y blouse, handed Laptev a glass of tea without a saucer; not
long afterwards another boy, passing by, stumbled over a box, and
almost fell down, and Makeitchev's face looked suddenly spiteful
and ferocious like a wild beast's, and he shouted at him:

"Keep on your feet!"

The clerks were pleased that their young master was married and had
come back at last; they looked at him with curiosity and friendly
feeling, and each one thought it his duty to say something agreeable
when he passed him. But Laptev was convinced that it was not genuine,
and that they were only flattering him because they were afraid of
him. He never could forget how fifteen years before, a clerk, who
was mentally deranged, had run out into the street with nothing on
but his shirt and shaking his fists at the windows, shouted that
he had been ill-treated; and how, when the poor fellow had recovered,
the clerks had jeered at him for long afterwards, reminding him how
he had called his employers "planters" instead of "exploiters."
Altogether the employees at Laptevs' had a very poor time of it,
and this fact was a subject of conversation for the whole market.
The worst of it was that the old man, Fyodor Stepanovitch, maintained
something of an Asiatic despotism in his attitude to them. Thus,
no one knew what wages were paid to the old man's favourites,
Potchatkin and Makeitchev. They received no more than three thousand
a year, together with bonuses, but he made out that he paid then
seven. The bonuses were given to all the clerks every year, but
privately, so that the man who got little was bound from vanity to
say he had got more. Not one boy knew when he would be promoted to
be a clerk; not one of the men knew whether his employer was satisfied
with him or not. Nothing was directly forbidden, and so the clerks
never knew what was allowed, and what was not. They were not forbidden
to marry, but they did not marry for fear of displeasing their
employer and losing their place. They were allowed to have friends
and pay visits, but the gates were shut at nine o'clock, and every
morning the old man scanned them all suspiciously, and tried to
detect any smell of vodka about them:

"Now then, breathe," he would say.

Every clerk was obliged to go to early service, and to stand in
church in such a position that the old man could see them all. The
fasts were strictly observed. On great occasions, such as the
birthday of their employer or of any member of