But I must tell you that he—that neighbour of mine—had a capacious mind! he worked his mother-in-law so famously among other things: he palmed off a note of hand on her; which signifies that he chose the most vulnerable moment! She became like silk: she gave him a power of attorney over all her property—what more would you have? But that was a great affair—to twist his mother-in-law round his finger—wasn’t it, hey? Judge for yourselves. But he went away from me somewhat discontented; I had punished him to the extent of another hundred rubles. He even swore at me: “Thou art ungrateful,”—he said, “thou hast no feeling;” but how was I to blame for that? Well, this is in parenthesis—but I took his suggestion under consideration. That same day I drove off to town and established myself in an inn, with an acquaintance, an old man of the Old Ritualist sect.[36]
He was a worthy old man, although a trifle harsh, because of loneliness: his whole family were dead. Only he did not favour tobacco at all,[37] and felt a great loathing for dogs; I believe, for example, that rather than admit a dog into the room he would have rent himself in twain! “For how is it possible?”—he said. “There in my room, on the wall, the Sovereign Lady herself deigns to dwell;[38] and shall a filthy dog thrust his accursed snout in there?”—That was ignorance, of course! However, this is my opinion: if any man has been vouchsafed wisdom, let him hold to it!
“But you are a great philosopher, I see,”—interrupted Antón Stepánitch again, with the same laugh as before.
This time Porfíry Kapítonitch even scowled.
“What sort of a philosopher I am no one knows,”—he said as his moustache twitched in a surly manner:—“but I would gladly take you as a pupil.”
We all fairly bored our eyes into Antón Stepánitch; each one of us expected an arrogant retort or at least a lightning glance.... But Mr. State Councillor altered his smile from scorn to indifference, then yawned, dangled his foot—and that was all!
So then, I settled down at that old man’s house—[went on Porfíry Kapítonitch].—He assigned me a room “for acquaintance’s” sake,—not of the best; he himself lodged there also, behind a partition—and that was all I required. But what tortures I did undergo! The chamber was small, it was hot, stifling, and there were flies, and such sticky ones; in the corner was a remarkably large case for images, with ancient holy pictures; their garments were dim and puffed out; the air was fairly infected with olive-oil, and some sort of a spice in addition; on the bedstead were two down beds; if you moved a pillow, out ran a cockroach from beneath it.... I drank an incredible amount of tea, out of sheer tedium—it was simply horrible! I got into bed; it was impossible to sleep.—And on the other side of the partition my host was sighing and grunting and reciting his prayers. I heard him begin to snore—and very lightly and courteously, in old-fashioned style. I had long since extinguished my candle—only the shrine-lamp was twinkling in front of the holy pictures.... A hindrance, of course! So I took and rose up softly, in my bare feet: I reached up to the lamp and blew it out.... Nothing happened.—“Aha!” I thought: “this means that he won’t make a fuss in the house of strangers.”... But no sooner had I lain down on the bed than the row began again! The thing clawed, and scratched himself and flapped his ears ... well, just as I wanted him to. Good! I lay there and waited to see what would happen. I heard the old man wake up.
“Master,”—said he,—“hey there, master?”
“What’s wanted?”—said I.
“Was it thou who didst put out the shrine-lamp?”—And without awaiting my reply, he suddenly began to mumble: