
+to follow him. A little path that had lately been cleared soon led us
+out of the grove of lime-trees; we came into the kitchen-garden.
+Between the old apple-trees and gooseberry bushes were rows of curly
+whitish-green cabbages; the hop twined its tendrils round high poles;
+there were thick ranks of brown twigs tangled over with dried peas;
+large flat pumpkins seemed rolling on the ground; cucumbers showed
+yellow under their dusty angular leaves; tall nettles were waving along
+the hedge; in two or three places grew clumps of tartar honeysuckle,
+elder, and wild rose--the remnants of former flower-beds. Near a small
+fish-pond, full of reddish and slimy water, we saw the well, surrounded
+by puddles. Ducks were busily splashing and waddling about these
+puddles; a dog blinking and twitching in every limb was gnawing a bone
+in the meadow, where a piebald cow was lazily chewing the grass, from
+time to time flicking its tail over its lean back. The little path
+turned to one side; from behind thick willows and birches we caught
+sight of a little grey old house, with a boarded roof and a winding
+flight of steps. Radilov stopped short.
+
+'But,' he said, with a good-humoured and direct look in my face,' on
+second thoughts ... perhaps you don't care to come and see me, after
+all.... In that case--'
+
+I did not allow him to finish, but assured him that, on the contrary,
+it would be a great pleasure to me to dine with him.
+
+'Well, you know best.'
+
+We went into the house. A young man in a long coat of stout blue cloth
+met us on the steps. Radilov at once told him to bring Yermolai some
+vodka; my huntsman made a respectful bow to the back of the munificent
+host. From the hall, which was decorated with various parti-coloured
+pictures and check curtains, we went into a small room--Radilov's
+study. I took off my hunting accoutrements, and put my gun in a corner;
+the young man in the long-skirted coat busily brushed me down.
+
+'Well, now, let us go into the drawing-room.' said Radilov cordially.
+'I will make you acquainted with my mother.'
+
+I walked after him. In the drawing-room, in the sofa in the centre of
+the room, was sitting an old lady of medium height, in a cinnamon-
+coloured dress and a white cap, with a thinnish, kind old face, and a
+timid, mournful expression.
+
+'Here, mother, let me introduce to you our neighbour....'
+
+The old lady got up and made me a bow, not letting go out of her
+withered hands a fat worsted reticule that looked like a sack.
+
+'Have you been long in our neighbourhood?' she asked, in a weak and
+gentle voice, blinking her eyes.
+
+'No, not long.'
+
+'Do you intend to remain here long?'
+
+'Till the winter, I think.'
+
+The old lady said no more.
+
+'And here,' interposed Radilov, indicating to me a tall and thin man,
+whom I had not noticed on entering the drawing-room, 'is Fyodor
+Miheitch. ... Come, Fedya, give the visitor a specimen of your art. Why
+have you hidden yourself away in that corner?'
+
+Fyodor Miheitch got up at once from his chair, fetched a wretched
+little fiddle from the window, took the bow--not by the end, as is
+usual, but by the middle--put the fiddle to his chest, shut his eyes,
+and fell to dancing, singing a song, and scraping on the strings. He
+looked about seventy; a thin nankin overcoat flapped pathetically about
+his dry and bony limbs. He danced, at times skipping boldly, and then
+dropping his little bald head with his scraggy neck stretched out as if
+he were dying, stamping his feet on the ground, and sometimes bending
+his knees with obvious difficulty. A voice cracked with age came from
+his toothless mouth.
+
+Radilov must have guessed from the expression of my face that Fedya's
+'art' did not give me much pleasure.
+
+'Very good, old man, that's enough,' he said. 'You can go and refresh
+yourself.'
+
+Fyodor Miheitch at once laid down the fiddle on the window-sill, bowed
+first to me as the guest, then to the old lady, then to Radilov, and
+went away.
+
+'He too was a landowner,' my new friend continued, 'and a rich one too,
+but he ruined himself--so he lives now with me.... But in his day he
+was considered the most dashing fellow in the province; he eloped with
+two married ladies; he used to keep singers, and sang himself, and
+danced like a master.... But won't you take some vodka? dinner is just
+ready.'
+
+A young girl, the same that I had caught a glimpse of in the garden,
+came into the room.
+
+'And here is Olga!' observed Radilov, slightly turning his head; 'let
+me present you.... Well, let us go into dinner.'
+
+We went in and sat down to the table. While we were coming out of the
+drawing-room and taking our seats, Fyodor Miheitch, whose eyes were
+bright and his nose rather red after his 'refreshment,' sang 'Raise the
+cry of Victory.' They laid a separate cover for him in a corner on a
+little table without a table-napkin. The poor old man could not boast
+of very nice habits, and so they always kept him at some distance from
+society. He crossed himself, sighed, and began to eat like a shark. The
+dinner was in reality not bad, and in honour of Sunday was accompanied,
+of course, with shaking jelly and Spanish puffs of pastry. At the table
+Radilov, who had served ten years in an infantry regiment and had been
+in Turkey, fell to telling anecdotes; I listened to him with attention,
+and secretly watched Olga. She was not very pretty; but the tranquil
+and resolute expression of her face, her broad, white brow, her thick
+hair, and especially her brown eyes--not large, but clear, sensible and
+lively--would have made an impression on anyone in my place. She seemed
+to be following every word Radilov uttered--not so much sympathy as
+passionate attention was expressed on her face. Radilov in years might
+have been her father; he called her by her Christian name, but I
+guessed at once that she was not his daughter. In the course of
+conversation he referred to his deceased wife--'her sister,' he added,
+indicating Olga. She blushed quickly and dropped her eyes. Radilov
+paused a moment and then changed the subject. The old lady did not
+utter a word during the whole of dinner; she ate scarcely anything
+herself, and did not press me to partake. Her features had an air of
+timorous and hopeless expectation, that melancholy of old age which it
+pierces one's heart to look upon. At the end of dinner Fyodor Miheitch
+was beginning to 'celebrate' the hosts and guests, but Radilov looked
+at me and asked him to be quiet; the old man passed his hand over his
+lips, began to blink, bowed, and sat down again, but only on the very
+edge of his chair. After dinner I returned with Radilov to his study.
+
+In people who are constantly and intensely preoccupied with one idea,
+or one emotion, there is something in common, a kind of external
+resemblance in manner, however different may be their qualities, their
+abilities, their position in society, and their education. The more I
+watched Radilov, the more I felt that he belonged to the class of such
+people. He talked of husbandry, of the crops, of the war, of the gossip
+of the district and the approaching elections; he talked without
+constraint, and even with interest; but suddenly he would sigh and drop
+into a chair, and pass his hand over his face, like a man wearied out
+by a tedious task. His whole nature--a good and warm-hearted one too--
+seemed saturated through, steeped in some one feeling. I was amazed by
+the fact that I could not discover in him either a passion for eating,
+nor for wine, nor for sport, nor for Kursk nightingales, nor for
+epileptic pigeons, nor for Russian literature, nor for trotting-hacks,
+nor for Hungarian coats, nor for cards, nor billiards, nor for dances,
+nor trips to the provincial town or the capital, nor for paper-
+factories and beet-sugar refineries, nor for painted pavilions, nor for
+tea, nor for trace-horses trained to hold their heads askew, nor even
+for fat coachmen belted under their very armpits--those magnificent
+coachmen whose eyes, for some mysterious reason, seem rolling and
+starting out of their heads at every movement.... 'What sort of
+landowner is this, then?' I thought. At the same time he did not in the
+least pose as a gloomy man discontented with his destiny; on the
+contrary, he seemed full of indiscrimating good-will, cordial and even
+offensive readiness to become intimate with every one he came across.
+In reality you felt at the same time that he could not be friends, nor
+be really intimate with anyone, and that he could not be so, not
+because in general he was independent of other people, but because his
+whole being was for a time turned inwards upon himself. Looking at
+Radilov, I could never imagine him happy either now or at any time. He,
+too, was not handsome; but in his eyes, his smile, his whole being,
+there was a something, mysterious and extremely attractive--yes,
+mysterious is just what it was. So that you felt you would like to know
+him better, to get to love him. Of course, at times the landowner and
+the man of the steppes peeped out in him; but all the same he was a
+capital fellow.
+
+We were beginning to talk about the new marshal of the district, when
+suddenly we heard Olga's voice at the door: 'Tea is ready.' We went
+into the drawing-room. Fyodor Miheitch was sitting as before in his
+corner between the little window and the door, his legs curled up under
+him. Radilov's mother was knitting a stocking. From the opened windows
+came a breath of autumn freshness and the scent of apples. Olga was
+busy pouring out tea. I looked at her now with more attention than at
+dinner. Like provincial girls as a rule, she spoke very little, but at
+any rate I did not notice in her any of their anxiety to say something
+fine, together with their painful consciousness of stupidity and
+helplessness; she did not sigh as though from the burden of unutterable
+emotions, nor cast up her eyes, nor smile vaguely and dreamily. Her
+look expressed tranquil self-possession, like a man who is taking
+breath after great happiness or great excitement. Her carriage and her
+movements were resolute and free. I liked her very much.
+
+I fell again into conversation with Radilov. I don't recollect what
+brought us to the familiar observation that often the most
+insignificant things produce more effect on people than the most
+important.
+
+'Yes,' Radilov agreed, 'I have experienced that in my own case. I, as
+you know, have been married. It was not for long--three years; my wife
+died in child-birth. I thought that I should not survive her; I was
+fearfully miserable, broken down, but I could not weep--I wandered
+about like one possessed. They decked her out, as they always do, and
+laid her on a table--in this very room. The priest came, the deacons
+came, began to sing, to pray, and to burn incense; I bowed to the
+ground, and hardly shed a tear. My heart seemed turned to stone--and my
+head too--I was heavy all over. So passed my first day. Would you
+believe it? I even slept in the night. The next morning I went in to
+look at my wife: it was summer-time, the sunshine fell upon her from
+head to foot, and it was so bright. Suddenly I saw ...' (here Radilov
+gave an involuntary shudder) 'what do you think? One of her eyes was
+not quite shut, and on this eye a fly was moving.... I fell down in a
+heap, and when I came to myself, I began to weep and weep ... I could
+not stop myself....'
+
+Radilov was silent. I looked at him, then at Olga.... I can never
+forget the expression of her face. The old lady had laid the stocking
+down on her knees, and taken a handkerchief out of her reticule; she
+was stealthily wiping away her tears. Fyodor Miheitch suddenly got up,
+seized his fiddle, and in a wild and hoarse voice began to sing a song.
+He wanted doubtless to restore our spirits; but we all shuddered at his
+first note, and Radilov asked him to be quiet.
+
+'Still what is past, is past,' he continued; 'we cannot recall the
+past, and in the end ... all is for the best in this world below, as I
+think Voltaire said,' he added hurriedly.
+
+'Yes,' I replied, 'of course. Besides, every trouble can be endured,
+and there is no position so terrible that there is no escape from it.'
+
+'Do you think so?' said Radilov. 'Well, perhaps you are right. I
+recollect I lay once in the hospital in Turkey half dead; I had typhus
+fever. Well, our quarters were nothing to boast of--of course, in time
+of war--and we had to thank God for what we had! Suddenly they bring in
+more sick--where are they to put them? The doctor goes here and there--
+there is no room left. So he comes up to me and asks the attendant, "Is
+he alive?" He answers, "He was alive this morning." The doctor bends
+down, listens; I am breathing. The good man could not help saying,
+"Well, what an absurd constitution; the man's dying; he's certain to
+die, and he keeps hanging on, lingering, taking up space for nothing,
+and keeping out others." Well, I thought to myself, "So you are in a bad
+way, Mihal Mihalitch...." And, after all, I got well, and am alive till
+now, as you may see for yourself. You are right, to be sure.'
+
+'In any case I am right,' I replied; 'even if you had died, you would
+just the same have escaped from your horrible position.'
+
+'Of course, of course,' he added, with a violent blow of his fist on
+the table. 'One has only to come to a decision.... What is the use of
+being in a horrible position?... What is the good of delaying,
+lingering.'
+
+Olga rose quickly and went out into the garden.
+
+'Well, Fedya, a dance!' cried Radilov.
+
+Fedya jumped up and walked about the room with that artificial and
+peculiar motion which is affected by the man who plays the part of a
+goat with a tame bear. He sang meanwhile, 'While at our Gates....'
+
+The rattle of a racing droshky sounded in the drive, and in a few
+minutes a tall, broad-shouldered and stoutly made man, the peasant
+proprietor, Ovsyanikov, came into the room.
+
+But Ovsyanikov is such a remarkable and original personage that, with
+the reader's permission, we will put off speaking about him till the
+next sketch. And now I will only add for myself that the next day I
+started off hunting at earliest dawn with Yermolai, and returned home
+after the day's sport was over ... that a week later I went again to
+Radilov's, but did not find him or Olga at home, and within a fortnight
+I learned that he had suddenly disappeared, left his mother, and gone
+away somewhere with his sister-in-law. The whole province was excited,
+and talked about this event, and I only then completely understood the
+expression of Olga's face while Radilov was telling us his story. It
+was breathing, not with sympathetic suffering only: it was burning with
+jealousy.
+
+Before leaving the country I called on old Madame Radilov. I found her
+in the drawing-room; she was playing cards with Fyodor Miheitch.
+
+'Have you news of your son?' I asked her at last.
+
+The old lady began to weep. I made no more inquiries about Radilov.
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+                    THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
+
+
+Picture to yourselves, gentle readers, a stout, tall man of seventy,
+with a face reminding one somewhat of the face of Kriloff, clear and
+intelligent eyes under overhanging brows, dignified in bearing, slow in
+speech, and deliberate in movement: there you have Ovsyanikov. He wore
+an ample blue overcoat with long sleeves, buttoned all the way up, a
+lilac silk-handkerchief round his neck, brightly polished boots with
+tassels, and altogether resembled in appearance a well-to-do merchant.
+His hands were handsome, soft, and white; he often fumbled with the
+buttons of his coat as he talked. With his dignity and his composure,
+his good sense and his indolence, his uprightness and his obstinacy,
+Ovsyanikov reminded me of the Russian boyars of the times before Peter
+the Great.... The national holiday dress would have suited him well. He
+was one of the last men left of the old time. All his neighbours had a
+great respect for him, and considered it an honour to be acquainted
+with him. His fellow peasant-proprietors almost worshipped him, and
+took off their hats to him from a distance: they were proud of him.
+Generally speaking, in these days, it is difficult to tell a peasant-
+proprietor from a peasant; his husbandry is almost worse than the
+peasant's; his calves are wretchedly small; his horses are only half
+alive; his harness is made of rope. Ovsyanikov was an exception to the
+general rule, though he did not pass for a wealthy man. He lived alone
+with his wife in a clean and comfortable little house, kept a few
+servants, whom he dressed in the Russian style and called his
+'workmen.' They were employed also in ploughing his land. He did not
+attempt to pass for a nobleman, did not affect to be a landowner;
+never, as they say, forgot himself; he did not take a seat at the first
+invitation to do so, and he never failed to rise from his seat on the
+entrance of a new guest, but with such dignity, with such stately
+courtesy, that the guest involuntarily made him a more deferential bow.
+Ovsyanikov adhered to the antique usages, not from superstition (he was
+naturally rather independent in mind), but from habit. He did not, for
+instance, like carriages with springs, because he did not find them
+comfortable, and preferred to drive in a racing droshky, or in a pretty
+little trap with leather cushions, and he always drove his good bay
+himself (he kept none but bay horses). His coachman, a young, rosy-
+cheeked fellow, his hair cut round like a basin, in a dark blue coat
+with a strap round the waist, sat respectfully beside him. Ovsyanikov
+always had a nap after dinner and visited the bath-house on Saturdays;
+he read none but religious books and used gravely to fix his round
+silver spectacles on his nose when he did so; he got up, and went to
+bed early. He shaved his beard, however, and wore his hair in the
+German style. He always received visitors cordially and affably, but he
+did not bow down to the ground, nor fuss over them and press them to
+partake of every kind of dried and salted delicacy. 'Wife!' he would
+say deliberately, not getting up from his seat, but only turning his
+head a little in her direction, 'bring the gentleman a little of
+something to eat.' He regarded it as a sin to sell wheat: it was the
+gift of God. In the year '40, at the time of the general famine and
+terrible scarcity, he shared all his store with the surrounding
+landowners and peasants; the following year they gratefully repaid
+their debt to him in kind. The neighbours often had recourse to
+Ovsyanikov as arbitrator and mediator between them, and they almost
+always acquiesced in his decision, and listened to his advice. Thanks
+to his intervention, many had conclusively settled their boundaries....
+But after two or three tussles with lady-landowners, he announced that
+he declined all mediation between persons of the feminine gender. He
+could not bear the flurry and excitement, the chatter of women and the
+'fuss.' Once his house had somehow got on fire. A workman ran to him in
+headlong haste shrieking, 'Fire, fire!' 'Well, what are you screaming
+about?' said Ovsyanikov tranquilly, 'give me my cap and my stick.' He
+liked to break in his horses himself. Once a spirited horse he was
+training bolted with him down a hillside and over a precipice. 'Come,
+there, there, you young colt, you'll kill yourself!' said Ovsyanikov
+soothingly to him, and an instant later he flew over the precipice
+together with the racing droshky, the boy who was sitting behind, and
+the horse. Fortunately, the bottom of the ravine was covered with heaps
+of sand. No one was injured; only the horse sprained a leg. 'Well, you
+see,' continued Ovsyanikov in a calm voice as he got up from the
+ground, 'I told you so.' He had found a wife to match him. Tatyana
+Ilyinitchna Ovsyanikov was a tall woman, dignified and taciturn, always
+dressed in a cinnamon-coloured silk dress. She had a cold air, though
+none complained of her severity, but, on the contrary, many poor
+creatures called her their little mother and benefactress. Her regular
+features, her large dark eyes, and her delicately cut lips, bore
+witness even now to her once celebrated beauty. Ovsyanikov had no
+children.
+
+I made his acquaintance, as the reader is already aware, at Radilov's,
+and two days later I went to see him. I found him at home. He was
+reading the lives of the Saints. A grey cat was purring on his
+shoulder. He received me, according to his habit, with stately
+cordiality. We fell into conversation.
+
+'But tell me the truth, Luka Petrovitch,' I said to him, among other
+things; 'weren't things better of old, in your time?'
+
+'In some ways, certainly, things were better, I should say,' replied
+Ovsyanikov; 'we lived more easily; there was a greater abundance of
+everything. ... All the same, things are better now, and they will be
+better still for your children, please God.'
+
+'I had expected you, Luka Petrovitch, to praise the old times.'
+
+'No, I have no special reason to praise old times. Here, for instance,
+though you are a landowner now, and just as much a landowner as your
+grandfather was, you have not the same power--and, indeed, you are not
+yourself the same kind of man. Even now, some noblemen oppress us; but,
+of course, it is impossible to help that altogether. Where there are
+mills grinding there will be flour. No; I don't see now what I have
+experienced myself in my youth.'
+
+'What, for instance?'
+
+'Well, for instance, I will tell you about your grandfather. He was an
+overbearing man; he oppressed us poorer folks. You know, perhaps--
+indeed, you surely know your own estates--that bit of land that runs
+from Tchepligin to Malinina--you have it under oats now.... Well, you
+know, it is ours--it is all ours. Your grandfather took it away from
+us; he rode by on his horse, pointed to it with his hand, and said,
+"It's my property," and took possession of it. My father (God rest his
+soul!) was a just man; he was a hot-tempered man, too; he would not put
+up with it--indeed, who does like to lose his property?--and he laid a
+petition before the court. But he was alone: the others did not appear
+--they were afraid. So they reported to your grandfather that "Piotr
+Ovsyanikov is making a complaint against you that you were pleased to
+take away his land." Your grandfather at once sent his huntsman Baush
+with a detachment of men.... Well, they seized my father, and carried
+him to your estate. I was a little boy at that time; I ran after him
+barefoot. What happened? They brought him to your house, and flogged
+him right under your windows. And your grandfather stands on the
+balcony and looks on; and your grandmother sits at the window and looks
+on too. My father cries out, "Gracious lady, Marya Vasilyevna,
+intercede for me! have mercy on me!" But her only answer was to keep
+getting up to have a look at him. So they exacted a promise from my
+father to give up the land, and bade him be thankful they let him go
+alive. So it has remained with you. Go and ask your peasants--what do
+they call the land, indeed? It's called "The Cudgelled Land," because
+it was gained by the cudgel. So you see from that, we poor folks can't
+bewail the old order very much.'
+
+I did not know what answer to make Ovsyanikov, and I had not the
+courage to look him in the face.
+
+'We had another neighbour who settled amongst us in those days, Komov,
+Stepan Niktopolionitch. He used to worry my father out of his life;
+when it wasn't one thing, it was another. He was a drunken fellow, and
+fond of treating others; and when he was drunk he would say in French,
+"_Say bon_," and "Take away the holy images!" He would go to all the
+neighbours to ask them to come to him. His horses stood always in
+readiness, and if you wouldn't go he would come after you himself at
+once!... And he was such a strange fellow! In his sober times he was
+not a liar; but when he was drunk he would begin to relate how he had
+three houses in Petersburg--one red, with one chimney; another yellow,
+with two chimneys; and a third blue, with no chimneys; and three sons
+(though he had never even been married), one in the infantry, another
+in the cavalry, and the third was his own master.... And he would say
+that in each house lived one of his sons; that admirals visited the
+eldest, and generals the second, and the third only Englishmen! Then he
+would get up and say, "To the health of my eldest son; he is the most
+dutiful!" and he would begin to weep. Woe to anyone who refused to
+drink the toast! "I will shoot him!" he would say; "and I won't let him
+be buried!" ... Then he would jump up and scream, "Dance, God's people,
+for your pleasure and my diversion!" Well, then, you must dance; if you
+had to die for it, you must dance. He thoroughly worried his serf-girls
+to death. Sometimes all night long till morning they would be singing
+in chorus, and the one who made the most noise would have a prize. If
+they began to be tired, he would lay his head down in his hands, and
+begins moaning: "Ah, poor forsaken orphan that I am! They abandon me,
+poor little dove!" And the stable-boys would wake the girls up at once.
+He took a liking to my father; what was he to do? He almost drove my
+father into his grave, and would actually have driven him into it, but
+(thank Heaven!) he died himself; in one of his drunken fits he fell off
+the pigeon-house. ... There, that's what our sweet little neighbours
+were like!'
+
+'How the times have changed!' I observed.
+
+'Yes, yes,' Ovsyanikov assented. 'And there is this to be said--in the
+old days the nobility lived more sumptuously. I'm not speaking of the
+real grandees now. I used to see them in Moscow. They say such people
+are scarce nowadays.'
+
+'Have you been in Moscow?'
+
+'I used to stay there long, very long ago. I am now in my seventy-third
+year; and I went to Moscow when I was sixteen.'
+
+Ovsyanikov sighed.
+
+'Whom did you see there?'
+
+'I saw a great many grandees--and every one saw them; they kept open
+house for the wonder and admiration of all! Only no one came up to
+Count Alexey Grigoryevitch Orlov-Tchesmensky. I often saw Alexey
+Grigoryevitch; my uncle was a steward in his service. The count was
+pleased to live in Shabolovka, near the Kaluga Gate. He was a grand
+gentleman! Such stateliness, such gracious condescension you can't
+imagine! and it's impossible to describe it. His figure alone was worth
+something, and his strength, and the look in his eyes! Till you knew
+him, you did not dare come near him--you were afraid, overawed indeed;
+but directly you came near him he was like sunshine warming you up and
+making you quite cheerful. He allowed every man access to him in
+person, and he was devoted to every kind of sport. He drove himself in
+races and out-stripped every one, and he would never get in front at
+the start, so as not to offend his adversary; he would not cut it
+short, but would pass him at the finish; and he was so pleasant--he
+would soothe his adversary, praising his horse. He kept tumbler-pigeons
+of a first-rate kind. He would come out into the court, sit down in an
+arm-chair, and order them to let loose the pigeons; and his men would
+stand all round on the roofs with guns to keep off the hawks. A large
+silver basin of water used to be placed at the count's feet, and he
+looked at the pigeons reflected in the water. Beggars and poor people
+were fed in hundreds at his expense; and what a lot of money he used to
+give away!... When he got angry, it was like a clap of thunder.
+Everyone was in a great fright, but there was nothing to weep over;
+look round a minute after, and he was all smiles again! When he gave a
+banquet he made all Moscow drunk!--and see what a clever man he was!
+you know he beat the Turk. He was fond of wrestling too; strong men
+used to come from Tula, from Harkoff, from Tamboff, and from everywhere
+to him. If he threw any one he would pay him a reward; but if any one
+threw him, he perfectly loaded him with presents, and kissed him on the
+lips.... And once, during my stay at Moscow, he arranged a hunting
+party such as had never been in Russia before; he sent invitations to
+all the sportsmen in the whole empire, and fixed a day for it, and gave
+them three months' notice. They brought with them dogs and grooms:
+well, it was an army of people--a regular army!
+
+'First they had a banquet in the usual way, and then they set off into
+the open country. The people flocked there in thousands! And what do
+you think?... Your father's dog outran them all.'
+
+'Wasn't that Milovidka?' I inquired.
+
+'Milovidka, Milovidka!... So the count began to ask him, "Give me your
+dog," says he; "take what you like for her." "No, count," he said, "I
+am not a tradesman; I don't sell anything for filthy lucre; for your
+sake I am ready to part with my wife even, but not with Milovidka.... I
+would give myself into bondage first." And Alexey Grigoryevitch praised
+him for it. "I like you for it," he said. Your grandfather took her
+back in the coach with him, and when Milovidka died, he buried her in
+the garden with music at the burial--yes, a funeral for a dog--and put
+a stone with an inscription on it over the dog.'
+
+'Then Alexey Grigoryevitch did not oppress anyone,' I observed.
+
+'Yes, it is always like that; those who can only just keep themselves
+afloat are the ones to drag others under.'
+
+'And what sort of a man was this Baush?' I asked after a short silence.
+
+'Why, how comes it you have heard about Milovidka, and not about Baush?
+He was your grandfather's chief huntsman and whipper-in. Your
+grandfather was as fond of him as of Milovidka. He was a desperate
+fellow, and whatever order your grandfather gave him, he would carry it
+out in a minute--he'd have run on to a sword at his bidding.... And
+when he hallooed ... it was something like a tally-ho in the forest.
+And then he would suddenly turn nasty, get off his horse, and lie down
+on the ground ... and directly the dogs ceased to hear his voice, it
+was all over! They would give up the hottest scent, and wouldn't go on
+for anything. Ay, ay, your grandfather did get angry! "Damn me, if I
+don't hang the scoundrel! I'll turn him inside out, the antichrist!
+I'll stuff his heels down his gullet, the cut-throat!" And it ended by
+his going up to find out what he wanted; why he wouldn't halloo to the
+hounds? Usually, on such occasions, Baush asked for some vodka, drank
+it up, got on his horse, and began to halloo as lustily as ever again.'
+
+'You seem to be fond of hunting too, Luka Petrovitch?'
+
+'I should have been--certainly, not now; now my time is over--but in my
+young days.... But you know it was not an easy matter in my position.
+It's not suitable for people like us to go trailing after noblemen.
+Certainly you may find in our class some drinking, good-for-nothing
+fellow who associates with the gentry--but it's a queer sort of
+enjoyment.... He only brings shame on himself. They mount him on a
+wretched stumbling nag, keep knocking his hat off on to the ground and
+cut at him with a whip, pretending to whip the horse, and he must laugh
+at everything, and be a laughing-stock for the others. No, I tell you,
+the lower your station, the more reserved must be your behaviour, or
+else you disgrace yourself directly.'
+
+'Yes,' continued Ovsyanikov with a sigh, 'there's many a gallon of
+water has flowed down to the sea since I have been living in the world;
+times are different now. Especially I see a great change in the
+nobility. The smaller landowners have all either become officials, or
+at any rate do not stop here; as for the larger owners, there's no
+making them out. I have had experience of them--the larger landowners--
+in cases of settling boundaries. And I must tell you; it does my heart
+good to see them: they are courteous and affable. Only this is what
+astonishes me; they have studied all the sciences, they speak so
+fluently that your heart is melted, but they don't understand the
+actual business in hand; they don't even perceive what's their own
+interest; some bailiff, a bondservant, drives them just where he
+pleases, as though they were in a yoke. There's Korolyov--Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch--for instance; you know him, perhaps--isn't he every
+inch a nobleman? He is handsome, rich, has studied at the 'versities,
+and travelled, I think, abroad; he speaks simply and easily, and shakes
+hands with us all. You know him?... Well, listen then. Last week we
+assembled at Beryozovka at the summons of the mediator, Nikifor Ilitch.
+And the mediator, Nikifor Ilitch, says to us: "Gentlemen, we must
+settle the boundaries; it's disgraceful; our district is behind all the
+others; we must get to work." Well, so we got to work. There followed
+discussions, disputes, as usual; our attorney began to make objections.
+But the first to make an uproar was Porfiry Ovtchinnikov.... And what
+had the fellow to make an uproar about?... He hasn't an acre of ground;
+he is acting as representative of his brother. He bawls: "No, you shall
+not impose on me! no, you shan't drive me to that! give the plans here!
+give me the surveyor's plans, the Judas's plans here!" "But what is
+your claim, then?" "Oh, you think I'm a fool! Indeed! do you suppose I
+am going to lay bare my claim to you offhand? No, let me have the plans
+here--that's what I want!" And he himself is banging his fist on the
+plans all the time. Then he mortally offended Marfa Dmitrievna. She
+shrieks out, "How dare you asperse my reputation?" "Your reputation,"
+says he; "I shouldn't like my chestnut mare to have your reputation."
+They poured him out some Madeira at last, and so quieted him; then
+others begin to make a row. Alexandr Vladimirovitch Korolyov, the dear
+fellow, sat in a corner sucking the knob of his cane, and only shook
+his head. I felt ashamed; I could hardly sit it out. "What must he be
+thinking of us?" I said to myself. When, behold! Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch has got up, and shows signs of wanting to speak. The
+mediator exerts himself, says, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch wishes to speak." And I must do them this credit; they
+were all silent at once. And so Alexandr Vladimirovitch began and said
+"that we seemed to have forgotten what we had come together for; that,
+indeed, the fixing of boundaries was indisputably advantageous for
+owners of land, but actually what was its object? To make things easier
+for the peasant, so that he could work and pay his dues more
+conveniently; that now the peasant hardly knows his own land, and often
+goes to work five miles away; and one can't expect too much of him."
+Then Alexandr Vladimirovitch said "that it was disgraceful in a
+landowner not to interest himself in the well-being of his peasants;
+that in the end, if you look at it rightly, their interests and our
+interests are inseparable; if they are well-off we are well-off, and if
+they do badly we do badly, and that, consequently, it was injudicious
+and wrong to disagree over trifles" ... and so on--and so on.... There,
+how he did speak! He seemed to go right to your heart.... All the
+gentry hung their heads; I myself, faith, it nearly brought me to
+tears. To tell the truth, you would not find sayings like that in the
+old books even.... But what was the end of it? He himself would not
+give up four acres of peat marsh, and wasn't willing to sell it. He
+said, "I am going to drain that marsh for my people, and set up a
+cloth-factory on it, with all the latest improvements. I have already,"
+he said, "fixed on that place; I have thought out my plans on the
+subject." And if only that had been the truth, it would be all very
+well; but the simple fact is, Alexandr Vladimirovitch's neighbour,
+Anton Karasikov, had refused to buy over Korolyov's bailiff for a
+hundred roubles. And so we separated without having done anything. But
+Alexandr Vladimirovitch considers to this day that he is right, and
+still talks of the cloth-factory; but he does not start draining the
+marsh.'
+
+'And how does he manage in his estate?'
+
+'He is always introducing new ways. The peasants don't speak well of
+him--but it's useless to listen to them. Alexandr Vladimirovitch is
+doing right.'
+
+'How's that, Luka Petrovitch? I thought you kept to the old ways.'
+
+'I--that's another thing. You see I am not a nobleman or a landowner.
+What sort of management is mine?... Besides, I don't know how to do
+things differently. I try to act according to justice and the law, and
+leave the rest in God's hands! Young gentlemen don't like the old
+method; I think they are right.... It's the time to take in ideas. Only
+this is the pity of it; the young are too theoretical. They treat the
+peasant like a doll; they turn him this way and that way; twist him
+about and throw him away. And their bailiff, a serf, or some overseer
+from the German natives, gets the peasant under his thumb again. Now,
+if any one of the young gentlemen would set us an example, would show
+us, "See, this is how you ought to manage!" ... What will be the end of
+it? Can it be that I shall die without seeing the new methods?... What
+is the proverb?--the old is dead, but the young is not born!'
+
+I did not know what reply to make to Ovsyanikov. He looked round, drew
+himself nearer to me, and went on in an undertone:
+
+'Have you heard talk of Vassily Nikolaitch Lubozvonov?'
+
+'No, I haven't.'
+
+'Explain to me, please, what sort of strange creature he is. I can't
+make anything of it. His peasants have described him, but I can't make
+any sense of their tales. He is a young man, you know; it's not long
+since he received his heritage from his mother. Well, he arrived at his
+estate. The peasants were all collected to stare at their master.
+Vassily Nikolaitch came out to them. The peasants looked at him--
+strange to relate! the master wore plush pantaloons like a coachman,
+and he had on boots with trimming at the top; he wore a red shirt and a
+coachman's long coat too; he had let his beard grow, and had such a
+strange hat and such a strange face--could he be drunk? No, he wasn't
+drunk, and yet he didn't seem quite right. "Good health to you, lads!"
+he says; "God keep you!" The peasants bow to the ground, but without
+speaking; they began to feel frightened, you know. And he too seemed
+timid. He began to make a speech to them: "I am a Russian," he says,
+"and you are Russians; I like everything Russian.... Russia," says he,
+"is my heart, and my blood too is Russian".... Then he suddenly gives
+the order: "Come, lads, sing a Russian national song!" The peasants'
+legs shook under them with fright; they were utterly stupefied. One
+bold spirit did begin to sing, but he sat down at once on the ground
+and hid himself behind the others.... And what is so surprising is
+this: we have had landowners like that, dare-devil gentlemen, regular
+rakes, of course: they dressed pretty much like coachmen, and danced
+themselves and played on the guitar, and sang and drank with their
+house-serfs and feasted with the peasants; but this Vassily Nikolaitch
+is like a girl; he is always reading books or writing, or else
+declaiming poetry aloud--he never addresses any one; he is shy, walks
+by himself in his garden; seems either bored or sad. The old bailiff at
+first was in a thorough scare; before Vassily Nikolaitch's arrival he
+was afraid to go near the peasants' houses; he bowed to all of them--
+one could see the cat knew whose butter he had eaten! And the peasants
+were full of hope; they thought, 'Fiddlesticks, my friend!--now they'll
+make you answer for it, my dear; they'll lead you a dance now, you
+robber!' ... But instead of this it has turned out--how shall I explain
+it to you?--God Almighty could not account for how things have turned
+out! Vassily Nikolaitch summoned him to his presence and says, blushing
+himself and breathing quick, you know: "Be upright in my service; don't
+oppress any one--do you hear?" And since that day he has never asked to
+see him in person again! He lives on his own property like a stranger.
+Well, the bailiff's been enjoying himself, and the peasants don't dare
+to go to Vassily Nikolaitch; they are afraid. And do you see what's a
+matter for wonder again; the master even bows to them and looks
+graciously at them; but he seems to turn their stomachs with fright!
+'What do you say to such a strange state of things, your honour? Either
+I have grown stupid in my old age, or something.... I can't understand
+it.'
+
+I said to Ovsyanikov that Mr. Lubozvonov must certainly be ill.
+
+'Ill, indeed! He's as broad as he's long, and a face like this--God
+bless him!--and bearded, though he is so young.... Well, God knows!'
+And Ovsyanikov gave a deep sigh.
+
+'Come, putting the nobles aside,' I began, 'what have you to tell me
+about the peasant proprietors, Luka Petrovitch?'
+
+'No, you must let me off that,' he said hurriedly. 'Truly.... I could
+tell you ... but what's the use!' (with a wave of his hand). 'We had
+better have some tea.... We are common peasants and nothing more; but
+when we come to think of it, what else could we be?'
+
+He ceased talking. Tea was served. Tatyana Ilyinitchna rose from her
+place and sat down rather nearer to us. In the course of the evening
+she several times went noiselessly out and as quietly returned. Silence
+reigned in the room. Ovsyanikov drank cup after cup with gravity and
+deliberation.
+
+'Mitya has been to see us to-day,' said Tatyana Ilyinitchna in a low
+voice.
+
+Ovsyanikov frowned.
+
+'What does he want?'
+
+'He came to ask forgiveness.'
+
+Ovsyanikov shook his head.
+
+'Come, tell me,' he went on, turning to me, 'what is one to do with
+relations? And to abandon them altogether is impossible.... Here God
+has bestowed on me a nephew. He's a fellow with brains--a smart fellow
+--I don't dispute that; he has had a good education, but I don't expect
+much good to come of him. He went into a government office; threw up
+his position--didn't get on fast enough, if you please.... Does he
+suppose he's a noble? And even noblemen don't come to be generals all
+at once. So now he is living without an occupation.... And that, even,
+would not be such a great matter--except that he has taken to
+litigation! He gets up petitions for the peasants, writes memorials; he
+instructs the village delegates, drags the surveyors over the coals,
+frequents drinking houses, is seen in taverns with city tradesmen and
+inn-keepers. He's bound to come to ruin before long. The constables and
+police-captains have threatened him more than once already. But he
+luckily knows how to turn it off--he makes them laugh; but they will
+boil his kettle for him some day.... But, there, isn't he sitting in
+your little room?' he added, turning to his wife; 'I know you, you see;
+you're so soft-hearted--you will always take his part.'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna dropped her eyes, smiled, and blushed.
+
+'Well, I see it is so,' continued Ovsyanikov. 'Fie! you spoil the boy!
+Well, tell him to come in.... So be it, then; for the sake of our good
+guest I will forgive the silly fellow.... Come, tell him, tell him.'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna went to the door, and cried 'Mitya!'
+
+Mitya, a young man of twenty-eight, tall, well-made, and curly-headed,
+came into the room, and seeing me, stopped short in the doorway. His
+costume was in the German style, but the unnatural size of the puffs on
+his shoulders was enough alone to prove convincingly that the tailor
+who had cut it was a Russian of the Russians.
+
+'Well, come in, come in,' began the old man; 'why are you bashful? You
+must thank your aunt--you're forgiven.... Here, your honour, I commend
+him to you,' he continued, pointing to Mitya; 'he's my own nephew, but
+I don't get on with him at all. The end of the world is coming!' (We
+bowed to one another.) 'Well, tell me what is this you have got mixed
+up in? What is the complaint they are making against you? Explain it to
+us.'
+
+Mitya obviously did not care to explain matters and justify himself
+before me.
+
+'Later on, uncle,' he muttered.
+
+'No, not later--now,' pursued the old man.... 'You are ashamed, I see,
+before this gentleman; all the better--it's only what you deserve.
+Speak, speak; we are listening.'
+
+'I have nothing to be ashamed of,' began Mitya spiritedly, with a toss
+of his head. 'Be so good as to judge for yourself, uncle. Some peasant
+proprietors of Reshetilovo came to me, and said, "Defend us, brother."
+"What is the matter?"' "This is it: our grain stores were in perfect
+order--in fact, they could not be better; all at once a government
+inspector came to us with orders to inspect the granaries. He inspected
+them, and said, 'Your granaries are in disorder--serious neglect; it's
+my duty to report it to the authorities.' 'But what does the neglect
+consist in?' 'That's my business,' he says.... We met together, and
+decided to tip the official in the usual way; but old Prohoritch
+prevented us. He said, 'No; that's only giving him a taste for more.
+Come; after all, haven't we the courts of justice?' We obeyed the old
+man, and the official got in a rage, and made a complaint, and wrote a
+report. So now we are called up to answer to his charges." "But are
+your granaries actually in order?" I asked. "God knows they are in
+order; and the legal quantity of corn is in them." "Well, then," say I,
+"you have nothing to fear"; and I drew up a document for them.... And
+it is not yet known in whose favour it is decided.... And as to the
+complaints they have made to you about me over that affair--it's very
+easy to understand that--every man's shirt is nearest to his own skin.
+
+'Everyone's, indeed--but not yours seemingly,' said the old man in an
+undertone. 'But what plots have you been hatching with the
+Shutolomovsky peasants?'
+
+'How do you know anything of it?'
+
+'Never mind; I do know of it.'
+
+'And there, too, I am right--judge for yourself again. A neighbouring
+landowner, Bezpandin, has ploughed over four acres of the Shutolomovsky
+peasants' land. "The land's mine," he says. The Shutolomovsky people
+are on the rent-system; their landowner has gone abroad--who is to
+stand up for them? Tell me yourself? But the land is theirs beyond
+dispute; they've been bound to it for ages and ages. So they came to
+me, and said, "Write us a petition." So I wrote one. And Bezpandin
+heard of it, and began to threaten me. "I'll break every bone in that
+Mitya's body, and knock his head off his shoulders...." We shall see
+how he will knock it off; it's still on, so far.'
+
+'Come, don't boast; it's in a bad way, your head,' said the old man.
+'You are a mad fellow altogether!'
+
+'Why, uncle, what did you tell me yourself?'
+
+'I know, I know what you will say,' Ovsyanikov interrupted him; 'of
+course a man ought to live uprightly, and he is bound to succour his
+neighbour. Sometimes one must not spare oneself.... But do you always
+behave in that way? Don't they take you to the tavern, eh? Don't they
+treat you; bow to you, eh? "Dmitri Alexyitch," they say, "help us, and
+we will prove our gratitude to you." And they slip a silver rouble or
+note into your hand. Eh? doesn't that happen? Tell me, doesn't that
+happen?'
+
+'I am certainly to blame in that,' answered Mitya, rather confused;
+'but I take nothing from the poor, and I don't act against my
+conscience.'
+
+'You don't take from them now; but when you are badly off yourself,
+then you will. You don't act against your conscience--fie on you! Of
+course, they are all saints whom you defend!... Have you forgotten
+Borka Perohodov? Who was it looked after him? Who took him under his
+protection--eh?'
+
+'Perohodov suffered through his own fault, certainly.'
+
+'He appropriated the public moneys.... That was all!'
+
+'But, consider, uncle: his poverty, his family.'
+
+'Poverty, poverty.... He's a drunkard, a quarrelsome fellow; that's
+what it is!'
+
+'He took to drink through trouble,' said Mitya, dropping his voice.
+
+'Through trouble, indeed! Well, you might have helped him, if your
+heart was so warm to him, but there was no need for you to sit in
+taverns with the drunken fellow yourself. Though he did speak so finely
+... a prodigy, to be sure!'
+
+'He was a very good fellow.'
+
+'Every one is good with you.... But did you send him?' ... pursued
+Ovsyanikov, turning to his wife; 'come; you know?'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna nodded.
+
+'Where have you been lately?' the old man began again.
+
+'I have been in the town.'
+
+'You have been doing nothing but playing billiards, I wager, and
+drinking tea, and running to and fro about the government offices,
+drawing up petitions in little back rooms, flaunting about with
+merchants' sons? That's it, of course?... Tell us!'
+
+'Perhaps that is about it,' said Mitya with a smile.... 'Ah! I had
+almost forgotten--Funtikov, Anton Parfenitch asks you to dine with him
+next Sunday.'
+
+'I shan't go to see that old tub. He gives you costly fish and puts
+rancid butter on it. God bless him!'
+
+'And I met Fedosya Mihalovna.'
+
+'What Fedosya is that?'
+
+'She belongs to Garpentchenko, the landowner, who bought Mikulino by
+auction. Fedosya is from Mikulino. She lived in Moscow as a dress-
+maker, paying her service in money, and she paid her service-money
+accurately--a hundred and eighty two-roubles and a half a year.... And
+she knows her business; she got good orders in Moscow. But now
+Garpentchenko has written for her back, and he retains her here, but
+does not provide any duties for her. She would be prepared to buy her
+freedom, and has spoken to the master, but he will not give any
+decisive answer. You, uncle, are acquainted with Garpentchenko ... so
+couldn't you just say a word to him?... And Fedosya would give a good
+price for her freedom.'
+
+'Not with your money I hope? Hey? Well, well, all right; I will speak
+to him, I will speak to him. But I don't know,' continued the old man
+with a troubled face; 'this Garpentchenko, God forgive him! is a shark;
+he buys up debts, lends money at interest, purchases estates at
+auctions.... And who brought him into our parts? Ugh, I can't bear
+these new-comers! One won't get an answer out of him very quickly....
+However, we shall see.'
+
+'Try to manage it, uncle.'
+
+'Very well, I will see to it. Only you take care; take care of
+yourself! There, there, don't defend yourself.... God bless you! God
+bless you!... Only take care for the future, or else, Mitya, upon my
+word, it will go ill with you.... Upon my word, you will come to
+grief.... I can't always screen you ... and I myself am not a man of
+influence. There, go now, and God be with you!'
+
+Mitya went away. Tatyana Ilyinitchna went out after him.
+
+'Give him some tea, you soft-hearted creature,' cried Ovsyanikov after
+her. 'He's not a stupid fellow,' he continued, 'and he's a good heart,
+but I feel afraid for him.... But pardon me for having so long kept you
+occupied with such details.'
+
+The door from the hall opened. A short grizzled little man came in, in
+a velvet coat.
+
+'Ah, Frantz Ivanitch!' cried Ovsyanikov, 'good day to you. Is God
+merciful to you?'
+
+Allow me, gentle reader, to introduce to you this gentleman.
+
+Frantz Ivanitch Lejeune, my neighbour, and a landowner of Orel, had
+arrived at the respectable position of a Russian nobleman in a not
+quite ordinary way. He was born in Orleans of French parents, and had
+gone with Napoleon, on the invasion of Russia, in the capacity of a
+drummer. At first all went smoothly, and our Frenchman arrived in
+Moscow with his head held high. But on the return journey poor Monsieur
+Lejeune, half-frozen and without his drum, fell into the hands of some
+peasants of Smolensk. The peasants shut him up for the night in an
+empty cloth factory, and the next morning brought him to an ice-hole
+near the dyke, and began to beg the drummer '_de la Grrrrande Armee_'
+to oblige them; in other words, to swim under the ice. Monsieur Lejeune
+could not agree to their proposition, and in his turn began to try to
+persuade the Smolensk peasants, in the dialect of France, to let him go
+to Orleans. 'There, messieurs,' he said, '_my mother is living, une
+tendre mere_' But the peasants, doubtless through their ignorance of
+the geographical position of Orleans, continued to offer him a journey
+under water along the course of the meandering river Gniloterka, and
+had already begun to encourage him with slight blows on the vertebrae
+of the neck and back, when suddenly, to the indescribable delight of
+Lejeune, the sound of bells was heard, and there came along the dyke a
+huge sledge with a striped rug over its excessively high dickey,
+harnessed with three roan horses. In the sledge sat a stout and red-
+faced landowner in a wolfskin pelisse.
+
+'What is it you are doing there?' he asked the peasants.
+
+'We are drowning a Frenchman, your honour.'
+
+'Ah!' replied the landowner indifferently, and he turned away.
+
+'Monsieur! Monsieur!' shrieked the poor fellow.
+
+'Ah, ah!' observed the wolfskin pelisse reproachfully, 'you came with
+twenty nations into Russia, burnt Moscow, tore down, you damned
+heathen! the cross from Ivan the Great, and now--mossoo, mossoo,
+indeed! now you turn tail! You are paying the penalty of your sins!...
+Go on, Filka!'
+
+The horses were starting.
+
+'Stop, though!' added the landowner. 'Eh? you mossoo, do you know
+anything of music?'
+
+'_Sauvez-moi, sauvez-moi, mon bon monsieur!_' repeated Lejeune.
+
+'There, see what a wretched people they are! Not one of them knows
+Russian! Muzeek, muzeek, savey muzeek voo? savey? Well, speak, do!
+Compreny? savey muzeek voo? on the piano, savey zhooey?'
+
+Lejeune comprehended at last what the landowner meant, and persistently
+nodded his head.
+
+'_Oui, monsieur, oui, oui, je suis musicien; je joue tous les
+instruments possibles! Oui, monsieur.... Sauvez-moi, monsieur!_'
+
+'Well, thank your lucky star!' replied the landowner. 'Lads, let him
+go: here's a twenty-copeck piece for vodka.'
+
+'Thank you, your honour, thank you. Take him, your honour.'
+
+They sat Lejeune in the sledge. He was gasping with delight, weeping,
+shivering, bowing, thanking the landowner, the coachman, the peasants.
+He had nothing on but a green jacket with pink ribbons, and it was
+freezing very hard. The landowner looked at his blue and benumbed
+shoulders in silence, wrapped the unlucky fellow in his own pelisse,
+and took him home. The household ran out. They soon thawed the
+Frenchman, fed him, and clothed him. The landowner conducted him to his
+daughters.
+
+'Here, children!' he said to them, 'a teacher is found for you. You
+were always entreating me to have you taught music and the French
+jargon; here you have a Frenchman, and he plays on the piano.... Come,
+mossoo,' he went on, pointing to a wretched little instrument he had
+bought five years before of a Jew, whose special line was eau de
+Cologne, 'give us an example of your art; zhooey!'
+
+Lejeune, with a sinking heart, sat down on the music-stool; he had
+never touched a piano in his life.
+
+'Zhooey, zhooey!' repeated the landowner.
+
+In desperation, the unhappy man beat on the keys as though on a drum,
+and played at hazard. 'I quite expected,' he used to tell afterwards,
+'that my deliverer would seize me by the collar, and throw me out of
+the house.' But, to the utmost amazement of the unwilling improvisor,
+the landowner, after waiting a little, patted him good-humouredly on
+the shoulder.
+
+'Good, good,' he said; 'I see your attainments; go now, and rest
+yourself.'
+
+Within a fortnight Lejeune had gone from this landowner's to stay with
+another, a rich and cultivated man. He gained his friendship by his
+bright and gentle disposition, was married to a ward of his, went into
+a government office, rose to the nobility, married his daughter to
+Lobizanyev, a landowner of Orel, and a retired dragoon and poet, and
+settled himself on an estate in Orel.
+
+It was this same Lejeune, or rather, as he is called now, Frantz
+Ivanitch, who, when I was there, came in to see Ovsyanikov, with whom
+he was on friendly terms....
+
+But perhaps the reader is already weary of sitting with me at the
+Ovsyanikovs', and so I will become eloquently silent.
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+                                  LGOV
+
+
+'Let us go to Lgov,' Yermolai, whom the reader knows already, said to
+me one day; 'there we can shoot ducks to our heart's content.'
+
+Although wild duck offers no special attraction for a genuine
+sportsman, still, through lack of other game at the time (it was the
+beginning of September; snipe were not on the wing yet, and I was tired
+of running across the fields after partridges), I listened to my
+huntsman's suggestion, and we went to Lgov.
+
+Lgov is a large village of the steppes, with a very old stone church
+with a single cupola, and two mills on the swampy little river Rossota.
+Five miles from Lgov, this river becomes a wide swampy pond, overgrown
+at the edges, and in places also in the centre, with thick reeds. Here,
+in the creeks or rather pools between the reeds, live and breed a
+countless multitude of ducks of all possible kinds--quackers, half-
+quackers, pintails, teals, divers, etc. Small flocks are for ever
+flitting about and swimming on the water, and at a gunshot, they rise
+in such clouds that the sportsman involuntarily clutches his hat with
+one hand and utters a prolonged Pshaw! I walked with Yermolai along
+beside the pond; but, in the first place, the duck is a wary bird, and
+is not to be met quite close to the bank; and secondly, even when some
+straggling and inexperienced teal exposed itself to our shots and lost
+its life, our dogs were not able to get it out of the thick reeds; in
+spite of their most devoted efforts they could neither swim nor tread
+on the bottom, and only cut their precious noses on the sharp reeds for
+nothing.
+
+'No,' was Yermolai's comment at last, 'it won't do; we must get a
+boat.... Let us go back to Lgov.'
+
+We went back. We had only gone a few paces when a rather wretched-
+looking setter-dog ran out from behind a bushy willow to meet us, and
+behind him appeared a man of middle height, in a blue and much-worn
+greatcoat, a yellow waistcoat, and pantaloons of a nondescript grey
+colour, hastily tucked into high boots full of holes, with a red
+handkerchief round his neck, and a single-barrelled gun on his
+shoulder. While our dogs, with the ordinary Chinese ceremonies peculiar
+to their species, were sniffing at their new acquaintance, who was
+obviously ill at ease, held his tail between his legs, dropped his ears
+back, and kept turning round and round showing his teeth--the stranger
+approached us, and bowed with extreme civility. He appeared to be about
+twenty-five; his long dark hair, perfectly saturated with kvas, stood
+up in stiff tufts, his small brown eyes twinkled genially; his face was
+bound up in a black handkerchief, as though for toothache; his
+countenance was all smiles and amiability.
+
+'Allow me to introduce myself,' he began in a soft and insinuating
+voice; 'I am a sportsman of these parts--Vladimir.... Having heard of
+your presence, and having learnt that you proposed to visit the shores
+of our pond, I resolved, if it were not displeasing to you, to offer
+you my services.'
+
+The sportsman, Vladimir, uttered those words for all the world like a
+young provincial actor in the _role_ of leading lover. I agreed to his
+proposition, and before we had reached Lgov I had succeeded in learning
+his whole history. He was a freed house-serf; in his tender youth had
+been taught music, then served as valet, could read and write, had
+read--so much I could discover--some few trashy books, and existed now,
+as many do exist in Russia, without a farthing of ready money; without
+any regular occupation; fed by manna from heaven, or something hardly
+less precarious. He expressed himself with extraordinary elegance, and
+obviously plumed himself on his manners; he must have been devoted to
+the fair sex too, and in all probability popular with them: Russian
+girls love fine talking. Among other things, he gave me to understand
+that he sometimes visited the neighbouring landowners, and went to stay
+with friends in the town, where he played preference, and that he was
+acquainted with people in the metropolis. His smile was masterly and
+exceedingly varied; what specially suited him was a modest, contained
+smile which played on his lips as he listened to any other man's
+conversation. He was attentive to you; he agreed with you completely,
+but still he did not lose sight of his own dignity, and seemed to wish
+to give you to understand that he could, if occasion arose, express
+convictions of his own. Yermolai, not being very refined, and quite
+devoid of 'subtlety,' began to address him with coarse familiarity. The
+fine irony with which Vladimir used 'Sir' in his reply was worth
+seeing.
+
+'Why is your face tied up? 'I inquired; 'have you toothache?'
+
+'No,' he answered; 'it was a most disastrous consequence of
+carelessness. I had a friend, a good fellow, but not a bit of a
+sportsman, as sometimes occurs. Well, one day he said to me, "My dear
+friend, take me out shooting; I am curious to learn what this diversion
+consists in." I did not like, of course, to refuse a comrade; I got him
+a gun and took him out shooting. Well, we shot a little in the ordinary
+way; at last we thought we would rest I sat down under a tree; but he
+began instead to play with his gun, pointing it at me meantime. I asked
+him to leave off, but in his inexperience he did not attend to my
+words, the gun went off, and I lost half my chin, and the first finger
+of my right hand.'
+
+We reached Lgov. Vladimir and Yermolai had both decided that we could
+not shoot without a boat.
+
+'Sutchok (_i.e._ the twig) has a punt,' observed Vladimir, 'but I
+don't know where he has hidden it. We must go to him.'
+
+'To whom?' I asked.
+
+'The man lives here; Sutchok is his nickname.'
+
+Vladimir went with Yermolai to Sutchok's. I told them I would wait for
+them at the church. While I was looking at the tombstones in the
+churchyard, I stumbled upon a blackened, four-cornered urn with the
+following inscription, on one side in French: 'Ci-git Theophile-Henri,
+Vicomte de Blangy'; on the next; 'Under this stone is laid the body of
+a French subject, Count Blangy; born 1737, died 1799, in the 62nd year
+of his age': on the third, 'Peace to his ashes': and on the fourth:--
+
+   'Under this stone there lies from France an emigrant.
+     Of high descent was he, and also of talent.
+     A wife and kindred murdered he bewailed,
+     And left his land by tyrants cruel assailed;
+     The friendly shores of Russia he attained,
+     And hospitable shelter here he gained;
+     Children he taught; their parents' cares allayed:
+     Here, by God's will, in peace he has been laid.'
+
+
+The approach of Yermolai with Vladimir and the man with the strange
+nickname, Sutchok, broke in on my meditations.
+
+Barelegged, ragged and dishevelled, Sutchok looked like a discharged
+stray house-serf of sixty years old.
+
+'Have you a boat?' I asked him.
+
+'I have a boat,' he answered in a hoarse, cracked voice; 'but it's a
+very poor one.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Its boards are split apart, and the rivets have come off the cracks.'
+
+'That's no great disaster!' interposed Yermolai; 'we can stuff them up
+with tow.'
+
+'Of course you can,' Sutchok assented.
+
+'And who are you?'
+
+'I am the fisherman of the manor.'
+
+'How is it, when you're a fisherman, your boat is in such bad
+condition?'
+
+'There are no fish in our river.'
+
+'Fish don't like slimy marshes,' observed my huntsman, with the air of
+an authority.
+
+'Come,' I said to Yermolai, 'go and get some tow, and make the boat
+right for us as soon as you can.'
+
+Yermolai went off.
+
+'Well, in this way we may very likely go to the bottom,' I said to
+Vladimir. 'God is merciful,' he answered. 'Anyway, we must suppose that
+the pond is not deep.'
+
+'No, it is not deep,' observed Sutchok, who spoke in a strange, far-
+away voice, as though he were in a dream, 'and there's sedge and mud at
+the bottom, and it's all overgrown with sedge. But there are deep holes
+too.'
+
+'But if the sedge is so thick,' said Vladimir, 'it will be impossible
+to row.'
+
+'Who thinks of rowing in a punt? One has to punt it. I will go with
+you; my pole is there--or else one can use a wooden spade.'
+
+'With a spade it won't be easy; you won't touch the bottom perhaps in
+some places,' said Vladimir.
+
+'It's true; it won't be easy.'
+
+I sat down on a tomb-stone to wait for Yermolai. Vladimir moved a
+little to one side out of respect to me, and also sat down. Sutchok
+remained standing in the same place, his head bent and his hands
+clasped behind his back, according to the old habit of house-serfs.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I began, 'have you been the fisherman here long?'
+
+'It is seven years now,' he replied, rousing himself with a start.
+
+'And what was your occupation before?'
+
+'I was coachman before.'
+
+'Who dismissed you from being coachman?'
+
+'The new mistress.'
+
+'What mistress?'
+
+'Oh, that bought us. Your honour does not know her; Alyona Timofyevna;
+she is so fat ... not young.'
+
+'Why did she decide to make you a fisherman?'
+
+'God knows. She came to us from her estate in Tamboff, gave orders for
+all the household to come together, and came out to us. We first kissed
+her hand, and she said nothing; she was not angry.... Then she began to
+question us in order; "How are you employed? what duties have you?" She
+came to me in my turn; so she asked: "What have you been?" I say,
+"Coachman." "Coachman? Well, a fine coachman you are; only look at you!
+You're not fit for a coachman, but be my fisherman, and shave your
+beard. On the occasions of my visits provide fish for the table; do you
+hear?" ... So since then I have been enrolled as a fisherman. "And mind
+you keep my pond in order." But how is one to keep it in order?'
+
+'Whom did you belong to before?'
+
+'To Sergai Sergiitch Pehterev. We came to him by inheritance. But he
+did not own us long; only six years altogether. I was his coachman ...
+but not in town, he had others there--only in the country.'
+
+'And were you always a coachman from your youth up?'
+
+'Always a coachman? Oh, no! I became a coachman in Sergai Sergiitch's
+time, but before that I was a cook--but not town-cook; only a cook in
+the country.'
+
+'Whose cook were you, then?'
+
+'Oh, my former master's, Afanasy Nefeditch, Sergai Sergiitch's uncle.
+Lgov was bought by him, by Afanasy Nefeditch, but it came to Sergai
+Sergiitch by inheritance from him.'
+
+'Whom did he buy it from?'
+
+'From Tatyana Vassilyevna.'
+
+'What Tatyana Vassilyevna was that?'
+
+'Why, that died last year in Bolhov ... that is, at Karatchev, an old
+maid.... She had never married. Don't you know her? We came to her from
+her father, Vassily Semenitch. She owned us a goodish while ... twenty
+years.'
+
+'Then were you cook to her?'
+
+'At first, to be sure, I was cook, and then I was coffee-bearer.'
+
+'What were you?'
+
+'Coffee-bearer.'
+
+'What sort of duty is that?'
+
+'I don't know, your honour. I stood at the sideboard, and was called
+Anton instead of Kuzma. The mistress ordered that I should be called
+so.'
+
+'Your real name, then, is Kuzma?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And were you coffee-bearer all the time?'
+
+'No, not all the time; I was an actor too.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'Yes, I was.... I played in the theatre. Our mistress set up a theatre
+of her own.'
+
+'What kind of parts did you take?'
+
+'What did you please to say?'
+
+'What did you do in the theatre?'
+
+'Don't you know? Why, they take me and dress me up; and I walk about
+dressed up, or stand or sit down there as it happens, and they say,
+"See, this is what you must say," and I say it. Once I represented a
+blind man.... They laid little peas under each eyelid.... Yes, indeed.'
+
+'And what were you afterwards?'
+
+'Afterwards I became a cook again.'
+
+'Why did they degrade you to being a cook again?'
+
+'My brother ran away.'
+
+'Well, and what were you under the father of your first mistress?'
+
+'I had different duties; at first I found myself a page; I have been a
+postilion, a gardener, and a whipper-in.'
+
+'A whipper-in?... And did you ride out with the hounds?'
+
+'Yes, I rode with the hounds, and was nearly killed; I fell off my
+horse, and the horse was injured. Our old master was very severe; he
+ordered them to flog me, and to send me to learn a trade to Moscow, to
+a shoemaker.'
+
+'To learn a trade? But you weren't a child, I suppose, when you were a
+whipper-in?'
+
+'I was twenty and over then.'
+
+'But could you learn a trade at twenty?'
+
+'I suppose one could, some way, since the master ordered it. But he
+luckily died soon after, and they sent me back to the country.'
+
+'And when were you taught to cook?'
+
+Sutchok lifted his thin yellowish little old face and grinned.
+
+'Is that a thing to be taught?... Old women can cook.'
+
+'Well,' I commented, 'you have seen many things, Kuzma, in your time!
+What do you do now as a fisherman, seeing there are no fish?'
+
+'Oh, your honour, I don't complain. And, thank God, they made me a
+fisherman. Why another old man like me--Andrey Pupir--the mistress
+ordered to be put into the paper factory, as a ladler. "It's a sin,"
+she said, "to eat bread in idleness." And Pupir had even hoped for
+favour; his cousin's son was clerk in the mistress's counting-house: he
+had promised to send his name up to the mistress, to remember him: a
+fine way he remembered him!... And Pupir fell at his cousin's knees
+before my eyes.'
+
+'Have you a family? Have you married?'
+
+'No, your honour, I have never been married. Tatyana Vassilyevna--God
+rest her soul!--did not allow anyone to marry. "God forbid!" she said
+sometimes, "here am I living single: what indulgence! What are they
+thinking of!"'
+
+'What do you live on now? Do you get wages?'
+
+'Wages, your honour!... Victuals are given me, and thanks be to Thee,
+Lord! I am very contented. May God give our lady long life!'
+
+Yermolai returned.
+
+'The boat is repaired,' he announced churlishly. 'Go after your pole--
+you there!'
+
+Sutchok ran to get his pole. During the whole time of my conversation
+with the poor old man, the sportsman Vladimir had been staring at him
+with a contemptuous smile.
+
+'A stupid fellow,' was his comment, when the latter had gone off; 'an
+absolutely uneducated fellow; a peasant, nothing more. One cannot even
+call him a house-serf, and he was boasting all the time. How could he
+be an actor, be pleased to judge for yourself! You were pleased to
+trouble yourself for no good in talking to him.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later we were sitting in Sutchok's punt. The dogs
+we left in a hut in charge of my coachman. We were not very
+comfortable, but sportsmen are not a fastidious race. At the rear end,
+which was flattened and straight, stood Sutchok, punting; I sat with
+Vladimir on the planks laid across the boat, and Yermolai ensconced
+himself in front, in the very beak. In spite of the tow, the water soon
+made its appearance under our feet. Fortunately, the weather was calm
+and the pond seemed slumbering.
+
+We floated along rather slowly. The old man had difficulty in drawing
+his long pole out of the sticky mud; it came up all tangled in green
+threads of water-sedge; the flat round leaves of the water-lily also
+hindered the progress of our boat last we got up to the reeds, and then
+the fun began. Ducks flew up noisily from the pond, scared by our
+unexpected appearance in their domains, shots sounded at once after
+them; it was a pleasant sight to see these short-tailed game turning
+somersaults in the air, splashing heavily into the water. We could not,
+of course, get at all the ducks that were shot; those who were slightly
+wounded swam away; some which had been quite killed fell into such
+thick reeds that even Yermolai's little lynx eyes could not discover
+them, yet our boat was nevertheless filled to the brim with game for
+dinner.
+
+Vladimir, to Yermolai's great satisfaction, did not shoot at all well;
+he seemed surprised after each unsuccessful shot, looked at his gun and
+blew down it, seemed puzzled, and at last explained to us the reason
+why he had missed his aim. Yermolai, as always, shot triumphantly; I--
+rather badly, after my custom. Sutchok looked on at us with the eyes of
+a man who has been the servant of others from his youth up; now and
+then he cried out: 'There, there, there's another little duck'; and he
+constantly rubbed his back, not with his hands, but by a peculiar
+movement of the shoulder-blades. The weather kept magnificent; curly
+white clouds moved calmly high above our heads, and were reflected
+clearly in the water; the reeds were whispering around us; here and
+there the pond sparkled in the sunshine like steel. We were preparing
+to return to the village, when suddenly a rather unpleasant adventure
+befel us.
+
+For a long time we had been aware that the water was gradually filling
+our punt. Vladimir was entrusted with the task of baling it out by
+means of a ladle, which my thoughtful huntsman had stolen to be ready
+for any emergency from a peasant woman who was staring away in another
+direction. All went well so long as Vladimir did not neglect his duty.
+But just at the end the ducks, as if to take leave of us, rose in such
+flocks that we scarcely had time to load our guns. In the heat of the
+sport we did not pay attention to the state of our punt--when suddenly,
+Yermolai, in trying to reach a wounded duck, leaned his whole weight on
+the boat's-edge; at his over-eager movement our old tub veered on one
+side, began to fill, and majestically sank to the bottom, fortunately
+not in a deep place. We cried out, but it was too late; in an instant
+we were standing in the water up to our necks, surrounded by the
+floating bodies of the slaughtered ducks. I cannot help laughing now
+when I recollect the scared white faces of my companions (probably my
+own face was not particularly rosy at that moment), but I must confess
+at the time it did not enter my head to feel amused. Each of us kept
+his gun above his head, and Sutchok, no doubt from the habit of
+imitating his masters, lifted his pole above him. The first to break
+the silence was Yermolai.
+
+'Tfoo! curse it!' he muttered, spitting into the water; 'here's a go.
+It's all you, you old devil!' he added, turning wrathfully to Sutchok;
+'you've such a boat!'
+
+'It's my fault,' stammered the old man.
+
+'Yes; and you're a nice one,' continued my huntsman, turning his head
+in Vladimir's direction; 'what were you thinking of? Why weren't you
+baling out?--you, you?'
+
+But Vladimir was not equal to a reply; he was shaking like a leaf, his
+teeth were chattering, and his smile was utterly meaningless. What had
+become of his fine language, his feeling of fine distinctions, and of
+his own dignity!
+
+The cursed punt rocked feebly under our feet... At the instant of our
+ducking the water seemed terribly cold to us, but we soon got hardened
+to it, when the first shock had passed off. I looked round me; the
+reeds rose up in a circle ten paces from us; in the distance above
+their tops the bank could be seen. 'It looks bad,' I thought.
+
+'What are we to do?' I asked Yermolai.
+
+'Well, we'll take a look round; we can't spend the night here,' he
+answered. 'Here, you, take my gun,' he said to Vladimir.
+
+Vladimir obeyed submissively.
+
+'I will go and find the ford,' continued Yermolai, as though there must
+infallibly be a ford in every pond: he took the pole from Sutchok, and
+went off in the direction of the bank, warily sounding the depth as he
+walked.
+
+'Can you swim?' I asked him.
+
+'No, I can't,' his voice sounded from behind the reeds.
+
+'Then he'll be drowned,' remarked Sutchok indifferently. He had been
+terrified at first, not by the danger, but through fear of our anger,
+and now, completely reassured, he drew a long breath from time to time,
+and seemed not to be aware of any necessity for moving from his present
+position.
+
+'And he will perish without doing any good,' added Vladimir piteously.
+
+Yermolai did not return for more than an hour. That hour seemed an
+eternity to us. At first we kept calling to him very energetically;
+then his answering shouts grew less frequent; at last he was completely
+silent. The bells in the village began ringing for evening service.
+There was not much conversation between us; indeed, we tried not to
+look at one another. The ducks hovered over our heads; some seemed
+disposed to settle near us, but suddenly rose up into the air and flew
+away quacking. We began to grow numb. Sutchok shut his eyes as though
+he were disposing himself to sleep.
+
+At last, to our indescribable delight, Yermolai returned.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'I have been to the bank; I have found the ford.... Let us go.'
+
+We wanted to set off at once; but he first brought some string out of
+his pocket out of the water, tied the slaughtered ducks together by
+their legs, took both ends in his teeth, and moved slowly forward;
+Vladimir came behind him, and I behind Vladimir, and Sutchok brought up
+the rear. It was about two hundred paces to the bank. Yermolai walked
+boldly and without stopping (so well had he noted the track), only
+occasionally crying out: 'More to the left--there's a hole here to the
+right!' or 'Keep to the right--you'll sink in there to the left....'
+Sometimes the water was up to our necks, and twice poor Sutchok, who
+was shorter than all the rest of us, got a mouthful and spluttered.
+'Come, come, come!' Yermolai shouted roughly to him--and Sutchok,
+scrambling, hopping and skipping, managed to reach a shallower place,
+but even in his greatest extremity was never so bold as to clutch at
+the skirt of my coat. Worn out, muddy and wet, we at last reached the
+bank.
+
+Two hours later we were all sitting, as dry as circumstances would
+allow, in a large hay barn, preparing for supper. The coachman
+Yehudiil, an exceedingly deliberate man, heavy in gait, cautious and
+sleepy, stood at the entrance, zealously plying Sutchok with snuff (I
+have noticed that coachmen in Russia very quickly make friends);
+Sutchok was taking snuff with frenzied energy, in quantities to make
+him ill; he was spitting, sneezing, and apparently enjoying himself
+greatly. Vladimir had assumed an air of languor; he leaned his head on
+one side, and spoke little. Yermolai was cleaning our guns. The dogs
+were wagging their tails at a great rate in the expectation of
+porridge; the horses were stamping and neighing in the out-house....
+The sun had set; its last rays were broken up into broad tracts of
+purple; golden clouds were drawn out over the heavens into finer and
+ever finer threads, like a fleece washed and combed out. ... There was
+the sound of singing in the village.
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+                            BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
+
+
+It was a glorious July day, one of those days which only come after
+many days of fine weather. From earliest morning the sky is clear; the
+sunrise does not glow with fire; it is suffused with a soft roseate
+flush. The sun, not fiery, not red-hot as in time of stifling drought,
+not dull purple as before a storm, but with a bright and genial
+radiance, rises peacefully behind a long and narrow cloud, shines out
+freshly, and plunges again into its lilac mist. The delicate upper edge
+of the strip of cloud flashes in little gleaming snakes; their
+brilliance is like polished silver. But, lo! the dancing rays flash
+forth again, and in solemn joy, as though flying upward, rises the
+mighty orb. About mid-day there is wont to be, high up in the sky, a
+multitude of rounded clouds, golden-grey, with soft white edges. Like
+islands scattered over an overflowing river, that bathes them in its
+unbroken reaches of deep transparent blue, they scarcely stir; farther
+down the heavens they are in movement, packing closer; now there is no
+blue to be seen between them, but they are themselves almost as blue as
+the sky, filled full with light and heat. The colour of the horizon, a
+faint pale lilac, does not change all day, and is the same all round;
+nowhere is there storm gathering and darkening; only somewhere rays of
+bluish colour stretch down from the sky; it is a sprinkling of scarce-
+perceptible rain. In the evening these clouds disappear; the last of
+them, blackish and undefined as smoke, lie streaked with pink, facing
+the setting sun; in the place where it has gone down, as calmly as it
+rose, a crimson glow lingers long over the darkening earth, and, softly
+flashing like a candle carried carelessly, the evening star flickers in
+the sky. On such days all the colours are softened, bright but not
+glaring; everything is suffused with a kind of touching tenderness. On
+such days the heat is sometimes very great; often it is even 'steaming'
+on the slopes of the fields, but a wind dispels this growing
+sultriness, and whirling eddies of dust--sure sign of settled, fine
+weather--move along the roads and across the fields in high white
+columns. In the pure dry air there is a scent of wormwood, rye in
+blossom, and buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall there is no
+moisture in the air. It is for such weather that the farmer longs, for
+harvesting his wheat....
+
+On just such a day I was once out grouse-shooting in the Tchern
+district of the province of Tula. I started and shot a fair amount of
+game; my full game-bag cut my shoulder mercilessly; but already the
+evening glow had faded, and the cool shades of twilight were beginning
+to grow thicker, and to spread across the sky, which was still bright,
+though no longer lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, when I at
+last decided to turn back homewards. With swift steps I passed through
+the long 'square' of underwoods, clambered up a hill, and instead of
+the familiar plain I expected to see, with the oakwood on the right and
+the little white church in the distance, I saw before me a scene
+completely different, and quite new to me. A narrow valley lay at my
+feet, and directly facing me a dense wood of aspen-trees rose up like a
+thick wall. I stood still in perplexity, looked round me.... 'Aha!' I
+thought, 'I have somehow come wrong; I kept too much to the right,' and
+surprised at my own mistake, I rapidly descended the hill. I was at
+once plunged into a disagreeable clinging mist, exactly as though I had
+gone down into a cellar; the thick high grass at the bottom of the
+valley, all drenched with dew, was white like a smooth tablecloth; one
+felt afraid somehow to walk on it. I made haste to get on the other
+side, and walked along beside the aspenwood, bearing to the left. Bats
+were already hovering over its slumbering tree-tops, mysteriously
+flitting and quivering across the clear obscure of the sky; a young
+belated hawk flew in swift, straight course upwards, hastening to its
+nest. 'Here, directly I get to this corner,' I thought to myself, 'I
+shall find the road at once; but I have come a mile out of my way!'
+
+I did at last reach the end of the wood, but there was no road of any
+sort there; some kind of low bushes overgrown with long grass extended
+far and wide before me; behind them in the far, far distance could be
+discerned a tract of waste land. I stopped again. 'Well? Where am I?' I
+began ransacking my brain to recall how and where I had been walking
+during the day.... 'Ah! but these are the bushes at Parahin,' I cried
+at last; 'of course! then this must be Sindyev wood. But how did I get
+here? So far?... Strange! Now I must bear to the right again.'
+
+I went to the right through the bushes. Meantime the night had crept
+close and grown up like a storm-cloud; it seemed as though, with the
+mists of evening, darkness was rising up on all sides and flowing down
+from overhead. I had come upon some sort of little, untrodden,
+overgrown path; I walked along it, gazing intently before me. Soon all
+was blackness and silence around--only the quail's cry was heard from
+time to time. Some small night-bird, flitting noiselessly near the
+ground on its soft wings, almost flapped against me and skurried away
+in alarm. I came out on the further side of the bushes, and made my way
+along a field by the hedge. By now I could hardly make out distant
+objects; the field showed dimly white around; beyond it rose up a
+sullen darkness, which seemed moving up closer in huge masses every
+instant. My steps gave a muffled sound in the air, that grew colder and
+colder. The pale sky began again to grow blue--but it was the blue of
+night. The tiny stars glimmered and twinkled in it.
+
+What I had been taking for a wood turned out to be a dark round
+hillock. 'But where am I, then?' I repeated again aloud, standing still
+for the third time and looking inquiringly at my spot and tan English
+dog, Dianka by name, certainly the most intelligent of four-footed
+creatures. But the most intelligent of four-footed creatures only
+wagged her tail, blinked her weary eyes dejectedly, and gave me no
+sensible advice. I felt myself disgraced in her eyes and pushed
+desperately forward, as though I had suddenly guessed which way I ought
+to go; I scaled the hill, and found myself in a hollow of no great
+depth, ploughed round.
+
+A strange sensation came over me at once. This hollow had the form of
+an almost perfect cauldron, with sloping sides; at the bottom of it
+were some great white stones standing upright--it seemed as though they
+had crept there for some secret council--and it was so still and dark
+in it, so dreary and weird seemed the sky, overhanging it, that my
+heart sank. Some little animal was whining feebly and piteously among
+the stones. I made haste to get out again on to the hillock. Till then
+I had not quite given up all hope of finding the way home; but at this
+point I finally decided that I was utterly lost, and without any
+further attempt to make out the surrounding objects, which were almost
+completely plunged in darkness, I walked straight forward, by the aid
+of the stars, at random.... For about half-an-hour I walked on in this
+way, though I could hardly move one leg before the other. It seemed as
+if I had never been in such a deserted country in my life; nowhere was
+there the glimmer of a fire, nowhere a sound to be heard. One sloping
+hillside followed another; fields stretched endlessly upon fields;
+bushes seemed to spring up out of the earth under my very nose. I kept
+walking and was just making up my mind to lie down somewhere till
+morning, when suddenly I found myself on the edge of a horrible
+precipice.
+
+I quickly drew back my lifted foot, and through the almost opaque
+darkness I saw far below me a vast plain. A long river skirted it in a
+semi-circle, turned away from me; its course was marked by the steely
+reflection of the water still faintly glimmering here and there. The
+hill on which I found myself terminated abruptly in an almost
+overhanging precipice, whose gigantic profile stood out black against
+the dark-blue waste of sky, and directly below me, in the corner formed
+by this precipice and the plain near the river, which was there a dark,
+motionless mirror, under the lee of the hill, two fires side by side
+were smoking and throwing up red flames. People were stirring round
+them, shadows hovered, and sometimes the front of a little curly head
+was lighted up by the glow.
+
+I found out at last where I had got to. This plain was well known in
+our parts under the name of Byezhin Prairie.... But there was no
+possibility of returning home, especially at night; my legs were
+sinking under me from weariness. I decided to get down to the fires and
+to wait for the dawn in the company of these men, whom I took for
+drovers. I got down successfully, but I had hardly let go of the last
+branch I had grasped, when suddenly two large shaggy white dogs rushed
+angrily barking upon me. The sound of ringing boyish voices came from
+round the fires; two or three boys quickly got up from the ground. I
+called back in response to their shouts of inquiry. They ran up to me,
+and at once called off the dogs, who were specially struck by the
+appearance of my Dianka. I came down to them.
+
+I had been mistaken in taking the figures sitting round the fires for
+drovers. They were simply peasant boys from a neighbouring village, who
+were in charge of a drove of horses. In hot summer weather with us they
+drive the horses out at night to graze in the open country: the flies
+and gnats would give them no peace in the daytime; they drive out the
+drove towards evening, and drive them back in the early morning: it's a
+great treat for the peasant boys. Bare-headed, in old fur-capes, they
+bestride the most spirited nags, and scurry along with merry cries and
+hooting and ringing laughter, swinging their arms and legs, and leaping
+into the air. The fine dust is stirred up in yellow clouds and moves
+along the road; the tramp of hoofs in unison resounds afar; the horses
+race along, pricking up their ears; in front of all, with his tail in
+the air and thistles in his tangled mane, prances some shaggy chestnut,
+constantly shifting his paces as he goes.
+
+I told the boys I had lost my way, and sat down with them. They asked
+me where I came from, and then were silent for a little and turned
+away. Then we talked a little again. I lay down under a bush, whose
+shoots had been nibbled off, and began to look round. It was a
+marvellous picture; about the fire a red ring of light quivered and
+seemed to swoon away in the embrace of a background of darkness; the
+flame flaring up from time to time cast swift flashes of light beyond
+the boundary of this circle; a fine tongue of light licked the dry
+twigs and died away at once; long thin shadows, in their turn breaking
+in for an instant, danced right up to the very fires; darkness was
+struggling with light. Sometimes, when the fire burnt low and the
+circle of light shrank together, suddenly out of the encroaching
+darkness a horse's head was thrust in, bay, with striped markings or
+all white, stared with intent blank eyes upon us, nipped hastily the
+long grass, and drawing back again, vanished instantly. One could only
+hear it still munching and snorting. From the circle of light it was
+hard to make out what was going on in the darkness; everything close at
+hand seemed shut off by an almost black curtain; but farther away hills
+and forests were dimly visible in long blurs upon the horizon.
+
+The dark unclouded sky stood, inconceivably immense, triumphant, above
+us in all its mysterious majesty. One felt a sweet oppression at one's
+heart, breathing in that peculiar, overpowering, yet fresh fragrance--
+the fragrance of a summer night in Russia. Scarcely a sound was to be
+heard around.... Only at times, in the river near, the sudden splash of
+a big fish leaping, and the faint rustle of a reed on the bank, swaying
+lightly as the ripples reached it ... the fires alone kept up a subdued
+crackling.
+
+The boys sat round them: there too sat the two dogs, who had been so
+eager to devour me. They could not for long after reconcile themselves
+to my presence, and, drowsily blinking and staring into the fire, they
+growled now and then with an unwonted sense of their own dignity; first
+they growled, and then whined a little, as though deploring the
+impossibility of carrying out their desires. There were altogether five
+boys: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya. (From their talk I
+learnt their names, and I intend now to introduce them to the reader.)
+
+The first and eldest of all, Fedya, one would take to be about
+fourteen. He was a well-made boy, with good-looking, delicate, rather
+small features, curly fair hair, bright eyes, and a perpetual half-
+merry, half-careless smile. He belonged, by all appearances, to a well-
+to-do family, and had ridden out to the prairie, not through necessity,
+but for amusement. He wore a gay print shirt, with a yellow border; a
+short new overcoat slung round his neck was almost slipping off his
+narrow shoulders; a comb hung from his blue belt. His boots, coming a
+little way up the leg, were certainly his own--not his father's. The
+second boy, Pavlusha, had tangled black hair, grey eyes, broad cheek-
+bones, a pale face pitted with small-pox, a large but well-cut mouth;
+his head altogether was large--'a beer-barrel head,' as they say--and
+his figure was square and clumsy. He was not a good-looking boy--
+there's no denying it!--and yet I liked him; he looked very sensible
+and straightforward, and there was a vigorous ring in his voice. He had
+nothing to boast of in his attire; it consisted simply of a homespun
+shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather
+uninteresting; it was a long face, with short-sighted eyes and a hook
+nose; it expressed a kind of dull, fretful uneasiness; his tightly-
+drawn lips seemed rigid; his contracted brow never relaxed; he seemed
+continually blinking from the firelight. His flaxen--almost white--hair
+hung out in thin wisps under his low felt hat, which he kept pulling
+down with both hands over his ears. He had on new bast-shoes and
+leggings; a thick string, wound three times round his figure, carefully
+held together his neat black smock. Neither he nor Pavlusha looked more
+than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of ten, aroused my
+curiosity by his thoughtful and sorrowful look. His whole face was
+small, thin, freckled, pointed at the chin like a squirrel's; his lips
+were barely perceptible; but his great black eyes, that shone with
+liquid brilliance, produced a strange impression; they seemed trying to
+express something for which the tongue--his tongue, at least--had no
+words. He was undersized and weakly, and dressed rather poorly. The
+remaining boy, Vanya, I had not noticed at first; he was lying on the
+ground, peacefully curled up under a square rug, and only occasionally
+thrust his curly brown head out from under it: this boy was seven years
+old at the most.
+
+So I lay under the bush at one side and looked at the boys. A small pot
+was hanging over one of the fires; in it potatoes were cooking.
+Pavlusha was looking after them, and on his knees he was trying them by
+poking a splinter of wood into the boiling water. Fedya was lying
+leaning on his elbow, and smoothing out the skirts of his coat. Ilyusha
+was sitting beside Kostya, and still kept blinking constrainedly.
+Kostya's head drooped despondently, and he looked away into the
+distance. Vanya did not stir under his rug. I pretended to be asleep.
+Little by little, the boys began talking again.
+
+At first they gossiped of one thing and another, the work of to-morrow,
+the horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha, and, as though taking
+up again an interrupted conversation, asked him:
+
+'Come then, so you've seen the domovoy?'
+
+'No, I didn't see him, and no one ever can see him,' answered Ilyusha,
+in a weak hoarse voice, the sound of which was wonderfully in keeping
+with the expression of his face; 'I heard him.... Yes, and not I
+alone.'
+
+'Where does he live--in your place?' asked Pavlusha.
+
+'In the old paper-mill.'
+
+'Why, do you go to the factory?'
+
+'Of course we do. My brother Avdushka and I, we are paper-glazers.'
+
+'I say--factory-hands!'
+
+'Well, how did you hear it, then?' asked Fedya.
+
+'It was like this. It happened that I and my brother Avdushka, with
+Fyodor of Mihyevska, and Ivashka the Squint-eyed, and the other Ivashka
+who comes from the Red Hills, and Ivashka of Suhorukov too--and there
+were some other boys there as well--there were ten of us boys there
+altogether--the whole shift, that is--it happened that we spent the
+night at the paper-mill; that's to say, it didn't happen, but Nazarov,
+the overseer, kept us. 'Why,' said he, "should you waste time going
+home, boys; there's a lot of work to-morrow, so don't go home, boys."
+So we stopped, and were all lying down together, and Avdushka had just
+begun to say, "I say, boys, suppose the domovoy were to come?" And
+before he'd finished saying so, some one suddenly began walking over
+our heads; we were lying down below, and he began walking upstairs
+overhead, where the wheel is. We listened: he walked; the boards seemed
+to be bending under him, they creaked so; then he crossed over, above
+our heads; all of a sudden the water began to drip and drip over the
+wheel; the wheel rattled and rattled and again began to turn, though
+the sluices of the conduit above had been let down. We wondered who
+could have lifted them up so that the water could run; any way, the
+wheel turned and turned a little, and then stopped. Then he went to the
+door overhead and began coming down-stairs, and came down like this,
+not hurrying himself; the stairs seemed to groan under him too....
+Well, he came right down to our door, and waited and waited ... and all
+of a sudden the door simply flew open. We were in a fright; we looked--
+there was nothing.... Suddenly what if the net on one of the vats
+didn't begin moving; it got up, and went rising and ducking and moving
+in the air as though some one were stirring with it, and then it was in
+its place again. Then, at another vat, a hook came off its nail, and
+then was on its nail again; and then it seemed as if some one came to
+the door, and suddenly coughed and choked like a sheep, but so
+loudly!... We all fell down in a heap and huddled against one
+another.... Just weren't we in a fright that night!'
+
+'I say!' murmured Pavel, 'what did he cough for?'
+
+'I don't know; perhaps it was the damp.'
+
+All were silent for a little.
+
+'Well,' inquired Fedya, 'are the potatoes done?'
+
+Pavlusha tried them.
+
+'No, they are raw.... My, what a splash!' he added, turning his face in
+the direction of the river; 'that must be a pike.... And there's a star
+falling.'
+
+'I say, I can tell you something, brothers,' began Kostya, in a shrill
+little voice; 'listen what my dad told me the other day.'
+
+'Well, we are listening,' said Fedya with a patronising air.
+
+'You know Gavrila, I suppose, the carpenter up in the big village?'
+
+'Yes, we know him.'
+
+'And do you know why he is so sorrowful always, never speaks? do you
+know? I'll tell you why he's so sorrowful; he went one day, daddy said,
+he went, brothers, into the forest nutting. So he went nutting into the
+forest and lost his way; he went on--God only can tell where he got to.
+So he went on and on, brothers--but 'twas no good!--he could not find
+the way; and so night came on out of doors. So he sat down under a
+tree. "I'll wait till morning," thought he. He sat down and began to
+drop asleep. So as he was falling asleep, suddenly he heard some one
+call him. He looked up; there was no one. He fell asleep again; again
+he was called. He looked and looked again; and in front of him there
+sat a russalka on a branch, swinging herself and calling him to her,
+and simply dying with laughing; she laughed so.... And the moon was
+shining bright, so bright, the moon shone so clear--everything could be
+seen plain, brothers. So she called him, and she herself was as bright
+and as white sitting on the branch as some dace or a roach, or like
+some little carp so white and silvery.... Gavrila the carpenter almost
+fainted, brothers, but she laughed without stopping, and kept beckoning
+him to her like this. Then Gavrila was just getting up; he was just
+going to yield to the russalka, brothers, but--the Lord put it into his
+heart, doubtless--he crossed himself like this.... And it was so hard
+for him to make that cross, brothers; he said, "My hand was simply like
+a stone; it would not move." ... Ugh! the horrid witch.... So when he
+made the cross, brothers, the russalka, she left off laughing, and all
+at once how she did cry.... She cried, brothers, and wiped her eyes
+with her hair, and her hair was green as any hemp. So Gavrila looked
+and looked at her, and at last he fell to questioning her. "Why are you
+weeping, wild thing of the woods?" And the russalka began to speak to
+him like this: "If you had not crossed yourself, man," she says, "you
+should have lived with me in gladness of heart to the end of your days;
+and I weep, I am grieved at heart because you crossed yourself; but I
+will not grieve alone; you too shall grieve at heart to the end of your
+days." Then she vanished, brothers, and at once it was plain to Gavrila
+how to get out of the forest.... Only since then he goes always
+sorrowful, as you see.'
+
+'Ugh!' said Fedya after a brief silence; 'but how can such an evil
+thing of the woods ruin a Christian soul--he did not listen to her?'
+
+'And I say!' said Kostya. 'Gavrila said that her voice was as shrill
+and plaintive as a toad's.'
+
+'Did your father tell you that himself?' Fedya went on.
+
+'Yes. I was lying in the loft; I heard it all.'
+
+'It's a strange thing. Why should he be sorrowful?... But I suppose she
+liked him, since she called him.'
+
+'Ay, she liked him!' put in Ilyusha. 'Yes, indeed! she wanted to tickle
+him to death, that's what she wanted. That's what they do, those
+russalkas.'
+
+'There ought to be russalkas here too, I suppose,' observed Fedya.
+
+'No,' answered Kostya, 'this is a holy open place. There's one thing,
+though: the river's near.'
+
+All were silent. Suddenly from out of the distance came a prolonged,
+resonant, almost wailing sound, one of those inexplicable sounds of the
+night, which break upon a profound stillness, rise upon the air,
+linger, and slowly die away at last. You listen: it is as though there
+were nothing, yet it echoes still. It is as though some one had uttered
+a long, long cry upon the very horizon, as though some other had
+answered him with shrill harsh laughter in the forest, and a faint,
+hoarse hissing hovers over the river. The boys looked round about
+shivering....
+
+'Christ's aid be with us!' whispered Ilyusha.
+
+'Ah, you craven crows!' cried Pavel, 'what are you frightened of? Look,
+the potatoes are done.' (They all came up to the pot and began to eat
+the smoking potatoes; only Vanya did not stir.) 'Well, aren't you
+coming?' said Pavel.
+
+But he did not creep out from under his rug. The pot was soon
+completely emptied.
+
+'Have you heard, boys,' began Ilyusha, 'what happened with us at
+Varnavitsi?'
+
+'Near the dam?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Yes, yes, near the dam, the broken-down dam. That is a haunted place,
+such a haunted place, and so lonely. All round there are pits and
+quarries, and there are always snakes in pits.'
+
+'Well, what did happen? Tell us.'
+
+'Well, this is what happened. You don't know, perhaps, Fedya, but there
+a drowned man was buried; he was drowned long, long ago, when the water
+was still deep; only his grave can still be seen, though it can only
+just be seen ... like this--a little mound.... So one day the bailiff
+called the huntsman Yermil, and says to him, "Go to the post, Yermil."
+Yermil always goes to the post for us; he has let all his dogs die;
+they never will live with him, for some reason, and they have never
+lived with him, though he's a good huntsman, and everyone liked him. So
+Yermil went to the post, and he stayed a bit in the town, and when he
+rode back, he was a little tipsy. It was night, a fine night; the moon
+was shining.... So Yermil rode across the dam; his way lay there. So,
+as he rode along, he saw, on the drowned man's grave, a little lamb, so
+white and curly and pretty, running about. So Yermil thought, "I will
+take him," and he got down and took him in his arms. But the little
+lamb didn't take any notice. So Yermil goes back to his horse, and the
+horse stares at him, and snorts and shakes his head; however, he said
+"wo" to him and sat on him with the lamb, and rode on again; he held
+the lamb in front of him. He looks at him, and the lamb looks him
+straight in the face, like this. Yermil the huntsman felt upset. "I
+don't remember," he said, "that lambs ever look at any one like that";
+however, he began to stroke it like this on its wool, and to say,
+"Chucky! chucky!" And the lamb suddenly showed its teeth and said too,
+"Chucky! chucky!"'
+
+The boy who was telling the story had hardly uttered this last word,
+when suddenly both dogs got up at once, and, barking convulsively,
+rushed away from the fire and disappeared in the darkness. All the boys
+were alarmed. Vanya jumped up from under his rug. Pavlusha ran shouting
+after the dogs. Their barking quickly grew fainter in the distance....
+There was the noise of the uneasy tramp of the frightened drove of
+horses. Pavlusha shouted aloud: 'Hey Grey! Beetle!' ... In a few
+minutes the barking ceased; Pavel's voice sounded still in the
+distance.... A little time more passed; the boys kept looking about in
+perplexity, as though expecting something to happen.... Suddenly the
+tramp of a galloping horse was heard; it stopped short at the pile of
+wood, and, hanging on to the mane, Pavel sprang nimbly off it. Both the
+dogs also leaped into the circle of light and at once sat down, their
+red tongues hanging out.
+
+'What was it? what was it?' asked the boys.
+
+'Nothing,' answered Pavel, waving his hand to his horse; 'I suppose the
+dogs scented something. I thought it was a wolf,' he added, calmly
+drawing deep breaths into his chest.
+
+I could not help admiring Pavel. He was very fine at that moment. His
+ugly face, animated by his swift ride, glowed with hardihood and
+determination. Without even a switch in his hand, he had, without the
+slightest hesitation, rushed out into the night alone to face a
+wolf.... 'What a splendid fellow!' I thought, looking at him.
+
+'Have you seen any wolves, then?' asked the trembling Kostya.
+
+'There are always a good many of them here,' answered Pavel; 'but they
+are only troublesome in the winter.'
+
+He crouched down again before the fire. As he sat down on the ground,
+he laid his hand on the shaggy head of one of the dogs. For a long
+while the flattered brute did not turn his head, gazing sidewise with
+grateful pride at Pavlusha.
+
+Vanya lay down under his rug again.
+
+'What dreadful things you were telling us, Ilyusha!' began Fedya, whose
+part it was, as the son of a well-to-do peasant, to lead the
+conversation. (He spoke little himself, apparently afraid of lowering
+his dignity.) 'And then some evil spirit set the dogs barking....
+Certainly I have heard that place was haunted.'
+
+'Varnavitsi?... I should think it was haunted! More than once, they
+say, they have seen the old master there--the late master. He wears,
+they say, a long skirted coat, and keeps groaning like this, and
+looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimitch met
+him. "What," says he, "your honour, Ivan Ivanitch, are you pleased to
+look for on the ground?"'
+
+'He asked him?' put in Fedya in amazement.
+
+'Yes, he asked him.'
+
+'Well, I call Trofimitch a brave fellow after that.... Well, what did
+he say?'
+
+'"I am looking for the herb that cleaves all things," says he. But he
+speaks so thickly, so thickly. "And what, your honour, Ivan Ivanitch,
+do you want with the herb that cleaves all things?" "The tomb weighs on
+me; it weighs on me, Trofimitch: I want to get away--away."'
+
+'My word!' observed Fedya, 'he didn't enjoy his life enough, I
+suppose.'
+
+'What a marvel!' said Kosyta. 'I thought one could only see the
+departed on All Hallows' day.'
+
+'One can see the departed any time,' Ilyusha interposed with
+conviction. From what I could observe, I judged he knew the village
+superstitions better than the others.... 'But on All Hallows' day you
+can see the living too; those, that is, whose turn it is to die that
+year. You need only sit in the church porch, and keep looking at the
+road. They will come by you along the road; those, that is, who will
+die that year. Last year old Ulyana went to the porch.'
+
+'Well, did she see anyone?' asked Kostya inquisitively.
+
+'To be sure she did. At first she sat a long, long while, and saw no
+one and heard nothing ... only it seemed as if some dog kept whining
+and whining like this somewhere.... Suddenly she looks up: a boy comes
+along the road with only a shirt on. She looked at him. It was Ivashka
+Fedosyev.'
+
+'He who died in the spring?' put in Fedya.
+
+'Yes, he. He came along and never lifted up his head. But Ulyana knew
+him. And then she looks again: a woman came along. She stared and
+stared at her.... Ah, God Almighty! ... it was herself coming along the
+road; Ulyana herself.'
+
+'Could it be herself?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Yes, by God, herself.'
+
+'Well, but she is not dead yet, you know?' 'But the year is not over
+yet. And only look at her; her life hangs on a thread.'
+
+All were still again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on to the
+fire. They were soon charred by the suddenly leaping flame; they
+cracked and smoked, and began to contract, curling up their burning
+ends. Gleams of light in broken flashes glanced in all directions,
+especially upwards. Suddenly a white dove flew straight into the bright
+light, fluttered round and round in terror, bathed in the red glow, and
+disappeared with a whirr of its wings.
+
+'It's lost its home, I suppose,' remarked Pavel. 'Now it will fly till
+it gets somewhere, where it can rest till dawn.'
+
+'Why, Pavlusha,' said Kostya, 'might it not be a just soul flying to
+heaven?'
+
+Pavel threw another handful of twigs on to the fire.
+
+'Perhaps,' he said at last.
+
+'But tell us, please, Pavlusha,' began Fedya, 'what was seen in your
+parts at Shalamovy at the heavenly portent?'
+
+[Footnote: This is what the peasants call an eclipse.--_Author's
+Note_.]
+
+'When the sun could not be seen? Yes, indeed.'
+
+'Were you frightened then?'
+
+'Yes; and we weren't the only ones. Our master, though he talked to us
+beforehand, and said there would be a heavenly portent, yet when it got
+dark, they say he himself was frightened out of his wits. And in the
+house-serfs' cottage the old woman, directly it grew dark, broke all
+the dishes in the oven with the poker. 'Who will eat now?' she said;
+'the last day has come.' So the soup was all running about the place.
+And in the village there were such tales about among us: that white
+wolves would run over the earth, and would eat men, that a bird of prey
+would pounce down on us, and that they would even see Trishka.'
+
+[Footnote: The popular belief in Trishka is probably derived from some
+tradition of Antichrist.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'What is Trishka?' asked Kostya.
+
+'Why, don't you know?' interrupted Ilyusha warmly. 'Why, brother, where
+have you been brought up, not to know Trishka? You're a stay-at-home,
+one-eyed lot in your village, really! Trishka will be a marvellous man,
+who will come one day, and he will be such a marvellous man that they
+will never be able to catch him, and never be able to do anything with
+him; he will be such a marvellous man. The people will try to take him;
+for example, they will come after him with sticks, they will surround
+him, but he will blind their eyes so that they fall upon one another.
+They will put him in prison, for example; he will ask for a little
+water to drink in a bowl; they will bring him the bowl, and he will
+plunge into it and vanish from their sight. They will put chains on
+him, but he will only clap his hands--they will fall off him. So this
+Trishka will go through villages and towns; and this Trishka will be a
+wily man; he will lead astray Christ's people ... and they will be able
+to do nothing to him.... He will be such a marvellous, wily man.'
+
+'Well, then,' continued Pavel, in his deliberate voice, 'that's what he
+'s like. And so they expected him in our parts. The old men declared
+that directly the heavenly portent began, Trishka would come. So the
+heavenly portent began. All the people were scattered over the street,
+in the fields, waiting to see what would happen. Our place, you know,
+is open country. They look; and suddenly down the mountain-side from
+the big village comes a man of some sort; such a strange man, with such
+a wonderful head ... that all scream: "Oy, Trishka is coming! Oy,
+Trishka is coming!" and all run in all directions! Our elder crawled
+into a ditch; his wife stumbled on the door-board and screamed with all
+her might; she terrified her yard-dog, so that he broke away from his
+chain and over the hedge and into the forest; and Kuzka's father,
+Dorofyitch, ran into the oats, lay down there, and began to cry like a
+quail. 'Perhaps' says he, 'the Enemy, the Destroyer of Souls, will
+spare the birds, at least.' So they were all in such a scare! But he
+that was coming was our cooper Vavila; he had bought himself a new
+pitcher, and had put the empty pitcher over his head.'
+
+All the boys laughed; and again there was a silence for a while, as
+often happens when people are talking in the open air. I looked out
+into the solemn, majestic stillness of the night; the dewy freshness of
+late evening had been succeeded by the dry heat of midnight; the
+darkness still had long to lie in a soft curtain over the slumbering
+fields; there was still a long while left before the first whisperings,
+the first dewdrops of dawn. There was no moon in the heavens; it rose
+late at that time. Countless golden stars, twinkling in rivalry, seemed
+all running softly towards the Milky Way, and truly, looking at them,
+you were almost conscious of the whirling, never--resting motion of the
+earth.... A strange, harsh, painful cry, sounded twice together over
+the river, and a few moments later, was repeated farther down....
+
+Kostya shuddered. 'What was that?'
+
+'That was a heron's cry,' replied Pavel tranquilly.
+
+'A heron,' repeated Kostya.... 'And what was it, Pavlusha, I heard
+yesterday evening,' he added, after a short pause; 'you perhaps will
+know.'
+
+'What did you hear?'
+
+'I will tell you what I heard. I was going from Stony Ridge to
+Shashkino; I went first through our walnut wood, and then passed by a
+little pool--you know where there's a sharp turn down to the ravine--
+there is a water-pit there, you know; it is quite overgrown with reeds;
+so I went near this pit, brothers, and suddenly from this came a sound
+of some one groaning, and piteously, so piteously; oo-oo, oo-oo! I was
+in such a fright, my brothers; it was late, and the voice was so
+miserable. I felt as if I should cry myself.... What could that have
+been, eh?'
+
+'It was in that pit the thieves drowned Akim the forester, last
+summer,' observed Pavel; 'so perhaps it was his soul lamenting.'
+
+'Oh, dear, really, brothers,' replied Kostya, opening wide his eyes,
+which were round enough before, 'I did not know they had drowned Akim
+in that pit. Shouldn't I have been frightened if I'd known!'
+
+'But they say there are little, tiny frogs,' continued Pavel, 'who cry
+piteously like that.'
+
+'Frogs? Oh, no, it was not frogs, certainly not. (A heron again uttered
+a cry above the river.) Ugh, there it is!' Kostya cried involuntarily;
+'it is just like a wood-spirit shrieking.'
+
+'The wood-spirit does not shriek; it is dumb,' put in Ilyusha; 'it only
+claps its hands and rattles.'
+
+'And have you seen it then, the wood-spirit?' Fedya asked him
+ironically.
+
+'No, I have not seen it, and God preserve me from seeing it; but others
+have seen it. Why, one day it misled a peasant in our parts, and led
+him through the woods and all in a circle in one field.... He scarcely
+got home till daylight.'
+
+'Well, and did he see it?'
+
+'Yes. He says it was a big, big creature, dark, wrapped up, just like a
+tree; you could not make it out well; it seemed to hide away from the
+moon, and kept staring and staring with its great eyes, and winking and
+winking with them....'
+
+'Ugh!' exclaimed Fedya with a slight shiver, and a shrug of the
+shoulders; 'pfoo.'
+
+'And how does such an unclean brood come to exist in the world?' said
+Pavel; 'it's a wonder.'
+
+'Don't speak ill of it; take care, it will hear you,' said Ilyusha.
+
+Again there was a silence.
+
+'Look, look, brothers,' suddenly came Vanya's childish voice; 'look at
+God's little stars; they are swarming like bees!'
+
+He put his fresh little face out from under his rug, leaned on his
+little fist, and slowly lifted up his large soft eyes. The eyes of all
+the boys were raised to the sky, and they were not lowered quickly.
+
+'Well, Vanya,' began Fedya caressingly, 'is your sister Anyutka well?'
+
+'Yes, she is very well,' replied Vanya with a slight lisp.
+
+'You ask her, why doesn't she come to see us?'
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+'You tell her to come.'
+
+'Very well.'
+
+'Tell her I have a present for her.'
+
+'And a present for me too?'
+
+'Yes, you too.'
+
+Vanya sighed.
+
+'No; I don't want one. Better give it to her; she is so kind to us at
+home.'
+
+And Vanya laid his head down again on the ground. Pavel got up and took
+the empty pot in his hand.
+
+'Where are you going?' Fedya asked him.
+
+'To the river, to get water; I want some water to drink.'
+
+The dogs got up and followed him.
+
+'Take care you don't fall into the river!' Ilyusha cried after him.
+
+'Why should he fall in?' said Fedya. 'He will be careful.'
+
+'Yes, he will be careful. But all kinds of things happen; he will stoop
+over, perhaps, to draw the water, and the water-spirit will clutch him
+by the hand, and drag him to him. Then they will say, "The boy fell
+into the water." ... Fell in, indeed! ... "There, he has crept in among
+the reeds," he added, listening.
+
+The reeds certainly 'shished,' as they call it among us, as they were
+parted.
+
+'But is it true,' asked Kostya, 'that crazy Akulina has been mad ever
+since she fell into the water?'
+
+'Yes, ever since.... How dreadful she is now! But they say she was a
+beauty before then. The water-spirit bewitched her. I suppose he did
+not expect they would get her out so soon. So down there at the bottom
+he bewitched her.'
+
+(I had met this Akulina more than once. Covered with rags, fearfully
+thin, with face as black as a coal, blear-eyed and for ever grinning,
+she would stay whole hours in one place in the road, stamping with her
+feet, pressing her fleshless hands to her breast, and slowly shifting
+from one leg to the other, like a wild beast in a cage. She understood
+nothing that was said to her, and only chuckled spasmodically from time
+to time.)
+
+'But they say,' continued Kostya, 'that Akulina threw herself into the
+river because her lover had deceived her.'
+
+'Yes, that was it.'
+
+'And do you remember Vasya? added Kostya, mournfully.
+
+'What Vasya?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Why, the one who was drowned,' replied Kostya,' in this very river.
+Ah, what a boy he was! What a boy he was! His mother, Feklista, how she
+loved him, her Vasya! And she seemed to have a foreboding, Feklista
+did, that harm would come to him from the water. Sometimes, when Vasya
+went with us boys in the summer to bathe in the river, she used to be
+trembling all over. The other women did not mind; they passed by with
+the pails, and went on, but Feklista put her pail down on the ground,
+and set to calling him, 'Come back, come back, my little joy; come
+back, my darling!' And no one knows how he was drowned. He was playing
+on the bank, and his mother was there haymaking; suddenly she hears, as
+though some one was blowing bubbles through the water, and behold!
+there was only Vasya's little cap to be seen swimming on the water. You
+know since then Feklista has not been right in her mind: she goes and
+lies down at the place where he was drowned; she lies down, brothers,
+and sings a song--you remember Vasya was always singing a song like
+that--so she sings it too, and weeps and weeps, and bitterly rails
+against God.'
+
+'Here is Pavlusha coming,' said Fedya.
+
+Pavel came up to the fire with a full pot in his hand.
+
+'Boys,' he began, after a short silence, 'something bad happened.'
+
+'Oh, what?' asked Kostya hurriedly.
+
+'I heard Vasya's voice.'
+
+They all seemed to shudder.
+
+'What do you mean? what do you mean?' stammered Kostya.
+
+'I don't know. Only I went to stoop down to the water; suddenly I hear
+my name called in Vasya's voice, as though it came from below water:
+"Pavlusha, Pavlusha, come here." I came away. But I fetched the water,
+though.'
+
+'Ah, God have mercy upon us!' said the boys, crossing themselves.
+
+'It was the water-spirit calling you, Pavel,' said Fedya; 'we were just
+talking of Vasya.'
+
+'Ah, it's a bad omen,' said Ilyusha, deliberately.
+
+'Well, never mind, don't bother about it,' Pavel declared stoutly, and
+he sat down again; 'no one can escape his fate.'
+
+The boys were still. It was clear that Pavel's words had produced a
+strong impression on them. They began to lie down before the fire as
+though preparing to go to sleep.
+
+'What is that?' asked Kostya, suddenly lifting his head.
+
+Pavel listened.
+
+'It's the curlews flying and whistling.'
+
+'Where are they flying to?'
+
+'To a land where, they say, there is no winter.'
+
+'But is there such a land?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Is it far away?'
+
+'Far, far away, beyond the warm seas.'
+
+Kostya sighed and shut his eyes.
+
+More than three hours had passed since I first came across the boys.
+The moon at last had risen; I did not notice it at first; it was such a
+tiny crescent. This moonless night was as solemn and hushed as it had
+been at first.... But already many stars, that not long before had been
+high up in the heavens, were setting over the earth's dark rim;
+everything around was perfectly still, as it is only still towards
+morning; all was sleeping the deep unbroken sleep that comes before
+daybreak. Already the fragrance in the air was fainter; once more a dew
+seemed falling.... How short are nights in summer!... The boys' talk
+died down when the fires did. The dogs even were dozing; the horses, so
+far as I could make out, in the hardly-perceptible, faintly shining
+light of the stars, were asleep with downcast heads.... I fell into a
+state of weary unconsciousness, which passed into sleep.
+
+A fresh breeze passed over my face. I opened my eyes; the morning was
+beginning. The dawn had not yet flushed the sky, but already it was
+growing light in the east. Everything had become visible, though dimly
+visible, around. The pale grey sky was growing light and cold and
+bluish; the stars twinkled with a dimmer light, or disappeared; the
+earth was wet, the leaves covered with dew, and from the distance came
+sounds of life and voices, and a light morning breeze went fluttering
+over the earth. My body responded to it with a faint shudder of
+delight. I got up quickly and went to the boys. They were all sleeping
+as though they were tired out round the smouldering fire; only Pavel
+half rose and gazed intently at me.
+
+I nodded to him, and walked homewards beside the misty river. Before I
+had walked two miles, already all around me, over the wide dew-drenched
+prairie, and in front from forest to forest, where the hills were
+growing green again, and behind, over the long dusty road and the
+sparkling bushes, flushed with the red glow, and the river faintly blue
+now under the lifting mist, flowed fresh streams of burning light,
+first pink, then red and golden.... All things began to stir, to
+awaken, to sing, to flutter, to speak. On all sides thick drops of dew
+sparkled in glittering diamonds; to welcome me, pure and clear as
+though bathed in the freshness of morning, came the notes of a bell,
+and suddenly there rushed by me, driven by the boys I had parted from,
+the drove of horses, refreshed and rested....
+
+Sad to say, I must add that in that year Pavel met his end. He was not
+drowned; he was killed by a fall from his horse. Pity! he was a
+splendid fellow!
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+                        KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
+
+
+I was returning from hunting in a jolting little trap, and overcome by
+the stifling heat of a cloudy summer day (it is well known that the
+heat is often more insupportable on such days than in bright days,
+especially when there is no wind), I dozed and was shaken about,
+resigning myself with sullen fortitude to being persecuted by the fine
+white dust which was incessantly raised from the beaten road by the
+warped and creaking wheels, when suddenly my attention was aroused by
+the extraordinary uneasiness and agitated movements of my coachman, who
+had till that instant been more soundly dozing than I. He began tugging
+at the reins, moved uneasily on the box, and started shouting to the
+horses, staring all the while in one direction. I looked round. We were
+driving through a wide ploughed plain; low hills, also ploughed over,
+ran in gently sloping, swelling waves over it; the eye took in some
+five miles of deserted country; in the distance the round-scolloped
+tree-tops of some small birch-copses were the only objects to break the
+almost straight line of the horizon. Narrow paths ran over the fields,
+disappeared into the hollows, and wound round the hillocks. On one of
+these paths, which happened to run into our road five hundred paces
+ahead of us, I made out a kind of procession. At this my coachman was
+looking.
+
+It was a funeral. In front, in a little cart harnessed with one horse,
+and advancing at a walking pace, came the priest; beside him sat the
+deacon driving; behind the cart four peasants, bareheaded, carried the
+coffin, covered with a white cloth; two women followed the coffin. The
+shrill wailing voice of one of them suddenly reached my ears; I
+listened; she was intoning a dirge. Very dismal sounded this chanted,
+monotonous, hopelessly-sorrowful lament among the empty fields. The
+coachman whipped up the horses; he wanted to get in front of this
+procession. To meet a corpse on the road is a bad omen. And he did
+succeed in galloping ahead beyond this path before the funeral had had
+time to turn out of it into the high-road; but we had hardly got a
+hundred paces beyond this point, when suddenly our trap jolted
+violently, heeled on one side, and all but overturned. The coachman
+pulled up the galloping horses, and spat with a gesture of his hand.
+
+'What is it?' I asked.
+
+My coachman got down without speaking or hurrying himself.
+
+'But what is it?'
+
+'The axle is broken ... it caught fire,' he replied gloomily, and he
+suddenly arranged the collar on the off-side horse with such
+indignation that it was almost pushed over, but it stood its ground,
+snorted, shook itself, and tranquilly began to scratch its foreleg
+below the knee with its teeth.
+
+I got out and stood for some time on the road, a prey to a vague and
+unpleasant feeling of helplessness. The right wheel was almost
+completely bent in under the trap, and it seemed to turn its centre-
+piece upwards in dumb despair.
+
+'What are we to do now?' I said at last.
+
+'That's what's the cause of it!' said my coachman, pointing with his
+whip to the funeral procession, which had just turned into the highroad
+and was approaching us. 'I have always noticed that,' he went on; 'it's
+a true saying--"Meet a corpse"--yes, indeed.'
+
+And again he began worrying the off-side horse, who, seeing his ill-
+humour, resolved to remain perfectly quiet, and contented itself with
+discreetly switching its tail now and then. I walked up and down a
+little while, and then stopped again before the wheel.
+
+Meanwhile the funeral had come up to us. Quietly turning off the road
+on to the grass, the mournful procession moved slowly past us. My
+coachman and I took off our caps, saluted the priest, and exchanged
+glances with the bearers. They moved with difficulty under their
+burden, their broad chests standing out under the strain. Of the two
+women who followed the coffin, one was very old and pale; her set face,
+terribly distorted as it was by grief, still kept an expression of
+grave and severe dignity. She walked in silence, from time to time
+lifting her wasted hand to her thin drawn lips. The other, a young
+woman of five-and-twenty, had her eyes red and moist and her whole face
+swollen with weeping; as she passed us she ceased wailing, and hid her
+face in her sleeve.... But when the funeral had got round us and turned
+again into the road, her piteous, heart-piercing lament began again. My
+coachman followed the measured swaying of the coffin with his eyes in
+silence. Then he turned to me.
+
+'It's Martin, the carpenter, they're burying,' he said; 'Martin of
+Ryaby.'
+
+'How do you know?'
+
+'I know by the women. The old one is his mother, and the young one's
+his wife.'
+
+'Has he been ill, then?'
+
+'Yes ... fever. The day before yesterday the overseer sent for the
+doctor, but they did not find the doctor at home. He was a good
+carpenter; he drank a bit, but he was a good carpenter. See how upset
+his good woman is.... But, there; women's tears don't cost much, we
+know. Women's tears are only water ... yes, indeed.'
+
+And he bent down, crept under the side-horse's trace, and seized the
+wooden yoke that passes over the horses' heads with both hands.
+
+'Any way,' I observed, 'what are we going to do?'
+
+My coachman just supported himself with his knees on the shaft-horse's
+shoulder, twice gave the back-strap a shake, and straightened the pad;
+then he crept out of the side-horse's trace again, and giving it a blow
+on the nose as he passed, went up to the wheel. He went up to it, and,
+never taking his eyes off it, slowly took out of the skirts of his coat
+a box, slowly pulled open its lid by a strap, slowly thrust into it his
+two fat fingers (which pretty well filled it up), rolled and rolled up
+some snuff, and creasing up his nose in anticipation, helped himself to
+it several times in succession, accompanying the snuff-taking every time
+by a prolonged sneezing. Then, his streaming eyes blinking faintly, he
+relapsed into profound meditation.
+
+'Well?' I said at last.
+
+My coachman thrust his box carefully into his pocket, brought his hat
+forward on to his brows without the aid of his hand by a movement of
+his head, and gloomily got up on the box.
+
+'What are you doing?' I asked him, somewhat bewildered.
+
+'Pray be seated,' he replied calmly, picking up the reins.
+
+'But how can we go on?'
+
+'We will go on now.'
+
+'But the axle.'
+
+'Pray be seated.'
+
+'But the axle is broken.'
+
+'It is broken; but we will get to the settlement ... at a walking pace,
+of course. Over here, beyond the copse, on the right, is a settlement;
+they call it Yudino.'
+
+'And do you think we can get there?'
+
+My coachman did not vouchsafe me a reply.
+
+'I had better walk,' I said.
+
+'As you like....' And he nourished his whip. The horses started.
+
+We did succeed in getting to the settlement, though the right front
+wheel was almost off, and turned in a very strange way. On one hillock
+it almost flew off, but my coachman shouted in a voice of exasperation,
+and we descended it in safety.
+
+Yudino settlement consisted of six little low-pitched huts, the walls
+of which had already begun to warp out of the perpendicular, though
+they had certainly not been long built; the back-yards of some of the
+huts were not even fenced in with a hedge. As we drove into this
+settlement we did not meet a single living soul; there were no hens
+even to be seen in the street, and no dogs, but one black crop-tailed
+cur, which at our approach leaped hurriedly out of a perfectly dry and
+empty trough, to which it must have been driven by thirst, and at once,
+without barking, rushed headlong under a gate. I went up to the first
+hut, opened the door into the outer room, and called for the master of
+the house. No one answered me. I called once more; the hungry mewing of
+a cat sounded behind the other door. I pushed it open with my foot; a
+thin cat ran up and down near me, her green eyes glittering in the
+dark. I put my head into the room and looked round; it was empty, dark,
+and smoky. I returned to the yard, and there was no one there
+either.... A calf lowed behind the paling; a lame grey goose waddled a
+little away. I passed on to the second hut. Not a soul in the second
+hut either. I went into the yard....
+
+In the very middle of the yard, in the glaring sunlight, there lay,
+with his face on the ground and a cloak thrown over his head, a boy, as
+it seemed to me. In a thatched shed a few paces from him a thin little
+nag with broken harness was standing near a wretched little cart. The
+sunshine falling in streaks through the narrow cracks in the
+dilapidated roof, striped his shaggy, reddish-brown coat in small bands
+of light. Above, in the high bird-house, starlings were chattering and
+looking down inquisitively from their airy home. I went up to the
+sleeping figure and began to awaken him.
+
+He lifted his head, saw me, and at once jumped up on to his feet....
+'What? what do you want? what is it?' he muttered, half asleep.
+
+I did not answer him at once; I was so much impressed by his
+appearance.
+
+Picture to yourself a little creature of fifty years old, with a little
+round wrinkled face, a sharp nose, little, scarcely visible, brown
+eyes, and thick curly black hair, which stood out on his tiny head like
+the cap on the top of a mushroom. His whole person was excessively thin
+and weakly, and it is absolutely impossible to translate into words the
+extraordinary strangeness of his expression.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked me again. I explained to him what was the
+matter; he listened, slowly blinking, without taking his eyes off me.
+
+'So cannot we get a new axle?' I said finally; 'I will gladly pay for
+it.'
+
+'But who are you? Hunters, eh?' he asked, scanning me from head to
+foot.
+
+'Hunters.'
+
+'You shoot the fowls of heaven, I suppose?... the wild things of the
+woods?... And is it not a sin to kill God's birds, to shed the innocent
+blood?'
+
+The strange old man spoke in a very drawling tone. The sound of his
+voice also astonished me. There was none of the weakness of age to be
+heard in it; it was marvellously sweet, young and almost feminine in
+its softness.
+
+'I have no axle,' he added after a brief silence. 'That thing will not
+suit you.' He pointed to his cart. 'You have, I expect, a large trap.'
+
+'But can I get one in the village?'
+
+'Not much of a village here!... No one has an axle here.... And there
+is no one at home either; they are all at work. You must go on,' he
+announced suddenly; and he lay down again on the ground.
+
+I had not at all expected this conclusion.
+
+'Listen, old man,' I said, touching him on the shoulder; 'do me a
+kindness, help me.'
+
+'Go on, in God's name! I am tired; I have driven into the town,' he
+said, and drew his cloak over his head.
+
+'But pray do me a kindness,' I said. 'I ... I will pay for it.' 'I
+don't want your money.'
+
+'But please, old man.'
+
+He half raised himself and sat up, crossing his little legs.
+
+'I could take you perhaps to the clearing. Some merchants have bought
+the forest here--God be their judge! They are cutting down the forest,
+and they have built a counting-house there--God be their judge! You
+might order an axle of them there, or buy one ready made.'
+
+'Splendid!' I cried delighted; 'splendid! let us go.'
+
+'An oak axle, a good one,' he continued, not getting up from his place.
+
+'And is it far to this clearing?'
+
+'Three miles.'
+
+'Come, then! we can drive there in your trap.'
+
+'Oh, no....'
+
+'Come, let us go,' I said; 'let us go, old man! The coachman is waiting
+for us in the road.'
+
+The old man rose unwillingly and followed me into the street. We found
+my coachman in an irritable frame of mind; he had tried to water his
+horses, but the water in the well, it appeared, was scanty in quantity
+and bad in taste, and water is the first consideration with
+coachmen.... However, he grinned at the sight of the old man, nodded
+his head and cried: 'Hallo! Kassyanushka! good health to you!'
+
+'Good health to you, Erofay, upright man!' replied Kassyan in a
+dejected voice.
+
+I at once made known his suggestion to the coachman; Erofay expressed
+his approval of it and drove into the yard. While he was busy
+deliberately unharnessing the horses, the old man stood leaning with
+his shoulders against the gate, and looking disconsolately first at him
+and then at me. He seemed in some uncertainty of mind; he was not very
+pleased, as it seemed to me, at our sudden visit.
+
+'So they have transported you too?' Erofay asked him suddenly, lifting
+the wooden arch of the harness.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Ugh!' said my coachman between his teeth. 'You know Martin the
+carpenter.... Of course, you know Martin of Ryaby?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, he is dead. We have just met his coffin.'
+
+Kassyan shuddered.
+
+'Dead?' he said, and his head sank dejectedly.
+
+'Yes, he is dead. Why didn't you cure him, eh? You know they say you
+cure folks; you're a doctor.'
+
+My coachman was apparently laughing and jeering at the old man.
+
+'And is this your trap, pray?' he added, with a shrug of his shoulders
+in its direction.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, a trap ... a fine trap!' he repeated, and taking it by the
+shafts almost turned it completely upside down. 'A trap!... But what
+will you drive in it to the clearing?... You can't harness our horses
+in these shafts; our horses are all too big.'
+
+'I don't know,' replied Kassyan, 'what you are going to drive; that
+beast perhaps,' he added with a sigh.
+
+'That?' broke in Erofay, and going up to Kassyan's nag, he tapped it
+disparagingly on the back with the third finger of his right hand.
+'See,' he added contemptuously, 'it's asleep, the scare-crow!'
+
+I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as he could. I wanted to drive
+myself with Kassyan to the clearing; grouse are fond of such places.
+When the little cart was quite ready, and I, together with my dog, had
+been installed in the warped wicker body of it, and Kassyan huddled up
+into a little ball, with still the same dejected expression on his
+face, had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up to me and whispered
+with an air of mystery:
+
+'You did well, your honour, to drive with him. He is such a queer
+fellow; he's cracked, you know, and his nickname is the Flea. I don't
+know how you managed to make him out....'
+
+I tried to say to Erofay that so far Kassyan had seemed to me a very
+sensible man; but my coachman continued at once in the same voice:
+
+'But you keep a look-out where he is driving you to. And, your honour,
+be pleased to choose the axle yourself; be pleased to choose a sound
+one.... Well, Flea,' he added aloud, 'could I get a bit of bread in
+your house?'
+
+'Look about; you may find some,' answered Kassyan. He pulled the reins
+and we rolled away.
+
+His little horse, to my genuine astonishment, did not go badly. Kassyan
+preserved an obstinate silence the whole way, and made abrupt and
+unwilling answers to my questions. We quickly reached the clearing, and
+then made our way to the counting-house, a lofty cottage, standing by
+itself over a small gully, which had been dammed up and converted into
+a pool. In this counting-house I found two young merchants' clerks,
+with snow-white teeth, sweet and soft eyes, sweet and subtle words, and
+sweet and wily smiles. I bought an axle of them and returned to the
+clearing. I thought that Kassyan would stay with the horse and await my
+return; but he suddenly came up to me.
+
+'Are you going to shoot birds, eh?' he said.
+
+'Yes, if I come across any.'
+
+'I will come with you.... Can I?'
+
+'Certainly, certainly.'
+
+So we went together. The land cleared was about a mile in length. I
+must confess I watched Kassyan more than my dogs. He had been aptly
+called 'Flea.' His little black uncovered head (though his hair,
+indeed, was as good a covering as any cap) seemed to flash hither and
+thither among the bushes. He walked extraordinarily swiftly, and seemed
+always hopping up and down as he moved; he was for ever stooping down
+to pick herbs of some kind, thrusting them into his bosom, muttering to
+himself, and constantly looking at me and my dog with such a strange
+searching gaze. Among low bushes and in clearings there are often
+little grey birds which constantly flit from tree to tree, and which
+whistle as they dart away. Kassyan mimicked them, answered their calls;
+a young quail flew from between his feet, chirruping, and he chirruped
+in imitation of him; a lark began to fly down above him, moving his
+wings and singing melodiously: Kassyan joined in his song. He did not
+speak to me at all....
+
+The weather was glorious, even more so than before; but the heat was no
+less. Over the clear sky the high thin clouds were hardly stirred,
+yellowish-white, like snow lying late in spring, flat and drawn out
+like rolled-up sails. Slowly but perceptibly their fringed edges, soft
+and fluffy as cotton-wool, changed at every moment; they were melting
+away, even these clouds, and no shadow fell from them. I strolled about
+the clearing for a long while with Kassyan. Young shoots, which had not
+yet had time to grow more than a yard high, surrounded the low
+blackened stumps with their smooth slender stems; and spongy funguses
+with grey edges--the same of which they make tinder--clung to these;
+strawberry plants flung their rosy tendrils over them; mushrooms
+squatted close in groups. The feet were constantly caught and entangled
+in the long grass, that was parched in the scorching sun; the eyes were
+dazzled on all sides by the glaring metallic glitter on the young
+reddish leaves of the trees; on all sides were the variegated blue
+clusters of vetch, the golden cups of bloodwort, and the half-lilac,
+half-yellow blossoms of the heart's-ease. In some places near the
+disused paths, on which the tracks of wheels were marked by streaks on
+the fine bright grass, rose piles of wood, blackened by wind and rain,
+laid in yard-lengths; there was a faint shadow cast from them in
+slanting oblongs; there was no other shade anywhere. A light breeze
+rose, then sank again; suddenly it would blow straight in the face and
+seem to be rising; everything would begin to rustle merrily, to nod, to
+shake around one; the supple tops of the ferns bow down gracefully, and
+one rejoices in it, but at once it dies away again, and all is at rest
+once more. Only the grasshoppers chirrup in chorus with frenzied
+energy, and wearisome is this unceasing, sharp dry sound. It is in
+keeping with the persistent heat of mid-day; it seems akin to it, as
+though evoked by it out of the glowing earth.
+
+Without having started one single covey we at last reached another
+clearing. There the aspen-trees had only lately been felled, and lay
+stretched mournfully on the ground, crushing the grass and small
+undergrowth below them: on some the leaves were still green, though
+they were already dead, and hung limply from the motionless branches;
+on others they were crumpled and dried up. Fresh golden-white chips lay
+in heaps round the stumps that were covered with bright drops; a
+peculiar, very pleasant, pungent odour rose from them. Farther away,
+nearer the wood, sounded the dull blows of the axe, and from time to
+time, bowing and spreading wide its arms, a bushy tree fell slowly and
+majestically to the ground.
+
+For a long time I did not come upon a single bird; at last a corncrake
+flew out of a thick clump of young oak across the wormwood springing up
+round it. I fired; it turned over in the air and fell. At the sound of
+the shot, Kassyan quickly covered his eyes with his hand, and he did
+not stir till I had reloaded the gun and picked up the bird. When I had
+moved farther on, he went up to the place where the wounded bird had
+fallen, bent down to the grass, on which some drops of blood were
+sprinkled, shook his head, and looked in dismay at me.... I heard him
+afterwards whispering: 'A sin!... Ah, yes, it's a sin!'
+
+The heat forced us at last to go into the wood. I flung myself down
+under a high nut-bush, over which a slender young maple gracefully
+stretched its light branches. Kassyan sat down on the thick trunk of a
+felled birch-tree. I looked at him. The leaves faintly stirred
+overhead, and their thin greenish shadows crept softly to and fro over
+his feeble body, muffled in a dark coat, and over his little face. He
+did not lift his head. Bored by his silence, I lay on my back and began
+to admire the tranquil play of the tangled foliage on the background of
+the bright, far away sky. A marvellously sweet occupation it is to lie
+on one's back in a wood and gaze upwards! You may fancy you are looking
+into a bottomless sea; that it stretches wide below you; that the trees
+are not rising out of the earth, but, like the roots of gigantic weeds,
+are dropping--falling straight down into those glassy, limpid depths;
+the leaves on the trees are at one moment transparent as emeralds, the
+next, they condense into golden, almost black green. Somewhere, afar
+off, at the end of a slender twig, a single leaf hangs motionless
+against the blue patch of transparent sky, and beside it another
+trembles with the motion of a fish on the line, as though moving of its
+own will, not shaken by the wind. Round white clouds float calmly
+across, and calmly pass away like submarine islands; and suddenly, all
+this ocean, this shining ether, these branches and leaves steeped in
+sunlight--all is rippling, quivering in fleeting brilliance, and a
+fresh trembling whisper awakens like the tiny, incessant plash of
+suddenly stirred eddies. One does not move--one looks, and no word can
+tell what peace, what joy, what sweetness reigns in the heart. One
+looks: the deep, pure blue stirs on one's lips a smile, innocent as
+itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, as it were, with them, happy
+memories pass in slow procession over the soul, and still one fancies
+one's gaze goes deeper and deeper, and draws one with it up into that
+peaceful, shining immensity, and that one cannot be brought back from
+that height, that depth....
+
+'Master, master!' cried Kassyan suddenly in his musical voice.
+
+I raised myself in surprise: up till then he had scarcely replied to my
+questions, and now he suddenly addressed me of himself.
+
+'What is it?' I asked.
+
+'What did you kill the bird for?' he began, looking me straight in the
+face.
+
+'What for? Corncrake is game; one can eat it.'
+
+'That was not what you killed it for, master, as though you were going
+to eat it! You killed it for amusement.'
+
+'Well, you yourself, I suppose, eat geese or chickens?'
+
+'Those birds are provided by God for man, but the corncrake is a wild
+bird of the woods: and not he alone; many they are, the wild things of
+the woods and the fields, and the wild things of the rivers and marshes
+and moors, flying on high or creeping below; and a sin it is to slay
+them: let them live their allotted life upon the earth. But for man
+another food has been provided; his food is other, and other his
+sustenance: bread, the good gift of God, and the water of heaven, and
+the tame beasts that have come down to us from our fathers of old.'
+
+I looked in astonishment at Kassyan. His words flowed freely; he did
+not hesitate for a word; he spoke with quiet inspiration and gentle
+dignity, sometimes closing his eyes.
+
+'So is it sinful, then, to kill fish, according to you?' I asked.
+
+'Fishes have cold blood,' he replied with conviction. 'The fish is a
+dumb creature; it knows neither fear nor rejoicing. The fish is a
+voiceless creature. The fish does not feel; the blood in it is not
+living.... Blood,' he continued, after a pause, 'blood is a holy thing!
+God's sun does not look upon blood; it is hidden away from the light
+... it is a great sin to bring blood into the light of day; a great sin
+and horror.... Ah, a great sin!'
+
+He sighed, and his head drooped forward. I looked, I confess, in
+absolute amazement at the strange old man. His language did not sound
+like the language of a peasant; the common people do not speak like
+that, nor those who aim at fine speaking. His speech was meditative,
+grave, and curious.... I had never heard anything like it.
+
+'Tell me, please, Kassyan,' I began, without taking my eyes off his
+slightly flushed face, 'what is your occupation?'
+
+He did not answer my question at once. His eyes strayed uneasily for an
+instant.
+
+'I live as the Lord commands,' he brought out at last; 'and as for
+occupation--no, I have no occupation. I've never been very clever from
+a child: I work when I can: I'm not much of a workman--how should I be?
+I have no health; my hands are awkward. In the spring I catch
+nightingales.'
+
+'You catch nightingales?... But didn't you tell me that we must not
+touch any of the wild things of the woods and the fields, and so on?'
+
+'We must not kill them, of a certainty; death will take its own without
+that. Look at Martin the carpenter; Martin lived, and his life was not
+long, but he died; his wife now grieves for her husband, for her little
+children.... Neither for man nor beast is there any charm against
+death. Death does not hasten, nor is there any escaping it; but we must
+not aid death.... And I do not kill nightingales--God forbid! I do not
+catch them to harm them, to spoil their lives, but for the pleasure of
+men, for their comfort and delight.'
+
+'Do you go to Kursk to catch them?'
+
+'Yes, I go to Kursk, and farther too, at times. I pass nights in the
+marshes, or at the edge of the forests; I am alone at night in the
+fields, in the thickets; there the curlews call and the hares squeak
+and the wild ducks lift up their voices.... I note them at evening; at
+morning I give ear to them; at daybreak I cast my net over the
+bushes.... There are nightingales that sing so pitifully sweet ... yea,
+pitifully.'
+
+'And do you sell them?'
+
+'I give them to good people.'
+
+'And what are you doing now?'
+
+'What am I doing?'
+
+'Yes, how are you employed?'
+
+The old man was silent for a little.
+
+'I am not employed at all.... I am a poor workman. But I can read and
+write.'
+
+'You can read?'
+
+'Yes, I can read and write. I learnt, by the help of God and good
+people.'
+
+'Have you a family?'
+
+'No, not a family.'
+
+'How so?... Are they dead, then?'
+
+'No, but ... I have never been lucky in life. But all that is in God's
+hands; we are all in God's hands; and a man should be righteous--that
+is all! Upright before God, that is it.'
+
+'And you have no kindred?'
+
+'Yes ... well....'
+
+The old man was confused.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I began: 'I heard my coachman ask you why you did
+not cure Martin? You cure disease?'
+
+'Your coachman is a righteous man,' Kassyan answered thoughtfully. 'I
+too am not without sin. They call me a doctor.... Me a doctor, indeed!
+And who can heal the sick? That is all a gift from God. But there are
+... yes, there are herbs, and there are flowers; they are of use, of a
+certainty. There is plantain, for instance, a herb good for man; there
+is bud-marigold too; it is not sinful to speak of them: they are holy
+herbs of God. Then there are others not so; and they may be of use, but
+it's a sin; and to speak of them is a sin. Still, with prayer, may
+be.... And doubtless there are such words.... But who has faith, shall
+be saved,' he added, dropping his voice.
+
+'You did not give Martin anything?' I asked.
+
+'I heard of it too late,' replied the old man. 'But what of it! Each
+man's destiny is written from his birth. The carpenter Martin was not
+to live; he was not to live upon the earth: that was what it was. No,
+when a man is not to live on the earth, him the sunshine does not warm
+like another, and him the bread does not nourish and make strong; it is
+as though something is drawing him away.... Yes: God rest his soul!'
+
+'Have you been settled long amongst us?' I asked him after a short
+pause.
+
+Kassyan started.
+
+'No, not long; four years. In the old master's time we always lived in
+our old houses, but the trustees transported us. Our old master was a
+kind heart, a man of peace--the Kingdom of Heaven be his! The trustees
+doubtless judged righteously.'
+
+'And where did you live before?'
+
+'At Fair Springs.'
+
+'Is it far from here?'
+
+'A hundred miles.'
+
+'Well, were you better off there?'
+
+'Yes ... yes, there there was open country, with rivers; it was our
+home: here we are cramped and parched up.... Here we are strangers.
+There at home, at Fair Springs, you could get up on to a hill--and ah,
+my God, what a sight you could see! Streams and plains and forests, and
+there was a church, and then came plains beyond. You could see far,
+very far. Yes, how far you could look--you could look and look, ah,
+yes! Here, doubtless, the soil is better; it is clay--good fat clay, as
+the peasants say; for me the corn grows well enough everywhere.'
+
+'Confess then, old man; you would like to visit your birth-place
+again?'
+
+'Yes, I should like to see it. Still, all places are good. I am a man
+without kin, without neighbours. And, after all, do you gain much,
+pray, by staying at home? But, behold! as you walk, and as you walk,'
+he went on, raising his voice, 'the heart grows lighter, of a truth.
+And the sun shines upon you, and you are in the sight of God, and the
+singing comes more tunefully. Here, you look--what herb is growing; you
+look on it--you pick it. Here water runs, perhaps--spring water, a
+source of pure holy water; so you drink of it--you look on it too. The
+birds of heaven sing.... And beyond Kursk come the steppes, that
+steppes-country: ah, what a marvel, what a delight for man! what
+freedom, what a blessing of God! And they go on, folks tell, even to
+the warm seas where dwells the sweet-voiced bird, the Hamayune, and
+from the trees the leaves fall not, neither in autumn nor in winter,
+and apples grow of gold, on silver branches, and every man lives in
+uprightness and content. And I would go even there.... Have I journeyed
+so little already! I have been to Romyon and to Simbirsk the fair city,
+and even to Moscow of the golden domes; I have been to Oka the good
+nurse, and to Tsna the dove, and to our mother Volga, and many folks,
+good Christians have I seen, and noble cities I have visited.... Well,
+I would go thither ... yes ... and more too ... and I am not the only
+one, I a poor sinner ... many other Christians go in bast-shoes,
+roaming over the world, seeking truth, yea!... For what is there at
+home? No righteousness in man--it's that.'
+
+These last words Kassyan uttered quickly, almost unintelligibly; then
+he said something more which I could not catch at all, and such a
+strange expression passed over his face that I involuntarily recalled
+the epithet 'cracked.' He looked down, cleared his throat, and seemed
+to come to himself again. 'What sunshine!' he murmured in a low voice.
+'It is a blessing, oh, Lord! What warmth in the woods!'
+
+He gave a movement of the shoulders and fell into silence. With a vague
+look round him he began softly to sing. I could not catch all the words
+of his slow chant; I heard the following:
+
+             'They call me Kassyan,
+               But my nickname's the Flea.'
+
+
+'Oh!' I thought, 'so he improvises.' Suddenly he started and ceased
+singing, looking intently at a thick part of the wood. I turned and saw
+a little peasant girl, about seven years old, in a blue frock, with a
+checked handkerchief over her head, and a woven bark-basket in her
+little bare sunburnt hand. She had certainly not expected to meet us;
+she had, as they say, 'stumbled upon' us, and she stood motionless in a
+shady recess among the thick foliage of the nut-trees, looking dismayed
+at me with her black eyes. I had scarcely time to catch a glimpse of
+her; she dived behind a tree.
+
+'Annushka! Annushka! come here, don't be afraid!' cried the old man
+caressingly.
+
+'I'm afraid,' came her shrill voice.
+
+'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid; come to me.'
+
+Annushka left her hiding place in silence, walked softly round--her
+little childish feet scarcely sounded on the thick grass--and came out
+of the bushes near the old man. She was not a child of seven, as I had
+fancied at first, from her diminutive stature, but a girl of thirteen
+or fourteen. Her whole person was small and thin, but very neat and
+graceful, and her pretty little face was strikingly like Kassyan's own,
+though he was certainly not handsome. There were the same thin
+features, and the same strange expression, shy and confiding,
+melancholy and shrewd, and her gestures were the same.... Kassyan kept
+his eyes fixed on her; she took her stand at his side.
+
+'Well, have you picked any mushrooms?' he asked.
+
+'Yes,' she answered with a shy smile.
+
+'Did you find many?'
+
+'Yes.' (She stole a swift look at him and smiled again.)
+
+'Are they white ones?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Show me, show me.... (She slipped the basket off her arm and half-
+lifted the big burdock leaf which covered up the mushrooms.) 'Ah!' said
+Kassyan, bending down over the basket; 'what splendid ones! Well done,
+Annushka!'
+
+'She's your daughter, Kassyan, isn't she?' I asked. (Annushka's face
+flushed faintly.)
+
+'No, well, a relative,' replied Kassyan with affected indifference.
+'Come, Annushka, run along,' he added at once, 'run along, and God be
+with you! And take care.'
+
+'But why should she go on foot?' I interrupted. 'We could take her with
+us.'
+
+Annushka blushed like a poppy, grasped the handle of her basket with
+both hands, and looked in trepidation at the old man.
+
+'No, she will get there all right,' he answered in the same languid and
+indifferent voice. 'Why not?... She will get there.... Run along.'
+
+Annushka went rapidly away into the forest. Kassyan looked after her,
+then looked down and smiled to himself. In this prolonged smile, in the
+few words he had spoken to Annushka, and in the very sound of his voice
+when he spoke to her, there was an intense, indescribable love and
+tenderness. He looked again in the direction she had gone, again smiled
+to himself, and, passing his hand across his face, he nodded his head
+several times.
+
+'Why did you send her away so soon?' I asked him. 'I would have bought
+her mushrooms.'
+
+'Well, you can buy them there at home just the same, sir, if you like,'
+he answered, for the first time using the formal 'sir' in addressing
+me.
+
+'She's very pretty, your girl.'
+
+'No ... only so-so,' he answered, with seeming reluctance, and from
+that instant he relapsed into the same uncommunicative mood as at
+first.
+
+Seeing that all my efforts to make him talk again were fruitless, I
+went off into the clearing. Meantime the heat had somewhat abated; but
+my ill-success, or, as they say among us, my 'ill-luck,' continued, and
+I returned to the settlement with nothing but one corncrake and the new
+axle. Just as we were driving into the yard, Kassyan suddenly turned to
+me.
+
+'Master, master,' he began, 'do you know I have done you a wrong; it
+was I cast a spell to keep all the game off.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Oh, I can do that. Here you have a well-trained dog and a good one,
+but he could do nothing. When you think of it, what are men? what are
+they? Here's a beast; what have they made of him?'
+
+It would have been useless for me to try to convince Kassyan of the
+impossibility of 'casting a spell' on game, and so I made him no reply.
+Meantime we had turned into the yard.
+
+Annushka was not in the hut: she had had time to get there before us,
+and to leave her basket of mushrooms. Erofay fitted in the new axle,
+first exposing it to a severe and most unjust criticism; and an hour
+later I set off, leaving a small sum of money with Kassyan, which at
+first he was unwilling to accept, but afterwards, after a moment's
+thought, holding it in his hand, he put it in his bosom. In the course
+of this hour he had scarcely uttered a single word; he stood as before,
+leaning against the gate. He made no reply to the reproaches of my
+coachman, and took leave very coldly of me.
+
+Directly I turned round, I could see that my worthy Erofay was in a
+gloomy frame of mind.... To be sure, he had found nothing to eat in the
+country; the only water for his horses was bad. We drove off. With
+dissatisfaction expressed even in the back of his head, he sat on the
+box, burning to begin to talk to me. While waiting for me to begin by
+some question, he confined himself to a low muttering in an undertone,
+and some rather caustic instructions to the horses. 'A village,' he
+muttered; 'call that a village? You ask for a drop of kvas--not a drop
+of kvas even.... Ah, Lord!... And the water--simply filth!' (He spat
+loudly.) 'Not a cucumber, nor kvas, nor nothing.... Now, then!' he
+added aloud, turning to the right trace-horse; 'I know you, you
+humbug.' (And he gave him a cut with the whip.) 'That horse has learnt
+to shirk his work entirely, and yet he was a willing beast once. Now,
+then--look alive!'
+
+'Tell me, please, Erofay,' I began, 'what sort of a man is Kassyan?'
+
+Erofay did not answer me at once: he was, in general, a reflective and
+deliberate fellow; but I could see directly that my question was
+soothing and cheering to him.
+
+'The Flea?' he said at last, gathering up the reins; 'he's a queer
+fellow; yes, a crazy chap; such a queer fellow, you wouldn't find
+another like him in a hurry. You know, for example, he's for all the
+world like our roan horse here; he gets out of everything--out of work,
+that's to say. But, then, what sort of workman could he be?... He's
+hardly body enough to keep his soul in ... but still, of course....
+He's been like that from a child up, you know. At first he followed his
+uncle's business as a carrier--there were three of them in the
+business; but then he got tired of it, you know--he threw it up. He
+began to live at home, but he could not keep at home long; he's so
+restless--a regular flea, in fact. He happened, by good luck, to have a
+good master--he didn't worry him. Well, so ever since he has been
+wandering about like a lost sheep. And then, he's so strange; there's
+no understanding him. Sometimes he'll be as silent as a post, and then
+he'll begin talking, and God knows what he'll say! Is that good
+manners, pray? He's an absurd fellow, that he is. But he sings well,
+for all that.'
+
+'And does he cure people, really?'
+
+'Cure people!... Well, how should he? A fine sort of doctor! Though he
+did cure me of the king's evil, I must own.... But how can he? He's a
+stupid fellow, that's what he is,' he added, after a moment's pause.
+
+'Have you known him long?'
+
+'A long while. I was his neighbour at Sitchovka up at Fair Springs.'
+
+'And what of that girl--who met us in the wood, Annushka--what relation
+is she to him?'
+
+Erofay looked at me over his shoulder, and grinned all over his face.
+
+'He, he!... yes, they are relations. She is an orphan; she has no
+mother, and it's not even known who her mother was. But she must be a
+relation; she's too much like him.... Anyway, she lives with him. She's
+a smart girl, there's no denying; a good girl; and as for the old man,
+she's simply the apple of his eye; she's a good girl. And, do you know,
+you wouldn't believe it, but do you know, he's managed to teach
+Annushka to read? Well, well! that's quite like him; he's such an
+extraordinary fellow, such a changeable fellow; there's no reckoning on
+him, really.... Eh! eh! eh!' My coachman suddenly interrupted himself,
+and stopping the horses, he bent over on one side and began sniffing.
+'Isn't there a smell of burning? Yes! Why, that new axle, I do
+declare!... I thought I'd greased it.... We must get on to some water;
+why, here is a puddle, just right.'
+
+And Erofay slowly got off his seat, untied the pail, went to the pool,
+and coming back, listened with a certain satisfaction to the hissing of
+the box of the wheel as the water suddenly touched it.... Six times
+during some eight miles he had to pour water on the smouldering axle,
+and it was quite evening when we got home at last.
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+                               THE AGENT
+
+
+Twelve miles from my place lives an acquaintance of mine, a landowner
+and a retired officer in the Guards--Arkady Pavlitch Pyenotchkin. He
+has a great deal of game on his estate, a house built after the design
+of a French architect, and servants dressed after the English fashion;
+he gives capital dinners, and a cordial reception to visitors, and,
+with all that, one goes to see him reluctantly. He is a sensible and
+practical man, has received the excellent education now usual, has been
+in the service, mixed in the highest society, and is now devoting
+himself to his estate with great success. Arkady Pavlitch is, to judge
+by his own words, severe but just; he looks after the good of the
+peasants under his control and punishes them--for their good. 'One has
+to treat them like children,' he says on such occasions; 'their
+ignorance, _mon cher; il faut prendre cela en consideration_.' When
+this so-called painful necessity arises, he eschews all sharp or
+violent gestures, and prefers not to raise his voice, but with a
+straight blow in the culprit's face, says calmly, 'I believe I asked
+you to do something, my friend?' or 'What is the matter, my boy? what
+are you thinking about?' while he sets his teeth a little, and the
+corners of his mouth are drawn. He is not tall, but has an elegant
+figure, and is very good-looking; his hands and nails are kept
+perfectly exquisite; his rosy cheeks and lips are simply the picture of
+health. He has a ringing, light-hearted laugh, and there is sometimes a
+very genial twinkle in his clear brown eyes. He dresses in excellent
+taste; he orders French books, prints, and papers, though he's no great
+lover of reading himself: he has hardly as much as waded through the
+_Wandering Jew_. He plays cards in masterly style. Altogether, Arkady
+Pavlitch is reckoned one of the most cultivated gentlemen and most
+eligible matches in our province; the ladies are perfectly wild over
+him, and especially admire his manners. He is wonderfully well
+conducted, wary as a cat, and has never from his cradle been mixed up
+in any scandal, though he is fond of making his power felt,
+intimidating or snubbing a nervous man, when he gets a chance. He has a
+positive distaste for doubtful society--he is afraid of compromising
+himself; in his lighter moments, however, he will avow himself a
+follower of Epicurus, though as a rule he speaks slightingly of
+philosophy, calling it the foggy food fit for German brains, or at
+times, simply, rot. He is fond of music too; at the card-table he is
+given to humming through his teeth, but with feeling; he knows by heart
+some snatches from _Lucia_ and _Somnambula_, but he is always apt to
+sing everything a little sharp. The winters he spends in Petersburg.
+His house is kept in extraordinarily good order; the very grooms feel
+his influence, and every day not only rub the harness and brush their
+coats, but even wash their faces. Arkady Pavlitch's house-serfs have,
+it is true, something of a hang-dog look; but among us Russians there's
+no knowing what is sullenness and what is sleepiness. Arkady Pavlitch
+speaks in a soft, agreeable voice, with emphasis and, as it were, with
+satisfaction; he brings out each word through his handsome perfumed
+moustaches; he uses a good many French expressions too, such as: _Mais
+c'est impayable! Mais comment donc_? and so so. For all that, I, for
+one, am never over-eager to visit him, and if it were not for the
+grouse and the partridges, I should probably have dropped his
+acquaintance altogether. One is possessed by a strange sort of
+uneasiness in his house; the very comfort is distasteful to one, and
+every evening when a befrizzed valet makes his appearance in a blue
+livery with heraldic buttons, and begins, with cringing servility,
+drawing off one's boots, one feels that if his pale, lean figure could
+suddenly be replaced by the amazingly broad cheeks and incredibly thick
+nose of a stalwart young labourer fresh from the plough, who has yet
+had time in his ten months of service to tear his new nankin coat open
+at every seam, one would be unutterably overjoyed, and would gladly run
+the risk of having one's whole leg pulled off with the boot....
+
+In spite of my aversion for Arkady Pavlitch, I once happened to pass a
+night in his house. The next day I ordered my carriage to be ready
+early in the morning, but he would not let me start without a regular
+breakfast in the English style, and conducted me into his study. With
+our tea they served us cutlets, boiled eggs, butter, honey, cheese, and
+so on. Two footmen in clean white gloves swiftly and silently
+anticipated our faintest desires. We sat on a Persian divan. Arkady
+Pavlitch was arrayed in loose silk trousers, a black velvet smoking
+jacket, a red fez with a blue tassel, and yellow Chinese slippers
+without heels. He drank his tea, laughed, scrutinised his finger-nails,
+propped himself up with cushions, and was altogether in an excellent
+humour. After making a hearty breakfast with obvious satisfaction,
+Arkady Pavlitch poured himself out a glass of red wine, lifted it to
+his lips, and suddenly frowned.
+
+'Why was not the wine warmed?' he asked rather sharply of one of the
+footmen.
+
+The footman stood stock-still in confusion, and turned white.
+
+'Didn't I ask you a question, my friend?' Arkady Pavlitch resumed
+tranquilly, never taking his eyes off the man.
+
+The luckless footman fidgeted in his place, twisted the napkin, and
+uttered not a word.
+
+Arkady Pavlitch dropped his head and looked up at him thoughtfully from
+under his eyelids.
+
+'_Pardon, mon cher_', he observed, patting my knee amicably, and again
+he stared at the footman. 'You can go,' he added, after a short
+silence, raising his eyebrows, and he rang the bell.
+
+A stout, swarthy, black-haired man, with a low forehead, and eyes
+positively lost in fat, came into the room.
+
+'About Fyodor ... make the necessary arrangements,' said Arkady
+Pavlitch in an undertone, and with complete composure.
+
+'Yes, sir,' answered the fat man, and he went out.
+
+'_Voila, mon cher, les desagrements de la campagne_,' Arkady Pavlitch
+remarked gaily. 'But where are you off to? Stop, you must stay a
+little.'
+
+'No,' I answered; 'it's time I was off.'
+
+'Nothing but sport! Oh, you sportsmen! And where are you going to shoot
+just now?'
+
+'Thirty-five miles from here, at Ryabovo.'
+
+'Ryabovo? By Jove! now in that case I will come with you. Ryabovo's
+only four miles from my village Shipilovka, and it's a long while since
+I've been over to Shipilovka; I've never been able to get the time.
+Well, this is a piece of luck; you can spend the day shooting in
+Ryabovo and come on in the evening to me. We'll have supper together--
+we'll take the cook with us, and you'll stay the night with me.
+Capital! capital!' he added without waiting for my answer.
+
+'_C'est arrange_.... Hey, you there! Have the carriage brought out, and
+look sharp. You have never been in Shipilovka? I should be ashamed to
+suggest your putting up for the night in my agent's cottage, but you're
+not particular, I know, and at Ryabovo you'd have slept in some
+hayloft.... We will go, we will go!'
+
+And Arkady Pavlitch hummed some French song.
+
+'You don't know, I dare say,' he pursued, swaying from side to side;
+'I've some peasants there who pay rent. It's the custom of the place--
+what was I to do? They pay their rent very punctually, though. I
+should, I'll own, have put them back to payment in labour, but there's
+so little land. I really wonder how they manage to make both ends meet.
+However, _c'est leur affaire_. My agent there's a fine fellow, _une
+forte tete_, a man of real administrative power! You shall see....
+Really, how luckily things have turned out!'
+
+There was no help for it. Instead of nine o'clock in the morning, we
+started at two in the afternoon. Sportsmen will sympathise with my
+impatience. Arkady Pavlitch liked, as he expressed it, to be
+comfortable when he had the chance, and he took with him such a supply
+of linen, dainties, wearing apparel, perfumes, pillows, and dressing-
+cases of all sorts, that a careful and self-denying German would have
+found enough to last him for a year. Every time we went down a steep
+hill, Arkady Pavlitch addressed some brief but powerful remarks to the
+coachman, from which I was able to deduce that my worthy friend was a
+thorough coward. The journey was, however, performed in safety, except
+that, in crossing a lately-repaired bridge, the trap with the cook in
+it broke down, and he got squeezed in the stomach against the hind-
+wheel.
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was alarmed in earnest at the sight of the fall of
+Karem, his home-made professor of the culinary art, and he sent at once
+to inquire whether his hands were injured. On receiving a reassuring
+reply to this query, his mind was set at rest immediately. With all
+this, we were rather a long time on the road; I was in the same
+carriage as Arkady Pavlitch, and towards the end of the journey I was a
+prey to deadly boredom, especially as in a few hours my companion ran
+perfectly dry of subjects of conversation, and even fell to expressing
+his liberal views on politics. At last we did arrive--not at Ryabovo,
+but at Shipilovka; it happened so somehow. I could have got no shooting
+now that day in any case, and so, raging inwardly, I submitted to my
+fate.
+
+The cook had arrived a few minutes before us, and apparently had had
+time to arrange things and prepare those whom it concerned, for on our
+very entrance within the village boundaries we were met by the village
+bailiff (the agent's son), a stalwart, red-haired peasant of seven
+feet; he was on horseback, bareheaded, and wearing a new overcoat, not
+buttoned up. 'And where's Sofron?' Arkady Pavlitch asked him. The
+bailiff first jumped nimbly off his horse, bowed to his master till he
+was bent double, and said: 'Good health to you, Arkady Pavlitch, sir!'
+then raised his head, shook himself, and announced that Sofron had gone
+to Perov, but they had sent after him.
+
+'Well, come along after us,' said Arkady Pavlitch. The bailiff
+deferentially led his horse to one side, clambered on to it, and
+followed the carriage at a trot, his cap in his hand. We drove through
+the village. A few peasants in empty carts happened to meet us; they
+were driving from the threshing-floor and singing songs, swaying
+backwards and forwards, and swinging their legs in the air; but at the
+sight of our carriage and the bailiff they were suddenly silent, took
+off their winter caps (it was summer-time) and got up as though waiting
+for orders. Arkady Pavlitch nodded to them graciously. A flutter of
+excitement had obviously spread through the hamlet. Peasant women in
+check petticoats flung splinters of wood at indiscreet or over-zealous
+dogs; an old lame man with a beard that began just under his eyes
+pulled a horse away from the well before it had drunk, gave it, for
+some obscure reason, a blow on the side, and fell to bowing low. Boys
+in long smocks ran with a howl to the huts, flung themselves on their
+bellies on the high door-sills, with their heads down and legs in the
+air, rolled over with the utmost haste into the dark outer rooms, from
+which they did not reappear again. Even the hens sped in a hurried
+scuttle to the turning; one bold cock with a black throat like a satin
+waistcoat and a red tail, rumpled up to his very comb, stood his ground
+in the road, and even prepared for a crow, then suddenly took fright
+and scuttled off too. The agent's cottage stood apart from the rest in
+the middle of a thick green patch of hemp. We stopped at the gates. Mr.
+Pyenotchkin got up, flung off his cloak with a picturesque motion, and
+got out of the carriage, looking affably about him. The agent's wife
+met us with low curtseys, and came up to kiss the master's hand. Arkady
+Pavlitch let her kiss it to her heart's content, and mounted the steps.
+In the outer room, in a dark corner, stood the bailiff's wife, and she
+too curtsied, but did not venture to approach his hand. In the cold
+hut, as it is called--to the right of the outer room--two other women
+were still busily at work; they were carrying out all the rubbish,
+empty tubs, sheepskins stiff as boards, greasy pots, a cradle with a
+heap of dish-clouts and a baby covered with spots, and sweeping out the
+dirt with bathbrooms. Arkady Pavlitch sent them away, and installed
+himself on a bench under the holy pictures. The coachmen began bringing
+in the trunks, bags, and other conveniences, trying each time to subdue
+the noise of their heavy boots.
+
+Meantime Arkady Pavlitch began questioning the bailiff about the crops,
+the sowing, and other agricultural subjects. The bailiff gave
+satisfactory answers, but spoke with a sort of heavy awkwardness, as
+though he were buttoning up his coat with benumbed fingers. He stood at
+the door and kept looking round on the watch to make way for the nimble
+footman. Behind his powerful shoulders I managed to get a glimpse of
+the agent's wife in the outer room surreptitiously belabouring some
+other peasant woman. Suddenly a cart rumbled up and stopped at the
+steps; the agent came in.
+
+This man, as Arkady Pavlitch said, of real administrative power, was
+short, broad-shouldered, grey, and thick-set, with a red nose, little
+blue eyes, and a beard of the shape of a fan. We may observe, by the
+way, that ever since Russia has existed, there has never yet been an
+instance of a man who has grown rich and prosperous without a big,
+bushy beard; sometimes a man may have had a thin, wedge-shape beard all
+his life; but then he begins to get one all at once, it is all round
+his face like a halo--one wonders where the hair has come from! The
+agent must have been making merry at Perov: his face was unmistakably
+flushed, and there was a smell of spirits about him.
+
+'Ah, our father, our gracious benefactor!' he began in a sing-song
+voice, and with a face of such deep feeling that it seemed every minute
+as if he would burst into tears; 'at last you have graciously deigned
+to come to us ... your hand, your honour's hand,' he added, his lips
+protruded in anticipation. Arkady Pavlitch gratified his desire. 'Well,
+brother Sofron, how are things going with you?' he asked in a friendly
+voice.
+
+'Ah, you, our father!' cried Sofron; 'how should they go ill? how
+should things go ill, now that you, our father, our benefactor,
+graciously deign to lighten our poor village with your presence, to
+make us happy till the day of our death? Thank the Lord for thee,
+Arkady Pavlitch! thank the Lord for thee! All is right by your gracious
+favour.'
+
+At this point Sofron paused, gazed upon his master, and, as though
+carried away by a rush of feeling (tipsiness had its share in it too),
+begged once more for his hand, and whined more than before.
+
+'Ah, you, our father, benefactor ... and ... There, God bless me! I'm a
+regular fool with delight.... God bless me! I look and can't believe my
+eyes! Ah, our father!'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch glanced at me, smiled, and asked: '_N'est-ce pas que
+c'est touchant?_'
+
+'But, Arkady Pavlitch, your honour,' resumed the indefatigable agent;
+'what are you going to do? You'll break my heart, your honour; your
+honour didn't graciously let me know of your visit. Where are you to
+put up for the night? You see here it's dirty, nasty.'
+
+'Nonsense, Sofron, nonsense!' Arkady Pavlitch responded, with a smile;
+'it's all right here.'
+
+'But, our father, all right--for whom? For peasants like us it's all
+right; but for you ... oh, our father, our gracious protector! oh, you
+... our father!... Pardon an old fool like me; I'm off my head, bless
+me! I'm gone clean crazy.'
+
+Meanwhile supper was served; Arkady Pavlitch began to eat. The old man
+packed his son off, saying he smelt too strong.
+
+'Well, settled the division of land, old chap, hey?' enquired Mr.
+Pyenotchkin, obviously trying to imitate the peasant speech, with a
+wink to me.
+
+'We've settled the land shares, your honour; all by your gracious
+favour. Day before yesterday the list was made out. The Hlinovsky folks
+made themselves disagreeable about it at first ... they were
+disagreeable about it, certainly. They wanted this ... and they wanted
+that ... and God knows what they didn't want! but they're a set of
+fools, your honour!--an ignorant lot. But we, your honour, graciously
+please you, gave an earnest of our gratitude, and satisfied Nikolai
+Nikolaitch, the mediator; we acted in everything according to your
+orders, your honour; as you graciously ordered, so we did, and nothing
+did we do unbeknown to Yegor Dmitritch.'
+
+'Yegor reported to me,' Arkady Pavlitch remarked with dignity.
+
+'To be sure, your honour, Yegor Dmitritch, to be sure.'
+
+'Well, then, now I suppose you 're satisfied.'
+
+Sofron had only been waiting for this.
+
+'Ah, you are our father, our benefactor!' he began, in the same sing-
+song as before. 'Indeed, now, your honour ... why, for you, our father,
+we pray day and night to God Almighty.... There's too little land, of
+course....'
+
+Pyenotchkin cut him short.
+
+'There, that'll do, that'll do, Sofron; I know you're eager in my
+service.... Well, and how goes the threshing?'
+
+Sofron sighed.
+
+'Well, our father, the threshing's none too good. But there, your
+honour, Arkady Pavlitch, let me tell you about a little matter that
+came to pass.' (Here he came closer to Mr. Pyenotchkin, with his arms
+apart, bent down, and screwed up one eye.) 'There was a dead body found
+on our land.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'I can't think myself, your honour; it seems like the doing of the evil
+one. But, luckily, it was found near the boundary; on our side of it,
+to tell the truth. I ordered them to drag it on to the neighbour's
+strip of land at once, while it was still possible, and set a watch
+there, and sent word round to our folks. "Mum's the word," says I. But
+I explained how it was to the police officer in case of the worst. "You
+see how it was," says I; and of course I had to treat him and slip some
+notes into his hand.... Well, what do you say, your honour? We shifted
+the burden on to other shoulders; you see a dead body's a matter of two
+hundred roubles, as sure as ninepence.'
+
+Mr. Pyenotchkin laughed heartily at his agent's cunning, and said
+several times to me, indicating him with a nod, '_Quel gaillard_, eh!'
+
+Meantime it was quite dark out of doors; Arkady Pavlitch ordered the
+table to be cleared, and hay to be brought in. The valet spread out
+sheets for us, and arranged pillows; we lay down. Sofron retired after
+receiving his instructions for the next day. Arkady Pavlitch, before
+falling asleep, talked a little more about the first-rate qualities of
+the Russian peasant, and at that point made the observation that since
+Sofron had had the management of the place, the Shipilovka peasants had
+never been one farthing in arrears.... The watchman struck his board; a
+baby, who apparently had not yet had time to be imbued with a sentiment
+of dutiful self-abnegation, began crying somewhere in the cottage ...
+we fell asleep.
+
+The next morning we got up rather early; I was getting ready to start
+for Ryabovo, but Arkady Pavlitch was anxious to show me his estate, and
+begged me to remain. I was not averse myself to seeing more of the
+first-rate qualities of that man of administrative power--Sofron--in
+their practical working. The agent made his appearance. He wore a blue
+loose coat, tied round the waist with a red handkerchief. He talked
+much less than on the previous evening, kept an alert, intent eye on
+his master's face, and gave connected and sensible answers. We set off
+with him to the threshing-floor. Sofron's son, the seven-foot bailiff,
+by every external sign a very slow-witted fellow, walked after us also,
+and we were joined farther on by the village constable, Fedosyitch, a
+retired soldier, with immense moustaches, and an extraordinary
+expression of face; he looked as though he had had some startling shock
+of astonishment a very long while ago, and had never quite got over it.
+We took a look at the threshing-floor, the barn, the corn-stacks, the
+outhouses, the windmill, the cattle-shed, the vegetables, and the
+hempfields; everything was, as a fact, in excellent order; only the
+dejected faces of the peasants rather puzzled me. Sofron had had an eye
+to the ornamental as well as the useful; he had planted all the ditches
+with willows, between the stacks he had made little paths to the
+threshing-floor and strewn them with fine sand; on the windmill he had
+constructed a weathercock of the shape of a bear with his jaws open and
+a red tongue sticking out; he had attached to the brick cattle-shed
+something of the nature of a Greek facade, and on it inscribed in white
+letters: 'Construt in the village Shipilovky 1 thousand eight Hunderd
+farthieth year. This cattle-shed.' Arkady Pavlitch was quite touched,
+and fell to expatiating in French to me upon the advantages of the
+system of rent-payment, adding, however, that labour-dues came more
+profitable to the owner--'but, after all, that wasn't everything.' He
+began giving the agent advice how to plant his potatoes, how to prepare
+cattle-food, and so on. Sofron heard his master's remarks out with
+attention, sometimes replied, but did not now address Arkady Pavlitch
+as his father, or his benefactor, and kept insisting that there was too
+little land; that it would be a good thing to buy more. 'Well, buy some
+then,' said Arkady Pavlitch; 'I've no objection; in my name, of
+course.' To this Sofron made no reply; he merely stroked his beard.
+'And now it would be as well to ride down to the copse,' observed Mr.
+Pyenotchkin. Saddle-horses were led out to us at once; we went off to
+the copse, or, as they call it about us, the 'enclosure.' In this
+'enclosure' we found thick undergrowth and abundance of wild game, for
+which Arkady Pavlitch applauded Sofron and clapped him on the shoulder.
+In regard to forestry, Arkady Pavlitch clung to the Russian ideas, and
+told me on that subject an amusing--in his words--anecdote, of how a
+jocose landowner had given his forester a good lesson by pulling out
+nearly half his beard, by way of a proof that growth is none the
+thicker for being cut back. In other matters, however, neither Sofron
+nor Arkady Pavlitch objected to innovations. On our return to the
+village, the agent took us to look at a winnowing machine he had
+recently ordered from Moscow. The winnowing machine did certainly work
+beautifully, but if Sofron had known what a disagreeable incident was
+in store for him and his master on this last excursion, he would
+doubtless have stopped at home with us.
+
+This was what happened. As we came out of the barn the following
+spectacle confronted us. A few paces from the door, near a filthy pool,
+in which three ducks were splashing unconcernedly, there stood two
+peasants--one an old man of sixty, the other, a lad of twenty--both in
+patched homespun shirts, barefoot, and with cord tied round their
+waists for belts. The village constable Fedosyitch was busily engaged
+with them, and would probably have succeeded in inducing them to retire
+if we had lingered a little longer in the barn, but catching sight of
+us, he grew stiff all over, and seemed bereft of all sensation on the
+spot. Close by stood the bailiff gaping, his fists hanging irresolute.
+Arkady Pavlitch frowned, bit his lip, and went up to the suppliants.
+They both prostrated themselves at his feet in silence.
+
+'What do you want? What are you asking about?' he inquired in a stern
+voice, a little through his nose. (The peasants glanced at one another,
+and did not utter a syllable, only blinked a little as if the sun were
+in their faces, and their breathing came quicker.)
+
+'Well, what is it?' Arkady Pavlitch said again; and turning at once to
+Sofron, 'Of what family?'
+
+'The Tobolyev family,' the agent answered slowly.
+
+'Well, what do you want?' Mr. Pyenotchkin said again; 'have you lost
+your tongues, or what? Tell me, you, what is it you want?' he added,
+with a nod at the old man. 'And don't be afraid, stupid.'
+
+The old man craned forward his dark brown, wrinkled neck, opened his
+bluish twitching lips, and in a hoarse voice uttered the words,
+'Protect us, lord!' and again he bent his forehead to the earth. The
+young peasant prostrated himself too. Arkady Pavlitch looked at their
+bent necks with an air of dignity, threw back his head, and stood with
+his legs rather wide apart. 'What is it? Whom do you complain of?'
+
+'Have mercy, lord! Let us breathe.... We are crushed, worried,
+tormented to death quite. (The old man spoke with difficulty.)
+
+'Who worries you?'
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch, your honour.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was silent a minute.
+
+'What's your name?'
+
+'Antip, your honour.'
+
+'And who's this?'
+
+'My boy, your honour.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was silent again; he pulled his moustaches.
+
+'Well! and how has he tormented you?' he began again, looking over his
+moustaches at the old man.
+
+'Your honour, he has ruined us utterly. Two sons, your honour, he's
+sent for recruits out of turn, and now he is taking the third also.
+Yesterday, your honour, our last cow was taken from the yard, and my
+old wife was beaten by his worship here: that is all the pity he has
+for us!' (He pointed to the bailiff.)
+
+'Hm!' commented Arkady Pavlitch.
+
+'Let him not destroy us to the end, gracious protector!'
+
+Mr. Pyenotchkin scowled, 'What's the meaning of this?' he asked the
+agent, in a low voice, with an air of displeasure.
+
+'He's a drunken fellow, sir,' answered the agent, for the first time
+using this deferential address, 'and lazy too. He's never been out of
+arrears this five years back, sir.'
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch paid the arrears for me, your honour,' the old man
+went on; 'it's the fifth year's come that he's paid it, he's paid it--
+and he's brought me into slavery to him, your honour, and here--'
+
+'And why did you get into arrears?' Mr. Pyenotchkin asked
+threateningly. (The old man's head sank.) 'You're fond of drinking,
+hanging about the taverns, I dare say.' (The old man opened his mouth
+to speak.) 'I know you,' Arkady Pavlitch went on emphatically; 'you
+think you've nothing to do but drink, and lie on the stove, and let
+steady peasants answer for you.'
+
+'And he's an impudent fellow, too,' the agent threw in.
+
+'That's sure to be so; it's always the way; I've noticed it more than
+once. The whole year round, he's drinking and abusive, and then he
+falls at one's feet.'
+
+'Your honour, Arkady Pavlitch,' the old man began despairingly, 'have
+pity, protect us; when have I been impudent? Before God Almighty, I
+swear it was beyond my strength. Sofron Yakovlitch has taken a dislike
+to me; for some reason he dislikes me--God be his judge! He will ruin
+me utterly, your honour.... The last ... here ... the last boy ... and
+him he....' (A tear glistened in the old man's wrinkled yellow eyes).
+'Have pity, gracious lord, defend us!'
+
+'And it's not us only,' the young peasant began....
+
+Arkady Pavlitch flew into a rage at once.
+
+'And who asked your opinion, hey? Till you're spoken to, hold your
+tongue.... What's the meaning of it? Silence, I tell you, silence!...
+Why, upon my word, this is simply mutiny! No, my friend, I don't advise
+you to mutiny on my domain ... on my ... (Arkady Pavlitch stepped
+forward, but probably recollected my presence, turned round, and put
+his hands in his pockets ...) '_Je vous demande bien pardon, mon
+cher_,' he said, with a forced smile, dropping his voice significantly.
+'_C'est le mauvais cote de la medaille_ ... There, that'll do, that'll
+do,' he went on, not looking at the peasants: 'I say ... that'll do,
+you can go.' (The peasants did not rise.) 'Well, haven't I told you ...
+that'll do. You can go, I tell you.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch turned his back on them. 'Nothing but vexation,' he
+muttered between his teeth, and strode with long steps homewards.
+Sofron followed him. The village constable opened his eyes wide,
+looking as if he were just about to take a tremendous leap into space.
+The bailiff drove a duck away from the puddle. The suppliants remained
+as they were a little, then looked at each other, and, without turning
+their heads, went on their way.
+
+Two hours later I was at Ryabovo, and making ready to begin shooting,
+accompanied by Anpadist, a peasant I knew well. Pyenotchkin had been
+out of humour with Sofron up to the time I left. I began talking to
+Anpadist about the Shipilovka peasants, and Mr. Pyenotchkin, and asked
+him whether he knew the agent there.
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch? ... ugh!'
+
+'What sort of man is he?'
+
+'He's not a man; he's a dog; you couldn't find another brute like him
+between here and Kursk.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'Why, Shipilovka's hardly reckoned as--what's his name?--Mr.
+Pyenotchkin's at all; he's not the master there; Sofron's the master.'
+
+'You don't say so!'
+
+'He's master, just as if it were his own. The peasants all about are in
+debt to him; they work for him like slaves; he'll send one off with the
+waggons; another, another way.... He harries them out of their lives.'
+
+'They haven't much land, I suppose?'
+
+'Not much land! He rents two hundred acres from the Hlinovsky peasants
+alone, and two hundred and eighty from our folks; there's more than
+three hundred and seventy-five acres he's got. And he doesn't only
+traffic in land; he does a trade in horses and stock, and pitch, and
+butter, and hemp, and one thing and the other.... He's sharp, awfully
+sharp, and rich too, the beast! But what's bad--he beats them. He's a
+brute, not a man; a dog, I tell you; a cur, a regular cur; that's
+what he is!'
+
+'How is it they don't make complaints of him?'
+
+'I dare say, the master'd be pleased! There's no arrears; so what does
+he care? Yes, you'd better,' he added, after a brief pause; 'I should
+advise you to complain! No, he'd let you know ... yes, you'd better try
+it on.... No, he'd let you know....'
+
+I thought of Antip, and told him what I had seen.
+
+'There,' commented Anpadist, 'he will eat him up now; he'll simply eat
+the man up. The bailiff will beat him now. Such a poor, unlucky chap,
+come to think of it! And what's his offence?... He had some wrangle in
+meeting with him, the agent, and he lost all patience, I suppose, and
+of course he wouldn't stand it.... A great matter, truly, to make so
+much of! So he began pecking at him, Antip. Now he'll eat him up
+altogether. You see, he's such a dog. Such a cur--God forgive my
+transgressions!--he knows whom to fall upon. The old men that are a
+bit richer, or've more children, he doesn't touch, the red-headed
+devil! but there's all the difference here! Why he's sent Antip's sons
+for recruits out of turn, the heartless ruffian, the cur! God forgive
+my transgressions!'
+
+We went on our way.
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+                           THE COUNTING-HOUSE
+
+
+It was autumn. For some hours I had been strolling across country with
+my gun, and should probably not have returned till evening to the
+tavern on the Kursk high-road where my three-horse trap was awaiting
+me, had not an exceedingly fine and persistent rain, which had worried
+me all day with the obstinacy and ruthlessness of some old maiden lady,
+driven me at last to seek at least a temporary shelter somewhere in the
+neighbourhood. While I was still deliberating in which direction to go,
+my eye suddenly fell on a low shanty near a field sown with peas. I
+went up to the shanty, glanced under the thatched roof, and saw an old
+man so infirm that he reminded me at once of the dying goat Robinson
+Crusoe found in some cave on his island. The old man was squatting on
+his heels, his little dim eyes half-closed, while hurriedly, but
+carefully, like a hare (the poor fellow had not a single tooth), he
+munched a dry, hard pea, incessantly rolling it from side to side. He
+was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice my entrance.
+
+'Grandfather! hey, grandfather!' said I. He ceased munching, lifted his
+eyebrows high, and with an effort opened his eyes.
+
+'What?' he mumbled in a broken voice.
+
+'Where is there a village near?' I asked.
+
+The old man fell to munching again. He had not heard me. I repeated my
+question louder than before.
+
+'A village?... But what do you want?'
+
+'Why, shelter from the rain.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Shelter from the rain.'
+
+'Ah!' (He scratched his sunburnt neck.) 'Well, now, you go,' he said
+suddenly, waving his hands indefinitely, 'so ... as you go by the
+copse--see, as you go--there'll be a road; you pass it by, and keep
+right on to the right; keep right on, keep right on, keep right on....
+Well, there will be Ananyevo. Or else you'd go to Sitovka.'
+
+I followed the old man with difficulty. His moustaches muffled his
+voice, and his tongue too did not obey him readily.
+
+'Where are you from?' I asked him.
+
+'What?'
+
+'Where are you from?'
+
+'Ananyevo.'
+
+'What are you doing here?'
+
+'I'm watchman.'
+
+'Why, what are you watching?'
+
+'The peas.'
+
+I could not help smiling.
+
+'Really!--how old are you?'
+
+'God knows.'
+
+'Your sight's failing, I expect.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Your sight's failing, I daresay?'
+
+'Yes, it's failing. At times I can hear nothing.'
+
+'Then how can you be a watchman, eh?'
+
+'Oh, my elders know about that.'
+
+'Elders!' I thought, and I gazed not without compassion at the poor old
+man. He fumbled about, pulled out of his bosom a bit of coarse bread,
+and began sucking it like a child, with difficulty moving his sunken
+cheeks.
+
+I walked in the direction of the copse, turned to the right, kept on,
+kept right on as the old man had advised me, and at last got to a large
+village with a stone church in the new style, _i.e._ with columns, and
+a spacious manor-house, also with columns. While still some way off I
+noticed through the fine network of falling rain a cottage with a deal
+roof, and two chimneys, higher than the others, in all probability the
+dwelling of the village elder; and towards it I bent my steps in the
+hope of finding, in this cottage, a samovar, tea, sugar, and some not
+absolutely sour cream. Escorted by my half-frozen dog, I went up the
+steps into the outer room, opened the door, and instead of the usual
+appurtenances of a cottage, I saw several tables, heaped up with
+papers, two red cupboards, bespattered inkstands, pewter boxes of
+blotting sand weighing half a hundred-weight, long penholders, and so
+on. At one of the tables was sitting a young man of twenty with a
+swollen, sickly face, diminutive eyes, a greasy-looking forehead, and
+long straggling locks of hair. He was dressed, as one would expect, in
+a grey nankin coat, shiny with wear at the waist and the collar.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked me, flinging his head up like a horse
+taken unexpectedly by the nose.
+
+'Does the bailiff live here... or--'
+
+'This is the principal office of the manor,' he interrupted. 'I'm the
+clerk on duty.... Didn't you see the sign-board? That's what it was put
+up for.'
+
+'Where could I dry my clothes here? Is there a samovar anywhere in the
+village?'
+
+'Samovars, of course,' replied the young man in the grey coat with
+dignity; 'go to Father Timofey's, or to the servants' cottage, or else
+to Nazar Tarasitch, or to Agrafena, the poultry-woman.'
+
+'Who are you talking to, you blockhead? Can't you let me sleep, dummy!'
+shouted a voice from the next room.
+
+'Here's a gentleman's come in to ask where he can dry himself.'
+
+'What sort of a gentleman?'
+
+'I don't know. With a dog and a gun.'
+
+A bedstead creaked in the next room. The door opened, and there came in
+a stout, short man of fifty, with a bull neck, goggle-eyes,
+extraordinarily round cheeks, and his whole face positively shining
+with sleekness.
+
+'What is it you wish?' he asked me.
+
+'To dry my things.'
+
+'There's no place here.'
+
+'I didn't know this was the counting-house; I am willing, though, to
+pay...'
+
+'Well, perhaps it could be managed here,' rejoined the fat man; 'won't
+you come inside here?' (He led me into another room, but not the one he
+had come from.) 'Would this do for you?'
+
+'Very well.... And could I have tea and milk?'
+
+'Certainly, at once. If you'll meantime take off your things and rest,
+the tea shall be got ready this minute.'
+
+'Whose property is this?'
+
+'Madame Losnyakov's, Elena Nikolaevna.'
+
+He went out I looked round: against the partition separating my room
+from the office stood a huge leather sofa; two high-backed chairs, also
+covered in leather, were placed on both sides of the solitary window
+which looked out on the village street. On the walls, covered with a
+green paper with pink patterns on it, hung three immense oil paintings.
+One depicted a setter-dog with a blue collar, bearing the inscription:
+'This is my consolation'; at the dog's feet flowed a river; on the
+opposite bank of the river a hare of quite disproportionate size with
+ears cocked up was sitting under a pine tree. In another picture two
+old men were eating a melon; behind the melon was visible in the
+distance a Greek temple with the inscription: 'The Temple of
+Satisfaction.' The third picture represented the half-nude figure of a
+woman in a recumbent position, much fore-shortened, with red knees and
+very big heels. My dog had, with superhuman efforts, crouched under the
+sofa, and apparently found a great deal of dust there, as he kept
+sneezing violently. I went to the window. Boards had been laid across
+the street in a slanting direction from the manor-house to the
+counting-house--a very useful precaution, as, thanks to our rich black
+soil and the persistent rain, the mud was terrible. In the grounds of
+the manor-house, which stood with its back to the street, there was the
+constant going and coming there always is about manor-houses: maids in
+faded chintz gowns flitted to and fro; house-serfs sauntered through
+the mud, stood still and scratched their spines meditatively; the
+constable's horse, tied up to a post, lashed his tail lazily, and with
+his nose high up, gnawed at the hedge; hens were clucking; sickly
+turkeys kept up an incessant gobble-gobble. On the steps of a dark
+crumbling out-house, probably the bath-house, sat a stalwart lad with a
+guitar, singing with some spirit the well-known ballad:
+
+         'I'm leaving this enchanting spot
+             To go into the desert.'
+
+The fat man came into the room.
+
+'They're bringing you in your tea,' he told me, with an affable smile.
+
+The young man in the grey coat, the clerk on duty, laid on the old
+card-table a samovar, a teapot, a tumbler on a broken saucer, a jug of
+cream, and a bunch of Bolhovo biscuit rings. The fat man went out.
+
+'What is he?' I asked the clerk; 'the steward?'
+
+'No, sir; he was the chief cashier, but now he has been promoted to be
+head-clerk.'
+
+'Haven't you got a steward, then?'
+
+'No, sir. There's an agent, Mihal Vikulov, but no steward.'
+
+'Is there a manager, then?'
+
+'Yes; a German, Lindamandol, Karlo Karlitch; only he does not manage
+the estate.'
+
+'Who does manage it, then?'
+
+'Our mistress herself.'
+
+'You don't say so. And are there many of you in the office?'
+
+The young man reflected.
+
+'There are six of us.'
+
+'Who are they?' I inquired.
+
+'Well, first there's Vassily Nikolaevitch, the head cashier; then
+Piotr, one clerk; Piotr's brother, Ivan, another clerk; the other Ivan,
+a clerk; Konstantin Narkizer, another clerk; and me here--there's a lot
+of us, you can't count all of them.'
+
+'I suppose your mistress has a great many serfs in her house?'
+
+'No, not to say a great many.'
+
+'How many, then?'
+
+'I dare say it runs up to about a hundred and fifty.'
+
+We were both silent for a little.
+
+'I suppose you write a good hand, eh?' I began again.
+
+The young man grinned from ear to ear, went into the office and brought
+in a sheet covered with writing.
+
+'This is my writing,' he announced, still with the same smile on his
+face.
+
+I looked at it; on the square sheet of greyish paper there was written,
+in a good bold hand, the following document:--
+
+     ORDER
+
+     From the Chief Office of the Manor of Ananyevo to
+     the Agent, Mihal Vikulov.
+
+     No. 209.
+
+'Whereas some person unknown entered the garden at Ananyevo last night
+in an intoxicated condition, and with unseemly songs waked the French
+governess, Madame Engene, and disturbed her; and whether the watchmen
+saw anything, and who were on watch in the garden and permitted such
+disorderliness: as regards all the above-written matters, your orders
+are to investigate in detail, and report immediately to the Office.'
+
+                                     '_Head-Clerk_, NIKOLAI HVOSTOV.'
+
+A huge heraldic seal was attached to the order, with the inscription:
+'Seal of the chief office of the manor of Ananyevo'; and below stood
+the signature: 'To be executed exactly, Elena Losnyakov.'
+
+'Your lady signed it herself, eh?' I queried.
+
+'To be sure; she always signs herself. Without that the order would be
+of no effect.'
+
+'Well, and now shall you send this order to the agent?'
+
+'No, sir. He'll come himself and read it. That's to say, it'll be read
+to him; you see, he's no scholar.' (The clerk on duty was silent again
+for a while.) 'But what do you say?' he added, simpering; 'is it well
+written?'
+
+'Very well written.'
+
+'It wasn't composed, I must confess, by me. Konstantin is the great one
+for that.'
+
+'What?... Do you mean the orders have first to be composed among you?'
+
+'Why, how else could we do? Couldn't write them off straight without
+making a fair copy.'
+
+'And what salary do you get?' I inquired.
+
+'Thirty-five roubles, and five roubles for boots.'
+
+'And are you satisfied?'
+
+'Of course I am satisfied. It's not everyone can get into an office
+like ours. It was God's will, in my case, to be sure; I'd an uncle who
+was in service as a butler.'
+
+'And you're well-off?'
+
+'Yes, sir. Though, to tell the truth,' he went on, with a sigh, 'a
+place at a merchant's, for instance, is better for the likes of us. At
+a merchant's they're very well off. Yesterday evening a merchant came
+to us from Venev, and his man got talking to me.... Yes, that's a good
+place, no doubt about it; a very good place.'
+
+'Why? Do the merchants pay more wages?'
+
+'Lord preserve us! Why, a merchant would soon give you the sack if you
+asked him for wages. No, at a merchant's you must live on trust and on
+fear. He'll give you food, and drink, and clothes, and all. If you give
+him satisfaction, he'll do more.... Talk of wages, indeed! You don't
+need them.... And a merchant, too, lives in plain Russian style, like
+ourselves; you go with him on a journey--he has tea, and you have it;
+what he eats, you eat. A merchant ... one can put up with; a merchant's
+a very different thing from what a gentleman is; a merchant's not
+whimsical; if he's out of temper, he'll give you a blow, and there it
+ends. He doesn't nag nor sneer.... But with a gentleman it's a woeful
+business! Nothing's as he likes it--this is not right, and that he
+can't fancy. You hand him a glass of water or something to eat: "Ugh,
+the water stinks! positively stinks!" You take it out, stay a minute
+outside the door, and bring it back: "Come, now, that's good; this
+doesn't stink now." And as for the ladies, I tell you, the ladies are
+something beyond everything!... and the young ladies above all!...'
+
+'Fedyushka!' came the fat man's voice from the office.
+
+The clerk went out quickly. I drank a glass of tea, lay down on the
+sofa, and fell asleep. I slept for two hours.
+
+When I woke, I meant to get up, but I was overcome by laziness; I
+closed my eyes, but did not fall asleep again. On the other side of the
+partition, in the office, they were talking in subdued voices.
+Unconsciously I began to listen.
+
+'Quite so, quite so, Nikolai Eremyitch,' one voice was saying; 'quite
+so. One can't but take that into account; yes, certainly!... Hm!' (The
+speaker coughed.)
+
+'You may believe me, Gavrila Antonitch,' replied the fat man's voice:
+'don't I know how things are done here? Judge for yourself.'
+
+'Who does, if you don't, Nikolai Eremyitch? you're, one may say, the
+first person here. Well, then, how's it to be?' pursued the voice I did
+not recognise; 'what decision are we to come to, Nikolai Eremyitch?
+Allow me to put the question.'
+
+'What decision, Gavrila Antonitch? The thing depends, so to say, on
+you; you don't seem over anxious.'
+
+'Upon my word, Nikolai Eremyitch, what do you mean? Our business is
+trading, buying; it's our business to buy. That's what we live by,
+Nikolai Eremyitch, one may say.'
+
+'Eight roubles a measure,' said the fat man emphatically.
+
+A sigh was audible.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch, sir, you ask a heavy price.' 'Impossible, Gavrila
+Antonitch, to do otherwise; I speak as before God Almighty;
+impossible.'
+
+Silence followed.
+
+I got up softly and looked through a crack in the partition. The fat
+man was sitting with his back to me. Facing him sat a merchant, a man
+about forty, lean and pale, who looked as if he had been rubbed with
+oil. He was incessantly fingering his beard, and very rapidly blinking
+and twitching his lips.
+
+'Wonderful the young green crops this year, one may say,' he began
+again; 'I've been going about everywhere admiring them. All the way
+from Voronezh they've come up wonderfully, first-class, one may say.'
+
+'The crops are pretty fair, certainly,' answered the head-clerk; 'but
+you know the saying, Gavrila Antonitch, autumn bids fair, but spring
+may be foul.'
+
+'That's so, indeed, Nikolai Eremyitch; all is in God's hands; it's the
+absolute truth what you've just remarked, sir.... But perhaps your
+visitor's awake now.'
+
+The fat man turned round ... listened....
+
+'No, he's asleep. He may, though....'
+
+He went to the door.
+
+'No, he's asleep,' he repeated and went back to his place.
+
+'Well, so what are we to say, Nikolai Eremyitch?' the merchant began
+again; 'we must bring our little business to a conclusion.... Let it be
+so, Nikolai Eremyitch, let it be so,' he went on, blinking incessantly;
+'two grey notes and a white for your favour, and there' (he nodded in
+the direction of the house), 'six and a half. Done, eh?'
+
+'Four grey notes,' answered the clerk.
+
+'Come, three, then.'
+
+'Four greys, and no white.'
+
+'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Three and a half, and not a farthing less.'
+
+'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'You're not talking sense, Gavrila Antonitch.'
+
+'My, what a pig-headed fellow!' muttered the merchant. 'Then I'd better
+arrange it with the lady herself.'
+
+'That's as you like,' answered the fat man; 'far better, I should say.
+Why should you worry yourself, after all?... Much better, indeed!'
+
+'Well, well! Nikolai Eremyitch. I lost my temper for a minute! That was
+nothing but talk.'
+
+'No, really, why?...'
+
+'Nonsense, I tell you.... I tell you I was joking. Well, take your
+three and a half; there's no doing anything with you.'
+
+'I ought to have got four, but I was in too great a hurry--like an
+ass!' muttered the fat man.
+
+'Then up there at the house, six and a half, Nikolai Eremyitch; the
+corn will be sold for six and a half?'
+
+'Six and a half, as we said already.'
+
+'Well, your hand on that then, Nikolai Eremyitch' (the merchant clapped
+his outstretched fingers into the clerk's palm). 'And good-bye, in
+God's name!' (The merchant got up.) 'So then, Nikolai Eremyitch, sir,
+I'll go now to your lady, and bid them send up my name, and so I'll say
+to her, "Nikolai Eremyitch," I'll say, "has made a bargain with me for
+six and a half."'
+
+'That's what you must say, Gavrila Antonitch.'
+
+'And now, allow me.'
+
+The merchant handed the manager a small roll of notes, bowed, shook his
+head, picked up his hat with two fingers, shrugged his shoulders, and,
+with a sort of undulating motion, went out, his boots creaking after
+the approved fashion. Nikolai Eremyitch went to the wall, and, as far
+as I could make out, began sorting the notes handed him by the
+merchant. A red head, adorned with thick whiskers, was thrust in at the
+door.
+
+'Well?' asked the head; 'all as it should be?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'How much?'
+
+The fat man made an angry gesture with his hand, and pointed to my
+room.
+
+'Ah, all right!' responded the head, and vanished.
+
+The fat man went up to the table, sat down, opened a book, took out a
+reckoning frame, and began shifting the beads to and fro as he counted,
+using not the forefinger but the third finger of his right hand, which
+has a much more showy effect.
+
+The clerk on duty came in.
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Sidor is here from Goloplek.'
+
+'Oh! ask him in. Wait a bit, wait a bit.... First go and look whether
+the strange gentleman's still asleep, or whether he has waked up.'
+
+The clerk on duty came cautiously into my room. I laid my head on my
+game-bag, which served me as a pillow, and closed my eyes.
+
+'He's asleep,' whispered the clerk on duty, returning to the counting-
+house.
+
+The fat man muttered something.
+
+'Well, send Sidor in,' he said at last.
+
+I got up again. A peasant of about thirty, of huge stature, came in--a
+red-cheeked, vigorous-looking fellow, with brown hair, and a short
+curly beard. He crossed himself, praying to the holy image, bowed to
+the head-clerk, held his hat before him in both hands, and stood erect.
+
+'Good day, Sidor,' said the fat man, tapping with the reckoning beads.
+
+'Good-day to you, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Well, what are the roads like?'
+
+'Pretty fair, Nikolai Eremyitch. A bit muddy.' (The peasant spoke
+slowly and not loud.)
+
+'Wife quite well?'
+
+'She's all right!'
+
+The peasant gave a sigh and shifted one leg forward. Nikolai Eremyitch
+put his pen behind his ear, and blew his nose.
+
+'Well, what have you come about?' he proceeded to inquire, putting his
+check handkerchief into his pocket.
+
+'Why, they do say, Nikolai Eremyitch, they're asking for carpenters
+from us.'
+
+'Well, aren't there any among you, hey?'
+
+'To be sure there are, Nikolai Eremyitch; our place is right in the
+woods; our earnings are all from the wood, to be sure. But it's the
+busy time, Nikolai Eremyitch. Where's the time to come from?'
+
+'The time to come from! Busy time! I dare say, you're so eager to work
+for outsiders, and don't care to work for your mistress.... It's all
+the same!'
+
+'The work's all the same, certainly, Nikolai Eremyitch ... but....'
+
+'Well?'
+
+'The pay's ... very....'
+
+'What next! You've been spoiled; that's what it is. Get along with
+you!'
+
+'And what's more, Nikolai Eremyitch, there'll be only a week's work,
+but they'll keep us hanging on a month. One time there's not material
+enough, and another time they'll send us into the garden to weed the
+path.'
+
+'What of it? Our lady herself is pleased to give the order, so it's
+useless you and me talking about it.'
+
+Sidor was silent; he began shifting from one leg to the other.
+
+Nikolai Eremyitch put his head on one side, and began busily playing
+with the reckoning beads.
+
+'Our ... peasants ... Nikolai Eremyitch....' Sidor began at last,
+hesitating over each word; 'sent word to your honour ... there is ...
+see here....' (He thrust his big hand into the bosom of his coat, and
+began to pull out a folded linen kerchief with a red border.)
+
+'What are you thinking of? Goodness, idiot, are you out of your
+senses?' the fat man interposed hurriedly. 'Go on; go to my cottage,'
+he continued, almost shoving the bewildered peasant out; 'ask for my
+wife there ... she'll give you some tea; I'll be round directly; go on.
+For goodness' sake, I tell you, go on.'
+
+Sidor went away.
+
+'Ugh!... what a bear!' the head clerk muttered after him, shaking his
+head, and set to work again on his reckoning frame.
+
+Suddenly shouts of 'Kuprya! Kuprya! there's no knocking down Kuprya!'
+were heard in the street and on the steps, and a little later there
+came into the counting-house a small man of sickly appearance, with an
+extraordinarily long nose and large staring eyes, who carried himself
+with a great air of superiority. He was dressed in a ragged little old
+surtout, with a plush collar and diminutive buttons. He carried a
+bundle of firewood on his shoulder. Five house-serfs were crowding
+round him, all shouting, 'Kuprya! there's no suppressing Kuprya!
+Kuprya's been turned stoker; Kuprya's turned a stoker!' But the man in
+the coat with the plush collar did not pay the slightest attention to
+the uproar made by his companions, and was not in the least out of
+countenance. With measured steps he went up to the stove, flung down
+his load, straightened himself, took out of his tail-pocket a snuff-
+box, and with round eyes began helping himself to a pinch of dry
+trefoil mixed with ashes. At the entrance of this noisy party the fat
+man had at first knitted his brows and risen from his seat, but, seeing
+what it was, he smiled, and only told them not to shout. 'There's a
+sportsman,' said he, 'asleep in the next room.' 'What sort of
+sportsman?' two of them asked with one voice.
+
+'A gentleman.'
+
+'Ah!'
+
+'Let them make a row,' said the man with the plush collar, waving his
+arms; 'what do I care, so long as they don't touch me? They've turned
+me into a stoker....'
+
+'A stoker! a stoker!' the others put in gleefully.
+
+'It's the mistress's orders,' he went on, with a shrug of his
+shoulders; 'but just you wait a bit ... they'll turn you into
+swineherds yet. But I've been a tailor, and a good tailor too, learnt
+my trade in the best house in Moscow, and worked for generals ... and
+nobody can take that from me. And what have you to boast of?... What?
+you're a pack of idlers, not worth your salt; that's what you are! Turn
+me off! I shan't die of hunger; I shall be all right; give me a
+passport. I'd send a good rent home, and satisfy the masters. But what
+would you do? You'd die off like flies, that's what you'd do!'
+
+'That's a nice lie!' interposed a pock-marked lad with white eyelashes,
+a red cravat, and ragged elbows. 'You went off with a passport sharp
+enough, but never a halfpenny of rent did the masters see from you, and
+you never earned a farthing for yourself, you just managed to crawl
+home again and you've never had a new rag on you since.'
+
+'Ah, well, what could one do! Konstantin Narkizitch,' responded Kuprya;
+'a man falls in love--a man's ruined and done for! You go through what
+I have, Konstantin Narkizitch, before you blame me!'
+
+'And you picked out a nice one to fall in love with!--a regular
+fright.'
+
+'No, you must not say that, Konstantin Narkizitch.'
+
+'Who's going to believe that? I've seen her, you know; I saw her with
+my own eyes last year in Moscow.'
+
+'Last year she had gone off a little certainly,' observed Kuprya.
+
+'No, gentlemen, I tell you what,' a tall, thin man, with a face spotted
+with pimples, a valet probably, from his frizzed and pomatumed head,
+remarked in a careless and disdainful voice; 'let Kuprya Afanasyitch
+sing us his song. Come on, now; begin, Kuprya Afanasyitch.
+
+'Yes! yes!' put in the others. 'Hoorah for Alexandra! That's one for
+Kuprya; 'pon my soul ... Sing away, Kuprya!... You're a regular brick,
+Alexandra!' (Serfs often use feminine terminations in referring to a
+man as an expression of endearment.) 'Sing away!'
+
+'This is not the place to sing,' Kuprya replied firmly; 'this is the
+manor counting-house.'
+
+'And what's that to do with you? you've got your eye on a place as
+clerk, eh?' answered Konstantin with a coarse laugh. 'That's what it
+is!'
+
+'Everything rests with the mistress,' observed the poor wretch.
+
+'There, that's what he's got his eye on! a fellow like him! oo! oo! a!'
+
+And they all roared; some rolled about with merriment. Louder than all
+laughed a lad of fifteen, probably the son of an aristocrat among the
+house-serfs; he wore a waistcoat with bronze buttons, and a cravat of
+lilac colour, and had already had time to fill out his waistcoat.
+
+'Come tell us, confess now, Kuprya,' Nikolai Eremyitch began
+complacently, obviously tickled and diverted himself; 'is it bad being
+stoker? Is it an easy job, eh?'
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch,' began Kuprya, 'you're head-clerk among us now,
+certainly; there's no disputing that, no; but you know you have been in
+disgrace yourself, and you too have lived in a peasant's hut.'
+
+'You'd better look out and not forget yourself in my place,' the fat
+man interrupted emphatically; 'people joke with a fool like you; you
+ought, you fool, to have sense, and be grateful to them for taking
+notice of a fool like you.'
+
+'It was a slip of the tongue, Nikolai Eremyitch; I beg your pardon....'
+
+'Yes, indeed, a slip of the tongue.'
+
+The door opened and a little page ran in.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch, mistress wants you.'
+
+'Who's with the mistress?' he asked the page.
+
+'Aksinya Nikitishna, and a merchant from Venev.'
+
+'I'll be there this minute. And you, mates,' he continued in a
+persuasive voice, 'better move off out of here with the newly-appointed
+stoker; if the German pops in, he'll make a complaint for certain.'
+
+The fat man smoothed his hair, coughed into his hand, which was almost
+completely hidden in his coat-sleeve, buttoned himself, and set off
+with rapid strides to see the lady of the manor. In a little while the
+whole party trailed out after him, together with Kuprya. My old friend,
+the clerk-on duty, was left alone. He set to work mending the pens, and
+dropped asleep in his chair. A few flies promptly seized the
+opportunity and settled on his mouth. A mosquito alighted on his
+forehead, and, stretching its legs out with a regular motion, slowly
+buried its sting into his flabby flesh. The same red head with whiskers
+showed itself again at the door, looked in, looked again, and then came
+into the office, together with the rather ugly body belonging to it.
+
+'Fedyushka! eh, Fedyushka! always asleep,' said the head.
+
+The clerk on duty opened his eyes and got up from his seat.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch has gone to the mistress?'
+
+'Yes, Vassily Nikolaevitch.'
+
+'Ah! ah!' thought I; 'this is he, the head cashier.'
+
+The head cashier began walking about the room. He really slunk rather
+than walked, and altogether resembled a cat. An old black frock-coat
+with very narrow skirts hung about his shoulders; he kept one hand in
+his bosom, while the other was for ever fumbling about his high, narrow
+horse-hair collar, and he turned his head with a certain effort. He
+wore noiseless kid boots, and trod very softly.
+
+'The landowner, Yagushkin, was asking for you to-day,' added the clerk
+on duty.
+
+'Hm, asking for me? What did he say?'
+
+'Said he'd go to Tyutyurov this evening and would wait for you. "I want
+to discuss some business with Vassily Nikolaevitch," said he, but what
+the business was he didn't say; "Vassily Nikolaevitch will know," says
+he.'
+
+'Hm!' replied the head cashier, and he went up to the window.
+
+'Is Nikolai Eremyitch in the counting-house?' a loud voice was heard
+asking in the outer room, and a tall man, apparently angry, with an
+irregular but bold and expressive face, and rather clean in his dress,
+stepped over the threshold.
+
+'Isn't he here?' he inquired, looking rapidly round.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch is with the mistress,' responded the cashier. 'Tell
+me what you want, Pavel Andreitch; you can tell me.... What is it you
+want?'
+
+'What do I want? You want to know what I want?' (The cashier gave a
+sickly nod.) 'I want to give him a lesson, the fat, greasy villain, the
+scoundrelly tell-tale!... I'll give him a tale to tell!'
+
+Pavel flung himself into a chair.
+
+'What are you saying, Pavel Andreitch! Calm yourself.... Aren't you
+ashamed? Don't forget whom you're talking about, Pavel Andreitch!'
+lisped the cashier.
+
+'Forget whom I'm talking about? What do I care for his being made head-
+clerk? A fine person they've found to promote, there's no denying that!
+They've let the goat loose in the kitchen garden, you may say!'
+
+'Hush, hush, Pavel Andreitch, hush! drop that ... what rubbish are you
+talking?'
+
+'So Master Fox is beginning to fawn? I will wait for him,' Pavel said
+with passion, and he struck a blow on the table. 'Ah, here he's
+coming!' he added with a look at the window; 'speak of the devil. With
+your kind permission!' (He, got up.)
+
+Nikolai Eremyitch came into the counting-house. His face was shining
+with satisfaction, but he was rather taken aback at seeing Pavel
+Andreitch.
+
+'Good day to you, Nikolai Eremyitch,' said Pavel in a significant tone,
+advancing deliberately to meet him.
+
+The head-clerk made no reply. The face of the merchant showed itself in
+the doorway.
+
+'What, won't you deign to answer me?' pursued Pavel. 'But no ... no,'
+he added; 'that's not it; there's no getting anything by shouting and
+abuse. No, you'd better tell me in a friendly way, Nikolai Eremyitch;
+what do you persecute me for? what do you want to ruin me for? Come,
+speak, speak.'
+
+'This is no fit place to come to an understanding with you,' the head-
+clerk answered in some agitation, 'and no fit time. But I must say I
+wonder at one thing: what makes you suppose I want to ruin you, or that
+I'm persecuting you? And if you come to that, how can I persecute you?
+You're not in my counting-house.'
+
+'I should hope not,' answered Pavel; 'that would be the last straw! But
+why are you hum-bugging, Nikolai Eremyitch?... You understand me, you
+know.'
+
+'No, I don't understand.'
+
+'No, you do understand.'
+
+'No, by God, I don't understand!'
+
+'Swearing too! Well, tell us, since it's come to that: have you no fear
+of God? Why can't you let the poor girl live in peace? What do you want
+of her?'
+
+'Whom are you talking of?' the fat man asked with feigned amazement.
+
+'Ugh! doesn't know; what next? I'm talking of Tatyana. Have some fear
+of God--what do you want to revenge yourself for? You ought to be
+ashamed: a married man like you, with children as big as I am; it's a
+very different thing with me.... I mean marriage: I'm acting straight-
+forwardly.'
+
+'How am I to blame in that, Pavel Andreitch? The mistress won't permit
+you to marry; it's her seignorial will! What have I to do with it?'
+
+'Why, haven't you been plotting with that old hag, the housekeeper, eh?
+Haven't you been telling tales, eh? Tell me, aren't you bringing all
+sorts of stories up against the defenceless girl? I suppose it's not
+your doing that she's been degraded from laundrymaid to washing dishes
+in the scullery? And it's not your doing that she's beaten and dressed
+in sackcloth?... You ought to be ashamed, you ought to be ashamed--an
+old man like you! You know there's a paralytic stroke always hanging
+over you.... You will have to answer to God.'
+
+'You're abusive, Pavel Andreitch, you're abusive.... You shan't have a
+chance to be insolent much longer.'
+
+Pavel fired up.
+
+'What? You dare to threaten me?' he said passionately. 'You think I'm
+afraid of you. No, my man, I'm not come to that! What have I to be
+afraid of?... I can make my bread everywhere. For you, now, it's
+another thing! It's only here you can live and tell tales, and
+filch....'
+
+'Fancy the conceit of the fellow!' interrupted the clerk, who was also
+beginning to lose patience; 'an apothecary's assistant, simply an
+apothecary's assistant, a wretched leech; and listen to him--fie upon
+you! you're a high and mighty personage!'
+
+'Yes, an apothecary's assistant, and except for this apothecary's
+assistant you'd have been rotting in the graveyard by now.... It was
+some devil drove me to cure him,' he added between his teeth.
+
+'You cured me?... No, you tried to poison me; you dosed me with aloes,'
+the clerk put in.
+
+'What was I to do if nothing but aloes had any effect on you?'
+
+'The use of aloes is forbidden by the Board of Health,' pursued
+Nikolai. 'I'll lodge a complaint against you yet.... You tried to
+compass my death--that was what you did! But the Lord suffered it not.'
+
+'Hush, now, that's enough, gentlemen,' the cashier was beginning....
+
+'Stand off!' bawled the clerk. 'He tried to poison me! Do you
+understand that?'
+
+'That's very likely.... Listen, Nikolai Eremyitch,' Pavel began in
+despairing accents. 'For the last time, I beg you.... You force me to
+it--can't stand it any longer. Let us alone, do you hear? or else, by
+God, it'll go ill with one or other of us--I mean with you!'
+
+The fat man flew into a rage.
+
+'I'm not afraid of you!' he shouted; 'do you hear, milksop? I got the
+better of your father; I broke his horns--a warning to you; take care!'
+
+'Don't talk of my father, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Get away! who are you to give me orders?'
+
+'I tell you, don't talk of him!'
+
+'And I tell you, don't forget yourself.... However necessary you think
+yourself, if our lady has a choice between us, it's not you'll be kept,
+my dear! None's allowed to mutiny, mind!' (Pavel was shaking with
+fury.) 'As for the wench, Tatyana, she deserves ... wait a bit, she'll
+get something worse!'
+
+Pavel dashed forward with uplifted fists, and the clerk rolled heavily
+on the floor.
+
+'Handcuff him, handcuff him,' groaned Nikolai Eremyitch....
+
+I won't take upon myself to describe the end of this scene; I fear I
+have wounded the reader's delicate susceptibilities as it is.
+
+The same day I returned home. A week later I heard that Madame
+Losnyakov had kept both Pavel and Nikolai in her service, but had sent
+away the girl Tatyana; it appeared she was not wanted.
+
+
+
+                                   XII
+
+                                 BIRYUK
+
+
+I was coming back from hunting one evening alone in a racing droshky. I
+was six miles from home; my good trotting mare galloped bravely along
+the dusty road, pricking up her ears with an occasional snort; my weary
+dog stuck close to the hind-wheels, as though he were fastened there. A
+tempest was coming on. In front, a huge, purplish storm-cloud slowly
+rose from behind the forest; long grey rain-clouds flew over my head
+and to meet me; the willows stirred and whispered restlessly. The
+suffocating heat changed suddenly to a damp chilliness; the darkness
+rapidly thickened. I gave the horse a lash with the reins, descended a
+steep slope, pushed across a dry water-course overgrown with brushwood,
+mounted the hill, and drove into the forest. The road ran before me,
+bending between thick hazel bushes, now enveloped in darkness; I
+advanced with difficulty. The droshky jumped up and down over the hard
+roots of the ancient oaks and limes, which were continually intersected
+by deep ruts--the tracks of cart wheels; my horse began to stumble. A
+violent wind suddenly began to roar overhead; the trees blustered; big
+drops of rain fell with slow tap and splash on the leaves; there came a
+flash of lightning and a clap of thunder. The rain fell in torrents. I
+went on a step or so, and soon was forced to stop; my horse foundered;
+I could not see an inch before me. I managed to take refuge somehow in
+a spreading bush. Crouching down and covering my face, I waited
+patiently for the storm to blow over, when suddenly, in a flash of
+lightning, I saw a tall figure on the road. I began to stare intently
+in that direction--the figure seemed to have sprung out of the ground
+near my droshky.
+
+'Who's that?' inquired a ringing voice.
+
+'Why, who are you?'
+
+'I'm the forester here.'
+
+I mentioned my name.
+
+'Oh, I know! Are you on your way home?'
+
+'Yes. But, you see, in such a storm....'
+
+'Yes, there is a storm,' replied the voice.
+
+A pale flash of lightning lit up the forester from head to foot; a
+brief crashing clap of thunder followed at once upon it. The rain
+lashed with redoubled force.
+
+'It won't be over just directly,' the forester went on.
+
+'What's to be done?'
+
+'I'll take you to my hut, if you like,' he said abruptly.
+
+'That would be a service.'
+
+'Please to take your seat'
+
+He went up to the mare's head, took her by the bit, and pulled her up.
+We set off. I held on to the cushion of the droshky, which rocked 'like
+a boat on the sea,' and called my dog. My poor mare splashed with
+difficulty through the mud, slipped and stumbled; the forester hovered
+before the shafts to right and to left like a ghost. We drove rather a
+long while; at last my guide stopped. 'Here we are home, sir,' he
+observed in a quiet voice. The gate creaked; some puppies barked a
+welcome. I raised my head, and in a flash of lightning I made out a
+small hut in the middle of a large yard, fenced in with hurdles. From
+the one little window there was a dim light. The forester led his horse
+up to the steps and knocked at the door. 'Coming, coming!' we heard in
+a little shrill voice; there was the patter of bare feet, the bolt
+creaked, and a girl of twelve, in a little old smock tied round the
+waist with list, appeared in the doorway with a lantern in her hand.
+
+'Show the gentleman a light,' he said to her 'and I will put your
+droshky in the shed.'
+
+The little girl glanced at me, and went into the hut. I followed her.
+
+The forester's hut consisted of one room, smoky, low-pitched, and
+empty, without curtains or partition. A tattered sheepskin hung on the
+wall. On the bench lay a single-barrelled gun; in the corner lay a heap
+of rags; two great pots stood near the oven. A pine splinter was
+burning on the table flickering up and dying down mournfully. In the
+very middle of the hut hung a cradle, suspended from the end of a long
+horizontal pole. The little girl put out the lantern, sat down on a
+tiny stool, and with her right hand began swinging the cradle, while
+with her left she attended to the smouldering pine splinter. I looked
+round--my heart sank within me: it's not cheering to go into a
+peasant's hut at night. The baby in the cradle breathed hard and fast.
+
+'Are you all alone here?' I asked the little girl.
+
+'Yes,' she uttered, hardly audibly.
+
+'You're the forester's daughter?'
+
+'Yes,' she whispered.
+
+The door creaked, and the forester, bending his head, stepped across
+the threshold. He lifted the lantern from the floor, went up to the
+table, and lighted a candle.
+
+'I dare say you're not used to the splinter light?' said he, and he
+shook back his curls.
+
+I looked at him. Rarely has it been my fortune to behold such a comely
+creature. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and in marvellous proportion.
+His powerful muscles stood out in strong relief under his wet homespun
+shirt. A curly, black beard hid half of his stern and manly face; small
+brown eyes looked out boldly from under broad eyebrows which met in the
+middle. He stood before me, his arms held lightly akimbo.
+
+I thanked him, and asked his name.
+
+'My name's Foma,' he answered, 'and my nickname's Biryuk' (_i.e._
+wolf). [Footnote: The name Biryuk is used in the Orel province to
+denote a solitary, misanthropic man.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'Oh, you're Biryuk.'
+
+I looked with redoubled curiosity at him. From my Yermolai and others I
+had often heard stories about the forester Biryuk, whom all the
+peasants of the surrounding districts feared as they feared fire.
+According to them there had never been such a master of his business in
+the world before. 'He won't let you carry off a handful of brushwood;
+he'll drop upon you like a fall of snow, whatever time it may be, even
+in the middle of the night, and you needn't think of resisting him--
+he's strong, and cunning as the devil.... And there's no getting at him
+anyhow; neither by brandy nor by money; there's no snare he'll walk
+into. More than once good folks have planned to put him out of the
+world, but no--it's never come off.'
+
+That was how the neighbouring peasants spoke of Biryuk.
+
+'So you're Biryuk,' I repeated; 'I've heard talk of you, brother. They
+say you show no mercy to anyone.'
+
+'I do my duty,' he answered grimly; 'it's not right to eat the master's
+bread for nothing.'
+
+He took an axe from his girdle and began splitting splinters.
+
+'Have you no wife?' I asked him.
+
+'No,' he answered, with a vigorous sweep of the axe.
+
+'She's dead, I suppose?'
+
+'No ... yes ... she's dead,' he added, and turned away. I was silent;
+he raised his eyes and looked at me.
+
+'She ran away with a travelling pedlar,' he brought out with a bitter
+smile. The little girl hung her head; the baby waked up and began
+crying; the little girl went to the cradle. 'There, give it him,' said
+Biryuk, thrusting a dirty feeding-bottle into her hand. 'Him, too, she
+abandoned,' he went on in an undertone, pointing to the baby. He went
+up to the door, stopped, and turned round.
+
+'A gentleman like you,' he began, 'wouldn't care for our bread, I dare
+say, and except bread, I've--'
+
+'I'm not hungry.'
+
+'Well, that's for you to say. I would have heated the samovar, but I've
+no tea.... I'll go and see how your horse is getting on.'
+
+He went out and slammed the door. I looked round again, the hut struck
+me as more melancholy than ever. The bitter smell of stale smoke choked
+my breathing unpleasantly. The little girl did not stir from her place,
+and did not raise her eyes; from time to time she jogged the cradle,
+and timidly pulled her slipping smock up on to shoulder; her bare legs
+hung motionless.
+
+'What's your name?' I asked her.
+
+'Ulita,' she said, her mournful little face drooping more than ever.
+
+The forester came in and sat down on the bench.
+
+'The storm 's passing over,' he observed, after a brief silence; 'if
+you wish it, I will guide you out of the forest.'
+
+I got up; Biryuk took his gun and examined the firepan.
+
+'What's that for?' I inquired.
+
+'There's mischief in the forest.... They're cutting a tree down on
+Mares' Ravine,' he added, in reply to my look of inquiry.
+
+'Could you hear it from here?'
+
+'I can hear it outside.'
+
+We went out together. The rain had ceased. Heavy masses of storm-cloud
+were still huddled in the distance; from time to time there were long
+flashes of lightning; but here and there overhead the dark blue sky was
+already visible; stars twinkled through the swiftly flying clouds. The
+outline of the trees, drenched with rain, and stirred by the wind,
+began to stand out in the darkness. We listened. The forester took off
+his cap and bent his head.... 'Th ... there!' he said suddenly, and he
+stretched out his hand: 'see what a night he's pitched on.' I had heard
+nothing but the rustle of the leaves. Biryuk led the mare out of the
+shed. 'But, perhaps,' he added aloud, 'this way I shall miss him.'
+'I'll go with you ... if you like?' 'Certainly,' he answered, and he
+backed the horse in again; 'we'll catch him in a trice, and then I'll
+take you. Let's be off.' We started, Biryuk in front, I following him.
+Heaven only knows how he found out his way, but he only stopped once or
+twice, and then merely to listen to the strokes of the axe. 'There,' he
+muttered, 'do you hear? do you hear?' 'Why, where?' Biryuk shrugged his
+shoulders. We went down into the ravine; the wind was still for an
+instant; the rhythmical strokes reached my hearing distinctly. Biryuk
+glanced at me and shook his head. We went farther through the wet
+bracken and nettles. A slow muffled crash was heard....
+
+'He's felled it,' muttered Biryuk. Meantime the sky had grown clearer
+and clearer; there was a faint light in the forest. We clambered at
+last out of the ravine.
+
+'Wait here a little,' the forester whispered to me. He bent down, and
+raising his gun above his head, vanished among the bushes. I began
+listening with strained attention. Across the continual roar of the
+wind faint sounds from close by reached me; there was a cautious blow
+of an axe on the brushwood, the crash of wheels, the snort of a
+horse....
+
+'Where are you off to? Stop!' the iron voice of Biryuk thundered
+suddenly. Another voice was heard in a pitiful shriek, like a trapped
+hare.... _A struggle was beginning._
+
+'No, no, you've made a mistake,' Biryuk declared panting; 'you're not
+going to get off....' I rushed in the direction of the noise, and ran
+up to the scene of the conflict, stumbling at every step. A felled tree
+lay on the ground, and near it Biryuk was busily engaged holding the
+thief down and binding his hands behind his back with a kerchief. I
+came closer. Biryuk got up and set him on his feet. I saw a peasant
+drenched with rain, in tatters, and with a long dishevelled beard. A
+sorry little nag, half covered with a stiff mat, was standing by,
+together with a rough cart. The forester did not utter a word; the
+peasant too was silent; his head was shaking.
+
+'Let him go,' I whispered in Biryuk's ears; 'I'll pay for the tree.'
+
+Without a word Biryuk took the horse by the mane with his left hand; in
+his right he held the thief by the belt. 'Now turn round, you rat!' he
+said grimly.
+
+'The bit of an axe there, take it,' muttered the peasant.
+
+'No reason to lose it, certainly,' said the forester, and he picked up
+the axe. We started. I walked behind.... The rain began sprinkling
+again, and soon fell in torrents. With difficulty we made our way to
+the hut. Biryuk pushed the captured horse into the middle of the yard,
+led the peasant into the room, loosened the knot in the kerchief, and
+made him sit down in a corner. The little girl, who had fallen asleep
+near the oven, jumped up and began staring at us in silent terror. I
+sat down on the locker.
+
+'Ugh, what a downpour!' remarked the forester; 'you will have to wait
+till it's over. Won't you lie down?'
+
+'Thanks.'
+
+'I would have shut him in the store loft, on your honour's account,' he
+went on, indicating the peasant; 'but you see the bolt--'
+
+'Leave him here; don't touch him,' I interrupted.
+
+The peasant stole a glance at me from under his brows. I vowed inwardly
+to set the poor wretch free, come what might. He sat without stirring
+on the locker. By the light of the lantern I could make out his worn,
+wrinkled face, his overhanging yellow eyebrows, his restless eyes, his
+thin limbs.... The little girl lay down on the floor, just at his feet,
+and again dropped asleep. Biryuk sat at the table, his head in his
+hands. A cricket chirped in the corner ... the rain pattered on the
+roof and streamed down the windows; we were all silent.
+
+'Foma Kuzmitch,' said the peasant suddenly in a thick, broken voice;
+'Foma Kuzmitch!'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Let me go.'
+
+Biryuk made no answer.
+
+'Let me go ... hunger drove me to it; let me go.'
+
+'I know you,' retorted the forester severely; 'your set's all alike--
+all thieves.'
+
+'Let me go,' repeated the peasant. 'Our manager ... we 're ruined,
+that's what it is--let me go!'
+
+'Ruined, indeed!... Nobody need steal.'
+
+'Let me go, Foma Kuzmitch.... Don't destroy me. Your manager, you know
+yourself, will have no mercy on me; that's what it is.'
+
+Biryuk turned away. The peasant was shivering as though he were in the
+throes of fever. His head was shaking, and his breathing came in broken
+gasps.
+
+'Let me go,' he repeated with mournful desperation. 'Let me go; by God,
+let me go! I'll pay; see, by God, I will! By God, it was through
+hunger!... the little ones are crying, you know yourself. It's hard for
+us, see.'
+
+'You needn't go stealing, for all that.'
+
+'My little horse,' the peasant went on, 'my poor little horse, at least
+... our only beast ... let it go.'
+
+'I tell you I can't. I'm not a free man; I'm made responsible. You
+oughtn't to be spoilt, either.'
+
+'Let me go! It's through want, Foma Kuzmitch, want--and nothing else--
+let me go!'
+
+'I know you!'
+
+'Oh, let me go!'
+
+'Ugh, what's the use of talking to you! sit quiet, or else you'll catch
+it. Don't you see the gentleman, hey?'
+
+The poor wretch hung his head.... Biryuk yawned and laid his head on
+the table. The rain still persisted. I was waiting to see what would
+happen.
+
+Suddenly the peasant stood erect. His eyes were glittering, and his
+face flushed dark red. 'Come, then, here; strike yourself, here,' he
+began, his eyes puckering up and the corners of his mouth dropping;
+'come, cursed destroyer of men's souls! drink Christian blood, drink.'
+
+The forester turned round.
+
+'I'm speaking to you, Asiatic, blood-sucker, you!'
+
+'Are you drunk or what, to set to being abusive?' began the forester,
+puzzled. 'Are you out of your senses, hey?'
+
+'Drunk! not at your expense, cursed destroyer of souls--brute, brute,
+brute!'
+
+'Ah, you----I'll show you!'
+
+'What's that to me? It's all one; I'm done for; what can I do without a
+home? Kill me--it's the same in the end; whether it's through hunger or
+like this--it's all one. Ruin us all--wife, children ... kill us all at
+once. But, wait a bit, we'll get at you!'
+
+Biryuk got up.
+
+'Kill me, kill me,' the peasant went on in savage tones; 'kill me;
+come, come, kill me....' (The little girl jumped up hastily from the
+ground and stared at him.) 'Kill me, kill me!'
+
+'Silence!' thundered the forester, and he took two steps forward.
+
+'Stop, Foma, stop,' I shouted; 'let him go.... Peace be with him.'
+
+'I won't be silent,' the luckless wretch went on. 'It's all the same--
+ruin anyway--you destroyer of souls, you brute; you've not come to ruin
+yet.... But wait a bit; you won't have long to boast of; they'll wring
+your neck; wait a bit!'
+
+Biryuk clutched him by the shoulder. I rushed to help the peasant....
+
+'Don't touch him, master!' the forester shouted to me.
+
+I should not have feared his threats, and already had my fist in the
+air; but to my intense amazement, with one pull he tugged the kerchief
+off the peasant's elbows, took him by the scruff of the neck, thrust
+his cap over his eyes, opened the door, and shoved him out.
+
+'Go to the devil with your horse!' he shouted after him; 'but mind,
+next time....'
+
+He came back into the hut and began rummaging in the corner.
+
+'Well, Biryuk,' I said at last, 'you've astonished me; I see you're a
+splendid fellow.'
+
+'Oh, stop that, master,' he cut me short with an air of vexation;
+'please don't speak of it. But I'd better see you on your way now,' he
+added; 'I suppose you won't wait for this little rain....'
+
+In the yard there was the rattle of the wheels of the peasant's cart.
+
+'He's off, then!' he muttered; 'but next time!'
+
+Half-an-hour later he parted from me at the edge of the wood.
+
+
+
+                                  XIII
+
+                         TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
+
+
+I have already had the honour, kind readers, of introducing to you
+several of my neighbours; let me now seize a favourable opportunity (it
+is always a favourable opportunity with us writers) to make known to
+you two more gentlemen, on whose lands I often used to go shooting--
+very worthy, well-intentioned persons, who enjoy universal esteem in
+several districts.
+
+First I will describe to you the retired General-major Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch Hvalinsky. Picture to yourselves a tall and once slender
+man, now inclined to corpulence, but not in the least decrepit or even
+elderly, a man of ripe age; in his very prime, as they say. It is true
+the once regular and even now rather pleasing features of his face
+have undergone some change; his cheeks are flabby; there are close
+wrinkles like rays about his eyes; a few teeth are not, as Saadi,
+according to Pushkin, used to say; his light brown hair--at least, all
+that is left of it--has assumed a purplish hue, thanks to a composition
+bought at the Romyon horse-fair of a Jew who gave himself out as an
+Armenian; but Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch has a smart walk and a ringing
+laugh, jingles his spurs and curls his moustaches, and finally speaks
+of himself as an old cavalry man, whereas we all know that really old
+men never talk of being old. He usually wears a frock-coat buttoned up
+to the top, a high cravat, starched collars, and grey sprigged trousers
+of a military cut; he wears his hat tilted over his forehead, leaving
+all the back of his head exposed. He is a good-natured man, but of
+rather curious notions and principles. For instance, he can never treat
+noblemen of no wealth or standing as equals. When he talks to them, he
+usually looks sideways at them, his cheek pressed hard against his
+stiff white collar, and suddenly he turns and silently fixes them with
+a clear stony stare, while he moves the whole skin of his head under
+his hair; he even has a way of his own in pronouncing many words; he
+never says, for instance: 'Thank you, Pavel Vasilyitch,' or 'This way,
+if you please, Mihalo Ivanitch,' but always 'Fanks, Pa'l 'Asilitch,' or
+''Is wy, please, Mil' 'Vanitch.' With persons of the lower grades of
+society, his behaviour is still more quaint; he never looks at them at
+all, and before making known his desires to them, or giving an order,
+he repeats several times in succession, with a puzzled, far-away air:
+'What's your name?... what, what's your name?' with extraordinary sharp
+emphasis on the first word, which gives the phrase a rather close
+resemblance to the call of a quail. He is very fussy and terribly
+close-fisted, but manages his land badly; he had chosen as overseer on
+his estate a retired quartermaster, a Little Russian, and a man of
+really exceptional stupidity. None of us, though, in the management of
+land, has ever surpassed a certain great Petersburg dignitary, who,
+having perceived from the reports of his steward that the cornkilns in
+which the corn was dried on his estate were often liable to catch fire,
+whereby he lost a great deal of grain, gave the strictest orders that
+for the future they should not put the sheaves in till the fire had
+been completely put out! This same great personage conceived the
+brilliant idea of sowing his fields with poppies, as the result of an
+apparently simple calculation; poppy being dearer than rye, he argued,
+it is consequently more profitable to sow poppy. He it was, too, who
+ordered his women serfs to wear tiaras after a pattern bespoken from
+Moscow; and to this day the peasant women on his lands do actually wear
+the tiaras, only they wear them over their skull-caps.... But let us
+return to Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch is a
+devoted admirer of the fair sex, and directly he catches sight of a
+pretty woman in the promenade of his district town, he is promptly off
+in pursuit, but falls at once into a sort of limping gait--that is the
+remarkable feature of the case. He is fond of playing cards, but only
+with people of a lower standing; they toady him with 'Your Excellency'
+in every sentence, while he can scold them and find fault to his
+heart's content. When he chances to play with the governor or any
+official personage, a marvellous change comes over him; he is all nods
+and smiles; he looks them in the face; he seems positively flowing with
+honey.... He even loses without grumbling. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch
+does not read much; when he is reading he incessantly works his
+moustaches and eyebrows up and down, as if a wave were passing from
+below upwards over his face. This undulatory motion in Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch's face is especially marked when (before company, of
+course) he happens to be reading the columns of the _Journal des
+Debats_. In the assemblies of nobility he plays a rather important
+part, but on grounds of economy he declines the honourable dignity of
+marshal. 'Gentlemen,' he usually says to the noblemen who press that
+office upon him, and he speaks in a voice filled with condescension and
+self-sufficiency: 'much indebted for the honour; but I have made up my
+mind to consecrate my leisure to solitude.' And, as he utters these
+words, he turns his head several times to right and to left, and then,
+with a dignified air, adjusts his chin and his cheek over his cravat.
+In his young days he served as adjutant to some very important person,
+whom he never speaks of except by his Christian name and patronymic;
+they do say he fulfilled other functions than those of an adjutant;
+that, for instance, in full parade get-up, buttoned up to the chin, he
+had to lather his chief in his bath--but one can't believe everything
+one hears. General Hvalinsky is not, however, fond of talking himself
+about his career in the army, which is certainly rather curious; it
+seems that he had never seen active service. General Hvalinsky lives in
+a small house alone; he has never known the joys of married life, and
+consequently he still regards himself as a possible match, and indeed a
+very eligible one. But he has a house-keeper, a dark-eyed, dark-browed,
+plump, fresh-looking woman of five-and-thirty with a moustache; she
+wears starched dresses even on week-days, and on Sundays puts on muslin
+sleeves as well. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch is at his best at the large
+invitation dinners given by gentlemen of the neighbourhood in honour of
+the governor and other dignitaries: then he is, one may say, in his
+natural element. On these occasions he usually sits, if not on the
+governor's right hand, at least at no great distance from him; at the
+beginning of dinner he is more disposed to nurse his sense of personal
+dignity, and, sitting back in his chair, he loftily scans the necks and
+stand-up collars of the guests, without turning his head, but towards
+the end of the meal he unbends, begins smiling in all directions (he
+had been all smiles for the governor from the first), and sometimes
+even proposes the toast in honour of the fair sex, the ornament of our
+planet, as he says. General Hvalinsky shows to advantage too at all
+solemn public functions, inspections, assemblies, and exhibitions; no
+one in church goes up for the benediction with such style. Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch's servants are never noisy and clamorous on the breaking
+up of assemblies or in crowded thoroughfares; as they make a way for
+him through the crowd or call his carriage, they say in an agreeable
+guttural baritone: 'By your leave, by your leave allow General
+Hvalinsky to pass,' or 'Call for General Hvalinsky's carriage.' ...
+Hvalinsky's carriage is, it must be admitted, of a rather queer design,
+and the footmen's liveries are rather threadbare (that they are grey,
+with red facings, it is hardly necessary to remark); his horses too
+have seen a good deal of hard service in their time; but Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch has no pretensions to splendour, and goes so far as to
+think it beneath his rank to make an ostentation of wealth. Hvalinsky
+has no special gift of eloquence, or possibly has no opportunity of
+displaying his rhetorical powers, as he has a particular aversion, not
+only for disputing, but for discussion in general, and assiduously
+avoids long conversation of all sorts, especially with young people.
+This was certainly judicious on his part; the worst of having to do
+with the younger generation is that they are so ready to forget the
+proper respect and submission due to their superiors. In the presence
+of persons of high rank Hvalinsky is for the most part silent, while
+with persons of a lower rank, whom to judge by appearances he despises,
+though he constantly associates with them, his remarks are sharp and
+abrupt, expressions such as the following occurring incessantly:
+'That's a piece of folly, what you're saying now,' or 'I feel myself
+compelled, sir, to remind you,' or 'You ought to realise with whom you
+are dealing,' and so on. He is peculiarly dreaded by post-masters,
+officers of the local boards, and superintendents of posting stations.
+He never entertains any one in his house, and lives, as the rumour
+goes, like a screw. For all that, he's an excellent country gentleman,
+'An old soldier, a disinterested fellow, a man of principle, _vieux
+grognard_,' his neighbours say of him. The provincial prosecutor alone
+permits himself to smile when General Hvalinsky's excellent and solid
+qualities are referred to before him--but what will not envy drive men
+to!...
+
+However, we will pass now to another landed proprietor.
+
+Mardary Apollonitch Stegunov has no sort of resemblance to Hvalinsky; I
+hardly think he has ever served under government in any capacity, and
+he has never been reckoned handsome. Mardary Apollonitch is a little,
+fattish, bald old man of a respectable corpulence, with a double chin
+and little soft hands. He is very hospitable and jovial; lives, as the
+saying is, for his comfort; summer and winter alike, he wears a striped
+wadded dressing-gown. There's only one thing in which he is like
+General Hvalinsky; he too is a bachelor. He owns five hundred souls.
+Mardary Apollonitch's interest in his estate is of a rather superficial
+description; not to be behind the age, he ordered a threshing-machine
+from Butenop's in Moscow, locked it up in a barn, and then felt his
+mind at rest on the subject. Sometimes on a fine summer day he would
+have out his racing droshky, and drive off to his fields, to look at
+the crops and gather corn-flowers. Mardary Apollonitch's existence is
+carried on in quite the old style. His house is of an old-fashioned
+construction; in the hall there is, of course, a smell of kvas, tallow
+candles, and leather; close at hand, on the right, there is a sideboard
+with pipes and towels; in the dining-room, family portraits, flies, a
+great pot of geraniums, and a squeaky piano; in the drawing-room, three
+sofas, three tables, two looking-glasses, and a wheezy clock of
+tarnished enamel with engraved bronze hands; in the study, a table
+piled up with papers, and a bluish-coloured screen covered with
+pictures cut out of various works of last century; a bookcase full of
+musty books, spiders, and black dust; a puffy armchair; an Italian
+window; a sealed-up door into the garden.... Everything, in short, just
+as it always is. Mardary Apollonitch has a multitude of servants, all
+dressed in the old-fashioned style; in long blue full coats, with high
+collars, shortish pantaloons of a muddy hue, and yellow waistcoats.
+They address visitors as 'father.' His estate is under the
+superintendence of an agent, a peasant with a beard that covers the
+whole of his sheepskin; his household is managed by a stingy, wrinkled
+old woman, whose face is always tied up in a cinnamon-coloured
+handkerchief. In Mardary Apollonitch's stable there are thirty horses
+of various kinds; he drives out in a coach built on the estate, that
+weighs four tons. He receives visitors very cordially, and entertains
+them sumptuously; in other words, thanks to the stupefying powers of
+our national cookery, he deprives them of all capacity for doing
+anything but playing preference. For his part, he never does anything,
+and has even given up reading the _Dream-book_. But there are a good
+many of our landed gentry in Russia exactly like this. It will be
+asked: 'What is my object in talking about him?...' Well, by way of
+answering that question, let me describe to you one of my visits at
+Mardary Apollonitch's.
+
+I arrived one summer evening at seven o'clock. An evening service was
+only just over; the priest, a young man, apparently very timid, and
+only lately come from the seminary, was sitting in the drawing-room
+near the door, on the extreme edge of a chair. Mardary Apollonitch
+received me as usual, very cordially; he was genuinely delighted to see
+any visitor, and indeed he was the most good-natured of men altogether.
+The priest got up and took his hat.
+
+'Wait a bit, wait a bit, father,' said Mardary Apollonitch, not yet
+leaving go of my hand; 'don't go ... I have sent for some vodka for
+you.'
+
+'I never drink it, sir,' the priest muttered in confusion, blushing up
+to his ears.
+
+'What nonsense!' answered Mardary Apollonitch; 'Mishka! Yushka! vodka
+for the father!'
+
+Yushka, a tall, thin old man of eighty, came in with a glass of vodka
+on a dark-coloured tray, with a few patches of flesh-colour on it, all
+that was left of the original enamel.
+
+The priest began to decline.
+
+'Come, drink it up, father, no ceremony; it's too bad of you,' observed
+the landowner reproachfully.
+
+The poor young man had to obey.
+
+'There, now, father, you may go.'
+
+The priest took leave.
+
+'There, there, that'll do, get along with you....'
+
+'A capital fellow,' pursued Mardary Apollonitch, looking after him, 'I
+like him very much; there's only one thing--he's young yet. But how are
+you, my dear sir?... What have you been doing? How are you? Let's come
+out on to the balcony--such a lovely evening.'
+
+We went out on the balcony, sat down, and began to talk. Mardary
+Apollonitch glanced below, and suddenly fell into a state of tremendous
+excitement.
+
+'Whose hens are those? whose hens are those?' he shouted: 'Whose are
+those hens roaming about in the garden?... Whose are those hens? How
+many times I've forbidden it! How many times I've spoken about it!'
+
+Yushka ran out.
+
+'What disorder!' protested Mardary Apollonitch; 'it's horrible!'
+
+The unlucky hens, two speckled and one white with a topknot, as I still
+remember, went on stalking tranquilly about under the apple-trees,
+occasionally giving vent to their feelings in a prolonged clucking,
+when suddenly Yushka, bareheaded and stick in hand, with three other
+house-serfs of mature years, flew at them simultaneously. Then the fun
+began. The hens clucked, flapped their wings, hopped, raised a
+deafening cackle; the house-serfs ran, tripping up and tumbling over;
+their master shouted from the balcony like one possessed: 'Catch 'em,
+catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em!'
+
+At last one servant succeeded in catching the hen with the topknot,
+tumbling upon her, and at the very same moment a little girl of eleven,
+with dishevelled hair, and a dry branch in her hand, jumped over the
+garden-fence from the village street.
+
+'Ah, we see now whose hens!' cried the landowner in triumph. 'They're
+Yermil, the coachman's, hens! he's sent his Natalka to chase them
+out.... He didn't send his Parasha, no fear!' the landowner added in a
+low voice with a significant snigger. 'Hey, Yushka! let the hens alone;
+catch Natalka for me.'
+
+But before the panting Yushka had time to reach the terrified little
+girl the house-keeper suddenly appeared, snatched her by the arm, and
+slapped her several times on the back....
+
+'That's it! that's it!' cried the master, 'tut-tut-tut!... And carry
+off the hens, Avdotya,' he added in a loud voice, and he turned with a
+beaming face to me; 'that was a fine chase, my dear sir, hey?--I'm in a
+regular perspiration: look.'
+
+And Mardary Apollonitch went off into a series of chuckles.
+
+We remained on the balcony. The evening was really exceptionally fine.
+
+Tea was served us.
+
+'Tell me,' I began, 'Mardary Apollonitch: are those your peasants'
+huts, out there on the highroad, above the ravine?'
+
+'Yes ... why do you ask?'
+
+'I wonder at you, Mardary Apollonitch? It's really sinful. The huts
+allotted to the peasants there are wretched cramped little hovels;
+there isn't a tree to be seen near them; there's not a pond even;
+there's only one well, and that's no good. Could you really find no
+other place to settle them?... And they say you're taking away the old
+hemp-grounds, too?'
+
+'And what is one to do with this new division of the lands?' Mardary
+Apollonitch made answer. 'Do you know I've this re-division quite on my
+mind, and I foresee no sort of good from it. And as for my having taken
+away the hemp-ground, and their not having dug any ponds, or what not--
+as to that, my dear sir, I know my own business. I'm a plain man--I go
+on the old system. To my ideas, when a man's master--he's master; and
+when he's peasant--he's peasant. ... That's what I think about it.'
+
+To an argument so clear and convincing there was of course no answer.
+
+'And besides,' he went on, 'those peasants are a wretched lot; they're
+in disgrace. Particularly two families there; why, my late father--God
+rest his soul--couldn't bear them; positively couldn't bear them. And
+you know my precept is: where the father's a thief, the son's a thief;
+say what you like.... Blood, blood--oh, that's the great thing!'
+
+Meanwhile there was a perfect stillness in the air. Only rarely there
+came a gust of wind, which, as it sank for the last time near the
+house, brought to our ears the sound of rhythmically repeated blows,
+seeming to come from the stable. Mardary Apollonitch was in the act of
+lifting a saucer full of tea to his lips, and was just inflating his
+nostrils to sniff its fragrance--no true-born Russian, as we all know,
+can drink his tea without this preliminary--but he stopped short,
+listened, nodded his head, sipped his tea, and laying the saucer on the
+table, with the most good-natured smile imaginable, he murmured as
+though involuntarily accompanying the blows: 'Tchuki-tchuki-tchuk!
+Tchuki-tchuk!'
+
+'What is it?' I asked puzzled. 'Oh, by my order, they're punishing a
+scamp of a fellow.... Do you happen to remember Vasya, who waits at the
+sideboard?'
+
+'Which Vasya?'
+
+'Why, that waited on us at dinner just now. He with the long whiskers.'
+
+The fiercest indignation could not have stood against the clear mild
+gaze of Mardary Apollonitch.
+
+'What are you after, young man? what is it?' he said, shaking his head.
+'Am I a criminal or something, that you stare at me like that? "Whom he
+loveth he chasteneth"; you know that.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later I had taken leave of Mardary Apollonitch. As
+I was driving through the village I caught sight of Vasya. He was
+walking down the village street, cracking nuts. I told the coachman to
+stop the horses and called him up.
+
+'Well, my boy, so they've been punishing you to-day?' I said to him.
+
+'How did you know?' answered Vasya.
+
+'Your master told me.'
+
+'The master himself?'
+
+'What did he order you to be punished for?'
+
+'Oh, I deserved it, father; I deserved it. They don't punish for
+trifles among us; that's not the way with us--no, no. Our master's not
+like that; our master ... you won't find another master like him in all
+the province.'
+
+'Drive on!' I said to the coachman.' There you have it, old Russia!' I
+mused on my homeward way.
+
+
+
+                                  XIV
+
+                                LEBEDYAN
+
+
+One of the principal advantages of hunting, my dear readers, consists
+in its forcing you to be constantly moving from place to place, which
+is highly agreeable for a man of no occupation. It is true that
+sometimes, especially in wet weather, it's not over pleasant to roam
+over by-roads, to cut 'across country,' to stop every peasant you meet
+with the question, 'Hey! my good man! how are we to get to Mordovka?'
+and at Mordovka to try to extract from a half-witted peasant woman (the
+working population are all in the fields) whether it is far to an inn
+on the high-road, and how to get to it--and then when you have gone on
+eight miles farther, instead of an inn, to come upon the deserted
+village of Hudobubnova, to the great amazement of a whole herd of pigs,
+who have been wallowing up to their ears in the black mud in the middle
+of the village street, without the slightest anticipation of ever being
+disturbed. There is no great joy either in having to cross planks that
+dance under your feet; to drop down into ravines; to wade across boggy
+streams: it is not over-pleasant to tramp twenty-four hours on end
+through the sea of green that covers the highroads or (which God
+forbid!) stay for hours stuck in the mud before a striped milestone
+with the figures 22 on one side and 23 on the other; it is not wholly
+pleasant to live for weeks together on eggs, milk, and the rye-bread
+patriots affect to be so fond of.... But there is ample compensation
+for all these inconveniences and discomforts in pleasures and
+advantages of another sort. Let us come, though, to our story.
+
+After all I have said above, there is no need to explain to the reader
+how I happened five years ago to be at Lebedyan just in the very thick
+of the horse-fair. We sportsmen may often set off on a fine morning
+from our more or less ancestral roof, in the full intention of
+returning there the following evening, and little by little, still in
+pursuit of snipe, may get at last to the blessed banks of Petchora.
+Besides, every lover of the gun and the dog is a passionate admirer of
+the noblest animal in the world, the horse. And so I turned up at
+Lebedyan, stopped at the hotel, changed my clothes, and went out to the
+fair. (The waiter, a thin lanky youth of twenty, had already informed
+me in a sweet nasal tenor that his Excellency Prince N----, who
+purchases the chargers of the--regiment, was staying at their house;
+that many other gentlemen had arrived; that some gypsies were to sing
+in the evenings, and there was to be a performance of _Pan Tvardovsky_
+at the theatre; that the horses were fetching good prices; and that
+there was a fine show of them.)
+
+In the market square there were endless rows of carts drawn up, and
+behind the carts, horses of every possible kind: racers, stud-horses,
+dray horses, cart-horses, posting-hacks, and simple peasants' nags.
+Some fat and sleek, assorted by colours, covered with striped horse-
+cloths, and tied up short to high racks, turned furtive glances
+backward at the too familiar whips of their owners, the horse-dealers;
+private owners' horses, sent by noblemen of the steppes a hundred or
+two hundred miles away, in charge of some decrepit old coachman and two
+or three headstrong stable-boys, shook their long necks, stamped with
+ennui, and gnawed at the fences; roan horses, from Vyatka, huddled
+close to one another; race-horses, dapple-grey, raven, and sorrel, with
+large hindquarters, flowing tails, and shaggy legs, stood in majestic
+immobility like lions. Connoisseurs stopped respectfully before them.
+The avenues formed by the rows of carts were thronged with people of
+every class, age, and appearance; horse-dealers in long blue coats and
+high caps, with sly faces, were on the look-out for purchasers;
+gypsies, with staring eyes and curly heads, strolled up and down, like
+uneasy spirits, looking into the horses' mouths, lifting up a hoof or a
+tail, shouting, swearing, acting as go-betweens, casting lots, or
+hanging about some army horse-contracter in a foraging-cap and military
+cloak, with beaver collar. A stalwart Cossack rode up and down on a
+lanky gelding with the neck of a stag, offering it for sale 'in one
+lot,' that is, saddle, bridle, and all. Peasants, in sheepskins torn at
+the arm-pits, were forcing their way despairingly through the crowd, or
+packing themselves by dozens into a cart harnessed to a horse, which
+was to be 'put to the test,' or somewhere on one side, with the aid of
+a wily gypsy, they were bargaining till they were exhausted, clasping
+each other's hands a hundred times over, each still sticking to his
+price, while the subject of their dispute, a wretched little jade
+covered with a shrunken mat, was blinking quite unmoved, as though it
+was no concern of hers.... And, after all, what difference did it make
+to her who was to have the beating of her? Broad-browed landowners,
+with dyed moustaches and an expression of dignity on their faces, in
+Polish hats and cotton overcoats pulled half-on, were talking
+condescendingly with fat merchants in felt hats and green gloves.
+Officers of different regiments were crowding everywhere; an
+extraordinarily lanky cuirassier of German extraction was languidly
+inquiring of a lame horse-dealer 'what he expected to get for that
+chestnut.' A fair-haired young hussar, a boy of nineteen, was choosing
+a trace-horse to match a lean carriage-horse; a post-boy in a low-
+crowned hat, with a peacock's feather twisted round it, in a brown coat
+and long leather gloves tied round the arm with narrow, greenish bands,
+was looking for a shaft-horse. Coachmen were plaiting the horses'
+tails, wetting their manes, and giving respectful advice to their
+masters. Those who had completed a stroke of business were hurrying to
+hotel or to tavern, according to their class.... And all the crowd were
+moving, shouting, bustling, quarrelling and making it up again,
+swearing and laughing, all up to their knees in the mud. I wanted to
+buy a set of three horses for my covered trap; mine had begun to show
+signs of breaking down. I had found two, but had not yet succeeded in
+picking up a third. After a hotel dinner, which I cannot bring myself
+to describe (even Aeneas had discovered how painful it is to dwell on
+sorrows past), I repaired to a _cafe_ so-called, which was the evening
+resort of the purchasers of cavalry mounts, horse-breeders, and other
+persons. In the billiard-room, which was plunged in grey floods of
+tobacco smoke, there were about twenty men. Here were free-and-easy
+young landowners in embroidered jackets and grey trousers, with long
+curling hair and little waxed moustaches, staring about them with
+gentlemanly insolence; other noblemen in Cossack dress, with
+extraordinarily short necks, and eyes lost in layers of fat, were
+snorting with distressing distinctness; merchants sat a little apart on
+the _qui-vive_, as it is called; officers were chatting freely among
+themselves. At the billiard-table was Prince N----a young man of two-
+and-twenty, with a lively and rather contemptuous face, in a coat
+hanging open, a red silk shirt, and loose velvet pantaloons; he was
+playing with the ex-lieutenant, Viktor Hlopakov.
+
+The ex-lieutenant, Viktor Hlopakov, a little, thinnish, dark man of
+thirty, with black hair, brown eyes, and a thick snub nose, is a
+diligent frequenter of elections and horse-fairs. He walks with a skip
+and a hop, waves his fat hands with a jovial swagger, cocks his cap on
+one side, and tucks up the sleeves of his military coat, showing the
+blue-black cotton lining. Mr. Hlopakov knows how to gain the favour of
+rich scapegraces from Petersburg; smokes, drinks, and plays cards with
+them; calls them by their Christian names. What they find to like in
+him it is rather hard to comprehend. He is not clever; he is not
+amusing; he is not even a buffoon. It is true they treat him with
+friendly casualness, as a good-natured fellow, but rather a fool; they
+chum with him for two or three weeks, and then all of a sudden do not
+recognise him in the street, and he on his side, too, does not
+recognise them. The chief peculiarity of Lieutenant Hlopakov consists
+in his continually for a year, sometimes two at a time, using in season
+and out of season one expression, which, though not in the least
+humorous, for some reason or other makes everyone laugh. Eight years
+ago he used on every occasion to say, "'Umble respecks and duty," and
+his patrons of that date used always to fall into fits of laughter and
+make him repeat ''Umble respecks and duty'; then he began to adopt a
+more complicated expression: 'No, that's too, too k'essk'say,' and with
+the same brilliant success; two years later he had invented a fresh
+saying: '_Ne voo_ excite _voo_self _pa_, man of sin, sewn in a
+sheepskin,' and so on. And strange to say! these, as you see, not
+overwhelmingly witty phrases, keep him in food and drink and clothes.
+(He has run through his property ages ago, and lives solely upon his
+friends.) There is, observe, absolutely no other attraction about him;
+he can, it is true, smoke a hundred pipes of Zhukov tobacco in a day,
+and when he plays billiards, throws his right leg higher than his head,
+and while taking aim shakes his cue affectedly; but, after all, not
+everyone has a fancy for these accomplishments. He can drink, too ...
+but in Russia it is hard to gain distinction as a drinker. In short,
+his success is a complete riddle to me.... There is one thing, perhaps;
+he is discreet; he has no taste for washing dirty linen away from home,
+never speaks a word against anyone.
+
+'Well,' I thought, on seeing Hlopakov, 'I wonder what his catchword is
+now?'
+
+The prince hit the white.
+
+'Thirty love,' whined a consumptive marker, with a dark face and blue
+rings under his eyes.
+
+The prince sent the yellow with a crash into the farthest pocket.
+
+'Ah!' a stoutish merchant, sitting in the corner at a tottering little
+one-legged table, boomed approvingly from the depths of his chest, and
+immediately was overcome by confusion at his own presumption. But
+luckily no one noticed him. He drew a long breath, and stroked his
+beard.
+
+'Thirty-six love!' the marker shouted in a nasal voice.
+
+'Well, what do you say to that, old man?' the prince asked Hlopakov.
+
+'What! rrrrakaliooon, of course, simply rrrrakaliooooon!'
+
+The prince roared with laughter.
+
+'What? what? Say it again.'
+
+'Rrrrrakaliooon!' repeated the ex-lieutenant complacently.
+
+'So that's the catchword!' thought I.
+
+The prince sent the red into the pocket.
+
+'Oh! that's not the way, prince, that's not the way,' lisped a fair-
+haired young officer with red eyes, a tiny nose, and a babyish, sleepy
+face. 'You shouldn't play like that ... you ought ... not that way!'
+
+'Eh?' the prince queried over his shoulder.
+
+'You ought to have done it ... in a triplet.'
+
+'Oh, really?' muttered the prince.
+
+'What do you say, prince? Shall we go this evening to hear the
+gypsies?' the young man hurriedly went on in confusion. 'Styoshka will
+sing ... Ilyushka....'
+
+The prince vouchsafed no reply.
+
+'Rrrrrakaliooon, old boy,' said Hlopakov, with a sly wink of his left
+eye.
+
+And the prince exploded.
+
+'Thirty-nine to love,' sang out the marker.
+
+'Love ... just look, I'll do the trick with that yellow.' ... Hlopakov,
+fidgeting his cue in his hand, took aim, and missed.
+
+'Eh, rrrakalioon,' he cried with vexation.
+
+The prince laughed again.
+
+'What, what, what?'
+
+'Your honour made a miss,' observed the marker. 'Allow me to chalk the
+cue.... Forty love.'
+
+'Yes, gentlemen,' said the prince, addressing the whole company, and
+not looking at any one in particular; 'you know, Verzhembitskaya must
+be called before the curtain to-night.'
+
+'To be sure, to be sure, of course,' several voices cried in rivalry,
+amazingly flattered at the chance of answering the prince's speech;
+'Verzhembitskaya, to be sure....'
+
+'Verzhembitskaya's an excellent actress, far superior to Sopnyakova,'
+whined an ugly little man in the corner with moustaches and spectacles.
+Luckless wretch! he was secretly sighing at Sopnyakova's feet, and the
+prince did not even vouchsafe him a look.
+
+'Wai-ter, hey, a pipe!' a tall gentleman, with regular features and a
+most majestic manner--in fact, with all the external symptoms of a
+card-sharper--muttered into his cravat.
+
+A waiter ran for a pipe, and when he came back, announced to his
+excellency that the groom Baklaga was asking for him.
+
+'Ah! tell him to wait a minute and take him some vodka.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+Baklaga, as I was told afterwards, was the name of a youthful,
+handsome, and excessively depraved groom; the prince loved him, made
+him presents of horses, went out hunting with him, spent whole nights
+with him.... Now you would not know this same prince, who was once a
+rake and a scapegrace.... In what good odour he is now; how straight-
+laced, how supercilious! How devoted to the government--and, above all,
+so prudent and judicious!
+
+However, the tobacco smoke had begun to make my eyes smart. After
+hearing Hlopakov's exclamation and the prince's chuckle one last time
+more, I went off to my room, where, on a narrow, hair-stuffed sofa
+pressed into hollows, with a high, curved back, my man had already made
+me up a bed.
+
+The next day I went out to look at the horses in the stables, and began
+with the famous horsedealer Sitnikov's. I went through a gate into a
+yard strewn with sand. Before a wide open stable-door stood the
+horsedealer himself--a tall, stout man no longer young, in a hareskin
+coat, with a raised turnover collar. Catching sight of me, he moved
+slowly to meet me, held his cap in both hands above his head, and in a
+sing-song voice brought out:
+
+'Ah, our respects to you. You'd like to have a look at the horses, may
+be?'
+
+'Yes; I've come to look at the horses.'
+
+'And what sort of horses, precisely, I make bold to ask?'
+
+'Show me what you have.'
+
+'With pleasure.'
+
+We went into the stable. Some white pug-dogs got up from the hay and
+ran up to us, wagging their tails, and a long-bearded old goat walked
+away with an air of dissatisfaction; three stable-boys, in strong but
+greasy sheepskins, bowed to us without speaking. To right and to left,
+in horse-boxes raised above the ground, stood nearly thirty horses,
+groomed to perfection. Pigeons fluttered cooing about the rafters.
+
+'What, now, do you want a horse for? for driving or for breeding?'
+Sitnikov inquired of me.
+
+'Oh, I'll see both sorts.'
+
+'To be sure, to be sure,' the horsedealer commented, dwelling on each
+syllable. 'Petya, show the gentleman Ermine.'
+
+We came out into the yard.
+
+'But won't you let them bring you a bench out of the hut?... You don't
+want to sit down.... As you please.'
+
+There was the thud of hoofs on the boards, the crack of a whip, and
+Petya, a swarthy fellow of forty, marked by small-pox, popped out of
+the stable with a rather well-shaped grey stallion, made it rear, ran
+twice round the yard with it, and adroitly pulled it up at the right
+place. Ermine stretched himself, snorted, raised his tail, shook his
+head, and looked sideways at me.
+
+'A clever beast,' I thought.
+
+'Give him his head, give him his head,' said Sitniker, and he stared at
+me.
+
+'What may you think of him?' he inquired at last.
+
+'The horse's not bad--the hind legs aren't quite sound.'
+
+'His legs are first-rate!' Sitnikov rejoined, with an air of
+conviction;' and his hind-quarters ... just look, sir ... broad as an
+oven--you could sleep up there.' 'His pasterns are long.'
+
+'Long! mercy on us! Start him, Petya, start him, but at a trot, a trot
+... don't let him gallop.'
+
+Again Petya ran round the yard with Ermine. None of us spoke for a
+little.
+
+'There, lead him back,' said Sitnikov,' and show us Falcon.'
+
+Falcon, a gaunt beast of Dutch extraction with sloping hind-quarters,
+as black as a beetle, turned out to be little better than Ermine. He
+was one of those beasts of whom fanciers will tell you that 'they go
+chopping and mincing and dancing about,' meaning thereby that they
+prance and throw out their fore-legs to right and to left without
+making much headway. Middle-aged merchants have a great fancy for such
+horses; their action recalls the swaggering gait of a smart waiter;
+they do well in single harness for an after-dinner drive; with mincing
+paces and curved neck they zealously draw a clumsy droshky laden with
+an overfed coachman, a depressed, dyspeptic merchant, and his lymphatic
+wife, in a blue silk mantle, with a lilac handkerchief over her head.
+Falcon too I declined. Sitnikov showed me several horses.... One at
+last, a dapple-grey beast of Voyakov breed, took my fancy. I could not
+restrain my satisfaction, and patted him on the withers. Sitnikov at
+once feigned absolute indifference.
+
+"Well, does he go well in harness?" I inquired. (They never speak of a
+trotting horse as "being driven.")
+
+"Oh, yes," answered the horsedealer carelessly.
+
+"Can I see him?"
+
+"If you like, certainly. Hi, Kuzya, put Pursuer into the droshky!"
+
+Kuzya, the jockey, a real master of horsemanship, drove three times
+past us up and down the street. The horse went well, without changing
+its pace, nor shambling; it had a free action, held its tail high, and
+covered the ground well.
+
+"And what are you asking for him?"
+
+Sitnikov asked an impossible price. We began bargaining on the spot in
+the street, when suddenly a splendidly-matched team of three posting-
+horses flew noisily round the corner and drew up sharply at the gates
+before Sitnikov's house. In the smart little sportsman's trap sat
+Prince N----; beside him Hlopakov. Baklaga was driving ... and how he
+drove! He could have driven them through an earring, the rascal! The
+bay trace-horses, little, keen, black-eyed, black-legged beasts, were
+all impatience; they kept rearing--a whistle, and off they would have
+bolted! The dark-bay shaft-horse stood firmly, its neck arched like a
+swan's, its breast forward, its legs like arrows, shaking its head and
+proudly blinking.... They were splendid! No one could desire a finer
+turn out for an Easter procession!
+
+'Your excellency, please to come in!' cried Sitnikov.
+
+The prince leaped out of the trap. Hlopakov slowly descended on the
+other side.
+
+'Good morning, friend ... any horses.'
+
+'You may be sure we've horses for your excellency! Pray walk in....
+Petya, bring out Peacock! and let them get Favourite ready too. And
+with you, sir,' he went on, turning to me, 'we'll settle matters
+another time.... Fomka, a bench for his excellency.'
+
+From a special stable which I had not at first observed they led out
+Peacock. A powerful dark sorrel horse seemed to fly across the yard
+with all its legs in the air. Sitnikov even turned away his head and
+winked.
+
+'Oh, rrakalion!' piped Hlopakov; 'Zhaymsah (_j'aime ca_.)'
+
+The prince laughed.
+
+Peacock was stopped with difficulty; he dragged the stable-boy about
+the yard; at last he was pushed against the wall. He snorted, started
+and reared, while Sitnikov still teased him, brandishing a whip at him.
+
+'What are you looking at? there! oo!' said the horsedealer with
+caressing menace, unable to refrain from admiring his horse himself.
+
+'How much?' asked the prince.
+
+'For your excellency, five thousand.'
+
+'Three.'
+
+'Impossible, your excellency, upon my word.'
+
+'I tell you three, rrakalion,' put in Hlopakov.
+
+I went away without staying to see the end of the bargaining. At the
+farthest corner of the street I noticed a large sheet of paper fixed on
+the gate of a little grey house. At the top there was a pen-and-ink
+sketch of a horse with a tail of the shape of a pipe and an endless
+neck, and below his hoofs were the following words, written in an old-
+fashioned hand:
+
+'Here are for sale horses of various colours, brought to the Lebedyan
+fair from the celebrated steppes stud of Anastasei Ivanitch Tchornobai,
+landowner of Tambov. These horses are of excellent sort; broken in to
+perfection, and free from vice. Purchasers will kindly ask for
+Anastasei Ivanitch himself: should Anastasei Ivanitch be absent, then
+ask for Nazar Kubishkin, the coachman. Gentlemen about to purchase,
+kindly honour an old man.'
+
+I stopped. 'Come,' I thought, 'let's have a look at the horses of the
+celebrated steppes breeder, Mr. Tchornobai.'
+
+I was about to go in at the gate, but found that, contrary to the
+common usage, it was locked. I knocked.
+
+'Who's there?... A customer?' whined a woman's voice.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Coming, sir, coming.'
+
+The gate was opened. I beheld a peasant-woman of fifty, bareheaded, in
+boots, and a sheepskin worn open.
+
+'Please to come in, kind sir, and I'll go at once, and tell Anastasei
+Ivanitch ... Nazar, hey, Nazar!'
+
+'What?' mumbled an old man's voice from the stable.
+
+'Get a horse ready; here's a customer.'
+
+The old woman ran into the house.
+
+'A customer, a customer,' Nazar grumbled in response; 'I've not washed
+all their tails yet.'
+
+'Oh, Arcadia!' thought I.
+
+'Good day, sir, pleased to see you,' I heard a rich, pleasant voice
+saying behind my back. I looked round; before me, in a long-skirted
+blue coat, stood an old man of medium height, with white hair, a
+friendly smile, and fine blue eyes.
+
+'You want a little horse? By all means, my dear sir, by all means....
+But won't you step in and drink just a cup of tea with me first?'
+
+I declined and thanked him.
+
+'Well, well, as you please. You must excuse me, my dear sir; you see
+I'm old-fashioned.' (Mr. Tchornobai spoke with deliberation, and in a
+broad Doric.) 'Everything with me is done in a plain way, you know....
+Nazar, hey, Nazar!' he added, not raising his voice, but prolonging
+each syllable. Nazar, a wrinkled old man with a little hawk nose and a
+wedge-shaped beard, showed himself at the stable door.
+
+'What sort of horses is it you're wanting, my dear sir?' resumed Mr.
+Tchornobai.
+
+'Not too expensive; for driving in my covered gig.'
+
+'To be sure ... we have got them to suit you, to be sure.... Nazar,
+Nazar, show the gentleman the grey gelding, you know, that stands at
+the farthest corner, and the sorrel with the star, or else the other
+sorrel--foal of Beauty, you know.'
+
+Nazar went back to the stable.
+
+'And bring them out by their halters just as they are,' Mr. Tchornobai
+shouted after him. 'You won't find things with me, my good sir,' he
+went on, with a clear mild gaze into my face, 'as they are with the
+horse-dealers; confound their tricks! There are drugs of all sorts go
+in there, salt and malted grains; God forgive them! But with me, you
+will see, sir, everything's above-board; no underhandedness.'
+
+The horses were led in; I did not care for them.
+
+'Well, well, take them back, in God's name,' said Anastasei Ivanitch.
+'Show us the others.'
+
+Others were shown. At last I picked out one, rather a cheap one. We
+began to haggle over the price. Mr. Tchornobai did not get excited; he
+spoke so reasonably, with such dignity, that I could not help
+'honouring' the old man; I gave him the earnest-money.
+
+'Well, now,' observed Anastasei Ivanitch, 'allow me to give over the
+horse to you from hand to hand, after the old fashion.... You will
+thank me for him ... as sound as a nut, see ... fresh ... a true child
+of the steppes! Goes well in any harness.'
+
+He crossed himself, laid the skirt of his coat over his hand, took the
+halter, and handed me the horse.
+
+'You're his master now, with God's blessing.... And you still won't
+take a cup of tea?'
+
+'No, I thank you heartily; it's time I was going home.'
+
+'That's as you think best.... And shall my coachman lead the horse
+after you?'
+
+'Yes, now, if you please.'
+
+'By all means, my dear sir, by all means.... Vassily, hey, Vassily!
+step along with the gentleman, lead the horse, and take the money for
+him. Well, good-bye, my good sir; God bless you.'
+
+'Good-bye, Anastasei Ivanitch.'
+
+They led the horse home for me. The next day he turned out to be
+broken-winded and lame. I tried having him put in harness; the horse
+backed, and if one gave him a flick with the whip he jibbed, kicked,
+and positively lay down. I set off at once to Mr. Tchornobai's. I
+inquired: 'At home?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What's the meaning of this?' said I; 'here you've sold me a broken-
+winded horse.'
+
+'Broken-winded?... God forbid!'
+
+'Yes, and he's lame too, and vicious besides.'
+
+'Lame! I know nothing about it: your coachman must have ill-treated him
+somehow.... But before God, I--'
+
+'Look here, Anastasei Ivanitch, as things stand, you ought to take him
+back.'
+
+'No, my good sir, don't put yourself in a passion; once gone out of the
+yard, is done with. You should have looked before, sir.'
+
+I understood what that meant, accepted my fate, laughed, and walked
+off. Luckily, I had not paid very dear for the lesson.
+
+Two days later I left, and in a week I was again at Lebedyan on my way
+home again. In the _cafe_ I found almost the same persons, and again I
+came upon Prince N----at billiards. But the usual change in the
+fortunes of Mr. Hlopakov had taken place in this interval: the fair-
+haired young officer had supplanted him in the prince's favours. The
+poor ex-lieutenant once more tried letting off his catchword in my
+presence, on the chance it might succeed as before; but, far from
+smiling, the prince positively scowled and shrugged his shoulders. Mr.
+Hlopakov looked downcast, shrank into a corner, and began furtively
+filling himself a pipe....
+
+                           END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sportsman's Sketches, by Ivan Turgenev
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sportsman's Sketches, by Ivan Turgenev
+#6 in our series by Ivan Turgenev
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: A Sportsman's Sketches
+       Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I
+
+Author: Ivan Turgenev
+
+Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8597]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 26, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Charlie Kirschner
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+                             A SPORTSMAN'S
+                                SKETCHES
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+
+                             IVAN TURGENEV
+
+
+                     _Translated from the Russian
+                         By CONSTANCE GARNETT_
+
+
+
+                                VOLUME I
+
+
+       CONTENTS
+
+    I. HOR AND KALINITCH
+   II. YERMOLAÏ AND THE MILLER'S WIFE
+  III. RASPBERRY SPRING
+   IV. THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
+    V. MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOV
+   VI. THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
+  VII. LGOV
+ VIII. BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
+   IX. KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
+    X. THE AGENT
+   XI. THE COUNTING-HOUSE
+  XII. BIRYUK
+ XIII. TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
+  XIV. LEBEDYAN
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+                           HOR AND KALINITCH
+
+
+Anyone who has chanced to pass from the Bolhovsky district into the
+Zhizdrinsky district, must have been impressed by the striking
+difference between the race of people in the province of Orel and the
+population of the province of Kaluga. The peasant of Orel is not tall,
+is bent in figure, sullen and suspicious in his looks; he lives in
+wretched little hovels of aspen-wood, labours as a serf in the fields,
+and engages in no kind of trading, is miserably fed, and wears slippers
+of bast: the rent-paying peasant of Kaluga lives in roomy cottages of
+pine-wood; he is tall, bold, and cheerful in his looks, neat and clean
+of countenance; he carries on a trade in butter and tar, and on
+holidays he wears boots. The village of the Orel province (we are
+speaking now of the eastern part of the province) is usually situated
+in the midst of ploughed fields, near a water-course which has been
+converted into a filthy pool. Except for a few of the ever-
+accommodating willows, and two or three gaunt birch-trees, you do not
+see a tree for a mile round; hut is huddled up against hut, their roofs
+covered with rotting thatch.... The villages of Kaluga, on the
+contrary, are generally surrounded by forest; the huts stand more
+freely, are more upright, and have boarded roofs; the gates fasten
+closely, the hedge is not broken down nor trailing about; there are no
+gaps to invite the visits of the passing pig.... And things are much
+better in the Kaluga province for the sportsman. In the Orel province
+the last of the woods and copses will have disappeared five years
+hence, and there is no trace of moorland left; in Kaluga, on the
+contrary, the moors extend over tens, the forest over hundreds of
+miles, and a splendid bird, the grouse, is still extant there; there
+are abundance of the friendly larger snipe, and the loud-clapping
+partridge cheers and startles the sportsman and his dog by its abrupt
+upward flight.
+
+On a visit to the Zhizdrinsky district in search of sport, I met in the
+fields a petty proprietor of the Kaluga province called Polutikin, and
+made his acquaintance. He was an enthusiastic sportsman; it follows,
+therefore, that he was an excellent fellow. He was liable, indeed, to a
+few weaknesses; he used, for instance, to pay his addresses to every
+unmarried heiress in the province, and when he had been refused her
+hand and house, broken-hearted he confided his sorrows to all his
+friends and acquaintances, and continued to shower offerings of sour
+peaches and other raw produce from his garden upon the young lady's
+relatives; he was fond of repeating one and the same anecdote, which,
+in spite of Mr. Polutikin's appreciation of its merits, had certainly
+never amused anyone; he admired the works of Akim Nahimov and the novel
+_Pinna_; he stammered; he called his dog Astronomer; instead of
+'however' said 'howsomever'; and had established in his household a
+French system of cookery, the secret of which consisted, according to
+his cook's interpretation, in a complete transformation of the natural
+taste of each dish; in this _artiste's_ hands meat assumed the flavour
+of fish, fish of mushrooms, macaroni of gunpowder; to make up for this,
+not a single carrot went into the soup without taking the shape of a
+rhombus or a trapeze. But, with the exception of these few and
+insignificant failings, Mr. Polutikin was, as has been said already, an
+excellent fellow.
+
+On the first day of my acquaintance with Mr. Polutikin, he invited me
+to stay the night at his house.
+
+'It will be five miles farther to my house,' he added; 'it's a long way
+to walk; let us first go to Hor's.' (The reader must excuse my omitting
+his stammer.)
+
+'Who is Hor?'
+
+'A peasant of mine. He is quite close by here.'
+
+We went in that direction. In a well-cultivated clearing in the middle
+of the forest rose Hor's solitary homestead. It consisted of several
+pine-wood buildings, enclosed by plank fences; a porch ran along the
+front of the principal building, supported on slender posts. We went
+in. We were met by a young lad of twenty, tall and good-looking.
+
+'Ah, Fedya! is Hor at home?' Mr. Polutikin asked him.
+
+'No. Hor has gone into town,' answered the lad, smiling and showing a
+row of snow-white teeth. 'You would like the little cart brought out?'
+
+'Yes, my boy, the little cart. And bring us some kvas.'
+
+We went into the cottage. Not a single cheap glaring print was pasted
+up on the clean boards of the walls; in the corner, before the heavy,
+holy picture in its silver setting, a lamp was burning; the table of
+linden-wood had been lately planed and scrubbed; between the joists and
+in the cracks of the window-frames there were no lively Prussian
+beetles running about, nor gloomy cockroaches in hiding. The young lad
+soon reappeared with a great white pitcher filled with excellent kvas,
+a huge hunch of wheaten bread, and a dozen salted cucumbers in a wooden
+bowl. He put all these provisions on the table, and then, leaning with
+his back against the door, began to gaze with a smiling face at us. We
+had not had time to finish eating our lunch when the cart was already
+rattling before the doorstep. We went out. A curly-headed, rosy-cheeked
+boy of fifteen was sitting in the cart as driver, and with difficulty
+holding in the well-fed piebald horse. Round the cart stood six young
+giants, very like one another, and Fedya.
+
+'All of these Hor's sons!' said Polutikin.
+
+'These are all Horkies' (_i.e._ wild cats), put in Fedya, who had come
+after us on to the step; 'but that's not all of them: Potap is in the
+wood, and Sidor has gone with old Hor to the town. Look out, Vasya,' he
+went on, turning to the coachman; 'drive like the wind; you are driving
+the master. Only mind what you're about over the ruts, and easy a
+little; don't tip the cart over, and upset the master's stomach!'
+
+The other Horkies smiled at Fedya's sally. 'Lift Astronomer in!' Mr.
+Polutikin called majestically. Fedya, not without amusement, lifted the
+dog, who wore a forced smile, into the air, and laid her at the bottom
+of the cart. Vasya let the horse go. We rolled away. 'And here is my
+counting-house,' said Mr. Polutikin suddenly to me, pointing to a
+little low-pitched house. 'Shall we go in?' 'By all means.' 'It is no
+longer used,' he observed, going in; 'still, it is worth looking at.'
+The counting-house consisted of two empty rooms. The caretaker, a one-
+eyed old man, ran out of the yard. 'Good day, Minyaitch,' said Mr.
+Polutikin; 'bring us some water.' The one-eyed old man disappeared, and
+at once returned with a bottle of water and two glasses. 'Taste it,'
+Polutikin said to me; 'it is splendid spring water.' We drank off a
+glass each, while the old man bowed low. 'Come, now, I think we can go
+on,' said my new Friend. 'In that counting-house I sold the merchant
+Alliluev four acres of forest-land for a good price.' We took our seats
+in the cart, and in half-an-hour we had reached the court of the manor-
+house.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I asked Polutikin at supper; 'why does Hor live
+apart from your other peasants?'
+
+'Well, this is why; he is a clever peasant. Twenty-five years ago his
+cottage was burnt down; so he came up to my late father and said:
+"Allow me, Nikolai Kouzmitch," says he, "to settle in your forest, on
+the bog. I will pay you a good rent." "But what do you want to settle
+on the bog for?" "Oh, I want to; only, your honour, Nikolai Kouzmitch,
+be so good as not to claim any labour from me, but fix a rent as you
+think best." "Fifty roubles a year!" "Very well." "But I'll have no
+arrears, mind!" "Of course, no arrears"; and so he settled on the bog.
+Since then they have called him Hor' (_i.e._ wild cat).
+
+'Well, and has he grown rich?' I inquired.
+
+'Yes, he has grown rich. Now he pays me a round hundred for rent, and I
+shall raise it again, I dare say. I have said to him more than once,
+"Buy your freedom, Hor; come, buy your freedom." ... But he declares,
+the rogue, that he can't; has no money, he says.... As though that were
+likely....'
+
+The next day, directly after our morning tea, we started out hunting
+again. As we were driving through the village, Mr. Polutikin ordered
+the coachman to stop at a low-pitched cottage and called loudly,
+'Kalinitch!' 'Coming, your honour, coming' sounded a voice from the
+yard; 'I am tying on my shoes.' We went on at a walk; outside the
+village a man of about forty over-took us. He was tall and thin, with a
+small and erect head. It was Kalinitch. His good-humoured; swarthy
+face, somewhat pitted with small-pox, pleased me from the first glance.
+Kalinitch (as I learnt afterwards) went hunting every day with his
+master, carried his bag, and sometimes also his gun, noted where game
+was to be found, fetched water, built shanties, and gathered
+strawberries, and ran behind the droshky; Mr. Polutikin could not stir
+a step without him. Kalinitch was a man of the merriest and gentlest
+disposition; he was constantly singing to himself in a low voice, and
+looking carelessly about him. He spoke a little through his nose, with
+a laughing twinkle in his light blue eyes, and he had a habit of
+plucking at his scanty, wedge-shaped beard with his hand. He walked not
+rapidly, but with long strides, leaning lightly on a long thin staff.
+He addressed me more than once during the day, and he waited on me
+without, obsequiousness, but he looked after his master as if he were a
+child. When the unbearable heat drove us at mid-day to seek shelter, he
+took us to his beehouse in the very heart of the forest. There
+Kalinitch opened the little hut for us, which was hung round with
+bunches of dry scented herbs. He made us comfortable on some dry hay,
+and then put a kind of bag of network over his head, took a knife, a
+little pot, and a smouldering stick, and went to the hive to cut us out
+some honey-comb. We had a draught of spring water after the warm
+transparent honey, and then dropped asleep to the sound of the
+monotonous humming of the bees and the rustling chatter of the leaves.
+A slight gust of wind awakened me.... I opened my eyes and saw
+Kalinitch: he was sitting on the threshold of the half-opened door,
+carving a spoon with his knife. I gazed a long time admiring his face,
+as sweet and clear as an evening sky. Mr. Polutikin too woke up. We did
+not get up at once. After our long walk and our deep sleep it was
+pleasant to lie without moving in the hay; we felt weary and languid in
+body, our faces were in a slight glow of warmth, our eyes were closed
+in delicious laziness. At last we got up, and set off on our wanderings
+again till evening. At supper I began again to talk of Hor and
+Kalinitch. 'Kalinitch is a good peasant,' Mr. Polutikin told me; 'he is
+a willing and useful peasant; he can't farm his land properly; I am
+always taking him away from it. He goes out hunting every day with
+me.... You can judge for yourself how his farming must fare.'
+
+I agreed with him, and we went to bed.
+
+The next day Mr. Polutikin was obliged to go to town about some
+business with his neighbour Pitchukoff. This neighbour Pitchukoff had
+ploughed over some land of Polutikin's, and had flogged a peasant woman
+of his on this same piece of land. I went out hunting alone, and before
+evening I turned into Hor's house. On the threshold of the cottage I
+was met by an old man--bald, short, broad-shouldered, and stout--Hor
+himself. I looked with curiosity at the man. The cut of his face
+recalled Socrates; there was the same high, knobby forehead, the same
+little eyes, the same snub nose. We went into the cottage together. The
+same Fedya brought me some milk and black bread. Hor sat down on a
+bench, and, quietly stroking his curly beard, entered into conversation
+with me. He seemed to know his own value; he spoke and moved slowly;
+from time to time a chuckle came from between his long moustaches.
+
+We discussed the sowing, the crops, the peasant's life.... He always
+seemed to agree with me; only afterwards I had a sense of awkwardness
+and felt I was talking foolishly.... In this way our conversation was
+rather curious. Hor, doubtless through caution, expressed himself very
+obscurely at times.... Here is a specimen of our talk.
+
+"Tell me, Hor," I said to him, "why don't you buy your freedom from
+your master?"
+
+"And what would I buy my freedom for? Now I know my master, and I know
+my rent.... We have a good master."
+
+'It's always better to be free,' I remarked. Hor gave me a dubious
+look.
+
+'Surely,' he said.
+
+'Well, then, why don't you buy your freedom?' Hor shook his head.
+
+'What would you have me buy it with, your honour?'
+
+'Oh, come, now, old man!'
+
+'If Hor were thrown among free men,' he continued in an undertone, as
+though to himself, 'everyone without a beard would be a better man than
+Hor.'
+
+'Then shave your beard.'
+
+'What is a beard? a beard is grass: one can cut it.'
+
+'Well, then?'
+
+'But Hor will be a merchant straight away; and merchants have a fine
+life, and they have beards.'
+
+'Why, do you do a little trading too?' I asked him.
+
+'We trade a little in a little butter and a little tar.... Would your
+honour like the cart put to?'
+
+'You're a close man and keep a tight rein on your tongue,' I thought to
+myself. 'No,' I said aloud, 'I don't want the cart; I shall want to be
+near your homestead to-morrow, and if you will let me, I will stay the
+night in your hay-barn.'
+
+'You are very welcome. But will you be comfortable in the barn? I will
+tell the women to lay a sheet and put you a pillow.... Hey, girls!' he
+cried, getting up from his place; 'here, girls!... And you, Fedya, go
+with them. Women, you know, are foolish folk.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later Fedya conducted me with a lantern to the
+barn. I threw myself down on the fragrant hay; my dog curled himself up
+at my feet; Fedya wished me good-night; the door creaked and slammed
+to. For rather a long time I could not get to sleep. A cow came up to
+the door, and breathed heavily twice; the dog growled at her with
+dignity; a pig passed by, grunting pensively; a horse somewhere near
+began to munch the hay and snort.... At last I fell asleep.
+
+At sunrise Fedya awakened me. This brisk, lively young man pleased me;
+and, from what I could see, he was old Hor's favourite too. They used
+to banter one another in a very friendly way. The old man came to meet
+me. Whether because I had spent the night under his roof, or for some
+other reason, Hor certainly treated me far more cordially than the day
+before.
+
+'The samovar is ready,' he told me with a smile; 'let us come and have
+tea.'
+
+We took our seats at the table. A robust-looking peasant woman, one of
+his daughters-in-law, brought in a jug of milk. All his sons came one
+after another into the cottage.
+
+'What a fine set of fellows you have!' I remarked to the old man.
+
+'Yes,' he said, breaking off a tiny piece of sugar with his teeth; 'me
+and my old woman have nothing to complain of, seemingly.'
+
+'And do they all live with you?'
+
+'Yes; they choose to, themselves, and so they live here.'
+
+'And are they all married?'
+
+'Here's one not married, the scamp!' he answered, pointing to Fedya,
+who was leaning as before against the door. 'Vaska, he's still too
+young; he can wait.'
+
+'And why should I get married?' retorted Fedya; 'I'm very well off as I
+am. What do I want a wife for? To squabble with, eh?'
+
+'Now then, you ... ah, I know you! you wear a silver ring.... You'd
+always be after the girls up at the manor house.... "Have done, do, for
+shame!"' the old man went on, mimicking the servant girls. 'Ah, I know
+you, you white-handed rascal!'
+
+'But what's the good of a peasant woman?'
+
+'A peasant woman--is a labourer,' said Hor seriously; 'she is the
+peasant's servant.'
+
+'And what do I want with a labourer?'
+
+'I dare say; you'd like to play with the fire and let others burn their
+fingers: we know the sort of chap you are.'
+
+'Well, marry me, then. Well, why don't you answer?'
+
+'There, that's enough, that's enough, giddy pate! You see we're
+disturbing the gentleman. I'll marry you, depend on it.... And you,
+your honour, don't be vexed with him; you see, he's only a baby; he's
+not had time to get much sense.'
+
+Fedya shook his head.
+
+'Is Hor at home?' sounded a well-known voice; and Kalinitch came into
+the cottage with a bunch of wild strawberries in his hands, which he
+had gathered for his friend Hor. The old man gave him a warm welcome. I
+looked with surprise at Kalinitch. I confess I had not expected such a
+delicate attention on the part of a peasant.
+
+That day I started out to hunt four hours later than usual, and the
+following three days I spent at Hor's. My new friends interested me. I
+don't know how I had gained their confidence, but they began to talk to
+me without constraint. The two friends were not at all alike. Hor was
+a positive, practical man, with a head for management, a rationalist;
+Kalinitch, on the other hand, belonged to the order of idealists and
+dreamers, of romantic and enthusiastic spirits. Hor had a grasp of
+actuality--that is to say, he looked ahead, was saving a little money,
+kept on good terms with his master and the other authorities; Kalinitch
+wore shoes of bast, and lived from hand to mouth. Hor had reared a
+large family, who were obedient and united; Kalinitch had once had a
+wife, whom he had been afraid of, and he had had no children. Hor took
+a very critical view of Mr. Polutikin; Kalinitch revered his master.
+Hor loved Kalinitch, and took protecting care of him; Kalinitch loved
+and respected Hor. Hor spoke little, chuckled, and thought for himself;
+Kalinitch expressed himself with warmth, though he had not the flow of
+fine language of a smart factory hand. But Kalinitch was endowed with
+powers which even Hor recognised; he could charm away haemorrhages,
+fits, madness, and worms; his bees always did well; he had a light
+hand. Hor asked him before me to introduce a newly bought horse to his
+stable, and with scrupulous gravity Kalinitch carried out the old
+sceptic's request. Kalinitch was in closer contact with nature; Hor
+with men and society. Kalinitch had no liking for argument, and
+believed in everything blindly; Hor had reached even an ironical point
+of view of life. He had seen and experienced much, and I learnt a good
+deal from him. For instance, from his account I learnt that every year
+before mowing-time a small, peculiar-looking cart makes its appearance
+in the villages. In this cart sits a man in a long coat, who sells
+scythes. He charges one rouble twenty-five copecks--a rouble and a half
+in notes--for ready money; four roubles if he gives credit. All the
+peasants, of course, take the scythes from him on credit. In two or
+three weeks he reappears and asks for the money. As the peasant has
+only just cut his oats, he is able to pay him; he goes with the
+merchant to the tavern, and there the debt is settled. Some landowners
+conceived the idea of buying the scythes themselves for ready money and
+letting the peasants have them on credit for the same price; but the
+peasants seemed dissatisfied, even dejected; they had deprived them of
+the pleasure of tapping the scythe and listening to the ring of the
+metal, turning it over and over in their hands, and telling the
+scoundrelly city-trader twenty times over, 'Eh, my friend, you won't
+take me in with your scythe!' The same tricks are played over the sale
+of sickles, only with this difference, that the women have a hand in
+the business then, and they sometimes drive the trader himself to the
+necessity--for their good, of course--of beating them. But the women
+suffer most ill-treatment through the following circumstances.
+Contractors for the supply of stuff for paper factories employ for the
+purchase of rags a special class of men, who in some districts are
+called eagles. Such an 'eagle' receives two hundred roubles in bank-
+notes from the merchant, and starts off in search of his prey. But,
+unlike the noble bird from whom he has derived his name, he does not
+swoop down openly and boldly upon it; quite the contrary; the 'eagle'
+has recourse to deceit and cunning. He leaves his cart somewhere in a
+thicket near the village, and goes himself to the back-yards and back-
+doors, like someone casually passing, or simply a tramp. The women
+scent out his proximity and steal out to meet him. The bargain is
+hurriedly concluded. For a few copper half-pence a woman gives the
+'eagle' not only every useless rag she has, but often even her
+husband's shirt and her own petticoat. Of late the women have thought
+it profitable to steal even from themselves, and to sell hemp in the
+same way--a great extension and improvement of the business for the
+'eagles'! To meet this, however, the peasants have grown more cunning
+in their turn, and on the slightest suspicion, on the most distant
+rumors of the approach of an 'eagle,' they have prompt and sharp
+recourse to corrective and preventive measures. And, after all, wasn't
+it disgraceful? To sell the hemp was the men's business--and they
+certainly do sell it--not in the town (they would have to drag it there
+themselves), but to traders who come for it, who, for want of scales,
+reckon forty handfuls to the pood--and you know what a Russian's hand
+is and what it can hold, especially when he 'tries his best'! As I had
+had no experience and was not 'country-bred' (as they say in Orel) I
+heard plenty of such descriptions. But Hor was not always the narrator;
+he questioned me too about many things. He learned that I had been in
+foreign parts, and his curiosity was aroused.... Kalinitch was not
+behind him in curiosity; but he was more attracted by descriptions of
+nature, of mountains and waterfalls, extraordinary buildings and great
+towns; Hor was interested in questions of government and
+administration. He went through everything in order. 'Well, is that
+with them as it is with us, or different?... Come, tell us, your
+honour, how is it?' 'Ah, Lord, thy will be done!' Kalinitch would
+exclaim while I told my story; Hor did not speak, but frowned with his
+bushy eyebrows, only observing at times, 'That wouldn't do for us;
+still, it's a good thing--it's right.' All his inquiries, I cannot
+recount, and it is unnecessary; but from our conversations I carried
+away one conviction, which my readers will certainly not anticipate ...
+the conviction that Peter the Great was pre-eminently a Russian--
+Russian, above all, in his reforms. The Russian is so convinced of his
+own strength and powers that he is not afraid of putting himself to
+severe strain; he takes little interest in his past, and looks boldly
+forward. What is good he likes, what is sensible he will have, and
+where it comes from he does not care. His vigorous sense is fond of
+ridiculing the thin theorising of the German; but, in Hor's words, 'The
+Germans are curious folk,' and he was ready to learn from them a
+little. Thanks to his exceptional position, his practical independence,
+Hor told me a great deal which you could not screw or--as the peasants
+say--grind with a grindstone, out of any other man. He did, in fact,
+understand his position. Talking with Hor, I for the first time
+listened to the simple, wise discourse of the Russian peasant. His
+acquirements were, in his own opinion, wide enough; but he could not
+read, though Kalinitch could. 'That ne'er-do-weel has school-learning,'
+observed Hor, 'and his bees never die in the winter.' 'But haven't you
+had your children taught to read?' Hor was silent a minute. 'Fedya can
+read.' 'And the others?' 'The others can't.' 'And why?' The old man
+made no answer, and changed the subject. However, sensible as he was,
+he had many prejudices and crotchets. He despised women, for instance,
+from the depths of his soul, and in his merry moments he amused himself
+by jesting at their expense. His wife was a cross old woman who lay all
+day long on the stove, incessantly grumbling and scolding; her sons
+paid no attention to her, but she kept her daughters-in-law in the fear
+of God. Very significantly the mother-in-law sings in the Russian
+ballad: 'What a son art thou to me! What a head of a household! Thou
+dost not beat thy wife; thou dost not beat thy young wife....' I once
+attempted to intercede for the daughters-in-law, and tried to rouse
+Hor's sympathy; but he met me with the tranquil rejoinder, 'Why did I
+want to trouble about such ... trifles; let the women fight it out. ...
+If anything separates them, it only makes it worse ... and it's not
+worth dirtying one's hands over.' Sometimes the spiteful old woman got
+down from the stove and called the yard dog out of the hay, crying,
+'Here, here, doggie'; and then beat it on its thin back with the poker,
+or she would stand in the porch and 'snarl,' as Hor expressed it, at
+everyone that passed. She stood in awe of her husband though, and would
+return, at his command, to her place on the stove. It was specially
+curious to hear Hor and Kalinitch dispute whenever Mr. Polutikin was
+touched upon.
+
+'There, Hor, do let him alone,' Kalinitch would say. 'But why doesn't
+he order some boots for you?' Hor retorted. 'Eh? boots!... what do I
+want with boots? I am a peasant.' 'Well, so am I a peasant, but look!'
+And Hor lifted up his leg and showed Kalinitch a boot which looked as
+if it had been cut out of a mammoth's hide. 'As if you were like one of
+us!' replied Kalinitch. 'Well, at least he might pay for your bast
+shoes; you go out hunting with him; you must use a pair a day.' 'He
+does give me something for bast shoes.' 'Yes, he gave you two coppers
+last year.'
+
+Kalinitch turned away in vexation, but Hor went off into a chuckle,
+during which his little eyes completely disappeared.
+
+Kalinitch sang rather sweetly and played a little on the balalaëca. Hor
+was never weary of listening to him: all at once he would let his head
+drop on one side and begin to chime in, in a lugubrious voice. He was
+particularly fond of the song, 'Ah, my fate, my fate!' Fedya never lost
+an opportunity of making fun of his father, saying, 'What are you so
+mournful about, old man?' But Hor leaned his cheek on his hand, covered
+his eyes, and continued to mourn over his fate.... Yet at other times
+there could not be a more active man; he was always busy over
+something--mending the cart, patching up the fence, looking after the
+harness. He did not insist on a very high degree of cleanliness,
+however; and, in answer to some remark of mine, said once, 'A cottage
+ought to smell as if it were lived in.'
+
+'Look,' I answered, 'how clean it is in Kalinitch's beehouse.'
+
+'The bees would not live there else, your honour,' he said with a sigh.
+
+'Tell me,' he asked me another time, 'have you an estate of your own?'
+'Yes.' 'Far from here?' 'A hundred miles.' 'Do you live on your land,
+your honour?' 'Yes.'
+
+'But you like your gun best, I dare say?'
+
+'Yes, I must confess I do.' 'And you do well, your honour; shoot grouse
+to your heart's content, and change your bailiff pretty often.'
+
+On the fourth day Mr. Polutikin sent for me in the evening. I was sorry
+to part from the old man. I took my seat with Kalinitch in the trap.
+'Well, good-bye, Hor--good luck to you,' I said; 'good-bye, Fedya.'
+
+'Good-bye, your honour, good-bye; don't forget us.' We started; there
+was the first red glow of sunset. 'It will be a fine day to-morrow,' I
+remarked looking at the clear sky. 'No, it will rain,' Kalinitch
+replied; 'the ducks yonder are splashing, and the scent of the grass is
+strong.' We drove into the copse. Kalinitch began singing in an
+undertone as he was jolted up and down on the driver's seat, and he
+kept gazing and gazing at the sunset.
+
+The next day I left the hospitable roof of Mr. Polutikin.
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+                     YERMOLAÏ AND THE MILLER'S WIFE
+
+
+One evening I went with the huntsman Yermolaï 'stand-shooting.' ... But
+perhaps all my readers may not know what 'stand-shooting' is. I will
+tell you.
+
+A quarter of an hour before sunset in spring-time you go out into the
+woods with your gun, but without your dog. You seek out a spot for
+yourself on the outskirts of the forest, take a look round, examine
+your caps, and glance at your companion. A quarter of an hour passes;
+the sun has set, but it is still light in the forest; the sky is clear
+and transparent; the birds are chattering and twittering; the young
+grass shines with the brilliance of emerald.... You wait. Gradually the
+recesses of the forest grow dark; the blood-red glow of the evening sky
+creeps slowly on to the roots and the trunks of the trees, and keeps
+rising higher and higher, passes from the lower, still almost leafless
+branches, to the motionless, slumbering tree-tops.... And now even the
+topmost branches are darkened; the purple sky fades to dark-blue. The
+forest fragrance grows stronger; there is a scent of warmth and damp
+earth; the fluttering breeze dies away at your side. The birds go to
+sleep--not all at once--but after their kinds; first the finches are
+hushed, a few minutes later the warblers, and after them the yellow
+buntings. In the forest it grows darker and darker. The trees melt
+together into great masses of blackness; in the dark-blue sky the first
+stars come timidly out. All the birds are asleep. Only the redstarts
+and the nuthatches are still chirping drowsily.... And now they too are
+still. The last echoing call of the pee-wit rings over our heads; the
+oriole's melancholy cry sounds somewhere in the distance; then the
+nightingale's first note. Your heart is weary with suspense, when
+suddenly--but only sportsmen can understand me--suddenly in the deep
+hush there is a peculiar croaking and whirring sound, the measured
+sweep of swift wings is heard, and the snipe, gracefully bending its
+long beak, sails smoothly down behind a dark bush to meet your shot.
+
+That is the meaning of 'stand-shooting.' And so I had gone out stand-
+shooting with Yermolaï; but excuse me, reader: I must first introduce
+you to Yermolaï.
+
+Picture to yourself a tall gaunt man of forty-five, with a long thin
+nose, a narrow forehead, little grey eyes, a bristling head of hair,
+and thick sarcastic lips. This man wore, winter and summer alike, a
+yellow nankin coat of German cut, but with a sash round the waist; he
+wore blue pantaloons and a cap of astrakhan, presented to him in a
+merry hour by a spendthrift landowner. Two bags were fastened on to his
+sash, one in front, skilfully tied into two halves, for powder and for
+shot; the other behind for game: wadding Yermolaï used to produce out
+of his peculiar, seemingly inexhaustible cap. With the money he gained
+by the game he sold, he might easily have bought himself a cartridge-
+box and powder-flask; but he never once even contemplated such a
+purchase, and continued to load his gun after his old fashion, exciting
+the admiration of all beholders by the skill with which he avoided the
+risks of spilling or mixing his powder and shot. His gun was a single-
+barrelled flint-lock, endowed, moreover, with a villainous habit of
+'kicking.' It was due to this that Yermolaï's right cheek was
+permanently swollen to a larger size than the left. How he ever
+succeeded in hitting anything with this gun, it would take a shrewd man
+to discover--but he did. He had too a setter-dog, by name Valetka, a
+most extraordinary creature. Yermolaï never fed him. 'Me feed a dog!'
+he reasoned; 'why, a dog's a clever beast; he finds a living for
+himself.' And certainly, though Valetka's extreme thinness was a shock
+even to an indifferent observer, he still lived and had a long life;
+and in spite of his pitiable position he was not even once lost, and
+never showed an inclination to desert his master. Once indeed, in his
+youth, he had absented himself for two days, on courting bent, but this
+folly was soon over with him. Valetka's most noticeable peculiarity was
+his impenetrable indifference to everything in the world.... If it were
+not a dog I was speaking of, I should have called him 'disillusioned.'
+He usually sat with his cropped tail curled up under him, scowling and
+twitching at times, and he never smiled. (It is well known that dogs
+can smile, and smile very sweetly.) He was exceedingly ugly; and the
+idle house-serfs never lost an opportunity of jeering cruelly at his
+appearance; but all these jeers, and even blows, Valetka bore with
+astonishing indifference. He was a source of special delight to the
+cooks, who would all leave their work at once and give him chase with
+shouts and abuse, whenever, through a weakness not confined to dogs, he
+thrust his hungry nose through the half-open door of the kitchen,
+tempting with its warmth and appetising smells. He distinguished
+himself by untiring energy in the chase, and had a good scent; but if
+he chanced to overtake a slightly wounded hare, he devoured it with
+relish to the last bone, somewhere in the cool shade under the green
+bushes, at a respectful distance from Yermolaï, who was abusing him in
+every known and unknown dialect. Yermolaï belonged to one of my
+neighbours, a landowner of the old style. Landowners of the old style
+don't care for game, and prefer the domestic fowl. Only on
+extraordinary occasions, such as birthdays, namedays, and elections,
+the cooks of the old-fashioned landowners set to work to prepare some
+long-beaked birds, and, falling into the state of frenzy peculiar to
+Russians when they don't quite know what to do, they concoct such
+marvellous sauces for them that the guests examine the proffered dishes
+curiously and attentively, but rarely make up their minds to try them.
+Yermolaï was under orders to provide his master's kitchen with two
+brace of grouse and partridges once a month. But he might live where
+and how he pleased. They had given him up as a man of no use for work
+of any kind--'bone lazy,' as the expression is among us in Orel. Powder
+and shot, of course, they did not provide him, following precisely the
+same principle in virtue of which he did not feed his dog. Yermolaï was
+a very strange kind of man; heedless as a bird, rather fond of talking,
+awkward and vacant-looking; he was excessively fond of drink, and never
+could sit still long; in walking he shambled along, and rolled from
+side to side; and yet he got over fifty miles in the day with his
+rolling, shambling gait. He exposed himself to the most varied
+adventures: spent the night in the marshes, in trees, on roofs, or
+under bridges; more than once he had got shut up in lofts, cellars, or
+barns; he sometimes lost his gun, his dog, his most indispensable
+garments; got long and severe thrashings; but he always returned home,
+after a little while, in his clothes, and with his gun and his dog. One
+could not call him a cheerful man, though one almost always found him
+in an even frame of mind; he was looked on generally as an eccentric.
+Yermolaï liked a little chat with a good companion, especially over a
+glass, but he would not stop long; he would get up and go. 'But where
+the devil are you going? It's dark out of doors.' 'To Tchaplino.' 'But
+what's taking you to Tchaplino, ten miles away?' 'I am going to stay
+the night at Sophron's there.' 'But stay the night here.' 'No, I
+can't.' And Yermolaï, with his Valetka, would go off into the dark
+night, through woods and water-courses, and the peasant Sophron very
+likely did not let him into his place, and even, I am afraid, gave him
+a blow to teach him 'not to disturb honest folks.' But none could
+compare with Yermolaï in skill in deep-water fishing in spring-time, in
+catching crayfish with his hands, in tracking game by scent, in snaring
+quails, in training hawks, in capturing the nightingales who had the
+greatest variety of notes. ... One thing he could not do, train a dog;
+he had not patience enough. He had a wife too. He went to see her once
+a week. She lived in a wretched, tumble-down little hut, and led a
+hand-to-mouth existence, never knowing overnight whether she would have
+food to eat on the morrow; and in every way her lot was a pitiful one.
+Yermolaï, who seemed such a careless and easy-going fellow, treated his
+wife with cruel harshness; in his own house he assumed a stern, and
+menacing manner; and his poor wife did everything she could to please
+him, trembled when he looked at her, and spent her last farthing to buy
+him vodka; and when he stretched himself majestically on the stove and
+fell into an heroic sleep, she obsequiously covered him with a
+sheepskin. I happened myself more than once to catch an involuntary
+look in him of a kind of savage ferocity; I did not like the expression
+of his face when he finished off a wounded bird with his teeth. But
+Yermolaï never remained more than a day at home, and away from home he
+was once more the same 'Yermolka' (i.e. the shooting-cap), as he was
+called for a hundred miles round, and as he sometimes called himself.
+The lowest house-serf was conscious of being superior to this vagabond
+--and perhaps this was precisely why they treated him with
+friendliness; the peasants at first amused themselves by chasing him
+and driving him like a hare over the open country, but afterwards they
+left him in God's hands, and when once they recognised him as 'queer,'
+they no longer tormented him, and even gave him bread and entered into
+talk with him.... This was the man I took as my huntsman, and with him
+I went stand-shooting to a great birch-wood on the banks of the Ista.
+
+Many Russian rivers, like the Volga, have one bank rugged and
+precipitous, the other bounded by level meadows; and so it is with the
+Ista. This small river winds extremely capriciously, coils like a
+snake, and does not keep a straight course for half-a-mile together; in
+some places, from the top of a sharp declivity, one can see the river
+for ten miles, with its dykes, its pools and mills, and the gardens on
+its banks, shut in with willows and thick flower-gardens. There are
+fish in the Ista in endless numbers, especially roaches (the peasants
+take them in hot weather from under the bushes with their hands);
+little sand-pipers flutter whistling along the stony banks, which are
+streaked with cold clear streams; wild ducks dive in the middle of the
+pools, and look round warily; in the coves under the overhanging cliffs
+herons stand out in the shade.... We stood in ambush nearly an hour,
+killed two brace of wood snipe, and, as we wanted to try our luck again
+at sunrise (stand-shooting can be done as well in the early morning),
+we resolved to spend the night at the nearest mill. We came out of the
+wood, and went down the slope. The dark-blue waters of the river ran
+below; the air was thick with the mists of night. We knocked at the
+gate. The dogs began barking in the yard.
+
+'Who is there?' asked a hoarse and sleepy voice.
+
+'We are sportsmen; let us stay the night.' There was no reply. 'We will
+pay.'
+
+'I will go and tell the master--Sh! Curse the dogs! Go to the devil
+with you!'
+
+We listened as the workman went into the cottage; he soon came back to
+the gate. 'No,' he said; 'the master tells me not to let you in.'
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'He is afraid; you are sportsmen; you might set the mill on fire;
+you've firearms with you, to be sure.'
+
+'But what nonsense!'
+
+'We had our mill on fire like that last year; some fish-dealers stayed
+the night, and they managed to set it on fire somehow.'
+
+'But, my good friend, we can't sleep in the open air!'
+
+'That's your business.' He went away, his boots clacking as he walked.
+
+Yermolaï promised him various unpleasant things in the future. 'Let us
+go to the village,' he brought out at last, with a sigh. But it was two
+miles to the village.
+
+'Let us stay the night here,' I said, 'in the open air--the night is
+warm; the miller will let us have some straw if we pay for it.'
+
+Yermolaï agreed without discussion. We began again to knock.
+
+'Well, what do you want?' the workman's voice was heard again; 'I've
+told you we can't.'
+
+We explained to him what we wanted. He went to consult the master of
+the house, and returned with him. The little side gate creaked. The
+miller appeared, a tall, fat-faced man with a bull-neck, round-bellied
+and corpulent. He agreed to my proposal. A hundred paces from the mill
+there was a little outhouse open to the air on all sides. They carried
+straw and hay there for us; the workman set a samovar down on the grass
+near the river, and, squatting on his heels, began to blow vigorously
+into the pipe of it. The embers glowed, and threw a bright light on his
+young face. The miller ran to wake his wife, and suggested at last that
+I myself should sleep in the cottage; but I preferred to remain in the
+open air. The miller's wife brought us milk, eggs, potatoes and bread.
+Soon the samovar boiled, and we began drinking tea. A mist had risen
+from the river; there was no wind; from all round came the cry of the
+corn-crake, and faint sounds from the mill-wheels of drops that dripped
+from the paddles and of water gurgling through the bars of the lock. We
+built a small fire on the ground. While Yermolaï was baking the
+potatoes in the embers, I had time to fall into a doze. I was waked by
+a discreetly-subdued whispering near me. I lifted my head; before the
+fire, on a tub turned upside down, the miller's wife sat talking to my
+huntsman. By her dress, her movements, and her manner of speaking, I
+had already recognised that she had been in domestic service, and was
+neither peasant nor city-bred; but now for the first time I got a clear
+view of her features. She looked about thirty; her thin, pale face
+still showed the traces of remarkable beauty; what particularly charmed
+me was her eyes, large and mournful in expression. She was leaning her
+elbows on her knees, and had her face in her hands. Yermolaï was
+sitting with his back to me, and thrusting sticks into the fire.
+
+'They've the cattle-plague again at Zheltonhiny,' the miller's wife was
+saying; 'father Ivan's two cows are dead--Lord have mercy on them!'
+
+'And how are your pigs doing?' asked Yermolaï, after a brief pause.
+
+'They're alive.'
+
+'You ought to make me a present of a sucking pig.'
+
+The miller's wife was silent for a while, then she sighed.
+
+'Who is it you're with?' she asked.
+
+'A gentleman from Kostomarovo.'
+
+Yermolaï threw a few pine twigs on the fire; they all caught fire at
+once, and a thick white smoke came puffing into his face.
+
+'Why didn't your husband let us into the cottage?'
+
+'He's afraid.'
+
+'Afraid! the fat old tub! Arina Timofyevna, my darling, bring me a
+little glass of spirits.'
+
+The miller's wife rose and vanished into the darkness. Yermolaï began
+to sing in an undertone--
+
+     'When I went to see my sweetheart,
+      I wore out all my shoes.'
+
+
+Arina returned with a small flask and a glass. Yermolaï got up, crossed
+himself, and drank it off at a draught. 'Good!' was his comment.
+
+The miller's wife sat down again on the tub.
+
+'Well, Arina Timofyevna, are you still ill?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'My cough troubles me at night.'
+
+'The gentleman's asleep, it seems,' observed Yermolaï after a short
+silence. 'Don't go to a doctor, Arina; it will be worse if you do.'
+
+'Well, I am not going.'
+
+'But come and pay me a visit.'
+
+Arina hung down her head dejectedly.
+
+'I will drive my wife out for the occasion,' continued Yermolaï 'Upon
+my word, I will.'
+
+'You had better wake the gentleman, Yermolaï Petrovitch; you see, the
+potatoes are done.'
+
+'Oh, let him snore,' observed my faithful servant indifferently; 'he's
+tired with walking, so he sleeps sound.'
+
+I turned over in the hay. Yermolaï got up and came to me. 'The potatoes
+are ready; will you come and eat them?'
+
+I came out of the outhouse; the miller's wife got up from the tub and
+was going away. I addressed her.
+
+'Have you kept this mill long?'
+
+'It's two years since I came on Trinity day.'
+
+'And where does your husband come from?'
+
+Arina had not caught my question.
+
+'Where's your husband from?' repeated Yermolaï, raising his voice.
+
+'From Byelev. He's a Byelev townsman.'
+
+'And are you too from Byelev?'
+
+'No, I'm a serf; I was a serf.'
+
+'Whose?'
+
+'Zvyerkoff was my master. Now I am free.'
+
+'What Zvyerkoff?'
+
+'Alexandr Selitch.'
+
+'Weren't you his wife's lady's maid?'
+
+'How did you know? Yes.'
+
+I looked at Arina with redoubled curiosity and sympathy.
+
+'I know your master,' I continued.
+
+'Do you?' she replied in a low voice, and her head drooped.
+
+I must tell the reader why I looked with such sympathy at Arina. During
+my stay at Petersburg I had become by chance acquainted with Mr.
+Zvyerkoff. He had a rather influential position, and was reputed a man
+of sense and education. He had a wife, fat, sentimental, lachrymose and
+spiteful--a vulgar and disagreeable creature; he had too a son, the
+very type of the young swell of to-day, pampered and stupid. The
+exterior of Mr. Zvyerkoff himself did not prepossess one in his favour;
+his little mouse-like eyes peeped slyly out of a broad, almost square,
+face; he had a large, prominent nose, with distended nostrils; his
+close-cropped grey hair stood up like a brush above his scowling brow;
+his thin lips were for ever twitching and smiling mawkishly. Mr.
+Zvyerkoff's favourite position was standing with his legs wide apart
+and his fat hands in his trouser pockets. Once I happened somehow to be
+driving alone with Mr. Zvyerkoff in a coach out of town. We fell into
+conversation. As a man of experience and of judgment, Mr. Zvyerkoff
+began to try to set me in 'the path of truth.'
+
+'Allow me to observe to you,' he drawled at last; 'all you young people
+criticise and form judgments on everything at random; you have little
+knowledge of your own country; Russia, young gentlemen, is an unknown
+land to you; that's where it is!... You are for ever reading German.
+For instance, now you say this and that and the other about anything;
+for instance, about the house-serfs.... Very fine; I don't dispute it's
+all very fine; but you don't know them; you don't know the kind of
+people they are.' (Mr. Zvyerkoff blew his nose loudly and took a pinch
+of snuff.) 'Allow me to tell you as an illustration one little
+anecdote; it may perhaps interest you.' (Mr. Zvyerkoff cleared his
+throat.) 'You know, doubtless, what my wife is; it would be difficult,
+I should imagine, to find a more kind-hearted woman, you will agree.
+For her waiting-maids, existence is simply a perfect paradise, and no
+mistake about it.... But my wife has made it a rule never to keep
+married lady's maids. Certainly it would not do; children come--and one
+thing and the other--and how is a lady's maid to look after her
+mistress as she ought, to fit in with her ways; she is no longer able
+to do it; her mind is in other things. One must look at things through
+human nature. Well, we were driving once through our village, it must
+be--let me be correct--yes, fifteen years ago. We saw, at the
+bailiff's, a young girl, his daughter, very pretty indeed; something
+even--you know--something attractive in her manners. And my wife said
+to me: "Kokó"--you understand, of course, that is her pet name for me--
+"let us take this girl to Petersburg; I like her, Kokó...." I said,
+"Let us take her, by all means." The bailiff, of course, was at our
+feet; he could not have expected such good fortune, you can imagine....
+Well, the girl of course cried violently. Of course, it was hard for
+her at first; the parental home ... in fact ... there was nothing
+surprising in that. However, she soon got used to us: at first we put
+her in the maidservants' room; they trained her, of course. And what do
+you think? The girl made wonderful progress; my wife became simply
+devoted to her, promoted her at last above the rest to wait on herself
+... observe.... And one must do her the justice to say, my wife had never
+such a maid, absolutely never; attentive, modest, and obedient--simply
+all that could be desired. But my wife, I must confess, spoilt her too
+much; she dressed her well, fed her from our own table, gave her tea to
+drink, and so on, as you can imagine! So she waited on my wife like
+this for ten years. Suddenly, one fine morning, picture to yourself,
+Arina--her name was Arina--rushes unannounced into my study, and flops
+down at my feet. That's a thing, I tell you plainly, I can't endure. No
+human being ought ever to lose sight of their personal dignity. Am I
+not right? What do you say? "Your honour, Alexandr Selitch, I beseech a
+favour of you." "What favour?" "Let me be married." I must confess I
+was taken aback. "But you know, you stupid, your mistress has no other
+lady's maid?" "I will wait on mistress as before." "Nonsense! nonsense!
+your mistress can't endure married lady's maids," "Malanya could take
+my place." "Pray don't argue." "I obey your will." I must confess it
+was quite a shock, I assure you, I am like that; nothing wounds me so--
+nothing, I venture to say, wounds me so deeply as ingratitude. I need
+not tell you--you know what my wife is; an angel upon earth, goodness
+inexhaustible. One would fancy even the worst of men would be ashamed
+to hurt her. Well, I got rid of Arina. I thought, perhaps, she would
+come to her senses; I was unwilling, do you know, to believe in wicked,
+black ingratitude in anyone. What do you think? Within six months she
+thought fit to come to me again with the same request. I felt revolted.
+But imagine my amazement when, some time later, my wife comes to me in
+tears, so agitated that I felt positively alarmed. "What has happened?"
+"Arina.... You understand ... I am ashamed to tell it." ...
+"Impossible! ... Who is the man?" "Petrushka, the footman." My
+indignation broke out then. I am like that. I don't like half measures!
+Petrushka was not to blame. We might flog him, but in my opinion he was
+not to blame. Arina.... Well, well, well! what more's to be said? I
+gave orders, of course, that her hair should be cut off, she should be
+dressed in sackcloth, and sent into the country. My wife was deprived
+of an excellent lady's maid; but there was no help for it: immorality
+cannot be tolerated in a household in any case. Better to cut off the
+infected member at once. There, there! now you can judge the thing for
+yourself--you know that my wife is ... yes, yes, yes! indeed!... an
+angel! She had grown attached to Arina, and Arina knew it, and had the
+face to ... Eh? no, tell me ... eh? And what's the use of talking about
+it. Any way, there was no help for it. I, indeed--I, in particular,
+felt hurt, felt wounded for a long time by the ingratitude of this
+girl. Whatever you say--it's no good to look for feeling, for heart, in
+these people! You may feed the wolf as you will; he has always a
+hankering for the woods. Education, by all means! But I only wanted to
+give you an example....'
+
+And Mr. Zvyerkoff, without finishing his sentence, turned away his
+head, and, wrapping himself more closely into his cloak, manfully
+repressed his involuntary emotion.
+
+The reader now probably understands why I looked with sympathetic
+interest at Arina.
+
+'Have you long been married to the miller?' I asked her at last.
+
+'Two years.'
+
+'How was it? Did your master allow it?'
+
+'They bought my freedom.'
+
+'Who?'
+
+'Savely Alexyevitch.'
+
+'Who is that?'
+
+'My husband.' (Yermolaï smiled to himself.) 'Has my master perhaps
+spoken to you of me?' added Arina, after a brief silence.
+
+I did not know what reply to make to her question.
+
+'Arina!' cried the miller from a distance. She got up and walked away.
+
+'Is her husband a good fellow?' I asked Yermolaï.
+
+'So-so.'
+
+'Have they any children?'
+
+'There was one, but it died.'
+
+'How was it? Did the miller take a liking to her? Did he give much to
+buy her freedom?'
+
+'I don't know. She can read and write; in their business it's of use. I
+suppose he liked her.'
+
+'And have you known her long?'
+
+'Yes. I used to go to her master's. Their house isn't far from here.'
+
+'And do you know the footman Petrushka?'
+
+'Piotr Vassilyevitch? Of course, I knew him.'
+
+'Where is he now?'
+
+'He was sent for a soldier.'
+
+We were silent for a while.
+
+'She doesn't seem well?' I asked Yermolaï at last.
+
+'I should think not! To-morrow, I say, we shall have good sport. A
+little sleep now would do us no harm.'
+
+A flock of wild ducks swept whizzing over our heads, and we heard them
+drop down into the river not far from us. It was now quite dark, and it
+began to be cold; in the thicket sounded the melodious notes of a
+nightingale. We buried ourselves in the hay and fell asleep.
+
+
+
+                                   III
+
+                            RASPBERRY SPRING
+
+
+At the beginning of August the heat often becomes insupportable. At
+that season, from twelve to three o'clock, the most determined and
+ardent sportsman is not able to hunt, and the most devoted dog begins
+to 'clean his master's spurs,' that is, to follow at his heels, his
+eyes painfully blinking, and his tongue hanging out to an exaggerated
+length; and in response to his master's reproaches he humbly wags his
+tail and shows his confusion in his face; but he does not run forward.
+I happened to be out hunting on exactly such a day. I had long been
+fighting against the temptation to lie down somewhere in the shade, at
+least for a moment; for a long time my indefatigable dog went on
+running about in the bushes, though he clearly did not himself expect
+much good from his feverish activity. The stifling heat compelled me at
+last to begin to think of husbanding our energies and strength. I
+managed to reach the little river Ista, which is already known to my
+indulgent readers, descended the steep bank, and walked along the damp,
+yellow sand in the direction of the spring, known to the whole
+neighbourhood as Raspberry Spring. This spring gushes out of a cleft in
+the bank, which widens out by degrees into a small but deep creek, and,
+twenty paces beyond it, falls with a merry babbling sound into the
+river; the short velvety grass is green about the source: the sun's
+rays scarcely ever reach its cold, silvery water. I came as far as the
+spring; a cup of birch-wood lay on the grass, left by a passing peasant
+for the public benefit. I quenched my thirst, lay down in the shade,
+and looked round. In the cave, which had been formed by the flowing of
+the stream into the river, and hence marked for ever with the trace of
+ripples, two old men were sitting with their backs to me. One, a rather
+stout and tall man in a neat dark-green coat and lined cap, was
+fishing; the other was thin and little; he wore a patched fustian coat
+and no cap; he held a little pot full of worms on his knees, and
+sometimes lifted his hand up to his grizzled little head, as though he
+wanted to protect it from the sun. I looked at him more attentively,
+and recognised in him Styopushka of Shumihino. I must ask the reader's
+leave to present this man to him.
+
+A few miles from my place there is a large village called Shumihino,
+with a stone church, erected in the name of St. Kosmo and St. Damian.
+Facing this church there had once stood a large and stately manor-
+house, surrounded by various outhouses, offices, workshops, stables and
+coach-houses, baths and temporary kitchens, wings for visitors and for
+bailiffs, conservatories, swings for the people, and other more or less
+useful edifices. A family of rich landowners lived in this manor-house,
+and all went well with them, till suddenly one morning all this
+prosperity was burnt to ashes. The owners removed to another home; the
+place was deserted. The blackened site of the immense house was
+transformed into a kitchen-garden, cumbered up in parts by piles of
+bricks, the remains of the old foundations. A little hut had been
+hurriedly put together out of the beams that had escaped the fire; it
+was roofed with timber bought ten years before for the construction of
+a pavilion in the Gothic style; and the gardener, Mitrofan, with his
+wife Axinya and their seven children, was installed in it. Mitrofan
+received orders to send greens and garden-stuff for the master's table,
+a hundred and fifty miles away; Axinya was put in charge of a Tyrolese
+cow, which had been bought for a high price in Moscow, but had not
+given a drop of milk since its acquisition; a crested smoke-coloured
+drake too had been left in her hands, the solitary 'seignorial' bird;
+for the children, in consideration of their tender age, no special
+duties had been provided, a fact, however, which had not hindered them
+from growing up utterly lazy. It happened to me on two occasions to
+stay the night at this gardener's, and when I passed by I used to get
+cucumbers from him, which, for some unknown reason, were even in summer
+peculiar for their size, their poor, watery flavour, and their thick
+yellow skin. It was there I first saw Styopushka. Except Mitrofan and
+his family, and the old deaf churchwarden Gerasim, kept out of charity
+in a little room at the one-eyed soldier's widow's, not one man among
+the house-serfs had remained at Shumihino; for Styopushka, whom I
+intend to introduce to the reader, could not be classified under the
+special order of house-serfs, and hardly under the genus 'man' at all.
+
+Every man has some kind of position in society, and at least some ties
+of some sort; every house-serf receives, if not wages, at least some
+so-called 'ration.' Styopushka had absolutely no means of subsistence
+of any kind; had no relationship to anyone; no one knew of his
+existence. This man had not even a past; there was no story told of
+him; he had probably never been enrolled on a census-revision. There
+were vague rumours that he had once belonged to someone as a valet; but
+who he was, where he came from, who was his father, and how he had come
+to be one of the Shumihino people; in what way he had come by the
+fustian coat he had worn from immemorial times; where he lived and what
+he lived on--on all these questions no one had the least idea; and, to
+tell the truth, no one took any interest in the subject. Grandfather
+Trofimitch, who knew all the pedigrees of all the house-serfs in the
+direct line to the fourth generation, had once indeed been known to say
+that he remembered that Styopushka was related to a Turkish woman whom
+the late master, the brigadier Alexy Romanitch had been pleased to
+bring home from a campaign in the baggage waggon. Even on holidays,
+days of general money-giving and of feasting on buckwheat dumplings and
+vodka, after the old Russian fashion--even on such days Styopushka did
+not put in an appearance at the trestle-tables nor at the barrels; he
+did not make his bow nor kiss the master's hand, nor toss off to the
+master's health and under the master's eye a glass filled by the fat
+hands of the bailiff. Some kind soul who passed by him might share an
+unfinished bit of dumpling with the poor beggar, perhaps. At Easter
+they said 'Christ is risen!' to him; but he did not pull up his greasy
+sleeve, and bring out of the depths of his pocket a coloured egg, to
+offer it, panting and blinking, to his young masters or to the mistress
+herself. He lived in summer in a little shed behind the chicken-house,
+and in winter in the ante-room of the bathhouse; in the bitter frosts
+he spent the night in the hayloft. The house-serfs had grown used to
+seeing him; sometimes they gave him a kick, but no one ever addressed a
+remark to him; as for him, he seems never to have opened his lips from
+the time of his birth. After the conflagration, this forsaken creature
+sought a refuge at the gardener Mitrofan's. The gardener left him
+alone; he did not say 'Live with me,' but he did not drive him away.
+And Styopushka did not live at the gardener's; his abode was the
+garden. He moved and walked about quite noiselessly; he sneezed and
+coughed behind his hand, not without apprehension; he was for ever busy
+and going stealthily to and fro like an ant; and all to get food--
+simply food to eat. And indeed, if he had not toiled from morning till
+night for his living, our poor friend would certainly have died of
+hunger. It's a sad lot not to know in the morning what you will find to
+eat before night! Sometimes Styopushka sits under the hedge and gnaws a
+radish or sucks a carrot, or shreds up some dirty cabbage-stalks; or he
+drags a bucket of water along, for some object or other, groaning as he
+goes; or he lights a fire under a small pot, and throws in some little
+black scraps which he takes from out of the bosom of his coat; or he is
+hammering in his little wooden den--driving in a nail, putting up a
+shelf for bread. And all this he does silently, as though on the sly:
+before you can look round, he's in hiding again. Sometimes he suddenly
+disappears for a couple of days; but of course no one notices his
+absence.... Then, lo and behold! he is there again, somewhere under the
+hedge, stealthily kindling a fire of sticks under a kettle. He had a
+small face, yellowish eyes, hair coming down to his eyebrows, a sharp
+nose, large transparent ears, like a bat's, and a beard that looked as
+if it were a fortnight's growth, and never grew more nor less. This,
+then, was Styopushka, whom I met on the bank of the Ista in company
+with another old man.
+
+I went up to him, wished him good-day, and sat down beside him.
+Styopushka's companion too I recognised as an acquaintance; he was a
+freed serf of Count Piotr Ilitch's, one Mihal Savelitch, nicknamed
+Tuman (_i.e._ fog). He lived with a consumptive Bolhovsky man, who kept
+an inn, where I had several times stayed. Young officials and other
+persons of leisure travelling on the Orel highroad (merchants, buried
+in their striped rugs, have other things to do) may still see at no
+great distance from the large village of Troitska, and almost on the
+highroad, an immense two-storied wooden house, completely deserted,
+with its roof falling in and its windows closely stuffed up. At mid-day
+in bright, sunny weather nothing can be imagined more melancholy than
+this ruin. Here there once lived Count Piotr Ilitch, a rich grandee of
+the olden time, renowned for his hospitality. At one time the whole
+province used to meet at his house, to dance and make merry to their
+heart's content to the deafening sound of a home-trained orchestra, and
+the popping of rockets and Roman candles; and doubtless more than one
+aged lady sighs as she drives by the deserted palace of the boyar and
+recalls the old days and her vanished youth. The count long continued
+to give balls, and to walk about with an affable smile among the crowd
+of fawning guests; but his property, unluckily, was not enough to last
+his whole life. When he was entirely ruined, he set off to Petersburg
+to try for a post for himself, and died in a room at a hotel, without
+having gained anything by his efforts. Tuman had been a steward of his,
+and had received his freedom already in the count's lifetime. He was a
+man of about seventy, with a regular and pleasant face. He was almost
+continually smiling, as only men of the time of Catherine ever do
+smile--a smile at once stately and indulgent; in speaking, he slowly
+opened and closed his lips, winked genially with his eyes, and spoke
+slightly through his nose. He blew his nose and took snuff too in a
+leisurely fashion, as though he were doing something serious.
+
+'Well, Mihal Savelitch,' I began, 'have you caught any fish?'
+
+'Here, if you will deign to look in the basket: I have caught two perch
+and five roaches.... Show them, Styopka.'
+
+Styopushka stretched out the basket to me.
+
+'How are you, Styopka?' I asked him.
+
+'Oh--oh--not--not--not so badly, your honour,' answered Stepan,
+stammering as though he had a heavy weight on his tongue.
+
+'And is Mitrofan well?'
+
+'Well--yes, yes--your honour.'
+
+The poor fellow turned away.
+
+'But there are not many bites,' remarked Tuman; 'it's so fearfully hot;
+the fish are all tired out under the bushes; they're asleep. Put on a
+worm, Styopka.' (Styopushka took out a worm, laid it on his open hand,
+struck it two or three times, put it on the hook, spat on it, and gave
+it to Tuman.) 'Thanks, Styopka.... And you, your honour,' he continued,
+turning to me, 'are pleased to be out hunting?'
+
+'As you see.'
+
+'Ah--and is your dog there English or German?'
+
+The old man liked to show off on occasion, as though he would say, 'I,
+too, have lived in the world!'
+
+'I don't know what breed it is, but it's a good dog.'
+
+'Ah! and do you go out with the hounds too?'
+
+'Yes, I have two leashes of hounds.'
+
+Tuman smiled and shook his head.
+
+'That's just it; one man is devoted to dogs, and another doesn't want
+them for anything. According to my simple notions, I fancy dogs should
+be kept rather for appearance' sake ... and all should be in style too;
+horses too should be in style, and huntsmen in style, as they ought to
+be, and all. The late count--God's grace be with him!--was never, I
+must own, much of a hunter; but he kept dogs, and twice a year he was
+pleased to go out with them. The huntsmen assembled in the courtyard,
+in red caftans trimmed with galloon, and blew their horns; his
+excellency would be pleased to come out, and his excellency's horse
+would be led up; his excellency would mount, and the chief huntsman
+puts his feet in the stirrups, takes his hat off, and puts the reins in
+his hat to offer them to his excellency. His excellency is pleased to
+click his whip like this, and the huntsmen give a shout, and off they
+go out of the gate away. A huntsman rides behind the count, and holds
+in a silken leash two of the master's favourite dogs, and looks after
+them well, you may fancy.... And he, too, this huntsman, sits up high,
+on a Cossack saddle: such a red-cheeked fellow he was, and rolled his
+eyes like this.... And there were guests too, you may be sure, on such
+occasions, and entertainment, and ceremonies observed.... Ah, he's got
+away, the Asiatic!' He interrupted himself suddenly, drawing in his
+line.
+
+'They say the count used to live pretty freely in his day?' I asked.
+
+The old man spat on the worm and lowered the line in again.
+
+'He was a great gentleman, as is well-known. At times the persons of
+the first rank, one may say, at Petersburg, used to visit him. With
+coloured ribbons on their breasts they used to sit down to table and
+eat. Well, he knew how to entertain them. He called me sometimes.
+"Tuman," says he, "I want by to-morrow some live sturgeon; see there
+are some, do you hear?" "Yes, your excellency." Embroidered coats,
+wigs, canes, perfumes, _eau de Cologne_ of the best sort, snuff-boxes,
+huge pictures: he would order them all from Paris itself! When he gave
+a banquet, God Almighty, Lord of my being! there were fireworks, and
+carriages driving up! They even fired off the cannon. The orchestra
+alone consisted of forty men. He kept a German as conductor of the
+band, but the German gave himself dreadful airs; he wanted to eat at
+the same table as the masters; so his excellency gave orders to get rid
+of him! "My musicians," says he, "can do their work even without a
+conductor." Of course he was master. Then they would fall to dancing,
+and dance till morning, especially at the écossaise-matrador. ... Ah--
+ah--there's one caught!' (The old man drew a small perch out of the
+water.) 'Here you are, Styopka! The master was all a master should be,'
+continued the old man, dropping his line in again, 'and he had a kind
+heart too. He would give you a blow at times, and before you could look
+round, he'd forgotten it already. There was only one thing: he kept
+mistresses. Ugh, those mistresses! God forgive them! They were the ruin
+of him too; and yet, you know, he took them most generally from a low
+station. You would fancy they would not want much? Not a bit--they must
+have everything of the most expensive in all Europe! One may say, "Why
+shouldn't he live as he likes; it's the master's business" ... but
+there was no need to ruin himself. There was one especially; Akulina
+was her name. She is dead now; God rest her soul! the daughter of the
+watchman at Sitoia; and such a vixen! She would slap the count's face
+sometimes. She simply bewitched him. My nephew she sent for a soldier;
+he spilt some chocolate on a new dress of hers ... and he wasn't the
+only one she served so. Ah, well, those were good times, though!' added
+the old man with a deep sigh. His head drooped forward and he was
+silent.
+
+'Your master, I see, was severe, then?' I began after a brief silence.
+
+'That was the fashion then, your honour,' he replied, shaking his head.
+
+'That sort of thing is not done now?' I observed, not taking my eyes
+off him.
+
+He gave me a look askance.
+
+'Now, surely it's better,' he muttered, and let out his line further.
+
+We were sitting in the shade; but even in the shade it was stifling.
+The sultry atmosphere was faint and heavy; one lifted one's burning
+face uneasily, seeking a breath of wind; but there was no wind. The sun
+beat down from blue and darkening skies; right opposite us, on the
+other bank, was a yellow field of oats, overgrown here and there with
+wormwood; not one ear of the oats quivered. A little lower down a
+peasant's horse stood in the river up to its knees, and slowly shook
+its wet tail; from time to time, under an overhanging bush, a large
+fish shot up, bringing bubbles to the surface, and gently sank down to
+the bottom, leaving a slight ripple behind it. The grasshoppers chirped
+in the scorched grass; the quail's cry sounded languid and reluctant;
+hawks sailed smoothly over the meadows, often resting in the same spot,
+rapidly fluttering their wings and opening their tails into a fan. We
+sat motionless, overpowered with the heat. Suddenly there was a sound
+behind us in the creek; someone came down to the spring. I looked
+round, and saw a peasant of about fifty, covered with dust, in a smock,
+and wearing bast slippers; he carried a wickerwork pannier and a cloak
+on his shoulders. He went down to the spring, drank thirstily, and got
+up.
+
+'Ah, Vlass!' cried Tuman, staring at him; 'good health to you, friend!
+Where has God sent you from?'
+
+'Good health to you, Mihal Savelitch!' said the peasant, coming nearer
+to us; 'from a long way off.'
+
+'Where have you been?' Tuman asked him.
+
+'I have been to Moscow, to my master.'
+
+'What for?'
+
+'I went to ask him a favour.'
+
+'What about?'
+
+'Oh, to lessen my rent, or to let me work it out in labour, or to put
+me on another piece of land, or something.... My son is dead--so I
+can't manage it now alone.'
+
+'Your son is dead?'
+
+'He is dead. My son,' added the peasant, after a pause, 'lived in
+Moscow as a cabman; he paid, I must confess, rent for me.'
+
+'Then are you now paying rent?'
+
+'Yes, we pay rent.'
+
+'What did your master say?'
+
+'What did the master say! He drove me away! Says he, "How dare you come
+straight to me; there is a bailiff for such things. You ought first,"
+says he, "to apply to the bailiff ... and where am I to put you on
+other land? You first," says he, "bring the debt you owe." He was angry
+altogether.'
+
+'What then--did you come back?'
+
+'I came back. I wanted to find out if my son had not left any goods of
+his own, but I couldn't get a straight answer. I say to his employer,
+"I am Philip's father"; and he says, "What do I know about that? And
+your son," says he, "left nothing; he was even in debt to me." So I
+came away.'
+
+The peasant related all this with a smile, as though he were speaking
+of someone else; but tears were starting into his small, screwed-up
+eyes, and his lips were quivering.
+
+'Well, are you going home then now?'
+
+'Where can I go? Of course I'm going home. My wife, I suppose, is
+pretty well starved by now.'
+
+'You should--then,' Styopushka said suddenly. He grew confused, was
+silent, and began to rummage in the worm-pot.
+
+'And shall you go to the bailiff?' continued Tuman, looking with some
+amazement at Styopka.
+
+'What should I go to him for?--I'm in arrears as it is. My son was ill
+for a year before his death; he could not pay even his own rent. But it
+can't hurt me; they can get nothing from me.... Yes, my friend, you can
+be as cunning as you please--I'm cleaned out!' (The peasant began to
+laugh.) 'Kintlyan Semenitch'll have to be clever if--'
+
+Vlass laughed again.
+
+'Oh! things are in a sad way, brother Vlass,' Tuman ejaculated
+deliberately.
+
+'Sad! No!' (Vlass's voice broke.) 'How hot it is!' he went on, wiping
+his face with his sleeve.
+
+'Who is your master?' I asked him.
+
+'Count Valerian Petrovitch.'
+
+'The son of Piotr Ilitch?'
+
+'The son of Piotr Ilitch,' replied Tuman. 'Piotr Hitch gave him Vlass's
+village in his lifetime.'
+
+'Is he well?'
+
+'He is well, thank God!' replied Vlass. 'He has grown so red, and his
+face looks as though it were padded.'
+
+'You see, your honour,' continued Tuman, turning to me, 'it would be
+very well near Moscow, but it's a different matter to pay rent here.'
+
+'And what is the rent for you altogether?'
+
+'Ninety-five roubles,' muttered Vlass.
+
+'There, you see; and it's the least bit of land; all there is is the
+master's forest.'
+
+'And that, they say, they have sold,' observed the peasant.
+
+'There, you see. Styopka, give me a worm. Why, Styopka, are you asleep
+--eh?'
+
+Styopushka started. The peasant sat down by us. We sank into silence
+again. On the other bank someone was singing a song--but such a
+mournful one. Our poor Vlass grew deeply dejected.
+
+Half-an-hour later we parted.
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+                           THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
+
+
+One day in autumn on my way back from a remote part of the country I
+caught cold and fell ill. Fortunately the fever attacked me in the
+district town at the inn; I sent for the doctor. In half-an-hour the
+district doctor appeared, a thin, dark-haired man of middle height. He
+prescribed me the usual sudorific, ordered a mustard-plaster to be put
+on, very deftly slid a five-rouble note up his sleeve, coughing drily
+and looking away as he did so, and then was getting up to go home, but
+somehow fell into talk and remained. I was exhausted with feverishness;
+I foresaw a sleepless night, and was glad of a little chat with a
+pleasant companion. Tea was served. My doctor began to converse freely.
+He was a sensible fellow, and expressed himself with vigour and some
+humour. Queer things happen in the world: you may live a long while
+with some people, and be on friendly terms with them, and never once
+speak openly with them from your soul; with others you have scarcely
+time to get acquainted, and all at once you are pouring out to him--or
+he to you--all your secrets, as though you were at confession. I don't
+know how I gained the confidence of my new friend--any way, with
+nothing to lead up to it, he told me a rather curious incident; and
+here I will report his tale for the information of the indulgent
+reader. I will try to tell it in the doctor's own words.
+
+'You don't happen to know,' he began in a weak and quavering voice (the
+common result of the use of unmixed Berezov snuff); 'you don't happen
+to know the judge here, Mylov, Pavel Lukitch?... You don't know him?...
+Well, it's all the same.' (He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes.)
+'Well, you see, the thing happened, to tell you exactly without
+mistake, in Lent, at the very time of the thaws. I was sitting at his
+house--our judge's, you know--playing preference. Our judge is a good
+fellow, and fond of playing preference. Suddenly' (the doctor made
+frequent use of this word, suddenly) 'they tell me, "There's a servant
+asking for you." I say, "What does he want?" They say, "He has brought
+a note--it must be from a patient." "Give me the note," I say. So it is
+from a patient--well and good--you understand--it's our bread and
+butter. ... But this is how it was: a lady, a widow, writes to me; she
+says, "My daughter is dying. Come, for God's sake!" she says; "and the
+horses have been sent for you." ... Well, that's all right. But she was
+twenty miles from the town, and it was midnight out of doors, and the
+roads in such a state, my word! And as she was poor herself, one could
+not expect more than two silver roubles, and even that problematic; and
+perhaps it might only be a matter of a roll of linen and a sack of
+oatmeal in payment. However, duty, you know, before everything: a
+fellow-creature may be dying. I hand over my cards at once to
+Kalliopin, the member of the provincial commission, and return home. I
+look; a wretched little trap was standing at the steps, with peasant's
+horses, fat--too fat--and their coat as shaggy as felt; and the
+coachman sitting with his cap off out of respect. Well, I think to
+myself, "It's clear, my friend, these patients aren't rolling in
+riches." ... You smile; but I tell you, a poor man like me has to take
+everything into consideration.... If the coachman sits like a prince,
+and doesn't touch his cap, and even sneers at you behind his beard, and
+flicks his whip--then you may bet on six roubles. But this case, I saw,
+had a very different air. However, I think there's no help for it; duty
+before everything. I snatch up the most necessary drugs, and set off.
+Will you believe it? I only just managed to get there at all. The road
+was infernal: streams, snow, watercourses, and the dyke had suddenly
+burst there--that was the worst of it! However, I arrived at last. It
+was a little thatched house. There was a light in the windows; that
+meant they expected me. I was met by an old lady, very venerable, in a
+cap. "Save her!" she says; "she is dying." I say, "Pray don't distress
+yourself--Where is the invalid?" "Come this way." I see a clean little
+room, a lamp in the corner; on the bed a girl of twenty, unconscious.
+She was in a burning heat, and breathing heavily--it was fever. There
+were two other girls, her sisters, scared and in tears. "Yesterday,"
+they tell me, "she was perfectly well and had a good appetite; this
+morning she complained of her head, and this evening, suddenly, you
+see, like this." I say again: "Pray don't be uneasy." It's a doctor's
+duty, you know--and I went up to her and bled her, told them to put on
+a mustard-plaster, and prescribed a mixture. Meantime I looked at her;
+I looked at her, you know--there, by God! I had never seen such a
+face!--she was a beauty, in a word! I felt quite shaken with pity. Such
+lovely features; such eyes!... But, thank God! she became easier; she
+fell into a perspiration, seemed to come to her senses, looked round,
+smiled, and passed her hand over her face.... Her sisters bent over
+her. They ask, "How are you?" "All right," she says, and turns away. I
+looked at her; she had fallen asleep. "Well," I say, "now the patient
+should be left alone." So we all went out on tiptoe; only a maid
+remained, in case she was wanted. In the parlour there was a samovar
+standing on the table, and a bottle of rum; in our profession one can't
+get on without it. They gave me tea; asked me to stop the night. ... I
+consented: where could I go, indeed, at that time of night? The old
+lady kept groaning. "What is it?" I say; "she will live; don't worry
+yourself; you had better take a little rest yourself; it is about two
+o'clock." "But will you send to wake me if anything happens?" "Yes,
+yes." The old lady went away, and the girls too went to their own room;
+they made up a bed for me in the parlour. Well, I went to bed--but I
+could not get to sleep, for a wonder! for in reality I was very tired.
+I could not get my patient out of my head. At last I could not put up
+with it any longer; I got up suddenly; I think to myself, "I will go
+and see how the patient is getting on." Her bedroom was next to the
+parlour. Well, I got up, and gently opened the door--how my heart beat!
+I looked in: the servant was asleep, her mouth wide open, and even
+snoring, the wretch! but the patient lay with her face towards me, and
+her arms flung wide apart, poor girl! I went up to her ... when
+suddenly she opened her eyes and stared at me! "Who is it? who is it?"
+I was in confusion. "Don't be alarmed, madam," I say; "I am the doctor;
+I have come to see how you feel." "You the doctor?" "Yes, the doctor;
+your mother sent for me from the town; we have bled you, madam; now
+pray go to sleep, and in a day or two, please God! we will set you on
+your feet again." "Ah, yes, yes, doctor, don't let me die.... please,
+please." "Why do you talk like that? God bless you!" She is in a fever
+again, I think to myself; I felt her pulse; yes, she was feverish. She
+looked at me, and then took me by the hand. "I will tell you why I
+don't want to die; I will tell you.... Now we are alone; and only,
+please don't you ... not to anyone ... Listen...." I bent down; she
+moved her lips quite to my ear; she touched my cheek with her hair--I
+confess my head went round--and began to whisper.... I could make out
+nothing of it.... Ah, she was delirious!... She whispered and
+whispered, but so quickly, and as if it were not in Russian; at last
+she finished, and shivering dropped her head on the pillow, and
+threatened me with her finger: "Remember, doctor, to no one." I calmed
+her somehow, gave her something to drink, waked the servant, and went
+away.'
+
+At this point the doctor again took snuff with exasperated energy, and
+for a moment seemed stupefied by its effects.
+
+'However,' he continued, 'the next day, contrary to my expectations,
+the patient was no better. I thought and thought, and suddenly decided
+to remain there, even though my other patients were expecting me....
+And you know one can't afford to disregard that; one's practice suffers
+if one does. But, in the first place, the patient was really in danger;
+and secondly, to tell the truth, I felt strongly drawn to her. Besides,
+I liked the whole family. Though they were really badly off, they were
+singularly, I may say, cultivated people.... Their father had been a
+learned man, an author; he died, of course, in poverty, but he had
+managed before he died to give his children an excellent education; he
+left a lot of books too. Either because I looked after the invalid very
+carefully, or for some other reason; any way, I can venture to say all
+the household loved me as if I were one of the family.... Meantime the
+roads were in a worse state than ever; all communications, so to say,
+were cut off completely; even medicine could with difficulty be got
+from the town.... The sick girl was not getting better. ... Day after
+day, and day after day ... but ... here....' (The doctor made a brief
+pause.) 'I declare I don't know how to tell you.' ... (He again took
+snuff, coughed, and swallowed a little tea.) 'I will tell you without
+beating about the bush. My patient ... how should I say?... Well, she
+had fallen in love with me ... or, no, it was not that she was in love
+... however ... really, how should one say?' (The doctor looked down
+and grew red.) 'No,' he went on quickly, 'in love, indeed! A man should
+not over-estimate himself. She was an educated girl, clever and well-
+read, and I had even forgotten my Latin, one may say, completely. As to
+appearance' (the doctor looked himself over with a smile) 'I am nothing
+to boast of there either. But God Almighty did not make me a fool; I
+don't take black for white; I know a thing or two; I could see very
+clearly, for instance, that Alexandra Andreevna--that was her name--did
+not feel love for me, but had a friendly, so to say, inclination--a
+respect or something for me. Though she herself perhaps mistook this
+sentiment, any way this was her attitude; you may form your own
+judgment of it. But,' added the doctor, who had brought out all these
+disconnected sentences without taking breath, and with obvious
+embarrassment, 'I seem to be wandering rather--you won't understand
+anything like this.... There, with your leave, I will relate it all in
+order.'
+
+He drank off a glass of tea, and began in a calmer voice.
+
+'Well, then. My patient kept getting worse and worse. You are not a
+doctor, my good sir; you cannot understand what passes in a poor
+fellow's heart, especially at first, when he begins to suspect that the
+disease is getting the upper hand of him. What becomes of his belief in
+himself? You suddenly grow so timid; it's indescribable. You fancy then
+that you have forgotten everything you knew, and that the patient has
+no faith in you, and that other people begin to notice how distracted
+you are, and tell you the symptoms with reluctance; that they are
+looking at you suspiciously, whispering.... Ah! it's horrid! There must
+be a remedy, you think, for this disease, if one could find it. Isn't
+this it? You try--no, that's not it! You don't allow the medicine the
+necessary time to do good.... You clutch at one thing, then at another.
+Sometimes you take up a book of medical prescriptions--here it is, you
+think! Sometimes, by Jove, you pick one out by chance, thinking to
+leave it to fate.... But meantime a fellow-creature's dying, and
+another doctor would have saved him. "We must have a consultation," you
+say; "I will not take the responsibility on myself." And what a fool
+you look at such times! Well, in time you learn to bear it; it's
+nothing to you. A man has died--but it's not your fault; you treated
+him by the rules. But what's still more torture to you is to see blind
+faith in you, and to feel yourself that you are not able to be of use.
+Well, it was just this blind faith that the whole of Alexandra
+Andreevna's family had in me; they had forgotten to think that their
+daughter was in danger. I, too, on my side assure them that it's
+nothing, but meantime my heart sinks into my boots. To add to our
+troubles, the roads were in such a state that the coachman was gone for
+whole days together to get medicine. And I never left the patient's
+room; I could not tear myself away; I tell her amusing stories, you
+know, and play cards with her. I watch by her side at night. The old
+mother thanks me with tears in her eyes; but I think to myself, "I
+don't deserve your gratitude." I frankly confess to you--there is no
+object in concealing it now--I was in love with my patient. And
+Alexandra Andreevna had grown fond of me; she would not sometimes let
+anyone be in her room but me. She began to talk to me, to ask me
+questions; where I had studied, how I lived, who are my people, whom I
+go to see. I feel that she ought not to talk; but to forbid her to--to
+forbid her resolutely, you know--I could not. Sometimes I held my head
+in my hands, and asked myself, "What are you doing, villain?" ... And
+she would take my hand and hold it, give me a long, long look, and turn
+away, sigh, and say, "How good you are!" Her hands were so feverish,
+her eyes so large and languid.... "Yes," she says, "you are a good,
+kind man; you are not like our neighbours.... No, you are not like
+that. ... Why did I not know you till now!" "Alexandra Andreevna, calm
+yourself," I say.... "I feel, believe me, I don't know how I have
+gained ... but there, calm yourself.... All will be right; you will be
+well again." And meanwhile I must tell you,' continued the doctor,
+bending forward and raising his eyebrows, 'that they associated very
+little with the neighbours, because the smaller people were not on
+their level, and pride hindered them from being friendly with the rich.
+I tell you, they were an exceptionally cultivated family; so you know
+it was gratifying for me. She would only take her medicine from my
+hands ... she would lift herself up, poor girl, with my aid, take it,
+and gaze at me.... My heart felt as if it were bursting. And meanwhile
+she was growing worse and worse, worse and worse, all the time; she
+will die, I think to myself; she must die. Believe me, I would sooner
+have gone to the grave myself; and here were her mother and sisters
+watching me, looking into my eyes ... and their faith in me was wearing
+away. "Well? how is she?" "Oh, all right, all right!" All right,
+indeed! My mind was failing me. Well, I was sitting one night alone
+again by my patient. The maid was sitting there too, and snoring away
+in full swing; I can't find fault with the poor girl, though; she was
+worn out too. Alexandra Andreevna had felt very unwell all the evening;
+she was very feverish. Until midnight she kept tossing about; at last
+she seemed to fall asleep; at least, she lay still without stirring.
+The lamp was burning in the corner before the holy image. I sat there,
+you know, with my head bent; I even dozed a little. Suddenly it seemed
+as though someone touched me in the side; I turned round.... Good God!
+Alexandra Andreevna was gazing with intent eyes at me ... her lips
+parted, her cheeks seemed burning. "What is it?" "Doctor, shall I die?"
+"Merciful Heavens!" "No, doctor, no; please don't tell me I shall live
+... don't say so.... If you knew.... Listen! for God's sake don't
+conceal my real position," and her breath came so fast. "If I can know
+for certain that I must die ... then I will tell you all--all!"
+"Alexandra Andreevna, I beg!" "Listen; I have not been asleep at all
+... I have been looking at you a long while.... For God's sake! ... I
+believe in you; you are a good man, an honest man; I entreat you by all
+that is sacred in the world--tell me the truth! If you knew how
+important it is for me.... Doctor, for God's sake tell me.... Am I in
+danger?" "What can I tell you, Alexandra Andreevna, pray?" "For God's
+sake, I beseech you!" "I can't disguise from you," I say, "Alexandra
+Andreevna; you are certainly in danger; but God is merciful." "I shall
+die, I shall die." And it seemed as though she were pleased; her face
+grew so bright; I was alarmed. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! I am
+not frightened of death at all." She suddenly sat up and leaned on her
+elbow. "Now ... yes, now I can tell you that I thank you with my whole
+heart ... that you are kind and good--that I love you!" I stare at her,
+like one possessed; it was terrible for me, you know. "Do you hear, I
+love you!" "Alexandra Andreevna, how have I deserved--" "No, no, you
+don't--you don't understand me." ... And suddenly she stretched out her
+arms, and taking my head in her hands, she kissed it.... Believe me, I
+almost screamed aloud.... I threw myself on my knees, and buried my
+head in the pillow. She did not speak; her fingers trembled in my hair;
+I listen; she is weeping. I began to soothe her, to assure her.... I
+really don't know what I did say to her. "You will wake up the girl," I
+say to her; "Alexandra Andreevna, I thank you ... believe me ... calm
+yourself." "Enough, enough!" she persisted; "never mind all of them;
+let them wake, then; let them come in--it does not matter; I am dying,
+you see.... And what do you fear? why are you afraid? Lift up your
+head.... Or, perhaps, you don't love me; perhaps I am wrong.... In that
+case, forgive me." "Alexandra Andreevna, what are you saying!... I love
+you, Alexandra Andreevna." She looked straight into my eyes, and opened
+her arms wide. "Then take me in your arms." I tell you frankly, I don't
+know how it was I did not go mad that night. I feel that my patient is
+killing herself; I see that she is not fully herself; I understand,
+too, that if she did not consider herself on the point of death, she
+would never have thought of me; and, indeed, say what you will, it's
+hard to die at twenty without having known love; this was what was
+torturing her; this was why, in despair, she caught at me--do you
+understand now? But she held me in her arms, and would not let me go.
+"Have pity on me, Alexandra Andreevna, and have pity on yourself," I
+say. "Why," she says; "what is there to think of? You know I must die."
+... This she repeated incessantly.... "If I knew that I should return
+to life, and be a proper young lady again, I should be ashamed ... of
+course, ashamed ... but why now?" "But who has said you will die?" "Oh,
+no, leave off! you will not deceive me; you don't know how to lie--look
+at your face." ... "You shall live, Alexandra Andreevna; I will cure
+you; we will ask your mother's blessing ... we will be united--we will
+be happy." "No, no, I have your word; I must die ... you have promised
+me ... you have told me." ... It was cruel for me--cruel for many
+reasons. And see what trifling things can do sometimes; it seems
+nothing at all, but it's painful. It occurred to her to ask me, what is
+my name; not my surname, but my first name. I must needs be so unlucky
+as to be called Trifon. Yes, indeed; Trifon Ivanitch. Every one in the
+house called me doctor. However, there's no help for it. I say,
+"Trifon, madam." She frowned, shook her head, and muttered something in
+French--ah, something unpleasant, of course!--and then she laughed--
+disagreeably too. Well, I spent the whole night with her in this way.
+Before morning I went away, feeling as though I were mad. When I went
+again into her room it was daytime, after morning tea. Good God! I
+could scarcely recognise her; people are laid in their grave looking
+better than that. I swear to you, on my honour, I don't understand--I
+absolutely don't understand--now, how I lived through that experience.
+Three days and nights my patient still lingered on. And what nights!
+What things she said to me! And on the last night--only imagine to
+yourself--I was sitting near her, and kept praying to God for one thing
+only: "Take her," I said, "quickly, and me with her." Suddenly the old
+mother comes unexpectedly into the room. I had already the evening
+before told her--the mother--there was little hope, and it would be
+well to send for a priest. When the sick girl saw her mother she said:
+"It's very well you have come; look at us, we love one another--we have
+given each other our word." "What does she say, doctor? what does she
+say?" I turned livid. "She is wandering," I say; "the fever." But she:
+"Hush, hush; you told me something quite different just now, and have
+taken my ring. Why do you pretend? My mother is good--she will forgive
+--she will understand--and I am dying.... I have no need to tell lies;
+give me your hand." I jumped up and ran out of the room. The old lady,
+of course, guessed how it was.
+
+'I will not, however, weary you any longer, and to me too, of course,
+it's painful to recall all this. My patient passed away the next day.
+God rest her soul!' the doctor added, speaking quickly and with a sigh.
+'Before her death she asked her family to go out and leave me alone
+with her.'
+
+'"Forgive me," she said; "I am perhaps to blame towards you ... my
+illness ... but believe me, I have loved no one more than you ... do
+not forget me ... keep my ring."'
+
+The doctor turned away; I took his hand.
+
+'Ah!' he said, 'let us talk of something else, or would you care to
+play preference for a small stake? It is not for people like me to give
+way to exalted emotions. There's only one thing for me to think of; how
+to keep the children from crying and the wife from scolding. Since
+then, you know, I have had time to enter into lawful wed-lock, as they
+say.... Oh ... I took a merchant's daughter--seven thousand for her
+dowry. Her name's Akulina; it goes well with Trifon. She is an ill-
+tempered woman, I must tell you, but luckily she's asleep all day....
+Well, shall it be preference?'
+
+We sat down to preference for halfpenny points. Trifon Ivanitch won two
+roubles and a half from me, and went home late, well pleased with his
+success.
+
+
+
+                                    V
+
+                          MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOV
+
+
+For the autumn, woodcocks often take refuge in old gardens of lime-
+trees. There are a good many such gardens among us, in the province of
+Orel. Our forefathers, when they selected a place for habitation,
+invariably marked out two acres of good ground for a fruit-garden, with
+avenues of lime-trees. Within the last fifty, or seventy years at most,
+these mansions--'noblemen's nests,' as they call them--have gradually
+disappeared off the face of the earth; the houses are falling to
+pieces, or have been sold for the building materials; the stone
+outhouses have become piles of rubbish; the apple-trees are dead and
+turned into firewood, the hedges and fences are pulled up. Only the
+lime-trees grow in all their glory as before, and with ploughed fields
+all round them, tell a tale to this light-hearted generation of 'our
+fathers and brothers who have lived before us.'
+
+A magnificent tree is such an old lime-tree.... Even the merciless axe
+of the Russian peasant spares it. Its leaves are small, its powerful
+limbs spread wide in all directions; there is perpetual shade under
+them.
+
+Once, as I was wandering about the fields after partridges with
+Yermolaï, I saw some way off a deserted garden, and turned into it. I
+had hardly crossed its borders when a snipe rose up out of a bush with
+a clatter. I fired my gun, and at the same instant, a few paces from
+me, I heard a shriek; the frightened face of a young girl peeped out
+for a second from behind the trees, and instantly disappeared. Yermolaï
+ran up to me: 'Why are you shooting here? there is a landowner living
+here.'
+
+Before I had time to answer him, before my dog had had time to bring
+me, with dignified importance, the bird I had shot, swift footsteps
+were heard, and a tall man with moustaches came out of the thicket and
+stopped, with an air of displeasure, before me. I made my apologies as
+best I could, gave him my name, and offered him the bird that had been
+killed on his domains.
+
+'Very well,' he said to me with a smile; 'I will take your game, but
+only on one condition: that you will stay and dine with us.'
+
+I must confess I was not greatly delighted at his proposition, but it
+was impossible to refuse.
+
+'I am a landowner here, and your neighbour, Radilov; perhaps you have
+heard of me?' continued my new acquaintance; 'to-day is Sunday, and we
+shall be sure to have a decent dinner, otherwise I would not have
+invited you.'
+
+I made such a reply as one does make in such circumstances, and turned
+to follow him. A little path that had lately been cleared soon led us
+out of the grove of lime-trees; we came into the kitchen-garden.
+Between the old apple-trees and gooseberry bushes were rows of curly
+whitish-green cabbages; the hop twined its tendrils round high poles;
+there were thick ranks of brown twigs tangled over with dried peas;
+large flat pumpkins seemed rolling on the ground; cucumbers showed
+yellow under their dusty angular leaves; tall nettles were waving along
+the hedge; in two or three places grew clumps of tartar honeysuckle,
+elder, and wild rose--the remnants of former flower-beds. Near a small
+fish-pond, full of reddish and slimy water, we saw the well, surrounded
+by puddles. Ducks were busily splashing and waddling about these
+puddles; a dog blinking and twitching in every limb was gnawing a bone
+in the meadow, where a piebald cow was lazily chewing the grass, from
+time to time flicking its tail over its lean back. The little path
+turned to one side; from behind thick willows and birches we caught
+sight of a little grey old house, with a boarded roof and a winding
+flight of steps. Radilov stopped short.
+
+'But,' he said, with a good-humoured and direct look in my face,' on
+second thoughts ... perhaps you don't care to come and see me, after
+all.... In that case--'
+
+I did not allow him to finish, but assured him that, on the contrary,
+it would be a great pleasure to me to dine with him.
+
+'Well, you know best.'
+
+We went into the house. A young man in a long coat of stout blue cloth
+met us on the steps. Radilov at once told him to bring Yermolaï some
+vodka; my huntsman made a respectful bow to the back of the munificent
+host. From the hall, which was decorated with various parti-coloured
+pictures and check curtains, we went into a small room--Radilov's
+study. I took off my hunting accoutrements, and put my gun in a corner;
+the young man in the long-skirted coat busily brushed me down.
+
+'Well, now, let us go into the drawing-room.' said Radilov cordially.
+'I will make you acquainted with my mother.'
+
+I walked after him. In the drawing-room, in the sofa in the centre of
+the room, was sitting an old lady of medium height, in a cinnamon-
+coloured dress and a white cap, with a thinnish, kind old face, and a
+timid, mournful expression.
+
+'Here, mother, let me introduce to you our neighbour....'
+
+The old lady got up and made me a bow, not letting go out of her
+withered hands a fat worsted reticule that looked like a sack.
+
+'Have you been long in our neighbourhood?' she asked, in a weak and
+gentle voice, blinking her eyes.
+
+'No, not long.'
+
+'Do you intend to remain here long?'
+
+'Till the winter, I think.'
+
+The old lady said no more.
+
+'And here,' interposed Radilov, indicating to me a tall and thin man,
+whom I had not noticed on entering the drawing-room, 'is Fyodor
+Miheitch. ... Come, Fedya, give the visitor a specimen of your art. Why
+have you hidden yourself away in that corner?'
+
+Fyodor Miheitch got up at once from his chair, fetched a wretched
+little fiddle from the window, took the bow--not by the end, as is
+usual, but by the middle--put the fiddle to his chest, shut his eyes,
+and fell to dancing, singing a song, and scraping on the strings. He
+looked about seventy; a thin nankin overcoat flapped pathetically about
+his dry and bony limbs. He danced, at times skipping boldly, and then
+dropping his little bald head with his scraggy neck stretched out as if
+he were dying, stamping his feet on the ground, and sometimes bending
+his knees with obvious difficulty. A voice cracked with age came from
+his toothless mouth.
+
+Radilov must have guessed from the expression of my face that Fedya's
+'art' did not give me much pleasure.
+
+'Very good, old man, that's enough,' he said. 'You can go and refresh
+yourself.'
+
+Fyodor Miheitch at once laid down the fiddle on the window-sill, bowed
+first to me as the guest, then to the old lady, then to Radilov, and
+went away.
+
+'He too was a landowner,' my new friend continued, 'and a rich one too,
+but he ruined himself--so he lives now with me.... But in his day he
+was considered the most dashing fellow in the province; he eloped with
+two married ladies; he used to keep singers, and sang himself, and
+danced like a master.... But won't you take some vodka? dinner is just
+ready.'
+
+A young girl, the same that I had caught a glimpse of in the garden,
+came into the room.
+
+'And here is Olga!' observed Radilov, slightly turning his head; 'let
+me present you.... Well, let us go into dinner.'
+
+We went in and sat down to the table. While we were coming out of the
+drawing-room and taking our seats, Fyodor Miheitch, whose eyes were
+bright and his nose rather red after his 'refreshment,' sang 'Raise the
+cry of Victory.' They laid a separate cover for him in a corner on a
+little table without a table-napkin. The poor old man could not boast
+of very nice habits, and so they always kept him at some distance from
+society. He crossed himself, sighed, and began to eat like a shark. The
+dinner was in reality not bad, and in honour of Sunday was accompanied,
+of course, with shaking jelly and Spanish puffs of pastry. At the table
+Radilov, who had served ten years in an infantry regiment and had been
+in Turkey, fell to telling anecdotes; I listened to him with attention,
+and secretly watched Olga. She was not very pretty; but the tranquil
+and resolute expression of her face, her broad, white brow, her thick
+hair, and especially her brown eyes--not large, but clear, sensible and
+lively--would have made an impression on anyone in my place. She seemed
+to be following every word Radilov uttered--not so much sympathy as
+passionate attention was expressed on her face. Radilov in years might
+have been her father; he called her by her Christian name, but I
+guessed at once that she was not his daughter. In the course of
+conversation he referred to his deceased wife--'her sister,' he added,
+indicating Olga. She blushed quickly and dropped her eyes. Radilov
+paused a moment and then changed the subject. The old lady did not
+utter a word during the whole of dinner; she ate scarcely anything
+herself, and did not press me to partake. Her features had an air of
+timorous and hopeless expectation, that melancholy of old age which it
+pierces one's heart to look upon. At the end of dinner Fyodor Miheitch
+was beginning to 'celebrate' the hosts and guests, but Radilov looked
+at me and asked him to be quiet; the old man passed his hand over his
+lips, began to blink, bowed, and sat down again, but only on the very
+edge of his chair. After dinner I returned with Radilov to his study.
+
+In people who are constantly and intensely preoccupied with one idea,
+or one emotion, there is something in common, a kind of external
+resemblance in manner, however different may be their qualities, their
+abilities, their position in society, and their education. The more I
+watched Radilov, the more I felt that he belonged to the class of such
+people. He talked of husbandry, of the crops, of the war, of the gossip
+of the district and the approaching elections; he talked without
+constraint, and even with interest; but suddenly he would sigh and drop
+into a chair, and pass his hand over his face, like a man wearied out
+by a tedious task. His whole nature--a good and warm-hearted one too--
+seemed saturated through, steeped in some one feeling. I was amazed by
+the fact that I could not discover in him either a passion for eating,
+nor for wine, nor for sport, nor for Kursk nightingales, nor for
+epileptic pigeons, nor for Russian literature, nor for trotting-hacks,
+nor for Hungarian coats, nor for cards, nor billiards, nor for dances,
+nor trips to the provincial town or the capital, nor for paper-
+factories and beet-sugar refineries, nor for painted pavilions, nor for
+tea, nor for trace-horses trained to hold their heads askew, nor even
+for fat coachmen belted under their very armpits--those magnificent
+coachmen whose eyes, for some mysterious reason, seem rolling and
+starting out of their heads at every movement.... 'What sort of
+landowner is this, then?' I thought. At the same time he did not in the
+least pose as a gloomy man discontented with his destiny; on the
+contrary, he seemed full of indiscrimating good-will, cordial and even
+offensive readiness to become intimate with every one he came across.
+In reality you felt at the same time that he could not be friends, nor
+be really intimate with anyone, and that he could not be so, not
+because in general he was independent of other people, but because his
+whole being was for a time turned inwards upon himself. Looking at
+Radilov, I could never imagine him happy either now or at any time. He,
+too, was not handsome; but in his eyes, his smile, his whole being,
+there was a something, mysterious and extremely attractive--yes,
+mysterious is just what it was. So that you felt you would like to know
+him better, to get to love him. Of course, at times the landowner and
+the man of the steppes peeped out in him; but all the same he was a
+capital fellow.
+
+We were beginning to talk about the new marshal of the district, when
+suddenly we heard Olga's voice at the door: 'Tea is ready.' We went
+into the drawing-room. Fyodor Miheitch was sitting as before in his
+corner between the little window and the door, his legs curled up under
+him. Radilov's mother was knitting a stocking. From the opened windows
+came a breath of autumn freshness and the scent of apples. Olga was
+busy pouring out tea. I looked at her now with more attention than at
+dinner. Like provincial girls as a rule, she spoke very little, but at
+any rate I did not notice in her any of their anxiety to say something
+fine, together with their painful consciousness of stupidity and
+helplessness; she did not sigh as though from the burden of unutterable
+emotions, nor cast up her eyes, nor smile vaguely and dreamily. Her
+look expressed tranquil self-possession, like a man who is taking
+breath after great happiness or great excitement. Her carriage and her
+movements were resolute and free. I liked her very much.
+
+I fell again into conversation with Radilov. I don't recollect what
+brought us to the familiar observation that often the most
+insignificant things produce more effect on people than the most
+important.
+
+'Yes,' Radilov agreed, 'I have experienced that in my own case. I, as
+you know, have been married. It was not for long--three years; my wife
+died in child-birth. I thought that I should not survive her; I was
+fearfully miserable, broken down, but I could not weep--I wandered
+about like one possessed. They decked her out, as they always do, and
+laid her on a table--in this very room. The priest came, the deacons
+came, began to sing, to pray, and to burn incense; I bowed to the
+ground, and hardly shed a tear. My heart seemed turned to stone--and my
+head too--I was heavy all over. So passed my first day. Would you
+believe it? I even slept in the night. The next morning I went in to
+look at my wife: it was summer-time, the sunshine fell upon her from
+head to foot, and it was so bright. Suddenly I saw ...' (here Radilov
+gave an involuntary shudder) 'what do you think? One of her eyes was
+not quite shut, and on this eye a fly was moving.... I fell down in a
+heap, and when I came to myself, I began to weep and weep ... I could
+not stop myself....'
+
+Radilov was silent. I looked at him, then at Olga.... I can never
+forget the expression of her face. The old lady had laid the stocking
+down on her knees, and taken a handkerchief out of her reticule; she
+was stealthily wiping away her tears. Fyodor Miheitch suddenly got up,
+seized his fiddle, and in a wild and hoarse voice began to sing a song.
+He wanted doubtless to restore our spirits; but we all shuddered at his
+first note, and Radilov asked him to be quiet.
+
+'Still what is past, is past,' he continued; 'we cannot recall the
+past, and in the end ... all is for the best in this world below, as I
+think Voltaire said,' he added hurriedly.
+
+'Yes,' I replied, 'of course. Besides, every trouble can be endured,
+and there is no position so terrible that there is no escape from it.'
+
+'Do you think so?' said Radilov. 'Well, perhaps you are right. I
+recollect I lay once in the hospital in Turkey half dead; I had typhus
+fever. Well, our quarters were nothing to boast of--of course, in time
+of war--and we had to thank God for what we had! Suddenly they bring in
+more sick--where are they to put them? The doctor goes here and there--
+there is no room left. So he comes up to me and asks the attendant, "Is
+he alive?" He answers, "He was alive this morning." The doctor bends
+down, listens; I am breathing. The good man could not help saying,
+"Well, what an absurd constitution; the man's dying; he's certain to
+die, and he keeps hanging on, lingering, taking up space for nothing,
+and keeping out others." Well, I thought to myself, "So you are in a bad
+way, Mihal Mihalitch...." And, after all, I got well, and am alive till
+now, as you may see for yourself. You are right, to be sure.'
+
+'In any case I am right,' I replied; 'even if you had died, you would
+just the same have escaped from your horrible position.'
+
+'Of course, of course,' he added, with a violent blow of his fist on
+the table. 'One has only to come to a decision.... What is the use of
+being in a horrible position?... What is the good of delaying,
+lingering.'
+
+Olga rose quickly and went out into the garden.
+
+'Well, Fedya, a dance!' cried Radilov.
+
+Fedya jumped up and walked about the room with that artificial and
+peculiar motion which is affected by the man who plays the part of a
+goat with a tame bear. He sang meanwhile, 'While at our Gates....'
+
+The rattle of a racing droshky sounded in the drive, and in a few
+minutes a tall, broad-shouldered and stoutly made man, the peasant
+proprietor, Ovsyanikov, came into the room.
+
+But Ovsyanikov is such a remarkable and original personage that, with
+the reader's permission, we will put off speaking about him till the
+next sketch. And now I will only add for myself that the next day I
+started off hunting at earliest dawn with Yermolaï, and returned home
+after the day's sport was over ... that a week later I went again to
+Radilov's, but did not find him or Olga at home, and within a fortnight
+I learned that he had suddenly disappeared, left his mother, and gone
+away somewhere with his sister-in-law. The whole province was excited,
+and talked about this event, and I only then completely understood the
+expression of Olga's face while Radilov was telling us his story. It
+was breathing, not with sympathetic suffering only: it was burning with
+jealousy.
+
+Before leaving the country I called on old Madame Radilov. I found her
+in the drawing-room; she was playing cards with Fyodor Miheitch.
+
+'Have you news of your son?' I asked her at last.
+
+The old lady began to weep. I made no more inquiries about Radilov.
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+                    THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
+
+
+Picture to yourselves, gentle readers, a stout, tall man of seventy,
+with a face reminding one somewhat of the face of Kriloff, clear and
+intelligent eyes under overhanging brows, dignified in bearing, slow in
+speech, and deliberate in movement: there you have Ovsyanikov. He wore
+an ample blue overcoat with long sleeves, buttoned all the way up, a
+lilac silk-handkerchief round his neck, brightly polished boots with
+tassels, and altogether resembled in appearance a well-to-do merchant.
+His hands were handsome, soft, and white; he often fumbled with the
+buttons of his coat as he talked. With his dignity and his composure,
+his good sense and his indolence, his uprightness and his obstinacy,
+Ovsyanikov reminded me of the Russian boyars of the times before Peter
+the Great.... The national holiday dress would have suited him well. He
+was one of the last men left of the old time. All his neighbours had a
+great respect for him, and considered it an honour to be acquainted
+with him. His fellow peasant-proprietors almost worshipped him, and
+took off their hats to him from a distance: they were proud of him.
+Generally speaking, in these days, it is difficult to tell a peasant-
+proprietor from a peasant; his husbandry is almost worse than the
+peasant's; his calves are wretchedly small; his horses are only half
+alive; his harness is made of rope. Ovsyanikov was an exception to the
+general rule, though he did not pass for a wealthy man. He lived alone
+with his wife in a clean and comfortable little house, kept a few
+servants, whom he dressed in the Russian style and called his
+'workmen.' They were employed also in ploughing his land. He did not
+attempt to pass for a nobleman, did not affect to be a landowner;
+never, as they say, forgot himself; he did not take a seat at the first
+invitation to do so, and he never failed to rise from his seat on the
+entrance of a new guest, but with such dignity, with such stately
+courtesy, that the guest involuntarily made him a more deferential bow.
+Ovsyanikov adhered to the antique usages, not from superstition (he was
+naturally rather independent in mind), but from habit. He did not, for
+instance, like carriages with springs, because he did not find them
+comfortable, and preferred to drive in a racing droshky, or in a pretty
+little trap with leather cushions, and he always drove his good bay
+himself (he kept none but bay horses). His coachman, a young, rosy-
+cheeked fellow, his hair cut round like a basin, in a dark blue coat
+with a strap round the waist, sat respectfully beside him. Ovsyanikov
+always had a nap after dinner and visited the bath-house on Saturdays;
+he read none but religious books and used gravely to fix his round
+silver spectacles on his nose when he did so; he got up, and went to
+bed early. He shaved his beard, however, and wore his hair in the
+German style. He always received visitors cordially and affably, but he
+did not bow down to the ground, nor fuss over them and press them to
+partake of every kind of dried and salted delicacy. 'Wife!' he would
+say deliberately, not getting up from his seat, but only turning his
+head a little in her direction, 'bring the gentleman a little of
+something to eat.' He regarded it as a sin to sell wheat: it was the
+gift of God. In the year '40, at the time of the general famine and
+terrible scarcity, he shared all his store with the surrounding
+landowners and peasants; the following year they gratefully repaid
+their debt to him in kind. The neighbours often had recourse to
+Ovsyanikov as arbitrator and mediator between them, and they almost
+always acquiesced in his decision, and listened to his advice. Thanks
+to his intervention, many had conclusively settled their boundaries....
+But after two or three tussles with lady-landowners, he announced that
+he declined all mediation between persons of the feminine gender. He
+could not bear the flurry and excitement, the chatter of women and the
+'fuss.' Once his house had somehow got on fire. A workman ran to him in
+headlong haste shrieking, 'Fire, fire!' 'Well, what are you screaming
+about?' said Ovsyanikov tranquilly, 'give me my cap and my stick.' He
+liked to break in his horses himself. Once a spirited horse he was
+training bolted with him down a hillside and over a precipice. 'Come,
+there, there, you young colt, you'll kill yourself!' said Ovsyanikov
+soothingly to him, and an instant later he flew over the precipice
+together with the racing droshky, the boy who was sitting behind, and
+the horse. Fortunately, the bottom of the ravine was covered with heaps
+of sand. No one was injured; only the horse sprained a leg. 'Well, you
+see,' continued Ovsyanikov in a calm voice as he got up from the
+ground, 'I told you so.' He had found a wife to match him. Tatyana
+Ilyinitchna Ovsyanikov was a tall woman, dignified and taciturn, always
+dressed in a cinnamon-coloured silk dress. She had a cold air, though
+none complained of her severity, but, on the contrary, many poor
+creatures called her their little mother and benefactress. Her regular
+features, her large dark eyes, and her delicately cut lips, bore
+witness even now to her once celebrated beauty. Ovsyanikov had no
+children.
+
+I made his acquaintance, as the reader is already aware, at Radilov's,
+and two days later I went to see him. I found him at home. He was
+reading the lives of the Saints. A grey cat was purring on his
+shoulder. He received me, according to his habit, with stately
+cordiality. We fell into conversation.
+
+'But tell me the truth, Luka Petrovitch,' I said to him, among other
+things; 'weren't things better of old, in your time?'
+
+'In some ways, certainly, things were better, I should say,' replied
+Ovsyanikov; 'we lived more easily; there was a greater abundance of
+everything. ... All the same, things are better now, and they will be
+better still for your children, please God.'
+
+'I had expected you, Luka Petrovitch, to praise the old times.'
+
+'No, I have no special reason to praise old times. Here, for instance,
+though you are a landowner now, and just as much a landowner as your
+grandfather was, you have not the same power--and, indeed, you are not
+yourself the same kind of man. Even now, some noblemen oppress us; but,
+of course, it is impossible to help that altogether. Where there are
+mills grinding there will be flour. No; I don't see now what I have
+experienced myself in my youth.'
+
+'What, for instance?'
+
+'Well, for instance, I will tell you about your grandfather. He was an
+overbearing man; he oppressed us poorer folks. You know, perhaps--
+indeed, you surely know your own estates--that bit of land that runs
+from Tchepligin to Malinina--you have it under oats now.... Well, you
+know, it is ours--it is all ours. Your grandfather took it away from
+us; he rode by on his horse, pointed to it with his hand, and said,
+"It's my property," and took possession of it. My father (God rest his
+soul!) was a just man; he was a hot-tempered man, too; he would not put
+up with it--indeed, who does like to lose his property?--and he laid a
+petition before the court. But he was alone: the others did not appear
+--they were afraid. So they reported to your grandfather that "Piotr
+Ovsyanikov is making a complaint against you that you were pleased to
+take away his land." Your grandfather at once sent his huntsman Baush
+with a detachment of men.... Well, they seized my father, and carried
+him to your estate. I was a little boy at that time; I ran after him
+barefoot. What happened? They brought him to your house, and flogged
+him right under your windows. And your grandfather stands on the
+balcony and looks on; and your grandmother sits at the window and looks
+on too. My father cries out, "Gracious lady, Marya Vasilyevna,
+intercede for me! have mercy on me!" But her only answer was to keep
+getting up to have a look at him. So they exacted a promise from my
+father to give up the land, and bade him be thankful they let him go
+alive. So it has remained with you. Go and ask your peasants--what do
+they call the land, indeed? It's called "The Cudgelled Land," because
+it was gained by the cudgel. So you see from that, we poor folks can't
+bewail the old order very much.'
+
+I did not know what answer to make Ovsyanikov, and I had not the
+courage to look him in the face.
+
+'We had another neighbour who settled amongst us in those days, Komov,
+Stepan Niktopolionitch. He used to worry my father out of his life;
+when it wasn't one thing, it was another. He was a drunken fellow, and
+fond of treating others; and when he was drunk he would say in French,
+"_Say bon_," and "Take away the holy images!" He would go to all the
+neighbours to ask them to come to him. His horses stood always in
+readiness, and if you wouldn't go he would come after you himself at
+once!... And he was such a strange fellow! In his sober times he was
+not a liar; but when he was drunk he would begin to relate how he had
+three houses in Petersburg--one red, with one chimney; another yellow,
+with two chimneys; and a third blue, with no chimneys; and three sons
+(though he had never even been married), one in the infantry, another
+in the cavalry, and the third was his own master.... And he would say
+that in each house lived one of his sons; that admirals visited the
+eldest, and generals the second, and the third only Englishmen! Then he
+would get up and say, "To the health of my eldest son; he is the most
+dutiful!" and he would begin to weep. Woe to anyone who refused to
+drink the toast! "I will shoot him!" he would say; "and I won't let him
+be buried!" ... Then he would jump up and scream, "Dance, God's people,
+for your pleasure and my diversion!" Well, then, you must dance; if you
+had to die for it, you must dance. He thoroughly worried his serf-girls
+to death. Sometimes all night long till morning they would be singing
+in chorus, and the one who made the most noise would have a prize. If
+they began to be tired, he would lay his head down in his hands, and
+begins moaning: "Ah, poor forsaken orphan that I am! They abandon me,
+poor little dove!" And the stable-boys would wake the girls up at once.
+He took a liking to my father; what was he to do? He almost drove my
+father into his grave, and would actually have driven him into it, but
+(thank Heaven!) he died himself; in one of his drunken fits he fell off
+the pigeon-house. ... There, that's what our sweet little neighbours
+were like!'
+
+'How the times have changed!' I observed.
+
+'Yes, yes,' Ovsyanikov assented. 'And there is this to be said--in the
+old days the nobility lived more sumptuously. I'm not speaking of the
+real grandees now. I used to see them in Moscow. They say such people
+are scarce nowadays.'
+
+'Have you been in Moscow?'
+
+'I used to stay there long, very long ago. I am now in my seventy-third
+year; and I went to Moscow when I was sixteen.'
+
+Ovsyanikov sighed.
+
+'Whom did you see there?'
+
+'I saw a great many grandees--and every one saw them; they kept open
+house for the wonder and admiration of all! Only no one came up to
+Count Alexey Grigoryevitch Orlov-Tchesmensky. I often saw Alexey
+Grigoryevitch; my uncle was a steward in his service. The count was
+pleased to live in Shabolovka, near the Kaluga Gate. He was a grand
+gentleman! Such stateliness, such gracious condescension you can't
+imagine! and it's impossible to describe it. His figure alone was worth
+something, and his strength, and the look in his eyes! Till you knew
+him, you did not dare come near him--you were afraid, overawed indeed;
+but directly you came near him he was like sunshine warming you up and
+making you quite cheerful. He allowed every man access to him in
+person, and he was devoted to every kind of sport. He drove himself in
+races and out-stripped every one, and he would never get in front at
+the start, so as not to offend his adversary; he would not cut it
+short, but would pass him at the finish; and he was so pleasant--he
+would soothe his adversary, praising his horse. He kept tumbler-pigeons
+of a first-rate kind. He would come out into the court, sit down in an
+arm-chair, and order them to let loose the pigeons; and his men would
+stand all round on the roofs with guns to keep off the hawks. A large
+silver basin of water used to be placed at the count's feet, and he
+looked at the pigeons reflected in the water. Beggars and poor people
+were fed in hundreds at his expense; and what a lot of money he used to
+give away!... When he got angry, it was like a clap of thunder.
+Everyone was in a great fright, but there was nothing to weep over;
+look round a minute after, and he was all smiles again! When he gave a
+banquet he made all Moscow drunk!--and see what a clever man he was!
+you know he beat the Turk. He was fond of wrestling too; strong men
+used to come from Tula, from Harkoff, from Tamboff, and from everywhere
+to him. If he threw any one he would pay him a reward; but if any one
+threw him, he perfectly loaded him with presents, and kissed him on the
+lips.... And once, during my stay at Moscow, he arranged a hunting
+party such as had never been in Russia before; he sent invitations to
+all the sportsmen in the whole empire, and fixed a day for it, and gave
+them three months' notice. They brought with them dogs and grooms:
+well, it was an army of people--a regular army!
+
+'First they had a banquet in the usual way, and then they set off into
+the open country. The people flocked there in thousands! And what do
+you think?... Your father's dog outran them all.'
+
+'Wasn't that Milovidka?' I inquired.
+
+'Milovidka, Milovidka!... So the count began to ask him, "Give me your
+dog," says he; "take what you like for her." "No, count," he said, "I
+am not a tradesman; I don't sell anything for filthy lucre; for your
+sake I am ready to part with my wife even, but not with Milovidka.... I
+would give myself into bondage first." And Alexey Grigoryevitch praised
+him for it. "I like you for it," he said. Your grandfather took her
+back in the coach with him, and when Milovidka died, he buried her in
+the garden with music at the burial--yes, a funeral for a dog--and put
+a stone with an inscription on it over the dog.'
+
+'Then Alexey Grigoryevitch did not oppress anyone,' I observed.
+
+'Yes, it is always like that; those who can only just keep themselves
+afloat are the ones to drag others under.'
+
+'And what sort of a man was this Baush?' I asked after a short silence.
+
+'Why, how comes it you have heard about Milovidka, and not about Baush?
+He was your grandfather's chief huntsman and whipper-in. Your
+grandfather was as fond of him as of Milovidka. He was a desperate
+fellow, and whatever order your grandfather gave him, he would carry it
+out in a minute--he'd have run on to a sword at his bidding.... And
+when he hallooed ... it was something like a tally-ho in the forest.
+And then he would suddenly turn nasty, get off his horse, and lie down
+on the ground ... and directly the dogs ceased to hear his voice, it
+was all over! They would give up the hottest scent, and wouldn't go on
+for anything. Ay, ay, your grandfather did get angry! "Damn me, if I
+don't hang the scoundrel! I'll turn him inside out, the antichrist!
+I'll stuff his heels down his gullet, the cut-throat!" And it ended by
+his going up to find out what he wanted; why he wouldn't halloo to the
+hounds? Usually, on such occasions, Baush asked for some vodka, drank
+it up, got on his horse, and began to halloo as lustily as ever again.'
+
+'You seem to be fond of hunting too, Luka Petrovitch?'
+
+'I should have been--certainly, not now; now my time is over--but in my
+young days.... But you know it was not an easy matter in my position.
+It's not suitable for people like us to go trailing after noblemen.
+Certainly you may find in our class some drinking, good-for-nothing
+fellow who associates with the gentry--but it's a queer sort of
+enjoyment.... He only brings shame on himself. They mount him on a
+wretched stumbling nag, keep knocking his hat off on to the ground and
+cut at him with a whip, pretending to whip the horse, and he must laugh
+at everything, and be a laughing-stock for the others. No, I tell you,
+the lower your station, the more reserved must be your behaviour, or
+else you disgrace yourself directly.'
+
+'Yes,' continued Ovsyanikov with a sigh, 'there's many a gallon of
+water has flowed down to the sea since I have been living in the world;
+times are different now. Especially I see a great change in the
+nobility. The smaller landowners have all either become officials, or
+at any rate do not stop here; as for the larger owners, there's no
+making them out. I have had experience of them--the larger landowners--
+in cases of settling boundaries. And I must tell you; it does my heart
+good to see them: they are courteous and affable. Only this is what
+astonishes me; they have studied all the sciences, they speak so
+fluently that your heart is melted, but they don't understand the
+actual business in hand; they don't even perceive what's their own
+interest; some bailiff, a bondservant, drives them just where he
+pleases, as though they were in a yoke. There's Korolyov--Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch--for instance; you know him, perhaps--isn't he every
+inch a nobleman? He is handsome, rich, has studied at the 'versities,
+and travelled, I think, abroad; he speaks simply and easily, and shakes
+hands with us all. You know him?... Well, listen then. Last week we
+assembled at Beryozovka at the summons of the mediator, Nikifor Ilitch.
+And the mediator, Nikifor Ilitch, says to us: "Gentlemen, we must
+settle the boundaries; it's disgraceful; our district is behind all the
+others; we must get to work." Well, so we got to work. There followed
+discussions, disputes, as usual; our attorney began to make objections.
+But the first to make an uproar was Porfiry Ovtchinnikov.... And what
+had the fellow to make an uproar about?... He hasn't an acre of ground;
+he is acting as representative of his brother. He bawls: "No, you shall
+not impose on me! no, you shan't drive me to that! give the plans here!
+give me the surveyor's plans, the Judas's plans here!" "But what is
+your claim, then?" "Oh, you think I'm a fool! Indeed! do you suppose I
+am going to lay bare my claim to you offhand? No, let me have the plans
+here--that's what I want!" And he himself is banging his fist on the
+plans all the time. Then he mortally offended Marfa Dmitrievna. She
+shrieks out, "How dare you asperse my reputation?" "Your reputation,"
+says he; "I shouldn't like my chestnut mare to have your reputation."
+They poured him out some Madeira at last, and so quieted him; then
+others begin to make a row. Alexandr Vladimirovitch Korolyov, the dear
+fellow, sat in a corner sucking the knob of his cane, and only shook
+his head. I felt ashamed; I could hardly sit it out. "What must he be
+thinking of us?" I said to myself. When, behold! Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch has got up, and shows signs of wanting to speak. The
+mediator exerts himself, says, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, Alexandr
+Vladimirovitch wishes to speak." And I must do them this credit; they
+were all silent at once. And so Alexandr Vladimirovitch began and said
+"that we seemed to have forgotten what we had come together for; that,
+indeed, the fixing of boundaries was indisputably advantageous for
+owners of land, but actually what was its object? To make things easier
+for the peasant, so that he could work and pay his dues more
+conveniently; that now the peasant hardly knows his own land, and often
+goes to work five miles away; and one can't expect too much of him."
+Then Alexandr Vladimirovitch said "that it was disgraceful in a
+landowner not to interest himself in the well-being of his peasants;
+that in the end, if you look at it rightly, their interests and our
+interests are inseparable; if they are well-off we are well-off, and if
+they do badly we do badly, and that, consequently, it was injudicious
+and wrong to disagree over trifles" ... and so on--and so on.... There,
+how he did speak! He seemed to go right to your heart.... All the
+gentry hung their heads; I myself, faith, it nearly brought me to
+tears. To tell the truth, you would not find sayings like that in the
+old books even.... But what was the end of it? He himself would not
+give up four acres of peat marsh, and wasn't willing to sell it. He
+said, "I am going to drain that marsh for my people, and set up a
+cloth-factory on it, with all the latest improvements. I have already,"
+he said, "fixed on that place; I have thought out my plans on the
+subject." And if only that had been the truth, it would be all very
+well; but the simple fact is, Alexandr Vladimirovitch's neighbour,
+Anton Karasikov, had refused to buy over Korolyov's bailiff for a
+hundred roubles. And so we separated without having done anything. But
+Alexandr Vladimirovitch considers to this day that he is right, and
+still talks of the cloth-factory; but he does not start draining the
+marsh.'
+
+'And how does he manage in his estate?'
+
+'He is always introducing new ways. The peasants don't speak well of
+him--but it's useless to listen to them. Alexandr Vladimirovitch is
+doing right.'
+
+'How's that, Luka Petrovitch? I thought you kept to the old ways.'
+
+'I--that's another thing. You see I am not a nobleman or a landowner.
+What sort of management is mine?... Besides, I don't know how to do
+things differently. I try to act according to justice and the law, and
+leave the rest in God's hands! Young gentlemen don't like the old
+method; I think they are right.... It's the time to take in ideas. Only
+this is the pity of it; the young are too theoretical. They treat the
+peasant like a doll; they turn him this way and that way; twist him
+about and throw him away. And their bailiff, a serf, or some overseer
+from the German natives, gets the peasant under his thumb again. Now,
+if any one of the young gentlemen would set us an example, would show
+us, "See, this is how you ought to manage!" ... What will be the end of
+it? Can it be that I shall die without seeing the new methods?... What
+is the proverb?--the old is dead, but the young is not born!'
+
+I did not know what reply to make to Ovsyanikov. He looked round, drew
+himself nearer to me, and went on in an undertone:
+
+'Have you heard talk of Vassily Nikolaitch Lubozvonov?'
+
+'No, I haven't.'
+
+'Explain to me, please, what sort of strange creature he is. I can't
+make anything of it. His peasants have described him, but I can't make
+any sense of their tales. He is a young man, you know; it's not long
+since he received his heritage from his mother. Well, he arrived at his
+estate. The peasants were all collected to stare at their master.
+Vassily Nikolaitch came out to them. The peasants looked at him--
+strange to relate! the master wore plush pantaloons like a coachman,
+and he had on boots with trimming at the top; he wore a red shirt and a
+coachman's long coat too; he had let his beard grow, and had such a
+strange hat and such a strange face--could he be drunk? No, he wasn't
+drunk, and yet he didn't seem quite right. "Good health to you, lads!"
+he says; "God keep you!" The peasants bow to the ground, but without
+speaking; they began to feel frightened, you know. And he too seemed
+timid. He began to make a speech to them: "I am a Russian," he says,
+"and you are Russians; I like everything Russian.... Russia," says he,
+"is my heart, and my blood too is Russian".... Then he suddenly gives
+the order: "Come, lads, sing a Russian national song!" The peasants'
+legs shook under them with fright; they were utterly stupefied. One
+bold spirit did begin to sing, but he sat down at once on the ground
+and hid himself behind the others.... And what is so surprising is
+this: we have had landowners like that, dare-devil gentlemen, regular
+rakes, of course: they dressed pretty much like coachmen, and danced
+themselves and played on the guitar, and sang and drank with their
+house-serfs and feasted with the peasants; but this Vassily Nikolaitch
+is like a girl; he is always reading books or writing, or else
+declaiming poetry aloud--he never addresses any one; he is shy, walks
+by himself in his garden; seems either bored or sad. The old bailiff at
+first was in a thorough scare; before Vassily Nikolaitch's arrival he
+was afraid to go near the peasants' houses; he bowed to all of them--
+one could see the cat knew whose butter he had eaten! And the peasants
+were full of hope; they thought, 'Fiddlesticks, my friend!--now they'll
+make you answer for it, my dear; they'll lead you a dance now, you
+robber!' ... But instead of this it has turned out--how shall I explain
+it to you?--God Almighty could not account for how things have turned
+out! Vassily Nikolaitch summoned him to his presence and says, blushing
+himself and breathing quick, you know: "Be upright in my service; don't
+oppress any one--do you hear?" And since that day he has never asked to
+see him in person again! He lives on his own property like a stranger.
+Well, the bailiff's been enjoying himself, and the peasants don't dare
+to go to Vassily Nikolaitch; they are afraid. And do you see what's a
+matter for wonder again; the master even bows to them and looks
+graciously at them; but he seems to turn their stomachs with fright!
+'What do you say to such a strange state of things, your honour? Either
+I have grown stupid in my old age, or something.... I can't understand
+it.'
+
+I said to Ovsyanikov that Mr. Lubozvonov must certainly be ill.
+
+'Ill, indeed! He's as broad as he's long, and a face like this--God
+bless him!--and bearded, though he is so young.... Well, God knows!'
+And Ovsyanikov gave a deep sigh.
+
+'Come, putting the nobles aside,' I began, 'what have you to tell me
+about the peasant proprietors, Luka Petrovitch?'
+
+'No, you must let me off that,' he said hurriedly. 'Truly.... I could
+tell you ... but what's the use!' (with a wave of his hand). 'We had
+better have some tea.... We are common peasants and nothing more; but
+when we come to think of it, what else could we be?'
+
+He ceased talking. Tea was served. Tatyana Ilyinitchna rose from her
+place and sat down rather nearer to us. In the course of the evening
+she several times went noiselessly out and as quietly returned. Silence
+reigned in the room. Ovsyanikov drank cup after cup with gravity and
+deliberation.
+
+'Mitya has been to see us to-day,' said Tatyana Ilyinitchna in a low
+voice.
+
+Ovsyanikov frowned.
+
+'What does he want?'
+
+'He came to ask forgiveness.'
+
+Ovsyanikov shook his head.
+
+'Come, tell me,' he went on, turning to me, 'what is one to do with
+relations? And to abandon them altogether is impossible.... Here God
+has bestowed on me a nephew. He's a fellow with brains--a smart fellow
+--I don't dispute that; he has had a good education, but I don't expect
+much good to come of him. He went into a government office; threw up
+his position--didn't get on fast enough, if you please.... Does he
+suppose he's a noble? And even noblemen don't come to be generals all
+at once. So now he is living without an occupation.... And that, even,
+would not be such a great matter--except that he has taken to
+litigation! He gets up petitions for the peasants, writes memorials; he
+instructs the village delegates, drags the surveyors over the coals,
+frequents drinking houses, is seen in taverns with city tradesmen and
+inn-keepers. He's bound to come to ruin before long. The constables and
+police-captains have threatened him more than once already. But he
+luckily knows how to turn it off--he makes them laugh; but they will
+boil his kettle for him some day.... But, there, isn't he sitting in
+your little room?' he added, turning to his wife; 'I know you, you see;
+you're so soft-hearted--you will always take his part.'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna dropped her eyes, smiled, and blushed.
+
+'Well, I see it is so,' continued Ovsyanikov. 'Fie! you spoil the boy!
+Well, tell him to come in.... So be it, then; for the sake of our good
+guest I will forgive the silly fellow.... Come, tell him, tell him.'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna went to the door, and cried 'Mitya!'
+
+Mitya, a young man of twenty-eight, tall, well-made, and curly-headed,
+came into the room, and seeing me, stopped short in the doorway. His
+costume was in the German style, but the unnatural size of the puffs on
+his shoulders was enough alone to prove convincingly that the tailor
+who had cut it was a Russian of the Russians.
+
+'Well, come in, come in,' began the old man; 'why are you bashful? You
+must thank your aunt--you're forgiven.... Here, your honour, I commend
+him to you,' he continued, pointing to Mitya; 'he's my own nephew, but
+I don't get on with him at all. The end of the world is coming!' (We
+bowed to one another.) 'Well, tell me what is this you have got mixed
+up in? What is the complaint they are making against you? Explain it to
+us.'
+
+Mitya obviously did not care to explain matters and justify himself
+before me.
+
+'Later on, uncle,' he muttered.
+
+'No, not later--now,' pursued the old man.... 'You are ashamed, I see,
+before this gentleman; all the better--it's only what you deserve.
+Speak, speak; we are listening.'
+
+'I have nothing to be ashamed of,' began Mitya spiritedly, with a toss
+of his head. 'Be so good as to judge for yourself, uncle. Some peasant
+proprietors of Reshetilovo came to me, and said, "Defend us, brother."
+"What is the matter?"' "This is it: our grain stores were in perfect
+order--in fact, they could not be better; all at once a government
+inspector came to us with orders to inspect the granaries. He inspected
+them, and said, 'Your granaries are in disorder--serious neglect; it's
+my duty to report it to the authorities.' 'But what does the neglect
+consist in?' 'That's my business,' he says.... We met together, and
+decided to tip the official in the usual way; but old Prohoritch
+prevented us. He said, 'No; that's only giving him a taste for more.
+Come; after all, haven't we the courts of justice?' We obeyed the old
+man, and the official got in a rage, and made a complaint, and wrote a
+report. So now we are called up to answer to his charges." "But are
+your granaries actually in order?" I asked. "God knows they are in
+order; and the legal quantity of corn is in them." "Well, then," say I,
+"you have nothing to fear"; and I drew up a document for them.... And
+it is not yet known in whose favour it is decided.... And as to the
+complaints they have made to you about me over that affair--it's very
+easy to understand that--every man's shirt is nearest to his own skin.
+
+'Everyone's, indeed--but not yours seemingly,' said the old man in an
+undertone. 'But what plots have you been hatching with the
+Shutolomovsky peasants?'
+
+'How do you know anything of it?'
+
+'Never mind; I do know of it.'
+
+'And there, too, I am right--judge for yourself again. A neighbouring
+landowner, Bezpandin, has ploughed over four acres of the Shutolomovsky
+peasants' land. "The land's mine," he says. The Shutolomovsky people
+are on the rent-system; their landowner has gone abroad--who is to
+stand up for them? Tell me yourself? But the land is theirs beyond
+dispute; they've been bound to it for ages and ages. So they came to
+me, and said, "Write us a petition." So I wrote one. And Bezpandin
+heard of it, and began to threaten me. "I'll break every bone in that
+Mitya's body, and knock his head off his shoulders...." We shall see
+how he will knock it off; it's still on, so far.'
+
+'Come, don't boast; it's in a bad way, your head,' said the old man.
+'You are a mad fellow altogether!'
+
+'Why, uncle, what did you tell me yourself?'
+
+'I know, I know what you will say,' Ovsyanikov interrupted him; 'of
+course a man ought to live uprightly, and he is bound to succour his
+neighbour. Sometimes one must not spare oneself.... But do you always
+behave in that way? Don't they take you to the tavern, eh? Don't they
+treat you; bow to you, eh? "Dmitri Alexyitch," they say, "help us, and
+we will prove our gratitude to you." And they slip a silver rouble or
+note into your hand. Eh? doesn't that happen? Tell me, doesn't that
+happen?'
+
+'I am certainly to blame in that,' answered Mitya, rather confused;
+'but I take nothing from the poor, and I don't act against my
+conscience.'
+
+'You don't take from them now; but when you are badly off yourself,
+then you will. You don't act against your conscience--fie on you! Of
+course, they are all saints whom you defend!... Have you forgotten
+Borka Perohodov? Who was it looked after him? Who took him under his
+protection--eh?'
+
+'Perohodov suffered through his own fault, certainly.'
+
+'He appropriated the public moneys.... That was all!'
+
+'But, consider, uncle: his poverty, his family.'
+
+'Poverty, poverty.... He's a drunkard, a quarrelsome fellow; that's
+what it is!'
+
+'He took to drink through trouble,' said Mitya, dropping his voice.
+
+'Through trouble, indeed! Well, you might have helped him, if your
+heart was so warm to him, but there was no need for you to sit in
+taverns with the drunken fellow yourself. Though he did speak so finely
+... a prodigy, to be sure!'
+
+'He was a very good fellow.'
+
+'Every one is good with you.... But did you send him?' ... pursued
+Ovsyanikov, turning to his wife; 'come; you know?'
+
+Tatyana Ilyinitchna nodded.
+
+'Where have you been lately?' the old man began again.
+
+'I have been in the town.'
+
+'You have been doing nothing but playing billiards, I wager, and
+drinking tea, and running to and fro about the government offices,
+drawing up petitions in little back rooms, flaunting about with
+merchants' sons? That's it, of course?... Tell us!'
+
+'Perhaps that is about it,' said Mitya with a smile.... 'Ah! I had
+almost forgotten--Funtikov, Anton Parfenitch asks you to dine with him
+next Sunday.'
+
+'I shan't go to see that old tub. He gives you costly fish and puts
+rancid butter on it. God bless him!'
+
+'And I met Fedosya Mihalovna.'
+
+'What Fedosya is that?'
+
+'She belongs to Garpentchenko, the landowner, who bought Mikulino by
+auction. Fedosya is from Mikulino. She lived in Moscow as a dress-
+maker, paying her service in money, and she paid her service-money
+accurately--a hundred and eighty two-roubles and a half a year.... And
+she knows her business; she got good orders in Moscow. But now
+Garpentchenko has written for her back, and he retains her here, but
+does not provide any duties for her. She would be prepared to buy her
+freedom, and has spoken to the master, but he will not give any
+decisive answer. You, uncle, are acquainted with Garpentchenko ... so
+couldn't you just say a word to him?... And Fedosya would give a good
+price for her freedom.'
+
+'Not with your money I hope? Hey? Well, well, all right; I will speak
+to him, I will speak to him. But I don't know,' continued the old man
+with a troubled face; 'this Garpentchenko, God forgive him! is a shark;
+he buys up debts, lends money at interest, purchases estates at
+auctions.... And who brought him into our parts? Ugh, I can't bear
+these new-comers! One won't get an answer out of him very quickly....
+However, we shall see.'
+
+'Try to manage it, uncle.'
+
+'Very well, I will see to it. Only you take care; take care of
+yourself! There, there, don't defend yourself.... God bless you! God
+bless you!... Only take care for the future, or else, Mitya, upon my
+word, it will go ill with you.... Upon my word, you will come to
+grief.... I can't always screen you ... and I myself am not a man of
+influence. There, go now, and God be with you!'
+
+Mitya went away. Tatyana Ilyinitchna went out after him.
+
+'Give him some tea, you soft-hearted creature,' cried Ovsyanikov after
+her. 'He's not a stupid fellow,' he continued, 'and he's a good heart,
+but I feel afraid for him.... But pardon me for having so long kept you
+occupied with such details.'
+
+The door from the hall opened. A short grizzled little man came in, in
+a velvet coat.
+
+'Ah, Frantz Ivanitch!' cried Ovsyanikov, 'good day to you. Is God
+merciful to you?'
+
+Allow me, gentle reader, to introduce to you this gentleman.
+
+Frantz Ivanitch Lejeune, my neighbour, and a landowner of Orel, had
+arrived at the respectable position of a Russian nobleman in a not
+quite ordinary way. He was born in Orleans of French parents, and had
+gone with Napoleon, on the invasion of Russia, in the capacity of a
+drummer. At first all went smoothly, and our Frenchman arrived in
+Moscow with his head held high. But on the return journey poor Monsieur
+Lejeune, half-frozen and without his drum, fell into the hands of some
+peasants of Smolensk. The peasants shut him up for the night in an
+empty cloth factory, and the next morning brought him to an ice-hole
+near the dyke, and began to beg the drummer '_de la Grrrrande Armée_'
+to oblige them; in other words, to swim under the ice. Monsieur Lejeune
+could not agree to their proposition, and in his turn began to try to
+persuade the Smolensk peasants, in the dialect of France, to let him go
+to Orleans. 'There, messieurs,' he said, '_my mother is living, une
+tendre mère_' But the peasants, doubtless through their ignorance of
+the geographical position of Orleans, continued to offer him a journey
+under water along the course of the meandering river Gniloterka, and
+had already begun to encourage him with slight blows on the vertebrae
+of the neck and back, when suddenly, to the indescribable delight of
+Lejeune, the sound of bells was heard, and there came along the dyke a
+huge sledge with a striped rug over its excessively high dickey,
+harnessed with three roan horses. In the sledge sat a stout and red-
+faced landowner in a wolfskin pelisse.
+
+'What is it you are doing there?' he asked the peasants.
+
+'We are drowning a Frenchman, your honour.'
+
+'Ah!' replied the landowner indifferently, and he turned away.
+
+'Monsieur! Monsieur!' shrieked the poor fellow.
+
+'Ah, ah!' observed the wolfskin pelisse reproachfully, 'you came with
+twenty nations into Russia, burnt Moscow, tore down, you damned
+heathen! the cross from Ivan the Great, and now--mossoo, mossoo,
+indeed! now you turn tail! You are paying the penalty of your sins!...
+Go on, Filka!'
+
+The horses were starting.
+
+'Stop, though!' added the landowner. 'Eh? you mossoo, do you know
+anything of music?'
+
+'_Sauvez-moi, sauvez-moi, mon bon monsieur!_' repeated Lejeune.
+
+'There, see what a wretched people they are! Not one of them knows
+Russian! Muzeek, muzeek, savey muzeek voo? savey? Well, speak, do!
+Compreny? savey muzeek voo? on the piano, savey zhooey?'
+
+Lejeune comprehended at last what the landowner meant, and persistently
+nodded his head.
+
+'_Oui, monsieur, oui, oui, je suis musicien; je joue tous les
+instruments possibles! Oui, monsieur.... Sauvez-moi, monsieur!_'
+
+'Well, thank your lucky star!' replied the landowner. 'Lads, let him
+go: here's a twenty-copeck piece for vodka.'
+
+'Thank you, your honour, thank you. Take him, your honour.'
+
+They sat Lejeune in the sledge. He was gasping with delight, weeping,
+shivering, bowing, thanking the landowner, the coachman, the peasants.
+He had nothing on but a green jacket with pink ribbons, and it was
+freezing very hard. The landowner looked at his blue and benumbed
+shoulders in silence, wrapped the unlucky fellow in his own pelisse,
+and took him home. The household ran out. They soon thawed the
+Frenchman, fed him, and clothed him. The landowner conducted him to his
+daughters.
+
+'Here, children!' he said to them, 'a teacher is found for you. You
+were always entreating me to have you taught music and the French
+jargon; here you have a Frenchman, and he plays on the piano.... Come,
+mossoo,' he went on, pointing to a wretched little instrument he had
+bought five years before of a Jew, whose special line was eau de
+Cologne, 'give us an example of your art; zhooey!'
+
+Lejeune, with a sinking heart, sat down on the music-stool; he had
+never touched a piano in his life.
+
+'Zhooey, zhooey!' repeated the landowner.
+
+In desperation, the unhappy man beat on the keys as though on a drum,
+and played at hazard. 'I quite expected,' he used to tell afterwards,
+'that my deliverer would seize me by the collar, and throw me out of
+the house.' But, to the utmost amazement of the unwilling improvisor,
+the landowner, after waiting a little, patted him good-humouredly on
+the shoulder.
+
+'Good, good,' he said; 'I see your attainments; go now, and rest
+yourself.'
+
+Within a fortnight Lejeune had gone from this landowner's to stay with
+another, a rich and cultivated man. He gained his friendship by his
+bright and gentle disposition, was married to a ward of his, went into
+a government office, rose to the nobility, married his daughter to
+Lobizanyev, a landowner of Orel, and a retired dragoon and poet, and
+settled himself on an estate in Orel.
+
+It was this same Lejeune, or rather, as he is called now, Frantz
+Ivanitch, who, when I was there, came in to see Ovsyanikov, with whom
+he was on friendly terms....
+
+But perhaps the reader is already weary of sitting with me at the
+Ovsyanikovs', and so I will become eloquently silent.
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+                                  LGOV
+
+
+'Let us go to Lgov,' Yermolaï, whom the reader knows already, said to
+me one day; 'there we can shoot ducks to our heart's content.'
+
+Although wild duck offers no special attraction for a genuine
+sportsman, still, through lack of other game at the time (it was the
+beginning of September; snipe were not on the wing yet, and I was tired
+of running across the fields after partridges), I listened to my
+huntsman's suggestion, and we went to Lgov.
+
+Lgov is a large village of the steppes, with a very old stone church
+with a single cupola, and two mills on the swampy little river Rossota.
+Five miles from Lgov, this river becomes a wide swampy pond, overgrown
+at the edges, and in places also in the centre, with thick reeds. Here,
+in the creeks or rather pools between the reeds, live and breed a
+countless multitude of ducks of all possible kinds--quackers, half-
+quackers, pintails, teals, divers, etc. Small flocks are for ever
+flitting about and swimming on the water, and at a gunshot, they rise
+in such clouds that the sportsman involuntarily clutches his hat with
+one hand and utters a prolonged Pshaw! I walked with Yermolaï along
+beside the pond; but, in the first place, the duck is a wary bird, and
+is not to be met quite close to the bank; and secondly, even when some
+straggling and inexperienced teal exposed itself to our shots and lost
+its life, our dogs were not able to get it out of the thick reeds; in
+spite of their most devoted efforts they could neither swim nor tread
+on the bottom, and only cut their precious noses on the sharp reeds for
+nothing.
+
+'No,' was Yermolaï's comment at last, 'it won't do; we must get a
+boat.... Let us go back to Lgov.'
+
+We went back. We had only gone a few paces when a rather wretched-
+looking setter-dog ran out from behind a bushy willow to meet us, and
+behind him appeared a man of middle height, in a blue and much-worn
+greatcoat, a yellow waistcoat, and pantaloons of a nondescript grey
+colour, hastily tucked into high boots full of holes, with a red
+handkerchief round his neck, and a single-barrelled gun on his
+shoulder. While our dogs, with the ordinary Chinese ceremonies peculiar
+to their species, were sniffing at their new acquaintance, who was
+obviously ill at ease, held his tail between his legs, dropped his ears
+back, and kept turning round and round showing his teeth--the stranger
+approached us, and bowed with extreme civility. He appeared to be about
+twenty-five; his long dark hair, perfectly saturated with kvas, stood
+up in stiff tufts, his small brown eyes twinkled genially; his face was
+bound up in a black handkerchief, as though for toothache; his
+countenance was all smiles and amiability.
+
+'Allow me to introduce myself,' he began in a soft and insinuating
+voice; 'I am a sportsman of these parts--Vladimir.... Having heard of
+your presence, and having learnt that you proposed to visit the shores
+of our pond, I resolved, if it were not displeasing to you, to offer
+you my services.'
+
+The sportsman, Vladimir, uttered those words for all the world like a
+young provincial actor in the _rôle_ of leading lover. I agreed to his
+proposition, and before we had reached Lgov I had succeeded in learning
+his whole history. He was a freed house-serf; in his tender youth had
+been taught music, then served as valet, could read and write, had
+read--so much I could discover--some few trashy books, and existed now,
+as many do exist in Russia, without a farthing of ready money; without
+any regular occupation; fed by manna from heaven, or something hardly
+less precarious. He expressed himself with extraordinary elegance, and
+obviously plumed himself on his manners; he must have been devoted to
+the fair sex too, and in all probability popular with them: Russian
+girls love fine talking. Among other things, he gave me to understand
+that he sometimes visited the neighbouring landowners, and went to stay
+with friends in the town, where he played preference, and that he was
+acquainted with people in the metropolis. His smile was masterly and
+exceedingly varied; what specially suited him was a modest, contained
+smile which played on his lips as he listened to any other man's
+conversation. He was attentive to you; he agreed with you completely,
+but still he did not lose sight of his own dignity, and seemed to wish
+to give you to understand that he could, if occasion arose, express
+convictions of his own. Yermolaï, not being very refined, and quite
+devoid of 'subtlety,' began to address him with coarse familiarity. The
+fine irony with which Vladimir used 'Sir' in his reply was worth
+seeing.
+
+'Why is your face tied up? 'I inquired; 'have you toothache?'
+
+'No,' he answered; 'it was a most disastrous consequence of
+carelessness. I had a friend, a good fellow, but not a bit of a
+sportsman, as sometimes occurs. Well, one day he said to me, "My dear
+friend, take me out shooting; I am curious to learn what this diversion
+consists in." I did not like, of course, to refuse a comrade; I got him
+a gun and took him out shooting. Well, we shot a little in the ordinary
+way; at last we thought we would rest I sat down under a tree; but he
+began instead to play with his gun, pointing it at me meantime. I asked
+him to leave off, but in his inexperience he did not attend to my
+words, the gun went off, and I lost half my chin, and the first finger
+of my right hand.'
+
+We reached Lgov. Vladimir and Yermolaï had both decided that we could
+not shoot without a boat.
+
+'Sutchok (_i.e._ the twig) has a punt,' observed Vladimir, 'but I
+don't know where he has hidden it. We must go to him.'
+
+'To whom?' I asked.
+
+'The man lives here; Sutchok is his nickname.'
+
+Vladimir went with Yermolaï to Sutchok's. I told them I would wait for
+them at the church. While I was looking at the tombstones in the
+churchyard, I stumbled upon a blackened, four-cornered urn with the
+following inscription, on one side in French: 'Ci-git Théophile-Henri,
+Vicomte de Blangy'; on the next; 'Under this stone is laid the body of
+a French subject, Count Blangy; born 1737, died 1799, in the 62nd year
+of his age': on the third, 'Peace to his ashes': and on the fourth:--
+
+   'Under this stone there lies from France an emigrant.
+     Of high descent was he, and also of talent.
+     A wife and kindred murdered he bewailed,
+     And left his land by tyrants cruel assailed;
+     The friendly shores of Russia he attained,
+     And hospitable shelter here he gained;
+     Children he taught; their parents' cares allayed:
+     Here, by God's will, in peace he has been laid.'
+
+
+The approach of Yermolaï with Vladimir and the man with the strange
+nickname, Sutchok, broke in on my meditations.
+
+Barelegged, ragged and dishevelled, Sutchok looked like a discharged
+stray house-serf of sixty years old.
+
+'Have you a boat?' I asked him.
+
+'I have a boat,' he answered in a hoarse, cracked voice; 'but it's a
+very poor one.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Its boards are split apart, and the rivets have come off the cracks.'
+
+'That's no great disaster!' interposed Yermolaï; 'we can stuff them up
+with tow.'
+
+'Of course you can,' Sutchok assented.
+
+'And who are you?'
+
+'I am the fisherman of the manor.'
+
+'How is it, when you're a fisherman, your boat is in such bad
+condition?'
+
+'There are no fish in our river.'
+
+'Fish don't like slimy marshes,' observed my huntsman, with the air of
+an authority.
+
+'Come,' I said to Yermolaï, 'go and get some tow, and make the boat
+right for us as soon as you can.'
+
+Yermolaï went off.
+
+'Well, in this way we may very likely go to the bottom,' I said to
+Vladimir. 'God is merciful,' he answered. 'Anyway, we must suppose that
+the pond is not deep.'
+
+'No, it is not deep,' observed Sutchok, who spoke in a strange, far-
+away voice, as though he were in a dream, 'and there's sedge and mud at
+the bottom, and it's all overgrown with sedge. But there are deep holes
+too.'
+
+'But if the sedge is so thick,' said Vladimir, 'it will be impossible
+to row.'
+
+'Who thinks of rowing in a punt? One has to punt it. I will go with
+you; my pole is there--or else one can use a wooden spade.'
+
+'With a spade it won't be easy; you won't touch the bottom perhaps in
+some places,' said Vladimir.
+
+'It's true; it won't be easy.'
+
+I sat down on a tomb-stone to wait for Yermolaï. Vladimir moved a
+little to one side out of respect to me, and also sat down. Sutchok
+remained standing in the same place, his head bent and his hands
+clasped behind his back, according to the old habit of house-serfs.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I began, 'have you been the fisherman here long?'
+
+'It is seven years now,' he replied, rousing himself with a start.
+
+'And what was your occupation before?'
+
+'I was coachman before.'
+
+'Who dismissed you from being coachman?'
+
+'The new mistress.'
+
+'What mistress?'
+
+'Oh, that bought us. Your honour does not know her; Alyona Timofyevna;
+she is so fat ... not young.'
+
+'Why did she decide to make you a fisherman?'
+
+'God knows. She came to us from her estate in Tamboff, gave orders for
+all the household to come together, and came out to us. We first kissed
+her hand, and she said nothing; she was not angry.... Then she began to
+question us in order; "How are you employed? what duties have you?" She
+came to me in my turn; so she asked: "What have you been?" I say,
+"Coachman." "Coachman? Well, a fine coachman you are; only look at you!
+You're not fit for a coachman, but be my fisherman, and shave your
+beard. On the occasions of my visits provide fish for the table; do you
+hear?" ... So since then I have been enrolled as a fisherman. "And mind
+you keep my pond in order." But how is one to keep it in order?'
+
+'Whom did you belong to before?'
+
+'To Sergaï Sergiitch Pehterev. We came to him by inheritance. But he
+did not own us long; only six years altogether. I was his coachman ...
+but not in town, he had others there--only in the country.'
+
+'And were you always a coachman from your youth up?'
+
+'Always a coachman? Oh, no! I became a coachman in Sergaï Sergiitch's
+time, but before that I was a cook--but not town-cook; only a cook in
+the country.'
+
+'Whose cook were you, then?'
+
+'Oh, my former master's, Afanasy Nefeditch, Sergaï Sergiitch's uncle.
+Lgov was bought by him, by Afanasy Nefeditch, but it came to Sergaï
+Sergiitch by inheritance from him.'
+
+'Whom did he buy it from?'
+
+'From Tatyana Vassilyevna.'
+
+'What Tatyana Vassilyevna was that?'
+
+'Why, that died last year in Bolhov ... that is, at Karatchev, an old
+maid.... She had never married. Don't you know her? We came to her from
+her father, Vassily Semenitch. She owned us a goodish while ... twenty
+years.'
+
+'Then were you cook to her?'
+
+'At first, to be sure, I was cook, and then I was coffee-bearer.'
+
+'What were you?'
+
+'Coffee-bearer.'
+
+'What sort of duty is that?'
+
+'I don't know, your honour. I stood at the sideboard, and was called
+Anton instead of Kuzma. The mistress ordered that I should be called
+so.'
+
+'Your real name, then, is Kuzma?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And were you coffee-bearer all the time?'
+
+'No, not all the time; I was an actor too.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'Yes, I was.... I played in the theatre. Our mistress set up a theatre
+of her own.'
+
+'What kind of parts did you take?'
+
+'What did you please to say?'
+
+'What did you do in the theatre?'
+
+'Don't you know? Why, they take me and dress me up; and I walk about
+dressed up, or stand or sit down there as it happens, and they say,
+"See, this is what you must say," and I say it. Once I represented a
+blind man.... They laid little peas under each eyelid.... Yes, indeed.'
+
+'And what were you afterwards?'
+
+'Afterwards I became a cook again.'
+
+'Why did they degrade you to being a cook again?'
+
+'My brother ran away.'
+
+'Well, and what were you under the father of your first mistress?'
+
+'I had different duties; at first I found myself a page; I have been a
+postilion, a gardener, and a whipper-in.'
+
+'A whipper-in?... And did you ride out with the hounds?'
+
+'Yes, I rode with the hounds, and was nearly killed; I fell off my
+horse, and the horse was injured. Our old master was very severe; he
+ordered them to flog me, and to send me to learn a trade to Moscow, to
+a shoemaker.'
+
+'To learn a trade? But you weren't a child, I suppose, when you were a
+whipper-in?'
+
+'I was twenty and over then.'
+
+'But could you learn a trade at twenty?'
+
+'I suppose one could, some way, since the master ordered it. But he
+luckily died soon after, and they sent me back to the country.'
+
+'And when were you taught to cook?'
+
+Sutchok lifted his thin yellowish little old face and grinned.
+
+'Is that a thing to be taught?... Old women can cook.'
+
+'Well,' I commented, 'you have seen many things, Kuzma, in your time!
+What do you do now as a fisherman, seeing there are no fish?'
+
+'Oh, your honour, I don't complain. And, thank God, they made me a
+fisherman. Why another old man like me--Andrey Pupir--the mistress
+ordered to be put into the paper factory, as a ladler. "It's a sin,"
+she said, "to eat bread in idleness." And Pupir had even hoped for
+favour; his cousin's son was clerk in the mistress's counting-house: he
+had promised to send his name up to the mistress, to remember him: a
+fine way he remembered him!... And Pupir fell at his cousin's knees
+before my eyes.'
+
+'Have you a family? Have you married?'
+
+'No, your honour, I have never been married. Tatyana Vassilyevna--God
+rest her soul!--did not allow anyone to marry. "God forbid!" she said
+sometimes, "here am I living single: what indulgence! What are they
+thinking of!"'
+
+'What do you live on now? Do you get wages?'
+
+'Wages, your honour!... Victuals are given me, and thanks be to Thee,
+Lord! I am very contented. May God give our lady long life!'
+
+Yermolaï returned.
+
+'The boat is repaired,' he announced churlishly. 'Go after your pole--
+you there!'
+
+Sutchok ran to get his pole. During the whole time of my conversation
+with the poor old man, the sportsman Vladimir had been staring at him
+with a contemptuous smile.
+
+'A stupid fellow,' was his comment, when the latter had gone off; 'an
+absolutely uneducated fellow; a peasant, nothing more. One cannot even
+call him a house-serf, and he was boasting all the time. How could he
+be an actor, be pleased to judge for yourself! You were pleased to
+trouble yourself for no good in talking to him.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later we were sitting in Sutchok's punt. The dogs
+we left in a hut in charge of my coachman. We were not very
+comfortable, but sportsmen are not a fastidious race. At the rear end,
+which was flattened and straight, stood Sutchok, punting; I sat with
+Vladimir on the planks laid across the boat, and Yermolaï ensconced
+himself in front, in the very beak. In spite of the tow, the water soon
+made its appearance under our feet. Fortunately, the weather was calm
+and the pond seemed slumbering.
+
+We floated along rather slowly. The old man had difficulty in drawing
+his long pole out of the sticky mud; it came up all tangled in green
+threads of water-sedge; the flat round leaves of the water-lily also
+hindered the progress of our boat last we got up to the reeds, and then
+the fun began. Ducks flew up noisily from the pond, scared by our
+unexpected appearance in their domains, shots sounded at once after
+them; it was a pleasant sight to see these short-tailed game turning
+somersaults in the air, splashing heavily into the water. We could not,
+of course, get at all the ducks that were shot; those who were slightly
+wounded swam away; some which had been quite killed fell into such
+thick reeds that even Yermolaï's little lynx eyes could not discover
+them, yet our boat was nevertheless filled to the brim with game for
+dinner.
+
+Vladimir, to Yermolaï's great satisfaction, did not shoot at all well;
+he seemed surprised after each unsuccessful shot, looked at his gun and
+blew down it, seemed puzzled, and at last explained to us the reason
+why he had missed his aim. Yermolaï, as always, shot triumphantly; I--
+rather badly, after my custom. Sutchok looked on at us with the eyes of
+a man who has been the servant of others from his youth up; now and
+then he cried out: 'There, there, there's another little duck'; and he
+constantly rubbed his back, not with his hands, but by a peculiar
+movement of the shoulder-blades. The weather kept magnificent; curly
+white clouds moved calmly high above our heads, and were reflected
+clearly in the water; the reeds were whispering around us; here and
+there the pond sparkled in the sunshine like steel. We were preparing
+to return to the village, when suddenly a rather unpleasant adventure
+befel us.
+
+For a long time we had been aware that the water was gradually filling
+our punt. Vladimir was entrusted with the task of baling it out by
+means of a ladle, which my thoughtful huntsman had stolen to be ready
+for any emergency from a peasant woman who was staring away in another
+direction. All went well so long as Vladimir did not neglect his duty.
+But just at the end the ducks, as if to take leave of us, rose in such
+flocks that we scarcely had time to load our guns. In the heat of the
+sport we did not pay attention to the state of our punt--when suddenly,
+Yermolaï, in trying to reach a wounded duck, leaned his whole weight on
+the boat's-edge; at his over-eager movement our old tub veered on one
+side, began to fill, and majestically sank to the bottom, fortunately
+not in a deep place. We cried out, but it was too late; in an instant
+we were standing in the water up to our necks, surrounded by the
+floating bodies of the slaughtered ducks. I cannot help laughing now
+when I recollect the scared white faces of my companions (probably my
+own face was not particularly rosy at that moment), but I must confess
+at the time it did not enter my head to feel amused. Each of us kept
+his gun above his head, and Sutchok, no doubt from the habit of
+imitating his masters, lifted his pole above him. The first to break
+the silence was Yermolaï.
+
+'Tfoo! curse it!' he muttered, spitting into the water; 'here's a go.
+It's all you, you old devil!' he added, turning wrathfully to Sutchok;
+'you've such a boat!'
+
+'It's my fault,' stammered the old man.
+
+'Yes; and you're a nice one,' continued my huntsman, turning his head
+in Vladimir's direction; 'what were you thinking of? Why weren't you
+baling out?--you, you?'
+
+But Vladimir was not equal to a reply; he was shaking like a leaf, his
+teeth were chattering, and his smile was utterly meaningless. What had
+become of his fine language, his feeling of fine distinctions, and of
+his own dignity!
+
+The cursed punt rocked feebly under our feet... At the instant of our
+ducking the water seemed terribly cold to us, but we soon got hardened
+to it, when the first shock had passed off. I looked round me; the
+reeds rose up in a circle ten paces from us; in the distance above
+their tops the bank could be seen. 'It looks bad,' I thought.
+
+'What are we to do?' I asked Yermolaï.
+
+'Well, we'll take a look round; we can't spend the night here,' he
+answered. 'Here, you, take my gun,' he said to Vladimir.
+
+Vladimir obeyed submissively.
+
+'I will go and find the ford,' continued Yermolaï, as though there must
+infallibly be a ford in every pond: he took the pole from Sutchok, and
+went off in the direction of the bank, warily sounding the depth as he
+walked.
+
+'Can you swim?' I asked him.
+
+'No, I can't,' his voice sounded from behind the reeds.
+
+'Then he'll be drowned,' remarked Sutchok indifferently. He had been
+terrified at first, not by the danger, but through fear of our anger,
+and now, completely reassured, he drew a long breath from time to time,
+and seemed not to be aware of any necessity for moving from his present
+position.
+
+'And he will perish without doing any good,' added Vladimir piteously.
+
+Yermolaï did not return for more than an hour. That hour seemed an
+eternity to us. At first we kept calling to him very energetically;
+then his answering shouts grew less frequent; at last he was completely
+silent. The bells in the village began ringing for evening service.
+There was not much conversation between us; indeed, we tried not to
+look at one another. The ducks hovered over our heads; some seemed
+disposed to settle near us, but suddenly rose up into the air and flew
+away quacking. We began to grow numb. Sutchok shut his eyes as though
+he were disposing himself to sleep.
+
+At last, to our indescribable delight, Yermolaï returned.
+
+'Well?'
+
+'I have been to the bank; I have found the ford.... Let us go.'
+
+We wanted to set off at once; but he first brought some string out of
+his pocket out of the water, tied the slaughtered ducks together by
+their legs, took both ends in his teeth, and moved slowly forward;
+Vladimir came behind him, and I behind Vladimir, and Sutchok brought up
+the rear. It was about two hundred paces to the bank. Yermolaï walked
+boldly and without stopping (so well had he noted the track), only
+occasionally crying out: 'More to the left--there's a hole here to the
+right!' or 'Keep to the right--you'll sink in there to the left....'
+Sometimes the water was up to our necks, and twice poor Sutchok, who
+was shorter than all the rest of us, got a mouthful and spluttered.
+'Come, come, come!' Yermolaï shouted roughly to him--and Sutchok,
+scrambling, hopping and skipping, managed to reach a shallower place,
+but even in his greatest extremity was never so bold as to clutch at
+the skirt of my coat. Worn out, muddy and wet, we at last reached the
+bank.
+
+Two hours later we were all sitting, as dry as circumstances would
+allow, in a large hay barn, preparing for supper. The coachman
+Yehudiil, an exceedingly deliberate man, heavy in gait, cautious and
+sleepy, stood at the entrance, zealously plying Sutchok with snuff (I
+have noticed that coachmen in Russia very quickly make friends);
+Sutchok was taking snuff with frenzied energy, in quantities to make
+him ill; he was spitting, sneezing, and apparently enjoying himself
+greatly. Vladimir had assumed an air of languor; he leaned his head on
+one side, and spoke little. Yermolaï was cleaning our guns. The dogs
+were wagging their tails at a great rate in the expectation of
+porridge; the horses were stamping and neighing in the out-house....
+The sun had set; its last rays were broken up into broad tracts of
+purple; golden clouds were drawn out over the heavens into finer and
+ever finer threads, like a fleece washed and combed out. ... There was
+the sound of singing in the village.
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+                            BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
+
+
+It was a glorious July day, one of those days which only come after
+many days of fine weather. From earliest morning the sky is clear; the
+sunrise does not glow with fire; it is suffused with a soft roseate
+flush. The sun, not fiery, not red-hot as in time of stifling drought,
+not dull purple as before a storm, but with a bright and genial
+radiance, rises peacefully behind a long and narrow cloud, shines out
+freshly, and plunges again into its lilac mist. The delicate upper edge
+of the strip of cloud flashes in little gleaming snakes; their
+brilliance is like polished silver. But, lo! the dancing rays flash
+forth again, and in solemn joy, as though flying upward, rises the
+mighty orb. About mid-day there is wont to be, high up in the sky, a
+multitude of rounded clouds, golden-grey, with soft white edges. Like
+islands scattered over an overflowing river, that bathes them in its
+unbroken reaches of deep transparent blue, they scarcely stir; farther
+down the heavens they are in movement, packing closer; now there is no
+blue to be seen between them, but they are themselves almost as blue as
+the sky, filled full with light and heat. The colour of the horizon, a
+faint pale lilac, does not change all day, and is the same all round;
+nowhere is there storm gathering and darkening; only somewhere rays of
+bluish colour stretch down from the sky; it is a sprinkling of scarce-
+perceptible rain. In the evening these clouds disappear; the last of
+them, blackish and undefined as smoke, lie streaked with pink, facing
+the setting sun; in the place where it has gone down, as calmly as it
+rose, a crimson glow lingers long over the darkening earth, and, softly
+flashing like a candle carried carelessly, the evening star flickers in
+the sky. On such days all the colours are softened, bright but not
+glaring; everything is suffused with a kind of touching tenderness. On
+such days the heat is sometimes very great; often it is even 'steaming'
+on the slopes of the fields, but a wind dispels this growing
+sultriness, and whirling eddies of dust--sure sign of settled, fine
+weather--move along the roads and across the fields in high white
+columns. In the pure dry air there is a scent of wormwood, rye in
+blossom, and buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall there is no
+moisture in the air. It is for such weather that the farmer longs, for
+harvesting his wheat....
+
+On just such a day I was once out grouse-shooting in the Tchern
+district of the province of Tula. I started and shot a fair amount of
+game; my full game-bag cut my shoulder mercilessly; but already the
+evening glow had faded, and the cool shades of twilight were beginning
+to grow thicker, and to spread across the sky, which was still bright,
+though no longer lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, when I at
+last decided to turn back homewards. With swift steps I passed through
+the long 'square' of underwoods, clambered up a hill, and instead of
+the familiar plain I expected to see, with the oakwood on the right and
+the little white church in the distance, I saw before me a scene
+completely different, and quite new to me. A narrow valley lay at my
+feet, and directly facing me a dense wood of aspen-trees rose up like a
+thick wall. I stood still in perplexity, looked round me.... 'Aha!' I
+thought, 'I have somehow come wrong; I kept too much to the right,' and
+surprised at my own mistake, I rapidly descended the hill. I was at
+once plunged into a disagreeable clinging mist, exactly as though I had
+gone down into a cellar; the thick high grass at the bottom of the
+valley, all drenched with dew, was white like a smooth tablecloth; one
+felt afraid somehow to walk on it. I made haste to get on the other
+side, and walked along beside the aspenwood, bearing to the left. Bats
+were already hovering over its slumbering tree-tops, mysteriously
+flitting and quivering across the clear obscure of the sky; a young
+belated hawk flew in swift, straight course upwards, hastening to its
+nest. 'Here, directly I get to this corner,' I thought to myself, 'I
+shall find the road at once; but I have come a mile out of my way!'
+
+I did at last reach the end of the wood, but there was no road of any
+sort there; some kind of low bushes overgrown with long grass extended
+far and wide before me; behind them in the far, far distance could be
+discerned a tract of waste land. I stopped again. 'Well? Where am I?' I
+began ransacking my brain to recall how and where I had been walking
+during the day.... 'Ah! but these are the bushes at Parahin,' I cried
+at last; 'of course! then this must be Sindyev wood. But how did I get
+here? So far?... Strange! Now I must bear to the right again.'
+
+I went to the right through the bushes. Meantime the night had crept
+close and grown up like a storm-cloud; it seemed as though, with the
+mists of evening, darkness was rising up on all sides and flowing down
+from overhead. I had come upon some sort of little, untrodden,
+overgrown path; I walked along it, gazing intently before me. Soon all
+was blackness and silence around--only the quail's cry was heard from
+time to time. Some small night-bird, flitting noiselessly near the
+ground on its soft wings, almost flapped against me and skurried away
+in alarm. I came out on the further side of the bushes, and made my way
+along a field by the hedge. By now I could hardly make out distant
+objects; the field showed dimly white around; beyond it rose up a
+sullen darkness, which seemed moving up closer in huge masses every
+instant. My steps gave a muffled sound in the air, that grew colder and
+colder. The pale sky began again to grow blue--but it was the blue of
+night. The tiny stars glimmered and twinkled in it.
+
+What I had been taking for a wood turned out to be a dark round
+hillock. 'But where am I, then?' I repeated again aloud, standing still
+for the third time and looking inquiringly at my spot and tan English
+dog, Dianka by name, certainly the most intelligent of four-footed
+creatures. But the most intelligent of four-footed creatures only
+wagged her tail, blinked her weary eyes dejectedly, and gave me no
+sensible advice. I felt myself disgraced in her eyes and pushed
+desperately forward, as though I had suddenly guessed which way I ought
+to go; I scaled the hill, and found myself in a hollow of no great
+depth, ploughed round.
+
+A strange sensation came over me at once. This hollow had the form of
+an almost perfect cauldron, with sloping sides; at the bottom of it
+were some great white stones standing upright--it seemed as though they
+had crept there for some secret council--and it was so still and dark
+in it, so dreary and weird seemed the sky, overhanging it, that my
+heart sank. Some little animal was whining feebly and piteously among
+the stones. I made haste to get out again on to the hillock. Till then
+I had not quite given up all hope of finding the way home; but at this
+point I finally decided that I was utterly lost, and without any
+further attempt to make out the surrounding objects, which were almost
+completely plunged in darkness, I walked straight forward, by the aid
+of the stars, at random.... For about half-an-hour I walked on in this
+way, though I could hardly move one leg before the other. It seemed as
+if I had never been in such a deserted country in my life; nowhere was
+there the glimmer of a fire, nowhere a sound to be heard. One sloping
+hillside followed another; fields stretched endlessly upon fields;
+bushes seemed to spring up out of the earth under my very nose. I kept
+walking and was just making up my mind to lie down somewhere till
+morning, when suddenly I found myself on the edge of a horrible
+precipice.
+
+I quickly drew back my lifted foot, and through the almost opaque
+darkness I saw far below me a vast plain. A long river skirted it in a
+semi-circle, turned away from me; its course was marked by the steely
+reflection of the water still faintly glimmering here and there. The
+hill on which I found myself terminated abruptly in an almost
+overhanging precipice, whose gigantic profile stood out black against
+the dark-blue waste of sky, and directly below me, in the corner formed
+by this precipice and the plain near the river, which was there a dark,
+motionless mirror, under the lee of the hill, two fires side by side
+were smoking and throwing up red flames. People were stirring round
+them, shadows hovered, and sometimes the front of a little curly head
+was lighted up by the glow.
+
+I found out at last where I had got to. This plain was well known in
+our parts under the name of Byezhin Prairie.... But there was no
+possibility of returning home, especially at night; my legs were
+sinking under me from weariness. I decided to get down to the fires and
+to wait for the dawn in the company of these men, whom I took for
+drovers. I got down successfully, but I had hardly let go of the last
+branch I had grasped, when suddenly two large shaggy white dogs rushed
+angrily barking upon me. The sound of ringing boyish voices came from
+round the fires; two or three boys quickly got up from the ground. I
+called back in response to their shouts of inquiry. They ran up to me,
+and at once called off the dogs, who were specially struck by the
+appearance of my Dianka. I came down to them.
+
+I had been mistaken in taking the figures sitting round the fires for
+drovers. They were simply peasant boys from a neighbouring village, who
+were in charge of a drove of horses. In hot summer weather with us they
+drive the horses out at night to graze in the open country: the flies
+and gnats would give them no peace in the daytime; they drive out the
+drove towards evening, and drive them back in the early morning: it's a
+great treat for the peasant boys. Bare-headed, in old fur-capes, they
+bestride the most spirited nags, and scurry along with merry cries and
+hooting and ringing laughter, swinging their arms and legs, and leaping
+into the air. The fine dust is stirred up in yellow clouds and moves
+along the road; the tramp of hoofs in unison resounds afar; the horses
+race along, pricking up their ears; in front of all, with his tail in
+the air and thistles in his tangled mane, prances some shaggy chestnut,
+constantly shifting his paces as he goes.
+
+I told the boys I had lost my way, and sat down with them. They asked
+me where I came from, and then were silent for a little and turned
+away. Then we talked a little again. I lay down under a bush, whose
+shoots had been nibbled off, and began to look round. It was a
+marvellous picture; about the fire a red ring of light quivered and
+seemed to swoon away in the embrace of a background of darkness; the
+flame flaring up from time to time cast swift flashes of light beyond
+the boundary of this circle; a fine tongue of light licked the dry
+twigs and died away at once; long thin shadows, in their turn breaking
+in for an instant, danced right up to the very fires; darkness was
+struggling with light. Sometimes, when the fire burnt low and the
+circle of light shrank together, suddenly out of the encroaching
+darkness a horse's head was thrust in, bay, with striped markings or
+all white, stared with intent blank eyes upon us, nipped hastily the
+long grass, and drawing back again, vanished instantly. One could only
+hear it still munching and snorting. From the circle of light it was
+hard to make out what was going on in the darkness; everything close at
+hand seemed shut off by an almost black curtain; but farther away hills
+and forests were dimly visible in long blurs upon the horizon.
+
+The dark unclouded sky stood, inconceivably immense, triumphant, above
+us in all its mysterious majesty. One felt a sweet oppression at one's
+heart, breathing in that peculiar, overpowering, yet fresh fragrance--
+the fragrance of a summer night in Russia. Scarcely a sound was to be
+heard around.... Only at times, in the river near, the sudden splash of
+a big fish leaping, and the faint rustle of a reed on the bank, swaying
+lightly as the ripples reached it ... the fires alone kept up a subdued
+crackling.
+
+The boys sat round them: there too sat the two dogs, who had been so
+eager to devour me. They could not for long after reconcile themselves
+to my presence, and, drowsily blinking and staring into the fire, they
+growled now and then with an unwonted sense of their own dignity; first
+they growled, and then whined a little, as though deploring the
+impossibility of carrying out their desires. There were altogether five
+boys: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya. (From their talk I
+learnt their names, and I intend now to introduce them to the reader.)
+
+The first and eldest of all, Fedya, one would take to be about
+fourteen. He was a well-made boy, with good-looking, delicate, rather
+small features, curly fair hair, bright eyes, and a perpetual half-
+merry, half-careless smile. He belonged, by all appearances, to a well-
+to-do family, and had ridden out to the prairie, not through necessity,
+but for amusement. He wore a gay print shirt, with a yellow border; a
+short new overcoat slung round his neck was almost slipping off his
+narrow shoulders; a comb hung from his blue belt. His boots, coming a
+little way up the leg, were certainly his own--not his father's. The
+second boy, Pavlusha, had tangled black hair, grey eyes, broad cheek-
+bones, a pale face pitted with small-pox, a large but well-cut mouth;
+his head altogether was large--'a beer-barrel head,' as they say--and
+his figure was square and clumsy. He was not a good-looking boy--
+there's no denying it!--and yet I liked him; he looked very sensible
+and straightforward, and there was a vigorous ring in his voice. He had
+nothing to boast of in his attire; it consisted simply of a homespun
+shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather
+uninteresting; it was a long face, with short-sighted eyes and a hook
+nose; it expressed a kind of dull, fretful uneasiness; his tightly-
+drawn lips seemed rigid; his contracted brow never relaxed; he seemed
+continually blinking from the firelight. His flaxen--almost white--hair
+hung out in thin wisps under his low felt hat, which he kept pulling
+down with both hands over his ears. He had on new bast-shoes and
+leggings; a thick string, wound three times round his figure, carefully
+held together his neat black smock. Neither he nor Pavlusha looked more
+than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of ten, aroused my
+curiosity by his thoughtful and sorrowful look. His whole face was
+small, thin, freckled, pointed at the chin like a squirrel's; his lips
+were barely perceptible; but his great black eyes, that shone with
+liquid brilliance, produced a strange impression; they seemed trying to
+express something for which the tongue--his tongue, at least--had no
+words. He was undersized and weakly, and dressed rather poorly. The
+remaining boy, Vanya, I had not noticed at first; he was lying on the
+ground, peacefully curled up under a square rug, and only occasionally
+thrust his curly brown head out from under it: this boy was seven years
+old at the most.
+
+So I lay under the bush at one side and looked at the boys. A small pot
+was hanging over one of the fires; in it potatoes were cooking.
+Pavlusha was looking after them, and on his knees he was trying them by
+poking a splinter of wood into the boiling water. Fedya was lying
+leaning on his elbow, and smoothing out the skirts of his coat. Ilyusha
+was sitting beside Kostya, and still kept blinking constrainedly.
+Kostya's head drooped despondently, and he looked away into the
+distance. Vanya did not stir under his rug. I pretended to be asleep.
+Little by little, the boys began talking again.
+
+At first they gossiped of one thing and another, the work of to-morrow,
+the horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha, and, as though taking
+up again an interrupted conversation, asked him:
+
+'Come then, so you've seen the domovoy?'
+
+'No, I didn't see him, and no one ever can see him,' answered Ilyusha,
+in a weak hoarse voice, the sound of which was wonderfully in keeping
+with the expression of his face; 'I heard him.... Yes, and not I
+alone.'
+
+'Where does he live--in your place?' asked Pavlusha.
+
+'In the old paper-mill.'
+
+'Why, do you go to the factory?'
+
+'Of course we do. My brother Avdushka and I, we are paper-glazers.'
+
+'I say--factory-hands!'
+
+'Well, how did you hear it, then?' asked Fedya.
+
+'It was like this. It happened that I and my brother Avdushka, with
+Fyodor of Mihyevska, and Ivashka the Squint-eyed, and the other Ivashka
+who comes from the Red Hills, and Ivashka of Suhorukov too--and there
+were some other boys there as well--there were ten of us boys there
+altogether--the whole shift, that is--it happened that we spent the
+night at the paper-mill; that's to say, it didn't happen, but Nazarov,
+the overseer, kept us. 'Why,' said he, "should you waste time going
+home, boys; there's a lot of work to-morrow, so don't go home, boys."
+So we stopped, and were all lying down together, and Avdushka had just
+begun to say, "I say, boys, suppose the domovoy were to come?" And
+before he'd finished saying so, some one suddenly began walking over
+our heads; we were lying down below, and he began walking upstairs
+overhead, where the wheel is. We listened: he walked; the boards seemed
+to be bending under him, they creaked so; then he crossed over, above
+our heads; all of a sudden the water began to drip and drip over the
+wheel; the wheel rattled and rattled and again began to turn, though
+the sluices of the conduit above had been let down. We wondered who
+could have lifted them up so that the water could run; any way, the
+wheel turned and turned a little, and then stopped. Then he went to the
+door overhead and began coming down-stairs, and came down like this,
+not hurrying himself; the stairs seemed to groan under him too....
+Well, he came right down to our door, and waited and waited ... and all
+of a sudden the door simply flew open. We were in a fright; we looked--
+there was nothing.... Suddenly what if the net on one of the vats
+didn't begin moving; it got up, and went rising and ducking and moving
+in the air as though some one were stirring with it, and then it was in
+its place again. Then, at another vat, a hook came off its nail, and
+then was on its nail again; and then it seemed as if some one came to
+the door, and suddenly coughed and choked like a sheep, but so
+loudly!... We all fell down in a heap and huddled against one
+another.... Just weren't we in a fright that night!'
+
+'I say!' murmured Pavel, 'what did he cough for?'
+
+'I don't know; perhaps it was the damp.'
+
+All were silent for a little.
+
+'Well,' inquired Fedya, 'are the potatoes done?'
+
+Pavlusha tried them.
+
+'No, they are raw.... My, what a splash!' he added, turning his face in
+the direction of the river; 'that must be a pike.... And there's a star
+falling.'
+
+'I say, I can tell you something, brothers,' began Kostya, in a shrill
+little voice; 'listen what my dad told me the other day.'
+
+'Well, we are listening,' said Fedya with a patronising air.
+
+'You know Gavrila, I suppose, the carpenter up in the big village?'
+
+'Yes, we know him.'
+
+'And do you know why he is so sorrowful always, never speaks? do you
+know? I'll tell you why he's so sorrowful; he went one day, daddy said,
+he went, brothers, into the forest nutting. So he went nutting into the
+forest and lost his way; he went on--God only can tell where he got to.
+So he went on and on, brothers--but 'twas no good!--he could not find
+the way; and so night came on out of doors. So he sat down under a
+tree. "I'll wait till morning," thought he. He sat down and began to
+drop asleep. So as he was falling asleep, suddenly he heard some one
+call him. He looked up; there was no one. He fell asleep again; again
+he was called. He looked and looked again; and in front of him there
+sat a russalka on a branch, swinging herself and calling him to her,
+and simply dying with laughing; she laughed so.... And the moon was
+shining bright, so bright, the moon shone so clear--everything could be
+seen plain, brothers. So she called him, and she herself was as bright
+and as white sitting on the branch as some dace or a roach, or like
+some little carp so white and silvery.... Gavrila the carpenter almost
+fainted, brothers, but she laughed without stopping, and kept beckoning
+him to her like this. Then Gavrila was just getting up; he was just
+going to yield to the russalka, brothers, but--the Lord put it into his
+heart, doubtless--he crossed himself like this.... And it was so hard
+for him to make that cross, brothers; he said, "My hand was simply like
+a stone; it would not move." ... Ugh! the horrid witch.... So when he
+made the cross, brothers, the russalka, she left off laughing, and all
+at once how she did cry.... She cried, brothers, and wiped her eyes
+with her hair, and her hair was green as any hemp. So Gavrila looked
+and looked at her, and at last he fell to questioning her. "Why are you
+weeping, wild thing of the woods?" And the russalka began to speak to
+him like this: "If you had not crossed yourself, man," she says, "you
+should have lived with me in gladness of heart to the end of your days;
+and I weep, I am grieved at heart because you crossed yourself; but I
+will not grieve alone; you too shall grieve at heart to the end of your
+days." Then she vanished, brothers, and at once it was plain to Gavrila
+how to get out of the forest.... Only since then he goes always
+sorrowful, as you see.'
+
+'Ugh!' said Fedya after a brief silence; 'but how can such an evil
+thing of the woods ruin a Christian soul--he did not listen to her?'
+
+'And I say!' said Kostya. 'Gavrila said that her voice was as shrill
+and plaintive as a toad's.'
+
+'Did your father tell you that himself?' Fedya went on.
+
+'Yes. I was lying in the loft; I heard it all.'
+
+'It's a strange thing. Why should he be sorrowful?... But I suppose she
+liked him, since she called him.'
+
+'Ay, she liked him!' put in Ilyusha. 'Yes, indeed! she wanted to tickle
+him to death, that's what she wanted. That's what they do, those
+russalkas.'
+
+'There ought to be russalkas here too, I suppose,' observed Fedya.
+
+'No,' answered Kostya, 'this is a holy open place. There's one thing,
+though: the river's near.'
+
+All were silent. Suddenly from out of the distance came a prolonged,
+resonant, almost wailing sound, one of those inexplicable sounds of the
+night, which break upon a profound stillness, rise upon the air,
+linger, and slowly die away at last. You listen: it is as though there
+were nothing, yet it echoes still. It is as though some one had uttered
+a long, long cry upon the very horizon, as though some other had
+answered him with shrill harsh laughter in the forest, and a faint,
+hoarse hissing hovers over the river. The boys looked round about
+shivering....
+
+'Christ's aid be with us!' whispered Ilyusha.
+
+'Ah, you craven crows!' cried Pavel, 'what are you frightened of? Look,
+the potatoes are done.' (They all came up to the pot and began to eat
+the smoking potatoes; only Vanya did not stir.) 'Well, aren't you
+coming?' said Pavel.
+
+But he did not creep out from under his rug. The pot was soon
+completely emptied.
+
+'Have you heard, boys,' began Ilyusha, 'what happened with us at
+Varnavitsi?'
+
+'Near the dam?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Yes, yes, near the dam, the broken-down dam. That is a haunted place,
+such a haunted place, and so lonely. All round there are pits and
+quarries, and there are always snakes in pits.'
+
+'Well, what did happen? Tell us.'
+
+'Well, this is what happened. You don't know, perhaps, Fedya, but there
+a drowned man was buried; he was drowned long, long ago, when the water
+was still deep; only his grave can still be seen, though it can only
+just be seen ... like this--a little mound.... So one day the bailiff
+called the huntsman Yermil, and says to him, "Go to the post, Yermil."
+Yermil always goes to the post for us; he has let all his dogs die;
+they never will live with him, for some reason, and they have never
+lived with him, though he's a good huntsman, and everyone liked him. So
+Yermil went to the post, and he stayed a bit in the town, and when he
+rode back, he was a little tipsy. It was night, a fine night; the moon
+was shining.... So Yermil rode across the dam; his way lay there. So,
+as he rode along, he saw, on the drowned man's grave, a little lamb, so
+white and curly and pretty, running about. So Yermil thought, "I will
+take him," and he got down and took him in his arms. But the little
+lamb didn't take any notice. So Yermil goes back to his horse, and the
+horse stares at him, and snorts and shakes his head; however, he said
+"wo" to him and sat on him with the lamb, and rode on again; he held
+the lamb in front of him. He looks at him, and the lamb looks him
+straight in the face, like this. Yermil the huntsman felt upset. "I
+don't remember," he said, "that lambs ever look at any one like that";
+however, he began to stroke it like this on its wool, and to say,
+"Chucky! chucky!" And the lamb suddenly showed its teeth and said too,
+"Chucky! chucky!"'
+
+The boy who was telling the story had hardly uttered this last word,
+when suddenly both dogs got up at once, and, barking convulsively,
+rushed away from the fire and disappeared in the darkness. All the boys
+were alarmed. Vanya jumped up from under his rug. Pavlusha ran shouting
+after the dogs. Their barking quickly grew fainter in the distance....
+There was the noise of the uneasy tramp of the frightened drove of
+horses. Pavlusha shouted aloud: 'Hey Grey! Beetle!' ... In a few
+minutes the barking ceased; Pavel's voice sounded still in the
+distance.... A little time more passed; the boys kept looking about in
+perplexity, as though expecting something to happen.... Suddenly the
+tramp of a galloping horse was heard; it stopped short at the pile of
+wood, and, hanging on to the mane, Pavel sprang nimbly off it. Both the
+dogs also leaped into the circle of light and at once sat down, their
+red tongues hanging out.
+
+'What was it? what was it?' asked the boys.
+
+'Nothing,' answered Pavel, waving his hand to his horse; 'I suppose the
+dogs scented something. I thought it was a wolf,' he added, calmly
+drawing deep breaths into his chest.
+
+I could not help admiring Pavel. He was very fine at that moment. His
+ugly face, animated by his swift ride, glowed with hardihood and
+determination. Without even a switch in his hand, he had, without the
+slightest hesitation, rushed out into the night alone to face a
+wolf.... 'What a splendid fellow!' I thought, looking at him.
+
+'Have you seen any wolves, then?' asked the trembling Kostya.
+
+'There are always a good many of them here,' answered Pavel; 'but they
+are only troublesome in the winter.'
+
+He crouched down again before the fire. As he sat down on the ground,
+he laid his hand on the shaggy head of one of the dogs. For a long
+while the flattered brute did not turn his head, gazing sidewise with
+grateful pride at Pavlusha.
+
+Vanya lay down under his rug again.
+
+'What dreadful things you were telling us, Ilyusha!' began Fedya, whose
+part it was, as the son of a well-to-do peasant, to lead the
+conversation. (He spoke little himself, apparently afraid of lowering
+his dignity.) 'And then some evil spirit set the dogs barking....
+Certainly I have heard that place was haunted.'
+
+'Varnavitsi?... I should think it was haunted! More than once, they
+say, they have seen the old master there--the late master. He wears,
+they say, a long skirted coat, and keeps groaning like this, and
+looking for something on the ground. Once grandfather Trofimitch met
+him. "What," says he, "your honour, Ivan Ivanitch, are you pleased to
+look for on the ground?"'
+
+'He asked him?' put in Fedya in amazement.
+
+'Yes, he asked him.'
+
+'Well, I call Trofimitch a brave fellow after that.... Well, what did
+he say?'
+
+'"I am looking for the herb that cleaves all things," says he. But he
+speaks so thickly, so thickly. "And what, your honour, Ivan Ivanitch,
+do you want with the herb that cleaves all things?" "The tomb weighs on
+me; it weighs on me, Trofimitch: I want to get away--away."'
+
+'My word!' observed Fedya, 'he didn't enjoy his life enough, I
+suppose.'
+
+'What a marvel!' said Kosyta. 'I thought one could only see the
+departed on All Hallows' day.'
+
+'One can see the departed any time,' Ilyusha interposed with
+conviction. From what I could observe, I judged he knew the village
+superstitions better than the others.... 'But on All Hallows' day you
+can see the living too; those, that is, whose turn it is to die that
+year. You need only sit in the church porch, and keep looking at the
+road. They will come by you along the road; those, that is, who will
+die that year. Last year old Ulyana went to the porch.'
+
+'Well, did she see anyone?' asked Kostya inquisitively.
+
+'To be sure she did. At first she sat a long, long while, and saw no
+one and heard nothing ... only it seemed as if some dog kept whining
+and whining like this somewhere.... Suddenly she looks up: a boy comes
+along the road with only a shirt on. She looked at him. It was Ivashka
+Fedosyev.'
+
+'He who died in the spring?' put in Fedya.
+
+'Yes, he. He came along and never lifted up his head. But Ulyana knew
+him. And then she looks again: a woman came along. She stared and
+stared at her.... Ah, God Almighty! ... it was herself coming along the
+road; Ulyana herself.'
+
+'Could it be herself?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Yes, by God, herself.'
+
+'Well, but she is not dead yet, you know?' 'But the year is not over
+yet. And only look at her; her life hangs on a thread.'
+
+All were still again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on to the
+fire. They were soon charred by the suddenly leaping flame; they
+cracked and smoked, and began to contract, curling up their burning
+ends. Gleams of light in broken flashes glanced in all directions,
+especially upwards. Suddenly a white dove flew straight into the bright
+light, fluttered round and round in terror, bathed in the red glow, and
+disappeared with a whirr of its wings.
+
+'It's lost its home, I suppose,' remarked Pavel. 'Now it will fly till
+it gets somewhere, where it can rest till dawn.'
+
+'Why, Pavlusha,' said Kostya, 'might it not be a just soul flying to
+heaven?'
+
+Pavel threw another handful of twigs on to the fire.
+
+'Perhaps,' he said at last.
+
+'But tell us, please, Pavlusha,' began Fedya, 'what was seen in your
+parts at Shalamovy at the heavenly portent?'
+
+[Footnote: This is what the peasants call an eclipse.--_Author's
+Note_.]
+
+'When the sun could not be seen? Yes, indeed.'
+
+'Were you frightened then?'
+
+'Yes; and we weren't the only ones. Our master, though he talked to us
+beforehand, and said there would be a heavenly portent, yet when it got
+dark, they say he himself was frightened out of his wits. And in the
+house-serfs' cottage the old woman, directly it grew dark, broke all
+the dishes in the oven with the poker. 'Who will eat now?' she said;
+'the last day has come.' So the soup was all running about the place.
+And in the village there were such tales about among us: that white
+wolves would run over the earth, and would eat men, that a bird of prey
+would pounce down on us, and that they would even see Trishka.'
+
+[Footnote: The popular belief in Trishka is probably derived from some
+tradition of Antichrist.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'What is Trishka?' asked Kostya.
+
+'Why, don't you know?' interrupted Ilyusha warmly. 'Why, brother, where
+have you been brought up, not to know Trishka? You're a stay-at-home,
+one-eyed lot in your village, really! Trishka will be a marvellous man,
+who will come one day, and he will be such a marvellous man that they
+will never be able to catch him, and never be able to do anything with
+him; he will be such a marvellous man. The people will try to take him;
+for example, they will come after him with sticks, they will surround
+him, but he will blind their eyes so that they fall upon one another.
+They will put him in prison, for example; he will ask for a little
+water to drink in a bowl; they will bring him the bowl, and he will
+plunge into it and vanish from their sight. They will put chains on
+him, but he will only clap his hands--they will fall off him. So this
+Trishka will go through villages and towns; and this Trishka will be a
+wily man; he will lead astray Christ's people ... and they will be able
+to do nothing to him.... He will be such a marvellous, wily man.'
+
+'Well, then,' continued Pavel, in his deliberate voice, 'that's what he
+'s like. And so they expected him in our parts. The old men declared
+that directly the heavenly portent began, Trishka would come. So the
+heavenly portent began. All the people were scattered over the street,
+in the fields, waiting to see what would happen. Our place, you know,
+is open country. They look; and suddenly down the mountain-side from
+the big village comes a man of some sort; such a strange man, with such
+a wonderful head ... that all scream: "Oy, Trishka is coming! Oy,
+Trishka is coming!" and all run in all directions! Our elder crawled
+into a ditch; his wife stumbled on the door-board and screamed with all
+her might; she terrified her yard-dog, so that he broke away from his
+chain and over the hedge and into the forest; and Kuzka's father,
+Dorofyitch, ran into the oats, lay down there, and began to cry like a
+quail. 'Perhaps' says he, 'the Enemy, the Destroyer of Souls, will
+spare the birds, at least.' So they were all in such a scare! But he
+that was coming was our cooper Vavila; he had bought himself a new
+pitcher, and had put the empty pitcher over his head.'
+
+All the boys laughed; and again there was a silence for a while, as
+often happens when people are talking in the open air. I looked out
+into the solemn, majestic stillness of the night; the dewy freshness of
+late evening had been succeeded by the dry heat of midnight; the
+darkness still had long to lie in a soft curtain over the slumbering
+fields; there was still a long while left before the first whisperings,
+the first dewdrops of dawn. There was no moon in the heavens; it rose
+late at that time. Countless golden stars, twinkling in rivalry, seemed
+all running softly towards the Milky Way, and truly, looking at them,
+you were almost conscious of the whirling, never--resting motion of the
+earth.... A strange, harsh, painful cry, sounded twice together over
+the river, and a few moments later, was repeated farther down....
+
+Kostya shuddered. 'What was that?'
+
+'That was a heron's cry,' replied Pavel tranquilly.
+
+'A heron,' repeated Kostya.... 'And what was it, Pavlusha, I heard
+yesterday evening,' he added, after a short pause; 'you perhaps will
+know.'
+
+'What did you hear?'
+
+'I will tell you what I heard. I was going from Stony Ridge to
+Shashkino; I went first through our walnut wood, and then passed by a
+little pool--you know where there's a sharp turn down to the ravine--
+there is a water-pit there, you know; it is quite overgrown with reeds;
+so I went near this pit, brothers, and suddenly from this came a sound
+of some one groaning, and piteously, so piteously; oo-oo, oo-oo! I was
+in such a fright, my brothers; it was late, and the voice was so
+miserable. I felt as if I should cry myself.... What could that have
+been, eh?'
+
+'It was in that pit the thieves drowned Akim the forester, last
+summer,' observed Pavel; 'so perhaps it was his soul lamenting.'
+
+'Oh, dear, really, brothers,' replied Kostya, opening wide his eyes,
+which were round enough before, 'I did not know they had drowned Akim
+in that pit. Shouldn't I have been frightened if I'd known!'
+
+'But they say there are little, tiny frogs,' continued Pavel, 'who cry
+piteously like that.'
+
+'Frogs? Oh, no, it was not frogs, certainly not. (A heron again uttered
+a cry above the river.) Ugh, there it is!' Kostya cried involuntarily;
+'it is just like a wood-spirit shrieking.'
+
+'The wood-spirit does not shriek; it is dumb,' put in Ilyusha; 'it only
+claps its hands and rattles.'
+
+'And have you seen it then, the wood-spirit?' Fedya asked him
+ironically.
+
+'No, I have not seen it, and God preserve me from seeing it; but others
+have seen it. Why, one day it misled a peasant in our parts, and led
+him through the woods and all in a circle in one field.... He scarcely
+got home till daylight.'
+
+'Well, and did he see it?'
+
+'Yes. He says it was a big, big creature, dark, wrapped up, just like a
+tree; you could not make it out well; it seemed to hide away from the
+moon, and kept staring and staring with its great eyes, and winking and
+winking with them....'
+
+'Ugh!' exclaimed Fedya with a slight shiver, and a shrug of the
+shoulders; 'pfoo.'
+
+'And how does such an unclean brood come to exist in the world?' said
+Pavel; 'it's a wonder.'
+
+'Don't speak ill of it; take care, it will hear you,' said Ilyusha.
+
+Again there was a silence.
+
+'Look, look, brothers,' suddenly came Vanya's childish voice; 'look at
+God's little stars; they are swarming like bees!'
+
+He put his fresh little face out from under his rug, leaned on his
+little fist, and slowly lifted up his large soft eyes. The eyes of all
+the boys were raised to the sky, and they were not lowered quickly.
+
+'Well, Vanya,' began Fedya caressingly, 'is your sister Anyutka well?'
+
+'Yes, she is very well,' replied Vanya with a slight lisp.
+
+'You ask her, why doesn't she come to see us?'
+
+'I don't know.'
+
+'You tell her to come.'
+
+'Very well.'
+
+'Tell her I have a present for her.'
+
+'And a present for me too?'
+
+'Yes, you too.'
+
+Vanya sighed.
+
+'No; I don't want one. Better give it to her; she is so kind to us at
+home.'
+
+And Vanya laid his head down again on the ground. Pavel got up and took
+the empty pot in his hand.
+
+'Where are you going?' Fedya asked him.
+
+'To the river, to get water; I want some water to drink.'
+
+The dogs got up and followed him.
+
+'Take care you don't fall into the river!' Ilyusha cried after him.
+
+'Why should he fall in?' said Fedya. 'He will be careful.'
+
+'Yes, he will be careful. But all kinds of things happen; he will stoop
+over, perhaps, to draw the water, and the water-spirit will clutch him
+by the hand, and drag him to him. Then they will say, "The boy fell
+into the water." ... Fell in, indeed! ... "There, he has crept in among
+the reeds," he added, listening.
+
+The reeds certainly 'shished,' as they call it among us, as they were
+parted.
+
+'But is it true,' asked Kostya, 'that crazy Akulina has been mad ever
+since she fell into the water?'
+
+'Yes, ever since.... How dreadful she is now! But they say she was a
+beauty before then. The water-spirit bewitched her. I suppose he did
+not expect they would get her out so soon. So down there at the bottom
+he bewitched her.'
+
+(I had met this Akulina more than once. Covered with rags, fearfully
+thin, with face as black as a coal, blear-eyed and for ever grinning,
+she would stay whole hours in one place in the road, stamping with her
+feet, pressing her fleshless hands to her breast, and slowly shifting
+from one leg to the other, like a wild beast in a cage. She understood
+nothing that was said to her, and only chuckled spasmodically from time
+to time.)
+
+'But they say,' continued Kostya, 'that Akulina threw herself into the
+river because her lover had deceived her.'
+
+'Yes, that was it.'
+
+'And do you remember Vasya? added Kostya, mournfully.
+
+'What Vasya?' asked Fedya.
+
+'Why, the one who was drowned,' replied Kostya,' in this very river.
+Ah, what a boy he was! What a boy he was! His mother, Feklista, how she
+loved him, her Vasya! And she seemed to have a foreboding, Feklista
+did, that harm would come to him from the water. Sometimes, when Vasya
+went with us boys in the summer to bathe in the river, she used to be
+trembling all over. The other women did not mind; they passed by with
+the pails, and went on, but Feklista put her pail down on the ground,
+and set to calling him, 'Come back, come back, my little joy; come
+back, my darling!' And no one knows how he was drowned. He was playing
+on the bank, and his mother was there haymaking; suddenly she hears, as
+though some one was blowing bubbles through the water, and behold!
+there was only Vasya's little cap to be seen swimming on the water. You
+know since then Feklista has not been right in her mind: she goes and
+lies down at the place where he was drowned; she lies down, brothers,
+and sings a song--you remember Vasya was always singing a song like
+that--so she sings it too, and weeps and weeps, and bitterly rails
+against God.'
+
+'Here is Pavlusha coming,' said Fedya.
+
+Pavel came up to the fire with a full pot in his hand.
+
+'Boys,' he began, after a short silence, 'something bad happened.'
+
+'Oh, what?' asked Kostya hurriedly.
+
+'I heard Vasya's voice.'
+
+They all seemed to shudder.
+
+'What do you mean? what do you mean?' stammered Kostya.
+
+'I don't know. Only I went to stoop down to the water; suddenly I hear
+my name called in Vasya's voice, as though it came from below water:
+"Pavlusha, Pavlusha, come here." I came away. But I fetched the water,
+though.'
+
+'Ah, God have mercy upon us!' said the boys, crossing themselves.
+
+'It was the water-spirit calling you, Pavel,' said Fedya; 'we were just
+talking of Vasya.'
+
+'Ah, it's a bad omen,' said Ilyusha, deliberately.
+
+'Well, never mind, don't bother about it,' Pavel declared stoutly, and
+he sat down again; 'no one can escape his fate.'
+
+The boys were still. It was clear that Pavel's words had produced a
+strong impression on them. They began to lie down before the fire as
+though preparing to go to sleep.
+
+'What is that?' asked Kostya, suddenly lifting his head.
+
+Pavel listened.
+
+'It's the curlews flying and whistling.'
+
+'Where are they flying to?'
+
+'To a land where, they say, there is no winter.'
+
+'But is there such a land?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Is it far away?'
+
+'Far, far away, beyond the warm seas.'
+
+Kostya sighed and shut his eyes.
+
+More than three hours had passed since I first came across the boys.
+The moon at last had risen; I did not notice it at first; it was such a
+tiny crescent. This moonless night was as solemn and hushed as it had
+been at first.... But already many stars, that not long before had been
+high up in the heavens, were setting over the earth's dark rim;
+everything around was perfectly still, as it is only still towards
+morning; all was sleeping the deep unbroken sleep that comes before
+daybreak. Already the fragrance in the air was fainter; once more a dew
+seemed falling.... How short are nights in summer!... The boys' talk
+died down when the fires did. The dogs even were dozing; the horses, so
+far as I could make out, in the hardly-perceptible, faintly shining
+light of the stars, were asleep with downcast heads.... I fell into a
+state of weary unconsciousness, which passed into sleep.
+
+A fresh breeze passed over my face. I opened my eyes; the morning was
+beginning. The dawn had not yet flushed the sky, but already it was
+growing light in the east. Everything had become visible, though dimly
+visible, around. The pale grey sky was growing light and cold and
+bluish; the stars twinkled with a dimmer light, or disappeared; the
+earth was wet, the leaves covered with dew, and from the distance came
+sounds of life and voices, and a light morning breeze went fluttering
+over the earth. My body responded to it with a faint shudder of
+delight. I got up quickly and went to the boys. They were all sleeping
+as though they were tired out round the smouldering fire; only Pavel
+half rose and gazed intently at me.
+
+I nodded to him, and walked homewards beside the misty river. Before I
+had walked two miles, already all around me, over the wide dew-drenched
+prairie, and in front from forest to forest, where the hills were
+growing green again, and behind, over the long dusty road and the
+sparkling bushes, flushed with the red glow, and the river faintly blue
+now under the lifting mist, flowed fresh streams of burning light,
+first pink, then red and golden.... All things began to stir, to
+awaken, to sing, to flutter, to speak. On all sides thick drops of dew
+sparkled in glittering diamonds; to welcome me, pure and clear as
+though bathed in the freshness of morning, came the notes of a bell,
+and suddenly there rushed by me, driven by the boys I had parted from,
+the drove of horses, refreshed and rested....
+
+Sad to say, I must add that in that year Pavel met his end. He was not
+drowned; he was killed by a fall from his horse. Pity! he was a
+splendid fellow!
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+                        KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
+
+
+I was returning from hunting in a jolting little trap, and overcome by
+the stifling heat of a cloudy summer day (it is well known that the
+heat is often more insupportable on such days than in bright days,
+especially when there is no wind), I dozed and was shaken about,
+resigning myself with sullen fortitude to being persecuted by the fine
+white dust which was incessantly raised from the beaten road by the
+warped and creaking wheels, when suddenly my attention was aroused by
+the extraordinary uneasiness and agitated movements of my coachman, who
+had till that instant been more soundly dozing than I. He began tugging
+at the reins, moved uneasily on the box, and started shouting to the
+horses, staring all the while in one direction. I looked round. We were
+driving through a wide ploughed plain; low hills, also ploughed over,
+ran in gently sloping, swelling waves over it; the eye took in some
+five miles of deserted country; in the distance the round-scolloped
+tree-tops of some small birch-copses were the only objects to break the
+almost straight line of the horizon. Narrow paths ran over the fields,
+disappeared into the hollows, and wound round the hillocks. On one of
+these paths, which happened to run into our road five hundred paces
+ahead of us, I made out a kind of procession. At this my coachman was
+looking.
+
+It was a funeral. In front, in a little cart harnessed with one horse,
+and advancing at a walking pace, came the priest; beside him sat the
+deacon driving; behind the cart four peasants, bareheaded, carried the
+coffin, covered with a white cloth; two women followed the coffin. The
+shrill wailing voice of one of them suddenly reached my ears; I
+listened; she was intoning a dirge. Very dismal sounded this chanted,
+monotonous, hopelessly-sorrowful lament among the empty fields. The
+coachman whipped up the horses; he wanted to get in front of this
+procession. To meet a corpse on the road is a bad omen. And he did
+succeed in galloping ahead beyond this path before the funeral had had
+time to turn out of it into the high-road; but we had hardly got a
+hundred paces beyond this point, when suddenly our trap jolted
+violently, heeled on one side, and all but overturned. The coachman
+pulled up the galloping horses, and spat with a gesture of his hand.
+
+'What is it?' I asked.
+
+My coachman got down without speaking or hurrying himself.
+
+'But what is it?'
+
+'The axle is broken ... it caught fire,' he replied gloomily, and he
+suddenly arranged the collar on the off-side horse with such
+indignation that it was almost pushed over, but it stood its ground,
+snorted, shook itself, and tranquilly began to scratch its foreleg
+below the knee with its teeth.
+
+I got out and stood for some time on the road, a prey to a vague and
+unpleasant feeling of helplessness. The right wheel was almost
+completely bent in under the trap, and it seemed to turn its centre-
+piece upwards in dumb despair.
+
+'What are we to do now?' I said at last.
+
+'That's what's the cause of it!' said my coachman, pointing with his
+whip to the funeral procession, which had just turned into the highroad
+and was approaching us. 'I have always noticed that,' he went on; 'it's
+a true saying--"Meet a corpse"--yes, indeed.'
+
+And again he began worrying the off-side horse, who, seeing his ill-
+humour, resolved to remain perfectly quiet, and contented itself with
+discreetly switching its tail now and then. I walked up and down a
+little while, and then stopped again before the wheel.
+
+Meanwhile the funeral had come up to us. Quietly turning off the road
+on to the grass, the mournful procession moved slowly past us. My
+coachman and I took off our caps, saluted the priest, and exchanged
+glances with the bearers. They moved with difficulty under their
+burden, their broad chests standing out under the strain. Of the two
+women who followed the coffin, one was very old and pale; her set face,
+terribly distorted as it was by grief, still kept an expression of
+grave and severe dignity. She walked in silence, from time to time
+lifting her wasted hand to her thin drawn lips. The other, a young
+woman of five-and-twenty, had her eyes red and moist and her whole face
+swollen with weeping; as she passed us she ceased wailing, and hid her
+face in her sleeve.... But when the funeral had got round us and turned
+again into the road, her piteous, heart-piercing lament began again. My
+coachman followed the measured swaying of the coffin with his eyes in
+silence. Then he turned to me.
+
+'It's Martin, the carpenter, they're burying,' he said; 'Martin of
+Ryaby.'
+
+'How do you know?'
+
+'I know by the women. The old one is his mother, and the young one's
+his wife.'
+
+'Has he been ill, then?'
+
+'Yes ... fever. The day before yesterday the overseer sent for the
+doctor, but they did not find the doctor at home. He was a good
+carpenter; he drank a bit, but he was a good carpenter. See how upset
+his good woman is.... But, there; women's tears don't cost much, we
+know. Women's tears are only water ... yes, indeed.'
+
+And he bent down, crept under the side-horse's trace, and seized the
+wooden yoke that passes over the horses' heads with both hands.
+
+'Any way,' I observed, 'what are we going to do?'
+
+My coachman just supported himself with his knees on the shaft-horse's
+shoulder, twice gave the back-strap a shake, and straightened the pad;
+then he crept out of the side-horse's trace again, and giving it a blow
+on the nose as he passed, went up to the wheel. He went up to it, and,
+never taking his eyes off it, slowly took out of the skirts of his coat
+a box, slowly pulled open its lid by a strap, slowly thrust into it his
+two fat fingers (which pretty well filled it up), rolled and rolled up
+some snuff, and creasing up his nose in anticipation, helped himself to
+it several times in succession, accompanying the snuff-taking every time
+by a prolonged sneezing. Then, his streaming eyes blinking faintly, he
+relapsed into profound meditation.
+
+'Well?' I said at last.
+
+My coachman thrust his box carefully into his pocket, brought his hat
+forward on to his brows without the aid of his hand by a movement of
+his head, and gloomily got up on the box.
+
+'What are you doing?' I asked him, somewhat bewildered.
+
+'Pray be seated,' he replied calmly, picking up the reins.
+
+'But how can we go on?'
+
+'We will go on now.'
+
+'But the axle.'
+
+'Pray be seated.'
+
+'But the axle is broken.'
+
+'It is broken; but we will get to the settlement ... at a walking pace,
+of course. Over here, beyond the copse, on the right, is a settlement;
+they call it Yudino.'
+
+'And do you think we can get there?'
+
+My coachman did not vouchsafe me a reply.
+
+'I had better walk,' I said.
+
+'As you like....' And he nourished his whip. The horses started.
+
+We did succeed in getting to the settlement, though the right front
+wheel was almost off, and turned in a very strange way. On one hillock
+it almost flew off, but my coachman shouted in a voice of exasperation,
+and we descended it in safety.
+
+Yudino settlement consisted of six little low-pitched huts, the walls
+of which had already begun to warp out of the perpendicular, though
+they had certainly not been long built; the back-yards of some of the
+huts were not even fenced in with a hedge. As we drove into this
+settlement we did not meet a single living soul; there were no hens
+even to be seen in the street, and no dogs, but one black crop-tailed
+cur, which at our approach leaped hurriedly out of a perfectly dry and
+empty trough, to which it must have been driven by thirst, and at once,
+without barking, rushed headlong under a gate. I went up to the first
+hut, opened the door into the outer room, and called for the master of
+the house. No one answered me. I called once more; the hungry mewing of
+a cat sounded behind the other door. I pushed it open with my foot; a
+thin cat ran up and down near me, her green eyes glittering in the
+dark. I put my head into the room and looked round; it was empty, dark,
+and smoky. I returned to the yard, and there was no one there
+either.... A calf lowed behind the paling; a lame grey goose waddled a
+little away. I passed on to the second hut. Not a soul in the second
+hut either. I went into the yard....
+
+In the very middle of the yard, in the glaring sunlight, there lay,
+with his face on the ground and a cloak thrown over his head, a boy, as
+it seemed to me. In a thatched shed a few paces from him a thin little
+nag with broken harness was standing near a wretched little cart. The
+sunshine falling in streaks through the narrow cracks in the
+dilapidated roof, striped his shaggy, reddish-brown coat in small bands
+of light. Above, in the high bird-house, starlings were chattering and
+looking down inquisitively from their airy home. I went up to the
+sleeping figure and began to awaken him.
+
+He lifted his head, saw me, and at once jumped up on to his feet....
+'What? what do you want? what is it?' he muttered, half asleep.
+
+I did not answer him at once; I was so much impressed by his
+appearance.
+
+Picture to yourself a little creature of fifty years old, with a little
+round wrinkled face, a sharp nose, little, scarcely visible, brown
+eyes, and thick curly black hair, which stood out on his tiny head like
+the cap on the top of a mushroom. His whole person was excessively thin
+and weakly, and it is absolutely impossible to translate into words the
+extraordinary strangeness of his expression.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked me again. I explained to him what was the
+matter; he listened, slowly blinking, without taking his eyes off me.
+
+'So cannot we get a new axle?' I said finally; 'I will gladly pay for
+it.'
+
+'But who are you? Hunters, eh?' he asked, scanning me from head to
+foot.
+
+'Hunters.'
+
+'You shoot the fowls of heaven, I suppose?... the wild things of the
+woods?... And is it not a sin to kill God's birds, to shed the innocent
+blood?'
+
+The strange old man spoke in a very drawling tone. The sound of his
+voice also astonished me. There was none of the weakness of age to be
+heard in it; it was marvellously sweet, young and almost feminine in
+its softness.
+
+'I have no axle,' he added after a brief silence. 'That thing will not
+suit you.' He pointed to his cart. 'You have, I expect, a large trap.'
+
+'But can I get one in the village?'
+
+'Not much of a village here!... No one has an axle here.... And there
+is no one at home either; they are all at work. You must go on,' he
+announced suddenly; and he lay down again on the ground.
+
+I had not at all expected this conclusion.
+
+'Listen, old man,' I said, touching him on the shoulder; 'do me a
+kindness, help me.'
+
+'Go on, in God's name! I am tired; I have driven into the town,' he
+said, and drew his cloak over his head.
+
+'But pray do me a kindness,' I said. 'I ... I will pay for it.' 'I
+don't want your money.'
+
+'But please, old man.'
+
+He half raised himself and sat up, crossing his little legs.
+
+'I could take you perhaps to the clearing. Some merchants have bought
+the forest here--God be their judge! They are cutting down the forest,
+and they have built a counting-house there--God be their judge! You
+might order an axle of them there, or buy one ready made.'
+
+'Splendid!' I cried delighted; 'splendid! let us go.'
+
+'An oak axle, a good one,' he continued, not getting up from his place.
+
+'And is it far to this clearing?'
+
+'Three miles.'
+
+'Come, then! we can drive there in your trap.'
+
+'Oh, no....'
+
+'Come, let us go,' I said; 'let us go, old man! The coachman is waiting
+for us in the road.'
+
+The old man rose unwillingly and followed me into the street. We found
+my coachman in an irritable frame of mind; he had tried to water his
+horses, but the water in the well, it appeared, was scanty in quantity
+and bad in taste, and water is the first consideration with
+coachmen.... However, he grinned at the sight of the old man, nodded
+his head and cried: 'Hallo! Kassyanushka! good health to you!'
+
+'Good health to you, Erofay, upright man!' replied Kassyan in a
+dejected voice.
+
+I at once made known his suggestion to the coachman; Erofay expressed
+his approval of it and drove into the yard. While he was busy
+deliberately unharnessing the horses, the old man stood leaning with
+his shoulders against the gate, and looking disconsolately first at him
+and then at me. He seemed in some uncertainty of mind; he was not very
+pleased, as it seemed to me, at our sudden visit.
+
+'So they have transported you too?' Erofay asked him suddenly, lifting
+the wooden arch of the harness.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Ugh!' said my coachman between his teeth. 'You know Martin the
+carpenter.... Of course, you know Martin of Ryaby?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, he is dead. We have just met his coffin.'
+
+Kassyan shuddered.
+
+'Dead?' he said, and his head sank dejectedly.
+
+'Yes, he is dead. Why didn't you cure him, eh? You know they say you
+cure folks; you're a doctor.'
+
+My coachman was apparently laughing and jeering at the old man.
+
+'And is this your trap, pray?' he added, with a shrug of his shoulders
+in its direction.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Well, a trap ... a fine trap!' he repeated, and taking it by the
+shafts almost turned it completely upside down. 'A trap!... But what
+will you drive in it to the clearing?... You can't harness our horses
+in these shafts; our horses are all too big.'
+
+'I don't know,' replied Kassyan, 'what you are going to drive; that
+beast perhaps,' he added with a sigh.
+
+'That?' broke in Erofay, and going up to Kassyan's nag, he tapped it
+disparagingly on the back with the third finger of his right hand.
+'See,' he added contemptuously, 'it's asleep, the scare-crow!'
+
+I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as he could. I wanted to drive
+myself with Kassyan to the clearing; grouse are fond of such places.
+When the little cart was quite ready, and I, together with my dog, had
+been installed in the warped wicker body of it, and Kassyan huddled up
+into a little ball, with still the same dejected expression on his
+face, had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up to me and whispered
+with an air of mystery:
+
+'You did well, your honour, to drive with him. He is such a queer
+fellow; he's cracked, you know, and his nickname is the Flea. I don't
+know how you managed to make him out....'
+
+I tried to say to Erofay that so far Kassyan had seemed to me a very
+sensible man; but my coachman continued at once in the same voice:
+
+'But you keep a look-out where he is driving you to. And, your honour,
+be pleased to choose the axle yourself; be pleased to choose a sound
+one.... Well, Flea,' he added aloud, 'could I get a bit of bread in
+your house?'
+
+'Look about; you may find some,' answered Kassyan. He pulled the reins
+and we rolled away.
+
+His little horse, to my genuine astonishment, did not go badly. Kassyan
+preserved an obstinate silence the whole way, and made abrupt and
+unwilling answers to my questions. We quickly reached the clearing, and
+then made our way to the counting-house, a lofty cottage, standing by
+itself over a small gully, which had been dammed up and converted into
+a pool. In this counting-house I found two young merchants' clerks,
+with snow-white teeth, sweet and soft eyes, sweet and subtle words, and
+sweet and wily smiles. I bought an axle of them and returned to the
+clearing. I thought that Kassyan would stay with the horse and await my
+return; but he suddenly came up to me.
+
+'Are you going to shoot birds, eh?' he said.
+
+'Yes, if I come across any.'
+
+'I will come with you.... Can I?'
+
+'Certainly, certainly.'
+
+So we went together. The land cleared was about a mile in length. I
+must confess I watched Kassyan more than my dogs. He had been aptly
+called 'Flea.' His little black uncovered head (though his hair,
+indeed, was as good a covering as any cap) seemed to flash hither and
+thither among the bushes. He walked extraordinarily swiftly, and seemed
+always hopping up and down as he moved; he was for ever stooping down
+to pick herbs of some kind, thrusting them into his bosom, muttering to
+himself, and constantly looking at me and my dog with such a strange
+searching gaze. Among low bushes and in clearings there are often
+little grey birds which constantly flit from tree to tree, and which
+whistle as they dart away. Kassyan mimicked them, answered their calls;
+a young quail flew from between his feet, chirruping, and he chirruped
+in imitation of him; a lark began to fly down above him, moving his
+wings and singing melodiously: Kassyan joined in his song. He did not
+speak to me at all....
+
+The weather was glorious, even more so than before; but the heat was no
+less. Over the clear sky the high thin clouds were hardly stirred,
+yellowish-white, like snow lying late in spring, flat and drawn out
+like rolled-up sails. Slowly but perceptibly their fringed edges, soft
+and fluffy as cotton-wool, changed at every moment; they were melting
+away, even these clouds, and no shadow fell from them. I strolled about
+the clearing for a long while with Kassyan. Young shoots, which had not
+yet had time to grow more than a yard high, surrounded the low
+blackened stumps with their smooth slender stems; and spongy funguses
+with grey edges--the same of which they make tinder--clung to these;
+strawberry plants flung their rosy tendrils over them; mushrooms
+squatted close in groups. The feet were constantly caught and entangled
+in the long grass, that was parched in the scorching sun; the eyes were
+dazzled on all sides by the glaring metallic glitter on the young
+reddish leaves of the trees; on all sides were the variegated blue
+clusters of vetch, the golden cups of bloodwort, and the half-lilac,
+half-yellow blossoms of the heart's-ease. In some places near the
+disused paths, on which the tracks of wheels were marked by streaks on
+the fine bright grass, rose piles of wood, blackened by wind and rain,
+laid in yard-lengths; there was a faint shadow cast from them in
+slanting oblongs; there was no other shade anywhere. A light breeze
+rose, then sank again; suddenly it would blow straight in the face and
+seem to be rising; everything would begin to rustle merrily, to nod, to
+shake around one; the supple tops of the ferns bow down gracefully, and
+one rejoices in it, but at once it dies away again, and all is at rest
+once more. Only the grasshoppers chirrup in chorus with frenzied
+energy, and wearisome is this unceasing, sharp dry sound. It is in
+keeping with the persistent heat of mid-day; it seems akin to it, as
+though evoked by it out of the glowing earth.
+
+Without having started one single covey we at last reached another
+clearing. There the aspen-trees had only lately been felled, and lay
+stretched mournfully on the ground, crushing the grass and small
+undergrowth below them: on some the leaves were still green, though
+they were already dead, and hung limply from the motionless branches;
+on others they were crumpled and dried up. Fresh golden-white chips lay
+in heaps round the stumps that were covered with bright drops; a
+peculiar, very pleasant, pungent odour rose from them. Farther away,
+nearer the wood, sounded the dull blows of the axe, and from time to
+time, bowing and spreading wide its arms, a bushy tree fell slowly and
+majestically to the ground.
+
+For a long time I did not come upon a single bird; at last a corncrake
+flew out of a thick clump of young oak across the wormwood springing up
+round it. I fired; it turned over in the air and fell. At the sound of
+the shot, Kassyan quickly covered his eyes with his hand, and he did
+not stir till I had reloaded the gun and picked up the bird. When I had
+moved farther on, he went up to the place where the wounded bird had
+fallen, bent down to the grass, on which some drops of blood were
+sprinkled, shook his head, and looked in dismay at me.... I heard him
+afterwards whispering: 'A sin!... Ah, yes, it's a sin!'
+
+The heat forced us at last to go into the wood. I flung myself down
+under a high nut-bush, over which a slender young maple gracefully
+stretched its light branches. Kassyan sat down on the thick trunk of a
+felled birch-tree. I looked at him. The leaves faintly stirred
+overhead, and their thin greenish shadows crept softly to and fro over
+his feeble body, muffled in a dark coat, and over his little face. He
+did not lift his head. Bored by his silence, I lay on my back and began
+to admire the tranquil play of the tangled foliage on the background of
+the bright, far away sky. A marvellously sweet occupation it is to lie
+on one's back in a wood and gaze upwards! You may fancy you are looking
+into a bottomless sea; that it stretches wide below you; that the trees
+are not rising out of the earth, but, like the roots of gigantic weeds,
+are dropping--falling straight down into those glassy, limpid depths;
+the leaves on the trees are at one moment transparent as emeralds, the
+next, they condense into golden, almost black green. Somewhere, afar
+off, at the end of a slender twig, a single leaf hangs motionless
+against the blue patch of transparent sky, and beside it another
+trembles with the motion of a fish on the line, as though moving of its
+own will, not shaken by the wind. Round white clouds float calmly
+across, and calmly pass away like submarine islands; and suddenly, all
+this ocean, this shining ether, these branches and leaves steeped in
+sunlight--all is rippling, quivering in fleeting brilliance, and a
+fresh trembling whisper awakens like the tiny, incessant plash of
+suddenly stirred eddies. One does not move--one looks, and no word can
+tell what peace, what joy, what sweetness reigns in the heart. One
+looks: the deep, pure blue stirs on one's lips a smile, innocent as
+itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, as it were, with them, happy
+memories pass in slow procession over the soul, and still one fancies
+one's gaze goes deeper and deeper, and draws one with it up into that
+peaceful, shining immensity, and that one cannot be brought back from
+that height, that depth....
+
+'Master, master!' cried Kassyan suddenly in his musical voice.
+
+I raised myself in surprise: up till then he had scarcely replied to my
+questions, and now he suddenly addressed me of himself.
+
+'What is it?' I asked.
+
+'What did you kill the bird for?' he began, looking me straight in the
+face.
+
+'What for? Corncrake is game; one can eat it.'
+
+'That was not what you killed it for, master, as though you were going
+to eat it! You killed it for amusement.'
+
+'Well, you yourself, I suppose, eat geese or chickens?'
+
+'Those birds are provided by God for man, but the corncrake is a wild
+bird of the woods: and not he alone; many they are, the wild things of
+the woods and the fields, and the wild things of the rivers and marshes
+and moors, flying on high or creeping below; and a sin it is to slay
+them: let them live their allotted life upon the earth. But for man
+another food has been provided; his food is other, and other his
+sustenance: bread, the good gift of God, and the water of heaven, and
+the tame beasts that have come down to us from our fathers of old.'
+
+I looked in astonishment at Kassyan. His words flowed freely; he did
+not hesitate for a word; he spoke with quiet inspiration and gentle
+dignity, sometimes closing his eyes.
+
+'So is it sinful, then, to kill fish, according to you?' I asked.
+
+'Fishes have cold blood,' he replied with conviction. 'The fish is a
+dumb creature; it knows neither fear nor rejoicing. The fish is a
+voiceless creature. The fish does not feel; the blood in it is not
+living.... Blood,' he continued, after a pause, 'blood is a holy thing!
+God's sun does not look upon blood; it is hidden away from the light
+... it is a great sin to bring blood into the light of day; a great sin
+and horror.... Ah, a great sin!'
+
+He sighed, and his head drooped forward. I looked, I confess, in
+absolute amazement at the strange old man. His language did not sound
+like the language of a peasant; the common people do not speak like
+that, nor those who aim at fine speaking. His speech was meditative,
+grave, and curious.... I had never heard anything like it.
+
+'Tell me, please, Kassyan,' I began, without taking my eyes off his
+slightly flushed face, 'what is your occupation?'
+
+He did not answer my question at once. His eyes strayed uneasily for an
+instant.
+
+'I live as the Lord commands,' he brought out at last; 'and as for
+occupation--no, I have no occupation. I've never been very clever from
+a child: I work when I can: I'm not much of a workman--how should I be?
+I have no health; my hands are awkward. In the spring I catch
+nightingales.'
+
+'You catch nightingales?... But didn't you tell me that we must not
+touch any of the wild things of the woods and the fields, and so on?'
+
+'We must not kill them, of a certainty; death will take its own without
+that. Look at Martin the carpenter; Martin lived, and his life was not
+long, but he died; his wife now grieves for her husband, for her little
+children.... Neither for man nor beast is there any charm against
+death. Death does not hasten, nor is there any escaping it; but we must
+not aid death.... And I do not kill nightingales--God forbid! I do not
+catch them to harm them, to spoil their lives, but for the pleasure of
+men, for their comfort and delight.'
+
+'Do you go to Kursk to catch them?'
+
+'Yes, I go to Kursk, and farther too, at times. I pass nights in the
+marshes, or at the edge of the forests; I am alone at night in the
+fields, in the thickets; there the curlews call and the hares squeak
+and the wild ducks lift up their voices.... I note them at evening; at
+morning I give ear to them; at daybreak I cast my net over the
+bushes.... There are nightingales that sing so pitifully sweet ... yea,
+pitifully.'
+
+'And do you sell them?'
+
+'I give them to good people.'
+
+'And what are you doing now?'
+
+'What am I doing?'
+
+'Yes, how are you employed?'
+
+The old man was silent for a little.
+
+'I am not employed at all.... I am a poor workman. But I can read and
+write.'
+
+'You can read?'
+
+'Yes, I can read and write. I learnt, by the help of God and good
+people.'
+
+'Have you a family?'
+
+'No, not a family.'
+
+'How so?... Are they dead, then?'
+
+'No, but ... I have never been lucky in life. But all that is in God's
+hands; we are all in God's hands; and a man should be righteous--that
+is all! Upright before God, that is it.'
+
+'And you have no kindred?'
+
+'Yes ... well....'
+
+The old man was confused.
+
+'Tell me, please,' I began: 'I heard my coachman ask you why you did
+not cure Martin? You cure disease?'
+
+'Your coachman is a righteous man,' Kassyan answered thoughtfully. 'I
+too am not without sin. They call me a doctor.... Me a doctor, indeed!
+And who can heal the sick? That is all a gift from God. But there are
+... yes, there are herbs, and there are flowers; they are of use, of a
+certainty. There is plantain, for instance, a herb good for man; there
+is bud-marigold too; it is not sinful to speak of them: they are holy
+herbs of God. Then there are others not so; and they may be of use, but
+it's a sin; and to speak of them is a sin. Still, with prayer, may
+be.... And doubtless there are such words.... But who has faith, shall
+be saved,' he added, dropping his voice.
+
+'You did not give Martin anything?' I asked.
+
+'I heard of it too late,' replied the old man. 'But what of it! Each
+man's destiny is written from his birth. The carpenter Martin was not
+to live; he was not to live upon the earth: that was what it was. No,
+when a man is not to live on the earth, him the sunshine does not warm
+like another, and him the bread does not nourish and make strong; it is
+as though something is drawing him away.... Yes: God rest his soul!'
+
+'Have you been settled long amongst us?' I asked him after a short
+pause.
+
+Kassyan started.
+
+'No, not long; four years. In the old master's time we always lived in
+our old houses, but the trustees transported us. Our old master was a
+kind heart, a man of peace--the Kingdom of Heaven be his! The trustees
+doubtless judged righteously.'
+
+'And where did you live before?'
+
+'At Fair Springs.'
+
+'Is it far from here?'
+
+'A hundred miles.'
+
+'Well, were you better off there?'
+
+'Yes ... yes, there there was open country, with rivers; it was our
+home: here we are cramped and parched up.... Here we are strangers.
+There at home, at Fair Springs, you could get up on to a hill--and ah,
+my God, what a sight you could see! Streams and plains and forests, and
+there was a church, and then came plains beyond. You could see far,
+very far. Yes, how far you could look--you could look and look, ah,
+yes! Here, doubtless, the soil is better; it is clay--good fat clay, as
+the peasants say; for me the corn grows well enough everywhere.'
+
+'Confess then, old man; you would like to visit your birth-place
+again?'
+
+'Yes, I should like to see it. Still, all places are good. I am a man
+without kin, without neighbours. And, after all, do you gain much,
+pray, by staying at home? But, behold! as you walk, and as you walk,'
+he went on, raising his voice, 'the heart grows lighter, of a truth.
+And the sun shines upon you, and you are in the sight of God, and the
+singing comes more tunefully. Here, you look--what herb is growing; you
+look on it--you pick it. Here water runs, perhaps--spring water, a
+source of pure holy water; so you drink of it--you look on it too. The
+birds of heaven sing.... And beyond Kursk come the steppes, that
+steppes-country: ah, what a marvel, what a delight for man! what
+freedom, what a blessing of God! And they go on, folks tell, even to
+the warm seas where dwells the sweet-voiced bird, the Hamayune, and
+from the trees the leaves fall not, neither in autumn nor in winter,
+and apples grow of gold, on silver branches, and every man lives in
+uprightness and content. And I would go even there.... Have I journeyed
+so little already! I have been to Romyon and to Simbirsk the fair city,
+and even to Moscow of the golden domes; I have been to Oka the good
+nurse, and to Tsna the dove, and to our mother Volga, and many folks,
+good Christians have I seen, and noble cities I have visited.... Well,
+I would go thither ... yes ... and more too ... and I am not the only
+one, I a poor sinner ... many other Christians go in bast-shoes,
+roaming over the world, seeking truth, yea!... For what is there at
+home? No righteousness in man--it's that.'
+
+These last words Kassyan uttered quickly, almost unintelligibly; then
+he said something more which I could not catch at all, and such a
+strange expression passed over his face that I involuntarily recalled
+the epithet 'cracked.' He looked down, cleared his throat, and seemed
+to come to himself again. 'What sunshine!' he murmured in a low voice.
+'It is a blessing, oh, Lord! What warmth in the woods!'
+
+He gave a movement of the shoulders and fell into silence. With a vague
+look round him he began softly to sing. I could not catch all the words
+of his slow chant; I heard the following:
+
+             'They call me Kassyan,
+               But my nickname's the Flea.'
+
+
+'Oh!' I thought, 'so he improvises.' Suddenly he started and ceased
+singing, looking intently at a thick part of the wood. I turned and saw
+a little peasant girl, about seven years old, in a blue frock, with a
+checked handkerchief over her head, and a woven bark-basket in her
+little bare sunburnt hand. She had certainly not expected to meet us;
+she had, as they say, 'stumbled upon' us, and she stood motionless in a
+shady recess among the thick foliage of the nut-trees, looking dismayed
+at me with her black eyes. I had scarcely time to catch a glimpse of
+her; she dived behind a tree.
+
+'Annushka! Annushka! come here, don't be afraid!' cried the old man
+caressingly.
+
+'I'm afraid,' came her shrill voice.
+
+'Don't be afraid, don't be afraid; come to me.'
+
+Annushka left her hiding place in silence, walked softly round--her
+little childish feet scarcely sounded on the thick grass--and came out
+of the bushes near the old man. She was not a child of seven, as I had
+fancied at first, from her diminutive stature, but a girl of thirteen
+or fourteen. Her whole person was small and thin, but very neat and
+graceful, and her pretty little face was strikingly like Kassyan's own,
+though he was certainly not handsome. There were the same thin
+features, and the same strange expression, shy and confiding,
+melancholy and shrewd, and her gestures were the same.... Kassyan kept
+his eyes fixed on her; she took her stand at his side.
+
+'Well, have you picked any mushrooms?' he asked.
+
+'Yes,' she answered with a shy smile.
+
+'Did you find many?'
+
+'Yes.' (She stole a swift look at him and smiled again.)
+
+'Are they white ones?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Show me, show me.... (She slipped the basket off her arm and half-
+lifted the big burdock leaf which covered up the mushrooms.) 'Ah!' said
+Kassyan, bending down over the basket; 'what splendid ones! Well done,
+Annushka!'
+
+'She's your daughter, Kassyan, isn't she?' I asked. (Annushka's face
+flushed faintly.)
+
+'No, well, a relative,' replied Kassyan with affected indifference.
+'Come, Annushka, run along,' he added at once, 'run along, and God be
+with you! And take care.'
+
+'But why should she go on foot?' I interrupted. 'We could take her with
+us.'
+
+Annushka blushed like a poppy, grasped the handle of her basket with
+both hands, and looked in trepidation at the old man.
+
+'No, she will get there all right,' he answered in the same languid and
+indifferent voice. 'Why not?... She will get there.... Run along.'
+
+Annushka went rapidly away into the forest. Kassyan looked after her,
+then looked down and smiled to himself. In this prolonged smile, in the
+few words he had spoken to Annushka, and in the very sound of his voice
+when he spoke to her, there was an intense, indescribable love and
+tenderness. He looked again in the direction she had gone, again smiled
+to himself, and, passing his hand across his face, he nodded his head
+several times.
+
+'Why did you send her away so soon?' I asked him. 'I would have bought
+her mushrooms.'
+
+'Well, you can buy them there at home just the same, sir, if you like,'
+he answered, for the first time using the formal 'sir' in addressing
+me.
+
+'She's very pretty, your girl.'
+
+'No ... only so-so,' he answered, with seeming reluctance, and from
+that instant he relapsed into the same uncommunicative mood as at
+first.
+
+Seeing that all my efforts to make him talk again were fruitless, I
+went off into the clearing. Meantime the heat had somewhat abated; but
+my ill-success, or, as they say among us, my 'ill-luck,' continued, and
+I returned to the settlement with nothing but one corncrake and the new
+axle. Just as we were driving into the yard, Kassyan suddenly turned to
+me.
+
+'Master, master,' he began, 'do you know I have done you a wrong; it
+was I cast a spell to keep all the game off.'
+
+'How so?'
+
+'Oh, I can do that. Here you have a well-trained dog and a good one,
+but he could do nothing. When you think of it, what are men? what are
+they? Here's a beast; what have they made of him?'
+
+It would have been useless for me to try to convince Kassyan of the
+impossibility of 'casting a spell' on game, and so I made him no reply.
+Meantime we had turned into the yard.
+
+Annushka was not in the hut: she had had time to get there before us,
+and to leave her basket of mushrooms. Erofay fitted in the new axle,
+first exposing it to a severe and most unjust criticism; and an hour
+later I set off, leaving a small sum of money with Kassyan, which at
+first he was unwilling to accept, but afterwards, after a moment's
+thought, holding it in his hand, he put it in his bosom. In the course
+of this hour he had scarcely uttered a single word; he stood as before,
+leaning against the gate. He made no reply to the reproaches of my
+coachman, and took leave very coldly of me.
+
+Directly I turned round, I could see that my worthy Erofay was in a
+gloomy frame of mind.... To be sure, he had found nothing to eat in the
+country; the only water for his horses was bad. We drove off. With
+dissatisfaction expressed even in the back of his head, he sat on the
+box, burning to begin to talk to me. While waiting for me to begin by
+some question, he confined himself to a low muttering in an undertone,
+and some rather caustic instructions to the horses. 'A village,' he
+muttered; 'call that a village? You ask for a drop of kvas--not a drop
+of kvas even.... Ah, Lord!... And the water--simply filth!' (He spat
+loudly.) 'Not a cucumber, nor kvas, nor nothing.... Now, then!' he
+added aloud, turning to the right trace-horse; 'I know you, you
+humbug.' (And he gave him a cut with the whip.) 'That horse has learnt
+to shirk his work entirely, and yet he was a willing beast once. Now,
+then--look alive!'
+
+'Tell me, please, Erofay,' I began, 'what sort of a man is Kassyan?'
+
+Erofay did not answer me at once: he was, in general, a reflective and
+deliberate fellow; but I could see directly that my question was
+soothing and cheering to him.
+
+'The Flea?' he said at last, gathering up the reins; 'he's a queer
+fellow; yes, a crazy chap; such a queer fellow, you wouldn't find
+another like him in a hurry. You know, for example, he's for all the
+world like our roan horse here; he gets out of everything--out of work,
+that's to say. But, then, what sort of workman could he be?... He's
+hardly body enough to keep his soul in ... but still, of course....
+He's been like that from a child up, you know. At first he followed his
+uncle's business as a carrier--there were three of them in the
+business; but then he got tired of it, you know--he threw it up. He
+began to live at home, but he could not keep at home long; he's so
+restless--a regular flea, in fact. He happened, by good luck, to have a
+good master--he didn't worry him. Well, so ever since he has been
+wandering about like a lost sheep. And then, he's so strange; there's
+no understanding him. Sometimes he'll be as silent as a post, and then
+he'll begin talking, and God knows what he'll say! Is that good
+manners, pray? He's an absurd fellow, that he is. But he sings well,
+for all that.'
+
+'And does he cure people, really?'
+
+'Cure people!... Well, how should he? A fine sort of doctor! Though he
+did cure me of the king's evil, I must own.... But how can he? He's a
+stupid fellow, that's what he is,' he added, after a moment's pause.
+
+'Have you known him long?'
+
+'A long while. I was his neighbour at Sitchovka up at Fair Springs.'
+
+'And what of that girl--who met us in the wood, Annushka--what relation
+is she to him?'
+
+Erofay looked at me over his shoulder, and grinned all over his face.
+
+'He, he!... yes, they are relations. She is an orphan; she has no
+mother, and it's not even known who her mother was. But she must be a
+relation; she's too much like him.... Anyway, she lives with him. She's
+a smart girl, there's no denying; a good girl; and as for the old man,
+she's simply the apple of his eye; she's a good girl. And, do you know,
+you wouldn't believe it, but do you know, he's managed to teach
+Annushka to read? Well, well! that's quite like him; he's such an
+extraordinary fellow, such a changeable fellow; there's no reckoning on
+him, really.... Eh! eh! eh!' My coachman suddenly interrupted himself,
+and stopping the horses, he bent over on one side and began sniffing.
+'Isn't there a smell of burning? Yes! Why, that new axle, I do
+declare!... I thought I'd greased it.... We must get on to some water;
+why, here is a puddle, just right.'
+
+And Erofay slowly got off his seat, untied the pail, went to the pool,
+and coming back, listened with a certain satisfaction to the hissing of
+the box of the wheel as the water suddenly touched it.... Six times
+during some eight miles he had to pour water on the smouldering axle,
+and it was quite evening when we got home at last.
+
+
+
+                                   X
+
+                               THE AGENT
+
+
+Twelve miles from my place lives an acquaintance of mine, a landowner
+and a retired officer in the Guards--Arkady Pavlitch Pyenotchkin. He
+has a great deal of game on his estate, a house built after the design
+of a French architect, and servants dressed after the English fashion;
+he gives capital dinners, and a cordial reception to visitors, and,
+with all that, one goes to see him reluctantly. He is a sensible and
+practical man, has received the excellent education now usual, has been
+in the service, mixed in the highest society, and is now devoting
+himself to his estate with great success. Arkady Pavlitch is, to judge
+by his own words, severe but just; he looks after the good of the
+peasants under his control and punishes them--for their good. 'One has
+to treat them like children,' he says on such occasions; 'their
+ignorance, _mon cher; il faut prendre cela en considération_.' When
+this so-called painful necessity arises, he eschews all sharp or
+violent gestures, and prefers not to raise his voice, but with a
+straight blow in the culprit's face, says calmly, 'I believe I asked
+you to do something, my friend?' or 'What is the matter, my boy? what
+are you thinking about?' while he sets his teeth a little, and the
+corners of his mouth are drawn. He is not tall, but has an elegant
+figure, and is very good-looking; his hands and nails are kept
+perfectly exquisite; his rosy cheeks and lips are simply the picture of
+health. He has a ringing, light-hearted laugh, and there is sometimes a
+very genial twinkle in his clear brown eyes. He dresses in excellent
+taste; he orders French books, prints, and papers, though he's no great
+lover of reading himself: he has hardly as much as waded through the
+_Wandering Jew_. He plays cards in masterly style. Altogether, Arkady
+Pavlitch is reckoned one of the most cultivated gentlemen and most
+eligible matches in our province; the ladies are perfectly wild over
+him, and especially admire his manners. He is wonderfully well
+conducted, wary as a cat, and has never from his cradle been mixed up
+in any scandal, though he is fond of making his power felt,
+intimidating or snubbing a nervous man, when he gets a chance. He has a
+positive distaste for doubtful society--he is afraid of compromising
+himself; in his lighter moments, however, he will avow himself a
+follower of Epicurus, though as a rule he speaks slightingly of
+philosophy, calling it the foggy food fit for German brains, or at
+times, simply, rot. He is fond of music too; at the card-table he is
+given to humming through his teeth, but with feeling; he knows by heart
+some snatches from _Lucia_ and _Somnambula_, but he is always apt to
+sing everything a little sharp. The winters he spends in Petersburg.
+His house is kept in extraordinarily good order; the very grooms feel
+his influence, and every day not only rub the harness and brush their
+coats, but even wash their faces. Arkady Pavlitch's house-serfs have,
+it is true, something of a hang-dog look; but among us Russians there's
+no knowing what is sullenness and what is sleepiness. Arkady Pavlitch
+speaks in a soft, agreeable voice, with emphasis and, as it were, with
+satisfaction; he brings out each word through his handsome perfumed
+moustaches; he uses a good many French expressions too, such as: _Mais
+c'est impayable! Mais comment donc_? and so so. For all that, I, for
+one, am never over-eager to visit him, and if it were not for the
+grouse and the partridges, I should probably have dropped his
+acquaintance altogether. One is possessed by a strange sort of
+uneasiness in his house; the very comfort is distasteful to one, and
+every evening when a befrizzed valet makes his appearance in a blue
+livery with heraldic buttons, and begins, with cringing servility,
+drawing off one's boots, one feels that if his pale, lean figure could
+suddenly be replaced by the amazingly broad cheeks and incredibly thick
+nose of a stalwart young labourer fresh from the plough, who has yet
+had time in his ten months of service to tear his new nankin coat open
+at every seam, one would be unutterably overjoyed, and would gladly run
+the risk of having one's whole leg pulled off with the boot....
+
+In spite of my aversion for Arkady Pavlitch, I once happened to pass a
+night in his house. The next day I ordered my carriage to be ready
+early in the morning, but he would not let me start without a regular
+breakfast in the English style, and conducted me into his study. With
+our tea they served us cutlets, boiled eggs, butter, honey, cheese, and
+so on. Two footmen in clean white gloves swiftly and silently
+anticipated our faintest desires. We sat on a Persian divan. Arkady
+Pavlitch was arrayed in loose silk trousers, a black velvet smoking
+jacket, a red fez with a blue tassel, and yellow Chinese slippers
+without heels. He drank his tea, laughed, scrutinised his finger-nails,
+propped himself up with cushions, and was altogether in an excellent
+humour. After making a hearty breakfast with obvious satisfaction,
+Arkady Pavlitch poured himself out a glass of red wine, lifted it to
+his lips, and suddenly frowned.
+
+'Why was not the wine warmed?' he asked rather sharply of one of the
+footmen.
+
+The footman stood stock-still in confusion, and turned white.
+
+'Didn't I ask you a question, my friend?' Arkady Pavlitch resumed
+tranquilly, never taking his eyes off the man.
+
+The luckless footman fidgeted in his place, twisted the napkin, and
+uttered not a word.
+
+Arkady Pavlitch dropped his head and looked up at him thoughtfully from
+under his eyelids.
+
+'_Pardon, mon cher_', he observed, patting my knee amicably, and again
+he stared at the footman. 'You can go,' he added, after a short
+silence, raising his eyebrows, and he rang the bell.
+
+A stout, swarthy, black-haired man, with a low forehead, and eyes
+positively lost in fat, came into the room.
+
+'About Fyodor ... make the necessary arrangements,' said Arkady
+Pavlitch in an undertone, and with complete composure.
+
+'Yes, sir,' answered the fat man, and he went out.
+
+'_Voilà, mon cher, les désagréments de la campagne_,' Arkady Pavlitch
+remarked gaily. 'But where are you off to? Stop, you must stay a
+little.'
+
+'No,' I answered; 'it's time I was off.'
+
+'Nothing but sport! Oh, you sportsmen! And where are you going to shoot
+just now?'
+
+'Thirty-five miles from here, at Ryabovo.'
+
+'Ryabovo? By Jove! now in that case I will come with you. Ryabovo's
+only four miles from my village Shipilovka, and it's a long while since
+I've been over to Shipilovka; I've never been able to get the time.
+Well, this is a piece of luck; you can spend the day shooting in
+Ryabovo and come on in the evening to me. We'll have supper together--
+we'll take the cook with us, and you'll stay the night with me.
+Capital! capital!' he added without waiting for my answer.
+
+'_C'est arrangé_.... Hey, you there! Have the carriage brought out, and
+look sharp. You have never been in Shipilovka? I should be ashamed to
+suggest your putting up for the night in my agent's cottage, but you're
+not particular, I know, and at Ryabovo you'd have slept in some
+hayloft.... We will go, we will go!'
+
+And Arkady Pavlitch hummed some French song.
+
+'You don't know, I dare say,' he pursued, swaying from side to side;
+'I've some peasants there who pay rent. It's the custom of the place--
+what was I to do? They pay their rent very punctually, though. I
+should, I'll own, have put them back to payment in labour, but there's
+so little land. I really wonder how they manage to make both ends meet.
+However, _c'est leur affaire_. My agent there's a fine fellow, _une
+forte tête_, a man of real administrative power! You shall see....
+Really, how luckily things have turned out!'
+
+There was no help for it. Instead of nine o'clock in the morning, we
+started at two in the afternoon. Sportsmen will sympathise with my
+impatience. Arkady Pavlitch liked, as he expressed it, to be
+comfortable when he had the chance, and he took with him such a supply
+of linen, dainties, wearing apparel, perfumes, pillows, and dressing-
+cases of all sorts, that a careful and self-denying German would have
+found enough to last him for a year. Every time we went down a steep
+hill, Arkady Pavlitch addressed some brief but powerful remarks to the
+coachman, from which I was able to deduce that my worthy friend was a
+thorough coward. The journey was, however, performed in safety, except
+that, in crossing a lately-repaired bridge, the trap with the cook in
+it broke down, and he got squeezed in the stomach against the hind-
+wheel.
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was alarmed in earnest at the sight of the fall of
+Karem, his home-made professor of the culinary art, and he sent at once
+to inquire whether his hands were injured. On receiving a reassuring
+reply to this query, his mind was set at rest immediately. With all
+this, we were rather a long time on the road; I was in the same
+carriage as Arkady Pavlitch, and towards the end of the journey I was a
+prey to deadly boredom, especially as in a few hours my companion ran
+perfectly dry of subjects of conversation, and even fell to expressing
+his liberal views on politics. At last we did arrive--not at Ryabovo,
+but at Shipilovka; it happened so somehow. I could have got no shooting
+now that day in any case, and so, raging inwardly, I submitted to my
+fate.
+
+The cook had arrived a few minutes before us, and apparently had had
+time to arrange things and prepare those whom it concerned, for on our
+very entrance within the village boundaries we were met by the village
+bailiff (the agent's son), a stalwart, red-haired peasant of seven
+feet; he was on horseback, bareheaded, and wearing a new overcoat, not
+buttoned up. 'And where's Sofron?' Arkady Pavlitch asked him. The
+bailiff first jumped nimbly off his horse, bowed to his master till he
+was bent double, and said: 'Good health to you, Arkady Pavlitch, sir!'
+then raised his head, shook himself, and announced that Sofron had gone
+to Perov, but they had sent after him.
+
+'Well, come along after us,' said Arkady Pavlitch. The bailiff
+deferentially led his horse to one side, clambered on to it, and
+followed the carriage at a trot, his cap in his hand. We drove through
+the village. A few peasants in empty carts happened to meet us; they
+were driving from the threshing-floor and singing songs, swaying
+backwards and forwards, and swinging their legs in the air; but at the
+sight of our carriage and the bailiff they were suddenly silent, took
+off their winter caps (it was summer-time) and got up as though waiting
+for orders. Arkady Pavlitch nodded to them graciously. A flutter of
+excitement had obviously spread through the hamlet. Peasant women in
+check petticoats flung splinters of wood at indiscreet or over-zealous
+dogs; an old lame man with a beard that began just under his eyes
+pulled a horse away from the well before it had drunk, gave it, for
+some obscure reason, a blow on the side, and fell to bowing low. Boys
+in long smocks ran with a howl to the huts, flung themselves on their
+bellies on the high door-sills, with their heads down and legs in the
+air, rolled over with the utmost haste into the dark outer rooms, from
+which they did not reappear again. Even the hens sped in a hurried
+scuttle to the turning; one bold cock with a black throat like a satin
+waistcoat and a red tail, rumpled up to his very comb, stood his ground
+in the road, and even prepared for a crow, then suddenly took fright
+and scuttled off too. The agent's cottage stood apart from the rest in
+the middle of a thick green patch of hemp. We stopped at the gates. Mr.
+Pyenotchkin got up, flung off his cloak with a picturesque motion, and
+got out of the carriage, looking affably about him. The agent's wife
+met us with low curtseys, and came up to kiss the master's hand. Arkady
+Pavlitch let her kiss it to her heart's content, and mounted the steps.
+In the outer room, in a dark corner, stood the bailiff's wife, and she
+too curtsied, but did not venture to approach his hand. In the cold
+hut, as it is called--to the right of the outer room--two other women
+were still busily at work; they were carrying out all the rubbish,
+empty tubs, sheepskins stiff as boards, greasy pots, a cradle with a
+heap of dish-clouts and a baby covered with spots, and sweeping out the
+dirt with bathbrooms. Arkady Pavlitch sent them away, and installed
+himself on a bench under the holy pictures. The coachmen began bringing
+in the trunks, bags, and other conveniences, trying each time to subdue
+the noise of their heavy boots.
+
+Meantime Arkady Pavlitch began questioning the bailiff about the crops,
+the sowing, and other agricultural subjects. The bailiff gave
+satisfactory answers, but spoke with a sort of heavy awkwardness, as
+though he were buttoning up his coat with benumbed fingers. He stood at
+the door and kept looking round on the watch to make way for the nimble
+footman. Behind his powerful shoulders I managed to get a glimpse of
+the agent's wife in the outer room surreptitiously belabouring some
+other peasant woman. Suddenly a cart rumbled up and stopped at the
+steps; the agent came in.
+
+This man, as Arkady Pavlitch said, of real administrative power, was
+short, broad-shouldered, grey, and thick-set, with a red nose, little
+blue eyes, and a beard of the shape of a fan. We may observe, by the
+way, that ever since Russia has existed, there has never yet been an
+instance of a man who has grown rich and prosperous without a big,
+bushy beard; sometimes a man may have had a thin, wedge-shape beard all
+his life; but then he begins to get one all at once, it is all round
+his face like a halo--one wonders where the hair has come from! The
+agent must have been making merry at Perov: his face was unmistakably
+flushed, and there was a smell of spirits about him.
+
+'Ah, our father, our gracious benefactor!' he began in a sing-song
+voice, and with a face of such deep feeling that it seemed every minute
+as if he would burst into tears; 'at last you have graciously deigned
+to come to us ... your hand, your honour's hand,' he added, his lips
+protruded in anticipation. Arkady Pavlitch gratified his desire. 'Well,
+brother Sofron, how are things going with you?' he asked in a friendly
+voice.
+
+'Ah, you, our father!' cried Sofron; 'how should they go ill? how
+should things go ill, now that you, our father, our benefactor,
+graciously deign to lighten our poor village with your presence, to
+make us happy till the day of our death? Thank the Lord for thee,
+Arkady Pavlitch! thank the Lord for thee! All is right by your gracious
+favour.'
+
+At this point Sofron paused, gazed upon his master, and, as though
+carried away by a rush of feeling (tipsiness had its share in it too),
+begged once more for his hand, and whined more than before.
+
+'Ah, you, our father, benefactor ... and ... There, God bless me! I'm a
+regular fool with delight.... God bless me! I look and can't believe my
+eyes! Ah, our father!'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch glanced at me, smiled, and asked: '_N'est-ce pas que
+c'est touchant?_'
+
+'But, Arkady Pavlitch, your honour,' resumed the indefatigable agent;
+'what are you going to do? You'll break my heart, your honour; your
+honour didn't graciously let me know of your visit. Where are you to
+put up for the night? You see here it's dirty, nasty.'
+
+'Nonsense, Sofron, nonsense!' Arkady Pavlitch responded, with a smile;
+'it's all right here.'
+
+'But, our father, all right--for whom? For peasants like us it's all
+right; but for you ... oh, our father, our gracious protector! oh, you
+... our father!... Pardon an old fool like me; I'm off my head, bless
+me! I'm gone clean crazy.'
+
+Meanwhile supper was served; Arkady Pavlitch began to eat. The old man
+packed his son off, saying he smelt too strong.
+
+'Well, settled the division of land, old chap, hey?' enquired Mr.
+Pyenotchkin, obviously trying to imitate the peasant speech, with a
+wink to me.
+
+'We've settled the land shares, your honour; all by your gracious
+favour. Day before yesterday the list was made out. The Hlinovsky folks
+made themselves disagreeable about it at first ... they were
+disagreeable about it, certainly. They wanted this ... and they wanted
+that ... and God knows what they didn't want! but they're a set of
+fools, your honour!--an ignorant lot. But we, your honour, graciously
+please you, gave an earnest of our gratitude, and satisfied Nikolai
+Nikolaitch, the mediator; we acted in everything according to your
+orders, your honour; as you graciously ordered, so we did, and nothing
+did we do unbeknown to Yegor Dmitritch.'
+
+'Yegor reported to me,' Arkady Pavlitch remarked with dignity.
+
+'To be sure, your honour, Yegor Dmitritch, to be sure.'
+
+'Well, then, now I suppose you 're satisfied.'
+
+Sofron had only been waiting for this.
+
+'Ah, you are our father, our benefactor!' he began, in the same sing-
+song as before. 'Indeed, now, your honour ... why, for you, our father,
+we pray day and night to God Almighty.... There's too little land, of
+course....'
+
+Pyenotchkin cut him short.
+
+'There, that'll do, that'll do, Sofron; I know you're eager in my
+service.... Well, and how goes the threshing?'
+
+Sofron sighed.
+
+'Well, our father, the threshing's none too good. But there, your
+honour, Arkady Pavlitch, let me tell you about a little matter that
+came to pass.' (Here he came closer to Mr. Pyenotchkin, with his arms
+apart, bent down, and screwed up one eye.) 'There was a dead body found
+on our land.'
+
+'How was that?'
+
+'I can't think myself, your honour; it seems like the doing of the evil
+one. But, luckily, it was found near the boundary; on our side of it,
+to tell the truth. I ordered them to drag it on to the neighbour's
+strip of land at once, while it was still possible, and set a watch
+there, and sent word round to our folks. "Mum's the word," says I. But
+I explained how it was to the police officer in case of the worst. "You
+see how it was," says I; and of course I had to treat him and slip some
+notes into his hand.... Well, what do you say, your honour? We shifted
+the burden on to other shoulders; you see a dead body's a matter of two
+hundred roubles, as sure as ninepence.'
+
+Mr. Pyenotchkin laughed heartily at his agent's cunning, and said
+several times to me, indicating him with a nod, '_Quel gaillard_, eh!'
+
+Meantime it was quite dark out of doors; Arkady Pavlitch ordered the
+table to be cleared, and hay to be brought in. The valet spread out
+sheets for us, and arranged pillows; we lay down. Sofron retired after
+receiving his instructions for the next day. Arkady Pavlitch, before
+falling asleep, talked a little more about the first-rate qualities of
+the Russian peasant, and at that point made the observation that since
+Sofron had had the management of the place, the Shipilovka peasants had
+never been one farthing in arrears.... The watchman struck his board; a
+baby, who apparently had not yet had time to be imbued with a sentiment
+of dutiful self-abnegation, began crying somewhere in the cottage ...
+we fell asleep.
+
+The next morning we got up rather early; I was getting ready to start
+for Ryabovo, but Arkady Pavlitch was anxious to show me his estate, and
+begged me to remain. I was not averse myself to seeing more of the
+first-rate qualities of that man of administrative power--Sofron--in
+their practical working. The agent made his appearance. He wore a blue
+loose coat, tied round the waist with a red handkerchief. He talked
+much less than on the previous evening, kept an alert, intent eye on
+his master's face, and gave connected and sensible answers. We set off
+with him to the threshing-floor. Sofron's son, the seven-foot bailiff,
+by every external sign a very slow-witted fellow, walked after us also,
+and we were joined farther on by the village constable, Fedosyitch, a
+retired soldier, with immense moustaches, and an extraordinary
+expression of face; he looked as though he had had some startling shock
+of astonishment a very long while ago, and had never quite got over it.
+We took a look at the threshing-floor, the barn, the corn-stacks, the
+outhouses, the windmill, the cattle-shed, the vegetables, and the
+hempfields; everything was, as a fact, in excellent order; only the
+dejected faces of the peasants rather puzzled me. Sofron had had an eye
+to the ornamental as well as the useful; he had planted all the ditches
+with willows, between the stacks he had made little paths to the
+threshing-floor and strewn them with fine sand; on the windmill he had
+constructed a weathercock of the shape of a bear with his jaws open and
+a red tongue sticking out; he had attached to the brick cattle-shed
+something of the nature of a Greek facade, and on it inscribed in white
+letters: 'Construt in the village Shipilovky 1 thousand eight Hunderd
+farthieth year. This cattle-shed.' Arkady Pavlitch was quite touched,
+and fell to expatiating in French to me upon the advantages of the
+system of rent-payment, adding, however, that labour-dues came more
+profitable to the owner--'but, after all, that wasn't everything.' He
+began giving the agent advice how to plant his potatoes, how to prepare
+cattle-food, and so on. Sofron heard his master's remarks out with
+attention, sometimes replied, but did not now address Arkady Pavlitch
+as his father, or his benefactor, and kept insisting that there was too
+little land; that it would be a good thing to buy more. 'Well, buy some
+then,' said Arkady Pavlitch; 'I've no objection; in my name, of
+course.' To this Sofron made no reply; he merely stroked his beard.
+'And now it would be as well to ride down to the copse,' observed Mr.
+Pyenotchkin. Saddle-horses were led out to us at once; we went off to
+the copse, or, as they call it about us, the 'enclosure.' In this
+'enclosure' we found thick undergrowth and abundance of wild game, for
+which Arkady Pavlitch applauded Sofron and clapped him on the shoulder.
+In regard to forestry, Arkady Pavlitch clung to the Russian ideas, and
+told me on that subject an amusing--in his words--anecdote, of how a
+jocose landowner had given his forester a good lesson by pulling out
+nearly half his beard, by way of a proof that growth is none the
+thicker for being cut back. In other matters, however, neither Sofron
+nor Arkady Pavlitch objected to innovations. On our return to the
+village, the agent took us to look at a winnowing machine he had
+recently ordered from Moscow. The winnowing machine did certainly work
+beautifully, but if Sofron had known what a disagreeable incident was
+in store for him and his master on this last excursion, he would
+doubtless have stopped at home with us.
+
+This was what happened. As we came out of the barn the following
+spectacle confronted us. A few paces from the door, near a filthy pool,
+in which three ducks were splashing unconcernedly, there stood two
+peasants--one an old man of sixty, the other, a lad of twenty--both in
+patched homespun shirts, barefoot, and with cord tied round their
+waists for belts. The village constable Fedosyitch was busily engaged
+with them, and would probably have succeeded in inducing them to retire
+if we had lingered a little longer in the barn, but catching sight of
+us, he grew stiff all over, and seemed bereft of all sensation on the
+spot. Close by stood the bailiff gaping, his fists hanging irresolute.
+Arkady Pavlitch frowned, bit his lip, and went up to the suppliants.
+They both prostrated themselves at his feet in silence.
+
+'What do you want? What are you asking about?' he inquired in a stern
+voice, a little through his nose. (The peasants glanced at one another,
+and did not utter a syllable, only blinked a little as if the sun were
+in their faces, and their breathing came quicker.)
+
+'Well, what is it?' Arkady Pavlitch said again; and turning at once to
+Sofron, 'Of what family?'
+
+'The Tobolyev family,' the agent answered slowly.
+
+'Well, what do you want?' Mr. Pyenotchkin said again; 'have you lost
+your tongues, or what? Tell me, you, what is it you want?' he added,
+with a nod at the old man. 'And don't be afraid, stupid.'
+
+The old man craned forward his dark brown, wrinkled neck, opened his
+bluish twitching lips, and in a hoarse voice uttered the words,
+'Protect us, lord!' and again he bent his forehead to the earth. The
+young peasant prostrated himself too. Arkady Pavlitch looked at their
+bent necks with an air of dignity, threw back his head, and stood with
+his legs rather wide apart. 'What is it? Whom do you complain of?'
+
+'Have mercy, lord! Let us breathe.... We are crushed, worried,
+tormented to death quite. (The old man spoke with difficulty.)
+
+'Who worries you?'
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch, your honour.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was silent a minute.
+
+'What's your name?'
+
+'Antip, your honour.'
+
+'And who's this?'
+
+'My boy, your honour.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch was silent again; he pulled his moustaches.
+
+'Well! and how has he tormented you?' he began again, looking over his
+moustaches at the old man.
+
+'Your honour, he has ruined us utterly. Two sons, your honour, he's
+sent for recruits out of turn, and now he is taking the third also.
+Yesterday, your honour, our last cow was taken from the yard, and my
+old wife was beaten by his worship here: that is all the pity he has
+for us!' (He pointed to the bailiff.)
+
+'Hm!' commented Arkady Pavlitch.
+
+'Let him not destroy us to the end, gracious protector!'
+
+Mr. Pyenotchkin scowled, 'What's the meaning of this?' he asked the
+agent, in a low voice, with an air of displeasure.
+
+'He's a drunken fellow, sir,' answered the agent, for the first time
+using this deferential address, 'and lazy too. He's never been out of
+arrears this five years back, sir.'
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch paid the arrears for me, your honour,' the old man
+went on; 'it's the fifth year's come that he's paid it, he's paid it--
+and he's brought me into slavery to him, your honour, and here--'
+
+'And why did you get into arrears?' Mr. Pyenotchkin asked
+threateningly. (The old man's head sank.) 'You're fond of drinking,
+hanging about the taverns, I dare say.' (The old man opened his mouth
+to speak.) 'I know you,' Arkady Pavlitch went on emphatically; 'you
+think you've nothing to do but drink, and lie on the stove, and let
+steady peasants answer for you.'
+
+'And he's an impudent fellow, too,' the agent threw in.
+
+'That's sure to be so; it's always the way; I've noticed it more than
+once. The whole year round, he's drinking and abusive, and then he
+falls at one's feet.'
+
+'Your honour, Arkady Pavlitch,' the old man began despairingly, 'have
+pity, protect us; when have I been impudent? Before God Almighty, I
+swear it was beyond my strength. Sofron Yakovlitch has taken a dislike
+to me; for some reason he dislikes me--God be his judge! He will ruin
+me utterly, your honour.... The last ... here ... the last boy ... and
+him he....' (A tear glistened in the old man's wrinkled yellow eyes).
+'Have pity, gracious lord, defend us!'
+
+'And it's not us only,' the young peasant began....
+
+Arkady Pavlitch flew into a rage at once.
+
+'And who asked your opinion, hey? Till you're spoken to, hold your
+tongue.... What's the meaning of it? Silence, I tell you, silence!...
+Why, upon my word, this is simply mutiny! No, my friend, I don't advise
+you to mutiny on my domain ... on my ... (Arkady Pavlitch stepped
+forward, but probably recollected my presence, turned round, and put
+his hands in his pockets ...) '_Je vous demande bien pardon, mon
+cher_,' he said, with a forced smile, dropping his voice significantly.
+'_C'est le mauvais côté de la médaille_ ... There, that'll do, that'll
+do,' he went on, not looking at the peasants: 'I say ... that'll do,
+you can go.' (The peasants did not rise.) 'Well, haven't I told you ...
+that'll do. You can go, I tell you.'
+
+Arkady Pavlitch turned his back on them. 'Nothing but vexation,' he
+muttered between his teeth, and strode with long steps homewards.
+Sofron followed him. The village constable opened his eyes wide,
+looking as if he were just about to take a tremendous leap into space.
+The bailiff drove a duck away from the puddle. The suppliants remained
+as they were a little, then looked at each other, and, without turning
+their heads, went on their way.
+
+Two hours later I was at Ryabovo, and making ready to begin shooting,
+accompanied by Anpadist, a peasant I knew well. Pyenotchkin had been
+out of humour with Sofron up to the time I left. I began talking to
+Anpadist about the Shipilovka peasants, and Mr. Pyenotchkin, and asked
+him whether he knew the agent there.
+
+'Sofron Yakovlitch? ... ugh!'
+
+'What sort of man is he?'
+
+'He's not a man; he's a dog; you couldn't find another brute like him
+between here and Kursk.'
+
+'Really?'
+
+'Why, Shipilovka's hardly reckoned as--what's his name?--Mr.
+Pyenotchkin's at all; he's not the master there; Sofron's the master.'
+
+'You don't say so!'
+
+'He's master, just as if it were his own. The peasants all about are in
+debt to him; they work for him like slaves; he'll send one off with the
+waggons; another, another way.... He harries them out of their lives.'
+
+'They haven't much land, I suppose?'
+
+'Not much land! He rents two hundred acres from the Hlinovsky peasants
+alone, and two hundred and eighty from our folks; there's more than
+three hundred and seventy-five acres he's got. And he doesn't only
+traffic in land; he does a trade in horses and stock, and pitch, and
+butter, and hemp, and one thing and the other.... He's sharp, awfully
+sharp, and rich too, the beast! But what's bad--he beats them. He's a
+brute, not a man; a dog, I tell you; a cur, a regular cur; that's
+what he is!'
+
+'How is it they don't make complaints of him?'
+
+'I dare say, the master'd be pleased! There's no arrears; so what does
+he care? Yes, you'd better,' he added, after a brief pause; 'I should
+advise you to complain! No, he'd let you know ... yes, you'd better try
+it on.... No, he'd let you know....'
+
+I thought of Antip, and told him what I had seen.
+
+'There,' commented Anpadist, 'he will eat him up now; he'll simply eat
+the man up. The bailiff will beat him now. Such a poor, unlucky chap,
+come to think of it! And what's his offence?... He had some wrangle in
+meeting with him, the agent, and he lost all patience, I suppose, and
+of course he wouldn't stand it.... A great matter, truly, to make so
+much of! So he began pecking at him, Antip. Now he'll eat him up
+altogether. You see, he's such a dog. Such a cur--God forgive my
+transgressions!--he knows whom to fall upon. The old men that are a
+bit richer, or've more children, he doesn't touch, the red-headed
+devil! but there's all the difference here! Why he's sent Antip's sons
+for recruits out of turn, the heartless ruffian, the cur! God forgive
+my transgressions!'
+
+We went on our way.
+
+
+
+                                   XI
+
+                           THE COUNTING-HOUSE
+
+
+It was autumn. For some hours I had been strolling across country with
+my gun, and should probably not have returned till evening to the
+tavern on the Kursk high-road where my three-horse trap was awaiting
+me, had not an exceedingly fine and persistent rain, which had worried
+me all day with the obstinacy and ruthlessness of some old maiden lady,
+driven me at last to seek at least a temporary shelter somewhere in the
+neighbourhood. While I was still deliberating in which direction to go,
+my eye suddenly fell on a low shanty near a field sown with peas. I
+went up to the shanty, glanced under the thatched roof, and saw an old
+man so infirm that he reminded me at once of the dying goat Robinson
+Crusoe found in some cave on his island. The old man was squatting on
+his heels, his little dim eyes half-closed, while hurriedly, but
+carefully, like a hare (the poor fellow had not a single tooth), he
+munched a dry, hard pea, incessantly rolling it from side to side. He
+was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice my entrance.
+
+'Grandfather! hey, grandfather!' said I. He ceased munching, lifted his
+eyebrows high, and with an effort opened his eyes.
+
+'What?' he mumbled in a broken voice.
+
+'Where is there a village near?' I asked.
+
+The old man fell to munching again. He had not heard me. I repeated my
+question louder than before.
+
+'A village?... But what do you want?'
+
+'Why, shelter from the rain.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Shelter from the rain.'
+
+'Ah!' (He scratched his sunburnt neck.) 'Well, now, you go,' he said
+suddenly, waving his hands indefinitely, 'so ... as you go by the
+copse--see, as you go--there'll be a road; you pass it by, and keep
+right on to the right; keep right on, keep right on, keep right on....
+Well, there will be Ananyevo. Or else you'd go to Sitovka.'
+
+I followed the old man with difficulty. His moustaches muffled his
+voice, and his tongue too did not obey him readily.
+
+'Where are you from?' I asked him.
+
+'What?'
+
+'Where are you from?'
+
+'Ananyevo.'
+
+'What are you doing here?'
+
+'I'm watchman.'
+
+'Why, what are you watching?'
+
+'The peas.'
+
+I could not help smiling.
+
+'Really!--how old are you?'
+
+'God knows.'
+
+'Your sight's failing, I expect.'
+
+'What?'
+
+'Your sight's failing, I daresay?'
+
+'Yes, it's failing. At times I can hear nothing.'
+
+'Then how can you be a watchman, eh?'
+
+'Oh, my elders know about that.'
+
+'Elders!' I thought, and I gazed not without compassion at the poor old
+man. He fumbled about, pulled out of his bosom a bit of coarse bread,
+and began sucking it like a child, with difficulty moving his sunken
+cheeks.
+
+I walked in the direction of the copse, turned to the right, kept on,
+kept right on as the old man had advised me, and at last got to a large
+village with a stone church in the new style, _i.e._ with columns, and
+a spacious manor-house, also with columns. While still some way off I
+noticed through the fine network of falling rain a cottage with a deal
+roof, and two chimneys, higher than the others, in all probability the
+dwelling of the village elder; and towards it I bent my steps in the
+hope of finding, in this cottage, a samovar, tea, sugar, and some not
+absolutely sour cream. Escorted by my half-frozen dog, I went up the
+steps into the outer room, opened the door, and instead of the usual
+appurtenances of a cottage, I saw several tables, heaped up with
+papers, two red cupboards, bespattered inkstands, pewter boxes of
+blotting sand weighing half a hundred-weight, long penholders, and so
+on. At one of the tables was sitting a young man of twenty with a
+swollen, sickly face, diminutive eyes, a greasy-looking forehead, and
+long straggling locks of hair. He was dressed, as one would expect, in
+a grey nankin coat, shiny with wear at the waist and the collar.
+
+'What do you want?' he asked me, flinging his head up like a horse
+taken unexpectedly by the nose.
+
+'Does the bailiff live here... or--'
+
+'This is the principal office of the manor,' he interrupted. 'I'm the
+clerk on duty.... Didn't you see the sign-board? That's what it was put
+up for.'
+
+'Where could I dry my clothes here? Is there a samovar anywhere in the
+village?'
+
+'Samovars, of course,' replied the young man in the grey coat with
+dignity; 'go to Father Timofey's, or to the servants' cottage, or else
+to Nazar Tarasitch, or to Agrafena, the poultry-woman.'
+
+'Who are you talking to, you blockhead? Can't you let me sleep, dummy!'
+shouted a voice from the next room.
+
+'Here's a gentleman's come in to ask where he can dry himself.'
+
+'What sort of a gentleman?'
+
+'I don't know. With a dog and a gun.'
+
+A bedstead creaked in the next room. The door opened, and there came in
+a stout, short man of fifty, with a bull neck, goggle-eyes,
+extraordinarily round cheeks, and his whole face positively shining
+with sleekness.
+
+'What is it you wish?' he asked me.
+
+'To dry my things.'
+
+'There's no place here.'
+
+'I didn't know this was the counting-house; I am willing, though, to
+pay...'
+
+'Well, perhaps it could be managed here,' rejoined the fat man; 'won't
+you come inside here?' (He led me into another room, but not the one he
+had come from.) 'Would this do for you?'
+
+'Very well.... And could I have tea and milk?'
+
+'Certainly, at once. If you'll meantime take off your things and rest,
+the tea shall be got ready this minute.'
+
+'Whose property is this?'
+
+'Madame Losnyakov's, Elena Nikolaevna.'
+
+He went out I looked round: against the partition separating my room
+from the office stood a huge leather sofa; two high-backed chairs, also
+covered in leather, were placed on both sides of the solitary window
+which looked out on the village street. On the walls, covered with a
+green paper with pink patterns on it, hung three immense oil paintings.
+One depicted a setter-dog with a blue collar, bearing the inscription:
+'This is my consolation'; at the dog's feet flowed a river; on the
+opposite bank of the river a hare of quite disproportionate size with
+ears cocked up was sitting under a pine tree. In another picture two
+old men were eating a melon; behind the melon was visible in the
+distance a Greek temple with the inscription: 'The Temple of
+Satisfaction.' The third picture represented the half-nude figure of a
+woman in a recumbent position, much fore-shortened, with red knees and
+very big heels. My dog had, with superhuman efforts, crouched under the
+sofa, and apparently found a great deal of dust there, as he kept
+sneezing violently. I went to the window. Boards had been laid across
+the street in a slanting direction from the manor-house to the
+counting-house--a very useful precaution, as, thanks to our rich black
+soil and the persistent rain, the mud was terrible. In the grounds of
+the manor-house, which stood with its back to the street, there was the
+constant going and coming there always is about manor-houses: maids in
+faded chintz gowns flitted to and fro; house-serfs sauntered through
+the mud, stood still and scratched their spines meditatively; the
+constable's horse, tied up to a post, lashed his tail lazily, and with
+his nose high up, gnawed at the hedge; hens were clucking; sickly
+turkeys kept up an incessant gobble-gobble. On the steps of a dark
+crumbling out-house, probably the bath-house, sat a stalwart lad with a
+guitar, singing with some spirit the well-known ballad:
+
+         'I'm leaving this enchanting spot
+             To go into the desert.'
+
+The fat man came into the room.
+
+'They're bringing you in your tea,' he told me, with an affable smile.
+
+The young man in the grey coat, the clerk on duty, laid on the old
+card-table a samovar, a teapot, a tumbler on a broken saucer, a jug of
+cream, and a bunch of Bolhovo biscuit rings. The fat man went out.
+
+'What is he?' I asked the clerk; 'the steward?'
+
+'No, sir; he was the chief cashier, but now he has been promoted to be
+head-clerk.'
+
+'Haven't you got a steward, then?'
+
+'No, sir. There's an agent, Mihal Vikulov, but no steward.'
+
+'Is there a manager, then?'
+
+'Yes; a German, Lindamandol, Karlo Karlitch; only he does not manage
+the estate.'
+
+'Who does manage it, then?'
+
+'Our mistress herself.'
+
+'You don't say so. And are there many of you in the office?'
+
+The young man reflected.
+
+'There are six of us.'
+
+'Who are they?' I inquired.
+
+'Well, first there's Vassily Nikolaevitch, the head cashier; then
+Piotr, one clerk; Piotr's brother, Ivan, another clerk; the other Ivan,
+a clerk; Konstantin Narkizer, another clerk; and me here--there's a lot
+of us, you can't count all of them.'
+
+'I suppose your mistress has a great many serfs in her house?'
+
+'No, not to say a great many.'
+
+'How many, then?'
+
+'I dare say it runs up to about a hundred and fifty.'
+
+We were both silent for a little.
+
+'I suppose you write a good hand, eh?' I began again.
+
+The young man grinned from ear to ear, went into the office and brought
+in a sheet covered with writing.
+
+'This is my writing,' he announced, still with the same smile on his
+face.
+
+I looked at it; on the square sheet of greyish paper there was written,
+in a good bold hand, the following document:--
+
+     ORDER
+
+     From the Chief Office of the Manor of Ananyevo to
+     the Agent, Mihal Vikulov.
+
+     No. 209.
+
+'Whereas some person unknown entered the garden at Ananyevo last night
+in an intoxicated condition, and with unseemly songs waked the French
+governess, Madame Engêne, and disturbed her; and whether the watchmen
+saw anything, and who were on watch in the garden and permitted such
+disorderliness: as regards all the above-written matters, your orders
+are to investigate in detail, and report immediately to the Office.'
+
+                                     '_Head-Clerk_, NIKOLAI HVOSTOV.'
+
+A huge heraldic seal was attached to the order, with the inscription:
+'Seal of the chief office of the manor of Ananyevo'; and below stood
+the signature: 'To be executed exactly, Elena Losnyakov.'
+
+'Your lady signed it herself, eh?' I queried.
+
+'To be sure; she always signs herself. Without that the order would be
+of no effect.'
+
+'Well, and now shall you send this order to the agent?'
+
+'No, sir. He'll come himself and read it. That's to say, it'll be read
+to him; you see, he's no scholar.' (The clerk on duty was silent again
+for a while.) 'But what do you say?' he added, simpering; 'is it well
+written?'
+
+'Very well written.'
+
+'It wasn't composed, I must confess, by me. Konstantin is the great one
+for that.'
+
+'What?... Do you mean the orders have first to be composed among you?'
+
+'Why, how else could we do? Couldn't write them off straight without
+making a fair copy.'
+
+'And what salary do you get?' I inquired.
+
+'Thirty-five roubles, and five roubles for boots.'
+
+'And are you satisfied?'
+
+'Of course I am satisfied. It's not everyone can get into an office
+like ours. It was God's will, in my case, to be sure; I'd an uncle who
+was in service as a butler.'
+
+'And you're well-off?'
+
+'Yes, sir. Though, to tell the truth,' he went on, with a sigh, 'a
+place at a merchant's, for instance, is better for the likes of us. At
+a merchant's they're very well off. Yesterday evening a merchant came
+to us from Venev, and his man got talking to me.... Yes, that's a good
+place, no doubt about it; a very good place.'
+
+'Why? Do the merchants pay more wages?'
+
+'Lord preserve us! Why, a merchant would soon give you the sack if you
+asked him for wages. No, at a merchant's you must live on trust and on
+fear. He'll give you food, and drink, and clothes, and all. If you give
+him satisfaction, he'll do more.... Talk of wages, indeed! You don't
+need them.... And a merchant, too, lives in plain Russian style, like
+ourselves; you go with him on a journey--he has tea, and you have it;
+what he eats, you eat. A merchant ... one can put up with; a merchant's
+a very different thing from what a gentleman is; a merchant's not
+whimsical; if he's out of temper, he'll give you a blow, and there it
+ends. He doesn't nag nor sneer.... But with a gentleman it's a woeful
+business! Nothing's as he likes it--this is not right, and that he
+can't fancy. You hand him a glass of water or something to eat: "Ugh,
+the water stinks! positively stinks!" You take it out, stay a minute
+outside the door, and bring it back: "Come, now, that's good; this
+doesn't stink now." And as for the ladies, I tell you, the ladies are
+something beyond everything!... and the young ladies above all!...'
+
+'Fedyushka!' came the fat man's voice from the office.
+
+The clerk went out quickly. I drank a glass of tea, lay down on the
+sofa, and fell asleep. I slept for two hours.
+
+When I woke, I meant to get up, but I was overcome by laziness; I
+closed my eyes, but did not fall asleep again. On the other side of the
+partition, in the office, they were talking in subdued voices.
+Unconsciously I began to listen.
+
+'Quite so, quite so, Nikolai Eremyitch,' one voice was saying; 'quite
+so. One can't but take that into account; yes, certainly!... Hm!' (The
+speaker coughed.)
+
+'You may believe me, Gavrila Antonitch,' replied the fat man's voice:
+'don't I know how things are done here? Judge for yourself.'
+
+'Who does, if you don't, Nikolai Eremyitch? you're, one may say, the
+first person here. Well, then, how's it to be?' pursued the voice I did
+not recognise; 'what decision are we to come to, Nikolai Eremyitch?
+Allow me to put the question.'
+
+'What decision, Gavrila Antonitch? The thing depends, so to say, on
+you; you don't seem over anxious.'
+
+'Upon my word, Nikolai Eremyitch, what do you mean? Our business is
+trading, buying; it's our business to buy. That's what we live by,
+Nikolai Eremyitch, one may say.'
+
+'Eight roubles a measure,' said the fat man emphatically.
+
+A sigh was audible.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch, sir, you ask a heavy price.' 'Impossible, Gavrila
+Antonitch, to do otherwise; I speak as before God Almighty;
+impossible.'
+
+Silence followed.
+
+I got up softly and looked through a crack in the partition. The fat
+man was sitting with his back to me. Facing him sat a merchant, a man
+about forty, lean and pale, who looked as if he had been rubbed with
+oil. He was incessantly fingering his beard, and very rapidly blinking
+and twitching his lips.
+
+'Wonderful the young green crops this year, one may say,' he began
+again; 'I've been going about everywhere admiring them. All the way
+from Voronezh they've come up wonderfully, first-class, one may say.'
+
+'The crops are pretty fair, certainly,' answered the head-clerk; 'but
+you know the saying, Gavrila Antonitch, autumn bids fair, but spring
+may be foul.'
+
+'That's so, indeed, Nikolai Eremyitch; all is in God's hands; it's the
+absolute truth what you've just remarked, sir.... But perhaps your
+visitor's awake now.'
+
+The fat man turned round ... listened....
+
+'No, he's asleep. He may, though....'
+
+He went to the door.
+
+'No, he's asleep,' he repeated and went back to his place.
+
+'Well, so what are we to say, Nikolai Eremyitch?' the merchant began
+again; 'we must bring our little business to a conclusion.... Let it be
+so, Nikolai Eremyitch, let it be so,' he went on, blinking incessantly;
+'two grey notes and a white for your favour, and there' (he nodded in
+the direction of the house), 'six and a half. Done, eh?'
+
+'Four grey notes,' answered the clerk.
+
+'Come, three, then.'
+
+'Four greys, and no white.'
+
+'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Three and a half, and not a farthing less.'
+
+'Three, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'You're not talking sense, Gavrila Antonitch.'
+
+'My, what a pig-headed fellow!' muttered the merchant. 'Then I'd better
+arrange it with the lady herself.'
+
+'That's as you like,' answered the fat man; 'far better, I should say.
+Why should you worry yourself, after all?... Much better, indeed!'
+
+'Well, well! Nikolai Eremyitch. I lost my temper for a minute! That was
+nothing but talk.'
+
+'No, really, why?...'
+
+'Nonsense, I tell you.... I tell you I was joking. Well, take your
+three and a half; there's no doing anything with you.'
+
+'I ought to have got four, but I was in too great a hurry--like an
+ass!' muttered the fat man.
+
+'Then up there at the house, six and a half, Nikolai Eremyitch; the
+corn will be sold for six and a half?'
+
+'Six and a half, as we said already.'
+
+'Well, your hand on that then, Nikolai Eremyitch' (the merchant clapped
+his outstretched fingers into the clerk's palm). 'And good-bye, in
+God's name!' (The merchant got up.) 'So then, Nikolai Eremyitch, sir,
+I'll go now to your lady, and bid them send up my name, and so I'll say
+to her, "Nikolai Eremyitch," I'll say, "has made a bargain with me for
+six and a half."'
+
+'That's what you must say, Gavrila Antonitch.'
+
+'And now, allow me.'
+
+The merchant handed the manager a small roll of notes, bowed, shook his
+head, picked up his hat with two fingers, shrugged his shoulders, and,
+with a sort of undulating motion, went out, his boots creaking after
+the approved fashion. Nikolai Eremyitch went to the wall, and, as far
+as I could make out, began sorting the notes handed him by the
+merchant. A red head, adorned with thick whiskers, was thrust in at the
+door.
+
+'Well?' asked the head; 'all as it should be?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'How much?'
+
+The fat man made an angry gesture with his hand, and pointed to my
+room.
+
+'Ah, all right!' responded the head, and vanished.
+
+The fat man went up to the table, sat down, opened a book, took out a
+reckoning frame, and began shifting the beads to and fro as he counted,
+using not the forefinger but the third finger of his right hand, which
+has a much more showy effect.
+
+The clerk on duty came in.
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Sidor is here from Goloplek.'
+
+'Oh! ask him in. Wait a bit, wait a bit.... First go and look whether
+the strange gentleman's still asleep, or whether he has waked up.'
+
+The clerk on duty came cautiously into my room. I laid my head on my
+game-bag, which served me as a pillow, and closed my eyes.
+
+'He's asleep,' whispered the clerk on duty, returning to the counting-
+house.
+
+The fat man muttered something.
+
+'Well, send Sidor in,' he said at last.
+
+I got up again. A peasant of about thirty, of huge stature, came in--a
+red-cheeked, vigorous-looking fellow, with brown hair, and a short
+curly beard. He crossed himself, praying to the holy image, bowed to
+the head-clerk, held his hat before him in both hands, and stood erect.
+
+'Good day, Sidor,' said the fat man, tapping with the reckoning beads.
+
+'Good-day to you, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Well, what are the roads like?'
+
+'Pretty fair, Nikolai Eremyitch. A bit muddy.' (The peasant spoke
+slowly and not loud.)
+
+'Wife quite well?'
+
+'She's all right!'
+
+The peasant gave a sigh and shifted one leg forward. Nikolai Eremyitch
+put his pen behind his ear, and blew his nose.
+
+'Well, what have you come about?' he proceeded to inquire, putting his
+check handkerchief into his pocket.
+
+'Why, they do say, Nikolai Eremyitch, they're asking for carpenters
+from us.'
+
+'Well, aren't there any among you, hey?'
+
+'To be sure there are, Nikolai Eremyitch; our place is right in the
+woods; our earnings are all from the wood, to be sure. But it's the
+busy time, Nikolai Eremyitch. Where's the time to come from?'
+
+'The time to come from! Busy time! I dare say, you're so eager to work
+for outsiders, and don't care to work for your mistress.... It's all
+the same!'
+
+'The work's all the same, certainly, Nikolai Eremyitch ... but....'
+
+'Well?'
+
+'The pay's ... very....'
+
+'What next! You've been spoiled; that's what it is. Get along with
+you!'
+
+'And what's more, Nikolai Eremyitch, there'll be only a week's work,
+but they'll keep us hanging on a month. One time there's not material
+enough, and another time they'll send us into the garden to weed the
+path.'
+
+'What of it? Our lady herself is pleased to give the order, so it's
+useless you and me talking about it.'
+
+Sidor was silent; he began shifting from one leg to the other.
+
+Nikolai Eremyitch put his head on one side, and began busily playing
+with the reckoning beads.
+
+'Our ... peasants ... Nikolai Eremyitch....' Sidor began at last,
+hesitating over each word; 'sent word to your honour ... there is ...
+see here....' (He thrust his big hand into the bosom of his coat, and
+began to pull out a folded linen kerchief with a red border.)
+
+'What are you thinking of? Goodness, idiot, are you out of your
+senses?' the fat man interposed hurriedly. 'Go on; go to my cottage,'
+he continued, almost shoving the bewildered peasant out; 'ask for my
+wife there ... she'll give you some tea; I'll be round directly; go on.
+For goodness' sake, I tell you, go on.'
+
+Sidor went away.
+
+'Ugh!... what a bear!' the head clerk muttered after him, shaking his
+head, and set to work again on his reckoning frame.
+
+Suddenly shouts of 'Kuprya! Kuprya! there's no knocking down Kuprya!'
+were heard in the street and on the steps, and a little later there
+came into the counting-house a small man of sickly appearance, with an
+extraordinarily long nose and large staring eyes, who carried himself
+with a great air of superiority. He was dressed in a ragged little old
+surtout, with a plush collar and diminutive buttons. He carried a
+bundle of firewood on his shoulder. Five house-serfs were crowding
+round him, all shouting, 'Kuprya! there's no suppressing Kuprya!
+Kuprya's been turned stoker; Kuprya's turned a stoker!' But the man in
+the coat with the plush collar did not pay the slightest attention to
+the uproar made by his companions, and was not in the least out of
+countenance. With measured steps he went up to the stove, flung down
+his load, straightened himself, took out of his tail-pocket a snuff-
+box, and with round eyes began helping himself to a pinch of dry
+trefoil mixed with ashes. At the entrance of this noisy party the fat
+man had at first knitted his brows and risen from his seat, but, seeing
+what it was, he smiled, and only told them not to shout. 'There's a
+sportsman,' said he, 'asleep in the next room.' 'What sort of
+sportsman?' two of them asked with one voice.
+
+'A gentleman.'
+
+'Ah!'
+
+'Let them make a row,' said the man with the plush collar, waving his
+arms; 'what do I care, so long as they don't touch me? They've turned
+me into a stoker....'
+
+'A stoker! a stoker!' the others put in gleefully.
+
+'It's the mistress's orders,' he went on, with a shrug of his
+shoulders; 'but just you wait a bit ... they'll turn you into
+swineherds yet. But I've been a tailor, and a good tailor too, learnt
+my trade in the best house in Moscow, and worked for generals ... and
+nobody can take that from me. And what have you to boast of?... What?
+you're a pack of idlers, not worth your salt; that's what you are! Turn
+me off! I shan't die of hunger; I shall be all right; give me a
+passport. I'd send a good rent home, and satisfy the masters. But what
+would you do? You'd die off like flies, that's what you'd do!'
+
+'That's a nice lie!' interposed a pock-marked lad with white eyelashes,
+a red cravat, and ragged elbows. 'You went off with a passport sharp
+enough, but never a halfpenny of rent did the masters see from you, and
+you never earned a farthing for yourself, you just managed to crawl
+home again and you've never had a new rag on you since.'
+
+'Ah, well, what could one do! Konstantin Narkizitch,' responded Kuprya;
+'a man falls in love--a man's ruined and done for! You go through what
+I have, Konstantin Narkizitch, before you blame me!'
+
+'And you picked out a nice one to fall in love with!--a regular
+fright.'
+
+'No, you must not say that, Konstantin Narkizitch.'
+
+'Who's going to believe that? I've seen her, you know; I saw her with
+my own eyes last year in Moscow.'
+
+'Last year she had gone off a little certainly,' observed Kuprya.
+
+'No, gentlemen, I tell you what,' a tall, thin man, with a face spotted
+with pimples, a valet probably, from his frizzed and pomatumed head,
+remarked in a careless and disdainful voice; 'let Kuprya Afanasyitch
+sing us his song. Come on, now; begin, Kuprya Afanasyitch.
+
+'Yes! yes!' put in the others. 'Hoorah for Alexandra! That's one for
+Kuprya; 'pon my soul ... Sing away, Kuprya!... You're a regular brick,
+Alexandra!' (Serfs often use feminine terminations in referring to a
+man as an expression of endearment.) 'Sing away!'
+
+'This is not the place to sing,' Kuprya replied firmly; 'this is the
+manor counting-house.'
+
+'And what's that to do with you? you've got your eye on a place as
+clerk, eh?' answered Konstantin with a coarse laugh. 'That's what it
+is!'
+
+'Everything rests with the mistress,' observed the poor wretch.
+
+'There, that's what he's got his eye on! a fellow like him! oo! oo! a!'
+
+And they all roared; some rolled about with merriment. Louder than all
+laughed a lad of fifteen, probably the son of an aristocrat among the
+house-serfs; he wore a waistcoat with bronze buttons, and a cravat of
+lilac colour, and had already had time to fill out his waistcoat.
+
+'Come tell us, confess now, Kuprya,' Nikolai Eremyitch began
+complacently, obviously tickled and diverted himself; 'is it bad being
+stoker? Is it an easy job, eh?'
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch,' began Kuprya, 'you're head-clerk among us now,
+certainly; there's no disputing that, no; but you know you have been in
+disgrace yourself, and you too have lived in a peasant's hut.'
+
+'You'd better look out and not forget yourself in my place,' the fat
+man interrupted emphatically; 'people joke with a fool like you; you
+ought, you fool, to have sense, and be grateful to them for taking
+notice of a fool like you.'
+
+'It was a slip of the tongue, Nikolai Eremyitch; I beg your pardon....'
+
+'Yes, indeed, a slip of the tongue.'
+
+The door opened and a little page ran in.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch, mistress wants you.'
+
+'Who's with the mistress?' he asked the page.
+
+'Aksinya Nikitishna, and a merchant from Venev.'
+
+'I'll be there this minute. And you, mates,' he continued in a
+persuasive voice, 'better move off out of here with the newly-appointed
+stoker; if the German pops in, he'll make a complaint for certain.'
+
+The fat man smoothed his hair, coughed into his hand, which was almost
+completely hidden in his coat-sleeve, buttoned himself, and set off
+with rapid strides to see the lady of the manor. In a little while the
+whole party trailed out after him, together with Kuprya. My old friend,
+the clerk-on duty, was left alone. He set to work mending the pens, and
+dropped asleep in his chair. A few flies promptly seized the
+opportunity and settled on his mouth. A mosquito alighted on his
+forehead, and, stretching its legs out with a regular motion, slowly
+buried its sting into his flabby flesh. The same red head with whiskers
+showed itself again at the door, looked in, looked again, and then came
+into the office, together with the rather ugly body belonging to it.
+
+'Fedyushka! eh, Fedyushka! always asleep,' said the head.
+
+The clerk on duty opened his eyes and got up from his seat.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch has gone to the mistress?'
+
+'Yes, Vassily Nikolaevitch.'
+
+'Ah! ah!' thought I; 'this is he, the head cashier.'
+
+The head cashier began walking about the room. He really slunk rather
+than walked, and altogether resembled a cat. An old black frock-coat
+with very narrow skirts hung about his shoulders; he kept one hand in
+his bosom, while the other was for ever fumbling about his high, narrow
+horse-hair collar, and he turned his head with a certain effort. He
+wore noiseless kid boots, and trod very softly.
+
+'The landowner, Yagushkin, was asking for you to-day,' added the clerk
+on duty.
+
+'Hm, asking for me? What did he say?'
+
+'Said he'd go to Tyutyurov this evening and would wait for you. "I want
+to discuss some business with Vassily Nikolaevitch," said he, but what
+the business was he didn't say; "Vassily Nikolaevitch will know," says
+he.'
+
+'Hm!' replied the head cashier, and he went up to the window.
+
+'Is Nikolai Eremyitch in the counting-house?' a loud voice was heard
+asking in the outer room, and a tall man, apparently angry, with an
+irregular but bold and expressive face, and rather clean in his dress,
+stepped over the threshold.
+
+'Isn't he here?' he inquired, looking rapidly round.
+
+'Nikolai Eremyitch is with the mistress,' responded the cashier. 'Tell
+me what you want, Pavel Andreitch; you can tell me.... What is it you
+want?'
+
+'What do I want? You want to know what I want?' (The cashier gave a
+sickly nod.) 'I want to give him a lesson, the fat, greasy villain, the
+scoundrelly tell-tale!... I'll give him a tale to tell!'
+
+Pavel flung himself into a chair.
+
+'What are you saying, Pavel Andreitch! Calm yourself.... Aren't you
+ashamed? Don't forget whom you're talking about, Pavel Andreitch!'
+lisped the cashier.
+
+'Forget whom I'm talking about? What do I care for his being made head-
+clerk? A fine person they've found to promote, there's no denying that!
+They've let the goat loose in the kitchen garden, you may say!'
+
+'Hush, hush, Pavel Andreitch, hush! drop that ... what rubbish are you
+talking?'
+
+'So Master Fox is beginning to fawn? I will wait for him,' Pavel said
+with passion, and he struck a blow on the table. 'Ah, here he's
+coming!' he added with a look at the window; 'speak of the devil. With
+your kind permission!' (He, got up.)
+
+Nikolai Eremyitch came into the counting-house. His face was shining
+with satisfaction, but he was rather taken aback at seeing Pavel
+Andreitch.
+
+'Good day to you, Nikolai Eremyitch,' said Pavel in a significant tone,
+advancing deliberately to meet him.
+
+The head-clerk made no reply. The face of the merchant showed itself in
+the doorway.
+
+'What, won't you deign to answer me?' pursued Pavel. 'But no ... no,'
+he added; 'that's not it; there's no getting anything by shouting and
+abuse. No, you'd better tell me in a friendly way, Nikolai Eremyitch;
+what do you persecute me for? what do you want to ruin me for? Come,
+speak, speak.'
+
+'This is no fit place to come to an understanding with you,' the head-
+clerk answered in some agitation, 'and no fit time. But I must say I
+wonder at one thing: what makes you suppose I want to ruin you, or that
+I'm persecuting you? And if you come to that, how can I persecute you?
+You're not in my counting-house.'
+
+'I should hope not,' answered Pavel; 'that would be the last straw! But
+why are you hum-bugging, Nikolai Eremyitch?... You understand me, you
+know.'
+
+'No, I don't understand.'
+
+'No, you do understand.'
+
+'No, by God, I don't understand!'
+
+'Swearing too! Well, tell us, since it's come to that: have you no fear
+of God? Why can't you let the poor girl live in peace? What do you want
+of her?'
+
+'Whom are you talking of?' the fat man asked with feigned amazement.
+
+'Ugh! doesn't know; what next? I'm talking of Tatyana. Have some fear
+of God--what do you want to revenge yourself for? You ought to be
+ashamed: a married man like you, with children as big as I am; it's a
+very different thing with me.... I mean marriage: I'm acting straight-
+forwardly.'
+
+'How am I to blame in that, Pavel Andreitch? The mistress won't permit
+you to marry; it's her seignorial will! What have I to do with it?'
+
+'Why, haven't you been plotting with that old hag, the housekeeper, eh?
+Haven't you been telling tales, eh? Tell me, aren't you bringing all
+sorts of stories up against the defenceless girl? I suppose it's not
+your doing that she's been degraded from laundrymaid to washing dishes
+in the scullery? And it's not your doing that she's beaten and dressed
+in sackcloth?... You ought to be ashamed, you ought to be ashamed--an
+old man like you! You know there's a paralytic stroke always hanging
+over you.... You will have to answer to God.'
+
+'You're abusive, Pavel Andreitch, you're abusive.... You shan't have a
+chance to be insolent much longer.'
+
+Pavel fired up.
+
+'What? You dare to threaten me?' he said passionately. 'You think I'm
+afraid of you. No, my man, I'm not come to that! What have I to be
+afraid of?... I can make my bread everywhere. For you, now, it's
+another thing! It's only here you can live and tell tales, and
+filch....'
+
+'Fancy the conceit of the fellow!' interrupted the clerk, who was also
+beginning to lose patience; 'an apothecary's assistant, simply an
+apothecary's assistant, a wretched leech; and listen to him--fie upon
+you! you're a high and mighty personage!'
+
+'Yes, an apothecary's assistant, and except for this apothecary's
+assistant you'd have been rotting in the graveyard by now.... It was
+some devil drove me to cure him,' he added between his teeth.
+
+'You cured me?... No, you tried to poison me; you dosed me with aloes,'
+the clerk put in.
+
+'What was I to do if nothing but aloes had any effect on you?'
+
+'The use of aloes is forbidden by the Board of Health,' pursued
+Nikolai. 'I'll lodge a complaint against you yet.... You tried to
+compass my death--that was what you did! But the Lord suffered it not.'
+
+'Hush, now, that's enough, gentlemen,' the cashier was beginning....
+
+'Stand off!' bawled the clerk. 'He tried to poison me! Do you
+understand that?'
+
+'That's very likely.... Listen, Nikolai Eremyitch,' Pavel began in
+despairing accents. 'For the last time, I beg you.... You force me to
+it--can't stand it any longer. Let us alone, do you hear? or else, by
+God, it'll go ill with one or other of us--I mean with you!'
+
+The fat man flew into a rage.
+
+'I'm not afraid of you!' he shouted; 'do you hear, milksop? I got the
+better of your father; I broke his horns--a warning to you; take care!'
+
+'Don't talk of my father, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
+
+'Get away! who are you to give me orders?'
+
+'I tell you, don't talk of him!'
+
+'And I tell you, don't forget yourself.... However necessary you think
+yourself, if our lady has a choice between us, it's not you'll be kept,
+my dear! None's allowed to mutiny, mind!' (Pavel was shaking with
+fury.) 'As for the wench, Tatyana, she deserves ... wait a bit, she'll
+get something worse!'
+
+Pavel dashed forward with uplifted fists, and the clerk rolled heavily
+on the floor.
+
+'Handcuff him, handcuff him,' groaned Nikolai Eremyitch....
+
+I won't take upon myself to describe the end of this scene; I fear I
+have wounded the reader's delicate susceptibilities as it is.
+
+The same day I returned home. A week later I heard that Madame
+Losnyakov had kept both Pavel and Nikolai in her service, but had sent
+away the girl Tatyana; it appeared she was not wanted.
+
+
+
+                                   XII
+
+                                 BIRYUK
+
+
+I was coming back from hunting one evening alone in a racing droshky. I
+was six miles from home; my good trotting mare galloped bravely along
+the dusty road, pricking up her ears with an occasional snort; my weary
+dog stuck close to the hind-wheels, as though he were fastened there. A
+tempest was coming on. In front, a huge, purplish storm-cloud slowly
+rose from behind the forest; long grey rain-clouds flew over my head
+and to meet me; the willows stirred and whispered restlessly. The
+suffocating heat changed suddenly to a damp chilliness; the darkness
+rapidly thickened. I gave the horse a lash with the reins, descended a
+steep slope, pushed across a dry water-course overgrown with brushwood,
+mounted the hill, and drove into the forest. The road ran before me,
+bending between thick hazel bushes, now enveloped in darkness; I
+advanced with difficulty. The droshky jumped up and down over the hard
+roots of the ancient oaks and limes, which were continually intersected
+by deep ruts--the tracks of cart wheels; my horse began to stumble. A
+violent wind suddenly began to roar overhead; the trees blustered; big
+drops of rain fell with slow tap and splash on the leaves; there came a
+flash of lightning and a clap of thunder. The rain fell in torrents. I
+went on a step or so, and soon was forced to stop; my horse foundered;
+I could not see an inch before me. I managed to take refuge somehow in
+a spreading bush. Crouching down and covering my face, I waited
+patiently for the storm to blow over, when suddenly, in a flash of
+lightning, I saw a tall figure on the road. I began to stare intently
+in that direction--the figure seemed to have sprung out of the ground
+near my droshky.
+
+'Who's that?' inquired a ringing voice.
+
+'Why, who are you?'
+
+'I'm the forester here.'
+
+I mentioned my name.
+
+'Oh, I know! Are you on your way home?'
+
+'Yes. But, you see, in such a storm....'
+
+'Yes, there is a storm,' replied the voice.
+
+A pale flash of lightning lit up the forester from head to foot; a
+brief crashing clap of thunder followed at once upon it. The rain
+lashed with redoubled force.
+
+'It won't be over just directly,' the forester went on.
+
+'What's to be done?'
+
+'I'll take you to my hut, if you like,' he said abruptly.
+
+'That would be a service.'
+
+'Please to take your seat'
+
+He went up to the mare's head, took her by the bit, and pulled her up.
+We set off. I held on to the cushion of the droshky, which rocked 'like
+a boat on the sea,' and called my dog. My poor mare splashed with
+difficulty through the mud, slipped and stumbled; the forester hovered
+before the shafts to right and to left like a ghost. We drove rather a
+long while; at last my guide stopped. 'Here we are home, sir,' he
+observed in a quiet voice. The gate creaked; some puppies barked a
+welcome. I raised my head, and in a flash of lightning I made out a
+small hut in the middle of a large yard, fenced in with hurdles. From
+the one little window there was a dim light. The forester led his horse
+up to the steps and knocked at the door. 'Coming, coming!' we heard in
+a little shrill voice; there was the patter of bare feet, the bolt
+creaked, and a girl of twelve, in a little old smock tied round the
+waist with list, appeared in the doorway with a lantern in her hand.
+
+'Show the gentleman a light,' he said to her 'and I will put your
+droshky in the shed.'
+
+The little girl glanced at me, and went into the hut. I followed her.
+
+The forester's hut consisted of one room, smoky, low-pitched, and
+empty, without curtains or partition. A tattered sheepskin hung on the
+wall. On the bench lay a single-barrelled gun; in the corner lay a heap
+of rags; two great pots stood near the oven. A pine splinter was
+burning on the table flickering up and dying down mournfully. In the
+very middle of the hut hung a cradle, suspended from the end of a long
+horizontal pole. The little girl put out the lantern, sat down on a
+tiny stool, and with her right hand began swinging the cradle, while
+with her left she attended to the smouldering pine splinter. I looked
+round--my heart sank within me: it's not cheering to go into a
+peasant's hut at night. The baby in the cradle breathed hard and fast.
+
+'Are you all alone here?' I asked the little girl.
+
+'Yes,' she uttered, hardly audibly.
+
+'You're the forester's daughter?'
+
+'Yes,' she whispered.
+
+The door creaked, and the forester, bending his head, stepped across
+the threshold. He lifted the lantern from the floor, went up to the
+table, and lighted a candle.
+
+'I dare say you're not used to the splinter light?' said he, and he
+shook back his curls.
+
+I looked at him. Rarely has it been my fortune to behold such a comely
+creature. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and in marvellous proportion.
+His powerful muscles stood out in strong relief under his wet homespun
+shirt. A curly, black beard hid half of his stern and manly face; small
+brown eyes looked out boldly from under broad eyebrows which met in the
+middle. He stood before me, his arms held lightly akimbo.
+
+I thanked him, and asked his name.
+
+'My name's Foma,' he answered, 'and my nickname's Biryuk' (_i.e._
+wolf). [Footnote: The name Biryuk is used in the Orel province to
+denote a solitary, misanthropic man.--_Author's Note_.]
+
+'Oh, you're Biryuk.'
+
+I looked with redoubled curiosity at him. From my Yermolaï and others I
+had often heard stories about the forester Biryuk, whom all the
+peasants of the surrounding districts feared as they feared fire.
+According to them there had never been such a master of his business in
+the world before. 'He won't let you carry off a handful of brushwood;
+he'll drop upon you like a fall of snow, whatever time it may be, even
+in the middle of the night, and you needn't think of resisting him--
+he's strong, and cunning as the devil.... And there's no getting at him
+anyhow; neither by brandy nor by money; there's no snare he'll walk
+into. More than once good folks have planned to put him out of the
+world, but no--it's never come off.'
+
+That was how the neighbouring peasants spoke of Biryuk.
+
+'So you're Biryuk,' I repeated; 'I've heard talk of you, brother. They
+say you show no mercy to anyone.'
+
+'I do my duty,' he answered grimly; 'it's not right to eat the master's
+bread for nothing.'
+
+He took an axe from his girdle and began splitting splinters.
+
+'Have you no wife?' I asked him.
+
+'No,' he answered, with a vigorous sweep of the axe.
+
+'She's dead, I suppose?'
+
+'No ... yes ... she's dead,' he added, and turned away. I was silent;
+he raised his eyes and looked at me.
+
+'She ran away with a travelling pedlar,' he brought out with a bitter
+smile. The little girl hung her head; the baby waked up and began
+crying; the little girl went to the cradle. 'There, give it him,' said
+Biryuk, thrusting a dirty feeding-bottle into her hand. 'Him, too, she
+abandoned,' he went on in an undertone, pointing to the baby. He went
+up to the door, stopped, and turned round.
+
+'A gentleman like you,' he began, 'wouldn't care for our bread, I dare
+say, and except bread, I've--'
+
+'I'm not hungry.'
+
+'Well, that's for you to say. I would have heated the samovar, but I've
+no tea.... I'll go and see how your horse is getting on.'
+
+He went out and slammed the door. I looked round again, the hut struck
+me as more melancholy than ever. The bitter smell of stale smoke choked
+my breathing unpleasantly. The little girl did not stir from her place,
+and did not raise her eyes; from time to time she jogged the cradle,
+and timidly pulled her slipping smock up on to shoulder; her bare legs
+hung motionless.
+
+'What's your name?' I asked her.
+
+'Ulita,' she said, her mournful little face drooping more than ever.
+
+The forester came in and sat down on the bench.
+
+'The storm 's passing over,' he observed, after a brief silence; 'if
+you wish it, I will guide you out of the forest.'
+
+I got up; Biryuk took his gun and examined the firepan.
+
+'What's that for?' I inquired.
+
+'There's mischief in the forest.... They're cutting a tree down on
+Mares' Ravine,' he added, in reply to my look of inquiry.
+
+'Could you hear it from here?'
+
+'I can hear it outside.'
+
+We went out together. The rain had ceased. Heavy masses of storm-cloud
+were still huddled in the distance; from time to time there were long
+flashes of lightning; but here and there overhead the dark blue sky was
+already visible; stars twinkled through the swiftly flying clouds. The
+outline of the trees, drenched with rain, and stirred by the wind,
+began to stand out in the darkness. We listened. The forester took off
+his cap and bent his head.... 'Th ... there!' he said suddenly, and he
+stretched out his hand: 'see what a night he's pitched on.' I had heard
+nothing but the rustle of the leaves. Biryuk led the mare out of the
+shed. 'But, perhaps,' he added aloud, 'this way I shall miss him.'
+'I'll go with you ... if you like?' 'Certainly,' he answered, and he
+backed the horse in again; 'we'll catch him in a trice, and then I'll
+take you. Let's be off.' We started, Biryuk in front, I following him.
+Heaven only knows how he found out his way, but he only stopped once or
+twice, and then merely to listen to the strokes of the axe. 'There,' he
+muttered, 'do you hear? do you hear?' 'Why, where?' Biryuk shrugged his
+shoulders. We went down into the ravine; the wind was still for an
+instant; the rhythmical strokes reached my hearing distinctly. Biryuk
+glanced at me and shook his head. We went farther through the wet
+bracken and nettles. A slow muffled crash was heard....
+
+'He's felled it,' muttered Biryuk. Meantime the sky had grown clearer
+and clearer; there was a faint light in the forest. We clambered at
+last out of the ravine.
+
+'Wait here a little,' the forester whispered to me. He bent down, and
+raising his gun above his head, vanished among the bushes. I began
+listening with strained attention. Across the continual roar of the
+wind faint sounds from close by reached me; there was a cautious blow
+of an axe on the brushwood, the crash of wheels, the snort of a
+horse....
+
+'Where are you off to? Stop!' the iron voice of Biryuk thundered
+suddenly. Another voice was heard in a pitiful shriek, like a trapped
+hare.... _A struggle was beginning._
+
+'No, no, you've made a mistake,' Biryuk declared panting; 'you're not
+going to get off....' I rushed in the direction of the noise, and ran
+up to the scene of the conflict, stumbling at every step. A felled tree
+lay on the ground, and near it Biryuk was busily engaged holding the
+thief down and binding his hands behind his back with a kerchief. I
+came closer. Biryuk got up and set him on his feet. I saw a peasant
+drenched with rain, in tatters, and with a long dishevelled beard. A
+sorry little nag, half covered with a stiff mat, was standing by,
+together with a rough cart. The forester did not utter a word; the
+peasant too was silent; his head was shaking.
+
+'Let him go,' I whispered in Biryuk's ears; 'I'll pay for the tree.'
+
+Without a word Biryuk took the horse by the mane with his left hand; in
+his right he held the thief by the belt. 'Now turn round, you rat!' he
+said grimly.
+
+'The bit of an axe there, take it,' muttered the peasant.
+
+'No reason to lose it, certainly,' said the forester, and he picked up
+the axe. We started. I walked behind.... The rain began sprinkling
+again, and soon fell in torrents. With difficulty we made our way to
+the hut. Biryuk pushed the captured horse into the middle of the yard,
+led the peasant into the room, loosened the knot in the kerchief, and
+made him sit down in a corner. The little girl, who had fallen asleep
+near the oven, jumped up and began staring at us in silent terror. I
+sat down on the locker.
+
+'Ugh, what a downpour!' remarked the forester; 'you will have to wait
+till it's over. Won't you lie down?'
+
+'Thanks.'
+
+'I would have shut him in the store loft, on your honour's account,' he
+went on, indicating the peasant; 'but you see the bolt--'
+
+'Leave him here; don't touch him,' I interrupted.
+
+The peasant stole a glance at me from under his brows. I vowed inwardly
+to set the poor wretch free, come what might. He sat without stirring
+on the locker. By the light of the lantern I could make out his worn,
+wrinkled face, his overhanging yellow eyebrows, his restless eyes, his
+thin limbs.... The little girl lay down on the floor, just at his feet,
+and again dropped asleep. Biryuk sat at the table, his head in his
+hands. A cricket chirped in the corner ... the rain pattered on the
+roof and streamed down the windows; we were all silent.
+
+'Foma Kuzmitch,' said the peasant suddenly in a thick, broken voice;
+'Foma Kuzmitch!'
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Let me go.'
+
+Biryuk made no answer.
+
+'Let me go ... hunger drove me to it; let me go.'
+
+'I know you,' retorted the forester severely; 'your set's all alike--
+all thieves.'
+
+'Let me go,' repeated the peasant. 'Our manager ... we 're ruined,
+that's what it is--let me go!'
+
+'Ruined, indeed!... Nobody need steal.'
+
+'Let me go, Foma Kuzmitch.... Don't destroy me. Your manager, you know
+yourself, will have no mercy on me; that's what it is.'
+
+Biryuk turned away. The peasant was shivering as though he were in the
+throes of fever. His head was shaking, and his breathing came in broken
+gasps.
+
+'Let me go,' he repeated with mournful desperation. 'Let me go; by God,
+let me go! I'll pay; see, by God, I will! By God, it was through
+hunger!... the little ones are crying, you know yourself. It's hard for
+us, see.'
+
+'You needn't go stealing, for all that.'
+
+'My little horse,' the peasant went on, 'my poor little horse, at least
+... our only beast ... let it go.'
+
+'I tell you I can't. I'm not a free man; I'm made responsible. You
+oughtn't to be spoilt, either.'
+
+'Let me go! It's through want, Foma Kuzmitch, want--and nothing else--
+let me go!'
+
+'I know you!'
+
+'Oh, let me go!'
+
+'Ugh, what's the use of talking to you! sit quiet, or else you'll catch
+it. Don't you see the gentleman, hey?'
+
+The poor wretch hung his head.... Biryuk yawned and laid his head on
+the table. The rain still persisted. I was waiting to see what would
+happen.
+
+Suddenly the peasant stood erect. His eyes were glittering, and his
+face flushed dark red. 'Come, then, here; strike yourself, here,' he
+began, his eyes puckering up and the corners of his mouth dropping;
+'come, cursed destroyer of men's souls! drink Christian blood, drink.'
+
+The forester turned round.
+
+'I'm speaking to you, Asiatic, blood-sucker, you!'
+
+'Are you drunk or what, to set to being abusive?' began the forester,
+puzzled. 'Are you out of your senses, hey?'
+
+'Drunk! not at your expense, cursed destroyer of souls--brute, brute,
+brute!'
+
+'Ah, you----I'll show you!'
+
+'What's that to me? It's all one; I'm done for; what can I do without a
+home? Kill me--it's the same in the end; whether it's through hunger or
+like this--it's all one. Ruin us all--wife, children ... kill us all at
+once. But, wait a bit, we'll get at you!'
+
+Biryuk got up.
+
+'Kill me, kill me,' the peasant went on in savage tones; 'kill me;
+come, come, kill me....' (The little girl jumped up hastily from the
+ground and stared at him.) 'Kill me, kill me!'
+
+'Silence!' thundered the forester, and he took two steps forward.
+
+'Stop, Foma, stop,' I shouted; 'let him go.... Peace be with him.'
+
+'I won't be silent,' the luckless wretch went on. 'It's all the same--
+ruin anyway--you destroyer of souls, you brute; you've not come to ruin
+yet.... But wait a bit; you won't have long to boast of; they'll wring
+your neck; wait a bit!'
+
+Biryuk clutched him by the shoulder. I rushed to help the peasant....
+
+'Don't touch him, master!' the forester shouted to me.
+
+I should not have feared his threats, and already had my fist in the
+air; but to my intense amazement, with one pull he tugged the kerchief
+off the peasant's elbows, took him by the scruff of the neck, thrust
+his cap over his eyes, opened the door, and shoved him out.
+
+'Go to the devil with your horse!' he shouted after him; 'but mind,
+next time....'
+
+He came back into the hut and began rummaging in the corner.
+
+'Well, Biryuk,' I said at last, 'you've astonished me; I see you're a
+splendid fellow.'
+
+'Oh, stop that, master,' he cut me short with an air of vexation;
+'please don't speak of it. But I'd better see you on your way now,' he
+added; 'I suppose you won't wait for this little rain....'
+
+In the yard there was the rattle of the wheels of the peasant's cart.
+
+'He's off, then!' he muttered; 'but next time!'
+
+Half-an-hour later he parted from me at the edge of the wood.
+
+
+
+                                  XIII
+
+                         TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
+
+
+I have already had the honour, kind readers, of introducing to you
+several of my neighbours; let me now seize a favourable opportunity (it
+is always a favourable opportunity with us writers) to make known to
+you two more gentlemen, on whose lands I often used to go shooting--
+very worthy, well-intentioned persons, who enjoy universal esteem in
+several districts.
+
+First I will describe to you the retired General-major Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch Hvalinsky. Picture to yourselves a tall and once slender
+man, now inclined to corpulence, but not in the least decrepit or even
+elderly, a man of ripe age; in his very prime, as they say. It is true
+the once regular and even now rather pleasing features of his face
+have undergone some change; his cheeks are flabby; there are close
+wrinkles like rays about his eyes; a few teeth are not, as Saadi,
+according to Pushkin, used to say; his light brown hair--at least, all
+that is left of it--has assumed a purplish hue, thanks to a composition
+bought at the Romyon horse-fair of a Jew who gave himself out as an
+Armenian; but Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch has a smart walk and a ringing
+laugh, jingles his spurs and curls his moustaches, and finally speaks
+of himself as an old cavalry man, whereas we all know that really old
+men never talk of being old. He usually wears a frock-coat buttoned up
+to the top, a high cravat, starched collars, and grey sprigged trousers
+of a military cut; he wears his hat tilted over his forehead, leaving
+all the back of his head exposed. He is a good-natured man, but of
+rather curious notions and principles. For instance, he can never treat
+noblemen of no wealth or standing as equals. When he talks to them, he
+usually looks sideways at them, his cheek pressed hard against his
+stiff white collar, and suddenly he turns and silently fixes them with
+a clear stony stare, while he moves the whole skin of his head under
+his hair; he even has a way of his own in pronouncing many words; he
+never says, for instance: 'Thank you, Pavel Vasilyitch,' or 'This way,
+if you please, Mihalo Ivanitch,' but always 'Fanks, Pa'l 'Asilitch,' or
+''Is wy, please, Mil' 'Vanitch.' With persons of the lower grades of
+society, his behaviour is still more quaint; he never looks at them at
+all, and before making known his desires to them, or giving an order,
+he repeats several times in succession, with a puzzled, far-away air:
+'What's your name?... what, what's your name?' with extraordinary sharp
+emphasis on the first word, which gives the phrase a rather close
+resemblance to the call of a quail. He is very fussy and terribly
+close-fisted, but manages his land badly; he had chosen as overseer on
+his estate a retired quartermaster, a Little Russian, and a man of
+really exceptional stupidity. None of us, though, in the management of
+land, has ever surpassed a certain great Petersburg dignitary, who,
+having perceived from the reports of his steward that the cornkilns in
+which the corn was dried on his estate were often liable to catch fire,
+whereby he lost a great deal of grain, gave the strictest orders that
+for the future they should not put the sheaves in till the fire had
+been completely put out! This same great personage conceived the
+brilliant idea of sowing his fields with poppies, as the result of an
+apparently simple calculation; poppy being dearer than rye, he argued,
+it is consequently more profitable to sow poppy. He it was, too, who
+ordered his women serfs to wear tiaras after a pattern bespoken from
+Moscow; and to this day the peasant women on his lands do actually wear
+the tiaras, only they wear them over their skull-caps.... But let us
+return to Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch is a
+devoted admirer of the fair sex, and directly he catches sight of a
+pretty woman in the promenade of his district town, he is promptly off
+in pursuit, but falls at once into a sort of limping gait--that is the
+remarkable feature of the case. He is fond of playing cards, but only
+with people of a lower standing; they toady him with 'Your Excellency'
+in every sentence, while he can scold them and find fault to his
+heart's content. When he chances to play with the governor or any
+official personage, a marvellous change comes over him; he is all nods
+and smiles; he looks them in the face; he seems positively flowing with
+honey.... He even loses without grumbling. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch
+does not read much; when he is reading he incessantly works his
+moustaches and eyebrows up and down, as if a wave were passing from
+below upwards over his face. This undulatory motion in Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch's face is especially marked when (before company, of
+course) he happens to be reading the columns of the _Journal des
+Débats_. In the assemblies of nobility he plays a rather important
+part, but on grounds of economy he declines the honourable dignity of
+marshal. 'Gentlemen,' he usually says to the noblemen who press that
+office upon him, and he speaks in a voice filled with condescension and
+self-sufficiency: 'much indebted for the honour; but I have made up my
+mind to consecrate my leisure to solitude.' And, as he utters these
+words, he turns his head several times to right and to left, and then,
+with a dignified air, adjusts his chin and his cheek over his cravat.
+In his young days he served as adjutant to some very important person,
+whom he never speaks of except by his Christian name and patronymic;
+they do say he fulfilled other functions than those of an adjutant;
+that, for instance, in full parade get-up, buttoned up to the chin, he
+had to lather his chief in his bath--but one can't believe everything
+one hears. General Hvalinsky is not, however, fond of talking himself
+about his career in the army, which is certainly rather curious; it
+seems that he had never seen active service. General Hvalinsky lives in
+a small house alone; he has never known the joys of married life, and
+consequently he still regards himself as a possible match, and indeed a
+very eligible one. But he has a house-keeper, a dark-eyed, dark-browed,
+plump, fresh-looking woman of five-and-thirty with a moustache; she
+wears starched dresses even on week-days, and on Sundays puts on muslin
+sleeves as well. Vyatcheslav Ilarionovitch is at his best at the large
+invitation dinners given by gentlemen of the neighbourhood in honour of
+the governor and other dignitaries: then he is, one may say, in his
+natural element. On these occasions he usually sits, if not on the
+governor's right hand, at least at no great distance from him; at the
+beginning of dinner he is more disposed to nurse his sense of personal
+dignity, and, sitting back in his chair, he loftily scans the necks and
+stand-up collars of the guests, without turning his head, but towards
+the end of the meal he unbends, begins smiling in all directions (he
+had been all smiles for the governor from the first), and sometimes
+even proposes the toast in honour of the fair sex, the ornament of our
+planet, as he says. General Hvalinsky shows to advantage too at all
+solemn public functions, inspections, assemblies, and exhibitions; no
+one in church goes up for the benediction with such style. Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch's servants are never noisy and clamorous on the breaking
+up of assemblies or in crowded thoroughfares; as they make a way for
+him through the crowd or call his carriage, they say in an agreeable
+guttural baritone: 'By your leave, by your leave allow General
+Hvalinsky to pass,' or 'Call for General Hvalinsky's carriage.' ...
+Hvalinsky's carriage is, it must be admitted, of a rather queer design,
+and the footmen's liveries are rather threadbare (that they are grey,
+with red facings, it is hardly necessary to remark); his horses too
+have seen a good deal of hard service in their time; but Vyatcheslav
+Ilarionovitch has no pretensions to splendour, and goes so far as to
+think it beneath his rank to make an ostentation of wealth. Hvalinsky
+has no special gift of eloquence, or possibly has no opportunity of
+displaying his rhetorical powers, as he has a particular aversion, not
+only for disputing, but for discussion in general, and assiduously
+avoids long conversation of all sorts, especially with young people.
+This was certainly judicious on his part; the worst of having to do
+with the younger generation is that they are so ready to forget the
+proper respect and submission due to their superiors. In the presence
+of persons of high rank Hvalinsky is for the most part silent, while
+with persons of a lower rank, whom to judge by appearances he despises,
+though he constantly associates with them, his remarks are sharp and
+abrupt, expressions such as the following occurring incessantly:
+'That's a piece of folly, what you're saying now,' or 'I feel myself
+compelled, sir, to remind you,' or 'You ought to realise with whom you
+are dealing,' and so on. He is peculiarly dreaded by post-masters,
+officers of the local boards, and superintendents of posting stations.
+He never entertains any one in his house, and lives, as the rumour
+goes, like a screw. For all that, he's an excellent country gentleman,
+'An old soldier, a disinterested fellow, a man of principle, _vieux
+grognard_,' his neighbours say of him. The provincial prosecutor alone
+permits himself to smile when General Hvalinsky's excellent and solid
+qualities are referred to before him--but what will not envy drive men
+to!...
+
+However, we will pass now to another landed proprietor.
+
+Mardary Apollonitch Stegunov has no sort of resemblance to Hvalinsky; I
+hardly think he has ever served under government in any capacity, and
+he has never been reckoned handsome. Mardary Apollonitch is a little,
+fattish, bald old man of a respectable corpulence, with a double chin
+and little soft hands. He is very hospitable and jovial; lives, as the
+saying is, for his comfort; summer and winter alike, he wears a striped
+wadded dressing-gown. There's only one thing in which he is like
+General Hvalinsky; he too is a bachelor. He owns five hundred souls.
+Mardary Apollonitch's interest in his estate is of a rather superficial
+description; not to be behind the age, he ordered a threshing-machine
+from Butenop's in Moscow, locked it up in a barn, and then felt his
+mind at rest on the subject. Sometimes on a fine summer day he would
+have out his racing droshky, and drive off to his fields, to look at
+the crops and gather corn-flowers. Mardary Apollonitch's existence is
+carried on in quite the old style. His house is of an old-fashioned
+construction; in the hall there is, of course, a smell of kvas, tallow
+candles, and leather; close at hand, on the right, there is a sideboard
+with pipes and towels; in the dining-room, family portraits, flies, a
+great pot of geraniums, and a squeaky piano; in the drawing-room, three
+sofas, three tables, two looking-glasses, and a wheezy clock of
+tarnished enamel with engraved bronze hands; in the study, a table
+piled up with papers, and a bluish-coloured screen covered with
+pictures cut out of various works of last century; a bookcase full of
+musty books, spiders, and black dust; a puffy armchair; an Italian
+window; a sealed-up door into the garden.... Everything, in short, just
+as it always is. Mardary Apollonitch has a multitude of servants, all
+dressed in the old-fashioned style; in long blue full coats, with high
+collars, shortish pantaloons of a muddy hue, and yellow waistcoats.
+They address visitors as 'father.' His estate is under the
+superintendence of an agent, a peasant with a beard that covers the
+whole of his sheepskin; his household is managed by a stingy, wrinkled
+old woman, whose face is always tied up in a cinnamon-coloured
+handkerchief. In Mardary Apollonitch's stable there are thirty horses
+of various kinds; he drives out in a coach built on the estate, that
+weighs four tons. He receives visitors very cordially, and entertains
+them sumptuously; in other words, thanks to the stupefying powers of
+our national cookery, he deprives them of all capacity for doing
+anything but playing preference. For his part, he never does anything,
+and has even given up reading the _Dream-book_. But there are a good
+many of our landed gentry in Russia exactly like this. It will be
+asked: 'What is my object in talking about him?...' Well, by way of
+answering that question, let me describe to you one of my visits at
+Mardary Apollonitch's.
+
+I arrived one summer evening at seven o'clock. An evening service was
+only just over; the priest, a young man, apparently very timid, and
+only lately come from the seminary, was sitting in the drawing-room
+near the door, on the extreme edge of a chair. Mardary Apollonitch
+received me as usual, very cordially; he was genuinely delighted to see
+any visitor, and indeed he was the most good-natured of men altogether.
+The priest got up and took his hat.
+
+'Wait a bit, wait a bit, father,' said Mardary Apollonitch, not yet
+leaving go of my hand; 'don't go ... I have sent for some vodka for
+you.'
+
+'I never drink it, sir,' the priest muttered in confusion, blushing up
+to his ears.
+
+'What nonsense!' answered Mardary Apollonitch; 'Mishka! Yushka! vodka
+for the father!'
+
+Yushka, a tall, thin old man of eighty, came in with a glass of vodka
+on a dark-coloured tray, with a few patches of flesh-colour on it, all
+that was left of the original enamel.
+
+The priest began to decline.
+
+'Come, drink it up, father, no ceremony; it's too bad of you,' observed
+the landowner reproachfully.
+
+The poor young man had to obey.
+
+'There, now, father, you may go.'
+
+The priest took leave.
+
+'There, there, that'll do, get along with you....'
+
+'A capital fellow,' pursued Mardary Apollonitch, looking after him, 'I
+like him very much; there's only one thing--he's young yet. But how are
+you, my dear sir?... What have you been doing? How are you? Let's come
+out on to the balcony--such a lovely evening.'
+
+We went out on the balcony, sat down, and began to talk. Mardary
+Apollonitch glanced below, and suddenly fell into a state of tremendous
+excitement.
+
+'Whose hens are those? whose hens are those?' he shouted: 'Whose are
+those hens roaming about in the garden?... Whose are those hens? How
+many times I've forbidden it! How many times I've spoken about it!'
+
+Yushka ran out.
+
+'What disorder!' protested Mardary Apollonitch; 'it's horrible!'
+
+The unlucky hens, two speckled and one white with a topknot, as I still
+remember, went on stalking tranquilly about under the apple-trees,
+occasionally giving vent to their feelings in a prolonged clucking,
+when suddenly Yushka, bareheaded and stick in hand, with three other
+house-serfs of mature years, flew at them simultaneously. Then the fun
+began. The hens clucked, flapped their wings, hopped, raised a
+deafening cackle; the house-serfs ran, tripping up and tumbling over;
+their master shouted from the balcony like one possessed: 'Catch 'em,
+catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em, catch 'em!'
+
+At last one servant succeeded in catching the hen with the topknot,
+tumbling upon her, and at the very same moment a little girl of eleven,
+with dishevelled hair, and a dry branch in her hand, jumped over the
+garden-fence from the village street.
+
+'Ah, we see now whose hens!' cried the landowner in triumph. 'They're
+Yermil, the coachman's, hens! he's sent his Natalka to chase them
+out.... He didn't send his Parasha, no fear!' the landowner added in a
+low voice with a significant snigger. 'Hey, Yushka! let the hens alone;
+catch Natalka for me.'
+
+But before the panting Yushka had time to reach the terrified little
+girl the house-keeper suddenly appeared, snatched her by the arm, and
+slapped her several times on the back....
+
+'That's it! that's it!' cried the master, 'tut-tut-tut!... And carry
+off the hens, Avdotya,' he added in a loud voice, and he turned with a
+beaming face to me; 'that was a fine chase, my dear sir, hey?--I'm in a
+regular perspiration: look.'
+
+And Mardary Apollonitch went off into a series of chuckles.
+
+We remained on the balcony. The evening was really exceptionally fine.
+
+Tea was served us.
+
+'Tell me,' I began, 'Mardary Apollonitch: are those your peasants'
+huts, out there on the highroad, above the ravine?'
+
+'Yes ... why do you ask?'
+
+'I wonder at you, Mardary Apollonitch? It's really sinful. The huts
+allotted to the peasants there are wretched cramped little hovels;
+there isn't a tree to be seen near them; there's not a pond even;
+there's only one well, and that's no good. Could you really find no
+other place to settle them?... And they say you're taking away the old
+hemp-grounds, too?'
+
+'And what is one to do with this new division of the lands?' Mardary
+Apollonitch made answer. 'Do you know I've this re-division quite on my
+mind, and I foresee no sort of good from it. And as for my having taken
+away the hemp-ground, and their not having dug any ponds, or what not--
+as to that, my dear sir, I know my own business. I'm a plain man--I go
+on the old system. To my ideas, when a man's master--he's master; and
+when he's peasant--he's peasant. ... That's what I think about it.'
+
+To an argument so clear and convincing there was of course no answer.
+
+'And besides,' he went on, 'those peasants are a wretched lot; they're
+in disgrace. Particularly two families there; why, my late father--God
+rest his soul--couldn't bear them; positively couldn't bear them. And
+you know my precept is: where the father's a thief, the son's a thief;
+say what you like.... Blood, blood--oh, that's the great thing!'
+
+Meanwhile there was a perfect stillness in the air. Only rarely there
+came a gust of wind, which, as it sank for the last time near the
+house, brought to our ears the sound of rhythmically repeated blows,
+seeming to come from the stable. Mardary Apollonitch was in the act of
+lifting a saucer full of tea to his lips, and was just inflating his
+nostrils to sniff its fragrance--no true-born Russian, as we all know,
+can drink his tea without this preliminary--but he stopped short,
+listened, nodded his head, sipped his tea, and laying the saucer on the
+table, with the most good-natured smile imaginable, he murmured as
+though involuntarily accompanying the blows: 'Tchuki-tchuki-tchuk!
+Tchuki-tchuk!'
+
+'What is it?' I asked puzzled. 'Oh, by my order, they're punishing a
+scamp of a fellow.... Do you happen to remember Vasya, who waits at the
+sideboard?'
+
+'Which Vasya?'
+
+'Why, that waited on us at dinner just now. He with the long whiskers.'
+
+The fiercest indignation could not have stood against the clear mild
+gaze of Mardary Apollonitch.
+
+'What are you after, young man? what is it?' he said, shaking his head.
+'Am I a criminal or something, that you stare at me like that? "Whom he
+loveth he chasteneth"; you know that.'
+
+A quarter of an hour later I had taken leave of Mardary Apollonitch. As
+I was driving through the village I caught sight of Vasya. He was
+walking down the village street, cracking nuts. I told the coachman to
+stop the horses and called him up.
+
+'Well, my boy, so they've been punishing you to-day?' I said to him.
+
+'How did you know?' answered Vasya.
+
+'Your master told me.'
+
+'The master himself?'
+
+'What did he order you to be punished for?'
+
+'Oh, I deserved it, father; I deserved it. They don't punish for
+trifles among us; that's not the way with us--no, no. Our master's not
+like that; our master ... you won't find another master like him in all
+the province.'
+
+'Drive on!' I said to the coachman.' There you have it, old Russia!' I
+mused on my homeward way.
+
+
+
+                                  XIV
+
+                                LEBEDYAN
+
+
+One of the principal advantages of hunting, my dear readers, consists
+in its forcing you to be constantly moving from place to place, which
+is highly agreeable for a man of no occupation. It is true that
+sometimes, especially in wet weather, it's not over pleasant to roam
+over by-roads, to cut 'across country,' to stop every peasant you meet
+with the question, 'Hey! my good man! how are we to get to Mordovka?'
+and at Mordovka to try to extract from a half-witted peasant woman (the
+working population are all in the fields) whether it is far to an inn
+on the high-road, and how to get to it--and then when you have gone on
+eight miles farther, instead of an inn, to come upon the deserted
+village of Hudobubnova, to the great amazement of a whole herd of pigs,
+who have been wallowing up to their ears in the black mud in the middle
+of the village street, without the slightest anticipation of ever being
+disturbed. There is no great joy either in having to cross planks that
+dance under your feet; to drop down into ravines; to wade across boggy
+streams: it is not over-pleasant to tramp twenty-four hours on end
+through the sea of green that covers the highroads or (which God
+forbid!) stay for hours stuck in the mud before a striped milestone
+with the figures 22 on one side and 23 on the other; it is not wholly
+pleasant to live for weeks together on eggs, milk, and the rye-bread
+patriots affect to be so fond of.... But there is ample compensation
+for all these inconveniences and discomforts in pleasures and
+advantages of another sort. Let us come, though, to our story.
+
+After all I have said above, there is no need to explain to the reader
+how I happened five years ago to be at Lebedyan just in the very thick
+of the horse-fair. We sportsmen may often set off on a fine morning
+from our more or less ancestral roof, in the full intention of
+returning there the following evening, and little by little, still in
+pursuit of snipe, may get at last to the blessed banks of Petchora.
+Besides, every lover of the gun and the dog is a passionate admirer of
+the noblest animal in the world, the horse. And so I turned up at
+Lebedyan, stopped at the hotel, changed my clothes, and went out to the
+fair. (The waiter, a thin lanky youth of twenty, had already informed
+me in a sweet nasal tenor that his Excellency Prince N----, who
+purchases the chargers of the--regiment, was staying at their house;
+that many other gentlemen had arrived; that some gypsies were to sing
+in the evenings, and there was to be a performance of _Pan Tvardovsky_
+at the theatre; that the horses were fetching good prices; and that
+there was a fine show of them.)
+
+In the market square there were endless rows of carts drawn up, and
+behind the carts, horses of every possible kind: racers, stud-horses,
+dray horses, cart-horses, posting-hacks, and simple peasants' nags.
+Some fat and sleek, assorted by colours, covered with striped horse-
+cloths, and tied up short to high racks, turned furtive glances
+backward at the too familiar whips of their owners, the horse-dealers;
+private owners' horses, sent by noblemen of the steppes a hundred or
+two hundred miles away, in charge of some decrepit old coachman and two
+or three headstrong stable-boys, shook their long necks, stamped with
+ennui, and gnawed at the fences; roan horses, from Vyatka, huddled
+close to one another; race-horses, dapple-grey, raven, and sorrel, with
+large hindquarters, flowing tails, and shaggy legs, stood in majestic
+immobility like lions. Connoisseurs stopped respectfully before them.
+The avenues formed by the rows of carts were thronged with people of
+every class, age, and appearance; horse-dealers in long blue coats and
+high caps, with sly faces, were on the look-out for purchasers;
+gypsies, with staring eyes and curly heads, strolled up and down, like
+uneasy spirits, looking into the horses' mouths, lifting up a hoof or a
+tail, shouting, swearing, acting as go-betweens, casting lots, or
+hanging about some army horse-contracter in a foraging-cap and military
+cloak, with beaver collar. A stalwart Cossack rode up and down on a
+lanky gelding with the neck of a stag, offering it for sale 'in one
+lot,' that is, saddle, bridle, and all. Peasants, in sheepskins torn at
+the arm-pits, were forcing their way despairingly through the crowd, or
+packing themselves by dozens into a cart harnessed to a horse, which
+was to be 'put to the test,' or somewhere on one side, with the aid of
+a wily gypsy, they were bargaining till they were exhausted, clasping
+each other's hands a hundred times over, each still sticking to his
+price, while the subject of their dispute, a wretched little jade
+covered with a shrunken mat, was blinking quite unmoved, as though it
+was no concern of hers.... And, after all, what difference did it make
+to her who was to have the beating of her? Broad-browed landowners,
+with dyed moustaches and an expression of dignity on their faces, in
+Polish hats and cotton overcoats pulled half-on, were talking
+condescendingly with fat merchants in felt hats and green gloves.
+Officers of different regiments were crowding everywhere; an
+extraordinarily lanky cuirassier of German extraction was languidly
+inquiring of a lame horse-dealer 'what he expected to get for that
+chestnut.' A fair-haired young hussar, a boy of nineteen, was choosing
+a trace-horse to match a lean carriage-horse; a post-boy in a low-
+crowned hat, with a peacock's feather twisted round it, in a brown coat
+and long leather gloves tied round the arm with narrow, greenish bands,
+was looking for a shaft-horse. Coachmen were plaiting the horses'
+tails, wetting their manes, and giving respectful advice to their
+masters. Those who had completed a stroke of business were hurrying to
+hotel or to tavern, according to their class.... And all the crowd were
+moving, shouting, bustling, quarrelling and making it up again,
+swearing and laughing, all up to their knees in the mud. I wanted to
+buy a set of three horses for my covered trap; mine had begun to show
+signs of breaking down. I had found two, but had not yet succeeded in
+picking up a third. After a hotel dinner, which I cannot bring myself
+to describe (even Aeneas had discovered how painful it is to dwell on
+sorrows past), I repaired to a _café_ so-called, which was the evening
+resort of the purchasers of cavalry mounts, horse-breeders, and other
+persons. In the billiard-room, which was plunged in grey floods of
+tobacco smoke, there were about twenty men. Here were free-and-easy
+young landowners in embroidered jackets and grey trousers, with long
+curling hair and little waxed moustaches, staring about them with
+gentlemanly insolence; other noblemen in Cossack dress, with
+extraordinarily short necks, and eyes lost in layers of fat, were
+snorting with distressing distinctness; merchants sat a little apart on
+the _qui-vive_, as it is called; officers were chatting freely among
+themselves. At the billiard-table was Prince N----a young man of two-
+and-twenty, with a lively and rather contemptuous face, in a coat
+hanging open, a red silk shirt, and loose velvet pantaloons; he was
+playing with the ex-lieutenant, Viktor Hlopakov.
+
+The ex-lieutenant, Viktor Hlopakov, a little, thinnish, dark man of
+thirty, with black hair, brown eyes, and a thick snub nose, is a
+diligent frequenter of elections and horse-fairs. He walks with a skip
+and a hop, waves his fat hands with a jovial swagger, cocks his cap on
+one side, and tucks up the sleeves of his military coat, showing the
+blue-black cotton lining. Mr. Hlopakov knows how to gain the favour of
+rich scapegraces from Petersburg; smokes, drinks, and plays cards with
+them; calls them by their Christian names. What they find to like in
+him it is rather hard to comprehend. He is not clever; he is not
+amusing; he is not even a buffoon. It is true they treat him with
+friendly casualness, as a good-natured fellow, but rather a fool; they
+chum with him for two or three weeks, and then all of a sudden do not
+recognise him in the street, and he on his side, too, does not
+recognise them. The chief peculiarity of Lieutenant Hlopakov consists
+in his continually for a year, sometimes two at a time, using in season
+and out of season one expression, which, though not in the least
+humorous, for some reason or other makes everyone laugh. Eight years
+ago he used on every occasion to say, "'Umble respecks and duty," and
+his patrons of that date used always to fall into fits of laughter and
+make him repeat ''Umble respecks and duty'; then he began to adopt a
+more complicated expression: 'No, that's too, too k'essk'say,' and with
+the same brilliant success; two years later he had invented a fresh
+saying: '_Ne voo_ excite _voo_self _pa_, man of sin, sewn in a
+sheepskin,' and so on. And strange to say! these, as you see, not
+overwhelmingly witty phrases, keep him in food and drink and clothes.
+(He has run through his property ages ago, and lives solely upon his
+friends.) There is, observe, absolutely no other attraction about him;
+he can, it is true, smoke a hundred pipes of Zhukov tobacco in a day,
+and when he plays billiards, throws his right leg higher than his head,
+and while taking aim shakes his cue affectedly; but, after all, not
+everyone has a fancy for these accomplishments. He can drink, too ...
+but in Russia it is hard to gain distinction as a drinker. In short,
+his success is a complete riddle to me.... There is one thing, perhaps;
+he is discreet; he has no taste for washing dirty linen away from home,
+never speaks a word against anyone.
+
+'Well,' I thought, on seeing Hlopakov, 'I wonder what his catchword is
+now?'
+
+The prince hit the white.
+
+'Thirty love,' whined a consumptive marker, with a dark face and blue
+rings under his eyes.
+
+The prince sent the yellow with a crash into the farthest pocket.
+
+'Ah!' a stoutish merchant, sitting in the corner at a tottering little
+one-legged table, boomed approvingly from the depths of his chest, and
+immediately was overcome by confusion at his own presumption. But
+luckily no one noticed him. He drew a long breath, and stroked his
+beard.
+
+'Thirty-six love!' the marker shouted in a nasal voice.
+
+'Well, what do you say to that, old man?' the prince asked Hlopakov.
+
+'What! rrrrakaliooon, of course, simply rrrrakaliooooon!'
+
+The prince roared with laughter.
+
+'What? what? Say it again.'
+
+'Rrrrrakaliooon!' repeated the ex-lieutenant complacently.
+
+'So that's the catchword!' thought I.
+
+The prince sent the red into the pocket.
+
+'Oh! that's not the way, prince, that's not the way,' lisped a fair-
+haired young officer with red eyes, a tiny nose, and a babyish, sleepy
+face. 'You shouldn't play like that ... you ought ... not that way!'
+
+'Eh?' the prince queried over his shoulder.
+
+'You ought to have done it ... in a triplet.'
+
+'Oh, really?' muttered the prince.
+
+'What do you say, prince? Shall we go this evening to hear the
+gypsies?' the young man hurriedly went on in confusion. 'Styoshka will
+sing ... Ilyushka....'
+
+The prince vouchsafed no reply.
+
+'Rrrrrakaliooon, old boy,' said Hlopakov, with a sly wink of his left
+eye.
+
+And the prince exploded.
+
+'Thirty-nine to love,' sang out the marker.
+
+'Love ... just look, I'll do the trick with that yellow.' ... Hlopakov,
+fidgeting his cue in his hand, took aim, and missed.
+
+'Eh, rrrakalioon,' he cried with vexation.
+
+The prince laughed again.
+
+'What, what, what?'
+
+'Your honour made a miss,' observed the marker. 'Allow me to chalk the
+cue.... Forty love.'
+
+'Yes, gentlemen,' said the prince, addressing the whole company, and
+not looking at any one in particular; 'you know, Verzhembitskaya must
+be called before the curtain to-night.'
+
+'To be sure, to be sure, of course,' several voices cried in rivalry,
+amazingly flattered at the chance of answering the prince's speech;
+'Verzhembitskaya, to be sure....'
+
+'Verzhembitskaya's an excellent actress, far superior to Sopnyakova,'
+whined an ugly little man in the corner with moustaches and spectacles.
+Luckless wretch! he was secretly sighing at Sopnyakova's feet, and the
+prince did not even vouchsafe him a look.
+
+'Wai-ter, hey, a pipe!' a tall gentleman, with regular features and a
+most majestic manner--in fact, with all the external symptoms of a
+card-sharper--muttered into his cravat.
+
+A waiter ran for a pipe, and when he came back, announced to his
+excellency that the groom Baklaga was asking for him.
+
+'Ah! tell him to wait a minute and take him some vodka.'
+
+'Yes, sir.'
+
+Baklaga, as I was told afterwards, was the name of a youthful,
+handsome, and excessively depraved groom; the prince loved him, made
+him presents of horses, went out hunting with him, spent whole nights
+with him.... Now you would not know this same prince, who was once a
+rake and a scapegrace.... In what good odour he is now; how straight-
+laced, how supercilious! How devoted to the government--and, above all,
+so prudent and judicious!
+
+However, the tobacco smoke had begun to make my eyes smart. After
+hearing Hlopakov's exclamation and the prince's chuckle one last time
+more, I went off to my room, where, on a narrow, hair-stuffed sofa
+pressed into hollows, with a high, curved back, my man had already made
+me up a bed.
+
+The next day I went out to look at the horses in the stables, and began
+with the famous horsedealer Sitnikov's. I went through a gate into a
+yard strewn with sand. Before a wide open stable-door stood the
+horsedealer himself--a tall, stout man no longer young, in a hareskin
+coat, with a raised turnover collar. Catching sight of me, he moved
+slowly to meet me, held his cap in both hands above his head, and in a
+sing-song voice brought out:
+
+'Ah, our respects to you. You'd like to have a look at the horses, may
+be?'
+
+'Yes; I've come to look at the horses.'
+
+'And what sort of horses, precisely, I make bold to ask?'
+
+'Show me what you have.'
+
+'With pleasure.'
+
+We went into the stable. Some white pug-dogs got up from the hay and
+ran up to us, wagging their tails, and a long-bearded old goat walked
+away with an air of dissatisfaction; three stable-boys, in strong but
+greasy sheepskins, bowed to us without speaking. To right and to left,
+in horse-boxes raised above the ground, stood nearly thirty horses,
+groomed to perfection. Pigeons fluttered cooing about the rafters.
+
+'What, now, do you want a horse for? for driving or for breeding?'
+Sitnikov inquired of me.
+
+'Oh, I'll see both sorts.'
+
+'To be sure, to be sure,' the horsedealer commented, dwelling on each
+syllable. 'Petya, show the gentleman Ermine.'
+
+We came out into the yard.
+
+'But won't you let them bring you a bench out of the hut?... You don't
+want to sit down.... As you please.'
+
+There was the thud of hoofs on the boards, the crack of a whip, and
+Petya, a swarthy fellow of forty, marked by small-pox, popped out of
+the stable with a rather well-shaped grey stallion, made it rear, ran
+twice round the yard with it, and adroitly pulled it up at the right
+place. Ermine stretched himself, snorted, raised his tail, shook his
+head, and looked sideways at me.
+
+'A clever beast,' I thought.
+
+'Give him his head, give him his head,' said Sitniker, and he stared at
+me.
+
+'What may you think of him?' he inquired at last.
+
+'The horse's not bad--the hind legs aren't quite sound.'
+
+'His legs are first-rate!' Sitnikov rejoined, with an air of
+conviction;' and his hind-quarters ... just look, sir ... broad as an
+oven--you could sleep up there.' 'His pasterns are long.'
+
+'Long! mercy on us! Start him, Petya, start him, but at a trot, a trot
+... don't let him gallop.'
+
+Again Petya ran round the yard with Ermine. None of us spoke for a
+little.
+
+'There, lead him back,' said Sitnikov,' and show us Falcon.'
+
+Falcon, a gaunt beast of Dutch extraction with sloping hind-quarters,
+as black as a beetle, turned out to be little better than Ermine. He
+was one of those beasts of whom fanciers will tell you that 'they go
+chopping and mincing and dancing about,' meaning thereby that they
+prance and throw out their fore-legs to right and to left without
+making much headway. Middle-aged merchants have a great fancy for such
+horses; their action recalls the swaggering gait of a smart waiter;
+they do well in single harness for an after-dinner drive; with mincing
+paces and curved neck they zealously draw a clumsy droshky laden with
+an overfed coachman, a depressed, dyspeptic merchant, and his lymphatic
+wife, in a blue silk mantle, with a lilac handkerchief over her head.
+Falcon too I declined. Sitnikov showed me several horses.... One at
+last, a dapple-grey beast of Voyakov breed, took my fancy. I could not
+restrain my satisfaction, and patted him on the withers. Sitnikov at
+once feigned absolute indifference.
+
+"Well, does he go well in harness?" I inquired. (They never speak of a
+trotting horse as "being driven.")
+
+"Oh, yes," answered the horsedealer carelessly.
+
+"Can I see him?"
+
+"If you like, certainly. Hi, Kuzya, put Pursuer into the droshky!"
+
+Kuzya, the jockey, a real master of horsemanship, drove three times
+past us up and down the street. The horse went well, without changing
+its pace, nor shambling; it had a free action, held its tail high, and
+covered the ground well.
+
+"And what are you asking for him?"
+
+Sitnikov asked an impossible price. We began bargaining on the spot in
+the street, when suddenly a splendidly-matched team of three posting-
+horses flew noisily round the corner and drew up sharply at the gates
+before Sitnikov's house. In the smart little sportsman's trap sat
+Prince N----; beside him Hlopakov. Baklaga was driving ... and how he
+drove! He could have driven them through an earring, the rascal! The
+bay trace-horses, little, keen, black-eyed, black-legged beasts, were
+all impatience; they kept rearing--a whistle, and off they would have
+bolted! The dark-bay shaft-horse stood firmly, its neck arched like a
+swan's, its breast forward, its legs like arrows, shaking its head and
+proudly blinking.... They were splendid! No one could desire a finer
+turn out for an Easter procession!
+
+'Your excellency, please to come in!' cried Sitnikov.
+
+The prince leaped out of the trap. Hlopakov slowly descended on the
+other side.
+
+'Good morning, friend ... any horses.'
+
+'You may be sure we've horses for your excellency! Pray walk in....
+Petya, bring out Peacock! and let them get Favourite ready too. And
+with you, sir,' he went on, turning to me, 'we'll settle matters
+another time.... Fomka, a bench for his excellency.'
+
+From a special stable which I had not at first observed they led out
+Peacock. A powerful dark sorrel horse seemed to fly across the yard
+with all its legs in the air. Sitnikov even turned away his head and
+winked.
+
+'Oh, rrakalion!' piped Hlopakov; 'Zhaymsah (_j'aime ça_.)'
+
+The prince laughed.
+
+Peacock was stopped with difficulty; he dragged the stable-boy about
+the yard; at last he was pushed against the wall. He snorted, started
+and reared, while Sitnikov still teased him, brandishing a whip at him.
+
+'What are you looking at? there! oo!' said the horsedealer with
+caressing menace, unable to refrain from admiring his horse himself.
+
+'How much?' asked the prince.
+
+'For your excellency, five thousand.'
+
+'Three.'
+
+'Impossible, your excellency, upon my word.'
+
+'I tell you three, rrakalion,' put in Hlopakov.
+
+I went away without staying to see the end of the bargaining. At the
+farthest corner of the street I noticed a large sheet of paper fixed on
+the gate of a little grey house. At the top there was a pen-and-ink
+sketch of a horse with a tail of the shape of a pipe and an endless
+neck, and below his hoofs were the following words, written in an old-
+fashioned hand:
+
+'Here are for sale horses of various colours, brought to the Lebedyan
+fair from the celebrated steppes stud of Anastasei Ivanitch Tchornobai,
+landowner of Tambov. These horses are of excellent sort; broken in to
+perfection, and free from vice. Purchasers will kindly ask for
+Anastasei Ivanitch himself: should Anastasei Ivanitch be absent, then
+ask for Nazar Kubishkin, the coachman. Gentlemen about to purchase,
+kindly honour an old man.'
+
+I stopped. 'Come,' I thought, 'let's have a look at the horses of the
+celebrated steppes breeder, Mr. Tchornobai.'
+
+I was about to go in at the gate, but found that, contrary to the
+common usage, it was locked. I knocked.
+
+'Who's there?... A customer?' whined a woman's voice.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Coming, sir, coming.'
+
+The gate was opened. I beheld a peasant-woman of fifty, bareheaded, in
+boots, and a sheepskin worn open.
+
+'Please to come in, kind sir, and I'll go at once, and tell Anastasei
+Ivanitch ... Nazar, hey, Nazar!'
+
+'What?' mumbled an old man's voice from the stable.
+
+'Get a horse ready; here's a customer.'
+
+The old woman ran into the house.
+
+'A customer, a customer,' Nazar grumbled in response; 'I've not washed
+all their tails yet.'
+
+'Oh, Arcadia!' thought I.
+
+'Good day, sir, pleased to see you,' I heard a rich, pleasant voice
+saying behind my back. I looked round; before me, in a long-skirted
+blue coat, stood an old man of medium height, with white hair, a
+friendly smile, and fine blue eyes.
+
+'You want a little horse? By all means, my dear sir, by all means....
+But won't you step in and drink just a cup of tea with me first?'
+
+I declined and thanked him.
+
+'Well, well, as you please. You must excuse me, my dear sir; you see
+I'm old-fashioned.' (Mr. Tchornobai spoke with deliberation, and in a
+broad Doric.) 'Everything with me is done in a plain way, you know....
+Nazar, hey, Nazar!' he added, not raising his voice, but prolonging
+each syllable. Nazar, a wrinkled old man with a little hawk nose and a
+wedge-shaped beard, showed himself at the stable door.
+
+'What sort of horses is it you're wanting, my dear sir?' resumed Mr.
+Tchornobai.
+
+'Not too expensive; for driving in my covered gig.'
+
+'To be sure ... we have got them to suit you, to be sure.... Nazar,
+Nazar, show the gentleman the grey gelding, you know, that stands at
+the farthest corner, and the sorrel with the star, or else the other
+sorrel--foal of Beauty, you know.'
+
+Nazar went back to the stable.
+
+'And bring them out by their halters just as they are,' Mr. Tchornobai
+shouted after him. 'You won't find things with me, my good sir,' he
+went on, with a clear mild gaze into my face, 'as they are with the
+horse-dealers; confound their tricks! There are drugs of all sorts go
+in there, salt and malted grains; God forgive them! But with me, you
+will see, sir, everything's above-board; no underhandedness.'
+
+The horses were led in; I did not care for them.
+
+'Well, well, take them back, in God's name,' said Anastasei Ivanitch.
+'Show us the others.'
+
+Others were shown. At last I picked out one, rather a cheap one. We
+began to haggle over the price. Mr. Tchornobai did not get excited; he
+spoke so reasonably, with such dignity, that I could not help
+'honouring' the old man; I gave him the earnest-money.
+
+'Well, now,' observed Anastasei Ivanitch, 'allow me to give over the
+horse to you from hand to hand, after the old fashion.... You will
+thank me for him ... as sound as a nut, see ... fresh ... a true child
+of the steppes! Goes well in any harness.'
+
+He crossed himself, laid the skirt of his coat over his hand, took the
+halter, and handed me the horse.
+
+'You're his master now, with God's blessing.... And you still won't
+take a cup of tea?'
+
+'No, I thank you heartily; it's time I was going home.'
+
+'That's as you think best.... And shall my coachman lead the horse
+after you?'
+
+'Yes, now, if you please.'
+
+'By all means, my dear sir, by all means.... Vassily, hey, Vassily!
+step along with the gentleman, lead the horse, and take the money for
+him. Well, good-bye, my good sir; God bless you.'
+
+'Good-bye, Anastasei Ivanitch.'
+
+They led the horse home for me. The next day he turned out to be
+broken-winded and lame. I tried having him put in harness; the horse
+backed, and if one gave him a flick with the whip he jibbed, kicked,
+and positively lay down. I set off at once to Mr. Tchornobai's. I
+inquired: 'At home?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What's the meaning of this?' said I; 'here you've sold me a broken-
+winded horse.'
+
+'Broken-winded?... God forbid!'
+
+'Yes, and he's lame too, and vicious besides.'
+
+'Lame! I know nothing about it: your coachman must have ill-treated him
+somehow.... But before God, I--'
+
+'Look here, Anastasei Ivanitch, as things stand, you ought to take him
+back.'
+
+'No, my good sir, don't put yourself in a passion; once gone out of the
+yard, is done with. You should have looked before, sir.'
+
+I understood what that meant, accepted my fate, laughed, and walked
+off. Luckily, I had not paid very dear for the lesson.
+
+Two days later I left, and in a week I was again at Lebedyan on my way
+home again. In the _café_ I found almost the same persons, and again I
+came upon Prince N----at billiards. But the usual change in the
+fortunes of Mr. Hlopakov had taken place in this interval: the fair-
+haired young officer had supplanted him in the prince's favours. The
+poor ex-lieutenant once more tried letting off his catchword in my
+presence, on the chance it might succeed as before; but, far from
+smiling, the prince positively scowled and shrugged his shoulders. Mr.
+Hlopakov looked downcast, shrank into a corner, and began furtively
+filling himself a pipe....
+
+                           END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Sportsman's Sketches, by Ivan Turgenev
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES ***
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