But you don't understand that.One has to know how to talk to the peasants.""Only don't tease them, please, or you'll get into another scrape as you did about that goose.""So you're afraid?"
"Don't laugh, Kolya.Of course I'm afraid.My father would be awfully cross.I am strictly forbidden to go out with you.""Don't be uneasy, nothing will happen this time.Hallo, Natasha!" he shouted to a market woman in one of the booths.
"Call me Natasha! What next! My name is Marya," the middle-aged marketwoman shouted at him.
"I am so glad it's Marya.Good-bye!"
"Ah, you young rascal! A brat like you to carry on so!""I'm in a hurry.I can't stay now.You shall tell me next Sunday."Kolya waved his hand at her, as though she had attacked him and not he her.
"I've nothing to tell you next Sunday.You set upon me, you impudent young monkey.I didn't say anything," bawled Marya."You want a whipping, that's what you want, you saucy jackanapes!"There was a roar of laughter among the other market women round her.Suddenly a man in a violent rage darted out from the arcade of shops close by.He was a young man, not a native of the town, with dark, curly hair and a long, pale face, marked with smallpox.He wore a long blue coat and a peaked cap, and looked like a merchant's clerk.He was in a state of stupid excitement and brandished his fist at Kolya.
"I know you!" he cried angrily, "I know you!"Kolya stared at him.He could not recall when he could have had a row with the man.But he had been in so many rows in the street that he could hardly remember them all.
"Do you?" he asked sarcastically.
"I know you! I know you!" the man repeated idiotically.
So much the better for you.Well, it's time I was going.
Good-bye!"
"You are at your saucy pranks again?" cried the man."You are at your saucy pranks again? I know, you are at it again!""It's not your business, brother, if I am at my saucy pranks again," said Kolya, standing still and scanning him.
"Not my business?"
"No; it's not your business."
"Whose then? Whose then? Whose then?"
"It's Trifon Nikititch's business, not yours.""What Trifon Nikititch?" asked the youth, staring with loutish amazement at Kolya, but still as angry as ever.
Kolya scanned him gravely.
"Have you been to the Church of the Ascension?" he suddenly asked him, with stern emphasis.
"What Church of Ascension? What for? No, I haven't," said the young man, somewhat taken aback.
"Do you know Sabaneyev?" Kolya went on even more emphatically and even more severely.
"What Sabaneyev? No, I don't know him."
"Well then you can go to the devil," said Kolya, cutting short the conversation; and turning sharply to the right he strode quickly on his way as though he disdained further conversation with a dolt who did not even know Sabaneyev.
"Stop, heigh! What Sabaneyev?" the young man recovered from his momentary stupefaction and was as excited as before."What did he say?" He turned to the market women with a silly stare.
The women laughed.
"You can never tell what he's after," said one of them.
"What Sabaneyev is it he's talking about?" the young man repeated, still furious and brandishing his right arm.
"It must be a Sabaneyev who worked for the Kuzmitchovs, that's who it must be," one of the women suggested.
The young man stared at her wildly.
"For the Kuzmitchovs?" repeated another woman."But his name wasn't Trifon.His name's Kuzma, not Trifon; but the boy said Trifon Nikititch, so it can't be the same.""His name is not Trifon and not Sabaneyev, it's Tchizhov," put in suddenly a third woman, who had hitherto been silent, listening gravely."Alexey Ivanitch is his name.Tchizhov, Alexey Ivanitch.""Not a doubt about it, it's Tchizhov," a fourth woman emphatically confirmed the statement.
The bewildered youth gazed from one to another.
"But what did he ask for, what did he ask for, good people?" he cried almost in desperation." 'Do you know Sabaneyev?' says he.And who the devil's to know who is Sabaneyev?""You're a senseless fellow.I tell you it's not Sabaneyev, but Tchizhov, Alexey Ivanitch Tchizhov, that's who it is!" one of the women shouted at him impressively.
"What Tchizhov? Who is he? Tell me, if you know.""That tall, snivelling fellow who used to sit in the market in the summer.""And what's your Tchizhov to do with me, good people, eh?""How can I tell what he's to do with you?" put in another."You ought to know yourself what you want with him, if you make such a clamour about him.He spoke to you, he did not speak to us, you stupid.Don't you really know him?""Know whom?"
"Tchizhov."
"The devil take Tchizhov and you with him.I'll give him a hiding, that I will.He was laughing at me!""Will give Tchizhov a hiding! More likely he will give you one.
You are a fool, that's what you are!"
"Not Tchizhov, not Tchizhov, you spiteful, mischievous woman.I'll give the boy a hiding.Catch him, catch him, he was laughing at me The woman guffawed.But Kolya was by now a long way off, marching along with a triumphant air.Smurov walked beside him, looking round at the shouting group far behind.He too was in high spirits, though he was still afraid of getting into some scrape in Kolya's company.
"What Sabaneyev did you mean?" he asked Kolya, foreseeing what his answer would be.
"How do I know? Now there'll be a hubbub among them all day.Ilike to stir up fools in every class of society.There's another blockhead, that peasant there.You know, they say 'there's no one stupider than a stupid Frenchman,' but a stupid Russian shows it in his face just as much.Can't you see it all over his face that he is a fool, that peasant, eh?""Let him alone, Kolya.Let's go on."
"Nothing could stop me, now I am once off.Hey, good morning, peasant!"A sturdy-looking peasant, with a round, simple face and grizzled beard, who was walking by, raised his head and looked at the boy.He seemed not quite sober.
"Good morning, if you are not laughing at me," he said deliberately in reply.
"And if I am?" laughed Kolya.