Demons

'Five kopecks' worth—five—five—five, un tout petit rien,' Stepan Trofimovich yessed her with a blissful little smile.

Ask a peasant to do something for you, and, if he can and wants to, he will serve you diligently and cordially; but ask him to fetch a little vodka—and his usual calm cordiality suddenly transforms into a sort of hasty, joyful obligingness, almost a family solicitude for you. Someone going to get vodka—though only you are going to drink it, not he, and he knows it beforehand—feels all the same, as it were, some part of your future gratification ... In no more than three or four minutes (the pot-house was two steps away), there stood on the table before Stepan Trofimovich a half-pint bottle and a large greenish glass.

'And all that for me!' he was greatly surprised. 'I've always had vodka, but I never knew five kopecks' worth was so much.'

He poured a glass, rose, and with a certain solemnity crossed the room to the other corner, where his companion on the sack had settled herself—the black-browed wench who had so pestered him with her questions on the way. The wench was abashed and started making excuses, but, having uttered all that decency prescribed, in the end she rose, drank politely, in three sips, as women do, and with a show of great suffering on her face handed the glass back and bowed to Stepan Trofimovich. He pompously returned her bow and went back to his table even with a look of pride.

All this happened in him by some sort of inspiration: he himself had not known even a second before that he would go and treat the wench.

'My knowledge of how to handle the people is perfect, perfect, I always told them so,' he thought smugly, pouring himself the remaining drink from the bottle; though it turned out to be less than a glass, the drink produced a vivifying warmth and even went to his head a little.

'Je suis malade tout a fait, mais ce n'est pas trop mauvais d'etre malade. ' ^[clxxiii]

'Would you like to buy?' a woman's soft voice came from beside him.

He looked up and, to his surprise, saw before him a lady—une dame et elle en avait l'air^[clxxiv]—now past thirty, with a very modest look, dressed town-fashion in a dark dress, and with a big gray kerchief on her shoulders. There was something very affable in her face, which Stepan Trofimovich immediately liked. She had just come back to the cottage, where she had left her things on a bench next to the place Stepan Trofimovich had taken—among them a briefcase at which, he remembered, he had glanced curiously as he entered, and a not very large oilcloth bag. From this same bag she took two handsomely bound books with crosses stamped on the covers and brought them to Stepan Trofimovich.

'Eh... mais je crois que c'est l'Evangile;^[clxxv] with the greatest pleasure... Ah, I understand now... Vous etes ce qu 'on appelle a book-hawker;^[clxxvi] I've read of it more than once... Fifty kopecks?'

'Thirty-five kopecks each,' the book-hawker answered.

'With the greatest pleasure. Je n 'ai rien contre l'Evangile, et^[clxxvii] .... I've long wanted to reread ...'

It flitted through him at that moment that he had not read the Gospel for at least thirty years, and had merely recalled a bit of it perhaps seven years ago only from reading Renan's book, La Vie de Jesus.^[199] As he had no change, he pulled out his four ten-rouble bills—all he had. The mistress undertook to break one, and only now did he take a better look and notice that a good many people had gathered in the cottage and had all been watching him for some time and seemed to be talking about him. They also discussed the fire in town, the owner of the cart with the cow most of all, since he had just come from there. They were talking about arson, about the Shpigulin men.

'He never said a word to me about the fire while he was driving me, and yet he talked about everything,' it somehow occurred to Stepan Trofimovich.

'Good sir, Stepan Trofimovich, is it you I see? I really never dreamed! ... Don't you recognize me?' exclaimed an elderly fellow, an old-time household serf by the looks, with a shaven beard and wearing a greatcoat with long, turned-back lapels.

Stepan Trofimovich was frightened at hearing his own name.

'Excuse me,' he muttered, 'I don't quite remember you...'

'No recollection! But I'm Anisim, Anisim Ivanov. I served the late Mr. Gaganov, and saw you, sir, many a time with Varvara Petrovna at the late Avdotya Sergevna's. I used to come to you from her with books, and twice brought Petersburg candy she sent to you...'

'Ah, yes, I remember you, Anisim,' Stepan Trofimovich smiled. 'So you live here?'

'Near Spasov, sir, by the V—— monastery, on Marfa Sergevna's estate, that's Avdotya Sergevna's sister, you may be pleased to remember her, she broke her leg jumping out of a carriage on her way to a ball. She now lives near the monastery, and me with her, sir; and now, if you please, I'm on my way to the provincial capital, to visit my family...'

'Ah, yes, yes.'

'I saw you and it made me glad, you were ever kind to me, sir,' Anisim was smiling rapturously. 'And where is it you're going like this, sir, it seems you're all alone... Seems you never used to go out alone, sir?'

Stepan Trofimovich looked at him timorously.

'It mightn't be to our Spasov, sir?' 'Yes, to Spasov. Il me semble que tout le monde va a Spassof . . .'^[clxxviii]

'It mightn't be to Fyodor Matveevich's? Won't he be glad of you. He had such respect for you in the old days; even now he often remembers you...'

'Yes, yes, to Fyodor Matveevich's.'

'Must be so, sir, must be so. You've got the peasants here marveling; they let on, sir, that they supposedly met