Hoo-oo-oo! sang the storm in the garret, and some- thing outside banged viciously, probably the signboard on the cottage. Hoo-oo-ool
"You can do as you like, but I don't want to stay here," said Starchenko, getting up. "It's not six yet; it's too early to go to bed; I'll drive somewhere. Von Tau- nitz lives not far from here, only a couple of miles from Syrnya. I'll drive there and spend the evening with him. Officer, go and tell my coachman not to take the horses out. And what will you do?" he asked Lyzhin.
"I don't know; I'll probably go to sleep."
The doctor wrapped his fur coat round him and went out. He could be heard talking to the coachman and there was the sound of bells shaking on the frozen horses. He drove off.
"It's not right for you, sir, to spend the night in here," said the policeman. "Go into the other room. It's not clean there, but for one night it don't matter. I'll get a samovar from a peasant and heat it directly. I'll pile up some hay for you and then you can go to sleep, and God be with you, your honor."
A little later the magistrate was sitting at a table in the other room, drinking tea, while Loshadin the police- man stood at the door, talking. He was an old man of about sixty, short and very lean, hunched and white- haired, with a naive smile on his face and watery eyes; and he kept smacking his lips as though he were suck- ing a candy. He was wearing a short sheepskin coat and felt boots, and did not let his stick out of his hands. The magistrate's youth aroused his compassion and that was probably why he addressed him familiarly.
"Fyodor Makarych, the Elder, gave orders that he was to be informed when the police inspector or the examining magistrate came," he said, "so I reckon I must go now. It's nearly three miles to the district office, and the storm's bad, the snowdrifts are a caution— blamed if I'll get there before midnight. Listen to it howl!"
"I don't need the elder," said Lyzhin. "There's noth- ing for him to do here."
He looked at the old man with curiosity and asked:
"Tell me, grandfather, how many years is it you've been a policeman?"
"Why, about thirty. Five years after the Freedom[7] I got to be policeman, you can figure out for yourself. And I've been on the go every day since. People have holidays, but me, I'm always on the go. When it's Easter and the church bells are ringing and Christ has risen,
I keep on trotting, with my bag. To the treasury, to the post office, to the police inspector's lodgings, to the dis- trict magistrate, to the tax collector, to the municipal office, to the gentry, to the peasants, to all Orthodox folk. I carry packages, notices, tax blanks, letters, all kinds of forms, reports, and you know, kind sir, your honor, they've got such forms nowadays to write numbers on —yellow, white, red—and every gentleman or priest or well-to-do peasant must write down a dozen times a year how much he has sown or harvested, how many bushels or poods he has of rye, how many of oats, and of hay, and all about the weather, you know, and in- sects, too, of all kinds. Of course you can write what you like, it's only a rule, but you must go and hand out the papers and then go and collect 'ern again. Here, for in- stance, there's no call to cut open the gentleman; you know yourself it's all foolishness, you only dirty your hands, but here you've gone to the trouble, your honor, you've come because it's the rule, there's no getting round it. For thirty years I've been walking my legs off according to rule. In summer it's all right, it is warm and dry; but in winter and fall it puts you out. There were times I was dro^ing and times I was near froze to death; all kinds of things happened to me—wicked peo- ple in the woods took my bag away; I've got it in the neck and I've been brought to law."
"What for?"
"Fraud."
"What do you mean, fraud?"
"Why, you see, Khrisanf Grigoryev, the clerk, sold the contractor some boards as didn't belong to him— cheated him, that is. I was mixed up in it. They sent me to the tavern for vodka; well, the clerk didn't go shares with me—didn't even stand me a drink; but seeing as I'm a poor man, and so a no-account person, not to be relied on—to look at, that is—we were both brought to trial; he was sent to prison, but, praise God! I was acquitted on all counts. They read a paper, you know, in the court, about it. And they were all in uniform—in the court, I mean. I can tell you, your honor, for anyone not used to 'em, my duties are a caution, Lord keep you from them; but me, I don't mind it. Matter of fact, when I'm not on the go, my feet hurt. And at home it's worse for me. At home you have to light the stove for the clerk in the district office, to fetch water for him, to clean his boots."
"And what's your salary?" Lyzhin asked.
"Eighty-four rubles a year."
'Tll bet there are other little sums coming in. There are, aren't there?"
"Other little sums? No, indeed! Gentlemen nowadays don't often give tips.Gentlemen is strict nowadays, they take offense easy. If you bring him a paper, he's of- fended, if you take off your cap to him, he's offended. 'You used the wrong entrance,' he says. 'You're a drunk- ard,' he says. 'You smell of onion; you're a blockhead,' he says; 'you're the son of a bitch.' There are some as is decent, of course; but what does it get you? They only laugh at you and call you names. Take Squire Altuhin, for instance, he's good-natured; and to look at him, he's sober and in his right mind, but as soon as he lays eyes on me he shouts God knows what. The name he calls me! 'You—' says he.''
The policeman pronounced some word but in such a low voice that it was impossible to make out what he said.
"What?" asked Lyzhin. "Say it again.''
" 'Administration,' " the policeman repeated aloud. "He's been calling me that for a long time, for maybe six years. 'Hello, Administration!' But I don't mind; let him, God bless him! A lady will send you a glass of vodka and a piece of pie sometimes, and you drink her health. But it's mostly the peasants that give me some- thing; peasants are more warm-hearted, they fear God: one will give you a piece of bread, another some rab- bage soup, and there's some as stand you a glass. The village Elders treat you to tea in the tavern. Here the inquest witnesses have gone to drink tea. 'Loshadin,' they says, 'you stay here and keep watch for us,' and each of 'em gives me a kopeck. They're scared, not be- ing used to it, and yesterday they gave me fifteen ko- pecks and stood me a glass."
"And you, aren't you scared?"
"I am, sir; but of course it's all in the line of duty, there's no getting round it. Last year I was taking an arrested man into town and he laced into me and took it out of my hide! And all around us—fields, woods— how could I get away from him? And that's how it is here. I remember the gentleman, this Lesnitzky, when he was that high, and I knew his father and his mama. I am from the village of Nedoshchotova, and the Les- nitzkys, they weren't more than two thirds of a mile from us and even less, their land bordered on ours, and the old master, Lesnitzky, he had a sister, a God-fearing, charitable maiden lady. God rest the soul of Thy servant, Yulia, of sainted memory! She never married, and when she was dying she divided up all her property; she left two hundred and fifty acres to the monastery, and five hundred to our village commune for her soul's sake; but her brother, I moan the master, he hid the paper, they say he burnt it in the stove, and took all this land for himself. To be sure, he thought it would be to his bene- fit; but no, wait, you can't get on in the world by wrongdoing, brother. For twenty years the master didn't go to confession. There was something as kept him from church, you see, and he died without the sacrament. He busted. He was as fat as they come. He busted length- wise. Then everything was taken away from Seryozha, the young master, I mean, to pay the debts—every last thing. Well, he hadn't got very far with his book learn- ing, he couldn't do anything, and the president of the Zemstvo Board, his uncle, he says to himself: 'I'll take him'—Seryozha, I mean—'to be our agent; let him in- sure people, that's easy work.' And the gentleman was young and proud, he wanted to live in better style, on a grander scale, and have things his way; to be sure, it hurt his feelings to be jolting about the county in a trashy cart and talking to the peasants; he would walk and keep looking on the ground, looking on the ground and saying nothing; if you called him right in his ear, 'Sergey Sergeyich!' he would look round like this, 'Eh?' and stare at the ground again; and now you see he's laid hands on himself. It don't fit, your honor, it's wrong, this thing, and there's no understanding what goes on in the world, merciful Lord! Say your father was rich and you're poor; it's eating humble pie, no denying it, but there, you've got to put up with it. I used to live well, too, your honor; I had two horses, three cows, I used to keep twenty head of sheep; but that time's past, and here I am with nothing but a bag, and even that's not mine, it's the Government's. And now in our village, if the truth be told, my house is the worst of the lot. Mokey had four footmen to scrape and bow, Mokey is a footman himself now; Petrak had four workmen to dig and delve, and now Petrak is a workman himself."