‘Yes, you’re an egoist all right!’ remarked Foma Fomich, well satisfied with himself.

  ‘Yes, now I know that I am! But no more! From now on I’ll mend my ways!’

  ‘May God assist you in the task,’ concluded Foma Fomich with a pious sigh, rising from the table to take his after-dinner nap. Foma Fomich always took a nap after dinner.

  Allow me to say something, as a conclusion to this chapter, about my own relationship with my uncle, and how it came about that I was so unexpectedly brought face to face with Foma Fomich and thrown headlong into the midst of the most momentous events that had ever disturbed the peaceful routine of the blessed village of Stepanchikovo. My introduction will then be at an end and I shall pass on to the story proper.

  At an early age I found myself an orphan, alone in the world, and my uncle took the place of my father and brought me up at his own expense; in short, he did for me more than my own father would have done. From the day he took me into his home I became immensely attached to him and loved him with all my heart. I was about ten at the time, and I remember we very quickly became great friends and understood each other perfectly. Together we spun peg-tops, and once we stole a bonnet from a cantankerous old lady, a relative of ours; I promptly tied it to the tail of my kite and sailed it up into the sky. We met again briefly many years later in St Petersburg where I was completing my university studies for which he was paying. On this occasion I again responded to him with the full ardour of youth, completely won over by his extraordinarily noble, meek, honest, genial and simple-hearted disposition — which cast everyone who met him under its spell. After completing my studies I spent some time in St Petersburg, without employment, flushed by the youthful conviction that soon, very soon, I was destined to perform great and remarkable things. I had no wish to leave St Petersburg, from where I maintained an infrequent correspondence with my uncle, and then only when I needed money, which he never refused me. One day word reached me through one of my uncle’s house-staff who happened to arrive in St Petersburg on business that strange things were afoot in Stepanchikovo. These first rumours astonished and intrigued me. I began to be more regular in my correspondence. My uncle’s replies were always very guarded and evasive, full of references to the sciences and the high and proud hopes he held for my future success in the field of learning. Suddenly, after a long spell of silence, I received a most amazing letter, which was quite unlike any of the previous ones. It was so full of strange hints and such a maze of contradictions, that at first I could not make head or tail of it. The writer had evidently been in a state of unusual agitation. On closer perusal, however, one thing emerged clearly; my uncle earnestly entreated me to marry without delay his former ward, the daughter of an impoverished provincial clerk named Yezhevikin. The girl had received an excellent education in a Moscow boarding school at my uncle’s expense, and was now engaged as his children’s governess. He went on to say that she was very unhappy and that I could bring her happiness by performing this noble act; he appealed to the generosity of my heart, and promised to give her a dowry. It must be said that he spoke of the dowry in veiled and apprehensive terms and concluded by enjoining me to treat everything in the strictest confidence. This letter bowled me over, and when I had finished reading it my head was spinning. It was hardly surprising that such a romantic proposition should have had the effect it did on a newly-fledged youngster like me. Besides, I had heard it said that the young governess was an uncommonly pretty thing. Although I didn’t know what to do for the best, I immediately informed my uncle that I was setting off at once for Stepanchikovo. With his letter he had enclosed money to cover the expenses of the journey. However, as a result of my doubts and even fears it was three more weeks before I finally left St Petersburg. Quite by accident I came across a former colleague of my uncle’s who had stopped at Stepanchikovo on his way back to St Petersburg from the Caucasus. He was an elderly, level-headed man and a confirmed bachelor. He spoke of Foma Fomich with indignation, and suddenly informed me of something which was quite new to me, namely that Foma and the General’s Lady were plotting to marry off my uncle to a strange spinster well past her prime and semi-demented, with an extraordinary life-story and close on half a million rubles for dowry; that the General’s Lady had succeeded in convincing the bride-to-be that they were already as good as relatives and on these grounds had enticed her into the household; that uncle was in despair and would probably end up marrying the half million rubles; and, finally, that the two plotters were waging a fearful persecution of the poor defenceless governess in a desperate bid to turn her out of the house, probably fearing that my uncle might fall in love with her, or perhaps, indeed, because he had already done so. I was astonished by these last words. To all my enquiries as to whether my uncle was really in love, my informant either could not or would not give a straight answer, and on the whole spoke tersely and with a marked avoidance of detailed explanation. All this news gave me considerable food for thought; it was in such stark contrast to my uncle’s letter and the proposal it contained! … But time was short. I decided to go to Stepanchikovo to comfort him and try to make him see reason, to rescue him — to get rid of Foma Fomich and put an end to the hateful marriage with the aged spinster — and ultimately, convinced as I was that Uncle’s romance was merely a destructive fabrication by Foma Fomich, I hoped to bring happiness to the unfortunate but highly desirable young girl by my offer of marriage, and so on and so forth. Little by little I became so carried away that, young and idle pup that I was, I went to the opposite extreme: instead of doubting and hesitating, I was now consumed by a desire to perform great and prodigious deeds. It even struck me that I was acting with rare magnanimity in my self-sacrifice to bring happiness to an innocent and lovely creature — in short, I was well pleased with myself the whole length of the journey. It was July; the sun was shining brightly; around me spread the immense expanse of fields of ripening corn … I had spent so much time cooped up in St Petersburg that it seemed to me I was only now looking upon God’s earth for the first time.

  2

  Mr Bakhcheyev

  Iwas nearing the end of my journey. On my way through the little town of B** from where it was only ten versts to Stepanchikovo, the rim of the front wheel of my tarantass broke and I was obliged to stop at a blacksmith’s near the town gate. The repair was not going to take long, as all I needed was something temporary to cover the last ten versts, and so I decided to wait on the spot while the men got on with their work. As I stepped down from the tarantass, I noticed a stout gentleman who had also pulled in to have his vehicle attended to. It turned out that he had already been waiting a solid hour in the sweltering heat, all the while scolding and shouting with peevish impatience at the workmen who were bustling round his splendid calash. From the very first glance this angry gentleman struck me as being an extraordinarily petulant individual. He was about forty-five years old, of medium height, enormously fat and with a mottled complexion. His corpulence, double chin and puffed-out cheeks spoke of the blissful life of a landowner. There was something old-womanish in his whole bearing which immediately caught my eye. He was neatly dressed in loose-fitting, comfortable clothes that made no claim to fashion.

  For some reason he was angry with me too, all the more baffling since he had never spoken to me or even seen me before in his life. The moment I stepped out of the tarantass, I noted the particularly unfriendly manner in which he eyed me. For my own part, however, I was very eager to make his acquaintance. To judge by the chatter of his servants he was on his way from my uncle’s and here, therefore, was an opportunity to ask a few questions. I was about to raise my cap and had just started to comment, in tones of the utmost civility, on how irritating delays can be on a journey, when the fat man measured me from head to toe with a particularly pained and querulous look, mumbled something under his breath, and deliberately turned his ample back on me. This part of his anatomy, though of considerable visual interest, offered no prospect of amicable dialogue.

  ‘Grishka! Stop growling under your breath or you’ll be flogged!’ he suddenly shouted at his manservant as though he had not even heard my remarks about delays on the road.

  ‘Grishka’ happened to be an old silver-haired servant dressed in a long frock-coat and sporting enormous grey sideburns. At a glance it was evident that he too was in a state of anger as he kept up a low mutter of protest. An argument immediately ensued between master and servant.

  ‘Flog me then, loudmouth!’ Grishka muttered as if to himself, but loudly enough for all to hear, and turned away in disgust to attend to the calash.

  ‘What? What did you say? “Loudmouth”? … I’ll teach you to be insolent!’ the fat man shouted, going red in the face.

  ‘Why on earth do you keep snapping at me, sir? Can’t even say a single word!’

  ‘What do you mean, snapping? Did you hear that? He can grumble at me but I’m not allowed to snap at him!’

  ‘What would I have to grumble about?’

  ‘What indeed … Of course you grumbled! And I know why — it’s because I left and didn’t stay for dinner, that’s why!’

  ‘As if I cared. It wouldn’t worry me if you stopped dining altogether. It’s the smiths I’m grumbling at, not you.’

  ‘The smiths? … What are you grumbling at the smiths for?’

  ‘Well, if it’s not them, it’s your carriage I’m grumbling at.’

  ‘And why should you grumble at the carriage?’

  ‘Because it’s broken down. It won’t do to break down on the road. See you don’t do it again.’

  ‘The carriage, is it? … No, you’re on at me, not the carriage. It’s his own fault, and I get the blame!’

  ‘But, sir, why do you keep on at me? Leave off, I beg you!’

  ‘And why did you scowl the whole journey and not say a single word to me, eh? You’re not so dumb at other times!’

  ‘A fly was trying to crawl into my mouth, so I kept it shut: that’s why I sat scowling. Did you want me to tell you fairy tales, is that it? You’d better get yourself a nanny if you’re fond of fairy tales.’

  The fat man opened his mouth and was about to retort but stopped short, apparently unable to think of a suitable reply. His servant, meanwhile, well pleased with his rhetoric and influence over his master, displayed in front of witnesses, turned to the workmen with redoubled smugness and resumed giving instructions.

  All my efforts to scrape an acquaintance with the fat gentleman proved futile, especially in view of my awkwardness and shyness; however, an unforeseen incident saved the day. A dirty, hairy, sleepy-eyed face suddenly appeared in a window of a coach which, locked up and its wheels removed, looked as if it had been standing there since time immemorial, vainly awaiting its turn to be repaired. The appearance of the face drew a general burst of laughter from the workmen. The joke was that the man who had peered out of the carriage had been confined there drunk, and, having slept it off, was now clamouring to be released. Finally he called out to somebody to fetch him his tools. All this provoked the crowd to unbounded merriment.

  There are some people who take enormous delight in the most unexpected things. A drunken peasant pulling a face, a man tripping and falling on the road, a couple of washerwomen squabbling, and so on and so forth, for some unknown reason put them in a mood of the most innocent rapture. The fat landowner was just such a person. Little by little his stern and sullen features began to light up and mellow until finally he was positively beaming.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Vasilyev!’ he exclaimed with concern. ‘But how did he get stuck in there?’

  ‘Vasilyev, sir, it’s Vasilyev!’ everybody shouted in chorus.

  ‘He’s been on a spree, sir,’ one workman added, a tall, lean, elderly man with a stern and affected expression, who appeared to claim precedence among his fellows. ‘Been on a spree, sir, three days now he’s been on the run from his master, hiding here with us, a proper nuisance he is! Wants his chisel now. You don’t need any chisels, you blockhead! He’d pawn his last tool!’

  ‘Oh, Arkhip! Money comes and money goes. God in heaven, let me out,’ Vasilyev implored in a pitifully thin warble, poking his head out of the coach.

  ‘Now you’re trapped, you rogue, you can stay there!’ Arkhip replied sternly. ‘Two days he’s been on the bottle now; they dragged him off the street at dawn this morning; thank the Lord we hid you and told Matvey Ilyich you’d gone down with unexpected stabbing pains.’

  There was another burst of laughter.

  ‘And where’s my chisel?’

  ‘Our Zuy’s got it! He’s on again! He’s as tipsy as they come, Stepan Alekseyevich, sir.’

  ‘Ha-ha-ha! Oh, you scoundrel! So this is what you get up to in town: pawning your tools!’ The fat man wheezed and choked with laughter in a sudden access of geniality.

  ‘And what a craftsman! There isn’t another like him outside Moscow. But the rogue is always up to tricks like this,’ he added, turning to me quite unexpectedly. ‘Let him out, Arkhip, perhaps he does need something after all.’

  The gentleman’s word was carried out. The nail that had been knocked into the door of the coach in order to make fun of Vasilyev when he woke up was pulled out, and a dirty, clumsy, ragged creature emerged into the daylight. The sunlight stung his eyes; he sneezed and swayed on his feet; then, shielding his eyes with the flat of his hand, he looked about him slowly.

  ‘What a crowd, what a crowd!’ he said, shaking his head, ‘and everybody sober, I b-bet.’ There was a note of personal reproach in his drawling, pensive voice. ‘Well, good morning, my friends, how d’you do all, what a lovely day!’

  Again laughter all round.

  ‘A lovely day indeed! Can’t you see there’s precious little left of your day, you dim-wit!’

  ‘You’re a good one, you are!’

  ‘An hour’s as good as a day when I get going.’

  ‘Ha-ha-ha! Just listen to him!’ the fat man cried, shaking with laughter, and again looked at me amiably. ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Vasilyev?’

  ‘It’s misfortune drove me to it, sir, misfortune,’ Vasilyev replied gloomily, with a wave of his hand, evidently glad of an opportunity to talk about his troubles.

  ‘What misfortune, you idiot?’

  ‘Misfortune such as you’ve never heard of before: Foma Fomich is to be our new owner.’

  ‘Who? When?’ the fat man yelled out, unable to contain himself.

  I took a step forward myself: I was suddenly and unexpectedly involved in the situation.

  ‘Why, all of us at Kapitonovka. The Colonel, our master, God bless him, is about to hand over the whole of the Kapitonovka estate to Foma Fomich, all the family lands and us seventy souls with it. “There, Foma,” he says, “you’ve been a pauper till now, hardly a landowner; all you’ve got is two smelts in Lake Ladoga, so to speak — that’s all the workforce your father left you. Now this father of yours,”’ Vasilyev continued with a kind of malicious relish, garnishing his story with choice references in all that related to Foma Fomich, ‘“this father of yours, assuredly of noble stock, though no one knows where he came from, like you, used to scrape a living at the kitchen doors of gentlefolk. But wait till I transfer Kapitonovka to you and make you a landowner with a noble title thrown in, as well as serfs of your own and leisure enough for you to lie back at your ease …”’

  But Stepan Alekseyevich was no longer listening. The story which the half-drunk Vasilyev had told produced a shattering effect upon him. The fat man was so incensed that he turned almost purple; his double chin began to throb, his small eyes grew bloodshot. I feared he would have a fit on the spot.

  ‘That’s all we needed!’ he said, half choking himself, ‘that scoundrel, Foma, that toady, a landowner! Bah! Go to hell, the lot of you! You there, get a move on! We’re going home!’

  ‘Excuse me, please,’ I said, hesitantly stepping forward, ‘I just heard you mention somebody called Foma Fomich: if I’m not mistaken, his surname is Opiskin. You see … I’d like to … that is, I have reason to be interested in this gentleman and for my own part I’d very much like to know whether it really is true, as this good man has just stated, that his master, Yegor Ilyich Rostanev, is willing to pass one of his estates to this Foma Fomich. I should very much like to know, and I …’

  ‘Begging your pardon, kind sir,’ the fat man interrupted, ‘why should you be interested in this gentleman, as you call him — a godless scoundrel is what he really is! And that’s what he should be called! You think that toad’s got a face? It’s a disgrace, not a face.’

  I hastened to explain that I could not comment on his appearance as I had never seen him in my life, but as for Yegor Ilyich Rostanev, he happened to be my uncle, my own name being Sergey Aleksandrovich So-and-So.

  ‘Ah, the man of learning? Well, well, they’re all eagerly waiting for you, I can tell you!’ the fat man exclaimed, genuinely overjoyed. ‘I’ve just come from there, from Stepanchikovo — walked out before I had my pudding: couldn’t stand the sight of Foma any longer! I quarrelled with the whole household over that confounded Foma … Well, I never! I do beg your pardon, sir. I am Stepan Alekseyevich Bakhcheyev and I can remember you when you stood so high off the ground … Who would have thought …? Allow me …’

  And the fat man reached out to embrace me warmly.

  The initial moment of excitement over, I immediately resumed plying him with questions: the opportunity was not to be missed.

  ‘But who on earth is this Foma?’ I asked, ‘How is it he has come to lord it over the whole household — why doesn’t someone chase him away with a broom? I must confess …’

  ‘Chase Foma Fomich away? Are you out of your mind, sir? Why, the Colonel himself is always the first to bow before him. You know, Foma once decreed that a Thursday was going to be Wednesday and nobody in the house dared object. “I don’t want Thursday, I want it to be Wednesday.” And they ended up with two Wednesdays that week! You think I’m making it up? Not a bit of it. Even Captain Cook couldn’t have managed that.’