It was a Shrove Tuesday and everyone was out driving: sledges and pairs, four-in-hands, carriages, trotters, ladies in silk coats – all parading in a row along Kiev Street – hordes of pedestrians too. Suddenly there was a shout from a street which crossed the main one at right-angles: ‘Hey, hold him there, hold that horse back! Hey, give way there!’ in a thoroughly self-confident tone. Involuntarily the pedestrians stood aside and the fours all reined in. What do you think? A ragged cabman standing upright on a ramshackle sledge drawn by a wretched jade and brandishing the reins above his head, was forcing his way through by dint of shouting, to the opposite side of the street, while nobody realized what was going on. Even the policemen on duty were bursting out laughing when they saw it.
Although Dmitry is a man ready to take a chance and one who enjoys a bit of cursing, he has a good heart and is kind to animals. He uses the whip not as a means of compulsion, but of correction, that is to say, he does not urge the horse on with the whip: for him this would be quite incompatible with the dignity of a city coachman; but if a trotter should refuse to stand at a house entrance, he will ‘give him a touch or two’. I had occasion to see this presently: turning out of one street into another, our little horse was having difficulty in pulling us round, and from the agitated movements of Dmitry’s back and arms and the smacking noises he was making with his lips, it was clear to me that he was in a difficult position. Would he resort to the whip? It was against his habit to do so. But what if the horse should just stop still? He could not tolerate that, even though here there was no cause to worry about some joker who might say ‘Suppose you tried giving him something to eat?’ This seems to me a demonstration of the fact that Dmitry acts more from an awareness of principle than from vanity.
I reflected further on the great variety of relations between coachmen themselves, their mentality, their resourcefulness and their pride. No doubt when many coachmen are gathered together in one place they recognize one another, including those drivers they have been in collisions with, and they progress from hostile to peaceable relations. All human beings in this world are of interest, and particularly fascinating are the attitudes and relationships of those classes to which we do not ourselves belong.
When the two carriages involved in an incident are travelling in the same direction, any disagreement is usually more protracted: the man who has given offence tries to drive off or to drop back, and the other driver may manage to show that the first driver was in the wrong, and to gain the upper hand; however, when both parties are travelling the same way the advantage is on the side of the driver whose horses are swifter. All these attitudes are readily applicable to the relations one encounters in everyday life as a whole. I am equally intrigued by the attitudes of gentlemen to one another and to coachmen, in encounters of this sort.—‘Where d’you think you’re rushing off to, you load of rubbish?’ When this condemnation is addressed to the whole carriage, the passenger cannot help trying to appear serious, or merry, or carefree – in a word, to appear different from what he was the moment before: he would plainly be only too pleased if the whole thing had happened the other way round. I have observed that gentlemen with moustaches are particularly sensitive to insults hurled at their own carriages.—
—‘Who goes there?’
This was the shout of a policeman, a man I had happened to see only that morning being insulted by another coachman. Near the house entrance just opposite this very policeman’s box there had been a carriage standing. The splendid red-bearded coachman had tucked the reins under him, and propping his elbows on his knees, was warming his back in the sun, evidently with great enjoyment, for his eyes were almost closed. Across the road from him the policeman was pacing up and down the area in front of his sentry-box and with the end of his halberd was straightening a plank which bridged a puddle in front of his platform. Suddenly he looked displeased, perhaps because there was a carriage standing there, or because he felt envious of the coachman sunning himself so happily, or just because he wanted a bit of a chat: he walked along his little platform, glanced up the side-street, and then with a thump of his halberd on the plank, began: ‘Hey, you, what are you waiting there for? You’re blocking up the road.’ The coachman opened his left eye a crack, looked at the policeman, and shut it again.—‘Move along, do you hear?’ No sign of any attention whatever.—‘So you can’t hear me, eh? Get off the road, I tell you!’ The policeman, seeing that he was not getting any response, walked along his platform and took another look up the side-street, clearly getting ready to say something that would really strike home. At that moment the coachman sat up, adjusted the reins, and turning with sleepy eyes towards the policeman, said: ‘What are you gawping at? They didn’t stick a rifle in your hands, you old fool, but you bellow just the same!’
—‘Get moving!’
The coachman roused himself and got moving.
I glanced at the policeman: he was muttering something and gave me an angry look. He evidently did not like my listening to him and looking at him. I know that there is no more effective way of offending a man than by making it obvious that you have noticed him but that you have no intention of speaking to him; and so I was embarrassed, and feeling sorry for the policeman went on my way.
Another thing I like about Dmitry is his ability to give someone the right name straight off: I find this most amusing. ‘Give way, fur hat,—Let’s have some service there, beardy, Give way, you toboggan, Give way, laundress, Give way, horse-doctor,—Give way, you fine figure, Give way, Monsieur’. It is amazing how a Russian manages to find the right abusive term for another man whom he is seeing for the very first time, and not just for the person, but for his social status: the petty bourgeois is ‘cat-dealer’, as if the lower middle classes go about purloining cats; a footman is ‘flunkey, dish-licker’; a peasant is, why I do not know, ‘Ryurik’; a coachman is ‘cart-driver’, and so forth – there are too many of these terms to count. If a Russian gets into a squabble with someone he has just seen for the first time, he immediately bestows on him a nickname which will cut him to the quick: crooknose, cross-eyed devil, rubber-lipped rogue, snubnose. One needs to experience it to know how truly and accurately these names always hit the right tender spot. I shall never forget an insult which I received in my absence. A certain Russian man said of me: ‘Oh, he’s an old gap-tooth!’ It must be admitted that my teeth are indeed exceptionally bad, decayed, and widely-spaced.—
At home
I arrived home. Dmitry jumped down to open the main gates, and so did I, to try to get through the wicket gate before he could get through the others. This is how it always happens: I hurry to get in because that is my custom, and he hurries to bring me right up to the house steps, because that is his custom.—For some time I could get no reply to my ringing of the door-bell; inside, the tallow candle was in serious need of snuffing and Prov, my little old manservant, was asleep. While I was ringing this is what I was thinking: Why do I dislike coming home, wherever and in whatever circumstances I happen to be living? Why do I dislike seeing the same old Prov in the same place, the same candle, the same stains on the wallpaper, the same pictures, so that I even begin to feel quite depressed?—