‘Your money’s no good,’ he said, pointing at the coupon but not returning it.
‘That’s good money – a gentleman gave it me.’
‘This money is not good, it’s counterfeit.’
‘Well, if it’s counterfeit, give it back to me.’
‘No, my man, people like you need to be taught a lesson. You and your swindling friends have been tampering with it.’
‘Let me have my money, what right have you got to do this?’
‘Sidor, call the police,’ said the barman to the waiter.
Ivan Mironov was drunk, and being drunk he was starting to get worked up. He seized the manager by the collar and shouted:
‘Give it back, and I’ll go and see the gentleman. I know where to find him.’
The manager struggled free of Ivan Mironov’s grasp, tearing his shirt in the process.
‘Ah, if that’s how you want it – hold him!’
The waiter grabbed Ivan Mironov and at that moment the policeman appeared. Taking charge of the situation he listened to their explanations, then quickly brought things to a conclusion.
‘Down to the station with you.’
The policeman put the coupon into his own wallet and led Ivan Mironov and his horse off to the police station.
VII
Ivan Mironov spent the night in the cells at the police station along with drunks and thieves. It was not until almost noon the next day that he was summoned to appear before the local police officer. The officer questioned him and then sent him along with the constable to see the proprietor of the photographic shop. Ivan Mironov was able to remember the name of the street and the number of the house.
When the policeman had summoned the gentleman to the door and confronted him with the coupon and Ivan Mironov, who confirmed that this was the very gentleman who had given him the coupon, Yevgeny Mikhailovich put on an expression first of astonishment, and then of stern disapproval.
‘Whatever are you talking about? You must be out of your mind. This is the first time I have ever set eyes on him.’
‘Master, it’s a sin to say that, remember we’ve all got to die,’ said Ivan Mironov.
‘What’s the matter with him? You must have been dreaming. It was someone else you sold your firewood to,’ said Yevgeny Mikhailovich. ‘Anyway, wait there and I’ll go and ask my wife if she bought any firewood yesterday.’
Yevgeny Mikhailovich went away and at once called the yardman to him. The yardman, Vasily, was a good-looking, unusually strong and nimble fellow, cheery in nature and something of a dandy. Yevgeny Mikhailovich told him that if anyone asked him where the last lot of firewood had come from he should say that they had got it from the woodyard and that they never bought firewood from muzhiks.
‘There’s a muzhik here claiming that I gave him a forged coupon. He’s a muddle-headed peasant, but you’re a man of understanding. So you tell him that we only ever buy our firewood from the woodyard. Oh, and I’ve been meaning for some time to give you this towards a new jacket,’ added Yevgeny Mikhailovich, and he gave the yardman five roubles.
Vasily took the money, his eyes darting from the banknote to Yevgeny Mikhailovich’s face, tossed back his hair and gave a slight smile.
‘Everyone knows the common people are slow-witted. It’s lack of education. Don’t you worry, sir. I shall know well enough what to say.’
However tearfully Ivan Mironov begged Yevgeny Mikhailovich to acknowledge that the coupon was his, and the yardman to confirm what he was saying, both Yevgeny Mikhailovich and the yardman stuck to their line: they had never bought firewood off carts. And the policeman took Ivan Mironov back to the police station where he was charged with forging a coupon.
Only by following the advice of his cellmate, a drunken clerk, and by slipping the local police officer a five-rouble note, did Ivan Mironov succeed in getting out of detention, minus his coupon and with just seven roubles instead of the twenty-five he had had the day before. Ivan Mironov used three of the seven roubles to get drunk, and with a face full of utter dejection and dead drunk he drove home to his wife.
His wife was pregnant and nearing her time, and she was feeling ill. She began swearing at her husband, he shoved her away, and she started hitting him. He did not retaliate, but lay belly down on the plank bed and wept loudly.
Only the next morning did his wife discover what had happened, and believing what her husband said, spent a long time cursing that brigand of a gentleman who had deceived her Ivan. And Ivan, who had now sobered up, remembered the advice of the factory-hand he had been drinking with the previous evening, and decided to go and find an ablocate and lodge a complaint.
VIII
The advocate took on the case, not so much for any money he might make from it, but rather because he believed Ivan Mironov and was indignant at the way this muzhik had been so shamelessly defrauded.
Both parties were present at the hearing, and Vasily the yardman was the sole witness. At the hearing it all came out as it had done before. Ivan Mironov referred to God and to the fact that we shall all die. Yevgeny Mikhailovich, although uncomfortably aware of the unpleasantness and the danger of what he was doing, could not now alter his testimony, and he continued with an outwardly calm appearance to deny everything.
Vasily the yardman received a further ten roubles and went on asserting with a calm smile that he had never before so much as set eyes on Ivan Mironov. And when he was called to take the oath, although he quailed inwardly, he maintained a calm exterior as he repeated the words of the oath after the old priest specially brought in for this function, swearing on the cross and the Holy Gospel that he would tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The proceedings ended with the judge dismissing the case brought by Ivan Mironov and decreeing that he was liable for court costs of five roubles, which Yevgeny Mikhailovich magnanimously paid on his behalf. Discharging Ivan Mironov, the judge admonished him to be more careful in future about making accusations against respectable people and said that he should be duly grateful that the court costs had been met for him and that he was not being prosecuted for slander, which could have led to his spending three months or more in prison.
‘We humbly thank you, sir,’ said Ivan Mironov, and shaking his head and sighing he left the courtroom.
It seemed as if the whole affair had ended well for Yevgeny Mikhailovich and for Vasily the yardman. But that was only how it looked. Something had actually happened which no one could see, something far more serious than anything merely human eyes could perceive.
It was more than two years now since Vasily had left his village and come to live in the town. With each year that passed he sent his father less and less of his earnings, and he did not get round to sending for his wife to come and join him, since he felt no need of her. Here in the town he had as many women as he could wish for, and not the sort of women who were anything like his old hag of a wife. With each year that passed Vasily forgot more and more the rules and standards of country life and became increasingly at home with the ways of the town. Back there in the country everything had been crude, dreary, impoverished and messy, but here everything was civilized, well-kept, clean and luxurious, as it ought to be. And he became more and more convinced that the country people lacked any understanding of life, like the beasts of the forest, whereas here – these people were real human beings. He read books by good authors, novels, and he went to theatrical performances at the People’s House.5 In his home village you would never see anything like that, not even in your dreams. In his village the old men would say: ‘Live with your wife according to the law, work hard, don’t eat too much and don’t get above yourself’; but here people were clever, educated – and that meant they understood the real laws of life – and lived for their own pleasure. And it was all wonderful. Before the court case with the coupon Vasily had still not believed that the upper classes had no law governing the way they lived. He had always thought they must have some such law, although he did not know what it was. But this court hearing over the coupon, and most of all, his own perjury, which despite his fears had brought him no unpleasant repercussions but had actually earned him an extra ten roubles, convinced him that there were no laws at all, and that a man should simply live for his own pleasure. And so he did, and so he went on doing. To begin with he merely took a little extra profit on the purchases he made for the tenants, but this was not enough to meet all his expenses, so he began, whenever he could, to pilfer money and valuables from the tenants’ apartments, and he even stole Yevgeny Mikhailovich’s wallet. Yevgeny Mikhailovich, certain of Vasily’s guilt, did not start proceedings against him, but gave him the sack.