As he went the peasant looked at the kopeck that he held in his hand. It had passed through many hands, and was no longer so rough and rusty as when he had given it to the priest for the kingdom of heaven. It was the same kopeck, but the peasant did not recognise it, and said: “All right. This is a nice kopeck, much cleaner than my old one. I’ll give it to the barine now; it won’t soil his honour’s hands.”
So he went up to the manor-house, took off his cap and stood at the gate. But as ill luck would have it the barinya was looking out of the window to see whether a young officer was coming, and when she saw the peasant without breeches she cried out—
“Ah! ah! I shall die!” turned up her eyes, fainted away, and dropped on the carpet, only just kicking a little.
The servants ran to tell the barine that the barinya was graciously pleased to see a peasant without breeches and is dying. The barine rushed out and stamped his foot at the peasant and shouted at him, but when he heard that the peasant had come to pay the tax he got quiet. He graciously took the kopeck, and just wrote a note and gave it to the peasant.
“Here, my man,” he said, “just take this note for me to the Stanovòy.”[[48]]
The peasant took the note, gave it to the Stanovòy, and was just going when he looked at the Stanovòy and stopped short. The Stanovòy was clenching his fists and grinding his teeth and panting with rage.
“How dare you!” he shouted to the peasant; “you clown! how dare you insult the lady?”
The peasant tried to explain, but it was no use; the Stanovòy grew more furious than ever.
“What? You want to deny it, you hound! I’ll send you to Siberia! I’ll flay you alive!”—and so on, and so on. And he flew at the peasant as if he wanted to toss him or jump into his mouth.
The peasant’s wife heard the row, caught up a cock, ran to the Stanovòy and dropped at his feet.