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Consequently, as such is my nature and constitution, you can judge for yourself, as you are a doctor, that it is unjust for them to censure me, and they ought to comprehend me! The following incident remained indelible in Alexey Sergeitch's memory.
From the very day of Alexey Sergeitch's death she had hardly risen from her bed, and had not put on her usual attire; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and with Orlov's medallion on her shoulder, only without the diamonds. And so I can see my old friends as though they were alive and before my eyes, and pleasant is the memory I preserve of them.
He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by 'the Suhy family for a serf of the Teliegins'; simply exchanged without any kind of formality or written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch's house as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his origin.
Yes; one can but repeat, in another sense, Alexey Sergeitch's words: 'They were good old times ... but enough of them! Reader, do you know those little homesteads of country gentlefolks, which were plentiful in our Great Russian Oukraine twenty-five or thirty years ago? Now one rarely comes across them, and in another ten years the last of them will, I suppose, have disappeared for ever.
Never less than fifteen persons sat down to Alexey Sergeitch's table.... He was such a hospitable man!
But now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into other hands; and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and oppressive man, having learned that one of his serfs was detained without cause or reason at Alexey Sergeitch's, began to demand him back; in case of refusal he threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was not an empty one, as he was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and had great weight in the province.
How will it be next time? And Alexey Sergeitch spoke excellent Russian, a little old-fashioned, but choice and pure as spring water, continually interspersing his remarks with favourite expressions: ''Pon my honour, please God, howsoever that may be, sir, and young sir.... But enough of him. Let us talk a little about Alexey Sergeitch's wife, Malania Pavlovna.
If you go, there won't be a human face left in the house. It's awful!" Nikolay Sergeitch's pale, exhausted face besought her, but Mashenka shook her head, and with a wave of his hand he went out. Half an hour later she was on her way.
That, little sir, you can't understand; but you may believe an old man like me! The real history of the two-faced Janus where he came from, and how he came into Alexey Sergeitch's hands no one knew; but the story of Prince L. was well known to every one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and distinguished family, to Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards.
These lines were the composition of a certain Gormitch-Gormitsky, a wandering poet, to whom Alexey Sergeitch had given a home in his house, as he struck him as a man of delicate feeling and even of subtlety; he wore slippers adorned with ribbons, spoke with a broad accent, and frequently sighed, turning his eyes to heaven; in addition to all these qualifications, Gormitch-Gormitsky spoke French decently, having been educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexey Sergeitch only 'followed conversation. But having once got terribly drunk at the tavern, that same subtle Gormitsky showed a turbulence beyond all bounds; he gave a fearful thrashing to Alexey Sergeitch's valet, the man cook, two laundry-maids who chanced to get in his way, and a carpenter from another village, and he broke several panes in the windows, screaming furiously all the while: 'There, I'll show them, these Russian loafers, rough-hewn billy-goats!
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