Page 217 - the-idiot

to do everything for me in my quarters, economized and
managed for me, and even laid hands on anything he could
find (belonging to other people), in order to augment our
household goods; but a faithful, honest fellow all the same.
‘I was strict, but just by nature. At that time we were sta-
tioned in a small town. I was quartered at an old widow’s
house, a lieutenant’s widow of eighty years of age. She lived
in a wretched little wooden house, and had not even a ser-
vant, so poor was she.
‘Her relations had all died off—her husband was dead
and buried forty years since; and a niece, who had lived
with her and bullied her up to three years ago, was dead too;
so that she was quite alone.
‘Well, I was precious dull with her, especially as she was
so childish that there was nothing to be got out of her. Even-
tually, she stole a fowl of mine; the business is a mystery
to this day; but it could have been no one but herself. I re-
quested to be quartered somewhere else, and was shifted to
the other end of the town, to the house of a merchant with a
large family, and a long beard, as I remember him. Nikifor
and I were delighted to go; but the old lady was not pleased
at our departure.
‘Well, a day or two afterwards, when I returned from drill,
Nikifor says to me: ‘We oughtn’t to have left our tureen with
the old lady, I’ve nothing to serve the soup in.’
‘I asked how it came about that the tureen had been left.
Nikifor explained that the old lady refused to give it up, be-
cause, she said, we had broken her bowl, and she must have
our tureen in place of it; she had declared that I had so ar-

1 The Idiot