Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian | Page 4

and was
almost crying with vexation. Gerasim got up all of a sudden, stretched
out his gigantic hand, laid it on the wardrobe-maid's head, and looked
into her face with such grim ferocity that her head positively flopped
upon the table. Every one was still. Gerasim took up his spoon again
and went on with his cabbage-soup. "Look at him, the dumb devil, the
wood-demon!" they all muttered in undertones, while the
wardrobe-maid got up and went out into the maid's room. Another time,
noticing that Kapiton--the same Kapiton who was the subject of the
conversation reported above--was gossiping somewhat too attentively
with Tatiana, Gerasim beckoned him to him, led him into the cartshed,
and taking up a shaft that was standing in a corner by one end, lightly,
but most significantly, menaced him with it. Since then no one
addressed a word to Tatiana. And all this cost him nothing. It is true the
wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached the maids' room, promptly fell
into a fainting fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully that Gerasim's
rough action reached his mistress's knowledge the same day. But the
capricious old lady only laughed, and several times, to the great offence
of the wardrobe-maid, forced her to repeat "how he bent your head
down with his heavy hand," and next day she sent Gerasim a rouble.
She looked on him with favor as a strong and faithful watchman.
Gerasim stood in considerable awe of her, but, all the same, he had

hopes of her favor, and was preparing to go to her with a petition for
leave to marry Tatiana. He was only waiting for a new coat, promised
him by the steward, to present a proper appearance before his mistress,
when this same mistress suddenly took it into her head to marry Tatiana
to Kapiton.
The reader will now readily understand the perturbation of mind that
overtook the steward Gavrila after his conversation with his mistress.
"My lady," he thought, as he sat at the window, "favors Gerasim, to be
sure"--(Gavrila was well aware of this, and that was why he himself
looked on him with an indulgent eye)--"still he is a speechless creature.
I could not, indeed, put it before the mistress that Gerasim's courting
Tatiana. But, after all, it's true enough; he's a queer sort of husband. But
on the other hand, that devil, God forgive me, has only got to find out
they're marrying Tatiana to Kapiton, he'll smash up everything in the
house, 'pon my soul! There's no reasoning with him; why, he's such a
devil, God forgive my sins, there's no getting over him nohow . . . 'pon
my soul!"
Kapiton's entrance broke the thread of Gavrila's reflections. The
dissipated shoemaker came in, his hands behind him, and lounging
carelessly against a projecting angle of the wall, near the door, crossed
his right foot in front of his left, and tossed his head, as much as to say,
"What do you want?"
Gavrila looked at Kapiton, and drummed with his fingers on the
window- frame. Kapiton merely screwed up his leaden eyes a little, but
he did not look down; he even grinned slightly, and passed his hand
over his whitish locks which were sticking up in all directions. "Well,
here I am. What is it?"
"You're a pretty fellow," said Gavrila, and paused. "A pretty fellow you
are, there's no denying!"
Kapiton only twitched his little shoulders. "Are you any better, pray?"
he thought to himself.
"Just look at yourself, now, look at yourself," Gavrila went on
reproachfully; "now, whatever do you look like?"
Kapiton serenely surveyed his shabby, tattered coat and his patched
trousers, and with special attention stared at his burst boots, especially
the one on the tiptoe of which his right foot so gracefully poised, and
he fixed his eyes again on the steward.

"Well?"
"Well?" repeated Gavrila. "Well? And then you say well? You look
like Old Nick himself, God forgive my saying so, that's what you look
like."
Kapiton blinked rapidly.
"Go on abusing me, go on, if you like, Gavrila Andreitch," he thought
to himself again.
"Here you've been drunk again," Gavrila began, "drunk again, haven't
you? Eh? Come, answer me!"
"Owing to the weakness of my health, I have exposed myself to
spirituous beverages, certainly," replied Kapiton.
"Owing to the weakness of your health! . . . They let you off too easy,
that's what it is; and you've been apprenticed in Petersburg. . . Much
you learned in your apprenticeship! You simply eat your bread in
idleness."
"In that matter, Gavrila Andreitch, there is One to judge me, the Lord
God Himself, and no one else. He also knows what manner of man I be
in this world, and whether I eat my bread in idleness. And