BEFORE I have the honour of presenting the reader with Foma Fomitch in person, I think it is absolutely essential to say a few words about Falaley and to explain what there was terrible in the fact of his dancing the Komarinsky and Foma Fomitch’s finding him engaged in that lighthearted diversion. Falaley was a house serf boy, an orphan from the cradle, and a godson of my uncle’s late wife. My uncle was very fond of him. That fact alone was quite sufficient to make Foma Fomitch, after he had settled at Stepantchikovo and gained complete domination over my uncle, take a dislike to the latter’s favourite, Falaley. But Madame la Générale took a particular fancy to the boy, who, in spite of Foma Fomitch’s wrath, remained upstairs in attendance on the family. Madame la Générale herself insisted upon it, and Foma gave way, storing up the injury — he looked on everything as an injury — in his heart and revenging it on every favourable occasion on my uncle, who was in no way responsible. Falaley was wonderfully good-looking. He had a girlish face, the face of a beautiful peasant girl. Madame la Generale petted and spoiled him, prized him as though he were a rare and pretty toy, and there was no saying which she loved best, her little curly black dog Ami or Falaley. We have already referred to his costume, which was her idea. The young ladies gave him pomatum, and it was the duty of the barber Kuzma to curl his hair on holidays. This boy was a strange creature. He could not be called a perfect idiot or imbecile, but he was so naive, so truthful and simplehearted, that he might sometimes be certainly taken for a fool. If he had a dream, he would go at once to tell it to his master or mistress. He joined in the conversation of the gentlefolk without caring whether he was interrupting them. He would tell them things quite impossible to tell gentlefolks. He would dissolve into the most genuine tears when his mistress fell into a swoon or when his master was too severely scolded. He sympathised with every sort of distress. He would sometimes go up to Madame la Generale, kiss her hands, and beg her not to be cross — and the old lady would magnanimously forgive him these audacities. He was sensitive in the extreme, kindhearted, as free from malice as a lamb and as gay as a happy child. They gave him dainties from the dinner-table.
He always stood behind Madame la Generale’s chair and was awfully fond of sugar. When he was given a lump of sugar he would nibble at it with his strong milk-white teeth, and a gleam of indescribable pleasure shone in his merry blue eyes and all over his pretty little face.
For a long time Foma Fomitch raged; but reflecting at last that he would get nothing by anger, he suddenly made up his mind to be Falaley’s benefactor. After first pitching into my uncle for doing nothing for the education of the house serfs, he determined at once to set about training the poor boy in morals, good manners and French.
“What I” he would say in defence of his absurd idea (an idea not confined to Foma Fomitch, as the writer of these lines can testify), “what! he is always upstairs waiting on his mistress; one day, forgetting that he does not know French, she will say to him, for instance: “Donnay mooah mon mooshooar’ — he ought to be equal to the occasion and able to do his duty even then!”
But it appeared not only that it was impossible to teach Falaley French, but that the cook Andron, the boy’s uncle, who had disinterestedly tried to teach him to read Russian, had long ago given it up in despair and put the alphabet away on the shelf. Falaley was so dull at book-learning that he could understand absolutely nothing. Moreover, this led to further trouble. The house serfs began calling Falaley, in derision, a Frenchman, and old Gavrila, my uncle’s valet, openly ventured to deny the usefulness of learning French. This reached Foma Fomitch’s ears and, bursting with wrath, he made his opponent, Gavrila, himself learn French as a punishment. This was the origin of the whole business of teaching the servants French ^hich so exasperated Mr. Bahtcheyev. It was still worse in regard to manners. Foma was absolutely unable to train Falaley to suit his ideas, and in spite of his prohibition, the boy would go in to tell him his dreams in the morning, which Foma Fomitch considered extremely ill-mannered and familiar. But Falaley obstinately remained Falaley. My uncle was, of course, the first to suffer for all this.
“Do you know, do you know what he has done to-day?” Foma would exclaim, selecting a moment when all were gathered together in order to produce a greater sensation. “Do you know what your systematic spoiling is coming to? To-day he gobbled up a piece of pie given him at the table; and do you know what he said of it? Come here, come here, silly fool; come here, idiot; come here, red face. …”
Falaley would come up weeping and rubbing his eyes with both hands.
“What did you say when you greedily ate up your pie? Repeat it before everyone!”
Falaley would dissolve in bitter tears and make no answer.
“Then I’ll speak for you, if that’s how it is. You said, slapping yourself on your stuffed and vulgar stomach: ‘I’ve gobbled up the pie as Martin did the soap!’ Upon my word, Colonel, can expressions like that be used in educated society, still more in aristocratic society? Did you say it or not? Speak!”
“I di-id …” Falaley would assent, sobbing.
“Well, then, tell me now, does Martin eat soap? Where have you seen a Martin who eats soap? Tell me, give me an idea of this phenomenal Martin!”
Silence.
“I am asking you,” Foma would persist, “who is this Martin? I want to see him, I want to make his acquaintance. Well, what is he? A registiy clerk, an astronomer, a provincial, a poet, an army captain, a serving man — he must have been something. Answer!’’
“A ser-er-ving ma-an,” Falaley would answer at last, still weeping.
“Whose? Who is his master?”
But Falaley was utterly unable to say who was his master. It would end, of course, in Foma Fomitch’s rushing out of the room in a passion, crying out that he had been insulted; Madame la Generate would show symptoms of an attack, while my uncle would curse the hour of his birth, beg everybody’s pardon, and for the rest of the day walk about on tiptoe in his own rooms.
As ill-luck would have it, on the day after the trouble over Martin and the soap, Falaley, who had succeeded in completely forgetting about Martin and all his woes of the previous day, informed Foma Fomitch as he took in his tea in the morning that he had had a dream about a white bull. This was the last straw! Foma Fomitch was moved to indescribable indignation, he promptly summoned my uncle and began upbraiding him for the vulgarity of the dream dreamed by his Faleley. This time severe steps were taken: Falaley was punished, he had to kneel down in the corner. He was sternly forbidden to dream of such coarse rustic subjects.
“What I am angry at,” said Foma, “apart from the fact that he really ought not to dare to think of blurting out his dreams to me, especially a dream of a white bull — apart from that — you must agree, Colonel — what is the white bull but a proof of coarseness, ignorance and loutishness in your unkempt Falaley? As the thoughts are, so will the dreams be. Did I not tell you before that you would never make anything of him, and that he ought not to remain upstairs waiting upon the family? You will never, never develop that senseless peasant soul into anything lofty or poetical. Can’t you manage,” he went on, addressing Falaley, “can’t you manage to dream of something elegant, refined, genteel, some scene from good society, such as gentlemen playing cards or ladies walking in a lovely garden?”
Falaley promised he would be sure to dream next night of gentlemen or ladies walking in a lovely garden.
As he went to bed, Falaley prayed tearfully on the subject and wondered for a long time what he could do so as not to dream of the accursed white bull. But deceitful are the hopes of man. On waking
