'You can, indeed,' I put in.

'All the more,' he continued, 'as all that's nonsense; at least, as far as I'm concerned. I was as bored in the country as a puppy locked up, though I will own that on my journey home, when I passed through the familiar birchwood in spring for the first time, my head was in a whirl and my heart beat with a vague, sweet expectation. But these vague expectations, as you're well aware, never come to pass; on the other hand, very different things do come to pass, which you don't at all expect, such as cattle disease, arrears, sales by auction, and so on, and so on. I managed to make a shift from day to day with the aid of my agent, Yakov, who replaced the former superintendent, and turned out in the course of time to be as great, if not a greater robber, and over and above that poisoned my existence by the smell of his tarred boots; suddenly one day I remembered a family I knew in the neighbourhood, consisting of the widow of a retired colonel and her two daughters, ordered out my droshky, and set off to see them. That day must always be a memorable one for me; six months later I was married to the retired colonel's second daughter!...'

The speaker dropped his head, and lifted his hands to heaven.

'And now,' he went on warmly, 'I couldn't bear to give you an unfavourable opinion of my late wife. Heaven forbid! She was the most generous, sweetest creature, a loving nature capable of any sacrifice, though I must between ourselves confess that if I had not had the misfortune to lose her, I should probably not be in a position to be talking to you to-day; since the beam is still there in my barn, to which I repeatedly made up my mind to hang myself!'

'Some pears,' he began again, after a brief pause, 'need to lie in an underground cellar for a time, to come, as they say, to their real flavour; my wife, it seems, belonged to a similar order of nature's works. It's only now that I do her complete justice. It's only now, for instance, that memories of some evenings I spent with her before marriage no longer awaken the slightest bitterness, but move me almost to tears. They were not rich people; their house was very old-fashioned and built of wood, but comfortable; it stood on a hill between an overgrown courtyard and a garden run wild. At the bottom of the hill ran a river, which could just be seen through the thick leaves. A wide terrace led from the house to the garden; before the terrace flaunted a long flower-bed, covered with roses; at each end of the flower-bed grew two acacias, which had been trained to grow into the shape of a screw by its late owner. A little farther, in the very midst of a thicket of neglected and overgrown raspberries, stood an arbour, smartly painted within, but so old and tumble-down outside that it was depressing to look at it. A glass door led from the terrace into the drawing-room; in the drawing-room this was what met the eye of the inquisitive spectator: in the various corners stoves of Dutch tiles, a squeaky piano to the right, piled with manuscript music, a sofa, covered with faded blue material with a whitish pattern, a round table, two what-nots of china and glass, knicknacks of the Catherine period; on the wall the well-known picture of a flaxen-haired girl with a dove on her breast and eyes turned upwards; on the table a vase of fresh roses. You see how minutely I describe it. In that drawing-room, on that terrace, was rehearsed all the tragi-comedy of my love. The colonel's wife herself was an ill-natured old dame, whose voice was always hoarse with spite—a petty, snappish creature. Of the daughters, one, Vera, did not differ in any respect from the common run of young ladies of the provinces; the other, Sofya, I fell in love with. The two sisters had another little room too, their common bedroom, with two innocent little wooden bedsteads, yellowish albums, mignonette, portraits of friends sketched in pencil rather badly (among them was one gentleman with an exceptionally vigorous expression of face and a still more vigorous signature, who had in his youth raised disproportionate expectations, but had come, like all of us, to nothing), with busts of Goethe and Schiller, German books, dried wreaths, and other objects, kept as souvenirs. But that room I rarely and reluctantly entered; I felt stifled there somehow. And, too, strange to say, I liked Sofya best of all when I was sitting with my back to her, or still more, perhaps, when I was thinking or dreaming about her in the evening on the terrace. At such times I used to gaze at the sunset, at the trees, at the tiny leaves, already in darkness, but standing out sharply against the rosy sky; in the drawing-room Sofya sat at the piano continually playing over and over again some favourite, passionately pathetic phrase from Beethoven; the ill-natured old lady snored peacefully, sitting on the sofa; in the dining-room, which was flooded by a glow of lurid light, Vera was bustling about getting tea; the samovar hissed merrily as though it were pleased at something; the cracknels snapped with a pleasant crispness, and the spoons tinkled against the cups; the canary, which trilled mercilessly all day, was suddenly still, and only chirruped from time to time, as though asking for something; from a light transparent cloud there fell a few passing drops of rain.... And I would sit and sit, listen, listen, and look, my heart would expand, and again it seemed to me that I was in love. Well, under the influence of such an evening, I one day asked the old lady for her daughter's hand, and two months later I was married. It seemed to me that I loved her.... By now, indeed, it's time I should know, but, by God, even now I don't know whether I loved Sofya. She was a sweet creature, clever, silent, and warm-hearted, but God only knows from what cause, whether from living too long in the country, or for some other reason, there was at the bottom of her heart (if only there is a bottom to the heart) a secret wound, or, to put it better, a little open sore which nothing could heal, to which neither she nor I could give a name. Of the existence of this sore, of course, I only guessed after marriage. The struggles I had over it... nothing availed! When I was a child I had a little bird, which had once been caught by the cat in its claws; it was saved and tended, but the poor bird never got right; it moped, it pined, it ceased to sing.... It ended by a cat getting into its open cage one night and biting off its beak, after which it made up its mind at last to die. I don't know what cat had caught my wife in its claws, but she too moped and pined just like my unlucky bird. Sometimes she obviously made an effort to shake herself, to rejoice in the open air, in the sunshine and freedom; she would try, and shrink up into herself again. And, you know she loved me; how many times has she assured me that she had nothing left to wish for?—oof! damn my soul! and the light was fading out of her eyes all the while. I wondered whether there hadn't been something in her past. I made investigations: there was nothing forthcoming. Well, you may form your own judgment; an original man would have shrugged his shoulders and heaved a sigh or two, perhaps, and would have proceeded to live his own life; but I, not being an original creature, began to contemplate a beam and halter. My wife was so thoroughly permeated by all the habits of an old maid—Beethoven, evening walks, mignonette, corresponding with her friends, albums, et cetera—that she never could accustom herself to any other mode of life, especially to the life of the mistress of a house; and yet it seemed absurd for a married woman to be pining in vague melancholy and singing in the evening: "Waken her not at the dawn!"

'Well, we were blissful after that fashion for three years; in the fourth, Sofya died in her first confinement, and, strange to say, I had felt, as it were, beforehand that she would not be capable of giving me a daughter or a son—of giving the earth a new inhabitant. I remember how they buried her. It was in the spring. Our parish church was small and old, the screen was blackened, the walls bare, the brick floor worn into hollows in parts; there was a big, old-fashioned holy picture in each half of the choir. They brought in the coffin, placed it in the middle before the holy gates, covered it with a faded pall, set three candlesticks about it. The service commenced. A decrepit deacon, with a little shock of hair behind, belted low down with a green kerchief, was mournfully mumbling before a reading-desk; a priest, also an old man, with a kindly, purblind face, in a lilac cassock with yellow flowers on it, served the mass for himself and the deacon. At all the open windows the fresh young leaves were stirring and whispering, and the smell of the grass rose from the churchyard outside; the red flame of the wax-candles paled in the bright light of the spring day; the sparrows were twittering all over the church, and every now and then there came the ringing cry of a swallow flying in under the cupola. In the golden motes of the sunbeams the brown heads of the few peasants kept rising and dropping down again as they prayed earnestly for the dead; in a thin bluish stream the smoke issued from the holes of the censer. I looked at the dead face of my wife.... My God! even death—death itself—had not set her free, had not healed her wound: the same sickly, timid, dumb look, as though, even in her coffin, she were ill at ease.... My heart was filled with bitterness. A sweet, sweet creature she was, and she did well for herself to die!'

The speaker's cheeks flushed, and his eyes grew dim.

'When at last,' he began again, 'I emerged from the deep depression which overwhelmed me after my wife's death, I resolved to devote myself, as it is called, to work. I went into a government office in the capital of the province; but in the great apartments of the government institution my head ached, and my eyesight too began to fail: other incidental causes came in.... I retired. I had thought of going on a visit to Moscow, but, in the first place, I hadn't the money, and secondly... I've told you already: I'm resigned. This resignation came upon me both suddenly and not suddenly. In spirit I had long ago resigned myself, but my brain was still unwilling to accept the yoke. I ascribed my humble temper and ideas to the influence of country life and happiness!... On the other side, I had long observed that all my neighbours, young and old alike, who had been frightened at first by my learning, my residence abroad, and my other advantages of education, had not only had time to get completely used to me, but had even begun to treat me half-rudely, half-contemptuously, did not listen to my observations, and, in talking to me, no longer made use of superfluous signs of respect. I forgot to tell you, too, that during the first year after my marriage, I had tried to launch into literature, and even sent a thing to a journal—a story, if I'm not mistaken; but in a little time I received a polite letter from the editor, in which, among other things, I was told that he could not deny I had intelligence, but he was obliged to say I had no talent, and talent alone was what was needed in literature. To add to this, it came to my knowledge that a young man, on a visit from Moscow—a most good-natured youth too—had referred to me at an evening party at the governor's as a shallow person, antiquated and behind the times. But my half-wilful blindness still persisted: I was unwilling to give myself a slap in the face, you know; at last, one fine morning, my eyes were opened. This was how it happened. The district captain of police came to see me, with the object of calling my attention to a tumble-down bridge on my property, which I had absolutely no money to repair. After consuming a glass of vodka and a snack of dried fish, this condescending guardian of order reproached me in a paternal way for my heedlessness, sympathising, however, with my position, and only advising me to order my peasants to patch up the bridge with some rubbish; he lighted a pipe, and began talking of the coming elections. A candidate for the honourable post of marshal of the province was at that time one Orbassanov, a noisy, shallow fellow, who took bribes into the bargain. Besides, he was not distinguished either for wealth or for family. I expressed my opinion with regard to him, and rather casually too: I regarded Mr. Orbassanov, I must own, as beneath my level. The police-captain looked at me, patted me amicably on the shoulder, and said good-naturedly: "Come, come, Vassily Vassilyevitch, it's not for you and me to criticise men like that—how are we qualified to? Let the shoemaker stick to his last." "But, upon my word," I retorted with annoyance, "whatever difference is there between me and Mr. Orbassanov?" The police-captain took his pipe out of his mouth, opened his eyes wide, and fairly roared. "Well, you're an amusing chap," he observed at last, while the tears ran down his cheeks: "what a joke to make!... Ah! you are a funny fellow!" And till his departure he never ceased jeering at me, now and then giving me a poke in the ribs with his elbow, and addressing me by my Christian name. He went away at last. This was enough: it was the last drop, and my cup was overflowing. I paced several times up and down the room, stood still before the looking-glass and gazed a long, long while at my embarrassed countenance, and deliberately putting out my tongue, I shook my head with a bitter smile. The scales fell from my eyes: I saw clearly, more clearly than I saw my face in the glass, what a shallow, insignificant, worthless, unoriginal person I was!'

He paused.

'In one of Voltaire's tragedies,' he went on wearily, 'there is some worthy who rejoices that he has reached the furthest limit of unhappiness. Though there is nothing tragic in my fate, I will admit I have experienced something of that sort. I have known the bitter transports of cold despair; I have felt how sweet it is, lying in bed, to curse deliberately for a whole morning together the hour and day of my birth. I could not resign myself all at once. And indeed, think of it yourself: I was kept by impecuniosity in the country, which I hated; I was not fitted for managing my land, nor for the public service, nor for literature, nor anything; my neighbours I didn't care for, and books I loathed; as for the mawkish and morbidly sentimental young ladies who shake their curls and feverishly harp on the word "life," I had ceased to have any attraction for them ever since I gave up ranting and gushing; complete solitude I could not face.... I began—what do you suppose?—I began hanging about, visiting my neighbours. As though drunk with self-contempt, I purposely exposed myself to all sorts of petty slights. I was missed over in serving at table; I was met with supercilious coldness, and at last was not noticed at all; I was not even allowed to take part in general conversation, and from my corner I myself used purposely to back up some stupid talker who in those days at Moscow would have ecstatically licked the dust off my feet, and kissed the hem of my cloak.... I did not even allow myself to believe that I was enjoying the bitter satisfaction of irony.... What sort of irony, indeed, can a man enjoy in solitude? Well, so I have behaved for some years on end, and so I behave now.'

'Really, this is beyond everything,' grumbled the sleepy voice of Mr. Kantagryuhin from the next room: 'what fool is it that has taken a fancy to talk all night?'

The speaker promptly ducked under the clothes and peeping out timidly, held up his finger to me warningly,

'Sh—sh—!' he whispered; and, as it were, bowing apologetically in the direction of Kantagryuhin's voice, he said respectfully: 'I obey, sir, I obey; I beg your pardon.... It's permissible for him to sleep; he ought to sleep,' he went on again in a whisper: 'he must recruit his energies—well, if only to eat his dinner with the same relish to-morrow. We have no right to disturb him. Besides, I think I've told you all I wanted to; probably you're sleepy too. I wish you good-night.'

He turned away with feverish rapidity and buried his head in the pillow.

'Let me at least know,' I asked, 'with whom I have had the pleasure....'

He raised his head quickly.

'No, for mercy's sake!' he cut me short, 'don't inquire my name either of me or of others. Let me remain to you an unknown being, crushed by fate, Vassily Vassilyevitch. Besides, as an unoriginal person, I don't deserve an individual name.... But if you really want to give me some title, call me... call me the Hamlet of the Shtchigri district. There are many such Hamlets in every district, but perhaps you haven't come across others.... After which, good-bye.'

He buried himself again in his feather-bed, and the next morning, when they came to wake me, he was no longer in the room. He had left before daylight.



XXI

TCHERTOP-HANOV AND NEDOPYUSKIN

One hot summer day I was coming home from hunting in a light cart; Yermolai sat beside me dozing and scratching his nose. The sleeping dogs were jolted up and down like lifeless bodies under our feet. The coachman kept flicking gadflies off the horses with his whip. The white dust rose in a light cloud behind the cart. We drove in between bushes. The road here was full of ruts, and the wheels began catching in the twigs. Yermolai started up and looked round.... 'Hullo!' he said; 'there ought to be grouse here. Let's get out.' We stopped and went into the thicket. My dog hit upon a covey. I took a shot and was beginning to reload, when suddenly there was a loud crackling behind me, and a man on horseback came towards me, pushing the bushes apart with his hands. 'Sir... pe-ermit me to ask,' he began in a haughty voice, 'by what right you are—er—shooting here, sir?' The stranger spoke extraordinarily quickly, jerkily and condescendingly. I looked at his face; never in my life have I seen anything like it. Picture to yourselves, gentle readers, a little flaxen-haired man, with a little turn-up red nose and long red moustaches. A pointed Persian cap with a crimson cloth crown covered his forehead right down to his eyebrows. He was dressed in a shabby yellow Caucasian overcoat, with black velveteen cartridge pockets on the breast, and tarnish silver braid on all the seams; over his shoulder was slung a horn; in his sash was sticking a dagger. A raw-boned, hook-nosed chestnut horse shambled unsteadily under his weight; two lean, crook-pawed greyhounds kept turning round just under the horse's legs. The face, the glance, the voice, every action, the whole being of the stranger, was expressive of a wild daring and an unbounded, incredible pride; his pale-blue glassy eyes strayed about with a sideway squint like a drunkard's; he flung back his head, puffed out his cheeks, snorted and quivered all over, as though bursting with dignity—for all the world like a turkey-cock. He repeated his question.

'I didn't know it was forbidden to shoot here,' I replied.

'You are here, sir,' he continued, 'on my land.'

'With your permission, I will go off it.'

'But pe-ermit me to ask,' he rejoined, 'is it a nobleman I have the honour of addressing?'

I mentioned my name.

'In that case, oblige me by hunting here. I am a nobleman myself, and am very pleased to do any service to a nobleman.... And my name is Panteley Tchertop-hanov.' He bowed, hallooed, gave his horse a lash on the neck; the horse shook its head, reared, shied, and trampled on a dog's paws. The dog gave a piercing squeal. Tchertop-hanov boiled over with rage; foaming at the mouth, he struck the horse with his fist on the head between the ears, leaped to the ground quicker than lightning, looked at the dog's paw, spat on the wound, gave it a kick in the ribs to stop its whining, caught on to the horse's forelock, and put his foot in the stirrup. The horse flung up its head, and with its tail in the air edged away into the bushes; he followed it, hopping on one leg; he got into the saddle at last, however, flourished his whip in a sort of frenzy, blew his horn, and galloped off. I had not time to recover from the unexpected appearance of Tchertop-hanov, when suddenly, almost without any noise, there came out of the bushes a stoutish man of forty on a little black nag. He stopped, took off his green leather cap, and in a thin, subdued voice he asked me whether I hadn't seen a horseman riding a chestnut? I answered that I had.

'Which way did the gentleman go?' he went on in the same tone, without putting on his cap.

'Over there.'

'I humbly thank you, sir.'

He made a kissing sound with his lips, swung his legs against his horse's sides, and fell into a jog-trot in the direction indicated. I looked after him till his peaked cap was hidden behind the branches. This second stranger was not in the least like his predecessor in exterior. His face, plump and round as a ball, expressed bashfulness, good-nature, and humble meekness; his nose, also plump and round and streaked with blue veins, betokened a sensualist. On the front of his head there was not a single hair left, some thin brown tufts stuck out behind; there was an ingratiating twinkle in his little eyes, set in long slits, and a sweet smile on his red, juicy lips. He had on a coat with a stand-up collar and brass buttons, very worn but clean; his cloth trousers were hitched up high, his fat calves were visible above the yellow tops of his boots.

'Who's that?' I inquired of Yermolai.

'That? Nedopyuskin, Tihon Ivanitch. He lives at Tchertop-hanov's.'

'What is he, a poor man?'

'He's not rich; but, to be sure, Tchertop-hanov's not got a brass farthing either.'

'Then why does he live with him?'

'Oh, they made friends. One's never seen without the other.... It's a fact, indeed—where the horse puts its hoof, there the crab sticks its claw.'

We got out of the bushes; suddenly two hounds 'gave tongue' close to us, and a big hare bounded through the oats, which were fairly high by now. The dogs, hounds and harriers, leaped out of the thicket after him, and after the dogs flew out Tchertop-hanov himself. He did not shout, nor urge the dogs on, nor halloo; he was breathless and gasping; broken, senseless sounds were jerked out of his gaping mouth now and then; he dashed on, his eyes starting out of his head, and furiously lashed at his luckless horse with the whip. The harriers were gaining on the hare... it squatted for a moment, doubled sharply back, and darted past Yermolai into the bushes.... The harriers rushed in pursuit. 'Lo-ok out! lo-ok out!' the exhausted horseman articulated with effort, in a sort of stutter: 'lo-ok out, friend!' Yermolai shot... the wounded hare rolled head over heels on the smooth dry grass, leaped into the air, and squealed piteously in the teeth of a worrying dog. The hounds crowded about her. Like an arrow, Tchertop-hanov flew off his horse, clutched his dagger, ran straddling among the dogs with furious imprecations, snatched the mangled hare from them, and, creasing up his whole face, he buried the dagger in its throat up to the very hilt... buried it, and began hallooing. Tihon Ivanitch made his appearance on the edge of the thicket 'Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!' vociferated Tchertop-hanov a second time. 'Ho-ho-ho-ho,' his companion repeated placidly.

'But really, you know, one ought not to hunt in summer, 'I observed to Tchertop-hanov, pointing to the trampled-down oats.

'It's my field,' answered Tchertop-hanov, gasping.

He pulled the hare into shape, hung it on to his saddle, and flung the paws among the dogs.

'I owe you a charge, my friend, by the rules of hunting,' he said, addressing Yermolai. 'And you, dear sir,' he added in the same jerky, abrupt voice, 'my thanks.'

He mounted his horse.

'Pe-ermit me to ask... I've forgotten your name and your father's.'

Again I told him my name.

'Delighted to make your acquaintance. When you have an opportunity, hope you'll come and see me.... But where is that Fomka, Tihon Ivanitch?' he went on with heat; 'the hare was run down without him.'

'His horse fell down under him,' replied Tihon Ivanitch with a smile.

'Fell down! Orbassan fell down? Pugh! tut!... Where is he?'

'Over there, behind the copse.'

Tchertop-hanov struck his horse on the muzzle with his whip, and galloped off at a breakneck pace. Tihon Ivanitch bowed to me twice, once for himself and once for his companion, and again set off at a trot into the bushes.

These two gentlemen aroused my curiosity keenly. What could unite two creatures so different in the bonds of an inseparable friendship? I began to make inquiries. This was what I learned.

Panteley Eremyitch Tchertop-hanov had the reputation in the whole surrounding vicinity of a dangerous, crack-brained fellow, haughty and quarrelsome in the extreme. He had served a very short time in the army, and had retired from the service through 'difficulties' with his superiors, with that rank which is generally regarded as equivalent to no rank at all. He came of an old family, once rich; his forefathers lived sumptuously, after the manner of the steppes—that is, they welcomed all, invited or uninvited, fed them to exhaustion, gave out oats by the quarter to their guests' coachmen for their teams, kept musicians, singers, jesters, and dogs; on festive days regaled their people with spirits and beer, drove to Moscow in the winter with their own horses, in heavy old coaches, and sometimes were for whole months without a farthing, living on home-grown produce. The estate came into Panteley Eremyitch's father's hands in a crippled condition; he, in his turn, 'played ducks and drakes' with it, and when he died, left his sole heir, Panteley, the small mortgaged village of Bezsonovo, with thirty-five souls of the male, and seventy-six of the female sex, and twenty-eight acres and a half of useless land on the waste of Kolobrodova, no record of serfs for which could be found among the deceased's deeds. The deceased had, it must be confessed, ruined himself in a very strange way: 'provident management' had been his destruction. According to his notions, a nobleman ought not to depend on merchants, townsmen, and 'brigands' of that sort, as he called them; he set up all possible trades and crafts on his estate; 'it's both seemlier and cheaper,' he used to say: 'it's provident management'! He never relinquished this fatal idea to the end of his days; indeed, it was his ruin. But, then, what entertainment it gave him! He never denied himself the satisfaction of a single whim. Among other freaks, he once began building, after his own fancy, so immense a family coach that, in spite of the united efforts of the peasants' horses, drawn together from the whole village, as well as their owners, it came to grief and fell to pieces on the first hillside. Eremey Lukitch (the name of Panteley's father was Eremey Lukitch), ordered a memorial to be put up on the hillside, but was not, however, at all abashed over the affair. He conceived the happy thought, too, of building a church—by himself, of course—without the assistance of an architect. He burnt a whole forest in making the bricks, laid an immense foundation, as though for a provincial hall, raised the walls, and began putting on the cupola; the cupola fell down. He tried again—the cupola again broke down; he tried the third time—-the cupola fell to pieces a third time. Good Eremey Lukitch grew thoughtful; there was something uncanny about it, he reflected... some accursed witchcraft must have a hand in it... and at once he gave orders to flog all the old women in the village. They flogged the old women; but they didn't get the cupola on, for all that. He began reconstructing the peasants' huts on a new plan, and all on a system of 'provident management'; he set them three homesteads together in a triangle, and in the middle stuck up a post with a painted bird-cage and flag. Every day he invented some new freak; at one time he was making soup of burdocks, at another cutting his horses' tails off to make caps for his servants; at another, proposing to substitute nettles for flax, to feed pigs on mushrooms.... He had once read in the Moscow Gazette an article by a Harkov landowner, Hryak-Hrupyorsky, on the importance of morality to the well-being of the peasant, and the next day he gave forth a decree to all his peasants to learn off the Harkov landowner's article by heart at once. The peasants learnt the article; the master asked them whether they understood what was said in it? The bailiff replied—that to be sure they understood it! About the same time he ordered all his subjects, with a view to the maintenance of order and provident management, to be numbered, and each to have his number sewn on his collar. On meeting the master, each was to shout, 'Number so-and-so is here!' and the master would answer affably: 'Go on, in God's name!'

In spite, however, of order and provident management, Eremey Lukitch got by degrees into a very difficult position; he began at first by mortgaging his villages, and then was brought to the sale of them; the last ancestral home, the village with the unfinished church, was sold at last for arrears to the Crown, luckily not in the lifetime of Eremey Lukitch—he could never have supported such a blow—but a fortnight after his death. He succeeded in dying at home in his own bed, surrounded by his own people, and under the care of his own doctor; but nothing was left to poor Panteley but Bezsonovo.

Panteley heard of his father's illness while he was still in the service, in the very heat of the 'difficulties' mentioned above. He was only just nineteen. From his earliest childhood he had not left his father's house, and under the guidance of his mother, a very good-natured but perfectly stupid woman, Vassilissa Vassilyevna, he grew up spoilt and conceited. She undertook his education alone; Eremey Lukitch, buried in his economical fancies, had no thoughts to spare for it. It is true, he once punished his son with his own hand for mispronouncing a letter of the alphabet; but Eremey Lukitch had received a cruel and secret blow that day: his best dog had been crushed by a tree. Vassilissa Vassilyevna's efforts in regard Panteley's education did not, however, get beyond one terrific exertion; in the sweat of her brow she engaged him a tutor, one Birkopf, a retired Alsatian soldier, and to the day of her death she trembled like a leaf before him. 'Oh,' she thought, 'if he throws us up—I'm lost! Where could I turn? Where could I find another teacher? Why, with what pains, what pains I enticed this one away from our neighbours!' And Birkopf, like a shrewd man, promptly took advantage of his unique position; he drank like a fish, and slept from morning till night. On the completion of his 'course of science,' Panteley entered the army. Vassilissa Vassilyevna was no more; she had died six months before that important event, of fright. She had had a dream of a white figure riding on a bear. Eremey Lukitch soon followed his better half.

At the first news of his illness, Panteley galloped home at breakneck speed, but he did not find his father alive. What was the amazement of the dutiful son when he found himself, utterly unexpectedly, transformed from a rich heir to a poor man! Few men are capable of bearing so sharp a reverse well. Panteley was embittered, made misanthropical by it. From an honest, generous, good-natured fellow, though spoilt and hot-tempered, he became haughty and quarrelsome; he gave up associating with the neighbours—he was too proud to visit the rich, and he disdained the poor—and behaved with unheard of arrogance to everyone, even to the established authorities. 'I am of the ancient hereditary nobility,' he would say. Once he had been on the point of shooting the police-commissioner for coming into the room with his cap on his head. Of course the authorities, on their side, had their revenge, and took every opportunity to make him feel their power; but still, they were rather afraid of him, because he had a desperate temper, and would propose a duel with knives at the second word. At the slightest retort Tchertop-hanov's eyes blazed, his voice broke.... Ah, er—er—er,' he stammered, 'damn my soul!'... and nothing could stop him. And, moreover, he was a man of stainless character, who had never had a hand in anything the least shady. No one, of course, visited him... and with all this he was a good-hearted, even a great-hearted man in his own way; acts of injustice, of oppression, he would not brook even against strangers; he stood up for his own peasants like a rock. 'What?' he would say, with a violent blow on his own head: 'touch my people, mine? My name's not Tchertop-hanov, if I...'

Tihon Ivanitch Nedopyuskin could not, like Panteley Eremyitch, pride himself on his origin. His father came of the peasant proprietor class, and only after forty years of service attained the rank of a noble. Mr. Nedopyuskin, the father, belonged to the number of those people who are pursued by misfortune with an obduracy akin to personal hatred. For sixty whole years, from his very birth to his very death, the poor man was struggling with all the hardships, calamities, and privations, incidental to people of small means; he struggled like a fish under the ice, never having enough food and sleep—cringing, worrying, wearing himself to exhaustion, fretting over every farthing, with genuine 'innocence' suffering in the service, and dying at last in either a garret or a cellar, in the unsuccessful struggle to gain for himself or his children a crust of dry bread. Fate had hunted him down like a hare.

He was a good-natured and honest man, though he did take bribes—from a threepenny bit up to a crown piece inclusive. Nedopyuskin had a wife, thin and consumptive; he had children too; luckily they all died young except Tihon and a daughter, Mitrodora, nicknamed 'the merchants' belle,' who, after many painful and ludicrous adventures, was married to a retired attorney. Mr. Nedopyuskin had succeeded before his death in getting Tihon a place as supernumerary clerk in some office; but directly after his father's death Tihon resigned his situation. Their perpetual anxieties, their heartrending struggle with cold and hunger, his mother's careworn depression, his father's toiling despair, the coarse aggressiveness of landladies and shopkeepers—all the unending daily suffering of their life had developed an exaggerated timidity in Tihon: at the mere sight of his chief he was faint and trembling like a captured bird. He threw up his office. Nature, in her indifference, or perhaps her irony, implants in people all sorts of faculties and tendencies utterly inconsistent with their means and their position in society; with her characteristic care and love she had moulded of Tihon, the son of a poor clerk, a sensuous, indolent, soft, impressionable creature—a creature fitted exclusively for enjoyment, gifted with an excessively delicate sense of smell and of taste...she had moulded him, finished him off most carefully, and set her creation to struggle up on sour cabbage and putrid fish! And, behold! the creation did struggle up somehow, and began what is called 'life.' Then the fun began. Fate, which had so ruthlessly tormented Nedopyuskin the father, took to the son too; she had a taste for them, one must suppose. But she treated Tihon on a different plan: she did not torture him; she played with him. She did not once drive him to desperation, she did not set him to suffer the degrading agonies of hunger, but she led him a dance through the whole of Russia from one end to the other, from one degrading and ludicrous position to another; at one time Fate made him 'majordomo' to a snappish, choleric Lady Bountiful, at another a humble parasite on a wealthy skinflint merchant, then a private secretary to a goggle-eyed gentleman, with his hair cut in the English style, then she promoted him to the post of something between butler and buffoon to a dog-fancier.... In short, Fate drove poor Tihon to drink drop by drop to the dregs the bitter poisoned cup of a dependent existence. He had been, in his time, the sport of the dull malignity and the boorish pranks of slothful masters. How often, alone in his room, released at last 'to go in peace,' after a mob of visitors had glutted their taste for horseplay at his expense, he had vowed, blushing with shame, chill tears of despair in his eyes, that he would run away in secret, would try his luck in the town, would find himself some little place as clerk, or die once for all of hunger in the street! But, in the first place, God had not given him strength of character; secondly, his timidity unhinged him; and thirdly, how could he get himself a place? whom could he ask? 'They'll never give it me,' the luckless wretch would murmur, tossing wearily in his bed, 'they'll never give it me!' And the next day he would take up the same degrading life again. His position was the more painful that, with all her care, nature had not troubled to give him the smallest share of the gifts and qualifications without which the trade of a buffoon is almost impossible. He was not equal, for instance, to dancing till he dropped, in a bearskin coat turned inside out, nor making jokes and cutting capers in the immediate vicinity of cracking whips; if he was turned out in a state of nature into a temperature of twenty degrees below freezing, as often as not, he caught cold; his stomach could not digest brandy mixed with ink and other filth, nor minced funguses and toadstools in vinegar. There is no knowing what would have become of Tihon if the last of his patrons, a contractor who had made his fortune, had not taken it into his head in a merry hour to inscribe in his will: 'And to Zyozo (Tihon, to wit) Nedopyuskin, I leave in perpetual possession, to him and his heirs, the village of Bezselendyevka, lawfully acquired by me, with all its appurtenances.' A few days later this patron was taken with a fit of apoplexy after gorging on sturgeon soup. A great commotion followed; the officials came and put seals on the property.

The relations arrived; the will was opened and read; and they called for Nedopyuskin: Nedopyuskin made his appearance. The greater number of the party knew the nature of Tihon Ivanitch's duties in his patron's household; he was greeted with deafening shouts and ironical congratulations. 'The landowner; here is the new owner!' shouted the other heirs. 'Well, really this,' put in one, a noted wit and humourist; 'well, really this, one may say... this positively is... really what one may call... an heir-apparent!' and they all went off into shrieks. For a long while Nedopyuskin could not believe in his good fortune. They showed him the will: he flushed, shut his eyes, and with a despairing gesture he burst into tears. The chuckles of the party passed into a deep unanimous roar. The village of Bezselendyevka consisted of only twenty-two serfs, no one regretted its loss keenly; so why not get some fun out of it? One of the heirs from Petersburg, an important man, with a Greek nose and a majestic expression of face, Rostislav Adamitch Shtoppel, went so far as to go up to Nedopyuskin and look haughtily at him over his shoulder. 'So far as I can gather, honoured sir,' he observed with contemptuous carelessness, 'you enjoyed your position in the household of our respected Fedor Fedoritch, owing to your obliging readiness to wait on his diversions?' The gentleman from Petersburg expressed himself in a style insufferably refined, smart, and correct. Nedopyuskin, in his agitation and confusion, had not taken in the unknown gentleman's words, but the others were all quiet at once; the wit smiled condescendingly. Mr. Shtoppel rubbed his hands and repeated his question. Nedopyuskin raised his eyes in bewilderment and opened his mouth. Rostislav Adamitch puckered his face up sarcastically.

'I congratulate you, my dear sir, I congratulate you,' he went on: 'it's true, one may say, not everyone would have consented to gain his daily bread in such a fashion; but de guslibus non est disputandum, that is, everyone to his taste.... Eh?'

Someone at the back uttered a rapid, decorous shriek of admiration and delight.

'Tell us,' pursued Mr. Shtoppel, much encouraged by the smiles of the whole party, 'to what special talent are you indebted for your good-fortune? No, don't be bashful, tell us; we're all here, so to speak, en famille. Aren't we, gentlemen, all here en famille?'

The relation to whom Rostislav Adamitch chanced to turn with this question did not, unfortunately, know French, and so he confined himself to a faint grunt of approbation. But another relation, a young man, with patches of a yellow colour on his forehead, hastened to chime in, 'Wee, wee, to be sure.'

'Perhaps,' Mr. Shtoppel began again, 'you can walk on your hands, your legs raised, so to say, in the air?'

Nedopyuskin looked round in agony: every face wore a taunting smile, every eye was moist with delight.

'Or perhaps you can crow like a cock?'

A loud guffaw broke out on all sides, and was hushed at once, stifled by expectation.

'Or perhaps on your nose you can....'

'Stop that!' a loud harsh voice suddenly interrupted Rostislav Adamitch; 'I wonder you're not ashamed to torment the poor man!'

Everyone looked round. In the doorway stood Tchertop-hanov. As a cousin four times removed of the deceased contractor, he too had received a note of invitation to the meeting of the relations. During the whole time of reading the will he had kept, as he always did, haughtily apart from the others.

'Stop that!' he repeated, throwing his head back proudly.

Mr. Shtoppel turned round quickly, and seeing a poorly dressed, unattractive-looking man, he inquired of his neighbour in an undertone (caution's always a good thing):

'Who's that?'

'Tchertop-hanov—he's no great shakes,' the latter whispered in his ear.

Rostislav Adamitch assumed a haughty air.

'And who are you to give orders?' he said through his nose, drooping his eyelids scornfully; 'who may you be, allow me to inquire?—a queer fish, upon my word!'

Tchertop-hanov exploded like gunpowder at a spark. He was choked with fury.

'Ss—ss—ss!' he hissed like one possessed, and all at once he thundered: 'Who am I? Who am I? I'm Panteley Tchertop-hanov, of the ancient hereditary nobility; my forefathers served the Tsar: and who may you be?'

Rostislav Adamitch turned pale and stepped back. He had not expected such resistance.

'I—I—a fish indeed!'

Tchertop-hanov darted forward; Shtoppel bounded away in great perturbation, the others rushed to meet the exasperated nobleman.

'A duel, a duel, a duel, at once, across a handkerchief!' shouted the enraged Panteley, 'or beg my pardon—yes, and his too....'

'Pray beg his pardon!' the agitated relations muttered all round Shtoppel; 'he's such a madman, he'd cut your throat in a minute!'

'I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon, I didn't know,' stammered Shtoppel; 'I didn't know....'

'And beg his too!' vociferated the implacable Panteley.

'I beg your pardon too,' added Rostislav Adamitch, addressing Nedopyuskin, who was shaking as if he were in an ague.

Tchertop-hanov calmed down; he went up to Tihon Ivanitch, took him by the hand, looked fiercely round, and, as not one pair of eyes ventured to meet his, he walked triumphantly amid profound silence out of the room, with the new owner of the lawfully acquired village of Bezselendyevka.

From that day they never parted again. (The village of Bezselendyevka was only seven miles from Bezsonovo.) The boundless gratitude of Nedopyuskin soon passed into the most adoring veneration. The weak, soft, and not perfectly stainless Tihon bowed down in the dust before the fearless and irreproachable Panteley. 'It's no slight thing,' he thought to himself sometimes, 'to talk to the governor, look him straight in the face.... Christ have mercy on us, doesn't he look at him!'

He marvelled at him, he exhausted all the force of his soul in his admiration of him, he regarded him as an extraordinary man, as clever, as learned. And there's no denying that, bad as Tchertop-hanov's education might be, still, in comparison with Tihon's education, it might pass for brilliant. Tchertop-hanov, it is true, had read little Russian, and knew French very badly—so badly that once, in reply to the question of a Swiss tutor: 'Vous parlez francais, monsieur?' he answered: 'Je ne comprehend' and after a moment's thought, he added pa; but any way he was aware that Voltaire had once existed, and was a very witty writer, and that Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, had been distinguished as a great military commander. Of Russian writers he respected Derzhavin, but liked Marlinsky, and called Ammalat-Bek the best of the pack....

A few days after my first meeting with the two friends, I set off for the village of Bezsonovo to see Panteley Eremyitch. His little house could be seen a long way off; it stood out on a bare place, half a mile from the village, on the 'bluff,' as it is called, like a hawk on a ploughed field. Tchertop-hanov's homestead consisted of nothing more than four old tumble-down buildings of different sizes—that is, a lodge, a stable, a barn, and a bath-house. Each building stood apart by itself; there was neither a fence round nor a gate to be seen. My coachman stopped in perplexity at a well which was choked up and had almost disappeared. Near the barn some thin and unkempt puppies were mangling a dead horse, probably Orbassan; one of them lifted up the bleeding nose, barked hurriedly, and again fell to devouring the bare ribs. Near the horse stood a boy of seventeen, with a puffy, yellow face, dressed like a Cossack, and barelegged; he looked with a responsible air at the dogs committed to his charge, and now and then gave the greediest a lash with his whip.

'Is your master at home?' I inquired.

'The Lord knows!' answered the lad; 'you'd better knock.'

I jumped out of the droshky, and went up to the steps of the lodge.

Mr. Tchertop-hanov's dwelling presented a very cheerless aspect; the beams were blackened and bulging forward, the chimney had fallen off, the corners of the house were stained with damp, and sunk out of the perpendicular, the small, dusty, bluish windows peeped out from under the shaggy overhanging roof with an indescribably morose expression: some old vagrants have eyes that look like that. I knocked; no one responded. I could hear, however, through the door some sharply uttered words:

'A, B, C; there now, idiot!' a hoarse voice was saying: 'A, B, C, D... no! D, E, E, E!... Now then, idiot!'

I knocked a second time.

The same voice shouted: 'Come in; who's there?'...

I went into the small empty hall, and through the open door I saw Tchertop-hanov himself. In a greasy oriental dressing-gown, loose trousers, and a red skull-cap, he was sitting on a chair; in one hand he gripped the face of a young poodle, while in the other he was holding a piece of bread just above his nose.

'Ah!' he pronounced with dignity, not stirring from his seat: 'delighted to see you. Please sit down. I am busy here with Venzor.... Tihon Ivanitch,' he added, raising his voice, 'come here, will you? Here's a visitor.'

'I'm coming, I'm coming,' Tihon Ivanitch responded from the other room. 'Masha, give me my cravat.'

Tchertop-hanov turned to Venzor again and laid the piece of bread on his nose. I looked round. Except an extending table much warped with thirteen legs of unequal length, and four rush chairs worn into hollows, there was no furniture of any kind in the room; the walls, which had been washed white, ages ago, with blue, star-shaped spots, were peeling off in many places; between the windows hung a broken tarnished looking-glass in a huge frame of red wood. In the corners stood pipestands and guns; from the ceiling hung fat black cobwebs.

'A, B, C, D,' Tchertop-hanov repeated slowly, and suddenly he cried furiously: 'E! E! E! E!... What a stupid brute!...'

But the luckless poodle only shivered, and could not make up his mind to open his mouth; he still sat wagging his tail uneasily and wrinkling up his face, blinked dejectedly, and frowned as though saying to himself: 'Of course, it's just as you please!'

'There, eat! come! take it!' repeated the indefatigable master.

'You've frightened him,' I remarked.

'Well, he can get along, then!'

He gave him a kick. The poor dog got up softly, dropped the bread off his nose, and walked, as it were, on tiptoe to the hall, deeply wounded. And with good reason: a stranger calling for the first time, and to treat him like that!

The door from the next room gave a subdued creak, and Mr. Nedopyuskin came in, affably bowing and smiling.

I got up and bowed.

'Don't disturb yourself, don't disturb yourself,' he lisped.

We sat down. Tchertop-hanov went into the next room.

'You have been for some time in our neighbourhood,' began Nedopyuskin in a subdued voice, coughing discreetly into his hand, and holding his fingers before his lips from a feeling of propriety.

'I came last month.'

'Indeed.'

We were silent for a little.

'Lovely weather we are having just now,' resumed Nedopyuskin, and he looked gratefully at me as though I were in some way responsible for the weather: 'the corn, one may say, is doing wonderfully.'

I nodded in token of assent. We were silent again.

'Panteley Eremyitch was pleased to hunt two hares yesterday,' Nedopyuskin began again with an effort, obviously wishing to enliven the conversation; 'yes, indeed, very big hares they were, sir.'

'Has Mr. Tchertop-hanov good hounds?'

'The most wonderful hounds, sir!' Nedopyuskin replied, delighted; 'one may say, the best in the province, indeed.' (He drew nearer to me.) 'But, then, Panteley Eremyitch is such a wonderful man! He has only to wish for anything—he has only to take an idea into his head—and before you can look round, it's done; everything, you may say, goes like clockwork. Panteley Eremyitch, I assure you....'

Tchertop-hanov came into the room. Nedopyuskin smiled, ceased speaking, and indicated him to me with a glance which seemed to say, 'There, you will see for yourself.' We fell to talking about hunting.

'Would you like me to show you my leash?' Tchertop-hanov asked me; and, not waiting for a reply, he called Karp.

A sturdy lad came in, in a green nankin long coat, with a blue collar and livery buttons.

'Tell Fomka,' said Tchertop-hanov abruptly, 'to bring in Ammalat and Saiga, and in good order, do you understand?'

Karp gave a broad grin, uttered an indefinite sound, and went away. Fomka made his appearance, well combed and tightly buttoned up, in boots, and with the hounds. From politeness, I admired the stupid beasts (harriers are all exceedingly stupid). Tchertop-hanov spat right into Ammalat's nostrils, which did not, however, apparently afford that dog the slightest satisfaction. Nedopyuskin, too, stroked Ammalat from behind. We began chatting again. By degrees Tchertop-hanov unbent completely, and no longer stood on his dignity nor snorted defiantly; the expression of his face changed. He glanced at me and at Nedopyuskin....

'Hey!' he cried suddenly; 'why should she sit in there alone? Masha! hi, Masha! come in here!'

Some one stirred in the next room, but there was no answer.

'Ma-a-sha!' Tchertop-hanov repeated caressingly; 'come in here. It's all right, don't be afraid.'

The door was softly opened, and I caught sight of a tall and slender girl of twenty, with a dark gypsy face, golden-brown eyes, and hair black as pitch; her large white teeth gleamed between full red lips. She had on a white dress; a blue shawl, pinned close round her throat with a gold brooch, half hid her slender, beautiful arms, in which one could see the fineness of her race. She took two steps with the bashful awkwardness of some wild creature, stood still, and looked down.

'Come, let me introduce,' said Panteley Eremyitch; 'wife she is not, but she's to be respected as a wife.'

Masha flushed slightly, and smiled in confusion. I made her a low bow. I thought her very charming. The delicate falcon nose, with distended, half-transparent nostrils; the bold sweep of her high eyebrows, the pale, almost sunken cheeks—every feature of her face denoted wilful passion and reckless devilry. From under the coil of her hair two rows of little shining hairs ran down her broad neck—a sign of race and vigour.

She went to the window and sat down. I did not want to increase her embarrassment, and began talking with Tchertop-hanov. Masha turned her head slyly, and began peeping from under her eyelids at me stealthily, shyly, and swiftly. Her glance seemed to flash out like a snake's sting. Nedopyuskin sat beside her, and whispered something in her ear. She smiled again. When she smiled, her nose slightly puckered up, and her upper lip was raised, which gave her face something of the expression of a cat or a lion....

'Oh, but you're one of the "hands off!" sort,' I thought, in my turn stealing a look at her supple frame, her hollow breast, and her quick, angular movements.

'Masha,' Tchertop-hanov asked, 'don't you think we ought to give our visitor some entertainment, eh?'

'We've got some jam,' she replied.

'Well, bring the jam here, and some vodka, too, while you're about it. And, I say, Masha,' he shouted after her, 'bring the guitar in too.'

'What's the guitar for? I'm not going to sing.'

'Why?'

'I don't want to.'

'Oh, nonsense; you'll want to when....'

'What?' asked Masha, rapidly knitting her brows.

'When you're asked,' Tchertop-hanov went on, with some embarrassment.

'Oh!'

She went out, soon came back with jam and vodka, and again sat by the window. There was still a line to be seen on her forehead; the two eyebrows rose and drooped like a wasp's antennae.... Have you ever noticed, reader, what a wicked face the wasp has? 'Well,' I thought, 'I'm in for a storm.' The conversation flagged. Nedopyuskin shut up completely, and wore a forced smile; Tchertop-hanov panted, turned red, and opened his eyes wide; I was on the point of taking leave.... Suddenly Masha got up, flung open the window, thrust out her head, and shouted lustily to a passing peasant woman, 'Aksinya!' The woman started, and tried to turn round, but slipped down and flopped heavily on to a dung-heap. Masha threw herself back and laughed merrily; Tchertop-hanov laughed too; Nedopyuskin shrieked with delight. We all revived. The storm had passed off in one flash of lightning... the air was clear again.

Half-an-hour later, no one would have recognised us; we were chatting and frolicking like children. Masha was the merriest of all; Tchertop-hanov simply could not take his eyes off her. Her face grew paler, her nostrils dilated, her eyes glowed and darkened at the same time. It was a wild creature at play. Nedopyuskin limped after her on his short, fat little legs, like a drake after a duck. Even Venzor crawled out of his hiding-place in the hall, stood a moment in the doorway, glanced at us, and suddenly fell to jumping up into the air and barking. Masha flitted into the other room, fetched the guitar, flung off the shawl from her shoulders, seated herself quickly, and, raising her head, began singing a gypsy song. Her voice rang out, vibrating like a glass bell when it is struck; it flamed up and died away.... It filled the heart with sweetness and pain.... Tchertop-hanov fell to dancing. Nedopyuskin stamped and swung his legs in tune. Masha was all a-quiver, like birch-bark in the fire; her delicate fingers flew playfully over the guitar, her dark-skinned throat slowly heaved under the two rows of amber. All at once she would cease singing, sink into exhaustion, and twang the guitar, as it were involuntarily, and Tchertop-hanov stood still, merely working his shoulders and turning round in one place, while Nedopyuskin nodded his head like a Chinese figure; then she would break out into song like a mad thing, drawing herself up and holding up her head, and Tchertop-hanov again curtsied down to the ground, leaped up to the ceiling, spun round like a top, crying 'Quicker!...'

'Quicker, quicker, quicker!' Nedopyuskin chimed in, speaking very fast.

It was late in the evening when I left Bezsonovo....



XXII

THE END OF TCHERTOP-HANOV

I

It was two years after my visit that Panteley Eremyitch's troubles began—his real troubles. Disappointments, disasters, even misfortunes he had had before that time, but he had paid no attention to them, and had risen superior to them in former days. The first blow that fell upon him was the most heartrending for him. Masha left him.

What induced her to forsake his roof, where she seemed to be so thoroughly at home, it is hard to say. Tchertop-hanov to the end of his days clung to the conviction that a certain young neighbour, a retired captain of Uhlans, named Yaff, was at the root of Masha's desertion. He had taken her fancy, according to Panteley Eremyitch, simply by constantly curling his moustaches, pomading himself to excess, and sniggering significantly; but one must suppose that the vagrant gypsy blood in Masha's veins had more to do with it. However that may have been, one fine summer evening Masha tied up a few odds and ends in a small bundle, and walked out of Tchertop-hanov's house.

For three days before this she had sat crouched up in a corner, huddled against the wall, like a wounded fox, and had not spoken a word to any one; she had only turned her eyes about, and twitched her eyebrows, and faintly gnashed her teeth, and moved her arms as though she were wrapping herself up. This mood had come upon her before, but had never lasted long: Tchertop-hanov knew that, and so he neither worried himself nor worried her. But when, on coming in from the kennels, where, in his huntsman's words, the last two hounds 'had departed,' he met a servant girl who, in a trembling voice, informed him that Marya Akinfyevna sent him her greetings, and left word that she wished him every happiness, but she was not coming back to him any more; Tchertop-hanov, after reeling round where he stood and uttering a hoarse yell, rushed at once after the runaway, snatching up his pistol as he went.

He overtook her a mile and a half from his house, near a birch wood, on the high-road to the district town. The sun was sinking on the horizon, and everything was suddenly suffused with purple glow—trees, plants, and earth alike.

'To Yaff! to Yaff!' groaned Tchertop-hanov directly he caught sight of Masha. 'Going to Yaff!' he repeated, running up to her, and almost stumbling at every step.

Masha stood still, and turned round facing him.

She stood with her back to the light, and looked all black, as though she had been carved out of dark wood; only the whites of her eyes stood out like silvery almonds, but the eyes themselves—the pupils—were darker than ever.

She flung her bundle aside, and folded her arms. 'You are going to Yaff, wretched girl!' repeated Tchertop-hanov, and he was on the point of seizing her by the shoulder, but, meeting her eyes, he was abashed, and stood uneasily where he was.

'I am not going to Mr. Yaff, Panteley Eremyitch,' replied Masha in soft, even tones; 'it's only I can't live with you any longer.'

'Can't live with me? Why not? Have I offended you in some way?'

Masha shook her head. 'You've not offended me in any way, Panteley Eremyitch, only my heart is heavy in your house.... Thanks for the past, but I can't stay—no!'

Tchertop-hanov was amazed; he positively slapped his thighs, and bounced up and down in his astonishment.

'How is that? Here she's gone on living with me, and known nothing but peace and happiness, and all of a sudden—her heart's heavy! and she flings me over! She goes and puts a kerchief on her head, and is gone. She received every respect, like any lady.'

'I don't care for that in the least,' Masha interrupted.

'Don't care for it? From a wandering gypsy to turn into a lady, and she doesn't care for it! How don't you care for it, you low-born slave? Do you expect me to believe that? There's treachery hidden in it—treachery!'

He began frowning again.

'There's no treachery in my thoughts, and never has been,' said Masha in her distinct, resonant voice; 'I've told you already, my heart was heavy.'

'Masha!' cried Tchertop-hanov, striking himself a blow on the chest with his fist; 'there, stop it; hush, you have tortured me... now, it's enough! O my God! think only what Tisha will say; you might have pity on him, at least!'

'Remember me to Tihon Ivanitch, and tell him...'

Tchertop-hanov wrung his hands. 'No, you are talking nonsense—you are not going! Your Yaff may wait for you in vain!'

'Mr. Yaff,' Masha was beginning....

'A fine Mister Yaff!' Tchertop-hanov mimicked her. 'He's an underhand rascal, a low cur—that's what he is—and a phiz like an ape's!'

For fully half-an-hour Tchertop-hanov was struggling with Masha. He came close to her, he fell back, he shook his fists at her, he bowed down before her, he wept, he scolded.

...'I can't,' repeated Masha; 'I am so sad at heart... devoured by weariness.'

Little by little her face assumed such an indifferent, almost drowsy expression, that Tchertop-hanov asked her if they had not drugged her with laudanum.

'It's weariness,' she said for the tenth time.

'Then what if I kill you?' he cried suddenly, and he pulled the pistol out of his pocket.

Masha smiled; her face brightened.

'Well, kill me, Panteley Eremyitch; as you will; but go back, I won't.'

'You won't come back?' Tchertop-hanov cocked the pistol.

'I won't go back, my dearie. Never in my life will I go back. My word is steadfast.'

Tchertop-hanov suddenly thrust the pistol into her hand, and sat down on the ground.

'Then, you kill me! Without you I don't care to live. I have grown loathsome to you—and everything's loathsome for me!'

Masha bent down, took up her bundle, laid the pistol on the grass, its mouth away from Tchertop-hanov, and went up to him.

'Ah, my dearie, why torture yourself? Don't you know what we gypsy girls are? It's our nature; you must make up your mind to it. When there comes weariness the divider, and calls the soul away to strange, distant parts, how is one to stay here? Don't forget your Masha; you won't find such another sweetheart, and I won't forget you, my dearie; but our life together's over!'

'I loved you, Masha,' Tchertop-hanov muttered into the fingers in which he had buried his face....

'And I loved you, little friend Panteley Eremyitch.'

'I love you, I love you madly, senselessly—and when I think now that you, in your right senses, without rhyme or reason, are leaving me like this, and going to wander over the face of the earth—well, it strikes me that if I weren't a poor penniless devil, you wouldn't be throwing me over!'

At these words Masha only laughed.

'And he used to say I didn't care for money,' she commented, and she gave Tchertop-hanov a vigorous thump on the shoulder.

He jumped up on to his feet.

'Come, at least you must let me give you some money—how can you go like this without a halfpenny? But best of all: kill me! I tell you plainly: kill me once for all!'

Masha shook her head again. 'Kill you? Why get sent to Siberia, my dearie?'

Tchertop-hanov shuddered. 'Then it's only from that—from fear of penal servitude.'

He rolled on the grass again.

Masha stood over him in silence. 'I'm sorry for you, dear,' she said with a sigh: 'you're a good fellow... but there's no help for it: good-bye!'

She turned away and took two steps. The night had come on by now, and dim shadows were closing in on all sides. Tchertop-hanov jumped up swiftly and seized Masha from behind by her two elbows.

'You are going away like this, serpent, to Yaff!'

'Good-bye!' Masha repeated sharply and significantly; she tore herself away and walked off.

Tchertop-hanov looked after her, ran to the place where the pistol was lying, snatched it up, took aim, fired.... But before he touched the trigger, his arm twitched upwards; the ball whistled over Masha's head. She looked at him over her shoulder without stopping, and went on, swinging as she walked, as though in defiance of him.

He hid his face—and fell to running.

But before he had run fifty paces he suddenly stood still as though turned to stone. A well-known, too well-known voice came floating to him. Masha was singing. 'It was in the sweet days of youth,' she sang: every note seemed to linger plaintive and ardent in the evening air. Tchertop-hanov listened intently. The voice retreated and retreated; at one moment it died away, at the next it floated across, hardly audible, but still with the same passionate glow.

'She does it to spite me,' thought Tchertop-hanov; but at once he moaned, 'oh, no! it's her last farewell to me for ever,'—and he burst into floods of tears.

* * * * *

The next day he appeared at the lodgings of Mr. Yaff, who, as a true man of the world, not liking the solitude of the country, resided in the district town, 'to be nearer the young ladies,' as he expressed it. Tchertop-hanov did not find Yaff; he had, in the words of his valet, set off for Moscow the evening before.

'Then it is so!' cried Tchertop-hanov furiously; 'there was an arrangement between them; she has run away with him... but wait a bit!'

He broke into the young cavalry captain's room in spite of the resistance of the valet. In the room there was hanging over the sofa a portrait in oils of the master, in the Uhlan uniform. 'Ah, here you are, you tailless ape!' thundered Tchertop-hanov; he jumped on to the sofa, and with a blow of his fist burst a big hole in the taut canvas.

'Tell your worthless master,' he turned to the valet, 'that, in the absence of his own filthy phiz, the nobleman Tchertop-hanov put a hole through the painted one; and if he cares for satisfaction from me, he knows where to find the nobleman Tchertop-hanov! or else I'll find him out myself! I'll fetch the rascally ape from the bottom of the sea!'

Saying these words, Tchertop-hanov jumped off the sofa and majestically withdrew.

But the cavalry captain Yaff did not demand satisfaction from him—indeed, he never met him anywhere—and Tchertop-hanov did not think of seeking his enemy out, and no scandal followed. Masha herself soon after this disappeared beyond all trace. Tchertop-hanov took to drink; however, he 'reformed' later. But then a second blow fell upon him.



II

This was the death of his bosom friend Tihon Ivanovitch Nedopyuskin. His health had begun to fail two years before his death: he began to suffer from asthma, and was constantly dropping asleep, and on waking up could not at once come to himself; the district doctor maintained that this was the result of 'something rather like fits.' During the three days which preceded Masha's departure, those three days when 'her heart was heavy,' Nedopyuskin had been away at his own place at Bezselendyevka: he had been laid up with a severe cold. Masha's conduct was consequently even more unexpected for him; it made almost a deeper impression on him than on Tchertop-hanov himself. With his natural sweetness and diffidence, he gave utterance to nothing but the tenderest sympathy with his friend, and the most painful perplexity... but it crushed and made havoc of everything in him. 'She has torn the heart out of me,' he would murmur to himself, as he sat on his favourite checked sofa and twisted his fingers. Even when Tchertop-hanov had got over it, he, Nedopyuskin, did not recover, and still felt that 'there was a void within him.' 'Here,' he would say, pointing to the middle of his breast above his stomach. In that way he lingered on till the winter. When the frosts came, his asthma got better, but he was visited by, not 'something rather like a fit' this time, but a real unmistakable fit. He did not lose his memory at once; he still knew Tchertop-hanov and his friend's cry of despair, 'How can you desert me, Tisha, without my consent, just as Masha did?' He even responded with faltering, uncertain tongue, 'O—P—a—ey—E—e—yitch, I will o—bey you.'

This did not, however, prevent him from dying the same day, without waiting for the district doctor, who (on seeing the hardly cold body) found nothing left for him to do, but with a melancholy recognition of the instability of all things mortal, to ask for 'a drop of vodka and a snack of fish.' As might have been anticipated, Tihon Ivanitch had bequeathed his property to his revered patron and generous protector, Panteley Eremyitch Tchertop-hanov; but it was of no great benefit to the revered patron, as it was shortly after sold by public auction, partly in order to cover the expense of a sepulchral monument, a statue, which Tchertop-hanov (and one can see his father's craze coming out in him here) had thought fit to put up over the ashes of his friend. This statue, which was to have represented an angel praying, was ordered by him from Moscow; but the agent recommended to him, conceiving that connoisseurs in sculpture were not often to be met with in the provinces, sent him, instead of an angel, a goddess Flora, which had for many years adorned one of those neglected gardens near Moscow, laid out in the days of Catherine. He had an excellent reason for doing so, since this statue, though highly artistic, in the rococo style, with plump little arms, tossing curls, a wreath of roses round the bare bosom, and a serpentine figure, was obtained by him, the agent, for nothing. And so to this day the mythological goddess stands, with one foot elegantly lifted, above the tomb of Tihon Ivanovitch, and with a genuinely Pompadour simper, gazes at the calves and sheep, those invariable visitors of our village graveyards, as they stray about her.



III

On the loss of his faithful friend, Tchertop-hanov again took to drink, and this time far more seriously. Everything went utterly to the bad with him. He had no money left for sport; the last of his meagre fortune was spent; the last of his few servants ran away. Panteley Eremyitch's isolation became complete: he had no one to speak a word to even, far less to open his heart to. His pride alone had suffered no diminution. On the contrary, the worse his surroundings became, the more haughty and lofty and inaccessible he was himself. He became a complete misanthrope in the end. One distraction, one delight, was left him: a superb grey horse, of the Don breed, named by him Malek-Adel, a really wonderful animal.

This horse came into his possession in this fashion.

As he was riding one day through a neighbouring village, Tchertop-hanov heard a crowd of peasants shouting and hooting before a tavern. In the middle of the crowd stalwart arms were continually rising and falling in exactly the same place.

'What is happening there?' he asked, in the peremptory tone peculiar to him, of an old peasant woman who was standing on the threshold of her hut. Leaning against the doorpost as though dozing, the old woman stared in the direction of the tavern. A white-headed urchin in a print smock, with a cypress-wood cross on his little bare breast, was sitting with little outstretched legs, and little clenched fists between her bast slippers; a chicken close by was chipping at a stale crust of rye-bread.

'The Lord knows, your honour,' answered the old woman. Bending forward, she laid her wrinkled brown hand on the child's head. 'They say our lads are beating a Jew.'

'A Jew? What Jew?'

'The Lord knows, your honour. A Jew came among us; and where he's come from—who knows? Vassya, come to your mammy, sir; sh, sh, nasty brute!'

The old woman drove away the chicken, while Vassya clung to her petticoat.

'So, you see, they're beating him, sir.'

'Why beating him? What for?'

'I don't know, your honour. No doubt, he deserves it. And, indeed, why not beat him? You know, your honour, he crucified Christ!'

Tchertop-hanov uttered a whoop, gave his horse a lash on the neck with the riding-whip, flew straight towards the crowd, and plunging into it, began with the same riding-whip thrashing the peasants to left and to right indiscriminately, shouting in broken tones: 'Lawless brutes! lawless brutes! It's for the law to punish, and not pri-vate per-sons! The law! the law! the law!'

Before two minutes had passed the crowd had beaten a retreat in various directions; and on the ground before the tavern door could be seen a small, thin, swarthy creature, in a nankin long coat, dishevelled and mangled... a pale face, rolling eyes, open mouth.... What was it?... deadly terror, or death itself?

'Why have you killed this Jew?' Tchertop-hanov shouted at the top of his voice, brandishing his riding-whip menacingly.

The crowd faintly roared in response. One peasant was rubbing his shoulder, another his side, a third his nose.

'You're pretty free with your whip!' was heard in the back rows.

'Why have you killed the Jew, you christened Pagans?' repeated Tchertop-hanov.

But, at this point, the creature lying on the ground hurriedly jumped on to its feet, and, running up to Tchertop-hanov, convulsively seized hold of the edge of the saddle.

'Alive!' was heard in the background.

'He's a regular cat!'

'Your ex-shelency, defend me, save me!' the unhappy Jew was faltering meanwhile, his whole body squeezed up against Tchertop-hanov's foot; 'or they will murder me, they will murder me, your ex-shelency!'

'What have they against you?' asked Tchertop-hanov.

'I can't tell, so help me God! Some cow hereabouts died... so they suspect me... but I...' 'Well, that we'll go into later!' Tchertop-hanov interrupted; 'but now, you hold on to the saddle and follow me. And you!' he added, turning to the crowd,' do you know me?—I'm the landowner Panteley Tchertop-hanov. I live at Bezsonovo,—and so you can take proceedings against me, when you think fit—and against the Jew too, while you're about it!'

'Why take proceedings?' said a grey-bearded, decent-looking peasant, bowing low, the very picture of an ancient patriarch. (He had been no whit behind the others in belabouring the Jew, however). 'We know your honour, Panteley Eremyitch, well; we thank your honour humbly for teaching us better!'

'Why take proceedings?' chimed in the others.

'As to the Jew, we'll take it out of him another day! He won't escape us! We shall be on the look-out for him.'

Tchertop-hanov pulled his moustaches, snorted, and went home at a walking pace, accompanied by the Jew, whom he had delivered from his persecutors just as he had once delivered Tihon Nedopyuskin.



IV

A few days later the one groom who was left to Tchertop-hanov announced that someone had come on horseback and wanted to speak to him. Tchertop-hanov went out on to the steps and recognised the Jew, riding a splendid horse of the Don breed, which stood proud and motionless in the middle of the courtyard. The Jew was bareheaded; he held his cap under his arm, and had thrust his feet into the stirrup-straps, not into the stirrups themselves; the ragged skirts of his long coat hung down on both sides of the saddle. On seeing Tchertop-hanov, he gave a smack with his lips, and ducked down with a twitch of the elbows and a bend of the legs. Tchertop-hanov, however, not only failed to respond to his greeting, but was even enraged by it; he was all on fire in a minute: a scurvy Jew dare to ride a magnificent horse like that!... It was positively indecent!

'Hi, you Ethiopian fright!' he shouted; 'get off at once, if you don't want to be flung off into the mud!'

The Jew promptly obeyed, rolled off the horse like a sack, and keeping hold of the rein with one hand, he approached Tchertop-hanov, smiling and bowing.

'What do you want?' Panteley Eremyitch inquired with dignity.

'Your ex-shelency, deign to look what a horse!' said the Jew, never ceasing to bow for an instant.

'Er... well... the horse is all right. Where did you get it from? Stole it, I suppose?'

'How can you say that, your ex-shelency! I'm an honest Jew. I didn't steal it, but I obtained it for your ex-shelency—really! And the trouble, the trouble I had to get it? But, then, see what a horse it is! There's not another horse like it to be found in all the Don country! Look, your ex-shelency, what a horse it is! Here, kindly step this way! Wo!... wo!... turn round, stand sideways! And we'll take off the saddle. What do you think of him, your ex-shelency?'

'The horse is all right,' repeated Tchertop-hanov with affected indifference, though his heart was beating like a sledge-hammer in his breast. He was a passionate lover of 'horse-flesh,' and knew a good thing when he saw it.

'Only take a look at him, your ex-shelency! Pat him on the neck! yes, yes, he-he-he-he! like this, like this!'

Tchertop-hanov, with apparent reluctance, laid his hand on the horse's neck, gave it a pat or two, then passed his fingers from the forelock along the spine, and when he had reached a certain spot above the kidneys, like a connoisseur, he lightly pressed that spot. The horse instantly arched its spine, and looking round suspiciously at Tchertop-hanov with its haughty black eye, snorted and moved its hind legs.

The Jew laughed and faintly clapped his hands. 'He knows his master, your ex-shelency, his master!'

'Don't talk nonsense,' Tchertop-hanov interrupted with vexation. 'To buy this horse from you... I haven't the means, and as for presents, I not only wouldn't take them from a Jew; I wouldn't take a present from Almighty God Himself!'

'As though I would presume to offer you a present, mercy upon me!' cried the Jew: 'you buy it, your ex-shelency... and as to the little sum—I can wait for it.'

Tchertop-hanov sank into thought.

'What will you take for it?' he muttered at last between his teeth.

The Jew shrugged his shoulders.

'What I paid for it myself. Two hundred roubles.'

The horse was well worth twice—-perhaps even three times that sum.

Tchertop-hanov turned away and yawned feverishly.

'And the money... when?' he asked, scowling furiously and not looking at the Jew.

'When your ex-shelency thinks fit.'

Tchertop-hanov flung his head back, but did not raise his eyes. 'That's no answer. Speak plainly, son of Herod! Am I to be under an obligation to you, hey?'

'Well, let's say, then,' the Jew hastened to add, 'in six months' time... Do you agree?'

Tchertop-hanov made no reply.

The Jew tried to get a look at his face. 'Do you agree? You permit him to be led to your stable?'

'The saddle I don't want,' Tchertop-hanov blurted out abruptly. 'Take the saddle—do you hear?'

'To be sure, to be sure, I will take it,' faltered the delighted Jew, shouldering the saddle.

'And the money,' Tchertop-hanov pursued... 'in six months. And not two hundred, but two hundred and fifty. Not a word! Two hundred and fifty, I tell you! to my account.'

Tchertop-hanov still could not bring himself to raise his eyes. Never had his pride been so cruelly wounded.

'It's plain, it's a present,' was the thought in his mind; 'he's brought it out of gratitude, the devil!' And he would have liked to kiss the Jew, and he would have liked to beat him.

'Your ex-shelency,' began the Jew, gaining a little courage, and grinning all over his face, 'should, after the Russian fashion, take from hand to hand....'

'What next? what an idea! A Hebrew... and Russian customs! Hey! you there! Take the horse; lead him to the stable. And give him some oats. I'll come myself and look after him. And his name is to be—Malek-Adel!'

Tchertop-hanov turned to go up the steps, but turning sharply back, and running up to the Jew, he pressed his hand warmly. The latter was bending down to kiss his hand, but Tchertop-hanov bounded back again, and murmuring, 'Tell no one!' he vanished through the door.



V

From that very day the chief interest, the chief occupation, the chief pleasure in the life of Tchertop-hanov, was Malek-Adel. He loved him as he had not loved even Masha; he became more attached to him than even to Nedopyuskin. And what a horse it was! All fire—simply explosive as gunpowder—and stately as a boyar! Untiring, enduring, obedient, whatever you might put him to; and costing nothing for his keep; he'd be ready to nibble at the ground under his feet if there was nothing else. When he stepped at a walking pace, it was like being lulled to sleep in a nurse's arms; when he trotted, it was like rocking at sea; when he galloped, he outstripped the wind! Never out of breath, perfectly sound in his wind. Sinews of steel: for him to stumble was a thing never recorded! To take a ditch or a fence was nothing to him—and what a clever beast! At his master's voice he would run with his head in the air; if you told him to stand still and walked away from him, he would not stir; directly you turned back, a faint neigh to say, 'Here I am.' And afraid of nothing: in the pitch-dark, in a snow-storm he would find his way; and he would not let a stranger come near him for anything; he would have had his teeth in him! And a dog dare never approach him; he would have his fore-leg on his head in a minute! and that was the end of the beast. A horse of proper pride, you might flourish a switch over him as an ornament—but God forbid you touched him! But why say more?—a perfect treasure, not a horse!

If Tchertop-hanov set to describing his Malek-Adel, he could not find words to express himself. And how he petted and pampered him! His coat shone like silver—not old, but new silver—with a dark polish on it; if one passed one's hand over it, it was like velvet! His saddle, his cloth, his bridle—all his trappings, in fact, were so well-fitted, in such good order, so bright—a perfect picture! Tchertop-hanov himself—what more can we say?—with his own hands plaited his favourite's forelocks and mane, and washed his tail with beer, and even, more than once, rubbed his hoofs with polish. Sometimes he would mount Malek-Adel and ride out, not to see his neighbours—he avoided them, as of old—but across their lands, past their homesteads... for them, poor fools, to admire him from a distance! Or he would hear that there was to be a hunt somewhere, that a rich landowner had arranged a meet in some outlying part of his land: he would be off there at once, and would canter in the distance, on the horizon, astounding all spectators by the swiftness and beauty of his horse, and not letting any one come close to him. Once some hunting landowner even gave chase to him with all his suite; he saw Tchertop-hanov was getting away, and he began shouting after him with all his might, as he galloped at full speed: 'Hey, you! Here! Take what you like for your horse! I wouldn't grudge a thousand! I'd give my wife, my children! Take my last farthing!'

Tchertop-hanov suddenly reined in Malek-Adel. The hunting gentleman flew up to him. 'My dear sir!' he shouted, 'tell me what you want? My dear friend!'

'If you were the Tsar,' said Tchertop-hanov emphatically (and he had never heard of Shakespeare), 'you might give me all your kingdom for my horse; I wouldn't take it!' He uttered these words, chuckled, drew Malek-Adel up on to his haunches, turned him in the air on his hind legs like a top or teetotum, and off! He went like a flash over the stubble. And the hunting man (a rich prince, they said he was) flung his cap on the ground, threw himself down with his face in his cap, and lay so for half an hour.

And how could Tchertop-hanov fail to prize his horse? Was it not thanks to him, he had again an unmistakable superiority, a last superiority over all his neighbours?



VI

Meanwhile time went by, the day fixed for payment was approaching; while, far from having two hundred and fifty roubles, Tchertop-hanov had not even fifty. What was to be done? how could it be met? 'Well,' he decided at last, 'if the Jew is relentless, if he won't wait any longer, I'll give him my house and my land, and I'll set off on my horse, no matter where! I'll starve before I'll give up Malek-Adel!' He was greatly perturbed and even downcast; but at this juncture Fate, for the first and last time, was pitiful and smiled upon him; some distant kinswoman, whose very name was unknown to Tchertop-hanov, left him in her will a sum immense in his eyes—no less than two thousand roubles! And he received this sum in the very nick, as they say, of time; the day before the Jew was to come. Tchertop-hanov almost went out of his mind with joy, but he never even thought of vodka; from the very day Malek-Adel came into his hands he had not touched a drop.

He ran into the stable and kissed his favourite on both sides of his face above the nostrils, where the horse's skin is always so soft. 'Now we shall not be parted!' he cried, patting Malek-Adel on the neck, under his well-combed mane. When he went back into the house, he counted out and sealed up in a packet two hundred and fifty roubles. Then, as he lay on his back and smoked a pipe, he mused on how he would lay out the rest of the money—what dogs he would procure, real Kostroma hounds, spot and tan, and no mistake! He even had a little talk with Perfishka, to whom he promised a new Cossack coat, with yellow braid on all the seams, and went to bed in a blissful frame of mind.

He had a bad dream: he dreamt he was riding out, hunting, not on Malek-Adel, but on some strange beast of the nature of a unicorn; a white fox, white as snow, ran to meet him.... He tried to crack his whip, tried to set the dogs on her—but instead of his riding-whip, he found he had a wisp of bast in his hand, and the fox ran in front of him, putting her tongue out at him. He jumped off, his unicorn stumbled, he fell... and fell straight into the arms of a police-constable, who was taking him before the Governor-General, and whom he recognised as Yaff....

Tchertop-hanov waked up. The room was dark; the cocks were just crowing for the second time.... Somewhere in the far, far distance a horse neighed. Tchertop-hanov lifted up his head.... Once more a faint, faint neigh was heard.

'That's Malek-Adel neighing!' was his thought.... 'It's his neigh. But why so far away? Bless us and save us!... It can't be...'

Tchertop-hanov suddenly turned chill all over; he instantly leaped out of bed, fumbled after his boots and his clothes, dressed himself, and, snatching up the stable-door key from under his pillow, he dashed out into the courtyard.



VII

The stable was at the very end of the courtyard; one wall faced the open country. Tchertop-hanov could not at once fit the key into the lock—his hands were shaking—and he did not immediately turn the key.... He stood motionless, holding his breath; if only something would stir inside! 'Malek! Malek!' he cried, in a low voice: the silence of death! Tchertop-hanov unconsciously jogged the key; the door creaked and opened.... So, it was not locked. He stepped over the threshold, and again called his horse; this time by his full name, Malek-Adel! But no response came from his faithful companion; only a mouse rustled in the straw. Then Tchertop-hanov rushed into one of the three horse-boxes in the stable in which Malek-Adel was put. He went straight to the horse-box, though it was pitch-dark around.... Empty! Tchertop-hanov's head went round; it seemed as though a bell was booming in his brain. He tried to say something, but only brought out a sort of hiss; and fumbling with his hands above, below, on all sides, breathless, with shaking knees, he made his way from one horse-box to another... to a third, full almost to the top with hay; stumbled against one wall, and then the other; fell down, rolled over on his head, got up, and suddenly ran headlong through the half-open door into the courtyard....

'Stolen! Perfishka! Perfishka! Stolen!' he yelled at the top of his voice.

The groom Perfishka flew head-over-heels out of the loft where he slept, with only his shirt on....

Like drunk men they ran against one another, the master and his solitary servant, in the middle of the courtyard; like madmen they turned round each other. The master could not explain what was the matter; nor could the servant make out what was wanted of him. 'Woe! woe!' wailed Tchertop-hanov. 'Woe! woe!' the groom repeated after him. 'A lantern! here! light a lantern! Light! light!' broke at last from Tchertop-hanov's fainting lips. Perfishka rushed into the house.

But to light the lantern, to get fire, was not easy; lucifer matches were regarded as a rarity in those days in Russia; the last embers had long ago gone out in the kitchen; flint and steel were not quickly found, and they did not work well. Gnashing his teeth, Tchertop-hanov snatched them out of the hands of the flustered Perfishka, and began striking a light himself; the sparks fell in abundance, in still greater abundance fell curses, and even groans; but the tinder either did not catch or went out again, in spite of the united efforts of four swollen cheeks and lips to blow it into a flame! At last, in five minutes, not sooner, a bit of tallow candle was alight at the bottom of a battered lantern; and Tchertop-hanov, accompanied by Perfishka, dashed into the stable, lifted the lantern above his head, looked round....

All empty!

He bounded out into the courtyard, ran up and down it in all directions—no horse anywhere! The hurdle-fence, enclosing Panteley Eremyitch's yard, had long been dilapidated, and in many places was bent and lying on the ground.... Beside the stable, it had been completely levelled for a good yard's width. Perfishka pointed this spot out to Tchertop-hanov.

'Master! look here; this wasn't like this to-day. And see the ends of the uprights sticking out of the ground; that means someone has pulled them out.'

Tchertop-hanov ran up with the lantern, moved it about over the ground....

'Hoofs, hoofs, prints of horse-shoes, fresh prints!' he muttered, speaking hurriedly.' They took him through here, through here!'

He instantly leaped over the fence, and with a shout, 'Malek-Adel! Malek-Adel!' he ran straight into the open country.

Perfishka remained standing bewildered at the fence. The ring of light from the lantern was soon lost to his eyes, swallowed up in the dense darkness of a starless, moonless night.

Fainter and fainter came the sound of the despairing cries of Tchertop-hanov....



VIII

It was daylight when he came home again. He hardly looked like a human being. His clothes were covered with mud, his face had a wild and ferocious expression, his eyes looked dull and sullen. In a hoarse whisper he drove Perfishka away, and locked himself in his room. He could hardly stand with fatigue, but he did not lie on his bed, but sat down on a chair by the door and clutched at his head.

'Stolen!... stolen!...'

But in what way had the thief contrived by night, when the stable was locked, to steal Malek-Adel? Malek-Adel, who would never let a stranger come near him even by day—steal him, too, without noise, without a sound? And how explain that not a yard-dog had barked? It was true there were only two left—two young puppies—and those two probably burrowing in rubbish from cold and hunger—but still!

'And what am I to do now without Malek-Adel?' Tchertop-hanov brooded. 'I've lost my last pleasure now; it's time to die. Buy another horse, seeing the money has come? But where find another horse like that?'

'Panteley Eremyitch! Panteley Eremyitch!' he heard a timid call at the door.

Tchertop-hanov jumped on to his feet.

'Who is it?' he shouted in a voice not his own.

'It's I, your groom, Perfishka.'

'What do you want? Is he found? has he run home?'

'No, Panteley Eremyitch; but that Jew chap who sold him.'...

'Well?'

'He's come.'

'Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!' yelled Tchertop-hanov, and he at once flung open the door. 'Drag him here! drag him along!'

On seeing the sudden apparition of his 'benefactor's' dishevelled, wild-looking figure, the Jew, who was standing behind Perfishka's back, tried to give them the slip; but Tchertop-hanov, in two bounds, was upon him, and like a tiger flew at his throat.

'Ah! he's come for the money! for the money!' he cried as hoarsely as though he were being strangled himself instead of strangling the Jew; 'you stole him by night, and are come by day for the money, eh? Eh? Eh?'

'Mercy on us, your ex-shelency,' the Jew tried to groan out.

'Tell me, where's my horse? What have you done with him? Whom have you sold him to? Tell me, tell me, tell me!'

The Jew by now could not even groan; his face was rapidly turning livid, and even the expression of fear had vanished from it. His hands dropped and hung lifeless, his whole body, furiously shaken by Tchertop-hanov, waved backwards and forwards like a reed.

'I'll pay you your money, I'll pay it you in full to the last farthing,' roared Tchertop-hanov, 'but I'll strangle you like any chicken if you don't tell me at once!'...

'But you have strangled him already, master,' observed the groom Perfishka humbly.

Then only Tchertop-hanov came to his senses.

He let go of the Jew's neck; the latter fell heavily to the ground. Tchertop-hanov picked him up, sat him on a bench, poured a glass of vodka down his throat, and restored him to consciousness. And having restored him to consciousness, he began to talk to him.

It turned out that the Jew had not the slightest idea that Malek-Adel had been stolen. And, indeed, what motive could he have to steal the horse which he had himself procured for his 'revered Panteley Eremyitch.'

Then Tchertop-hanov led him into the stable.

Together they scrutinised the horse-boxes, the manger, and the lock on the door, turned over the hay and the straw, and then went into the courtyard. Tchertop-hanov showed the Jew the hoofprints at the fence, and all at once he slapped his thighs.

'Stay!' he cried. 'Where did you buy the horse?'

'In the district of Maloarchangel, at Verhosensky Fair,' answered the Jew.

'Of whom?'

'A Cossack.'

Stay! This Cossack; was he a young man or old?'

'Middle-aged—a steady man.'

'And what was he like? What did he look like? A cunning rascal, I expect?'

'Sure to have been a rascal, your ex-shelency.'

'And, I say, what did he say, this rascal?—had he had the horse long?'

'I recollect he said he'd had it a long while.'

'Well, then, no one could have stolen him but he! Consider it yourself, listen, stand here!... What's your name?'

The Jew started and turned his little black eyes upon Tchertop-hanov.

'What's my name?'

'Yes, yes; what are you called?'

'Moshel Leyba.'

'Well, judge then, Moshel Leyba, my friend—you're a man of sense—whom would Malek-Adel have allowed to touch him except his old master? You see he must have saddled him and bridled him and taken off his cloth—there it is lying on the hay!... and made all his arrangements simply as if he were at home! Why, anyone except his master, Malek-Adel would have trampled under foot! He'd have raised such a din, he'd have roused the whole village? Do you agree with me?'

'I agree, I agree, your ex-shelency.'...

'Well, then, it follows that first of all we must find this Cossack!'

'But how are we to find him, your ex-shelency? I have only seen him one little time in my life, and where is he now, and what's his name? Alack, alack!' added the Jew, shaking the long curls over his ears sorrowfully.

'Leyba!' shouted Tchertop-hanov suddenly; 'Leyba, look at me! You see I've lost my senses; I'm not myself!... I shall lay hands on myself if you don't come to my aid!'

'But how can I?'...

'Come with me, and let us find the thief.'

'But where shall we go?'

'We'll go to the fairs, the highways and by-ways, to the horse-stealers, to towns and villages and hamlets—everywhere, everywhere! And don't trouble about money; I've come into a fortune, brother! I'll spend my last farthing, but I'll get my darling back! And he shan't escape us, our enemy, the Cossack! Where he goes we'll go! If he's hidden in the earth we'll follow him! If he's gone to the devil, we'll follow him to Satan himself!'

'Oh, why to Satan?' observed the Jew; 'we can do without him.'

'Leyba!' Tchertop-hanov went on; 'Leyba, though you're a Jew, and your creed's an accursed one, you've a soul better than many a Christian soul! Have pity on me! I can't go alone; alone I can never carry the thing through. I'm a hot-headed fellow, but you've a brain—a brain worth its weight in gold! Your race are like that; you succeed in everything without being taught! You're wondering, perhaps, where I could have got the money? Come into my room—I'll show you all the money. You may take it, you may take the cross off my neck, only give me back Malek-Adel; give him me back again!'

Tchertop-hanov was shivering as if he were in a fever; the sweat rolled down his face in drops, and, mingling with his tears, was lost in his moustaches. He pressed Leyba's hands, he besought him, he almost kissed him.... He was in a sort of delirium. The Jew tried to object, to declare that it was utterly impossible for him to get away; that he had business.... It was useless! Tchertop-hanov would not even hear anything. There was no help for it; the poor Jew consented.

The next day Tchertop-hanov set out from Bezsonovo in a peasant cart, with Leyba. The Jew wore a somewhat troubled aspect; he held on to the rail with one hand, while all his withered figure bounded up and down on the jolting seat; the other hand he held pressed to his bosom, where lay a packet of notes wrapped up in newspaper. Tchertop-hanov sat like a statue, only moving his eyes about him, and drawing in deep breaths; in his sash there was stuck a dagger.