a burning candle blown on by the winds. In one corner stood a wooden settle covered with a particoloured rug. Hundreds of flies swarmed thickly about the ceiling; yet the room was cool. But there was a very strong smell of that peculiar odour of the forest which always accompanied Martin Petrovitch.
‘Well, is it a nice room?’ Harlov questioned me.
‘Very nice.’
‘Look-ye, there hangs my Dutch horse-collar,’ Harlov went on, dropping into his familiar tone again. ‘A splendid horse-collar! got it by barter off a Jew. Just you look at it!’
‘It’s a good horse-collar.’
‘It’s most practical. And just sniff it … what leather!’ I smelt the horse-collar. It smelt of rancid oil and nothing else.
‘Now, be seated, – there on the stool; make yourself at home,’ observed Harlov, while he himself sank on to the settle, and seemed to fall into a doze, shutting his eyes and even beginning to snore. I gazed at him without speaking, with ever fresh wonder; he was a perfect mountain – there was no other word! Suddenly he started.
‘Anna!’ he shouted, while his huge stomach rose and fell like a wave on the sea; ‘what are you about? Look sharp! Didn’t you hear me?’
‘Everything’s ready, father; come in,’ I heard his daughter’s voice.
I inwardly marvelled at the rapidity with which Martin Petrovitch’s behests had been carried out; and followed him into the drawing-room, where, on a table covered with a red cloth with white flowers on it, lunch was already prepared: junket, cream, wheaten bread, even powdered sugar and ginger. While I set to work on the junket, Martin Petrovitch growled affectionately, ‘Eat, my friend, eat, my dear boy; don’t despise our country cheer,’ and sitting down again in a corner, again seemed to fall into a doze. Before me, perfectly motionless, with downcast eyes, stood Anna Martinovna, while I saw through the window her husband walking my cob up and down the yard, and rubbing the chain of the snaffle with his own hands.
VII
My mother did not like Harlov’s elder daughter; she called her a stuck-up thing. Anna Martinovna scarcely ever came to pay us her respects, and behaved with chilly decorum in my mother’s presence, though it was by her good offices she had been well educated at a boarding-school, and had been married, and on her wedding-day had received a thousand roubles and a yellow Turkish shawl, the latter, it is true, a trifle the worse for wear. She was a woman of medium height, thin, very brisk and rapid in her movements, with thick fair hair and a handsome dark face, on which the pale-blue narrow eyes showed up in a rather strange but pleasing way. She had a straight thin nose, her lips were thin too, and her chin was like the loop-end of a hair-pin. No one looking at her could fail to think: ‘Well, you are a clever creature – and a spiteful one, too!’ And for all that, there was something attractive about her too. Even the dark moles, scattered ‘like buck-wheat’ over her face, suited her and increased the feeling she inspired. Her hands thrust into her kerchief, she was slily watching me, looking downwards (I was seated, while she was standing). A wicked little smile strayed about her lips and her cheeks and in the shadow of her long eyelashes. ‘Ugh, you pampered little fine gentleman!’ this smile seemed to express. Every time she drew a breath, her nostrils slightly distended – this, too, was rather strange. But all the same, it seemed to me that were Anna Martinovna to love me, or even to care to kiss me with her thin cruel lips, I should simply bound up to the ceiling with delight. I knew she was very severe and exacting, that the peasant women and girls went in terror of her – but what of that? Anna Martinovna secretly excited my imagination … though after all, I was only fifteen then, – and at that age!..
Martin Petrovitch roused himself again, ‘Anna!’ he shouted, ‘you ought to strum something on the pianoforte … young gentlemen are fond of that.’
I looked round; there was a pitiful semblance of a piano in the room.
‘Yes, father,’ responded Anna Martinovna. ‘Only what am I to play the young gentleman? He won’t find it interesting.’
‘Why, what did they teach you at your young ladies’ seminary?’
‘I’ve forgotten everything – besides, the notes are broken.’
Anna Martinovna’s voice was very pleasant, resonant and rather plaintive – like the note of some birds of prey.
‘Very well,’ said Martin Petrovitch, and he lapsed into dreaminess again. ‘Well,’ he began once more, ‘wouldn’t you like, then, to see the threshing-floor, and have a look round? Volodka will escort you. – Hi, Volodka!’ he shouted to his son-in-law, who was still pacing up and down the yard with my horse, ‘take the young gentleman to the threshing-floor … and show him my farming generally. But I must have a nap! So! good-bye!’
He went out and I after him. Anna Martinovna at once set to work rapidly, and, as it were, angrily, clearing the table. In the doorway, I turned and bowed to her. But she seemed not to notice my bow, and only smiled again, more maliciously than before.
I took my horse from Harlov’s son-in-law and led him by the bridle. We went together to the threshing-floor, but as we discovered nothing very remarkable about it, and as he could not suppose any great interest in farming in a young lad like me, we returned through the garden to the main road.
VIII
I was well acquainted with Harlov’s son-in-law. His name was Vladimir Vassilievitch Sletkin. He was an orphan, brought up by my mother, and the son of a petty official, to whom she had intrusted some business. He had first been placed in the district school, then he had entered the ‘seignorial counting-house,’ then he had been put into the service of the government stores, and, finally, married to the daughter of Martin Petrovitch. My mother used to call him a little Jew, and certainly, with his curly hair, his black eyes always moist, like damson jam, his hook nose, and wide red mouth, he did suggest the Jewish type. But the colour of his skin was white and he was altogether very good-looking. He was of a most obliging temper, so long as his personal advantage was not involved. Then he promptly lost all self-control from greediness, and was moved even to tears. He was ready to whine the whole day long to gain the paltriest trifle; he would remind one a hundred times over of a promise, and be hurt and complain if it were not carried out at once. He liked sauntering about the fields with a gun; and when he happened to get a hare or a wild duck, he would thrust his booty into his game-bag with peculiar zest, saying, ‘Now, you may be as tricky as you like, you won’t escape me! Now you’re mine!’
‘You’ve a good horse,’ he began in his lisping voice, as he assisted me to get into the saddle; ‘I ought to have a horse like that! But where can I get one? I’ve no such luck. If you’d ask your mamma, now – remind her.’
‘Why, has she promised you one?’
‘Promised? No; but I thought that in her great kindness – ’
‘You should apply to Martin Petrovitch.’
‘To Martin Petrovitch?’ Sletkin repeated, dwelling on each syllable. ‘To him I’m no better than a worthless page, like Maximka. He keeps a tight hand on us, that he does, and you get nothing from him for all your toil.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, by God. He’ll say, “My word’s sacred!” – and there, it’s as though he’s chopped it off with an axe. You may beg or not, it’s all one. Besides, Anna Martinovna, my wife, is not in such favour with him as Evlampia Martinovna. O merciful God, bless us and save us!’ he suddenly interrupted
