“Ladies and gentlemen, Vasily Terentyevich has asked me to inform you that he’s paying all the picnic expenses,” Svezhevsky said again and again, hurrying from one group to another.
A large number of people flocked round him, and he gave them further explanations.
“Vasily Terentyevich was greatly pleased with the welcome extended to him here, and he is happy to be able to reciprocate. He’s paying all the expenses.”
Unable to restrain the kind of impulse which makes a valet boast of his master’s generosity, he added weightily, “We spent three thousand five hundred and ninety rubles on the picnic!”
“You mean you went halves with Mr. Kvashnin?” asked a mocking voice from behind. Svezhevsky spun round to find that the venomous question had come from Andreas, who, impassive as usual, was looking at him, hands deep in his trouser pockets.
“I beg your pardon? What was it you said, please?” asked Svezhevsky, his face reddening painfully.
“It was you who said something. ‘We spent three thousand’. you said, and so I assume that you meant yourself and Mr. Kvashnin. If that’s the case, it is my agreeable duty to tell you that, while I accept the favour from Mr. Kvashnin, I may very well refuse to accept it from Mr. Svezhevsky.”
“Oh, no, no! You’ve misunderstood me,” stammered Svezhevsky. “It’s Vasily Terentyevich who’s done it all. I’m simply – er – his confidant. An agent or something like that,” he added with a wry smile.
The Zinenkos, accompanied by Kvashnin and Shelkovnikov, arrived almost simultaneously with the train. But no sooner did Kvashnin alight from the carriage than a tragicomic incident occurred that no one could have foreseen. Since early morning, having heard about the planned picnic, workmen’s wives, sisters, and mothers had begun to gather at the station, many of them bringing their babies with them. With a look of stolid patience on their sunburnt, haggard faces, they had been sitting for many long hours on the station steps or on the ground, in the shadow cast by the walls. There were more than two hundred of them. Asked by the station staff what they wanted, they said they must see “the fat, red-headed boss.” The watchman tried to send them away but the uproar they raised made him give up the attempt and leave them alone.
Each carriage that pulled up caused a momentary stir among the women, but they settled back the moment they saw that this was not the “fat, red-headed boss.”
Hardly had Kvashnin stepped down on the footboard, clutching at the box, puffing and tilting the carriage, when the women closed in on him and dropped on their knees. The young, high-mettled horses shied and started at the noise of the crowd; it was all the driver could do to keep them in check by straining hard at the reins. At first Kvashnin could not make head or tail of it: the women were shouting all together, holding out their babies; tears were streaming down their bronzed faces.
Kvashnin saw that there was no breaking through the live ring in which he found himself.
“Quiet, women! Stop yelling!” he boomed, drowning their voices. “This isn’t a market, is it? I can’t hear a thing. Let one of you tell me what’s up.”
But each of the women thought she should be the one to speak. The hubbub grew louder, and the tears flew even more freely.
“Please, master, help us! We can’t stand it any more! It’s worn us thin! We’re dying – children and all! The cold’s just killing us!”
“Well, what do you want? What are you dying of?” Kvashnin bellowed again. “But don’t shout all at once! You there, speak up.” He poked his finger at a tall woman who was handsome in spite of the pallor of her weary face. “And let the others keep quiet!”
Most of the women stopped shouting, but continued to sob and wail softly, wiping their eyes and noses on the dirty hems of their skirts.
Even so, there were no less than twenty speaking at a time.
“We’re dying of cold, master! Please do something. It’s more than we can stand. They put us into barracks for the winter, but how can you live there? They call ‘em barracks, sure enough, but it’s chips they’re built of. Even now it’s terrible cold in them at night – makes your teeth chatter. And what: are we going to do in winter? At least have pity on our little ones – help us, dear master! At least get stoves built. There’s no place to cook our meals – we do our cooking outside. The men are at work all day, soaked and shivering. And when they get back home they can’t dry their clothes.”
Kvashnin was trapped. Whichever way he turned, his path was barred by prostrate or kneeling women. And when he tried to force his way out, they would cling to his feet and the skirts of his long grey coat. Seeing that he was helpless, he beckoned to Shelkovnikov and, when the other had elbowed his way through the dense crowd, he asked him angrily in French, “Did you hear? What’s the meaning of this?”
Shelkovnikov was taken aback.
“I wrote to the Board more than once,” he mumbled. “There was a shortage of labour – it was summer-time, mowing was on – and the high prices – the Board wouldn’t authorize it. It couldn’t be helped.”
“So when are you going to start rebuilding the workmen’s barracks?” asked Kvashnin sternly.
“I can’t tell for certain. They’ll have to put up with it somehow. We must first make haste about quarters for the clerical staff.”
“The outrageous things that are going on here under your management!” grumbled Kvashnin. He turned to the women and said aloud, “Listen, women! Tomorrow they’ll start building stoves for you, and they’ll roof your barracks with shingles. D’you hear?”
“Yes, master! Thank you so much! Of course we heard you!” cried joyous voices. “That’s fine – you can rely on it when the master himself has ordered it. Thank you! Please allow us also to pick up the chips at the building site.”
“All right, you may do that.”
“Because there are Circassians posted everywhere, and they threaten us with their whips when we come.”
“Never mind – you come and take the chips. Nobody’ll harm you,” Kvashnin said reassuringly. “And now, women, off you go and cook your soup! And be quick about it!” he shouted, with an encouraging dash. “Have a couple of cartloads of bricks delivered to the barracks tomorrow,” he said to Shelkovnikov in an undertone. “That’ll comfort them for a long time. Let them look and be happy.”
The women were scattering in quite a cheerful mood.
“Mind you, if those stoves aren’t built we’ll ask the engineers to come and warm us,” cried the woman whom Kvashnin had told to speak up for the others.
“So we shall!” added another woman pertly. “Then let the boss himself warm us. See how fat and jolly he is. We’ll he warmer with him than by the stove.”
This incident, which ended so happily, raised everybody’s spirits. Even Kvashnin, who at first had been frowning at the manager, laughed when the women asked to be warmed, and took Shelkovnikov by the elbow as a sign of reconciliation.
“You see, my friend,” he said to Shelkovnikov, heavily climbing up the station steps with him, “you must know how to talk to those people. You may promise them anything you like – aluminium homes, an eight-hour working day, or a steak every morning, but you must do it with a great deal of assurance. I swear I could put down the stormiest popular demonstration in half an hour with mere promises.”
Kvashnin got on the train, laughing heartily as he recalled the details of the women’s rebellion which he had just quelled. Three minutes later the train started. The coachmen were told to drive straight to Beshenaya Balka, as the company