IV
Half an hour passed. The baby began to cry. Akoulína rose and gave it the breast. Weeping no longer, but resting her thin, though still handsome, face on her hand, and fixing her eyes on the last flickerings of the candle, she sat thinking why she had married, wondering why so many soldiers were needed, and also how she could pay out the joiner’s wife.
She heard her husband’s footsteps; and, wiping her tears, got up to let him pass. Polikéy entered like a conqueror, threw his cap on the bed, puffed, and unfastened his belt.
“Well, what did she want?”
“H’m! Of course! Polikoúshka is the least among men … but when there’s business to be done, who’s wanted? Why, Polikoúshka. …”
“What business?”
Polikéy did not hasten to reply. He lit his pipe and spat.
“To go and get money from a tradesman.”
“To fetch money?” Akoulína asked.
Polikéy chuckled and wagged his head.
“Ah! Ain’t she clever at words? … ‘You have been regarded,’ she says, ‘as an untrustworthy man; but I trust you more than another’ ” (Polikéy spoke in a loud voice that the neighbours might hear). “ ‘You promised me you’d reform; here,’ she says, ‘is the first proof that I believe you. Go,’ she says, ‘to the customer, fetch the money he owes, and bring it back to me.’ And I say: ‘We all are your serfs, ma’am,’ I say, ‘and I must serve you as we serve the Lord; therefore I feel myself that I can do anything for Your Honour, and cannot refuse any kind of job; whatever you order I will fulfil, because I am your slave.’ ” (He again smiled that peculiar weak, kindly, guilty smile.) “ ‘Well, then,’ she says, ‘you will do it faithfully? … You understand,’ she says, ‘that your fate depends on it?’—‘How could I help understanding that I can do something? If they have told tales about me—well, anyone can tell tales about anybody … but I never in any way, I believe, have even had a thought against Your Honour …’ In a word, I buttered her up till my lady was quite softened. … ‘I shall think highly of you,’ she says.” (He kept silent a minute, then the smile again appeared on his face.) “I know very well how to talk to the likes of them! Formerly, when I used to pay for the right to work on my own, one of them would come down hard on me; but only let me say a word or two … I’d butter him up till he’d be as smooth as silk!”
“Is it much?”
“Three half-thousands of roubles,” carelessly replied Polikéy.
She shook her head.
“When are you to go?”
“ ‘Tomorrow,’ she says. ‘Take any horse you like,’ she says, ‘call at the office, and then start, in Heaven’s name!’ ”
“Glory to the Lord!” said Akoulína, rising and crossing herself.
“May God help you, Polikéy,” she added in a whisper, so that she should not be heard behind the partition, holding him by his shirtsleeve. “Polikéy, listen to me! I beseech you in the name of Christ our God: when you start, kiss the cross and promise that not a drop shall pass your lips.”
“A likely thing!” he ejaculated; “drink when carrying all that money! … Ah! how somebody was playing the piano up there! Fine! …” he said, after a pause, and smiled. “I suppose it’s the young lady. I was standing like this, in front of the mistress, beside the whatnot, and the young lady was careering away behind the door. She rattled, rattled on, fitting it together so pat! Oh my! Wouldn’t I like to play a tune! I’d soon master it, I would. I’m awfully good at that sort of thing. … Get me a clean shirt, do, tomorrow!”
And they went to bed happy.