“You can fleece them, the poor bastards, but me—I’m sorry, I can’t take their money! Not me!”
The scoundrel suddenly stopped, blushed, and turned to the pilgrims.
“That’s an idea! You’re Christians! Will you sacrifice a fiver? I beg you from deep within my guts! I’m ill!”
“Drink water!” the small man with the pock-marked face laughed.
The scoundrel felt ashamed. He started coughing heavily and then fell silent. A few moments later he started pleading again with Tikhon. Finally he burst into tears and began offering his wet coat for a glass of vodka. In the darkness no one could see his tears, and no one took his coat because among the pilgrims there were women who did not want to see a man’s nakedness.
“What am I to do now?” the scoundrel asked in a quiet voice frill of despair. “What am I to do? I have to have a drink, or I might well commit a crime... even resort to suicide... what am I going to do?”
He began pacing up and down.
The mail coach rolled up, its bells ringing. The wet post-man came in, drank a glass of vodka, and left. The mail coach drove on.
“I have something golden I’ll give you,” the scoundrel, suddenly deathly pale, said to Tikhon. “Yes, I’ll give it to you. So be it! Even if what I’m doing is low-down, vile—here, take it... I am doing this despicable deed because I’m beside myself... even if I was brought before a court of law, I would be forgiven. Take it, but only on one condition: that you give it back to me when I return. I’m giving it to you before witnesses!”
The scoundrel slid his wet hand inside his coat and took out a small gold medallion. He opened it and glanced at the portrait inside.
“I should take the portrait out, but I have nowhere to put it—I’m soaked. Damn you, take it with the portrait. But on one condition... my dear fellow... I beg you... don’t touch this face with your fingers. I beg you, my dear fellow! Forgive me for having been so rude to you, for saying the things I said... I’m an idiot... just don’t touch it with your fingers, and don’t look at the face!”
Tikhon took the medallion, inspected it, and put it in his pocket.
“Stolen goods,” he said, and filled a glass. “Well, fine! Drink!”
The drunkard took the glass in his hand. His eyes flashed, as much as his strength allowed his drunken, bleary eyes to flash, and he drank, drank with feeling, with convulsive pauses. Having drunk away the medallion with the portrait, he lowered his eyes with shame and went to a corner. There he perched on a bench next to the pilgrims, curled up, and closed his eyes.
Half an hour passed in stillness and silence. Only the wind howled, blowing its autumn rhapsody over the chimney. The women pilgrims were praying and soundlessly settling under the benches for the night. Tikhon opened the medallion and looked at the woman’s face smiling out of the golden frame, at the tavern, at Tikhon, at the bottles.
A wagon creaked outside. There was a rattling sound and then the thudding of boots in the mud. A short peasant with a pointed beard came running in. He was wet, wearing a long sheepskin coat covered in mud.
“There you go!” he shouted, banging a fiver down on the counter. “A glass of Madeira! Make it a good one!”
And rakishly swiveling around on one foot, he ran his eye over the people in the tavern. “Made of sugar, are you? Chicken feathers upon thine aunt! Scared of the rain? Ha! Poor things! Who’s this raisin here?”
He went over to the scoundrel and looked him in the face.
“Oh! Your lordship!” he said. “Semyon Sergeyitch! Good heavens! What? How come you’re hanging about here in this tavern in such a state? What are you doing here? Suffering martyr!”
The squire looked at the peasant and covered his face with his sleeve. The peasant sighed, shook his head, waved his hands about in despair, and went to the counter to finish his drink.
“That’s our master,” he whispered to Tikhon, nodding toward the scoundrel. “Our landowner, Semyon Sergeyitch. Look at him! Look what he looks like now! Ha! Just look at that! What drink can do to you!”
The peasant gulped down his drink, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and continued: “I’m from his village. Four hundred versts from here, from Akhtilovka... my folks were his fathers serfs! Sad, ain’t it! His lordship was such a splendid gentleman. This horse here, the one outside, you see it? He gave it me! Ha! That’s fate for you!”
The coachmen and pilgrims started crowding round the peasant. In a quiet voice, over the noises of autumn, he told them the story. Semyon Sergeyitch remained sitting in the same corner, his eyes closed, muttering to himself. He was listening too.
“It happened because of weakness,” the peasant said, gesticulating with his hands. “Too much good life! He was a rich gentleman—powerful, in the whole province! Eat, drink, cartloads! How many times he drove past this very tavern in his car-riage—you must have seen him! He was rich! Five years ago he was going through Mikishkinski on a barge, and instead of a fiver he gave the man a whole ruble! His ruin was so stupid. Mainly because of a woman. He fell in love, head over heels, with a woman from town—he loved her more than his life. But he didn’t fall in love with a shining falcon. She was a black crow. Marya Egorovna, that was that damn woman’s name, and with a strange last name too—you can’t even pronounce it. He loved her and proposed to her, all God-fearing and correct. Then, they say, she said yes. After all, his lordship wasn’t just anybody—he was sober and rolling in money.... Then one evening, I remember well, I’m walking through the garden. I look, and there they are sitting on the bench kissing. He gives her one kiss, and she, the viper, gives him two back! He kisses her hand, and her, she blushes. Then she squeezes herself close to him, damn her! I love you, she says, Semyon... and Semyon goes about as if bewitched, boasting of his happiness like a fool... handing out a ruble here, two there, and me he gave this horse outside! He was so happy, he dropped everyone’s debts! Then came the wedding. They got married all nice and proper. Then, as everyone’s at the dinner, she gets up and goes with the carriage into town to the attorney, who’s her lover. Right after the wedding, the harlot! At the high point! Ha! Then he went nuts, started drinking! Look at him! He’s running around like a half-wit thinking of nothing but that harlot! He loves her! I bet he’s on his way to town just so he can get a glimpse of her... But the other thing, let me tell you, the thing that really ruined him, was his brother-in-law—his sister’s husband. The squire took it into his head to guarantee his brother-in-law with the bank—around thirty thousand he guaranteed! They say the scoundrel of a brother-in-law knows how to squeeze a stone—he just sat back and waited, and our master had to pay the whole thirty thousand! A fool suffers for his foolishness! His wife had children with her attorney, his brother-in- law bought an estate near Poltava, and our master wanders around from one tavern to the next like a fool, making us all listen to his moaning: “Lost have I, dear brothers, my faith in mankind! There is no one I can, how shall I put it, believe in!” Weakness, that’s what it is! We all have problems! So what are we supposed to do—start drinking? There’s this corporal we used to have in the army. His wife brings the schoolmaster to her house in broad daylight—she spends all her husband’s money on drink. And that corporal walks about grinning. The only effect was he lost some weight!”
“The Lord does not provide everyone with that kind of strength!” Tikhon said.
“Yeah, everyone’s strength is different, that’s true!”
The peasant spoke for a long time. When he finished, the tavern was silent.
“Hey, you... how’re you feeling? You unlucky man! Here, drink!” Tikhon said, turning to the squire.