'It's not for the sake of the salary. . . . It's a government post, any way . . .'
'H'm. . . . It strikes me that within a month you will be sick of the job and you will give it up, and meanwhile there are candidates for whom it would be a career for life. There are poor men for whom . . .'
'I shan't get sick of it, your Excellency,' Polzuhin interposed.
'Honour bright, I will do my best!'
It was too much for the director.
'Tell me,' he said, smiling contemptuously, 'why was it you didn't apply to me direct but thought fitting instead to trouble ladies as a preliminary?'
'I didn't know that it would be disagreeable to you,' Polzuhin answered, and he was embarrassed. 'But, your Excellency, if you attach no significance to letters of recommendation, I can give you a testimonial. . . .'
He drew from his pocket a letter and handed it to the director. At the bottom of the testimonial, which was written in official language and handwriting, stood the signature of the Governor. Everything pointed to the Governor's having signed it unread, simply to get rid of some importunate lady.
'There's nothing for it, I bow to his authority. . . I obey . . .' said the director, reading the testimonial, and he heaved a sigh.
'Send in your application to-morrow. . . . There's nothing to be done. . . .'
And when Polzuhin had gone out, the director abandoned himself to a feeling of repulsion.
'Sneak!' he hissed, pacing from one corner to the other. 'He has got what he wanted, one way or the other, the good-for-nothing toady! Making up to the ladies! Reptile! Creature!'
The director spat loudly in the direction of the door by which
Polzuhin had departed, and was immediately overcome with embarrassment,
for at that moment a lady, the wife of the Superintendent of the
Provincial Treasury, walked in at the door.
'I've come for a tiny minute . . . a tiny minute. . .' began the lady. 'Sit down, friend, and listen to me attentively. . . . Well, I've been told you have a post vacant. . . . To-day or to-morrow you will receive a visit from a young man called Polzuhin. . . .'
The lady chattered on, while the director gazed at her with lustreless, stupefied eyes like a man on the point of fainting, gazed and smiled from politeness.
And the next day when Vremensky came to his office it was a long time before the director could bring himself to tell the truth. He hesitated, was incoherent, and could not think how to begin or what to say. He wanted to apologize to the schoolmaster, to tell him the whole truth, but his tongue halted like a drunkard's, his ears burned, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with vexation and resentment that he should have to play such an absurd part—in his own office, before his subordinate. He suddenly brought his fist down on the table, leaped up, and shouted angrily:
'I have no post for you! I have not, and that's all about it! Leave me in peace! Don't worry me! Be so good as to leave me alone!'
And he walked out of the office.
A PECULIAR MAN
BETWEEN twelve and one at night a tall gentleman, wearing a top-hat and a coat with a hood, stops before the door of Marya Petrovna Koshkin, a midwife and an old maid. Neither face nor hand can be distinguished in the autumn darkness, but in the very manner of his coughing and the ringing of the bell a certain solidity, positiveness, and even impressiveness can be discerned. After the third ring the door opens and Marya Petrovna herself appears. She has a man's overcoat flung on over her white petticoat. The little lamp with the green shade which she holds in her hand throws a greenish light over her sleepy, freckled face, her scraggy neck, and the lank, reddish hair that strays from under her cap.
'Can I see the midwife?' asks the gentleman.
'I am the midwife. What do you want?'
The gentleman walks into the entry and Marya Petrovna sees facing her a tall, well-made man, no longer young, but with a handsome, severe face and bushy whiskers.
'I am a collegiate assessor, my name is Kiryakov,' he says. 'I came to fetch you to my wife. Only please make haste.'
'Very good . . .' the midwife assents. 'I'll dress at once, and I must trouble you to wait for me in the parlour.'
Kiryakov takes off his overcoat and goes into the parlour. The greenish light of the lamp lies sparsely on the cheap furniture in patched white covers, on the pitiful flowers and the posts on which ivy is trained. . . . There is a smell of geranium and carbolic. The little clock on the wall ticks timidly, as though abashed at the presence of a strange man.
'I am ready,' says Marya Petrovna, coming into the room five minutes later, dressed, washed, and ready for action. 'Let us go.'
'Yes, you must make haste,' says Kiryakov. 'And, by the way, it is not out of place to enquire—what do you ask for your services?'
'I really don't know . . .' says Marya Petrovna with an embarrassed smile. 'As much as you will give.'
'No, I don't like that,' says Kiryakov, looking coldly and steadily at the midwife. 'An arrangement beforehand is best. I don't want to take advantage of you and you don't want to take advantage of me. To avoid misunderstandings it is more sensible for us to make an arrangement beforehand.'
'I really don't know—there is no fixed price.'
'I work myself and am accustomed to respect the work of others. I don't like injustice. It will be equally unpleasant to me if I pay you too little, or if you demand from me too much, and so I insist on your naming your charge.'
'Well, there are such different charges.'
'H'm. In view of your hesitation, which I fail to understand, I am constrained to fix the sum myself. I can give you two roubles.'
'Good gracious! . . . Upon my word! . . .' says Marya Petrovna, turning crimson and stepping back. 'I am really ashamed. Rather than take two roubles I will come for nothing . . . . Five roubles, if you like.'
'Two roubles, not a kopeck more. I don't want to take advantage of you, but I do not intend to be overcharged.'
'As you please, but I am not coming for two roubles. . . .'
'But by law you have not the right to refuse.'
'Very well, I will come for nothing.'
'I won't have you for nothing. All work ought to receive remuneration.
I work myself and I understand that. . . .'
'I won't come for two roubles,' Marya Petrovna answers mildly. 'I'll come for nothing if you like.'
'In that case I regret that I have troubled you for nothing. . . .
I have the honour to wish you good-bye.'
'Well, you are a man!' says Marya Petrovna, seeing him into the entry. 'I will come for three roubles if that will satisfy you.'
Kiryakov frowns and ponders for two full minutes, looking with concentration on the floor, then he says resolutely, 'No,' and goes out into the street. The astonished and disconcerted midwife fastens the door after him
