I have an idea that the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old folks.

A month later Malanya Pavlovna expired also.  She hardly rose from her bed again after the day of Alexyei Sergyeitch’s death, and did not array herself; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and with the medal of Orloff on her shoulder, only minus the diamonds.  The daughters shared those between them, under the pretext that those diamonds were to be used for the setting of holy pictures; but as a matter of fact they used them to adorn their own persons.

And now how vividly do my old people stand before me, and what a good memory I cherish of them!  And yet, during my very last visit to them (I was already a student at the time) an incident occurred which injected some discord into the harmoniously-patriarchal mood with which the Telyegin house inspired me.

Among the number of the household serfs was a certain Ivan, nicknamed “Sukhikh—­the coachman, or the little coachman, as he was called, on account of his small size, in spite of his years, which were not few.  He was a tiny scrap of a man, nimble, snub-nosed, curly-haired, with a perennial smile on his infantile countenance, and little, mouse-like eyes.  He was a great joker and buffoon; he was able to acquire any trick; he set off fireworks, snakes, played all card-games, galloped his horse while standing erect on it, flew higher than any one else in the swing, and even knew how to present Chinese shadows.  There was no one who could amuse children better than he, and he would have been only too glad to occupy himself with them all day long.  When he got to laughing he set the whole house astir.  People would answer him from this point and that—­every one would join in....  They would both abuse him and laugh.—­Ivan danced marvellously—­especially ’the fish.’—­The chorus would thunder out a dance tune, the young fellow would step into the middle of the circle, and begin to leap and twist about and stamp his feet, and then come down with a crash on the ground—­and there represent the movements of a fish which has been thrown out of the water upon the dry land; and he would writhe about this way and that, and even bring his heels up to his neck; and then, when he sprang to his feet and began to shout, the earth would simply tremble beneath him!  Alexyei Sergyeitch was extremely fond of choral songs and dances, as I have already said; he could never refrain from shouting:  ’Send hither Vaniushka! the little coachman!  Give us ‘the fish,’ be lively!’—­and a minute later he would whisper in ecstasy:  ‘Akh, what a devil of a man he is!’”

Well, then,—­on my last visit this same Ivan Sukhikh comes to me in my room, and without uttering a word plumps down on his knees.

“What is the matter with thee, Ivan?”

“Save me, master!”

“Why, what’s the trouble?”

And thereupon Ivan related to me his grief.