Interrupted Stories

eyes. Lev Stepanovich understood everything, shortchanged his brother, bought him off with empty concessions, left him almost the entire female population, and, blessing him, left back.

Having seen his brother off, Stepan Stepanovich set about organizing the estate on his own part. He bought two musicians and ordered them to teach the household girls to sing. The choirs turned out to be quite something; the teachers played, one on a torban and the other on a clarinet. On holidays, they would chase the peasant girls and women after Mass onto the meadow in front of the house for round dances and songs. Stepan Stepanovich, having finished his meal, would come out to the porch, in an open robe, surrounded by housemaids; he would sit down, the housemaids would prepare tea and fan away the flies with peacock feathers. The benevolent landowner treated the guests to locust beans original: "цареградскими стручками", gingerbread, home-brewed beer, and penny earrings; sometimes he participated in the round dances himself, but more often he would fall asleep by the end. The tea had a very strong effect on him, although he would pour in French vodka to weaken its effect.

Stepan Stepanovich, like all sentimental natures, did not like to deal with the material side of the estate; the village elder and the cook managed the property. Access to the master was not easy, and whoever happened to have a word with him was wary of letting anything slip, for the master told everything to the housemaids. It happened

once that a peasant woman with large, black eyes complained to the master about the elder. Stepan Stepanovich, not bothering to investigate the matter and eternally led by his tender heart, ordered the elder to be flogged in the stables. The elder washed himself with a splash of water and meekly bore the punishment, not thinking of justifying himself, despite the fact that he was in the right; nevertheless, a desire for revenge took deep root in his soul. A week or two later, the elder reported to the master through the cook that, despite the master’s order, a certain woman was acting up and was in very close relations with her husband, who had returned from work in the city. This act, so crudely ungrateful, deeply upset Stepan Stepanovich, and he ordered the woman to be assigned to work without queue. Thin and aged, a year later she bore on herself the proofs that the order had been executed with precision. After this example, no one except the housemaids dared to offer opposition to the elder and the cook.

The merry, rural life of Stepan Stepanovich soon became known in the district; neighbors appeared, some with the goal of having him marry their daughter, others to win his money at cards, others, more modest, became acquainted because they found drinking someone else’s punch more pleasant than their own. He gave in to everything; it is quite likely that they would have married him off and fleeced him, but his tender heart saved him. While visiting one of his neighbors, he saw a housemaid at his house—and his heart just sank.... he arrived home upset, in love, and so much so that he stopped eating and began to drink twice as much. He thought and thought, seeing that such a passion was impossible to break; the maidservants’ room became loathsome to him, and if he allowed himself some mischief, it was more to keep up with his habits than out of pleasure.