“That was duck with apple sauce,” answered my mother faintly.

“Duck! Forgive me, sister, but—but—I have an attack of indigestion! I’m ill!”

My uncle pulled a sour, tearful face and continued.

“The devil the governor had to come here to see me! Much I wanted a visit from him! Ouch—oh, my indigestion! I—I can’t work and I can’t sleep. I’m completely run down. I don’t see how in the world you can exist here in this wilderness without anything to do! There now, the pain is commencing in the pit of my stomach!”

My uncle knit his brows and walked up and down more swiftly than ever.

“Brother,” asked my mother softly. “How much does it cost to go abroad?”

“Three thousand roubles at least!” wailed my uncle. “I should certainly go, but where can I get the money? I haven’t a copeck! Ouch, what a pain!”

My uncle stopped in his walk and gazed with anguish through the window at the grey, cloudy sky.

Silence fell. My mother fixed her eyes for a long time on the icon as if she were debating something, and then burst into tears and exclaimed:

“I’ll let you have three thousand, brother!”

Three days later the majestic trunks were sent to the station, and behind them rolled the carriage containing the privy councillor. He had wept as he bade farewell to my mother, and had held her hand to his lips for a long time. As he climbed into the carriage his face had shone with childish joy. Radiant and happy, he had settled himself more comfortably in his seat, kissed his hand to my weeping mother, and suddenly and unexpectedly turned his regard to me. The utmost astonishment had appeared on his features——

“What boy is this?” he had asked.

As my mother had always assured me that God had sent my uncle to us for my especial benefit, this question gave her quite a turn. But I was not thinking about the question. As I looked at my uncle’s happy face I felt, for some reason, very sorry for him. I could not endure it, and jumped up into the carriage to embrace this man, so frivolous, so weak, and so human. As I looked into his eyes I wanted to say something pleasant, so I asked him:

“Uncle, were you ever in a battle?”

“Oh, my precious boy!” laughed my uncle kissing me. “My precious boy, upon my word and honour! How natural and true to life it all is, upon my word and honour!”

The carriage moved away. I followed it with my eyes, and long after it had disappeared I still heard ringing in my ears that farewell, “Upon my word and honour!”

It was a tiny town, worse than a village, inhabited chiefly by old people who so seldom died that it was really vexatious. Very few coffins were needed for the hospital and the jail; in a word, business was bad. If Jacob Ivanoff had been a maker of coffins in the county town, he would probably have owned a house of his own by now, and would have been called Mr. Ivanoff, but here in this little place he was simply called Jacob, and for some reason his nickname was Bronze. He lived as poorly as any common peasant in a little old hut of one room, in which he and Martha, and the stove, and a double bed, and the coffins, and his joiner’s bench, and all the necessities of housekeeping were stowed away.

The coffins made by Jacob were serviceable and strong. For the peasants and townsfolk he made them to fit himself and never went wrong, for, although he was seventy years old, there was no man, not even in the prison, any taller or stouter than he was. For the gentry and for women he made them to measure, using an iron yardstick for the purpose. He was always very reluctant to take orders for children’s coffins, and made them contemptuously without taking any measurements at all, always saying when he was paid for them:

“The fact is, I don’t like to be bothered with trifles.”

Beside what he received for his work as a joiner, he added a little to his income by playing the violin. There was a Jewish orchestra in the town that played for weddings, led by the tinsmith Moses Shakess, who took more than half of its earnings for himself. As Jacob played the fiddle extremely well, especially Russian songs, Shakess used sometimes to invite him to play in his orchestra for the sum of fifty copecks a day, not including the presents he might receive from the guests. Whenever Bronze took his seat in the orchestra, the first thing that happened to him was that his face grew red, and the perspiration streamed from it, for the air was always hot, and reeking of garlic to the point of suffocation. Then his fiddle would begin to moan, and a double bass would croak hoarsely into his right ear, and a flute would weep into his left. This flute was played by a gaunt, red-bearded Jew with a network of red and blue veins on his face, who bore the name of a famous rich man, Rothschild. This confounded Jew always contrived to play even the merriest tunes sadly. For no obvious reason Jacob little by little began to conceive a feeling of hatred and contempt for all Jews, and especially for Rothschild. He quarrelled with him and abused him in ugly language, and once even tried to beat him, but Rothschild took offence at this, and cried with a fierce look:

“If I had not always respected you for your music, I should have thrown you out of the window long ago!”

Then he burst into tears. So after that Bronze was not often invited to play in the orchestra, and was only called upon in cases of dire necessity, when one of the Jews was missing.

Jacob was never in a good humour, because he always had to endure the most terrible losses. For instance, it was a sin to work on a Sunday or a holiday, and Monday was always a bad day, so in that way there were about two hundred days a year on which he was compelled to sit with his hands folded in his lap. That was a great loss to him. If any one in town had a wedding without music, or if Shakess did not ask him to play, there was another loss. The police inspector had lain ill with consumption for two years while Jacob impatiently waited for him to die, and then had gone to take a cure in the city and had died there, which of course had meant another loss of at least ten roubles, as the coffin would have been an expensive one lined with brocade.

The thought of his losses worried Jacob at night more than at any other time, so he used to lay his fiddle at his side on the bed, and when those worries came trooping into his brain he would touch the strings, and the fiddle would give out a sound in the darkness, and Jacob’s heart would feel lighter.

Last year on the sixth of May, Martha suddenly fell ill. The old woman breathed with difficulty, staggered in her walk, and felt terribly thirsty. Nevertheless, she got up that morning, lit the stove, and even went for the water. When evening came she went to bed. Jacob played his fiddle all day. When it grew quite dark, because he had nothing better to do, he took the book in which he kept an account of his losses, and began adding up the total for the year. They amounted to more than a thousand roubles. He was so shaken by this discovery, that he threw the counting board on the floor and trampled it under foot. Then he picked it up again and rattled it once more for a long time, heaving as he did so sighs both deep and long. His face grew purple, and perspiration dripped from his brow. He was thinking that if those thousand roubles he had lost had been in the bank then, he would have had at least forty roubles interest by the end of the year. So those forty roubles were still another loss! In a word, wherever he turned he found losses and nothing but losses.

“Jacob!” cried Martha unexpectedly, “I am going to die!”

He looked round at his wife. Her face was flushed with fever and looked unusually joyful and bright. Bronze was troubled, for he had been accustomed to seeing her pale and timid and unhappy. It seemed to him that she was actually dead, and glad to have left this hut, and the coffins, and Jacob at last. She was staring at the ceiling, with her lips moving as if she saw her deliverer Death approaching and were whispering with him.

The dawn was just breaking and the eastern sky was glowing with a faint radiance. As he stared at the old woman it somehow seemed to Jacob that he had never once spoken a tender word to her or pitied her; that he had never thought of buying her a kerchief or of bringing her back some sweetmeats from a wedding. On the contrary, he had shouted at her and abused her for his losses, and had shaken his fist at her. It was true he had never beaten her, but he had frightened her no less, and she had been paralysed with fear every time he had scolded her. Yes, and he had not allowed her to drink tea because his losses were heavy enough as it was, so she had had to be content with hot water. Now he understood why her face looked so strangely happy, and horror overwhelmed him.

As soon as it was light he borrowed a horse from a neighbour and took Martha to the hospital. As there were not many patients, he had not to wait very long—only about three hours. To his great satisfaction it was not the doctor who was receiving the sick that day, but his assistant, Maksim Nicolaitch, an old man of whom it was said that although he quarrelled and drank, he knew more than the doctor did.

“Good morning, your Honour,” said Jacob leading his old woman into the office. “Excuse us for intruding upon you with our trifling affairs. As you see, this subject has fallen ill. My life’s friend, if you will allow me to use the expression——”

Knitting his grey eyebrows and stroking his whiskers, the doctor’s assistant fixed his eyes on the old woman. She was sitting all in a heap on a low stool, and with her thin, long-nosed face and her open mouth, she looked like a thirsty bird.

“Well, well—yes—” said the doctor slowly, heaving a sigh. “This is a case of influenza and possibly fever; there is typhoid in town. What’s to be done? The old woman has lived her span of years, thank God. How old is she?”

“She lacks one year of being seventy, your Honour.”

“Well, well, she has lived long. There must come an end to everything.”

“You are certainly right, your Honour,” said Jacob, smiling out of politeness. “And we thank you sincerely for your kindness, but allow me to suggest to you that even an insect dislikes to die!”

“Never mind if it does!” answered the doctor, as if the life or death of the old woman lay in his hands. “I’ll tell you what you must do, my good man. Put a cold bandage around her head, and give her two of these powders a day. Now then, good-by! Bon jour!”

Jacob saw by the expression on the doctor’s face that it was too late now for powders. He realised clearly that Martha must die very soon, if not to-day, then to-morrow. He touched the doctor’s elbow gently, blinked, and whispered:

“She ought to be cupped, doctor!”

“I haven’t time, I haven’t time, my good man. Take your old woman, and go in God’s name. Good-by.”

“Please, please, cup her, doctor!” begged Jacob. “You know yourself that if she had a pain in her stomach, powders and drops would do her good, but she has a cold! The first thing to do when one catches cold is to let some blood, doctor!”

But the doctor had already sent for the next patient, and a woman leading a little boy came into the room.

“Go along, go along!” he cried to Jacob, frowning. “It’s no use making a fuss!”

“Then at least put some leeches on her! Let me pray to God for you for the rest of my life!”

The doctor’s temper flared up and he shouted:

“Don’t say another word to me, blockhead!”

Jacob lost his temper, too, and flushed hotly, but he said nothing and, silently taking Martha’s arm, led her out of the office. Only when they were once more seated in their wagon did he look fiercely and mockingly at the hospital and say:

“They’re a pretty lot in there, they are! That doctor would have cupped a rich man, but he even begrudged a poor one a leech. The pig!”

When they returned to the hut, Martha stood for nearly ten minutes supporting herself by the stove. She felt that if she lay down Jacob would begin to talk to her about his losses, and would scold her for lying down and not wanting to work. Jacob contemplated her sadly, thinking that to-morrow was St. John the Baptist’s day, and day after to-morrow was St. Nicholas the Wonder Worker’s day, and that the following day would be Sunday, and the day after that would be Monday, a bad day for work. So he would not be able to work for four days, and as Martha would probably die on one of these days, the coffin would have to be made at once. He took his iron yardstick in hand, went up to the old woman, and measured her. Then she lay down, and he crossed himself and went to work on the coffin.

When the task was completed Bronze put on his spectacles and wrote in his book:

“To 1 coffin for Martha Ivanoff—2 roubles, 40 copecks.”

He sighed. All day the old woman lay silent with closed eyes, but toward evening, when the daylight began to fade, she suddenly called the old man to her side.

“Do you remember, Jacob?” she asked. “Do you remember how fifty years ago God gave us a little baby with curly golden hair? Do you remember how you and I used to sit on the bank of the river and sing songs under the willow tree?” Then with a bitter smile she added: “The baby died.”

Jacob racked his brains, but for the life of him he could not recall the child or the willow tree.

“You are dreaming,” he said.

The priest came and administered the Sacrament and Extreme Unction. Then Martha began muttering unintelligibly, and toward morning she died.

The neighbouring old women washed her and dressed her, and laid her in her coffin. To avoid paying the deacon, Jacob read the psalms over her himself, and her grave cost him nothing, as the watchman of the cemetery was his cousin. Four peasants carried the coffin to the grave, not for money but for love. The old women, the beggars, and two village idiots followed the body, and the people whom they passed on the way crossed themselves devoutly. Jacob was very glad that everything had passed off so nicely and decently and cheaply, without giving offence to any one. As he said farewell to Martha for the last time he touched the coffin with his hand and thought:

“That’s a fine job!”

But walking homeward from the cemetery he was seized with great distress. He felt ill, his breath was burning hot, his legs grew weak, and he longed for a drink. Beside this, a thousand thoughts came crowding into his head. He remembered again that he had never once pitied Martha or said a tender word to her. The fifty years of their life together lay stretched far, far behind him, and somehow, during all that time, he had never once thought about her at all or noticed her more than if she had been a dog or a cat. And yet she had lit the stove every day, and had cooked and baked and fetched water and chopped wood, and when he had come home drunk from a wedding she had hung his fiddle reverently on a nail each time, and had silently put him to bed with a timid, anxious look on her face.

But here came Rothschild toward him, bowing and scraping and smiling.

“I have been looking for you, uncle!” he said. “Moses Shakess presents his compliments and wants you to go to him at once.”

Jacob did not feel in a mood to do anything. He wanted to cry.

“Leave me alone!” he exclaimed, and walked on.

“Oh, how can you say that?” cried Rothschild, running beside him in alarm. “Moses will be very angry. He wants you to come at once!”

Jacob was disgusted by the panting of the Jew, by his blinking eyes, and by the quantities of reddish freckles on his face. He looked with aversion at his long green coat and at the whole of his frail, delicate figure.

“What do you mean by pestering me, garlic?” he shouted. “Get away!”

The Jew grew angry and shouted back:

“Don’t yell at me like that or I’ll send you flying over that fence!”

“Get out of my sight!” bellowed Jacob, shaking his fist at him. “There’s no living in the same town with swine like you!”

Rothschild was petrified with terror. He sank to the ground and waved his hands over his head as if to protect himself from falling blows; then he jumped up and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him. As he ran he leaped and waved his arms, and his long, gaunt back could be seen quivering. The little boys were delighted at what had happened, and ran after him screaming: “Sheeny! Sheeny!” The dogs also joined barking in the chase. Somebody laughed and then whistled, at which the dogs barked louder and more vigorously than ever.

Then one of them must have bitten Rothschild, for a piteous, despairing scream rent the air.

Jacob walked across the common to the edge of the town without knowing where he was going, and the little boys shouted after him. “There goes old man Bronze! There goes old man Bronze!” He found himself by the river where the snipe were darting about with shrill cries, and the ducks were quacking and swimming to and fro. The sun was shining fiercely and the water was sparkling so brightly that it was painful to look at. Jacob struck into a path that led along the river bank. He came to a stout, red-cheeked woman just leaving a bath-house. “Aha, you otter, you!” he thought. Not far from the bath-house some little boys were fishing for crabs with pieces of meat. When they saw Jacob they shouted mischievously: “Old man Bronze! Old man Bronze!” But there before him stood an ancient, spreading willow tree with a massive trunk, and a crow’s nest among its branches. Suddenly there flashed across Jacob’s memory with all the vividness of life a little child with golden curls, and the willow of which Martha had spoken. Yes, this was the same tree, so green and peaceful and sad. How old it had grown, poor thing!

He sat down at its foot and thought of the past. On the opposite shore, where that meadow now was, there had stood in those days a wood of tall birch-trees, and that bare hill on the horizon yonder had been covered with the blue bloom of an ancient pine forest. And sailboats had plied the river then, but now all lay smooth and still, and only one little birch-tree was left on the opposite bank, a graceful young thing, like a girl, while on the river there swam only ducks and geese. It was hard to believe that boats had once sailed there. It even seemed to him that there were fewer geese now than there had been. Jacob shut his eyes, and one by one white geese came flying toward him, an endless flock.

He was puzzled to know why he had never once been down to the river during the last forty or fifty years of his life, or, if he had been there, why he had never paid any attention to it. The stream was fine and large; he might have fished in it and sold the fish to the merchants and the government officials and the restaurant keeper at the station, and put the money in the bank. He might have rowed in a boat from farm to farm and played on his fiddle. People of every rank would have paid him money to hear him. He might have tried to run a boat on the river, that would have been better than making coffins. Finally, he might have raised geese, and killed them, and sent them to Moscow in the winter. Why, the down alone would have brought him ten roubles a year! But he had missed all these chances and had done nothing. What losses were here! Ah, what terrible losses! And, oh, if he had only done all these things at the same time! If he had only fished, and played the fiddle, and sailed a boat, and raised geese, what capital he would have had by now! But he had not even dreamed of doing all this; his life had gone by without profit or pleasure. It had been lost for a song. Nothing was left ahead; behind lay only losses, and such terrible losses that he shuddered to think of them. But why shouldn’t men live so as to avoid all this waste and these losses? Why, oh, why, should those birch and pine forests have been felled? Why should those meadows be lying so deserted? Why did people always do exactly what they ought not to do? Why had Jacob scolded and growled and clenched his fists and hurt his wife’s feelings all his life? Why, oh why, had he frightened and insulted that Jew just now? Why did people in general always interfere with one another? What losses resulted from this! What terrible losses! If it were not for envy and anger they would get great profit from one another.

All that evening and night Jacob dreamed of the child, of the willow tree, of the fish and the geese, of Martha with her profile like a thirsty bird, and of Rothschild’s pale, piteous mien. Queer faces seemed to be moving toward him from all sides, muttering to him about his losses. He tossed from side to side, and got up five times during the night to play his fiddle.

He rose with difficulty next morning, and walked to the hospital. The same doctor’s assistant ordered him to put cold bandages on his head, and gave him little powders to take; by his expression and the tone of his voice Jacob knew that the state of affairs was bad, and that no powders could save him now. As he walked home he reflected that one good thing would result from his death: he would no longer have to eat and drink and pay taxes, neither would he offend people any more, and, as a man lies in his grave for hundreds of thousands of years, the sum of his profits would be immense. So, life to a man was a loss—death, a gain. Of course this reasoning was correct, but it was also distressingly sad. Why should the world be so strangely arranged that a man’s life which was only given to him once must pass without profit?

He was not sorry then that he was going to die, but when he reached home, and saw his fiddle, his heart ached, and he regretted it deeply. He would not be able to take his fiddle with him into the grave, and now it would be left an orphan, and its fate would be that of the birch grove and the pine forest. Everything in the world had been lost, and would always be lost for ever. Jacob went out and sat on the threshold of his hut, clasping his fiddle to his breast. And as he thought of his life so full of waste and losses he began playing without knowing how piteous and touching his music was, and the tears streamed down his cheeks. And the more he thought the more sorrowfully sang his violin.

The latch clicked and Rothschild came in through the garden-gate, and walked boldly half-way across the garden. Then he suddenly stopped, crouched down, and, probably from fear, began making signs with his hands as if he were trying to show on his fingers what time it was.

“Come on, don’t be afraid!” said Jacob gently, beckoning him to advance. “Come on!”

With many mistrustful and fearful glances Rothschild went slowly up to Jacob, and stopped about two yards away.

“Please don’t beat me!” he said with a ducking bow. “Moses Shakess has sent me to you again. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said, ‘go to Jacob,’ says he, ‘and say that we can’t possibly manage without him.’ There is a wedding next Thursday. Ye-es, sir. Mr. Shapovaloff is marrying his daughter to a very fine man. It will be an expensive wedding, ai, ai!” added the Jew with a wink.

“I can’t go” said Jacob breathing hard. “I’m ill, brother.”

And he began to play again, and the tears gushed out of his eyes over his fiddle. Rothschild listened intently with his head turned away and his arms folded on his breast. The startled, irresolute look on his face gradually gave way to one of suffering and grief. He cast up his eyes as if in an ecstasy of agony and murmured: “Ou—ouch!” And the tears began to trickle slowly down his cheeks, and to drip over his green coat.

All day Jacob lay and suffered. When the priest came in the evening to administer the Sacrament he asked him if he could not think of any particular sin.

Struggling with his fading memories, Jacob recalled once more Martha’s sad face, and the despairing cry of the Jew when the dog had bitten him. He murmured almost inaudibly:

“Give my fiddle to Rothschild.”

“It shall be done,” answered the priest.

So it happened that every one in the little town began asking:

“Where did Rothschild get that good fiddle? Did he buy it or steal it or get it out of a pawnshop?”

Rothschild has long since abandoned his flute, and now only plays on the violin. The same mournful notes flow from under his bow that used to come from his flute, and when he tries to repeat what Jacob played as he sat on the threshold of his hut, the result is an air so plaintive and sad that every one who hears him weeps, and he himself at last raises his eyes and murmurs: “Ou—ouch!” And this new song has so delighted the town that the merchants and government officials vie with each other in getting Rothschild to come to their houses, and sometimes make him play it ten times in succession.

Major-General Buldeeff was suffering from toothache. He had rinsed his mouth with vodka and cognac; applied tobacco ashes, opium, turpentine, and kerosene to the aching tooth; rubbed his cheek with iodine, and put cotton wool soaked with alcohol into his ears, but all these remedies had either failed to relieve him or else had made him sick. The dentist was sent for. He picked at his tooth and prescribed quinine, but this did not help the general. Buldeeff met the suggestion that the tooth should be pulled with refusal. Every one in the house, his wife, his children, the servants, even Petka, the scullery boy, suggested some remedy. Among others his steward, Ivan Evceitch came to him, and advised him to try a conjuror.

“Your Excellency,” said he, “ten years ago an exciseman lived in this county whose name was Jacob. He was a first-class conjuror for the toothache. He used simply to turn toward the window and spit, and the pain would go in a minute. That was his gift.”

“Where is he now?”

“After he was dismissed from the revenue service, he went to live in Saratoff with his mother-in-law. He makes his living off nothing but teeth now. If any one has a toothache, he sends for him to cure it. The Saratoff people have him come to their houses, but he cures people in other cities by telegraph. Send him a telegram, your Excellency, say: ‘I, God’s servant Alexei, have the toothache. I want you to cure me.’ You can send him his fee by mail.”

“Stuff and nonsense! Humbug!”

“Just try it, your Excellency! He is fond of vodka, it is true, and is living with some German woman instead of his wife, and he uses terrible language, but he is a remarkable wonder worker.”

“Do send him a telegram, Alexei!” begged the general’s wife. “You don’t believe in conjuring, I know, but I have tried it. Why not send him the message, even if you don’t believe it will do you any good? It can’t kill you!”

“Very well, then,” Buldeeff consented. “I would willingly send a telegram to the devil, let alone to an exciseman. Ouch! I can’t stand this! Come, where does your conjuror live? What is his name?”

The general sat down at his desk, and took up a pen.

“He is known to every dog in Saratoff,” said the steward. “Just address the telegram to Mr. Jacob—Jacob——”

“Well?”

“Jacob—Jacob—what? I can’t remember his surname. Jacob—darn it, what is his surname? I thought of it as I was coming along. Wait a minute!”

Ivan raised his eyes to the ceiling, and moved his lips. Buldeeff and his wife waited impatiently for him to remember the name.

“Well then, what is it? Think harder.”

“Just a minute! Jacob—Jacob—I can’t remember it! It’s a common name too, something to do with a horse. Is it Mayres? No it isn’t Mayres—Wait a bit, is it Colt? No, it isn’t Colt. I know perfectly well it’s a horsey name, but it has absolutely gone out of my head!”

“It isn’t Filley?”

“No, no—wait a jiffy. Maresfield, Maresden—Farrier—Harrier——”

“That’s a doggy name, not a horsey one. Is it Foley?”

“No, no, it isn’t Foley. Just a second—Horseman—Horsey—Hackney. No, it isn’t any of those.”

“Then how am I to send that telegram? Think a little harder!”

“One moment! Carter—Coltsford—Shafter——”

“Shaftsbury?” suggested the general’s wife.

“No, no—Wheeler—no, that isn’t it! I’ve forgotten it!”

“Then why on earth did you come pestering me with your advice, if you couldn’t remember the man’s name?” stormed the general. “Get out of here!”

Ivan went slowly out, and the general clutched his cheek, and went rushing through the house.

“Ouch! Oh Lord!” he howled. “Oh, mother! Ouch! I’m as blind as a bat!”

The steward went into the garden, and, raising his eyes to heaven, tried to remember the exciseman’s name.

“Hunt—Hunter—Huntley. No, that’s wrong! Cobb—Cobden—Dobbins—Maresly——”

Shortly afterward, the steward was again summoned by his master.

“Well, have you thought of it?” asked the general.

“No, not yet, your Excellency!”

“Is it Barnes?” asked the general. “Is it Palfrey, by any chance?”

Every one in the house began madly to invent names. Horses of every possible age, breed, and sex were considered; their names, hoofs, and harness were all thought of. People were frantically walking up and down in the house, garden, servants’ quarters, and kitchen, all scratching their heads, and searching for the right name.

Suddenly the steward was sent for again.

“Is it Herder?” they asked him. “Hocker? Hyde? Groome?”

“No, no, no,” answered Ivan, and, casting up his eyes, he went on thinking aloud.

“Steed—Charger—Horsely—Harness——”

“Papa!” cried a voice from the nursery. “Tracey! Bitter!”

The whole farm was now in an uproar. The impatient, agonised general promised five roubles to any one who would think of the right name, and a perfect mob began to follow Ivan Evceitch about.

“Bayley!” They cried to him. “Trotter! Hackett!”

Evening came at last, and still the name had not been found. The household went to bed without sending the telegram.

The general did not sleep a wink, but walked, groaning, up and down his room. At three o’clock in the morning he went out into the yard and tapped at the steward’s window.

“It isn’t Gelder, is it?” he asked almost in tears.

“No, not Gelder, your Excellency,” answered Ivan, sighing apologetically.

“Perhaps it isn’t a horsey name at all? Perhaps it is something entirely different?”

“No, no, upon my word, it’s a horsey name, your Excellency, I remember that perfectly.”

“What an abominable memory you have, brother! That name is worth more than anything on earth to me now! I’m in agony!”

Next morning the general sent for the dentist again.

“I’ll have it out!” he cried. “I can’t stand this any longer!”

The dentist came and pulled out the aching tooth. The pain at once subsided, and the general grew quieter. Having done his work and received his fee, the dentist climbed into his gig, and drove away. In the field outside the front gate he met Ivan. The steward was standing by the roadside plunged in thought, with his eyes fixed on the ground at his feet. Judging from the deep wrinkles that furrowed his brow, he was painfully racking his brains over something, and was muttering to himself:

“Dunn—Sadler—Buckle—Coachman——”

“Hello, Ivan!” cried the doctor driving up. “Won’t you sell me a load of hay? I have been buying mine from the peasants lately, but it’s no good.”

Ivan glared dully at the doctor, smiled vaguely, and without answering a word threw up his arms, and rushed toward the house as if a mad dog were after him.

“I’ve thought of the name, your Excellency!” he shrieked with delight, bursting into the general’s study. “I’ve thought of it, thanks to the doctor. Hayes! Hayes is the exciseman’s name! Hayes, your Honour! Send a telegram to Hayes!”

“Slow-coach!” said the general contemptuously, snapping his fingers at him. “I don’t need your horsey name now! Slow-coach!”

One hot summer’s day Ivan Jmukin was returning from town to his farm in southern Russia. Jmukin was a retired old Cossack officer, who had served in the Caucasus, and had once been lusty and strong, but he was an old man now, shrivelled and bent, with bushy eyebrows and a long, greenish-grey moustache. He had been fasting in town, and had made his will, for it was only two weeks since he had had a slight stroke of paralysis, and now, sitting in the train, he was full of deep, gloomy thoughts of his approaching death, of the vanity of life, and of the transient quality of all earthly things. At Provalye, one of the stations on the Don railway, a fair-haired, middle-aged man, carrying a worn portfolio under his arm, entered the compartment and sat down opposite the old Cossack. They began talking together.

“No,” said Jmukin gazing pensively out of the window. “It is never too late to marry. I myself was forty-eight when I married, and every one said it was too late, but it has turned out to be neither too late nor too early. Still, it is better never to marry at all. Every one soon gets tired of a wife, though not every one will tell you the truth, because, you know, people are ashamed of their family troubles, and try to conceal them. It is often ‘Manya, dear Manya,’ with a man when, if he had his way, he would put that Manya of his into a sack, and throw her into the river. A wife is a nuisance and a bore, and children are no better, I can assure you. I have two scoundrels myself. There is nowhere they can go to school on the steppe, and I can’t afford to send them to Novotcherkask, so they are growing up here like young wolf cubs. At any moment they may murder some one on the highway.”

The fair-haired man listened attentively, and answered all questions addressed to him briefly, in a low voice. He was evidently gentle and unassuming. He told his companion that he was an attorney, on his way to the village of Duevka on business.

“Why, for heaven’s sake, that’s only nine miles from where I live!” cried Jmukin, as if some one had been disputing it. “You won’t be able to get any horses at the station this evening. In my opinion the best thing for you to do is to come home with me, you know, and spend the night at my house, you know, and let me send you on to-morrow with my horses.”

After a moment’s reflection the attorney accepted the invitation.

The sun was hanging low over the steppe when they arrived at the station. The two men remained silent as they drove from the railway to the farm, for the jolting that the road gave them forbade conversation. The tarantass^[2] bounded and whined and seemed to be sobbing, as if its leaps caused it the keenest pain, and the attorney, who found his seat very uncomfortable, gazed with anguish before him, hoping to descry the farm in the distance. After they had driven eight miles a low house surrounded by a dark wattle fence came into view. The roof was painted green, the stucco on the walls was peeling off, and the little windows looked like puckered eyes. The farmhouse stood exposed to all the ardour of the sun; neither trees nor water were visible anywhere near it. The neighbouring landowners and peasants called it “Petcheneg Grange.” Many years ago a passing surveyor, who was spending the night at the farm, had talked with Jmukin all night, and had gone away in the morning much displeased, saying sternly as he left: “Sir, you are nothing but a Petcheneg!” So the name “Petcheneg Grange” had been given to the farm, and had stuck to it all the more closely as Jmukin’s boys began to grow up, and to perpetrate raids on the neighbouring gardens and melon fields. Jmukin himself was known as “old man you know,” because he talked so much, and used the words “you know” so often.

Jmukin’s two sons were standing in the courtyard, near the stables, as the tarantass drove up. One was about nineteen, the other was a hobbledehoy of a few years younger; both were barefoot and hatless. As the carriage went by the younger boy threw a hen high up over his head. It described an arc in the air, and fluttered cackling down till the elder fired a shot from his gun, and the dead bird fell to earth with a thud.

“Those are my boys learning to shoot birds on the wing,” Jmukin said.

The travellers were met in the front entry by a woman, a thin, pale-faced little creature, still pretty and young, who, from her dress, might have been taken for a servant.

“This,” said Jmukin, “is the mother of those sons of guns of mine. Come on, Lyuboff!” he cried to his wife. “Hustle, now, mother, and help entertain our guest. Bring us some supper! Quick!”

The house consisted of two wings. On one side were the “drawing-room” and, adjoining it, the old man’s bedchamber; close, stuffy apartments both, with low ceilings, infested by thousands of flies. On the other side was the kitchen, where the cooking and washing were done and the workmen were fed. Here, under benches, geese and turkeys were sitting on their nests, and here stood the beds of Lyuboff and her two sons. The furniture in the drawing-room was unpainted and had evidently been made by a country joiner. On the walls hung guns, game bags, and whips, all of which old trash was rusty and grey with dust. Not a picture was on the walls, only a dark, painted board that had once been an icon hung in one corner of the room.

A young peasant woman set the table and brought in ham and borstch.^[3] Jmukin’s guest declined vodka, and confined himself to eating cucumbers and bread.

“And what about the ham?” Jmukin asked.

“No, thank you, I don’t eat ham,” answered his guest. “I don’t eat meat of any kind.”

“Why not?”

“I’m a vegetarian. It’s against my principles to kill animals.”

Jmukin was silent for a moment, and then said slowly, with a sigh:

“I see—yes. I saw a man in town who didn’t eat meat either. It is a new religion people have. And why shouldn’t they have it? It’s a good thing. One can’t always be killing and shooting; one must take a rest sometimes and let the animals have a little peace. Of course it’s a sin to kill, there’s no doubt about that. Sometimes, when you shoot a hare, and hit him in the leg he will scream like a baby. So it hurts him!”

“Of course it hurts him! Animals suffer pain just as much as we do.”

“That’s a fact!” Jmukin agreed. “I see that perfectly,” he added pensively. “Only there is one thing that I must say I can’t quite understand. Suppose, for instance, you know, every one were to stop eating meat, what would become of all our barnyard fowls, like chickens and geese?”

“Chickens and geese would go free just like all other birds.”

“Ah! Now I understand. Of course. Crows and magpies get on without us all right. Yes. And chickens and geese and rabbits and sheep would all be free and happy, you know, and would praise God, and not be afraid of us any more. So peace and quiet would reign upon earth. Only one thing I can’t understand, you know,” Jmukin continued, with a glance at the ham. “Where would all the pigs go to? What would become of them?”

“The same thing that would become of all the other animals, they would go free.”

“I see—yes. But, listen, if they were not killed, they would multiply, you know, and then it would be good-by to our meadows and vegetable gardens! Why, if a pig is turned loose and not watched, it will ruin everything for you in a day! A pig is a pig, and hasn’t been called one for nothing!”

They finished their supper. Jmukin rose from the table, and walked up and down the room for a long time, talking interminably. He loved to think of and discuss deep and serious subjects, and was longing to discover some theory that would sustain him in his old age, so that he might find peace of mind, and not think it so terrible to die. He desired for himself the same gentleness and self-confidence and peace of mind which he saw in this guest of his, who had just eaten his fill of cucumbers and bread, and was a better man for it, sitting there on a bench so healthy and fat, patiently bored, looking like a huge heathen idol that nothing could move from his seat.

“If a man can only find some idea to hold to in life, he will be happy,” Jmukin thought.

The old Cossack went out on the front steps, and the attorney could hear him sighing and repeating to himself:

“Yes—I see——”

Night was falling, and the stars were shining out one by one. The lamps in the house had not been lit. Some one came creeping toward the drawing-room as silently as a shadow, and stopped in the doorway. It was Lyuboff, Jmukin’s wife.

“Have you come from the city?” she asked timidly, without looking at her guest.

“Yes, I live in the city.”

“Maybe you know about schools, master, and can tell us what to do if you will be so kind. We need advice.”

“What do you want?”

“We have two sons, kind master, and they should have been sent to school long ago, but nobody ever comes here and we have no one to tell us anything. I myself know nothing. If they don’t go to school, they will be taken into the army as common Cossacks. That is hard, master. They can’t read or write, they are worse off than peasants, and their father himself despises them, and won’t let them come into the house. Is it their fault? If only the younger one, at least, could be sent to school! It’s a pity to see them so!” she wailed, and her voice trembled. It seemed incredible that a woman so little and young could already have grown-up children. “Ah, it is such a pity!” she said again.

“You know nothing about it, mother, and it’s none of your business,” said Jmukin, appearing in the doorway. “Don’t pester our guest with your wild talk. Go away, mother!”

Lyuboff went out, repeating once more in a high little voice as she reached the hall:

“Ah, it is such a pity!”

A bed was made up for the attorney on a sofa in the drawing-room, and Jmukin lit the little shrine lamp, so that he might not be left in the dark. Then he lay down in his own bedroom. Lying there he thought of many things: his soul, his old age, and his recent stroke which had given him such a fright and had so sharply reminded him of his approaching death. He liked to philosophise when he was alone in the dark, and at these times he imagined himself to be a very deep and serious person indeed, whose attention only questions of importance could engage. He now kept thinking that he would like to get hold of some one idea unlike any other idea he had ever had, something significant that would be the lodestar of his life. He wanted to think of some law for himself, that would make his life as serious and deep as he himself personally was. And here was an idea! He could go without meat now, and deprive himself of everything that was superfluous to his existence! The time would surely come when people would no longer kill animals or one another, it could not but come, and he pictured this future in his mind’s eye, and distinctly saw himself living at peace with all the animal world. Then he remembered the pigs again, and his brain began to reel.

“What a muddle it all is!” he muttered, heaving a deep sigh.

“Are you asleep?” he asked.

“No.”

Jmukin rose from his bed, and stood on the threshold of the door in his nightshirt, exposing to his guest’s view his thin, sinewy legs, as straight as posts.

“Just look, now,” he began. “Here is all this telegraph and telephone business, in a word, all these marvels, you know, and yet people are no more virtuous than they used to be. It is said that when I was young, thirty or forty years ago, people were rougher and crueller than they are now, but aren’t they just the same to-day? Of course, they were less ceremonious when I was a youngster. I remember how once, when we had been stationed on the bank of a river in the Caucasus for four months without anything to do, quite a little romance took place. On the very bank of the river, you know, where our regiment was encamped, we had buried a prince whom we had killed not long before. So at night, you know, his princess used to come down to the grave and cry. She screamed and screamed, and groaned and groaned until we got into such a state that we couldn’t sleep a wink. We didn’t sleep for nights. We grew tired of it. And honestly, why should we be kept awake by that devil of a voice? Excuse the expression! So we took that princess and gave her a good thrashing, and she stopped coming to the grave. There you are! Nowadays, of course, men of that category don’t exist any more. People don’t thrash one another, and they live more cleanly and learn more lessons than they used to, but their hearts haven’t changed one bit, you know. Listen to this, for instance. There is a landlord near here who owns a coal mine, you know. He has all sorts of vagabonds and men without passports working for him, men who have nowhere else to go. When Saturday comes round the workmen have to be paid, and their employer never wants to do that, he is too fond of his money. So he has picked out a foreman, a vagabond, too, though he wears a hat, and he says to him: ‘Don’t pay them a thing,’ says our gentleman, ‘not even a penny. They will beat you, but you must stand it. If you do, I’ll give you ten roubles every Saturday.’ So every week, regularly, when Saturday evening comes round the workmen come for their wages, and the foreman says: ‘There aren’t any wages!’ Well, words follow, and then come abuse, and a drubbing. They beat him and kick him, for the men are wild with hunger, you know; they beat him until he is unconscious, and then go off to the four winds of heaven. The owner of the mine orders cold water to be thrown over his foreman, and pitches him ten roubles. The man takes the money, and is thankful, for the fact is he would agree to wear a noose round his neck for a penny! Yes, and on Monday a new gang of workmen arrives. They come because they have nowhere else to go. On Saturday there is the same old story over again.”

The attorney rolled over, with his face toward the back of the sofa, and mumbled something incoherent.

“Take another example, for instance,” Jmukin went on. “When we had the Siberian cattle plague here, you know, the cattle died like flies, I can tell you. The veterinary surgeons came, and strictly ordered all infected stock that died to be buried as far away from the farm as possible, and to be covered with lime and so on, according to the laws of science. Well, one of my horses died. I buried it with the greatest care, and shovelled at least ten poods^[4] of lime on top of it, but what do you think? That pair of young jackanapes of mine dug up the horse one night, and sold the skin for three roubles! There now, what do you think of that?”