“I wish you all a good appetite!” he began. “I have come, your Excellency, to find out if you have any orders for me?”
“I have no orders so far, but a request,” the Count replied. “I am very glad you have come, Pëtr Egorych.… Sit down and have supper with us, and let us talk about the business of the estate.…”
Urbenin sat down. The Count drank off a glass of cognac and began to explain his plans for the future rational management of the estate. He spoke very long and wearisomely, often repeating himself and changing the subject. Urbenin listened to him lazily and attentively as serious people listen to the prattle of children and women. He ate his fish-soup, and looked sadly at his plate.
“I have brought some remarkable plans with me!” the Count said among other things. “Remarkable plans! I will show them to you if you wish it?”
Karnéev jumped up and ran into his study for the plans. Urbenin took advantage of his absence to pour out half a tumbler of vodka, gulped it down, and did not even take anything to eat after it.
“Disgusting stuff this vodka is!” he said, looking with abhorrence at the decanter.
“Why didn't you drink while the Count was here, Pëtr Egorych?” I asked him. “Is it possible that you were afraid to?”
“It is better to dissimulate, Sergei Petrovich, and drink in secret than to drink before the Count. You know what a strange character the Count has.… If I stole twenty thousand from him and he knew it, he would say nothing owing to his carelessness; but if I forgot to give him an account of ten kopecks that I had spent or drank vodka in his presence, he would begin to lament that his bailiff was a robber. You know him well.”
Urbenin half-filled the tumbler again and swigged it off.
“I think you did not drink formerly, Pëtr Egorych,” I said.