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Sergey Alexandrovitch So-and-so.

      “The learned gentleman? My dear fellow! they are expecting you impatiently,” cried the fat man, genuinely delighted. “Why, I have just come from them myself, from Stepantchikovo; I went away from dinner, I got up from the pudding, I couldn’t sit it out with Foma! I quarrelled with them all there on account of that damned Foma… . Here’s a meeting! You must excuse me, my dear fellow. I am Stepan Alexyevitch Bahtcheyev, and I remember you that high… . Well, who would have thought it! … But allow me.”

      And the fat man advanced to kiss me.

      After the first minutes of excitement, I at once proceeded to question him: the opportunity was an excellent one.

      “But who is this Foma?” I asked. “How is it he has gained the upper hand of the whole house? Why don’t they kick him out of the yard? I must confess …”

      “Kick him out? You must be mad. Why, Yegor Ilyitch tiptoes before him! Why, once Foma laid it down that Thursday was Wednesday, and so everyone in the house counted Thursday Wednesday. ‘I won’t have it Thursday, let it be Wednesday!’ So there were two Wednesdays in one week. Do you suppose I am making it up? I am not exaggerating the least little bit. Why, my dear fellow, it’s simply beyond all belief.”

      “I have heard that, but I must confess …”

      “I confess and I confess! The way the man keeps on! What is there to confess? No, you had better ask me what sort of jungle I have come out of. The mother of Yegor Ilyitch, I mean of the colonel, though a very worthy lady and a general’s widow too, in my opinion is in her dotage; why, that damned Foma is the very apple of her eye. She is the cause of it all; it was she brought him into the house. He has talked her silly, she hasn’t a word to say for herself now, though she is called her Excellency — she skipped into marriage with General Krahotkin at fifty! As for Yegor Ilyitch’s sister, Praskovya Ilyinitchna, who is an old maid of forty, I don’t care to speak of her. It’s oh dear, and oh my, and cackling like a hen. I am sick of her — bless her! The only thing about her is that she is of the female sex; and so I must respect her for no cause or reason, simply because she is of the female sex! Tfool It’s not the thing for me to speak of her, she’s your aunt. Alexandra Yegorovna, the colonel’s daughter, though she is only a little girl — just in her sixteenth year — to my thinking is the cleverest of the lot; she doesn’t respect Foma; it was fun to see her. A sweef young lady, and that’s the fact! And why should she respect him? Why, Foma was a buffoon waiting on the late General Krahotkin. Why, he used to imitate all sorts of beasts to entertain the general! And it seems that in old days Jack was the man; but nowadays Jack is the master, and now the colonel, your uncle, treats this retired buffoon as though he were his own father. He has set him up in a frame, the rascal, and bows down at the feet of the man who is sponging upon him. Tfoo!”

      “Poverty is not a vice, however … and I must confess … allow me to ask you, is he handsome, clever?”

      “Foma? A perfect picture!” answered Bahtcheyev, with an extraordinary quiver of spite in his voice. (My questions seemed to irritate him, and he began to look at me suspiciously.) “A perfect picture! Do you hear, good people: he makes him out a beauty! Why, he is like a lot of brute beasts in one, if you want to know the whole truth, my good man. Though that wouldn’t matter if he had wit; if only he had wit, the rogue — why, then I would be ready to do violence to my feelings and agree, maybe, for the sake of wit; but, you see, there’s no trace of wit about him whatever! He has cast a spell on them all; he is a regular alchemist! Tfoo! I am tired of talking. One ought to curse them and say no more about it. You have upset me with your talk, my good sir! Hey, you! Are you ready or not?”

      “Raven still wants shoeing,” Grishka answered gloomily.

      “Raven. I’ll let you have a raven! . . > Yes, sir, I could tell you a story that would simply make you gape with wonder, so that you would stay with your mouth open till the Second Coming. Why, I used to feel a respect for him myself. Would you believe it? I confess it with shame, I frankly confess it, I was a fool. Why, he took me in too. He’s a know-all. He knows the ins and outs of everything, he’s studied all the sciences. He gave me some drops; you see, my good sir, I am a sick man, a poor creature. You may not believe it, but I am an invalid. And those drops of his almost turned me inside out. You just keep quiet and listen; go yourself and you will be amazed. Why, he will make the colonel shed tears of blood; the colonel will shed tears of blood through him, but then it will be too late. You know, the whole neighbourhood all around has dropped his acquaintance owing to this accursed Foma. No one can come to the place without being insulted by him. I don’t count; even officials of high rank he doesn’t spare. He lectures every one. He sets up for a teacher of morality, the scoundrel. ‘I am a wise man,’ says he; ‘I am cleverer than all of you, you must listen to no one but me, I am a learned man.’ Well, what of it? Because he is learned, must he persecute people who are not? … And when he begins in his learned language, he goes hammering on ta-ta-ta! Ta-ta-ta! I’ll tell you his tongue is such a one to wag that if you cut it off and throw it on the dungheap it will go on wagging there till a crow picks it up. He is as conceited and puffed out as a mouse in a sack of grain. He is trying to climb so high that he will overreach himself. Why, here, for instance, he has j taken it into his head to teach the house serfs French. You can believe it or not, as you like. It will be a benefit to him, he says. To a lout, to a servant! Tfoo! A shameless fellow, damn him, that is what he is. What does a clodhopper want ‘ with French, I ask you? And indeed what do the likes of us want with French? For gallivanting with young ladies in the mazurka or dancing attendance on other men’s wives? Profligacy, that’s what it is, I tell you! But to my thinking, when one has drunk a bottle of vodka one can talk in any language. So that is all the respect I have for your French language! I dare say you can chatter away in French: Ta-ta-ta, the tabby has married the torn,” Bahtcheyev said, looking at me in scornful indignation. “Are you a learned man, my good sir — eh? Have you gone in for some learned line?”

      “Well … I am somewhat interested …”

      “I suppose you have studied all the sciences, too?”

      “Quite so, that is, no … I must own I am more interested now in observing … I have been staying in Petersburg, but now I am hurrying to my uncle’s.”

      “And who is the attraction at your uncle’s? You had better have stayed where you were, since you had somewhere to stay. No, my good sir, I can tell you, you won’t make much way by being learned, and no uncle will be of any use to you; you’ll get caught in a trap! Why, I got quite thin, staying twenty-four hours with them. Would you believe that I got thin, staying with them? No, I see you don’t believe it. Oh, well, you needn’t believe it if you don’t want to, bless you.”

      “No, really I quite believe it, only I still don’t understand,” I answered, more and more bewildered.

      “I believe it, but I don’t believe you! You learned gentlemen are all fond of cutting capers! All you care about is hopping about on one leg and showing off! I am not fond of learned people, my good sir; they give me the spleen! I have come across your Petersburgers — a worthless lot! They are all Freemasons; they spread infidelity in all directions; they are afraid of a drop of vodka, as though it would bite them — Tfoo! You have put me out of temper, sir, and I don’t want to tell you anything! After all, I have not been engaged to tell you stories, and I am tired of talking. One doesn’t pitch into everybody, sir, and indeed it’s a sin to do it… . Only your learned gentleman at your uncle’s has driven the footman Vidoplyasov almost out of his wits. Vidoplyasov has gone crazy all through Foma Fomitch…

      “As for that fellow Vidoplyasov,” put in Grishka, who had till then been following the conversation with severe decorum, “I’d give him a flogging. If I came across him, I’d thrash the German nonsense out of him. I’d give him more than you could get into two hundred.”

      “Be quiet!” shouted his master. “Hold your tongue; no one’s talking to you.”

      “Vidoplyasov,” I said, utterly nonplussed and not knowing what to say. “Vidoplyasov, what a queer name!”

      “Why

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