His daughters arrived only on the day of the funeral with their husbands; they had no children either of them. Alexey Sergeitch showed them no animosity in his will, though he never even mentioned them on his death-bed. 'My heart has grown hard to them,' he once said to me. Knowing his kindly nature, I was surprised at his words. It is hard to judge between parents and children. 'A great ravine starts from a little rift,' Alexey Sergeitch said to me once in this connection: 'a wound a yard wide may heal; but once cut off even a finger nail, it will not grow again.'

I fancy the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old parents.

A month later and Malania Pavlovna too passed away. From the very day of Alexey Sergeitch's death she had hardly risen from her bed, and had not put on her usual attire; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and with Orlov's medallion on her shoulder, only without the diamonds. Those her daughters divided, on the pretext that the diamonds should be used in the setting of some holy pictures; in reality, they used them to adorn their own persons.

And so I can see my old friends as though they were alive and before my eyes, and pleasant is the memory I preserve of them. And yet on my very last visit to them (I was a student by then) an incident occurred which jarred upon the impression of patriarchal harmony always produced in me by the Teliegin household.

Among the house-serfs there was one Ivan, called 'Suhys' Ivan,' a coachman or coach-boy, as they called him on account of his small size, in spite of his being no longer young. He was a tiny little man, brisk, snub-nosed, curly-headed, with an everlastingly smiling, childish face, and little eyes, like a mouse's. He was a great joker, a most comic fellow; he was great at all sorts of tricks—he used to fly kites, let off fireworks and rockets, to play all sorts of games, gallop standing up on the horse's back, fly higher than all the rest in the swing, and could even make Chinese shadows. No one could amuse children better; and he would gladly spend the whole day looking after them. When he started laughing, the whole house would seem to liven up; they would answer him—one would say one thing, one another, but he always made them all merry.... And even if they abused him, they could not but laugh. Ivan danced marvellously, especially the so-called 'fish dance.' When the chorus struck up a dance tune, the fellow would come into the middle of the ring, and then there would begin such a turning and skipping and stamping, and then he would fall flat on the ground, and imitate the movement of a fish brought out of the water on to dry land; such turning and wriggling, the heels positively clapped up to the head; and then he would get up and shriek—the earth seemed simply quivering under him. At times Alexey Sergeitch, who was, as I have said already, exceedingly fond of watching dancing, could not resist shouting, 'Little Vania, here! coach-boy! Dance us the fish, smartly now'; and a minute later he would whisper enthusiastically: 'Ah, what a fellow it is!'

Well, on my last visit, this Ivan Suhih came into my room, and, without saying a word, fell on his knees. 'Ivan, what's the matter?' 'Save me, sir.' 'Why, what is it?' And thereupon Ivan told me his trouble.

He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by 'the Suhy family for a serf of the Teliegins';—simply exchanged without any kind of formality or written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch's house as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his origin. But now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into other hands; and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and oppressive man, having learned that one of his serfs was detained without cause or reason at Alexey Sergeitch's, began to demand him back; in case of refusal he threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was not an empty one, as he was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and had great weight in the province. Ivan had rushed in terror to Alexey Sergeitch. The old man was sorry for his dancer, and he offered the privy councillor to buy Ivan for a considerable sum. But the privy councillor would not hear of it; he was a Little Russian, and obstinate as the devil. The poor fellow would have to be given up. 'I have spent my life here, and I'm at home here; I have served here, here I have eaten my bread, and here I want to die,' Ivan said to me—and there was no smile on his face now; on the contrary, it looked turned to stone.... 'And now I am to go to this wretch.... Am I a dog to be flung from one kennel to another with a noose round my neck? ... to be told: "There, get along with you!" Save me, master; beg your uncle, remember how I always amused you.... Or else there'll be harm come of it; it won't end without sin.'

'What sort of sin, Ivan?'

'I shall kill that gentleman. I shall simply go and say to him, "Master, let me go back; or else, mind, be careful of yourself.... I shall kill you."'

If a siskin or a chaffinch could have spoken, and had begun declaring that it would peck another bird to death, it would not have reduced me to greater amazement than did Ivan at that moment. What! Suhys' Vania, that dancing, jesting, comic fellow, the favourite playfellow of children, and a child himself, that kindest-hearted of creatures, a murderer! What ridiculous nonsense! Not for an instant did I believe him; what astonished me to such a degree was that he was capable of saying such a thing. Anyway I appealed to Alexey Sergeitch. I did not repeat what Ivan had said to me, but began asking him whether something couldn't be done. 'My young sir,' the old man answered, 'I should be only too happy—but what's to be done? I offered this Little Russian an immense compensation—I offered him three hundred roubles, 'pon my honour, I tell you! but he—there's no moving him! what's one to do? The transaction was not legal, it was done on trust, in the old-fashioned way ... and now see what mischief's come of it! This Little Russian fellow, you see, will take Ivan by force, do what we will: his arm is powerful, the governor eats cabbage-soup at his table; he'll be sending along soldiers. And I'm afraid of those soldiers! In old days, to be sure, I would have stood up for Ivan, come what might; but now, look at me, what a feeble creature I have grown! How can I make a fight for it?' It was true; on my last visit I found Alexey Sergeitch greatly aged; even the centres of his eyes had that milky colour that babies' eyes have, and his lips wore not his old conscious smile, but that unnatural, mawkish, unconscious grin, which never, even in sleep, leaves the faces of very decrepit old people.

I told Ivan of Alexey Sergeitch's decision. He stood still, was silent for a little, shook his head. 'Well,' said he at last, 'what is to be there's no escaping. Only my mind's made up. There's nothing left, then, but to play the fool to the end. Something for drink, please!' I gave him something; he drank himself drunk, and that day danced the 'fish dance' so that the serf-girls and peasant-women positively shrieked with delight—he surpassed himself in his antics so wonderfully.

Next day I went home, and three months later, in Petersburg, I heard that Ivan had kept his word. He had been sent to his new master; his master had called him into his room, and explained to him that he would be made coachman, that a team of three ponies would be put in his charge, and that he would be severely dealt with if he did not look after them well, and were not punctual in discharging his duties generally. 'I'm not fond of joking.' Ivan heard the master out, first bowed down to his feet, and then announced it was as his honour pleased, but he could not be his servant.

'Let me off for a yearly quit-money, your honour,' said he, 'or send me for a soldier; or else there'll be mischief come of it!'

The master flew into a rage. 'Ah, what a fellow you are! How dare you speak to me like that? In the first place, I'm to be called your excellency, and not your honour; and, secondly, you're beyond the age, and not of a size to be sent for a soldier; and, lastly, what mischief do you threaten me with? Do you mean to set the house on fire, eh?'

'No, your excellency, not the house on fire.'

'Murder me, then, eh?'

Ivan was silent. 'I'm not your servant,' he said at last.

'Oh well, I'll show you,' roared the master, 'whether you 're my servant or not.' And he had Ivan cruelly punished, but yet had the three ponies put into his charge, and made him coachman in the stables.

Ivan apparently submitted; he began driving about as coachman. As he drove well, he soon gained favour with the master, especially as Ivan was very quiet and steady in his behaviour, and the ponies improved so much in his hands; he turned them out as sound and sleek as cucumbers—it was quite a sight to see. The master took to driving out with him oftener than with the other coachmen. Sometimes he would ask him, 'I say, Ivan, do you remember how badly we got on when we met? You've got over all that nonsense, eh?' But Ivan never made any response to such remarks. So one day the master was driving with Ivan to the town in his three-horse sledge with bells and a highback covered with carpet. The horses began to walk up the hill, and Ivan got off the box-seat and went behind the back of the sledge as though he had dropped something. It was a sharp frost; the master sat wrapped up, with a beaver cap pulled down on to his ears. Then Ivan took an axe from under his skirt, came up to the master from behind, knocked off his cap, and saying, 'I warned you, Piotr Petrovitch—you've yourself to blame now!' he struck off his head at one blow. Then he stopped the ponies, put the cap on his dead master, and, getting on the box-seat again, drove him to the town, straight to the courts of justice.

'Here's the Suhinsky general for you, dead; I have killed him. As I told him, so I did to him. Put me in fetters.'

They took Ivan, tried him, sentenced him to the knout, and then to hard labour. The light-hearted, bird-like dancer was sent to the mines, and there passed out of sight for ever....

Yes; one can but repeat, in another sense, Alexey Sergeitch's words: 'They were good old times ... but enough of them!'

1881.



THE BRIGADIER

I

Reader, do you know those little homesteads of country gentlefolks, which were plentiful in our Great Russian Oukraine twenty-five or thirty years ago? Now one rarely comes across them, and in another ten years the last of them will, I suppose, have disappeared for ever. The running pond overgrown with reeds and rushes, the favourite haunt of fussy ducks, among whom one may now and then come across a wary 'teal'; beyond the pond a garden with avenues of lime-trees, the chief beauty and glory of our black-earth plains, with smothered rows of 'Spanish' strawberries, with dense thickets of gooseberries, currants, and raspberries, in the midst of which, in the languid hour of the stagnant noonday heat, one would be sure to catch glimpses of a serf-girl's striped kerchief, and to hear the shrill ring of her voice. Close by would be a summer-house standing on four legs, a conservatory, a neglected kitchen garden, with flocks of sparrows hung on stakes, and a cat curled up on the tumble-down well; a little further, leafy apple-trees in the high grass, which is green below and grey above, straggling cherry-trees, pear-trees, on which there is never any fruit; then flower-beds, poppies, peonies, pansies, milkwort, 'maids in green,' bushes of Tartar honeysuckle, wild jasmine, lilac and acacia, with the continual hum of bees and wasps among their thick, fragrant, sticky branches. At last comes the manor-house, a one-storied building on a brick foundation, with greenish window-panes in narrow frames, a sloping, once painted roof, a little balcony from which the vases of the balustrade are always jutting out, a crooked gable, and a husky old dog in the recess under the steps at the door. Behind the house a wide yard with nettles, wormwood, and burdocks in the corners, outbuildings with doors that stick, doves and rooks on the thatched roofs, a little storehouse with a rusty weathercock, two or three birch-trees with rooks' nests in their bare top branches, and beyond—the road with cushions of soft dust in the ruts and a field and the long hurdles of the hemp patches, and the grey little huts of the village, and the cackle of geese in the far-away rich meadows.... Is all this familiar to you, reader? In the house itself everything is a little awry, a little rickety—but no matter. It stands firm and keeps warm; the stoves are like elephants, the furniture is of all sorts, home-made. Little paths of white footmarks run from the doors over the painted floors. In the hall siskins and larks in tiny cages; in the corner of the dining-room an immense English clock in the form of a tower, with the inscription, 'Strike—silent'; in the drawing-room portraits of the family, painted in oils, with an expression of ill-tempered alarm on the brick-coloured faces, and sometimes too an old warped picture of flowers and fruit or a mythological subject. Everywhere there is the smell of kvas, of apples, of linseed-oil and of leather. Flies buzz and hum about the ceiling and the windows. A daring cockroach suddenly shows his countenance from behind the looking-glass frame.... No matter, one can live here—and live very well too.



II

Just such a homestead it was my lot to visit thirty years ago ... it was in days long past, as you perceive. The little estate in which this house stood belonged to a friend of mine at the university; it had only recently come to him on the death of a bachelor cousin, and he was not living in it himself.... But at no great distance from it there were wide tracts of steppe bog, in which at the time of summer migration, when they are on the wing, there are great numbers of snipe; my friend and I, both enthusiastic sportsmen, agreed therefore to go on St. Peter's day, he from Moscow, I from my own village, to his little house. My friend lingered in Moscow, and was two days late; I did not care to start shooting without him. I was received by an old servant, Narkiz Semyonov, who had had notice of my coming. This old servant was not in the least like 'Savelitch' or 'Caleb'; my friend used to call him in joke 'Marquis.' There was something of conceit, even of affectation, about him; he looked down on us young men with a certain dignity, but cherished no particularly respectful sentiments for other landowners either; of his old master he spoke slightingly, while his own class he simply scorned for their ignorance. He could read and write, expressed himself correctly and with judgment, and did not drink. He seldom went to church, and so was looked upon as a dissenter. In appearance he was thin and tall, had a long and good-looking face, a sharp nose, and overhanging eyebrows, which he was continually either knitting or lifting; he wore a neat, roomy coat, and boots to his knees with heart-shaped scallops at the tops.



III

On the day of my arrival, Narkiz, having given me lunch and cleared the table, stood in the doorway, looked intently at me, and with some play of the eyebrows observed:

'What are you going to do now, sir?'

'Well, really, I don't know. If Nikolai Petrovitch had kept his word and come, we should have gone shooting together.'

'So you really expected, sir, that he would come at the time he promised?'

'Of course I did.'

'H'm.' Narkiz looked at me again and shook his head as it were with commiseration. 'If you 'd care to amuse yourself with reading,' he continued: 'there are some books left of my old master's; I'll get them you, if you like; only you won't read them, I expect.'

'Why?'

'They're books of no value; not written for the gentlemen of these days.'

'Have you read them?'

'If I hadn't read them, I wouldn't have spoken about them. A dream-book, for instance ... that's not much of a book, is it? There are others too, of course ... only you won't read them either.'

'Why?'

'They are religious books.'

I was silent for a space.... Narkiz was silent too.

'What vexes me most,' I began, 'is staying in the house in such weather.'

'Take a walk in the garden; or go into the copse. We've a copse here beyond the threshing-floor. Are you fond of fishing?'

'Are there fish here?'

'Yes, in the pond. Loaches, sand-eels, and perches are caught there. Now, to be sure, the best time is over; July's here. But anyway, you might try.... Shall I get the tackle ready?'

'Yes, do please.'

'I'll send a boy with you ... to put on the worms. Or maybe I 'd better come myself?' Narkiz obviously doubted whether I knew how to set about things properly by myself.

'Come, please, come along.'

Narkiz, without a word, grinned from ear to ear, then suddenly knitted his brows ... and went out of the room.



IV

Half an hour later we set off to catch fish. Narkiz had put on an extraordinary sort of cap with ears, and was more dignified than ever. He walked in front with a steady, even step; two rods swayed regularly up and down on his shoulders; a bare-legged boy followed him carrying a can and a pot of worms.

'Here, near the dike, there's a seat, put up on the floating platform on purpose,' Narkiz was beginning to explain to me, but he glanced ahead, and suddenly exclaimed: 'Aha! but our poor folk are here already ... they keep it up, it seems.'

I craned my head to look from behind him, and saw on the floating platform, on the very seat of which he had been speaking, two persons sitting with their backs to us; they were placidly fishing.

'Who are they?' I asked.

'Neighbours,' Narkiz responded, with displeasure. 'They've nothing to eat at home, and so here they come to us.'

'Are they allowed to?'

'The old master allowed them.... Nikolai Petrovitch maybe won't give them permission.... The long one is a superannuated deacon—quite a silly creature; and as for the other, that's a little stouter—he's a brigadier.'

'A brigadier?' I repeated, wondering. This 'brigadier's' attire was almost worse than the deacon's.

'I assure you he's a brigadier. And he did have a fine property once. But now he has only a corner given him out of charity, and he lives ... on what God sends him. But, by the way, what are we to do? They've taken the best place.... We shall have to disturb our precious visitors.'

'No, Narkiz, please don't disturb them. We'll sit here a little aside; they won't interfere with us. I should like to make acquaintance with the brigadier.'

'As you like. Only, as far as acquaintance goes ... you needn't expect much satisfaction from it, sir; he's grown very weak in his head, and in conversation he's silly as a little child. As well he may be; he's past his eightieth year.'

'What's his name?'

'Vassily Fomitch. Guskov's his surname.'

'And the deacon?'

'The deacon? ... his nickname's Cucumber. Every one about here calls him so; but what his real name is—God knows! A foolish creature! A regular ne'er-do-well.'

'Do they live together?'

'No; but there—the devil has tied them together, it seems.'



V

We approached the platform. The brigadier cast one glance upon us ... and promptly fixed his eyes on the float; Cucumber jumped up, pulled back his rod, took off his worn-out clerical hat, passed a trembling hand over his rough yellow hair, made a sweeping bow, and gave vent to a feeble little laugh. His bloated face betrayed him an inveterate drunkard; his staring little eyes blinked humbly. He gave his neighbour a poke in the ribs, as though to let him know that they must clear out.... The brigadier began to move on the seat.

'Sit still, I beg; don't disturb yourselves,' I hastened to say. 'You won't interfere with us in the least. We'll take up our position here; sit still.'

Cucumber wrapped his ragged smock round him, twitched his shoulders, his lips, his beard.... Obviously he felt our presence oppressive and he would have been glad to slink away, ... but the brigadier was again lost in the contemplation of his float.... The 'ne'er-do-weel' coughed twice, sat down on the very edge of the seat, put his hat on his knees, and, tucking his bare legs up under him, he discreetly dropped in his line.

'Any bites?' Narkiz inquired haughtily, as in leisurely fashion he unwound his reel.

'We've caught a matter of five loaches,' answered Cucumber in a cracked and husky voice: 'and he took a good-sized perch.'

'Yes, a perch,' repeated the brigadier in a shrill pipe.



VI

I fell to watching closely—not him, but his reflection in the pond. It was as clearly reflected as in a looking-glass—a little darker, a little more silvery. The wide stretch of pond wafted a refreshing coolness upon us; a cool breath of air seemed to rise, too, from the steep, damp bank; and it was the sweeter, as in the dark blue, flooded with gold, above the tree tops, the stagnant sultry heat hung, a burden that could be felt, over our heads. There was no stir in the water near the dike; in the shade cast by the drooping bushes on the bank, water spiders gleamed, like tiny bright buttons, as they described their everlasting circles; at long intervals there was a faint ripple just perceptible round the floats, when a fish was 'playing' with the worm. Very few fish were taken; during a whole hour we drew up only two loaches and an eel. I could not say why the brigadier aroused my curiosity; his rank could not have any influence on me; ruined noblemen were not even at that time looked upon as a rarity, and his appearance presented nothing remarkable. Under the warm cap, which covered the whole upper part of his head down to his ears and his eyebrows, could be seen a smooth, red, clean-shaven, round face, with a little nose, little lips, and small, clear grey eyes. Simplicity and weakness of character, and a sort of long-standing, helpless sorrow, were visible in that meek, almost childish face; the plump, white little hands with short fingers had something helpless, incapable about them too.... I could not conceive how this forlorn old man could once have been an officer, could have maintained discipline, have given his commands—and that, too, in the stern days of Catherine! I watched him; now and then he puffed out his cheeks and uttered a feeble whistle, like a little child; sometimes he screwed up his eyes painfully, with effort, as all decrepit people will. Once he opened his eyes wide and lifted them.... They stared at me from out of the depths of the water—and strangely touching and even full of meaning their dejected glance seemed to me.



VII

I tried to begin a conversation with the brigadier ... but Narkiz had not misinformed me; the poor old man certainly had become weak in his intellect. He asked me my surname, and after repeating his inquiry twice, pondered and pondered, and at last brought out: 'Yes, I fancy there was a judge of that name here. Cucumber, wasn't there a judge about here of that name, hey?' 'To be sure there was, Vassily Fomitch, your honour,' responded Cucumber, who treated him altogether as a child. 'There was, certainly. But let me have your hook; your worm must have been eaten off.... Yes, so it is.'

'Did you know the Lomov family?' the brigadier suddenly asked me in a cracked voice.

'What Lomov family is that?'

'Why, Fiodor Ivanitch, Yevstigney Ivanitch, Alexey Ivanitch the Jew, and Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer, ... and then, too ...'

The brigadier suddenly broke off and looked down confused.

They were the people he was most intimate with,' Narkiz whispered, bending towards me; 'it was through them, through that same Alexey Ivanitch, that he called a Jew, and through a sister of Alexey Ivanitch's, Agrafena Ivanovna, as you may say, that he lost all his property.'

'What are you saying there about Agrafena Ivanovna?' the brigadier called out suddenly, and his head was raised, his white eyebrows were frowning.... 'You'd better mind! And why Agrafena, pray? Agrippina Ivanovna—that's what you should call her.'

'There—there—there, sir,' Cucumber was beginning to falter.

'Don't you know the verses the poet Milonov wrote about her?' the old man went on, suddenly getting into a state of excitement, which was a complete surprise to me. 'No hymeneal lights were kindled,' he began chanting, pronouncing all the vowels through his nose, giving the syllables 'an,' 'en,' the nasal sound they have in French; and it was strange to hear this connected speech from his lips: 'No torches ... No, that's not it:

"Not vain Corruption's idols frail Not amaranth nor porphyry Rejoiced their hearts ... One thing in them ..."

'That was about us. Do you hear?

"One thing in them unquenchable, Subduing, sweet, desirable, To nurse their mutual flame in love!"

And you talk about Agrafena!'

Narkiz chuckled half-contemptuously, half-indifferently. 'What a queer fish it is!' he said to himself. But the brigadier had again relapsed into dejection, the rod had dropped from his hands and slipped into the water.



VIII

'Well, to my thinking, our fishing is a poor business,' observed Cucumber; 'the fish, see, don't bite at all. It's got fearfully hot, and there's a fit of "mencholy" come over our gentleman. It's clear we must be going home; that will be best.' He cautiously drew out of his pocket a tin bottle with a wooden stopper, uncorked it, scattered snuff on his wrist, and sniffed it up in both nostrils at once.... 'Ah, what good snuff!' he moaned, as he recovered himself. 'It almost made my tooth ache! Now, my dear Vassily Fomitch, get up—it's time to be off!'

The brigadier got up from the bench.

'Do you live far from here?' I asked Cucumber.

'No, our gentleman lives not far ... it won't be as much as a mile.'

'Will you allow me to accompany you?' I said, addressing the brigadier. I felt disinclined to let him go.

Narkiz was surprised at my intention; but I paid no attention to the disapproving shake of his long-eared cap, and walked out of the garden with the brigadier, who was supported by Cucumber. The old man moved fairly quickly, with a motion as though he were on stilts.



IX

We walked along a scarcely trodden path, through a grassy glade between two birch copses. The sun was blazing; the orioles called to each other in the green thicket; corncrakes chattered close to the path; blue butterflies fluttered in crowds about the white, and red flowers of the low-growing clover; in the perfectly still grass bees hung, as though asleep, languidly buzzing. Cucumber seemed to pull himself together, and brightened up; he was afraid of Narkiz—he lived always under his eye; I was a stranger—a new comer—with me he was soon quite at home.

'Here's our gentleman,' he said in a rapid flow; 'he's a small eater and no mistake! but only one perch, is that enough for him? Unless, your honour, you would like to contribute something? Close here round the corner, at the little inn, there are first-rate white wheaten rolls. And if so, please your honour, this poor sinner, too, will gladly drink on this occasion to your health, and may it be of long years and long days.' I gave him a little silver, and was only just in time to pull away my hand, which he was falling upon to kiss. He learned that I was a sportsman, and fell to talking of a very good friend of his, an officer, who had a 'Mindindenger' Swedish gun, with a copper stock, just like a cannon, so that when you fire it off you are almost knocked senseless—it had been left behind by the French—and a dog—simply one of Nature's marvels! that he himself had always had a great passion for the chase, and his priest would have made no trouble about it—he used in fact to catch quails with him—but the ecclesiastical superior had pursued him with endless persecution; 'and as for Narkiz Semyonitch,' he observed in a sing-song tone, 'if according to his notions I'm not a trustworthy person—well, what I say is: he's let his eyebrows grow till he's like a woodcock, and he fancies all the sciences are known to him.' By this time we had reached the inn, a solitary tumble-down, one-roomed little hut without backyard or outbuildings; an emaciated dog lay curled up under the window; a hen was scratching in the dust under his very nose. Cucumber sat the brigadier down on the bank, and darted instantly into the hut. While he was buying the rolls and emptying a glass, I never took my eyes off the brigadier, who, God knows why, struck me as something of an enigma. In the life of this man—so I mused—there must certainly have been something out of the ordinary. But he, it seemed, did not notice me at all. He was sitting huddled up on the bank, and twisting in his fingers some pinks which he had gathered in my friend's garden. Cucumber made his appearance, at last, with a bundle of rolls in his hand; he made his appearance, all red and perspiring, with an expression of gleeful surprise on his face, as though he had just seen something exceedingly agreeable and unexpected. He at once offered the brigadier a roll to eat, and the latter at once ate it. We proceeded on our way.



X

On the strength of the spirits he had drunk, Cucumber quite 'unbent,' as it is called. He began trying to cheer up the brigadier, who was still hurrying forward with a tottering motion as though he were on stilts. 'Why are you so downcast, sir, and hanging your head? Let me sing you a song. That'll cheer you up in a minute.' He turned to me: 'Our gentleman is very fond of a joke, mercy on us, yes! Yesterday, what did I see?—a peasant-woman washing a pair of breeches on the platform, and a great fat woman she was, and he stood behind her, simply all of a shake with laughter—yes, indeed! ... In a minute, allow me: do you know the song of the hare? You mustn't judge me by my looks; there's a gypsy woman living here in the town, a perfect fright, but sings—'pon my soul! one's ready to lie down and die.' He opened wide his moist red lips and began singing, his head on one side, his eyes shut, and his beard quivering:

'The hare beneath the bush lies still, The hunters vainly scour the hill; The hare lies hid and holds his breath, His ears pricked up, he lies there still Waiting for death. O hunters! what harm have I done, To vex or injure you? Although Among the cabbages I run, One leaf I nibble—only one, And that's not yours! Oh, no!'

Cucumber went on with ever-increasing energy:

'Into the forest dark he fled, His tail he let the hunters see; "Excuse me, gentlemen," says he, "That so I turn my back on you— I am not yours!"'

Cucumber was not singing now ... he was bellowing:

'The hunters hunted day and night, And still the hare was out of sight. So, talking over his misdeeds, They ended by disputing quite— Alas, the hare is not for us! The squint-eye is too sharp for us!'

The first two lines of each stanza Cucumber sang with each syllable drawn out; the other three, on the contrary, very briskly, and accompanied them with little hops and shuffles of his feet; at the conclusion of each verse he cut a caper, in which he kicked himself with his own heels. As he shouted at the top of his voice: 'The squint-eye is too sharp for us!' he turned a somersault.... His expectations were fulfilled. The brigadier suddenly went off into a thin, tearful little chuckle, and laughed so heartily that he could not go on, and stayed still in a half-sitting posture, helplessly slapping his knees with his hands. I looked at his face, flushed crimson, and convulsively working, and felt very sorry for him at that instant especially. Encouraged by his success, Cucumber fell to capering about in a squatting position, singing the refrain of: 'Shildi-budildi!' and 'Natchiki-tchikaldi!' He stumbled at last with his nose in the dust.... The brigadier suddenly ceased laughing and hobbled on.



XI

We went on another quarter of a mile. A little village came into sight on the edge of a not very deep ravine; on one side stood the 'lodge,' with a half-ruined roof and a solitary chimney; in one of the two rooms of this lodge lived the brigadier. The owner of the village, who always resided in Petersburg, the widow of the civil councillor Lomov, had—so I learned later—bestowed this little nook upon the brigadier. She had given orders that he should receive a monthly pension, and had also assigned for his service a half-witted serf-girl living in the same village, who, though she barely understood human speech, was yet capable, in the lady's opinion, of sweeping a floor and cooking cabbage-soup. At the door of the lodge the brigadier again addressed me with the same eighteenth-century smile: would I be pleased to walk into his 'apartement'? We went into this 'apartement.' Everything in it was exceedingly filthy and poor, so filthy and so poor that the brigadier, noticing, probably, by the expression of my face, the impression it made on me, observed, shrugging his shoulders, and half closing his eyelids: 'Ce n'est pas ... oeil de perdrix.' ... What precisely he meant by this remained a mystery to me.... When I addressed him in French, I got no reply from him in that language. Two objects struck me especially in the brigadier's abode: a large officer's cross of St. George in a black frame, under glass, with an inscription in an old-fashioned handwriting: 'Received by the Colonel of the Tchernigov regiment, Vassily Guskov, for the storming of Prague in the year 1794'; and secondly, a half-length portrait in oils of a handsome, black-eyed woman with a long, dark face, hair turned up high and powdered, with postiches on the temple and chin, in a flowered, low-cut bodice, with blue frills, the style of 1780. The portrait was badly painted, but was probably a good likeness; there was a wonderful look of life and will, something extraordinarily living and resolute, about the face. It was not looking at the spectator; it was, as it were, turning away and not smiling; the curve of the thin nose, the regular but flat lips, the almost unbroken straight line of the thick eyebrows, all showed an imperious, haughty, fiery temper. No great effort was needed to picture that face glowing with passion or with rage. Just below the portrait on a little pedestal stood a half-withered bunch of simple wild flowers in a thick glass jar. The brigadier went up to the pedestal, stuck the pinks he was carrying into the jar, and turning to me, and lifting his hand in the direction of the portrait, he observed: 'Agrippina Ivanovna Teliegin, by birth Lomov.' The words of Narkiz came back to my mind; and I looked with redoubled interest at the expressive and evil face of the woman for whose sake the brigadier had lost all his fortune.

'You took part, I see, sir, in the storming of Prague,' I began, pointing to the St. George cross, 'and won a sign of distinction, rare at any time, but particularly so then; you must remember Suvorov?'

'Alexander Vassilitch?' the brigadier answered, after a brief silence, in which he seemed to be pulling his thoughts together; 'to be sure, I remember him; he was a little, brisk old man. Before one could stir a finger, he'd be here and there and everywhere (the brigadier chuckled). He rode into Warsaw on a Cossack horse; he was all in diamonds, and he says to the Poles: "I've no watch, I forgot it in Petersburg—no watch!" and they shouted and huzzaed for him. Queer chaps! Hey! Cucumber! lad!' he added suddenly, changing and raising his voice (the deacon-buffoon had remained standing at the door), 'where's the rolls, eh? And tell Grunka ... to bring some kvas!'

'Directly, your honour,' I heard Cucumber's voice reply. He handed the brigadier the bundle of rolls, and, going out of the lodge, approached a dishevelled creature in rags—the half-witted girl, Grunka, I suppose—and as far as I could make out through the dusty little window, proceeded to demand kvas from her—at least, he several times raised one hand like a funnel to his mouth, and waved the other in our direction.



XII

I made another attempt to get into conversation with the brigadier; but he was evidently tired: he sank, sighing and groaning, on the little couch, and moaning, 'Oy, oy, my poor bones, my poor bones,' untied his garters. I remember I wondered at the time how a man came to be wearing garters. I did not realise that in former days every one wore them. The brigadier began yawning with prolonged, unconcealed yawns, not taking his drowsy eyes off me all the time; so very little children yawn. The poor old man did not even seem quite to understand my question.... And he had taken Prague! He, sword in hand, in the smoke and the dust—at the head of Suvorov's soldiers, the bullet-pierced flag waving above him, the hideous corpses under his feet.... He ... he! Wasn't it wonderful! But yet I could not help fancying that there had been events more extraordinary in the brigadier's life. Cucumber brought white kvas in an iron jug; the brigadier drank greedily—his hands shook. Cucumber supported the bottom of the jug. The old man carefully wiped his toothless mouth with both hands—and again staring at me, fell to chewing and munching his lips. I saw how it was, bowed, and went out of the room.

'Now he'll have a nap,' observed Cucumber, coming out behind me. 'He's terribly knocked up to-day—he went to the grave early this morning.'

'To whose grave?'

'To Agrafena Ivanovna's, to pay his devotions.... She is buried in our parish cemetery here; it'll be four miles from here. Vassily Fomitch visits it every week without fail. Indeed, it was he who buried her and put the fence up at his own expense.'

'Has she been dead long?'

'Well, let's think—twenty years about.'

'Was she a friend of his, or what?'

'Her whole life, you may say, she passed with him ... really. I myself, I must own, never knew the lady, but they do say ... what there was between them ... well, well, well! Sir,' the deacon added hurriedly, seeing I had turned away, 'wouldn't you like to give me something for another drop, for it's time I was home in my hut and rolled up in my blanket?'

I thought it useless to question Cucumber further, so gave him a few coppers, and set off homewards.



XIII

At home I betook myself for further information to Narkiz. He, as I might have anticipated, was somewhat unapproachable, stood a little on his dignity, expressed his surprise that such paltry matters could 'interest' me, and, finally, told me what he knew. I heard the following details.

Vassily Fomitch Guskov had become acquainted with Agrafena Ivanovna Teliegin at Moscow soon after the suppression of the Polish insurrection; her husband had had a post under the governor-general, and Vassily Fomitch was on furlough. He fell in love with her there and then, but did not leave the army at once; he was a man of forty with no family, with a fortune. Her husband soon after died. She was left without children, poor, and in debt.... Vassily Fomitch heard of her position, threw up the service (he received the rank of brigadier on his retirement) and sought out his charming widow, who was not more than five-and-twenty, paid all her debts, redeemed her estate.... From that time he had never parted from her, and finished by living altogether in her house. She, too, seems to have cared for him, but would not marry him. 'She was froward, the deceased lady,' was Narkiz's comment on this: 'My liberty,' she would say, 'is dearer to me than anything.' But as for making use of him—she made use of him 'in every possible way,' and whatever money he had, he dragged to her like an ant. But the frowardness of Agrafena Ivanovna at times assumed extreme proportions; she was not of a mild temper, and somewhat too ready with her hands.... Once she pushed her page-boy down the stairs, and he went and broke two of his ribs and one leg.... Agrafena Ivanovna was frightened ... she promptly ordered the page to be shut up in the lumber-room, and she did not leave the house nor give up the key of the room to any one, till the moans within had ceased.... The page was secretly buried.... 'And had it been in the Empress Catherine's time,' Narkiz added in a whisper, bending down, 'maybe the affair would have ended there—many such deeds were hidden under a bushel in those days, but as ...' here Narkiz drew himself up and raised his voice:' as our righteous Tsar Alexander the Blessed was reigning then ... well, a fuss was made.... A trial followed, the body was dug up ... signs of violence were found on it ... and a great to-do there was. And what do you think? Vassily Fomitch took it all on himself. "I," said he, "am responsible for it all; it was I pushed him down, and I too shut him up." Well, of course, all the judges then, and the lawyers and the police ... fell on him directly ... fell on him and never let him go ... I can assure you ... till the last farthing was out of his purse. They'd leave him in peace for a while, and then attack him again. Down to the very time when the French came into Russia they were worrying at him, and only dropped him then. Well, he managed to provide for Agrafena Ivanovna—to be sure, he saved her—that one must say. Well, and afterwards, up to her death, indeed, he lived with her, and they do say she led him a pretty dance—the brigadier, that is; sent him on foot from Moscow into the country—by God, she did—to get her rents in, I suppose. It was on her account, on account of this same Agrafena Ivanovna—he fought a duel with the English milord Hugh Hughes; and the English milord was forced to make a formal apology too. But later on the brigadier went down hill more and more.... Well, and now he can't be reckoned a man at all.'

'Who was that Alexey Ivanitch the Jew,' I asked, 'through whom he was brought to ruin?'

'Oh, the brother of Agrafena Ivanovna. A grasping creature, Jewish indeed. He lent his sister money at interest, and Vassily Fomitch was her security. He had to pay for it too ... pretty heavily!'

'And Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer—who was she?'

'Her sister too ... and a sharp one too, as sharp as a lance. A terrible woman!'



XIV

'What a place to find a Werter!' I thought next day, as I set off again towards the brigadier's dwelling. I was at that time very young, and that was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting nature of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story I had heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make him talk freely. 'I'll first refer to Suvorov again,' so I resolved within myself; 'there must be some spark of his former fire hidden within him still ... and then, when he's warmed up, I'll turn the conversation on that ... what's her name? ... Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer name for a "Charlotte"—Agrafena!'

I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut, overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly slipping and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort of green stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just pulled a young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm 'to clean it,' proceeded to chew its thin tail.... I bowed to him, and inquired after his health.

He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting—that is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off munching the carrot.

'You didn't go fishing to-day?' I began, in the hope of recalling myself to his memory by this question.

'To-day?' he repeated and pondered ... while the carrot, stuck into his mouth, grew shorter and shorter. 'Why, I suppose it's Cucumber fishing! ... But I'm allowed to, too.'

'Of course, of course, most honoured Vassily Fomitch.... I didn't mean that.... But aren't you hot ... like this in the sun.'

The brigadier was wearing a thick wadded dressing-gown.

'Eh? Hot?' he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and, having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards.

'Would you care to step into my apartement?' he said suddenly. The poor old man had, it seemed, only this phrase still left him always at his disposal.

We went out of the kitchen-garden ... but there involuntarily I stopped short. Between us and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily and furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the dust up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his tail, and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly, and bellowed—not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time menacingly. I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped forward with perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, 'Now then, country bumpkin,' shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again, bowed his horns ... suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging his head from side to side.

'There's no doubt he took Prague,' I thought.

We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, 'Fa!' ... squatted down on the edge of a chair ... bowed his head gloomily....

'I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,' I began my diplomatic approaches, 'because, as you have served under the leadership of the great Suvorov—have taken part altogether in such important events—it would be very interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.'

The brigadier stared at me.... His face kindled strangely—I began to expect, if not a story, at least some word of approval, of sympathy....

'But I, sir, must be going to die soon,' he said in an undertone.

I was utterly nonplussed.

'Why, Vassily Fomitch, 'I brought out at last, 'what makes you ... suppose that?'

The brigadier suddenly flung his arms violently up and down.

'Because, sir ... I, as maybe you know ... often in my dreams see Agrippina Ivanovna—Heaven's peace be with her!—and never can I catch her; I am always running after her—but cannot catch her. But last night—I dreamed—she was standing, as it were, before me, half-turned away, and laughing.... I ran up to her at once and caught her ... and she seemed to turn round quite and said to me: "Well, Vassinka, now you have caught me."'

'What do you conclude from that, Vassily Fomitch?'

'Why, sir, I conclude: it has come, that we shall be together. And glory to God for it, I tell you; glory be to God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (the brigadier fell into a chant): as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, Amen!'

The brigadier began crossing himself. I could get nothing more out of him, so I went away.



XV

The next day my friend arrived.... I mentioned the brigadier, and my visits to him....

'Oh yes! of course! I know his story,' answered my friend; 'I know Madame Lomov very well, the privy councillor's widow, by whose favour he obtained a home here. Oh, wait a minute; I believe there must be preserved here his letter to the privy councillor's widow; it was on the strength of that letter that she assigned him his little cot.' My friend rummaged among his papers and actually found the brigadier's letter. Here it is word for word, with the omission of the mistakes in spelling. The brigadier, like every one of his epoch, was a little hazy in that respect. But to preserve these errors seemed unnecessary; his letter bears the stamp of his age without them.

'HONOURED MADAM, RAISSA PAVLOVNA!—On the decease of my friend, and your aunt, I had the happiness of addressing to you two letters, the first on the first of June, the second on the sixth of July of the year 1815, while she expired on the sixth of May in that year; in them I discovered to you the feelings of my soul and of my heart, which were crushed under deadly wrongs, and they reflected in full my bitter despair, in truth deserving of commiseration; both letters were despatched by the imperial mail registered, and hence I cannot conceive that they have not been perused by your eye. By the genuine candour of my letters, I had counted upon winning your benevolent attention; but the compassionate feelings of your heart were far removed from me in my woe! Left on the loss of my one only friend, Agrippina Ivanovna, in the most distressed and poverty-stricken circumstances, I rested, by her instructions, all my hopes on your bounty; she, aware of her end approaching, said to me in these words, as it were from the grave, and never can I forget them: "My friend, I have been your serpent, and am guilty of all your unhappiness. I feel how much you have sacrificed for me, and in return I leave you in a disastrous and truly destitute situation; on my death have recourse to Raissa Pavlovna"—that is, to you—"and implore her aid, invite her succour! She has a feeling heart, and I have confidence in her, that she will not leave you forlorn." Honoured madam, let me call to witness the all-high Creator of the world that those were her words, and I am speaking with her tongue; and, therefore, trusting firmly in your goodness, to you first of all I addressed myself with my open-hearted and candid letters; but after protracted expectation, receiving no reply to them, I could not conceive otherwise than that your benevolent heart had left me without attention! Such your unfavourable disposition towards me, reduced me to the depths of despair—whither, and to whom, was I to turn in my misfortune I knew not; my soul was troubled, my intellect went astray; at last, for the completion of my ruin, it pleased Providence to chastise me in a still more cruel manner, and to turn my thoughts to your deceased aunt, Fedulia Ivanovna, sister of Agrippina Ivanovna, one in blood, but not one in heart! Having present to myself, before my mind's eye, that I had been for twenty years devoted to the whole family of your kindred, the Lomovs, especially to Fedulia Ivanovna, who never called Agrippina Ivanovna otherwise than "my heart's precious treasure," and me "the most honoured and zealous friend of our family"; picturing all the above, among abundant tears and sighs in the stillness of sorrowful night watches, I thought: "Come, brigadier! so, it seems, it is to be!" and, addressing myself by letter to the said Fedulia Ivanovna, I received a positive assurance that she would share her last crumb with me! The presents sent on by me, more than five hundred roubles' worth in value, were accepted with supreme satisfaction; and afterwards the money too which I brought with me for my maintenance, Fedulia Ivanovna was pleased, on the pretext of guarding it, to take into her care, to the which, to gratify her, I offered no opposition.

If you ask me whence, and on what ground I conceived such confidence—to the above, madam, there is but one reply: she was sister of Agrippina Ivanovna, and a member of the Lomov family! But alas and alas! all the money aforesaid I was very soon deprived of, and the hopes which I had rested on Fedulia Ivanovna—that she would share her last crumb with me—turned out to be empty and vain; on the contrary, the said Fedulia Ivanovna enriched herself with my property. To wit, on her saint's day, the fifth of February, I brought her fifty roubles' worth of green French material, at five roubles the yard; I myself received of all that was promised five roubles' worth of white pique for a waistcoat and a muslin handkerchief for my neck, which gifts were purchased in my presence, as I was aware, with my own money—and that was all that I profited by Fedulia Ivanovna's bounty! So much for the last crumb! And I could further, in all sincerity, disclose the malignant doings of Fedulia Ivanovna to me; and also my expenses, exceeding all reason, as, among the rest, for sweetmeats and fruits, of which Fedulia Ivanovna was exceedingly fond;—but upon all this I am silent, that you may not take such disclosures against the dead in bad part; and also, seeing that God has called her before His judgment seat—and all that I suffered at her hands is blotted out from my heart—and I, as a Christian, forgave her long ago, and pray to God to forgive her!

'But, honoured madam, Raissa Pavlovna! Surely you will not blame me for that I was a true and loyal friend of your family, and that I loved Agrippina Ivanovna with a love so great and so insurmountable that I sacrificed to her my life, my honour, and all my fortune! that I was utterly in her hands, and hence could not dispose of myself nor of my property, and she disposed at her will of me and also of my estate! It is known to you also that, owing to her action with her servant, I suffer, though innocent, a deadly wrong—this affair I brought after her death before the senate, before the sixth department—it is still unsettled now—in consequence of which I was made accomplice with her, my estate put under guardianship, and I am still lying under a criminal charge! In my position, at my age, such disgrace is intolerable to me; and it is only left me to console my heart with the mournful reflection that thus, even after Agrippina Ivanovna's death, I suffer for her sake, and so prove my immutable love and loyal gratitude to her!

'In my letters, above mentioned, to you, I gave you an account with every detail of Agrippina Ivanovna's funeral, and what masses were read for her—my affection and love for her spared no outlay! For all the aforesaid, and for the forty days' requiems, and the reading of the psalter six weeks after for her (in addition to above, fifty roubles of mine were lost, which were given as security for payment for the stone, of which I sent you a description)—on all the aforesaid was spent of my money seven hundred and fifty roubles, in which is included, by way of donation to the church, a hundred and fifty roubles.

'In the goodness of your heart, hear the cry of a desperate man, crushed beneath a load of the crudest calamities! Only your commiseration and humanity can restore the life of a ruined man! Though living—in the suffering of my heart and soul I am as one dead; dead when I think what I was, and what I am; I was a soldier, and served my country in all fidelity and uprightness, as is the bounden duty of a loyal Russian and faithful subject, and was rewarded with the highest honours, and had a fortune befitting my birth and station; and now I must cringe and beg for a morsel of dry bread; dead above all I am when I think what a friend I have lost ... and what is life to me after that? But there is no hastening one's end, and the earth will not open, but rather seems turned to stone! And so I call upon you, in the benevolence of your heart, hush the talk of the people, do not expose yourself to universal censure, that for all my unbounded devotion I have not where to lay my head; confound them by your bounty to me, turn the tongues of the evil speakers and slanderers to glorifying your good works—and I make bold in all humility to add, comfort in the grave your most precious aunt, Agrippina Ivanovna, who can never be forgotten, and who for your speedy succour, in answer to my sinful prayers, will spread her protecting wings about your head, and comfort in his declining days a lonely old man, who had every reason to expect a different fate! ... And, with the most profound respect, I have the honour to be, dear madam, your most devoted servant,

VASSILY GUSKOV,

Brigadier and cavalier.'

Several years later I paid another visit to my friend's little place.... Vassily Fomitch had long been dead; he died soon after I made his acquaintance. Cucumber was still flourishing. He conducted me to the tomb of Agrafena Ivanovna. An iron railing enclosed a large slab with a detailed and enthusiastically laudatory epitaph on the deceased woman; and there, beside it, as it were at her feet, could be seen a little mound with a slanting cross on it; the servant of God, the brigadier and cavalier, Vassily Guskov, lay under this mound.... His ashes found rest at last beside the ashes of the creature he had loved with such unbounded, almost undying, love.

1867.



PYETUSHKOV

I

In the year 182- ... there was living in the town of O—— the lieutenant Ivan Afanasiitch Pyetushkov. He was born of poor parents, was left an orphan at five years old, and came into the charge of a guardian. Thanks to this guardian, he found himself with no property whatever; he had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. He was of medium height, and stooped a little; he had a thin face, covered with freckles, but rather pleasing; light brown hair, grey eyes, and a timid expression; his low forehead was furrowed with fine wrinkles. Pyetushkov's whole life had been uneventful in the extreme; at close upon forty he was still youthful and inexperienced as a child. He was shy with acquaintances, and exceedingly mild in his manner with persons over whose lot he could have exerted control....

People condemned by fate to a monotonous and cheerless existence often acquire all sorts of little habits and preferences. Pyetushkov liked to have a new white roll with his tea every morning. He could not do without this dainty. But behold one morning his servant, Onisim, handed him, on a blue-sprigged plate, instead of a roll, three dark red rusks.

Pyetushkov at once asked his servant, with some indignation, what he meant by it.

'The rolls have all been sold out,' answered Onisim, a native of Petersburg, who had been flung by some queer freak of destiny into the very wilds of south Russia.

'Impossible!' exclaimed Ivan Afanasiitch.

'Sold out,' repeated Onisim; 'there's a breakfast at the Marshal's, so they've all gone there, you know.'

Onisim waved his hand in the air, and thrust his right foot forward.

Ivan Afanasiitch walked up and down the room, dressed, and set off himself to the baker's shop. This establishment, the only one of the kind in the town of O——, had been opened ten years before by a German immigrant, had in a short time begun to flourish, and was still flourishing under the guidance of his widow, a fat woman.

Pyetushkov tapped at the window. The fat woman stuck her unhealthy, flabby, sleepy countenance out of the pane that opened.

'A roll, if you please,' Pyetushkov said amiably.

'The rolls are all gone,' piped the fat woman.

'Haven't you any rolls?'

'No.'

'How's that?—really! I take rolls from you every day, and pay for them regularly.'

The woman stared at him in silence. 'Take twists,' she said at last, yawning; 'or a scone.'

'I don't like them,' said Pyetushkov, and he felt positively hurt.

'As you please,' muttered the fat woman, and she slammed to the window-pane.

Ivan Afanasiitch was quite unhinged by his intense vexation. In his perturbation he crossed to the other side of the street, and gave himself up entirely, like a child, to his displeasure.

'Sir!' ... he heard a rather agreeable female voice; 'sir!'

Ivan Afanasiitch raised his eyes. From the open pane of the bakehouse window peeped a girl of about seventeen, holding a white roll in her hand. She had a full round face, rosy cheeks, small hazel eyes, rather a turn-up nose, fair hair, and magnificent shoulders. Her features suggested good-nature, laziness, and carelessness.

'Here's a roll for you, sir,' she said, laughing, 'I'd taken for myself; but take it, please, I'll give it up to you.'

'I thank you most sincerely. Allow me ...'

Pyetushkov began fumbling in his pocket.

'No, no! you are welcome to it.'

She closed the window-pane.

Pyetushkov arrived home in a perfectly agreeable frame of mind.

'You couldn't get any rolls,' he said to his Onisim; 'but here, I've got one, do you see?'

Onisim gave a bitter laugh.

The same day, in the evening, as Ivan Afanasiitch was undressing, he asked his servant, 'Tell me, please, my lad, what's the girl like at the baker's, hey?'

Onisim looked away rather gloomily, and responded, 'What do you want to know for?'

'Oh, nothing,' said Pyetushkov, taking off his boots with his own hands.

'Well, she's a fine girl!' Onisim observed condescendingly.

'Yes, ... she's not bad-looking,' said Ivan Afanasiitch, also looking away. 'And what's her name, do you know?'

'Vassilissa.'

'And do you know her?'

Onisim did not answer for a minute or two.

'We know her.'

Pyetushkov was on the point of opening his mouth again, but he turned over on the other side and fell asleep.

Onisim went out into the passage, took a pinch of snuff, and gave his head a violent shake.

The next day, early in the morning, Pyetushkov called for his clothes. Onisim brought him his everyday coat—an old grass-coloured coat, with huge striped epaulettes. Pyetushkov gazed a long while at Onisim without speaking, then told him to bring him his new coat. Onisim, with some surprise, obeyed. Pyetushkov dressed, and carefully drew on his chamois-leather gloves.

'You needn't go to the baker's to-day,' said he with some hesitation; 'I'm going myself, ... it's on my way.'

'Yes, sir,' responded Onisim, as abruptly as if some one had just given him a shove from behind.

Pyetushkov set off, reached the baker's shop, tapped at the window. The fat woman opened the pane.

'Give me a roll, please,' Ivan Afanasiitch articulated slowly.

The fat woman stuck out an arm, bare to the shoulder—a huge arm, more like a leg than an arm—and thrust the hot bread just under his nose.

Ivan Afanasiitch stood some time under the window, walked once or twice up and down the street, glanced into the courtyard, and at last, ashamed of his childishness, returned home with the roll in his hand. He felt ill at ease the whole day, and even in the evening, contrary to his habit, did not drop into conversation with Onisim.

The next morning it was Onisim who went for the roll.



II

Some weeks went by. Ivan Afanasiitch had completely forgotten Vassilissa, and chatted in a friendly way with his servant as before. One fine morning there came to see him a certain Bublitsyn, an easy-mannered and very agreeable young man. It is true he sometimes hardly knew himself what he was talking about, and was always, as they say, a little wild; but all the same he had the reputation of being an exceedingly agreeable person to talk to. He smoked a great deal with feverish eagerness, with lifted eyebrows and contracted chest—smoked with an expression of intense anxiety, or, one might rather say, with an expression as though, let him have this one more puff at his pipe, and in a minute he would tell you some quite unexpected piece of news; at times he would even give a grunt and a wave of the hand, while himself sucking at his pipe, as though he had suddenly recollected something extraordinarily amusing or important, then he would open his mouth, let off a few rings of smoke, and utter the most commonplace remarks, or even keep silence altogether. After gossiping a little with Ivan Afanasiitch about the neighbours, about horses, the daughters of the gentry around, and other such edifying topics, Mr. Bublitsyn suddenly winked, pulled up his shock of hair, and, with a sly smile, approached the remarkably dim looking-glass which was the solitary ornament of Ivan Afanasiitch's room.

'There's no denying the fact,' he pronounced, stroking his light brown whiskers, 'we've got girls here that beat any of your Venus of Medicis hollow.... Have you seen Vassilissa, the baker girl, for instance?' ... Mr. Bublitsyn sucked at his pipe.

Pyetushkov started.

'But why do I ask you?' pursued Bublitsyn, disappearing in a cloud of smoke,—'you're not the man to notice, don't you know, Ivan Afanasiitch! Goodness knows what you do to occupy yourself, Ivan Afanasiitch!'

'The same as you do,' Pyetushkov replied with some vexation, in a drawling voice.

'Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch, not a bit of it.... How can you say so?'

'Well, why not?'

'Nonsense, nonsense.'

'Why so, why so?'

Bublitsyn stuck his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and began scrutinising his not very handsome boots. Pyetushkov felt embarrassed.

'Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, Ivan Afanasiitch!' pursued Bublitsyn, as though sparing his feelings. 'But as to Vassilissa, the baker girl, I can assure you: a very, ve-ry fine girl, ... ve-ry.'

Mr. Bublitsyn dilated his nostrils, and slowly plunged his hands into his pockets.

Strange to relate, Ivan Afanasiitch felt something of the nature of jealousy. He began moving restlessly in his chair, burst into explosive laughter at nothing at all, suddenly blushed, yawned, and, as he yawned, his lower jaw twitched a little. Bublitsyn smoked three more pipes, and withdrew. Ivan Afanasiitch went to the window, sighed, and called for something to drink.

Onisim set a glass of kvas on the table, glanced severely at his master, leaned back against the door, and hung his head dejectedly.

'What are you so thoughtful about?' his master asked him genially, but with some inward trepidation.

'What am I thinking about?' retorted Onisim; 'what am I thinking about? ... it's always about you.'

'About me!'

'Of course it's about you.'

'Why, what is it you are thinking?'

'Why, this is what I'm thinking.' (Here Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) 'You ought to be ashamed, sir—you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

'Ashamed?'

'Yes, ashamed.... Look at Mr. Bublitsyn, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Tell me if he's not a fine fellow, now.'

'I don't understand you.'

'You don't understand me.... Oh yes, you do understand me.'

Onisim paused.

'Mr. Bublitsyn's a real gentleman—what a gentleman ought to be. But what are you, Ivan Afanasiitch, what are you? Tell me that.'

'Why, I'm a gentleman too.'

'A gentleman, indeed!' ... retorted Onisim, growing indignant. 'A pretty gentleman you are! You're no better, sir, than a hen in a shower of rain, Ivan Afanasiitch, let me tell you. Here you sit sticking at home the whole blessed day ... much good it does you, sitting at home like that! You don't play cards, you don't go and see the gentry, and as for ... well ...'

Onisim waved his hand expressively.

'Now, come ... you really go ... too far ...' Ivan Afanasiitch said hesitatingly, clutching his pipe.

'Too far, indeed, Ivan Afanasiitch, too far, you say! Judge for yourself. Here again, with Vassilissa ... why couldn't you ...'

'But what are you thinking about, Onisim,' Pyetushkov interrupted miserably.

'I know what I'm thinking about. But there—I'd better let you alone! What can you do? Only fancy ... there you ...'

Ivan Afanasiitch got up.

'There, there, if you please, you hold your tongue,' he said quickly, seeming to be searching for Onisim with his eyes; 'I shall really, you know ... I ... what do you mean by it, really? You'd better help me dress.'

Onisim slowly drew off Ivan Afanasiitch's greasy Tartar dressing-gown, gazed with fatherly commiseration at his master, shook his head, put him on his coat, and fell to beating him about the back with a brush.

Pyetushkov went out, and after a not very protracted stroll about the crooked streets of the town, found himself facing the baker's shop. A queer smile was playing about his lips.

He had hardly time to look twice at the too well-known 'establishment,' when suddenly the little gate opened, and Vassilissa ran out with a yellow kerchief on her head and a jacket flung after the Russian fashion on her shoulders. Ivan Afanasiitch at once overtook her.

'Where are you going, my dear?'

Vassilissa glanced swiftly at him, laughed, turned away, and put her hand over her lips.

'Going shopping, I suppose?' queried Ivan Afanasiitch, fidgeting with his feet.

'How inquisitive we are!' retorted Vassilissa.

'Why inquisitive?' said Pyetushkov, hurriedly gesticulating with his hands. 'Quite the contrary.... Oh yes, you know,' he added hastily, as though these last words completely conveyed his meaning.

'Did you eat my roll?'

'To be sure I did,' replied Pyetushkov: 'with special enjoyment.'

Vassilissa continued to walk on and to laugh.

'It's pleasant weather to-day,' pursued Ivan Afanasiitch: 'do you often go out walking?'

'Yes.'

'Ah, how I should like....'

'What say?'

The girls in our district utter those words in a very queer way, with a peculiar sharpness and rapidity.... Partridges call at sunset with just that sound.

'To go out walking, don't you know, with you ... into the country, or ...'

'How can you?'

'Why not?'

'Ah, upon my word, how you do go on!'

'But allow me....'

At this point they were overtaken by a dapper little shopman, with a little goat's beard, and with his fingers held apart like antlers, so as to keep his sleeves from slipping over his hands, in a long-skirted bluish coat, and a warm cap that resembled a bloated water-melon. Pyetushkov, for propriety's sake, fell back a little behind Vassilissa, but quickly came up with her again.

'Well, then, what about our walk?'

Vassilissa looked slily at him and giggled again.

'Do you belong to these parts?'

'Yes.'

Vassilissa passed her hand over her hair and walked a little more slowly. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled, and, his heart inwardly sinking with timidity, he stooped a little on one side and put a trembling arm about the beauty's waist.

Vassilissa uttered a shriek.

'Give over, do, for shame, in the street.'

'Come now, there, there,' muttered Ivan Afanasiitch.

'Give over, I tell you, in the street.... Don't be rude.'

'A ... a ... ah, what a girl you are!' said Pyetushkov reproachfully, while he blushed up to his ears.

Vassilissa stood still.

'Now go along with you, sir—go along, do.'

Pyetushkov obeyed. He got home, and sat for a whole hour without moving from his chair, without even smoking his pipe. At last he took out a sheet of greyish paper, mended a pen, and after long deliberation wrote the following letter.

'DEAR MADAM, VASSILISSA TIMOFYEVNA!—Being naturally a most inoffensive person, how could I have occasioned you annoyance? If I have really been to blame in my conduct to you, then I must tell you: the hints of Mr. Bublitsyn were responsible for this, which was what I never expected. Anyway, I must humbly beg you not to be angry with me. I am a sensitive man, and any kindness I am most sensible of and grateful for. Do not be angry with me, Vassilissa Timofyevna, I beg you most humbly.—I remain respectfully your obedient servant,

IVAN PYETUSHKOV.'

Onisim carried this letter to its address.



III

A fortnight passed. Onisim went every morning as usual to the baker's shop. One day Vassilissa ran out to meet him.

'Good morning, Onisim Sergeitch.'

Onisim put on a gloomy expression, and responded crossly, ''Morning.'

'How is it you never come to see us, Onisim Sergeitch?'

Onisim glanced morosely at her.

'What should I come for? you wouldn't give me a cup of tea, no fear.'

'Yes, I would, Onisim Sergeitch, I would. You come and see. Rum in it, too.'

Onisim slowly relaxed into a smile.

'Well, I don't mind if I do, then.'

'When, then—when?'

'When ... well, you are ...'

'To-day—this evening, if you like. Drop in.

'All right, I'll come along,' replied Onisim, and he sauntered home with his slow, rolling step.

The same evening in a little room, beside a bed covered with a striped eider-down, Onisim was sitting at a clumsy little table, facing Vassilissa. A huge, dingy yellow samovar was hissing and bubbling on the table; a pot of geranium stood in the window; in the other corner near the door there stood aslant an ugly chest with a tiny hanging lock; on the chest lay a shapeless heap of all sorts of old rags; on the walls were black, greasy prints. Onisim and Vassilissa drank their tea in silence, looking straight at each other, turning the lumps of sugar over and over in their hands, as it were reluctantly nibbling them, blinking, screwing up their eyes, and with a hissing sound sucking in the yellowish boiling liquid through their teeth. At last they had emptied the whole samovar, turned upside down the round cups—one with the inscription, 'Take your fill'; the other with the words, 'Cupid's dart hath pierced my heart'—then they cleared their throats, wiped their perspiring brows, and gradually dropped into conversation.

'Onisim Sergeitch, how about your master ...' began Vassilissa, and did not finish her sentence.

'What about my master?' replied Onisim, and he leaned on his hand. 'He's all right. But why do you ask?'

'Oh, I only asked,' answered Vassilissa.

'But I say'—(here Onisim grinned)—'I say, he wrote you a letter, didn't he?'

'Yes, he did.'

Onisim shook his head with an extraordinarily self-satisfied air.

'So he did, did he?' he said huskily, with a smile. 'Well, and what did he say in his letter to you?'

'Oh, all sorts of things. "I didn't mean anything, Madam, Vassilissa Timofyevna," says he, "don't you think anything of it; don't you be offended, madam," and a lot more like that he wrote.... But I say,' she added after a brief silence: 'what's he like?'

'He's all right,' Onisim responded indifferently.

'Does he get angry?'

'He get angry! Not he. Why, do you like him?'

Vassilissa looked down and giggled in her sleeve.

'Come,' grumbled Onisim.

'Oh, what's that to you, Onisim Sergeitch?'

'Oh, come, I tell you.'

'Well,' Vassilissa brought out at last, 'he's ... a gentleman. Of course ... I ... and besides; he ... you know yourself ...'

'Of course I do,' Onisim observed solemnly.

'Of course you're aware, to be sure, Onisim Sergeitch.' ... Vassilissa was obviously becoming agitated.

'You tell him, your master, that I'm ...; say, not angry with him, but that ...'

She stammered.

'We understand,' responded Onisim, and he got up from his seat. 'We understand. Thanks for the entertainment.'

'Come in again some day.'

'All right, all right.'

Onisim approached the door. The fat woman came into the room.

'Good evening to you, Onisim Sergeitch,' she said in a peculiar chant.

'Good evening to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,' he said in the same sing-song.

Both stood still for a little while facing each other.

'Well, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,' Onisim chanted out again.

'Well, good day to you, Onisim Sergeitch,' she responded in the same sing-song.

Onisim arrived home. His master was lying on his bed, gazing at the ceiling.

'Where have you been?'

'Where have I been?' ... (Onisim had the habit of repeating reproachfully the last words of every question.) 'I've been about your business.'

'What business?'

'Why, don't you know? ... I've been to see Vassilissa.'

Pyetushkov blinked and turned over on his bed.

'So that's how it is,' observed Onisim, and he coolly took a pinch of snuff. 'So that's how it is. You're always like that. Vassilissa sends you her duty.'

'Really?'

'Really? So that's all about it. Really! ... She told me to say, Why is it, says she, one never sees him? Why is it, says she, he never comes?'

'Well, and what did you say?'

'What did I say? I told her: You're a silly girl—I told her—as if folks like that are coming to see you! No, you come yourself, I told her.'

'Well, and what did she say?'

'What did she say? ... She said nothing.'

'That is, how do you mean, nothing?'

'Why, nothing, to be sure.'

Pyetushkov said nothing for a little while.

'Well, and is she coming?'

Onisim shook his head.

'She coming! You're in too great a hurry, sir. She coming, indeed! No, you go too fast.' ...

'But you said yourself that ...'

'Oh, well, it's easy to talk.'

Pyetushkov was silent again.

'Well, but how's it to be, then, my lad?'

'How? ... You ought to know best; you 're a gentleman.'

'Oh, nonsense! come now!'

Onisim swayed complacently backwards and forwards.

'Do you know Praskovia Ivanovna?' he asked at last.

'No. What Praskovia Ivanovna?'

'Why, the baker woman!'

'Oh yes, the baker woman. I've seen her; she's very fat.'

'She's a worthy woman. She's own aunt to the other, to your girl.'

'Aunt?'

'Why, didn't you know?'

'No, I didn't know.'

'Well ...'

Onisim was restrained by respect for his master from giving full expression to his feelings.

'That's whom it is you should make friends with.'

'Well, I've no objection.'

Onisim looked approvingly at Ivan Afanasiitch.

'But with what object precisely am I to make friends with her?' inquired Pyetushkov.

'What for, indeed!' answered Onisim serenely.

Ivan Afanasiitch got up, paced up and down the room, stood still before the window, and without turning his head, with some hesitation he articulated:

'Onisim!'

'What say?'

'Won't it be, you know, a little awkward for me with the old woman, eh?'

'Oh, that's as you like.'

'Oh, well, I only thought it might, perhaps. My comrades might notice it; it's a little ... But I'll think it over. Give me my pipe.... So she,' he went on after a short silence—Vassilissa, I mean, says then ...'

But Onisim had no desire to continue the conversation, and he assumed his habitual morose expression.



IV

Ivan Afanasiitch's acquaintance with Praskovia Ivanovna began in the following manner. Five days after his conversation with Onisim, Pyetushkov set off in the evening to the baker's shop. 'Well,' thought he, as he unlatched the creaking gate, 'I don't know how it's to be.' ...

He mounted the steps, opened the door. A huge, crested hen rushed, with a deafening cackle, straight under his feet, and long after was still running about the yard in wild excitement. From a room close by peeped the astonished countenance of the fat woman. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled and nodded. The fat woman bowed to him. Tightly grasping his hat, Pyetushkov approached her. Praskovia Ivanovna was apparently anticipating an honoured guest; her dress was fastened up at every hook. Pyetushkov sat down on a chair; Praskovia Ivanovna seated herself opposite him.

'I have come to you, Praskovia Ivanovna, more on account of....' Ivan Afanasiitch began at last—and then ceased. His lips were twitching spasmodically.

'You are kindly welcome, sir,' responded Praskovia Ivanovna in the proper sing-song, and with a bow. 'Always delighted to see a guest.'

Pyetushkov took courage a little.

'I have long wished, you know, to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance, Praskovia Ivanovna.'

'Much obliged to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.'

Followed a silence. Praskovia Ivanovna wiped her face with a parti-coloured handkerchief; Ivan Afanasiitch continued with intense attention to gaze away to one side. Both were rather uncomfortable. But in merchant and petty shopkeeper society, where even old friends never step outside special angular forms of etiquette, a certain constraint in the behaviour of guests and host to one another not only strikes no one as strange, but, on the contrary, is regarded as perfectly correct and indispensable, particularly on a first visit. Praskovia Ivanovna was agreeably impressed by Pyetushkov. He was formal and decorous in his manners, and moreover, wasn't he a man of some rank, too?

'Praskovia Ivanovna, ma'am, I like your rolls very much,' he said to her.

'Really now, really now.'

'Very good they are, you know, very, indeed.'

'May they do you good, sir, may they do you good. Delighted, to be sure.'

'I've never eaten any like them in Moscow.'

'You don't say so now, you don't say so.'

Again a silence followed.

'Tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna,' began Ivan Afanasiitch; 'that's your niece, I fancy, isn't it, living with you?'

'My own niece, sir.'

'How comes it ... she's with you?'....

'She's an orphan, so I keep her.'

'And is she a good worker?'

'Such a girl to work ... such a girl, sir ... ay ... ay ... to be sure she is.'

Ivan Afanasiitch thought it discreet not to pursue the subject of the niece further.

'What bird is that you have in the cage, Praskovia Ivanovna?'

'God knows. A bird of some sort.'

'H'm! Well, so, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna.'

'A very good day to your honour. Pray walk in another time, and take a cup of tea.'

'With the greatest pleasure, Praskovia Ivanovna.'

Pyetushkov walked out. On the steps he met Vassilissa. She giggled.

'Where are you going, my darling?' said Pyetushkov with reckless daring.

'Come, give over, do, you are a one for joking.'

'He, he! And did you get my letter?'

Vassilissa hid the lower part of her face in her sleeve and made no answer.

'And you're not angry with me?'

'Vassilissa!' came the jarring voice of the aunt; 'hey, Vassilissa!'

Vassilissa ran into the house. Pyetushkov returned home. But from that day he began going often to the baker's shop, and his visits were not for nothing. Ivan Afanasiitch's hopes, to use the lofty phraseology suitable, were crowned with success. Usually, the attainment of the goal has a cooling effect on people, but Pyetushkov, on the contrary, grew every day more and more ardent. Love is a thing of accident, it exists in itself, like art, and, like nature, needs no reasons to justify it, as some clever man has said who never loved, himself, but made excellent observations upon love.

Pyetushkov became passionately attached to Vassilissa. He was completely happy. His soul was aglow with bliss. Little by little he carried all his belongings, at any rate all his pipes, to Praskovia Ivanovna's, and for whole days together he sat in her back room. Praskovia Ivanovna charged him something for his dinner and drank his tea, consequently she did not complain of his presence. Vassilissa had grown used to him. She would work, sing, or spin before him, sometimes exchanging a couple of words with him; Pyetushkov watched her, smoked his pipe, swayed to and fro in his chair, laughed, and in leisure hours played 'Fools' with her and Praskovia Ivanovna. Ivan Afanasiitch was happy....

But in this world nothing is perfect, and, small as a man's requirements may be, destiny never quite fulfils them, and positively spoils the whole thing, if possible.... The spoonful of pitch is sure to find its way into the barrel of honey! Ivan Afanasiitch experienced this in his case.

In the first place, from the time of his establishing himself at Vassilissa's, Pyetushkov dropped more than ever out of all intercourse with his comrades. He saw them only when absolutely necessary, and then, to avoid allusions and jeers (in which, however, he was not always successful), he put on the desperately sullen and intensely scared look of a hare in a display of fireworks.

Secondly, Onisim gave him no peace; he had lost every trace of respect for him, he mercilessly persecuted him, put him to shame.

And ... thirdly.... Alas! read further, kindly reader.



V

One day Pyetushkov (who for the reasons given above found little comfort outside Praskovia Ivanovna's doors) was sitting in Vassilissa's room at the back, and was busying himself over some home-brewed concoction, something in the way of jam or syrup. The mistress of the house was not at home. Vassilissa was sitting in the shop singing.

There came a knock at the little pane. Vassilissa got up, went to the window, uttered a little shriek, giggled, and began whispering with some one. On going back to her place, she sighed, and then fell to singing louder than ever.

'Who was that you were talking to?' Pyetushkov asked her.

Vassilissa went on singing carelessly.

'Vassilissa, do you hear? Vassilissa!'

'What do you want?'

'Whom were you talking to?'

'What's that to you?'

'I only asked.'

Pyetushkov came out of the back room in a parti-coloured smoking-jacket with tucked-up sleeves, and a strainer in his hand.

'Oh, a friend of mine,' answered Vassilissa.

'What friend?'

'Oh, Piotr Petrovitch.'

'Piotr Petrovitch? ... what Piotr Petrovitch?'

'He's one of your lot. He's got such a difficult name.'

'Bublitsyn?'

'Yes, yes ... Piotr Petrovitch.'

'And do you know him?'

'Rather!' responded Vassilissa, with a wag of her head.

Pyetushkov, without a word, paced ten times up and down the room.

'I say, Vassilissa,' he said at last, 'that is, how do you know him?'

'How do I know him? ... I know him ... He's such a nice gentleman.'

'How do you mean nice, though? how nice? how nice?'

Vassilissa gazed at Ivan Afanasiitch.

'Nice,' she said slowly and in perplexity. 'You know what I mean.'

Pyetushkov bit his lips and began again pacing the room.

'What were you talking about with him, eh?'

Vassilissa smiled and looked down.

'Speak, speak, speak, I tell you, speak!'

'How cross you are to-day!' observed Vassilissa.

Pyetushkov was silent.

'Come now, Vassilissa,' he began at last; 'no, I won't be cross.... Come, tell me, what were you talking about?'

Vassilissa laughed.

'He is a one to joke, really, that Piotr Petrovitch!'

'Well, what did he say?'

'He is a fellow!'

Pyetushkov was silent again for a little.

'Vassilissa, you love me, don't you?' he asked her.

'Oh, so that's what you're after, too!'

Poor Pyetushkov felt a pang at his heart. Praskovia Ivanovna came in. They sat down to dinner. After dinner Praskovia Ivanovna betook herself to the shelf bed. Ivan Afanasiitch himself lay down on the stove, turned over and dropped asleep. A cautious creak waked him. Ivan Afanasiitch sat up, leaned on his elbow, looked: the door was open. He jumped up—no Vassilissa. He ran into the yard—she was not in the yard; into the street, looked up and down—Vassilissa was nowhere to be seen. He ran without his cap as far as the market—no, Vassilissa was not in sight. Slowly he returned to the baker's shop, clambered on to the stove, and turned with his face to the wall. He felt miserable. Bublitsyn ... Bublitsyn ... the name was positively ringing in his ears.

'What's the matter, my good sir?' Praskovia Ivanovna asked him in a drowsy voice. 'Why are you groaning?'

'Oh, nothing, ma'am. Nothing. I feel a weight oppressing me.'

'It's the mushrooms,' murmured Praskovia Ivanovna—'it's all those mushrooms.'

O Lord, have mercy on us sinners!

An hour passed, a second—still no Vassilissa. Twenty times Pyetushkov was on the point of getting up, and twenty times he huddled miserably under the sheepskin.... At last he really did get down from the stove and determined to go home, and positively went out into the yard, but came back. Praskovia Ivanovna got up. The hired man, Luka, black as a beetle, though he was a baker, put the bread into the oven. Pyetushkov went again out on to the steps and pondered. The goat that lived in the yard went up to him, and gave him a little friendly poke with his horns. Pyetushkov looked at him, and for some unknown reason said 'Kss, Kss.' Suddenly the low wicket-gate slowly opened and Vassilissa appeared. Ivan Afanasiitch went straight to meet her, took her by the hand, and rather coolly, but resolutely, said to her:

'Come along with me.'

'But, excuse me, Ivan Afanasiitch ... I ...'

'Come with me,' he repeated.

She obeyed.

Pyetushkov led her to his lodgings. Onisim, as usual, was lying at full length asleep. Ivan Afanasiitch waked him, told him to light a candle. Vassilissa went to the window and sat down in silence. While Onisim was busy getting a light in the anteroom, Pyetushkov stood motionless at the other window, staring into the street. Onisim came in, with the candle in his hands, was beginning to grumble ... Ivan Afanasiitch turned quickly round: 'Go along,' he said to him.

Onisim stood still in the middle of the room.

'Go away at once,' Pyetushkov repeated threateningly.

Onisim looked at his master and went out.

Ivan Afanasiitch shouted after him:

'Away, quite away. Out of the house. You can come back in two hours' time.'

Onisim slouched off.

Pyetushkov waited till he heard the gate bang, and at once went up to Vassilissa.

'Where have you been?'

Vassilissa was confused.

'Where have you been? I tell you,' he repeated.

Vassilissa looked round ...

'I am speaking to you ... where have you been?' And Pyetushkov raised his arm ...

'Don't beat me, Ivan Afanasiitch, don't beat me,' Vassilissa whispered in terror.

Pyetushkov turned away.

'Beat you ... No! I'm not going to beat you. Beat you? I beg your pardon, my darling. God bless you! While I supposed you loved me, while I ... I ... '

Ivan Afanasiitch broke off. He gasped for breath.

'Listen, Vassilissa,' he said at last. 'You know I'm a kind-hearted man, you know it, don't you, Vassilissa, don't you?'

'Yes, I do,' she said faltering.

'I do nobody any harm, nobody, nobody in the world. And I deceive nobody. Why are you deceiving me?'

'But I'm not deceiving you, Ivan Afanasiitch.'

'You aren't deceiving me? Oh, very well! Oh, very well! Then tell me where you've been.'

'I went to see Matrona.'

'That's a lie!'

'Really, I've been at Matrona's. You ask her, if you don't believe me.'

'And Bub—what's his name ... have you seen that devil?'

'Yes, I did see him.'

'You did see him! you did see him! Oh! you did see him!'

Pyetushkov turned pale.

'So you were making an appointment with him in the morning at the window—eh? eh?'

'He asked me to come.'

'And so you went.... Thanks very much, my girl, thanks very much!' Pyetushkov made Vassilissa a low bow.

'But, Ivan Afanasiitch, you're maybe fancying ...'

'You'd better not talk to me! And a pretty fool I am! There's nothing to make an outcry for! You may make friends with any one you like. I've nothing to do with you. So there! I don't want to know you even.'