He fell to praying to one of the corners, crossing
himself fervently several times in succession, tapping
first one shoulder and then the other with his fingers
and hurriedly repeating:
“Have mercy me, oh, Lor ... me, oh, Lor ...
me, oh, Lor ...” My father, who had not
taken his eyes off Latkin, and had not uttered a word,
suddenly started, stood beside him and began crossing
himself, too. Then he turned to him, bowed very
low so that he touched the floor with one hand, saying,
“You forgive me, too, Martinyan Gavrilitch,”
kissed him on the shoulder. Latkin in response
smacked his lips in the air and blinked: I doubt
whether he quite knew what he was doing. Then
my father turned to everyone in the room, to David,
to Raissa and to me:
“Do as you like, act as you think best,”
he brought out in a soft and mournful voice, and he
withdrew.
My aunt was running up to him, but he cried out sharply
and gruffly to her. He was overwhelmed.
“Me, oh, Lor ... me, oh, Lor ... mercy!”
Latkin repeated. “I am a man.”
“Good-bye, Davidushka,” said Raissa, and
she, too, went out of the room with the old man.
“I will be with you tomorrow,” David called
after her, and, turning his face to the wall, he whispered:
“I am very tired; it will be as well to have
some sleep now,” and was quiet.
It was a long while before I went out of the room.
I kept in hiding. I could not forget my father’s
threats. But my apprehensions turned out to be
unnecessary. He met me and did not utter a word.
He seemed to feel awkward himself. But night
soon came on and everything was quiet in the house.
Next morning David got up as though nothing were the
matter and not long after, on the same day, two important
events occurred: in the morning old Latkin died,
and towards evening my uncle, Yegor, David’s
father, arrived in Ryazan. Without sending any
letter in advance, without warning anyone, he descended
on us like snow on our heads. My father was completely
taken aback and did not know what to offer to his
dear guest and where to make him sit. He rushed
about as though delirious, was flustered as though
he were guilty; but my uncle did not seem to be much
touched by his brother’s fussy solicitude; he
kept repeating: “What’s this for?”
or “I don’t want anything.”
His manner with my aunt was even colder; she had no
great liking for him, indeed. In her eyes he
was an infidel, a heretic, a Voltairian ... (he had
in fact learnt French to read Voltaire in the original).
I found my Uncle Yegor just as David had described
him. He was a big heavy man with a broad pock-marked
face, grave and serious. He always wore a hat
with feathers in it, cuffs, a frilled shirt front
and a snuff-coloured vest and a sword at his side.
David was unspeakably delighted to see him—
he actually looked brighter in the face and better
looking, and his eyes looked different: merrier,
