“Really!--how old are you?”
“God knows.”
“Your sight’s failing, I expect.”
“What?”
“Your sight’s failing, I daresay?”
“Yes, it’s failing. At times I can hear nothing.”
“Then how can you be a watchman, eh?”
“Oh, my elders know about that.”
“Elders!” I thought, and I gazed not without compassion at the poor old
man. He fumbled about, pulled out of his bosom a bit of coarse bread,
and began sucking it like a child, with difficulty moving his sunken
cheeks.
I walked in the direction of the copse, turned to the right, kept on,
kept right on as the old man had advised me, and at last got to a large
village with a stone church in the new style, _i. e._, with columns,
and a spacious manor-house, also with columns. While still some way
off I noticed through the fine network of falling rain a cottage
with a deal roof, and two chimneys, higher than the others, in all
probability the dwelling of the village elder; and toward it I bent my
steps in the hope of finding, in this cottage, a samovár, tea, sugar,
and some not absolutely sour cream. Escorted by my half-frozen dog, I
went up the steps into the outer room, opened the door, and instead of
the usual appurtenances of a cottage, I saw several tables, heaped up
with papers, two red cupboards, bespattered inkstands, pewter boxes
of blotting sand weighing half a hundred-weight, long penholders, and
so on. At one of the tables was sitting a young man of twenty with a
swollen, sickly face, diminutive eyes, a greasy-looking forehead, and
long, straggling locks of hair. He was dressed, as one would expect, in
a gray nankeen coat, shiny with wear at the waist and the collar.
“What do you want?” he asked me, flinging his head up like a horse
taken unexpectedly by the nose.
“Does the bailiff live here--or--”
“This is the principal office of the manor,” he interrupted. “I’m the
clerk on duty.--Didn’t you see the sign-board? That’s what it was put
up for.”
“Where could I dry my clothes here? Is there a samovár anywhere in the
village?”
“Samovars, of course,” replied the young man in the gray coat with
dignity; “go to Father Timofey’s, or to the servants’ cottage, or else
to Nazar Tarasitch, or to Agrafena, the poultry woman.”
“Who are you taking to, you blockhead? Can’t you let me sleep, dummy!”
shouted a voice from the next room.
“Here’s a gentleman’s come in to ask where he can dry himself.”
“What sort of a gentleman?”
“I don’t know. With a dog and a gun.”
A bedstead creaked in the next room. The door opened, and there
came in a stout, short man of fifty, with a bull neck, goggle eyes,
extraordinarily round cheeks, and his whole face positively shining
with sleekness.
“What is it you wish?” he asked me.
“To dry my things.”
“There’s no place here.”
“I didn’t know this was the counting-house; I am willing, though, to
pay--”
“Well, perhaps it could be managed here,” rejoined the fat man; “won’t
you come inside here?” He led me into another room, but not the one he
had come from. “Would this do for you?”
“Very well.--And could I have tea and milk?”
“Certainly, at once. If you’ll meantime take off your things and rest,
the tea shall be got ready this minute.”
“Whose property is this?”
“Madame Losnyakova’s, Elena Nikolaevna.”
He went out. I looked round: against the partition separating my room
from the office stood a huge leather sofa; two high-backed chairs, also
covered in leather, were placed on both sides of the solitary window
which looked out on the village street. On the walls, covered with a
green paper with pink patterns on it, hung three immense oil paintings.
One depicted a setter dog with a blue collar, bearing the inscription:
“This is my consolation”; at the dog’s feet flowed a river; on the
opposite bank of the river a hare of quite disproportionate size, with
ears cocked up, was sitting under a pine tree. In another picture
two old men were eating a melon; behind the melon was visible in
the distance a Greek temple with the inscription: “The Temple of
Satisfaction.” The third picture represented the half-nude figure of
a woman in a recumbent position, much foreshortened, with red knees
and very big heels. My dog had, with superhuman efforts, crouched
under the sofa, and apparently found a great deal of dust there, as he
kept sneezing violently. I went to the window. Boards had been laid
across the street in a slanting direction from the manor-house to the
counting-house--a very useful precaution, as, thanks to our rich black
soil and the persistent rain, the mud was terrible. In the grounds
of the manor-house, which stood with its back to the street, there
was the constant going and coming there always is about manor-houses:
maids in faded chintz gowns flitted to and fro; house-serfs sauntered
through the mud, stood still, and scratched their spines meditatively;
the constable’s horse, tied up to a post, lashed his tail lazily, and,
with his nose high up, gnawed at the hedge; hens were clucking; sickly
turkeys kept up an incessant gobble-gobble. On the steps of a dark,
crumbling out-house, probably the bath-house, sat a stalwart lad with a
guitar, singing with some spirit the well-known ballad:
“I’m leaving this enchanting spot
To go into the desert.”
The fat man came into the room.
“They’re bringing you in your tea,” he told me, with an affable smile.
The young man in the gray coat, the clerk on duty, laid on the old
card-table a samovár, a teapot, a tumbler on a broken saucer, a jug of
cream, and a bunch of Bolhovo biscuit rings. The fat man went out.
“What is he?” I asked the clerk; “the steward?”
“No, sir; he was the chief cashier, but now he has been promoted to be
head clerk.”
“Haven’t you got a steward, then?”
“No, sir. There’s an agent, Mihal Vikulov, but no steward.”
“Is there a manager, then?”
“Yes; a German, Lindamandol, Karlo Karlitch; only he does not manage
the estate.”
“Who does manage it, then?”
“Our mistress herself.”
“You don’t say so. And are there many of you in the office?”
The young man reflected.
“There are six of us.”
“Who are they?” I inquired.
“Well, first there’s Vassily Nikolaevitch, the head cashier; then
Piotr, one clerk; Piotr’s brother, Iván, another clerk; the other Iván,
a clerk; Konstantin Narkizer, another clerk; and me here--there’s a lot
of us, you can’t count all of them.”
“I suppose your mistress has a great many serfs in her house?”
“No, not to say a great many.”
“How many, then?”
“I dare say it runs up to about a hundred and fifty.”
We were both silent for a little.
“I suppose you write a good hand, eh?” I began again.
The young man grinned from ear to ear, went into the office and brought
in a sheet covered with writing.
“This is my writing,” he announced, still with the same smile on his
face.
I looked at it; on the square sheet of grayish paper there was written,
in a good bold hand, the following document:
“ORDER: From the Chief Office of the Manor of Ananyevo to the
Agent, Mihal Vikulov. No. 209.
“_Whereas_, Some person unknown entered the garden at Ananyevo last
night in an intoxicated condition, and with unseemly songs waked
the French governess, Madame Engêne, and disturbed her; and whether
the watchman saw anything, and who were on watch in the garden and
permitted such disorderliness: as regards all the above-written
matters, your orders are to investigate in detail, and report
immediately to the Office.”
“_Head Clerk_, NIKOLAI HVOSTOV.”
A huge heraldic seal was attached to the order, with the inscription:
“Seal of the chief office of the manor of Ananyevo;” and below stood
the signature: “To be executed exactly, Elena Losnyakova.”
“Your lady signed it herself, eh?” I queried.
“To be sure; she always signs herself. Without that the order would be
of no effect.”
“Well, and now shall you send this order to the agent?”
“No, sir. He’ll come himself and read it. That’s to say, it’ll be read
to him; you see, he’s no scholar.” The clerk on duty was silent again
for a while. “But what do you say?” he added, simpering; “is it well
written?”
“Very well written.”
“It wasn’t composed, I must confess, by me. Konstantin is the great one
for that.”
“What?--Do you mean the orders have first to be composed among you?”
“Why, how else could we do? Couldn’t write them off straight without
making a fair copy.”
“And what salary do you get?” I inquired.
“Thirty-five rubles, and five rubles for boots.”
“And are you satisfied?”
“Of course I am satisfied. It’s not every one can get into an office
like ours. It was God’s will, in my case, to be sure; I’d an uncle who
was in service as a butler.”
“And you’re well off?”
“Yes, sir. Though, to tell the truth,” he went on, with a sigh, “a
place at a merchant’s, for instance, is better for the likes of us. At
a merchant’s they’re very well off. Yesterday evening a merchant came
to us from Venev, and his man got talking to me.--Yes, that’s a good
place, no doubt about it; a very good place.”
“Why? Do the merchants pay more wages?”
“Lord preserve us! Why, a merchant would soon give you the sack if you
asked him for wages. No, at a merchant’s you must live on trust and
on fear. He’ll give you food, and drink, and clothes, and all. If you
give him satisfaction, he’ll do more.--Talk of wages, indeed! You don’t
need them.--And a merchant, too, lives in plain Russian style, like
ourselves; you go with him on a journey--he has tea, and you have it;
what he eats, you eat. A merchant--one can put up with; a merchant’s
a very different thing from what a gentleman is; a merchant’s not
whimsical; if he’s out of temper, he’ll give you a blow, and there it
ends. He doesn’t nag nor sneer.--But with a gentleman it’s a woeful
business! Nothing’s as he likes it--this is not right, and that he
can’t fancy. You hand him a glass of water or something to eat: ‘Ugh,
the water stinks! positively stinks!’ You take it out, stay a minute
outside the door, and bring it back: ‘Come, now, that’s good; this
doesn’t stink now.’ And as for the ladies, I tell you, the ladies are
something beyond everything!--and the young ladies above all!--”
“Fedyushka!” came the fat man’s voice from the office. The clerk went
out quickly. I drank a glass of tea, lay down on the sofa, and fell
asleep. I slept for two hours.
When I woke I meant to get up, but I was overcome by laziness; I
closed my eyes, but did not fall asleep again. On the other side of
the partition, in the office, they were talking in subdued voices.
Unconsciously I began to listen.
“Quite so, quite so, Nikolai Eremyitch,” one voice was saying; “quite
so. One can’t but take that into account; yes, certainly! Hm!” The
speaker coughed.
“You may believe me, Gavrila Antonitch,” replied the fat man’s voice;
“don’t I know how things are done here? Judge for yourself.”
“Who does, if you don’t, Nikolai Eremyitch? You’re, one may say, the
first person here. Well, then, how’s it to be?” pursued the voice I did
not recognize; “what decision are we to come to, Nikolai Eremyitch?
Allow me to put the question.”
“What decision, Gavrila Antonitch? The thing depends, so to say, on
you; you don’t seem overanxious.”
“Upon my word, Nikolai Eremyitch, what do you mean? Our business is
trading, buying; it’s our business to buy. That’s what we live by,
Nikolai Eremyitch, one may say.”
“Eight rubles a measure,” said the fat man emphatically.
A sigh was audible.
“Nikolai Eremyitch, sir, you ask a heavy price.”
“Impossible, Gavrila Antonitch, to do otherwise; I speak as before God
Almighty; impossible.”
Silence followed.
I got up softly and looked through a crack in the partition. The fat
man was sitting with his back to me. Facing him sat a merchant, a man
about forty, lean and pale, who looked as if he had been rubbed with
oil. He was incessantly fingering his beard, and very rapidly blinking
and twitching his lips.
“Wonderful the young green crops this year, one may say,” he began
again; “I’ve been going about everywhere admiring them. All the way
from Voronezh they’ve come up wonderfully, first-class, one may say.”
“The crops are pretty fair, certainly,” answered the head clerk; “but
you know the saying, Gavrila Antonitch, autumn bids fair, but spring
may be foul.”
“That’s so, indeed, Nikolai Eremyitch; all is in God’s hands; it’s
the absolute truth what you’ve just remarked, sir.--But perhaps your
visitor’s awake now?”