Tolstoy, Leo - Master & Man

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Master and Man

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Master and Man

by Leo Tolstoy

Trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude

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Master and Man

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Master and Man

It happened in the 'seventies in winter, on the day after St.

Nicholas's Day. There was a fete in the parish and the

innkeeper, Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov, a Second Guild

merchant, being a church elder had to go to church, and had

also to entertain his relatives and friends at home.

But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare

to drive over to see a neighbouring proprietor about a grove

which he had been bargaining over for a long time. He was now

in a hurry to start, lest buyers from the town might forestall

him in making a profitable purchase.

The youthful landowner was asking ten thousand rubles for the

grove simply because Vasili Andreevich was offering seven

thousand. Seven thousand was, however, only a third of its

real value. Vasili Andreevich might perhaps have got it down

to his own price, for the woods were in his district and he had

a long-standing agreement with the other village dealers that

no one should run up the price in another's district, but he

had now learnt that some timber-dealers from town meant to bid

for the Goryachkin grove, and he resolved to go at once and get

the matter settled. So as soon as the feast was over, he took

seven hundred rubles from his strong box, added to them two

thousand three hundred rubles of church money he had in his

keeping, so as to make up the sum to three thousand; carefully

counted the notes, and having put them into his pocket-book

made haste to start.

Nikita, the only one of Vasili Andreevich's labourers who was

not drunk that day, ran to harness the horse. Nikita, though

an habitual drunkard, was not drunk that day because since the

last day before the fast, when he had drunk his coat and

leather boots, he had sworn off drink and had kept his vow for

two months, and was still keeping it despite the temptation of

the vodka that had been drunk everywhere during the first two

days of the feast.

Nikita was a peasant of about fifty from a neighbouring

village, 'not a manager' as the peasants said of him, meaning

that he was not the thrifty head of a household but lived most

of his time away from home as a labourer. He was valued

everywhere for his industry, dexterity, and strength at work,

and still more for his kindly and pleasant temper. But he

never settled down anywhere for long because about twice a

year, or even oftener, he had a drinking bout, and then besides

spending all his clothes on drink he became turbulent and

quarrelsome. Vasili Andreevich himself had turned him away

several times, but had afterwards taken him back again--valuing

his honesty, his kindness to animals, and especially his

cheapness. Vasili Andreevich did not pay Nikita the eighty

rubles a year such a man was worth, but only about forty, which

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he gave him haphazard, in small sums, and even that mostly not

in cash but in goods from his own shop and at high prices.

Nikita's wife Martha, who had once been a handsome vigorous

woman, managed the homestead with the help of her son and two

daughters, and did not urge Nikita to live at home: first

because she had been living for some twenty years already with

a cooper, a peasant from another village who lodged in their

house; and secondly because though she managed her husband as

she pleased when he was sober, she feared him like fire when he

was drunk. Once when he had got drunk at home, Nikita,

probably to make up for his submissiveness when sober, broke

open her box, took out her best clothes, snatched up an axe,

and chopped all her undergarments and dresses to bits. All the

wages Nikita earned went to his wife, and he raised no

objection to that. So now, two days before the holiday, Martha

had been twice to see Vasili Andreevich and had got from him

wheat flour, tea, sugar, and a quart of vodka, the lot costing

three rubles, and also five rubles in cash, for which she

thanked him as for a special favour, though he owed Nikita at

least twenty rubles.

'What agreement did we ever draw up with you?' said Vasili

Andreevich to Nikita. 'If you need anything, take it; you will

work it off. I'm not like others to keep you waiting, and

making up accounts and reckoning fines. We deal

straight-forwardly. You serve me and I don't neglect you.'

And when saying this Vasili Andreevich was honestly convinced

that he was Nikita's benefactor, and he knew how to put it so

plausibly that all those who depended on him for their money,

beginning with Nikita, confirmed him in the conviction that he

was their benefactor and did not overreach them.

'Yes, I understand, Vasili Andreevich. You know that I serve

you and take as much pains as I would for my own father. I

understand very well!' Nikita would reply. He was quite aware

that Vasili Andreevich was cheating him, but at the same time

he felt that it was useless to try to clear up his accounts

with him or explain his side of the matter, and that as long as

he had nowhere to go he must accept what he could get.

Now, having heard his master's order to harness, he went as

usual cheerfully and willingly to the shed, stepping briskly

and easily on his rather turned-in feet; took down from a nail

the heavy tasselled leather bridle, and jingling the rings of

the bit went to the closed stable where the horse he was to

harness was standing by himself.

'What, feeling lonely, feeling lonely, little silly?' said

Nikita in answer to the low whinny with which he was greeted by

the good-tempered, medium-sized bay stallion, with a rather

slanting crupper, who stood alone in the shed. 'Now then, now

then, there's time enough. Let me water you first,' he went

on, speaking to the horse just as to someone who understood the

words he was using, and having whisked the dusty, grooved back

of the well-fed young stallion with the skirt of his coat, he

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put a bridle on his handsome head, straightened his ears and

forelock, and having taken off his halter led him out to water.

Picking his way out of the dung-strewn stable, Mukhorty

frisked, and making play with his hind leg pretended that he

meant to kick Nikita, who was running at a trot beside him to

the pump.

'Now then, now then, you rascal!' Nikita called out, well

knowing how carefully Mukhorty threw out his hind leg just to

touch his greasy sheepskin coat but not to strike him--a trick

Nikita much appreciated.

After a drink of the cold water the horse sighed, moving his

strong wet lips, from the hairs of which transparent drops fell

into the trough; then standing still as if in thought, he

suddenly gave a loud snort.

'If you don't want any more, you needn't. But don't go asking

for any later,' said Nikita quite seriously and fully

explaining his conduct to Mukhorty. Then he ran back to the

shed pulling the playful young horse, who wanted to gambol all

over the yard, by the rein.

There was no one else in the yard except a stranger, the cook's

husband, who had come for the holiday.

'Go and ask which sledge is to be harnessed--the wide one or

the small one--there's a good fellow!'

The cook's husband went into the house, which stood on an iron

foundation and was iron-roofed, and soon returned saying that

the little one was to be harnessed. By that time Nikita had

put the collar and brass-studded belly-band on Mukhorty and,

carrying a light, painted shaft-bow in one hand, was leading

the horse with the other up to two sledges that stood in the

shed.

'All right, let it be the little one!' he said, backing the

intelligent horse, which all the time kept pretending to bite

him, into the shafts, and with the aid of the cook's husband he

proceeded to harness. When everything was nearly ready and

only the reins had to be adjusted, Nikita sent the other man to

the shed for some straw and to the barn for a drugget.

'There, that's all right! Now, now, don't bristle up!' said

Nikita, pressing down into the sledge the freshly threshed oat

straw the cook's husband had brought. 'And now let's spread

the sacking like this, and the drugget over it. There, like

that it will be comfortable sitting,' he went on, suiting the

action to the words and tucking the drugget all round over the

straw to make a seat.

'Thank you, dear man. Things always go quicker with two

working at it!' he added. And gathering up the leather reins

fastened together by a brass ring, Nikita took the driver's

seat and started the impatient horse over the frozen manure

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which lay in the yard, towards the gate.

'Uncle Nikita! I say, Uncle, Uncle!' a high-pitched voice

shouted, and a seven-year-old boy in a black sheepskin coat,

new white felt boots, and a warm cap, ran hurriedly out of the

house into the yard. 'Take me with you!' he cried, fastening

up his coat as he ran.

'All right, come along, darling!' said Nikita, and stopping the

sledge he picked up the master's pale thin little son, radiant

with joy, and drove out into the road.

It was past two o'clock and the day was windy, dull, and cold,

with more than twenty degrees Fahrenheit of frost. Half the

sky was hidden by a lowering dark cloud. In the yard it was

quiet, but in the street the wind was felt more keenly. The

snow swept down from a neighbouring shed and whirled about in

the corner near the bath-house.

Hardly had Nikita driven out of the yard and turned the horse's

head to the house, before Vasili Andreevich emerged from the

high porch in front of the house with a cigarette in his mouth

and wearing a cloth-covered sheep-skin coat tightly girdled low

at his waist, and stepped onto the hard-trodden snow which

squeaked under the leather soles of his felt boots, and

stopped. Taking a last whiff of his cigarette he threw it

down, stepped on it, and letting the smoke escape through his

moustache and looking askance at the horse that was coming up,

began to tuck in his sheepskin collar on both sides of his

ruddy face, clean-shaven except for the moustache, so that his

breath should not moisten the collar.

'See now! The young scamp is there already!' he exclaimed when

he saw his little son in the sledge. Vasili Andreevich was

excited by the vodka he had drunk with his visitors, and so he

was even more pleased than usual with everything that was his

and all that he did. The sight of his son, whom he always

thought of as his heir, now gave him great satisfaction. He

looked at him, screwing up his eyes and showing his long teeth.

His wife--pregnant, thin and pale, with her head and shoulders

wrapped in a shawl so that nothing of her face could be seen

but her eyes--stood behind him in the vestibule to see him off.

'Now really, you ought to take Nikita with you,' she said

timidly, stepping out from the doorway.

Vasili Andreevich did not answer. Her words evidently annoyed

him and he frowned angrily and spat.

'You have money on you,' she continued in the same plaintive

voice. 'What if the weather gets worse! Do take him, for

goodness' sake!'

'Why? Don't I know the road that I must needs take a guide?'

exclaimed Vasili Andreevich, uttering every word very

distinctly and compressing his lips unnaturally, as he usually

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