“ ’Tis deadly boresome!” thought Tikhon Ilitch, and immediately emitted a fierce yell at the old man, who was dragging along a bundle of grain-straw: “Why are you dragging that through the mud, you vile profligate?”
The old man flung the bundle of straw on the ground, looked him over, and all at once remarked quietly: “I’m listening to a vile profligate.”
Tikhon Ilitch cast a swift glance around, to see whether the lad had gone out, and, on convincing himself that he had, stepped up to the old man and with apparent calmness gave him such a thwack in the teeth that his head shook to and fro, seized him by the collar, and hustled him to the gate with all his might. “Begone!” he bawled, panting for breath and turning as white as chalk. “Don’t let me ever catch so much as the smell of you here in the future, you cursed tatterdemalion!”
The old man flew through the gate, and five minutes later, his bag on his shoulders and a stick in his hand, he was striding along the highway to his home in Ulianovka. Meanwhile Tikhon Ilitch, with shaking hands, had watered the stallion, had himself given the animal his portion of fresh oats—he had merely turned yesterday’s oats over with his muzzle and slobbered on them—and with long strides, through the liquid mess and the manure, had betaken himself to his cottage.
“Are things ready?” he inquired, opening the door a crack.
“There’s no hurry!” snarled the cook.
The cottage was beclouded with a warm, sweetish steam emanating from the pot where the potatoes were boiling. The cook, assisted by the lad, was energetically mashing them with a pestle, sprinkling in flour the while, and Tikhon Ilitch did not hear the reply because of the noise. Slamming the door, he went to drink his tea.
XVI
In the tiny anteroom he pushed aside with his foot a heavy, dirty horsecloth which lay across the threshold and went to one corner, where, over a stool surmounted by a pewter basin, a brass washstand was fastened, while on a small shelf lay a small, clammy piece of coconut-oil soap. As he rattled the water-tank, squinted, frowned, and puffed out his nostrils, he was not able to refrain from a malicious fugitive glance, and he remarked with peculiar distinctness: “H’m! No, who ever saw the like of the labourers? There’s no getting on with them at all nowadays! Say one word to such a fellow, and he’ll come back at you with ten words! Say a dozen to him, and he’ll fling you back a hundred! They’re gone dead crazy! Though it isn’t summer time, there’s plenty of you to be had, you devils! You’ll want something to eat for the winter, brother—you’ll come, you son of a dog, you’ll co‑ome, and bow lo‑o‑ow in entreaty!”
The towel, which served for the master as well as for the lodger-travellers, had been hanging beside the water-tank since St. Michael’s Day. It was so filthy that Tikhon Ilitch gritted his teeth when he looked at it. “Okh!” he ejaculated, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “Ugh! Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven!” And hurling the towel on the floor, he wiped himself on the embroidered skirt of his shirt, which flapped outside his waistcoat.
Two doors opened from the anteroom. One, on the left, led to the room assigned to travellers, which was long, half-dark, and with tiny windows that looked out on the barn; in it stood two large divans, hard as stone, covered with black oilcloth, filled more than full with living and with crushed and dried bugs, while on the partition-wall hung the portrait of some general with fierce beaver-like side whiskers. This portrait was bordered with small portraits of heroes of the Russo-Turkish war, and underneath was an inscription: “Long will our children and our dear Slavic brethren remember the glorious deeds; how our father, the courageous Suleiman Pasha, crushed and conquered the treacherous foemen and marched with his lads along such crags as only clouds and the feathered Kings of the air were wont to scale.” The second door led into the master’s room. There, on the right alongside the door, glittered the glass of a cupboard, on the left a stove-bench gleamed white; the stove had cracked at some past day, and over the white it had been smeared with clay, which had imparted to it the outline of something resembling a thin, dislocated man, which seriously displeased Tikhon Ilitch. Beyond the stove rose aloft a double bed: above the bed was nailed up a rug of dull-green and brick-coloured wool, bearing the image of a tiger with whiskers and ears which stood erect like those of a cat. Opposite the door, against the wall, stood a chest of drawers covered with a knitted tablecloth, and on the tablecloth Nastasya Petrovna’s wedding-casket. In the casket lay contracts with the labourers, phials containing medicines long since spoiled with age, matches.
“Wanted in the shop!” screamed the cook, opening the door a crack.
“There’s no hurry—the goats in the bazaar can wait!” replied Tikhon
