Oblomov - Ivan Goncharov [82]
‘Just like my mistress,’ she remarked with a sigh.
‘Is she going out anywhere to-day, Tatyana Ivanovna?’ inquired the coachman. ‘I’d like to go to a place not far from here.’
‘Not her!’ replied Tatyana. ‘She’s sitting there with her sweetheart, and they can’t take their eyes off each other.’
‘He’s been coming to you pretty often lately,’ said the caretaker. ‘A damned nuisance he is at nights, I must say. Everyone’s come in, all the visitors have left, but he is always the last to go, and he makes a row if the main entrance is closed. Catch me guarding the front door for him!’
‘What a fool he is, my dears,’ said Tatyana. ‘You won’t find another one like him, I’m sure! The presents he gives her! She dresses up in all her finery like a peacock, and struts about so importantly, but if you’d only seen the petticoats and stockings she wears! Doesn’t wash her neck for a fortnight, but paints her face. Sometimes I can’t help thinking to myself, “Oh you poor creature, you ought to put a kerchief on your head and go to a monastery to pray for your sins, you ought to.”’
All laughed, except Zakhar.
‘She never misses, Tatyana Ivanovna doesn’t,’ approving voices said.
‘But, really, how could gentlemen have anything to do with a woman like that?’ Tatyana went on.
‘Where are you going to?’ someone asked her. ‘What have you in that bundle?’
‘I’m taking a dress to the dressmaker’s. My fine lady has sent me. Too big, if you please! But when Dunyasha and I start lacing her into her corsets, we can’t do anything with our hands for three days afterwards – everything snaps in them! But I must go – good-bye for the present.’
‘Good-bye, good-bye,’ said some.
‘Good-bye, Tatyana Ivanovna,’ said the coachman. ‘Come along and see me in the evening.’
‘Well, I don’t know, I’m sure. I may and I mayn’t. Good-bye.’
‘Well, good-bye,’ they all said.
‘Good-bye, good luck to you,’ she replied, going away.
‘Good-bye, Tatyana Ivanovna,’ the coachman called after her.
‘Good-bye!’ she cried loudly in the distance.
When she had gone, Zakhar seemed to have been waiting his turn to speak. He sat down on the iron post by the gate and began swinging his legs, watching the passers-by and the people in the carriages gloomily and absent-mindedly.
‘Well, how is your master to-day, Zakhar Trofimych?’ asked the caretaker.
‘Just as ever,’ said Zakhar. ‘Doesn’t know what he wants. And it was all because of you that I had so much trouble to-day: all about the flat! He’s furious – don’t want to move.’
‘It’s not my fault, is it?’ said the caretaker. ‘I don’t mind if he stays there for ever, I’m sure. I’m not the landlord, am I? Of course, if I were the landlord – but then I’m not.…’
‘He doesn’t swear at you, does he?’ someone’s coachman asked.
‘He swears something awful! I don’t know how I can stand it!’
‘Well, I shouldn’t worry! It means he’s a good master if he swears all the time!’ a valet said, opening a round snuff-box slowly and noisily, and all the hands except Zakhar’s stretched out for a pinch.
There was general sniffing, sneezing, and spitting.
‘If he swears, it’s all the better,’ the valet went on. ‘The more he swears, the better it is: at least he won’t strike you if he swears. Now, I had a master who grabbed you by the hair before you knew what was wrong.’
Zakhar waited contemptuously for him to finish his tirade and then went on, addressing the coachmen.
‘So, you see,’ he said, ‘he’s quite likely to disgrace a fellow for nothing at all without turning a hair!’
‘Difficult to please, is he?’ asked the caretaker.
‘Dear me,’ Zakhar wheezed meaningfully, screwing up his eyes. ‘I can’t tell you how difficult he is to please! One thing’s wrong, and another thing’s not right, and I don’t know how to walk, or how to serve, and I break everything, and I don’t clean the place, and I steal things and I eat everything up – damn him! He was going