“Eh, hey,” answers Raman. “I’m very well, thanks, and how are you?”
You see, Raman didn’t know how to answer the Count as he ought to have done. The attendants all laughed at his words and the Count laughed too.
“I’m very glad you are well,” says the Count. “And where is your wife?”
“Where should my wife be? My wife is in the hut.”
“Then we’ll go into the hut,” says the Count. “And meanwhile light a fire, lads, and prepare something to eat, for we have come to congratulate the young couple.”
So they went into the hut; the Count, and Opanas, and Raman bareheaded behind them with Bogdan, the oldest of the huntsmen and the Count’s faithful servant. There are no servants like him in the world now.
Bogdan was old and ruled the other attendants sternly, but in the Count’s presence he was like that dog there. There was no one in the world for Bogdan except the Count. People said that when Bogdan’s father and mother had died he had asked the old Count for a house and land, for he wanted to marry. But the old Count would not allow it. He made him the young Count’s servant and said: “There are your mother and father and wife!” So Bogdan took the boy and taught him to ride and shoot. And the young Count grew up and began to rule in his father’s place, and old Bogdan still followed him like a dog.
Okh, I’ll tell you the truth. Many people have cursed Bogdan; many tears have fallen because of him, and all on account of the Count. At one word from the Count, Bogdan would have torn his own father to shreds.
Well, I was a little fellow, and I ran into the house behind the Count. I was curious to see what would happen. Wherever he went I went too.
Well, I looked, and there, standing in the middle of the hut, I saw the Count stroking his whiskers and laughing. And there was Raman standing first on one foot and then on another, crushing his hat in his hands, and there, too, was Opanas leaning against the wall, looking, poor fellow, like a young oak in a storm. He was frowning and sad.