'Everything went to the devil. I was the ruin of her too. My little Matrona was pa.s.sionately fond of driving in sledges, and she used to drive herself; she used to put on her pelisse and her embroidered Torzhok gloves, and cry out with delight all the way. We used to go out sledging always in the evening, so as not to meet any one, you know. So, once it was such a splendid day, you know, frosty and clear, and no wind...

we drove out. Matrona had the reins. I looked where she was driving.

Could it be to Kukuyevka, her mistress's village? Yes, it was to Kukuyevka. I said to her, "You mad girl, where are you going?" She gave me a look over her shoulder and laughed. "Let me," she said, "for a lark." "Well," thought I, "come what may!..." To drive past her mistress's house was nice, wasn't it? Tell me yourself--wasn't it nice?

So we drove on. The shaft-horse seemed to float through the air, and the trace-horses went, I can tell you, like a regular whirlwind. We were already in sight of Kukuyevka; when suddenly I see an old green coach crawling along with a groom on the footboard up behind.... It was the mistress--the mistress driving towards us! My heart failed me; but Matrona--how she lashed the horses with the reins, and flew straight towards the coach! The coachman, he, you understand, sees us flying to meet him, meant, you know, to move on one side, turned too sharp, and upset the coach in a snowdrift. The window was broken; the mistress shrieked, "Ai! ai! ai! ai! ai! ai!" The companion wailed, "Help! help!"

while we flew by at the best speed we might. We galloped on, but I thought, "Evil will come of it. I did wrong to let her drive to Kukuyevka." And what do you think? Why, the mistress had recognised Matrona, and me too, the old wretch, and made a complaint against me.

"My runaway serf-girl," said she, "is living at Mr. Karataev's"; and thereupon she made a suitable present. Lo and behold! the captain of police comes to me; and he was a man I knew, Stepan Sergyeitch Kuzovkin, a good fellow; that's to say, really a regular bad lot. So he came up and said this and that, and "How could you do so, Piotr Petrovitch?...

The liability is serious, and the laws very distinct on the subject." I tell him, "Well, we'll have a talk about that, of course; but come, you'll take a little something after your drive." He agreed to take something, but he said, "Justice has claims, Piotr Petrovitch; think for yourself." "Justice, to be sure," said I, "of course... but, I have heard say you've a little black horse. Would you be willing to exchange it for my Lampurdos?... But there's no girl called Matrona Fedorovna in my keeping." "Come," says he, "Piotr Petrovitch, the girl's with you, we're not living in Switzerland, you know... though my little horse might be exchanged for Lampurdos; I might, to be sure, accept it in that way." However, I managed to get rid of him somehow that time. But the old lady made a greater fuss than ever; ten thousand roubles, she said, she wouldn't grudge over the business. You see, when she saw me, she suddenly took an idea into her head to marry me to her young lady companion in green; that I found out later; that was why she was so spiteful. What ideas won't these great ladies take into their heads!...

It comes through being dull, I suppose. Things went badly with me: I didn't spare money, and I kept Matrona in hiding. No, they hara.s.sed me, and turned me this way and that: I got into debt; I lost my health....

So one night, as I lay in my bed, thinking, "My G.o.d, why should I suffer so? What am I to do, since I can't get over loving her?... There, I can't, and that's all about it!" into the room walked Matrona. I had hidden her for the time at a farmhouse a mile and a half from my house.

I was frightened. "What? have they discovered you even there?" "No, Piotr Petrovitch," said she, "no one disturbs me at Bubnova; but will that last long? My heart," she said, "is torn, Piotr Petrovitch; I am sorry for you, my dear one; never shall I forget your goodness, Piotr Petrovitch, but now I've come to say good-bye to you." "What do you mean, what do you mean, you mad girl?... Good-bye, how good-bye?"...

"Yes... I am going to give myself up." "But I'll lock you up in a garret, mad girl!... Do you mean to destroy me? Do you want to kill me, or what?" The girl was silent; she looked on the floor. "Come, speak, speak!" "I can't bear to cause you any more trouble, Piotr Petrovitch."

Well, one might talk to her as one pleased... "But do you know, little fool, do you know, mad..."

And Piotr Petrovitch sobbed bitterly.

'Well, what do you think?' he went on, striking the table with his fist and trying to frown, while the tears still coursed down his flushed cheeks; 'the girl gave herself up.... She went and gave herself up...'

'The horses are ready,' the overseer cried triumphantly, entering the room.

We both stood up.

'What became of Matrona?' I asked.

Karataev waved his hand.

A year after my meeting with Karataev, I happened to go to Moscow. One day, before dinner, for some reason or other I went into a _cafe_ in the Ohotny row--an original Moscow _cafe_. In the billiard-room, across clouds of smoke, I caught glimpses of flushed faces, whiskers, old-fashioned Hungarian coats, and new-fangled Slavonic costumes.

Thin little old men in sober surtouts were reading the Russian papers.

The waiters flitted airily about with trays, treading softly on the green carpets. Merchants, with painful concentration, were drinking tea.

Suddenly a man came out of the billiard-room, rather dishevelled, and not quite steady on his legs. He put his hands in his pockets, bent his head, and looked aimlessly about.

'Ba, ba, ba! Piotr Petrovitch!... How are you?'

Piotr Petrovitch almost fell on my neck, and, slightly staggering, drew me into a small private room.

'Come here,' he said, carefully seating me in an easy-chair; 'here you will be comfortable. Waiter, beer! No, I mean champagne! There, I'll confess, I didn't expect; I didn't expect... Have you been here long?

Are you staying much longer? Well, G.o.d has brought us, as they say, together.'

'Yes, do you remember...'

'To be sure, I remember; to be sure, I remember!' he interrupted me hurriedly; 'it's a thing of the past...'

'Well, what are you doing here, my dear Piotr Petrovitch?'

'I'm living, as you can see. Life's first-rate here; they're a merry lot here. Here I've found peace.'

And he sighed, and raised his eyes towards heaven.

'Are you in the service?'

'No, I'm not in the service yet, but I think I shall enter. But what's the service?... People are the chief thing. What people I have got to know here!...'

A boy came in with a bottle of champagne on a black tray.

'There, and this is a good fellow.... Isn't that true, Vasya, that you're a good fellow? To your health!'

The boy stood a minute, shook his head, decorously smiled, and went out.

'Yes, there are capital people here,' pursued Piotr Petrovitch; 'people of soul, of feeling.... Would you like me to introduce you?--such jolly chaps.... They'll all be glad to know you. I say... Bobrov is dead; that's a sad thing.'

'What Bobrov?'

'Sergay Bobrov; he was a capital fellow; he took me under his wing as an ignoramus from the wilds. And Panteley Gornostaev is dead. All dead, all!'

'Have you been living all the time in Moscow? You haven't been away to the country?'

'To the country!... My country place is sold.'

'Sold?'

'By auction.... There! what a pity you didn't buy it.'

'What are you going to live on, Piotr Petrovitch?'

'I shan't die of hunger; G.o.d will provide when I've no money. I shall have friends. And what is money.... Dust and ashes! Gold is dust!'

He shut his eyes, felt in his pocket, and held out to me in the palm of his hand two sixpences and a penny.

'What's that? Isn't it dust and ashes' (and the money flew on the floor). 'But you had better tell me, have you read Polezhaev?'

'Yes.'

'Have you seen Motchalov in Hamlet?'

'No, I haven't.'

'You've not seen him, not seen him!...' (And Karataev's face turned pale; his eyes strayed uneasily; he turned away; a faint spasm pa.s.sed over his lips.) 'Ah, Motchalov, Motchalov! "To die--to sleep!"' he said in a thick voice:

'No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die--to sleep!'

'To sleep--to sleep,' he muttered several times.

'Tell me, please,' I began; but he went on with fire:

'Who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Nymph in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.'