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I fancy the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old parents.

A month later and Malania Pavlovna too passed away. From the very day of Alexey Sergeitch’s death she had hardly risen from her bed, and had not put on her usual attire; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and with Orlov’s medallion on her shoulder, only without the diamonds. Those her daughters divided, on the pretext that the diamonds should be used in the setting of some holy pictures; in reality, they used them to adorn their own persons.

And so I can see my old friends as though they were alive and before my eyes, and pleasant is the memory I preserve of them. And yet on my very last visit to them (I was a student by then) an incident occurred which jarred upon the impression of patriarchal harmony always produced in me by the Teliegin household.

Among the house-serfs there was one Ivan, called ‘Suhys’ Ivan,’ a coachman or coach-boy, as they called him on account of his small size, in spite of his being no longer young. He was a tiny little man, brisk, snub-nosed, curly-headed, with an everlastingly smiling, childish face, and little eyes, like a mouse’s. He was a great joker, a most comic fellow; he was great at all sorts of tricks–he used to fly kites, let off fireworks and rockets, to play all sorts of games, gallop standing up on the horse’s back, fly higher than all the rest in the swing, and could even make Chinese shadows. No one could amuse children better; and he would gladly spend the whole day looking after them. When he started laughing, the whole house would seem to liven up; they would answer him–one would say one thing, one another, but he always made them all merry…. And even if they abused him, they could not but laugh. Ivan danced marvellously, especially the so-called ‘fish dance.’ When the chorus struck up a dance tune, the fellow would come into the middle of the ring, and then there would begin such a turning and skipping and stamping, and then he would fall flat on the ground, and imitate the movement of a fish brought out of the water on to dry land; such turning and wriggling, the heels positively clapped up to the head; and then he would get up and shriek–the earth seemed simply quivering under him. At times Alexey Sergeitch, who was, as I have said already, exceedingly fond of watching dancing, could not resist shouting, ‘Little Vania, here! coach-boy! Dance us the fish, smartly now’; and a minute later he would whisper enthusiastically: ‘Ah, what a fellow it is!’

Well, on my last visit, this Ivan Suhih came into my room, and, without saying a word, fell on his knees. ‘Ivan, what’s the matter?’ ‘Save me, sir.’ ‘Why, what is it?’ And thereupon Ivan told me his trouble.

He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by ‘the Suhy family for a serf of the Teliegins’;–simply exchanged without any kind of formality or written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch’s house as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his origin. But now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into other hands; and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and oppressive man, having learned that one of his serfs was detained without cause or reason at Alexey Sergeitch’s, began to demand him back; in case of refusal he threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was not an empty one, as he was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and had great weight in the province. Ivan had rushed in terror to Alexey Sergeitch. The old man was sorry for his dancer, and he offered the privy councillor to buy Ivan for a considerable sum. But the privy councillor would not hear of it; he was a Little Russian, and obstinate as the devil. The poor fellow would have to be given up. ‘I have spent my life here, and I’m at home here; I have served here, here I have eaten my bread, and here I want to die,’ Ivan said to me–and there was no smile on his face now; on the contrary, it looked turned to stone…. ‘And now I am to go to this wretch…. Am I a dog to be flung from one kennel to another with a noose round my neck? … to be told: “There, get along with you!” Save me, master; beg your uncle, remember how I always amused you…. Or else there’ll be harm come of it; it won’t end without sin.’