gory had been the victim; Vaninka having complained to
her father about him. Foedor, who as aide-de-camp had been obliged to
preside over Gregory's punishment, had paid no more attention to the
threats the serf had uttered on retiring.

Ivan, the coachman, who after having been executioner had become
surgeon, had applied compresses of salt and water to heal up the
scarred shoulders of his victim. Gregory had remained three days in the
infirmary, and during this time he had turned over in his mind every
possible means of vengeance. Then at the end of three days, being
healed, he had returned to his duty, and soon everyone except he had
forgotten the punishment. If Gregory had been a real Russian, he would
soon have forgotten it all; for this punishment is too familiar to the
rough Muscovite for him to remember it long and with rancour. Gregory,
as we have said, had Greek blood in his veins; he dissembled and
remembered. Although Gregory was a serf, his duties had little by little
brought him into greater familiarity with the general than any of the
other servants. Besides, in every country in the world barbers have
great licence with those they shave; this is perhaps due to the fact
that a man is instinctively more gracious to another who for ten minutes
every day holds his life in his hands. Gregory rejoiced in the immunity
of his profession, and it nearly always happened that the barber's daily
operation on the general's chin passed in conversation, of which he bore
the chief part.

One day the general had to attend a review: he sent for Gregory before
daybreak, and as the barber was passing the razor as gently as possible
over his master's cheek, the conversation fell, or more likely was led,
on Foedor. The barber praised him highly, and this naturally caused his
master to ask him, remembering the correction the young aide-decamp
had superintended, if he could not find some fault in this model of
perfection that might counterbalance so many good qualities.
Gregory replied that with the exception of pride he thought Foedor
irreproachable.

"Pride?" asked the astonished general. "That is a failing from which I
should have thought him most free."

"Perhaps I should have said ambition," replied Gregory.

"Ambition!" said the general. "It does not seem to me that he has
given much proof of ambition in entering my service; for after his
achievements in the last campaign he might easily have aspired to the
honour of a