A Reckless Character | Page 8

had already grown fairly deep. People saw Mísha's work and
ran to report about it to the speculator-owner. At first the speculator
flew into a rage, and wanted to send for the police. "What hypocrisy!"
he said. But afterward, reflecting, probably, that it would be
inconvenient to have a row with that lunatic, and that a scandal might
be the result, he betook himself in person to the churchyard, and
approaching the toiling Mísha, he made a polite obeisance to him. The
latter continued to dig, as though he had not noticed his successor.
"Mikhaíl Andréitch," began the speculator, "permit me to inquire what

you are doing there?"
"As you see--I am digging a grave for myself."
"Why are you doing that?"
"Because I do not wish to live any longer."
The speculator fairly flung apart his hands in surprise.--"You do not
wish to live?"
Mísha cast a menacing glance at the speculator:--"Does that surprise
you? Are not you the cause of it all?... Is it not you?... Is it not
thou?...[15] Is it not thou, Judas, who hast robbed me, by taking
advantage of my youth? Dost not thou skin the peasants? Is it not thou
who hast deprived this decrepit old man of his daily bread? Is it not
thou?... O Lord! Everywhere there is injustice, and oppression, and
villainy.... So down with everything,--and with me also! I don't wish to
live--I don't wish to live any longer in Russia!"--And the spade made
swifter progress than ever in Mísha's hands.
"The devil knows the meaning of this!" thought the speculator: "he
actually is burying himself."--"Mikhaíl Andréitch,"--he began afresh,
"listen; I really am guilty toward you; people did not represent you
properly to me."
Mísha went on digging.
"But why this recklessness?"
Mísha went on digging--and flung the dirt on the speculator, as much
as to say: "Take that, earth-devourer!"
"Really, you have no cause for this. Will not you come to my house to
eat and rest?"
Mísha raised his head a little. "Now you're talking! And will there be
anything to drink?"
The speculator was delighted.--"Good gracious!... I should think so!"
"And dost thou invite Timoféi also?"
"But why ... well, I invite him also."
Mísha reflected.--"Only look out ... for thou didst turn me out of
doors.... Don't think thou art going to get off with one bottle!"
"Do not worry ... there will be as much as you wish of everything."
Mísha flung aside his spade.... "Well, Timósha," he said, addressing his
old man-nurse, "let us honour the host.... Come along!"
"I obey," replied the old man.
And all three wended their way toward the house.

The speculator knew with whom he had to deal. Mísha made him
promise as a preliminary, it is true, that he would "allow all privileges"
to the peasants;--but an hour later that same Mísha, together with
Timoféi, both drunk, danced a gallopade through those rooms where
the pious shade of Andréi Nikoláitch seemed still to be hovering; and
an hour later still, Mísha, so sound asleep that he could not be waked
(liquor was his great weakness), was placed in a peasant-cart, together
with his kazák cap and his dagger, and sent off to the town,
five-and-twenty versts distant,--and there was found under a fence....
Well, and Timoféi, who still kept his feet and merely hiccoughed, was
"pitched out neck and crop," as a matter of course. The master had
made a failure of his attempt. So they might as well let the servant pay
the penalty!

VI
Again considerable time elapsed and I heard nothing of Mísha.... God
knows where he had vanished.--One day, as I was sitting before the
samovár at a posting-station on the T---- highway, waiting for horses, I
suddenly heard, under the open window of the station-room, a hoarse
voice uttering in French:--"_Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitié d'un
pauvre gentilhomme ruiné!_".... I raised my head and looked.... The
kazák cap with the fur peeled off, the broken cartridge-pouches on the
tattered Circassian coat, the dagger in a cracked sheath, the bloated but
still rosy face, the dishevelled but still thick hair.... My God! It was
Mísha! He had already come to begging alms on the highways!--I
involuntarily uttered an exclamation. He recognised me, shuddered,
turned away, and was about to withdraw from the window. I stopped
him ... but what was there that I could say to him? Certainly I could not
read him a lecture!... In silence I offered him a five-ruble bank-note.
With equal silence he grasped it in his still white and plump, though
trembling and dirty hand, and disappeared round the corner of the
house.
They did not furnish me with horses very promptly, and I had time to
indulge in cheerless meditations on the subject of my unexpected
encounter