At the gate, the servants crowded round Yevsei.

And cries of “Goodbye, Yevsei Ivanych – goodbye, old friend, don’t forget us,” rang out from every side.

“Goodbye, my friends, goodbye – remember me fondly!”

“Goodbye, Yevseyushka, goodbye my darling,” said his mother, embracing him. “Take this icon, it’s my blessing. Keep the faith, Yevsei. Don’t let me see you joining the infidels, otherwise I’ll be cursing you! Don’t get drunk and don’t steal, and serve your master loyally and faithfully. Goodbye, goodbye…”

She turned and left, covering her face with her apron.

“Goodbye, mother!” Yevsei muttered casually.

A twelve-year-old girl rushed up to him.

“You should say goodbye to your little sister!” one of the women urged.

“Hey, where are you going!” said Yevsei, and kissed her. “All right, goodbye, goodbye; now, off with you and your bare feet, and go back home!”

The last one left was Agrafena, who was standing apart from the others. Her face had a greenish tinge.

“Goodbye, Agrafena Ivanovna,” said Yevsei, dragging out the words, and raising his voice, even stretching out his hands to her.

She submitted to his embrace, but did not return it, and just made a wry grimace.

“Here, take this!” she said, taking out a package of something from under her pinafore and thrusting it at him.

“Well, I suppose you’ll be gadding about with those St Petersburg girls then!” she added without looking him straight in the eye – but that look expressed all her feelings of hurt and jealousy.

“Me, gad about?” Yevsei began. “May the Lord strike me dead on the spot – let Him pluck out my eyes, and may the earth open up and swallow me, if I ever did any such thing…”

“All right, all right!” she mumbled, not entirely convinced. “But with you, I…”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Yevsei, and produced from his pocket a soiled pack of cards and held it out to Agrafena. “Here, take these to remember me by; you won’t be able to get any here.”

She stretched out her hand.

“Give it to me, Yevsei Ivanych!” Proshka called out from somewhere in the crowd.

“Give them to you! I’d sooner burn them!” And he put the cards back in his pocket.

“Come on, give them to me, you fool!” said Agrafena.

“No, Agrafena Ivanovna, do whatever you want, but I’m not giving them to you; you would play with him. Goodbye!”

Without looking round, and with a wave of the hand he sauntered after the carriage, which it seemed he could have carried off single-handedly on his shoulders along with Alexander, the coachman, as well as the horses.

“To hell with you!” said Agrafena, watching him go and wiping away the tears she was shedding with the corner of her kerchief.

Everyone came to a halt at the grove. While Anna Pavlovna was sobbing her farewell to her son, Anton Ivanych patted one of the horses on the neck, and then took it by the nostrils and shook it back and forth. The horse immediately manifested its displeasure by baring its teeth and snorting.

“Tighten the shaft horse’s saddle girth – look, the pad’s sliding to one side,” he said to the coachman.

The coachman took a look at the pad and, seeing that it was in its proper place, didn’t stir from his coach box, but just adjusted the breast band a little with his whip.

“Have it your way,” said Anton Ivanych. “Anyway, it’s time to go – Anna Pavlovna, time to stop tormenting yourself! Alexander – time to take your seat: you have to get to Shishkov before nightfall. Goodbye, goodbye, may God bless you with happiness, success, honours, worldly goods and everything that’s good. And you, be on your way; get the horses moving and watch out for the hill and go easy!” he added for the benefit of the coachman.

Alexander, now in tears, took his seat in the carriage, and Yevsei went up to his mistress, knelt at her feet and kissed her hand. She gave him a five-rouble note.

“Listen, Yevsei, and remember: serve your master well and I’ll marry you to Agrafena, otherwise…”

She was unable to complete her sentence. Yevsei climbed up to the box. The coachman, impatient because of the long delay, came to life, pulled his cap down firmly, sat up straight and took up the reins; the horses moved off at a slow trot. The coachman whipped the trace horses one by one and, plunging forward, they broke into a gallop, and the troika sped along the road towards the wood. The crowd that had gathered to see them off were left behind silent and still in a cloud of dust until the coach had completely disappeared from view. Anton Ivanych was the first to break the silence.

“All right, time to go home!” he said.

Alexander looked back for as long as he could from the coach, and then fell upon the cushion and buried his face in it.

“Don’t leave me in such a state of distress, Anton Ivanych,” said Anna Pavlovna. “Stay for dinner!”

“Very well, my dear lady, I’ll be happy to, and perhaps I will even stay for supper.”

“Then you might as well stay the night.”

“But how can I, the funeral is tomorrow!”

“Yes, of course, but I’m not forcing you. Say hello to Fedosya Petrovna for me; tell her that my heart goes out to her in her grief, and I would pay her a visit myself if it were not that God, you know, has sent me my own sorrow: I’ve had to say goodbye to my son.”

“I will, I will, I won’t forget.”

“Sashenka, my love,” she whispered, looking round. “But he’s gone, just disappeared!”

Aduyeva spent the whole day sitting in silence, going without dinner and supper. Anton Ivanych on the other hand had no trouble talking, dining and eating his supper.

Her only contribution to the conversation was the occasional “Where is my dear boy now?”

“By now he must be in Neplyuyeva. No, I’m wrong, he can’t be there yet, but just approaching it. He’ll stop there for some tea,” replied Anton Ivanych.

“No, he never drinks tea at this time.”

That was how Anna Pavlovna was mentally accompanying him on his journey. Later on – when, according to her reckoning, he must have reached St Petersburg – she spent her time praying, telling her fortune from the cards or talking about him to Maria Karpovna.

But what about him?

We shall meet him again in St Petersburg.

Chapter 2

Pyotr Ivanych Aduyev, Alexander’s uncle, at the age of twenty had, just like his nephew, been sent to St Petersburg by his older brother, Alexander’s father, and had now been living there continuously for seventeen years. After his brother’s death he had stopped corresponding with his relatives, and Anna Pavlovna had heard nothing from him since the time when he had sold the small estate he had owned not far from her own.

In St Petersburg he passed for a man of some wealth, and not without reason.