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
sometimes pick it up and drop it again with a smile of delight.
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