'The time to come from! Busy time! I dare say, you're so eager to work for outsiders, and don't care to work for your mistress…. It's all the same!'
'The work's all the same, certainly, Nikolai Eremyitch … but….'
'Well?'
'The pay's … very….'
'What next! You've been spoiled; that's what it is. Get along with you!'
'And what's more, Nikolai Eremyitch, there'll be only a week's work, but they'll keep us hanging on a month. One time there's not material enough, and another time they'll send us into the garden to weed the path.'
'What of it? Our lady herself is pleased to give the order, so it's useless you and me talking about it.'
Sidor was silent; he began shifting from one leg to the other.
Nikolai Eremyitch put his head on one side, and began busily playing with the reckoning beads.
'Our … peasants … Nikolai Eremyitch….' Sidor began at last, hesitating over each word; 'sent word to your honour … there is … see here….' (He thrust his big hand into the bosom of his coat, and began to pull out a folded linen kerchief with a red border.)
'What are you thinking of? Goodness, idiot, are you out of your senses?' the fat man interposed hurriedly. 'Go on; go to my cottage,' he continued, almost shoving the bewildered peasant out; 'ask for my wife there … she'll give you some tea; I'll be round directly; go on. For goodness' sake, I tell you, go on.'
Sidor went away.
'Ugh!… what a bear!' the head clerk muttered after him, shaking his head, and set to work again on his reckoning frame.
Suddenly shouts of 'Kuprya! Kuprya! there's no knocking down Kuprya!' were heard in the street and on the steps, and a little later there came into the counting-house a small man of sickly appearance, with an extraordinarily long nose and large staring eyes, who carried himself with a great air of superiority. He was dressed in a ragged little old surtout, with a plush collar and diminutive buttons. He carried a bundle of firewood on his shoulder. Five house-serfs were crowding round him, all shouting, 'Kuprya! there's no suppressing Kuprya! Kuprya's been turned stoker; Kuprya's turned a stoker!' But the man in the coat with the plush collar did not pay the slightest attention to the uproar made by his companions, and was not in the least out of countenance. With measured steps he went up to the stove, flung down his load, straightened himself, took out of his tail-pocket a snuff- box, and with round eyes began helping himself to a pinch of dry trefoil mixed with ashes. At the entrance of this noisy party the fat man had at first knitted his brows and risen from his seat, but, seeing what it was, he smiled, and only told them not to shout. 'There's a sportsman,' said he, 'asleep in the next room.' 'What sort of sportsman?' two of them asked with one voice.
'A gentleman.'
'Ah!'
'Let them make a row,' said the man with the plush collar, waving his arms; 'what do I care, so long as they don't touch me? They've turned me into a stoker….'
'A stoker! a stoker!' the others put in gleefully.
'It's the mistress's orders,' he went on, with a shrug of his shoulders; 'but just you wait a bit … they'll turn you into swineherds yet. But I've been a tailor, and a good tailor too, learnt my trade in the best house in Moscow, and worked for generals … and nobody can take that from me. And what have you to boast of?… What? you're a pack of idlers, not worth your salt; that's what you are! Turn me off! I shan't die of hunger; I shall be all right; give me a passport. I'd send a good rent home, and satisfy the masters. But what would you do? You'd die off like flies, that's what you'd do!'
'That's a nice lie!' interposed a pock-marked lad with white eyelashes, a red cravat, and ragged elbows. 'You went off with a passport sharp enough, but never a halfpenny of rent did the masters see from you, and you never earned a farthing for yourself, you just managed to crawl home again and you've never had a new rag on you since.'
'Ah, well, what could one do! Konstantin Narkizitch,' responded Kuprya; 'a man falls in love—a man's ruined and done for! You go through what I have, Konstantin Narkizitch, before you blame me!'
'And you picked out a nice one to fall in love with!—a regular fright.'
'No, you must not say that, Konstantin Narkizitch.'
'Who's going to believe that? I've seen her, you know; I saw her with my own eyes last year in Moscow.'
'Last year she had gone off a little certainly,' observed Kuprya.
'No, gentlemen, I tell you what,' a tall, thin man, with a face spotted with pimples, a valet probably, from his frizzed and pomatumed head, remarked in a careless and disdainful voice; 'let Kuprya Afanasyitch sing us his song. Come on, now; begin, Kuprya Afanasyitch.
'Yes! yes!' put in the others. 'Hoorah for Alexandra! That's one for
Kuprya; 'pon my soul … Sing away, Kuprya!… You're a regular brick,
Alexandra!' (Serfs often use feminine terminations in referring to a
man as an expression of endearment.) 'Sing away!'
'This is not the place to sing,' Kuprya replied firmly; 'this is the manor counting-house.'
'And what's that to do with you? you've got your eye on a place as clerk, eh?' answered Konstantin with a coarse laugh. 'That's what it is!'
'Everything rests with the mistress,' observed the poor wretch.
'There, that's what he's got his eye on! a fellow like him! oo! oo! a!'
And they all roared; some rolled about with merriment. Louder than all laughed a lad of fifteen, probably the son of an aristocrat among the house-serfs; he wore a waistcoat with bronze buttons, and a cravat of lilac colour, and had already had time to fill out his waistcoat.
'Come tell us, confess now, Kuprya,' Nikolai Eremyitch began complacently, obviously tickled and diverted himself; 'is it bad being stoker? Is it an easy job, eh?'
'Nikolai Eremyitch,' began Kuprya, 'you're head-clerk among us now, certainly; there's no disputing that, no; but you know you have been in disgrace yourself, and you too have lived in a peasant's hut.'
'You'd better look out and not forget yourself in my place,' the fat man interrupted emphatically; 'people joke with a fool like you; you ought, you fool, to have sense, and be grateful to them for taking notice of a fool like you.'
'It was a slip of the tongue, Nikolai Eremyitch; I beg your pardon….'
'Yes, indeed, a slip of the tongue.'
The door opened and a little page ran in.
'Nikolai Eremyitch, mistress wants you.'
'Who's with the mistress?' he asked the page.
'Aksinya Nikitishna, and a merchant from Venev.'
'I'll be there this minute. And you, mates,' he continued in a persuasive voice, 'better move off out of here with the newly-appointed stoker; if the German pops in, he'll make a complaint for certain.'
The fat man smoothed his hair, coughed into his hand, which was almost completely hidden in his coat- sleeve, buttoned himself, and set off with rapid strides to see the lady of the manor. In a little while the whole party trailed out after him, together with Kuprya. My old friend, the clerk-on duty, was left alone. He set to work mending the pens, and dropped asleep in his chair. A few flies promptly seized the opportunity and settled on his mouth. A mosquito alighted on his forehead, and, stretching its legs out with a regular motion, slowly buried its sting into his flabby flesh. The same red head with whiskers showed itself again at the door, looked in, looked again, and then came into the office, together with the rather ugly body belonging to it.
'Fedyushka! eh, Fedyushka! always asleep,' said the head.
The clerk on duty opened his eyes and got up from his seat.
'Nikolai Eremyitch has gone to the mistress?'
'Yes, Vassily Nikolaevitch.'
