He
was a thin but extraordinarily nimble and lively little old man of
sixty-five, with an everlastingly laughing face and drunken eyes.
By day he slept in the servants' kitchen, or made jokes with the
cooks; at night, wrapped in an ample sheepskin, he walked round the
grounds and tapped with his little mallet. Old Kashtanka and Eel,
so-called on account of his dark colour and his long body like a
weasel's, followed him with hanging heads. This Eel was exceptionally
polite and affectionate, and looked with equal kindness on strangers
and his own masters, but had not a very good reputation. Under his
politeness and meekness was hidden the most Jesuitical cunning. No
one knew better how to creep up on occasion and snap at one's legs,
to slip into the store-room, or steal a hen from a peasant. His
hind legs had been nearly pulled off more than once, twice he had
been hanged, every week he was thrashed till he was half dead, but
he always revived.

At this moment grandfather was, no doubt, standing at the gate,
screwing up his eyes at the red windows of the church, stamping
with his high felt boots, and joking with the servants. His little
mallet was hanging on his belt. He was clasping his hands, shrugging
with the cold, and, with an aged chuckle, pinching first the
housemaid, then the cook.

"How about a pinch of snuff?" he was saying, offering the women his
snuff-box.

The women would take a sniff and sneeze. Grandfather would be
indescribably delighted, go off into a merry chuckle, and cry:

"Tear it off, it has frozen on!"

They give the dogs a sniff of snuff too. Kashtanka sneezes, wriggles
her head, and walks away offended. Eel does not sneeze, from
politeness, but wags his tail. And the weather is glorious. The air
is still, fresh, and transparent. The night is dark, but one can
see the whole village with its white roofs and coils of smoke coming
from the chimneys, the trees silvered with hoar frost, the snowdrifts.
The whole sky spangled with gay twinkling stars, and the Milky Way
is as distinct as though it had been washed and rubbed with snow
for a holiday. . . .

Vanka sighed, dipped his pen, and went on writing:

"And yesterday I had a wigging. The master pulled me out into the
yard by my hair, and whacked me with a boot-stretcher because I
accidentally fell asleep while I was rocking their brat in the
cradle. And a week ago the mistress told me to clean a herring, and
I began from the tail end, and