‘Well then, let me have it.’
‘I dared not even go home first to …’ Dútlov continued, still not parting with the precious envelope. ‘Tell the lady so.’
Dunyásha took it from him and went again to her mistress.
‘O my God, Dunyásha, don’t speak to me of that money!’ said the lady in a reproachful tone. ‘Only to think of that little baby …’
‘The peasant does not know to whom you wish it to be given, madam,’ Dunyásha again said.
The lady opened the envelope, shuddering at the sight of the money, and pondered.
‘Dreadful money! How much evil it does!’ she said.
‘It is Dútlov, madam. Do you order him to go, or will you please come out and see him – and is the money all safe?’ asked Dunyásha.
‘I don’t want this money. It is terrible money! What it has done! Tell him to take it himself if he likes,’ said the lady suddenly, feeling for Dunyásha’s hand. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ she repeated to the astonished Dunyásha; ‘let him take it altogether and do what he likes with it.’
‘Fifteen hundred rubles,’ remarked Dunyásha, smiling as if at a child.
‘Let him take it all!’ the lady repeated impatiently. ‘How is it you don’t understand me? It is unlucky money. Never speak of it to me again! Let the peasant who found it take it. Go, go along!’
Dunyásha went out into the maids’ room.
‘Is it all there?’ asked Dútlov.
‘You’d better count it yourself,’ said Dunyásha, handing him the envelope. ‘My orders are to give it to you.’
Dútlov put his cap under his arm, and, bending forward, began to count the money.
‘Have you got a counting-frame?’7
Dútlov had an idea that the lady was stupid and could not count, and that that was why she ordered him to do so.
‘You can count it at home – the money is yours …!’ Dunyásha said crossly. ‘ “I don’t want to see it,” she says; “give it to the man who brought it.” ’
Dútlov, without unbending his back, stared at Dunyásha.
Dunyásha’s aunt flung up her hands.
‘O holy Mother! What luck the Lord has sent him! O holy Mother!’
The second maid would not believe it.
‘You don’t mean it, Avdótya Pávlovna; you’re joking!’
‘Joking, indeed! She told me to give it to the peasant.… There, take your money and go!’ said Dunyásha, without hiding her vexation. ‘One man’s sorrow is another man’s luck!’
‘It’s not a joke … fifteen hundred rubles!’ said the aunt.
‘It’s even more,’ stated Dunyásha. ‘Well, you’ll have to give a ten-kopek candle to St Nicholas,’ she added sarcastically. ‘Why don’t you come to your senses? If it had come to a poor man, now! … But this man has plenty of his own.’
Dútlov at last grasped that it was not a joke, and began gathering together the notes he had spread out to count and putting them back into the envelope. But his hands trembled, and he kept glancing at the maids to assure himself that it was not a joke.
‘See! He can’t come to his senses he’s so pleased,’ said Dunyásha, implying that she despised both the peasant and the money. ‘Come, I’ll put it up for you.’
She was going to take the notes, but Dútlov would not let her. He crumpled them together, pushed them in deeper, and took his cap.
‘Are you glad?’
‘I hardly know what to say! It’s really …’
He did not finish, but waved his hand, smiled, and went out almost crying.
The mistress rang.
‘Well, have you given it to him?’
‘I have.’
‘Well, was he very glad?’
‘He was just like a madman.’
‘Ah! call him back. I want to ask him how he found it. Call him in here; I can’t come out.’
Dunyásha ran out and found the peasant in the entry. He was still bareheaded, but had drawn out his purse and was stooping, untying its strings, while he held the money between his teeth. Perhaps he imagined that as long as the money was not in his purse it was not his. When Dunyásha called him he grew frightened.
‘What is it, Avdótya … Avdótya Pávlovna? Does she want to take it back? Couldn’t you say a word for me?… Now really, and I’d bring you some nice honey.’
‘Indeed! Much you ever brought!’
Again the door was opened, and the peasant was brought in to the lady. He felt anything but cheerful. ‘Oh dear, she’ll want it back!’ he thought on his way through the rooms, lifting his feet for some reason as if he were walking through high grass, and trying not to stamp with his bast shoes. He could make nothing of his surroundings. Passing by a mirror he saw flowers of some sort and a peasant in bast shoes lifting his feet high, a gentleman with an eyeglass painted on the wall, some kind of green tub, and something white.… There, now! The something white began to speak. It was his mistress. He did not understand anything but only stared. He did not know where he was, and everything appeared as in a fog.
‘Is that you, Dútlov?’
‘Yes, lady.… Just as it was, so I left it …’ he said. ‘I was not glad so help me God! How I’ve tired out my horse!…’
‘Well, it’s your luck!’ she remarked contemptuously, though with a kindly smile. ‘Take it, take it for yourself.’
He only rolled his eyes.
‘I am glad that you got it. God grant that it may be of use. Well, are you glad?’
‘How could I help being glad? I’m so glad, ma’am, so glad! I will pray for you always! … So glad that, thank Heaven, our lady is alive! It was not my fault.’
‘How did you find it?’
‘Well, I mean, we can always do our best for our lady, quite honourably, and not anyhow …’
‘He is in a regular muddle, madam,’ said Dunyásha.
‘I had taken my nephew, the conscript, and as I was driving back along the road I found it. Polikéy must have dropped it.’
‘Well, then, go – go, my good man! I am glad you found it!’
‘I am so glad, lady!’ said the peasant.
Then he remembered that he had not thanked her properly, and did not know how to behave. The lady and Dunyásha smiled, and then he again began stepping as if he were walking in very high grass, and could hardly refrain from running so afraid was he that he might be stopped and the money taken from him.
XIV
WHEN he got out into the fresh air Dútlov stepped aside from the road to the lindens, even undoing his belt to get at his purse more easily, and began putting away the money. His lips were twitching, stretching and drawing together again, though he uttered no sound. Having put away his money and fastened his belt, he crossed himself and went staggering along the road as though he were drunk, so full was he of the thoughts that came rushing to his mind. Suddenly he saw the figure of a man coming towards him. He called out; it was Efím, with a cudgel in his hand, on watch at the serfs’ quarters.
‘Ah, Daddy Semën!’ said Efím cheerfully, drawing nearer (Efím felt it uncanny to be alone). ‘Have you got the conscripts off, daddy?’
‘We have. What are you after?’
‘Why, I’ve been put here to watch over Polikéy who’s hanged himself.’
‘And where is he?’
‘Up there, hanging in the loft, so they say,’ answered Efím, pointing with his cudgel through the darkness to the roof of the serfs’ quarters.
Dútlov looked in the direction of the arm, and though he could see nothing he puckered his brows, screwed up his eyes, and shook his head.
‘The police-constable has come,’ said Efím, ‘so the coachman said. He’ll be taken down at once. Isn’t it horrible at night, daddy? Nothing would make me go up at night even if they ordered me to. If Egór Mikháylovich were to kill me outright I wouldn’t go …’
‘What a sin, oh, what a sin!’ Dútlov kept repeating, evidently for propriety’s sake and not even thinking what he was saying. He was about to go on his way, but the voice of Egór Mikháylovich stopped him.