t "A wonderful girl."

Lent came and every day we had Lenten dishes. I was greatly depressed by
my idleness and the uncertainty of my position, and, slothful, hungry,
dissatisfied with myself, I wandered over the estate and only waited for
an energetic mood to leave the place.

Once in the afternoon when Radish was sitting in our wing, Dolyhikov
entered unexpectedly, very sunburnt, and grey with dust. He had been out
on the line for three days and had come to Dubechnia on a locomotive and
walked over. While he waited for the carriage which he had ordered to
come out to meet him he went over the estate with his bailiff, giving
orders in a loud voice, and then for a whole hour he sat in our wing and
wrote letters. When telegrams came through for him, he himself tapped
out the answers, while we stood there stiff and silent.

"What a mess!" he said, looking angrily through the accounts. "I shall
transfer the office to the station in a fortnight and I don't know what
I shall do with you then."

"I've done my best, sir," said Cheprakov.

"Quite so. I can see what your best is. You can only draw your wages."
The engineer looked at me and went on. "You rely on getting
introductions to make a career for yourself with as little trouble as
possible. Well, I don't care about introductions. Nobody helped me.
Before I had this line, I was an engine-driver. I worked in Belgium as
an ordinary lubricator. And what are you doing here, Panteley?" he
asked, turning to Radish. "Going out drinking?"

For some reason or other he called all simple people Panteley, while he
despised men like Cheprakov and myself, and called us drunkards, beasts,
canaille. As a rule he was hard on petty officials, and paid and
dismissed them ruthlessly without any explanation.

At last the carriage came for him. When he left he promised to dismiss
us all in a fortnight; called the bailiff a fool, stretched himself out
comfortably in the carriage, and drove away.

"Andrey Ivanich," I said to Radish, "will you take me on as a labourer?"

"What! Why?"

We went together toward the town, and when the station and the farm were
far behind us, I asked:

"Andrey Ivanich, why did you come to Dubechnia?"

"Firstly because some of my men are working on the line, and secondly to
pay interest to Mrs. Cheprakov. I borrowed fifty roubles from her last
summer, and now I pay her one rouble a month."

The decorator stopped and took hold of my coat.

"Misail Alerei