extraordinary occasions, such as birthdays, namedays, and elections,
the cooks of the old-fashioned landowners set to work to prepare some
long-beaked birds, and, falling into the state of frenzy peculiar to
Russians when they don't quite know what to do, they concoct such
marvellous sauces for them that the guests examine the proffered dishes
curiously and attentively, but rarely make up their minds to try them.
Yermolai was under orders to provide his master's kitchen with two
brace of grouse and partridges once a month. But he might live where
and how he pleased. They had given him up as a man of no use for work
of any kind--'bone lazy,' as the expression is among us in Orel. Powder
and shot, of course, they did not provide him, following precisely the
same principle in virtue of which he did not feed his dog. Yermolai was
a very strange kind of man; heedless as a bird, rather fond of talking,
awkward and vacant-looking; he was excessively fond of drink, and never
could sit still long; in walking he shambled along, and rolled from
side to side; and yet he got over fifty miles in the day with his
rolling, shambling gait. He exposed himself to the most varied
adventures: spent the night in the marshes, in trees, on roofs, or
under bridges; more than once he had got shut up in lofts, cellars, or
barns; he sometimes lost his gun, his dog, his most indispensable
garments; got long and severe thrashings; but he always returned home,
after a little while, in his clothes, and with his gun and his dog. One
could not call him a cheerful man, though one almost always found him
in an even frame of mind; he was looked on generally as an eccentric.
Yermolai liked a little chat with a good companion, especially over a
glass, but he would not stop long; he would get up and go. 'But where
the devil are you going? It's dark out of doors.' 'To Tchaplino.' 'But
what's taking you to Tchaplino, ten miles away?' 'I am going to stay
the night at Sophron's there.' 'But stay the night here.' 'No, I
can't.' And Yermolai, with his Valetka, would go off into the dark