“Can it be Chaff?” thought Tikhon Ilitch, in perturbation. “Well, glory to God! I told that fool myself: ‘You’ll be coming back’!”
“The peasant went to the priest,” pursued Oska—“he went to the priest: ‘Thus and so, father, a dog has died—he must be buried.’”
Again the cook could not control herself and shrieked joyously: “Phew, you stick at nothing!”
“Give me a chance to finish!” shouted Oska in his turn, and once more dropped into the narrative tone, depicting now the priest, now the peasant: “‘Thus and so, batiushka—the dog must be buried.’ The priest stamped his feet: ‘How is it to be buried? Where is it to be buried? In the cemetery? I’ll make you rot in prison, I’ll have you put in fetters!’—‘Batiushka, you see, this is no common dog: when he was dying he bequeathed you five hundred rubles!’ The priest fairly leaped from his seat: ‘Fool! Am I scolding you for burying the dog? I’m scolding you about the place where he is to be buried. He must be buried in the churchyard!’”
Tikhon Ilitch coughed loudly and opened the door. At the table beside the smoking lamp, the broken chimney of which was patched on one side with a bit of blackened paper, sat the cook, her head bent and her face completely veiled by her wet hair. She was combing it with a wooden comb and inspecting the comb athwart her hair by the light of the lamp. Oska, with a cigarette in his teeth, was laughing vociferously, his head thrown back, as he dangled his feet to and fro in their bast-slippers. Near the stove, in the semi-darkness, gleamed a red spark of flame—a pipe. When Tikhon Ilitch jerked the door open and made his appearance on the threshold, the laughter came to an abrupt end, and the person who was smoking the pipe rose timidly from his seat, removed the pipe from his mouth, and thrust it into his pocket. Yes, it was Chaff! But Tikhon Ilitch shouted, in an alert and friendly way, as though nothing had happened that morning: “Time to feed the cattle, my lads!”
XXII
THEY rambled about the stable with a lantern, illuminating the coagulated manure, the straw scattered all about, the mangers, the posts; casting immense shadows, waking up the fowls on the roosts under the sloping roofs. The chickens flew down, tumbled down, and, with heads ducked forward, fell asleep as they ran, fleeing as chance directed. The large purplish eyes of the horses, which turned their heads toward the light, gleamed and looked strange and splendid. A mist rose from their breath, as if all of them were smoking. And when Tikhon Ilitch lowered the lantern and glanced upward, he beheld with joy, above the square farmyard in the deep, pure sky, the brilliant vari-coloured stars. The north wind could be heard crackling drily over the roofs and whistling through the crevices with a frosty chill. Thank the Lord, winter was come!
Having completed his task and ordered the samovar, Tikhon Ilitch went with his lantern into the cold shop, reeking with smells, and picked out the best pickled herring he could find. That was all right, not a bad idea: to cheer oneself up a bit before tea! And at tea he ate it, drank several small glasses of bitter-sweet, yellowish-red liqueur made of mountain-ash berries, poured himself out a brimming cup of tea, and drew towards him his large old counting-frame. But, after some reflection, he hunted out Deniska’s letter and set himself to the task of deciphering its scrawl.
“Denya reseved 40 rubles in munny, and than kolected his thinges....” (“Forty!” said Tikhon Ilitch to himself. “Akh, the poor beggar!”) “Denya wint to Tula station and hee wos enstantly robbt they tuk Evrything to the last kopak hee had nowere to gow and sadness Sezed heem....”
This absurd scrawl was difficult and tiresome to decipher, but the evening was long, and he had nothing else to do. The samovar purred busily, the lamp shone with a quiet light—and there was sadness in the tranquillity and repose of the evening. The watchman’s mallet was working away as he made his rounds noisily, beating out a dance-tune upon the frosty air.