Valaam; he went everywhere.
This year he has passed by you in the ranks of the innumerable
people who go in procession behind the ikon of the Mother of God to
the Korennaya; last year you found him sitting with a wallet on
his shoulders with other pilgrims on the steps of Nikolay, the
wonder-worker, at Mtsensk ... he comes to Moscow almost every spring.
From land to land he has wandered with his quiet, unhurried, but
never-resting step--they say he has been even to Jerusalem. He seems
perfectly calm and happy and those who have chanced to converse with
him have said much of his piety and humility. Meanwhile, Naum's
fortunes prospered exceedingly. He set to work with energy and good
sense and got on, as the saying is, by leaps and bounds. Everyone in
the neighbourhood knew by what means he had acquired the inn, they
knew too that Avdotya had given him her husband's money; nobody liked
Naum because of his cold, harsh disposition.... With censure they told
the story of him that once when Akim himself had asked alms under his
window he answered that God would give, and had given him nothing; but
everyone agreed that there never had been a luckier man; his corn came
better than other people's, his bees swarmed more frequently; even his
hens laid more eggs; his cattle were never ill, his horses did not go
lame.... It was a long time before Avdotya could bear to hear his name
(she had accepted Lizaveta Prohorovna's invitation and had reentered
her service as head sewing-maid), but in the end her aversion was
somewhat softened; it was said that she had been driven by poverty to
appeal to him and he had given her a hundred roubles.... She must not
be too severely judged: poverty breaks any will and the sudden and
violent change in her life had greatly aged and humbled her: it was
hard to believe how quickly she lost her looks, how completely she let
herself go and lost heart....
How did it all end? the reader will ask. Why, like this: Naum, after
having kept the inn successfully for about fifteen years, sold it
advantageously to another townsman. He would never have parted from
the inn if it had not been for the following, apparently
insignificant, circumstance: for two mornings in succession his dog,
sitting before the windows, had kept up a prolonged and doleful howl.
He went out into the road the second time, looked attentively at the
howling dog, shook his head, went up to town and the same day agreed
on the price with a man who had been for a long time anxious to
purchase it. A week later he had moved to a distance--out of the
province; the new owner settled in and that very evening the inn was
burnt to ashes; not a single outbuilding was left and Naum's successor
was left a beggar. The reader can easily imagine the rumours that this
fire gave rise to in the neighbourhood.... Evidently he carried his
"luck" away with him, everyone repeated. Of Naum it is said that he
has gone into the corn trade and has made a great fortune. But will it
last long? Stronger pillars have fallen and evil deeds end badly
sooner or later. There is not much to say about Lizaveta Prohorovna.
She is still living and, as is often the case with people of her sort,
is not much changed, she has not even grown much older--she only seems
to have dried up a little; on the other hand, her stinginess has
greatly increased though it is difficult to say for whose benefit she
is saving as she has no children and no attachments. In conversation
she often speaks of Akim and declares that since she has understood
his good qualities she has begun to feel great respect for the Russian
peasant. Kirillovna bought her freedom for a considerable sum and
married for love a fair-haired young waiter who leads her a dreadful
life; Avdotya lives as before among the maids in Lizaveta Prohorovna's
house, but has sunk to a rather lower position; she is very poorly,
almost dirtily dressed, and there is no trace left in her of the
townbred airs and graces of a fashionable maid or of the habits of a
prosperous innkeeper's wife.... No one takes any notice of her and she
herself is glad to be unnoticed; old Petrovitch is dead and Akim is
still wandering, a pilgrim, and God only knows how much longer his
pilgrimage will last!
1852.
LIEUTENANT YERGUNOV'S STORY
I
That evening Kuzma Vassilyevitch Yergunov told us his story again. He
used to repeat it punctually once a month and we heard it every time
with fresh satisfaction though we knew it almost by heart, in all its
details. Those details overgrew, if one may so express it, the
original trunk of the story itself as fungi grow over the stump of a
tree. Knowing only too well the character of our companion, we did not
trouble to fill in his gaps and incomplete statements. But now Kuzma
Vassilyevitch is dead and there will be no one to tell his story and
so we venture to bring it before the notice of the public.
II
It happened forty years ago when Kuzma Vassilyevitch was young. He
said of himself that he was at that time a handsome fellow and a dandy
with a complexion of milk and roses, red lips, curly hair, and eyes
like a falcon's. We took his word for it, though we saw nothing of
that sort in him; in our eyes Kuzma Vassilyevitch was a man of very
ordinary exterior, with a simple and sleepy-looking face and a heavy,
clumsy figure. But what of that? There is no beauty the years will not
mar! The traces of dandyism were more clearly preserved in Kuzma
Vassilyevitch. He still in his old age wore narrow trousers with
straps, laced in his corpulent figure, cropped the back of his head,
curled his hair over his forehead and dyed his moustache with Persian
dye, which had, however, a tint rather of purple, and even of green,
than of black. With all that Kuzma Vassilyevitch was a very worthy
gentleman, though at preference he did like to "steal a peep," that