"Fairlooks! Fairlooks!" he deigned to utter, in a hoarse bass, with a slight exclamation.
Our people all laughed: "Fairlooks? What does it mean?" But Semyon Yakovlevich lapsed into silence and went on eating his potatoes. At last he wiped his mouth with a napkin and was served tea.
He usually did not take tea alone, but also had it served to his visitors, though by no means to all of them, usually pointing out himself those upon whom happiness would be bestowed. His instructions were always striking in their unexpectedness. He sometimes passed over rich men and dignitaries and ordered tea served to some peasant or some decrepit little lady; at other times he would pass over the beggarly folk and serve some one fat, wealthy merchant. The way the tea was served also varied: some got it with sugar in it, others with sugar on the side, still others with no sugar at all. This time happiness was bestowed upon the little monk in the form of a glass of tea with sugar in it, and on the old pilgrim, who was served tea without any sugar. But the fat monk with the tin cup from the monastery was for some reason not served at all, though up to then he had had his glass every day.
"Semyon Yakovlevich, say something to me, I've desired to make your acquaintance for so long," the magnificent lady from our carriage sang out, smiling and narrowing her eyes, the same lady who had observed earlier that there was no need to be punctilious about entertainment, as long as it was diverting. Semyon Yakovlevich did not even glance at her. The kneeling landowner sighed audibly and deeply, like a big bellows going up and down.
"With sugar in it!" Semyon Yakovlevich pointed suddenly to the hundred-thousand-rouble merchant; the man came forward and stood beside the landowner.
"More sugar for him!" Semyon Yakovlevich ordered, when the glass had already been poured. They added another helping. "More, more for him!" More was added a third time, and then finally a fourth. The merchant unobjectingly began to drink his syrup.
"Lord!" people whispered and crossed themselves. The landowner again sighed audibly and deeply.
"My father! Semyon Yakovlevich!" the voice of the woebegone lady, who had been pressed back against the wall by our people, suddenly rang out, a rueful voice, but so sharp one would scarcely have expected it. "For a whole hour, my dear, I have been waiting for your grace. Speak your word to me, an orphan, make your judgment."
"Ask her," Semyon Yakovlevich made a sign to the servant-beadle. He went up to the railing.
"Did you do what Semyon Yakovlevich told you last time?" he asked the widow in a soft and even voice.
"Really, father Semyon Yakovlevich, how could I, how could I do it with such people!" the widow wailed. "The cannibals, they're filing a petition against me in the district court, they're threatening to go to the Senate[119]—against their own mother! ..."
"Give it to her!" Semyon Yakovlevich pointed to a sugarloaf. The lad sprang over, seized the loaf, and lugged it to the widow.
"Oh, father, great is your mercy. What am I to do with so much?" the poor widow began to wail.
"More, more!" Semyon Yakovlevich bestowed.
Another loaf was lugged over. "More, more," the blessed man ordered; a third and finally a fourth loaf was brought. The poor widow was surrounded on all sides with sugar. The monk from the monastery sighed: it all might have gone to the monastery that same day, as previous instances had shown.
"But what shall I do with so much?" the poor widow kept sighing obsequiously. "By myself I'll just get sick! ... Isn't it some prophecy, father?"
"That's it, a prophecy!" someone said in the crowd.
"Another pound, another!" Semyon Yakovlevich would not let up.
There was one whole sugarloaf left on the table, but Semyon Yakovlevich had indicated a pound, and so the widow was given a pound.
"Lord, lord!" people sighed and crossed themselves. "A visible prophecy."
"Sweeten your heart beforehand with kindness and mercy, and then come to complain against your own children, bone of your bone—that, one may suppose, is what this emblem signifies," the fat but tea-bypassed monk from the monastery said softly but smugly, in a fit of wounded vanity, taking the interpretation upon himself.
"But really, father," the poor widow suddenly snarled, "they dragged me into the fire on a rope when the Verkhishins' place burned down. They put a dead cat in my trunk—I mean, no matter what the atrocity, they're ready..."
"Out, out!" Semyon Yakovlevich suddenly waved his arms.
The beadle and the lad burst from behind the railing. The beadle took the widow under the arm, and she, having quieted down, trailed to the door, glancing at the awarded sugarloaves which the lad dragged after her.
"One back, take one back!" Semyon Yakovlevich ordered the shop foreman, who had stayed by him. He rushed after the departing group, and all three servants returned shortly bringing the once given and now retrieved sugarloaf; the widow, however, went off with three.
"Semyon Yakovlevich," someone's voice came from the back, just by the door, "I saw a bird in a dream, a jackdaw, he flew out of water and into fire. What is the meaning of this dream?"[120]
"Frost," said Semyon Yakovlevich.
"Semyon Yakovlevich, why won't you answer me anything, I've been interested in you for so long," our lady tried to start again.
"Ask!" Semyon Yakovlevich, not listening to her, suddenly pointed to the kneeling landowner.
The monk from the monastery, who had been ordered to ask, gravely approached the landowner.
"What is your sin? And were you told to do anything?"
"Not to fight, not to be so quick-fisted," the landowner replied hoarsely.
"Have you done it?" asked the monk.
"I can't, my own strength overpowers me."
"Out, out! The broom, use the broom!" Semyon Yakovlevich was waving his arms. The landowner, without waiting to be punished, jumped up and rushed from the room.
"He left a gold piece behind," the monk declared, picking up a florin from the floor.
"To that one!" Semyon Yakovlevich jabbed his finger towards the hundred-thousand-rouble merchant. The hundred-thousand-rouble merchant did not dare refuse, and took it.
"Gold to gold," the monk from the monastery could not help himself.
"To that one, with sugar in it," Semyon Yakovlevich pointed to Mavriky Nikolaevich. The servant poured tea and offered it by mistake to the fop in the pince-nez.
"To the long one, the long one," Semyon Yakovlevich corrected.
Mavriky Nikolaevich took the glass, gave a military half-bow, and began to drink. I do not know why, but our people all rocked with laughter.
"Mavriky Nikolaevich," Liza suddenly addressed him, "that gentleman on his knees has left, go and kneel in his place."
Mavriky Nikolaevich looked at her in perplexity.
"I beg you, it will give me the greatest pleasure. Listen, Mavriky Nikolaevich," she suddenly began in an insistent, stubborn, ardent patter, "you absolutely must kneel, I absolutely want to see you kneeling. If you won't kneel, don't even come to call on me. I absolutely insist, absolutely! ..."
I do not know what she meant by it; but she demanded insistently, implacably, as if she were having a fit. Mavriky Nikolaevich, as we shall see further on, attributed these capricious impulses in her, especially frequent of late, to outbursts of blind hatred for him, not really from malice—on the contrary, she honored, loved, and respected him, and he knew it himself—but from some special, unconscious hatred which, at moments, she was utterly unable to control.
He silently handed his cup to some little old lady standing behind him, opened the gate in the railing, stepped uninvited into Semyon Yakovlevich's private side, and knelt in the middle of the room, in view of everyone. I think he was deeply shaken in his delicate and simple soul by Liza's coarse, jeering escapade in view of the whole company. Perhaps he thought she would be ashamed of herself on seeing his humiliation, which she had so insisted on. Of course, no one but he would venture to reform a woman in such a naïve and risky way. He knelt there with his look of imperturbable gravity, long, awkward, ridiculous. But our people were not laughing; the unexpectedness of the act produced a painful effect. Everyone looked at Liza.