“What is it to you? You see the gentleman is helpless. He is not used to being without a servant! Why shouldn’t I wait on him, you shaggy-faced fool?”
“Who’s shaggy-faced?”
“You are shaggy-faced.”
“Me shaggy-faced?”
“Yes, you are!”
“And are you a beauty? You’ve a face like a crow’s egg . . . if I am shaggy-faced.”
“Shaggy-faced is what you are! Here God has stricken him, he might lie still and die quietly. No, he must poke his nose in! Why, what are you meddling for?”
“Why! Well, I’d rather bow down to a boot than to a dog. My father didn’t knuckle under to anybody and he told me not to. I . . . I . . .”
He would have gone on but he had a terrible fit of coughing that lasted for some minutes, spitting blood. Soon the cold sweat of exhaustion came out on his narrow forehead. His cough interrupted him, or he would have gone on talking; one could see from his eyes how he was longing to go on scolding; but he simply waved his hand helplessly, so that in the end Tchekunov forgot about him.
I felt that the consumptive’s indignation was directed rather at me than at Tchekunov. No one would have been angry with the latter, or have looked on him with particular contempt for his eagerness to wait upon me and so earn a few pence. Every one realized that he did this simply for gain. Peasants are by no means fastidious on that score, and very well understand the distinction. What Ustyantsev disliked was myself, he disliked my tea, and that even in fetters I was like “a master,” and seemed as though I could not get on without a servant, though I had not asked for a servant and did not desire one. I did, as a fact, always prefer to do everything for myself, and indeed I particularly wanted not even to look like a spoiled idle person, or to give myself the airs of a gentleman. I must admit while we are on the subject that my vanity was to some extent concerned in the matter. But—I really don’t know how it always came to pass—I never could get away from all sorts of helpers and servants who fastened themselves upon me, and in the end took complete possession of me, so that it was really they who were my masters and I who was their servant, though it certainly did appear as though I were a regular “gentleman,” as though I gave
