“Don Csesar de Bazan was a real nobleman. Maximich!
Wonderful!”
There was something of the “Spanish nobleman” about himself. One day in the market-place, in front of the fire-station, three firemen were amusing themselves by beating a peasant. A crowd of people, numbering about forty persons, looked on and cheered the soldiers.
Sitanov threw himself into the brawl. With swinging blows of his long arms he struck the firemen, lifted the peasant, and carried him into the crowd, crying:
“Take him away!”
But he remained behind himself, one against three. The yard of the fire-station was only about ten steps away; they might easily have called others to their aid and Sitanov would have been killed. But by good luck the firemen were frightened and ran away into the yard.
“Dogs!” he cried after them.
On Sunday the young people used to attend boxing-matches held in the Tyessni yard behind the Petro — pavlovski churchyard, where sledge-drivers and peasants from the adjacent villages assembled to fight with the workmen.
The wagoners put up against the town an eminent boxer, a Mordovan giant with a small head, and large eyes always full of tears.
Wiping away the tears with the dirty sleeve of his short caftan, he stood before his backers with his legs planted widely apart, and challenged good-naturedly:
“Come on, then; what is the matter with you? Are you cold?’
Kapendiukhin was set up against him on our side, and the Mordovan always beat him.
But the bleeding, panting Cossack said:
“I’ll lick that Mordovan if I die for it!”
In the end, that became the one aim of his life. He even went to the length of giving up vodka, rubbed his body with snow before he went to sleep, ate a lot of meat, and to develop his muscles, crossed himself many times every evening with two pound weights.
But this did not avail him at all.
Then he sewed a piece of lead inside his gloves, and boasted to Sitanov:
“Now we will finish the Mordovan!”
Sitanov sternly warned him:
“You had better throw it away, or I will give you away before the fight.”
Kapendiukhin did not believe him, but when the time for the fight arrived, Sitanov said abruptly to the Mordovan:
“Step aside, Vassili Ivanich; I have something to Bay to Kapendiukhin first!”
The Cossack turned purple and roared:
“I have nothing to do with you; go away!”
“Yes, you have!” said Sitanov, and approaching him, he looked into the Cossack’s face with a compelling glance.
Kapendiukhin stamped on the ground, tore the gloves from his hands, thrust them in his breast, and went quickly away from the scene of his fight.
Both our side and the other were unpleasantly surprised, and a certain important personage said angrily to Sitanov:
“That is quite against the rules, brother, — to bring private affairs to be settled in the world of the prize ring!”
They fell upon Sitanov from all sides, and abused him. He kept silence for a long time, but at length he said to the important personage:
“Am I to stand by and see murder done?”
The important personage at once guessed the truth, and actually taking off his cap said:
“Then our gratitude is due to you!”
“Only don’t go and spread it abroad, uncle!”
“Why should I?
Kapendiukhin is hardly ever the victor, and ill-success embitters a man. We understand!
But in future we will have his gloves ex — amined before the contest.”
“That is your affair!”
When the important personage had gone away, our side began to abuse Kapendiukhin:
“You have made a nice mess of it.
He would have killed his man, our Cossack would, and now we have to stay on the losing side!”
They abused him at length, captiously, to their hearts’ content.
Sitanov sighed and said:
“Oh, you guttersnipes!”
And to the surprise of everyone he challenged the Mordovan to a single contest. The latter squared up and flourishing his fists said jokingly:
“We will kill each other.”
A good number of persons, taking hands, formed a wide, spacious circle.
The boxers, looking at each other keenly, changed over, the right hand held out, the left on their breasts. The experienced people noticed at once that Sitanov’s arms were longer than those of the Mordovan.
It was very quiet; the snow crunched under the feet of the boxers.
Some one, unable to restrain his impatience, muttered complain — ingly and eagerly:
“They ought to have begun by now.”