Chapter 1 - Page 2

which he gave him
haphazard, in small sums, and even that mostly not in cash but in goods
from his own shop and at high prices.

Nikita's wife Martha, who had once been a handsome vigorous woman,
managed the homestead with the help of her son and two daughters, and
did not urge Nikita to live at home: first because she had been living
for some twenty years already with a cooper, a peasant from another
village who lodged in their house; and secondly because though she
managed her husband as she pleased when he was sober, she feared him
like fire when he was drunk. Once when he had got drunk at home, Nikita,
probably to make up for his submissiveness when sober, broke open her
box, took out her best clothes, snatched up an axe, and chopped all her
undergarments and dresses to bits. All the wages Nikita earned went to
his wife, and he raised no objection to that. So now, two days before
the holiday, Martha had been twice to see Vasili Andreevich and had got
from him wheat flour, tea, sugar, and a quart of vodka, the lot costing
three rubles, and also five rubles in cash, for which she thanked him as
for a special favour, though he owed Nikita at least twenty rubles.

'What agreement did we ever draw up with you?' said Vasili Andreevich
to Nikita. 'If you need anything, take it; you will work it off. I'm not
like others to keep you waiting, and making up accounts and reckoning
fines. We deal straight-forwardly. You serve me and I don't neglect
you.'

And when saying this Vasili Andreevich was honestly convinced that he
was Nikita's benefactor, and he knew how to put it so plausibly that
all those who depended on him for their money, beginning with Nikita,
confirmed him in the conviction that he was their benefactor and did not
overreach them.

'Yes, I understand, Vasili Andreevich. You know that I serve you and
take as much pains as I would for my own father. I understand very
well!' Nikita would reply. He was quite aware that Vasili Andreevich was
cheating him, but at the same time he felt that it was useless to try
to clear up his accounts with him or explain his side of the matter, and
that as long as he had nowhere to go he must accept what he could get.

Now, having heard his master's order to harness, he went as usual
cheerfully and willingly to the shed, stepping briskly and easily on his
rather turned-in feet; took down from a nail the heavy tasselled leather
bridle, and jingling the rings of the bit went to the closed stable
where the horse he was to harness was standing by himself.

'What, feeling lonely, feeling lonely, little silly?' said Nikita in
answer to the low whinny with which he was greeted by the good-tempered,
medium-sized bay stallion, with a rather slanting