So Egór Mikháylovich took up a comfortable position, and even leaned imperceptibly against the door-post, while keeping a servile expression on his face and watching the movements of the lady’s lips and the flutter of the frills of her cap and their shadow on the wall beneath a picture. But he did not consider it at all necessary to attend to the meaning of her words. The lady spoke long and said much. A desire to yawn gave him cramp behind his ears, but he adroitly turned the spasm into a cough, and holding his hand to his mouth gave a croak. Not long ago I saw Lord Palmerston sitting with his hat over his face while a member of the Opposition was storming at the Ministry, and then suddenly rise and in a three hours’ speech answer his opponent point by point. I saw it without surprise, because I had seen the same kind of thing going on between Egór Mikháylovich and his mistress a thousand times. At last – perhaps he was afraid of falling asleep or thought she was letting herself go too far – he changed the weight of his body from his left to his right foot and began, as he always did, with an unctuous preface:
‘Just as you please to order, ma’am.… Only there is a gathering of the Commune now being held in front of my office window and we must come to some decision. The order says that the recruits are to be in town before the Feast of Pokróv. Among the peasants the Dútlovs are being suggested, and no one else. The mir2 does not trouble about your interests. What does it care if we ruin the Dútlovs? I know what a hard time they’ve been having! Ever since I first had the stewardship they have been living in want. The old man’s youngest nephew has scarcely had time to grow up to be a help, and now they’re to be ruined again! And I, as you well know, am as careful of your property as of my own.… It’s a pity, ma’am, whatever you’re pleased to think! … After all they’re neither kith nor kin to me, and I’ve had nothing from them.…’
‘Why, Egór, as if I ever thought of such a thing!’ interrupted the lady, and at once suspected him of having been bribed by the Dútlovs.
‘… Only theirs is the best-kept homestead in the whole of Pokróvsk. They’re God-fearing, hard-working peasants. The old man has been church Elder for thirty years; he doesn’t drink or swear, and he goes to church’ (the steward well knew with what to bait the hook). ‘… But the chief thing that I would like to report to you is that he has only two sons – the others are nephews adopted out of charity – and so they ought to cast lots only with the two-men families. Many families have split up because of their own improvidence and their sons have separated from them, and so they are safe now – while these will have to suffer just because they have been charitable.’
Here the lady could not follow at all. She did not understand what he meant by ‘two-men families’ or ‘charitableness’. She only heard sounds and observed the nankeen buttons on the steward’s coat. The top one, which he probably did not button up so often, was firmly fixed on, the middle one was hanging loose and ought long ago to have been sewn on again. But it is a well-known fact that in a conversation, especially a business conversation, it is not at all necessary to understand what is being said, but only to remember what you yourself want to say. The lady acted accordingly.
‘How is it you won’t understand, Egór Mikháylovich?’ she said. ‘I have not the least desire that a Dútlov should go as a soldier. One would think that knowing me as you do you might credit me with the wish to do everything in my power to help my serfs, and that I don’t want any harm to come to them, and would sacrifice all I possess to escape from this sad necessity and to send neither Dútlov nor Polikúshka.’ (I don’t know whether it occurred to the steward that to escape the sad necessity there was no need to sacrifice everything – that, in fact, three hundred rubles would suffice; but this thought might well have crossed his mind.)
‘I will only tell you this: that I will not give up Polikúshka on any account. When he confessed to me of his own accord after that affair with the clock, and wept, and gave his word to amend, I talked to him for a long time and saw that he was touched and sincerely penitent.’ (‘There! She’s off now!’ thought Egór Mikháylovich, and began to scrutinize the syrup she had in a glass of water: ‘Is it orange or lemon? Slightly bitter, I expect,’ thought he.) ‘That is seven months ago now, and he has not once been tipsy, and has behaved splendidly. His wife tells me he is a different man. How can you wish me to punish him now that he has reformed? Besides it would be inhuman to make a soldier of a man who has five children, and only he to keep them.… No, you’d better not say any more about it, Egór!’
And the lady took a sip from her glass.
Egór Mikháylovich watched the motion of her throat as the liquid passed down it and then replied shortly and dryly:
‘Then Dútlov’s decided on?’
The lady clasped her hands together.
‘How is it you don’t understand? Do I wish Dútlov ill? Have I anything against him? God is my witness I am prepared to do anything for them.…’ (She glanced at a picture in the corner, but remembered it was not an icon. ‘Well, never mind … that’s not to the point,’ she thought. And again, strange to say, the idea of the three hundred rubles did not occur to her.…) ‘Well, what can I do? What do I know about it? It’s impossible for me to know. Well then, I rely on you – you know my wishes.… Act so as to satisfy everybody and according to the law.… What’s to be done? They are not the only ones: everyone has times of trouble. Only Polikúshka can’t be sent. You must understand that it would be dreadful of me to do such a thing.…’
She was roused and would have continued to speak for a long time had not one of her maidservants entered the room at that moment.
‘What is it, Dunyásha?’
‘A peasant has come to ask Egór Mikháylovich if the meeting is to wait for him,’ said Dunyásha, and glanced angrily at Egór Mikháylovich. (‘Oh, that steward!’ she thought; ‘he’s upset the mistress. Now she won’t let me get a wink of sleep till two in the morning!’)
‘Well then, Egór, go and do the best you can.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He did not say anything more about Dútlov. ‘And who is to go to the market-gardener to fetch the money?’
‘Has not Peter returned from town?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Could not Nicholas go?’
‘Father is down with backache,’ remarked Dunyásha.
‘Shall I go myself to-morrow, ma’am?’ asked the steward.
‘No, Egór, you are wanted here.’ The lady pondered. ‘How much is it?’
‘Four hundred and sixty-two rubles.’
‘Send Polikúshka,’ said the lady, with a determined glance at Egór Mikháylovich’s face.
Egór Mikháylovich stretched his lips into the semblance of a smile but without parting his teeth, and the expression on his face did not change.