Abandoning any attempt to solve the riddle of this personage’s appearance in the house, I lit a cigarette and lay down on my bed with a book in my hands. When one comes in from the heat of the sun to a neatly made bed which awaits one, it is extremely easy to fall asleep. On the present occasion I cognized the truth of this by experience, not even noticing when the book slipped out of my hands. Through the sweet slumber that is enjoyed by those who are filled with hopes and aspirations, I heard Chelnovsky giving the servant-boy a ticking-off, something to which the lad had long ago become inured, and paid no attention to them. I only woke up properly when my relative went into the study and shouted:

‘Ah! Musk-Ox! What fate brings you to us?’

‘I’ve come,’ the visitor replied to this unusual form of greeting.

‘I know you have, but where from? Where have you been?’

‘You can’t see it from here.’

‘Still the old joker, eh? Have you been here long?’ Yakov Ivanych asked his guest, going into the bedroom. ‘Oh, you’re asleep,’ he said, addressing me. ‘Get up, old chap, I want to show you a beastie.’

‘What sort of a beastie?’ I asked, still not quite having returned to the state that is termed wakefulness from the state that is termed sleep.

Chelnovsky made no reply; instead, he took off his coat and threw on his smock, a process which took less than a minute, went back into the study and, dragging my stranger out of it by the hand, performed a comic bow; then he pointed to the visitor, who was leaning forward against his arm, and said:

‘I have the honour to introduce to you – our Musk-Ox. It feeds on grass or, if there be not sufficient of this, it can eat lichen.’

I got up and extended my hand to Musk-Ox, who throughout the whole introduction kept his gaze trained placidly on the leafy lilac bough which screened the open window of our bedroom.

‘I’ve already introduced myself to you,’ I said to Musk-Ox.

‘I heard you,’ Musk-Ox replied. ‘And I’m Vasily Bogoslovsky, a man of the Bible.’

‘What’s that you say? You’ve already introduced yourself?’ said Yakov Ivanych. ‘Have you two met somewhere before, then?’

‘Yes, when I came back here I found Vasily … I’m afraid I don’t know your patronymic?’

‘It used to be Petrovich,’ replied Bogoslovsky.

‘That’s what it used to be, but now you can simply call him “Musk-Ox”.’

‘You can call me what you like, for all I care.’

‘Oh no, old chap! Musk-Ox you are by name, and Musk-Ox you are by nature.’

We sat down to table. Vasily Petrovich poured himself a glass of vodka, emptied it into his mouth, put his hand on his cheekbone for a few seconds and, having swallowed the vodka, gave the plate of soup which stood before him on the table a meaningful look.

‘Isn’t there a meat jelly?’ he asked the master of the house.

‘No, old man, there isn’t. We weren’t expecting such a special guest today,’ Chelnovsky replied. ‘And so none was made.’

‘You could have had some of it yourselves.’

‘We can drink soup just as well.’

‘Milksops,’ Musk-Ox added. ‘And isn’t there a goose?’ he asked, with even greater astonishment, when we were served with meat pies.

‘No, there’s no goose, either,’ the master of the house replied, smiling his affectionate smile. ‘Tomorrow you shall have meat jelly, and a goose, and buckwheat porridge with goosefat.’

‘Tomorrow isn’t today.’

‘Well, what can I do about it? I suppose you haven’t eaten goose for a long time?’

Musk-Ox gave him a stony look and with an expression of some satisfaction said:

‘You’d do better to ask if I’ve eaten anything for a long time.’

‘Oh, I say!’

‘Four days ago I ate a bun in Sevsk.’

‘In Sevsk?’

Musk-Ox waved an arm in confirmation of this.

‘And what were you doing in Sevsk?’

‘I happened to be walking through it.’

‘But what on earth took you there?’

For a moment, Musk-Ox held still the fork with which he was shovelling enormous chunks of meat pie into his mouth, gave Chelnovsky another stony look and, ignoring his question, said:

‘Have you been taking snuff today?’

‘Taking snuff? Why on earth do you ask that?’

Chelnovsky and I fell about laughing at Musk-Ox’s strange question.

‘Just because.’

‘Because what? Do tell us, dear beastie!’

‘Because your tongue’s a bit on the itchy side today.’

‘But how could I possibly fail to inquire? After all, you’ve been missing for a whole month.’

‘Missing?’ said Musk-Ox. ‘My dear fellow, I don’t go missing, and if I do, then I have my reasons.’

‘All this preaching has eaten our country away!’ Chelnovsky remarked in my direction. ‘ “O’erwhelming the desire, but cruel the fate.” In our enlightened age we’re not allowed to preach on the streets and squares; we’re unable to join the priesthood, as that would mean “abjuring woman, the vessel of the serpent”, and there’s also something that prevents us from becoming monks. Though just what it is, I don’t know.’

‘It’s just as well you don’t know.’

‘Why do you say that? The more one knows, the better.’

‘Go and become a monk yourself, then you’ll find out.’

‘But don’t you want to serve mankind by giving it the benefit of your experience?’

‘Other people’s experience is a waste of time, my friend,’ said the eccentric, rising from his place at the table and using his napkin to thoroughly wipe his face, which was covered in perspiration from his exertions during the meal. Putting the napkin down, he went into the vestibule and there extracted from his coat a small clay pipe with a black, chewed mouthpiece, and a calico tobacco-pouch; he stuffed the pipe with tobacco, put the pouch in his trouser-pocket and then began to move further away into the vestibule.

‘Why don’t you smoke your pipe in here?’ Chelnovsky asked him.

‘It’ll make you sneeze. You’ll have headaches.’

Musk-Ox stood still, smiling. Never have I encountered a man who could smile as Bogoslovsky did. His face remained completely placid; not one feature of it moved, and in his eyes there was a deep, sad expression – yet at the same time one could see that those eyes were laughing, laughing that most good-natured laughter with which Russians sometimes make fun of themselves and their misfortunes.

‘A new Diogenes!’ said Chelnovsky, as Musk-Ox went out. ‘He’s forever looking for people who believe in the Gospels.’

We lit our cigars and, reclining on our beds, discussed various human foibles of which the eccentric behaviour of Vasily Petrovich had put us in mind. A quarter of an hour later, Vasily Petrovich returned. He put his pipe down on the floor beside the stove, squatted down on his heels next to Chelnovsky and, scratching his left shoulder with his right hand, said in an undertone:

‘I was looking for a tutoring post.’

‘When?’

‘Just now.’

‘Who did you ask?’

‘People I met in the street.’

Again, Chelnovsky laughed; but Musk-Ox paid no attention.

‘Well, and what did God provide for you?’ Chelnovsky asked him.

‘Not a sausage.’

‘What a buffoon you are! Whoever heard of anyone seeking job vacancies out in the streets?’

‘I knocked at some landowners’ houses, and asked there,’ Musk-Ox went on, in an earnest tone of voice.

‘Well, and what did they say?’

‘They wouldn’t hire me.’

‘No, of course they wouldn’t – and they won’t, either.’

Musk-Ox bestowed his stony gaze on Chelnovsky, and then, in the same monotonous tone of voice, asked:

‘Why won’t they?’

‘Because no one will take a person he doesn’t know into his house without an introduction.’

‘I showed them my testimonial.’

‘Is that the one that says “of fairly reasonable behaviour”?’

‘Well, so what if it is? I tell you, my friend, it has nothing to do with that, it’s because …’

‘You’re a Musk-Ox,’ Chelnovsky said, prompting him.

‘That’s right, I am.’

‘So what are you going to do now?’

‘I’m going to have another pipeful of tobacco,’ Vasily Petrovich replied, getting up and taking hold of his black-stemmed pipe.

‘Have it in here.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Go on: after all, the window’s open.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘What’s the matter with you, man? Anyone would think it was the first time you’d ever smoked your doobek4 in front of me.’

‘He wouldn’t like it,’ Musk-Ox said, indicating me.

‘By all means go ahead and smoke your pipe, Vasily Petrovich,’ I said. ‘I’m used to it: doobeks don’t bother me.’

‘You haven’t seen my doobek when it’s going – it’d make the Devil himself run away,’ Musk-Ox replied, stressing the ‘oo’ in ‘doobek’, and the attractive smile flickered once again in his good-natured eyes.

‘Well, I shan’t run away.’

‘So you’re stronger than the Devil, are you?’

‘On this occasion, yes.’

‘He seems to have a pretty high opinion of the Devil’s strength,’ Chelnovsky said.

‘Only woman, my friend, is more wicked than the Devil.’

Vasily Petrovich stuffed his pipe with makhorka5 and, exhaling a thin stream of acrid smoke, settled the burning tobacco with his index finger and said:

‘I’ll copy exercises.’

‘What exercises?’ Chelnovsky asked, putting his hand to his ear.

‘Exercises, the exercises the seminary students have to write, I’ll copy those. You know, pupils’ exercise-books, don’t you understand?’

‘Now I do. That’s pretty awful work, old chap.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You’ll earn no more than two roubles a month doing that.’

‘It’s all the same to me.’

‘Well, and what else will you do?’

‘Find a tutoring post for me.’

‘Is it to be in the country again?’

‘Yes, I’d prefer the country.’

‘And you’ll walk out again after a week. Do you know what he did last spring?’ Chelnovsky said, turning to me. ‘I’d got him all set up in a post, on a salary of a hundred and twenty roubles a month, with board and lodging thrown in free; all he had to do was to get a boy ready to take the first year gymnasium exams.