Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

became thoughtful.

“Dreadful money! How much evil it causes!” she said.

“It is Doútlof, madam. Will you give orders for him to go, or will you please come out and see him⁠—and is it all there⁠—the money?” asked Dounyásha.

“I don’t want this money. It is horrible money!⁠ ⁠… What it has done!⁠ ⁠… Tell him he may take it if he likes,” said the lady suddenly, groping for Dounyásha’s hand. “Yes, yes, yes!” she repeated to the astonished Dounyásha; “let him take it altogether, and do what he likes with it.”

“Fifteen hundred roubles,” remarked Dounyásha, smiling as if at a child.

“Let him take it all!” the lady repeated impatiently. “Why, don’t you understand me? It is unlucky money.⁠ ⁠… Never talk to me about it! Let the peasant who found it take it. Go!⁠ ⁠… Well, go along!”

Dounyásha went out into the maids’ room.

“All there?” asked Doútlof.

“Why, you’d better count it yourself,” said Dounyásha, handing him the envelope. “The orders are to give it to you.”

Doútlof put his cap under his arm, and, stooping down, began to count.

“Have you got a counting-frame?”208

Doútlof had an idea that the lady was stupid and could not count, and that that was why she ordered him to do it.

“You can count it at home⁠—it’s yours⁠ ⁠… the money!” Dounyásha said crossly. “ ‘I don’t want to see it,’ she says; ‘give it to him who brought it.’ ”

Doútlof, without unbending, stared at Dounyásha.

Dounyásha’s aunt clasped her hands together.

“O holy Mother! What happiness the Lord has sent him! O holy Mother!”

The second maid did not believe it.

“You don’t mean it, Avdótya Nikoláyevna; you’re joking!”

“Joking, indeed! She’s ordered me to give it to the peasant.⁠ ⁠… Come, take your money and go!” said Dounyásha, without hiding her vexation. “Sorrow to one, joy to another!”

“It’s not a joke⁠ ⁠… fifteen hundred roubles!” said the aunt.

“It’s even more,” stated Dounyásha. “Well! You’ll have to offer a ten-kopeck candle to Saint Nicholas,” she added, with a sneer. “What! Can’t you come to your senses? If at least it had come to a poor man!⁠ ⁠… He has got plenty of his own.”

Doútlof at last grasped that it was not a joke, and began gathering together the notes he had spread out to count, and putting them back into the envelope. But his hands trembled, and he kept glancing at the maids to convince himself that it was not a joke.

“See! He can’t come to his senses, he’s so glad,” said Dounyásha, implying that she despised both the peasant and the money. “Come, I’ll put it in for you.”

She was going to take it, but Doútlof would not let her. He crumpled the notes together, pushed them in farther, and took his cap.

“Glad?”

“I hardly know what to say! It’s just⁠ ⁠…”

He did not finish, but waved his hand, smiled, and went out, almost crying.

The mistress rang.

“Well, have you given it?”

“I have.”

“Well, was he very glad?”

“He was just like a madman.”

“Ah! call him. I want to ask him how he found it. Call him in here; I can’t come out.”

Dounyásha ran out and found the peasant in the passage. He was still bareheaded, and had drawn out his purse, and was stooping untying its strings, while he held the money between his teeth. Perhaps he imagined that as long as the money was not in his purse it was not his. When Dounyásha called him he grew frightened.

“What is it, Avdótya⁠ ⁠… Avdótya Nikoláyevna? Does she wish to take it back? Couldn’t you say a word for me?⁠ ⁠… Now, really, and I’d bring you some nice honey.”

“Indeed! Much you ever brought!”

The door opened again, and the peasant was brought in to the lady. He did not feel very cheerful. “Oh dear, she’ll want it back!” he thought on his way through the rooms, for some reason lifting his feet as if he were walking through tall grass, and trying not to stamp with his bark shoes. He could make nothing of his surroundings. Passing by a mirror, he saw some kind of flowers and a peasant with bark shoes, lifting his legs high, a painted gentleman with an eyeglass, some kind of green tub, and something white.⁠ ⁠… There, now! The something white began to speak. It was the lady. He did not understand anything, but only stared. He did not know where he was, and saw everything as in a mist.

“Is that you, Doútlof?”

“Yes, lady.⁠ ⁠… Just as it was, so I left it⁠ ⁠… never touched⁠ ⁠…” he said. “I was not glad⁠ ⁠… as before God! How I’ve tired out my horse!⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, it’s your luck!” she remarked contemptuously, though with a kindly smile. “Take it⁠—take it for yourself.”

He only stared.

“I am glad you got it. God grant that it may be of use.⁠ ⁠… Well, are you glad?”

“How could I help being glad? I’m so glad, lady⁠—so glad! I will always pray for you!⁠ ⁠… So glad, that⁠ ⁠… Thank Heaven that our mistress is alive! That’s all I’ve done.”

“How did you find it?”

“Well, I mean, we are always able to do our best for our lady, quite honourably, and not anyhow.⁠ ⁠…”

“He is getting quite muddled, madam,” said Dounyásha.

“I had been taking my nephew, the recruit, and as I was coming back along the road I found it. Polikéy must have dropped it.”

“Well, then, go⁠—go, friend! I am glad!”

“So glad, lady⁠ ⁠…” said the peasant. Then he remembered that he had not thanked her properly, and did not know how to behave. The lady and Dounyásha smiled, and then he again began stepping as if he were walking in very high grass, and could hardly refrain from running, so fearful was he that he might be stopped and the money taken from him.

XIV

When he had got out into the fresh air, Doútlof stepped aside from the road under the lime-trees, and even undid his girdle to get at his purse more easily, and began putting away the money. His lips were moving, stretching and drawing together again⁠—though he uttered no sound. Having put away his money and fastened his girdle, he crossed himself, and