if sometimes, in the muddy season, the wretched nag, put under his
charge for fetching water, got stuck in the road, he would simply give
it a shove with his shoulder, and set not only the cart but the horse
itself moving. If he set to chopping wood, the axe fairly rang like
glass, and chips and chunks flew in all directions. And as for
strangers, after he had one night caught two thieves and knocked their
heads together--knocked them so that there was not the slightest need to
take them to the police-station afterwards--every one in the
neighborhood began to feel a great respect for him; even those who came
in the daytime, by no means robbers, but simply unknown persons, at the
sight of the terrible porter, waved and shouted to him as though he
could hear their shouts. With all the rest of the servants, Gerasim was
on terms hardly friendly--they were afraid of him--but familiar; he
regarded them as his fellows. They explained themselves to him by signs,
and he understood them, and exactly carried out all orders, but knew his
own rights too, and soon no one dared to take his seat at the table.
Gerasim was altogether of a strict and serious temper, he liked order in
everything; even the cocks did not dare to fight in his presence, or woe
betide them! Directly he caught sight of them, he would seize them by
the legs, swing them ten times round in the air like a wheel, and throw
them in different directions. There were geese, too, kept in the yard;
but the goose, as is well known, is a dignified and reasonable bird:
Gerasim felt a respect for them, looked after them, and fed them; he was
himself not unlike a gander of the steppes. He was assigned a little
garret over the kitchen; he arranged it himself to his own liking, made
a bedstead in it of oak boards on four stumps of wood for legs--a truly
Titanic bedstead; one might have put a ton or two on it--it would not
have bent under the load; under the bed was a solid chest; in a corner
stood a little table of the same strong kind, and near the table a
three-legged stool, so solid and squat that Gerasim himself would