“Hold your tongue, you old greybeard!” I replied, in an unsteady voice; “you are certainly drunk. Go to sleep ... and put me to bed.”
The next morning I awoke with a violent headache, and with a confused recollection of the events of the day before. My reflections were interrupted by Savelitch, who brought me a cup of tea.
“You are beginning your games early, Peter Andreitch,”[9] he said, shaking his head. “And whom do you take after? As far as I know, neither your father nor grandfather were ever drunkards; as for your mother, I will say nothing; she has never drunk anything except kvas[10] since the day she was born. And who is to blame for all this? Why, that cursed Mossoo, who was ever running to Antipevna with: ‘Madame, je vous prie, vodka.’[11] You see what a pretty pass your je vous prie has brought you to! There’s no denying that the son of a dog taught you some nice things! It was worth while to hire such a heathen for your tutor, as if our master had not enough of his own people!”
I felt ashamed of myself. I turned my back to him, and said:
“Go away, Savelitch; I do not want any tea.”
But it was a difficult matter to quiet Savelitch when he had set his mind upon preaching a sermon.
“You see now, Peter Andreitch, what it is to get drunk. You have a headache, and you do not want to eat or drink anything. A man who gets drunk is good for nothing. Have some cucumber pickle with honey; or perhaps half a glass of fruit wine would be better still. What do you say?”
At that moment a boy entered the room and handed me a note from Zourin. I opened it and read the following lines:
“DEAR PETER ANDREIVITCH,
“Be so good as to send me, by my boy, the hundred roubles which you lost to me yesterday. I am in great need of money.
“Yours faithfully,
“IVAN ZOURIN.”
There was no help for it. I assumed an air of indifference, and turning to Savelitch, who was my treasurer and caretaker in one, I ordered him to give the boy a hundred roubles.