They all looked at me with kind eyes, making good-natured fun of my confusion. A little more and I believe I should have burst out crying from the unexpected joy of finding myself valued by these people. And that very morning the shopman had said to Petr Vassilich, nodding his head toward me:
"An unpleasant boy that, and good for nothing!"
As usual I had gone to the shop in the morning, but at noon the shopman had said to me:
"Go home and clear the snow off the roof of the warehouse, and clean out the cellar."
That it was my name-day he did not know, and I had thought that no one knew it. When the ceremony of congratulations had finished in the workshop, I changed my clothes and climbed up to the roof of the shed to throw off the smooth, heavy snow which had accumulated during that winter. But being excited, I forgot to close the door of the cellar, and threw all the snow into it. When I jumped down to the ground, I saw my mistake, and set myself at once to get the snow away from the door. Being wet, it lay heavily; the wooden, spade moved it with difficulty; there was no iron one, and I broke the spade at the very moment when the shopman appeared at the yard-gate. The truth of the Russian proverb, "Sorrow follows on the heels of joy," was proved to me.
"So—o—o!" said the shopman derisively, "you are a fine workman, the devil take you! If I get hold of your senseless blockhead—" He flourished the blade of the shovel over me.
I move away, saying angrily:
"I was n't engaged as a yardman, anyhow."
He hurled the stick against my legs. I took up a snowball and threw it right in his face. He ran away snorting, and I left off working, and went into the workshop. In a few minutes his fiancée came running downstairs. She was an agile maiden, with pimples on her vacant face.
"Maximich, you are to go upstairs!"