ht of God, and culpable in the sight of
men!--Yes; the house-serfs led an easy life in the old man's house; the
"subjects behind his back" were less well off, as a matter of course,
despite the cane wherewith he threatened Micromegas.--And how many there
were of them--of those house-serfs--in his manor! And for the most part
they were old, sinewy, hairy, grumbling, stoop-shouldered, clad in
long-skirted nankeen kaftans, and imbued with a strong acrid odour! And
in the women's department nothing was to be heard but the trampling of
bare feet, and the rustling of petticoats.--The head valet was named
Irinarkh, and Alexyei Sergyeitch always summoned him with a
long-drawn-out call: "I-ri-na-a-arkh!"--He called the others: "Young
fellow! Boy! What subject is there?!"--He could not endure bells. "God
have mercy, this is no tavern!" And what amazed me was, that no matter
at what time Alexyei Sergyeitch called his valet, the man instantly
presented himself, just as though he had sprung out of the earth, and
placing his heels together, and putting his hands behind his back, stood
before his master a grim and, as it were, an irate but zealous servant!

Alexyei Sergyeitch was lavish beyond his means; but he did not like to
be called "benefactor."--"What sort of a benefactor am I to you, sir?...
I'm doing myself a favour, not you, my good sir!" (When he was angry or
indignant he always called people "you.")--"To a beggar give once, give
twice, give thrice," he was wont to say.... "Well, and if he returns for
the fourth time--give to him yet again, only add therewith: 'My good
man, thou shouldst work with something else besides thy mouth all the
time.'"

"Uncle," I used to ask him, "what if the beggar should return for the
fifth time after that?"

"Why, then, do thou give to him for the fifth time."

The sick people who appealed to him for aid he had cured at his own
expense, although he himself did not believe in doctors, and never sent
for them.--"My deceased mother," he asserted, "used to heal all maladies
with olive-oil and salt; she both administered it internally and rubbed
it on externally, and everything passed off splendidly. And who was my
mother? She had her birth under Peter the First--only think of that!"

Alexyei Sergyeitch was a Russian man in every respect; he loved Russian
viands, he loved Russian songs, but the accordion, "a factory
invention," he detested; he loved to watch the maidens in their choral
songs,