Chapter 7

[17]Nu, daï Bog vam, bárin.

[18]polushubka;a garment of tanned sheepskin, the wool inwards, and reaching to the knees or even the ankles.

[19]da chïo!

VIII.

"Can it be that I am going to freeze to death?" I asked myself, as I dropped off. "Death, they say, always begins with drowsiness. It's much better to drown than freeze to death, then they would pull me out of the net. However, it makes no difference whether one drowns or freezes to death. If only this stake did not stick into my back so, I might forget myself."

For a second I lost consciousness.

"How will all this end?" I suddenly ask myself in thought, for a moment opening my eyes, and gazing at the white expanse,—"how will it end? If we don't find some hayricks, and the horses get winded, as it seems likely they will be very soon, we shall all freeze to death."

I confess, that, though I was afraid, I had a desire for something extraordinarily tragic to happen to us; and this was stronger than the small fear. It seemed to me that it would not be unpleasant if at morning the horses themselves should bring us, half-frozen, to some far-off, unknown village, where some of us might even perish of the cold.

And while I have this thought, my imagination works with extraordinary clearness and rapidity. The horses become weary, the snow grows deeper and deeper, and now only the ears and the bell-bow are visible; but suddenly Ignashka appears on horseback, driving histroïka past us. We beseech him, we shout to him to take us: but the wind carries away our voices; we have no voices left. Ignashka laughs at us, shouts to his horses, whistles, and passes out of our sight in some deep snow-covered ravine. A little old man climbs upon a horse, flaps his elbows, and tries to gallop after him; but he cannot stir from the place. My old driver, with his great cap, throws himself upon him, drags him to the ground, and tramples him into the snow. "You're a wizard!" he cries. "You're a spitfire. We are all lost on your account." But the little old man flings a snowball at his head. He is no longer a little old man, but only a hare, and bounds away from us. All the dogs bound after him. The mentor, who is now the butler, tells us to sit around in a circle, that nothing will happen to us if we protect ourselves with snow: it will be warm.

In fact, it is warm and cosey: our only trouble is thirst. I get out my travelling-case; I offer every one rum and sugar, and drink myself with great satisfaction. The story-teller spins some yarn about the rainbow, and over our heads is a roof of snow and a rainbow.

"Now each of you," I say, "make a chamber in the snow, and go to sleep." The snow is soft and warm like wool. I make myself a room, and am just going into it; but Feódor Filíppuitch, who has caught a glimpse of my money in my travelling-case, says, "Hold! give me your money, you won't need it when you're dead," and seizes me by the leg. I hand him the money, asking him only to let me go; but they will not believe that it is all my money, and they are going to kill me. I seize the old man's hand, and with indescribable pleasure kiss it: the old man's hand istender and soft. At first he takes it away from me, but afterwards he lets me have it, and even caresses me with his other hand. Nevertheless, Feódor Filíppuitch comes near and threatens me. I hasten to my chamber; it is not a chamber, but a long white corridor, and some one pulls back on my leg. I tear myself away. In the hand of the man who holds me back, remain my trousers and a part of my skin; but I feel only cold and ashamed,—all the more ashamed because my auntie with her sunshade, and homœopathic pellets, comes arm in arm with the drowned man to meet me. They smile, but do not understand the signs that I make to them. I fling myself after the sledge; my feet glide over the snow, but the little old man follows after me, flapping his elbows. He comes close to me. But I hear just in front of me two church-bells, and I know that I shall be safe when I reach them. The church-bells ring nearer and nearer; but the little old man has caught up with me, and falls with his body across my face, so that I can scarcely hear the bells. Once more I seize his hand, and begin to kiss it; but the little old man is no longer the little old man, but the drowned man, and he cries,—

"Ignashka, hold on! here are Akhmet's hayricks! just look!"

That is strange to hear! no, I would rather wake up.

I open my eyes. The wind is flapping the tails of Alyoshka's cloak into my face; my knees are uncovered. We are going over the bare crust, and the triad of the bells rings pleasantly through the air with its dominant fifth.

I look, expecting to see the hayricks; but instead of hayricks, now that my eyes are wide open, I see something like a house with a balcony, and the crenellatedwalls of a fortress. I feel very little interest in seeing this house and fortress; my desire is much stronger to see the white corridor where I had been walking, to hear the sound of the church-bells, and to kiss the little old man's hand. Again I close my eyes and sleep.

IX.

I sleep sound. But all the time I can hear the chords of the bells, and in my dream I can see a dog barking and jumping after me; then the organ, one stop of which I seem to draw out; then the French poem which I am composing. Then it seems to me that this triad is some instrument of torture with which my right foot is constantly compressed. This was so severe that I woke up, and opening my eyes I rubbed my leg. It was beginning to grow numb with cold.

The night was, as before, light, melancholy, white. The sledge and its passengers were still shaken by the same motion; there was Ignashka sitting on one side and stamping his feet. There was the off-horse as before, straining her neck, lifting her feet, as she trotted over the deep snow; the tassel slipping along the reins, and whipping against the horse's belly; the head of the shaft-horse, with the waving mane, alternately pulling and loosening the reins attached to the bell-bow as it nodded up and down. But all this was covered and hidden with snow far more than before. The snow was whirled about in front of us, and covered up our runners, and reached above the horses' knees, and fell thick and fast on our collars and caps. The wind blew now from the right, now from the left, and played with the collar and tails of Ignashka's cloak, the mane of the horses, and howled above the bell-bow and the shafts.

It had become fearfully cold; and I had scarcely lifted my head out of my collar ere the frosty dry snow made its way, rustling, into my eyelids, nose, and mouth, and ran down my neck. Looking around, all was white, light, and snowy; nothing anywhere except a melancholy light and the snow. I felt a sensation of real terror. Alyoshka was sitting cross-legged in the very depths of the sledge; his whole back was covered with a thick deposit of snow.

Ignashka still kept up his spirits; he kept constantly pulling at the reins, stamping and pounding his feet. The bell also sounded strange. The horses sometimes snorted, but plunged along more quietly, though they stumbled more and more often. Ignashka again sprang up, swung his mittens, and began to sing in his clear, strong voice. Not ceasing to sing, he stopped the troïka, tossed the reins on the dasher, and got out. The wind howled madly; the snow, as though shovelled down, was dashed upon the folds of my furs.

I looked around. The third troïka was nowhere to be seen (it had stopped somewhere). Next the second troïka, in a mist of snow, could be seen the little old man making his way with long strides. Ignashka went three steps from the sledge, sat down in the snow, took off his girdle, and began to remove his boots.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Must change my boots: this leg is frozen solid," he replied, and went on with his work.

It was cold for me to keep my neck out of my collar to watch what he was doing. I sat straight, looking at the off-horse, which, with legs spread, stood feebly switching its snow-covered tail. The thump which Ignat gave the sledge as he clambered to his place startled me.

"Well, where are we now?" I asked. "Are we getting anywhere in the world?"

"Don't you worry. We shall get there," he replied. "Now my feet are thoroughly warm, since I changed them."

And he drove on; the bells jingled, the sledge again began to rock, and the wind whistled under the runners, and once more we struggled to swim through the limitless ocean of snow.

I sunk into a sound sleep. When Alyoshka awoke me by punching me in the leg, and I opened my eyes, it was morning. It seemed even colder than it had been during the night. There was nothing to be seen but snow; but a strong dry wind still swept the powdery snow across the field, and especially under the hoofs of the horses, and the runners of the sledge. The sky on the right toward the east was of a deep purple color, but the bright reddish-orange rays of the sunrise kept growing more and more clearly defined in it; above our heads, between the hurrying white clouds, scarcely tinged as yet, gleamed the sickly blue of the sky; in the west the clouds were bright, light, and fluctuating. Everywhere around, as far as the eye could see, lay the snow, white and deep, in sharply defined strata. Everywhere could be seen gray hillocks where lay the fine, dry, powdery snow. Nothing was to be seen,—not even the shadow of a sledge, nor of a human being, nor of a beast. The outline and color of the driver's back, and of the horses, began to stand out clear and sharp against the white background. The rim of Ignashka's dark-blue cap, his collar, his hair, and even his boots, were white. The sledge was perfectly covered. The whole right side and the mane of the brown shaft-horse were plastered with snow. The legs of my off-horse were thick with it up to the knee, and the whole of the shaggy right flankhad the same sticky covering. The tassel leaped up and down in some sort of rhythm, the structure of which it would not be easy to represent; and the off-horse also kept to it in her gait: only by the gaunt belly rising and sinking, and by the hanging ears, could it be seen how tired she was.

Only one new object attracted the attention: this was a verst-post, from which the snow had been blown away, leaving it clear to the ground, and making a perfect mountain on one side; while the wind was still sweeping it across, and drifting it from one side to the other.

It was odd to me to think that we had gone the whole night without change of horses, not knowing for twelve hours where we were, and not coming to our destination, and yet not really missing the road. Our bells seemed to sound more cheerful than ever. Ignat buttoned his coat up, and began to shout again. Behind us snorted the horses, and jingled the bells, of the troïka that carried the little old man and the mentor; but the one who was asleep had wandered away from us somewhere on the steppe.

After going half a verst farther, we came upon the fresh, and as yet unobliterated, traces of a sledge and troïka; and occasionally drops of blood, caused by the whip on the horses' side, could be seen.

"That was Filipp. See, he's got in ahead of us," said Ignashka.

And here appears a little house with a sign, alone by itself, near the road, standing in the midst of the snow which covers it almost to the roof. Near the inn stands a troïka of gray horses, their hair rough with sweat, with wide-spread legs and drooping heads. At the door, the snow is shovelled away, and the shovelis standing in it; but it still falls from the roof, and the roaring wind whirls the snow around.

Out from the door at the sound of our bells comes a big ruddy, red-headed driver, with a glass of wine in his hand, and shouts something. Ignashka turns to me, and asks permission to stop. Then for the first time I fairly see his face.

XI.

His features were not dark, dry, and regular, as I had reason to expect from his hair and build. His face was round, jolly, with a snub nose and a big mouth, and clear-shining eyes, blue and round. His cheeks and neck were like well-worn cloth. His eyebrows, his long eyelashes, and the beard which evenly covered the lower part of his face, were crusted thick with snow, and perfectly white.

The distance to the station was all of a half-verst, and we stopped.

"Only be quick about it," I said.

"Just a minute," replied Ignashka, springing down from his seat, and going up to Filipp.

"Let us have it, brother," said he, taking the glass in his right hand; and throwing his mitten and whip down on the snow, tipping back his head, he drank down at a gulp the glass of vodka.

The inn-keeper, who must have been a discharged Cossack, came, with a bottle in his hand, out of the door.

"Who have you got there?" he asked.

The tall Vasíli, a lean, blond muzhík with a goatee, and the fat mentor, with white eyebrows, and a thick white beard framing his ruddy face, came up and also drank a glass. The little old man joined the group of drinkers; but no one offered him any thing, and he went off again to his horses, fastened behind,and began to stroke one of them on the back and side.

The little old man was pretty much what I had imagined him to be; small, ugly, with wrinkled, strongly marked features, a thin little beard, a sharp nose, and worn yellow teeth. He wore a driver's cap, perfectly new; but his sheepskin jacket[20]was old, soiled with oil, and torn on the shoulders and flaps, and did not cover his knees or his hempen trousers tucked into his huge felt boots. He himself was bent, and frowned all the time, and, with trembling lips and limbs, tramped around his sledge in his efforts to keep warm.

"Well, Mitritch, you ought to have a drink; it would warm you up," said the mentor to him.

Mitritch gave a start. He arranged the horses' harness, straightened the bell-bow, and then came to me.

"Say, bárin," said he, taking his cap off from his white hair and bowing very low, "all night long we have been wandering together; we have found the road. We would seem to deserve a bit of a drink. Isn't that so, sir, your eminence?[21]just enough to get warmed," he added with an obsequious smile.

I gave him a quarter-ruble. The inn-keeper brought out a glass of vodka, and handed it to the old man. He laid aside his mitten and whip, and took the glass in his small, dark hand, bony and somewhat bluish; but strangely enough he could not control his thumb. Before he had lifted the glass to his lips, he dropped it in the snow, spilling the wine.

All the drivers burst out laughing.

"See, Mitritch-to is half-frozen like; he can't hold his wine."

But Mitritch was greatly vexed because he had spilt the wine.

They brought him, however, another glass, and poured it into his mouth. He immediately became jolly, went into the inn, lighted his pipe, began to show his yellow worn teeth, and to scold at every word. After they had taken their last drinks, the drivers came back to their troikas, and we set off.

The snow kept growing whiter and brighter, till it made one's eyes ache to look at it. The orange-colored reddish streaks stretched brighter and brighter, higher and higher, across the heavens; now the red circle of the sun appeared on the horizon through the bluish clouds; the blue sky came out in constantly increasing brilliancy and depth. On the road around the station the tracks were clear, distinct, and yellow; in some places were cradle-holes. In the frosty, bracing atmosphere, there was a pleasant exhilaration and freshness.

My troïka glided along very swiftly. The head of the shaft-horse, and the neck with the mane tossing up to the bell-bow, constantly made the same quick, swinging motions under the hunting-bell, the tongue of which no longer struck, but scraped around the rim. The good side-horses, in friendly rivalry tugging at the frozen twisted traces, energetically galloped on, the tassels striking against their ribs and necks. Occasionally the off-horse would plunge into some drift, and kick up the snow, filling the eyes with the fine powder. Ignashka kept shouting in his gay tenor. The runners creaked over the dry, frosty snow. Behind us, with a loud festival sound, rang the two sledge-chimes; and the voices of the drivers, made jolly by wine, could be heard.

I looked back: the gray shaggy side-horses arching their necks, regularly puffing out the breath, with their curved bits, galloped over the snow. Filipp was flourishing his whip and adjusting his cap. The little old man, with his legs hanging out, was reclining as before in the middle of his sledge.

At the end of two minutes the sledge scraped against the boards of the well-cleared entrance of the station-house; and Ignashka turned to me, his jolly face covered with snow, where his breath had turned to ice, and said,—

"Here we are, bárin!"

[20]polushúbchishka.

[21]bátiushka, váshe siátelstvo.

A STORY.

"As you may please to order, madame. But it would be too bad to send any of the Dutlofs. They are all, without exception, good boys; but if you don't take one of the house-servants[1]you will have to send one of them without fail," said the overseer; "and now all point to them. However, as you wish."

And he placed his right hand on his left, holding them both over his stomach, tipped his head on one side, sucked in his thin lips, almost smacking them, turned away his eyes, and held his peace, with the evident intention of holding it long, and of listeningwithout reply to all the nonsense which the mistress might say to him in this regard.

The overseer had formerly been one of the household servants, and now, this autumn evening, he was holding conference with his mistress, and was standing before her, clean-shaven, in his long coat, the special dress of the overseer. The conference as the mistress understood it was to be devoted to reckoning the profits and losses of the past season, and in making arrangements for the one to come. As Yégor Mikhaïlovitch the overseer understood it, the conference consisted of the rite of standing in a corner firmly on his two feet, set wide apart, with his face turned to the sofa, listening to all the good lady's unending and aimless babble, and leading her by various expedients to the point of saying hastily and impatiently, "Very good, very good," to all his suggestions.

The point at issue just at present was the conscription. Three soldiers had to be sent from Pokrovskoé. Two were unquestionably named by Providence itself, with a due regard for family, moral, and economical conditions. Concerning them there could be neither hesitation nor quarrel on the part of the Commune,[2]or the lady of the manor, or the people in general.

The third was harder to decide upon. The overseer wanted to avoid sending any of the three Dutlofs, and proposed Polikushka, a servant who had a family and a very bad reputation, having more than once been convicted of stealing corn, reins, and hay; but the mistress, who had often caressed Polikushka's ragged children, and by means of evangelical teachings had improved his morals, did not wish to let him go. At the same time she had no ill-will against the Dutlofs,whom she did not know and had never seen. And so she could not come to any decision at all, and the overseer hadn't the courage to explain to her explicitly that if Polikushka did not go Dutlof would have to go.

"Well, I don't wish to cause the Dutlofs any unhappiness," she said with feeling.

"If you don't want them to go, then pay three hundred rubles for a substitute," was the reply that he should have made her; but his diplomacy was not equal to such an emergency.

And so Yégor Mikhaïlovitch straightened himself up calmly, even leaned slightly on the door-post, and with a certain obsequiousness in his face watched how his mistress moved her lips, and how the shadow of the ruching on her head-dress moved up and down on the wall under the picture. But he did not find it necessary to penetrate the meaning of her words. She spoke long and rapidly. His ears were moved by the convulsion of a yawn, but he adroitly changed it into a cough, which he hid with his hand, making a hypocritical noise.

Not long ago I saw Lord Palmerston sitting with his hat on at the time when he was a member of the opposition, and destroyed the ministry, and, suddenly rising, replied in a three-hours' speech to all the points of his opponent. I saw that, and was not filled with amazement, because something not unlike it I had seen a thousand times in the dealings of Yégor Mikhaïlovitch with his mistress. Either because he was afraid of going to sleep, or because it seemed to him that she had already gone to great lengths, he shifted the weight of his body from his left leg to his right, and began with the sacramental introduction as he always began:—

"As you please, my lady—only—only—the Commune is to meet at my office, and it must be decided. In the requisition it says that Pokrovskoé must send a recruit to the city. And out of all the serfs, they point to the Dutlofs, and to no one else. But the Commune doesn't care for your interests; it's all the same to them if we ruin the Dutlofs.... You see, I know how they have been struggling to get along. Since I have had charge, they have been in the depths of poverty. Now that the old man is just about to have his young nephew's help, we've got to ruin them. But I, you will please take notice, am working as much for your interest as my own. 'Tis too bad, my lady, that you should set your mind on it so. They are no kith or kin of mine, and I have had nothing from them." ...

"Oh, I didn't think, Yégor," interrupted the lady, and immediately she felt convinced that he had been bribed by the Dutlofs.

"And they've got the best farm in all Pokrovskoé; God-fearing, work-loving muzhíks. The old man has been an elder in the church[3]for thirty years. He doesn't drink wine, nor use bad language, and he's a church-goer. [The overseer knew how to be plausible.] And chief of all, I will tell you, he has only two sons, and the other one's a nephew. The Commune make the decree; but, according to the existing rule, it would be necessary for a man with two to have a special vote. Others who have had three sons have given them farms of their own, and come to wretchedness; but these people are acting right, and this is the way their virtue is rewarded."

The lady did not understand this at all,—did not understand what he meant by "special vote," and "virtue." She heard only sounds, and she looked at the nankeen buttons on the overseer's coat: the upper button he rarely fastened, so that it was on tight; but the strain had come upon the middle one, and it hung by a thread, so that it would soon need to be sewed on again. But, as everybody knows, it is absolutely unnecessary in a business conversation for you to understand what is said, but it is necessary only to bear in mind what you yourself wish to say. And the lady acted on this principle.

"Why aren't you willing to understand, Yégor Mikhailovïtch?" said she. "I am sure I don't wish any of the Dutlofs to go as a soldier. I should think, that, as well as you know me, you might feel assured that I would do every thing to help my people, and that I do not wish them to be unhappy. You know that I am ready to sacrifice every thing to avoid this wretched necessity, and keep both of the men from going. [I know not whether it came into the overseer's head, that the avoidance of the wretched necessity did not require the sacrifice of every thing, but merely three hundred rubles; but this thought might have easily occurred to him.] One thing I assure you, and that is, we will not let Polikéï go. When, after that affair of the clock, he confessed to me, and wept, and vowed that he would reform, I had a long talk with him; and I saw that he was touched, and that he really repented. ["Well, she's in for it," thought Yégor Mikhaïlovitch, and began to gaze at the jam which stood in a glass of water by her side. "Is it orange, or lemon? I think it must taste bitter," he said to himself.] Since that time seven months have passed, and he has not beenonce drunk, and he has behaved admirably. His wife told me that he had become another man. And now, why do you wish me to punish him, when he has reformed? Yes; and wouldn't it be inhumane, to send a man who has five children, and no one to help him? No, you had better not speak about that, Yégor."... And the lady took a sip from the glass.

Yégor Mikhaïlovitch watched the water disappearing down her throat, and consequently his answer was short and dry:—

"Then you order one of the Dutlofs to be sent?"

The lady clasped her hands.

"Why can't you understand me? Do I wish to make Dutlof unhappy? Have I any thing against him? God is my witness how ready I am to do every thing for them. [She glanced at the picture in the corner, but remembered that it was not a holy picture. "Well, it's all the same, that's not the point at all," she thought. Again it was strange that it did not occur to her to offer the three hundred rubles!] But what can I do about it? Do I know the ways and means? I have no way of knowing. Well, I depend upon you; you know my wishes. Do what you can to satisfy everybody; but have it legal. What's to be done? They are not the only ones. Troublous times come to all. Only, Polikéï must not be sent. You must know that that would be terrible for me."

She would have gone on speaking,—she was so excited,—but just then a chambermaid came into the room.

"Is that you, Duniasha?"

"A muzhík is here, and asks for Yégor Mikhaïluitch; they are waiting for him at the meeting," said Duniasha, and looked angrily at Yégor Mikhaïlovitch.

"What an overseer he is!" she said to herself, "stirring up my mistress. Now she won't get to sleep till two o'clock again."

"Now go, Yégor," said the lady. "Do the best you can."

"I obey. [He now said nothing at all about Dutlof.] But shall I send to the gardener for the money?"

"Hasn't Petrushka got back from town."

"Not yet."

"But can't Nikolaï go?"

"Papa has the lumbago," said Duniasha.

"Won't you have me go to-morrow?" asked the overseer.

"No, you are needed here, Yégor." The lady paused to consider. "How much money?"

"Four hundred and sixty-two rubles."

"Send Polikéï to me," said the lady, looking resolutely into Yégor's face.

The overseer not opening his teeth stretched his lips into a sort of smile, but did not alter his expression.

"Very well."

"Send him to me."

"Very well." And Yégor Mikhaïlovitch went to his office.

[1]Most of the serfs in Russia were attached to the land, and could not be sold apart from It. Others, calleddvoróvui,constituted the class of domestic servants, and plied various trades. Their owners gave them monthly rations or a small allowance for rations. Often they were allowed to go to the large cities onobrok,a sort of leave of absence, for which they paid their masters out of their earnings. Thebárinorbáruin'ya—that is, the lord or lady of the estate—had the right to excuse any one from the conscription; but unless a substitute were sent, a sum of money was required. Other things being equal, the draft was made first on families where there were three or more grown-up men besides the head of the house, thetroïniki;next, on thedvoïniki,families where there were two grown-up sons or nephews; and last of all, where there was only one. Families where several generations, and even with collateral branches, lived under one roof, were apt to be more prosperous than when the sous scattered, and took separate farms.

[2]mir

[3]stárosta tserkovnui,a small office, giving the man the privilege of selling candles, etc.

II.

Polikéï, as a man of no consequence, and inclined to be disreputable, and moreover as being from another village, had no one to look out for his interests, neither the housekeeper nor the butler, neither the overseer nor the housemaid. And hiscorner,where he lived with his wife and five children, was as wretched as it could be. Thecornershad been arranged by the late lamented bárin as follows: The hut was about twenty feet long, and built of stone; in the middle stood the great Russian stove; around it ran a corridor, as the servants called it; and in each corner a room was partitioned off by boards. Of course there was not much room, especially in Polikéï'scornerwhich was next the door. The nuptial couch, with quilted counterpane and chintz pillows; a cradle with a baby in it; a three-legged table which served for cooking, washing, piling up all the household utensils, and as a work-table for Polikéï, who was a horse-doctor; tubs, clothes, hens, a calf, and the seven members of the household,—occupied the corner; and there would mot have been room to move, had it not been that the common stove offered its share of room (though even this was covered with things and human beings), and that it was possible to get out upon the door-steps. It was not always possible, if you stop to think: in October it begins to grow cold, and there was only one warm sheep-skin garment for the whole family. Andso the young children were obliged to get warm by running about, and the older ones by working and taking turns in climbing upon the big stove, where the temperature was as high as ninety degrees. It must have been terrible to live in such circumstances, but they did not find it so: they were able to get along.

Akulína did the washing and mending for her husband and children; she spun and wove and bleached her linen; she cooked and baked at the common stove, and scolded and quarrelled with her neighbors. The monthly rations sufficed not only for the children, but also for the feed of the cow. The firewood was plentiful, also fodder for the cattle; and hay from the stable fell to their share. They had an occasional bunch of vegetables. The cow would give them a calf; then they had their hens. Polikéï had charge of the stable: he took care of the young colts, and bled horses and cattle; he cleaned their hoofs, he tapped varicose veins, and made a salve of peculiar virtue, and this brought him in some money and provisions. Some of the oats belonging to the estate also made their way into his possession: in the village there was a man who regularly once a month, for two small measures, gave twenty pounds of mutton.

It would have been easy for them to get along, had there not been moral suffering. But this suffering was severe for the whole family. Polikéï had been from childhood in a stable, in another village. The groom who had charge of him was the worst thief in the neighborhood; the Commune banished him to Siberia. Polikéï soon began to follow this groom's example, and thus became from early youth accustomed to theselittle tricks,so that afterward, when he would have been glad to break loose from the habit, he could not.

He was young and weak; his father and mother were dead, and his education had been neglected. He liked to get drunk, but he did not like to see things lying round loose: whether it were ropes or saddle, lock or coupling-bolt, or any thing even more costly, no matter, it found its way into Polikéï's possession. Everywhere were men who would take these things, and pay for them in wine or money according to agreement. Money gained this way comes easy, the people say: no learning is needed, no hard work, nothing; and if you try it once, you won't like other work. One thing is, however, not good in such labors: however cheaply and easily things are acquired in this way, and however pleasant life becomes, still there is danger that disaffected people may suddenly object to your profession, and cause you tears, and make your life unhappy.

This was what happened in Polikéï's case. He got married, and God gave him great happiness: his wife, the daughter of a herder, proved to be a healthy, bright, industrious woman. Their children came in quick succession. Polikéï had not entirely abandoned his trade, and all went well. Suddenly temptation came to him, and he fell; and it was a mere trifle that caused his fall. He secreted a pair of leather reins that belonged to a muzhík. He was detected, thrashed, taken to the mistress, and afterwards watched. A second time, a third time, he fell. The people began to make complaints. The overseer threatened to send him to the army; the lady of the house expostulated; his wife wept, and began to pine away: in fact, every thing went entirely wrong. As a man, he was kindly, and not naturally bad, but weak; he loved to drink, and he had such a strong taste for it, that he couldnot resist. His wife would scold him and even beat him when he came in drunk, but he would weep. "Wretched man that I am," he would say, "what shall I do? Tear out my eyes. I will swear off, I won't do it again." But lo! in a month's time he goes out, gets drunk, and is not seen for two days.

"Where on earth does he get the money to go on sprees?" the people asked themselves. His latest escapade was in the matter of the office-clock. In the office there was an old clock hanging on the wall. It had not gone for years. Polikéï got into the office alone when it happened to be unlocked. He took a fancy to the clock, carried it off, and disposed of it in town. Not long afterward it happened that the shop-keeper, to whom he sold it, came out on some holiday to visit his daughter, who was married to one of the house-servants; and he happened to mention the clock. An investigation was made, though it was hardly necessary. The overseer especially disliked Polikéï. The theft was traced to him. They laid the matter before the lady of the house. The lady of the house summoned Polikéï. He fell at her feet, and, with touching contrition, confessed every thing as his wife had counselled him to do. He accomplished it admirably. The lady began to reason with him. She talked and she talked, she lectured and she lectured, about God and duty and the future life, and about his wife, and about his children; and she affected him to tears. The lady said,—

"I will forgive you, only promise me that you will never do it again."

"Never in the world. May the earth swallow me, may I be torn in pieces!" said Polikéï; and he wept in a touching manner.

Polikéï went home, and at home wept all day like a calf, and lay on the stove. From that time forth Polikéï had conducted himself in a way above reproach. But his life ceased to be happy. The people regarded him as a thief; and now that the hour of conscription had come, all felt that it was a good way to get rid of him.

Polikéï was a horse-doctor, as we have already said. How he so suddenly developed into a horse-doctor, was a mystery to every one, and to himself most of all. In the stable where he had been with the groom who had been exiled to Siberia, he had fulfilled no other duty than that of clearing manure out of the stalls, or occasionally currying the horses, and carrying water. It was not there that he could have learned it. Then he became a weaver; then he worked in a garden, cleared paths; then he got leave of absence, and became a porter[4]for a merchant. But he could not have got any practice there. But when he was last at home, somehow or other, little by little, his reputation began to spread for having an extraordinary, if not even supernatural, knowledge of the ailments of horses.

He let blood two or three times; then he tripped up a horse, and made an incision in its fetlock; then he asked to have the horse brought to a stall, and began to cut her with a needle until the blood came, although she kicked, and even squealed: and he said that this was meant "to let the blood out from under the hoof." Then he explained to a muzhík that it was necessary to bleed the veins in both frogs "for greater comfort," and he began to strike his wooden mallet upon the blunt lancet. Then under the side of the dvornik's horse he twisted a bandage made of a woman'skerchief. Finally he began to scatter oil of vitriol over the whole wound, wet it from a bottle, and to give occasionally something to take internally, as it occurred to him. And the more he tormented and killed the poor horses, the more people believed in him, and brought him their horses to cure.

I think that it is pot quite seemly of us gentlemen to make sport of Polikéï. The remedies which he employed to stimulate belief in him were the very same which were efficacious for our fathers, and will be efficacious for us and our children. The muzhík, as he held down the head of his one mare, which not only constituted his wealth, but was almost a part of his family, and watched, with both confidence and terror, Polikéï's face marked by a consequential frown, and his slender hands, with the sleeves rolled up, with which he managed always to pinch the very places that were most tender, and boldly to hack the living body with the secret thought, "Now here's to luck," and making believe that he knew where the blood was, and where the matter, where was the dry and where was the fluid vein, and holding the handkerchief of healing or the phial of sulphuric acid,—this muzhík could not imagine such a thing as Polikéï raising his hand to cut without the requisite knowledge. He himself could not have done such a thing. And, as soon as the incision was made, he did not reproach himself because he had hacked unnecessarily.

I don't know how it is with you; but I have had experience with a doctor who, at my own request, treated people who were very dear to my heart in almost exactly the same way. The veterinary lancet and the mysterious white phial with corrosive sublimate, and the words, "apoplexy, hemorrhoids, blood-letting, pus,"and so forth, are they so different from "nerves, rheumatism, organism," and the others?Wage du zu irren und zu träumen,—"dare to be in error and to dream,"—was said not only to poets, but to doctors and veterinary surgeons.

[4]dvornik.

III.

On that very evening, while the elders had come together at the office to settle upon a recruit, and while their voices were heard amid the chill darkness of the October night, Polikéï was sitting upon the edge of his bed at the table, and was triturating in a bottle some veterinary medicament, the nature of which he himself knew not. It was a mixture of corrosive sublimate, sulphur, Glauber's salts, and grass, which he was compounding, under some impression that this grass was good for broken wind and other ailments.

The children were already abed; two on the stove, two on the couch, one in the cradle, beside which sat Akulína with her spinning. The candle-end, which remained from some of his mistress's that had not been properly put away, and Polikéï had taken care of, stood in a wooden candlestick on the window; and in order that her husband might not be disturbed in his important task, Akulína got up to snuff the candle with her fingers. There were conceited fellows who considered Polikéï as a worthless horse-doctor, and a worthless man. Others—and they were in the majority—considered him worthless as a man, but a great master of his calling. Akulína, notwithstanding the fact that she often berated and even beat her husband, considered him beyond a peradventure the first horse-doctor and the first man in the world.

Polikéï poured into the hollow of his hand somespice. (He did not use scales, and he spoke ironically of the Germans who used scales. "This," he would say, "is not an apothecary-shop.") Polikéï hefted the spice in his hand, and shook it up; but it seemed to him too little in quantity, and, for the tenth time, he added more. "I will put it all in, it will have a better effect," he said to himself. Akulína quickly looked up as she heard the voice of her lord and master, expecting orders; but seeing that it was nothing that concerned her, she shrugged her shoulders. "Ho! great chemist! Where did he learn it all?" she thought to herself, and again took up her work. The paper from which the spice was taken fell under the table. Akulína did not let this pass.

"Aniutka!"[5]she cried, "here, your father has dropped something: come and pick it up."

Aniutka stuck out her slender bare legs from under the dress that covered her, and, like a kitten, crept under the table, and picked up the paper.

"Here it is, papa," said she, and again plunged into the bed with her cold feet.

"Stop pushing me," whimpered her younger sister, in a sleepy voice, hissing hers's.

"I'll give it to you," said Akulína, and both heads disappeared under the wrapper.

"If he will pay three silver rubles," muttered Polikéï, shaking the bottle, "I will cure his horse. Cheap enough," he added. "I've racked my brains for it. Come now, Akulína, go and borrow some tobacco of Nikíta. We will pay it back to-morrow."

And Polikéï drew from his trousers a linden-wood pipe, that had once been painted, and that had sealing-wax for a mouthpiece, and began to put it in order.

Akulína pushed aside her flax-wheel, and went out without a word of reply, though it was a struggle for her. Polikéï opened the cupboard, put away his bottle, and applied to his mouth an empty jug. But the vodka was all gone. He scowled; but when his wife brought him the tobacco, and he had lighted his pipe, and began to smoke, sitting on the couch, his face gleamed with complacency and the pride that a man feels when he has ended his day's work.

He was even thinking how, on the morrow, he would seize the tongue of a horse, and pour into her mouth that marvellous mixture, or he was ruminating on the fact of how a man of importance met with no refusals, as was proved by Nikíta sending him the tobacco; and the thought was pleasant to him. Suddenly the door, which swung upon one hinge, was flung open; and into the room came a girl from theupperhouse,—not the second girl, but a small damsel employed to run of errands. (Everybody calls the manor-houseupper,even though it may be built on a lower level.) Aksintka, as the damsel was called, always flew like lightning; and on this account her arms were not folded, but swung like pendulums, in proportion to the swiftness of her motions, not by her side, but in front of her body. Her cheeks were always redder than her pink dress; her tongue always ran as swiftly as her legs. She flew into the room, and holding by the stove, for some reason or other, she began to wave her arms; and as though she wished to utter not less than two or three words at once, and scarcely stopping to get breath, she suddenly broke out as follows, addressing Akulína:—

"Our lady bids Polikéï Ilyitch to come up to the house this minute,—she does. [Here she stopped,and drew a long breath.] Yégor Mikháltch was at the house, and talked with our lady about thenecruits; and they've took Polikéï Ilyitch.... Avdót'ya Mikolávna bids you come up this very minute.... Avdót'ya Mikolávna bids you [again a long breath] come up this minute."

For thirty seconds Aksiutka stared at Polikéï, at Akulína, at the children, who were asleep under the wrapper; then she seized a hazel-nut shell that was rolling around on the stove, and threw it at Aniutka, and once more repeating, "Come up this minute," flew like a whirlwind out of the room; and the pendulums, with their wonted quickness, outstripped the course of her feet.

Akulína got up again, and fetched her husband his boots. The boots were soiled and ripped: they had been made for a soldier. She took down from the stove a kaftan, and handed it to him without looking at him.

"Ilyitch, are you going to change your shirt?"

"Nay," said Polikéï.

Akulína did not look into his face once while he silently put on his boots and coat, and she did well not to look at him. Polikéï's face was pale, his chin trembled, and in his eyes there came that expression of deep and submissive unhappiness, akin to tears, peculiar to weak and kindly men who have fallen into sin. He brushed his hair, and was about to go. His wife kept him back, and arranged his shirt-band, which hung below his cloak, and straightened his cap.

"Say, Polikéï Ilyitch, what does the mistress want of you?" said the voice of the joiner's wife on the other side of the partition.

The joiner's wife had, that very morning, beenengaged in a warm dispute with Akulína, in regard to a pot of lye which Polikéï's children had spilt; and, at the first moment, she was glad to hear that Polikéï was summoned to the mistress. It could not be for any thing good. Moreover, she was a sharp, shrewd, and shrewish woman. No one understood better than she how to use her tongue; at least, so she herself thought.

"It must be that they are going to send you to the city to be a merchant," she continued. "I suppose they want to get a trusty man, and so will send you. You must sell me then some tea for a quarter, Polikéï Ilyitch."

Akulína restrained her tears, and her lips took on an expression of bitter anger, as though she would have wound her fingers in the untidy hair of that slattern, the joiner's wife; but when she glanced at her children, and thought that they might be left orphans, and she a soldier's widow, she forgot the shrewish joiner's wife, covered her face with her hands, sat down on the bed, and leaned her head on the pillow.

"Mámuska, you are squeesing me," cried the little girl who hissed her s's, and she pulled away her dress from under her mother's elbow.

"I wish you were all of you dead! You were born for misfortune," cried Akulína; and she began to walk up and down thecorner,wailing, much to the delight of the joiner's wife, who had not yet forgotten about the lye.

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