My Past and Thoughts

As soon as he had quarrelled \vith the prince he had complained of him, cursed his own lot and lamented that he had trusted such a rogue. 'Why, he has done nothing all his life but debauch himself and ruin his peasants; you know he is just keeping up a pretence before you now-but he is really a beast, a plunderer . . . .'

'When were you telling lies: now, or when you praised him?' I asked him, smiling.

The secretary was overcome with confusion. I turned on my heel and went away. Had this man not been born in the ser-

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vants' hall of the Prince Golitsyn, had he not been the son of some village clerk, he would long ago, with his abilities, have been a minister of state.

An hour later the precentor and his mentor appeared with a note from Golitsyn. He asked me, with apologies, whether I could go and see him to put an end to these petty squabbles. The prince promised beforehand to accept my decision without disputing it.

There was no getting out of it: I went.

Everything in the house indicated an unusual excitement; the French servant Picot hastily opened the door to me and, with the solemn fussiness with which a doctor is conducted to a consultation at the bedside of a dying man, showed me into the drawingroom. There I found Golitsyn's second wife, flustered and irritated. Golitsyn himself, with no cravat, his heroic chest bare, was pacing up and down the room with huge strides. He was furious, and so stammered twice as much as usual ; his whole face betrayed his suffering from the blows, kicks and punches that were surging inwardly but could have no outlet into the actual world, though they would have been his answer to insurgents in the province of Tambov.

'For G-G-God's sake, forgive me for t-t-troubling you about these b-b-blackguards.'

'What is the matter?'

'P-p-please ask them yourself; I shall only listen.'

He summoned the precentor, and the following conversation took place between us:

'Are you dissatisfied in some way?'

'Yes, very much dissatisfied ; that is just why I want to go back to Russia without fail.'

The prince, who had a voice as strong as Lablache's, emitted a leonine groan: another five blows in the face had to be stifled within him.

'The prince cannot keep you back ; so tell us what it is you are dissatisfied with.'

'Everything, Alexander Ivanovich, sir.'

'Well, do speak more definitely.'

'What can I say? Ever since I came away from Russia I have been run off my legs with work, and had only two pounds of pay, and what the prince gave me the third time, in the evening, was more by way of a present.'

'And how much ought you to have received?'

'That I can't say, sir . . . .'

'Well, have you a definite salary?'

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'No indeed, sir. The prince, when he was graciously pleased to escape abroad [ this was said without the slightest malicious intention ] , said to me: "If you like to come with me, I'll make your future," says he, "and if I have luck, I'll give you a good salary; but if not, then you must be satisfied with a little" ; so I took and came.'

He had come from Tambov to London on such terms. Oh, Russia !

'Well, and what do you think? has the prince been lucky or not?'

'Lucky? no, indeed ! Though, to be sure, he might . . . .'

'That is a different question. If he has not been lucky, then you ought to be satisfied with a small salary.'

'But the prince himself told me that for my duties and my abilities, according to the rate of pay here, I ought not to get less than four pounds a month.'

'Prince, are you willing to pay him four pounds a month?'

'I shall be d-d-delighted.'

'That is capital; what more?'

'The prince promised that if I wanted to go back he would pay my return fare to Petersburg.'

The prince nodded and added: 'Yes, but only if I were satisfied with him ! '

'What a re you dissatisfied with him for? '

Now the dam burst; the prince leapt up. I n a tragic bass, which gained weight from the quiver on some vowels and the little pauses between some of the consonants, he delivered the following speech :

'Could I be satisfied with that m-milksop, that p-p-pup? What enrages me is the foul ingratitude of the bandit. I took him into my service from the very poorest family of peasants, barefooted, devoured by lice; I trained the rascal. I have made a m-m-man of him, a m-musician, a precentor; I have trained the scoundrel's voice so that he could get a hundred roubles a month in Russia in the season.'

'All that is so, Yury Nikolayevich, but I can't share your view of it. Neither he nor his family asked you to make a Ronconi of him; so you can't expect any special gratitude on his part. You have trained him as one trains nightingales, and you have done a good thing, but that is the end of it. Besides, this is not the point.'

'You are right; but I meant to say, how can I put up with this? You know, I'll give the rascal.

'So you agree to pay his fare?'

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'The devil take him. For your sake, only for your sake, I'll give it.'

'Well, the matter is settled, then: and do you know what the fare is?'

'I am told it is twenty pounds.'

'No, that is too much. A hundred silver roubles from here to Petersburg is more than enough. Will you give that? '

'Yes.'

I worked out the sum on paper and handed it to Golitsyn; he looked at the total . . . it amounted, I think, to just over £30.

He handed me the money on the spot.

'You can read and write, of course? ' I asked the precentor.

'Of course, sir.'

I wrote out a receipt for him in some such form as this: I have received from Prince Yury Nikolayevich Golitsyn £30 odd [ so much in Russian money] being salary owing to me and my fare from London to Petersburg. With that I am satisfied, and have no other claims against him.

'Read it for yourself, and sign it.'

The young man read it, but made no movement to sign it.

'What is the matter?'

'I can't, sir.'

'Why can't you?'

'I am not satisfied.'

A restrained leonine roar-and, indeed, even I was on the point of raising my voice.

'What the devil is the matter? You said yourself what you claimed. The prince has paid you everything to the last farthing.

What are you dissatisfied with?'

'Why, upon my word, sir, and the privations I've suffered since I've been here.'

It was clear that the ease with which he had obtained the money had whetted his appetite.

'For instance, sir, I ought to have something more for copying music.'

'You liar!' Golitsyn boomed, as even Lablache can never have boomed; the piano responded with a timid echo; Picot's pale face appeared at the crack of the door and vanished with the speed of a frightened lizard.

'Wasn't copying music a part of your definite duty? Why, what else would you have done all the time when there were no concerts?'

The prince was right, though he need not have frightened Picot with his corztre-bombardon voice.