The Giants of Russian Literature: The Greatest Russian Novels, Stories, Plays, Folk Tales & Legends. Максим Горький

bear so hard on it, Thoma Bolshoy⁴¹! Go where Thoma Menshov⁴² is! Damn it, bring the net to land, will you!” From this it became clear that it was not on his own account that the stout man was worrying. Indeed, he had no need to do so, since his fat would in any case have prevented him from sinking. Yes, even if he had turned head over heels in an effort to dive, the water would persistently have borne him up; and the same if, say, a couple of men had jumped on his back — the only result would have been that he would have become a trifle deeper submerged, and forced to draw breath by spouting bubbles through his nose. No, the cause of his agitation was lest the net should break, and the fish escape: wherefore he was urging some additional peasants who were standing on the bank to lay hold of and to pull at, an extra rope or two.

⁴¹ The Elder.

⁴² The Younger.

      “That must be the barin — Colonel Koshkarev,” said Selifan.

      “Why?” asked Chichikov.

      “Because, if you please, his skin is whiter than the rest, and he has the respectable paunch of a gentleman.”

      Meanwhile good progress was being made with the hauling in of the barin; until, feeling the ground with his feet, he rose to an upright position, and at the same moment caught sight of the koliaska, with Chichikov seated therein, descending the declivity.

      “Have you dined yet?” shouted the barin as, still entangled in the net, he approached the shore with a huge fish on his back. With one hand shading his eyes from the sun, and the other thrown backwards, he looked, in point of pose, like the Medici Venus emerging from her bath.

      “No,” replied Chichikov, raising his cap, and executing a series of bows.

      “Then thank God for that,” rejoined the gentleman.

      “Why?” asked Chichikov with no little curiosity, and still holding his cap over his head.

      “Because of THIS. Cast off the net, Thoma Menshov, and pick up that sturgeon for the gentleman to see. Go and help him, Telepen Kuzma.”

      With that the peasants indicated picked up by the head what was a veritable monster of a fish.

      “Isn’t it a beauty — a sturgeon fresh run from the river?” exclaimed the stout barin. “And now let us be off home. Coachman, you can take the lower road through the kitchen garden. Run, you lout of a Thoma Bolshoy, and open the gate for him. He will guide you to the house, and I myself shall be along presently.”

      Thereupon the barelegged Thoma Bolshoy, clad in nothing but a shirt, ran ahead of the koliaska through the village, every hut of which had hanging in front of it a variety of nets, for the reason that every inhabitant of the place was a fisherman. Next, he opened a gate into a large vegetable enclosure, and thence the koliaska emerged into a square near a wooden church, with, showing beyond the latter, the roofs of the manorial homestead.

      “A queer fellow, that Koshkarev!” said Chichikov to himself.

      “Well, whatever I may be, at least I’m here,” said a voice by his side. Chichikov looked round, and perceived that, in the meanwhile, the barin had dressed himself and overtaken the carriage. With a pair of yellow trousers he was wearing a grass-green jacket, and his neck was as guiltless of a collar as Cupid’s. Also, as he sat sideways in his drozhki, his bulk was such that he completely filled the vehicle. Chichikov was about to make some remark or another when the stout gentleman disappeared; and presently his drozhki re-emerged into view at the spot where the fish had been drawn to land, and his voice could be heard reiterating exhortations to his serfs. Yet when Chichikov reached the verandah of the house he found, to his intense surprise, the stout gentleman waiting to welcome the visitor. How he had contrived to convey himself thither passed Chichikov’s comprehension. Host and guest embraced three times, according to a bygone custom of Russia. Evidently the barin was one of the old school.

      “I bring you,” said Chichikov, “a greeting from his Excellency.”

      “From whom?”

      “From your relative General Alexander Dmitrievitch.”

      “Who is Alexander Dmitrievitch?”

      “What? You do not know General Alexander Dmitrievitch Betrishev?” exclaimed Chichikov with a touch of surprise.

      “No, I do not,” replied the gentleman.

      Chichikov’s surprise grew to absolute astonishment.

      “How comes that about?” he ejaculated. “I hope that I have the honour of addressing Colonel Koshkarev?”

      “Your hopes are vain. It is to my house, not to his, that you have come; and I am Peter Petrovitch Pietukh — yes, Peter Petrovitch Pietukh.”

      Chichikov, dumbfounded, turned to Selifan and Petrushka.

      “What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “I told you to drive to the house of Colonel Koshkarev, whereas you have brought me to that of Peter Petrovitch Pietukh.”

      “All the same, your fellows have done quite right,” put in the gentleman referred to. “Do you” (this to Selifan and Petrushka) “go to the kitchen, where they will give you a glassful of vodka apiece. Then put up the horses, and be off to the servants’ quarters.”

      “I regret the mistake extremely,” said Chichikov.

      “But it is not a mistake. When you have tried the dinner which I have in store for you, just see whether you think IT a mistake. Enter, I beg of you.” And, taking Chichikov by the arm, the host conducted him within, where they were met by a couple of youths.

“Let me introduce my two sons, home for their holidays from the Gymnasium⁴³,” said Pietukh. “Nikolasha, come and entertain our good visitor, while you, Aleksasha, follow me.” And with that the host disappeared.

⁴³ Secondary School.

      Chichikov turned to Nikolasha, whom he found to be a budding man about town, since at first he opened a conversation by stating that, as no good was to be derived from studying at a provincial institution, he and his brother desired to remove, rather, to St. Petersburg, the provinces not being worth living in.

      “I quite understand,” Chichikov thought to himself. “The end of the chapter will be confectioners’ assistants and the boulevards.”

      “Tell me,” he added aloud, “how does your father’s property at present stand?”

      “It is all mortgaged,” put in the father himself as he re-entered the room. “Yes, it is all mortgaged, every bit of it.”

      “What a pity!” thought Chichikov. “At this rate it will not be long before this man has no property at all left. I must hurry my departure.” Aloud he said with an air of sympathy: “That you have mortgaged the estate seems to me a matter of regret.”

      “No, not at all,” replied Pietukh. “In fact, they tell me that it is a good thing to do, and that every one else is doing it. Why should I act differently from my neighbours? Moreover, I have had enough of living here, and should like to try Moscow — more especially since my sons are always begging me to give them a metropolitan education.”

      “Oh, the fool, the fool!” reflected Chichikov. “He is for throwing up everything and making spendthrifts of his sons. Yet this is a nice property, and it is clear that the local peasants are doing well, and that the family, too, is comfortably off. On the other hand, as soon as ever these lads begin their education in restaurants and theatres, the devil will away with