He, for some reason, always called humble people Panteley, and such as me and Tcheprakov he despised, and called them drunkards, beasts, and rabble to their faces.  Altogether he was cruel to humble subordinates, and used to fine them and turn them off coldly without explanations.

At last the horses came for him.  As he said good-bye he promised to turn us all off in a fortnight; he called his bailiff a blockhead; and then, lolling at ease in his carriage, drove back to the town.

“Andrey Ivanitch,” I said to Radish, “take me on as a workman.”

“Oh, all right!”

And we set off together in the direction of the town.  When the station and the big house with its buildings were left behind I asked:  “Andrey Ivanitch, why did you come to Dubetchnya this evening?”

“In the first place my fellows are working on the line, and in the second place I came to pay the general’s lady my interest.  Last year I borrowed fifty roubles from her, and I pay her now a rouble a month interest.”

The painter stopped and took me by the button.

“Misail Alexeyitch, our angel,” he went on.  “The way I look at it is that if any man, gentle or simple, takes even the smallest interest, he is doing evil.  There cannot be truth and justice in such a man.”

Radish, lean, pale, dreadful-looking, shut his eyes, shook his head, and, in the tone of a philosopher, pronounced: 

“Lice consume the grass, rust consumes the iron, and lying the soul.  Lord, have mercy upon us sinners.”

V

Radish was not practical, and was not at all good at forming an estimate; he took more work than he could get through, and when calculating he was agitated, lost his head, and so was almost always out of pocket over his jobs.  He undertook painting, glazing, paperhanging, and even tiling roofs, and I can remember his running about for three days to find tilers for the sake of a paltry job.  He was a first-rate workman; he sometimes earned as much as ten roubles a day; and if it had not been for the desire at all costs to be a master, and to be called a contractor, he would probably have had plenty of money.

He was paid by the job, but he paid me and the other workmen by the day, from one and twopence to two shillings a day.  When it was fine and dry we did all kinds of outside work, chiefly painting roofs.  When I was new to the work it made my feet burn as though I were walking on hot bricks, and when I put on felt boots they were hotter than ever.  But this was only at first; later on I got used to it, and everything went swimmingly.  I was living now among people to whom labour was obligatory, inevitable, and who worked like cart-horses, often with no idea of the moral significance of labour, and, indeed, never using the word “labour” in conversation at all.  Beside them I, too, felt like a cart-horse, growing more and more imbued with the feeling of the obligatory and inevitable character of what I was doing, and this made my life easier, setting me free from all doubt and uncertainty.