“What’s the use of thrashing that man, kind master?” he asked. “Better let me marry Aksana with a free will.”
Eh, hey; he wanted to marry her himself. That’s what he wanted, yes indeed!
So Raman was pleased and grew happy again. He got up and tied up his breeches and said:
“That’s splendid!” says he. “But why couldn’t you have come a little sooner, man? And the Count too—that’s how it always is! Wouldn’t it have been better to have found out first who wanted to marry her? Instead of that they grab the first man that comes along and begin flogging him! Do you think that is Christian?” he asked. “Bah!”
Eh, hey; he didn’t have any mercy on the Count, that’s the sort of man Raman was. When he got angry it was safest to keep out of his way, even for a Count. But the Count was sly! You see he was after something. He ordered Raman to be stretched out on the grass.
“I want to make you happy, fool!” he cried. “And you turn up your nose at me! You are living alone now like a bear in his den; it is dull for me when I come to see you. Lay it on to the fool until he says he has had enough! As for you Opanas, go to the devil! You weren’t asked to this party,” he said. “So don’t sit down at the table unless you want to be entertained like Raman.”
But Raman’s anger had gone beyond joking by that time, eh, hey! They tickled him well, and, you know, people in those days could take a man’s hide off beautifully with a knout, but he lay quite still and never said: that’s enough! He endured it a long time, but at last he spat and cried:
“It’s not right to baste a Christian like this for a woman without even counting the stripes! That’s enough! And may your hands shrivel and drop off, you accursed servants! The devil himself must have taught you to use the knout. Do you think I’m a bundle of wheat on a threshing floor that you beat me like this? If that’s your idea, I’m going to get married.”
Then the Count laughed.
“That’s splendid!” he cried. “Though you won’t be able to sit down at your wedding, you will dance all the livelier.”