And here is another “type,” a very tall, very thin, close-shaven gentleman in dark spectacles, wearing a cap with a cockade, and looking like a scrivener of by-gone days.  He is a fancier; he is a man of decent position, a teacher in a high school, and that is well known to the habitues of the market, and they treat him with respect, greet him with bows, and have even invented for him a special title:  “Your Scholarship.”  At Suharev market he rummages among the books, and at Trubnoy looks out for good pigeons.

“Please, sir!” the pigeon-sellers shout to him, “Mr. Schoolmaster, your Scholarship, take notice of my tumblers! your Scholarship!”

“Your Scholarship!” is shouted at him from every side.

“Your Scholarship!” an urchin repeats somewhere on the boulevard.

And his “Scholarship,” apparently quite accustomed to his title, grave and severe, takes a pigeon in both hands, and lifting it above his head, begins examining it, and as he does so frowns and looks graver than ever, like a conspirator.

And Trubnoy Square, that little bit of Moscow where animals are so tenderly loved, and where they are so tortured, lives its little life, grows noisy and excited, and the business-like or pious people who pass by along the boulevard cannot make out what has brought this crowd of people, this medley of caps, fur hats, and chimneypots together; what they are talking about there, what they are buying and selling.

AN ADVENTURE

(A Driver’s Story)

IT was in that wood yonder, behind the creek, that it happened, sir.  My father, the kingdom of Heaven be his, was taking five hundred roubles to the master; in those days our fellows and the Shepelevsky peasants used to rent land from the master, so father was taking money for the half-year.  He was a God-fearing man, he used to read the scriptures, and as for cheating or wronging anyone, or defrauding —­God forbid, and the peasants honoured him greatly, and when someone had to be sent to the town about taxes or such-like, or with money, they used to send him.  He was a man above the ordinary, but, not that I’d speak ill of him, he had a weakness.  He was fond of a drop.  There was no getting him past a tavern:  he would go in, drink a glass, and be completely done for!  He was aware of this weakness in himself, and when he was carrying public money, that he might not fall asleep or lose it by some chance, he always took me or my sister Anyutka with him.

To tell the truth, all our family have a great taste for vodka.  I can read and write, I served for six years at a tobacconist’s in the town, and I can talk to any educated gentleman, and can use very fine language, but, it is perfectly true, sir, as I read in a book, that vodka is the blood of Satan.  Through vodka my face has darkened.  And there is nothing seemly about me, and here, as you may see, sir, I am a cab-driver like an ignorant, uneducated peasant.