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Updated: June 19, 2025
"I tell you what, Ulyana Fyodorovna," Yefrem began, "I'll go myself to the inn now, and you be so kind, mother, as to give me just a drop to sober me." Ulyana hesitated. "Well," she decided at last, "I'll give you the vodka, Yefrem Alexandritch; but mind now, none of your pranks." "Don't you worry, Ulyana Fyodorovna." And fortifying himself with a glass, Yefrem made his way to the inn.
It is difficult to put into words all that a man passes through at such moments, all the tortures that he endures; more difficult because those tortures are dumb and inarticulate in the man himself.... Towards morning, before Naum and Yefrem had come to the door, Akim had begun to feel as it were more at ease.
"Has anyone of you looked in at the window?" inquired the superintendent. "No, your honour," said Yefrem, the gardener, a little, grey-haired old man with the face of a veteran non-commissioned officer. "No one feels like looking when they are shaking in every limb!" "Ech, Mark Ivanitch! Mark Ivanitch!" sighed the superintendent, as he looked at the window.
"I am drunk but I am speaking the truth," he muttered. "And for the sake of the holiday you ought to forgive him." "Well, come along, you sniveller." And Naum went out on to the steps. "Forgive him, for Avdotya Arefyevna's sake," said Yefrem following him on to the steps. Naum went to the cellar and flung the door wide open.
Now you can ruin me, only I tell you this: if you let me go now, then so be it take possession of everything! I agree and wish you all success. I promise you as before God, if you let me go you will not regret it. God be with you." Akim shut his eyes and ceased speaking. "A likely story!" retorted Naum, "as though one could believe you!" "But, by God, you can," said Yefrem, "you really can.
But Yefrem did not sit down with him as he had the day before he was afraid of his wife and informing Akim that he would go and have a look at what was going on at the inn and would see that his belongings were being packed and not stolen at once set off, riding his little horse which he had neglected to feed but judging from the bulging front of his coat he had not forgotten his own needs.
He returned home thoroughly annoyed and thoroughly sober. "Well?" his wife inquired, "found?" "Found what?" answered Yefrem, "to be sure I've found it: here is your pot." "Akim?" asked his wife with especial emphasis. Yefrem nodded his head. "Yes. But he is a nice one! I pledged my word for him; if it had not been for me he'd be lying in prison, and he never offered me a drop!
"Semyonitch! hey, Semyonitch," began Yefrem, sitting up in the cart, "give over ... you know ... you won't make things any better. Tfoo, what a business," he went on as though to himself. "What a damnable woman.... Go to him," he added, bending down over the side of the cart to Avdotya, "you see, he's half crazy." Avdotya got up, went nearer to Akim and again fell at his feet.
You had better eat your lunch!" "To my thinking, your honour," said Yefrem, the gardener, as he set the samovar on the table, "this vile deed was the work of no other than Nikolashka." "Quite possible," said Psyekov. "Who's this Nikolashka?" "The master's valet, your honour," answered Yefrem. "Who else should it be if not he? He's a ruffian, your honour! A drunkard, and such a dissipated fellow!
Akim, who had not answered a word to the questions and observations of his talkative host but had merely gone on drinking glass after glass, was sleeping on the stove, crimson in the face, a heavy, oppressive sleep; the children were looking at him in wonder, and Yefrem ... Yefrem, alas, was asleep, too, but in a cold little lumber room in which he had been locked by his wife, a woman of very masculine and powerful physique.
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