LITMIR.BIZ

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it is.”

      “What’s that to me! You can have no dinner at all for all I care. I am not grumbling at you; I simply said a word to the blacksmiths.”

      “The blacksmiths… . Why grumble at the blacksmiths?”

      “I did not grumble at them, I grumbled at the carriage.”

      “And why grumble at the carriage?”

      “What did it break down for? It mustn’t do it again.”

      “The carriage. … No, you are grumbling at me, and not at the carriage. It’s his own fault and he swears at other people!”

      “Why on earth do you keep on at me, sir? Leave off, please!”

      “Why have you been sitting like an owl all the way, not saying a word to me, eh? You are ready enough to talk at other times!”

      “A fly was buzzing round my mouth, that’s why I didn’t talk and sat like an owl. Why, am I to tell you fairy tales, or what? Take Malanya the storyteller with you if you are fond of fairy tales.”

      The fat man opened his mouth to reply, but apparently could think of nothing and held his peace. The servant, proud of his skill in argument and his influence over his master displayed before witnesses, turned to the workmen with redoubled dignity and began showing them something.

      My efforts to make acquaintance were fruitless, and my own awkwardness did not help matters. I was assisted, however, by an unexpected incident. A sleepy, unwashed and unkempt countenance suddenly peeped out of the window of a closed carriage which had stood from time immemorial without wheels in the blacksmith’s yard, daily though vainly expecting to be repaired. At the appearance of this countenance there was a general outburst of laughter from the workmen. The joke was that the man peeping out of the dismantled carriage was locked in and could not get out. Having fallen asleep in it drunk, he was now vainly begging for freedom; at last he began begging someone to run for his tool. All this immensely entertained the spectators.

      There are persons who derive peculiar delight and entertainment from strange things. The antics of a drunken peasant, a man stumbling and falling down in the street, a wrangle between two women and other such incidents arouse at times in some people the most goodhumoured and unaccountable delight. The fat gentleman belonged precisely to that class. Little by little his countenance from being sullen and menacing began to look pleased and goodhumoured, and at last brightened up completely.

      “Why, that’s Vassilyev, isn’t it?” he asked with interest. “How did he get here?”

      “Yes, it is Vassilyev, sir!” was shouted on all sides.

      “He’s been on the spree, sir,” added one of the workmen, a tall, lean, elderly man with a pedantically severe expression “of face, who seemed disposed to take the lead; “he’s been on the spree, sir. It’s three days since he left his master, and he’s lying hidden here; he’s come and planted himself upon us! Here he is asking for a chisel. Why, what do you want a chisel for now, you addlepate? He wants to pawn his last tool.”

      “Ech, Arhipushka! Money’s like a bird, it flies up and flies away again! Let me out, for God’s sake,” Vassilyev entreated in a thin cracked voice, poking his head out of the carriage.

      “You stay where you are, you idol; you are lucky to be there!” Arhip answered sternly. “You have been drunk since the day before yesterday; you were hauled out of the street at daybreak this morning. You must thank God we hid you, we told Matvey Ilyitch that you were ill, that you had a convenient attack of colic.”

      There was a second burst of laughter.

      “But where is the chisel?”

      “Why, our Zuey has got it! How he keeps on about it! A drinking man, if ever there was one, Stepan Alexyevitch.”

      “He-he-he! Ah, the scoundrel! So that’s how you work in the town; you pawn your tools!” wheezed the fat man, spluttering with glee, quite pleased and suddenly becoming extraordinarily goodhumoured. “And yet it would be hard to find such a carpenter even in Moscow, but this is how he always recommends himself, the ruffian,” he added, quite unexpectedly turning to me. “Let him out, Arhip, perhaps he wants something.”

      The gentleman was obeyed. The nail with which they had fastened up the carriage door, chiefly in order to amuse themselves at Vassilyev’s expense when he should wake up, was taken out, and Vassilyev made his appearance in the light of day, muddy, dishevelled and ragged. He blinked at the sunshine, sneezed and gave a lurch; and then putting up his hand to screen his eyes, he looked round.

      “What a lot of people, what a lot of people,” he said, shaking his head, “and all, seemingly, so … ober/’ he drawled, with a sort of mournful pensiveness as though reproaching himself. “Well, good-morning, brothers, good-day.”

      Again there was a burst of laughter.

      “Good-morning! Why, sec how much of the day is gone, you heedless fellow!”

      “Go it, old man!”

      “As we say, have your fling, if it don’t last long.”

      “He-he-he! he has a ready tongue!” cried the fat man, roiling with laughter and again glancing genially at me. “Aren’t you ashamed, Vassilyev?”

      “It’s sorrow drives me to it! Stepan Alexyevitch, sir, it’s sorrow,” Vassilyev answered gravely, with a wave of his hand, evidently glad of another opportunity to mention his sorrow.

      “What sorrow, you booby?”

      “A trouble such as was never heard of before. We are being made over to Foma Fomitch.”

      “Whom? When?” cried the fat man, all of a flutter.

      I, too, took a step forward; quite unexpectedly, the question concerned me too.

      “Why, all the people of Kapitonovko. Our master, the colonel — God give him health — wants to give up all our Kapitonovko, his property, to Foma Fomitch. Full seventy souls he is handing over to him. ‘It’s for you, Foma,’ says he. ‘Here, now, you’ve nothing of your own, one may say; you are not much of a landowner; all you have to keep you are two smelts in Lake Ladoga — that’s all the serfs your father left you. For your parent,’ “ Vassilyev went on, with a sort of spiteful satisfaction, putting touches of venom into his story in all that related to Foma Fomitch—” ‘for your parent was a gentleman of ancient lineage, though from no one knows where, and no one knows who he was; he too, like you, lived with the gentry, was allowed to be in the kitchen as a charity. But now when I make over Kapitonovko to you, you will be a landowner too, and a gentleman of ancient lineage, and will have serfs of your own. You can lie on the stove and be idle as a gentle-„„„ * >>

      man… .

      But Stepan Alexyevitch was no longer listening. The effect produced on him by Vassilyev’s half-drunken story was extraordinary. The fat man was so angry that he turned positively purple; his double chin was quivering, his little eyes grew bloodshot. I thought he would have a stroke on the spot.

      “That’s the last straw!” he said, gasping. “That low brute, Foma, the parasite, a landowner! Tfoo! Go to perdition! Damn it all! Hey, you make haste and finish! Home!”

      “Allow me to ask you,” I said, stepping forward uncertainly, “you were pleased to mention the name of Foma Fomitch just now; I believe his surname, if I am not mistaken, is Opiskin. Well, you see, I should like … in short, I have a special reason for being interested in that personage, and I should be very glad to know, on my own account, how far one may believe the words of this good man that his master, Yegor Ilyitch Rostanev, means to make Foma Fomitch a present of one of his villages. That interests me extremely, and I …”

      “Allow me to ask you,” the fat man broke in, “on what grounds are you interested in that personage, as you style him; though to my mind ‘that damned low brute’ is what he ought to be called, and not a personage. A fine sort of personage, the scurvy

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