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Updated: September 14, 2025
It disappeared into the bank of the river on the same side on which Petrushka was sitting, only lower down. "Its nest must be there," thought Petrushka, and he remembered that he had heard it said that no one had ever been able to carry off a kingfisher's nest intact. Why should he not be the first person to do so? He was skilful with his fingers, his touch was sure and light.
When Petrushka had finished the job, he sat on the wooden steps, and rolling some tobacco into a primitive cigarette, contemplated the grey, oily water and the willow trees. It was too late in the year, he thought, to make a bathing place. He dipped his hand in the water: it was cold, but not too cold. Yet in a fortnight's time it would not be pleasant to bathe.
'Is that you, Andreevich? asked the old man. 'Yes, friend, we've gone astray, said Vasili Andreevich. 'We wanted to get to Goryachkin but found ourselves here. We went a second time but lost our way again. 'Just see how you have gone astray! said the old man. 'Petrushka, go and open the gate! he added, turning to the lad in the red shirt.
One evening, therefore, Selifan the coachman received orders to have the horses harnessed in good time next morning; while Petrushka received orders to remain behind, for the purpose of looking after the portmanteau and the room. In passing, the reader may care to become more fully acquainted with the two serving-men of whom I have spoken.
Having put it on he sighed deeply, thanked his hosts, said good-bye, and went out of the warm bright room into the cold dark passage, through which the wind was howling and where snow was blowing through the cracks of the shaking door, and from there into the yard. Petrushka stood in his sheepskin in the middle of the yard by his horse, repeating some lines from Paulson's primer.
Yakob himself paraded in a dress coat and a white necktie, while Egorka, Petrushka and Stepka, the latter of whom had been fetched from the village and had not yet found his legs, had been put into old liveries which did not fit them and smelt of moth. The dining-room and the reception room had been fumigated just before the meal.
To this Petrushka would make no reply, but, approaching, brush in hand, the spot where his master's coat would be pendent, or starting to arrange one and another article in order, would strive to seem wholly immersed in his work. Yet of what was he thinking as he remained thus silent?
It was in the middle of August that the carpenter received instructions from the landowner to make some wooden steps and a small raft and to fix them up on the banks of the river for the convenience of bathers. It did not take the carpenter and Petrushka long to make these things, and one afternoon Petrushka drove down to the river to fix them in their place.
Perhaps he was saying to himself: "My master is a good fellow, but for him to keep on saying the same thing forty times over is a little wearisome." Only God knows and sees all things; wherefore for a mere human being to know what is in the mind of a servant while his master is scolding him is wholly impossible. However, no more need be said about Petrushka. On the other hand, Coachman Selifan
Lastly, the brisk, active servants who received the visitors on the verandah were very different menials from the drunken Petrushka, even though they did not wear swallow-tailed coats, but only Cossack tchekmenu of blue homespun cloth. The lady of the house also issued on to the verandah.
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