If I wanted to order a ring, I would have it inscribed: "Nothing
passes." I believe that nothing passes without leaving some trace, and
that every little step has some meaning for the present and the future
life.
What I lived through was not in vain. My great misfortunes, my patience,
moved the hearts of the people of the town and they no longer call me
"Little Profit," they no longer laugh at me and throw water over me as I
walk through the market. They got used to my being a working man and see
nothing strange in my carrying paint-pots and glazing windows; on the
contrary, they give me orders, and I am considered a good workman and
the best contractor, after Radish, who, though he recovered and still
paints the cupolas of the church without scaffolding, is not strong
enough to manage the men, and I have taken his place and go about the
town touting for orders, and take on and sack the men, and lend money at
exorbitant interest. And now that I am a contractor I can understand how
it is possible to spend several days hunting through the town for
slaters to carry out a trifling order. People are polite to me, and
address me respectfully and give me tea in the houses where I work, and
send the servant to ask me if I would like dinner. Children and girls
often come and watch me with curious, sad eyes.
Once I was working in the governor's garden, painting the summer-house
marble. The governor came into the summer-house, and having nothing
better to do, began to talk to me, and I reminded him how he had once
sent for me to caution me. For a moment he stared at my face, opened his
mouth like a round O, waved his hands, and said:
"I don't remember."
I am growing old, taciturn, crotchety, strict; I seldom laugh, and
people say I am growing like Radish, and, like him, I bore the men with
my aimless moralising.
Maria Victorovna, my late wife, lives abroad, and her father is making a
railway somewhere in the Eastern provinces and buying land there. Doctor
Blagovo is also abroad. Dubechnia has passed to Mrs. Cheprakov, who
bought it from the engineer after haggling him into a twenty-per-cent
reduction in the price. Moissey walks about in a bowler hat; he often
drives into town in a trap and stops outside the bank. People say he has
already bought an estate on a mortgage, and is always inquiring at the
bank about Dubechnia, which he also intends to buy. Poor Ivan Cheprakov
used to hang about the town, doing nothing and drinking. I tried to give
him a job in our business, and for a time he worked with us painting
roofs and glazing, and he rather took to it, and, like a regular
house-painter, he stole the oil, and asked for tips, and got drunk. But
it soon bored him. He got tired of it and went back to Dubechnia, and
some time later I was told by the peasants that he had been inciting
them to kill Moissey one night and rob Mrs. Cheprakov.
My father has got very old and bent, and just takes a little walk in the
evening near his house.
When we had the cholera, Prokofyi cured the shopkeepers with
pepper-brandy and tar and took money for it, and as I read in the
newspaper, he was flogged for libelling the doctors as he sat in his
shop. His boy Nicolka died of cholera. Karpovna is still alive, and
still loves and fears her Prokofyi. Whenever she sees me she sadly
shakes her head and says with a sigh:
"Poor thing. You are lost!"
On week-days I am busy from early morning till late at night. And on
Sundays and holidays I take my little niece (my sister expected a boy,
but a girl was born) and go with her to the cemetery, where I stand or
sit and look at the grave of my dear one, and tell the child that her
mother is lying there.
Sometimes I find Aniuta Blagovo by the grave. We greet each other and
stand silently, or we talk of Cleopatra, and the child, and the sadness
of this life. Then we leave the cemetery and walk in silence and she
lags behind--on purpose, to avoid staying with me. The little girl,
joyful, happy, with her eyes half-closed against the brilliant sunlight,
laughs and holds out her little hands to her, and we stop and together
we fondle the darling child.
And when we reach the town, Aniuta Blagovo, blushing and agitated, says
good-bye, and walks on alone, serious and circumspect.... And, to look
at her, none of the passers-by could imagine that she had just been
walking by my side and even fondling the child.