The railway station was permeated with the odours of wet sheepskin
coats, the samovar, cheap tobacco, and kerosene. The smoke was so
dense that it gripped one’s throat; the lamps hardly shone through
the clouds of it, and of the semi-darkness, dampness, and cold. The
doors squeaked and banged; peasants, whips in hand, jostled and
yelled--cabmen from Ulianovka, who sometimes waited a whole week before
they captured a passenger. In and out among them, with brows elevated,
perambulated a Jew grain-dealer, wearing a round-topped hat and a
hooded overcoat and carrying an umbrella over his shoulder. Near the
ticket-seller’s window peasants were dragging to the scales the trunks
of some land-owners and basket-hampers enveloped in oilcloth. The
telegraph clerk, who was discharging the duties of assistant station
agent, was shouting at the peasants. He was a short-legged young fellow
with a big head and a curly yellow crest of hair, brought forth from
beneath his cap on the left temple, kazak fashion. A pointer dog as
spotted as a frog, with melancholy eyes like those of a human being,
was sitting on the dirty floor and shivering violently.
Elbowing his way through the crowd of peasants, Tikhon Ilitch
approached the door of the first-class waiting-room, beside which,
on the wall, hung a wooden frame containing letters, telegrams, and
newspapers, which sometimes lay on the floor. It turned out that there
were no letters for him. There was nothing but three numbers of the
“Orloff Messenger.” Tikhon Ilitch was on the point of stepping over
to the counter to have a chat with the restaurant manager. But on a
stool by the counter sat a drunken man with blue, glassy eyes and shiny
purplish face, in a round grey-peaked cap topped with a button--the
cellarman from the whiskey distillery of Prince Lobanoff. So Tikhon
Ilitch hastily turned back. He knew that cellarman only too well: if
that man’s eye lighted on him he wouldn’t be able to tear himself free
for twenty-four hours.
Deniska was still standing on the platform. “I want to ask you
something, Tikhon Ilitch,” he said with even more timidity than was his
wont.
“What is it?” inquired Tikhon Ilitch angrily. “Money? I won’t give you
any.”
“No, not money at all. I want you to read my letter.”
“A letter? To whom?”
“To you. I wanted to give it to you a long time ago, but I didn’t dare.”
“Well, what’s it about?”
“Why--I have described my way of life.”
Tikhon Ilitch took the scrap of paper from Deniska’s hand, thrust it
into his pocket, and strode swiftly homeward through the springy mud,
which was beginning to congeal.
He was now in a resolute frame of mind. He craved work, and reflected
with pleasure that there was something to be done--the cattle must be
fed. After all, ’twas a pity he had lost his temper and discharged
Chaff; now he would have to lose his sleep at night. Very little
reliance could be placed on Oska. Probably he was already asleep. If
not, he was sitting with the cook and reviling his master. And, passing
by the lighted windows of his cottage, Tikhon Ilitch crept into the
ante-room, stumbled in the darkness over the cold, fragrant straw, and
glued his ear to the door. Laughter, and then the voice of Oska, were
audible on the other side of the door.
“So now, here’s another story. In a village dwelt a peasant, poor, the
poorest of the poor; in all the village there was none poorer than he.
And one day, my good people, this same peasant went out to till his
land. And a spotted cur dogged him. The peasant ploughed along, and
the cur nosed about all over the field and kept digging at something.
He dug and dug, and how he ho-owled! What was the meaning of that? The
peasant ran to him, looked into the hole, and there was--a kettle.”
“A ket-tle?” asked the cook.
“Just listen to what comes next. The kettle was only a kettle, but in
the kettle was--gold! An immense quantity. Well, and so the peasant
became very rich.”
“Akh, lies!” said Tikhon Ilitch to himself, and began to listen eagerly
to what was going to happen to the peasant next.
“The peasant got rich, and lost his head, just like any merchant--”
“Exactly like our Stiff-Leg,” interposed the cook.
Tikhon Ilitch grinned: he knew that, for a long time, he had been
called “Stiff-leg.” Every man has some nickname.
Oska went on: “Even richer than he. Yes. And then the dog takes and
dies. What was he to do? He couldn’t bear it--he was sorry for the dog,
and he had to bury him decently--”
An explosion of laughter rang out. The story-teller himself guffawed,
and so did some one else--some one with an old man’s cough.
“Can it be Chaff?” thought Tikhon Ilitch, in perturbation. “Well, glory
to God! I told that fool myself: ‘You’ll be coming back’!”
“The peasant went to the priest,” pursued Oska--“he went to the priest:
‘Thus and so, father, a dog has died--he must be buried.’”
Again the cook could not control herself and shrieked joyously: “Phew,
you stick at nothing!”
“Give me a chance to finish!” shouted Oska in his turn, and once
more dropped into the narrative tone, depicting now the priest, now
the peasant: “‘Thus and so, batiushka--the dog must be buried.’ The
priest stamped his feet: ‘How is it to be buried? Where is it to be
buried? In the cemetery? I’ll make you rot in prison, I’ll have you
put in fetters!’--‘Batiushka, you see, this is no common dog: when he
was dying he bequeathed you five hundred rubles!’ The priest fairly
leaped from his seat: ‘Fool! Am I scolding you for burying the dog?
I’m scolding you about the place where he is to be buried. He must be
buried in the churchyard!’”
Tikhon Ilitch coughed loudly and opened the door. At the table beside
the smoking lamp, the broken chimney of which was patched on one side
with a bit of blackened paper, sat the cook, her head bent and her face
completely veiled by her wet hair. She was combing it with a wooden
comb and inspecting the comb athwart her hair by the light of the
lamp. Oska, with a cigarette in his teeth, was laughing vociferously,
his head thrown back, as he dangled his feet to and fro in their
bast-slippers. Near the stove, in the semi-darkness, gleamed a red
spark of flame--a pipe. When Tikhon Ilitch jerked the door open and
made his appearance on the threshold, the laughter came to an abrupt
end, and the person who was smoking the pipe rose timidly from his
seat, removed the pipe from his mouth, and thrust it into his pocket.
Yes, it was Chaff! But Tikhon Ilitch shouted, in an alert and friendly
way, as though nothing had happened that morning: “Time to feed the
cattle, my lads!”