The innkeeper, a Yaik Cossack,7 seemed to be about sixty, still hale and hearty. Savelyich followed me in, carrying the cellaret, called for fire so as to prepare tea, which had never before seemed so necessary to me. The innkeeper went to see to it.
“And where is our guide?” I asked Savelyich.
“Here, Your Honor,” answered a voice from above. I looked up at the sleeping shelf above the stove8 and saw a black beard and two flashing eyes.
“What, brother, chilled through?”
“How could I not be, in nothing but a flimsy coat! There was a sheepskin, but, why hide my sins, I pawned it yesterday in the pot-house: it didn’t seem all that cold.”
Just then the innkeeper came in with a boiling samovar. I offered our guide a cup of tea; the muzhik climbed down from the shelf. His appearance struck me as remarkable: he was about forty, of average height, lean and broad-shouldered. His black beard had streaks of gray; his lively big eyes darted about. His face had a rather pleasant but sly expression. His hair was trimmed in a bowl cut. He wore a ragged coat and Tatar balloon trousers. I handed him a cup of tea; he tried it and winced.
“Your Honor, do me a favor—tell them to bring me a glass of vodka; tea’s not a Cossack drink.”
I willingly carried out his wish. The innkeeper took a bottle and a glass from the sideboard, went up to him, and, looking him in the face, said: “Aha, so you’re in our parts again! What wind blows you here?”
My guide winked meaningfully and answered with a saying: “To the garden I flew; pecked hempseed and rue; granny threw a stone—but missed. And what about your folk?”
“Our folk!” the innkeeper replied, continuing the allegorical conversation. “They were about to ring for vespers. ‘No, don’t,’ the priest’s wife whispers. The priest has gone away; the devils in the churchyard play.”
“Quiet, uncle,” my vagabond retorted. “If there’s rain, there’ll be mushrooms; and if there’s mushrooms, there’ll be a basket. But for now,” here he winked again, “hide your axe behind your back: the forester’s around. Your Honor! To your health!” With those words he took the glass, crossed himself, and drank it at one gulp. Then he bowed to me and went back to the shelf.
I could understand nothing of this thieves’ talk then; but later I realized that it had to do with the affairs of the Yaik army, just pacified after the revolt of 1772.9 Savelyich listened with an air of great displeasure. He kept glancing suspiciously now at the innkeeper, now at the guide. The coaching inn, or
Waking up rather late the next morning, I saw that the storm had abated. The sun was shining. Snow lay in a dazzling mantle over the boundless steppe. The horses were harnessed. I paid the innkeeper, who took such a moderate payment that even Savelyich did not argue with him and start bargaining as he usually did, and the previous day’s suspicions were completely erased from his mind. I summoned our guide, thanked him for his help, and told Savelyich to tip him fifty kopecks. Savelyich frowned.
“Tip him fifty kopecks!” he said. “What for? Because you were so good as to bring him to the inn? Say what you like, sir: we have no extra half-roubles. If we tip everybody, we’ll go hungry ourselves soon enough.”
I could not argue with Savelyich. The money, by my promise, was entirely at his disposal. I was annoyed, however, that I could not thank a man who had saved me, if not from disaster, at least from a very unpleasant situation.
“Very well,” I said coolly, “if you don’t want to give him fifty kopecks, find him something from my clothes. He’s dressed too lightly. Give him my hareskin coat.”
“Mercy me, dearest Pyotr Andreich!” said Savelyich. “Why give him your hareskin coat? The dog will drink it up at the first pot-house.”
“It’s no care of yours, old fellow,” said my vagabond, “whether I drink it up or not. His Honor is granting me a coat off his back: that’s your master’s will, and your serf business is to obey, not to argue.”
“You’ve got no fear of God, you robber!” Savelyich replied in an angry voice. “You see the little one still can’t reason, and you’re glad to fleece him on account of his simplicity. What do you need the master’s coat for? It won’t even fit on your cursed shoulders.”
“I beg you not to be too clever,” I said to my tutor. “Bring the coat here right now.”
“Lord God!” my Savelyich groaned. “The hareskin coat’s nearly brand-new! And it’s for anybody but this beggarly drunkard!”
