Chương Chương 3 · 第3章

In the dusk of evening a big house of one storey, with a rusty iron

roof and with dark windows, came into sight. This house was called

a posting-inn, though it had nothing like a stableyard, and it stood

in the middle of the steppe, with no kind of enclosure round it. A

little to one side of it a wretched little cherry orchard shut in

by a hurdle fence made a dark patch, and under the windows stood

sleepy sunflowers drooping their heavy heads. From the orchard came

the clatter of a little toy windmill, set there to frighten away

hares by the rattle. Nothing more could be seen near the house, and

nothing could be heard but the steppe. The chaise had scarcely

stopped at the porch with an awning over it, when from the house

there came the sound of cheerful voices, one a man's, another a

woman's; there was the creak of a swing-door, and in a flash a tall

gaunt figure, swinging its arms and fluttering its coat, was standing

by the chaise. This was the innkeeper, Moisey Moisevitch, a man no

longer young, with a very pale face and a handsome beard as black

as charcoal. He was wearing a threadbare black coat, which hung

flapping on his narrow shoulders as though on a hatstand, and

fluttered its skirts like wings every time Moisey Moisevitch flung

up his hands in delight or horror. Besides his coat the innkeeper

was wearing full white trousers, not stuck into his boots, and a

velvet waistcoat with brown flowers on it that looked like gigantic

bugs.

Moisey Moisevitch was at first dumb with excess of feeling on

recognizing the travellers, then he clasped his hands and uttered

a moan. His coat swung its skirts, his back bent into a bow, and

his pale face twisted into a smile that suggested that to see the

chaise was not merely a pleasure to him, but actually a joy so sweet

as to be painful.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" he began in a thin sing-song voice, breathless,

fussing about and preventing the travellers from getting out of the

chaise by his antics. "What a happy day for me! Oh, what am I to

do now? Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! What a pretty little

gentleman sitting on the box, God strike me dead! Oh, my goodness!

why am I standing here instead of asking the visitors indoors?

Please walk in, I humbly beg you. . . . You are kindly welcome!

Give me all your things. . . . Oh, my goodness me!"

Moisey Moisevitch, who was rummaging in the chaise and assisting

the travellers to alight, suddenly turned back and shouted in a

voice as frantic and choking as though he were drowning and calling

for help:

"Solomon! Solomon!"

"Solomon! Solomon!" a woman's voice repeated indoors.

The swing-door creaked, and in the doorway appeared a rather short

young Jew with a big beak-like nose, with a bald patch surrounded

by rough red curly hair; he was dressed in a short and very shabby

reefer jacket, with rounded lappets and short sleeves, and in short

serge trousers, so that he looked skimpy and short-tailed like an

unfledged bird. This was Solomon, the brother of Moisey Moisevitch.

He went up to the chaise, smiling rather queerly, and did not speak

or greet the travellers.

"Ivan Ivanitch and Father Christopher have come," said Moisey

Moisevitch in a tone as though he were afraid his brother would not

believe him. "Dear, dear! What a surprise! Such honoured guests to

have come us so suddenly! Come, take their things, Solomon. Walk

in, honoured guests."

A little later Kuzmitchov, Father Christopher, and Yegorushka were

sitting in a big gloomy empty room at an old oak table. The table

was almost in solitude, for, except a wide sofa covered with torn

American leather and three chairs, there was no other furniture in

the room. And, indeed, not everybody would have given the chairs

that name. They were a pitiful semblance of furniture, covered with

American leather that had seen its best days, and with backs bent

backwards at an unnaturally acute angle, so that they looked like

children's sledges. It was hard to imagine what had been the unknown

carpenter's object in bending the chairbacks so mercilessly, and

one was tempted to imagine that it was not the carpenter's fault,

but that some athletic visitor had bent the chairs like this as a

feat, then had tried to bend them back again and had made them

worse. The room looked gloomy, the walls were grey, the ceilings

and the cornices were grimy; on the floor were chinks and yawning

holes that were hard to account for (one might have fancied they

were made by the heel of the same athlete), and it seemed as though

the room would still have been dark if a dozen lamps had hung in

it. There was nothing approaching an ornament on the walls or the

windows. On one wall, however, there hung a list of regulations of

some sort under a two-headed eagle in a grey wooden frame, and on

another wall in the same sort of frame an engraving with the

inscription, "The Indifference of Man." What it was to which men

were indifferent it was impossible to make out, as the engraving

was very dingy with age and was extensively flyblown. There was a

smell of something decayed and sour in the room.

As he led the visitors into the room, Moisey Moisevitch went on

wriggling, gesticulating, shrugging and uttering joyful exclamations;

he considered these antics necessary in order to seem polite and

agreeable.

"When did our waggons go by?" Kuzmitchov asked.

"One party went by early this morning, and the other, Ivan Ivanitch,

put up here for dinner and went on towards evening."

"Ah! . . . Has Varlamov been by or not?"

"No, Ivan Ivanitch. His clerk, Grigory Yegoritch, went by yesterday

morning and said that he had to be to-day at the Molokans' farm."

"Good! so we will go after the waggons directly and then on to the

Molokans'."

"Mercy on us, Ivan Ivanitch!" Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror,

flinging up his hands. "Where are you going for the night? You will

have a nice little supper and stay the night, and to-morrow morning,

please God, you can go on and overtake anyone you like."

"There is no time for that. . . . Excuse me, Moisey Moisevitch,

another time; but now I must make haste. We'll stay a quarter of

an hour and then go on; we can stay the night at the Molokans'."

"A quarter of an hour!" squealed Moisey Moisevitch. "Have you no

fear of God, Ivan Ivanitch? You will compel me to hide your caps

and lock the door! You must have a cup of tea and a snack of

something, anyway."

"We have no time for tea," said Kuzmitchov.

Moisey Moisevitch bent his head on one side, crooked his knees, and

put his open hands before him as though warding off a blow, while

with a smile of agonized sweetness he began imploring:

"Ivan Ivanitch! Father Christopher! Do be so good as to take a cup

of tea with me. Surely I am not such a bad man that you can't even

drink tea in my house? Ivan Ivanitch!"

"Well, we may just as well have a cup of tea," said Father Christopher,

with a sympathetic smile; "that won't keep us long."

"Very well," Kuzmitchov assented.

Moisey Moisevitch, in a fluster uttered an exclamation of joy, and

shrugging as though he had just stepped out of cold weather into

warm, ran to the door and cried in the same frantic voice in which

he had called Solomon:

"Rosa! Rosa! Bring the samovar!"

A minute later the door opened, and Solomon came into the room

carrying a large tray in his hands. Setting the tray on the table,

he looked away sarcastically with the same queer smile as before.

Now, by the light of the lamp, it was possible to see his smile

distinctly; it was very complex, and expressed a variety of emotions,

but the predominant element in it was undisguised contempt. He

seemed to be thinking of something ludicrous and silly, to be feeling

contempt and dislike, to be pleased at something and waiting for

the favourable moment to turn something into ridicule and to burst

into laughter. His long nose, his thick lips, and his sly prominent

eyes seemed tense with the desire to laugh. Looking at his face,

Kuzmitchov smiled ironically and asked:

"Solomon, why did you not come to our fair at N. this summer, and

act some Jewish scenes?"

Two years before, as Yegorushka remembered very well, at one of the

booths at the fair at N., Solomon had performed some scenes of

Jewish life, and his acting had been a great success. The allusion

to this made no impression whatever upon Solomon. Making no answer,

he went out and returned a little later with the samovar.

When he had done what he had to do at the table he moved a little

aside, and, folding his arms over his chest and thrusting out one

leg, fixed his sarcastic eyes on Father Christopher. There was

something defiant, haughty, and contemptuous in his attitude, and

at the same time it was comic and pitiful in the extreme, because

the more impressive his attitude the more vividly it showed up his

short trousers, his bobtail coat, his caricature of a nose, and his

bird-like plucked-looking little figure.

Moisey Moisevitch brought a footstool from the other room and sat

down a little way from the table.

"I wish you a good appetite! Tea and sugar!" he began, trying to

entertain his visitors. "I hope you will enjoy it. Such rare guests,

such rare ones; it is years since I last saw Father Christopher.

And will no one tell me who is this nice little gentleman?" he

asked, looking tenderly at Yegorushka.

"He is the son of my sister, Olga Ivanovna," answered Kuzmitchov.

"And where is he going?"

"To school. We are taking him to a high school."

In his politeness, Moisey Moisevitch put on a look of wonder and

wagged his head expressively.

"Ah, that is a fine thing," he said, shaking his finger at the

samovar. "That's a fine thing. You will come back from the high

school such a gentleman that we shall all take off our hats to you.

You will be wealthy and wise and so grand that your mamma will be

delighted. Oh, that's a fine thing!"

He paused a little, stroked his knees, and began again in a jocose

and deferential tone.

"You must excuse me, Father Christopher, but I am thinking of writing

to the bishop to tell him you are robbing the merchants of their

living. I shall take a sheet of stamped paper and write that I

suppose Father Christopher is short of pence, as he has taken up

with trade and begun selling wool."

"H'm, yes . . . it's a queer notion in my old age," said Father

Christopher, and he laughed. "I have turned from priest to merchant,

brother. I ought to be at home now saying my prayers, instead of

galloping about the country like a Pharaoh in his chariot. . . .

Vanity!"

"But it will mean a lot of pence!"

"Oh, I dare say! More kicks than halfpence, and serve me right. The

wool's not mine, but my son-in-law Mikhail's!"

"Why doesn't he go himself?"

"Why, because . . . His mother's milk is scarcely dry upon his lips.

He can buy wool all right, but when it comes to selling, he has no

sense; he is young yet. He has wasted all his money; he wanted to

grow rich and cut a dash, but he tried here and there, and no one

would give him his price. And so the lad went on like that for a

year, and then he came to me and said, 'Daddy, you sell the wool

for me; be kind and do it! I am no good at the business!' And that

is true enough. As soon as there is anything wrong then it's 'Daddy,'

but till then they could get on without their dad. When he was

buying he did not consult me, but now when he is in difficulties

it's Daddy's turn. And what does his dad know about it? If it were

not for Ivan Ivanitch, his dad could do nothing. I have a lot of

worry with them."

"Yes; one has a lot of worry with one's children, I can tell you

that," sighed Moisey Moisevitch. "I have six of my own. One needs

schooling, another needs doctoring, and a third needs nursing, and

when they grow up they are more trouble still. It is not only

nowadays, it was the same in Holy Scripture. When Jacob had little

children he wept, and when they grew up he wept still more bitterly."

"H'm, yes . . ." Father Christopher assented pensively, looking at

his glass. "I have no cause myself to rail against the Lord. I have

lived to the end of my days as any man might be thankful to live.

. . . I have married my daughters to good men, my sons I have set

up in life, and now I am free; I have done my work and can go where

I like. I live in peace with my wife. I eat and drink and sleep and

rejoice in my grandchildren, and say my prayers and want nothing

more. I live on the fat of the land, and don't need to curry favour

with anyone. I have never had any trouble from childhood, and now

suppose the Tsar were to ask me, 'What do you need? What would you

like?' why, I don't need anything. I have everything I want and

everything to be thankful for. In the whole town there is no happier

man than I am. My only trouble is I have so many sins, but there

--only God is without sin. That's right, isn't it?"

"No doubt it is."

"I have no teeth, of course; my poor old back aches; there is one

thing and another, . . . asthma and that sort of thing. . . . I

ache. . . . The flesh is weak, but then think of my age! I am in

the eighties! One can't go on for ever; one mustn't outstay one's

welcome."

Father Christopher suddenly thought of something, spluttered into

his glass and choked with laughter. Moisey Moisevitch laughed, too,

from politeness, and he, too, cleared his throat.

"So funny!" said Father Christopher, and he waved his hand. "My

eldest son Gavrila came to pay me a visit. He is in the medical

line, and is a district doctor in the province of Tchernigov. . . .

'Very well . . .' I said to him, 'here I have asthma and one thing

and another. . . . You are a doctor; cure your father!' He undressed

me on the spot, tapped me, listened, and all sorts of tricks, . . .

kneaded my stomach, and then he said, 'Dad, you ought to be treated

with compressed air.'" Father Christopher laughed convulsively,

till the tears came into his eyes, and got up.

"And I said to him, 'God bless your compressed air!'" he brought

out through his laughter, waving both hands. "God bless your

compressed air!"

Moisey Moisevitch got up, too, and with his hands on his stomach,

went off into shrill laughter like the yap of a lap-dog.

"God bless the compressed air!" repeated Father Christopher, laughing.

Moisey Moisevitch laughed two notes higher and so violently that

he could hardly stand on his feet.

"Oh dear!" he moaned through his laughter. "Let me get my breath

. . . . You'll be the death of me."

He laughed and talked, though at the same time he was casting

timorous and suspicious looks at Solomon. The latter was standing

in the same attitude and still smiling. To judge from his eyes and

his smile, his contempt and hatred were genuine, but that was so

out of keeping with his plucked-looking figure that it seemed to

Yegorushka as though he were putting on his defiant attitude and

biting sarcastic smile to play the fool for the entertainment of

their honoured guests.

After drinking six glasses of tea in silence, Kuzmitchov cleared a

space before him on the table, took his bag, the one which he kept

under his head when he slept under the chaise, untied the string

and shook it. Rolls of paper notes were scattered out of the bag

on the table.

"While we have the time, Father Christopher, let us reckon up,"

said Kuzmitchov.

Moisey Moisevitch was embarrassed at the sight of the money. He got

up, and, as a man of delicate feeling unwilling to pry into other

people's secrets, he went out of the room on tiptoe, swaying his

arms. Solomon remained where he was.

"How many are there in the rolls of roubles?" Father Christopher

began.

"The rouble notes are done up in fifties, . . . the three-rouble

notes in nineties, the twenty-five and hundred roubles in thousands.

You count out seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov, and I will

count out for Gusevitch. And mind you don't make a mistake. . ."

Yegorushka had never in his life seen so much money as was lying

on the table before him. There must have been a great deal of money,

for the roll of seven thousand eight hundred, which Father Christopher

put aside for Varlamov, seemed very small compared with the whole

heap. At any other time such a mass of money would have impressed

Yegorushka, and would have moved him to reflect how many cracknels,

buns and poppy-cakes could be bought for that money. Now he looked

at it listlessly, only conscious of the disgusting smell of kerosene

and rotten apples that came from the heap of notes. He was exhausted

by the jolting ride in the chaise, tired out and sleepy. His head

was heavy, his eyes would hardly keep open and his thoughts were

tangled like threads. If it had been possible he would have been

relieved to lay his head on the table, so as not to see the lamp

and the fingers moving over the heaps of notes, and to have let his

tired sleepy thoughts go still more at random. When he tried to

keep awake, the light of the lamp, the cups and the fingers grew

double, the samovar heaved and the smell of rotten apples seemed

even more acrid and disgusting.

"Ah, money, money!" sighed Father Christopher, smiling. "You bring

trouble! Now I expect my Mihailo is asleep and dreaming that I am

going to bring him a heap of money like this."

"Your Mihailo Timofevitch is a man who doesn't understand business,"

said Kuzmitchov in an undertone; "he undertakes what isn't his work,

but you understand and can judge. You had better hand over your

wool to me, as I have said already, and I would give you half a

rouble above my own price--yes, I would, simply out of regard for

you. . . ."

"No, Ivan Ivanitch." Father Christopher sighed. "I thank you for

your kindness. . . . Of course, if it were for me to decide, I

shouldn't think twice about it; but as it is, the wool is not mine,

as you know. . . ."

Moisey Moisevitch came in on tiptoe. Trying from delicacy not to

look at the heaps of money, he stole up to Yegorushka and pulled

at his shirt from behind.

"Come along, little gentleman," he said in an undertone, "come and

see the little bear I can show you! Such a queer, cross little bear.

Oo-oo!"

The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after Moisey

Moisevitch to see the bear. He went into a little room, where,

before he saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell

of something sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than

in the big room and probably spread from this room all over the

house. One part of the room was occupied by a big bed, covered with

a greasy quilt and another by a chest of drawers and heaps of rags

of all kinds from a woman's stiff petticoat to children's little

breeches and braces. A tallow candle stood on the chest of drawers.

Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a big fat Jewess with

her hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs

on it; she turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the

bed and the chest of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though

she had toothache. On seeing Yegorushka, she made a doleful,

woe-begone face, heaved a long drawn-out sigh, and before he had

time to look round, put to his lips a slice of bread smeared with

honey.

"Eat it, dearie, eat it!" she said. "You are here without your

mamma, and no one to look after you. Eat it up."

Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he

had every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey,

which was mixed with wax and bees' wings. He ate while Moisey

Moisevitch and the Jewess looked at him and sighed.

"Where are you going, dearie?" asked the Jewess.

"To school," answered Yegorushka.

"And how many brothers and sisters have you got?"

"I am the only one; there are no others."

"O-oh!" sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes upward. "Poor mamma,

poor mamma! How she will weep and miss you! We are going to send

our Nahum to school in a year. O-oh!"

"Ah, Nahum, Nahum!" sighed Moisey Moisevitch, and the skin of his

pale face twitched nervously. "And he is so delicate."

The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child's

curly head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared

with curiosity at Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch and

the Jewess went to the chest of drawers and began talking in Yiddish.

Moisey Moisevitch spoke in a low bass undertone, and altogether his

talk in Yiddish was like a continual "ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . ."

while his wife answered him in a shrill voice like a turkeycock's,

and the whole effect of her talk was something like "Too-too-too-too!"

While they were consulting, another little curly head on a thin

neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a third, then a fourth.

. . . If Yegorushka had had a fertile imagination he might have

imagined that the hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the quilt.

"Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!" said Moisey Moisevitch.

"Too-too-too-too!" answered the Jewess.

The consultation ended in the Jewess's diving with a deep sigh into

the chest of drawers, and, unwrapping some sort of green rag there,

she took out a big rye cake made in the shape of a heart.

"Take it, dearie," she said, giving Yegorushka the cake; "you have

no mamma now--no one to give you nice things."

Yegorushka stuck the cake in his pocket and staggered to the door,

as he could not go on breathing the foul, sour air in which the

innkeeper and his wife lived. Going back to the big room, he settled

himself more comfortably on the sofa and gave up trying to check

his straying thoughts.

As soon as Kuzmitchov had finished counting out the notes he put

them back into the bag. He did not treat them very respectfully and

stuffed them into the dirty sack without ceremony, as indifferently

as though they had not been money but waste paper.

Father Christopher was talking to Solomon.

"Well, Solomon the Wise!" he said, yawning and making the sign of

the cross over his mouth. "How is business?"

"What sort of business are you talking about?" asked Solomon, and

he looked as fiendish, as though it were a hint of some crime on

his part.

"Oh, things in general. What are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" Solomon repeated, and he shrugged his shoulders.

"The same as everyone else. . . . You see, I am a menial, I am my

brother's servant; my brother's the servant of the visitors; the

visitors are Varlamov's servants; and if I had ten millions, Varlamov

would be my servant."

"Why would he be your servant?"

"Why, because there isn't a gentleman or millionaire who isn't ready

to lick the hand of a scabby Jew for the sake of making a kopeck.

Now, I am a scabby Jew and a beggar. Everybody looks at me as though

I were a dog, but if I had money Varlamov would play the fool before

me just as Moisey does before you."

Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov looked at each other. Neither of

them understood Solomon. Kuzmitchov looked at him sternly and dryly,

and asked:

"How can you compare yourself with Varlamov, you blockhead?"

"I am not such a fool as to put myself on a level with Varlamov,"

answered Solomon, looking sarcastically at the speaker. "Though

Varlamov is a Russian, he is at heart a scabby Jew; money and gain

are all he lives for, but I threw my money in the stove! I don't

want money, or land, or sheep, and there is no need for people to

be afraid of me and to take off their hats when I pass. So I am

wiser than your Varlamov and more like a man!"

A little later Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solomon in a hoarse

hollow voice choked with hatred, in hurried stuttering phrases,

talking about the Jews. At first he talked correctly in Russian,

then he fell into the tone of a Jewish recitation, and began speaking

as he had done at the fair with an exaggerated Jewish accent.

"Stop! . . ." Father Christopher said to him. "If you don't like

your religion you had better change it, but to laugh at it is a

sin; it is only the lowest of the low who will make fun of his

religion."

"You don't understand," Solomon cut him short rudely. "I am talking

of one thing and you are talking of something else. . . ."

"One can see you are a foolish fellow," sighed Father Christopher.

"I admonish you to the best of my ability, and you are angry. I

speak to you like an old man quietly, and you answer like a turkeycock:

'Bla---bla---bla!' You really are a queer fellow. . . ."

Moisey Moisevitch came in. He looked anxiously at Solomon and at

his visitors, and again the skin on his face quivered nervously.

Yegorushka shook his head and looked about him; he caught a passing

glimpse of Solomon's face at the very moment when it was turned

three-quarters towards him and when the shadow of his long nose

divided his left cheek in half; the contemptuous smile mingled with

that shadow; the gleaming sarcastic eyes, the haughty expression,

and the whole plucked-looking little figure, dancing and doubling

itself before Yegorushka's eyes, made him now not like a buffoon,

but like something one sometimes dreams of, like an evil spirit.

"What a ferocious fellow you've got here, Moisey Moisevitch! God

bless him!" said Father Christopher with a smile. "You ought to

find him a place or a wife or something. . . . There's no knowing

what to make of him. . . ."

Kuzmitchov frowned angrily. Moisey Moisevitch looked uneasily and

inquiringly at his brother and the visitors again.

"Solomon, go away!" he said shortly. "Go away!" and he added something

in Yiddish. Solomon gave an abrupt laugh and went out.

"What was it?" Moisey Moisevitch asked Father Christopher anxiously.

"He forgets himself," answered Kuzmitchov. "He's rude and thinks

too much of himself."

"I knew it!" Moisey Moisevitch cried in horror, clasping his hands.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" he muttered in a low voice. "Be so kind as to

excuse it, and don't be angry. He is such a queer fellow, such a

queer fellow! Oh dear, oh dear! He is my own brother, but I have

never had anything but trouble from him. You know he's. . ."

Moisey Moisevitch crooked his finger by his forehead and went on:

"He is not in his right mind; . . . he's hopeless. And I don't know

what I am to do with him! He cares for nobody, he respects nobody,

and is afraid of nobody. . . . You know he laughs at everybody, he

says silly things, speaks familiarly to anyone. You wouldn't believe

it, Varlamov came here one day and Solomon said such things to him

that he gave us both a taste of his whip. . . . But why whip me?

Was it my fault? God has robbed him of his wits, so it is God's

will, and how am I to blame?"

Ten minutes passed and Moisey Moisevitch was still muttering in an

undertone and sighing:

"He does not sleep at night, and is always thinking and thinking

and thinking, and what he is thinking about God only knows. If you

go to him at night he is angry and laughs. He doesn't like me either

. . . . And there is nothing he wants! When our father died he left

us each six thousand roubles. I bought myself an inn, married, and

now I have children; and he burnt all his money in the stove. Such

a pity, such a pity! Why burn it? If he didn't want it he could

give it to me, but why burn it?"

Suddenly the swing-door creaked and the floor shook under footsteps.

Yegorushka felt a draught of cold air, and it seemed to him as

though some big black bird had passed by him and had fluttered its

wings close in his face. He opened his eyes. . . . His uncle was

standing by the sofa with his sack in his hands ready for departure;

Father Christopher, holding his broad-brimmed top-hat, was bowing

to someone and smiling--not his usual soft kindly smile, but a

respectful forced smile which did not suit his face at all--while

Moisey Moisevitch looked as though his body had been broken into

three parts, and he were balancing and doing his utmost not to drop

to pieces. Only Solomon stood in the corner with his arms folded,

as though nothing had happened, and smiled contemptuously as before.

"Your Excellency must excuse us for not being tidy," moaned Moisey

Moisevitch with the agonizingly sweet smile, taking no more notice

of Kuzmitchov or Father Christopher, but swaying his whole person

so as to avoid dropping to pieces. "We are plain folks, your

Excellency."

Yegorushka rubbed his eyes. In the middle of the room there really

was standing an Excellency, in the form of a young plump and very

beautiful woman in a black dress and a straw hat. Before Yegorushka

had time to examine her features the image of the solitary graceful

poplar he had seen that day on the hill for some reason came into

his mind.

"Has Varlamov been here to-day?" a woman's voice inquired.

"No, your Excellency," said Moisey Moisevitch.

"If you see him to-morrow, ask him to come and see me for a minute."

All at once, quite unexpectedly, Yegorushka saw half an inch from

his eyes velvety black eyebrows, big brown eyes, delicate feminine

cheeks with dimples, from which smiles seemed radiating all over

the face like sunbeams. There was a glorious scent.

"What a pretty boy!" said the lady. "Whose boy is it? Kazimir

Mihalovitch, look what a charming fellow! Good heavens, he is

asleep!"

And the lady kissed Yegorushka warmly on both cheeks, and he smiled

and, thinking he was asleep, shut his eyes. The swing-door squeaked,

and there was the sound of hurried footsteps, coming in and going

out.

"Yegorushka, Yegorushka!" he heard two bass voices whisper. "Get

up; it is time to start."

Somebody, it seemed to be Deniska, set him on his feet and led him

by the arm. On the way he half-opened his eyes and once more saw

the beautiful lady in the black dress who had kissed him. She was

standing in the middle of the room and watched him go out, smiling

at him and nodding her head in a friendly way. As he got near the

door he saw a handsome, stoutly built, dark man in a bowler hat and

in leather gaiters. This must have been the lady's escort.

"Woa!" he heard from the yard.

At the front door Yegorushka saw a splendid new carriage and a pair

of black horses. On the box sat a groom in livery, with a long whip

in his hands. No one but Solomon came to see the travellers off.

His face was tense with a desire to laugh; he looked as though he

were waiting impatiently for the visitors to be gone, so that he

might laugh at them without restraint.

"The Countess Dranitsky," whispered Father Christopher, clambering

into the chaise.

"Yes, Countess Dranitsky," repeated Kuzmitchov, also in a whisper.

The impression made by the arrival of the countess was probably

very great, for even Deniska spoke in a whisper, and only ventured

to lash his bays and shout when the chaise had driven a quarter of

a mile away and nothing could be seen of the inn but a dim light.