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I.
It happened in the 'seventies in
winter, on the day after St. Nicholas's Day. There was a fete in
the parish and the innkeeper, Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov, a Second
Guild merchant, being a church elder had to go to church, and had
also to entertain his relatives and friends at home.
But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare to
drive over to see a neighbouring proprietor about a grove which he
had been bargaining over for a long time. He was now in a hurry to
start, lest buyers from the town might forestall him in making a
profitable purchase. The youthful landowner was asking ten thousand
rubles for the grove simply because Vasili Andreevich was offering
seven thousand. Seven thousand was, however, only a third of its
real value. Vasili Andreevich might perhaps have got it down to his
own price, for the woods were in his district and he had a
long-standing agreement with the other village dealers that no one
should run up the price in another's district, but he had now
learnt that some timber-dealers from town meant to bid for the
Goryachkin grove, and he resolved to go at once and get the matter
settled. So as soon as the feast was over, he took seven hundred
rubles from his strong box, added to them two thousand three
hundred rubles of church money he had in his keeping, so as to make
up the sum to three thousand; carefully counted the notes, and
having put them into his pocket-book made haste to start. Nikita,
the only one of Vasili Andreevich's labourers who was not drunk
that day, ran to harness the horse. Nikita, though an habitual
drunkard, was not drunk that day because since the last day before
the fast, when he had drunk his coat and leather boots, he had
sworn off drink and had kept his vow for two months, and was still
keeping it despite the temptation of the vodka that had been drunk
everywhere during the first two days of the feast. Nikita was a
peasant of about fifty from a neighbouring village, 'not a manager'
as the peasants said of him, meaning that he was not the thrifty
head of a household but lived most of his time away from home as a
labourer. He was valued everywhere for his industry, dexterity, and
strength at work, and still more for his kindly and pleasant
temper. But he never settled down anywhere for long because about
twice a year, or even oftener, he had a drinking bout, and then
besides spending all his clothes on drink he became turbulent and
quarrelsome. Vasili Andreevich himself had turned him away several
times, but had afterwards taken him back again—valuing his honesty,
his kindness to animals, and especially his cheapness. Vasili
Andreevich did not pay Nikita the eighty rubles a year such a man
was worth, but only about forty, which he gave him haphazard, in
small sums, and even that mostly not in cash but in goods from his
own shop and at high prices. Nikita's wife Martha, who had once
been a handsome vigorous woman, managed the homestead with the help
of her son and two daughters, and did not urge Nikita to live at
home: first because she had been living for some twenty years
already with a cooper, a peasant from another village who lodged in
their house; and secondly because though she managed her husband as
she pleased when he was sober, she feared him like fire when he was
drunk. Once when he had got drunk at home, Nikita, probably to make
up for his submissiveness when sober, broke open her box, took out
her best clothes, snatched up an axe, and chopped all her
undergarments and dresses to bits. All the wages Nikita earned went
to his wife, and he raised no objection to that. So now, two days
before the holiday, Martha had been twice to see Vasili Andreevich
and had got from him wheat flour, tea, sugar, and a quart of vodka,
the lot costing three rubles, and also five rubles in cash, for
which she thanked him as for a special favour, though he owed
Nikita at least twenty rubles. 'What agreement did we ever draw up
with you?' said Vasili Andreevich to Nikita. 'If you need anything,
take it; you will work it off. I'm not like others to keep you
waiting, and making up accounts and reckoning fines. We deal
straight-forwardly. You serve me and I don't neglect you.' And when
saying this Vasili Andreevich was honestly convinced that he was
Nikita's benefactor, and he knew how to put it so plausibly that
all those who depended on him for their money, beginning with
Nikita, confirmed him in the conviction that he was their
benefactor and did not overreach them. 'Yes, I understand, Vasili
Andreevich. You know that I serve you and take as much pains as I
would for my own father. I understand very well!' Nikita would
reply. He was quite aware that Vasili Andreevich was cheating him,
but at the same time he felt that it was useless to try to clear up
his accounts with him or explain his side of the matter, and that
as long as he had nowhere to go he must accept what he could get.
Now, having heard his master's order to harness, he went as usual
cheerfully and willingly to the shed, stepping briskly and easily
on his rather turned-in feet; took down from a nail the heavy
tasselled leather bridle, and jingling the rings of the bit went to
the closed stable where the horse he was to harness was standing by
himself. 'What, feeling lonely, feeling lonely, little silly?' said
Nikita in answer to the low whinny with which he was greeted by the
good-tempered, medium-sized bay stallion, with a rather slanting
crupper, who stood alone in the shed. 'Now then, now then, there's
time enough. Let me water you first,' he went on, speaking to the
horse just as to someone who understood the words he was using, and
having whisked the dusty, grooved back of the well-fed young
stallion with the skirt of his coat, he put a bridle on his
handsome head, straightened his ears and forelock, and having taken
off his halter led him out to water. Picking his way out of the
dung-strewn stable, Mukhorty frisked, and making play with his hind
leg pretended that he meant to kick Nikita, who was running at a
trot beside him to the pump. 'Now then, now then, you rascal!'
Nikita called out, well knowing how carefully Mukhorty threw out
his hind leg just to touch his greasy sheepskin coat but not to
strike him—a trick Nikita much appreciated. After a drink of the
cold water the horse sighed, moving his strong wet lips, from the
hairs of which transparent drops fell into the trough; then
standing still as if in thought, he suddenly gave a loud snort. 'If
you don't want any more, you needn't. But don't go asking for any
later,' said Nikita quite seriously and fully explaining his
conduct to Mukhorty. Then he ran back to the shed pulling the
playful young horse, who wanted to gambol all over the yard, by the
rein. There was no one else in the yard except a stranger, the
cook's husband, who had come for the holiday. 'Go and ask which
sledge is to be harnessed—the wide one or the small one—there's a
good fellow!' The cook's husband went into the house, which stood
on an iron foundation and was iron-roofed, and soon returned saying
that the little one was to be harnessed. By that time Nikita had
put the collar and brass-studded belly-band on Mukhorty and,
carrying a light, painted shaft-bow in one hand, was leading the
horse with the other up to two sledges that stood in the shed. 'All
right, let it be the little one!' he said, backing the intelligent
horse, which all the time kept pretending to bite him, into the
shafts, and with the aid of the cook's husband he proceeded to
harness. When everything was nearly ready and only the reins had to
be adjusted, Nikita sent the other man to the shed for some straw
and to the barn for a drugget. 'There, that's all right! Now, now,
don't bristle up!' said Nikita, pressing down into the sledge the
freshly threshed oat straw the cook's husband had brought. 'And now
let's spread the sacking like this, and the drugget over it. There,
like that it will be comfortable sitting,' he went on, suiting the
action to the words and tucking the drugget all round over the
straw to make a seat. 'Thank you, dear man. Things always go
quicker with two working at it!' he added. And gathering up the
leather reins fastened together by a brass ring, Nikita took the
driver's seat and started the impatient horse over the frozen
manure which lay in the yard, towards the gate. 'Uncle Nikita! I
say, Uncle, Uncle!' a high-pitched voice shouted, and a
seven-year-old boy in a black sheepskin coat, new white felt boots,
and a warm cap, ran hurriedly out of the house into the yard. 'Take
me with you!' he cried, fastening up his coat as he ran. 'All
right, come along, darling!' said Nikita, and stopping the sledge
he picked up the master's pale thin little son, radiant with joy,
and drove out into the road. It was past two o'clock and the day
was windy, dull, and cold, with more than twenty degrees Fahrenheit
of frost. Half the sky was hidden by a lowering dark cloud. In the
yard it was quiet, but in the street the wind was felt more keenly.
The snow swept down from a neighbouring shed and whirled about in
the corner near the bath-house. Hardly had Nikita driven out of the
yard and turned the horse's head to the house, before Vasili
Andreevich emerged from the high porch in front of the house with a
cigarette in his mouth and wearing a cloth-covered sheep-skin coat
tightly girdled low at his waist, and stepped onto the hard-trodden
snow which squeaked under the leather soles of his felt boots, and
stopped. Taking a last whiff of his cigarette he threw it down,
stepped on it, and letting the smoke escape through his moustache
and looking askance at the horse that was coming up, began to tuck
in his sheepskin collar on both sides of his ruddy face,
clean-shaven except for the moustache, so that his breath should
not moisten the collar. 'See now! The young scamp is there
already!' he exclaimed when he saw his little son in the sledge.
Vasili Andreevich was excited by the vodka he had drunk with his
visitors, and so he was ev [...]