"Greetings, poor dear!" he usually says, having sought out a most crippled woman in a ragged dress made all of patches. "Where are you from, dear?"
"I come from a farmstead, good sir. It's three days since I've had anything to eat or drink. My own children drove me out!"
"Poor thing, why have you come here?"
"Just to beg alms, good sir, if someone would give me enough to buy bread."
"Hm! so it's bread you want?" Ivan Ivanovich usually asks.
"How can I not? I'm hungry as a dog."
"Hm!" Ivan Ivanovich usually replies. "Then maybe you'd also like some meat?"
"Whatever your honor gives me I'll be pleased with."
"Hm! so meat is better than bread?"
"A hungry person can't be choosy. Whatever your honor gives me, it's all good."
At that the old woman usually holds out her hand.
"Well, go with God," Ivan Ivanovich says. "Why are you standing there? I'm not beating you!" And, after addressing the same questions to a second one, and a third, he finally goes home, or stops to have a glass of vodka with his neighbor Ivan Nikiforovich, or with the judge, or with the police chief.
Ivan Ivanovich likes it very much when someone gives him a present or a treat. That pleases him very much.
Ivan Nikiforovich is also a very good man. His yard is next to Ivan Ivanovich's yard. Never yet has the world produced such friends as they are with each other. Anton Prokofievich Pupopuz, who to this day still goes around in a brown frock coat with blue sleeves and on Sundays has dinner at the judge's, used to say that the devil himself had tied Ivan Nikiforovich and Ivan Ivanovich to each other with a piece of string. Wherever the one goes, the other gets dragged along.
Ivan Nikiforovich never married. Though there was talk that he had been married, it was a sheer lie. I know Ivan Nikiforovich very well, and I can tell you that he never even had any intention of getting married. Where on earth does all this gossip come from? Just as it got spread about that Ivan Nikiforovich was born with a tail behind. But that invention is so preposterous, as well as vile and indecent, that I don't even consider it necessary to refute it before my enlightened readers, who undoubtedly know that only witches, and a very few of them, have tails behind, and, anyhow, they belong more to the female sex than to the male.
Despite their great attachment, these rare friends were not entirely alike. Their characters can best be known by comparison: Ivan Ivanovich has an extraordinary gift for speaking with extreme pleasantness. Lord, how he speaks! The feeling can only be compared with that of someone picking through your hair or gently passing a finger over your heel. You listen and listen-and your head lolls. Pleasant! extremely pleasant! like a nap after swimming. Ivan Nikiforovich, on the contrary, is mostly silent, though if he slaps on a phrase, just hold tight: he'll trim you better than any razor. Ivan Ivanovich is tall and lean; Ivan Nikiforovich is slightly shorter, but instead expands sideways. Ivan Ivanovich's head resembles a turnip tail-down, Ivan Nikiforovich's a turnip tail-up. It's only after dinner that Ivan Ivanovich lies on the gallery in nothing but his shirt; in the evening he puts on his bekesha and goes somewhere-either to the town store, which he supplies with flour, or out to the fields to hunt quail. Ivan Nikiforovich lies on the porch all day long-if the day isn't very hot, he usually puts his back to the sun-and doesn't care to go anywhere. In the morning, if he's of a mind to, he may pass around the yard, looking over the household, and then retire again. In the old days, he would sometimes call on Ivan Ivanovich. Ivan Ivanovich is an extremely refined man and never says an improper word in decent conversation, and becomes offended at once if he hears one. Ivan Nikiforovich sometimes makes a slip; then Ivan Ivanovich usually gets up from his place and says, "Enough, enough, Ivan Nikiforovich, sooner take to the sunlight than speak such ungodly words." Ivan Ivanovich gets very angry if he finds a fly in his borscht: he's beside himself then, and he throws the plate, and it also means trouble for the host. Ivan Nikiforovich is extremely fond of bathing, and once he's in the water up to his chin, he asks that a table with a samovar also be put in the water, and he likes very much to drink his tea in such coolness. Ivan Ivanovich shaves twice a week, Ivan Nikiforovich once. Ivan Ivanovich is extremely inquisitive. God forbid you should begin telling him something and not finish! And if he's displeased with something, he lets it be known at once. It's very hard to tell by the look of him whether Ivan Nikiforovich is pleased or angry; he may be glad of something, but he doesn't show it. Ivan Ivanovich is of a somewhat timorous character; Ivan Nikiforovich, on the contrary, has such wide gathered trousers that, if they were inflated, the whole yard with its barns and outbuildings could be put into them. Ivan Ivanovich has big, expressive eyes of a tobacco color and a mouth somewhat resembling the letter V; Ivan Nikiforovich has small, yellowish eyes that disappear completely between his bushy eyebrows and plump cheeks, and a nose that looks like a ripe plum. Ivan Ivanovich, when he treats you to snuff, always licks the lid of the snuff box with his tongue first, then flips it open and, offering it to you, says, if you're an acquaintance, "May I venture to ask you, my good sir, to help yourself?" and if you're not an acquaintance, "May I venture to ask you, my good sir, not having the honor of knowing your rank, name, and patronymic, to help yourself?" Whereas Ivan Nikiforovich hands you his snuff botde and only adds: "Help yourself." Like Ivan Ivanovich, Ivan Nikiforovich has a great dislike of fleas; and therefore neither Ivan Ivanovich nor Ivan Nikiforovich ever passes a Jewish peddler without buying various jars of elixirs against these insects from him, having first given him a good scolding for confessing the Jewish faith.
However, despite certain dissimilarities, Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich are both excellent people.
Chapter II
From Which Can Be Learned What
Ivan Ivanovich Took a Liking to,
What the Conversation Between Ivan
Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich Was
About, and How It Ended
One morning-this was in the month of July-Ivan Ivanovich was lying on the gallery. The day was hot, the air dry and flowing in streams. Ivan Ivanovich had already managed to visit the farmstead and the mowers outside town to inquire of the muzhiks and women whence, whither, and why, got mighty tired and lay down to rest. While lying there, he spent a long time looking at the sheds, the yard, the outbuildings, the-chickens running in the yard, and thought to himself, "Lord God, what a proprietor I am! Is there anything I haven't got? Fowl, outbuildings, barns, what not else; vodka of various flavors; pears and plums in the orchards; poppies, cabbage, and peas in the garden… What is there that I haven't got?… I'd like to know, what haven't I got?"
Having asked himself such a profound question, Ivan Ivanovich fell to thinking; and meanwhile his eyes sought new objects, stepped over the fence into Ivan Nikiforovich's yard, and involuntarily became occupied with a curious spectacle. A skinny woman was taking packed-away clothes out one by one and hanging them on the line for airing. Soon an old uniform top with frayed cuffs spread its sleeves in the air and embraced a brocade jacket, after which another stuck itself out, a gentleman's, with armorial buttons and a moth-eaten collar; then white twill pantaloons with stains, which had once been pulled onto Ivan Nikiforovich's legs and now might be pulled onto his fingers. After them, another pair came out to hang, looking like an inverted V. Then came a dark blue Cossack beshmet 2 that Ivan Nikiforovich had had made for himself some twenty years before, when he was preparing to join the militia and even let his mustache grow. Finally, what with one thing and another, a sword thrust itself out as well, looking like a steeple sticking up in the air. Then came the whirling skirts of something resembling a caftan of a grass-green color, with brass buttons the size of five-kopeck pieces. From behind its skirts peeked a waistcoat trimmed in gold braid, with a big cutout front. The waistcoat was soon screened by a deceased grandmother's old skirt, with pockets that could accommodate whole watermelons. All of this mixed together made up a very entertaining spectacle for Ivan Ivanovich, while the sun's rays, striking here and there on a blue or green sleeve, a red cuff or a portion of gold brocade, or sparkling on the sword steeple, turned it into something extraordinary, like those nativity scenes that itinerant hucksters take around to the farmsteads. Especially when a crowd of people, tightly packed, watches King Herod in a golden crown or Anton leading his goat; behind the stage a violin squeals; a Gypsy beats on his own lips instead of a drum, and the sun is setting, and the fresh chill of the southern night, unnoticed, clings closer and closer to the fresh shoulders and breasts of the plump farm girls.