red; under his overhanging brows could be seen little sharp points of light…. There was no doubt about it; it was he, it was Baburin, who had uttered the word 'Madam.'
My grandmother too looked round, and turned her eyeglass from Yermil to Baburin.
'Who is that … speaking?' she articulated slowly … through her nose.
Baburin moved slightly forward.
'Madam,' he began, 'it is I…. I venture … I imagine … I make bold to submit to your honour that you are making a mistake in acting as … as you are pleased to act at this moment.'
'That is?' my grandmother said, in the same voice, not removing her eyeglass.
'I take the liberty …' Baburin went on distinctly, uttering every word though with obvious effort—'I am referring to the case of this lad who is being sent away to a settlement … for no fault of his. Such arrangements, I venture to submit, lead to dissatisfaction, and to other—which God forbid!—consequences, and are nothing else than a transgression of the powers allowed to seignorial proprietors.'
'And where have you studied, pray?' my grandmother asked after a short silence, and she dropped her eyeglass.
Baburin was disconcerted. 'What are you pleased to wish?' he muttered.
'I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.'
'I … my education …' Baburin was beginning.
My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 'It seems,' she interrupted, 'that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of absolutely no consequence to me—among my subjects I am sovereign, and answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having people criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always lived till you came, and so I shall live after you've gone. You do not suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,' my grandmother turned to the steward, 'pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time to-day! D'you hear? Don't put me into a passion. And the other too … the fool that lives with him—to be sent off too. What's Yermilka waiting for?' she added, looking out of window, 'I have seen him. What more does he want?' My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the direction of the window, as though to drive away an importunate fly. Then she sat down in a low chair, and turning towards us, gave the order grimly: 'Everybody present to leave the room!'
We all withdrew—all, except the day page, to whom my grandmother's words did not apply, because he was nobody.
My grandmother's decree was carried out to the letter. Before dinner, both Baburin and my friend Punin were driving away from the place. I will not undertake to describe my grief, my genuine, truly childish despair. It was so strong that it stifled even the feeling of awe-stricken admiration inspired by the bold action of the republican Baburin. After the conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to his room and began packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one look, though I was the whole time hanging about him, or rather, in reality, about Punin. The latter was utterly distraught, and he too said nothing; but he was continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his eyes … always the same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did not venture to criticise his 'benefactor'—Paramon Semyonitch could not make a mistake,—but great was his distress and dejection. Punin and I made an effort to read something out of the
When he had taken his seat in the carriage Baburin at last turned to me, and with a slight softening of the accustomed sternness of his face, observed: 'It's a lesson for you, young gentleman; remember this incident, and when you grow up, try to put an end to such acts of injustice. Your heart is good, your nature is not yet corrupted…. Mind, be careful; things can't go on like this!' Through my tears, which streamed copiously over my nose, my lips, and my chin, I faltered out that I would … I would remember, that I promised … I would do … I would be sure … quite sure …
But at this point, Punin, whom I had before this embraced twenty times (my cheeks were burning from the contact with his unshaven beard, and I was odoriferous of the smell that always clung to him)—at this point a sudden frenzy came over Punin. He jumped up on the seat of the cart, flung both hands up in the air, and began in a voice of thunder (where he got it from!) to declaim the well-known paraphrase of the Psalm of David by Derzhavin,—a poet for this occasion—not a courtier.
'God the All-powerful doth arise
And judgeth in the congregation of the mighty! …
How long, how long, saith the Lord,
Will ye have mercy on the wicked?
'Ye have to keep the laws….''
'Sit down!' Baburin said to him.
Punin sat down, but continued:
'To save the guiltless and needy,
To give shelter to the afflicted,
To defend the weak from the oppressors.'
Punin at the word 'oppressors' pointed to the seignorial abode, and then poked the driver in the back.
'To deliver the poor out of bondage!
They know not! neither will they understand! …'
Nikolai Antonov running out of the seignorial abode, shouted at the top of his voice to the coachman: 'Get away with you! owl! go along! don't stay lingering here!' and the cart rolled away. Only in the distance could still be heard:
'Arise, O Lord God of righteousness! …
Come forth to judge the unjust—
And be Thou the only Ruler of the nations!'
'What a clown!' remarked Nikolai Antonov.
'He didn't get enough of the rod in his young days,' observed the deacon, appearing on the steps. He had come to inquire what hour it would please the mistress to fix for the night service.
The same day, learning that Yermil was still in the village, and would not till early next morning be despatched to the town for the execution of certain legal formalities, which were intended to check the arbitrary proceedings of the landowners, but served only as a source of additional revenue to the functionaries in superintendence of them, I sought him out, and, for lack of money of my own, handed him a bundle, in which I had tied up two pocket-handkerchiefs, a shabby pair of slippers, a comb, an old night-gown, and a perfectly new silk cravat. Yermil, whom I had to wake up—he was lying on a heap of straw in the back yard, near the cart—Yermil took my present rather indifferently, with some hesitation in fact, did not thank me, promptly poked his head into the straw and fell asleep again. I went home somewhat disappointed. I had imagined that he would be astonished and overjoyed at my visit, would see in it a pledge of my magnanimous intentions for the future—and instead of that …
