Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2

It was more than two years now since Vasily had left his village and come to live in the town. With each year that passed he sent his father less and less of his earnings, and he did not get round to sending for his wife to come and join him, since he felt no need of her. Here in the town he had as many women as he could wish for, and not the sort of women who were anything like his old hag of a wife. With each year that passed Vasily forgot more and more the rules and standards of country life and became increasingly at home with the ways of the town. Back there in the country everything had been crude, dreary, impoverished and messy, but here everything was civilized, well-kept, clean and luxurious, as it ought to be. And he became more and more convinced that the country people lacked any understanding of life, like the beasts of the forest, whereas here – these people were real human beings. He read books by good authors, novels, and he went to theatrical performances at the People’s House.⁵

In his home village you would never see anything like that, not even in your dreams. In his village the old men would say: ‘Live with your wife according to the law, work hard, don’t eat too much and don’t get above yourself’; but here people were clever, educated – and that meant they understood the real laws of life – and lived for their own pleasure. And it was all wonderful. Before the court case with the coupon Vasily had still not believed that the upper classes had no law governing the way they lived. He had always thought they must have some such law, although he did not know what it was. But this court hearing over the coupon, and most of all, his own perjury, which despite his fears had brought him no unpleasant repercussions but had actually earned him an extra ten roubles, convinced him that there were no laws at all, and that a man should simply live for his own pleasure. And so he did, and so he went on doing. To begin with he merely took a little extra profit on the purchases he made for the tenants, but this was not enough to meet all his expenses, so he began, whenever he could, to pilfer money and valuables from the tenants’ apartments, and he even stole Yevgeny Mikhailovich’s wallet. Yevgeny Mikhailovich, certain of Vasily’s guilt, did not start proceedings against him, but gave him the sack.

Vasily had no desire to return home, but went on living in Moscow with his mistress while he looked for work. He found a low-paid job as a yardman to a small shopkeeper. Vasily started in the job, but the next month he was caught stealing sacks. His employer did not lodge an official complaint, but beat Vasily and threw him out. After this incident he was unable to find another job, his money was running out and he was getting short of clothes, so that in the end he was left with a single tattered coat, a pair of trousers and some down-at-heel shoes. His mistress abandoned him. But Vasily did not lose his bright and cheery disposition, and he waited until it was spring again, and then set off on foot for his home village.

IX

Pyotr Nikolayevich Sventitsky, a short stocky man who wore dark glasses (he had trouble with his eyes and was in danger of losing his sight altogether), got up as usual before daybreak, and after drinking a glass of tea, put on his knee-length sheepskin coat trimmed with lambskin and set off to make the rounds of his property.