A year passed... a whole year: no news had come of Panteley Eremyitch.
The cook was dead, Perfishka himself made up his mind to abandon the
house and go off to town, where he was constantly being persuaded to
come by his cousin, apprenticed to a barber; when suddenly a rumour was
set afloat that his master was coming back. The parish deacon got a
letter from Panteley Eremyitch himself, in which he informed him of his
intention of arriving at Bezsonovo, and asked him to prepare his servant
to be ready for his immediate return. These words Perfishka understood
to mean that he was to sweep up the place a bit. He did not, however,
put much confidence in the news; he was convinced, though, that the
deacon had spoken the truth, when a few days later Panteley Eremyitch in
person appeared in the courtyard, riding on Malek-Adel.
Perfishka rushed up to his master, and, holding the stirrup, would have
helped him to dismount, but the latter got off alone, and with a
triumphant glance about him, cried in a loud voice: 'I said I would find
Malek-Adel, and I have found him in spite of my enemies, and of Fate
itself!' Perfishka went up to kiss his hand, but Tchertop-hanov paid no
attention to his servant's devotion. Leading Malek-Adel after him by the
rein, he went with long strides towards the stable. Perfishka looked
more intently at his master, and his heart sank. 'Oh, how thin and old
he's grown in a year; and what a stern, grim face!' One would have
thought Panteley Eremyitch would have been rejoicing, that he had gained
his end; and he was rejoicing, certainly... and yet Perfishka's heart
sank: he even felt a sort of dread. Tchertop-hanov put the horse in its
old place, gave him a light pat on the back, and said, 'There! now
you're at home again; and mind what you're about.' The same day he hired
a freedman out of work as watchman, established himself again in his
rooms, and began living as before....
Not altogether as before, however... but of that later...
The day after his return, Panteley Eremyitch called Perfishka in to him,
and for want of anyone else to talk to, began telling him--keeping up,
of course, his sense of his own dignity and his bass voice--how he had
succeeded in finding Malek-Adel. Tchertop-hanov sat facing the window
while he told his story, and smoked a pipe with a long tube while
Perfishka stood in the doorway, his hands behind his back, and,
respectfully contemplating the back of his master's head, heard him
relate how, after many fruitless efforts and idle expeditions, Panteley
Eremyitch had at last come to the fair at Romyon by himself, without the
Jew Leyba, who, through weakness of character, had not persevered, but
had deserted him; how, on the fifth day, when he was on the point of
leaving, he walked for the last time along the rows of carts, and all at
once he saw between three other horses fastened to the railings--he saw
Malek-Adel! How he knew him at once, and how Malek-Adel knew him too,
and began neighing, and dragging at his tether, and scraping the earth
with his hoof.
'And he was not with the Cossack,' Tchertop-hanov went on, still not
turning his head, and in the same bass voice, 'but with a gypsy
horse-dealer; I, of course, at once took hold of my horse and tried to
get him away by force, but the brute of a gypsy started yelling as if
he'd been scalded, all over the market, and began swearing he'd bought
the horse off another gypsy--and wanted to bring witnesses to prove
it.... I spat, and paid him the money: damn the fellow! All I cared for
was that I had found my favourite, and had got back my peace of mind.
Moreover, in the Karatchevsky district, I took a man for the Cossack--I
took the Jew Leyba's word for it that he was my thief--and smashed his
face for him; but the Cossack turned out to be a priest's son, and got
damages out of me--a hundred and twenty roubles. Well, money's a thing
one may get again, but the great thing is, I've Malek-Adel back again!
I'm happy now--I'm going to enjoy myself in peace. And I've one
instruction to give you, Perfishka: if ever you, which God forbid, catch
sight of the Cossack in this neighbourhood, run the very minute without
saying a word, and bring me my gun, and I shall know what to do!'
This was what Panteley Eremyitch said to Perfishka: this was how his
tongue spoke; but at heart he was not so completely at peace as he
declared.
Alas! in his heart of hearts he was not perfectly convinced that the
horse he had brought back was really Malek-Adel!
X
Troubled times followed for Panteley Eremyitch. Peace was just the last
thing he enjoyed. He had some happy days, it is true; the doubt stirring
within him would seem to him all nonsense; he would drive away the
ridiculous idea, like a persistent fly, and even laugh at himself; but
he had bad days too: the importunate thought began again stealthily
gnawing and tearing at his heart, like a mouse under the floor, and he
existed in secret torture. On the memorable day when he found
Malek-Adel, Tchertop-hanov had felt nothing but rapturous bliss... but
the next morning, when, in a low-pitched shed of the inn, he began
saddling his recovered joy, beside whom he had spent the whole night, he
felt for the first time a certain secret pang.... He only shook his
head, but the seed was sown. During the homeward journey (it lasted a
whole week) doubts seldom arose in him; they grew stronger and more
distinct directly he was back at Bezsonovo, directly he was home again
in the place where the old authentic Malek-Adel had lived.... On the
road home he had ridden at a quiet, swinging pace, looking in all
directions, smoking a short pipe, and not reflecting at all, except at
times the thought struck him: 'When the Tchertop-hanovs want a thing,
they get it, you bet!' and he smiled to himself; but on his return home
it was a very different state of things. All this, however, he kept to
himself; vanity alone would have prevented him from giving utterance to
his inner dread. He would have torn anyone to pieces who had dropped the
most distant hint that the new Malek-Adel was possibly not the old one;
he accepted congratulations on his 'successful recovery of his horse,'
from the few persons whom he happened to meet; but he did not seek such
congratulations; he avoided all contact with people more than ever--a
bad sign! He was almost always putting Malek-Adel through examinations,
if one may use the expression; he would ride him out to some point at a
little distance in the open country, and put him to the proof, or would
go stealthily into the stable, lock the door after him, and standing
right before the horse's head, look into his eyes, and ask him in a
whisper, 'Is it you? Is it you? You?'... or else stare at him silently
and intently for hours together, and then mutter, brightening up: 'Yes!
it's he! Of course it's he!' or else go out with a puzzled, even
confused look on his face. Tchertop-hanov was not so much confused by
the physical differences between _this_ Malek-Adel and _that_
one... though there were a few such differences: _that_ one's tail
and mane were a little thinner, and his ears more pointed, and his
pasterns shorter, and his eyes brighter--but all that might be only
fancy; what confounded Tchertop-hanov most were, so to say, the moral
differences. The habits of _that_ one had been different: all his
ways were not the same. For instance, _that_ Malek-Adel had looked
round and given a faint neigh every time Tchertop-hanov went into the
stable; while _this_ one went on munching hay as though nothing had
happened, or dozed with his head bent. Both of them stood still when
their master leaped out of the saddle; but _that_ one came at once
at his voice when he was called, while _this_ one stood stock
still. _That_ one galloped as fast, but with higher and longer
bounds; _this_ one went with a freer step and at a more jolting
trot, and at times 'wriggled' with his shoes--that is, knocked the back
one against the front one; _that_ one had never done anything so
disgraceful--God forbid! _This_ one, it struck Tchertop-hanov, kept
twitching his ears in such a stupid way, while with _that_ one it
was quite the contrary; he used to lay one ear back, and hold it so, as
though on the alert for his master! _That_ one, directly he saw
that it was dirty about him, would at once knock on the partition of his
box with his hind-leg, but _this_ one did not care if the dung was
heaped up to his belly. _That_ one if, for instance, he were set
facing the wind, would take deep breaths and shake himself, _this_
one simply snorted; _that_ one was put out by the rain, _this_
one cared nothing for it.... This was a coarser beast--coarser! And
there wasn't the gentleness in it, and hard in the mouth it was--no
denying it! That horse was a darling, but this....
This was what Tchertop-hanov sometimes thought, and very bitter were
such thoughts to him. At other times he would set his horse at full
gallop over some newly ploughed field, or would make him leap down to
the very bottom of a hollow ravine, and leap out again at the very
steepest point, and his heart would throb with rapture, a loud whoop
would break from his lips, and he would know, would know for certain,
that it was the real, authentic Malek-Adel he had under him; for what
other horse could do what this one was doing?
However, there were sometimes shortcomings and misfortunes even here.
The prolonged search for Malek-Adel had cost Tchertop-hanov a great deal
of money; he did not even dream of Kostroma hounds now, and rode about
the neighbourhood in solitude as before. So one morning, four miles from
Bezsonovo, Tchertop-hanov chanced to come upon the same prince's hunting
party before whom he had cut such a triumphant figure a year and a half
before. And, as fate would have it, just as on that day a hare must go
leaping out from the hedge before the dogs, down the hillside! Tally-ho!
Tally-ho! All the hunt fairly flew after it, and Tchertop-hanov flew
along too, but not with the rest of the party, but two hundred paces to
one side of it, just as he had done the time before. A huge watercourse
ran zigzagging across the hillside, and as it rose higher and higher got
gradually narrower, cutting off Tchertop-hanov's path. At the point
where he had to jump it, and where, eighteen months before, he actually
had jumped it, it was eight feet wide and fourteen feet deep. In
anticipation of a triumph--a triumph repeated in such a delightful
way--Tchertop-hanov chuckled exultantly, cracked his riding-whip; the
hunting party were galloping too, their eyes fixed on the daring rider;
his horse whizzed along like a bullet, and now the watercourse was just
under his nose--now, now, at one leap, as then!... But Malek-Adel pulled
up sharply, wheeled to the left, and in spite of Tchertop-hanov's
tugging him to the edge, to the watercourse, he galloped along beside
the ravine.
He was afraid, then; did not trust himself!
Then Tchertop-hanov, burning with shame and wrath, almost in tears,
dropped the reins, and set the horse going straight forward, down the
hill, away, away from the hunting party, if only not to hear them
jeering at him, to escape as soon as might be from their damnable eyes!
Covered with foam, his sides lashed unmercifully, Malek-Adel galloped
home, and Tchertop-hanov at once locked himself into his room.
'No, it's not he; it's not my darling! He would have broken his neck
before he would have betrayed me!'