On the next day, early in the morning, there was drawn up before the
door of the _wing_ a travelling carriage (the one which the overseer
generally used), with a wide-tailed brown gelding called, for some
inscrutable reason, Barabán, or the drum. At a safe distance from his
head stood Aniutka, Polikéï's oldest daughter, barefoot, in spite of
the rain and sleet, and the cold wind, holding the bridle in one hand
with evident terror, and protecting her own head with a yellow-green
jacket, which fulfilled in the family the manifold functions of dress,
sheepskin, head-dress, carpet, overcoat for Polikéï, and many other
uses besides.
In the _corner_ a tumult was let loose. It was still dark. The morning
light, ushering in a rainy day, fell through the window, the broken
panes of which were in places mended with pieces of paper.
Akulína, who was up betimes to get ready for breakfast, and her
children, the younger of whom were not yet up, were shivering with
cold, as their covering had been taken from them for Aniutka's use,
and they had only their mother's kerchief for protection. Akulína was
busily engaged in getting her husband started on his journey. His shirt
was clean. His boots, which, as they say, were asking _for gruel,_
caused her the greatest labor. In the first place, she took off her own
long woollen stockings, and gave them to her spouse; next, out of the
saddle-cloth which had been _lying round_ in the stable, and Ilyitch
had brought into the hut a few days before, she managed to make some
insoles and lining, so as to stop up the holes, and protect Ilyitch's
feet from the dampness. Ilyitch himself, sitting with his feet on
the bed, was busy in turning his belt so that it might not have the
appearance of a dirty rope. The cross little girl who hissed her s's,
wearing a sheepskin, which not only covered her head, but protected her
legs, had been sent to Nikíta to borrow a cap.
The hubbub was increased by the household servants, who came to ask
Ilyitch to do errands for them in the city: to buy a needle for one
woman, tea for another, olive-oil for another; tobacco for this muzhík,
and sugar for the joiner's wife, who had already made haste to set up
her samovar, and in order to bribe Ilyitch had asked him to share in
the concoction which she called tea.
Although Nikíta refused to loan his cap, and he was obliged to put his
own in order, that is to say, to fasten on the shreds of wool that were
falling off or hanging by a thread, and to sew up the holes with his
veterinary needle; though he could not get on his boots with the felt
insoles made out of the saddle-cloth; though Aniutka had got so chilled
that she let Barabán go, and Mashka, in her sheepskin, went in her
place; and then Mashka was obliged to give her father the sheepskin,
and Akulína herself went to hold Barabán,--still at last Ilyitch
managed to get dressed, making use of all the clothing that appertained
to his family, and leaving only the one jacket and some dirty rags,
and, now in spick and span order, took his seat in the telyéga, bundled
himself up, arranged the hay, once more bundled himself up, picked up
the reins, bundled himself up still more warmly, just as is done by
very dignified people, and drove off.
His small boy Mishka rushing down the steps asked to be taken on. The
sibilating Mashka began to ask for "a _l_ide," and would be "warm
enough, even if she hadn't any seepskin;"[10] and Polikéï reined in the
horse, smiled his ineffectual smile, and Akulína helped the children to
get in, and, bending close, whispered to him to remember his promise,
and not drink any thing on the road. Polikéï carried the children as
far as the blacksmith-shop, helped them out, again tucked himself in,
again settled his cap, and drove off alone in a slow, dignified trot,
his fat cheeks shaking, and his feet thumping on the floor of the wagon.
Mashka and Mishka, both barefooted, flew home down the little hill with
such fleetness, and with such a noise, that a dog running from the
village to the manor gazed after them, and, suddenly casting his tail
between his legs, fled home with a yelp; so that the noise made by the
Polikushka hopefuls was increased tenfold.
The weather was wretched, the wind was cutting; and something that was
neither snow nor rain, nor _yet_ sleet, began to lash Polikéï's face,
and his bare hand with which he grasped the reins, protected as well
as possible by the sleeve of his cloak; and it rattled on the leather
cover of the horse-collar, and on the head of old Barabán, who lay back
his ears, and blinked his eyes.
Then suddenly if stopped, and lighted up for an instant; the form of
the dark purple snow-clouds became clearly visible; and the sun, as it
were, prepared to glance forth, but irresolutely and gloomily, like
Polikéï's own smile.
Nevertheless, the son of Ilya was absorbed in pleasant thoughts.
He,--a man whom they thought of exiling, whom they threatened with
the conscription, whom no one except the lazy spared either abuse or
blows, whom they always saddled with the most unpleasant jobs,--he was
now going to collect a _sum o'_ money, and a big sum; and he had his
mistress's confidence; and he was driving in the overseer's wagon with
Barabán, his mistress's own horse; and he was driving like some rich
householder, with leather tugs and reins. And Polikéï straightened
himself up, smoothed the wool on his cap, and once more bundled him up.
However, if Polikéï thought that he was like a rich householder, he
was greatly mistaken. Everybody knows that merchants who do a business
of ten thousand rubles ride in carriages with leather trappings. Well,
sometimes it's one way, and sometimes it's another. There comes a man
with a beard, in a blue or it may be a black kaftan, sitting alone
on the box behind a plump steed: as soon as you look at him and see
whether his horse is plump, whether he himself is plump, how he sits,
how his horse is harnessed, how the carriage shines, how he himself
is girdled, you know instantly whether he is a muzhík, who makes a
thousand or a hundred rubles' worth of sales. Every experienced man,
as soon as he looked closely at Polikéï, at his hands, at his face, at
his short neglected beard, at his girdle, at the hay spread carelessly
over the box, at the lean Barabán, at the worn tire, would have known
instantly that the rig belonged to a slave, and not a merchant, or
a drover, or a householder with a thousand or a hundred or even ten
rubles.
But Ilyitch did not realize this: he deceived himself, and deceived
himself pleasantly. Fifteen hundred rubles he will carry in his bosom.
It comes into his mind, that he might drive Barabán to _Odesta_
instead of home, and then go where God might give. But he will not do
that, but will certainly carry the money to his mistress, and it will
be said that no amount of money tempted him.
As he came near a tavern, Barabán began to tug on the left rein, to
slacken his pace, and to turn in; but Polikéï, in spite of the fact
that he had money in his pocket given him for various commissions, cut
Barabán with the knout, and drove by. The same thing took place at the
next tavern; and at noon he dismounted from the telyéga, and opening
the gate of the merchant's house, where the people from the estate
always put up, drove the team in, unharnessed the horse, and gave him
some hay, and ate his own dinner with the merchant's hired help, not
failing to make the most of his important errand; and then, with his
letter in his cap, betook himself to the gardener.
The gardener, who knew Polikéï, read the letter, and found it evidently
difficult to believe that he was really to deliver the money to the
bearer. Polikéï did his best to be offended, but was not able to
accomplish it; he only smiled his peculiar smile. The gardener re-read
the letter, and delivered the money. Polikéï placed the money in his
bosom, and went back to his lodgings. Not a beer-saloon, not a tavern,
nothing seduced him. He experienced a pleasant exhilaration in all
his being; and not once did he loiter at the shops where all sorts of
tempting wares were displayed,--boots, cloaks, caps. But as he walked
along slowly, he had the pleasant consciousness: "I could buy all these
things, but I'm not going to."
He went to the bazaar to execute his commissions, made them into a
bundle, and then tried to beat down the price of a tanned sheepskin
shuba, which was set at twenty-five rubles. The vender, looking
critically at Polikéï, did not believe that he had the money to buy it
with; but Polikéï pointed to his breast, saying that he had enough to
buy out his whole establishment if he wanted. He asked to try it on,
hesitated, pulled on it, crumpled it, blew the fur, kept it on long
enough to smell of it, then took it off with a sigh. "Unconscionable
price! If you would only let it go for fifteen rubles," he said. The
dealer angrily pulled the garment over the counter, but Polikéï went
out with a gay heart, and directed his steps to his lodgings. After
eating his supper, and giving Barabán his water and oats, he climbed up
on the stove, took out the envelope, and gazed at it long, and asked
the lettered porter[11] to read the address to him, and the words,
"with an enclosure of sixteen hundred and seventy paper rubles." The
envelope was made of simple paper; the seals were of dark brown wax
with the impression of an anchor; one large seal in the centre, four on
the edge. On one side, a drop of wax had fallen. Ilyitch looked at all
this, and fixed it in his memory, and even moved the sharp ends of the
notes. He experienced a certain childish satisfaction in knowing that
he held so much money in his hands. He put the envelope in the lining
of his cap, made the cap into a pillow, and lay down; but several times
during the night he woke up, and felt after the money. And every time,
finding the envelope in its place, he experienced the same pleasurable
feeling in the consciousness that he, the proscribed and ridiculed, was
carrying so much money, and was going to deliver it faithfully,--as
faithfully as the overseer himself.
[Footnote 10: _suba_ for _shuba._]
[Footnote 11: _dvornik._]