“No, sir. We only took one apple, sir, and we found it on the ground.…”
“You don’t know how to read, but you do know how to steal, eh? Well, that’s fine! You’re not burdened down with the weight of learning. When did you start stealing?”
“I wasn’t stealing, sir.”
“Then what about your pretty little sweetheart?” Karpushka interrupted his master, and turned to the boy. “Why is she looking so down-in-the-mouth? Is it because you are not showing her enough love?”
“Shut up, Karpushka!” Trifon Semyonovich exclaimed. “Gregory, I want you to tell me a story.”
Gregory coughed and gave an odd smile.
“I don’t know any stories, sir. I don’t need your apples either. When I want apples, I’ll go and buy them!”
“It’s a great joy to me that you’re rich, my boy. But still—I want you to tell me a story. I’ll listen, and Karpushka will listen. Your little sweetheart will listen, too. Don’t be shy. Be brave. ‘Brave is the heart of a thief.’ Isn’t that true, my dear fellow?”
Trifon Semyonovich let his malicious eyes rest on the boy, who had fallen into the trap. On the boy’s forehead sweat was dripping down.
“Sir, sir—” Karpushka interrupted in his unpleasantly thin tenor voice. “Why don’t you let him sing a song instead? He’s too much of a silly fool to tell us a story!”
“Shut up, Karpushka. He has to tell us a story first. Now, my boy, do as you are told!”
“I don’t know any stories.”
“What do you mean—you don’t know any stories! You know how to steal! How does the Eighth Commandment go?”
“Why are you asking me, sir? How should I know! God is my witness, we only took one apple, and we took it off the ground.”
“Tell me a story!”
Karpushka began to gather nettles. The boy knew very well why the nettles were being gathered. Like all his tribe, Trifon Semyonovich had beautiful ways of taking the law into his own hands. If he found thieves, he shut them up in a cellar for twenty-four hours, or flogged them with nettles, or sent them away after stripping them stark naked. Is this news for you? There are people with whom such behavior is as stale and commonplace as a farm cart. Gregory gazed at the nettles out of the corner of his eyes, hesitated, coughed a little, and instead of telling a story he began to give vent to completely nonsensical statements. Groaning, sweating, choking, blowing his nose ever so often, he began to make up some sort of tale about the days when the Russian knights cut down the evil ogres and married beautiful maidens. Trifon Semyonovich stood there listening, never taking his eyes from the storyteller.
“That’s enough!” he said, when the boy finally lost the thread of his story and uttered driveling nonsense. “You’re good at telling tales, but you’re better at stealing. And now, my pretty one—” He turned to the girl. “Say the Lord’s Prayer.”
The pretty one blushed and recited the Lord’s Prayer in a muffled voice, scarcely breathing.
“Now recite the Eighth Commandment.”
“You think we took a lot of apples, don’t you?” the boy said, throwing up his arms in despair. “I’ll swear it on the cross, if you don’t believe me.”
“It’s a sad thing, my dears, that you don’t know the Eighth Commandment. I’ll have to give you a lesson. Did he teach you to steal, my beauty? Why so silent, my little cherub? You have to answer! Speak! Keep your mouth shut —that means you agree. And now, my little beauty, I’ll have to ask you to give your sweetheart a beating because he taught you to steal!”
“I won’t!” the girl whispered.
“Oh, just beat him a little bit! He’s a fool, and has to be taught a lesson! Give him a beating, my dear. You don’t want to? Then I’ll have to order Karpushka and Matvey to give you a taste of the nettles.… You still don’t want to?”
“No, I don’t!”
“Karpushka, come here!”
At that moment the girl flew headlong at the boy and gave him a box on the ears. The boy smiled stupidly, while tears came to his eyes.
“Wonderful, my dear! Now pull his hair out! Go at it, my darling! You don’t want to? Karpushka, come here!”
The girl clutched at her sweetheart’s hair.
“Don’t stand still! Make it hurt! Pull harder!”
The girl really began to pull at her sweetheart’s hair. Karpushka was in ecstasies, bubbling over with good humor and roaring away.
“That’s enough now!” Trifon Semyonovich said. “Thank you, my dear, for having given wickedness its due. And now”—he turned to the boy—“you must teach your girl a lesson. She gave it to you, and now you must give it to her!”
“Dear God, how could you think of such a thing? Why must I beat her?”
“Why? Well, she gave you a beating, didn’t she? Now beat her! It will do her a lot of good! You don’t want to? Well, it won’t help you! Karpushka, call for Matvey!”
The boy spat on the ground, hawked, grabbed his sweetheart’s hair in his fist, and began to give wickedness its due. As he was punishing her, without realizing it he was carried away, and in his transports of joy he forgot that he
