Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/164

 and calmly proceeds to make away with his master’s supper. The audience is evidently delighted at the smartness and cunning of the servant and at the master’s being made a fool of. It must be admitted that Potseykin really deserved the applause he got. The words “Directly, sir, I am getting it ready,” he pronounced superbly. Sitting at the table, he began eating greedily, starting at every step his master took, for fear the latter should notice what he was about; as soon as the master turned round he hid under the table, pulling the chicken after him. At last he had taken off the edge of his appetite; the time came to think of his master. “Kedril, how long will you be?” cries the master. “Ready,” Kedril replies briskly, suddenly realizing that there is hardly anything left for his master. There is nothing but one drumstick left on the plate. The gentleman, gloomy and preoccupied, sits down to the table noticing nothing, and Kedril stands behind his chair holding a napkin. Every word, every gesture, every grimace of Kedril’s, when, turning to the audience, he winked at his simpleton of a master, was greeted by the spectators with irresistible peals of laughter. But as the master begins to eat, the devils appear. At this point the play became quite incomprehensible, and the devils’ entrance was really too grotesque: a door opened in the wing and something in white appeared having a lantern with a candle in it instead of a head; another phantom, also with a lantern on his head, held a scythe. Why the lanterns, why the scythe, why the devils in white? No one could make out. Though, indeed, no one thought of it. It was evidently as it should be. The gentleman turns pretty pluckily to the devils and shouts to them that he is ready for them to take him. But Kedril is as frightened as a hare; he creeps under the table, but for all his fright does not forget to take the bottle with him. The devils vanish for a minute; Kedril creeps out from under the table. But as soon as the master attacks the chicken once more, three devils burst into the room again, seize the master from behind, and carry him off to the lower regions. “Kedril, save me!” shouts his master, but Kedril has no attention to spare. This time he has carried off the bottle, a plate, and even the loaf under the table. Here he is now alone: there are no devils, no master either. Kedril creeps out, looks about him and his face lights up with a smile. He winks slyly, sits down in his master’s place, and nodding to the audience says in a half-whisper, “Well, now I am alone. . without a master!” Every one roars at his being without