[节选]Master and Man

It happened in the 'seventies in winter, on the day after St.

Nicholas's Day.  There was a fete in the parish and the

innkeeper, Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov, a Second Guild

merchant, being a church elder had to go to church, and had

also to entertain his relatives and friends at home.



But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare

to drive over to see a neighbouring proprietor about a grove

which he had been bargaining over for a long time.  He was now

in a hurry to start, lest buyers from the town might forestall

him in making a profitable purchase.



The youthful landowner was asking ten thousand rubles for the

grove simply because Vasili Andreevich was offering seven

thousand.  Seven thousand was, however, only a third of its

real value.  Vasili Andreevich might perhaps have got it down

to his own price, for the woods were in his district and he had

a long-standing agreement with the other village dealers that

no one should run up the price in another's district, but he

had now learnt that some timber-dealers from town meant to bid

for the Goryachkin grove, and he resolved to go at once and get

the matter settled.  So as soon as the feast was over, he took

seven hundred rubles from his strong box, added to them two

thousand three hundred rubles of church money he had in his

keeping, so as to make up the sum to three thousand; carefully

counted the notes, and having put them into his pocket-book

made haste to start.



Nikita, the only one of Vasili Andreevich's labourers who was

not drunk that day, ran to harness the horse.  Nikita, though

an habitual drunkard, was not drunk that day because since the

last day before the fast, when he had drunk his coat and

leather boots, he had sworn off drink and had kept his vow for

two months, and was still keeping it despite the temptation of

the vodka that had been drunk everywhere during the first two

days of the feast.



Nikita was a peasant of about fifty from a neighbouring

village, 'not a manager' as the peasants said of him, meaning

that he was not the thrifty head of a household but lived most

of his time away from home as a labourer.  He was valued

everywhere for his industry, dexterity, and strength at work,

and still more for his kindly and pleasant temper.  But he

never settled down anywhere for long because about twice a

year, or even oftener, he had a drinking bout, and then besides

spending all his clothes on drink he became turbulent and

quarrelsome.  Vasili Andreevich himself had turned him away

several times, but had afterwards taken him back again--valuing

his honesty, his kindness to animals, and especially his

cheapness.  Vasili Andreevich did not pay Nikita the eighty

rubles a year such a man was worth, but only about forty, which

he gave him haphazard, in small sums, and even that mostly not

in cash but in goods from his own shop and at high prices.



Nikita's wife Martha, who had once been a handsome vigorous

woman, managed the homestead with the help of her son and two

daughters, and did not urge Nikita to live at home: first

because she had been living for some twenty years already with

a cooper, a peasant from another village who lodged in their

house; and secondly because though she managed her husband as

she pleased when he was sober, she feared him like fire when he

was drunk.  Once when he had got drunk at home, Nikita,

probably to make up for his submissiveness when sober, broke

open her box, took out her best clothes, snatched up an axe,

and chopped all her undergarments and dresses to bits.  All the

wages Nikita earned went to his wife, and he raised no

objection to that.  So now, two days before the holiday, Martha

had been twice to see Vasili Andreevich and had got from him

wheat flour, tea, sugar, and a quart of vodka, the lot costing

three rubles, and also five rubles in cash, for which she

thanked him as for a special favour, though he owed Nikita at

least twenty rubles.



'What agreement did we ever draw up with you?' said Vasili

Andreevich to Nikita.  'If you need anything, take it; you will

work it off.  I'm not like others to keep you waiting, and

making up accounts and reckoning fines.  We deal

straight-forwardly.  You serve me and I don't neglect you.'



And when saying this Vasili Andreevich was honestly convinced

that he was Nikita's benefactor, and he knew how to put it so

plausibly that all those who depended on him for their money,

beginning with Nikita, confirmed him in the conviction that he

was their benefactor and did not overreach them.



'Yes, I understand, Vasili Andreevich.  You know that I serve

you and take as much pains as I would for my own father.  I

understand very well!' Nikita would reply.  He was quite aware

that Vasili Andreevich was cheating him, but at the same time

he felt that it was useless to try to clear up his accounts

with him or explain his side of the matter, and that as long as

he had nowhere to go he must accept what he could get.