‘Why must you sell a horse?’ Nekhlyúdov repeated, raising his voice and clearing his throat.
Epifán sighed, shook back his hair, his glance again roving over the whole hut, and noticing a cat that lay quietly purring on the bench, shouted to it, ‘Sss, get away, beast!’ and hurriedly turned to the master.
‘It’s a horse, y’r Ex’cency, that’s no good.… If it were a good beast I wouldn’t sell it, y’r Ex’cency.’
‘And how many horses have you?’
‘Three horses, y’r Ex’cency.’
‘And no foals?’
‘Why certainly, y’r Ex’cency, I have a foal too.’
Chapter VIII
‘COME, let me see your horses. Are they in the yard?’
‘Exactly so, y’r Ex’cency. I have done as I was ordered, y’r Ex’cency. As if we could disobey y’r Ex’cency! Jacob Alpátych told me not to let the horses out into the field. “The prince will look at them,” he said, so we did not let them out. We dare not disobey y’r Ex’cency.’
As Nekhlyúdov was passing out of the hut, Epifán snatched his pipe from the bunk and shoved it behind the oven; his lips continued to move restlessly even when the master was not looking at him.
A lean little grey mare was rummaging among some rotten straw under the penthouse, and a two-months-old long-legged foal of some nondescript colour, with bluish legs and muzzle, kept close to her thin tail which was full of burrs. In the middle of the yard, with its eyes shut and pensively hanging its head, stood a thick-bellied sorrel gelding – by his appearance a good peasant horse.
‘Are these all the horses you have?’
‘No, sir, y’r Ex’cency, there’s also the mare and the foal,’ Epifán said, pointing to the horses which his master could not have helped seeing.
‘I see. And which of them do you want to sell?’
‘Why, this one, y’r Ex’cency,’ replied Epifán, shaking the skirt of his coat towards the drowsy gelding and continually blinking and twitching his lips. The gelding opened its eyes and lazily turned its tail to him.
‘He doesn’t look old and is a sturdy horse,’ said Nekhlyúdov. ‘Just catch him, and let me see his teeth. I can tell if he is old.’
‘It’s impossible for one person to catch him, Ex’cency. The beast is not worth a penny and has a temper – he bites and kicks, Ex’cency,’ replied Epifán, smiling gaily and letting his eyes rove in all directions.
‘What nonsense! Catch him, I tell you.’
Epifán smiled for a long time, shuffling from foot to foot, and only when Nekhlyúdov cried angrily: ‘Well, what are you about?’ did he rush under the penthouse, bring out a halter, and begin running after the horse, frightening it and following it.
The young master was evidently weary of seeing this, and perhaps wished to show his skill.
‘Let me have the halter!’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon, how can y’r Ex’cency? Please don’t.…’
But Nekhlyúdov went up to the horse’s head and suddenly seized it by the ears with such force that the gelding, which was after all a very quiet peasant horse, swayed and snorted, trying to get away. When Nekhlyúdov noticed that it was quite unnecessary to use such force, and looked at Epifán who continued to smile, the idea – most humiliating to one of his age – occurred to him that Epifán was making fun of him and regarded him as a child. He flushed, let go of the horse’s ears, and without making use of the halter opened its mouth and examined its teeth: the eye-teeth were sound and the double teeth full – which the young master knew the meaning of. Of course the horse was a young one.
Meanwhile Epifán had gone to the penthouse, and noticing that a harrow was not lying in its place, moved it and stood it up against the wattle wall.
‘Come here!’ cried Nekhlyúdov with an expression of childish annoyance on his face and a voice almost tearful with vexation and anger. ‘Now, is this horse old?’
‘Please, y’r Ex’cency, very old. It must be twenty.… Some horses …’
‘Silence! You’re a liar and a good-for-nothing! A decent peasant does not lie – he has no need to!’ said Nekhlyúdov, choking with angry tears. He stopped, in order not to disgrace himself by bursting into tears before the peasant. Epifán too was silent, and looking as if he would begin to cry at any moment, sniffed and slightly jerked his head.
‘Tell me, what will you plough with if you sell this horse?’ Nekhlyúdov went on when he had calmed down sufficiently to speak in his ordinary tone. ‘You are being sent to do work on foot so as to let your horses be in better condition for the ploughing, and you want to sell your last one? And above all, why do you tell lies?’
As soon as his master grew calm Epifán quieted down too. He stood straight, still twitching his lips and his eyes roaming from one object to another.
‘We’ll come out to work for y’r Ex’cy no worse than the others.’
‘But what will you plough with?’
‘Don’t trouble about that, we’ll get y’r Ex’cency’s work done!’ said Epifán, shooing at the horse and driving it away. ‘If I didn’t need the money would I sell him?’
‘What do you need the money for?’
‘We have no flour left, y’r Ex’cency, and I must pay my debts to other peasants, y’r Ex’cency.’
‘No flour? How is it that others with families still have flour, while you without a family have none? What have you done with it?’
‘Eaten it up, y’r Ex’cency, and now there’s none left at all. I’ll buy a horse before the autumn, y’r Ex’cency.’
‘Don’t dare to think of selling the horse!’
‘But if I don’t sell it, y’r Ex’cency, what kind of a life will ours be, when we’ve no flour and daren’t sell anything …’ replied Epifán turning aside, twitching his lips, and suddenly casting an insolent look at his master’s face – ‘it means we’re to starve!’
‘Mind, my man!’ Nekhlyúdov shouted, pale with anger and experiencing a feeling of personal animosity towards the peasant. ‘I won’t keep such peasants as you. It will go ill with you.’
‘That’s as you wish, if I’ve not satisfied y’r Ex’cency,’ replied Epifán, closing his eyes with an expression of feigned humility, ‘but it seems that no fault has been noticed in me. Of course if y’r Ex’cency doesn’t like me, it’s all in your power: but I don’t know what I am to be punished for.’
‘For this: that your sheds are not thatched, your wattle walls are broken, your manure is not ploughed in, and you sit at home smoking a pipe and not working; and because you don’t give your mother, who turned the whole farm over to you, a bit of bread, but let your wife beat her so that she has to come to me with complaints.’
‘Oh no, y’r Ex’cency, I don’t even know what a pipe is!’ replied Epifán in confusion, apparently hurt most of all by being accused of smoking a pipe. ‘It is possible to say anything about a man …’
‘There you are, lying again! I saw it myself.’
‘How should I dare to lie to y’r Ex’cency?’
Nekhlyúdov bit his lip silently and began pacing up and down the yard. Epifán stood in one spot and without lifting his eyes watched his master’s feet.
‘Listen, Epifán!’ said Nekhlyúdov suddenly in a voice of childlike gentleness, stopping in front of the peasant and trying to conceal his excitement. ‘You can’t live like that – you will ruin your life. Bethink yourself. If you want to be a good peasant change your way of life, give up your bad habits, stop lying, don’t get drunk, and respect your mother. You see I know all about you. Attend to your allotment, don’t steal from the Crown forest, and stop going to the tavern. What good is all that? – just think. If you need anything come to me and ask straight out for what you want, and tell me why you want it. Don’t lie, but tell the whole truth, and then I shan’t refuse anything I can do for you.’
‘Excuse me, y’r Ex’cency, I think we can understand y’r Ex’cency!’ Epifán replied smiling, as if he quite understood the excellence of the master’s joke.