‘I shall come back to you on Malek-Adel,’
he shouted to them at parting, ‘or never come
back at all!’
‘You might as well be married to me at once!’
jested Perfishka, giving the cook a dig in the ribs
with his elbow. ’No fear! the master’ll
never come back to us; and here I shall be bored to
death all alone!’
A year passed... a whole year: no news had come
of Panteley Eremyitch. The cook was dead, Perfishka
himself made up his mind to abandon the house and
go off to town, where he was constantly being persuaded
to come by his cousin, apprenticed to a barber; when
suddenly a rumour was set afloat that his master was
coming back. The parish deacon got a letter from
Panteley Eremyitch himself, in which he informed him
of his intention of arriving at Bezsonovo, and asked
him to prepare his servant to be ready for his immediate
return. These words Perfishka understood to mean
that he was to sweep up the place a bit. He did
not, however, put much confidence in the news; he
was convinced, though, that the deacon had spoken
the truth, when a few days later Panteley Eremyitch
in person appeared in the courtyard, riding on Malek-Adel.
Perfishka rushed up to his master, and, holding the
stirrup, would have helped him to dismount, but the
latter got off alone, and with a triumphant glance
about him, cried in a loud voice: ’I said
I would find Malek-Adel, and I have found him in spite
of my enemies, and of Fate itself!’ Perfishka
went up to kiss his hand, but Tchertop-hanov paid no
attention to his servant’s devotion. Leading
Malek-Adel after him by the rein, he went with long
strides towards the stable. Perfishka looked
more intently at his master, and his heart sank.
’Oh, how thin and old he’s grown in a
year; and what a stern, grim face!’ One would
have thought Panteley Eremyitch would have been rejoicing,
that he had gained his end; and he was rejoicing,
certainly... and yet Perfishka’s heart sank:
he even felt a sort of dread. Tchertop-hanov put
the horse in its old place, gave him a light pat on
the back, and said, ’There! now you’re
at home again; and mind what you’re about.’
The same day he hired a freedman out of work as watchman,
established himself again in his rooms, and began
living as before....
Not altogether as before, however... but of that later...
The day after his return, Panteley Eremyitch called
Perfishka in to him, and for want of anyone else to
talk to, began telling him—keeping up,
of course, his sense of his own dignity and his bass
voice—how he had succeeded in finding Malek-Adel.
Tchertop-hanov sat facing the window while he told
his story, and smoked a pipe with a long tube while
Perfishka stood in the doorway, his hands behind his
back, and, respectfully contemplating the back of
his master’s head, heard him relate how, after
many fruitless efforts and idle expeditions, Panteley
Eremyitch had at last come to the fair at Romyon by
