“Look here, Onufri. How would you like to have all common people black like those darkies?”
The servant spat out in horror and made the sign of the cross.
“For shame, sir. What harm have the common people done you that you should wish them a horrid thing like that? And where does your highness get these cruel thoughts? Surely not from your mother. For shame, sir.”
“Idiot that you are, it’s mere fancy, just for fun. There ought to be some difference between noble people and common. There is in some countries, you know.” He told him about castes, the slave trade in America and passed to the days of chivalry, his favourite topic, until the retired hussar’s head sank and a mighty snore rang out of his bushy moustache. Pavel flew into a passion.
“Ass!” he shouted, getting half out of bed and shaking him fiercely. “Why don’t I fall asleep when you tell me stories?”
Onufri started and fell to rubbing one eye, while with his other eye he looked about him, as though he had slept a week. The stories he often told young Boulatoff mostly related to the days of serfdom, which had been abolished when Pavel was a boy of five. Onufri’s mother had been flogged to death in the presence of her master, Pavel’s grandfather, and the former hussar would tell the story with a solemnity that reflected his veneration for the “good old times” rather than grief over the fate of his mother.
That night Pavel dreamed of a pond full of calves that were splashing about and laughing in the water. He carried them all home and on his way there they were transformed into one pair, and the two calves walked about and talked just like Onufri and the transformation was no transformation at all, the calves being real calves and negroes at the same time. When he awoke, in the morning, and it came over him that the dream had had something to do with Onufri, he was seized with a feeling of self-disgust. He thought of the Polish woman and his treatment of her, and this, too, appeared in a new light to him.
Two or three hours later, when the countess returned from her morning walk Pavel, dressed to go out, grave and mysterious, solemnly handed her a sealed note from himself.
“Don’t open it until I have left,” he said. “I am going out for a stroll.”