Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 2 полностью

At the house of the French teacher, a Russian Pole, there was a formal tea party with sweet pastries, after which the guests sat down at several tables to play vint.³

The photographic-shop owner’s wife was at a table with the host, an army officer and an elderly deaf lady in a wig who was the widow of a music-shop owner, and a passionate and very good card-player. The play was going in favour of the photographic supplier’s wife: she made two slams. Beside her was a plate containing grapes and a pear, and she was now in a thoroughly cheerful mood.

‘Why isn’t Yevgeny Mikhailovich here yet?’ asked the hostess from another table. ‘We were counting on him for our fifth hand.’

‘I expect he’s got tied up in doing the accounts,’ said Yevgeny Mikhailovich’s wife. ‘This is the day when he settles the accounts for the groceries and the firewood.’

And remembering the scene with her husband she frowned, and her hands in their mittens trembled from the resentment she felt towards him.

‘Well, talk of the devil,’ said the host, turning towards Yevgeny Mikhailovich, who had just walked in. ‘What kept you?’

‘Oh, various kinds of business,’ replied Yevgeny Mikhailovich in a jovial voice, rubbing his hands together. And to his wife’s surprise, he came over to her and said:

‘You know that coupon – I managed to get rid of it.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, I gave it to a peasant for some firewood.’

And with great indignation Yevgeny Mikhailovich told everybody the story – with additional details supplied by his wife – of how some unscrupulous schoolboys had managed to dupe his wife.

‘Well now, let’s get on with the main business,’ he said, sitting down at the table when his turn arrived and shuffling the cards.

VI

Yevgeny Mikhailovich had indeed managed to get rid of the coupon to a muzhik named Ivan Mironov in payment for some firewood.

Ivan Mironov’s trade involved buying up single sazhens⁴ of firewood from the timber warehouses and delivering them to the townspeople; but he would divide the sazhen of wood into five parts, each of which he sold at the price a quarter-load would fetch in the woodyards. Early in the morning of this day which proved so ill-fated for him, Ivan Mironov had carted out an eighth-load intending to sell it, but he drove about until evening looking in vain for a customer. He continually came across experienced townsfolk who knew all about the tricks played by muzhik firewood-vendors and refused to believe his assurances that he had brought in this firewood from the country. He was getting really hungry and felt chilled to the marrow in his worn sheepskin jacket and his tattered cloth under-coat; by evening the temperature had dropped to twenty degrees of frost; and his little horse, which he had been driving pitilessly because he was at the point of selling it to the knacker, came to a complete standstill. So that Ivan Mironov was even ready to consider selling off the firewood at a loss, when he encountered Yevgeny Mikhailovich who had popped out to the tobacconist’s and was now on his way home.

‘Do you want some firewood, master? I’ll let you have it cheap. My horse won’t go any further.’

‘And where are you from, then?’

‘From the country, sir. My own firewood it is, and good and dry too.’

‘We know your sort. Well, so what are you asking for it?’ Ivan Mironov named an absurdly high sum, then started progressively to reduce it, and finally let the firewood go for his usual price.

‘Just for you, master, seeing as it’s not too far to deliver it,’ he said.

Yevgeny Mikhailovich did not waste too much time bargaining since he was pleased at the thought that he would now be able to pass on the coupon. Somehow or other, hauling on the shafts of the cart himself, Ivan Mironov managed to drag the load into the courtyard of the house and personally unloaded it into the woodshed. There was no yardman about. At first Ivan Mironov was reluctant to accept the coupon, but Yevgeny Mikhailovich was so persuasive and looked to be such an important gentleman, that he agreed to take it.

Entering the maids’ quarters from the back porch, Ivan Mironov crossed himself, wiped the melting icicles from his beard, and turning back the flap of his sheepskin jacket, drew out a small leather purse and took from it eight roubles and fifty copecks in change. He handed over the money, and the coupon he rolled up in a piece of paper and put away in his purse.

Having thanked the gentleman in a manner befitting his rank, Ivan Mironov induced his wretched, doomed, frost-covered horse to get his legs moving, not by the whip but by the use of the whip handle, and drove the empty cart away in the direction of the tavern.