Chief Clerk Nikolay Khvostov
The order bore a large heraldic stamp with the legend: ‘Stamp of the Chief Manorial Office of Ananyevo’, and below it a handwritten note: ‘See to it precisely. Yelena Losnyakova.’
‘Did your mistress write that herself?’ I asked.
‘’Course, sir. She always writes on it herself. An order wouldn’t be an order otherwise.’
‘So you’ll be sending this order to the bailiff, will you?’
‘No, sir. He’ll come an’ read it. ’Cept it’ll be read to him, ’cos he can’t read.’ (The duty clerk again fell silent.) ‘What d’you think, sir,’ he added, smiling, ‘it’s well written, isn’t it?’
‘It’s well written.’
‘I didn’t make it up, I admit that. Koskenkin’s best at doing that.’
‘What? Do you mean your orders have to be made up first?’
‘ ’Course, sir. You can’t write ’em out straight off.’
‘How much do you get paid?’ I asked him.
‘Thirty-five roubles and five roubles for shoes.’
‘Are you satisfied with that?’
‘Sure I am. It’s not everyone gets a job in the office. I admit it was an order from above, ’cos my uncle’s a butler.’
‘And you’re all right, are you?’
‘I’m all right, sir. Truth to tell,’ he went on with a sigh, ‘it’s better for people like us working for merchants. People like us’re very well off working for merchants. Look, just last night a merchant came to us from Venyovo and his workman was telling me… it’s all right, all right with them, no matter what you say.’
‘Are you telling me that merchants pay better wages?’
‘God forbid! You’d really get it in the neck if you asked him for wages. No, at a merchant’s you live in faith and fear. He gives you food and drink and clothes and everything. You do well by ’im and he’ll give you more… What’s wages! You don’t need ‘em… And your merchant, he lives simple-like, Russian-like, like we do. If you go travelling with ’im, he’ll drink tea and you’ll drink tea, what he eats, you’ll eat. A merchant… how can I say? he’s not like a master. A merchant doesn’t have whims. Well, he’ll fly off the handle and bash you one, but that’s the end of it. He doesn’t whine, he doesn’t nag… But work for a master and it’s hell! Nothing’s ever right for ’im. This is wrong, that doesn’t please him. Why, you give ’im a glass of water or some food– “Ah, this water stinks! This food stinks!” You take it away, stand outside the door a bit and bring it in again – “Well, now this is good, this doesn’t stink at all.” And as for the mistress of the house, oh, I can tell you, they’re something else! And as for the young ladies!’
‘Fedyushka!’ came the voice of the Fatso in the office.
The duty clerk dashed out. I finished my glass of tea, lay down on the divan and went to sleep. I slept for about two hours.
After waking up I was on the point of getting to my feet, but fatigue got the better of me. I closed my eyes but didn’t go back to sleep. People were talking quietly in the office beyond the partition. I started listening willy-nilly.
‘Yessir, yessir, Nikolay Yeremeich,’ said one voice, ‘yessir. Zat’s gotta be taken into account. Exactly, not possible otherwise, no, sir… Hm!’ The speaker coughed.
‘Just you believe me, Gavrila Antonych,’ the Fatso’s voice objected. ‘Judge for yourself, but I’m the one who knows how things are round here.’
‘Who better than you, Nikolay Yeremeich. Yessir, one might say you’re the real boss round here. Well, then, how’ll it be?’ the unfamiliar voice went on. ‘How’ll we decide it, Nikolay Yeremeich? I’m bound to ask that.’
‘How’ll we decide it, Gavrila Antonych? It all depends on you, so to speak. It seems you’re not desirous.’
‘Please, Nikolay Yeremeich, what’re you saying? It’s our business to trade, to purchase. That’s what we’re here for, you might say, Nikolay Yeremeich.’
‘Eight roubles,’ the Fatso said, pausing between the words.
There was an audible gasp.
‘Nikolay Yeremeich, that’s an awful lot you’re asking.’
‘I can’t do it otherwise, Gavrila Antonych. In God’s name I tell you I can’t.’
Silence ensued.
I quietly raised myself and looked through a slit in the partition. The Fatso was sitting with his back to me. Facing him sat the merchant, about forty years old, lean and pale, looking literally as if he’d been smeared with grease. He ceaselessly fussed with his beard and blinked his eyes rapidly and his lips worked.
‘Surprisingly good, one might say, the fields this year, yes, indeed,’ he began again. ‘I’ve been admiring ’em on my travels. From Voronezh onwards, they’ve been amazin’, first class you might say.’
‘Exactly, they’re not bad,’ said the chief clerk. ‘But you know what they say, Gavrila Antonych, seeds in autumn’s no use lest spring needs ’em.’
‘Definitely so, Nikolay Yeremeich, it’s all in God’s hand. That’s the absolute truth, what you’ve just said… Ah, I think your guest’s awake.’
The Fatso turned round and listened.
‘No, he’s asleep. Still, I’ll just…’
He went to the door.
‘No, he’s asleep,’ he repeated and returned to his place.
‘Well, how’s it to be, Nikolay Yeremeich?’ the merchant began again. ‘We’ve got to conclude our little bit o’ business… It’ll be like this, Nikolay Yeremeich, like this,’ he went on, ceaselessly blinking. ‘Two little grey ’uns and a little white ’un for your good self,3 but over there –’ he nodded towards the manor house – ‘six and a half. Shake on it, eh?’
‘Four little grey ’uns,’ answered the chief clerk.
‘Let’s say three.’
‘Four little grey ’uns without the white ’un.’
‘Three, Nikolay Yeremeich.’
‘Not a word more, Gavrila Antonych.’
‘What a difficult one you are!’ muttered the merchant. ‘It’d be better if I completed the deal with the mistress.’
‘Suit yourself,’ answered the Fatso. ‘You should’ve done so long ago. What in fact worries you about that? Far better if you did!’
‘No, no, that’s enough, Nikolay Yeremeich. I lost my temper just now! Zat’s what I’d said, after all.’
‘No, in fact…’
‘Enough, I tell you, I was joking, that’s all. Look, take your three and a half, if there’s no other way of dealing with you.’
‘I should’ve got four, but I’m a fool, I was in a hurry,’ muttered the Fatso.
‘So over in the house there they’ll be paying six and a half, Nikolay Yeremeich, sir, six and a half for the grain?’
‘That’s what we agreed, six and a half.’
‘Well, let’s shake on it, Nikolay Yeremeich!’ The merchant struck his outspread fingers on to the chief clerk’s palm. ‘Thank God!’ The merchant stood up. ‘So, sir, Nikolay Yeremeich, I’ll be going over to the mistress now and have myself announced and I’ll be telling ’er Nikolay Yeremeich says he’s settled for six and a half.’
‘You say that, Gavrila Antonych.’
‘Now here’s what I owe you.’
The merchant handed the chief clerk a small wad of notes, bowed, gave a shake of the head, picked his hat up between two fingers, shrugged his shoulders, gave a wavy movement to his waist and went out with a polite squeaking of his boots. Nikolay Yeremeich went to the hall and, so far as I could see, began counting through the notes handed him by the merchant. A red head with thick sideburns was poked in through the door.
‘Well?’ the head asked. ‘Is it as it should be?’
‘As it should be.’
‘How much?’
The Fatso waved his hand irritably and pointed to my room.
‘Ah, right!’ the head said and disappeared.
The Fatso went to the table, sat down, opened a book, got hold of an abacus and began running th
e bone beads backwards and forwards, using not his index finger but the third finger of his right hand because it was more respectable.
The duty clerk came in.
‘Whadya want?’
‘Sidor’s come from Golopleki.’
‘Ah! Well, let him in. Just a moment, just a moment… Take a look first and see if that ’un, the gent who’s not from round ’ere, see if he’s woken up.’
The duty clerk came cautiously into my room. I laid my head down on my game-bag, which served as a pillow, and closed my eyes.
‘He’s asleep,’ whispered the duty clerk, returning to the office.
The Fatso mumbled something through his teeth.
‘Well, call in Sidor,’ he said at last.
I once again raised myself up. An enormous peasant came in, about thirty years old, a picture of health, red-cheeked, with brown hair and a small curly beard. He made the sign of the cross towards the icon, bowed to the chief clerk, held his hat in both hands and straightened his back.
‘Good day, Sidor,’ said the Fatso, making a noise with the abacus.
‘Good day, Nikolay Yeremeich.’
‘Well, how was the road?’
‘All right, Nikolay Yeremeich. A bit muddy.’ (The peasant had a slow, quiet way of speaking.)
‘Is your wife well?’
‘She’s all right!’
The peasant sighed and stuck out one foot. Nikolay Yeremeich put the pen behind his ear and blew his nose.
‘So why’ve you come?’ he went on questioning, tucking the checkered handkerchief away in his pocket.
‘Listen, Nikolay Yeremeich, they’re asking us for carpenters.’
‘Well, you’ve got some, haven’t you?’
‘ ’Course there are, Nikolay Yeremeich. Everyone knows our homes’re made of wood. But it’s the work season, Nikolay Yeremeich.’
‘The work season! That’s it! You’re glad to work for others, but you don’t want to work for your mistress… It’s all the same work!’
‘The work’s all the same, true, Nikolay Yeremeich, but…’
‘Well?’
‘The pay’s poor… you know…’
‘I don’t know any such thing! Just look how spoilt you are. Be off with you!’
‘An’ it’s gotta be said, Nikolay Yeremeich, the work’ll only be for a week, but they’ll keep us a month. Or there won’t be enough material, or we’ll be sent to sweep the paths in the garden.’
‘I don’t know anything of the sort! The mistress herself gave the order, so there’s no point in you and me discussin’ it.’
Sidor fell silent and began moving his weight from one foot to the other.
Nikolay Yeremeich twisted his head on one side and started assiduously clicking away on the abacus.
‘Our… p-peasants… N-nikolay Yeremeich,’ Sidor said at last, stumbling over each word, ‘o-ordered me, for y-your g-good s-self… H-here it is… it’ll…’ (He put his hand in the chest pocket of his sheepskin coat and started drawing out a rolled-up cloth with red designs on it.)
‘What’re you doing, you fool, have you gone mad?’ the Fatso hurriedly interrupted him. ‘Go off to my hut,’ he went on, almost pushing the astonished peasant out. ‘Ask for my wife, she’ll give you some tea. I’ll be along in a minute. Go on. I’m telling you, go…’
Sidor went out.
‘What a bloody bear!’ the chief clerk muttered at his back, shook his head and once more turned to his accounts.
Suddenly there were cries of ‘Kuprya! Kuprya! Kuprya’s OK!’ out in the street and in the porch and a moment later there entered the office a man of small stature, consumptive in appearance, with an unusually long nose, large staring eyes and a very haughty air. He was dressed in an ancient, torn coat of light lilac colour, or what we call Odeloid (after the name Adelaide), which had a velveteen collar and tiny buttons. He was carrying a bundle of firewood on his shoulders. He was surrounded by five or so manorial servants all shouting: ‘Kuprya! Kuprya’s OK! Kuprya’s been made a stoker, Kuprya’s been made a stoker!’ But the man in the coat with the velveteen collar didn’t pay the slightest attention to the wild cries of his comrades and his expression did not change. With measured strides he went over to the stove, flung down his burden, straightened up, got a tobacco pouch out of his back pocket, scrunched up his eyes and stuffed up his nose a snuff of sweet clover mixed with ash.
At the entry of the exuberant gang the Fatso made to frown and rise from his seat but, seeing what all the fuss was about, he smiled and simply ordered them not to shout because there was a hunter asleep in the next room.
‘What hunter?’ two of the men asked simultaneously.
‘A landowner.’
‘Ah!’
‘Let ’em shout,’ said the fellow with the velveteen collar, spreading his arms, ‘it doesn’t bother me! So long as they don’t touch me, ’cos I’ve been made a stoker…’
‘A stoker! A stoker!’ the crowd chimed in joyfully.
‘The mistress gave the order,’ he went on with a shrug of the shoulders, ‘an’ just you watch out, you lot, they’ll turn you into pig keepers, you know. An’ I’m a tailor, an’ a good one, learned to tailor with the best teachers in Moscow and worked for generals, I did. No one’ll ever take that away from me. But what’ve you got to boast about, eh? Got free of the power of the masters, have you? You’re just bloody spongers, you are, just a lot of layabouts, nothing else! If I get my freedom, I won’t die of hunger, I’ll get by. Give me a passport an’ I’ll pay good quit-rent and satisfy my masters. But what’ll you do? You’ll be done for, done for, like so many flies, that’s for sure!’
‘That’s a bloody he!’ broke in a pockmarked and flaxen-haired lad with a red tie and arms out at the elbows. ‘You had a passport, you did, and the masters didn’t see one penny from you in quit-rent, an’ you didn’t earn a penny neither. You just had enough to drag yourself back home here, an’ ever since then you’ve been livin’ in nothin’ but that caftan thing you’ve got on!’
‘So what, Konstantin Narkizych?’ replied Kuprian. ‘A fellow fell in love – and was done for, finished. You live like what I did, Konstantin Narkizych, and then you can judge me.’
‘And look who he fell in love with! A real fright she was!’
‘No, you mustn’t say that, Konstantin Narkizych.’
‘Who’re you trying to kid? I saw ’er with my own eyes. Last year in Moscow I saw ’er with my own eyes.’
‘Last year she’d really gone downhill a bit, sure,’ Kuprian remarked.
‘No, gentlemen, what I’d…’ interrupted in a contemptuous and offhand voice a tall, thin man, with a face covered in spots, evidently a valet with his curled, pomaded hair, ’er, let Kuprian Afanasych sing his little song. Come on, Kuprian Afanasych, get going!’
‘Yes, yes!’ the others all shouted. ‘Come on, Alexandra! You’re done for, Kuprya! Come on, sing, Kuprya! Come on, Alexandra!’ (Manorial servants frequently, when speaking about a man, use a feminine form out of greater fondness.) ‘Come on, sing!’
‘This isn’t a place for singing,’ Kuprian objected with firmness, ‘it’s an office.’
‘So what’s that matter to you? You’re aimin’ to become a clerk, aren’t you?’ Konstantin responded with a coarse laugh. ‘Goes without sayin’!’
‘Everything’s in the mistress’s hands,’ the poor fellow remarked.
‘See, see, that’s what he’s after, isn’t he? Ooh! Ooh! Ah!’
And they all burst out laughing, and some started jumping with joy. One laughed louder than all the rest, a boy of about fifteen, apparently the son of an aristocrat from among the manorial staff because he was wearing a waistcoat with brass buttons and a lilac-coloured tie and had already developed a little pot-belly.
‘Just listen a moment, admit it, Kuprya,’ said Nikolay Yeremeich self-importantly, evidently delighted and thoroughly mollified. ‘It’s no good being a stoker, is it? It’s an empty job, isn’t it?’
; ‘Look, Nikolay Yeremeich,’ said Kuprian, ‘you’re now our chief clerk, that’s true. There’s no dispute about that, none at all. But you were in disgrace once and had to live in a peasant hut as well.’
‘Just you watch out, and don’t you forget it!’ the Fatso interrupted him angrily. ‘They’re joking with you, you fool. You, you fool, you ought to sense how things are and be grateful that they’re taking some interest in you, fool that you are.’
‘I didn’t mean it, Nikolay Yeremeich, I’m sorry…’
‘You’d better mean that.’
The door was flung open and in ran a servant-boy.
‘Nikolay Yeremeich, the mistress’s askin’ for you.’
‘Who’s with her?’ he asked the boy.
‘Aksinya Nikitishna and the merchant from Venyovo.’
‘I’ll be there in a moment. And you, my lads,’ he went on in a persuasive voice, ‘you’d best be off out of here with the newly appointed stoker, ’cos that German’ll likely drop in and he’ll lay a complaint at once.’
The Fatso put his hair to rights, coughed into a hand that was almost completely covered by his coat sleeve, buttoned himself up and set off to see his mistress, walking with his feet placed wide apart. A short while later the whole gang followed in his wake together with Kuprya. The only one remaining was my old friend the duty clerk. He set about sharpening quills, but while sitting there he fell asleep. Several flies immediately took advantage of this good fortune and settled on his mouth. A mosquito alighted on his forehead, correctly spread its little feet and slowly plunged its whole sting into his soft body. The former red-headed man with sideburns again appeared in the doorway, glanced in once or twice and then entered along with his rather unattractive torso.
‘Fedyushka! Fedyushka! You’re always sleeping!’ he said.
The duty clerk opened his eyes and rose from his chair.
‘Has Nikolay Yeremeich gone to see the mistress?’
‘He’s gone to see the mistress, Vasily Nikolaich.’
Ah, I thought, here he is – the chief cashier. He began walking about the room. Though it was more of a prowl than a walk and was generally rather cat-like. An ancient black frock-coat with very narrow tails bounced up and down on his shoulders, while one hand was held on his breast and the other ceaselessly fingered a high, tight, horsehair cravat, and he turned his head to and fro with an effort. He wore goatskin boots which did not squeak and he padded about very softly.