Forty Stories - Anton Chekhov [60]
Vanka grimaced, rubbed his eyes with his black fists, and sobbed.
“I’ll grind your snuff for you,” he went on. “I will pray to God to keep you, and if I ever do anything wrong, you can flog me all you like. If you think there’s no place for me, then I’ll ask the manager for Christ’s sake to let me clean boots or take Fedya’s place as a shepherd boy. Dear Grandfather, it’s more than I can bear, it will be the death of me. I thought of running away to the village, but I haven’t any boots, and I am afraid of the ice. If you’ll do this for me, I’ll feed you when I grow up, and won’t let anyone harm you, and when you die I’ll pray for the repose of your soul, just like I do for my mother, Pelageya.
“Moscow is such a big city. There are so many houses belonging to the gentry, so many horses, but no sheep anywhere, and the dogs aren’t vicious. The boys don’t go about with the Star of Christmas, and they don’t let you sing in the choir, and once I saw fishhooks in the shopwindow with the fishing lines for every kind of fish, very fine ones, even one hook which would hold a skate fish weighing forty pounds. I’ve seen shops selling guns which are just like the master’s at home, and each one must cost a hundred rubles. In the butcher shops they have woodcocks and partridges and hares, but the people in the shop won’t tell you where they were shot.
“Dear Grandfather, when they put up the Christmas tree at the big house, please take down a golden walnut for me and hide it in the green chest. Ask the young mistress, Olga Ignatyevna, and say it is for Vanka.”
Vanka heaved a convulsive sigh, and once more he gazed in the direction of the window. He remembered it was Grandfather who always went to the forest to cut down a Christmas tree for the gentry, taking his grandson with him. They had a wonderful time together. Grandfather chuckled, the frost crackled, and Vanka, not to be outdone, clucked away cheerfully. Before chopping down the fir tree Grandfather would smoke a pipe, take a long pinch of snuff, and make fun of Vanka, who was shivering in the cold. The young fir trees, garlanded with hoarfrost, stood perfectly still, waiting to see which of them would die.… Suddenly out of nowhere a hare came springing across the snowdrifts, quick as an arrow, and Grandfather would be unable to prevent himself from shouting: “Hold him! Hold him! Hold that bobtailed devil, eh!”
When the tree had been chopped down, Grandfather would drag it to the big house and they would start decorating it. The young mistress, Olga Ignatyevna, Vanka’s favorite, was the busiest of all. While Vanka’s mother, Pelageya, was alive, serving as a chambermaid, Olga Ignatyevna used to stuff him with sugar candy, and it amused her to teach him to read and write, to count up to a hundred, and even to dance the quadrille. But when Pelageya died, they relegated the orphan Vanka to the servants’ kitchen to be with his Grandfather, and from there he went to Moscow to the shoemaker Alyakhin.…
“Come to me, dear Grandfather,” Vanka went on. “I beseech you for Christ’s sake, take me away from here! Have pity on me, a poor orphan, they are always beating me, and I am terribly hungry, and so miserable I can’t tell you, and I’m always crying. The other day the master hit me on the head with a last, and I fell down and thought I would never get up again. It’s worse than a dog’s life, and so miserable. I send greetings to Alyona, to one-eyed Yegor, and to the coachman, and don’t give my harmonica away. I remain your grandson Ivan Zhukov, dear Grandfather, and come soon!”
Vanka twice folded the sheet of paper and then he put