Fomishka produced a very ancient carved wooden snuff-box and showed it to the visitors with great pride.At one time one could have discerned about thirty-six little human figures in various attitudes carved on its lid, but they were so erased as to be scarcely visible now.Fomishka, however, still saw them and could even count them.He would point to one and say, " Just look! this one is staring out of the window....He has thrust his head out!" but the place indicated by his fat little finger with the nail raised was just as smooth as the rest of the box.He then turned their attention to an oil painting hanging on the wall just above his head.It represented a hunter in profile, galloping at full speed on a bay horse, also in profile, over a snow plain.The hunter was clad in a tall white sheepskin hat with a pale blue point, a tunic of camel's hair edged with velvet, and a girdle wrought in gold.A glove embroidered in silk was gracefully tucked into the girdle, and a dagger chased in black and silver hung at the side.In one hand the plump, youthful hunter carried an enormous horn, ornamented with red tassels, and the reins and whip in the other.The horse's four legs were all suspended in the air, and on every one of them the artist had carefully painted a horseshoe and even indicated the nails."Look," Fomishka observed, pointing with the same fat little finger to four semi-circular spots on the white ground, close to the horse's legs, "he has even put the snow prints in!"Why there were only four of these prints and not any to be seen further back, on this point Fomishka was silent.
"This was I!" he added after a pause, with a modest smile.
"Really! " Nejdanov exclaimed, "were you ever a hunting man?""Yes.I was for a time.Once the horse threw me at full gallop and I injured my kurpey.Fimishka got frightened and forbade me;so I have given it up since then."
"What did you injure?" Nejdanov asked.
"My kurpey," Fomishka repeated, lowering his voice.
The visitors looked at one another.No one knew what kurpey meant; at least, Markelov knew that the tassel on a Cossack or Circassian cap was called a kurpey, but then how could Fomishka have injured that? But no one dared to question him further.
"Well, now that you have shown off," Fimishka remarked suddenly, "I will show off too." And going up to a small bonheur du jour, as they used to call an old-fashioned bureau, on tiny, crooked legs, with a round lid which fitted into the back of it somewhere when opened, she took out a miniature in water colour, in an oval bronze frame, of a perfectly naked little child of four years old with a quiver over her shoulders fastened across the chest with pale blue ribbons, trying the points of the arrows with the tip of her little finger.The child was all smiles and curls and had a slight squint.
"And that was I," she said.
"Really?
"Yes, as a child.When my father was alive a Frenchman used to come and see him, such a nice Frenchman too! He painted that for my father's birthday.Such a nice man! He used to come and see us often.He would come in, make such a pretty courtesy and kiss your hand, and when going away would kiss the tips of his own fingers so prettily, and bow to the right, to the left, backwards and forwards! He was such a nice Frenchman!"The guests praised his work; Paklin even declared that he saw a certain likeness.
Here Fomishka began to express his views on the modern French, saying that they had become very wicked nowadays!
"What makes you think so, Foma Lavrentievitch?""Look at the awful names they give themselves nowadays!""What, for instance?"
"Nogent Saint Lorraine, for instance! A regular brigand's name!"Fomishka asked incidentally who reigned in Paris now, and when told that it was Napoleon, was surprised and pained at the information.
"How?...Such an old man--" he began and stopped, looking round in confusion.
Fomishka had but a poor knowledge of French, and read Voltaire in translation; he always kept a translated manuscript of "Candide"in the bible box at the head of his bed.He used to come out with expressions like: "This, my dear, is Jausse parquet," meaning suspicious, untrue.He was very much laughed at for this, until a certain learned Frenchman told him that it was an old parliamentary expression employed in his country until the year 1789.
As the conversation turned upon France and the French, Fimishka resolved to ask something that had been very much on her mind.
She first thought of addressing herself to Markelov, but he looked too forbidding, so she turned to Solomin, but no! He seemed to her such a plain sort of person, not likely to know French at all, so she turned to Nejdanov.
"I should like to ask you something, if I may," she began;"excuse me, my kinsman Sila Samsonitch makes fun of me and my woman's ignorance."What is it? "
"Supposing one wants to ask in French, 'What is it?' must one say 'Kese-kese-kese-la?'""Yes."
"And can one also say 'Kese-kese-la?'
"Yes."
"And simply 'Kese-la?'"
"Yes, that's right."
"And does it mean the same thing?"
"Yes, it does."
Fimishka thought awhile, then threw up her arms.
"Well, Silushka," she exclaimed; "I am wrong and you are right.
But these Frenchmen...How smart they are!"Paklin began begging the old people to sing them some ballad.
They were both surprised and amused at the idea, but consented readily on condition that Snandulia accompanied them on the harpsichord.In a corner of the room there stood a little spinet, which not one of them had noticed before.Snandulia sat down to it and struck several chords.Nejdanov had never heard such sour, toneless, tingling, jangling notes, but the old people promptly struck up the ballad, "Was it to Mourn."Fomisha began-
"In love God gave a heart Of burning passion to inspire That loving heart with warm desire.""But there is agony in bliss"
Fimishka chimed in.
"And passion free from pain there is, Ah! where, where? tell me, tell me this,""Ah! where, where? Tell me, tell me this,"Fomisha put in.
