'Ah! ah!' thought I; 'this is he, the head cashier.'
The head cashier began walking about the room. He really slunk rather than walked, and altogether resembled a cat. An old black frock-coat with very narrow skirts hung about his shoulders; he kept one hand in his bosom, while the other was for ever fumbling about his high, narrow horse-hair collar, and he turned his head with a certain effort. He wore noiseless kid boots, and trod very softly.
'The landowner, Yagushkin, was asking for you to-day,' added the clerk on duty.
'Hm, asking for me? What did he say?'
'Said he'd go to Tyutyurov this evening and would wait for you. 'I want to discuss some business with Vassily Nikolaevitch,' said he, but what the business was he didn't say; 'Vassily Nikolaevitch will know,' says he.'
'Hm!' replied the head cashier, and he went up to the window.
'Is Nikolai Eremyitch in the counting-house?' a loud voice was heard asking in the outer room, and a tall man, apparently angry, with an irregular but bold and expressive face, and rather clean in his dress, stepped over the threshold.
'Isn't he here?' he inquired, looking rapidly round.
'Nikolai Eremyitch is with the mistress,' responded the cashier. 'Tell me what you want, Pavel Andreitch; you can tell me…. What is it you want?'
'What do I want? You want to know what I want?' (The cashier gave a sickly nod.) 'I want to give him a lesson, the fat, greasy villain, the scoundrelly tell-tale!… I'll give him a tale to tell!'
Pavel flung himself into a chair.
'What are you saying, Pavel Andreitch! Calm yourself…. Aren't you ashamed? Don't forget whom you're talking about, Pavel Andreitch!' lisped the cashier.
'Forget whom I'm talking about? What do I care for his being made head- clerk? A fine person they've found to promote, there's no denying that! They've let the goat loose in the kitchen garden, you may say!'
'Hush, hush, Pavel Andreitch, hush! drop that … what rubbish are you talking?'
'So Master Fox is beginning to fawn? I will wait for him,' Pavel said with passion, and he struck a blow on the table. 'Ah, here he's coming!' he added with a look at the window; 'speak of the devil. With your kind permission!' (He, got up.)
Nikolai Eremyitch came into the counting-house. His face was shining with satisfaction, but he was rather taken aback at seeing Pavel Andreitch.
'Good day to you, Nikolai Eremyitch,' said Pavel in a significant tone, advancing deliberately to meet him.
The head-clerk made no reply. The face of the merchant showed itself in the doorway.
'What, won't you deign to answer me?' pursued Pavel. 'But no … no,' he added; 'that's not it; there's no getting anything by shouting and abuse. No, you'd better tell me in a friendly way, Nikolai Eremyitch; what do you persecute me for? what do you want to ruin me for? Come, speak, speak.'
'This is no fit place to come to an understanding with you,' the head- clerk answered in some agitation, 'and no fit time. But I must say I wonder at one thing: what makes you suppose I want to ruin you, or that I'm persecuting you? And if you come to that, how can I persecute you? You're not in my counting-house.'
'I should hope not,' answered Pavel; 'that would be the last straw! But why are you hum-bugging, Nikolai Eremyitch?… You understand me, you know.'
'No, I don't understand.'
'No, you do understand.'
'No, by God, I don't understand!'
'Swearing too! Well, tell us, since it's come to that: have you no fear of God? Why can't you let the poor girl live in peace? What do you want of her?'
'Whom are you talking of?' the fat man asked with feigned amazement.
'Ugh! doesn't know; what next? I'm talking of Tatyana. Have some fear of God—what do you want to revenge yourself for? You ought to be ashamed: a married man like you, with children as big as I am; it's a very different thing with me…. I mean marriage: I'm acting straight- forwardly.'
'How am I to blame in that, Pavel Andreitch? The mistress won't permit you to marry; it's her seignorial will! What have I to do with it?'
'Why, haven't you been plotting with that old hag, the housekeeper, eh? Haven't you been telling tales, eh? Tell me, aren't you bringing all sorts of stories up against the defenceless girl? I suppose it's not your doing that she's been degraded from laundrymaid to washing dishes in the scullery? And it's not your doing that she's beaten and dressed in sackcloth?… You ought to be ashamed, you ought to be ashamed—an old man like you! You know there's a paralytic stroke always hanging over you…. You will have to answer to God.'
'You're abusive, Pavel Andreitch, you're abusive…. You shan't have a chance to be insolent much longer.'
Pavel fired up.
'What? You dare to threaten me?' he said passionately. 'You think I'm afraid of you. No, my man, I'm not come to that! What have I to be afraid of?… I can make my bread everywhere. For you, now, it's another thing! It's only here you can live and tell tales, and filch….'
'Fancy the conceit of the fellow!' interrupted the clerk, who was also beginning to lose patience; 'an apothecary's assistant, simply an apothecary's assistant, a wretched leech; and listen to him—fie upon you! you're a high and mighty personage!'
'Yes, an apothecary's assistant, and except for this apothecary's assistant you'd have been rotting in the graveyard by now…. It was some devil drove me to cure him,' he added between his teeth.
'You cured me?… No, you tried to poison me; you dosed me with aloes,' the clerk put in.
'What was I to do if nothing but aloes had any effect on you?'
'The use of aloes is forbidden by the Board of Health,' pursued Nikolai. 'I'll lodge a complaint against you yet…. You tried to compass my death—that was what you did! But the Lord suffered it not.'
'Hush, now, that's enough, gentlemen,' the cashier was beginning….
'Stand off!' bawled the clerk. 'He tried to poison me! Do you understand that?'
'That's very likely…. Listen, Nikolai Eremyitch,' Pavel began in despairing accents. 'For the last time, I beg you…. You force me to it—can't stand it any longer. Let us alone, do you hear? or else, by God, it'll go ill with one or other of us—I mean with you!'
The fat man flew into a rage.
'I'm not afraid of you!' he shouted; 'do you hear, milksop? I got the better of your father; I broke his horns—a warning to you; take care!'
'Don't talk of my father, Nikolai Eremyitch.'
'Get away! who are you to give me orders?'
'I tell you, don't talk of him!'
'And I tell you, don't forget yourself…. However necessary you think yourself, if our lady has a choice between us, it's not you'll be kept, my dear! None's allowed to mutiny, mind!' (Pavel was shaking with fury.) 'As for the wench, Tatyana, she deserves … wait a bit, she'll get something worse!'
Pavel dashed forward with uplifted fists, and the clerk rolled heavily on the floor.
'Handcuff him, handcuff him,' groaned Nikolai Eremyitch….
I won't take upon myself to describe the end of this scene; I fear I have wounded the reader's delicate susceptibilities as it is.
The same day I returned home. A week later I heard that Madame Losnyakov had kept both Pavel and Nikolai in her service, but had sent away the girl Tatyana; it appeared she was not wanted.
XII
BIRYUK
I was coming back from hunting one evening alone in a racing droshky. I was six miles from home; my good trotting mare galloped bravely along the dusty road, pricking up her ears with an occasional snort; my weary dog
