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Once he happened to ride on an engine, and at one of the stations the face of the station-master seemed familiar to him. Semyon looked at the station-master and the station-master looked at Semyon, and they recognised each other. He had been an officer in Semyon's regiment. "You are Ivanov?" he said. "Yes, your Excellency." "How do you come to be here?" Semyon told him all.
". . . a registration clerk of the name of Dmitry Kuldarov, coming from the beershop in Kozihin's buildings in Little Bronnaia in an intoxicated condition. . ." "That's me and Semyon Petrovitch. . . . It's all described exactly! Go on! Listen!"
The woman who served the sick old man, helped him; the mistress of the house, who cut a slice from the bread which she had won from the soil, helped the beggar; Semyon, who gave three kopeks which he had earned, helped the beggar, because those three kopeks actually represented his labor: but I served no one, I toiled for no one, and I was well aware that my money did not represent my labor.
So long as I live I will not forget. I will not leave it like this!" Semyon took his hand. "Give it up, Stepanych. I am giving you good advice. You will not better things..." "Better things! I know myself I shan't better things. You were right about Fate. It would be better for me not to do it, but one must stand up for the right." "But tell me, how did it happen?" "How?
That's how they treat their own mother!" "Give her!" Semyon Yakovlevitch pointed to a sugar-loaf. The boy skipped up, seized the sugar-loaf and dragged it to the widow. "Ach, father; great is your merciful kindness. What am I to do with so much?" wailed the widow. "More, more," said Semyon Yakovlevitch lavishly. They dragged her another sugar-loaf. "More, more!" the saint commanded.
Semyon, the Vladimir peasant, who had a wife and two children in Moscow, halted also, pulled round the skirt of his kaftan, and got out his purse, and from this slender purse he extracted, after some fumbling, three kopeks, handed it to the old man, and asked for two kopeks in change. The old man exhibited in his hand two three-kopek pieces and one kopek.
Everyone laughed; the Tatar frowned contemptuously, and with a wave of his hand wrapped himself in his rags and went to the campfire. The ferrymen and Semyon sauntered to the hut. "It's cold," said one ferryman huskily as he stretched himself on the straw with which the damp clay floor was covered. "Yes, its not warm," another assented. "It's a dog's life...." They all lay down.
Before the holy image, I tell you, only give me the gun!" "Gi-ive it," Ryabov says in his growling bass; they can hear him breathing hard, and it seems that he would like to say a great deal, but cannot find the words. "Gi-ive it." "No, brothers, and don't ask," sighs Semyon, shaking his head mournfully. "Don't lead me into sin. I won't give you the gun.
A sportsman without a gun is like a sacristan without a voice. You ought to understand that, but I see you don't understand it, so you can have no real sense. . . . Hand it over!" "You left the gun in pledge, you know!" says Semyon in a thin womanish little voice, sighing deeply, and not taking his eyes off the string of bread rings. "Hand over the rouble you borrowed, and then take your gun."
"But what do you want the gun for?" sighs Semyon, sadly shaking his head. "What sort of shooting is there now? It's still winter outside, and no game at all but crows and jackdaws." "Winter, indeed," says Slyunka, hooing the ash out of his pipe with his finger, "it is early yet of course, but you never can tell with the snipe. The snipe's a bird that wants watching.
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