It is always unpleasant to see a man whom you regard as being inferior to and lower than yourself love or hate the same things that you love and hate and thereby resemble you.

The lad glared at Chelkash and felt that the latter was his master.

“Oh ... I don’t mind,” he said, “I’m looking for a job, ain’t I? It’s all the same to me who I work for, you or somebody else. All I wanted to say was ... you don’t look like a working man, you’re ... er ... so ragged. Of course, I know it might happen to anybody. Lord, haven’t I seen enough drunkards! Lots of them! And some even worse than you.”

“All right, all right! So you agree?” Chelkash interrupted in a milder tone.

“Me? Why, of course! With pleasure! But how much will you pay me?”

“I pay according to results. It depends on the results.... On the catch. D’you understand? You might get a fiver. Will that be all right?”

Now that it was a question of money the peasant wanted to be definite, and he wanted his employer to be definite too. Again distrust and suspicion awoke in his mind.

“No, that doesn’t suit me, brother!”

Chelkash also began to play the part.

“Don’t argue. Wait! Let’s go to the pub!” he said.

They walked down the street side by side. Chelkash twirled his moustache with the important air of an employer. The lad’s face expressed complete readiness to obey, and at the same time complete distrust and apprehension.

“What’s your name?” Chelkash asked him.

“Gavrila,” the boy answered.

When they entered the dingy smoke-begrimed tavern, Chelkash walked up to the bar and in the familiar tone of a frequenter ordered a bottle of vodka, some shchi, roast meat, and tea. When all this was served, he curtly said to the barman: “On tick!” The barman silently nodded his head. This scene impressed Gavrila and roused in him a profound respect for this man, his master, who was so well known and enjoyed such credit in spite of his disreputable appearance.

“Well, we’ll have a bite now and then talk business. But wait here a moment, I have somewhere to go,” said Chelkash.

He went out. Gavrila looked around him. The tavern was in a basement; it was damp and dismal, and a suffocating smell of vodka fumes, stale tobacco smoke, tar, and of some other pungent substance pervaded the place. At a table, opposite Gavrila, sat a red-bearded drunken man in seaman’s dress, covered from head to foot with coal dust and tar. Hiccoughing every now and again, he sang a song in twisted and broken words that sometimes sounded like a hiss and sometimes were deeply guttural. He was evidently not a Russian.

Behind him sat two Moldavian women, ragged, black-haired and sunburnt, and they too were drunkenly singing a song.

Out of the gloom other figures emerged, all strangely dishevelled, and half drunk, noisy and restless....

Gavrila began to feel afraid and longed for the return of his master. All the noises of the tavern merged in one monotonous tone, and it seemed as though some enormous beast was growling, as though, possessing hundreds of different voices, it was angrily and blindly struggling to get out of this stone pit, but was unable to find the exit. Gavrila felt as though his body was absorbing something intoxicating and heavy, which made him dizzy and dimmed his eyes, which were roaming round the tavern with curiosity mixed with fear....

Chelkash came back and they began to eat and drink, talking as they proceeded with their meal. After the third glass of vodka, Gavrila was drunk. He felt merry and wanted to say something to please his master, who was such a fine fellow and had given him this splendid treat. But the words which welled up in his throat in waves could not, for some reason, slip off his tongue, which had suddenly become so strangely heavy.

Chelkash looked at him and said with an ironic smile:

“Half seas over already! Ekh, you milksop! What will you be like after the fifth glass? ... Will you be able to work?”

“Don’t ...