“What a long way it is!” he says, sighing and clearing his throat.  “It’s no joke!  From the Red Pond to the Kaluga gate.”

“How are you?”

“In a poor way, my boy.  I’ve had a fever.”

“You don’t say so!  Fever!”

“Yes, I have been in bed a month; I thought I should die.  I had extreme unction.  Now my hair’s coming out.  The doctor says I must be shaved.  He says the hair will grow again strong.  And so, I thought, I’ll go to Makar.  Better to a relation than to anyone else.  He will do it better and he won’t take anything for it.  It’s rather far, that’s true, but what of it?  It’s a walk.”

“I’ll do it with pleasure.  Please sit down.”

With a scrape of his foot Makar Kuzmitch indicates a chair.  Yagodov sits down and looks at himself in the glass and is apparently pleased with his reflection:  the looking-glass displays a face awry, with Kalmuck lips, a broad, blunt nose, and eyes in the forehead.  Makar Kuzmitch puts round his client’s shoulders a white sheet with yellow spots on it, and begins snipping with the scissors.

“I’ll shave you clean to the skin!” he says.

“To be sure.  So that I may look like a Tartar, like a bomb.  The hair will grow all the thicker.”

“How’s auntie?”

“Pretty middling.  The other day she went as midwife to the major’s lady.  They gave her a rouble.”

“Oh, indeed, a rouble.  Hold your ear.”

“I am holding it. . . .  Mind you don’t cut me.  Oy, you hurt!  You are pulling my hair.”

“That doesn’t matter.  We can’t help that in our work.  And how is Anna Erastovna?”

“My daughter?  She is all right, she’s skipping about.  Last week on the Wednesday we betrothed her to Sheikin.  Why didn’t you come?”

The scissors cease snipping.  Makar Kuzmitch drops his hands and asks in a fright: 

“Who is betrothed?”

“Anna.”

“How’s that?  To whom?”

“To Sheikin.  Prokofy Petrovitch.  His aunt’s a housekeeper in Zlatoustensky Lane.  She is a nice woman.  Naturally we are all delighted, thank God.  The wedding will be in a week.  Mind you come; we will have a good time.”

“But how’s this, Erast Ivanitch?” says Makar Kuzmitch, pale, astonished, and shrugging his shoulders.  “It’s . . . it’s utterly impossible.  Why, Anna Erastovna . . . why I . . . why, I cherished sentiments for her, I had intentions.  How could it happen?”

“Why, we just went and betrothed her.  He’s a good fellow.”

Cold drops of perspiration come on the face of Makar Kuzmitch.  He puts the scissors down on the table and begins rubbing his nose with his fist.

“I had intentions,” he says.  “It’s impossible, Erast Ivanitch.  I . . .  I am in love with her and have made her the offer of my heart . . . .  And auntie promised.  I have always respected you as though you were my father. . . .  I always cut your hair for nothing. . . .  I have always obliged you, and when my papa died you took the sofa and ten roubles in cash and have never given them back.  Do you remember?”