an excitedly anxious tone, if you only knew how delighted I am to see your serious countenance again. You are not acquainted? Allow me to introduce you - my good friend, Kaetan Kazimirovich Pshekhotsky. And this,’ he continued, introducing me to the fat man, ‘is my good old friend, Sergey Petrovich Zinov’ev! Our magistrate.’
The stout, dark-browed man rose slightly from his seat and offered me his fat, and extremely sweaty hand.
‘Very pleased,’ he mumbled, examining me from head to foot. ‘Very glad!’
Having given vent to his feelings and become calm again, the Count filled a glass with cold, dark brown tea for me and moved a box of biscuits towards my hand.
‘Eat… When passing through Moscow I bought them at Einem’s. I’m very angry with you, Serezha, so angry that I wanted to quarrel with you! Not only have you not written me a line during the whole of the past two years, but you did not even think a single one of my letters worth answering! That’s not friendly!’
‘I don’t know how to write letters,’ I said. ‘Besides, I have no time for letter writing. Can you tell me what could I have written to you about?’
‘There must have been many things!’
‘Indeed, there was nothing. I admit of only three sorts of letters: love, congratulatory, and business letters. The first I did not write to you because you are not a woman, and I am not in love with you; the second you don’t require; and from the third category we are relieved as from our birth we have never had any business connection together.’
‘That’s perfectly true,’ the Count said, agreeing readily and quickly with everything; ‘but all the same, you might have written, if only a line… And what’s more, as Pëtr Egorych tells me, all these two years you’ve not set foot here, as though you were living a thousand versts away or disdained my property. You could have made your home here, shot over my grounds. Many things might have happened here while I was away.’
The Count spoke much and long. When once he began talking about anything, his tongue chattered on without ceasing and without end, quite regardless of the trivality or insignificance of his subject.
In the utterance of sounds he was as untiring as my Ivan Dem’yanych. I could hardly stand him for that facility. This time he was stopped by his butler, Il’ya, a tall, thin man in a well-worn, much-stained livery, who brought the Count a wineglass of vodka and half a tumbler of water on a silver tray. The Count swallowed the vodka, washed it down with some water, making a grimace with a shake of the head.
‘So it seems you have not yet stopped tippling vodka!’ I said.
‘No, Serezha, I have not.’
‘Well, you might at least drop that drunken habit of making faces and shaking your head! It’s disgusting!’
‘My dear boy, I’m going to drop everything… The doctors have forbidden me to drink. I drink now only because it’s unhealthy to drop habits all at once… It must be done gradually…
I looked at the Count’s unhealthy, worn face, at the wineglass, at the butler in yellow shoes. I looked at the dark-browed Pole, who from the very first moment for some reason had appeared to me to be a scoundrel and a blackguard. I looked at the one-eyed muzhik, who stood there at attention, and a feeling of dread and of oppression came over me… I suddenly wanted to leave this dirty atmosphere, having first opened the Count’s eyes to the unlimited antipathy I felt for him… There was a moment when I was ready to rise and depart… But I did not go away… I was prevented (I’m ashamed to confess it!) by physical laziness…
‘Give me a glass of vodka, too!’ I said to Il’ya.
Long shadows began to be cast on the avenue and on the open space where we were sitting…
The distant croaking of frogs, the cawing of crows and the singing of orioles greeted the setting of the sun. A gay evening was just beginning…
‘Tell Urbenin to sit down,’ I whispered to the Count. ‘He’s standing before you like a boy.’
‘Oh, I never thought of that! Pëtr Egorych,’ the Count addressed his bailiff, ‘sit down, please! Why are you standing there?’
Urbenin sat down, casting a grateful glance at me. He who was always healthy and gay appeared to me now to be ill and dull. His face seemed wrinkled and sleepy, his eyes looked at us lazily and as if unwillingly.
‘Well, Pëtr Egorych, what’s new here? Any pretty girls, eh?’ Karnéev asked him. isn’t there something special… something out of the common?’
‘It’s always the same, your Excellency…’
‘Are there no new… nice little girls, Pëtr Egorych?’
The virtuous Pëtr Egorych blushed.
‘I don’t know, your Excellency… I don’t occupy myself with that’
‘There are, your Excellency,’ broke in the deep bass voice of one-eyed Kuz’ma, who had been silent all the time. ‘And quite worth notice, too.’
‘Are they pretty?’
‘There are all sorts, your Excellency, for all tastes… There are dark ones and fair ones - all sorts…’
‘O, ho! Stop a minute… I remember you now… My former Leporello, a sort of secretary… Your name’s Kuz’ma, I think?’
‘Yes, your Excellency…’
‘I remember, I remember… Well, and what have you now in view? Something new, all peasant girls?’
‘Mostly peasants, of course, but there are finer ones, too…’
‘Where have you found finer ones…’ Il’ya asked, winking at Kuz’ma.
‘At Easter the postman’s sister-in-law came to stay with him… Nastasia Ivanovna… A girl all on springs. She’s good enough to eat, but money is wanted… Cheeks like peaches, and all the rest as good… There’s something finer than that, too. It’s only waiting for you, your Excellency. Young, plump, jolly… a beauty! Such a beauty, your Excellency, as you’ve scarcely found in Petersburg…’
‘Who is it?’
‘Olenka, the forester Skvortsov’s daughter.’
Urbenin’s chair cracked under him. Supporting himself with his hands on the table, purple in the face, the bailiff rose slowly and turned towards the one-eyed Kuz’ma. The expression on his face of dullness and fatigue had given place to one of great anger.
‘Hold your tongue, serf!’ he grumbled. ‘One-eyed vermin! Say what you please, but don’t talk about respectable people!’
‘I’m not speaking of you, Pëtr Egorych,’ Kuz’ma said imperturbably.
‘I’m not talking about myself, blockhead! Besides… Forgive me, your Excellency,’ the bailiff turned to the Count, ‘forgive me for making a scene, but I would beg your Excellency to forbid your Leporello, as you were pleased to call him, to extend his zeal to persons who are worthy of all respect!’
‘I
