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IV |
THE DINNER It was about dinnertime when Ivan Fiodorovich drove into the hamlet of Khortyshche, and he felt a little timid as he approached the country house. |
It was a long house, not thatched with reeds like the houses of many of the neighboring landowners, but with a wooden roof. |
Two barns in the yard also had wooden roofs: the gate was of oak. |
Ivan Fiodorovich felt like a dandy who, on arriving at a ball, sees everyone more smartly dressed than himself. |
He stopped his horse by the barn as a sign of respect and went on foot toward the front door. |
“Ah, Ivan Fiodorovich!” |
cried the fat man Grigory Grigorievich, who was crossing the yard in his coat but without necktie, vest, and suspenders. |
But apparently this attire weighed oppressively on his bulky person, for the perspiration was streaming down him. |
“Why, you said you would come as soon as you had seen your aunt, and all this time you have not been here?” |
After these words Ivan Fiodorovich’s lips found themselves again in contact with the same cushions. |
“I’ve been busy looking after the land... |
I have come just for a minute to see you on business....” |
“For a minute? |
Well, that won’t do. |
Hey, boy!” |
shouted the fat gentleman, and the same boy in the Cossack coat ran out of the kitchen. |
“Tell Kasian to shut the gate tight, do you hear! make it fast! |
And unharness this gentleman’s horse this minute. |
Please come indoors; it is so hot out here that my shirt’s soaked.” |
On going indoors Ivan Fiodorovich made up his mind to lose no time and in spite of his shyness to act with decision. |
“My aunt had the honor... |
she told me that a deed of the late Stepan Kuzmich’s...” |
It is difficult to describe the unpleasant grimace made by the broad face of Grigory Grigorievich at these words. |
“Oh dear, I hear nothing!” |
he responded. |
“I must tell you that a cockroach got into my left ear (those damned Russians breed cockroaches in all their huts); no pen can describe what agony it was, it kept tickling and tickling. |
An old woman cured me by the simplest means...” |
“I meant to say...” |
Ivan Fiodorovich ventured to interrupt, seeing that Grigory Grigorievich was intentionally changing the subject; “that in the late Stepan Kuzmich’s will mention is made, so to speak, of a deed... |
According to it I ought...” |
“I know; so your aunt has told you that story already. |
It’s a lie, I swear it is! |
My uncle made no deed. |
Though, indeed, some such thing is referred to in the will. But where is it? |
No one has produced it. |
I tell you this because I sincerely wish you well. |
I assure you it is a lie!” |
Ivan Fiodorovich said nothing, reflecting that possibly his aunt really might be mistaken. |
“Ah, here comes Mother with my sisters!” |
said Grigory Grigorievich, “so dinner is ready. Let us go!” |
And he drew Ivan Fiodorovich by the hand into a room in which vodka and snacks were on a table. |
At the same time a short little old lady, a coffeepot in a cap, with two young ladies, one fair and one dark, came in. |
Ivan Fiodorovich, like a well-bred gentleman, went up to kiss the old lady’s hand and then to kiss the hands of the two young ladies. |
“This is our neighbor, Ivan Fiodorovich Shponka, Mother,” said Grigory Grigorievich. |
The old lady looked intently at Ivan Fiodorovich, or perhaps it only seemed that she looked intently at him. |
She was good-natured simplicity itself, though; she looked as though she would like to ask Ivan Fiodorovich: |
“How many cucumbers has your aunt pickled for the winter?” |
“Have you had some vodka?” |
the old lady asked. |
“You can’t be yourself, Mother,” said Grigory Grigorievich. |
“Who asks a visitor whether he has had anything? |
You offer it to him, that’s all. |
Whether he wants to drink or not is his business. Ivan Fiodorovich! |
the centaury-flavored vodka or the Trofimov brand? Which do you prefer? |
And you, Ivan Ivanovich, why are you standing there?” |
Grigory Grigorievich said, turning around, and Ivan Fiodorovich saw the gentleman so addressed approaching the vodka, in a frock coat and an immense stand-up collar, which covered the whole back of his head, so that his head sat in it, as though it were a chaise. |
Ivan Ivanovich went up to the vodka and rubbed his hands, carefully examined the wineglass, filled it, held it up to the light, and poured all the vodka at once into his mouth. |
He did not, however, swallow it at once, but rinsed his mouth thoroughly with it first before finally swallowing it, and then after eating some bread and salted mushrooms, he turned to Ivan Fiodorovich. |
“Is it not Ivan Fiodorovich, Mr. Shponka, I have the honor of addressing?” “Yes, certainly,” answered Ivan Fiodorovich. |
“You have changed a great deal, sir, since I saw you last. Why!” he continued, “I remember you when you were that high!” As he spoke he held his hand a yard from the floor. |
“Your poor father, God grant him the kingdom of heaven, was a rare man. He used to have melons such as you never see anywhere now. Here, for instance,” he went on, drawing him aside, “they’ll set melons before you on the table—such melons! |
You won’t care to look at them! Would you believe it, sir, he used to have watermelons,” he pronounced with a mysterious air, flinging out his arms as if he were about to embrace a stout tree trunk, “God bless me, they were as big as this!” |
“Come to dinner!” |
said Grigory Grigorievich, taking Ivan Fiodorovich by the arm. Grigory Grigorievich sat down in his usual place at the end of the table, draped with an enormous tablecloth which made him resemble the Greek heroes depicted by barbers on their signs. |
Ivan Fiodorovich, blushing, sat down in the place assigned to him, facing the two young ladies; and Ivan Ivanovich did not let slip the chance of sitting down beside him, inwardly rejoicing that he had someone to whom he could impart his various bits of information. |
“You shouldn’t take the end, Ivan Fiodorovich! |
It’s a turkey!” |
said the old lady, addressing Ivan Fiodorovich, to whom the village waiter in a gray frock coat patched with black was offering a dish. |
“Take the back!” |
“Mother! |
no one asked you to interfere!” |
commented Grigory Grigorievich. |
“You may be sure our visitor knows what to take himself! Ivan Fiodorovich! |
take a wing, the other one there with the gizzard! |
But why have you taken so little? |
Take a leg! |
Why do you gape at him?” he asked the waiter holding the dish. |
“Ask him! |
Go down on your knees, rascal! |
Say, at once, ‘Ivan Fiodorovich, take a leg!’” |
“Ivan Fiodorovich, take a leg!” |
the waiter bawled, kneeling down. |
“H’m! do you call this a turkey?” |
Ivan Ivanovich muttered in a low voice, turning to his neighbor with an air of disdain. |
“Is that what a turkey ought to look like? |
If you could see my turkeys! |
I assure you there is more fat on one of them than on a dozen of these. |
Would you believe me, sir, they are really a repulsive sight when they walk about my yard, they are so fat...!” |
“Ivan Ivanovich, you are telling lies!” |
said Grigory Grigorievich, overhearing these remarks. |
“I tell you,” Ivan Ivanovich went on talking to his neighbor, affecting not to hear what Grigory Grigorievich had said, “last year when I sent them to Gadyach, they offered me fifty kopeks apiece for them, and I wouldn’t take even that.” “Ivan Ivanovich! |
I tell you, you are lying!” |
observed Grigory Grigorievich, dwelling on each syllable for greater distinctness and speaking more loudly than before. |
But Ivan Ivanovich behaved as though the words could not possibly refer to him; he went on as before, but in a much lower voice: |
“Yes, sir, I would not take it. |
There is not a gentleman in Gadyach..” |
“Ivan Ivanovich! |
You are a fool, and that’s the truth,” Grigory Grigorievich said in a loud voice. |
“Ivan Fiodorovich knows all about it better than you do, and doesn’t believe you.” |
At this Ivan Ivanovich was really offended: he said no more, but began downing the turkey, even though it was not so fat as those that were a repulsive sight. |
The clatter of knives, spoons, and plates took the place of conversation for a time, but loudest of all was the sound made by Grigory Grigorievich, smacking his lips over the marrow of the mutton bones. |
“Have you,” inquired Ivan Ivanovich after an interval of silence, poking his head out of the chaise, “read The Travels of Korobeynikov to Holy Places? |
It’s a real delight to heart and soul! |
Such books aren’t published nowadays. |
I very much regret that I did not notice in what year it was written.” |
Ivan Fiodorovich, hearing mention of a book, applied himself diligently to taking sauce. |
“It is truly marvelous, sir, when you think that a humble artisan visited all those places: |
over two thousand miles, sir! |
over two thousand miles! |
Truly, it was divine grace that enabled him to reach Palestine and Jerusalem.” |
“So you say,” said Ivan Fiodorovich, who had heard a great deal about Jerusalem from his orderly, “that he visited Jerusalem.” |
“What are you saying, Ivan Fiodorovich?” |
Grigory Grigorievich inquired from the end of the table. |
“I had occasion to observe what distant lands there are in the world!” |
said Ivan Fiodorovich, genuinely gratified that he had succeeded in uttering so long and difficult a sentence. |
“Don’t you believe him, Ivan Fiodorovich!” |
said Grigory Grigorievich, who had not quite caught what he said. “He always tells fibs!” |
Meanwhile dinner was over. |
Grigory Grigorievich went to his own room, as his habit was, for a little nap; and the visitors followed their aged hostess and the young ladies into the drawing room, where the same table on which they had left vodka when they went out to dinner was now as though by some magical transformation covered with little saucers of jam of various sorts and dishes of cherries and different kinds of melons. |
The absence of Grigory Grigorievich could be seen in everything: |
the old lady became more disposed to talk and, of her own accord, without being asked, revealed several secrets in regard to the making of apple cheese and the drying of pears. |
Even the young ladies began talking; though the fair one, who looked some six years younger than her sister and who was apparently about twenty-five, was rather silent. |
But Ivan Ivanovich was more talkative and livelier than anyone. |
Feeling secure that no one would snub or contradict him, he talked of cucumbers and of planting potatoes and of how much more sensible people were in the old days—no comparison with what people are now!— |
!—and of how as time goes on everything improves and the most intricate inventions are discovered. |
He was, indeed, one of those persons who take great pleasure in relieving their souls by conversation and will talk of anything that possibly can be talked about. |
If the conversation touched upon grave and solemn subjects, Ivan Ivanovich sighed after each word and nodded his head slightly: if the subject were of a more domestic character, he would pop his head out of his chaise and make faces from which one could almost, it seemed, read how to make pear kvass, how large were the melons of which he was speaking, and how fat were the geese that were running about in his yard. |
At last, with great difficulty and not before evening, Ivan Fiodorovich succeeded in taking his leave, and although he was usually ready to give way and they almost kept him for the night by force, he persisted in his intention of going—and went. |
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