LITMIR.BIZ

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a sweet little thing; dressed up like anything — brooches, gloves, bracelets, in fact a perfect cherub. Afterwards she married a very fine fellow called Pyhtin; she eloped with him, it was a runaway match; but now it is all right, and they are very well off; their parents are only too delighted! Well, so I cried out, ‘Oh, no!’ not knowing how to get out of it, ‘not that one, the one in the middle, who is she?’ Tn the middle? Well, my boy, that’s my wife.’ … And she, between ourselves, was a perfect sugarplum. I felt that I could have eaten her up at one mouthful, I was so delighted with her… . ‘Well,’ I said, ‘have you ever seen a fool? Here is one facing you, and here’s his head; cut it off, don’t spare itl’ He laughed. Afterwards he introduced them to me and must have told them, the rascal. They were in fits of laughter over something! And I must say I never spent an evening more merrily. So you see, Foma, old man, how one can put one’s foot in it! Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

      But it was no use my poor uncle laughing; in vain he looked round the company with his kind and goodhumoured eyes; a dead silence was the response that greeted his lighthearted story. Foma Fomitch sat in gloomy dumbness and all the others followed his example; only Obnoskin gave a faint smile, foreseeing the baiting my uncle would get. My uncle was embarrassed and flushed crimson. This was what Foma desired.

      “Have you finished?” he asked at last, turning with dignity to the embarrassed storyteller.

      “Yes, Foma.”

      “And are you satisfied?”

      “How do you mean, satisfied?” asked my poor uncle miserably.

      “Are you happier now? Are you pleased at having broken up the pleasant literary conversation of your friends by interrupting them and so satisfying your petty vanity?”

      “Oh, come, Foma, I wanted to amuse you all, and you …”

      “Amuse!” cried Foma, suddenly becoming extraordinarily heated; “but you are only able to depress us, not amuse us. Amuse! but do you know that your story was almost immoral! I say nothing of its impropriety, that is self-evident… . You informed us just now with rare coarseness of feeling that you laughed at innocence, at an honourable lady, simply because she had not the honour to please you, and you wanted to make us, us laugh, that is applaud you, that is applaud a coarse and improper action, and all because you are the master of this house! You can do as you like, Colonel, you can seek out toadies, flatterers, sycophants, you can even send for them from distant parts and so increase your retinue to the detriment of straightforwardness and frank nobility of soul, but never will Foma Opiskin be your toady, your flatterer, your sycophant! I can assure you of that, if of anything. …”

      “Oh, Foma! You misunderstand me, Foma.”

      “No, Colonel; I have seen through you for a long time, I know you through and through. You are devoured by boundless vanity. You have pretensions to an incomparable keenness of wit, and forget that wit is blunted by pretension. You …”

      “Oh, stop, Foma, for God’s sake! Have some shame, if only before people!”

      “It’s sad, you know, to see all this, Colonel, and it’s im-

      possible to be silent when one sees it. I am poor, I am living at the expense of your mother. It may be expected, perhaps, that I should flatter you by my silence, and I don’t care for any milksop to take me for your toady! Possibly when I came into this room just now I intentionally accentuated my truthful candour, was forced to be intentionally rude, just because you yourself put me into such a position. You are too haughty with me, Colonel, I may be taken for your slave, your toady. Your pleasure is to humiliate me before strangers, while I am really your equal — your equal in every respect. Perhaps I am doing you a favour in living with you, and not you doing me one. I am insulted, so I am forced to sing my own praises — that’s natural I I cannot help speaking, I must speak, I am bound at once to protest, and that is why I tell you straight out that you are phenomenally envious. You see, for instance, someone in a simple friendly conversation unconsciously reveals his knowledge, his reading, his taste, and so you are annoyed, you can’t sit still. ‘Let me display my knowledge and my taste,’ you think! And what taste have you, if you will allow me to ask? You know as much about art — if you will excuse my saying so, Colonel — as a bull about beef! That’s harsh and rude, I admit; anyway it is straightforward and just. You won’t hear that from your flatterers, Colonel.’

      “Oh, Foma! …”

      “It is ‘Oh, Foma,’ to be sure. The truth is not a feather bed, it seems. Very well, then, we will speak later about this, but now let me entertain the company a little. You can’t be the only one to distinguish yourself all the time. Pavel Semyonitch, have you seen this sea monster in human form? I have been observing him for a long time. Look well at him; why, he would like to devour me whole, at one gulp.”

      He was speaking of Gavrila. The old servant was standing at the door, and certainly was looking on with distress at the scolding of his master.

      “I want to entertain you, too, with a performance, Pavel Semyonitch. Come here, you scarecrow, come here! Condescend to approach us a little nearer, Gavrila Ignatitch! Here you see, Pavel Semyonitch, is Gavrila; as a punishment for rudeness he is studying the French dialect. Like Orpheus, I soften the manners of these parts not only with songs but with the French dialect. Come, Mossoo Frenchy — he can’t bear to be called Mossoo — do you know your lesson?”

      “I have learnt it,” said Gavrila, hanging his head.

      ‘‘Well, Parlay — voo — fransay?’’

      “Vee, moossyu, zhe — le — pari — on — peu. …”

      I don’t know whether it was Gavrila’s mournful face as he uttered the French phrase, or whether they were all aware of Foma’s desire that they should laugh, but anyway they all burst into a roar of laughter as soon as Gavrila opened his lips. Even Madame la Générale deigned to be amused. Anfisa Petrovna, sinking back on the sofa, shrieked, hiding her face behind her fan. What seemed most ludicrous was that Gavrila, seeing what his examination was being turned into, could not restrain himself from spitting and commenting reproachfully: “To think of having lived to such disgrace in my old age!”

      Foma Fomitch was startled.

      “What? What did you say? So you think fit to be rude?”

      “No, Foma Fomitch,” Gavnla replied with dignity. “My words were no rudeness, and it’s not for me, a serf, to be rude to you, a gentleman born. But every man bears the image of God upon him, His image and semblance. I am sixty-three years old. My father remembers Pugatchev, the monster, and my grandfather helped his master, Matvey Nikititch — God grant him the kingdom of heaven — to hang Pugatchev on an aspen tree, for which my father was honoured beyond all others by our late master, Afanasy Matveyitch: he was his valet, and ended his life as butler. As for me, Foma Fomitch, sir, though I am my master’s bondman, I have never known such a shame done me from my birth upward till now.”

      And at the last word Gavrila spread out his hands and hung his head. My uncle was watching him uneasily.

      “Come, that’s enough, Gavrila,” he cried. “No need to say more, that’s enough!”

      “Never mind, never mind,” said Foma, turning a little pale and giving a forced smile. “Let him speak, these are the fruits of your …”

      “I will tell you everything,” said Gavrila with extraordinary fervour, “I will conceal nothing! You may bind the hands, but there is no binding the tongue. Though I may seem beside you, Foma Fomitch, a low man, in fact a slave, yet I can feel insulted! Service and obedience I am always bound to give you, because I am born a slave and must do my duty in fear and trembling. You sit writing a book, it’s my duty not to let you be interrupted — that is my real duty. Any service that is needed I am pleased to do. But in my old age to bleat in some outlandish way and be put to shame before folk! Why, I can’t go into the servants’ room now: ‘You are a Frenchyl’ they say, ‘a Frenchy!’ No, Foma Fomitch, sir, it’s not only a fool like me, but all good folks have begun to say the same: that you have become now

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