A week after this conversation, Andréi Yéfimitch received a formal
proposal to take a rest, that is, to retire from his post, and he
received the proposal with indifference. Still a week later, he and
Mikhail Averyanitch were sitting in the post tarantass and driving to
the railway station. The weather was cool and clear, the sky blue and
transparent. The two hundred versts were traversed in two days and
two nights. When they stopped at the post-houses and were given dirty
glasses for tea, or were delayed over the horses, Mikhail Averyanitch
grew purple, shook all over, and roared "Silence! Don't argue!"...
And as they sat in the tarantass he talked incessantly of his travels
in the Caucasus and in Poland. What adventures he had, what meetings!
He spoke in a loud voice, and all the time made such astonished eyes
that it might have been thought he was lying. As he told his stories
he breathed in the doctor's face and laughed in his ear. All this
incommoded the doctor and hindered his thinking and concentrating his
mind.
For reasons of economy they travelled third-class, in a non-smoking
carriage. Half of the passengers were clean. Mikhail Averyanitch
struck up acquaintance with all, and as he shifted from seat to seat,
announced in a loud voice that it was a mistake to travel on these
tormenting railways. Nothing but rascals around! What a different thing
to ride on horseback; in a single day you cover a hundred versts, and
at the end feel wholesome and fresh. Yes, and we had been cursed with
famines as the result of the draining of the Pinsky marshes! Everywhere
nothing but disorder! Mikhail Averyanitch lost his temper, spoke
loudly, and allowed no one else to say a word. His incessant chatter,
broken only by loud laughter and expressive gesticulations, bored
Andréi Yéfimitch.
"Which of us is the more mad?" he asked himself. "I who do my best
not to disturb my fellow-travellers, or this egoist who thinks he is
cleverer and more interesting than anyone else, and gives no one a
moment's rest?"
In Moscow, Mikhail Averyanitch donned his military tunic without
shoulder-straps, and trousers with red piping. Out of doors he wore an
army forage-cap and cloak, and was saluted by the soldiers. To Andréi
Yéfimitch he began to seem a man who had lost all the good points
of the upper classes and retained only the bad. He loved people to
dance attendance on him even when it was quite unnecessary. Matches
lay before him on the table and he saw them, yet he roared to the
waiter to hand them to him; he marched about in his underclothing
before the chambermaid; he addressed the waitresses--even the elderly
ones--indiscriminately as "thou," and when he was irritated called them
blockheads and fools. This, thought Andréi Yéfimitch, is no doubt
gentlemanly, but it is detestable.
First of all, Mikhail Averyanitch brought his friend to the
Iverskaya.[1] He prayed piously, bowed to the ground, shed teal's, and
when he had finished, sighed deeply and said:
"Even an unbeliever feels himself at peace after he has prayed. Kiss
the image, dear!"
Andréi Yéfimitch got red in the face and kissed the image; and Mikhail
Averyanitch puffed out his lips, shook his head, prayed in a whisper;
and again into his eyes came tears. After this they visited the Kremlin
and inspected the Tsar-Cannon and the Tsar-Bell, touched them with
their fingers, admired the view across the Moscow River, and spent some
time in the Temple of the Saviour and afterwards in the Rumiantseff
Museum.
They dined at Testoffs.[2] Mikhail Averyanitch stroked his whiskers,
gazed long at the menu, and said to the waiter in the tone of a gourmet
who feels at home in restaurants:
"Well see what you'll feed us with to-day, angel!"
[Footnote 1: A celebrated ikon kept in a small chapel near the Moscow
Town Hall. It is supposed to possess miraculous healing virtues.]
[Footnote 2: A Moscow restaurant noted for genuine Russian cookery.]