With all the other domestics Gerásim sustained relations which were not exactly friendly,—they were afraid of him,—but gentle; he regarded them as members of the family. They expressed their meaning to him by signs, and he understood them, accurately executed all orders, but knew his own rights also, and no one dared to take his seat at table. On the whole, Gerásim was of stern and serious disposition, and was fond of orderliness in all things; even the cocks did not venture to fight in his presence—but if they did, woe be to them! if he caught sight of them, he would instantly seize them by the legs, whirl them round like a wheel half a score of times in the air, and hurl them in opposite directions. There were geese also in his lady mistress's courtyard, but a goose, as every one knows, is a serious and sensible bird; Gerásim felt respect for them, tended them, and fed them; he himself bore a resemblance to a stately gander.
He was allotted a tiny chamber over the kitchen; he arranged it himself after his own taste, constructed a bed of oaken planks on four blocks—truly a bed fit for an epic hero; a hundred puds[26] might have been loaded upon it,—it would not have given way. Under the bed was a stout chest; in one corner stood a small table of the same sturdy quality, and beside the table a three-legged chair, and so firm and squatty that Gerásim himself would pick it up, drop it, and grin. This little den was fastened with a padlock which suggested a kalátch[27] in shape, only black; Gerásim always carried the key to this lock with him, in his belt. He was not fond of having people come into his room.
In this manner a year passed, at the end of which a small incident happened to Gerásim.
The old gentlewoman with whom he lived as yard-porter in all things followed the ancient customs, and kept a numerous train of domestics; she had in her house not only laundresses, seamstresses, carpenters, tailors, and dressmakers, but also one saddler, who set up to be a veterinary and a medical man for the servants as well (there was a house-physician for the mistress), and, in conclusion, there was a shoemaker, by the name of Kapíton Klímoff, a bitter drunkard. Klímoff regarded himself as an injured being and not appreciated at his true value, a cultured man used to the ways of the capital, who ought not to live in Moscow, without occupation, in a sort of desert spot, and if he drank,—as he himself expressed it, with pauses between his words, and thumping himself on the breast,—he drank in reality from grief. One day he was under discussion by the mistress and her head butler, Gavríla, a man who would seem, from his little yellow eyes and his duck's-bill nose, to have been designated by Fate itself as a commanding personage. The mistress was complaining about the depraved morals of Kapíton, who had been picked up somewhere in the street only the night before.
"Well, Gavríla,"—she suddenly remarked:—"shall not we marry him? What dost thou think about it? Perhaps that will steady him."
"Why should n't we marry him, ma'am? It can be done, ma'am,"—replied Gavríla;—"and it would even be a very good thing."
"Yes; only who would marry him?"
"Of course, ma'am. However, as you like, ma'am. He can always be put to some use, so to speak; you would n't reject him out of any ten men."
"I think he likes Tatyána?"
Gavríla was about to make some reply, but compressed his lips.