me.’ And I say: ‘We all are your serfs, ma’am,’ I say, ‘and I must serve you as we serve the Lord; therefore I feel myself that I can do anything for Your Honour, and cannot refuse any kind of job; whatever you order I will fulfil, because I am your slave.’ ” (He again smiled that peculiar weak, kindly, guilty smile.) “ ‘Well, then,’ she says, ‘you will do it faithfully? … You understand,’ she says, ‘that your fate depends on it?’—‘How could I help understanding that I can do something? If they have told tales about me—well, anyone can tell tales about anybody … but I never in any way, I believe, have even had a thought against Your Honour …’ In a word, I buttered her up till my lady was quite softened. … ‘I shall think highly of you,’ she says.” (He kept silent a minute, then the smile again appeared on his face.) “I know very well how to talk to the likes of them! Formerly, when I used to pay for the right to work on my own, one of them would come down hard on me; but only let me say a word or two … I’d butter him up till he’d be as smooth as silk!”
“Is it much?”
“Three half-thousands of roubles,” carelessly replied Polikéy.
She shook her head.
“When are you to go?”
“ ‘Tomorrow,’ she says. ‘Take any horse you like,’ she says, ‘call at the office, and then start, in Heaven’s name!’ ”
“Glory to the Lord!” said Akoulína, rising and crossing herself.
“May God help you, Polikéy,” she added in a whisper, so that she should not be heard behind the partition, holding him by his shirtsleeve. “Polikéy, listen to me! I beseech you in the name of Christ our God: when you start, kiss the cross and promise that not a drop shall pass your lips.”
“A likely thing!” he ejaculated; “drink when carrying all that money! …