During dinner, he stood behind my father's chair, and, though he did not serve, he watched the man who served, and poisoned life for him with a most particular passion.
"Take care, take care!" muttered he, "or I will take care of thee. Look at him! he cannot serve quickly, but drags his legs after him, like an old cow on the march. Take care again! He does not hear that his master is calling. Change her plate for the lady. Why art thou gaping? Why? Look at him! look at him!"
He interfered in conversation carried on at table, and opposed everything always. Frequently it happened that my father would turn during dinner and say to him,—
"Mikolai, tell Mateush after dinner to harness the horses; we will drive to such and such a place."
"Drive! why not drive? Oi yei! But are not horses for driving? Let the poor horses break their legs on such a road. If there is a visit to be made, it must be made. Of course their lordships are free; do I prevent them? I do not prevent. Why not visit? The accounts can wait, and the threshing can wait. The visit is more urgent."
"It is a torment with this Mikolai!" shouted my father sometimes, made impatient.
But Mikolai began again,—
"Do I say that I am not stupid? I know that I am stupid. The manager has gone to pay court to the priest's housekeeper in Nyevodov, and why shouldn't masters go on visits? Is a visit less important than paying court to a housekeeper? If 'tis permitted to the servant to go, it is permitted to the master."
And thus it went on in a circle without means of stopping the old grumbler.
We, that is, I and my younger brother, feared him, as I have said, almost more than our tutor Father Ludvik, and surely more than our parents. He was more polite toward my sisters. He said "Panienka" [1] to each of them, though they were younger than we; but to us he said "thou" without ceremony. For me he had a special charm: he always carried gun caps in his pocket. It happened often that after lessons I would slip into the pantry, smile as nicely as I could, be as friendly as possible, and say timidly,—