piece of paper. Afterwards, in the arithmetic lesson, Senka himself multiplied those little crosses by five. On the first of September 1900, he was stung for eighteen roubles and seventy-five kopecks – and he’d tried to be stingy, not say a single word more than he needed to get by. He started off talking like a book: ‘But in this case it seems to me that. . .’ And then shut his mouth.
Senka groaned at the huge sum, and demanded a reduction –from five kopecks to one.
On the second of September he forked out, that is, he paid out, four roubles and thirty-five kopecks.
On the third of September, it was three roubles and twelve kopecks.
By the fourth of September he’d copped on a bit, that is got the feel of things, and it was down to one rouble and ten kopecks, and on the fifth he escaped only ninety kopecks poorer.
Senka decided that was good enough for Vanka, it was time to go. He could now expound his opinions for five minutes with perfect ease. After all, God had given him a perfectly good memory.
According to society etiquette, first he ought to send Justice Kuvsh-innikov a letter, saying this and that, and I would like to call on Your Grace with a view to visiting my adored little brother Vanya. But he didn’t have the patience for that.
First thing in the morning Senka went to the dentist to have a gold tooth put in, and he packed George off to Tyoply Stan to warn them that in the afternoon, if His Grace was agreeable, Semyon Trofimovich Spidorov, the well-to-do merchant-trader, would call in person, for a family visit, so to speak. George dressed up in his student uniform, bought his uniform cap out of hock and set off.
Senka was extremely nervous (that is, he was in a real lather) in case the judge said: What the hell does my adopted son want with scummy relatives like that?
But it went off all right. George came back delighted with himself and announced that they were expecting him at three. So not for lunch, Senka twigged, but he didn’t take offence; on the contrary, he was glad, because he still wasn’t too good with table knives and telling the meat forks from the ones for fish and salad.
It said in the book: ‘When paying a visit to children, one should give them a present of sweets in a bonbonnier’, and Senka didn’t play the tightwad, that is he didn’t penny-pinch – he bought the very finest tin of chocolate from Perlov’s on Myasnitskaya Street, in the shape of the little humpbacked horse from the fairy tales.
He hired a shiny lacquered carriage for a five-rouble note, but his nerves were so bad he set out way too early, and at first he walked along the street with the carriage driving behind him.
He tried to step out the way the textbook said you should: ‘In the street, the well-bred, refined individual is easily distinguished. His gait is always steady and measured, his stride is confident. He walks straight ahead, without looking round, and only occasionally stops for a moment in front of shops, usually stays on the right-hand side of the road and looks neither up nor down, but several paces straight ahead of himself.’
He walked that way down Myasnitskaya Street, Lyubanka Street and Theatre Lane. And when he got a stiff neck from looking ahead of him all the time, he got into the carriage.
They drove as far as the apple orchards in Konkovo, all unhurried, but just before Tyoply Stan the passenger told the driver to put on some speed so they would drive up to the judge’s house at a spanking pace, looking good, with real chic.
He walked into the house in fine old fashion, said bonjour and bowed.
Judge Kuvshinnikov replied: ‘Hello, Semyon Spidorov,’ and asked him to take a seat.
Senka sat there modestly and politely. He took off his right glove, but not the left, the way you’re supposed to at the start of a visit, and put his hat on the floor, only without any napkin. And when he’d managed all that, he took a proper look at the judge.
Ippolit Ivanovich had got old, you could see that from close up. His horseshoe moustache had turned grey. The long hair hanging down below his ears was all white too. But his gaze was the same as ever: black and piercing.
Senka’s old dad used to say that in the whole wide