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I don't know anything about it. I say, Proshka, bring the lantern!" Proshka came with the lantern. They all went to the stable, and Stepan knew at once what had happened. "Thieves have been here, Peter Nikolaevich," he said. "The lock is broken." "No; you don't say so!" "Yes, the brigands! I don't see 'Mashka. 'Hawk' is here. But 'Beauty' is not. Nor yet 'Dapple-grey."
"Yes, I must be going," he said as he took his hat. "Then what about the tea?" "Thank you, I will have some on my next visit." "What? Even though I have just ordered the samovar to be got ready? Well, well! I myself do not greatly care for tea, for I think it an expensive beverage. Moreover, the price of sugar has risen terribly." "Proshka!" he then shouted. "The samovar will not be needed.
But Peter Nikolaevich was convinced that Prokofy had been at the bottom of the whole affair, and began to hate him. One day Proshka bought as usual at the merchant's two measures of oats. One and a half he gave to the horses, and half a measure he gave back to the merchant; the money for it he spent in drink. Peter Nikolaevich found it out, and charged Prokofy with cheating.
This was Proshka a thirteen-year-old youngster who was shod with boots of such dimensions as almost to engulf his legs as he walked. The reason why he had entered thus shod was that Plushkin only kept one pair of boots for the whole of his domestic staff.
He inquired who had slept out that night, and the gang of the working men told him Proshka had not been in the whole night. Proshka, or Prokofy Nikolaevich, was a young fellow who had just finished his military service, handsome, and skilful in all he did; Peter Nikolaevich employed him at times as coachman.
Well, my lad, what do you want?" He paused a moment or two, but Proshka made no reply. "Come, come!" went on the old man. "Set out the samovar, and then give Mavra the key of the store-room here it is and tell her to get out some loaf sugar for tea. Here! Wait another moment, fool! Is the devil in your legs that they itch so to be off? Listen to what more I have to tell you.
Indeed, had any one, on a slushy winter's morning, glanced from a window into the said courtyard, he would have seen Plushkin's servitors performing saltatory feats worthy of the most vigorous of stage-dancers. "Look at that boy's face!" said Plushkin to Chichikov as he pointed to Proshka. "It is stupid enough, yet, lay anything aside, and in a trice he will have stolen it.
He blinked and red patches came out on his cheekbones. "I swear in the sight of God," he went on, craning his neck forward. "If you don't believe me, be pleased to ask my son Prohor. Proshka, what did you do with the axe?" he suddenly asked in a rough voice, turning abruptly to the soldier escorting him. "Where is it?" It was a painful moment!
I wonder that no one has yet called attention to the system." Upon that Chichikov intimated that, out of respect for his host, he himself would bear the cost of the transfer of souls. Next, he shuffled to the window, and, tapping one of its panes, shouted the name of "Proshka." Immediately some one ran quickly into the hall, and, after much stamping of feet, burst into the room.
Presently, when Proshka and the boots had departed, he fell to gazing at his guest with an equally distrustful air, since certain features in Chichikov's benevolence now struck him as a little open to question, and he had begin to think to himself: "After all, the devil only knows who he is whether a braggart, like most of these spendthrifts, or a fellow who is lying merely in order to get some tea out of me."
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