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of special good humor he did so, he lied as if possessed. He did not do this through bad faith; in his old head perhaps facts were mixed up, and grew to fantastic proportions. Whatever military exploits he had heard of during youth he appropriated to himself and my grandfather, his colonel. And he believed sacredly all that he said.
Sometimes in the barn, while overseeing peasants working out their dues in threshing wheat, he would begin to narrate; the men would stop work, and, resting on their flails, listen with lips open in wonderment. Then he would notice them and shout, —
"Why do ye turn mouths on me as big as cannon?"
And again was heard, —
"Lupu! Tsupu! Lupu! Tsupu!"
The sound of flails was heard for some time on the straw, but after a while Mikolai would begin again, —
"My son writes me that he has just been made general by the Queen of Palmyra. He has a good place there, high pay, but there are terrible frosts in that country – " etc.
I may mention that the old man had no success with his children. He had a son, it is true, but a great good-for-nothing, who, when he grew up, made Lord knows what trouble; finally he went into the world and disappeared without trace; and Mikolai's daughter, in her time a wonder of a girl, was giddy with all the officials, as many as there were in the village, and finally died, after giving the world a daughter. That daughter was called Hania. She was about my age, beautiful, but delicate. I remember that often we played soldier. Hania was the drummer, but a nettle to our enemies. She was good and mild as an angel. A grievous fate awaited her in the world, but those are memories which do not concern us at present.
I return to the old man's narratives. Once I heard him tell how on a time the horses of the Uhlans stampeded in Mariampol. Eighteen thousand of them rushed in through the gates of Warsaw. "How many people they trampled to death," said he, "what a day of judgment there was till they were caught, it is easy to imagine." Another time he told, not in the barn, however, but to us all in the mansion, the following, —
"Did we fight well? Why shouldn't we fight well? I remember once there was war with the Austrians; I was standing in the rank, in the rank, I say, and up to me rides the commander-in-chief, as if to give a message from the Austrians, that is, from the opposite side. 'Ei, thou Suhovolski,' said he, 'I know thee! If we could only catch thee we should finish the whole war.'"
"But didn't he say anything about the colonel?" asked my father.
"Of course! for he said expressly, 'thee and the colonel.'"
Father Ludvik got impatient and said, —
"But thou, Mikolai, tellest lies as if thou wert getting special pay for them."
The old man frowned and would have retorted; but he feared Father Ludvik and respected him, so he said nothing; but after a while, wishing somehow to straighten the affair, he continued, —
"Father Seklutski, our chaplain, told me the same. Once when I got a bayonet thrust from the Austrians under the twelfth, I meant to say the fifth rib, I was in a bad state. Ha! thought I, it is necessary to die, so I confessed all my sins to the Lord God Almighty before Father Seklutski. Father Seklutski listened and listened; at last he said, 'Fear God, Mikolai, thou hast told me all the lies thou knowest.' And I said: 'Maybe, for I don't remember any more.'"
"And they cured thee?"
"Cured! How could they cure me? I cured myself. I mixed right away two charges of powder in a quart of vodka and swallowed it for the night. Next morning I woke up as sound as a fish."
I should have heard more of these narratives and recorded them, but Father Ludvik, I know not why, forbade Mikolai "to turn my head," as he declared, "completely." Poor Father Ludvik, as a priest and a quiet village dweller, did not know first, that every youth whom a storm casts out of his quiet, native corner into the wide arena of the world must have his head turned more than once, and second, that it is not old servants and their narratives that turn them, but some one else.
For that matter the influence of Mikolai on us could not be harmful; on the contrary, the old man watched over us and our conduct very carefully and sternly. He was a conscientious man in the full sense of that word. From his military days one fine characteristic remained with him: conscientiousness and accuracy in carrying out orders.
One winter, as I remember, the wolves inflicted enormous damage; they grew so bold that in the night a few of them came to the village, and then some tens of them. My father, a born hunter, wanted to arrange a great hunt; but since he was anxious that the command of it should be taken by our neighbor, Pan Ustrytski, a renowned destroyer of wolves, he wrote a letter to him, and calling Mikolai said, —
"My tenant is going to the town; let Mikolai go with him, get out on the road near Ustrytsi, and give this letter to Pan Ustrytski. But it is necessary to bring me an answer. Do not come back without an answer."
Mikolai took the letter, got in with the tenant, and they drove off. In the evening the tenant returned; Mikolai was not with him. My father thought that perhaps he would spend the night in Ustrytsi and return in the morning. A day passed, no Mikolai; a second day passed, nothing of him; a third, no sign of him. There was lamentation in the house. My father, fearing that wolves had attacked him on the way home, sent people to search for the man. They searched, but not a trace could they find. They sent to Ustrytsi. In Ustrytsi it was said that he had been there, had not found Pan Ustrytski; that he had inquired where he was, then borrowed four rubles from the lackey and gone, it was unknown whither. What can all this mean? thought we.
Next day messengers came from other villages with information that they had not found him anywhere. We had begun to mourn for him when on the sixth evening my father, who was making dispositions in the chancery, heard all at once, outside the door, the wiping of feet, and hawking and grumbling in a low voice, by which he recognized Mikolai immediately.
In fact, it was Mikolai, chilled through, tired, thin, with icicles hanging from his mustaches, almost unlike himself.
"Mikolai! But fear God! what hast thou been doing all this time?"
"What have I been doing, what have I been doing?" muttered Mikolai. "What was I to do? I did not find Pan Ustrytski at home, I went to Bzin. In Bzin they told me, deuce take it, that Pan Ustrytski had gone to Karalovka. I went there too. He had gone from Karalovka, also. But isn't he free to warm strange corners? Isn't he a lord? Besides, he does not travel on foot. 'Very well,' said I, and from Karalovka I went to the capital, for they said that he was in the district capital. And what business had he in the capital, was he the mayor? He went to the government town. Was I to return? I went to the government town and gave him the letter."
"Well, did he give thee an answer?"
"He did, and he didn't. He gave it, but he laughed so that I could see his back teeth. 'Thy lord,' said he, asks me to a hunt on Thursday, and thou givest me this letter on the following Monday. The hunt is over now.' And he laughed again. Here is the letter. Why shouldn't he laugh?"
"But what hast thou eaten all this time?"
"Well, what of it if I haven't eaten anything since yesterday? Do I suffer hunger here? Or are the spoons stingy of food with me? If I haven't eaten, I shall eat."
After that no one gave unconditional commands to Mikolai, but as often as he was sent anywhere we told him what to do in case he did not find the person at home.
Some months later Mikolai went to a fair at a neighboring town to buy horses, for he knew horses perfectly. In the evening the manager came to say that Mikolai had brought the horses, but had come back beaten and was ashamed to appear. My father went immediately to Mikolai, —
"What is the matter with thee, Mikolai?"
"I had a fight!" he blurted out briefly.
"Be ashamed, old man. Thou wilt pick quarrels in a market? Thou hast no sense. Old, but a fool! Dost thou know that I would discharge another man for such a trick? Be ashamed. It must be that thou wert drunk. So thou art spoiling my people, instead of giving an example."
My father was really angry, and when he was angry he did not trifle. But this was the wonder, that Mikolai, who on such occasions did not