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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8871-0.txt b/8871-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..34c96f7 --- /dev/null +++ b/8871-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9038 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s A Desperate Character and Other Stories, by Ivan Turgenev + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Desperate Character and Other Stories + +Author: Ivan Turgenev + +Translator: Constance Garnett + + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8871] +This file was first posted on August 17, 2003 +Last Updated: October 26, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +A DESPERATE CHARACTER, AND OTHER STORIES + +By Ivan Turgenev + +Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett + + +1899 + + +THE NOVELS OF IVAN TURGENEV + +Complete in Fifteen Volumes. + + i. Rudin. + ii. A House of Gentlefolk. + iii. On the Eve. + iv. Fathers and Children. + v. Smoke. + vi. & vii. Virgin Soil. 2 Vols. + viii, & ix. A Sportsman’s Sketches. 2 Vols. + x. Dream Tales and Prose Poems. + xi. The Torrents of Spring and other Stories. + xii. A Lear of the Steppes and other Stories. + xiii. The Diary of a Superfluous Man and other Stories. + xiv. A Desperate Character and other Tales. + xv. The Jew and other Stories. + + + +TO JOSEPH CONRAD + +WHOSE ART IN ESSENCE OFTEN RECALLS + +THE ART AND ESSENCE OF TURGENEV + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +The six tales now translated for the English reader were written by +Turgenev at various dates between 1847 and 1881. Their chronological +order is:-- + + +_Pyetushkov_, 1847 + +_The Brigadier_, 1867 + +_A Strange Story_, 1869 + +_Punin and Baburin_, 1874 + +_Old Portraits_, 1881 + +_A Desperate Character_, 1881 + + +_Pyetushkov_ is the work of a young man of twenty-nine, and its lively, +unstrained realism is so bold, intimate, and delicate as to contradict +the flattering compliment that the French have paid to one another--that +Turgenev had need to dress his art by the aid of French mirrors. + +Although _Pyetushkov_ shows us, by a certain open _naïveté_ of style, +that a youthful hand is at work, it is the hand of a young master, +carrying out the realism of the ‘forties’--that of Gogol, Balzac, and +Dickens--straightway, with finer point, to find a perfect equilibrium +free from any bias or caricature. The whole strength and essence of the +realistic method has been developed in _Pyetushkov_ to its just limits. +The Russians are _instinctive_ realists, and carry the warmth of life +into their pages, which warmth the French seem to lose in clarifying +their impressions and crystallising them in art. _Pyetushkov_ is not +exquisite: it is irresistible. Note how the reader is transported bodily +into Pyetushkov’s stuffy room, and how the major fairly boils out of the +two pages he lives in! (pp. 301, 302). That is _realism_ if you like. A +woman will see the point of _Pyetushkov_ very quickly. Onisim and +Vassilissa and the aunt walk and chatter around the stupid Pyetushkov, +and glance at him significantly in a manner that reveals everything +about these people’s world. All the servants who appear in the tales in +this volume are hit off so marvellously that one sees the lower-class +world, which is such a mystery to certain refined minds, has no secrets +for Turgenev. + +Of a different, and to our taste more fascinating, _genre_ is _The +Brigadier_. It is greater art because life’s prosaic growth is revealed +not merely realistically, but also poetically, life as a tiny part of +the great universe around it. The tale is a microcosm of Turgenev’s own +nature; his love of Nature, his tender sympathy for all humble, ragged, +eccentric, despised human creatures; his unfaltering keenness of gaze +into character, his fine sense of proportion, mingle in. _The +Brigadier_, to create for us a sense of the pitiableness of man’s tiny +life, of the mere human seed which springs and spreads a while on earth, +and dies under the menacing gaze of the advancing years. ‘Out of the +sweetness came forth strength’ is perhaps the best saying by which one +can define Turgenev’s peculiar merits in _The Brigadier_. + +_Punin and Baburin_ presents to us again one of those ragged ones, one +of ‘the poor in spirit,’ the idealist Punin, a character whose portrait +challenges Dostoievsky’s skill on the latter’s own ground. That +delicious Punin! and that terrible grandmother’s scene with Baburin! How +absolutely Slav is the blending of irony and kindness in the treatment +of Punin, Cucumber, and Pyetushkov, few English readers will understand. +All the characters in _Punin and Baburin_ are so strongly drawn, so +intensely alive, that, like Rembrandt’s portraits, they make the living +people, who stand looking at them, absurdly grey and lifeless by +comparison! Baburin is a Nihilist before the times of Nihilism, he is a +type of the strong characters that arose later in the movement of the +‘eighties.’ + +A pre-Nihilistic type is also the character of Sophie in _A Strange +Story_. But the chief value of this last psychological study is that it +gives the English mind a clue to the fundamental distinction that marks +off the Russian people from the peoples of the West. Sophie’s +words--‘You spoke of the will--that’s what must be broken’ (p. +61)--define most admirably the deepest aspiration of the Russian soul. +To be lowly and suffering, to be despised, sick, to be under the lash of +fate, to be trampled under foot by others, _to be_ unworthy, all this +secret desire of the Russian soul implies that the Russian has little +_will_, that he finds it easier to resign himself than to make the +effort to be powerful, triumphant, worthy. It is from the resignation +and softness of the Russian nature that all its characteristic virtues +spring. Whereas religion with the English mind is largely an anxiety to +be moral, to be _right_ and righteous, to be ‘a chosen vessel of the +Lord,’ religion with the Russian implies a genuine abasement and loss of +self, a bowing before the will of Heaven, and true brotherly love. The +Western mind rises to greatness by concentrating the will-power in +action, by assertion of all its inner force, by shutting out forcibly +whatever might dominate or distract or weaken it. But the Russian mind, +through its lack of character, will-power, and hardness, rises to +greatness in its acceptance of life, and in its sympathy with all the +unfortunate, the wretched, the poor in spirit. Of course in practical +life the Russian lacks many of the useful virtues the Western peoples +possess and has most of their vices; but certainly his pity, charity, +and brotherliness towards men more unfortunate than himself largely +spring from his fatalistic acceptance of his own unworthiness and +weakness. So in Sophie’s case the desire for self-sacrifice, and her +impregnable conviction that to suffer and endure is _right_, is truly +Russian in the sense of letting the individuality go _with_ the stream +of fate, not _against_ it. And hence the formidable spirit of the +youthful generation that sacrificed itself in the Nihilistic movement: +the strenuous action of ‘the youth’ once set in movement, the spirit of +self-sacrifice impelled it calmly towards its goal despite all the +forces and threats of fate. Sophie is indeed an early Nihilist born +before her time. + +We have said that the lack of will in the Russian nature is at the root +of Russian virtues and vices, and in this connection it is curious to +remark that a race’s soul seems often to grow out of the race’s +_aspiration towards what it is not in life_. Is not the French +intellect, for example, so cool, clear-headed, so delicately analytic of +its own motives, that through the principle of _counterpoise_ it strives +to lose itself and release itself in continual rhetoric and emotional +positions? Is not the German mind so alive to the material facts of +life, to the necessity of getting hold of concrete advantages in life, +and of not letting them go, that it deliberately slackens the bent bow, +and plunges itself and relaxes itself in floods of abstractions, and +idealisations, and dreams of sentimentality? Assuredly it is because the +Russian is so inwardly discontented with his own actions that he is such +a keen and incisive critic of everything _false_ and exaggerated, that +he despises all French rhetoric and German sentimentalism. And in this +sense it is that the Russian’s lack of will comes in to deepen his soul. +He surrenders himself thereby to the universe, and, as do the Asiatics, +does not let the tiny shadow of his fate, dark though it may be, shut +out the universe so thoroughly from his consciousness, as does the +aggressive struggling will-power of the Western man striving to let his +individuality have full play. The Russian’s attitude may indeed be +compared to a bowl which catches and sustains what life brings it; and +the Western man’s to a bowl inverted to ward off what drops from the +impassive skies. The mental attitude of the Russian peasant indeed +implies that in blood he is nearer akin to the Asiatics than Russian +ethnologists have wished to allow. Certainly in the inner life of +thought, intellectually, morally, and emotionally, he is a half-way +house between the Western and Eastern races, just as geographically he +spreads over the two continents. By natural law his destiny calls him +towards the East. Should he one day spread his rule further and further +among the Asiatics and hold the keys of an immense Asiatic empire, well! +future English philosophers may feel thereat a curious fatalistic +satisfaction. + +EDWARD GARNETT. + +_October_ 1899. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + A DESPERATE CHARACTER + A STRANGE STORY + PUNIN AND BABURIN + OLD PORTRAITS + THE BRIGADIER + PYETUSHKOV + + + + + +A DESPERATE CHARACTER + + + + +I + + +... We were a party of eight in the room, and we were talking of +contemporary affairs and men. + +‘I don’t understand these men!’ observed A.: ‘they’re such desperate +fellows.... Really desperate.... There has never been anything like +it before.’ + +‘Yes, there has,’ put in P., a man getting on in years, with grey hair, +born some time in the twenties of this century: ‘there were desperate +characters in former days too, only they were not like the desperate +fellows of to-day. Of the poet Yazikov some one has said that he had +enthusiasm, but not applied to anything--an enthusiasm without an +object. So it was with those people--their desperateness was without an +object. But there, if you’ll allow me, I’ll tell you the story of my +nephew, or rather cousin, Misha Poltyev. It may serve as an example of +the desperate characters of those days. + +He came into God’s world, I remember, in 1828, at his father’s native +place and property, in one of the sleepiest corners of a sleepy province +of the steppes. Misha’s father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Poltyev, I remember +well to this day. He was a genuine old-world landowner, a God-fearing, +sedate man, fairly--for those days--well educated, just a little +cracked, to tell the truth--and, moreover, he suffered from epilepsy.... +That too is an old-world, gentlemanly complaint.... Andrei +Nikolaevitch’s fits were, however, slight, and generally ended in sleep +and depression. He was good-hearted, and of an affable demeanour, not +without a certain stateliness: I always pictured to myself the tsar +Mihail Fedorovitch as like him. The whole life of Andrei Nikolaevitch +was passed in the punctual fulfilment of every observance established +from old days, in strict conformity with all the usages of the old +orthodox holy Russian mode of life. He got up and went to bed, ate his +meals, and went to his bath, rejoiced or was wroth (both very rarely, it +is true), even smoked his pipe and played cards (two great +innovations!), not after his own fancy, not in a way of his own, but +according to the custom and ordinance of his fathers--with due decorum +and formality. He was tall, well built, and stout; his voice was soft +and rather husky, as is so often the case with virtuous people in +Russia; he was scrupulously neat in his dress and linen, and wore white +cravats and full-skirted snuff-coloured coats, but his noble blood was +nevertheless evident; no one could have taken him for a priest’s son or +a merchant! At all times, on all possible occasions, and in all possible +contingencies, Andrei Nikolaevitch knew without fail what ought to be +done, what was to be said, and precisely what expressions were to be +used; he knew when he ought to take medicine, and just what he ought to +take; what omens were to be believed and what might be disregarded ... +in fact, he knew everything that ought to be done.... For as everything +had been provided for and laid down by one’s elders, one had only to be +sure not to imagine anything of one’s self.... And above all, without +God’s blessing not a step to be taken!--It must be confessed that a +deadly dulness reigned supreme in his house, in those low-pitched, warm, +dark rooms, that so often resounded with the singing of liturgies and +all-night services, and had the smell of incense and Lenten dishes +almost always hanging about them! + +Andrei Nikolaevitch--no longer in his first youth--married a young +lady of a neighbouring family, without fortune, a very nervous and +sickly person, who had had a boarding-school education. She played the +piano fairly, spoke boarding-school French, was easily moved to +enthusiasm, and still more easily to melancholy and even tears.... +She was of unbalanced character, in fact. She regarded her life as +wasted, could not care for her husband, who, ‘of course,’ did not +understand her; but she respected him, ... she put up with him; and +being perfectly honest and perfectly cold, she never even dreamed of +another ‘affection.’ Besides, she was always completely engrossed in +the care, first, of her own really delicate health, secondly, of the +health of her husband, whose fits always inspired in her something +like superstitious horror, and lastly, of her only son, Misha, whom +she brought up herself with great zeal. Andrei Nikolaevitch did not +oppose his wife’s looking after Misha, on the one condition of his +education never over-stepping the lines laid down, once and for all, +within which everything must move in his house! Thus, for instance, at +Christmas-time, and at New Year, and St. Vassily’s eve, it was +permissible for Misha to dress up and masquerade with the servant +boys--and not only permissible, but even a binding duty.... But, at +any other time, God forbid! and so on, and so on. + + + + +II + + +I remember Misha at thirteen. He was a very pretty boy, with rosy little +cheeks and soft lips (indeed he was soft and plump-looking all over), +with prominent liquid eyes, carefully brushed and combed, caressing and +modest--a regular little girl! There was only one thing about him I did +not like: he rarely laughed; but when he did laugh, his teeth--large +white teeth, pointed like an animal’s--showed disagreeably, and the +laugh itself had an abrupt, even savage, almost animal sound, and there +were unpleasant gleams in his eyes. His mother was always praising him +for being so obedient and well behaved, and not caring to make friends +with rude boys, but always preferring feminine society. ‘A mother’s +darling, a milksop,’ his father, Andrei Nikolaevitch, would call him; +‘but he’s always ready to go into the house of God.... And that I am +glad to see.’ Only one old neighbour, who had been a police captain, +once said before me, speaking of Misha, ‘Mark my words, he’ll be a +rebel.’ And this saying, I remember, surprised me very much at the time. +The old police captain, it is true, used to see rebels on all sides. + +Just such an exemplary youth Misha continued to be till the eighteenth +year of his age, up to the death of his parents, both of whom he lost +almost on the same day. As I was all the while living constantly at +Moscow, I heard nothing of my young kinsman. An acquaintance coming from +his province did, it is true, inform me that Misha had sold the paternal +estate for a trifling sum; but this piece of news struck me as too +wildly improbable! And behold, all of a sudden, one autumn morning there +flew into the courtyard of my house a carriage, with a pair of splendid +trotting horses, and a coachman of monstrous size on the box; and in the +carriage, wrapped in a cloak of military cut, with a beaver collar two +yards deep, and with a foraging cap cocked on one side, _à la diable +m’emporte_, sat ... Misha! On catching sight of me (I was standing at +the drawing-room window, gazing in astonishment at the flying equipage), +he laughed his abrupt laugh, and jauntily flinging back his cloak, he +jumped out of the carriage and ran into the house. + +‘Misha! Mihail Andreevitch!’ I was beginning, ... ‘Is it you?’ + +‘Call me Misha,’--he interrupted me. ‘Yes, it’s I, ... I, in my own +person.... I have come to Moscow ... to see the world ... and show +myself. And here I am, come to see you. What do you say to my +horses?... Eh?’ he laughed again. + +Though it was seven years since I had seen Misha last, I recognised him +at once. His face had remained just as youthful and as pretty as +ever--there was no moustache even visible; only his cheeks looked a +little swollen under his eyes, and a smell of spirits came from his +lips. ‘Have you been long in Moscow?’ I inquired. + +‘I supposed you were at home in the country, looking after the +place.’ ... + +‘Eh! The country I threw up at once! As soon as my parents died--may +their souls rest in peace--(Misha crossed himself scrupulously, without +a shade of mockery) at once, without a moment’s delay, ... _ein, zwei, +drei!_ ha, ha! I let it go cheap, damn it! A rascally fellow turned up. +But it’s no matter! Anyway, I am living as I fancy, and amusing other +people. But why are you staring at me like that? Was I, really, to go +dragging on in the same old round, do you suppose? ... My dear fellow, +couldn’t I have a glass of something?’ + +Misha spoke fearfully quick and hurriedly, and, at the same time, as +though he were only just waked up from sleep. + +‘Misha, upon my word!’ I wailed; ‘have you no fear of God? What do you +look like? What an attire! And you ask for a glass too! And to sell such +a fine estate for next to nothing....’ + +‘God I fear always, and do not forget,’ he broke in.... ‘But He is good, +you know--God is.... He will forgive! And I am good too.... I have +never yet hurt any one in my life. And drink is good too; and as for +hurting,... it never hurt any one either. And my get-up is quite the most +correct thing.... Uncle, would you like me to show you I can walk +straight? Or to do a little dance?’ + +‘Oh, spare me, please! A dance, indeed! You’d better sit down.’ + +‘As to that, I’ll sit down with pleasure.... But why do you say nothing +of my greys? Just look at them, they’re perfect lions! I’ve got them on +hire for the time, but I shall buy them for certain, ... and the +coachman too.... It’s ever so much cheaper to have one’s own horses. And +I had the money, but I lost it yesterday at faro. It’s no matter, I’ll +make it up to-morrow. Uncle, ... how about that little glass?’ + +I was still unable to get over my amazement. ‘Really, Misha, how old are +you? You ought not to be thinking about horses or cards, ... but going +into the university or the service.’ + +Misha first laughed again, then gave vent to a prolonged whistle. + +‘Well, uncle, I see you’re in a melancholy humour to-day. I’ll come +back another time. But I tell you what: you come in the evening to +Sokolniki. I’ve a tent pitched there. The gypsies sing, ... such +goings-on.... And there’s a streamer on the tent, and on the streamer, +written in large letters: “The Troupe of Poltyev’s Gypsies.” The +streamer coils like a snake, the letters are of gold, attractive for +every one to read. A free entertainment--whoever likes to come! ... No +refusal! I’m making the dust fly in Moscow ... to my glory! ... Eh? will +you come? Ah, I’ve one girl there ... a serpent! Black as your boot, +spiteful as a dog, and eyes ... like living coals! One can never tell +what she’s going to do--kiss or bite! ... Will you come, uncle? ... +Well, good-bye, till we meet!’ + +And with a sudden embrace, and a smacking kiss on my shoulder, Misha +darted away into the courtyard, and into the carriage, waved his cap +over his head, hallooed,--the monstrous coachman leered at him over his +beard, the greys dashed off, and all vanished! + +The next day I--like a sinner--set off to Sokolniki, and did actually +see the tent with the streamer and the inscription. The drapery of the +tent was raised; from it came clamour, creaking, and shouting. Crowds of +people were thronging round it. On a carpet spread on the ground sat +gypsies, men and women, singing and beating drums, and in the midst of +them, in a red silk shirt and velvet breeches, was Misha, holding a +guitar, dancing a jig. ‘Gentlemen! honoured friends! walk in, please! +the performance is just beginning! Free to all!’ he was shouting in a +high, cracked voice. ‘Hey! champagne! pop! a pop on the head! pop up to +the ceiling! Ha! you rogue there, Paul de Kock!’ + +Luckily he did not see me, and I hastily made off. + +I won’t enlarge on my astonishment at the spectacle of this +transformation. But, how was it actually possible for that quiet and +modest boy to change all at once into a drunken buffoon? Could it all +have been latent in him from childhood, and have come to the surface +directly the yoke of his parents’ control was removed? But that he had +made the dust fly in Moscow, as he expressed it--of that, certainly, +there could be no doubt. I have seen something of riotous living in my +day; but in this there was a sort of violence, a sort of frenzy of +self-destruction, a sort of desperation! + + + + +III + + +For two months these diversions continued.... And once more I was +standing at my drawing-room window, looking into the courtyard.... All +of a sudden--what could it mean? ... there came slowly stepping in at the +gate a pilgrim ... a squash hat pulled down on his forehead, his hair +combed out straight to right and left below it, a long gown, a leather +belt ... Could it be Misha? He it was! + +I went to meet him on the steps.... ‘What’s this masquerade for?’ +I demanded. + +‘It’s not a masquerade, uncle,’ Misha answered with a deep sigh: since +all I had I’ve squandered to the last farthing--and a great repentance +too has come upon me--so I have resolved to go to the Sergiev monastery +of the Holy Trinity to expiate my sins in prayer. For what refuge was +left me? ... And so I have come to you to say good-bye, uncle, like a +prodigal son.’ + +I looked intently at Misha. His face was just the same, rosy and fresh +(indeed it remained almost unchanged to the end), and the eyes, liquid, +affectionate, and languishing--and the hands, as small and white.... But +he smelt of spirits. + +‘Well,’ I pronounced at last, ‘it’s a good thing to do--since there’s +nothing else to be done. But why is it you smell of spirits?’ + +‘A relic of the past,’ answered Misha, and he suddenly laughed, but +immediately pulled himself up, and, making a straight, low bow--a monk’s +bow--he added: ‘Won’t you help me on my way? I’m going, see, on foot to +the monastery....’ + +‘When?’ + +‘To-day ... at once.’ + +‘Why be in such a hurry?’ + +‘Uncle, my motto always was, “Make haste, make haste!”’ + +‘But what is your motto now?’ + +‘It’s the same now.... Only, make haste towards _good_!’ + +And so Misha went off, leaving me to ponder on the vicissitudes of +human destiny. + +But he soon reminded me of his existence. Two months after his visit, I +got a letter from him, the first of those letters, of which later on he +furnished me with so abundant a supply. And note a peculiar fact: I +have seldom seen a neater, more legible handwriting than that +unbalanced fellow’s. And the wording of his letters was exceedingly +correct, just a little flowery. Invariable entreaties for assistance, +always attended with resolutions to reform, vows, and promises on his +honour.... All of it seemed--and perhaps was--sincere. Misha’s +signature to his letters was always accompanied by peculiar strokes, +flourishes, and stops, and he made great use of marks of exclamation. +In this first letter Misha informed me of a new ‘turn in his fortune.’ +(Later on he used to refer to these turns as plunges, ... and frequent +were the plunges he took.) He was starting for the Caucasus on active +service for his tsar and his country in the capacity of a cadet! And, +though a certain benevolent aunt had entered into his impecunious +position, and had sent him an inconsiderable sum, still he begged me to +assist him in getting his equipment. I did what he asked, and for two +years I heard nothing more of him. + +I must own I had the gravest doubts as to his having gone to the +Caucasus. But it turned out that he really had gone there, had, by +favour, got into the T---- regiment as a cadet, and had been serving in +it for those two years. A perfect series of legends had sprung up there +about him. An officer of his regiment related them to me. + + + + +IV + + +I learned a great deal which I should never have expected of him.--I +was, of course, hardly surprised that as a military man, as an officer, +he was not a success, that he was in fact worse than useless; but what I +had not anticipated was that he was by no means conspicuous for much +bravery; that in battle he had a downcast, woebegone air, seemed +half-depressed, half-bewildered. Discipline of every sort worried him, +and made him miserable; he was daring to the point of insanity when only +his _own personal_ safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him to +accept; but do harm to others, kill, fight, he could not, possibly +because his heart was too good--or possibly because his ‘cottonwool’ +education (so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself he was +quite ready to murder in any way at any moment.... But others--no. +‘There’s no making him out,’ his comrades said of him; ‘he’s a flabby +creature, a poor stick--and yet such a desperate fellow--a perfect +madman!’ I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit +drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his life, and so +on. He always had one answer--‘wretchedness.’ + +‘But why are you wretched?’ + +‘Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one’s self, begins to +feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well, +it’s all over with me! ... one’s so wretched at once--one wants to put a +bullet through one’s head! One’s forced to start drinking.’ + +‘Why ever do you drag Russia in?’ + +‘How can I help it? Can’t be helped! That’s why I’m afraid to think.’ + +‘It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.’ + +‘But I don’t know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one’s +life, and stake it on a card--that I can do! Come, you tell me what I +ought to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I’ll ...’ + +‘But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?’ + +‘I can’t! You say I act thoughtlessly.... But what else can I do? ... If +one starts thinking--good God, all that comes into one’s head! It’s only +Germans who can think! ...’ + +What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate man, and that’s all +one can say. + +Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will tell you two or +three. One day, in a party of officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre +he had got by exchange--‘a genuine Persian blade!’ The officers +expressed doubts as to its genuineness. Misha began disputing. ‘Here +then,’ he cried at last; ‘they say the man that knows most about sabres +is Abdulka the one-eyed. I’ll go to him, and ask.’ The officers +wondered. ‘What Abdulka? Do you mean that lives in the mountains? The +rebel never subdued? Abdul-khan?’ ‘Yes, that’s him.’ ‘Why, but he’ll +take you for a spy, will put you in a hole full of bugs, or else cut +your head off with your own sabre. And, besides, how are you going to +get to him? They’ll catch you directly.’ ‘I’ll go to him, though, all +the same.’ ‘Bet you won’t!’ ‘Taken!’ And Misha promptly saddled his +horse and rode off to Abdulka. He disappeared for three days. All felt +certain that the crazy fellow had come by his end. But, behold! he came +back--drunk, and with a sabre, not the one he had taken, but another. +They began questioning him. ‘It was all right,’ said he; ‘Abdulka’s a +nice fellow. At first, it’s true, he ordered them to put irons on my +legs, and was even on the point of having me impaled. Only, I explained +why I had come, and showed him the sabre. “And you’d better not keep +me,” said I; “don’t expect a ransom for me; I’ve not a farthing to bless +myself with--and I’ve no relations.” Abdulka was surprised; he looked at +me with his solitary eye. “Well,” said he, “you are a bold one, you +Russian; am I to believe you?” “You may believe me,” said I; “I never +tell a lie.” (And this was true; Misha never lied.) Abdulka looked at me +again. “And do you know how to drink wine?” “I do,” said I; “give me as +much as you will, I’ll drink it.” Abdulka was surprised again; he called +on Allah. And he told his--daughter, I suppose--such a pretty creature, +only with an eye like a jackal’s--to bring a wine-skin. And I began to +get to work on it. “But your sabre,” said he, “isn’t genuine; here, take +the real thing. And now we are pledged friends.” But you’ve lost your +bet, gentlemen; pay up.’ + +The second legend of Misha is of this nature. He was passionately fond +of cards; but as he had no money, and could never pay his debts at cards +(though he was never a card-sharper), no one at last would sit down to a +game with him. So one day he began urgently begging one of his comrades +among the officers to play with him! ‘But if you lose, you don’t pay.’ +‘The money certainly I can’t pay, but I’ll put a shot through my left +hand, see, with this pistol here!’ ‘But whatever use will that be to +me?’ ‘No use, but still it will be curious.’ This conversation took +place after a drinking bout in the presence of witnesses. Whether it was +that Misha’s proposition struck the officer as really curious--anyway he +agreed. Cards were brought, the game began. Misha was in luck; he won a +hundred roubles. And thereupon his opponent struck his forehead with +vexation. ‘What an ass I am!’ he cried, ‘to be taken in like this! As if +you’d have shot your hand if you had lost!--a likely story! hold out +your purse!’ ‘That’s a lie,’ retorted Misha: ‘I’ve won--but I’ll shoot +my hand.’ He snatched up his pistol--and bang, fired at his own hand. +The bullet passed right through it ... and in a week the wound had +completely healed. + +Another time, Misha was riding with his comrades along a road at +night ... and they saw close to the roadside a narrow ravine like a deep +cleft, dark--so dark you couldn’t see the bottom. ‘Look,’ said one of +the officers, ‘Misha may be a desperate fellow, but he wouldn’t leap +into that ravine.’ ‘Yes, I’d leap in!’ ‘No, you wouldn’t, for I dare say +it’s seventy feet deep, and you might break your neck.’ His friend knew +his weak point--vanity.... There was a great deal of it in Misha. ‘But +I’ll leap in anyway! Would you like to bet on it? Ten roubles.’ ‘Good!’ +And the officer had hardly uttered the word, when Misha and his horse +were off--into the ravine--and crashing down over the stones. All were +simply petrified.... A full minute passed, and they heard Misha’s voice, +dimly, as it were rising up out of the bowels of the earth: ‘All right! +fell on the sand ... but it was a long flight! Ten roubles you’ve lost!’ + +‘Climb out!’ shouted his comrades. ‘Climb out, I dare say!’ echoed +Misha. ‘A likely story! I should like to see you climb out. You’ll have +to go for torches and ropes now. And, meanwhile, to keep up my spirits +while I wait, fling down a flask....’ + +And so Misha had to stay five hours at the bottom of the ravine; and +when they dragged him out, it turned out that his shoulder was +dislocated. But that in no way troubled him. The next day a bone-setter, +one of the black-smiths, set his shoulder, and he used it as though +nothing had been the matter. + +His health in general was marvellous, incredible. I have already +mentioned that up to the time of his death he kept his almost childishly +fresh complexion. Illness was a thing unknown to him, in spite of his +excesses; the strength of his constitution never once showed signs of +giving way. When any other man would infallibly have been seriously ill, +or even have died, he merely shook himself, like a duck in the water, +and was more blooming than ever. Once, also in the Caucasus ... _this_ +legend is really incredible, but one may judge from it what Misha was +thought to be capable of.... Well, once, in the Caucasus, in a state of +drunkenness, he fell down with the lower half of his body in a stream of +water; his head and arms were on the bank, out of water. It was +winter-time, there was a hard frost, and when he was found next morning, +his legs and body were pulled out from under a thick layer of ice, which +had formed over them in the night--and he didn’t even catch cold! +Another time--this was in Russia (near Orel, and also in a time of +severe frost)--he was in a tavern outside the town in company with seven +young seminarists (or theological students), and these seminarists were +celebrating their final examination, but had invited Misha, as a +delightful person, a man of ‘inspiration,’ as the phrase was then. A +very great deal was drunk, and when at last the festive party got ready +to depart, Misha, dead drunk, was in an unconscious condition. All the +seven seminarists together had but one three-horse sledge with a high +back; where were they to stow the unresisting body? Then one of the +young men, inspired by classical reminiscences, proposed tying Misha by +his feet to the back of the sledge, as Hector was tied to the chariot of +Achilles! The proposal met with approval ... and jolting up and down +over the holes, sliding sideways down the slopes, with his legs torn and +flayed, and his head rolling in the snow, poor Misha travelled on his +back for the mile and a half from the tavern to the town, and hadn’t as +much as a cough afterwards, hadn’t turned a hair! Such heroic health had +nature bestowed upon him! + + + + +V + + +From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian dress, a +dagger in his sash, a high-peaked cap on his head. This costume he +retained to the end, though he was no longer in the army, from which he +had been discharged for outstaying his leave. He stayed with me, +borrowed a little money ... and forthwith began his ‘plunges,’ his +wanderings, or, as he expressed it, ‘his peregrinations from pillar to +post,’ then came the sudden disappearances and returns, and the showers +of beautifully written letters addressed to people of every possible +description, from an archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives! Then +came calls upon persons known and unknown! And this is worth noticing: +when he made these calls, he was never abject and cringing, he never +worried people by begging, but on the contrary behaved with propriety, +and had positively a cheerful and pleasant air, though the inveterate +smell of spirits accompanied him everywhere, and his Oriental costume +gradually changed into rags. ‘Give, and God will reward you, though I +don’t deserve it,’ he would say, with a bright smile and a candid blush; +‘if you don’t give, you’ll be perfectly right, and I shan’t blame you +for it. I shall find food to eat, God will provide! And there are people +poorer than I, and much more deserving of help--plenty, plenty!’ Misha +was particularly successful with women: he knew how to appeal to their +sympathy. But don’t suppose that he was or fancied himself a +Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very modest. Whether it was that +he had inherited a cool temperament from his parents, or whether indeed +this too is to be set down to his dislike for doing any one harm--as, +according to his notions, relations with a woman meant inevitably doing +a woman harm--I won’t undertake to decide; only in all his behaviour +with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women felt this, and were +the more ready to sympathise with him and help him, until at last he +revolted them by his drunkenness and debauchery, by the desperateness of +which I have spoken already.... I can think of no other word for it. + +But in other relations he had by that time lost every sort of delicacy, +and was gradually sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. He once, +in the public assembly at T----, got as far as setting on the table a +jug with a notice: ‘Any one, to whom it may seem agreeable to give the +high-born nobleman Poltyev (authentic documents in proof of his +pedigree are herewith exposed) a flip on the nose, may satisfy this +inclination on putting a rouble into this jug.’ And I am told there +were persons found willing to pay for the privilege of flipping a +nobleman’s nose! It is true that one such person, who put in only one +rouble and gave him _two_ flips, he first almost strangled, and then +forced to apologise; it is true, too, that part of the money gained in +this fashion he promptly distributed among other poor devils ... but +still, think what a disgrace! + +In the course of his ‘peregrinations from pillar to post,’ he made his +way, too, to his ancestral home, which he had sold for next to nothing +to a speculator and money-lender well known in those days. The +money-lender was at home, and hearing of the presence in the +neighbourhood of the former owner, now reduced to vagrancy, he gave +orders not to admit him into the house, and even, in case of necessity, +to drive him away. Misha announced that he would not for his part +consent to enter the house, polluted by the presence of so repulsive a +person; that he would permit no one to drive him away, but was going to +the churchyard to pay his devotions at the grave of his parents. So in +fact he did. + +In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been +his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly +allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been +a corner in a peasant’s hut. Misha had been too short a time in +possession of his estate to have left behind him a particularly +favourable memory; still the old servant could not resist running to the +churchyard as soon as he heard of his young master’s being there. He +found Misha sitting on the ground between the tombstones, asked for his +hand to kiss, as in old times, and even shed tears on seeing the rags +which clothed the limbs of his once pampered young charge. + +Misha gazed long and silently at the old man. ‘Timofay!’ he said at +last; Timofay started. + +‘What do you desire?’ + +‘Have you a spade?’ + +‘I can get one.... But what do you want with a spade, Mihailo +Andreitch, sir?’ + +‘I want to dig myself a grave, Timofay, and to lie here for time +everlasting between my father and mother. There’s only this spot left me +in the world. Get a spade!’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ said Timofay; he went and got it. And Misha began at once +digging in the ground, while Timofay stood by, his chin propped in his +hand, repeating: ‘It’s all that’s left for you and me, master!’ + +Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: ‘Life’s not worth +living, is it, Timofay?’ + +‘It’s not indeed, master.’ + +The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about, +and ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first +very angry, wanted to send for the police: ‘This is sacrilege,’ said he. +But afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to +have to do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,--he +went in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still +toiling, made him a polite bow. He went on with his digging as though he +had not noticed his successor. ‘Mihail Andreitch,’ began the +money-lender, ‘allow me to ask what you are doing here?’ + +‘You can see--I am digging myself a grave.’ + +‘Why are you doing so?’ + +‘Because I don’t want to live any longer.’ + +The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. ‘You don’t +want to live?’ + +Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. ‘That surprises you? +Aren’t you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn’t it you, +Judas, who robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren’t you +flaying the peasants’ skins off their backs? Haven’t you taken from +this poor old man his crust of dry bread? Wasn’t it you? ... O God! +everywhere nothing but injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing.... +Everything must go to ruin then, and me too! I don’t care for life, I +don’t care for life in Russia!’ And the spade moved faster than ever in +Misha’s hands. + +‘Here’s a devil of a business!’ thought the money-lender; ‘he’s +positively burying himself alive.’ ‘Mihail Andreevitch,’ he began +again: ‘listen. I’ve been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me +falsely of you.’ + +Misha went on digging. + +‘But why be desperate?’ + +Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the +money-lender’s feet, as though to say, ‘Here you are, land-grabber.’ + +‘Really, you ‘re wrong in this. Won’t you be pleased to come in to have +some lunch, and rest a bit?’ + +Misha raised his head. ‘So that’s it now! And anything to drink?’ + +The money-lender was delighted. ‘Why, of course ... I should think so.’ + +‘You invite Timofay too?’ + +‘Well, ... yes, him too.’ + +Misha pondered. ‘Only, mind ... you made me a beggar, you know.... Don’t +think you can get off with one bottle!’ + +‘Set your mind at rest ... there shall be all you can want.’ + +Misha got up and flung down the spade.... ‘Well, Timosha,’ said he to +his old nurse; ‘let’s do honour to our host.... Come along.’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ answered the old man. + +And all three started off to the house together. The money-lender knew +the man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, +exacted a promise from him to ‘grant all sorts of immunities’ to the +peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, +both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still +seemed pervaded by the God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an +hour later still, Misha in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for +spirits), laid in a cart with his high cap and dagger, was being driven +off to the town, more than twenty miles away, and there was flung under +a hedge.... As for Timofay, who could still keep on his legs, and only +hiccupped--him, of course, they kicked out of the house; since they +couldn’t get at the master, they had to be content with the old servant. + + + + +VI + + +Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha.... God knows what +he was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a +posting-station on the T---- highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly +heard under the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering +in French the words: ‘Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitié d’un pauvre +gentil-homme ruiné.’ ... I lifted my head, glanced.... The +mangy-looking fur cap, the broken ornaments on the ragged Circassian +dress, the dagger in the cracked sheath, the swollen, but still rosy +face, the dishevelled, but still thick crop of hair.... Mercy on us! +Misha! He had come then to begging alms on the high-roads. I could not +help crying out. He recognised me, started, turned away, and was about +to move away from the window. I stopped him ... but what could I say to +him? Give him a lecture? ... In silence I held out a five-rouble note; +he, also in silence, took it in his still white and plump, though +shaking and dirty hand, and vanished round the corner of the house. + +It was a good while before they gave me horses, and I had time to give +myself up to gloomy reflections on my unexpected meeting with Misha; I +felt ashamed of having let him go so unsympathetically. + +At last I set off on my way, and half a mile from the station I observed +ahead of me, in the road, a crowd of people moving along with a curious, +as it seemed rhythmic, step. I overtook this crowd--and what did I see? + +Some dozen or so beggars, with sacks over their shoulders, were walking +two by two, singing and leaping about, while in front of them danced +Misha, stamping time with his feet, and shouting, ‘Natchiki-tchikaldy, +tchuk, tchuk, tchuk! ... Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk!’ +Directly my carriage caught them up, and he saw me, he began at once +shouting, ‘Hurrah! Stand in position! right about face, guard of the +roadside!’ + +The beggars took up his shout, and halted; while he, with his peculiar +laugh, jumped on to the carriage step, and again yelled: Hurrah! + +‘What’s the meaning of this?’ I asked with involuntary astonishment. + +‘This? This is my company, my army--all beggars, God’s people, friends +of my heart. Every one of them, thanks to you, has had a glass; and +now we are all rejoicing and making merry! ... Uncle! Do you know it’s +only with beggars, God’s people, that one can live in the world ... by +God, it is!’ + +I made him no answer ... but at that moment he struck me as such +a kind good creature, his face expressed such childlike +simple-heartedness.... A light seemed suddenly as it were to dawn upon +me, and I felt a pang in my heart.... ‘Get into the carriage,’ I said +to him. He was taken aback.... + +‘What? Into the carriage?’ + +‘Yes, get in, get in,’ I repeated; ‘I want to make you a suggestion. Sit +down.... Come along with me.’ + +‘Well, as you will.’ He sat down. ‘Well, and you, my honoured friends, +my dear comrades,’ he added, addressing the beggars, ‘fare-well, till we +meet again.’ Misha took off his high cap, and bowed low. The beggars all +seemed overawed.... I told the coachman to whip up the horses, and the +carriage rolled off. + +The suggestion I wanted to make Misha was this: the idea suddenly +occurred to me to take him with me to my home in the country, about +five-and-twenty miles from that station, to rescue him, or at least to +make an effort to rescue him. ‘Listen, Misha,’ I said; ‘will you come +along and live with me? ... You shall have everything provided you; you +shall have clothes and linen made you; you shall be properly fitted out, +and you shall have money to spend on tobacco, and so on, only on one +condition, that you give up drink.... Do you agree?’ + +Misha was positively aghast with delight; he opened his eyes wide, +flushed crimson, and suddenly falling on my shoulder, began kissing me, +and repeating in a broken voice, ‘Uncle ... benefactor ... God reward +you.’ ... He burst into tears at last, and taking off his cap fell to +wiping his eyes, his nose, his lips with it. + +‘Mind,’ I observed; ‘remember the condition, not to touch strong drink.’ + +‘Damnation to it!’ he cried, with a wave of both arms, and with this +impetuous movement, I was more than ever conscious of the strong smell +of spirits with which he seemed always saturated.... ‘Uncle, if you +knew what my life has been.... If it hadn’t been for sorrow, a cruel +fate.... But now I swear, I swear, I will mend my ways, I will show +you.... Uncle, I’ve never told a lie--you can ask whom you like.... I’m +honest, but I’m an unlucky fellow, uncle; I’ve known no kindness from +any one....’ + +Here he broke down finally into sobs. I tried to soothe him, and +succeeded so far that when we reached home Misha had long been lost in a +heavy sleep, with his head on my knees. + + + + +VII + + +He was at once assigned a room for himself, and at once, first thing, +taken to the bath, which was absolutely essential. All his clothes, and +his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he +was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which, +as is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt +themselves to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean, +and fresh, he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such +joyful gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was +completely transformed.... Boys of twelve have faces like that on Easter +Sundays, after the communion, when, thickly pomaded, in new jacket and +starched collars, they come to exchange Easter greetings with their +parents. Misha was continually--with a sort of cautious +incredulity--feeling himself and repeating: ‘What does it mean? ... Am I +in heaven?’ The next day he announced that he had not slept all night, +he had been in such ecstasy. + +I had living in my house at that time an old aunt with her niece; both +of them were extremely disturbed when they heard of Misha’s presence; +they could not comprehend how I could have asked him into my house! +There were very ugly rumours about him. But in the first place, I knew +he was always very courteous with ladies; and, secondly, I counted on +his promises of amendment. And, in fact, for the first two days of his +stay under my roof Misha not merely justified my expectations but +surpassed them, while the ladies of the household were simply enchanted +with him. He played piquet with the old lady, helped her to wind her +worsted, showed her two new games of patience; for the niece, who had a +small voice, he played accompaniments on the piano, and read Russian and +French poetry. He told both the ladies lively but discreet anecdotes; in +fact, he showed them every attention, so that they repeatedly expressed +their surprise to me, and the old lady even observed how unjust people +sometimes were.... The things--the things they had said of him ... and +he such a quiet fellow, and so polite ... poor Misha! It is true that at +table ‘poor Misha’ licked his lips in a rather peculiar, hurried way, if +he simply glanced at the bottle. But I had only to shake my finger at +him, and he would turn his eyes upwards, and lay his hand on his +heart ... as if to say, I have sworn.... ‘I am regenerated now,’ he +assured me.... ‘Well, God grant it be so,’ was my thought.... But +this regeneration did not last long. + +The first two days he was very talkative and cheerful. But even on the +third day he seemed somehow subdued, though he remained, as before, with +the ladies and tried to entertain them. A half mournful, half dreamy +expression flitted now and then over his face, and the face itself was +paler and looked thinner. ‘Are you unwell?’ I asked him. + +‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘my head aches a little.’ On the fourth day he was +completely silent; for the most part he sat in a corner, hanging his +head disconsolately, and his dejected appearance worked upon the +compassionate sympathies of the two ladies, who now, in their turn, +tried to amuse him. At table he ate nothing, stared at his plate, and +rolled up pellets of bread. On the fifth day the feeling of compassion +in the ladies began to be replaced by other emotions--uneasiness and +even alarm. Misha was so strange, he held aloof from people, and kept +moving along close to the walls, as though trying to steal by unnoticed, +and suddenly looking round as though some one had called him. And what +had become of his rosy colour? It seemed covered over by a layer of +earth. ‘Are you still unwell?’ I asked him. + +‘No, I’m all right,’ he answered abruptly. + +‘Are you dull?’ + +‘Why should I be dull?’ But he turned away and would not look me +in the face. + +‘Or is it that wretchedness come over you again?’ To this he made no +reply. So passed another twenty-four hours. + +Next day my aunt ran into my room in a state of great excitement, +declaring that she would leave the house with her niece, if Misha was to +remain in it. + +‘Why so?’ + +‘Why, we are dreadfully scared with him.... He’s not a man, he’s a +wolf,--nothing better than a wolf. He keeps moving and moving about, and +doesn’t speak--and looks so wild.... He almost gnashes his teeth at me. +My Katia, you know, is so nervous.... She was so struck with him the +first day.... I’m in terror for her, and indeed for myself too.’ ... I +didn’t know what to say to my aunt. I couldn’t, anyway, turn Misha out, +after inviting him. + +He relieved me himself from my difficult position. The same day,--I was +still sitting in my own room,--suddenly I heard behind me a husky and +angry voice: ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch, Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ I looked round; +Misha was standing in the doorway with a face that was fearful, +black-looking and distorted. ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ he repeated ... (not +‘uncle’ now). + +‘What do you want?’ + +‘Let me go ... at once!’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘Let me go, or I shall do mischief, I shall set the house on fire or cut +some one’s throat.’ Misha suddenly began trembling. ‘Tell them to give +me back my clothes, and let a cart take me to the highroad, and let me +have some money, however little!’ + +‘Are you displeased, then, at anything?’ + +‘I can’t live like this!’ he shrieked at the top of his voice. ‘I can’t +live in your respectable, thrice-accursed house! It makes me sick, and +ashamed to live so quietly! ... How _you_ manage to endure it!’ + +‘That is,’ I interrupted in my turn, ‘you mean--you can’t live without +drink....’ + +‘Well, yes! yes!’ he shrieked again: ‘only let me go to my +brethren, my friends, to the beggars! ... Away from your +respectable, loathsome species!’ + +I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha’s frenzied +look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs,--it was +all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his +clothes should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking +a note for twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the +table. Misha had begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,--but +on this, suddenly he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck +himself on the breast, the tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering, +‘Uncle! angel! I know I’m a ruined man! thanks! thanks!’ he snatched +up the note and ran away. + +An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his +Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses +started, he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his +head, made bow after bow. Just as he was going off, he had given me a +long and warm embrace, and whispered, ‘Benefactor, benefactor ... +there’s no saving me!’ He even ran to the ladies and kissed their hands, +fell on his knees, called upon God, and begged their forgiveness! Katia +I found afterwards in tears. + +The coachman, with whom Misha had set off, on coming home informed me +that he had driven him to the first tavern on the highroad--and that +there ‘his honour had stuck,’ had begun treating every one +indiscriminately--and had quickly sunk into unconsciousness. +From that day I never came across Misha again, but his ultimate fate I +learned in the following manner. + + + +VIII + + +Three years later, I was again at home in the country; all of a sudden a +servant came in and announced that Madame Poltyev was asking to see me. +I knew no Madame Poltyev, and the servant, who made this announcement, +for some unknown reason smiled sarcastically. To my glance of inquiry, +he responded that the lady asking for me was young, poorly dressed, and +had come in a peasant’s cart with one horse, which she was driving +herself! I told him to ask Madame Poltyev up to my room. + +I saw a woman of five-and-twenty, in the dress of the small tradesman +class, with a large kerchief on her head. Her face was simple, roundish, +not without charm; she looked dejected and gloomy, and was shy and +awkward in her movements. + +‘You are Madame Poltyev?’ I inquired, and I asked her to sit down. + +‘Yes,’ she answered in a subdued voice, and she did not sit down. ‘I am +the widow of your nephew, Mihail Andreevitch Poltyev.’ + +‘Is Mihail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long? But sit down, I +beg.’ + +She sank into a chair. + +‘It’s two months.’ + +‘And had you been married to him long?’ + +‘I had been a year with him.’ + +‘Where have you come from now?’ + +‘From out Tula way.... There’s a village there, +Znamenskoe-Glushkovo--perhaps you may know it. I am the daughter of the +deacon there. Mihail Andreitch and I lived there.... He lived in my +father’s house. We were a whole year together.’ + +The young woman’s lips twitched a little, and she put her hand up to +them. She seemed to be on the point of tears, but she controlled +herself, and cleared her throat. + +‘Mihail Andreitch,’ she went on: ‘before his death enjoined upon me to +go to you; “You must be sure to go,” said he! And he told me to thank +you for all your goodness, and to give you ... this ... see, this little +thing (she took a small packet out of her pocket) which he always had +about him.... And Mihail Andreitch said, if you would be pleased to +accept it in memory of him, if you would not disdain it.... “There’s +nothing else,” said he, “I can give him” ... that is, you....’ + +In the packet there was a little silver cup with the monogram of Misha’s +mother. This cup I had often seen in Misha’s hands, and once he had even +said to me, speaking of some poor fellow, that he really was destitute, +since he had neither cup nor bowl, ‘while I, see, have this anyway.’ + +I thanked her, took the cup, and asked: + +‘Of what complaint had Misha died? No doubt....’ + +Then I bit my tongue ... but the young woman understood my unuttered +hint.... She took a swift glance at me, then looked down again, smiled +mournfully, and said at once: ‘Oh no! he had quite given that up, ever +since he got to know me ... But he had no health at all! ... It was +shattered quite. As soon as he gave up drink, he fell into ill health +directly. He became so steady; he always wanted to help father in his +land or in the garden, ... or any other work there might be ... in spite +of his being of noble birth. But how could he get the strength? ... At +writing, too, he tried to work; as you know, he could do that work +capitally, but his hands shook, and he couldn’t hold the pen properly. +... He was always finding fault with himself; “I’m a white-handed poor +creature,” he would say; “I’ve never done any good to anybody, never +helped, never laboured!” He worried himself very much about that.... He +used to say that our people labour,--but what use are we? ... Ah, +Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a good man--and he was fond of me ... and +I... Ah, pardon me....’ + +Here the young woman wept outright. I would have consoled her, but I did +not know how. + +‘Have you a child left you?’ I asked at last. + +She sighed. ‘No, no child.... Is it likely?’ And her tears flowed faster +than ever. + +‘And so that was how Misha’s troubled wanderings had ended,’ the old man +P. wound up his narrative. ‘You will agree with me, I am sure, that I’m +right in calling him a desperate character; but you will most likely +agree too that he was not like the desperate characters of to-day; +still, a philosopher, you must admit, would find a family likeness +between him and them. In him and in them there’s the thirst for +self-destruction, the wretchedness, the dissatisfaction.... And what it +all comes from, I leave the philosopher to decide.’ + + +BOUGIVALLE, _November_ 1881. + + + + +A STRANGE STORY + + + + +I + + +Fifteen years ago--began H.--official duties compelled me to spend a few +days in the principal town of the province of T----. I stopped at a very +fair hotel, which had been established six months before my arrival by a +Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that it did not flourish +long, which is often the case with us; but I found it still in its full +splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like pistol-shots at night; +the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of soap, and the painted +floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the opinion of the +waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean individual, tended to +prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former valet of Prince +G.’s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and his +self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and slippers +trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and had a +multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of his +moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He +showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating +his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in +life with a rather disillusioned eye. ‘No doubt about it,’ he said to me +one day; ‘ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying +any day!’ His name was Ardalion. + +I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion +procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the +joints; but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an +heraldic crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a +country gentleman, an old friend of my father’s, who had been a long +time settled in the town.... I had not met him for twenty years; he had +had time to get married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a +widower and to make his fortune. His business was with government +monopolies, that is to say, he lent contractors for monopolies loans at +heavy interest.... ‘There is always honour in risk,’ they say, though +indeed the risk was small. + +In the course of our conversation there came into the room with +hesitating steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of +about seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. ‘Here,’ said my +acquaintance, ‘is my eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She +takes my poor wife’s place, looks after the house, and takes care of her +brothers and sisters.’ I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in +(she meanwhile dropped into a chair without speaking), and thought to +myself that she did not look much like housekeeping or looking after +children. Her face was quite childish, round, with small, pleasing, but +immobile features; the blue eyes, under high, also immobile and +irregular eyebrows, had an intent, almost astonished look, as though +they had just observed something unexpected; the full little mouth with +the lifted upper lip, not only did not smile, but seemed as though +altogether innocent of such a practice; the rosy flush under the tender +skin stood in soft, diffused patches on the cheeks, and neither paled +nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in light clusters each side of +the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, and her arms were pressed +somehow awkwardly and severely against her narrow waist. Her blue gown +fell without folds--like a child’s--to her little feet. The general +impression this girl made upon me was not one of morbidity, but of +something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a shy, provincial +miss, but a creature of a special type--that I could not make out. This +type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully understand it, +and only felt that I had never come across a nature more sincere. Pity +... yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the sight of +this young, serious, keenly alert life--God knows why! ‘Not of this +earth,’ was my thought, though there was nothing exactly ‘ideal’ in the +expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had obviously +come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady of the +house to which her father had referred. + +He began to talk of life in the town of T----, of the social amusements +and advantages it offered. ‘We’re very quiet here,’ he observed; ‘the +governor’s a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province is a +bachelor. But there’ll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the day +after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here. +And you’ll see all our _intelligentsi_ too.’ + +My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using +learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with +respect. Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with +respectability, developes a certain thoughtfulness in men. + +‘Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?’ I said, turning to my +friend’s daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice. + +‘Papa intends to go,’ she answered, ‘and I with him.’ + +Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated +every syllable fully, as though she were puzzled. + +‘In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.’ + +She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile. + +I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed +steadily upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked +over my shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing +she was looking at behind my back. + +I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied +‘soupe-julienne,’ cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry, +black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The +subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my +old acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my +thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom. + +‘There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our +town,’ he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at +the same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty +dinner-napkin--a practice peculiar, as you’re doubtless aware, to +servants of superior education. ‘Very little!’ + +He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its +white face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words: +‘Ve-ry! ve-ry!’ it ticked. ‘No concerts, nor theatres,’ pursued Ardalion +(he had travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in +Paris; he knew much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the +peasants do)--‘nor dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the +nobility and gentry--there is nothing of the kind whatever.’ (He paused +a moment, probably to allow me to observe the choiceness of his +diction.) ‘They positively visit each other but seldom. Every one sits +like a pigeon on its perch. And so it comes to pass that visitors have +simply nowhere to go.’ + +Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me. + +‘But there is one thing,’ he went on, speaking with a drawl, ‘in case +you should feel that way inclined....’ + +He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did +not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me. + +The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came +back, and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear, +and with a playful smile said: + +‘Would you not like to behold the dead?’ + +I stared at him in perplexity. + +‘Yes,’ he went on, speaking in a whisper; ‘there is a man like that +here. He’s a simple artisan, and can’t even read and write, but he does +marvellous things. If you, for example, go to him and desire to see any +one of your departed friends, he will be sure to show him you.’ + +‘How does he do it?’ + +‘That’s his secret. For though he’s an uneducated man--to speak bluntly, +illiterate--he’s very great in godliness! Greatly respected he is among +the merchant gentry!’ + +‘And does every one in the town know about this?’ + +‘Those who need to know; but, there, of course--there’s danger from the +police to be guarded against. Because, say what you will, such doings +are forbidden anyway, and for the common people are a temptation; the +common people--the mob, we all know, quickly come to blows.’ + +‘Has he shown you the dead?’ I asked Ardalion. + +Ardalion nodded. ‘He has; my father he brought before me as if living.’ + +I stared at Ardalion. He laughed and played with his dinner-napkin, and +condescendingly, but unflinchingly, looked at me. + +‘But this is very curious!’ I cried at last. ‘Couldn’t I make the +acquaintance of this artisan?’ + +‘You can’t go straight to him; but one can act through his mother. She’s +a respectable old woman; she sells pickled apples on the bridge. If you +wish it, I will ask her.’ + +‘Please do.’ + +Ardalion coughed behind his hand. ‘And a gratuity, whatever you think +fit, nothing much, of course, should also be handed to her--the old +lady. And I on my side will make her understand that she has nothing to +fear from you, as you are a visitor here, a gentleman--and of course you +can understand that this is a secret, and will not in any case get her +into any unpleasantness.’ + +Ardalion took the tray in one hand, and with a graceful swing of the +tray and his own person, turned towards the door. + +‘So I may reckon upon you!’ I shouted after him. + +‘You may trust me!’ I heard his self-satisfied voice say: ‘We’ll talk to +the old woman and transmit you her answer exactly.’ + + * * * * * + +I will not enlarge on the train of thought aroused in me by the +extraordinary fact Ardalion had related; but I am prepared to admit that +I awaited the promised reply with impatience. Late in the evening +Ardalion came to me and announced that to his annoyance he could not +find the old woman. I handed him, however, by way of encouragement, a +three-rouble note. The next morning he appeared again in my room with a +beaming countenance; the old woman had consented to see me. + +‘Hi! boy!’ shouted Ardalion in the corridor; ‘Hi! apprentice! Come +here!’ A boy of six came up, grimed all over with soot like a kitten, +with a shaved head, perfectly bald in places, in a torn, striped smock, +and huge goloshes on his bare feet. ‘You take the gentleman, you know +where,’ said Ardalion, addressing the ‘apprentice,’ and pointing to me. +‘And you, sir, when you arrive, ask for Mastridia Karpovna.’ + +The boy uttered a hoarse grunt, and we set off. + + * * * * * + +We walked rather a long while about the unpaved streets of the town of +T----; at last in one of them, almost the most deserted and desolate of +all, my guide stopped before an old two-story wooden house, and wiping +his nose all over his smock-sleeve, said: ‘Here; go to the right.’ I +passed through the porch into the outer passage, stumbled towards my +right, a low door creaked on rusty hinges, and I saw before me a stout +old woman in a brown jacket lined with hare-skin, with a parti-coloured +kerchief on her head. + +‘Mastridia Karpovna?’ I inquired. + +‘The same, at your service,’ the old woman replied in a piping voice. +‘Please walk in. Won’t you take a chair?’ + +The room into which the old woman conducted me was so littered up with +every sort of rubbish, rags, pillows, feather-beds, sacks, that one +could hardly turn round in it. The sunlight barely struggled in through +two dusty little windows; in one corner, from behind a heap of boxes +piled on one another, there came a feeble whimpering and wailing.... I +could not tell from what; perhaps a sick baby, or perhaps a puppy. I sat +down on a chair, and the old woman stood up directly facing me. Her face +was yellow, half-transparent like wax; her lips were so fallen in that +they formed a single straight line in the midst of a multitude of +wrinkles; a tuft of white hair stuck out from below the kerchief on her +head, but the sunken grey eyes peered out alertly and cleverly from +under the bony overhanging brow; and the sharp nose fairly stuck out +like a spindle, fairly sniffed the air as if it would say: I’m a smart +one! ‘Well, you’re no fool!’ was my thought. At the same time she smelt +of spirits. + +I explained to her the object of my visit, of which, however, as I +observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes +rapidly, and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply, +as though she were making ready to peck. + +‘To be sure, to be sure,’ she said at last; ‘Ardalion Matveitch did say +something, certainly; my son Vassinka’s art you were wanting.... But we +can’t be sure, my dear sir....’ + +‘Oh, why so?’ I interposed. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you may feel +perfectly easy.... I’m not an informer.’ + +‘Oh, mercy on us,’ the old woman caught me up hurriedly, ‘what do you +mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what +ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it’s some sinful +contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son’s not the one to lend himself to +anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid +indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three +times.) He’s the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province; +the foremost, your honour, he is! And that’s just it: great grace has +been vouchsafed to him. Yes, indeed. It’s not the work of his hands. +It’s from on high, my dear; so it is.’ + +‘So you agree?’ I asked: ‘when can I see your son?’ + +The old woman blinked again and shifted her rolled up handkerchief from +one sleeve to the other. + +‘Oh, well, sir--well, sir, I can’t say.’ + +‘Allow me, Mastridia Karpovna, to hand you this,’ I interrupted, and I +gave her a ten-rouble note. + +The old woman clutched it at once in her fat, crooked fingers, which +recalled the fleshy claws of an owl, quickly slipped it into her sleeve, +pondered a little, and as though she had suddenly reached a decision, +slapped her thighs with her open hand. + +‘Come here this evening a little after seven,’ she said, not in her +previous voice, but in quite a different one, more solemn and subdued; +‘only not to this room, but kindly go straight up to the floor above, +and you’ll find a door to your left, and you open that door; and you’ll +go, your honour, into an empty room, and in that room you’ll see a +chair. Sit you down on that chair and wait; and whatever you see, don’t +utter a word and don’t do anything; and please don’t speak to my son +either; for he’s but young yet, and he suffers from fits. He’s very +easily scared; he’ll tremble and shake like any chicken ... a sad +thing it is!’ + +I looked at Mastridia. ‘You say he’s young, but since he’s your son ...’ + +‘In the spirit, sir, in the spirit. Many’s the orphan I have under my +care!’ she added, wagging her head in the direction of the corner, from +which came the plaintive whimper. ‘O--O God Almighty, holy Mother of +God! And do you, your honour, before you come here, think well which of +your deceased relations or friends--the kingdom of Heaven to +them!--you’re desirous of seeing. Go over your deceased friends, and +whichever you select, keep him in your mind, keep him all the while till +my son comes!’ + +‘Why, mustn’t I tell your son whom ...’ + +‘Nay, nay, sir, not one word. He will find out what he needs in your +thoughts himself. You’ve only to keep your friend thoroughly in mind; +and at your dinner drink a drop of wine--just two or three glasses; wine +never comes amiss.’ The old woman laughed, licked her lips, passed her +hand over her mouth, and sighed. + +‘So at half-past seven?’ I queried, getting up from my chair. + +‘At half-past seven, your honour, at half-past seven,’ Mastridia +Karpovna replied reassuringly. + + * * * * * + +I took leave of the old woman and went back to the hotel. I did not +doubt that they were going to make a fool of me, but in what way?--that +was what excited my curiosity. With Ardalion I did not exchange more +than two or three words. ‘Did she see you?’ he asked me, knitting his +brow, and on my affirmative reply, he exclaimed: ‘The old woman’s as +good as any statesman!’ I set to work, in accordance with the +‘statesman’s’ counsel, to run over my deceased friends. + +After rather prolonged hesitation I fixed, at last, on an old man who +had long been dead, a Frenchman, once my tutor. I selected him not +because he had any special attraction for me; but his whole figure was +so original, so unlike any figure of to-day, that it would be utterly +impossible to imitate it. He had an enormous head, fluffy white hair +combed straight back, thick black eyebrows, a hawk nose, and two large +warts of a pinkish hue in the middle of the forehead; he used to wear a +green frockcoat with smooth brass buttons, a striped waistcoat with a +stand-up collar, a jabot and lace cuffs. ‘If he shows me my old +Dessaire,’ I thought, ‘well, I shall have to admit that he’s a +sorcerer!’ + +At dinner I followed the old dame’s behest and drank a bottle of +Lafitte, of the first quality, so Ardalion averred, though it had a +very strong flavour of burnt cork, and a thick sediment at the bottom +of each glass. + + * * * * * + +Exactly at half-past seven I stood in front of the house where I had +conversed with the worthy Mastridia Karpovna. All the shutters of the +windows were closed, but the door was open. I went into the house, +mounted the shaky staircase to the first story, and opening a door on +the left, found myself, as the old woman had said, in a perfectly empty, +rather large room; a tallow candle set in the window-sill threw a dim +light over the room; against the wall opposite the door stood a +wicker-bottomed chair. I snuffed the candle, which had already burnt +down enough to form a long smouldering wick, sat down on the chair and +began to wait. + +The first ten minutes passed rather quickly; in the room itself there +was absolutely nothing which could distract my attention, but I listened +intently to every rustle, looked intently at the closed door.... My +heart was throbbing. After the first ten minutes followed another ten +minutes, then half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and not a stir of +any kind around! I coughed several times to make my presence known; I +began to feel bored and out of temper; to be made a fool of in just that +way had not entered into my calculations. I was on the point of getting +up from my seat, taking the candle from the window, and going +downstairs.... I looked at it; the wick again wanted snuffing; but as I +turned my eyes from the window to the door, I could not help starting; +with his back leaning against the door stood a man. He had entered so +quickly and noiselessly that I had heard nothing. He wore a simple blue +smock; he was of middle height and rather thick-set. With his hands +behind his back and his head bent, he was staring at me. In the dim +light of the candle I could not distinctly make out his features. I saw +nothing but a shaggy mane of matted hair falling on his forehead, and +thick, rather drawn lips and whitish eyes. I was nearly speaking to him, +but I recollected Mastridia’s injunction, and bit my lips. The man, who +had come in, continued to gaze at me, and, strange to say, at the same +time I felt something like fear, and, as though at the word of command, +promptly started thinking of my old tutor. _He_ still stood at the door +and breathed heavily, as though he had been climbing a mountain or +lifting a weight, while his eyes seemed to expand, seemed to come closer +to me--and I felt uncomfortable under their obstinate, heavy, menacing +stare; at times those eyes glowed with a malignant inward fire, a fire +such as I have seen in the eyes of a pointer dog when it ‘points’ at a +hare; and, like a pointer dog, _he_ kept _his_ eyes intently following +mine when I ‘tried to double,’ that is, tried to turn my eyes away. + + * * * * * + +So passed I do not know how long--perhaps a minute, perhaps a quarter of +an hour. He still gazed at me; I still experienced a certain discomfort +and alarm and still thought of the Frenchman. Twice I tried to say to +myself, ‘What nonsense! what a farce!’ I tried to smile, to shrug my +shoulders.... It was no use! All initiative had all at once ‘frozen up’ +within me--I can find no other word for it. I was overcome by a sort of +numbness. Suddenly I noticed that he had left the door, and was standing +a step or two nearer to me; then he gave a slight bound, both feet +together, and stood closer still.... Then again ... and again; while the +menacing eyes were simply fastened on my whole face, and the hands +remained behind, and the broad chest heaved painfully. These leaps +struck me as ridiculous, but I felt dread too, and what I could not +understand at all, a drowsiness began suddenly to come upon me. My +eyelids clung together ... the shaggy figure with the whitish eyes in +the blue smock seemed double before me, and suddenly vanished +altogether! ... I shook myself; he was again standing between the door +and me, but now much nearer.... Then he vanished again--a sort of mist +seemed to fall upon him; again he appeared ... vanished again ... +appeared again, and always closer, closer ... his hard, almost gasping +breathing floated across to me now.... Again the mist fell, and all of a +sudden out of this mist the head of old Dessaire began to take distinct +shape, beginning with the white, brushed-back hair! Yes: there were his +warts, his black eyebrows, his hook nose! There too his green coat with +the brass buttons, the striped waistcoat and jabot.... I shrieked, I got +up.... The old man vanished, and in his place I saw again the man in the +blue smock. He moved staggering to the wall, leaned his head and both +arms against it, and heaving like an over-loaded horse, in a husky voice +said, ‘Tea!’ Mastridia Karpovna--how she came there I can’t say--flew to +him and saying: ‘Vassinka! Vassinka!’ began anxiously wiping away the +sweat, which simply trickled from his face and hair. I was on the point +of approaching her, but she, so insistently, in such a heart-rending +voice cried: ‘Your honour! merciful sir! have pity on us, go away, for +Christ’s sake!’ that I obeyed, while she turned again to her son. +‘Bread-winner, darling,’ she murmured soothingly: ‘you shall have tea +directly, directly. And you too, sir, had better take a cup of tea at +home!’ she shouted after me. + + * * * * * + +When I got home I obeyed Mastridia and ordered some tea; I felt +tired--even weak. ‘Well?’ Ardalion questioned me, ‘have you been? did +you see something?’ + +‘He did, certainly, show me something ... which, I’ll own, I had not +anticipated,’ I replied. + +‘He’s a man of marvellous power,’ observed Ardalion, carrying off the +samovar; ‘he is held in high esteem among the merchant gentry.’ As I +went to bed, and reflected on the incident that had occurred to me, I +fancied at last that I had reached some explanation of it. The man +doubtless possessed a considerable magnetic power; acting by some means, +which I did not understand of course, upon my nerves, he had evoked +within me so vividly, so definitely, the image of the old man of whom I +was thinking, that at last I fancied that I saw him before my eyes.... +Such ‘metastases,’ such transferences of sensation, are recognised by +science. It was all very well; but the force capable of producing such +effects still remained, something marvellous and mysterious. ‘Say what +you will,’ I thought, ‘I’ve seen, seen with my own eyes, my dead tutor!’ + + * * * * * + +The next day the ball in the Hall of Nobility took place. Sophia’s +father called on me and reminded me of the engagement I had made with +his daughter. At ten o’clock I was standing by her side in the middle +of a ballroom lighted up by a number of copper lamps, and was preparing +to execute the not very complicated steps of the French quadrille to +the resounding blare of the military band. Crowds of people were there; +the ladies were especially numerous and very pretty; but the first +place among them would certainly have been given to my partner, if it +had not been for the rather strange, even rather wild look in her eyes. +I noticed that she hardly ever blinked; the unmistakable expression of +sincerity in her eyes did not make up for what was extraordinary in +them. But she had a charming figure, and moved gracefully, though with +constraint. When she waltzed, and, throwing herself a little back, bent +her slender neck towards her right shoulder, as though she wanted to +get away from her partner, nothing more touchingly youthful and pure +could be imagined. She was all in white, with a turquoise cross on a +black ribbon. + +I asked her for a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers +were few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same +expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met +her. Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her +appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually +fixed directly upon the eyes of the person speaking to her, though they +seemed at the same time to see something else, to be absorbed with +something different.... What a strange creature! Not knowing, at last, +how to thaw her, I bethought me of telling her of my adventure of the +previous day. + + * * * * * + +She heard me to the end with evident interest, but was not, as I had +expected, surprised at what I told her, and merely asked whether he was +not called Vassily. I recollected that the old woman had called him +‘Vassinka.’ ‘Yes, his name is Vassily,’ I answered; ‘do you know him?’ + +‘There is a saintly man living here called Vassily,’ she observed; ‘I +wondered whether it was he.’ + +‘Saintliness has nothing to do with this,’ I remarked; ‘it’s simply +the action of magnetism--a fact of interest for doctors and students +of science.’ + +I proceeded to expound my views on the peculiar force called magnetism, +on the possibility of one man’s will being brought under the influence +of another’s will, and so on; but my explanations--which were, it is +true, somewhat confused--seemed to make no impression on her. Sophie +listened, dropping her clasped hands on her knees with a fan lying +motionless in them; she did not play with it, she did not move her +fingers at all, and I felt that all my words rebounded from her as from +a statue of stone. She heard them, but clearly she had her own +convictions, which nothing could shake or uproot. + +‘You can hardly admit miracles!’ I cried. + +‘Of course I admit them,’ she answered calmly. ‘And how can one help +admitting them? Are not we told in the gospel that who has but a grain +of faith as big as a mustard seed, he can remove mountains? One need +only have faith--there will be miracles!’ + +‘It seems there is very little faith nowadays,’ I observed; ‘anyway, one +doesn’t hear of miracles.’ + +‘But yet there are miracles; you have seen one yourself. No; faith is +not dead nowadays; and the beginning of faith ...’ + +‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,’ I interrupted. + +‘The beginning of faith,’ pursued Sophie, nothing daunted, ‘is +self-abasement ... humiliation.’ + +‘Humiliation even?’ I queried. + +‘Yes. The pride of man, haughtiness, presumption--that is what must be +utterly rooted up. You spoke of the will--that’s what must be broken.’ + +I scanned the whole figure of the young girl who was uttering such +sentences.... ‘My word, the child’s in earnest, too,’ was my thought. I +glanced at our neighbours in the mazurka; they, too, glanced at me, and +I fancied that my astonishment amused them; one of them even smiled at +me sympathetically, as though he would say: ‘Well, what do you think of +our queer young lady? every one here knows what she’s like.’ + +‘Have you tried to break your will?’ I said, turning to Sophie again. + +‘Every one is bound to do what he thinks right,’ she answered in a +dogmatic tone. ‘Let me ask you,’ I began, after a brief silence, ‘do you +believe in the possibility of calling up the dead?’ + +Sophie softly shook her head. + +‘There are no dead.’ + +‘What?’ + +‘There are no dead souls; they are undying and can always appear, when +they like.... They are always about us.’ + +‘What? Do you suppose, for instance, that an immortal soul may be at +this moment hovering about that garrison major with the red nose?’ + +‘Why not? The sunlight falls on him and his nose, and is not the +sunlight, all light, from God? And what does external appearance +matter? To the pure all things are pure! Only to find a teacher, to +find a leader!’ + +‘But excuse me, excuse me,’ I put in, not, I must own, without malicious +intent. ‘You want a leader ... but what is your priest for?’ + +Sophie looked coldly at me. + +‘You mean to laugh at me, I suppose. My priestly father tells me what I +ought to do; but what I want is a leader who would show me himself in +action how to sacrifice one’s self!’ + +She raised her eyes towards the ceiling. With her childlike face, and +that expression of immobile absorption, of secret, continual perplexity, +she reminded me of the pre-raphaelite Madonnas.... + +‘I have read somewhere,’ she went on, not turning to me, and hardly +moving her lips, ‘of a grand person who directed that he should be +buried under a church porch so that all the people who came in should +tread him under foot and trample on him.... That is what one ought to +do in life.’ + +Boom! boom! tra-ra-ra! thundered the drums from the band.... I must own +such a conversation at a ball struck me as eccentric in the extreme; the +ideas involuntarily kindled within me were of a nature anything but +religious. I took advantage of my partner’s being invited to one of the +figures of the mazurka to avoid renewing our quasi-theological +discussion. + +A quarter of an hour later I conducted Mademoiselle Sophie to her +father, and two days after I left the town of T----, and the image of +the girl with the childlike face and the soul impenetrable as stone +slipped quickly out of my memory. + +Two years passed, and it chanced that that image was recalled again to +me. It was like this: I was talking to a colleague who had just +returned from a tour in South Russia. He had spent some time in the +town of T----, and told me various items of news about the +neighbourhood. ‘By the way!’ he exclaimed, ‘you knew V. G. B. very +well, I fancy, didn’t you?’ + +‘Of course I know him.’ + +‘And his daughter Sophia, do you know her?’ + +‘I’ve seen her twice.’ + +‘Only fancy, she’s run away!’ + +‘How’s that?’ + +‘Well, I don’t know. Three months ago she disappeared, and nothing’s +been heard of her. And the astonishing thing is no one can make out whom +she’s run off with. Fancy, they’ve not the slightest idea, not the +smallest suspicion! She’d refused all the offers made her, and she was +most proper in her behaviour. Ah, these quiet, religious girls are the +ones! It’s made an awful scandal all over the province! B.’s in +despair.... And whatever need had she to run away? Her father carried +out her wishes in everything. And what’s so unaccountable, all the +Lovelaces of the province are there all right, not one’s missing.’ + +‘And they’ve not found her up till now?’ + +‘I tell you she might as well be at the bottom of the sea! It’s one rich +heiress less in the world, that’s the worst of it.’ + +This piece of news greatly astonished me. It did not seem at all in +keeping with the recollection I had of Sophia B. But there! anything +may happen. + + * * * * * + +In the autumn of the same year fate brought me--again on official +business--into the S---- province, which is, as every one knows, next to +the province of T----. It was cold and rainy weather; the worn-out +posting-horses could scarcely drag my light trap through the black slush +of the highroad. One day, I remember, was particularly unlucky: three +times we got ‘stuck’ in the mud up to the axles of the wheels; my driver +was continually giving up one rut and with moans and grunts trudging +across to the other, and finding things no better with that. In fact, +towards evening I was so exhausted that on reaching the posting-station +I decided to spend the night at the inn. I was given a room with a +broken-down wooden sofa, a sloping floor, and torn paper on the walls; +there was a smell in it of kvas, bast-mats, onions, and even +turpentine, and swarms of flies were on everything; but at any rate I +could find shelter there from the weather, and the rain had set in, as +they say, for the whole day. I ordered a samovar to be brought, and, +sitting on the sofa, settled down to those cheerless wayside reflections +so familiar to travellers in Russia. + +They were broken in upon by a heavy knocking that came from the common +room, from which my room was separated by a deal partition. This sound +was accompanied by an intermittent metallic jingle, like the clank of +chains, and a coarse male voice boomed out suddenly: ‘The blessing of +God on all within this house. The blessing of God! the blessing of God! +Amen, amen! Scatter His enemies!’ repeated the voice, with a sort of +incongruous and savage drawl on the last syllable of each word.... A +noisy sigh was heard, and a ponderous body sank on to the bench with the +same jingling sound. ‘Akulina! servant of God, come here!’ the voice +began again: ‘Behold! Clothed in rags and blessed! ... Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo! +Merciful God, merciful God, merciful God!’ the voice droned like a +deacon in the choir. ‘Merciful God, Creator of my body, behold my +iniquity.... O-ho-ho! Ha-ha! ... Tfoo! And all abundance be to this house +in the seventh hour!’ + +‘Who’s that?’ I asked the hospitable landlady, who came in with +the samovar. + +‘That, your honour,’ she answered me in a hurried whisper, ‘is a +blessed, holy man. He’s not long come into our parts; and here he’s +graciously pleased to visit us. In such weather! The wet’s simply +trickling from him, poor dear man, in streams! And you should see the +chains on him--such a lot!’ + +‘The blessing of God! the blessing of God!’ the voice was heard again. +‘Akulina! Hey, Akulina! Akulinushka--friend! where is our paradise? Our +fair paradise of bliss? In the wilderness is our paradise, ... +para-dise.... And to this house, from beginning of time, great +happiness, ... o ... o ... o ...’ The voice muttered something +inarticulate, and again, after a protracted yawn, there came the hoarse +laugh. This laugh broke out every time, as it were, involuntarily, and +every time it was followed by vigorous spitting. + +‘Ah, me! Stepanitch isn’t here! That’s the worst of it!’ the landlady +said, as it were to herself, as she stood with every sign of the +profoundest attention at the door. ‘He will say some word of salvation, +and I, foolish woman, may not catch it!’ + +She went out quickly. + + * * * * * + +In the partition there was a chink; I applied my eye to it. The crazy +pilgrim was sitting on a bench with his back to me; I saw nothing but +his shaggy head, as huge as a beer-can, and a broad bent back in a +patched and soaking shirt. Before him, on the earth floor, knelt a +frail-looking woman in a jacket, such as are worn by women of the +artisan class--old and wet through--and with a dark kerchief pulled down +almost over her eyes. She was trying to pull the holy man’s boots off; +her fingers slid off the greasy, slippery leather. The landlady was +standing near her, with her arms folded across her bosom, gazing +reverently at the ‘man of God.’ He was, as before, mumbling some +inarticulate words. + +At last the woman succeeded in tugging off the boots. She almost fell +backwards, but recovered herself, and began unwinding the strips of rag +which were wrapped round the vagrant’s legs. On the sole of his foot +there was a wound.... I turned away. + +‘A cup of tea wouldn’t you bid me get you, my dear?’ I heard the hostess +saying in an obsequious voice. + +‘What a notion!’ responded the holy man. ‘To indulge the sinful body.... +O-ho-ho! Break all the bones in it ... but she talks of tea! Oh, oh, +worthy old woman, Satan is strong within us.... Fight him with hunger, +fight him with cold, with the sluice-gates of heaven, the pouring, +penetrating rain, and he takes no harm--he is alive still! Remember the +day of the Intercession of the Mother of God! You will receive, you will +receive in abundance!’ + +The landlady could not resist uttering a faint groan of admiration. + +‘Only listen to me! Give all thou hast, give thy head, give thy shirt! +If they ask not of thee, yet give! For God is all-seeing! Is it hard for +Him to destroy your roof? He has given thee bread in His mercy, and do +thou bake it in the oven! He seeth all! Se ... e ... eth! Whose eye is +in the triangle? Say, whose?’ + +The landlady stealthily crossed herself under her neckerchief. + +‘The old enemy is adamant! A ... da ... mant! A ... da ... mant!’ the +religious maniac repeated several times, gnashing his teeth. ‘The old +serpent! But God will arise! Yes, God will arise and scatter His +enemies! I will call up all the dead! I will go against His enemy.... +Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo!’ + +‘Have you any oil?’ said another voice, hardly audible; ‘let me put some +on the wound.... I have got a clean rag.’ + +I peeped through the chink again; the woman in the jacket was still +busied with the vagrant’s sore foot.... ‘A Magdalen!’ I thought. + +‘I’ll get it directly, my dear,’ said the woman, and, coming into my +room, she took a spoonful of oil from the lamp burning before the +holy picture. + +‘Who’s that waiting on him?’ I asked. + +‘We don’t know, sir, who it is; she too, I suppose, is seeking +salvation, atoning for her sins. But what a saintly man he is!’ + +‘Akulinushka, my sweet child, my dear daughter,’ the crazy pilgrim was +repeating meanwhile, and he suddenly burst into tears. + +The woman kneeling before him lifted her eyes to him.... Heavens! where +had I seen those eyes? + +The landlady went up to her with the spoonful of oil. She finished her +operation, and, getting up from the floor, asked if there were a clean +loft and a little hay.... ‘Vassily Nikititch likes to sleep on hay,’ +she added. + +‘To be sure there is, come this way,’ answered the woman; ‘come this +way, my dear,’ she turned to the holy man, ‘and dry yourself and rest.’ +The man coughed, slowly got up from the bench--his chains clanked +again--and turning round with his face to me, looked for the holy +pictures, and began crossing himself with a wide movement. + +I recognised him instantly: it was the very artisan Vassily, who had +once shown me my dead tutor! + +His features were little changed; only their expression had become still +more unusual, still more terrible.... The lower part of his swollen face +was overgrown with unkempt beard. Tattered, filthy, wild-looking, he +inspired in me more repugnance than horror. He left off crossing +himself, but still his eyes wandered senselessly about the corners of +the room, about the floor, as though he were waiting for something.... + +‘Vassily Nikititch, please come,’ said the woman in the jacket with a +bow. He suddenly threw up his head and turned round, but stumbled and +tottered.... His companion flew to him at once, and supported him under +the arm. Judging by her voice and figure, she seemed still young; her +face it was almost impossible to see. + +‘Akulinushka, friend!’ the vagrant repeated once more in a shaking +voice, and opening his mouth wide, and smiting himself on the breast +with his fist, he uttered a deep groan, that seemed to come from the +bottom of his heart. Both followed the landlady out of the room. + +I lay down on my hard sofa and mused a long while on what I had seen. My +mesmeriser had become a regular religious maniac. This was what he had +been brought to by the power which one could not but recognise in him! + + * * * * * + +The next morning I was preparing to go on my way. The rain was falling +as fast as the day before, but I could not delay any longer. My +servant, as he gave me water to wash, wore a special smile on his +face, a smile of restrained irony. I knew that smile well; it +indicated that my servant had heard something discreditable or even +shocking about gentlefolks. He was obviously burning with impatience +to communicate it to me. + +‘Well, what is it?’ I asked at last. + +‘Did your honour see the crazy pilgrim yesterday?’ my man began at once. + +‘Yes; what then?’ + +‘And did you see his companion too?’ + +‘Yes, I saw her.’ + +‘She’s a young lady, of noble family.’ + +‘What?’ + +‘It’s the truth I’m telling you; some merchants arrived here this +morning from T----; they recognised her. They did tell me her name, but +I’ve forgotten it.’ + +It was like a flash of enlightenment. ‘Is the pilgrim still +here?’ I asked. + +‘I fancy he’s not gone yet. He’s been ever so long at the gate, and +making such a wonderful wise to-do, that there’s no getting by. He’s +amusing himself with this tomfoolery; he finds it pay, no doubt.’ + +My man belonged to the same class of educated servants as Ardalion. + +‘And is the lady with him?’ + +‘Yes. She’s in attendance on him.’ + + * * * * * + +I went out on to the steps, and got a view of the crazy pilgrim. He was +sitting on a bench at the gate, and, bent down with both his open hands +pressed on it, he was shaking his drooping head from right to left, for +all the world like a wild beast in a cage. The thick mane of curly hair +covered his eyes, and shook from side to side, and so did his pendulous +lips.... A strange, almost unhuman muttering came from them. His +companion had only just finished washing from a pitcher that was hanging +on a pole, and without having yet replaced her kerchief on her head, was +making her way back to the gate along a narrow plank laid across the +dark puddles of the filthy yard. I glanced at her head, which was now +entirely uncovered, and positively threw up my hands with astonishment: +before me stood Sophie B.! + +She turned quickly round and fixed upon me her blue eyes, immovable as +ever. She was much thinner, her skin looked coarser and had the +yellowish-ruddy tinge of sunburn, her nose was sharper, and her lips +were harder in their lines. But she was not less good-looking; only +besides her old expression of dreamy amazement there was now a different +look--resolute, almost bold, intense and exalted. There was not a trace +of childishness left in the face now. + +I went up to her. ‘Sophia Vladimirovna,’ I cried, ‘can it be you? In +such a dress ... in such company....’ + +She started, looked still more intently at me, as though anxious to find +out who was speaking to her, and, without saying a word to me, fairly +rushed to her companion. + +‘Akulinushka,’ he faltered, with a heavy sigh, ‘our sins, sins ...’ + +‘Vassily Nikititch, let us go at once! Do you hear, at once, at once,’ +she said, pulling her kerchief on to her forehead with one hand, while +with the other she supported the pilgrim under the elbow; ‘let us go, +Vassily Nikititch: there is danger here.’ + +‘I’m coming, my good girl, I’m coming,’ the crazy pilgrim responded +obediently, and, bending his whole body forward, he got up from the +seat. ‘Here’s only this chain to fasten....’ + +I once more approached Sophia, and told her my name. I began beseeching +her to listen to me, to say one word to me. I pointed to the rain, +which was coming down in bucketsful. I begged her to have some care for +her health, the health of her companion. I mentioned her father.... But +she seemed possessed by a sort of wrathful, a sort of vindictive +excitement: without paying the slightest attention to me, setting her +teeth and breathing hard, she urged on the distracted vagrant in an +undertone, in soft insistent words, girt him up, fastened on his +chains, pulled on to his hair a child’s cloth cap with a broken peak, +stuck his staff in his hand, slung a wallet on her own shoulder, and +went with him out at the gate into the street.... To stop her actually +I had not the right, and it would have been of no use; and at my last +despairing call she did not even turn round. Supporting the ‘man of +God’ under his arm, she stepped rapidly over the black mud of the +street; and in a few moments, across the dim dusk of the foggy morning, +through the thick network of falling raindrops, I saw the last glimpse +of the two figures, the crazy pilgrim and Sophie.... They turned the +corner of a projecting hut, and vanished for ever. + + * * * * * + +I went back to my room. I fell to pondering. I could not understand it; +I could not understand how such a girl, well brought up, young, and +wealthy, could throw up everything and every one, her own home, her +family, her friends, break with all her habits, with all the comforts of +life, and for what? To follow a half-insane vagrant, to become his +servant! I could not for an instant entertain the idea that the +explanation of such a step was to be found in any prompting, however +depraved, of the heart, in love or passion.... One had but to glance at +the repulsive figure of the ‘man of God’ to dismiss such a notion +entirely! No, Sophie had remained pure; and to her all things were pure; +I could not understand what Sophie had done; but I did not blame her, +as, later on, I have not blamed other girls who too have sacrificed +everything for what they thought the truth, for what they held to be +their vocation. I could not help regretting that Sophie had chosen just +_that_ path; but also I could not refuse her admiration, respect even. +In good earnest she had talked of self-sacrifice, of abasement ... in +_her_, words were not opposed to acts. She had sought a leader, a guide, +and had found him, ... and, my God, what a guide! + +Yes, she had lain down to be trampled, trodden under foot.... In the +process of time, a rumour reached me that her family had succeeded at +last in finding out the lost sheep, and bringing her home. But at home +she did not live long, and died, like a ‘Sister of Silence,’ without +having spoken a word to any one. + +Peace to your heart, poor, enigmatic creature! Vassily Nikititch is +probably on his crazy wanderings still; the iron health of such +people is truly marvellous. Perhaps, though, his epilepsy may have +done for him. + +BADEN-BADEN, 1869. + + + + +PUNIN AND BABURIN + +PIOTR PETROVITCH’S STORY + + + + +I + + +... I am old and ill now, and my thoughts brood oftenest upon death, +every day coming nearer; rarely I think of the past, rarely I turn the +eyes of my soul behind me. Only from time to time--in winter, as I sit +motionless before the glowing fire, in summer, as I pace with slow tread +along the shady avenue--I recall past years, events, faces; but it is +not on my mature years nor on my youth that my thoughts rest at such +times. They either carry me back to my earliest childhood, or to the +first years of boyhood. Now, for instance, I see myself in the country +with my stern and wrathful grandmother--I was only twelve--and two +figures rise up before my imagination.... + +But I will begin my story consecutively, and in proper order. + + + +I + +1830 + + +The old footman Filippitch came in, on tiptoe, as usual, with a cravat +tied up in a rosette, with tightly compressed lips, ‘lest his breath +should be smelt,’ with a grey tuft of hair standing up in the very +middle of his forehead. He came in, bowed, and handed my grandmother on +an iron tray a large letter with an heraldic seal. My grandmother put on +her spectacles, read the letter through.... + +‘Is he here?’ she asked. + +‘What is my lady pleased ...’ Filippitch began timidly. + +‘Imbecile! The man who brought the letter--is he here?’ + +‘He is here, to be sure he is.... He is sitting in the counting-house.’ + +My grandmother rattled her amber rosary beads.... + +‘Tell him to come to me.... And you, sir,’ she turned to me, ‘sit +still.’ + +As it was, I was sitting perfectly still in my corner, on the stool +assigned to me. + +My grandmother kept me well in hand! + + * * * * * + +Five minutes later there came into the room a man of five-and-thirty, +black-haired and swarthy, with broad cheek-bones, a face marked with +smallpox, a hook nose, and thick eyebrows, from under which the small +grey eyes looked out with mournful composure. The colour of the eyes and +their expression were out of keeping with the Oriental cast of the rest +of the face. The man was dressed in a decent, long-skirted coat. He +stopped in the doorway, and bowed--only with his head. + +‘So your name’s Baburin?’ queried my grandmother, and she added to +herself: ‘_Il a l’air d’un arménien._’ + +‘Yes, it is,’ the man answered in a deep and even voice. At the first +brusque sound of my grandmother’s voice his eyebrows faintly quivered. +Surely he had not expected her to address him as an equal? + +‘Are you a Russian? orthodox?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +My grandmother took off her spectacles, and scanned Baburin from head +to foot deliberately. He did not drop his eyes, he merely folded his +hands behind his back. What particularly struck my fancy was his beard; +it was very smoothly shaven, but such blue cheeks and chin I had never +seen in my life! + +‘Yakov Petrovitch,’ began my grandmother, ‘recommends you strongly +in his letter as sober and industrious; why, then, did you leave +his service?’ + +‘He needs a different sort of person to manage his estate, madam.’ + +‘A different ... sort? That I don’t quite understand.’ + +My grandmother rattled her beads again. ‘Yakov Petrovitch writes to me +that there are two peculiarities about you. What peculiarities?’ + +Baburin shrugged his shoulders slightly. + +‘I can’t tell what he sees fit to call peculiarities. Possibly that +I ... don’t allow corporal punishment.’ + +My grandmother was surprised. ‘Do you mean to say Yakov Petrovitch +wanted to flog you?’ + +Baburin’s swarthy face grew red to the roots of his hair. + +‘You have not understood me right, madam. I make it a rule not to employ +corporal punishment ... with the peasants.’ + +My grandmother was more surprised than ever; she positively threw up +her hands. + +‘Ah!’ she pronounced at last, and putting her head a little on one side, +once more she scrutinised Baburin attentively. ‘So that’s your rule, is +it? Well, that’s of no consequence whatever to me; I don’t want an +overseer, but a counting-house clerk, a secretary. What sort of a hand +do you write?’ + +‘I write well, without mistakes in spelling.’ + +‘That too is of no consequence to me. The great thing for me is for it +to be clear, and without any of those new copybook letters with tails, +that I don’t like. And what’s your other peculiarity?’ + +Baburin moved uneasily, coughed.... + +‘Perhaps ... the gentleman has referred to the fact that I am not +alone.’ + +‘You are married?’ + +‘Oh no ... but ...’ + +My grandmother knit her brows. + +‘There is a person living with me ... of the male sex ... a comrade, a +poor friend, from whom I have never parted ... for ... let me see ... +ten years now.’ + +‘A relation of yours?’ + +‘No, not a relation--a friend. As to work, there can be no possible +hindrance occasioned by him,’ Baburin made haste to add, as though +foreseeing objections. ‘He lives at my cost, occupies the same room with +me; he is more likely to be of use, as he is well educated--speaking +without flattery, extremely so, in fact--and his morals are exemplary.’ + +My grandmother heard Baburin out, chewing her lips and half +closing her eyes. + +‘He lives at your expense?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘You keep him out of charity?’ + +‘As an act of justice ... as it’s the duty of one poor man to help +another poor man.’ + +‘Indeed! It’s the first time I’ve heard that. I had supposed till now +that that was rather the duty of rich people.’ + +‘For the rich, if I may venture to say so, it is an entertainment ... but +for such as we ...’ + +‘Well, well, that’s enough, that’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him +short; and after a moment’s thought she queried, speaking through her +nose, which was always a bad sign, ‘And what age is he, your protégé?’ + +‘About my own age.’ + +‘Really, I imagined that you were bringing him up.’ + +‘Not so; he is my comrade--and besides ...’ + +‘That’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him short a second time. ‘You’re a +philanthropist, it seems. Yakov Petrovitch is right; for a man in your +position it’s something very peculiar. But now let’s get to business. +I’ll explain to you what your duties will be. And as regards wages.... +_Que faites vous ici?_’ added my grandmother suddenly, turning her dry, +yellow face to me:--‘_Allez étudier votre devoir de mythologie._’ + +I jumped up, went up to kiss my grandmother’s hand, and went out,--not +to study mythology, but simply into the garden. + + * * * * * + +The garden on my grandmother’s estate was very old and large, and was +bounded on one side by a flowing pond, in which there were not only +plenty of carp and eels, but even loach were caught, those renowned +loach, that have nowadays disappeared almost everywhere. At the head +of this pond was a thick clump of willows; further and higher, on both +sides of a rising slope, were dense bushes of hazel, elder, +honeysuckle, and sloe-thorn, with an undergrowth of heather and clover +flowers. Here and there between the bushes were tiny clearings, +covered with emerald-green, silky, fine grass, in the midst of which +squat funguses peeped out with their comical, variegated pink, lilac, +and straw-coloured caps, and golden balls of ‘hen-dazzle’ blazed in +light patches. Here in spring-time the nightingales sang, the +blackbirds whistled, the cuckoos called; here in the heat of summer it +was always cool--and I loved to make my way into the wilderness and +thicket, where I had favourite secret spots, known--so, at least, I +imagined--only to me. + +On coming out of my grandmother’s room I made straight for one of these +spots, which I had named ‘Switzerland.’ But what was my astonishment +when, before I had reached ‘Switzerland,’ I perceived through the +delicate network of half-dry twigs and green branches that some one +besides me had found it out! A long, long figure in a long, loose coat +of yellow frieze and a tall cap was standing in the very spot I loved +best of all! I stole up a little nearer, and made out the face, which +was utterly unknown to me, also very long and soft, with small reddish +eyes, and a very funny nose; drawn out as long as a pod of peas, it +positively over-hung the full lips; and these lips, quivering and +forming a round O, were giving vent to a shrill little whistle, while +the long fingers of the bony hands, placed facing one another on the +upper part of the chest, were rapidly moving with a rotatory action. +From time to time the motion of the hands subsided, the lips ceased +whistling and quivering, the head was bent forward as though listening. +I came still nearer, examined him still more closely.... The stranger +held in each hand a small flat cup, such as people use to tease +canaries and make them sing. A twig snapped under my feet; the stranger +started, turned his dim little eyes towards the copse, and was +staggering away ... but he stumbled against a tree, uttered an +exclamation, and stood still. + +I came out into the open space. The stranger smiled. + +‘Good morning,’ said I. + +‘Good morning, little master!’ + +I did not like his calling me little master. Such familiarity! + +‘What are you doing here?’ I asked sternly. + +‘Why, look here,’ he responded, never leaving off smiling, ‘I’m calling +the little birds to sing.’ He showed me his little cups. ‘The +chaffinches answer splendidly! You, at your tender years, take delight, +no doubt, in the feathered songsters’ notes! Listen, I beg; I will begin +chirping, and they’ll answer me directly--it’s so delightful!’ + +He began rubbing his little cups. A chaffinch actually did chirp in +response from a mountain ash near. The stranger laughed without a sound, +and winked at me. + +The laugh and the wink--every gesture of the stranger, his weak, +lisping voice, his bent knees and thin hands, his very cap and long +frieze coat--everything about him suggested good-nature, something +innocent and droll. + +‘Have you been here long?’ I asked. + +‘I came to-day.’ + +‘Why, aren’t you the person of whom ...’ + +‘Mr. Baburin spoke to the lady here. The same, the same.’ + +‘Your friend’s name’s Baburin, and what’s yours?’ + +‘I’m Punin. Punin’s my name; Punin. He’s Baburin and I’m Punin.’ He set +the little cups humming again. ‘Listen, listen to the chaffinch.... How +it carols!’ + +This queer creature took my fancy ‘awfully’ all at once. Like almost all +boys, I was either timid or consequential with strangers, but I felt +with this man as if I had known him for ages. + +‘Come along with me,’ I said to him; ‘I know a place better than +this; there’s a seat there; we can sit down, and we can see the dam +from there.’ + +‘By all means let us go,’ my new friend responded in his singing voice. +I let him pass before me. As he walked he rolled from side to side, +tripped over his own feet, and his head fell back. + +I noticed on the back of his coat, under the collar, there hung a small +tassel. ‘What’s that you’ve got hanging there?’ I asked. + +‘Where?’ he questioned, and he put his hand up to the collar to feel. +‘Ah, the tassel? Let it be! I suppose it was sewn there for ornament! +It’s not in the way.’ + +I led him to the seat, and sat down; he settled himself beside me. ‘It’s +lovely here!’ he commented, and he drew a deep, deep sigh. ‘Oh, how +lovely! You have a most splendid garden! Oh, o--oh!’ + +I looked at him from one side. ‘What a queer cap you’ve got!’ I couldn’t +help exclaiming. ‘Show it me here!’ + +‘By all means, little master, by all means.’ He took off the cap; I was +holding out my hand, but I raised my eyes, and--simply burst out +laughing. Punin was completely bald; not a single hair was to be seen on +the high conical skull, covered with smooth white skin. He passed his +open hand over it, and he too laughed. When he laughed he seemed, as it +were, to gulp, he opened his mouth wide, closed his eyes--and vertical +wrinkles flitted across his forehead in three rows, like waves. ‘Eh,’ +said he at last, ‘isn’t it quite like an egg?’ + +‘Yes, yes, exactly like an egg!’ I agreed with enthusiasm. ‘And have you +been like that long?’ + +‘Yes, a long while; but what hair I used to have!--A golden fleece like +that for which the Argonauts sailed over the watery deeps.’ + +Though I was only twelve, yet, thanks to my mythological studies, I knew +who the Argonauts were; I was the more surprised at hearing the name on +the lips of a man dressed almost in rags. + +‘You must have learned mythology, then?’ I queried, as I twisted his cap +over and over in my hands. It turned out to be wadded, with a +mangy-looking fur trimming, and a broken cardboard peak. + +‘I have studied that subject, my dear little master; I’ve had time +enough for everything in my life! But now restore to me my covering, it +is a protection to the nakedness of my head.’ + +He put on the cap, and, with a downward slope of his whitish eyebrows, +asked me who I was, and who were my parents. + +‘I’m the grandson of the lady who owns this place,’ I answered. ‘I live +alone with her. Papa and mamma are dead.’ + +Punin crossed himself. ‘May the kingdom of heaven be theirs! So then, +you’re an orphan; and the heir, too. The noble blood in you is visible +at once; it fairly sparkles in your eyes, and plays like this ... sh ... +sh ... sh ...’ He represented with his fingers the play of the blood. +‘Well, and do you know, your noble honour, whether my friend has come to +terms with your grandmamma, whether he has obtained the situation he was +promised?’ + +‘I don’t know.’ + +Punin cleared his throat. ‘Ah! if one could be settled here, if only for +a while! Or else one may wander and wander far, and find not a place to +rest one’s head; the disquieting alarms of life are unceasing, the soul +is confounded....’ + +‘Tell me,’ I interrupted: ‘are you of the clerical profession?’ + +Punin turned to me and half closed his eyelids. ‘And what may be the +cause of that question, gentle youth?’ + +‘Why, you talk so--well, as they read in church.’ + +‘Because I use the old scriptural forms of expression? But that ought +not to surprise you. Admitting that in ordinary conversation such forms +of expression are not always in place; but when one soars on the wings +of inspiration, at once the language too grows more exalted. Surely your +teacher--the professor of Russian literature--you do have lessons in +that, I suppose?--surely he teaches you that, doesn’t he?’ + +‘No, he doesn’t,’ I responded. ‘When we stay in the country I have no +teacher. In Moscow I have a great many teachers.’ + +‘And will you be staying long in the country?’ + +‘Two months, not longer; grandmother says that I’m spoilt in the +country, though I have a governess even here.’ + +‘A French governess?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +Punin scratched behind his ear. ‘A mamselle, that’s to say?’ + +‘Yes; she’s called Mademoiselle Friquet.’ I suddenly felt it +disgraceful for me, a boy of twelve, to have not a tutor, but a +governess, like a little girl! ‘But I don’t mind her,’ I added +contemptuously. ‘What do I care!’ + +Punin shook his head. ‘Ah, you gentlefolk, you gentlefolk! you’re too +fond of foreigners! You have turned away from what is Russian,--towards +all that’s strange. You’ve turned your hearts to those that come from +foreign parts....’ + +‘Hullo! Are you talking in verse?’ I asked. + +‘Well, and why not? I can do that always, as much as you please; for it +comes natural to me....’ + +But at that very instant there sounded in the garden behind us a loud +and shrill whistle. My new acquaintance hurriedly got up from the bench. + +‘Good-bye, little sir; that’s my friend calling me, looking for me.... +What has he to tell me? Good-bye--excuse me....’ + +He plunged into the bushes and vanished, while I sat on some time longer +on the seat. I felt perplexity and another feeling, rather an agreeable +one ... I had never met nor spoken to any one like this before. +Gradually I fell to dreaming, but recollected my mythology and sauntered +towards the house. + + * * * * * + +At home, I learned that my grandmother had arranged to take Baburin; he +had been assigned a small room in the servants’ quarters, overlooking +the stable-yard. He had at once settled in there with his friend. + +When I had drunk my tea, next morning, without asking leave of +Mademoiselle Friquet, I set off to the servants’ quarters. I wanted to +have another chat with the queer fellow I had seen the day before. +Without knocking at the door--the very idea of doing so would never have +occurred to us--I walked straight into the room. I found in it not the +man I was looking for, not Punin, but his protector--the philanthropist, +Baburin. He was standing before the window, without his outer garment, +his legs wide apart. He was busily engaged in rubbing his head and neck +with a long towel. + +‘What do you want?’ he observed, keeping his hands still raised, and +knitting his brows. + +‘Punin’s not at home, then?’ I queried in the most free-and-easy manner, +without taking off my cap. + +‘Mr. Punin, Nikander Vavilitch, at this moment, is not at home, truly,’ +Baburin responded deliberately; ‘but allow me to make an observation, +young man: it’s not the proper thing to come into another person’s room +like this, without asking leave.’ + +I! ... young man! ... how dared he! ... I grew crimson with fury. + +‘You cannot be aware who I am,’ I rejoined, in a manner no longer +free-and-easy, but haughty. ‘I am the grandson of the mistress here.’ + +‘That’s all the same to me,’ retorted Baburin, setting to work with his +towel again. ‘Though you are the seignorial grandson, you have no right +to come into other people’s rooms.’ + +‘Other people’s? What do you mean? I’m--at home here--everywhere.’ + +‘No, excuse me: here--I’m at home; since this room has been assigned to +me, by agreement, in exchange for my work.’ + +‘Don’t teach me, if you please,’ I interrupted: ‘I know better than +you what ...’ + +‘You must be taught,’ he interrupted in his turn, ‘for you’re at an age +when you ... I know my duties, but I know my rights too very well, and +if you continue to speak to me in that way, I shall have to ask you to +go out of the room....’ + +There is no knowing how our dispute would have ended if Punin had not at +that instant entered, shuffling and shambling from side to side. He most +likely guessed from the expression of our faces that some unpleasantness +had passed between us, and at once turned to me with the warmest +expressions of delight. + +‘Ah! little master! little master!’ he cried, waving his hands wildly, +and going off into his noiseless laugh: ‘the little dear! come to pay me +a visit! here he’s come, the little dear!’ (What’s the meaning of it? I +thought: can he be speaking in this familiar way to me?) ‘There, come +along, come with me into the garden. I’ve found something there.... Why +stay in this stuffiness here! let’s go!’ + +I followed Punin, but in the doorway I thought it as well to turn round +and fling a glance of defiance at Baburin, as though to say, I’m not +afraid of you! + +He responded in the same way, and positively snorted into the +towel--probably to make me thoroughly aware how utterly he despised me! + +What an insolent fellow your friend is!’ I said to Punin, directly the +door had closed behind me. + +Almost with horror, Punin turned his plump face to me. + +‘To whom did you apply that expression?’ he asked me, with round eyes. + +‘Why, to him, of course.... What’s his name? that ... Baburin.’ + +‘Paramon Semyonevitch?’ + +‘Why, yes; that ... blackfaced fellow.’ + +‘Eh ... eh ... eh ...!’ Punin protested, with caressing reproachfulness. +‘How can you talk like that, little master! Paramon Semyonevitch is the +most estimable man, of the strictest principles, an extraordinary +person! To be sure, he won’t allow any disrespect to him, because--he +knows his own value. That man possesses a vast amount of knowledge--and +it’s not a place like this he ought to be filling! You must, my dear, +behave very courteously to him; do you know, he’s ...’ here Punin bent +down quite to my ear,--‘a republican!’ + +I stared at Punin. This I had not at all expected. From Keidanov’s +manual and other historical works I had gathered the fact that at some +period or other, in ancient times, there had existed republicans, Greeks +and Romans. For some unknown reason I had always pictured them all in +helmets, with round shields on their arms, and big bare legs; but that +in real life, in the actual present, above all, in Russia, in the +province of X----, one could come across republicans--that upset all my +notions, and utterly confounded them! + +‘Yes, my dear, yes; Paramon Semyonitch is a republican,’ repeated Punin; +‘there, so you’ll know for the future how one should speak of a man like +that! But now let’s go into the garden. Fancy what I’ve found there! A +cuckoo’s egg in a redstart’s nest! a lovely thing!’ + +I went into the garden with Punin; but mentally I kept repeating: +‘republican! re ... pub ... lican!’ + +‘So,’ I decided at last--‘that’s why he has such a blue chin!’ + + * * * * * + +My attitude to these two persons--Punin and Baburin--took definite shape +from that very day. Baburin aroused in me a feeling of hostility with +which there was, however, in a short time, mingled something akin to +respect. And wasn’t I afraid of him! I never got over being afraid of +him even when the sharp severity of his manner with me at first had +quite disappeared. It is needless to say that of Punin I had no fear; I +did not even respect him; I looked upon him--not to put too fine a point +on it--as a buffoon; but I loved him with my whole soul! To spend hours +at a time in his company, to be alone with him, to listen to his +stories, became a genuine delight to me. My grandmother was anything but +pleased at this _intimité_ with a person of the ‘lower classes’--_du +commun_; but, whenever I could break away, I flew at once to my queer, +amusing, beloved friend. Our meetings became more frequent after the +departure of Mademoiselle Friquet, whom my grandmother sent back to +Moscow in disgrace because, in conversation with a military staff +captain, visiting in the neighbourhood, she had had the insolence to +complain of the dulness which reigned in our household. And Punin, for +his part, was not bored by long conversations with a boy of twelve; he +seemed to seek them of himself. How often have I listened to his +stories, sitting with him in the fragrant shade, on the dry, smooth +grass, under the canopy of the silver poplars, or among the reeds above +the pond, on the coarse, damp sand of the hollow bank, from which the +knotted roots protruded, queerly interlaced, like great black veins, +like snakes, like creatures emerging from some subterranean region! +Punin told me the whole story of his life in minute detail, describing +all his happy adventures, and all his misfortunes, with which I always +felt the sincerest sympathy! His father had been a deacon;--‘a splendid +man--but, under the influence of drink, stern to the last extreme.’ + +Punin himself had received his education in a seminary; but, unable to +stand the severe thrashings, and feeling no inclination for the priestly +calling, he had become a layman, and in consequence had experienced all +sorts of hardships; and, finally, had become a vagrant. ‘And had I not +met with my benefactor, Paramon Semyonitch,’ Punin commonly added (he +never spoke of Baburin except in this way), ‘I should have sunk into the +miry abysses of poverty and vice.’ Punin was fond of high-sounding +expressions, and had a great propensity, if not for lying, for romancing +and exaggeration; he admired everything, fell into ecstasies over +everything.... And I, in imitation of him, began to exaggerate and be +ecstatic, too. ‘What a crazy fellow you’ve grown! God have mercy on +you!’ my old nurse used to say to me. Punin’s narratives used to +interest me extremely; but even better than his stories I loved the +readings we used to have together. + +It is impossible to describe the feeling I experienced when, snatching +a favourable moment, suddenly, like a hermit in a tale or a good fairy, +he appeared before me with a ponderous volume under his arm, and +stealthily beckoning with his long crooked finger, and winking +mysteriously, he pointed with his head, his eyebrows, his shoulders, +his whole person, toward the deepest recesses of the garden, whither no +one could penetrate after us, and where it was impossible to find us +out. And when we had succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had +satisfactorily reached one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side +by side, and, at last, the book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent +odour, inexpressibly sweet to me then, of mildew and age;--with what a +thrill, with what a wave of dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at +the lips of Punin, those lips from which in a moment a stream of such +delicious eloquence was to flow! At last the first sounds of the +reading were heard. Everything around me vanished ... no, not vanished, +but grew far away, passed into clouds of mist, leaving behind only an +impression of something friendly and protecting. Those trees, those +green leaves, those high grasses screen us, hide us from all the rest +of the world; no one knows where we are, what we are about--while with +us is poetry, we are saturated in it, intoxicated with it, something +solemn, grand, mysterious is happening to us.... Punin, by preference, +kept to poetry, musical, sonorous poetry; he was ready to lay down his +life for poetry. He did not read, he declaimed the verse majestically, +in a torrent of rhythm, in a rolling outpour through his nose, like a +man intoxicated, lifted out of himself, like the Pythian priestess. And +another habit he had: first he would lisp the verses through softly, in +a whisper, as it were mumbling them to himself.... This he used to call +the rough sketch of the reading; then he would thunder out the same +verse in its ‘fair copy,’ and would all at once leap up, throw up his +hand, with a half-supplicating, half-imperious gesture.... In this way +we went through not only Lomonosov, Sumarokov, and Kantemir (the older +the poems, the more they were to Punin’s taste), but even Heraskov’s +_Rossiad_. And, to tell the truth, it was this same _Rossiad_ which +aroused my enthusiasm most. There is in it, among others, a mighty +Tatar woman, a gigantic heroine; I have forgotten even her name now; +but in those days my hands and feet turned cold as soon as it was +mentioned. ‘Yes,’ Punin would say, nodding his head with great +significance, ‘Heraskov, he doesn’t let one off easily. At times one +comes upon a line, simply heart-breaking.... One can only stick to it, +and do one’s best.... One tries to master it, but he breaks away again +and trumpets, trumpets, with the crash of cymbals. His name’s been well +bestowed on him--the very word, Herrraskov!’ Lomonosov Punin found +fault with for too simple and free a style; while to Derzhavin he +maintained an attitude almost of hostility, saying that he was more of +a courtier than a poet. In our house it was not merely that no +attention was given to literature, to poetry; but poetry, especially +Russian poetry, was looked upon as something quite undignified and +vulgar; my grandmother did not even call it poetry, but ‘doggrel +verses’; every author of such doggrel was, in her opinion, either a +confirmed toper or a perfect idiot. Brought up among such ideas, it was +inevitable that I should either turn from Punin with disgust--he was +untidy and shabby into the bargain, which was an offence to my +seignorial habits--or that, attracted and captivated by him, I should +follow his example, and be infected by his passion for poetry.... And +so it turned out. I, too, began reading poetry, or, as my grandmother +expressed it, poring over doggrel trash.... I even tried my hand at +versifying, and composed a poem, descriptive of a barrel-organ, in +which occurred the following two lines: + + + ‘Lo, the barrel turns around, + And the cogs within resound.’ + + +Punin commended in this effort a certain imitative melody, but +disapproved of the subject itself as low and unworthy of lyrical +treatment. + +Alas! all those efforts and emotions and transports, our solitary +readings, our life together, our poetry, all came to an end at once. +Trouble broke upon us suddenly, like a clap of thunder. + + * * * * * + +My grandmother in everything liked cleanliness and order, quite in the +spirit of the active generals of those days; cleanliness and order were +to be maintained too in our garden. And so from time to time they +‘drove’ into it poor peasants, who had no families, no land, no beasts +of their own, and those among the house serfs who were out of favour or +superannuated, and set them to clearing the paths, weeding the borders, +breaking up and sifting the earth in the beds, and so on. Well, one day, +in the very heat of these operations, my grandmother went into the +garden, and took me with her. On all sides, among the trees and about +the lawns, we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all +sides we heard the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of +clods of earth on the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers, +my grandmother with her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was +working with less energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap, +too, with no show of eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young, +with a wasted face, and sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all +torn and patched, scarcely held together over his narrow shoulders. + +‘Who’s that?’ my grandmother inquired of Filippitch, who was walking on +tiptoe behind her. + +‘Of whom ... you are pleased ...’ Filippitch stammered. + +‘Oh, fool! I mean the one that looked so sullenly at me. There, standing +yonder, not working.’ + +‘Oh, him! Yes ... th ... th ... that’s Yermil, son of Pavel Afanasiitch, +now deceased.’ + +Pavel Afanasiitch had been, ten years before, head butler in my +grandmother’s house, and stood particularly high in her favour. But +suddenly falling into disgrace, he was as suddenly degraded to being +herdsman, and did not long keep even that position. He sank lower still, +and struggled on for a while on a monthly pittance of flour in a little +hut far away. At last he had died of paralysis, leaving his family in +the most utter destitution. + +‘Aha!’ commented my grandmother; ‘it’s clear the apple’s not fallen far +from the tree. Well, we shall have to make arrangements about this +fellow too. I’ve no need of people like that, with scowling faces.’ + +My grandmother went back to the house--and made arrangements. Three +hours later Yermil, completely ‘equipped,’ was brought under the window +of her room. The unfortunate boy was being transported to a settlement; +the other side of the fence, a few steps from him, was a little cart +loaded with his poor belongings. Such were the times then. Yermil stood +without his cap, with downcast head, barefoot, with his boots tied up +with a string behind his back; his face, turned towards the seignorial +mansion, expressed not despair nor grief, nor even bewilderment; a +stupid smile was frozen on his colourless lips; his eyes, dry and +half-closed, looked stubbornly on the ground. My grandmother was +apprised of his presence. She got up from the sofa, went, with a faint +rustle of her silken skirts, to the window of the study, and, holding +her golden-rimmed double eyeglass on the bridge of her nose, looked at +the new exile. In her room there happened to be at the moment four other +persons, the butler, Baburin, the page who waited on my grandmother in +the daytime, and I. + +My grandmother nodded her head up and down.... + +‘Madam,’ a hoarse almost stifled voice was heard suddenly. I looked +round. Baburin’s face was red ... dark red; under his overhanging brows +could be seen little sharp points of light.... There was no doubt about +it; it was he, it was Baburin, who had uttered the word ‘Madam.’ + +My grandmother too looked round, and turned her eyeglass from Yermil +to Baburin. + +‘Who is that ... speaking?’ she articulated slowly ... through her nose. +Baburin moved slightly forward. + +‘Madam,’ he began, ‘it is I.... I venture ... I imagine ... I make bold +to submit to your honour that you are making a mistake in acting as ... +as you are pleased to act at this moment.’ + +‘That is?’ my grandmother said, in the same voice, not removing +her eyeglass. + +‘I take the liberty ...’ Baburin went on distinctly, uttering every word +though with obvious effort--‘I am referring to the case of this lad who +is being sent away to a settlement ... for no fault of his. Such +arrangements, I venture to submit, lead to dissatisfaction, and to +other--which God forbid!--consequences, and are nothing else than a +transgression of the powers allowed to seignorial proprietors.’ + +‘And where have you studied, pray?’ my grandmother asked after a short +silence, and she dropped her eyeglass. + +Baburin was disconcerted. ‘What are you pleased to wish?’ he muttered. + +‘I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.’ + +‘I ... my education ...’ Baburin was beginning. + +My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. ‘It seems,’ she +interrupted, ‘that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of +absolutely no consequence to me--among my subjects I am sovereign, and +answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having people +criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their +business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript +position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always +lived till you came, and so I shall live after you’ve gone. You do not +suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,’ my grandmother turned to +the steward, ‘pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time +to-day! D’you hear? Don’t put me into a passion. And the other too ... +the fool that lives with him--to be sent off too. What’s Yermilka +waiting for?’ she added, looking out of window, ‘I have seen him. What +more does he want?’ My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the +direction of the window, as though to drive away an importunate fly. +Then she sat down in a low chair, and turning towards us, gave the order +grimly: ‘Everybody present to leave the room!’ + +We all withdrew--all, except the day page, to whom my grandmother’s +words did not apply, because he was nobody. + +My grandmother’s decree was carried out to the letter. Before dinner, +both Baburin and my friend Punin were driving away from the place. I +will not undertake to describe my grief, my genuine, truly childish +despair. It was so strong that it stifled even the feeling of +awe-stricken admiration inspired by the bold action of the republican +Baburin. After the conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to +his room and began packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one +look, though I was the whole time hanging about him, or rather, in +reality, about Punin. The latter was utterly distraught, and he too said +nothing; but he was continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his +eyes ... always the same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did +not venture to criticise his ‘benefactor’--Paramon Semyonitch could not +make a mistake,--but great was his distress and dejection. Punin and I +made an effort to read something out of the _Rossiad_ for the last time; +we even locked ourselves up in the lumber-room--it was useless to dream +of going into the garden--but at the very first line we both broke down, +and I fairly bellowed like a calf, in spite of my twelve years, and my +claims to be grown-up. + +When he had taken his seat in the carriage Baburin at last turned to me, +and with a slight softening of the accustomed sternness of his face, +observed: ‘It’s a lesson for you, young gentleman; remember this +incident, and when you grow up, try to put an end to such acts of +injustice. Your heart is good, your nature is not yet corrupted.... +Mind, be careful; things can’t go on like this!’ Through my tears, which +streamed copiously over my nose, my lips, and my chin, I faltered out +that I would ... I would remember, that I promised ... I would do ... I +would be sure ... quite sure ... + +But at this point, Punin, whom I had before this embraced twenty times +(my cheeks were burning from the contact with his unshaven beard, and I +was odoriferous of the smell that always clung to him)--at this point a +sudden frenzy came over Punin. He jumped up on the seat of the cart, +flung both hands up in the air, and began in a voice of thunder (where +he got it from!) to declaim the well-known paraphrase of the Psalm of +David by Derzhavin,--a poet for this occasion--not a courtier. + + ‘God the All-powerful doth arise + And judgeth in the congregation of the mighty! ... + How long, how long, saith the Lord, + Will ye have mercy on the wicked? + “Ye have to keep the laws....”’ + +‘Sit down!’ Baburin said to him. + +Punin sat down, but continued: + + ‘To save the guiltless and needy, + To give shelter to the afflicted, + To defend the weak from the oppressors.’ + +Punin at the word ‘oppressors’ pointed to the seignorial abode, and then +poked the driver in the back. + + ‘To deliver the poor out of bondage! + They know not! neither will they understand! ...’ + +Nikolai Antonov running out of the seignorial abode, shouted at the top +of his voice to the coachman: ‘Get away with you! owl! go along! don’t +stay lingering here!’ and the cart rolled away. Only in the distance +could still be heard: + + ‘Arise, O Lord God of righteousness! ... + Come forth to judge the unjust-- + And be Thou the only Ruler of the nations!’ + +‘What a clown!’ remarked Nikolai Antonov. + +‘He didn’t get enough of the rod in his young days,’ observed the +deacon, appearing on the steps. He had come to inquire what hour it +would please the mistress to fix for the night service. + +The same day, learning that Yermil was still in the village, and would +not till early next morning be despatched to the town for the execution +of certain legal formalities, which were intended to check the +arbitrary proceedings of the landowners, but served only as a source of +additional revenue to the functionaries in superintendence of them, I +sought him out, and, for lack of money of my own, handed him a bundle, +in which I had tied up two pocket-handkerchiefs, a shabby pair of +slippers, a comb, an old night-gown, and a perfectly new silk cravat. +Yermil, whom I had to wake up--he was lying on a heap of straw in the +back yard, near the cart--Yermil took my present rather indifferently, +with some hesitation in fact, did not thank me, promptly poked his head +into the straw and fell asleep again. I went home somewhat +disappointed. I had imagined that he would be astonished and overjoyed +at my visit, would see in it a pledge of my magnanimous intentions for +the future--and instead of that ... + +‘You may say what you like--these people have no feeling,’ was my +reflection on my homeward way. + +My grandmother, who had for some reason left me in peace the whole of +that memorable day, looked at me suspiciously when I came after supper +to say good-night to her. + +‘Your eyes are red,’ she observed to me in French; ‘and there’s a smell +of the peasant’s hut about you. I am not going to enter into an +examination of what you’ve been feeling and doing--I should not like to +be obliged to punish you--but I hope you will get over all your +foolishness, and begin to conduct yourself once more in a manner +befitting a well-bred boy. However, we are soon going back to Moscow, +and I shall get you a tutor--as I see you need a man’s hand to manage +you. You can go.’ + +We did, as a fact, go back soon after to Moscow. + + + + +II + +1837 + + +Seven years had passed by. We were living as before at Moscow--but I was +by now a student in my second year--and the authority of my grandmother, +who had aged very perceptibly in the last years, no longer weighed upon +me. Of all my fellow-students the one with whom I was on the friendliest +terms was a light-hearted and good-natured youth called Tarhov. Our +habits and our tastes were similar. Tarhov was a great lover of poetry, +and himself wrote verses; while in me the seeds sown by Punin had not +been without fruit. As is often the case with young people who are very +close friends, we had no secrets from one another. But behold, for +several days together I noticed a certain excitement and agitation in +Tarhov.... He disappeared for hours at a time, and I did not know where +he had got to--a thing which had never happened before. I was on the +point of demanding, in the name of friendship, a full explanation.... He +anticipated me. + +One day I was sitting in his room.... ‘Petya,’ he said suddenly, +blushing gaily, and looking me straight in the face, ‘I must introduce +you to my muse.’ + +‘Your muse! how queerly you talk! Like a classicist. (Romanticism was at +that time, in 1837, at its full height.) As if I had not known it ever +so long--your muse! Have you written a new poem, or what?’ + +‘You don’t understand what I mean,’ rejoined Tarhov, still laughing and +blushing. ‘I will introduce you to a living muse.’ + +‘Aha! so that’s it! But how is she--yours?’ + +‘Why, because ... But hush, I believe it’s she coming here.’ + +There was the light click of hurrying heels, the door opened, and in the +doorway appeared a girl of eighteen, in a chintz cotton gown, with a +black cloth cape on her shoulders, and a black straw hat on her fair, +rather curly hair. On seeing me she was frightened and disconcerted, and +was beating a retreat ... but Tarhov at once rushed to meet her. + +‘Please, please, Musa Pavlovna, come in! This is my great friend, a +splendid fellow--and the soul of discretion. You’ve no need to be afraid +of him. Petya,’ he turned to me, ‘let me introduce my Musa--Musa +Pavlovna Vinogradov, a great friend of mine.’ + +I bowed. + +‘How is that ... Musa?’ I was beginning.... Tarhov laughed. ‘Ah, you +didn’t know there was such a name in the calendar? I didn’t know it +either, my boy, till I met this dear young lady. Musa! such a charming +name! And suits her so well!’ + +I bowed again to my comrade’s great friend. She left the door, took two +steps forward and stood still. She was very attractive, but I could not +agree with Tarhov’s opinion, and inwardly said to myself: ‘Well, she’s a +strange sort of muse!’ + +The features of her curved, rosy face were small and delicate; there was +an air of fresh, buoyant youth about all her slender, miniature figure; +but of the muse, of the personification of the muse, I--and not only +I--all the young people of that time had a very different conception! +First of all the muse had infallibly to be dark-haired and pale. An +expression of scornful pride, a bitter smile, a glance of inspiration, +and that ‘something’--mysterious, demonic, fateful--that was essential +to our conception of the muse, the muse of Byron, who at that time held +sovereign sway over men’s fancies. There was nothing of that kind to be +discerned in the face of the girl who came in. Had I been a little older +and more experienced I should probably have paid more attention to her +eyes, which were small and deep-set, with full lids, but dark as agate, +alert and bright, a thing rare in fair-haired people. Poetical +tendencies I should not have detected in their rapid, as it were +elusive, glance, but hints of a passionate soul, passionate to +self-forgetfulness. But I was very young then. + +I held out my hand to Musa Pavlovna--she did not give me hers--she did +not notice my movement; she sat down on the chair Tarhov placed for her, +but did not take off her hat and cape. + +She was, obviously, ill at ease; my presence embarrassed her. She +drew deep breaths, at irregular intervals, as though she were +gasping for air. + +‘I’ve only come to you for one minute, Vladimir Nikolaitch,’ she +began--her voice was very soft and deep; from her crimson, almost +childish lips, it seemed rather strange;--‘but our madame would not let +me out for more than half an hour. You weren’t well the day before +yesterday ... and so, I thought ...’ + +She stammered and hung her head. Under the shade of her thick, low brows +her dark eyes darted--to and fro--elusively. There are dark, swift, +flashing beetles that flit so in the heat of summer among the blades of +dry grass. + +‘How good you are, Musa, Musotchka!’ cried Tarhov. ‘But you must stay, +you must stay a little.... We’ll have the samovar in directly.’ + +‘Oh no, Vladimir Nikolaevitch! it’s impossible! I must go away +this minute.’ + +‘You must rest a little, anyway. You’re out of breath.... You’re tired.’ + +‘I’m not tired. It’s ... not that ... only ... give me another book; +I’ve finished this one.’ She took out of her pocket a tattered grey +volume of a Moscow edition. + +‘Of course, of course. Well, did you like it? _Roslavlev_,’ added +Tarhov, addressing me. + +‘Yes. Only I think _Yury Miloslavsky_ is much better. Our madame is very +strict about books. She says they hinder our working. For, to her +thinking ...’ + +‘But, I say, _Yury Miloslavsky_‘s not equal to Pushkin’s _Gipsies_? Eh? +Musa Pavlovna?’ Tarhov broke in with a smile. + +‘No, indeed! The _Gipsies_ ...’ she murmured slowly. ‘Oh yes, another +thing, Vladimir Nikolaitch; don’t come to-morrow ... you know where.’ + +‘Why not?’ + +‘It’s impossible.’ + +‘But why?’ + +The girl shrugged her shoulders, and all at once, as though she had +received a sudden shove, got up from her chair. + +‘Why, Musa, Musotchka,’ Tarhov expostulated plaintively. ‘Stay a +little!’ + +‘No, no, I can’t.’ She went quickly to the door, took hold of the +handle.... + +‘Well, at least, take the book!’ + +‘Another time.’ + +Tarhov rushed towards the girl, but at that instant she darted out of +the room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. ‘What a girl! +She’s a regular little viper!’ he declared with some vexation, and then +sank into thought. + +I stayed at Tarhov’s. I wanted to find out what was the meaning of it +all. Tarhov was not disposed to be reserved. He told me that the girl +was a milliner; that he had seen her for the first time three weeks +before in a fashionable shop, where he had gone on a commission for his +sister, who lived in the provinces, to buy a hat; that he had fallen in +love with her at first sight, and that next day he had succeeded in +speaking to her in the street; that she had herself, it seemed, taken +rather a fancy to him. + +‘Only, please, don’t you suppose,’ he added with warmth,--‘don’t you +imagine any harm of her. So far, at any rate, there’s been nothing of +that sort between us. + +‘Harm!’ I caught him up; ‘I’ve no doubt of that; and I’ve no doubt +either that you sincerely deplore the fact, my dear fellow! Have +patience--everything will come right’ + +‘I hope so,’ Tarhov muttered through his teeth, though with a laugh. +‘But really, my boy, that girl ... I tell you--it’s a new type, you +know. You hadn’t time to get a good look at her. She’s a shy thing!--oo! +such a shy thing! and what a will of her own! But that very shyness is +what I like in her. It’s a sign of independence! I’m simply over head +and ears, my boy!’ + +Tarhov fell to talking of his ‘charmer,’ and even read me the beginning +of a poem entitled: ‘My Muse.’ His emotional outpourings were not quite +to my taste. I felt secretly jealous of him. I soon left him. + + * * * * * + +A few days after I happened to be passing through one of the arcades of +the Gostinny Dvor. It was Saturday; there were crowds of people +shopping; on all sides, in the midst of the pushing and crushing, the +shopmen kept shouting to people to buy. Having bought what I wanted, I +was thinking of nothing but getting away from their teasing importunity +as soon as possible--when all at once I halted involuntarily: in a fruit +shop I caught sight of my comrade’s charmer--Musa, Musa Pavlovna! She +was standing, profile to me, and seemed to be waiting for something. +After a moment’s hesitation I made up my mind to go up to her and speak. +But I had hardly passed through the doorway of the shop and taken off my +cap, when she tottered back dismayed, turned quickly to an old man in a +frieze cloak, for whom the shopman was weighing out a pound of raisins, +and clutched at his arm, as though fleeing to put herself under his +protection. The latter, in his turn, wheeled round facing her--and, +imagine my amazement, I recognised him as Punin! + +Yes, it was he; there were his inflamed eyes, his full lips, his soft, +overhanging nose. He had, in fact, changed little during the last seven +years; his face was a little flabbier, perhaps. + +‘Nikander Vavilitch!’ I cried. ‘Don’t you know me?’ Punin started, +opened his mouth, stared at me.... + +‘I haven’t the honour,’ he was beginning--and all at once he piped out +shrilly: ‘The little master of Troïtsky (my grandmother’s property was +called Troïtsky)! Can it be the little master of Troïtsky?’ + +The pound of raisins tumbled out of his hands. + +‘It really is,’ I answered, and, picking up Punin’s purchase from the +ground, I kissed him. + +He was breathless with delight and excitement; he almost cried, removed +his cap--which enabled me to satisfy myself that the last traces of hair +had vanished from his ‘egg’--took a handkerchief out of it, blew his +nose, poked the cap into his bosom with the raisins, put it on again, +again dropped the raisins.... I don’t know how Musa was behaving all +this time, I tried not to look at her. I don’t imagine Punin’s agitation +proceeded from any extreme attachment to my person; it was simply that +his nature could not stand the slightest unexpected shock. The nervous +excitability of these poor devils! + +‘Come and see us, my dear boy,’ he faltered at last; ‘you won’t be too +proud to visit our humble nest? You’re a student, I see ...’ + +‘On the contrary, I shall be delighted, really.’ + +‘Are you independent now?’ + +‘Perfectly independent.’ + +‘That’s capital! How pleased Paramon Semyonitch will be! To-day he’ll be +home earlier than usual, and madame lets her, too, off for Saturdays. +But, stop, excuse me, I am quite forgetting myself. Of course, you don’t +know our niece!’ + +I hastened to slip in that I had not yet had the pleasure. + +‘Of course, of course! How could you know her! Musotchka ... Take note, +my dear sir, this girl’s name is Musa--and it’s not a nickname, but her +real name ... Isn’t that a predestination? Musotchka, I want to +introduce you to Mr. ... Mr. ...’ + +‘B.,’ I prompted. + +‘B.,’ he repeated. ‘Musotchka, listen! You see before you the most +excellent, most delightful of young men. Fate threw us together when he +was still in years of boyhood! I beg you to look on him as a friend!’ + +I swung off a low bow. Musa, red as a poppy, flashed a look on me from +under her eyelids, and dropped them immediately. + +‘Ah!’ thought I, ‘you ‘re one of those who in difficult moments don’t +turn pale, but red; that must be made a note of.’ + +‘You must be indulgent, she’s not a fine lady,’ observed Punin, and he +went out of the shop into the street; Musa and I followed him. + + * * * * * + +The house in which Punin lodged was a considerable distance from the +Gostinny Dvor, being, in fact, in Sadovoy Street. On the way my former +preceptor in poetry had time to communicate a good many details of his +mode of existence. Since the time of our parting, both he and Baburin +had been tossed about holy Russia pretty thoroughly, and had not +long--only a year and a half before--found a permanent home in Moscow. +Baburin had succeeded in becoming head-clerk in the office of a rich +merchant and manufacturer. ‘Not a lucrative berth,’ Punin observed with +a sigh,--‘a lot of work, and not much profit ... but what’s one to do? +One must be thankful to get that! I, too, am trying to earn something by +copying and lessons; only my efforts have so far not been crowned with +success. My writing, you perhaps recollect, is old-fashioned, not in +accordance with the tastes of the day; and as regards lessons--what has +been a great obstacle is the absence of befitting attire; moreover, I +greatly fear that in the matter of instruction--in the subject of +Russian literature--I am also not in harmony with the tastes of the day; +and so it comes about that I am turned away.’ (Punin laughed his sleepy, +subdued laugh. He had retained his old, somewhat high-flown manner of +speech, and his old weakness for falling into rhyme.) ‘All run after +novelties, nothing but innovations! I dare say you, too, do not honour +the old divinities, and fall down before new idols?’ + +‘And you, Nikander Vavilitch, do you really still esteem Heraskov?’ + +Punin stood still and waved both hands at once. ‘In the highest degree, +sir! in the high ... est de ... gree, I do!’ + +‘And you don’t read Pushkin? You don’t like Pushkin?’ + +Punin again flung his hands up higher than his head. + +‘Pushkin? Pushkin is the snake, lying hid in the grass, who is endowed +with the note of the nightingale!’ + +While Punin and I talked like this, cautiously picking our way over the +unevenly laid brick pavement of so-called ‘white-stoned’ Moscow--in +which there is not one stone, and which is not white at all--Musa walked +silently beside us on the side further from me. In speaking of her, I +called her ‘your niece.’ Punin was silent for a little, scratched his +head, and informed me in an undertone that he had called her so ... +merely as a manner of speaking; that she was really no relation; that +she was an orphan picked up and cared for by Baburin in the town of +Voronezh; but that he, Punin, might well call her daughter, as he loved +her no less than a real daughter. I had no doubt that, though Punin +intentionally dropped his voice, Musa could hear all he said very well; +and she was at once angry, and shy, and embarrassed; and the lights and +shades chased each other over her face, and everything in it was +slightly quivering, the eyelids and brows and lips and narrow nostrils. +All this was very charming, and amusing, and queer. + + * * * * * + +But at last we reached the ‘modest nest.’ And modest it certainly was, +the nest. It consisted of a small, one-storied house, that seemed almost +sunk into the ground, with a slanting wooden roof, and four dingy +windows in the front. The furniture of the rooms was of the poorest, and +not over tidy, indeed. Between the windows and on the walls hung about a +dozen tiny wooden cages containing larks, canaries, and siskins. ‘My +subjects!’ Punin pronounced triumphantly, pointing his finger at them. +We had hardly time to get in and look about us, Punin had hardly sent +Musa for the samovar, when Baburin himself came in. He seemed to me to +have aged much more than Punin, though his step was as firm as ever, and +the expression of his face altogether was unchanged; but he had grown +thin and bent, his cheeks were sunken, and his thick black shock of hair +was sprinkled with grey. He did not recognise me, and showed no +particular pleasure when Punin mentioned my name; he did not even smile +with his eyes, he barely nodded; he asked--very carelessly and +drily--whether my _granny_ were living--and that was all. ‘I’m not +over-delighted at a visit from a nobleman,’ he seemed to say; ‘I don’t +feel flattered by it.’ The republican was a republican still. + +Musa came back; a decrepit little old woman followed her, bringing in a +tarnished samovar. Punin began fussing about, and pressing me to take +things; Baburin sat down to the table, leaned his head on his hands, and +looked with weary eyes about him. At tea, however, he began to talk. He +was dissatisfied with his position. ‘A screw--not a man,’ so he spoke of +his employer; ‘people in a subordinate position are so much dirt to him, +of no consequence whatever; and yet it’s not so long since he was under +the yoke himself. Nothing but cruelty and covetousness. It’s a bondage +worse than the government’s! And all the trade here rests on swindling +and flourishes on nothing else!’ + +Hearing such dispiriting utterances, Punin sighed expressively, +assented, shook his head up and down, and from side to side; Musa +maintained a stubborn silence.... She was obviously fretted by the +doubt, what I was, whether I was a discreet person or a gossip. And if I +were discreet, whether it was not with some afterthought in my mind. Her +dark, swift, restless eyes fairly flashed to and fro under their +half-drooping lids. Only once she glanced at me, but so inquisitively, +so searchingly, almost viciously ... I positively started. Baburin +scarcely talked to her at all; but whenever he did address her, there +was a note of austere, hardly fatherly, tenderness in his voice. + +Punin, on the contrary, was continually joking with Musa; she responded +unwillingly, however. He called her little snow-maiden, little +snowflake. + +‘Why do you give Musa Pavlovna such names?’ I asked. + +Punin laughed. ‘Because she’s such a chilly little thing.’ + +‘Sensible,’ put in Baburin: ‘as befits a young girl.’ + +‘We may call her the mistress of the house,’ cried Punin. ‘Hey? Paramon +Semyonitch?’ Baburin frowned; Musa turned away ... I did not understand +the hint at the time. + +So passed two hours ... in no very lively fashion, though Punin did his +best to ‘entertain the honourable company.’ For instance, he squatted +down in front of the cage of one of the canaries, opened the door, and +commanded: ‘On the cupola! Begin the concert!’ The canary fluttered out +at once, perched on the _cupola_, that is to say, on Punin’s bald pate, +and turning from side to side, and shaking its little wings, carolled +with all its might. During the whole time the concert lasted, Punin kept +perfectly still, only conducting with his finger, and half closing his +eyes. I could not help roaring with laughter ... but neither Baburin nor +Musa laughed. + +Just as I was leaving, Baburin surprised me by an unexpected question. +He wished to ask me, as a man studying at the university, what sort of +person Zeno was, and what were my ideas about him. + +‘What Zeno?’ I asked, somewhat puzzled. + +‘Zeno, the sage of antiquity. Surely he cannot be unknown to you?’ + +I vaguely recalled the name of Zeno, as the founder of the school of +Stoics; but I knew absolutely nothing more about him. + +‘Yes, he was a philosopher,’ I pronounced, at last. + +‘Zeno,’ Baburin resumed in deliberate tones, ‘was that wise man, who +declared that suffering was not an evil, since fortitude overcomes all +things, and that the good in this world is one: justice; and virtue +itself is nothing else than justice.’ + +Punin turned a reverent ear. + +‘A man living here who has picked up a lot of old books, told me that +saying,’ continued Baburin; ‘it pleased me much. But I see you are not +interested in such subjects.’ + +Baburin was right. In such subjects I certainly was not interested. +Since I had entered the university, I had become as much of a republican +as Baburin himself. Of Mirabeau, of Robespierre, I would have talked +with zest. Robespierre, indeed ... why, I had hanging over my +writing-table the lithographed portraits of Fouquier-Tinville and +Chalier! But Zeno! Why drag in Zeno? + +As he said good-bye to me, Punin insisted very warmly on my visiting +them next day, Sunday; Baburin did not invite me at all, and even +remarked between his teeth, that talking to plain people of nondescript +position could not give me any great pleasure, and would most likely be +disagreeable to my _granny_. At that word I interrupted him, however, +and gave him to understand that my grandmother had no longer any +authority over me. + +‘Why, you’ve not come into possession of the property, have you?’ +queried Baburin. + +‘No, I haven’t,’ I answered. + +‘Well, then, it follows ...’ Baburin did not finish his sentence; but I +mentally finished it for him: ‘it follows that I’m a boy.’ + +‘Good-bye,’ I said aloud, and I retired. + +I was just going out of the courtyard into the street ... Musa suddenly +ran out of the house, and slipping a piece of crumpled paper into my +hand, disappeared at once. At the first lamp-post I unfolded the paper. +It turned out to be a note. With difficulty I deciphered the pale +pencil-marks. ‘For God’s sake,’ Musa had written, ‘come to-morrow after +matins to the Alexandrovsky garden near the Kutafia tower I shall wait +for you don’t refuse me don’t make me miserable I simply must see you.’ +There were no mistakes in spelling in this note, but neither was there +any punctuation. I returned home in perplexity. + + * * * * * + +When, a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, next day, I began +to get near the Kutafia tower (it was early in April, the buds were +swelling, the grass was growing greener, and the sparrows were noisily +chirrupping and quarrelling in the bare lilac bushes), considerably to +my surprise, I caught sight of Musa a little to one side, not far from +the fence. She was there before me. I was going towards her; but she +herself came to meet me. + +‘Let’s go to the Kreml wall,’ she whispered in a hurried voice, running +her downcast eyes over the ground; ‘there are people here.’ + +We went along the path up the hill. + +‘Musa Pavlovna,’ I was beginning.... But she cut me short at once. + +‘Please,’ she began, speaking in the same jerky and subdued voice, +‘don’t criticise me, don’t think any harm of me. I wrote a letter to +you, I made an appointment to meet you, because ... I was afraid.... It +seemed to me yesterday,--you seemed to be laughing all the time. +Listen,’ she added, with sudden energy, and she stopped short and turned +towards me: ‘listen; if you tell with whom ... if you mention at whose +room you met me, I’ll throw myself in the water, I’ll drown myself, I’ll +make an end of myself!’ + +At this point, for the first time, she glanced at me with the +inquisitive, piercing look I had seen before. + +‘Why, she, perhaps, really ... would do it,’ was my thought. + +‘Really, Musa Pavlovna,’ I protested, hurriedly: ‘how can you have such +a bad opinion of me? Do you suppose I am capable of betraying my friend +and injuring you? Besides, come to that, there’s nothing in your +relations, as far as I’m aware, deserving of censure.... For goodness’ +sake, be calm.’ + +Musa heard me out, without stirring from the spot, or looking at me +again. + +‘There’s something else I ought to tell you,’ she began, moving forward +again along the path, ‘or else you may think I’m quite mad! I ought to +tell you, that old man wants to marry me!’ + +‘What old man? The bald one? Punin?’ + +‘No--not he! The other ... Paramon Semyonitch.’ + +‘Baburin?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Is it possible? Has he made you an offer?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘But you didn’t consent, of course?’ + +‘Yes, I did consent ... because I didn’t understand what I was about +then. Now it’s a different matter.’ + +I flung up my hands. ‘Baburin--and you! Why, he must be fifty!’ + +‘He says forty-three. But that makes no difference. If he were +five--and--twenty I wouldn’t marry him. Much happiness I should find in +it! A whole week will go by without his smiling once! Paramon Semyonitch +is my benefactor, I am deeply indebted to him; he took care of me, +educated me; I should have been utterly lost but for him; I’m bound to +look on him as a father.... But be his wife! I’d rather die! I’d rather +be in my coffin!’ + +‘Why do you keep talking about death, Musa Pavlovna?’ + +Musa stopped again. + +‘Why, is life so sweet, then? Even your friend Vladimir Nikolaitch, I +may say, I’ve come to love from being wretched and dull: and then +Paramon Semyonitch with his offers of marriage.... Punin, though he +bores me with his verses, he doesn’t scare me, anyway; he doesn’t make +me read Karamzin in the evenings, when my head’s ready to drop off my +shoulders for weariness! And what are these old men to me? They call me +cold, too. With them, is it likely I should be warm? If they try to make +me--I shall go. Paramon Semyonitch himself’s always saying: Freedom! +freedom! All right, I want freedom too. Or else it comes to this! +Freedom for every one else, and keeping me in a cage! I’ll tell him so +myself. But if you betray me, or drop a hint--remember; they’ll never +set eyes on me again!’ + +Musa stood in the middle of the path. + +‘They’ll never set eyes on me again!’ she repeated sharply. This time, +too, she did not raise her eyes to me; she seemed to be aware that she +would infallibly betray herself, would show what was in her heart, if +any one looked her straight in the face.... And that was just why she +did not lift her eyes, except when she was angry or annoyed, and then +she stared straight at the person she was speaking to.... But her small +pretty face was aglow with indomitable resolution. + +‘Why, Tarhov was right,’ flashed through my head; ‘this girl is a +new type.’ + +‘You’ve no need to be afraid of me,’ I declared, at last. + +‘Truly? Even, if ... You said something about our relations.... But even +if there were ...’ she broke off. + +‘Even in that case, you would have no need to be afraid, Musa Pavlovna. +I am not your judge. Your secret is buried here.’ I pointed to my bosom. +‘Believe me, I know how to appreciate ...’ + +‘Have you got my letter?’ Musa asked suddenly. + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Where?’ + +‘In my pocket.’ + +‘Give it here ... quick, quick!’ + +I got out the scrap of paper. Musa snatched it in her rough little hand, +stood still a moment facing me, as though she were going to thank me; +but suddenly started, looked round, and without even a word at parting, +ran quickly down the hill. + +I looked in the direction she had taken. At no great distance from the +tower I discerned, wrapped in an ‘Almaviva’ [‘Almavivas’ were then in +the height of fashion), a figure which I recognised at once as Tarhov. + +‘Aha, my boy,’ thought I, ‘you must have had notice, then, since you’re +on the look-out.’ + +And whistling to myself, I started homewards. + + * * * * * + +Next morning I had only just drunk my morning tea, when Punin made his +appearance. He came into my room with rather an embarrassed face, and +began making bows, looking about him, and apologising for his intrusion, +as he called it. I made haste to reassure him. I, sinful man, imagined +that Punin had come with the intention of borrowing money. But he +confined himself to asking for a glass of tea with rum in it, as, +luckily, the samovar had not been cleared away. ‘It’s with some +trepidation and sinking of heart that I have come to see you,’ he said, +as he nibbled a lump of sugar. ‘You I do not fear; but I stand in awe of +your honoured grandmother! I am abashed too by my attire, as I have +already communicated to you.’ Punin passed his finger along the frayed +edge of his ancient coat. ‘At home it’s no matter, and in the street, +too, it’s no harm; but when one finds one’s self in gilded palaces, +one’s poverty stares one in the face, and one feels confused!’ I +occupied two small rooms on the ground floor, and certainly it would +never have entered any one’s head to call them palaces, still less +gilded; but Punin apparently was referring to the whole of my +grandmother’s house, though that too was by no means conspicuously +sumptuous. He reproached me for not having been to see them the previous +day; ‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ said he, ‘expected you, though he did declare +that you would be sure not to come. And Musotchka, too, expected you.’ + +‘What? Musa Pavlovna too?’ I queried. + +‘She too. She’s a charming girl we have got with us, isn’t she? What +do you say?’ + +‘Very charming,’ I assented. Punin rubbed his bare head with +extraordinary rapidity. + +‘She’s a beauty, sir, a pearl or even a diamond--it’s the truth I am +telling you.’ He bent down quite to my ear. ‘Noble blood, too,’ he +whispered to me, ‘only--you understand--left-handed; the forbidden fruit +was eaten. Well, the parents died, the relations would do nothing for +her, and flung her to the hazards of destiny, that’s to say, despair, +dying of hunger! But at that point Paramon Semyonitch steps forward, +known as a deliverer from of old! He took her, clothed her and cared for +her, brought up the poor nestling; and she has blossomed into our +darling! I tell you, a man of the rarest qualities!’ + +Punin subsided against the back of the armchair, lifted his hands, and +again bending forward, began whispering again, but still more +mysteriously: ‘You see Paramon Semyonitch himself too.... Didn’t you +know? he too is of exalted extraction--and on the left side, too. They +do say--his father was a powerful Georgian prince, of the line of King +David.... What do you make of that? A few words--but how much is said? +The blood of King David! What do you think of that? And according to +other accounts, the founder of the family of Paramon Semyonitch was an +Indian Shah, Babur. Blue blood! That’s fine too, isn’t it? Eh?’ + +‘Well?’ I queried, ‘and was he too, Baburin, flung to the hazards +of destiny?’ + +Punin rubbed his pate again. ‘To be sure he was! And with even greater +cruelty than our little lady! From his earliest childhood nothing but +struggling! And, in fact, I will confess that, inspired by Ruban, I +composed in allusion to this fact a stanza for the portrait of Paramon +Semyonitch. Wait a bit ... how was it? Yes! + + ‘E’en from the cradle fate’s remorseless blows + Baburin drove towards the abyss of woes! + But as in darkness gleams the light, so now + The conqueror’s laurel wreathes his noble brow!’ + +Punin delivered these lines in a rhythmic, sing-song voice, with full +rounded vowels, as verses should be read. + +‘So that’s how it is he’s a republican!’ I exclaimed. + +‘No, that’s not why,’ Punin answered simply. ‘He forgave his father long +ago; but he cannot endure injustice of any sort; it’s the sorrows of +others that trouble him!’ + +I wanted to turn the conversation on what I had learned from Musa the +day before, that is to say, on Baburin’s matrimonial project,--but I did +not know how to proceed. Punin himself got me out of the difficulty. + +‘Did you notice nothing?’ he asked me suddenly, slily screwing up his +eyes, ‘while you were with us? nothing special?’ + +‘Why, was there anything to notice?’ I asked in my turn. + +Punin looked over his shoulder, as though anxious to satisfy himself +that no one was listening. ‘Our little beauty, Musotchka, is shortly to +be a married lady!’ + +‘How so?’ + +‘Madame Baburin,’ Punin announced with an effort, and slapping his +knees several times with his open hands, he nodded his head, like a +china mandarin. + +‘Impossible!’ I cried, with assumed astonishment. Punin’s head +slowly came to rest, and his hands dropped down. ‘Why impossible, +allow me to ask?’ + +‘Because Paramon Semyonitch is more fit to be your young lady’s father; +because such a difference in age excludes all likelihood of love--on the +girl’s side.’ + +‘Excludes?’ Punin repeated excitedly. ‘But what about gratitude? and +pure affection? and tenderness of feeling? Excludes! You must consider +this: admitting that Musa’s a splendid girl; but then to gain Paramon +Semyonitch’s affection, to be his comfort, his prop--his spouse, in +short! is that not the loftiest possible happiness even for such a girl? +And she realises it! You should look, turn an attentive eye! In Paramon +Semyonitch’s presence Musotchka is all veneration, all tremor and +enthusiasm!’ + +‘That’s just what’s wrong, Nikander Vavilitch, that she is, as you say, +all tremor. If you love any one you don’t feel tremors in their +presence.’ + +‘But with that I can’t agree! Here am I, for instance; no one, I +suppose, could love Paramon Semyonitch more than I, but I ... tremble +before him.’ + +‘Oh, you--that’s a different matter.’ + +‘How is it a different matter? how? how?’ interrupted Punin. I simply +did not know him; he got hot, and serious, almost angry, and quite +dropped his rhythmic sing-song in speaking. ‘No,’ he declared; ‘I notice +that you have not a good eye for character! No; you can’t read people’s +hearts!’ I gave up contradicting him ... and to give another turn to the +conversation, proposed, for the sake of old times, that we should read +something together. + +Punin was silent for a while. + +‘One of the old poets? The real ones?’ he asked at last. + +‘No; a new one.’ + +‘A new one?’ Punin repeated mistrustfully. + +‘Pushkin,’ I answered. I suddenly thought of the _Gypsies_ which Tarhov +had mentioned not long before. There, by the way, is the ballad about +the old husband. Punin grumbled a little, but I sat him down on the +sofa, so that he could listen more comfortably, and began to read +Pushkin’s poem. The passage came at last, ‘old husband, cruel husband’; +Punin heard the ballad through to the end, and all at once he got up +impulsively. + +‘I can’t,’ he pronounced, with an intense emotion, which impressed even +me;--‘excuse me; I cannot hear more of that author. He is an immoral +slanderer; he is a liar ... he upsets me. I cannot! Permit me to cut +short my visit to-day.’ + +I began trying to persuade Punin to remain; but he insisted on having +his own way with a sort of stupid, scared obstinacy: he repeated several +times that he felt upset, and wished to get a breath of fresh air--and +all the while his lips were faintly quivering and his eyes avoided mine, +as though I had wounded him. So he went away. A little while after, I +too went out of the house and set off to see Tarhov. + + * * * * * + +Without inquiring of any one, with a student’s usual lack of ceremony, +I walked straight into his lodgings. In the first room there was no +one. I called Tarhov by name, and receiving no answer, was just going +to retreat; but the door of the adjoining room opened, and my friend +appeared. He looked at me rather queerly, and shook hands without +speaking. I had come to him to repeat all I had heard from Punin; and +though I felt at once that I had called on Tarhov at the wrong moment, +still, after talking a little about extraneous matters, I ended by +informing him of Baburin’s intentions in regard to Musa. This piece of +news did not, apparently, surprise him much; he quietly sat down at the +table, and fixing his eyes intently upon me, and keeping silent as +before, gave to his features an expression ... an expression, as though +he would say: ‘Well, what more have you to tell? Come, out with your +ideas!’ I looked more attentively into his face.... It struck me as +eager, a little ironical, a little arrogant even. But that did not +hinder me from bringing out my ideas. On the contrary. ‘You’re showing +off,’ was my thought; ‘so I am not going to spare you!’ And there and +then I proceeded straightway to enlarge upon the mischief of yielding +to impulsive feelings, upon the duty of every man to respect the +freedom and personal life of another man--in short, I proceeded to +enunciate useful and appropriate counsel. Holding forth in this manner, +I walked up and down the room, to be more at ease. Tarhov did not +interrupt me, and did not stir from his seat; he only played with his +fingers on his chin. + +‘I know,’ said I ... (Exactly what was my motive in speaking so, I have +no clear idea myself--envy, most likely; it was not devotion to +morality, anyway!) ‘I know,’ said I, ‘that it’s no easy matter, no +joking matter; I am sure you love Musa, and that Musa loves you--that it +is not a passing fancy on your part.... But, see, let us suppose! (Here +I folded my arms on my breast.) ... Let us suppose you gratify your +passion--what is to follow? You won’t marry her, you know. And at the +same time you are wrecking the happiness of an excellent, honest man, +her benefactor--and--who knows? (here my face expressed at the same time +penetration and sorrow)--possibly her own happiness too....’ + +And so on, and so on! + +For about a quarter of an hour my discourse flowed on. Tarhov was still +silent. I began to be disconcerted by this silence. I glanced at him +from time to time, not so much to satisfy myself as to the impression my +words were making on him, as to find out why he neither objected nor +agreed, but sat like a deaf mute. At last I fancied that there was ... +yes, there certainly was a change in his face. It began to show signs of +uneasiness, agitation, painful agitation.... Yet, strange to say, the +eager, bright, laughing something, which had struck me at my first +glance at Tarhov, still did not leave that agitated, that troubled face! +I could not make up my mind whether or no to congratulate myself on the +success of my sermon, when Tarhov suddenly got up, and pressing both my +hands, said, speaking very quickly, ‘Thank you, thank you. You’re right, +of course, ... though, on the other side, one might observe ... What is +your Baburin you make so much of, after all? An honest fool--and nothing +more! You call him a republican--and he’s simply a fool! Oo! That’s what +he is! All his republicanism simply means that he can never get on +anywhere!’ + +‘Ah! so that’s your idea! A fool! can never get on!--but let me tell +you,’ I pursued, with sudden heat, ‘let me tell you, my dear Vladimir +Nikolaitch, that in these days to get on nowhere is a sign of a fine, a +noble nature! None but worthless people--bad people--get on anywhere and +accommodate themselves to everything. You say Baburin is an honest fool! +Why, is it better, then, to your mind, to be dishonest and clever?’ + +‘You distort my words!’ cried Tarhov. ‘I only wanted to explain how I +understand that person. Do you think he’s such a rare specimen? Not a +bit of it! I’ve met other people like him in my time. A man sits with an +air of importance, silent, obstinate, angular.... O-ho-ho! say you. It +shows that there’s a great deal in him! But there’s nothing in him, not +one idea in his head--nothing but a sense of his own dignity.’ + +‘Even if there is nothing else, that’s an honourable thing,’ I broke +in. ‘But let me ask where you have managed to study him like this? You +don’t know him, do you? Or are you describing him ... from what Musa +tells you?’ + +Tarhov shrugged his shoulders. ‘Musa and I ... have other things to talk +of. I tell you what,’ he added, his whole body quivering with +impatience,--‘I tell you what: if Baburin has such a noble and honest +nature, how is it he doesn’t see that Musa is not a fit match for him? +It’s one of two things: either he knows that what he’s doing to her is +something of the nature of an outrage, all in the name of gratitude ... +and if so, what about his honesty?--or he doesn’t realise it ... and in +that case, what can one call him but a fool?’ + +I was about to reply, but Tarhov again clutched my hands, and again +began talking in a hurried voice. ‘Though ... of course ... I confess +you are right, a thousand times right.... You are a true friend ... but +now leave me alone, please.’ + +I was puzzled. ‘Leave you alone?’ + +‘Yes. I must, don’t you see, think over all you’ve just said, +thoroughly.... I have no doubt you are right ... but now leave me +alone!’ + +‘You ‘re in such a state of excitement ...’ I was beginning. + +‘Excitement? I?’ Tarhov laughed, but instantly pulled himself up. ‘Yes, +of course I am. How could I help being? You say yourself it’s no joking +matter. Yes; I must think about it ... alone.’ He was still squeezing my +hands. ‘Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye!’ + +‘Good-bye,’ I repeated. ‘Good-bye, old boy!’ As I was going away I flung +a last glance at Tarhov. He seemed pleased. At what? At the fact that I, +like a true friend and comrade, had pointed out the danger of the way +upon which he had set his foot--or that I was going? Ideas of the most +diverse kind were floating in my head the whole day till evening--till +the very instant when I entered the house occupied by Punin and Baburin, +for I went to see them the same day. I am bound to confess that some of +Tarhov’s phrases had sunk deep into my soul ... and were ringing in my +ears.... In truth, was it possible Baburin ... was it possible he did +not see she was not a fit match for him? + +But could this possibly be: Baburin, the self-sacrificing Baburin--an +honest fool! + + * * * * * + +Punin had said, when he came to see me, that I had been expected there +the day before. That may have been so, but on this day, it is certain, +no one expected me.... I found every one at home, and every one was +surprised at my visit. Baburin and Punin were both unwell: Punin had a +headache, and he was lying curled up on the sofa, with his head tied up +in a spotted handkerchief, and strips of cucumber applied to his +temples. Baburin was suffering from a bilious attack; all yellow, +almost dusky, with dark rings round his eyes, with scowling brow and +unshaven chin--he did not look much like a bridegroom! I tried to go +away.... But they would not let me go, and even made tea. I spent +anything but a cheerful evening. Musa, it is true, had no ailment, and +was less shy than usual too, but she was obviously vexed, angry.... At +last she could not restrain herself, and, as she handed me a cup of +tea, she whispered hurriedly: ‘You can say what you like, you may try +your utmost, you won’t make any difference.... So there!’ I looked at +her in astonishment, and, seizing a favourable moment, asked her, also +in a whisper, ‘What’s the meaning of your words?’ ‘I’ll tell you,’ she +answered, and her black eyes, gleaming angrily under her frowning +brows, were fastened for an instant on my face, and turned away at +once: ‘the meaning is that I heard all you said there to-day, and thank +you for nothing, and things won’t be as you ‘d have them, anyway.’ ‘You +were there,’ broke from me unconsciously.... But at this point +Baburin’s attention was caught, and he glanced in our direction. Musa +walked away from me. + +Ten minutes later she managed to come near me again. She seemed to enjoy +saying bold and dangerous things to me, and saying them in the presence +of her protector, under his vigilant eye, only exercising barely enough +caution not to arouse his suspicions. It is well known that walking on +the brink, on the very edge, of the precipice is woman’s favourite +pastime. ‘Yes, I was there,’ whispered Musa, without any change of +countenance, except that her nostrils were faintly quivering and her +lips twitching. ‘Yes, and if Paramon Semyonitch asks me what I am +whispering about with you, I’d tell him this minute. What do I care?’ + +‘Be more careful,’ I besought her. ‘I really believe they are noticing.’ + +‘I tell you, I’m quite ready to tell them everything. And who’s +noticing? One’s stretching his neck off the pillow, like a sick duck, +and hears nothing; and the other’s deep in philosophy. Don’t you be +afraid!’ Musa’s voice rose a little, and her cheeks gradually flushed a +sort of malignant, dusky red; and this suited her marvellously, and +never had she been so pretty. As she cleared the table, and set the cups +and saucers in their places, she moved swiftly about the room; there was +something challenging about her light, free and easy movement. ‘You may +criticise me as you like,’ she seemed to say; ‘but I’m going my own way, +and I’m not afraid of you.’ + +I cannot disguise the fact that I found Musa bewitching just that +evening. ‘Yes,’ I mused; ‘she’s a little spitfire--she’s a new type.... +She’s--exquisite. Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say.... +What of it! No matter!’ + +‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ she cried suddenly, ‘isn’t a republic an empire in +which every one does as he chooses?’ + +‘A republic is not an empire,’ answered Baburin, raising his head, and +contracting his brows; ‘it is a ... form of society in which everything +rests on law and justice.’ + +‘Then,’ Musa pursued, ‘in a republic no one can oppress any one else?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘And every one is free to dispose of himself?’ + +‘Quite free.’ + +‘Ah! that’s all I wanted to know.’ + +‘Why do you want to know?’ + +‘Oh, I wanted to--I wanted _you_ to tell me that.’ + +‘Our young lady is anxious to learn,’ Punin observed from the sofa. + +When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course, +from politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I +took leave, ‘Can you really love him so much?’ + +‘Whether I love him, or whether I don’t, that’s _my_ affair,’ she +answered. ‘What is to be, will be.’ + +‘Mind what you’re about; don’t play with fire ... you’ll get burnt.’ + +‘Better be burnt than frozen. You ... with your good advice! And how can +you tell he won’t marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to +get married? If I am ruined ... what business is it of yours?’ + +She slammed the door after me. + +I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my +friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new +type.... He ought to have to pay something for his happiness! + +That he would be happy, I was--regretfully--unable to doubt. + +Three days passed by. I was sitting in my room at my writing-table, and +not so much working as getting myself ready for lunch.... I heard a +rustle, lifted my head, and I was stupefied. Before me--rigid, terrible, +white as chalk, stood an apparition ... Punin. His half-closed eyes were +looking at me, blinking slowly; they expressed a senseless terror, the +terror of a frightened hare, and his arms hung at his sides like sticks. + +‘Nikander Vavilitch! what is the matter with you? How did you come here? +Did no one see you? What has happened? Do speak!’ + +‘She has run away,’ Punin articulated in a hoarse, hardly audible voice. + +‘What do you say?’ + +‘She has run away,’ he repeated. + +‘Who?’ + +‘Musa. She went away in the night, and left a note.’ + +‘A note?’ + +‘Yes. “I thank you,” she said, “but I am not coming back again. Don’t +look for me.” We ran up and down; we questioned the cook; she knew +nothing. I can’t speak loud; you must excuse me. I’ve lost my voice.’ + +‘Musa Pavlovna has left you!’ I exclaimed. ‘Nonsense! Mr. Baburin must +be in despair. What does he intend to do now?’ + +‘He has no intention of doing anything. I wanted to run to the +Governor-general: he forbade it. I wanted to give information to the +police; he forbade that too, and got very angry. He says, “She’s free.” + He says, “I don’t want to constrain her.” He has even gone to work, to +his office. But he looks more dead than alive. He loved her +terribly....Oh, oh, we both loved her!’ + +Here Punin for the first time showed that he was not a wooden image, but +a live man; he lifted both his fists in the air, and brought them down +on his pate, which shone like ivory. + +‘Ungrateful girl!’ he groaned; ‘who was it gave you food and drink, +clothed you, and brought you up? who cared for you, would have given all +his life, all his soul ... And you have forgotten it all? To cast me +off, truly, were no great matter, but Paramon Semyonitch, Paramon ...’ + +I begged him to sit down, to rest. + +Punin shook his head. ‘No, I won’t. I have come to you ... I don’t know +what for. I’m like one distraught; to stay at home alone is fearful; +what am I to do with myself? I stand in the middle of the room, shut my +eyes, and call, “Musa! Musotchka!” That’s the way to go out of one’s +mind. But no, why am I talking nonsense? I know why I have come to you. +You know, the other day you read me that thrice-accursed poem ... you +remember, where there is talk of an old husband. What did you do that +for? Did you know something then ... or guessed something?’ Punin +glanced at me. ‘Piotr Petrovitch,’ he cried suddenly, and he began +trembling all over, ‘you know, perhaps, where she is. Kind friend, tell +me whom she has gone to!’ + +I was disconcerted, and could not help dropping my eyes.... + +‘Perhaps she said something in her letter,’ I began.... + +‘She said she was leaving us because she loved some one else! Dear, good +friend, you know, surely, where she is? Save her, let us go to her; we +will persuade her. Only think what a man she’s bringing to ruin.’ + +Punin all at once flushed crimson, the blood seemed to rush to his +head, he plumped heavily down on his knees. ‘Save us, friend, let us +go to her.’ + +My servant appeared in the doorway, and stood still in amazement. + +I had no little trouble to get Punin on to his feet again, to convince +him that, even if I did suspect something, still it would not do to act +like that, on the spur of the moment, especially both together--that +would only spoil all our efforts--that I was ready to do my best, but +would not answer for anything. Punin did not oppose me, nor did he +indeed hear me; he only repeated from time to time in his broken voice, +‘Save her, save her and Paramon Semyonitch.’ At last he began to cry. +‘Tell me at least one thing,’ he asked ... ‘is _he_ handsome, young?’ + +‘Yes, he is young,’ I answered. + +‘He is young,’ repeated Punin, smearing the tears over his cheeks; ‘and +she is young.... It’s from that that all the trouble’s sprung!’ + +This rhyme came by chance; poor Punin was in no mood for versifying. I +would have given a good deal to hear his rhapsodical eloquence again, or +even his almost noiseless laugh.... Alas! his eloquence was quenched for +ever, and I never heard his laugh again. + +I promised to let him know, as soon as I should find out anything +positive.... Tarhov’s name I did not, however, mention. Punin suddenly +collapsed completely. ‘Very good, very good, sir, thank you,’ he said +with a pitiful face, using the word ‘sir,’ which he had never done +before; ‘only mind, sir, do not say anything to Paramon Semyonitch ... +or he’ll be angry. In one word, he has forbidden it. Good-bye, sir.’ + +As he got up and turned his back to me, Punin struck me as such a poor +feeble creature, that I positively marvelled; he limped with both legs, +and doubled up at each step.... + +‘It’s a bad look-out. It’s the end of him, that’s what it means,’ +I thought. + + * * * * * + +Though I had promised Punin to trace Musa, yet as I set off the same day +to Tarhov’s, I had not the slightest expectation of learning anything, +as I considered it certain that either I should not find him at home, or +that he would refuse to see me. My supposition turned out to be a +mistaken one. I found Tarhov at home; he received me, and I found out +indeed all I wanted to know; but there was nothing gained by that. +Directly I crossed the threshold of his door, Tarhov came resolutely, +rapidly, to meet me, and his eyes sparkling and glowing, his face grown +handsomer and radiant, he said firmly and briskly: ‘Listen, Petya, my +boy; I guess what you’ve come for, and what you want to talk about; but +I give you warning, if you say a single word about her, or about her +action, or about what, according to you, is the course dictated to me by +common sense, we’re friends no longer, we’re not even acquainted, and I +shall beg you to treat me as a stranger.’ + +I looked at Tarhov; he was quivering all over inwardly, like a tightly +drawn harpstring; he was tingling all over, hardly could he hold back +the tide of brimming youth and passion; violent, ecstatic happiness had +burst into his soul, and had taken full possession of him--and he of it. + + * * * * * + +‘Is that your final decision?’ I pronounced mournfully. + +‘Yes, Petya, my boy, it’s final.’ + +‘In that case, there’s nothing for me but to say good-bye.’ + +Tarhov faintly dropped his eyelids.... He was too happy at that moment. + +‘Good-bye, Petya, old boy,’ he said, a little through his nose, with a +candid smile and a gay flash of all his white teeth. + +What was I to do? I left him to his ‘happiness.’ As I slammed the door +after me, the other door of the room slammed also--I heard it. + + * * * * * + +It was with a heavy heart that I trudged off next day to see my luckless +acquaintances. I secretly hoped--such is human weakness--that I should +not find them at home, and again I was mistaken. Both were at home. The +change that had taken place in them during the last three days must have +struck any one. Punin looked ghastly white and flabby. His talkativeness +had completely vanished. He spoke listlessly, feebly, still in the same +husky voice, and looked somehow lost and bewildered. Baburin, on the +contrary, seemed shrunk into himself, and blacker than ever; taciturn at +the best of times, he uttered nothing now but a few abrupt sounds; an +expression of stony severity seemed to have frozen on his countenance. + +I felt it impossible to be silent; but what was there to say? I confined +myself to whispering to Punin, ‘I have discovered nothing, and my advice +to you is to give up all hope.’ Punin glanced at me with his swollen, +red little eyes--the only red left in his face--muttered something +inaudible, and hobbled away. Baburin most likely guessed what I had been +speaking about to Punin, and opening his lips, which were tightly +compressed, as though glued together, he pronounced, in a deliberate +voice, ‘My dear sir, since your last visit to us, something disagreeable +has happened to us; our young friend, Musa Pavlovna Vinogradov, finding +it no longer convenient to live with us, has decided to leave us, and +has given us a written communication to that effect. Not considering +that we have any right to hinder her doing so, we have left her to act +according to her own views of what is best. We trust that she may be +happy,’ he added, with some effort; ‘and I humbly beg you not to allude +to the subject, as any such references are useless, and even painful.’ + +‘So he too, like Tarhov, forbids my speaking of Musa,’ was the thought +that struck me, and I could not help wondering inwardly. He might well +prize Zeno so highly. I wished to impart to him some facts about that +sage, but my tongue would not form the words, and it did well. + +I soon went about my business. At parting neither Punin nor Baburin +said, ‘Till we meet!’ both with one voice pronounced, ‘Good-bye.’ + +Punin even returned me a volume of the _Telegraph_ I had brought him, as +much as to say, ‘he had no need of anything of that kind now.’ + +A week later I had a curious encounter. An early spring had set in +abruptly; at midday the heat rose to eighteen degrees Réaumur. +Everything was turning green, and shooting up out of the spongy, damp +earth. I hired a horse at the riding-school, and went out for a ride +into the outskirts of the town, towards the Vorobyov hills. On the road +I was met by a little cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies, +splashed with mud up to their ears, with plaited tails, and red ribbons +in their manes and forelocks. Their harness was such as sportsmen +affect, with copper discs and tassels; they were being driven by a +smart young driver, in a blue tunic without sleeves, a yellow striped +silk shirt, and a low felt hat with peacock’s feathers round the crown. +Beside him sat a girl of the artisan or merchant class, in a flowered +silk jacket, with a big blue handkerchief on her head--and she was +simply bubbling over with mirth. The driver was laughing too. I drew my +horse on one side, but did not, however, take particular notice of the +swiftly passing, merry couple, when, all at once, the young man shouted +to his ponies.... Why, that was Tarhov’s voice! I looked round.... Yes, +it was he; unmistakably he, dressed up as a peasant, and beside +him--wasn’t it Musa? + +But at that instant their ponies quickened their pace, and they were +out of my sight in a minute. I tried to put my horse into a gallop +in pursuit of them, but it was an old riding school hack, that +shambled from side to side as it moved; it went more slowly +galloping than trotting. + +‘Enjoy yourselves, my dear friends!’ I muttered through my teeth. + +I ought to observe that I had not seen Tarhov during the whole week, +though I had been three times to his rooms. He was never at home. +Baburin and Punin I had not seen either.... I had not been to see them. + +I caught cold on my ride; though it was very warm, there was a piercing +wind. I was dangerously ill, and when I recovered I went with my +grandmother into the country ‘to feed up,’ by the doctor’s advice. I did +not get to Moscow again; in the autumn I was transferred to the +Petersburg university. + + + + +III + +1849 + + +Not seven, but fully twelve years had passed by, and I was in my +thirty-second year. My grandmother had long been dead; I was living in +Petersburg, with a post in the Department of Home Affairs. Tarhov I had +lost sight of; he had gone into the army, and lived almost always in the +provinces. We had met twice, as old friends, glad to see each other; but +we had not touched on the past in our talk. At the time of our last +meeting he was, if I remember right, already a married man. + +One sultry summer day I was sauntering along Gorohov Street, cursing +my official duties for keeping me in Petersburg, and the heat and +stench and dust of the city. A funeral barred my way. It consisted of +a solitary car, that is, to be accurate, of a decrepit hearse, on +which a poor-looking wooden coffin, half-covered with a threadbare +black cloth, was shaking up and down as it was jolted violently over +the uneven pavement. An old man with a white head was walking alone +after the hearse. + +I looked at him.... His face seemed familiar.... He too turned his eyes +upon me.... Merciful heavens! it was Baburin! I took off my hat, went up +to him, mentioned my name, and walked along beside him. + +‘Whom are you burying?’ I asked. + +‘Nikander Vavilitch Punin,’ he answered. + +I felt, I knew beforehand, that he would utter that name, and yet it set +my heart aching. I felt melancholy, and yet I was glad that chance had +enabled me to pay my last respects to my old friend.... + +‘May I go with you, Paramon Semyonitch?’ + +‘You may.... I was following him alone; now there’ll be two of us.’ + +Our walk lasted more than an hour. My companion moved forward, without +lifting his eyes or opening his lips. He had become quite an old man +since I had seen him last; his deeply furrowed, copper-coloured face +stood out sharply against his white hair. Signs of a life of toil and +suffering, of continual struggle, could be seen in Baburin’s whole +figure; want and poverty had worked cruel havoc with him. When +everything was over, when what was Punin had disappeared for ever in the +damp ... yes, undoubtedly damp earth of the Smolensky cemetery, Baburin, +after standing a couple of minutes with bowed, uncovered head before the +newly risen mound of sandy clay, turned to me his emaciated, as it were +embittered, face, his dry, sunken eyes, thanked me grimly, and was about +to move away; but I detained him. + +‘Where do you live, Paramon Semyonitch? Let me come and see you. I had +no idea you were living in Petersburg. We could recall old days, and +talk of our dead friend.’ + +Baburin did not answer me at once. + +‘It’s two years since I found my way to Petersburg,’ he observed at +last; ‘I live at the very end of the town. However, if you really care +to visit me, come.’ He gave me his address. ‘Come in the evening; in the +evening we are always at home ... both of us.’ + +‘Both of you?’ + +‘I am married. My wife is not very well to-day, and that’s why she +did not come too. Though, indeed, it’s quite enough for one person to +go through this empty formality, this ceremony. As if anybody +believed in it all!’ + +I was a little surprised at Baburin’s last words, but I said nothing, +called a cab, and proposed to Baburin to take him home; but he refused. + + * * * * * + +The same day I went in the evening to see him. All the way there I was +thinking of Punin. I recalled how I had met him the first time, and how +ecstatic and amusing he was in those days; and afterwards in Moscow how +subdued he had grown--especially the last time I saw him; and now he had +made his last reckoning with life;--life is in grim earnest, it seems! +Baburin was living in the Viborgsky quarter, in a little house which +reminded me of the Moscow ‘nest’: the Petersburg abode was almost +shabbier in appearance. When I went into his room he was sitting on a +chair in a corner with his hands on his knees; a tallow candle, burning +low, dimly lighted up his bowed, white head. He heard the sound of my +footsteps, started up, and welcomed me more warmly than I had expected. +A few moments later his wife came in; I recognised her at once as +Musa--and only then understood why Baburin had invited me to come; he +wanted to show me that he had after all come by his own. + +Musa was greatly changed--in face, in voice, and in manners; but her +eyes were changed most of all. In old times they had darted about like +live creatures, those malicious, beautiful eyes; they had gleamed +stealthily, but brilliantly; their glance had pierced, like a +pin-prick.... Now they looked at one directly, calmly, steadily; their +black centres had lost their lustre. ‘I am broken in, I am tame, I am +good,’ her soft and dull gaze seemed to say. Her continued, submissive +smile told the same story. And her dress, too, was subdued; brown, with +little spots on it. She came up to me, asked me whether I knew her. She +obviously felt no embarrassment, and not because she had lost a sense of +shame or memory of the past, but simply because all petty +self-consciousness had left her. + +Musa talked a great deal about Punin, talked in an even voice, which too +had lost its fire. I learned that of late years he had become very +feeble, had almost sunk into childishness, so much so that he was +miserable if he had not toys to play with; they persuaded him, it is +true, that he made them out of waste stuff for sale ... but he really +played with them himself. His passion for poetry, however, never died +out, and he kept his memory for nothing but verses; a few days before +his death he recited a passage from the _Rossiad_; but Pushkin he +feared, as children fear bogies. His devotion to Baburin had also +remained undiminished; he worshipped him as much as ever, and even at +the last, wrapped about by the chill and dark of the end, he had +faltered with halting tongue, ‘benefactor!’ I learned also from Musa +that soon after the Moscow episode, it had been Baburin’s fate once more +to wander all over Russia, continually tossed from one private situation +to another; that in Petersburg, too, he had been again in a situation, +in a private business, which situation he had, however, been obliged to +leave a few days before, owing to some unpleasantness with his employer: +Baburin had ventured to stand up for the workpeople.... The invariable +smile, with which Musa accompanied her words, set me musing mournfully; +it put the finishing touch to the impression made on me by her husband’s +appearance. They had hard work, the two of them, to make a bare +living--there was no doubt of it. He took very little part in our +conversation; he seemed more preoccupied than grieved.... Something was +worrying him. + +‘Paramon Semyonitch, come here,’ said the cook, suddenly appearing in +the doorway. + +‘What is it? what’s wanted?’ he asked in alarm. + +‘Come here,’ the cook repeated insistently and meaningly. Baburin +buttoned up his coat and went out. + +When I was left alone with Musa, she looked at me with a somewhat +changed glance, and observed in a voice which was also changed, and with +no smile: ‘I don’t know, Piotr Petrovitch, what you think of me now, but +I dare say you remember what I used to be.... I was self-confident, +light-hearted ... and not good; I wanted to live for my own pleasure. +But I want to tell you this: when I was abandoned, and was like one +lost, and was only waiting for God to take me, or to pluck up spirit to +make an end of myself,--once more, just as in Voronezh, I met with +Paramon Semyonitch--and he saved me once again.... Not a word that could +wound me did I hear from him, not a word of reproach; he asked nothing +of me--I was not worthy of that; but he loved me ... and I became his +wife. What was I to do? I had failed of dying; and I could not live +either after my own choice....What was I to do with myself? Even so--it +was a mercy to be thankful for. That is all.’ + +She ceased, turned away for an instant ... the same submissive smile +came back to her lips. ‘Whether life’s easy for me, you needn’t ask,’ +was the meaning I fancied now in that smile. + +The conversation passed to ordinary subjects. Musa told me that Punin +had left a cat that he had been very fond of, and that ever since his +death she had gone up to the attic and stayed there, mewing +incessantly, as though she were calling some one ... the neighbours +were very much scared, and fancied that it was Punin’s soul that had +passed into the cat. + +‘Paramon Semyonitch is worried about something,’ I said at last. + +‘Oh, you noticed it?’--Musa sighed. ‘He cannot help being worried. I +need hardly tell you that Paramon Semyonitch has remained faithful to +his principles.... The present condition of affairs can but strengthen +them.’ (Musa expressed herself quite differently now from in the old +days in Moscow; there was a literary, bookish flavour in her phrases.) +‘I don’t know, though, whether I can rely upon you, and how you will +receive ...’ + +‘Why should you imagine you cannot rely upon me?’ + +‘Well, you are in the government service--you are an official.’ + +‘Well, what of that?’ + +‘You are, consequently, loyal to the government.’ + +I marvelled inwardly ... at Musa’s innocence. ‘As to my attitude to the +government, which is not even aware of my existence, I won’t enlarge +upon that,’ I observed; ‘but you may set your mind at rest. I will make +no bad use of your confidence. I sympathise with your husband’s +ideas ... more than you suppose.’ + +Musa shook her head. + +‘Yes; that’s all so,’ she began, not without hesitation; ‘but you see +it’s like this. Paramon Semyonitch’s ideas will shortly, it may be, find +expression in action. They can no longer be hidden under a bushel. There +are comrades whom we cannot now abandon ...’ + +Musa suddenly ceased speaking, as though she had bitten her tongue. Her +last words had amazed and a little alarmed me. Most likely my face +showed what I was feeling--and Musa noticed it. + +As I have said already, our interview took place in the year 1849. Many +people still remember what a disturbed and difficult time that was, and +by what incidents it was signalised in St. Petersburg. I had been struck +myself by certain peculiarities in Baburin’s behaviour, in his whole +demeanour. Twice he had referred to governmental action, to personages +in high authority, with such intense bitterness and hatred, with such +loathing, that I had been dumbfoundered.... + +‘Well?’ he asked me suddenly: ‘did you set your peasants free?’ + +I was obliged to confess I had not. + +‘Why, I suppose your granny’s dead, isn’t she?’ + +I was obliged to admit that she was. + +‘To be sure, you noble gentlemen,’ Baburin muttered between his teeth, +‘... use other men’s hands ... to poke up your fire ... that’s what +you like.’ + +In the most conspicuous place in his room hung the well-known lithograph +portrait of Belinsky; on the table lay a volume of the old _Polar Star_, +edited by Bestuzhev. + +A long time passed, and Baburin did not come back after the cook had +called him away. Musa looked several times uneasily towards the door by +which he had gone out. At last she could bear it no longer; she got up, +and with an apology she too went out by the same door. A quarter of an +hour later she came back with her husband; the faces of both, so at +least I thought, looked troubled. But all of a sudden Baburin’s face +assumed a different, an intensely bitter, almost frenzied expression. + +‘What will be the end of it?’ he began all at once in a jerky, sobbing +voice, utterly unlike him, while his wild eyes shifted restlessly about +him. ‘One goes on living and living, and hoping that maybe it’ll be +better, that one will breathe more freely; but it’s quite the other +way--everything gets worse and worse! They have _squeezed_ us right up +to the wall! In my youth I bore all with patience; they ... maybe ... +beat me ... even ... yes!’ he added, turning sharply round on his heels +and swooping down as it were, upon me: ‘I, a man of full age, was +subjected to corporal punishment ... yes;--of other wrongs I will not +speak.... But is there really nothing before us but to go back to those +old times again? The way they are treating the young people now! ... +Yes, it breaks down all endurance at last.... It breaks it down! Yes! +Wait a bit!’ + +I had never seen Baburin in such a condition. Musa turned positively +white.... Baburin suddenly cleared his throat, and sank down into a +seat. Not wishing to constrain either him or Musa by my presence, I +decided to go, and was just saying good-bye to them, when the door +into the next room suddenly opened, and a head appeared.... It was not +the cook’s head, but the dishevelled and terrified-looking head of a +young man. + +‘Something’s wrong, Baburin, something’s wrong!’ he faltered hurriedly, +then vanished at once on perceiving my unfamiliar figure. + +Baburin rushed after the young man. I pressed Musa’s hand warmly, and +withdrew, with presentiments of evil in my heart. + +‘Come to-morrow,’ she whispered anxiously. + +‘I certainly will come,’ I answered. + + * * * * * + +I was still in bed next morning, when my man handed me a letter +from Musa. + +‘Dear Piotr Petrovitch!’ she wrote: ‘Paramon Semyonitch has been this +night arrested by the police and carried off to the fortress, or I don’t +know where; they did not tell me. They ransacked all our papers, sealed +up a great many, and took them away with them. It has been the same with +our books and letters. They say a mass of people have been arrested in +the town. You can fancy how I feel. It is well Nikander Vavilitch did +not live to see it! He was taken just in time. Advise me what I am to +do. For myself I am not afraid--I shall not die of starvation--but the +thought of Paramon Semyonitch gives me no rest. Come, please, if only +you are not afraid to visit people in our position.--Yours faithfully, + +MUSA BABURIN.’ + + * * * * * + +Half an hour later I was with Musa. On seeing me she held out her +hand, and, though she did not utter a word, a look of gratitude +flitted over her face. She was wearing the same clothes as on the +previous day; there was every sign that she had not been to bed or +slept all night. Her eyes were red, but from sleeplessness, not from +tears. She had not been crying. She was in no mood for weeping. She +wanted to act, wanted to struggle with the calamity that had fallen +upon them: the old, energetic, self-willed Musa had risen up in her +again. She had no time even to be indignant, though she was choking +with indignation. How to assist Baburin, to whom to appeal so as to +soften his lot--she could think of nothing else. She wanted to go +instantly, ... to petition, ... demand.... But where to go, whom to +petition, what to demand--this was what she wanted to hear from me, +this was what she wanted to consult me about. + +I began by counselling her ... to have patience. For the first moment +there was nothing left to be done but to wait, and, as far as might be, +to make inquiries; and to take any decisive step now when the affair had +scarcely begun, and hardly yet taken shape, would be simply senseless, +irrational. To hope for any success was irrational, even if I had been a +person of much more importance and influence, ... but what could I, a +petty official, do? As for her, she was absolutely without any powerful +friends.... + +It was no easy matter to make all this plain to her ... but at last she +understood my arguments; she understood, too, that I was not prompted by +egoistic feeling, when I showed her the uselessness of all efforts. ‘But +tell me, Musa Pavlovna,’ I began, when she sank at last into a chair +(till then she had been standing up, as though on the point of setting +off at once to the aid of Baburin), ‘how Paramon Semyonitch, at his age, +comes to be mixed up in such an affair? I feel sure that there are none +but young people implicated in it, like the one who came in yesterday to +warn you....’ + +‘Those young people are our friends!’ cried Musa, and her eyes flashed +and darted as of old. Something strong, irrepressible, seemed, as it +were, to rise up from the bottom of her soul, ... and I suddenly recalled +the expression ‘a new type,’ which Tarhov had once used of her. ‘Years +are of no consequence when it is a matter of political principles!’ Musa +laid a special stress on these last two words. One might fancy that in +all her sorrow it was not unpleasing to her to show herself before me in +this new, unlooked-for character--in the character of a cultivated and +mature woman, fit wife of a republican! ... ‘Some old men are younger +than some young ones,’ she pursued, ‘more capable of sacrifice.... But +that’s not the point.’ + +‘I think, Musa Pavlovna,’ I observed, ‘that you are exaggerating a +little. Knowing the character of Paramon Semyonitch, I should have felt +sure beforehand that he would sympathise with every ... sincere +impulse; but, on the other hand, I have always regarded him as a man of +sense.... Surely he cannot fail to realise all the impracticability, +all the absurdity of conspiracies in Russia? In his position, in his +calling ...’ + +‘Oh, of course,’ Musa interrupted, with bitterness in her voice, ‘he is +a working man; and in Russia it is only permissible for noblemen to take +part in conspiracies, ... as, for instance, in that of the fourteenth of +December, ... that’s what you meant to say.’ + +‘In that case, what do you complain of now?’ almost broke from my +lips, ... but I restrained myself. ‘Do you consider that the result of +the fourteenth of December was such as to encourage other such +attempts?’ I said aloud. + +Musa frowned. ‘It is no good talking to you about it,’ was what I read +in her downcast face. + +‘Is Paramon Semyonitch very seriously compromised?’ I ventured to ask +her. Musa made no reply.... A hungry, savage mewing was heard from +the attic. + +Musa started. ‘Ah, it is a good thing Nikander Vavilitch did not see all +this!’ she moaned almost despairingly. ‘He did not see how violently in +the night they seized his benefactor, our benefactor--maybe, the best +and truest man in the whole world,--he did not see how they treated that +noble man at his age, how rudely they addressed him, ... how they +threatened him, and the threats they used to him!--only because he was a +working man! That young officer, too, was no doubt just such an +unprincipled, heartless wretch as I have known in my life....’ + +Musa’s voice broke. She was quivering all over like a leaf. + +Her long-suppressed indignation broke out at last; old memories stirred +up, brought to the surface by the general tumult of her soul, showed +themselves alive within her.... But the conviction I carried off at that +moment was that the ‘new type’ was still the same, still the same +passionate, impulsive nature.... Only the impulses by which Musa was +carried away were not the same as in the days of her youth. What on my +first visit I had taken for resignation, for meekness, and what really +was so--the subdued, lustreless glance, the cold voice, the quietness +and simplicity--all that had significance only in relation to the past, +to what would never return.... + +Now it was the present asserted itself. + +I tried to soothe Musa, tried to put our conversation on a more +practical level. Some steps must be taken that could not be postponed; +we must find out exactly where Baburin was; and then secure both for him +and for Musa the means of subsistence. All this presented no +inconsiderable difficulty; what was needed was not to find money, but +work, which is, as we all know, a far more complicated problem.... + +I left Musa with a perfect swarm of reflections in my head. + +I soon learned that Baburin was in the fortress. + +The proceedings began, ... dragged on. I saw Musa several times every +week. She had several interviews with her husband. But just at the +moment of the decision of the whole melancholy affair, I was not in +Petersburg. Unforeseen business had obliged me to set off to the +south of Russia. During my absence I heard that Baburin had been +acquitted at the trial; it appeared that all that could be proved +against him was, that young people regarding him as a person unlikely +to awaken suspicion, had sometimes held meetings at his house, and he +had been present at their meetings; he was, however, by +administrative order sent into exile in one of the western provinces +of Siberia. Musa went with him. + +‘Paramon Semyonitch did not wish it,’ she wrote to me; ‘as, according to +his ideas, no one ought to sacrifice self for another person, and not +for a cause; but I told him there was no question of sacrifice at all. +When I said to him in Moscow that I would be his wife, I thought to +myself--for ever, indissolubly! So indissoluble it must be till the end +of our days....’ + + + + +IV + +1861 + + +Twelve more years passed by.... Every one in Russia knows, and will ever +remember, what passed between the years 1849 and 1861. In my personal +life, too, many changes took place, on which, however, there is no need +to enlarge. New interests came into it, new cares.... The Baburin couple +first fell into the background, then passed out of my mind altogether. +Yet I kept up a correspondence with Musa--at very long intervals, +however. Sometimes more than a year passed without any tidings of her or +of her husband. I heard that soon after 1855 he received permission to +return to Russia; but that he preferred to remain in the little Siberian +town, where he had been flung by destiny, and where he had apparently +made himself a home, and found a haven and a sphere of activity.... + +And, lo and behold! towards the end of March in 1861, I received the +following letter from Musa:-- + +‘It is so long since I have written to you, most honoured Piotr +Petrovitch, that I do not even know whether you are still living; and if +you are living, have you not forgotten our existence? But no matter; I +cannot resist writing to you to-day. Everything till now has gone on +with us in the same old way: Paramon Semyonitch and I have been always +busy with our schools, which are gradually making good progress; besides +that, Paramon Semyonitch was taken up with reading and correspondence +and his usual discussions with the Old-believers, members of the clergy, +and Polish exiles; his health has been fairly good.... So has mine. But +yesterday! the manifesto of the 19th of February reached us! We had long +been on the look-out for it. Rumours had reached us long before of what +was being done among you in Petersburg, ... but yet I can’t describe what +it was! You know my husband well; he was not in the least changed by his +misfortune; on the contrary, he has grown even stronger and more +energetic, and has a will as strong as iron, but at this he could not +restrain himself! His hands shook as he read it; then he embraced me +three times, and three times he kissed me, tried to say something--but +no! he could not! and ended by bursting into tears, which was very +astounding to see, and suddenly he shouted, “Hurrah! hurrah! God save +the Tsar!” Yes, Piotr Petrovitch, those were his very words! Then he +went on: “Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart” ... and again: “This is +the first step, others are bound to follow it”; and, just as he was, +bareheaded, ran to tell the great news to our friends. There was a +bitter frost, and even a snowstorm coming on. I tried to prevent him, +but he would not listen to me. And when he came home, he was all covered +with snow, his hair, his face, and his beard--he has a beard right down +to his chest now--and the tears were positively frozen on his cheeks! +But he was very lively and cheerful, and told me to uncork a bottle of +home-made champagne, and he drank with our friends that he had brought +back with him, to the health of the Tsar and of Russia, and all free +Russians; and taking the glass, and fixing his eyes on the ground, he +said: “Nikander, Nikander, do you hear? There are no slaves in Russia +any more! Rejoice in the grave, old comrade!” And much more he said; to +the effect that his “expectations were fulfilled!” He said, too, that +now there could be no turning back; that this was in its way a pledge or +promise.... I don’t remember everything, but it is long since I have +seen him so happy. And so I made up my mind to write to you, so that you +might know how we have been rejoicing and exulting in the remote +Siberian wilds, so that you might rejoice with us....’ + +This letter I received at the end of March. At the beginning of May +another very brief letter arrived from Musa. She informed me that her +husband, Paramon Semyonitch Baburin, had taken cold on the very day of +the arrival of the manifesto, and died on the 12th of April of +inflammation of the lungs, in the 67th year of his age. She added that +she intended to remain where his body lay at rest, and to go on with the +work he had bequeathed her, since such was the last wish of Paramon +Semyonitch, and that was her only law. + +Since then I have heard no more of Musa. + +PARIS, 1874. + + + + +OLD PORTRAITS + + + + +I + + +About thirty miles from our village there lived, many years ago, a +distant cousin of my mother’s, a retired officer of the Guards, and +rather wealthy landowner, Alexey Sergeitch Teliegin. He lived on his +estate and birth-place, Suhodol, did not go out anywhere, and so did not +visit us; but I used to be sent, twice a year, to pay him my +respects--at first with my tutor, but later on alone. Alexey Sergeitch +always gave me a very cordial reception, and I used to stay three or +four days at a time with him. He was an old man even when I first made +his acquaintance; I was twelve, I remember, on my first visit, and he +was then over seventy. He was born in the days of the Empress +Elisabeth--in the last year of her reign. He lived alone with his wife, +Malania Pavlovna; she was ten years younger than he. They had two +daughters; but their daughters had been long married, and rarely visited +Suhodol; they were not on the best of terms with their parents, and +Alexey Sergeitch hardly ever mentioned their names. + +I see, even now, the old-fashioned house, a typical manor-house of the +steppes. One story in height, with immense attics, it was built at the +beginning of this century, of amazingly thick beams of pine,--such beams +came in plenty in those days from the Zhizdrinsky pine-forests; they +have passed out of memory now! It was very spacious, and contained a +great number of rooms, rather low-pitched and dark, it is true; the +windows in the walls had been made small for the sake of greater warmth. +In the usual fashion (I ought rather to say, in what was then the usual +fashion), the offices and house-serfs’ huts surrounded the manorial +house on all sides, and the garden was close to it--a small garden, but +containing fine fruit-trees, juicy apples, and pipless pears. The flat +steppe of rich, black earth stretched for ten miles round. No lofty +object for the eye; not a tree, nor even a belfry; somewhere, maybe, +jutting up, a windmill, with rents in its sails; truly, well-named +Suhodol, or Dry-flat! Inside the house the rooms were filled with +ordinary, simple furniture; somewhat unusual was the milestone-post that +stood in the window of the drawing-room, with the following +inscription:--‘If you walk sixty-eight times round this drawing-room you +will have gone a mile; if you walk eighty-seven times from the furthest +corner of the parlour to the right-hand corner of the billiard-room, you +will have gone a mile,’ and so on. But what most of all impressed a +guest at the house for the first time was the immense collection of +pictures hanging on the walls, for the most part works of the so-called +Italian masters: all old-fashioned landscapes of a sort, or mythological +and religious subjects. But all these pictures were very dark, and even +cracked with age;--in one, all that met the eye was some patches of +flesh-colour; in another, undulating red draperies on an unseen body; or +an arch which seemed to be suspended in the air; or a dishevelled tree +with blue foliage; or the bosom of a nymph with an immense breast, like +the lid of a soup-tureen; a cut water-melon, with black seeds; a turban, +with a feather in it, above a horse’s head; or the gigantic brown leg of +an apostle, suddenly thrust out, with a muscular calf, and toes turned +upwards. In the drawing-room in the place of honour hung a portrait of +the Empress Catherine II., full length; a copy of the famous portrait by +Lampi--an object of the special reverence, one might say the adoration, +of the master of the house. From the ceiling hung glass lustres in +bronze settings, very small and very dusty. + +Alexey Sergeitch himself was a stumpy, paunchy little old man, with a +chubby face of one uniform tint, yet pleasant, with drawn-in lips, and +very lively little eyes under high eyebrows. He wore his scanty locks +combed to the back of his head; it was only since 1812 that he had given +up wearing powder. Alexey Sergeitch invariably wore a grey ‘redingote,’ +with three capes falling over his shoulders, a striped waistcoat, +chamois-leather breeches, and high boots of dark red morocco, with +heart-shaped scallops and tassels at the tops; he wore a white muslin +cravat, a jabot, lace cuffs, and two gold English ‘turnip watches,’ one +in each pocket of his waistcoat. In his right hand he usually carried an +enamelled snuff-box full of ‘Spanish’ snuff, and his left hand leaned on +a cane with a silver-chased knob, worn smooth by long use. Alexey +Sergeitch had a little nasal, piping voice, and an invariable +smile--kindly, but, as it were, condescending, and not without a certain +self-complacent dignity. His laugh, too, was kindly--a shrill little +laugh that tinkled like glass beads. Courteous and affable he was to the +last degree--in the old-fashioned manner of the days of Catherine--and +he moved his hands with slow, rounded gestures, also in the old style. +His legs were so weak that he could not walk, but ran with hurried +little steps from one armchair to another, in which he would suddenly +sit down, or rather fall softly, like a cushion. + +As I have said already, Alexey Sergeitch went out nowhere, and saw very +little of his neighbours, though he liked society, for he was very fond +of talking! It is true that he had society in plenty in his own house; +various Nikanor Nikanoritchs, Sevastiey Sevastietchs, Fedulitchs, +Miheitchs, all poor gentlemen in shabby cossack coats and camisoles, +often from the master’s wardrobe, lived under his roof, to say nothing +of the poor gentlewomen in chintz gowns, black kerchiefs thrown over +their shoulders, and worsted reticules in their tightly clenched +fingers--all sorts of Avdotia Savishnas, Pelagea Mironovnas, and plain +Feklushkas and Arinkas, who found a home in the women’s quarters. Never +less than fifteen persons sat down to Alexey Sergeitch’s table.... He +was such a hospitable man! Among all those dependants two were +particularly conspicuous: a dwarf, nicknamed Janus, or the Double-faced, +of Danish--or, as some maintained, Jewish--extraction, and the mad +Prince L. Contrary to what was customary in those days, the dwarf did +nothing to amuse the master or mistress, and was not a jester--quite the +opposite; he was always silent, had an ill-tempered and sullen +appearance, and scowled and gnashed his teeth directly a question was +addressed to him. Alexey Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and +positively respected him; at table the dishes were handed to him first, +after the guests and master and mistress. ‘God has afflicted him,’ +Alexey Sergeitch used to say; ‘such is His Divine will; but it’s not for +me to afflict him further.’ ‘How is he a philosopher?’ I asked him once. +(Janus didn’t take to me; if I went near him he would fly into a rage, +and mutter thickly, ‘Stranger! keep off!’) ‘Eh, God bless me! isn’t he a +philosopher?’ answered Alexey Sergeitch. ‘Look ye, little sir, how +wisely he holds his tongue!’ ‘But why is he double-faced?’ ‘Because, +little sir, he has one face on the outside--and so you, surface-gazers, +judge him.... But the other, the real face he hides. And that face I +know, and no one else--and I love him for it ... because that face is +good. You, for instance, look and see nothing ... but I see without a +word: he is blaming me for something; for he’s a severe critic! And it’s +always with good reason. That, little sir, you can’t understand; but you +may believe an old man like me!’ The real history of the two-faced +Janus--where he came from, and how he came into Alexey Sergeitch’s +hands--no one knew; but the story of Prince L. was well known to every +one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and distinguished family, to +Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards. At the first levee the +Empress Catherine noticed him, stood still before him, and, pointing at +him with her fan, she said aloud, addressing one of her courtiers, who +happened to be near, ‘Look, Adam Vassilievitch, what a pretty fellow! a +perfect doll!’ The poor boy’s head was completely turned; when he got +home he ordered his coach out, and, putting on a ribbon of St. Anne, +proceeded to drive all over the town, as though he had reached the +pinnacle of fortune. ‘Drive over every one,’ he shouted to his coachman, +‘who does not move out of the way!’ All this was promptly reported to +the empress: the decree went forth that he should be declared insane, +and put under the guardianship of two of his brothers; and they, without +a moment’s delay, carried him off to the country, and flung him into a +stone cell in chains. As they wanted to get the benefit of his property, +they did not let the poor wretch out, even when he had completely +recovered his balance, and positively kept him locked up till he really +did go out of his mind. But their evil doings did not prosper; Prince L. +outlived his brothers, and, after long years of adversity, he came into +the charge of Alexey Sergeitch, whose kinsman he was. He was a stout, +completely bald man, with a long, thin nose and prominent blue eyes. He +had quite forgotten how to talk--he simply uttered a sort of +inarticulate grumbling; but he sang old-fashioned Russian ballads +beautifully, preserving the silvery freshness of his voice to extreme +old age; and, while he was singing, he pronounced each word clearly and +distinctly. He had attacks at times of a sort of fury, and then he +became terrible: he would stand in the corner, with his face to the +wall, and all perspiring and red--red all down his bald head and down +his neck--he used to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with +his feet, order some one--his brothers probably--to be punished. ‘Beat +‘em!’ he growled hoarsely, coughing and choking with laughter; ‘flog +‘em, don’t spare ‘em! beat, beat, beat the monsters, my oppressors! +That’s it! That’s it!’ On the day before his death he greatly alarmed +and astonished Alexey Sergeitch. He came, pale and subdued, into his +room, and, making him a low obeisance, first thanked him for his care +and kindness, and then asked him to send for a priest, for death had +come to him--he had seen death, and he must forgive every one and purify +his soul. ‘How did you see death?’ muttered Alexey Sergeitch in +bewilderment at hearing connected speech from him for the first time. +‘In what shape? with a scythe?’ ‘No,’ answered Prince L.; ‘a simple old +woman in a jacket, but with only one eye in her forehead, and that eye +without an eyelid.’ And the next day Prince L. actually did die, duly +performing everything, and taking leave of every one in a rational and +affecting manner. ‘That’s just how I shall die,’ Alexey Sergeitch would +sometimes observe. And, as a fact, something of the same sort did happen +with him--but of that later. + +But now let us go back to our story. Of the neighbours, as I have stated +already, Alexey Sergeitch saw little; and they did not care much for +him, called him a queer fish, stuck up, and a scoffer, and even a +‘martiniste’ who recognised no authorities, though they had no clear +idea of the meaning of this term. To a certain extent the neighbours +were right: Alexey Sergeitch had lived in his Suhodol for almost seventy +years on end, and had had hardly anything whatever to do with the +existing authorities, with the police or the law-courts. ‘Police-courts +are for the robber, and discipline for the soldier,’ he used to say; +‘but I, thank God, am neither robber nor soldier!’ Rather queer Alexey +Sergeitch certainly was, but the soul within him was by no means a petty +one. I will tell you something about him. + +To tell the truth, I never knew what were his political opinions, if an +expression so modern can be used in reference to him; but, in his own +way, he was an aristocrat--more an aristocrat than a typical Russian +country gentleman. More than once he expressed his regret that God had +not given him a son and heir, ‘for the honour of our name, to keep up +the family.’ In his own room there hung on the wall the family-tree of +the Teliegins, with many branches, and a multitude of little circles +like apples in a golden frame. ‘We Teliegins,’ he used to say, ‘are an +ancient line, from long, long ago: however many there’ve been of us +Teliegins, we have never hung about great men’s ante-rooms; we’ve never +bent our backs, or stood about in waiting, nor picked up a living in the +courts, nor run after decorations; we’ve never gone trailing off to +Moscow, nor intriguing in Petersburg; we’ve sat at home, each in his +hole, his own man on his own land ... home-keeping birds, sir!--I +myself, though I did serve in the Guards--but not for long, thank you.’ +Alexey Sergeitch preferred the old days. ‘There was more freedom in +those days, more decorum; on my honour, I assure you! but since the year +eighteen hundred’ (why from that year, precisely, he did not explain), +‘militarism, the soldiery, have got the upper hand. Our soldier +gentlemen stuck some sort of turbans of cocks’ feathers on their heads +then, and turned like cocks themselves; began binding their necks up as +stiff as could be ... they croak, and roll their eyes--how could they +help it, indeed? The other day a police corporal came to me; “I’ve come +to you,” says he, “honourable sir,” ... (fancy his thinking to surprise +me with that! ... I know I’m honourable without his telling me!) “I have +business with you.” And I said to him, “My good sir, you’d better first +unfasten the hooks on your collar. Or else, God have mercy on us--you’ll +sneeze. Ah, what would happen to you! what would happen to you! You’d +break off, like a mushroom ... and I should have to answer for it!” And +they do drink, these military gentlemen--oh, oh, oh! I generally order +home-made champagne to be given them, because to them, good wine or +poor, it’s all the same; it runs so smoothly, so quickly, down their +throats--how can they distinguish it? And, another thing, they’ve +started sucking at a pap-bottle, smoking a tobacco-pipe. Your military +gentleman thrusts his pap-bottle under his moustaches, between his lips, +and puffs the smoke out of his nose, his mouth, and even his ears--and +fancies himself a hero! There are my sons-in-law--though one of them’s a +senator, and the other some sort of an administrator over there--they +suck the pap-bottle, and they reckon themselves clever fellows too!’ + +Alexey Sergeitch could not endure smoking; and moreover, he could not +endure dogs, especially little dogs. ‘If you’re a Frenchman, to be sure, +you may well keep a lapdog: you run and you skip about here and there, +and it runs after you with its tail up ... but what’s the use of it to +people like us?’ He was exceedingly neat and particular. Of the Empress +Catherine he never spoke but with enthusiasm, and in exalted, rather +bookish phraseology: ‘Half divine she was, not human! Only look, little +sir, at that smile,’ he would add, pointing reverentially to Lampi’s +portrait, ‘and you will agree: half divine! I was so fortunate in my +life as to be deemed worthy to behold that smile close, and never will +it be effaced from my heart!’ And thereupon he would relate anecdotes of +the life of Catherine, such as I have never happened to read or hear +elsewhere. Here is one of them. Alexey Sergeitch did not permit the +slightest allusion to the weaknesses of the great Tsaritsa. ‘And, +besides,’ he exclaimed, ‘can one judge of her as of other people?’ + +One day while she was sitting in her peignoir during her morning +toilette, she commanded her hair to be combed.... And what do you +think? The lady-in-waiting passed the comb through, and sparks of +electricity simply showered out! Then she summoned to her presence the +court physician Rogerson, who happened to be in waiting at the court, +and said to him: ‘I am, I know, censured for certain actions; but do +you see this electricity? Consequently, as such is my nature and +constitution, you can judge for yourself, as you are a doctor, that it +is unjust for them to censure me, and they ought to comprehend me!’ The +following incident remained indelible in Alexey Sergeitch’s memory. He +was standing one day on guard indoors, in the palace--he was only +sixteen at the time--and behold the empress comes walking past him; he +salutes ... ‘and she,’ Alexey Sergeitch would exclaim at this point +with much feeling, ‘smiling at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me +her hand to kiss and patted my cheek, and asked me “who I was? where I +came from? of what family?” and then’ ... here the old man’s voice +usually broke ... ‘then she bade me greet my mother in her name and +thank her for having brought up her children so well. And whether I was +on earth or in heaven, and how and where she deigned to vanish, whether +she floated away into the heights or went her way into the other +apartments ... to this day I do not know!’ + +More than once I tried to question Alexey Sergeitch about those far-away +times, about the people who made up the empress’s circle.... But for the +most part he edged off the subject. ‘What’s the use of talking about old +times?’ he used to say ... ‘it’s only making one’s self miserable, +remembering that then one was a fine young fellow, and now one hasn’t a +tooth left in one’s head. And what is there to say? They were good old +times ... but there, enough of them! And as for those folks--you were +asking, you troublesome boy, about the lucky ones!--haven’t you seen how +a bubble comes up on the water? As long as it lasts and is whole, what +colours play upon it! Red, and blue, and yellow--a perfect rainbow or +diamond you’d say it was! Only it soon bursts, and there’s no trace of +it left. And so it was with those folks.’ + +‘But how about Potiomkin?’ I once inquired. + +Alexey Sergeitch looked grave. ‘Potiomkin, Grigory Alexandrovitch, was a +statesman, a theologian, a pupil of Catherine’s, her cherished creation, +one must say.... But enough of that, little sir!’ + +Alexey Sergeitch was a very devout man, and, though it was a great +effort, he attended church regularly. Superstition was not noticeable in +him; he laughed at omens, the evil eye, and such ‘nonsense,’ but he did +not like a hare to run across his path, and to meet a priest was not +altogether agreeable to him. For all that, he was very respectful to +clerical persons, and went up to receive their blessing, and even kissed +the priest’s hand every time, but he was not willing to enter into +conversation with them. ‘Such an extremely strong odour comes from +them,’ he explained: ‘and I, poor sinner, am fastidious beyond reason; +they’ve such long hair, and all oily, and they comb it out on all +sides--they think they show me respect by so doing, and they clear their +throats so loudly when they talk--from shyness may be, or I dare say +they want to show respect in that way too. And besides, they make one +think of one’s last hour. And, I don’t know how it is, but I still want +to go on living. Only, my little sir, don’t you repeat my words; we must +respect the clergy--it’s only fools that don’t respect them; and I’m to +blame to babble nonsense in my old age.’ + +Alexey Sergeitch, like most of the noblemen of his day, had received a +very slight education; but he had, to some extent, made good the +deficiency himself by reading. He read none but Russian books of the end +of last century; the more modern authors he thought insipid and +deficient in style.... While he read, he had placed at his side on a +round, one-legged table, a silver tankard of frothing spiced kvas of a +special sort, which sent an agreeable fragrance all over the house. He +used to put on the end of his nose a pair of big, round spectacles, but +in latter years he did not so much read as gaze dreamily over the rims +of his spectacles, lifting his eyebrows, chewing his lips, and sighing. +Once I caught him weeping with a book on his knees, greatly, I own, to +my surprise. + +He had recalled these lines: + + ‘O pitiful race of man! + Peace is unknown to thee! + Thou canst not find it save + In the dust of the grave.... + Bitter, bitter is that sleep! + Rest, rest in death ... but living weep!’ + +These lines were the composition of a certain Gormitch-Gormitsky, a +wandering poet, to whom Alexey Sergeitch had given a home in his house, +as he struck him as a man of delicate feeling and even of subtlety; he +wore slippers adorned with ribbons, spoke with a broad accent, and +frequently sighed, turning his eyes to heaven; in addition to all these +qualifications, Gormitch-Gormitsky spoke French decently, having been +educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexey Sergeitch only ‘followed +conversation.’ But having once got terribly drunk at the tavern, that +same subtle Gormitsky showed a turbulence beyond all bounds; he gave a +fearful thrashing to Alexey Sergeitch’s valet, the man cook, two +laundry-maids who chanced to get in his way, and a carpenter from +another village, and he broke several panes in the windows, screaming +furiously all the while: ‘There, I’ll show them, these Russian loafers, +rough-hewn billy-goats!’ + +And the strength the frail-looking creature put forth! It was hard work +for eight men to master him! For this violent proceeding Alexey +Sergeitch ordered the poet to be turned out of the house, after being +put, as a preliminary measure, in the snow--it was winter-time--to +sober him. + +‘Yes,’ Alexey Sergeitch used to say, ‘my day is over; I was a spirited +steed, but I’ve run my last race now. Then, I used to keep poets at my +expense, and I used to buy pictures and books of the Jews, geese of the +best breeds, and pouter-pigeons of pure blood.... I used to go in for +everything! Though dogs I never did care for keeping, because it goes +with drinking, foulness, and buffoonery! I was a young man of spirit, +not to be outdone. That there should be anything of Teliegin’s and not +first-rate ... why, it was not to be thought of! And I had a splendid +stud of horses. And my horses came--from what stock do you think, young +sir? Why, from none other than the celebrated stables of the Tsar, Ivan +Alexeitch, brother of Peter the Great ... it’s the truth I’m telling +you! All fawn-coloured stallions, sleek--their manes to their knees, +their tails to their hoofs.... Lions! And all that was--and is buried in +the past. Vanity of vanities--and every kind of vanity! But still--why +regret it? Every man has his limits set him. There’s no flying above the +sky, no living in the water, no getting away from the earth.... We’ll +live a bit longer, anyway!’ + +And the old man would smile again and sniff his Spanish snuff. + +The peasants liked him; he was, in their words, a kind master, not +easily angered. Only they, too, repeated that he was a worn-out steed. +In former days Alexey Sergeitch used to go into everything himself--he +used to drive out to the fields, and to the mill, and to the dairy, and +peep into the granaries and the peasants’ huts; every one knew his +racing droshky, upholstered in crimson plush, and drawn by a tall mare, +with a broad white star all over her forehead, called ‘Beacon,’ of the +same famous breed. Alexey Sergeitch used to drive her himself, the ends +of the reins crushed up in his fists. But when his seventieth year came, +the old man let everything go, and handed over the management of the +estate to the bailiff Antip, of whom he was secretly afraid, and whom he +called Micromegas (a reminiscence of Voltaire!), or simply, plunderer. +‘Well, plunderer, what have you to say? Have you stacked a great deal in +the barn?’ he would ask with a smile, looking straight into the +plunderer’s eyes. ‘All, by your good favour, please your honour,’ Antip +would respond cheerfully. ‘Favour’s all very well, only you mind what I +say, Micromegas! don’t you dare touch the peasants, my subjects, out of +my sight! If they come to complain ... I’ve a cane, you see, not far +off!’ ‘Your cane, your honour, Alexey Sergeitch, I always keep well in +mind,’ Antip Micromegas would respond, stroking his beard. ‘All right, +don’t forget it.’ And the master and the bailiff would laugh in each +other’s faces. With the servants, and with the serfs in general, his +‘subjects’ (Alexey Sergeitch liked that word) he was gentle in his +behaviour. ‘Because, think a little, nephew; nothing of their own, but +the cross on their neck--and that copper--and daren’t hanker after other +people’s goods ... how can one expect sense of them?’ It is needless to +state that of the so-called ‘serf question’ no one even dreamed in those +days; it could not disturb the peace of mind of Alexey Sergeitch: he was +quite happy in the possession of his ‘subjects’; but he was severe in +his censure of bad masters, and used to call them the enemies of their +order. He divided the nobles generally into three classes: the prudent, +‘of whom there are too few’; the prodigal, ‘of whom there are quite +enough’; and the senseless, ‘of whom there are shoals and shoals.’ + +‘And if any one of them is harsh and oppressive with his subjects’--he +would say--‘then he sins against God, and is guilty before men!’ + +Yes, the house-serfs had an easy life of it with the old man; the +‘subjects out of sight’ no doubt fared worse, in spite of the cane with +which he threatened Micromegas. And what a lot there were of them, those +house-serfs, in his house! And for the most part sinewy, hairy, +grumbling old fellows, with stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen +coats, belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging +to them. And on the women’s side, one could hear nothing but the patter +of bare feet, the swish of petticoats. The chief valet was called +Irinarh, and Alexey Sergeitch always called him in a long-drawn-out +call: ‘I-ri-na-a-arh!’ The others he called: ‘Boy! Lad! Whoever’s there +of the men!’ Bells he could not endure: ‘It’s not an eating-house, God +forbid!’ And what used to surprise me was that whatever time Alexey +Sergeitch called his valet, he always promptly made his appearance, as +though he had sprung out of the earth, and with a scrape of his heels, +his hands behind his back, would stand before his master, a surly, as it +were angry, but devoted servant! + +Alexey Sergeitch was liberal beyond his means; but he did not like to be +called ‘benefactor.’ ‘Benefactor to you, indeed, sir! ... I’m doing +myself a benefit, and not you, sir!’ (when he was angry or indignant, he +always addressed people with greater formality). ‘Give to a beggar +once,’ he used to say, ‘and give him twice, and three times.... And--if +he should come a fourth time, give to him still--only then you might say +too: “It’s time, my good man, you found work for something else, not +only for your mouth.”’ ‘But, uncle,’ one asked, sometimes, ‘suppose even +after that the beggar came again, a fifth time?’ ‘Oh, well, give again +the fifth time.’ He used to have the sick, who came to him for aid, +treated at his expense, though he had no faith in doctors himself, and +never sent for them. ‘My mother,’ he declared, ‘used to cure illnesses +of all sorts with oil and salt--she gave it internally, and rubbed it on +too--it always answered splendidly. And who was my mother? She was born +in the days of Peter the Great--only fancy that!’ + +Alexey Sergeitch was a Russian in everything; he liked none but Russian +dishes, he was fond of Russian songs, but the harmonica--a +‘manufactured contrivance’--he hated; he liked looking at the +serf-girls’ dances and the peasant-women’s jigs; in his youth, I was +told, he had been an enthusiastic singer and a dashing dancer; he liked +steaming himself in the bath, and steamed himself so vigorously that +Irinarh, who, serving him as bathman, used to beat him with a bundle of +birch-twigs steeped in beer, to rub him with a handful of tow, and then +with a woollen cloth--the truly devoted Irinarh used to say every time, +as he crept off his shelf red as a ‘new copper image’: ‘Well, this time +I, the servant of God, Irinarh Tolobiev, have come out alive. How will +it be next time?’ + +And Alexey Sergeitch spoke excellent Russian, a little old-fashioned, +but choice and pure as spring water, continually interspersing his +remarks with favourite expressions: ‘’Pon my honour, please God, +howsoever that may be, sir, and young sir....’ + +But enough of him. Let us talk a little about Alexey Sergeitch’s wife, +Malania Pavlovna. Malania Pavlovna was born at Moscow. + +She had been famous as the greatest beauty in Moscow--_la Vénus de +Moscou_. I knew her as a thin old woman with delicate but insignificant +features, with crooked teeth, like a hare’s, in a tiny little mouth, +with a multitude of finely crimped little yellow curls on her forehead, +and painted eyebrows. She invariably wore a pyramidal cap with pink +ribbons, a high ruff round her neck, a short white dress, and prunella +slippers with red heels; and over her dress she wore a jacket of blue +satin, with a sleeve hanging loose from her right shoulder. This was +precisely the costume in which she was arrayed on St. Peter’s Day in the +year 1789! On that day she went, being still a girl, with her relations +to the Hodinskoe field to see the famous boxing-match arranged by Orlov. +‘And Count Alexey Grigorievitch’ (oh, how often I used to hear this +story!) ‘noticing me, approached, bowed very low, taking his hat in both +hands, and said: “Peerless beauty,” said he, “why have you hung that +sleeve from your shoulder? Do you, too, wish to try a tussle with me? ... +By all means; only I will tell you beforehand you have vanquished me--I +give in! And I am your captive.” And every one was looking at us and +wondering.’ And that very costume she had worn continually ever since. +‘Only I didn’t wear a cap, but a hat _à la bergère de Trianon_; and +though I was powdered, yet my hair shone through it, positively shone +through it like gold!’ Malania Pavlovna was foolish to the point of +‘holy innocence,’ as it is called; she chattered quite at random, as +though she were hardly aware herself of what dropped from her lips--and +mostly about Orlov. Orlov had become, one might say, the principal +interest of her life. She usually walked ... or rather swam, into the +room with a rhythmic movement of the head, like a peacock, stood still +in the middle, with one foot strangely turned out, and two fingers +holding the tip of the loose sleeve (I suppose this pose, too, must once +have charmed Orlov); she would glance about her with haughty +nonchalance, as befits a beauty--and with a positive sniff, and a murmur +of ‘What next!’ as though some importunate gallant were besieging her +with compliments, she would go out again, tapping her heels and +shrugging her shoulders. She used, too, to take Spanish snuff out of a +tiny bonbonnière, picking it up with a tiny golden spoon; and from time +to time, especially when any one unknown to her was present, she would +hold up--not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, but to her nose--a +double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with a coquettish turn of +her little white hand, one finger held out separate from the rest. How +often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding in the church of +the Ascension, in Arbaty--such a fine church!--and how all Moscow was +there ... ‘and the crush there was!--awful! Carriages with teams, golden +coaches, outriders ... one outrider of Count Zavadovsky got run over! +and we were married by the archbishop himself--and what a sermon he gave +us! every one was crying--wherever I looked I saw tears ... and the +governor-general’s horses were tawny, like tigers. And the flowers, the +flowers that were brought! ... Simply loads of flowers!’ And how on that +day a foreigner, a wealthy, tremendously wealthy person, had shot +himself from love--and how Orlov too had been there.... And going up to +Alexey Sergeitch, he had congratulated him and called him a lucky +man.... ‘A lucky man you are, you silly fellow!’ said he. And how in +answer to these words Alexey Sergeitch had made a wonderful bow, and had +swept the floor from left to right with the plumes of his hat, as if he +would say: ‘Your Excellency, there is a line now between you and my +spouse, which you will not overstep!’ And Orlov, Alexey Grigorievitch +understood at once, and commended him. ‘Oh! that was a man! such a man!’ +And how, ‘One day, Alexis and I were at his house at a ball--I was +married then--and he had the most marvellous diamond buttons! And I +could not resist it, I admired them. “What marvellous diamonds you have, +Count!” said I. And he, taking up a knife from the table, at once cut +off a button and presented it to me and said: “In your eyes, my charmer, +the diamonds are a hundred times brighter; stand before the +looking-glass and compare them.” And I stood so, and he stood beside me. +“Well, who’s right?” said he, while he simply rolled his eyes, looking +me up and down. And Alexey Sergeitch was very much put out about it, but +I said to him: “Alexis,” said I, “please don’t you be put out; you ought +to know me better!” And he answered me: “Don’t disturb yourself, +Melanie!” And these very diamonds are now round my medallion of Alexey +Grigorievitch--you’ve seen it, I dare say, my dear;--I wear it on +feast-days on a St. George ribbon, because he was a brave hero, a +knight of St. George: he burned the Turks.’ + +For all that, Malania Pavlovna was a very kind-hearted woman; she was +easily pleased. ‘She’s not one to snarl, nor to sneer,’ the maids used +to say of her. Malania Pavlovna was passionately fond of sweet +things--and a special old woman who looked after nothing but the jam, +and so was called the jam-maid, would bring her, ten times a day, a +china dish with rose-leaves crystallised in sugar, or barberries in +honey, or sherbet of bananas. Malania Pavlovna was afraid of +solitude--dreadful thoughts are apt to come over one, she would say--and was +almost always surrounded by companions, whom she would urgently implore: +‘Talk, talk! why do you sit like that, simply keeping your seats warm!’ +and they would begin twittering like canaries. She was no less devout +than Alexey Sergeitch, and was very fond of praying; but as, in her own +words, she had never learned to repeat prayers well, she kept for the +purpose a poor deacon’s widow who prayed with such relish! Never +stumbled over a word in her life! And this deacon’s widow certainly +could utter the words of prayer in a sort of unbroken flow, not +interrupting the stream to breathe out or draw breath in, while Malania +Pavlovna listened and was much moved. She had another widow in +attendance on her--it was her duty to tell her stories in the night. +‘But only the old ones,’ Malania Pavlovna would beg--‘those I know +already; the new ones are all so far-fetched.’ Malania Pavlovna was +flighty in the extreme, and at times she was fanciful too; some +ridiculous notion would suddenly come into her head. She did not like +the dwarf, Janus, for instance; she was always fancying he would +suddenly get up and shout, ‘Don’t you know who I am? The prince of the +Buriats. Mind, you are to obey me!’ Or else that he would set fire to +the house in a fit of spleen. Malania Pavlovna was as liberal as Alexey +Sergeitch; but she never gave money--she did not like to soil her +hands--but kerchiefs, bracelets, dresses, ribbons; or she would send +pies from the table, or a piece of roast meat, or a bottle of wine. She +liked feasting the peasant-women, too, on holidays; they would dance, +and she would tap with her heels and throw herself into attitudes. + +Alexey Sergeitch was well aware that his wife was a fool; but almost +from the first year of his marriage he had schooled himself to keep up +the fiction that she was very witty and fond of saying cutting things. +Sometimes when her chatter began to get beyond all bounds, he would +threaten her with his finger, and say as he did so: ‘Ah, the tongue, the +tongue! what it will have to answer for in the other world! It will be +pierced with a redhot pin!’ + +Malania Pavlovna was not offended, however, at this; on the contrary, +she seemed to feel flattered at hearing a reproof of that sort, as +though she would say, ‘Well! is it my fault if I’m naturally witty?’ + +Malania Pavlovna adored her husband, and had been all her life an +exemplarily faithful wife; but there had been a romance even in her +life--a young cousin, an hussar, killed, as she supposed, in a duel on +her account; but, according to more trustworthy reports, killed by a +blow on the head from a billiard-cue in a tavern brawl. A water-colour +portrait of this object of her affections was kept by her in a secret +drawer. Malania Pavlovna always blushed up to her ears when she +mentioned Kapiton--such was the name of the young hero--and Alexey +Sergeitch would designedly scowl, shake his finger at his wife again, +and say: ‘No trusting a horse in the field nor a woman in the house. +Don’t talk to me of Kapiton, he’s Cupidon!’ Then Malania Pavlovna would +be all of a flutter and say: ‘Alexis, Alexis, it’s too bad of you! In +your young days you flirted, I’ve no doubt, with all sorts of misses and +madams--and so now you imagine....’ ‘Come, that’s enough, that’s enough, +my dear Malania,’ Alexey Sergeitch interrupted with a smile. ‘Your gown +is white--but whiter still your soul!’ ‘Yes, Alexis, it is whiter!’ ‘Ah, +what a tongue, what a tongue!’ Alexis would repeat, patting her hand. + +To speak of ‘views’ in the case of Malania Pavlovna would be even more +inappropriate than in the case of Alexey Sergeitch; yet I once chanced +to witness a strange manifestation of my aunt’s secret feelings. In the +course of conversation I once somehow mentioned the famous chief of +police, Sheshkovsky; Malania Pavlovna turned suddenly livid--positively +livid, green, in spite of her rouge and paint--and in a thick and +perfectly unaffected voice (a very rare thing with her--she usually +minced a little, intoned, and lisped) she said: ‘Oh, what a name to +utter! And towards nightfall, too! Don’t utter that name!’ I was +astonished; what kind of significance could his name have for such a +harmless and inoffensive creature, incapable--not merely of doing--even +of thinking of anything not permissible? Anything but cheerful +reflections were aroused in me by this terror, manifesting itself after +almost half a century. + +Alexey Sergeitch died in his eighty-eighth year--in the year 1848, which +apparently disturbed even him. His death, too, was rather strange. He +had felt well the same morning, though by that time he never left his +easy-chair. And all of a sudden he called his wife: ‘Malania, my dear, +come here.’ ‘What is it, Alexis?’ ‘It’s time for me to die, my dear, +that’s what it is.’ ‘Mercy on you, Alexey Sergeitch! What for?’ +‘Because, first of all, one must know when to take leave; and, besides, +I was looking the other day at my feet.... Look at my feet ... they +are not mine ... say what you like ... look at my hands, look at my +stomach ... that stomach’s not mine--so really I’m using up another man’s +life. Send for the priest; and meanwhile, put me to bed--from which I +shall not get up again.’ Malania Pavlovna was terribly upset; however, she +put the old man to bed and sent for the priest. Alexey Sergeitch confessed, +took the sacrament, said good-bye to his household, and fell asleep. +Malania Pavlovna was sitting by his bedside. ‘Alexis!’ she cried +suddenly, ‘don’t frighten me, don’t shut your eyes! Are you in pain?’ +The old man looked at his wife: ‘No, no pain ... but it’s difficult ... +difficult to breathe.’ Then after a brief silence: ‘Malania,’ he said, +‘so life has slipped by--and do you remember when we were married ... +what a couple we were?’ ‘Yes, we were, my handsome, charming Alexis!’ +The old man was silent again. ‘Malania, my dear, shall we meet again in +the next world?’ ‘I will pray God for it, Alexis,’ and the old woman +burst into tears. ‘Come, don’t cry, silly; maybe the Lord God will make +us young again then--and again we shall be a fine pair!’ ‘He will make +us young, Alexis!’ ‘With the Lord all things are possible,’ observed +Alexey Sergeitch. ‘He worketh great marvels!--maybe He will make you +sensible.... There, my love, I was joking; come, let me kiss your hand.’ +‘And I yours.’ And the two old people kissed each other’s hands +simultaneously. + +Alexey Sergeitch began to grow quieter and to sink into forgetfulness. +Malania Pavlovna watched him tenderly, brushing the tears off her +eyelashes with her finger-tips. For two hours she continued sitting +there. ‘Is he asleep?’ the old woman with the talent for praying +inquired in a whisper, peeping in behind Irinarh, who, immovable as a +post, stood in the doorway, gazing intently at his expiring master. ‘He +is asleep,’ answered Malania Pavlovna also in a whisper. And suddenly +Alexey Sergeitch opened his eyes. ‘My faithful companion,’ he faltered, +‘my honoured wife, I would bow down at your little feet for all your +love and faithfulness--but how to get up? Let me sign you with the +cross.’ Malania Pavlovna moved closer, bent down.... But the hand he had +raised fell back powerless on the quilt, and a few moments later Alexey +Sergeitch was no more. + +His daughters arrived only on the day of the funeral with their +husbands; they had no children either of them. Alexey Sergeitch showed +them no animosity in his will, though he never even mentioned them on +his death-bed. ‘My heart has grown hard to them,’ he once said to me. +Knowing his kindly nature, I was surprised at his words. It is hard to +judge between parents and children. ‘A great ravine starts from a little +rift,’ Alexey Sergeitch said to me once in this connection: ‘a wound a +yard wide may heal; but once cut off even a finger nail, it will not +grow again.’ + +I fancy the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old parents. + +A month later and Malania Pavlovna too passed away. From the very day of +Alexey Sergeitch’s death she had hardly risen from her bed, and had not +put on her usual attire; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and +with Orlov’s medallion on her shoulder, only without the diamonds. Those +her daughters divided, on the pretext that the diamonds should be used +in the setting of some holy pictures; in reality, they used them to +adorn their own persons. + +And so I can see my old friends as though they were alive and before my +eyes, and pleasant is the memory I preserve of them. And yet on my very +last visit to them (I was a student by then) an incident occurred which +jarred upon the impression of patriarchal harmony always produced in me +by the Teliegin household. + +Among the house-serfs there was one Ivan, called ‘Suhys’ Ivan,’ a +coachman or coach-boy, as they called him on account of his small size, +in spite of his being no longer young. He was a tiny little man, brisk, +snub-nosed, curly-headed, with an everlastingly smiling, childish face, +and little eyes, like a mouse’s. He was a great joker, a most comic +fellow; he was great at all sorts of tricks--he used to fly kites, let +off fireworks and rockets, to play all sorts of games, gallop standing +up on the horse’s back, fly higher than all the rest in the swing, and +could even make Chinese shadows. No one could amuse children better; and +he would gladly spend the whole day looking after them. When he started +laughing, the whole house would seem to liven up; they would answer +him--one would say one thing, one another, but he always made them all +merry.... And even if they abused him, they could not but laugh. Ivan +danced marvellously, especially the so-called ‘fish dance.’ When the +chorus struck up a dance tune, the fellow would come into the middle of +the ring, and then there would begin such a turning and skipping and +stamping, and then he would fall flat on the ground, and imitate the +movement of a fish brought out of the water on to dry land; such turning +and wriggling, the heels positively clapped up to the head; and then he +would get up and shriek--the earth seemed simply quivering under him. At +times Alexey Sergeitch, who was, as I have said already, exceedingly +fond of watching dancing, could not resist shouting, ‘Little Vania, +here! coach-boy! Dance us the fish, smartly now’; and a minute later he +would whisper enthusiastically: ‘Ah, what a fellow it is!’ + +Well, on my last visit, this Ivan Suhih came into my room, and, without +saying a word, fell on his knees. ‘Ivan, what’s the matter?’ ‘Save me, +sir.’ ‘Why, what is it?’ And thereupon Ivan told me his trouble. + +He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by ‘the Suhy family for a serf of +the Teliegins’;--simply exchanged without any kind of formality or +written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys +had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch’s +house as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his +origin. But now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into +other hands; and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and +oppressive man, having learned that one of his serfs was detained +without cause or reason at Alexey Sergeitch’s, began to demand him back; +in case of refusal he threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was +not an empty one, as he was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and +had great weight in the province. Ivan had rushed in terror to Alexey +Sergeitch. The old man was sorry for his dancer, and he offered the +privy councillor to buy Ivan for a considerable sum. But the privy +councillor would not hear of it; he was a Little Russian, and obstinate +as the devil. The poor fellow would have to be given up. ‘I have spent +my life here, and I’m at home here; I have served here, here I have +eaten my bread, and here I want to die,’ Ivan said to me--and there was +no smile on his face now; on the contrary, it looked turned to stone.... +‘And now I am to go to this wretch.... Am I a dog to be flung from one +kennel to another with a noose round my neck? ... to be told: “There, +get along with you!” Save me, master; beg your uncle, remember how I +always amused you.... Or else there’ll be harm come of it; it won’t end +without sin.’ + +‘What sort of sin, Ivan?’ + +‘I shall kill that gentleman. I shall simply go and say to him, +“Master, let me go back; or else, mind, be careful of yourself.... I +shall kill you.”’ + +If a siskin or a chaffinch could have spoken, and had begun declaring +that it would peck another bird to death, it would not have reduced me +to greater amazement than did Ivan at that moment. What! Suhys’ Vania, +that dancing, jesting, comic fellow, the favourite playfellow of +children, and a child himself, that kindest-hearted of creatures, a +murderer! What ridiculous nonsense! Not for an instant did I believe +him; what astonished me to such a degree was that he was capable of +saying such a thing. Anyway I appealed to Alexey Sergeitch. I did not +repeat what Ivan had said to me, but began asking him whether something +couldn’t be done. ‘My young sir,’ the old man answered, ‘I should be +only too happy--but what’s to be done? I offered this Little Russian an +immense compensation--I offered him three hundred roubles, ‘pon my +honour, I tell you! but he--there’s no moving him! what’s one to do? The +transaction was not legal, it was done on trust, in the old-fashioned +way ... and now see what mischief’s come of it! This Little Russian +fellow, you see, will take Ivan by force, do what we will: his arm is +powerful, the governor eats cabbage-soup at his table; he’ll be sending +along soldiers. And I’m afraid of those soldiers! In old days, to be +sure, I would have stood up for Ivan, come what might; but now, look at +me, what a feeble creature I have grown! How can I make a fight for it?’ +It was true; on my last visit I found Alexey Sergeitch greatly aged; +even the centres of his eyes had that milky colour that babies’ eyes +have, and his lips wore not his old conscious smile, but that unnatural, +mawkish, unconscious grin, which never, even in sleep, leaves the faces +of very decrepit old people. + +I told Ivan of Alexey Sergeitch’s decision. He stood still, was silent +for a little, shook his head. ‘Well,’ said he at last, ‘what is to be +there’s no escaping. Only my mind’s made up. There’s nothing left, then, +but to play the fool to the end. Something for drink, please!’ I gave +him something; he drank himself drunk, and that day danced the ‘fish +dance’ so that the serf-girls and peasant-women positively shrieked with +delight--he surpassed himself in his antics so wonderfully. + +Next day I went home, and three months later, in Petersburg, I heard +that Ivan had kept his word. He had been sent to his new master; his +master had called him into his room, and explained to him that he would +be made coachman, that a team of three ponies would be put in his +charge, and that he would be severely dealt with if he did not look +after them well, and were not punctual in discharging his duties +generally. ‘I’m not fond of joking.’ Ivan heard the master out, first +bowed down to his feet, and then announced it was as his honour pleased, +but he could not be his servant. + +‘Let me off for a yearly quit-money, your honour,’ said he, ‘or send me +for a soldier; or else there’ll be mischief come of it!’ + +The master flew into a rage. ‘Ah, what a fellow you are! How dare you +speak to me like that? In the first place, I’m to be called your +excellency, and not your honour; and, secondly, you’re beyond the age, +and not of a size to be sent for a soldier; and, lastly, what mischief +do you threaten me with? Do you mean to set the house on fire, eh?’ + +‘No, your excellency, not the house on fire.’ + +‘Murder me, then, eh?’ + +Ivan was silent. ‘I’m not your servant,’ he said at last. + +‘Oh well, I’ll show you,’ roared the master, ‘whether you ‘re my servant +or not.’ And he had Ivan cruelly punished, but yet had the three ponies +put into his charge, and made him coachman in the stables. + +Ivan apparently submitted; he began driving about as coachman. As he +drove well, he soon gained favour with the master, especially as Ivan +was very quiet and steady in his behaviour, and the ponies improved so +much in his hands; he turned them out as sound and sleek as +cucumbers--it was quite a sight to see. The master took to driving out +with him oftener than with the other coachmen. Sometimes he would ask +him, ‘I say, Ivan, do you remember how badly we got on when we met? +You’ve got over all that nonsense, eh?’ But Ivan never made any response +to such remarks. So one day the master was driving with Ivan to the town +in his three-horse sledge with bells and a highback covered with carpet. +The horses began to walk up the hill, and Ivan got off the box-seat and +went behind the back of the sledge as though he had dropped something. +It was a sharp frost; the master sat wrapped up, with a beaver cap +pulled down on to his ears. Then Ivan took an axe from under his skirt, +came up to the master from behind, knocked off his cap, and saying, ‘I +warned you, Piotr Petrovitch--you’ve yourself to blame now!’ he struck +off his head at one blow. Then he stopped the ponies, put the cap on his +dead master, and, getting on the box-seat again, drove him to the town, +straight to the courts of justice. + +‘Here’s the Suhinsky general for you, dead; I have killed him. As I told +him, so I did to him. Put me in fetters.’ + +They took Ivan, tried him, sentenced him to the knout, and then to hard +labour. The light-hearted, bird-like dancer was sent to the mines, and +there passed out of sight for ever.... + +Yes; one can but repeat, in another sense, Alexey Sergeitch’s words: +‘They were good old times ... but enough of them!’ + +1881. + + + + +THE BRIGADIER + + + + +I + + +Reader, do you know those little homesteads of country gentlefolks, +which were plentiful in our Great Russian Oukraïne twenty-five or thirty +years ago? Now one rarely comes across them, and in another ten years +the last of them will, I suppose, have disappeared for ever. The running +pond overgrown with reeds and rushes, the favourite haunt of fussy +ducks, among whom one may now and then come across a wary ‘teal’; beyond +the pond a garden with avenues of lime-trees, the chief beauty and glory +of our black-earth plains, with smothered rows of ‘Spanish’ +strawberries, with dense thickets of gooseberries, currants, and +raspberries, in the midst of which, in the languid hour of the stagnant +noonday heat, one would be sure to catch glimpses of a serf-girl’s +striped kerchief, and to hear the shrill ring of her voice. Close by +would be a summer-house standing on four legs, a conservatory, a +neglected kitchen garden, with flocks of sparrows hung on stakes, and a +cat curled up on the tumble-down well; a little further, leafy +apple-trees in the high grass, which is green below and grey above, +straggling cherry-trees, pear-trees, on which there is never any fruit; +then flower-beds, poppies, peonies, pansies, milkwort, ‘maids in green,’ +bushes of Tartar honeysuckle, wild jasmine, lilac and acacia, with the +continual hum of bees and wasps among their thick, fragrant, sticky +branches. At last comes the manor-house, a one-storied building on a +brick foundation, with greenish window-panes in narrow frames, a +sloping, once painted roof, a little balcony from which the vases of the +balustrade are always jutting out, a crooked gable, and a husky old dog +in the recess under the steps at the door. Behind the house a wide yard +with nettles, wormwood, and burdocks in the corners, outbuildings with +doors that stick, doves and rooks on the thatched roofs, a little +storehouse with a rusty weathercock, two or three birch-trees with +rooks’ nests in their bare top branches, and beyond--the road with +cushions of soft dust in the ruts and a field and the long hurdles of +the hemp patches, and the grey little huts of the village, and the +cackle of geese in the far-away rich meadows.... Is all this familiar to +you, reader? In the house itself everything is a little awry, a little +rickety--but no matter. It stands firm and keeps warm; the stoves are +like elephants, the furniture is of all sorts, home-made. Little paths +of white footmarks run from the doors over the painted floors. In the +hall siskins and larks in tiny cages; in the corner of the dining-room +an immense English clock in the form of a tower, with the inscription, +‘Strike--silent’; in the drawing-room portraits of the family, painted +in oils, with an expression of ill-tempered alarm on the brick-coloured +faces, and sometimes too an old warped picture of flowers and fruit or a +mythological subject. Everywhere there is the smell of kvas, of apples, +of linseed-oil and of leather. Flies buzz and hum about the ceiling and +the windows. A daring cockroach suddenly shows his countenance from +behind the looking-glass frame.... No matter, one can live here--and +live very well too. + + + + +II + + +Just such a homestead it was my lot to visit thirty years ago ... it was +in days long past, as you perceive. The little estate in which this +house stood belonged to a friend of mine at the university; it had only +recently come to him on the death of a bachelor cousin, and he was not +living in it himself.... But at no great distance from it there were +wide tracts of steppe bog, in which at the time of summer migration, +when they are on the wing, there are great numbers of snipe; my friend +and I, both enthusiastic sportsmen, agreed therefore to go on St. +Peter’s day, he from Moscow, I from my own village, to his little house. +My friend lingered in Moscow, and was two days late; I did not care to +start shooting without him. I was received by an old servant, Narkiz +Semyonov, who had had notice of my coming. This old servant was not in +the least like ‘Savelitch’ or ‘Caleb’; my friend used to call him in +joke ‘Marquis.’ There was something of conceit, even of affectation, +about him; he looked down on us young men with a certain dignity, but +cherished no particularly respectful sentiments for other landowners +either; of his old master he spoke slightingly, while his own class he +simply scorned for their ignorance. He could read and write, expressed +himself correctly and with judgment, and did not drink. He seldom went +to church, and so was looked upon as a dissenter. In appearance he was +thin and tall, had a long and good-looking face, a sharp nose, and +overhanging eyebrows, which he was continually either knitting or +lifting; he wore a neat, roomy coat, and boots to his knees with +heart-shaped scallops at the tops. + + + + +III + + +On the day of my arrival, Narkiz, having given me lunch and cleared the +table, stood in the doorway, looked intently at me, and with some play +of the eyebrows observed: + +‘What are you going to do now, sir?’ + +‘Well, really, I don’t know. If Nikolai Petrovitch had kept his word and +come, we should have gone shooting together.’ + +‘So you really expected, sir, that he would come at the time he +promised?’ + +‘Of course I did.’ + +‘H’m.’ Narkiz looked at me again and shook his head as it were with +commiseration. ‘If you ‘d care to amuse yourself with reading,’ he +continued: ‘there are some books left of my old master’s; I’ll get them +you, if you like; only you won’t read them, I expect.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘They’re books of no value; not written for the gentlemen of +these days.’ + +‘Have you read them?’ + +‘If I hadn’t read them, I wouldn’t have spoken about them. A dream-book, +for instance ... that’s not much of a book, is it? There are others too, +of course ... only you won’t read them either.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘They are religious books.’ + +I was silent for a space.... Narkiz was silent too. + +‘What vexes me most,’ I began, ‘is staying in the house in such +weather.’ + +‘Take a walk in the garden; or go into the copse. We’ve a copse here +beyond the threshing-floor. Are you fond of fishing?’ + +‘Are there fish here?’ + +‘Yes, in the pond. Loaches, sand-eels, and perches are caught there. +Now, to be sure, the best time is over; July’s here. But anyway, you +might try.... Shall I get the tackle ready?’ + +‘Yes, do please.’ + +‘I’ll send a boy with you ... to put on the worms. Or maybe I ‘d better +come myself?’ Narkiz obviously doubted whether I knew how to set about +things properly by myself. + +‘Come, please, come along.’ + +Narkiz, without a word, grinned from ear to ear, then suddenly knitted +his brows ... and went out of the room. + + + + +IV + + +Half an hour later we set off to catch fish. Narkiz had put on an +extraordinary sort of cap with ears, and was more dignified than ever. +He walked in front with a steady, even step; two rods swayed regularly +up and down on his shoulders; a bare-legged boy followed him carrying a +can and a pot of worms. + +‘Here, near the dike, there’s a seat, put up on the floating platform on +purpose,’ Narkiz was beginning to explain to me, but he glanced ahead, +and suddenly exclaimed: ‘Aha! but our poor folk are here already ... +they keep it up, it seems.’ + +I craned my head to look from behind him, and saw on the floating +platform, on the very seat of which he had been speaking, two persons +sitting with their backs to us; they were placidly fishing. + +‘Who are they?’ I asked. + +‘Neighbours,’ Narkiz responded, with displeasure. ‘They’ve nothing to +eat at home, and so here they come to us.’ + +‘Are they allowed to?’ + +‘The old master allowed them.... Nikolai Petrovitch maybe won’t give +them permission.... The long one is a superannuated deacon--quite a +silly creature; and as for the other, that’s a little stouter--he’s a +brigadier.’ + +‘A brigadier?’ I repeated, wondering. This ‘brigadier’s’ attire was +almost worse than the deacon’s. + +‘I assure you he’s a brigadier. And he did have a fine property once. +But now he has only a corner given him out of charity, and he lives ... +on what God sends him. But, by the way, what are we to do? They’ve taken +the best place.... We shall have to disturb our precious visitors.’ + +‘No, Narkiz, please don’t disturb them. We’ll sit here a little aside; +they won’t interfere with us. I should like to make acquaintance with +the brigadier.’ + +‘As you like. Only, as far as acquaintance goes ... you needn’t expect +much satisfaction from it, sir; he’s grown very weak in his head, and in +conversation he’s silly as a little child. As well he may be; he’s past +his eightieth year.’ + +‘What’s his name?’ + +‘Vassily Fomitch. Guskov’s his surname.’ + +‘And the deacon?’ + +‘The deacon? ... his nickname’s Cucumber. Every one about here calls him +so; but what his real name is--God knows! A foolish creature! A regular +ne’er-do-well.’ + +‘Do they live together?’ + +‘No; but there--the devil has tied them together, it seems.’ + + + + +V + + +We approached the platform. The brigadier cast one glance upon us ... +and promptly fixed his eyes on the float; Cucumber jumped up, pulled +back his rod, took off his worn-out clerical hat, passed a trembling +hand over his rough yellow hair, made a sweeping bow, and gave vent to a +feeble little laugh. His bloated face betrayed him an inveterate +drunkard; his staring little eyes blinked humbly. He gave his neighbour +a poke in the ribs, as though to let him know that they must clear +out.... The brigadier began to move on the seat. + +‘Sit still, I beg; don’t disturb yourselves,’ I hastened to say. ‘You +won’t interfere with us in the least. We’ll take up our position here; +sit still.’ + +Cucumber wrapped his ragged smock round him, twitched his shoulders, his +lips, his beard.... Obviously he felt our presence oppressive and he +would have been glad to slink away, ... but the brigadier was again lost +in the contemplation of his float.... The ‘ne’er-do-weel’ coughed twice, +sat down on the very edge of the seat, put his hat on his knees, and, +tucking his bare legs up under him, he discreetly dropped in his line. + +‘Any bites?’ Narkiz inquired haughtily, as in leisurely fashion he +unwound his reel. + +‘We’ve caught a matter of five loaches,’ answered Cucumber in a cracked +and husky voice: ‘and he took a good-sized perch.’ + +‘Yes, a perch,’ repeated the brigadier in a shrill pipe. + + + + +VI + + +I fell to watching closely--not him, but his reflection in the pond. It +was as clearly reflected as in a looking-glass--a little darker, a +little more silvery. The wide stretch of pond wafted a refreshing +coolness upon us; a cool breath of air seemed to rise, too, from the +steep, damp bank; and it was the sweeter, as in the dark blue, flooded +with gold, above the tree tops, the stagnant sultry heat hung, a burden +that could be felt, over our heads. There was no stir in the water near +the dike; in the shade cast by the drooping bushes on the bank, water +spiders gleamed, like tiny bright buttons, as they described their +everlasting circles; at long intervals there was a faint ripple just +perceptible round the floats, when a fish was ‘playing’ with the worm. +Very few fish were taken; during a whole hour we drew up only two +loaches and an eel. I could not say why the brigadier aroused my +curiosity; his rank could not have any influence on me; ruined noblemen +were not even at that time looked upon as a rarity, and his appearance +presented nothing remarkable. Under the warm cap, which covered the +whole upper part of his head down to his ears and his eyebrows, could be +seen a smooth, red, clean-shaven, round face, with a little nose, little +lips, and small, clear grey eyes. Simplicity and weakness of character, +and a sort of long-standing, helpless sorrow, were visible in that meek, +almost childish face; the plump, white little hands with short fingers +had something helpless, incapable about them too.... I could not +conceive how this forlorn old man could once have been an officer, could +have maintained discipline, have given his commands--and that, too, in +the stern days of Catherine! I watched him; now and then he puffed out +his cheeks and uttered a feeble whistle, like a little child; sometimes +he screwed up his eyes painfully, with effort, as all decrepit people +will. Once he opened his eyes wide and lifted them.... They stared at me +from out of the depths of the water--and strangely touching and even +full of meaning their dejected glance seemed to me. + + + + +VII + + +I tried to begin a conversation with the brigadier ... but Narkiz had +not misinformed me; the poor old man certainly had become weak in his +intellect. He asked me my surname, and after repeating his inquiry +twice, pondered and pondered, and at last brought out: ‘Yes, I fancy +there was a judge of that name here. Cucumber, wasn’t there a judge +about here of that name, hey?’ ‘To be sure there was, Vassily Fomitch, +your honour,’ responded Cucumber, who treated him altogether as a child. +‘There was, certainly. But let me have your hook; your worm must have +been eaten off.... Yes, so it is.’ + +‘Did you know the Lomov family?’ the brigadier suddenly asked me in a +cracked voice. + +‘What Lomov family is that?’ + +‘Why, Fiodor Ivanitch, Yevstigney Ivanitch, Alexey Ivanitch the Jew, and +Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer, ... and then, too ...’ + +The brigadier suddenly broke off and looked down confused. + +They were the people he was most intimate with,’ Narkiz whispered, +bending towards me; ‘it was through them, through that same Alexey +Ivanitch, that he called a Jew, and through a sister of Alexey +Ivanitch’s, Agrafena Ivanovna, as you may say, that he lost all his +property.’ + +‘What are you saying there about Agrafena Ivanovna?’ the brigadier +called out suddenly, and his head was raised, his white eyebrows were +frowning.... ‘You’d better mind! And why Agrafena, pray? Agrippina +Ivanovna--that’s what you should call her.’ + +‘There--there--there, sir,’ Cucumber was beginning to falter. + +‘Don’t you know the verses the poet Milonov wrote about her?’ the old +man went on, suddenly getting into a state of excitement, which was a +complete surprise to me. ‘No hymeneal lights were kindled,’ he began +chanting, pronouncing all the vowels through his nose, giving the +syllables ‘an,’ ‘en,’ the nasal sound they have in French; and it was +strange to hear this connected speech from his lips: ‘No torches ... No, +that’s not it: + + “Not vain Corruption’s idols frail + Not amaranth nor porphyry + Rejoiced their hearts ... + One thing in them ...” + +‘That was about us. Do you hear? + + “One thing in them unquenchable, + Subduing, sweet, desirable, + To nurse their mutual flame in love!” + +And you talk about Agrafena!’ + +Narkiz chuckled half-contemptuously, half-indifferently. ‘What a queer +fish it is!’ he said to himself. But the brigadier had again relapsed +into dejection, the rod had dropped from his hands and slipped into +the water. + + + + +VIII + + +‘Well, to my thinking, our fishing is a poor business,’ observed +Cucumber; ‘the fish, see, don’t bite at all. It’s got fearfully hot, and +there’s a fit of “mencholy” come over our gentleman. It’s clear we must +be going home; that will be best.’ He cautiously drew out of his pocket +a tin bottle with a wooden stopper, uncorked it, scattered snuff on his +wrist, and sniffed it up in both nostrils at once.... ‘Ah, what good +snuff!’ he moaned, as he recovered himself. ‘It almost made my tooth +ache! Now, my dear Vassily Fomitch, get up--it’s time to be off!’ + +The brigadier got up from the bench. + +‘Do you live far from here?’ I asked Cucumber. + +‘No, our gentleman lives not far ... it won’t be as much as a mile.’ + +‘Will you allow me to accompany you?’ I said, addressing the brigadier. +I felt disinclined to let him go. + +Narkiz was surprised at my intention; but I paid no attention to the +disapproving shake of his long-eared cap, and walked out of the garden +with the brigadier, who was supported by Cucumber. The old man moved +fairly quickly, with a motion as though he were on stilts. + + + + +IX + + +We walked along a scarcely trodden path, through a grassy glade between +two birch copses. The sun was blazing; the orioles called to each other +in the green thicket; corncrakes chattered close to the path; blue +butterflies fluttered in crowds about the white, and red flowers of the +low-growing clover; in the perfectly still grass bees hung, as though +asleep, languidly buzzing. Cucumber seemed to pull himself together, and +brightened up; he was afraid of Narkiz--he lived always under his eye; I +was a stranger--a new comer--with me he was soon quite at home. + +‘Here’s our gentleman,’ he said in a rapid flow; ‘he’s a small eater +and no mistake! but only one perch, is that enough for him? Unless, +your honour, you would like to contribute something? Close here round +the corner, at the little inn, there are first-rate white wheaten +rolls. And if so, please your honour, this poor sinner, too, will +gladly drink on this occasion to your health, and may it be of long +years and long days.’ I gave him a little silver, and was only just in +time to pull away my hand, which he was falling upon to kiss. He +learned that I was a sportsman, and fell to talking of a very good +friend of his, an officer, who had a ‘Mindindenger’ Swedish gun, with a +copper stock, just like a cannon, so that when you fire it off you are +almost knocked senseless--it had been left behind by the French--and a +dog--simply one of Nature’s marvels! that he himself had always had a +great passion for the chase, and his priest would have made no trouble +about it--he used in fact to catch quails with him--but the +ecclesiastical superior had pursued him with endless persecution; ‘and +as for Narkiz Semyonitch,’ he observed in a sing-song tone, ‘if +according to his notions I’m not a trustworthy person--well, what I say +is: he’s let his eyebrows grow till he’s like a woodcock, and he +fancies all the sciences are known to him.’ By this time we had reached +the inn, a solitary tumble-down, one-roomed little hut without backyard +or outbuildings; an emaciated dog lay curled up under the window; a hen +was scratching in the dust under his very nose. Cucumber sat the +brigadier down on the bank, and darted instantly into the hut. While he +was buying the rolls and emptying a glass, I never took my eyes off the +brigadier, who, God knows why, struck me as something of an enigma. In +the life of this man--so I mused--there must certainly have been +something out of the ordinary. But he, it seemed, did not notice me at +all. He was sitting huddled up on the bank, and twisting in his fingers +some pinks which he had gathered in my friend’s garden. Cucumber made +his appearance, at last, with a bundle of rolls in his hand; he made +his appearance, all red and perspiring, with an expression of gleeful +surprise on his face, as though he had just seen something exceedingly +agreeable and unexpected. He at once offered the brigadier a roll to +eat, and the latter at once ate it. We proceeded on our way. + + + + +X + + +On the strength of the spirits he had drunk, Cucumber quite ‘unbent,’ as +it is called. He began trying to cheer up the brigadier, who was still +hurrying forward with a tottering motion as though he were on stilts. +‘Why are you so downcast, sir, and hanging your head? Let me sing you a +song. That’ll cheer you up in a minute.’ He turned to me: ‘Our gentleman +is very fond of a joke, mercy on us, yes! Yesterday, what did I see?--a +peasant-woman washing a pair of breeches on the platform, and a great +fat woman she was, and he stood behind her, simply all of a shake with +laughter--yes, indeed! ... In a minute, allow me: do you know the song of +the hare? You mustn’t judge me by my looks; there’s a gypsy woman living +here in the town, a perfect fright, but sings--‘pon my soul! one’s ready +to lie down and die.’ He opened wide his moist red lips and began +singing, his head on one side, his eyes shut, and his beard quivering: + + ‘The hare beneath the bush lies still, + The hunters vainly scour the hill; + The hare lies hid and holds his breath, + His ears pricked up, he lies there still + Waiting for death. + O hunters! what harm have I done, + To vex or injure you? Although + Among the cabbages I run, + One leaf I nibble--only one, + And that’s not yours! + Oh, no!’ + +Cucumber went on with ever-increasing energy: + + ‘Into the forest dark he fled, + His tail he let the hunters see; + “Excuse me, gentlemen,” says he, + “That so I turn my back on you-- + I am not yours!”’ + +Cucumber was not singing now ... he was bellowing: + + ‘The hunters hunted day and night, + And still the hare was out of sight. + So, talking over his misdeeds, + They ended by disputing quite-- + Alas, the hare is not for us! + The squint-eye is too sharp for us!’ + +The first two lines of each stanza Cucumber sang with each syllable +drawn out; the other three, on the contrary, very briskly, and +accompanied them with little hops and shuffles of his feet; at the +conclusion of each verse he cut a caper, in which he kicked himself with +his own heels. As he shouted at the top of his voice: ‘The squint-eye is +too sharp for us!’ he turned a somersault.... His expectations were +fulfilled. The brigadier suddenly went off into a thin, tearful little +chuckle, and laughed so heartily that he could not go on, and stayed +still in a half-sitting posture, helplessly slapping his knees with his +hands. I looked at his face, flushed crimson, and convulsively working, +and felt very sorry for him at that instant especially. Encouraged by +his success, Cucumber fell to capering about in a squatting position, +singing the refrain of: ‘Shildi-budildi!’ and ‘Natchiki-tchikaldi!’ He +stumbled at last with his nose in the dust.... The brigadier suddenly +ceased laughing and hobbled on. + + + + +XI + + +We went on another quarter of a mile. A little village came into sight +on the edge of a not very deep ravine; on one side stood the ‘lodge,’ +with a half-ruined roof and a solitary chimney; in one of the two rooms +of this lodge lived the brigadier. The owner of the village, who always +resided in Petersburg, the widow of the civil councillor Lomov, had--so +I learned later--bestowed this little nook upon the brigadier. She had +given orders that he should receive a monthly pension, and had also +assigned for his service a half-witted serf-girl living in the same +village, who, though she barely understood human speech, was yet +capable, in the lady’s opinion, of sweeping a floor and cooking +cabbage-soup. At the door of the lodge the brigadier again addressed me +with the same eighteenth-century smile: would I be pleased to walk into +his ‘apartement’? We went into this ‘apartement.’ Everything in it was +exceedingly filthy and poor, so filthy and so poor that the brigadier, +noticing, probably, by the expression of my face, the impression it made +on me, observed, shrugging his shoulders, and half closing his eyelids: +‘Ce n’est pas ... oeil de perdrix.’ ... What precisely he meant by this +remained a mystery to me.... When I addressed him in French, I got no +reply from him in that language. Two objects struck me especially in the +brigadier’s abode: a large officer’s cross of St. George in a black +frame, under glass, with an inscription in an old-fashioned handwriting: +‘Received by the Colonel of the Tchernigov regiment, Vassily Guskov, for +the storming of Prague in the year 1794’; and secondly, a half-length +portrait in oils of a handsome, black-eyed woman with a long, dark face, +hair turned up high and powdered, with postiches on the temple and chin, +in a flowered, low-cut bodice, with blue frills, the style of 1780. The +portrait was badly painted, but was probably a good likeness; there was +a wonderful look of life and will, something extraordinarily living and +resolute, about the face. It was not looking at the spectator; it was, +as it were, turning away and not smiling; the curve of the thin nose, +the regular but flat lips, the almost unbroken straight line of the +thick eyebrows, all showed an imperious, haughty, fiery temper. No great +effort was needed to picture that face glowing with passion or with +rage. Just below the portrait on a little pedestal stood a half-withered +bunch of simple wild flowers in a thick glass jar. The brigadier went up +to the pedestal, stuck the pinks he was carrying into the jar, and +turning to me, and lifting his hand in the direction of the portrait, he +observed: ‘Agrippina Ivanovna Teliegin, by birth Lomov.’ The words of +Narkiz came back to my mind; and I looked with redoubled interest at the +expressive and evil face of the woman for whose sake the brigadier had +lost all his fortune. + +‘You took part, I see, sir, in the storming of Prague,’ I began, +pointing to the St. George cross, ‘and won a sign of distinction, rare +at any time, but particularly so then; you must remember Suvorov?’ + +‘Alexander Vassilitch?’ the brigadier answered, after a brief silence, +in which he seemed to be pulling his thoughts together; ‘to be sure, I +remember him; he was a little, brisk old man. Before one could stir a +finger, he’d be here and there and everywhere (the brigadier chuckled). +He rode into Warsaw on a Cossack horse; he was all in diamonds, and he +says to the Poles: “I’ve no watch, I forgot it in Petersburg--no watch!” + and they shouted and huzzaed for him. Queer chaps! Hey! Cucumber! lad!’ +he added suddenly, changing and raising his voice (the deacon-buffoon +had remained standing at the door), ‘where’s the rolls, eh? And tell +Grunka ... to bring some kvas!’ + +‘Directly, your honour,’ I heard Cucumber’s voice reply. He handed the +brigadier the bundle of rolls, and, going out of the lodge, approached a +dishevelled creature in rags--the half-witted girl, Grunka, I +suppose--and as far as I could make out through the dusty little window, +proceeded to demand kvas from her--at least, he several times raised one +hand like a funnel to his mouth, and waved the other in our direction. + + + + +XII + + +I made another attempt to get into conversation with the brigadier; +but he was evidently tired: he sank, sighing and groaning, on the +little couch, and moaning, ‘Oy, oy, my poor bones, my poor bones,’ +untied his garters. I remember I wondered at the time how a man came +to be wearing garters. I did not realise that in former days every one +wore them. The brigadier began yawning with prolonged, unconcealed +yawns, not taking his drowsy eyes off me all the time; so very little +children yawn. The poor old man did not even seem quite to understand +my question.... And he had taken Prague! He, sword in hand, in the +smoke and the dust--at the head of Suvorov’s soldiers, the +bullet-pierced flag waving above him, the hideous corpses under his +feet.... He ... he! Wasn’t it wonderful! But yet I could not help +fancying that there had been events more extraordinary in the +brigadier’s life. Cucumber brought white kvas in an iron jug; the +brigadier drank greedily--his hands shook. Cucumber supported the +bottom of the jug. The old man carefully wiped his toothless mouth +with both hands--and again staring at me, fell to chewing and munching +his lips. I saw how it was, bowed, and went out of the room. + +‘Now he’ll have a nap,’ observed Cucumber, coming out behind me. ‘He’s +terribly knocked up to-day--he went to the grave early this morning.’ + +‘To whose grave?’ + +‘To Agrafena Ivanovna’s, to pay his devotions.... She is buried in our +parish cemetery here; it’ll be four miles from here. Vassily Fomitch +visits it every week without fail. Indeed, it was he who buried her and +put the fence up at his own expense.’ + +‘Has she been dead long?’ + +‘Well, let’s think--twenty years about.’ + +‘Was she a friend of his, or what?’ + +‘Her whole life, you may say, she passed with him ... really. I +myself, I must own, never knew the lady, but they do say ... what +there was between them ... well, well, well! Sir,’ the deacon added +hurriedly, seeing I had turned away, ‘wouldn’t you like to give me +something for another drop, for it’s time I was home in my hut and +rolled up in my blanket?’ + +I thought it useless to question Cucumber further, so gave him a few +coppers, and set off homewards. + + + + +XIII + + +At home I betook myself for further information to Narkiz. He, as I +might have anticipated, was somewhat unapproachable, stood a little on +his dignity, expressed his surprise that such paltry matters could +‘interest’ me, and, finally, told me what he knew. I heard the +following details. + +Vassily Fomitch Guskov had become acquainted with Agrafena Ivanovna +Teliegin at Moscow soon after the suppression of the Polish +insurrection; her husband had had a post under the governor-general, and +Vassily Fomitch was on furlough. He fell in love with her there and +then, but did not leave the army at once; he was a man of forty with no +family, with a fortune. Her husband soon after died. She was left +without children, poor, and in debt.... Vassily Fomitch heard of her +position, threw up the service (he received the rank of brigadier on his +retirement) and sought out his charming widow, who was not more than +five-and-twenty, paid all her debts, redeemed her estate.... From that +time he had never parted from her, and finished by living altogether in +her house. She, too, seems to have cared for him, but would not marry +him. ‘She was froward, the deceased lady,’ was Narkiz’s comment on this: +‘My liberty,’ she would say, ‘is dearer to me than anything.’ But as for +making use of him--she made use of him ‘in every possible way,’ and +whatever money he had, he dragged to her like an ant. But the +frowardness of Agrafena Ivanovna at times assumed extreme proportions; +she was not of a mild temper, and somewhat too ready with her hands.... +Once she pushed her page-boy down the stairs, and he went and broke two +of his ribs and one leg.... Agrafena Ivanovna was frightened ... she +promptly ordered the page to be shut up in the lumber-room, and she did +not leave the house nor give up the key of the room to any one, till the +moans within had ceased.... The page was secretly buried.... ‘And had it +been in the Empress Catherine’s time,’ Narkiz added in a whisper, +bending down, ‘maybe the affair would have ended there--many such deeds +were hidden under a bushel in those days, but as ...’ here Narkiz drew +himself up and raised his voice:’ as our righteous Tsar Alexander the +Blessed was reigning then ... well, a fuss was made.... A trial +followed, the body was dug up ... signs of violence were found on it ... +and a great to-do there was. And what do you think? Vassily Fomitch took +it all on himself. “I,” said he, “am responsible for it all; it was I +pushed him down, and I too shut him up.” Well, of course, all the judges +then, and the lawyers and the police ... fell on him directly ... fell +on him and never let him go ... I can assure you ... till the last +farthing was out of his purse. They’d leave him in peace for a while, +and then attack him again. Down to the very time when the French came +into Russia they were worrying at him, and only dropped him then. Well, +he managed to provide for Agrafena Ivanovna--to be sure, he saved +her--that one must say. Well, and afterwards, up to her death, indeed, +he lived with her, and they do say she led him a pretty dance--the +brigadier, that is; sent him on foot from Moscow into the country--by +God, she did--to get her rents in, I suppose. It was on her account, on +account of this same Agrafena Ivanovna--he fought a duel with the +English milord Hugh Hughes; and the English milord was forced to make a +formal apology too. But later on the brigadier went down hill more and +more.... Well, and now he can’t be reckoned a man at all.’ + +‘Who was that Alexey Ivanitch the Jew,’ I asked, ‘through whom he was +brought to ruin?’ + +‘Oh, the brother of Agrafena Ivanovna. A grasping creature, Jewish +indeed. He lent his sister money at interest, and Vassily Fomitch was +her security. He had to pay for it too ... pretty heavily!’ + +‘And Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer--who was she?’ + +‘Her sister too ... and a sharp one too, as sharp as a lance. A +terrible woman!’ + + + + +XIV + + +‘What a place to find a Werter!’ I thought next day, as I set off again +towards the brigadier’s dwelling. I was at that time very young, and +that was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting +nature of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story +I had heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make +him talk freely. ‘I’ll first refer to Suvorov again,’ so I resolved +within myself; ‘there must be some spark of his former fire hidden +within him still ... and then, when he’s warmed up, I’ll turn the +conversation on that ... what’s her name? ... Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer +name for a “Charlotte”--Agrafena!’ + +I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few +steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut, +overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut +some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly +slipping and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort +of green stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just +pulled a young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm +‘to clean it,’ proceeded to chew its thin tail.... I bowed to him, and +inquired after his health. + +He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting--that +is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off +munching the carrot. + +‘You didn’t go fishing to-day?’ I began, in the hope of recalling myself +to his memory by this question. + +‘To-day?’ he repeated and pondered ... while the carrot, stuck into his +mouth, grew shorter and shorter. ‘Why, I suppose it’s Cucumber +fishing! ... But I’m allowed to, too.’ + +‘Of course, of course, most honoured Vassily Fomitch.... I didn’t mean +that.... But aren’t you hot ... like this in the sun.’ + +The brigadier was wearing a thick wadded dressing-gown. + +‘Eh? Hot?’ he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and, +having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards. + +‘Would you care to step into my apartement?’ he said suddenly. The +poor old man had, it seemed, only this phrase still left him always at +his disposal. + +We went out of the kitchen-garden ... but there involuntarily I stopped +short. Between us and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to +the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily +and furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the +dust up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his +tail, and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly, +and bellowed--not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time +menacingly. I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped +forward with perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, ‘Now then, +country bumpkin,’ shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again, +bowed his horns ... suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging +his head from side to side. + +‘There’s no doubt he took Prague,’ I thought. + +We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which +was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, ‘Fa!’ ... squatted down on the +edge of a chair ... bowed his head gloomily.... + +‘I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,’ I began my diplomatic approaches, +‘because, as you have served under the leadership of the great +Suvorov--have taken part altogether in such important events--it would +be very interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.’ + +The brigadier stared at me.... His face kindled strangely--I began to +expect, if not a story, at least some word of approval, of sympathy.... + +‘But I, sir, must be going to die soon,’ he said in an undertone. + +I was utterly nonplussed. + +‘Why, Vassily Fomitch, ‘I brought out at last, ‘what makes you ... +suppose that?’ + +The brigadier suddenly flung his arms violently up and down. + +‘Because, sir ... I, as maybe you know ... often in my dreams see +Agrippina Ivanovna--Heaven’s peace be with her!--and never can I catch +her; I am always running after her--but cannot catch her. But last +night--I dreamed--she was standing, as it were, before me, half-turned +away, and laughing.... I ran up to her at once and caught her ... and she +seemed to turn round quite and said to me: “Well, Vassinka, now you +have caught me.”’ + +‘What do you conclude from that, Vassily Fomitch?’ + +‘Why, sir, I conclude: it has come, that we shall be together. And glory +to God for it, I tell you; glory be to God Almighty, the Father, the +Son, and the Holy Ghost (the brigadier fell into a chant): as it was in +the beginning, is now and ever shall be, Amen!’ + +The brigadier began crossing himself. I could get nothing more out of +him, so I went away. + + + + +XV + + +The next day my friend arrived.... I mentioned the brigadier, and my +visits to him.... + +‘Oh yes! of course! I know his story,’ answered my friend; ‘I know +Madame Lomov very well, the privy councillor’s widow, by whose favour he +obtained a home here. Oh, wait a minute; I believe there must be +preserved here his letter to the privy councillor’s widow; it was on the +strength of that letter that she assigned him his little cot.’ My friend +rummaged among his papers and actually found the brigadier’s letter. +Here it is word for word, with the omission of the mistakes in spelling. +The brigadier, like every one of his epoch, was a little hazy in that +respect. But to preserve these errors seemed unnecessary; his letter +bears the stamp of his age without them. + +‘HONOURED MADAM, RAÏSSA PAVLOVNA!--On the decease of my friend, and your +aunt, I had the happiness of addressing to you two letters, the first on +the first of June, the second on the sixth of July of the year 1815, +while she expired on the sixth of May in that year; in them I discovered +to you the feelings of my soul and of my heart, which were crushed under +deadly wrongs, and they reflected in full my bitter despair, in truth +deserving of commiseration; both letters were despatched by the imperial +mail registered, and hence I cannot conceive that they have not been +perused by your eye. By the genuine candour of my letters, I had counted +upon winning your benevolent attention; but the compassionate feelings +of your heart were far removed from me in my woe! Left on the loss of my +one only friend, Agrippina Ivanovna, in the most distressed and +poverty-stricken circumstances, I rested, by her instructions, all my +hopes on your bounty; she, aware of her end approaching, said to me in +these words, as it were from the grave, and never can I forget them: “My +friend, I have been your serpent, and am guilty of all your unhappiness. +I feel how much you have sacrificed for me, and in return I leave you in +a disastrous and truly destitute situation; on my death have recourse to +Raïssa Pavlovna”--that is, to you--“and implore her aid, invite her +succour! She has a feeling heart, and I have confidence in her, that she +will not leave you forlorn.” Honoured madam, let me call to witness the +all-high Creator of the world that those were her words, and I am +speaking with her tongue; and, therefore, trusting firmly in your +goodness, to you first of all I addressed myself with my open-hearted +and candid letters; but after protracted expectation, receiving no reply +to them, I could not conceive otherwise than that your benevolent heart +had left me without attention! Such your unfavourable disposition +towards me, reduced me to the depths of despair--whither, and to whom, +was I to turn in my misfortune I knew not; my soul was troubled, my +intellect went astray; at last, for the completion of my ruin, it +pleased Providence to chastise me in a still more cruel manner, and to +turn my thoughts to your deceased aunt, Fedulia Ivanovna, sister of +Agrippina Ivanovna, one in blood, but not one in heart! Having present +to myself, before my mind’s eye, that I had been for twenty years +devoted to the whole family of your kindred, the Lomovs, especially to +Fedulia Ivanovna, who never called Agrippina Ivanovna otherwise than “my +heart’s precious treasure,” and me “the most honoured and zealous friend +of our family”; picturing all the above, among abundant tears and sighs +in the stillness of sorrowful night watches, I thought: “Come, +brigadier! so, it seems, it is to be!” and, addressing myself by letter +to the said Fedulia Ivanovna, I received a positive assurance that she +would share her last crumb with me! The presents sent on by me, more +than five hundred roubles’ worth in value, were accepted with supreme +satisfaction; and afterwards the money too which I brought with me for +my maintenance, Fedulia Ivanovna was pleased, on the pretext of guarding +it, to take into her care, to the which, to gratify her, I offered no +opposition. + +If you ask me whence, and on what ground I conceived such confidence--to +the above, madam, there is but one reply: she was sister of Agrippina +Ivanovna, and a member of the Lomov family! But alas and alas! all the +money aforesaid I was very soon deprived of, and the hopes which I had +rested on Fedulia Ivanovna--that she would share her last crumb with +me--turned out to be empty and vain; on the contrary, the said Fedulia +Ivanovna enriched herself with my property. To wit, on her saint’s day, +the fifth of February, I brought her fifty roubles’ worth of green +French material, at five roubles the yard; I myself received of all that +was promised five roubles’ worth of white piqué for a waistcoat and a +muslin handkerchief for my neck, which gifts were purchased in my +presence, as I was aware, with my own money--and that was all that I +profited by Fedulia Ivanovna’s bounty! So much for the last crumb! And I +could further, in all sincerity, disclose the malignant doings of +Fedulia Ivanovna to me; and also my expenses, exceeding all reason, as, +among the rest, for sweetmeats and fruits, of which Fedulia Ivanovna was +exceedingly fond;--but upon all this I am silent, that you may not take +such disclosures against the dead in bad part; and also, seeing that God +has called her before His judgment seat--and all that I suffered at her +hands is blotted out from my heart--and I, as a Christian, forgave her +long ago, and pray to God to forgive her! + +‘But, honoured madam, Raïssa Pavlovna! Surely you will not blame me for +that I was a true and loyal friend of your family, and that I loved +Agrippina Ivanovna with a love so great and so insurmountable that I +sacrificed to her my life, my honour, and all my fortune! that I was +utterly in her hands, and hence could not dispose of myself nor of my +property, and she disposed at her will of me and also of my estate! It +is known to you also that, owing to her action with her servant, I +suffer, though innocent, a deadly wrong--this affair I brought after her +death before the senate, before the sixth department--it is still +unsettled now--in consequence of which I was made accomplice with her, +my estate put under guardianship, and I am still lying under a criminal +charge! In my position, at my age, such disgrace is intolerable to me; +and it is only left me to console my heart with the mournful reflection +that thus, even after Agrippina Ivanovna’s death, I suffer for her sake, +and so prove my immutable love and loyal gratitude to her! + +‘In my letters, above mentioned, to you, I gave you an account with +every detail of Agrippina Ivanovna’s funeral, and what masses were read +for her--my affection and love for her spared no outlay! For all the +aforesaid, and for the forty days’ requiems, and the reading of the +psalter six weeks after for her (in addition to above, fifty roubles +of mine were lost, which were given as security for payment for +the stone, of which I sent you a description)--on all the aforesaid +was spent of my money seven hundred and fifty roubles, in which is +included, by way of donation to the church, a hundred and fifty roubles. + +‘In the goodness of your heart, hear the cry of a desperate man, crushed +beneath a load of the crudest calamities! Only your commiseration and +humanity can restore the life of a ruined man! Though living--in the +suffering of my heart and soul I am as one dead; dead when I think what +I was, and what I am; I was a soldier, and served my country in all +fidelity and uprightness, as is the bounden duty of a loyal Russian and +faithful subject, and was rewarded with the highest honours, and had a +fortune befitting my birth and station; and now I must cringe and beg +for a morsel of dry bread; dead above all I am when I think what a +friend I have lost ... and what is life to me after that? But there is +no hastening one’s end, and the earth will not open, but rather seems +turned to stone! And so I call upon you, in the benevolence of your +heart, hush the talk of the people, do not expose yourself to universal +censure, that for all my unbounded devotion I have not where to lay my +head; confound them by your bounty to me, turn the tongues of the evil +speakers and slanderers to glorifying your good works--and I make bold +in all humility to add, comfort in the grave your most precious aunt, +Agrippina Ivanovna, who can never be forgotten, and who for your speedy +succour, in answer to my sinful prayers, will spread her protecting +wings about your head, and comfort in his declining days a lonely old +man, who had every reason to expect a different fate! ... And, with the +most profound respect, I have the honour to be, dear madam, your most +devoted servant, + +VASSILY GUSKOV, + +_Brigadier and cavalier._’ + +Several years later I paid another visit to my friend’s little place.... +Vassily Fomitch had long been dead; he died soon after I made his +acquaintance. Cucumber was still flourishing. He conducted me to the +tomb of Agrafena Ivanovna. An iron railing enclosed a large slab with a +detailed and enthusiastically laudatory epitaph on the deceased woman; +and there, beside it, as it were at her feet, could be seen a little +mound with a slanting cross on it; the servant of God, the brigadier and +cavalier, Vassily Guskov, lay under this mound.... His ashes found rest +at last beside the ashes of the creature he had loved with such +unbounded, almost undying, love. + +1867. + + + + +PYETUSHKOV + + + + +I + + +In the year 182- ... there was living in the town of O---- the +lieutenant Ivan Afanasiitch Pyetushkov. He was born of poor parents, was +left an orphan at five years old, and came into the charge of a +guardian. Thanks to this guardian, he found himself with no property +whatever; he had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. He was of +medium height, and stooped a little; he had a thin face, covered with +freckles, but rather pleasing; light brown hair, grey eyes, and a timid +expression; his low forehead was furrowed with fine wrinkles. +Pyetushkov’s whole life had been uneventful in the extreme; at close +upon forty he was still youthful and inexperienced as a child. He was +shy with acquaintances, and exceedingly mild in his manner with persons +over whose lot he could have exerted control.... + +People condemned by fate to a monotonous and cheerless existence often +acquire all sorts of little habits and preferences. Pyetushkov liked to +have a new white roll with his tea every morning. He could not do +without this dainty. But behold one morning his servant, Onisim, handed +him, on a blue-sprigged plate, instead of a roll, three dark red rusks. + +Pyetushkov at once asked his servant, with some indignation, what he +meant by it. + +‘The rolls have all been sold out,’ answered Onisim, a native of +Petersburg, who had been flung by some queer freak of destiny into the +very wilds of south Russia. + +‘Impossible!’ exclaimed Ivan Afanasiitch. + +‘Sold out,’ repeated Onisim; ‘there’s a breakfast at the Marshal’s, so +they’ve all gone there, you know.’ + +Onisim waved his hand in the air, and thrust his right foot forward. + +Ivan Afanasiitch walked up and down the room, dressed, and set off +himself to the baker’s shop. This establishment, the only one of the +kind in the town of O----, had been opened ten years before by a German +immigrant, had in a short time begun to flourish, and was still +flourishing under the guidance of his widow, a fat woman. + +Pyetushkov tapped at the window. The fat woman stuck her unhealthy, +flabby, sleepy countenance out of the pane that opened. + +‘A roll, if you please,’ Pyetushkov said amiably. + +‘The rolls are all gone,’ piped the fat woman. + +‘Haven’t you any rolls?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘How’s that?--really! I take rolls from you every day, and pay for them +regularly.’ + +The woman stared at him in silence. ‘Take twists,’ she said at last, +yawning; ‘or a scone.’ + +‘I don’t like them,’ said Pyetushkov, and he felt positively hurt. + +‘As you please,’ muttered the fat woman, and she slammed to the +window-pane. + +Ivan Afanasiitch was quite unhinged by his intense vexation. In his +perturbation he crossed to the other side of the street, and gave +himself up entirely, like a child, to his displeasure. + +‘Sir!’ ... he heard a rather agreeable female voice; ‘sir!’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch raised his eyes. From the open pane of the bakehouse +window peeped a girl of about seventeen, holding a white roll in her +hand. She had a full round face, rosy cheeks, small hazel eyes, rather a +turn-up nose, fair hair, and magnificent shoulders. Her features +suggested good-nature, laziness, and carelessness. + +‘Here’s a roll for you, sir,’ she said, laughing, ‘I’d taken for myself; +but take it, please, I’ll give it up to you.’ + +‘I thank you most sincerely. Allow me ...’ + +Pyetushkov began fumbling in his pocket. + +‘No, no! you are welcome to it.’ + +She closed the window-pane. + +Pyetushkov arrived home in a perfectly agreeable frame of mind. + +‘You couldn’t get any rolls,’ he said to his Onisim; ‘but here, I’ve got +one, do you see?’ + +Onisim gave a bitter laugh. + +The same day, in the evening, as Ivan Afanasiitch was undressing, he +asked his servant, ‘Tell me, please, my lad, what’s the girl like at the +baker’s, hey?’ + +Onisim looked away rather gloomily, and responded, ‘What do you want to +know for?’ + +‘Oh, nothing,’ said Pyetushkov, taking off his boots with his own hands. + +‘Well, she’s a fine girl!’ Onisim observed condescendingly. + +‘Yes, ... she’s not bad-looking,’ said Ivan Afanasiitch, also looking +away. ‘And what’s her name, do you know?’ + +‘Vassilissa.’ + +‘And do you know her?’ + +Onisim did not answer for a minute or two. + +‘We know her.’ + +Pyetushkov was on the point of opening his mouth again, but he turned +over on the other side and fell asleep. + +Onisim went out into the passage, took a pinch of snuff, and gave his +head a violent shake. + +The next day, early in the morning, Pyetushkov called for his clothes. +Onisim brought him his everyday coat--an old grass-coloured coat, with +huge striped epaulettes. Pyetushkov gazed a long while at Onisim without +speaking, then told him to bring him his new coat. Onisim, with some +surprise, obeyed. Pyetushkov dressed, and carefully drew on his +chamois-leather gloves. + +‘You needn’t go to the baker’s to-day,’ said he with some hesitation; +‘I’m going myself, ... it’s on my way.’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ responded Onisim, as abruptly as if some one had just given +him a shove from behind. + +Pyetushkov set off, reached the baker’s shop, tapped at the window. The +fat woman opened the pane. + +‘Give me a roll, please,’ Ivan Afanasiitch articulated slowly. + +The fat woman stuck out an arm, bare to the shoulder--a huge arm, more +like a leg than an arm--and thrust the hot bread just under his nose. + +Ivan Afanasiitch stood some time under the window, walked once or twice +up and down the street, glanced into the courtyard, and at last, ashamed +of his childishness, returned home with the roll in his hand. He felt +ill at ease the whole day, and even in the evening, contrary to his +habit, did not drop into conversation with Onisim. + +The next morning it was Onisim who went +for the roll. + + + + +II + + +Some weeks went by. Ivan Afanasiitch had completely forgotten +Vassilissa, and chatted in a friendly way with his servant as before. +One fine morning there came to see him a certain Bublitsyn, an +easy-mannered and very agreeable young man. It is true he sometimes +hardly knew himself what he was talking about, and was always, as they +say, a little wild; but all the same he had the reputation of being an +exceedingly agreeable person to talk to. He smoked a great deal with +feverish eagerness, with lifted eyebrows and contracted chest--smoked +with an expression of intense anxiety, or, one might rather say, with an +expression as though, let him have this one more puff at his pipe, and +in a minute he would tell you some quite unexpected piece of news; at +times he would even give a grunt and a wave of the hand, while himself +sucking at his pipe, as though he had suddenly recollected something +extraordinarily amusing or important, then he would open his mouth, let +off a few rings of smoke, and utter the most commonplace remarks, or +even keep silence altogether. After gossiping a little with Ivan +Afanasiitch about the neighbours, about horses, the daughters of the +gentry around, and other such edifying topics, Mr. Bublitsyn suddenly +winked, pulled up his shock of hair, and, with a sly smile, approached +the remarkably dim looking-glass which was the solitary ornament of Ivan +Afanasiitch’s room. + +‘There’s no denying the fact,’ he pronounced, stroking his light brown +whiskers, ‘we’ve got girls here that beat any of your Venus of Medicis +hollow.... Have you seen Vassilissa, the baker girl, for instance?’ ... +Mr. Bublitsyn sucked at his pipe. + +Pyetushkov started. + +‘But why do I ask you?’ pursued Bublitsyn, disappearing in a cloud of +smoke,--‘you’re not the man to notice, don’t you know, Ivan Afanasiitch! +Goodness knows what you do to occupy yourself, Ivan Afanasiitch!’ + +‘The same as you do,’ Pyetushkov replied with some vexation, in a +drawling voice. + +‘Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch, not a bit of it.... How can you say so?’ + +‘Well, why not?’ + +‘Nonsense, nonsense.’ + +‘Why so, why so?’ + +Bublitsyn stuck his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and began +scrutinising his not very handsome boots. Pyetushkov felt embarrassed. + +‘Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, Ivan Afanasiitch!’ pursued Bublitsyn, as though +sparing his feelings. ‘But as to Vassilissa, the baker girl, I can +assure you: a very, ve-ry fine girl, ... ve-ry.’ + +Mr. Bublitsyn dilated his nostrils, and slowly plunged his hands into +his pockets. + +Strange to relate, Ivan Afanasiitch felt something of the nature of +jealousy. He began moving restlessly in his chair, burst into explosive +laughter at nothing at all, suddenly blushed, yawned, and, as he yawned, +his lower jaw twitched a little. Bublitsyn smoked three more pipes, and +withdrew. Ivan Afanasiitch went to the window, sighed, and called for +something to drink. + +Onisim set a glass of kvas on the table, glanced severely at his master, +leaned back against the door, and hung his head dejectedly. + +‘What are you so thoughtful about?’ his master asked him genially, but +with some inward trepidation. + +‘What am I thinking about?’ retorted Onisim; ‘what am I thinking +about? ... it’s always about you.’ + +‘About me!’ + +‘Of course it’s about you.’ + +‘Why, what is it you are thinking?’ + +‘Why, this is what I’m thinking.’ (Here Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) +‘You ought to be ashamed, sir--you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ + +‘Ashamed?’ + +‘Yes, ashamed.... Look at Mr. Bublitsyn, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Tell me if +he’s not a fine fellow, now.’ + +‘I don’t understand you.’ + +‘You don’t understand me.... Oh yes, you do understand me.’ + +Onisim paused. + +‘Mr. Bublitsyn’s a real gentleman--what a gentleman ought to be. But +what are you, Ivan Afanasiitch, what are you? Tell me that.’ + +‘Why, I’m a gentleman too.’ + +‘A gentleman, indeed!’ ... retorted Onisim, growing indignant. ‘A pretty +gentleman you are! You’re no better, sir, than a hen in a shower of +rain, Ivan Afanasiitch, let me tell you. Here you sit sticking at home +the whole blessed day ... much good it does you, sitting at home like +that! You don’t play cards, you don’t go and see the gentry, and as +for ... well ...’ + +Onisim waved his hand expressively. + +‘Now, come ... you really go ... too far ...’ Ivan Afanasiitch said +hesitatingly, clutching his pipe. + +‘Too far, indeed, Ivan Afanasiitch, too far, you say! Judge for +yourself. Here again, with Vassilissa ... why couldn’t you ...’ + +‘But what are you thinking about, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov interrupted +miserably. + +‘I know what I’m thinking about. But there--I’d better let you alone! +What can you do? Only fancy ... there you ...’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch got up. + +‘There, there, if you please, you hold your tongue,’ he said quickly, +seeming to be searching for Onisim with his eyes; ‘I shall really, +you know ... I ... what do you mean by it, really? You’d better help +me dress.’ + +Onisim slowly drew off Ivan Afanasiitch’s greasy Tartar dressing-gown, +gazed with fatherly commiseration at his master, shook his head, put him +on his coat, and fell to beating him about the back with a brush. + +Pyetushkov went out, and after a not very protracted stroll about the +crooked streets of the town, found himself facing the baker’s shop. A +queer smile was playing about his lips. + +He had hardly time to look twice at the too well-known ‘establishment,’ +when suddenly the little gate opened, and Vassilissa ran out with a +yellow kerchief on her head and a jacket flung after the Russian fashion +on her shoulders. Ivan Afanasiitch at once overtook her. + +‘Where are you going, my dear?’ + +Vassilissa glanced swiftly at him, laughed, turned away, and put her +hand over her lips. + +‘Going shopping, I suppose?’ queried Ivan Afanasiitch, fidgeting +with his feet. + +‘How inquisitive we are!’ retorted Vassilissa. + +‘Why inquisitive?’ said Pyetushkov, hurriedly gesticulating with his +hands. ‘Quite the contrary.... Oh yes, you know,’ he added hastily, as +though these last words completely conveyed his meaning. + +‘Did you eat my roll?’ + +‘To be sure I did,’ replied Pyetushkov: ‘with special enjoyment.’ + +Vassilissa continued to walk on and to laugh. + +‘It’s pleasant weather to-day,’ pursued Ivan Afanasiitch: ‘do you often +go out walking?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Ah, how I should like....’ + +‘What say?’ + +The girls in our district utter those words in a very queer way, with a +peculiar sharpness and rapidity.... Partridges call at sunset with just +that sound. + +‘To go out walking, don’t you know, with you ... into the +country, or ...’ + +‘How can you?’ + +‘Why not?’ + +‘Ah, upon my word, how you do go on!’ + +‘But allow me....’ + +At this point they were overtaken by a dapper little shopman, with a +little goat’s beard, and with his fingers held apart like antlers, so as +to keep his sleeves from slipping over his hands, in a long-skirted +bluish coat, and a warm cap that resembled a bloated water-melon. +Pyetushkov, for propriety’s sake, fell back a little behind Vassilissa, +but quickly came up with her again. + +‘Well, then, what about our walk?’ + +Vassilissa looked slily at him and giggled again. + +‘Do you belong to these parts?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +Vassilissa passed her hand over her hair and walked a little more +slowly. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled, and, his heart inwardly sinking with +timidity, he stooped a little on one side and put a trembling arm about +the beauty’s waist. + +Vassilissa uttered a shriek. + +‘Give over, do, for shame, in the street.’ + +‘Come now, there, there,’ muttered Ivan Afanasiitch. + +‘Give over, I tell you, in the street.... Don’t be rude.’ + +‘A ... a ... ah, what a girl you are!’ said Pyetushkov reproachfully, +while he blushed up to his ears. + +Vassilissa stood still. + +‘Now go along with you, sir--go along, do.’ + +Pyetushkov obeyed. He got home, and sat for a whole hour without moving +from his chair, without even smoking his pipe. At last he took out a +sheet of greyish paper, mended a pen, and after long deliberation wrote +the following letter. + +‘DEAR MADAM, VASSILISSA TIMOFYEVNA!--Being naturally a most inoffensive +person, how could I have occasioned you annoyance? If I have really been +to blame in my conduct to you, then I must tell you: the hints of Mr. +Bublitsyn were responsible for this, which was what I never expected. +Anyway, I must humbly beg you not to be angry with me. I am a sensitive +man, and any kindness I am most sensible of and grateful for. Do not be +angry with me, Vassilissa Timofyevna, I beg you most humbly.--I remain +respectfully your obedient servant, + +IVAN PYETUSHKOV.’ + +Onisim carried this letter to its address. + + + + +III + + +A fortnight passed. Onisim went every morning as usual to the baker’s +shop. One day Vassilissa ran out to meet him. + +‘Good morning, Onisim Sergeitch.’ + +Onisim put on a gloomy expression, and responded crossly, ‘’Morning.’ + +‘How is it you never come to see us, Onisim Sergeitch?’ + +Onisim glanced morosely at her. + +‘What should I come for? you wouldn’t give me a cup of tea, no fear.’ + +‘Yes, I would, Onisim Sergeitch, I would. You come and see. Rum +in it, too.’ + +Onisim slowly relaxed into a smile. + +‘Well, I don’t mind if I do, then.’ + +‘When, then--when?’ + +‘When ... well, you are ...’ + +‘To-day--this evening, if you like. Drop in. + +‘All right, I’ll come along,’ replied Onisim, and he sauntered home with +his slow, rolling step. + +The same evening in a little room, beside a bed covered with a striped +eider-down, Onisim was sitting at a clumsy little table, facing +Vassilissa. A huge, dingy yellow samovar was hissing and bubbling on the +table; a pot of geranium stood in the window; in the other corner near +the door there stood aslant an ugly chest with a tiny hanging lock; on +the chest lay a shapeless heap of all sorts of old rags; on the walls +were black, greasy prints. Onisim and Vassilissa drank their tea in +silence, looking straight at each other, turning the lumps of sugar over +and over in their hands, as it were reluctantly nibbling them, blinking, +screwing up their eyes, and with a hissing sound sucking in the +yellowish boiling liquid through their teeth. At last they had emptied +the whole samovar, turned upside down the round cups--one with the +inscription, ‘Take your fill’; the other with the words, ‘Cupid’s dart +hath pierced my heart’--then they cleared their throats, wiped their +perspiring brows, and gradually dropped into conversation. + +‘Onisim Sergeitch, how about your master ...’ began Vassilissa, and did +not finish her sentence. + +‘What about my master?’ replied Onisim, and he leaned on his hand. ‘He’s +all right. But why do you ask?’ + +‘Oh, I only asked,’ answered Vassilissa. + +‘But I say’--(here Onisim grinned)--‘I say, he wrote you a letter, +didn’t he?’ + +‘Yes, he did.’ + +Onisim shook his head with an extraordinarily self-satisfied air. + +‘So he did, did he?’ he said huskily, with a smile. ‘Well, and what did +he say in his letter to you?’ + +‘Oh, all sorts of things. “I didn’t mean anything, Madam, Vassilissa +Timofyevna,” says he, “don’t you think anything of it; don’t you be +offended, madam,” and a lot more like that he wrote.... But I say,’ she +added after a brief silence: ‘what’s he like?’ + +‘He’s all right,’ Onisim responded indifferently. + +‘Does he get angry?’ + +‘He get angry! Not he. Why, do you like him?’ + +Vassilissa looked down and giggled in her sleeve. + +‘Come,’ grumbled Onisim. + +‘Oh, what’s that to you, Onisim Sergeitch?’ + +‘Oh, come, I tell you.’ + +‘Well,’ Vassilissa brought out at last, ‘he’s ... a gentleman. Of +course ... I ... and besides; he ... you know yourself ...’ + +‘Of course I do,’ Onisim observed solemnly. + +‘Of course you’re aware, to be sure, Onisim Sergeitch.’ ... Vassilissa +was obviously becoming agitated. + +‘You tell him, your master, that I’m ...; say, not angry with him, +but that ...’ + +She stammered. + +‘We understand,’ responded Onisim, and he got up from his seat. ‘We +understand. Thanks for the entertainment.’ + +‘Come in again some day.’ + +‘All right, all right.’ + +Onisim approached the door. The fat woman came into the room. + +‘Good evening to you, Onisim Sergeitch,’ she said in a peculiar chant. + +‘Good evening to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,’ he said in the same +sing-song. + +Both stood still for a little while facing each other. + +‘Well, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,’ Onisim chanted out again. + +‘Well, good day to you, Onisim Sergeitch,’ she responded in the same +sing-song. + +Onisim arrived home. His master was lying on his bed, gazing at +the ceiling. + +‘Where have you been?’ + +‘Where have I been?’ ... (Onisim had the habit of repeating reproachfully +the last words of every question.) ‘I’ve been about your business.’ + +‘What business?’ + +‘Why, don’t you know? ... I’ve been to see Vassilissa.’ + +Pyetushkov blinked and turned over on his bed. + +‘So that’s how it is,’ observed Onisim, and he coolly took a pinch of +snuff. ‘So that’s how it is. You’re always like that. Vassilissa sends +you her duty.’ + +‘Really?’ + +‘Really? So that’s all about it. Really! ... She told me to say, Why is +it, says she, one never sees him? Why is it, says she, he never comes?’ + +‘Well, and what did you say?’ + +‘What did I say? I told her: You’re a silly girl--I told her--as if +folks like that are coming to see you! No, you come yourself, I +told her.’ + +‘Well, and what did she say?’ + +‘What did she say? ... She said nothing.’ + +‘That is, how do you mean, nothing?’ + +‘Why, nothing, to be sure.’ + +Pyetushkov said nothing for a little while. + +‘Well, and is she coming?’ + +Onisim shook his head. + +‘She coming! You’re in too great a hurry, sir. She coming, indeed! No, +you go too fast.’ ... + +‘But you said yourself that ...’ + +‘Oh, well, it’s easy to talk.’ + +Pyetushkov was silent again. + +‘Well, but how’s it to be, then, my lad?’ + +‘How? ... You ought to know best; you ‘re a gentleman.’ + +‘Oh, nonsense! come now!’ + +Onisim swayed complacently backwards and forwards. + +‘Do you know Praskovia Ivanovna?’ he asked at last. + +‘No. What Praskovia Ivanovna?’ + +‘Why, the baker woman!’ + +‘Oh yes, the baker woman. I’ve seen her; she’s very fat.’ + +‘She’s a worthy woman. She’s own aunt to the other, to your girl.’ + +‘Aunt?’ + +‘Why, didn’t you know?’ + +‘No, I didn’t know.’ + +‘Well ...’ + +Onisim was restrained by respect for his master from giving full +expression to his feelings. + +‘That’s whom it is you should make friends with.’ + +‘Well, I’ve no objection.’ + +Onisim looked approvingly at Ivan Afanasiitch. + +‘But with what object precisely am I to make friends with her?’ inquired +Pyetushkov. + +‘What for, indeed!’ answered Onisim serenely. + +Ivan Afanasiitch got up, paced up and down the room, stood still before +the window, and without turning his head, with some hesitation he +articulated: + +‘Onisim!’ + +‘What say?’ + +‘Won’t it be, you know, a little awkward for me with the old woman, eh?’ + +‘Oh, that’s as you like.’ + +‘Oh, well, I only thought it might, perhaps. My comrades might +notice it; it’s a little ... But I’ll think it over. Give me my +pipe.... So she,’ he went on after a short silence--Vassilissa, I +mean, says then ...’ + +But Onisim had no desire to continue the conversation, and he assumed +his habitual morose expression. + + + + +IV + + +Ivan Afanasiitch’s acquaintance with Praskovia Ivanovna began in the +following manner. Five days after his conversation with Onisim, +Pyetushkov set off in the evening to the baker’s shop. ‘Well,’ thought +he, as he unlatched the creaking gate, ‘I don’t know how it’s to be.’ ... + +He mounted the steps, opened the door. A huge, crested hen rushed, with +a deafening cackle, straight under his feet, and long after was still +running about the yard in wild excitement. From a room close by peeped +the astonished countenance of the fat woman. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled and +nodded. The fat woman bowed to him. Tightly grasping his hat, Pyetushkov +approached her. Praskovia Ivanovna was apparently anticipating an +honoured guest; her dress was fastened up at every hook. Pyetushkov sat +down on a chair; Praskovia Ivanovna seated herself opposite him. + +‘I have come to you, Praskovia Ivanovna, more on account of....’ Ivan +Afanasiitch began at last--and then ceased. His lips were twitching +spasmodically. + +‘You are kindly welcome, sir,’ responded Praskovia Ivanovna in the +proper sing-song, and with a bow. ‘Always delighted to see a guest.’ + +Pyetushkov took courage a little. + +‘I have long wished, you know, to have the pleasure of making your +acquaintance, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + +‘Much obliged to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + +Followed a silence. Praskovia Ivanovna wiped her face with a +parti-coloured handkerchief; Ivan Afanasiitch continued with intense +attention to gaze away to one side. Both were rather uncomfortable. But +in merchant and petty shopkeeper society, where even old friends never +step outside special angular forms of etiquette, a certain constraint in +the behaviour of guests and host to one another not only strikes no one +as strange, but, on the contrary, is regarded as perfectly correct and +indispensable, particularly on a first visit. Praskovia Ivanovna was +agreeably impressed by Pyetushkov. He was formal and decorous in his +manners, and moreover, wasn’t he a man of some rank, too? + +‘Praskovia Ivanovna, ma’am, I like your rolls very much,’ he said to +her. + +‘Really now, really now.’ + +‘Very good they are, you know, very, indeed.’ + +‘May they do you good, sir, may they do you good. Delighted, to be +sure.’ + +‘I’ve never eaten any like them in Moscow.’ + +‘You don’t say so now, you don’t say so.’ + +Again a silence followed. + +‘Tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna,’ began Ivan Afanasiitch; ‘that’s your +niece, I fancy, isn’t it, living with you?’ + +‘My own niece, sir.’ + +‘How comes it ... she’s with you?’.... + +‘She’s an orphan, so I keep her.’ + +‘And is she a good worker?’ + +‘Such a girl to work ... such a girl, sir ... ay ... ay ... to be +sure she is.’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch thought it discreet not to pursue the subject of the +niece further. + +‘What bird is that you have in the cage, Praskovia Ivanovna?’ + +‘God knows. A bird of some sort.’ + +‘H’m! Well, so, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + +‘A very good day to your honour. Pray walk in another time, and take a +cup of tea.’ + +‘With the greatest pleasure, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + +Pyetushkov walked out. On the steps he met Vassilissa. She giggled. + +‘Where are you going, my darling?’ said Pyetushkov with reckless daring. + +‘Come, give over, do, you are a one for joking.’ + +‘He, he! And did you get my letter?’ + +Vassilissa hid the lower part of her face in her sleeve and made +no answer. + +‘And you’re not angry with me?’ + +‘Vassilissa!’ came the jarring voice of the aunt; ‘hey, Vassilissa!’ + +Vassilissa ran into the house. Pyetushkov returned home. But from that +day he began going often to the baker’s shop, and his visits were not +for nothing. Ivan Afanasiitch’s hopes, to use the lofty phraseology +suitable, were crowned with success. Usually, the attainment of the goal +has a cooling effect on people, but Pyetushkov, on the contrary, grew +every day more and more ardent. Love is a thing of accident, it exists +in itself, like art, and, like nature, needs no reasons to justify it, +as some clever man has said who never loved, himself, but made excellent +observations upon love. + +Pyetushkov became passionately attached to Vassilissa. He was completely +happy. His soul was aglow with bliss. Little by little he carried all +his belongings, at any rate all his pipes, to Praskovia Ivanovna’s, and +for whole days together he sat in her back room. Praskovia Ivanovna +charged him something for his dinner and drank his tea, consequently she +did not complain of his presence. Vassilissa had grown used to him. She +would work, sing, or spin before him, sometimes exchanging a couple of +words with him; Pyetushkov watched her, smoked his pipe, swayed to and +fro in his chair, laughed, and in leisure hours played ‘Fools’ with her +and Praskovia Ivanovna. Ivan Afanasiitch was happy.... + +But in this world nothing is perfect, and, small as a man’s +requirements may be, destiny never quite fulfils them, and positively +spoils the whole thing, if possible.... The spoonful of pitch is sure +to find its way into the barrel of honey! Ivan Afanasiitch experienced +this in his case. + +In the first place, from the time of his establishing himself at +Vassilissa’s, Pyetushkov dropped more than ever out of all intercourse +with his comrades. He saw them only when absolutely necessary, and then, +to avoid allusions and jeers (in which, however, he was not always +successful), he put on the desperately sullen and intensely scared look +of a hare in a display of fireworks. + +Secondly, Onisim gave him no peace; he had lost every trace of respect +for him, he mercilessly persecuted him, put him to shame. + +And ... thirdly.... Alas! read further, kindly reader. + + + + +V + + +One day Pyetushkov (who for the reasons given above found little comfort +outside Praskovia Ivanovna’s doors) was sitting in Vassilissa’s room at +the back, and was busying himself over some home-brewed concoction, +something in the way of jam or syrup. The mistress of the house was not +at home. Vassilissa was sitting in the shop singing. + +There came a knock at the little pane. Vassilissa got up, went to the +window, uttered a little shriek, giggled, and began whispering with some +one. On going back to her place, she sighed, and then fell to singing +louder than ever. + +‘Who was that you were talking to?’ Pyetushkov asked her. + +Vassilissa went on singing carelessly. + +‘Vassilissa, do you hear? Vassilissa!’ + +‘What do you want?’ + +‘Whom were you talking to?’ + +‘What’s that to you?’ + +‘I only asked.’ + +Pyetushkov came out of the back room in a parti-coloured smoking-jacket +with tucked-up sleeves, and a strainer in his hand. + +‘Oh, a friend of mine,’ answered Vassilissa. + +‘What friend?’ + +‘Oh, Piotr Petrovitch.’ + +‘Piotr Petrovitch? ... what Piotr Petrovitch?’ + +‘He’s one of your lot. He’s got such a difficult name.’ + +‘Bublitsyn?’ + +‘Yes, yes ... Piotr Petrovitch.’ + +‘And do you know him?’ + +‘Rather!’ responded Vassilissa, with a wag of her head. + +Pyetushkov, without a word, paced ten times up and down the room. + +‘I say, Vassilissa,’ he said at last, ‘that is, how do you know him?’ + +‘How do I know him? ... I know him ... He’s such a nice gentleman.’ + +‘How do you mean nice, though? how nice? how nice?’ + +Vassilissa gazed at Ivan Afanasiitch. + +‘Nice,’ she said slowly and in perplexity. ‘You know what I mean.’ + +Pyetushkov bit his lips and began again pacing the room. + +‘What were you talking about with him, eh?’ + +Vassilissa smiled and looked down. + +‘Speak, speak, speak, I tell you, speak!’ + +‘How cross you are to-day!’ observed Vassilissa. + +Pyetushkov was silent. + +‘Come now, Vassilissa,’ he began at last; ‘no, I won’t be cross.... +Come, tell me, what were you talking about?’ + +Vassilissa laughed. + +‘He is a one to joke, really, that Piotr Petrovitch!’ + +‘Well, what did he say?’ + +‘He is a fellow!’ + +Pyetushkov was silent again for a little. + +‘Vassilissa, you love me, don’t you?’ he asked her. + +‘Oh, so that’s what you’re after, too!’ + +Poor Pyetushkov felt a pang at his heart. Praskovia Ivanovna came in. +They sat down to dinner. After dinner Praskovia Ivanovna betook herself +to the shelf bed. Ivan Afanasiitch himself lay down on the stove, turned +over and dropped asleep. A cautious creak waked him. Ivan Afanasiitch +sat up, leaned on his elbow, looked: the door was open. He jumped up--no +Vassilissa. He ran into the yard--she was not in the yard; into the +street, looked up and down--Vassilissa was nowhere to be seen. He ran +without his cap as far as the market--no, Vassilissa was not in sight. +Slowly he returned to the baker’s shop, clambered on to the stove, and +turned with his face to the wall. He felt miserable. Bublitsyn ... +Bublitsyn ... the name was positively ringing in his ears. + +‘What’s the matter, my good sir?’ Praskovia Ivanovna asked him in a +drowsy voice. ‘Why are you groaning?’ + +‘Oh, nothing, ma’am. Nothing. I feel a weight oppressing me.’ + +‘It’s the mushrooms,’ murmured Praskovia Ivanovna--‘it’s all those +mushrooms.’ + +O Lord, have mercy on us sinners! + +An hour passed, a second--still no Vassilissa. Twenty times Pyetushkov +was on the point of getting up, and twenty times he huddled miserably +under the sheepskin.... At last he really did get down from the stove +and determined to go home, and positively went out into the yard, but +came back. Praskovia Ivanovna got up. The hired man, Luka, black as a +beetle, though he was a baker, put the bread into the oven. Pyetushkov +went again out on to the steps and pondered. The goat that lived in the +yard went up to him, and gave him a little friendly poke with his horns. +Pyetushkov looked at him, and for some unknown reason said ‘Kss, Kss.’ +Suddenly the low wicket-gate slowly opened and Vassilissa appeared. Ivan +Afanasiitch went straight to meet her, took her by the hand, and rather +coolly, but resolutely, said to her: + +‘Come along with me.’ + +‘But, excuse me, Ivan Afanasiitch ... I ...’ + +‘Come with me,’ he repeated. + +She obeyed. + +Pyetushkov led her to his lodgings. Onisim, as usual, was lying at full +length asleep. Ivan Afanasiitch waked him, told him to light a candle. +Vassilissa went to the window and sat down in silence. While Onisim was +busy getting a light in the anteroom, Pyetushkov stood motionless at the +other window, staring into the street. Onisim came in, with the candle +in his hands, was beginning to grumble ... Ivan Afanasiitch turned +quickly round: ‘Go along,’ he said to him. + +Onisim stood still in the middle of the room. + +‘Go away at once,’ Pyetushkov repeated threateningly. + +Onisim looked at his master and went out. + +Ivan Afanasiitch shouted after him: + +‘Away, quite away. Out of the house. You can come back in two +hours’ time.’ + +Onisim slouched off. + +Pyetushkov waited till he heard the gate bang, and at once went up to +Vassilissa. + +‘Where have you been?’ + +Vassilissa was confused. + +‘Where have you been? I tell you,’ he repeated. + +Vassilissa looked round ... + +‘I am speaking to you ... where have you been?’ And Pyetushkov raised +his arm ... + +‘Don’t beat me, Ivan Afanasiitch, don’t beat me,’ Vassilissa whispered +in terror. + +Pyetushkov turned away. + +‘Beat you ... No! I’m not going to beat you. Beat you? I beg your +pardon, my darling. God bless you! While I supposed you loved me, while +I ... I ... ‘ + +Ivan Afanasiitch broke off. He gasped for breath. + +‘Listen, Vassilissa,’ he said at last. ‘You know I’m a kind-hearted man, +you know it, don’t you, Vassilissa, don’t you?’ + +‘Yes, I do,’ she said faltering. + +‘I do nobody any harm, nobody, nobody in the world. And I deceive +nobody. Why are you deceiving me?’ + +‘But I’m not deceiving you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + +‘You aren’t deceiving me? Oh, very well! Oh, very well! Then tell me +where you’ve been.’ + +‘I went to see Matrona.’ + +‘That’s a lie!’ + +‘Really, I’ve been at Matrona’s. You ask her, if you don’t believe me.’ + +‘And Bub--what’s his name ... have you seen that devil?’ + +‘Yes, I did see him.’ + +‘You did see him! you did see him! Oh! you did see him!’ + +Pyetushkov turned pale. + +‘So you were making an appointment with him in the morning at the +window--eh? eh?’ + +‘He asked me to come.’ + +‘And so you went.... Thanks very much, my girl, thanks very much!’ +Pyetushkov made Vassilissa a low bow. + +‘But, Ivan Afanasiitch, you’re maybe fancying ...’ + +‘You’d better not talk to me! And a pretty fool I am! There’s nothing to +make an outcry for! You may make friends with any one you like. I’ve +nothing to do with you. So there! I don’t want to know you even.’ + +Vassilissa got up. + +‘That’s for you to say, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + +‘Where are you going?’ + +‘Why, you yourself ...’ + +‘I’m not sending you away,’ Pyetushkov interrupted her. + +‘Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch.... What’s the use of my stopping here?’ + +Pyetushkov let her get as far as the door. + +‘So you’re going, Vassilissa?’ + +‘You keep on abusing me.’ + +‘I abuse you! You’ve no fear of God, Vassilissa! When have I abused you? +Come, come, say when?’ + +‘Why! Just this minute weren’t you all but beating me?’ + +‘Vassilissa, it’s wicked of you. Really, it’s downright wicked.’ + +‘And then you threw it in my face, that you don’t want to know me. “I’m +a gentleman,” say you.’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch began wringing his hands speechlessly. Vassilissa got +back as far as the middle of the room. + +‘Well, God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch. I’ll keep myself to myself, +and you keep yourself to yourself.’ + +‘Nonsense, Vassilissa, nonsense,’ Pyetushkov cut her short. ‘You think +again; look at me. You see I’m not myself. You see I don’t know what I’m +saying.... You might have some feeling for me.’ + +‘You keep on abusing me, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + +‘Ah, Vassilissa! Let bygones be bygones. Isn’t that right? Come, you’re +not angry with me, are you?’ + +‘You keep abusing me,’ Vassilissa repeated. + +‘I won’t, my love, I won’t. Forgive an old man like me. I’ll never do it +in future. Come, you’ve forgiven me, eh?’ + +‘God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + +‘Come, laugh then, laugh.’ + +Vassilissa turned away. + +‘You laughed, you laughed, my love!’ cried Pyetushkov, and he capered +about like a child. + + + + +VI + + +The next day Pyetushkov went to the baker’s shop as usual. Everything +went on as before. But there was a settled ache at his heart. He did not +laugh now as often, and sometimes he fell to musing. Sunday came. +Praskovia Ivanovna had an attack of lumbago; she did not get down from +the shelf bed, except with much difficulty to go to mass. After mass +Pyetushkov called Vassilissa into the back room. She had been +complaining all the morning of feeling dull. To judge by the expression +of Ivan Afanasiitch’s countenance, he was revolving in his brain some +extraordinary idea, unforeseen even by him. + +‘You sit down here, Vassilissa,’ he said to her, ‘and I’ll sit here. I +want to have a little talk with you.’ + +Vassilissa sat down. + +‘Tell me, Vassilissa, can you write?’ + +‘Write?’ + +‘Yes, write?’ + +‘No, I can’t.’ + +‘What about reading?’ + +‘I can’t read either.’ + +‘Then who read you my letter?’ + +‘The deacon.’ + +Pyetushkov paused. + +‘But would you like to learn to read and write?’ + +‘Why, what use would reading and writing be to us, Ivan Afanasiitch?’ + +‘What use? You could read books.’ + +‘But what good is there in books?’ + +‘All sorts of good ... I tell you what, if you like, I’ll bring +you a book.’ + +‘But I can’t read, you see, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + +‘I’ll read to you.’ + +‘But, I say, won’t it be dull?’ + +‘Nonsense! dull! On the contrary, it’s the best thing to get rid +of dulness.’ + +‘Maybe you’ll read stories, then.’ + +‘You shall see to-morrow.’ + +In the evening Pyetushkov returned home, and began rummaging in his +boxes. He found several odd numbers of the Library of Good Reading, five +grey Moscow novels, Nazarov’s arithmetic, a child’s geography with a +globe on the title-page, the second part of Keydanov’s history, two +dream-books, an almanack for the year 1819, two numbers of Galatea, +Kozlov’s _Natalia Dolgorukaia_, and the first part of _Roslavlev_. He +pondered a long while which to choose, and finally made up his mind to +take Kozlov’s poem, and _Roslavlev_. + +Next day Pyetushkov dressed in haste, put both the books under the lapel +of his coat, went to the baker’s shop, and began reading aloud +Zagoskin’s novel. Vassilissa sat without moving; at first she smiled, +then seemed to become absorbed in thought ... then she bent a little +forward; her eyes closed, her mouth slightly opened, her hands fell on +her knees; she was dozing. Pyetushkov read quickly, inarticulately, in a +thick voice; he raised his eyes ... + +‘Vassilissa, are you asleep?’ + +She started, rubbed her face, and stretched. Pyetushkov felt angry with +her and with himself.... + +‘It’s dull,’ said Vassilissa lazily. + +‘I tell you what, would you like me to read you poetry?’ + +‘What say?’ + +‘Poetry ... good poetry.’ + +‘No, that’s enough, really.’ + +Pyetushkov hurriedly picked up Kozlov’s poem, jumped up, crossed the +room, ran impulsively up to Vassilissa, and began reading. Vassilissa +let her head drop backwards, spread out her hands, stared into Ivan +Afanasiitch’s face, and suddenly went off into a loud harsh guffaw ... +she fairly rolled about with laughing. + +Ivan Afanasiitch flung the book on the floor in his annoyance. +Vassilissa went on laughing. + +‘Why, what are you laughing at, silly?’ + +Vassilissa roared more than ever. + +‘Laugh away, laugh away,’ Pyetushkov muttered between his teeth. + +Vassilissa held her sides, gasping. + +‘But what is it, idiot?’ But Vassilissa could only wave her hands. + +Ivan Afanasiitch snatched up his cap, and ran out of the house. With +rapid, unsteady steps, he walked about the town, walked on and on, and +found himself at the city gates. Suddenly there was the rattle of +wheels, the tramp of horses along the street.... Some one called him by +name. He raised his head and saw a big, old-fashioned wagonette. In the +wagonette facing him sat Mr. Bublitsyn between two young ladies, the +daughters of Mr. Tiutiurov. Both the girls were dressed exactly alike, +as though in outward sign of their immutable affection; both smiled +pensively, and carried their heads on one side with a languid grace. On +the other side of the carriage appeared the wide straw hat of their +excellent papa; and from time to time his round, plump neck presented +itself to the gaze of spectators. Beside his straw hat rose the mob-cap +of his spouse. The very attitude of both the parents was a sufficient +proof of their sincere goodwill towards the young man and their +confidence in him. And Bublitsyn obviously was aware of their flattering +confidence and appreciated it. He was, of course, sitting in an +unconstrained position, and talking and laughing without constraint; but +in the very freedom of his manner there could be discerned a shade of +tender, touching respectfulness. And the Tiutiurov girls? It is hard to +convey in words all that an attentive observer could trace in the faces +of the two sisters. Goodwill and gentleness, and discreet gaiety, a +melancholy comprehension of life, and a faith, not to be shaken, in +themselves, in the lofty and noble destiny of man on earth, courteous +attention to their young companion, in intellectual endowments perhaps +not fully their equal, but still by the qualities of his heart quite +deserving of their indulgence ... such were the characteristics and the +feelings reflected at that moment on the faces of the young ladies. +Bublitsyn called to Ivan Afanasiitch for no special reason, simply in +the fulness of his inner satisfaction; he bowed to him with excessive +friendliness and cordiality. The young ladies even looked at him with +gentle amiability, as at a man whose acquaintance they would not object +to.... The good, sleek, quiet horses went by Ivan Afanasiitch at a +gentle trot; the carriage rolled smoothly along the broad road, carrying +with it good-humoured, girlish laughter; he caught a final glimpse of +Mr. Tiutiurov’s hat; the two outer horses turned their heads on each +side, jauntily stepping over the short, green grass ... the coachman gave +a whistle of approbation and warning, the carriage disappeared behind +some willows. + +A long while poor Pyetushkov remained standing still. + +‘I’m a poor lonely creature,’ he whispered at last ... ‘alone in +the world.’ + +A little boy in tatters stopped before him, looked timidly at him, held +out his hand ... + +‘For Christ’s sake, good gentleman.’ + +Pyetushkov pulled out a copper. + +‘For your loneliness, poor orphan,’ he said with effort, and he walked +back to the baker’s shop. On the threshold of Vassilissa’s room Ivan +Afanasiitch stopped. + +‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘these are my friends. Here is my family, this is +it.... And here Bublitsyn and there Bublitsyn.’ + +Vassilissa was sitting with her back to him, winding worsted, and +carelessly singing to herself; she was wearing a striped cotton gown; +her hair was done up anyhow.... The room, insufferably hot, smelt of +feather beds and old rags; jaunty, reddish-brown ‘Prussians’ scurried +rapidly here and there across the walls; on the decrepit chest of +drawers, with holes in it where the locks should have been, beside a +broken jar, lay a woman’s shabby slipper.... Kozlov’s poem was still +where it had fallen on the floor.... Pyetushkov shook his head, folded +his arms, and went away. He was hurt. + +At home he called for his things to dress. Onisim slouched off after his +better coat. Pyetushkov had a great desire to draw Onisim into +conversation, but Onisim preserved a sullen silence. At last Ivan +Afanasiitch could hold out no longer. + +‘Why don’t you ask me where I’m going?’ + +‘Why, what do I want to know where you’re going for?’ + +‘What for? Why, suppose some one comes on urgent business, and asks, +“Where’s Ivan Afanasiitch?” And then you can tell him, “Ivan Afanasiitch +has gone here or there.”’ + +‘Urgent business.... But who ever does come to you on urgent business?’ + +‘Why, are you beginning to be rude again? Again, hey?’ + +Onisim turned away, and fell to brushing the coat. + +‘Really, Onisim, you are a most disagreeable person.’ + +Onisim looked up from under his brows at his master. + +‘And you ‘re always like this. Yes, positively always.’ + +Onisim smiled. + +‘But what’s the good of my asking you where you’re going, Ivan +Afanasiitch? As though I didn’t know! To the girl at the baker’s shop!’ + +‘There, that’s just where you’re wrong! that’s just where you’re +mistaken! Not to her at all. I don’t intend going to see the girl at the +baker’s shop any more.’ + +Onisim dropped his eyelids and brandished the brush. Pyetushkov waited +for his approbation; but his servant remained speechless. + +‘It’s not the proper thing,’ Pyetushkov went on in a severe voice--‘it’s +unseemly.... Come, tell me what you think?’ + +‘What am I to think? It’s for you to say. What business have I to +think?’ + +Pyetushkov put on his coat. ‘He doesn’t believe me, the beast,’ he +thought to himself. + +He went out of the house, but he did not go to see any one. He walked +about the streets. He directed his attention to the sunset. At last a +little after eight o’clock he returned home. He wore a smile; he +repeatedly shrugged his shoulders, as though marvelling at his own +folly. ‘Yes,’ thought he, ‘this is what comes of a strong will....’ + +Next day Pyetushkov got up rather late. He had not passed a very good +night, did not go out all day, and was fearfully bored. Pyetushkov read +through all his poor books, and praised aloud one story in the Library +of Good Reading. As he went to bed, he told Onisim to give him his pipe. +Onisim handed him a wretched pipe. Pyetushkov began smoking; the pipe +wheezed like a broken-winded horse. + +‘How disgusting!’ cried Ivan Afanasiitch; ‘where’s my cherry wood pipe?’ + +‘At the baker’s shop,’ Onisim responded tranquilly. + +Pyetushkov blinked spasmodically. + +‘Well, you wish me to go for it?’ + +‘No, you needn’t; don’t go ... no need, don’t go, do you hear?’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +The night passed somehow. In the morning Onisim, as usual, gave +Pyetushkov on the blue sprigged plate a new white roll. Ivan Afanasiitch +looked out of window and asked Onisim: + +‘You’ve been to the baker’s shop?’ + +‘Who’s to go, if I don’t?’ + +‘Ah!’ + +Pyetushkov became plunged in meditation. + +‘Tell me, please, did you see any one there?’ + +‘Of course I did.’ + +‘Whom did you see there, now, for instance?’ + +‘Why, of course, Vassilissa.’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch was silent. Onisim cleared the table, and was just +going out of the room.... + +‘Onisim,’ Pyetushkov cried faintly. + +‘What is it?’ + +‘Er ... did she ask after me?’ + +‘Of course she didn’t.’ + +Pyetushkov set his teeth. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘that’s all it’s worth, her +love, indeed....’ His head dropped. ‘Absurd I was, to be sure,’ he +thought again. ‘A fine idea to read her poetry. A girl like that! Why, +she’s a fool! Why, she’s good for nothing but to lie on the stove and +eat pancakes. Why, she’s a post, a perfect post; an uneducated +workgirl.’ + +‘She’s never come,’ he whispered, two hours later, still sitting in the +same place, ‘she’s never come. To think of it; why, she could see that I +left her out of temper; why, she might know that I was hurt. There’s +love for you! And she did not even ask if I were well. Never even said, +“Is Ivan Afanasiitch quite well?” She hasn’t seen me for two whole +days--and not a sign.... She’s even again, maybe, thought fit to meet +that Bub--Lucky fellow. Ouf, devil take it, what a fool I am!’ + +Pyetushkov got up, paced up and down the room in silence, stood still, +knitted his brows slightly and scratched his neck. ‘However,’ he said +aloud, ‘I’ll go to see her. I must see what she’s about there. I must +make her feel ashamed. Most certainly ... I’ll go. Onisim! my clothes.’ + +‘Well,’ he mused as he dressed, ‘we shall see what comes of it. She may, +I dare say, be angry with me. And after all, a man keeps coming and +coming, and all of a sudden, for no rhyme or reason, goes and gives up +coming. Well, we shall see.’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch went out of the house, and made his way to the baker’s +shop. He stopped at the little gate, he wanted to straighten himself out +and set himself to rights.... Pyetushkov clutched at the folds of his +coat with both hands, and almost pulled them out altogether.... +Convulsively he twisted his tightly compressed neck, fastened the top +hook of his collar, drew a deep breath.... + +‘Why are you standing there?’ Praskovia Ivanovna bawled to him from the +little window. ‘Come in.’ + +Pyetushkov started, and went in. Praskovia Ivanovna met him in +the doorway. + +‘Why didn’t you come to see us yesterday, my good sir? Was it, maybe, +some ailment prevented you?’ + +‘Yes, I had something of a headache yesterday....’ + +‘Ah, you should have put cucumber on your temples, my good sir. It would +have taken it away in a twinkling. Is your head aching now?’ + +‘No, it’s not.’ + +‘Ah well, and thank Thee, O Lord, for it.’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch went off into the back room. Vassilissa saw him. + +‘Ah! good day, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + +‘Good day, Vassilissa Ivanovna.’ + +‘Where have you put the tap, Ivan Afanasiitch?’ + +‘Tap? what tap?’ + +‘The wine-tap ... our tap. You must have taken it home with you. You are +such a one ... Lord, forgive us....’ + +Pyetushkov put on a dignified and chilly air. + +‘I will direct my man to look. Seeing that I was not here yesterday,’ he +pronounced significantly.... + +‘Ah, why, to be sure, you weren’t here yesterday.’ Vassilissa squatted +down on her heels, and began rummaging in the chest.... + +‘Aunt, hi! aunt!’ + +‘What sa-ay?’ + +‘Have you taken my neckerchief?’ + +‘What neckerchief?’ + +‘Why, the yellow one.’ + +‘The yellow one?’ + +‘Yes, the yellow, figured one.’ + +‘No, I’ve not taken it.’ + +Pyetushkov bent down to Vassilissa. + +‘Listen to me, Vassilissa; listen to what I am saying to you. It is not +a matter of taps or of neckerchiefs just now; you can attend to such +trifles another time.’ + +Vassilissa did not budge from her position; she only lifted her head. + +‘You just tell me, on your conscience, do you love me or not? That’s +what I want to know, once for all.’ + +‘Ah, what a one you are, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Well, then, of course.’ + +‘If you love me, how was it you didn’t come to see me yesterday? Had you +no time? Well, you might have sent to find out if I were ill, as I +didn’t turn up. But it’s little you cared. I might die, I dare say, you +wouldn’t grieve.’ + +‘Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, one can’t be always thinking of one thing, one’s +got one’s work to do.’ + +‘To be sure,’ responded Pyetushkov; ‘but all the same ... And it’s +improper to laugh at your elders.... It’s not right. Moreover, it’s as +well in certain cases ... But where’s my pipe?’ + +‘Here’s your pipe.’ + +Pyetushkov began smoking. + + + + +VII + + +Several days slipped by again, apparently rather tranquilly. But a storm +was getting nearer. Pyetushkov suffered tortures, was jealous, never +took his eyes off Vassilissa, kept an alarmed watch over her, annoyed +her horribly. Behold, one evening, Vassilissa dressed herself with more +care than usual, and, seizing a favourable instant, sallied off to make +a visit somewhere. Night came on, she had not returned. Pyetushkov at +sunset went home to his lodgings, and at eight o’clock in the morning +ran to the baker’s shop.... Vassilissa had not come in. With an +inexpressible sinking at his heart, he waited for her right up to +dinner-time.... They sat down to the table without her.... + +‘Whatever can have become of her?’ Praskovia Ivanovna observed +serenely.... + +‘You spoil her, you simply spoil her utterly!’ Pyetushkov repeated, +in despair. + +‘Eh! my good sir, there’s no looking after a girl!’ responded Praskovia +Ivanovna. ‘Let her go her way! So long as she does her work.... Why +shouldn’t folks enjoy themselves? ...’ + +A cold shudder ran over Pyetushkov. At last, towards evening, Vassilissa +made her appearance. This was all he was waiting for. Majestically +Pyetushkov rose from his seat, folded his arms, scowled menacingly.... +But Vassilissa looked him boldly in the face, laughed impudently, and +before he could utter a single word she went quickly into her own room, +and locked herself in. Ivan Afanasiitch opened his mouth, looked in +amazement at Praskovia Ivanovna.... Praskovia Ivanovna cast down her +eyes. Ivan Afanasiitch stood still a moment, groped after his cap, put +it on askew, and went out without closing his mouth. + +He reached home, took up a leather cushion, and with it flung himself on +the sofa, with his face to the wall. Onisim looked in out of the +passage, went into the room, leaned his back against the door, took a +pinch of snuff, and crossed his legs. + +‘Are you unwell, Ivan Afanasiitch?’ he asked Pyetushkov. + +Pyetushkov made no answer. + +‘Shall I go for the doctor?’ Onisim continued, after a brief pause. + +‘I’m quite well.... Go away,’ Ivan Afanasiitch articulated huskily. + +‘Well? ... no, you’re not well, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Is this what you +call being well?’ + +Pyetushkov did not speak. + +‘Just look at yourself. You’ve grown so thin, that you’re simply not +like yourself. And what’s it all about? It’s enough to turn one’s brain +to think of it. And you a gentleman born, too!’ + +Onisim paused. Pyetushkov did not stir. + +‘Is that the way gentlemen go on? They’d amuse themselves a bit, to be +sure ... why shouldn’t they ... they’d amuse themselves, and then drop +it.... They may well say, Fall in love with Old Nick, and you’ll think +him a beauty.’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch merely writhed. + +‘Well, it’s really like this, Ivan Afanasiitch. If any one had said this +and that of you, and your goings on, why, I would have said, “Get along +with you, you fool, what do you take me for?” Do you suppose I’d have +believed it? Why, as it is, I see it with my own eyes, and I can’t +believe it. Worse than this nothing can be. Has she put some spell over +you or what? Why, what is there in her? If you come to consider, she’s +below contempt, really. She can’t even speak as she ought.... She’s +simply a baggage! Worse, even!’ + +‘Go away,’ Ivan Afanasiitch moaned into the cushion. + +‘No, I’m not going away, Ivan Afanasiitch. Who’s to speak, if I don’t? +Why, upon my word! Here, you ‘re breaking your heart now ... and over +what? Eh, over what? tell me that!’ + +‘Oh, go away, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov moaned again. Onisim, for propriety’s +sake, was silent for a little while. + +‘And another thing,’ he began again, ‘she’s no feeling of gratitude +whatever. Any other girl wouldn’t know how to do enough to please you; +while she! ... she doesn’t even think of you. Why, it’s simply a +disgrace. Why, the things people are saying about you, one cannot repeat +them, they positively cry shame on me. If I could have known beforehand, +I’d have....’ + +‘Oh, go away, do, devil!’ shrieked Pyetushkov, not stirring from his +place, however, nor raising his head. + +‘Ivan Afanasiitch, for mercy’s sake,’ pursued the ruthless Onisim. ‘I’m +speaking for your good. Despise her, Ivan Afanasiitch; you simply break +it off. Listen to me, or else I’ll fetch a wise woman; she’ll break the +spell in no time. You’ll laugh at it yourself, later on; you’ll say to +me, “Onisim, why, it’s marvellous how such things happen sometimes!” You +just consider yourself: girls like her, they’re like dogs ... you’ve +only to whistle to them....’ + +Like one frantic, Pyetushkov jumped up from the sofa ... but, to the +amazement of Onisim, who was already lifting both hands to the level of +his cheeks, he sat down again, as though some one had cut away his legs +from under him.... Tears were rolling down his pale face, a tuft of hair +stood up straight on the top of his head, his eyes looked dimmed ... his +drawn lips were quivering ... his head sank on his breast. + +Onisim looked at Pyetushkov and plumped heavily down on his knees. + +‘Dear master, Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he cried, ‘your honour! Be pleased to +punish me. I’m a fool. I’ve troubled you, Ivan Afanasiitch.... How did I +dare! Be pleased to punish me, your honour.... It’s not worth your while +to weep over my silly words ... dear master. Ivan Afanasiitch....’ + +But Pyetushkov did not even look at his servant; he turned away and +buried himself in the corner of the sofa again. + +Onisim got up, went up to his master, stood over him, and twice he +tugged at his own hair. + +‘Wouldn’t you like to undress, sir ... you should go to bed ... you +should take some raspberry tea ... don’t grieve, please your honour.... +It’s only half a trouble, it’s all nothing ... it’ll be all right in the +end,’ he said to him every two minutes.... + +But Pyetushkov did not get up from the sofa, and only twitched his +shoulders now and then, and drew up his knees to his stomach.... + +Onisim did not leave his side all night. Towards morning Pyetushkov fell +asleep, but he did not sleep long. At seven o’clock he got up from the +sofa, pale, dishevelled, and exhausted, and asked for tea. + +Onisim with amazing eagerness and speed brought the samovar. + +‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he began at last, in a timid voice, ‘your honour is +not angry with me?’ + +‘Why should I be angry with you, Onisim?’ answered poor Pyetushkov. ‘You +were perfectly right yesterday, and I quite agreed with you in +everything.’ + +‘I only spoke through my devotion to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + +‘I know that.’ + +Pyetushkov was silent and hung his head. + +Onisim saw that things were in a bad way. + +‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he said suddenly. + +‘Well?’ + +‘Would you like me to fetch Vassilissa here?’ + +Pyetushkov flushed red. + +‘No, Onisim, I don’t wish it. [‘Yes, indeed! as if she would come!’ he +thought to himself.) One must be firm. It is all nonsense. Yesterday, +I ... It’s a disgrace. You are right. One must cut it all short, once for +all, as they say. Isn’t that true?’ + +‘It’s the gospel truth your honour speaks, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + +Pyetushkov sank again into reverie. He wondered at himself, he did not +seem to know himself. He sat without stirring and stared at the floor. +Thoughts whirled round within him, like smoke or fog, while his heart +felt empty and heavy at once. + +‘But what’s the meaning of it, after all,’ he thought sometimes, and +again he grew calmer. ‘It’s nonsense, silliness!’ he said aloud, and +passed his hand over his face, shook himself, and his hand dropped again +on his knee, his eyes again rested on the floor. + +Intently and mournfully Onisim kept watch on his master. + +Pyetushkov lifted his head. + +‘Tell me, Onisim,’ he began, ‘is it true, are there really such +witches’ spells?’ + +‘There are, to be sure there are,’ answered Onisim, as he thrust one +foot forward. ‘Does your honour know the non-commissioned officer, +Krupovaty? ... His brother was ruined by witchcraft. He was bewitched +to love an old woman, a cook, if your honour only can explain that! They +gave him nothing but a morsel of rye bread, with a muttered spell, of +course. And Krupovaty’s brother simply lost his heart to the cook, he +fairly ran after the cook, he positively adored her--couldn’t keep his +eyes off her. She might tell him to do anything, he’d obey her on the +spot. She’d even make a joke of him before other people, before +strangers. Well, she drove him into a decline, at last. And so it was +Krupovaty’s brother died. And you know, she was a cook, and an old woman +too, very old. (Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) Confound the lot of them, +these girls and women-folk!’ + +‘She doesn’t care for me a bit, that’s clear, at last; that’s beyond all +doubt, at last,’ Pyetushkov muttered in an undertone, gesticulating with +his head and hands as though he were explaining to a perfectly +extraneous person some perfectly extraneous fact. + +‘Yes,’ Onisim resumed, ‘there are women like that.’ + +‘There are,’ listlessly repeated Pyetushkov, in a tone half questioning, +half perplexed. + +Onisim looked intently at his master. + +‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he began, ‘wouldn’t you have a snack of something?’ + +‘Wouldn’t I have a snack of something?’ repeated Pyetushkov. + +‘Or may be you’d like to have a pipe?’ + +‘To have a pipe?’ repeated Pyetushkov. + +‘So this is what it’s coming to,’ muttered Onisim. ‘It’s gone deep, +it seems.’ + + + + +VIII + + +The creak of boots resounded in the passage, and then there was heard +the usual suppressed cough which announces the presence of a person +of subordinate position. Onisim went out and promptly came back, +accompanied by a diminutive soldier with a little, old woman’s face, +in a patched cloak yellow with age, and wearing neither breeches nor +cravat. Pyetushkov was startled; while the soldier drew himself up, +wished him good day, and handed him a large envelope bearing the +government seal. In this envelope was a note from the major in +command of the garrison: he called upon Pyetushkov to come to him +without fail or delay. + +Pyetushkov turned the note over in his hands, and could not refrain from +asking the messenger, did he know why the major desired his presence, +though he was very well aware of the utter futility of his question. + +‘We cannot tell!’ the soldier cried, with great effort, yet hardly +audibly, as though he were half asleep. + +‘Isn’t he summoning the other officers?’ Pyetushkov pursued. + +‘We cannot tell,’ the soldier cried a second time, in just the +same voice. + +‘All right, you can go,’ pronounced Pyetushkov. + +The soldier wheeled round to the left, scraping his foot as he did so, +and slapping himself below the spine (this was considered smart in the +twenties), withdrew. + +Pyetushkov exchanged glances with Onisim, who at once assumed a look of +anxiety. Without a word Ivan Afanasiitch set off to the major’s. + +The major was a man of sixty, corpulent and clumsily built, with a red +and bloated face, a short neck, and a continual trembling in his +fingers, resulting from excessive indulgence in strong drink. He +belonged to the class of so-called ‘bourbons,’ that’s to say, soldiers +risen from the ranks; had learned to read at thirty, and spoke with +difficulty, partly from shortness of breath, partly from inability to +follow his own thought. His temperament exhibited all the varieties +known to science: in the morning, before drinking, he was melancholy; in +the middle of the day, choleric; and in the evening, phlegmatic, that is +to say, he did nothing at that time but snore and grunt till he was put +to bed. Ivan Afanasiitch appeared before him during the choleric period. +He found him sitting on a sofa, in an open dressing-gown, with a pipe +between his teeth. A fat, crop-eared cat had taken up her position +beside him. + +‘Aha! he’s come!’ growled the major, casting a sidelong glance out of +his pewtery eyes upon Pyetushkov, and not stirring from his place. ‘Sit +down. Well, I’m going to give you a talking to. I’ve wanted to get hold +of you this long while.’ + +Pyetushkov sank into a chair. + +‘For,’ the major began, with an unexpected lurch of his whole body, +‘you’re an officer, d’ye see, and so you’ve got to behave yourself +according to rule. If you’d been a soldier, I’d have flogged you, and +that’s all about it, but, as ‘tis, you’re an officer. Did any one ever +see the like of it? Disgracing yourself--is that a nice thing?’ + +‘Allow me to know to what these remarks may refer?’ Pyetushkov was +beginning.... + +‘I’ll have no arguing! I dislike that beyond everything. I’ve said: I +dislike it; and that’s all about it! Ugh--why, your hooks are not in +good form even;--what a disgrace! He sits, day in and day out, at the +baker’s shop; and he a gentleman born! There’s a petticoat to be found +there--and so there he sits. Let her go to the devil, the petticoat! +Why, they do say he puts the bread in the oven. It’s a stain on the +uniform ... so it is!’ + +‘Allow me to submit,’ articulated Pyetushkov with a cold chill at his +heart, ‘that all this, as far as I can make out, refers to my private +life, so to say....’ + +‘No arguing with me, I tell you! Private life, he protests, too! If it +had been a matter of the service I’d have sent you straight to the +guard-room! Alley, marsheer! Because of the oath. Why, there was a whole +birch copse, maybe, used upon my back, so I should think I know the +service; every rule of discipline I’m very well up in. And I’d have you +to understand, I say this just for the honour of the uniform. You’re +disgracing the uniform ... so you are. I say this like a father ... yes. +Because all that’s put in my charge. I’ve to answer for it. And you dare +to argue too!’ the major shrieked with sudden fury, and his face turned +purple, and he foamed at the mouth, while the cat put its tail in the +air and jumped down to the ground. ‘Why, do you know ... why, do you +know what I can do? ... I can do anything, anything, anything! Why, do +you know whom you’re talking to? Your superior officer gives you orders +and you argue! Your superior officer ... your superior officer....’ + +Here the major positively choked and spluttered, while poor Pyetushkov +could only draw himself up and turn pale, sitting on the very edge of +his chair. + +‘I must have’ ... the major continued, with an imperious wave of his +trembling hand, ‘I must have everything ... up to the mark! Conduct +first-class! I’m not going to put up with any irregularities! You can +make friends with whom you like, that makes no odds to me! But if you +are a gentleman, why, act as such ... behave like one! No putting bread +in the oven for me! No calling a draggletail old woman auntie! No +disgracing the uniform! Silence! No arguing!’ + +The major’s voice broke. He took breath, and turning towards the door +into the passage, bawled, ‘Frolka, you scoundrel! The herrings!’ + +Pyetushkov rose hurriedly and darted away, almost upsetting the +page-boy, who ran to meet him, carrying some sliced herring and a stout +decanter of spirits on an iron tray. + +‘Silence! No arguing!’ sounded after Pyetushkov the disjointed +exclamations of his exasperated superior officer. + + + + +IX + + +A queer sensation overmastered Ivan Afanasiitch when, at last, he found +himself in the street. + +‘Why am I walking as it were in a dream?’ he thought to himself. ‘Am I +out of my mind, or what? Why, it passes all belief, at last. Come, damn +it, she’s tired of me, come, and I’ve grown tired of her, come, and ... +What is there out of the way in that? + +Pyetushkov frowned. + +‘I must put an end to it, once for all,’ he said almost aloud. ‘I’ll go +and speak out decisively for the last time, so that it may never come +up again.’ + +Pyetushkov made his way with rapid step to the baker’s shop. The nephew +of the hired man, Luka, a little boy, friend and confidant of the goat +that lived in the yard, darted swiftly to the little gate, directly he +caught sight of Ivan Afanasiitch in the distance. + +Praskovia Ivanovna came out to meet Pyetushkov. + +‘Is your niece at home?’ asked Pyetushkov. + +‘No, sir.’ + +Pyetushkov was inwardly relieved at Vassilissa’s absence. + +‘I came to have a few words with you, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + +‘What about, my good sir?’ + +‘I’ll tell you. You comprehend that after all ... that has passed ... +after such, so to say, behaviour (Pyetushkov was a little confused) ... +in a word ... But, pray, don’t be angry with me, though.’ + +‘Certainly not, sir.’ + +‘On the contrary, enter into my position, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + +‘Certainly, sir.’ + +‘You’re a reasonable woman, you’ll understand of yourself, that ... that +I can’t go on coming to see you any more.’ + +‘Certainly, sir,’ Praskovia Ivanovna repeated slowly. + +‘I assure you I greatly regret it; I confess it is positively painful to +me, genuinely painful ...’ + +‘You know best, sir,’ Praskovia Ivanovna rejoined serenely. ‘It’s for +you to decide, sir. And, oh, if you’ll allow me, I’ll give you your +little account, sir.’ + +Pyetushkov had not at all anticipated such a prompt acquiescence. He had +not desired acquiescence at all; he had only wanted to frighten +Praskovia Ivanovna, and above all Vassilissa. He felt wretched. + +‘I know,’ he began, ‘this will not be disagreeable to Vassilissa; on the +contrary, I believe she will be glad.’ + +Praskovia Ivanovna got out her reckoning beads, and began rattling +the counters. + +‘On the other hand,’ continued Pyetushkov, growing more and more +agitated, ‘if Vassilissa were, for instance, to give an explanation of +her behaviour ... possibly.... Though, of course ... I don’t know, +possibly, I might perceive that after all there was no great matter for +blame in it.’ + +‘There’s thirty-seven roubles and forty kopecks in notes to your +account, sir,’ observed Praskovia Ivanovna. ‘Here, would you be pleased +to go through it?’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch made no reply. + +‘Eighteen dinners at seventy kopecks each; twelve roubles sixty +kopecks.’ + +‘And so we are to part, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + +‘If so it must be, sir. Things do turn out so. Twelve samovars at ten +kopecks each ...’ + +‘But you might just tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna, where it was Vassilissa +went, and what it was she ...’ + +‘Oh, I never asked her, sir.... One rouble twenty kopecks in silver.’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch sank into meditation. + +‘Kvas and effervescing drinks,’ pursued Praskovia Ivanovna, holding the +counters apart on the frame not with her first, but her third finger, +‘half a rouble in silver. Sugar and rolls for tea, half a rouble. Four +packets of tobacco bought by your orders, eighty kopecks in silver. To +the tailor Kuprian Apollonov ...’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch suddenly raised his head, put out his hand and mixed up +the counters. + +‘What are you about, my good man?’ cried Praskovia Ivanovna. ‘Don’t you +trust me?’ + +‘Praskovia Ivanovna,’ replied Pyetushkov, with a hurried smile, ‘I’ve +thought better of it. I was only, you know ... joking. We’d better +remain friends and go on in the old way. What nonsense it is! How can we +separate--tell me that, please?’ + +Praskovia Ivanovna looked down and made him no reply. + +‘Come, we’ve been talking nonsense, and there’s an end of it,’ pursued +Ivan Afanasiitch, walking up and down the room, rubbing his hands, +and, as it were, resuming his ancient rights. ‘Amen! and now I’d +better have a pipe.’ + +Praskovia Ivanovna still did not move from her place.... + +‘I see you are angry with me,’ said Pyetushkov. + +‘I’ve offended you, perhaps. Well! well! forgive me generously.’ + +‘How could you offend me, my good sir? No offence about it.... Only, +please, sir,’ added Praskovia Ivanovna, bowing, ‘be so good as not to go +on coming to us.’ + +‘What?’ + +‘It’s not for you, sir, to be friends with us, your honour. So, please, +do us the favour ...’ + +Praskovia Ivanovna went on bowing. + +‘What ever for?’ muttered the astounded Pyetushkov. + +‘Oh, nothing, sir. For mercy’s sake ...’ + +‘No, Praskovia Ivanovna, you must explain this! ...’ + +‘Vassilissa asks you. She says, “I thank you, thank you very much, and +from my heart; only for the future, your honour, give us up.”’ + +Praskovia Ivanovna bowed down almost to Pyetushkov’s feet. + +‘Vassilissa, you say, begs me not to come?’ + +‘Just so, your honour. When your honour came in to-day, and said what +you did, that you didn’t wish, you said, to visit us any more, I felt +relieved, sir, that I did; thinks I, Well, thank God, how nicely it’s +all come about! But for that, I should have had hard work to bring my +tongue to say it.... Be so good, sir.’ + +Pyetushkov turned red and pale almost at the same instant. Praskovia +Ivanovna still went on bowing.... + +‘Very good,’ Ivan Afanasiitch cried sharply. ‘Good-bye.’ + +He turned abruptly and put on his cap. + +‘But the little bill, sir....’ + +‘Send it ... my orderly shall pay you.’ + +Pyetushkov went with resolute steps out of the baker’s shop, and did not +even look round. + + + + +X + + +A fortnight passed. At first Pyetushkov bore up in an extraordinary way. +He went out, and visited his comrades, with the exception, of course, of +Bublitsyn; but in spite of the exaggerated approbation of Onisim, he +almost went out of his mind at last from wretchedness, jealousy, and +ennui. Conversations with Onisim about Vassilissa were the only thing +that afforded him some consolation. The conversation was always begun, +‘scratched up,’ by Pyetushkov; Onisim responded unwillingly. + +‘It’s a strange thing, you know,’ Ivan Afanasiitch would say, for +instance, as he lay on the sofa, while Onisim stood in his usual +attitude, leaning against the door, with his hands folded behind his +back, ‘when you come to think of it, what it was I saw in that girl. One +would say that there was nothing unusual in her. It’s true she has a +good heart. That one can’t deny her.’ + +‘Good heart, indeed!’ Onisim would answer with displeasure. + +‘Come, now, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov went on, ‘one must tell the truth. It’s +a thing of the past now; it’s no matter to me now, but justice is +justice. You don’t know her. She’s very good-hearted. Not a single +beggar does she let pass by; she’ll always give, if it’s only a crust of +bread. Oh! And she’s of a cheerful temper, that one must allow, too.’ + +‘What a notion! I don’t know where you see the cheerful temper!’ + +‘I tell you ... you don’t know her. And she’s not mercenary either ... +that’s another thing. She’s not grasping, there’s no doubt of it. Why I +never gave her anything, as you know.’ + +‘That’s why she’s flung you over.’ + +‘No, that’s not why!’ responded Pyetushkov with a sigh. + +‘Why, you’re in love with her to this day,’ Onisim retorted malignantly. +‘You’d be glad to go back there as before.’ + +‘That’s nonsense you’re talking. No, my lad, you don’t know me either, I +can see. Be sent away, and then go dancing attendance--no, thank you, +I’d rather be excused. No, I tell you. You may believe me, it’s all a +thing of the past now.’ + +‘Pray God it be so!’ + +‘But why ever shouldn’t I be fair to her, now after all? If now I say +she’s not good-looking--why, who’d believe me?’ + +‘A queer sort of good looks!’ + +‘Well, find me,--well, mention anybody better-looking ...’ + +‘Oh, you’d better go back to her, then! ...’ + +‘Stupid! Do you suppose that’s why I say so? Understand me ...’ + +‘Oh! I understand you,’ Onisim answered with a heavy sigh. + +Another week passed by. Pyetushkov had positively given up talking with +his Onisim, and had given up going out. From morning till night he lay +on the sofa, his hands behind his head. He began to get thin and pale, +eat unwillingly and hurriedly, and did not smoke at all. Onisim could +only shake his head, as he looked at him. + +‘You’re not well, Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he said to him more than once. + +‘No, I’m all right,’ replied Pyetushkov. + +At last, one fine day (Onisim was not at home) Pyetushkov got up, +rummaged in his chest of drawers, put on his cloak, though the sun was +rather hot, went stealthily out into the street, and came back a quarter +of an hour later.... He carried something under his cloak.... + +Onisim was not at home. The whole morning he had been sitting in his +little room, deliberating with himself, grumbling and swearing between +his teeth, and, at last, he sallied off to Vassilissa. He found her in +the shop. Praskovia Ivanovna was asleep on the stove, rhythmically and +soothingly snoring. + +‘Ah, how d’ye do, Onisim Sergeitch,’ began Vassilissa, with a smile; +‘why haven’t we seen anything of you for so long?’ + +‘Good day.’ + +‘Why are you so depressed? Would you like a cup of tea?’ + +‘It’s not me we’re talking about now,’ rejoined Onisim, in a tone +of vexation. + +‘Why, what then?’ + +‘What! Don’t you understand me? What! What have you done to my master, +come, you tell me that.’ + +‘What I’ve done to him?’ + +‘What have you done to him? ... You go and look at him. Why, before we +can look round, he’ll be in a decline, or dying outright, maybe.’ + +‘It’s not my fault, Onisim Sergeitch.’ + +‘Not your fault! God knows. Why, he’s lost his heart to you. And you, +God forgive you, treated him as if he were one of yourselves. Don’t +come, says you, I’m sick of you. Why, though he’s not much to boast of, +he’s a gentleman anyway. He’s a gentleman born, you know.... Do you +realise that?’ + +‘But he’s such a dull person, Onisim Sergeitch....’ + +‘Dull! So you must have merry fellows about you!’ + +‘And it’s not so much that he’s dull: he’s so cross, so jealous.’ + +‘Ah, you, you’re as haughty as a princess! He was in your way, I +dare say!’ + +‘But you yourself, Onisim Sergeitch, if you remember, were put out with +him about it; “Why is he such friends?” you said; “what’s he always +coming for?”’ + +‘Well, was I to be pleased with him for it, do you suppose?’ + +‘Well, then, why are you angry with me now? Here, he’s given up coming.’ + +Onisim positively stamped. + +‘But what am I to do with him, if he’s such a madman?’ he added, +dropping his voice. + +‘But how am I in fault? What can I do?’ + +‘I’ll tell you what: come with me to him.’ + +‘God forbid!’ + +‘Why won’t you come?’ + +‘But why should I go to see him? Upon my word!’ + +‘Why? Why, because he says you’ve a good heart; let me see if you’ve a +good heart.’ + +‘But what good can I do him?’ + +‘Oh, that’s my business. You may be sure things are in a bad way, since +I’ve come to you. It’s certain I could think of nothing else to do.’ + +Onisim paused for a while. + +‘Well, come along, Vassilissa, please, come along.’ + +‘Oh, Onisim Sergeitch, I don’t want to be friendly with him again ...’ + +‘Well, and you needn’t--who’s talking of it? You’ve only to say a +couple of words; to say, Why does your honour grieve? ... give over.... +That’s all.’ + +‘Really, Onisim Sergeitch ...’ + +‘Why, am I to go down on my knees to you, eh? All right--there, I’m on +my knees ...’ + +‘But really ...’ + +‘Why, what a girl it is! Even that doesn’t touch her! ...’ + +Vassilissa at last consented, put a kerchief on her head, and went out +with Onisim. + +‘You wait here a little, in the passage,’ he said to her, when they +reached Pyetushkov’s abode, ‘and I’ll go and let the master know ...’ + +He went in to Ivan Afanasiitch. Pyetushkov was standing in the middle of +the room, both hands in his pockets, his legs excessively wide apart; he +was slightly swaying backwards and forwards. His face was hot, and his +eyes were sparkling. + +‘Hullo, Onisim,’ he faltered amiably, articulating the consonants very +indistinctly and thickly: ‘hullo, my lad. Ah, my lad, when you weren’t +here ... he, he, he ...’ Pyetushkov laughed and made a sudden duck +forward with his nose. ‘Yes, it’s an accomplished fact, he, he, he.... +However,’ he added, trying to assume a dignified air, ‘I’m all right.’ +He tried to lift his foot, but almost fell over, and to preserve his +dignity pronounced in a deep bass, ‘Boy, bring my pipe!’ + +Onisim gazed in astonishment at his master, glanced round.... In the +window stood an empty dark-green bottle, with the inscription: ‘Best +Jamaica rum.’ + +‘I’ve been drinking, my lad, that’s all,’ Pyetushkov went on. ‘I’ve +been and taken it. I’ve been drinking, and that’s all about it. And +where’ve you been? Tell us ... don’t be shy ... tell us. You’re a good +hand at a tale.’ + +‘Ivan Afanasiitch, mercy on us!’ wailed Onisim. + +‘To be sure. To be sure I will,’ replied Pyetushkov with a vague wave of +his hand. ‘I’ll have mercy on you, and forgive you. I forgive every one, +I forgive you, and Vassilissa I forgive, and every one, every one. Yes, +my lad, I’ve been drinking.... Dri-ink-ing, lad.... Who’s that?’ he +cried suddenly, pointing to the door into the passage; ‘who’s there?’ + +‘Nobody’s there,’ Onisim answered hastily: ‘who should be there? ... +where are you going?’ + +‘No, no,’ repeated Pyetushkov, breaking away from Onisim, ‘let me go, I +saw--don’t you talk to me,--I saw there, let me go.... Vassilissa!’ he +shrieked all at once. + +Pyetushkov turned pale. + +‘Well ... well, why don’t you come in?’ he said at last. ‘Come in, +Vassilissa, come in. I’m very glad to see you, Vassilissa.’ + +Vassilissa glanced at Onisim and came into the room. Pyetushkov went +nearer to her.... He heaved deep, irregular breaths. Onisim watched him. +Vassilissa stole timid glances at both of them. + +‘Sit down, Vassilissa,’ Ivan Afanasiitch began again: ‘thanks for +coming. Excuse my being ... what shall I say? ... not quite fit to be +seen. I couldn’t foresee, couldn’t really, you’ll own that yourself. +Come, sit down, see here, on the sofa ... So ... I’m expressing myself +all right, I think.’ + +Vassilissa sat down. + +‘Well, good day to you,’ Ivan Afanasiitch pursued. ‘Come, how are you? +what have you been doing?’ + +‘I’m well, thank God, Ivan Afanasiitch. And you?’ + +‘I? as you see! A ruined man. And ruined by whom? By you, Vassilissa. +But I’m not angry with you. Only I’m a ruined man. You ask him. (He +pointed to Onisim.) Don’t you mind my being drunk. I’m drunk, certainly; +only I’m a ruined man. That’s why I’m drunk, because I’m a ruined man.’ + +‘Lord have mercy on us, Ivan Afanasiitch!’ + +‘A ruined man, Vassilissa, I tell you. You may believe me. I’ve never +deceived you. Oh, and how’s your aunt?’ + +‘Very well, Ivan Afanasiitch. Thank you.’ + +Pyetushkov began swaying violently. + +‘But you’re not quite well to-day, Ivan Afanasiitch. You ought to +lie down.’ + +‘No, I’m quite well, Vassilissa. No, don’t say I’m not well; you’d +better say I’ve fallen into evil ways, lost my morals. That’s what would +be just. I won’t dispute that.’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch gave a lurch backwards. Onisim ran forward and held his +master up. + +‘And who’s to blame for it? I’ll tell you, if you like, who’s to blame. +I’m to blame, in the first place. What ought I to have said? I ought to +have said to you: Vassilissa, I love you. Good--well, will you marry me? +Will you? It’s true you’re a working girl, granted; but that’s all +right. It’s done sometimes. Why, there, I knew a fellow, he got married +like that. Married a Finnish servant-girl. Took and married her. And +you’d have been happy with me. I’m a good-natured chap, I am! Never you +mind my being drunk, you look at my heart. There, you ask this ... +fellow. So, you see, I turn out to be in fault. And now, of course, I’m +a ruined man.’ + +Ivan Afanasiitch was more and more in need of Onisim’s support. + +‘All the same, you did wrong, very wrong. I loved you, I respected +you ... what’s more, I’m ready to go to church with you this minute. Will +you? You’ve only to say the word, and we’ll start at once. Only you +wounded me cruelly ... cruelly. You might at least have turned me away +yourself--but through your aunt, through that fat female! Why, the only +joy I had in life was you. I’m a homeless man, you know, a poor lonely +creature! Who is there now to be kind to me? who says a kind word to me? +I’m utterly alone. Stript bare as a crow. You ask this ...’ Ivan +Afanasiitch began to cry. ‘Vassilissa, listen what I say to you,’ he +went on: ‘let me come and see you as before. Don’t be afraid.... I’ll +be ... quiet as a mouse. You can go and see whom you like, I’ll--be all +right: not a word, no protests, you know. Eh? do you agree? If you like, +I’ll go down on my knees.’ (And Ivan Afanasiitch bent his knees, but +Onisim held him up under the arms.) ‘Let me go! It’s not your business! +It’s a matter of the happiness of a whole life, don’t you understand, +and you hinder....’ + +Vassilissa did not know what to say. + +‘You won’t ... Well, as you will! God be with you. In that case, good-bye! +Good-bye, Vassilissa. I wish you all happiness and prosperity ... but +I ... but I ...’ + +And Pyetushkov sobbed violently. Onisim with all his might held him up +from behind ... first his face worked, then he burst out crying. And +Vassilissa cried too. + + + + +XI + + +Ten years later, one might have met in the streets of the little town of +O---- a thinnish man with a reddish nose, dressed in an old green coat +with a greasy plush collar. He occupied a small garret in the baker’s +shop, with which we are familiar. Praskovia Ivanovna was no longer of +this world. The business was carried on by her niece, Vassilissa, and +her husband, the red-haired, dim-eyed baker, Demofont. The man in the +green coat had one weakness: he was over fond of drink. He was, however, +always quiet when he was tipsy. The reader has probably recognised him +as Ivan Afanasiitch. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Desperate Character and Other Stories, by +Ivan Turgenev + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + +***** This file should be named 8871-0.txt or 8871-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/8/7/8871/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/8871-0.zip b/8871-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..72d16b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/8871-0.zip diff --git a/8871-8.txt b/8871-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..45ff5ab --- /dev/null +++ b/8871-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9038 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Desperate Character and Other Stories, by Ivan Turgenev + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Desperate Character and Other Stories + +Author: Ivan Turgenev + +Translator: Constance Garnett + + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8871] +This file was first posted on August 17, 2003 +Last Updated: April 23, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +A DESPERATE CHARACTER, AND OTHER STORIES + +By Ivan Turgenev + +Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett + + +1899 + + +THE NOVELS OF IVAN TURGENEV + +Complete in Fifteen Volumes. + + i. Rudin. + ii. A House of Gentlefolk. + iii. On the Eve. + iv. Fathers and Children. + v. Smoke. + vi. & vii. Virgin Soil. 2 Vols. + viii, & ix. A Sportsman's Sketches. 2 Vols. + x. Dream Tales and Prose Poems. + xi. The Torrents of Spring and other Stories. + xii. A Lear of the Steppes and other Stories. + xiii. The Diary of a Superfluous Man and other Stories. + xiv. A Desperate Character and other Tales. + xv. The Jew and other Stories. + + + +TO JOSEPH CONRAD + +WHOSE ART IN ESSENCE OFTEN RECALLS + +THE ART AND ESSENCE OF TURGENEV + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +The six tales now translated for the English reader were written by +Turgenev at various dates between 1847 and 1881. Their chronological +order is:-- + + +_Pyetushkov_, 1847 + +_The Brigadier_, 1867 + +_A Strange Story_, 1869 + +_Punin and Baburin_, 1874 + +_Old Portraits_, 1881 + +_A Desperate Character_, 1881 + + +_Pyetushkov_ is the work of a young man of twenty-nine, and its lively, +unstrained realism is so bold, intimate, and delicate as to contradict +the flattering compliment that the French have paid to one another--that +Turgenev had need to dress his art by the aid of French mirrors. + +Although _Pyetushkov_ shows us, by a certain open _navet_ of style, +that a youthful hand is at work, it is the hand of a young master, +carrying out the realism of the 'forties'--that of Gogol, Balzac, and +Dickens--straightway, with finer point, to find a perfect equilibrium +free from any bias or caricature. The whole strength and essence of the +realistic method has been developed in _Pyetushkov_ to its just limits. +The Russians are _instinctive_ realists, and carry the warmth of life +into their pages, which warmth the French seem to lose in clarifying +their impressions and crystallising them in art. _Pyetushkov_ is not +exquisite: it is irresistible. Note how the reader is transported bodily +into Pyetushkov's stuffy room, and how the major fairly boils out of the +two pages he lives in! (pp. 301, 302). That is _realism_ if you like. A +woman will see the point of _Pyetushkov_ very quickly. Onisim and +Vassilissa and the aunt walk and chatter around the stupid Pyetushkov, +and glance at him significantly in a manner that reveals everything +about these people's world. All the servants who appear in the tales in +this volume are hit off so marvellously that one sees the lower-class +world, which is such a mystery to certain refined minds, has no secrets +for Turgenev. + +Of a different, and to our taste more fascinating, _genre_ is _The +Brigadier_. It is greater art because life's prosaic growth is revealed +not merely realistically, but also poetically, life as a tiny part of +the great universe around it. The tale is a microcosm of Turgenev's own +nature; his love of Nature, his tender sympathy for all humble, ragged, +eccentric, despised human creatures; his unfaltering keenness of gaze +into character, his fine sense of proportion, mingle in. _The +Brigadier_, to create for us a sense of the pitiableness of man's tiny +life, of the mere human seed which springs and spreads a while on earth, +and dies under the menacing gaze of the advancing years. 'Out of the +sweetness came forth strength' is perhaps the best saying by which one +can define Turgenev's peculiar merits in _The Brigadier_. + +_Punin and Baburin_ presents to us again one of those ragged ones, one +of 'the poor in spirit,' the idealist Punin, a character whose portrait +challenges Dostoievsky's skill on the latter's own ground. That +delicious Punin! and that terrible grandmother's scene with Baburin! How +absolutely Slav is the blending of irony and kindness in the treatment +of Punin, Cucumber, and Pyetushkov, few English readers will understand. +All the characters in _Punin and Baburin_ are so strongly drawn, so +intensely alive, that, like Rembrandt's portraits, they make the living +people, who stand looking at them, absurdly grey and lifeless by +comparison! Baburin is a Nihilist before the times of Nihilism, he is a +type of the strong characters that arose later in the movement of the +'eighties.' + +A pre-Nihilistic type is also the character of Sophie in _A Strange +Story_. But the chief value of this last psychological study is that it +gives the English mind a clue to the fundamental distinction that marks +off the Russian people from the peoples of the West. Sophie's +words--'You spoke of the will--that's what must be broken' (p. +61)--define most admirably the deepest aspiration of the Russian soul. +To be lowly and suffering, to be despised, sick, to be under the lash of +fate, to be trampled under foot by others, _to be_ unworthy, all this +secret desire of the Russian soul implies that the Russian has little +_will_, that he finds it easier to resign himself than to make the +effort to be powerful, triumphant, worthy. It is from the resignation +and softness of the Russian nature that all its characteristic virtues +spring. Whereas religion with the English mind is largely an anxiety to +be moral, to be _right_ and righteous, to be 'a chosen vessel of the +Lord,' religion with the Russian implies a genuine abasement and loss of +self, a bowing before the will of Heaven, and true brotherly love. The +Western mind rises to greatness by concentrating the will-power in +action, by assertion of all its inner force, by shutting out forcibly +whatever might dominate or distract or weaken it. But the Russian mind, +through its lack of character, will-power, and hardness, rises to +greatness in its acceptance of life, and in its sympathy with all the +unfortunate, the wretched, the poor in spirit. Of course in practical +life the Russian lacks many of the useful virtues the Western peoples +possess and has most of their vices; but certainly his pity, charity, +and brotherliness towards men more unfortunate than himself largely +spring from his fatalistic acceptance of his own unworthiness and +weakness. So in Sophie's case the desire for self-sacrifice, and her +impregnable conviction that to suffer and endure is _right_, is truly +Russian in the sense of letting the individuality go _with_ the stream +of fate, not _against_ it. And hence the formidable spirit of the +youthful generation that sacrificed itself in the Nihilistic movement: +the strenuous action of 'the youth' once set in movement, the spirit of +self-sacrifice impelled it calmly towards its goal despite all the +forces and threats of fate. Sophie is indeed an early Nihilist born +before her time. + +We have said that the lack of will in the Russian nature is at the root +of Russian virtues and vices, and in this connection it is curious to +remark that a race's soul seems often to grow out of the race's +_aspiration towards what it is not in life_. Is not the French +intellect, for example, so cool, clear-headed, so delicately analytic of +its own motives, that through the principle of _counterpoise_ it strives +to lose itself and release itself in continual rhetoric and emotional +positions? Is not the German mind so alive to the material facts of +life, to the necessity of getting hold of concrete advantages in life, +and of not letting them go, that it deliberately slackens the bent bow, +and plunges itself and relaxes itself in floods of abstractions, and +idealisations, and dreams of sentimentality? Assuredly it is because the +Russian is so inwardly discontented with his own actions that he is such +a keen and incisive critic of everything _false_ and exaggerated, that +he despises all French rhetoric and German sentimentalism. And in this +sense it is that the Russian's lack of will comes in to deepen his soul. +He surrenders himself thereby to the universe, and, as do the Asiatics, +does not let the tiny shadow of his fate, dark though it may be, shut +out the universe so thoroughly from his consciousness, as does the +aggressive struggling will-power of the Western man striving to let his +individuality have full play. The Russian's attitude may indeed be +compared to a bowl which catches and sustains what life brings it; and +the Western man's to a bowl inverted to ward off what drops from the +impassive skies. The mental attitude of the Russian peasant indeed +implies that in blood he is nearer akin to the Asiatics than Russian +ethnologists have wished to allow. Certainly in the inner life of +thought, intellectually, morally, and emotionally, he is a half-way +house between the Western and Eastern races, just as geographically he +spreads over the two continents. By natural law his destiny calls him +towards the East. Should he one day spread his rule further and further +among the Asiatics and hold the keys of an immense Asiatic empire, well! +future English philosophers may feel thereat a curious fatalistic +satisfaction. + +EDWARD GARNETT. + +_October_ 1899. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + A DESPERATE CHARACTER + A STRANGE STORY + PUNIN AND BABURIN + OLD PORTRAITS + THE BRIGADIER + PYETUSHKOV + + + + + +A DESPERATE CHARACTER + + + + +I + + +... We were a party of eight in the room, and we were talking of +contemporary affairs and men. + +'I don't understand these men!' observed A.: 'they're such desperate +fellows.... Really desperate.... There has never been anything like +it before.' + +'Yes, there has,' put in P., a man getting on in years, with grey hair, +born some time in the twenties of this century: 'there were desperate +characters in former days too, only they were not like the desperate +fellows of to-day. Of the poet Yazikov some one has said that he had +enthusiasm, but not applied to anything--an enthusiasm without an +object. So it was with those people--their desperateness was without an +object. But there, if you'll allow me, I'll tell you the story of my +nephew, or rather cousin, Misha Poltyev. It may serve as an example of +the desperate characters of those days. + +He came into God's world, I remember, in 1828, at his father's native +place and property, in one of the sleepiest corners of a sleepy province +of the steppes. Misha's father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Poltyev, I remember +well to this day. He was a genuine old-world landowner, a God-fearing, +sedate man, fairly--for those days--well educated, just a little +cracked, to tell the truth--and, moreover, he suffered from epilepsy.... +That too is an old-world, gentlemanly complaint.... Andrei +Nikolaevitch's fits were, however, slight, and generally ended in sleep +and depression. He was good-hearted, and of an affable demeanour, not +without a certain stateliness: I always pictured to myself the tsar +Mihail Fedorovitch as like him. The whole life of Andrei Nikolaevitch +was passed in the punctual fulfilment of every observance established +from old days, in strict conformity with all the usages of the old +orthodox holy Russian mode of life. He got up and went to bed, ate his +meals, and went to his bath, rejoiced or was wroth (both very rarely, it +is true), even smoked his pipe and played cards (two great +innovations!), not after his own fancy, not in a way of his own, but +according to the custom and ordinance of his fathers--with due decorum +and formality. He was tall, well built, and stout; his voice was soft +and rather husky, as is so often the case with virtuous people in +Russia; he was scrupulously neat in his dress and linen, and wore white +cravats and full-skirted snuff-coloured coats, but his noble blood was +nevertheless evident; no one could have taken him for a priest's son or +a merchant! At all times, on all possible occasions, and in all possible +contingencies, Andrei Nikolaevitch knew without fail what ought to be +done, what was to be said, and precisely what expressions were to be +used; he knew when he ought to take medicine, and just what he ought to +take; what omens were to be believed and what might be disregarded ... +in fact, he knew everything that ought to be done.... For as everything +had been provided for and laid down by one's elders, one had only to be +sure not to imagine anything of one's self.... And above all, without +God's blessing not a step to be taken!--It must be confessed that a +deadly dulness reigned supreme in his house, in those low-pitched, warm, +dark rooms, that so often resounded with the singing of liturgies and +all-night services, and had the smell of incense and Lenten dishes +almost always hanging about them! + +Andrei Nikolaevitch--no longer in his first youth--married a young +lady of a neighbouring family, without fortune, a very nervous and +sickly person, who had had a boarding-school education. She played the +piano fairly, spoke boarding-school French, was easily moved to +enthusiasm, and still more easily to melancholy and even tears.... +She was of unbalanced character, in fact. She regarded her life as +wasted, could not care for her husband, who, 'of course,' did not +understand her; but she respected him, ... she put up with him; and +being perfectly honest and perfectly cold, she never even dreamed of +another 'affection.' Besides, she was always completely engrossed in +the care, first, of her own really delicate health, secondly, of the +health of her husband, whose fits always inspired in her something +like superstitious horror, and lastly, of her only son, Misha, whom +she brought up herself with great zeal. Andrei Nikolaevitch did not +oppose his wife's looking after Misha, on the one condition of his +education never over-stepping the lines laid down, once and for all, +within which everything must move in his house! Thus, for instance, at +Christmas-time, and at New Year, and St. Vassily's eve, it was +permissible for Misha to dress up and masquerade with the servant +boys--and not only permissible, but even a binding duty.... But, at +any other time, God forbid! and so on, and so on. + + + + +II + + +I remember Misha at thirteen. He was a very pretty boy, with rosy little +cheeks and soft lips (indeed he was soft and plump-looking all over), +with prominent liquid eyes, carefully brushed and combed, caressing and +modest--a regular little girl! There was only one thing about him I did +not like: he rarely laughed; but when he did laugh, his teeth--large +white teeth, pointed like an animal's--showed disagreeably, and the +laugh itself had an abrupt, even savage, almost animal sound, and there +were unpleasant gleams in his eyes. His mother was always praising him +for being so obedient and well behaved, and not caring to make friends +with rude boys, but always preferring feminine society. 'A mother's +darling, a milksop,' his father, Andrei Nikolaevitch, would call him; +'but he's always ready to go into the house of God.... And that I am +glad to see.' Only one old neighbour, who had been a police captain, +once said before me, speaking of Misha, 'Mark my words, he'll be a +rebel.' And this saying, I remember, surprised me very much at the time. +The old police captain, it is true, used to see rebels on all sides. + +Just such an exemplary youth Misha continued to be till the eighteenth +year of his age, up to the death of his parents, both of whom he lost +almost on the same day. As I was all the while living constantly at +Moscow, I heard nothing of my young kinsman. An acquaintance coming from +his province did, it is true, inform me that Misha had sold the paternal +estate for a trifling sum; but this piece of news struck me as too +wildly improbable! And behold, all of a sudden, one autumn morning there +flew into the courtyard of my house a carriage, with a pair of splendid +trotting horses, and a coachman of monstrous size on the box; and in the +carriage, wrapped in a cloak of military cut, with a beaver collar two +yards deep, and with a foraging cap cocked on one side, _ la diable +m'emporte_, sat ... Misha! On catching sight of me (I was standing at +the drawing-room window, gazing in astonishment at the flying equipage), +he laughed his abrupt laugh, and jauntily flinging back his cloak, he +jumped out of the carriage and ran into the house. + +'Misha! Mihail Andreevitch!' I was beginning, ... 'Is it you?' + +'Call me Misha,'--he interrupted me. 'Yes, it's I, ... I, in my own +person.... I have come to Moscow ... to see the world ... and show +myself. And here I am, come to see you. What do you say to my +horses?... Eh?' he laughed again. + +Though it was seven years since I had seen Misha last, I recognised him +at once. His face had remained just as youthful and as pretty as +ever--there was no moustache even visible; only his cheeks looked a +little swollen under his eyes, and a smell of spirits came from his +lips. 'Have you been long in Moscow?' I inquired. + +'I supposed you were at home in the country, looking after the +place.' ... + +'Eh! The country I threw up at once! As soon as my parents died--may +their souls rest in peace--(Misha crossed himself scrupulously, without +a shade of mockery) at once, without a moment's delay, ... _ein, zwei, +drei!_ ha, ha! I let it go cheap, damn it! A rascally fellow turned up. +But it's no matter! Anyway, I am living as I fancy, and amusing other +people. But why are you staring at me like that? Was I, really, to go +dragging on in the same old round, do you suppose? ... My dear fellow, +couldn't I have a glass of something?' + +Misha spoke fearfully quick and hurriedly, and, at the same time, as +though he were only just waked up from sleep. + +'Misha, upon my word!' I wailed; 'have you no fear of God? What do you +look like? What an attire! And you ask for a glass too! And to sell such +a fine estate for next to nothing....' + +'God I fear always, and do not forget,' he broke in.... 'But He is good, +you know--God is.... He will forgive! And I am good too.... I have +never yet hurt any one in my life. And drink is good too; and as for +hurting,... it never hurt any one either. And my get-up is quite the most +correct thing.... Uncle, would you like me to show you I can walk +straight? Or to do a little dance?' + +'Oh, spare me, please! A dance, indeed! You'd better sit down.' + +'As to that, I'll sit down with pleasure.... But why do you say nothing +of my greys? Just look at them, they're perfect lions! I've got them on +hire for the time, but I shall buy them for certain, ... and the +coachman too.... It's ever so much cheaper to have one's own horses. And +I had the money, but I lost it yesterday at faro. It's no matter, I'll +make it up to-morrow. Uncle, ... how about that little glass?' + +I was still unable to get over my amazement. 'Really, Misha, how old are +you? You ought not to be thinking about horses or cards, ... but going +into the university or the service.' + +Misha first laughed again, then gave vent to a prolonged whistle. + +'Well, uncle, I see you're in a melancholy humour to-day. I'll come +back another time. But I tell you what: you come in the evening to +Sokolniki. I've a tent pitched there. The gypsies sing, ... such +goings-on.... And there's a streamer on the tent, and on the streamer, +written in large letters: "The Troupe of Poltyev's Gypsies." The +streamer coils like a snake, the letters are of gold, attractive for +every one to read. A free entertainment--whoever likes to come! ... No +refusal! I'm making the dust fly in Moscow ... to my glory! ... Eh? will +you come? Ah, I've one girl there ... a serpent! Black as your boot, +spiteful as a dog, and eyes ... like living coals! One can never tell +what she's going to do--kiss or bite! ... Will you come, uncle? ... +Well, good-bye, till we meet!' + +And with a sudden embrace, and a smacking kiss on my shoulder, Misha +darted away into the courtyard, and into the carriage, waved his cap +over his head, hallooed,--the monstrous coachman leered at him over his +beard, the greys dashed off, and all vanished! + +The next day I--like a sinner--set off to Sokolniki, and did actually +see the tent with the streamer and the inscription. The drapery of the +tent was raised; from it came clamour, creaking, and shouting. Crowds of +people were thronging round it. On a carpet spread on the ground sat +gypsies, men and women, singing and beating drums, and in the midst of +them, in a red silk shirt and velvet breeches, was Misha, holding a +guitar, dancing a jig. 'Gentlemen! honoured friends! walk in, please! +the performance is just beginning! Free to all!' he was shouting in a +high, cracked voice. 'Hey! champagne! pop! a pop on the head! pop up to +the ceiling! Ha! you rogue there, Paul de Kock!' + +Luckily he did not see me, and I hastily made off. + +I won't enlarge on my astonishment at the spectacle of this +transformation. But, how was it actually possible for that quiet and +modest boy to change all at once into a drunken buffoon? Could it all +have been latent in him from childhood, and have come to the surface +directly the yoke of his parents' control was removed? But that he had +made the dust fly in Moscow, as he expressed it--of that, certainly, +there could be no doubt. I have seen something of riotous living in my +day; but in this there was a sort of violence, a sort of frenzy of +self-destruction, a sort of desperation! + + + + +III + + +For two months these diversions continued.... And once more I was +standing at my drawing-room window, looking into the courtyard.... All +of a sudden--what could it mean? ... there came slowly stepping in at the +gate a pilgrim ... a squash hat pulled down on his forehead, his hair +combed out straight to right and left below it, a long gown, a leather +belt ... Could it be Misha? He it was! + +I went to meet him on the steps.... 'What's this masquerade for?' +I demanded. + +'It's not a masquerade, uncle,' Misha answered with a deep sigh: since +all I had I've squandered to the last farthing--and a great repentance +too has come upon me--so I have resolved to go to the Sergiev monastery +of the Holy Trinity to expiate my sins in prayer. For what refuge was +left me? ... And so I have come to you to say good-bye, uncle, like a +prodigal son.' + +I looked intently at Misha. His face was just the same, rosy and fresh +(indeed it remained almost unchanged to the end), and the eyes, liquid, +affectionate, and languishing--and the hands, as small and white.... But +he smelt of spirits. + +'Well,' I pronounced at last, 'it's a good thing to do--since there's +nothing else to be done. But why is it you smell of spirits?' + +'A relic of the past,' answered Misha, and he suddenly laughed, but +immediately pulled himself up, and, making a straight, low bow--a monk's +bow--he added: 'Won't you help me on my way? I'm going, see, on foot to +the monastery....' + +'When?' + +'To-day ... at once.' + +'Why be in such a hurry?' + +'Uncle, my motto always was, "Make haste, make haste!"' + +'But what is your motto now?' + +'It's the same now.... Only, make haste towards _good_!' + +And so Misha went off, leaving me to ponder on the vicissitudes of +human destiny. + +But he soon reminded me of his existence. Two months after his visit, I +got a letter from him, the first of those letters, of which later on he +furnished me with so abundant a supply. And note a peculiar fact: I +have seldom seen a neater, more legible handwriting than that +unbalanced fellow's. And the wording of his letters was exceedingly +correct, just a little flowery. Invariable entreaties for assistance, +always attended with resolutions to reform, vows, and promises on his +honour.... All of it seemed--and perhaps was--sincere. Misha's +signature to his letters was always accompanied by peculiar strokes, +flourishes, and stops, and he made great use of marks of exclamation. +In this first letter Misha informed me of a new 'turn in his fortune.' +(Later on he used to refer to these turns as plunges, ... and frequent +were the plunges he took.) He was starting for the Caucasus on active +service for his tsar and his country in the capacity of a cadet! And, +though a certain benevolent aunt had entered into his impecunious +position, and had sent him an inconsiderable sum, still he begged me to +assist him in getting his equipment. I did what he asked, and for two +years I heard nothing more of him. + +I must own I had the gravest doubts as to his having gone to the +Caucasus. But it turned out that he really had gone there, had, by +favour, got into the T---- regiment as a cadet, and had been serving in +it for those two years. A perfect series of legends had sprung up there +about him. An officer of his regiment related them to me. + + + + +IV + + +I learned a great deal which I should never have expected of him.--I +was, of course, hardly surprised that as a military man, as an officer, +he was not a success, that he was in fact worse than useless; but what I +had not anticipated was that he was by no means conspicuous for much +bravery; that in battle he had a downcast, woebegone air, seemed +half-depressed, half-bewildered. Discipline of every sort worried him, +and made him miserable; he was daring to the point of insanity when only +his _own personal_ safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him to +accept; but do harm to others, kill, fight, he could not, possibly +because his heart was too good--or possibly because his 'cottonwool' +education (so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself he was +quite ready to murder in any way at any moment.... But others--no. +'There's no making him out,' his comrades said of him; 'he's a flabby +creature, a poor stick--and yet such a desperate fellow--a perfect +madman!' I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit +drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his life, and so +on. He always had one answer--'wretchedness.' + +'But why are you wretched?' + +'Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one's self, begins to +feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well, +it's all over with me! ... one's so wretched at once--one wants to put a +bullet through one's head! One's forced to start drinking.' + +'Why ever do you drag Russia in?' + +'How can I help it? Can't be helped! That's why I'm afraid to think.' + +'It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.' + +'But I don't know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one's +life, and stake it on a card--that I can do! Come, you tell me what I +ought to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I'll ...' + +'But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?' + +'I can't! You say I act thoughtlessly.... But what else can I do? ... If +one starts thinking--good God, all that comes into one's head! It's only +Germans who can think! ...' + +What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate man, and that's all +one can say. + +Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will tell you two or +three. One day, in a party of officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre +he had got by exchange--'a genuine Persian blade!' The officers +expressed doubts as to its genuineness. Misha began disputing. 'Here +then,' he cried at last; 'they say the man that knows most about sabres +is Abdulka the one-eyed. I'll go to him, and ask.' The officers +wondered. 'What Abdulka? Do you mean that lives in the mountains? The +rebel never subdued? Abdul-khan?' 'Yes, that's him.' 'Why, but he'll +take you for a spy, will put you in a hole full of bugs, or else cut +your head off with your own sabre. And, besides, how are you going to +get to him? They'll catch you directly.' 'I'll go to him, though, all +the same.' 'Bet you won't!' 'Taken!' And Misha promptly saddled his +horse and rode off to Abdulka. He disappeared for three days. All felt +certain that the crazy fellow had come by his end. But, behold! he came +back--drunk, and with a sabre, not the one he had taken, but another. +They began questioning him. 'It was all right,' said he; 'Abdulka's a +nice fellow. At first, it's true, he ordered them to put irons on my +legs, and was even on the point of having me impaled. Only, I explained +why I had come, and showed him the sabre. "And you'd better not keep +me," said I; "don't expect a ransom for me; I've not a farthing to bless +myself with--and I've no relations." Abdulka was surprised; he looked at +me with his solitary eye. "Well," said he, "you are a bold one, you +Russian; am I to believe you?" "You may believe me," said I; "I never +tell a lie." (And this was true; Misha never lied.) Abdulka looked at me +again. "And do you know how to drink wine?" "I do," said I; "give me as +much as you will, I'll drink it." Abdulka was surprised again; he called +on Allah. And he told his--daughter, I suppose--such a pretty creature, +only with an eye like a jackal's--to bring a wine-skin. And I began to +get to work on it. "But your sabre," said he, "isn't genuine; here, take +the real thing. And now we are pledged friends." But you've lost your +bet, gentlemen; pay up.' + +The second legend of Misha is of this nature. He was passionately fond +of cards; but as he had no money, and could never pay his debts at cards +(though he was never a card-sharper), no one at last would sit down to a +game with him. So one day he began urgently begging one of his comrades +among the officers to play with him! 'But if you lose, you don't pay.' +'The money certainly I can't pay, but I'll put a shot through my left +hand, see, with this pistol here!' 'But whatever use will that be to +me?' 'No use, but still it will be curious.' This conversation took +place after a drinking bout in the presence of witnesses. Whether it was +that Misha's proposition struck the officer as really curious--anyway he +agreed. Cards were brought, the game began. Misha was in luck; he won a +hundred roubles. And thereupon his opponent struck his forehead with +vexation. 'What an ass I am!' he cried, 'to be taken in like this! As if +you'd have shot your hand if you had lost!--a likely story! hold out +your purse!' 'That's a lie,' retorted Misha: 'I've won--but I'll shoot +my hand.' He snatched up his pistol--and bang, fired at his own hand. +The bullet passed right through it ... and in a week the wound had +completely healed. + +Another time, Misha was riding with his comrades along a road at +night ... and they saw close to the roadside a narrow ravine like a deep +cleft, dark--so dark you couldn't see the bottom. 'Look,' said one of +the officers, 'Misha may be a desperate fellow, but he wouldn't leap +into that ravine.' 'Yes, I'd leap in!' 'No, you wouldn't, for I dare say +it's seventy feet deep, and you might break your neck.' His friend knew +his weak point--vanity.... There was a great deal of it in Misha. 'But +I'll leap in anyway! Would you like to bet on it? Ten roubles.' 'Good!' +And the officer had hardly uttered the word, when Misha and his horse +were off--into the ravine--and crashing down over the stones. All were +simply petrified.... A full minute passed, and they heard Misha's voice, +dimly, as it were rising up out of the bowels of the earth: 'All right! +fell on the sand ... but it was a long flight! Ten roubles you've lost!' + +'Climb out!' shouted his comrades. 'Climb out, I dare say!' echoed +Misha. 'A likely story! I should like to see you climb out. You'll have +to go for torches and ropes now. And, meanwhile, to keep up my spirits +while I wait, fling down a flask....' + +And so Misha had to stay five hours at the bottom of the ravine; and +when they dragged him out, it turned out that his shoulder was +dislocated. But that in no way troubled him. The next day a bone-setter, +one of the black-smiths, set his shoulder, and he used it as though +nothing had been the matter. + +His health in general was marvellous, incredible. I have already +mentioned that up to the time of his death he kept his almost childishly +fresh complexion. Illness was a thing unknown to him, in spite of his +excesses; the strength of his constitution never once showed signs of +giving way. When any other man would infallibly have been seriously ill, +or even have died, he merely shook himself, like a duck in the water, +and was more blooming than ever. Once, also in the Caucasus ... _this_ +legend is really incredible, but one may judge from it what Misha was +thought to be capable of.... Well, once, in the Caucasus, in a state of +drunkenness, he fell down with the lower half of his body in a stream of +water; his head and arms were on the bank, out of water. It was +winter-time, there was a hard frost, and when he was found next morning, +his legs and body were pulled out from under a thick layer of ice, which +had formed over them in the night--and he didn't even catch cold! +Another time--this was in Russia (near Orel, and also in a time of +severe frost)--he was in a tavern outside the town in company with seven +young seminarists (or theological students), and these seminarists were +celebrating their final examination, but had invited Misha, as a +delightful person, a man of 'inspiration,' as the phrase was then. A +very great deal was drunk, and when at last the festive party got ready +to depart, Misha, dead drunk, was in an unconscious condition. All the +seven seminarists together had but one three-horse sledge with a high +back; where were they to stow the unresisting body? Then one of the +young men, inspired by classical reminiscences, proposed tying Misha by +his feet to the back of the sledge, as Hector was tied to the chariot of +Achilles! The proposal met with approval ... and jolting up and down +over the holes, sliding sideways down the slopes, with his legs torn and +flayed, and his head rolling in the snow, poor Misha travelled on his +back for the mile and a half from the tavern to the town, and hadn't as +much as a cough afterwards, hadn't turned a hair! Such heroic health had +nature bestowed upon him! + + + + +V + + +From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian dress, a +dagger in his sash, a high-peaked cap on his head. This costume he +retained to the end, though he was no longer in the army, from which he +had been discharged for outstaying his leave. He stayed with me, +borrowed a little money ... and forthwith began his 'plunges,' his +wanderings, or, as he expressed it, 'his peregrinations from pillar to +post,' then came the sudden disappearances and returns, and the showers +of beautifully written letters addressed to people of every possible +description, from an archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives! Then +came calls upon persons known and unknown! And this is worth noticing: +when he made these calls, he was never abject and cringing, he never +worried people by begging, but on the contrary behaved with propriety, +and had positively a cheerful and pleasant air, though the inveterate +smell of spirits accompanied him everywhere, and his Oriental costume +gradually changed into rags. 'Give, and God will reward you, though I +don't deserve it,' he would say, with a bright smile and a candid blush; +'if you don't give, you'll be perfectly right, and I shan't blame you +for it. I shall find food to eat, God will provide! And there are people +poorer than I, and much more deserving of help--plenty, plenty!' Misha +was particularly successful with women: he knew how to appeal to their +sympathy. But don't suppose that he was or fancied himself a +Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very modest. Whether it was that +he had inherited a cool temperament from his parents, or whether indeed +this too is to be set down to his dislike for doing any one harm--as, +according to his notions, relations with a woman meant inevitably doing +a woman harm--I won't undertake to decide; only in all his behaviour +with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women felt this, and were +the more ready to sympathise with him and help him, until at last he +revolted them by his drunkenness and debauchery, by the desperateness of +which I have spoken already.... I can think of no other word for it. + +But in other relations he had by that time lost every sort of delicacy, +and was gradually sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. He once, +in the public assembly at T----, got as far as setting on the table a +jug with a notice: 'Any one, to whom it may seem agreeable to give the +high-born nobleman Poltyev (authentic documents in proof of his +pedigree are herewith exposed) a flip on the nose, may satisfy this +inclination on putting a rouble into this jug.' And I am told there +were persons found willing to pay for the privilege of flipping a +nobleman's nose! It is true that one such person, who put in only one +rouble and gave him _two_ flips, he first almost strangled, and then +forced to apologise; it is true, too, that part of the money gained in +this fashion he promptly distributed among other poor devils ... but +still, think what a disgrace! + +In the course of his 'peregrinations from pillar to post,' he made his +way, too, to his ancestral home, which he had sold for next to nothing +to a speculator and money-lender well known in those days. The +money-lender was at home, and hearing of the presence in the +neighbourhood of the former owner, now reduced to vagrancy, he gave +orders not to admit him into the house, and even, in case of necessity, +to drive him away. Misha announced that he would not for his part +consent to enter the house, polluted by the presence of so repulsive a +person; that he would permit no one to drive him away, but was going to +the churchyard to pay his devotions at the grave of his parents. So in +fact he did. + +In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been +his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly +allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been +a corner in a peasant's hut. Misha had been too short a time in +possession of his estate to have left behind him a particularly +favourable memory; still the old servant could not resist running to the +churchyard as soon as he heard of his young master's being there. He +found Misha sitting on the ground between the tombstones, asked for his +hand to kiss, as in old times, and even shed tears on seeing the rags +which clothed the limbs of his once pampered young charge. + +Misha gazed long and silently at the old man. 'Timofay!' he said at +last; Timofay started. + +'What do you desire?' + +'Have you a spade?' + +'I can get one.... But what do you want with a spade, Mihailo +Andreitch, sir?' + +'I want to dig myself a grave, Timofay, and to lie here for time +everlasting between my father and mother. There's only this spot left me +in the world. Get a spade!' + +'Yes, sir,' said Timofay; he went and got it. And Misha began at once +digging in the ground, while Timofay stood by, his chin propped in his +hand, repeating: 'It's all that's left for you and me, master!' + +Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: 'Life's not worth +living, is it, Timofay?' + +'It's not indeed, master.' + +The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about, +and ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first +very angry, wanted to send for the police: 'This is sacrilege,' said he. +But afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to +have to do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,--he +went in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still +toiling, made him a polite bow. He went on with his digging as though he +had not noticed his successor. 'Mihail Andreitch,' began the +money-lender, 'allow me to ask what you are doing here?' + +'You can see--I am digging myself a grave.' + +'Why are you doing so?' + +'Because I don't want to live any longer.' + +The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. 'You don't +want to live?' + +Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. 'That surprises you? +Aren't you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn't it you, +Judas, who robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren't you +flaying the peasants' skins off their backs? Haven't you taken from +this poor old man his crust of dry bread? Wasn't it you? ... O God! +everywhere nothing but injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing.... +Everything must go to ruin then, and me too! I don't care for life, I +don't care for life in Russia!' And the spade moved faster than ever in +Misha's hands. + +'Here's a devil of a business!' thought the money-lender; 'he's +positively burying himself alive.' 'Mihail Andreevitch,' he began +again: 'listen. I've been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me +falsely of you.' + +Misha went on digging. + +'But why be desperate?' + +Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the +money-lender's feet, as though to say, 'Here you are, land-grabber.' + +'Really, you 're wrong in this. Won't you be pleased to come in to have +some lunch, and rest a bit?' + +Misha raised his head. 'So that's it now! And anything to drink?' + +The money-lender was delighted. 'Why, of course ... I should think so.' + +'You invite Timofay too?' + +'Well, ... yes, him too.' + +Misha pondered. 'Only, mind ... you made me a beggar, you know.... Don't +think you can get off with one bottle!' + +'Set your mind at rest ... there shall be all you can want.' + +Misha got up and flung down the spade.... 'Well, Timosha,' said he to +his old nurse; 'let's do honour to our host.... Come along.' + +'Yes, sir,' answered the old man. + +And all three started off to the house together. The money-lender knew +the man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, +exacted a promise from him to 'grant all sorts of immunities' to the +peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, +both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still +seemed pervaded by the God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an +hour later still, Misha in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for +spirits), laid in a cart with his high cap and dagger, was being driven +off to the town, more than twenty miles away, and there was flung under +a hedge.... As for Timofay, who could still keep on his legs, and only +hiccupped--him, of course, they kicked out of the house; since they +couldn't get at the master, they had to be content with the old servant. + + + + +VI + + +Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha.... God knows what +he was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a +posting-station on the T---- highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly +heard under the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering +in French the words: 'Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez piti d'un pauvre +gentil-homme ruin.' ... I lifted my head, glanced.... The +mangy-looking fur cap, the broken ornaments on the ragged Circassian +dress, the dagger in the cracked sheath, the swollen, but still rosy +face, the dishevelled, but still thick crop of hair.... Mercy on us! +Misha! He had come then to begging alms on the high-roads. I could not +help crying out. He recognised me, started, turned away, and was about +to move away from the window. I stopped him ... but what could I say to +him? Give him a lecture? ... In silence I held out a five-rouble note; +he, also in silence, took it in his still white and plump, though +shaking and dirty hand, and vanished round the corner of the house. + +It was a good while before they gave me horses, and I had time to give +myself up to gloomy reflections on my unexpected meeting with Misha; I +felt ashamed of having let him go so unsympathetically. + +At last I set off on my way, and half a mile from the station I observed +ahead of me, in the road, a crowd of people moving along with a curious, +as it seemed rhythmic, step. I overtook this crowd--and what did I see? + +Some dozen or so beggars, with sacks over their shoulders, were walking +two by two, singing and leaping about, while in front of them danced +Misha, stamping time with his feet, and shouting, 'Natchiki-tchikaldy, +tchuk, tchuk, tchuk! ... Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk!' +Directly my carriage caught them up, and he saw me, he began at once +shouting, 'Hurrah! Stand in position! right about face, guard of the +roadside!' + +The beggars took up his shout, and halted; while he, with his peculiar +laugh, jumped on to the carriage step, and again yelled: Hurrah! + +'What's the meaning of this?' I asked with involuntary astonishment. + +'This? This is my company, my army--all beggars, God's people, friends +of my heart. Every one of them, thanks to you, has had a glass; and +now we are all rejoicing and making merry! ... Uncle! Do you know it's +only with beggars, God's people, that one can live in the world ... by +God, it is!' + +I made him no answer ... but at that moment he struck me as such +a kind good creature, his face expressed such childlike +simple-heartedness.... A light seemed suddenly as it were to dawn upon +me, and I felt a pang in my heart.... 'Get into the carriage,' I said +to him. He was taken aback.... + +'What? Into the carriage?' + +'Yes, get in, get in,' I repeated; 'I want to make you a suggestion. Sit +down.... Come along with me.' + +'Well, as you will.' He sat down. 'Well, and you, my honoured friends, +my dear comrades,' he added, addressing the beggars, 'fare-well, till we +meet again.' Misha took off his high cap, and bowed low. The beggars all +seemed overawed.... I told the coachman to whip up the horses, and the +carriage rolled off. + +The suggestion I wanted to make Misha was this: the idea suddenly +occurred to me to take him with me to my home in the country, about +five-and-twenty miles from that station, to rescue him, or at least to +make an effort to rescue him. 'Listen, Misha,' I said; 'will you come +along and live with me? ... You shall have everything provided you; you +shall have clothes and linen made you; you shall be properly fitted out, +and you shall have money to spend on tobacco, and so on, only on one +condition, that you give up drink.... Do you agree?' + +Misha was positively aghast with delight; he opened his eyes wide, +flushed crimson, and suddenly falling on my shoulder, began kissing me, +and repeating in a broken voice, 'Uncle ... benefactor ... God reward +you.' ... He burst into tears at last, and taking off his cap fell to +wiping his eyes, his nose, his lips with it. + +'Mind,' I observed; 'remember the condition, not to touch strong drink.' + +'Damnation to it!' he cried, with a wave of both arms, and with this +impetuous movement, I was more than ever conscious of the strong smell +of spirits with which he seemed always saturated.... 'Uncle, if you +knew what my life has been.... If it hadn't been for sorrow, a cruel +fate.... But now I swear, I swear, I will mend my ways, I will show +you.... Uncle, I've never told a lie--you can ask whom you like.... I'm +honest, but I'm an unlucky fellow, uncle; I've known no kindness from +any one....' + +Here he broke down finally into sobs. I tried to soothe him, and +succeeded so far that when we reached home Misha had long been lost in a +heavy sleep, with his head on my knees. + + + + +VII + + +He was at once assigned a room for himself, and at once, first thing, +taken to the bath, which was absolutely essential. All his clothes, and +his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he +was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which, +as is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt +themselves to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean, +and fresh, he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such +joyful gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was +completely transformed.... Boys of twelve have faces like that on Easter +Sundays, after the communion, when, thickly pomaded, in new jacket and +starched collars, they come to exchange Easter greetings with their +parents. Misha was continually--with a sort of cautious +incredulity--feeling himself and repeating: 'What does it mean? ... Am I +in heaven?' The next day he announced that he had not slept all night, +he had been in such ecstasy. + +I had living in my house at that time an old aunt with her niece; both +of them were extremely disturbed when they heard of Misha's presence; +they could not comprehend how I could have asked him into my house! +There were very ugly rumours about him. But in the first place, I knew +he was always very courteous with ladies; and, secondly, I counted on +his promises of amendment. And, in fact, for the first two days of his +stay under my roof Misha not merely justified my expectations but +surpassed them, while the ladies of the household were simply enchanted +with him. He played piquet with the old lady, helped her to wind her +worsted, showed her two new games of patience; for the niece, who had a +small voice, he played accompaniments on the piano, and read Russian and +French poetry. He told both the ladies lively but discreet anecdotes; in +fact, he showed them every attention, so that they repeatedly expressed +their surprise to me, and the old lady even observed how unjust people +sometimes were.... The things--the things they had said of him ... and +he such a quiet fellow, and so polite ... poor Misha! It is true that at +table 'poor Misha' licked his lips in a rather peculiar, hurried way, if +he simply glanced at the bottle. But I had only to shake my finger at +him, and he would turn his eyes upwards, and lay his hand on his +heart ... as if to say, I have sworn.... 'I am regenerated now,' he +assured me.... 'Well, God grant it be so,' was my thought.... But +this regeneration did not last long. + +The first two days he was very talkative and cheerful. But even on the +third day he seemed somehow subdued, though he remained, as before, with +the ladies and tried to entertain them. A half mournful, half dreamy +expression flitted now and then over his face, and the face itself was +paler and looked thinner. 'Are you unwell?' I asked him. + +'Yes,' he answered; 'my head aches a little.' On the fourth day he was +completely silent; for the most part he sat in a corner, hanging his +head disconsolately, and his dejected appearance worked upon the +compassionate sympathies of the two ladies, who now, in their turn, +tried to amuse him. At table he ate nothing, stared at his plate, and +rolled up pellets of bread. On the fifth day the feeling of compassion +in the ladies began to be replaced by other emotions--uneasiness and +even alarm. Misha was so strange, he held aloof from people, and kept +moving along close to the walls, as though trying to steal by unnoticed, +and suddenly looking round as though some one had called him. And what +had become of his rosy colour? It seemed covered over by a layer of +earth. 'Are you still unwell?' I asked him. + +'No, I'm all right,' he answered abruptly. + +'Are you dull?' + +'Why should I be dull?' But he turned away and would not look me +in the face. + +'Or is it that wretchedness come over you again?' To this he made no +reply. So passed another twenty-four hours. + +Next day my aunt ran into my room in a state of great excitement, +declaring that she would leave the house with her niece, if Misha was to +remain in it. + +'Why so?' + +'Why, we are dreadfully scared with him.... He's not a man, he's a +wolf,--nothing better than a wolf. He keeps moving and moving about, and +doesn't speak--and looks so wild.... He almost gnashes his teeth at me. +My Katia, you know, is so nervous.... She was so struck with him the +first day.... I'm in terror for her, and indeed for myself too.' ... I +didn't know what to say to my aunt. I couldn't, anyway, turn Misha out, +after inviting him. + +He relieved me himself from my difficult position. The same day,--I was +still sitting in my own room,--suddenly I heard behind me a husky and +angry voice: 'Nikolai Nikolaitch, Nikolai Nikolaitch!' I looked round; +Misha was standing in the doorway with a face that was fearful, +black-looking and distorted. 'Nikolai Nikolaitch!' he repeated ... (not +'uncle' now). + +'What do you want?' + +'Let me go ... at once!' + +'Why?' + +'Let me go, or I shall do mischief, I shall set the house on fire or cut +some one's throat.' Misha suddenly began trembling. 'Tell them to give +me back my clothes, and let a cart take me to the highroad, and let me +have some money, however little!' + +'Are you displeased, then, at anything?' + +'I can't live like this!' he shrieked at the top of his voice. 'I can't +live in your respectable, thrice-accursed house! It makes me sick, and +ashamed to live so quietly! ... How _you_ manage to endure it!' + +'That is,' I interrupted in my turn, 'you mean--you can't live without +drink....' + +'Well, yes! yes!' he shrieked again: 'only let me go to my +brethren, my friends, to the beggars! ... Away from your +respectable, loathsome species!' + +I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha's frenzied +look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs,--it was +all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his +clothes should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking +a note for twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the +table. Misha had begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,--but +on this, suddenly he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck +himself on the breast, the tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering, +'Uncle! angel! I know I'm a ruined man! thanks! thanks!' he snatched +up the note and ran away. + +An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his +Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses +started, he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his +head, made bow after bow. Just as he was going off, he had given me a +long and warm embrace, and whispered, 'Benefactor, benefactor ... +there's no saving me!' He even ran to the ladies and kissed their hands, +fell on his knees, called upon God, and begged their forgiveness! Katia +I found afterwards in tears. + +The coachman, with whom Misha had set off, on coming home informed me +that he had driven him to the first tavern on the highroad--and that +there 'his honour had stuck,' had begun treating every one +indiscriminately--and had quickly sunk into unconsciousness. +From that day I never came across Misha again, but his ultimate fate I +learned in the following manner. + + + +VIII + + +Three years later, I was again at home in the country; all of a sudden a +servant came in and announced that Madame Poltyev was asking to see me. +I knew no Madame Poltyev, and the servant, who made this announcement, +for some unknown reason smiled sarcastically. To my glance of inquiry, +he responded that the lady asking for me was young, poorly dressed, and +had come in a peasant's cart with one horse, which she was driving +herself! I told him to ask Madame Poltyev up to my room. + +I saw a woman of five-and-twenty, in the dress of the small tradesman +class, with a large kerchief on her head. Her face was simple, roundish, +not without charm; she looked dejected and gloomy, and was shy and +awkward in her movements. + +'You are Madame Poltyev?' I inquired, and I asked her to sit down. + +'Yes,' she answered in a subdued voice, and she did not sit down. 'I am +the widow of your nephew, Mihail Andreevitch Poltyev.' + +'Is Mihail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long? But sit down, I +beg.' + +She sank into a chair. + +'It's two months.' + +'And had you been married to him long?' + +'I had been a year with him.' + +'Where have you come from now?' + +'From out Tula way.... There's a village there, +Znamenskoe-Glushkovo--perhaps you may know it. I am the daughter of the +deacon there. Mihail Andreitch and I lived there.... He lived in my +father's house. We were a whole year together.' + +The young woman's lips twitched a little, and she put her hand up to +them. She seemed to be on the point of tears, but she controlled +herself, and cleared her throat. + +'Mihail Andreitch,' she went on: 'before his death enjoined upon me to +go to you; "You must be sure to go," said he! And he told me to thank +you for all your goodness, and to give you ... this ... see, this little +thing (she took a small packet out of her pocket) which he always had +about him.... And Mihail Andreitch said, if you would be pleased to +accept it in memory of him, if you would not disdain it.... "There's +nothing else," said he, "I can give him" ... that is, you....' + +In the packet there was a little silver cup with the monogram of Misha's +mother. This cup I had often seen in Misha's hands, and once he had even +said to me, speaking of some poor fellow, that he really was destitute, +since he had neither cup nor bowl, 'while I, see, have this anyway.' + +I thanked her, took the cup, and asked: + +'Of what complaint had Misha died? No doubt....' + +Then I bit my tongue ... but the young woman understood my unuttered +hint.... She took a swift glance at me, then looked down again, smiled +mournfully, and said at once: 'Oh no! he had quite given that up, ever +since he got to know me ... But he had no health at all! ... It was +shattered quite. As soon as he gave up drink, he fell into ill health +directly. He became so steady; he always wanted to help father in his +land or in the garden, ... or any other work there might be ... in spite +of his being of noble birth. But how could he get the strength? ... At +writing, too, he tried to work; as you know, he could do that work +capitally, but his hands shook, and he couldn't hold the pen properly. +... He was always finding fault with himself; "I'm a white-handed poor +creature," he would say; "I've never done any good to anybody, never +helped, never laboured!" He worried himself very much about that.... He +used to say that our people labour,--but what use are we? ... Ah, +Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a good man--and he was fond of me ... and +I... Ah, pardon me....' + +Here the young woman wept outright. I would have consoled her, but I did +not know how. + +'Have you a child left you?' I asked at last. + +She sighed. 'No, no child.... Is it likely?' And her tears flowed faster +than ever. + +'And so that was how Misha's troubled wanderings had ended,' the old man +P. wound up his narrative. 'You will agree with me, I am sure, that I'm +right in calling him a desperate character; but you will most likely +agree too that he was not like the desperate characters of to-day; +still, a philosopher, you must admit, would find a family likeness +between him and them. In him and in them there's the thirst for +self-destruction, the wretchedness, the dissatisfaction.... And what it +all comes from, I leave the philosopher to decide.' + + +BOUGIVALLE, _November_ 1881. + + + + +A STRANGE STORY + + + + +I + + +Fifteen years ago--began H.--official duties compelled me to spend a few +days in the principal town of the province of T----. I stopped at a very +fair hotel, which had been established six months before my arrival by a +Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that it did not flourish +long, which is often the case with us; but I found it still in its full +splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like pistol-shots at night; +the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of soap, and the painted +floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the opinion of the +waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean individual, tended to +prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former valet of Prince +G.'s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and his +self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and slippers +trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and had a +multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of his +moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He +showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating +his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in +life with a rather disillusioned eye. 'No doubt about it,' he said to me +one day; 'ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying +any day!' His name was Ardalion. + +I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion +procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the +joints; but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an +heraldic crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a +country gentleman, an old friend of my father's, who had been a long +time settled in the town.... I had not met him for twenty years; he had +had time to get married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a +widower and to make his fortune. His business was with government +monopolies, that is to say, he lent contractors for monopolies loans at +heavy interest.... 'There is always honour in risk,' they say, though +indeed the risk was small. + +In the course of our conversation there came into the room with +hesitating steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of +about seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. 'Here,' said my +acquaintance, 'is my eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She +takes my poor wife's place, looks after the house, and takes care of her +brothers and sisters.' I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in +(she meanwhile dropped into a chair without speaking), and thought to +myself that she did not look much like housekeeping or looking after +children. Her face was quite childish, round, with small, pleasing, but +immobile features; the blue eyes, under high, also immobile and +irregular eyebrows, had an intent, almost astonished look, as though +they had just observed something unexpected; the full little mouth with +the lifted upper lip, not only did not smile, but seemed as though +altogether innocent of such a practice; the rosy flush under the tender +skin stood in soft, diffused patches on the cheeks, and neither paled +nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in light clusters each side of +the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, and her arms were pressed +somehow awkwardly and severely against her narrow waist. Her blue gown +fell without folds--like a child's--to her little feet. The general +impression this girl made upon me was not one of morbidity, but of +something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a shy, provincial +miss, but a creature of a special type--that I could not make out. This +type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully understand it, +and only felt that I had never come across a nature more sincere. Pity +... yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the sight of +this young, serious, keenly alert life--God knows why! 'Not of this +earth,' was my thought, though there was nothing exactly 'ideal' in the +expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had obviously +come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady of the +house to which her father had referred. + +He began to talk of life in the town of T----, of the social amusements +and advantages it offered. 'We're very quiet here,' he observed; 'the +governor's a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province is a +bachelor. But there'll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the day +after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here. +And you'll see all our _intelligentsi_ too.' + +My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using +learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with +respect. Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with +respectability, developes a certain thoughtfulness in men. + +'Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?' I said, turning to my +friend's daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice. + +'Papa intends to go,' she answered, 'and I with him.' + +Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated +every syllable fully, as though she were puzzled. + +'In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.' + +She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile. + +I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed +steadily upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked +over my shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing +she was looking at behind my back. + +I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied +'soupe-julienne,' cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry, +black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The +subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my +old acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my +thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom. + +'There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our +town,' he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at +the same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty +dinner-napkin--a practice peculiar, as you're doubtless aware, to +servants of superior education. 'Very little!' + +He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its +white face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words: +'Ve-ry! ve-ry!' it ticked. 'No concerts, nor theatres,' pursued Ardalion +(he had travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in +Paris; he knew much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the +peasants do)--'nor dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the +nobility and gentry--there is nothing of the kind whatever.' (He paused +a moment, probably to allow me to observe the choiceness of his +diction.) 'They positively visit each other but seldom. Every one sits +like a pigeon on its perch. And so it comes to pass that visitors have +simply nowhere to go.' + +Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me. + +'But there is one thing,' he went on, speaking with a drawl, 'in case +you should feel that way inclined....' + +He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did +not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me. + +The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came +back, and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear, +and with a playful smile said: + +'Would you not like to behold the dead?' + +I stared at him in perplexity. + +'Yes,' he went on, speaking in a whisper; 'there is a man like that +here. He's a simple artisan, and can't even read and write, but he does +marvellous things. If you, for example, go to him and desire to see any +one of your departed friends, he will be sure to show him you.' + +'How does he do it?' + +'That's his secret. For though he's an uneducated man--to speak bluntly, +illiterate--he's very great in godliness! Greatly respected he is among +the merchant gentry!' + +'And does every one in the town know about this?' + +'Those who need to know; but, there, of course--there's danger from the +police to be guarded against. Because, say what you will, such doings +are forbidden anyway, and for the common people are a temptation; the +common people--the mob, we all know, quickly come to blows.' + +'Has he shown you the dead?' I asked Ardalion. + +Ardalion nodded. 'He has; my father he brought before me as if living.' + +I stared at Ardalion. He laughed and played with his dinner-napkin, and +condescendingly, but unflinchingly, looked at me. + +'But this is very curious!' I cried at last. 'Couldn't I make the +acquaintance of this artisan?' + +'You can't go straight to him; but one can act through his mother. She's +a respectable old woman; she sells pickled apples on the bridge. If you +wish it, I will ask her.' + +'Please do.' + +Ardalion coughed behind his hand. 'And a gratuity, whatever you think +fit, nothing much, of course, should also be handed to her--the old +lady. And I on my side will make her understand that she has nothing to +fear from you, as you are a visitor here, a gentleman--and of course you +can understand that this is a secret, and will not in any case get her +into any unpleasantness.' + +Ardalion took the tray in one hand, and with a graceful swing of the +tray and his own person, turned towards the door. + +'So I may reckon upon you!' I shouted after him. + +'You may trust me!' I heard his self-satisfied voice say: 'We'll talk to +the old woman and transmit you her answer exactly.' + + * * * * * + +I will not enlarge on the train of thought aroused in me by the +extraordinary fact Ardalion had related; but I am prepared to admit that +I awaited the promised reply with impatience. Late in the evening +Ardalion came to me and announced that to his annoyance he could not +find the old woman. I handed him, however, by way of encouragement, a +three-rouble note. The next morning he appeared again in my room with a +beaming countenance; the old woman had consented to see me. + +'Hi! boy!' shouted Ardalion in the corridor; 'Hi! apprentice! Come +here!' A boy of six came up, grimed all over with soot like a kitten, +with a shaved head, perfectly bald in places, in a torn, striped smock, +and huge goloshes on his bare feet. 'You take the gentleman, you know +where,' said Ardalion, addressing the 'apprentice,' and pointing to me. +'And you, sir, when you arrive, ask for Mastridia Karpovna.' + +The boy uttered a hoarse grunt, and we set off. + + * * * * * + +We walked rather a long while about the unpaved streets of the town of +T----; at last in one of them, almost the most deserted and desolate of +all, my guide stopped before an old two-story wooden house, and wiping +his nose all over his smock-sleeve, said: 'Here; go to the right.' I +passed through the porch into the outer passage, stumbled towards my +right, a low door creaked on rusty hinges, and I saw before me a stout +old woman in a brown jacket lined with hare-skin, with a parti-coloured +kerchief on her head. + +'Mastridia Karpovna?' I inquired. + +'The same, at your service,' the old woman replied in a piping voice. +'Please walk in. Won't you take a chair?' + +The room into which the old woman conducted me was so littered up with +every sort of rubbish, rags, pillows, feather-beds, sacks, that one +could hardly turn round in it. The sunlight barely struggled in through +two dusty little windows; in one corner, from behind a heap of boxes +piled on one another, there came a feeble whimpering and wailing.... I +could not tell from what; perhaps a sick baby, or perhaps a puppy. I sat +down on a chair, and the old woman stood up directly facing me. Her face +was yellow, half-transparent like wax; her lips were so fallen in that +they formed a single straight line in the midst of a multitude of +wrinkles; a tuft of white hair stuck out from below the kerchief on her +head, but the sunken grey eyes peered out alertly and cleverly from +under the bony overhanging brow; and the sharp nose fairly stuck out +like a spindle, fairly sniffed the air as if it would say: I'm a smart +one! 'Well, you're no fool!' was my thought. At the same time she smelt +of spirits. + +I explained to her the object of my visit, of which, however, as I +observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes +rapidly, and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply, +as though she were making ready to peck. + +'To be sure, to be sure,' she said at last; 'Ardalion Matveitch did say +something, certainly; my son Vassinka's art you were wanting.... But we +can't be sure, my dear sir....' + +'Oh, why so?' I interposed. 'As far as I'm concerned, you may feel +perfectly easy.... I'm not an informer.' + +'Oh, mercy on us,' the old woman caught me up hurriedly, 'what do you +mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what +ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it's some sinful +contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son's not the one to lend himself to +anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid +indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three +times.) He's the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province; +the foremost, your honour, he is! And that's just it: great grace has +been vouchsafed to him. Yes, indeed. It's not the work of his hands. +It's from on high, my dear; so it is.' + +'So you agree?' I asked: 'when can I see your son?' + +The old woman blinked again and shifted her rolled up handkerchief from +one sleeve to the other. + +'Oh, well, sir--well, sir, I can't say.' + +'Allow me, Mastridia Karpovna, to hand you this,' I interrupted, and I +gave her a ten-rouble note. + +The old woman clutched it at once in her fat, crooked fingers, which +recalled the fleshy claws of an owl, quickly slipped it into her sleeve, +pondered a little, and as though she had suddenly reached a decision, +slapped her thighs with her open hand. + +'Come here this evening a little after seven,' she said, not in her +previous voice, but in quite a different one, more solemn and subdued; +'only not to this room, but kindly go straight up to the floor above, +and you'll find a door to your left, and you open that door; and you'll +go, your honour, into an empty room, and in that room you'll see a +chair. Sit you down on that chair and wait; and whatever you see, don't +utter a word and don't do anything; and please don't speak to my son +either; for he's but young yet, and he suffers from fits. He's very +easily scared; he'll tremble and shake like any chicken ... a sad +thing it is!' + +I looked at Mastridia. 'You say he's young, but since he's your son ...' + +'In the spirit, sir, in the spirit. Many's the orphan I have under my +care!' she added, wagging her head in the direction of the corner, from +which came the plaintive whimper. 'O--O God Almighty, holy Mother of +God! And do you, your honour, before you come here, think well which of +your deceased relations or friends--the kingdom of Heaven to +them!--you're desirous of seeing. Go over your deceased friends, and +whichever you select, keep him in your mind, keep him all the while till +my son comes!' + +'Why, mustn't I tell your son whom ...' + +'Nay, nay, sir, not one word. He will find out what he needs in your +thoughts himself. You've only to keep your friend thoroughly in mind; +and at your dinner drink a drop of wine--just two or three glasses; wine +never comes amiss.' The old woman laughed, licked her lips, passed her +hand over her mouth, and sighed. + +'So at half-past seven?' I queried, getting up from my chair. + +'At half-past seven, your honour, at half-past seven,' Mastridia +Karpovna replied reassuringly. + + * * * * * + +I took leave of the old woman and went back to the hotel. I did not +doubt that they were going to make a fool of me, but in what way?--that +was what excited my curiosity. With Ardalion I did not exchange more +than two or three words. 'Did she see you?' he asked me, knitting his +brow, and on my affirmative reply, he exclaimed: 'The old woman's as +good as any statesman!' I set to work, in accordance with the +'statesman's' counsel, to run over my deceased friends. + +After rather prolonged hesitation I fixed, at last, on an old man who +had long been dead, a Frenchman, once my tutor. I selected him not +because he had any special attraction for me; but his whole figure was +so original, so unlike any figure of to-day, that it would be utterly +impossible to imitate it. He had an enormous head, fluffy white hair +combed straight back, thick black eyebrows, a hawk nose, and two large +warts of a pinkish hue in the middle of the forehead; he used to wear a +green frockcoat with smooth brass buttons, a striped waistcoat with a +stand-up collar, a jabot and lace cuffs. 'If he shows me my old +Dessaire,' I thought, 'well, I shall have to admit that he's a +sorcerer!' + +At dinner I followed the old dame's behest and drank a bottle of +Lafitte, of the first quality, so Ardalion averred, though it had a +very strong flavour of burnt cork, and a thick sediment at the bottom +of each glass. + + * * * * * + +Exactly at half-past seven I stood in front of the house where I had +conversed with the worthy Mastridia Karpovna. All the shutters of the +windows were closed, but the door was open. I went into the house, +mounted the shaky staircase to the first story, and opening a door on +the left, found myself, as the old woman had said, in a perfectly empty, +rather large room; a tallow candle set in the window-sill threw a dim +light over the room; against the wall opposite the door stood a +wicker-bottomed chair. I snuffed the candle, which had already burnt +down enough to form a long smouldering wick, sat down on the chair and +began to wait. + +The first ten minutes passed rather quickly; in the room itself there +was absolutely nothing which could distract my attention, but I listened +intently to every rustle, looked intently at the closed door.... My +heart was throbbing. After the first ten minutes followed another ten +minutes, then half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and not a stir of +any kind around! I coughed several times to make my presence known; I +began to feel bored and out of temper; to be made a fool of in just that +way had not entered into my calculations. I was on the point of getting +up from my seat, taking the candle from the window, and going +downstairs.... I looked at it; the wick again wanted snuffing; but as I +turned my eyes from the window to the door, I could not help starting; +with his back leaning against the door stood a man. He had entered so +quickly and noiselessly that I had heard nothing. He wore a simple blue +smock; he was of middle height and rather thick-set. With his hands +behind his back and his head bent, he was staring at me. In the dim +light of the candle I could not distinctly make out his features. I saw +nothing but a shaggy mane of matted hair falling on his forehead, and +thick, rather drawn lips and whitish eyes. I was nearly speaking to him, +but I recollected Mastridia's injunction, and bit my lips. The man, who +had come in, continued to gaze at me, and, strange to say, at the same +time I felt something like fear, and, as though at the word of command, +promptly started thinking of my old tutor. _He_ still stood at the door +and breathed heavily, as though he had been climbing a mountain or +lifting a weight, while his eyes seemed to expand, seemed to come closer +to me--and I felt uncomfortable under their obstinate, heavy, menacing +stare; at times those eyes glowed with a malignant inward fire, a fire +such as I have seen in the eyes of a pointer dog when it 'points' at a +hare; and, like a pointer dog, _he_ kept _his_ eyes intently following +mine when I 'tried to double,' that is, tried to turn my eyes away. + + * * * * * + +So passed I do not know how long--perhaps a minute, perhaps a quarter of +an hour. He still gazed at me; I still experienced a certain discomfort +and alarm and still thought of the Frenchman. Twice I tried to say to +myself, 'What nonsense! what a farce!' I tried to smile, to shrug my +shoulders.... It was no use! All initiative had all at once 'frozen up' +within me--I can find no other word for it. I was overcome by a sort of +numbness. Suddenly I noticed that he had left the door, and was standing +a step or two nearer to me; then he gave a slight bound, both feet +together, and stood closer still.... Then again ... and again; while the +menacing eyes were simply fastened on my whole face, and the hands +remained behind, and the broad chest heaved painfully. These leaps +struck me as ridiculous, but I felt dread too, and what I could not +understand at all, a drowsiness began suddenly to come upon me. My +eyelids clung together ... the shaggy figure with the whitish eyes in +the blue smock seemed double before me, and suddenly vanished +altogether! ... I shook myself; he was again standing between the door +and me, but now much nearer.... Then he vanished again--a sort of mist +seemed to fall upon him; again he appeared ... vanished again ... +appeared again, and always closer, closer ... his hard, almost gasping +breathing floated across to me now.... Again the mist fell, and all of a +sudden out of this mist the head of old Dessaire began to take distinct +shape, beginning with the white, brushed-back hair! Yes: there were his +warts, his black eyebrows, his hook nose! There too his green coat with +the brass buttons, the striped waistcoat and jabot.... I shrieked, I got +up.... The old man vanished, and in his place I saw again the man in the +blue smock. He moved staggering to the wall, leaned his head and both +arms against it, and heaving like an over-loaded horse, in a husky voice +said, 'Tea!' Mastridia Karpovna--how she came there I can't say--flew to +him and saying: 'Vassinka! Vassinka!' began anxiously wiping away the +sweat, which simply trickled from his face and hair. I was on the point +of approaching her, but she, so insistently, in such a heart-rending +voice cried: 'Your honour! merciful sir! have pity on us, go away, for +Christ's sake!' that I obeyed, while she turned again to her son. +'Bread-winner, darling,' she murmured soothingly: 'you shall have tea +directly, directly. And you too, sir, had better take a cup of tea at +home!' she shouted after me. + + * * * * * + +When I got home I obeyed Mastridia and ordered some tea; I felt +tired--even weak. 'Well?' Ardalion questioned me, 'have you been? did +you see something?' + +'He did, certainly, show me something ... which, I'll own, I had not +anticipated,' I replied. + +'He's a man of marvellous power,' observed Ardalion, carrying off the +samovar; 'he is held in high esteem among the merchant gentry.' As I +went to bed, and reflected on the incident that had occurred to me, I +fancied at last that I had reached some explanation of it. The man +doubtless possessed a considerable magnetic power; acting by some means, +which I did not understand of course, upon my nerves, he had evoked +within me so vividly, so definitely, the image of the old man of whom I +was thinking, that at last I fancied that I saw him before my eyes.... +Such 'metastases,' such transferences of sensation, are recognised by +science. It was all very well; but the force capable of producing such +effects still remained, something marvellous and mysterious. 'Say what +you will,' I thought, 'I've seen, seen with my own eyes, my dead tutor!' + + * * * * * + +The next day the ball in the Hall of Nobility took place. Sophia's +father called on me and reminded me of the engagement I had made with +his daughter. At ten o'clock I was standing by her side in the middle +of a ballroom lighted up by a number of copper lamps, and was preparing +to execute the not very complicated steps of the French quadrille to +the resounding blare of the military band. Crowds of people were there; +the ladies were especially numerous and very pretty; but the first +place among them would certainly have been given to my partner, if it +had not been for the rather strange, even rather wild look in her eyes. +I noticed that she hardly ever blinked; the unmistakable expression of +sincerity in her eyes did not make up for what was extraordinary in +them. But she had a charming figure, and moved gracefully, though with +constraint. When she waltzed, and, throwing herself a little back, bent +her slender neck towards her right shoulder, as though she wanted to +get away from her partner, nothing more touchingly youthful and pure +could be imagined. She was all in white, with a turquoise cross on a +black ribbon. + +I asked her for a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers +were few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same +expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met +her. Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her +appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually +fixed directly upon the eyes of the person speaking to her, though they +seemed at the same time to see something else, to be absorbed with +something different.... What a strange creature! Not knowing, at last, +how to thaw her, I bethought me of telling her of my adventure of the +previous day. + + * * * * * + +She heard me to the end with evident interest, but was not, as I had +expected, surprised at what I told her, and merely asked whether he was +not called Vassily. I recollected that the old woman had called him +'Vassinka.' 'Yes, his name is Vassily,' I answered; 'do you know him?' + +'There is a saintly man living here called Vassily,' she observed; 'I +wondered whether it was he.' + +'Saintliness has nothing to do with this,' I remarked; 'it's simply +the action of magnetism--a fact of interest for doctors and students +of science.' + +I proceeded to expound my views on the peculiar force called magnetism, +on the possibility of one man's will being brought under the influence +of another's will, and so on; but my explanations--which were, it is +true, somewhat confused--seemed to make no impression on her. Sophie +listened, dropping her clasped hands on her knees with a fan lying +motionless in them; she did not play with it, she did not move her +fingers at all, and I felt that all my words rebounded from her as from +a statue of stone. She heard them, but clearly she had her own +convictions, which nothing could shake or uproot. + +'You can hardly admit miracles!' I cried. + +'Of course I admit them,' she answered calmly. 'And how can one help +admitting them? Are not we told in the gospel that who has but a grain +of faith as big as a mustard seed, he can remove mountains? One need +only have faith--there will be miracles!' + +'It seems there is very little faith nowadays,' I observed; 'anyway, one +doesn't hear of miracles.' + +'But yet there are miracles; you have seen one yourself. No; faith is +not dead nowadays; and the beginning of faith ...' + +'The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,' I interrupted. + +'The beginning of faith,' pursued Sophie, nothing daunted, 'is +self-abasement ... humiliation.' + +'Humiliation even?' I queried. + +'Yes. The pride of man, haughtiness, presumption--that is what must be +utterly rooted up. You spoke of the will--that's what must be broken.' + +I scanned the whole figure of the young girl who was uttering such +sentences.... 'My word, the child's in earnest, too,' was my thought. I +glanced at our neighbours in the mazurka; they, too, glanced at me, and +I fancied that my astonishment amused them; one of them even smiled at +me sympathetically, as though he would say: 'Well, what do you think of +our queer young lady? every one here knows what she's like.' + +'Have you tried to break your will?' I said, turning to Sophie again. + +'Every one is bound to do what he thinks right,' she answered in a +dogmatic tone. 'Let me ask you,' I began, after a brief silence, 'do you +believe in the possibility of calling up the dead?' + +Sophie softly shook her head. + +'There are no dead.' + +'What?' + +'There are no dead souls; they are undying and can always appear, when +they like.... They are always about us.' + +'What? Do you suppose, for instance, that an immortal soul may be at +this moment hovering about that garrison major with the red nose?' + +'Why not? The sunlight falls on him and his nose, and is not the +sunlight, all light, from God? And what does external appearance +matter? To the pure all things are pure! Only to find a teacher, to +find a leader!' + +'But excuse me, excuse me,' I put in, not, I must own, without malicious +intent. 'You want a leader ... but what is your priest for?' + +Sophie looked coldly at me. + +'You mean to laugh at me, I suppose. My priestly father tells me what I +ought to do; but what I want is a leader who would show me himself in +action how to sacrifice one's self!' + +She raised her eyes towards the ceiling. With her childlike face, and +that expression of immobile absorption, of secret, continual perplexity, +she reminded me of the pre-raphaelite Madonnas.... + +'I have read somewhere,' she went on, not turning to me, and hardly +moving her lips, 'of a grand person who directed that he should be +buried under a church porch so that all the people who came in should +tread him under foot and trample on him.... That is what one ought to +do in life.' + +Boom! boom! tra-ra-ra! thundered the drums from the band.... I must own +such a conversation at a ball struck me as eccentric in the extreme; the +ideas involuntarily kindled within me were of a nature anything but +religious. I took advantage of my partner's being invited to one of the +figures of the mazurka to avoid renewing our quasi-theological +discussion. + +A quarter of an hour later I conducted Mademoiselle Sophie to her +father, and two days after I left the town of T----, and the image of +the girl with the childlike face and the soul impenetrable as stone +slipped quickly out of my memory. + +Two years passed, and it chanced that that image was recalled again to +me. It was like this: I was talking to a colleague who had just +returned from a tour in South Russia. He had spent some time in the +town of T----, and told me various items of news about the +neighbourhood. 'By the way!' he exclaimed, 'you knew V. G. B. very +well, I fancy, didn't you?' + +'Of course I know him.' + +'And his daughter Sophia, do you know her?' + +'I've seen her twice.' + +'Only fancy, she's run away!' + +'How's that?' + +'Well, I don't know. Three months ago she disappeared, and nothing's +been heard of her. And the astonishing thing is no one can make out whom +she's run off with. Fancy, they've not the slightest idea, not the +smallest suspicion! She'd refused all the offers made her, and she was +most proper in her behaviour. Ah, these quiet, religious girls are the +ones! It's made an awful scandal all over the province! B.'s in +despair.... And whatever need had she to run away? Her father carried +out her wishes in everything. And what's so unaccountable, all the +Lovelaces of the province are there all right, not one's missing.' + +'And they've not found her up till now?' + +'I tell you she might as well be at the bottom of the sea! It's one rich +heiress less in the world, that's the worst of it.' + +This piece of news greatly astonished me. It did not seem at all in +keeping with the recollection I had of Sophia B. But there! anything +may happen. + + * * * * * + +In the autumn of the same year fate brought me--again on official +business--into the S---- province, which is, as every one knows, next to +the province of T----. It was cold and rainy weather; the worn-out +posting-horses could scarcely drag my light trap through the black slush +of the highroad. One day, I remember, was particularly unlucky: three +times we got 'stuck' in the mud up to the axles of the wheels; my driver +was continually giving up one rut and with moans and grunts trudging +across to the other, and finding things no better with that. In fact, +towards evening I was so exhausted that on reaching the posting-station +I decided to spend the night at the inn. I was given a room with a +broken-down wooden sofa, a sloping floor, and torn paper on the walls; +there was a smell in it of kvas, bast-mats, onions, and even +turpentine, and swarms of flies were on everything; but at any rate I +could find shelter there from the weather, and the rain had set in, as +they say, for the whole day. I ordered a samovar to be brought, and, +sitting on the sofa, settled down to those cheerless wayside reflections +so familiar to travellers in Russia. + +They were broken in upon by a heavy knocking that came from the common +room, from which my room was separated by a deal partition. This sound +was accompanied by an intermittent metallic jingle, like the clank of +chains, and a coarse male voice boomed out suddenly: 'The blessing of +God on all within this house. The blessing of God! the blessing of God! +Amen, amen! Scatter His enemies!' repeated the voice, with a sort of +incongruous and savage drawl on the last syllable of each word.... A +noisy sigh was heard, and a ponderous body sank on to the bench with the +same jingling sound. 'Akulina! servant of God, come here!' the voice +began again: 'Behold! Clothed in rags and blessed! ... Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo! +Merciful God, merciful God, merciful God!' the voice droned like a +deacon in the choir. 'Merciful God, Creator of my body, behold my +iniquity.... O-ho-ho! Ha-ha! ... Tfoo! And all abundance be to this house +in the seventh hour!' + +'Who's that?' I asked the hospitable landlady, who came in with +the samovar. + +'That, your honour,' she answered me in a hurried whisper, 'is a +blessed, holy man. He's not long come into our parts; and here he's +graciously pleased to visit us. In such weather! The wet's simply +trickling from him, poor dear man, in streams! And you should see the +chains on him--such a lot!' + +'The blessing of God! the blessing of God!' the voice was heard again. +'Akulina! Hey, Akulina! Akulinushka--friend! where is our paradise? Our +fair paradise of bliss? In the wilderness is our paradise, ... +para-dise.... And to this house, from beginning of time, great +happiness, ... o ... o ... o ...' The voice muttered something +inarticulate, and again, after a protracted yawn, there came the hoarse +laugh. This laugh broke out every time, as it were, involuntarily, and +every time it was followed by vigorous spitting. + +'Ah, me! Stepanitch isn't here! That's the worst of it!' the landlady +said, as it were to herself, as she stood with every sign of the +profoundest attention at the door. 'He will say some word of salvation, +and I, foolish woman, may not catch it!' + +She went out quickly. + + * * * * * + +In the partition there was a chink; I applied my eye to it. The crazy +pilgrim was sitting on a bench with his back to me; I saw nothing but +his shaggy head, as huge as a beer-can, and a broad bent back in a +patched and soaking shirt. Before him, on the earth floor, knelt a +frail-looking woman in a jacket, such as are worn by women of the +artisan class--old and wet through--and with a dark kerchief pulled down +almost over her eyes. She was trying to pull the holy man's boots off; +her fingers slid off the greasy, slippery leather. The landlady was +standing near her, with her arms folded across her bosom, gazing +reverently at the 'man of God.' He was, as before, mumbling some +inarticulate words. + +At last the woman succeeded in tugging off the boots. She almost fell +backwards, but recovered herself, and began unwinding the strips of rag +which were wrapped round the vagrant's legs. On the sole of his foot +there was a wound.... I turned away. + +'A cup of tea wouldn't you bid me get you, my dear?' I heard the hostess +saying in an obsequious voice. + +'What a notion!' responded the holy man. 'To indulge the sinful body.... +O-ho-ho! Break all the bones in it ... but she talks of tea! Oh, oh, +worthy old woman, Satan is strong within us.... Fight him with hunger, +fight him with cold, with the sluice-gates of heaven, the pouring, +penetrating rain, and he takes no harm--he is alive still! Remember the +day of the Intercession of the Mother of God! You will receive, you will +receive in abundance!' + +The landlady could not resist uttering a faint groan of admiration. + +'Only listen to me! Give all thou hast, give thy head, give thy shirt! +If they ask not of thee, yet give! For God is all-seeing! Is it hard for +Him to destroy your roof? He has given thee bread in His mercy, and do +thou bake it in the oven! He seeth all! Se ... e ... eth! Whose eye is +in the triangle? Say, whose?' + +The landlady stealthily crossed herself under her neckerchief. + +'The old enemy is adamant! A ... da ... mant! A ... da ... mant!' the +religious maniac repeated several times, gnashing his teeth. 'The old +serpent! But God will arise! Yes, God will arise and scatter His +enemies! I will call up all the dead! I will go against His enemy.... +Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo!' + +'Have you any oil?' said another voice, hardly audible; 'let me put some +on the wound.... I have got a clean rag.' + +I peeped through the chink again; the woman in the jacket was still +busied with the vagrant's sore foot.... 'A Magdalen!' I thought. + +'I'll get it directly, my dear,' said the woman, and, coming into my +room, she took a spoonful of oil from the lamp burning before the +holy picture. + +'Who's that waiting on him?' I asked. + +'We don't know, sir, who it is; she too, I suppose, is seeking +salvation, atoning for her sins. But what a saintly man he is!' + +'Akulinushka, my sweet child, my dear daughter,' the crazy pilgrim was +repeating meanwhile, and he suddenly burst into tears. + +The woman kneeling before him lifted her eyes to him.... Heavens! where +had I seen those eyes? + +The landlady went up to her with the spoonful of oil. She finished her +operation, and, getting up from the floor, asked if there were a clean +loft and a little hay.... 'Vassily Nikititch likes to sleep on hay,' +she added. + +'To be sure there is, come this way,' answered the woman; 'come this +way, my dear,' she turned to the holy man, 'and dry yourself and rest.' +The man coughed, slowly got up from the bench--his chains clanked +again--and turning round with his face to me, looked for the holy +pictures, and began crossing himself with a wide movement. + +I recognised him instantly: it was the very artisan Vassily, who had +once shown me my dead tutor! + +His features were little changed; only their expression had become still +more unusual, still more terrible.... The lower part of his swollen face +was overgrown with unkempt beard. Tattered, filthy, wild-looking, he +inspired in me more repugnance than horror. He left off crossing +himself, but still his eyes wandered senselessly about the corners of +the room, about the floor, as though he were waiting for something.... + +'Vassily Nikititch, please come,' said the woman in the jacket with a +bow. He suddenly threw up his head and turned round, but stumbled and +tottered.... His companion flew to him at once, and supported him under +the arm. Judging by her voice and figure, she seemed still young; her +face it was almost impossible to see. + +'Akulinushka, friend!' the vagrant repeated once more in a shaking +voice, and opening his mouth wide, and smiting himself on the breast +with his fist, he uttered a deep groan, that seemed to come from the +bottom of his heart. Both followed the landlady out of the room. + +I lay down on my hard sofa and mused a long while on what I had seen. My +mesmeriser had become a regular religious maniac. This was what he had +been brought to by the power which one could not but recognise in him! + + * * * * * + +The next morning I was preparing to go on my way. The rain was falling +as fast as the day before, but I could not delay any longer. My +servant, as he gave me water to wash, wore a special smile on his +face, a smile of restrained irony. I knew that smile well; it +indicated that my servant had heard something discreditable or even +shocking about gentlefolks. He was obviously burning with impatience +to communicate it to me. + +'Well, what is it?' I asked at last. + +'Did your honour see the crazy pilgrim yesterday?' my man began at once. + +'Yes; what then?' + +'And did you see his companion too?' + +'Yes, I saw her.' + +'She's a young lady, of noble family.' + +'What?' + +'It's the truth I'm telling you; some merchants arrived here this +morning from T----; they recognised her. They did tell me her name, but +I've forgotten it.' + +It was like a flash of enlightenment. 'Is the pilgrim still +here?' I asked. + +'I fancy he's not gone yet. He's been ever so long at the gate, and +making such a wonderful wise to-do, that there's no getting by. He's +amusing himself with this tomfoolery; he finds it pay, no doubt.' + +My man belonged to the same class of educated servants as Ardalion. + +'And is the lady with him?' + +'Yes. She's in attendance on him.' + + * * * * * + +I went out on to the steps, and got a view of the crazy pilgrim. He was +sitting on a bench at the gate, and, bent down with both his open hands +pressed on it, he was shaking his drooping head from right to left, for +all the world like a wild beast in a cage. The thick mane of curly hair +covered his eyes, and shook from side to side, and so did his pendulous +lips.... A strange, almost unhuman muttering came from them. His +companion had only just finished washing from a pitcher that was hanging +on a pole, and without having yet replaced her kerchief on her head, was +making her way back to the gate along a narrow plank laid across the +dark puddles of the filthy yard. I glanced at her head, which was now +entirely uncovered, and positively threw up my hands with astonishment: +before me stood Sophie B.! + +She turned quickly round and fixed upon me her blue eyes, immovable as +ever. She was much thinner, her skin looked coarser and had the +yellowish-ruddy tinge of sunburn, her nose was sharper, and her lips +were harder in their lines. But she was not less good-looking; only +besides her old expression of dreamy amazement there was now a different +look--resolute, almost bold, intense and exalted. There was not a trace +of childishness left in the face now. + +I went up to her. 'Sophia Vladimirovna,' I cried, 'can it be you? In +such a dress ... in such company....' + +She started, looked still more intently at me, as though anxious to find +out who was speaking to her, and, without saying a word to me, fairly +rushed to her companion. + +'Akulinushka,' he faltered, with a heavy sigh, 'our sins, sins ...' + +'Vassily Nikititch, let us go at once! Do you hear, at once, at once,' +she said, pulling her kerchief on to her forehead with one hand, while +with the other she supported the pilgrim under the elbow; 'let us go, +Vassily Nikititch: there is danger here.' + +'I'm coming, my good girl, I'm coming,' the crazy pilgrim responded +obediently, and, bending his whole body forward, he got up from the +seat. 'Here's only this chain to fasten....' + +I once more approached Sophia, and told her my name. I began beseeching +her to listen to me, to say one word to me. I pointed to the rain, +which was coming down in bucketsful. I begged her to have some care for +her health, the health of her companion. I mentioned her father.... But +she seemed possessed by a sort of wrathful, a sort of vindictive +excitement: without paying the slightest attention to me, setting her +teeth and breathing hard, she urged on the distracted vagrant in an +undertone, in soft insistent words, girt him up, fastened on his +chains, pulled on to his hair a child's cloth cap with a broken peak, +stuck his staff in his hand, slung a wallet on her own shoulder, and +went with him out at the gate into the street.... To stop her actually +I had not the right, and it would have been of no use; and at my last +despairing call she did not even turn round. Supporting the 'man of +God' under his arm, she stepped rapidly over the black mud of the +street; and in a few moments, across the dim dusk of the foggy morning, +through the thick network of falling raindrops, I saw the last glimpse +of the two figures, the crazy pilgrim and Sophie.... They turned the +corner of a projecting hut, and vanished for ever. + + * * * * * + +I went back to my room. I fell to pondering. I could not understand it; +I could not understand how such a girl, well brought up, young, and +wealthy, could throw up everything and every one, her own home, her +family, her friends, break with all her habits, with all the comforts of +life, and for what? To follow a half-insane vagrant, to become his +servant! I could not for an instant entertain the idea that the +explanation of such a step was to be found in any prompting, however +depraved, of the heart, in love or passion.... One had but to glance at +the repulsive figure of the 'man of God' to dismiss such a notion +entirely! No, Sophie had remained pure; and to her all things were pure; +I could not understand what Sophie had done; but I did not blame her, +as, later on, I have not blamed other girls who too have sacrificed +everything for what they thought the truth, for what they held to be +their vocation. I could not help regretting that Sophie had chosen just +_that_ path; but also I could not refuse her admiration, respect even. +In good earnest she had talked of self-sacrifice, of abasement ... in +_her_, words were not opposed to acts. She had sought a leader, a guide, +and had found him, ... and, my God, what a guide! + +Yes, she had lain down to be trampled, trodden under foot.... In the +process of time, a rumour reached me that her family had succeeded at +last in finding out the lost sheep, and bringing her home. But at home +she did not live long, and died, like a 'Sister of Silence,' without +having spoken a word to any one. + +Peace to your heart, poor, enigmatic creature! Vassily Nikititch is +probably on his crazy wanderings still; the iron health of such +people is truly marvellous. Perhaps, though, his epilepsy may have +done for him. + +BADEN-BADEN, 1869. + + + + +PUNIN AND BABURIN + +PIOTR PETROVITCH'S STORY + + + + +I + + +... I am old and ill now, and my thoughts brood oftenest upon death, +every day coming nearer; rarely I think of the past, rarely I turn the +eyes of my soul behind me. Only from time to time--in winter, as I sit +motionless before the glowing fire, in summer, as I pace with slow tread +along the shady avenue--I recall past years, events, faces; but it is +not on my mature years nor on my youth that my thoughts rest at such +times. They either carry me back to my earliest childhood, or to the +first years of boyhood. Now, for instance, I see myself in the country +with my stern and wrathful grandmother--I was only twelve--and two +figures rise up before my imagination.... + +But I will begin my story consecutively, and in proper order. + + + +I + +1830 + + +The old footman Filippitch came in, on tiptoe, as usual, with a cravat +tied up in a rosette, with tightly compressed lips, 'lest his breath +should be smelt,' with a grey tuft of hair standing up in the very +middle of his forehead. He came in, bowed, and handed my grandmother on +an iron tray a large letter with an heraldic seal. My grandmother put on +her spectacles, read the letter through.... + +'Is he here?' she asked. + +'What is my lady pleased ...' Filippitch began timidly. + +'Imbecile! The man who brought the letter--is he here?' + +'He is here, to be sure he is.... He is sitting in the counting-house.' + +My grandmother rattled her amber rosary beads.... + +'Tell him to come to me.... And you, sir,' she turned to me, 'sit +still.' + +As it was, I was sitting perfectly still in my corner, on the stool +assigned to me. + +My grandmother kept me well in hand! + + * * * * * + +Five minutes later there came into the room a man of five-and-thirty, +black-haired and swarthy, with broad cheek-bones, a face marked with +smallpox, a hook nose, and thick eyebrows, from under which the small +grey eyes looked out with mournful composure. The colour of the eyes and +their expression were out of keeping with the Oriental cast of the rest +of the face. The man was dressed in a decent, long-skirted coat. He +stopped in the doorway, and bowed--only with his head. + +'So your name's Baburin?' queried my grandmother, and she added to +herself: '_Il a l'air d'un armnien._' + +'Yes, it is,' the man answered in a deep and even voice. At the first +brusque sound of my grandmother's voice his eyebrows faintly quivered. +Surely he had not expected her to address him as an equal? + +'Are you a Russian? orthodox?' + +'Yes.' + +My grandmother took off her spectacles, and scanned Baburin from head +to foot deliberately. He did not drop his eyes, he merely folded his +hands behind his back. What particularly struck my fancy was his beard; +it was very smoothly shaven, but such blue cheeks and chin I had never +seen in my life! + +'Yakov Petrovitch,' began my grandmother, 'recommends you strongly +in his letter as sober and industrious; why, then, did you leave +his service?' + +'He needs a different sort of person to manage his estate, madam.' + +'A different ... sort? That I don't quite understand.' + +My grandmother rattled her beads again. 'Yakov Petrovitch writes to me +that there are two peculiarities about you. What peculiarities?' + +Baburin shrugged his shoulders slightly. + +'I can't tell what he sees fit to call peculiarities. Possibly that +I ... don't allow corporal punishment.' + +My grandmother was surprised. 'Do you mean to say Yakov Petrovitch +wanted to flog you?' + +Baburin's swarthy face grew red to the roots of his hair. + +'You have not understood me right, madam. I make it a rule not to employ +corporal punishment ... with the peasants.' + +My grandmother was more surprised than ever; she positively threw up +her hands. + +'Ah!' she pronounced at last, and putting her head a little on one side, +once more she scrutinised Baburin attentively. 'So that's your rule, is +it? Well, that's of no consequence whatever to me; I don't want an +overseer, but a counting-house clerk, a secretary. What sort of a hand +do you write?' + +'I write well, without mistakes in spelling.' + +'That too is of no consequence to me. The great thing for me is for it +to be clear, and without any of those new copybook letters with tails, +that I don't like. And what's your other peculiarity?' + +Baburin moved uneasily, coughed.... + +'Perhaps ... the gentleman has referred to the fact that I am not +alone.' + +'You are married?' + +'Oh no ... but ...' + +My grandmother knit her brows. + +'There is a person living with me ... of the male sex ... a comrade, a +poor friend, from whom I have never parted ... for ... let me see ... +ten years now.' + +'A relation of yours?' + +'No, not a relation--a friend. As to work, there can be no possible +hindrance occasioned by him,' Baburin made haste to add, as though +foreseeing objections. 'He lives at my cost, occupies the same room with +me; he is more likely to be of use, as he is well educated--speaking +without flattery, extremely so, in fact--and his morals are exemplary.' + +My grandmother heard Baburin out, chewing her lips and half +closing her eyes. + +'He lives at your expense?' + +'Yes.' + +'You keep him out of charity?' + +'As an act of justice ... as it's the duty of one poor man to help +another poor man.' + +'Indeed! It's the first time I've heard that. I had supposed till now +that that was rather the duty of rich people.' + +'For the rich, if I may venture to say so, it is an entertainment ... but +for such as we ...' + +'Well, well, that's enough, that's enough,' my grandmother cut him +short; and after a moment's thought she queried, speaking through her +nose, which was always a bad sign, 'And what age is he, your protg?' + +'About my own age.' + +'Really, I imagined that you were bringing him up.' + +'Not so; he is my comrade--and besides ...' + +'That's enough,' my grandmother cut him short a second time. 'You're a +philanthropist, it seems. Yakov Petrovitch is right; for a man in your +position it's something very peculiar. But now let's get to business. +I'll explain to you what your duties will be. And as regards wages.... +_Que faites vous ici?_' added my grandmother suddenly, turning her dry, +yellow face to me:--'_Allez tudier votre devoir de mythologie._' + +I jumped up, went up to kiss my grandmother's hand, and went out,--not +to study mythology, but simply into the garden. + + * * * * * + +The garden on my grandmother's estate was very old and large, and was +bounded on one side by a flowing pond, in which there were not only +plenty of carp and eels, but even loach were caught, those renowned +loach, that have nowadays disappeared almost everywhere. At the head +of this pond was a thick clump of willows; further and higher, on both +sides of a rising slope, were dense bushes of hazel, elder, +honeysuckle, and sloe-thorn, with an undergrowth of heather and clover +flowers. Here and there between the bushes were tiny clearings, +covered with emerald-green, silky, fine grass, in the midst of which +squat funguses peeped out with their comical, variegated pink, lilac, +and straw-coloured caps, and golden balls of 'hen-dazzle' blazed in +light patches. Here in spring-time the nightingales sang, the +blackbirds whistled, the cuckoos called; here in the heat of summer it +was always cool--and I loved to make my way into the wilderness and +thicket, where I had favourite secret spots, known--so, at least, I +imagined--only to me. + +On coming out of my grandmother's room I made straight for one of these +spots, which I had named 'Switzerland.' But what was my astonishment +when, before I had reached 'Switzerland,' I perceived through the +delicate network of half-dry twigs and green branches that some one +besides me had found it out! A long, long figure in a long, loose coat +of yellow frieze and a tall cap was standing in the very spot I loved +best of all! I stole up a little nearer, and made out the face, which +was utterly unknown to me, also very long and soft, with small reddish +eyes, and a very funny nose; drawn out as long as a pod of peas, it +positively over-hung the full lips; and these lips, quivering and +forming a round O, were giving vent to a shrill little whistle, while +the long fingers of the bony hands, placed facing one another on the +upper part of the chest, were rapidly moving with a rotatory action. +From time to time the motion of the hands subsided, the lips ceased +whistling and quivering, the head was bent forward as though listening. +I came still nearer, examined him still more closely.... The stranger +held in each hand a small flat cup, such as people use to tease +canaries and make them sing. A twig snapped under my feet; the stranger +started, turned his dim little eyes towards the copse, and was +staggering away ... but he stumbled against a tree, uttered an +exclamation, and stood still. + +I came out into the open space. The stranger smiled. + +'Good morning,' said I. + +'Good morning, little master!' + +I did not like his calling me little master. Such familiarity! + +'What are you doing here?' I asked sternly. + +'Why, look here,' he responded, never leaving off smiling, 'I'm calling +the little birds to sing.' He showed me his little cups. 'The +chaffinches answer splendidly! You, at your tender years, take delight, +no doubt, in the feathered songsters' notes! Listen, I beg; I will begin +chirping, and they'll answer me directly--it's so delightful!' + +He began rubbing his little cups. A chaffinch actually did chirp in +response from a mountain ash near. The stranger laughed without a sound, +and winked at me. + +The laugh and the wink--every gesture of the stranger, his weak, +lisping voice, his bent knees and thin hands, his very cap and long +frieze coat--everything about him suggested good-nature, something +innocent and droll. + +'Have you been here long?' I asked. + +'I came to-day.' + +'Why, aren't you the person of whom ...' + +'Mr. Baburin spoke to the lady here. The same, the same.' + +'Your friend's name's Baburin, and what's yours?' + +'I'm Punin. Punin's my name; Punin. He's Baburin and I'm Punin.' He set +the little cups humming again. 'Listen, listen to the chaffinch.... How +it carols!' + +This queer creature took my fancy 'awfully' all at once. Like almost all +boys, I was either timid or consequential with strangers, but I felt +with this man as if I had known him for ages. + +'Come along with me,' I said to him; 'I know a place better than +this; there's a seat there; we can sit down, and we can see the dam +from there.' + +'By all means let us go,' my new friend responded in his singing voice. +I let him pass before me. As he walked he rolled from side to side, +tripped over his own feet, and his head fell back. + +I noticed on the back of his coat, under the collar, there hung a small +tassel. 'What's that you've got hanging there?' I asked. + +'Where?' he questioned, and he put his hand up to the collar to feel. +'Ah, the tassel? Let it be! I suppose it was sewn there for ornament! +It's not in the way.' + +I led him to the seat, and sat down; he settled himself beside me. 'It's +lovely here!' he commented, and he drew a deep, deep sigh. 'Oh, how +lovely! You have a most splendid garden! Oh, o--oh!' + +I looked at him from one side. 'What a queer cap you've got!' I couldn't +help exclaiming. 'Show it me here!' + +'By all means, little master, by all means.' He took off the cap; I was +holding out my hand, but I raised my eyes, and--simply burst out +laughing. Punin was completely bald; not a single hair was to be seen on +the high conical skull, covered with smooth white skin. He passed his +open hand over it, and he too laughed. When he laughed he seemed, as it +were, to gulp, he opened his mouth wide, closed his eyes--and vertical +wrinkles flitted across his forehead in three rows, like waves. 'Eh,' +said he at last, 'isn't it quite like an egg?' + +'Yes, yes, exactly like an egg!' I agreed with enthusiasm. 'And have you +been like that long?' + +'Yes, a long while; but what hair I used to have!--A golden fleece like +that for which the Argonauts sailed over the watery deeps.' + +Though I was only twelve, yet, thanks to my mythological studies, I knew +who the Argonauts were; I was the more surprised at hearing the name on +the lips of a man dressed almost in rags. + +'You must have learned mythology, then?' I queried, as I twisted his cap +over and over in my hands. It turned out to be wadded, with a +mangy-looking fur trimming, and a broken cardboard peak. + +'I have studied that subject, my dear little master; I've had time +enough for everything in my life! But now restore to me my covering, it +is a protection to the nakedness of my head.' + +He put on the cap, and, with a downward slope of his whitish eyebrows, +asked me who I was, and who were my parents. + +'I'm the grandson of the lady who owns this place,' I answered. 'I live +alone with her. Papa and mamma are dead.' + +Punin crossed himself. 'May the kingdom of heaven be theirs! So then, +you're an orphan; and the heir, too. The noble blood in you is visible +at once; it fairly sparkles in your eyes, and plays like this ... sh ... +sh ... sh ...' He represented with his fingers the play of the blood. +'Well, and do you know, your noble honour, whether my friend has come to +terms with your grandmamma, whether he has obtained the situation he was +promised?' + +'I don't know.' + +Punin cleared his throat. 'Ah! if one could be settled here, if only for +a while! Or else one may wander and wander far, and find not a place to +rest one's head; the disquieting alarms of life are unceasing, the soul +is confounded....' + +'Tell me,' I interrupted: 'are you of the clerical profession?' + +Punin turned to me and half closed his eyelids. 'And what may be the +cause of that question, gentle youth?' + +'Why, you talk so--well, as they read in church.' + +'Because I use the old scriptural forms of expression? But that ought +not to surprise you. Admitting that in ordinary conversation such forms +of expression are not always in place; but when one soars on the wings +of inspiration, at once the language too grows more exalted. Surely your +teacher--the professor of Russian literature--you do have lessons in +that, I suppose?--surely he teaches you that, doesn't he?' + +'No, he doesn't,' I responded. 'When we stay in the country I have no +teacher. In Moscow I have a great many teachers.' + +'And will you be staying long in the country?' + +'Two months, not longer; grandmother says that I'm spoilt in the +country, though I have a governess even here.' + +'A French governess?' + +'Yes.' + +Punin scratched behind his ear. 'A mamselle, that's to say?' + +'Yes; she's called Mademoiselle Friquet.' I suddenly felt it +disgraceful for me, a boy of twelve, to have not a tutor, but a +governess, like a little girl! 'But I don't mind her,' I added +contemptuously. 'What do I care!' + +Punin shook his head. 'Ah, you gentlefolk, you gentlefolk! you're too +fond of foreigners! You have turned away from what is Russian,--towards +all that's strange. You've turned your hearts to those that come from +foreign parts....' + +'Hullo! Are you talking in verse?' I asked. + +'Well, and why not? I can do that always, as much as you please; for it +comes natural to me....' + +But at that very instant there sounded in the garden behind us a loud +and shrill whistle. My new acquaintance hurriedly got up from the bench. + +'Good-bye, little sir; that's my friend calling me, looking for me.... +What has he to tell me? Good-bye--excuse me....' + +He plunged into the bushes and vanished, while I sat on some time longer +on the seat. I felt perplexity and another feeling, rather an agreeable +one ... I had never met nor spoken to any one like this before. +Gradually I fell to dreaming, but recollected my mythology and sauntered +towards the house. + + * * * * * + +At home, I learned that my grandmother had arranged to take Baburin; he +had been assigned a small room in the servants' quarters, overlooking +the stable-yard. He had at once settled in there with his friend. + +When I had drunk my tea, next morning, without asking leave of +Mademoiselle Friquet, I set off to the servants' quarters. I wanted to +have another chat with the queer fellow I had seen the day before. +Without knocking at the door--the very idea of doing so would never have +occurred to us--I walked straight into the room. I found in it not the +man I was looking for, not Punin, but his protector--the philanthropist, +Baburin. He was standing before the window, without his outer garment, +his legs wide apart. He was busily engaged in rubbing his head and neck +with a long towel. + +'What do you want?' he observed, keeping his hands still raised, and +knitting his brows. + +'Punin's not at home, then?' I queried in the most free-and-easy manner, +without taking off my cap. + +'Mr. Punin, Nikander Vavilitch, at this moment, is not at home, truly,' +Baburin responded deliberately; 'but allow me to make an observation, +young man: it's not the proper thing to come into another person's room +like this, without asking leave.' + +I! ... young man! ... how dared he! ... I grew crimson with fury. + +'You cannot be aware who I am,' I rejoined, in a manner no longer +free-and-easy, but haughty. 'I am the grandson of the mistress here.' + +'That's all the same to me,' retorted Baburin, setting to work with his +towel again. 'Though you are the seignorial grandson, you have no right +to come into other people's rooms.' + +'Other people's? What do you mean? I'm--at home here--everywhere.' + +'No, excuse me: here--I'm at home; since this room has been assigned to +me, by agreement, in exchange for my work.' + +'Don't teach me, if you please,' I interrupted: 'I know better than +you what ...' + +'You must be taught,' he interrupted in his turn, 'for you're at an age +when you ... I know my duties, but I know my rights too very well, and +if you continue to speak to me in that way, I shall have to ask you to +go out of the room....' + +There is no knowing how our dispute would have ended if Punin had not at +that instant entered, shuffling and shambling from side to side. He most +likely guessed from the expression of our faces that some unpleasantness +had passed between us, and at once turned to me with the warmest +expressions of delight. + +'Ah! little master! little master!' he cried, waving his hands wildly, +and going off into his noiseless laugh: 'the little dear! come to pay me +a visit! here he's come, the little dear!' (What's the meaning of it? I +thought: can he be speaking in this familiar way to me?) 'There, come +along, come with me into the garden. I've found something there.... Why +stay in this stuffiness here! let's go!' + +I followed Punin, but in the doorway I thought it as well to turn round +and fling a glance of defiance at Baburin, as though to say, I'm not +afraid of you! + +He responded in the same way, and positively snorted into the +towel--probably to make me thoroughly aware how utterly he despised me! + +What an insolent fellow your friend is!' I said to Punin, directly the +door had closed behind me. + +Almost with horror, Punin turned his plump face to me. + +'To whom did you apply that expression?' he asked me, with round eyes. + +'Why, to him, of course.... What's his name? that ... Baburin.' + +'Paramon Semyonevitch?' + +'Why, yes; that ... blackfaced fellow.' + +'Eh ... eh ... eh ...!' Punin protested, with caressing reproachfulness. +'How can you talk like that, little master! Paramon Semyonevitch is the +most estimable man, of the strictest principles, an extraordinary +person! To be sure, he won't allow any disrespect to him, because--he +knows his own value. That man possesses a vast amount of knowledge--and +it's not a place like this he ought to be filling! You must, my dear, +behave very courteously to him; do you know, he's ...' here Punin bent +down quite to my ear,--'a republican!' + +I stared at Punin. This I had not at all expected. From Keidanov's +manual and other historical works I had gathered the fact that at some +period or other, in ancient times, there had existed republicans, Greeks +and Romans. For some unknown reason I had always pictured them all in +helmets, with round shields on their arms, and big bare legs; but that +in real life, in the actual present, above all, in Russia, in the +province of X----, one could come across republicans--that upset all my +notions, and utterly confounded them! + +'Yes, my dear, yes; Paramon Semyonitch is a republican,' repeated Punin; +'there, so you'll know for the future how one should speak of a man like +that! But now let's go into the garden. Fancy what I've found there! A +cuckoo's egg in a redstart's nest! a lovely thing!' + +I went into the garden with Punin; but mentally I kept repeating: +'republican! re ... pub ... lican!' + +'So,' I decided at last--'that's why he has such a blue chin!' + + * * * * * + +My attitude to these two persons--Punin and Baburin--took definite shape +from that very day. Baburin aroused in me a feeling of hostility with +which there was, however, in a short time, mingled something akin to +respect. And wasn't I afraid of him! I never got over being afraid of +him even when the sharp severity of his manner with me at first had +quite disappeared. It is needless to say that of Punin I had no fear; I +did not even respect him; I looked upon him--not to put too fine a point +on it--as a buffoon; but I loved him with my whole soul! To spend hours +at a time in his company, to be alone with him, to listen to his +stories, became a genuine delight to me. My grandmother was anything but +pleased at this _intimit_ with a person of the 'lower classes'--_du +commun_; but, whenever I could break away, I flew at once to my queer, +amusing, beloved friend. Our meetings became more frequent after the +departure of Mademoiselle Friquet, whom my grandmother sent back to +Moscow in disgrace because, in conversation with a military staff +captain, visiting in the neighbourhood, she had had the insolence to +complain of the dulness which reigned in our household. And Punin, for +his part, was not bored by long conversations with a boy of twelve; he +seemed to seek them of himself. How often have I listened to his +stories, sitting with him in the fragrant shade, on the dry, smooth +grass, under the canopy of the silver poplars, or among the reeds above +the pond, on the coarse, damp sand of the hollow bank, from which the +knotted roots protruded, queerly interlaced, like great black veins, +like snakes, like creatures emerging from some subterranean region! +Punin told me the whole story of his life in minute detail, describing +all his happy adventures, and all his misfortunes, with which I always +felt the sincerest sympathy! His father had been a deacon;--'a splendid +man--but, under the influence of drink, stern to the last extreme.' + +Punin himself had received his education in a seminary; but, unable to +stand the severe thrashings, and feeling no inclination for the priestly +calling, he had become a layman, and in consequence had experienced all +sorts of hardships; and, finally, had become a vagrant. 'And had I not +met with my benefactor, Paramon Semyonitch,' Punin commonly added (he +never spoke of Baburin except in this way), 'I should have sunk into the +miry abysses of poverty and vice.' Punin was fond of high-sounding +expressions, and had a great propensity, if not for lying, for romancing +and exaggeration; he admired everything, fell into ecstasies over +everything.... And I, in imitation of him, began to exaggerate and be +ecstatic, too. 'What a crazy fellow you've grown! God have mercy on +you!' my old nurse used to say to me. Punin's narratives used to +interest me extremely; but even better than his stories I loved the +readings we used to have together. + +It is impossible to describe the feeling I experienced when, snatching +a favourable moment, suddenly, like a hermit in a tale or a good fairy, +he appeared before me with a ponderous volume under his arm, and +stealthily beckoning with his long crooked finger, and winking +mysteriously, he pointed with his head, his eyebrows, his shoulders, +his whole person, toward the deepest recesses of the garden, whither no +one could penetrate after us, and where it was impossible to find us +out. And when we had succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had +satisfactorily reached one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side +by side, and, at last, the book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent +odour, inexpressibly sweet to me then, of mildew and age;--with what a +thrill, with what a wave of dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at +the lips of Punin, those lips from which in a moment a stream of such +delicious eloquence was to flow! At last the first sounds of the +reading were heard. Everything around me vanished ... no, not vanished, +but grew far away, passed into clouds of mist, leaving behind only an +impression of something friendly and protecting. Those trees, those +green leaves, those high grasses screen us, hide us from all the rest +of the world; no one knows where we are, what we are about--while with +us is poetry, we are saturated in it, intoxicated with it, something +solemn, grand, mysterious is happening to us.... Punin, by preference, +kept to poetry, musical, sonorous poetry; he was ready to lay down his +life for poetry. He did not read, he declaimed the verse majestically, +in a torrent of rhythm, in a rolling outpour through his nose, like a +man intoxicated, lifted out of himself, like the Pythian priestess. And +another habit he had: first he would lisp the verses through softly, in +a whisper, as it were mumbling them to himself.... This he used to call +the rough sketch of the reading; then he would thunder out the same +verse in its 'fair copy,' and would all at once leap up, throw up his +hand, with a half-supplicating, half-imperious gesture.... In this way +we went through not only Lomonosov, Sumarokov, and Kantemir (the older +the poems, the more they were to Punin's taste), but even Heraskov's +_Rossiad_. And, to tell the truth, it was this same _Rossiad_ which +aroused my enthusiasm most. There is in it, among others, a mighty +Tatar woman, a gigantic heroine; I have forgotten even her name now; +but in those days my hands and feet turned cold as soon as it was +mentioned. 'Yes,' Punin would say, nodding his head with great +significance, 'Heraskov, he doesn't let one off easily. At times one +comes upon a line, simply heart-breaking.... One can only stick to it, +and do one's best.... One tries to master it, but he breaks away again +and trumpets, trumpets, with the crash of cymbals. His name's been well +bestowed on him--the very word, Herrraskov!' Lomonosov Punin found +fault with for too simple and free a style; while to Derzhavin he +maintained an attitude almost of hostility, saying that he was more of +a courtier than a poet. In our house it was not merely that no +attention was given to literature, to poetry; but poetry, especially +Russian poetry, was looked upon as something quite undignified and +vulgar; my grandmother did not even call it poetry, but 'doggrel +verses'; every author of such doggrel was, in her opinion, either a +confirmed toper or a perfect idiot. Brought up among such ideas, it was +inevitable that I should either turn from Punin with disgust--he was +untidy and shabby into the bargain, which was an offence to my +seignorial habits--or that, attracted and captivated by him, I should +follow his example, and be infected by his passion for poetry.... And +so it turned out. I, too, began reading poetry, or, as my grandmother +expressed it, poring over doggrel trash.... I even tried my hand at +versifying, and composed a poem, descriptive of a barrel-organ, in +which occurred the following two lines: + + + 'Lo, the barrel turns around, + And the cogs within resound.' + + +Punin commended in this effort a certain imitative melody, but +disapproved of the subject itself as low and unworthy of lyrical +treatment. + +Alas! all those efforts and emotions and transports, our solitary +readings, our life together, our poetry, all came to an end at once. +Trouble broke upon us suddenly, like a clap of thunder. + + * * * * * + +My grandmother in everything liked cleanliness and order, quite in the +spirit of the active generals of those days; cleanliness and order were +to be maintained too in our garden. And so from time to time they +'drove' into it poor peasants, who had no families, no land, no beasts +of their own, and those among the house serfs who were out of favour or +superannuated, and set them to clearing the paths, weeding the borders, +breaking up and sifting the earth in the beds, and so on. Well, one day, +in the very heat of these operations, my grandmother went into the +garden, and took me with her. On all sides, among the trees and about +the lawns, we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all +sides we heard the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of +clods of earth on the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers, +my grandmother with her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was +working with less energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap, +too, with no show of eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young, +with a wasted face, and sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all +torn and patched, scarcely held together over his narrow shoulders. + +'Who's that?' my grandmother inquired of Filippitch, who was walking on +tiptoe behind her. + +'Of whom ... you are pleased ...' Filippitch stammered. + +'Oh, fool! I mean the one that looked so sullenly at me. There, standing +yonder, not working.' + +'Oh, him! Yes ... th ... th ... that's Yermil, son of Pavel Afanasiitch, +now deceased.' + +Pavel Afanasiitch had been, ten years before, head butler in my +grandmother's house, and stood particularly high in her favour. But +suddenly falling into disgrace, he was as suddenly degraded to being +herdsman, and did not long keep even that position. He sank lower still, +and struggled on for a while on a monthly pittance of flour in a little +hut far away. At last he had died of paralysis, leaving his family in +the most utter destitution. + +'Aha!' commented my grandmother; 'it's clear the apple's not fallen far +from the tree. Well, we shall have to make arrangements about this +fellow too. I've no need of people like that, with scowling faces.' + +My grandmother went back to the house--and made arrangements. Three +hours later Yermil, completely 'equipped,' was brought under the window +of her room. The unfortunate boy was being transported to a settlement; +the other side of the fence, a few steps from him, was a little cart +loaded with his poor belongings. Such were the times then. Yermil stood +without his cap, with downcast head, barefoot, with his boots tied up +with a string behind his back; his face, turned towards the seignorial +mansion, expressed not despair nor grief, nor even bewilderment; a +stupid smile was frozen on his colourless lips; his eyes, dry and +half-closed, looked stubbornly on the ground. My grandmother was +apprised of his presence. She got up from the sofa, went, with a faint +rustle of her silken skirts, to the window of the study, and, holding +her golden-rimmed double eyeglass on the bridge of her nose, looked at +the new exile. In her room there happened to be at the moment four other +persons, the butler, Baburin, the page who waited on my grandmother in +the daytime, and I. + +My grandmother nodded her head up and down.... + +'Madam,' a hoarse almost stifled voice was heard suddenly. I looked +round. Baburin's face was red ... dark red; under his overhanging brows +could be seen little sharp points of light.... There was no doubt about +it; it was he, it was Baburin, who had uttered the word 'Madam.' + +My grandmother too looked round, and turned her eyeglass from Yermil +to Baburin. + +'Who is that ... speaking?' she articulated slowly ... through her nose. +Baburin moved slightly forward. + +'Madam,' he began, 'it is I.... I venture ... I imagine ... I make bold +to submit to your honour that you are making a mistake in acting as ... +as you are pleased to act at this moment.' + +'That is?' my grandmother said, in the same voice, not removing +her eyeglass. + +'I take the liberty ...' Baburin went on distinctly, uttering every word +though with obvious effort--'I am referring to the case of this lad who +is being sent away to a settlement ... for no fault of his. Such +arrangements, I venture to submit, lead to dissatisfaction, and to +other--which God forbid!--consequences, and are nothing else than a +transgression of the powers allowed to seignorial proprietors.' + +'And where have you studied, pray?' my grandmother asked after a short +silence, and she dropped her eyeglass. + +Baburin was disconcerted. 'What are you pleased to wish?' he muttered. + +'I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.' + +'I ... my education ...' Baburin was beginning. + +My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 'It seems,' she +interrupted, 'that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of +absolutely no consequence to me--among my subjects I am sovereign, and +answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having people +criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their +business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript +position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always +lived till you came, and so I shall live after you've gone. You do not +suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,' my grandmother turned to +the steward, 'pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time +to-day! D'you hear? Don't put me into a passion. And the other too ... +the fool that lives with him--to be sent off too. What's Yermilka +waiting for?' she added, looking out of window, 'I have seen him. What +more does he want?' My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the +direction of the window, as though to drive away an importunate fly. +Then she sat down in a low chair, and turning towards us, gave the order +grimly: 'Everybody present to leave the room!' + +We all withdrew--all, except the day page, to whom my grandmother's +words did not apply, because he was nobody. + +My grandmother's decree was carried out to the letter. Before dinner, +both Baburin and my friend Punin were driving away from the place. I +will not undertake to describe my grief, my genuine, truly childish +despair. It was so strong that it stifled even the feeling of +awe-stricken admiration inspired by the bold action of the republican +Baburin. After the conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to +his room and began packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one +look, though I was the whole time hanging about him, or rather, in +reality, about Punin. The latter was utterly distraught, and he too said +nothing; but he was continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his +eyes ... always the same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did +not venture to criticise his 'benefactor'--Paramon Semyonitch could not +make a mistake,--but great was his distress and dejection. Punin and I +made an effort to read something out of the _Rossiad_ for the last time; +we even locked ourselves up in the lumber-room--it was useless to dream +of going into the garden--but at the very first line we both broke down, +and I fairly bellowed like a calf, in spite of my twelve years, and my +claims to be grown-up. + +When he had taken his seat in the carriage Baburin at last turned to me, +and with a slight softening of the accustomed sternness of his face, +observed: 'It's a lesson for you, young gentleman; remember this +incident, and when you grow up, try to put an end to such acts of +injustice. Your heart is good, your nature is not yet corrupted.... +Mind, be careful; things can't go on like this!' Through my tears, which +streamed copiously over my nose, my lips, and my chin, I faltered out +that I would ... I would remember, that I promised ... I would do ... I +would be sure ... quite sure ... + +But at this point, Punin, whom I had before this embraced twenty times +(my cheeks were burning from the contact with his unshaven beard, and I +was odoriferous of the smell that always clung to him)--at this point a +sudden frenzy came over Punin. He jumped up on the seat of the cart, +flung both hands up in the air, and began in a voice of thunder (where +he got it from!) to declaim the well-known paraphrase of the Psalm of +David by Derzhavin,--a poet for this occasion--not a courtier. + + 'God the All-powerful doth arise + And judgeth in the congregation of the mighty! ... + How long, how long, saith the Lord, + Will ye have mercy on the wicked? + "Ye have to keep the laws...."' + +'Sit down!' Baburin said to him. + +Punin sat down, but continued: + + 'To save the guiltless and needy, + To give shelter to the afflicted, + To defend the weak from the oppressors.' + +Punin at the word 'oppressors' pointed to the seignorial abode, and then +poked the driver in the back. + + 'To deliver the poor out of bondage! + They know not! neither will they understand! ...' + +Nikolai Antonov running out of the seignorial abode, shouted at the top +of his voice to the coachman: 'Get away with you! owl! go along! don't +stay lingering here!' and the cart rolled away. Only in the distance +could still be heard: + + 'Arise, O Lord God of righteousness! ... + Come forth to judge the unjust-- + And be Thou the only Ruler of the nations!' + +'What a clown!' remarked Nikolai Antonov. + +'He didn't get enough of the rod in his young days,' observed the +deacon, appearing on the steps. He had come to inquire what hour it +would please the mistress to fix for the night service. + +The same day, learning that Yermil was still in the village, and would +not till early next morning be despatched to the town for the execution +of certain legal formalities, which were intended to check the +arbitrary proceedings of the landowners, but served only as a source of +additional revenue to the functionaries in superintendence of them, I +sought him out, and, for lack of money of my own, handed him a bundle, +in which I had tied up two pocket-handkerchiefs, a shabby pair of +slippers, a comb, an old night-gown, and a perfectly new silk cravat. +Yermil, whom I had to wake up--he was lying on a heap of straw in the +back yard, near the cart--Yermil took my present rather indifferently, +with some hesitation in fact, did not thank me, promptly poked his head +into the straw and fell asleep again. I went home somewhat +disappointed. I had imagined that he would be astonished and overjoyed +at my visit, would see in it a pledge of my magnanimous intentions for +the future--and instead of that ... + +'You may say what you like--these people have no feeling,' was my +reflection on my homeward way. + +My grandmother, who had for some reason left me in peace the whole of +that memorable day, looked at me suspiciously when I came after supper +to say good-night to her. + +'Your eyes are red,' she observed to me in French; 'and there's a smell +of the peasant's hut about you. I am not going to enter into an +examination of what you've been feeling and doing--I should not like to +be obliged to punish you--but I hope you will get over all your +foolishness, and begin to conduct yourself once more in a manner +befitting a well-bred boy. However, we are soon going back to Moscow, +and I shall get you a tutor--as I see you need a man's hand to manage +you. You can go.' + +We did, as a fact, go back soon after to Moscow. + + + + +II + +1837 + + +Seven years had passed by. We were living as before at Moscow--but I was +by now a student in my second year--and the authority of my grandmother, +who had aged very perceptibly in the last years, no longer weighed upon +me. Of all my fellow-students the one with whom I was on the friendliest +terms was a light-hearted and good-natured youth called Tarhov. Our +habits and our tastes were similar. Tarhov was a great lover of poetry, +and himself wrote verses; while in me the seeds sown by Punin had not +been without fruit. As is often the case with young people who are very +close friends, we had no secrets from one another. But behold, for +several days together I noticed a certain excitement and agitation in +Tarhov.... He disappeared for hours at a time, and I did not know where +he had got to--a thing which had never happened before. I was on the +point of demanding, in the name of friendship, a full explanation.... He +anticipated me. + +One day I was sitting in his room.... 'Petya,' he said suddenly, +blushing gaily, and looking me straight in the face, 'I must introduce +you to my muse.' + +'Your muse! how queerly you talk! Like a classicist. (Romanticism was at +that time, in 1837, at its full height.) As if I had not known it ever +so long--your muse! Have you written a new poem, or what?' + +'You don't understand what I mean,' rejoined Tarhov, still laughing and +blushing. 'I will introduce you to a living muse.' + +'Aha! so that's it! But how is she--yours?' + +'Why, because ... But hush, I believe it's she coming here.' + +There was the light click of hurrying heels, the door opened, and in the +doorway appeared a girl of eighteen, in a chintz cotton gown, with a +black cloth cape on her shoulders, and a black straw hat on her fair, +rather curly hair. On seeing me she was frightened and disconcerted, and +was beating a retreat ... but Tarhov at once rushed to meet her. + +'Please, please, Musa Pavlovna, come in! This is my great friend, a +splendid fellow--and the soul of discretion. You've no need to be afraid +of him. Petya,' he turned to me, 'let me introduce my Musa--Musa +Pavlovna Vinogradov, a great friend of mine.' + +I bowed. + +'How is that ... Musa?' I was beginning.... Tarhov laughed. 'Ah, you +didn't know there was such a name in the calendar? I didn't know it +either, my boy, till I met this dear young lady. Musa! such a charming +name! And suits her so well!' + +I bowed again to my comrade's great friend. She left the door, took two +steps forward and stood still. She was very attractive, but I could not +agree with Tarhov's opinion, and inwardly said to myself: 'Well, she's a +strange sort of muse!' + +The features of her curved, rosy face were small and delicate; there was +an air of fresh, buoyant youth about all her slender, miniature figure; +but of the muse, of the personification of the muse, I--and not only +I--all the young people of that time had a very different conception! +First of all the muse had infallibly to be dark-haired and pale. An +expression of scornful pride, a bitter smile, a glance of inspiration, +and that 'something'--mysterious, demonic, fateful--that was essential +to our conception of the muse, the muse of Byron, who at that time held +sovereign sway over men's fancies. There was nothing of that kind to be +discerned in the face of the girl who came in. Had I been a little older +and more experienced I should probably have paid more attention to her +eyes, which were small and deep-set, with full lids, but dark as agate, +alert and bright, a thing rare in fair-haired people. Poetical +tendencies I should not have detected in their rapid, as it were +elusive, glance, but hints of a passionate soul, passionate to +self-forgetfulness. But I was very young then. + +I held out my hand to Musa Pavlovna--she did not give me hers--she did +not notice my movement; she sat down on the chair Tarhov placed for her, +but did not take off her hat and cape. + +She was, obviously, ill at ease; my presence embarrassed her. She +drew deep breaths, at irregular intervals, as though she were +gasping for air. + +'I've only come to you for one minute, Vladimir Nikolaitch,' she +began--her voice was very soft and deep; from her crimson, almost +childish lips, it seemed rather strange;--'but our madame would not let +me out for more than half an hour. You weren't well the day before +yesterday ... and so, I thought ...' + +She stammered and hung her head. Under the shade of her thick, low brows +her dark eyes darted--to and fro--elusively. There are dark, swift, +flashing beetles that flit so in the heat of summer among the blades of +dry grass. + +'How good you are, Musa, Musotchka!' cried Tarhov. 'But you must stay, +you must stay a little.... We'll have the samovar in directly.' + +'Oh no, Vladimir Nikolaevitch! it's impossible! I must go away +this minute.' + +'You must rest a little, anyway. You're out of breath.... You're tired.' + +'I'm not tired. It's ... not that ... only ... give me another book; +I've finished this one.' She took out of her pocket a tattered grey +volume of a Moscow edition. + +'Of course, of course. Well, did you like it? _Roslavlev_,' added +Tarhov, addressing me. + +'Yes. Only I think _Yury Miloslavsky_ is much better. Our madame is very +strict about books. She says they hinder our working. For, to her +thinking ...' + +'But, I say, _Yury Miloslavsky_'s not equal to Pushkin's _Gipsies_? Eh? +Musa Pavlovna?' Tarhov broke in with a smile. + +'No, indeed! The _Gipsies_ ...' she murmured slowly. 'Oh yes, another +thing, Vladimir Nikolaitch; don't come to-morrow ... you know where.' + +'Why not?' + +'It's impossible.' + +'But why?' + +The girl shrugged her shoulders, and all at once, as though she had +received a sudden shove, got up from her chair. + +'Why, Musa, Musotchka,' Tarhov expostulated plaintively. 'Stay a +little!' + +'No, no, I can't.' She went quickly to the door, took hold of the +handle.... + +'Well, at least, take the book!' + +'Another time.' + +Tarhov rushed towards the girl, but at that instant she darted out of +the room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. 'What a girl! +She's a regular little viper!' he declared with some vexation, and then +sank into thought. + +I stayed at Tarhov's. I wanted to find out what was the meaning of it +all. Tarhov was not disposed to be reserved. He told me that the girl +was a milliner; that he had seen her for the first time three weeks +before in a fashionable shop, where he had gone on a commission for his +sister, who lived in the provinces, to buy a hat; that he had fallen in +love with her at first sight, and that next day he had succeeded in +speaking to her in the street; that she had herself, it seemed, taken +rather a fancy to him. + +'Only, please, don't you suppose,' he added with warmth,--'don't you +imagine any harm of her. So far, at any rate, there's been nothing of +that sort between us. + +'Harm!' I caught him up; 'I've no doubt of that; and I've no doubt +either that you sincerely deplore the fact, my dear fellow! Have +patience--everything will come right' + +'I hope so,' Tarhov muttered through his teeth, though with a laugh. +'But really, my boy, that girl ... I tell you--it's a new type, you +know. You hadn't time to get a good look at her. She's a shy thing!--oo! +such a shy thing! and what a will of her own! But that very shyness is +what I like in her. It's a sign of independence! I'm simply over head +and ears, my boy!' + +Tarhov fell to talking of his 'charmer,' and even read me the beginning +of a poem entitled: 'My Muse.' His emotional outpourings were not quite +to my taste. I felt secretly jealous of him. I soon left him. + + * * * * * + +A few days after I happened to be passing through one of the arcades of +the Gostinny Dvor. It was Saturday; there were crowds of people +shopping; on all sides, in the midst of the pushing and crushing, the +shopmen kept shouting to people to buy. Having bought what I wanted, I +was thinking of nothing but getting away from their teasing importunity +as soon as possible--when all at once I halted involuntarily: in a fruit +shop I caught sight of my comrade's charmer--Musa, Musa Pavlovna! She +was standing, profile to me, and seemed to be waiting for something. +After a moment's hesitation I made up my mind to go up to her and speak. +But I had hardly passed through the doorway of the shop and taken off my +cap, when she tottered back dismayed, turned quickly to an old man in a +frieze cloak, for whom the shopman was weighing out a pound of raisins, +and clutched at his arm, as though fleeing to put herself under his +protection. The latter, in his turn, wheeled round facing her--and, +imagine my amazement, I recognised him as Punin! + +Yes, it was he; there were his inflamed eyes, his full lips, his soft, +overhanging nose. He had, in fact, changed little during the last seven +years; his face was a little flabbier, perhaps. + +'Nikander Vavilitch!' I cried. 'Don't you know me?' Punin started, +opened his mouth, stared at me.... + +'I haven't the honour,' he was beginning--and all at once he piped out +shrilly: 'The little master of Trotsky (my grandmother's property was +called Trotsky)! Can it be the little master of Trotsky?' + +The pound of raisins tumbled out of his hands. + +'It really is,' I answered, and, picking up Punin's purchase from the +ground, I kissed him. + +He was breathless with delight and excitement; he almost cried, removed +his cap--which enabled me to satisfy myself that the last traces of hair +had vanished from his 'egg'--took a handkerchief out of it, blew his +nose, poked the cap into his bosom with the raisins, put it on again, +again dropped the raisins.... I don't know how Musa was behaving all +this time, I tried not to look at her. I don't imagine Punin's agitation +proceeded from any extreme attachment to my person; it was simply that +his nature could not stand the slightest unexpected shock. The nervous +excitability of these poor devils! + +'Come and see us, my dear boy,' he faltered at last; 'you won't be too +proud to visit our humble nest? You're a student, I see ...' + +'On the contrary, I shall be delighted, really.' + +'Are you independent now?' + +'Perfectly independent.' + +'That's capital! How pleased Paramon Semyonitch will be! To-day he'll be +home earlier than usual, and madame lets her, too, off for Saturdays. +But, stop, excuse me, I am quite forgetting myself. Of course, you don't +know our niece!' + +I hastened to slip in that I had not yet had the pleasure. + +'Of course, of course! How could you know her! Musotchka ... Take note, +my dear sir, this girl's name is Musa--and it's not a nickname, but her +real name ... Isn't that a predestination? Musotchka, I want to +introduce you to Mr. ... Mr. ...' + +'B.,' I prompted. + +'B.,' he repeated. 'Musotchka, listen! You see before you the most +excellent, most delightful of young men. Fate threw us together when he +was still in years of boyhood! I beg you to look on him as a friend!' + +I swung off a low bow. Musa, red as a poppy, flashed a look on me from +under her eyelids, and dropped them immediately. + +'Ah!' thought I, 'you 're one of those who in difficult moments don't +turn pale, but red; that must be made a note of.' + +'You must be indulgent, she's not a fine lady,' observed Punin, and he +went out of the shop into the street; Musa and I followed him. + + * * * * * + +The house in which Punin lodged was a considerable distance from the +Gostinny Dvor, being, in fact, in Sadovoy Street. On the way my former +preceptor in poetry had time to communicate a good many details of his +mode of existence. Since the time of our parting, both he and Baburin +had been tossed about holy Russia pretty thoroughly, and had not +long--only a year and a half before--found a permanent home in Moscow. +Baburin had succeeded in becoming head-clerk in the office of a rich +merchant and manufacturer. 'Not a lucrative berth,' Punin observed with +a sigh,--'a lot of work, and not much profit ... but what's one to do? +One must be thankful to get that! I, too, am trying to earn something by +copying and lessons; only my efforts have so far not been crowned with +success. My writing, you perhaps recollect, is old-fashioned, not in +accordance with the tastes of the day; and as regards lessons--what has +been a great obstacle is the absence of befitting attire; moreover, I +greatly fear that in the matter of instruction--in the subject of +Russian literature--I am also not in harmony with the tastes of the day; +and so it comes about that I am turned away.' (Punin laughed his sleepy, +subdued laugh. He had retained his old, somewhat high-flown manner of +speech, and his old weakness for falling into rhyme.) 'All run after +novelties, nothing but innovations! I dare say you, too, do not honour +the old divinities, and fall down before new idols?' + +'And you, Nikander Vavilitch, do you really still esteem Heraskov?' + +Punin stood still and waved both hands at once. 'In the highest degree, +sir! in the high ... est de ... gree, I do!' + +'And you don't read Pushkin? You don't like Pushkin?' + +Punin again flung his hands up higher than his head. + +'Pushkin? Pushkin is the snake, lying hid in the grass, who is endowed +with the note of the nightingale!' + +While Punin and I talked like this, cautiously picking our way over the +unevenly laid brick pavement of so-called 'white-stoned' Moscow--in +which there is not one stone, and which is not white at all--Musa walked +silently beside us on the side further from me. In speaking of her, I +called her 'your niece.' Punin was silent for a little, scratched his +head, and informed me in an undertone that he had called her so ... +merely as a manner of speaking; that she was really no relation; that +she was an orphan picked up and cared for by Baburin in the town of +Voronezh; but that he, Punin, might well call her daughter, as he loved +her no less than a real daughter. I had no doubt that, though Punin +intentionally dropped his voice, Musa could hear all he said very well; +and she was at once angry, and shy, and embarrassed; and the lights and +shades chased each other over her face, and everything in it was +slightly quivering, the eyelids and brows and lips and narrow nostrils. +All this was very charming, and amusing, and queer. + + * * * * * + +But at last we reached the 'modest nest.' And modest it certainly was, +the nest. It consisted of a small, one-storied house, that seemed almost +sunk into the ground, with a slanting wooden roof, and four dingy +windows in the front. The furniture of the rooms was of the poorest, and +not over tidy, indeed. Between the windows and on the walls hung about a +dozen tiny wooden cages containing larks, canaries, and siskins. 'My +subjects!' Punin pronounced triumphantly, pointing his finger at them. +We had hardly time to get in and look about us, Punin had hardly sent +Musa for the samovar, when Baburin himself came in. He seemed to me to +have aged much more than Punin, though his step was as firm as ever, and +the expression of his face altogether was unchanged; but he had grown +thin and bent, his cheeks were sunken, and his thick black shock of hair +was sprinkled with grey. He did not recognise me, and showed no +particular pleasure when Punin mentioned my name; he did not even smile +with his eyes, he barely nodded; he asked--very carelessly and +drily--whether my _granny_ were living--and that was all. 'I'm not +over-delighted at a visit from a nobleman,' he seemed to say; 'I don't +feel flattered by it.' The republican was a republican still. + +Musa came back; a decrepit little old woman followed her, bringing in a +tarnished samovar. Punin began fussing about, and pressing me to take +things; Baburin sat down to the table, leaned his head on his hands, and +looked with weary eyes about him. At tea, however, he began to talk. He +was dissatisfied with his position. 'A screw--not a man,' so he spoke of +his employer; 'people in a subordinate position are so much dirt to him, +of no consequence whatever; and yet it's not so long since he was under +the yoke himself. Nothing but cruelty and covetousness. It's a bondage +worse than the government's! And all the trade here rests on swindling +and flourishes on nothing else!' + +Hearing such dispiriting utterances, Punin sighed expressively, +assented, shook his head up and down, and from side to side; Musa +maintained a stubborn silence.... She was obviously fretted by the +doubt, what I was, whether I was a discreet person or a gossip. And if I +were discreet, whether it was not with some afterthought in my mind. Her +dark, swift, restless eyes fairly flashed to and fro under their +half-drooping lids. Only once she glanced at me, but so inquisitively, +so searchingly, almost viciously ... I positively started. Baburin +scarcely talked to her at all; but whenever he did address her, there +was a note of austere, hardly fatherly, tenderness in his voice. + +Punin, on the contrary, was continually joking with Musa; she responded +unwillingly, however. He called her little snow-maiden, little +snowflake. + +'Why do you give Musa Pavlovna such names?' I asked. + +Punin laughed. 'Because she's such a chilly little thing.' + +'Sensible,' put in Baburin: 'as befits a young girl.' + +'We may call her the mistress of the house,' cried Punin. 'Hey? Paramon +Semyonitch?' Baburin frowned; Musa turned away ... I did not understand +the hint at the time. + +So passed two hours ... in no very lively fashion, though Punin did his +best to 'entertain the honourable company.' For instance, he squatted +down in front of the cage of one of the canaries, opened the door, and +commanded: 'On the cupola! Begin the concert!' The canary fluttered out +at once, perched on the _cupola_, that is to say, on Punin's bald pate, +and turning from side to side, and shaking its little wings, carolled +with all its might. During the whole time the concert lasted, Punin kept +perfectly still, only conducting with his finger, and half closing his +eyes. I could not help roaring with laughter ... but neither Baburin nor +Musa laughed. + +Just as I was leaving, Baburin surprised me by an unexpected question. +He wished to ask me, as a man studying at the university, what sort of +person Zeno was, and what were my ideas about him. + +'What Zeno?' I asked, somewhat puzzled. + +'Zeno, the sage of antiquity. Surely he cannot be unknown to you?' + +I vaguely recalled the name of Zeno, as the founder of the school of +Stoics; but I knew absolutely nothing more about him. + +'Yes, he was a philosopher,' I pronounced, at last. + +'Zeno,' Baburin resumed in deliberate tones, 'was that wise man, who +declared that suffering was not an evil, since fortitude overcomes all +things, and that the good in this world is one: justice; and virtue +itself is nothing else than justice.' + +Punin turned a reverent ear. + +'A man living here who has picked up a lot of old books, told me that +saying,' continued Baburin; 'it pleased me much. But I see you are not +interested in such subjects.' + +Baburin was right. In such subjects I certainly was not interested. +Since I had entered the university, I had become as much of a republican +as Baburin himself. Of Mirabeau, of Robespierre, I would have talked +with zest. Robespierre, indeed ... why, I had hanging over my +writing-table the lithographed portraits of Fouquier-Tinville and +Chalier! But Zeno! Why drag in Zeno? + +As he said good-bye to me, Punin insisted very warmly on my visiting +them next day, Sunday; Baburin did not invite me at all, and even +remarked between his teeth, that talking to plain people of nondescript +position could not give me any great pleasure, and would most likely be +disagreeable to my _granny_. At that word I interrupted him, however, +and gave him to understand that my grandmother had no longer any +authority over me. + +'Why, you've not come into possession of the property, have you?' +queried Baburin. + +'No, I haven't,' I answered. + +'Well, then, it follows ...' Baburin did not finish his sentence; but I +mentally finished it for him: 'it follows that I'm a boy.' + +'Good-bye,' I said aloud, and I retired. + +I was just going out of the courtyard into the street ... Musa suddenly +ran out of the house, and slipping a piece of crumpled paper into my +hand, disappeared at once. At the first lamp-post I unfolded the paper. +It turned out to be a note. With difficulty I deciphered the pale +pencil-marks. 'For God's sake,' Musa had written, 'come to-morrow after +matins to the Alexandrovsky garden near the Kutafia tower I shall wait +for you don't refuse me don't make me miserable I simply must see you.' +There were no mistakes in spelling in this note, but neither was there +any punctuation. I returned home in perplexity. + + * * * * * + +When, a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, next day, I began +to get near the Kutafia tower (it was early in April, the buds were +swelling, the grass was growing greener, and the sparrows were noisily +chirrupping and quarrelling in the bare lilac bushes), considerably to +my surprise, I caught sight of Musa a little to one side, not far from +the fence. She was there before me. I was going towards her; but she +herself came to meet me. + +'Let's go to the Kreml wall,' she whispered in a hurried voice, running +her downcast eyes over the ground; 'there are people here.' + +We went along the path up the hill. + +'Musa Pavlovna,' I was beginning.... But she cut me short at once. + +'Please,' she began, speaking in the same jerky and subdued voice, +'don't criticise me, don't think any harm of me. I wrote a letter to +you, I made an appointment to meet you, because ... I was afraid.... It +seemed to me yesterday,--you seemed to be laughing all the time. +Listen,' she added, with sudden energy, and she stopped short and turned +towards me: 'listen; if you tell with whom ... if you mention at whose +room you met me, I'll throw myself in the water, I'll drown myself, I'll +make an end of myself!' + +At this point, for the first time, she glanced at me with the +inquisitive, piercing look I had seen before. + +'Why, she, perhaps, really ... would do it,' was my thought. + +'Really, Musa Pavlovna,' I protested, hurriedly: 'how can you have such +a bad opinion of me? Do you suppose I am capable of betraying my friend +and injuring you? Besides, come to that, there's nothing in your +relations, as far as I'm aware, deserving of censure.... For goodness' +sake, be calm.' + +Musa heard me out, without stirring from the spot, or looking at me +again. + +'There's something else I ought to tell you,' she began, moving forward +again along the path, 'or else you may think I'm quite mad! I ought to +tell you, that old man wants to marry me!' + +'What old man? The bald one? Punin?' + +'No--not he! The other ... Paramon Semyonitch.' + +'Baburin?' + +'Yes.' + +'Is it possible? Has he made you an offer?' + +'Yes.' + +'But you didn't consent, of course?' + +'Yes, I did consent ... because I didn't understand what I was about +then. Now it's a different matter.' + +I flung up my hands. 'Baburin--and you! Why, he must be fifty!' + +'He says forty-three. But that makes no difference. If he were +five--and--twenty I wouldn't marry him. Much happiness I should find in +it! A whole week will go by without his smiling once! Paramon Semyonitch +is my benefactor, I am deeply indebted to him; he took care of me, +educated me; I should have been utterly lost but for him; I'm bound to +look on him as a father.... But be his wife! I'd rather die! I'd rather +be in my coffin!' + +'Why do you keep talking about death, Musa Pavlovna?' + +Musa stopped again. + +'Why, is life so sweet, then? Even your friend Vladimir Nikolaitch, I +may say, I've come to love from being wretched and dull: and then +Paramon Semyonitch with his offers of marriage.... Punin, though he +bores me with his verses, he doesn't scare me, anyway; he doesn't make +me read Karamzin in the evenings, when my head's ready to drop off my +shoulders for weariness! And what are these old men to me? They call me +cold, too. With them, is it likely I should be warm? If they try to make +me--I shall go. Paramon Semyonitch himself's always saying: Freedom! +freedom! All right, I want freedom too. Or else it comes to this! +Freedom for every one else, and keeping me in a cage! I'll tell him so +myself. But if you betray me, or drop a hint--remember; they'll never +set eyes on me again!' + +Musa stood in the middle of the path. + +'They'll never set eyes on me again!' she repeated sharply. This time, +too, she did not raise her eyes to me; she seemed to be aware that she +would infallibly betray herself, would show what was in her heart, if +any one looked her straight in the face.... And that was just why she +did not lift her eyes, except when she was angry or annoyed, and then +she stared straight at the person she was speaking to.... But her small +pretty face was aglow with indomitable resolution. + +'Why, Tarhov was right,' flashed through my head; 'this girl is a +new type.' + +'You've no need to be afraid of me,' I declared, at last. + +'Truly? Even, if ... You said something about our relations.... But even +if there were ...' she broke off. + +'Even in that case, you would have no need to be afraid, Musa Pavlovna. +I am not your judge. Your secret is buried here.' I pointed to my bosom. +'Believe me, I know how to appreciate ...' + +'Have you got my letter?' Musa asked suddenly. + +'Yes.' + +'Where?' + +'In my pocket.' + +'Give it here ... quick, quick!' + +I got out the scrap of paper. Musa snatched it in her rough little hand, +stood still a moment facing me, as though she were going to thank me; +but suddenly started, looked round, and without even a word at parting, +ran quickly down the hill. + +I looked in the direction she had taken. At no great distance from the +tower I discerned, wrapped in an 'Almaviva' ('Almavivas' were then in +the height of fashion), a figure which I recognised at once as Tarhov. + +'Aha, my boy,' thought I, 'you must have had notice, then, since you're +on the look-out.' + +And whistling to myself, I started homewards. + + * * * * * + +Next morning I had only just drunk my morning tea, when Punin made his +appearance. He came into my room with rather an embarrassed face, and +began making bows, looking about him, and apologising for his intrusion, +as he called it. I made haste to reassure him. I, sinful man, imagined +that Punin had come with the intention of borrowing money. But he +confined himself to asking for a glass of tea with rum in it, as, +luckily, the samovar had not been cleared away. 'It's with some +trepidation and sinking of heart that I have come to see you,' he said, +as he nibbled a lump of sugar. 'You I do not fear; but I stand in awe of +your honoured grandmother! I am abashed too by my attire, as I have +already communicated to you.' Punin passed his finger along the frayed +edge of his ancient coat. 'At home it's no matter, and in the street, +too, it's no harm; but when one finds one's self in gilded palaces, +one's poverty stares one in the face, and one feels confused!' I +occupied two small rooms on the ground floor, and certainly it would +never have entered any one's head to call them palaces, still less +gilded; but Punin apparently was referring to the whole of my +grandmother's house, though that too was by no means conspicuously +sumptuous. He reproached me for not having been to see them the previous +day; 'Paramon Semyonitch,' said he, 'expected you, though he did declare +that you would be sure not to come. And Musotchka, too, expected you.' + +'What? Musa Pavlovna too?' I queried. + +'She too. She's a charming girl we have got with us, isn't she? What +do you say?' + +'Very charming,' I assented. Punin rubbed his bare head with +extraordinary rapidity. + +'She's a beauty, sir, a pearl or even a diamond--it's the truth I am +telling you.' He bent down quite to my ear. 'Noble blood, too,' he +whispered to me, 'only--you understand--left-handed; the forbidden fruit +was eaten. Well, the parents died, the relations would do nothing for +her, and flung her to the hazards of destiny, that's to say, despair, +dying of hunger! But at that point Paramon Semyonitch steps forward, +known as a deliverer from of old! He took her, clothed her and cared for +her, brought up the poor nestling; and she has blossomed into our +darling! I tell you, a man of the rarest qualities!' + +Punin subsided against the back of the armchair, lifted his hands, and +again bending forward, began whispering again, but still more +mysteriously: 'You see Paramon Semyonitch himself too.... Didn't you +know? he too is of exalted extraction--and on the left side, too. They +do say--his father was a powerful Georgian prince, of the line of King +David.... What do you make of that? A few words--but how much is said? +The blood of King David! What do you think of that? And according to +other accounts, the founder of the family of Paramon Semyonitch was an +Indian Shah, Babur. Blue blood! That's fine too, isn't it? Eh?' + +'Well?' I queried, 'and was he too, Baburin, flung to the hazards +of destiny?' + +Punin rubbed his pate again. 'To be sure he was! And with even greater +cruelty than our little lady! From his earliest childhood nothing but +struggling! And, in fact, I will confess that, inspired by Ruban, I +composed in allusion to this fact a stanza for the portrait of Paramon +Semyonitch. Wait a bit ... how was it? Yes! + + 'E'en from the cradle fate's remorseless blows + Baburin drove towards the abyss of woes! + But as in darkness gleams the light, so now + The conqueror's laurel wreathes his noble brow!' + +Punin delivered these lines in a rhythmic, sing-song voice, with full +rounded vowels, as verses should be read. + +'So that's how it is he's a republican!' I exclaimed. + +'No, that's not why,' Punin answered simply. 'He forgave his father long +ago; but he cannot endure injustice of any sort; it's the sorrows of +others that trouble him!' + +I wanted to turn the conversation on what I had learned from Musa the +day before, that is to say, on Baburin's matrimonial project,--but I did +not know how to proceed. Punin himself got me out of the difficulty. + +'Did you notice nothing?' he asked me suddenly, slily screwing up his +eyes, 'while you were with us? nothing special?' + +'Why, was there anything to notice?' I asked in my turn. + +Punin looked over his shoulder, as though anxious to satisfy himself +that no one was listening. 'Our little beauty, Musotchka, is shortly to +be a married lady!' + +'How so?' + +'Madame Baburin,' Punin announced with an effort, and slapping his +knees several times with his open hands, he nodded his head, like a +china mandarin. + +'Impossible!' I cried, with assumed astonishment. Punin's head +slowly came to rest, and his hands dropped down. 'Why impossible, +allow me to ask?' + +'Because Paramon Semyonitch is more fit to be your young lady's father; +because such a difference in age excludes all likelihood of love--on the +girl's side.' + +'Excludes?' Punin repeated excitedly. 'But what about gratitude? and +pure affection? and tenderness of feeling? Excludes! You must consider +this: admitting that Musa's a splendid girl; but then to gain Paramon +Semyonitch's affection, to be his comfort, his prop--his spouse, in +short! is that not the loftiest possible happiness even for such a girl? +And she realises it! You should look, turn an attentive eye! In Paramon +Semyonitch's presence Musotchka is all veneration, all tremor and +enthusiasm!' + +'That's just what's wrong, Nikander Vavilitch, that she is, as you say, +all tremor. If you love any one you don't feel tremors in their +presence.' + +'But with that I can't agree! Here am I, for instance; no one, I +suppose, could love Paramon Semyonitch more than I, but I ... tremble +before him.' + +'Oh, you--that's a different matter.' + +'How is it a different matter? how? how?' interrupted Punin. I simply +did not know him; he got hot, and serious, almost angry, and quite +dropped his rhythmic sing-song in speaking. 'No,' he declared; 'I notice +that you have not a good eye for character! No; you can't read people's +hearts!' I gave up contradicting him ... and to give another turn to the +conversation, proposed, for the sake of old times, that we should read +something together. + +Punin was silent for a while. + +'One of the old poets? The real ones?' he asked at last. + +'No; a new one.' + +'A new one?' Punin repeated mistrustfully. + +'Pushkin,' I answered. I suddenly thought of the _Gypsies_ which Tarhov +had mentioned not long before. There, by the way, is the ballad about +the old husband. Punin grumbled a little, but I sat him down on the +sofa, so that he could listen more comfortably, and began to read +Pushkin's poem. The passage came at last, 'old husband, cruel husband'; +Punin heard the ballad through to the end, and all at once he got up +impulsively. + +'I can't,' he pronounced, with an intense emotion, which impressed even +me;--'excuse me; I cannot hear more of that author. He is an immoral +slanderer; he is a liar ... he upsets me. I cannot! Permit me to cut +short my visit to-day.' + +I began trying to persuade Punin to remain; but he insisted on having +his own way with a sort of stupid, scared obstinacy: he repeated several +times that he felt upset, and wished to get a breath of fresh air--and +all the while his lips were faintly quivering and his eyes avoided mine, +as though I had wounded him. So he went away. A little while after, I +too went out of the house and set off to see Tarhov. + + * * * * * + +Without inquiring of any one, with a student's usual lack of ceremony, +I walked straight into his lodgings. In the first room there was no +one. I called Tarhov by name, and receiving no answer, was just going +to retreat; but the door of the adjoining room opened, and my friend +appeared. He looked at me rather queerly, and shook hands without +speaking. I had come to him to repeat all I had heard from Punin; and +though I felt at once that I had called on Tarhov at the wrong moment, +still, after talking a little about extraneous matters, I ended by +informing him of Baburin's intentions in regard to Musa. This piece of +news did not, apparently, surprise him much; he quietly sat down at the +table, and fixing his eyes intently upon me, and keeping silent as +before, gave to his features an expression ... an expression, as though +he would say: 'Well, what more have you to tell? Come, out with your +ideas!' I looked more attentively into his face.... It struck me as +eager, a little ironical, a little arrogant even. But that did not +hinder me from bringing out my ideas. On the contrary. 'You're showing +off,' was my thought; 'so I am not going to spare you!' And there and +then I proceeded straightway to enlarge upon the mischief of yielding +to impulsive feelings, upon the duty of every man to respect the +freedom and personal life of another man--in short, I proceeded to +enunciate useful and appropriate counsel. Holding forth in this manner, +I walked up and down the room, to be more at ease. Tarhov did not +interrupt me, and did not stir from his seat; he only played with his +fingers on his chin. + +'I know,' said I ... (Exactly what was my motive in speaking so, I have +no clear idea myself--envy, most likely; it was not devotion to +morality, anyway!) 'I know,' said I, 'that it's no easy matter, no +joking matter; I am sure you love Musa, and that Musa loves you--that it +is not a passing fancy on your part.... But, see, let us suppose! (Here +I folded my arms on my breast.) ... Let us suppose you gratify your +passion--what is to follow? You won't marry her, you know. And at the +same time you are wrecking the happiness of an excellent, honest man, +her benefactor--and--who knows? (here my face expressed at the same time +penetration and sorrow)--possibly her own happiness too....' + +And so on, and so on! + +For about a quarter of an hour my discourse flowed on. Tarhov was still +silent. I began to be disconcerted by this silence. I glanced at him +from time to time, not so much to satisfy myself as to the impression my +words were making on him, as to find out why he neither objected nor +agreed, but sat like a deaf mute. At last I fancied that there was ... +yes, there certainly was a change in his face. It began to show signs of +uneasiness, agitation, painful agitation.... Yet, strange to say, the +eager, bright, laughing something, which had struck me at my first +glance at Tarhov, still did not leave that agitated, that troubled face! +I could not make up my mind whether or no to congratulate myself on the +success of my sermon, when Tarhov suddenly got up, and pressing both my +hands, said, speaking very quickly, 'Thank you, thank you. You're right, +of course, ... though, on the other side, one might observe ... What is +your Baburin you make so much of, after all? An honest fool--and nothing +more! You call him a republican--and he's simply a fool! Oo! That's what +he is! All his republicanism simply means that he can never get on +anywhere!' + +'Ah! so that's your idea! A fool! can never get on!--but let me tell +you,' I pursued, with sudden heat, 'let me tell you, my dear Vladimir +Nikolaitch, that in these days to get on nowhere is a sign of a fine, a +noble nature! None but worthless people--bad people--get on anywhere and +accommodate themselves to everything. You say Baburin is an honest fool! +Why, is it better, then, to your mind, to be dishonest and clever?' + +'You distort my words!' cried Tarhov. 'I only wanted to explain how I +understand that person. Do you think he's such a rare specimen? Not a +bit of it! I've met other people like him in my time. A man sits with an +air of importance, silent, obstinate, angular.... O-ho-ho! say you. It +shows that there's a great deal in him! But there's nothing in him, not +one idea in his head--nothing but a sense of his own dignity.' + +'Even if there is nothing else, that's an honourable thing,' I broke +in. 'But let me ask where you have managed to study him like this? You +don't know him, do you? Or are you describing him ... from what Musa +tells you?' + +Tarhov shrugged his shoulders. 'Musa and I ... have other things to talk +of. I tell you what,' he added, his whole body quivering with +impatience,--'I tell you what: if Baburin has such a noble and honest +nature, how is it he doesn't see that Musa is not a fit match for him? +It's one of two things: either he knows that what he's doing to her is +something of the nature of an outrage, all in the name of gratitude ... +and if so, what about his honesty?--or he doesn't realise it ... and in +that case, what can one call him but a fool?' + +I was about to reply, but Tarhov again clutched my hands, and again +began talking in a hurried voice. 'Though ... of course ... I confess +you are right, a thousand times right.... You are a true friend ... but +now leave me alone, please.' + +I was puzzled. 'Leave you alone?' + +'Yes. I must, don't you see, think over all you've just said, +thoroughly.... I have no doubt you are right ... but now leave me +alone!' + +'You 're in such a state of excitement ...' I was beginning. + +'Excitement? I?' Tarhov laughed, but instantly pulled himself up. 'Yes, +of course I am. How could I help being? You say yourself it's no joking +matter. Yes; I must think about it ... alone.' He was still squeezing my +hands. 'Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye!' + +'Good-bye,' I repeated. 'Good-bye, old boy!' As I was going away I flung +a last glance at Tarhov. He seemed pleased. At what? At the fact that I, +like a true friend and comrade, had pointed out the danger of the way +upon which he had set his foot--or that I was going? Ideas of the most +diverse kind were floating in my head the whole day till evening--till +the very instant when I entered the house occupied by Punin and Baburin, +for I went to see them the same day. I am bound to confess that some of +Tarhov's phrases had sunk deep into my soul ... and were ringing in my +ears.... In truth, was it possible Baburin ... was it possible he did +not see she was not a fit match for him? + +But could this possibly be: Baburin, the self-sacrificing Baburin--an +honest fool! + + * * * * * + +Punin had said, when he came to see me, that I had been expected there +the day before. That may have been so, but on this day, it is certain, +no one expected me.... I found every one at home, and every one was +surprised at my visit. Baburin and Punin were both unwell: Punin had a +headache, and he was lying curled up on the sofa, with his head tied up +in a spotted handkerchief, and strips of cucumber applied to his +temples. Baburin was suffering from a bilious attack; all yellow, +almost dusky, with dark rings round his eyes, with scowling brow and +unshaven chin--he did not look much like a bridegroom! I tried to go +away.... But they would not let me go, and even made tea. I spent +anything but a cheerful evening. Musa, it is true, had no ailment, and +was less shy than usual too, but she was obviously vexed, angry.... At +last she could not restrain herself, and, as she handed me a cup of +tea, she whispered hurriedly: 'You can say what you like, you may try +your utmost, you won't make any difference.... So there!' I looked at +her in astonishment, and, seizing a favourable moment, asked her, also +in a whisper, 'What's the meaning of your words?' 'I'll tell you,' she +answered, and her black eyes, gleaming angrily under her frowning +brows, were fastened for an instant on my face, and turned away at +once: 'the meaning is that I heard all you said there to-day, and thank +you for nothing, and things won't be as you 'd have them, anyway.' 'You +were there,' broke from me unconsciously.... But at this point +Baburin's attention was caught, and he glanced in our direction. Musa +walked away from me. + +Ten minutes later she managed to come near me again. She seemed to enjoy +saying bold and dangerous things to me, and saying them in the presence +of her protector, under his vigilant eye, only exercising barely enough +caution not to arouse his suspicions. It is well known that walking on +the brink, on the very edge, of the precipice is woman's favourite +pastime. 'Yes, I was there,' whispered Musa, without any change of +countenance, except that her nostrils were faintly quivering and her +lips twitching. 'Yes, and if Paramon Semyonitch asks me what I am +whispering about with you, I'd tell him this minute. What do I care?' + +'Be more careful,' I besought her. 'I really believe they are noticing.' + +'I tell you, I'm quite ready to tell them everything. And who's +noticing? One's stretching his neck off the pillow, like a sick duck, +and hears nothing; and the other's deep in philosophy. Don't you be +afraid!' Musa's voice rose a little, and her cheeks gradually flushed a +sort of malignant, dusky red; and this suited her marvellously, and +never had she been so pretty. As she cleared the table, and set the cups +and saucers in their places, she moved swiftly about the room; there was +something challenging about her light, free and easy movement. 'You may +criticise me as you like,' she seemed to say; 'but I'm going my own way, +and I'm not afraid of you.' + +I cannot disguise the fact that I found Musa bewitching just that +evening. 'Yes,' I mused; 'she's a little spitfire--she's a new type.... +She's--exquisite. Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say.... +What of it! No matter!' + +'Paramon Semyonitch,' she cried suddenly, 'isn't a republic an empire in +which every one does as he chooses?' + +'A republic is not an empire,' answered Baburin, raising his head, and +contracting his brows; 'it is a ... form of society in which everything +rests on law and justice.' + +'Then,' Musa pursued, 'in a republic no one can oppress any one else?' + +'No.' + +'And every one is free to dispose of himself?' + +'Quite free.' + +'Ah! that's all I wanted to know.' + +'Why do you want to know?' + +'Oh, I wanted to--I wanted _you_ to tell me that.' + +'Our young lady is anxious to learn,' Punin observed from the sofa. + +When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course, +from politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I +took leave, 'Can you really love him so much?' + +'Whether I love him, or whether I don't, that's _my_ affair,' she +answered. 'What is to be, will be.' + +'Mind what you're about; don't play with fire ... you'll get burnt.' + +'Better be burnt than frozen. You ... with your good advice! And how can +you tell he won't marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to +get married? If I am ruined ... what business is it of yours?' + +She slammed the door after me. + +I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my +friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new +type.... He ought to have to pay something for his happiness! + +That he would be happy, I was--regretfully--unable to doubt. + +Three days passed by. I was sitting in my room at my writing-table, and +not so much working as getting myself ready for lunch.... I heard a +rustle, lifted my head, and I was stupefied. Before me--rigid, terrible, +white as chalk, stood an apparition ... Punin. His half-closed eyes were +looking at me, blinking slowly; they expressed a senseless terror, the +terror of a frightened hare, and his arms hung at his sides like sticks. + +'Nikander Vavilitch! what is the matter with you? How did you come here? +Did no one see you? What has happened? Do speak!' + +'She has run away,' Punin articulated in a hoarse, hardly audible voice. + +'What do you say?' + +'She has run away,' he repeated. + +'Who?' + +'Musa. She went away in the night, and left a note.' + +'A note?' + +'Yes. "I thank you," she said, "but I am not coming back again. Don't +look for me." We ran up and down; we questioned the cook; she knew +nothing. I can't speak loud; you must excuse me. I've lost my voice.' + +'Musa Pavlovna has left you!' I exclaimed. 'Nonsense! Mr. Baburin must +be in despair. What does he intend to do now?' + +'He has no intention of doing anything. I wanted to run to the +Governor-general: he forbade it. I wanted to give information to the +police; he forbade that too, and got very angry. He says, "She's free." +He says, "I don't want to constrain her." He has even gone to work, to +his office. But he looks more dead than alive. He loved her +terribly....Oh, oh, we both loved her!' + +Here Punin for the first time showed that he was not a wooden image, but +a live man; he lifted both his fists in the air, and brought them down +on his pate, which shone like ivory. + +'Ungrateful girl!' he groaned; 'who was it gave you food and drink, +clothed you, and brought you up? who cared for you, would have given all +his life, all his soul ... And you have forgotten it all? To cast me +off, truly, were no great matter, but Paramon Semyonitch, Paramon ...' + +I begged him to sit down, to rest. + +Punin shook his head. 'No, I won't. I have come to you ... I don't know +what for. I'm like one distraught; to stay at home alone is fearful; +what am I to do with myself? I stand in the middle of the room, shut my +eyes, and call, "Musa! Musotchka!" That's the way to go out of one's +mind. But no, why am I talking nonsense? I know why I have come to you. +You know, the other day you read me that thrice-accursed poem ... you +remember, where there is talk of an old husband. What did you do that +for? Did you know something then ... or guessed something?' Punin +glanced at me. 'Piotr Petrovitch,' he cried suddenly, and he began +trembling all over, 'you know, perhaps, where she is. Kind friend, tell +me whom she has gone to!' + +I was disconcerted, and could not help dropping my eyes.... + +'Perhaps she said something in her letter,' I began.... + +'She said she was leaving us because she loved some one else! Dear, good +friend, you know, surely, where she is? Save her, let us go to her; we +will persuade her. Only think what a man she's bringing to ruin.' + +Punin all at once flushed crimson, the blood seemed to rush to his +head, he plumped heavily down on his knees. 'Save us, friend, let us +go to her.' + +My servant appeared in the doorway, and stood still in amazement. + +I had no little trouble to get Punin on to his feet again, to convince +him that, even if I did suspect something, still it would not do to act +like that, on the spur of the moment, especially both together--that +would only spoil all our efforts--that I was ready to do my best, but +would not answer for anything. Punin did not oppose me, nor did he +indeed hear me; he only repeated from time to time in his broken voice, +'Save her, save her and Paramon Semyonitch.' At last he began to cry. +'Tell me at least one thing,' he asked ... 'is _he_ handsome, young?' + +'Yes, he is young,' I answered. + +'He is young,' repeated Punin, smearing the tears over his cheeks; 'and +she is young.... It's from that that all the trouble's sprung!' + +This rhyme came by chance; poor Punin was in no mood for versifying. I +would have given a good deal to hear his rhapsodical eloquence again, or +even his almost noiseless laugh.... Alas! his eloquence was quenched for +ever, and I never heard his laugh again. + +I promised to let him know, as soon as I should find out anything +positive.... Tarhov's name I did not, however, mention. Punin suddenly +collapsed completely. 'Very good, very good, sir, thank you,' he said +with a pitiful face, using the word 'sir,' which he had never done +before; 'only mind, sir, do not say anything to Paramon Semyonitch ... +or he'll be angry. In one word, he has forbidden it. Good-bye, sir.' + +As he got up and turned his back to me, Punin struck me as such a poor +feeble creature, that I positively marvelled; he limped with both legs, +and doubled up at each step.... + +'It's a bad look-out. It's the end of him, that's what it means,' +I thought. + + * * * * * + +Though I had promised Punin to trace Musa, yet as I set off the same day +to Tarhov's, I had not the slightest expectation of learning anything, +as I considered it certain that either I should not find him at home, or +that he would refuse to see me. My supposition turned out to be a +mistaken one. I found Tarhov at home; he received me, and I found out +indeed all I wanted to know; but there was nothing gained by that. +Directly I crossed the threshold of his door, Tarhov came resolutely, +rapidly, to meet me, and his eyes sparkling and glowing, his face grown +handsomer and radiant, he said firmly and briskly: 'Listen, Petya, my +boy; I guess what you've come for, and what you want to talk about; but +I give you warning, if you say a single word about her, or about her +action, or about what, according to you, is the course dictated to me by +common sense, we're friends no longer, we're not even acquainted, and I +shall beg you to treat me as a stranger.' + +I looked at Tarhov; he was quivering all over inwardly, like a tightly +drawn harpstring; he was tingling all over, hardly could he hold back +the tide of brimming youth and passion; violent, ecstatic happiness had +burst into his soul, and had taken full possession of him--and he of it. + + * * * * * + +'Is that your final decision?' I pronounced mournfully. + +'Yes, Petya, my boy, it's final.' + +'In that case, there's nothing for me but to say good-bye.' + +Tarhov faintly dropped his eyelids.... He was too happy at that moment. + +'Good-bye, Petya, old boy,' he said, a little through his nose, with a +candid smile and a gay flash of all his white teeth. + +What was I to do? I left him to his 'happiness.' As I slammed the door +after me, the other door of the room slammed also--I heard it. + + * * * * * + +It was with a heavy heart that I trudged off next day to see my luckless +acquaintances. I secretly hoped--such is human weakness--that I should +not find them at home, and again I was mistaken. Both were at home. The +change that had taken place in them during the last three days must have +struck any one. Punin looked ghastly white and flabby. His talkativeness +had completely vanished. He spoke listlessly, feebly, still in the same +husky voice, and looked somehow lost and bewildered. Baburin, on the +contrary, seemed shrunk into himself, and blacker than ever; taciturn at +the best of times, he uttered nothing now but a few abrupt sounds; an +expression of stony severity seemed to have frozen on his countenance. + +I felt it impossible to be silent; but what was there to say? I confined +myself to whispering to Punin, 'I have discovered nothing, and my advice +to you is to give up all hope.' Punin glanced at me with his swollen, +red little eyes--the only red left in his face--muttered something +inaudible, and hobbled away. Baburin most likely guessed what I had been +speaking about to Punin, and opening his lips, which were tightly +compressed, as though glued together, he pronounced, in a deliberate +voice, 'My dear sir, since your last visit to us, something disagreeable +has happened to us; our young friend, Musa Pavlovna Vinogradov, finding +it no longer convenient to live with us, has decided to leave us, and +has given us a written communication to that effect. Not considering +that we have any right to hinder her doing so, we have left her to act +according to her own views of what is best. We trust that she may be +happy,' he added, with some effort; 'and I humbly beg you not to allude +to the subject, as any such references are useless, and even painful.' + +'So he too, like Tarhov, forbids my speaking of Musa,' was the thought +that struck me, and I could not help wondering inwardly. He might well +prize Zeno so highly. I wished to impart to him some facts about that +sage, but my tongue would not form the words, and it did well. + +I soon went about my business. At parting neither Punin nor Baburin +said, 'Till we meet!' both with one voice pronounced, 'Good-bye.' + +Punin even returned me a volume of the _Telegraph_ I had brought him, as +much as to say, 'he had no need of anything of that kind now.' + +A week later I had a curious encounter. An early spring had set in +abruptly; at midday the heat rose to eighteen degrees Raumur. +Everything was turning green, and shooting up out of the spongy, damp +earth. I hired a horse at the riding-school, and went out for a ride +into the outskirts of the town, towards the Vorobyov hills. On the road +I was met by a little cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies, +splashed with mud up to their ears, with plaited tails, and red ribbons +in their manes and forelocks. Their harness was such as sportsmen +affect, with copper discs and tassels; they were being driven by a +smart young driver, in a blue tunic without sleeves, a yellow striped +silk shirt, and a low felt hat with peacock's feathers round the crown. +Beside him sat a girl of the artisan or merchant class, in a flowered +silk jacket, with a big blue handkerchief on her head--and she was +simply bubbling over with mirth. The driver was laughing too. I drew my +horse on one side, but did not, however, take particular notice of the +swiftly passing, merry couple, when, all at once, the young man shouted +to his ponies.... Why, that was Tarhov's voice! I looked round.... Yes, +it was he; unmistakably he, dressed up as a peasant, and beside +him--wasn't it Musa? + +But at that instant their ponies quickened their pace, and they were +out of my sight in a minute. I tried to put my horse into a gallop +in pursuit of them, but it was an old riding school hack, that +shambled from side to side as it moved; it went more slowly +galloping than trotting. + +'Enjoy yourselves, my dear friends!' I muttered through my teeth. + +I ought to observe that I had not seen Tarhov during the whole week, +though I had been three times to his rooms. He was never at home. +Baburin and Punin I had not seen either.... I had not been to see them. + +I caught cold on my ride; though it was very warm, there was a piercing +wind. I was dangerously ill, and when I recovered I went with my +grandmother into the country 'to feed up,' by the doctor's advice. I did +not get to Moscow again; in the autumn I was transferred to the +Petersburg university. + + + + +III + +1849 + + +Not seven, but fully twelve years had passed by, and I was in my +thirty-second year. My grandmother had long been dead; I was living in +Petersburg, with a post in the Department of Home Affairs. Tarhov I had +lost sight of; he had gone into the army, and lived almost always in the +provinces. We had met twice, as old friends, glad to see each other; but +we had not touched on the past in our talk. At the time of our last +meeting he was, if I remember right, already a married man. + +One sultry summer day I was sauntering along Gorohov Street, cursing +my official duties for keeping me in Petersburg, and the heat and +stench and dust of the city. A funeral barred my way. It consisted of +a solitary car, that is, to be accurate, of a decrepit hearse, on +which a poor-looking wooden coffin, half-covered with a threadbare +black cloth, was shaking up and down as it was jolted violently over +the uneven pavement. An old man with a white head was walking alone +after the hearse. + +I looked at him.... His face seemed familiar.... He too turned his eyes +upon me.... Merciful heavens! it was Baburin! I took off my hat, went up +to him, mentioned my name, and walked along beside him. + +'Whom are you burying?' I asked. + +'Nikander Vavilitch Punin,' he answered. + +I felt, I knew beforehand, that he would utter that name, and yet it set +my heart aching. I felt melancholy, and yet I was glad that chance had +enabled me to pay my last respects to my old friend.... + +'May I go with you, Paramon Semyonitch?' + +'You may.... I was following him alone; now there'll be two of us.' + +Our walk lasted more than an hour. My companion moved forward, without +lifting his eyes or opening his lips. He had become quite an old man +since I had seen him last; his deeply furrowed, copper-coloured face +stood out sharply against his white hair. Signs of a life of toil and +suffering, of continual struggle, could be seen in Baburin's whole +figure; want and poverty had worked cruel havoc with him. When +everything was over, when what was Punin had disappeared for ever in the +damp ... yes, undoubtedly damp earth of the Smolensky cemetery, Baburin, +after standing a couple of minutes with bowed, uncovered head before the +newly risen mound of sandy clay, turned to me his emaciated, as it were +embittered, face, his dry, sunken eyes, thanked me grimly, and was about +to move away; but I detained him. + +'Where do you live, Paramon Semyonitch? Let me come and see you. I had +no idea you were living in Petersburg. We could recall old days, and +talk of our dead friend.' + +Baburin did not answer me at once. + +'It's two years since I found my way to Petersburg,' he observed at +last; 'I live at the very end of the town. However, if you really care +to visit me, come.' He gave me his address. 'Come in the evening; in the +evening we are always at home ... both of us.' + +'Both of you?' + +'I am married. My wife is not very well to-day, and that's why she +did not come too. Though, indeed, it's quite enough for one person to +go through this empty formality, this ceremony. As if anybody +believed in it all!' + +I was a little surprised at Baburin's last words, but I said nothing, +called a cab, and proposed to Baburin to take him home; but he refused. + + * * * * * + +The same day I went in the evening to see him. All the way there I was +thinking of Punin. I recalled how I had met him the first time, and how +ecstatic and amusing he was in those days; and afterwards in Moscow how +subdued he had grown--especially the last time I saw him; and now he had +made his last reckoning with life;--life is in grim earnest, it seems! +Baburin was living in the Viborgsky quarter, in a little house which +reminded me of the Moscow 'nest': the Petersburg abode was almost +shabbier in appearance. When I went into his room he was sitting on a +chair in a corner with his hands on his knees; a tallow candle, burning +low, dimly lighted up his bowed, white head. He heard the sound of my +footsteps, started up, and welcomed me more warmly than I had expected. +A few moments later his wife came in; I recognised her at once as +Musa--and only then understood why Baburin had invited me to come; he +wanted to show me that he had after all come by his own. + +Musa was greatly changed--in face, in voice, and in manners; but her +eyes were changed most of all. In old times they had darted about like +live creatures, those malicious, beautiful eyes; they had gleamed +stealthily, but brilliantly; their glance had pierced, like a +pin-prick.... Now they looked at one directly, calmly, steadily; their +black centres had lost their lustre. 'I am broken in, I am tame, I am +good,' her soft and dull gaze seemed to say. Her continued, submissive +smile told the same story. And her dress, too, was subdued; brown, with +little spots on it. She came up to me, asked me whether I knew her. She +obviously felt no embarrassment, and not because she had lost a sense of +shame or memory of the past, but simply because all petty +self-consciousness had left her. + +Musa talked a great deal about Punin, talked in an even voice, which too +had lost its fire. I learned that of late years he had become very +feeble, had almost sunk into childishness, so much so that he was +miserable if he had not toys to play with; they persuaded him, it is +true, that he made them out of waste stuff for sale ... but he really +played with them himself. His passion for poetry, however, never died +out, and he kept his memory for nothing but verses; a few days before +his death he recited a passage from the _Rossiad_; but Pushkin he +feared, as children fear bogies. His devotion to Baburin had also +remained undiminished; he worshipped him as much as ever, and even at +the last, wrapped about by the chill and dark of the end, he had +faltered with halting tongue, 'benefactor!' I learned also from Musa +that soon after the Moscow episode, it had been Baburin's fate once more +to wander all over Russia, continually tossed from one private situation +to another; that in Petersburg, too, he had been again in a situation, +in a private business, which situation he had, however, been obliged to +leave a few days before, owing to some unpleasantness with his employer: +Baburin had ventured to stand up for the workpeople.... The invariable +smile, with which Musa accompanied her words, set me musing mournfully; +it put the finishing touch to the impression made on me by her husband's +appearance. They had hard work, the two of them, to make a bare +living--there was no doubt of it. He took very little part in our +conversation; he seemed more preoccupied than grieved.... Something was +worrying him. + +'Paramon Semyonitch, come here,' said the cook, suddenly appearing in +the doorway. + +'What is it? what's wanted?' he asked in alarm. + +'Come here,' the cook repeated insistently and meaningly. Baburin +buttoned up his coat and went out. + +When I was left alone with Musa, she looked at me with a somewhat +changed glance, and observed in a voice which was also changed, and with +no smile: 'I don't know, Piotr Petrovitch, what you think of me now, but +I dare say you remember what I used to be.... I was self-confident, +light-hearted ... and not good; I wanted to live for my own pleasure. +But I want to tell you this: when I was abandoned, and was like one +lost, and was only waiting for God to take me, or to pluck up spirit to +make an end of myself,--once more, just as in Voronezh, I met with +Paramon Semyonitch--and he saved me once again.... Not a word that could +wound me did I hear from him, not a word of reproach; he asked nothing +of me--I was not worthy of that; but he loved me ... and I became his +wife. What was I to do? I had failed of dying; and I could not live +either after my own choice....What was I to do with myself? Even so--it +was a mercy to be thankful for. That is all.' + +She ceased, turned away for an instant ... the same submissive smile +came back to her lips. 'Whether life's easy for me, you needn't ask,' +was the meaning I fancied now in that smile. + +The conversation passed to ordinary subjects. Musa told me that Punin +had left a cat that he had been very fond of, and that ever since his +death she had gone up to the attic and stayed there, mewing +incessantly, as though she were calling some one ... the neighbours +were very much scared, and fancied that it was Punin's soul that had +passed into the cat. + +'Paramon Semyonitch is worried about something,' I said at last. + +'Oh, you noticed it?'--Musa sighed. 'He cannot help being worried. I +need hardly tell you that Paramon Semyonitch has remained faithful to +his principles.... The present condition of affairs can but strengthen +them.' (Musa expressed herself quite differently now from in the old +days in Moscow; there was a literary, bookish flavour in her phrases.) +'I don't know, though, whether I can rely upon you, and how you will +receive ...' + +'Why should you imagine you cannot rely upon me?' + +'Well, you are in the government service--you are an official.' + +'Well, what of that?' + +'You are, consequently, loyal to the government.' + +I marvelled inwardly ... at Musa's innocence. 'As to my attitude to the +government, which is not even aware of my existence, I won't enlarge +upon that,' I observed; 'but you may set your mind at rest. I will make +no bad use of your confidence. I sympathise with your husband's +ideas ... more than you suppose.' + +Musa shook her head. + +'Yes; that's all so,' she began, not without hesitation; 'but you see +it's like this. Paramon Semyonitch's ideas will shortly, it may be, find +expression in action. They can no longer be hidden under a bushel. There +are comrades whom we cannot now abandon ...' + +Musa suddenly ceased speaking, as though she had bitten her tongue. Her +last words had amazed and a little alarmed me. Most likely my face +showed what I was feeling--and Musa noticed it. + +As I have said already, our interview took place in the year 1849. Many +people still remember what a disturbed and difficult time that was, and +by what incidents it was signalised in St. Petersburg. I had been struck +myself by certain peculiarities in Baburin's behaviour, in his whole +demeanour. Twice he had referred to governmental action, to personages +in high authority, with such intense bitterness and hatred, with such +loathing, that I had been dumbfoundered.... + +'Well?' he asked me suddenly: 'did you set your peasants free?' + +I was obliged to confess I had not. + +'Why, I suppose your granny's dead, isn't she?' + +I was obliged to admit that she was. + +'To be sure, you noble gentlemen,' Baburin muttered between his teeth, +'... use other men's hands ... to poke up your fire ... that's what +you like.' + +In the most conspicuous place in his room hung the well-known lithograph +portrait of Belinsky; on the table lay a volume of the old _Polar Star_, +edited by Bestuzhev. + +A long time passed, and Baburin did not come back after the cook had +called him away. Musa looked several times uneasily towards the door by +which he had gone out. At last she could bear it no longer; she got up, +and with an apology she too went out by the same door. A quarter of an +hour later she came back with her husband; the faces of both, so at +least I thought, looked troubled. But all of a sudden Baburin's face +assumed a different, an intensely bitter, almost frenzied expression. + +'What will be the end of it?' he began all at once in a jerky, sobbing +voice, utterly unlike him, while his wild eyes shifted restlessly about +him. 'One goes on living and living, and hoping that maybe it'll be +better, that one will breathe more freely; but it's quite the other +way--everything gets worse and worse! They have _squeezed_ us right up +to the wall! In my youth I bore all with patience; they ... maybe ... +beat me ... even ... yes!' he added, turning sharply round on his heels +and swooping down as it were, upon me: 'I, a man of full age, was +subjected to corporal punishment ... yes;--of other wrongs I will not +speak.... But is there really nothing before us but to go back to those +old times again? The way they are treating the young people now! ... +Yes, it breaks down all endurance at last.... It breaks it down! Yes! +Wait a bit!' + +I had never seen Baburin in such a condition. Musa turned positively +white.... Baburin suddenly cleared his throat, and sank down into a +seat. Not wishing to constrain either him or Musa by my presence, I +decided to go, and was just saying good-bye to them, when the door +into the next room suddenly opened, and a head appeared.... It was not +the cook's head, but the dishevelled and terrified-looking head of a +young man. + +'Something's wrong, Baburin, something's wrong!' he faltered hurriedly, +then vanished at once on perceiving my unfamiliar figure. + +Baburin rushed after the young man. I pressed Musa's hand warmly, and +withdrew, with presentiments of evil in my heart. + +'Come to-morrow,' she whispered anxiously. + +'I certainly will come,' I answered. + + * * * * * + +I was still in bed next morning, when my man handed me a letter +from Musa. + +'Dear Piotr Petrovitch!' she wrote: 'Paramon Semyonitch has been this +night arrested by the police and carried off to the fortress, or I don't +know where; they did not tell me. They ransacked all our papers, sealed +up a great many, and took them away with them. It has been the same with +our books and letters. They say a mass of people have been arrested in +the town. You can fancy how I feel. It is well Nikander Vavilitch did +not live to see it! He was taken just in time. Advise me what I am to +do. For myself I am not afraid--I shall not die of starvation--but the +thought of Paramon Semyonitch gives me no rest. Come, please, if only +you are not afraid to visit people in our position.--Yours faithfully, + +MUSA BABURIN.' + + * * * * * + +Half an hour later I was with Musa. On seeing me she held out her +hand, and, though she did not utter a word, a look of gratitude +flitted over her face. She was wearing the same clothes as on the +previous day; there was every sign that she had not been to bed or +slept all night. Her eyes were red, but from sleeplessness, not from +tears. She had not been crying. She was in no mood for weeping. She +wanted to act, wanted to struggle with the calamity that had fallen +upon them: the old, energetic, self-willed Musa had risen up in her +again. She had no time even to be indignant, though she was choking +with indignation. How to assist Baburin, to whom to appeal so as to +soften his lot--she could think of nothing else. She wanted to go +instantly, ... to petition, ... demand.... But where to go, whom to +petition, what to demand--this was what she wanted to hear from me, +this was what she wanted to consult me about. + +I began by counselling her ... to have patience. For the first moment +there was nothing left to be done but to wait, and, as far as might be, +to make inquiries; and to take any decisive step now when the affair had +scarcely begun, and hardly yet taken shape, would be simply senseless, +irrational. To hope for any success was irrational, even if I had been a +person of much more importance and influence, ... but what could I, a +petty official, do? As for her, she was absolutely without any powerful +friends.... + +It was no easy matter to make all this plain to her ... but at last she +understood my arguments; she understood, too, that I was not prompted by +egoistic feeling, when I showed her the uselessness of all efforts. 'But +tell me, Musa Pavlovna,' I began, when she sank at last into a chair +(till then she had been standing up, as though on the point of setting +off at once to the aid of Baburin),'how Paramon Semyonitch, at his age, +comes to be mixed up in such an affair? I feel sure that there are none +but young people implicated in it, like the one who came in yesterday to +warn you....' + +'Those young people are our friends!' cried Musa, and her eyes flashed +and darted as of old. Something strong, irrepressible, seemed, as it +were, to rise up from the bottom of her soul, ... and I suddenly recalled +the expression 'a new type,' which Tarhov had once used of her. 'Years +are of no consequence when it is a matter of political principles!' Musa +laid a special stress on these last two words. One might fancy that in +all her sorrow it was not unpleasing to her to show herself before me in +this new, unlooked-for character--in the character of a cultivated and +mature woman, fit wife of a republican! ... 'Some old men are younger +than some young ones,' she pursued, 'more capable of sacrifice.... But +that's not the point.' + +'I think, Musa Pavlovna,' I observed, 'that you are exaggerating a +little. Knowing the character of Paramon Semyonitch, I should have felt +sure beforehand that he would sympathise with every ... sincere +impulse; but, on the other hand, I have always regarded him as a man of +sense.... Surely he cannot fail to realise all the impracticability, +all the absurdity of conspiracies in Russia? In his position, in his +calling ...' + +'Oh, of course,' Musa interrupted, with bitterness in her voice, 'he is +a working man; and in Russia it is only permissible for noblemen to take +part in conspiracies, ... as, for instance, in that of the fourteenth of +December, ... that's what you meant to say.' + +'In that case, what do you complain of now?' almost broke from my +lips, ... but I restrained myself. 'Do you consider that the result of +the fourteenth of December was such as to encourage other such +attempts?' I said aloud. + +Musa frowned. 'It is no good talking to you about it,' was what I read +in her downcast face. + +'Is Paramon Semyonitch very seriously compromised?' I ventured to ask +her. Musa made no reply.... A hungry, savage mewing was heard from +the attic. + +Musa started. 'Ah, it is a good thing Nikander Vavilitch did not see all +this!' she moaned almost despairingly. 'He did not see how violently in +the night they seized his benefactor, our benefactor--maybe, the best +and truest man in the whole world,--he did not see how they treated that +noble man at his age, how rudely they addressed him, ... how they +threatened him, and the threats they used to him!--only because he was a +working man! That young officer, too, was no doubt just such an +unprincipled, heartless wretch as I have known in my life....' + +Musa's voice broke. She was quivering all over like a leaf. + +Her long-suppressed indignation broke out at last; old memories stirred +up, brought to the surface by the general tumult of her soul, showed +themselves alive within her.... But the conviction I carried off at that +moment was that the 'new type' was still the same, still the same +passionate, impulsive nature.... Only the impulses by which Musa was +carried away were not the same as in the days of her youth. What on my +first visit I had taken for resignation, for meekness, and what really +was so--the subdued, lustreless glance, the cold voice, the quietness +and simplicity--all that had significance only in relation to the past, +to what would never return.... + +Now it was the present asserted itself. + +I tried to soothe Musa, tried to put our conversation on a more +practical level. Some steps must be taken that could not be postponed; +we must find out exactly where Baburin was; and then secure both for him +and for Musa the means of subsistence. All this presented no +inconsiderable difficulty; what was needed was not to find money, but +work, which is, as we all know, a far more complicated problem.... + +I left Musa with a perfect swarm of reflections in my head. + +I soon learned that Baburin was in the fortress. + +The proceedings began, ... dragged on. I saw Musa several times every +week. She had several interviews with her husband. But just at the +moment of the decision of the whole melancholy affair, I was not in +Petersburg. Unforeseen business had obliged me to set off to the +south of Russia. During my absence I heard that Baburin had been +acquitted at the trial; it appeared that all that could be proved +against him was, that young people regarding him as a person unlikely +to awaken suspicion, had sometimes held meetings at his house, and he +had been present at their meetings; he was, however, by +administrative order sent into exile in one of the western provinces +of Siberia. Musa went with him. + +'Paramon Semyonitch did not wish it,' she wrote to me; 'as, according to +his ideas, no one ought to sacrifice self for another person, and not +for a cause; but I told him there was no question of sacrifice at all. +When I said to him in Moscow that I would be his wife, I thought to +myself--for ever, indissolubly! So indissoluble it must be till the end +of our days....' + + + + +IV + +1861 + + +Twelve more years passed by.... Every one in Russia knows, and will ever +remember, what passed between the years 1849 and 1861. In my personal +life, too, many changes took place, on which, however, there is no need +to enlarge. New interests came into it, new cares.... The Baburin couple +first fell into the background, then passed out of my mind altogether. +Yet I kept up a correspondence with Musa--at very long intervals, +however. Sometimes more than a year passed without any tidings of her or +of her husband. I heard that soon after 1855 he received permission to +return to Russia; but that he preferred to remain in the little Siberian +town, where he had been flung by destiny, and where he had apparently +made himself a home, and found a haven and a sphere of activity.... + +And, lo and behold! towards the end of March in 1861, I received the +following letter from Musa:-- + +'It is so long since I have written to you, most honoured Piotr +Petrovitch, that I do not even know whether you are still living; and if +you are living, have you not forgotten our existence? But no matter; I +cannot resist writing to you to-day. Everything till now has gone on +with us in the same old way: Paramon Semyonitch and I have been always +busy with our schools, which are gradually making good progress; besides +that, Paramon Semyonitch was taken up with reading and correspondence +and his usual discussions with the Old-believers, members of the clergy, +and Polish exiles; his health has been fairly good.... So has mine. But +yesterday! the manifesto of the 19th of February reached us! We had long +been on the look-out for it. Rumours had reached us long before of what +was being done among you in Petersburg, ... but yet I can't describe what +it was! You know my husband well; he was not in the least changed by his +misfortune; on the contrary, he has grown even stronger and more +energetic, and has a will as strong as iron, but at this he could not +restrain himself! His hands shook as he read it; then he embraced me +three times, and three times he kissed me, tried to say something--but +no! he could not! and ended by bursting into tears, which was very +astounding to see, and suddenly he shouted, "Hurrah! hurrah! God save +the Tsar!" Yes, Piotr Petrovitch, those were his very words! Then he +went on: "Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart" ... and again: "This is +the first step, others are bound to follow it"; and, just as he was, +bareheaded, ran to tell the great news to our friends. There was a +bitter frost, and even a snowstorm coming on. I tried to prevent him, +but he would not listen to me. And when he came home, he was all covered +with snow, his hair, his face, and his beard--he has a beard right down +to his chest now--and the tears were positively frozen on his cheeks! +But he was very lively and cheerful, and told me to uncork a bottle of +home-made champagne, and he drank with our friends that he had brought +back with him, to the health of the Tsar and of Russia, and all free +Russians; and taking the glass, and fixing his eyes on the ground, he +said: "Nikander, Nikander, do you hear? There are no slaves in Russia +any more! Rejoice in the grave, old comrade!" And much more he said; to +the effect that his "expectations were fulfilled!" He said, too, that +now there could be no turning back; that this was in its way a pledge or +promise.... I don't remember everything, but it is long since I have +seen him so happy. And so I made up my mind to write to you, so that you +might know how we have been rejoicing and exulting in the remote +Siberian wilds, so that you might rejoice with us....' + +This letter I received at the end of March. At the beginning of May +another very brief letter arrived from Musa. She informed me that her +husband, Paramon Semyonitch Baburin, had taken cold on the very day of +the arrival of the manifesto, and died on the 12th of April of +inflammation of the lungs, in the 67th year of his age. She added that +she intended to remain where his body lay at rest, and to go on with the +work he had bequeathed her, since such was the last wish of Paramon +Semyonitch, and that was her only law. + +Since then I have heard no more of Musa. + +PARIS, 1874. + + + + +OLD PORTRAITS + + + + +I + + +About thirty miles from our village there lived, many years ago, a +distant cousin of my mother's, a retired officer of the Guards, and +rather wealthy landowner, Alexey Sergeitch Teliegin. He lived on his +estate and birth-place, Suhodol, did not go out anywhere, and so did not +visit us; but I used to be sent, twice a year, to pay him my +respects--at first with my tutor, but later on alone. Alexey Sergeitch +always gave me a very cordial reception, and I used to stay three or +four days at a time with him. He was an old man even when I first made +his acquaintance; I was twelve, I remember, on my first visit, and he +was then over seventy. He was born in the days of the Empress +Elisabeth--in the last year of her reign. He lived alone with his wife, +Malania Pavlovna; she was ten years younger than he. They had two +daughters; but their daughters had been long married, and rarely visited +Suhodol; they were not on the best of terms with their parents, and +Alexey Sergeitch hardly ever mentioned their names. + +I see, even now, the old-fashioned house, a typical manor-house of the +steppes. One story in height, with immense attics, it was built at the +beginning of this century, of amazingly thick beams of pine,--such beams +came in plenty in those days from the Zhizdrinsky pine-forests; they +have passed out of memory now! It was very spacious, and contained a +great number of rooms, rather low-pitched and dark, it is true; the +windows in the walls had been made small for the sake of greater warmth. +In the usual fashion (I ought rather to say, in what was then the usual +fashion), the offices and house-serfs' huts surrounded the manorial +house on all sides, and the garden was close to it--a small garden, but +containing fine fruit-trees, juicy apples, and pipless pears. The flat +steppe of rich, black earth stretched for ten miles round. No lofty +object for the eye; not a tree, nor even a belfry; somewhere, maybe, +jutting up, a windmill, with rents in its sails; truly, well-named +Suhodol, or Dry-flat! Inside the house the rooms were filled with +ordinary, simple furniture; somewhat unusual was the milestone-post that +stood in the window of the drawing-room, with the following +inscription:--'If you walk sixty-eight times round this drawing-room you +will have gone a mile; if you walk eighty-seven times from the furthest +corner of the parlour to the right-hand corner of the billiard-room, you +will have gone a mile,' and so on. But what most of all impressed a +guest at the house for the first time was the immense collection of +pictures hanging on the walls, for the most part works of the so-called +Italian masters: all old-fashioned landscapes of a sort, or mythological +and religious subjects. But all these pictures were very dark, and even +cracked with age;--in one, all that met the eye was some patches of +flesh-colour; in another, undulating red draperies on an unseen body; or +an arch which seemed to be suspended in the air; or a dishevelled tree +with blue foliage; or the bosom of a nymph with an immense breast, like +the lid of a soup-tureen; a cut water-melon, with black seeds; a turban, +with a feather in it, above a horse's head; or the gigantic brown leg of +an apostle, suddenly thrust out, with a muscular calf, and toes turned +upwards. In the drawing-room in the place of honour hung a portrait of +the Empress Catherine II., full length; a copy of the famous portrait by +Lampi--an object of the special reverence, one might say the adoration, +of the master of the house. From the ceiling hung glass lustres in +bronze settings, very small and very dusty. + +Alexey Sergeitch himself was a stumpy, paunchy little old man, with a +chubby face of one uniform tint, yet pleasant, with drawn-in lips, and +very lively little eyes under high eyebrows. He wore his scanty locks +combed to the back of his head; it was only since 1812 that he had given +up wearing powder. Alexey Sergeitch invariably wore a grey 'redingote,' +with three capes falling over his shoulders, a striped waistcoat, +chamois-leather breeches, and high boots of dark red morocco, with +heart-shaped scallops and tassels at the tops; he wore a white muslin +cravat, a jabot, lace cuffs, and two gold English 'turnip watches,' one +in each pocket of his waistcoat. In his right hand he usually carried an +enamelled snuff-box full of 'Spanish' snuff, and his left hand leaned on +a cane with a silver-chased knob, worn smooth by long use. Alexey +Sergeitch had a little nasal, piping voice, and an invariable +smile--kindly, but, as it were, condescending, and not without a certain +self-complacent dignity. His laugh, too, was kindly--a shrill little +laugh that tinkled like glass beads. Courteous and affable he was to the +last degree--in the old-fashioned manner of the days of Catherine--and +he moved his hands with slow, rounded gestures, also in the old style. +His legs were so weak that he could not walk, but ran with hurried +little steps from one armchair to another, in which he would suddenly +sit down, or rather fall softly, like a cushion. + +As I have said already, Alexey Sergeitch went out nowhere, and saw very +little of his neighbours, though he liked society, for he was very fond +of talking! It is true that he had society in plenty in his own house; +various Nikanor Nikanoritchs, Sevastiey Sevastietchs, Fedulitchs, +Miheitchs, all poor gentlemen in shabby cossack coats and camisoles, +often from the master's wardrobe, lived under his roof, to say nothing +of the poor gentlewomen in chintz gowns, black kerchiefs thrown over +their shoulders, and worsted reticules in their tightly clenched +fingers--all sorts of Avdotia Savishnas, Pelagea Mironovnas, and plain +Feklushkas and Arinkas, who found a home in the women's quarters. Never +less than fifteen persons sat down to Alexey Sergeitch's table.... He +was such a hospitable man! Among all those dependants two were +particularly conspicuous: a dwarf, nicknamed Janus, or the Double-faced, +of Danish--or, as some maintained, Jewish--extraction, and the mad +Prince L. Contrary to what was customary in those days, the dwarf did +nothing to amuse the master or mistress, and was not a jester--quite the +opposite; he was always silent, had an ill-tempered and sullen +appearance, and scowled and gnashed his teeth directly a question was +addressed to him. Alexey Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and +positively respected him; at table the dishes were handed to him first, +after the guests and master and mistress. 'God has afflicted him,' +Alexey Sergeitch used to say; 'such is His Divine will; but it's not for +me to afflict him further.' 'How is he a philosopher?' I asked him once. +(Janus didn't take to me; if I went near him he would fly into a rage, +and mutter thickly, 'Stranger! keep off!') 'Eh, God bless me! isn't he a +philosopher?' answered Alexey Sergeitch. 'Look ye, little sir, how +wisely he holds his tongue!' 'But why is he double-faced?' 'Because, +little sir, he has one face on the outside--and so you, surface-gazers, +judge him.... But the other, the real face he hides. And that face I +know, and no one else--and I love him for it ... because that face is +good. You, for instance, look and see nothing ... but I see without a +word: he is blaming me for something; for he's a severe critic! And it's +always with good reason. That, little sir, you can't understand; but you +may believe an old man like me!' The real history of the two-faced +Janus--where he came from, and how he came into Alexey Sergeitch's +hands--no one knew; but the story of Prince L. was well known to every +one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and distinguished family, to +Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards. At the first levee the +Empress Catherine noticed him, stood still before him, and, pointing at +him with her fan, she said aloud, addressing one of her courtiers, who +happened to be near, 'Look, Adam Vassilievitch, what a pretty fellow! a +perfect doll!' The poor boy's head was completely turned; when he got +home he ordered his coach out, and, putting on a ribbon of St. Anne, +proceeded to drive all over the town, as though he had reached the +pinnacle of fortune. 'Drive over every one,' he shouted to his coachman, +'who does not move out of the way!' All this was promptly reported to +the empress: the decree went forth that he should be declared insane, +and put under the guardianship of two of his brothers; and they, without +a moment's delay, carried him off to the country, and flung him into a +stone cell in chains. As they wanted to get the benefit of his property, +they did not let the poor wretch out, even when he had completely +recovered his balance, and positively kept him locked up till he really +did go out of his mind. But their evil doings did not prosper; Prince L. +outlived his brothers, and, after long years of adversity, he came into +the charge of Alexey Sergeitch, whose kinsman he was. He was a stout, +completely bald man, with a long, thin nose and prominent blue eyes. He +had quite forgotten how to talk--he simply uttered a sort of +inarticulate grumbling; but he sang old-fashioned Russian ballads +beautifully, preserving the silvery freshness of his voice to extreme +old age; and, while he was singing, he pronounced each word clearly and +distinctly. He had attacks at times of a sort of fury, and then he +became terrible: he would stand in the corner, with his face to the +wall, and all perspiring and red--red all down his bald head and down +his neck--he used to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with +his feet, order some one--his brothers probably--to be punished. 'Beat +'em!' he growled hoarsely, coughing and choking with laughter; 'flog +'em, don't spare 'em! beat, beat, beat the monsters, my oppressors! +That's it! That's it!' On the day before his death he greatly alarmed +and astonished Alexey Sergeitch. He came, pale and subdued, into his +room, and, making him a low obeisance, first thanked him for his care +and kindness, and then asked him to send for a priest, for death had +come to him--he had seen death, and he must forgive every one and purify +his soul. 'How did you see death?' muttered Alexey Sergeitch in +bewilderment at hearing connected speech from him for the first time. +'In what shape? with a scythe?' 'No,' answered Prince L.; 'a simple old +woman in a jacket, but with only one eye in her forehead, and that eye +without an eyelid.' And the next day Prince L. actually did die, duly +performing everything, and taking leave of every one in a rational and +affecting manner. 'That's just how I shall die,' Alexey Sergeitch would +sometimes observe. And, as a fact, something of the same sort did happen +with him--but of that later. + +But now let us go back to our story. Of the neighbours, as I have stated +already, Alexey Sergeitch saw little; and they did not care much for +him, called him a queer fish, stuck up, and a scoffer, and even a +'martiniste' who recognised no authorities, though they had no clear +idea of the meaning of this term. To a certain extent the neighbours +were right: Alexey Sergeitch had lived in his Suhodol for almost seventy +years on end, and had had hardly anything whatever to do with the +existing authorities, with the police or the law-courts. 'Police-courts +are for the robber, and discipline for the soldier,' he used to say; +'but I, thank God, am neither robber nor soldier!' Rather queer Alexey +Sergeitch certainly was, but the soul within him was by no means a petty +one. I will tell you something about him. + +To tell the truth, I never knew what were his political opinions, if an +expression so modern can be used in reference to him; but, in his own +way, he was an aristocrat--more an aristocrat than a typical Russian +country gentleman. More than once he expressed his regret that God had +not given him a son and heir, 'for the honour of our name, to keep up +the family.' In his own room there hung on the wall the family-tree of +the Teliegins, with many branches, and a multitude of little circles +like apples in a golden frame. 'We Teliegins,' he used to say, 'are an +ancient line, from long, long ago: however many there've been of us +Teliegins, we have never hung about great men's ante-rooms; we've never +bent our backs, or stood about in waiting, nor picked up a living in the +courts, nor run after decorations; we've never gone trailing off to +Moscow, nor intriguing in Petersburg; we've sat at home, each in his +hole, his own man on his own land ... home-keeping birds, sir!--I +myself, though I did serve in the Guards--but not for long, thank you.' +Alexey Sergeitch preferred the old days. 'There was more freedom in +those days, more decorum; on my honour, I assure you! but since the year +eighteen hundred' (why from that year, precisely, he did not explain), +'militarism, the soldiery, have got the upper hand. Our soldier +gentlemen stuck some sort of turbans of cocks' feathers on their heads +then, and turned like cocks themselves; began binding their necks up as +stiff as could be ... they croak, and roll their eyes--how could they +help it, indeed? The other day a police corporal came to me; "I've come +to you," says he, "honourable sir," ... (fancy his thinking to surprise +me with that! ... I know I'm honourable without his telling me!) "I have +business with you." And I said to him, "My good sir, you'd better first +unfasten the hooks on your collar. Or else, God have mercy on us--you'll +sneeze. Ah, what would happen to you! what would happen to you! You'd +break off, like a mushroom ... and I should have to answer for it!" And +they do drink, these military gentlemen--oh, oh, oh! I generally order +home-made champagne to be given them, because to them, good wine or +poor, it's all the same; it runs so smoothly, so quickly, down their +throats--how can they distinguish it? And, another thing, they've +started sucking at a pap-bottle, smoking a tobacco-pipe. Your military +gentleman thrusts his pap-bottle under his moustaches, between his lips, +and puffs the smoke out of his nose, his mouth, and even his ears--and +fancies himself a hero! There are my sons-in-law--though one of them's a +senator, and the other some sort of an administrator over there--they +suck the pap-bottle, and they reckon themselves clever fellows too!' + +Alexey Sergeitch could not endure smoking; and moreover, he could not +endure dogs, especially little dogs. 'If you're a Frenchman, to be sure, +you may well keep a lapdog: you run and you skip about here and there, +and it runs after you with its tail up ... but what's the use of it to +people like us?' He was exceedingly neat and particular. Of the Empress +Catherine he never spoke but with enthusiasm, and in exalted, rather +bookish phraseology: 'Half divine she was, not human! Only look, little +sir, at that smile,' he would add, pointing reverentially to Lampi's +portrait, 'and you will agree: half divine! I was so fortunate in my +life as to be deemed worthy to behold that smile close, and never will +it be effaced from my heart!' And thereupon he would relate anecdotes of +the life of Catherine, such as I have never happened to read or hear +elsewhere. Here is one of them. Alexey Sergeitch did not permit the +slightest allusion to the weaknesses of the great Tsaritsa. 'And, +besides,' he exclaimed, 'can one judge of her as of other people?' + +One day while she was sitting in her peignoir during her morning +toilette, she commanded her hair to be combed.... And what do you +think? The lady-in-waiting passed the comb through, and sparks of +electricity simply showered out! Then she summoned to her presence the +court physician Rogerson, who happened to be in waiting at the court, +and said to him: 'I am, I know, censured for certain actions; but do +you see this electricity? Consequently, as such is my nature and +constitution, you can judge for yourself, as you are a doctor, that it +is unjust for them to censure me, and they ought to comprehend me!' The +following incident remained indelible in Alexey Sergeitch's memory. He +was standing one day on guard indoors, in the palace--he was only +sixteen at the time--and behold the empress comes walking past him; he +salutes ... 'and she,' Alexey Sergeitch would exclaim at this point +with much feeling, 'smiling at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me +her hand to kiss and patted my cheek, and asked me "who I was? where I +came from? of what family?" and then' ... here the old man's voice +usually broke ... 'then she bade me greet my mother in her name and +thank her for having brought up her children so well. And whether I was +on earth or in heaven, and how and where she deigned to vanish, whether +she floated away into the heights or went her way into the other +apartments ... to this day I do not know!' + +More than once I tried to question Alexey Sergeitch about those far-away +times, about the people who made up the empress's circle.... But for the +most part he edged off the subject. 'What's the use of talking about old +times?' he used to say ... 'it's only making one's self miserable, +remembering that then one was a fine young fellow, and now one hasn't a +tooth left in one's head. And what is there to say? They were good old +times ... but there, enough of them! And as for those folks--you were +asking, you troublesome boy, about the lucky ones!--haven't you seen how +a bubble comes up on the water? As long as it lasts and is whole, what +colours play upon it! Red, and blue, and yellow--a perfect rainbow or +diamond you'd say it was! Only it soon bursts, and there's no trace of +it left. And so it was with those folks.' + +'But how about Potiomkin?' I once inquired. + +Alexey Sergeitch looked grave. 'Potiomkin, Grigory Alexandrovitch, was a +statesman, a theologian, a pupil of Catherine's, her cherished creation, +one must say.... But enough of that, little sir!' + +Alexey Sergeitch was a very devout man, and, though it was a great +effort, he attended church regularly. Superstition was not noticeable in +him; he laughed at omens, the evil eye, and such 'nonsense,' but he did +not like a hare to run across his path, and to meet a priest was not +altogether agreeable to him. For all that, he was very respectful to +clerical persons, and went up to receive their blessing, and even kissed +the priest's hand every time, but he was not willing to enter into +conversation with them. 'Such an extremely strong odour comes from +them,' he explained: 'and I, poor sinner, am fastidious beyond reason; +they've such long hair, and all oily, and they comb it out on all +sides--they think they show me respect by so doing, and they clear their +throats so loudly when they talk--from shyness may be, or I dare say +they want to show respect in that way too. And besides, they make one +think of one's last hour. And, I don't know how it is, but I still want +to go on living. Only, my little sir, don't you repeat my words; we must +respect the clergy--it's only fools that don't respect them; and I'm to +blame to babble nonsense in my old age.' + +Alexey Sergeitch, like most of the noblemen of his day, had received a +very slight education; but he had, to some extent, made good the +deficiency himself by reading. He read none but Russian books of the end +of last century; the more modern authors he thought insipid and +deficient in style.... While he read, he had placed at his side on a +round, one-legged table, a silver tankard of frothing spiced kvas of a +special sort, which sent an agreeable fragrance all over the house. He +used to put on the end of his nose a pair of big, round spectacles, but +in latter years he did not so much read as gaze dreamily over the rims +of his spectacles, lifting his eyebrows, chewing his lips, and sighing. +Once I caught him weeping with a book on his knees, greatly, I own, to +my surprise. + +He had recalled these lines: + + 'O pitiful race of man! + Peace is unknown to thee! + Thou canst not find it save + In the dust of the grave.... + Bitter, bitter is that sleep! + Rest, rest in death ... but living weep!' + +These lines were the composition of a certain Gormitch-Gormitsky, a +wandering poet, to whom Alexey Sergeitch had given a home in his house, +as he struck him as a man of delicate feeling and even of subtlety; he +wore slippers adorned with ribbons, spoke with a broad accent, and +frequently sighed, turning his eyes to heaven; in addition to all these +qualifications, Gormitch-Gormitsky spoke French decently, having been +educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexey Sergeitch only 'followed +conversation.' But having once got terribly drunk at the tavern, that +same subtle Gormitsky showed a turbulence beyond all bounds; he gave a +fearful thrashing to Alexey Sergeitch's valet, the man cook, two +laundry-maids who chanced to get in his way, and a carpenter from +another village, and he broke several panes in the windows, screaming +furiously all the while: 'There, I'll show them, these Russian loafers, +rough-hewn billy-goats!' + +And the strength the frail-looking creature put forth! It was hard work +for eight men to master him! For this violent proceeding Alexey +Sergeitch ordered the poet to be turned out of the house, after being +put, as a preliminary measure, in the snow--it was winter-time--to +sober him. + +'Yes,' Alexey Sergeitch used to say, 'my day is over; I was a spirited +steed, but I've run my last race now. Then, I used to keep poets at my +expense, and I used to buy pictures and books of the Jews, geese of the +best breeds, and pouter-pigeons of pure blood.... I used to go in for +everything! Though dogs I never did care for keeping, because it goes +with drinking, foulness, and buffoonery! I was a young man of spirit, +not to be outdone. That there should be anything of Teliegin's and not +first-rate ... why, it was not to be thought of! And I had a splendid +stud of horses. And my horses came--from what stock do you think, young +sir? Why, from none other than the celebrated stables of the Tsar, Ivan +Alexeitch, brother of Peter the Great ... it's the truth I'm telling +you! All fawn-coloured stallions, sleek--their manes to their knees, +their tails to their hoofs.... Lions! And all that was--and is buried in +the past. Vanity of vanities--and every kind of vanity! But still--why +regret it? Every man has his limits set him. There's no flying above the +sky, no living in the water, no getting away from the earth.... We'll +live a bit longer, anyway!' + +And the old man would smile again and sniff his Spanish snuff. + +The peasants liked him; he was, in their words, a kind master, not +easily angered. Only they, too, repeated that he was a worn-out steed. +In former days Alexey Sergeitch used to go into everything himself--he +used to drive out to the fields, and to the mill, and to the dairy, and +peep into the granaries and the peasants' huts; every one knew his +racing droshky, upholstered in crimson plush, and drawn by a tall mare, +with a broad white star all over her forehead, called 'Beacon,' of the +same famous breed. Alexey Sergeitch used to drive her himself, the ends +of the reins crushed up in his fists. But when his seventieth year came, +the old man let everything go, and handed over the management of the +estate to the bailiff Antip, of whom he was secretly afraid, and whom he +called Micromegas (a reminiscence of Voltaire!), or simply, plunderer. +'Well, plunderer, what have you to say? Have you stacked a great deal in +the barn?' he would ask with a smile, looking straight into the +plunderer's eyes. 'All, by your good favour, please your honour,' Antip +would respond cheerfully. 'Favour's all very well, only you mind what I +say, Micromegas! don't you dare touch the peasants, my subjects, out of +my sight! If they come to complain ... I've a cane, you see, not far +off!' 'Your cane, your honour, Alexey Sergeitch, I always keep well in +mind,' Antip Micromegas would respond, stroking his beard. 'All right, +don't forget it.' And the master and the bailiff would laugh in each +other's faces. With the servants, and with the serfs in general, his +'subjects' (Alexey Sergeitch liked that word) he was gentle in his +behaviour. 'Because, think a little, nephew; nothing of their own, but +the cross on their neck--and that copper--and daren't hanker after other +people's goods ... how can one expect sense of them?' It is needless to +state that of the so-called 'serf question' no one even dreamed in those +days; it could not disturb the peace of mind of Alexey Sergeitch: he was +quite happy in the possession of his 'subjects'; but he was severe in +his censure of bad masters, and used to call them the enemies of their +order. He divided the nobles generally into three classes: the prudent, +'of whom there are too few'; the prodigal, 'of whom there are quite +enough'; and the senseless, 'of whom there are shoals and shoals.' + +'And if any one of them is harsh and oppressive with his subjects'--he +would say--'then he sins against God, and is guilty before men!' + +Yes, the house-serfs had an easy life of it with the old man; the +'subjects out of sight' no doubt fared worse, in spite of the cane with +which he threatened Micromegas. And what a lot there were of them, those +house-serfs, in his house! And for the most part sinewy, hairy, +grumbling old fellows, with stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen +coats, belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging +to them. And on the women's side, one could hear nothing but the patter +of bare feet, the swish of petticoats. The chief valet was called +Irinarh, and Alexey Sergeitch always called him in a long-drawn-out +call: 'I-ri-na-a-arh!' The others he called: 'Boy! Lad! Whoever's there +of the men!' Bells he could not endure: 'It's not an eating-house, God +forbid!' And what used to surprise me was that whatever time Alexey +Sergeitch called his valet, he always promptly made his appearance, as +though he had sprung out of the earth, and with a scrape of his heels, +his hands behind his back, would stand before his master, a surly, as it +were angry, but devoted servant! + +Alexey Sergeitch was liberal beyond his means; but he did not like to be +called 'benefactor.' 'Benefactor to you, indeed, sir! ... I'm doing +myself a benefit, and not you, sir!' (when he was angry or indignant, he +always addressed people with greater formality). 'Give to a beggar +once,' he used to say, 'and give him twice, and three times.... And--if +he should come a fourth time, give to him still--only then you might say +too: "It's time, my good man, you found work for something else, not +only for your mouth."' 'But, uncle,' one asked, sometimes, 'suppose even +after that the beggar came again, a fifth time?' 'Oh, well, give again +the fifth time.' He used to have the sick, who came to him for aid, +treated at his expense, though he had no faith in doctors himself, and +never sent for them. 'My mother,' he declared, 'used to cure illnesses +of all sorts with oil and salt--she gave it internally, and rubbed it on +too--it always answered splendidly. And who was my mother? She was born +in the days of Peter the Great--only fancy that!' + +Alexey Sergeitch was a Russian in everything; he liked none but Russian +dishes, he was fond of Russian songs, but the harmonica--a +'manufactured contrivance'--he hated; he liked looking at the +serf-girls' dances and the peasant-women's jigs; in his youth, I was +told, he had been an enthusiastic singer and a dashing dancer; he liked +steaming himself in the bath, and steamed himself so vigorously that +Irinarh, who, serving him as bathman, used to beat him with a bundle of +birch-twigs steeped in beer, to rub him with a handful of tow, and then +with a woollen cloth--the truly devoted Irinarh used to say every time, +as he crept off his shelf red as a 'new copper image': 'Well, this time +I, the servant of God, Irinarh Tolobiev, have come out alive. How will +it be next time?' + +And Alexey Sergeitch spoke excellent Russian, a little old-fashioned, +but choice and pure as spring water, continually interspersing his +remarks with favourite expressions: ''Pon my honour, please God, +howsoever that may be, sir, and young sir....' + +But enough of him. Let us talk a little about Alexey Sergeitch's wife, +Malania Pavlovna. Malania Pavlovna was born at Moscow. + +She had been famous as the greatest beauty in Moscow--_la Vnus de +Moscou_. I knew her as a thin old woman with delicate but insignificant +features, with crooked teeth, like a hare's, in a tiny little mouth, +with a multitude of finely crimped little yellow curls on her forehead, +and painted eyebrows. She invariably wore a pyramidal cap with pink +ribbons, a high ruff round her neck, a short white dress, and prunella +slippers with red heels; and over her dress she wore a jacket of blue +satin, with a sleeve hanging loose from her right shoulder. This was +precisely the costume in which she was arrayed on St. Peter's Day in the +year 1789! On that day she went, being still a girl, with her relations +to the Hodinskoe field to see the famous boxing-match arranged by Orlov. +'And Count Alexey Grigorievitch' (oh, how often I used to hear this +story!) 'noticing me, approached, bowed very low, taking his hat in both +hands, and said: "Peerless beauty," said he, "why have you hung that +sleeve from your shoulder? Do you, too, wish to try a tussle with me? ... +By all means; only I will tell you beforehand you have vanquished me--I +give in! And I am your captive." And every one was looking at us and +wondering.' And that very costume she had worn continually ever since. +'Only I didn't wear a cap, but a hat _ la bergre de Trianon_; and +though I was powdered, yet my hair shone through it, positively shone +through it like gold!' Malania Pavlovna was foolish to the point of +'holy innocence,' as it is called; she chattered quite at random, as +though she were hardly aware herself of what dropped from her lips--and +mostly about Orlov. Orlov had become, one might say, the principal +interest of her life. She usually walked ... or rather swam, into the +room with a rhythmic movement of the head, like a peacock, stood still +in the middle, with one foot strangely turned out, and two fingers +holding the tip of the loose sleeve (I suppose this pose, too, must once +have charmed Orlov); she would glance about her with haughty +nonchalance, as befits a beauty--and with a positive sniff, and a murmur +of 'What next!' as though some importunate gallant were besieging her +with compliments, she would go out again, tapping her heels and +shrugging her shoulders. She used, too, to take Spanish snuff out of a +tiny bonbonnire, picking it up with a tiny golden spoon; and from time +to time, especially when any one unknown to her was present, she would +hold up--not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, but to her nose--a +double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with a coquettish turn of +her little white hand, one finger held out separate from the rest. How +often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding in the church of +the Ascension, in Arbaty--such a fine church!--and how all Moscow was +there ... 'and the crush there was!--awful! Carriages with teams, golden +coaches, outriders ... one outrider of Count Zavadovsky got run over! +and we were married by the archbishop himself--and what a sermon he gave +us! every one was crying--wherever I looked I saw tears ... and the +governor-general's horses were tawny, like tigers. And the flowers, the +flowers that were brought! ... Simply loads of flowers!' And how on that +day a foreigner, a wealthy, tremendously wealthy person, had shot +himself from love--and how Orlov too had been there.... And going up to +Alexey Sergeitch, he had congratulated him and called him a lucky +man.... 'A lucky man you are, you silly fellow!' said he. And how in +answer to these words Alexey Sergeitch had made a wonderful bow, and had +swept the floor from left to right with the plumes of his hat, as if he +would say: 'Your Excellency, there is a line now between you and my +spouse, which you will not overstep!' And Orlov, Alexey Grigorievitch +understood at once, and commended him. 'Oh! that was a man! such a man!' +And how, 'One day, Alexis and I were at his house at a ball--I was +married then--and he had the most marvellous diamond buttons! And I +could not resist it, I admired them. "What marvellous diamonds you have, +Count!" said I. And he, taking up a knife from the table, at once cut +off a button and presented it to me and said: "In your eyes, my charmer, +the diamonds are a hundred times brighter; stand before the +looking-glass and compare them." And I stood so, and he stood beside me. +"Well, who's right?" said he, while he simply rolled his eyes, looking +me up and down. And Alexey Sergeitch was very much put out about it, but +I said to him: "Alexis," said I, "please don't you be put out; you ought +to know me better!" And he answered me: "Don't disturb yourself, +Melanie!" And these very diamonds are now round my medallion of Alexey +Grigorievitch--you've seen it, I dare say, my dear;--I wear it on +feast-days on a St. George ribbon, because he was a brave hero, a +knight of St. George: he burned the Turks.' + +For all that, Malania Pavlovna was a very kind-hearted woman; she was +easily pleased. 'She's not one to snarl, nor to sneer,' the maids used +to say of her. Malania Pavlovna was passionately fond of sweet +things--and a special old woman who looked after nothing but the jam, +and so was called the jam-maid, would bring her, ten times a day, a +china dish with rose-leaves crystallised in sugar, or barberries in +honey, or sherbet of bananas. Malania Pavlovna was afraid of +solitude--dreadful thoughts are apt to come over one, she would say--and was +almost always surrounded by companions, whom she would urgently implore: +'Talk, talk! why do you sit like that, simply keeping your seats warm!' +and they would begin twittering like canaries. She was no less devout +than Alexey Sergeitch, and was very fond of praying; but as, in her own +words, she had never learned to repeat prayers well, she kept for the +purpose a poor deacon's widow who prayed with such relish! Never +stumbled over a word in her life! And this deacon's widow certainly +could utter the words of prayer in a sort of unbroken flow, not +interrupting the stream to breathe out or draw breath in, while Malania +Pavlovna listened and was much moved. She had another widow in +attendance on her--it was her duty to tell her stories in the night. +'But only the old ones,' Malania Pavlovna would beg--'those I know +already; the new ones are all so far-fetched.' Malania Pavlovna was +flighty in the extreme, and at times she was fanciful too; some +ridiculous notion would suddenly come into her head. She did not like +the dwarf, Janus, for instance; she was always fancying he would +suddenly get up and shout, 'Don't you know who I am? The prince of the +Buriats. Mind, you are to obey me!' Or else that he would set fire to +the house in a fit of spleen. Malania Pavlovna was as liberal as Alexey +Sergeitch; but she never gave money--she did not like to soil her +hands--but kerchiefs, bracelets, dresses, ribbons; or she would send +pies from the table, or a piece of roast meat, or a bottle of wine. She +liked feasting the peasant-women, too, on holidays; they would dance, +and she would tap with her heels and throw herself into attitudes. + +Alexey Sergeitch was well aware that his wife was a fool; but almost +from the first year of his marriage he had schooled himself to keep up +the fiction that she was very witty and fond of saying cutting things. +Sometimes when her chatter began to get beyond all bounds, he would +threaten her with his finger, and say as he did so: 'Ah, the tongue, the +tongue! what it will have to answer for in the other world! It will be +pierced with a redhot pin!' + +Malania Pavlovna was not offended, however, at this; on the contrary, +she seemed to feel flattered at hearing a reproof of that sort, as +though she would say, 'Well! is it my fault if I'm naturally witty?' + +Malania Pavlovna adored her husband, and had been all her life an +exemplarily faithful wife; but there had been a romance even in her +life--a young cousin, an hussar, killed, as she supposed, in a duel on +her account; but, according to more trustworthy reports, killed by a +blow on the head from a billiard-cue in a tavern brawl. A water-colour +portrait of this object of her affections was kept by her in a secret +drawer. Malania Pavlovna always blushed up to her ears when she +mentioned Kapiton--such was the name of the young hero--and Alexey +Sergeitch would designedly scowl, shake his finger at his wife again, +and say: 'No trusting a horse in the field nor a woman in the house. +Don't talk to me of Kapiton, he's Cupidon!' Then Malania Pavlovna would +be all of a flutter and say: 'Alexis, Alexis, it's too bad of you! In +your young days you flirted, I've no doubt, with all sorts of misses and +madams--and so now you imagine....' 'Come, that's enough, that's enough, +my dear Malania,' Alexey Sergeitch interrupted with a smile. 'Your gown +is white--but whiter still your soul!' 'Yes, Alexis, it is whiter!' 'Ah, +what a tongue, what a tongue!' Alexis would repeat, patting her hand. + +To speak of 'views' in the case of Malania Pavlovna would be even more +inappropriate than in the case of Alexey Sergeitch; yet I once chanced +to witness a strange manifestation of my aunt's secret feelings. In the +course of conversation I once somehow mentioned the famous chief of +police, Sheshkovsky; Malania Pavlovna turned suddenly livid--positively +livid, green, in spite of her rouge and paint--and in a thick and +perfectly unaffected voice (a very rare thing with her--she usually +minced a little, intoned, and lisped) she said: 'Oh, what a name to +utter! And towards nightfall, too! Don't utter that name!' I was +astonished; what kind of significance could his name have for such a +harmless and inoffensive creature, incapable--not merely of doing--even +of thinking of anything not permissible? Anything but cheerful +reflections were aroused in me by this terror, manifesting itself after +almost half a century. + +Alexey Sergeitch died in his eighty-eighth year--in the year 1848, which +apparently disturbed even him. His death, too, was rather strange. He +had felt well the same morning, though by that time he never left his +easy-chair. And all of a sudden he called his wife: 'Malania, my dear, +come here.' 'What is it, Alexis?' 'It's time for me to die, my dear, +that's what it is.' 'Mercy on you, Alexey Sergeitch! What for?' +'Because, first of all, one must know when to take leave; and, besides, +I was looking the other day at my feet.... Look at my feet ... they +are not mine ... say what you like ... look at my hands, look at my +stomach ... that stomach's not mine--so really I'm using up another man's +life. Send for the priest; and meanwhile, put me to bed--from which I +shall not get up again.' Malania Pavlovna was terribly upset; however, she +put the old man to bed and sent for the priest. Alexey Sergeitch confessed, +took the sacrament, said good-bye to his household, and fell asleep. +Malania Pavlovna was sitting by his bedside. 'Alexis!' she cried +suddenly, 'don't frighten me, don't shut your eyes! Are you in pain?' +The old man looked at his wife: 'No, no pain ... but it's difficult ... +difficult to breathe.' Then after a brief silence: 'Malania,' he said, +'so life has slipped by--and do you remember when we were married ... +what a couple we were?' 'Yes, we were, my handsome, charming Alexis!' +The old man was silent again. 'Malania, my dear, shall we meet again in +the next world?' 'I will pray God for it, Alexis,' and the old woman +burst into tears. 'Come, don't cry, silly; maybe the Lord God will make +us young again then--and again we shall be a fine pair!' 'He will make +us young, Alexis!' 'With the Lord all things are possible,' observed +Alexey Sergeitch. 'He worketh great marvels!--maybe He will make you +sensible.... There, my love, I was joking; come, let me kiss your hand.' +'And I yours.' And the two old people kissed each other's hands +simultaneously. + +Alexey Sergeitch began to grow quieter and to sink into forgetfulness. +Malania Pavlovna watched him tenderly, brushing the tears off her +eyelashes with her finger-tips. For two hours she continued sitting +there. 'Is he asleep?' the old woman with the talent for praying +inquired in a whisper, peeping in behind Irinarh, who, immovable as a +post, stood in the doorway, gazing intently at his expiring master. 'He +is asleep,' answered Malania Pavlovna also in a whisper. And suddenly +Alexey Sergeitch opened his eyes. 'My faithful companion,' he faltered, +'my honoured wife, I would bow down at your little feet for all your +love and faithfulness--but how to get up? Let me sign you with the +cross.' Malania Pavlovna moved closer, bent down.... But the hand he had +raised fell back powerless on the quilt, and a few moments later Alexey +Sergeitch was no more. + +His daughters arrived only on the day of the funeral with their +husbands; they had no children either of them. Alexey Sergeitch showed +them no animosity in his will, though he never even mentioned them on +his death-bed. 'My heart has grown hard to them,' he once said to me. +Knowing his kindly nature, I was surprised at his words. It is hard to +judge between parents and children. 'A great ravine starts from a little +rift,' Alexey Sergeitch said to me once in this connection: 'a wound a +yard wide may heal; but once cut off even a finger nail, it will not +grow again.' + +I fancy the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old parents. + +A month later and Malania Pavlovna too passed away. From the very day of +Alexey Sergeitch's death she had hardly risen from her bed, and had not +put on her usual attire; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and +with Orlov's medallion on her shoulder, only without the diamonds. Those +her daughters divided, on the pretext that the diamonds should be used +in the setting of some holy pictures; in reality, they used them to +adorn their own persons. + +And so I can see my old friends as though they were alive and before my +eyes, and pleasant is the memory I preserve of them. And yet on my very +last visit to them (I was a student by then) an incident occurred which +jarred upon the impression of patriarchal harmony always produced in me +by the Teliegin household. + +Among the house-serfs there was one Ivan, called 'Suhys' Ivan,' a +coachman or coach-boy, as they called him on account of his small size, +in spite of his being no longer young. He was a tiny little man, brisk, +snub-nosed, curly-headed, with an everlastingly smiling, childish face, +and little eyes, like a mouse's. He was a great joker, a most comic +fellow; he was great at all sorts of tricks--he used to fly kites, let +off fireworks and rockets, to play all sorts of games, gallop standing +up on the horse's back, fly higher than all the rest in the swing, and +could even make Chinese shadows. No one could amuse children better; and +he would gladly spend the whole day looking after them. When he started +laughing, the whole house would seem to liven up; they would answer +him--one would say one thing, one another, but he always made them all +merry.... And even if they abused him, they could not but laugh. Ivan +danced marvellously, especially the so-called 'fish dance.' When the +chorus struck up a dance tune, the fellow would come into the middle of +the ring, and then there would begin such a turning and skipping and +stamping, and then he would fall flat on the ground, and imitate the +movement of a fish brought out of the water on to dry land; such turning +and wriggling, the heels positively clapped up to the head; and then he +would get up and shriek--the earth seemed simply quivering under him. At +times Alexey Sergeitch, who was, as I have said already, exceedingly +fond of watching dancing, could not resist shouting, 'Little Vania, +here! coach-boy! Dance us the fish, smartly now'; and a minute later he +would whisper enthusiastically: 'Ah, what a fellow it is!' + +Well, on my last visit, this Ivan Suhih came into my room, and, without +saying a word, fell on his knees. 'Ivan, what's the matter?' 'Save me, +sir.' 'Why, what is it?' And thereupon Ivan told me his trouble. + +He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by 'the Suhy family for a serf of +the Teliegins';--simply exchanged without any kind of formality or +written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys +had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch's +house as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his +origin. But now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into +other hands; and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and +oppressive man, having learned that one of his serfs was detained +without cause or reason at Alexey Sergeitch's, began to demand him back; +in case of refusal he threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was +not an empty one, as he was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and +had great weight in the province. Ivan had rushed in terror to Alexey +Sergeitch. The old man was sorry for his dancer, and he offered the +privy councillor to buy Ivan for a considerable sum. But the privy +councillor would not hear of it; he was a Little Russian, and obstinate +as the devil. The poor fellow would have to be given up. 'I have spent +my life here, and I'm at home here; I have served here, here I have +eaten my bread, and here I want to die,' Ivan said to me--and there was +no smile on his face now; on the contrary, it looked turned to stone.... +'And now I am to go to this wretch.... Am I a dog to be flung from one +kennel to another with a noose round my neck? ... to be told: "There, +get along with you!" Save me, master; beg your uncle, remember how I +always amused you.... Or else there'll be harm come of it; it won't end +without sin.' + +'What sort of sin, Ivan?' + +'I shall kill that gentleman. I shall simply go and say to him, +"Master, let me go back; or else, mind, be careful of yourself.... I +shall kill you."' + +If a siskin or a chaffinch could have spoken, and had begun declaring +that it would peck another bird to death, it would not have reduced me +to greater amazement than did Ivan at that moment. What! Suhys' Vania, +that dancing, jesting, comic fellow, the favourite playfellow of +children, and a child himself, that kindest-hearted of creatures, a +murderer! What ridiculous nonsense! Not for an instant did I believe +him; what astonished me to such a degree was that he was capable of +saying such a thing. Anyway I appealed to Alexey Sergeitch. I did not +repeat what Ivan had said to me, but began asking him whether something +couldn't be done. 'My young sir,' the old man answered, 'I should be +only too happy--but what's to be done? I offered this Little Russian an +immense compensation--I offered him three hundred roubles, 'pon my +honour, I tell you! but he--there's no moving him! what's one to do? The +transaction was not legal, it was done on trust, in the old-fashioned +way ... and now see what mischief's come of it! This Little Russian +fellow, you see, will take Ivan by force, do what we will: his arm is +powerful, the governor eats cabbage-soup at his table; he'll be sending +along soldiers. And I'm afraid of those soldiers! In old days, to be +sure, I would have stood up for Ivan, come what might; but now, look at +me, what a feeble creature I have grown! How can I make a fight for it?' +It was true; on my last visit I found Alexey Sergeitch greatly aged; +even the centres of his eyes had that milky colour that babies' eyes +have, and his lips wore not his old conscious smile, but that unnatural, +mawkish, unconscious grin, which never, even in sleep, leaves the faces +of very decrepit old people. + +I told Ivan of Alexey Sergeitch's decision. He stood still, was silent +for a little, shook his head. 'Well,' said he at last, 'what is to be +there's no escaping. Only my mind's made up. There's nothing left, then, +but to play the fool to the end. Something for drink, please!' I gave +him something; he drank himself drunk, and that day danced the 'fish +dance' so that the serf-girls and peasant-women positively shrieked with +delight--he surpassed himself in his antics so wonderfully. + +Next day I went home, and three months later, in Petersburg, I heard +that Ivan had kept his word. He had been sent to his new master; his +master had called him into his room, and explained to him that he would +be made coachman, that a team of three ponies would be put in his +charge, and that he would be severely dealt with if he did not look +after them well, and were not punctual in discharging his duties +generally. 'I'm not fond of joking.' Ivan heard the master out, first +bowed down to his feet, and then announced it was as his honour pleased, +but he could not be his servant. + +'Let me off for a yearly quit-money, your honour,' said he, 'or send me +for a soldier; or else there'll be mischief come of it!' + +The master flew into a rage. 'Ah, what a fellow you are! How dare you +speak to me like that? In the first place, I'm to be called your +excellency, and not your honour; and, secondly, you're beyond the age, +and not of a size to be sent for a soldier; and, lastly, what mischief +do you threaten me with? Do you mean to set the house on fire, eh?' + +'No, your excellency, not the house on fire.' + +'Murder me, then, eh?' + +Ivan was silent. 'I'm not your servant,' he said at last. + +'Oh well, I'll show you,' roared the master, 'whether you 're my servant +or not.' And he had Ivan cruelly punished, but yet had the three ponies +put into his charge, and made him coachman in the stables. + +Ivan apparently submitted; he began driving about as coachman. As he +drove well, he soon gained favour with the master, especially as Ivan +was very quiet and steady in his behaviour, and the ponies improved so +much in his hands; he turned them out as sound and sleek as +cucumbers--it was quite a sight to see. The master took to driving out +with him oftener than with the other coachmen. Sometimes he would ask +him, 'I say, Ivan, do you remember how badly we got on when we met? +You've got over all that nonsense, eh?' But Ivan never made any response +to such remarks. So one day the master was driving with Ivan to the town +in his three-horse sledge with bells and a highback covered with carpet. +The horses began to walk up the hill, and Ivan got off the box-seat and +went behind the back of the sledge as though he had dropped something. +It was a sharp frost; the master sat wrapped up, with a beaver cap +pulled down on to his ears. Then Ivan took an axe from under his skirt, +came up to the master from behind, knocked off his cap, and saying, 'I +warned you, Piotr Petrovitch--you've yourself to blame now!' he struck +off his head at one blow. Then he stopped the ponies, put the cap on his +dead master, and, getting on the box-seat again, drove him to the town, +straight to the courts of justice. + +'Here's the Suhinsky general for you, dead; I have killed him. As I told +him, so I did to him. Put me in fetters.' + +They took Ivan, tried him, sentenced him to the knout, and then to hard +labour. The light-hearted, bird-like dancer was sent to the mines, and +there passed out of sight for ever.... + +Yes; one can but repeat, in another sense, Alexey Sergeitch's words: +'They were good old times ... but enough of them!' + +1881. + + + + +THE BRIGADIER + + + + +I + + +Reader, do you know those little homesteads of country gentlefolks, +which were plentiful in our Great Russian Oukrane twenty-five or thirty +years ago? Now one rarely comes across them, and in another ten years +the last of them will, I suppose, have disappeared for ever. The running +pond overgrown with reeds and rushes, the favourite haunt of fussy +ducks, among whom one may now and then come across a wary 'teal'; beyond +the pond a garden with avenues of lime-trees, the chief beauty and glory +of our black-earth plains, with smothered rows of 'Spanish' +strawberries, with dense thickets of gooseberries, currants, and +raspberries, in the midst of which, in the languid hour of the stagnant +noonday heat, one would be sure to catch glimpses of a serf-girl's +striped kerchief, and to hear the shrill ring of her voice. Close by +would be a summer-house standing on four legs, a conservatory, a +neglected kitchen garden, with flocks of sparrows hung on stakes, and a +cat curled up on the tumble-down well; a little further, leafy +apple-trees in the high grass, which is green below and grey above, +straggling cherry-trees, pear-trees, on which there is never any fruit; +then flower-beds, poppies, peonies, pansies, milkwort, 'maids in green,' +bushes of Tartar honeysuckle, wild jasmine, lilac and acacia, with the +continual hum of bees and wasps among their thick, fragrant, sticky +branches. At last comes the manor-house, a one-storied building on a +brick foundation, with greenish window-panes in narrow frames, a +sloping, once painted roof, a little balcony from which the vases of the +balustrade are always jutting out, a crooked gable, and a husky old dog +in the recess under the steps at the door. Behind the house a wide yard +with nettles, wormwood, and burdocks in the corners, outbuildings with +doors that stick, doves and rooks on the thatched roofs, a little +storehouse with a rusty weathercock, two or three birch-trees with +rooks' nests in their bare top branches, and beyond--the road with +cushions of soft dust in the ruts and a field and the long hurdles of +the hemp patches, and the grey little huts of the village, and the +cackle of geese in the far-away rich meadows.... Is all this familiar to +you, reader? In the house itself everything is a little awry, a little +rickety--but no matter. It stands firm and keeps warm; the stoves are +like elephants, the furniture is of all sorts, home-made. Little paths +of white footmarks run from the doors over the painted floors. In the +hall siskins and larks in tiny cages; in the corner of the dining-room +an immense English clock in the form of a tower, with the inscription, +'Strike--silent'; in the drawing-room portraits of the family, painted +in oils, with an expression of ill-tempered alarm on the brick-coloured +faces, and sometimes too an old warped picture of flowers and fruit or a +mythological subject. Everywhere there is the smell of kvas, of apples, +of linseed-oil and of leather. Flies buzz and hum about the ceiling and +the windows. A daring cockroach suddenly shows his countenance from +behind the looking-glass frame.... No matter, one can live here--and +live very well too. + + + + +II + + +Just such a homestead it was my lot to visit thirty years ago ... it was +in days long past, as you perceive. The little estate in which this +house stood belonged to a friend of mine at the university; it had only +recently come to him on the death of a bachelor cousin, and he was not +living in it himself.... But at no great distance from it there were +wide tracts of steppe bog, in which at the time of summer migration, +when they are on the wing, there are great numbers of snipe; my friend +and I, both enthusiastic sportsmen, agreed therefore to go on St. +Peter's day, he from Moscow, I from my own village, to his little house. +My friend lingered in Moscow, and was two days late; I did not care to +start shooting without him. I was received by an old servant, Narkiz +Semyonov, who had had notice of my coming. This old servant was not in +the least like 'Savelitch' or 'Caleb'; my friend used to call him in +joke 'Marquis.' There was something of conceit, even of affectation, +about him; he looked down on us young men with a certain dignity, but +cherished no particularly respectful sentiments for other landowners +either; of his old master he spoke slightingly, while his own class he +simply scorned for their ignorance. He could read and write, expressed +himself correctly and with judgment, and did not drink. He seldom went +to church, and so was looked upon as a dissenter. In appearance he was +thin and tall, had a long and good-looking face, a sharp nose, and +overhanging eyebrows, which he was continually either knitting or +lifting; he wore a neat, roomy coat, and boots to his knees with +heart-shaped scallops at the tops. + + + + +III + + +On the day of my arrival, Narkiz, having given me lunch and cleared the +table, stood in the doorway, looked intently at me, and with some play +of the eyebrows observed: + +'What are you going to do now, sir?' + +'Well, really, I don't know. If Nikolai Petrovitch had kept his word and +come, we should have gone shooting together.' + +'So you really expected, sir, that he would come at the time he +promised?' + +'Of course I did.' + +'H'm.' Narkiz looked at me again and shook his head as it were with +commiseration. 'If you 'd care to amuse yourself with reading,' he +continued: 'there are some books left of my old master's; I'll get them +you, if you like; only you won't read them, I expect.' + +'Why?' + +'They're books of no value; not written for the gentlemen of +these days.' + +'Have you read them?' + +'If I hadn't read them, I wouldn't have spoken about them. A dream-book, +for instance ... that's not much of a book, is it? There are others too, +of course ... only you won't read them either.' + +'Why?' + +'They are religious books.' + +I was silent for a space.... Narkiz was silent too. + +'What vexes me most,' I began, 'is staying in the house in such +weather.' + +'Take a walk in the garden; or go into the copse. We've a copse here +beyond the threshing-floor. Are you fond of fishing?' + +'Are there fish here?' + +'Yes, in the pond. Loaches, sand-eels, and perches are caught there. +Now, to be sure, the best time is over; July's here. But anyway, you +might try.... Shall I get the tackle ready?' + +'Yes, do please.' + +'I'll send a boy with you ... to put on the worms. Or maybe I 'd better +come myself?' Narkiz obviously doubted whether I knew how to set about +things properly by myself. + +'Come, please, come along.' + +Narkiz, without a word, grinned from ear to ear, then suddenly knitted +his brows ... and went out of the room. + + + + +IV + + +Half an hour later we set off to catch fish. Narkiz had put on an +extraordinary sort of cap with ears, and was more dignified than ever. +He walked in front with a steady, even step; two rods swayed regularly +up and down on his shoulders; a bare-legged boy followed him carrying a +can and a pot of worms. + +'Here, near the dike, there's a seat, put up on the floating platform on +purpose,' Narkiz was beginning to explain to me, but he glanced ahead, +and suddenly exclaimed: 'Aha! but our poor folk are here already ... +they keep it up, it seems.' + +I craned my head to look from behind him, and saw on the floating +platform, on the very seat of which he had been speaking, two persons +sitting with their backs to us; they were placidly fishing. + +'Who are they?' I asked. + +'Neighbours,' Narkiz responded, with displeasure. 'They've nothing to +eat at home, and so here they come to us.' + +'Are they allowed to?' + +'The old master allowed them.... Nikolai Petrovitch maybe won't give +them permission.... The long one is a superannuated deacon--quite a +silly creature; and as for the other, that's a little stouter--he's a +brigadier.' + +'A brigadier?' I repeated, wondering. This 'brigadier's' attire was +almost worse than the deacon's. + +'I assure you he's a brigadier. And he did have a fine property once. +But now he has only a corner given him out of charity, and he lives ... +on what God sends him. But, by the way, what are we to do? They've taken +the best place.... We shall have to disturb our precious visitors.' + +'No, Narkiz, please don't disturb them. We'll sit here a little aside; +they won't interfere with us. I should like to make acquaintance with +the brigadier.' + +'As you like. Only, as far as acquaintance goes ... you needn't expect +much satisfaction from it, sir; he's grown very weak in his head, and in +conversation he's silly as a little child. As well he may be; he's past +his eightieth year.' + +'What's his name?' + +'Vassily Fomitch. Guskov's his surname.' + +'And the deacon?' + +'The deacon? ... his nickname's Cucumber. Every one about here calls him +so; but what his real name is--God knows! A foolish creature! A regular +ne'er-do-well.' + +'Do they live together?' + +'No; but there--the devil has tied them together, it seems.' + + + + +V + + +We approached the platform. The brigadier cast one glance upon us ... +and promptly fixed his eyes on the float; Cucumber jumped up, pulled +back his rod, took off his worn-out clerical hat, passed a trembling +hand over his rough yellow hair, made a sweeping bow, and gave vent to a +feeble little laugh. His bloated face betrayed him an inveterate +drunkard; his staring little eyes blinked humbly. He gave his neighbour +a poke in the ribs, as though to let him know that they must clear +out.... The brigadier began to move on the seat. + +'Sit still, I beg; don't disturb yourselves,' I hastened to say. 'You +won't interfere with us in the least. We'll take up our position here; +sit still.' + +Cucumber wrapped his ragged smock round him, twitched his shoulders, his +lips, his beard.... Obviously he felt our presence oppressive and he +would have been glad to slink away, ... but the brigadier was again lost +in the contemplation of his float.... The 'ne'er-do-weel' coughed twice, +sat down on the very edge of the seat, put his hat on his knees, and, +tucking his bare legs up under him, he discreetly dropped in his line. + +'Any bites?' Narkiz inquired haughtily, as in leisurely fashion he +unwound his reel. + +'We've caught a matter of five loaches,' answered Cucumber in a cracked +and husky voice: 'and he took a good-sized perch.' + +'Yes, a perch,' repeated the brigadier in a shrill pipe. + + + + +VI + + +I fell to watching closely--not him, but his reflection in the pond. It +was as clearly reflected as in a looking-glass--a little darker, a +little more silvery. The wide stretch of pond wafted a refreshing +coolness upon us; a cool breath of air seemed to rise, too, from the +steep, damp bank; and it was the sweeter, as in the dark blue, flooded +with gold, above the tree tops, the stagnant sultry heat hung, a burden +that could be felt, over our heads. There was no stir in the water near +the dike; in the shade cast by the drooping bushes on the bank, water +spiders gleamed, like tiny bright buttons, as they described their +everlasting circles; at long intervals there was a faint ripple just +perceptible round the floats, when a fish was 'playing' with the worm. +Very few fish were taken; during a whole hour we drew up only two +loaches and an eel. I could not say why the brigadier aroused my +curiosity; his rank could not have any influence on me; ruined noblemen +were not even at that time looked upon as a rarity, and his appearance +presented nothing remarkable. Under the warm cap, which covered the +whole upper part of his head down to his ears and his eyebrows, could be +seen a smooth, red, clean-shaven, round face, with a little nose, little +lips, and small, clear grey eyes. Simplicity and weakness of character, +and a sort of long-standing, helpless sorrow, were visible in that meek, +almost childish face; the plump, white little hands with short fingers +had something helpless, incapable about them too.... I could not +conceive how this forlorn old man could once have been an officer, could +have maintained discipline, have given his commands--and that, too, in +the stern days of Catherine! I watched him; now and then he puffed out +his cheeks and uttered a feeble whistle, like a little child; sometimes +he screwed up his eyes painfully, with effort, as all decrepit people +will. Once he opened his eyes wide and lifted them.... They stared at me +from out of the depths of the water--and strangely touching and even +full of meaning their dejected glance seemed to me. + + + + +VII + + +I tried to begin a conversation with the brigadier ... but Narkiz had +not misinformed me; the poor old man certainly had become weak in his +intellect. He asked me my surname, and after repeating his inquiry +twice, pondered and pondered, and at last brought out: 'Yes, I fancy +there was a judge of that name here. Cucumber, wasn't there a judge +about here of that name, hey?' 'To be sure there was, Vassily Fomitch, +your honour,' responded Cucumber, who treated him altogether as a child. +'There was, certainly. But let me have your hook; your worm must have +been eaten off.... Yes, so it is.' + +'Did you know the Lomov family?' the brigadier suddenly asked me in a +cracked voice. + +'What Lomov family is that?' + +'Why, Fiodor Ivanitch, Yevstigney Ivanitch, Alexey Ivanitch the Jew, and +Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer, ... and then, too ...' + +The brigadier suddenly broke off and looked down confused. + +They were the people he was most intimate with,' Narkiz whispered, +bending towards me; 'it was through them, through that same Alexey +Ivanitch, that he called a Jew, and through a sister of Alexey +Ivanitch's, Agrafena Ivanovna, as you may say, that he lost all his +property.' + +'What are you saying there about Agrafena Ivanovna?' the brigadier +called out suddenly, and his head was raised, his white eyebrows were +frowning.... 'You'd better mind! And why Agrafena, pray? Agrippina +Ivanovna--that's what you should call her.' + +'There--there--there, sir,' Cucumber was beginning to falter. + +'Don't you know the verses the poet Milonov wrote about her?' the old +man went on, suddenly getting into a state of excitement, which was a +complete surprise to me. 'No hymeneal lights were kindled,' he began +chanting, pronouncing all the vowels through his nose, giving the +syllables 'an,' 'en,' the nasal sound they have in French; and it was +strange to hear this connected speech from his lips: 'No torches ... No, +that's not it: + + "Not vain Corruption's idols frail + Not amaranth nor porphyry + Rejoiced their hearts ... + One thing in them ..." + +'That was about us. Do you hear? + + "One thing in them unquenchable, + Subduing, sweet, desirable, + To nurse their mutual flame in love!" + +And you talk about Agrafena!' + +Narkiz chuckled half-contemptuously, half-indifferently. 'What a queer +fish it is!' he said to himself. But the brigadier had again relapsed +into dejection, the rod had dropped from his hands and slipped into +the water. + + + + +VIII + + +'Well, to my thinking, our fishing is a poor business,' observed +Cucumber; 'the fish, see, don't bite at all. It's got fearfully hot, and +there's a fit of "mencholy" come over our gentleman. It's clear we must +be going home; that will be best.' He cautiously drew out of his pocket +a tin bottle with a wooden stopper, uncorked it, scattered snuff on his +wrist, and sniffed it up in both nostrils at once.... 'Ah, what good +snuff!' he moaned, as he recovered himself. 'It almost made my tooth +ache! Now, my dear Vassily Fomitch, get up--it's time to be off!' + +The brigadier got up from the bench. + +'Do you live far from here?' I asked Cucumber. + +'No, our gentleman lives not far ... it won't be as much as a mile.' + +'Will you allow me to accompany you?' I said, addressing the brigadier. +I felt disinclined to let him go. + +Narkiz was surprised at my intention; but I paid no attention to the +disapproving shake of his long-eared cap, and walked out of the garden +with the brigadier, who was supported by Cucumber. The old man moved +fairly quickly, with a motion as though he were on stilts. + + + + +IX + + +We walked along a scarcely trodden path, through a grassy glade between +two birch copses. The sun was blazing; the orioles called to each other +in the green thicket; corncrakes chattered close to the path; blue +butterflies fluttered in crowds about the white, and red flowers of the +low-growing clover; in the perfectly still grass bees hung, as though +asleep, languidly buzzing. Cucumber seemed to pull himself together, and +brightened up; he was afraid of Narkiz--he lived always under his eye; I +was a stranger--a new comer--with me he was soon quite at home. + +'Here's our gentleman,' he said in a rapid flow; 'he's a small eater +and no mistake! but only one perch, is that enough for him? Unless, +your honour, you would like to contribute something? Close here round +the corner, at the little inn, there are first-rate white wheaten +rolls. And if so, please your honour, this poor sinner, too, will +gladly drink on this occasion to your health, and may it be of long +years and long days.' I gave him a little silver, and was only just in +time to pull away my hand, which he was falling upon to kiss. He +learned that I was a sportsman, and fell to talking of a very good +friend of his, an officer, who had a 'Mindindenger' Swedish gun, with a +copper stock, just like a cannon, so that when you fire it off you are +almost knocked senseless--it had been left behind by the French--and a +dog--simply one of Nature's marvels! that he himself had always had a +great passion for the chase, and his priest would have made no trouble +about it--he used in fact to catch quails with him--but the +ecclesiastical superior had pursued him with endless persecution; 'and +as for Narkiz Semyonitch,' he observed in a sing-song tone, 'if +according to his notions I'm not a trustworthy person--well, what I say +is: he's let his eyebrows grow till he's like a woodcock, and he +fancies all the sciences are known to him.' By this time we had reached +the inn, a solitary tumble-down, one-roomed little hut without backyard +or outbuildings; an emaciated dog lay curled up under the window; a hen +was scratching in the dust under his very nose. Cucumber sat the +brigadier down on the bank, and darted instantly into the hut. While he +was buying the rolls and emptying a glass, I never took my eyes off the +brigadier, who, God knows why, struck me as something of an enigma. In +the life of this man--so I mused--there must certainly have been +something out of the ordinary. But he, it seemed, did not notice me at +all. He was sitting huddled up on the bank, and twisting in his fingers +some pinks which he had gathered in my friend's garden. Cucumber made +his appearance, at last, with a bundle of rolls in his hand; he made +his appearance, all red and perspiring, with an expression of gleeful +surprise on his face, as though he had just seen something exceedingly +agreeable and unexpected. He at once offered the brigadier a roll to +eat, and the latter at once ate it. We proceeded on our way. + + + + +X + + +On the strength of the spirits he had drunk, Cucumber quite 'unbent,' as +it is called. He began trying to cheer up the brigadier, who was still +hurrying forward with a tottering motion as though he were on stilts. +'Why are you so downcast, sir, and hanging your head? Let me sing you a +song. That'll cheer you up in a minute.' He turned to me: 'Our gentleman +is very fond of a joke, mercy on us, yes! Yesterday, what did I see?--a +peasant-woman washing a pair of breeches on the platform, and a great +fat woman she was, and he stood behind her, simply all of a shake with +laughter--yes, indeed! ... In a minute, allow me: do you know the song of +the hare? You mustn't judge me by my looks; there's a gypsy woman living +here in the town, a perfect fright, but sings--'pon my soul! one's ready +to lie down and die.' He opened wide his moist red lips and began +singing, his head on one side, his eyes shut, and his beard quivering: + + 'The hare beneath the bush lies still, + The hunters vainly scour the hill; + The hare lies hid and holds his breath, + His ears pricked up, he lies there still + Waiting for death. + O hunters! what harm have I done, + To vex or injure you? Although + Among the cabbages I run, + One leaf I nibble--only one, + And that's not yours! + Oh, no!' + +Cucumber went on with ever-increasing energy: + + 'Into the forest dark he fled, + His tail he let the hunters see; + "Excuse me, gentlemen," says he, + "That so I turn my back on you-- + I am not yours!"' + +Cucumber was not singing now ... he was bellowing: + + 'The hunters hunted day and night, + And still the hare was out of sight. + So, talking over his misdeeds, + They ended by disputing quite-- + Alas, the hare is not for us! + The squint-eye is too sharp for us!' + +The first two lines of each stanza Cucumber sang with each syllable +drawn out; the other three, on the contrary, very briskly, and +accompanied them with little hops and shuffles of his feet; at the +conclusion of each verse he cut a caper, in which he kicked himself with +his own heels. As he shouted at the top of his voice: 'The squint-eye is +too sharp for us!' he turned a somersault.... His expectations were +fulfilled. The brigadier suddenly went off into a thin, tearful little +chuckle, and laughed so heartily that he could not go on, and stayed +still in a half-sitting posture, helplessly slapping his knees with his +hands. I looked at his face, flushed crimson, and convulsively working, +and felt very sorry for him at that instant especially. Encouraged by +his success, Cucumber fell to capering about in a squatting position, +singing the refrain of: 'Shildi-budildi!' and 'Natchiki-tchikaldi!' He +stumbled at last with his nose in the dust.... The brigadier suddenly +ceased laughing and hobbled on. + + + + +XI + + +We went on another quarter of a mile. A little village came into sight +on the edge of a not very deep ravine; on one side stood the 'lodge,' +with a half-ruined roof and a solitary chimney; in one of the two rooms +of this lodge lived the brigadier. The owner of the village, who always +resided in Petersburg, the widow of the civil councillor Lomov, had--so +I learned later--bestowed this little nook upon the brigadier. She had +given orders that he should receive a monthly pension, and had also +assigned for his service a half-witted serf-girl living in the same +village, who, though she barely understood human speech, was yet +capable, in the lady's opinion, of sweeping a floor and cooking +cabbage-soup. At the door of the lodge the brigadier again addressed me +with the same eighteenth-century smile: would I be pleased to walk into +his 'apartement'? We went into this 'apartement.' Everything in it was +exceedingly filthy and poor, so filthy and so poor that the brigadier, +noticing, probably, by the expression of my face, the impression it made +on me, observed, shrugging his shoulders, and half closing his eyelids: +'Ce n'est pas ... oeil de perdrix.' ... What precisely he meant by this +remained a mystery to me.... When I addressed him in French, I got no +reply from him in that language. Two objects struck me especially in the +brigadier's abode: a large officer's cross of St. George in a black +frame, under glass, with an inscription in an old-fashioned handwriting: +'Received by the Colonel of the Tchernigov regiment, Vassily Guskov, for +the storming of Prague in the year 1794'; and secondly, a half-length +portrait in oils of a handsome, black-eyed woman with a long, dark face, +hair turned up high and powdered, with postiches on the temple and chin, +in a flowered, low-cut bodice, with blue frills, the style of 1780. The +portrait was badly painted, but was probably a good likeness; there was +a wonderful look of life and will, something extraordinarily living and +resolute, about the face. It was not looking at the spectator; it was, +as it were, turning away and not smiling; the curve of the thin nose, +the regular but flat lips, the almost unbroken straight line of the +thick eyebrows, all showed an imperious, haughty, fiery temper. No great +effort was needed to picture that face glowing with passion or with +rage. Just below the portrait on a little pedestal stood a half-withered +bunch of simple wild flowers in a thick glass jar. The brigadier went up +to the pedestal, stuck the pinks he was carrying into the jar, and +turning to me, and lifting his hand in the direction of the portrait, he +observed: 'Agrippina Ivanovna Teliegin, by birth Lomov.' The words of +Narkiz came back to my mind; and I looked with redoubled interest at the +expressive and evil face of the woman for whose sake the brigadier had +lost all his fortune. + +'You took part, I see, sir, in the storming of Prague,' I began, +pointing to the St. George cross, 'and won a sign of distinction, rare +at any time, but particularly so then; you must remember Suvorov?' + +'Alexander Vassilitch?' the brigadier answered, after a brief silence, +in which he seemed to be pulling his thoughts together; 'to be sure, I +remember him; he was a little, brisk old man. Before one could stir a +finger, he'd be here and there and everywhere (the brigadier chuckled). +He rode into Warsaw on a Cossack horse; he was all in diamonds, and he +says to the Poles: "I've no watch, I forgot it in Petersburg--no watch!" +and they shouted and huzzaed for him. Queer chaps! Hey! Cucumber! lad!' +he added suddenly, changing and raising his voice (the deacon-buffoon +had remained standing at the door), 'where's the rolls, eh? And tell +Grunka ... to bring some kvas!' + +'Directly, your honour,' I heard Cucumber's voice reply. He handed the +brigadier the bundle of rolls, and, going out of the lodge, approached a +dishevelled creature in rags--the half-witted girl, Grunka, I +suppose--and as far as I could make out through the dusty little window, +proceeded to demand kvas from her--at least, he several times raised one +hand like a funnel to his mouth, and waved the other in our direction. + + + + +XII + + +I made another attempt to get into conversation with the brigadier; +but he was evidently tired: he sank, sighing and groaning, on the +little couch, and moaning, 'Oy, oy, my poor bones, my poor bones,' +untied his garters. I remember I wondered at the time how a man came +to be wearing garters. I did not realise that in former days every one +wore them. The brigadier began yawning with prolonged, unconcealed +yawns, not taking his drowsy eyes off me all the time; so very little +children yawn. The poor old man did not even seem quite to understand +my question.... And he had taken Prague! He, sword in hand, in the +smoke and the dust--at the head of Suvorov's soldiers, the +bullet-pierced flag waving above him, the hideous corpses under his +feet.... He ... he! Wasn't it wonderful! But yet I could not help +fancying that there had been events more extraordinary in the +brigadier's life. Cucumber brought white kvas in an iron jug; the +brigadier drank greedily--his hands shook. Cucumber supported the +bottom of the jug. The old man carefully wiped his toothless mouth +with both hands--and again staring at me, fell to chewing and munching +his lips. I saw how it was, bowed, and went out of the room. + +'Now he'll have a nap,' observed Cucumber, coming out behind me. 'He's +terribly knocked up to-day--he went to the grave early this morning.' + +'To whose grave?' + +'To Agrafena Ivanovna's, to pay his devotions.... She is buried in our +parish cemetery here; it'll be four miles from here. Vassily Fomitch +visits it every week without fail. Indeed, it was he who buried her and +put the fence up at his own expense.' + +'Has she been dead long?' + +'Well, let's think--twenty years about.' + +'Was she a friend of his, or what?' + +'Her whole life, you may say, she passed with him ... really. I +myself, I must own, never knew the lady, but they do say ... what +there was between them ... well, well, well! Sir,' the deacon added +hurriedly, seeing I had turned away, 'wouldn't you like to give me +something for another drop, for it's time I was home in my hut and +rolled up in my blanket?' + +I thought it useless to question Cucumber further, so gave him a few +coppers, and set off homewards. + + + + +XIII + + +At home I betook myself for further information to Narkiz. He, as I +might have anticipated, was somewhat unapproachable, stood a little on +his dignity, expressed his surprise that such paltry matters could +'interest' me, and, finally, told me what he knew. I heard the +following details. + +Vassily Fomitch Guskov had become acquainted with Agrafena Ivanovna +Teliegin at Moscow soon after the suppression of the Polish +insurrection; her husband had had a post under the governor-general, and +Vassily Fomitch was on furlough. He fell in love with her there and +then, but did not leave the army at once; he was a man of forty with no +family, with a fortune. Her husband soon after died. She was left +without children, poor, and in debt.... Vassily Fomitch heard of her +position, threw up the service (he received the rank of brigadier on his +retirement) and sought out his charming widow, who was not more than +five-and-twenty, paid all her debts, redeemed her estate.... From that +time he had never parted from her, and finished by living altogether in +her house. She, too, seems to have cared for him, but would not marry +him. 'She was froward, the deceased lady,' was Narkiz's comment on this: +'My liberty,' she would say, 'is dearer to me than anything.' But as for +making use of him--she made use of him 'in every possible way,' and +whatever money he had, he dragged to her like an ant. But the +frowardness of Agrafena Ivanovna at times assumed extreme proportions; +she was not of a mild temper, and somewhat too ready with her hands.... +Once she pushed her page-boy down the stairs, and he went and broke two +of his ribs and one leg.... Agrafena Ivanovna was frightened ... she +promptly ordered the page to be shut up in the lumber-room, and she did +not leave the house nor give up the key of the room to any one, till the +moans within had ceased.... The page was secretly buried.... 'And had it +been in the Empress Catherine's time,' Narkiz added in a whisper, +bending down, 'maybe the affair would have ended there--many such deeds +were hidden under a bushel in those days, but as ...' here Narkiz drew +himself up and raised his voice:' as our righteous Tsar Alexander the +Blessed was reigning then ... well, a fuss was made.... A trial +followed, the body was dug up ... signs of violence were found on it ... +and a great to-do there was. And what do you think? Vassily Fomitch took +it all on himself. "I," said he, "am responsible for it all; it was I +pushed him down, and I too shut him up." Well, of course, all the judges +then, and the lawyers and the police ... fell on him directly ... fell +on him and never let him go ... I can assure you ... till the last +farthing was out of his purse. They'd leave him in peace for a while, +and then attack him again. Down to the very time when the French came +into Russia they were worrying at him, and only dropped him then. Well, +he managed to provide for Agrafena Ivanovna--to be sure, he saved +her--that one must say. Well, and afterwards, up to her death, indeed, +he lived with her, and they do say she led him a pretty dance--the +brigadier, that is; sent him on foot from Moscow into the country--by +God, she did--to get her rents in, I suppose. It was on her account, on +account of this same Agrafena Ivanovna--he fought a duel with the +English milord Hugh Hughes; and the English milord was forced to make a +formal apology too. But later on the brigadier went down hill more and +more.... Well, and now he can't be reckoned a man at all.' + +'Who was that Alexey Ivanitch the Jew,' I asked, 'through whom he was +brought to ruin?' + +'Oh, the brother of Agrafena Ivanovna. A grasping creature, Jewish +indeed. He lent his sister money at interest, and Vassily Fomitch was +her security. He had to pay for it too ... pretty heavily!' + +'And Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer--who was she?' + +'Her sister too ... and a sharp one too, as sharp as a lance. A +terrible woman!' + + + + +XIV + + +'What a place to find a Werter!' I thought next day, as I set off again +towards the brigadier's dwelling. I was at that time very young, and +that was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting +nature of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story +I had heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make +him talk freely. 'I'll first refer to Suvorov again,' so I resolved +within myself; 'there must be some spark of his former fire hidden +within him still ... and then, when he's warmed up, I'll turn the +conversation on that ... what's her name? ... Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer +name for a "Charlotte"--Agrafena!' + +I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few +steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut, +overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut +some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly +slipping and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort +of green stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just +pulled a young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm +'to clean it,' proceeded to chew its thin tail.... I bowed to him, and +inquired after his health. + +He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting--that +is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off +munching the carrot. + +'You didn't go fishing to-day?' I began, in the hope of recalling myself +to his memory by this question. + +'To-day?' he repeated and pondered ... while the carrot, stuck into his +mouth, grew shorter and shorter. 'Why, I suppose it's Cucumber +fishing! ... But I'm allowed to, too.' + +'Of course, of course, most honoured Vassily Fomitch.... I didn't mean +that.... But aren't you hot ... like this in the sun.' + +The brigadier was wearing a thick wadded dressing-gown. + +'Eh? Hot?' he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and, +having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards. + +'Would you care to step into my apartement?' he said suddenly. The +poor old man had, it seemed, only this phrase still left him always at +his disposal. + +We went out of the kitchen-garden ... but there involuntarily I stopped +short. Between us and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to +the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily +and furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the +dust up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his +tail, and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly, +and bellowed--not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time +menacingly. I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped +forward with perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, 'Now then, +country bumpkin,' shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again, +bowed his horns ... suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging +his head from side to side. + +'There's no doubt he took Prague,' I thought. + +We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which +was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, 'Fa!' ... squatted down on the +edge of a chair ... bowed his head gloomily.... + +'I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,' I began my diplomatic approaches, +'because, as you have served under the leadership of the great +Suvorov--have taken part altogether in such important events--it would +be very interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.' + +The brigadier stared at me.... His face kindled strangely--I began to +expect, if not a story, at least some word of approval, of sympathy.... + +'But I, sir, must be going to die soon,' he said in an undertone. + +I was utterly nonplussed. + +'Why, Vassily Fomitch, 'I brought out at last, 'what makes you ... +suppose that?' + +The brigadier suddenly flung his arms violently up and down. + +'Because, sir ... I, as maybe you know ... often in my dreams see +Agrippina Ivanovna--Heaven's peace be with her!--and never can I catch +her; I am always running after her--but cannot catch her. But last +night--I dreamed--she was standing, as it were, before me, half-turned +away, and laughing.... I ran up to her at once and caught her ... and she +seemed to turn round quite and said to me: "Well, Vassinka, now you +have caught me."' + +'What do you conclude from that, Vassily Fomitch?' + +'Why, sir, I conclude: it has come, that we shall be together. And glory +to God for it, I tell you; glory be to God Almighty, the Father, the +Son, and the Holy Ghost (the brigadier fell into a chant): as it was in +the beginning, is now and ever shall be, Amen!' + +The brigadier began crossing himself. I could get nothing more out of +him, so I went away. + + + + +XV + + +The next day my friend arrived.... I mentioned the brigadier, and my +visits to him.... + +'Oh yes! of course! I know his story,' answered my friend; 'I know +Madame Lomov very well, the privy councillor's widow, by whose favour he +obtained a home here. Oh, wait a minute; I believe there must be +preserved here his letter to the privy councillor's widow; it was on the +strength of that letter that she assigned him his little cot.' My friend +rummaged among his papers and actually found the brigadier's letter. +Here it is word for word, with the omission of the mistakes in spelling. +The brigadier, like every one of his epoch, was a little hazy in that +respect. But to preserve these errors seemed unnecessary; his letter +bears the stamp of his age without them. + +'HONOURED MADAM, RASSA PAVLOVNA!--On the decease of my friend, and your +aunt, I had the happiness of addressing to you two letters, the first on +the first of June, the second on the sixth of July of the year 1815, +while she expired on the sixth of May in that year; in them I discovered +to you the feelings of my soul and of my heart, which were crushed under +deadly wrongs, and they reflected in full my bitter despair, in truth +deserving of commiseration; both letters were despatched by the imperial +mail registered, and hence I cannot conceive that they have not been +perused by your eye. By the genuine candour of my letters, I had counted +upon winning your benevolent attention; but the compassionate feelings +of your heart were far removed from me in my woe! Left on the loss of my +one only friend, Agrippina Ivanovna, in the most distressed and +poverty-stricken circumstances, I rested, by her instructions, all my +hopes on your bounty; she, aware of her end approaching, said to me in +these words, as it were from the grave, and never can I forget them: "My +friend, I have been your serpent, and am guilty of all your unhappiness. +I feel how much you have sacrificed for me, and in return I leave you in +a disastrous and truly destitute situation; on my death have recourse to +Rassa Pavlovna"--that is, to you--"and implore her aid, invite her +succour! She has a feeling heart, and I have confidence in her, that she +will not leave you forlorn." Honoured madam, let me call to witness the +all-high Creator of the world that those were her words, and I am +speaking with her tongue; and, therefore, trusting firmly in your +goodness, to you first of all I addressed myself with my open-hearted +and candid letters; but after protracted expectation, receiving no reply +to them, I could not conceive otherwise than that your benevolent heart +had left me without attention! Such your unfavourable disposition +towards me, reduced me to the depths of despair--whither, and to whom, +was I to turn in my misfortune I knew not; my soul was troubled, my +intellect went astray; at last, for the completion of my ruin, it +pleased Providence to chastise me in a still more cruel manner, and to +turn my thoughts to your deceased aunt, Fedulia Ivanovna, sister of +Agrippina Ivanovna, one in blood, but not one in heart! Having present +to myself, before my mind's eye, that I had been for twenty years +devoted to the whole family of your kindred, the Lomovs, especially to +Fedulia Ivanovna, who never called Agrippina Ivanovna otherwise than "my +heart's precious treasure," and me "the most honoured and zealous friend +of our family"; picturing all the above, among abundant tears and sighs +in the stillness of sorrowful night watches, I thought: "Come, +brigadier! so, it seems, it is to be!" and, addressing myself by letter +to the said Fedulia Ivanovna, I received a positive assurance that she +would share her last crumb with me! The presents sent on by me, more +than five hundred roubles' worth in value, were accepted with supreme +satisfaction; and afterwards the money too which I brought with me for +my maintenance, Fedulia Ivanovna was pleased, on the pretext of guarding +it, to take into her care, to the which, to gratify her, I offered no +opposition. + +If you ask me whence, and on what ground I conceived such confidence--to +the above, madam, there is but one reply: she was sister of Agrippina +Ivanovna, and a member of the Lomov family! But alas and alas! all the +money aforesaid I was very soon deprived of, and the hopes which I had +rested on Fedulia Ivanovna--that she would share her last crumb with +me--turned out to be empty and vain; on the contrary, the said Fedulia +Ivanovna enriched herself with my property. To wit, on her saint's day, +the fifth of February, I brought her fifty roubles' worth of green +French material, at five roubles the yard; I myself received of all that +was promised five roubles' worth of white piqu for a waistcoat and a +muslin handkerchief for my neck, which gifts were purchased in my +presence, as I was aware, with my own money--and that was all that I +profited by Fedulia Ivanovna's bounty! So much for the last crumb! And I +could further, in all sincerity, disclose the malignant doings of +Fedulia Ivanovna to me; and also my expenses, exceeding all reason, as, +among the rest, for sweetmeats and fruits, of which Fedulia Ivanovna was +exceedingly fond;--but upon all this I am silent, that you may not take +such disclosures against the dead in bad part; and also, seeing that God +has called her before His judgment seat--and all that I suffered at her +hands is blotted out from my heart--and I, as a Christian, forgave her +long ago, and pray to God to forgive her! + +'But, honoured madam, Rassa Pavlovna! Surely you will not blame me for +that I was a true and loyal friend of your family, and that I loved +Agrippina Ivanovna with a love so great and so insurmountable that I +sacrificed to her my life, my honour, and all my fortune! that I was +utterly in her hands, and hence could not dispose of myself nor of my +property, and she disposed at her will of me and also of my estate! It +is known to you also that, owing to her action with her servant, I +suffer, though innocent, a deadly wrong--this affair I brought after her +death before the senate, before the sixth department--it is still +unsettled now--in consequence of which I was made accomplice with her, +my estate put under guardianship, and I am still lying under a criminal +charge! In my position, at my age, such disgrace is intolerable to me; +and it is only left me to console my heart with the mournful reflection +that thus, even after Agrippina Ivanovna's death, I suffer for her sake, +and so prove my immutable love and loyal gratitude to her! + +'In my letters, above mentioned, to you, I gave you an account with +every detail of Agrippina Ivanovna's funeral, and what masses were read +for her--my affection and love for her spared no outlay! For all the +aforesaid, and for the forty days' requiems, and the reading of the +psalter six weeks after for her (in addition to above, fifty roubles +of mine were lost, which were given as security for payment for +the stone, of which I sent you a description)--on all the aforesaid +was spent of my money seven hundred and fifty roubles, in which is +included, by way of donation to the church, a hundred and fifty roubles. + +'In the goodness of your heart, hear the cry of a desperate man, crushed +beneath a load of the crudest calamities! Only your commiseration and +humanity can restore the life of a ruined man! Though living--in the +suffering of my heart and soul I am as one dead; dead when I think what +I was, and what I am; I was a soldier, and served my country in all +fidelity and uprightness, as is the bounden duty of a loyal Russian and +faithful subject, and was rewarded with the highest honours, and had a +fortune befitting my birth and station; and now I must cringe and beg +for a morsel of dry bread; dead above all I am when I think what a +friend I have lost ... and what is life to me after that? But there is +no hastening one's end, and the earth will not open, but rather seems +turned to stone! And so I call upon you, in the benevolence of your +heart, hush the talk of the people, do not expose yourself to universal +censure, that for all my unbounded devotion I have not where to lay my +head; confound them by your bounty to me, turn the tongues of the evil +speakers and slanderers to glorifying your good works--and I make bold +in all humility to add, comfort in the grave your most precious aunt, +Agrippina Ivanovna, who can never be forgotten, and who for your speedy +succour, in answer to my sinful prayers, will spread her protecting +wings about your head, and comfort in his declining days a lonely old +man, who had every reason to expect a different fate! ... And, with the +most profound respect, I have the honour to be, dear madam, your most +devoted servant, + +VASSILY GUSKOV, + +_Brigadier and cavalier._' + +Several years later I paid another visit to my friend's little place.... +Vassily Fomitch had long been dead; he died soon after I made his +acquaintance. Cucumber was still flourishing. He conducted me to the +tomb of Agrafena Ivanovna. An iron railing enclosed a large slab with a +detailed and enthusiastically laudatory epitaph on the deceased woman; +and there, beside it, as it were at her feet, could be seen a little +mound with a slanting cross on it; the servant of God, the brigadier and +cavalier, Vassily Guskov, lay under this mound.... His ashes found rest +at last beside the ashes of the creature he had loved with such +unbounded, almost undying, love. + +1867. + + + + +PYETUSHKOV + + + + +I + + +In the year 182- ... there was living in the town of O---- the +lieutenant Ivan Afanasiitch Pyetushkov. He was born of poor parents, was +left an orphan at five years old, and came into the charge of a +guardian. Thanks to this guardian, he found himself with no property +whatever; he had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. He was of +medium height, and stooped a little; he had a thin face, covered with +freckles, but rather pleasing; light brown hair, grey eyes, and a timid +expression; his low forehead was furrowed with fine wrinkles. +Pyetushkov's whole life had been uneventful in the extreme; at close +upon forty he was still youthful and inexperienced as a child. He was +shy with acquaintances, and exceedingly mild in his manner with persons +over whose lot he could have exerted control.... + +People condemned by fate to a monotonous and cheerless existence often +acquire all sorts of little habits and preferences. Pyetushkov liked to +have a new white roll with his tea every morning. He could not do +without this dainty. But behold one morning his servant, Onisim, handed +him, on a blue-sprigged plate, instead of a roll, three dark red rusks. + +Pyetushkov at once asked his servant, with some indignation, what he +meant by it. + +'The rolls have all been sold out,' answered Onisim, a native of +Petersburg, who had been flung by some queer freak of destiny into the +very wilds of south Russia. + +'Impossible!' exclaimed Ivan Afanasiitch. + +'Sold out,' repeated Onisim; 'there's a breakfast at the Marshal's, so +they've all gone there, you know.' + +Onisim waved his hand in the air, and thrust his right foot forward. + +Ivan Afanasiitch walked up and down the room, dressed, and set off +himself to the baker's shop. This establishment, the only one of the +kind in the town of O----, had been opened ten years before by a German +immigrant, had in a short time begun to flourish, and was still +flourishing under the guidance of his widow, a fat woman. + +Pyetushkov tapped at the window. The fat woman stuck her unhealthy, +flabby, sleepy countenance out of the pane that opened. + +'A roll, if you please,' Pyetushkov said amiably. + +'The rolls are all gone,' piped the fat woman. + +'Haven't you any rolls?' + +'No.' + +'How's that?--really! I take rolls from you every day, and pay for them +regularly.' + +The woman stared at him in silence. 'Take twists,' she said at last, +yawning; 'or a scone.' + +'I don't like them,' said Pyetushkov, and he felt positively hurt. + +'As you please,' muttered the fat woman, and she slammed to the +window-pane. + +Ivan Afanasiitch was quite unhinged by his intense vexation. In his +perturbation he crossed to the other side of the street, and gave +himself up entirely, like a child, to his displeasure. + +'Sir!' ... he heard a rather agreeable female voice; 'sir!' + +Ivan Afanasiitch raised his eyes. From the open pane of the bakehouse +window peeped a girl of about seventeen, holding a white roll in her +hand. She had a full round face, rosy cheeks, small hazel eyes, rather a +turn-up nose, fair hair, and magnificent shoulders. Her features +suggested good-nature, laziness, and carelessness. + +'Here's a roll for you, sir,' she said, laughing, 'I'd taken for myself; +but take it, please, I'll give it up to you.' + +'I thank you most sincerely. Allow me ...' + +Pyetushkov began fumbling in his pocket. + +'No, no! you are welcome to it.' + +She closed the window-pane. + +Pyetushkov arrived home in a perfectly agreeable frame of mind. + +'You couldn't get any rolls,' he said to his Onisim; 'but here, I've got +one, do you see?' + +Onisim gave a bitter laugh. + +The same day, in the evening, as Ivan Afanasiitch was undressing, he +asked his servant, 'Tell me, please, my lad, what's the girl like at the +baker's, hey?' + +Onisim looked away rather gloomily, and responded, 'What do you want to +know for?' + +'Oh, nothing,' said Pyetushkov, taking off his boots with his own hands. + +'Well, she's a fine girl!' Onisim observed condescendingly. + +'Yes, ... she's not bad-looking,' said Ivan Afanasiitch, also looking +away. 'And what's her name, do you know?' + +'Vassilissa.' + +'And do you know her?' + +Onisim did not answer for a minute or two. + +'We know her.' + +Pyetushkov was on the point of opening his mouth again, but he turned +over on the other side and fell asleep. + +Onisim went out into the passage, took a pinch of snuff, and gave his +head a violent shake. + +The next day, early in the morning, Pyetushkov called for his clothes. +Onisim brought him his everyday coat--an old grass-coloured coat, with +huge striped epaulettes. Pyetushkov gazed a long while at Onisim without +speaking, then told him to bring him his new coat. Onisim, with some +surprise, obeyed. Pyetushkov dressed, and carefully drew on his +chamois-leather gloves. + +'You needn't go to the baker's to-day,' said he with some hesitation; +'I'm going myself, ... it's on my way.' + +'Yes, sir,' responded Onisim, as abruptly as if some one had just given +him a shove from behind. + +Pyetushkov set off, reached the baker's shop, tapped at the window. The +fat woman opened the pane. + +'Give me a roll, please,' Ivan Afanasiitch articulated slowly. + +The fat woman stuck out an arm, bare to the shoulder--a huge arm, more +like a leg than an arm--and thrust the hot bread just under his nose. + +Ivan Afanasiitch stood some time under the window, walked once or twice +up and down the street, glanced into the courtyard, and at last, ashamed +of his childishness, returned home with the roll in his hand. He felt +ill at ease the whole day, and even in the evening, contrary to his +habit, did not drop into conversation with Onisim. + +The next morning it was Onisim who went +for the roll. + + + + +II + + +Some weeks went by. Ivan Afanasiitch had completely forgotten +Vassilissa, and chatted in a friendly way with his servant as before. +One fine morning there came to see him a certain Bublitsyn, an +easy-mannered and very agreeable young man. It is true he sometimes +hardly knew himself what he was talking about, and was always, as they +say, a little wild; but all the same he had the reputation of being an +exceedingly agreeable person to talk to. He smoked a great deal with +feverish eagerness, with lifted eyebrows and contracted chest--smoked +with an expression of intense anxiety, or, one might rather say, with an +expression as though, let him have this one more puff at his pipe, and +in a minute he would tell you some quite unexpected piece of news; at +times he would even give a grunt and a wave of the hand, while himself +sucking at his pipe, as though he had suddenly recollected something +extraordinarily amusing or important, then he would open his mouth, let +off a few rings of smoke, and utter the most commonplace remarks, or +even keep silence altogether. After gossiping a little with Ivan +Afanasiitch about the neighbours, about horses, the daughters of the +gentry around, and other such edifying topics, Mr. Bublitsyn suddenly +winked, pulled up his shock of hair, and, with a sly smile, approached +the remarkably dim looking-glass which was the solitary ornament of Ivan +Afanasiitch's room. + +'There's no denying the fact,' he pronounced, stroking his light brown +whiskers, 'we've got girls here that beat any of your Venus of Medicis +hollow.... Have you seen Vassilissa, the baker girl, for instance?' ... +Mr. Bublitsyn sucked at his pipe. + +Pyetushkov started. + +'But why do I ask you?' pursued Bublitsyn, disappearing in a cloud of +smoke,--'you're not the man to notice, don't you know, Ivan Afanasiitch! +Goodness knows what you do to occupy yourself, Ivan Afanasiitch!' + +'The same as you do,' Pyetushkov replied with some vexation, in a +drawling voice. + +'Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch, not a bit of it.... How can you say so?' + +'Well, why not?' + +'Nonsense, nonsense.' + +'Why so, why so?' + +Bublitsyn stuck his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and began +scrutinising his not very handsome boots. Pyetushkov felt embarrassed. + +'Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, Ivan Afanasiitch!' pursued Bublitsyn, as though +sparing his feelings. 'But as to Vassilissa, the baker girl, I can +assure you: a very, ve-ry fine girl, ... ve-ry.' + +Mr. Bublitsyn dilated his nostrils, and slowly plunged his hands into +his pockets. + +Strange to relate, Ivan Afanasiitch felt something of the nature of +jealousy. He began moving restlessly in his chair, burst into explosive +laughter at nothing at all, suddenly blushed, yawned, and, as he yawned, +his lower jaw twitched a little. Bublitsyn smoked three more pipes, and +withdrew. Ivan Afanasiitch went to the window, sighed, and called for +something to drink. + +Onisim set a glass of kvas on the table, glanced severely at his master, +leaned back against the door, and hung his head dejectedly. + +'What are you so thoughtful about?' his master asked him genially, but +with some inward trepidation. + +'What am I thinking about?' retorted Onisim; 'what am I thinking +about? ... it's always about you.' + +'About me!' + +'Of course it's about you.' + +'Why, what is it you are thinking?' + +'Why, this is what I'm thinking.' (Here Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) +'You ought to be ashamed, sir--you ought to be ashamed of yourself.' + +'Ashamed?' + +'Yes, ashamed.... Look at Mr. Bublitsyn, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Tell me if +he's not a fine fellow, now.' + +'I don't understand you.' + +'You don't understand me.... Oh yes, you do understand me.' + +Onisim paused. + +'Mr. Bublitsyn's a real gentleman--what a gentleman ought to be. But +what are you, Ivan Afanasiitch, what are you? Tell me that.' + +'Why, I'm a gentleman too.' + +'A gentleman, indeed!' ... retorted Onisim, growing indignant. 'A pretty +gentleman you are! You're no better, sir, than a hen in a shower of +rain, Ivan Afanasiitch, let me tell you. Here you sit sticking at home +the whole blessed day ... much good it does you, sitting at home like +that! You don't play cards, you don't go and see the gentry, and as +for ... well ...' + +Onisim waved his hand expressively. + +'Now, come ... you really go ... too far ...' Ivan Afanasiitch said +hesitatingly, clutching his pipe. + +'Too far, indeed, Ivan Afanasiitch, too far, you say! Judge for +yourself. Here again, with Vassilissa ... why couldn't you ...' + +'But what are you thinking about, Onisim,' Pyetushkov interrupted +miserably. + +'I know what I'm thinking about. But there--I'd better let you alone! +What can you do? Only fancy ... there you ...' + +Ivan Afanasiitch got up. + +'There, there, if you please, you hold your tongue,' he said quickly, +seeming to be searching for Onisim with his eyes; 'I shall really, +you know ... I ... what do you mean by it, really? You'd better help +me dress.' + +Onisim slowly drew off Ivan Afanasiitch's greasy Tartar dressing-gown, +gazed with fatherly commiseration at his master, shook his head, put him +on his coat, and fell to beating him about the back with a brush. + +Pyetushkov went out, and after a not very protracted stroll about the +crooked streets of the town, found himself facing the baker's shop. A +queer smile was playing about his lips. + +He had hardly time to look twice at the too well-known 'establishment,' +when suddenly the little gate opened, and Vassilissa ran out with a +yellow kerchief on her head and a jacket flung after the Russian fashion +on her shoulders. Ivan Afanasiitch at once overtook her. + +'Where are you going, my dear?' + +Vassilissa glanced swiftly at him, laughed, turned away, and put her +hand over her lips. + +'Going shopping, I suppose?' queried Ivan Afanasiitch, fidgeting +with his feet. + +'How inquisitive we are!' retorted Vassilissa. + +'Why inquisitive?' said Pyetushkov, hurriedly gesticulating with his +hands. 'Quite the contrary.... Oh yes, you know,' he added hastily, as +though these last words completely conveyed his meaning. + +'Did you eat my roll?' + +'To be sure I did,' replied Pyetushkov: 'with special enjoyment.' + +Vassilissa continued to walk on and to laugh. + +'It's pleasant weather to-day,' pursued Ivan Afanasiitch: 'do you often +go out walking?' + +'Yes.' + +'Ah, how I should like....' + +'What say?' + +The girls in our district utter those words in a very queer way, with a +peculiar sharpness and rapidity.... Partridges call at sunset with just +that sound. + +'To go out walking, don't you know, with you ... into the +country, or ...' + +'How can you?' + +'Why not?' + +'Ah, upon my word, how you do go on!' + +'But allow me....' + +At this point they were overtaken by a dapper little shopman, with a +little goat's beard, and with his fingers held apart like antlers, so as +to keep his sleeves from slipping over his hands, in a long-skirted +bluish coat, and a warm cap that resembled a bloated water-melon. +Pyetushkov, for propriety's sake, fell back a little behind Vassilissa, +but quickly came up with her again. + +'Well, then, what about our walk?' + +Vassilissa looked slily at him and giggled again. + +'Do you belong to these parts?' + +'Yes.' + +Vassilissa passed her hand over her hair and walked a little more +slowly. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled, and, his heart inwardly sinking with +timidity, he stooped a little on one side and put a trembling arm about +the beauty's waist. + +Vassilissa uttered a shriek. + +'Give over, do, for shame, in the street.' + +'Come now, there, there,' muttered Ivan Afanasiitch. + +'Give over, I tell you, in the street.... Don't be rude.' + +'A ... a ... ah, what a girl you are!' said Pyetushkov reproachfully, +while he blushed up to his ears. + +Vassilissa stood still. + +'Now go along with you, sir--go along, do.' + +Pyetushkov obeyed. He got home, and sat for a whole hour without moving +from his chair, without even smoking his pipe. At last he took out a +sheet of greyish paper, mended a pen, and after long deliberation wrote +the following letter. + +'DEAR MADAM, VASSILISSA TIMOFYEVNA!--Being naturally a most inoffensive +person, how could I have occasioned you annoyance? If I have really been +to blame in my conduct to you, then I must tell you: the hints of Mr. +Bublitsyn were responsible for this, which was what I never expected. +Anyway, I must humbly beg you not to be angry with me. I am a sensitive +man, and any kindness I am most sensible of and grateful for. Do not be +angry with me, Vassilissa Timofyevna, I beg you most humbly.--I remain +respectfully your obedient servant, + +IVAN PYETUSHKOV.' + +Onisim carried this letter to its address. + + + + +III + + +A fortnight passed. Onisim went every morning as usual to the baker's +shop. One day Vassilissa ran out to meet him. + +'Good morning, Onisim Sergeitch.' + +Onisim put on a gloomy expression, and responded crossly, ''Morning.' + +'How is it you never come to see us, Onisim Sergeitch?' + +Onisim glanced morosely at her. + +'What should I come for? you wouldn't give me a cup of tea, no fear.' + +'Yes, I would, Onisim Sergeitch, I would. You come and see. Rum +in it, too.' + +Onisim slowly relaxed into a smile. + +'Well, I don't mind if I do, then.' + +'When, then--when?' + +'When ... well, you are ...' + +'To-day--this evening, if you like. Drop in. + +'All right, I'll come along,' replied Onisim, and he sauntered home with +his slow, rolling step. + +The same evening in a little room, beside a bed covered with a striped +eider-down, Onisim was sitting at a clumsy little table, facing +Vassilissa. A huge, dingy yellow samovar was hissing and bubbling on the +table; a pot of geranium stood in the window; in the other corner near +the door there stood aslant an ugly chest with a tiny hanging lock; on +the chest lay a shapeless heap of all sorts of old rags; on the walls +were black, greasy prints. Onisim and Vassilissa drank their tea in +silence, looking straight at each other, turning the lumps of sugar over +and over in their hands, as it were reluctantly nibbling them, blinking, +screwing up their eyes, and with a hissing sound sucking in the +yellowish boiling liquid through their teeth. At last they had emptied +the whole samovar, turned upside down the round cups--one with the +inscription, 'Take your fill'; the other with the words, 'Cupid's dart +hath pierced my heart'--then they cleared their throats, wiped their +perspiring brows, and gradually dropped into conversation. + +'Onisim Sergeitch, how about your master ...' began Vassilissa, and did +not finish her sentence. + +'What about my master?' replied Onisim, and he leaned on his hand. 'He's +all right. But why do you ask?' + +'Oh, I only asked,' answered Vassilissa. + +'But I say'--(here Onisim grinned)--'I say, he wrote you a letter, +didn't he?' + +'Yes, he did.' + +Onisim shook his head with an extraordinarily self-satisfied air. + +'So he did, did he?' he said huskily, with a smile. 'Well, and what did +he say in his letter to you?' + +'Oh, all sorts of things. "I didn't mean anything, Madam, Vassilissa +Timofyevna," says he, "don't you think anything of it; don't you be +offended, madam," and a lot more like that he wrote.... But I say,' she +added after a brief silence: 'what's he like?' + +'He's all right,' Onisim responded indifferently. + +'Does he get angry?' + +'He get angry! Not he. Why, do you like him?' + +Vassilissa looked down and giggled in her sleeve. + +'Come,' grumbled Onisim. + +'Oh, what's that to you, Onisim Sergeitch?' + +'Oh, come, I tell you.' + +'Well,' Vassilissa brought out at last, 'he's ... a gentleman. Of +course ... I ... and besides; he ... you know yourself ...' + +'Of course I do,' Onisim observed solemnly. + +'Of course you're aware, to be sure, Onisim Sergeitch.' ... Vassilissa +was obviously becoming agitated. + +'You tell him, your master, that I'm ...; say, not angry with him, +but that ...' + +She stammered. + +'We understand,' responded Onisim, and he got up from his seat. 'We +understand. Thanks for the entertainment.' + +'Come in again some day.' + +'All right, all right.' + +Onisim approached the door. The fat woman came into the room. + +'Good evening to you, Onisim Sergeitch,' she said in a peculiar chant. + +'Good evening to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,' he said in the same +sing-song. + +Both stood still for a little while facing each other. + +'Well, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,' Onisim chanted out again. + +'Well, good day to you, Onisim Sergeitch,' she responded in the same +sing-song. + +Onisim arrived home. His master was lying on his bed, gazing at +the ceiling. + +'Where have you been?' + +'Where have I been?' ... (Onisim had the habit of repeating reproachfully +the last words of every question.) 'I've been about your business.' + +'What business?' + +'Why, don't you know? ... I've been to see Vassilissa.' + +Pyetushkov blinked and turned over on his bed. + +'So that's how it is,' observed Onisim, and he coolly took a pinch of +snuff. 'So that's how it is. You're always like that. Vassilissa sends +you her duty.' + +'Really?' + +'Really? So that's all about it. Really! ... She told me to say, Why is +it, says she, one never sees him? Why is it, says she, he never comes?' + +'Well, and what did you say?' + +'What did I say? I told her: You're a silly girl--I told her--as if +folks like that are coming to see you! No, you come yourself, I +told her.' + +'Well, and what did she say?' + +'What did she say? ... She said nothing.' + +'That is, how do you mean, nothing?' + +'Why, nothing, to be sure.' + +Pyetushkov said nothing for a little while. + +'Well, and is she coming?' + +Onisim shook his head. + +'She coming! You're in too great a hurry, sir. She coming, indeed! No, +you go too fast.' ... + +'But you said yourself that ...' + +'Oh, well, it's easy to talk.' + +Pyetushkov was silent again. + +'Well, but how's it to be, then, my lad?' + +'How? ... You ought to know best; you 're a gentleman.' + +'Oh, nonsense! come now!' + +Onisim swayed complacently backwards and forwards. + +'Do you know Praskovia Ivanovna?' he asked at last. + +'No. What Praskovia Ivanovna?' + +'Why, the baker woman!' + +'Oh yes, the baker woman. I've seen her; she's very fat.' + +'She's a worthy woman. She's own aunt to the other, to your girl.' + +'Aunt?' + +'Why, didn't you know?' + +'No, I didn't know.' + +'Well ...' + +Onisim was restrained by respect for his master from giving full +expression to his feelings. + +'That's whom it is you should make friends with.' + +'Well, I've no objection.' + +Onisim looked approvingly at Ivan Afanasiitch. + +'But with what object precisely am I to make friends with her?' inquired +Pyetushkov. + +'What for, indeed!' answered Onisim serenely. + +Ivan Afanasiitch got up, paced up and down the room, stood still before +the window, and without turning his head, with some hesitation he +articulated: + +'Onisim!' + +'What say?' + +'Won't it be, you know, a little awkward for me with the old woman, eh?' + +'Oh, that's as you like.' + +'Oh, well, I only thought it might, perhaps. My comrades might +notice it; it's a little ... But I'll think it over. Give me my +pipe.... So she,' he went on after a short silence--Vassilissa, I +mean, says then ...' + +But Onisim had no desire to continue the conversation, and he assumed +his habitual morose expression. + + + + +IV + + +Ivan Afanasiitch's acquaintance with Praskovia Ivanovna began in the +following manner. Five days after his conversation with Onisim, +Pyetushkov set off in the evening to the baker's shop. 'Well,' thought +he, as he unlatched the creaking gate, 'I don't know how it's to be.' ... + +He mounted the steps, opened the door. A huge, crested hen rushed, with +a deafening cackle, straight under his feet, and long after was still +running about the yard in wild excitement. From a room close by peeped +the astonished countenance of the fat woman. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled and +nodded. The fat woman bowed to him. Tightly grasping his hat, Pyetushkov +approached her. Praskovia Ivanovna was apparently anticipating an +honoured guest; her dress was fastened up at every hook. Pyetushkov sat +down on a chair; Praskovia Ivanovna seated herself opposite him. + +'I have come to you, Praskovia Ivanovna, more on account of....' Ivan +Afanasiitch began at last--and then ceased. His lips were twitching +spasmodically. + +'You are kindly welcome, sir,' responded Praskovia Ivanovna in the +proper sing-song, and with a bow. 'Always delighted to see a guest.' + +Pyetushkov took courage a little. + +'I have long wished, you know, to have the pleasure of making your +acquaintance, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'Much obliged to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +Followed a silence. Praskovia Ivanovna wiped her face with a +parti-coloured handkerchief; Ivan Afanasiitch continued with intense +attention to gaze away to one side. Both were rather uncomfortable. But +in merchant and petty shopkeeper society, where even old friends never +step outside special angular forms of etiquette, a certain constraint in +the behaviour of guests and host to one another not only strikes no one +as strange, but, on the contrary, is regarded as perfectly correct and +indispensable, particularly on a first visit. Praskovia Ivanovna was +agreeably impressed by Pyetushkov. He was formal and decorous in his +manners, and moreover, wasn't he a man of some rank, too? + +'Praskovia Ivanovna, ma'am, I like your rolls very much,' he said to +her. + +'Really now, really now.' + +'Very good they are, you know, very, indeed.' + +'May they do you good, sir, may they do you good. Delighted, to be +sure.' + +'I've never eaten any like them in Moscow.' + +'You don't say so now, you don't say so.' + +Again a silence followed. + +'Tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna,' began Ivan Afanasiitch; 'that's your +niece, I fancy, isn't it, living with you?' + +'My own niece, sir.' + +'How comes it ... she's with you?'.... + +'She's an orphan, so I keep her.' + +'And is she a good worker?' + +'Such a girl to work ... such a girl, sir ... ay ... ay ... to be +sure she is.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch thought it discreet not to pursue the subject of the +niece further. + +'What bird is that you have in the cage, Praskovia Ivanovna?' + +'God knows. A bird of some sort.' + +'H'm! Well, so, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'A very good day to your honour. Pray walk in another time, and take a +cup of tea.' + +'With the greatest pleasure, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +Pyetushkov walked out. On the steps he met Vassilissa. She giggled. + +'Where are you going, my darling?' said Pyetushkov with reckless daring. + +'Come, give over, do, you are a one for joking.' + +'He, he! And did you get my letter?' + +Vassilissa hid the lower part of her face in her sleeve and made +no answer. + +'And you're not angry with me?' + +'Vassilissa!' came the jarring voice of the aunt; 'hey, Vassilissa!' + +Vassilissa ran into the house. Pyetushkov returned home. But from that +day he began going often to the baker's shop, and his visits were not +for nothing. Ivan Afanasiitch's hopes, to use the lofty phraseology +suitable, were crowned with success. Usually, the attainment of the goal +has a cooling effect on people, but Pyetushkov, on the contrary, grew +every day more and more ardent. Love is a thing of accident, it exists +in itself, like art, and, like nature, needs no reasons to justify it, +as some clever man has said who never loved, himself, but made excellent +observations upon love. + +Pyetushkov became passionately attached to Vassilissa. He was completely +happy. His soul was aglow with bliss. Little by little he carried all +his belongings, at any rate all his pipes, to Praskovia Ivanovna's, and +for whole days together he sat in her back room. Praskovia Ivanovna +charged him something for his dinner and drank his tea, consequently she +did not complain of his presence. Vassilissa had grown used to him. She +would work, sing, or spin before him, sometimes exchanging a couple of +words with him; Pyetushkov watched her, smoked his pipe, swayed to and +fro in his chair, laughed, and in leisure hours played 'Fools' with her +and Praskovia Ivanovna. Ivan Afanasiitch was happy.... + +But in this world nothing is perfect, and, small as a man's +requirements may be, destiny never quite fulfils them, and positively +spoils the whole thing, if possible.... The spoonful of pitch is sure +to find its way into the barrel of honey! Ivan Afanasiitch experienced +this in his case. + +In the first place, from the time of his establishing himself at +Vassilissa's, Pyetushkov dropped more than ever out of all intercourse +with his comrades. He saw them only when absolutely necessary, and then, +to avoid allusions and jeers (in which, however, he was not always +successful), he put on the desperately sullen and intensely scared look +of a hare in a display of fireworks. + +Secondly, Onisim gave him no peace; he had lost every trace of respect +for him, he mercilessly persecuted him, put him to shame. + +And ... thirdly.... Alas! read further, kindly reader. + + + + +V + + +One day Pyetushkov (who for the reasons given above found little comfort +outside Praskovia Ivanovna's doors) was sitting in Vassilissa's room at +the back, and was busying himself over some home-brewed concoction, +something in the way of jam or syrup. The mistress of the house was not +at home. Vassilissa was sitting in the shop singing. + +There came a knock at the little pane. Vassilissa got up, went to the +window, uttered a little shriek, giggled, and began whispering with some +one. On going back to her place, she sighed, and then fell to singing +louder than ever. + +'Who was that you were talking to?' Pyetushkov asked her. + +Vassilissa went on singing carelessly. + +'Vassilissa, do you hear? Vassilissa!' + +'What do you want?' + +'Whom were you talking to?' + +'What's that to you?' + +'I only asked.' + +Pyetushkov came out of the back room in a parti-coloured smoking-jacket +with tucked-up sleeves, and a strainer in his hand. + +'Oh, a friend of mine,' answered Vassilissa. + +'What friend?' + +'Oh, Piotr Petrovitch.' + +'Piotr Petrovitch? ... what Piotr Petrovitch?' + +'He's one of your lot. He's got such a difficult name.' + +'Bublitsyn?' + +'Yes, yes ... Piotr Petrovitch.' + +'And do you know him?' + +'Rather!' responded Vassilissa, with a wag of her head. + +Pyetushkov, without a word, paced ten times up and down the room. + +'I say, Vassilissa,' he said at last, 'that is, how do you know him?' + +'How do I know him? ... I know him ... He's such a nice gentleman.' + +'How do you mean nice, though? how nice? how nice?' + +Vassilissa gazed at Ivan Afanasiitch. + +'Nice,' she said slowly and in perplexity. 'You know what I mean.' + +Pyetushkov bit his lips and began again pacing the room. + +'What were you talking about with him, eh?' + +Vassilissa smiled and looked down. + +'Speak, speak, speak, I tell you, speak!' + +'How cross you are to-day!' observed Vassilissa. + +Pyetushkov was silent. + +'Come now, Vassilissa,' he began at last; 'no, I won't be cross.... +Come, tell me, what were you talking about?' + +Vassilissa laughed. + +'He is a one to joke, really, that Piotr Petrovitch!' + +'Well, what did he say?' + +'He is a fellow!' + +Pyetushkov was silent again for a little. + +'Vassilissa, you love me, don't you?' he asked her. + +'Oh, so that's what you're after, too!' + +Poor Pyetushkov felt a pang at his heart. Praskovia Ivanovna came in. +They sat down to dinner. After dinner Praskovia Ivanovna betook herself +to the shelf bed. Ivan Afanasiitch himself lay down on the stove, turned +over and dropped asleep. A cautious creak waked him. Ivan Afanasiitch +sat up, leaned on his elbow, looked: the door was open. He jumped up--no +Vassilissa. He ran into the yard--she was not in the yard; into the +street, looked up and down--Vassilissa was nowhere to be seen. He ran +without his cap as far as the market--no, Vassilissa was not in sight. +Slowly he returned to the baker's shop, clambered on to the stove, and +turned with his face to the wall. He felt miserable. Bublitsyn ... +Bublitsyn ... the name was positively ringing in his ears. + +'What's the matter, my good sir?' Praskovia Ivanovna asked him in a +drowsy voice. 'Why are you groaning?' + +'Oh, nothing, ma'am. Nothing. I feel a weight oppressing me.' + +'It's the mushrooms,' murmured Praskovia Ivanovna--'it's all those +mushrooms.' + +O Lord, have mercy on us sinners! + +An hour passed, a second--still no Vassilissa. Twenty times Pyetushkov +was on the point of getting up, and twenty times he huddled miserably +under the sheepskin.... At last he really did get down from the stove +and determined to go home, and positively went out into the yard, but +came back. Praskovia Ivanovna got up. The hired man, Luka, black as a +beetle, though he was a baker, put the bread into the oven. Pyetushkov +went again out on to the steps and pondered. The goat that lived in the +yard went up to him, and gave him a little friendly poke with his horns. +Pyetushkov looked at him, and for some unknown reason said 'Kss, Kss.' +Suddenly the low wicket-gate slowly opened and Vassilissa appeared. Ivan +Afanasiitch went straight to meet her, took her by the hand, and rather +coolly, but resolutely, said to her: + +'Come along with me.' + +'But, excuse me, Ivan Afanasiitch ... I ...' + +'Come with me,' he repeated. + +She obeyed. + +Pyetushkov led her to his lodgings. Onisim, as usual, was lying at full +length asleep. Ivan Afanasiitch waked him, told him to light a candle. +Vassilissa went to the window and sat down in silence. While Onisim was +busy getting a light in the anteroom, Pyetushkov stood motionless at the +other window, staring into the street. Onisim came in, with the candle +in his hands, was beginning to grumble ... Ivan Afanasiitch turned +quickly round: 'Go along,' he said to him. + +Onisim stood still in the middle of the room. + +'Go away at once,' Pyetushkov repeated threateningly. + +Onisim looked at his master and went out. + +Ivan Afanasiitch shouted after him: + +'Away, quite away. Out of the house. You can come back in two +hours' time.' + +Onisim slouched off. + +Pyetushkov waited till he heard the gate bang, and at once went up to +Vassilissa. + +'Where have you been?' + +Vassilissa was confused. + +'Where have you been? I tell you,' he repeated. + +Vassilissa looked round ... + +'I am speaking to you ... where have you been?' And Pyetushkov raised +his arm ... + +'Don't beat me, Ivan Afanasiitch, don't beat me,' Vassilissa whispered +in terror. + +Pyetushkov turned away. + +'Beat you ... No! I'm not going to beat you. Beat you? I beg your +pardon, my darling. God bless you! While I supposed you loved me, while +I ... I ... ' + +Ivan Afanasiitch broke off. He gasped for breath. + +'Listen, Vassilissa,' he said at last. 'You know I'm a kind-hearted man, +you know it, don't you, Vassilissa, don't you?' + +'Yes, I do,' she said faltering. + +'I do nobody any harm, nobody, nobody in the world. And I deceive +nobody. Why are you deceiving me?' + +'But I'm not deceiving you, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'You aren't deceiving me? Oh, very well! Oh, very well! Then tell me +where you've been.' + +'I went to see Matrona.' + +'That's a lie!' + +'Really, I've been at Matrona's. You ask her, if you don't believe me.' + +'And Bub--what's his name ... have you seen that devil?' + +'Yes, I did see him.' + +'You did see him! you did see him! Oh! you did see him!' + +Pyetushkov turned pale. + +'So you were making an appointment with him in the morning at the +window--eh? eh?' + +'He asked me to come.' + +'And so you went.... Thanks very much, my girl, thanks very much!' +Pyetushkov made Vassilissa a low bow. + +'But, Ivan Afanasiitch, you're maybe fancying ...' + +'You'd better not talk to me! And a pretty fool I am! There's nothing to +make an outcry for! You may make friends with any one you like. I've +nothing to do with you. So there! I don't want to know you even.' + +Vassilissa got up. + +'That's for you to say, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'Where are you going?' + +'Why, you yourself ...' + +'I'm not sending you away,' Pyetushkov interrupted her. + +'Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch.... What's the use of my stopping here?' + +Pyetushkov let her get as far as the door. + +'So you're going, Vassilissa?' + +'You keep on abusing me.' + +'I abuse you! You've no fear of God, Vassilissa! When have I abused you? +Come, come, say when?' + +'Why! Just this minute weren't you all but beating me?' + +'Vassilissa, it's wicked of you. Really, it's downright wicked.' + +'And then you threw it in my face, that you don't want to know me. "I'm +a gentleman," say you.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch began wringing his hands speechlessly. Vassilissa got +back as far as the middle of the room. + +'Well, God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch. I'll keep myself to myself, +and you keep yourself to yourself.' + +'Nonsense, Vassilissa, nonsense,' Pyetushkov cut her short. 'You think +again; look at me. You see I'm not myself. You see I don't know what I'm +saying.... You might have some feeling for me.' + +'You keep on abusing me, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'Ah, Vassilissa! Let bygones be bygones. Isn't that right? Come, you're +not angry with me, are you?' + +'You keep abusing me,' Vassilissa repeated. + +'I won't, my love, I won't. Forgive an old man like me. I'll never do it +in future. Come, you've forgiven me, eh?' + +'God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'Come, laugh then, laugh.' + +Vassilissa turned away. + +'You laughed, you laughed, my love!' cried Pyetushkov, and he capered +about like a child. + + + + +VI + + +The next day Pyetushkov went to the baker's shop as usual. Everything +went on as before. But there was a settled ache at his heart. He did not +laugh now as often, and sometimes he fell to musing. Sunday came. +Praskovia Ivanovna had an attack of lumbago; she did not get down from +the shelf bed, except with much difficulty to go to mass. After mass +Pyetushkov called Vassilissa into the back room. She had been +complaining all the morning of feeling dull. To judge by the expression +of Ivan Afanasiitch's countenance, he was revolving in his brain some +extraordinary idea, unforeseen even by him. + +'You sit down here, Vassilissa,' he said to her, 'and I'll sit here. I +want to have a little talk with you.' + +Vassilissa sat down. + +'Tell me, Vassilissa, can you write?' + +'Write?' + +'Yes, write?' + +'No, I can't.' + +'What about reading?' + +'I can't read either.' + +'Then who read you my letter?' + +'The deacon.' + +Pyetushkov paused. + +'But would you like to learn to read and write?' + +'Why, what use would reading and writing be to us, Ivan Afanasiitch?' + +'What use? You could read books.' + +'But what good is there in books?' + +'All sorts of good ... I tell you what, if you like, I'll bring +you a book.' + +'But I can't read, you see, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'I'll read to you.' + +'But, I say, won't it be dull?' + +'Nonsense! dull! On the contrary, it's the best thing to get rid +of dulness.' + +'Maybe you'll read stories, then.' + +'You shall see to-morrow.' + +In the evening Pyetushkov returned home, and began rummaging in his +boxes. He found several odd numbers of the Library of Good Reading, five +grey Moscow novels, Nazarov's arithmetic, a child's geography with a +globe on the title-page, the second part of Keydanov's history, two +dream-books, an almanack for the year 1819, two numbers of Galatea, +Kozlov's _Natalia Dolgorukaia_, and the first part of _Roslavlev_. He +pondered a long while which to choose, and finally made up his mind to +take Kozlov's poem, and _Roslavlev_. + +Next day Pyetushkov dressed in haste, put both the books under the lapel +of his coat, went to the baker's shop, and began reading aloud +Zagoskin's novel. Vassilissa sat without moving; at first she smiled, +then seemed to become absorbed in thought ... then she bent a little +forward; her eyes closed, her mouth slightly opened, her hands fell on +her knees; she was dozing. Pyetushkov read quickly, inarticulately, in a +thick voice; he raised his eyes ... + +'Vassilissa, are you asleep?' + +She started, rubbed her face, and stretched. Pyetushkov felt angry with +her and with himself.... + +'It's dull,' said Vassilissa lazily. + +'I tell you what, would you like me to read you poetry?' + +'What say?' + +'Poetry ... good poetry.' + +'No, that's enough, really.' + +Pyetushkov hurriedly picked up Kozlov's poem, jumped up, crossed the +room, ran impulsively up to Vassilissa, and began reading. Vassilissa +let her head drop backwards, spread out her hands, stared into Ivan +Afanasiitch's face, and suddenly went off into a loud harsh guffaw ... +she fairly rolled about with laughing. + +Ivan Afanasiitch flung the book on the floor in his annoyance. +Vassilissa went on laughing. + +'Why, what are you laughing at, silly?' + +Vassilissa roared more than ever. + +'Laugh away, laugh away,' Pyetushkov muttered between his teeth. + +Vassilissa held her sides, gasping. + +'But what is it, idiot?' But Vassilissa could only wave her hands. + +Ivan Afanasiitch snatched up his cap, and ran out of the house. With +rapid, unsteady steps, he walked about the town, walked on and on, and +found himself at the city gates. Suddenly there was the rattle of +wheels, the tramp of horses along the street.... Some one called him by +name. He raised his head and saw a big, old-fashioned wagonette. In the +wagonette facing him sat Mr. Bublitsyn between two young ladies, the +daughters of Mr. Tiutiurov. Both the girls were dressed exactly alike, +as though in outward sign of their immutable affection; both smiled +pensively, and carried their heads on one side with a languid grace. On +the other side of the carriage appeared the wide straw hat of their +excellent papa; and from time to time his round, plump neck presented +itself to the gaze of spectators. Beside his straw hat rose the mob-cap +of his spouse. The very attitude of both the parents was a sufficient +proof of their sincere goodwill towards the young man and their +confidence in him. And Bublitsyn obviously was aware of their flattering +confidence and appreciated it. He was, of course, sitting in an +unconstrained position, and talking and laughing without constraint; but +in the very freedom of his manner there could be discerned a shade of +tender, touching respectfulness. And the Tiutiurov girls? It is hard to +convey in words all that an attentive observer could trace in the faces +of the two sisters. Goodwill and gentleness, and discreet gaiety, a +melancholy comprehension of life, and a faith, not to be shaken, in +themselves, in the lofty and noble destiny of man on earth, courteous +attention to their young companion, in intellectual endowments perhaps +not fully their equal, but still by the qualities of his heart quite +deserving of their indulgence ... such were the characteristics and the +feelings reflected at that moment on the faces of the young ladies. +Bublitsyn called to Ivan Afanasiitch for no special reason, simply in +the fulness of his inner satisfaction; he bowed to him with excessive +friendliness and cordiality. The young ladies even looked at him with +gentle amiability, as at a man whose acquaintance they would not object +to.... The good, sleek, quiet horses went by Ivan Afanasiitch at a +gentle trot; the carriage rolled smoothly along the broad road, carrying +with it good-humoured, girlish laughter; he caught a final glimpse of +Mr. Tiutiurov's hat; the two outer horses turned their heads on each +side, jauntily stepping over the short, green grass ... the coachman gave +a whistle of approbation and warning, the carriage disappeared behind +some willows. + +A long while poor Pyetushkov remained standing still. + +'I'm a poor lonely creature,' he whispered at last ... 'alone in +the world.' + +A little boy in tatters stopped before him, looked timidly at him, held +out his hand ... + +'For Christ's sake, good gentleman.' + +Pyetushkov pulled out a copper. + +'For your loneliness, poor orphan,' he said with effort, and he walked +back to the baker's shop. On the threshold of Vassilissa's room Ivan +Afanasiitch stopped. + +'Yes,' he thought, 'these are my friends. Here is my family, this is +it.... And here Bublitsyn and there Bublitsyn.' + +Vassilissa was sitting with her back to him, winding worsted, and +carelessly singing to herself; she was wearing a striped cotton gown; +her hair was done up anyhow.... The room, insufferably hot, smelt of +feather beds and old rags; jaunty, reddish-brown 'Prussians' scurried +rapidly here and there across the walls; on the decrepit chest of +drawers, with holes in it where the locks should have been, beside a +broken jar, lay a woman's shabby slipper.... Kozlov's poem was still +where it had fallen on the floor.... Pyetushkov shook his head, folded +his arms, and went away. He was hurt. + +At home he called for his things to dress. Onisim slouched off after his +better coat. Pyetushkov had a great desire to draw Onisim into +conversation, but Onisim preserved a sullen silence. At last Ivan +Afanasiitch could hold out no longer. + +'Why don't you ask me where I'm going?' + +'Why, what do I want to know where you're going for?' + +'What for? Why, suppose some one comes on urgent business, and asks, +"Where's Ivan Afanasiitch?" And then you can tell him, "Ivan Afanasiitch +has gone here or there."' + +'Urgent business.... But who ever does come to you on urgent business?' + +'Why, are you beginning to be rude again? Again, hey?' + +Onisim turned away, and fell to brushing the coat. + +'Really, Onisim, you are a most disagreeable person.' + +Onisim looked up from under his brows at his master. + +'And you 're always like this. Yes, positively always.' + +Onisim smiled. + +'But what's the good of my asking you where you're going, Ivan +Afanasiitch? As though I didn't know! To the girl at the baker's shop!' + +'There, that's just where you're wrong! that's just where you're +mistaken! Not to her at all. I don't intend going to see the girl at the +baker's shop any more.' + +Onisim dropped his eyelids and brandished the brush. Pyetushkov waited +for his approbation; but his servant remained speechless. + +'It's not the proper thing,' Pyetushkov went on in a severe voice--'it's +unseemly.... Come, tell me what you think?' + +'What am I to think? It's for you to say. What business have I to +think?' + +Pyetushkov put on his coat. 'He doesn't believe me, the beast,' he +thought to himself. + +He went out of the house, but he did not go to see any one. He walked +about the streets. He directed his attention to the sunset. At last a +little after eight o'clock he returned home. He wore a smile; he +repeatedly shrugged his shoulders, as though marvelling at his own +folly. 'Yes,' thought he, 'this is what comes of a strong will....' + +Next day Pyetushkov got up rather late. He had not passed a very good +night, did not go out all day, and was fearfully bored. Pyetushkov read +through all his poor books, and praised aloud one story in the Library +of Good Reading. As he went to bed, he told Onisim to give him his pipe. +Onisim handed him a wretched pipe. Pyetushkov began smoking; the pipe +wheezed like a broken-winded horse. + +'How disgusting!' cried Ivan Afanasiitch; 'where's my cherry wood pipe?' + +'At the baker's shop,' Onisim responded tranquilly. + +Pyetushkov blinked spasmodically. + +'Well, you wish me to go for it?' + +'No, you needn't; don't go ... no need, don't go, do you hear?' + +'Yes, sir.' + +The night passed somehow. In the morning Onisim, as usual, gave +Pyetushkov on the blue sprigged plate a new white roll. Ivan Afanasiitch +looked out of window and asked Onisim: + +'You've been to the baker's shop?' + +'Who's to go, if I don't?' + +'Ah!' + +Pyetushkov became plunged in meditation. + +'Tell me, please, did you see any one there?' + +'Of course I did.' + +'Whom did you see there, now, for instance?' + +'Why, of course, Vassilissa.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch was silent. Onisim cleared the table, and was just +going out of the room.... + +'Onisim,' Pyetushkov cried faintly. + +'What is it?' + +'Er ... did she ask after me?' + +'Of course she didn't.' + +Pyetushkov set his teeth. 'Yes,' he thought, 'that's all it's worth, her +love, indeed....' His head dropped. 'Absurd I was, to be sure,' he +thought again. 'A fine idea to read her poetry. A girl like that! Why, +she's a fool! Why, she's good for nothing but to lie on the stove and +eat pancakes. Why, she's a post, a perfect post; an uneducated +workgirl.' + +'She's never come,' he whispered, two hours later, still sitting in the +same place, 'she's never come. To think of it; why, she could see that I +left her out of temper; why, she might know that I was hurt. There's +love for you! And she did not even ask if I were well. Never even said, +"Is Ivan Afanasiitch quite well?" She hasn't seen me for two whole +days--and not a sign.... She's even again, maybe, thought fit to meet +that Bub--Lucky fellow. Ouf, devil take it, what a fool I am!' + +Pyetushkov got up, paced up and down the room in silence, stood still, +knitted his brows slightly and scratched his neck. 'However,' he said +aloud, 'I'll go to see her. I must see what she's about there. I must +make her feel ashamed. Most certainly ... I'll go. Onisim! my clothes.' + +'Well,' he mused as he dressed, 'we shall see what comes of it. She may, +I dare say, be angry with me. And after all, a man keeps coming and +coming, and all of a sudden, for no rhyme or reason, goes and gives up +coming. Well, we shall see.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch went out of the house, and made his way to the baker's +shop. He stopped at the little gate, he wanted to straighten himself out +and set himself to rights.... Pyetushkov clutched at the folds of his +coat with both hands, and almost pulled them out altogether.... +Convulsively he twisted his tightly compressed neck, fastened the top +hook of his collar, drew a deep breath.... + +'Why are you standing there?' Praskovia Ivanovna bawled to him from the +little window. 'Come in.' + +Pyetushkov started, and went in. Praskovia Ivanovna met him in +the doorway. + +'Why didn't you come to see us yesterday, my good sir? Was it, maybe, +some ailment prevented you?' + +'Yes, I had something of a headache yesterday....' + +'Ah, you should have put cucumber on your temples, my good sir. It would +have taken it away in a twinkling. Is your head aching now?' + +'No, it's not.' + +'Ah well, and thank Thee, O Lord, for it.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch went off into the back room. Vassilissa saw him. + +'Ah! good day, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'Good day, Vassilissa Ivanovna.' + +'Where have you put the tap, Ivan Afanasiitch?' + +'Tap? what tap?' + +'The wine-tap ... our tap. You must have taken it home with you. You are +such a one ... Lord, forgive us....' + +Pyetushkov put on a dignified and chilly air. + +'I will direct my man to look. Seeing that I was not here yesterday,' he +pronounced significantly.... + +'Ah, why, to be sure, you weren't here yesterday.' Vassilissa squatted +down on her heels, and began rummaging in the chest.... + +'Aunt, hi! aunt!' + +'What sa-ay?' + +'Have you taken my neckerchief?' + +'What neckerchief?' + +'Why, the yellow one.' + +'The yellow one?' + +'Yes, the yellow, figured one.' + +'No, I've not taken it.' + +Pyetushkov bent down to Vassilissa. + +'Listen to me, Vassilissa; listen to what I am saying to you. It is not +a matter of taps or of neckerchiefs just now; you can attend to such +trifles another time.' + +Vassilissa did not budge from her position; she only lifted her head. + +'You just tell me, on your conscience, do you love me or not? That's +what I want to know, once for all.' + +'Ah, what a one you are, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Well, then, of course.' + +'If you love me, how was it you didn't come to see me yesterday? Had you +no time? Well, you might have sent to find out if I were ill, as I +didn't turn up. But it's little you cared. I might die, I dare say, you +wouldn't grieve.' + +'Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, one can't be always thinking of one thing, one's +got one's work to do.' + +'To be sure,' responded Pyetushkov; 'but all the same ... And it's +improper to laugh at your elders.... It's not right. Moreover, it's as +well in certain cases ... But where's my pipe?' + +'Here's your pipe.' + +Pyetushkov began smoking. + + + + +VII + + +Several days slipped by again, apparently rather tranquilly. But a storm +was getting nearer. Pyetushkov suffered tortures, was jealous, never +took his eyes off Vassilissa, kept an alarmed watch over her, annoyed +her horribly. Behold, one evening, Vassilissa dressed herself with more +care than usual, and, seizing a favourable instant, sallied off to make +a visit somewhere. Night came on, she had not returned. Pyetushkov at +sunset went home to his lodgings, and at eight o'clock in the morning +ran to the baker's shop.... Vassilissa had not come in. With an +inexpressible sinking at his heart, he waited for her right up to +dinner-time.... They sat down to the table without her.... + +'Whatever can have become of her?' Praskovia Ivanovna observed +serenely.... + +'You spoil her, you simply spoil her utterly!' Pyetushkov repeated, +in despair. + +'Eh! my good sir, there's no looking after a girl!' responded Praskovia +Ivanovna. 'Let her go her way! So long as she does her work.... Why +shouldn't folks enjoy themselves? ...' + +A cold shudder ran over Pyetushkov. At last, towards evening, Vassilissa +made her appearance. This was all he was waiting for. Majestically +Pyetushkov rose from his seat, folded his arms, scowled menacingly.... +But Vassilissa looked him boldly in the face, laughed impudently, and +before he could utter a single word she went quickly into her own room, +and locked herself in. Ivan Afanasiitch opened his mouth, looked in +amazement at Praskovia Ivanovna.... Praskovia Ivanovna cast down her +eyes. Ivan Afanasiitch stood still a moment, groped after his cap, put +it on askew, and went out without closing his mouth. + +He reached home, took up a leather cushion, and with it flung himself on +the sofa, with his face to the wall. Onisim looked in out of the +passage, went into the room, leaned his back against the door, took a +pinch of snuff, and crossed his legs. + +'Are you unwell, Ivan Afanasiitch?' he asked Pyetushkov. + +Pyetushkov made no answer. + +'Shall I go for the doctor?' Onisim continued, after a brief pause. + +'I'm quite well.... Go away,' Ivan Afanasiitch articulated huskily. + +'Well? ... no, you're not well, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Is this what you +call being well?' + +Pyetushkov did not speak. + +'Just look at yourself. You've grown so thin, that you're simply not +like yourself. And what's it all about? It's enough to turn one's brain +to think of it. And you a gentleman born, too!' + +Onisim paused. Pyetushkov did not stir. + +'Is that the way gentlemen go on? They'd amuse themselves a bit, to be +sure ... why shouldn't they ... they'd amuse themselves, and then drop +it.... They may well say, Fall in love with Old Nick, and you'll think +him a beauty.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch merely writhed. + +'Well, it's really like this, Ivan Afanasiitch. If any one had said this +and that of you, and your goings on, why, I would have said, "Get along +with you, you fool, what do you take me for?" Do you suppose I'd have +believed it? Why, as it is, I see it with my own eyes, and I can't +believe it. Worse than this nothing can be. Has she put some spell over +you or what? Why, what is there in her? If you come to consider, she's +below contempt, really. She can't even speak as she ought.... She's +simply a baggage! Worse, even!' + +'Go away,' Ivan Afanasiitch moaned into the cushion. + +'No, I'm not going away, Ivan Afanasiitch. Who's to speak, if I don't? +Why, upon my word! Here, you 're breaking your heart now ... and over +what? Eh, over what? tell me that!' + +'Oh, go away, Onisim,' Pyetushkov moaned again. Onisim, for propriety's +sake, was silent for a little while. + +'And another thing,' he began again, 'she's no feeling of gratitude +whatever. Any other girl wouldn't know how to do enough to please you; +while she! ... she doesn't even think of you. Why, it's simply a +disgrace. Why, the things people are saying about you, one cannot repeat +them, they positively cry shame on me. If I could have known beforehand, +I'd have....' + +'Oh, go away, do, devil!' shrieked Pyetushkov, not stirring from his +place, however, nor raising his head. + +'Ivan Afanasiitch, for mercy's sake,' pursued the ruthless Onisim. 'I'm +speaking for your good. Despise her, Ivan Afanasiitch; you simply break +it off. Listen to me, or else I'll fetch a wise woman; she'll break the +spell in no time. You'll laugh at it yourself, later on; you'll say to +me, "Onisim, why, it's marvellous how such things happen sometimes!" You +just consider yourself: girls like her, they're like dogs ... you've +only to whistle to them....' + +Like one frantic, Pyetushkov jumped up from the sofa ... but, to the +amazement of Onisim, who was already lifting both hands to the level of +his cheeks, he sat down again, as though some one had cut away his legs +from under him.... Tears were rolling down his pale face, a tuft of hair +stood up straight on the top of his head, his eyes looked dimmed ... his +drawn lips were quivering ... his head sank on his breast. + +Onisim looked at Pyetushkov and plumped heavily down on his knees. + +'Dear master, Ivan Afanasiitch,' he cried, 'your honour! Be pleased to +punish me. I'm a fool. I've troubled you, Ivan Afanasiitch.... How did I +dare! Be pleased to punish me, your honour.... It's not worth your while +to weep over my silly words ... dear master. Ivan Afanasiitch....' + +But Pyetushkov did not even look at his servant; he turned away and +buried himself in the corner of the sofa again. + +Onisim got up, went up to his master, stood over him, and twice he +tugged at his own hair. + +'Wouldn't you like to undress, sir ... you should go to bed ... you +should take some raspberry tea ... don't grieve, please your honour.... +It's only half a trouble, it's all nothing ... it'll be all right in the +end,' he said to him every two minutes.... + +But Pyetushkov did not get up from the sofa, and only twitched his +shoulders now and then, and drew up his knees to his stomach.... + +Onisim did not leave his side all night. Towards morning Pyetushkov fell +asleep, but he did not sleep long. At seven o'clock he got up from the +sofa, pale, dishevelled, and exhausted, and asked for tea. + +Onisim with amazing eagerness and speed brought the samovar. + +'Ivan Afanasiitch,' he began at last, in a timid voice, 'your honour is +not angry with me?' + +'Why should I be angry with you, Onisim?' answered poor Pyetushkov. 'You +were perfectly right yesterday, and I quite agreed with you in +everything.' + +'I only spoke through my devotion to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'I know that.' + +Pyetushkov was silent and hung his head. + +Onisim saw that things were in a bad way. + +'Ivan Afanasiitch,' he said suddenly. + +'Well?' + +'Would you like me to fetch Vassilissa here?' + +Pyetushkov flushed red. + +'No, Onisim, I don't wish it. ('Yes, indeed! as if she would come!' he +thought to himself.) One must be firm. It is all nonsense. Yesterday, +I ... It's a disgrace. You are right. One must cut it all short, once for +all, as they say. Isn't that true?' + +'It's the gospel truth your honour speaks, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +Pyetushkov sank again into reverie. He wondered at himself, he did not +seem to know himself. He sat without stirring and stared at the floor. +Thoughts whirled round within him, like smoke or fog, while his heart +felt empty and heavy at once. + +'But what's the meaning of it, after all,' he thought sometimes, and +again he grew calmer. 'It's nonsense, silliness!' he said aloud, and +passed his hand over his face, shook himself, and his hand dropped again +on his knee, his eyes again rested on the floor. + +Intently and mournfully Onisim kept watch on his master. + +Pyetushkov lifted his head. + +'Tell me, Onisim,' he began, 'is it true, are there really such +witches' spells?' + +'There are, to be sure there are,' answered Onisim, as he thrust one +foot forward. 'Does your honour know the non-commissioned officer, +Krupovaty? ... His brother was ruined by witchcraft. He was bewitched +to love an old woman, a cook, if your honour only can explain that! They +gave him nothing but a morsel of rye bread, with a muttered spell, of +course. And Krupovaty's brother simply lost his heart to the cook, he +fairly ran after the cook, he positively adored her--couldn't keep his +eyes off her. She might tell him to do anything, he'd obey her on the +spot. She'd even make a joke of him before other people, before +strangers. Well, she drove him into a decline, at last. And so it was +Krupovaty's brother died. And you know, she was a cook, and an old woman +too, very old. (Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) Confound the lot of them, +these girls and women-folk!' + +'She doesn't care for me a bit, that's clear, at last; that's beyond all +doubt, at last,' Pyetushkov muttered in an undertone, gesticulating with +his head and hands as though he were explaining to a perfectly +extraneous person some perfectly extraneous fact. + +'Yes,' Onisim resumed, 'there are women like that.' + +'There are,' listlessly repeated Pyetushkov, in a tone half questioning, +half perplexed. + +Onisim looked intently at his master. + +'Ivan Afanasiitch,' he began, 'wouldn't you have a snack of something?' + +'Wouldn't I have a snack of something?' repeated Pyetushkov. + +'Or may be you'd like to have a pipe?' + +'To have a pipe?' repeated Pyetushkov. + +'So this is what it's coming to,' muttered Onisim. 'It's gone deep, +it seems.' + + + + +VIII + + +The creak of boots resounded in the passage, and then there was heard +the usual suppressed cough which announces the presence of a person +of subordinate position. Onisim went out and promptly came back, +accompanied by a diminutive soldier with a little, old woman's face, +in a patched cloak yellow with age, and wearing neither breeches nor +cravat. Pyetushkov was startled; while the soldier drew himself up, +wished him good day, and handed him a large envelope bearing the +government seal. In this envelope was a note from the major in +command of the garrison: he called upon Pyetushkov to come to him +without fail or delay. + +Pyetushkov turned the note over in his hands, and could not refrain from +asking the messenger, did he know why the major desired his presence, +though he was very well aware of the utter futility of his question. + +'We cannot tell!' the soldier cried, with great effort, yet hardly +audibly, as though he were half asleep. + +'Isn't he summoning the other officers?' Pyetushkov pursued. + +'We cannot tell,' the soldier cried a second time, in just the +same voice. + +'All right, you can go,' pronounced Pyetushkov. + +The soldier wheeled round to the left, scraping his foot as he did so, +and slapping himself below the spine (this was considered smart in the +twenties), withdrew. + +Pyetushkov exchanged glances with Onisim, who at once assumed a look of +anxiety. Without a word Ivan Afanasiitch set off to the major's. + +The major was a man of sixty, corpulent and clumsily built, with a red +and bloated face, a short neck, and a continual trembling in his +fingers, resulting from excessive indulgence in strong drink. He +belonged to the class of so-called 'bourbons,' that's to say, soldiers +risen from the ranks; had learned to read at thirty, and spoke with +difficulty, partly from shortness of breath, partly from inability to +follow his own thought. His temperament exhibited all the varieties +known to science: in the morning, before drinking, he was melancholy; in +the middle of the day, choleric; and in the evening, phlegmatic, that is +to say, he did nothing at that time but snore and grunt till he was put +to bed. Ivan Afanasiitch appeared before him during the choleric period. +He found him sitting on a sofa, in an open dressing-gown, with a pipe +between his teeth. A fat, crop-eared cat had taken up her position +beside him. + +'Aha! he's come!' growled the major, casting a sidelong glance out of +his pewtery eyes upon Pyetushkov, and not stirring from his place. 'Sit +down. Well, I'm going to give you a talking to. I've wanted to get hold +of you this long while.' + +Pyetushkov sank into a chair. + +'For,' the major began, with an unexpected lurch of his whole body, +'you're an officer, d'ye see, and so you've got to behave yourself +according to rule. If you'd been a soldier, I'd have flogged you, and +that's all about it, but, as 'tis, you're an officer. Did any one ever +see the like of it? Disgracing yourself--is that a nice thing?' + +'Allow me to know to what these remarks may refer?' Pyetushkov was +beginning.... + +'I'll have no arguing! I dislike that beyond everything. I've said: I +dislike it; and that's all about it! Ugh--why, your hooks are not in +good form even;--what a disgrace! He sits, day in and day out, at the +baker's shop; and he a gentleman born! There's a petticoat to be found +there--and so there he sits. Let her go to the devil, the petticoat! +Why, they do say he puts the bread in the oven. It's a stain on the +uniform ... so it is!' + +'Allow me to submit,' articulated Pyetushkov with a cold chill at his +heart, 'that all this, as far as I can make out, refers to my private +life, so to say....' + +'No arguing with me, I tell you! Private life, he protests, too! If it +had been a matter of the service I'd have sent you straight to the +guard-room! Alley, marsheer! Because of the oath. Why, there was a whole +birch copse, maybe, used upon my back, so I should think I know the +service; every rule of discipline I'm very well up in. And I'd have you +to understand, I say this just for the honour of the uniform. You're +disgracing the uniform ... so you are. I say this like a father ... yes. +Because all that's put in my charge. I've to answer for it. And you dare +to argue too!' the major shrieked with sudden fury, and his face turned +purple, and he foamed at the mouth, while the cat put its tail in the +air and jumped down to the ground. 'Why, do you know ... why, do you +know what I can do? ... I can do anything, anything, anything! Why, do +you know whom you're talking to? Your superior officer gives you orders +and you argue! Your superior officer ... your superior officer....' + +Here the major positively choked and spluttered, while poor Pyetushkov +could only draw himself up and turn pale, sitting on the very edge of +his chair. + +'I must have' ... the major continued, with an imperious wave of his +trembling hand, 'I must have everything ... up to the mark! Conduct +first-class! I'm not going to put up with any irregularities! You can +make friends with whom you like, that makes no odds to me! But if you +are a gentleman, why, act as such ... behave like one! No putting bread +in the oven for me! No calling a draggletail old woman auntie! No +disgracing the uniform! Silence! No arguing!' + +The major's voice broke. He took breath, and turning towards the door +into the passage, bawled, 'Frolka, you scoundrel! The herrings!' + +Pyetushkov rose hurriedly and darted away, almost upsetting the +page-boy, who ran to meet him, carrying some sliced herring and a stout +decanter of spirits on an iron tray. + +'Silence! No arguing!' sounded after Pyetushkov the disjointed +exclamations of his exasperated superior officer. + + + + +IX + + +A queer sensation overmastered Ivan Afanasiitch when, at last, he found +himself in the street. + +'Why am I walking as it were in a dream?' he thought to himself. 'Am I +out of my mind, or what? Why, it passes all belief, at last. Come, damn +it, she's tired of me, come, and I've grown tired of her, come, and ... +What is there out of the way in that? + +Pyetushkov frowned. + +'I must put an end to it, once for all,' he said almost aloud. 'I'll go +and speak out decisively for the last time, so that it may never come +up again.' + +Pyetushkov made his way with rapid step to the baker's shop. The nephew +of the hired man, Luka, a little boy, friend and confidant of the goat +that lived in the yard, darted swiftly to the little gate, directly he +caught sight of Ivan Afanasiitch in the distance. + +Praskovia Ivanovna came out to meet Pyetushkov. + +'Is your niece at home?' asked Pyetushkov. + +'No, sir.' + +Pyetushkov was inwardly relieved at Vassilissa's absence. + +'I came to have a few words with you, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'What about, my good sir?' + +'I'll tell you. You comprehend that after all ... that has passed ... +after such, so to say, behaviour (Pyetushkov was a little confused) ... +in a word ... But, pray, don't be angry with me, though.' + +'Certainly not, sir.' + +'On the contrary, enter into my position, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'Certainly, sir.' + +'You're a reasonable woman, you'll understand of yourself, that ... that +I can't go on coming to see you any more.' + +'Certainly, sir,' Praskovia Ivanovna repeated slowly. + +'I assure you I greatly regret it; I confess it is positively painful to +me, genuinely painful ...' + +'You know best, sir,' Praskovia Ivanovna rejoined serenely. 'It's for +you to decide, sir. And, oh, if you'll allow me, I'll give you your +little account, sir.' + +Pyetushkov had not at all anticipated such a prompt acquiescence. He had +not desired acquiescence at all; he had only wanted to frighten +Praskovia Ivanovna, and above all Vassilissa. He felt wretched. + +'I know,' he began, 'this will not be disagreeable to Vassilissa; on the +contrary, I believe she will be glad.' + +Praskovia Ivanovna got out her reckoning beads, and began rattling +the counters. + +'On the other hand,' continued Pyetushkov, growing more and more +agitated, 'if Vassilissa were, for instance, to give an explanation of +her behaviour ... possibly.... Though, of course ... I don't know, +possibly, I might perceive that after all there was no great matter for +blame in it.' + +'There's thirty-seven roubles and forty kopecks in notes to your +account, sir,' observed Praskovia Ivanovna. 'Here, would you be pleased +to go through it?' + +Ivan Afanasiitch made no reply. + +'Eighteen dinners at seventy kopecks each; twelve roubles sixty +kopecks.' + +'And so we are to part, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'If so it must be, sir. Things do turn out so. Twelve samovars at ten +kopecks each ...' + +'But you might just tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna, where it was Vassilissa +went, and what it was she ...' + +'Oh, I never asked her, sir.... One rouble twenty kopecks in silver.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch sank into meditation. + +'Kvas and effervescing drinks,' pursued Praskovia Ivanovna, holding the +counters apart on the frame not with her first, but her third finger, +'half a rouble in silver. Sugar and rolls for tea, half a rouble. Four +packets of tobacco bought by your orders, eighty kopecks in silver. To +the tailor Kuprian Apollonov ...' + +Ivan Afanasiitch suddenly raised his head, put out his hand and mixed up +the counters. + +'What are you about, my good man?' cried Praskovia Ivanovna. 'Don't you +trust me?' + +'Praskovia Ivanovna,' replied Pyetushkov, with a hurried smile, 'I've +thought better of it. I was only, you know ... joking. We'd better +remain friends and go on in the old way. What nonsense it is! How can we +separate--tell me that, please?' + +Praskovia Ivanovna looked down and made him no reply. + +'Come, we've been talking nonsense, and there's an end of it,' pursued +Ivan Afanasiitch, walking up and down the room, rubbing his hands, +and, as it were, resuming his ancient rights. 'Amen! and now I'd +better have a pipe.' + +Praskovia Ivanovna still did not move from her place.... + +'I see you are angry with me,' said Pyetushkov. + +'I've offended you, perhaps. Well! well! forgive me generously.' + +'How could you offend me, my good sir? No offence about it.... Only, +please, sir,' added Praskovia Ivanovna, bowing, 'be so good as not to go +on coming to us.' + +'What?' + +'It's not for you, sir, to be friends with us, your honour. So, please, +do us the favour ...' + +Praskovia Ivanovna went on bowing. + +'What ever for?' muttered the astounded Pyetushkov. + +'Oh, nothing, sir. For mercy's sake ...' + +'No, Praskovia Ivanovna, you must explain this! ...' + +'Vassilissa asks you. She says, "I thank you, thank you very much, and +from my heart; only for the future, your honour, give us up."' + +Praskovia Ivanovna bowed down almost to Pyetushkov's feet. + +'Vassilissa, you say, begs me not to come?' + +'Just so, your honour. When your honour came in to-day, and said what +you did, that you didn't wish, you said, to visit us any more, I felt +relieved, sir, that I did; thinks I, Well, thank God, how nicely it's +all come about! But for that, I should have had hard work to bring my +tongue to say it.... Be so good, sir.' + +Pyetushkov turned red and pale almost at the same instant. Praskovia +Ivanovna still went on bowing.... + +'Very good,' Ivan Afanasiitch cried sharply. 'Good-bye.' + +He turned abruptly and put on his cap. + +'But the little bill, sir....' + +'Send it ... my orderly shall pay you.' + +Pyetushkov went with resolute steps out of the baker's shop, and did not +even look round. + + + + +X + + +A fortnight passed. At first Pyetushkov bore up in an extraordinary way. +He went out, and visited his comrades, with the exception, of course, of +Bublitsyn; but in spite of the exaggerated approbation of Onisim, he +almost went out of his mind at last from wretchedness, jealousy, and +ennui. Conversations with Onisim about Vassilissa were the only thing +that afforded him some consolation. The conversation was always begun, +'scratched up,' by Pyetushkov; Onisim responded unwillingly. + +'It's a strange thing, you know,' Ivan Afanasiitch would say, for +instance, as he lay on the sofa, while Onisim stood in his usual +attitude, leaning against the door, with his hands folded behind his +back, 'when you come to think of it, what it was I saw in that girl. One +would say that there was nothing unusual in her. It's true she has a +good heart. That one can't deny her.' + +'Good heart, indeed!' Onisim would answer with displeasure. + +'Come, now, Onisim,' Pyetushkov went on, 'one must tell the truth. It's +a thing of the past now; it's no matter to me now, but justice is +justice. You don't know her. She's very good-hearted. Not a single +beggar does she let pass by; she'll always give, if it's only a crust of +bread. Oh! And she's of a cheerful temper, that one must allow, too.' + +'What a notion! I don't know where you see the cheerful temper!' + +'I tell you ... you don't know her. And she's not mercenary either ... +that's another thing. She's not grasping, there's no doubt of it. Why I +never gave her anything, as you know.' + +'That's why she's flung you over.' + +'No, that's not why!' responded Pyetushkov with a sigh. + +'Why, you're in love with her to this day,' Onisim retorted malignantly. +'You'd be glad to go back there as before.' + +'That's nonsense you're talking. No, my lad, you don't know me either, I +can see. Be sent away, and then go dancing attendance--no, thank you, +I'd rather be excused. No, I tell you. You may believe me, it's all a +thing of the past now.' + +'Pray God it be so!' + +'But why ever shouldn't I be fair to her, now after all? If now I say +she's not good-looking--why, who'd believe me?' + +'A queer sort of good looks!' + +'Well, find me,--well, mention anybody better-looking ...' + +'Oh, you'd better go back to her, then! ...' + +'Stupid! Do you suppose that's why I say so? Understand me ...' + +'Oh! I understand you,' Onisim answered with a heavy sigh. + +Another week passed by. Pyetushkov had positively given up talking with +his Onisim, and had given up going out. From morning till night he lay +on the sofa, his hands behind his head. He began to get thin and pale, +eat unwillingly and hurriedly, and did not smoke at all. Onisim could +only shake his head, as he looked at him. + +'You're not well, Ivan Afanasiitch,' he said to him more than once. + +'No, I'm all right,' replied Pyetushkov. + +At last, one fine day (Onisim was not at home) Pyetushkov got up, +rummaged in his chest of drawers, put on his cloak, though the sun was +rather hot, went stealthily out into the street, and came back a quarter +of an hour later.... He carried something under his cloak.... + +Onisim was not at home. The whole morning he had been sitting in his +little room, deliberating with himself, grumbling and swearing between +his teeth, and, at last, he sallied off to Vassilissa. He found her in +the shop. Praskovia Ivanovna was asleep on the stove, rhythmically and +soothingly snoring. + +'Ah, how d'ye do, Onisim Sergeitch,' began Vassilissa, with a smile; +'why haven't we seen anything of you for so long?' + +'Good day.' + +'Why are you so depressed? Would you like a cup of tea?' + +'It's not me we're talking about now,' rejoined Onisim, in a tone +of vexation. + +'Why, what then?' + +'What! Don't you understand me? What! What have you done to my master, +come, you tell me that.' + +'What I've done to him?' + +'What have you done to him? ... You go and look at him. Why, before we +can look round, he'll be in a decline, or dying outright, maybe.' + +'It's not my fault, Onisim Sergeitch.' + +'Not your fault! God knows. Why, he's lost his heart to you. And you, +God forgive you, treated him as if he were one of yourselves. Don't +come, says you, I'm sick of you. Why, though he's not much to boast of, +he's a gentleman anyway. He's a gentleman born, you know.... Do you +realise that?' + +'But he's such a dull person, Onisim Sergeitch....' + +'Dull! So you must have merry fellows about you!' + +'And it's not so much that he's dull: he's so cross, so jealous.' + +'Ah, you, you're as haughty as a princess! He was in your way, I +dare say!' + +'But you yourself, Onisim Sergeitch, if you remember, were put out with +him about it; "Why is he such friends?" you said; "what's he always +coming for?"' + +'Well, was I to be pleased with him for it, do you suppose?' + +'Well, then, why are you angry with me now? Here, he's given up coming.' + +Onisim positively stamped. + +'But what am I to do with him, if he's such a madman?' he added, +dropping his voice. + +'But how am I in fault? What can I do?' + +'I'll tell you what: come with me to him.' + +'God forbid!' + +'Why won't you come?' + +'But why should I go to see him? Upon my word!' + +'Why? Why, because he says you've a good heart; let me see if you've a +good heart.' + +'But what good can I do him?' + +'Oh, that's my business. You may be sure things are in a bad way, since +I've come to you. It's certain I could think of nothing else to do.' + +Onisim paused for a while. + +'Well, come along, Vassilissa, please, come along.' + +'Oh, Onisim Sergeitch, I don't want to be friendly with him again ...' + +'Well, and you needn't--who's talking of it? You've only to say a +couple of words; to say, Why does your honour grieve? ... give over.... +That's all.' + +'Really, Onisim Sergeitch ...' + +'Why, am I to go down on my knees to you, eh? All right--there, I'm on +my knees ...' + +'But really ...' + +'Why, what a girl it is! Even that doesn't touch her! ...' + +Vassilissa at last consented, put a kerchief on her head, and went out +with Onisim. + +'You wait here a little, in the passage,' he said to her, when they +reached Pyetushkov's abode, 'and I'll go and let the master know ...' + +He went in to Ivan Afanasiitch. Pyetushkov was standing in the middle of +the room, both hands in his pockets, his legs excessively wide apart; he +was slightly swaying backwards and forwards. His face was hot, and his +eyes were sparkling. + +'Hullo, Onisim,' he faltered amiably, articulating the consonants very +indistinctly and thickly: 'hullo, my lad. Ah, my lad, when you weren't +here ... he, he, he ...' Pyetushkov laughed and made a sudden duck +forward with his nose. 'Yes, it's an accomplished fact, he, he, he.... +However,' he added, trying to assume a dignified air, 'I'm all right.' +He tried to lift his foot, but almost fell over, and to preserve his +dignity pronounced in a deep bass, 'Boy, bring my pipe!' + +Onisim gazed in astonishment at his master, glanced round.... In the +window stood an empty dark-green bottle, with the inscription: 'Best +Jamaica rum.' + +'I've been drinking, my lad, that's all,' Pyetushkov went on. 'I've +been and taken it. I've been drinking, and that's all about it. And +where've you been? Tell us ... don't be shy ... tell us. You're a good +hand at a tale.' + +'Ivan Afanasiitch, mercy on us!' wailed Onisim. + +'To be sure. To be sure I will,' replied Pyetushkov with a vague wave of +his hand. 'I'll have mercy on you, and forgive you. I forgive every one, +I forgive you, and Vassilissa I forgive, and every one, every one. Yes, +my lad, I've been drinking.... Dri-ink-ing, lad.... Who's that?' he +cried suddenly, pointing to the door into the passage; 'who's there?' + +'Nobody's there,' Onisim answered hastily: 'who should be there? ... +where are you going?' + +'No, no,' repeated Pyetushkov, breaking away from Onisim, 'let me go, I +saw--don't you talk to me,--I saw there, let me go.... Vassilissa!' he +shrieked all at once. + +Pyetushkov turned pale. + +'Well ... well, why don't you come in?' he said at last. 'Come in, +Vassilissa, come in. I'm very glad to see you, Vassilissa.' + +Vassilissa glanced at Onisim and came into the room. Pyetushkov went +nearer to her.... He heaved deep, irregular breaths. Onisim watched him. +Vassilissa stole timid glances at both of them. + +'Sit down, Vassilissa,' Ivan Afanasiitch began again: 'thanks for +coming. Excuse my being ... what shall I say? ... not quite fit to be +seen. I couldn't foresee, couldn't really, you'll own that yourself. +Come, sit down, see here, on the sofa ... So ... I'm expressing myself +all right, I think.' + +Vassilissa sat down. + +'Well, good day to you,' Ivan Afanasiitch pursued. 'Come, how are you? +what have you been doing?' + +'I'm well, thank God, Ivan Afanasiitch. And you?' + +'I? as you see! A ruined man. And ruined by whom? By you, Vassilissa. +But I'm not angry with you. Only I'm a ruined man. You ask him. (He +pointed to Onisim.) Don't you mind my being drunk. I'm drunk, certainly; +only I'm a ruined man. That's why I'm drunk, because I'm a ruined man.' + +'Lord have mercy on us, Ivan Afanasiitch!' + +'A ruined man, Vassilissa, I tell you. You may believe me. I've never +deceived you. Oh, and how's your aunt?' + +'Very well, Ivan Afanasiitch. Thank you.' + +Pyetushkov began swaying violently. + +'But you're not quite well to-day, Ivan Afanasiitch. You ought to +lie down.' + +'No, I'm quite well, Vassilissa. No, don't say I'm not well; you'd +better say I've fallen into evil ways, lost my morals. That's what would +be just. I won't dispute that.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch gave a lurch backwards. Onisim ran forward and held his +master up. + +'And who's to blame for it? I'll tell you, if you like, who's to blame. +I'm to blame, in the first place. What ought I to have said? I ought to +have said to you: Vassilissa, I love you. Good--well, will you marry me? +Will you? It's true you're a working girl, granted; but that's all +right. It's done sometimes. Why, there, I knew a fellow, he got married +like that. Married a Finnish servant-girl. Took and married her. And +you'd have been happy with me. I'm a good-natured chap, I am! Never you +mind my being drunk, you look at my heart. There, you ask this ... +fellow. So, you see, I turn out to be in fault. And now, of course, I'm +a ruined man.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch was more and more in need of Onisim's support. + +'All the same, you did wrong, very wrong. I loved you, I respected +you ... what's more, I'm ready to go to church with you this minute. Will +you? You've only to say the word, and we'll start at once. Only you +wounded me cruelly ... cruelly. You might at least have turned me away +yourself--but through your aunt, through that fat female! Why, the only +joy I had in life was you. I'm a homeless man, you know, a poor lonely +creature! Who is there now to be kind to me? who says a kind word to me? +I'm utterly alone. Stript bare as a crow. You ask this ...' Ivan +Afanasiitch began to cry. 'Vassilissa, listen what I say to you,' he +went on: 'let me come and see you as before. Don't be afraid.... I'll +be ... quiet as a mouse. You can go and see whom you like, I'll--be all +right: not a word, no protests, you know. Eh? do you agree? If you like, +I'll go down on my knees.' (And Ivan Afanasiitch bent his knees, but +Onisim held him up under the arms.) 'Let me go! It's not your business! +It's a matter of the happiness of a whole life, don't you understand, +and you hinder....' + +Vassilissa did not know what to say. + +'You won't ... Well, as you will! God be with you. In that case, good-bye! +Good-bye, Vassilissa. I wish you all happiness and prosperity ... but +I ... but I ...' + +And Pyetushkov sobbed violently. Onisim with all his might held him up +from behind ... first his face worked, then he burst out crying. And +Vassilissa cried too. + + + + +XI + + +Ten years later, one might have met in the streets of the little town of +O---- a thinnish man with a reddish nose, dressed in an old green coat +with a greasy plush collar. He occupied a small garret in the baker's +shop, with which we are familiar. Praskovia Ivanovna was no longer of +this world. The business was carried on by her niece, Vassilissa, and +her husband, the red-haired, dim-eyed baker, Demofont. The man in the +green coat had one weakness: he was over fond of drink. He was, however, +always quiet when he was tipsy. The reader has probably recognised him +as Ivan Afanasiitch. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Desperate Character and Other Stories, by +Ivan Turgenev + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + +***** This file should be named 8871-8.txt or 8871-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/8/7/8871/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Desperate Character and Other Stories + +Author: Ivan Turgenev + +Translator: Constance Garnett + + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8871] +This file was first posted on August 17, 2003 +Last Updated: October 26, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + + + + +Text files produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + A DESPERATE CHARACTER, AND OTHER STORIES + </h1> + <h2> + By Ivan Turgenev + </h2> + <h4> + Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett <br /> <br /> 1899 + </h4> + <p> + <b>THE NOVELS OF IVAN TURGENEV</b> + </p> + <p> + Complete in Fifteen Volumes. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + i. Rudin. + ii. A House of Gentlefolk. + iii. On the Eve. + iv. Fathers and Children. + v. Smoke. + vi. & vii. Virgin Soil. 2 Vols. + viii, & ix. A Sportsman’s Sketches. 2 Vols. + x. Dream Tales and Prose Poems. + xi. The Torrents of Spring and other Stories. + xii. A Lear of the Steppes and other Stories. + xiii. The Diary of a Superfluous Man and other Stories. + xiv. A Desperate Character and other Tales. + xv. The Jew and other Stories. +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + TO JOSEPH CONRAD <br /> <br /> WHOSE ART IN ESSENCE OFTEN RECALLS <br /> THE + ART AND ESSENCE OF TURGENEV + </h4> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + INTRODUCTION + </h2> + <p> + The six tales now translated for the English reader were written by + Turgenev at various dates between 1847 and 1881. Their chronological order + is:— + </p> + <p> + <i>Pyetushkov</i>, 1847 + </p> + <p> + <i>The Brigadier</i>, 1867 + </p> + <p> + <i>A Strange Story</i>, 1869 + </p> + <p> + <i>Punin and Baburin</i>, 1874 + </p> + <p> + <i>Old Portraits</i>, 1881 + </p> + <p> + <i>A Desperate Character</i>, 1881 + </p> + <p> + <i>Pyetushkov</i> is the work of a young man of twenty-nine, and its + lively, unstrained realism is so bold, intimate, and delicate as to + contradict the flattering compliment that the French have paid to one + another—that Turgenev had need to dress his art by the aid of French + mirrors. + </p> + <p> + Although <i>Pyetushkov</i> shows us, by a certain open <i>naïveté</i> of + style, that a youthful hand is at work, it is the hand of a young master, + carrying out the realism of the ‘forties’—that of Gogol, Balzac, and + Dickens—straightway, with finer point, to find a perfect equilibrium + free from any bias or caricature. The whole strength and essence of the + realistic method has been developed in <i>Pyetushkov</i> to its just + limits. The Russians are <i>instinctive</i> realists, and carry the warmth + of life into their pages, which warmth the French seem to lose in + clarifying their impressions and crystallising them in art. <i>Pyetushkov</i> + is not exquisite: it is irresistible. Note how the reader is transported + bodily into Pyetushkov’s stuffy room, and how the major fairly boils out + of the two pages he lives in! (pp. 301, 302). That is <i>realism</i> if + you like. A woman will see the point of <i>Pyetushkov</i> very quickly. + Onisim and Vassilissa and the aunt walk and chatter around the stupid + Pyetushkov, and glance at him significantly in a manner that reveals + everything about these people’s world. All the servants who appear in the + tales in this volume are hit off so marvellously that one sees the + lower-class world, which is such a mystery to certain refined minds, has + no secrets for Turgenev. + </p> + <p> + Of a different, and to our taste more fascinating, <i>genre</i> is <i>The + Brigadier</i>. It is greater art because life’s prosaic growth is revealed + not merely realistically, but also poetically, life as a tiny part of the + great universe around it. The tale is a microcosm of Turgenev’s own + nature; his love of Nature, his tender sympathy for all humble, ragged, + eccentric, despised human creatures; his unfaltering keenness of gaze into + character, his fine sense of proportion, mingle in. <i>The Brigadier</i>, + to create for us a sense of the pitiableness of man’s tiny life, of the + mere human seed which springs and spreads a while on earth, and dies under + the menacing gaze of the advancing years. ‘Out of the sweetness came forth + strength’ is perhaps the best saying by which one can define Turgenev’s + peculiar merits in <i>The Brigadier</i>. + </p> + <p> + <i>Punin and Baburin</i> presents to us again one of those ragged ones, + one of ‘the poor in spirit,’ the idealist Punin, a character whose + portrait challenges Dostoievsky’s skill on the latter’s own ground. That + delicious Punin! and that terrible grandmother’s scene with Baburin! How + absolutely Slav is the blending of irony and kindness in the treatment of + Punin, Cucumber, and Pyetushkov, few English readers will understand. All + the characters in <i>Punin and Baburin</i> are so strongly drawn, so + intensely alive, that, like Rembrandt’s portraits, they make the living + people, who stand looking at them, absurdly grey and lifeless by + comparison! Baburin is a Nihilist before the times of Nihilism, he is a + type of the strong characters that arose later in the movement of the + ‘eighties.’ + </p> + <p> + A pre-Nihilistic type is also the character of Sophie in <i>A Strange + Story</i>. But the chief value of this last psychological study is that it + gives the English mind a clue to the fundamental distinction that marks + off the Russian people from the peoples of the West. Sophie’s words—‘You + spoke of the will—that’s what must be broken’ (p. 61)—define + most admirably the deepest aspiration of the Russian soul. To be lowly and + suffering, to be despised, sick, to be under the lash of fate, to be + trampled under foot by others, <i>to be</i> unworthy, all this secret + desire of the Russian soul implies that the Russian has little <i>will</i>, + that he finds it easier to resign himself than to make the effort to be + powerful, triumphant, worthy. It is from the resignation and softness of + the Russian nature that all its characteristic virtues spring. Whereas + religion with the English mind is largely an anxiety to be moral, to be <i>right</i> + and righteous, to be ‘a chosen vessel of the Lord,’ religion with the + Russian implies a genuine abasement and loss of self, a bowing before the + will of Heaven, and true brotherly love. The Western mind rises to + greatness by concentrating the will-power in action, by assertion of all + its inner force, by shutting out forcibly whatever might dominate or + distract or weaken it. But the Russian mind, through its lack of + character, will-power, and hardness, rises to greatness in its acceptance + of life, and in its sympathy with all the unfortunate, the wretched, the + poor in spirit. Of course in practical life the Russian lacks many of the + useful virtues the Western peoples possess and has most of their vices; + but certainly his pity, charity, and brotherliness towards men more + unfortunate than himself largely spring from his fatalistic acceptance of + his own unworthiness and weakness. So in Sophie’s case the desire for + self-sacrifice, and her impregnable conviction that to suffer and endure + is <i>right</i>, is truly Russian in the sense of letting the + individuality go <i>with</i> the stream of fate, not <i>against</i> it. + And hence the formidable spirit of the youthful generation that sacrificed + itself in the Nihilistic movement: the strenuous action of ‘the youth’ + once set in movement, the spirit of self-sacrifice impelled it calmly + towards its goal despite all the forces and threats of fate. Sophie is + indeed an early Nihilist born before her time. + </p> + <p> + We have said that the lack of will in the Russian nature is at the root of + Russian virtues and vices, and in this connection it is curious to remark + that a race’s soul seems often to grow out of the race’s <i>aspiration + towards what it is not in life</i>. Is not the French intellect, for + example, so cool, clear-headed, so delicately analytic of its own motives, + that through the principle of <i>counterpoise</i> it strives to lose + itself and release itself in continual rhetoric and emotional positions? + Is not the German mind so alive to the material facts of life, to the + necessity of getting hold of concrete advantages in life, and of not + letting them go, that it deliberately slackens the bent bow, and plunges + itself and relaxes itself in floods of abstractions, and idealisations, + and dreams of sentimentality? Assuredly it is because the Russian is so + inwardly discontented with his own actions that he is such a keen and + incisive critic of everything <i>false</i> and exaggerated, that he + despises all French rhetoric and German sentimentalism. And in this sense + it is that the Russian’s lack of will comes in to deepen his soul. He + surrenders himself thereby to the universe, and, as do the Asiatics, does + not let the tiny shadow of his fate, dark though it may be, shut out the + universe so thoroughly from his consciousness, as does the aggressive + struggling will-power of the Western man striving to let his individuality + have full play. The Russian’s attitude may indeed be compared to a bowl + which catches and sustains what life brings it; and the Western man’s to a + bowl inverted to ward off what drops from the impassive skies. The mental + attitude of the Russian peasant indeed implies that in blood he is nearer + akin to the Asiatics than Russian ethnologists have wished to allow. + Certainly in the inner life of thought, intellectually, morally, and + emotionally, he is a half-way house between the Western and Eastern races, + just as geographically he spreads over the two continents. By natural law + his destiny calls him towards the East. Should he one day spread his rule + further and further among the Asiatics and hold the keys of an immense + Asiatic empire, well! future English philosophers may feel thereat a + curious fatalistic satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + EDWARD GARNETT. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 1899. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> A DESPERATE CHARACTER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A STRANGE STORY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> PUNIN AND BABURIN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> OLD PORTRAITS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> THE BRIGADIER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> PYETUSHKOV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> XI </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A DESPERATE CHARACTER + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + ... We were a party of eight in the room, and we were talking of + contemporary affairs and men. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t understand these men!’ observed A.: ‘they’re such desperate + fellows.... Really desperate.... There has never been anything like it + before.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, there has,’ put in P., a man getting on in years, with grey hair, + born some time in the twenties of this century: ‘there were desperate + characters in former days too, only they were not like the desperate + fellows of to-day. Of the poet Yazikov some one has said that he had + enthusiasm, but not applied to anything—an enthusiasm without an + object. So it was with those people—their desperateness was without + an object. But there, if you’ll allow me, I’ll tell you the story of my + nephew, or rather cousin, Misha Poltyev. It may serve as an example of the + desperate characters of those days. + </p> + <p> + He came into God’s world, I remember, in 1828, at his father’s native + place and property, in one of the sleepiest corners of a sleepy province + of the steppes. Misha’s father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Poltyev, I remember + well to this day. He was a genuine old-world landowner, a God-fearing, + sedate man, fairly—for those days—well educated, just a little + cracked, to tell the truth—and, moreover, he suffered from + epilepsy.... That too is an old-world, gentlemanly complaint.... Andrei + Nikolaevitch’s fits were, however, slight, and generally ended in sleep + and depression. He was good-hearted, and of an affable demeanour, not + without a certain stateliness: I always pictured to myself the tsar Mihail + Fedorovitch as like him. The whole life of Andrei Nikolaevitch was passed + in the punctual fulfilment of every observance established from old days, + in strict conformity with all the usages of the old orthodox holy Russian + mode of life. He got up and went to bed, ate his meals, and went to his + bath, rejoiced or was wroth (both very rarely, it is true), even smoked + his pipe and played cards (two great innovations!), not after his own + fancy, not in a way of his own, but according to the custom and ordinance + of his fathers—with due decorum and formality. He was tall, well + built, and stout; his voice was soft and rather husky, as is so often the + case with virtuous people in Russia; he was scrupulously neat in his dress + and linen, and wore white cravats and full-skirted snuff-coloured coats, + but his noble blood was nevertheless evident; no one could have taken him + for a priest’s son or a merchant! At all times, on all possible occasions, + and in all possible contingencies, Andrei Nikolaevitch knew without fail + what ought to be done, what was to be said, and precisely what expressions + were to be used; he knew when he ought to take medicine, and just what he + ought to take; what omens were to be believed and what might be + disregarded ... in fact, he knew everything that ought to be done.... For + as everything had been provided for and laid down by one’s elders, one had + only to be sure not to imagine anything of one’s self.... And above all, + without God’s blessing not a step to be taken!—It must be confessed + that a deadly dulness reigned supreme in his house, in those low-pitched, + warm, dark rooms, that so often resounded with the singing of liturgies + and all-night services, and had the smell of incense and Lenten dishes + almost always hanging about them! + </p> + <p> + Andrei Nikolaevitch—no longer in his first youth—married a + young lady of a neighbouring family, without fortune, a very nervous and + sickly person, who had had a boarding-school education. She played the + piano fairly, spoke boarding-school French, was easily moved to + enthusiasm, and still more easily to melancholy and even tears.... She was + of unbalanced character, in fact. She regarded her life as wasted, could + not care for her husband, who, ‘of course,’ did not understand her; but + she respected him, ... she put up with him; and being perfectly honest and + perfectly cold, she never even dreamed of another ‘affection.’ Besides, + she was always completely engrossed in the care, first, of her own really + delicate health, secondly, of the health of her husband, whose fits always + inspired in her something like superstitious horror, and lastly, of her + only son, Misha, whom she brought up herself with great zeal. Andrei + Nikolaevitch did not oppose his wife’s looking after Misha, on the one + condition of his education never over-stepping the lines laid down, once + and for all, within which everything must move in his house! Thus, for + instance, at Christmas-time, and at New Year, and St. Vassily’s eve, it + was permissible for Misha to dress up and masquerade with the servant boys—and + not only permissible, but even a binding duty.... But, at any other time, + God forbid! and so on, and so on. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + I remember Misha at thirteen. He was a very pretty boy, with rosy little + cheeks and soft lips (indeed he was soft and plump-looking all over), with + prominent liquid eyes, carefully brushed and combed, caressing and modest—a + regular little girl! There was only one thing about him I did not like: he + rarely laughed; but when he did laugh, his teeth—large white teeth, + pointed like an animal’s—showed disagreeably, and the laugh itself + had an abrupt, even savage, almost animal sound, and there were unpleasant + gleams in his eyes. His mother was always praising him for being so + obedient and well behaved, and not caring to make friends with rude boys, + but always preferring feminine society. ‘A mother’s darling, a milksop,’ + his father, Andrei Nikolaevitch, would call him; ‘but he’s always ready to + go into the house of God.... And that I am glad to see.’ Only one old + neighbour, who had been a police captain, once said before me, speaking of + Misha, ‘Mark my words, he’ll be a rebel.’ And this saying, I remember, + surprised me very much at the time. The old police captain, it is true, + used to see rebels on all sides. + </p> + <p> + Just such an exemplary youth Misha continued to be till the eighteenth + year of his age, up to the death of his parents, both of whom he lost + almost on the same day. As I was all the while living constantly at + Moscow, I heard nothing of my young kinsman. An acquaintance coming from + his province did, it is true, inform me that Misha had sold the paternal + estate for a trifling sum; but this piece of news struck me as too wildly + improbable! And behold, all of a sudden, one autumn morning there flew + into the courtyard of my house a carriage, with a pair of splendid + trotting horses, and a coachman of monstrous size on the box; and in the + carriage, wrapped in a cloak of military cut, with a beaver collar two + yards deep, and with a foraging cap cocked on one side, <i>à la diable + m’emporte</i>, sat ... Misha! On catching sight of me (I was standing at + the drawing-room window, gazing in astonishment at the flying equipage), + he laughed his abrupt laugh, and jauntily flinging back his cloak, he + jumped out of the carriage and ran into the house. + </p> + <p> + ‘Misha! Mihail Andreevitch!’ I was beginning, ... ‘Is it you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Call me Misha,’—he interrupted me. ‘Yes, it’s I, ... I, in my own + person.... I have come to Moscow ... to see the world ... and show myself. + And here I am, come to see you. What do you say to my horses?... Eh?’ he + laughed again. + </p> + <p> + Though it was seven years since I had seen Misha last, I recognised him at + once. His face had remained just as youthful and as pretty as ever—there + was no moustache even visible; only his cheeks looked a little swollen + under his eyes, and a smell of spirits came from his lips. ‘Have you been + long in Moscow?’ I inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘I supposed you were at home in the country, looking after the place.’ ... + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh! The country I threw up at once! As soon as my parents died—may + their souls rest in peace—(Misha crossed himself scrupulously, + without a shade of mockery) at once, without a moment’s delay, ... <i>ein, + zwei, drei!</i> ha, ha! I let it go cheap, damn it! A rascally fellow + turned up. But it’s no matter! Anyway, I am living as I fancy, and amusing + other people. But why are you staring at me like that? Was I, really, to + go dragging on in the same old round, do you suppose? ... My dear fellow, + couldn’t I have a glass of something?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha spoke fearfully quick and hurriedly, and, at the same time, as + though he were only just waked up from sleep. + </p> + <p> + ‘Misha, upon my word!’ I wailed; ‘have you no fear of God? What do you + look like? What an attire! And you ask for a glass too! And to sell such a + fine estate for next to nothing....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God I fear always, and do not forget,’ he broke in.... ‘But He is good, + you know—God is.... He will forgive! And I am good too.... I have + never yet hurt any one in my life. And drink is good too; and as for + hurting,... it never hurt any one either. And my get-up is quite the most + correct thing.... Uncle, would you like me to show you I can walk + straight? Or to do a little dance?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, spare me, please! A dance, indeed! You’d better sit down.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As to that, I’ll sit down with pleasure.... But why do you say nothing of + my greys? Just look at them, they’re perfect lions! I’ve got them on hire + for the time, but I shall buy them for certain, ... and the coachman + too.... It’s ever so much cheaper to have one’s own horses. And I had the + money, but I lost it yesterday at faro. It’s no matter, I’ll make it up + to-morrow. Uncle, ... how about that little glass?’ + </p> + <p> + I was still unable to get over my amazement. ‘Really, Misha, how old are + you? You ought not to be thinking about horses or cards, ... but going + into the university or the service.’ + </p> + <p> + Misha first laughed again, then gave vent to a prolonged whistle. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, uncle, I see you’re in a melancholy humour to-day. I’ll come back + another time. But I tell you what: you come in the evening to Sokolniki. + I’ve a tent pitched there. The gypsies sing, ... such goings-on.... And + there’s a streamer on the tent, and on the streamer, written in large + letters: “The Troupe of Poltyev’s Gypsies.” The streamer coils like a + snake, the letters are of gold, attractive for every one to read. A free + entertainment—whoever likes to come! ... No refusal! I’m making the + dust fly in Moscow ... to my glory! ... Eh? will you come? Ah, I’ve one + girl there ... a serpent! Black as your boot, spiteful as a dog, and eyes + ... like living coals! One can never tell what she’s going to do—kiss + or bite! ... Will you come, uncle? ... Well, good-bye, till we meet!’ + </p> + <p> + And with a sudden embrace, and a smacking kiss on my shoulder, Misha + darted away into the courtyard, and into the carriage, waved his cap over + his head, hallooed,—the monstrous coachman leered at him over his + beard, the greys dashed off, and all vanished! + </p> + <p> + The next day I—like a sinner—set off to Sokolniki, and did + actually see the tent with the streamer and the inscription. The drapery + of the tent was raised; from it came clamour, creaking, and shouting. + Crowds of people were thronging round it. On a carpet spread on the ground + sat gypsies, men and women, singing and beating drums, and in the midst of + them, in a red silk shirt and velvet breeches, was Misha, holding a + guitar, dancing a jig. ‘Gentlemen! honoured friends! walk in, please! the + performance is just beginning! Free to all!’ he was shouting in a high, + cracked voice. ‘Hey! champagne! pop! a pop on the head! pop up to the + ceiling! Ha! you rogue there, Paul de Kock!’ + </p> + <p> + Luckily he did not see me, and I hastily made off. + </p> + <p> + I won’t enlarge on my astonishment at the spectacle of this + transformation. But, how was it actually possible for that quiet and + modest boy to change all at once into a drunken buffoon? Could it all have + been latent in him from childhood, and have come to the surface directly + the yoke of his parents’ control was removed? But that he had made the + dust fly in Moscow, as he expressed it—of that, certainly, there + could be no doubt. I have seen something of riotous living in my day; but + in this there was a sort of violence, a sort of frenzy of + self-destruction, a sort of desperation! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + For two months these diversions continued.... And once more I was standing + at my drawing-room window, looking into the courtyard.... All of a sudden—what + could it mean? ... there came slowly stepping in at the gate a pilgrim ... + a squash hat pulled down on his forehead, his hair combed out straight to + right and left below it, a long gown, a leather belt ... Could it be + Misha? He it was! + </p> + <p> + I went to meet him on the steps.... ‘What’s this masquerade for?’ I + demanded. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not a masquerade, uncle,’ Misha answered with a deep sigh: since all + I had I’ve squandered to the last farthing—and a great repentance + too has come upon me—so I have resolved to go to the Sergiev + monastery of the Holy Trinity to expiate my sins in prayer. For what + refuge was left me? ... And so I have come to you to say good-bye, uncle, + like a prodigal son.’ + </p> + <p> + I looked intently at Misha. His face was just the same, rosy and fresh + (indeed it remained almost unchanged to the end), and the eyes, liquid, + affectionate, and languishing—and the hands, as small and white.... + But he smelt of spirits. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ I pronounced at last, ‘it’s a good thing to do—since there’s + nothing else to be done. But why is it you smell of spirits?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A relic of the past,’ answered Misha, and he suddenly laughed, but + immediately pulled himself up, and, making a straight, low bow—a + monk’s bow—he added: ‘Won’t you help me on my way? I’m going, see, + on foot to the monastery....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To-day ... at once.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why be in such a hurry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Uncle, my motto always was, “Make haste, make haste!”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what is your motto now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s the same now.... Only, make haste towards <i>good</i>!’ + </p> + <p> + And so Misha went off, leaving me to ponder on the vicissitudes of human + destiny. + </p> + <p> + But he soon reminded me of his existence. Two months after his visit, I + got a letter from him, the first of those letters, of which later on he + furnished me with so abundant a supply. And note a peculiar fact: I have + seldom seen a neater, more legible handwriting than that unbalanced + fellow’s. And the wording of his letters was exceedingly correct, just a + little flowery. Invariable entreaties for assistance, always attended with + resolutions to reform, vows, and promises on his honour.... All of it + seemed—and perhaps was—sincere. Misha’s signature to his + letters was always accompanied by peculiar strokes, flourishes, and stops, + and he made great use of marks of exclamation. In this first letter Misha + informed me of a new ‘turn in his fortune.’ (Later on he used to refer to + these turns as plunges, ... and frequent were the plunges he took.) He was + starting for the Caucasus on active service for his tsar and his country + in the capacity of a cadet! And, though a certain benevolent aunt had + entered into his impecunious position, and had sent him an inconsiderable + sum, still he begged me to assist him in getting his equipment. I did what + he asked, and for two years I heard nothing more of him. + </p> + <p> + I must own I had the gravest doubts as to his having gone to the Caucasus. + But it turned out that he really had gone there, had, by favour, got into + the T—— regiment as a cadet, and had been serving in it for + those two years. A perfect series of legends had sprung up there about + him. An officer of his regiment related them to me. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + I learned a great deal which I should never have expected of him.—I + was, of course, hardly surprised that as a military man, as an officer, he + was not a success, that he was in fact worse than useless; but what I had + not anticipated was that he was by no means conspicuous for much bravery; + that in battle he had a downcast, woebegone air, seemed half-depressed, + half-bewildered. Discipline of every sort worried him, and made him + miserable; he was daring to the point of insanity when only his <i>own + personal</i> safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him to accept; + but do harm to others, kill, fight, he could not, possibly because his + heart was too good—or possibly because his ‘cottonwool’ education + (so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself he was quite ready to + murder in any way at any moment.... But others—no. ‘There’s no + making him out,’ his comrades said of him; ‘he’s a flabby creature, a poor + stick—and yet such a desperate fellow—a perfect madman!’ I + chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit drove him, forced him, + to drink to excess, risk his life, and so on. He always had one answer—‘wretchedness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why are you wretched?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one’s self, begins to + feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well, it’s + all over with me! ... one’s so wretched at once—one wants to put a + bullet through one’s head! One’s forced to start drinking.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why ever do you drag Russia in?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can I help it? Can’t be helped! That’s why I’m afraid to think.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I don’t know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one’s life, + and stake it on a card—that I can do! Come, you tell me what I ought + to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I’ll ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t! You say I act thoughtlessly.... But what else can I do? ... If + one starts thinking—good God, all that comes into one’s head! It’s + only Germans who can think! ...’ + </p> + <p> + What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate man, and that’s all one + can say. + </p> + <p> + Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will tell you two or three. + One day, in a party of officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre he had + got by exchange—‘a genuine Persian blade!’ The officers expressed + doubts as to its genuineness. Misha began disputing. ‘Here then,’ he cried + at last; ‘they say the man that knows most about sabres is Abdulka the + one-eyed. I’ll go to him, and ask.’ The officers wondered. ‘What Abdulka? + Do you mean that lives in the mountains? The rebel never subdued? + Abdul-khan?’ ‘Yes, that’s him.’ ‘Why, but he’ll take you for a spy, will + put you in a hole full of bugs, or else cut your head off with your own + sabre. And, besides, how are you going to get to him? They’ll catch you + directly.’ ‘I’ll go to him, though, all the same.’ ‘Bet you won’t!’ + ‘Taken!’ And Misha promptly saddled his horse and rode off to Abdulka. He + disappeared for three days. All felt certain that the crazy fellow had + come by his end. But, behold! he came back—drunk, and with a sabre, + not the one he had taken, but another. They began questioning him. ‘It was + all right,’ said he; ‘Abdulka’s a nice fellow. At first, it’s true, he + ordered them to put irons on my legs, and was even on the point of having + me impaled. Only, I explained why I had come, and showed him the sabre. + “And you’d better not keep me,” said I; “don’t expect a ransom for me; + I’ve not a farthing to bless myself with—and I’ve no relations.” + Abdulka was surprised; he looked at me with his solitary eye. “Well,” said + he, “you are a bold one, you Russian; am I to believe you?” “You may + believe me,” said I; “I never tell a lie.” (And this was true; Misha never + lied.) Abdulka looked at me again. “And do you know how to drink wine?” “I + do,” said I; “give me as much as you will, I’ll drink it.” Abdulka was + surprised again; he called on Allah. And he told his—daughter, I + suppose—such a pretty creature, only with an eye like a jackal’s—to + bring a wine-skin. And I began to get to work on it. “But your sabre,” + said he, “isn’t genuine; here, take the real thing. And now we are pledged + friends.” But you’ve lost your bet, gentlemen; pay up.’ + </p> + <p> + The second legend of Misha is of this nature. He was passionately fond of + cards; but as he had no money, and could never pay his debts at cards + (though he was never a card-sharper), no one at last would sit down to a + game with him. So one day he began urgently begging one of his comrades + among the officers to play with him! ‘But if you lose, you don’t pay.’ + ‘The money certainly I can’t pay, but I’ll put a shot through my left + hand, see, with this pistol here!’ ‘But whatever use will that be to me?’ + ‘No use, but still it will be curious.’ This conversation took place after + a drinking bout in the presence of witnesses. Whether it was that Misha’s + proposition struck the officer as really curious—anyway he agreed. + Cards were brought, the game began. Misha was in luck; he won a hundred + roubles. And thereupon his opponent struck his forehead with vexation. + ‘What an ass I am!’ he cried, ‘to be taken in like this! As if you’d have + shot your hand if you had lost!—a likely story! hold out your + purse!’ ‘That’s a lie,’ retorted Misha: ‘I’ve won—but I’ll shoot my + hand.’ He snatched up his pistol—and bang, fired at his own hand. + The bullet passed right through it ... and in a week the wound had + completely healed. + </p> + <p> + Another time, Misha was riding with his comrades along a road at night ... + and they saw close to the roadside a narrow ravine like a deep cleft, dark—so + dark you couldn’t see the bottom. ‘Look,’ said one of the officers, ‘Misha + may be a desperate fellow, but he wouldn’t leap into that ravine.’ ‘Yes, + I’d leap in!’ ‘No, you wouldn’t, for I dare say it’s seventy feet deep, + and you might break your neck.’ His friend knew his weak point—vanity.... + There was a great deal of it in Misha. ‘But I’ll leap in anyway! Would you + like to bet on it? Ten roubles.’ ‘Good!’ And the officer had hardly + uttered the word, when Misha and his horse were off—into the ravine—and + crashing down over the stones. All were simply petrified.... A full minute + passed, and they heard Misha’s voice, dimly, as it were rising up out of + the bowels of the earth: ‘All right! fell on the sand ... but it was a + long flight! Ten roubles you’ve lost!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Climb out!’ shouted his comrades. ‘Climb out, I dare say!’ echoed Misha. + ‘A likely story! I should like to see you climb out. You’ll have to go for + torches and ropes now. And, meanwhile, to keep up my spirits while I wait, + fling down a flask....’ + </p> + <p> + And so Misha had to stay five hours at the bottom of the ravine; and when + they dragged him out, it turned out that his shoulder was dislocated. But + that in no way troubled him. The next day a bone-setter, one of the + black-smiths, set his shoulder, and he used it as though nothing had been + the matter. + </p> + <p> + His health in general was marvellous, incredible. I have already mentioned + that up to the time of his death he kept his almost childishly fresh + complexion. Illness was a thing unknown to him, in spite of his excesses; + the strength of his constitution never once showed signs of giving way. + When any other man would infallibly have been seriously ill, or even have + died, he merely shook himself, like a duck in the water, and was more + blooming than ever. Once, also in the Caucasus ... <i>this</i> legend is + really incredible, but one may judge from it what Misha was thought to be + capable of.... Well, once, in the Caucasus, in a state of drunkenness, he + fell down with the lower half of his body in a stream of water; his head + and arms were on the bank, out of water. It was winter-time, there was a + hard frost, and when he was found next morning, his legs and body were + pulled out from under a thick layer of ice, which had formed over them in + the night—and he didn’t even catch cold! Another time—this was + in Russia (near Orel, and also in a time of severe frost)—he was in + a tavern outside the town in company with seven young seminarists (or + theological students), and these seminarists were celebrating their final + examination, but had invited Misha, as a delightful person, a man of + ‘inspiration,’ as the phrase was then. A very great deal was drunk, and + when at last the festive party got ready to depart, Misha, dead drunk, was + in an unconscious condition. All the seven seminarists together had but + one three-horse sledge with a high back; where were they to stow the + unresisting body? Then one of the young men, inspired by classical + reminiscences, proposed tying Misha by his feet to the back of the sledge, + as Hector was tied to the chariot of Achilles! The proposal met with + approval ... and jolting up and down over the holes, sliding sideways down + the slopes, with his legs torn and flayed, and his head rolling in the + snow, poor Misha travelled on his back for the mile and a half from the + tavern to the town, and hadn’t as much as a cough afterwards, hadn’t + turned a hair! Such heroic health had nature bestowed upon him! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian dress, a dagger + in his sash, a high-peaked cap on his head. This costume he retained to + the end, though he was no longer in the army, from which he had been + discharged for outstaying his leave. He stayed with me, borrowed a little + money ... and forthwith began his ‘plunges,’ his wanderings, or, as he + expressed it, ‘his peregrinations from pillar to post,’ then came the + sudden disappearances and returns, and the showers of beautifully written + letters addressed to people of every possible description, from an + archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives! Then came calls upon persons + known and unknown! And this is worth noticing: when he made these calls, + he was never abject and cringing, he never worried people by begging, but + on the contrary behaved with propriety, and had positively a cheerful and + pleasant air, though the inveterate smell of spirits accompanied him + everywhere, and his Oriental costume gradually changed into rags. ‘Give, + and God will reward you, though I don’t deserve it,’ he would say, with a + bright smile and a candid blush; ‘if you don’t give, you’ll be perfectly + right, and I shan’t blame you for it. I shall find food to eat, God will + provide! And there are people poorer than I, and much more deserving of + help—plenty, plenty!’ Misha was particularly successful with women: + he knew how to appeal to their sympathy. But don’t suppose that he was or + fancied himself a Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very modest. + Whether it was that he had inherited a cool temperament from his parents, + or whether indeed this too is to be set down to his dislike for doing any + one harm—as, according to his notions, relations with a woman meant + inevitably doing a woman harm—I won’t undertake to decide; only in + all his behaviour with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women felt + this, and were the more ready to sympathise with him and help him, until + at last he revolted them by his drunkenness and debauchery, by the + desperateness of which I have spoken already.... I can think of no other + word for it. + </p> + <p> + But in other relations he had by that time lost every sort of delicacy, + and was gradually sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. He once, in + the public assembly at T——, got as far as setting on the table + a jug with a notice: ‘Any one, to whom it may seem agreeable to give the + high-born nobleman Poltyev (authentic documents in proof of his pedigree + are herewith exposed) a flip on the nose, may satisfy this inclination on + putting a rouble into this jug.’ And I am told there were persons found + willing to pay for the privilege of flipping a nobleman’s nose! It is true + that one such person, who put in only one rouble and gave him <i>two</i> + flips, he first almost strangled, and then forced to apologise; it is + true, too, that part of the money gained in this fashion he promptly + distributed among other poor devils ... but still, think what a disgrace! + </p> + <p> + In the course of his ‘peregrinations from pillar to post,’ he made his + way, too, to his ancestral home, which he had sold for next to nothing to + a speculator and money-lender well known in those days. The money-lender + was at home, and hearing of the presence in the neighbourhood of the + former owner, now reduced to vagrancy, he gave orders not to admit him + into the house, and even, in case of necessity, to drive him away. Misha + announced that he would not for his part consent to enter the house, + polluted by the presence of so repulsive a person; that he would permit no + one to drive him away, but was going to the churchyard to pay his + devotions at the grave of his parents. So in fact he did. + </p> + <p> + In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been + his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly + allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been a + corner in a peasant’s hut. Misha had been too short a time in possession + of his estate to have left behind him a particularly favourable memory; + still the old servant could not resist running to the churchyard as soon + as he heard of his young master’s being there. He found Misha sitting on + the ground between the tombstones, asked for his hand to kiss, as in old + times, and even shed tears on seeing the rags which clothed the limbs of + his once pampered young charge. + </p> + <p> + Misha gazed long and silently at the old man. ‘Timofay!’ he said at last; + Timofay started. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you desire?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you a spade?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can get one.... But what do you want with a spade, Mihailo Andreitch, + sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I want to dig myself a grave, Timofay, and to lie here for time + everlasting between my father and mother. There’s only this spot left me + in the world. Get a spade!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sir,’ said Timofay; he went and got it. And Misha began at once + digging in the ground, while Timofay stood by, his chin propped in his + hand, repeating: ‘It’s all that’s left for you and me, master!’ + </p> + <p> + Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: ‘Life’s not worth living, + is it, Timofay?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not indeed, master.’ + </p> + <p> + The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about, and + ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first very + angry, wanted to send for the police: ‘This is sacrilege,’ said he. But + afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to have to + do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,—he went + in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still toiling, + made him a polite bow. He went on with his digging as though he had not + noticed his successor. ‘Mihail Andreitch,’ began the money-lender, ‘allow + me to ask what you are doing here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You can see—I am digging myself a grave.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why are you doing so?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I don’t want to live any longer.’ + </p> + <p> + The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. ‘You don’t want + to live?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. ‘That surprises you? Aren’t + you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn’t it you, Judas, who + robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren’t you flaying the + peasants’ skins off their backs? Haven’t you taken from this poor old man + his crust of dry bread? Wasn’t it you? ... O God! everywhere nothing but + injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing.... Everything must go to ruin + then, and me too! I don’t care for life, I don’t care for life in Russia!’ + And the spade moved faster than ever in Misha’s hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s a devil of a business!’ thought the money-lender; ‘he’s positively + burying himself alive.’ ‘Mihail Andreevitch,’ he began again: ‘listen. + I’ve been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me falsely of you.’ + </p> + <p> + Misha went on digging. + </p> + <p> + ‘But why be desperate?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the + money-lender’s feet, as though to say, ‘Here you are, land-grabber.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, you ‘re wrong in this. Won’t you be pleased to come in to have + some lunch, and rest a bit?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha raised his head. ‘So that’s it now! And anything to drink?’ + </p> + <p> + The money-lender was delighted. ‘Why, of course ... I should think so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You invite Timofay too?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, ... yes, him too.’ + </p> + <p> + Misha pondered. ‘Only, mind ... you made me a beggar, you know.... Don’t + think you can get off with one bottle!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Set your mind at rest ... there shall be all you can want.’ + </p> + <p> + Misha got up and flung down the spade.... ‘Well, Timosha,’ said he to his + old nurse; ‘let’s do honour to our host.... Come along.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sir,’ answered the old man. + </p> + <p> + And all three started off to the house together. The money-lender knew the + man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, exacted a + promise from him to ‘grant all sorts of immunities’ to the peasants; but + an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, both drunk, were + dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still seemed pervaded by the + God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an hour later still, Misha + in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for spirits), laid in a cart with + his high cap and dagger, was being driven off to the town, more than + twenty miles away, and there was flung under a hedge.... As for Timofay, + who could still keep on his legs, and only hiccupped—him, of course, + they kicked out of the house; since they couldn’t get at the master, they + had to be content with the old servant. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha.... God knows what he + was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a posting-station on + the T—— highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly heard under + the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering in French the + words: ‘Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitié d’un pauvre gentil-homme + ruiné.’ ... I lifted my head, glanced.... The mangy-looking fur cap, the + broken ornaments on the ragged Circassian dress, the dagger in the cracked + sheath, the swollen, but still rosy face, the dishevelled, but still thick + crop of hair.... Mercy on us! Misha! He had come then to begging alms on + the high-roads. I could not help crying out. He recognised me, started, + turned away, and was about to move away from the window. I stopped him ... + but what could I say to him? Give him a lecture? ... In silence I held out + a five-rouble note; he, also in silence, took it in his still white and + plump, though shaking and dirty hand, and vanished round the corner of the + house. + </p> + <p> + It was a good while before they gave me horses, and I had time to give + myself up to gloomy reflections on my unexpected meeting with Misha; I + felt ashamed of having let him go so unsympathetically. + </p> + <p> + At last I set off on my way, and half a mile from the station I observed + ahead of me, in the road, a crowd of people moving along with a curious, + as it seemed rhythmic, step. I overtook this crowd—and what did I + see? + </p> + <p> + Some dozen or so beggars, with sacks over their shoulders, were walking + two by two, singing and leaping about, while in front of them danced + Misha, stamping time with his feet, and shouting, ‘Natchiki-tchikaldy, + tchuk, tchuk, tchuk! ... Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk!’ + Directly my carriage caught them up, and he saw me, he began at once + shouting, ‘Hurrah! Stand in position! right about face, guard of the + roadside!’ + </p> + <p> + The beggars took up his shout, and halted; while he, with his peculiar + laugh, jumped on to the carriage step, and again yelled: Hurrah! + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ I asked with involuntary astonishment. + </p> + <p> + ‘This? This is my company, my army—all beggars, God’s people, + friends of my heart. Every one of them, thanks to you, has had a glass; + and now we are all rejoicing and making merry! ... Uncle! Do you know it’s + only with beggars, God’s people, that one can live in the world ... by + God, it is!’ + </p> + <p> + I made him no answer ... but at that moment he struck me as such a kind + good creature, his face expressed such childlike simple-heartedness.... A + light seemed suddenly as it were to dawn upon me, and I felt a pang in my + heart.... ‘Get into the carriage,’ I said to him. He was taken aback.... + </p> + <p> + ‘What? Into the carriage?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, get in, get in,’ I repeated; ‘I want to make you a suggestion. Sit + down.... Come along with me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, as you will.’ He sat down. ‘Well, and you, my honoured friends, my + dear comrades,’ he added, addressing the beggars, ‘fare-well, till we meet + again.’ Misha took off his high cap, and bowed low. The beggars all seemed + overawed.... I told the coachman to whip up the horses, and the carriage + rolled off. + </p> + <p> + The suggestion I wanted to make Misha was this: the idea suddenly occurred + to me to take him with me to my home in the country, about five-and-twenty + miles from that station, to rescue him, or at least to make an effort to + rescue him. ‘Listen, Misha,’ I said; ‘will you come along and live with + me? ... You shall have everything provided you; you shall have clothes and + linen made you; you shall be properly fitted out, and you shall have money + to spend on tobacco, and so on, only on one condition, that you give up + drink.... Do you agree?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha was positively aghast with delight; he opened his eyes wide, flushed + crimson, and suddenly falling on my shoulder, began kissing me, and + repeating in a broken voice, ‘Uncle ... benefactor ... God reward you.’ + ... He burst into tears at last, and taking off his cap fell to wiping his + eyes, his nose, his lips with it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mind,’ I observed; ‘remember the condition, not to touch strong drink.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Damnation to it!’ he cried, with a wave of both arms, and with this + impetuous movement, I was more than ever conscious of the strong smell of + spirits with which he seemed always saturated.... ‘Uncle, if you knew what + my life has been.... If it hadn’t been for sorrow, a cruel fate.... But + now I swear, I swear, I will mend my ways, I will show you.... Uncle, I’ve + never told a lie—you can ask whom you like.... I’m honest, but I’m + an unlucky fellow, uncle; I’ve known no kindness from any one....’ + </p> + <p> + Here he broke down finally into sobs. I tried to soothe him, and succeeded + so far that when we reached home Misha had long been lost in a heavy + sleep, with his head on my knees. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + He was at once assigned a room for himself, and at once, first thing, + taken to the bath, which was absolutely essential. All his clothes, and + his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he + was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which, as + is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt themselves + to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean, and fresh, + he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such joyful + gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was completely + transformed.... Boys of twelve have faces like that on Easter Sundays, + after the communion, when, thickly pomaded, in new jacket and starched + collars, they come to exchange Easter greetings with their parents. Misha + was continually—with a sort of cautious incredulity—feeling + himself and repeating: ‘What does it mean? ... Am I in heaven?’ The next + day he announced that he had not slept all night, he had been in such + ecstasy. + </p> + <p> + I had living in my house at that time an old aunt with her niece; both of + them were extremely disturbed when they heard of Misha’s presence; they + could not comprehend how I could have asked him into my house! There were + very ugly rumours about him. But in the first place, I knew he was always + very courteous with ladies; and, secondly, I counted on his promises of + amendment. And, in fact, for the first two days of his stay under my roof + Misha not merely justified my expectations but surpassed them, while the + ladies of the household were simply enchanted with him. He played piquet + with the old lady, helped her to wind her worsted, showed her two new + games of patience; for the niece, who had a small voice, he played + accompaniments on the piano, and read Russian and French poetry. He told + both the ladies lively but discreet anecdotes; in fact, he showed them + every attention, so that they repeatedly expressed their surprise to me, + and the old lady even observed how unjust people sometimes were.... The + things—the things they had said of him ... and he such a quiet + fellow, and so polite ... poor Misha! It is true that at table ‘poor + Misha’ licked his lips in a rather peculiar, hurried way, if he simply + glanced at the bottle. But I had only to shake my finger at him, and he + would turn his eyes upwards, and lay his hand on his heart ... as if to + say, I have sworn.... ‘I am regenerated now,’ he assured me.... ‘Well, God + grant it be so,’ was my thought.... But this regeneration did not last + long. + </p> + <p> + The first two days he was very talkative and cheerful. But even on the + third day he seemed somehow subdued, though he remained, as before, with + the ladies and tried to entertain them. A half mournful, half dreamy + expression flitted now and then over his face, and the face itself was + paler and looked thinner. ‘Are you unwell?’ I asked him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘my head aches a little.’ On the fourth day he was + completely silent; for the most part he sat in a corner, hanging his head + disconsolately, and his dejected appearance worked upon the compassionate + sympathies of the two ladies, who now, in their turn, tried to amuse him. + At table he ate nothing, stared at his plate, and rolled up pellets of + bread. On the fifth day the feeling of compassion in the ladies began to + be replaced by other emotions—uneasiness and even alarm. Misha was + so strange, he held aloof from people, and kept moving along close to the + walls, as though trying to steal by unnoticed, and suddenly looking round + as though some one had called him. And what had become of his rosy colour? + It seemed covered over by a layer of earth. ‘Are you still unwell?’ I + asked him. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’m all right,’ he answered abruptly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you dull?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why should I be dull?’ But he turned away and would not look me in the + face. + </p> + <p> + ‘Or is it that wretchedness come over you again?’ To this he made no + reply. So passed another twenty-four hours. + </p> + <p> + Next day my aunt ran into my room in a state of great excitement, + declaring that she would leave the house with her niece, if Misha was to + remain in it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why so?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, we are dreadfully scared with him.... He’s not a man, he’s a wolf,—nothing + better than a wolf. He keeps moving and moving about, and doesn’t speak—and + looks so wild.... He almost gnashes his teeth at me. My Katia, you know, + is so nervous.... She was so struck with him the first day.... I’m in + terror for her, and indeed for myself too.’ ... I didn’t know what to say + to my aunt. I couldn’t, anyway, turn Misha out, after inviting him. + </p> + <p> + He relieved me himself from my difficult position. The same day,—I + was still sitting in my own room,—suddenly I heard behind me a husky + and angry voice: ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch, Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ I looked round; + Misha was standing in the doorway with a face that was fearful, + black-looking and distorted. ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ he repeated ... (not + ‘uncle’ now). + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you want?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me go ... at once!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me go, or I shall do mischief, I shall set the house on fire or cut + some one’s throat.’ Misha suddenly began trembling. ‘Tell them to give me + back my clothes, and let a cart take me to the highroad, and let me have + some money, however little!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you displeased, then, at anything?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t live like this!’ he shrieked at the top of his voice. ‘I can’t + live in your respectable, thrice-accursed house! It makes me sick, and + ashamed to live so quietly! ... How <i>you</i> manage to endure it!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is,’ I interrupted in my turn, ‘you mean—you can’t live + without drink....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, yes! yes!’ he shrieked again: ‘only let me go to my brethren, my + friends, to the beggars! ... Away from your respectable, loathsome + species!’ + </p> + <p> + I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha’s frenzied + look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs,—it was + all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his clothes + should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking a note for + twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the table. Misha had + begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,—but on this, suddenly + he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck himself on the breast, the + tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering, ‘Uncle! angel! I know I’m a + ruined man! thanks! thanks!’ he snatched up the note and ran away. + </p> + <p> + An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his + Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses started, + he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his head, made bow + after bow. Just as he was going off, he had given me a long and warm + embrace, and whispered, ‘Benefactor, benefactor ... there’s no saving me!’ + He even ran to the ladies and kissed their hands, fell on his knees, + called upon God, and begged their forgiveness! Katia I found afterwards in + tears. + </p> + <p> + The coachman, with whom Misha had set off, on coming home informed me that + he had driven him to the first tavern on the highroad—and that there + ‘his honour had stuck,’ had begun treating every one indiscriminately—and + had quickly sunk into unconsciousness. From that day I never came across + Misha again, but his ultimate fate I learned in the following manner. + </p> + <h3> + VIII + </h3> + <p> + Three years later, I was again at home in the country; all of a sudden a + servant came in and announced that Madame Poltyev was asking to see me. I + knew no Madame Poltyev, and the servant, who made this announcement, for + some unknown reason smiled sarcastically. To my glance of inquiry, he + responded that the lady asking for me was young, poorly dressed, and had + come in a peasant’s cart with one horse, which she was driving herself! I + told him to ask Madame Poltyev up to my room. + </p> + <p> + I saw a woman of five-and-twenty, in the dress of the small tradesman + class, with a large kerchief on her head. Her face was simple, roundish, + not without charm; she looked dejected and gloomy, and was shy and awkward + in her movements. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are Madame Poltyev?’ I inquired, and I asked her to sit down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ she answered in a subdued voice, and she did not sit down. ‘I am + the widow of your nephew, Mihail Andreevitch Poltyev.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is Mihail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long? But sit down, I beg.’ + </p> + <p> + She sank into a chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s two months.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And had you been married to him long?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I had been a year with him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you come from now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘From out Tula way.... There’s a village there, Znamenskoe-Glushkovo—perhaps + you may know it. I am the daughter of the deacon there. Mihail Andreitch + and I lived there.... He lived in my father’s house. We were a whole year + together.’ + </p> + <p> + The young woman’s lips twitched a little, and she put her hand up to them. + She seemed to be on the point of tears, but she controlled herself, and + cleared her throat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mihail Andreitch,’ she went on: ‘before his death enjoined upon me to go + to you; “You must be sure to go,” said he! And he told me to thank you for + all your goodness, and to give you ... this ... see, this little thing + (she took a small packet out of her pocket) which he always had about + him.... And Mihail Andreitch said, if you would be pleased to accept it in + memory of him, if you would not disdain it.... “There’s nothing else,” + said he, “I can give him” ... that is, you....’ + </p> + <p> + In the packet there was a little silver cup with the monogram of Misha’s + mother. This cup I had often seen in Misha’s hands, and once he had even + said to me, speaking of some poor fellow, that he really was destitute, + since he had neither cup nor bowl, ‘while I, see, have this anyway.’ + </p> + <p> + I thanked her, took the cup, and asked: + </p> + <p> + ‘Of what complaint had Misha died? No doubt....’ + </p> + <p> + Then I bit my tongue ... but the young woman understood my unuttered + hint.... She took a swift glance at me, then looked down again, smiled + mournfully, and said at once: ‘Oh no! he had quite given that up, ever + since he got to know me ... But he had no health at all! ... It was + shattered quite. As soon as he gave up drink, he fell into ill health + directly. He became so steady; he always wanted to help father in his land + or in the garden, ... or any other work there might be ... in spite of his + being of noble birth. But how could he get the strength? ... At writing, + too, he tried to work; as you know, he could do that work capitally, but + his hands shook, and he couldn’t hold the pen properly. ... He was always + finding fault with himself; “I’m a white-handed poor creature,” he would + say; “I’ve never done any good to anybody, never helped, never laboured!” + He worried himself very much about that.... He used to say that our people + labour,—but what use are we? ... Ah, Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a + good man—and he was fond of me ... and I... Ah, pardon me....’ + </p> + <p> + Here the young woman wept outright. I would have consoled her, but I did + not know how. + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you a child left you?’ I asked at last. + </p> + <p> + She sighed. ‘No, no child.... Is it likely?’ And her tears flowed faster + than ever. + </p> + <p> + ‘And so that was how Misha’s troubled wanderings had ended,’ the old man + P. wound up his narrative. ‘You will agree with me, I am sure, that I’m + right in calling him a desperate character; but you will most likely agree + too that he was not like the desperate characters of to-day; still, a + philosopher, you must admit, would find a family likeness between him and + them. In him and in them there’s the thirst for self-destruction, the + wretchedness, the dissatisfaction.... And what it all comes from, I leave + the philosopher to decide.’ + </p> + <p> + BOUGIVALLE, <i>November</i> 1881. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A STRANGE STORY + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + Fifteen years ago—began H.—official duties compelled me to + spend a few days in the principal town of the province of T——. + I stopped at a very fair hotel, which had been established six months + before my arrival by a Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that + it did not flourish long, which is often the case with us; but I found it + still in its full splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like + pistol-shots at night; the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of + soap, and the painted floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the + opinion of the waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean + individual, tended to prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former + valet of Prince G.‘s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and + his self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and + slippers trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and + had a multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of + his moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He + showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating + his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in + life with a rather disillusioned eye. ‘No doubt about it,’ he said to me + one day; ‘ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying any + day!’ His name was Ardalion. + </p> + <p> + I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion + procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the joints; + but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an heraldic + crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a country + gentleman, an old friend of my father’s, who had been a long time settled + in the town.... I had not met him for twenty years; he had had time to get + married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a widower and to make + his fortune. His business was with government monopolies, that is to say, + he lent contractors for monopolies loans at heavy interest.... ‘There is + always honour in risk,’ they say, though indeed the risk was small. + </p> + <p> + In the course of our conversation there came into the room with hesitating + steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of about + seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. ‘Here,’ said my acquaintance, ‘is my + eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She takes my poor wife’s + place, looks after the house, and takes care of her brothers and sisters.’ + I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in (she meanwhile dropped + into a chair without speaking), and thought to myself that she did not + look much like housekeeping or looking after children. Her face was quite + childish, round, with small, pleasing, but immobile features; the blue + eyes, under high, also immobile and irregular eyebrows, had an intent, + almost astonished look, as though they had just observed something + unexpected; the full little mouth with the lifted upper lip, not only did + not smile, but seemed as though altogether innocent of such a practice; + the rosy flush under the tender skin stood in soft, diffused patches on + the cheeks, and neither paled nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in + light clusters each side of the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, + and her arms were pressed somehow awkwardly and severely against her + narrow waist. Her blue gown fell without folds—like a child’s—to + her little feet. The general impression this girl made upon me was not one + of morbidity, but of something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a + shy, provincial miss, but a creature of a special type—that I could + not make out. This type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully + understand it, and only felt that I had never come across a nature more + sincere. Pity ... yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the + sight of this young, serious, keenly alert life—God knows why! ‘Not + of this earth,’ was my thought, though there was nothing exactly ‘ideal’ + in the expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had + obviously come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady + of the house to which her father had referred. + </p> + <p> + He began to talk of life in the town of T——, of the social + amusements and advantages it offered. ‘We’re very quiet here,’ he + observed; ‘the governor’s a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province + is a bachelor. But there’ll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the + day after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here. + And you’ll see all our <i>intelligentsi</i> too.’ + </p> + <p> + My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using + learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with respect. + Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with respectability, + developes a certain thoughtfulness in men. + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?’ I said, turning to my friend’s + daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Papa intends to go,’ she answered, ‘and I with him.’ + </p> + <p> + Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated every + syllable fully, as though she were puzzled. + </p> + <p> + ‘In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.’ + </p> + <p> + She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile. + </p> + <p> + I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed steadily + upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked over my + shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing she was + looking at behind my back. + </p> + <p> + I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied + ‘soupe-julienne,’ cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry, + black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The + subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my old + acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my + thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom. + </p> + <p> + ‘There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our + town,’ he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at the + same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty dinner-napkin—a + practice peculiar, as you’re doubtless aware, to servants of superior + education. ‘Very little!’ + </p> + <p> + He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its white + face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words: ‘Ve-ry! + ve-ry!’ it ticked. ‘No concerts, nor theatres,’ pursued Ardalion (he had + travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in Paris; he knew + much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the peasants do)—‘nor + dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the nobility and gentry—there + is nothing of the kind whatever.’ (He paused a moment, probably to allow + me to observe the choiceness of his diction.) ‘They positively visit each + other but seldom. Every one sits like a pigeon on its perch. And so it + comes to pass that visitors have simply nowhere to go.’ + </p> + <p> + Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me. + </p> + <p> + ‘But there is one thing,’ he went on, speaking with a drawl, ‘in case you + should feel that way inclined....’ + </p> + <p> + He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did + not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me. + </p> + <p> + The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came back, + and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear, and with + a playful smile said: + </p> + <p> + ‘Would you not like to behold the dead?’ + </p> + <p> + I stared at him in perplexity. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ he went on, speaking in a whisper; ‘there is a man like that here. + He’s a simple artisan, and can’t even read and write, but he does + marvellous things. If you, for example, go to him and desire to see any + one of your departed friends, he will be sure to show him you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How does he do it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s his secret. For though he’s an uneducated man—to speak + bluntly, illiterate—he’s very great in godliness! Greatly respected + he is among the merchant gentry!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And does every one in the town know about this?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Those who need to know; but, there, of course—there’s danger from + the police to be guarded against. Because, say what you will, such doings + are forbidden anyway, and for the common people are a temptation; the + common people—the mob, we all know, quickly come to blows.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Has he shown you the dead?’ I asked Ardalion. + </p> + <p> + Ardalion nodded. ‘He has; my father he brought before me as if living.’ + </p> + <p> + I stared at Ardalion. He laughed and played with his dinner-napkin, and + condescendingly, but unflinchingly, looked at me. + </p> + <p> + ‘But this is very curious!’ I cried at last. ‘Couldn’t I make the + acquaintance of this artisan?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You can’t go straight to him; but one can act through his mother. She’s a + respectable old woman; she sells pickled apples on the bridge. If you wish + it, I will ask her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Please do.’ + </p> + <p> + Ardalion coughed behind his hand. ‘And a gratuity, whatever you think fit, + nothing much, of course, should also be handed to her—the old lady. + And I on my side will make her understand that she has nothing to fear + from you, as you are a visitor here, a gentleman—and of course you + can understand that this is a secret, and will not in any case get her + into any unpleasantness.’ + </p> + <p> + Ardalion took the tray in one hand, and with a graceful swing of the tray + and his own person, turned towards the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘So I may reckon upon you!’ I shouted after him. + </p> + <p> + ‘You may trust me!’ I heard his self-satisfied voice say: ‘We’ll talk to + the old woman and transmit you her answer exactly.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I will not enlarge on the train of thought aroused in me by the + extraordinary fact Ardalion had related; but I am prepared to admit that I + awaited the promised reply with impatience. Late in the evening Ardalion + came to me and announced that to his annoyance he could not find the old + woman. I handed him, however, by way of encouragement, a three-rouble + note. The next morning he appeared again in my room with a beaming + countenance; the old woman had consented to see me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hi! boy!’ shouted Ardalion in the corridor; ‘Hi! apprentice! Come here!’ + A boy of six came up, grimed all over with soot like a kitten, with a + shaved head, perfectly bald in places, in a torn, striped smock, and huge + goloshes on his bare feet. ‘You take the gentleman, you know where,’ said + Ardalion, addressing the ‘apprentice,’ and pointing to me. ‘And you, sir, + when you arrive, ask for Mastridia Karpovna.’ + </p> + <p> + The boy uttered a hoarse grunt, and we set off. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + We walked rather a long while about the unpaved streets of the town of T——; + at last in one of them, almost the most deserted and desolate of all, my + guide stopped before an old two-story wooden house, and wiping his nose + all over his smock-sleeve, said: ‘Here; go to the right.’ I passed through + the porch into the outer passage, stumbled towards my right, a low door + creaked on rusty hinges, and I saw before me a stout old woman in a brown + jacket lined with hare-skin, with a parti-coloured kerchief on her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mastridia Karpovna?’ I inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘The same, at your service,’ the old woman replied in a piping voice. + ‘Please walk in. Won’t you take a chair?’ + </p> + <p> + The room into which the old woman conducted me was so littered up with + every sort of rubbish, rags, pillows, feather-beds, sacks, that one could + hardly turn round in it. The sunlight barely struggled in through two + dusty little windows; in one corner, from behind a heap of boxes piled on + one another, there came a feeble whimpering and wailing.... I could not + tell from what; perhaps a sick baby, or perhaps a puppy. I sat down on a + chair, and the old woman stood up directly facing me. Her face was yellow, + half-transparent like wax; her lips were so fallen in that they formed a + single straight line in the midst of a multitude of wrinkles; a tuft of + white hair stuck out from below the kerchief on her head, but the sunken + grey eyes peered out alertly and cleverly from under the bony overhanging + brow; and the sharp nose fairly stuck out like a spindle, fairly sniffed + the air as if it would say: I’m a smart one! ‘Well, you’re no fool!’ was + my thought. At the same time she smelt of spirits. + </p> + <p> + I explained to her the object of my visit, of which, however, as I + observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes rapidly, + and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply, as though + she were making ready to peck. + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure, to be sure,’ she said at last; ‘Ardalion Matveitch did say + something, certainly; my son Vassinka’s art you were wanting.... But we + can’t be sure, my dear sir....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, why so?’ I interposed. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you may feel + perfectly easy.... I’m not an informer.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, mercy on us,’ the old woman caught me up hurriedly, ‘what do you + mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what + ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it’s some sinful + contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son’s not the one to lend himself to + anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid + indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three + times.) He’s the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province; the + foremost, your honour, he is! And that’s just it: great grace has been + vouchsafed to him. Yes, indeed. It’s not the work of his hands. It’s from + on high, my dear; so it is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So you agree?’ I asked: ‘when can I see your son?’ + </p> + <p> + The old woman blinked again and shifted her rolled up handkerchief from + one sleeve to the other. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, well, sir—well, sir, I can’t say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow me, Mastridia Karpovna, to hand you this,’ I interrupted, and I + gave her a ten-rouble note. + </p> + <p> + The old woman clutched it at once in her fat, crooked fingers, which + recalled the fleshy claws of an owl, quickly slipped it into her sleeve, + pondered a little, and as though she had suddenly reached a decision, + slapped her thighs with her open hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come here this evening a little after seven,’ she said, not in her + previous voice, but in quite a different one, more solemn and subdued; + ‘only not to this room, but kindly go straight up to the floor above, and + you’ll find a door to your left, and you open that door; and you’ll go, + your honour, into an empty room, and in that room you’ll see a chair. Sit + you down on that chair and wait; and whatever you see, don’t utter a word + and don’t do anything; and please don’t speak to my son either; for he’s + but young yet, and he suffers from fits. He’s very easily scared; he’ll + tremble and shake like any chicken ... a sad thing it is!’ + </p> + <p> + I looked at Mastridia. ‘You say he’s young, but since he’s your son ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In the spirit, sir, in the spirit. Many’s the orphan I have under my + care!’ she added, wagging her head in the direction of the corner, from + which came the plaintive whimper. ‘O—O God Almighty, holy Mother of + God! And do you, your honour, before you come here, think well which of + your deceased relations or friends—the kingdom of Heaven to them!—you’re + desirous of seeing. Go over your deceased friends, and whichever you + select, keep him in your mind, keep him all the while till my son comes!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, mustn’t I tell your son whom ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nay, nay, sir, not one word. He will find out what he needs in your + thoughts himself. You’ve only to keep your friend thoroughly in mind; and + at your dinner drink a drop of wine—just two or three glasses; wine + never comes amiss.’ The old woman laughed, licked her lips, passed her + hand over her mouth, and sighed. + </p> + <p> + ‘So at half-past seven?’ I queried, getting up from my chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘At half-past seven, your honour, at half-past seven,’ Mastridia Karpovna + replied reassuringly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I took leave of the old woman and went back to the hotel. I did not doubt + that they were going to make a fool of me, but in what way?—that was + what excited my curiosity. With Ardalion I did not exchange more than two + or three words. ‘Did she see you?’ he asked me, knitting his brow, and on + my affirmative reply, he exclaimed: ‘The old woman’s as good as any + statesman!’ I set to work, in accordance with the ‘statesman’s’ counsel, + to run over my deceased friends. + </p> + <p> + After rather prolonged hesitation I fixed, at last, on an old man who had + long been dead, a Frenchman, once my tutor. I selected him not because he + had any special attraction for me; but his whole figure was so original, + so unlike any figure of to-day, that it would be utterly impossible to + imitate it. He had an enormous head, fluffy white hair combed straight + back, thick black eyebrows, a hawk nose, and two large warts of a pinkish + hue in the middle of the forehead; he used to wear a green frockcoat with + smooth brass buttons, a striped waistcoat with a stand-up collar, a jabot + and lace cuffs. ‘If he shows me my old Dessaire,’ I thought, ‘well, I + shall have to admit that he’s a sorcerer!’ + </p> + <p> + At dinner I followed the old dame’s behest and drank a bottle of Lafitte, + of the first quality, so Ardalion averred, though it had a very strong + flavour of burnt cork, and a thick sediment at the bottom of each glass. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Exactly at half-past seven I stood in front of the house where I had + conversed with the worthy Mastridia Karpovna. All the shutters of the + windows were closed, but the door was open. I went into the house, mounted + the shaky staircase to the first story, and opening a door on the left, + found myself, as the old woman had said, in a perfectly empty, rather + large room; a tallow candle set in the window-sill threw a dim light over + the room; against the wall opposite the door stood a wicker-bottomed + chair. I snuffed the candle, which had already burnt down enough to form a + long smouldering wick, sat down on the chair and began to wait. + </p> + <p> + The first ten minutes passed rather quickly; in the room itself there was + absolutely nothing which could distract my attention, but I listened + intently to every rustle, looked intently at the closed door.... My heart + was throbbing. After the first ten minutes followed another ten minutes, + then half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and not a stir of any kind + around! I coughed several times to make my presence known; I began to feel + bored and out of temper; to be made a fool of in just that way had not + entered into my calculations. I was on the point of getting up from my + seat, taking the candle from the window, and going downstairs.... I looked + at it; the wick again wanted snuffing; but as I turned my eyes from the + window to the door, I could not help starting; with his back leaning + against the door stood a man. He had entered so quickly and noiselessly + that I had heard nothing. He wore a simple blue smock; he was of middle + height and rather thick-set. With his hands behind his back and his head + bent, he was staring at me. In the dim light of the candle I could not + distinctly make out his features. I saw nothing but a shaggy mane of + matted hair falling on his forehead, and thick, rather drawn lips and + whitish eyes. I was nearly speaking to him, but I recollected Mastridia’s + injunction, and bit my lips. The man, who had come in, continued to gaze + at me, and, strange to say, at the same time I felt something like fear, + and, as though at the word of command, promptly started thinking of my old + tutor. <i>He</i> still stood at the door and breathed heavily, as though + he had been climbing a mountain or lifting a weight, while his eyes seemed + to expand, seemed to come closer to me—and I felt uncomfortable + under their obstinate, heavy, menacing stare; at times those eyes glowed + with a malignant inward fire, a fire such as I have seen in the eyes of a + pointer dog when it ‘points’ at a hare; and, like a pointer dog, <i>he</i> + kept <i>his</i> eyes intently following mine when I ‘tried to double,’ + that is, tried to turn my eyes away. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + So passed I do not know how long—perhaps a minute, perhaps a quarter + of an hour. He still gazed at me; I still experienced a certain discomfort + and alarm and still thought of the Frenchman. Twice I tried to say to + myself, ‘What nonsense! what a farce!’ I tried to smile, to shrug my + shoulders.... It was no use! All initiative had all at once ‘frozen up’ + within me—I can find no other word for it. I was overcome by a sort + of numbness. Suddenly I noticed that he had left the door, and was + standing a step or two nearer to me; then he gave a slight bound, both + feet together, and stood closer still.... Then again ... and again; while + the menacing eyes were simply fastened on my whole face, and the hands + remained behind, and the broad chest heaved painfully. These leaps struck + me as ridiculous, but I felt dread too, and what I could not understand at + all, a drowsiness began suddenly to come upon me. My eyelids clung + together ... the shaggy figure with the whitish eyes in the blue smock + seemed double before me, and suddenly vanished altogether! ... I shook + myself; he was again standing between the door and me, but now much + nearer.... Then he vanished again—a sort of mist seemed to fall upon + him; again he appeared ... vanished again ... appeared again, and always + closer, closer ... his hard, almost gasping breathing floated across to me + now.... Again the mist fell, and all of a sudden out of this mist the head + of old Dessaire began to take distinct shape, beginning with the white, + brushed-back hair! Yes: there were his warts, his black eyebrows, his hook + nose! There too his green coat with the brass buttons, the striped + waistcoat and jabot.... I shrieked, I got up.... The old man vanished, and + in his place I saw again the man in the blue smock. He moved staggering to + the wall, leaned his head and both arms against it, and heaving like an + over-loaded horse, in a husky voice said, ‘Tea!’ Mastridia Karpovna—how + she came there I can’t say—flew to him and saying: ‘Vassinka! + Vassinka!’ began anxiously wiping away the sweat, which simply trickled + from his face and hair. I was on the point of approaching her, but she, so + insistently, in such a heart-rending voice cried: ‘Your honour! merciful + sir! have pity on us, go away, for Christ’s sake!’ that I obeyed, while + she turned again to her son. ‘Bread-winner, darling,’ she murmured + soothingly: ‘you shall have tea directly, directly. And you too, sir, had + better take a cup of tea at home!’ she shouted after me. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + When I got home I obeyed Mastridia and ordered some tea; I felt tired—even + weak. ‘Well?’ Ardalion questioned me, ‘have you been? did you see + something?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He did, certainly, show me something ... which, I’ll own, I had not + anticipated,’ I replied. + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s a man of marvellous power,’ observed Ardalion, carrying off the + samovar; ‘he is held in high esteem among the merchant gentry.’ As I went + to bed, and reflected on the incident that had occurred to me, I fancied + at last that I had reached some explanation of it. The man doubtless + possessed a considerable magnetic power; acting by some means, which I did + not understand of course, upon my nerves, he had evoked within me so + vividly, so definitely, the image of the old man of whom I was thinking, + that at last I fancied that I saw him before my eyes.... Such + ‘metastases,’ such transferences of sensation, are recognised by science. + It was all very well; but the force capable of producing such effects + still remained, something marvellous and mysterious. ‘Say what you will,’ + I thought, ‘I’ve seen, seen with my own eyes, my dead tutor!’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The next day the ball in the Hall of Nobility took place. Sophia’s father + called on me and reminded me of the engagement I had made with his + daughter. At ten o’clock I was standing by her side in the middle of a + ballroom lighted up by a number of copper lamps, and was preparing to + execute the not very complicated steps of the French quadrille to the + resounding blare of the military band. Crowds of people were there; the + ladies were especially numerous and very pretty; but the first place among + them would certainly have been given to my partner, if it had not been for + the rather strange, even rather wild look in her eyes. I noticed that she + hardly ever blinked; the unmistakable expression of sincerity in her eyes + did not make up for what was extraordinary in them. But she had a charming + figure, and moved gracefully, though with constraint. When she waltzed, + and, throwing herself a little back, bent her slender neck towards her + right shoulder, as though she wanted to get away from her partner, nothing + more touchingly youthful and pure could be imagined. She was all in white, + with a turquoise cross on a black ribbon. + </p> + <p> + I asked her for a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers were + few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same + expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met her. + Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her + appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually fixed + directly upon the eyes of the person speaking to her, though they seemed + at the same time to see something else, to be absorbed with something + different.... What a strange creature! Not knowing, at last, how to thaw + her, I bethought me of telling her of my adventure of the previous day. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + She heard me to the end with evident interest, but was not, as I had + expected, surprised at what I told her, and merely asked whether he was + not called Vassily. I recollected that the old woman had called him + ‘Vassinka.’ ‘Yes, his name is Vassily,’ I answered; ‘do you know him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There is a saintly man living here called Vassily,’ she observed; ‘I + wondered whether it was he.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Saintliness has nothing to do with this,’ I remarked; ‘it’s simply the + action of magnetism—a fact of interest for doctors and students of + science.’ + </p> + <p> + I proceeded to expound my views on the peculiar force called magnetism, on + the possibility of one man’s will being brought under the influence of + another’s will, and so on; but my explanations—which were, it is + true, somewhat confused—seemed to make no impression on her. Sophie + listened, dropping her clasped hands on her knees with a fan lying + motionless in them; she did not play with it, she did not move her fingers + at all, and I felt that all my words rebounded from her as from a statue + of stone. She heard them, but clearly she had her own convictions, which + nothing could shake or uproot. + </p> + <p> + ‘You can hardly admit miracles!’ I cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I admit them,’ she answered calmly. ‘And how can one help + admitting them? Are not we told in the gospel that who has but a grain of + faith as big as a mustard seed, he can remove mountains? One need only + have faith—there will be miracles!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It seems there is very little faith nowadays,’ I observed; ‘anyway, one + doesn’t hear of miracles.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But yet there are miracles; you have seen one yourself. No; faith is not + dead nowadays; and the beginning of faith ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,’ I interrupted. + </p> + <p> + ‘The beginning of faith,’ pursued Sophie, nothing daunted, ‘is + self-abasement ... humiliation.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Humiliation even?’ I queried. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. The pride of man, haughtiness, presumption—that is what must + be utterly rooted up. You spoke of the will—that’s what must be + broken.’ + </p> + <p> + I scanned the whole figure of the young girl who was uttering such + sentences.... ‘My word, the child’s in earnest, too,’ was my thought. I + glanced at our neighbours in the mazurka; they, too, glanced at me, and I + fancied that my astonishment amused them; one of them even smiled at me + sympathetically, as though he would say: ‘Well, what do you think of our + queer young lady? every one here knows what she’s like.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you tried to break your will?’ I said, turning to Sophie again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Every one is bound to do what he thinks right,’ she answered in a + dogmatic tone. ‘Let me ask you,’ I began, after a brief silence, ‘do you + believe in the possibility of calling up the dead?’ + </p> + <p> + Sophie softly shook her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘There are no dead.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There are no dead souls; they are undying and can always appear, when + they like.... They are always about us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What? Do you suppose, for instance, that an immortal soul may be at this + moment hovering about that garrison major with the red nose?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not? The sunlight falls on him and his nose, and is not the sunlight, + all light, from God? And what does external appearance matter? To the pure + all things are pure! Only to find a teacher, to find a leader!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But excuse me, excuse me,’ I put in, not, I must own, without malicious + intent. ‘You want a leader ... but what is your priest for?’ + </p> + <p> + Sophie looked coldly at me. + </p> + <p> + ‘You mean to laugh at me, I suppose. My priestly father tells me what I + ought to do; but what I want is a leader who would show me himself in + action how to sacrifice one’s self!’ + </p> + <p> + She raised her eyes towards the ceiling. With her childlike face, and that + expression of immobile absorption, of secret, continual perplexity, she + reminded me of the pre-raphaelite Madonnas.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I have read somewhere,’ she went on, not turning to me, and hardly moving + her lips, ‘of a grand person who directed that he should be buried under a + church porch so that all the people who came in should tread him under + foot and trample on him.... That is what one ought to do in life.’ + </p> + <p> + Boom! boom! tra-ra-ra! thundered the drums from the band.... I must own + such a conversation at a ball struck me as eccentric in the extreme; the + ideas involuntarily kindled within me were of a nature anything but + religious. I took advantage of my partner’s being invited to one of the + figures of the mazurka to avoid renewing our quasi-theological discussion. + </p> + <p> + A quarter of an hour later I conducted Mademoiselle Sophie to her father, + and two days after I left the town of T——, and the image of + the girl with the childlike face and the soul impenetrable as stone + slipped quickly out of my memory. + </p> + <p> + Two years passed, and it chanced that that image was recalled again to me. + It was like this: I was talking to a colleague who had just returned from + a tour in South Russia. He had spent some time in the town of T——, + and told me various items of news about the neighbourhood. ‘By the way!’ + he exclaimed, ‘you knew V. G. B. very well, I fancy, didn’t you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I know him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And his daughter Sophia, do you know her?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve seen her twice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Only fancy, she’s run away!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How’s that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I don’t know. Three months ago she disappeared, and nothing’s been + heard of her. And the astonishing thing is no one can make out whom she’s + run off with. Fancy, they’ve not the slightest idea, not the smallest + suspicion! She’d refused all the offers made her, and she was most proper + in her behaviour. Ah, these quiet, religious girls are the ones! It’s made + an awful scandal all over the province! B.‘s in despair.... And whatever + need had she to run away? Her father carried out her wishes in everything. + And what’s so unaccountable, all the Lovelaces of the province are there + all right, not one’s missing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And they’ve not found her up till now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I tell you she might as well be at the bottom of the sea! It’s one rich + heiress less in the world, that’s the worst of it.’ + </p> + <p> + This piece of news greatly astonished me. It did not seem at all in + keeping with the recollection I had of Sophia B. But there! anything may + happen. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + In the autumn of the same year fate brought me—again on official + business—into the S—— province, which is, as every one + knows, next to the province of T——. It was cold and rainy + weather; the worn-out posting-horses could scarcely drag my light trap + through the black slush of the highroad. One day, I remember, was + particularly unlucky: three times we got ‘stuck’ in the mud up to the + axles of the wheels; my driver was continually giving up one rut and with + moans and grunts trudging across to the other, and finding things no + better with that. In fact, towards evening I was so exhausted that on + reaching the posting-station I decided to spend the night at the inn. I + was given a room with a broken-down wooden sofa, a sloping floor, and torn + paper on the walls; there was a smell in it of kvas, bast-mats, onions, + and even turpentine, and swarms of flies were on everything; but at any + rate I could find shelter there from the weather, and the rain had set in, + as they say, for the whole day. I ordered a samovar to be brought, and, + sitting on the sofa, settled down to those cheerless wayside reflections + so familiar to travellers in Russia. + </p> + <p> + They were broken in upon by a heavy knocking that came from the common + room, from which my room was separated by a deal partition. This sound was + accompanied by an intermittent metallic jingle, like the clank of chains, + and a coarse male voice boomed out suddenly: ‘The blessing of God on all + within this house. The blessing of God! the blessing of God! Amen, amen! + Scatter His enemies!’ repeated the voice, with a sort of incongruous and + savage drawl on the last syllable of each word.... A noisy sigh was heard, + and a ponderous body sank on to the bench with the same jingling sound. + ‘Akulina! servant of God, come here!’ the voice began again: ‘Behold! + Clothed in rags and blessed! ... Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo! Merciful God, merciful + God, merciful God!’ the voice droned like a deacon in the choir. ‘Merciful + God, Creator of my body, behold my iniquity.... O-ho-ho! Ha-ha! ... Tfoo! + And all abundance be to this house in the seventh hour!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s that?’ I asked the hospitable landlady, who came in with the + samovar. + </p> + <p> + ‘That, your honour,’ she answered me in a hurried whisper, ‘is a blessed, + holy man. He’s not long come into our parts; and here he’s graciously + pleased to visit us. In such weather! The wet’s simply trickling from him, + poor dear man, in streams! And you should see the chains on him—such + a lot!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The blessing of God! the blessing of God!’ the voice was heard again. + ‘Akulina! Hey, Akulina! Akulinushka—friend! where is our paradise? + Our fair paradise of bliss? In the wilderness is our paradise, ... + para-dise.... And to this house, from beginning of time, great happiness, + ... o ... o ... o ...’ The voice muttered something inarticulate, and + again, after a protracted yawn, there came the hoarse laugh. This laugh + broke out every time, as it were, involuntarily, and every time it was + followed by vigorous spitting. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, me! Stepanitch isn’t here! That’s the worst of it!’ the landlady + said, as it were to herself, as she stood with every sign of the + profoundest attention at the door. ‘He will say some word of salvation, + and I, foolish woman, may not catch it!’ + </p> + <p> + She went out quickly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + In the partition there was a chink; I applied my eye to it. The crazy + pilgrim was sitting on a bench with his back to me; I saw nothing but his + shaggy head, as huge as a beer-can, and a broad bent back in a patched and + soaking shirt. Before him, on the earth floor, knelt a frail-looking woman + in a jacket, such as are worn by women of the artisan class—old and + wet through—and with a dark kerchief pulled down almost over her + eyes. She was trying to pull the holy man’s boots off; her fingers slid + off the greasy, slippery leather. The landlady was standing near her, with + her arms folded across her bosom, gazing reverently at the ‘man of God.’ + He was, as before, mumbling some inarticulate words. + </p> + <p> + At last the woman succeeded in tugging off the boots. She almost fell + backwards, but recovered herself, and began unwinding the strips of rag + which were wrapped round the vagrant’s legs. On the sole of his foot there + was a wound.... I turned away. + </p> + <p> + ‘A cup of tea wouldn’t you bid me get you, my dear?’ I heard the hostess + saying in an obsequious voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘What a notion!’ responded the holy man. ‘To indulge the sinful body.... + O-ho-ho! Break all the bones in it ... but she talks of tea! Oh, oh, + worthy old woman, Satan is strong within us.... Fight him with hunger, + fight him with cold, with the sluice-gates of heaven, the pouring, + penetrating rain, and he takes no harm—he is alive still! Remember + the day of the Intercession of the Mother of God! You will receive, you + will receive in abundance!’ + </p> + <p> + The landlady could not resist uttering a faint groan of admiration. + </p> + <p> + ‘Only listen to me! Give all thou hast, give thy head, give thy shirt! If + they ask not of thee, yet give! For God is all-seeing! Is it hard for Him + to destroy your roof? He has given thee bread in His mercy, and do thou + bake it in the oven! He seeth all! Se ... e ... eth! Whose eye is in the + triangle? Say, whose?’ + </p> + <p> + The landlady stealthily crossed herself under her neckerchief. + </p> + <p> + ‘The old enemy is adamant! A ... da ... mant! A ... da ... mant!’ the + religious maniac repeated several times, gnashing his teeth. ‘The old + serpent! But God will arise! Yes, God will arise and scatter His enemies! + I will call up all the dead! I will go against His enemy.... Ha-ha-ha! + Tfoo!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you any oil?’ said another voice, hardly audible; ‘let me put some + on the wound.... I have got a clean rag.’ + </p> + <p> + I peeped through the chink again; the woman in the jacket was still busied + with the vagrant’s sore foot.... ‘A Magdalen!’ I thought. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll get it directly, my dear,’ said the woman, and, coming into my room, + she took a spoonful of oil from the lamp burning before the holy picture. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s that waiting on him?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘We don’t know, sir, who it is; she too, I suppose, is seeking salvation, + atoning for her sins. But what a saintly man he is!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Akulinushka, my sweet child, my dear daughter,’ the crazy pilgrim was + repeating meanwhile, and he suddenly burst into tears. + </p> + <p> + The woman kneeling before him lifted her eyes to him.... Heavens! where + had I seen those eyes? + </p> + <p> + The landlady went up to her with the spoonful of oil. She finished her + operation, and, getting up from the floor, asked if there were a clean + loft and a little hay.... ‘Vassily Nikititch likes to sleep on hay,’ she + added. + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure there is, come this way,’ answered the woman; ‘come this way, + my dear,’ she turned to the holy man, ‘and dry yourself and rest.’ The man + coughed, slowly got up from the bench—his chains clanked again—and + turning round with his face to me, looked for the holy pictures, and began + crossing himself with a wide movement. + </p> + <p> + I recognised him instantly: it was the very artisan Vassily, who had once + shown me my dead tutor! + </p> + <p> + His features were little changed; only their expression had become still + more unusual, still more terrible.... The lower part of his swollen face + was overgrown with unkempt beard. Tattered, filthy, wild-looking, he + inspired in me more repugnance than horror. He left off crossing himself, + but still his eyes wandered senselessly about the corners of the room, + about the floor, as though he were waiting for something.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassily Nikititch, please come,’ said the woman in the jacket with a bow. + He suddenly threw up his head and turned round, but stumbled and + tottered.... His companion flew to him at once, and supported him under + the arm. Judging by her voice and figure, she seemed still young; her face + it was almost impossible to see. + </p> + <p> + ‘Akulinushka, friend!’ the vagrant repeated once more in a shaking voice, + and opening his mouth wide, and smiting himself on the breast with his + fist, he uttered a deep groan, that seemed to come from the bottom of his + heart. Both followed the landlady out of the room. + </p> + <p> + I lay down on my hard sofa and mused a long while on what I had seen. My + mesmeriser had become a regular religious maniac. This was what he had + been brought to by the power which one could not but recognise in him! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The next morning I was preparing to go on my way. The rain was falling as + fast as the day before, but I could not delay any longer. My servant, as + he gave me water to wash, wore a special smile on his face, a smile of + restrained irony. I knew that smile well; it indicated that my servant had + heard something discreditable or even shocking about gentlefolks. He was + obviously burning with impatience to communicate it to me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what is it?’ I asked at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Did your honour see the crazy pilgrim yesterday?’ my man began at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; what then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And did you see his companion too?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I saw her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s a young lady, of noble family.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s the truth I’m telling you; some merchants arrived here this morning + from T——; they recognised her. They did tell me her name, but + I’ve forgotten it.’ + </p> + <p> + It was like a flash of enlightenment. ‘Is the pilgrim still here?’ I + asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘I fancy he’s not gone yet. He’s been ever so long at the gate, and making + such a wonderful wise to-do, that there’s no getting by. He’s amusing + himself with this tomfoolery; he finds it pay, no doubt.’ + </p> + <p> + My man belonged to the same class of educated servants as Ardalion. + </p> + <p> + ‘And is the lady with him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. She’s in attendance on him.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I went out on to the steps, and got a view of the crazy pilgrim. He was + sitting on a bench at the gate, and, bent down with both his open hands + pressed on it, he was shaking his drooping head from right to left, for + all the world like a wild beast in a cage. The thick mane of curly hair + covered his eyes, and shook from side to side, and so did his pendulous + lips.... A strange, almost unhuman muttering came from them. His companion + had only just finished washing from a pitcher that was hanging on a pole, + and without having yet replaced her kerchief on her head, was making her + way back to the gate along a narrow plank laid across the dark puddles of + the filthy yard. I glanced at her head, which was now entirely uncovered, + and positively threw up my hands with astonishment: before me stood Sophie + B.! + </p> + <p> + She turned quickly round and fixed upon me her blue eyes, immovable as + ever. She was much thinner, her skin looked coarser and had the + yellowish-ruddy tinge of sunburn, her nose was sharper, and her lips were + harder in their lines. But she was not less good-looking; only besides her + old expression of dreamy amazement there was now a different look—resolute, + almost bold, intense and exalted. There was not a trace of childishness + left in the face now. + </p> + <p> + I went up to her. ‘Sophia Vladimirovna,’ I cried, ‘can it be you? In such + a dress ... in such company....’ + </p> + <p> + She started, looked still more intently at me, as though anxious to find + out who was speaking to her, and, without saying a word to me, fairly + rushed to her companion. + </p> + <p> + ‘Akulinushka,’ he faltered, with a heavy sigh, ‘our sins, sins ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassily Nikititch, let us go at once! Do you hear, at once, at once,’ she + said, pulling her kerchief on to her forehead with one hand, while with + the other she supported the pilgrim under the elbow; ‘let us go, Vassily + Nikititch: there is danger here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m coming, my good girl, I’m coming,’ the crazy pilgrim responded + obediently, and, bending his whole body forward, he got up from the seat. + ‘Here’s only this chain to fasten....’ + </p> + <p> + I once more approached Sophia, and told her my name. I began beseeching + her to listen to me, to say one word to me. I pointed to the rain, which + was coming down in bucketsful. I begged her to have some care for her + health, the health of her companion. I mentioned her father.... But she + seemed possessed by a sort of wrathful, a sort of vindictive excitement: + without paying the slightest attention to me, setting her teeth and + breathing hard, she urged on the distracted vagrant in an undertone, in + soft insistent words, girt him up, fastened on his chains, pulled on to + his hair a child’s cloth cap with a broken peak, stuck his staff in his + hand, slung a wallet on her own shoulder, and went with him out at the + gate into the street.... To stop her actually I had not the right, and it + would have been of no use; and at my last despairing call she did not even + turn round. Supporting the ‘man of God’ under his arm, she stepped rapidly + over the black mud of the street; and in a few moments, across the dim + dusk of the foggy morning, through the thick network of falling raindrops, + I saw the last glimpse of the two figures, the crazy pilgrim and + Sophie.... They turned the corner of a projecting hut, and vanished for + ever. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I went back to my room. I fell to pondering. I could not understand it; I + could not understand how such a girl, well brought up, young, and wealthy, + could throw up everything and every one, her own home, her family, her + friends, break with all her habits, with all the comforts of life, and for + what? To follow a half-insane vagrant, to become his servant! I could not + for an instant entertain the idea that the explanation of such a step was + to be found in any prompting, however depraved, of the heart, in love or + passion.... One had but to glance at the repulsive figure of the ‘man of + God’ to dismiss such a notion entirely! No, Sophie had remained pure; and + to her all things were pure; I could not understand what Sophie had done; + but I did not blame her, as, later on, I have not blamed other girls who + too have sacrificed everything for what they thought the truth, for what + they held to be their vocation. I could not help regretting that Sophie + had chosen just <i>that</i> path; but also I could not refuse her + admiration, respect even. In good earnest she had talked of + self-sacrifice, of abasement ... in <i>her</i>, words were not opposed to + acts. She had sought a leader, a guide, and had found him, ... and, my + God, what a guide! + </p> + <p> + Yes, she had lain down to be trampled, trodden under foot.... In the + process of time, a rumour reached me that her family had succeeded at last + in finding out the lost sheep, and bringing her home. But at home she did + not live long, and died, like a ‘Sister of Silence,’ without having spoken + a word to any one. + </p> + <p> + Peace to your heart, poor, enigmatic creature! Vassily Nikititch is + probably on his crazy wanderings still; the iron health of such people is + truly marvellous. Perhaps, though, his epilepsy may have done for him. + </p> + <h3> + BADEN-BADEN, 1869. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PUNIN AND BABURIN + </h2> + <h3> + PIOTR PETROVITCH’S STORY + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + ... I am old and ill now, and my thoughts brood oftenest upon death, every + day coming nearer; rarely I think of the past, rarely I turn the eyes of + my soul behind me. Only from time to time—in winter, as I sit + motionless before the glowing fire, in summer, as I pace with slow tread + along the shady avenue—I recall past years, events, faces; but it is + not on my mature years nor on my youth that my thoughts rest at such + times. They either carry me back to my earliest childhood, or to the first + years of boyhood. Now, for instance, I see myself in the country with my + stern and wrathful grandmother—I was only twelve—and two + figures rise up before my imagination.... + </p> + <p> + But I will begin my story consecutively, and in proper order. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <h3> + 1830 + </h3> + <p> + The old footman Filippitch came in, on tiptoe, as usual, with a cravat + tied up in a rosette, with tightly compressed lips, ‘lest his breath + should be smelt,’ with a grey tuft of hair standing up in the very middle + of his forehead. He came in, bowed, and handed my grandmother on an iron + tray a large letter with an heraldic seal. My grandmother put on her + spectacles, read the letter through.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Is he here?’ she asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is my lady pleased ...’ Filippitch began timidly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Imbecile! The man who brought the letter—is he here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is here, to be sure he is.... He is sitting in the counting-house.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother rattled her amber rosary beads.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell him to come to me.... And you, sir,’ she turned to me, ‘sit still.’ + </p> + <p> + As it was, I was sitting perfectly still in my corner, on the stool + assigned to me. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother kept me well in hand! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Five minutes later there came into the room a man of five-and-thirty, + black-haired and swarthy, with broad cheek-bones, a face marked with + smallpox, a hook nose, and thick eyebrows, from under which the small grey + eyes looked out with mournful composure. The colour of the eyes and their + expression were out of keeping with the Oriental cast of the rest of the + face. The man was dressed in a decent, long-skirted coat. He stopped in + the doorway, and bowed—only with his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘So your name’s Baburin?’ queried my grandmother, and she added to + herself: ‘<i>Il a l’air d’un arménien.</i>’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it is,’ the man answered in a deep and even voice. At the first + brusque sound of my grandmother’s voice his eyebrows faintly quivered. + Surely he had not expected her to address him as an equal? + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you a Russian? orthodox?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother took off her spectacles, and scanned Baburin from head to + foot deliberately. He did not drop his eyes, he merely folded his hands + behind his back. What particularly struck my fancy was his beard; it was + very smoothly shaven, but such blue cheeks and chin I had never seen in my + life! + </p> + <p> + ‘Yakov Petrovitch,’ began my grandmother, ‘recommends you strongly in his + letter as sober and industrious; why, then, did you leave his service?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He needs a different sort of person to manage his estate, madam.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A different ... sort? That I don’t quite understand.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother rattled her beads again. ‘Yakov Petrovitch writes to me + that there are two peculiarities about you. What peculiarities?’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin shrugged his shoulders slightly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t tell what he sees fit to call peculiarities. Possibly that I ... + don’t allow corporal punishment.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother was surprised. ‘Do you mean to say Yakov Petrovitch wanted + to flog you?’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin’s swarthy face grew red to the roots of his hair. + </p> + <p> + ‘You have not understood me right, madam. I make it a rule not to employ + corporal punishment ... with the peasants.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother was more surprised than ever; she positively threw up her + hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ she pronounced at last, and putting her head a little on one side, + once more she scrutinised Baburin attentively. ‘So that’s your rule, is + it? Well, that’s of no consequence whatever to me; I don’t want an + overseer, but a counting-house clerk, a secretary. What sort of a hand do + you write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I write well, without mistakes in spelling.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That too is of no consequence to me. The great thing for me is for it to + be clear, and without any of those new copybook letters with tails, that I + don’t like. And what’s your other peculiarity?’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin moved uneasily, coughed.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps ... the gentleman has referred to the fact that I am not alone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are married?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no ... but ...’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother knit her brows. + </p> + <p> + ‘There is a person living with me ... of the male sex ... a comrade, a + poor friend, from whom I have never parted ... for ... let me see ... ten + years now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A relation of yours?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, not a relation—a friend. As to work, there can be no possible + hindrance occasioned by him,’ Baburin made haste to add, as though + foreseeing objections. ‘He lives at my cost, occupies the same room with + me; he is more likely to be of use, as he is well educated—speaking + without flattery, extremely so, in fact—and his morals are + exemplary.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother heard Baburin out, chewing her lips and half closing her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘He lives at your expense?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You keep him out of charity?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As an act of justice ... as it’s the duty of one poor man to help another + poor man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed! It’s the first time I’ve heard that. I had supposed till now that + that was rather the duty of rich people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘For the rich, if I may venture to say so, it is an entertainment ... but + for such as we ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, well, that’s enough, that’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him short; + and after a moment’s thought she queried, speaking through her nose, which + was always a bad sign, ‘And what age is he, your protégé?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘About my own age.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, I imagined that you were bringing him up.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not so; he is my comrade—and besides ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him short a second time. ‘You’re a + philanthropist, it seems. Yakov Petrovitch is right; for a man in your + position it’s something very peculiar. But now let’s get to business. I’ll + explain to you what your duties will be. And as regards wages.... <i>Que + faites vous ici?</i>’ added my grandmother suddenly, turning her dry, + yellow face to me:—‘<i>Allez étudier votre devoir de mythologie.</i>’ + </p> + <p> + I jumped up, went up to kiss my grandmother’s hand, and went out,—not + to study mythology, but simply into the garden. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The garden on my grandmother’s estate was very old and large, and was + bounded on one side by a flowing pond, in which there were not only plenty + of carp and eels, but even loach were caught, those renowned loach, that + have nowadays disappeared almost everywhere. At the head of this pond was + a thick clump of willows; further and higher, on both sides of a rising + slope, were dense bushes of hazel, elder, honeysuckle, and sloe-thorn, + with an undergrowth of heather and clover flowers. Here and there between + the bushes were tiny clearings, covered with emerald-green, silky, fine + grass, in the midst of which squat funguses peeped out with their comical, + variegated pink, lilac, and straw-coloured caps, and golden balls of + ‘hen-dazzle’ blazed in light patches. Here in spring-time the nightingales + sang, the blackbirds whistled, the cuckoos called; here in the heat of + summer it was always cool—and I loved to make my way into the + wilderness and thicket, where I had favourite secret spots, known—so, + at least, I imagined—only to me. + </p> + <p> + On coming out of my grandmother’s room I made straight for one of these + spots, which I had named ‘Switzerland.’ But what was my astonishment when, + before I had reached ‘Switzerland,’ I perceived through the delicate + network of half-dry twigs and green branches that some one besides me had + found it out! A long, long figure in a long, loose coat of yellow frieze + and a tall cap was standing in the very spot I loved best of all! I stole + up a little nearer, and made out the face, which was utterly unknown to + me, also very long and soft, with small reddish eyes, and a very funny + nose; drawn out as long as a pod of peas, it positively over-hung the full + lips; and these lips, quivering and forming a round O, were giving vent to + a shrill little whistle, while the long fingers of the bony hands, placed + facing one another on the upper part of the chest, were rapidly moving + with a rotatory action. From time to time the motion of the hands + subsided, the lips ceased whistling and quivering, the head was bent + forward as though listening. I came still nearer, examined him still more + closely.... The stranger held in each hand a small flat cup, such as + people use to tease canaries and make them sing. A twig snapped under my + feet; the stranger started, turned his dim little eyes towards the copse, + and was staggering away ... but he stumbled against a tree, uttered an + exclamation, and stood still. + </p> + <p> + I came out into the open space. The stranger smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good morning,’ said I. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good morning, little master!’ + </p> + <p> + I did not like his calling me little master. Such familiarity! + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked sternly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, look here,’ he responded, never leaving off smiling, ‘I’m calling + the little birds to sing.’ He showed me his little cups. ‘The chaffinches + answer splendidly! You, at your tender years, take delight, no doubt, in + the feathered songsters’ notes! Listen, I beg; I will begin chirping, and + they’ll answer me directly—it’s so delightful!’ + </p> + <p> + He began rubbing his little cups. A chaffinch actually did chirp in + response from a mountain ash near. The stranger laughed without a sound, + and winked at me. + </p> + <p> + The laugh and the wink—every gesture of the stranger, his weak, + lisping voice, his bent knees and thin hands, his very cap and long frieze + coat—everything about him suggested good-nature, something innocent + and droll. + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you been here long?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘I came to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, aren’t you the person of whom ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Baburin spoke to the lady here. The same, the same.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your friend’s name’s Baburin, and what’s yours?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m Punin. Punin’s my name; Punin. He’s Baburin and I’m Punin.’ He set + the little cups humming again. ‘Listen, listen to the chaffinch.... How it + carols!’ + </p> + <p> + This queer creature took my fancy ‘awfully’ all at once. Like almost all + boys, I was either timid or consequential with strangers, but I felt with + this man as if I had known him for ages. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come along with me,’ I said to him; ‘I know a place better than this; + there’s a seat there; we can sit down, and we can see the dam from there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By all means let us go,’ my new friend responded in his singing voice. I + let him pass before me. As he walked he rolled from side to side, tripped + over his own feet, and his head fell back. + </p> + <p> + I noticed on the back of his coat, under the collar, there hung a small + tassel. ‘What’s that you’ve got hanging there?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where?’ he questioned, and he put his hand up to the collar to feel. ‘Ah, + the tassel? Let it be! I suppose it was sewn there for ornament! It’s not + in the way.’ + </p> + <p> + I led him to the seat, and sat down; he settled himself beside me. ‘It’s + lovely here!’ he commented, and he drew a deep, deep sigh. ‘Oh, how + lovely! You have a most splendid garden! Oh, o—oh!’ + </p> + <p> + I looked at him from one side. ‘What a queer cap you’ve got!’ I couldn’t + help exclaiming. ‘Show it me here!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By all means, little master, by all means.’ He took off the cap; I was + holding out my hand, but I raised my eyes, and—simply burst out + laughing. Punin was completely bald; not a single hair was to be seen on + the high conical skull, covered with smooth white skin. He passed his open + hand over it, and he too laughed. When he laughed he seemed, as it were, + to gulp, he opened his mouth wide, closed his eyes—and vertical + wrinkles flitted across his forehead in three rows, like waves. ‘Eh,’ said + he at last, ‘isn’t it quite like an egg?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes, exactly like an egg!’ I agreed with enthusiasm. ‘And have you + been like that long?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, a long while; but what hair I used to have!—A golden fleece + like that for which the Argonauts sailed over the watery deeps.’ + </p> + <p> + Though I was only twelve, yet, thanks to my mythological studies, I knew + who the Argonauts were; I was the more surprised at hearing the name on + the lips of a man dressed almost in rags. + </p> + <p> + ‘You must have learned mythology, then?’ I queried, as I twisted his cap + over and over in my hands. It turned out to be wadded, with a + mangy-looking fur trimming, and a broken cardboard peak. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have studied that subject, my dear little master; I’ve had time enough + for everything in my life! But now restore to me my covering, it is a + protection to the nakedness of my head.’ + </p> + <p> + He put on the cap, and, with a downward slope of his whitish eyebrows, + asked me who I was, and who were my parents. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m the grandson of the lady who owns this place,’ I answered. ‘I live + alone with her. Papa and mamma are dead.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin crossed himself. ‘May the kingdom of heaven be theirs! So then, + you’re an orphan; and the heir, too. The noble blood in you is visible at + once; it fairly sparkles in your eyes, and plays like this ... sh ... sh + ... sh ...’ He represented with his fingers the play of the blood. ‘Well, + and do you know, your noble honour, whether my friend has come to terms + with your grandmamma, whether he has obtained the situation he was + promised?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin cleared his throat. ‘Ah! if one could be settled here, if only for a + while! Or else one may wander and wander far, and find not a place to rest + one’s head; the disquieting alarms of life are unceasing, the soul is + confounded....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me,’ I interrupted: ‘are you of the clerical profession?’ + </p> + <p> + Punin turned to me and half closed his eyelids. ‘And what may be the cause + of that question, gentle youth?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, you talk so—well, as they read in church.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I use the old scriptural forms of expression? But that ought not + to surprise you. Admitting that in ordinary conversation such forms of + expression are not always in place; but when one soars on the wings of + inspiration, at once the language too grows more exalted. Surely your + teacher—the professor of Russian literature—you do have + lessons in that, I suppose?—surely he teaches you that, doesn’t he?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, he doesn’t,’ I responded. ‘When we stay in the country I have no + teacher. In Moscow I have a great many teachers.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And will you be staying long in the country?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Two months, not longer; grandmother says that I’m spoilt in the country, + though I have a governess even here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A French governess?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin scratched behind his ear. ‘A mamselle, that’s to say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; she’s called Mademoiselle Friquet.’ I suddenly felt it disgraceful + for me, a boy of twelve, to have not a tutor, but a governess, like a + little girl! ‘But I don’t mind her,’ I added contemptuously. ‘What do I + care!’ + </p> + <p> + Punin shook his head. ‘Ah, you gentlefolk, you gentlefolk! you’re too fond + of foreigners! You have turned away from what is Russian,—towards + all that’s strange. You’ve turned your hearts to those that come from + foreign parts....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hullo! Are you talking in verse?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and why not? I can do that always, as much as you please; for it + comes natural to me....’ + </p> + <p> + But at that very instant there sounded in the garden behind us a loud and + shrill whistle. My new acquaintance hurriedly got up from the bench. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye, little sir; that’s my friend calling me, looking for me.... + What has he to tell me? Good-bye—excuse me....’ + </p> + <p> + He plunged into the bushes and vanished, while I sat on some time longer + on the seat. I felt perplexity and another feeling, rather an agreeable + one ... I had never met nor spoken to any one like this before. Gradually + I fell to dreaming, but recollected my mythology and sauntered towards the + house. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + At home, I learned that my grandmother had arranged to take Baburin; he + had been assigned a small room in the servants’ quarters, overlooking the + stable-yard. He had at once settled in there with his friend. + </p> + <p> + When I had drunk my tea, next morning, without asking leave of + Mademoiselle Friquet, I set off to the servants’ quarters. I wanted to + have another chat with the queer fellow I had seen the day before. Without + knocking at the door—the very idea of doing so would never have + occurred to us—I walked straight into the room. I found in it not + the man I was looking for, not Punin, but his protector—the + philanthropist, Baburin. He was standing before the window, without his + outer garment, his legs wide apart. He was busily engaged in rubbing his + head and neck with a long towel. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you want?’ he observed, keeping his hands still raised, and + knitting his brows. + </p> + <p> + ‘Punin’s not at home, then?’ I queried in the most free-and-easy manner, + without taking off my cap. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Punin, Nikander Vavilitch, at this moment, is not at home, truly,’ + Baburin responded deliberately; ‘but allow me to make an observation, + young man: it’s not the proper thing to come into another person’s room + like this, without asking leave.’ + </p> + <p> + I! ... young man! ... how dared he! ... I grew crimson with fury. + </p> + <p> + ‘You cannot be aware who I am,’ I rejoined, in a manner no longer + free-and-easy, but haughty. ‘I am the grandson of the mistress here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s all the same to me,’ retorted Baburin, setting to work with his + towel again. ‘Though you are the seignorial grandson, you have no right to + come into other people’s rooms.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Other people’s? What do you mean? I’m—at home here—everywhere.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, excuse me: here—I’m at home; since this room has been assigned + to me, by agreement, in exchange for my work.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t teach me, if you please,’ I interrupted: ‘I know better than you + what ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must be taught,’ he interrupted in his turn, ‘for you’re at an age + when you ... I know my duties, but I know my rights too very well, and if + you continue to speak to me in that way, I shall have to ask you to go out + of the room....’ + </p> + <p> + There is no knowing how our dispute would have ended if Punin had not at + that instant entered, shuffling and shambling from side to side. He most + likely guessed from the expression of our faces that some unpleasantness + had passed between us, and at once turned to me with the warmest + expressions of delight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! little master! little master!’ he cried, waving his hands wildly, and + going off into his noiseless laugh: ‘the little dear! come to pay me a + visit! here he’s come, the little dear!’ (What’s the meaning of it? I + thought: can he be speaking in this familiar way to me?) ‘There, come + along, come with me into the garden. I’ve found something there.... Why + stay in this stuffiness here! let’s go!’ + </p> + <p> + I followed Punin, but in the doorway I thought it as well to turn round + and fling a glance of defiance at Baburin, as though to say, I’m not + afraid of you! + </p> + <p> + He responded in the same way, and positively snorted into the towel—probably + to make me thoroughly aware how utterly he despised me! + </p> + <p> + What an insolent fellow your friend is!’ I said to Punin, directly the + door had closed behind me. + </p> + <p> + Almost with horror, Punin turned his plump face to me. + </p> + <p> + ‘To whom did you apply that expression?’ he asked me, with round eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, to him, of course.... What’s his name? that ... Baburin.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonevitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, yes; that ... blackfaced fellow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh ... eh ... eh ...!’ Punin protested, with caressing reproachfulness. + ‘How can you talk like that, little master! Paramon Semyonevitch is the + most estimable man, of the strictest principles, an extraordinary person! + To be sure, he won’t allow any disrespect to him, because—he knows + his own value. That man possesses a vast amount of knowledge—and + it’s not a place like this he ought to be filling! You must, my dear, + behave very courteously to him; do you know, he’s ...’ here Punin bent + down quite to my ear,—‘a republican!’ + </p> + <p> + I stared at Punin. This I had not at all expected. From Keidanov’s manual + and other historical works I had gathered the fact that at some period or + other, in ancient times, there had existed republicans, Greeks and Romans. + For some unknown reason I had always pictured them all in helmets, with + round shields on their arms, and big bare legs; but that in real life, in + the actual present, above all, in Russia, in the province of X——, + one could come across republicans—that upset all my notions, and + utterly confounded them! + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, my dear, yes; Paramon Semyonitch is a republican,’ repeated Punin; + ‘there, so you’ll know for the future how one should speak of a man like + that! But now let’s go into the garden. Fancy what I’ve found there! A + cuckoo’s egg in a redstart’s nest! a lovely thing!’ + </p> + <p> + I went into the garden with Punin; but mentally I kept repeating: + ‘republican! re ... pub ... lican!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So,’ I decided at last—‘that’s why he has such a blue chin!’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + My attitude to these two persons—Punin and Baburin—took + definite shape from that very day. Baburin aroused in me a feeling of + hostility with which there was, however, in a short time, mingled + something akin to respect. And wasn’t I afraid of him! I never got over + being afraid of him even when the sharp severity of his manner with me at + first had quite disappeared. It is needless to say that of Punin I had no + fear; I did not even respect him; I looked upon him—not to put too + fine a point on it—as a buffoon; but I loved him with my whole soul! + To spend hours at a time in his company, to be alone with him, to listen + to his stories, became a genuine delight to me. My grandmother was + anything but pleased at this <i>intimité</i> with a person of the ‘lower + classes’—<i>du commun</i>; but, whenever I could break away, I flew + at once to my queer, amusing, beloved friend. Our meetings became more + frequent after the departure of Mademoiselle Friquet, whom my grandmother + sent back to Moscow in disgrace because, in conversation with a military + staff captain, visiting in the neighbourhood, she had had the insolence to + complain of the dulness which reigned in our household. And Punin, for his + part, was not bored by long conversations with a boy of twelve; he seemed + to seek them of himself. How often have I listened to his stories, sitting + with him in the fragrant shade, on the dry, smooth grass, under the canopy + of the silver poplars, or among the reeds above the pond, on the coarse, + damp sand of the hollow bank, from which the knotted roots protruded, + queerly interlaced, like great black veins, like snakes, like creatures + emerging from some subterranean region! Punin told me the whole story of + his life in minute detail, describing all his happy adventures, and all + his misfortunes, with which I always felt the sincerest sympathy! His + father had been a deacon;—‘a splendid man—but, under the + influence of drink, stern to the last extreme.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin himself had received his education in a seminary; but, unable to + stand the severe thrashings, and feeling no inclination for the priestly + calling, he had become a layman, and in consequence had experienced all + sorts of hardships; and, finally, had become a vagrant. ‘And had I not met + with my benefactor, Paramon Semyonitch,’ Punin commonly added (he never + spoke of Baburin except in this way), ‘I should have sunk into the miry + abysses of poverty and vice.’ Punin was fond of high-sounding expressions, + and had a great propensity, if not for lying, for romancing and + exaggeration; he admired everything, fell into ecstasies over + everything.... And I, in imitation of him, began to exaggerate and be + ecstatic, too. ‘What a crazy fellow you’ve grown! God have mercy on you!’ + my old nurse used to say to me. Punin’s narratives used to interest me + extremely; but even better than his stories I loved the readings we used + to have together. + </p> + <p> + It is impossible to describe the feeling I experienced when, snatching a + favourable moment, suddenly, like a hermit in a tale or a good fairy, he + appeared before me with a ponderous volume under his arm, and stealthily + beckoning with his long crooked finger, and winking mysteriously, he + pointed with his head, his eyebrows, his shoulders, his whole person, + toward the deepest recesses of the garden, whither no one could penetrate + after us, and where it was impossible to find us out. And when we had + succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had satisfactorily reached + one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side by side, and, at last, the + book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent odour, inexpressibly sweet to + me then, of mildew and age;—with what a thrill, with what a wave of + dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at the lips of Punin, those lips + from which in a moment a stream of such delicious eloquence was to flow! + At last the first sounds of the reading were heard. Everything around me + vanished ... no, not vanished, but grew far away, passed into clouds of + mist, leaving behind only an impression of something friendly and + protecting. Those trees, those green leaves, those high grasses screen us, + hide us from all the rest of the world; no one knows where we are, what we + are about—while with us is poetry, we are saturated in it, + intoxicated with it, something solemn, grand, mysterious is happening to + us.... Punin, by preference, kept to poetry, musical, sonorous poetry; he + was ready to lay down his life for poetry. He did not read, he declaimed + the verse majestically, in a torrent of rhythm, in a rolling outpour + through his nose, like a man intoxicated, lifted out of himself, like the + Pythian priestess. And another habit he had: first he would lisp the + verses through softly, in a whisper, as it were mumbling them to + himself.... This he used to call the rough sketch of the reading; then he + would thunder out the same verse in its ‘fair copy,’ and would all at once + leap up, throw up his hand, with a half-supplicating, half-imperious + gesture.... In this way we went through not only Lomonosov, Sumarokov, and + Kantemir (the older the poems, the more they were to Punin’s taste), but + even Heraskov’s <i>Rossiad</i>. And, to tell the truth, it was this same + <i>Rossiad</i> which aroused my enthusiasm most. There is in it, among + others, a mighty Tatar woman, a gigantic heroine; I have forgotten even + her name now; but in those days my hands and feet turned cold as soon as + it was mentioned. ‘Yes,’ Punin would say, nodding his head with great + significance, ‘Heraskov, he doesn’t let one off easily. At times one comes + upon a line, simply heart-breaking.... One can only stick to it, and do + one’s best.... One tries to master it, but he breaks away again and + trumpets, trumpets, with the crash of cymbals. His name’s been well + bestowed on him—the very word, Herrraskov!’ Lomonosov Punin found + fault with for too simple and free a style; while to Derzhavin he + maintained an attitude almost of hostility, saying that he was more of a + courtier than a poet. In our house it was not merely that no attention was + given to literature, to poetry; but poetry, especially Russian poetry, was + looked upon as something quite undignified and vulgar; my grandmother did + not even call it poetry, but ‘doggrel verses’; every author of such + doggrel was, in her opinion, either a confirmed toper or a perfect idiot. + Brought up among such ideas, it was inevitable that I should either turn + from Punin with disgust—he was untidy and shabby into the bargain, + which was an offence to my seignorial habits—or that, attracted and + captivated by him, I should follow his example, and be infected by his + passion for poetry.... And so it turned out. I, too, began reading poetry, + or, as my grandmother expressed it, poring over doggrel trash.... I even + tried my hand at versifying, and composed a poem, descriptive of a + barrel-organ, in which occurred the following two lines: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Lo, the barrel turns around, + And the cogs within resound.’ +</pre> + <p> + Punin commended in this effort a certain imitative melody, but disapproved + of the subject itself as low and unworthy of lyrical treatment. + </p> + <p> + Alas! all those efforts and emotions and transports, our solitary + readings, our life together, our poetry, all came to an end at once. + Trouble broke upon us suddenly, like a clap of thunder. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + My grandmother in everything liked cleanliness and order, quite in the + spirit of the active generals of those days; cleanliness and order were to + be maintained too in our garden. And so from time to time they ‘drove’ + into it poor peasants, who had no families, no land, no beasts of their + own, and those among the house serfs who were out of favour or + superannuated, and set them to clearing the paths, weeding the borders, + breaking up and sifting the earth in the beds, and so on. Well, one day, + in the very heat of these operations, my grandmother went into the garden, + and took me with her. On all sides, among the trees and about the lawns, + we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all sides we heard + the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of clods of earth on + the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers, my grandmother with + her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was working with less + energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap, too, with no show of + eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young, with a wasted face, and + sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all torn and patched, scarcely + held together over his narrow shoulders. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s that?’ my grandmother inquired of Filippitch, who was walking on + tiptoe behind her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of whom ... you are pleased ...’ Filippitch stammered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, fool! I mean the one that looked so sullenly at me. There, standing + yonder, not working.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, him! Yes ... th ... th ... that’s Yermil, son of Pavel Afanasiitch, + now deceased.’ + </p> + <p> + Pavel Afanasiitch had been, ten years before, head butler in my + grandmother’s house, and stood particularly high in her favour. But + suddenly falling into disgrace, he was as suddenly degraded to being + herdsman, and did not long keep even that position. He sank lower still, + and struggled on for a while on a monthly pittance of flour in a little + hut far away. At last he had died of paralysis, leaving his family in the + most utter destitution. + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha!’ commented my grandmother; ‘it’s clear the apple’s not fallen far + from the tree. Well, we shall have to make arrangements about this fellow + too. I’ve no need of people like that, with scowling faces.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother went back to the house—and made arrangements. Three + hours later Yermil, completely ‘equipped,’ was brought under the window of + her room. The unfortunate boy was being transported to a settlement; the + other side of the fence, a few steps from him, was a little cart loaded + with his poor belongings. Such were the times then. Yermil stood without + his cap, with downcast head, barefoot, with his boots tied up with a + string behind his back; his face, turned towards the seignorial mansion, + expressed not despair nor grief, nor even bewilderment; a stupid smile was + frozen on his colourless lips; his eyes, dry and half-closed, looked + stubbornly on the ground. My grandmother was apprised of his presence. She + got up from the sofa, went, with a faint rustle of her silken skirts, to + the window of the study, and, holding her golden-rimmed double eyeglass on + the bridge of her nose, looked at the new exile. In her room there + happened to be at the moment four other persons, the butler, Baburin, the + page who waited on my grandmother in the daytime, and I. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother nodded her head up and down.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Madam,’ a hoarse almost stifled voice was heard suddenly. I looked round. + Baburin’s face was red ... dark red; under his overhanging brows could be + seen little sharp points of light.... There was no doubt about it; it was + he, it was Baburin, who had uttered the word ‘Madam.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother too looked round, and turned her eyeglass from Yermil to + Baburin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who is that ... speaking?’ she articulated slowly ... through her nose. + Baburin moved slightly forward. + </p> + <p> + ‘Madam,’ he began, ‘it is I.... I venture ... I imagine ... I make bold to + submit to your honour that you are making a mistake in acting as ... as + you are pleased to act at this moment.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is?’ my grandmother said, in the same voice, not removing her + eyeglass. + </p> + <p> + ‘I take the liberty ...’ Baburin went on distinctly, uttering every word + though with obvious effort—‘I am referring to the case of this lad + who is being sent away to a settlement ... for no fault of his. Such + arrangements, I venture to submit, lead to dissatisfaction, and to other—which + God forbid!—consequences, and are nothing else than a transgression + of the powers allowed to seignorial proprietors.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And where have you studied, pray?’ my grandmother asked after a short + silence, and she dropped her eyeglass. + </p> + <p> + Baburin was disconcerted. ‘What are you pleased to wish?’ he muttered. + </p> + <p> + ‘I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I ... my education ...’ Baburin was beginning. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. ‘It seems,’ she + interrupted, ‘that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of + absolutely no consequence to me—among my subjects I am sovereign, + and answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having + people criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their + business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript + position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always + lived till you came, and so I shall live after you’ve gone. You do not + suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,’ my grandmother turned to + the steward, ‘pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time + to-day! D’you hear? Don’t put me into a passion. And the other too ... the + fool that lives with him—to be sent off too. What’s Yermilka waiting + for?’ she added, looking out of window, ‘I have seen him. What more does + he want?’ My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the direction of the + window, as though to drive away an importunate fly. Then she sat down in a + low chair, and turning towards us, gave the order grimly: ‘Everybody + present to leave the room!’ + </p> + <p> + We all withdrew—all, except the day page, to whom my grandmother’s + words did not apply, because he was nobody. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother’s decree was carried out to the letter. Before dinner, both + Baburin and my friend Punin were driving away from the place. I will not + undertake to describe my grief, my genuine, truly childish despair. It was + so strong that it stifled even the feeling of awe-stricken admiration + inspired by the bold action of the republican Baburin. After the + conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to his room and began + packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one look, though I was the + whole time hanging about him, or rather, in reality, about Punin. The + latter was utterly distraught, and he too said nothing; but he was + continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his eyes ... always the + same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did not venture to + criticise his ‘benefactor’—Paramon Semyonitch could not make a + mistake,—but great was his distress and dejection. Punin and I made + an effort to read something out of the <i>Rossiad</i> for the last time; + we even locked ourselves up in the lumber-room—it was useless to + dream of going into the garden—but at the very first line we both + broke down, and I fairly bellowed like a calf, in spite of my twelve + years, and my claims to be grown-up. + </p> + <p> + When he had taken his seat in the carriage Baburin at last turned to me, + and with a slight softening of the accustomed sternness of his face, + observed: ‘It’s a lesson for you, young gentleman; remember this incident, + and when you grow up, try to put an end to such acts of injustice. Your + heart is good, your nature is not yet corrupted.... Mind, be careful; + things can’t go on like this!’ Through my tears, which streamed copiously + over my nose, my lips, and my chin, I faltered out that I would ... I + would remember, that I promised ... I would do ... I would be sure ... + quite sure ... + </p> + <p> + But at this point, Punin, whom I had before this embraced twenty times (my + cheeks were burning from the contact with his unshaven beard, and I was + odoriferous of the smell that always clung to him)—at this point a + sudden frenzy came over Punin. He jumped up on the seat of the cart, flung + both hands up in the air, and began in a voice of thunder (where he got it + from!) to declaim the well-known paraphrase of the Psalm of David by + Derzhavin,—a poet for this occasion—not a courtier. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘God the All-powerful doth arise + And judgeth in the congregation of the mighty! ... + How long, how long, saith the Lord, + Will ye have mercy on the wicked? + “Ye have to keep the laws....”’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘Sit down!’ Baburin said to him. + </p> + <p> + Punin sat down, but continued: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘To save the guiltless and needy, + To give shelter to the afflicted, + To defend the weak from the oppressors.’ +</pre> + <p> + Punin at the word ‘oppressors’ pointed to the seignorial abode, and then + poked the driver in the back. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘To deliver the poor out of bondage! + They know not! neither will they understand! ...’ +</pre> + <p> + Nikolai Antonov running out of the seignorial abode, shouted at the top of + his voice to the coachman: ‘Get away with you! owl! go along! don’t stay + lingering here!’ and the cart rolled away. Only in the distance could + still be heard: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Arise, O Lord God of righteousness! ... + Come forth to judge the unjust— + And be Thou the only Ruler of the nations!’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘What a clown!’ remarked Nikolai Antonov. + </p> + <p> + ‘He didn’t get enough of the rod in his young days,’ observed the deacon, + appearing on the steps. He had come to inquire what hour it would please + the mistress to fix for the night service. + </p> + <p> + The same day, learning that Yermil was still in the village, and would not + till early next morning be despatched to the town for the execution of + certain legal formalities, which were intended to check the arbitrary + proceedings of the landowners, but served only as a source of additional + revenue to the functionaries in superintendence of them, I sought him out, + and, for lack of money of my own, handed him a bundle, in which I had tied + up two pocket-handkerchiefs, a shabby pair of slippers, a comb, an old + night-gown, and a perfectly new silk cravat. Yermil, whom I had to wake up—he + was lying on a heap of straw in the back yard, near the cart—Yermil + took my present rather indifferently, with some hesitation in fact, did + not thank me, promptly poked his head into the straw and fell asleep + again. I went home somewhat disappointed. I had imagined that he would be + astonished and overjoyed at my visit, would see in it a pledge of my + magnanimous intentions for the future—and instead of that ... + </p> + <p> + ‘You may say what you like—these people have no feeling,’ was my + reflection on my homeward way. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother, who had for some reason left me in peace the whole of that + memorable day, looked at me suspiciously when I came after supper to say + good-night to her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Your eyes are red,’ she observed to me in French; ‘and there’s a smell of + the peasant’s hut about you. I am not going to enter into an examination + of what you’ve been feeling and doing—I should not like to be + obliged to punish you—but I hope you will get over all your + foolishness, and begin to conduct yourself once more in a manner befitting + a well-bred boy. However, we are soon going back to Moscow, and I shall + get you a tutor—as I see you need a man’s hand to manage you. You + can go.’ + </p> + <p> + We did, as a fact, go back soon after to Moscow. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <h3> + 1837 + </h3> + <p> + Seven years had passed by. We were living as before at Moscow—but I + was by now a student in my second year—and the authority of my + grandmother, who had aged very perceptibly in the last years, no longer + weighed upon me. Of all my fellow-students the one with whom I was on the + friendliest terms was a light-hearted and good-natured youth called + Tarhov. Our habits and our tastes were similar. Tarhov was a great lover + of poetry, and himself wrote verses; while in me the seeds sown by Punin + had not been without fruit. As is often the case with young people who are + very close friends, we had no secrets from one another. But behold, for + several days together I noticed a certain excitement and agitation in + Tarhov.... He disappeared for hours at a time, and I did not know where he + had got to—a thing which had never happened before. I was on the + point of demanding, in the name of friendship, a full explanation.... He + anticipated me. + </p> + <p> + One day I was sitting in his room.... ‘Petya,’ he said suddenly, blushing + gaily, and looking me straight in the face, ‘I must introduce you to my + muse.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your muse! how queerly you talk! Like a classicist. (Romanticism was at + that time, in 1837, at its full height.) As if I had not known it ever so + long—your muse! Have you written a new poem, or what?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t understand what I mean,’ rejoined Tarhov, still laughing and + blushing. ‘I will introduce you to a living muse.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha! so that’s it! But how is she—yours?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, because ... But hush, I believe it’s she coming here.’ + </p> + <p> + There was the light click of hurrying heels, the door opened, and in the + doorway appeared a girl of eighteen, in a chintz cotton gown, with a black + cloth cape on her shoulders, and a black straw hat on her fair, rather + curly hair. On seeing me she was frightened and disconcerted, and was + beating a retreat ... but Tarhov at once rushed to meet her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Please, please, Musa Pavlovna, come in! This is my great friend, a + splendid fellow—and the soul of discretion. You’ve no need to be + afraid of him. Petya,’ he turned to me, ‘let me introduce my Musa—Musa + Pavlovna Vinogradov, a great friend of mine.’ + </p> + <p> + I bowed. + </p> + <p> + ‘How is that ... Musa?’ I was beginning.... Tarhov laughed. ‘Ah, you + didn’t know there was such a name in the calendar? I didn’t know it + either, my boy, till I met this dear young lady. Musa! such a charming + name! And suits her so well!’ + </p> + <p> + I bowed again to my comrade’s great friend. She left the door, took two + steps forward and stood still. She was very attractive, but I could not + agree with Tarhov’s opinion, and inwardly said to myself: ‘Well, she’s a + strange sort of muse!’ + </p> + <p> + The features of her curved, rosy face were small and delicate; there was + an air of fresh, buoyant youth about all her slender, miniature figure; + but of the muse, of the personification of the muse, I—and not only + I—all the young people of that time had a very different conception! + First of all the muse had infallibly to be dark-haired and pale. An + expression of scornful pride, a bitter smile, a glance of inspiration, and + that ‘something’—mysterious, demonic, fateful—that was + essential to our conception of the muse, the muse of Byron, who at that + time held sovereign sway over men’s fancies. There was nothing of that + kind to be discerned in the face of the girl who came in. Had I been a + little older and more experienced I should probably have paid more + attention to her eyes, which were small and deep-set, with full lids, but + dark as agate, alert and bright, a thing rare in fair-haired people. + Poetical tendencies I should not have detected in their rapid, as it were + elusive, glance, but hints of a passionate soul, passionate to + self-forgetfulness. But I was very young then. + </p> + <p> + I held out my hand to Musa Pavlovna—she did not give me hers—she + did not notice my movement; she sat down on the chair Tarhov placed for + her, but did not take off her hat and cape. + </p> + <p> + She was, obviously, ill at ease; my presence embarrassed her. She drew + deep breaths, at irregular intervals, as though she were gasping for air. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve only come to you for one minute, Vladimir Nikolaitch,’ she began—her + voice was very soft and deep; from her crimson, almost childish lips, it + seemed rather strange;—‘but our madame would not let me out for more + than half an hour. You weren’t well the day before yesterday ... and so, I + thought ...’ + </p> + <p> + She stammered and hung her head. Under the shade of her thick, low brows + her dark eyes darted—to and fro—elusively. There are dark, + swift, flashing beetles that flit so in the heat of summer among the + blades of dry grass. + </p> + <p> + ‘How good you are, Musa, Musotchka!’ cried Tarhov. ‘But you must stay, you + must stay a little.... We’ll have the samovar in directly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, Vladimir Nikolaevitch! it’s impossible! I must go away this + minute.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must rest a little, anyway. You’re out of breath.... You’re tired.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m not tired. It’s ... not that ... only ... give me another book; I’ve + finished this one.’ She took out of her pocket a tattered grey volume of a + Moscow edition. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course, of course. Well, did you like it? <i>Roslavlev</i>,’ added + Tarhov, addressing me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. Only I think <i>Yury Miloslavsky</i> is much better. Our madame is + very strict about books. She says they hinder our working. For, to her + thinking ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But, I say, <i>Yury Miloslavsky</i>’s not equal to Pushkin’s <i>Gipsies</i>? + Eh? Musa Pavlovna?’ Tarhov broke in with a smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, indeed! The <i>Gipsies</i> ...’ she murmured slowly. ‘Oh yes, another + thing, Vladimir Nikolaitch; don’t come to-morrow ... you know where.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s impossible.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why?’ + </p> + <p> + The girl shrugged her shoulders, and all at once, as though she had + received a sudden shove, got up from her chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Musa, Musotchka,’ Tarhov expostulated plaintively. ‘Stay a little!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no, I can’t.’ She went quickly to the door, took hold of the + handle.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, at least, take the book!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Another time.’ + </p> + <p> + Tarhov rushed towards the girl, but at that instant she darted out of the + room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. ‘What a girl! She’s a + regular little viper!’ he declared with some vexation, and then sank into + thought. + </p> + <p> + I stayed at Tarhov’s. I wanted to find out what was the meaning of it all. + Tarhov was not disposed to be reserved. He told me that the girl was a + milliner; that he had seen her for the first time three weeks before in a + fashionable shop, where he had gone on a commission for his sister, who + lived in the provinces, to buy a hat; that he had fallen in love with her + at first sight, and that next day he had succeeded in speaking to her in + the street; that she had herself, it seemed, taken rather a fancy to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Only, please, don’t you suppose,’ he added with warmth,—‘don’t you + imagine any harm of her. So far, at any rate, there’s been nothing of that + sort between us. + </p> + <p> + ‘Harm!’ I caught him up; ‘I’ve no doubt of that; and I’ve no doubt either + that you sincerely deplore the fact, my dear fellow! Have patience—everything + will come right’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I hope so,’ Tarhov muttered through his teeth, though with a laugh. ‘But + really, my boy, that girl ... I tell you—it’s a new type, you know. + You hadn’t time to get a good look at her. She’s a shy thing!—oo! + such a shy thing! and what a will of her own! But that very shyness is + what I like in her. It’s a sign of independence! I’m simply over head and + ears, my boy!’ + </p> + <p> + Tarhov fell to talking of his ‘charmer,’ and even read me the beginning of + a poem entitled: ‘My Muse.’ His emotional outpourings were not quite to my + taste. I felt secretly jealous of him. I soon left him. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + A few days after I happened to be passing through one of the arcades of + the Gostinny Dvor. It was Saturday; there were crowds of people shopping; + on all sides, in the midst of the pushing and crushing, the shopmen kept + shouting to people to buy. Having bought what I wanted, I was thinking of + nothing but getting away from their teasing importunity as soon as + possible—when all at once I halted involuntarily: in a fruit shop I + caught sight of my comrade’s charmer—Musa, Musa Pavlovna! She was + standing, profile to me, and seemed to be waiting for something. After a + moment’s hesitation I made up my mind to go up to her and speak. But I had + hardly passed through the doorway of the shop and taken off my cap, when + she tottered back dismayed, turned quickly to an old man in a frieze + cloak, for whom the shopman was weighing out a pound of raisins, and + clutched at his arm, as though fleeing to put herself under his + protection. The latter, in his turn, wheeled round facing her—and, + imagine my amazement, I recognised him as Punin! + </p> + <p> + Yes, it was he; there were his inflamed eyes, his full lips, his soft, + overhanging nose. He had, in fact, changed little during the last seven + years; his face was a little flabbier, perhaps. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nikander Vavilitch!’ I cried. ‘Don’t you know me?’ Punin started, opened + his mouth, stared at me.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I haven’t the honour,’ he was beginning—and all at once he piped + out shrilly: ‘The little master of Troïtsky (my grandmother’s property was + called Troïtsky)! Can it be the little master of Troïtsky?’ + </p> + <p> + The pound of raisins tumbled out of his hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘It really is,’ I answered, and, picking up Punin’s purchase from the + ground, I kissed him. + </p> + <p> + He was breathless with delight and excitement; he almost cried, removed + his cap—which enabled me to satisfy myself that the last traces of + hair had vanished from his ‘egg’—took a handkerchief out of it, blew + his nose, poked the cap into his bosom with the raisins, put it on again, + again dropped the raisins.... I don’t know how Musa was behaving all this + time, I tried not to look at her. I don’t imagine Punin’s agitation + proceeded from any extreme attachment to my person; it was simply that his + nature could not stand the slightest unexpected shock. The nervous + excitability of these poor devils! + </p> + <p> + ‘Come and see us, my dear boy,’ he faltered at last; ‘you won’t be too + proud to visit our humble nest? You’re a student, I see ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘On the contrary, I shall be delighted, really.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you independent now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perfectly independent.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s capital! How pleased Paramon Semyonitch will be! To-day he’ll be + home earlier than usual, and madame lets her, too, off for Saturdays. But, + stop, excuse me, I am quite forgetting myself. Of course, you don’t know + our niece!’ + </p> + <p> + I hastened to slip in that I had not yet had the pleasure. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course, of course! How could you know her! Musotchka ... Take note, my + dear sir, this girl’s name is Musa—and it’s not a nickname, but her + real name ... Isn’t that a predestination? Musotchka, I want to introduce + you to Mr. ... Mr. ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘B.,’ I prompted. + </p> + <p> + ‘B.,’ he repeated. ‘Musotchka, listen! You see before you the most + excellent, most delightful of young men. Fate threw us together when he + was still in years of boyhood! I beg you to look on him as a friend!’ + </p> + <p> + I swung off a low bow. Musa, red as a poppy, flashed a look on me from + under her eyelids, and dropped them immediately. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ thought I, ‘you ‘re one of those who in difficult moments don’t turn + pale, but red; that must be made a note of.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must be indulgent, she’s not a fine lady,’ observed Punin, and he + went out of the shop into the street; Musa and I followed him. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The house in which Punin lodged was a considerable distance from the + Gostinny Dvor, being, in fact, in Sadovoy Street. On the way my former + preceptor in poetry had time to communicate a good many details of his + mode of existence. Since the time of our parting, both he and Baburin had + been tossed about holy Russia pretty thoroughly, and had not long—only + a year and a half before—found a permanent home in Moscow. Baburin + had succeeded in becoming head-clerk in the office of a rich merchant and + manufacturer. ‘Not a lucrative berth,’ Punin observed with a sigh,—‘a + lot of work, and not much profit ... but what’s one to do? One must be + thankful to get that! I, too, am trying to earn something by copying and + lessons; only my efforts have so far not been crowned with success. My + writing, you perhaps recollect, is old-fashioned, not in accordance with + the tastes of the day; and as regards lessons—what has been a great + obstacle is the absence of befitting attire; moreover, I greatly fear that + in the matter of instruction—in the subject of Russian literature—I + am also not in harmony with the tastes of the day; and so it comes about + that I am turned away.’ (Punin laughed his sleepy, subdued laugh. He had + retained his old, somewhat high-flown manner of speech, and his old + weakness for falling into rhyme.) ‘All run after novelties, nothing but + innovations! I dare say you, too, do not honour the old divinities, and + fall down before new idols?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you, Nikander Vavilitch, do you really still esteem Heraskov?’ + </p> + <p> + Punin stood still and waved both hands at once. ‘In the highest degree, + sir! in the high ... est de ... gree, I do!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you don’t read Pushkin? You don’t like Pushkin?’ + </p> + <p> + Punin again flung his hands up higher than his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Pushkin? Pushkin is the snake, lying hid in the grass, who is endowed + with the note of the nightingale!’ + </p> + <p> + While Punin and I talked like this, cautiously picking our way over the + unevenly laid brick pavement of so-called ‘white-stoned’ Moscow—in + which there is not one stone, and which is not white at all—Musa + walked silently beside us on the side further from me. In speaking of her, + I called her ‘your niece.’ Punin was silent for a little, scratched his + head, and informed me in an undertone that he had called her so ... merely + as a manner of speaking; that she was really no relation; that she was an + orphan picked up and cared for by Baburin in the town of Voronezh; but + that he, Punin, might well call her daughter, as he loved her no less than + a real daughter. I had no doubt that, though Punin intentionally dropped + his voice, Musa could hear all he said very well; and she was at once + angry, and shy, and embarrassed; and the lights and shades chased each + other over her face, and everything in it was slightly quivering, the + eyelids and brows and lips and narrow nostrils. All this was very + charming, and amusing, and queer. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + But at last we reached the ‘modest nest.’ And modest it certainly was, the + nest. It consisted of a small, one-storied house, that seemed almost sunk + into the ground, with a slanting wooden roof, and four dingy windows in + the front. The furniture of the rooms was of the poorest, and not over + tidy, indeed. Between the windows and on the walls hung about a dozen tiny + wooden cages containing larks, canaries, and siskins. ‘My subjects!’ Punin + pronounced triumphantly, pointing his finger at them. We had hardly time + to get in and look about us, Punin had hardly sent Musa for the samovar, + when Baburin himself came in. He seemed to me to have aged much more than + Punin, though his step was as firm as ever, and the expression of his face + altogether was unchanged; but he had grown thin and bent, his cheeks were + sunken, and his thick black shock of hair was sprinkled with grey. He did + not recognise me, and showed no particular pleasure when Punin mentioned + my name; he did not even smile with his eyes, he barely nodded; he asked—very + carelessly and drily—whether my <i>granny</i> were living—and + that was all. ‘I’m not over-delighted at a visit from a nobleman,’ he + seemed to say; ‘I don’t feel flattered by it.’ The republican was a + republican still. + </p> + <p> + Musa came back; a decrepit little old woman followed her, bringing in a + tarnished samovar. Punin began fussing about, and pressing me to take + things; Baburin sat down to the table, leaned his head on his hands, and + looked with weary eyes about him. At tea, however, he began to talk. He + was dissatisfied with his position. ‘A screw—not a man,’ so he spoke + of his employer; ‘people in a subordinate position are so much dirt to + him, of no consequence whatever; and yet it’s not so long since he was + under the yoke himself. Nothing but cruelty and covetousness. It’s a + bondage worse than the government’s! And all the trade here rests on + swindling and flourishes on nothing else!’ + </p> + <p> + Hearing such dispiriting utterances, Punin sighed expressively, assented, + shook his head up and down, and from side to side; Musa maintained a + stubborn silence.... She was obviously fretted by the doubt, what I was, + whether I was a discreet person or a gossip. And if I were discreet, + whether it was not with some afterthought in my mind. Her dark, swift, + restless eyes fairly flashed to and fro under their half-drooping lids. + Only once she glanced at me, but so inquisitively, so searchingly, almost + viciously ... I positively started. Baburin scarcely talked to her at all; + but whenever he did address her, there was a note of austere, hardly + fatherly, tenderness in his voice. + </p> + <p> + Punin, on the contrary, was continually joking with Musa; she responded + unwillingly, however. He called her little snow-maiden, little snowflake. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why do you give Musa Pavlovna such names?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + Punin laughed. ‘Because she’s such a chilly little thing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sensible,’ put in Baburin: ‘as befits a young girl.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We may call her the mistress of the house,’ cried Punin. ‘Hey? Paramon + Semyonitch?’ Baburin frowned; Musa turned away ... I did not understand + the hint at the time. + </p> + <p> + So passed two hours ... in no very lively fashion, though Punin did his + best to ‘entertain the honourable company.’ For instance, he squatted down + in front of the cage of one of the canaries, opened the door, and + commanded: ‘On the cupola! Begin the concert!’ The canary fluttered out at + once, perched on the <i>cupola</i>, that is to say, on Punin’s bald pate, + and turning from side to side, and shaking its little wings, carolled with + all its might. During the whole time the concert lasted, Punin kept + perfectly still, only conducting with his finger, and half closing his + eyes. I could not help roaring with laughter ... but neither Baburin nor + Musa laughed. + </p> + <p> + Just as I was leaving, Baburin surprised me by an unexpected question. He + wished to ask me, as a man studying at the university, what sort of person + Zeno was, and what were my ideas about him. + </p> + <p> + ‘What Zeno?’ I asked, somewhat puzzled. + </p> + <p> + ‘Zeno, the sage of antiquity. Surely he cannot be unknown to you?’ + </p> + <p> + I vaguely recalled the name of Zeno, as the founder of the school of + Stoics; but I knew absolutely nothing more about him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, he was a philosopher,’ I pronounced, at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Zeno,’ Baburin resumed in deliberate tones, ‘was that wise man, who + declared that suffering was not an evil, since fortitude overcomes all + things, and that the good in this world is one: justice; and virtue itself + is nothing else than justice.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin turned a reverent ear. + </p> + <p> + ‘A man living here who has picked up a lot of old books, told me that + saying,’ continued Baburin; ‘it pleased me much. But I see you are not + interested in such subjects.’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin was right. In such subjects I certainly was not interested. Since + I had entered the university, I had become as much of a republican as + Baburin himself. Of Mirabeau, of Robespierre, I would have talked with + zest. Robespierre, indeed ... why, I had hanging over my writing-table the + lithographed portraits of Fouquier-Tinville and Chalier! But Zeno! Why + drag in Zeno? + </p> + <p> + As he said good-bye to me, Punin insisted very warmly on my visiting them + next day, Sunday; Baburin did not invite me at all, and even remarked + between his teeth, that talking to plain people of nondescript position + could not give me any great pleasure, and would most likely be + disagreeable to my <i>granny</i>. At that word I interrupted him, however, + and gave him to understand that my grandmother had no longer any authority + over me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, you’ve not come into possession of the property, have you?’ queried + Baburin. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I haven’t,’ I answered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then, it follows ...’ Baburin did not finish his sentence; but I + mentally finished it for him: ‘it follows that I’m a boy.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye,’ I said aloud, and I retired. + </p> + <p> + I was just going out of the courtyard into the street ... Musa suddenly + ran out of the house, and slipping a piece of crumpled paper into my hand, + disappeared at once. At the first lamp-post I unfolded the paper. It + turned out to be a note. With difficulty I deciphered the pale + pencil-marks. ‘For God’s sake,’ Musa had written, ‘come to-morrow after + matins to the Alexandrovsky garden near the Kutafia tower I shall wait for + you don’t refuse me don’t make me miserable I simply must see you.’ There + were no mistakes in spelling in this note, but neither was there any + punctuation. I returned home in perplexity. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + When, a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, next day, I began to + get near the Kutafia tower (it was early in April, the buds were swelling, + the grass was growing greener, and the sparrows were noisily chirrupping + and quarrelling in the bare lilac bushes), considerably to my surprise, I + caught sight of Musa a little to one side, not far from the fence. She was + there before me. I was going towards her; but she herself came to meet me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let’s go to the Kreml wall,’ she whispered in a hurried voice, running + her downcast eyes over the ground; ‘there are people here.’ + </p> + <p> + We went along the path up the hill. + </p> + <p> + ‘Musa Pavlovna,’ I was beginning.... But she cut me short at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘Please,’ she began, speaking in the same jerky and subdued voice, ‘don’t + criticise me, don’t think any harm of me. I wrote a letter to you, I made + an appointment to meet you, because ... I was afraid.... It seemed to me + yesterday,—you seemed to be laughing all the time. Listen,’ she + added, with sudden energy, and she stopped short and turned towards me: + ‘listen; if you tell with whom ... if you mention at whose room you met + me, I’ll throw myself in the water, I’ll drown myself, I’ll make an end of + myself!’ + </p> + <p> + At this point, for the first time, she glanced at me with the inquisitive, + piercing look I had seen before. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, she, perhaps, really ... would do it,’ was my thought. + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, Musa Pavlovna,’ I protested, hurriedly: ‘how can you have such a + bad opinion of me? Do you suppose I am capable of betraying my friend and + injuring you? Besides, come to that, there’s nothing in your relations, as + far as I’m aware, deserving of censure.... For goodness’ sake, be calm.’ + </p> + <p> + Musa heard me out, without stirring from the spot, or looking at me again. + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s something else I ought to tell you,’ she began, moving forward + again along the path, ‘or else you may think I’m quite mad! I ought to + tell you, that old man wants to marry me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What old man? The bald one? Punin?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No—not he! The other ... Paramon Semyonitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Baburin?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is it possible? Has he made you an offer?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you didn’t consent, of course?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I did consent ... because I didn’t understand what I was about then. + Now it’s a different matter.’ + </p> + <p> + I flung up my hands. ‘Baburin—and you! Why, he must be fifty!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He says forty-three. But that makes no difference. If he were five—and—twenty + I wouldn’t marry him. Much happiness I should find in it! A whole week + will go by without his smiling once! Paramon Semyonitch is my benefactor, + I am deeply indebted to him; he took care of me, educated me; I should + have been utterly lost but for him; I’m bound to look on him as a + father.... But be his wife! I’d rather die! I’d rather be in my coffin!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why do you keep talking about death, Musa Pavlovna?’ + </p> + <p> + Musa stopped again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, is life so sweet, then? Even your friend Vladimir Nikolaitch, I may + say, I’ve come to love from being wretched and dull: and then Paramon + Semyonitch with his offers of marriage.... Punin, though he bores me with + his verses, he doesn’t scare me, anyway; he doesn’t make me read Karamzin + in the evenings, when my head’s ready to drop off my shoulders for + weariness! And what are these old men to me? They call me cold, too. With + them, is it likely I should be warm? If they try to make me—I shall + go. Paramon Semyonitch himself’s always saying: Freedom! freedom! All + right, I want freedom too. Or else it comes to this! Freedom for every one + else, and keeping me in a cage! I’ll tell him so myself. But if you betray + me, or drop a hint—remember; they’ll never set eyes on me again!’ + </p> + <p> + Musa stood in the middle of the path. + </p> + <p> + ‘They’ll never set eyes on me again!’ she repeated sharply. This time, + too, she did not raise her eyes to me; she seemed to be aware that she + would infallibly betray herself, would show what was in her heart, if any + one looked her straight in the face.... And that was just why she did not + lift her eyes, except when she was angry or annoyed, and then she stared + straight at the person she was speaking to.... But her small pretty face + was aglow with indomitable resolution. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Tarhov was right,’ flashed through my head; ‘this girl is a new + type.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve no need to be afraid of me,’ I declared, at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Truly? Even, if ... You said something about our relations.... But even + if there were ...’ she broke off. + </p> + <p> + ‘Even in that case, you would have no need to be afraid, Musa Pavlovna. I + am not your judge. Your secret is buried here.’ I pointed to my bosom. + ‘Believe me, I know how to appreciate ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you got my letter?’ Musa asked suddenly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In my pocket.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Give it here ... quick, quick!’ + </p> + <p> + I got out the scrap of paper. Musa snatched it in her rough little hand, + stood still a moment facing me, as though she were going to thank me; but + suddenly started, looked round, and without even a word at parting, ran + quickly down the hill. + </p> + <p> + I looked in the direction she had taken. At no great distance from the + tower I discerned, wrapped in an ‘Almaviva’ (‘Almavivas’ were then in the + height of fashion), a figure which I recognised at once as Tarhov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha, my boy,’ thought I, ‘you must have had notice, then, since you’re on + the look-out.’ + </p> + <p> + And whistling to myself, I started homewards. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Next morning I had only just drunk my morning tea, when Punin made his + appearance. He came into my room with rather an embarrassed face, and + began making bows, looking about him, and apologising for his intrusion, + as he called it. I made haste to reassure him. I, sinful man, imagined + that Punin had come with the intention of borrowing money. But he confined + himself to asking for a glass of tea with rum in it, as, luckily, the + samovar had not been cleared away. ‘It’s with some trepidation and sinking + of heart that I have come to see you,’ he said, as he nibbled a lump of + sugar. ‘You I do not fear; but I stand in awe of your honoured + grandmother! I am abashed too by my attire, as I have already communicated + to you.’ Punin passed his finger along the frayed edge of his ancient + coat. ‘At home it’s no matter, and in the street, too, it’s no harm; but + when one finds one’s self in gilded palaces, one’s poverty stares one in + the face, and one feels confused!’ I occupied two small rooms on the + ground floor, and certainly it would never have entered any one’s head to + call them palaces, still less gilded; but Punin apparently was referring + to the whole of my grandmother’s house, though that too was by no means + conspicuously sumptuous. He reproached me for not having been to see them + the previous day; ‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ said he, ‘expected you, though he + did declare that you would be sure not to come. And Musotchka, too, + expected you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What? Musa Pavlovna too?’ I queried. + </p> + <p> + ‘She too. She’s a charming girl we have got with us, isn’t she? What do + you say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very charming,’ I assented. Punin rubbed his bare head with extraordinary + rapidity. + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s a beauty, sir, a pearl or even a diamond—it’s the truth I am + telling you.’ He bent down quite to my ear. ‘Noble blood, too,’ he + whispered to me, ‘only—you understand—left-handed; the + forbidden fruit was eaten. Well, the parents died, the relations would do + nothing for her, and flung her to the hazards of destiny, that’s to say, + despair, dying of hunger! But at that point Paramon Semyonitch steps + forward, known as a deliverer from of old! He took her, clothed her and + cared for her, brought up the poor nestling; and she has blossomed into + our darling! I tell you, a man of the rarest qualities!’ + </p> + <p> + Punin subsided against the back of the armchair, lifted his hands, and + again bending forward, began whispering again, but still more + mysteriously: ‘You see Paramon Semyonitch himself too.... Didn’t you know? + he too is of exalted extraction—and on the left side, too. They do + say—his father was a powerful Georgian prince, of the line of King + David.... What do you make of that? A few words—but how much is + said? The blood of King David! What do you think of that? And according to + other accounts, the founder of the family of Paramon Semyonitch was an + Indian Shah, Babur. Blue blood! That’s fine too, isn’t it? Eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well?’ I queried, ‘and was he too, Baburin, flung to the hazards of + destiny?’ + </p> + <p> + Punin rubbed his pate again. ‘To be sure he was! And with even greater + cruelty than our little lady! From his earliest childhood nothing but + struggling! And, in fact, I will confess that, inspired by Ruban, I + composed in allusion to this fact a stanza for the portrait of Paramon + Semyonitch. Wait a bit ... how was it? Yes! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘E’en from the cradle fate’s remorseless blows + Baburin drove towards the abyss of woes! + But as in darkness gleams the light, so now + The conqueror’s laurel wreathes his noble brow!’ +</pre> + <p> + Punin delivered these lines in a rhythmic, sing-song voice, with full + rounded vowels, as verses should be read. + </p> + <p> + ‘So that’s how it is he’s a republican!’ I exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, that’s not why,’ Punin answered simply. ‘He forgave his father long + ago; but he cannot endure injustice of any sort; it’s the sorrows of + others that trouble him!’ + </p> + <p> + I wanted to turn the conversation on what I had learned from Musa the day + before, that is to say, on Baburin’s matrimonial project,—but I did + not know how to proceed. Punin himself got me out of the difficulty. + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you notice nothing?’ he asked me suddenly, slily screwing up his + eyes, ‘while you were with us? nothing special?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, was there anything to notice?’ I asked in my turn. + </p> + <p> + Punin looked over his shoulder, as though anxious to satisfy himself that + no one was listening. ‘Our little beauty, Musotchka, is shortly to be a + married lady!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How so?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Madame Baburin,’ Punin announced with an effort, and slapping his knees + several times with his open hands, he nodded his head, like a china + mandarin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Impossible!’ I cried, with assumed astonishment. Punin’s head slowly came + to rest, and his hands dropped down. ‘Why impossible, allow me to ask?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because Paramon Semyonitch is more fit to be your young lady’s father; + because such a difference in age excludes all likelihood of love—on + the girl’s side.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Excludes?’ Punin repeated excitedly. ‘But what about gratitude? and pure + affection? and tenderness of feeling? Excludes! You must consider this: + admitting that Musa’s a splendid girl; but then to gain Paramon + Semyonitch’s affection, to be his comfort, his prop—his spouse, in + short! is that not the loftiest possible happiness even for such a girl? + And she realises it! You should look, turn an attentive eye! In Paramon + Semyonitch’s presence Musotchka is all veneration, all tremor and + enthusiasm!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s just what’s wrong, Nikander Vavilitch, that she is, as you say, + all tremor. If you love any one you don’t feel tremors in their presence.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But with that I can’t agree! Here am I, for instance; no one, I suppose, + could love Paramon Semyonitch more than I, but I ... tremble before him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you—that’s a different matter.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How is it a different matter? how? how?’ interrupted Punin. I simply did + not know him; he got hot, and serious, almost angry, and quite dropped his + rhythmic sing-song in speaking. ‘No,’ he declared; ‘I notice that you have + not a good eye for character! No; you can’t read people’s hearts!’ I gave + up contradicting him ... and to give another turn to the conversation, + proposed, for the sake of old times, that we should read something + together. + </p> + <p> + Punin was silent for a while. + </p> + <p> + ‘One of the old poets? The real ones?’ he asked at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; a new one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A new one?’ Punin repeated mistrustfully. + </p> + <p> + ‘Pushkin,’ I answered. I suddenly thought of the <i>Gypsies</i> which + Tarhov had mentioned not long before. There, by the way, is the ballad + about the old husband. Punin grumbled a little, but I sat him down on the + sofa, so that he could listen more comfortably, and began to read + Pushkin’s poem. The passage came at last, ‘old husband, cruel husband’; + Punin heard the ballad through to the end, and all at once he got up + impulsively. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t,’ he pronounced, with an intense emotion, which impressed even + me;—‘excuse me; I cannot hear more of that author. He is an immoral + slanderer; he is a liar ... he upsets me. I cannot! Permit me to cut short + my visit to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + I began trying to persuade Punin to remain; but he insisted on having his + own way with a sort of stupid, scared obstinacy: he repeated several times + that he felt upset, and wished to get a breath of fresh air—and all + the while his lips were faintly quivering and his eyes avoided mine, as + though I had wounded him. So he went away. A little while after, I too + went out of the house and set off to see Tarhov. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Without inquiring of any one, with a student’s usual lack of ceremony, I + walked straight into his lodgings. In the first room there was no one. I + called Tarhov by name, and receiving no answer, was just going to retreat; + but the door of the adjoining room opened, and my friend appeared. He + looked at me rather queerly, and shook hands without speaking. I had come + to him to repeat all I had heard from Punin; and though I felt at once + that I had called on Tarhov at the wrong moment, still, after talking a + little about extraneous matters, I ended by informing him of Baburin’s + intentions in regard to Musa. This piece of news did not, apparently, + surprise him much; he quietly sat down at the table, and fixing his eyes + intently upon me, and keeping silent as before, gave to his features an + expression ... an expression, as though he would say: ‘Well, what more + have you to tell? Come, out with your ideas!’ I looked more attentively + into his face.... It struck me as eager, a little ironical, a little + arrogant even. But that did not hinder me from bringing out my ideas. On + the contrary. ‘You’re showing off,’ was my thought; ‘so I am not going to + spare you!’ And there and then I proceeded straightway to enlarge upon the + mischief of yielding to impulsive feelings, upon the duty of every man to + respect the freedom and personal life of another man—in short, I + proceeded to enunciate useful and appropriate counsel. Holding forth in + this manner, I walked up and down the room, to be more at ease. Tarhov did + not interrupt me, and did not stir from his seat; he only played with his + fingers on his chin. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know,’ said I ... (Exactly what was my motive in speaking so, I have no + clear idea myself—envy, most likely; it was not devotion to + morality, anyway!) ‘I know,’ said I, ‘that it’s no easy matter, no joking + matter; I am sure you love Musa, and that Musa loves you—that it is + not a passing fancy on your part.... But, see, let us suppose! (Here I + folded my arms on my breast.) ... Let us suppose you gratify your passion—what + is to follow? You won’t marry her, you know. And at the same time you are + wrecking the happiness of an excellent, honest man, her benefactor—and—who + knows? (here my face expressed at the same time penetration and sorrow)—possibly + her own happiness too....’ + </p> + <p> + And so on, and so on! + </p> + <p> + For about a quarter of an hour my discourse flowed on. Tarhov was still + silent. I began to be disconcerted by this silence. I glanced at him from + time to time, not so much to satisfy myself as to the impression my words + were making on him, as to find out why he neither objected nor agreed, but + sat like a deaf mute. At last I fancied that there was ... yes, there + certainly was a change in his face. It began to show signs of uneasiness, + agitation, painful agitation.... Yet, strange to say, the eager, bright, + laughing something, which had struck me at my first glance at Tarhov, + still did not leave that agitated, that troubled face! I could not make up + my mind whether or no to congratulate myself on the success of my sermon, + when Tarhov suddenly got up, and pressing both my hands, said, speaking + very quickly, ‘Thank you, thank you. You’re right, of course, ... though, + on the other side, one might observe ... What is your Baburin you make so + much of, after all? An honest fool—and nothing more! You call him a + republican—and he’s simply a fool! Oo! That’s what he is! All his + republicanism simply means that he can never get on anywhere!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! so that’s your idea! A fool! can never get on!—but let me tell + you,’ I pursued, with sudden heat, ‘let me tell you, my dear Vladimir + Nikolaitch, that in these days to get on nowhere is a sign of a fine, a + noble nature! None but worthless people—bad people—get on + anywhere and accommodate themselves to everything. You say Baburin is an + honest fool! Why, is it better, then, to your mind, to be dishonest and + clever?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You distort my words!’ cried Tarhov. ‘I only wanted to explain how I + understand that person. Do you think he’s such a rare specimen? Not a bit + of it! I’ve met other people like him in my time. A man sits with an air + of importance, silent, obstinate, angular.... O-ho-ho! say you. It shows + that there’s a great deal in him! But there’s nothing in him, not one idea + in his head—nothing but a sense of his own dignity.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Even if there is nothing else, that’s an honourable thing,’ I broke in. + ‘But let me ask where you have managed to study him like this? You don’t + know him, do you? Or are you describing him ... from what Musa tells you?’ + </p> + <p> + Tarhov shrugged his shoulders. ‘Musa and I ... have other things to talk + of. I tell you what,’ he added, his whole body quivering with impatience,—‘I + tell you what: if Baburin has such a noble and honest nature, how is it he + doesn’t see that Musa is not a fit match for him? It’s one of two things: + either he knows that what he’s doing to her is something of the nature of + an outrage, all in the name of gratitude ... and if so, what about his + honesty?—or he doesn’t realise it ... and in that case, what can one + call him but a fool?’ + </p> + <p> + I was about to reply, but Tarhov again clutched my hands, and again began + talking in a hurried voice. ‘Though ... of course ... I confess you are + right, a thousand times right.... You are a true friend ... but now leave + me alone, please.’ + </p> + <p> + I was puzzled. ‘Leave you alone?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. I must, don’t you see, think over all you’ve just said, + thoroughly.... I have no doubt you are right ... but now leave me alone!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You ‘re in such a state of excitement ...’ I was beginning. + </p> + <p> + ‘Excitement? I?’ Tarhov laughed, but instantly pulled himself up. ‘Yes, of + course I am. How could I help being? You say yourself it’s no joking + matter. Yes; I must think about it ... alone.’ He was still squeezing my + hands. ‘Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye,’ I repeated. ‘Good-bye, old boy!’ As I was going away I flung a + last glance at Tarhov. He seemed pleased. At what? At the fact that I, + like a true friend and comrade, had pointed out the danger of the way upon + which he had set his foot—or that I was going? Ideas of the most + diverse kind were floating in my head the whole day till evening—till + the very instant when I entered the house occupied by Punin and Baburin, + for I went to see them the same day. I am bound to confess that some of + Tarhov’s phrases had sunk deep into my soul ... and were ringing in my + ears.... In truth, was it possible Baburin ... was it possible he did not + see she was not a fit match for him? + </p> + <p> + But could this possibly be: Baburin, the self-sacrificing Baburin—an + honest fool! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Punin had said, when he came to see me, that I had been expected there the + day before. That may have been so, but on this day, it is certain, no one + expected me.... I found every one at home, and every one was surprised at + my visit. Baburin and Punin were both unwell: Punin had a headache, and he + was lying curled up on the sofa, with his head tied up in a spotted + handkerchief, and strips of cucumber applied to his temples. Baburin was + suffering from a bilious attack; all yellow, almost dusky, with dark rings + round his eyes, with scowling brow and unshaven chin—he did not look + much like a bridegroom! I tried to go away.... But they would not let me + go, and even made tea. I spent anything but a cheerful evening. Musa, it + is true, had no ailment, and was less shy than usual too, but she was + obviously vexed, angry.... At last she could not restrain herself, and, as + she handed me a cup of tea, she whispered hurriedly: ‘You can say what you + like, you may try your utmost, you won’t make any difference.... So + there!’ I looked at her in astonishment, and, seizing a favourable moment, + asked her, also in a whisper, ‘What’s the meaning of your words?’ ‘I’ll + tell you,’ she answered, and her black eyes, gleaming angrily under her + frowning brows, were fastened for an instant on my face, and turned away + at once: ‘the meaning is that I heard all you said there to-day, and thank + you for nothing, and things won’t be as you ‘d have them, anyway.’ ‘You + were there,’ broke from me unconsciously.... But at this point Baburin’s + attention was caught, and he glanced in our direction. Musa walked away + from me. + </p> + <p> + Ten minutes later she managed to come near me again. She seemed to enjoy + saying bold and dangerous things to me, and saying them in the presence of + her protector, under his vigilant eye, only exercising barely enough + caution not to arouse his suspicions. It is well known that walking on the + brink, on the very edge, of the precipice is woman’s favourite pastime. + ‘Yes, I was there,’ whispered Musa, without any change of countenance, + except that her nostrils were faintly quivering and her lips twitching. + ‘Yes, and if Paramon Semyonitch asks me what I am whispering about with + you, I’d tell him this minute. What do I care?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Be more careful,’ I besought her. ‘I really believe they are noticing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I tell you, I’m quite ready to tell them everything. And who’s noticing? + One’s stretching his neck off the pillow, like a sick duck, and hears + nothing; and the other’s deep in philosophy. Don’t you be afraid!’ Musa’s + voice rose a little, and her cheeks gradually flushed a sort of malignant, + dusky red; and this suited her marvellously, and never had she been so + pretty. As she cleared the table, and set the cups and saucers in their + places, she moved swiftly about the room; there was something challenging + about her light, free and easy movement. ‘You may criticise me as you + like,’ she seemed to say; ‘but I’m going my own way, and I’m not afraid of + you.’ + </p> + <p> + I cannot disguise the fact that I found Musa bewitching just that evening. + ‘Yes,’ I mused; ‘she’s a little spitfire—she’s a new type.... She’s—exquisite. + Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say.... What of it! No + matter!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ she cried suddenly, ‘isn’t a republic an empire in + which every one does as he chooses?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A republic is not an empire,’ answered Baburin, raising his head, and + contracting his brows; ‘it is a ... form of society in which everything + rests on law and justice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then,’ Musa pursued, ‘in a republic no one can oppress any one else?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And every one is free to dispose of himself?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Quite free.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! that’s all I wanted to know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why do you want to know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I wanted to—I wanted <i>you</i> to tell me that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Our young lady is anxious to learn,’ Punin observed from the sofa. + </p> + <p> + When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course, from + politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I took + leave, ‘Can you really love him so much?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whether I love him, or whether I don’t, that’s <i>my</i> affair,’ she + answered. ‘What is to be, will be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mind what you’re about; don’t play with fire ... you’ll get burnt.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Better be burnt than frozen. You ... with your good advice! And how can + you tell he won’t marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to get + married? If I am ruined ... what business is it of yours?’ + </p> + <p> + She slammed the door after me. + </p> + <p> + I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my + friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new + type.... He ought to have to pay something for his happiness! + </p> + <p> + That he would be happy, I was—regretfully—unable to doubt. + </p> + <p> + Three days passed by. I was sitting in my room at my writing-table, and + not so much working as getting myself ready for lunch.... I heard a + rustle, lifted my head, and I was stupefied. Before me—rigid, + terrible, white as chalk, stood an apparition ... Punin. His half-closed + eyes were looking at me, blinking slowly; they expressed a senseless + terror, the terror of a frightened hare, and his arms hung at his sides + like sticks. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nikander Vavilitch! what is the matter with you? How did you come here? + Did no one see you? What has happened? Do speak!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She has run away,’ Punin articulated in a hoarse, hardly audible voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She has run away,’ he repeated. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Musa. She went away in the night, and left a note.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A note?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. “I thank you,” she said, “but I am not coming back again. Don’t look + for me.” We ran up and down; we questioned the cook; she knew nothing. I + can’t speak loud; you must excuse me. I’ve lost my voice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Musa Pavlovna has left you!’ I exclaimed. ‘Nonsense! Mr. Baburin must be + in despair. What does he intend to do now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He has no intention of doing anything. I wanted to run to the + Governor-general: he forbade it. I wanted to give information to the + police; he forbade that too, and got very angry. He says, “She’s free.” He + says, “I don’t want to constrain her.” He has even gone to work, to his + office. But he looks more dead than alive. He loved her terribly....Oh, + oh, we both loved her!’ + </p> + <p> + Here Punin for the first time showed that he was not a wooden image, but a + live man; he lifted both his fists in the air, and brought them down on + his pate, which shone like ivory. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ungrateful girl!’ he groaned; ‘who was it gave you food and drink, + clothed you, and brought you up? who cared for you, would have given all + his life, all his soul ... And you have forgotten it all? To cast me off, + truly, were no great matter, but Paramon Semyonitch, Paramon ...’ + </p> + <p> + I begged him to sit down, to rest. + </p> + <p> + Punin shook his head. ‘No, I won’t. I have come to you ... I don’t know + what for. I’m like one distraught; to stay at home alone is fearful; what + am I to do with myself? I stand in the middle of the room, shut my eyes, + and call, “Musa! Musotchka!” That’s the way to go out of one’s mind. But + no, why am I talking nonsense? I know why I have come to you. You know, + the other day you read me that thrice-accursed poem ... you remember, + where there is talk of an old husband. What did you do that for? Did you + know something then ... or guessed something?’ Punin glanced at me. ‘Piotr + Petrovitch,’ he cried suddenly, and he began trembling all over, ‘you + know, perhaps, where she is. Kind friend, tell me whom she has gone to!’ + </p> + <p> + I was disconcerted, and could not help dropping my eyes.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps she said something in her letter,’ I began.... + </p> + <p> + ‘She said she was leaving us because she loved some one else! Dear, good + friend, you know, surely, where she is? Save her, let us go to her; we + will persuade her. Only think what a man she’s bringing to ruin.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin all at once flushed crimson, the blood seemed to rush to his head, + he plumped heavily down on his knees. ‘Save us, friend, let us go to her.’ + </p> + <p> + My servant appeared in the doorway, and stood still in amazement. + </p> + <p> + I had no little trouble to get Punin on to his feet again, to convince him + that, even if I did suspect something, still it would not do to act like + that, on the spur of the moment, especially both together—that would + only spoil all our efforts—that I was ready to do my best, but would + not answer for anything. Punin did not oppose me, nor did he indeed hear + me; he only repeated from time to time in his broken voice, ‘Save her, + save her and Paramon Semyonitch.’ At last he began to cry. ‘Tell me at + least one thing,’ he asked ... ‘is <i>he</i> handsome, young?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, he is young,’ I answered. + </p> + <p> + ‘He is young,’ repeated Punin, smearing the tears over his cheeks; ‘and + she is young.... It’s from that that all the trouble’s sprung!’ + </p> + <p> + This rhyme came by chance; poor Punin was in no mood for versifying. I + would have given a good deal to hear his rhapsodical eloquence again, or + even his almost noiseless laugh.... Alas! his eloquence was quenched for + ever, and I never heard his laugh again. + </p> + <p> + I promised to let him know, as soon as I should find out anything + positive.... Tarhov’s name I did not, however, mention. Punin suddenly + collapsed completely. ‘Very good, very good, sir, thank you,’ he said with + a pitiful face, using the word ‘sir,’ which he had never done before; + ‘only mind, sir, do not say anything to Paramon Semyonitch ... or he’ll be + angry. In one word, he has forbidden it. Good-bye, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + As he got up and turned his back to me, Punin struck me as such a poor + feeble creature, that I positively marvelled; he limped with both legs, + and doubled up at each step.... + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s a bad look-out. It’s the end of him, that’s what it means,’ I + thought. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Though I had promised Punin to trace Musa, yet as I set off the same day + to Tarhov’s, I had not the slightest expectation of learning anything, as + I considered it certain that either I should not find him at home, or that + he would refuse to see me. My supposition turned out to be a mistaken one. + I found Tarhov at home; he received me, and I found out indeed all I + wanted to know; but there was nothing gained by that. Directly I crossed + the threshold of his door, Tarhov came resolutely, rapidly, to meet me, + and his eyes sparkling and glowing, his face grown handsomer and radiant, + he said firmly and briskly: ‘Listen, Petya, my boy; I guess what you’ve + come for, and what you want to talk about; but I give you warning, if you + say a single word about her, or about her action, or about what, according + to you, is the course dictated to me by common sense, we’re friends no + longer, we’re not even acquainted, and I shall beg you to treat me as a + stranger.’ + </p> + <p> + I looked at Tarhov; he was quivering all over inwardly, like a tightly + drawn harpstring; he was tingling all over, hardly could he hold back the + tide of brimming youth and passion; violent, ecstatic happiness had burst + into his soul, and had taken full possession of him—and he of it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + ‘Is that your final decision?’ I pronounced mournfully. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, Petya, my boy, it’s final.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In that case, there’s nothing for me but to say good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + Tarhov faintly dropped his eyelids.... He was too happy at that moment. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye, Petya, old boy,’ he said, a little through his nose, with a + candid smile and a gay flash of all his white teeth. + </p> + <p> + What was I to do? I left him to his ‘happiness.’ As I slammed the door + after me, the other door of the room slammed also—I heard it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + It was with a heavy heart that I trudged off next day to see my luckless + acquaintances. I secretly hoped—such is human weakness—that I + should not find them at home, and again I was mistaken. Both were at home. + The change that had taken place in them during the last three days must + have struck any one. Punin looked ghastly white and flabby. His + talkativeness had completely vanished. He spoke listlessly, feebly, still + in the same husky voice, and looked somehow lost and bewildered. Baburin, + on the contrary, seemed shrunk into himself, and blacker than ever; + taciturn at the best of times, he uttered nothing now but a few abrupt + sounds; an expression of stony severity seemed to have frozen on his + countenance. + </p> + <p> + I felt it impossible to be silent; but what was there to say? I confined + myself to whispering to Punin, ‘I have discovered nothing, and my advice + to you is to give up all hope.’ Punin glanced at me with his swollen, red + little eyes—the only red left in his face—muttered something + inaudible, and hobbled away. Baburin most likely guessed what I had been + speaking about to Punin, and opening his lips, which were tightly + compressed, as though glued together, he pronounced, in a deliberate + voice, ‘My dear sir, since your last visit to us, something disagreeable + has happened to us; our young friend, Musa Pavlovna Vinogradov, finding it + no longer convenient to live with us, has decided to leave us, and has + given us a written communication to that effect. Not considering that we + have any right to hinder her doing so, we have left her to act according + to her own views of what is best. We trust that she may be happy,’ he + added, with some effort; ‘and I humbly beg you not to allude to the + subject, as any such references are useless, and even painful.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So he too, like Tarhov, forbids my speaking of Musa,’ was the thought + that struck me, and I could not help wondering inwardly. He might well + prize Zeno so highly. I wished to impart to him some facts about that + sage, but my tongue would not form the words, and it did well. + </p> + <p> + I soon went about my business. At parting neither Punin nor Baburin said, + ‘Till we meet!’ both with one voice pronounced, ‘Good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin even returned me a volume of the <i>Telegraph</i> I had brought him, + as much as to say, ‘he had no need of anything of that kind now.’ + </p> + <p> + A week later I had a curious encounter. An early spring had set in + abruptly; at midday the heat rose to eighteen degrees Réaumur. Everything + was turning green, and shooting up out of the spongy, damp earth. I hired + a horse at the riding-school, and went out for a ride into the outskirts + of the town, towards the Vorobyov hills. On the road I was met by a little + cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies, splashed with mud up to their + ears, with plaited tails, and red ribbons in their manes and forelocks. + Their harness was such as sportsmen affect, with copper discs and tassels; + they were being driven by a smart young driver, in a blue tunic without + sleeves, a yellow striped silk shirt, and a low felt hat with peacock’s + feathers round the crown. Beside him sat a girl of the artisan or merchant + class, in a flowered silk jacket, with a big blue handkerchief on her head—and + she was simply bubbling over with mirth. The driver was laughing too. I + drew my horse on one side, but did not, however, take particular notice of + the swiftly passing, merry couple, when, all at once, the young man + shouted to his ponies.... Why, that was Tarhov’s voice! I looked round.... + Yes, it was he; unmistakably he, dressed up as a peasant, and beside him—wasn’t + it Musa? + </p> + <p> + But at that instant their ponies quickened their pace, and they were out + of my sight in a minute. I tried to put my horse into a gallop in pursuit + of them, but it was an old riding school hack, that shambled from side to + side as it moved; it went more slowly galloping than trotting. + </p> + <p> + ‘Enjoy yourselves, my dear friends!’ I muttered through my teeth. + </p> + <p> + I ought to observe that I had not seen Tarhov during the whole week, + though I had been three times to his rooms. He was never at home. Baburin + and Punin I had not seen either.... I had not been to see them. + </p> + <p> + I caught cold on my ride; though it was very warm, there was a piercing + wind. I was dangerously ill, and when I recovered I went with my + grandmother into the country ‘to feed up,’ by the doctor’s advice. I did + not get to Moscow again; in the autumn I was transferred to the Petersburg + university. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <h3> + 1849 + </h3> + <p> + Not seven, but fully twelve years had passed by, and I was in my + thirty-second year. My grandmother had long been dead; I was living in + Petersburg, with a post in the Department of Home Affairs. Tarhov I had + lost sight of; he had gone into the army, and lived almost always in the + provinces. We had met twice, as old friends, glad to see each other; but + we had not touched on the past in our talk. At the time of our last + meeting he was, if I remember right, already a married man. + </p> + <p> + One sultry summer day I was sauntering along Gorohov Street, cursing my + official duties for keeping me in Petersburg, and the heat and stench and + dust of the city. A funeral barred my way. It consisted of a solitary car, + that is, to be accurate, of a decrepit hearse, on which a poor-looking + wooden coffin, half-covered with a threadbare black cloth, was shaking up + and down as it was jolted violently over the uneven pavement. An old man + with a white head was walking alone after the hearse. + </p> + <p> + I looked at him.... His face seemed familiar.... He too turned his eyes + upon me.... Merciful heavens! it was Baburin! I took off my hat, went up + to him, mentioned my name, and walked along beside him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Whom are you burying?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nikander Vavilitch Punin,’ he answered. + </p> + <p> + I felt, I knew beforehand, that he would utter that name, and yet it set + my heart aching. I felt melancholy, and yet I was glad that chance had + enabled me to pay my last respects to my old friend.... + </p> + <p> + ‘May I go with you, Paramon Semyonitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You may.... I was following him alone; now there’ll be two of us.’ + </p> + <p> + Our walk lasted more than an hour. My companion moved forward, without + lifting his eyes or opening his lips. He had become quite an old man since + I had seen him last; his deeply furrowed, copper-coloured face stood out + sharply against his white hair. Signs of a life of toil and suffering, of + continual struggle, could be seen in Baburin’s whole figure; want and + poverty had worked cruel havoc with him. When everything was over, when + what was Punin had disappeared for ever in the damp ... yes, undoubtedly + damp earth of the Smolensky cemetery, Baburin, after standing a couple of + minutes with bowed, uncovered head before the newly risen mound of sandy + clay, turned to me his emaciated, as it were embittered, face, his dry, + sunken eyes, thanked me grimly, and was about to move away; but I detained + him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where do you live, Paramon Semyonitch? Let me come and see you. I had no + idea you were living in Petersburg. We could recall old days, and talk of + our dead friend.’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin did not answer me at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s two years since I found my way to Petersburg,’ he observed at last; + ‘I live at the very end of the town. However, if you really care to visit + me, come.’ He gave me his address. ‘Come in the evening; in the evening we + are always at home ... both of us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Both of you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am married. My wife is not very well to-day, and that’s why she did not + come too. Though, indeed, it’s quite enough for one person to go through + this empty formality, this ceremony. As if anybody believed in it all!’ + </p> + <p> + I was a little surprised at Baburin’s last words, but I said nothing, + called a cab, and proposed to Baburin to take him home; but he refused. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The same day I went in the evening to see him. All the way there I was + thinking of Punin. I recalled how I had met him the first time, and how + ecstatic and amusing he was in those days; and afterwards in Moscow how + subdued he had grown—especially the last time I saw him; and now he + had made his last reckoning with life;—life is in grim earnest, it + seems! Baburin was living in the Viborgsky quarter, in a little house + which reminded me of the Moscow ‘nest’: the Petersburg abode was almost + shabbier in appearance. When I went into his room he was sitting on a + chair in a corner with his hands on his knees; a tallow candle, burning + low, dimly lighted up his bowed, white head. He heard the sound of my + footsteps, started up, and welcomed me more warmly than I had expected. A + few moments later his wife came in; I recognised her at once as Musa—and + only then understood why Baburin had invited me to come; he wanted to show + me that he had after all come by his own. + </p> + <p> + Musa was greatly changed—in face, in voice, and in manners; but her + eyes were changed most of all. In old times they had darted about like + live creatures, those malicious, beautiful eyes; they had gleamed + stealthily, but brilliantly; their glance had pierced, like a + pin-prick.... Now they looked at one directly, calmly, steadily; their + black centres had lost their lustre. ‘I am broken in, I am tame, I am + good,’ her soft and dull gaze seemed to say. Her continued, submissive + smile told the same story. And her dress, too, was subdued; brown, with + little spots on it. She came up to me, asked me whether I knew her. She + obviously felt no embarrassment, and not because she had lost a sense of + shame or memory of the past, but simply because all petty + self-consciousness had left her. + </p> + <p> + Musa talked a great deal about Punin, talked in an even voice, which too + had lost its fire. I learned that of late years he had become very feeble, + had almost sunk into childishness, so much so that he was miserable if he + had not toys to play with; they persuaded him, it is true, that he made + them out of waste stuff for sale ... but he really played with them + himself. His passion for poetry, however, never died out, and he kept his + memory for nothing but verses; a few days before his death he recited a + passage from the <i>Rossiad</i>; but Pushkin he feared, as children fear + bogies. His devotion to Baburin had also remained undiminished; he + worshipped him as much as ever, and even at the last, wrapped about by the + chill and dark of the end, he had faltered with halting tongue, + ‘benefactor!’ I learned also from Musa that soon after the Moscow episode, + it had been Baburin’s fate once more to wander all over Russia, + continually tossed from one private situation to another; that in + Petersburg, too, he had been again in a situation, in a private business, + which situation he had, however, been obliged to leave a few days before, + owing to some unpleasantness with his employer: Baburin had ventured to + stand up for the workpeople.... The invariable smile, with which Musa + accompanied her words, set me musing mournfully; it put the finishing + touch to the impression made on me by her husband’s appearance. They had + hard work, the two of them, to make a bare living—there was no doubt + of it. He took very little part in our conversation; he seemed more + preoccupied than grieved.... Something was worrying him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonitch, come here,’ said the cook, suddenly appearing in the + doorway. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it? what’s wanted?’ he asked in alarm. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come here,’ the cook repeated insistently and meaningly. Baburin buttoned + up his coat and went out. + </p> + <p> + When I was left alone with Musa, she looked at me with a somewhat changed + glance, and observed in a voice which was also changed, and with no smile: + ‘I don’t know, Piotr Petrovitch, what you think of me now, but I dare say + you remember what I used to be.... I was self-confident, light-hearted ... + and not good; I wanted to live for my own pleasure. But I want to tell you + this: when I was abandoned, and was like one lost, and was only waiting + for God to take me, or to pluck up spirit to make an end of myself,—once + more, just as in Voronezh, I met with Paramon Semyonitch—and he + saved me once again.... Not a word that could wound me did I hear from + him, not a word of reproach; he asked nothing of me—I was not worthy + of that; but he loved me ... and I became his wife. What was I to do? I + had failed of dying; and I could not live either after my own + choice....What was I to do with myself? Even so—it was a mercy to be + thankful for. That is all.’ + </p> + <p> + She ceased, turned away for an instant ... the same submissive smile came + back to her lips. ‘Whether life’s easy for me, you needn’t ask,’ was the + meaning I fancied now in that smile. + </p> + <p> + The conversation passed to ordinary subjects. Musa told me that Punin had + left a cat that he had been very fond of, and that ever since his death + she had gone up to the attic and stayed there, mewing incessantly, as + though she were calling some one ... the neighbours were very much scared, + and fancied that it was Punin’s soul that had passed into the cat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonitch is worried about something,’ I said at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you noticed it?’—Musa sighed. ‘He cannot help being worried. I + need hardly tell you that Paramon Semyonitch has remained faithful to his + principles.... The present condition of affairs can but strengthen them.’ + (Musa expressed herself quite differently now from in the old days in + Moscow; there was a literary, bookish flavour in her phrases.) ‘I don’t + know, though, whether I can rely upon you, and how you will receive ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why should you imagine you cannot rely upon me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, you are in the government service—you are an official.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what of that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are, consequently, loyal to the government.’ + </p> + <p> + I marvelled inwardly ... at Musa’s innocence. ‘As to my attitude to the + government, which is not even aware of my existence, I won’t enlarge upon + that,’ I observed; ‘but you may set your mind at rest. I will make no bad + use of your confidence. I sympathise with your husband’s ideas ... more + than you suppose.’ + </p> + <p> + Musa shook her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; that’s all so,’ she began, not without hesitation; ‘but you see it’s + like this. Paramon Semyonitch’s ideas will shortly, it may be, find + expression in action. They can no longer be hidden under a bushel. There + are comrades whom we cannot now abandon ...’ + </p> + <p> + Musa suddenly ceased speaking, as though she had bitten her tongue. Her + last words had amazed and a little alarmed me. Most likely my face showed + what I was feeling—and Musa noticed it. + </p> + <p> + As I have said already, our interview took place in the year 1849. Many + people still remember what a disturbed and difficult time that was, and by + what incidents it was signalised in St. Petersburg. I had been struck + myself by certain peculiarities in Baburin’s behaviour, in his whole + demeanour. Twice he had referred to governmental action, to personages in + high authority, with such intense bitterness and hatred, with such + loathing, that I had been dumbfoundered.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Well?’ he asked me suddenly: ‘did you set your peasants free?’ + </p> + <p> + I was obliged to confess I had not. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, I suppose your granny’s dead, isn’t she?’ + </p> + <p> + I was obliged to admit that she was. + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure, you noble gentlemen,’ Baburin muttered between his teeth, + ‘... use other men’s hands ... to poke up your fire ... that’s what you + like.’ + </p> + <p> + In the most conspicuous place in his room hung the well-known lithograph + portrait of Belinsky; on the table lay a volume of the old <i>Polar Star</i>, + edited by Bestuzhev. + </p> + <p> + A long time passed, and Baburin did not come back after the cook had + called him away. Musa looked several times uneasily towards the door by + which he had gone out. At last she could bear it no longer; she got up, + and with an apology she too went out by the same door. A quarter of an + hour later she came back with her husband; the faces of both, so at least + I thought, looked troubled. But all of a sudden Baburin’s face assumed a + different, an intensely bitter, almost frenzied expression. + </p> + <p> + ‘What will be the end of it?’ he began all at once in a jerky, sobbing + voice, utterly unlike him, while his wild eyes shifted restlessly about + him. ‘One goes on living and living, and hoping that maybe it’ll be + better, that one will breathe more freely; but it’s quite the other way—everything + gets worse and worse! They have <i>squeezed</i> us right up to the wall! + In my youth I bore all with patience; they ... maybe ... beat me ... even + ... yes!’ he added, turning sharply round on his heels and swooping down + as it were, upon me: ‘I, a man of full age, was subjected to corporal + punishment ... yes;—of other wrongs I will not speak.... But is + there really nothing before us but to go back to those old times again? + The way they are treating the young people now! ... Yes, it breaks down + all endurance at last.... It breaks it down! Yes! Wait a bit!’ + </p> + <p> + I had never seen Baburin in such a condition. Musa turned positively + white.... Baburin suddenly cleared his throat, and sank down into a seat. + Not wishing to constrain either him or Musa by my presence, I decided to + go, and was just saying good-bye to them, when the door into the next room + suddenly opened, and a head appeared.... It was not the cook’s head, but + the dishevelled and terrified-looking head of a young man. + </p> + <p> + ‘Something’s wrong, Baburin, something’s wrong!’ he faltered hurriedly, + then vanished at once on perceiving my unfamiliar figure. + </p> + <p> + Baburin rushed after the young man. I pressed Musa’s hand warmly, and + withdrew, with presentiments of evil in my heart. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come to-morrow,’ she whispered anxiously. + </p> + <p> + ‘I certainly will come,’ I answered. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I was still in bed next morning, when my man handed me a letter from Musa. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear Piotr Petrovitch!’ she wrote: ‘Paramon Semyonitch has been this + night arrested by the police and carried off to the fortress, or I don’t + know where; they did not tell me. They ransacked all our papers, sealed up + a great many, and took them away with them. It has been the same with our + books and letters. They say a mass of people have been arrested in the + town. You can fancy how I feel. It is well Nikander Vavilitch did not live + to see it! He was taken just in time. Advise me what I am to do. For + myself I am not afraid—I shall not die of starvation—but the + thought of Paramon Semyonitch gives me no rest. Come, please, if only you + are not afraid to visit people in our position.—Yours faithfully, + </p> + <h3> + MUSA BABURIN.’ + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Half an hour later I was with Musa. On seeing me she held out her hand, + and, though she did not utter a word, a look of gratitude flitted over her + face. She was wearing the same clothes as on the previous day; there was + every sign that she had not been to bed or slept all night. Her eyes were + red, but from sleeplessness, not from tears. She had not been crying. She + was in no mood for weeping. She wanted to act, wanted to struggle with the + calamity that had fallen upon them: the old, energetic, self-willed Musa + had risen up in her again. She had no time even to be indignant, though + she was choking with indignation. How to assist Baburin, to whom to appeal + so as to soften his lot—she could think of nothing else. She wanted + to go instantly, ... to petition, ... demand.... But where to go, whom to + petition, what to demand—this was what she wanted to hear from me, + this was what she wanted to consult me about. + </p> + <p> + I began by counselling her ... to have patience. For the first moment + there was nothing left to be done but to wait, and, as far as might be, to + make inquiries; and to take any decisive step now when the affair had + scarcely begun, and hardly yet taken shape, would be simply senseless, + irrational. To hope for any success was irrational, even if I had been a + person of much more importance and influence, ... but what could I, a + petty official, do? As for her, she was absolutely without any powerful + friends.... + </p> + <p> + It was no easy matter to make all this plain to her ... but at last she + understood my arguments; she understood, too, that I was not prompted by + egoistic feeling, when I showed her the uselessness of all efforts. ‘But + tell me, Musa Pavlovna,’ I began, when she sank at last into a chair (till + then she had been standing up, as though on the point of setting off at + once to the aid of Baburin), ‘how Paramon Semyonitch, at his age, comes to + be mixed up in such an affair? I feel sure that there are none but young + people implicated in it, like the one who came in yesterday to warn + you....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Those young people are our friends!’ cried Musa, and her eyes flashed and + darted as of old. Something strong, irrepressible, seemed, as it were, to + rise up from the bottom of her soul, ... and I suddenly recalled the + expression ‘a new type,’ which Tarhov had once used of her. ‘Years are of + no consequence when it is a matter of political principles!’ Musa laid a + special stress on these last two words. One might fancy that in all her + sorrow it was not unpleasing to her to show herself before me in this new, + unlooked-for character—in the character of a cultivated and mature + woman, fit wife of a republican! ... ‘Some old men are younger than some + young ones,’ she pursued, ‘more capable of sacrifice.... But that’s not + the point.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think, Musa Pavlovna,’ I observed, ‘that you are exaggerating a little. + Knowing the character of Paramon Semyonitch, I should have felt sure + beforehand that he would sympathise with every ... sincere impulse; but, + on the other hand, I have always regarded him as a man of sense.... Surely + he cannot fail to realise all the impracticability, all the absurdity of + conspiracies in Russia? In his position, in his calling ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, of course,’ Musa interrupted, with bitterness in her voice, ‘he is a + working man; and in Russia it is only permissible for noblemen to take + part in conspiracies, ... as, for instance, in that of the fourteenth of + December, ... that’s what you meant to say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In that case, what do you complain of now?’ almost broke from my lips, + ... but I restrained myself. ‘Do you consider that the result of the + fourteenth of December was such as to encourage other such attempts?’ I + said aloud. + </p> + <p> + Musa frowned. ‘It is no good talking to you about it,’ was what I read in + her downcast face. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is Paramon Semyonitch very seriously compromised?’ I ventured to ask her. + Musa made no reply.... A hungry, savage mewing was heard from the attic. + </p> + <p> + Musa started. ‘Ah, it is a good thing Nikander Vavilitch did not see all + this!’ she moaned almost despairingly. ‘He did not see how violently in + the night they seized his benefactor, our benefactor—maybe, the best + and truest man in the whole world,—he did not see how they treated + that noble man at his age, how rudely they addressed him, ... how they + threatened him, and the threats they used to him!—only because he + was a working man! That young officer, too, was no doubt just such an + unprincipled, heartless wretch as I have known in my life....’ + </p> + <p> + Musa’s voice broke. She was quivering all over like a leaf. + </p> + <p> + Her long-suppressed indignation broke out at last; old memories stirred + up, brought to the surface by the general tumult of her soul, showed + themselves alive within her.... But the conviction I carried off at that + moment was that the ‘new type’ was still the same, still the same + passionate, impulsive nature.... Only the impulses by which Musa was + carried away were not the same as in the days of her youth. What on my + first visit I had taken for resignation, for meekness, and what really was + so—the subdued, lustreless glance, the cold voice, the quietness and + simplicity—all that had significance only in relation to the past, + to what would never return.... + </p> + <p> + Now it was the present asserted itself. + </p> + <p> + I tried to soothe Musa, tried to put our conversation on a more practical + level. Some steps must be taken that could not be postponed; we must find + out exactly where Baburin was; and then secure both for him and for Musa + the means of subsistence. All this presented no inconsiderable difficulty; + what was needed was not to find money, but work, which is, as we all know, + a far more complicated problem.... + </p> + <p> + I left Musa with a perfect swarm of reflections in my head. + </p> + <p> + I soon learned that Baburin was in the fortress. + </p> + <p> + The proceedings began, ... dragged on. I saw Musa several times every + week. She had several interviews with her husband. But just at the moment + of the decision of the whole melancholy affair, I was not in Petersburg. + Unforeseen business had obliged me to set off to the south of Russia. + During my absence I heard that Baburin had been acquitted at the trial; it + appeared that all that could be proved against him was, that young people + regarding him as a person unlikely to awaken suspicion, had sometimes held + meetings at his house, and he had been present at their meetings; he was, + however, by administrative order sent into exile in one of the western + provinces of Siberia. Musa went with him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonitch did not wish it,’ she wrote to me; ‘as, according to + his ideas, no one ought to sacrifice self for another person, and not for + a cause; but I told him there was no question of sacrifice at all. When I + said to him in Moscow that I would be his wife, I thought to myself—for + ever, indissolubly! So indissoluble it must be till the end of our + days....’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <h3> + 1861 + </h3> + <p> + Twelve more years passed by.... Every one in Russia knows, and will ever + remember, what passed between the years 1849 and 1861. In my personal + life, too, many changes took place, on which, however, there is no need to + enlarge. New interests came into it, new cares.... The Baburin couple + first fell into the background, then passed out of my mind altogether. Yet + I kept up a correspondence with Musa—at very long intervals, + however. Sometimes more than a year passed without any tidings of her or + of her husband. I heard that soon after 1855 he received permission to + return to Russia; but that he preferred to remain in the little Siberian + town, where he had been flung by destiny, and where he had apparently made + himself a home, and found a haven and a sphere of activity.... + </p> + <p> + And, lo and behold! towards the end of March in 1861, I received the + following letter from Musa:— + </p> + <p> + ‘It is so long since I have written to you, most honoured Piotr + Petrovitch, that I do not even know whether you are still living; and if + you are living, have you not forgotten our existence? But no matter; I + cannot resist writing to you to-day. Everything till now has gone on with + us in the same old way: Paramon Semyonitch and I have been always busy + with our schools, which are gradually making good progress; besides that, + Paramon Semyonitch was taken up with reading and correspondence and his + usual discussions with the Old-believers, members of the clergy, and + Polish exiles; his health has been fairly good.... So has mine. But + yesterday! the manifesto of the 19th of February reached us! We had long + been on the look-out for it. Rumours had reached us long before of what + was being done among you in Petersburg, ... but yet I can’t describe what + it was! You know my husband well; he was not in the least changed by his + misfortune; on the contrary, he has grown even stronger and more + energetic, and has a will as strong as iron, but at this he could not + restrain himself! His hands shook as he read it; then he embraced me three + times, and three times he kissed me, tried to say something—but no! + he could not! and ended by bursting into tears, which was very astounding + to see, and suddenly he shouted, “Hurrah! hurrah! God save the Tsar!” Yes, + Piotr Petrovitch, those were his very words! Then he went on: “Now lettest + Thou Thy servant depart” ... and again: “This is the first step, others + are bound to follow it”; and, just as he was, bareheaded, ran to tell the + great news to our friends. There was a bitter frost, and even a snowstorm + coming on. I tried to prevent him, but he would not listen to me. And when + he came home, he was all covered with snow, his hair, his face, and his + beard—he has a beard right down to his chest now—and the tears + were positively frozen on his cheeks! But he was very lively and cheerful, + and told me to uncork a bottle of home-made champagne, and he drank with + our friends that he had brought back with him, to the health of the Tsar + and of Russia, and all free Russians; and taking the glass, and fixing his + eyes on the ground, he said: “Nikander, Nikander, do you hear? There are + no slaves in Russia any more! Rejoice in the grave, old comrade!” And much + more he said; to the effect that his “expectations were fulfilled!” He + said, too, that now there could be no turning back; that this was in its + way a pledge or promise.... I don’t remember everything, but it is long + since I have seen him so happy. And so I made up my mind to write to you, + so that you might know how we have been rejoicing and exulting in the + remote Siberian wilds, so that you might rejoice with us....’ + </p> + <p> + This letter I received at the end of March. At the beginning of May + another very brief letter arrived from Musa. She informed me that her + husband, Paramon Semyonitch Baburin, had taken cold on the very day of the + arrival of the manifesto, and died on the 12th of April of inflammation of + the lungs, in the 67th year of his age. She added that she intended to + remain where his body lay at rest, and to go on with the work he had + bequeathed her, since such was the last wish of Paramon Semyonitch, and + that was her only law. + </p> + <p> + Since then I have heard no more of Musa. + </p> + <h3> + PARIS, 1874. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + OLD PORTRAITS + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + About thirty miles from our village there lived, many years ago, a distant + cousin of my mother’s, a retired officer of the Guards, and rather wealthy + landowner, Alexey Sergeitch Teliegin. He lived on his estate and + birth-place, Suhodol, did not go out anywhere, and so did not visit us; + but I used to be sent, twice a year, to pay him my respects—at first + with my tutor, but later on alone. Alexey Sergeitch always gave me a very + cordial reception, and I used to stay three or four days at a time with + him. He was an old man even when I first made his acquaintance; I was + twelve, I remember, on my first visit, and he was then over seventy. He + was born in the days of the Empress Elisabeth—in the last year of + her reign. He lived alone with his wife, Malania Pavlovna; she was ten + years younger than he. They had two daughters; but their daughters had + been long married, and rarely visited Suhodol; they were not on the best + of terms with their parents, and Alexey Sergeitch hardly ever mentioned + their names. + </p> + <p> + I see, even now, the old-fashioned house, a typical manor-house of the + steppes. One story in height, with immense attics, it was built at the + beginning of this century, of amazingly thick beams of pine,—such + beams came in plenty in those days from the Zhizdrinsky pine-forests; they + have passed out of memory now! It was very spacious, and contained a great + number of rooms, rather low-pitched and dark, it is true; the windows in + the walls had been made small for the sake of greater warmth. In the usual + fashion (I ought rather to say, in what was then the usual fashion), the + offices and house-serfs’ huts surrounded the manorial house on all sides, + and the garden was close to it—a small garden, but containing fine + fruit-trees, juicy apples, and pipless pears. The flat steppe of rich, + black earth stretched for ten miles round. No lofty object for the eye; + not a tree, nor even a belfry; somewhere, maybe, jutting up, a windmill, + with rents in its sails; truly, well-named Suhodol, or Dry-flat! Inside + the house the rooms were filled with ordinary, simple furniture; somewhat + unusual was the milestone-post that stood in the window of the + drawing-room, with the following inscription:—‘If you walk + sixty-eight times round this drawing-room you will have gone a mile; if + you walk eighty-seven times from the furthest corner of the parlour to the + right-hand corner of the billiard-room, you will have gone a mile,’ and so + on. But what most of all impressed a guest at the house for the first time + was the immense collection of pictures hanging on the walls, for the most + part works of the so-called Italian masters: all old-fashioned landscapes + of a sort, or mythological and religious subjects. But all these pictures + were very dark, and even cracked with age;—in one, all that met the + eye was some patches of flesh-colour; in another, undulating red draperies + on an unseen body; or an arch which seemed to be suspended in the air; or + a dishevelled tree with blue foliage; or the bosom of a nymph with an + immense breast, like the lid of a soup-tureen; a cut water-melon, with + black seeds; a turban, with a feather in it, above a horse’s head; or the + gigantic brown leg of an apostle, suddenly thrust out, with a muscular + calf, and toes turned upwards. In the drawing-room in the place of honour + hung a portrait of the Empress Catherine II., full length; a copy of the + famous portrait by Lampi—an object of the special reverence, one + might say the adoration, of the master of the house. From the ceiling hung + glass lustres in bronze settings, very small and very dusty. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch himself was a stumpy, paunchy little old man, with a + chubby face of one uniform tint, yet pleasant, with drawn-in lips, and + very lively little eyes under high eyebrows. He wore his scanty locks + combed to the back of his head; it was only since 1812 that he had given + up wearing powder. Alexey Sergeitch invariably wore a grey ‘redingote,’ + with three capes falling over his shoulders, a striped waistcoat, + chamois-leather breeches, and high boots of dark red morocco, with + heart-shaped scallops and tassels at the tops; he wore a white muslin + cravat, a jabot, lace cuffs, and two gold English ‘turnip watches,’ one in + each pocket of his waistcoat. In his right hand he usually carried an + enamelled snuff-box full of ‘Spanish’ snuff, and his left hand leaned on a + cane with a silver-chased knob, worn smooth by long use. Alexey Sergeitch + had a little nasal, piping voice, and an invariable smile—kindly, + but, as it were, condescending, and not without a certain self-complacent + dignity. His laugh, too, was kindly—a shrill little laugh that + tinkled like glass beads. Courteous and affable he was to the last degree—in + the old-fashioned manner of the days of Catherine—and he moved his + hands with slow, rounded gestures, also in the old style. His legs were so + weak that he could not walk, but ran with hurried little steps from one + armchair to another, in which he would suddenly sit down, or rather fall + softly, like a cushion. + </p> + <p> + As I have said already, Alexey Sergeitch went out nowhere, and saw very + little of his neighbours, though he liked society, for he was very fond of + talking! It is true that he had society in plenty in his own house; + various Nikanor Nikanoritchs, Sevastiey Sevastietchs, Fedulitchs, + Miheitchs, all poor gentlemen in shabby cossack coats and camisoles, often + from the master’s wardrobe, lived under his roof, to say nothing of the + poor gentlewomen in chintz gowns, black kerchiefs thrown over their + shoulders, and worsted reticules in their tightly clenched fingers—all + sorts of Avdotia Savishnas, Pelagea Mironovnas, and plain Feklushkas and + Arinkas, who found a home in the women’s quarters. Never less than fifteen + persons sat down to Alexey Sergeitch’s table.... He was such a hospitable + man! Among all those dependants two were particularly conspicuous: a + dwarf, nicknamed Janus, or the Double-faced, of Danish—or, as some + maintained, Jewish—extraction, and the mad Prince L. Contrary to + what was customary in those days, the dwarf did nothing to amuse the + master or mistress, and was not a jester—quite the opposite; he was + always silent, had an ill-tempered and sullen appearance, and scowled and + gnashed his teeth directly a question was addressed to him. Alexey + Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and positively respected him; at table + the dishes were handed to him first, after the guests and master and + mistress. ‘God has afflicted him,’ Alexey Sergeitch used to say; ‘such is + His Divine will; but it’s not for me to afflict him further.’ ‘How is he a + philosopher?’ I asked him once. (Janus didn’t take to me; if I went near + him he would fly into a rage, and mutter thickly, ‘Stranger! keep off!’) + ‘Eh, God bless me! isn’t he a philosopher?’ answered Alexey Sergeitch. + ‘Look ye, little sir, how wisely he holds his tongue!’ ‘But why is he + double-faced?’ ‘Because, little sir, he has one face on the outside—and + so you, surface-gazers, judge him.... But the other, the real face he + hides. And that face I know, and no one else—and I love him for it + ... because that face is good. You, for instance, look and see nothing ... + but I see without a word: he is blaming me for something; for he’s a + severe critic! And it’s always with good reason. That, little sir, you + can’t understand; but you may believe an old man like me!’ The real + history of the two-faced Janus—where he came from, and how he came + into Alexey Sergeitch’s hands—no one knew; but the story of Prince + L. was well known to every one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and + distinguished family, to Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards. + At the first levee the Empress Catherine noticed him, stood still before + him, and, pointing at him with her fan, she said aloud, addressing one of + her courtiers, who happened to be near, ‘Look, Adam Vassilievitch, what a + pretty fellow! a perfect doll!’ The poor boy’s head was completely turned; + when he got home he ordered his coach out, and, putting on a ribbon of St. + Anne, proceeded to drive all over the town, as though he had reached the + pinnacle of fortune. ‘Drive over every one,’ he shouted to his coachman, + ‘who does not move out of the way!’ All this was promptly reported to the + empress: the decree went forth that he should be declared insane, and put + under the guardianship of two of his brothers; and they, without a + moment’s delay, carried him off to the country, and flung him into a stone + cell in chains. As they wanted to get the benefit of his property, they + did not let the poor wretch out, even when he had completely recovered his + balance, and positively kept him locked up till he really did go out of + his mind. But their evil doings did not prosper; Prince L. outlived his + brothers, and, after long years of adversity, he came into the charge of + Alexey Sergeitch, whose kinsman he was. He was a stout, completely bald + man, with a long, thin nose and prominent blue eyes. He had quite + forgotten how to talk—he simply uttered a sort of inarticulate + grumbling; but he sang old-fashioned Russian ballads beautifully, + preserving the silvery freshness of his voice to extreme old age; and, + while he was singing, he pronounced each word clearly and distinctly. He + had attacks at times of a sort of fury, and then he became terrible: he + would stand in the corner, with his face to the wall, and all perspiring + and red—red all down his bald head and down his neck—he used + to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with his feet, order some + one—his brothers probably—to be punished. ‘Beat ‘em!’ he + growled hoarsely, coughing and choking with laughter; ‘flog ‘em, don’t + spare ‘em! beat, beat, beat the monsters, my oppressors! That’s it! That’s + it!’ On the day before his death he greatly alarmed and astonished Alexey + Sergeitch. He came, pale and subdued, into his room, and, making him a low + obeisance, first thanked him for his care and kindness, and then asked him + to send for a priest, for death had come to him—he had seen death, + and he must forgive every one and purify his soul. ‘How did you see + death?’ muttered Alexey Sergeitch in bewilderment at hearing connected + speech from him for the first time. ‘In what shape? with a scythe?’ ‘No,’ + answered Prince L.; ‘a simple old woman in a jacket, but with only one eye + in her forehead, and that eye without an eyelid.’ And the next day Prince + L. actually did die, duly performing everything, and taking leave of every + one in a rational and affecting manner. ‘That’s just how I shall die,’ + Alexey Sergeitch would sometimes observe. And, as a fact, something of the + same sort did happen with him—but of that later. + </p> + <p> + But now let us go back to our story. Of the neighbours, as I have stated + already, Alexey Sergeitch saw little; and they did not care much for him, + called him a queer fish, stuck up, and a scoffer, and even a ‘martiniste’ + who recognised no authorities, though they had no clear idea of the + meaning of this term. To a certain extent the neighbours were right: + Alexey Sergeitch had lived in his Suhodol for almost seventy years on end, + and had had hardly anything whatever to do with the existing authorities, + with the police or the law-courts. ‘Police-courts are for the robber, and + discipline for the soldier,’ he used to say; ‘but I, thank God, am neither + robber nor soldier!’ Rather queer Alexey Sergeitch certainly was, but the + soul within him was by no means a petty one. I will tell you something + about him. + </p> + <p> + To tell the truth, I never knew what were his political opinions, if an + expression so modern can be used in reference to him; but, in his own way, + he was an aristocrat—more an aristocrat than a typical Russian + country gentleman. More than once he expressed his regret that God had not + given him a son and heir, ‘for the honour of our name, to keep up the + family.’ In his own room there hung on the wall the family-tree of the + Teliegins, with many branches, and a multitude of little circles like + apples in a golden frame. ‘We Teliegins,’ he used to say, ‘are an ancient + line, from long, long ago: however many there’ve been of us Teliegins, we + have never hung about great men’s ante-rooms; we’ve never bent our backs, + or stood about in waiting, nor picked up a living in the courts, nor run + after decorations; we’ve never gone trailing off to Moscow, nor intriguing + in Petersburg; we’ve sat at home, each in his hole, his own man on his own + land ... home-keeping birds, sir!—I myself, though I did serve in + the Guards—but not for long, thank you.’ Alexey Sergeitch preferred + the old days. ‘There was more freedom in those days, more decorum; on my + honour, I assure you! but since the year eighteen hundred’ (why from that + year, precisely, he did not explain), ‘militarism, the soldiery, have got + the upper hand. Our soldier gentlemen stuck some sort of turbans of cocks’ + feathers on their heads then, and turned like cocks themselves; began + binding their necks up as stiff as could be ... they croak, and roll their + eyes—how could they help it, indeed? The other day a police corporal + came to me; “I’ve come to you,” says he, “honourable sir,” ... (fancy his + thinking to surprise me with that! ... I know I’m honourable without his + telling me!) “I have business with you.” And I said to him, “My good sir, + you’d better first unfasten the hooks on your collar. Or else, God have + mercy on us—you’ll sneeze. Ah, what would happen to you! what would + happen to you! You’d break off, like a mushroom ... and I should have to + answer for it!” And they do drink, these military gentlemen—oh, oh, + oh! I generally order home-made champagne to be given them, because to + them, good wine or poor, it’s all the same; it runs so smoothly, so + quickly, down their throats—how can they distinguish it? And, + another thing, they’ve started sucking at a pap-bottle, smoking a + tobacco-pipe. Your military gentleman thrusts his pap-bottle under his + moustaches, between his lips, and puffs the smoke out of his nose, his + mouth, and even his ears—and fancies himself a hero! There are my + sons-in-law—though one of them’s a senator, and the other some sort + of an administrator over there—they suck the pap-bottle, and they + reckon themselves clever fellows too!’ + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch could not endure smoking; and moreover, he could not + endure dogs, especially little dogs. ‘If you’re a Frenchman, to be sure, + you may well keep a lapdog: you run and you skip about here and there, and + it runs after you with its tail up ... but what’s the use of it to people + like us?’ He was exceedingly neat and particular. Of the Empress Catherine + he never spoke but with enthusiasm, and in exalted, rather bookish + phraseology: ‘Half divine she was, not human! Only look, little sir, at + that smile,’ he would add, pointing reverentially to Lampi’s portrait, + ‘and you will agree: half divine! I was so fortunate in my life as to be + deemed worthy to behold that smile close, and never will it be effaced + from my heart!’ And thereupon he would relate anecdotes of the life of + Catherine, such as I have never happened to read or hear elsewhere. Here + is one of them. Alexey Sergeitch did not permit the slightest allusion to + the weaknesses of the great Tsaritsa. ‘And, besides,’ he exclaimed, ‘can + one judge of her as of other people?’ + </p> + <p> + One day while she was sitting in her peignoir during her morning toilette, + she commanded her hair to be combed.... And what do you think? The + lady-in-waiting passed the comb through, and sparks of electricity simply + showered out! Then she summoned to her presence the court physician + Rogerson, who happened to be in waiting at the court, and said to him: ‘I + am, I know, censured for certain actions; but do you see this electricity? + Consequently, as such is my nature and constitution, you can judge for + yourself, as you are a doctor, that it is unjust for them to censure me, + and they ought to comprehend me!’ The following incident remained + indelible in Alexey Sergeitch’s memory. He was standing one day on guard + indoors, in the palace—he was only sixteen at the time—and + behold the empress comes walking past him; he salutes ... ‘and she,’ + Alexey Sergeitch would exclaim at this point with much feeling, ‘smiling + at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me her hand to kiss and patted my + cheek, and asked me “who I was? where I came from? of what family?” and + then’ ... here the old man’s voice usually broke ... ‘then she bade me + greet my mother in her name and thank her for having brought up her + children so well. And whether I was on earth or in heaven, and how and + where she deigned to vanish, whether she floated away into the heights or + went her way into the other apartments ... to this day I do not know!’ + </p> + <p> + More than once I tried to question Alexey Sergeitch about those far-away + times, about the people who made up the empress’s circle.... But for the + most part he edged off the subject. ‘What’s the use of talking about old + times?’ he used to say ... ‘it’s only making one’s self miserable, + remembering that then one was a fine young fellow, and now one hasn’t a + tooth left in one’s head. And what is there to say? They were good old + times ... but there, enough of them! And as for those folks—you were + asking, you troublesome boy, about the lucky ones!—haven’t you seen + how a bubble comes up on the water? As long as it lasts and is whole, what + colours play upon it! Red, and blue, and yellow—a perfect rainbow or + diamond you’d say it was! Only it soon bursts, and there’s no trace of it + left. And so it was with those folks.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But how about Potiomkin?’ I once inquired. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch looked grave. ‘Potiomkin, Grigory Alexandrovitch, was a + statesman, a theologian, a pupil of Catherine’s, her cherished creation, + one must say.... But enough of that, little sir!’ + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch was a very devout man, and, though it was a great effort, + he attended church regularly. Superstition was not noticeable in him; he + laughed at omens, the evil eye, and such ‘nonsense,’ but he did not like a + hare to run across his path, and to meet a priest was not altogether + agreeable to him. For all that, he was very respectful to clerical + persons, and went up to receive their blessing, and even kissed the + priest’s hand every time, but he was not willing to enter into + conversation with them. ‘Such an extremely strong odour comes from them,’ + he explained: ‘and I, poor sinner, am fastidious beyond reason; they’ve + such long hair, and all oily, and they comb it out on all sides—they + think they show me respect by so doing, and they clear their throats so + loudly when they talk—from shyness may be, or I dare say they want + to show respect in that way too. And besides, they make one think of one’s + last hour. And, I don’t know how it is, but I still want to go on living. + Only, my little sir, don’t you repeat my words; we must respect the clergy—it’s + only fools that don’t respect them; and I’m to blame to babble nonsense in + my old age.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch, like most of the noblemen of his day, had received a + very slight education; but he had, to some extent, made good the + deficiency himself by reading. He read none but Russian books of the end + of last century; the more modern authors he thought insipid and deficient + in style.... While he read, he had placed at his side on a round, + one-legged table, a silver tankard of frothing spiced kvas of a special + sort, which sent an agreeable fragrance all over the house. He used to put + on the end of his nose a pair of big, round spectacles, but in latter + years he did not so much read as gaze dreamily over the rims of his + spectacles, lifting his eyebrows, chewing his lips, and sighing. Once I + caught him weeping with a book on his knees, greatly, I own, to my + surprise. + </p> + <p> + He had recalled these lines: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘O pitiful race of man! + Peace is unknown to thee! + Thou canst not find it save + In the dust of the grave.... + Bitter, bitter is that sleep! + Rest, rest in death ... but living weep!’ +</pre> + <p> + These lines were the composition of a certain Gormitch-Gormitsky, a + wandering poet, to whom Alexey Sergeitch had given a home in his house, as + he struck him as a man of delicate feeling and even of subtlety; he wore + slippers adorned with ribbons, spoke with a broad accent, and frequently + sighed, turning his eyes to heaven; in addition to all these + qualifications, Gormitch-Gormitsky spoke French decently, having been + educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexey Sergeitch only ‘followed + conversation.’ But having once got terribly drunk at the tavern, that same + subtle Gormitsky showed a turbulence beyond all bounds; he gave a fearful + thrashing to Alexey Sergeitch’s valet, the man cook, two laundry-maids who + chanced to get in his way, and a carpenter from another village, and he + broke several panes in the windows, screaming furiously all the while: + ‘There, I’ll show them, these Russian loafers, rough-hewn billy-goats!’ + </p> + <p> + And the strength the frail-looking creature put forth! It was hard work + for eight men to master him! For this violent proceeding Alexey Sergeitch + ordered the poet to be turned out of the house, after being put, as a + preliminary measure, in the snow—it was winter-time—to sober + him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ Alexey Sergeitch used to say, ‘my day is over; I was a spirited + steed, but I’ve run my last race now. Then, I used to keep poets at my + expense, and I used to buy pictures and books of the Jews, geese of the + best breeds, and pouter-pigeons of pure blood.... I used to go in for + everything! Though dogs I never did care for keeping, because it goes with + drinking, foulness, and buffoonery! I was a young man of spirit, not to be + outdone. That there should be anything of Teliegin’s and not first-rate + ... why, it was not to be thought of! And I had a splendid stud of horses. + And my horses came—from what stock do you think, young sir? Why, + from none other than the celebrated stables of the Tsar, Ivan Alexeitch, + brother of Peter the Great ... it’s the truth I’m telling you! All + fawn-coloured stallions, sleek—their manes to their knees, their + tails to their hoofs.... Lions! And all that was—and is buried in + the past. Vanity of vanities—and every kind of vanity! But still—why + regret it? Every man has his limits set him. There’s no flying above the + sky, no living in the water, no getting away from the earth.... We’ll live + a bit longer, anyway!’ + </p> + <p> + And the old man would smile again and sniff his Spanish snuff. + </p> + <p> + The peasants liked him; he was, in their words, a kind master, not easily + angered. Only they, too, repeated that he was a worn-out steed. In former + days Alexey Sergeitch used to go into everything himself—he used to + drive out to the fields, and to the mill, and to the dairy, and peep into + the granaries and the peasants’ huts; every one knew his racing droshky, + upholstered in crimson plush, and drawn by a tall mare, with a broad white + star all over her forehead, called ‘Beacon,’ of the same famous breed. + Alexey Sergeitch used to drive her himself, the ends of the reins crushed + up in his fists. But when his seventieth year came, the old man let + everything go, and handed over the management of the estate to the bailiff + Antip, of whom he was secretly afraid, and whom he called Micromegas (a + reminiscence of Voltaire!), or simply, plunderer. ‘Well, plunderer, what + have you to say? Have you stacked a great deal in the barn?’ he would ask + with a smile, looking straight into the plunderer’s eyes. ‘All, by your + good favour, please your honour,’ Antip would respond cheerfully. + ‘Favour’s all very well, only you mind what I say, Micromegas! don’t you + dare touch the peasants, my subjects, out of my sight! If they come to + complain ... I’ve a cane, you see, not far off!’ ‘Your cane, your honour, + Alexey Sergeitch, I always keep well in mind,’ Antip Micromegas would + respond, stroking his beard. ‘All right, don’t forget it.’ And the master + and the bailiff would laugh in each other’s faces. With the servants, and + with the serfs in general, his ‘subjects’ (Alexey Sergeitch liked that + word) he was gentle in his behaviour. ‘Because, think a little, nephew; + nothing of their own, but the cross on their neck—and that copper—and + daren’t hanker after other people’s goods ... how can one expect sense of + them?’ It is needless to state that of the so-called ‘serf question’ no + one even dreamed in those days; it could not disturb the peace of mind of + Alexey Sergeitch: he was quite happy in the possession of his ‘subjects’; + but he was severe in his censure of bad masters, and used to call them the + enemies of their order. He divided the nobles generally into three + classes: the prudent, ‘of whom there are too few’; the prodigal, ‘of whom + there are quite enough’; and the senseless, ‘of whom there are shoals and + shoals.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And if any one of them is harsh and oppressive with his subjects’—he + would say—‘then he sins against God, and is guilty before men!’ + </p> + <p> + Yes, the house-serfs had an easy life of it with the old man; the + ‘subjects out of sight’ no doubt fared worse, in spite of the cane with + which he threatened Micromegas. And what a lot there were of them, those + house-serfs, in his house! And for the most part sinewy, hairy, grumbling + old fellows, with stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen coats, + belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging to them. + And on the women’s side, one could hear nothing but the patter of bare + feet, the swish of petticoats. The chief valet was called Irinarh, and + Alexey Sergeitch always called him in a long-drawn-out call: + ‘I-ri-na-a-arh!’ The others he called: ‘Boy! Lad! Whoever’s there of the + men!’ Bells he could not endure: ‘It’s not an eating-house, God forbid!’ + And what used to surprise me was that whatever time Alexey Sergeitch + called his valet, he always promptly made his appearance, as though he had + sprung out of the earth, and with a scrape of his heels, his hands behind + his back, would stand before his master, a surly, as it were angry, but + devoted servant! + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch was liberal beyond his means; but he did not like to be + called ‘benefactor.’ ‘Benefactor to you, indeed, sir! ... I’m doing myself + a benefit, and not you, sir!’ (when he was angry or indignant, he always + addressed people with greater formality). ‘Give to a beggar once,’ he used + to say, ‘and give him twice, and three times.... And—if he should + come a fourth time, give to him still—only then you might say too: + “It’s time, my good man, you found work for something else, not only for + your mouth.”’ ‘But, uncle,’ one asked, sometimes, ‘suppose even after that + the beggar came again, a fifth time?’ ‘Oh, well, give again the fifth + time.’ He used to have the sick, who came to him for aid, treated at his + expense, though he had no faith in doctors himself, and never sent for + them. ‘My mother,’ he declared, ‘used to cure illnesses of all sorts with + oil and salt—she gave it internally, and rubbed it on too—it + always answered splendidly. And who was my mother? She was born in the + days of Peter the Great—only fancy that!’ + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch was a Russian in everything; he liked none but Russian + dishes, he was fond of Russian songs, but the harmonica—a + ‘manufactured contrivance’—he hated; he liked looking at the + serf-girls’ dances and the peasant-women’s jigs; in his youth, I was told, + he had been an enthusiastic singer and a dashing dancer; he liked steaming + himself in the bath, and steamed himself so vigorously that Irinarh, who, + serving him as bathman, used to beat him with a bundle of birch-twigs + steeped in beer, to rub him with a handful of tow, and then with a woollen + cloth—the truly devoted Irinarh used to say every time, as he crept + off his shelf red as a ‘new copper image’: ‘Well, this time I, the servant + of God, Irinarh Tolobiev, have come out alive. How will it be next time?’ + </p> + <p> + And Alexey Sergeitch spoke excellent Russian, a little old-fashioned, but + choice and pure as spring water, continually interspersing his remarks + with favourite expressions: ‘’Pon my honour, please God, howsoever that + may be, sir, and young sir....’ + </p> + <p> + But enough of him. Let us talk a little about Alexey Sergeitch’s wife, + Malania Pavlovna. Malania Pavlovna was born at Moscow. + </p> + <p> + She had been famous as the greatest beauty in Moscow—<i>la Vénus de + Moscou</i>. I knew her as a thin old woman with delicate but insignificant + features, with crooked teeth, like a hare’s, in a tiny little mouth, with + a multitude of finely crimped little yellow curls on her forehead, and + painted eyebrows. She invariably wore a pyramidal cap with pink ribbons, a + high ruff round her neck, a short white dress, and prunella slippers with + red heels; and over her dress she wore a jacket of blue satin, with a + sleeve hanging loose from her right shoulder. This was precisely the + costume in which she was arrayed on St. Peter’s Day in the year 1789! On + that day she went, being still a girl, with her relations to the Hodinskoe + field to see the famous boxing-match arranged by Orlov. ‘And Count Alexey + Grigorievitch’ (oh, how often I used to hear this story!) ‘noticing me, + approached, bowed very low, taking his hat in both hands, and said: + “Peerless beauty,” said he, “why have you hung that sleeve from your + shoulder? Do you, too, wish to try a tussle with me? ... By all means; + only I will tell you beforehand you have vanquished me—I give in! + And I am your captive.” And every one was looking at us and wondering.’ + And that very costume she had worn continually ever since. ‘Only I didn’t + wear a cap, but a hat <i>à la bergère de Trianon</i>; and though I was + powdered, yet my hair shone through it, positively shone through it like + gold!’ Malania Pavlovna was foolish to the point of ‘holy innocence,’ as + it is called; she chattered quite at random, as though she were hardly + aware herself of what dropped from her lips—and mostly about Orlov. + Orlov had become, one might say, the principal interest of her life. She + usually walked ... or rather swam, into the room with a rhythmic movement + of the head, like a peacock, stood still in the middle, with one foot + strangely turned out, and two fingers holding the tip of the loose sleeve + (I suppose this pose, too, must once have charmed Orlov); she would glance + about her with haughty nonchalance, as befits a beauty—and with a + positive sniff, and a murmur of ‘What next!’ as though some importunate + gallant were besieging her with compliments, she would go out again, + tapping her heels and shrugging her shoulders. She used, too, to take + Spanish snuff out of a tiny bonbonnière, picking it up with a tiny golden + spoon; and from time to time, especially when any one unknown to her was + present, she would hold up—not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, + but to her nose—a double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with + a coquettish turn of her little white hand, one finger held out separate + from the rest. How often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding + in the church of the Ascension, in Arbaty—such a fine church!—and + how all Moscow was there ... ‘and the crush there was!—awful! + Carriages with teams, golden coaches, outriders ... one outrider of Count + Zavadovsky got run over! and we were married by the archbishop himself—and + what a sermon he gave us! every one was crying—wherever I looked I + saw tears ... and the governor-general’s horses were tawny, like tigers. + And the flowers, the flowers that were brought! ... Simply loads of + flowers!’ And how on that day a foreigner, a wealthy, tremendously wealthy + person, had shot himself from love—and how Orlov too had been + there.... And going up to Alexey Sergeitch, he had congratulated him and + called him a lucky man.... ‘A lucky man you are, you silly fellow!’ said + he. And how in answer to these words Alexey Sergeitch had made a wonderful + bow, and had swept the floor from left to right with the plumes of his + hat, as if he would say: ‘Your Excellency, there is a line now between you + and my spouse, which you will not overstep!’ And Orlov, Alexey + Grigorievitch understood at once, and commended him. ‘Oh! that was a man! + such a man!’ And how, ‘One day, Alexis and I were at his house at a ball—I + was married then—and he had the most marvellous diamond buttons! And + I could not resist it, I admired them. “What marvellous diamonds you have, + Count!” said I. And he, taking up a knife from the table, at once cut off + a button and presented it to me and said: “In your eyes, my charmer, the + diamonds are a hundred times brighter; stand before the looking-glass and + compare them.” And I stood so, and he stood beside me. “Well, who’s + right?” said he, while he simply rolled his eyes, looking me up and down. + And Alexey Sergeitch was very much put out about it, but I said to him: + “Alexis,” said I, “please don’t you be put out; you ought to know me + better!” And he answered me: “Don’t disturb yourself, Melanie!” And these + very diamonds are now round my medallion of Alexey Grigorievitch—you’ve + seen it, I dare say, my dear;—I wear it on feast-days on a St. + George ribbon, because he was a brave hero, a knight of St. George: he + burned the Turks.’ + </p> + <p> + For all that, Malania Pavlovna was a very kind-hearted woman; she was + easily pleased. ‘She’s not one to snarl, nor to sneer,’ the maids used to + say of her. Malania Pavlovna was passionately fond of sweet things—and + a special old woman who looked after nothing but the jam, and so was + called the jam-maid, would bring her, ten times a day, a china dish with + rose-leaves crystallised in sugar, or barberries in honey, or sherbet of + bananas. Malania Pavlovna was afraid of solitude—dreadful thoughts + are apt to come over one, she would say—and was almost always + surrounded by companions, whom she would urgently implore: ‘Talk, talk! + why do you sit like that, simply keeping your seats warm!’ and they would + begin twittering like canaries. She was no less devout than Alexey + Sergeitch, and was very fond of praying; but as, in her own words, she had + never learned to repeat prayers well, she kept for the purpose a poor + deacon’s widow who prayed with such relish! Never stumbled over a word in + her life! And this deacon’s widow certainly could utter the words of + prayer in a sort of unbroken flow, not interrupting the stream to breathe + out or draw breath in, while Malania Pavlovna listened and was much moved. + She had another widow in attendance on her—it was her duty to tell + her stories in the night. ‘But only the old ones,’ Malania Pavlovna would + beg—‘those I know already; the new ones are all so far-fetched.’ + Malania Pavlovna was flighty in the extreme, and at times she was fanciful + too; some ridiculous notion would suddenly come into her head. She did not + like the dwarf, Janus, for instance; she was always fancying he would + suddenly get up and shout, ‘Don’t you know who I am? The prince of the + Buriats. Mind, you are to obey me!’ Or else that he would set fire to the + house in a fit of spleen. Malania Pavlovna was as liberal as Alexey + Sergeitch; but she never gave money—she did not like to soil her + hands—but kerchiefs, bracelets, dresses, ribbons; or she would send + pies from the table, or a piece of roast meat, or a bottle of wine. She + liked feasting the peasant-women, too, on holidays; they would dance, and + she would tap with her heels and throw herself into attitudes. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch was well aware that his wife was a fool; but almost from + the first year of his marriage he had schooled himself to keep up the + fiction that she was very witty and fond of saying cutting things. + Sometimes when her chatter began to get beyond all bounds, he would + threaten her with his finger, and say as he did so: ‘Ah, the tongue, the + tongue! what it will have to answer for in the other world! It will be + pierced with a redhot pin!’ + </p> + <p> + Malania Pavlovna was not offended, however, at this; on the contrary, she + seemed to feel flattered at hearing a reproof of that sort, as though she + would say, ‘Well! is it my fault if I’m naturally witty?’ + </p> + <p> + Malania Pavlovna adored her husband, and had been all her life an + exemplarily faithful wife; but there had been a romance even in her life—a + young cousin, an hussar, killed, as she supposed, in a duel on her + account; but, according to more trustworthy reports, killed by a blow on + the head from a billiard-cue in a tavern brawl. A water-colour portrait of + this object of her affections was kept by her in a secret drawer. Malania + Pavlovna always blushed up to her ears when she mentioned Kapiton—such + was the name of the young hero—and Alexey Sergeitch would designedly + scowl, shake his finger at his wife again, and say: ‘No trusting a horse + in the field nor a woman in the house. Don’t talk to me of Kapiton, he’s + Cupidon!’ Then Malania Pavlovna would be all of a flutter and say: + ‘Alexis, Alexis, it’s too bad of you! In your young days you flirted, I’ve + no doubt, with all sorts of misses and madams—and so now you + imagine....’ ‘Come, that’s enough, that’s enough, my dear Malania,’ Alexey + Sergeitch interrupted with a smile. ‘Your gown is white—but whiter + still your soul!’ ‘Yes, Alexis, it is whiter!’ ‘Ah, what a tongue, what a + tongue!’ Alexis would repeat, patting her hand. + </p> + <p> + To speak of ‘views’ in the case of Malania Pavlovna would be even more + inappropriate than in the case of Alexey Sergeitch; yet I once chanced to + witness a strange manifestation of my aunt’s secret feelings. In the + course of conversation I once somehow mentioned the famous chief of + police, Sheshkovsky; Malania Pavlovna turned suddenly livid—positively + livid, green, in spite of her rouge and paint—and in a thick and + perfectly unaffected voice (a very rare thing with her—she usually + minced a little, intoned, and lisped) she said: ‘Oh, what a name to utter! + And towards nightfall, too! Don’t utter that name!’ I was astonished; what + kind of significance could his name have for such a harmless and + inoffensive creature, incapable—not merely of doing—even of + thinking of anything not permissible? Anything but cheerful reflections + were aroused in me by this terror, manifesting itself after almost half a + century. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch died in his eighty-eighth year—in the year 1848, + which apparently disturbed even him. His death, too, was rather strange. + He had felt well the same morning, though by that time he never left his + easy-chair. And all of a sudden he called his wife: ‘Malania, my dear, + come here.’ ‘What is it, Alexis?’ ‘It’s time for me to die, my dear, + that’s what it is.’ ‘Mercy on you, Alexey Sergeitch! What for?’ ‘Because, + first of all, one must know when to take leave; and, besides, I was + looking the other day at my feet.... Look at my feet ... they are not mine + ... say what you like ... look at my hands, look at my stomach ... that + stomach’s not mine—so really I’m using up another man’s life. Send + for the priest; and meanwhile, put me to bed—from which I shall not + get up again.’ Malania Pavlovna was terribly upset; however, she put the + old man to bed and sent for the priest. Alexey Sergeitch confessed, took + the sacrament, said good-bye to his household, and fell asleep. Malania + Pavlovna was sitting by his bedside. ‘Alexis!’ she cried suddenly, ‘don’t + frighten me, don’t shut your eyes! Are you in pain?’ The old man looked at + his wife: ‘No, no pain ... but it’s difficult ... difficult to breathe.’ + Then after a brief silence: ‘Malania,’ he said, ‘so life has slipped by—and + do you remember when we were married ... what a couple we were?’ ‘Yes, we + were, my handsome, charming Alexis!’ The old man was silent again. + ‘Malania, my dear, shall we meet again in the next world?’ ‘I will pray + God for it, Alexis,’ and the old woman burst into tears. ‘Come, don’t cry, + silly; maybe the Lord God will make us young again then—and again we + shall be a fine pair!’ ‘He will make us young, Alexis!’ ‘With the Lord all + things are possible,’ observed Alexey Sergeitch. ‘He worketh great + marvels!—maybe He will make you sensible.... There, my love, I was + joking; come, let me kiss your hand.’ ‘And I yours.’ And the two old + people kissed each other’s hands simultaneously. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch began to grow quieter and to sink into forgetfulness. + Malania Pavlovna watched him tenderly, brushing the tears off her + eyelashes with her finger-tips. For two hours she continued sitting there. + ‘Is he asleep?’ the old woman with the talent for praying inquired in a + whisper, peeping in behind Irinarh, who, immovable as a post, stood in the + doorway, gazing intently at his expiring master. ‘He is asleep,’ answered + Malania Pavlovna also in a whisper. And suddenly Alexey Sergeitch opened + his eyes. ‘My faithful companion,’ he faltered, ‘my honoured wife, I would + bow down at your little feet for all your love and faithfulness—but + how to get up? Let me sign you with the cross.’ Malania Pavlovna moved + closer, bent down.... But the hand he had raised fell back powerless on + the quilt, and a few moments later Alexey Sergeitch was no more. + </p> + <p> + His daughters arrived only on the day of the funeral with their husbands; + they had no children either of them. Alexey Sergeitch showed them no + animosity in his will, though he never even mentioned them on his + death-bed. ‘My heart has grown hard to them,’ he once said to me. Knowing + his kindly nature, I was surprised at his words. It is hard to judge + between parents and children. ‘A great ravine starts from a little rift,’ + Alexey Sergeitch said to me once in this connection: ‘a wound a yard wide + may heal; but once cut off even a finger nail, it will not grow again.’ + </p> + <p> + I fancy the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old parents. + </p> + <p> + A month later and Malania Pavlovna too passed away. From the very day of + Alexey Sergeitch’s death she had hardly risen from her bed, and had not + put on her usual attire; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and with + Orlov’s medallion on her shoulder, only without the diamonds. Those her + daughters divided, on the pretext that the diamonds should be used in the + setting of some holy pictures; in reality, they used them to adorn their + own persons. + </p> + <p> + And so I can see my old friends as though they were alive and before my + eyes, and pleasant is the memory I preserve of them. And yet on my very + last visit to them (I was a student by then) an incident occurred which + jarred upon the impression of patriarchal harmony always produced in me by + the Teliegin household. + </p> + <p> + Among the house-serfs there was one Ivan, called ‘Suhys’ Ivan,’ a coachman + or coach-boy, as they called him on account of his small size, in spite of + his being no longer young. He was a tiny little man, brisk, snub-nosed, + curly-headed, with an everlastingly smiling, childish face, and little + eyes, like a mouse’s. He was a great joker, a most comic fellow; he was + great at all sorts of tricks—he used to fly kites, let off fireworks + and rockets, to play all sorts of games, gallop standing up on the horse’s + back, fly higher than all the rest in the swing, and could even make + Chinese shadows. No one could amuse children better; and he would gladly + spend the whole day looking after them. When he started laughing, the + whole house would seem to liven up; they would answer him—one would + say one thing, one another, but he always made them all merry.... And even + if they abused him, they could not but laugh. Ivan danced marvellously, + especially the so-called ‘fish dance.’ When the chorus struck up a dance + tune, the fellow would come into the middle of the ring, and then there + would begin such a turning and skipping and stamping, and then he would + fall flat on the ground, and imitate the movement of a fish brought out of + the water on to dry land; such turning and wriggling, the heels positively + clapped up to the head; and then he would get up and shriek—the + earth seemed simply quivering under him. At times Alexey Sergeitch, who + was, as I have said already, exceedingly fond of watching dancing, could + not resist shouting, ‘Little Vania, here! coach-boy! Dance us the fish, + smartly now’; and a minute later he would whisper enthusiastically: ‘Ah, + what a fellow it is!’ + </p> + <p> + Well, on my last visit, this Ivan Suhih came into my room, and, without + saying a word, fell on his knees. ‘Ivan, what’s the matter?’ ‘Save me, + sir.’ ‘Why, what is it?’ And thereupon Ivan told me his trouble. + </p> + <p> + He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by ‘the Suhy family for a serf of the + Teliegins’;—simply exchanged without any kind of formality or + written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys + had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch’s house + as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his origin. But + now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into other hands; + and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and oppressive man, + having learned that one of his serfs was detained without cause or reason + at Alexey Sergeitch’s, began to demand him back; in case of refusal he + threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was not an empty one, as he + was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and had great weight in the + province. Ivan had rushed in terror to Alexey Sergeitch. The old man was + sorry for his dancer, and he offered the privy councillor to buy Ivan for + a considerable sum. But the privy councillor would not hear of it; he was + a Little Russian, and obstinate as the devil. The poor fellow would have + to be given up. ‘I have spent my life here, and I’m at home here; I have + served here, here I have eaten my bread, and here I want to die,’ Ivan + said to me—and there was no smile on his face now; on the contrary, + it looked turned to stone.... ‘And now I am to go to this wretch.... Am I + a dog to be flung from one kennel to another with a noose round my neck? + ... to be told: “There, get along with you!” Save me, master; beg your + uncle, remember how I always amused you.... Or else there’ll be harm come + of it; it won’t end without sin.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What sort of sin, Ivan?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I shall kill that gentleman. I shall simply go and say to him, “Master, + let me go back; or else, mind, be careful of yourself.... I shall kill + you.”’ + </p> + <p> + If a siskin or a chaffinch could have spoken, and had begun declaring that + it would peck another bird to death, it would not have reduced me to + greater amazement than did Ivan at that moment. What! Suhys’ Vania, that + dancing, jesting, comic fellow, the favourite playfellow of children, and + a child himself, that kindest-hearted of creatures, a murderer! What + ridiculous nonsense! Not for an instant did I believe him; what astonished + me to such a degree was that he was capable of saying such a thing. Anyway + I appealed to Alexey Sergeitch. I did not repeat what Ivan had said to me, + but began asking him whether something couldn’t be done. ‘My young sir,’ + the old man answered, ‘I should be only too happy—but what’s to be + done? I offered this Little Russian an immense compensation—I + offered him three hundred roubles, ‘pon my honour, I tell you! but he—there’s + no moving him! what’s one to do? The transaction was not legal, it was + done on trust, in the old-fashioned way ... and now see what mischief’s + come of it! This Little Russian fellow, you see, will take Ivan by force, + do what we will: his arm is powerful, the governor eats cabbage-soup at + his table; he’ll be sending along soldiers. And I’m afraid of those + soldiers! In old days, to be sure, I would have stood up for Ivan, come + what might; but now, look at me, what a feeble creature I have grown! How + can I make a fight for it?’ It was true; on my last visit I found Alexey + Sergeitch greatly aged; even the centres of his eyes had that milky colour + that babies’ eyes have, and his lips wore not his old conscious smile, but + that unnatural, mawkish, unconscious grin, which never, even in sleep, + leaves the faces of very decrepit old people. + </p> + <p> + I told Ivan of Alexey Sergeitch’s decision. He stood still, was silent for + a little, shook his head. ‘Well,’ said he at last, ‘what is to be there’s + no escaping. Only my mind’s made up. There’s nothing left, then, but to + play the fool to the end. Something for drink, please!’ I gave him + something; he drank himself drunk, and that day danced the ‘fish dance’ so + that the serf-girls and peasant-women positively shrieked with delight—he + surpassed himself in his antics so wonderfully. + </p> + <p> + Next day I went home, and three months later, in Petersburg, I heard that + Ivan had kept his word. He had been sent to his new master; his master had + called him into his room, and explained to him that he would be made + coachman, that a team of three ponies would be put in his charge, and that + he would be severely dealt with if he did not look after them well, and + were not punctual in discharging his duties generally. ‘I’m not fond of + joking.’ Ivan heard the master out, first bowed down to his feet, and then + announced it was as his honour pleased, but he could not be his servant. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me off for a yearly quit-money, your honour,’ said he, ‘or send me + for a soldier; or else there’ll be mischief come of it!’ + </p> + <p> + The master flew into a rage. ‘Ah, what a fellow you are! How dare you + speak to me like that? In the first place, I’m to be called your + excellency, and not your honour; and, secondly, you’re beyond the age, and + not of a size to be sent for a soldier; and, lastly, what mischief do you + threaten me with? Do you mean to set the house on fire, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, your excellency, not the house on fire.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Murder me, then, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan was silent. ‘I’m not your servant,’ he said at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh well, I’ll show you,’ roared the master, ‘whether you ‘re my servant + or not.’ And he had Ivan cruelly punished, but yet had the three ponies + put into his charge, and made him coachman in the stables. + </p> + <p> + Ivan apparently submitted; he began driving about as coachman. As he drove + well, he soon gained favour with the master, especially as Ivan was very + quiet and steady in his behaviour, and the ponies improved so much in his + hands; he turned them out as sound and sleek as cucumbers—it was + quite a sight to see. The master took to driving out with him oftener than + with the other coachmen. Sometimes he would ask him, ‘I say, Ivan, do you + remember how badly we got on when we met? You’ve got over all that + nonsense, eh?’ But Ivan never made any response to such remarks. So one + day the master was driving with Ivan to the town in his three-horse sledge + with bells and a highback covered with carpet. The horses began to walk up + the hill, and Ivan got off the box-seat and went behind the back of the + sledge as though he had dropped something. It was a sharp frost; the + master sat wrapped up, with a beaver cap pulled down on to his ears. Then + Ivan took an axe from under his skirt, came up to the master from behind, + knocked off his cap, and saying, ‘I warned you, Piotr Petrovitch—you’ve + yourself to blame now!’ he struck off his head at one blow. Then he + stopped the ponies, put the cap on his dead master, and, getting on the + box-seat again, drove him to the town, straight to the courts of justice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s the Suhinsky general for you, dead; I have killed him. As I told + him, so I did to him. Put me in fetters.’ + </p> + <p> + They took Ivan, tried him, sentenced him to the knout, and then to hard + labour. The light-hearted, bird-like dancer was sent to the mines, and + there passed out of sight for ever.... + </p> + <p> + Yes; one can but repeat, in another sense, Alexey Sergeitch’s words: ‘They + were good old times ... but enough of them!’ + </p> + <h3> + 1881. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE BRIGADIER + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + Reader, do you know those little homesteads of country gentlefolks, which + were plentiful in our Great Russian Oukraïne twenty-five or thirty years + ago? Now one rarely comes across them, and in another ten years the last + of them will, I suppose, have disappeared for ever. The running pond + overgrown with reeds and rushes, the favourite haunt of fussy ducks, among + whom one may now and then come across a wary ‘teal’; beyond the pond a + garden with avenues of lime-trees, the chief beauty and glory of our + black-earth plains, with smothered rows of ‘Spanish’ strawberries, with + dense thickets of gooseberries, currants, and raspberries, in the midst of + which, in the languid hour of the stagnant noonday heat, one would be sure + to catch glimpses of a serf-girl’s striped kerchief, and to hear the + shrill ring of her voice. Close by would be a summer-house standing on + four legs, a conservatory, a neglected kitchen garden, with flocks of + sparrows hung on stakes, and a cat curled up on the tumble-down well; a + little further, leafy apple-trees in the high grass, which is green below + and grey above, straggling cherry-trees, pear-trees, on which there is + never any fruit; then flower-beds, poppies, peonies, pansies, milkwort, + ‘maids in green,’ bushes of Tartar honeysuckle, wild jasmine, lilac and + acacia, with the continual hum of bees and wasps among their thick, + fragrant, sticky branches. At last comes the manor-house, a one-storied + building on a brick foundation, with greenish window-panes in narrow + frames, a sloping, once painted roof, a little balcony from which the + vases of the balustrade are always jutting out, a crooked gable, and a + husky old dog in the recess under the steps at the door. Behind the house + a wide yard with nettles, wormwood, and burdocks in the corners, + outbuildings with doors that stick, doves and rooks on the thatched roofs, + a little storehouse with a rusty weathercock, two or three birch-trees + with rooks’ nests in their bare top branches, and beyond—the road + with cushions of soft dust in the ruts and a field and the long hurdles of + the hemp patches, and the grey little huts of the village, and the cackle + of geese in the far-away rich meadows.... Is all this familiar to you, + reader? In the house itself everything is a little awry, a little rickety—but + no matter. It stands firm and keeps warm; the stoves are like elephants, + the furniture is of all sorts, home-made. Little paths of white footmarks + run from the doors over the painted floors. In the hall siskins and larks + in tiny cages; in the corner of the dining-room an immense English clock + in the form of a tower, with the inscription, ‘Strike—silent’; in + the drawing-room portraits of the family, painted in oils, with an + expression of ill-tempered alarm on the brick-coloured faces, and + sometimes too an old warped picture of flowers and fruit or a mythological + subject. Everywhere there is the smell of kvas, of apples, of linseed-oil + and of leather. Flies buzz and hum about the ceiling and the windows. A + daring cockroach suddenly shows his countenance from behind the + looking-glass frame.... No matter, one can live here—and live very + well too. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Just such a homestead it was my lot to visit thirty years ago ... it was + in days long past, as you perceive. The little estate in which this house + stood belonged to a friend of mine at the university; it had only recently + come to him on the death of a bachelor cousin, and he was not living in it + himself.... But at no great distance from it there were wide tracts of + steppe bog, in which at the time of summer migration, when they are on the + wing, there are great numbers of snipe; my friend and I, both enthusiastic + sportsmen, agreed therefore to go on St. Peter’s day, he from Moscow, I + from my own village, to his little house. My friend lingered in Moscow, + and was two days late; I did not care to start shooting without him. I was + received by an old servant, Narkiz Semyonov, who had had notice of my + coming. This old servant was not in the least like ‘Savelitch’ or ‘Caleb’; + my friend used to call him in joke ‘Marquis.’ There was something of + conceit, even of affectation, about him; he looked down on us young men + with a certain dignity, but cherished no particularly respectful + sentiments for other landowners either; of his old master he spoke + slightingly, while his own class he simply scorned for their ignorance. He + could read and write, expressed himself correctly and with judgment, and + did not drink. He seldom went to church, and so was looked upon as a + dissenter. In appearance he was thin and tall, had a long and good-looking + face, a sharp nose, and overhanging eyebrows, which he was continually + either knitting or lifting; he wore a neat, roomy coat, and boots to his + knees with heart-shaped scallops at the tops. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + On the day of my arrival, Narkiz, having given me lunch and cleared the + table, stood in the doorway, looked intently at me, and with some play of + the eyebrows observed: + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you going to do now, sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, really, I don’t know. If Nikolai Petrovitch had kept his word and + come, we should have gone shooting together.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So you really expected, sir, that he would come at the time he promised?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I did.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘H’m.’ Narkiz looked at me again and shook his head as it were with + commiseration. ‘If you ‘d care to amuse yourself with reading,’ he + continued: ‘there are some books left of my old master’s; I’ll get them + you, if you like; only you won’t read them, I expect.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They’re books of no value; not written for the gentlemen of these days.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you read them?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If I hadn’t read them, I wouldn’t have spoken about them. A dream-book, + for instance ... that’s not much of a book, is it? There are others too, + of course ... only you won’t read them either.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They are religious books.’ + </p> + <p> + I was silent for a space.... Narkiz was silent too. + </p> + <p> + ‘What vexes me most,’ I began, ‘is staying in the house in such weather.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Take a walk in the garden; or go into the copse. We’ve a copse here + beyond the threshing-floor. Are you fond of fishing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are there fish here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, in the pond. Loaches, sand-eels, and perches are caught there. Now, + to be sure, the best time is over; July’s here. But anyway, you might + try.... Shall I get the tackle ready?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, do please.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll send a boy with you ... to put on the worms. Or maybe I ‘d better + come myself?’ Narkiz obviously doubted whether I knew how to set about + things properly by myself. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, please, come along.’ + </p> + <p> + Narkiz, without a word, grinned from ear to ear, then suddenly knitted his + brows ... and went out of the room. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + Half an hour later we set off to catch fish. Narkiz had put on an + extraordinary sort of cap with ears, and was more dignified than ever. He + walked in front with a steady, even step; two rods swayed regularly up and + down on his shoulders; a bare-legged boy followed him carrying a can and a + pot of worms. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here, near the dike, there’s a seat, put up on the floating platform on + purpose,’ Narkiz was beginning to explain to me, but he glanced ahead, and + suddenly exclaimed: ‘Aha! but our poor folk are here already ... they keep + it up, it seems.’ + </p> + <p> + I craned my head to look from behind him, and saw on the floating + platform, on the very seat of which he had been speaking, two persons + sitting with their backs to us; they were placidly fishing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who are they?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Neighbours,’ Narkiz responded, with displeasure. ‘They’ve nothing to eat + at home, and so here they come to us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are they allowed to?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The old master allowed them.... Nikolai Petrovitch maybe won’t give them + permission.... The long one is a superannuated deacon—quite a silly + creature; and as for the other, that’s a little stouter—he’s a + brigadier.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A brigadier?’ I repeated, wondering. This ‘brigadier’s’ attire was almost + worse than the deacon’s. + </p> + <p> + ‘I assure you he’s a brigadier. And he did have a fine property once. But + now he has only a corner given him out of charity, and he lives ... on + what God sends him. But, by the way, what are we to do? They’ve taken the + best place.... We shall have to disturb our precious visitors.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, Narkiz, please don’t disturb them. We’ll sit here a little aside; + they won’t interfere with us. I should like to make acquaintance with the + brigadier.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As you like. Only, as far as acquaintance goes ... you needn’t expect + much satisfaction from it, sir; he’s grown very weak in his head, and in + conversation he’s silly as a little child. As well he may be; he’s past + his eightieth year.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s his name?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassily Fomitch. Guskov’s his surname.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And the deacon?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The deacon? ... his nickname’s Cucumber. Every one about here calls him + so; but what his real name is—God knows! A foolish creature! A + regular ne’er-do-well.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do they live together?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; but there—the devil has tied them together, it seems.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + We approached the platform. The brigadier cast one glance upon us ... and + promptly fixed his eyes on the float; Cucumber jumped up, pulled back his + rod, took off his worn-out clerical hat, passed a trembling hand over his + rough yellow hair, made a sweeping bow, and gave vent to a feeble little + laugh. His bloated face betrayed him an inveterate drunkard; his staring + little eyes blinked humbly. He gave his neighbour a poke in the ribs, as + though to let him know that they must clear out.... The brigadier began to + move on the seat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sit still, I beg; don’t disturb yourselves,’ I hastened to say. ‘You + won’t interfere with us in the least. We’ll take up our position here; sit + still.’ + </p> + <p> + Cucumber wrapped his ragged smock round him, twitched his shoulders, his + lips, his beard.... Obviously he felt our presence oppressive and he would + have been glad to slink away, ... but the brigadier was again lost in the + contemplation of his float.... The ‘ne’er-do-weel’ coughed twice, sat down + on the very edge of the seat, put his hat on his knees, and, tucking his + bare legs up under him, he discreetly dropped in his line. + </p> + <p> + ‘Any bites?’ Narkiz inquired haughtily, as in leisurely fashion he unwound + his reel. + </p> + <p> + ‘We’ve caught a matter of five loaches,’ answered Cucumber in a cracked + and husky voice: ‘and he took a good-sized perch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, a perch,’ repeated the brigadier in a shrill pipe. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + I fell to watching closely—not him, but his reflection in the pond. + It was as clearly reflected as in a looking-glass—a little darker, a + little more silvery. The wide stretch of pond wafted a refreshing coolness + upon us; a cool breath of air seemed to rise, too, from the steep, damp + bank; and it was the sweeter, as in the dark blue, flooded with gold, + above the tree tops, the stagnant sultry heat hung, a burden that could be + felt, over our heads. There was no stir in the water near the dike; in the + shade cast by the drooping bushes on the bank, water spiders gleamed, like + tiny bright buttons, as they described their everlasting circles; at long + intervals there was a faint ripple just perceptible round the floats, when + a fish was ‘playing’ with the worm. Very few fish were taken; during a + whole hour we drew up only two loaches and an eel. I could not say why the + brigadier aroused my curiosity; his rank could not have any influence on + me; ruined noblemen were not even at that time looked upon as a rarity, + and his appearance presented nothing remarkable. Under the warm cap, which + covered the whole upper part of his head down to his ears and his + eyebrows, could be seen a smooth, red, clean-shaven, round face, with a + little nose, little lips, and small, clear grey eyes. Simplicity and + weakness of character, and a sort of long-standing, helpless sorrow, were + visible in that meek, almost childish face; the plump, white little hands + with short fingers had something helpless, incapable about them too.... I + could not conceive how this forlorn old man could once have been an + officer, could have maintained discipline, have given his commands—and + that, too, in the stern days of Catherine! I watched him; now and then he + puffed out his cheeks and uttered a feeble whistle, like a little child; + sometimes he screwed up his eyes painfully, with effort, as all decrepit + people will. Once he opened his eyes wide and lifted them.... They stared + at me from out of the depths of the water—and strangely touching and + even full of meaning their dejected glance seemed to me. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + I tried to begin a conversation with the brigadier ... but Narkiz had not + misinformed me; the poor old man certainly had become weak in his + intellect. He asked me my surname, and after repeating his inquiry twice, + pondered and pondered, and at last brought out: ‘Yes, I fancy there was a + judge of that name here. Cucumber, wasn’t there a judge about here of that + name, hey?’ ‘To be sure there was, Vassily Fomitch, your honour,’ + responded Cucumber, who treated him altogether as a child. ‘There was, + certainly. But let me have your hook; your worm must have been eaten + off.... Yes, so it is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you know the Lomov family?’ the brigadier suddenly asked me in a + cracked voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘What Lomov family is that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Fiodor Ivanitch, Yevstigney Ivanitch, Alexey Ivanitch the Jew, and + Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer, ... and then, too ...’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier suddenly broke off and looked down confused. + </p> + <p> + They were the people he was most intimate with,’ Narkiz whispered, bending + towards me; ‘it was through them, through that same Alexey Ivanitch, that + he called a Jew, and through a sister of Alexey Ivanitch’s, Agrafena + Ivanovna, as you may say, that he lost all his property.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you saying there about Agrafena Ivanovna?’ the brigadier called + out suddenly, and his head was raised, his white eyebrows were + frowning.... ‘You’d better mind! And why Agrafena, pray? Agrippina + Ivanovna—that’s what you should call her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There—there—there, sir,’ Cucumber was beginning to falter. + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t you know the verses the poet Milonov wrote about her?’ the old man + went on, suddenly getting into a state of excitement, which was a complete + surprise to me. ‘No hymeneal lights were kindled,’ he began chanting, + pronouncing all the vowels through his nose, giving the syllables ‘an,’ + ‘en,’ the nasal sound they have in French; and it was strange to hear this + connected speech from his lips: ‘No torches ... No, that’s not it: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Not vain Corruption’s idols frail + Not amaranth nor porphyry + Rejoiced their hearts ... + One thing in them ...” + </pre> + <p> + ‘That was about us. Do you hear? + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “One thing in them unquenchable, + Subduing, sweet, desirable, + To nurse their mutual flame in love!” + </pre> + <p> + And you talk about Agrafena!’ + </p> + <p> + Narkiz chuckled half-contemptuously, half-indifferently. ‘What a queer + fish it is!’ he said to himself. But the brigadier had again relapsed into + dejection, the rod had dropped from his hands and slipped into the water. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + ‘Well, to my thinking, our fishing is a poor business,’ observed Cucumber; + ‘the fish, see, don’t bite at all. It’s got fearfully hot, and there’s a + fit of “mencholy” come over our gentleman. It’s clear we must be going + home; that will be best.’ He cautiously drew out of his pocket a tin + bottle with a wooden stopper, uncorked it, scattered snuff on his wrist, + and sniffed it up in both nostrils at once.... ‘Ah, what good snuff!’ he + moaned, as he recovered himself. ‘It almost made my tooth ache! Now, my + dear Vassily Fomitch, get up—it’s time to be off!’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier got up from the bench. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you live far from here?’ I asked Cucumber. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, our gentleman lives not far ... it won’t be as much as a mile.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you allow me to accompany you?’ I said, addressing the brigadier. I + felt disinclined to let him go. + </p> + <p> + Narkiz was surprised at my intention; but I paid no attention to the + disapproving shake of his long-eared cap, and walked out of the garden + with the brigadier, who was supported by Cucumber. The old man moved + fairly quickly, with a motion as though he were on stilts. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX + </h2> + <p> + We walked along a scarcely trodden path, through a grassy glade between + two birch copses. The sun was blazing; the orioles called to each other in + the green thicket; corncrakes chattered close to the path; blue + butterflies fluttered in crowds about the white, and red flowers of the + low-growing clover; in the perfectly still grass bees hung, as though + asleep, languidly buzzing. Cucumber seemed to pull himself together, and + brightened up; he was afraid of Narkiz—he lived always under his + eye; I was a stranger—a new comer—with me he was soon quite at + home. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s our gentleman,’ he said in a rapid flow; ‘he’s a small eater and + no mistake! but only one perch, is that enough for him? Unless, your + honour, you would like to contribute something? Close here round the + corner, at the little inn, there are first-rate white wheaten rolls. And + if so, please your honour, this poor sinner, too, will gladly drink on + this occasion to your health, and may it be of long years and long days.’ + I gave him a little silver, and was only just in time to pull away my + hand, which he was falling upon to kiss. He learned that I was a + sportsman, and fell to talking of a very good friend of his, an officer, + who had a ‘Mindindenger’ Swedish gun, with a copper stock, just like a + cannon, so that when you fire it off you are almost knocked senseless—it + had been left behind by the French—and a dog—simply one of + Nature’s marvels! that he himself had always had a great passion for the + chase, and his priest would have made no trouble about it—he used in + fact to catch quails with him—but the ecclesiastical superior had + pursued him with endless persecution; ‘and as for Narkiz Semyonitch,’ he + observed in a sing-song tone, ‘if according to his notions I’m not a + trustworthy person—well, what I say is: he’s let his eyebrows grow + till he’s like a woodcock, and he fancies all the sciences are known to + him.’ By this time we had reached the inn, a solitary tumble-down, + one-roomed little hut without backyard or outbuildings; an emaciated dog + lay curled up under the window; a hen was scratching in the dust under his + very nose. Cucumber sat the brigadier down on the bank, and darted + instantly into the hut. While he was buying the rolls and emptying a + glass, I never took my eyes off the brigadier, who, God knows why, struck + me as something of an enigma. In the life of this man—so I mused—there + must certainly have been something out of the ordinary. But he, it seemed, + did not notice me at all. He was sitting huddled up on the bank, and + twisting in his fingers some pinks which he had gathered in my friend’s + garden. Cucumber made his appearance, at last, with a bundle of rolls in + his hand; he made his appearance, all red and perspiring, with an + expression of gleeful surprise on his face, as though he had just seen + something exceedingly agreeable and unexpected. He at once offered the + brigadier a roll to eat, and the latter at once ate it. We proceeded on + our way. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + On the strength of the spirits he had drunk, Cucumber quite ‘unbent,’ as + it is called. He began trying to cheer up the brigadier, who was still + hurrying forward with a tottering motion as though he were on stilts. ‘Why + are you so downcast, sir, and hanging your head? Let me sing you a song. + That’ll cheer you up in a minute.’ He turned to me: ‘Our gentleman is very + fond of a joke, mercy on us, yes! Yesterday, what did I see?—a + peasant-woman washing a pair of breeches on the platform, and a great fat + woman she was, and he stood behind her, simply all of a shake with + laughter—yes, indeed! ... In a minute, allow me: do you know the + song of the hare? You mustn’t judge me by my looks; there’s a gypsy woman + living here in the town, a perfect fright, but sings—‘pon my soul! + one’s ready to lie down and die.’ He opened wide his moist red lips and + began singing, his head on one side, his eyes shut, and his beard + quivering: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘The hare beneath the bush lies still, + The hunters vainly scour the hill; + The hare lies hid and holds his breath, + His ears pricked up, he lies there still + Waiting for death. + O hunters! what harm have I done, + To vex or injure you? Although + Among the cabbages I run, + One leaf I nibble—only one, + And that’s not yours! + Oh, no!’ +</pre> + <p> + Cucumber went on with ever-increasing energy: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Into the forest dark he fled, + His tail he let the hunters see; + “Excuse me, gentlemen,” says he, + “That so I turn my back on you— + I am not yours!”’ +</pre> + <p> + Cucumber was not singing now ... he was bellowing: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘The hunters hunted day and night, + And still the hare was out of sight. + So, talking over his misdeeds, + They ended by disputing quite— + Alas, the hare is not for us! + The squint-eye is too sharp for us!’ +</pre> + <p> + The first two lines of each stanza Cucumber sang with each syllable drawn + out; the other three, on the contrary, very briskly, and accompanied them + with little hops and shuffles of his feet; at the conclusion of each verse + he cut a caper, in which he kicked himself with his own heels. As he + shouted at the top of his voice: ‘The squint-eye is too sharp for us!’ he + turned a somersault.... His expectations were fulfilled. The brigadier + suddenly went off into a thin, tearful little chuckle, and laughed so + heartily that he could not go on, and stayed still in a half-sitting + posture, helplessly slapping his knees with his hands. I looked at his + face, flushed crimson, and convulsively working, and felt very sorry for + him at that instant especially. Encouraged by his success, Cucumber fell + to capering about in a squatting position, singing the refrain of: + ‘Shildi-budildi!’ and ‘Natchiki-tchikaldi!’ He stumbled at last with his + nose in the dust.... The brigadier suddenly ceased laughing and hobbled + on. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI + </h2> + <p> + We went on another quarter of a mile. A little village came into sight on + the edge of a not very deep ravine; on one side stood the ‘lodge,’ with a + half-ruined roof and a solitary chimney; in one of the two rooms of this + lodge lived the brigadier. The owner of the village, who always resided in + Petersburg, the widow of the civil councillor Lomov, had—so I + learned later—bestowed this little nook upon the brigadier. She had + given orders that he should receive a monthly pension, and had also + assigned for his service a half-witted serf-girl living in the same + village, who, though she barely understood human speech, was yet capable, + in the lady’s opinion, of sweeping a floor and cooking cabbage-soup. At + the door of the lodge the brigadier again addressed me with the same + eighteenth-century smile: would I be pleased to walk into his + ‘apartement’? We went into this ‘apartement.’ Everything in it was + exceedingly filthy and poor, so filthy and so poor that the brigadier, + noticing, probably, by the expression of my face, the impression it made + on me, observed, shrugging his shoulders, and half closing his eyelids: + ‘Ce n’est pas ... oeil de perdrix.’ ... What precisely he meant by this + remained a mystery to me.... When I addressed him in French, I got no + reply from him in that language. Two objects struck me especially in the + brigadier’s abode: a large officer’s cross of St. George in a black frame, + under glass, with an inscription in an old-fashioned handwriting: + ‘Received by the Colonel of the Tchernigov regiment, Vassily Guskov, for + the storming of Prague in the year 1794’; and secondly, a half-length + portrait in oils of a handsome, black-eyed woman with a long, dark face, + hair turned up high and powdered, with postiches on the temple and chin, + in a flowered, low-cut bodice, with blue frills, the style of 1780. The + portrait was badly painted, but was probably a good likeness; there was a + wonderful look of life and will, something extraordinarily living and + resolute, about the face. It was not looking at the spectator; it was, as + it were, turning away and not smiling; the curve of the thin nose, the + regular but flat lips, the almost unbroken straight line of the thick + eyebrows, all showed an imperious, haughty, fiery temper. No great effort + was needed to picture that face glowing with passion or with rage. Just + below the portrait on a little pedestal stood a half-withered bunch of + simple wild flowers in a thick glass jar. The brigadier went up to the + pedestal, stuck the pinks he was carrying into the jar, and turning to me, + and lifting his hand in the direction of the portrait, he observed: + ‘Agrippina Ivanovna Teliegin, by birth Lomov.’ The words of Narkiz came + back to my mind; and I looked with redoubled interest at the expressive + and evil face of the woman for whose sake the brigadier had lost all his + fortune. + </p> + <p> + ‘You took part, I see, sir, in the storming of Prague,’ I began, pointing + to the St. George cross, ‘and won a sign of distinction, rare at any time, + but particularly so then; you must remember Suvorov?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Alexander Vassilitch?’ the brigadier answered, after a brief silence, in + which he seemed to be pulling his thoughts together; ‘to be sure, I + remember him; he was a little, brisk old man. Before one could stir a + finger, he’d be here and there and everywhere (the brigadier chuckled). He + rode into Warsaw on a Cossack horse; he was all in diamonds, and he says + to the Poles: “I’ve no watch, I forgot it in Petersburg—no watch!” + and they shouted and huzzaed for him. Queer chaps! Hey! Cucumber! lad!’ he + added suddenly, changing and raising his voice (the deacon-buffoon had + remained standing at the door), ‘where’s the rolls, eh? And tell Grunka + ... to bring some kvas!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Directly, your honour,’ I heard Cucumber’s voice reply. He handed the + brigadier the bundle of rolls, and, going out of the lodge, approached a + dishevelled creature in rags—the half-witted girl, Grunka, I suppose—and + as far as I could make out through the dusty little window, proceeded to + demand kvas from her—at least, he several times raised one hand like + a funnel to his mouth, and waved the other in our direction. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII + </h2> + <p> + I made another attempt to get into conversation with the brigadier; but he + was evidently tired: he sank, sighing and groaning, on the little couch, + and moaning, ‘Oy, oy, my poor bones, my poor bones,’ untied his garters. I + remember I wondered at the time how a man came to be wearing garters. I + did not realise that in former days every one wore them. The brigadier + began yawning with prolonged, unconcealed yawns, not taking his drowsy + eyes off me all the time; so very little children yawn. The poor old man + did not even seem quite to understand my question.... And he had taken + Prague! He, sword in hand, in the smoke and the dust—at the head of + Suvorov’s soldiers, the bullet-pierced flag waving above him, the hideous + corpses under his feet.... He ... he! Wasn’t it wonderful! But yet I could + not help fancying that there had been events more extraordinary in the + brigadier’s life. Cucumber brought white kvas in an iron jug; the + brigadier drank greedily—his hands shook. Cucumber supported the + bottom of the jug. The old man carefully wiped his toothless mouth with + both hands—and again staring at me, fell to chewing and munching his + lips. I saw how it was, bowed, and went out of the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now he’ll have a nap,’ observed Cucumber, coming out behind me. ‘He’s + terribly knocked up to-day—he went to the grave early this morning.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To whose grave?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To Agrafena Ivanovna’s, to pay his devotions.... She is buried in our + parish cemetery here; it’ll be four miles from here. Vassily Fomitch + visits it every week without fail. Indeed, it was he who buried her and + put the fence up at his own expense.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Has she been dead long?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, let’s think—twenty years about.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was she a friend of his, or what?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Her whole life, you may say, she passed with him ... really. I myself, I + must own, never knew the lady, but they do say ... what there was between + them ... well, well, well! Sir,’ the deacon added hurriedly, seeing I had + turned away, ‘wouldn’t you like to give me something for another drop, for + it’s time I was home in my hut and rolled up in my blanket?’ + </p> + <p> + I thought it useless to question Cucumber further, so gave him a few + coppers, and set off homewards. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII + </h2> + <p> + At home I betook myself for further information to Narkiz. He, as I might + have anticipated, was somewhat unapproachable, stood a little on his + dignity, expressed his surprise that such paltry matters could ‘interest’ + me, and, finally, told me what he knew. I heard the following details. + </p> + <p> + Vassily Fomitch Guskov had become acquainted with Agrafena Ivanovna + Teliegin at Moscow soon after the suppression of the Polish insurrection; + her husband had had a post under the governor-general, and Vassily Fomitch + was on furlough. He fell in love with her there and then, but did not + leave the army at once; he was a man of forty with no family, with a + fortune. Her husband soon after died. She was left without children, poor, + and in debt.... Vassily Fomitch heard of her position, threw up the + service (he received the rank of brigadier on his retirement) and sought + out his charming widow, who was not more than five-and-twenty, paid all + her debts, redeemed her estate.... From that time he had never parted from + her, and finished by living altogether in her house. She, too, seems to + have cared for him, but would not marry him. ‘She was froward, the + deceased lady,’ was Narkiz’s comment on this: ‘My liberty,’ she would say, + ‘is dearer to me than anything.’ But as for making use of him—she + made use of him ‘in every possible way,’ and whatever money he had, he + dragged to her like an ant. But the frowardness of Agrafena Ivanovna at + times assumed extreme proportions; she was not of a mild temper, and + somewhat too ready with her hands.... Once she pushed her page-boy down + the stairs, and he went and broke two of his ribs and one leg.... Agrafena + Ivanovna was frightened ... she promptly ordered the page to be shut up in + the lumber-room, and she did not leave the house nor give up the key of + the room to any one, till the moans within had ceased.... The page was + secretly buried.... ‘And had it been in the Empress Catherine’s time,’ + Narkiz added in a whisper, bending down, ‘maybe the affair would have + ended there—many such deeds were hidden under a bushel in those + days, but as ...’ here Narkiz drew himself up and raised his voice:’ as + our righteous Tsar Alexander the Blessed was reigning then ... well, a + fuss was made.... A trial followed, the body was dug up ... signs of + violence were found on it ... and a great to-do there was. And what do you + think? Vassily Fomitch took it all on himself. “I,” said he, “am + responsible for it all; it was I pushed him down, and I too shut him up.” + Well, of course, all the judges then, and the lawyers and the police ... + fell on him directly ... fell on him and never let him go ... I can assure + you ... till the last farthing was out of his purse. They’d leave him in + peace for a while, and then attack him again. Down to the very time when + the French came into Russia they were worrying at him, and only dropped + him then. Well, he managed to provide for Agrafena Ivanovna—to be + sure, he saved her—that one must say. Well, and afterwards, up to + her death, indeed, he lived with her, and they do say she led him a pretty + dance—the brigadier, that is; sent him on foot from Moscow into the + country—by God, she did—to get her rents in, I suppose. It was + on her account, on account of this same Agrafena Ivanovna—he fought + a duel with the English milord Hugh Hughes; and the English milord was + forced to make a formal apology too. But later on the brigadier went down + hill more and more.... Well, and now he can’t be reckoned a man at all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who was that Alexey Ivanitch the Jew,’ I asked, ‘through whom he was + brought to ruin?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, the brother of Agrafena Ivanovna. A grasping creature, Jewish indeed. + He lent his sister money at interest, and Vassily Fomitch was her + security. He had to pay for it too ... pretty heavily!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer—who was she?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Her sister too ... and a sharp one too, as sharp as a lance. A terrible + woman!’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV + </h2> + <p> + ‘What a place to find a Werter!’ I thought next day, as I set off again + towards the brigadier’s dwelling. I was at that time very young, and that + was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting nature + of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story I had + heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make him talk + freely. ‘I’ll first refer to Suvorov again,’ so I resolved within myself; + ‘there must be some spark of his former fire hidden within him still ... + and then, when he’s warmed up, I’ll turn the conversation on that ... + what’s her name? ... Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer name for a “Charlotte”—Agrafena!’ + </p> + <p> + I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few + steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut, + overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut + some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly slipping + and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort of green + stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just pulled a + young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm ‘to clean + it,’ proceeded to chew its thin tail.... I bowed to him, and inquired + after his health. + </p> + <p> + He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting—that + is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off + munching the carrot. + </p> + <p> + ‘You didn’t go fishing to-day?’ I began, in the hope of recalling myself + to his memory by this question. + </p> + <p> + ‘To-day?’ he repeated and pondered ... while the carrot, stuck into his + mouth, grew shorter and shorter. ‘Why, I suppose it’s Cucumber fishing! + ... But I’m allowed to, too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course, of course, most honoured Vassily Fomitch.... I didn’t mean + that.... But aren’t you hot ... like this in the sun.’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier was wearing a thick wadded dressing-gown. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh? Hot?’ he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and, + having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards. + </p> + <p> + ‘Would you care to step into my apartement?’ he said suddenly. The poor + old man had, it seemed, only this phrase still left him always at his + disposal. + </p> + <p> + We went out of the kitchen-garden ... but there involuntarily I stopped + short. Between us and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to + the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily and + furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the dust + up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his tail, + and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly, and + bellowed—not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time menacingly. + I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped forward with + perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, ‘Now then, country + bumpkin,’ shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again, bowed his + horns ... suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging his head from + side to side. + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s no doubt he took Prague,’ I thought. + </p> + <p> + We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which + was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, ‘Fa!’ ... squatted down on the + edge of a chair ... bowed his head gloomily.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,’ I began my diplomatic approaches, + ‘because, as you have served under the leadership of the great Suvorov—have + taken part altogether in such important events—it would be very + interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier stared at me.... His face kindled strangely—I began to + expect, if not a story, at least some word of approval, of sympathy.... + </p> + <p> + ‘But I, sir, must be going to die soon,’ he said in an undertone. + </p> + <p> + I was utterly nonplussed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Vassily Fomitch, ‘I brought out at last, ‘what makes you ... suppose + that?’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier suddenly flung his arms violently up and down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Because, sir ... I, as maybe you know ... often in my dreams see + Agrippina Ivanovna—Heaven’s peace be with her!—and never can I + catch her; I am always running after her—but cannot catch her. But + last night—I dreamed—she was standing, as it were, before me, + half-turned away, and laughing.... I ran up to her at once and caught her + ... and she seemed to turn round quite and said to me: “Well, Vassinka, + now you have caught me.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you conclude from that, Vassily Fomitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, sir, I conclude: it has come, that we shall be together. And glory + to God for it, I tell you; glory be to God Almighty, the Father, the Son, + and the Holy Ghost (the brigadier fell into a chant): as it was in the + beginning, is now and ever shall be, Amen!’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier began crossing himself. I could get nothing more out of him, + so I went away. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV + </h2> + <p> + The next day my friend arrived.... I mentioned the brigadier, and my + visits to him.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes! of course! I know his story,’ answered my friend; ‘I know Madame + Lomov very well, the privy councillor’s widow, by whose favour he obtained + a home here. Oh, wait a minute; I believe there must be preserved here his + letter to the privy councillor’s widow; it was on the strength of that + letter that she assigned him his little cot.’ My friend rummaged among his + papers and actually found the brigadier’s letter. Here it is word for + word, with the omission of the mistakes in spelling. The brigadier, like + every one of his epoch, was a little hazy in that respect. But to preserve + these errors seemed unnecessary; his letter bears the stamp of his age + without them. + </p> + <p> + ‘HONOURED MADAM, RAÏSSA PAVLOVNA!—On the decease of my friend, and + your aunt, I had the happiness of addressing to you two letters, the first + on the first of June, the second on the sixth of July of the year 1815, + while she expired on the sixth of May in that year; in them I discovered + to you the feelings of my soul and of my heart, which were crushed under + deadly wrongs, and they reflected in full my bitter despair, in truth + deserving of commiseration; both letters were despatched by the imperial + mail registered, and hence I cannot conceive that they have not been + perused by your eye. By the genuine candour of my letters, I had counted + upon winning your benevolent attention; but the compassionate feelings of + your heart were far removed from me in my woe! Left on the loss of my one + only friend, Agrippina Ivanovna, in the most distressed and + poverty-stricken circumstances, I rested, by her instructions, all my + hopes on your bounty; she, aware of her end approaching, said to me in + these words, as it were from the grave, and never can I forget them: “My + friend, I have been your serpent, and am guilty of all your unhappiness. I + feel how much you have sacrificed for me, and in return I leave you in a + disastrous and truly destitute situation; on my death have recourse to + Raïssa Pavlovna”—that is, to you—“and implore her aid, invite + her succour! She has a feeling heart, and I have confidence in her, that + she will not leave you forlorn.” Honoured madam, let me call to witness + the all-high Creator of the world that those were her words, and I am + speaking with her tongue; and, therefore, trusting firmly in your + goodness, to you first of all I addressed myself with my open-hearted and + candid letters; but after protracted expectation, receiving no reply to + them, I could not conceive otherwise than that your benevolent heart had + left me without attention! Such your unfavourable disposition towards me, + reduced me to the depths of despair—whither, and to whom, was I to + turn in my misfortune I knew not; my soul was troubled, my intellect went + astray; at last, for the completion of my ruin, it pleased Providence to + chastise me in a still more cruel manner, and to turn my thoughts to your + deceased aunt, Fedulia Ivanovna, sister of Agrippina Ivanovna, one in + blood, but not one in heart! Having present to myself, before my mind’s + eye, that I had been for twenty years devoted to the whole family of your + kindred, the Lomovs, especially to Fedulia Ivanovna, who never called + Agrippina Ivanovna otherwise than “my heart’s precious treasure,” and me + “the most honoured and zealous friend of our family”; picturing all the + above, among abundant tears and sighs in the stillness of sorrowful night + watches, I thought: “Come, brigadier! so, it seems, it is to be!” and, + addressing myself by letter to the said Fedulia Ivanovna, I received a + positive assurance that she would share her last crumb with me! The + presents sent on by me, more than five hundred roubles’ worth in value, + were accepted with supreme satisfaction; and afterwards the money too + which I brought with me for my maintenance, Fedulia Ivanovna was pleased, + on the pretext of guarding it, to take into her care, to the which, to + gratify her, I offered no opposition. + </p> + <p> + If you ask me whence, and on what ground I conceived such confidence—to + the above, madam, there is but one reply: she was sister of Agrippina + Ivanovna, and a member of the Lomov family! But alas and alas! all the + money aforesaid I was very soon deprived of, and the hopes which I had + rested on Fedulia Ivanovna—that she would share her last crumb with + me—turned out to be empty and vain; on the contrary, the said + Fedulia Ivanovna enriched herself with my property. To wit, on her saint’s + day, the fifth of February, I brought her fifty roubles’ worth of green + French material, at five roubles the yard; I myself received of all that + was promised five roubles’ worth of white piqué for a waistcoat and a + muslin handkerchief for my neck, which gifts were purchased in my + presence, as I was aware, with my own money—and that was all that I + profited by Fedulia Ivanovna’s bounty! So much for the last crumb! And I + could further, in all sincerity, disclose the malignant doings of Fedulia + Ivanovna to me; and also my expenses, exceeding all reason, as, among the + rest, for sweetmeats and fruits, of which Fedulia Ivanovna was exceedingly + fond;—but upon all this I am silent, that you may not take such + disclosures against the dead in bad part; and also, seeing that God has + called her before His judgment seat—and all that I suffered at her + hands is blotted out from my heart—and I, as a Christian, forgave + her long ago, and pray to God to forgive her! + </p> + <p> + ‘But, honoured madam, Raïssa Pavlovna! Surely you will not blame me for + that I was a true and loyal friend of your family, and that I loved + Agrippina Ivanovna with a love so great and so insurmountable that I + sacrificed to her my life, my honour, and all my fortune! that I was + utterly in her hands, and hence could not dispose of myself nor of my + property, and she disposed at her will of me and also of my estate! It is + known to you also that, owing to her action with her servant, I suffer, + though innocent, a deadly wrong—this affair I brought after her + death before the senate, before the sixth department—it is still + unsettled now—in consequence of which I was made accomplice with + her, my estate put under guardianship, and I am still lying under a + criminal charge! In my position, at my age, such disgrace is intolerable + to me; and it is only left me to console my heart with the mournful + reflection that thus, even after Agrippina Ivanovna’s death, I suffer for + her sake, and so prove my immutable love and loyal gratitude to her! + </p> + <p> + ‘In my letters, above mentioned, to you, I gave you an account with every + detail of Agrippina Ivanovna’s funeral, and what masses were read for her—my + affection and love for her spared no outlay! For all the aforesaid, and + for the forty days’ requiems, and the reading of the psalter six weeks + after for her (in addition to above, fifty roubles of mine were lost, + which were given as security for payment for the stone, of which I sent + you a description)—on all the aforesaid was spent of my money seven + hundred and fifty roubles, in which is included, by way of donation to the + church, a hundred and fifty roubles. + </p> + <p> + ‘In the goodness of your heart, hear the cry of a desperate man, crushed + beneath a load of the crudest calamities! Only your commiseration and + humanity can restore the life of a ruined man! Though living—in the + suffering of my heart and soul I am as one dead; dead when I think what I + was, and what I am; I was a soldier, and served my country in all fidelity + and uprightness, as is the bounden duty of a loyal Russian and faithful + subject, and was rewarded with the highest honours, and had a fortune + befitting my birth and station; and now I must cringe and beg for a morsel + of dry bread; dead above all I am when I think what a friend I have lost + ... and what is life to me after that? But there is no hastening one’s + end, and the earth will not open, but rather seems turned to stone! And so + I call upon you, in the benevolence of your heart, hush the talk of the + people, do not expose yourself to universal censure, that for all my + unbounded devotion I have not where to lay my head; confound them by your + bounty to me, turn the tongues of the evil speakers and slanderers to + glorifying your good works—and I make bold in all humility to add, + comfort in the grave your most precious aunt, Agrippina Ivanovna, who can + never be forgotten, and who for your speedy succour, in answer to my + sinful prayers, will spread her protecting wings about your head, and + comfort in his declining days a lonely old man, who had every reason to + expect a different fate! ... And, with the most profound respect, I have + the honour to be, dear madam, your most devoted servant, + </p> + <h3> + VASSILY GUSKOV, + </h3> + <p> + <i>Brigadier and cavalier.</i>’ + </p> + <p> + Several years later I paid another visit to my friend’s little place.... + Vassily Fomitch had long been dead; he died soon after I made his + acquaintance. Cucumber was still flourishing. He conducted me to the tomb + of Agrafena Ivanovna. An iron railing enclosed a large slab with a + detailed and enthusiastically laudatory epitaph on the deceased woman; and + there, beside it, as it were at her feet, could be seen a little mound + with a slanting cross on it; the servant of God, the brigadier and + cavalier, Vassily Guskov, lay under this mound.... His ashes found rest at + last beside the ashes of the creature he had loved with such unbounded, + almost undying, love. + </p> + <h3> + 1867. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PYETUSHKOV + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + In the year 182- ... there was living in the town of O—— the + lieutenant Ivan Afanasiitch Pyetushkov. He was born of poor parents, was + left an orphan at five years old, and came into the charge of a guardian. + Thanks to this guardian, he found himself with no property whatever; he + had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. He was of medium height, and + stooped a little; he had a thin face, covered with freckles, but rather + pleasing; light brown hair, grey eyes, and a timid expression; his low + forehead was furrowed with fine wrinkles. Pyetushkov’s whole life had been + uneventful in the extreme; at close upon forty he was still youthful and + inexperienced as a child. He was shy with acquaintances, and exceedingly + mild in his manner with persons over whose lot he could have exerted + control.... + </p> + <p> + People condemned by fate to a monotonous and cheerless existence often + acquire all sorts of little habits and preferences. Pyetushkov liked to + have a new white roll with his tea every morning. He could not do without + this dainty. But behold one morning his servant, Onisim, handed him, on a + blue-sprigged plate, instead of a roll, three dark red rusks. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov at once asked his servant, with some indignation, what he meant + by it. + </p> + <p> + ‘The rolls have all been sold out,’ answered Onisim, a native of + Petersburg, who had been flung by some queer freak of destiny into the + very wilds of south Russia. + </p> + <p> + ‘Impossible!’ exclaimed Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sold out,’ repeated Onisim; ‘there’s a breakfast at the Marshal’s, so + they’ve all gone there, you know.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim waved his hand in the air, and thrust his right foot forward. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch walked up and down the room, dressed, and set off himself + to the baker’s shop. This establishment, the only one of the kind in the + town of O——, had been opened ten years before by a German + immigrant, had in a short time begun to flourish, and was still + flourishing under the guidance of his widow, a fat woman. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov tapped at the window. The fat woman stuck her unhealthy, + flabby, sleepy countenance out of the pane that opened. + </p> + <p> + ‘A roll, if you please,’ Pyetushkov said amiably. + </p> + <p> + ‘The rolls are all gone,’ piped the fat woman. + </p> + <p> + ‘Haven’t you any rolls?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How’s that?—really! I take rolls from you every day, and pay for + them regularly.’ + </p> + <p> + The woman stared at him in silence. ‘Take twists,’ she said at last, + yawning; ‘or a scone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t like them,’ said Pyetushkov, and he felt positively hurt. + </p> + <p> + ‘As you please,’ muttered the fat woman, and she slammed to the + window-pane. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch was quite unhinged by his intense vexation. In his + perturbation he crossed to the other side of the street, and gave himself + up entirely, like a child, to his displeasure. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sir!’ ... he heard a rather agreeable female voice; ‘sir!’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch raised his eyes. From the open pane of the bakehouse + window peeped a girl of about seventeen, holding a white roll in her hand. + She had a full round face, rosy cheeks, small hazel eyes, rather a turn-up + nose, fair hair, and magnificent shoulders. Her features suggested + good-nature, laziness, and carelessness. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s a roll for you, sir,’ she said, laughing, ‘I’d taken for myself; + but take it, please, I’ll give it up to you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thank you most sincerely. Allow me ...’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov began fumbling in his pocket. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no! you are welcome to it.’ + </p> + <p> + She closed the window-pane. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov arrived home in a perfectly agreeable frame of mind. + </p> + <p> + ‘You couldn’t get any rolls,’ he said to his Onisim; ‘but here, I’ve got + one, do you see?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim gave a bitter laugh. + </p> + <p> + The same day, in the evening, as Ivan Afanasiitch was undressing, he asked + his servant, ‘Tell me, please, my lad, what’s the girl like at the + baker’s, hey?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked away rather gloomily, and responded, ‘What do you want to + know for?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Pyetushkov, taking off his boots with his own hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, she’s a fine girl!’ Onisim observed condescendingly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, ... she’s not bad-looking,’ said Ivan Afanasiitch, also looking + away. ‘And what’s her name, do you know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And do you know her?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim did not answer for a minute or two. + </p> + <p> + ‘We know her.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was on the point of opening his mouth again, but he turned over + on the other side and fell asleep. + </p> + <p> + Onisim went out into the passage, took a pinch of snuff, and gave his head + a violent shake. + </p> + <p> + The next day, early in the morning, Pyetushkov called for his clothes. + Onisim brought him his everyday coat—an old grass-coloured coat, + with huge striped epaulettes. Pyetushkov gazed a long while at Onisim + without speaking, then told him to bring him his new coat. Onisim, with + some surprise, obeyed. Pyetushkov dressed, and carefully drew on his + chamois-leather gloves. + </p> + <p> + ‘You needn’t go to the baker’s to-day,’ said he with some hesitation; ‘I’m + going myself, ... it’s on my way.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sir,’ responded Onisim, as abruptly as if some one had just given + him a shove from behind. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov set off, reached the baker’s shop, tapped at the window. The + fat woman opened the pane. + </p> + <p> + ‘Give me a roll, please,’ Ivan Afanasiitch articulated slowly. + </p> + <p> + The fat woman stuck out an arm, bare to the shoulder—a huge arm, + more like a leg than an arm—and thrust the hot bread just under his + nose. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch stood some time under the window, walked once or twice up + and down the street, glanced into the courtyard, and at last, ashamed of + his childishness, returned home with the roll in his hand. He felt ill at + ease the whole day, and even in the evening, contrary to his habit, did + not drop into conversation with Onisim. + </p> + <p> + The next morning it was Onisim who went for the roll. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Some weeks went by. Ivan Afanasiitch had completely forgotten Vassilissa, + and chatted in a friendly way with his servant as before. One fine morning + there came to see him a certain Bublitsyn, an easy-mannered and very + agreeable young man. It is true he sometimes hardly knew himself what he + was talking about, and was always, as they say, a little wild; but all the + same he had the reputation of being an exceedingly agreeable person to + talk to. He smoked a great deal with feverish eagerness, with lifted + eyebrows and contracted chest—smoked with an expression of intense + anxiety, or, one might rather say, with an expression as though, let him + have this one more puff at his pipe, and in a minute he would tell you + some quite unexpected piece of news; at times he would even give a grunt + and a wave of the hand, while himself sucking at his pipe, as though he + had suddenly recollected something extraordinarily amusing or important, + then he would open his mouth, let off a few rings of smoke, and utter the + most commonplace remarks, or even keep silence altogether. After gossiping + a little with Ivan Afanasiitch about the neighbours, about horses, the + daughters of the gentry around, and other such edifying topics, Mr. + Bublitsyn suddenly winked, pulled up his shock of hair, and, with a sly + smile, approached the remarkably dim looking-glass which was the solitary + ornament of Ivan Afanasiitch’s room. + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s no denying the fact,’ he pronounced, stroking his light brown + whiskers, ‘we’ve got girls here that beat any of your Venus of Medicis + hollow.... Have you seen Vassilissa, the baker girl, for instance?’ ... + Mr. Bublitsyn sucked at his pipe. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov started. + </p> + <p> + ‘But why do I ask you?’ pursued Bublitsyn, disappearing in a cloud of + smoke,—‘you’re not the man to notice, don’t you know, Ivan + Afanasiitch! Goodness knows what you do to occupy yourself, Ivan + Afanasiitch!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The same as you do,’ Pyetushkov replied with some vexation, in a drawling + voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch, not a bit of it.... How can you say so?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, why not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense, nonsense.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why so, why so?’ + </p> + <p> + Bublitsyn stuck his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and began + scrutinising his not very handsome boots. Pyetushkov felt embarrassed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, Ivan Afanasiitch!’ pursued Bublitsyn, as though + sparing his feelings. ‘But as to Vassilissa, the baker girl, I can assure + you: a very, ve-ry fine girl, ... ve-ry.’ + </p> + <p> + Mr. Bublitsyn dilated his nostrils, and slowly plunged his hands into his + pockets. + </p> + <p> + Strange to relate, Ivan Afanasiitch felt something of the nature of + jealousy. He began moving restlessly in his chair, burst into explosive + laughter at nothing at all, suddenly blushed, yawned, and, as he yawned, + his lower jaw twitched a little. Bublitsyn smoked three more pipes, and + withdrew. Ivan Afanasiitch went to the window, sighed, and called for + something to drink. + </p> + <p> + Onisim set a glass of kvas on the table, glanced severely at his master, + leaned back against the door, and hung his head dejectedly. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you so thoughtful about?’ his master asked him genially, but + with some inward trepidation. + </p> + <p> + ‘What am I thinking about?’ retorted Onisim; ‘what am I thinking about? + ... it’s always about you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘About me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course it’s about you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what is it you are thinking?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, this is what I’m thinking.’ (Here Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) + ‘You ought to be ashamed, sir—you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ashamed?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, ashamed.... Look at Mr. Bublitsyn, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Tell me if + he’s not a fine fellow, now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t understand you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t understand me.... Oh yes, you do understand me.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim paused. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Bublitsyn’s a real gentleman—what a gentleman ought to be. But + what are you, Ivan Afanasiitch, what are you? Tell me that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, I’m a gentleman too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A gentleman, indeed!’ ... retorted Onisim, growing indignant. ‘A pretty + gentleman you are! You’re no better, sir, than a hen in a shower of rain, + Ivan Afanasiitch, let me tell you. Here you sit sticking at home the whole + blessed day ... much good it does you, sitting at home like that! You + don’t play cards, you don’t go and see the gentry, and as for ... well + ...’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim waved his hand expressively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, come ... you really go ... too far ...’ Ivan Afanasiitch said + hesitatingly, clutching his pipe. + </p> + <p> + ‘Too far, indeed, Ivan Afanasiitch, too far, you say! Judge for yourself. + Here again, with Vassilissa ... why couldn’t you ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what are you thinking about, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov interrupted + miserably. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know what I’m thinking about. But there—I’d better let you alone! + What can you do? Only fancy ... there you ...’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘There, there, if you please, you hold your tongue,’ he said quickly, + seeming to be searching for Onisim with his eyes; ‘I shall really, you + know ... I ... what do you mean by it, really? You’d better help me + dress.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim slowly drew off Ivan Afanasiitch’s greasy Tartar dressing-gown, + gazed with fatherly commiseration at his master, shook his head, put him + on his coat, and fell to beating him about the back with a brush. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov went out, and after a not very protracted stroll about the + crooked streets of the town, found himself facing the baker’s shop. A + queer smile was playing about his lips. + </p> + <p> + He had hardly time to look twice at the too well-known ‘establishment,’ + when suddenly the little gate opened, and Vassilissa ran out with a yellow + kerchief on her head and a jacket flung after the Russian fashion on her + shoulders. Ivan Afanasiitch at once overtook her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where are you going, my dear?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa glanced swiftly at him, laughed, turned away, and put her hand + over her lips. + </p> + <p> + ‘Going shopping, I suppose?’ queried Ivan Afanasiitch, fidgeting with his + feet. + </p> + <p> + ‘How inquisitive we are!’ retorted Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why inquisitive?’ said Pyetushkov, hurriedly gesticulating with his + hands. ‘Quite the contrary.... Oh yes, you know,’ he added hastily, as + though these last words completely conveyed his meaning. + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you eat my roll?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure I did,’ replied Pyetushkov: ‘with special enjoyment.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa continued to walk on and to laugh. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s pleasant weather to-day,’ pursued Ivan Afanasiitch: ‘do you often go + out walking?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, how I should like....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What say?’ + </p> + <p> + The girls in our district utter those words in a very queer way, with a + peculiar sharpness and rapidity.... Partridges call at sunset with just + that sound. + </p> + <p> + ‘To go out walking, don’t you know, with you ... into the country, or ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, upon my word, how you do go on!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But allow me....’ + </p> + <p> + At this point they were overtaken by a dapper little shopman, with a + little goat’s beard, and with his fingers held apart like antlers, so as + to keep his sleeves from slipping over his hands, in a long-skirted bluish + coat, and a warm cap that resembled a bloated water-melon. Pyetushkov, for + propriety’s sake, fell back a little behind Vassilissa, but quickly came + up with her again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then, what about our walk?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa looked slily at him and giggled again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you belong to these parts?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa passed her hand over her hair and walked a little more slowly. + Ivan Afanasiitch smiled, and, his heart inwardly sinking with timidity, he + stooped a little on one side and put a trembling arm about the beauty’s + waist. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa uttered a shriek. + </p> + <p> + ‘Give over, do, for shame, in the street.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come now, there, there,’ muttered Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <p> + ‘Give over, I tell you, in the street.... Don’t be rude.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A ... a ... ah, what a girl you are!’ said Pyetushkov reproachfully, + while he blushed up to his ears. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa stood still. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now go along with you, sir—go along, do.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov obeyed. He got home, and sat for a whole hour without moving + from his chair, without even smoking his pipe. At last he took out a sheet + of greyish paper, mended a pen, and after long deliberation wrote the + following letter. + </p> + <p> + ‘DEAR MADAM, VASSILISSA TIMOFYEVNA!—Being naturally a most + inoffensive person, how could I have occasioned you annoyance? If I have + really been to blame in my conduct to you, then I must tell you: the hints + of Mr. Bublitsyn were responsible for this, which was what I never + expected. Anyway, I must humbly beg you not to be angry with me. I am a + sensitive man, and any kindness I am most sensible of and grateful for. Do + not be angry with me, Vassilissa Timofyevna, I beg you most humbly.—I + remain respectfully your obedient servant, + </p> + <h3> + IVAN PYETUSHKOV.’ + </h3> + <p> + Onisim carried this letter to its address. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + A fortnight passed. Onisim went every morning as usual to the baker’s + shop. One day Vassilissa ran out to meet him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good morning, Onisim Sergeitch.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim put on a gloomy expression, and responded crossly, ‘’Morning.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How is it you never come to see us, Onisim Sergeitch?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim glanced morosely at her. + </p> + <p> + ‘What should I come for? you wouldn’t give me a cup of tea, no fear.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I would, Onisim Sergeitch, I would. You come and see. Rum in it, + too.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim slowly relaxed into a smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I don’t mind if I do, then.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When, then—when?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When ... well, you are ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To-day—this evening, if you like. Drop in. + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, I’ll come along,’ replied Onisim, and he sauntered home with + his slow, rolling step. + </p> + <p> + The same evening in a little room, beside a bed covered with a striped + eider-down, Onisim was sitting at a clumsy little table, facing + Vassilissa. A huge, dingy yellow samovar was hissing and bubbling on the + table; a pot of geranium stood in the window; in the other corner near the + door there stood aslant an ugly chest with a tiny hanging lock; on the + chest lay a shapeless heap of all sorts of old rags; on the walls were + black, greasy prints. Onisim and Vassilissa drank their tea in silence, + looking straight at each other, turning the lumps of sugar over and over + in their hands, as it were reluctantly nibbling them, blinking, screwing + up their eyes, and with a hissing sound sucking in the yellowish boiling + liquid through their teeth. At last they had emptied the whole samovar, + turned upside down the round cups—one with the inscription, ‘Take + your fill’; the other with the words, ‘Cupid’s dart hath pierced my heart’—then + they cleared their throats, wiped their perspiring brows, and gradually + dropped into conversation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Onisim Sergeitch, how about your master ...’ began Vassilissa, and did + not finish her sentence. + </p> + <p> + ‘What about my master?’ replied Onisim, and he leaned on his hand. ‘He’s + all right. But why do you ask?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I only asked,’ answered Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘But I say’—(here Onisim grinned)—‘I say, he wrote you a + letter, didn’t he?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, he did.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim shook his head with an extraordinarily self-satisfied air. + </p> + <p> + ‘So he did, did he?’ he said huskily, with a smile. ‘Well, and what did he + say in his letter to you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, all sorts of things. “I didn’t mean anything, Madam, Vassilissa + Timofyevna,” says he, “don’t you think anything of it; don’t you be + offended, madam,” and a lot more like that he wrote.... But I say,’ she + added after a brief silence: ‘what’s he like?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s all right,’ Onisim responded indifferently. + </p> + <p> + ‘Does he get angry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He get angry! Not he. Why, do you like him?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa looked down and giggled in her sleeve. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come,’ grumbled Onisim. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, what’s that to you, Onisim Sergeitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, come, I tell you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ Vassilissa brought out at last, ‘he’s ... a gentleman. Of course + ... I ... and besides; he ... you know yourself ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I do,’ Onisim observed solemnly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course you’re aware, to be sure, Onisim Sergeitch.’ ... Vassilissa was + obviously becoming agitated. + </p> + <p> + ‘You tell him, your master, that I’m ...; say, not angry with him, but + that ...’ + </p> + <p> + She stammered. + </p> + <p> + ‘We understand,’ responded Onisim, and he got up from his seat. ‘We + understand. Thanks for the entertainment.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come in again some day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, all right.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim approached the door. The fat woman came into the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good evening to you, Onisim Sergeitch,’ she said in a peculiar chant. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good evening to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,’ he said in the same sing-song. + </p> + <p> + Both stood still for a little while facing each other. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,’ Onisim chanted out again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, good day to you, Onisim Sergeitch,’ she responded in the same + sing-song. + </p> + <p> + Onisim arrived home. His master was lying on his bed, gazing at the + ceiling. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you been?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have I been?’ ... (Onisim had the habit of repeating reproachfully + the last words of every question.) ‘I’ve been about your business.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What business?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, don’t you know? ... I’ve been to see Vassilissa.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov blinked and turned over on his bed. + </p> + <p> + ‘So that’s how it is,’ observed Onisim, and he coolly took a pinch of + snuff. ‘So that’s how it is. You’re always like that. Vassilissa sends you + her duty.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really? So that’s all about it. Really! ... She told me to say, Why is + it, says she, one never sees him? Why is it, says she, he never comes?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and what did you say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did I say? I told her: You’re a silly girl—I told her—as + if folks like that are coming to see you! No, you come yourself, I told + her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and what did she say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did she say? ... She said nothing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is, how do you mean, nothing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, nothing, to be sure.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov said nothing for a little while. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and is she coming?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim shook his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘She coming! You’re in too great a hurry, sir. She coming, indeed! No, you + go too fast.’ ... + </p> + <p> + ‘But you said yourself that ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, well, it’s easy to talk.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was silent again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, but how’s it to be, then, my lad?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How? ... You ought to know best; you ‘re a gentleman.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nonsense! come now!’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim swayed complacently backwards and forwards. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you know Praskovia Ivanovna?’ he asked at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘No. What Praskovia Ivanovna?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, the baker woman!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, the baker woman. I’ve seen her; she’s very fat.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s a worthy woman. She’s own aunt to the other, to your girl.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Aunt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, didn’t you know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I didn’t know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well ...’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim was restrained by respect for his master from giving full + expression to his feelings. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s whom it is you should make friends with.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I’ve no objection.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked approvingly at Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <p> + ‘But with what object precisely am I to make friends with her?’ inquired + Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘What for, indeed!’ answered Onisim serenely. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch got up, paced up and down the room, stood still before + the window, and without turning his head, with some hesitation he + articulated: + </p> + <p> + ‘Onisim!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Won’t it be, you know, a little awkward for me with the old woman, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that’s as you like.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, well, I only thought it might, perhaps. My comrades might notice it; + it’s a little ... But I’ll think it over. Give me my pipe.... So she,’ he + went on after a short silence—Vassilissa, I mean, says then ...’ + </p> + <p> + But Onisim had no desire to continue the conversation, and he assumed his + habitual morose expression. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch’s acquaintance with Praskovia Ivanovna began in the + following manner. Five days after his conversation with Onisim, Pyetushkov + set off in the evening to the baker’s shop. ‘Well,’ thought he, as he + unlatched the creaking gate, ‘I don’t know how it’s to be.’ ... + </p> + <p> + He mounted the steps, opened the door. A huge, crested hen rushed, with a + deafening cackle, straight under his feet, and long after was still + running about the yard in wild excitement. From a room close by peeped the + astonished countenance of the fat woman. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled and + nodded. The fat woman bowed to him. Tightly grasping his hat, Pyetushkov + approached her. Praskovia Ivanovna was apparently anticipating an honoured + guest; her dress was fastened up at every hook. Pyetushkov sat down on a + chair; Praskovia Ivanovna seated herself opposite him. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have come to you, Praskovia Ivanovna, more on account of....’ Ivan + Afanasiitch began at last—and then ceased. His lips were twitching + spasmodically. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are kindly welcome, sir,’ responded Praskovia Ivanovna in the proper + sing-song, and with a bow. ‘Always delighted to see a guest.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov took courage a little. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have long wished, you know, to have the pleasure of making your + acquaintance, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Much obliged to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + Followed a silence. Praskovia Ivanovna wiped her face with a + parti-coloured handkerchief; Ivan Afanasiitch continued with intense + attention to gaze away to one side. Both were rather uncomfortable. But in + merchant and petty shopkeeper society, where even old friends never step + outside special angular forms of etiquette, a certain constraint in the + behaviour of guests and host to one another not only strikes no one as + strange, but, on the contrary, is regarded as perfectly correct and + indispensable, particularly on a first visit. Praskovia Ivanovna was + agreeably impressed by Pyetushkov. He was formal and decorous in his + manners, and moreover, wasn’t he a man of some rank, too? + </p> + <p> + ‘Praskovia Ivanovna, ma’am, I like your rolls very much,’ he said to her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Really now, really now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very good they are, you know, very, indeed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘May they do you good, sir, may they do you good. Delighted, to be sure.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve never eaten any like them in Moscow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t say so now, you don’t say so.’ + </p> + <p> + Again a silence followed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna,’ began Ivan Afanasiitch; ‘that’s your niece, + I fancy, isn’t it, living with you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My own niece, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How comes it ... she’s with you?’.... + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s an orphan, so I keep her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And is she a good worker?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Such a girl to work ... such a girl, sir ... ay ... ay ... to be sure she + is.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch thought it discreet not to pursue the subject of the + niece further. + </p> + <p> + ‘What bird is that you have in the cage, Praskovia Ivanovna?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God knows. A bird of some sort.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘H’m! Well, so, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A very good day to your honour. Pray walk in another time, and take a cup + of tea.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘With the greatest pleasure, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov walked out. On the steps he met Vassilissa. She giggled. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where are you going, my darling?’ said Pyetushkov with reckless daring. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, give over, do, you are a one for joking.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He, he! And did you get my letter?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa hid the lower part of her face in her sleeve and made no + answer. + </p> + <p> + ‘And you’re not angry with me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa!’ came the jarring voice of the aunt; ‘hey, Vassilissa!’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa ran into the house. Pyetushkov returned home. But from that day + he began going often to the baker’s shop, and his visits were not for + nothing. Ivan Afanasiitch’s hopes, to use the lofty phraseology suitable, + were crowned with success. Usually, the attainment of the goal has a + cooling effect on people, but Pyetushkov, on the contrary, grew every day + more and more ardent. Love is a thing of accident, it exists in itself, + like art, and, like nature, needs no reasons to justify it, as some clever + man has said who never loved, himself, but made excellent observations + upon love. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov became passionately attached to Vassilissa. He was completely + happy. His soul was aglow with bliss. Little by little he carried all his + belongings, at any rate all his pipes, to Praskovia Ivanovna’s, and for + whole days together he sat in her back room. Praskovia Ivanovna charged + him something for his dinner and drank his tea, consequently she did not + complain of his presence. Vassilissa had grown used to him. She would + work, sing, or spin before him, sometimes exchanging a couple of words + with him; Pyetushkov watched her, smoked his pipe, swayed to and fro in + his chair, laughed, and in leisure hours played ‘Fools’ with her and + Praskovia Ivanovna. Ivan Afanasiitch was happy.... + </p> + <p> + But in this world nothing is perfect, and, small as a man’s requirements + may be, destiny never quite fulfils them, and positively spoils the whole + thing, if possible.... The spoonful of pitch is sure to find its way into + the barrel of honey! Ivan Afanasiitch experienced this in his case. + </p> + <p> + In the first place, from the time of his establishing himself at + Vassilissa’s, Pyetushkov dropped more than ever out of all intercourse + with his comrades. He saw them only when absolutely necessary, and then, + to avoid allusions and jeers (in which, however, he was not always + successful), he put on the desperately sullen and intensely scared look of + a hare in a display of fireworks. + </p> + <p> + Secondly, Onisim gave him no peace; he had lost every trace of respect for + him, he mercilessly persecuted him, put him to shame. + </p> + <p> + And ... thirdly.... Alas! read further, kindly reader. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + One day Pyetushkov (who for the reasons given above found little comfort + outside Praskovia Ivanovna’s doors) was sitting in Vassilissa’s room at + the back, and was busying himself over some home-brewed concoction, + something in the way of jam or syrup. The mistress of the house was not at + home. Vassilissa was sitting in the shop singing. + </p> + <p> + There came a knock at the little pane. Vassilissa got up, went to the + window, uttered a little shriek, giggled, and began whispering with some + one. On going back to her place, she sighed, and then fell to singing + louder than ever. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who was that you were talking to?’ Pyetushkov asked her. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa went on singing carelessly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, do you hear? Vassilissa!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you want?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whom were you talking to?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s that to you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I only asked.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov came out of the back room in a parti-coloured smoking-jacket + with tucked-up sleeves, and a strainer in his hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, a friend of mine,’ answered Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘What friend?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, Piotr Petrovitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Piotr Petrovitch? ... what Piotr Petrovitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s one of your lot. He’s got such a difficult name.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Bublitsyn?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes ... Piotr Petrovitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And do you know him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Rather!’ responded Vassilissa, with a wag of her head. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov, without a word, paced ten times up and down the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘I say, Vassilissa,’ he said at last, ‘that is, how do you know him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How do I know him? ... I know him ... He’s such a nice gentleman.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How do you mean nice, though? how nice? how nice?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa gazed at Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nice,’ she said slowly and in perplexity. ‘You know what I mean.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov bit his lips and began again pacing the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘What were you talking about with him, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa smiled and looked down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Speak, speak, speak, I tell you, speak!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How cross you are to-day!’ observed Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was silent. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come now, Vassilissa,’ he began at last; ‘no, I won’t be cross.... Come, + tell me, what were you talking about?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘He is a one to joke, really, that Piotr Petrovitch!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what did he say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is a fellow!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was silent again for a little. + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, you love me, don’t you?’ he asked her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, so that’s what you’re after, too!’ + </p> + <p> + Poor Pyetushkov felt a pang at his heart. Praskovia Ivanovna came in. They + sat down to dinner. After dinner Praskovia Ivanovna betook herself to the + shelf bed. Ivan Afanasiitch himself lay down on the stove, turned over and + dropped asleep. A cautious creak waked him. Ivan Afanasiitch sat up, + leaned on his elbow, looked: the door was open. He jumped up—no + Vassilissa. He ran into the yard—she was not in the yard; into the + street, looked up and down—Vassilissa was nowhere to be seen. He ran + without his cap as far as the market—no, Vassilissa was not in + sight. Slowly he returned to the baker’s shop, clambered on to the stove, + and turned with his face to the wall. He felt miserable. Bublitsyn ... + Bublitsyn ... the name was positively ringing in his ears. + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s the matter, my good sir?’ Praskovia Ivanovna asked him in a drowsy + voice. ‘Why are you groaning?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing, ma’am. Nothing. I feel a weight oppressing me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s the mushrooms,’ murmured Praskovia Ivanovna—‘it’s all those + mushrooms.’ + </p> + <p> + O Lord, have mercy on us sinners! + </p> + <p> + An hour passed, a second—still no Vassilissa. Twenty times + Pyetushkov was on the point of getting up, and twenty times he huddled + miserably under the sheepskin.... At last he really did get down from the + stove and determined to go home, and positively went out into the yard, + but came back. Praskovia Ivanovna got up. The hired man, Luka, black as a + beetle, though he was a baker, put the bread into the oven. Pyetushkov + went again out on to the steps and pondered. The goat that lived in the + yard went up to him, and gave him a little friendly poke with his horns. + Pyetushkov looked at him, and for some unknown reason said ‘Kss, Kss.’ + Suddenly the low wicket-gate slowly opened and Vassilissa appeared. Ivan + Afanasiitch went straight to meet her, took her by the hand, and rather + coolly, but resolutely, said to her: + </p> + <p> + ‘Come along with me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But, excuse me, Ivan Afanasiitch ... I ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come with me,’ he repeated. + </p> + <p> + She obeyed. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov led her to his lodgings. Onisim, as usual, was lying at full + length asleep. Ivan Afanasiitch waked him, told him to light a candle. + Vassilissa went to the window and sat down in silence. While Onisim was + busy getting a light in the anteroom, Pyetushkov stood motionless at the + other window, staring into the street. Onisim came in, with the candle in + his hands, was beginning to grumble ... Ivan Afanasiitch turned quickly + round: ‘Go along,’ he said to him. + </p> + <p> + Onisim stood still in the middle of the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Go away at once,’ Pyetushkov repeated threateningly. + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked at his master and went out. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch shouted after him: + </p> + <p> + ‘Away, quite away. Out of the house. You can come back in two hours’ + time.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim slouched off. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov waited till he heard the gate bang, and at once went up to + Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you been?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa was confused. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you been? I tell you,’ he repeated. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa looked round ... + </p> + <p> + ‘I am speaking to you ... where have you been?’ And Pyetushkov raised his + arm ... + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t beat me, Ivan Afanasiitch, don’t beat me,’ Vassilissa whispered in + terror. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned away. + </p> + <p> + ‘Beat you ... No! I’m not going to beat you. Beat you? I beg your pardon, + my darling. God bless you! While I supposed you loved me, while I ... I + ... ‘ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch broke off. He gasped for breath. + </p> + <p> + ‘Listen, Vassilissa,’ he said at last. ‘You know I’m a kind-hearted man, + you know it, don’t you, Vassilissa, don’t you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I do,’ she said faltering. + </p> + <p> + ‘I do nobody any harm, nobody, nobody in the world. And I deceive nobody. + Why are you deceiving me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I’m not deceiving you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You aren’t deceiving me? Oh, very well! Oh, very well! Then tell me where + you’ve been.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I went to see Matrona.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s a lie!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, I’ve been at Matrona’s. You ask her, if you don’t believe me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And Bub—what’s his name ... have you seen that devil?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I did see him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You did see him! you did see him! Oh! you did see him!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned pale. + </p> + <p> + ‘So you were making an appointment with him in the morning at the window—eh? + eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He asked me to come.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And so you went.... Thanks very much, my girl, thanks very much!’ + Pyetushkov made Vassilissa a low bow. + </p> + <p> + ‘But, Ivan Afanasiitch, you’re maybe fancying ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You’d better not talk to me! And a pretty fool I am! There’s nothing to + make an outcry for! You may make friends with any one you like. I’ve + nothing to do with you. So there! I don’t want to know you even.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s for you to say, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where are you going?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, you yourself ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m not sending you away,’ Pyetushkov interrupted her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch.... What’s the use of my stopping here?’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov let her get as far as the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘So you’re going, Vassilissa?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You keep on abusing me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I abuse you! You’ve no fear of God, Vassilissa! When have I abused you? + Come, come, say when?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why! Just this minute weren’t you all but beating me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, it’s wicked of you. Really, it’s downright wicked.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And then you threw it in my face, that you don’t want to know me. “I’m a + gentleman,” say you.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch began wringing his hands speechlessly. Vassilissa got + back as far as the middle of the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch. I’ll keep myself to myself, and + you keep yourself to yourself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense, Vassilissa, nonsense,’ Pyetushkov cut her short. ‘You think + again; look at me. You see I’m not myself. You see I don’t know what I’m + saying.... You might have some feeling for me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You keep on abusing me, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Vassilissa! Let bygones be bygones. Isn’t that right? Come, you’re + not angry with me, are you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You keep abusing me,’ Vassilissa repeated. + </p> + <p> + ‘I won’t, my love, I won’t. Forgive an old man like me. I’ll never do it + in future. Come, you’ve forgiven me, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, laugh then, laugh.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa turned away. + </p> + <p> + ‘You laughed, you laughed, my love!’ cried Pyetushkov, and he capered + about like a child. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + The next day Pyetushkov went to the baker’s shop as usual. Everything went + on as before. But there was a settled ache at his heart. He did not laugh + now as often, and sometimes he fell to musing. Sunday came. Praskovia + Ivanovna had an attack of lumbago; she did not get down from the shelf + bed, except with much difficulty to go to mass. After mass Pyetushkov + called Vassilissa into the back room. She had been complaining all the + morning of feeling dull. To judge by the expression of Ivan Afanasiitch’s + countenance, he was revolving in his brain some extraordinary idea, + unforeseen even by him. + </p> + <p> + ‘You sit down here, Vassilissa,’ he said to her, ‘and I’ll sit here. I + want to have a little talk with you.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa sat down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, Vassilissa, can you write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I can’t.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What about reading?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t read either.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then who read you my letter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The deacon.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov paused. + </p> + <p> + ‘But would you like to learn to read and write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what use would reading and writing be to us, Ivan Afanasiitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What use? You could read books.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what good is there in books?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘All sorts of good ... I tell you what, if you like, I’ll bring you a + book.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I can’t read, you see, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll read to you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But, I say, won’t it be dull?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense! dull! On the contrary, it’s the best thing to get rid of + dulness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Maybe you’ll read stories, then.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You shall see to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + In the evening Pyetushkov returned home, and began rummaging in his boxes. + He found several odd numbers of the Library of Good Reading, five grey + Moscow novels, Nazarov’s arithmetic, a child’s geography with a globe on + the title-page, the second part of Keydanov’s history, two dream-books, an + almanack for the year 1819, two numbers of Galatea, Kozlov’s <i>Natalia + Dolgorukaia</i>, and the first part of <i>Roslavlev</i>. He pondered a + long while which to choose, and finally made up his mind to take Kozlov’s + poem, and <i>Roslavlev</i>. + </p> + <p> + Next day Pyetushkov dressed in haste, put both the books under the lapel + of his coat, went to the baker’s shop, and began reading aloud Zagoskin’s + novel. Vassilissa sat without moving; at first she smiled, then seemed to + become absorbed in thought ... then she bent a little forward; her eyes + closed, her mouth slightly opened, her hands fell on her knees; she was + dozing. Pyetushkov read quickly, inarticulately, in a thick voice; he + raised his eyes ... + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, are you asleep?’ + </p> + <p> + She started, rubbed her face, and stretched. Pyetushkov felt angry with + her and with himself.... + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s dull,’ said Vassilissa lazily. + </p> + <p> + ‘I tell you what, would you like me to read you poetry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Poetry ... good poetry.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, that’s enough, really.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov hurriedly picked up Kozlov’s poem, jumped up, crossed the room, + ran impulsively up to Vassilissa, and began reading. Vassilissa let her + head drop backwards, spread out her hands, stared into Ivan Afanasiitch’s + face, and suddenly went off into a loud harsh guffaw ... she fairly rolled + about with laughing. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch flung the book on the floor in his annoyance. Vassilissa + went on laughing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what are you laughing at, silly?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa roared more than ever. + </p> + <p> + ‘Laugh away, laugh away,’ Pyetushkov muttered between his teeth. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa held her sides, gasping. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what is it, idiot?’ But Vassilissa could only wave her hands. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch snatched up his cap, and ran out of the house. With + rapid, unsteady steps, he walked about the town, walked on and on, and + found himself at the city gates. Suddenly there was the rattle of wheels, + the tramp of horses along the street.... Some one called him by name. He + raised his head and saw a big, old-fashioned wagonette. In the wagonette + facing him sat Mr. Bublitsyn between two young ladies, the daughters of + Mr. Tiutiurov. Both the girls were dressed exactly alike, as though in + outward sign of their immutable affection; both smiled pensively, and + carried their heads on one side with a languid grace. On the other side of + the carriage appeared the wide straw hat of their excellent papa; and from + time to time his round, plump neck presented itself to the gaze of + spectators. Beside his straw hat rose the mob-cap of his spouse. The very + attitude of both the parents was a sufficient proof of their sincere + goodwill towards the young man and their confidence in him. And Bublitsyn + obviously was aware of their flattering confidence and appreciated it. He + was, of course, sitting in an unconstrained position, and talking and + laughing without constraint; but in the very freedom of his manner there + could be discerned a shade of tender, touching respectfulness. And the + Tiutiurov girls? It is hard to convey in words all that an attentive + observer could trace in the faces of the two sisters. Goodwill and + gentleness, and discreet gaiety, a melancholy comprehension of life, and a + faith, not to be shaken, in themselves, in the lofty and noble destiny of + man on earth, courteous attention to their young companion, in + intellectual endowments perhaps not fully their equal, but still by the + qualities of his heart quite deserving of their indulgence ... such were + the characteristics and the feelings reflected at that moment on the faces + of the young ladies. Bublitsyn called to Ivan Afanasiitch for no special + reason, simply in the fulness of his inner satisfaction; he bowed to him + with excessive friendliness and cordiality. The young ladies even looked + at him with gentle amiability, as at a man whose acquaintance they would + not object to.... The good, sleek, quiet horses went by Ivan Afanasiitch + at a gentle trot; the carriage rolled smoothly along the broad road, + carrying with it good-humoured, girlish laughter; he caught a final + glimpse of Mr. Tiutiurov’s hat; the two outer horses turned their heads on + each side, jauntily stepping over the short, green grass ... the coachman + gave a whistle of approbation and warning, the carriage disappeared behind + some willows. + </p> + <p> + A long while poor Pyetushkov remained standing still. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m a poor lonely creature,’ he whispered at last ... ‘alone in the + world.’ + </p> + <p> + A little boy in tatters stopped before him, looked timidly at him, held + out his hand ... + </p> + <p> + ‘For Christ’s sake, good gentleman.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov pulled out a copper. + </p> + <p> + ‘For your loneliness, poor orphan,’ he said with effort, and he walked + back to the baker’s shop. On the threshold of Vassilissa’s room Ivan + Afanasiitch stopped. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘these are my friends. Here is my family, this is + it.... And here Bublitsyn and there Bublitsyn.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa was sitting with her back to him, winding worsted, and + carelessly singing to herself; she was wearing a striped cotton gown; her + hair was done up anyhow.... The room, insufferably hot, smelt of feather + beds and old rags; jaunty, reddish-brown ‘Prussians’ scurried rapidly here + and there across the walls; on the decrepit chest of drawers, with holes + in it where the locks should have been, beside a broken jar, lay a woman’s + shabby slipper.... Kozlov’s poem was still where it had fallen on the + floor.... Pyetushkov shook his head, folded his arms, and went away. He + was hurt. + </p> + <p> + At home he called for his things to dress. Onisim slouched off after his + better coat. Pyetushkov had a great desire to draw Onisim into + conversation, but Onisim preserved a sullen silence. At last Ivan + Afanasiitch could hold out no longer. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why don’t you ask me where I’m going?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what do I want to know where you’re going for?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What for? Why, suppose some one comes on urgent business, and asks, + “Where’s Ivan Afanasiitch?” And then you can tell him, “Ivan Afanasiitch + has gone here or there.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Urgent business.... But who ever does come to you on urgent business?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, are you beginning to be rude again? Again, hey?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim turned away, and fell to brushing the coat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, Onisim, you are a most disagreeable person.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked up from under his brows at his master. + </p> + <p> + ‘And you ‘re always like this. Yes, positively always.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what’s the good of my asking you where you’re going, Ivan + Afanasiitch? As though I didn’t know! To the girl at the baker’s shop!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There, that’s just where you’re wrong! that’s just where you’re mistaken! + Not to her at all. I don’t intend going to see the girl at the baker’s + shop any more.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim dropped his eyelids and brandished the brush. Pyetushkov waited for + his approbation; but his servant remained speechless. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not the proper thing,’ Pyetushkov went on in a severe voice—‘it’s + unseemly.... Come, tell me what you think?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What am I to think? It’s for you to say. What business have I to think?’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov put on his coat. ‘He doesn’t believe me, the beast,’ he thought + to himself. + </p> + <p> + He went out of the house, but he did not go to see any one. He walked + about the streets. He directed his attention to the sunset. At last a + little after eight o’clock he returned home. He wore a smile; he + repeatedly shrugged his shoulders, as though marvelling at his own folly. + ‘Yes,’ thought he, ‘this is what comes of a strong will....’ + </p> + <p> + Next day Pyetushkov got up rather late. He had not passed a very good + night, did not go out all day, and was fearfully bored. Pyetushkov read + through all his poor books, and praised aloud one story in the Library of + Good Reading. As he went to bed, he told Onisim to give him his pipe. + Onisim handed him a wretched pipe. Pyetushkov began smoking; the pipe + wheezed like a broken-winded horse. + </p> + <p> + ‘How disgusting!’ cried Ivan Afanasiitch; ‘where’s my cherry wood pipe?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘At the baker’s shop,’ Onisim responded tranquilly. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov blinked spasmodically. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, you wish me to go for it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, you needn’t; don’t go ... no need, don’t go, do you hear?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + The night passed somehow. In the morning Onisim, as usual, gave Pyetushkov + on the blue sprigged plate a new white roll. Ivan Afanasiitch looked out + of window and asked Onisim: + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve been to the baker’s shop?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s to go, if I don’t?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov became plunged in meditation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, please, did you see any one there?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I did.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whom did you see there, now, for instance?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, of course, Vassilissa.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch was silent. Onisim cleared the table, and was just going + out of the room.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Onisim,’ Pyetushkov cried faintly. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Er ... did she ask after me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course she didn’t.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov set his teeth. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘that’s all it’s worth, her + love, indeed....’ His head dropped. ‘Absurd I was, to be sure,’ he thought + again. ‘A fine idea to read her poetry. A girl like that! Why, she’s a + fool! Why, she’s good for nothing but to lie on the stove and eat + pancakes. Why, she’s a post, a perfect post; an uneducated workgirl.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s never come,’ he whispered, two hours later, still sitting in the + same place, ‘she’s never come. To think of it; why, she could see that I + left her out of temper; why, she might know that I was hurt. There’s love + for you! And she did not even ask if I were well. Never even said, “Is + Ivan Afanasiitch quite well?” She hasn’t seen me for two whole days—and + not a sign.... She’s even again, maybe, thought fit to meet that Bub—Lucky + fellow. Ouf, devil take it, what a fool I am!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov got up, paced up and down the room in silence, stood still, + knitted his brows slightly and scratched his neck. ‘However,’ he said + aloud, ‘I’ll go to see her. I must see what she’s about there. I must make + her feel ashamed. Most certainly ... I’ll go. Onisim! my clothes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ he mused as he dressed, ‘we shall see what comes of it. She may, I + dare say, be angry with me. And after all, a man keeps coming and coming, + and all of a sudden, for no rhyme or reason, goes and gives up coming. + Well, we shall see.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch went out of the house, and made his way to the baker’s + shop. He stopped at the little gate, he wanted to straighten himself out + and set himself to rights.... Pyetushkov clutched at the folds of his coat + with both hands, and almost pulled them out altogether.... Convulsively he + twisted his tightly compressed neck, fastened the top hook of his collar, + drew a deep breath.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Why are you standing there?’ Praskovia Ivanovna bawled to him from the + little window. ‘Come in.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov started, and went in. Praskovia Ivanovna met him in the + doorway. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why didn’t you come to see us yesterday, my good sir? Was it, maybe, some + ailment prevented you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I had something of a headache yesterday....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, you should have put cucumber on your temples, my good sir. It would + have taken it away in a twinkling. Is your head aching now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, it’s not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah well, and thank Thee, O Lord, for it.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch went off into the back room. Vassilissa saw him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! good day, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good day, Vassilissa Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you put the tap, Ivan Afanasiitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tap? what tap?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The wine-tap ... our tap. You must have taken it home with you. You are + such a one ... Lord, forgive us....’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov put on a dignified and chilly air. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will direct my man to look. Seeing that I was not here yesterday,’ he + pronounced significantly.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, why, to be sure, you weren’t here yesterday.’ Vassilissa squatted + down on her heels, and began rummaging in the chest.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Aunt, hi! aunt!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What sa-ay?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you taken my neckerchief?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What neckerchief?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, the yellow one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The yellow one?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, the yellow, figured one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’ve not taken it.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov bent down to Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘Listen to me, Vassilissa; listen to what I am saying to you. It is not a + matter of taps or of neckerchiefs just now; you can attend to such trifles + another time.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa did not budge from her position; she only lifted her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘You just tell me, on your conscience, do you love me or not? That’s what + I want to know, once for all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, what a one you are, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Well, then, of course.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If you love me, how was it you didn’t come to see me yesterday? Had you + no time? Well, you might have sent to find out if I were ill, as I didn’t + turn up. But it’s little you cared. I might die, I dare say, you wouldn’t + grieve.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, one can’t be always thinking of one thing, one’s + got one’s work to do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure,’ responded Pyetushkov; ‘but all the same ... And it’s + improper to laugh at your elders.... It’s not right. Moreover, it’s as + well in certain cases ... But where’s my pipe?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s your pipe.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov began smoking. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + Several days slipped by again, apparently rather tranquilly. But a storm + was getting nearer. Pyetushkov suffered tortures, was jealous, never took + his eyes off Vassilissa, kept an alarmed watch over her, annoyed her + horribly. Behold, one evening, Vassilissa dressed herself with more care + than usual, and, seizing a favourable instant, sallied off to make a visit + somewhere. Night came on, she had not returned. Pyetushkov at sunset went + home to his lodgings, and at eight o’clock in the morning ran to the + baker’s shop.... Vassilissa had not come in. With an inexpressible sinking + at his heart, he waited for her right up to dinner-time.... They sat down + to the table without her.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Whatever can have become of her?’ Praskovia Ivanovna observed + serenely.... + </p> + <p> + ‘You spoil her, you simply spoil her utterly!’ Pyetushkov repeated, in + despair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh! my good sir, there’s no looking after a girl!’ responded Praskovia + Ivanovna. ‘Let her go her way! So long as she does her work.... Why + shouldn’t folks enjoy themselves? ...’ + </p> + <p> + A cold shudder ran over Pyetushkov. At last, towards evening, Vassilissa + made her appearance. This was all he was waiting for. Majestically + Pyetushkov rose from his seat, folded his arms, scowled menacingly.... But + Vassilissa looked him boldly in the face, laughed impudently, and before + he could utter a single word she went quickly into her own room, and + locked herself in. Ivan Afanasiitch opened his mouth, looked in amazement + at Praskovia Ivanovna.... Praskovia Ivanovna cast down her eyes. Ivan + Afanasiitch stood still a moment, groped after his cap, put it on askew, + and went out without closing his mouth. + </p> + <p> + He reached home, took up a leather cushion, and with it flung himself on + the sofa, with his face to the wall. Onisim looked in out of the passage, + went into the room, leaned his back against the door, took a pinch of + snuff, and crossed his legs. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you unwell, Ivan Afanasiitch?’ he asked Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov made no answer. + </p> + <p> + ‘Shall I go for the doctor?’ Onisim continued, after a brief pause. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m quite well.... Go away,’ Ivan Afanasiitch articulated huskily. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well? ... no, you’re not well, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Is this what you call + being well?’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov did not speak. + </p> + <p> + ‘Just look at yourself. You’ve grown so thin, that you’re simply not like + yourself. And what’s it all about? It’s enough to turn one’s brain to + think of it. And you a gentleman born, too!’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim paused. Pyetushkov did not stir. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is that the way gentlemen go on? They’d amuse themselves a bit, to be + sure ... why shouldn’t they ... they’d amuse themselves, and then drop + it.... They may well say, Fall in love with Old Nick, and you’ll think him + a beauty.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch merely writhed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, it’s really like this, Ivan Afanasiitch. If any one had said this + and that of you, and your goings on, why, I would have said, “Get along + with you, you fool, what do you take me for?” Do you suppose I’d have + believed it? Why, as it is, I see it with my own eyes, and I can’t believe + it. Worse than this nothing can be. Has she put some spell over you or + what? Why, what is there in her? If you come to consider, she’s below + contempt, really. She can’t even speak as she ought.... She’s simply a + baggage! Worse, even!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Go away,’ Ivan Afanasiitch moaned into the cushion. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’m not going away, Ivan Afanasiitch. Who’s to speak, if I don’t? + Why, upon my word! Here, you ‘re breaking your heart now ... and over + what? Eh, over what? tell me that!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, go away, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov moaned again. Onisim, for propriety’s + sake, was silent for a little while. + </p> + <p> + ‘And another thing,’ he began again, ‘she’s no feeling of gratitude + whatever. Any other girl wouldn’t know how to do enough to please you; + while she! ... she doesn’t even think of you. Why, it’s simply a disgrace. + Why, the things people are saying about you, one cannot repeat them, they + positively cry shame on me. If I could have known beforehand, I’d + have....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, go away, do, devil!’ shrieked Pyetushkov, not stirring from his + place, however, nor raising his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch, for mercy’s sake,’ pursued the ruthless Onisim. ‘I’m + speaking for your good. Despise her, Ivan Afanasiitch; you simply break it + off. Listen to me, or else I’ll fetch a wise woman; she’ll break the spell + in no time. You’ll laugh at it yourself, later on; you’ll say to me, + “Onisim, why, it’s marvellous how such things happen sometimes!” You just + consider yourself: girls like her, they’re like dogs ... you’ve only to + whistle to them....’ + </p> + <p> + Like one frantic, Pyetushkov jumped up from the sofa ... but, to the + amazement of Onisim, who was already lifting both hands to the level of + his cheeks, he sat down again, as though some one had cut away his legs + from under him.... Tears were rolling down his pale face, a tuft of hair + stood up straight on the top of his head, his eyes looked dimmed ... his + drawn lips were quivering ... his head sank on his breast. + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked at Pyetushkov and plumped heavily down on his knees. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear master, Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he cried, ‘your honour! Be pleased to + punish me. I’m a fool. I’ve troubled you, Ivan Afanasiitch.... How did I + dare! Be pleased to punish me, your honour.... It’s not worth your while + to weep over my silly words ... dear master. Ivan Afanasiitch....’ + </p> + <p> + But Pyetushkov did not even look at his servant; he turned away and buried + himself in the corner of the sofa again. + </p> + <p> + Onisim got up, went up to his master, stood over him, and twice he tugged + at his own hair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Wouldn’t you like to undress, sir ... you should go to bed ... you should + take some raspberry tea ... don’t grieve, please your honour.... It’s only + half a trouble, it’s all nothing ... it’ll be all right in the end,’ he + said to him every two minutes.... + </p> + <p> + But Pyetushkov did not get up from the sofa, and only twitched his + shoulders now and then, and drew up his knees to his stomach.... + </p> + <p> + Onisim did not leave his side all night. Towards morning Pyetushkov fell + asleep, but he did not sleep long. At seven o’clock he got up from the + sofa, pale, dishevelled, and exhausted, and asked for tea. + </p> + <p> + Onisim with amazing eagerness and speed brought the samovar. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he began at last, in a timid voice, ‘your honour is + not angry with me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why should I be angry with you, Onisim?’ answered poor Pyetushkov. ‘You + were perfectly right yesterday, and I quite agreed with you in + everything.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I only spoke through my devotion to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know that.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was silent and hung his head. + </p> + <p> + Onisim saw that things were in a bad way. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he said suddenly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Would you like me to fetch Vassilissa here?’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov flushed red. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, Onisim, I don’t wish it. (‘Yes, indeed! as if she would come!’ he + thought to himself.) One must be firm. It is all nonsense. Yesterday, I + ... It’s a disgrace. You are right. One must cut it all short, once for + all, as they say. Isn’t that true?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s the gospel truth your honour speaks, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov sank again into reverie. He wondered at himself, he did not + seem to know himself. He sat without stirring and stared at the floor. + Thoughts whirled round within him, like smoke or fog, while his heart felt + empty and heavy at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what’s the meaning of it, after all,’ he thought sometimes, and again + he grew calmer. ‘It’s nonsense, silliness!’ he said aloud, and passed his + hand over his face, shook himself, and his hand dropped again on his knee, + his eyes again rested on the floor. + </p> + <p> + Intently and mournfully Onisim kept watch on his master. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov lifted his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, Onisim,’ he began, ‘is it true, are there really such witches’ + spells?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There are, to be sure there are,’ answered Onisim, as he thrust one foot + forward. ‘Does your honour know the non-commissioned officer, Krupovaty? + ... His brother was ruined by witchcraft. He was bewitched to love an old + woman, a cook, if your honour only can explain that! They gave him nothing + but a morsel of rye bread, with a muttered spell, of course. And + Krupovaty’s brother simply lost his heart to the cook, he fairly ran after + the cook, he positively adored her—couldn’t keep his eyes off her. + She might tell him to do anything, he’d obey her on the spot. She’d even + make a joke of him before other people, before strangers. Well, she drove + him into a decline, at last. And so it was Krupovaty’s brother died. And + you know, she was a cook, and an old woman too, very old. (Onisim took a + pinch of snuff.) Confound the lot of them, these girls and women-folk!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She doesn’t care for me a bit, that’s clear, at last; that’s beyond all + doubt, at last,’ Pyetushkov muttered in an undertone, gesticulating with + his head and hands as though he were explaining to a perfectly extraneous + person some perfectly extraneous fact. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ Onisim resumed, ‘there are women like that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There are,’ listlessly repeated Pyetushkov, in a tone half questioning, + half perplexed. + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked intently at his master. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he began, ‘wouldn’t you have a snack of something?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wouldn’t I have a snack of something?’ repeated Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Or may be you’d like to have a pipe?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To have a pipe?’ repeated Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘So this is what it’s coming to,’ muttered Onisim. ‘It’s gone deep, it + seems.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + The creak of boots resounded in the passage, and then there was heard the + usual suppressed cough which announces the presence of a person of + subordinate position. Onisim went out and promptly came back, accompanied + by a diminutive soldier with a little, old woman’s face, in a patched + cloak yellow with age, and wearing neither breeches nor cravat. Pyetushkov + was startled; while the soldier drew himself up, wished him good day, and + handed him a large envelope bearing the government seal. In this envelope + was a note from the major in command of the garrison: he called upon + Pyetushkov to come to him without fail or delay. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned the note over in his hands, and could not refrain from + asking the messenger, did he know why the major desired his presence, + though he was very well aware of the utter futility of his question. + </p> + <p> + ‘We cannot tell!’ the soldier cried, with great effort, yet hardly + audibly, as though he were half asleep. + </p> + <p> + ‘Isn’t he summoning the other officers?’ Pyetushkov pursued. + </p> + <p> + ‘We cannot tell,’ the soldier cried a second time, in just the same voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, you can go,’ pronounced Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + The soldier wheeled round to the left, scraping his foot as he did so, and + slapping himself below the spine (this was considered smart in the + twenties), withdrew. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov exchanged glances with Onisim, who at once assumed a look of + anxiety. Without a word Ivan Afanasiitch set off to the major’s. + </p> + <p> + The major was a man of sixty, corpulent and clumsily built, with a red and + bloated face, a short neck, and a continual trembling in his fingers, + resulting from excessive indulgence in strong drink. He belonged to the + class of so-called ‘bourbons,’ that’s to say, soldiers risen from the + ranks; had learned to read at thirty, and spoke with difficulty, partly + from shortness of breath, partly from inability to follow his own thought. + His temperament exhibited all the varieties known to science: in the + morning, before drinking, he was melancholy; in the middle of the day, + choleric; and in the evening, phlegmatic, that is to say, he did nothing + at that time but snore and grunt till he was put to bed. Ivan Afanasiitch + appeared before him during the choleric period. He found him sitting on a + sofa, in an open dressing-gown, with a pipe between his teeth. A fat, + crop-eared cat had taken up her position beside him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha! he’s come!’ growled the major, casting a sidelong glance out of his + pewtery eyes upon Pyetushkov, and not stirring from his place. ‘Sit down. + Well, I’m going to give you a talking to. I’ve wanted to get hold of you + this long while.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov sank into a chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘For,’ the major began, with an unexpected lurch of his whole body, + ‘you’re an officer, d’ye see, and so you’ve got to behave yourself + according to rule. If you’d been a soldier, I’d have flogged you, and + that’s all about it, but, as ‘tis, you’re an officer. Did any one ever see + the like of it? Disgracing yourself—is that a nice thing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow me to know to what these remarks may refer?’ Pyetushkov was + beginning.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll have no arguing! I dislike that beyond everything. I’ve said: I + dislike it; and that’s all about it! Ugh—why, your hooks are not in + good form even;—what a disgrace! He sits, day in and day out, at the + baker’s shop; and he a gentleman born! There’s a petticoat to be found + there—and so there he sits. Let her go to the devil, the petticoat! + Why, they do say he puts the bread in the oven. It’s a stain on the + uniform ... so it is!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow me to submit,’ articulated Pyetushkov with a cold chill at his + heart, ‘that all this, as far as I can make out, refers to my private + life, so to say....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No arguing with me, I tell you! Private life, he protests, too! If it had + been a matter of the service I’d have sent you straight to the guard-room! + Alley, marsheer! Because of the oath. Why, there was a whole birch copse, + maybe, used upon my back, so I should think I know the service; every rule + of discipline I’m very well up in. And I’d have you to understand, I say + this just for the honour of the uniform. You’re disgracing the uniform ... + so you are. I say this like a father ... yes. Because all that’s put in my + charge. I’ve to answer for it. And you dare to argue too!’ the major + shrieked with sudden fury, and his face turned purple, and he foamed at + the mouth, while the cat put its tail in the air and jumped down to the + ground. ‘Why, do you know ... why, do you know what I can do? ... I can do + anything, anything, anything! Why, do you know whom you’re talking to? + Your superior officer gives you orders and you argue! Your superior + officer ... your superior officer....’ + </p> + <p> + Here the major positively choked and spluttered, while poor Pyetushkov + could only draw himself up and turn pale, sitting on the very edge of his + chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘I must have’ ... the major continued, with an imperious wave of his + trembling hand, ‘I must have everything ... up to the mark! Conduct + first-class! I’m not going to put up with any irregularities! You can make + friends with whom you like, that makes no odds to me! But if you are a + gentleman, why, act as such ... behave like one! No putting bread in the + oven for me! No calling a draggletail old woman auntie! No disgracing the + uniform! Silence! No arguing!’ + </p> + <p> + The major’s voice broke. He took breath, and turning towards the door into + the passage, bawled, ‘Frolka, you scoundrel! The herrings!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov rose hurriedly and darted away, almost upsetting the page-boy, + who ran to meet him, carrying some sliced herring and a stout decanter of + spirits on an iron tray. + </p> + <p> + ‘Silence! No arguing!’ sounded after Pyetushkov the disjointed + exclamations of his exasperated superior officer. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX + </h2> + <p> + A queer sensation overmastered Ivan Afanasiitch when, at last, he found + himself in the street. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why am I walking as it were in a dream?’ he thought to himself. ‘Am I out + of my mind, or what? Why, it passes all belief, at last. Come, damn it, + she’s tired of me, come, and I’ve grown tired of her, come, and ... What + is there out of the way in that? + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov frowned. + </p> + <p> + ‘I must put an end to it, once for all,’ he said almost aloud. ‘I’ll go + and speak out decisively for the last time, so that it may never come up + again.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov made his way with rapid step to the baker’s shop. The nephew of + the hired man, Luka, a little boy, friend and confidant of the goat that + lived in the yard, darted swiftly to the little gate, directly he caught + sight of Ivan Afanasiitch in the distance. + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna came out to meet Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is your niece at home?’ asked Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was inwardly relieved at Vassilissa’s absence. + </p> + <p> + ‘I came to have a few words with you, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What about, my good sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll tell you. You comprehend that after all ... that has passed ... + after such, so to say, behaviour (Pyetushkov was a little confused) ... in + a word ... But, pray, don’t be angry with me, though.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly not, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘On the contrary, enter into my position, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You’re a reasonable woman, you’ll understand of yourself, that ... that I + can’t go on coming to see you any more.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly, sir,’ Praskovia Ivanovna repeated slowly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I assure you I greatly regret it; I confess it is positively painful to + me, genuinely painful ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You know best, sir,’ Praskovia Ivanovna rejoined serenely. ‘It’s for you + to decide, sir. And, oh, if you’ll allow me, I’ll give you your little + account, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov had not at all anticipated such a prompt acquiescence. He had + not desired acquiescence at all; he had only wanted to frighten Praskovia + Ivanovna, and above all Vassilissa. He felt wretched. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know,’ he began, ‘this will not be disagreeable to Vassilissa; on the + contrary, I believe she will be glad.’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna got out her reckoning beads, and began rattling the + counters. + </p> + <p> + ‘On the other hand,’ continued Pyetushkov, growing more and more agitated, + ‘if Vassilissa were, for instance, to give an explanation of her behaviour + ... possibly.... Though, of course ... I don’t know, possibly, I might + perceive that after all there was no great matter for blame in it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s thirty-seven roubles and forty kopecks in notes to your account, + sir,’ observed Praskovia Ivanovna. ‘Here, would you be pleased to go + through it?’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch made no reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eighteen dinners at seventy kopecks each; twelve roubles sixty kopecks.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And so we are to part, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If so it must be, sir. Things do turn out so. Twelve samovars at ten + kopecks each ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you might just tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna, where it was Vassilissa + went, and what it was she ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I never asked her, sir.... One rouble twenty kopecks in silver.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch sank into meditation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Kvas and effervescing drinks,’ pursued Praskovia Ivanovna, holding the + counters apart on the frame not with her first, but her third finger, + ‘half a rouble in silver. Sugar and rolls for tea, half a rouble. Four + packets of tobacco bought by your orders, eighty kopecks in silver. To the + tailor Kuprian Apollonov ...’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch suddenly raised his head, put out his hand and mixed up + the counters. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you about, my good man?’ cried Praskovia Ivanovna. ‘Don’t you + trust me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Praskovia Ivanovna,’ replied Pyetushkov, with a hurried smile, ‘I’ve + thought better of it. I was only, you know ... joking. We’d better remain + friends and go on in the old way. What nonsense it is! How can we separate—tell + me that, please?’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna looked down and made him no reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, we’ve been talking nonsense, and there’s an end of it,’ pursued + Ivan Afanasiitch, walking up and down the room, rubbing his hands, and, as + it were, resuming his ancient rights. ‘Amen! and now I’d better have a + pipe.’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna still did not move from her place.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I see you are angry with me,’ said Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve offended you, perhaps. Well! well! forgive me generously.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How could you offend me, my good sir? No offence about it.... Only, + please, sir,’ added Praskovia Ivanovna, bowing, ‘be so good as not to go + on coming to us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not for you, sir, to be friends with us, your honour. So, please, do + us the favour ...’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna went on bowing. + </p> + <p> + ‘What ever for?’ muttered the astounded Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing, sir. For mercy’s sake ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, Praskovia Ivanovna, you must explain this! ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa asks you. She says, “I thank you, thank you very much, and + from my heart; only for the future, your honour, give us up.”’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna bowed down almost to Pyetushkov’s feet. + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, you say, begs me not to come?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Just so, your honour. When your honour came in to-day, and said what you + did, that you didn’t wish, you said, to visit us any more, I felt + relieved, sir, that I did; thinks I, Well, thank God, how nicely it’s all + come about! But for that, I should have had hard work to bring my tongue + to say it.... Be so good, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned red and pale almost at the same instant. Praskovia + Ivanovna still went on bowing.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Very good,’ Ivan Afanasiitch cried sharply. ‘Good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + He turned abruptly and put on his cap. + </p> + <p> + ‘But the little bill, sir....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Send it ... my orderly shall pay you.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov went with resolute steps out of the baker’s shop, and did not + even look round. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + A fortnight passed. At first Pyetushkov bore up in an extraordinary way. + He went out, and visited his comrades, with the exception, of course, of + Bublitsyn; but in spite of the exaggerated approbation of Onisim, he + almost went out of his mind at last from wretchedness, jealousy, and + ennui. Conversations with Onisim about Vassilissa were the only thing that + afforded him some consolation. The conversation was always begun, + ‘scratched up,’ by Pyetushkov; Onisim responded unwillingly. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s a strange thing, you know,’ Ivan Afanasiitch would say, for + instance, as he lay on the sofa, while Onisim stood in his usual attitude, + leaning against the door, with his hands folded behind his back, ‘when you + come to think of it, what it was I saw in that girl. One would say that + there was nothing unusual in her. It’s true she has a good heart. That one + can’t deny her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good heart, indeed!’ Onisim would answer with displeasure. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, now, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov went on, ‘one must tell the truth. It’s a + thing of the past now; it’s no matter to me now, but justice is justice. + You don’t know her. She’s very good-hearted. Not a single beggar does she + let pass by; she’ll always give, if it’s only a crust of bread. Oh! And + she’s of a cheerful temper, that one must allow, too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What a notion! I don’t know where you see the cheerful temper!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I tell you ... you don’t know her. And she’s not mercenary either ... + that’s another thing. She’s not grasping, there’s no doubt of it. Why I + never gave her anything, as you know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s why she’s flung you over.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, that’s not why!’ responded Pyetushkov with a sigh. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, you’re in love with her to this day,’ Onisim retorted malignantly. + ‘You’d be glad to go back there as before.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s nonsense you’re talking. No, my lad, you don’t know me either, I + can see. Be sent away, and then go dancing attendance—no, thank you, + I’d rather be excused. No, I tell you. You may believe me, it’s all a + thing of the past now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Pray God it be so!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why ever shouldn’t I be fair to her, now after all? If now I say + she’s not good-looking—why, who’d believe me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A queer sort of good looks!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, find me,—well, mention anybody better-looking ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you’d better go back to her, then! ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stupid! Do you suppose that’s why I say so? Understand me ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! I understand you,’ Onisim answered with a heavy sigh. + </p> + <p> + Another week passed by. Pyetushkov had positively given up talking with + his Onisim, and had given up going out. From morning till night he lay on + the sofa, his hands behind his head. He began to get thin and pale, eat + unwillingly and hurriedly, and did not smoke at all. Onisim could only + shake his head, as he looked at him. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’re not well, Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he said to him more than once. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’m all right,’ replied Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + At last, one fine day (Onisim was not at home) Pyetushkov got up, rummaged + in his chest of drawers, put on his cloak, though the sun was rather hot, + went stealthily out into the street, and came back a quarter of an hour + later.... He carried something under his cloak.... + </p> + <p> + Onisim was not at home. The whole morning he had been sitting in his + little room, deliberating with himself, grumbling and swearing between his + teeth, and, at last, he sallied off to Vassilissa. He found her in the + shop. Praskovia Ivanovna was asleep on the stove, rhythmically and + soothingly snoring. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, how d’ye do, Onisim Sergeitch,’ began Vassilissa, with a smile; ‘why + haven’t we seen anything of you for so long?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why are you so depressed? Would you like a cup of tea?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not me we’re talking about now,’ rejoined Onisim, in a tone of + vexation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What! Don’t you understand me? What! What have you done to my master, + come, you tell me that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What I’ve done to him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What have you done to him? ... You go and look at him. Why, before we can + look round, he’ll be in a decline, or dying outright, maybe.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not my fault, Onisim Sergeitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not your fault! God knows. Why, he’s lost his heart to you. And you, God + forgive you, treated him as if he were one of yourselves. Don’t come, says + you, I’m sick of you. Why, though he’s not much to boast of, he’s a + gentleman anyway. He’s a gentleman born, you know.... Do you realise + that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But he’s such a dull person, Onisim Sergeitch....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dull! So you must have merry fellows about you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And it’s not so much that he’s dull: he’s so cross, so jealous.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, you, you’re as haughty as a princess! He was in your way, I dare + say!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you yourself, Onisim Sergeitch, if you remember, were put out with + him about it; “Why is he such friends?” you said; “what’s he always coming + for?”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, was I to be pleased with him for it, do you suppose?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then, why are you angry with me now? Here, he’s given up coming.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim positively stamped. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what am I to do with him, if he’s such a madman?’ he added, dropping + his voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘But how am I in fault? What can I do?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll tell you what: come with me to him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God forbid!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why won’t you come?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why should I go to see him? Upon my word!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why? Why, because he says you’ve a good heart; let me see if you’ve a + good heart.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what good can I do him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that’s my business. You may be sure things are in a bad way, since + I’ve come to you. It’s certain I could think of nothing else to do.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim paused for a while. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, come along, Vassilissa, please, come along.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, Onisim Sergeitch, I don’t want to be friendly with him again ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and you needn’t—who’s talking of it? You’ve only to say a + couple of words; to say, Why does your honour grieve? ... give over.... + That’s all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, Onisim Sergeitch ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, am I to go down on my knees to you, eh? All right—there, I’m + on my knees ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But really ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what a girl it is! Even that doesn’t touch her! ...’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa at last consented, put a kerchief on her head, and went out + with Onisim. + </p> + <p> + ‘You wait here a little, in the passage,’ he said to her, when they + reached Pyetushkov’s abode, ‘and I’ll go and let the master know ...’ + </p> + <p> + He went in to Ivan Afanasiitch. Pyetushkov was standing in the middle of + the room, both hands in his pockets, his legs excessively wide apart; he + was slightly swaying backwards and forwards. His face was hot, and his + eyes were sparkling. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hullo, Onisim,’ he faltered amiably, articulating the consonants very + indistinctly and thickly: ‘hullo, my lad. Ah, my lad, when you weren’t + here ... he, he, he ...’ Pyetushkov laughed and made a sudden duck forward + with his nose. ‘Yes, it’s an accomplished fact, he, he, he.... However,’ + he added, trying to assume a dignified air, ‘I’m all right.’ He tried to + lift his foot, but almost fell over, and to preserve his dignity + pronounced in a deep bass, ‘Boy, bring my pipe!’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim gazed in astonishment at his master, glanced round.... In the + window stood an empty dark-green bottle, with the inscription: ‘Best + Jamaica rum.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve been drinking, my lad, that’s all,’ Pyetushkov went on. ‘I’ve been + and taken it. I’ve been drinking, and that’s all about it. And where’ve + you been? Tell us ... don’t be shy ... tell us. You’re a good hand at a + tale.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch, mercy on us!’ wailed Onisim. + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure. To be sure I will,’ replied Pyetushkov with a vague wave of + his hand. ‘I’ll have mercy on you, and forgive you. I forgive every one, I + forgive you, and Vassilissa I forgive, and every one, every one. Yes, my + lad, I’ve been drinking.... Dri-ink-ing, lad.... Who’s that?’ he cried + suddenly, pointing to the door into the passage; ‘who’s there?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nobody’s there,’ Onisim answered hastily: ‘who should be there? ... where + are you going?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no,’ repeated Pyetushkov, breaking away from Onisim, ‘let me go, I + saw—don’t you talk to me,—I saw there, let me go.... + Vassilissa!’ he shrieked all at once. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned pale. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well ... well, why don’t you come in?’ he said at last. ‘Come in, + Vassilissa, come in. I’m very glad to see you, Vassilissa.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa glanced at Onisim and came into the room. Pyetushkov went + nearer to her.... He heaved deep, irregular breaths. Onisim watched him. + Vassilissa stole timid glances at both of them. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sit down, Vassilissa,’ Ivan Afanasiitch began again: ‘thanks for coming. + Excuse my being ... what shall I say? ... not quite fit to be seen. I + couldn’t foresee, couldn’t really, you’ll own that yourself. Come, sit + down, see here, on the sofa ... So ... I’m expressing myself all right, I + think.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa sat down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, good day to you,’ Ivan Afanasiitch pursued. ‘Come, how are you? + what have you been doing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m well, thank God, Ivan Afanasiitch. And you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I? as you see! A ruined man. And ruined by whom? By you, Vassilissa. But + I’m not angry with you. Only I’m a ruined man. You ask him. (He pointed to + Onisim.) Don’t you mind my being drunk. I’m drunk, certainly; only I’m a + ruined man. That’s why I’m drunk, because I’m a ruined man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Lord have mercy on us, Ivan Afanasiitch!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A ruined man, Vassilissa, I tell you. You may believe me. I’ve never + deceived you. Oh, and how’s your aunt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well, Ivan Afanasiitch. Thank you.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov began swaying violently. + </p> + <p> + ‘But you’re not quite well to-day, Ivan Afanasiitch. You ought to lie + down.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’m quite well, Vassilissa. No, don’t say I’m not well; you’d better + say I’ve fallen into evil ways, lost my morals. That’s what would be just. + I won’t dispute that.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch gave a lurch backwards. Onisim ran forward and held his + master up. + </p> + <p> + ‘And who’s to blame for it? I’ll tell you, if you like, who’s to blame. + I’m to blame, in the first place. What ought I to have said? I ought to + have said to you: Vassilissa, I love you. Good—well, will you marry + me? Will you? It’s true you’re a working girl, granted; but that’s all + right. It’s done sometimes. Why, there, I knew a fellow, he got married + like that. Married a Finnish servant-girl. Took and married her. And you’d + have been happy with me. I’m a good-natured chap, I am! Never you mind my + being drunk, you look at my heart. There, you ask this ... fellow. So, you + see, I turn out to be in fault. And now, of course, I’m a ruined man.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch was more and more in need of Onisim’s support. + </p> + <p> + ‘All the same, you did wrong, very wrong. I loved you, I respected you ... + what’s more, I’m ready to go to church with you this minute. Will you? + You’ve only to say the word, and we’ll start at once. Only you wounded me + cruelly ... cruelly. You might at least have turned me away yourself—but + through your aunt, through that fat female! Why, the only joy I had in + life was you. I’m a homeless man, you know, a poor lonely creature! Who is + there now to be kind to me? who says a kind word to me? I’m utterly alone. + Stript bare as a crow. You ask this ...’ Ivan Afanasiitch began to cry. + ‘Vassilissa, listen what I say to you,’ he went on: ‘let me come and see + you as before. Don’t be afraid.... I’ll be ... quiet as a mouse. You can + go and see whom you like, I’ll—be all right: not a word, no + protests, you know. Eh? do you agree? If you like, I’ll go down on my + knees.’ (And Ivan Afanasiitch bent his knees, but Onisim held him up under + the arms.) ‘Let me go! It’s not your business! It’s a matter of the + happiness of a whole life, don’t you understand, and you hinder....’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa did not know what to say. + </p> + <p> + ‘You won’t ... Well, as you will! God be with you. In that case, good-bye! + Good-bye, Vassilissa. I wish you all happiness and prosperity ... but I + ... but I ...’ + </p> + <p> + And Pyetushkov sobbed violently. Onisim with all his might held him up + from behind ... first his face worked, then he burst out crying. And + Vassilissa cried too. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI + </h2> + <p> + Ten years later, one might have met in the streets of the little town of O—— + a thinnish man with a reddish nose, dressed in an old green coat with a + greasy plush collar. He occupied a small garret in the baker’s shop, with + which we are familiar. Praskovia Ivanovna was no longer of this world. The + business was carried on by her niece, Vassilissa, and her husband, the + red-haired, dim-eyed baker, Demofont. The man in the green coat had one + weakness: he was over fond of drink. He was, however, always quiet when he + was tipsy. The reader has probably recognised him as Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Desperate Character and Other Stories, by +Ivan Turgenev + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + +***** This file should be named 8871-h.htm or 8871-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/8/7/8871/ + + +Text files produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Desperate Character and Other Stories + +Author: Ivan Turgenev + +Translator: Constance Garnett + + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8871] +This file was first posted on August 17, 2003 +Last Updated: April 23, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +A DESPERATE CHARACTER, AND OTHER STORIES + +By Ivan Turgenev + +Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett + + +1899 + + +THE NOVELS OF IVAN TURGENEV + +Complete in Fifteen Volumes. + + i. Rudin. + ii. A House of Gentlefolk. + iii. On the Eve. + iv. Fathers and Children. + v. Smoke. + vi. & vii. Virgin Soil. 2 Vols. + viii, & ix. A Sportsman's Sketches. 2 Vols. + x. Dream Tales and Prose Poems. + xi. The Torrents of Spring and other Stories. + xii. A Lear of the Steppes and other Stories. + xiii. The Diary of a Superfluous Man and other Stories. + xiv. A Desperate Character and other Tales. + xv. The Jew and other Stories. + + + +TO JOSEPH CONRAD + +WHOSE ART IN ESSENCE OFTEN RECALLS + +THE ART AND ESSENCE OF TURGENEV + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +The six tales now translated for the English reader were written by +Turgenev at various dates between 1847 and 1881. Their chronological +order is:-- + + +_Pyetushkov_, 1847 + +_The Brigadier_, 1867 + +_A Strange Story_, 1869 + +_Punin and Baburin_, 1874 + +_Old Portraits_, 1881 + +_A Desperate Character_, 1881 + + +_Pyetushkov_ is the work of a young man of twenty-nine, and its lively, +unstrained realism is so bold, intimate, and delicate as to contradict +the flattering compliment that the French have paid to one another--that +Turgenev had need to dress his art by the aid of French mirrors. + +Although _Pyetushkov_ shows us, by a certain open _naivete_ of style, +that a youthful hand is at work, it is the hand of a young master, +carrying out the realism of the 'forties'--that of Gogol, Balzac, and +Dickens--straightway, with finer point, to find a perfect equilibrium +free from any bias or caricature. The whole strength and essence of the +realistic method has been developed in _Pyetushkov_ to its just limits. +The Russians are _instinctive_ realists, and carry the warmth of life +into their pages, which warmth the French seem to lose in clarifying +their impressions and crystallising them in art. _Pyetushkov_ is not +exquisite: it is irresistible. Note how the reader is transported bodily +into Pyetushkov's stuffy room, and how the major fairly boils out of the +two pages he lives in! (pp. 301, 302). That is _realism_ if you like. A +woman will see the point of _Pyetushkov_ very quickly. Onisim and +Vassilissa and the aunt walk and chatter around the stupid Pyetushkov, +and glance at him significantly in a manner that reveals everything +about these people's world. All the servants who appear in the tales in +this volume are hit off so marvellously that one sees the lower-class +world, which is such a mystery to certain refined minds, has no secrets +for Turgenev. + +Of a different, and to our taste more fascinating, _genre_ is _The +Brigadier_. It is greater art because life's prosaic growth is revealed +not merely realistically, but also poetically, life as a tiny part of +the great universe around it. The tale is a microcosm of Turgenev's own +nature; his love of Nature, his tender sympathy for all humble, ragged, +eccentric, despised human creatures; his unfaltering keenness of gaze +into character, his fine sense of proportion, mingle in. _The +Brigadier_, to create for us a sense of the pitiableness of man's tiny +life, of the mere human seed which springs and spreads a while on earth, +and dies under the menacing gaze of the advancing years. 'Out of the +sweetness came forth strength' is perhaps the best saying by which one +can define Turgenev's peculiar merits in _The Brigadier_. + +_Punin and Baburin_ presents to us again one of those ragged ones, one +of 'the poor in spirit,' the idealist Punin, a character whose portrait +challenges Dostoievsky's skill on the latter's own ground. That +delicious Punin! and that terrible grandmother's scene with Baburin! How +absolutely Slav is the blending of irony and kindness in the treatment +of Punin, Cucumber, and Pyetushkov, few English readers will understand. +All the characters in _Punin and Baburin_ are so strongly drawn, so +intensely alive, that, like Rembrandt's portraits, they make the living +people, who stand looking at them, absurdly grey and lifeless by +comparison! Baburin is a Nihilist before the times of Nihilism, he is a +type of the strong characters that arose later in the movement of the +'eighties.' + +A pre-Nihilistic type is also the character of Sophie in _A Strange +Story_. But the chief value of this last psychological study is that it +gives the English mind a clue to the fundamental distinction that marks +off the Russian people from the peoples of the West. Sophie's +words--'You spoke of the will--that's what must be broken' (p. +61)--define most admirably the deepest aspiration of the Russian soul. +To be lowly and suffering, to be despised, sick, to be under the lash of +fate, to be trampled under foot by others, _to be_ unworthy, all this +secret desire of the Russian soul implies that the Russian has little +_will_, that he finds it easier to resign himself than to make the +effort to be powerful, triumphant, worthy. It is from the resignation +and softness of the Russian nature that all its characteristic virtues +spring. Whereas religion with the English mind is largely an anxiety to +be moral, to be _right_ and righteous, to be 'a chosen vessel of the +Lord,' religion with the Russian implies a genuine abasement and loss of +self, a bowing before the will of Heaven, and true brotherly love. The +Western mind rises to greatness by concentrating the will-power in +action, by assertion of all its inner force, by shutting out forcibly +whatever might dominate or distract or weaken it. But the Russian mind, +through its lack of character, will-power, and hardness, rises to +greatness in its acceptance of life, and in its sympathy with all the +unfortunate, the wretched, the poor in spirit. Of course in practical +life the Russian lacks many of the useful virtues the Western peoples +possess and has most of their vices; but certainly his pity, charity, +and brotherliness towards men more unfortunate than himself largely +spring from his fatalistic acceptance of his own unworthiness and +weakness. So in Sophie's case the desire for self-sacrifice, and her +impregnable conviction that to suffer and endure is _right_, is truly +Russian in the sense of letting the individuality go _with_ the stream +of fate, not _against_ it. And hence the formidable spirit of the +youthful generation that sacrificed itself in the Nihilistic movement: +the strenuous action of 'the youth' once set in movement, the spirit of +self-sacrifice impelled it calmly towards its goal despite all the +forces and threats of fate. Sophie is indeed an early Nihilist born +before her time. + +We have said that the lack of will in the Russian nature is at the root +of Russian virtues and vices, and in this connection it is curious to +remark that a race's soul seems often to grow out of the race's +_aspiration towards what it is not in life_. Is not the French +intellect, for example, so cool, clear-headed, so delicately analytic of +its own motives, that through the principle of _counterpoise_ it strives +to lose itself and release itself in continual rhetoric and emotional +positions? Is not the German mind so alive to the material facts of +life, to the necessity of getting hold of concrete advantages in life, +and of not letting them go, that it deliberately slackens the bent bow, +and plunges itself and relaxes itself in floods of abstractions, and +idealisations, and dreams of sentimentality? Assuredly it is because the +Russian is so inwardly discontented with his own actions that he is such +a keen and incisive critic of everything _false_ and exaggerated, that +he despises all French rhetoric and German sentimentalism. And in this +sense it is that the Russian's lack of will comes in to deepen his soul. +He surrenders himself thereby to the universe, and, as do the Asiatics, +does not let the tiny shadow of his fate, dark though it may be, shut +out the universe so thoroughly from his consciousness, as does the +aggressive struggling will-power of the Western man striving to let his +individuality have full play. The Russian's attitude may indeed be +compared to a bowl which catches and sustains what life brings it; and +the Western man's to a bowl inverted to ward off what drops from the +impassive skies. The mental attitude of the Russian peasant indeed +implies that in blood he is nearer akin to the Asiatics than Russian +ethnologists have wished to allow. Certainly in the inner life of +thought, intellectually, morally, and emotionally, he is a half-way +house between the Western and Eastern races, just as geographically he +spreads over the two continents. By natural law his destiny calls him +towards the East. Should he one day spread his rule further and further +among the Asiatics and hold the keys of an immense Asiatic empire, well! +future English philosophers may feel thereat a curious fatalistic +satisfaction. + +EDWARD GARNETT. + +_October_ 1899. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + A DESPERATE CHARACTER + A STRANGE STORY + PUNIN AND BABURIN + OLD PORTRAITS + THE BRIGADIER + PYETUSHKOV + + + + + +A DESPERATE CHARACTER + + + + +I + + +... We were a party of eight in the room, and we were talking of +contemporary affairs and men. + +'I don't understand these men!' observed A.: 'they're such desperate +fellows.... Really desperate.... There has never been anything like +it before.' + +'Yes, there has,' put in P., a man getting on in years, with grey hair, +born some time in the twenties of this century: 'there were desperate +characters in former days too, only they were not like the desperate +fellows of to-day. Of the poet Yazikov some one has said that he had +enthusiasm, but not applied to anything--an enthusiasm without an +object. So it was with those people--their desperateness was without an +object. But there, if you'll allow me, I'll tell you the story of my +nephew, or rather cousin, Misha Poltyev. It may serve as an example of +the desperate characters of those days. + +He came into God's world, I remember, in 1828, at his father's native +place and property, in one of the sleepiest corners of a sleepy province +of the steppes. Misha's father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Poltyev, I remember +well to this day. He was a genuine old-world landowner, a God-fearing, +sedate man, fairly--for those days--well educated, just a little +cracked, to tell the truth--and, moreover, he suffered from epilepsy.... +That too is an old-world, gentlemanly complaint.... Andrei +Nikolaevitch's fits were, however, slight, and generally ended in sleep +and depression. He was good-hearted, and of an affable demeanour, not +without a certain stateliness: I always pictured to myself the tsar +Mihail Fedorovitch as like him. The whole life of Andrei Nikolaevitch +was passed in the punctual fulfilment of every observance established +from old days, in strict conformity with all the usages of the old +orthodox holy Russian mode of life. He got up and went to bed, ate his +meals, and went to his bath, rejoiced or was wroth (both very rarely, it +is true), even smoked his pipe and played cards (two great +innovations!), not after his own fancy, not in a way of his own, but +according to the custom and ordinance of his fathers--with due decorum +and formality. He was tall, well built, and stout; his voice was soft +and rather husky, as is so often the case with virtuous people in +Russia; he was scrupulously neat in his dress and linen, and wore white +cravats and full-skirted snuff-coloured coats, but his noble blood was +nevertheless evident; no one could have taken him for a priest's son or +a merchant! At all times, on all possible occasions, and in all possible +contingencies, Andrei Nikolaevitch knew without fail what ought to be +done, what was to be said, and precisely what expressions were to be +used; he knew when he ought to take medicine, and just what he ought to +take; what omens were to be believed and what might be disregarded ... +in fact, he knew everything that ought to be done.... For as everything +had been provided for and laid down by one's elders, one had only to be +sure not to imagine anything of one's self.... And above all, without +God's blessing not a step to be taken!--It must be confessed that a +deadly dulness reigned supreme in his house, in those low-pitched, warm, +dark rooms, that so often resounded with the singing of liturgies and +all-night services, and had the smell of incense and Lenten dishes +almost always hanging about them! + +Andrei Nikolaevitch--no longer in his first youth--married a young +lady of a neighbouring family, without fortune, a very nervous and +sickly person, who had had a boarding-school education. She played the +piano fairly, spoke boarding-school French, was easily moved to +enthusiasm, and still more easily to melancholy and even tears.... +She was of unbalanced character, in fact. She regarded her life as +wasted, could not care for her husband, who, 'of course,' did not +understand her; but she respected him, ... she put up with him; and +being perfectly honest and perfectly cold, she never even dreamed of +another 'affection.' Besides, she was always completely engrossed in +the care, first, of her own really delicate health, secondly, of the +health of her husband, whose fits always inspired in her something +like superstitious horror, and lastly, of her only son, Misha, whom +she brought up herself with great zeal. Andrei Nikolaevitch did not +oppose his wife's looking after Misha, on the one condition of his +education never over-stepping the lines laid down, once and for all, +within which everything must move in his house! Thus, for instance, at +Christmas-time, and at New Year, and St. Vassily's eve, it was +permissible for Misha to dress up and masquerade with the servant +boys--and not only permissible, but even a binding duty.... But, at +any other time, God forbid! and so on, and so on. + + + + +II + + +I remember Misha at thirteen. He was a very pretty boy, with rosy little +cheeks and soft lips (indeed he was soft and plump-looking all over), +with prominent liquid eyes, carefully brushed and combed, caressing and +modest--a regular little girl! There was only one thing about him I did +not like: he rarely laughed; but when he did laugh, his teeth--large +white teeth, pointed like an animal's--showed disagreeably, and the +laugh itself had an abrupt, even savage, almost animal sound, and there +were unpleasant gleams in his eyes. His mother was always praising him +for being so obedient and well behaved, and not caring to make friends +with rude boys, but always preferring feminine society. 'A mother's +darling, a milksop,' his father, Andrei Nikolaevitch, would call him; +'but he's always ready to go into the house of God.... And that I am +glad to see.' Only one old neighbour, who had been a police captain, +once said before me, speaking of Misha, 'Mark my words, he'll be a +rebel.' And this saying, I remember, surprised me very much at the time. +The old police captain, it is true, used to see rebels on all sides. + +Just such an exemplary youth Misha continued to be till the eighteenth +year of his age, up to the death of his parents, both of whom he lost +almost on the same day. As I was all the while living constantly at +Moscow, I heard nothing of my young kinsman. An acquaintance coming from +his province did, it is true, inform me that Misha had sold the paternal +estate for a trifling sum; but this piece of news struck me as too +wildly improbable! And behold, all of a sudden, one autumn morning there +flew into the courtyard of my house a carriage, with a pair of splendid +trotting horses, and a coachman of monstrous size on the box; and in the +carriage, wrapped in a cloak of military cut, with a beaver collar two +yards deep, and with a foraging cap cocked on one side, _a la diable +m'emporte_, sat ... Misha! On catching sight of me (I was standing at +the drawing-room window, gazing in astonishment at the flying equipage), +he laughed his abrupt laugh, and jauntily flinging back his cloak, he +jumped out of the carriage and ran into the house. + +'Misha! Mihail Andreevitch!' I was beginning, ... 'Is it you?' + +'Call me Misha,'--he interrupted me. 'Yes, it's I, ... I, in my own +person.... I have come to Moscow ... to see the world ... and show +myself. And here I am, come to see you. What do you say to my +horses?... Eh?' he laughed again. + +Though it was seven years since I had seen Misha last, I recognised him +at once. His face had remained just as youthful and as pretty as +ever--there was no moustache even visible; only his cheeks looked a +little swollen under his eyes, and a smell of spirits came from his +lips. 'Have you been long in Moscow?' I inquired. + +'I supposed you were at home in the country, looking after the +place.' ... + +'Eh! The country I threw up at once! As soon as my parents died--may +their souls rest in peace--(Misha crossed himself scrupulously, without +a shade of mockery) at once, without a moment's delay, ... _ein, zwei, +drei!_ ha, ha! I let it go cheap, damn it! A rascally fellow turned up. +But it's no matter! Anyway, I am living as I fancy, and amusing other +people. But why are you staring at me like that? Was I, really, to go +dragging on in the same old round, do you suppose? ... My dear fellow, +couldn't I have a glass of something?' + +Misha spoke fearfully quick and hurriedly, and, at the same time, as +though he were only just waked up from sleep. + +'Misha, upon my word!' I wailed; 'have you no fear of God? What do you +look like? What an attire! And you ask for a glass too! And to sell such +a fine estate for next to nothing....' + +'God I fear always, and do not forget,' he broke in.... 'But He is good, +you know--God is.... He will forgive! And I am good too.... I have +never yet hurt any one in my life. And drink is good too; and as for +hurting,... it never hurt any one either. And my get-up is quite the most +correct thing.... Uncle, would you like me to show you I can walk +straight? Or to do a little dance?' + +'Oh, spare me, please! A dance, indeed! You'd better sit down.' + +'As to that, I'll sit down with pleasure.... But why do you say nothing +of my greys? Just look at them, they're perfect lions! I've got them on +hire for the time, but I shall buy them for certain, ... and the +coachman too.... It's ever so much cheaper to have one's own horses. And +I had the money, but I lost it yesterday at faro. It's no matter, I'll +make it up to-morrow. Uncle, ... how about that little glass?' + +I was still unable to get over my amazement. 'Really, Misha, how old are +you? You ought not to be thinking about horses or cards, ... but going +into the university or the service.' + +Misha first laughed again, then gave vent to a prolonged whistle. + +'Well, uncle, I see you're in a melancholy humour to-day. I'll come +back another time. But I tell you what: you come in the evening to +Sokolniki. I've a tent pitched there. The gypsies sing, ... such +goings-on.... And there's a streamer on the tent, and on the streamer, +written in large letters: "The Troupe of Poltyev's Gypsies." The +streamer coils like a snake, the letters are of gold, attractive for +every one to read. A free entertainment--whoever likes to come! ... No +refusal! I'm making the dust fly in Moscow ... to my glory! ... Eh? will +you come? Ah, I've one girl there ... a serpent! Black as your boot, +spiteful as a dog, and eyes ... like living coals! One can never tell +what she's going to do--kiss or bite! ... Will you come, uncle? ... +Well, good-bye, till we meet!' + +And with a sudden embrace, and a smacking kiss on my shoulder, Misha +darted away into the courtyard, and into the carriage, waved his cap +over his head, hallooed,--the monstrous coachman leered at him over his +beard, the greys dashed off, and all vanished! + +The next day I--like a sinner--set off to Sokolniki, and did actually +see the tent with the streamer and the inscription. The drapery of the +tent was raised; from it came clamour, creaking, and shouting. Crowds of +people were thronging round it. On a carpet spread on the ground sat +gypsies, men and women, singing and beating drums, and in the midst of +them, in a red silk shirt and velvet breeches, was Misha, holding a +guitar, dancing a jig. 'Gentlemen! honoured friends! walk in, please! +the performance is just beginning! Free to all!' he was shouting in a +high, cracked voice. 'Hey! champagne! pop! a pop on the head! pop up to +the ceiling! Ha! you rogue there, Paul de Kock!' + +Luckily he did not see me, and I hastily made off. + +I won't enlarge on my astonishment at the spectacle of this +transformation. But, how was it actually possible for that quiet and +modest boy to change all at once into a drunken buffoon? Could it all +have been latent in him from childhood, and have come to the surface +directly the yoke of his parents' control was removed? But that he had +made the dust fly in Moscow, as he expressed it--of that, certainly, +there could be no doubt. I have seen something of riotous living in my +day; but in this there was a sort of violence, a sort of frenzy of +self-destruction, a sort of desperation! + + + + +III + + +For two months these diversions continued.... And once more I was +standing at my drawing-room window, looking into the courtyard.... All +of a sudden--what could it mean? ... there came slowly stepping in at the +gate a pilgrim ... a squash hat pulled down on his forehead, his hair +combed out straight to right and left below it, a long gown, a leather +belt ... Could it be Misha? He it was! + +I went to meet him on the steps.... 'What's this masquerade for?' +I demanded. + +'It's not a masquerade, uncle,' Misha answered with a deep sigh: since +all I had I've squandered to the last farthing--and a great repentance +too has come upon me--so I have resolved to go to the Sergiev monastery +of the Holy Trinity to expiate my sins in prayer. For what refuge was +left me? ... And so I have come to you to say good-bye, uncle, like a +prodigal son.' + +I looked intently at Misha. His face was just the same, rosy and fresh +(indeed it remained almost unchanged to the end), and the eyes, liquid, +affectionate, and languishing--and the hands, as small and white.... But +he smelt of spirits. + +'Well,' I pronounced at last, 'it's a good thing to do--since there's +nothing else to be done. But why is it you smell of spirits?' + +'A relic of the past,' answered Misha, and he suddenly laughed, but +immediately pulled himself up, and, making a straight, low bow--a monk's +bow--he added: 'Won't you help me on my way? I'm going, see, on foot to +the monastery....' + +'When?' + +'To-day ... at once.' + +'Why be in such a hurry?' + +'Uncle, my motto always was, "Make haste, make haste!"' + +'But what is your motto now?' + +'It's the same now.... Only, make haste towards _good_!' + +And so Misha went off, leaving me to ponder on the vicissitudes of +human destiny. + +But he soon reminded me of his existence. Two months after his visit, I +got a letter from him, the first of those letters, of which later on he +furnished me with so abundant a supply. And note a peculiar fact: I +have seldom seen a neater, more legible handwriting than that +unbalanced fellow's. And the wording of his letters was exceedingly +correct, just a little flowery. Invariable entreaties for assistance, +always attended with resolutions to reform, vows, and promises on his +honour.... All of it seemed--and perhaps was--sincere. Misha's +signature to his letters was always accompanied by peculiar strokes, +flourishes, and stops, and he made great use of marks of exclamation. +In this first letter Misha informed me of a new 'turn in his fortune.' +(Later on he used to refer to these turns as plunges, ... and frequent +were the plunges he took.) He was starting for the Caucasus on active +service for his tsar and his country in the capacity of a cadet! And, +though a certain benevolent aunt had entered into his impecunious +position, and had sent him an inconsiderable sum, still he begged me to +assist him in getting his equipment. I did what he asked, and for two +years I heard nothing more of him. + +I must own I had the gravest doubts as to his having gone to the +Caucasus. But it turned out that he really had gone there, had, by +favour, got into the T---- regiment as a cadet, and had been serving in +it for those two years. A perfect series of legends had sprung up there +about him. An officer of his regiment related them to me. + + + + +IV + + +I learned a great deal which I should never have expected of him.--I +was, of course, hardly surprised that as a military man, as an officer, +he was not a success, that he was in fact worse than useless; but what I +had not anticipated was that he was by no means conspicuous for much +bravery; that in battle he had a downcast, woebegone air, seemed +half-depressed, half-bewildered. Discipline of every sort worried him, +and made him miserable; he was daring to the point of insanity when only +his _own personal_ safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him to +accept; but do harm to others, kill, fight, he could not, possibly +because his heart was too good--or possibly because his 'cottonwool' +education (so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself he was +quite ready to murder in any way at any moment.... But others--no. +'There's no making him out,' his comrades said of him; 'he's a flabby +creature, a poor stick--and yet such a desperate fellow--a perfect +madman!' I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit +drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his life, and so +on. He always had one answer--'wretchedness.' + +'But why are you wretched?' + +'Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one's self, begins to +feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well, +it's all over with me! ... one's so wretched at once--one wants to put a +bullet through one's head! One's forced to start drinking.' + +'Why ever do you drag Russia in?' + +'How can I help it? Can't be helped! That's why I'm afraid to think.' + +'It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.' + +'But I don't know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one's +life, and stake it on a card--that I can do! Come, you tell me what I +ought to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I'll ...' + +'But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?' + +'I can't! You say I act thoughtlessly.... But what else can I do? ... If +one starts thinking--good God, all that comes into one's head! It's only +Germans who can think! ...' + +What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate man, and that's all +one can say. + +Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will tell you two or +three. One day, in a party of officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre +he had got by exchange--'a genuine Persian blade!' The officers +expressed doubts as to its genuineness. Misha began disputing. 'Here +then,' he cried at last; 'they say the man that knows most about sabres +is Abdulka the one-eyed. I'll go to him, and ask.' The officers +wondered. 'What Abdulka? Do you mean that lives in the mountains? The +rebel never subdued? Abdul-khan?' 'Yes, that's him.' 'Why, but he'll +take you for a spy, will put you in a hole full of bugs, or else cut +your head off with your own sabre. And, besides, how are you going to +get to him? They'll catch you directly.' 'I'll go to him, though, all +the same.' 'Bet you won't!' 'Taken!' And Misha promptly saddled his +horse and rode off to Abdulka. He disappeared for three days. All felt +certain that the crazy fellow had come by his end. But, behold! he came +back--drunk, and with a sabre, not the one he had taken, but another. +They began questioning him. 'It was all right,' said he; 'Abdulka's a +nice fellow. At first, it's true, he ordered them to put irons on my +legs, and was even on the point of having me impaled. Only, I explained +why I had come, and showed him the sabre. "And you'd better not keep +me," said I; "don't expect a ransom for me; I've not a farthing to bless +myself with--and I've no relations." Abdulka was surprised; he looked at +me with his solitary eye. "Well," said he, "you are a bold one, you +Russian; am I to believe you?" "You may believe me," said I; "I never +tell a lie." (And this was true; Misha never lied.) Abdulka looked at me +again. "And do you know how to drink wine?" "I do," said I; "give me as +much as you will, I'll drink it." Abdulka was surprised again; he called +on Allah. And he told his--daughter, I suppose--such a pretty creature, +only with an eye like a jackal's--to bring a wine-skin. And I began to +get to work on it. "But your sabre," said he, "isn't genuine; here, take +the real thing. And now we are pledged friends." But you've lost your +bet, gentlemen; pay up.' + +The second legend of Misha is of this nature. He was passionately fond +of cards; but as he had no money, and could never pay his debts at cards +(though he was never a card-sharper), no one at last would sit down to a +game with him. So one day he began urgently begging one of his comrades +among the officers to play with him! 'But if you lose, you don't pay.' +'The money certainly I can't pay, but I'll put a shot through my left +hand, see, with this pistol here!' 'But whatever use will that be to +me?' 'No use, but still it will be curious.' This conversation took +place after a drinking bout in the presence of witnesses. Whether it was +that Misha's proposition struck the officer as really curious--anyway he +agreed. Cards were brought, the game began. Misha was in luck; he won a +hundred roubles. And thereupon his opponent struck his forehead with +vexation. 'What an ass I am!' he cried, 'to be taken in like this! As if +you'd have shot your hand if you had lost!--a likely story! hold out +your purse!' 'That's a lie,' retorted Misha: 'I've won--but I'll shoot +my hand.' He snatched up his pistol--and bang, fired at his own hand. +The bullet passed right through it ... and in a week the wound had +completely healed. + +Another time, Misha was riding with his comrades along a road at +night ... and they saw close to the roadside a narrow ravine like a deep +cleft, dark--so dark you couldn't see the bottom. 'Look,' said one of +the officers, 'Misha may be a desperate fellow, but he wouldn't leap +into that ravine.' 'Yes, I'd leap in!' 'No, you wouldn't, for I dare say +it's seventy feet deep, and you might break your neck.' His friend knew +his weak point--vanity.... There was a great deal of it in Misha. 'But +I'll leap in anyway! Would you like to bet on it? Ten roubles.' 'Good!' +And the officer had hardly uttered the word, when Misha and his horse +were off--into the ravine--and crashing down over the stones. All were +simply petrified.... A full minute passed, and they heard Misha's voice, +dimly, as it were rising up out of the bowels of the earth: 'All right! +fell on the sand ... but it was a long flight! Ten roubles you've lost!' + +'Climb out!' shouted his comrades. 'Climb out, I dare say!' echoed +Misha. 'A likely story! I should like to see you climb out. You'll have +to go for torches and ropes now. And, meanwhile, to keep up my spirits +while I wait, fling down a flask....' + +And so Misha had to stay five hours at the bottom of the ravine; and +when they dragged him out, it turned out that his shoulder was +dislocated. But that in no way troubled him. The next day a bone-setter, +one of the black-smiths, set his shoulder, and he used it as though +nothing had been the matter. + +His health in general was marvellous, incredible. I have already +mentioned that up to the time of his death he kept his almost childishly +fresh complexion. Illness was a thing unknown to him, in spite of his +excesses; the strength of his constitution never once showed signs of +giving way. When any other man would infallibly have been seriously ill, +or even have died, he merely shook himself, like a duck in the water, +and was more blooming than ever. Once, also in the Caucasus ... _this_ +legend is really incredible, but one may judge from it what Misha was +thought to be capable of.... Well, once, in the Caucasus, in a state of +drunkenness, he fell down with the lower half of his body in a stream of +water; his head and arms were on the bank, out of water. It was +winter-time, there was a hard frost, and when he was found next morning, +his legs and body were pulled out from under a thick layer of ice, which +had formed over them in the night--and he didn't even catch cold! +Another time--this was in Russia (near Orel, and also in a time of +severe frost)--he was in a tavern outside the town in company with seven +young seminarists (or theological students), and these seminarists were +celebrating their final examination, but had invited Misha, as a +delightful person, a man of 'inspiration,' as the phrase was then. A +very great deal was drunk, and when at last the festive party got ready +to depart, Misha, dead drunk, was in an unconscious condition. All the +seven seminarists together had but one three-horse sledge with a high +back; where were they to stow the unresisting body? Then one of the +young men, inspired by classical reminiscences, proposed tying Misha by +his feet to the back of the sledge, as Hector was tied to the chariot of +Achilles! The proposal met with approval ... and jolting up and down +over the holes, sliding sideways down the slopes, with his legs torn and +flayed, and his head rolling in the snow, poor Misha travelled on his +back for the mile and a half from the tavern to the town, and hadn't as +much as a cough afterwards, hadn't turned a hair! Such heroic health had +nature bestowed upon him! + + + + +V + + +From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian dress, a +dagger in his sash, a high-peaked cap on his head. This costume he +retained to the end, though he was no longer in the army, from which he +had been discharged for outstaying his leave. He stayed with me, +borrowed a little money ... and forthwith began his 'plunges,' his +wanderings, or, as he expressed it, 'his peregrinations from pillar to +post,' then came the sudden disappearances and returns, and the showers +of beautifully written letters addressed to people of every possible +description, from an archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives! Then +came calls upon persons known and unknown! And this is worth noticing: +when he made these calls, he was never abject and cringing, he never +worried people by begging, but on the contrary behaved with propriety, +and had positively a cheerful and pleasant air, though the inveterate +smell of spirits accompanied him everywhere, and his Oriental costume +gradually changed into rags. 'Give, and God will reward you, though I +don't deserve it,' he would say, with a bright smile and a candid blush; +'if you don't give, you'll be perfectly right, and I shan't blame you +for it. I shall find food to eat, God will provide! And there are people +poorer than I, and much more deserving of help--plenty, plenty!' Misha +was particularly successful with women: he knew how to appeal to their +sympathy. But don't suppose that he was or fancied himself a +Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very modest. Whether it was that +he had inherited a cool temperament from his parents, or whether indeed +this too is to be set down to his dislike for doing any one harm--as, +according to his notions, relations with a woman meant inevitably doing +a woman harm--I won't undertake to decide; only in all his behaviour +with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women felt this, and were +the more ready to sympathise with him and help him, until at last he +revolted them by his drunkenness and debauchery, by the desperateness of +which I have spoken already.... I can think of no other word for it. + +But in other relations he had by that time lost every sort of delicacy, +and was gradually sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. He once, +in the public assembly at T----, got as far as setting on the table a +jug with a notice: 'Any one, to whom it may seem agreeable to give the +high-born nobleman Poltyev (authentic documents in proof of his +pedigree are herewith exposed) a flip on the nose, may satisfy this +inclination on putting a rouble into this jug.' And I am told there +were persons found willing to pay for the privilege of flipping a +nobleman's nose! It is true that one such person, who put in only one +rouble and gave him _two_ flips, he first almost strangled, and then +forced to apologise; it is true, too, that part of the money gained in +this fashion he promptly distributed among other poor devils ... but +still, think what a disgrace! + +In the course of his 'peregrinations from pillar to post,' he made his +way, too, to his ancestral home, which he had sold for next to nothing +to a speculator and money-lender well known in those days. The +money-lender was at home, and hearing of the presence in the +neighbourhood of the former owner, now reduced to vagrancy, he gave +orders not to admit him into the house, and even, in case of necessity, +to drive him away. Misha announced that he would not for his part +consent to enter the house, polluted by the presence of so repulsive a +person; that he would permit no one to drive him away, but was going to +the churchyard to pay his devotions at the grave of his parents. So in +fact he did. + +In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been +his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly +allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been +a corner in a peasant's hut. Misha had been too short a time in +possession of his estate to have left behind him a particularly +favourable memory; still the old servant could not resist running to the +churchyard as soon as he heard of his young master's being there. He +found Misha sitting on the ground between the tombstones, asked for his +hand to kiss, as in old times, and even shed tears on seeing the rags +which clothed the limbs of his once pampered young charge. + +Misha gazed long and silently at the old man. 'Timofay!' he said at +last; Timofay started. + +'What do you desire?' + +'Have you a spade?' + +'I can get one.... But what do you want with a spade, Mihailo +Andreitch, sir?' + +'I want to dig myself a grave, Timofay, and to lie here for time +everlasting between my father and mother. There's only this spot left me +in the world. Get a spade!' + +'Yes, sir,' said Timofay; he went and got it. And Misha began at once +digging in the ground, while Timofay stood by, his chin propped in his +hand, repeating: 'It's all that's left for you and me, master!' + +Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: 'Life's not worth +living, is it, Timofay?' + +'It's not indeed, master.' + +The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about, +and ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first +very angry, wanted to send for the police: 'This is sacrilege,' said he. +But afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to +have to do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,--he +went in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still +toiling, made him a polite bow. He went on with his digging as though he +had not noticed his successor. 'Mihail Andreitch,' began the +money-lender, 'allow me to ask what you are doing here?' + +'You can see--I am digging myself a grave.' + +'Why are you doing so?' + +'Because I don't want to live any longer.' + +The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. 'You don't +want to live?' + +Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. 'That surprises you? +Aren't you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn't it you, +Judas, who robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren't you +flaying the peasants' skins off their backs? Haven't you taken from +this poor old man his crust of dry bread? Wasn't it you? ... O God! +everywhere nothing but injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing.... +Everything must go to ruin then, and me too! I don't care for life, I +don't care for life in Russia!' And the spade moved faster than ever in +Misha's hands. + +'Here's a devil of a business!' thought the money-lender; 'he's +positively burying himself alive.' 'Mihail Andreevitch,' he began +again: 'listen. I've been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me +falsely of you.' + +Misha went on digging. + +'But why be desperate?' + +Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the +money-lender's feet, as though to say, 'Here you are, land-grabber.' + +'Really, you 're wrong in this. Won't you be pleased to come in to have +some lunch, and rest a bit?' + +Misha raised his head. 'So that's it now! And anything to drink?' + +The money-lender was delighted. 'Why, of course ... I should think so.' + +'You invite Timofay too?' + +'Well, ... yes, him too.' + +Misha pondered. 'Only, mind ... you made me a beggar, you know.... Don't +think you can get off with one bottle!' + +'Set your mind at rest ... there shall be all you can want.' + +Misha got up and flung down the spade.... 'Well, Timosha,' said he to +his old nurse; 'let's do honour to our host.... Come along.' + +'Yes, sir,' answered the old man. + +And all three started off to the house together. The money-lender knew +the man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, +exacted a promise from him to 'grant all sorts of immunities' to the +peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, +both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still +seemed pervaded by the God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an +hour later still, Misha in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for +spirits), laid in a cart with his high cap and dagger, was being driven +off to the town, more than twenty miles away, and there was flung under +a hedge.... As for Timofay, who could still keep on his legs, and only +hiccupped--him, of course, they kicked out of the house; since they +couldn't get at the master, they had to be content with the old servant. + + + + +VI + + +Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha.... God knows what +he was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a +posting-station on the T---- highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly +heard under the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering +in French the words: 'Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitie d'un pauvre +gentil-homme ruine.' ... I lifted my head, glanced.... The +mangy-looking fur cap, the broken ornaments on the ragged Circassian +dress, the dagger in the cracked sheath, the swollen, but still rosy +face, the dishevelled, but still thick crop of hair.... Mercy on us! +Misha! He had come then to begging alms on the high-roads. I could not +help crying out. He recognised me, started, turned away, and was about +to move away from the window. I stopped him ... but what could I say to +him? Give him a lecture? ... In silence I held out a five-rouble note; +he, also in silence, took it in his still white and plump, though +shaking and dirty hand, and vanished round the corner of the house. + +It was a good while before they gave me horses, and I had time to give +myself up to gloomy reflections on my unexpected meeting with Misha; I +felt ashamed of having let him go so unsympathetically. + +At last I set off on my way, and half a mile from the station I observed +ahead of me, in the road, a crowd of people moving along with a curious, +as it seemed rhythmic, step. I overtook this crowd--and what did I see? + +Some dozen or so beggars, with sacks over their shoulders, were walking +two by two, singing and leaping about, while in front of them danced +Misha, stamping time with his feet, and shouting, 'Natchiki-tchikaldy, +tchuk, tchuk, tchuk! ... Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk!' +Directly my carriage caught them up, and he saw me, he began at once +shouting, 'Hurrah! Stand in position! right about face, guard of the +roadside!' + +The beggars took up his shout, and halted; while he, with his peculiar +laugh, jumped on to the carriage step, and again yelled: Hurrah! + +'What's the meaning of this?' I asked with involuntary astonishment. + +'This? This is my company, my army--all beggars, God's people, friends +of my heart. Every one of them, thanks to you, has had a glass; and +now we are all rejoicing and making merry! ... Uncle! Do you know it's +only with beggars, God's people, that one can live in the world ... by +God, it is!' + +I made him no answer ... but at that moment he struck me as such +a kind good creature, his face expressed such childlike +simple-heartedness.... A light seemed suddenly as it were to dawn upon +me, and I felt a pang in my heart.... 'Get into the carriage,' I said +to him. He was taken aback.... + +'What? Into the carriage?' + +'Yes, get in, get in,' I repeated; 'I want to make you a suggestion. Sit +down.... Come along with me.' + +'Well, as you will.' He sat down. 'Well, and you, my honoured friends, +my dear comrades,' he added, addressing the beggars, 'fare-well, till we +meet again.' Misha took off his high cap, and bowed low. The beggars all +seemed overawed.... I told the coachman to whip up the horses, and the +carriage rolled off. + +The suggestion I wanted to make Misha was this: the idea suddenly +occurred to me to take him with me to my home in the country, about +five-and-twenty miles from that station, to rescue him, or at least to +make an effort to rescue him. 'Listen, Misha,' I said; 'will you come +along and live with me? ... You shall have everything provided you; you +shall have clothes and linen made you; you shall be properly fitted out, +and you shall have money to spend on tobacco, and so on, only on one +condition, that you give up drink.... Do you agree?' + +Misha was positively aghast with delight; he opened his eyes wide, +flushed crimson, and suddenly falling on my shoulder, began kissing me, +and repeating in a broken voice, 'Uncle ... benefactor ... God reward +you.' ... He burst into tears at last, and taking off his cap fell to +wiping his eyes, his nose, his lips with it. + +'Mind,' I observed; 'remember the condition, not to touch strong drink.' + +'Damnation to it!' he cried, with a wave of both arms, and with this +impetuous movement, I was more than ever conscious of the strong smell +of spirits with which he seemed always saturated.... 'Uncle, if you +knew what my life has been.... If it hadn't been for sorrow, a cruel +fate.... But now I swear, I swear, I will mend my ways, I will show +you.... Uncle, I've never told a lie--you can ask whom you like.... I'm +honest, but I'm an unlucky fellow, uncle; I've known no kindness from +any one....' + +Here he broke down finally into sobs. I tried to soothe him, and +succeeded so far that when we reached home Misha had long been lost in a +heavy sleep, with his head on my knees. + + + + +VII + + +He was at once assigned a room for himself, and at once, first thing, +taken to the bath, which was absolutely essential. All his clothes, and +his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he +was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which, +as is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt +themselves to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean, +and fresh, he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such +joyful gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was +completely transformed.... Boys of twelve have faces like that on Easter +Sundays, after the communion, when, thickly pomaded, in new jacket and +starched collars, they come to exchange Easter greetings with their +parents. Misha was continually--with a sort of cautious +incredulity--feeling himself and repeating: 'What does it mean? ... Am I +in heaven?' The next day he announced that he had not slept all night, +he had been in such ecstasy. + +I had living in my house at that time an old aunt with her niece; both +of them were extremely disturbed when they heard of Misha's presence; +they could not comprehend how I could have asked him into my house! +There were very ugly rumours about him. But in the first place, I knew +he was always very courteous with ladies; and, secondly, I counted on +his promises of amendment. And, in fact, for the first two days of his +stay under my roof Misha not merely justified my expectations but +surpassed them, while the ladies of the household were simply enchanted +with him. He played piquet with the old lady, helped her to wind her +worsted, showed her two new games of patience; for the niece, who had a +small voice, he played accompaniments on the piano, and read Russian and +French poetry. He told both the ladies lively but discreet anecdotes; in +fact, he showed them every attention, so that they repeatedly expressed +their surprise to me, and the old lady even observed how unjust people +sometimes were.... The things--the things they had said of him ... and +he such a quiet fellow, and so polite ... poor Misha! It is true that at +table 'poor Misha' licked his lips in a rather peculiar, hurried way, if +he simply glanced at the bottle. But I had only to shake my finger at +him, and he would turn his eyes upwards, and lay his hand on his +heart ... as if to say, I have sworn.... 'I am regenerated now,' he +assured me.... 'Well, God grant it be so,' was my thought.... But +this regeneration did not last long. + +The first two days he was very talkative and cheerful. But even on the +third day he seemed somehow subdued, though he remained, as before, with +the ladies and tried to entertain them. A half mournful, half dreamy +expression flitted now and then over his face, and the face itself was +paler and looked thinner. 'Are you unwell?' I asked him. + +'Yes,' he answered; 'my head aches a little.' On the fourth day he was +completely silent; for the most part he sat in a corner, hanging his +head disconsolately, and his dejected appearance worked upon the +compassionate sympathies of the two ladies, who now, in their turn, +tried to amuse him. At table he ate nothing, stared at his plate, and +rolled up pellets of bread. On the fifth day the feeling of compassion +in the ladies began to be replaced by other emotions--uneasiness and +even alarm. Misha was so strange, he held aloof from people, and kept +moving along close to the walls, as though trying to steal by unnoticed, +and suddenly looking round as though some one had called him. And what +had become of his rosy colour? It seemed covered over by a layer of +earth. 'Are you still unwell?' I asked him. + +'No, I'm all right,' he answered abruptly. + +'Are you dull?' + +'Why should I be dull?' But he turned away and would not look me +in the face. + +'Or is it that wretchedness come over you again?' To this he made no +reply. So passed another twenty-four hours. + +Next day my aunt ran into my room in a state of great excitement, +declaring that she would leave the house with her niece, if Misha was to +remain in it. + +'Why so?' + +'Why, we are dreadfully scared with him.... He's not a man, he's a +wolf,--nothing better than a wolf. He keeps moving and moving about, and +doesn't speak--and looks so wild.... He almost gnashes his teeth at me. +My Katia, you know, is so nervous.... She was so struck with him the +first day.... I'm in terror for her, and indeed for myself too.' ... I +didn't know what to say to my aunt. I couldn't, anyway, turn Misha out, +after inviting him. + +He relieved me himself from my difficult position. The same day,--I was +still sitting in my own room,--suddenly I heard behind me a husky and +angry voice: 'Nikolai Nikolaitch, Nikolai Nikolaitch!' I looked round; +Misha was standing in the doorway with a face that was fearful, +black-looking and distorted. 'Nikolai Nikolaitch!' he repeated ... (not +'uncle' now). + +'What do you want?' + +'Let me go ... at once!' + +'Why?' + +'Let me go, or I shall do mischief, I shall set the house on fire or cut +some one's throat.' Misha suddenly began trembling. 'Tell them to give +me back my clothes, and let a cart take me to the highroad, and let me +have some money, however little!' + +'Are you displeased, then, at anything?' + +'I can't live like this!' he shrieked at the top of his voice. 'I can't +live in your respectable, thrice-accursed house! It makes me sick, and +ashamed to live so quietly! ... How _you_ manage to endure it!' + +'That is,' I interrupted in my turn, 'you mean--you can't live without +drink....' + +'Well, yes! yes!' he shrieked again: 'only let me go to my +brethren, my friends, to the beggars! ... Away from your +respectable, loathsome species!' + +I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha's frenzied +look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs,--it was +all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his +clothes should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking +a note for twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the +table. Misha had begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,--but +on this, suddenly he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck +himself on the breast, the tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering, +'Uncle! angel! I know I'm a ruined man! thanks! thanks!' he snatched +up the note and ran away. + +An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his +Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses +started, he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his +head, made bow after bow. Just as he was going off, he had given me a +long and warm embrace, and whispered, 'Benefactor, benefactor ... +there's no saving me!' He even ran to the ladies and kissed their hands, +fell on his knees, called upon God, and begged their forgiveness! Katia +I found afterwards in tears. + +The coachman, with whom Misha had set off, on coming home informed me +that he had driven him to the first tavern on the highroad--and that +there 'his honour had stuck,' had begun treating every one +indiscriminately--and had quickly sunk into unconsciousness. +From that day I never came across Misha again, but his ultimate fate I +learned in the following manner. + + + +VIII + + +Three years later, I was again at home in the country; all of a sudden a +servant came in and announced that Madame Poltyev was asking to see me. +I knew no Madame Poltyev, and the servant, who made this announcement, +for some unknown reason smiled sarcastically. To my glance of inquiry, +he responded that the lady asking for me was young, poorly dressed, and +had come in a peasant's cart with one horse, which she was driving +herself! I told him to ask Madame Poltyev up to my room. + +I saw a woman of five-and-twenty, in the dress of the small tradesman +class, with a large kerchief on her head. Her face was simple, roundish, +not without charm; she looked dejected and gloomy, and was shy and +awkward in her movements. + +'You are Madame Poltyev?' I inquired, and I asked her to sit down. + +'Yes,' she answered in a subdued voice, and she did not sit down. 'I am +the widow of your nephew, Mihail Andreevitch Poltyev.' + +'Is Mihail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long? But sit down, I +beg.' + +She sank into a chair. + +'It's two months.' + +'And had you been married to him long?' + +'I had been a year with him.' + +'Where have you come from now?' + +'From out Tula way.... There's a village there, +Znamenskoe-Glushkovo--perhaps you may know it. I am the daughter of the +deacon there. Mihail Andreitch and I lived there.... He lived in my +father's house. We were a whole year together.' + +The young woman's lips twitched a little, and she put her hand up to +them. She seemed to be on the point of tears, but she controlled +herself, and cleared her throat. + +'Mihail Andreitch,' she went on: 'before his death enjoined upon me to +go to you; "You must be sure to go," said he! And he told me to thank +you for all your goodness, and to give you ... this ... see, this little +thing (she took a small packet out of her pocket) which he always had +about him.... And Mihail Andreitch said, if you would be pleased to +accept it in memory of him, if you would not disdain it.... "There's +nothing else," said he, "I can give him" ... that is, you....' + +In the packet there was a little silver cup with the monogram of Misha's +mother. This cup I had often seen in Misha's hands, and once he had even +said to me, speaking of some poor fellow, that he really was destitute, +since he had neither cup nor bowl, 'while I, see, have this anyway.' + +I thanked her, took the cup, and asked: + +'Of what complaint had Misha died? No doubt....' + +Then I bit my tongue ... but the young woman understood my unuttered +hint.... She took a swift glance at me, then looked down again, smiled +mournfully, and said at once: 'Oh no! he had quite given that up, ever +since he got to know me ... But he had no health at all! ... It was +shattered quite. As soon as he gave up drink, he fell into ill health +directly. He became so steady; he always wanted to help father in his +land or in the garden, ... or any other work there might be ... in spite +of his being of noble birth. But how could he get the strength? ... At +writing, too, he tried to work; as you know, he could do that work +capitally, but his hands shook, and he couldn't hold the pen properly. +... He was always finding fault with himself; "I'm a white-handed poor +creature," he would say; "I've never done any good to anybody, never +helped, never laboured!" He worried himself very much about that.... He +used to say that our people labour,--but what use are we? ... Ah, +Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a good man--and he was fond of me ... and +I... Ah, pardon me....' + +Here the young woman wept outright. I would have consoled her, but I did +not know how. + +'Have you a child left you?' I asked at last. + +She sighed. 'No, no child.... Is it likely?' And her tears flowed faster +than ever. + +'And so that was how Misha's troubled wanderings had ended,' the old man +P. wound up his narrative. 'You will agree with me, I am sure, that I'm +right in calling him a desperate character; but you will most likely +agree too that he was not like the desperate characters of to-day; +still, a philosopher, you must admit, would find a family likeness +between him and them. In him and in them there's the thirst for +self-destruction, the wretchedness, the dissatisfaction.... And what it +all comes from, I leave the philosopher to decide.' + + +BOUGIVALLE, _November_ 1881. + + + + +A STRANGE STORY + + + + +I + + +Fifteen years ago--began H.--official duties compelled me to spend a few +days in the principal town of the province of T----. I stopped at a very +fair hotel, which had been established six months before my arrival by a +Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that it did not flourish +long, which is often the case with us; but I found it still in its full +splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like pistol-shots at night; +the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of soap, and the painted +floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the opinion of the +waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean individual, tended to +prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former valet of Prince +G.'s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and his +self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and slippers +trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and had a +multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of his +moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He +showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating +his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in +life with a rather disillusioned eye. 'No doubt about it,' he said to me +one day; 'ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying +any day!' His name was Ardalion. + +I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion +procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the +joints; but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an +heraldic crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a +country gentleman, an old friend of my father's, who had been a long +time settled in the town.... I had not met him for twenty years; he had +had time to get married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a +widower and to make his fortune. His business was with government +monopolies, that is to say, he lent contractors for monopolies loans at +heavy interest.... 'There is always honour in risk,' they say, though +indeed the risk was small. + +In the course of our conversation there came into the room with +hesitating steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of +about seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. 'Here,' said my +acquaintance, 'is my eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She +takes my poor wife's place, looks after the house, and takes care of her +brothers and sisters.' I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in +(she meanwhile dropped into a chair without speaking), and thought to +myself that she did not look much like housekeeping or looking after +children. Her face was quite childish, round, with small, pleasing, but +immobile features; the blue eyes, under high, also immobile and +irregular eyebrows, had an intent, almost astonished look, as though +they had just observed something unexpected; the full little mouth with +the lifted upper lip, not only did not smile, but seemed as though +altogether innocent of such a practice; the rosy flush under the tender +skin stood in soft, diffused patches on the cheeks, and neither paled +nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in light clusters each side of +the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, and her arms were pressed +somehow awkwardly and severely against her narrow waist. Her blue gown +fell without folds--like a child's--to her little feet. The general +impression this girl made upon me was not one of morbidity, but of +something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a shy, provincial +miss, but a creature of a special type--that I could not make out. This +type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully understand it, +and only felt that I had never come across a nature more sincere. Pity +... yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the sight of +this young, serious, keenly alert life--God knows why! 'Not of this +earth,' was my thought, though there was nothing exactly 'ideal' in the +expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had obviously +come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady of the +house to which her father had referred. + +He began to talk of life in the town of T----, of the social amusements +and advantages it offered. 'We're very quiet here,' he observed; 'the +governor's a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province is a +bachelor. But there'll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the day +after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here. +And you'll see all our _intelligentsi_ too.' + +My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using +learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with +respect. Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with +respectability, developes a certain thoughtfulness in men. + +'Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?' I said, turning to my +friend's daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice. + +'Papa intends to go,' she answered, 'and I with him.' + +Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated +every syllable fully, as though she were puzzled. + +'In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.' + +She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile. + +I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed +steadily upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked +over my shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing +she was looking at behind my back. + +I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied +'soupe-julienne,' cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry, +black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The +subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my +old acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my +thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom. + +'There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our +town,' he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at +the same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty +dinner-napkin--a practice peculiar, as you're doubtless aware, to +servants of superior education. 'Very little!' + +He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its +white face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words: +'Ve-ry! ve-ry!' it ticked. 'No concerts, nor theatres,' pursued Ardalion +(he had travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in +Paris; he knew much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the +peasants do)--'nor dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the +nobility and gentry--there is nothing of the kind whatever.' (He paused +a moment, probably to allow me to observe the choiceness of his +diction.) 'They positively visit each other but seldom. Every one sits +like a pigeon on its perch. And so it comes to pass that visitors have +simply nowhere to go.' + +Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me. + +'But there is one thing,' he went on, speaking with a drawl, 'in case +you should feel that way inclined....' + +He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did +not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me. + +The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came +back, and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear, +and with a playful smile said: + +'Would you not like to behold the dead?' + +I stared at him in perplexity. + +'Yes,' he went on, speaking in a whisper; 'there is a man like that +here. He's a simple artisan, and can't even read and write, but he does +marvellous things. If you, for example, go to him and desire to see any +one of your departed friends, he will be sure to show him you.' + +'How does he do it?' + +'That's his secret. For though he's an uneducated man--to speak bluntly, +illiterate--he's very great in godliness! Greatly respected he is among +the merchant gentry!' + +'And does every one in the town know about this?' + +'Those who need to know; but, there, of course--there's danger from the +police to be guarded against. Because, say what you will, such doings +are forbidden anyway, and for the common people are a temptation; the +common people--the mob, we all know, quickly come to blows.' + +'Has he shown you the dead?' I asked Ardalion. + +Ardalion nodded. 'He has; my father he brought before me as if living.' + +I stared at Ardalion. He laughed and played with his dinner-napkin, and +condescendingly, but unflinchingly, looked at me. + +'But this is very curious!' I cried at last. 'Couldn't I make the +acquaintance of this artisan?' + +'You can't go straight to him; but one can act through his mother. She's +a respectable old woman; she sells pickled apples on the bridge. If you +wish it, I will ask her.' + +'Please do.' + +Ardalion coughed behind his hand. 'And a gratuity, whatever you think +fit, nothing much, of course, should also be handed to her--the old +lady. And I on my side will make her understand that she has nothing to +fear from you, as you are a visitor here, a gentleman--and of course you +can understand that this is a secret, and will not in any case get her +into any unpleasantness.' + +Ardalion took the tray in one hand, and with a graceful swing of the +tray and his own person, turned towards the door. + +'So I may reckon upon you!' I shouted after him. + +'You may trust me!' I heard his self-satisfied voice say: 'We'll talk to +the old woman and transmit you her answer exactly.' + + * * * * * + +I will not enlarge on the train of thought aroused in me by the +extraordinary fact Ardalion had related; but I am prepared to admit that +I awaited the promised reply with impatience. Late in the evening +Ardalion came to me and announced that to his annoyance he could not +find the old woman. I handed him, however, by way of encouragement, a +three-rouble note. The next morning he appeared again in my room with a +beaming countenance; the old woman had consented to see me. + +'Hi! boy!' shouted Ardalion in the corridor; 'Hi! apprentice! Come +here!' A boy of six came up, grimed all over with soot like a kitten, +with a shaved head, perfectly bald in places, in a torn, striped smock, +and huge goloshes on his bare feet. 'You take the gentleman, you know +where,' said Ardalion, addressing the 'apprentice,' and pointing to me. +'And you, sir, when you arrive, ask for Mastridia Karpovna.' + +The boy uttered a hoarse grunt, and we set off. + + * * * * * + +We walked rather a long while about the unpaved streets of the town of +T----; at last in one of them, almost the most deserted and desolate of +all, my guide stopped before an old two-story wooden house, and wiping +his nose all over his smock-sleeve, said: 'Here; go to the right.' I +passed through the porch into the outer passage, stumbled towards my +right, a low door creaked on rusty hinges, and I saw before me a stout +old woman in a brown jacket lined with hare-skin, with a parti-coloured +kerchief on her head. + +'Mastridia Karpovna?' I inquired. + +'The same, at your service,' the old woman replied in a piping voice. +'Please walk in. Won't you take a chair?' + +The room into which the old woman conducted me was so littered up with +every sort of rubbish, rags, pillows, feather-beds, sacks, that one +could hardly turn round in it. The sunlight barely struggled in through +two dusty little windows; in one corner, from behind a heap of boxes +piled on one another, there came a feeble whimpering and wailing.... I +could not tell from what; perhaps a sick baby, or perhaps a puppy. I sat +down on a chair, and the old woman stood up directly facing me. Her face +was yellow, half-transparent like wax; her lips were so fallen in that +they formed a single straight line in the midst of a multitude of +wrinkles; a tuft of white hair stuck out from below the kerchief on her +head, but the sunken grey eyes peered out alertly and cleverly from +under the bony overhanging brow; and the sharp nose fairly stuck out +like a spindle, fairly sniffed the air as if it would say: I'm a smart +one! 'Well, you're no fool!' was my thought. At the same time she smelt +of spirits. + +I explained to her the object of my visit, of which, however, as I +observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes +rapidly, and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply, +as though she were making ready to peck. + +'To be sure, to be sure,' she said at last; 'Ardalion Matveitch did say +something, certainly; my son Vassinka's art you were wanting.... But we +can't be sure, my dear sir....' + +'Oh, why so?' I interposed. 'As far as I'm concerned, you may feel +perfectly easy.... I'm not an informer.' + +'Oh, mercy on us,' the old woman caught me up hurriedly, 'what do you +mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what +ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it's some sinful +contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son's not the one to lend himself to +anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid +indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three +times.) He's the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province; +the foremost, your honour, he is! And that's just it: great grace has +been vouchsafed to him. Yes, indeed. It's not the work of his hands. +It's from on high, my dear; so it is.' + +'So you agree?' I asked: 'when can I see your son?' + +The old woman blinked again and shifted her rolled up handkerchief from +one sleeve to the other. + +'Oh, well, sir--well, sir, I can't say.' + +'Allow me, Mastridia Karpovna, to hand you this,' I interrupted, and I +gave her a ten-rouble note. + +The old woman clutched it at once in her fat, crooked fingers, which +recalled the fleshy claws of an owl, quickly slipped it into her sleeve, +pondered a little, and as though she had suddenly reached a decision, +slapped her thighs with her open hand. + +'Come here this evening a little after seven,' she said, not in her +previous voice, but in quite a different one, more solemn and subdued; +'only not to this room, but kindly go straight up to the floor above, +and you'll find a door to your left, and you open that door; and you'll +go, your honour, into an empty room, and in that room you'll see a +chair. Sit you down on that chair and wait; and whatever you see, don't +utter a word and don't do anything; and please don't speak to my son +either; for he's but young yet, and he suffers from fits. He's very +easily scared; he'll tremble and shake like any chicken ... a sad +thing it is!' + +I looked at Mastridia. 'You say he's young, but since he's your son ...' + +'In the spirit, sir, in the spirit. Many's the orphan I have under my +care!' she added, wagging her head in the direction of the corner, from +which came the plaintive whimper. 'O--O God Almighty, holy Mother of +God! And do you, your honour, before you come here, think well which of +your deceased relations or friends--the kingdom of Heaven to +them!--you're desirous of seeing. Go over your deceased friends, and +whichever you select, keep him in your mind, keep him all the while till +my son comes!' + +'Why, mustn't I tell your son whom ...' + +'Nay, nay, sir, not one word. He will find out what he needs in your +thoughts himself. You've only to keep your friend thoroughly in mind; +and at your dinner drink a drop of wine--just two or three glasses; wine +never comes amiss.' The old woman laughed, licked her lips, passed her +hand over her mouth, and sighed. + +'So at half-past seven?' I queried, getting up from my chair. + +'At half-past seven, your honour, at half-past seven,' Mastridia +Karpovna replied reassuringly. + + * * * * * + +I took leave of the old woman and went back to the hotel. I did not +doubt that they were going to make a fool of me, but in what way?--that +was what excited my curiosity. With Ardalion I did not exchange more +than two or three words. 'Did she see you?' he asked me, knitting his +brow, and on my affirmative reply, he exclaimed: 'The old woman's as +good as any statesman!' I set to work, in accordance with the +'statesman's' counsel, to run over my deceased friends. + +After rather prolonged hesitation I fixed, at last, on an old man who +had long been dead, a Frenchman, once my tutor. I selected him not +because he had any special attraction for me; but his whole figure was +so original, so unlike any figure of to-day, that it would be utterly +impossible to imitate it. He had an enormous head, fluffy white hair +combed straight back, thick black eyebrows, a hawk nose, and two large +warts of a pinkish hue in the middle of the forehead; he used to wear a +green frockcoat with smooth brass buttons, a striped waistcoat with a +stand-up collar, a jabot and lace cuffs. 'If he shows me my old +Dessaire,' I thought, 'well, I shall have to admit that he's a +sorcerer!' + +At dinner I followed the old dame's behest and drank a bottle of +Lafitte, of the first quality, so Ardalion averred, though it had a +very strong flavour of burnt cork, and a thick sediment at the bottom +of each glass. + + * * * * * + +Exactly at half-past seven I stood in front of the house where I had +conversed with the worthy Mastridia Karpovna. All the shutters of the +windows were closed, but the door was open. I went into the house, +mounted the shaky staircase to the first story, and opening a door on +the left, found myself, as the old woman had said, in a perfectly empty, +rather large room; a tallow candle set in the window-sill threw a dim +light over the room; against the wall opposite the door stood a +wicker-bottomed chair. I snuffed the candle, which had already burnt +down enough to form a long smouldering wick, sat down on the chair and +began to wait. + +The first ten minutes passed rather quickly; in the room itself there +was absolutely nothing which could distract my attention, but I listened +intently to every rustle, looked intently at the closed door.... My +heart was throbbing. After the first ten minutes followed another ten +minutes, then half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and not a stir of +any kind around! I coughed several times to make my presence known; I +began to feel bored and out of temper; to be made a fool of in just that +way had not entered into my calculations. I was on the point of getting +up from my seat, taking the candle from the window, and going +downstairs.... I looked at it; the wick again wanted snuffing; but as I +turned my eyes from the window to the door, I could not help starting; +with his back leaning against the door stood a man. He had entered so +quickly and noiselessly that I had heard nothing. He wore a simple blue +smock; he was of middle height and rather thick-set. With his hands +behind his back and his head bent, he was staring at me. In the dim +light of the candle I could not distinctly make out his features. I saw +nothing but a shaggy mane of matted hair falling on his forehead, and +thick, rather drawn lips and whitish eyes. I was nearly speaking to him, +but I recollected Mastridia's injunction, and bit my lips. The man, who +had come in, continued to gaze at me, and, strange to say, at the same +time I felt something like fear, and, as though at the word of command, +promptly started thinking of my old tutor. _He_ still stood at the door +and breathed heavily, as though he had been climbing a mountain or +lifting a weight, while his eyes seemed to expand, seemed to come closer +to me--and I felt uncomfortable under their obstinate, heavy, menacing +stare; at times those eyes glowed with a malignant inward fire, a fire +such as I have seen in the eyes of a pointer dog when it 'points' at a +hare; and, like a pointer dog, _he_ kept _his_ eyes intently following +mine when I 'tried to double,' that is, tried to turn my eyes away. + + * * * * * + +So passed I do not know how long--perhaps a minute, perhaps a quarter of +an hour. He still gazed at me; I still experienced a certain discomfort +and alarm and still thought of the Frenchman. Twice I tried to say to +myself, 'What nonsense! what a farce!' I tried to smile, to shrug my +shoulders.... It was no use! All initiative had all at once 'frozen up' +within me--I can find no other word for it. I was overcome by a sort of +numbness. Suddenly I noticed that he had left the door, and was standing +a step or two nearer to me; then he gave a slight bound, both feet +together, and stood closer still.... Then again ... and again; while the +menacing eyes were simply fastened on my whole face, and the hands +remained behind, and the broad chest heaved painfully. These leaps +struck me as ridiculous, but I felt dread too, and what I could not +understand at all, a drowsiness began suddenly to come upon me. My +eyelids clung together ... the shaggy figure with the whitish eyes in +the blue smock seemed double before me, and suddenly vanished +altogether! ... I shook myself; he was again standing between the door +and me, but now much nearer.... Then he vanished again--a sort of mist +seemed to fall upon him; again he appeared ... vanished again ... +appeared again, and always closer, closer ... his hard, almost gasping +breathing floated across to me now.... Again the mist fell, and all of a +sudden out of this mist the head of old Dessaire began to take distinct +shape, beginning with the white, brushed-back hair! Yes: there were his +warts, his black eyebrows, his hook nose! There too his green coat with +the brass buttons, the striped waistcoat and jabot.... I shrieked, I got +up.... The old man vanished, and in his place I saw again the man in the +blue smock. He moved staggering to the wall, leaned his head and both +arms against it, and heaving like an over-loaded horse, in a husky voice +said, 'Tea!' Mastridia Karpovna--how she came there I can't say--flew to +him and saying: 'Vassinka! Vassinka!' began anxiously wiping away the +sweat, which simply trickled from his face and hair. I was on the point +of approaching her, but she, so insistently, in such a heart-rending +voice cried: 'Your honour! merciful sir! have pity on us, go away, for +Christ's sake!' that I obeyed, while she turned again to her son. +'Bread-winner, darling,' she murmured soothingly: 'you shall have tea +directly, directly. And you too, sir, had better take a cup of tea at +home!' she shouted after me. + + * * * * * + +When I got home I obeyed Mastridia and ordered some tea; I felt +tired--even weak. 'Well?' Ardalion questioned me, 'have you been? did +you see something?' + +'He did, certainly, show me something ... which, I'll own, I had not +anticipated,' I replied. + +'He's a man of marvellous power,' observed Ardalion, carrying off the +samovar; 'he is held in high esteem among the merchant gentry.' As I +went to bed, and reflected on the incident that had occurred to me, I +fancied at last that I had reached some explanation of it. The man +doubtless possessed a considerable magnetic power; acting by some means, +which I did not understand of course, upon my nerves, he had evoked +within me so vividly, so definitely, the image of the old man of whom I +was thinking, that at last I fancied that I saw him before my eyes.... +Such 'metastases,' such transferences of sensation, are recognised by +science. It was all very well; but the force capable of producing such +effects still remained, something marvellous and mysterious. 'Say what +you will,' I thought, 'I've seen, seen with my own eyes, my dead tutor!' + + * * * * * + +The next day the ball in the Hall of Nobility took place. Sophia's +father called on me and reminded me of the engagement I had made with +his daughter. At ten o'clock I was standing by her side in the middle +of a ballroom lighted up by a number of copper lamps, and was preparing +to execute the not very complicated steps of the French quadrille to +the resounding blare of the military band. Crowds of people were there; +the ladies were especially numerous and very pretty; but the first +place among them would certainly have been given to my partner, if it +had not been for the rather strange, even rather wild look in her eyes. +I noticed that she hardly ever blinked; the unmistakable expression of +sincerity in her eyes did not make up for what was extraordinary in +them. But she had a charming figure, and moved gracefully, though with +constraint. When she waltzed, and, throwing herself a little back, bent +her slender neck towards her right shoulder, as though she wanted to +get away from her partner, nothing more touchingly youthful and pure +could be imagined. She was all in white, with a turquoise cross on a +black ribbon. + +I asked her for a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers +were few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same +expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met +her. Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her +appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually +fixed directly upon the eyes of the person speaking to her, though they +seemed at the same time to see something else, to be absorbed with +something different.... What a strange creature! Not knowing, at last, +how to thaw her, I bethought me of telling her of my adventure of the +previous day. + + * * * * * + +She heard me to the end with evident interest, but was not, as I had +expected, surprised at what I told her, and merely asked whether he was +not called Vassily. I recollected that the old woman had called him +'Vassinka.' 'Yes, his name is Vassily,' I answered; 'do you know him?' + +'There is a saintly man living here called Vassily,' she observed; 'I +wondered whether it was he.' + +'Saintliness has nothing to do with this,' I remarked; 'it's simply +the action of magnetism--a fact of interest for doctors and students +of science.' + +I proceeded to expound my views on the peculiar force called magnetism, +on the possibility of one man's will being brought under the influence +of another's will, and so on; but my explanations--which were, it is +true, somewhat confused--seemed to make no impression on her. Sophie +listened, dropping her clasped hands on her knees with a fan lying +motionless in them; she did not play with it, she did not move her +fingers at all, and I felt that all my words rebounded from her as from +a statue of stone. She heard them, but clearly she had her own +convictions, which nothing could shake or uproot. + +'You can hardly admit miracles!' I cried. + +'Of course I admit them,' she answered calmly. 'And how can one help +admitting them? Are not we told in the gospel that who has but a grain +of faith as big as a mustard seed, he can remove mountains? One need +only have faith--there will be miracles!' + +'It seems there is very little faith nowadays,' I observed; 'anyway, one +doesn't hear of miracles.' + +'But yet there are miracles; you have seen one yourself. No; faith is +not dead nowadays; and the beginning of faith ...' + +'The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,' I interrupted. + +'The beginning of faith,' pursued Sophie, nothing daunted, 'is +self-abasement ... humiliation.' + +'Humiliation even?' I queried. + +'Yes. The pride of man, haughtiness, presumption--that is what must be +utterly rooted up. You spoke of the will--that's what must be broken.' + +I scanned the whole figure of the young girl who was uttering such +sentences.... 'My word, the child's in earnest, too,' was my thought. I +glanced at our neighbours in the mazurka; they, too, glanced at me, and +I fancied that my astonishment amused them; one of them even smiled at +me sympathetically, as though he would say: 'Well, what do you think of +our queer young lady? every one here knows what she's like.' + +'Have you tried to break your will?' I said, turning to Sophie again. + +'Every one is bound to do what he thinks right,' she answered in a +dogmatic tone. 'Let me ask you,' I began, after a brief silence, 'do you +believe in the possibility of calling up the dead?' + +Sophie softly shook her head. + +'There are no dead.' + +'What?' + +'There are no dead souls; they are undying and can always appear, when +they like.... They are always about us.' + +'What? Do you suppose, for instance, that an immortal soul may be at +this moment hovering about that garrison major with the red nose?' + +'Why not? The sunlight falls on him and his nose, and is not the +sunlight, all light, from God? And what does external appearance +matter? To the pure all things are pure! Only to find a teacher, to +find a leader!' + +'But excuse me, excuse me,' I put in, not, I must own, without malicious +intent. 'You want a leader ... but what is your priest for?' + +Sophie looked coldly at me. + +'You mean to laugh at me, I suppose. My priestly father tells me what I +ought to do; but what I want is a leader who would show me himself in +action how to sacrifice one's self!' + +She raised her eyes towards the ceiling. With her childlike face, and +that expression of immobile absorption, of secret, continual perplexity, +she reminded me of the pre-raphaelite Madonnas.... + +'I have read somewhere,' she went on, not turning to me, and hardly +moving her lips, 'of a grand person who directed that he should be +buried under a church porch so that all the people who came in should +tread him under foot and trample on him.... That is what one ought to +do in life.' + +Boom! boom! tra-ra-ra! thundered the drums from the band.... I must own +such a conversation at a ball struck me as eccentric in the extreme; the +ideas involuntarily kindled within me were of a nature anything but +religious. I took advantage of my partner's being invited to one of the +figures of the mazurka to avoid renewing our quasi-theological +discussion. + +A quarter of an hour later I conducted Mademoiselle Sophie to her +father, and two days after I left the town of T----, and the image of +the girl with the childlike face and the soul impenetrable as stone +slipped quickly out of my memory. + +Two years passed, and it chanced that that image was recalled again to +me. It was like this: I was talking to a colleague who had just +returned from a tour in South Russia. He had spent some time in the +town of T----, and told me various items of news about the +neighbourhood. 'By the way!' he exclaimed, 'you knew V. G. B. very +well, I fancy, didn't you?' + +'Of course I know him.' + +'And his daughter Sophia, do you know her?' + +'I've seen her twice.' + +'Only fancy, she's run away!' + +'How's that?' + +'Well, I don't know. Three months ago she disappeared, and nothing's +been heard of her. And the astonishing thing is no one can make out whom +she's run off with. Fancy, they've not the slightest idea, not the +smallest suspicion! She'd refused all the offers made her, and she was +most proper in her behaviour. Ah, these quiet, religious girls are the +ones! It's made an awful scandal all over the province! B.'s in +despair.... And whatever need had she to run away? Her father carried +out her wishes in everything. And what's so unaccountable, all the +Lovelaces of the province are there all right, not one's missing.' + +'And they've not found her up till now?' + +'I tell you she might as well be at the bottom of the sea! It's one rich +heiress less in the world, that's the worst of it.' + +This piece of news greatly astonished me. It did not seem at all in +keeping with the recollection I had of Sophia B. But there! anything +may happen. + + * * * * * + +In the autumn of the same year fate brought me--again on official +business--into the S---- province, which is, as every one knows, next to +the province of T----. It was cold and rainy weather; the worn-out +posting-horses could scarcely drag my light trap through the black slush +of the highroad. One day, I remember, was particularly unlucky: three +times we got 'stuck' in the mud up to the axles of the wheels; my driver +was continually giving up one rut and with moans and grunts trudging +across to the other, and finding things no better with that. In fact, +towards evening I was so exhausted that on reaching the posting-station +I decided to spend the night at the inn. I was given a room with a +broken-down wooden sofa, a sloping floor, and torn paper on the walls; +there was a smell in it of kvas, bast-mats, onions, and even +turpentine, and swarms of flies were on everything; but at any rate I +could find shelter there from the weather, and the rain had set in, as +they say, for the whole day. I ordered a samovar to be brought, and, +sitting on the sofa, settled down to those cheerless wayside reflections +so familiar to travellers in Russia. + +They were broken in upon by a heavy knocking that came from the common +room, from which my room was separated by a deal partition. This sound +was accompanied by an intermittent metallic jingle, like the clank of +chains, and a coarse male voice boomed out suddenly: 'The blessing of +God on all within this house. The blessing of God! the blessing of God! +Amen, amen! Scatter His enemies!' repeated the voice, with a sort of +incongruous and savage drawl on the last syllable of each word.... A +noisy sigh was heard, and a ponderous body sank on to the bench with the +same jingling sound. 'Akulina! servant of God, come here!' the voice +began again: 'Behold! Clothed in rags and blessed! ... Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo! +Merciful God, merciful God, merciful God!' the voice droned like a +deacon in the choir. 'Merciful God, Creator of my body, behold my +iniquity.... O-ho-ho! Ha-ha! ... Tfoo! And all abundance be to this house +in the seventh hour!' + +'Who's that?' I asked the hospitable landlady, who came in with +the samovar. + +'That, your honour,' she answered me in a hurried whisper, 'is a +blessed, holy man. He's not long come into our parts; and here he's +graciously pleased to visit us. In such weather! The wet's simply +trickling from him, poor dear man, in streams! And you should see the +chains on him--such a lot!' + +'The blessing of God! the blessing of God!' the voice was heard again. +'Akulina! Hey, Akulina! Akulinushka--friend! where is our paradise? Our +fair paradise of bliss? In the wilderness is our paradise, ... +para-dise.... And to this house, from beginning of time, great +happiness, ... o ... o ... o ...' The voice muttered something +inarticulate, and again, after a protracted yawn, there came the hoarse +laugh. This laugh broke out every time, as it were, involuntarily, and +every time it was followed by vigorous spitting. + +'Ah, me! Stepanitch isn't here! That's the worst of it!' the landlady +said, as it were to herself, as she stood with every sign of the +profoundest attention at the door. 'He will say some word of salvation, +and I, foolish woman, may not catch it!' + +She went out quickly. + + * * * * * + +In the partition there was a chink; I applied my eye to it. The crazy +pilgrim was sitting on a bench with his back to me; I saw nothing but +his shaggy head, as huge as a beer-can, and a broad bent back in a +patched and soaking shirt. Before him, on the earth floor, knelt a +frail-looking woman in a jacket, such as are worn by women of the +artisan class--old and wet through--and with a dark kerchief pulled down +almost over her eyes. She was trying to pull the holy man's boots off; +her fingers slid off the greasy, slippery leather. The landlady was +standing near her, with her arms folded across her bosom, gazing +reverently at the 'man of God.' He was, as before, mumbling some +inarticulate words. + +At last the woman succeeded in tugging off the boots. She almost fell +backwards, but recovered herself, and began unwinding the strips of rag +which were wrapped round the vagrant's legs. On the sole of his foot +there was a wound.... I turned away. + +'A cup of tea wouldn't you bid me get you, my dear?' I heard the hostess +saying in an obsequious voice. + +'What a notion!' responded the holy man. 'To indulge the sinful body.... +O-ho-ho! Break all the bones in it ... but she talks of tea! Oh, oh, +worthy old woman, Satan is strong within us.... Fight him with hunger, +fight him with cold, with the sluice-gates of heaven, the pouring, +penetrating rain, and he takes no harm--he is alive still! Remember the +day of the Intercession of the Mother of God! You will receive, you will +receive in abundance!' + +The landlady could not resist uttering a faint groan of admiration. + +'Only listen to me! Give all thou hast, give thy head, give thy shirt! +If they ask not of thee, yet give! For God is all-seeing! Is it hard for +Him to destroy your roof? He has given thee bread in His mercy, and do +thou bake it in the oven! He seeth all! Se ... e ... eth! Whose eye is +in the triangle? Say, whose?' + +The landlady stealthily crossed herself under her neckerchief. + +'The old enemy is adamant! A ... da ... mant! A ... da ... mant!' the +religious maniac repeated several times, gnashing his teeth. 'The old +serpent! But God will arise! Yes, God will arise and scatter His +enemies! I will call up all the dead! I will go against His enemy.... +Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo!' + +'Have you any oil?' said another voice, hardly audible; 'let me put some +on the wound.... I have got a clean rag.' + +I peeped through the chink again; the woman in the jacket was still +busied with the vagrant's sore foot.... 'A Magdalen!' I thought. + +'I'll get it directly, my dear,' said the woman, and, coming into my +room, she took a spoonful of oil from the lamp burning before the +holy picture. + +'Who's that waiting on him?' I asked. + +'We don't know, sir, who it is; she too, I suppose, is seeking +salvation, atoning for her sins. But what a saintly man he is!' + +'Akulinushka, my sweet child, my dear daughter,' the crazy pilgrim was +repeating meanwhile, and he suddenly burst into tears. + +The woman kneeling before him lifted her eyes to him.... Heavens! where +had I seen those eyes? + +The landlady went up to her with the spoonful of oil. She finished her +operation, and, getting up from the floor, asked if there were a clean +loft and a little hay.... 'Vassily Nikititch likes to sleep on hay,' +she added. + +'To be sure there is, come this way,' answered the woman; 'come this +way, my dear,' she turned to the holy man, 'and dry yourself and rest.' +The man coughed, slowly got up from the bench--his chains clanked +again--and turning round with his face to me, looked for the holy +pictures, and began crossing himself with a wide movement. + +I recognised him instantly: it was the very artisan Vassily, who had +once shown me my dead tutor! + +His features were little changed; only their expression had become still +more unusual, still more terrible.... The lower part of his swollen face +was overgrown with unkempt beard. Tattered, filthy, wild-looking, he +inspired in me more repugnance than horror. He left off crossing +himself, but still his eyes wandered senselessly about the corners of +the room, about the floor, as though he were waiting for something.... + +'Vassily Nikititch, please come,' said the woman in the jacket with a +bow. He suddenly threw up his head and turned round, but stumbled and +tottered.... His companion flew to him at once, and supported him under +the arm. Judging by her voice and figure, she seemed still young; her +face it was almost impossible to see. + +'Akulinushka, friend!' the vagrant repeated once more in a shaking +voice, and opening his mouth wide, and smiting himself on the breast +with his fist, he uttered a deep groan, that seemed to come from the +bottom of his heart. Both followed the landlady out of the room. + +I lay down on my hard sofa and mused a long while on what I had seen. My +mesmeriser had become a regular religious maniac. This was what he had +been brought to by the power which one could not but recognise in him! + + * * * * * + +The next morning I was preparing to go on my way. The rain was falling +as fast as the day before, but I could not delay any longer. My +servant, as he gave me water to wash, wore a special smile on his +face, a smile of restrained irony. I knew that smile well; it +indicated that my servant had heard something discreditable or even +shocking about gentlefolks. He was obviously burning with impatience +to communicate it to me. + +'Well, what is it?' I asked at last. + +'Did your honour see the crazy pilgrim yesterday?' my man began at once. + +'Yes; what then?' + +'And did you see his companion too?' + +'Yes, I saw her.' + +'She's a young lady, of noble family.' + +'What?' + +'It's the truth I'm telling you; some merchants arrived here this +morning from T----; they recognised her. They did tell me her name, but +I've forgotten it.' + +It was like a flash of enlightenment. 'Is the pilgrim still +here?' I asked. + +'I fancy he's not gone yet. He's been ever so long at the gate, and +making such a wonderful wise to-do, that there's no getting by. He's +amusing himself with this tomfoolery; he finds it pay, no doubt.' + +My man belonged to the same class of educated servants as Ardalion. + +'And is the lady with him?' + +'Yes. She's in attendance on him.' + + * * * * * + +I went out on to the steps, and got a view of the crazy pilgrim. He was +sitting on a bench at the gate, and, bent down with both his open hands +pressed on it, he was shaking his drooping head from right to left, for +all the world like a wild beast in a cage. The thick mane of curly hair +covered his eyes, and shook from side to side, and so did his pendulous +lips.... A strange, almost unhuman muttering came from them. His +companion had only just finished washing from a pitcher that was hanging +on a pole, and without having yet replaced her kerchief on her head, was +making her way back to the gate along a narrow plank laid across the +dark puddles of the filthy yard. I glanced at her head, which was now +entirely uncovered, and positively threw up my hands with astonishment: +before me stood Sophie B.! + +She turned quickly round and fixed upon me her blue eyes, immovable as +ever. She was much thinner, her skin looked coarser and had the +yellowish-ruddy tinge of sunburn, her nose was sharper, and her lips +were harder in their lines. But she was not less good-looking; only +besides her old expression of dreamy amazement there was now a different +look--resolute, almost bold, intense and exalted. There was not a trace +of childishness left in the face now. + +I went up to her. 'Sophia Vladimirovna,' I cried, 'can it be you? In +such a dress ... in such company....' + +She started, looked still more intently at me, as though anxious to find +out who was speaking to her, and, without saying a word to me, fairly +rushed to her companion. + +'Akulinushka,' he faltered, with a heavy sigh, 'our sins, sins ...' + +'Vassily Nikititch, let us go at once! Do you hear, at once, at once,' +she said, pulling her kerchief on to her forehead with one hand, while +with the other she supported the pilgrim under the elbow; 'let us go, +Vassily Nikititch: there is danger here.' + +'I'm coming, my good girl, I'm coming,' the crazy pilgrim responded +obediently, and, bending his whole body forward, he got up from the +seat. 'Here's only this chain to fasten....' + +I once more approached Sophia, and told her my name. I began beseeching +her to listen to me, to say one word to me. I pointed to the rain, +which was coming down in bucketsful. I begged her to have some care for +her health, the health of her companion. I mentioned her father.... But +she seemed possessed by a sort of wrathful, a sort of vindictive +excitement: without paying the slightest attention to me, setting her +teeth and breathing hard, she urged on the distracted vagrant in an +undertone, in soft insistent words, girt him up, fastened on his +chains, pulled on to his hair a child's cloth cap with a broken peak, +stuck his staff in his hand, slung a wallet on her own shoulder, and +went with him out at the gate into the street.... To stop her actually +I had not the right, and it would have been of no use; and at my last +despairing call she did not even turn round. Supporting the 'man of +God' under his arm, she stepped rapidly over the black mud of the +street; and in a few moments, across the dim dusk of the foggy morning, +through the thick network of falling raindrops, I saw the last glimpse +of the two figures, the crazy pilgrim and Sophie.... They turned the +corner of a projecting hut, and vanished for ever. + + * * * * * + +I went back to my room. I fell to pondering. I could not understand it; +I could not understand how such a girl, well brought up, young, and +wealthy, could throw up everything and every one, her own home, her +family, her friends, break with all her habits, with all the comforts of +life, and for what? To follow a half-insane vagrant, to become his +servant! I could not for an instant entertain the idea that the +explanation of such a step was to be found in any prompting, however +depraved, of the heart, in love or passion.... One had but to glance at +the repulsive figure of the 'man of God' to dismiss such a notion +entirely! No, Sophie had remained pure; and to her all things were pure; +I could not understand what Sophie had done; but I did not blame her, +as, later on, I have not blamed other girls who too have sacrificed +everything for what they thought the truth, for what they held to be +their vocation. I could not help regretting that Sophie had chosen just +_that_ path; but also I could not refuse her admiration, respect even. +In good earnest she had talked of self-sacrifice, of abasement ... in +_her_, words were not opposed to acts. She had sought a leader, a guide, +and had found him, ... and, my God, what a guide! + +Yes, she had lain down to be trampled, trodden under foot.... In the +process of time, a rumour reached me that her family had succeeded at +last in finding out the lost sheep, and bringing her home. But at home +she did not live long, and died, like a 'Sister of Silence,' without +having spoken a word to any one. + +Peace to your heart, poor, enigmatic creature! Vassily Nikititch is +probably on his crazy wanderings still; the iron health of such +people is truly marvellous. Perhaps, though, his epilepsy may have +done for him. + +BADEN-BADEN, 1869. + + + + +PUNIN AND BABURIN + +PIOTR PETROVITCH'S STORY + + + + +I + + +... I am old and ill now, and my thoughts brood oftenest upon death, +every day coming nearer; rarely I think of the past, rarely I turn the +eyes of my soul behind me. Only from time to time--in winter, as I sit +motionless before the glowing fire, in summer, as I pace with slow tread +along the shady avenue--I recall past years, events, faces; but it is +not on my mature years nor on my youth that my thoughts rest at such +times. They either carry me back to my earliest childhood, or to the +first years of boyhood. Now, for instance, I see myself in the country +with my stern and wrathful grandmother--I was only twelve--and two +figures rise up before my imagination.... + +But I will begin my story consecutively, and in proper order. + + + +I + +1830 + + +The old footman Filippitch came in, on tiptoe, as usual, with a cravat +tied up in a rosette, with tightly compressed lips, 'lest his breath +should be smelt,' with a grey tuft of hair standing up in the very +middle of his forehead. He came in, bowed, and handed my grandmother on +an iron tray a large letter with an heraldic seal. My grandmother put on +her spectacles, read the letter through.... + +'Is he here?' she asked. + +'What is my lady pleased ...' Filippitch began timidly. + +'Imbecile! The man who brought the letter--is he here?' + +'He is here, to be sure he is.... He is sitting in the counting-house.' + +My grandmother rattled her amber rosary beads.... + +'Tell him to come to me.... And you, sir,' she turned to me, 'sit +still.' + +As it was, I was sitting perfectly still in my corner, on the stool +assigned to me. + +My grandmother kept me well in hand! + + * * * * * + +Five minutes later there came into the room a man of five-and-thirty, +black-haired and swarthy, with broad cheek-bones, a face marked with +smallpox, a hook nose, and thick eyebrows, from under which the small +grey eyes looked out with mournful composure. The colour of the eyes and +their expression were out of keeping with the Oriental cast of the rest +of the face. The man was dressed in a decent, long-skirted coat. He +stopped in the doorway, and bowed--only with his head. + +'So your name's Baburin?' queried my grandmother, and she added to +herself: '_Il a l'air d'un armenien._' + +'Yes, it is,' the man answered in a deep and even voice. At the first +brusque sound of my grandmother's voice his eyebrows faintly quivered. +Surely he had not expected her to address him as an equal? + +'Are you a Russian? orthodox?' + +'Yes.' + +My grandmother took off her spectacles, and scanned Baburin from head +to foot deliberately. He did not drop his eyes, he merely folded his +hands behind his back. What particularly struck my fancy was his beard; +it was very smoothly shaven, but such blue cheeks and chin I had never +seen in my life! + +'Yakov Petrovitch,' began my grandmother, 'recommends you strongly +in his letter as sober and industrious; why, then, did you leave +his service?' + +'He needs a different sort of person to manage his estate, madam.' + +'A different ... sort? That I don't quite understand.' + +My grandmother rattled her beads again. 'Yakov Petrovitch writes to me +that there are two peculiarities about you. What peculiarities?' + +Baburin shrugged his shoulders slightly. + +'I can't tell what he sees fit to call peculiarities. Possibly that +I ... don't allow corporal punishment.' + +My grandmother was surprised. 'Do you mean to say Yakov Petrovitch +wanted to flog you?' + +Baburin's swarthy face grew red to the roots of his hair. + +'You have not understood me right, madam. I make it a rule not to employ +corporal punishment ... with the peasants.' + +My grandmother was more surprised than ever; she positively threw up +her hands. + +'Ah!' she pronounced at last, and putting her head a little on one side, +once more she scrutinised Baburin attentively. 'So that's your rule, is +it? Well, that's of no consequence whatever to me; I don't want an +overseer, but a counting-house clerk, a secretary. What sort of a hand +do you write?' + +'I write well, without mistakes in spelling.' + +'That too is of no consequence to me. The great thing for me is for it +to be clear, and without any of those new copybook letters with tails, +that I don't like. And what's your other peculiarity?' + +Baburin moved uneasily, coughed.... + +'Perhaps ... the gentleman has referred to the fact that I am not +alone.' + +'You are married?' + +'Oh no ... but ...' + +My grandmother knit her brows. + +'There is a person living with me ... of the male sex ... a comrade, a +poor friend, from whom I have never parted ... for ... let me see ... +ten years now.' + +'A relation of yours?' + +'No, not a relation--a friend. As to work, there can be no possible +hindrance occasioned by him,' Baburin made haste to add, as though +foreseeing objections. 'He lives at my cost, occupies the same room with +me; he is more likely to be of use, as he is well educated--speaking +without flattery, extremely so, in fact--and his morals are exemplary.' + +My grandmother heard Baburin out, chewing her lips and half +closing her eyes. + +'He lives at your expense?' + +'Yes.' + +'You keep him out of charity?' + +'As an act of justice ... as it's the duty of one poor man to help +another poor man.' + +'Indeed! It's the first time I've heard that. I had supposed till now +that that was rather the duty of rich people.' + +'For the rich, if I may venture to say so, it is an entertainment ... but +for such as we ...' + +'Well, well, that's enough, that's enough,' my grandmother cut him +short; and after a moment's thought she queried, speaking through her +nose, which was always a bad sign, 'And what age is he, your protege?' + +'About my own age.' + +'Really, I imagined that you were bringing him up.' + +'Not so; he is my comrade--and besides ...' + +'That's enough,' my grandmother cut him short a second time. 'You're a +philanthropist, it seems. Yakov Petrovitch is right; for a man in your +position it's something very peculiar. But now let's get to business. +I'll explain to you what your duties will be. And as regards wages.... +_Que faites vous ici?_' added my grandmother suddenly, turning her dry, +yellow face to me:--'_Allez etudier votre devoir de mythologie._' + +I jumped up, went up to kiss my grandmother's hand, and went out,--not +to study mythology, but simply into the garden. + + * * * * * + +The garden on my grandmother's estate was very old and large, and was +bounded on one side by a flowing pond, in which there were not only +plenty of carp and eels, but even loach were caught, those renowned +loach, that have nowadays disappeared almost everywhere. At the head +of this pond was a thick clump of willows; further and higher, on both +sides of a rising slope, were dense bushes of hazel, elder, +honeysuckle, and sloe-thorn, with an undergrowth of heather and clover +flowers. Here and there between the bushes were tiny clearings, +covered with emerald-green, silky, fine grass, in the midst of which +squat funguses peeped out with their comical, variegated pink, lilac, +and straw-coloured caps, and golden balls of 'hen-dazzle' blazed in +light patches. Here in spring-time the nightingales sang, the +blackbirds whistled, the cuckoos called; here in the heat of summer it +was always cool--and I loved to make my way into the wilderness and +thicket, where I had favourite secret spots, known--so, at least, I +imagined--only to me. + +On coming out of my grandmother's room I made straight for one of these +spots, which I had named 'Switzerland.' But what was my astonishment +when, before I had reached 'Switzerland,' I perceived through the +delicate network of half-dry twigs and green branches that some one +besides me had found it out! A long, long figure in a long, loose coat +of yellow frieze and a tall cap was standing in the very spot I loved +best of all! I stole up a little nearer, and made out the face, which +was utterly unknown to me, also very long and soft, with small reddish +eyes, and a very funny nose; drawn out as long as a pod of peas, it +positively over-hung the full lips; and these lips, quivering and +forming a round O, were giving vent to a shrill little whistle, while +the long fingers of the bony hands, placed facing one another on the +upper part of the chest, were rapidly moving with a rotatory action. +From time to time the motion of the hands subsided, the lips ceased +whistling and quivering, the head was bent forward as though listening. +I came still nearer, examined him still more closely.... The stranger +held in each hand a small flat cup, such as people use to tease +canaries and make them sing. A twig snapped under my feet; the stranger +started, turned his dim little eyes towards the copse, and was +staggering away ... but he stumbled against a tree, uttered an +exclamation, and stood still. + +I came out into the open space. The stranger smiled. + +'Good morning,' said I. + +'Good morning, little master!' + +I did not like his calling me little master. Such familiarity! + +'What are you doing here?' I asked sternly. + +'Why, look here,' he responded, never leaving off smiling, 'I'm calling +the little birds to sing.' He showed me his little cups. 'The +chaffinches answer splendidly! You, at your tender years, take delight, +no doubt, in the feathered songsters' notes! Listen, I beg; I will begin +chirping, and they'll answer me directly--it's so delightful!' + +He began rubbing his little cups. A chaffinch actually did chirp in +response from a mountain ash near. The stranger laughed without a sound, +and winked at me. + +The laugh and the wink--every gesture of the stranger, his weak, +lisping voice, his bent knees and thin hands, his very cap and long +frieze coat--everything about him suggested good-nature, something +innocent and droll. + +'Have you been here long?' I asked. + +'I came to-day.' + +'Why, aren't you the person of whom ...' + +'Mr. Baburin spoke to the lady here. The same, the same.' + +'Your friend's name's Baburin, and what's yours?' + +'I'm Punin. Punin's my name; Punin. He's Baburin and I'm Punin.' He set +the little cups humming again. 'Listen, listen to the chaffinch.... How +it carols!' + +This queer creature took my fancy 'awfully' all at once. Like almost all +boys, I was either timid or consequential with strangers, but I felt +with this man as if I had known him for ages. + +'Come along with me,' I said to him; 'I know a place better than +this; there's a seat there; we can sit down, and we can see the dam +from there.' + +'By all means let us go,' my new friend responded in his singing voice. +I let him pass before me. As he walked he rolled from side to side, +tripped over his own feet, and his head fell back. + +I noticed on the back of his coat, under the collar, there hung a small +tassel. 'What's that you've got hanging there?' I asked. + +'Where?' he questioned, and he put his hand up to the collar to feel. +'Ah, the tassel? Let it be! I suppose it was sewn there for ornament! +It's not in the way.' + +I led him to the seat, and sat down; he settled himself beside me. 'It's +lovely here!' he commented, and he drew a deep, deep sigh. 'Oh, how +lovely! You have a most splendid garden! Oh, o--oh!' + +I looked at him from one side. 'What a queer cap you've got!' I couldn't +help exclaiming. 'Show it me here!' + +'By all means, little master, by all means.' He took off the cap; I was +holding out my hand, but I raised my eyes, and--simply burst out +laughing. Punin was completely bald; not a single hair was to be seen on +the high conical skull, covered with smooth white skin. He passed his +open hand over it, and he too laughed. When he laughed he seemed, as it +were, to gulp, he opened his mouth wide, closed his eyes--and vertical +wrinkles flitted across his forehead in three rows, like waves. 'Eh,' +said he at last, 'isn't it quite like an egg?' + +'Yes, yes, exactly like an egg!' I agreed with enthusiasm. 'And have you +been like that long?' + +'Yes, a long while; but what hair I used to have!--A golden fleece like +that for which the Argonauts sailed over the watery deeps.' + +Though I was only twelve, yet, thanks to my mythological studies, I knew +who the Argonauts were; I was the more surprised at hearing the name on +the lips of a man dressed almost in rags. + +'You must have learned mythology, then?' I queried, as I twisted his cap +over and over in my hands. It turned out to be wadded, with a +mangy-looking fur trimming, and a broken cardboard peak. + +'I have studied that subject, my dear little master; I've had time +enough for everything in my life! But now restore to me my covering, it +is a protection to the nakedness of my head.' + +He put on the cap, and, with a downward slope of his whitish eyebrows, +asked me who I was, and who were my parents. + +'I'm the grandson of the lady who owns this place,' I answered. 'I live +alone with her. Papa and mamma are dead.' + +Punin crossed himself. 'May the kingdom of heaven be theirs! So then, +you're an orphan; and the heir, too. The noble blood in you is visible +at once; it fairly sparkles in your eyes, and plays like this ... sh ... +sh ... sh ...' He represented with his fingers the play of the blood. +'Well, and do you know, your noble honour, whether my friend has come to +terms with your grandmamma, whether he has obtained the situation he was +promised?' + +'I don't know.' + +Punin cleared his throat. 'Ah! if one could be settled here, if only for +a while! Or else one may wander and wander far, and find not a place to +rest one's head; the disquieting alarms of life are unceasing, the soul +is confounded....' + +'Tell me,' I interrupted: 'are you of the clerical profession?' + +Punin turned to me and half closed his eyelids. 'And what may be the +cause of that question, gentle youth?' + +'Why, you talk so--well, as they read in church.' + +'Because I use the old scriptural forms of expression? But that ought +not to surprise you. Admitting that in ordinary conversation such forms +of expression are not always in place; but when one soars on the wings +of inspiration, at once the language too grows more exalted. Surely your +teacher--the professor of Russian literature--you do have lessons in +that, I suppose?--surely he teaches you that, doesn't he?' + +'No, he doesn't,' I responded. 'When we stay in the country I have no +teacher. In Moscow I have a great many teachers.' + +'And will you be staying long in the country?' + +'Two months, not longer; grandmother says that I'm spoilt in the +country, though I have a governess even here.' + +'A French governess?' + +'Yes.' + +Punin scratched behind his ear. 'A mamselle, that's to say?' + +'Yes; she's called Mademoiselle Friquet.' I suddenly felt it +disgraceful for me, a boy of twelve, to have not a tutor, but a +governess, like a little girl! 'But I don't mind her,' I added +contemptuously. 'What do I care!' + +Punin shook his head. 'Ah, you gentlefolk, you gentlefolk! you're too +fond of foreigners! You have turned away from what is Russian,--towards +all that's strange. You've turned your hearts to those that come from +foreign parts....' + +'Hullo! Are you talking in verse?' I asked. + +'Well, and why not? I can do that always, as much as you please; for it +comes natural to me....' + +But at that very instant there sounded in the garden behind us a loud +and shrill whistle. My new acquaintance hurriedly got up from the bench. + +'Good-bye, little sir; that's my friend calling me, looking for me.... +What has he to tell me? Good-bye--excuse me....' + +He plunged into the bushes and vanished, while I sat on some time longer +on the seat. I felt perplexity and another feeling, rather an agreeable +one ... I had never met nor spoken to any one like this before. +Gradually I fell to dreaming, but recollected my mythology and sauntered +towards the house. + + * * * * * + +At home, I learned that my grandmother had arranged to take Baburin; he +had been assigned a small room in the servants' quarters, overlooking +the stable-yard. He had at once settled in there with his friend. + +When I had drunk my tea, next morning, without asking leave of +Mademoiselle Friquet, I set off to the servants' quarters. I wanted to +have another chat with the queer fellow I had seen the day before. +Without knocking at the door--the very idea of doing so would never have +occurred to us--I walked straight into the room. I found in it not the +man I was looking for, not Punin, but his protector--the philanthropist, +Baburin. He was standing before the window, without his outer garment, +his legs wide apart. He was busily engaged in rubbing his head and neck +with a long towel. + +'What do you want?' he observed, keeping his hands still raised, and +knitting his brows. + +'Punin's not at home, then?' I queried in the most free-and-easy manner, +without taking off my cap. + +'Mr. Punin, Nikander Vavilitch, at this moment, is not at home, truly,' +Baburin responded deliberately; 'but allow me to make an observation, +young man: it's not the proper thing to come into another person's room +like this, without asking leave.' + +I! ... young man! ... how dared he! ... I grew crimson with fury. + +'You cannot be aware who I am,' I rejoined, in a manner no longer +free-and-easy, but haughty. 'I am the grandson of the mistress here.' + +'That's all the same to me,' retorted Baburin, setting to work with his +towel again. 'Though you are the seignorial grandson, you have no right +to come into other people's rooms.' + +'Other people's? What do you mean? I'm--at home here--everywhere.' + +'No, excuse me: here--I'm at home; since this room has been assigned to +me, by agreement, in exchange for my work.' + +'Don't teach me, if you please,' I interrupted: 'I know better than +you what ...' + +'You must be taught,' he interrupted in his turn, 'for you're at an age +when you ... I know my duties, but I know my rights too very well, and +if you continue to speak to me in that way, I shall have to ask you to +go out of the room....' + +There is no knowing how our dispute would have ended if Punin had not at +that instant entered, shuffling and shambling from side to side. He most +likely guessed from the expression of our faces that some unpleasantness +had passed between us, and at once turned to me with the warmest +expressions of delight. + +'Ah! little master! little master!' he cried, waving his hands wildly, +and going off into his noiseless laugh: 'the little dear! come to pay me +a visit! here he's come, the little dear!' (What's the meaning of it? I +thought: can he be speaking in this familiar way to me?) 'There, come +along, come with me into the garden. I've found something there.... Why +stay in this stuffiness here! let's go!' + +I followed Punin, but in the doorway I thought it as well to turn round +and fling a glance of defiance at Baburin, as though to say, I'm not +afraid of you! + +He responded in the same way, and positively snorted into the +towel--probably to make me thoroughly aware how utterly he despised me! + +What an insolent fellow your friend is!' I said to Punin, directly the +door had closed behind me. + +Almost with horror, Punin turned his plump face to me. + +'To whom did you apply that expression?' he asked me, with round eyes. + +'Why, to him, of course.... What's his name? that ... Baburin.' + +'Paramon Semyonevitch?' + +'Why, yes; that ... blackfaced fellow.' + +'Eh ... eh ... eh ...!' Punin protested, with caressing reproachfulness. +'How can you talk like that, little master! Paramon Semyonevitch is the +most estimable man, of the strictest principles, an extraordinary +person! To be sure, he won't allow any disrespect to him, because--he +knows his own value. That man possesses a vast amount of knowledge--and +it's not a place like this he ought to be filling! You must, my dear, +behave very courteously to him; do you know, he's ...' here Punin bent +down quite to my ear,--'a republican!' + +I stared at Punin. This I had not at all expected. From Keidanov's +manual and other historical works I had gathered the fact that at some +period or other, in ancient times, there had existed republicans, Greeks +and Romans. For some unknown reason I had always pictured them all in +helmets, with round shields on their arms, and big bare legs; but that +in real life, in the actual present, above all, in Russia, in the +province of X----, one could come across republicans--that upset all my +notions, and utterly confounded them! + +'Yes, my dear, yes; Paramon Semyonitch is a republican,' repeated Punin; +'there, so you'll know for the future how one should speak of a man like +that! But now let's go into the garden. Fancy what I've found there! A +cuckoo's egg in a redstart's nest! a lovely thing!' + +I went into the garden with Punin; but mentally I kept repeating: +'republican! re ... pub ... lican!' + +'So,' I decided at last--'that's why he has such a blue chin!' + + * * * * * + +My attitude to these two persons--Punin and Baburin--took definite shape +from that very day. Baburin aroused in me a feeling of hostility with +which there was, however, in a short time, mingled something akin to +respect. And wasn't I afraid of him! I never got over being afraid of +him even when the sharp severity of his manner with me at first had +quite disappeared. It is needless to say that of Punin I had no fear; I +did not even respect him; I looked upon him--not to put too fine a point +on it--as a buffoon; but I loved him with my whole soul! To spend hours +at a time in his company, to be alone with him, to listen to his +stories, became a genuine delight to me. My grandmother was anything but +pleased at this _intimite_ with a person of the 'lower classes'--_du +commun_; but, whenever I could break away, I flew at once to my queer, +amusing, beloved friend. Our meetings became more frequent after the +departure of Mademoiselle Friquet, whom my grandmother sent back to +Moscow in disgrace because, in conversation with a military staff +captain, visiting in the neighbourhood, she had had the insolence to +complain of the dulness which reigned in our household. And Punin, for +his part, was not bored by long conversations with a boy of twelve; he +seemed to seek them of himself. How often have I listened to his +stories, sitting with him in the fragrant shade, on the dry, smooth +grass, under the canopy of the silver poplars, or among the reeds above +the pond, on the coarse, damp sand of the hollow bank, from which the +knotted roots protruded, queerly interlaced, like great black veins, +like snakes, like creatures emerging from some subterranean region! +Punin told me the whole story of his life in minute detail, describing +all his happy adventures, and all his misfortunes, with which I always +felt the sincerest sympathy! His father had been a deacon;--'a splendid +man--but, under the influence of drink, stern to the last extreme.' + +Punin himself had received his education in a seminary; but, unable to +stand the severe thrashings, and feeling no inclination for the priestly +calling, he had become a layman, and in consequence had experienced all +sorts of hardships; and, finally, had become a vagrant. 'And had I not +met with my benefactor, Paramon Semyonitch,' Punin commonly added (he +never spoke of Baburin except in this way), 'I should have sunk into the +miry abysses of poverty and vice.' Punin was fond of high-sounding +expressions, and had a great propensity, if not for lying, for romancing +and exaggeration; he admired everything, fell into ecstasies over +everything.... And I, in imitation of him, began to exaggerate and be +ecstatic, too. 'What a crazy fellow you've grown! God have mercy on +you!' my old nurse used to say to me. Punin's narratives used to +interest me extremely; but even better than his stories I loved the +readings we used to have together. + +It is impossible to describe the feeling I experienced when, snatching +a favourable moment, suddenly, like a hermit in a tale or a good fairy, +he appeared before me with a ponderous volume under his arm, and +stealthily beckoning with his long crooked finger, and winking +mysteriously, he pointed with his head, his eyebrows, his shoulders, +his whole person, toward the deepest recesses of the garden, whither no +one could penetrate after us, and where it was impossible to find us +out. And when we had succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had +satisfactorily reached one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side +by side, and, at last, the book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent +odour, inexpressibly sweet to me then, of mildew and age;--with what a +thrill, with what a wave of dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at +the lips of Punin, those lips from which in a moment a stream of such +delicious eloquence was to flow! At last the first sounds of the +reading were heard. Everything around me vanished ... no, not vanished, +but grew far away, passed into clouds of mist, leaving behind only an +impression of something friendly and protecting. Those trees, those +green leaves, those high grasses screen us, hide us from all the rest +of the world; no one knows where we are, what we are about--while with +us is poetry, we are saturated in it, intoxicated with it, something +solemn, grand, mysterious is happening to us.... Punin, by preference, +kept to poetry, musical, sonorous poetry; he was ready to lay down his +life for poetry. He did not read, he declaimed the verse majestically, +in a torrent of rhythm, in a rolling outpour through his nose, like a +man intoxicated, lifted out of himself, like the Pythian priestess. And +another habit he had: first he would lisp the verses through softly, in +a whisper, as it were mumbling them to himself.... This he used to call +the rough sketch of the reading; then he would thunder out the same +verse in its 'fair copy,' and would all at once leap up, throw up his +hand, with a half-supplicating, half-imperious gesture.... In this way +we went through not only Lomonosov, Sumarokov, and Kantemir (the older +the poems, the more they were to Punin's taste), but even Heraskov's +_Rossiad_. And, to tell the truth, it was this same _Rossiad_ which +aroused my enthusiasm most. There is in it, among others, a mighty +Tatar woman, a gigantic heroine; I have forgotten even her name now; +but in those days my hands and feet turned cold as soon as it was +mentioned. 'Yes,' Punin would say, nodding his head with great +significance, 'Heraskov, he doesn't let one off easily. At times one +comes upon a line, simply heart-breaking.... One can only stick to it, +and do one's best.... One tries to master it, but he breaks away again +and trumpets, trumpets, with the crash of cymbals. His name's been well +bestowed on him--the very word, Herrraskov!' Lomonosov Punin found +fault with for too simple and free a style; while to Derzhavin he +maintained an attitude almost of hostility, saying that he was more of +a courtier than a poet. In our house it was not merely that no +attention was given to literature, to poetry; but poetry, especially +Russian poetry, was looked upon as something quite undignified and +vulgar; my grandmother did not even call it poetry, but 'doggrel +verses'; every author of such doggrel was, in her opinion, either a +confirmed toper or a perfect idiot. Brought up among such ideas, it was +inevitable that I should either turn from Punin with disgust--he was +untidy and shabby into the bargain, which was an offence to my +seignorial habits--or that, attracted and captivated by him, I should +follow his example, and be infected by his passion for poetry.... And +so it turned out. I, too, began reading poetry, or, as my grandmother +expressed it, poring over doggrel trash.... I even tried my hand at +versifying, and composed a poem, descriptive of a barrel-organ, in +which occurred the following two lines: + + + 'Lo, the barrel turns around, + And the cogs within resound.' + + +Punin commended in this effort a certain imitative melody, but +disapproved of the subject itself as low and unworthy of lyrical +treatment. + +Alas! all those efforts and emotions and transports, our solitary +readings, our life together, our poetry, all came to an end at once. +Trouble broke upon us suddenly, like a clap of thunder. + + * * * * * + +My grandmother in everything liked cleanliness and order, quite in the +spirit of the active generals of those days; cleanliness and order were +to be maintained too in our garden. And so from time to time they +'drove' into it poor peasants, who had no families, no land, no beasts +of their own, and those among the house serfs who were out of favour or +superannuated, and set them to clearing the paths, weeding the borders, +breaking up and sifting the earth in the beds, and so on. Well, one day, +in the very heat of these operations, my grandmother went into the +garden, and took me with her. On all sides, among the trees and about +the lawns, we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all +sides we heard the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of +clods of earth on the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers, +my grandmother with her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was +working with less energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap, +too, with no show of eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young, +with a wasted face, and sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all +torn and patched, scarcely held together over his narrow shoulders. + +'Who's that?' my grandmother inquired of Filippitch, who was walking on +tiptoe behind her. + +'Of whom ... you are pleased ...' Filippitch stammered. + +'Oh, fool! I mean the one that looked so sullenly at me. There, standing +yonder, not working.' + +'Oh, him! Yes ... th ... th ... that's Yermil, son of Pavel Afanasiitch, +now deceased.' + +Pavel Afanasiitch had been, ten years before, head butler in my +grandmother's house, and stood particularly high in her favour. But +suddenly falling into disgrace, he was as suddenly degraded to being +herdsman, and did not long keep even that position. He sank lower still, +and struggled on for a while on a monthly pittance of flour in a little +hut far away. At last he had died of paralysis, leaving his family in +the most utter destitution. + +'Aha!' commented my grandmother; 'it's clear the apple's not fallen far +from the tree. Well, we shall have to make arrangements about this +fellow too. I've no need of people like that, with scowling faces.' + +My grandmother went back to the house--and made arrangements. Three +hours later Yermil, completely 'equipped,' was brought under the window +of her room. The unfortunate boy was being transported to a settlement; +the other side of the fence, a few steps from him, was a little cart +loaded with his poor belongings. Such were the times then. Yermil stood +without his cap, with downcast head, barefoot, with his boots tied up +with a string behind his back; his face, turned towards the seignorial +mansion, expressed not despair nor grief, nor even bewilderment; a +stupid smile was frozen on his colourless lips; his eyes, dry and +half-closed, looked stubbornly on the ground. My grandmother was +apprised of his presence. She got up from the sofa, went, with a faint +rustle of her silken skirts, to the window of the study, and, holding +her golden-rimmed double eyeglass on the bridge of her nose, looked at +the new exile. In her room there happened to be at the moment four other +persons, the butler, Baburin, the page who waited on my grandmother in +the daytime, and I. + +My grandmother nodded her head up and down.... + +'Madam,' a hoarse almost stifled voice was heard suddenly. I looked +round. Baburin's face was red ... dark red; under his overhanging brows +could be seen little sharp points of light.... There was no doubt about +it; it was he, it was Baburin, who had uttered the word 'Madam.' + +My grandmother too looked round, and turned her eyeglass from Yermil +to Baburin. + +'Who is that ... speaking?' she articulated slowly ... through her nose. +Baburin moved slightly forward. + +'Madam,' he began, 'it is I.... I venture ... I imagine ... I make bold +to submit to your honour that you are making a mistake in acting as ... +as you are pleased to act at this moment.' + +'That is?' my grandmother said, in the same voice, not removing +her eyeglass. + +'I take the liberty ...' Baburin went on distinctly, uttering every word +though with obvious effort--'I am referring to the case of this lad who +is being sent away to a settlement ... for no fault of his. Such +arrangements, I venture to submit, lead to dissatisfaction, and to +other--which God forbid!--consequences, and are nothing else than a +transgression of the powers allowed to seignorial proprietors.' + +'And where have you studied, pray?' my grandmother asked after a short +silence, and she dropped her eyeglass. + +Baburin was disconcerted. 'What are you pleased to wish?' he muttered. + +'I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.' + +'I ... my education ...' Baburin was beginning. + +My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 'It seems,' she +interrupted, 'that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of +absolutely no consequence to me--among my subjects I am sovereign, and +answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having people +criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their +business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript +position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always +lived till you came, and so I shall live after you've gone. You do not +suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,' my grandmother turned to +the steward, 'pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time +to-day! D'you hear? Don't put me into a passion. And the other too ... +the fool that lives with him--to be sent off too. What's Yermilka +waiting for?' she added, looking out of window, 'I have seen him. What +more does he want?' My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the +direction of the window, as though to drive away an importunate fly. +Then she sat down in a low chair, and turning towards us, gave the order +grimly: 'Everybody present to leave the room!' + +We all withdrew--all, except the day page, to whom my grandmother's +words did not apply, because he was nobody. + +My grandmother's decree was carried out to the letter. Before dinner, +both Baburin and my friend Punin were driving away from the place. I +will not undertake to describe my grief, my genuine, truly childish +despair. It was so strong that it stifled even the feeling of +awe-stricken admiration inspired by the bold action of the republican +Baburin. After the conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to +his room and began packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one +look, though I was the whole time hanging about him, or rather, in +reality, about Punin. The latter was utterly distraught, and he too said +nothing; but he was continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his +eyes ... always the same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did +not venture to criticise his 'benefactor'--Paramon Semyonitch could not +make a mistake,--but great was his distress and dejection. Punin and I +made an effort to read something out of the _Rossiad_ for the last time; +we even locked ourselves up in the lumber-room--it was useless to dream +of going into the garden--but at the very first line we both broke down, +and I fairly bellowed like a calf, in spite of my twelve years, and my +claims to be grown-up. + +When he had taken his seat in the carriage Baburin at last turned to me, +and with a slight softening of the accustomed sternness of his face, +observed: 'It's a lesson for you, young gentleman; remember this +incident, and when you grow up, try to put an end to such acts of +injustice. Your heart is good, your nature is not yet corrupted.... +Mind, be careful; things can't go on like this!' Through my tears, which +streamed copiously over my nose, my lips, and my chin, I faltered out +that I would ... I would remember, that I promised ... I would do ... I +would be sure ... quite sure ... + +But at this point, Punin, whom I had before this embraced twenty times +(my cheeks were burning from the contact with his unshaven beard, and I +was odoriferous of the smell that always clung to him)--at this point a +sudden frenzy came over Punin. He jumped up on the seat of the cart, +flung both hands up in the air, and began in a voice of thunder (where +he got it from!) to declaim the well-known paraphrase of the Psalm of +David by Derzhavin,--a poet for this occasion--not a courtier. + + 'God the All-powerful doth arise + And judgeth in the congregation of the mighty! ... + How long, how long, saith the Lord, + Will ye have mercy on the wicked? + "Ye have to keep the laws...."' + +'Sit down!' Baburin said to him. + +Punin sat down, but continued: + + 'To save the guiltless and needy, + To give shelter to the afflicted, + To defend the weak from the oppressors.' + +Punin at the word 'oppressors' pointed to the seignorial abode, and then +poked the driver in the back. + + 'To deliver the poor out of bondage! + They know not! neither will they understand! ...' + +Nikolai Antonov running out of the seignorial abode, shouted at the top +of his voice to the coachman: 'Get away with you! owl! go along! don't +stay lingering here!' and the cart rolled away. Only in the distance +could still be heard: + + 'Arise, O Lord God of righteousness! ... + Come forth to judge the unjust-- + And be Thou the only Ruler of the nations!' + +'What a clown!' remarked Nikolai Antonov. + +'He didn't get enough of the rod in his young days,' observed the +deacon, appearing on the steps. He had come to inquire what hour it +would please the mistress to fix for the night service. + +The same day, learning that Yermil was still in the village, and would +not till early next morning be despatched to the town for the execution +of certain legal formalities, which were intended to check the +arbitrary proceedings of the landowners, but served only as a source of +additional revenue to the functionaries in superintendence of them, I +sought him out, and, for lack of money of my own, handed him a bundle, +in which I had tied up two pocket-handkerchiefs, a shabby pair of +slippers, a comb, an old night-gown, and a perfectly new silk cravat. +Yermil, whom I had to wake up--he was lying on a heap of straw in the +back yard, near the cart--Yermil took my present rather indifferently, +with some hesitation in fact, did not thank me, promptly poked his head +into the straw and fell asleep again. I went home somewhat +disappointed. I had imagined that he would be astonished and overjoyed +at my visit, would see in it a pledge of my magnanimous intentions for +the future--and instead of that ... + +'You may say what you like--these people have no feeling,' was my +reflection on my homeward way. + +My grandmother, who had for some reason left me in peace the whole of +that memorable day, looked at me suspiciously when I came after supper +to say good-night to her. + +'Your eyes are red,' she observed to me in French; 'and there's a smell +of the peasant's hut about you. I am not going to enter into an +examination of what you've been feeling and doing--I should not like to +be obliged to punish you--but I hope you will get over all your +foolishness, and begin to conduct yourself once more in a manner +befitting a well-bred boy. However, we are soon going back to Moscow, +and I shall get you a tutor--as I see you need a man's hand to manage +you. You can go.' + +We did, as a fact, go back soon after to Moscow. + + + + +II + +1837 + + +Seven years had passed by. We were living as before at Moscow--but I was +by now a student in my second year--and the authority of my grandmother, +who had aged very perceptibly in the last years, no longer weighed upon +me. Of all my fellow-students the one with whom I was on the friendliest +terms was a light-hearted and good-natured youth called Tarhov. Our +habits and our tastes were similar. Tarhov was a great lover of poetry, +and himself wrote verses; while in me the seeds sown by Punin had not +been without fruit. As is often the case with young people who are very +close friends, we had no secrets from one another. But behold, for +several days together I noticed a certain excitement and agitation in +Tarhov.... He disappeared for hours at a time, and I did not know where +he had got to--a thing which had never happened before. I was on the +point of demanding, in the name of friendship, a full explanation.... He +anticipated me. + +One day I was sitting in his room.... 'Petya,' he said suddenly, +blushing gaily, and looking me straight in the face, 'I must introduce +you to my muse.' + +'Your muse! how queerly you talk! Like a classicist. (Romanticism was at +that time, in 1837, at its full height.) As if I had not known it ever +so long--your muse! Have you written a new poem, or what?' + +'You don't understand what I mean,' rejoined Tarhov, still laughing and +blushing. 'I will introduce you to a living muse.' + +'Aha! so that's it! But how is she--yours?' + +'Why, because ... But hush, I believe it's she coming here.' + +There was the light click of hurrying heels, the door opened, and in the +doorway appeared a girl of eighteen, in a chintz cotton gown, with a +black cloth cape on her shoulders, and a black straw hat on her fair, +rather curly hair. On seeing me she was frightened and disconcerted, and +was beating a retreat ... but Tarhov at once rushed to meet her. + +'Please, please, Musa Pavlovna, come in! This is my great friend, a +splendid fellow--and the soul of discretion. You've no need to be afraid +of him. Petya,' he turned to me, 'let me introduce my Musa--Musa +Pavlovna Vinogradov, a great friend of mine.' + +I bowed. + +'How is that ... Musa?' I was beginning.... Tarhov laughed. 'Ah, you +didn't know there was such a name in the calendar? I didn't know it +either, my boy, till I met this dear young lady. Musa! such a charming +name! And suits her so well!' + +I bowed again to my comrade's great friend. She left the door, took two +steps forward and stood still. She was very attractive, but I could not +agree with Tarhov's opinion, and inwardly said to myself: 'Well, she's a +strange sort of muse!' + +The features of her curved, rosy face were small and delicate; there was +an air of fresh, buoyant youth about all her slender, miniature figure; +but of the muse, of the personification of the muse, I--and not only +I--all the young people of that time had a very different conception! +First of all the muse had infallibly to be dark-haired and pale. An +expression of scornful pride, a bitter smile, a glance of inspiration, +and that 'something'--mysterious, demonic, fateful--that was essential +to our conception of the muse, the muse of Byron, who at that time held +sovereign sway over men's fancies. There was nothing of that kind to be +discerned in the face of the girl who came in. Had I been a little older +and more experienced I should probably have paid more attention to her +eyes, which were small and deep-set, with full lids, but dark as agate, +alert and bright, a thing rare in fair-haired people. Poetical +tendencies I should not have detected in their rapid, as it were +elusive, glance, but hints of a passionate soul, passionate to +self-forgetfulness. But I was very young then. + +I held out my hand to Musa Pavlovna--she did not give me hers--she did +not notice my movement; she sat down on the chair Tarhov placed for her, +but did not take off her hat and cape. + +She was, obviously, ill at ease; my presence embarrassed her. She +drew deep breaths, at irregular intervals, as though she were +gasping for air. + +'I've only come to you for one minute, Vladimir Nikolaitch,' she +began--her voice was very soft and deep; from her crimson, almost +childish lips, it seemed rather strange;--'but our madame would not let +me out for more than half an hour. You weren't well the day before +yesterday ... and so, I thought ...' + +She stammered and hung her head. Under the shade of her thick, low brows +her dark eyes darted--to and fro--elusively. There are dark, swift, +flashing beetles that flit so in the heat of summer among the blades of +dry grass. + +'How good you are, Musa, Musotchka!' cried Tarhov. 'But you must stay, +you must stay a little.... We'll have the samovar in directly.' + +'Oh no, Vladimir Nikolaevitch! it's impossible! I must go away +this minute.' + +'You must rest a little, anyway. You're out of breath.... You're tired.' + +'I'm not tired. It's ... not that ... only ... give me another book; +I've finished this one.' She took out of her pocket a tattered grey +volume of a Moscow edition. + +'Of course, of course. Well, did you like it? _Roslavlev_,' added +Tarhov, addressing me. + +'Yes. Only I think _Yury Miloslavsky_ is much better. Our madame is very +strict about books. She says they hinder our working. For, to her +thinking ...' + +'But, I say, _Yury Miloslavsky_'s not equal to Pushkin's _Gipsies_? Eh? +Musa Pavlovna?' Tarhov broke in with a smile. + +'No, indeed! The _Gipsies_ ...' she murmured slowly. 'Oh yes, another +thing, Vladimir Nikolaitch; don't come to-morrow ... you know where.' + +'Why not?' + +'It's impossible.' + +'But why?' + +The girl shrugged her shoulders, and all at once, as though she had +received a sudden shove, got up from her chair. + +'Why, Musa, Musotchka,' Tarhov expostulated plaintively. 'Stay a +little!' + +'No, no, I can't.' She went quickly to the door, took hold of the +handle.... + +'Well, at least, take the book!' + +'Another time.' + +Tarhov rushed towards the girl, but at that instant she darted out of +the room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. 'What a girl! +She's a regular little viper!' he declared with some vexation, and then +sank into thought. + +I stayed at Tarhov's. I wanted to find out what was the meaning of it +all. Tarhov was not disposed to be reserved. He told me that the girl +was a milliner; that he had seen her for the first time three weeks +before in a fashionable shop, where he had gone on a commission for his +sister, who lived in the provinces, to buy a hat; that he had fallen in +love with her at first sight, and that next day he had succeeded in +speaking to her in the street; that she had herself, it seemed, taken +rather a fancy to him. + +'Only, please, don't you suppose,' he added with warmth,--'don't you +imagine any harm of her. So far, at any rate, there's been nothing of +that sort between us. + +'Harm!' I caught him up; 'I've no doubt of that; and I've no doubt +either that you sincerely deplore the fact, my dear fellow! Have +patience--everything will come right' + +'I hope so,' Tarhov muttered through his teeth, though with a laugh. +'But really, my boy, that girl ... I tell you--it's a new type, you +know. You hadn't time to get a good look at her. She's a shy thing!--oo! +such a shy thing! and what a will of her own! But that very shyness is +what I like in her. It's a sign of independence! I'm simply over head +and ears, my boy!' + +Tarhov fell to talking of his 'charmer,' and even read me the beginning +of a poem entitled: 'My Muse.' His emotional outpourings were not quite +to my taste. I felt secretly jealous of him. I soon left him. + + * * * * * + +A few days after I happened to be passing through one of the arcades of +the Gostinny Dvor. It was Saturday; there were crowds of people +shopping; on all sides, in the midst of the pushing and crushing, the +shopmen kept shouting to people to buy. Having bought what I wanted, I +was thinking of nothing but getting away from their teasing importunity +as soon as possible--when all at once I halted involuntarily: in a fruit +shop I caught sight of my comrade's charmer--Musa, Musa Pavlovna! She +was standing, profile to me, and seemed to be waiting for something. +After a moment's hesitation I made up my mind to go up to her and speak. +But I had hardly passed through the doorway of the shop and taken off my +cap, when she tottered back dismayed, turned quickly to an old man in a +frieze cloak, for whom the shopman was weighing out a pound of raisins, +and clutched at his arm, as though fleeing to put herself under his +protection. The latter, in his turn, wheeled round facing her--and, +imagine my amazement, I recognised him as Punin! + +Yes, it was he; there were his inflamed eyes, his full lips, his soft, +overhanging nose. He had, in fact, changed little during the last seven +years; his face was a little flabbier, perhaps. + +'Nikander Vavilitch!' I cried. 'Don't you know me?' Punin started, +opened his mouth, stared at me.... + +'I haven't the honour,' he was beginning--and all at once he piped out +shrilly: 'The little master of Troitsky (my grandmother's property was +called Troitsky)! Can it be the little master of Troitsky?' + +The pound of raisins tumbled out of his hands. + +'It really is,' I answered, and, picking up Punin's purchase from the +ground, I kissed him. + +He was breathless with delight and excitement; he almost cried, removed +his cap--which enabled me to satisfy myself that the last traces of hair +had vanished from his 'egg'--took a handkerchief out of it, blew his +nose, poked the cap into his bosom with the raisins, put it on again, +again dropped the raisins.... I don't know how Musa was behaving all +this time, I tried not to look at her. I don't imagine Punin's agitation +proceeded from any extreme attachment to my person; it was simply that +his nature could not stand the slightest unexpected shock. The nervous +excitability of these poor devils! + +'Come and see us, my dear boy,' he faltered at last; 'you won't be too +proud to visit our humble nest? You're a student, I see ...' + +'On the contrary, I shall be delighted, really.' + +'Are you independent now?' + +'Perfectly independent.' + +'That's capital! How pleased Paramon Semyonitch will be! To-day he'll be +home earlier than usual, and madame lets her, too, off for Saturdays. +But, stop, excuse me, I am quite forgetting myself. Of course, you don't +know our niece!' + +I hastened to slip in that I had not yet had the pleasure. + +'Of course, of course! How could you know her! Musotchka ... Take note, +my dear sir, this girl's name is Musa--and it's not a nickname, but her +real name ... Isn't that a predestination? Musotchka, I want to +introduce you to Mr. ... Mr. ...' + +'B.,' I prompted. + +'B.,' he repeated. 'Musotchka, listen! You see before you the most +excellent, most delightful of young men. Fate threw us together when he +was still in years of boyhood! I beg you to look on him as a friend!' + +I swung off a low bow. Musa, red as a poppy, flashed a look on me from +under her eyelids, and dropped them immediately. + +'Ah!' thought I, 'you 're one of those who in difficult moments don't +turn pale, but red; that must be made a note of.' + +'You must be indulgent, she's not a fine lady,' observed Punin, and he +went out of the shop into the street; Musa and I followed him. + + * * * * * + +The house in which Punin lodged was a considerable distance from the +Gostinny Dvor, being, in fact, in Sadovoy Street. On the way my former +preceptor in poetry had time to communicate a good many details of his +mode of existence. Since the time of our parting, both he and Baburin +had been tossed about holy Russia pretty thoroughly, and had not +long--only a year and a half before--found a permanent home in Moscow. +Baburin had succeeded in becoming head-clerk in the office of a rich +merchant and manufacturer. 'Not a lucrative berth,' Punin observed with +a sigh,--'a lot of work, and not much profit ... but what's one to do? +One must be thankful to get that! I, too, am trying to earn something by +copying and lessons; only my efforts have so far not been crowned with +success. My writing, you perhaps recollect, is old-fashioned, not in +accordance with the tastes of the day; and as regards lessons--what has +been a great obstacle is the absence of befitting attire; moreover, I +greatly fear that in the matter of instruction--in the subject of +Russian literature--I am also not in harmony with the tastes of the day; +and so it comes about that I am turned away.' (Punin laughed his sleepy, +subdued laugh. He had retained his old, somewhat high-flown manner of +speech, and his old weakness for falling into rhyme.) 'All run after +novelties, nothing but innovations! I dare say you, too, do not honour +the old divinities, and fall down before new idols?' + +'And you, Nikander Vavilitch, do you really still esteem Heraskov?' + +Punin stood still and waved both hands at once. 'In the highest degree, +sir! in the high ... est de ... gree, I do!' + +'And you don't read Pushkin? You don't like Pushkin?' + +Punin again flung his hands up higher than his head. + +'Pushkin? Pushkin is the snake, lying hid in the grass, who is endowed +with the note of the nightingale!' + +While Punin and I talked like this, cautiously picking our way over the +unevenly laid brick pavement of so-called 'white-stoned' Moscow--in +which there is not one stone, and which is not white at all--Musa walked +silently beside us on the side further from me. In speaking of her, I +called her 'your niece.' Punin was silent for a little, scratched his +head, and informed me in an undertone that he had called her so ... +merely as a manner of speaking; that she was really no relation; that +she was an orphan picked up and cared for by Baburin in the town of +Voronezh; but that he, Punin, might well call her daughter, as he loved +her no less than a real daughter. I had no doubt that, though Punin +intentionally dropped his voice, Musa could hear all he said very well; +and she was at once angry, and shy, and embarrassed; and the lights and +shades chased each other over her face, and everything in it was +slightly quivering, the eyelids and brows and lips and narrow nostrils. +All this was very charming, and amusing, and queer. + + * * * * * + +But at last we reached the 'modest nest.' And modest it certainly was, +the nest. It consisted of a small, one-storied house, that seemed almost +sunk into the ground, with a slanting wooden roof, and four dingy +windows in the front. The furniture of the rooms was of the poorest, and +not over tidy, indeed. Between the windows and on the walls hung about a +dozen tiny wooden cages containing larks, canaries, and siskins. 'My +subjects!' Punin pronounced triumphantly, pointing his finger at them. +We had hardly time to get in and look about us, Punin had hardly sent +Musa for the samovar, when Baburin himself came in. He seemed to me to +have aged much more than Punin, though his step was as firm as ever, and +the expression of his face altogether was unchanged; but he had grown +thin and bent, his cheeks were sunken, and his thick black shock of hair +was sprinkled with grey. He did not recognise me, and showed no +particular pleasure when Punin mentioned my name; he did not even smile +with his eyes, he barely nodded; he asked--very carelessly and +drily--whether my _granny_ were living--and that was all. 'I'm not +over-delighted at a visit from a nobleman,' he seemed to say; 'I don't +feel flattered by it.' The republican was a republican still. + +Musa came back; a decrepit little old woman followed her, bringing in a +tarnished samovar. Punin began fussing about, and pressing me to take +things; Baburin sat down to the table, leaned his head on his hands, and +looked with weary eyes about him. At tea, however, he began to talk. He +was dissatisfied with his position. 'A screw--not a man,' so he spoke of +his employer; 'people in a subordinate position are so much dirt to him, +of no consequence whatever; and yet it's not so long since he was under +the yoke himself. Nothing but cruelty and covetousness. It's a bondage +worse than the government's! And all the trade here rests on swindling +and flourishes on nothing else!' + +Hearing such dispiriting utterances, Punin sighed expressively, +assented, shook his head up and down, and from side to side; Musa +maintained a stubborn silence.... She was obviously fretted by the +doubt, what I was, whether I was a discreet person or a gossip. And if I +were discreet, whether it was not with some afterthought in my mind. Her +dark, swift, restless eyes fairly flashed to and fro under their +half-drooping lids. Only once she glanced at me, but so inquisitively, +so searchingly, almost viciously ... I positively started. Baburin +scarcely talked to her at all; but whenever he did address her, there +was a note of austere, hardly fatherly, tenderness in his voice. + +Punin, on the contrary, was continually joking with Musa; she responded +unwillingly, however. He called her little snow-maiden, little +snowflake. + +'Why do you give Musa Pavlovna such names?' I asked. + +Punin laughed. 'Because she's such a chilly little thing.' + +'Sensible,' put in Baburin: 'as befits a young girl.' + +'We may call her the mistress of the house,' cried Punin. 'Hey? Paramon +Semyonitch?' Baburin frowned; Musa turned away ... I did not understand +the hint at the time. + +So passed two hours ... in no very lively fashion, though Punin did his +best to 'entertain the honourable company.' For instance, he squatted +down in front of the cage of one of the canaries, opened the door, and +commanded: 'On the cupola! Begin the concert!' The canary fluttered out +at once, perched on the _cupola_, that is to say, on Punin's bald pate, +and turning from side to side, and shaking its little wings, carolled +with all its might. During the whole time the concert lasted, Punin kept +perfectly still, only conducting with his finger, and half closing his +eyes. I could not help roaring with laughter ... but neither Baburin nor +Musa laughed. + +Just as I was leaving, Baburin surprised me by an unexpected question. +He wished to ask me, as a man studying at the university, what sort of +person Zeno was, and what were my ideas about him. + +'What Zeno?' I asked, somewhat puzzled. + +'Zeno, the sage of antiquity. Surely he cannot be unknown to you?' + +I vaguely recalled the name of Zeno, as the founder of the school of +Stoics; but I knew absolutely nothing more about him. + +'Yes, he was a philosopher,' I pronounced, at last. + +'Zeno,' Baburin resumed in deliberate tones, 'was that wise man, who +declared that suffering was not an evil, since fortitude overcomes all +things, and that the good in this world is one: justice; and virtue +itself is nothing else than justice.' + +Punin turned a reverent ear. + +'A man living here who has picked up a lot of old books, told me that +saying,' continued Baburin; 'it pleased me much. But I see you are not +interested in such subjects.' + +Baburin was right. In such subjects I certainly was not interested. +Since I had entered the university, I had become as much of a republican +as Baburin himself. Of Mirabeau, of Robespierre, I would have talked +with zest. Robespierre, indeed ... why, I had hanging over my +writing-table the lithographed portraits of Fouquier-Tinville and +Chalier! But Zeno! Why drag in Zeno? + +As he said good-bye to me, Punin insisted very warmly on my visiting +them next day, Sunday; Baburin did not invite me at all, and even +remarked between his teeth, that talking to plain people of nondescript +position could not give me any great pleasure, and would most likely be +disagreeable to my _granny_. At that word I interrupted him, however, +and gave him to understand that my grandmother had no longer any +authority over me. + +'Why, you've not come into possession of the property, have you?' +queried Baburin. + +'No, I haven't,' I answered. + +'Well, then, it follows ...' Baburin did not finish his sentence; but I +mentally finished it for him: 'it follows that I'm a boy.' + +'Good-bye,' I said aloud, and I retired. + +I was just going out of the courtyard into the street ... Musa suddenly +ran out of the house, and slipping a piece of crumpled paper into my +hand, disappeared at once. At the first lamp-post I unfolded the paper. +It turned out to be a note. With difficulty I deciphered the pale +pencil-marks. 'For God's sake,' Musa had written, 'come to-morrow after +matins to the Alexandrovsky garden near the Kutafia tower I shall wait +for you don't refuse me don't make me miserable I simply must see you.' +There were no mistakes in spelling in this note, but neither was there +any punctuation. I returned home in perplexity. + + * * * * * + +When, a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, next day, I began +to get near the Kutafia tower (it was early in April, the buds were +swelling, the grass was growing greener, and the sparrows were noisily +chirrupping and quarrelling in the bare lilac bushes), considerably to +my surprise, I caught sight of Musa a little to one side, not far from +the fence. She was there before me. I was going towards her; but she +herself came to meet me. + +'Let's go to the Kreml wall,' she whispered in a hurried voice, running +her downcast eyes over the ground; 'there are people here.' + +We went along the path up the hill. + +'Musa Pavlovna,' I was beginning.... But she cut me short at once. + +'Please,' she began, speaking in the same jerky and subdued voice, +'don't criticise me, don't think any harm of me. I wrote a letter to +you, I made an appointment to meet you, because ... I was afraid.... It +seemed to me yesterday,--you seemed to be laughing all the time. +Listen,' she added, with sudden energy, and she stopped short and turned +towards me: 'listen; if you tell with whom ... if you mention at whose +room you met me, I'll throw myself in the water, I'll drown myself, I'll +make an end of myself!' + +At this point, for the first time, she glanced at me with the +inquisitive, piercing look I had seen before. + +'Why, she, perhaps, really ... would do it,' was my thought. + +'Really, Musa Pavlovna,' I protested, hurriedly: 'how can you have such +a bad opinion of me? Do you suppose I am capable of betraying my friend +and injuring you? Besides, come to that, there's nothing in your +relations, as far as I'm aware, deserving of censure.... For goodness' +sake, be calm.' + +Musa heard me out, without stirring from the spot, or looking at me +again. + +'There's something else I ought to tell you,' she began, moving forward +again along the path, 'or else you may think I'm quite mad! I ought to +tell you, that old man wants to marry me!' + +'What old man? The bald one? Punin?' + +'No--not he! The other ... Paramon Semyonitch.' + +'Baburin?' + +'Yes.' + +'Is it possible? Has he made you an offer?' + +'Yes.' + +'But you didn't consent, of course?' + +'Yes, I did consent ... because I didn't understand what I was about +then. Now it's a different matter.' + +I flung up my hands. 'Baburin--and you! Why, he must be fifty!' + +'He says forty-three. But that makes no difference. If he were +five--and--twenty I wouldn't marry him. Much happiness I should find in +it! A whole week will go by without his smiling once! Paramon Semyonitch +is my benefactor, I am deeply indebted to him; he took care of me, +educated me; I should have been utterly lost but for him; I'm bound to +look on him as a father.... But be his wife! I'd rather die! I'd rather +be in my coffin!' + +'Why do you keep talking about death, Musa Pavlovna?' + +Musa stopped again. + +'Why, is life so sweet, then? Even your friend Vladimir Nikolaitch, I +may say, I've come to love from being wretched and dull: and then +Paramon Semyonitch with his offers of marriage.... Punin, though he +bores me with his verses, he doesn't scare me, anyway; he doesn't make +me read Karamzin in the evenings, when my head's ready to drop off my +shoulders for weariness! And what are these old men to me? They call me +cold, too. With them, is it likely I should be warm? If they try to make +me--I shall go. Paramon Semyonitch himself's always saying: Freedom! +freedom! All right, I want freedom too. Or else it comes to this! +Freedom for every one else, and keeping me in a cage! I'll tell him so +myself. But if you betray me, or drop a hint--remember; they'll never +set eyes on me again!' + +Musa stood in the middle of the path. + +'They'll never set eyes on me again!' she repeated sharply. This time, +too, she did not raise her eyes to me; she seemed to be aware that she +would infallibly betray herself, would show what was in her heart, if +any one looked her straight in the face.... And that was just why she +did not lift her eyes, except when she was angry or annoyed, and then +she stared straight at the person she was speaking to.... But her small +pretty face was aglow with indomitable resolution. + +'Why, Tarhov was right,' flashed through my head; 'this girl is a +new type.' + +'You've no need to be afraid of me,' I declared, at last. + +'Truly? Even, if ... You said something about our relations.... But even +if there were ...' she broke off. + +'Even in that case, you would have no need to be afraid, Musa Pavlovna. +I am not your judge. Your secret is buried here.' I pointed to my bosom. +'Believe me, I know how to appreciate ...' + +'Have you got my letter?' Musa asked suddenly. + +'Yes.' + +'Where?' + +'In my pocket.' + +'Give it here ... quick, quick!' + +I got out the scrap of paper. Musa snatched it in her rough little hand, +stood still a moment facing me, as though she were going to thank me; +but suddenly started, looked round, and without even a word at parting, +ran quickly down the hill. + +I looked in the direction she had taken. At no great distance from the +tower I discerned, wrapped in an 'Almaviva' ('Almavivas' were then in +the height of fashion), a figure which I recognised at once as Tarhov. + +'Aha, my boy,' thought I, 'you must have had notice, then, since you're +on the look-out.' + +And whistling to myself, I started homewards. + + * * * * * + +Next morning I had only just drunk my morning tea, when Punin made his +appearance. He came into my room with rather an embarrassed face, and +began making bows, looking about him, and apologising for his intrusion, +as he called it. I made haste to reassure him. I, sinful man, imagined +that Punin had come with the intention of borrowing money. But he +confined himself to asking for a glass of tea with rum in it, as, +luckily, the samovar had not been cleared away. 'It's with some +trepidation and sinking of heart that I have come to see you,' he said, +as he nibbled a lump of sugar. 'You I do not fear; but I stand in awe of +your honoured grandmother! I am abashed too by my attire, as I have +already communicated to you.' Punin passed his finger along the frayed +edge of his ancient coat. 'At home it's no matter, and in the street, +too, it's no harm; but when one finds one's self in gilded palaces, +one's poverty stares one in the face, and one feels confused!' I +occupied two small rooms on the ground floor, and certainly it would +never have entered any one's head to call them palaces, still less +gilded; but Punin apparently was referring to the whole of my +grandmother's house, though that too was by no means conspicuously +sumptuous. He reproached me for not having been to see them the previous +day; 'Paramon Semyonitch,' said he, 'expected you, though he did declare +that you would be sure not to come. And Musotchka, too, expected you.' + +'What? Musa Pavlovna too?' I queried. + +'She too. She's a charming girl we have got with us, isn't she? What +do you say?' + +'Very charming,' I assented. Punin rubbed his bare head with +extraordinary rapidity. + +'She's a beauty, sir, a pearl or even a diamond--it's the truth I am +telling you.' He bent down quite to my ear. 'Noble blood, too,' he +whispered to me, 'only--you understand--left-handed; the forbidden fruit +was eaten. Well, the parents died, the relations would do nothing for +her, and flung her to the hazards of destiny, that's to say, despair, +dying of hunger! But at that point Paramon Semyonitch steps forward, +known as a deliverer from of old! He took her, clothed her and cared for +her, brought up the poor nestling; and she has blossomed into our +darling! I tell you, a man of the rarest qualities!' + +Punin subsided against the back of the armchair, lifted his hands, and +again bending forward, began whispering again, but still more +mysteriously: 'You see Paramon Semyonitch himself too.... Didn't you +know? he too is of exalted extraction--and on the left side, too. They +do say--his father was a powerful Georgian prince, of the line of King +David.... What do you make of that? A few words--but how much is said? +The blood of King David! What do you think of that? And according to +other accounts, the founder of the family of Paramon Semyonitch was an +Indian Shah, Babur. Blue blood! That's fine too, isn't it? Eh?' + +'Well?' I queried, 'and was he too, Baburin, flung to the hazards +of destiny?' + +Punin rubbed his pate again. 'To be sure he was! And with even greater +cruelty than our little lady! From his earliest childhood nothing but +struggling! And, in fact, I will confess that, inspired by Ruban, I +composed in allusion to this fact a stanza for the portrait of Paramon +Semyonitch. Wait a bit ... how was it? Yes! + + 'E'en from the cradle fate's remorseless blows + Baburin drove towards the abyss of woes! + But as in darkness gleams the light, so now + The conqueror's laurel wreathes his noble brow!' + +Punin delivered these lines in a rhythmic, sing-song voice, with full +rounded vowels, as verses should be read. + +'So that's how it is he's a republican!' I exclaimed. + +'No, that's not why,' Punin answered simply. 'He forgave his father long +ago; but he cannot endure injustice of any sort; it's the sorrows of +others that trouble him!' + +I wanted to turn the conversation on what I had learned from Musa the +day before, that is to say, on Baburin's matrimonial project,--but I did +not know how to proceed. Punin himself got me out of the difficulty. + +'Did you notice nothing?' he asked me suddenly, slily screwing up his +eyes, 'while you were with us? nothing special?' + +'Why, was there anything to notice?' I asked in my turn. + +Punin looked over his shoulder, as though anxious to satisfy himself +that no one was listening. 'Our little beauty, Musotchka, is shortly to +be a married lady!' + +'How so?' + +'Madame Baburin,' Punin announced with an effort, and slapping his +knees several times with his open hands, he nodded his head, like a +china mandarin. + +'Impossible!' I cried, with assumed astonishment. Punin's head +slowly came to rest, and his hands dropped down. 'Why impossible, +allow me to ask?' + +'Because Paramon Semyonitch is more fit to be your young lady's father; +because such a difference in age excludes all likelihood of love--on the +girl's side.' + +'Excludes?' Punin repeated excitedly. 'But what about gratitude? and +pure affection? and tenderness of feeling? Excludes! You must consider +this: admitting that Musa's a splendid girl; but then to gain Paramon +Semyonitch's affection, to be his comfort, his prop--his spouse, in +short! is that not the loftiest possible happiness even for such a girl? +And she realises it! You should look, turn an attentive eye! In Paramon +Semyonitch's presence Musotchka is all veneration, all tremor and +enthusiasm!' + +'That's just what's wrong, Nikander Vavilitch, that she is, as you say, +all tremor. If you love any one you don't feel tremors in their +presence.' + +'But with that I can't agree! Here am I, for instance; no one, I +suppose, could love Paramon Semyonitch more than I, but I ... tremble +before him.' + +'Oh, you--that's a different matter.' + +'How is it a different matter? how? how?' interrupted Punin. I simply +did not know him; he got hot, and serious, almost angry, and quite +dropped his rhythmic sing-song in speaking. 'No,' he declared; 'I notice +that you have not a good eye for character! No; you can't read people's +hearts!' I gave up contradicting him ... and to give another turn to the +conversation, proposed, for the sake of old times, that we should read +something together. + +Punin was silent for a while. + +'One of the old poets? The real ones?' he asked at last. + +'No; a new one.' + +'A new one?' Punin repeated mistrustfully. + +'Pushkin,' I answered. I suddenly thought of the _Gypsies_ which Tarhov +had mentioned not long before. There, by the way, is the ballad about +the old husband. Punin grumbled a little, but I sat him down on the +sofa, so that he could listen more comfortably, and began to read +Pushkin's poem. The passage came at last, 'old husband, cruel husband'; +Punin heard the ballad through to the end, and all at once he got up +impulsively. + +'I can't,' he pronounced, with an intense emotion, which impressed even +me;--'excuse me; I cannot hear more of that author. He is an immoral +slanderer; he is a liar ... he upsets me. I cannot! Permit me to cut +short my visit to-day.' + +I began trying to persuade Punin to remain; but he insisted on having +his own way with a sort of stupid, scared obstinacy: he repeated several +times that he felt upset, and wished to get a breath of fresh air--and +all the while his lips were faintly quivering and his eyes avoided mine, +as though I had wounded him. So he went away. A little while after, I +too went out of the house and set off to see Tarhov. + + * * * * * + +Without inquiring of any one, with a student's usual lack of ceremony, +I walked straight into his lodgings. In the first room there was no +one. I called Tarhov by name, and receiving no answer, was just going +to retreat; but the door of the adjoining room opened, and my friend +appeared. He looked at me rather queerly, and shook hands without +speaking. I had come to him to repeat all I had heard from Punin; and +though I felt at once that I had called on Tarhov at the wrong moment, +still, after talking a little about extraneous matters, I ended by +informing him of Baburin's intentions in regard to Musa. This piece of +news did not, apparently, surprise him much; he quietly sat down at the +table, and fixing his eyes intently upon me, and keeping silent as +before, gave to his features an expression ... an expression, as though +he would say: 'Well, what more have you to tell? Come, out with your +ideas!' I looked more attentively into his face.... It struck me as +eager, a little ironical, a little arrogant even. But that did not +hinder me from bringing out my ideas. On the contrary. 'You're showing +off,' was my thought; 'so I am not going to spare you!' And there and +then I proceeded straightway to enlarge upon the mischief of yielding +to impulsive feelings, upon the duty of every man to respect the +freedom and personal life of another man--in short, I proceeded to +enunciate useful and appropriate counsel. Holding forth in this manner, +I walked up and down the room, to be more at ease. Tarhov did not +interrupt me, and did not stir from his seat; he only played with his +fingers on his chin. + +'I know,' said I ... (Exactly what was my motive in speaking so, I have +no clear idea myself--envy, most likely; it was not devotion to +morality, anyway!) 'I know,' said I, 'that it's no easy matter, no +joking matter; I am sure you love Musa, and that Musa loves you--that it +is not a passing fancy on your part.... But, see, let us suppose! (Here +I folded my arms on my breast.) ... Let us suppose you gratify your +passion--what is to follow? You won't marry her, you know. And at the +same time you are wrecking the happiness of an excellent, honest man, +her benefactor--and--who knows? (here my face expressed at the same time +penetration and sorrow)--possibly her own happiness too....' + +And so on, and so on! + +For about a quarter of an hour my discourse flowed on. Tarhov was still +silent. I began to be disconcerted by this silence. I glanced at him +from time to time, not so much to satisfy myself as to the impression my +words were making on him, as to find out why he neither objected nor +agreed, but sat like a deaf mute. At last I fancied that there was ... +yes, there certainly was a change in his face. It began to show signs of +uneasiness, agitation, painful agitation.... Yet, strange to say, the +eager, bright, laughing something, which had struck me at my first +glance at Tarhov, still did not leave that agitated, that troubled face! +I could not make up my mind whether or no to congratulate myself on the +success of my sermon, when Tarhov suddenly got up, and pressing both my +hands, said, speaking very quickly, 'Thank you, thank you. You're right, +of course, ... though, on the other side, one might observe ... What is +your Baburin you make so much of, after all? An honest fool--and nothing +more! You call him a republican--and he's simply a fool! Oo! That's what +he is! All his republicanism simply means that he can never get on +anywhere!' + +'Ah! so that's your idea! A fool! can never get on!--but let me tell +you,' I pursued, with sudden heat, 'let me tell you, my dear Vladimir +Nikolaitch, that in these days to get on nowhere is a sign of a fine, a +noble nature! None but worthless people--bad people--get on anywhere and +accommodate themselves to everything. You say Baburin is an honest fool! +Why, is it better, then, to your mind, to be dishonest and clever?' + +'You distort my words!' cried Tarhov. 'I only wanted to explain how I +understand that person. Do you think he's such a rare specimen? Not a +bit of it! I've met other people like him in my time. A man sits with an +air of importance, silent, obstinate, angular.... O-ho-ho! say you. It +shows that there's a great deal in him! But there's nothing in him, not +one idea in his head--nothing but a sense of his own dignity.' + +'Even if there is nothing else, that's an honourable thing,' I broke +in. 'But let me ask where you have managed to study him like this? You +don't know him, do you? Or are you describing him ... from what Musa +tells you?' + +Tarhov shrugged his shoulders. 'Musa and I ... have other things to talk +of. I tell you what,' he added, his whole body quivering with +impatience,--'I tell you what: if Baburin has such a noble and honest +nature, how is it he doesn't see that Musa is not a fit match for him? +It's one of two things: either he knows that what he's doing to her is +something of the nature of an outrage, all in the name of gratitude ... +and if so, what about his honesty?--or he doesn't realise it ... and in +that case, what can one call him but a fool?' + +I was about to reply, but Tarhov again clutched my hands, and again +began talking in a hurried voice. 'Though ... of course ... I confess +you are right, a thousand times right.... You are a true friend ... but +now leave me alone, please.' + +I was puzzled. 'Leave you alone?' + +'Yes. I must, don't you see, think over all you've just said, +thoroughly.... I have no doubt you are right ... but now leave me +alone!' + +'You 're in such a state of excitement ...' I was beginning. + +'Excitement? I?' Tarhov laughed, but instantly pulled himself up. 'Yes, +of course I am. How could I help being? You say yourself it's no joking +matter. Yes; I must think about it ... alone.' He was still squeezing my +hands. 'Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye!' + +'Good-bye,' I repeated. 'Good-bye, old boy!' As I was going away I flung +a last glance at Tarhov. He seemed pleased. At what? At the fact that I, +like a true friend and comrade, had pointed out the danger of the way +upon which he had set his foot--or that I was going? Ideas of the most +diverse kind were floating in my head the whole day till evening--till +the very instant when I entered the house occupied by Punin and Baburin, +for I went to see them the same day. I am bound to confess that some of +Tarhov's phrases had sunk deep into my soul ... and were ringing in my +ears.... In truth, was it possible Baburin ... was it possible he did +not see she was not a fit match for him? + +But could this possibly be: Baburin, the self-sacrificing Baburin--an +honest fool! + + * * * * * + +Punin had said, when he came to see me, that I had been expected there +the day before. That may have been so, but on this day, it is certain, +no one expected me.... I found every one at home, and every one was +surprised at my visit. Baburin and Punin were both unwell: Punin had a +headache, and he was lying curled up on the sofa, with his head tied up +in a spotted handkerchief, and strips of cucumber applied to his +temples. Baburin was suffering from a bilious attack; all yellow, +almost dusky, with dark rings round his eyes, with scowling brow and +unshaven chin--he did not look much like a bridegroom! I tried to go +away.... But they would not let me go, and even made tea. I spent +anything but a cheerful evening. Musa, it is true, had no ailment, and +was less shy than usual too, but she was obviously vexed, angry.... At +last she could not restrain herself, and, as she handed me a cup of +tea, she whispered hurriedly: 'You can say what you like, you may try +your utmost, you won't make any difference.... So there!' I looked at +her in astonishment, and, seizing a favourable moment, asked her, also +in a whisper, 'What's the meaning of your words?' 'I'll tell you,' she +answered, and her black eyes, gleaming angrily under her frowning +brows, were fastened for an instant on my face, and turned away at +once: 'the meaning is that I heard all you said there to-day, and thank +you for nothing, and things won't be as you 'd have them, anyway.' 'You +were there,' broke from me unconsciously.... But at this point +Baburin's attention was caught, and he glanced in our direction. Musa +walked away from me. + +Ten minutes later she managed to come near me again. She seemed to enjoy +saying bold and dangerous things to me, and saying them in the presence +of her protector, under his vigilant eye, only exercising barely enough +caution not to arouse his suspicions. It is well known that walking on +the brink, on the very edge, of the precipice is woman's favourite +pastime. 'Yes, I was there,' whispered Musa, without any change of +countenance, except that her nostrils were faintly quivering and her +lips twitching. 'Yes, and if Paramon Semyonitch asks me what I am +whispering about with you, I'd tell him this minute. What do I care?' + +'Be more careful,' I besought her. 'I really believe they are noticing.' + +'I tell you, I'm quite ready to tell them everything. And who's +noticing? One's stretching his neck off the pillow, like a sick duck, +and hears nothing; and the other's deep in philosophy. Don't you be +afraid!' Musa's voice rose a little, and her cheeks gradually flushed a +sort of malignant, dusky red; and this suited her marvellously, and +never had she been so pretty. As she cleared the table, and set the cups +and saucers in their places, she moved swiftly about the room; there was +something challenging about her light, free and easy movement. 'You may +criticise me as you like,' she seemed to say; 'but I'm going my own way, +and I'm not afraid of you.' + +I cannot disguise the fact that I found Musa bewitching just that +evening. 'Yes,' I mused; 'she's a little spitfire--she's a new type.... +She's--exquisite. Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say.... +What of it! No matter!' + +'Paramon Semyonitch,' she cried suddenly, 'isn't a republic an empire in +which every one does as he chooses?' + +'A republic is not an empire,' answered Baburin, raising his head, and +contracting his brows; 'it is a ... form of society in which everything +rests on law and justice.' + +'Then,' Musa pursued, 'in a republic no one can oppress any one else?' + +'No.' + +'And every one is free to dispose of himself?' + +'Quite free.' + +'Ah! that's all I wanted to know.' + +'Why do you want to know?' + +'Oh, I wanted to--I wanted _you_ to tell me that.' + +'Our young lady is anxious to learn,' Punin observed from the sofa. + +When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course, +from politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I +took leave, 'Can you really love him so much?' + +'Whether I love him, or whether I don't, that's _my_ affair,' she +answered. 'What is to be, will be.' + +'Mind what you're about; don't play with fire ... you'll get burnt.' + +'Better be burnt than frozen. You ... with your good advice! And how can +you tell he won't marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to +get married? If I am ruined ... what business is it of yours?' + +She slammed the door after me. + +I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my +friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new +type.... He ought to have to pay something for his happiness! + +That he would be happy, I was--regretfully--unable to doubt. + +Three days passed by. I was sitting in my room at my writing-table, and +not so much working as getting myself ready for lunch.... I heard a +rustle, lifted my head, and I was stupefied. Before me--rigid, terrible, +white as chalk, stood an apparition ... Punin. His half-closed eyes were +looking at me, blinking slowly; they expressed a senseless terror, the +terror of a frightened hare, and his arms hung at his sides like sticks. + +'Nikander Vavilitch! what is the matter with you? How did you come here? +Did no one see you? What has happened? Do speak!' + +'She has run away,' Punin articulated in a hoarse, hardly audible voice. + +'What do you say?' + +'She has run away,' he repeated. + +'Who?' + +'Musa. She went away in the night, and left a note.' + +'A note?' + +'Yes. "I thank you," she said, "but I am not coming back again. Don't +look for me." We ran up and down; we questioned the cook; she knew +nothing. I can't speak loud; you must excuse me. I've lost my voice.' + +'Musa Pavlovna has left you!' I exclaimed. 'Nonsense! Mr. Baburin must +be in despair. What does he intend to do now?' + +'He has no intention of doing anything. I wanted to run to the +Governor-general: he forbade it. I wanted to give information to the +police; he forbade that too, and got very angry. He says, "She's free." +He says, "I don't want to constrain her." He has even gone to work, to +his office. But he looks more dead than alive. He loved her +terribly....Oh, oh, we both loved her!' + +Here Punin for the first time showed that he was not a wooden image, but +a live man; he lifted both his fists in the air, and brought them down +on his pate, which shone like ivory. + +'Ungrateful girl!' he groaned; 'who was it gave you food and drink, +clothed you, and brought you up? who cared for you, would have given all +his life, all his soul ... And you have forgotten it all? To cast me +off, truly, were no great matter, but Paramon Semyonitch, Paramon ...' + +I begged him to sit down, to rest. + +Punin shook his head. 'No, I won't. I have come to you ... I don't know +what for. I'm like one distraught; to stay at home alone is fearful; +what am I to do with myself? I stand in the middle of the room, shut my +eyes, and call, "Musa! Musotchka!" That's the way to go out of one's +mind. But no, why am I talking nonsense? I know why I have come to you. +You know, the other day you read me that thrice-accursed poem ... you +remember, where there is talk of an old husband. What did you do that +for? Did you know something then ... or guessed something?' Punin +glanced at me. 'Piotr Petrovitch,' he cried suddenly, and he began +trembling all over, 'you know, perhaps, where she is. Kind friend, tell +me whom she has gone to!' + +I was disconcerted, and could not help dropping my eyes.... + +'Perhaps she said something in her letter,' I began.... + +'She said she was leaving us because she loved some one else! Dear, good +friend, you know, surely, where she is? Save her, let us go to her; we +will persuade her. Only think what a man she's bringing to ruin.' + +Punin all at once flushed crimson, the blood seemed to rush to his +head, he plumped heavily down on his knees. 'Save us, friend, let us +go to her.' + +My servant appeared in the doorway, and stood still in amazement. + +I had no little trouble to get Punin on to his feet again, to convince +him that, even if I did suspect something, still it would not do to act +like that, on the spur of the moment, especially both together--that +would only spoil all our efforts--that I was ready to do my best, but +would not answer for anything. Punin did not oppose me, nor did he +indeed hear me; he only repeated from time to time in his broken voice, +'Save her, save her and Paramon Semyonitch.' At last he began to cry. +'Tell me at least one thing,' he asked ... 'is _he_ handsome, young?' + +'Yes, he is young,' I answered. + +'He is young,' repeated Punin, smearing the tears over his cheeks; 'and +she is young.... It's from that that all the trouble's sprung!' + +This rhyme came by chance; poor Punin was in no mood for versifying. I +would have given a good deal to hear his rhapsodical eloquence again, or +even his almost noiseless laugh.... Alas! his eloquence was quenched for +ever, and I never heard his laugh again. + +I promised to let him know, as soon as I should find out anything +positive.... Tarhov's name I did not, however, mention. Punin suddenly +collapsed completely. 'Very good, very good, sir, thank you,' he said +with a pitiful face, using the word 'sir,' which he had never done +before; 'only mind, sir, do not say anything to Paramon Semyonitch ... +or he'll be angry. In one word, he has forbidden it. Good-bye, sir.' + +As he got up and turned his back to me, Punin struck me as such a poor +feeble creature, that I positively marvelled; he limped with both legs, +and doubled up at each step.... + +'It's a bad look-out. It's the end of him, that's what it means,' +I thought. + + * * * * * + +Though I had promised Punin to trace Musa, yet as I set off the same day +to Tarhov's, I had not the slightest expectation of learning anything, +as I considered it certain that either I should not find him at home, or +that he would refuse to see me. My supposition turned out to be a +mistaken one. I found Tarhov at home; he received me, and I found out +indeed all I wanted to know; but there was nothing gained by that. +Directly I crossed the threshold of his door, Tarhov came resolutely, +rapidly, to meet me, and his eyes sparkling and glowing, his face grown +handsomer and radiant, he said firmly and briskly: 'Listen, Petya, my +boy; I guess what you've come for, and what you want to talk about; but +I give you warning, if you say a single word about her, or about her +action, or about what, according to you, is the course dictated to me by +common sense, we're friends no longer, we're not even acquainted, and I +shall beg you to treat me as a stranger.' + +I looked at Tarhov; he was quivering all over inwardly, like a tightly +drawn harpstring; he was tingling all over, hardly could he hold back +the tide of brimming youth and passion; violent, ecstatic happiness had +burst into his soul, and had taken full possession of him--and he of it. + + * * * * * + +'Is that your final decision?' I pronounced mournfully. + +'Yes, Petya, my boy, it's final.' + +'In that case, there's nothing for me but to say good-bye.' + +Tarhov faintly dropped his eyelids.... He was too happy at that moment. + +'Good-bye, Petya, old boy,' he said, a little through his nose, with a +candid smile and a gay flash of all his white teeth. + +What was I to do? I left him to his 'happiness.' As I slammed the door +after me, the other door of the room slammed also--I heard it. + + * * * * * + +It was with a heavy heart that I trudged off next day to see my luckless +acquaintances. I secretly hoped--such is human weakness--that I should +not find them at home, and again I was mistaken. Both were at home. The +change that had taken place in them during the last three days must have +struck any one. Punin looked ghastly white and flabby. His talkativeness +had completely vanished. He spoke listlessly, feebly, still in the same +husky voice, and looked somehow lost and bewildered. Baburin, on the +contrary, seemed shrunk into himself, and blacker than ever; taciturn at +the best of times, he uttered nothing now but a few abrupt sounds; an +expression of stony severity seemed to have frozen on his countenance. + +I felt it impossible to be silent; but what was there to say? I confined +myself to whispering to Punin, 'I have discovered nothing, and my advice +to you is to give up all hope.' Punin glanced at me with his swollen, +red little eyes--the only red left in his face--muttered something +inaudible, and hobbled away. Baburin most likely guessed what I had been +speaking about to Punin, and opening his lips, which were tightly +compressed, as though glued together, he pronounced, in a deliberate +voice, 'My dear sir, since your last visit to us, something disagreeable +has happened to us; our young friend, Musa Pavlovna Vinogradov, finding +it no longer convenient to live with us, has decided to leave us, and +has given us a written communication to that effect. Not considering +that we have any right to hinder her doing so, we have left her to act +according to her own views of what is best. We trust that she may be +happy,' he added, with some effort; 'and I humbly beg you not to allude +to the subject, as any such references are useless, and even painful.' + +'So he too, like Tarhov, forbids my speaking of Musa,' was the thought +that struck me, and I could not help wondering inwardly. He might well +prize Zeno so highly. I wished to impart to him some facts about that +sage, but my tongue would not form the words, and it did well. + +I soon went about my business. At parting neither Punin nor Baburin +said, 'Till we meet!' both with one voice pronounced, 'Good-bye.' + +Punin even returned me a volume of the _Telegraph_ I had brought him, as +much as to say, 'he had no need of anything of that kind now.' + +A week later I had a curious encounter. An early spring had set in +abruptly; at midday the heat rose to eighteen degrees Reaumur. +Everything was turning green, and shooting up out of the spongy, damp +earth. I hired a horse at the riding-school, and went out for a ride +into the outskirts of the town, towards the Vorobyov hills. On the road +I was met by a little cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies, +splashed with mud up to their ears, with plaited tails, and red ribbons +in their manes and forelocks. Their harness was such as sportsmen +affect, with copper discs and tassels; they were being driven by a +smart young driver, in a blue tunic without sleeves, a yellow striped +silk shirt, and a low felt hat with peacock's feathers round the crown. +Beside him sat a girl of the artisan or merchant class, in a flowered +silk jacket, with a big blue handkerchief on her head--and she was +simply bubbling over with mirth. The driver was laughing too. I drew my +horse on one side, but did not, however, take particular notice of the +swiftly passing, merry couple, when, all at once, the young man shouted +to his ponies.... Why, that was Tarhov's voice! I looked round.... Yes, +it was he; unmistakably he, dressed up as a peasant, and beside +him--wasn't it Musa? + +But at that instant their ponies quickened their pace, and they were +out of my sight in a minute. I tried to put my horse into a gallop +in pursuit of them, but it was an old riding school hack, that +shambled from side to side as it moved; it went more slowly +galloping than trotting. + +'Enjoy yourselves, my dear friends!' I muttered through my teeth. + +I ought to observe that I had not seen Tarhov during the whole week, +though I had been three times to his rooms. He was never at home. +Baburin and Punin I had not seen either.... I had not been to see them. + +I caught cold on my ride; though it was very warm, there was a piercing +wind. I was dangerously ill, and when I recovered I went with my +grandmother into the country 'to feed up,' by the doctor's advice. I did +not get to Moscow again; in the autumn I was transferred to the +Petersburg university. + + + + +III + +1849 + + +Not seven, but fully twelve years had passed by, and I was in my +thirty-second year. My grandmother had long been dead; I was living in +Petersburg, with a post in the Department of Home Affairs. Tarhov I had +lost sight of; he had gone into the army, and lived almost always in the +provinces. We had met twice, as old friends, glad to see each other; but +we had not touched on the past in our talk. At the time of our last +meeting he was, if I remember right, already a married man. + +One sultry summer day I was sauntering along Gorohov Street, cursing +my official duties for keeping me in Petersburg, and the heat and +stench and dust of the city. A funeral barred my way. It consisted of +a solitary car, that is, to be accurate, of a decrepit hearse, on +which a poor-looking wooden coffin, half-covered with a threadbare +black cloth, was shaking up and down as it was jolted violently over +the uneven pavement. An old man with a white head was walking alone +after the hearse. + +I looked at him.... His face seemed familiar.... He too turned his eyes +upon me.... Merciful heavens! it was Baburin! I took off my hat, went up +to him, mentioned my name, and walked along beside him. + +'Whom are you burying?' I asked. + +'Nikander Vavilitch Punin,' he answered. + +I felt, I knew beforehand, that he would utter that name, and yet it set +my heart aching. I felt melancholy, and yet I was glad that chance had +enabled me to pay my last respects to my old friend.... + +'May I go with you, Paramon Semyonitch?' + +'You may.... I was following him alone; now there'll be two of us.' + +Our walk lasted more than an hour. My companion moved forward, without +lifting his eyes or opening his lips. He had become quite an old man +since I had seen him last; his deeply furrowed, copper-coloured face +stood out sharply against his white hair. Signs of a life of toil and +suffering, of continual struggle, could be seen in Baburin's whole +figure; want and poverty had worked cruel havoc with him. When +everything was over, when what was Punin had disappeared for ever in the +damp ... yes, undoubtedly damp earth of the Smolensky cemetery, Baburin, +after standing a couple of minutes with bowed, uncovered head before the +newly risen mound of sandy clay, turned to me his emaciated, as it were +embittered, face, his dry, sunken eyes, thanked me grimly, and was about +to move away; but I detained him. + +'Where do you live, Paramon Semyonitch? Let me come and see you. I had +no idea you were living in Petersburg. We could recall old days, and +talk of our dead friend.' + +Baburin did not answer me at once. + +'It's two years since I found my way to Petersburg,' he observed at +last; 'I live at the very end of the town. However, if you really care +to visit me, come.' He gave me his address. 'Come in the evening; in the +evening we are always at home ... both of us.' + +'Both of you?' + +'I am married. My wife is not very well to-day, and that's why she +did not come too. Though, indeed, it's quite enough for one person to +go through this empty formality, this ceremony. As if anybody +believed in it all!' + +I was a little surprised at Baburin's last words, but I said nothing, +called a cab, and proposed to Baburin to take him home; but he refused. + + * * * * * + +The same day I went in the evening to see him. All the way there I was +thinking of Punin. I recalled how I had met him the first time, and how +ecstatic and amusing he was in those days; and afterwards in Moscow how +subdued he had grown--especially the last time I saw him; and now he had +made his last reckoning with life;--life is in grim earnest, it seems! +Baburin was living in the Viborgsky quarter, in a little house which +reminded me of the Moscow 'nest': the Petersburg abode was almost +shabbier in appearance. When I went into his room he was sitting on a +chair in a corner with his hands on his knees; a tallow candle, burning +low, dimly lighted up his bowed, white head. He heard the sound of my +footsteps, started up, and welcomed me more warmly than I had expected. +A few moments later his wife came in; I recognised her at once as +Musa--and only then understood why Baburin had invited me to come; he +wanted to show me that he had after all come by his own. + +Musa was greatly changed--in face, in voice, and in manners; but her +eyes were changed most of all. In old times they had darted about like +live creatures, those malicious, beautiful eyes; they had gleamed +stealthily, but brilliantly; their glance had pierced, like a +pin-prick.... Now they looked at one directly, calmly, steadily; their +black centres had lost their lustre. 'I am broken in, I am tame, I am +good,' her soft and dull gaze seemed to say. Her continued, submissive +smile told the same story. And her dress, too, was subdued; brown, with +little spots on it. She came up to me, asked me whether I knew her. She +obviously felt no embarrassment, and not because she had lost a sense of +shame or memory of the past, but simply because all petty +self-consciousness had left her. + +Musa talked a great deal about Punin, talked in an even voice, which too +had lost its fire. I learned that of late years he had become very +feeble, had almost sunk into childishness, so much so that he was +miserable if he had not toys to play with; they persuaded him, it is +true, that he made them out of waste stuff for sale ... but he really +played with them himself. His passion for poetry, however, never died +out, and he kept his memory for nothing but verses; a few days before +his death he recited a passage from the _Rossiad_; but Pushkin he +feared, as children fear bogies. His devotion to Baburin had also +remained undiminished; he worshipped him as much as ever, and even at +the last, wrapped about by the chill and dark of the end, he had +faltered with halting tongue, 'benefactor!' I learned also from Musa +that soon after the Moscow episode, it had been Baburin's fate once more +to wander all over Russia, continually tossed from one private situation +to another; that in Petersburg, too, he had been again in a situation, +in a private business, which situation he had, however, been obliged to +leave a few days before, owing to some unpleasantness with his employer: +Baburin had ventured to stand up for the workpeople.... The invariable +smile, with which Musa accompanied her words, set me musing mournfully; +it put the finishing touch to the impression made on me by her husband's +appearance. They had hard work, the two of them, to make a bare +living--there was no doubt of it. He took very little part in our +conversation; he seemed more preoccupied than grieved.... Something was +worrying him. + +'Paramon Semyonitch, come here,' said the cook, suddenly appearing in +the doorway. + +'What is it? what's wanted?' he asked in alarm. + +'Come here,' the cook repeated insistently and meaningly. Baburin +buttoned up his coat and went out. + +When I was left alone with Musa, she looked at me with a somewhat +changed glance, and observed in a voice which was also changed, and with +no smile: 'I don't know, Piotr Petrovitch, what you think of me now, but +I dare say you remember what I used to be.... I was self-confident, +light-hearted ... and not good; I wanted to live for my own pleasure. +But I want to tell you this: when I was abandoned, and was like one +lost, and was only waiting for God to take me, or to pluck up spirit to +make an end of myself,--once more, just as in Voronezh, I met with +Paramon Semyonitch--and he saved me once again.... Not a word that could +wound me did I hear from him, not a word of reproach; he asked nothing +of me--I was not worthy of that; but he loved me ... and I became his +wife. What was I to do? I had failed of dying; and I could not live +either after my own choice....What was I to do with myself? Even so--it +was a mercy to be thankful for. That is all.' + +She ceased, turned away for an instant ... the same submissive smile +came back to her lips. 'Whether life's easy for me, you needn't ask,' +was the meaning I fancied now in that smile. + +The conversation passed to ordinary subjects. Musa told me that Punin +had left a cat that he had been very fond of, and that ever since his +death she had gone up to the attic and stayed there, mewing +incessantly, as though she were calling some one ... the neighbours +were very much scared, and fancied that it was Punin's soul that had +passed into the cat. + +'Paramon Semyonitch is worried about something,' I said at last. + +'Oh, you noticed it?'--Musa sighed. 'He cannot help being worried. I +need hardly tell you that Paramon Semyonitch has remained faithful to +his principles.... The present condition of affairs can but strengthen +them.' (Musa expressed herself quite differently now from in the old +days in Moscow; there was a literary, bookish flavour in her phrases.) +'I don't know, though, whether I can rely upon you, and how you will +receive ...' + +'Why should you imagine you cannot rely upon me?' + +'Well, you are in the government service--you are an official.' + +'Well, what of that?' + +'You are, consequently, loyal to the government.' + +I marvelled inwardly ... at Musa's innocence. 'As to my attitude to the +government, which is not even aware of my existence, I won't enlarge +upon that,' I observed; 'but you may set your mind at rest. I will make +no bad use of your confidence. I sympathise with your husband's +ideas ... more than you suppose.' + +Musa shook her head. + +'Yes; that's all so,' she began, not without hesitation; 'but you see +it's like this. Paramon Semyonitch's ideas will shortly, it may be, find +expression in action. They can no longer be hidden under a bushel. There +are comrades whom we cannot now abandon ...' + +Musa suddenly ceased speaking, as though she had bitten her tongue. Her +last words had amazed and a little alarmed me. Most likely my face +showed what I was feeling--and Musa noticed it. + +As I have said already, our interview took place in the year 1849. Many +people still remember what a disturbed and difficult time that was, and +by what incidents it was signalised in St. Petersburg. I had been struck +myself by certain peculiarities in Baburin's behaviour, in his whole +demeanour. Twice he had referred to governmental action, to personages +in high authority, with such intense bitterness and hatred, with such +loathing, that I had been dumbfoundered.... + +'Well?' he asked me suddenly: 'did you set your peasants free?' + +I was obliged to confess I had not. + +'Why, I suppose your granny's dead, isn't she?' + +I was obliged to admit that she was. + +'To be sure, you noble gentlemen,' Baburin muttered between his teeth, +'... use other men's hands ... to poke up your fire ... that's what +you like.' + +In the most conspicuous place in his room hung the well-known lithograph +portrait of Belinsky; on the table lay a volume of the old _Polar Star_, +edited by Bestuzhev. + +A long time passed, and Baburin did not come back after the cook had +called him away. Musa looked several times uneasily towards the door by +which he had gone out. At last she could bear it no longer; she got up, +and with an apology she too went out by the same door. A quarter of an +hour later she came back with her husband; the faces of both, so at +least I thought, looked troubled. But all of a sudden Baburin's face +assumed a different, an intensely bitter, almost frenzied expression. + +'What will be the end of it?' he began all at once in a jerky, sobbing +voice, utterly unlike him, while his wild eyes shifted restlessly about +him. 'One goes on living and living, and hoping that maybe it'll be +better, that one will breathe more freely; but it's quite the other +way--everything gets worse and worse! They have _squeezed_ us right up +to the wall! In my youth I bore all with patience; they ... maybe ... +beat me ... even ... yes!' he added, turning sharply round on his heels +and swooping down as it were, upon me: 'I, a man of full age, was +subjected to corporal punishment ... yes;--of other wrongs I will not +speak.... But is there really nothing before us but to go back to those +old times again? The way they are treating the young people now! ... +Yes, it breaks down all endurance at last.... It breaks it down! Yes! +Wait a bit!' + +I had never seen Baburin in such a condition. Musa turned positively +white.... Baburin suddenly cleared his throat, and sank down into a +seat. Not wishing to constrain either him or Musa by my presence, I +decided to go, and was just saying good-bye to them, when the door +into the next room suddenly opened, and a head appeared.... It was not +the cook's head, but the dishevelled and terrified-looking head of a +young man. + +'Something's wrong, Baburin, something's wrong!' he faltered hurriedly, +then vanished at once on perceiving my unfamiliar figure. + +Baburin rushed after the young man. I pressed Musa's hand warmly, and +withdrew, with presentiments of evil in my heart. + +'Come to-morrow,' she whispered anxiously. + +'I certainly will come,' I answered. + + * * * * * + +I was still in bed next morning, when my man handed me a letter +from Musa. + +'Dear Piotr Petrovitch!' she wrote: 'Paramon Semyonitch has been this +night arrested by the police and carried off to the fortress, or I don't +know where; they did not tell me. They ransacked all our papers, sealed +up a great many, and took them away with them. It has been the same with +our books and letters. They say a mass of people have been arrested in +the town. You can fancy how I feel. It is well Nikander Vavilitch did +not live to see it! He was taken just in time. Advise me what I am to +do. For myself I am not afraid--I shall not die of starvation--but the +thought of Paramon Semyonitch gives me no rest. Come, please, if only +you are not afraid to visit people in our position.--Yours faithfully, + +MUSA BABURIN.' + + * * * * * + +Half an hour later I was with Musa. On seeing me she held out her +hand, and, though she did not utter a word, a look of gratitude +flitted over her face. She was wearing the same clothes as on the +previous day; there was every sign that she had not been to bed or +slept all night. Her eyes were red, but from sleeplessness, not from +tears. She had not been crying. She was in no mood for weeping. She +wanted to act, wanted to struggle with the calamity that had fallen +upon them: the old, energetic, self-willed Musa had risen up in her +again. She had no time even to be indignant, though she was choking +with indignation. How to assist Baburin, to whom to appeal so as to +soften his lot--she could think of nothing else. She wanted to go +instantly, ... to petition, ... demand.... But where to go, whom to +petition, what to demand--this was what she wanted to hear from me, +this was what she wanted to consult me about. + +I began by counselling her ... to have patience. For the first moment +there was nothing left to be done but to wait, and, as far as might be, +to make inquiries; and to take any decisive step now when the affair had +scarcely begun, and hardly yet taken shape, would be simply senseless, +irrational. To hope for any success was irrational, even if I had been a +person of much more importance and influence, ... but what could I, a +petty official, do? As for her, she was absolutely without any powerful +friends.... + +It was no easy matter to make all this plain to her ... but at last she +understood my arguments; she understood, too, that I was not prompted by +egoistic feeling, when I showed her the uselessness of all efforts. 'But +tell me, Musa Pavlovna,' I began, when she sank at last into a chair +(till then she had been standing up, as though on the point of setting +off at once to the aid of Baburin),'how Paramon Semyonitch, at his age, +comes to be mixed up in such an affair? I feel sure that there are none +but young people implicated in it, like the one who came in yesterday to +warn you....' + +'Those young people are our friends!' cried Musa, and her eyes flashed +and darted as of old. Something strong, irrepressible, seemed, as it +were, to rise up from the bottom of her soul, ... and I suddenly recalled +the expression 'a new type,' which Tarhov had once used of her. 'Years +are of no consequence when it is a matter of political principles!' Musa +laid a special stress on these last two words. One might fancy that in +all her sorrow it was not unpleasing to her to show herself before me in +this new, unlooked-for character--in the character of a cultivated and +mature woman, fit wife of a republican! ... 'Some old men are younger +than some young ones,' she pursued, 'more capable of sacrifice.... But +that's not the point.' + +'I think, Musa Pavlovna,' I observed, 'that you are exaggerating a +little. Knowing the character of Paramon Semyonitch, I should have felt +sure beforehand that he would sympathise with every ... sincere +impulse; but, on the other hand, I have always regarded him as a man of +sense.... Surely he cannot fail to realise all the impracticability, +all the absurdity of conspiracies in Russia? In his position, in his +calling ...' + +'Oh, of course,' Musa interrupted, with bitterness in her voice, 'he is +a working man; and in Russia it is only permissible for noblemen to take +part in conspiracies, ... as, for instance, in that of the fourteenth of +December, ... that's what you meant to say.' + +'In that case, what do you complain of now?' almost broke from my +lips, ... but I restrained myself. 'Do you consider that the result of +the fourteenth of December was such as to encourage other such +attempts?' I said aloud. + +Musa frowned. 'It is no good talking to you about it,' was what I read +in her downcast face. + +'Is Paramon Semyonitch very seriously compromised?' I ventured to ask +her. Musa made no reply.... A hungry, savage mewing was heard from +the attic. + +Musa started. 'Ah, it is a good thing Nikander Vavilitch did not see all +this!' she moaned almost despairingly. 'He did not see how violently in +the night they seized his benefactor, our benefactor--maybe, the best +and truest man in the whole world,--he did not see how they treated that +noble man at his age, how rudely they addressed him, ... how they +threatened him, and the threats they used to him!--only because he was a +working man! That young officer, too, was no doubt just such an +unprincipled, heartless wretch as I have known in my life....' + +Musa's voice broke. She was quivering all over like a leaf. + +Her long-suppressed indignation broke out at last; old memories stirred +up, brought to the surface by the general tumult of her soul, showed +themselves alive within her.... But the conviction I carried off at that +moment was that the 'new type' was still the same, still the same +passionate, impulsive nature.... Only the impulses by which Musa was +carried away were not the same as in the days of her youth. What on my +first visit I had taken for resignation, for meekness, and what really +was so--the subdued, lustreless glance, the cold voice, the quietness +and simplicity--all that had significance only in relation to the past, +to what would never return.... + +Now it was the present asserted itself. + +I tried to soothe Musa, tried to put our conversation on a more +practical level. Some steps must be taken that could not be postponed; +we must find out exactly where Baburin was; and then secure both for him +and for Musa the means of subsistence. All this presented no +inconsiderable difficulty; what was needed was not to find money, but +work, which is, as we all know, a far more complicated problem.... + +I left Musa with a perfect swarm of reflections in my head. + +I soon learned that Baburin was in the fortress. + +The proceedings began, ... dragged on. I saw Musa several times every +week. She had several interviews with her husband. But just at the +moment of the decision of the whole melancholy affair, I was not in +Petersburg. Unforeseen business had obliged me to set off to the +south of Russia. During my absence I heard that Baburin had been +acquitted at the trial; it appeared that all that could be proved +against him was, that young people regarding him as a person unlikely +to awaken suspicion, had sometimes held meetings at his house, and he +had been present at their meetings; he was, however, by +administrative order sent into exile in one of the western provinces +of Siberia. Musa went with him. + +'Paramon Semyonitch did not wish it,' she wrote to me; 'as, according to +his ideas, no one ought to sacrifice self for another person, and not +for a cause; but I told him there was no question of sacrifice at all. +When I said to him in Moscow that I would be his wife, I thought to +myself--for ever, indissolubly! So indissoluble it must be till the end +of our days....' + + + + +IV + +1861 + + +Twelve more years passed by.... Every one in Russia knows, and will ever +remember, what passed between the years 1849 and 1861. In my personal +life, too, many changes took place, on which, however, there is no need +to enlarge. New interests came into it, new cares.... The Baburin couple +first fell into the background, then passed out of my mind altogether. +Yet I kept up a correspondence with Musa--at very long intervals, +however. Sometimes more than a year passed without any tidings of her or +of her husband. I heard that soon after 1855 he received permission to +return to Russia; but that he preferred to remain in the little Siberian +town, where he had been flung by destiny, and where he had apparently +made himself a home, and found a haven and a sphere of activity.... + +And, lo and behold! towards the end of March in 1861, I received the +following letter from Musa:-- + +'It is so long since I have written to you, most honoured Piotr +Petrovitch, that I do not even know whether you are still living; and if +you are living, have you not forgotten our existence? But no matter; I +cannot resist writing to you to-day. Everything till now has gone on +with us in the same old way: Paramon Semyonitch and I have been always +busy with our schools, which are gradually making good progress; besides +that, Paramon Semyonitch was taken up with reading and correspondence +and his usual discussions with the Old-believers, members of the clergy, +and Polish exiles; his health has been fairly good.... So has mine. But +yesterday! the manifesto of the 19th of February reached us! We had long +been on the look-out for it. Rumours had reached us long before of what +was being done among you in Petersburg, ... but yet I can't describe what +it was! You know my husband well; he was not in the least changed by his +misfortune; on the contrary, he has grown even stronger and more +energetic, and has a will as strong as iron, but at this he could not +restrain himself! His hands shook as he read it; then he embraced me +three times, and three times he kissed me, tried to say something--but +no! he could not! and ended by bursting into tears, which was very +astounding to see, and suddenly he shouted, "Hurrah! hurrah! God save +the Tsar!" Yes, Piotr Petrovitch, those were his very words! Then he +went on: "Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart" ... and again: "This is +the first step, others are bound to follow it"; and, just as he was, +bareheaded, ran to tell the great news to our friends. There was a +bitter frost, and even a snowstorm coming on. I tried to prevent him, +but he would not listen to me. And when he came home, he was all covered +with snow, his hair, his face, and his beard--he has a beard right down +to his chest now--and the tears were positively frozen on his cheeks! +But he was very lively and cheerful, and told me to uncork a bottle of +home-made champagne, and he drank with our friends that he had brought +back with him, to the health of the Tsar and of Russia, and all free +Russians; and taking the glass, and fixing his eyes on the ground, he +said: "Nikander, Nikander, do you hear? There are no slaves in Russia +any more! Rejoice in the grave, old comrade!" And much more he said; to +the effect that his "expectations were fulfilled!" He said, too, that +now there could be no turning back; that this was in its way a pledge or +promise.... I don't remember everything, but it is long since I have +seen him so happy. And so I made up my mind to write to you, so that you +might know how we have been rejoicing and exulting in the remote +Siberian wilds, so that you might rejoice with us....' + +This letter I received at the end of March. At the beginning of May +another very brief letter arrived from Musa. She informed me that her +husband, Paramon Semyonitch Baburin, had taken cold on the very day of +the arrival of the manifesto, and died on the 12th of April of +inflammation of the lungs, in the 67th year of his age. She added that +she intended to remain where his body lay at rest, and to go on with the +work he had bequeathed her, since such was the last wish of Paramon +Semyonitch, and that was her only law. + +Since then I have heard no more of Musa. + +PARIS, 1874. + + + + +OLD PORTRAITS + + + + +I + + +About thirty miles from our village there lived, many years ago, a +distant cousin of my mother's, a retired officer of the Guards, and +rather wealthy landowner, Alexey Sergeitch Teliegin. He lived on his +estate and birth-place, Suhodol, did not go out anywhere, and so did not +visit us; but I used to be sent, twice a year, to pay him my +respects--at first with my tutor, but later on alone. Alexey Sergeitch +always gave me a very cordial reception, and I used to stay three or +four days at a time with him. He was an old man even when I first made +his acquaintance; I was twelve, I remember, on my first visit, and he +was then over seventy. He was born in the days of the Empress +Elisabeth--in the last year of her reign. He lived alone with his wife, +Malania Pavlovna; she was ten years younger than he. They had two +daughters; but their daughters had been long married, and rarely visited +Suhodol; they were not on the best of terms with their parents, and +Alexey Sergeitch hardly ever mentioned their names. + +I see, even now, the old-fashioned house, a typical manor-house of the +steppes. One story in height, with immense attics, it was built at the +beginning of this century, of amazingly thick beams of pine,--such beams +came in plenty in those days from the Zhizdrinsky pine-forests; they +have passed out of memory now! It was very spacious, and contained a +great number of rooms, rather low-pitched and dark, it is true; the +windows in the walls had been made small for the sake of greater warmth. +In the usual fashion (I ought rather to say, in what was then the usual +fashion), the offices and house-serfs' huts surrounded the manorial +house on all sides, and the garden was close to it--a small garden, but +containing fine fruit-trees, juicy apples, and pipless pears. The flat +steppe of rich, black earth stretched for ten miles round. No lofty +object for the eye; not a tree, nor even a belfry; somewhere, maybe, +jutting up, a windmill, with rents in its sails; truly, well-named +Suhodol, or Dry-flat! Inside the house the rooms were filled with +ordinary, simple furniture; somewhat unusual was the milestone-post that +stood in the window of the drawing-room, with the following +inscription:--'If you walk sixty-eight times round this drawing-room you +will have gone a mile; if you walk eighty-seven times from the furthest +corner of the parlour to the right-hand corner of the billiard-room, you +will have gone a mile,' and so on. But what most of all impressed a +guest at the house for the first time was the immense collection of +pictures hanging on the walls, for the most part works of the so-called +Italian masters: all old-fashioned landscapes of a sort, or mythological +and religious subjects. But all these pictures were very dark, and even +cracked with age;--in one, all that met the eye was some patches of +flesh-colour; in another, undulating red draperies on an unseen body; or +an arch which seemed to be suspended in the air; or a dishevelled tree +with blue foliage; or the bosom of a nymph with an immense breast, like +the lid of a soup-tureen; a cut water-melon, with black seeds; a turban, +with a feather in it, above a horse's head; or the gigantic brown leg of +an apostle, suddenly thrust out, with a muscular calf, and toes turned +upwards. In the drawing-room in the place of honour hung a portrait of +the Empress Catherine II., full length; a copy of the famous portrait by +Lampi--an object of the special reverence, one might say the adoration, +of the master of the house. From the ceiling hung glass lustres in +bronze settings, very small and very dusty. + +Alexey Sergeitch himself was a stumpy, paunchy little old man, with a +chubby face of one uniform tint, yet pleasant, with drawn-in lips, and +very lively little eyes under high eyebrows. He wore his scanty locks +combed to the back of his head; it was only since 1812 that he had given +up wearing powder. Alexey Sergeitch invariably wore a grey 'redingote,' +with three capes falling over his shoulders, a striped waistcoat, +chamois-leather breeches, and high boots of dark red morocco, with +heart-shaped scallops and tassels at the tops; he wore a white muslin +cravat, a jabot, lace cuffs, and two gold English 'turnip watches,' one +in each pocket of his waistcoat. In his right hand he usually carried an +enamelled snuff-box full of 'Spanish' snuff, and his left hand leaned on +a cane with a silver-chased knob, worn smooth by long use. Alexey +Sergeitch had a little nasal, piping voice, and an invariable +smile--kindly, but, as it were, condescending, and not without a certain +self-complacent dignity. His laugh, too, was kindly--a shrill little +laugh that tinkled like glass beads. Courteous and affable he was to the +last degree--in the old-fashioned manner of the days of Catherine--and +he moved his hands with slow, rounded gestures, also in the old style. +His legs were so weak that he could not walk, but ran with hurried +little steps from one armchair to another, in which he would suddenly +sit down, or rather fall softly, like a cushion. + +As I have said already, Alexey Sergeitch went out nowhere, and saw very +little of his neighbours, though he liked society, for he was very fond +of talking! It is true that he had society in plenty in his own house; +various Nikanor Nikanoritchs, Sevastiey Sevastietchs, Fedulitchs, +Miheitchs, all poor gentlemen in shabby cossack coats and camisoles, +often from the master's wardrobe, lived under his roof, to say nothing +of the poor gentlewomen in chintz gowns, black kerchiefs thrown over +their shoulders, and worsted reticules in their tightly clenched +fingers--all sorts of Avdotia Savishnas, Pelagea Mironovnas, and plain +Feklushkas and Arinkas, who found a home in the women's quarters. Never +less than fifteen persons sat down to Alexey Sergeitch's table.... He +was such a hospitable man! Among all those dependants two were +particularly conspicuous: a dwarf, nicknamed Janus, or the Double-faced, +of Danish--or, as some maintained, Jewish--extraction, and the mad +Prince L. Contrary to what was customary in those days, the dwarf did +nothing to amuse the master or mistress, and was not a jester--quite the +opposite; he was always silent, had an ill-tempered and sullen +appearance, and scowled and gnashed his teeth directly a question was +addressed to him. Alexey Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and +positively respected him; at table the dishes were handed to him first, +after the guests and master and mistress. 'God has afflicted him,' +Alexey Sergeitch used to say; 'such is His Divine will; but it's not for +me to afflict him further.' 'How is he a philosopher?' I asked him once. +(Janus didn't take to me; if I went near him he would fly into a rage, +and mutter thickly, 'Stranger! keep off!') 'Eh, God bless me! isn't he a +philosopher?' answered Alexey Sergeitch. 'Look ye, little sir, how +wisely he holds his tongue!' 'But why is he double-faced?' 'Because, +little sir, he has one face on the outside--and so you, surface-gazers, +judge him.... But the other, the real face he hides. And that face I +know, and no one else--and I love him for it ... because that face is +good. You, for instance, look and see nothing ... but I see without a +word: he is blaming me for something; for he's a severe critic! And it's +always with good reason. That, little sir, you can't understand; but you +may believe an old man like me!' The real history of the two-faced +Janus--where he came from, and how he came into Alexey Sergeitch's +hands--no one knew; but the story of Prince L. was well known to every +one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and distinguished family, to +Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards. At the first levee the +Empress Catherine noticed him, stood still before him, and, pointing at +him with her fan, she said aloud, addressing one of her courtiers, who +happened to be near, 'Look, Adam Vassilievitch, what a pretty fellow! a +perfect doll!' The poor boy's head was completely turned; when he got +home he ordered his coach out, and, putting on a ribbon of St. Anne, +proceeded to drive all over the town, as though he had reached the +pinnacle of fortune. 'Drive over every one,' he shouted to his coachman, +'who does not move out of the way!' All this was promptly reported to +the empress: the decree went forth that he should be declared insane, +and put under the guardianship of two of his brothers; and they, without +a moment's delay, carried him off to the country, and flung him into a +stone cell in chains. As they wanted to get the benefit of his property, +they did not let the poor wretch out, even when he had completely +recovered his balance, and positively kept him locked up till he really +did go out of his mind. But their evil doings did not prosper; Prince L. +outlived his brothers, and, after long years of adversity, he came into +the charge of Alexey Sergeitch, whose kinsman he was. He was a stout, +completely bald man, with a long, thin nose and prominent blue eyes. He +had quite forgotten how to talk--he simply uttered a sort of +inarticulate grumbling; but he sang old-fashioned Russian ballads +beautifully, preserving the silvery freshness of his voice to extreme +old age; and, while he was singing, he pronounced each word clearly and +distinctly. He had attacks at times of a sort of fury, and then he +became terrible: he would stand in the corner, with his face to the +wall, and all perspiring and red--red all down his bald head and down +his neck--he used to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with +his feet, order some one--his brothers probably--to be punished. 'Beat +'em!' he growled hoarsely, coughing and choking with laughter; 'flog +'em, don't spare 'em! beat, beat, beat the monsters, my oppressors! +That's it! That's it!' On the day before his death he greatly alarmed +and astonished Alexey Sergeitch. He came, pale and subdued, into his +room, and, making him a low obeisance, first thanked him for his care +and kindness, and then asked him to send for a priest, for death had +come to him--he had seen death, and he must forgive every one and purify +his soul. 'How did you see death?' muttered Alexey Sergeitch in +bewilderment at hearing connected speech from him for the first time. +'In what shape? with a scythe?' 'No,' answered Prince L.; 'a simple old +woman in a jacket, but with only one eye in her forehead, and that eye +without an eyelid.' And the next day Prince L. actually did die, duly +performing everything, and taking leave of every one in a rational and +affecting manner. 'That's just how I shall die,' Alexey Sergeitch would +sometimes observe. And, as a fact, something of the same sort did happen +with him--but of that later. + +But now let us go back to our story. Of the neighbours, as I have stated +already, Alexey Sergeitch saw little; and they did not care much for +him, called him a queer fish, stuck up, and a scoffer, and even a +'martiniste' who recognised no authorities, though they had no clear +idea of the meaning of this term. To a certain extent the neighbours +were right: Alexey Sergeitch had lived in his Suhodol for almost seventy +years on end, and had had hardly anything whatever to do with the +existing authorities, with the police or the law-courts. 'Police-courts +are for the robber, and discipline for the soldier,' he used to say; +'but I, thank God, am neither robber nor soldier!' Rather queer Alexey +Sergeitch certainly was, but the soul within him was by no means a petty +one. I will tell you something about him. + +To tell the truth, I never knew what were his political opinions, if an +expression so modern can be used in reference to him; but, in his own +way, he was an aristocrat--more an aristocrat than a typical Russian +country gentleman. More than once he expressed his regret that God had +not given him a son and heir, 'for the honour of our name, to keep up +the family.' In his own room there hung on the wall the family-tree of +the Teliegins, with many branches, and a multitude of little circles +like apples in a golden frame. 'We Teliegins,' he used to say, 'are an +ancient line, from long, long ago: however many there've been of us +Teliegins, we have never hung about great men's ante-rooms; we've never +bent our backs, or stood about in waiting, nor picked up a living in the +courts, nor run after decorations; we've never gone trailing off to +Moscow, nor intriguing in Petersburg; we've sat at home, each in his +hole, his own man on his own land ... home-keeping birds, sir!--I +myself, though I did serve in the Guards--but not for long, thank you.' +Alexey Sergeitch preferred the old days. 'There was more freedom in +those days, more decorum; on my honour, I assure you! but since the year +eighteen hundred' (why from that year, precisely, he did not explain), +'militarism, the soldiery, have got the upper hand. Our soldier +gentlemen stuck some sort of turbans of cocks' feathers on their heads +then, and turned like cocks themselves; began binding their necks up as +stiff as could be ... they croak, and roll their eyes--how could they +help it, indeed? The other day a police corporal came to me; "I've come +to you," says he, "honourable sir," ... (fancy his thinking to surprise +me with that! ... I know I'm honourable without his telling me!) "I have +business with you." And I said to him, "My good sir, you'd better first +unfasten the hooks on your collar. Or else, God have mercy on us--you'll +sneeze. Ah, what would happen to you! what would happen to you! You'd +break off, like a mushroom ... and I should have to answer for it!" And +they do drink, these military gentlemen--oh, oh, oh! I generally order +home-made champagne to be given them, because to them, good wine or +poor, it's all the same; it runs so smoothly, so quickly, down their +throats--how can they distinguish it? And, another thing, they've +started sucking at a pap-bottle, smoking a tobacco-pipe. Your military +gentleman thrusts his pap-bottle under his moustaches, between his lips, +and puffs the smoke out of his nose, his mouth, and even his ears--and +fancies himself a hero! There are my sons-in-law--though one of them's a +senator, and the other some sort of an administrator over there--they +suck the pap-bottle, and they reckon themselves clever fellows too!' + +Alexey Sergeitch could not endure smoking; and moreover, he could not +endure dogs, especially little dogs. 'If you're a Frenchman, to be sure, +you may well keep a lapdog: you run and you skip about here and there, +and it runs after you with its tail up ... but what's the use of it to +people like us?' He was exceedingly neat and particular. Of the Empress +Catherine he never spoke but with enthusiasm, and in exalted, rather +bookish phraseology: 'Half divine she was, not human! Only look, little +sir, at that smile,' he would add, pointing reverentially to Lampi's +portrait, 'and you will agree: half divine! I was so fortunate in my +life as to be deemed worthy to behold that smile close, and never will +it be effaced from my heart!' And thereupon he would relate anecdotes of +the life of Catherine, such as I have never happened to read or hear +elsewhere. Here is one of them. Alexey Sergeitch did not permit the +slightest allusion to the weaknesses of the great Tsaritsa. 'And, +besides,' he exclaimed, 'can one judge of her as of other people?' + +One day while she was sitting in her peignoir during her morning +toilette, she commanded her hair to be combed.... And what do you +think? The lady-in-waiting passed the comb through, and sparks of +electricity simply showered out! Then she summoned to her presence the +court physician Rogerson, who happened to be in waiting at the court, +and said to him: 'I am, I know, censured for certain actions; but do +you see this electricity? Consequently, as such is my nature and +constitution, you can judge for yourself, as you are a doctor, that it +is unjust for them to censure me, and they ought to comprehend me!' The +following incident remained indelible in Alexey Sergeitch's memory. He +was standing one day on guard indoors, in the palace--he was only +sixteen at the time--and behold the empress comes walking past him; he +salutes ... 'and she,' Alexey Sergeitch would exclaim at this point +with much feeling, 'smiling at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me +her hand to kiss and patted my cheek, and asked me "who I was? where I +came from? of what family?" and then' ... here the old man's voice +usually broke ... 'then she bade me greet my mother in her name and +thank her for having brought up her children so well. And whether I was +on earth or in heaven, and how and where she deigned to vanish, whether +she floated away into the heights or went her way into the other +apartments ... to this day I do not know!' + +More than once I tried to question Alexey Sergeitch about those far-away +times, about the people who made up the empress's circle.... But for the +most part he edged off the subject. 'What's the use of talking about old +times?' he used to say ... 'it's only making one's self miserable, +remembering that then one was a fine young fellow, and now one hasn't a +tooth left in one's head. And what is there to say? They were good old +times ... but there, enough of them! And as for those folks--you were +asking, you troublesome boy, about the lucky ones!--haven't you seen how +a bubble comes up on the water? As long as it lasts and is whole, what +colours play upon it! Red, and blue, and yellow--a perfect rainbow or +diamond you'd say it was! Only it soon bursts, and there's no trace of +it left. And so it was with those folks.' + +'But how about Potiomkin?' I once inquired. + +Alexey Sergeitch looked grave. 'Potiomkin, Grigory Alexandrovitch, was a +statesman, a theologian, a pupil of Catherine's, her cherished creation, +one must say.... But enough of that, little sir!' + +Alexey Sergeitch was a very devout man, and, though it was a great +effort, he attended church regularly. Superstition was not noticeable in +him; he laughed at omens, the evil eye, and such 'nonsense,' but he did +not like a hare to run across his path, and to meet a priest was not +altogether agreeable to him. For all that, he was very respectful to +clerical persons, and went up to receive their blessing, and even kissed +the priest's hand every time, but he was not willing to enter into +conversation with them. 'Such an extremely strong odour comes from +them,' he explained: 'and I, poor sinner, am fastidious beyond reason; +they've such long hair, and all oily, and they comb it out on all +sides--they think they show me respect by so doing, and they clear their +throats so loudly when they talk--from shyness may be, or I dare say +they want to show respect in that way too. And besides, they make one +think of one's last hour. And, I don't know how it is, but I still want +to go on living. Only, my little sir, don't you repeat my words; we must +respect the clergy--it's only fools that don't respect them; and I'm to +blame to babble nonsense in my old age.' + +Alexey Sergeitch, like most of the noblemen of his day, had received a +very slight education; but he had, to some extent, made good the +deficiency himself by reading. He read none but Russian books of the end +of last century; the more modern authors he thought insipid and +deficient in style.... While he read, he had placed at his side on a +round, one-legged table, a silver tankard of frothing spiced kvas of a +special sort, which sent an agreeable fragrance all over the house. He +used to put on the end of his nose a pair of big, round spectacles, but +in latter years he did not so much read as gaze dreamily over the rims +of his spectacles, lifting his eyebrows, chewing his lips, and sighing. +Once I caught him weeping with a book on his knees, greatly, I own, to +my surprise. + +He had recalled these lines: + + 'O pitiful race of man! + Peace is unknown to thee! + Thou canst not find it save + In the dust of the grave.... + Bitter, bitter is that sleep! + Rest, rest in death ... but living weep!' + +These lines were the composition of a certain Gormitch-Gormitsky, a +wandering poet, to whom Alexey Sergeitch had given a home in his house, +as he struck him as a man of delicate feeling and even of subtlety; he +wore slippers adorned with ribbons, spoke with a broad accent, and +frequently sighed, turning his eyes to heaven; in addition to all these +qualifications, Gormitch-Gormitsky spoke French decently, having been +educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexey Sergeitch only 'followed +conversation.' But having once got terribly drunk at the tavern, that +same subtle Gormitsky showed a turbulence beyond all bounds; he gave a +fearful thrashing to Alexey Sergeitch's valet, the man cook, two +laundry-maids who chanced to get in his way, and a carpenter from +another village, and he broke several panes in the windows, screaming +furiously all the while: 'There, I'll show them, these Russian loafers, +rough-hewn billy-goats!' + +And the strength the frail-looking creature put forth! It was hard work +for eight men to master him! For this violent proceeding Alexey +Sergeitch ordered the poet to be turned out of the house, after being +put, as a preliminary measure, in the snow--it was winter-time--to +sober him. + +'Yes,' Alexey Sergeitch used to say, 'my day is over; I was a spirited +steed, but I've run my last race now. Then, I used to keep poets at my +expense, and I used to buy pictures and books of the Jews, geese of the +best breeds, and pouter-pigeons of pure blood.... I used to go in for +everything! Though dogs I never did care for keeping, because it goes +with drinking, foulness, and buffoonery! I was a young man of spirit, +not to be outdone. That there should be anything of Teliegin's and not +first-rate ... why, it was not to be thought of! And I had a splendid +stud of horses. And my horses came--from what stock do you think, young +sir? Why, from none other than the celebrated stables of the Tsar, Ivan +Alexeitch, brother of Peter the Great ... it's the truth I'm telling +you! All fawn-coloured stallions, sleek--their manes to their knees, +their tails to their hoofs.... Lions! And all that was--and is buried in +the past. Vanity of vanities--and every kind of vanity! But still--why +regret it? Every man has his limits set him. There's no flying above the +sky, no living in the water, no getting away from the earth.... We'll +live a bit longer, anyway!' + +And the old man would smile again and sniff his Spanish snuff. + +The peasants liked him; he was, in their words, a kind master, not +easily angered. Only they, too, repeated that he was a worn-out steed. +In former days Alexey Sergeitch used to go into everything himself--he +used to drive out to the fields, and to the mill, and to the dairy, and +peep into the granaries and the peasants' huts; every one knew his +racing droshky, upholstered in crimson plush, and drawn by a tall mare, +with a broad white star all over her forehead, called 'Beacon,' of the +same famous breed. Alexey Sergeitch used to drive her himself, the ends +of the reins crushed up in his fists. But when his seventieth year came, +the old man let everything go, and handed over the management of the +estate to the bailiff Antip, of whom he was secretly afraid, and whom he +called Micromegas (a reminiscence of Voltaire!), or simply, plunderer. +'Well, plunderer, what have you to say? Have you stacked a great deal in +the barn?' he would ask with a smile, looking straight into the +plunderer's eyes. 'All, by your good favour, please your honour,' Antip +would respond cheerfully. 'Favour's all very well, only you mind what I +say, Micromegas! don't you dare touch the peasants, my subjects, out of +my sight! If they come to complain ... I've a cane, you see, not far +off!' 'Your cane, your honour, Alexey Sergeitch, I always keep well in +mind,' Antip Micromegas would respond, stroking his beard. 'All right, +don't forget it.' And the master and the bailiff would laugh in each +other's faces. With the servants, and with the serfs in general, his +'subjects' (Alexey Sergeitch liked that word) he was gentle in his +behaviour. 'Because, think a little, nephew; nothing of their own, but +the cross on their neck--and that copper--and daren't hanker after other +people's goods ... how can one expect sense of them?' It is needless to +state that of the so-called 'serf question' no one even dreamed in those +days; it could not disturb the peace of mind of Alexey Sergeitch: he was +quite happy in the possession of his 'subjects'; but he was severe in +his censure of bad masters, and used to call them the enemies of their +order. He divided the nobles generally into three classes: the prudent, +'of whom there are too few'; the prodigal, 'of whom there are quite +enough'; and the senseless, 'of whom there are shoals and shoals.' + +'And if any one of them is harsh and oppressive with his subjects'--he +would say--'then he sins against God, and is guilty before men!' + +Yes, the house-serfs had an easy life of it with the old man; the +'subjects out of sight' no doubt fared worse, in spite of the cane with +which he threatened Micromegas. And what a lot there were of them, those +house-serfs, in his house! And for the most part sinewy, hairy, +grumbling old fellows, with stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen +coats, belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging +to them. And on the women's side, one could hear nothing but the patter +of bare feet, the swish of petticoats. The chief valet was called +Irinarh, and Alexey Sergeitch always called him in a long-drawn-out +call: 'I-ri-na-a-arh!' The others he called: 'Boy! Lad! Whoever's there +of the men!' Bells he could not endure: 'It's not an eating-house, God +forbid!' And what used to surprise me was that whatever time Alexey +Sergeitch called his valet, he always promptly made his appearance, as +though he had sprung out of the earth, and with a scrape of his heels, +his hands behind his back, would stand before his master, a surly, as it +were angry, but devoted servant! + +Alexey Sergeitch was liberal beyond his means; but he did not like to be +called 'benefactor.' 'Benefactor to you, indeed, sir! ... I'm doing +myself a benefit, and not you, sir!' (when he was angry or indignant, he +always addressed people with greater formality). 'Give to a beggar +once,' he used to say, 'and give him twice, and three times.... And--if +he should come a fourth time, give to him still--only then you might say +too: "It's time, my good man, you found work for something else, not +only for your mouth."' 'But, uncle,' one asked, sometimes, 'suppose even +after that the beggar came again, a fifth time?' 'Oh, well, give again +the fifth time.' He used to have the sick, who came to him for aid, +treated at his expense, though he had no faith in doctors himself, and +never sent for them. 'My mother,' he declared, 'used to cure illnesses +of all sorts with oil and salt--she gave it internally, and rubbed it on +too--it always answered splendidly. And who was my mother? She was born +in the days of Peter the Great--only fancy that!' + +Alexey Sergeitch was a Russian in everything; he liked none but Russian +dishes, he was fond of Russian songs, but the harmonica--a +'manufactured contrivance'--he hated; he liked looking at the +serf-girls' dances and the peasant-women's jigs; in his youth, I was +told, he had been an enthusiastic singer and a dashing dancer; he liked +steaming himself in the bath, and steamed himself so vigorously that +Irinarh, who, serving him as bathman, used to beat him with a bundle of +birch-twigs steeped in beer, to rub him with a handful of tow, and then +with a woollen cloth--the truly devoted Irinarh used to say every time, +as he crept off his shelf red as a 'new copper image': 'Well, this time +I, the servant of God, Irinarh Tolobiev, have come out alive. How will +it be next time?' + +And Alexey Sergeitch spoke excellent Russian, a little old-fashioned, +but choice and pure as spring water, continually interspersing his +remarks with favourite expressions: ''Pon my honour, please God, +howsoever that may be, sir, and young sir....' + +But enough of him. Let us talk a little about Alexey Sergeitch's wife, +Malania Pavlovna. Malania Pavlovna was born at Moscow. + +She had been famous as the greatest beauty in Moscow--_la Venus de +Moscou_. I knew her as a thin old woman with delicate but insignificant +features, with crooked teeth, like a hare's, in a tiny little mouth, +with a multitude of finely crimped little yellow curls on her forehead, +and painted eyebrows. She invariably wore a pyramidal cap with pink +ribbons, a high ruff round her neck, a short white dress, and prunella +slippers with red heels; and over her dress she wore a jacket of blue +satin, with a sleeve hanging loose from her right shoulder. This was +precisely the costume in which she was arrayed on St. Peter's Day in the +year 1789! On that day she went, being still a girl, with her relations +to the Hodinskoe field to see the famous boxing-match arranged by Orlov. +'And Count Alexey Grigorievitch' (oh, how often I used to hear this +story!) 'noticing me, approached, bowed very low, taking his hat in both +hands, and said: "Peerless beauty," said he, "why have you hung that +sleeve from your shoulder? Do you, too, wish to try a tussle with me? ... +By all means; only I will tell you beforehand you have vanquished me--I +give in! And I am your captive." And every one was looking at us and +wondering.' And that very costume she had worn continually ever since. +'Only I didn't wear a cap, but a hat _a la bergere de Trianon_; and +though I was powdered, yet my hair shone through it, positively shone +through it like gold!' Malania Pavlovna was foolish to the point of +'holy innocence,' as it is called; she chattered quite at random, as +though she were hardly aware herself of what dropped from her lips--and +mostly about Orlov. Orlov had become, one might say, the principal +interest of her life. She usually walked ... or rather swam, into the +room with a rhythmic movement of the head, like a peacock, stood still +in the middle, with one foot strangely turned out, and two fingers +holding the tip of the loose sleeve (I suppose this pose, too, must once +have charmed Orlov); she would glance about her with haughty +nonchalance, as befits a beauty--and with a positive sniff, and a murmur +of 'What next!' as though some importunate gallant were besieging her +with compliments, she would go out again, tapping her heels and +shrugging her shoulders. She used, too, to take Spanish snuff out of a +tiny bonbonniere, picking it up with a tiny golden spoon; and from time +to time, especially when any one unknown to her was present, she would +hold up--not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, but to her nose--a +double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with a coquettish turn of +her little white hand, one finger held out separate from the rest. How +often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding in the church of +the Ascension, in Arbaty--such a fine church!--and how all Moscow was +there ... 'and the crush there was!--awful! Carriages with teams, golden +coaches, outriders ... one outrider of Count Zavadovsky got run over! +and we were married by the archbishop himself--and what a sermon he gave +us! every one was crying--wherever I looked I saw tears ... and the +governor-general's horses were tawny, like tigers. And the flowers, the +flowers that were brought! ... Simply loads of flowers!' And how on that +day a foreigner, a wealthy, tremendously wealthy person, had shot +himself from love--and how Orlov too had been there.... And going up to +Alexey Sergeitch, he had congratulated him and called him a lucky +man.... 'A lucky man you are, you silly fellow!' said he. And how in +answer to these words Alexey Sergeitch had made a wonderful bow, and had +swept the floor from left to right with the plumes of his hat, as if he +would say: 'Your Excellency, there is a line now between you and my +spouse, which you will not overstep!' And Orlov, Alexey Grigorievitch +understood at once, and commended him. 'Oh! that was a man! such a man!' +And how, 'One day, Alexis and I were at his house at a ball--I was +married then--and he had the most marvellous diamond buttons! And I +could not resist it, I admired them. "What marvellous diamonds you have, +Count!" said I. And he, taking up a knife from the table, at once cut +off a button and presented it to me and said: "In your eyes, my charmer, +the diamonds are a hundred times brighter; stand before the +looking-glass and compare them." And I stood so, and he stood beside me. +"Well, who's right?" said he, while he simply rolled his eyes, looking +me up and down. And Alexey Sergeitch was very much put out about it, but +I said to him: "Alexis," said I, "please don't you be put out; you ought +to know me better!" And he answered me: "Don't disturb yourself, +Melanie!" And these very diamonds are now round my medallion of Alexey +Grigorievitch--you've seen it, I dare say, my dear;--I wear it on +feast-days on a St. George ribbon, because he was a brave hero, a +knight of St. George: he burned the Turks.' + +For all that, Malania Pavlovna was a very kind-hearted woman; she was +easily pleased. 'She's not one to snarl, nor to sneer,' the maids used +to say of her. Malania Pavlovna was passionately fond of sweet +things--and a special old woman who looked after nothing but the jam, +and so was called the jam-maid, would bring her, ten times a day, a +china dish with rose-leaves crystallised in sugar, or barberries in +honey, or sherbet of bananas. Malania Pavlovna was afraid of +solitude--dreadful thoughts are apt to come over one, she would say--and was +almost always surrounded by companions, whom she would urgently implore: +'Talk, talk! why do you sit like that, simply keeping your seats warm!' +and they would begin twittering like canaries. She was no less devout +than Alexey Sergeitch, and was very fond of praying; but as, in her own +words, she had never learned to repeat prayers well, she kept for the +purpose a poor deacon's widow who prayed with such relish! Never +stumbled over a word in her life! And this deacon's widow certainly +could utter the words of prayer in a sort of unbroken flow, not +interrupting the stream to breathe out or draw breath in, while Malania +Pavlovna listened and was much moved. She had another widow in +attendance on her--it was her duty to tell her stories in the night. +'But only the old ones,' Malania Pavlovna would beg--'those I know +already; the new ones are all so far-fetched.' Malania Pavlovna was +flighty in the extreme, and at times she was fanciful too; some +ridiculous notion would suddenly come into her head. She did not like +the dwarf, Janus, for instance; she was always fancying he would +suddenly get up and shout, 'Don't you know who I am? The prince of the +Buriats. Mind, you are to obey me!' Or else that he would set fire to +the house in a fit of spleen. Malania Pavlovna was as liberal as Alexey +Sergeitch; but she never gave money--she did not like to soil her +hands--but kerchiefs, bracelets, dresses, ribbons; or she would send +pies from the table, or a piece of roast meat, or a bottle of wine. She +liked feasting the peasant-women, too, on holidays; they would dance, +and she would tap with her heels and throw herself into attitudes. + +Alexey Sergeitch was well aware that his wife was a fool; but almost +from the first year of his marriage he had schooled himself to keep up +the fiction that she was very witty and fond of saying cutting things. +Sometimes when her chatter began to get beyond all bounds, he would +threaten her with his finger, and say as he did so: 'Ah, the tongue, the +tongue! what it will have to answer for in the other world! It will be +pierced with a redhot pin!' + +Malania Pavlovna was not offended, however, at this; on the contrary, +she seemed to feel flattered at hearing a reproof of that sort, as +though she would say, 'Well! is it my fault if I'm naturally witty?' + +Malania Pavlovna adored her husband, and had been all her life an +exemplarily faithful wife; but there had been a romance even in her +life--a young cousin, an hussar, killed, as she supposed, in a duel on +her account; but, according to more trustworthy reports, killed by a +blow on the head from a billiard-cue in a tavern brawl. A water-colour +portrait of this object of her affections was kept by her in a secret +drawer. Malania Pavlovna always blushed up to her ears when she +mentioned Kapiton--such was the name of the young hero--and Alexey +Sergeitch would designedly scowl, shake his finger at his wife again, +and say: 'No trusting a horse in the field nor a woman in the house. +Don't talk to me of Kapiton, he's Cupidon!' Then Malania Pavlovna would +be all of a flutter and say: 'Alexis, Alexis, it's too bad of you! In +your young days you flirted, I've no doubt, with all sorts of misses and +madams--and so now you imagine....' 'Come, that's enough, that's enough, +my dear Malania,' Alexey Sergeitch interrupted with a smile. 'Your gown +is white--but whiter still your soul!' 'Yes, Alexis, it is whiter!' 'Ah, +what a tongue, what a tongue!' Alexis would repeat, patting her hand. + +To speak of 'views' in the case of Malania Pavlovna would be even more +inappropriate than in the case of Alexey Sergeitch; yet I once chanced +to witness a strange manifestation of my aunt's secret feelings. In the +course of conversation I once somehow mentioned the famous chief of +police, Sheshkovsky; Malania Pavlovna turned suddenly livid--positively +livid, green, in spite of her rouge and paint--and in a thick and +perfectly unaffected voice (a very rare thing with her--she usually +minced a little, intoned, and lisped) she said: 'Oh, what a name to +utter! And towards nightfall, too! Don't utter that name!' I was +astonished; what kind of significance could his name have for such a +harmless and inoffensive creature, incapable--not merely of doing--even +of thinking of anything not permissible? Anything but cheerful +reflections were aroused in me by this terror, manifesting itself after +almost half a century. + +Alexey Sergeitch died in his eighty-eighth year--in the year 1848, which +apparently disturbed even him. His death, too, was rather strange. He +had felt well the same morning, though by that time he never left his +easy-chair. And all of a sudden he called his wife: 'Malania, my dear, +come here.' 'What is it, Alexis?' 'It's time for me to die, my dear, +that's what it is.' 'Mercy on you, Alexey Sergeitch! What for?' +'Because, first of all, one must know when to take leave; and, besides, +I was looking the other day at my feet.... Look at my feet ... they +are not mine ... say what you like ... look at my hands, look at my +stomach ... that stomach's not mine--so really I'm using up another man's +life. Send for the priest; and meanwhile, put me to bed--from which I +shall not get up again.' Malania Pavlovna was terribly upset; however, she +put the old man to bed and sent for the priest. Alexey Sergeitch confessed, +took the sacrament, said good-bye to his household, and fell asleep. +Malania Pavlovna was sitting by his bedside. 'Alexis!' she cried +suddenly, 'don't frighten me, don't shut your eyes! Are you in pain?' +The old man looked at his wife: 'No, no pain ... but it's difficult ... +difficult to breathe.' Then after a brief silence: 'Malania,' he said, +'so life has slipped by--and do you remember when we were married ... +what a couple we were?' 'Yes, we were, my handsome, charming Alexis!' +The old man was silent again. 'Malania, my dear, shall we meet again in +the next world?' 'I will pray God for it, Alexis,' and the old woman +burst into tears. 'Come, don't cry, silly; maybe the Lord God will make +us young again then--and again we shall be a fine pair!' 'He will make +us young, Alexis!' 'With the Lord all things are possible,' observed +Alexey Sergeitch. 'He worketh great marvels!--maybe He will make you +sensible.... There, my love, I was joking; come, let me kiss your hand.' +'And I yours.' And the two old people kissed each other's hands +simultaneously. + +Alexey Sergeitch began to grow quieter and to sink into forgetfulness. +Malania Pavlovna watched him tenderly, brushing the tears off her +eyelashes with her finger-tips. For two hours she continued sitting +there. 'Is he asleep?' the old woman with the talent for praying +inquired in a whisper, peeping in behind Irinarh, who, immovable as a +post, stood in the doorway, gazing intently at his expiring master. 'He +is asleep,' answered Malania Pavlovna also in a whisper. And suddenly +Alexey Sergeitch opened his eyes. 'My faithful companion,' he faltered, +'my honoured wife, I would bow down at your little feet for all your +love and faithfulness--but how to get up? Let me sign you with the +cross.' Malania Pavlovna moved closer, bent down.... But the hand he had +raised fell back powerless on the quilt, and a few moments later Alexey +Sergeitch was no more. + +His daughters arrived only on the day of the funeral with their +husbands; they had no children either of them. Alexey Sergeitch showed +them no animosity in his will, though he never even mentioned them on +his death-bed. 'My heart has grown hard to them,' he once said to me. +Knowing his kindly nature, I was surprised at his words. It is hard to +judge between parents and children. 'A great ravine starts from a little +rift,' Alexey Sergeitch said to me once in this connection: 'a wound a +yard wide may heal; but once cut off even a finger nail, it will not +grow again.' + +I fancy the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old parents. + +A month later and Malania Pavlovna too passed away. From the very day of +Alexey Sergeitch's death she had hardly risen from her bed, and had not +put on her usual attire; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and +with Orlov's medallion on her shoulder, only without the diamonds. Those +her daughters divided, on the pretext that the diamonds should be used +in the setting of some holy pictures; in reality, they used them to +adorn their own persons. + +And so I can see my old friends as though they were alive and before my +eyes, and pleasant is the memory I preserve of them. And yet on my very +last visit to them (I was a student by then) an incident occurred which +jarred upon the impression of patriarchal harmony always produced in me +by the Teliegin household. + +Among the house-serfs there was one Ivan, called 'Suhys' Ivan,' a +coachman or coach-boy, as they called him on account of his small size, +in spite of his being no longer young. He was a tiny little man, brisk, +snub-nosed, curly-headed, with an everlastingly smiling, childish face, +and little eyes, like a mouse's. He was a great joker, a most comic +fellow; he was great at all sorts of tricks--he used to fly kites, let +off fireworks and rockets, to play all sorts of games, gallop standing +up on the horse's back, fly higher than all the rest in the swing, and +could even make Chinese shadows. No one could amuse children better; and +he would gladly spend the whole day looking after them. When he started +laughing, the whole house would seem to liven up; they would answer +him--one would say one thing, one another, but he always made them all +merry.... And even if they abused him, they could not but laugh. Ivan +danced marvellously, especially the so-called 'fish dance.' When the +chorus struck up a dance tune, the fellow would come into the middle of +the ring, and then there would begin such a turning and skipping and +stamping, and then he would fall flat on the ground, and imitate the +movement of a fish brought out of the water on to dry land; such turning +and wriggling, the heels positively clapped up to the head; and then he +would get up and shriek--the earth seemed simply quivering under him. At +times Alexey Sergeitch, who was, as I have said already, exceedingly +fond of watching dancing, could not resist shouting, 'Little Vania, +here! coach-boy! Dance us the fish, smartly now'; and a minute later he +would whisper enthusiastically: 'Ah, what a fellow it is!' + +Well, on my last visit, this Ivan Suhih came into my room, and, without +saying a word, fell on his knees. 'Ivan, what's the matter?' 'Save me, +sir.' 'Why, what is it?' And thereupon Ivan told me his trouble. + +He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by 'the Suhy family for a serf of +the Teliegins';--simply exchanged without any kind of formality or +written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys +had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch's +house as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his +origin. But now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into +other hands; and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and +oppressive man, having learned that one of his serfs was detained +without cause or reason at Alexey Sergeitch's, began to demand him back; +in case of refusal he threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was +not an empty one, as he was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and +had great weight in the province. Ivan had rushed in terror to Alexey +Sergeitch. The old man was sorry for his dancer, and he offered the +privy councillor to buy Ivan for a considerable sum. But the privy +councillor would not hear of it; he was a Little Russian, and obstinate +as the devil. The poor fellow would have to be given up. 'I have spent +my life here, and I'm at home here; I have served here, here I have +eaten my bread, and here I want to die,' Ivan said to me--and there was +no smile on his face now; on the contrary, it looked turned to stone.... +'And now I am to go to this wretch.... Am I a dog to be flung from one +kennel to another with a noose round my neck? ... to be told: "There, +get along with you!" Save me, master; beg your uncle, remember how I +always amused you.... Or else there'll be harm come of it; it won't end +without sin.' + +'What sort of sin, Ivan?' + +'I shall kill that gentleman. I shall simply go and say to him, +"Master, let me go back; or else, mind, be careful of yourself.... I +shall kill you."' + +If a siskin or a chaffinch could have spoken, and had begun declaring +that it would peck another bird to death, it would not have reduced me +to greater amazement than did Ivan at that moment. What! Suhys' Vania, +that dancing, jesting, comic fellow, the favourite playfellow of +children, and a child himself, that kindest-hearted of creatures, a +murderer! What ridiculous nonsense! Not for an instant did I believe +him; what astonished me to such a degree was that he was capable of +saying such a thing. Anyway I appealed to Alexey Sergeitch. I did not +repeat what Ivan had said to me, but began asking him whether something +couldn't be done. 'My young sir,' the old man answered, 'I should be +only too happy--but what's to be done? I offered this Little Russian an +immense compensation--I offered him three hundred roubles, 'pon my +honour, I tell you! but he--there's no moving him! what's one to do? The +transaction was not legal, it was done on trust, in the old-fashioned +way ... and now see what mischief's come of it! This Little Russian +fellow, you see, will take Ivan by force, do what we will: his arm is +powerful, the governor eats cabbage-soup at his table; he'll be sending +along soldiers. And I'm afraid of those soldiers! In old days, to be +sure, I would have stood up for Ivan, come what might; but now, look at +me, what a feeble creature I have grown! How can I make a fight for it?' +It was true; on my last visit I found Alexey Sergeitch greatly aged; +even the centres of his eyes had that milky colour that babies' eyes +have, and his lips wore not his old conscious smile, but that unnatural, +mawkish, unconscious grin, which never, even in sleep, leaves the faces +of very decrepit old people. + +I told Ivan of Alexey Sergeitch's decision. He stood still, was silent +for a little, shook his head. 'Well,' said he at last, 'what is to be +there's no escaping. Only my mind's made up. There's nothing left, then, +but to play the fool to the end. Something for drink, please!' I gave +him something; he drank himself drunk, and that day danced the 'fish +dance' so that the serf-girls and peasant-women positively shrieked with +delight--he surpassed himself in his antics so wonderfully. + +Next day I went home, and three months later, in Petersburg, I heard +that Ivan had kept his word. He had been sent to his new master; his +master had called him into his room, and explained to him that he would +be made coachman, that a team of three ponies would be put in his +charge, and that he would be severely dealt with if he did not look +after them well, and were not punctual in discharging his duties +generally. 'I'm not fond of joking.' Ivan heard the master out, first +bowed down to his feet, and then announced it was as his honour pleased, +but he could not be his servant. + +'Let me off for a yearly quit-money, your honour,' said he, 'or send me +for a soldier; or else there'll be mischief come of it!' + +The master flew into a rage. 'Ah, what a fellow you are! How dare you +speak to me like that? In the first place, I'm to be called your +excellency, and not your honour; and, secondly, you're beyond the age, +and not of a size to be sent for a soldier; and, lastly, what mischief +do you threaten me with? Do you mean to set the house on fire, eh?' + +'No, your excellency, not the house on fire.' + +'Murder me, then, eh?' + +Ivan was silent. 'I'm not your servant,' he said at last. + +'Oh well, I'll show you,' roared the master, 'whether you 're my servant +or not.' And he had Ivan cruelly punished, but yet had the three ponies +put into his charge, and made him coachman in the stables. + +Ivan apparently submitted; he began driving about as coachman. As he +drove well, he soon gained favour with the master, especially as Ivan +was very quiet and steady in his behaviour, and the ponies improved so +much in his hands; he turned them out as sound and sleek as +cucumbers--it was quite a sight to see. The master took to driving out +with him oftener than with the other coachmen. Sometimes he would ask +him, 'I say, Ivan, do you remember how badly we got on when we met? +You've got over all that nonsense, eh?' But Ivan never made any response +to such remarks. So one day the master was driving with Ivan to the town +in his three-horse sledge with bells and a highback covered with carpet. +The horses began to walk up the hill, and Ivan got off the box-seat and +went behind the back of the sledge as though he had dropped something. +It was a sharp frost; the master sat wrapped up, with a beaver cap +pulled down on to his ears. Then Ivan took an axe from under his skirt, +came up to the master from behind, knocked off his cap, and saying, 'I +warned you, Piotr Petrovitch--you've yourself to blame now!' he struck +off his head at one blow. Then he stopped the ponies, put the cap on his +dead master, and, getting on the box-seat again, drove him to the town, +straight to the courts of justice. + +'Here's the Suhinsky general for you, dead; I have killed him. As I told +him, so I did to him. Put me in fetters.' + +They took Ivan, tried him, sentenced him to the knout, and then to hard +labour. The light-hearted, bird-like dancer was sent to the mines, and +there passed out of sight for ever.... + +Yes; one can but repeat, in another sense, Alexey Sergeitch's words: +'They were good old times ... but enough of them!' + +1881. + + + + +THE BRIGADIER + + + + +I + + +Reader, do you know those little homesteads of country gentlefolks, +which were plentiful in our Great Russian Oukraine twenty-five or thirty +years ago? Now one rarely comes across them, and in another ten years +the last of them will, I suppose, have disappeared for ever. The running +pond overgrown with reeds and rushes, the favourite haunt of fussy +ducks, among whom one may now and then come across a wary 'teal'; beyond +the pond a garden with avenues of lime-trees, the chief beauty and glory +of our black-earth plains, with smothered rows of 'Spanish' +strawberries, with dense thickets of gooseberries, currants, and +raspberries, in the midst of which, in the languid hour of the stagnant +noonday heat, one would be sure to catch glimpses of a serf-girl's +striped kerchief, and to hear the shrill ring of her voice. Close by +would be a summer-house standing on four legs, a conservatory, a +neglected kitchen garden, with flocks of sparrows hung on stakes, and a +cat curled up on the tumble-down well; a little further, leafy +apple-trees in the high grass, which is green below and grey above, +straggling cherry-trees, pear-trees, on which there is never any fruit; +then flower-beds, poppies, peonies, pansies, milkwort, 'maids in green,' +bushes of Tartar honeysuckle, wild jasmine, lilac and acacia, with the +continual hum of bees and wasps among their thick, fragrant, sticky +branches. At last comes the manor-house, a one-storied building on a +brick foundation, with greenish window-panes in narrow frames, a +sloping, once painted roof, a little balcony from which the vases of the +balustrade are always jutting out, a crooked gable, and a husky old dog +in the recess under the steps at the door. Behind the house a wide yard +with nettles, wormwood, and burdocks in the corners, outbuildings with +doors that stick, doves and rooks on the thatched roofs, a little +storehouse with a rusty weathercock, two or three birch-trees with +rooks' nests in their bare top branches, and beyond--the road with +cushions of soft dust in the ruts and a field and the long hurdles of +the hemp patches, and the grey little huts of the village, and the +cackle of geese in the far-away rich meadows.... Is all this familiar to +you, reader? In the house itself everything is a little awry, a little +rickety--but no matter. It stands firm and keeps warm; the stoves are +like elephants, the furniture is of all sorts, home-made. Little paths +of white footmarks run from the doors over the painted floors. In the +hall siskins and larks in tiny cages; in the corner of the dining-room +an immense English clock in the form of a tower, with the inscription, +'Strike--silent'; in the drawing-room portraits of the family, painted +in oils, with an expression of ill-tempered alarm on the brick-coloured +faces, and sometimes too an old warped picture of flowers and fruit or a +mythological subject. Everywhere there is the smell of kvas, of apples, +of linseed-oil and of leather. Flies buzz and hum about the ceiling and +the windows. A daring cockroach suddenly shows his countenance from +behind the looking-glass frame.... No matter, one can live here--and +live very well too. + + + + +II + + +Just such a homestead it was my lot to visit thirty years ago ... it was +in days long past, as you perceive. The little estate in which this +house stood belonged to a friend of mine at the university; it had only +recently come to him on the death of a bachelor cousin, and he was not +living in it himself.... But at no great distance from it there were +wide tracts of steppe bog, in which at the time of summer migration, +when they are on the wing, there are great numbers of snipe; my friend +and I, both enthusiastic sportsmen, agreed therefore to go on St. +Peter's day, he from Moscow, I from my own village, to his little house. +My friend lingered in Moscow, and was two days late; I did not care to +start shooting without him. I was received by an old servant, Narkiz +Semyonov, who had had notice of my coming. This old servant was not in +the least like 'Savelitch' or 'Caleb'; my friend used to call him in +joke 'Marquis.' There was something of conceit, even of affectation, +about him; he looked down on us young men with a certain dignity, but +cherished no particularly respectful sentiments for other landowners +either; of his old master he spoke slightingly, while his own class he +simply scorned for their ignorance. He could read and write, expressed +himself correctly and with judgment, and did not drink. He seldom went +to church, and so was looked upon as a dissenter. In appearance he was +thin and tall, had a long and good-looking face, a sharp nose, and +overhanging eyebrows, which he was continually either knitting or +lifting; he wore a neat, roomy coat, and boots to his knees with +heart-shaped scallops at the tops. + + + + +III + + +On the day of my arrival, Narkiz, having given me lunch and cleared the +table, stood in the doorway, looked intently at me, and with some play +of the eyebrows observed: + +'What are you going to do now, sir?' + +'Well, really, I don't know. If Nikolai Petrovitch had kept his word and +come, we should have gone shooting together.' + +'So you really expected, sir, that he would come at the time he +promised?' + +'Of course I did.' + +'H'm.' Narkiz looked at me again and shook his head as it were with +commiseration. 'If you 'd care to amuse yourself with reading,' he +continued: 'there are some books left of my old master's; I'll get them +you, if you like; only you won't read them, I expect.' + +'Why?' + +'They're books of no value; not written for the gentlemen of +these days.' + +'Have you read them?' + +'If I hadn't read them, I wouldn't have spoken about them. A dream-book, +for instance ... that's not much of a book, is it? There are others too, +of course ... only you won't read them either.' + +'Why?' + +'They are religious books.' + +I was silent for a space.... Narkiz was silent too. + +'What vexes me most,' I began, 'is staying in the house in such +weather.' + +'Take a walk in the garden; or go into the copse. We've a copse here +beyond the threshing-floor. Are you fond of fishing?' + +'Are there fish here?' + +'Yes, in the pond. Loaches, sand-eels, and perches are caught there. +Now, to be sure, the best time is over; July's here. But anyway, you +might try.... Shall I get the tackle ready?' + +'Yes, do please.' + +'I'll send a boy with you ... to put on the worms. Or maybe I 'd better +come myself?' Narkiz obviously doubted whether I knew how to set about +things properly by myself. + +'Come, please, come along.' + +Narkiz, without a word, grinned from ear to ear, then suddenly knitted +his brows ... and went out of the room. + + + + +IV + + +Half an hour later we set off to catch fish. Narkiz had put on an +extraordinary sort of cap with ears, and was more dignified than ever. +He walked in front with a steady, even step; two rods swayed regularly +up and down on his shoulders; a bare-legged boy followed him carrying a +can and a pot of worms. + +'Here, near the dike, there's a seat, put up on the floating platform on +purpose,' Narkiz was beginning to explain to me, but he glanced ahead, +and suddenly exclaimed: 'Aha! but our poor folk are here already ... +they keep it up, it seems.' + +I craned my head to look from behind him, and saw on the floating +platform, on the very seat of which he had been speaking, two persons +sitting with their backs to us; they were placidly fishing. + +'Who are they?' I asked. + +'Neighbours,' Narkiz responded, with displeasure. 'They've nothing to +eat at home, and so here they come to us.' + +'Are they allowed to?' + +'The old master allowed them.... Nikolai Petrovitch maybe won't give +them permission.... The long one is a superannuated deacon--quite a +silly creature; and as for the other, that's a little stouter--he's a +brigadier.' + +'A brigadier?' I repeated, wondering. This 'brigadier's' attire was +almost worse than the deacon's. + +'I assure you he's a brigadier. And he did have a fine property once. +But now he has only a corner given him out of charity, and he lives ... +on what God sends him. But, by the way, what are we to do? They've taken +the best place.... We shall have to disturb our precious visitors.' + +'No, Narkiz, please don't disturb them. We'll sit here a little aside; +they won't interfere with us. I should like to make acquaintance with +the brigadier.' + +'As you like. Only, as far as acquaintance goes ... you needn't expect +much satisfaction from it, sir; he's grown very weak in his head, and in +conversation he's silly as a little child. As well he may be; he's past +his eightieth year.' + +'What's his name?' + +'Vassily Fomitch. Guskov's his surname.' + +'And the deacon?' + +'The deacon? ... his nickname's Cucumber. Every one about here calls him +so; but what his real name is--God knows! A foolish creature! A regular +ne'er-do-well.' + +'Do they live together?' + +'No; but there--the devil has tied them together, it seems.' + + + + +V + + +We approached the platform. The brigadier cast one glance upon us ... +and promptly fixed his eyes on the float; Cucumber jumped up, pulled +back his rod, took off his worn-out clerical hat, passed a trembling +hand over his rough yellow hair, made a sweeping bow, and gave vent to a +feeble little laugh. His bloated face betrayed him an inveterate +drunkard; his staring little eyes blinked humbly. He gave his neighbour +a poke in the ribs, as though to let him know that they must clear +out.... The brigadier began to move on the seat. + +'Sit still, I beg; don't disturb yourselves,' I hastened to say. 'You +won't interfere with us in the least. We'll take up our position here; +sit still.' + +Cucumber wrapped his ragged smock round him, twitched his shoulders, his +lips, his beard.... Obviously he felt our presence oppressive and he +would have been glad to slink away, ... but the brigadier was again lost +in the contemplation of his float.... The 'ne'er-do-weel' coughed twice, +sat down on the very edge of the seat, put his hat on his knees, and, +tucking his bare legs up under him, he discreetly dropped in his line. + +'Any bites?' Narkiz inquired haughtily, as in leisurely fashion he +unwound his reel. + +'We've caught a matter of five loaches,' answered Cucumber in a cracked +and husky voice: 'and he took a good-sized perch.' + +'Yes, a perch,' repeated the brigadier in a shrill pipe. + + + + +VI + + +I fell to watching closely--not him, but his reflection in the pond. It +was as clearly reflected as in a looking-glass--a little darker, a +little more silvery. The wide stretch of pond wafted a refreshing +coolness upon us; a cool breath of air seemed to rise, too, from the +steep, damp bank; and it was the sweeter, as in the dark blue, flooded +with gold, above the tree tops, the stagnant sultry heat hung, a burden +that could be felt, over our heads. There was no stir in the water near +the dike; in the shade cast by the drooping bushes on the bank, water +spiders gleamed, like tiny bright buttons, as they described their +everlasting circles; at long intervals there was a faint ripple just +perceptible round the floats, when a fish was 'playing' with the worm. +Very few fish were taken; during a whole hour we drew up only two +loaches and an eel. I could not say why the brigadier aroused my +curiosity; his rank could not have any influence on me; ruined noblemen +were not even at that time looked upon as a rarity, and his appearance +presented nothing remarkable. Under the warm cap, which covered the +whole upper part of his head down to his ears and his eyebrows, could be +seen a smooth, red, clean-shaven, round face, with a little nose, little +lips, and small, clear grey eyes. Simplicity and weakness of character, +and a sort of long-standing, helpless sorrow, were visible in that meek, +almost childish face; the plump, white little hands with short fingers +had something helpless, incapable about them too.... I could not +conceive how this forlorn old man could once have been an officer, could +have maintained discipline, have given his commands--and that, too, in +the stern days of Catherine! I watched him; now and then he puffed out +his cheeks and uttered a feeble whistle, like a little child; sometimes +he screwed up his eyes painfully, with effort, as all decrepit people +will. Once he opened his eyes wide and lifted them.... They stared at me +from out of the depths of the water--and strangely touching and even +full of meaning their dejected glance seemed to me. + + + + +VII + + +I tried to begin a conversation with the brigadier ... but Narkiz had +not misinformed me; the poor old man certainly had become weak in his +intellect. He asked me my surname, and after repeating his inquiry +twice, pondered and pondered, and at last brought out: 'Yes, I fancy +there was a judge of that name here. Cucumber, wasn't there a judge +about here of that name, hey?' 'To be sure there was, Vassily Fomitch, +your honour,' responded Cucumber, who treated him altogether as a child. +'There was, certainly. But let me have your hook; your worm must have +been eaten off.... Yes, so it is.' + +'Did you know the Lomov family?' the brigadier suddenly asked me in a +cracked voice. + +'What Lomov family is that?' + +'Why, Fiodor Ivanitch, Yevstigney Ivanitch, Alexey Ivanitch the Jew, and +Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer, ... and then, too ...' + +The brigadier suddenly broke off and looked down confused. + +They were the people he was most intimate with,' Narkiz whispered, +bending towards me; 'it was through them, through that same Alexey +Ivanitch, that he called a Jew, and through a sister of Alexey +Ivanitch's, Agrafena Ivanovna, as you may say, that he lost all his +property.' + +'What are you saying there about Agrafena Ivanovna?' the brigadier +called out suddenly, and his head was raised, his white eyebrows were +frowning.... 'You'd better mind! And why Agrafena, pray? Agrippina +Ivanovna--that's what you should call her.' + +'There--there--there, sir,' Cucumber was beginning to falter. + +'Don't you know the verses the poet Milonov wrote about her?' the old +man went on, suddenly getting into a state of excitement, which was a +complete surprise to me. 'No hymeneal lights were kindled,' he began +chanting, pronouncing all the vowels through his nose, giving the +syllables 'an,' 'en,' the nasal sound they have in French; and it was +strange to hear this connected speech from his lips: 'No torches ... No, +that's not it: + + "Not vain Corruption's idols frail + Not amaranth nor porphyry + Rejoiced their hearts ... + One thing in them ..." + +'That was about us. Do you hear? + + "One thing in them unquenchable, + Subduing, sweet, desirable, + To nurse their mutual flame in love!" + +And you talk about Agrafena!' + +Narkiz chuckled half-contemptuously, half-indifferently. 'What a queer +fish it is!' he said to himself. But the brigadier had again relapsed +into dejection, the rod had dropped from his hands and slipped into +the water. + + + + +VIII + + +'Well, to my thinking, our fishing is a poor business,' observed +Cucumber; 'the fish, see, don't bite at all. It's got fearfully hot, and +there's a fit of "mencholy" come over our gentleman. It's clear we must +be going home; that will be best.' He cautiously drew out of his pocket +a tin bottle with a wooden stopper, uncorked it, scattered snuff on his +wrist, and sniffed it up in both nostrils at once.... 'Ah, what good +snuff!' he moaned, as he recovered himself. 'It almost made my tooth +ache! Now, my dear Vassily Fomitch, get up--it's time to be off!' + +The brigadier got up from the bench. + +'Do you live far from here?' I asked Cucumber. + +'No, our gentleman lives not far ... it won't be as much as a mile.' + +'Will you allow me to accompany you?' I said, addressing the brigadier. +I felt disinclined to let him go. + +Narkiz was surprised at my intention; but I paid no attention to the +disapproving shake of his long-eared cap, and walked out of the garden +with the brigadier, who was supported by Cucumber. The old man moved +fairly quickly, with a motion as though he were on stilts. + + + + +IX + + +We walked along a scarcely trodden path, through a grassy glade between +two birch copses. The sun was blazing; the orioles called to each other +in the green thicket; corncrakes chattered close to the path; blue +butterflies fluttered in crowds about the white, and red flowers of the +low-growing clover; in the perfectly still grass bees hung, as though +asleep, languidly buzzing. Cucumber seemed to pull himself together, and +brightened up; he was afraid of Narkiz--he lived always under his eye; I +was a stranger--a new comer--with me he was soon quite at home. + +'Here's our gentleman,' he said in a rapid flow; 'he's a small eater +and no mistake! but only one perch, is that enough for him? Unless, +your honour, you would like to contribute something? Close here round +the corner, at the little inn, there are first-rate white wheaten +rolls. And if so, please your honour, this poor sinner, too, will +gladly drink on this occasion to your health, and may it be of long +years and long days.' I gave him a little silver, and was only just in +time to pull away my hand, which he was falling upon to kiss. He +learned that I was a sportsman, and fell to talking of a very good +friend of his, an officer, who had a 'Mindindenger' Swedish gun, with a +copper stock, just like a cannon, so that when you fire it off you are +almost knocked senseless--it had been left behind by the French--and a +dog--simply one of Nature's marvels! that he himself had always had a +great passion for the chase, and his priest would have made no trouble +about it--he used in fact to catch quails with him--but the +ecclesiastical superior had pursued him with endless persecution; 'and +as for Narkiz Semyonitch,' he observed in a sing-song tone, 'if +according to his notions I'm not a trustworthy person--well, what I say +is: he's let his eyebrows grow till he's like a woodcock, and he +fancies all the sciences are known to him.' By this time we had reached +the inn, a solitary tumble-down, one-roomed little hut without backyard +or outbuildings; an emaciated dog lay curled up under the window; a hen +was scratching in the dust under his very nose. Cucumber sat the +brigadier down on the bank, and darted instantly into the hut. While he +was buying the rolls and emptying a glass, I never took my eyes off the +brigadier, who, God knows why, struck me as something of an enigma. In +the life of this man--so I mused--there must certainly have been +something out of the ordinary. But he, it seemed, did not notice me at +all. He was sitting huddled up on the bank, and twisting in his fingers +some pinks which he had gathered in my friend's garden. Cucumber made +his appearance, at last, with a bundle of rolls in his hand; he made +his appearance, all red and perspiring, with an expression of gleeful +surprise on his face, as though he had just seen something exceedingly +agreeable and unexpected. He at once offered the brigadier a roll to +eat, and the latter at once ate it. We proceeded on our way. + + + + +X + + +On the strength of the spirits he had drunk, Cucumber quite 'unbent,' as +it is called. He began trying to cheer up the brigadier, who was still +hurrying forward with a tottering motion as though he were on stilts. +'Why are you so downcast, sir, and hanging your head? Let me sing you a +song. That'll cheer you up in a minute.' He turned to me: 'Our gentleman +is very fond of a joke, mercy on us, yes! Yesterday, what did I see?--a +peasant-woman washing a pair of breeches on the platform, and a great +fat woman she was, and he stood behind her, simply all of a shake with +laughter--yes, indeed! ... In a minute, allow me: do you know the song of +the hare? You mustn't judge me by my looks; there's a gypsy woman living +here in the town, a perfect fright, but sings--'pon my soul! one's ready +to lie down and die.' He opened wide his moist red lips and began +singing, his head on one side, his eyes shut, and his beard quivering: + + 'The hare beneath the bush lies still, + The hunters vainly scour the hill; + The hare lies hid and holds his breath, + His ears pricked up, he lies there still + Waiting for death. + O hunters! what harm have I done, + To vex or injure you? Although + Among the cabbages I run, + One leaf I nibble--only one, + And that's not yours! + Oh, no!' + +Cucumber went on with ever-increasing energy: + + 'Into the forest dark he fled, + His tail he let the hunters see; + "Excuse me, gentlemen," says he, + "That so I turn my back on you-- + I am not yours!"' + +Cucumber was not singing now ... he was bellowing: + + 'The hunters hunted day and night, + And still the hare was out of sight. + So, talking over his misdeeds, + They ended by disputing quite-- + Alas, the hare is not for us! + The squint-eye is too sharp for us!' + +The first two lines of each stanza Cucumber sang with each syllable +drawn out; the other three, on the contrary, very briskly, and +accompanied them with little hops and shuffles of his feet; at the +conclusion of each verse he cut a caper, in which he kicked himself with +his own heels. As he shouted at the top of his voice: 'The squint-eye is +too sharp for us!' he turned a somersault.... His expectations were +fulfilled. The brigadier suddenly went off into a thin, tearful little +chuckle, and laughed so heartily that he could not go on, and stayed +still in a half-sitting posture, helplessly slapping his knees with his +hands. I looked at his face, flushed crimson, and convulsively working, +and felt very sorry for him at that instant especially. Encouraged by +his success, Cucumber fell to capering about in a squatting position, +singing the refrain of: 'Shildi-budildi!' and 'Natchiki-tchikaldi!' He +stumbled at last with his nose in the dust.... The brigadier suddenly +ceased laughing and hobbled on. + + + + +XI + + +We went on another quarter of a mile. A little village came into sight +on the edge of a not very deep ravine; on one side stood the 'lodge,' +with a half-ruined roof and a solitary chimney; in one of the two rooms +of this lodge lived the brigadier. The owner of the village, who always +resided in Petersburg, the widow of the civil councillor Lomov, had--so +I learned later--bestowed this little nook upon the brigadier. She had +given orders that he should receive a monthly pension, and had also +assigned for his service a half-witted serf-girl living in the same +village, who, though she barely understood human speech, was yet +capable, in the lady's opinion, of sweeping a floor and cooking +cabbage-soup. At the door of the lodge the brigadier again addressed me +with the same eighteenth-century smile: would I be pleased to walk into +his 'apartement'? We went into this 'apartement.' Everything in it was +exceedingly filthy and poor, so filthy and so poor that the brigadier, +noticing, probably, by the expression of my face, the impression it made +on me, observed, shrugging his shoulders, and half closing his eyelids: +'Ce n'est pas ... oeil de perdrix.' ... What precisely he meant by this +remained a mystery to me.... When I addressed him in French, I got no +reply from him in that language. Two objects struck me especially in the +brigadier's abode: a large officer's cross of St. George in a black +frame, under glass, with an inscription in an old-fashioned handwriting: +'Received by the Colonel of the Tchernigov regiment, Vassily Guskov, for +the storming of Prague in the year 1794'; and secondly, a half-length +portrait in oils of a handsome, black-eyed woman with a long, dark face, +hair turned up high and powdered, with postiches on the temple and chin, +in a flowered, low-cut bodice, with blue frills, the style of 1780. The +portrait was badly painted, but was probably a good likeness; there was +a wonderful look of life and will, something extraordinarily living and +resolute, about the face. It was not looking at the spectator; it was, +as it were, turning away and not smiling; the curve of the thin nose, +the regular but flat lips, the almost unbroken straight line of the +thick eyebrows, all showed an imperious, haughty, fiery temper. No great +effort was needed to picture that face glowing with passion or with +rage. Just below the portrait on a little pedestal stood a half-withered +bunch of simple wild flowers in a thick glass jar. The brigadier went up +to the pedestal, stuck the pinks he was carrying into the jar, and +turning to me, and lifting his hand in the direction of the portrait, he +observed: 'Agrippina Ivanovna Teliegin, by birth Lomov.' The words of +Narkiz came back to my mind; and I looked with redoubled interest at the +expressive and evil face of the woman for whose sake the brigadier had +lost all his fortune. + +'You took part, I see, sir, in the storming of Prague,' I began, +pointing to the St. George cross, 'and won a sign of distinction, rare +at any time, but particularly so then; you must remember Suvorov?' + +'Alexander Vassilitch?' the brigadier answered, after a brief silence, +in which he seemed to be pulling his thoughts together; 'to be sure, I +remember him; he was a little, brisk old man. Before one could stir a +finger, he'd be here and there and everywhere (the brigadier chuckled). +He rode into Warsaw on a Cossack horse; he was all in diamonds, and he +says to the Poles: "I've no watch, I forgot it in Petersburg--no watch!" +and they shouted and huzzaed for him. Queer chaps! Hey! Cucumber! lad!' +he added suddenly, changing and raising his voice (the deacon-buffoon +had remained standing at the door), 'where's the rolls, eh? And tell +Grunka ... to bring some kvas!' + +'Directly, your honour,' I heard Cucumber's voice reply. He handed the +brigadier the bundle of rolls, and, going out of the lodge, approached a +dishevelled creature in rags--the half-witted girl, Grunka, I +suppose--and as far as I could make out through the dusty little window, +proceeded to demand kvas from her--at least, he several times raised one +hand like a funnel to his mouth, and waved the other in our direction. + + + + +XII + + +I made another attempt to get into conversation with the brigadier; +but he was evidently tired: he sank, sighing and groaning, on the +little couch, and moaning, 'Oy, oy, my poor bones, my poor bones,' +untied his garters. I remember I wondered at the time how a man came +to be wearing garters. I did not realise that in former days every one +wore them. The brigadier began yawning with prolonged, unconcealed +yawns, not taking his drowsy eyes off me all the time; so very little +children yawn. The poor old man did not even seem quite to understand +my question.... And he had taken Prague! He, sword in hand, in the +smoke and the dust--at the head of Suvorov's soldiers, the +bullet-pierced flag waving above him, the hideous corpses under his +feet.... He ... he! Wasn't it wonderful! But yet I could not help +fancying that there had been events more extraordinary in the +brigadier's life. Cucumber brought white kvas in an iron jug; the +brigadier drank greedily--his hands shook. Cucumber supported the +bottom of the jug. The old man carefully wiped his toothless mouth +with both hands--and again staring at me, fell to chewing and munching +his lips. I saw how it was, bowed, and went out of the room. + +'Now he'll have a nap,' observed Cucumber, coming out behind me. 'He's +terribly knocked up to-day--he went to the grave early this morning.' + +'To whose grave?' + +'To Agrafena Ivanovna's, to pay his devotions.... She is buried in our +parish cemetery here; it'll be four miles from here. Vassily Fomitch +visits it every week without fail. Indeed, it was he who buried her and +put the fence up at his own expense.' + +'Has she been dead long?' + +'Well, let's think--twenty years about.' + +'Was she a friend of his, or what?' + +'Her whole life, you may say, she passed with him ... really. I +myself, I must own, never knew the lady, but they do say ... what +there was between them ... well, well, well! Sir,' the deacon added +hurriedly, seeing I had turned away, 'wouldn't you like to give me +something for another drop, for it's time I was home in my hut and +rolled up in my blanket?' + +I thought it useless to question Cucumber further, so gave him a few +coppers, and set off homewards. + + + + +XIII + + +At home I betook myself for further information to Narkiz. He, as I +might have anticipated, was somewhat unapproachable, stood a little on +his dignity, expressed his surprise that such paltry matters could +'interest' me, and, finally, told me what he knew. I heard the +following details. + +Vassily Fomitch Guskov had become acquainted with Agrafena Ivanovna +Teliegin at Moscow soon after the suppression of the Polish +insurrection; her husband had had a post under the governor-general, and +Vassily Fomitch was on furlough. He fell in love with her there and +then, but did not leave the army at once; he was a man of forty with no +family, with a fortune. Her husband soon after died. She was left +without children, poor, and in debt.... Vassily Fomitch heard of her +position, threw up the service (he received the rank of brigadier on his +retirement) and sought out his charming widow, who was not more than +five-and-twenty, paid all her debts, redeemed her estate.... From that +time he had never parted from her, and finished by living altogether in +her house. She, too, seems to have cared for him, but would not marry +him. 'She was froward, the deceased lady,' was Narkiz's comment on this: +'My liberty,' she would say, 'is dearer to me than anything.' But as for +making use of him--she made use of him 'in every possible way,' and +whatever money he had, he dragged to her like an ant. But the +frowardness of Agrafena Ivanovna at times assumed extreme proportions; +she was not of a mild temper, and somewhat too ready with her hands.... +Once she pushed her page-boy down the stairs, and he went and broke two +of his ribs and one leg.... Agrafena Ivanovna was frightened ... she +promptly ordered the page to be shut up in the lumber-room, and she did +not leave the house nor give up the key of the room to any one, till the +moans within had ceased.... The page was secretly buried.... 'And had it +been in the Empress Catherine's time,' Narkiz added in a whisper, +bending down, 'maybe the affair would have ended there--many such deeds +were hidden under a bushel in those days, but as ...' here Narkiz drew +himself up and raised his voice:' as our righteous Tsar Alexander the +Blessed was reigning then ... well, a fuss was made.... A trial +followed, the body was dug up ... signs of violence were found on it ... +and a great to-do there was. And what do you think? Vassily Fomitch took +it all on himself. "I," said he, "am responsible for it all; it was I +pushed him down, and I too shut him up." Well, of course, all the judges +then, and the lawyers and the police ... fell on him directly ... fell +on him and never let him go ... I can assure you ... till the last +farthing was out of his purse. They'd leave him in peace for a while, +and then attack him again. Down to the very time when the French came +into Russia they were worrying at him, and only dropped him then. Well, +he managed to provide for Agrafena Ivanovna--to be sure, he saved +her--that one must say. Well, and afterwards, up to her death, indeed, +he lived with her, and they do say she led him a pretty dance--the +brigadier, that is; sent him on foot from Moscow into the country--by +God, she did--to get her rents in, I suppose. It was on her account, on +account of this same Agrafena Ivanovna--he fought a duel with the +English milord Hugh Hughes; and the English milord was forced to make a +formal apology too. But later on the brigadier went down hill more and +more.... Well, and now he can't be reckoned a man at all.' + +'Who was that Alexey Ivanitch the Jew,' I asked, 'through whom he was +brought to ruin?' + +'Oh, the brother of Agrafena Ivanovna. A grasping creature, Jewish +indeed. He lent his sister money at interest, and Vassily Fomitch was +her security. He had to pay for it too ... pretty heavily!' + +'And Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer--who was she?' + +'Her sister too ... and a sharp one too, as sharp as a lance. A +terrible woman!' + + + + +XIV + + +'What a place to find a Werter!' I thought next day, as I set off again +towards the brigadier's dwelling. I was at that time very young, and +that was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting +nature of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story +I had heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make +him talk freely. 'I'll first refer to Suvorov again,' so I resolved +within myself; 'there must be some spark of his former fire hidden +within him still ... and then, when he's warmed up, I'll turn the +conversation on that ... what's her name? ... Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer +name for a "Charlotte"--Agrafena!' + +I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few +steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut, +overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut +some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly +slipping and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort +of green stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just +pulled a young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm +'to clean it,' proceeded to chew its thin tail.... I bowed to him, and +inquired after his health. + +He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting--that +is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off +munching the carrot. + +'You didn't go fishing to-day?' I began, in the hope of recalling myself +to his memory by this question. + +'To-day?' he repeated and pondered ... while the carrot, stuck into his +mouth, grew shorter and shorter. 'Why, I suppose it's Cucumber +fishing! ... But I'm allowed to, too.' + +'Of course, of course, most honoured Vassily Fomitch.... I didn't mean +that.... But aren't you hot ... like this in the sun.' + +The brigadier was wearing a thick wadded dressing-gown. + +'Eh? Hot?' he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and, +having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards. + +'Would you care to step into my apartement?' he said suddenly. The +poor old man had, it seemed, only this phrase still left him always at +his disposal. + +We went out of the kitchen-garden ... but there involuntarily I stopped +short. Between us and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to +the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily +and furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the +dust up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his +tail, and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly, +and bellowed--not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time +menacingly. I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped +forward with perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, 'Now then, +country bumpkin,' shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again, +bowed his horns ... suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging +his head from side to side. + +'There's no doubt he took Prague,' I thought. + +We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which +was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, 'Fa!' ... squatted down on the +edge of a chair ... bowed his head gloomily.... + +'I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,' I began my diplomatic approaches, +'because, as you have served under the leadership of the great +Suvorov--have taken part altogether in such important events--it would +be very interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.' + +The brigadier stared at me.... His face kindled strangely--I began to +expect, if not a story, at least some word of approval, of sympathy.... + +'But I, sir, must be going to die soon,' he said in an undertone. + +I was utterly nonplussed. + +'Why, Vassily Fomitch, 'I brought out at last, 'what makes you ... +suppose that?' + +The brigadier suddenly flung his arms violently up and down. + +'Because, sir ... I, as maybe you know ... often in my dreams see +Agrippina Ivanovna--Heaven's peace be with her!--and never can I catch +her; I am always running after her--but cannot catch her. But last +night--I dreamed--she was standing, as it were, before me, half-turned +away, and laughing.... I ran up to her at once and caught her ... and she +seemed to turn round quite and said to me: "Well, Vassinka, now you +have caught me."' + +'What do you conclude from that, Vassily Fomitch?' + +'Why, sir, I conclude: it has come, that we shall be together. And glory +to God for it, I tell you; glory be to God Almighty, the Father, the +Son, and the Holy Ghost (the brigadier fell into a chant): as it was in +the beginning, is now and ever shall be, Amen!' + +The brigadier began crossing himself. I could get nothing more out of +him, so I went away. + + + + +XV + + +The next day my friend arrived.... I mentioned the brigadier, and my +visits to him.... + +'Oh yes! of course! I know his story,' answered my friend; 'I know +Madame Lomov very well, the privy councillor's widow, by whose favour he +obtained a home here. Oh, wait a minute; I believe there must be +preserved here his letter to the privy councillor's widow; it was on the +strength of that letter that she assigned him his little cot.' My friend +rummaged among his papers and actually found the brigadier's letter. +Here it is word for word, with the omission of the mistakes in spelling. +The brigadier, like every one of his epoch, was a little hazy in that +respect. But to preserve these errors seemed unnecessary; his letter +bears the stamp of his age without them. + +'HONOURED MADAM, RAISSA PAVLOVNA!--On the decease of my friend, and your +aunt, I had the happiness of addressing to you two letters, the first on +the first of June, the second on the sixth of July of the year 1815, +while she expired on the sixth of May in that year; in them I discovered +to you the feelings of my soul and of my heart, which were crushed under +deadly wrongs, and they reflected in full my bitter despair, in truth +deserving of commiseration; both letters were despatched by the imperial +mail registered, and hence I cannot conceive that they have not been +perused by your eye. By the genuine candour of my letters, I had counted +upon winning your benevolent attention; but the compassionate feelings +of your heart were far removed from me in my woe! Left on the loss of my +one only friend, Agrippina Ivanovna, in the most distressed and +poverty-stricken circumstances, I rested, by her instructions, all my +hopes on your bounty; she, aware of her end approaching, said to me in +these words, as it were from the grave, and never can I forget them: "My +friend, I have been your serpent, and am guilty of all your unhappiness. +I feel how much you have sacrificed for me, and in return I leave you in +a disastrous and truly destitute situation; on my death have recourse to +Raissa Pavlovna"--that is, to you--"and implore her aid, invite her +succour! She has a feeling heart, and I have confidence in her, that she +will not leave you forlorn." Honoured madam, let me call to witness the +all-high Creator of the world that those were her words, and I am +speaking with her tongue; and, therefore, trusting firmly in your +goodness, to you first of all I addressed myself with my open-hearted +and candid letters; but after protracted expectation, receiving no reply +to them, I could not conceive otherwise than that your benevolent heart +had left me without attention! Such your unfavourable disposition +towards me, reduced me to the depths of despair--whither, and to whom, +was I to turn in my misfortune I knew not; my soul was troubled, my +intellect went astray; at last, for the completion of my ruin, it +pleased Providence to chastise me in a still more cruel manner, and to +turn my thoughts to your deceased aunt, Fedulia Ivanovna, sister of +Agrippina Ivanovna, one in blood, but not one in heart! Having present +to myself, before my mind's eye, that I had been for twenty years +devoted to the whole family of your kindred, the Lomovs, especially to +Fedulia Ivanovna, who never called Agrippina Ivanovna otherwise than "my +heart's precious treasure," and me "the most honoured and zealous friend +of our family"; picturing all the above, among abundant tears and sighs +in the stillness of sorrowful night watches, I thought: "Come, +brigadier! so, it seems, it is to be!" and, addressing myself by letter +to the said Fedulia Ivanovna, I received a positive assurance that she +would share her last crumb with me! The presents sent on by me, more +than five hundred roubles' worth in value, were accepted with supreme +satisfaction; and afterwards the money too which I brought with me for +my maintenance, Fedulia Ivanovna was pleased, on the pretext of guarding +it, to take into her care, to the which, to gratify her, I offered no +opposition. + +If you ask me whence, and on what ground I conceived such confidence--to +the above, madam, there is but one reply: she was sister of Agrippina +Ivanovna, and a member of the Lomov family! But alas and alas! all the +money aforesaid I was very soon deprived of, and the hopes which I had +rested on Fedulia Ivanovna--that she would share her last crumb with +me--turned out to be empty and vain; on the contrary, the said Fedulia +Ivanovna enriched herself with my property. To wit, on her saint's day, +the fifth of February, I brought her fifty roubles' worth of green +French material, at five roubles the yard; I myself received of all that +was promised five roubles' worth of white pique for a waistcoat and a +muslin handkerchief for my neck, which gifts were purchased in my +presence, as I was aware, with my own money--and that was all that I +profited by Fedulia Ivanovna's bounty! So much for the last crumb! And I +could further, in all sincerity, disclose the malignant doings of +Fedulia Ivanovna to me; and also my expenses, exceeding all reason, as, +among the rest, for sweetmeats and fruits, of which Fedulia Ivanovna was +exceedingly fond;--but upon all this I am silent, that you may not take +such disclosures against the dead in bad part; and also, seeing that God +has called her before His judgment seat--and all that I suffered at her +hands is blotted out from my heart--and I, as a Christian, forgave her +long ago, and pray to God to forgive her! + +'But, honoured madam, Raissa Pavlovna! Surely you will not blame me for +that I was a true and loyal friend of your family, and that I loved +Agrippina Ivanovna with a love so great and so insurmountable that I +sacrificed to her my life, my honour, and all my fortune! that I was +utterly in her hands, and hence could not dispose of myself nor of my +property, and she disposed at her will of me and also of my estate! It +is known to you also that, owing to her action with her servant, I +suffer, though innocent, a deadly wrong--this affair I brought after her +death before the senate, before the sixth department--it is still +unsettled now--in consequence of which I was made accomplice with her, +my estate put under guardianship, and I am still lying under a criminal +charge! In my position, at my age, such disgrace is intolerable to me; +and it is only left me to console my heart with the mournful reflection +that thus, even after Agrippina Ivanovna's death, I suffer for her sake, +and so prove my immutable love and loyal gratitude to her! + +'In my letters, above mentioned, to you, I gave you an account with +every detail of Agrippina Ivanovna's funeral, and what masses were read +for her--my affection and love for her spared no outlay! For all the +aforesaid, and for the forty days' requiems, and the reading of the +psalter six weeks after for her (in addition to above, fifty roubles +of mine were lost, which were given as security for payment for +the stone, of which I sent you a description)--on all the aforesaid +was spent of my money seven hundred and fifty roubles, in which is +included, by way of donation to the church, a hundred and fifty roubles. + +'In the goodness of your heart, hear the cry of a desperate man, crushed +beneath a load of the crudest calamities! Only your commiseration and +humanity can restore the life of a ruined man! Though living--in the +suffering of my heart and soul I am as one dead; dead when I think what +I was, and what I am; I was a soldier, and served my country in all +fidelity and uprightness, as is the bounden duty of a loyal Russian and +faithful subject, and was rewarded with the highest honours, and had a +fortune befitting my birth and station; and now I must cringe and beg +for a morsel of dry bread; dead above all I am when I think what a +friend I have lost ... and what is life to me after that? But there is +no hastening one's end, and the earth will not open, but rather seems +turned to stone! And so I call upon you, in the benevolence of your +heart, hush the talk of the people, do not expose yourself to universal +censure, that for all my unbounded devotion I have not where to lay my +head; confound them by your bounty to me, turn the tongues of the evil +speakers and slanderers to glorifying your good works--and I make bold +in all humility to add, comfort in the grave your most precious aunt, +Agrippina Ivanovna, who can never be forgotten, and who for your speedy +succour, in answer to my sinful prayers, will spread her protecting +wings about your head, and comfort in his declining days a lonely old +man, who had every reason to expect a different fate! ... And, with the +most profound respect, I have the honour to be, dear madam, your most +devoted servant, + +VASSILY GUSKOV, + +_Brigadier and cavalier._' + +Several years later I paid another visit to my friend's little place.... +Vassily Fomitch had long been dead; he died soon after I made his +acquaintance. Cucumber was still flourishing. He conducted me to the +tomb of Agrafena Ivanovna. An iron railing enclosed a large slab with a +detailed and enthusiastically laudatory epitaph on the deceased woman; +and there, beside it, as it were at her feet, could be seen a little +mound with a slanting cross on it; the servant of God, the brigadier and +cavalier, Vassily Guskov, lay under this mound.... His ashes found rest +at last beside the ashes of the creature he had loved with such +unbounded, almost undying, love. + +1867. + + + + +PYETUSHKOV + + + + +I + + +In the year 182- ... there was living in the town of O---- the +lieutenant Ivan Afanasiitch Pyetushkov. He was born of poor parents, was +left an orphan at five years old, and came into the charge of a +guardian. Thanks to this guardian, he found himself with no property +whatever; he had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. He was of +medium height, and stooped a little; he had a thin face, covered with +freckles, but rather pleasing; light brown hair, grey eyes, and a timid +expression; his low forehead was furrowed with fine wrinkles. +Pyetushkov's whole life had been uneventful in the extreme; at close +upon forty he was still youthful and inexperienced as a child. He was +shy with acquaintances, and exceedingly mild in his manner with persons +over whose lot he could have exerted control.... + +People condemned by fate to a monotonous and cheerless existence often +acquire all sorts of little habits and preferences. Pyetushkov liked to +have a new white roll with his tea every morning. He could not do +without this dainty. But behold one morning his servant, Onisim, handed +him, on a blue-sprigged plate, instead of a roll, three dark red rusks. + +Pyetushkov at once asked his servant, with some indignation, what he +meant by it. + +'The rolls have all been sold out,' answered Onisim, a native of +Petersburg, who had been flung by some queer freak of destiny into the +very wilds of south Russia. + +'Impossible!' exclaimed Ivan Afanasiitch. + +'Sold out,' repeated Onisim; 'there's a breakfast at the Marshal's, so +they've all gone there, you know.' + +Onisim waved his hand in the air, and thrust his right foot forward. + +Ivan Afanasiitch walked up and down the room, dressed, and set off +himself to the baker's shop. This establishment, the only one of the +kind in the town of O----, had been opened ten years before by a German +immigrant, had in a short time begun to flourish, and was still +flourishing under the guidance of his widow, a fat woman. + +Pyetushkov tapped at the window. The fat woman stuck her unhealthy, +flabby, sleepy countenance out of the pane that opened. + +'A roll, if you please,' Pyetushkov said amiably. + +'The rolls are all gone,' piped the fat woman. + +'Haven't you any rolls?' + +'No.' + +'How's that?--really! I take rolls from you every day, and pay for them +regularly.' + +The woman stared at him in silence. 'Take twists,' she said at last, +yawning; 'or a scone.' + +'I don't like them,' said Pyetushkov, and he felt positively hurt. + +'As you please,' muttered the fat woman, and she slammed to the +window-pane. + +Ivan Afanasiitch was quite unhinged by his intense vexation. In his +perturbation he crossed to the other side of the street, and gave +himself up entirely, like a child, to his displeasure. + +'Sir!' ... he heard a rather agreeable female voice; 'sir!' + +Ivan Afanasiitch raised his eyes. From the open pane of the bakehouse +window peeped a girl of about seventeen, holding a white roll in her +hand. She had a full round face, rosy cheeks, small hazel eyes, rather a +turn-up nose, fair hair, and magnificent shoulders. Her features +suggested good-nature, laziness, and carelessness. + +'Here's a roll for you, sir,' she said, laughing, 'I'd taken for myself; +but take it, please, I'll give it up to you.' + +'I thank you most sincerely. Allow me ...' + +Pyetushkov began fumbling in his pocket. + +'No, no! you are welcome to it.' + +She closed the window-pane. + +Pyetushkov arrived home in a perfectly agreeable frame of mind. + +'You couldn't get any rolls,' he said to his Onisim; 'but here, I've got +one, do you see?' + +Onisim gave a bitter laugh. + +The same day, in the evening, as Ivan Afanasiitch was undressing, he +asked his servant, 'Tell me, please, my lad, what's the girl like at the +baker's, hey?' + +Onisim looked away rather gloomily, and responded, 'What do you want to +know for?' + +'Oh, nothing,' said Pyetushkov, taking off his boots with his own hands. + +'Well, she's a fine girl!' Onisim observed condescendingly. + +'Yes, ... she's not bad-looking,' said Ivan Afanasiitch, also looking +away. 'And what's her name, do you know?' + +'Vassilissa.' + +'And do you know her?' + +Onisim did not answer for a minute or two. + +'We know her.' + +Pyetushkov was on the point of opening his mouth again, but he turned +over on the other side and fell asleep. + +Onisim went out into the passage, took a pinch of snuff, and gave his +head a violent shake. + +The next day, early in the morning, Pyetushkov called for his clothes. +Onisim brought him his everyday coat--an old grass-coloured coat, with +huge striped epaulettes. Pyetushkov gazed a long while at Onisim without +speaking, then told him to bring him his new coat. Onisim, with some +surprise, obeyed. Pyetushkov dressed, and carefully drew on his +chamois-leather gloves. + +'You needn't go to the baker's to-day,' said he with some hesitation; +'I'm going myself, ... it's on my way.' + +'Yes, sir,' responded Onisim, as abruptly as if some one had just given +him a shove from behind. + +Pyetushkov set off, reached the baker's shop, tapped at the window. The +fat woman opened the pane. + +'Give me a roll, please,' Ivan Afanasiitch articulated slowly. + +The fat woman stuck out an arm, bare to the shoulder--a huge arm, more +like a leg than an arm--and thrust the hot bread just under his nose. + +Ivan Afanasiitch stood some time under the window, walked once or twice +up and down the street, glanced into the courtyard, and at last, ashamed +of his childishness, returned home with the roll in his hand. He felt +ill at ease the whole day, and even in the evening, contrary to his +habit, did not drop into conversation with Onisim. + +The next morning it was Onisim who went +for the roll. + + + + +II + + +Some weeks went by. Ivan Afanasiitch had completely forgotten +Vassilissa, and chatted in a friendly way with his servant as before. +One fine morning there came to see him a certain Bublitsyn, an +easy-mannered and very agreeable young man. It is true he sometimes +hardly knew himself what he was talking about, and was always, as they +say, a little wild; but all the same he had the reputation of being an +exceedingly agreeable person to talk to. He smoked a great deal with +feverish eagerness, with lifted eyebrows and contracted chest--smoked +with an expression of intense anxiety, or, one might rather say, with an +expression as though, let him have this one more puff at his pipe, and +in a minute he would tell you some quite unexpected piece of news; at +times he would even give a grunt and a wave of the hand, while himself +sucking at his pipe, as though he had suddenly recollected something +extraordinarily amusing or important, then he would open his mouth, let +off a few rings of smoke, and utter the most commonplace remarks, or +even keep silence altogether. After gossiping a little with Ivan +Afanasiitch about the neighbours, about horses, the daughters of the +gentry around, and other such edifying topics, Mr. Bublitsyn suddenly +winked, pulled up his shock of hair, and, with a sly smile, approached +the remarkably dim looking-glass which was the solitary ornament of Ivan +Afanasiitch's room. + +'There's no denying the fact,' he pronounced, stroking his light brown +whiskers, 'we've got girls here that beat any of your Venus of Medicis +hollow.... Have you seen Vassilissa, the baker girl, for instance?' ... +Mr. Bublitsyn sucked at his pipe. + +Pyetushkov started. + +'But why do I ask you?' pursued Bublitsyn, disappearing in a cloud of +smoke,--'you're not the man to notice, don't you know, Ivan Afanasiitch! +Goodness knows what you do to occupy yourself, Ivan Afanasiitch!' + +'The same as you do,' Pyetushkov replied with some vexation, in a +drawling voice. + +'Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch, not a bit of it.... How can you say so?' + +'Well, why not?' + +'Nonsense, nonsense.' + +'Why so, why so?' + +Bublitsyn stuck his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and began +scrutinising his not very handsome boots. Pyetushkov felt embarrassed. + +'Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, Ivan Afanasiitch!' pursued Bublitsyn, as though +sparing his feelings. 'But as to Vassilissa, the baker girl, I can +assure you: a very, ve-ry fine girl, ... ve-ry.' + +Mr. Bublitsyn dilated his nostrils, and slowly plunged his hands into +his pockets. + +Strange to relate, Ivan Afanasiitch felt something of the nature of +jealousy. He began moving restlessly in his chair, burst into explosive +laughter at nothing at all, suddenly blushed, yawned, and, as he yawned, +his lower jaw twitched a little. Bublitsyn smoked three more pipes, and +withdrew. Ivan Afanasiitch went to the window, sighed, and called for +something to drink. + +Onisim set a glass of kvas on the table, glanced severely at his master, +leaned back against the door, and hung his head dejectedly. + +'What are you so thoughtful about?' his master asked him genially, but +with some inward trepidation. + +'What am I thinking about?' retorted Onisim; 'what am I thinking +about? ... it's always about you.' + +'About me!' + +'Of course it's about you.' + +'Why, what is it you are thinking?' + +'Why, this is what I'm thinking.' (Here Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) +'You ought to be ashamed, sir--you ought to be ashamed of yourself.' + +'Ashamed?' + +'Yes, ashamed.... Look at Mr. Bublitsyn, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Tell me if +he's not a fine fellow, now.' + +'I don't understand you.' + +'You don't understand me.... Oh yes, you do understand me.' + +Onisim paused. + +'Mr. Bublitsyn's a real gentleman--what a gentleman ought to be. But +what are you, Ivan Afanasiitch, what are you? Tell me that.' + +'Why, I'm a gentleman too.' + +'A gentleman, indeed!' ... retorted Onisim, growing indignant. 'A pretty +gentleman you are! You're no better, sir, than a hen in a shower of +rain, Ivan Afanasiitch, let me tell you. Here you sit sticking at home +the whole blessed day ... much good it does you, sitting at home like +that! You don't play cards, you don't go and see the gentry, and as +for ... well ...' + +Onisim waved his hand expressively. + +'Now, come ... you really go ... too far ...' Ivan Afanasiitch said +hesitatingly, clutching his pipe. + +'Too far, indeed, Ivan Afanasiitch, too far, you say! Judge for +yourself. Here again, with Vassilissa ... why couldn't you ...' + +'But what are you thinking about, Onisim,' Pyetushkov interrupted +miserably. + +'I know what I'm thinking about. But there--I'd better let you alone! +What can you do? Only fancy ... there you ...' + +Ivan Afanasiitch got up. + +'There, there, if you please, you hold your tongue,' he said quickly, +seeming to be searching for Onisim with his eyes; 'I shall really, +you know ... I ... what do you mean by it, really? You'd better help +me dress.' + +Onisim slowly drew off Ivan Afanasiitch's greasy Tartar dressing-gown, +gazed with fatherly commiseration at his master, shook his head, put him +on his coat, and fell to beating him about the back with a brush. + +Pyetushkov went out, and after a not very protracted stroll about the +crooked streets of the town, found himself facing the baker's shop. A +queer smile was playing about his lips. + +He had hardly time to look twice at the too well-known 'establishment,' +when suddenly the little gate opened, and Vassilissa ran out with a +yellow kerchief on her head and a jacket flung after the Russian fashion +on her shoulders. Ivan Afanasiitch at once overtook her. + +'Where are you going, my dear?' + +Vassilissa glanced swiftly at him, laughed, turned away, and put her +hand over her lips. + +'Going shopping, I suppose?' queried Ivan Afanasiitch, fidgeting +with his feet. + +'How inquisitive we are!' retorted Vassilissa. + +'Why inquisitive?' said Pyetushkov, hurriedly gesticulating with his +hands. 'Quite the contrary.... Oh yes, you know,' he added hastily, as +though these last words completely conveyed his meaning. + +'Did you eat my roll?' + +'To be sure I did,' replied Pyetushkov: 'with special enjoyment.' + +Vassilissa continued to walk on and to laugh. + +'It's pleasant weather to-day,' pursued Ivan Afanasiitch: 'do you often +go out walking?' + +'Yes.' + +'Ah, how I should like....' + +'What say?' + +The girls in our district utter those words in a very queer way, with a +peculiar sharpness and rapidity.... Partridges call at sunset with just +that sound. + +'To go out walking, don't you know, with you ... into the +country, or ...' + +'How can you?' + +'Why not?' + +'Ah, upon my word, how you do go on!' + +'But allow me....' + +At this point they were overtaken by a dapper little shopman, with a +little goat's beard, and with his fingers held apart like antlers, so as +to keep his sleeves from slipping over his hands, in a long-skirted +bluish coat, and a warm cap that resembled a bloated water-melon. +Pyetushkov, for propriety's sake, fell back a little behind Vassilissa, +but quickly came up with her again. + +'Well, then, what about our walk?' + +Vassilissa looked slily at him and giggled again. + +'Do you belong to these parts?' + +'Yes.' + +Vassilissa passed her hand over her hair and walked a little more +slowly. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled, and, his heart inwardly sinking with +timidity, he stooped a little on one side and put a trembling arm about +the beauty's waist. + +Vassilissa uttered a shriek. + +'Give over, do, for shame, in the street.' + +'Come now, there, there,' muttered Ivan Afanasiitch. + +'Give over, I tell you, in the street.... Don't be rude.' + +'A ... a ... ah, what a girl you are!' said Pyetushkov reproachfully, +while he blushed up to his ears. + +Vassilissa stood still. + +'Now go along with you, sir--go along, do.' + +Pyetushkov obeyed. He got home, and sat for a whole hour without moving +from his chair, without even smoking his pipe. At last he took out a +sheet of greyish paper, mended a pen, and after long deliberation wrote +the following letter. + +'DEAR MADAM, VASSILISSA TIMOFYEVNA!--Being naturally a most inoffensive +person, how could I have occasioned you annoyance? If I have really been +to blame in my conduct to you, then I must tell you: the hints of Mr. +Bublitsyn were responsible for this, which was what I never expected. +Anyway, I must humbly beg you not to be angry with me. I am a sensitive +man, and any kindness I am most sensible of and grateful for. Do not be +angry with me, Vassilissa Timofyevna, I beg you most humbly.--I remain +respectfully your obedient servant, + +IVAN PYETUSHKOV.' + +Onisim carried this letter to its address. + + + + +III + + +A fortnight passed. Onisim went every morning as usual to the baker's +shop. One day Vassilissa ran out to meet him. + +'Good morning, Onisim Sergeitch.' + +Onisim put on a gloomy expression, and responded crossly, ''Morning.' + +'How is it you never come to see us, Onisim Sergeitch?' + +Onisim glanced morosely at her. + +'What should I come for? you wouldn't give me a cup of tea, no fear.' + +'Yes, I would, Onisim Sergeitch, I would. You come and see. Rum +in it, too.' + +Onisim slowly relaxed into a smile. + +'Well, I don't mind if I do, then.' + +'When, then--when?' + +'When ... well, you are ...' + +'To-day--this evening, if you like. Drop in. + +'All right, I'll come along,' replied Onisim, and he sauntered home with +his slow, rolling step. + +The same evening in a little room, beside a bed covered with a striped +eider-down, Onisim was sitting at a clumsy little table, facing +Vassilissa. A huge, dingy yellow samovar was hissing and bubbling on the +table; a pot of geranium stood in the window; in the other corner near +the door there stood aslant an ugly chest with a tiny hanging lock; on +the chest lay a shapeless heap of all sorts of old rags; on the walls +were black, greasy prints. Onisim and Vassilissa drank their tea in +silence, looking straight at each other, turning the lumps of sugar over +and over in their hands, as it were reluctantly nibbling them, blinking, +screwing up their eyes, and with a hissing sound sucking in the +yellowish boiling liquid through their teeth. At last they had emptied +the whole samovar, turned upside down the round cups--one with the +inscription, 'Take your fill'; the other with the words, 'Cupid's dart +hath pierced my heart'--then they cleared their throats, wiped their +perspiring brows, and gradually dropped into conversation. + +'Onisim Sergeitch, how about your master ...' began Vassilissa, and did +not finish her sentence. + +'What about my master?' replied Onisim, and he leaned on his hand. 'He's +all right. But why do you ask?' + +'Oh, I only asked,' answered Vassilissa. + +'But I say'--(here Onisim grinned)--'I say, he wrote you a letter, +didn't he?' + +'Yes, he did.' + +Onisim shook his head with an extraordinarily self-satisfied air. + +'So he did, did he?' he said huskily, with a smile. 'Well, and what did +he say in his letter to you?' + +'Oh, all sorts of things. "I didn't mean anything, Madam, Vassilissa +Timofyevna," says he, "don't you think anything of it; don't you be +offended, madam," and a lot more like that he wrote.... But I say,' she +added after a brief silence: 'what's he like?' + +'He's all right,' Onisim responded indifferently. + +'Does he get angry?' + +'He get angry! Not he. Why, do you like him?' + +Vassilissa looked down and giggled in her sleeve. + +'Come,' grumbled Onisim. + +'Oh, what's that to you, Onisim Sergeitch?' + +'Oh, come, I tell you.' + +'Well,' Vassilissa brought out at last, 'he's ... a gentleman. Of +course ... I ... and besides; he ... you know yourself ...' + +'Of course I do,' Onisim observed solemnly. + +'Of course you're aware, to be sure, Onisim Sergeitch.' ... Vassilissa +was obviously becoming agitated. + +'You tell him, your master, that I'm ...; say, not angry with him, +but that ...' + +She stammered. + +'We understand,' responded Onisim, and he got up from his seat. 'We +understand. Thanks for the entertainment.' + +'Come in again some day.' + +'All right, all right.' + +Onisim approached the door. The fat woman came into the room. + +'Good evening to you, Onisim Sergeitch,' she said in a peculiar chant. + +'Good evening to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,' he said in the same +sing-song. + +Both stood still for a little while facing each other. + +'Well, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,' Onisim chanted out again. + +'Well, good day to you, Onisim Sergeitch,' she responded in the same +sing-song. + +Onisim arrived home. His master was lying on his bed, gazing at +the ceiling. + +'Where have you been?' + +'Where have I been?' ... (Onisim had the habit of repeating reproachfully +the last words of every question.) 'I've been about your business.' + +'What business?' + +'Why, don't you know? ... I've been to see Vassilissa.' + +Pyetushkov blinked and turned over on his bed. + +'So that's how it is,' observed Onisim, and he coolly took a pinch of +snuff. 'So that's how it is. You're always like that. Vassilissa sends +you her duty.' + +'Really?' + +'Really? So that's all about it. Really! ... She told me to say, Why is +it, says she, one never sees him? Why is it, says she, he never comes?' + +'Well, and what did you say?' + +'What did I say? I told her: You're a silly girl--I told her--as if +folks like that are coming to see you! No, you come yourself, I +told her.' + +'Well, and what did she say?' + +'What did she say? ... She said nothing.' + +'That is, how do you mean, nothing?' + +'Why, nothing, to be sure.' + +Pyetushkov said nothing for a little while. + +'Well, and is she coming?' + +Onisim shook his head. + +'She coming! You're in too great a hurry, sir. She coming, indeed! No, +you go too fast.' ... + +'But you said yourself that ...' + +'Oh, well, it's easy to talk.' + +Pyetushkov was silent again. + +'Well, but how's it to be, then, my lad?' + +'How? ... You ought to know best; you 're a gentleman.' + +'Oh, nonsense! come now!' + +Onisim swayed complacently backwards and forwards. + +'Do you know Praskovia Ivanovna?' he asked at last. + +'No. What Praskovia Ivanovna?' + +'Why, the baker woman!' + +'Oh yes, the baker woman. I've seen her; she's very fat.' + +'She's a worthy woman. She's own aunt to the other, to your girl.' + +'Aunt?' + +'Why, didn't you know?' + +'No, I didn't know.' + +'Well ...' + +Onisim was restrained by respect for his master from giving full +expression to his feelings. + +'That's whom it is you should make friends with.' + +'Well, I've no objection.' + +Onisim looked approvingly at Ivan Afanasiitch. + +'But with what object precisely am I to make friends with her?' inquired +Pyetushkov. + +'What for, indeed!' answered Onisim serenely. + +Ivan Afanasiitch got up, paced up and down the room, stood still before +the window, and without turning his head, with some hesitation he +articulated: + +'Onisim!' + +'What say?' + +'Won't it be, you know, a little awkward for me with the old woman, eh?' + +'Oh, that's as you like.' + +'Oh, well, I only thought it might, perhaps. My comrades might +notice it; it's a little ... But I'll think it over. Give me my +pipe.... So she,' he went on after a short silence--Vassilissa, I +mean, says then ...' + +But Onisim had no desire to continue the conversation, and he assumed +his habitual morose expression. + + + + +IV + + +Ivan Afanasiitch's acquaintance with Praskovia Ivanovna began in the +following manner. Five days after his conversation with Onisim, +Pyetushkov set off in the evening to the baker's shop. 'Well,' thought +he, as he unlatched the creaking gate, 'I don't know how it's to be.' ... + +He mounted the steps, opened the door. A huge, crested hen rushed, with +a deafening cackle, straight under his feet, and long after was still +running about the yard in wild excitement. From a room close by peeped +the astonished countenance of the fat woman. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled and +nodded. The fat woman bowed to him. Tightly grasping his hat, Pyetushkov +approached her. Praskovia Ivanovna was apparently anticipating an +honoured guest; her dress was fastened up at every hook. Pyetushkov sat +down on a chair; Praskovia Ivanovna seated herself opposite him. + +'I have come to you, Praskovia Ivanovna, more on account of....' Ivan +Afanasiitch began at last--and then ceased. His lips were twitching +spasmodically. + +'You are kindly welcome, sir,' responded Praskovia Ivanovna in the +proper sing-song, and with a bow. 'Always delighted to see a guest.' + +Pyetushkov took courage a little. + +'I have long wished, you know, to have the pleasure of making your +acquaintance, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'Much obliged to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +Followed a silence. Praskovia Ivanovna wiped her face with a +parti-coloured handkerchief; Ivan Afanasiitch continued with intense +attention to gaze away to one side. Both were rather uncomfortable. But +in merchant and petty shopkeeper society, where even old friends never +step outside special angular forms of etiquette, a certain constraint in +the behaviour of guests and host to one another not only strikes no one +as strange, but, on the contrary, is regarded as perfectly correct and +indispensable, particularly on a first visit. Praskovia Ivanovna was +agreeably impressed by Pyetushkov. He was formal and decorous in his +manners, and moreover, wasn't he a man of some rank, too? + +'Praskovia Ivanovna, ma'am, I like your rolls very much,' he said to +her. + +'Really now, really now.' + +'Very good they are, you know, very, indeed.' + +'May they do you good, sir, may they do you good. Delighted, to be +sure.' + +'I've never eaten any like them in Moscow.' + +'You don't say so now, you don't say so.' + +Again a silence followed. + +'Tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna,' began Ivan Afanasiitch; 'that's your +niece, I fancy, isn't it, living with you?' + +'My own niece, sir.' + +'How comes it ... she's with you?'.... + +'She's an orphan, so I keep her.' + +'And is she a good worker?' + +'Such a girl to work ... such a girl, sir ... ay ... ay ... to be +sure she is.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch thought it discreet not to pursue the subject of the +niece further. + +'What bird is that you have in the cage, Praskovia Ivanovna?' + +'God knows. A bird of some sort.' + +'H'm! Well, so, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'A very good day to your honour. Pray walk in another time, and take a +cup of tea.' + +'With the greatest pleasure, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +Pyetushkov walked out. On the steps he met Vassilissa. She giggled. + +'Where are you going, my darling?' said Pyetushkov with reckless daring. + +'Come, give over, do, you are a one for joking.' + +'He, he! And did you get my letter?' + +Vassilissa hid the lower part of her face in her sleeve and made +no answer. + +'And you're not angry with me?' + +'Vassilissa!' came the jarring voice of the aunt; 'hey, Vassilissa!' + +Vassilissa ran into the house. Pyetushkov returned home. But from that +day he began going often to the baker's shop, and his visits were not +for nothing. Ivan Afanasiitch's hopes, to use the lofty phraseology +suitable, were crowned with success. Usually, the attainment of the goal +has a cooling effect on people, but Pyetushkov, on the contrary, grew +every day more and more ardent. Love is a thing of accident, it exists +in itself, like art, and, like nature, needs no reasons to justify it, +as some clever man has said who never loved, himself, but made excellent +observations upon love. + +Pyetushkov became passionately attached to Vassilissa. He was completely +happy. His soul was aglow with bliss. Little by little he carried all +his belongings, at any rate all his pipes, to Praskovia Ivanovna's, and +for whole days together he sat in her back room. Praskovia Ivanovna +charged him something for his dinner and drank his tea, consequently she +did not complain of his presence. Vassilissa had grown used to him. She +would work, sing, or spin before him, sometimes exchanging a couple of +words with him; Pyetushkov watched her, smoked his pipe, swayed to and +fro in his chair, laughed, and in leisure hours played 'Fools' with her +and Praskovia Ivanovna. Ivan Afanasiitch was happy.... + +But in this world nothing is perfect, and, small as a man's +requirements may be, destiny never quite fulfils them, and positively +spoils the whole thing, if possible.... The spoonful of pitch is sure +to find its way into the barrel of honey! Ivan Afanasiitch experienced +this in his case. + +In the first place, from the time of his establishing himself at +Vassilissa's, Pyetushkov dropped more than ever out of all intercourse +with his comrades. He saw them only when absolutely necessary, and then, +to avoid allusions and jeers (in which, however, he was not always +successful), he put on the desperately sullen and intensely scared look +of a hare in a display of fireworks. + +Secondly, Onisim gave him no peace; he had lost every trace of respect +for him, he mercilessly persecuted him, put him to shame. + +And ... thirdly.... Alas! read further, kindly reader. + + + + +V + + +One day Pyetushkov (who for the reasons given above found little comfort +outside Praskovia Ivanovna's doors) was sitting in Vassilissa's room at +the back, and was busying himself over some home-brewed concoction, +something in the way of jam or syrup. The mistress of the house was not +at home. Vassilissa was sitting in the shop singing. + +There came a knock at the little pane. Vassilissa got up, went to the +window, uttered a little shriek, giggled, and began whispering with some +one. On going back to her place, she sighed, and then fell to singing +louder than ever. + +'Who was that you were talking to?' Pyetushkov asked her. + +Vassilissa went on singing carelessly. + +'Vassilissa, do you hear? Vassilissa!' + +'What do you want?' + +'Whom were you talking to?' + +'What's that to you?' + +'I only asked.' + +Pyetushkov came out of the back room in a parti-coloured smoking-jacket +with tucked-up sleeves, and a strainer in his hand. + +'Oh, a friend of mine,' answered Vassilissa. + +'What friend?' + +'Oh, Piotr Petrovitch.' + +'Piotr Petrovitch? ... what Piotr Petrovitch?' + +'He's one of your lot. He's got such a difficult name.' + +'Bublitsyn?' + +'Yes, yes ... Piotr Petrovitch.' + +'And do you know him?' + +'Rather!' responded Vassilissa, with a wag of her head. + +Pyetushkov, without a word, paced ten times up and down the room. + +'I say, Vassilissa,' he said at last, 'that is, how do you know him?' + +'How do I know him? ... I know him ... He's such a nice gentleman.' + +'How do you mean nice, though? how nice? how nice?' + +Vassilissa gazed at Ivan Afanasiitch. + +'Nice,' she said slowly and in perplexity. 'You know what I mean.' + +Pyetushkov bit his lips and began again pacing the room. + +'What were you talking about with him, eh?' + +Vassilissa smiled and looked down. + +'Speak, speak, speak, I tell you, speak!' + +'How cross you are to-day!' observed Vassilissa. + +Pyetushkov was silent. + +'Come now, Vassilissa,' he began at last; 'no, I won't be cross.... +Come, tell me, what were you talking about?' + +Vassilissa laughed. + +'He is a one to joke, really, that Piotr Petrovitch!' + +'Well, what did he say?' + +'He is a fellow!' + +Pyetushkov was silent again for a little. + +'Vassilissa, you love me, don't you?' he asked her. + +'Oh, so that's what you're after, too!' + +Poor Pyetushkov felt a pang at his heart. Praskovia Ivanovna came in. +They sat down to dinner. After dinner Praskovia Ivanovna betook herself +to the shelf bed. Ivan Afanasiitch himself lay down on the stove, turned +over and dropped asleep. A cautious creak waked him. Ivan Afanasiitch +sat up, leaned on his elbow, looked: the door was open. He jumped up--no +Vassilissa. He ran into the yard--she was not in the yard; into the +street, looked up and down--Vassilissa was nowhere to be seen. He ran +without his cap as far as the market--no, Vassilissa was not in sight. +Slowly he returned to the baker's shop, clambered on to the stove, and +turned with his face to the wall. He felt miserable. Bublitsyn ... +Bublitsyn ... the name was positively ringing in his ears. + +'What's the matter, my good sir?' Praskovia Ivanovna asked him in a +drowsy voice. 'Why are you groaning?' + +'Oh, nothing, ma'am. Nothing. I feel a weight oppressing me.' + +'It's the mushrooms,' murmured Praskovia Ivanovna--'it's all those +mushrooms.' + +O Lord, have mercy on us sinners! + +An hour passed, a second--still no Vassilissa. Twenty times Pyetushkov +was on the point of getting up, and twenty times he huddled miserably +under the sheepskin.... At last he really did get down from the stove +and determined to go home, and positively went out into the yard, but +came back. Praskovia Ivanovna got up. The hired man, Luka, black as a +beetle, though he was a baker, put the bread into the oven. Pyetushkov +went again out on to the steps and pondered. The goat that lived in the +yard went up to him, and gave him a little friendly poke with his horns. +Pyetushkov looked at him, and for some unknown reason said 'Kss, Kss.' +Suddenly the low wicket-gate slowly opened and Vassilissa appeared. Ivan +Afanasiitch went straight to meet her, took her by the hand, and rather +coolly, but resolutely, said to her: + +'Come along with me.' + +'But, excuse me, Ivan Afanasiitch ... I ...' + +'Come with me,' he repeated. + +She obeyed. + +Pyetushkov led her to his lodgings. Onisim, as usual, was lying at full +length asleep. Ivan Afanasiitch waked him, told him to light a candle. +Vassilissa went to the window and sat down in silence. While Onisim was +busy getting a light in the anteroom, Pyetushkov stood motionless at the +other window, staring into the street. Onisim came in, with the candle +in his hands, was beginning to grumble ... Ivan Afanasiitch turned +quickly round: 'Go along,' he said to him. + +Onisim stood still in the middle of the room. + +'Go away at once,' Pyetushkov repeated threateningly. + +Onisim looked at his master and went out. + +Ivan Afanasiitch shouted after him: + +'Away, quite away. Out of the house. You can come back in two +hours' time.' + +Onisim slouched off. + +Pyetushkov waited till he heard the gate bang, and at once went up to +Vassilissa. + +'Where have you been?' + +Vassilissa was confused. + +'Where have you been? I tell you,' he repeated. + +Vassilissa looked round ... + +'I am speaking to you ... where have you been?' And Pyetushkov raised +his arm ... + +'Don't beat me, Ivan Afanasiitch, don't beat me,' Vassilissa whispered +in terror. + +Pyetushkov turned away. + +'Beat you ... No! I'm not going to beat you. Beat you? I beg your +pardon, my darling. God bless you! While I supposed you loved me, while +I ... I ... ' + +Ivan Afanasiitch broke off. He gasped for breath. + +'Listen, Vassilissa,' he said at last. 'You know I'm a kind-hearted man, +you know it, don't you, Vassilissa, don't you?' + +'Yes, I do,' she said faltering. + +'I do nobody any harm, nobody, nobody in the world. And I deceive +nobody. Why are you deceiving me?' + +'But I'm not deceiving you, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'You aren't deceiving me? Oh, very well! Oh, very well! Then tell me +where you've been.' + +'I went to see Matrona.' + +'That's a lie!' + +'Really, I've been at Matrona's. You ask her, if you don't believe me.' + +'And Bub--what's his name ... have you seen that devil?' + +'Yes, I did see him.' + +'You did see him! you did see him! Oh! you did see him!' + +Pyetushkov turned pale. + +'So you were making an appointment with him in the morning at the +window--eh? eh?' + +'He asked me to come.' + +'And so you went.... Thanks very much, my girl, thanks very much!' +Pyetushkov made Vassilissa a low bow. + +'But, Ivan Afanasiitch, you're maybe fancying ...' + +'You'd better not talk to me! And a pretty fool I am! There's nothing to +make an outcry for! You may make friends with any one you like. I've +nothing to do with you. So there! I don't want to know you even.' + +Vassilissa got up. + +'That's for you to say, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'Where are you going?' + +'Why, you yourself ...' + +'I'm not sending you away,' Pyetushkov interrupted her. + +'Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch.... What's the use of my stopping here?' + +Pyetushkov let her get as far as the door. + +'So you're going, Vassilissa?' + +'You keep on abusing me.' + +'I abuse you! You've no fear of God, Vassilissa! When have I abused you? +Come, come, say when?' + +'Why! Just this minute weren't you all but beating me?' + +'Vassilissa, it's wicked of you. Really, it's downright wicked.' + +'And then you threw it in my face, that you don't want to know me. "I'm +a gentleman," say you.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch began wringing his hands speechlessly. Vassilissa got +back as far as the middle of the room. + +'Well, God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch. I'll keep myself to myself, +and you keep yourself to yourself.' + +'Nonsense, Vassilissa, nonsense,' Pyetushkov cut her short. 'You think +again; look at me. You see I'm not myself. You see I don't know what I'm +saying.... You might have some feeling for me.' + +'You keep on abusing me, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'Ah, Vassilissa! Let bygones be bygones. Isn't that right? Come, you're +not angry with me, are you?' + +'You keep abusing me,' Vassilissa repeated. + +'I won't, my love, I won't. Forgive an old man like me. I'll never do it +in future. Come, you've forgiven me, eh?' + +'God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'Come, laugh then, laugh.' + +Vassilissa turned away. + +'You laughed, you laughed, my love!' cried Pyetushkov, and he capered +about like a child. + + + + +VI + + +The next day Pyetushkov went to the baker's shop as usual. Everything +went on as before. But there was a settled ache at his heart. He did not +laugh now as often, and sometimes he fell to musing. Sunday came. +Praskovia Ivanovna had an attack of lumbago; she did not get down from +the shelf bed, except with much difficulty to go to mass. After mass +Pyetushkov called Vassilissa into the back room. She had been +complaining all the morning of feeling dull. To judge by the expression +of Ivan Afanasiitch's countenance, he was revolving in his brain some +extraordinary idea, unforeseen even by him. + +'You sit down here, Vassilissa,' he said to her, 'and I'll sit here. I +want to have a little talk with you.' + +Vassilissa sat down. + +'Tell me, Vassilissa, can you write?' + +'Write?' + +'Yes, write?' + +'No, I can't.' + +'What about reading?' + +'I can't read either.' + +'Then who read you my letter?' + +'The deacon.' + +Pyetushkov paused. + +'But would you like to learn to read and write?' + +'Why, what use would reading and writing be to us, Ivan Afanasiitch?' + +'What use? You could read books.' + +'But what good is there in books?' + +'All sorts of good ... I tell you what, if you like, I'll bring +you a book.' + +'But I can't read, you see, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'I'll read to you.' + +'But, I say, won't it be dull?' + +'Nonsense! dull! On the contrary, it's the best thing to get rid +of dulness.' + +'Maybe you'll read stories, then.' + +'You shall see to-morrow.' + +In the evening Pyetushkov returned home, and began rummaging in his +boxes. He found several odd numbers of the Library of Good Reading, five +grey Moscow novels, Nazarov's arithmetic, a child's geography with a +globe on the title-page, the second part of Keydanov's history, two +dream-books, an almanack for the year 1819, two numbers of Galatea, +Kozlov's _Natalia Dolgorukaia_, and the first part of _Roslavlev_. He +pondered a long while which to choose, and finally made up his mind to +take Kozlov's poem, and _Roslavlev_. + +Next day Pyetushkov dressed in haste, put both the books under the lapel +of his coat, went to the baker's shop, and began reading aloud +Zagoskin's novel. Vassilissa sat without moving; at first she smiled, +then seemed to become absorbed in thought ... then she bent a little +forward; her eyes closed, her mouth slightly opened, her hands fell on +her knees; she was dozing. Pyetushkov read quickly, inarticulately, in a +thick voice; he raised his eyes ... + +'Vassilissa, are you asleep?' + +She started, rubbed her face, and stretched. Pyetushkov felt angry with +her and with himself.... + +'It's dull,' said Vassilissa lazily. + +'I tell you what, would you like me to read you poetry?' + +'What say?' + +'Poetry ... good poetry.' + +'No, that's enough, really.' + +Pyetushkov hurriedly picked up Kozlov's poem, jumped up, crossed the +room, ran impulsively up to Vassilissa, and began reading. Vassilissa +let her head drop backwards, spread out her hands, stared into Ivan +Afanasiitch's face, and suddenly went off into a loud harsh guffaw ... +she fairly rolled about with laughing. + +Ivan Afanasiitch flung the book on the floor in his annoyance. +Vassilissa went on laughing. + +'Why, what are you laughing at, silly?' + +Vassilissa roared more than ever. + +'Laugh away, laugh away,' Pyetushkov muttered between his teeth. + +Vassilissa held her sides, gasping. + +'But what is it, idiot?' But Vassilissa could only wave her hands. + +Ivan Afanasiitch snatched up his cap, and ran out of the house. With +rapid, unsteady steps, he walked about the town, walked on and on, and +found himself at the city gates. Suddenly there was the rattle of +wheels, the tramp of horses along the street.... Some one called him by +name. He raised his head and saw a big, old-fashioned wagonette. In the +wagonette facing him sat Mr. Bublitsyn between two young ladies, the +daughters of Mr. Tiutiurov. Both the girls were dressed exactly alike, +as though in outward sign of their immutable affection; both smiled +pensively, and carried their heads on one side with a languid grace. On +the other side of the carriage appeared the wide straw hat of their +excellent papa; and from time to time his round, plump neck presented +itself to the gaze of spectators. Beside his straw hat rose the mob-cap +of his spouse. The very attitude of both the parents was a sufficient +proof of their sincere goodwill towards the young man and their +confidence in him. And Bublitsyn obviously was aware of their flattering +confidence and appreciated it. He was, of course, sitting in an +unconstrained position, and talking and laughing without constraint; but +in the very freedom of his manner there could be discerned a shade of +tender, touching respectfulness. And the Tiutiurov girls? It is hard to +convey in words all that an attentive observer could trace in the faces +of the two sisters. Goodwill and gentleness, and discreet gaiety, a +melancholy comprehension of life, and a faith, not to be shaken, in +themselves, in the lofty and noble destiny of man on earth, courteous +attention to their young companion, in intellectual endowments perhaps +not fully their equal, but still by the qualities of his heart quite +deserving of their indulgence ... such were the characteristics and the +feelings reflected at that moment on the faces of the young ladies. +Bublitsyn called to Ivan Afanasiitch for no special reason, simply in +the fulness of his inner satisfaction; he bowed to him with excessive +friendliness and cordiality. The young ladies even looked at him with +gentle amiability, as at a man whose acquaintance they would not object +to.... The good, sleek, quiet horses went by Ivan Afanasiitch at a +gentle trot; the carriage rolled smoothly along the broad road, carrying +with it good-humoured, girlish laughter; he caught a final glimpse of +Mr. Tiutiurov's hat; the two outer horses turned their heads on each +side, jauntily stepping over the short, green grass ... the coachman gave +a whistle of approbation and warning, the carriage disappeared behind +some willows. + +A long while poor Pyetushkov remained standing still. + +'I'm a poor lonely creature,' he whispered at last ... 'alone in +the world.' + +A little boy in tatters stopped before him, looked timidly at him, held +out his hand ... + +'For Christ's sake, good gentleman.' + +Pyetushkov pulled out a copper. + +'For your loneliness, poor orphan,' he said with effort, and he walked +back to the baker's shop. On the threshold of Vassilissa's room Ivan +Afanasiitch stopped. + +'Yes,' he thought, 'these are my friends. Here is my family, this is +it.... And here Bublitsyn and there Bublitsyn.' + +Vassilissa was sitting with her back to him, winding worsted, and +carelessly singing to herself; she was wearing a striped cotton gown; +her hair was done up anyhow.... The room, insufferably hot, smelt of +feather beds and old rags; jaunty, reddish-brown 'Prussians' scurried +rapidly here and there across the walls; on the decrepit chest of +drawers, with holes in it where the locks should have been, beside a +broken jar, lay a woman's shabby slipper.... Kozlov's poem was still +where it had fallen on the floor.... Pyetushkov shook his head, folded +his arms, and went away. He was hurt. + +At home he called for his things to dress. Onisim slouched off after his +better coat. Pyetushkov had a great desire to draw Onisim into +conversation, but Onisim preserved a sullen silence. At last Ivan +Afanasiitch could hold out no longer. + +'Why don't you ask me where I'm going?' + +'Why, what do I want to know where you're going for?' + +'What for? Why, suppose some one comes on urgent business, and asks, +"Where's Ivan Afanasiitch?" And then you can tell him, "Ivan Afanasiitch +has gone here or there."' + +'Urgent business.... But who ever does come to you on urgent business?' + +'Why, are you beginning to be rude again? Again, hey?' + +Onisim turned away, and fell to brushing the coat. + +'Really, Onisim, you are a most disagreeable person.' + +Onisim looked up from under his brows at his master. + +'And you 're always like this. Yes, positively always.' + +Onisim smiled. + +'But what's the good of my asking you where you're going, Ivan +Afanasiitch? As though I didn't know! To the girl at the baker's shop!' + +'There, that's just where you're wrong! that's just where you're +mistaken! Not to her at all. I don't intend going to see the girl at the +baker's shop any more.' + +Onisim dropped his eyelids and brandished the brush. Pyetushkov waited +for his approbation; but his servant remained speechless. + +'It's not the proper thing,' Pyetushkov went on in a severe voice--'it's +unseemly.... Come, tell me what you think?' + +'What am I to think? It's for you to say. What business have I to +think?' + +Pyetushkov put on his coat. 'He doesn't believe me, the beast,' he +thought to himself. + +He went out of the house, but he did not go to see any one. He walked +about the streets. He directed his attention to the sunset. At last a +little after eight o'clock he returned home. He wore a smile; he +repeatedly shrugged his shoulders, as though marvelling at his own +folly. 'Yes,' thought he, 'this is what comes of a strong will....' + +Next day Pyetushkov got up rather late. He had not passed a very good +night, did not go out all day, and was fearfully bored. Pyetushkov read +through all his poor books, and praised aloud one story in the Library +of Good Reading. As he went to bed, he told Onisim to give him his pipe. +Onisim handed him a wretched pipe. Pyetushkov began smoking; the pipe +wheezed like a broken-winded horse. + +'How disgusting!' cried Ivan Afanasiitch; 'where's my cherry wood pipe?' + +'At the baker's shop,' Onisim responded tranquilly. + +Pyetushkov blinked spasmodically. + +'Well, you wish me to go for it?' + +'No, you needn't; don't go ... no need, don't go, do you hear?' + +'Yes, sir.' + +The night passed somehow. In the morning Onisim, as usual, gave +Pyetushkov on the blue sprigged plate a new white roll. Ivan Afanasiitch +looked out of window and asked Onisim: + +'You've been to the baker's shop?' + +'Who's to go, if I don't?' + +'Ah!' + +Pyetushkov became plunged in meditation. + +'Tell me, please, did you see any one there?' + +'Of course I did.' + +'Whom did you see there, now, for instance?' + +'Why, of course, Vassilissa.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch was silent. Onisim cleared the table, and was just +going out of the room.... + +'Onisim,' Pyetushkov cried faintly. + +'What is it?' + +'Er ... did she ask after me?' + +'Of course she didn't.' + +Pyetushkov set his teeth. 'Yes,' he thought, 'that's all it's worth, her +love, indeed....' His head dropped. 'Absurd I was, to be sure,' he +thought again. 'A fine idea to read her poetry. A girl like that! Why, +she's a fool! Why, she's good for nothing but to lie on the stove and +eat pancakes. Why, she's a post, a perfect post; an uneducated +workgirl.' + +'She's never come,' he whispered, two hours later, still sitting in the +same place, 'she's never come. To think of it; why, she could see that I +left her out of temper; why, she might know that I was hurt. There's +love for you! And she did not even ask if I were well. Never even said, +"Is Ivan Afanasiitch quite well?" She hasn't seen me for two whole +days--and not a sign.... She's even again, maybe, thought fit to meet +that Bub--Lucky fellow. Ouf, devil take it, what a fool I am!' + +Pyetushkov got up, paced up and down the room in silence, stood still, +knitted his brows slightly and scratched his neck. 'However,' he said +aloud, 'I'll go to see her. I must see what she's about there. I must +make her feel ashamed. Most certainly ... I'll go. Onisim! my clothes.' + +'Well,' he mused as he dressed, 'we shall see what comes of it. She may, +I dare say, be angry with me. And after all, a man keeps coming and +coming, and all of a sudden, for no rhyme or reason, goes and gives up +coming. Well, we shall see.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch went out of the house, and made his way to the baker's +shop. He stopped at the little gate, he wanted to straighten himself out +and set himself to rights.... Pyetushkov clutched at the folds of his +coat with both hands, and almost pulled them out altogether.... +Convulsively he twisted his tightly compressed neck, fastened the top +hook of his collar, drew a deep breath.... + +'Why are you standing there?' Praskovia Ivanovna bawled to him from the +little window. 'Come in.' + +Pyetushkov started, and went in. Praskovia Ivanovna met him in +the doorway. + +'Why didn't you come to see us yesterday, my good sir? Was it, maybe, +some ailment prevented you?' + +'Yes, I had something of a headache yesterday....' + +'Ah, you should have put cucumber on your temples, my good sir. It would +have taken it away in a twinkling. Is your head aching now?' + +'No, it's not.' + +'Ah well, and thank Thee, O Lord, for it.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch went off into the back room. Vassilissa saw him. + +'Ah! good day, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'Good day, Vassilissa Ivanovna.' + +'Where have you put the tap, Ivan Afanasiitch?' + +'Tap? what tap?' + +'The wine-tap ... our tap. You must have taken it home with you. You are +such a one ... Lord, forgive us....' + +Pyetushkov put on a dignified and chilly air. + +'I will direct my man to look. Seeing that I was not here yesterday,' he +pronounced significantly.... + +'Ah, why, to be sure, you weren't here yesterday.' Vassilissa squatted +down on her heels, and began rummaging in the chest.... + +'Aunt, hi! aunt!' + +'What sa-ay?' + +'Have you taken my neckerchief?' + +'What neckerchief?' + +'Why, the yellow one.' + +'The yellow one?' + +'Yes, the yellow, figured one.' + +'No, I've not taken it.' + +Pyetushkov bent down to Vassilissa. + +'Listen to me, Vassilissa; listen to what I am saying to you. It is not +a matter of taps or of neckerchiefs just now; you can attend to such +trifles another time.' + +Vassilissa did not budge from her position; she only lifted her head. + +'You just tell me, on your conscience, do you love me or not? That's +what I want to know, once for all.' + +'Ah, what a one you are, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Well, then, of course.' + +'If you love me, how was it you didn't come to see me yesterday? Had you +no time? Well, you might have sent to find out if I were ill, as I +didn't turn up. But it's little you cared. I might die, I dare say, you +wouldn't grieve.' + +'Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, one can't be always thinking of one thing, one's +got one's work to do.' + +'To be sure,' responded Pyetushkov; 'but all the same ... And it's +improper to laugh at your elders.... It's not right. Moreover, it's as +well in certain cases ... But where's my pipe?' + +'Here's your pipe.' + +Pyetushkov began smoking. + + + + +VII + + +Several days slipped by again, apparently rather tranquilly. But a storm +was getting nearer. Pyetushkov suffered tortures, was jealous, never +took his eyes off Vassilissa, kept an alarmed watch over her, annoyed +her horribly. Behold, one evening, Vassilissa dressed herself with more +care than usual, and, seizing a favourable instant, sallied off to make +a visit somewhere. Night came on, she had not returned. Pyetushkov at +sunset went home to his lodgings, and at eight o'clock in the morning +ran to the baker's shop.... Vassilissa had not come in. With an +inexpressible sinking at his heart, he waited for her right up to +dinner-time.... They sat down to the table without her.... + +'Whatever can have become of her?' Praskovia Ivanovna observed +serenely.... + +'You spoil her, you simply spoil her utterly!' Pyetushkov repeated, +in despair. + +'Eh! my good sir, there's no looking after a girl!' responded Praskovia +Ivanovna. 'Let her go her way! So long as she does her work.... Why +shouldn't folks enjoy themselves? ...' + +A cold shudder ran over Pyetushkov. At last, towards evening, Vassilissa +made her appearance. This was all he was waiting for. Majestically +Pyetushkov rose from his seat, folded his arms, scowled menacingly.... +But Vassilissa looked him boldly in the face, laughed impudently, and +before he could utter a single word she went quickly into her own room, +and locked herself in. Ivan Afanasiitch opened his mouth, looked in +amazement at Praskovia Ivanovna.... Praskovia Ivanovna cast down her +eyes. Ivan Afanasiitch stood still a moment, groped after his cap, put +it on askew, and went out without closing his mouth. + +He reached home, took up a leather cushion, and with it flung himself on +the sofa, with his face to the wall. Onisim looked in out of the +passage, went into the room, leaned his back against the door, took a +pinch of snuff, and crossed his legs. + +'Are you unwell, Ivan Afanasiitch?' he asked Pyetushkov. + +Pyetushkov made no answer. + +'Shall I go for the doctor?' Onisim continued, after a brief pause. + +'I'm quite well.... Go away,' Ivan Afanasiitch articulated huskily. + +'Well? ... no, you're not well, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Is this what you +call being well?' + +Pyetushkov did not speak. + +'Just look at yourself. You've grown so thin, that you're simply not +like yourself. And what's it all about? It's enough to turn one's brain +to think of it. And you a gentleman born, too!' + +Onisim paused. Pyetushkov did not stir. + +'Is that the way gentlemen go on? They'd amuse themselves a bit, to be +sure ... why shouldn't they ... they'd amuse themselves, and then drop +it.... They may well say, Fall in love with Old Nick, and you'll think +him a beauty.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch merely writhed. + +'Well, it's really like this, Ivan Afanasiitch. If any one had said this +and that of you, and your goings on, why, I would have said, "Get along +with you, you fool, what do you take me for?" Do you suppose I'd have +believed it? Why, as it is, I see it with my own eyes, and I can't +believe it. Worse than this nothing can be. Has she put some spell over +you or what? Why, what is there in her? If you come to consider, she's +below contempt, really. She can't even speak as she ought.... She's +simply a baggage! Worse, even!' + +'Go away,' Ivan Afanasiitch moaned into the cushion. + +'No, I'm not going away, Ivan Afanasiitch. Who's to speak, if I don't? +Why, upon my word! Here, you 're breaking your heart now ... and over +what? Eh, over what? tell me that!' + +'Oh, go away, Onisim,' Pyetushkov moaned again. Onisim, for propriety's +sake, was silent for a little while. + +'And another thing,' he began again, 'she's no feeling of gratitude +whatever. Any other girl wouldn't know how to do enough to please you; +while she! ... she doesn't even think of you. Why, it's simply a +disgrace. Why, the things people are saying about you, one cannot repeat +them, they positively cry shame on me. If I could have known beforehand, +I'd have....' + +'Oh, go away, do, devil!' shrieked Pyetushkov, not stirring from his +place, however, nor raising his head. + +'Ivan Afanasiitch, for mercy's sake,' pursued the ruthless Onisim. 'I'm +speaking for your good. Despise her, Ivan Afanasiitch; you simply break +it off. Listen to me, or else I'll fetch a wise woman; she'll break the +spell in no time. You'll laugh at it yourself, later on; you'll say to +me, "Onisim, why, it's marvellous how such things happen sometimes!" You +just consider yourself: girls like her, they're like dogs ... you've +only to whistle to them....' + +Like one frantic, Pyetushkov jumped up from the sofa ... but, to the +amazement of Onisim, who was already lifting both hands to the level of +his cheeks, he sat down again, as though some one had cut away his legs +from under him.... Tears were rolling down his pale face, a tuft of hair +stood up straight on the top of his head, his eyes looked dimmed ... his +drawn lips were quivering ... his head sank on his breast. + +Onisim looked at Pyetushkov and plumped heavily down on his knees. + +'Dear master, Ivan Afanasiitch,' he cried, 'your honour! Be pleased to +punish me. I'm a fool. I've troubled you, Ivan Afanasiitch.... How did I +dare! Be pleased to punish me, your honour.... It's not worth your while +to weep over my silly words ... dear master. Ivan Afanasiitch....' + +But Pyetushkov did not even look at his servant; he turned away and +buried himself in the corner of the sofa again. + +Onisim got up, went up to his master, stood over him, and twice he +tugged at his own hair. + +'Wouldn't you like to undress, sir ... you should go to bed ... you +should take some raspberry tea ... don't grieve, please your honour.... +It's only half a trouble, it's all nothing ... it'll be all right in the +end,' he said to him every two minutes.... + +But Pyetushkov did not get up from the sofa, and only twitched his +shoulders now and then, and drew up his knees to his stomach.... + +Onisim did not leave his side all night. Towards morning Pyetushkov fell +asleep, but he did not sleep long. At seven o'clock he got up from the +sofa, pale, dishevelled, and exhausted, and asked for tea. + +Onisim with amazing eagerness and speed brought the samovar. + +'Ivan Afanasiitch,' he began at last, in a timid voice, 'your honour is +not angry with me?' + +'Why should I be angry with you, Onisim?' answered poor Pyetushkov. 'You +were perfectly right yesterday, and I quite agreed with you in +everything.' + +'I only spoke through my devotion to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +'I know that.' + +Pyetushkov was silent and hung his head. + +Onisim saw that things were in a bad way. + +'Ivan Afanasiitch,' he said suddenly. + +'Well?' + +'Would you like me to fetch Vassilissa here?' + +Pyetushkov flushed red. + +'No, Onisim, I don't wish it. ('Yes, indeed! as if she would come!' he +thought to himself.) One must be firm. It is all nonsense. Yesterday, +I ... It's a disgrace. You are right. One must cut it all short, once for +all, as they say. Isn't that true?' + +'It's the gospel truth your honour speaks, Ivan Afanasiitch.' + +Pyetushkov sank again into reverie. He wondered at himself, he did not +seem to know himself. He sat without stirring and stared at the floor. +Thoughts whirled round within him, like smoke or fog, while his heart +felt empty and heavy at once. + +'But what's the meaning of it, after all,' he thought sometimes, and +again he grew calmer. 'It's nonsense, silliness!' he said aloud, and +passed his hand over his face, shook himself, and his hand dropped again +on his knee, his eyes again rested on the floor. + +Intently and mournfully Onisim kept watch on his master. + +Pyetushkov lifted his head. + +'Tell me, Onisim,' he began, 'is it true, are there really such +witches' spells?' + +'There are, to be sure there are,' answered Onisim, as he thrust one +foot forward. 'Does your honour know the non-commissioned officer, +Krupovaty? ... His brother was ruined by witchcraft. He was bewitched +to love an old woman, a cook, if your honour only can explain that! They +gave him nothing but a morsel of rye bread, with a muttered spell, of +course. And Krupovaty's brother simply lost his heart to the cook, he +fairly ran after the cook, he positively adored her--couldn't keep his +eyes off her. She might tell him to do anything, he'd obey her on the +spot. She'd even make a joke of him before other people, before +strangers. Well, she drove him into a decline, at last. And so it was +Krupovaty's brother died. And you know, she was a cook, and an old woman +too, very old. (Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) Confound the lot of them, +these girls and women-folk!' + +'She doesn't care for me a bit, that's clear, at last; that's beyond all +doubt, at last,' Pyetushkov muttered in an undertone, gesticulating with +his head and hands as though he were explaining to a perfectly +extraneous person some perfectly extraneous fact. + +'Yes,' Onisim resumed, 'there are women like that.' + +'There are,' listlessly repeated Pyetushkov, in a tone half questioning, +half perplexed. + +Onisim looked intently at his master. + +'Ivan Afanasiitch,' he began, 'wouldn't you have a snack of something?' + +'Wouldn't I have a snack of something?' repeated Pyetushkov. + +'Or may be you'd like to have a pipe?' + +'To have a pipe?' repeated Pyetushkov. + +'So this is what it's coming to,' muttered Onisim. 'It's gone deep, +it seems.' + + + + +VIII + + +The creak of boots resounded in the passage, and then there was heard +the usual suppressed cough which announces the presence of a person +of subordinate position. Onisim went out and promptly came back, +accompanied by a diminutive soldier with a little, old woman's face, +in a patched cloak yellow with age, and wearing neither breeches nor +cravat. Pyetushkov was startled; while the soldier drew himself up, +wished him good day, and handed him a large envelope bearing the +government seal. In this envelope was a note from the major in +command of the garrison: he called upon Pyetushkov to come to him +without fail or delay. + +Pyetushkov turned the note over in his hands, and could not refrain from +asking the messenger, did he know why the major desired his presence, +though he was very well aware of the utter futility of his question. + +'We cannot tell!' the soldier cried, with great effort, yet hardly +audibly, as though he were half asleep. + +'Isn't he summoning the other officers?' Pyetushkov pursued. + +'We cannot tell,' the soldier cried a second time, in just the +same voice. + +'All right, you can go,' pronounced Pyetushkov. + +The soldier wheeled round to the left, scraping his foot as he did so, +and slapping himself below the spine (this was considered smart in the +twenties), withdrew. + +Pyetushkov exchanged glances with Onisim, who at once assumed a look of +anxiety. Without a word Ivan Afanasiitch set off to the major's. + +The major was a man of sixty, corpulent and clumsily built, with a red +and bloated face, a short neck, and a continual trembling in his +fingers, resulting from excessive indulgence in strong drink. He +belonged to the class of so-called 'bourbons,' that's to say, soldiers +risen from the ranks; had learned to read at thirty, and spoke with +difficulty, partly from shortness of breath, partly from inability to +follow his own thought. His temperament exhibited all the varieties +known to science: in the morning, before drinking, he was melancholy; in +the middle of the day, choleric; and in the evening, phlegmatic, that is +to say, he did nothing at that time but snore and grunt till he was put +to bed. Ivan Afanasiitch appeared before him during the choleric period. +He found him sitting on a sofa, in an open dressing-gown, with a pipe +between his teeth. A fat, crop-eared cat had taken up her position +beside him. + +'Aha! he's come!' growled the major, casting a sidelong glance out of +his pewtery eyes upon Pyetushkov, and not stirring from his place. 'Sit +down. Well, I'm going to give you a talking to. I've wanted to get hold +of you this long while.' + +Pyetushkov sank into a chair. + +'For,' the major began, with an unexpected lurch of his whole body, +'you're an officer, d'ye see, and so you've got to behave yourself +according to rule. If you'd been a soldier, I'd have flogged you, and +that's all about it, but, as 'tis, you're an officer. Did any one ever +see the like of it? Disgracing yourself--is that a nice thing?' + +'Allow me to know to what these remarks may refer?' Pyetushkov was +beginning.... + +'I'll have no arguing! I dislike that beyond everything. I've said: I +dislike it; and that's all about it! Ugh--why, your hooks are not in +good form even;--what a disgrace! He sits, day in and day out, at the +baker's shop; and he a gentleman born! There's a petticoat to be found +there--and so there he sits. Let her go to the devil, the petticoat! +Why, they do say he puts the bread in the oven. It's a stain on the +uniform ... so it is!' + +'Allow me to submit,' articulated Pyetushkov with a cold chill at his +heart, 'that all this, as far as I can make out, refers to my private +life, so to say....' + +'No arguing with me, I tell you! Private life, he protests, too! If it +had been a matter of the service I'd have sent you straight to the +guard-room! Alley, marsheer! Because of the oath. Why, there was a whole +birch copse, maybe, used upon my back, so I should think I know the +service; every rule of discipline I'm very well up in. And I'd have you +to understand, I say this just for the honour of the uniform. You're +disgracing the uniform ... so you are. I say this like a father ... yes. +Because all that's put in my charge. I've to answer for it. And you dare +to argue too!' the major shrieked with sudden fury, and his face turned +purple, and he foamed at the mouth, while the cat put its tail in the +air and jumped down to the ground. 'Why, do you know ... why, do you +know what I can do? ... I can do anything, anything, anything! Why, do +you know whom you're talking to? Your superior officer gives you orders +and you argue! Your superior officer ... your superior officer....' + +Here the major positively choked and spluttered, while poor Pyetushkov +could only draw himself up and turn pale, sitting on the very edge of +his chair. + +'I must have' ... the major continued, with an imperious wave of his +trembling hand, 'I must have everything ... up to the mark! Conduct +first-class! I'm not going to put up with any irregularities! You can +make friends with whom you like, that makes no odds to me! But if you +are a gentleman, why, act as such ... behave like one! No putting bread +in the oven for me! No calling a draggletail old woman auntie! No +disgracing the uniform! Silence! No arguing!' + +The major's voice broke. He took breath, and turning towards the door +into the passage, bawled, 'Frolka, you scoundrel! The herrings!' + +Pyetushkov rose hurriedly and darted away, almost upsetting the +page-boy, who ran to meet him, carrying some sliced herring and a stout +decanter of spirits on an iron tray. + +'Silence! No arguing!' sounded after Pyetushkov the disjointed +exclamations of his exasperated superior officer. + + + + +IX + + +A queer sensation overmastered Ivan Afanasiitch when, at last, he found +himself in the street. + +'Why am I walking as it were in a dream?' he thought to himself. 'Am I +out of my mind, or what? Why, it passes all belief, at last. Come, damn +it, she's tired of me, come, and I've grown tired of her, come, and ... +What is there out of the way in that? + +Pyetushkov frowned. + +'I must put an end to it, once for all,' he said almost aloud. 'I'll go +and speak out decisively for the last time, so that it may never come +up again.' + +Pyetushkov made his way with rapid step to the baker's shop. The nephew +of the hired man, Luka, a little boy, friend and confidant of the goat +that lived in the yard, darted swiftly to the little gate, directly he +caught sight of Ivan Afanasiitch in the distance. + +Praskovia Ivanovna came out to meet Pyetushkov. + +'Is your niece at home?' asked Pyetushkov. + +'No, sir.' + +Pyetushkov was inwardly relieved at Vassilissa's absence. + +'I came to have a few words with you, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'What about, my good sir?' + +'I'll tell you. You comprehend that after all ... that has passed ... +after such, so to say, behaviour (Pyetushkov was a little confused) ... +in a word ... But, pray, don't be angry with me, though.' + +'Certainly not, sir.' + +'On the contrary, enter into my position, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'Certainly, sir.' + +'You're a reasonable woman, you'll understand of yourself, that ... that +I can't go on coming to see you any more.' + +'Certainly, sir,' Praskovia Ivanovna repeated slowly. + +'I assure you I greatly regret it; I confess it is positively painful to +me, genuinely painful ...' + +'You know best, sir,' Praskovia Ivanovna rejoined serenely. 'It's for +you to decide, sir. And, oh, if you'll allow me, I'll give you your +little account, sir.' + +Pyetushkov had not at all anticipated such a prompt acquiescence. He had +not desired acquiescence at all; he had only wanted to frighten +Praskovia Ivanovna, and above all Vassilissa. He felt wretched. + +'I know,' he began, 'this will not be disagreeable to Vassilissa; on the +contrary, I believe she will be glad.' + +Praskovia Ivanovna got out her reckoning beads, and began rattling +the counters. + +'On the other hand,' continued Pyetushkov, growing more and more +agitated, 'if Vassilissa were, for instance, to give an explanation of +her behaviour ... possibly.... Though, of course ... I don't know, +possibly, I might perceive that after all there was no great matter for +blame in it.' + +'There's thirty-seven roubles and forty kopecks in notes to your +account, sir,' observed Praskovia Ivanovna. 'Here, would you be pleased +to go through it?' + +Ivan Afanasiitch made no reply. + +'Eighteen dinners at seventy kopecks each; twelve roubles sixty +kopecks.' + +'And so we are to part, Praskovia Ivanovna.' + +'If so it must be, sir. Things do turn out so. Twelve samovars at ten +kopecks each ...' + +'But you might just tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna, where it was Vassilissa +went, and what it was she ...' + +'Oh, I never asked her, sir.... One rouble twenty kopecks in silver.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch sank into meditation. + +'Kvas and effervescing drinks,' pursued Praskovia Ivanovna, holding the +counters apart on the frame not with her first, but her third finger, +'half a rouble in silver. Sugar and rolls for tea, half a rouble. Four +packets of tobacco bought by your orders, eighty kopecks in silver. To +the tailor Kuprian Apollonov ...' + +Ivan Afanasiitch suddenly raised his head, put out his hand and mixed up +the counters. + +'What are you about, my good man?' cried Praskovia Ivanovna. 'Don't you +trust me?' + +'Praskovia Ivanovna,' replied Pyetushkov, with a hurried smile, 'I've +thought better of it. I was only, you know ... joking. We'd better +remain friends and go on in the old way. What nonsense it is! How can we +separate--tell me that, please?' + +Praskovia Ivanovna looked down and made him no reply. + +'Come, we've been talking nonsense, and there's an end of it,' pursued +Ivan Afanasiitch, walking up and down the room, rubbing his hands, +and, as it were, resuming his ancient rights. 'Amen! and now I'd +better have a pipe.' + +Praskovia Ivanovna still did not move from her place.... + +'I see you are angry with me,' said Pyetushkov. + +'I've offended you, perhaps. Well! well! forgive me generously.' + +'How could you offend me, my good sir? No offence about it.... Only, +please, sir,' added Praskovia Ivanovna, bowing, 'be so good as not to go +on coming to us.' + +'What?' + +'It's not for you, sir, to be friends with us, your honour. So, please, +do us the favour ...' + +Praskovia Ivanovna went on bowing. + +'What ever for?' muttered the astounded Pyetushkov. + +'Oh, nothing, sir. For mercy's sake ...' + +'No, Praskovia Ivanovna, you must explain this! ...' + +'Vassilissa asks you. She says, "I thank you, thank you very much, and +from my heart; only for the future, your honour, give us up."' + +Praskovia Ivanovna bowed down almost to Pyetushkov's feet. + +'Vassilissa, you say, begs me not to come?' + +'Just so, your honour. When your honour came in to-day, and said what +you did, that you didn't wish, you said, to visit us any more, I felt +relieved, sir, that I did; thinks I, Well, thank God, how nicely it's +all come about! But for that, I should have had hard work to bring my +tongue to say it.... Be so good, sir.' + +Pyetushkov turned red and pale almost at the same instant. Praskovia +Ivanovna still went on bowing.... + +'Very good,' Ivan Afanasiitch cried sharply. 'Good-bye.' + +He turned abruptly and put on his cap. + +'But the little bill, sir....' + +'Send it ... my orderly shall pay you.' + +Pyetushkov went with resolute steps out of the baker's shop, and did not +even look round. + + + + +X + + +A fortnight passed. At first Pyetushkov bore up in an extraordinary way. +He went out, and visited his comrades, with the exception, of course, of +Bublitsyn; but in spite of the exaggerated approbation of Onisim, he +almost went out of his mind at last from wretchedness, jealousy, and +ennui. Conversations with Onisim about Vassilissa were the only thing +that afforded him some consolation. The conversation was always begun, +'scratched up,' by Pyetushkov; Onisim responded unwillingly. + +'It's a strange thing, you know,' Ivan Afanasiitch would say, for +instance, as he lay on the sofa, while Onisim stood in his usual +attitude, leaning against the door, with his hands folded behind his +back, 'when you come to think of it, what it was I saw in that girl. One +would say that there was nothing unusual in her. It's true she has a +good heart. That one can't deny her.' + +'Good heart, indeed!' Onisim would answer with displeasure. + +'Come, now, Onisim,' Pyetushkov went on, 'one must tell the truth. It's +a thing of the past now; it's no matter to me now, but justice is +justice. You don't know her. She's very good-hearted. Not a single +beggar does she let pass by; she'll always give, if it's only a crust of +bread. Oh! And she's of a cheerful temper, that one must allow, too.' + +'What a notion! I don't know where you see the cheerful temper!' + +'I tell you ... you don't know her. And she's not mercenary either ... +that's another thing. She's not grasping, there's no doubt of it. Why I +never gave her anything, as you know.' + +'That's why she's flung you over.' + +'No, that's not why!' responded Pyetushkov with a sigh. + +'Why, you're in love with her to this day,' Onisim retorted malignantly. +'You'd be glad to go back there as before.' + +'That's nonsense you're talking. No, my lad, you don't know me either, I +can see. Be sent away, and then go dancing attendance--no, thank you, +I'd rather be excused. No, I tell you. You may believe me, it's all a +thing of the past now.' + +'Pray God it be so!' + +'But why ever shouldn't I be fair to her, now after all? If now I say +she's not good-looking--why, who'd believe me?' + +'A queer sort of good looks!' + +'Well, find me,--well, mention anybody better-looking ...' + +'Oh, you'd better go back to her, then! ...' + +'Stupid! Do you suppose that's why I say so? Understand me ...' + +'Oh! I understand you,' Onisim answered with a heavy sigh. + +Another week passed by. Pyetushkov had positively given up talking with +his Onisim, and had given up going out. From morning till night he lay +on the sofa, his hands behind his head. He began to get thin and pale, +eat unwillingly and hurriedly, and did not smoke at all. Onisim could +only shake his head, as he looked at him. + +'You're not well, Ivan Afanasiitch,' he said to him more than once. + +'No, I'm all right,' replied Pyetushkov. + +At last, one fine day (Onisim was not at home) Pyetushkov got up, +rummaged in his chest of drawers, put on his cloak, though the sun was +rather hot, went stealthily out into the street, and came back a quarter +of an hour later.... He carried something under his cloak.... + +Onisim was not at home. The whole morning he had been sitting in his +little room, deliberating with himself, grumbling and swearing between +his teeth, and, at last, he sallied off to Vassilissa. He found her in +the shop. Praskovia Ivanovna was asleep on the stove, rhythmically and +soothingly snoring. + +'Ah, how d'ye do, Onisim Sergeitch,' began Vassilissa, with a smile; +'why haven't we seen anything of you for so long?' + +'Good day.' + +'Why are you so depressed? Would you like a cup of tea?' + +'It's not me we're talking about now,' rejoined Onisim, in a tone +of vexation. + +'Why, what then?' + +'What! Don't you understand me? What! What have you done to my master, +come, you tell me that.' + +'What I've done to him?' + +'What have you done to him? ... You go and look at him. Why, before we +can look round, he'll be in a decline, or dying outright, maybe.' + +'It's not my fault, Onisim Sergeitch.' + +'Not your fault! God knows. Why, he's lost his heart to you. And you, +God forgive you, treated him as if he were one of yourselves. Don't +come, says you, I'm sick of you. Why, though he's not much to boast of, +he's a gentleman anyway. He's a gentleman born, you know.... Do you +realise that?' + +'But he's such a dull person, Onisim Sergeitch....' + +'Dull! So you must have merry fellows about you!' + +'And it's not so much that he's dull: he's so cross, so jealous.' + +'Ah, you, you're as haughty as a princess! He was in your way, I +dare say!' + +'But you yourself, Onisim Sergeitch, if you remember, were put out with +him about it; "Why is he such friends?" you said; "what's he always +coming for?"' + +'Well, was I to be pleased with him for it, do you suppose?' + +'Well, then, why are you angry with me now? Here, he's given up coming.' + +Onisim positively stamped. + +'But what am I to do with him, if he's such a madman?' he added, +dropping his voice. + +'But how am I in fault? What can I do?' + +'I'll tell you what: come with me to him.' + +'God forbid!' + +'Why won't you come?' + +'But why should I go to see him? Upon my word!' + +'Why? Why, because he says you've a good heart; let me see if you've a +good heart.' + +'But what good can I do him?' + +'Oh, that's my business. You may be sure things are in a bad way, since +I've come to you. It's certain I could think of nothing else to do.' + +Onisim paused for a while. + +'Well, come along, Vassilissa, please, come along.' + +'Oh, Onisim Sergeitch, I don't want to be friendly with him again ...' + +'Well, and you needn't--who's talking of it? You've only to say a +couple of words; to say, Why does your honour grieve? ... give over.... +That's all.' + +'Really, Onisim Sergeitch ...' + +'Why, am I to go down on my knees to you, eh? All right--there, I'm on +my knees ...' + +'But really ...' + +'Why, what a girl it is! Even that doesn't touch her! ...' + +Vassilissa at last consented, put a kerchief on her head, and went out +with Onisim. + +'You wait here a little, in the passage,' he said to her, when they +reached Pyetushkov's abode, 'and I'll go and let the master know ...' + +He went in to Ivan Afanasiitch. Pyetushkov was standing in the middle of +the room, both hands in his pockets, his legs excessively wide apart; he +was slightly swaying backwards and forwards. His face was hot, and his +eyes were sparkling. + +'Hullo, Onisim,' he faltered amiably, articulating the consonants very +indistinctly and thickly: 'hullo, my lad. Ah, my lad, when you weren't +here ... he, he, he ...' Pyetushkov laughed and made a sudden duck +forward with his nose. 'Yes, it's an accomplished fact, he, he, he.... +However,' he added, trying to assume a dignified air, 'I'm all right.' +He tried to lift his foot, but almost fell over, and to preserve his +dignity pronounced in a deep bass, 'Boy, bring my pipe!' + +Onisim gazed in astonishment at his master, glanced round.... In the +window stood an empty dark-green bottle, with the inscription: 'Best +Jamaica rum.' + +'I've been drinking, my lad, that's all,' Pyetushkov went on. 'I've +been and taken it. I've been drinking, and that's all about it. And +where've you been? Tell us ... don't be shy ... tell us. You're a good +hand at a tale.' + +'Ivan Afanasiitch, mercy on us!' wailed Onisim. + +'To be sure. To be sure I will,' replied Pyetushkov with a vague wave of +his hand. 'I'll have mercy on you, and forgive you. I forgive every one, +I forgive you, and Vassilissa I forgive, and every one, every one. Yes, +my lad, I've been drinking.... Dri-ink-ing, lad.... Who's that?' he +cried suddenly, pointing to the door into the passage; 'who's there?' + +'Nobody's there,' Onisim answered hastily: 'who should be there? ... +where are you going?' + +'No, no,' repeated Pyetushkov, breaking away from Onisim, 'let me go, I +saw--don't you talk to me,--I saw there, let me go.... Vassilissa!' he +shrieked all at once. + +Pyetushkov turned pale. + +'Well ... well, why don't you come in?' he said at last. 'Come in, +Vassilissa, come in. I'm very glad to see you, Vassilissa.' + +Vassilissa glanced at Onisim and came into the room. Pyetushkov went +nearer to her.... He heaved deep, irregular breaths. Onisim watched him. +Vassilissa stole timid glances at both of them. + +'Sit down, Vassilissa,' Ivan Afanasiitch began again: 'thanks for +coming. Excuse my being ... what shall I say? ... not quite fit to be +seen. I couldn't foresee, couldn't really, you'll own that yourself. +Come, sit down, see here, on the sofa ... So ... I'm expressing myself +all right, I think.' + +Vassilissa sat down. + +'Well, good day to you,' Ivan Afanasiitch pursued. 'Come, how are you? +what have you been doing?' + +'I'm well, thank God, Ivan Afanasiitch. And you?' + +'I? as you see! A ruined man. And ruined by whom? By you, Vassilissa. +But I'm not angry with you. Only I'm a ruined man. You ask him. (He +pointed to Onisim.) Don't you mind my being drunk. I'm drunk, certainly; +only I'm a ruined man. That's why I'm drunk, because I'm a ruined man.' + +'Lord have mercy on us, Ivan Afanasiitch!' + +'A ruined man, Vassilissa, I tell you. You may believe me. I've never +deceived you. Oh, and how's your aunt?' + +'Very well, Ivan Afanasiitch. Thank you.' + +Pyetushkov began swaying violently. + +'But you're not quite well to-day, Ivan Afanasiitch. You ought to +lie down.' + +'No, I'm quite well, Vassilissa. No, don't say I'm not well; you'd +better say I've fallen into evil ways, lost my morals. That's what would +be just. I won't dispute that.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch gave a lurch backwards. Onisim ran forward and held his +master up. + +'And who's to blame for it? I'll tell you, if you like, who's to blame. +I'm to blame, in the first place. What ought I to have said? I ought to +have said to you: Vassilissa, I love you. Good--well, will you marry me? +Will you? It's true you're a working girl, granted; but that's all +right. It's done sometimes. Why, there, I knew a fellow, he got married +like that. Married a Finnish servant-girl. Took and married her. And +you'd have been happy with me. I'm a good-natured chap, I am! Never you +mind my being drunk, you look at my heart. There, you ask this ... +fellow. So, you see, I turn out to be in fault. And now, of course, I'm +a ruined man.' + +Ivan Afanasiitch was more and more in need of Onisim's support. + +'All the same, you did wrong, very wrong. I loved you, I respected +you ... what's more, I'm ready to go to church with you this minute. Will +you? You've only to say the word, and we'll start at once. Only you +wounded me cruelly ... cruelly. You might at least have turned me away +yourself--but through your aunt, through that fat female! Why, the only +joy I had in life was you. I'm a homeless man, you know, a poor lonely +creature! Who is there now to be kind to me? who says a kind word to me? +I'm utterly alone. Stript bare as a crow. You ask this ...' Ivan +Afanasiitch began to cry. 'Vassilissa, listen what I say to you,' he +went on: 'let me come and see you as before. Don't be afraid.... I'll +be ... quiet as a mouse. You can go and see whom you like, I'll--be all +right: not a word, no protests, you know. Eh? do you agree? If you like, +I'll go down on my knees.' (And Ivan Afanasiitch bent his knees, but +Onisim held him up under the arms.) 'Let me go! It's not your business! +It's a matter of the happiness of a whole life, don't you understand, +and you hinder....' + +Vassilissa did not know what to say. + +'You won't ... Well, as you will! God be with you. In that case, good-bye! +Good-bye, Vassilissa. I wish you all happiness and prosperity ... but +I ... but I ...' + +And Pyetushkov sobbed violently. Onisim with all his might held him up +from behind ... first his face worked, then he burst out crying. And +Vassilissa cried too. + + + + +XI + + +Ten years later, one might have met in the streets of the little town of +O---- a thinnish man with a reddish nose, dressed in an old green coat +with a greasy plush collar. He occupied a small garret in the baker's +shop, with which we are familiar. Praskovia Ivanovna was no longer of +this world. The business was carried on by her niece, Vassilissa, and +her husband, the red-haired, dim-eyed baker, Demofont. The man in the +green coat had one weakness: he was over fond of drink. He was, however, +always quiet when he was tipsy. The reader has probably recognised him +as Ivan Afanasiitch. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Desperate Character and Other Stories, by +Ivan Turgenev + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + +***** This file should be named 8871.txt or 8871.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/8/7/8871/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Desperate Character and Other Stories + +Author: Ivan Turgenev + +Translator: Constance Garnett + + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8871] +This file was first posted on August 17, 2003 +Last Updated: October 26, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + + + + +Text files produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + A DESPERATE CHARACTER, AND OTHER STORIES + </h1> + <h2> + By Ivan Turgenev + </h2> + <h4> + Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett <br /> <br /> 1899 + </h4> + <p> + <b>THE NOVELS OF IVAN TURGENEV</b> + </p> + <p> + Complete in Fifteen Volumes. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + i. Rudin. + ii. A House of Gentlefolk. + iii. On the Eve. + iv. Fathers and Children. + v. Smoke. + vi. & vii. Virgin Soil. 2 Vols. + viii, & ix. A Sportsman’s Sketches. 2 Vols. + x. Dream Tales and Prose Poems. + xi. The Torrents of Spring and other Stories. + xii. A Lear of the Steppes and other Stories. + xiii. The Diary of a Superfluous Man and other Stories. + xiv. A Desperate Character and other Tales. + xv. The Jew and other Stories. +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h4> + TO JOSEPH CONRAD <br /> <br /> WHOSE ART IN ESSENCE OFTEN RECALLS <br /> THE + ART AND ESSENCE OF TURGENEV + </h4> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + INTRODUCTION + </h2> + <p> + The six tales now translated for the English reader were written by + Turgenev at various dates between 1847 and 1881. Their chronological order + is:— + </p> + <p> + <i>Pyetushkov</i>, 1847 + </p> + <p> + <i>The Brigadier</i>, 1867 + </p> + <p> + <i>A Strange Story</i>, 1869 + </p> + <p> + <i>Punin and Baburin</i>, 1874 + </p> + <p> + <i>Old Portraits</i>, 1881 + </p> + <p> + <i>A Desperate Character</i>, 1881 + </p> + <p> + <i>Pyetushkov</i> is the work of a young man of twenty-nine, and its + lively, unstrained realism is so bold, intimate, and delicate as to + contradict the flattering compliment that the French have paid to one + another—that Turgenev had need to dress his art by the aid of French + mirrors. + </p> + <p> + Although <i>Pyetushkov</i> shows us, by a certain open <i>naïveté</i> of + style, that a youthful hand is at work, it is the hand of a young master, + carrying out the realism of the ‘forties’—that of Gogol, Balzac, and + Dickens—straightway, with finer point, to find a perfect equilibrium + free from any bias or caricature. The whole strength and essence of the + realistic method has been developed in <i>Pyetushkov</i> to its just + limits. The Russians are <i>instinctive</i> realists, and carry the warmth + of life into their pages, which warmth the French seem to lose in + clarifying their impressions and crystallising them in art. <i>Pyetushkov</i> + is not exquisite: it is irresistible. Note how the reader is transported + bodily into Pyetushkov’s stuffy room, and how the major fairly boils out + of the two pages he lives in! (pp. 301, 302). That is <i>realism</i> if + you like. A woman will see the point of <i>Pyetushkov</i> very quickly. + Onisim and Vassilissa and the aunt walk and chatter around the stupid + Pyetushkov, and glance at him significantly in a manner that reveals + everything about these people’s world. All the servants who appear in the + tales in this volume are hit off so marvellously that one sees the + lower-class world, which is such a mystery to certain refined minds, has + no secrets for Turgenev. + </p> + <p> + Of a different, and to our taste more fascinating, <i>genre</i> is <i>The + Brigadier</i>. It is greater art because life’s prosaic growth is revealed + not merely realistically, but also poetically, life as a tiny part of the + great universe around it. The tale is a microcosm of Turgenev’s own + nature; his love of Nature, his tender sympathy for all humble, ragged, + eccentric, despised human creatures; his unfaltering keenness of gaze into + character, his fine sense of proportion, mingle in. <i>The Brigadier</i>, + to create for us a sense of the pitiableness of man’s tiny life, of the + mere human seed which springs and spreads a while on earth, and dies under + the menacing gaze of the advancing years. ‘Out of the sweetness came forth + strength’ is perhaps the best saying by which one can define Turgenev’s + peculiar merits in <i>The Brigadier</i>. + </p> + <p> + <i>Punin and Baburin</i> presents to us again one of those ragged ones, + one of ‘the poor in spirit,’ the idealist Punin, a character whose + portrait challenges Dostoievsky’s skill on the latter’s own ground. That + delicious Punin! and that terrible grandmother’s scene with Baburin! How + absolutely Slav is the blending of irony and kindness in the treatment of + Punin, Cucumber, and Pyetushkov, few English readers will understand. All + the characters in <i>Punin and Baburin</i> are so strongly drawn, so + intensely alive, that, like Rembrandt’s portraits, they make the living + people, who stand looking at them, absurdly grey and lifeless by + comparison! Baburin is a Nihilist before the times of Nihilism, he is a + type of the strong characters that arose later in the movement of the + ‘eighties.’ + </p> + <p> + A pre-Nihilistic type is also the character of Sophie in <i>A Strange + Story</i>. But the chief value of this last psychological study is that it + gives the English mind a clue to the fundamental distinction that marks + off the Russian people from the peoples of the West. Sophie’s words—‘You + spoke of the will—that’s what must be broken’ (p. 61)—define + most admirably the deepest aspiration of the Russian soul. To be lowly and + suffering, to be despised, sick, to be under the lash of fate, to be + trampled under foot by others, <i>to be</i> unworthy, all this secret + desire of the Russian soul implies that the Russian has little <i>will</i>, + that he finds it easier to resign himself than to make the effort to be + powerful, triumphant, worthy. It is from the resignation and softness of + the Russian nature that all its characteristic virtues spring. Whereas + religion with the English mind is largely an anxiety to be moral, to be <i>right</i> + and righteous, to be ‘a chosen vessel of the Lord,’ religion with the + Russian implies a genuine abasement and loss of self, a bowing before the + will of Heaven, and true brotherly love. The Western mind rises to + greatness by concentrating the will-power in action, by assertion of all + its inner force, by shutting out forcibly whatever might dominate or + distract or weaken it. But the Russian mind, through its lack of + character, will-power, and hardness, rises to greatness in its acceptance + of life, and in its sympathy with all the unfortunate, the wretched, the + poor in spirit. Of course in practical life the Russian lacks many of the + useful virtues the Western peoples possess and has most of their vices; + but certainly his pity, charity, and brotherliness towards men more + unfortunate than himself largely spring from his fatalistic acceptance of + his own unworthiness and weakness. So in Sophie’s case the desire for + self-sacrifice, and her impregnable conviction that to suffer and endure + is <i>right</i>, is truly Russian in the sense of letting the + individuality go <i>with</i> the stream of fate, not <i>against</i> it. + And hence the formidable spirit of the youthful generation that sacrificed + itself in the Nihilistic movement: the strenuous action of ‘the youth’ + once set in movement, the spirit of self-sacrifice impelled it calmly + towards its goal despite all the forces and threats of fate. Sophie is + indeed an early Nihilist born before her time. + </p> + <p> + We have said that the lack of will in the Russian nature is at the root of + Russian virtues and vices, and in this connection it is curious to remark + that a race’s soul seems often to grow out of the race’s <i>aspiration + towards what it is not in life</i>. Is not the French intellect, for + example, so cool, clear-headed, so delicately analytic of its own motives, + that through the principle of <i>counterpoise</i> it strives to lose + itself and release itself in continual rhetoric and emotional positions? + Is not the German mind so alive to the material facts of life, to the + necessity of getting hold of concrete advantages in life, and of not + letting them go, that it deliberately slackens the bent bow, and plunges + itself and relaxes itself in floods of abstractions, and idealisations, + and dreams of sentimentality? Assuredly it is because the Russian is so + inwardly discontented with his own actions that he is such a keen and + incisive critic of everything <i>false</i> and exaggerated, that he + despises all French rhetoric and German sentimentalism. And in this sense + it is that the Russian’s lack of will comes in to deepen his soul. He + surrenders himself thereby to the universe, and, as do the Asiatics, does + not let the tiny shadow of his fate, dark though it may be, shut out the + universe so thoroughly from his consciousness, as does the aggressive + struggling will-power of the Western man striving to let his individuality + have full play. The Russian’s attitude may indeed be compared to a bowl + which catches and sustains what life brings it; and the Western man’s to a + bowl inverted to ward off what drops from the impassive skies. The mental + attitude of the Russian peasant indeed implies that in blood he is nearer + akin to the Asiatics than Russian ethnologists have wished to allow. + Certainly in the inner life of thought, intellectually, morally, and + emotionally, he is a half-way house between the Western and Eastern races, + just as geographically he spreads over the two continents. By natural law + his destiny calls him towards the East. Should he one day spread his rule + further and further among the Asiatics and hold the keys of an immense + Asiatic empire, well! future English philosophers may feel thereat a + curious fatalistic satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + EDWARD GARNETT. + </p> + <p> + <i>October</i> 1899. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> A DESPERATE CHARACTER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A STRANGE STORY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> PUNIN AND BABURIN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> OLD PORTRAITS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> THE BRIGADIER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> XI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> XII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> XIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> XIV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> XV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0035"> PYETUSHKOV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0036"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0037"> II </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0038"> III </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0039"> IV </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0040"> V </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> VI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0042"> VII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0043"> VIII </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0044"> IX </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0045"> X </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0046"> XI </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A DESPERATE CHARACTER + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + ... We were a party of eight in the room, and we were talking of + contemporary affairs and men. + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t understand these men!’ observed A.: ‘they’re such desperate + fellows.... Really desperate.... There has never been anything like it + before.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, there has,’ put in P., a man getting on in years, with grey hair, + born some time in the twenties of this century: ‘there were desperate + characters in former days too, only they were not like the desperate + fellows of to-day. Of the poet Yazikov some one has said that he had + enthusiasm, but not applied to anything—an enthusiasm without an + object. So it was with those people—their desperateness was without + an object. But there, if you’ll allow me, I’ll tell you the story of my + nephew, or rather cousin, Misha Poltyev. It may serve as an example of the + desperate characters of those days. + </p> + <p> + He came into God’s world, I remember, in 1828, at his father’s native + place and property, in one of the sleepiest corners of a sleepy province + of the steppes. Misha’s father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Poltyev, I remember + well to this day. He was a genuine old-world landowner, a God-fearing, + sedate man, fairly—for those days—well educated, just a little + cracked, to tell the truth—and, moreover, he suffered from + epilepsy.... That too is an old-world, gentlemanly complaint.... Andrei + Nikolaevitch’s fits were, however, slight, and generally ended in sleep + and depression. He was good-hearted, and of an affable demeanour, not + without a certain stateliness: I always pictured to myself the tsar Mihail + Fedorovitch as like him. The whole life of Andrei Nikolaevitch was passed + in the punctual fulfilment of every observance established from old days, + in strict conformity with all the usages of the old orthodox holy Russian + mode of life. He got up and went to bed, ate his meals, and went to his + bath, rejoiced or was wroth (both very rarely, it is true), even smoked + his pipe and played cards (two great innovations!), not after his own + fancy, not in a way of his own, but according to the custom and ordinance + of his fathers—with due decorum and formality. He was tall, well + built, and stout; his voice was soft and rather husky, as is so often the + case with virtuous people in Russia; he was scrupulously neat in his dress + and linen, and wore white cravats and full-skirted snuff-coloured coats, + but his noble blood was nevertheless evident; no one could have taken him + for a priest’s son or a merchant! At all times, on all possible occasions, + and in all possible contingencies, Andrei Nikolaevitch knew without fail + what ought to be done, what was to be said, and precisely what expressions + were to be used; he knew when he ought to take medicine, and just what he + ought to take; what omens were to be believed and what might be + disregarded ... in fact, he knew everything that ought to be done.... For + as everything had been provided for and laid down by one’s elders, one had + only to be sure not to imagine anything of one’s self.... And above all, + without God’s blessing not a step to be taken!—It must be confessed + that a deadly dulness reigned supreme in his house, in those low-pitched, + warm, dark rooms, that so often resounded with the singing of liturgies + and all-night services, and had the smell of incense and Lenten dishes + almost always hanging about them! + </p> + <p> + Andrei Nikolaevitch—no longer in his first youth—married a + young lady of a neighbouring family, without fortune, a very nervous and + sickly person, who had had a boarding-school education. She played the + piano fairly, spoke boarding-school French, was easily moved to + enthusiasm, and still more easily to melancholy and even tears.... She was + of unbalanced character, in fact. She regarded her life as wasted, could + not care for her husband, who, ‘of course,’ did not understand her; but + she respected him, ... she put up with him; and being perfectly honest and + perfectly cold, she never even dreamed of another ‘affection.’ Besides, + she was always completely engrossed in the care, first, of her own really + delicate health, secondly, of the health of her husband, whose fits always + inspired in her something like superstitious horror, and lastly, of her + only son, Misha, whom she brought up herself with great zeal. Andrei + Nikolaevitch did not oppose his wife’s looking after Misha, on the one + condition of his education never over-stepping the lines laid down, once + and for all, within which everything must move in his house! Thus, for + instance, at Christmas-time, and at New Year, and St. Vassily’s eve, it + was permissible for Misha to dress up and masquerade with the servant boys—and + not only permissible, but even a binding duty.... But, at any other time, + God forbid! and so on, and so on. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + I remember Misha at thirteen. He was a very pretty boy, with rosy little + cheeks and soft lips (indeed he was soft and plump-looking all over), with + prominent liquid eyes, carefully brushed and combed, caressing and modest—a + regular little girl! There was only one thing about him I did not like: he + rarely laughed; but when he did laugh, his teeth—large white teeth, + pointed like an animal’s—showed disagreeably, and the laugh itself + had an abrupt, even savage, almost animal sound, and there were unpleasant + gleams in his eyes. His mother was always praising him for being so + obedient and well behaved, and not caring to make friends with rude boys, + but always preferring feminine society. ‘A mother’s darling, a milksop,’ + his father, Andrei Nikolaevitch, would call him; ‘but he’s always ready to + go into the house of God.... And that I am glad to see.’ Only one old + neighbour, who had been a police captain, once said before me, speaking of + Misha, ‘Mark my words, he’ll be a rebel.’ And this saying, I remember, + surprised me very much at the time. The old police captain, it is true, + used to see rebels on all sides. + </p> + <p> + Just such an exemplary youth Misha continued to be till the eighteenth + year of his age, up to the death of his parents, both of whom he lost + almost on the same day. As I was all the while living constantly at + Moscow, I heard nothing of my young kinsman. An acquaintance coming from + his province did, it is true, inform me that Misha had sold the paternal + estate for a trifling sum; but this piece of news struck me as too wildly + improbable! And behold, all of a sudden, one autumn morning there flew + into the courtyard of my house a carriage, with a pair of splendid + trotting horses, and a coachman of monstrous size on the box; and in the + carriage, wrapped in a cloak of military cut, with a beaver collar two + yards deep, and with a foraging cap cocked on one side, <i>à la diable + m’emporte</i>, sat ... Misha! On catching sight of me (I was standing at + the drawing-room window, gazing in astonishment at the flying equipage), + he laughed his abrupt laugh, and jauntily flinging back his cloak, he + jumped out of the carriage and ran into the house. + </p> + <p> + ‘Misha! Mihail Andreevitch!’ I was beginning, ... ‘Is it you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Call me Misha,’—he interrupted me. ‘Yes, it’s I, ... I, in my own + person.... I have come to Moscow ... to see the world ... and show myself. + And here I am, come to see you. What do you say to my horses?... Eh?’ he + laughed again. + </p> + <p> + Though it was seven years since I had seen Misha last, I recognised him at + once. His face had remained just as youthful and as pretty as ever—there + was no moustache even visible; only his cheeks looked a little swollen + under his eyes, and a smell of spirits came from his lips. ‘Have you been + long in Moscow?’ I inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘I supposed you were at home in the country, looking after the place.’ ... + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh! The country I threw up at once! As soon as my parents died—may + their souls rest in peace—(Misha crossed himself scrupulously, + without a shade of mockery) at once, without a moment’s delay, ... <i>ein, + zwei, drei!</i> ha, ha! I let it go cheap, damn it! A rascally fellow + turned up. But it’s no matter! Anyway, I am living as I fancy, and amusing + other people. But why are you staring at me like that? Was I, really, to + go dragging on in the same old round, do you suppose? ... My dear fellow, + couldn’t I have a glass of something?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha spoke fearfully quick and hurriedly, and, at the same time, as + though he were only just waked up from sleep. + </p> + <p> + ‘Misha, upon my word!’ I wailed; ‘have you no fear of God? What do you + look like? What an attire! And you ask for a glass too! And to sell such a + fine estate for next to nothing....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God I fear always, and do not forget,’ he broke in.... ‘But He is good, + you know—God is.... He will forgive! And I am good too.... I have + never yet hurt any one in my life. And drink is good too; and as for + hurting,... it never hurt any one either. And my get-up is quite the most + correct thing.... Uncle, would you like me to show you I can walk + straight? Or to do a little dance?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, spare me, please! A dance, indeed! You’d better sit down.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As to that, I’ll sit down with pleasure.... But why do you say nothing of + my greys? Just look at them, they’re perfect lions! I’ve got them on hire + for the time, but I shall buy them for certain, ... and the coachman + too.... It’s ever so much cheaper to have one’s own horses. And I had the + money, but I lost it yesterday at faro. It’s no matter, I’ll make it up + to-morrow. Uncle, ... how about that little glass?’ + </p> + <p> + I was still unable to get over my amazement. ‘Really, Misha, how old are + you? You ought not to be thinking about horses or cards, ... but going + into the university or the service.’ + </p> + <p> + Misha first laughed again, then gave vent to a prolonged whistle. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, uncle, I see you’re in a melancholy humour to-day. I’ll come back + another time. But I tell you what: you come in the evening to Sokolniki. + I’ve a tent pitched there. The gypsies sing, ... such goings-on.... And + there’s a streamer on the tent, and on the streamer, written in large + letters: “The Troupe of Poltyev’s Gypsies.” The streamer coils like a + snake, the letters are of gold, attractive for every one to read. A free + entertainment—whoever likes to come! ... No refusal! I’m making the + dust fly in Moscow ... to my glory! ... Eh? will you come? Ah, I’ve one + girl there ... a serpent! Black as your boot, spiteful as a dog, and eyes + ... like living coals! One can never tell what she’s going to do—kiss + or bite! ... Will you come, uncle? ... Well, good-bye, till we meet!’ + </p> + <p> + And with a sudden embrace, and a smacking kiss on my shoulder, Misha + darted away into the courtyard, and into the carriage, waved his cap over + his head, hallooed,—the monstrous coachman leered at him over his + beard, the greys dashed off, and all vanished! + </p> + <p> + The next day I—like a sinner—set off to Sokolniki, and did + actually see the tent with the streamer and the inscription. The drapery + of the tent was raised; from it came clamour, creaking, and shouting. + Crowds of people were thronging round it. On a carpet spread on the ground + sat gypsies, men and women, singing and beating drums, and in the midst of + them, in a red silk shirt and velvet breeches, was Misha, holding a + guitar, dancing a jig. ‘Gentlemen! honoured friends! walk in, please! the + performance is just beginning! Free to all!’ he was shouting in a high, + cracked voice. ‘Hey! champagne! pop! a pop on the head! pop up to the + ceiling! Ha! you rogue there, Paul de Kock!’ + </p> + <p> + Luckily he did not see me, and I hastily made off. + </p> + <p> + I won’t enlarge on my astonishment at the spectacle of this + transformation. But, how was it actually possible for that quiet and + modest boy to change all at once into a drunken buffoon? Could it all have + been latent in him from childhood, and have come to the surface directly + the yoke of his parents’ control was removed? But that he had made the + dust fly in Moscow, as he expressed it—of that, certainly, there + could be no doubt. I have seen something of riotous living in my day; but + in this there was a sort of violence, a sort of frenzy of + self-destruction, a sort of desperation! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + For two months these diversions continued.... And once more I was standing + at my drawing-room window, looking into the courtyard.... All of a sudden—what + could it mean? ... there came slowly stepping in at the gate a pilgrim ... + a squash hat pulled down on his forehead, his hair combed out straight to + right and left below it, a long gown, a leather belt ... Could it be + Misha? He it was! + </p> + <p> + I went to meet him on the steps.... ‘What’s this masquerade for?’ I + demanded. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not a masquerade, uncle,’ Misha answered with a deep sigh: since all + I had I’ve squandered to the last farthing—and a great repentance + too has come upon me—so I have resolved to go to the Sergiev + monastery of the Holy Trinity to expiate my sins in prayer. For what + refuge was left me? ... And so I have come to you to say good-bye, uncle, + like a prodigal son.’ + </p> + <p> + I looked intently at Misha. His face was just the same, rosy and fresh + (indeed it remained almost unchanged to the end), and the eyes, liquid, + affectionate, and languishing—and the hands, as small and white.... + But he smelt of spirits. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ I pronounced at last, ‘it’s a good thing to do—since there’s + nothing else to be done. But why is it you smell of spirits?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A relic of the past,’ answered Misha, and he suddenly laughed, but + immediately pulled himself up, and, making a straight, low bow—a + monk’s bow—he added: ‘Won’t you help me on my way? I’m going, see, + on foot to the monastery....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To-day ... at once.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why be in such a hurry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Uncle, my motto always was, “Make haste, make haste!”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what is your motto now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s the same now.... Only, make haste towards <i>good</i>!’ + </p> + <p> + And so Misha went off, leaving me to ponder on the vicissitudes of human + destiny. + </p> + <p> + But he soon reminded me of his existence. Two months after his visit, I + got a letter from him, the first of those letters, of which later on he + furnished me with so abundant a supply. And note a peculiar fact: I have + seldom seen a neater, more legible handwriting than that unbalanced + fellow’s. And the wording of his letters was exceedingly correct, just a + little flowery. Invariable entreaties for assistance, always attended with + resolutions to reform, vows, and promises on his honour.... All of it + seemed—and perhaps was—sincere. Misha’s signature to his + letters was always accompanied by peculiar strokes, flourishes, and stops, + and he made great use of marks of exclamation. In this first letter Misha + informed me of a new ‘turn in his fortune.’ (Later on he used to refer to + these turns as plunges, ... and frequent were the plunges he took.) He was + starting for the Caucasus on active service for his tsar and his country + in the capacity of a cadet! And, though a certain benevolent aunt had + entered into his impecunious position, and had sent him an inconsiderable + sum, still he begged me to assist him in getting his equipment. I did what + he asked, and for two years I heard nothing more of him. + </p> + <p> + I must own I had the gravest doubts as to his having gone to the Caucasus. + But it turned out that he really had gone there, had, by favour, got into + the T—— regiment as a cadet, and had been serving in it for + those two years. A perfect series of legends had sprung up there about + him. An officer of his regiment related them to me. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + I learned a great deal which I should never have expected of him.—I + was, of course, hardly surprised that as a military man, as an officer, he + was not a success, that he was in fact worse than useless; but what I had + not anticipated was that he was by no means conspicuous for much bravery; + that in battle he had a downcast, woebegone air, seemed half-depressed, + half-bewildered. Discipline of every sort worried him, and made him + miserable; he was daring to the point of insanity when only his <i>own + personal</i> safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him to accept; + but do harm to others, kill, fight, he could not, possibly because his + heart was too good—or possibly because his ‘cottonwool’ education + (so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself he was quite ready to + murder in any way at any moment.... But others—no. ‘There’s no + making him out,’ his comrades said of him; ‘he’s a flabby creature, a poor + stick—and yet such a desperate fellow—a perfect madman!’ I + chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit drove him, forced him, + to drink to excess, risk his life, and so on. He always had one answer—‘wretchedness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why are you wretched?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one’s self, begins to + feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well, it’s + all over with me! ... one’s so wretched at once—one wants to put a + bullet through one’s head! One’s forced to start drinking.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why ever do you drag Russia in?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can I help it? Can’t be helped! That’s why I’m afraid to think.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I don’t know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one’s life, + and stake it on a card—that I can do! Come, you tell me what I ought + to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I’ll ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t! You say I act thoughtlessly.... But what else can I do? ... If + one starts thinking—good God, all that comes into one’s head! It’s + only Germans who can think! ...’ + </p> + <p> + What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate man, and that’s all one + can say. + </p> + <p> + Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will tell you two or three. + One day, in a party of officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre he had + got by exchange—‘a genuine Persian blade!’ The officers expressed + doubts as to its genuineness. Misha began disputing. ‘Here then,’ he cried + at last; ‘they say the man that knows most about sabres is Abdulka the + one-eyed. I’ll go to him, and ask.’ The officers wondered. ‘What Abdulka? + Do you mean that lives in the mountains? The rebel never subdued? + Abdul-khan?’ ‘Yes, that’s him.’ ‘Why, but he’ll take you for a spy, will + put you in a hole full of bugs, or else cut your head off with your own + sabre. And, besides, how are you going to get to him? They’ll catch you + directly.’ ‘I’ll go to him, though, all the same.’ ‘Bet you won’t!’ + ‘Taken!’ And Misha promptly saddled his horse and rode off to Abdulka. He + disappeared for three days. All felt certain that the crazy fellow had + come by his end. But, behold! he came back—drunk, and with a sabre, + not the one he had taken, but another. They began questioning him. ‘It was + all right,’ said he; ‘Abdulka’s a nice fellow. At first, it’s true, he + ordered them to put irons on my legs, and was even on the point of having + me impaled. Only, I explained why I had come, and showed him the sabre. + “And you’d better not keep me,” said I; “don’t expect a ransom for me; + I’ve not a farthing to bless myself with—and I’ve no relations.” + Abdulka was surprised; he looked at me with his solitary eye. “Well,” said + he, “you are a bold one, you Russian; am I to believe you?” “You may + believe me,” said I; “I never tell a lie.” (And this was true; Misha never + lied.) Abdulka looked at me again. “And do you know how to drink wine?” “I + do,” said I; “give me as much as you will, I’ll drink it.” Abdulka was + surprised again; he called on Allah. And he told his—daughter, I + suppose—such a pretty creature, only with an eye like a jackal’s—to + bring a wine-skin. And I began to get to work on it. “But your sabre,” + said he, “isn’t genuine; here, take the real thing. And now we are pledged + friends.” But you’ve lost your bet, gentlemen; pay up.’ + </p> + <p> + The second legend of Misha is of this nature. He was passionately fond of + cards; but as he had no money, and could never pay his debts at cards + (though he was never a card-sharper), no one at last would sit down to a + game with him. So one day he began urgently begging one of his comrades + among the officers to play with him! ‘But if you lose, you don’t pay.’ + ‘The money certainly I can’t pay, but I’ll put a shot through my left + hand, see, with this pistol here!’ ‘But whatever use will that be to me?’ + ‘No use, but still it will be curious.’ This conversation took place after + a drinking bout in the presence of witnesses. Whether it was that Misha’s + proposition struck the officer as really curious—anyway he agreed. + Cards were brought, the game began. Misha was in luck; he won a hundred + roubles. And thereupon his opponent struck his forehead with vexation. + ‘What an ass I am!’ he cried, ‘to be taken in like this! As if you’d have + shot your hand if you had lost!—a likely story! hold out your + purse!’ ‘That’s a lie,’ retorted Misha: ‘I’ve won—but I’ll shoot my + hand.’ He snatched up his pistol—and bang, fired at his own hand. + The bullet passed right through it ... and in a week the wound had + completely healed. + </p> + <p> + Another time, Misha was riding with his comrades along a road at night ... + and they saw close to the roadside a narrow ravine like a deep cleft, dark—so + dark you couldn’t see the bottom. ‘Look,’ said one of the officers, ‘Misha + may be a desperate fellow, but he wouldn’t leap into that ravine.’ ‘Yes, + I’d leap in!’ ‘No, you wouldn’t, for I dare say it’s seventy feet deep, + and you might break your neck.’ His friend knew his weak point—vanity.... + There was a great deal of it in Misha. ‘But I’ll leap in anyway! Would you + like to bet on it? Ten roubles.’ ‘Good!’ And the officer had hardly + uttered the word, when Misha and his horse were off—into the ravine—and + crashing down over the stones. All were simply petrified.... A full minute + passed, and they heard Misha’s voice, dimly, as it were rising up out of + the bowels of the earth: ‘All right! fell on the sand ... but it was a + long flight! Ten roubles you’ve lost!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Climb out!’ shouted his comrades. ‘Climb out, I dare say!’ echoed Misha. + ‘A likely story! I should like to see you climb out. You’ll have to go for + torches and ropes now. And, meanwhile, to keep up my spirits while I wait, + fling down a flask....’ + </p> + <p> + And so Misha had to stay five hours at the bottom of the ravine; and when + they dragged him out, it turned out that his shoulder was dislocated. But + that in no way troubled him. The next day a bone-setter, one of the + black-smiths, set his shoulder, and he used it as though nothing had been + the matter. + </p> + <p> + His health in general was marvellous, incredible. I have already mentioned + that up to the time of his death he kept his almost childishly fresh + complexion. Illness was a thing unknown to him, in spite of his excesses; + the strength of his constitution never once showed signs of giving way. + When any other man would infallibly have been seriously ill, or even have + died, he merely shook himself, like a duck in the water, and was more + blooming than ever. Once, also in the Caucasus ... <i>this</i> legend is + really incredible, but one may judge from it what Misha was thought to be + capable of.... Well, once, in the Caucasus, in a state of drunkenness, he + fell down with the lower half of his body in a stream of water; his head + and arms were on the bank, out of water. It was winter-time, there was a + hard frost, and when he was found next morning, his legs and body were + pulled out from under a thick layer of ice, which had formed over them in + the night—and he didn’t even catch cold! Another time—this was + in Russia (near Orel, and also in a time of severe frost)—he was in + a tavern outside the town in company with seven young seminarists (or + theological students), and these seminarists were celebrating their final + examination, but had invited Misha, as a delightful person, a man of + ‘inspiration,’ as the phrase was then. A very great deal was drunk, and + when at last the festive party got ready to depart, Misha, dead drunk, was + in an unconscious condition. All the seven seminarists together had but + one three-horse sledge with a high back; where were they to stow the + unresisting body? Then one of the young men, inspired by classical + reminiscences, proposed tying Misha by his feet to the back of the sledge, + as Hector was tied to the chariot of Achilles! The proposal met with + approval ... and jolting up and down over the holes, sliding sideways down + the slopes, with his legs torn and flayed, and his head rolling in the + snow, poor Misha travelled on his back for the mile and a half from the + tavern to the town, and hadn’t as much as a cough afterwards, hadn’t + turned a hair! Such heroic health had nature bestowed upon him! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian dress, a dagger + in his sash, a high-peaked cap on his head. This costume he retained to + the end, though he was no longer in the army, from which he had been + discharged for outstaying his leave. He stayed with me, borrowed a little + money ... and forthwith began his ‘plunges,’ his wanderings, or, as he + expressed it, ‘his peregrinations from pillar to post,’ then came the + sudden disappearances and returns, and the showers of beautifully written + letters addressed to people of every possible description, from an + archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives! Then came calls upon persons + known and unknown! And this is worth noticing: when he made these calls, + he was never abject and cringing, he never worried people by begging, but + on the contrary behaved with propriety, and had positively a cheerful and + pleasant air, though the inveterate smell of spirits accompanied him + everywhere, and his Oriental costume gradually changed into rags. ‘Give, + and God will reward you, though I don’t deserve it,’ he would say, with a + bright smile and a candid blush; ‘if you don’t give, you’ll be perfectly + right, and I shan’t blame you for it. I shall find food to eat, God will + provide! And there are people poorer than I, and much more deserving of + help—plenty, plenty!’ Misha was particularly successful with women: + he knew how to appeal to their sympathy. But don’t suppose that he was or + fancied himself a Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very modest. + Whether it was that he had inherited a cool temperament from his parents, + or whether indeed this too is to be set down to his dislike for doing any + one harm—as, according to his notions, relations with a woman meant + inevitably doing a woman harm—I won’t undertake to decide; only in + all his behaviour with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women felt + this, and were the more ready to sympathise with him and help him, until + at last he revolted them by his drunkenness and debauchery, by the + desperateness of which I have spoken already.... I can think of no other + word for it. + </p> + <p> + But in other relations he had by that time lost every sort of delicacy, + and was gradually sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. He once, in + the public assembly at T——, got as far as setting on the table + a jug with a notice: ‘Any one, to whom it may seem agreeable to give the + high-born nobleman Poltyev (authentic documents in proof of his pedigree + are herewith exposed) a flip on the nose, may satisfy this inclination on + putting a rouble into this jug.’ And I am told there were persons found + willing to pay for the privilege of flipping a nobleman’s nose! It is true + that one such person, who put in only one rouble and gave him <i>two</i> + flips, he first almost strangled, and then forced to apologise; it is + true, too, that part of the money gained in this fashion he promptly + distributed among other poor devils ... but still, think what a disgrace! + </p> + <p> + In the course of his ‘peregrinations from pillar to post,’ he made his + way, too, to his ancestral home, which he had sold for next to nothing to + a speculator and money-lender well known in those days. The money-lender + was at home, and hearing of the presence in the neighbourhood of the + former owner, now reduced to vagrancy, he gave orders not to admit him + into the house, and even, in case of necessity, to drive him away. Misha + announced that he would not for his part consent to enter the house, + polluted by the presence of so repulsive a person; that he would permit no + one to drive him away, but was going to the churchyard to pay his + devotions at the grave of his parents. So in fact he did. + </p> + <p> + In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been + his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly + allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been a + corner in a peasant’s hut. Misha had been too short a time in possession + of his estate to have left behind him a particularly favourable memory; + still the old servant could not resist running to the churchyard as soon + as he heard of his young master’s being there. He found Misha sitting on + the ground between the tombstones, asked for his hand to kiss, as in old + times, and even shed tears on seeing the rags which clothed the limbs of + his once pampered young charge. + </p> + <p> + Misha gazed long and silently at the old man. ‘Timofay!’ he said at last; + Timofay started. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you desire?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you a spade?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can get one.... But what do you want with a spade, Mihailo Andreitch, + sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I want to dig myself a grave, Timofay, and to lie here for time + everlasting between my father and mother. There’s only this spot left me + in the world. Get a spade!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sir,’ said Timofay; he went and got it. And Misha began at once + digging in the ground, while Timofay stood by, his chin propped in his + hand, repeating: ‘It’s all that’s left for you and me, master!’ + </p> + <p> + Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: ‘Life’s not worth living, + is it, Timofay?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not indeed, master.’ + </p> + <p> + The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about, and + ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first very + angry, wanted to send for the police: ‘This is sacrilege,’ said he. But + afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to have to + do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,—he went + in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still toiling, + made him a polite bow. He went on with his digging as though he had not + noticed his successor. ‘Mihail Andreitch,’ began the money-lender, ‘allow + me to ask what you are doing here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You can see—I am digging myself a grave.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why are you doing so?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I don’t want to live any longer.’ + </p> + <p> + The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. ‘You don’t want + to live?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. ‘That surprises you? Aren’t + you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn’t it you, Judas, who + robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren’t you flaying the + peasants’ skins off their backs? Haven’t you taken from this poor old man + his crust of dry bread? Wasn’t it you? ... O God! everywhere nothing but + injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing.... Everything must go to ruin + then, and me too! I don’t care for life, I don’t care for life in Russia!’ + And the spade moved faster than ever in Misha’s hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s a devil of a business!’ thought the money-lender; ‘he’s positively + burying himself alive.’ ‘Mihail Andreevitch,’ he began again: ‘listen. + I’ve been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me falsely of you.’ + </p> + <p> + Misha went on digging. + </p> + <p> + ‘But why be desperate?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the + money-lender’s feet, as though to say, ‘Here you are, land-grabber.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, you ‘re wrong in this. Won’t you be pleased to come in to have + some lunch, and rest a bit?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha raised his head. ‘So that’s it now! And anything to drink?’ + </p> + <p> + The money-lender was delighted. ‘Why, of course ... I should think so.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You invite Timofay too?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, ... yes, him too.’ + </p> + <p> + Misha pondered. ‘Only, mind ... you made me a beggar, you know.... Don’t + think you can get off with one bottle!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Set your mind at rest ... there shall be all you can want.’ + </p> + <p> + Misha got up and flung down the spade.... ‘Well, Timosha,’ said he to his + old nurse; ‘let’s do honour to our host.... Come along.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sir,’ answered the old man. + </p> + <p> + And all three started off to the house together. The money-lender knew the + man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true, exacted a + promise from him to ‘grant all sorts of immunities’ to the peasants; but + an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay, both drunk, were + dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still seemed pervaded by the + God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an hour later still, Misha + in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for spirits), laid in a cart with + his high cap and dagger, was being driven off to the town, more than + twenty miles away, and there was flung under a hedge.... As for Timofay, + who could still keep on his legs, and only hiccupped—him, of course, + they kicked out of the house; since they couldn’t get at the master, they + had to be content with the old servant. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha.... God knows what he + was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a posting-station on + the T—— highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly heard under + the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering in French the + words: ‘Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitié d’un pauvre gentil-homme + ruiné.’ ... I lifted my head, glanced.... The mangy-looking fur cap, the + broken ornaments on the ragged Circassian dress, the dagger in the cracked + sheath, the swollen, but still rosy face, the dishevelled, but still thick + crop of hair.... Mercy on us! Misha! He had come then to begging alms on + the high-roads. I could not help crying out. He recognised me, started, + turned away, and was about to move away from the window. I stopped him ... + but what could I say to him? Give him a lecture? ... In silence I held out + a five-rouble note; he, also in silence, took it in his still white and + plump, though shaking and dirty hand, and vanished round the corner of the + house. + </p> + <p> + It was a good while before they gave me horses, and I had time to give + myself up to gloomy reflections on my unexpected meeting with Misha; I + felt ashamed of having let him go so unsympathetically. + </p> + <p> + At last I set off on my way, and half a mile from the station I observed + ahead of me, in the road, a crowd of people moving along with a curious, + as it seemed rhythmic, step. I overtook this crowd—and what did I + see? + </p> + <p> + Some dozen or so beggars, with sacks over their shoulders, were walking + two by two, singing and leaping about, while in front of them danced + Misha, stamping time with his feet, and shouting, ‘Natchiki-tchikaldy, + tchuk, tchuk, tchuk! ... Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk!’ + Directly my carriage caught them up, and he saw me, he began at once + shouting, ‘Hurrah! Stand in position! right about face, guard of the + roadside!’ + </p> + <p> + The beggars took up his shout, and halted; while he, with his peculiar + laugh, jumped on to the carriage step, and again yelled: Hurrah! + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ I asked with involuntary astonishment. + </p> + <p> + ‘This? This is my company, my army—all beggars, God’s people, + friends of my heart. Every one of them, thanks to you, has had a glass; + and now we are all rejoicing and making merry! ... Uncle! Do you know it’s + only with beggars, God’s people, that one can live in the world ... by + God, it is!’ + </p> + <p> + I made him no answer ... but at that moment he struck me as such a kind + good creature, his face expressed such childlike simple-heartedness.... A + light seemed suddenly as it were to dawn upon me, and I felt a pang in my + heart.... ‘Get into the carriage,’ I said to him. He was taken aback.... + </p> + <p> + ‘What? Into the carriage?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, get in, get in,’ I repeated; ‘I want to make you a suggestion. Sit + down.... Come along with me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, as you will.’ He sat down. ‘Well, and you, my honoured friends, my + dear comrades,’ he added, addressing the beggars, ‘fare-well, till we meet + again.’ Misha took off his high cap, and bowed low. The beggars all seemed + overawed.... I told the coachman to whip up the horses, and the carriage + rolled off. + </p> + <p> + The suggestion I wanted to make Misha was this: the idea suddenly occurred + to me to take him with me to my home in the country, about five-and-twenty + miles from that station, to rescue him, or at least to make an effort to + rescue him. ‘Listen, Misha,’ I said; ‘will you come along and live with + me? ... You shall have everything provided you; you shall have clothes and + linen made you; you shall be properly fitted out, and you shall have money + to spend on tobacco, and so on, only on one condition, that you give up + drink.... Do you agree?’ + </p> + <p> + Misha was positively aghast with delight; he opened his eyes wide, flushed + crimson, and suddenly falling on my shoulder, began kissing me, and + repeating in a broken voice, ‘Uncle ... benefactor ... God reward you.’ + ... He burst into tears at last, and taking off his cap fell to wiping his + eyes, his nose, his lips with it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mind,’ I observed; ‘remember the condition, not to touch strong drink.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Damnation to it!’ he cried, with a wave of both arms, and with this + impetuous movement, I was more than ever conscious of the strong smell of + spirits with which he seemed always saturated.... ‘Uncle, if you knew what + my life has been.... If it hadn’t been for sorrow, a cruel fate.... But + now I swear, I swear, I will mend my ways, I will show you.... Uncle, I’ve + never told a lie—you can ask whom you like.... I’m honest, but I’m + an unlucky fellow, uncle; I’ve known no kindness from any one....’ + </p> + <p> + Here he broke down finally into sobs. I tried to soothe him, and succeeded + so far that when we reached home Misha had long been lost in a heavy + sleep, with his head on my knees. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + He was at once assigned a room for himself, and at once, first thing, + taken to the bath, which was absolutely essential. All his clothes, and + his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he + was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which, as + is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt themselves + to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean, and fresh, + he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such joyful + gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was completely + transformed.... Boys of twelve have faces like that on Easter Sundays, + after the communion, when, thickly pomaded, in new jacket and starched + collars, they come to exchange Easter greetings with their parents. Misha + was continually—with a sort of cautious incredulity—feeling + himself and repeating: ‘What does it mean? ... Am I in heaven?’ The next + day he announced that he had not slept all night, he had been in such + ecstasy. + </p> + <p> + I had living in my house at that time an old aunt with her niece; both of + them were extremely disturbed when they heard of Misha’s presence; they + could not comprehend how I could have asked him into my house! There were + very ugly rumours about him. But in the first place, I knew he was always + very courteous with ladies; and, secondly, I counted on his promises of + amendment. And, in fact, for the first two days of his stay under my roof + Misha not merely justified my expectations but surpassed them, while the + ladies of the household were simply enchanted with him. He played piquet + with the old lady, helped her to wind her worsted, showed her two new + games of patience; for the niece, who had a small voice, he played + accompaniments on the piano, and read Russian and French poetry. He told + both the ladies lively but discreet anecdotes; in fact, he showed them + every attention, so that they repeatedly expressed their surprise to me, + and the old lady even observed how unjust people sometimes were.... The + things—the things they had said of him ... and he such a quiet + fellow, and so polite ... poor Misha! It is true that at table ‘poor + Misha’ licked his lips in a rather peculiar, hurried way, if he simply + glanced at the bottle. But I had only to shake my finger at him, and he + would turn his eyes upwards, and lay his hand on his heart ... as if to + say, I have sworn.... ‘I am regenerated now,’ he assured me.... ‘Well, God + grant it be so,’ was my thought.... But this regeneration did not last + long. + </p> + <p> + The first two days he was very talkative and cheerful. But even on the + third day he seemed somehow subdued, though he remained, as before, with + the ladies and tried to entertain them. A half mournful, half dreamy + expression flitted now and then over his face, and the face itself was + paler and looked thinner. ‘Are you unwell?’ I asked him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘my head aches a little.’ On the fourth day he was + completely silent; for the most part he sat in a corner, hanging his head + disconsolately, and his dejected appearance worked upon the compassionate + sympathies of the two ladies, who now, in their turn, tried to amuse him. + At table he ate nothing, stared at his plate, and rolled up pellets of + bread. On the fifth day the feeling of compassion in the ladies began to + be replaced by other emotions—uneasiness and even alarm. Misha was + so strange, he held aloof from people, and kept moving along close to the + walls, as though trying to steal by unnoticed, and suddenly looking round + as though some one had called him. And what had become of his rosy colour? + It seemed covered over by a layer of earth. ‘Are you still unwell?’ I + asked him. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’m all right,’ he answered abruptly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you dull?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why should I be dull?’ But he turned away and would not look me in the + face. + </p> + <p> + ‘Or is it that wretchedness come over you again?’ To this he made no + reply. So passed another twenty-four hours. + </p> + <p> + Next day my aunt ran into my room in a state of great excitement, + declaring that she would leave the house with her niece, if Misha was to + remain in it. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why so?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, we are dreadfully scared with him.... He’s not a man, he’s a wolf,—nothing + better than a wolf. He keeps moving and moving about, and doesn’t speak—and + looks so wild.... He almost gnashes his teeth at me. My Katia, you know, + is so nervous.... She was so struck with him the first day.... I’m in + terror for her, and indeed for myself too.’ ... I didn’t know what to say + to my aunt. I couldn’t, anyway, turn Misha out, after inviting him. + </p> + <p> + He relieved me himself from my difficult position. The same day,—I + was still sitting in my own room,—suddenly I heard behind me a husky + and angry voice: ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch, Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ I looked round; + Misha was standing in the doorway with a face that was fearful, + black-looking and distorted. ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ he repeated ... (not + ‘uncle’ now). + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you want?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me go ... at once!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me go, or I shall do mischief, I shall set the house on fire or cut + some one’s throat.’ Misha suddenly began trembling. ‘Tell them to give me + back my clothes, and let a cart take me to the highroad, and let me have + some money, however little!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you displeased, then, at anything?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t live like this!’ he shrieked at the top of his voice. ‘I can’t + live in your respectable, thrice-accursed house! It makes me sick, and + ashamed to live so quietly! ... How <i>you</i> manage to endure it!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is,’ I interrupted in my turn, ‘you mean—you can’t live + without drink....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, yes! yes!’ he shrieked again: ‘only let me go to my brethren, my + friends, to the beggars! ... Away from your respectable, loathsome + species!’ + </p> + <p> + I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha’s frenzied + look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs,—it was + all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his clothes + should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking a note for + twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the table. Misha had + begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,—but on this, suddenly + he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck himself on the breast, the + tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering, ‘Uncle! angel! I know I’m a + ruined man! thanks! thanks!’ he snatched up the note and ran away. + </p> + <p> + An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his + Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses started, + he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his head, made bow + after bow. Just as he was going off, he had given me a long and warm + embrace, and whispered, ‘Benefactor, benefactor ... there’s no saving me!’ + He even ran to the ladies and kissed their hands, fell on his knees, + called upon God, and begged their forgiveness! Katia I found afterwards in + tears. + </p> + <p> + The coachman, with whom Misha had set off, on coming home informed me that + he had driven him to the first tavern on the highroad—and that there + ‘his honour had stuck,’ had begun treating every one indiscriminately—and + had quickly sunk into unconsciousness. From that day I never came across + Misha again, but his ultimate fate I learned in the following manner. + </p> + <h3> + VIII + </h3> + <p> + Three years later, I was again at home in the country; all of a sudden a + servant came in and announced that Madame Poltyev was asking to see me. I + knew no Madame Poltyev, and the servant, who made this announcement, for + some unknown reason smiled sarcastically. To my glance of inquiry, he + responded that the lady asking for me was young, poorly dressed, and had + come in a peasant’s cart with one horse, which she was driving herself! I + told him to ask Madame Poltyev up to my room. + </p> + <p> + I saw a woman of five-and-twenty, in the dress of the small tradesman + class, with a large kerchief on her head. Her face was simple, roundish, + not without charm; she looked dejected and gloomy, and was shy and awkward + in her movements. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are Madame Poltyev?’ I inquired, and I asked her to sit down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ she answered in a subdued voice, and she did not sit down. ‘I am + the widow of your nephew, Mihail Andreevitch Poltyev.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is Mihail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long? But sit down, I beg.’ + </p> + <p> + She sank into a chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s two months.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And had you been married to him long?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I had been a year with him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you come from now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘From out Tula way.... There’s a village there, Znamenskoe-Glushkovo—perhaps + you may know it. I am the daughter of the deacon there. Mihail Andreitch + and I lived there.... He lived in my father’s house. We were a whole year + together.’ + </p> + <p> + The young woman’s lips twitched a little, and she put her hand up to them. + She seemed to be on the point of tears, but she controlled herself, and + cleared her throat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mihail Andreitch,’ she went on: ‘before his death enjoined upon me to go + to you; “You must be sure to go,” said he! And he told me to thank you for + all your goodness, and to give you ... this ... see, this little thing + (she took a small packet out of her pocket) which he always had about + him.... And Mihail Andreitch said, if you would be pleased to accept it in + memory of him, if you would not disdain it.... “There’s nothing else,” + said he, “I can give him” ... that is, you....’ + </p> + <p> + In the packet there was a little silver cup with the monogram of Misha’s + mother. This cup I had often seen in Misha’s hands, and once he had even + said to me, speaking of some poor fellow, that he really was destitute, + since he had neither cup nor bowl, ‘while I, see, have this anyway.’ + </p> + <p> + I thanked her, took the cup, and asked: + </p> + <p> + ‘Of what complaint had Misha died? No doubt....’ + </p> + <p> + Then I bit my tongue ... but the young woman understood my unuttered + hint.... She took a swift glance at me, then looked down again, smiled + mournfully, and said at once: ‘Oh no! he had quite given that up, ever + since he got to know me ... But he had no health at all! ... It was + shattered quite. As soon as he gave up drink, he fell into ill health + directly. He became so steady; he always wanted to help father in his land + or in the garden, ... or any other work there might be ... in spite of his + being of noble birth. But how could he get the strength? ... At writing, + too, he tried to work; as you know, he could do that work capitally, but + his hands shook, and he couldn’t hold the pen properly. ... He was always + finding fault with himself; “I’m a white-handed poor creature,” he would + say; “I’ve never done any good to anybody, never helped, never laboured!” + He worried himself very much about that.... He used to say that our people + labour,—but what use are we? ... Ah, Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a + good man—and he was fond of me ... and I... Ah, pardon me....’ + </p> + <p> + Here the young woman wept outright. I would have consoled her, but I did + not know how. + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you a child left you?’ I asked at last. + </p> + <p> + She sighed. ‘No, no child.... Is it likely?’ And her tears flowed faster + than ever. + </p> + <p> + ‘And so that was how Misha’s troubled wanderings had ended,’ the old man + P. wound up his narrative. ‘You will agree with me, I am sure, that I’m + right in calling him a desperate character; but you will most likely agree + too that he was not like the desperate characters of to-day; still, a + philosopher, you must admit, would find a family likeness between him and + them. In him and in them there’s the thirst for self-destruction, the + wretchedness, the dissatisfaction.... And what it all comes from, I leave + the philosopher to decide.’ + </p> + <p> + BOUGIVALLE, <i>November</i> 1881. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A STRANGE STORY + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + Fifteen years ago—began H.—official duties compelled me to + spend a few days in the principal town of the province of T——. + I stopped at a very fair hotel, which had been established six months + before my arrival by a Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that + it did not flourish long, which is often the case with us; but I found it + still in its full splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like + pistol-shots at night; the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of + soap, and the painted floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the + opinion of the waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean + individual, tended to prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former + valet of Prince G.‘s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and + his self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and + slippers trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and + had a multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of + his moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He + showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating + his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in + life with a rather disillusioned eye. ‘No doubt about it,’ he said to me + one day; ‘ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying any + day!’ His name was Ardalion. + </p> + <p> + I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion + procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the joints; + but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an heraldic + crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a country + gentleman, an old friend of my father’s, who had been a long time settled + in the town.... I had not met him for twenty years; he had had time to get + married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a widower and to make + his fortune. His business was with government monopolies, that is to say, + he lent contractors for monopolies loans at heavy interest.... ‘There is + always honour in risk,’ they say, though indeed the risk was small. + </p> + <p> + In the course of our conversation there came into the room with hesitating + steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of about + seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. ‘Here,’ said my acquaintance, ‘is my + eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She takes my poor wife’s + place, looks after the house, and takes care of her brothers and sisters.’ + I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in (she meanwhile dropped + into a chair without speaking), and thought to myself that she did not + look much like housekeeping or looking after children. Her face was quite + childish, round, with small, pleasing, but immobile features; the blue + eyes, under high, also immobile and irregular eyebrows, had an intent, + almost astonished look, as though they had just observed something + unexpected; the full little mouth with the lifted upper lip, not only did + not smile, but seemed as though altogether innocent of such a practice; + the rosy flush under the tender skin stood in soft, diffused patches on + the cheeks, and neither paled nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in + light clusters each side of the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, + and her arms were pressed somehow awkwardly and severely against her + narrow waist. Her blue gown fell without folds—like a child’s—to + her little feet. The general impression this girl made upon me was not one + of morbidity, but of something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a + shy, provincial miss, but a creature of a special type—that I could + not make out. This type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully + understand it, and only felt that I had never come across a nature more + sincere. Pity ... yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the + sight of this young, serious, keenly alert life—God knows why! ‘Not + of this earth,’ was my thought, though there was nothing exactly ‘ideal’ + in the expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had + obviously come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady + of the house to which her father had referred. + </p> + <p> + He began to talk of life in the town of T——, of the social + amusements and advantages it offered. ‘We’re very quiet here,’ he + observed; ‘the governor’s a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province + is a bachelor. But there’ll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the + day after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here. + And you’ll see all our <i>intelligentsi</i> too.’ + </p> + <p> + My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using + learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with respect. + Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with respectability, + developes a certain thoughtfulness in men. + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?’ I said, turning to my friend’s + daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Papa intends to go,’ she answered, ‘and I with him.’ + </p> + <p> + Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated every + syllable fully, as though she were puzzled. + </p> + <p> + ‘In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.’ + </p> + <p> + She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile. + </p> + <p> + I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed steadily + upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked over my + shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing she was + looking at behind my back. + </p> + <p> + I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied + ‘soupe-julienne,’ cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry, + black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The + subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my old + acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my + thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom. + </p> + <p> + ‘There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our + town,’ he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at the + same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty dinner-napkin—a + practice peculiar, as you’re doubtless aware, to servants of superior + education. ‘Very little!’ + </p> + <p> + He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its white + face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words: ‘Ve-ry! + ve-ry!’ it ticked. ‘No concerts, nor theatres,’ pursued Ardalion (he had + travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in Paris; he knew + much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the peasants do)—‘nor + dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the nobility and gentry—there + is nothing of the kind whatever.’ (He paused a moment, probably to allow + me to observe the choiceness of his diction.) ‘They positively visit each + other but seldom. Every one sits like a pigeon on its perch. And so it + comes to pass that visitors have simply nowhere to go.’ + </p> + <p> + Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me. + </p> + <p> + ‘But there is one thing,’ he went on, speaking with a drawl, ‘in case you + should feel that way inclined....’ + </p> + <p> + He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did + not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me. + </p> + <p> + The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came back, + and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear, and with + a playful smile said: + </p> + <p> + ‘Would you not like to behold the dead?’ + </p> + <p> + I stared at him in perplexity. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ he went on, speaking in a whisper; ‘there is a man like that here. + He’s a simple artisan, and can’t even read and write, but he does + marvellous things. If you, for example, go to him and desire to see any + one of your departed friends, he will be sure to show him you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How does he do it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s his secret. For though he’s an uneducated man—to speak + bluntly, illiterate—he’s very great in godliness! Greatly respected + he is among the merchant gentry!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And does every one in the town know about this?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Those who need to know; but, there, of course—there’s danger from + the police to be guarded against. Because, say what you will, such doings + are forbidden anyway, and for the common people are a temptation; the + common people—the mob, we all know, quickly come to blows.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Has he shown you the dead?’ I asked Ardalion. + </p> + <p> + Ardalion nodded. ‘He has; my father he brought before me as if living.’ + </p> + <p> + I stared at Ardalion. He laughed and played with his dinner-napkin, and + condescendingly, but unflinchingly, looked at me. + </p> + <p> + ‘But this is very curious!’ I cried at last. ‘Couldn’t I make the + acquaintance of this artisan?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You can’t go straight to him; but one can act through his mother. She’s a + respectable old woman; she sells pickled apples on the bridge. If you wish + it, I will ask her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Please do.’ + </p> + <p> + Ardalion coughed behind his hand. ‘And a gratuity, whatever you think fit, + nothing much, of course, should also be handed to her—the old lady. + And I on my side will make her understand that she has nothing to fear + from you, as you are a visitor here, a gentleman—and of course you + can understand that this is a secret, and will not in any case get her + into any unpleasantness.’ + </p> + <p> + Ardalion took the tray in one hand, and with a graceful swing of the tray + and his own person, turned towards the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘So I may reckon upon you!’ I shouted after him. + </p> + <p> + ‘You may trust me!’ I heard his self-satisfied voice say: ‘We’ll talk to + the old woman and transmit you her answer exactly.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I will not enlarge on the train of thought aroused in me by the + extraordinary fact Ardalion had related; but I am prepared to admit that I + awaited the promised reply with impatience. Late in the evening Ardalion + came to me and announced that to his annoyance he could not find the old + woman. I handed him, however, by way of encouragement, a three-rouble + note. The next morning he appeared again in my room with a beaming + countenance; the old woman had consented to see me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hi! boy!’ shouted Ardalion in the corridor; ‘Hi! apprentice! Come here!’ + A boy of six came up, grimed all over with soot like a kitten, with a + shaved head, perfectly bald in places, in a torn, striped smock, and huge + goloshes on his bare feet. ‘You take the gentleman, you know where,’ said + Ardalion, addressing the ‘apprentice,’ and pointing to me. ‘And you, sir, + when you arrive, ask for Mastridia Karpovna.’ + </p> + <p> + The boy uttered a hoarse grunt, and we set off. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + We walked rather a long while about the unpaved streets of the town of T——; + at last in one of them, almost the most deserted and desolate of all, my + guide stopped before an old two-story wooden house, and wiping his nose + all over his smock-sleeve, said: ‘Here; go to the right.’ I passed through + the porch into the outer passage, stumbled towards my right, a low door + creaked on rusty hinges, and I saw before me a stout old woman in a brown + jacket lined with hare-skin, with a parti-coloured kerchief on her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mastridia Karpovna?’ I inquired. + </p> + <p> + ‘The same, at your service,’ the old woman replied in a piping voice. + ‘Please walk in. Won’t you take a chair?’ + </p> + <p> + The room into which the old woman conducted me was so littered up with + every sort of rubbish, rags, pillows, feather-beds, sacks, that one could + hardly turn round in it. The sunlight barely struggled in through two + dusty little windows; in one corner, from behind a heap of boxes piled on + one another, there came a feeble whimpering and wailing.... I could not + tell from what; perhaps a sick baby, or perhaps a puppy. I sat down on a + chair, and the old woman stood up directly facing me. Her face was yellow, + half-transparent like wax; her lips were so fallen in that they formed a + single straight line in the midst of a multitude of wrinkles; a tuft of + white hair stuck out from below the kerchief on her head, but the sunken + grey eyes peered out alertly and cleverly from under the bony overhanging + brow; and the sharp nose fairly stuck out like a spindle, fairly sniffed + the air as if it would say: I’m a smart one! ‘Well, you’re no fool!’ was + my thought. At the same time she smelt of spirits. + </p> + <p> + I explained to her the object of my visit, of which, however, as I + observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes rapidly, + and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply, as though + she were making ready to peck. + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure, to be sure,’ she said at last; ‘Ardalion Matveitch did say + something, certainly; my son Vassinka’s art you were wanting.... But we + can’t be sure, my dear sir....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, why so?’ I interposed. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you may feel + perfectly easy.... I’m not an informer.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, mercy on us,’ the old woman caught me up hurriedly, ‘what do you + mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what + ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it’s some sinful + contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son’s not the one to lend himself to + anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid + indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three + times.) He’s the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province; the + foremost, your honour, he is! And that’s just it: great grace has been + vouchsafed to him. Yes, indeed. It’s not the work of his hands. It’s from + on high, my dear; so it is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So you agree?’ I asked: ‘when can I see your son?’ + </p> + <p> + The old woman blinked again and shifted her rolled up handkerchief from + one sleeve to the other. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, well, sir—well, sir, I can’t say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow me, Mastridia Karpovna, to hand you this,’ I interrupted, and I + gave her a ten-rouble note. + </p> + <p> + The old woman clutched it at once in her fat, crooked fingers, which + recalled the fleshy claws of an owl, quickly slipped it into her sleeve, + pondered a little, and as though she had suddenly reached a decision, + slapped her thighs with her open hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come here this evening a little after seven,’ she said, not in her + previous voice, but in quite a different one, more solemn and subdued; + ‘only not to this room, but kindly go straight up to the floor above, and + you’ll find a door to your left, and you open that door; and you’ll go, + your honour, into an empty room, and in that room you’ll see a chair. Sit + you down on that chair and wait; and whatever you see, don’t utter a word + and don’t do anything; and please don’t speak to my son either; for he’s + but young yet, and he suffers from fits. He’s very easily scared; he’ll + tremble and shake like any chicken ... a sad thing it is!’ + </p> + <p> + I looked at Mastridia. ‘You say he’s young, but since he’s your son ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In the spirit, sir, in the spirit. Many’s the orphan I have under my + care!’ she added, wagging her head in the direction of the corner, from + which came the plaintive whimper. ‘O—O God Almighty, holy Mother of + God! And do you, your honour, before you come here, think well which of + your deceased relations or friends—the kingdom of Heaven to them!—you’re + desirous of seeing. Go over your deceased friends, and whichever you + select, keep him in your mind, keep him all the while till my son comes!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, mustn’t I tell your son whom ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nay, nay, sir, not one word. He will find out what he needs in your + thoughts himself. You’ve only to keep your friend thoroughly in mind; and + at your dinner drink a drop of wine—just two or three glasses; wine + never comes amiss.’ The old woman laughed, licked her lips, passed her + hand over her mouth, and sighed. + </p> + <p> + ‘So at half-past seven?’ I queried, getting up from my chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘At half-past seven, your honour, at half-past seven,’ Mastridia Karpovna + replied reassuringly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I took leave of the old woman and went back to the hotel. I did not doubt + that they were going to make a fool of me, but in what way?—that was + what excited my curiosity. With Ardalion I did not exchange more than two + or three words. ‘Did she see you?’ he asked me, knitting his brow, and on + my affirmative reply, he exclaimed: ‘The old woman’s as good as any + statesman!’ I set to work, in accordance with the ‘statesman’s’ counsel, + to run over my deceased friends. + </p> + <p> + After rather prolonged hesitation I fixed, at last, on an old man who had + long been dead, a Frenchman, once my tutor. I selected him not because he + had any special attraction for me; but his whole figure was so original, + so unlike any figure of to-day, that it would be utterly impossible to + imitate it. He had an enormous head, fluffy white hair combed straight + back, thick black eyebrows, a hawk nose, and two large warts of a pinkish + hue in the middle of the forehead; he used to wear a green frockcoat with + smooth brass buttons, a striped waistcoat with a stand-up collar, a jabot + and lace cuffs. ‘If he shows me my old Dessaire,’ I thought, ‘well, I + shall have to admit that he’s a sorcerer!’ + </p> + <p> + At dinner I followed the old dame’s behest and drank a bottle of Lafitte, + of the first quality, so Ardalion averred, though it had a very strong + flavour of burnt cork, and a thick sediment at the bottom of each glass. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Exactly at half-past seven I stood in front of the house where I had + conversed with the worthy Mastridia Karpovna. All the shutters of the + windows were closed, but the door was open. I went into the house, mounted + the shaky staircase to the first story, and opening a door on the left, + found myself, as the old woman had said, in a perfectly empty, rather + large room; a tallow candle set in the window-sill threw a dim light over + the room; against the wall opposite the door stood a wicker-bottomed + chair. I snuffed the candle, which had already burnt down enough to form a + long smouldering wick, sat down on the chair and began to wait. + </p> + <p> + The first ten minutes passed rather quickly; in the room itself there was + absolutely nothing which could distract my attention, but I listened + intently to every rustle, looked intently at the closed door.... My heart + was throbbing. After the first ten minutes followed another ten minutes, + then half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and not a stir of any kind + around! I coughed several times to make my presence known; I began to feel + bored and out of temper; to be made a fool of in just that way had not + entered into my calculations. I was on the point of getting up from my + seat, taking the candle from the window, and going downstairs.... I looked + at it; the wick again wanted snuffing; but as I turned my eyes from the + window to the door, I could not help starting; with his back leaning + against the door stood a man. He had entered so quickly and noiselessly + that I had heard nothing. He wore a simple blue smock; he was of middle + height and rather thick-set. With his hands behind his back and his head + bent, he was staring at me. In the dim light of the candle I could not + distinctly make out his features. I saw nothing but a shaggy mane of + matted hair falling on his forehead, and thick, rather drawn lips and + whitish eyes. I was nearly speaking to him, but I recollected Mastridia’s + injunction, and bit my lips. The man, who had come in, continued to gaze + at me, and, strange to say, at the same time I felt something like fear, + and, as though at the word of command, promptly started thinking of my old + tutor. <i>He</i> still stood at the door and breathed heavily, as though + he had been climbing a mountain or lifting a weight, while his eyes seemed + to expand, seemed to come closer to me—and I felt uncomfortable + under their obstinate, heavy, menacing stare; at times those eyes glowed + with a malignant inward fire, a fire such as I have seen in the eyes of a + pointer dog when it ‘points’ at a hare; and, like a pointer dog, <i>he</i> + kept <i>his</i> eyes intently following mine when I ‘tried to double,’ + that is, tried to turn my eyes away. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + So passed I do not know how long—perhaps a minute, perhaps a quarter + of an hour. He still gazed at me; I still experienced a certain discomfort + and alarm and still thought of the Frenchman. Twice I tried to say to + myself, ‘What nonsense! what a farce!’ I tried to smile, to shrug my + shoulders.... It was no use! All initiative had all at once ‘frozen up’ + within me—I can find no other word for it. I was overcome by a sort + of numbness. Suddenly I noticed that he had left the door, and was + standing a step or two nearer to me; then he gave a slight bound, both + feet together, and stood closer still.... Then again ... and again; while + the menacing eyes were simply fastened on my whole face, and the hands + remained behind, and the broad chest heaved painfully. These leaps struck + me as ridiculous, but I felt dread too, and what I could not understand at + all, a drowsiness began suddenly to come upon me. My eyelids clung + together ... the shaggy figure with the whitish eyes in the blue smock + seemed double before me, and suddenly vanished altogether! ... I shook + myself; he was again standing between the door and me, but now much + nearer.... Then he vanished again—a sort of mist seemed to fall upon + him; again he appeared ... vanished again ... appeared again, and always + closer, closer ... his hard, almost gasping breathing floated across to me + now.... Again the mist fell, and all of a sudden out of this mist the head + of old Dessaire began to take distinct shape, beginning with the white, + brushed-back hair! Yes: there were his warts, his black eyebrows, his hook + nose! There too his green coat with the brass buttons, the striped + waistcoat and jabot.... I shrieked, I got up.... The old man vanished, and + in his place I saw again the man in the blue smock. He moved staggering to + the wall, leaned his head and both arms against it, and heaving like an + over-loaded horse, in a husky voice said, ‘Tea!’ Mastridia Karpovna—how + she came there I can’t say—flew to him and saying: ‘Vassinka! + Vassinka!’ began anxiously wiping away the sweat, which simply trickled + from his face and hair. I was on the point of approaching her, but she, so + insistently, in such a heart-rending voice cried: ‘Your honour! merciful + sir! have pity on us, go away, for Christ’s sake!’ that I obeyed, while + she turned again to her son. ‘Bread-winner, darling,’ she murmured + soothingly: ‘you shall have tea directly, directly. And you too, sir, had + better take a cup of tea at home!’ she shouted after me. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + When I got home I obeyed Mastridia and ordered some tea; I felt tired—even + weak. ‘Well?’ Ardalion questioned me, ‘have you been? did you see + something?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He did, certainly, show me something ... which, I’ll own, I had not + anticipated,’ I replied. + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s a man of marvellous power,’ observed Ardalion, carrying off the + samovar; ‘he is held in high esteem among the merchant gentry.’ As I went + to bed, and reflected on the incident that had occurred to me, I fancied + at last that I had reached some explanation of it. The man doubtless + possessed a considerable magnetic power; acting by some means, which I did + not understand of course, upon my nerves, he had evoked within me so + vividly, so definitely, the image of the old man of whom I was thinking, + that at last I fancied that I saw him before my eyes.... Such + ‘metastases,’ such transferences of sensation, are recognised by science. + It was all very well; but the force capable of producing such effects + still remained, something marvellous and mysterious. ‘Say what you will,’ + I thought, ‘I’ve seen, seen with my own eyes, my dead tutor!’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The next day the ball in the Hall of Nobility took place. Sophia’s father + called on me and reminded me of the engagement I had made with his + daughter. At ten o’clock I was standing by her side in the middle of a + ballroom lighted up by a number of copper lamps, and was preparing to + execute the not very complicated steps of the French quadrille to the + resounding blare of the military band. Crowds of people were there; the + ladies were especially numerous and very pretty; but the first place among + them would certainly have been given to my partner, if it had not been for + the rather strange, even rather wild look in her eyes. I noticed that she + hardly ever blinked; the unmistakable expression of sincerity in her eyes + did not make up for what was extraordinary in them. But she had a charming + figure, and moved gracefully, though with constraint. When she waltzed, + and, throwing herself a little back, bent her slender neck towards her + right shoulder, as though she wanted to get away from her partner, nothing + more touchingly youthful and pure could be imagined. She was all in white, + with a turquoise cross on a black ribbon. + </p> + <p> + I asked her for a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers were + few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same + expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met her. + Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her + appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually fixed + directly upon the eyes of the person speaking to her, though they seemed + at the same time to see something else, to be absorbed with something + different.... What a strange creature! Not knowing, at last, how to thaw + her, I bethought me of telling her of my adventure of the previous day. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + She heard me to the end with evident interest, but was not, as I had + expected, surprised at what I told her, and merely asked whether he was + not called Vassily. I recollected that the old woman had called him + ‘Vassinka.’ ‘Yes, his name is Vassily,’ I answered; ‘do you know him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There is a saintly man living here called Vassily,’ she observed; ‘I + wondered whether it was he.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Saintliness has nothing to do with this,’ I remarked; ‘it’s simply the + action of magnetism—a fact of interest for doctors and students of + science.’ + </p> + <p> + I proceeded to expound my views on the peculiar force called magnetism, on + the possibility of one man’s will being brought under the influence of + another’s will, and so on; but my explanations—which were, it is + true, somewhat confused—seemed to make no impression on her. Sophie + listened, dropping her clasped hands on her knees with a fan lying + motionless in them; she did not play with it, she did not move her fingers + at all, and I felt that all my words rebounded from her as from a statue + of stone. She heard them, but clearly she had her own convictions, which + nothing could shake or uproot. + </p> + <p> + ‘You can hardly admit miracles!’ I cried. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I admit them,’ she answered calmly. ‘And how can one help + admitting them? Are not we told in the gospel that who has but a grain of + faith as big as a mustard seed, he can remove mountains? One need only + have faith—there will be miracles!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It seems there is very little faith nowadays,’ I observed; ‘anyway, one + doesn’t hear of miracles.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But yet there are miracles; you have seen one yourself. No; faith is not + dead nowadays; and the beginning of faith ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,’ I interrupted. + </p> + <p> + ‘The beginning of faith,’ pursued Sophie, nothing daunted, ‘is + self-abasement ... humiliation.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Humiliation even?’ I queried. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. The pride of man, haughtiness, presumption—that is what must + be utterly rooted up. You spoke of the will—that’s what must be + broken.’ + </p> + <p> + I scanned the whole figure of the young girl who was uttering such + sentences.... ‘My word, the child’s in earnest, too,’ was my thought. I + glanced at our neighbours in the mazurka; they, too, glanced at me, and I + fancied that my astonishment amused them; one of them even smiled at me + sympathetically, as though he would say: ‘Well, what do you think of our + queer young lady? every one here knows what she’s like.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you tried to break your will?’ I said, turning to Sophie again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Every one is bound to do what he thinks right,’ she answered in a + dogmatic tone. ‘Let me ask you,’ I began, after a brief silence, ‘do you + believe in the possibility of calling up the dead?’ + </p> + <p> + Sophie softly shook her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘There are no dead.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There are no dead souls; they are undying and can always appear, when + they like.... They are always about us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What? Do you suppose, for instance, that an immortal soul may be at this + moment hovering about that garrison major with the red nose?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not? The sunlight falls on him and his nose, and is not the sunlight, + all light, from God? And what does external appearance matter? To the pure + all things are pure! Only to find a teacher, to find a leader!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But excuse me, excuse me,’ I put in, not, I must own, without malicious + intent. ‘You want a leader ... but what is your priest for?’ + </p> + <p> + Sophie looked coldly at me. + </p> + <p> + ‘You mean to laugh at me, I suppose. My priestly father tells me what I + ought to do; but what I want is a leader who would show me himself in + action how to sacrifice one’s self!’ + </p> + <p> + She raised her eyes towards the ceiling. With her childlike face, and that + expression of immobile absorption, of secret, continual perplexity, she + reminded me of the pre-raphaelite Madonnas.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I have read somewhere,’ she went on, not turning to me, and hardly moving + her lips, ‘of a grand person who directed that he should be buried under a + church porch so that all the people who came in should tread him under + foot and trample on him.... That is what one ought to do in life.’ + </p> + <p> + Boom! boom! tra-ra-ra! thundered the drums from the band.... I must own + such a conversation at a ball struck me as eccentric in the extreme; the + ideas involuntarily kindled within me were of a nature anything but + religious. I took advantage of my partner’s being invited to one of the + figures of the mazurka to avoid renewing our quasi-theological discussion. + </p> + <p> + A quarter of an hour later I conducted Mademoiselle Sophie to her father, + and two days after I left the town of T——, and the image of + the girl with the childlike face and the soul impenetrable as stone + slipped quickly out of my memory. + </p> + <p> + Two years passed, and it chanced that that image was recalled again to me. + It was like this: I was talking to a colleague who had just returned from + a tour in South Russia. He had spent some time in the town of T——, + and told me various items of news about the neighbourhood. ‘By the way!’ + he exclaimed, ‘you knew V. G. B. very well, I fancy, didn’t you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I know him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And his daughter Sophia, do you know her?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve seen her twice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Only fancy, she’s run away!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How’s that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I don’t know. Three months ago she disappeared, and nothing’s been + heard of her. And the astonishing thing is no one can make out whom she’s + run off with. Fancy, they’ve not the slightest idea, not the smallest + suspicion! She’d refused all the offers made her, and she was most proper + in her behaviour. Ah, these quiet, religious girls are the ones! It’s made + an awful scandal all over the province! B.‘s in despair.... And whatever + need had she to run away? Her father carried out her wishes in everything. + And what’s so unaccountable, all the Lovelaces of the province are there + all right, not one’s missing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And they’ve not found her up till now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I tell you she might as well be at the bottom of the sea! It’s one rich + heiress less in the world, that’s the worst of it.’ + </p> + <p> + This piece of news greatly astonished me. It did not seem at all in + keeping with the recollection I had of Sophia B. But there! anything may + happen. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + In the autumn of the same year fate brought me—again on official + business—into the S—— province, which is, as every one + knows, next to the province of T——. It was cold and rainy + weather; the worn-out posting-horses could scarcely drag my light trap + through the black slush of the highroad. One day, I remember, was + particularly unlucky: three times we got ‘stuck’ in the mud up to the + axles of the wheels; my driver was continually giving up one rut and with + moans and grunts trudging across to the other, and finding things no + better with that. In fact, towards evening I was so exhausted that on + reaching the posting-station I decided to spend the night at the inn. I + was given a room with a broken-down wooden sofa, a sloping floor, and torn + paper on the walls; there was a smell in it of kvas, bast-mats, onions, + and even turpentine, and swarms of flies were on everything; but at any + rate I could find shelter there from the weather, and the rain had set in, + as they say, for the whole day. I ordered a samovar to be brought, and, + sitting on the sofa, settled down to those cheerless wayside reflections + so familiar to travellers in Russia. + </p> + <p> + They were broken in upon by a heavy knocking that came from the common + room, from which my room was separated by a deal partition. This sound was + accompanied by an intermittent metallic jingle, like the clank of chains, + and a coarse male voice boomed out suddenly: ‘The blessing of God on all + within this house. The blessing of God! the blessing of God! Amen, amen! + Scatter His enemies!’ repeated the voice, with a sort of incongruous and + savage drawl on the last syllable of each word.... A noisy sigh was heard, + and a ponderous body sank on to the bench with the same jingling sound. + ‘Akulina! servant of God, come here!’ the voice began again: ‘Behold! + Clothed in rags and blessed! ... Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo! Merciful God, merciful + God, merciful God!’ the voice droned like a deacon in the choir. ‘Merciful + God, Creator of my body, behold my iniquity.... O-ho-ho! Ha-ha! ... Tfoo! + And all abundance be to this house in the seventh hour!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s that?’ I asked the hospitable landlady, who came in with the + samovar. + </p> + <p> + ‘That, your honour,’ she answered me in a hurried whisper, ‘is a blessed, + holy man. He’s not long come into our parts; and here he’s graciously + pleased to visit us. In such weather! The wet’s simply trickling from him, + poor dear man, in streams! And you should see the chains on him—such + a lot!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The blessing of God! the blessing of God!’ the voice was heard again. + ‘Akulina! Hey, Akulina! Akulinushka—friend! where is our paradise? + Our fair paradise of bliss? In the wilderness is our paradise, ... + para-dise.... And to this house, from beginning of time, great happiness, + ... o ... o ... o ...’ The voice muttered something inarticulate, and + again, after a protracted yawn, there came the hoarse laugh. This laugh + broke out every time, as it were, involuntarily, and every time it was + followed by vigorous spitting. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, me! Stepanitch isn’t here! That’s the worst of it!’ the landlady + said, as it were to herself, as she stood with every sign of the + profoundest attention at the door. ‘He will say some word of salvation, + and I, foolish woman, may not catch it!’ + </p> + <p> + She went out quickly. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + In the partition there was a chink; I applied my eye to it. The crazy + pilgrim was sitting on a bench with his back to me; I saw nothing but his + shaggy head, as huge as a beer-can, and a broad bent back in a patched and + soaking shirt. Before him, on the earth floor, knelt a frail-looking woman + in a jacket, such as are worn by women of the artisan class—old and + wet through—and with a dark kerchief pulled down almost over her + eyes. She was trying to pull the holy man’s boots off; her fingers slid + off the greasy, slippery leather. The landlady was standing near her, with + her arms folded across her bosom, gazing reverently at the ‘man of God.’ + He was, as before, mumbling some inarticulate words. + </p> + <p> + At last the woman succeeded in tugging off the boots. She almost fell + backwards, but recovered herself, and began unwinding the strips of rag + which were wrapped round the vagrant’s legs. On the sole of his foot there + was a wound.... I turned away. + </p> + <p> + ‘A cup of tea wouldn’t you bid me get you, my dear?’ I heard the hostess + saying in an obsequious voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘What a notion!’ responded the holy man. ‘To indulge the sinful body.... + O-ho-ho! Break all the bones in it ... but she talks of tea! Oh, oh, + worthy old woman, Satan is strong within us.... Fight him with hunger, + fight him with cold, with the sluice-gates of heaven, the pouring, + penetrating rain, and he takes no harm—he is alive still! Remember + the day of the Intercession of the Mother of God! You will receive, you + will receive in abundance!’ + </p> + <p> + The landlady could not resist uttering a faint groan of admiration. + </p> + <p> + ‘Only listen to me! Give all thou hast, give thy head, give thy shirt! If + they ask not of thee, yet give! For God is all-seeing! Is it hard for Him + to destroy your roof? He has given thee bread in His mercy, and do thou + bake it in the oven! He seeth all! Se ... e ... eth! Whose eye is in the + triangle? Say, whose?’ + </p> + <p> + The landlady stealthily crossed herself under her neckerchief. + </p> + <p> + ‘The old enemy is adamant! A ... da ... mant! A ... da ... mant!’ the + religious maniac repeated several times, gnashing his teeth. ‘The old + serpent! But God will arise! Yes, God will arise and scatter His enemies! + I will call up all the dead! I will go against His enemy.... Ha-ha-ha! + Tfoo!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you any oil?’ said another voice, hardly audible; ‘let me put some + on the wound.... I have got a clean rag.’ + </p> + <p> + I peeped through the chink again; the woman in the jacket was still busied + with the vagrant’s sore foot.... ‘A Magdalen!’ I thought. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll get it directly, my dear,’ said the woman, and, coming into my room, + she took a spoonful of oil from the lamp burning before the holy picture. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s that waiting on him?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘We don’t know, sir, who it is; she too, I suppose, is seeking salvation, + atoning for her sins. But what a saintly man he is!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Akulinushka, my sweet child, my dear daughter,’ the crazy pilgrim was + repeating meanwhile, and he suddenly burst into tears. + </p> + <p> + The woman kneeling before him lifted her eyes to him.... Heavens! where + had I seen those eyes? + </p> + <p> + The landlady went up to her with the spoonful of oil. She finished her + operation, and, getting up from the floor, asked if there were a clean + loft and a little hay.... ‘Vassily Nikititch likes to sleep on hay,’ she + added. + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure there is, come this way,’ answered the woman; ‘come this way, + my dear,’ she turned to the holy man, ‘and dry yourself and rest.’ The man + coughed, slowly got up from the bench—his chains clanked again—and + turning round with his face to me, looked for the holy pictures, and began + crossing himself with a wide movement. + </p> + <p> + I recognised him instantly: it was the very artisan Vassily, who had once + shown me my dead tutor! + </p> + <p> + His features were little changed; only their expression had become still + more unusual, still more terrible.... The lower part of his swollen face + was overgrown with unkempt beard. Tattered, filthy, wild-looking, he + inspired in me more repugnance than horror. He left off crossing himself, + but still his eyes wandered senselessly about the corners of the room, + about the floor, as though he were waiting for something.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassily Nikititch, please come,’ said the woman in the jacket with a bow. + He suddenly threw up his head and turned round, but stumbled and + tottered.... His companion flew to him at once, and supported him under + the arm. Judging by her voice and figure, she seemed still young; her face + it was almost impossible to see. + </p> + <p> + ‘Akulinushka, friend!’ the vagrant repeated once more in a shaking voice, + and opening his mouth wide, and smiting himself on the breast with his + fist, he uttered a deep groan, that seemed to come from the bottom of his + heart. Both followed the landlady out of the room. + </p> + <p> + I lay down on my hard sofa and mused a long while on what I had seen. My + mesmeriser had become a regular religious maniac. This was what he had + been brought to by the power which one could not but recognise in him! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The next morning I was preparing to go on my way. The rain was falling as + fast as the day before, but I could not delay any longer. My servant, as + he gave me water to wash, wore a special smile on his face, a smile of + restrained irony. I knew that smile well; it indicated that my servant had + heard something discreditable or even shocking about gentlefolks. He was + obviously burning with impatience to communicate it to me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what is it?’ I asked at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Did your honour see the crazy pilgrim yesterday?’ my man began at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; what then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And did you see his companion too?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I saw her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s a young lady, of noble family.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s the truth I’m telling you; some merchants arrived here this morning + from T——; they recognised her. They did tell me her name, but + I’ve forgotten it.’ + </p> + <p> + It was like a flash of enlightenment. ‘Is the pilgrim still here?’ I + asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘I fancy he’s not gone yet. He’s been ever so long at the gate, and making + such a wonderful wise to-do, that there’s no getting by. He’s amusing + himself with this tomfoolery; he finds it pay, no doubt.’ + </p> + <p> + My man belonged to the same class of educated servants as Ardalion. + </p> + <p> + ‘And is the lady with him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. She’s in attendance on him.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I went out on to the steps, and got a view of the crazy pilgrim. He was + sitting on a bench at the gate, and, bent down with both his open hands + pressed on it, he was shaking his drooping head from right to left, for + all the world like a wild beast in a cage. The thick mane of curly hair + covered his eyes, and shook from side to side, and so did his pendulous + lips.... A strange, almost unhuman muttering came from them. His companion + had only just finished washing from a pitcher that was hanging on a pole, + and without having yet replaced her kerchief on her head, was making her + way back to the gate along a narrow plank laid across the dark puddles of + the filthy yard. I glanced at her head, which was now entirely uncovered, + and positively threw up my hands with astonishment: before me stood Sophie + B.! + </p> + <p> + She turned quickly round and fixed upon me her blue eyes, immovable as + ever. She was much thinner, her skin looked coarser and had the + yellowish-ruddy tinge of sunburn, her nose was sharper, and her lips were + harder in their lines. But she was not less good-looking; only besides her + old expression of dreamy amazement there was now a different look—resolute, + almost bold, intense and exalted. There was not a trace of childishness + left in the face now. + </p> + <p> + I went up to her. ‘Sophia Vladimirovna,’ I cried, ‘can it be you? In such + a dress ... in such company....’ + </p> + <p> + She started, looked still more intently at me, as though anxious to find + out who was speaking to her, and, without saying a word to me, fairly + rushed to her companion. + </p> + <p> + ‘Akulinushka,’ he faltered, with a heavy sigh, ‘our sins, sins ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassily Nikititch, let us go at once! Do you hear, at once, at once,’ she + said, pulling her kerchief on to her forehead with one hand, while with + the other she supported the pilgrim under the elbow; ‘let us go, Vassily + Nikititch: there is danger here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m coming, my good girl, I’m coming,’ the crazy pilgrim responded + obediently, and, bending his whole body forward, he got up from the seat. + ‘Here’s only this chain to fasten....’ + </p> + <p> + I once more approached Sophia, and told her my name. I began beseeching + her to listen to me, to say one word to me. I pointed to the rain, which + was coming down in bucketsful. I begged her to have some care for her + health, the health of her companion. I mentioned her father.... But she + seemed possessed by a sort of wrathful, a sort of vindictive excitement: + without paying the slightest attention to me, setting her teeth and + breathing hard, she urged on the distracted vagrant in an undertone, in + soft insistent words, girt him up, fastened on his chains, pulled on to + his hair a child’s cloth cap with a broken peak, stuck his staff in his + hand, slung a wallet on her own shoulder, and went with him out at the + gate into the street.... To stop her actually I had not the right, and it + would have been of no use; and at my last despairing call she did not even + turn round. Supporting the ‘man of God’ under his arm, she stepped rapidly + over the black mud of the street; and in a few moments, across the dim + dusk of the foggy morning, through the thick network of falling raindrops, + I saw the last glimpse of the two figures, the crazy pilgrim and + Sophie.... They turned the corner of a projecting hut, and vanished for + ever. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I went back to my room. I fell to pondering. I could not understand it; I + could not understand how such a girl, well brought up, young, and wealthy, + could throw up everything and every one, her own home, her family, her + friends, break with all her habits, with all the comforts of life, and for + what? To follow a half-insane vagrant, to become his servant! I could not + for an instant entertain the idea that the explanation of such a step was + to be found in any prompting, however depraved, of the heart, in love or + passion.... One had but to glance at the repulsive figure of the ‘man of + God’ to dismiss such a notion entirely! No, Sophie had remained pure; and + to her all things were pure; I could not understand what Sophie had done; + but I did not blame her, as, later on, I have not blamed other girls who + too have sacrificed everything for what they thought the truth, for what + they held to be their vocation. I could not help regretting that Sophie + had chosen just <i>that</i> path; but also I could not refuse her + admiration, respect even. In good earnest she had talked of + self-sacrifice, of abasement ... in <i>her</i>, words were not opposed to + acts. She had sought a leader, a guide, and had found him, ... and, my + God, what a guide! + </p> + <p> + Yes, she had lain down to be trampled, trodden under foot.... In the + process of time, a rumour reached me that her family had succeeded at last + in finding out the lost sheep, and bringing her home. But at home she did + not live long, and died, like a ‘Sister of Silence,’ without having spoken + a word to any one. + </p> + <p> + Peace to your heart, poor, enigmatic creature! Vassily Nikititch is + probably on his crazy wanderings still; the iron health of such people is + truly marvellous. Perhaps, though, his epilepsy may have done for him. + </p> + <h3> + BADEN-BADEN, 1869. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PUNIN AND BABURIN + </h2> + <h3> + PIOTR PETROVITCH’S STORY + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + ... I am old and ill now, and my thoughts brood oftenest upon death, every + day coming nearer; rarely I think of the past, rarely I turn the eyes of + my soul behind me. Only from time to time—in winter, as I sit + motionless before the glowing fire, in summer, as I pace with slow tread + along the shady avenue—I recall past years, events, faces; but it is + not on my mature years nor on my youth that my thoughts rest at such + times. They either carry me back to my earliest childhood, or to the first + years of boyhood. Now, for instance, I see myself in the country with my + stern and wrathful grandmother—I was only twelve—and two + figures rise up before my imagination.... + </p> + <p> + But I will begin my story consecutively, and in proper order. + </p> + <h3> + I + </h3> + <h3> + 1830 + </h3> + <p> + The old footman Filippitch came in, on tiptoe, as usual, with a cravat + tied up in a rosette, with tightly compressed lips, ‘lest his breath + should be smelt,’ with a grey tuft of hair standing up in the very middle + of his forehead. He came in, bowed, and handed my grandmother on an iron + tray a large letter with an heraldic seal. My grandmother put on her + spectacles, read the letter through.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Is he here?’ she asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is my lady pleased ...’ Filippitch began timidly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Imbecile! The man who brought the letter—is he here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is here, to be sure he is.... He is sitting in the counting-house.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother rattled her amber rosary beads.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell him to come to me.... And you, sir,’ she turned to me, ‘sit still.’ + </p> + <p> + As it was, I was sitting perfectly still in my corner, on the stool + assigned to me. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother kept me well in hand! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Five minutes later there came into the room a man of five-and-thirty, + black-haired and swarthy, with broad cheek-bones, a face marked with + smallpox, a hook nose, and thick eyebrows, from under which the small grey + eyes looked out with mournful composure. The colour of the eyes and their + expression were out of keeping with the Oriental cast of the rest of the + face. The man was dressed in a decent, long-skirted coat. He stopped in + the doorway, and bowed—only with his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘So your name’s Baburin?’ queried my grandmother, and she added to + herself: ‘<i>Il a l’air d’un arménien.</i>’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, it is,’ the man answered in a deep and even voice. At the first + brusque sound of my grandmother’s voice his eyebrows faintly quivered. + Surely he had not expected her to address him as an equal? + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you a Russian? orthodox?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother took off her spectacles, and scanned Baburin from head to + foot deliberately. He did not drop his eyes, he merely folded his hands + behind his back. What particularly struck my fancy was his beard; it was + very smoothly shaven, but such blue cheeks and chin I had never seen in my + life! + </p> + <p> + ‘Yakov Petrovitch,’ began my grandmother, ‘recommends you strongly in his + letter as sober and industrious; why, then, did you leave his service?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He needs a different sort of person to manage his estate, madam.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A different ... sort? That I don’t quite understand.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother rattled her beads again. ‘Yakov Petrovitch writes to me + that there are two peculiarities about you. What peculiarities?’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin shrugged his shoulders slightly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t tell what he sees fit to call peculiarities. Possibly that I ... + don’t allow corporal punishment.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother was surprised. ‘Do you mean to say Yakov Petrovitch wanted + to flog you?’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin’s swarthy face grew red to the roots of his hair. + </p> + <p> + ‘You have not understood me right, madam. I make it a rule not to employ + corporal punishment ... with the peasants.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother was more surprised than ever; she positively threw up her + hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ she pronounced at last, and putting her head a little on one side, + once more she scrutinised Baburin attentively. ‘So that’s your rule, is + it? Well, that’s of no consequence whatever to me; I don’t want an + overseer, but a counting-house clerk, a secretary. What sort of a hand do + you write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I write well, without mistakes in spelling.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That too is of no consequence to me. The great thing for me is for it to + be clear, and without any of those new copybook letters with tails, that I + don’t like. And what’s your other peculiarity?’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin moved uneasily, coughed.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps ... the gentleman has referred to the fact that I am not alone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are married?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no ... but ...’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother knit her brows. + </p> + <p> + ‘There is a person living with me ... of the male sex ... a comrade, a + poor friend, from whom I have never parted ... for ... let me see ... ten + years now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A relation of yours?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, not a relation—a friend. As to work, there can be no possible + hindrance occasioned by him,’ Baburin made haste to add, as though + foreseeing objections. ‘He lives at my cost, occupies the same room with + me; he is more likely to be of use, as he is well educated—speaking + without flattery, extremely so, in fact—and his morals are + exemplary.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother heard Baburin out, chewing her lips and half closing her + eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘He lives at your expense?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You keep him out of charity?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As an act of justice ... as it’s the duty of one poor man to help another + poor man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Indeed! It’s the first time I’ve heard that. I had supposed till now that + that was rather the duty of rich people.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘For the rich, if I may venture to say so, it is an entertainment ... but + for such as we ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, well, that’s enough, that’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him short; + and after a moment’s thought she queried, speaking through her nose, which + was always a bad sign, ‘And what age is he, your protégé?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘About my own age.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, I imagined that you were bringing him up.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not so; he is my comrade—and besides ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him short a second time. ‘You’re a + philanthropist, it seems. Yakov Petrovitch is right; for a man in your + position it’s something very peculiar. But now let’s get to business. I’ll + explain to you what your duties will be. And as regards wages.... <i>Que + faites vous ici?</i>’ added my grandmother suddenly, turning her dry, + yellow face to me:—‘<i>Allez étudier votre devoir de mythologie.</i>’ + </p> + <p> + I jumped up, went up to kiss my grandmother’s hand, and went out,—not + to study mythology, but simply into the garden. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The garden on my grandmother’s estate was very old and large, and was + bounded on one side by a flowing pond, in which there were not only plenty + of carp and eels, but even loach were caught, those renowned loach, that + have nowadays disappeared almost everywhere. At the head of this pond was + a thick clump of willows; further and higher, on both sides of a rising + slope, were dense bushes of hazel, elder, honeysuckle, and sloe-thorn, + with an undergrowth of heather and clover flowers. Here and there between + the bushes were tiny clearings, covered with emerald-green, silky, fine + grass, in the midst of which squat funguses peeped out with their comical, + variegated pink, lilac, and straw-coloured caps, and golden balls of + ‘hen-dazzle’ blazed in light patches. Here in spring-time the nightingales + sang, the blackbirds whistled, the cuckoos called; here in the heat of + summer it was always cool—and I loved to make my way into the + wilderness and thicket, where I had favourite secret spots, known—so, + at least, I imagined—only to me. + </p> + <p> + On coming out of my grandmother’s room I made straight for one of these + spots, which I had named ‘Switzerland.’ But what was my astonishment when, + before I had reached ‘Switzerland,’ I perceived through the delicate + network of half-dry twigs and green branches that some one besides me had + found it out! A long, long figure in a long, loose coat of yellow frieze + and a tall cap was standing in the very spot I loved best of all! I stole + up a little nearer, and made out the face, which was utterly unknown to + me, also very long and soft, with small reddish eyes, and a very funny + nose; drawn out as long as a pod of peas, it positively over-hung the full + lips; and these lips, quivering and forming a round O, were giving vent to + a shrill little whistle, while the long fingers of the bony hands, placed + facing one another on the upper part of the chest, were rapidly moving + with a rotatory action. From time to time the motion of the hands + subsided, the lips ceased whistling and quivering, the head was bent + forward as though listening. I came still nearer, examined him still more + closely.... The stranger held in each hand a small flat cup, such as + people use to tease canaries and make them sing. A twig snapped under my + feet; the stranger started, turned his dim little eyes towards the copse, + and was staggering away ... but he stumbled against a tree, uttered an + exclamation, and stood still. + </p> + <p> + I came out into the open space. The stranger smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good morning,’ said I. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good morning, little master!’ + </p> + <p> + I did not like his calling me little master. Such familiarity! + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked sternly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, look here,’ he responded, never leaving off smiling, ‘I’m calling + the little birds to sing.’ He showed me his little cups. ‘The chaffinches + answer splendidly! You, at your tender years, take delight, no doubt, in + the feathered songsters’ notes! Listen, I beg; I will begin chirping, and + they’ll answer me directly—it’s so delightful!’ + </p> + <p> + He began rubbing his little cups. A chaffinch actually did chirp in + response from a mountain ash near. The stranger laughed without a sound, + and winked at me. + </p> + <p> + The laugh and the wink—every gesture of the stranger, his weak, + lisping voice, his bent knees and thin hands, his very cap and long frieze + coat—everything about him suggested good-nature, something innocent + and droll. + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you been here long?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘I came to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, aren’t you the person of whom ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Baburin spoke to the lady here. The same, the same.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your friend’s name’s Baburin, and what’s yours?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m Punin. Punin’s my name; Punin. He’s Baburin and I’m Punin.’ He set + the little cups humming again. ‘Listen, listen to the chaffinch.... How it + carols!’ + </p> + <p> + This queer creature took my fancy ‘awfully’ all at once. Like almost all + boys, I was either timid or consequential with strangers, but I felt with + this man as if I had known him for ages. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come along with me,’ I said to him; ‘I know a place better than this; + there’s a seat there; we can sit down, and we can see the dam from there.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By all means let us go,’ my new friend responded in his singing voice. I + let him pass before me. As he walked he rolled from side to side, tripped + over his own feet, and his head fell back. + </p> + <p> + I noticed on the back of his coat, under the collar, there hung a small + tassel. ‘What’s that you’ve got hanging there?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where?’ he questioned, and he put his hand up to the collar to feel. ‘Ah, + the tassel? Let it be! I suppose it was sewn there for ornament! It’s not + in the way.’ + </p> + <p> + I led him to the seat, and sat down; he settled himself beside me. ‘It’s + lovely here!’ he commented, and he drew a deep, deep sigh. ‘Oh, how + lovely! You have a most splendid garden! Oh, o—oh!’ + </p> + <p> + I looked at him from one side. ‘What a queer cap you’ve got!’ I couldn’t + help exclaiming. ‘Show it me here!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘By all means, little master, by all means.’ He took off the cap; I was + holding out my hand, but I raised my eyes, and—simply burst out + laughing. Punin was completely bald; not a single hair was to be seen on + the high conical skull, covered with smooth white skin. He passed his open + hand over it, and he too laughed. When he laughed he seemed, as it were, + to gulp, he opened his mouth wide, closed his eyes—and vertical + wrinkles flitted across his forehead in three rows, like waves. ‘Eh,’ said + he at last, ‘isn’t it quite like an egg?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes, exactly like an egg!’ I agreed with enthusiasm. ‘And have you + been like that long?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, a long while; but what hair I used to have!—A golden fleece + like that for which the Argonauts sailed over the watery deeps.’ + </p> + <p> + Though I was only twelve, yet, thanks to my mythological studies, I knew + who the Argonauts were; I was the more surprised at hearing the name on + the lips of a man dressed almost in rags. + </p> + <p> + ‘You must have learned mythology, then?’ I queried, as I twisted his cap + over and over in my hands. It turned out to be wadded, with a + mangy-looking fur trimming, and a broken cardboard peak. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have studied that subject, my dear little master; I’ve had time enough + for everything in my life! But now restore to me my covering, it is a + protection to the nakedness of my head.’ + </p> + <p> + He put on the cap, and, with a downward slope of his whitish eyebrows, + asked me who I was, and who were my parents. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m the grandson of the lady who owns this place,’ I answered. ‘I live + alone with her. Papa and mamma are dead.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin crossed himself. ‘May the kingdom of heaven be theirs! So then, + you’re an orphan; and the heir, too. The noble blood in you is visible at + once; it fairly sparkles in your eyes, and plays like this ... sh ... sh + ... sh ...’ He represented with his fingers the play of the blood. ‘Well, + and do you know, your noble honour, whether my friend has come to terms + with your grandmamma, whether he has obtained the situation he was + promised?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t know.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin cleared his throat. ‘Ah! if one could be settled here, if only for a + while! Or else one may wander and wander far, and find not a place to rest + one’s head; the disquieting alarms of life are unceasing, the soul is + confounded....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me,’ I interrupted: ‘are you of the clerical profession?’ + </p> + <p> + Punin turned to me and half closed his eyelids. ‘And what may be the cause + of that question, gentle youth?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, you talk so—well, as they read in church.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because I use the old scriptural forms of expression? But that ought not + to surprise you. Admitting that in ordinary conversation such forms of + expression are not always in place; but when one soars on the wings of + inspiration, at once the language too grows more exalted. Surely your + teacher—the professor of Russian literature—you do have + lessons in that, I suppose?—surely he teaches you that, doesn’t he?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, he doesn’t,’ I responded. ‘When we stay in the country I have no + teacher. In Moscow I have a great many teachers.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And will you be staying long in the country?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Two months, not longer; grandmother says that I’m spoilt in the country, + though I have a governess even here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A French governess?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin scratched behind his ear. ‘A mamselle, that’s to say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; she’s called Mademoiselle Friquet.’ I suddenly felt it disgraceful + for me, a boy of twelve, to have not a tutor, but a governess, like a + little girl! ‘But I don’t mind her,’ I added contemptuously. ‘What do I + care!’ + </p> + <p> + Punin shook his head. ‘Ah, you gentlefolk, you gentlefolk! you’re too fond + of foreigners! You have turned away from what is Russian,—towards + all that’s strange. You’ve turned your hearts to those that come from + foreign parts....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Hullo! Are you talking in verse?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and why not? I can do that always, as much as you please; for it + comes natural to me....’ + </p> + <p> + But at that very instant there sounded in the garden behind us a loud and + shrill whistle. My new acquaintance hurriedly got up from the bench. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye, little sir; that’s my friend calling me, looking for me.... + What has he to tell me? Good-bye—excuse me....’ + </p> + <p> + He plunged into the bushes and vanished, while I sat on some time longer + on the seat. I felt perplexity and another feeling, rather an agreeable + one ... I had never met nor spoken to any one like this before. Gradually + I fell to dreaming, but recollected my mythology and sauntered towards the + house. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + At home, I learned that my grandmother had arranged to take Baburin; he + had been assigned a small room in the servants’ quarters, overlooking the + stable-yard. He had at once settled in there with his friend. + </p> + <p> + When I had drunk my tea, next morning, without asking leave of + Mademoiselle Friquet, I set off to the servants’ quarters. I wanted to + have another chat with the queer fellow I had seen the day before. Without + knocking at the door—the very idea of doing so would never have + occurred to us—I walked straight into the room. I found in it not + the man I was looking for, not Punin, but his protector—the + philanthropist, Baburin. He was standing before the window, without his + outer garment, his legs wide apart. He was busily engaged in rubbing his + head and neck with a long towel. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you want?’ he observed, keeping his hands still raised, and + knitting his brows. + </p> + <p> + ‘Punin’s not at home, then?’ I queried in the most free-and-easy manner, + without taking off my cap. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Punin, Nikander Vavilitch, at this moment, is not at home, truly,’ + Baburin responded deliberately; ‘but allow me to make an observation, + young man: it’s not the proper thing to come into another person’s room + like this, without asking leave.’ + </p> + <p> + I! ... young man! ... how dared he! ... I grew crimson with fury. + </p> + <p> + ‘You cannot be aware who I am,’ I rejoined, in a manner no longer + free-and-easy, but haughty. ‘I am the grandson of the mistress here.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s all the same to me,’ retorted Baburin, setting to work with his + towel again. ‘Though you are the seignorial grandson, you have no right to + come into other people’s rooms.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Other people’s? What do you mean? I’m—at home here—everywhere.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, excuse me: here—I’m at home; since this room has been assigned + to me, by agreement, in exchange for my work.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t teach me, if you please,’ I interrupted: ‘I know better than you + what ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must be taught,’ he interrupted in his turn, ‘for you’re at an age + when you ... I know my duties, but I know my rights too very well, and if + you continue to speak to me in that way, I shall have to ask you to go out + of the room....’ + </p> + <p> + There is no knowing how our dispute would have ended if Punin had not at + that instant entered, shuffling and shambling from side to side. He most + likely guessed from the expression of our faces that some unpleasantness + had passed between us, and at once turned to me with the warmest + expressions of delight. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! little master! little master!’ he cried, waving his hands wildly, and + going off into his noiseless laugh: ‘the little dear! come to pay me a + visit! here he’s come, the little dear!’ (What’s the meaning of it? I + thought: can he be speaking in this familiar way to me?) ‘There, come + along, come with me into the garden. I’ve found something there.... Why + stay in this stuffiness here! let’s go!’ + </p> + <p> + I followed Punin, but in the doorway I thought it as well to turn round + and fling a glance of defiance at Baburin, as though to say, I’m not + afraid of you! + </p> + <p> + He responded in the same way, and positively snorted into the towel—probably + to make me thoroughly aware how utterly he despised me! + </p> + <p> + What an insolent fellow your friend is!’ I said to Punin, directly the + door had closed behind me. + </p> + <p> + Almost with horror, Punin turned his plump face to me. + </p> + <p> + ‘To whom did you apply that expression?’ he asked me, with round eyes. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, to him, of course.... What’s his name? that ... Baburin.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonevitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, yes; that ... blackfaced fellow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh ... eh ... eh ...!’ Punin protested, with caressing reproachfulness. + ‘How can you talk like that, little master! Paramon Semyonevitch is the + most estimable man, of the strictest principles, an extraordinary person! + To be sure, he won’t allow any disrespect to him, because—he knows + his own value. That man possesses a vast amount of knowledge—and + it’s not a place like this he ought to be filling! You must, my dear, + behave very courteously to him; do you know, he’s ...’ here Punin bent + down quite to my ear,—‘a republican!’ + </p> + <p> + I stared at Punin. This I had not at all expected. From Keidanov’s manual + and other historical works I had gathered the fact that at some period or + other, in ancient times, there had existed republicans, Greeks and Romans. + For some unknown reason I had always pictured them all in helmets, with + round shields on their arms, and big bare legs; but that in real life, in + the actual present, above all, in Russia, in the province of X——, + one could come across republicans—that upset all my notions, and + utterly confounded them! + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, my dear, yes; Paramon Semyonitch is a republican,’ repeated Punin; + ‘there, so you’ll know for the future how one should speak of a man like + that! But now let’s go into the garden. Fancy what I’ve found there! A + cuckoo’s egg in a redstart’s nest! a lovely thing!’ + </p> + <p> + I went into the garden with Punin; but mentally I kept repeating: + ‘republican! re ... pub ... lican!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So,’ I decided at last—‘that’s why he has such a blue chin!’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + My attitude to these two persons—Punin and Baburin—took + definite shape from that very day. Baburin aroused in me a feeling of + hostility with which there was, however, in a short time, mingled + something akin to respect. And wasn’t I afraid of him! I never got over + being afraid of him even when the sharp severity of his manner with me at + first had quite disappeared. It is needless to say that of Punin I had no + fear; I did not even respect him; I looked upon him—not to put too + fine a point on it—as a buffoon; but I loved him with my whole soul! + To spend hours at a time in his company, to be alone with him, to listen + to his stories, became a genuine delight to me. My grandmother was + anything but pleased at this <i>intimité</i> with a person of the ‘lower + classes’—<i>du commun</i>; but, whenever I could break away, I flew + at once to my queer, amusing, beloved friend. Our meetings became more + frequent after the departure of Mademoiselle Friquet, whom my grandmother + sent back to Moscow in disgrace because, in conversation with a military + staff captain, visiting in the neighbourhood, she had had the insolence to + complain of the dulness which reigned in our household. And Punin, for his + part, was not bored by long conversations with a boy of twelve; he seemed + to seek them of himself. How often have I listened to his stories, sitting + with him in the fragrant shade, on the dry, smooth grass, under the canopy + of the silver poplars, or among the reeds above the pond, on the coarse, + damp sand of the hollow bank, from which the knotted roots protruded, + queerly interlaced, like great black veins, like snakes, like creatures + emerging from some subterranean region! Punin told me the whole story of + his life in minute detail, describing all his happy adventures, and all + his misfortunes, with which I always felt the sincerest sympathy! His + father had been a deacon;—‘a splendid man—but, under the + influence of drink, stern to the last extreme.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin himself had received his education in a seminary; but, unable to + stand the severe thrashings, and feeling no inclination for the priestly + calling, he had become a layman, and in consequence had experienced all + sorts of hardships; and, finally, had become a vagrant. ‘And had I not met + with my benefactor, Paramon Semyonitch,’ Punin commonly added (he never + spoke of Baburin except in this way), ‘I should have sunk into the miry + abysses of poverty and vice.’ Punin was fond of high-sounding expressions, + and had a great propensity, if not for lying, for romancing and + exaggeration; he admired everything, fell into ecstasies over + everything.... And I, in imitation of him, began to exaggerate and be + ecstatic, too. ‘What a crazy fellow you’ve grown! God have mercy on you!’ + my old nurse used to say to me. Punin’s narratives used to interest me + extremely; but even better than his stories I loved the readings we used + to have together. + </p> + <p> + It is impossible to describe the feeling I experienced when, snatching a + favourable moment, suddenly, like a hermit in a tale or a good fairy, he + appeared before me with a ponderous volume under his arm, and stealthily + beckoning with his long crooked finger, and winking mysteriously, he + pointed with his head, his eyebrows, his shoulders, his whole person, + toward the deepest recesses of the garden, whither no one could penetrate + after us, and where it was impossible to find us out. And when we had + succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had satisfactorily reached + one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side by side, and, at last, the + book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent odour, inexpressibly sweet to + me then, of mildew and age;—with what a thrill, with what a wave of + dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at the lips of Punin, those lips + from which in a moment a stream of such delicious eloquence was to flow! + At last the first sounds of the reading were heard. Everything around me + vanished ... no, not vanished, but grew far away, passed into clouds of + mist, leaving behind only an impression of something friendly and + protecting. Those trees, those green leaves, those high grasses screen us, + hide us from all the rest of the world; no one knows where we are, what we + are about—while with us is poetry, we are saturated in it, + intoxicated with it, something solemn, grand, mysterious is happening to + us.... Punin, by preference, kept to poetry, musical, sonorous poetry; he + was ready to lay down his life for poetry. He did not read, he declaimed + the verse majestically, in a torrent of rhythm, in a rolling outpour + through his nose, like a man intoxicated, lifted out of himself, like the + Pythian priestess. And another habit he had: first he would lisp the + verses through softly, in a whisper, as it were mumbling them to + himself.... This he used to call the rough sketch of the reading; then he + would thunder out the same verse in its ‘fair copy,’ and would all at once + leap up, throw up his hand, with a half-supplicating, half-imperious + gesture.... In this way we went through not only Lomonosov, Sumarokov, and + Kantemir (the older the poems, the more they were to Punin’s taste), but + even Heraskov’s <i>Rossiad</i>. And, to tell the truth, it was this same + <i>Rossiad</i> which aroused my enthusiasm most. There is in it, among + others, a mighty Tatar woman, a gigantic heroine; I have forgotten even + her name now; but in those days my hands and feet turned cold as soon as + it was mentioned. ‘Yes,’ Punin would say, nodding his head with great + significance, ‘Heraskov, he doesn’t let one off easily. At times one comes + upon a line, simply heart-breaking.... One can only stick to it, and do + one’s best.... One tries to master it, but he breaks away again and + trumpets, trumpets, with the crash of cymbals. His name’s been well + bestowed on him—the very word, Herrraskov!’ Lomonosov Punin found + fault with for too simple and free a style; while to Derzhavin he + maintained an attitude almost of hostility, saying that he was more of a + courtier than a poet. In our house it was not merely that no attention was + given to literature, to poetry; but poetry, especially Russian poetry, was + looked upon as something quite undignified and vulgar; my grandmother did + not even call it poetry, but ‘doggrel verses’; every author of such + doggrel was, in her opinion, either a confirmed toper or a perfect idiot. + Brought up among such ideas, it was inevitable that I should either turn + from Punin with disgust—he was untidy and shabby into the bargain, + which was an offence to my seignorial habits—or that, attracted and + captivated by him, I should follow his example, and be infected by his + passion for poetry.... And so it turned out. I, too, began reading poetry, + or, as my grandmother expressed it, poring over doggrel trash.... I even + tried my hand at versifying, and composed a poem, descriptive of a + barrel-organ, in which occurred the following two lines: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Lo, the barrel turns around, + And the cogs within resound.’ +</pre> + <p> + Punin commended in this effort a certain imitative melody, but disapproved + of the subject itself as low and unworthy of lyrical treatment. + </p> + <p> + Alas! all those efforts and emotions and transports, our solitary + readings, our life together, our poetry, all came to an end at once. + Trouble broke upon us suddenly, like a clap of thunder. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + My grandmother in everything liked cleanliness and order, quite in the + spirit of the active generals of those days; cleanliness and order were to + be maintained too in our garden. And so from time to time they ‘drove’ + into it poor peasants, who had no families, no land, no beasts of their + own, and those among the house serfs who were out of favour or + superannuated, and set them to clearing the paths, weeding the borders, + breaking up and sifting the earth in the beds, and so on. Well, one day, + in the very heat of these operations, my grandmother went into the garden, + and took me with her. On all sides, among the trees and about the lawns, + we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all sides we heard + the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of clods of earth on + the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers, my grandmother with + her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was working with less + energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap, too, with no show of + eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young, with a wasted face, and + sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all torn and patched, scarcely + held together over his narrow shoulders. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s that?’ my grandmother inquired of Filippitch, who was walking on + tiptoe behind her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of whom ... you are pleased ...’ Filippitch stammered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, fool! I mean the one that looked so sullenly at me. There, standing + yonder, not working.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, him! Yes ... th ... th ... that’s Yermil, son of Pavel Afanasiitch, + now deceased.’ + </p> + <p> + Pavel Afanasiitch had been, ten years before, head butler in my + grandmother’s house, and stood particularly high in her favour. But + suddenly falling into disgrace, he was as suddenly degraded to being + herdsman, and did not long keep even that position. He sank lower still, + and struggled on for a while on a monthly pittance of flour in a little + hut far away. At last he had died of paralysis, leaving his family in the + most utter destitution. + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha!’ commented my grandmother; ‘it’s clear the apple’s not fallen far + from the tree. Well, we shall have to make arrangements about this fellow + too. I’ve no need of people like that, with scowling faces.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother went back to the house—and made arrangements. Three + hours later Yermil, completely ‘equipped,’ was brought under the window of + her room. The unfortunate boy was being transported to a settlement; the + other side of the fence, a few steps from him, was a little cart loaded + with his poor belongings. Such were the times then. Yermil stood without + his cap, with downcast head, barefoot, with his boots tied up with a + string behind his back; his face, turned towards the seignorial mansion, + expressed not despair nor grief, nor even bewilderment; a stupid smile was + frozen on his colourless lips; his eyes, dry and half-closed, looked + stubbornly on the ground. My grandmother was apprised of his presence. She + got up from the sofa, went, with a faint rustle of her silken skirts, to + the window of the study, and, holding her golden-rimmed double eyeglass on + the bridge of her nose, looked at the new exile. In her room there + happened to be at the moment four other persons, the butler, Baburin, the + page who waited on my grandmother in the daytime, and I. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother nodded her head up and down.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Madam,’ a hoarse almost stifled voice was heard suddenly. I looked round. + Baburin’s face was red ... dark red; under his overhanging brows could be + seen little sharp points of light.... There was no doubt about it; it was + he, it was Baburin, who had uttered the word ‘Madam.’ + </p> + <p> + My grandmother too looked round, and turned her eyeglass from Yermil to + Baburin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who is that ... speaking?’ she articulated slowly ... through her nose. + Baburin moved slightly forward. + </p> + <p> + ‘Madam,’ he began, ‘it is I.... I venture ... I imagine ... I make bold to + submit to your honour that you are making a mistake in acting as ... as + you are pleased to act at this moment.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is?’ my grandmother said, in the same voice, not removing her + eyeglass. + </p> + <p> + ‘I take the liberty ...’ Baburin went on distinctly, uttering every word + though with obvious effort—‘I am referring to the case of this lad + who is being sent away to a settlement ... for no fault of his. Such + arrangements, I venture to submit, lead to dissatisfaction, and to other—which + God forbid!—consequences, and are nothing else than a transgression + of the powers allowed to seignorial proprietors.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And where have you studied, pray?’ my grandmother asked after a short + silence, and she dropped her eyeglass. + </p> + <p> + Baburin was disconcerted. ‘What are you pleased to wish?’ he muttered. + </p> + <p> + ‘I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I ... my education ...’ Baburin was beginning. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. ‘It seems,’ she + interrupted, ‘that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of + absolutely no consequence to me—among my subjects I am sovereign, + and answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having + people criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their + business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript + position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always + lived till you came, and so I shall live after you’ve gone. You do not + suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,’ my grandmother turned to + the steward, ‘pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time + to-day! D’you hear? Don’t put me into a passion. And the other too ... the + fool that lives with him—to be sent off too. What’s Yermilka waiting + for?’ she added, looking out of window, ‘I have seen him. What more does + he want?’ My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the direction of the + window, as though to drive away an importunate fly. Then she sat down in a + low chair, and turning towards us, gave the order grimly: ‘Everybody + present to leave the room!’ + </p> + <p> + We all withdrew—all, except the day page, to whom my grandmother’s + words did not apply, because he was nobody. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother’s decree was carried out to the letter. Before dinner, both + Baburin and my friend Punin were driving away from the place. I will not + undertake to describe my grief, my genuine, truly childish despair. It was + so strong that it stifled even the feeling of awe-stricken admiration + inspired by the bold action of the republican Baburin. After the + conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to his room and began + packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one look, though I was the + whole time hanging about him, or rather, in reality, about Punin. The + latter was utterly distraught, and he too said nothing; but he was + continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his eyes ... always the + same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did not venture to + criticise his ‘benefactor’—Paramon Semyonitch could not make a + mistake,—but great was his distress and dejection. Punin and I made + an effort to read something out of the <i>Rossiad</i> for the last time; + we even locked ourselves up in the lumber-room—it was useless to + dream of going into the garden—but at the very first line we both + broke down, and I fairly bellowed like a calf, in spite of my twelve + years, and my claims to be grown-up. + </p> + <p> + When he had taken his seat in the carriage Baburin at last turned to me, + and with a slight softening of the accustomed sternness of his face, + observed: ‘It’s a lesson for you, young gentleman; remember this incident, + and when you grow up, try to put an end to such acts of injustice. Your + heart is good, your nature is not yet corrupted.... Mind, be careful; + things can’t go on like this!’ Through my tears, which streamed copiously + over my nose, my lips, and my chin, I faltered out that I would ... I + would remember, that I promised ... I would do ... I would be sure ... + quite sure ... + </p> + <p> + But at this point, Punin, whom I had before this embraced twenty times (my + cheeks were burning from the contact with his unshaven beard, and I was + odoriferous of the smell that always clung to him)—at this point a + sudden frenzy came over Punin. He jumped up on the seat of the cart, flung + both hands up in the air, and began in a voice of thunder (where he got it + from!) to declaim the well-known paraphrase of the Psalm of David by + Derzhavin,—a poet for this occasion—not a courtier. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘God the All-powerful doth arise + And judgeth in the congregation of the mighty! ... + How long, how long, saith the Lord, + Will ye have mercy on the wicked? + “Ye have to keep the laws....”’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘Sit down!’ Baburin said to him. + </p> + <p> + Punin sat down, but continued: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘To save the guiltless and needy, + To give shelter to the afflicted, + To defend the weak from the oppressors.’ +</pre> + <p> + Punin at the word ‘oppressors’ pointed to the seignorial abode, and then + poked the driver in the back. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘To deliver the poor out of bondage! + They know not! neither will they understand! ...’ +</pre> + <p> + Nikolai Antonov running out of the seignorial abode, shouted at the top of + his voice to the coachman: ‘Get away with you! owl! go along! don’t stay + lingering here!’ and the cart rolled away. Only in the distance could + still be heard: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Arise, O Lord God of righteousness! ... + Come forth to judge the unjust— + And be Thou the only Ruler of the nations!’ +</pre> + <p> + ‘What a clown!’ remarked Nikolai Antonov. + </p> + <p> + ‘He didn’t get enough of the rod in his young days,’ observed the deacon, + appearing on the steps. He had come to inquire what hour it would please + the mistress to fix for the night service. + </p> + <p> + The same day, learning that Yermil was still in the village, and would not + till early next morning be despatched to the town for the execution of + certain legal formalities, which were intended to check the arbitrary + proceedings of the landowners, but served only as a source of additional + revenue to the functionaries in superintendence of them, I sought him out, + and, for lack of money of my own, handed him a bundle, in which I had tied + up two pocket-handkerchiefs, a shabby pair of slippers, a comb, an old + night-gown, and a perfectly new silk cravat. Yermil, whom I had to wake up—he + was lying on a heap of straw in the back yard, near the cart—Yermil + took my present rather indifferently, with some hesitation in fact, did + not thank me, promptly poked his head into the straw and fell asleep + again. I went home somewhat disappointed. I had imagined that he would be + astonished and overjoyed at my visit, would see in it a pledge of my + magnanimous intentions for the future—and instead of that ... + </p> + <p> + ‘You may say what you like—these people have no feeling,’ was my + reflection on my homeward way. + </p> + <p> + My grandmother, who had for some reason left me in peace the whole of that + memorable day, looked at me suspiciously when I came after supper to say + good-night to her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Your eyes are red,’ she observed to me in French; ‘and there’s a smell of + the peasant’s hut about you. I am not going to enter into an examination + of what you’ve been feeling and doing—I should not like to be + obliged to punish you—but I hope you will get over all your + foolishness, and begin to conduct yourself once more in a manner befitting + a well-bred boy. However, we are soon going back to Moscow, and I shall + get you a tutor—as I see you need a man’s hand to manage you. You + can go.’ + </p> + <p> + We did, as a fact, go back soon after to Moscow. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <h3> + 1837 + </h3> + <p> + Seven years had passed by. We were living as before at Moscow—but I + was by now a student in my second year—and the authority of my + grandmother, who had aged very perceptibly in the last years, no longer + weighed upon me. Of all my fellow-students the one with whom I was on the + friendliest terms was a light-hearted and good-natured youth called + Tarhov. Our habits and our tastes were similar. Tarhov was a great lover + of poetry, and himself wrote verses; while in me the seeds sown by Punin + had not been without fruit. As is often the case with young people who are + very close friends, we had no secrets from one another. But behold, for + several days together I noticed a certain excitement and agitation in + Tarhov.... He disappeared for hours at a time, and I did not know where he + had got to—a thing which had never happened before. I was on the + point of demanding, in the name of friendship, a full explanation.... He + anticipated me. + </p> + <p> + One day I was sitting in his room.... ‘Petya,’ he said suddenly, blushing + gaily, and looking me straight in the face, ‘I must introduce you to my + muse.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Your muse! how queerly you talk! Like a classicist. (Romanticism was at + that time, in 1837, at its full height.) As if I had not known it ever so + long—your muse! Have you written a new poem, or what?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t understand what I mean,’ rejoined Tarhov, still laughing and + blushing. ‘I will introduce you to a living muse.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha! so that’s it! But how is she—yours?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, because ... But hush, I believe it’s she coming here.’ + </p> + <p> + There was the light click of hurrying heels, the door opened, and in the + doorway appeared a girl of eighteen, in a chintz cotton gown, with a black + cloth cape on her shoulders, and a black straw hat on her fair, rather + curly hair. On seeing me she was frightened and disconcerted, and was + beating a retreat ... but Tarhov at once rushed to meet her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Please, please, Musa Pavlovna, come in! This is my great friend, a + splendid fellow—and the soul of discretion. You’ve no need to be + afraid of him. Petya,’ he turned to me, ‘let me introduce my Musa—Musa + Pavlovna Vinogradov, a great friend of mine.’ + </p> + <p> + I bowed. + </p> + <p> + ‘How is that ... Musa?’ I was beginning.... Tarhov laughed. ‘Ah, you + didn’t know there was such a name in the calendar? I didn’t know it + either, my boy, till I met this dear young lady. Musa! such a charming + name! And suits her so well!’ + </p> + <p> + I bowed again to my comrade’s great friend. She left the door, took two + steps forward and stood still. She was very attractive, but I could not + agree with Tarhov’s opinion, and inwardly said to myself: ‘Well, she’s a + strange sort of muse!’ + </p> + <p> + The features of her curved, rosy face were small and delicate; there was + an air of fresh, buoyant youth about all her slender, miniature figure; + but of the muse, of the personification of the muse, I—and not only + I—all the young people of that time had a very different conception! + First of all the muse had infallibly to be dark-haired and pale. An + expression of scornful pride, a bitter smile, a glance of inspiration, and + that ‘something’—mysterious, demonic, fateful—that was + essential to our conception of the muse, the muse of Byron, who at that + time held sovereign sway over men’s fancies. There was nothing of that + kind to be discerned in the face of the girl who came in. Had I been a + little older and more experienced I should probably have paid more + attention to her eyes, which were small and deep-set, with full lids, but + dark as agate, alert and bright, a thing rare in fair-haired people. + Poetical tendencies I should not have detected in their rapid, as it were + elusive, glance, but hints of a passionate soul, passionate to + self-forgetfulness. But I was very young then. + </p> + <p> + I held out my hand to Musa Pavlovna—she did not give me hers—she + did not notice my movement; she sat down on the chair Tarhov placed for + her, but did not take off her hat and cape. + </p> + <p> + She was, obviously, ill at ease; my presence embarrassed her. She drew + deep breaths, at irregular intervals, as though she were gasping for air. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve only come to you for one minute, Vladimir Nikolaitch,’ she began—her + voice was very soft and deep; from her crimson, almost childish lips, it + seemed rather strange;—‘but our madame would not let me out for more + than half an hour. You weren’t well the day before yesterday ... and so, I + thought ...’ + </p> + <p> + She stammered and hung her head. Under the shade of her thick, low brows + her dark eyes darted—to and fro—elusively. There are dark, + swift, flashing beetles that flit so in the heat of summer among the + blades of dry grass. + </p> + <p> + ‘How good you are, Musa, Musotchka!’ cried Tarhov. ‘But you must stay, you + must stay a little.... We’ll have the samovar in directly.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, Vladimir Nikolaevitch! it’s impossible! I must go away this + minute.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must rest a little, anyway. You’re out of breath.... You’re tired.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m not tired. It’s ... not that ... only ... give me another book; I’ve + finished this one.’ She took out of her pocket a tattered grey volume of a + Moscow edition. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course, of course. Well, did you like it? <i>Roslavlev</i>,’ added + Tarhov, addressing me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. Only I think <i>Yury Miloslavsky</i> is much better. Our madame is + very strict about books. She says they hinder our working. For, to her + thinking ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But, I say, <i>Yury Miloslavsky</i>’s not equal to Pushkin’s <i>Gipsies</i>? + Eh? Musa Pavlovna?’ Tarhov broke in with a smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, indeed! The <i>Gipsies</i> ...’ she murmured slowly. ‘Oh yes, another + thing, Vladimir Nikolaitch; don’t come to-morrow ... you know where.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s impossible.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why?’ + </p> + <p> + The girl shrugged her shoulders, and all at once, as though she had + received a sudden shove, got up from her chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Musa, Musotchka,’ Tarhov expostulated plaintively. ‘Stay a little!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no, I can’t.’ She went quickly to the door, took hold of the + handle.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, at least, take the book!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Another time.’ + </p> + <p> + Tarhov rushed towards the girl, but at that instant she darted out of the + room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. ‘What a girl! She’s a + regular little viper!’ he declared with some vexation, and then sank into + thought. + </p> + <p> + I stayed at Tarhov’s. I wanted to find out what was the meaning of it all. + Tarhov was not disposed to be reserved. He told me that the girl was a + milliner; that he had seen her for the first time three weeks before in a + fashionable shop, where he had gone on a commission for his sister, who + lived in the provinces, to buy a hat; that he had fallen in love with her + at first sight, and that next day he had succeeded in speaking to her in + the street; that she had herself, it seemed, taken rather a fancy to him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Only, please, don’t you suppose,’ he added with warmth,—‘don’t you + imagine any harm of her. So far, at any rate, there’s been nothing of that + sort between us. + </p> + <p> + ‘Harm!’ I caught him up; ‘I’ve no doubt of that; and I’ve no doubt either + that you sincerely deplore the fact, my dear fellow! Have patience—everything + will come right’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I hope so,’ Tarhov muttered through his teeth, though with a laugh. ‘But + really, my boy, that girl ... I tell you—it’s a new type, you know. + You hadn’t time to get a good look at her. She’s a shy thing!—oo! + such a shy thing! and what a will of her own! But that very shyness is + what I like in her. It’s a sign of independence! I’m simply over head and + ears, my boy!’ + </p> + <p> + Tarhov fell to talking of his ‘charmer,’ and even read me the beginning of + a poem entitled: ‘My Muse.’ His emotional outpourings were not quite to my + taste. I felt secretly jealous of him. I soon left him. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + A few days after I happened to be passing through one of the arcades of + the Gostinny Dvor. It was Saturday; there were crowds of people shopping; + on all sides, in the midst of the pushing and crushing, the shopmen kept + shouting to people to buy. Having bought what I wanted, I was thinking of + nothing but getting away from their teasing importunity as soon as + possible—when all at once I halted involuntarily: in a fruit shop I + caught sight of my comrade’s charmer—Musa, Musa Pavlovna! She was + standing, profile to me, and seemed to be waiting for something. After a + moment’s hesitation I made up my mind to go up to her and speak. But I had + hardly passed through the doorway of the shop and taken off my cap, when + she tottered back dismayed, turned quickly to an old man in a frieze + cloak, for whom the shopman was weighing out a pound of raisins, and + clutched at his arm, as though fleeing to put herself under his + protection. The latter, in his turn, wheeled round facing her—and, + imagine my amazement, I recognised him as Punin! + </p> + <p> + Yes, it was he; there were his inflamed eyes, his full lips, his soft, + overhanging nose. He had, in fact, changed little during the last seven + years; his face was a little flabbier, perhaps. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nikander Vavilitch!’ I cried. ‘Don’t you know me?’ Punin started, opened + his mouth, stared at me.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I haven’t the honour,’ he was beginning—and all at once he piped + out shrilly: ‘The little master of Troïtsky (my grandmother’s property was + called Troïtsky)! Can it be the little master of Troïtsky?’ + </p> + <p> + The pound of raisins tumbled out of his hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘It really is,’ I answered, and, picking up Punin’s purchase from the + ground, I kissed him. + </p> + <p> + He was breathless with delight and excitement; he almost cried, removed + his cap—which enabled me to satisfy myself that the last traces of + hair had vanished from his ‘egg’—took a handkerchief out of it, blew + his nose, poked the cap into his bosom with the raisins, put it on again, + again dropped the raisins.... I don’t know how Musa was behaving all this + time, I tried not to look at her. I don’t imagine Punin’s agitation + proceeded from any extreme attachment to my person; it was simply that his + nature could not stand the slightest unexpected shock. The nervous + excitability of these poor devils! + </p> + <p> + ‘Come and see us, my dear boy,’ he faltered at last; ‘you won’t be too + proud to visit our humble nest? You’re a student, I see ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘On the contrary, I shall be delighted, really.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you independent now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Perfectly independent.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s capital! How pleased Paramon Semyonitch will be! To-day he’ll be + home earlier than usual, and madame lets her, too, off for Saturdays. But, + stop, excuse me, I am quite forgetting myself. Of course, you don’t know + our niece!’ + </p> + <p> + I hastened to slip in that I had not yet had the pleasure. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course, of course! How could you know her! Musotchka ... Take note, my + dear sir, this girl’s name is Musa—and it’s not a nickname, but her + real name ... Isn’t that a predestination? Musotchka, I want to introduce + you to Mr. ... Mr. ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘B.,’ I prompted. + </p> + <p> + ‘B.,’ he repeated. ‘Musotchka, listen! You see before you the most + excellent, most delightful of young men. Fate threw us together when he + was still in years of boyhood! I beg you to look on him as a friend!’ + </p> + <p> + I swung off a low bow. Musa, red as a poppy, flashed a look on me from + under her eyelids, and dropped them immediately. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ thought I, ‘you ‘re one of those who in difficult moments don’t turn + pale, but red; that must be made a note of.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You must be indulgent, she’s not a fine lady,’ observed Punin, and he + went out of the shop into the street; Musa and I followed him. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The house in which Punin lodged was a considerable distance from the + Gostinny Dvor, being, in fact, in Sadovoy Street. On the way my former + preceptor in poetry had time to communicate a good many details of his + mode of existence. Since the time of our parting, both he and Baburin had + been tossed about holy Russia pretty thoroughly, and had not long—only + a year and a half before—found a permanent home in Moscow. Baburin + had succeeded in becoming head-clerk in the office of a rich merchant and + manufacturer. ‘Not a lucrative berth,’ Punin observed with a sigh,—‘a + lot of work, and not much profit ... but what’s one to do? One must be + thankful to get that! I, too, am trying to earn something by copying and + lessons; only my efforts have so far not been crowned with success. My + writing, you perhaps recollect, is old-fashioned, not in accordance with + the tastes of the day; and as regards lessons—what has been a great + obstacle is the absence of befitting attire; moreover, I greatly fear that + in the matter of instruction—in the subject of Russian literature—I + am also not in harmony with the tastes of the day; and so it comes about + that I am turned away.’ (Punin laughed his sleepy, subdued laugh. He had + retained his old, somewhat high-flown manner of speech, and his old + weakness for falling into rhyme.) ‘All run after novelties, nothing but + innovations! I dare say you, too, do not honour the old divinities, and + fall down before new idols?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you, Nikander Vavilitch, do you really still esteem Heraskov?’ + </p> + <p> + Punin stood still and waved both hands at once. ‘In the highest degree, + sir! in the high ... est de ... gree, I do!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And you don’t read Pushkin? You don’t like Pushkin?’ + </p> + <p> + Punin again flung his hands up higher than his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Pushkin? Pushkin is the snake, lying hid in the grass, who is endowed + with the note of the nightingale!’ + </p> + <p> + While Punin and I talked like this, cautiously picking our way over the + unevenly laid brick pavement of so-called ‘white-stoned’ Moscow—in + which there is not one stone, and which is not white at all—Musa + walked silently beside us on the side further from me. In speaking of her, + I called her ‘your niece.’ Punin was silent for a little, scratched his + head, and informed me in an undertone that he had called her so ... merely + as a manner of speaking; that she was really no relation; that she was an + orphan picked up and cared for by Baburin in the town of Voronezh; but + that he, Punin, might well call her daughter, as he loved her no less than + a real daughter. I had no doubt that, though Punin intentionally dropped + his voice, Musa could hear all he said very well; and she was at once + angry, and shy, and embarrassed; and the lights and shades chased each + other over her face, and everything in it was slightly quivering, the + eyelids and brows and lips and narrow nostrils. All this was very + charming, and amusing, and queer. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + But at last we reached the ‘modest nest.’ And modest it certainly was, the + nest. It consisted of a small, one-storied house, that seemed almost sunk + into the ground, with a slanting wooden roof, and four dingy windows in + the front. The furniture of the rooms was of the poorest, and not over + tidy, indeed. Between the windows and on the walls hung about a dozen tiny + wooden cages containing larks, canaries, and siskins. ‘My subjects!’ Punin + pronounced triumphantly, pointing his finger at them. We had hardly time + to get in and look about us, Punin had hardly sent Musa for the samovar, + when Baburin himself came in. He seemed to me to have aged much more than + Punin, though his step was as firm as ever, and the expression of his face + altogether was unchanged; but he had grown thin and bent, his cheeks were + sunken, and his thick black shock of hair was sprinkled with grey. He did + not recognise me, and showed no particular pleasure when Punin mentioned + my name; he did not even smile with his eyes, he barely nodded; he asked—very + carelessly and drily—whether my <i>granny</i> were living—and + that was all. ‘I’m not over-delighted at a visit from a nobleman,’ he + seemed to say; ‘I don’t feel flattered by it.’ The republican was a + republican still. + </p> + <p> + Musa came back; a decrepit little old woman followed her, bringing in a + tarnished samovar. Punin began fussing about, and pressing me to take + things; Baburin sat down to the table, leaned his head on his hands, and + looked with weary eyes about him. At tea, however, he began to talk. He + was dissatisfied with his position. ‘A screw—not a man,’ so he spoke + of his employer; ‘people in a subordinate position are so much dirt to + him, of no consequence whatever; and yet it’s not so long since he was + under the yoke himself. Nothing but cruelty and covetousness. It’s a + bondage worse than the government’s! And all the trade here rests on + swindling and flourishes on nothing else!’ + </p> + <p> + Hearing such dispiriting utterances, Punin sighed expressively, assented, + shook his head up and down, and from side to side; Musa maintained a + stubborn silence.... She was obviously fretted by the doubt, what I was, + whether I was a discreet person or a gossip. And if I were discreet, + whether it was not with some afterthought in my mind. Her dark, swift, + restless eyes fairly flashed to and fro under their half-drooping lids. + Only once she glanced at me, but so inquisitively, so searchingly, almost + viciously ... I positively started. Baburin scarcely talked to her at all; + but whenever he did address her, there was a note of austere, hardly + fatherly, tenderness in his voice. + </p> + <p> + Punin, on the contrary, was continually joking with Musa; she responded + unwillingly, however. He called her little snow-maiden, little snowflake. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why do you give Musa Pavlovna such names?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + Punin laughed. ‘Because she’s such a chilly little thing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Sensible,’ put in Baburin: ‘as befits a young girl.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘We may call her the mistress of the house,’ cried Punin. ‘Hey? Paramon + Semyonitch?’ Baburin frowned; Musa turned away ... I did not understand + the hint at the time. + </p> + <p> + So passed two hours ... in no very lively fashion, though Punin did his + best to ‘entertain the honourable company.’ For instance, he squatted down + in front of the cage of one of the canaries, opened the door, and + commanded: ‘On the cupola! Begin the concert!’ The canary fluttered out at + once, perched on the <i>cupola</i>, that is to say, on Punin’s bald pate, + and turning from side to side, and shaking its little wings, carolled with + all its might. During the whole time the concert lasted, Punin kept + perfectly still, only conducting with his finger, and half closing his + eyes. I could not help roaring with laughter ... but neither Baburin nor + Musa laughed. + </p> + <p> + Just as I was leaving, Baburin surprised me by an unexpected question. He + wished to ask me, as a man studying at the university, what sort of person + Zeno was, and what were my ideas about him. + </p> + <p> + ‘What Zeno?’ I asked, somewhat puzzled. + </p> + <p> + ‘Zeno, the sage of antiquity. Surely he cannot be unknown to you?’ + </p> + <p> + I vaguely recalled the name of Zeno, as the founder of the school of + Stoics; but I knew absolutely nothing more about him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, he was a philosopher,’ I pronounced, at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Zeno,’ Baburin resumed in deliberate tones, ‘was that wise man, who + declared that suffering was not an evil, since fortitude overcomes all + things, and that the good in this world is one: justice; and virtue itself + is nothing else than justice.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin turned a reverent ear. + </p> + <p> + ‘A man living here who has picked up a lot of old books, told me that + saying,’ continued Baburin; ‘it pleased me much. But I see you are not + interested in such subjects.’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin was right. In such subjects I certainly was not interested. Since + I had entered the university, I had become as much of a republican as + Baburin himself. Of Mirabeau, of Robespierre, I would have talked with + zest. Robespierre, indeed ... why, I had hanging over my writing-table the + lithographed portraits of Fouquier-Tinville and Chalier! But Zeno! Why + drag in Zeno? + </p> + <p> + As he said good-bye to me, Punin insisted very warmly on my visiting them + next day, Sunday; Baburin did not invite me at all, and even remarked + between his teeth, that talking to plain people of nondescript position + could not give me any great pleasure, and would most likely be + disagreeable to my <i>granny</i>. At that word I interrupted him, however, + and gave him to understand that my grandmother had no longer any authority + over me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, you’ve not come into possession of the property, have you?’ queried + Baburin. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I haven’t,’ I answered. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then, it follows ...’ Baburin did not finish his sentence; but I + mentally finished it for him: ‘it follows that I’m a boy.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye,’ I said aloud, and I retired. + </p> + <p> + I was just going out of the courtyard into the street ... Musa suddenly + ran out of the house, and slipping a piece of crumpled paper into my hand, + disappeared at once. At the first lamp-post I unfolded the paper. It + turned out to be a note. With difficulty I deciphered the pale + pencil-marks. ‘For God’s sake,’ Musa had written, ‘come to-morrow after + matins to the Alexandrovsky garden near the Kutafia tower I shall wait for + you don’t refuse me don’t make me miserable I simply must see you.’ There + were no mistakes in spelling in this note, but neither was there any + punctuation. I returned home in perplexity. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + When, a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, next day, I began to + get near the Kutafia tower (it was early in April, the buds were swelling, + the grass was growing greener, and the sparrows were noisily chirrupping + and quarrelling in the bare lilac bushes), considerably to my surprise, I + caught sight of Musa a little to one side, not far from the fence. She was + there before me. I was going towards her; but she herself came to meet me. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let’s go to the Kreml wall,’ she whispered in a hurried voice, running + her downcast eyes over the ground; ‘there are people here.’ + </p> + <p> + We went along the path up the hill. + </p> + <p> + ‘Musa Pavlovna,’ I was beginning.... But she cut me short at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘Please,’ she began, speaking in the same jerky and subdued voice, ‘don’t + criticise me, don’t think any harm of me. I wrote a letter to you, I made + an appointment to meet you, because ... I was afraid.... It seemed to me + yesterday,—you seemed to be laughing all the time. Listen,’ she + added, with sudden energy, and she stopped short and turned towards me: + ‘listen; if you tell with whom ... if you mention at whose room you met + me, I’ll throw myself in the water, I’ll drown myself, I’ll make an end of + myself!’ + </p> + <p> + At this point, for the first time, she glanced at me with the inquisitive, + piercing look I had seen before. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, she, perhaps, really ... would do it,’ was my thought. + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, Musa Pavlovna,’ I protested, hurriedly: ‘how can you have such a + bad opinion of me? Do you suppose I am capable of betraying my friend and + injuring you? Besides, come to that, there’s nothing in your relations, as + far as I’m aware, deserving of censure.... For goodness’ sake, be calm.’ + </p> + <p> + Musa heard me out, without stirring from the spot, or looking at me again. + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s something else I ought to tell you,’ she began, moving forward + again along the path, ‘or else you may think I’m quite mad! I ought to + tell you, that old man wants to marry me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What old man? The bald one? Punin?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No—not he! The other ... Paramon Semyonitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Baburin?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Is it possible? Has he made you an offer?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you didn’t consent, of course?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I did consent ... because I didn’t understand what I was about then. + Now it’s a different matter.’ + </p> + <p> + I flung up my hands. ‘Baburin—and you! Why, he must be fifty!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He says forty-three. But that makes no difference. If he were five—and—twenty + I wouldn’t marry him. Much happiness I should find in it! A whole week + will go by without his smiling once! Paramon Semyonitch is my benefactor, + I am deeply indebted to him; he took care of me, educated me; I should + have been utterly lost but for him; I’m bound to look on him as a + father.... But be his wife! I’d rather die! I’d rather be in my coffin!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why do you keep talking about death, Musa Pavlovna?’ + </p> + <p> + Musa stopped again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, is life so sweet, then? Even your friend Vladimir Nikolaitch, I may + say, I’ve come to love from being wretched and dull: and then Paramon + Semyonitch with his offers of marriage.... Punin, though he bores me with + his verses, he doesn’t scare me, anyway; he doesn’t make me read Karamzin + in the evenings, when my head’s ready to drop off my shoulders for + weariness! And what are these old men to me? They call me cold, too. With + them, is it likely I should be warm? If they try to make me—I shall + go. Paramon Semyonitch himself’s always saying: Freedom! freedom! All + right, I want freedom too. Or else it comes to this! Freedom for every one + else, and keeping me in a cage! I’ll tell him so myself. But if you betray + me, or drop a hint—remember; they’ll never set eyes on me again!’ + </p> + <p> + Musa stood in the middle of the path. + </p> + <p> + ‘They’ll never set eyes on me again!’ she repeated sharply. This time, + too, she did not raise her eyes to me; she seemed to be aware that she + would infallibly betray herself, would show what was in her heart, if any + one looked her straight in the face.... And that was just why she did not + lift her eyes, except when she was angry or annoyed, and then she stared + straight at the person she was speaking to.... But her small pretty face + was aglow with indomitable resolution. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Tarhov was right,’ flashed through my head; ‘this girl is a new + type.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve no need to be afraid of me,’ I declared, at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Truly? Even, if ... You said something about our relations.... But even + if there were ...’ she broke off. + </p> + <p> + ‘Even in that case, you would have no need to be afraid, Musa Pavlovna. I + am not your judge. Your secret is buried here.’ I pointed to my bosom. + ‘Believe me, I know how to appreciate ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you got my letter?’ Musa asked suddenly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In my pocket.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Give it here ... quick, quick!’ + </p> + <p> + I got out the scrap of paper. Musa snatched it in her rough little hand, + stood still a moment facing me, as though she were going to thank me; but + suddenly started, looked round, and without even a word at parting, ran + quickly down the hill. + </p> + <p> + I looked in the direction she had taken. At no great distance from the + tower I discerned, wrapped in an ‘Almaviva’ (‘Almavivas’ were then in the + height of fashion), a figure which I recognised at once as Tarhov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha, my boy,’ thought I, ‘you must have had notice, then, since you’re on + the look-out.’ + </p> + <p> + And whistling to myself, I started homewards. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Next morning I had only just drunk my morning tea, when Punin made his + appearance. He came into my room with rather an embarrassed face, and + began making bows, looking about him, and apologising for his intrusion, + as he called it. I made haste to reassure him. I, sinful man, imagined + that Punin had come with the intention of borrowing money. But he confined + himself to asking for a glass of tea with rum in it, as, luckily, the + samovar had not been cleared away. ‘It’s with some trepidation and sinking + of heart that I have come to see you,’ he said, as he nibbled a lump of + sugar. ‘You I do not fear; but I stand in awe of your honoured + grandmother! I am abashed too by my attire, as I have already communicated + to you.’ Punin passed his finger along the frayed edge of his ancient + coat. ‘At home it’s no matter, and in the street, too, it’s no harm; but + when one finds one’s self in gilded palaces, one’s poverty stares one in + the face, and one feels confused!’ I occupied two small rooms on the + ground floor, and certainly it would never have entered any one’s head to + call them palaces, still less gilded; but Punin apparently was referring + to the whole of my grandmother’s house, though that too was by no means + conspicuously sumptuous. He reproached me for not having been to see them + the previous day; ‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ said he, ‘expected you, though he + did declare that you would be sure not to come. And Musotchka, too, + expected you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What? Musa Pavlovna too?’ I queried. + </p> + <p> + ‘She too. She’s a charming girl we have got with us, isn’t she? What do + you say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very charming,’ I assented. Punin rubbed his bare head with extraordinary + rapidity. + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s a beauty, sir, a pearl or even a diamond—it’s the truth I am + telling you.’ He bent down quite to my ear. ‘Noble blood, too,’ he + whispered to me, ‘only—you understand—left-handed; the + forbidden fruit was eaten. Well, the parents died, the relations would do + nothing for her, and flung her to the hazards of destiny, that’s to say, + despair, dying of hunger! But at that point Paramon Semyonitch steps + forward, known as a deliverer from of old! He took her, clothed her and + cared for her, brought up the poor nestling; and she has blossomed into + our darling! I tell you, a man of the rarest qualities!’ + </p> + <p> + Punin subsided against the back of the armchair, lifted his hands, and + again bending forward, began whispering again, but still more + mysteriously: ‘You see Paramon Semyonitch himself too.... Didn’t you know? + he too is of exalted extraction—and on the left side, too. They do + say—his father was a powerful Georgian prince, of the line of King + David.... What do you make of that? A few words—but how much is + said? The blood of King David! What do you think of that? And according to + other accounts, the founder of the family of Paramon Semyonitch was an + Indian Shah, Babur. Blue blood! That’s fine too, isn’t it? Eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well?’ I queried, ‘and was he too, Baburin, flung to the hazards of + destiny?’ + </p> + <p> + Punin rubbed his pate again. ‘To be sure he was! And with even greater + cruelty than our little lady! From his earliest childhood nothing but + struggling! And, in fact, I will confess that, inspired by Ruban, I + composed in allusion to this fact a stanza for the portrait of Paramon + Semyonitch. Wait a bit ... how was it? Yes! + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘E’en from the cradle fate’s remorseless blows + Baburin drove towards the abyss of woes! + But as in darkness gleams the light, so now + The conqueror’s laurel wreathes his noble brow!’ +</pre> + <p> + Punin delivered these lines in a rhythmic, sing-song voice, with full + rounded vowels, as verses should be read. + </p> + <p> + ‘So that’s how it is he’s a republican!’ I exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, that’s not why,’ Punin answered simply. ‘He forgave his father long + ago; but he cannot endure injustice of any sort; it’s the sorrows of + others that trouble him!’ + </p> + <p> + I wanted to turn the conversation on what I had learned from Musa the day + before, that is to say, on Baburin’s matrimonial project,—but I did + not know how to proceed. Punin himself got me out of the difficulty. + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you notice nothing?’ he asked me suddenly, slily screwing up his + eyes, ‘while you were with us? nothing special?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, was there anything to notice?’ I asked in my turn. + </p> + <p> + Punin looked over his shoulder, as though anxious to satisfy himself that + no one was listening. ‘Our little beauty, Musotchka, is shortly to be a + married lady!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How so?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Madame Baburin,’ Punin announced with an effort, and slapping his knees + several times with his open hands, he nodded his head, like a china + mandarin. + </p> + <p> + ‘Impossible!’ I cried, with assumed astonishment. Punin’s head slowly came + to rest, and his hands dropped down. ‘Why impossible, allow me to ask?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Because Paramon Semyonitch is more fit to be your young lady’s father; + because such a difference in age excludes all likelihood of love—on + the girl’s side.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Excludes?’ Punin repeated excitedly. ‘But what about gratitude? and pure + affection? and tenderness of feeling? Excludes! You must consider this: + admitting that Musa’s a splendid girl; but then to gain Paramon + Semyonitch’s affection, to be his comfort, his prop—his spouse, in + short! is that not the loftiest possible happiness even for such a girl? + And she realises it! You should look, turn an attentive eye! In Paramon + Semyonitch’s presence Musotchka is all veneration, all tremor and + enthusiasm!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s just what’s wrong, Nikander Vavilitch, that she is, as you say, + all tremor. If you love any one you don’t feel tremors in their presence.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But with that I can’t agree! Here am I, for instance; no one, I suppose, + could love Paramon Semyonitch more than I, but I ... tremble before him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you—that’s a different matter.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How is it a different matter? how? how?’ interrupted Punin. I simply did + not know him; he got hot, and serious, almost angry, and quite dropped his + rhythmic sing-song in speaking. ‘No,’ he declared; ‘I notice that you have + not a good eye for character! No; you can’t read people’s hearts!’ I gave + up contradicting him ... and to give another turn to the conversation, + proposed, for the sake of old times, that we should read something + together. + </p> + <p> + Punin was silent for a while. + </p> + <p> + ‘One of the old poets? The real ones?’ he asked at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘No; a new one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A new one?’ Punin repeated mistrustfully. + </p> + <p> + ‘Pushkin,’ I answered. I suddenly thought of the <i>Gypsies</i> which + Tarhov had mentioned not long before. There, by the way, is the ballad + about the old husband. Punin grumbled a little, but I sat him down on the + sofa, so that he could listen more comfortably, and began to read + Pushkin’s poem. The passage came at last, ‘old husband, cruel husband’; + Punin heard the ballad through to the end, and all at once he got up + impulsively. + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t,’ he pronounced, with an intense emotion, which impressed even + me;—‘excuse me; I cannot hear more of that author. He is an immoral + slanderer; he is a liar ... he upsets me. I cannot! Permit me to cut short + my visit to-day.’ + </p> + <p> + I began trying to persuade Punin to remain; but he insisted on having his + own way with a sort of stupid, scared obstinacy: he repeated several times + that he felt upset, and wished to get a breath of fresh air—and all + the while his lips were faintly quivering and his eyes avoided mine, as + though I had wounded him. So he went away. A little while after, I too + went out of the house and set off to see Tarhov. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Without inquiring of any one, with a student’s usual lack of ceremony, I + walked straight into his lodgings. In the first room there was no one. I + called Tarhov by name, and receiving no answer, was just going to retreat; + but the door of the adjoining room opened, and my friend appeared. He + looked at me rather queerly, and shook hands without speaking. I had come + to him to repeat all I had heard from Punin; and though I felt at once + that I had called on Tarhov at the wrong moment, still, after talking a + little about extraneous matters, I ended by informing him of Baburin’s + intentions in regard to Musa. This piece of news did not, apparently, + surprise him much; he quietly sat down at the table, and fixing his eyes + intently upon me, and keeping silent as before, gave to his features an + expression ... an expression, as though he would say: ‘Well, what more + have you to tell? Come, out with your ideas!’ I looked more attentively + into his face.... It struck me as eager, a little ironical, a little + arrogant even. But that did not hinder me from bringing out my ideas. On + the contrary. ‘You’re showing off,’ was my thought; ‘so I am not going to + spare you!’ And there and then I proceeded straightway to enlarge upon the + mischief of yielding to impulsive feelings, upon the duty of every man to + respect the freedom and personal life of another man—in short, I + proceeded to enunciate useful and appropriate counsel. Holding forth in + this manner, I walked up and down the room, to be more at ease. Tarhov did + not interrupt me, and did not stir from his seat; he only played with his + fingers on his chin. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know,’ said I ... (Exactly what was my motive in speaking so, I have no + clear idea myself—envy, most likely; it was not devotion to + morality, anyway!) ‘I know,’ said I, ‘that it’s no easy matter, no joking + matter; I am sure you love Musa, and that Musa loves you—that it is + not a passing fancy on your part.... But, see, let us suppose! (Here I + folded my arms on my breast.) ... Let us suppose you gratify your passion—what + is to follow? You won’t marry her, you know. And at the same time you are + wrecking the happiness of an excellent, honest man, her benefactor—and—who + knows? (here my face expressed at the same time penetration and sorrow)—possibly + her own happiness too....’ + </p> + <p> + And so on, and so on! + </p> + <p> + For about a quarter of an hour my discourse flowed on. Tarhov was still + silent. I began to be disconcerted by this silence. I glanced at him from + time to time, not so much to satisfy myself as to the impression my words + were making on him, as to find out why he neither objected nor agreed, but + sat like a deaf mute. At last I fancied that there was ... yes, there + certainly was a change in his face. It began to show signs of uneasiness, + agitation, painful agitation.... Yet, strange to say, the eager, bright, + laughing something, which had struck me at my first glance at Tarhov, + still did not leave that agitated, that troubled face! I could not make up + my mind whether or no to congratulate myself on the success of my sermon, + when Tarhov suddenly got up, and pressing both my hands, said, speaking + very quickly, ‘Thank you, thank you. You’re right, of course, ... though, + on the other side, one might observe ... What is your Baburin you make so + much of, after all? An honest fool—and nothing more! You call him a + republican—and he’s simply a fool! Oo! That’s what he is! All his + republicanism simply means that he can never get on anywhere!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! so that’s your idea! A fool! can never get on!—but let me tell + you,’ I pursued, with sudden heat, ‘let me tell you, my dear Vladimir + Nikolaitch, that in these days to get on nowhere is a sign of a fine, a + noble nature! None but worthless people—bad people—get on + anywhere and accommodate themselves to everything. You say Baburin is an + honest fool! Why, is it better, then, to your mind, to be dishonest and + clever?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You distort my words!’ cried Tarhov. ‘I only wanted to explain how I + understand that person. Do you think he’s such a rare specimen? Not a bit + of it! I’ve met other people like him in my time. A man sits with an air + of importance, silent, obstinate, angular.... O-ho-ho! say you. It shows + that there’s a great deal in him! But there’s nothing in him, not one idea + in his head—nothing but a sense of his own dignity.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Even if there is nothing else, that’s an honourable thing,’ I broke in. + ‘But let me ask where you have managed to study him like this? You don’t + know him, do you? Or are you describing him ... from what Musa tells you?’ + </p> + <p> + Tarhov shrugged his shoulders. ‘Musa and I ... have other things to talk + of. I tell you what,’ he added, his whole body quivering with impatience,—‘I + tell you what: if Baburin has such a noble and honest nature, how is it he + doesn’t see that Musa is not a fit match for him? It’s one of two things: + either he knows that what he’s doing to her is something of the nature of + an outrage, all in the name of gratitude ... and if so, what about his + honesty?—or he doesn’t realise it ... and in that case, what can one + call him but a fool?’ + </p> + <p> + I was about to reply, but Tarhov again clutched my hands, and again began + talking in a hurried voice. ‘Though ... of course ... I confess you are + right, a thousand times right.... You are a true friend ... but now leave + me alone, please.’ + </p> + <p> + I was puzzled. ‘Leave you alone?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. I must, don’t you see, think over all you’ve just said, + thoroughly.... I have no doubt you are right ... but now leave me alone!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You ‘re in such a state of excitement ...’ I was beginning. + </p> + <p> + ‘Excitement? I?’ Tarhov laughed, but instantly pulled himself up. ‘Yes, of + course I am. How could I help being? You say yourself it’s no joking + matter. Yes; I must think about it ... alone.’ He was still squeezing my + hands. ‘Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye,’ I repeated. ‘Good-bye, old boy!’ As I was going away I flung a + last glance at Tarhov. He seemed pleased. At what? At the fact that I, + like a true friend and comrade, had pointed out the danger of the way upon + which he had set his foot—or that I was going? Ideas of the most + diverse kind were floating in my head the whole day till evening—till + the very instant when I entered the house occupied by Punin and Baburin, + for I went to see them the same day. I am bound to confess that some of + Tarhov’s phrases had sunk deep into my soul ... and were ringing in my + ears.... In truth, was it possible Baburin ... was it possible he did not + see she was not a fit match for him? + </p> + <p> + But could this possibly be: Baburin, the self-sacrificing Baburin—an + honest fool! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Punin had said, when he came to see me, that I had been expected there the + day before. That may have been so, but on this day, it is certain, no one + expected me.... I found every one at home, and every one was surprised at + my visit. Baburin and Punin were both unwell: Punin had a headache, and he + was lying curled up on the sofa, with his head tied up in a spotted + handkerchief, and strips of cucumber applied to his temples. Baburin was + suffering from a bilious attack; all yellow, almost dusky, with dark rings + round his eyes, with scowling brow and unshaven chin—he did not look + much like a bridegroom! I tried to go away.... But they would not let me + go, and even made tea. I spent anything but a cheerful evening. Musa, it + is true, had no ailment, and was less shy than usual too, but she was + obviously vexed, angry.... At last she could not restrain herself, and, as + she handed me a cup of tea, she whispered hurriedly: ‘You can say what you + like, you may try your utmost, you won’t make any difference.... So + there!’ I looked at her in astonishment, and, seizing a favourable moment, + asked her, also in a whisper, ‘What’s the meaning of your words?’ ‘I’ll + tell you,’ she answered, and her black eyes, gleaming angrily under her + frowning brows, were fastened for an instant on my face, and turned away + at once: ‘the meaning is that I heard all you said there to-day, and thank + you for nothing, and things won’t be as you ‘d have them, anyway.’ ‘You + were there,’ broke from me unconsciously.... But at this point Baburin’s + attention was caught, and he glanced in our direction. Musa walked away + from me. + </p> + <p> + Ten minutes later she managed to come near me again. She seemed to enjoy + saying bold and dangerous things to me, and saying them in the presence of + her protector, under his vigilant eye, only exercising barely enough + caution not to arouse his suspicions. It is well known that walking on the + brink, on the very edge, of the precipice is woman’s favourite pastime. + ‘Yes, I was there,’ whispered Musa, without any change of countenance, + except that her nostrils were faintly quivering and her lips twitching. + ‘Yes, and if Paramon Semyonitch asks me what I am whispering about with + you, I’d tell him this minute. What do I care?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Be more careful,’ I besought her. ‘I really believe they are noticing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I tell you, I’m quite ready to tell them everything. And who’s noticing? + One’s stretching his neck off the pillow, like a sick duck, and hears + nothing; and the other’s deep in philosophy. Don’t you be afraid!’ Musa’s + voice rose a little, and her cheeks gradually flushed a sort of malignant, + dusky red; and this suited her marvellously, and never had she been so + pretty. As she cleared the table, and set the cups and saucers in their + places, she moved swiftly about the room; there was something challenging + about her light, free and easy movement. ‘You may criticise me as you + like,’ she seemed to say; ‘but I’m going my own way, and I’m not afraid of + you.’ + </p> + <p> + I cannot disguise the fact that I found Musa bewitching just that evening. + ‘Yes,’ I mused; ‘she’s a little spitfire—she’s a new type.... She’s—exquisite. + Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say.... What of it! No + matter!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ she cried suddenly, ‘isn’t a republic an empire in + which every one does as he chooses?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A republic is not an empire,’ answered Baburin, raising his head, and + contracting his brows; ‘it is a ... form of society in which everything + rests on law and justice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then,’ Musa pursued, ‘in a republic no one can oppress any one else?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And every one is free to dispose of himself?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Quite free.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! that’s all I wanted to know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why do you want to know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I wanted to—I wanted <i>you</i> to tell me that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Our young lady is anxious to learn,’ Punin observed from the sofa. + </p> + <p> + When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course, from + politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I took + leave, ‘Can you really love him so much?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whether I love him, or whether I don’t, that’s <i>my</i> affair,’ she + answered. ‘What is to be, will be.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Mind what you’re about; don’t play with fire ... you’ll get burnt.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Better be burnt than frozen. You ... with your good advice! And how can + you tell he won’t marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to get + married? If I am ruined ... what business is it of yours?’ + </p> + <p> + She slammed the door after me. + </p> + <p> + I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my + friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new + type.... He ought to have to pay something for his happiness! + </p> + <p> + That he would be happy, I was—regretfully—unable to doubt. + </p> + <p> + Three days passed by. I was sitting in my room at my writing-table, and + not so much working as getting myself ready for lunch.... I heard a + rustle, lifted my head, and I was stupefied. Before me—rigid, + terrible, white as chalk, stood an apparition ... Punin. His half-closed + eyes were looking at me, blinking slowly; they expressed a senseless + terror, the terror of a frightened hare, and his arms hung at his sides + like sticks. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nikander Vavilitch! what is the matter with you? How did you come here? + Did no one see you? What has happened? Do speak!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She has run away,’ Punin articulated in a hoarse, hardly audible voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She has run away,’ he repeated. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Musa. She went away in the night, and left a note.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A note?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes. “I thank you,” she said, “but I am not coming back again. Don’t look + for me.” We ran up and down; we questioned the cook; she knew nothing. I + can’t speak loud; you must excuse me. I’ve lost my voice.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Musa Pavlovna has left you!’ I exclaimed. ‘Nonsense! Mr. Baburin must be + in despair. What does he intend to do now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He has no intention of doing anything. I wanted to run to the + Governor-general: he forbade it. I wanted to give information to the + police; he forbade that too, and got very angry. He says, “She’s free.” He + says, “I don’t want to constrain her.” He has even gone to work, to his + office. But he looks more dead than alive. He loved her terribly....Oh, + oh, we both loved her!’ + </p> + <p> + Here Punin for the first time showed that he was not a wooden image, but a + live man; he lifted both his fists in the air, and brought them down on + his pate, which shone like ivory. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ungrateful girl!’ he groaned; ‘who was it gave you food and drink, + clothed you, and brought you up? who cared for you, would have given all + his life, all his soul ... And you have forgotten it all? To cast me off, + truly, were no great matter, but Paramon Semyonitch, Paramon ...’ + </p> + <p> + I begged him to sit down, to rest. + </p> + <p> + Punin shook his head. ‘No, I won’t. I have come to you ... I don’t know + what for. I’m like one distraught; to stay at home alone is fearful; what + am I to do with myself? I stand in the middle of the room, shut my eyes, + and call, “Musa! Musotchka!” That’s the way to go out of one’s mind. But + no, why am I talking nonsense? I know why I have come to you. You know, + the other day you read me that thrice-accursed poem ... you remember, + where there is talk of an old husband. What did you do that for? Did you + know something then ... or guessed something?’ Punin glanced at me. ‘Piotr + Petrovitch,’ he cried suddenly, and he began trembling all over, ‘you + know, perhaps, where she is. Kind friend, tell me whom she has gone to!’ + </p> + <p> + I was disconcerted, and could not help dropping my eyes.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Perhaps she said something in her letter,’ I began.... + </p> + <p> + ‘She said she was leaving us because she loved some one else! Dear, good + friend, you know, surely, where she is? Save her, let us go to her; we + will persuade her. Only think what a man she’s bringing to ruin.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin all at once flushed crimson, the blood seemed to rush to his head, + he plumped heavily down on his knees. ‘Save us, friend, let us go to her.’ + </p> + <p> + My servant appeared in the doorway, and stood still in amazement. + </p> + <p> + I had no little trouble to get Punin on to his feet again, to convince him + that, even if I did suspect something, still it would not do to act like + that, on the spur of the moment, especially both together—that would + only spoil all our efforts—that I was ready to do my best, but would + not answer for anything. Punin did not oppose me, nor did he indeed hear + me; he only repeated from time to time in his broken voice, ‘Save her, + save her and Paramon Semyonitch.’ At last he began to cry. ‘Tell me at + least one thing,’ he asked ... ‘is <i>he</i> handsome, young?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, he is young,’ I answered. + </p> + <p> + ‘He is young,’ repeated Punin, smearing the tears over his cheeks; ‘and + she is young.... It’s from that that all the trouble’s sprung!’ + </p> + <p> + This rhyme came by chance; poor Punin was in no mood for versifying. I + would have given a good deal to hear his rhapsodical eloquence again, or + even his almost noiseless laugh.... Alas! his eloquence was quenched for + ever, and I never heard his laugh again. + </p> + <p> + I promised to let him know, as soon as I should find out anything + positive.... Tarhov’s name I did not, however, mention. Punin suddenly + collapsed completely. ‘Very good, very good, sir, thank you,’ he said with + a pitiful face, using the word ‘sir,’ which he had never done before; + ‘only mind, sir, do not say anything to Paramon Semyonitch ... or he’ll be + angry. In one word, he has forbidden it. Good-bye, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + As he got up and turned his back to me, Punin struck me as such a poor + feeble creature, that I positively marvelled; he limped with both legs, + and doubled up at each step.... + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s a bad look-out. It’s the end of him, that’s what it means,’ I + thought. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Though I had promised Punin to trace Musa, yet as I set off the same day + to Tarhov’s, I had not the slightest expectation of learning anything, as + I considered it certain that either I should not find him at home, or that + he would refuse to see me. My supposition turned out to be a mistaken one. + I found Tarhov at home; he received me, and I found out indeed all I + wanted to know; but there was nothing gained by that. Directly I crossed + the threshold of his door, Tarhov came resolutely, rapidly, to meet me, + and his eyes sparkling and glowing, his face grown handsomer and radiant, + he said firmly and briskly: ‘Listen, Petya, my boy; I guess what you’ve + come for, and what you want to talk about; but I give you warning, if you + say a single word about her, or about her action, or about what, according + to you, is the course dictated to me by common sense, we’re friends no + longer, we’re not even acquainted, and I shall beg you to treat me as a + stranger.’ + </p> + <p> + I looked at Tarhov; he was quivering all over inwardly, like a tightly + drawn harpstring; he was tingling all over, hardly could he hold back the + tide of brimming youth and passion; violent, ecstatic happiness had burst + into his soul, and had taken full possession of him—and he of it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + ‘Is that your final decision?’ I pronounced mournfully. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, Petya, my boy, it’s final.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In that case, there’s nothing for me but to say good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + Tarhov faintly dropped his eyelids.... He was too happy at that moment. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good-bye, Petya, old boy,’ he said, a little through his nose, with a + candid smile and a gay flash of all his white teeth. + </p> + <p> + What was I to do? I left him to his ‘happiness.’ As I slammed the door + after me, the other door of the room slammed also—I heard it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + It was with a heavy heart that I trudged off next day to see my luckless + acquaintances. I secretly hoped—such is human weakness—that I + should not find them at home, and again I was mistaken. Both were at home. + The change that had taken place in them during the last three days must + have struck any one. Punin looked ghastly white and flabby. His + talkativeness had completely vanished. He spoke listlessly, feebly, still + in the same husky voice, and looked somehow lost and bewildered. Baburin, + on the contrary, seemed shrunk into himself, and blacker than ever; + taciturn at the best of times, he uttered nothing now but a few abrupt + sounds; an expression of stony severity seemed to have frozen on his + countenance. + </p> + <p> + I felt it impossible to be silent; but what was there to say? I confined + myself to whispering to Punin, ‘I have discovered nothing, and my advice + to you is to give up all hope.’ Punin glanced at me with his swollen, red + little eyes—the only red left in his face—muttered something + inaudible, and hobbled away. Baburin most likely guessed what I had been + speaking about to Punin, and opening his lips, which were tightly + compressed, as though glued together, he pronounced, in a deliberate + voice, ‘My dear sir, since your last visit to us, something disagreeable + has happened to us; our young friend, Musa Pavlovna Vinogradov, finding it + no longer convenient to live with us, has decided to leave us, and has + given us a written communication to that effect. Not considering that we + have any right to hinder her doing so, we have left her to act according + to her own views of what is best. We trust that she may be happy,’ he + added, with some effort; ‘and I humbly beg you not to allude to the + subject, as any such references are useless, and even painful.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So he too, like Tarhov, forbids my speaking of Musa,’ was the thought + that struck me, and I could not help wondering inwardly. He might well + prize Zeno so highly. I wished to impart to him some facts about that + sage, but my tongue would not form the words, and it did well. + </p> + <p> + I soon went about my business. At parting neither Punin nor Baburin said, + ‘Till we meet!’ both with one voice pronounced, ‘Good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + Punin even returned me a volume of the <i>Telegraph</i> I had brought him, + as much as to say, ‘he had no need of anything of that kind now.’ + </p> + <p> + A week later I had a curious encounter. An early spring had set in + abruptly; at midday the heat rose to eighteen degrees Réaumur. Everything + was turning green, and shooting up out of the spongy, damp earth. I hired + a horse at the riding-school, and went out for a ride into the outskirts + of the town, towards the Vorobyov hills. On the road I was met by a little + cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies, splashed with mud up to their + ears, with plaited tails, and red ribbons in their manes and forelocks. + Their harness was such as sportsmen affect, with copper discs and tassels; + they were being driven by a smart young driver, in a blue tunic without + sleeves, a yellow striped silk shirt, and a low felt hat with peacock’s + feathers round the crown. Beside him sat a girl of the artisan or merchant + class, in a flowered silk jacket, with a big blue handkerchief on her head—and + she was simply bubbling over with mirth. The driver was laughing too. I + drew my horse on one side, but did not, however, take particular notice of + the swiftly passing, merry couple, when, all at once, the young man + shouted to his ponies.... Why, that was Tarhov’s voice! I looked round.... + Yes, it was he; unmistakably he, dressed up as a peasant, and beside him—wasn’t + it Musa? + </p> + <p> + But at that instant their ponies quickened their pace, and they were out + of my sight in a minute. I tried to put my horse into a gallop in pursuit + of them, but it was an old riding school hack, that shambled from side to + side as it moved; it went more slowly galloping than trotting. + </p> + <p> + ‘Enjoy yourselves, my dear friends!’ I muttered through my teeth. + </p> + <p> + I ought to observe that I had not seen Tarhov during the whole week, + though I had been three times to his rooms. He was never at home. Baburin + and Punin I had not seen either.... I had not been to see them. + </p> + <p> + I caught cold on my ride; though it was very warm, there was a piercing + wind. I was dangerously ill, and when I recovered I went with my + grandmother into the country ‘to feed up,’ by the doctor’s advice. I did + not get to Moscow again; in the autumn I was transferred to the Petersburg + university. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <h3> + 1849 + </h3> + <p> + Not seven, but fully twelve years had passed by, and I was in my + thirty-second year. My grandmother had long been dead; I was living in + Petersburg, with a post in the Department of Home Affairs. Tarhov I had + lost sight of; he had gone into the army, and lived almost always in the + provinces. We had met twice, as old friends, glad to see each other; but + we had not touched on the past in our talk. At the time of our last + meeting he was, if I remember right, already a married man. + </p> + <p> + One sultry summer day I was sauntering along Gorohov Street, cursing my + official duties for keeping me in Petersburg, and the heat and stench and + dust of the city. A funeral barred my way. It consisted of a solitary car, + that is, to be accurate, of a decrepit hearse, on which a poor-looking + wooden coffin, half-covered with a threadbare black cloth, was shaking up + and down as it was jolted violently over the uneven pavement. An old man + with a white head was walking alone after the hearse. + </p> + <p> + I looked at him.... His face seemed familiar.... He too turned his eyes + upon me.... Merciful heavens! it was Baburin! I took off my hat, went up + to him, mentioned my name, and walked along beside him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Whom are you burying?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nikander Vavilitch Punin,’ he answered. + </p> + <p> + I felt, I knew beforehand, that he would utter that name, and yet it set + my heart aching. I felt melancholy, and yet I was glad that chance had + enabled me to pay my last respects to my old friend.... + </p> + <p> + ‘May I go with you, Paramon Semyonitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You may.... I was following him alone; now there’ll be two of us.’ + </p> + <p> + Our walk lasted more than an hour. My companion moved forward, without + lifting his eyes or opening his lips. He had become quite an old man since + I had seen him last; his deeply furrowed, copper-coloured face stood out + sharply against his white hair. Signs of a life of toil and suffering, of + continual struggle, could be seen in Baburin’s whole figure; want and + poverty had worked cruel havoc with him. When everything was over, when + what was Punin had disappeared for ever in the damp ... yes, undoubtedly + damp earth of the Smolensky cemetery, Baburin, after standing a couple of + minutes with bowed, uncovered head before the newly risen mound of sandy + clay, turned to me his emaciated, as it were embittered, face, his dry, + sunken eyes, thanked me grimly, and was about to move away; but I detained + him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where do you live, Paramon Semyonitch? Let me come and see you. I had no + idea you were living in Petersburg. We could recall old days, and talk of + our dead friend.’ + </p> + <p> + Baburin did not answer me at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s two years since I found my way to Petersburg,’ he observed at last; + ‘I live at the very end of the town. However, if you really care to visit + me, come.’ He gave me his address. ‘Come in the evening; in the evening we + are always at home ... both of us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Both of you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I am married. My wife is not very well to-day, and that’s why she did not + come too. Though, indeed, it’s quite enough for one person to go through + this empty formality, this ceremony. As if anybody believed in it all!’ + </p> + <p> + I was a little surprised at Baburin’s last words, but I said nothing, + called a cab, and proposed to Baburin to take him home; but he refused. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The same day I went in the evening to see him. All the way there I was + thinking of Punin. I recalled how I had met him the first time, and how + ecstatic and amusing he was in those days; and afterwards in Moscow how + subdued he had grown—especially the last time I saw him; and now he + had made his last reckoning with life;—life is in grim earnest, it + seems! Baburin was living in the Viborgsky quarter, in a little house + which reminded me of the Moscow ‘nest’: the Petersburg abode was almost + shabbier in appearance. When I went into his room he was sitting on a + chair in a corner with his hands on his knees; a tallow candle, burning + low, dimly lighted up his bowed, white head. He heard the sound of my + footsteps, started up, and welcomed me more warmly than I had expected. A + few moments later his wife came in; I recognised her at once as Musa—and + only then understood why Baburin had invited me to come; he wanted to show + me that he had after all come by his own. + </p> + <p> + Musa was greatly changed—in face, in voice, and in manners; but her + eyes were changed most of all. In old times they had darted about like + live creatures, those malicious, beautiful eyes; they had gleamed + stealthily, but brilliantly; their glance had pierced, like a + pin-prick.... Now they looked at one directly, calmly, steadily; their + black centres had lost their lustre. ‘I am broken in, I am tame, I am + good,’ her soft and dull gaze seemed to say. Her continued, submissive + smile told the same story. And her dress, too, was subdued; brown, with + little spots on it. She came up to me, asked me whether I knew her. She + obviously felt no embarrassment, and not because she had lost a sense of + shame or memory of the past, but simply because all petty + self-consciousness had left her. + </p> + <p> + Musa talked a great deal about Punin, talked in an even voice, which too + had lost its fire. I learned that of late years he had become very feeble, + had almost sunk into childishness, so much so that he was miserable if he + had not toys to play with; they persuaded him, it is true, that he made + them out of waste stuff for sale ... but he really played with them + himself. His passion for poetry, however, never died out, and he kept his + memory for nothing but verses; a few days before his death he recited a + passage from the <i>Rossiad</i>; but Pushkin he feared, as children fear + bogies. His devotion to Baburin had also remained undiminished; he + worshipped him as much as ever, and even at the last, wrapped about by the + chill and dark of the end, he had faltered with halting tongue, + ‘benefactor!’ I learned also from Musa that soon after the Moscow episode, + it had been Baburin’s fate once more to wander all over Russia, + continually tossed from one private situation to another; that in + Petersburg, too, he had been again in a situation, in a private business, + which situation he had, however, been obliged to leave a few days before, + owing to some unpleasantness with his employer: Baburin had ventured to + stand up for the workpeople.... The invariable smile, with which Musa + accompanied her words, set me musing mournfully; it put the finishing + touch to the impression made on me by her husband’s appearance. They had + hard work, the two of them, to make a bare living—there was no doubt + of it. He took very little part in our conversation; he seemed more + preoccupied than grieved.... Something was worrying him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonitch, come here,’ said the cook, suddenly appearing in the + doorway. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it? what’s wanted?’ he asked in alarm. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come here,’ the cook repeated insistently and meaningly. Baburin buttoned + up his coat and went out. + </p> + <p> + When I was left alone with Musa, she looked at me with a somewhat changed + glance, and observed in a voice which was also changed, and with no smile: + ‘I don’t know, Piotr Petrovitch, what you think of me now, but I dare say + you remember what I used to be.... I was self-confident, light-hearted ... + and not good; I wanted to live for my own pleasure. But I want to tell you + this: when I was abandoned, and was like one lost, and was only waiting + for God to take me, or to pluck up spirit to make an end of myself,—once + more, just as in Voronezh, I met with Paramon Semyonitch—and he + saved me once again.... Not a word that could wound me did I hear from + him, not a word of reproach; he asked nothing of me—I was not worthy + of that; but he loved me ... and I became his wife. What was I to do? I + had failed of dying; and I could not live either after my own + choice....What was I to do with myself? Even so—it was a mercy to be + thankful for. That is all.’ + </p> + <p> + She ceased, turned away for an instant ... the same submissive smile came + back to her lips. ‘Whether life’s easy for me, you needn’t ask,’ was the + meaning I fancied now in that smile. + </p> + <p> + The conversation passed to ordinary subjects. Musa told me that Punin had + left a cat that he had been very fond of, and that ever since his death + she had gone up to the attic and stayed there, mewing incessantly, as + though she were calling some one ... the neighbours were very much scared, + and fancied that it was Punin’s soul that had passed into the cat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonitch is worried about something,’ I said at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you noticed it?’—Musa sighed. ‘He cannot help being worried. I + need hardly tell you that Paramon Semyonitch has remained faithful to his + principles.... The present condition of affairs can but strengthen them.’ + (Musa expressed herself quite differently now from in the old days in + Moscow; there was a literary, bookish flavour in her phrases.) ‘I don’t + know, though, whether I can rely upon you, and how you will receive ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why should you imagine you cannot rely upon me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, you are in the government service—you are an official.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what of that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You are, consequently, loyal to the government.’ + </p> + <p> + I marvelled inwardly ... at Musa’s innocence. ‘As to my attitude to the + government, which is not even aware of my existence, I won’t enlarge upon + that,’ I observed; ‘but you may set your mind at rest. I will make no bad + use of your confidence. I sympathise with your husband’s ideas ... more + than you suppose.’ + </p> + <p> + Musa shook her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes; that’s all so,’ she began, not without hesitation; ‘but you see it’s + like this. Paramon Semyonitch’s ideas will shortly, it may be, find + expression in action. They can no longer be hidden under a bushel. There + are comrades whom we cannot now abandon ...’ + </p> + <p> + Musa suddenly ceased speaking, as though she had bitten her tongue. Her + last words had amazed and a little alarmed me. Most likely my face showed + what I was feeling—and Musa noticed it. + </p> + <p> + As I have said already, our interview took place in the year 1849. Many + people still remember what a disturbed and difficult time that was, and by + what incidents it was signalised in St. Petersburg. I had been struck + myself by certain peculiarities in Baburin’s behaviour, in his whole + demeanour. Twice he had referred to governmental action, to personages in + high authority, with such intense bitterness and hatred, with such + loathing, that I had been dumbfoundered.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Well?’ he asked me suddenly: ‘did you set your peasants free?’ + </p> + <p> + I was obliged to confess I had not. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, I suppose your granny’s dead, isn’t she?’ + </p> + <p> + I was obliged to admit that she was. + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure, you noble gentlemen,’ Baburin muttered between his teeth, + ‘... use other men’s hands ... to poke up your fire ... that’s what you + like.’ + </p> + <p> + In the most conspicuous place in his room hung the well-known lithograph + portrait of Belinsky; on the table lay a volume of the old <i>Polar Star</i>, + edited by Bestuzhev. + </p> + <p> + A long time passed, and Baburin did not come back after the cook had + called him away. Musa looked several times uneasily towards the door by + which he had gone out. At last she could bear it no longer; she got up, + and with an apology she too went out by the same door. A quarter of an + hour later she came back with her husband; the faces of both, so at least + I thought, looked troubled. But all of a sudden Baburin’s face assumed a + different, an intensely bitter, almost frenzied expression. + </p> + <p> + ‘What will be the end of it?’ he began all at once in a jerky, sobbing + voice, utterly unlike him, while his wild eyes shifted restlessly about + him. ‘One goes on living and living, and hoping that maybe it’ll be + better, that one will breathe more freely; but it’s quite the other way—everything + gets worse and worse! They have <i>squeezed</i> us right up to the wall! + In my youth I bore all with patience; they ... maybe ... beat me ... even + ... yes!’ he added, turning sharply round on his heels and swooping down + as it were, upon me: ‘I, a man of full age, was subjected to corporal + punishment ... yes;—of other wrongs I will not speak.... But is + there really nothing before us but to go back to those old times again? + The way they are treating the young people now! ... Yes, it breaks down + all endurance at last.... It breaks it down! Yes! Wait a bit!’ + </p> + <p> + I had never seen Baburin in such a condition. Musa turned positively + white.... Baburin suddenly cleared his throat, and sank down into a seat. + Not wishing to constrain either him or Musa by my presence, I decided to + go, and was just saying good-bye to them, when the door into the next room + suddenly opened, and a head appeared.... It was not the cook’s head, but + the dishevelled and terrified-looking head of a young man. + </p> + <p> + ‘Something’s wrong, Baburin, something’s wrong!’ he faltered hurriedly, + then vanished at once on perceiving my unfamiliar figure. + </p> + <p> + Baburin rushed after the young man. I pressed Musa’s hand warmly, and + withdrew, with presentiments of evil in my heart. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come to-morrow,’ she whispered anxiously. + </p> + <p> + ‘I certainly will come,’ I answered. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + I was still in bed next morning, when my man handed me a letter from Musa. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear Piotr Petrovitch!’ she wrote: ‘Paramon Semyonitch has been this + night arrested by the police and carried off to the fortress, or I don’t + know where; they did not tell me. They ransacked all our papers, sealed up + a great many, and took them away with them. It has been the same with our + books and letters. They say a mass of people have been arrested in the + town. You can fancy how I feel. It is well Nikander Vavilitch did not live + to see it! He was taken just in time. Advise me what I am to do. For + myself I am not afraid—I shall not die of starvation—but the + thought of Paramon Semyonitch gives me no rest. Come, please, if only you + are not afraid to visit people in our position.—Yours faithfully, + </p> + <h3> + MUSA BABURIN.’ + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Half an hour later I was with Musa. On seeing me she held out her hand, + and, though she did not utter a word, a look of gratitude flitted over her + face. She was wearing the same clothes as on the previous day; there was + every sign that she had not been to bed or slept all night. Her eyes were + red, but from sleeplessness, not from tears. She had not been crying. She + was in no mood for weeping. She wanted to act, wanted to struggle with the + calamity that had fallen upon them: the old, energetic, self-willed Musa + had risen up in her again. She had no time even to be indignant, though + she was choking with indignation. How to assist Baburin, to whom to appeal + so as to soften his lot—she could think of nothing else. She wanted + to go instantly, ... to petition, ... demand.... But where to go, whom to + petition, what to demand—this was what she wanted to hear from me, + this was what she wanted to consult me about. + </p> + <p> + I began by counselling her ... to have patience. For the first moment + there was nothing left to be done but to wait, and, as far as might be, to + make inquiries; and to take any decisive step now when the affair had + scarcely begun, and hardly yet taken shape, would be simply senseless, + irrational. To hope for any success was irrational, even if I had been a + person of much more importance and influence, ... but what could I, a + petty official, do? As for her, she was absolutely without any powerful + friends.... + </p> + <p> + It was no easy matter to make all this plain to her ... but at last she + understood my arguments; she understood, too, that I was not prompted by + egoistic feeling, when I showed her the uselessness of all efforts. ‘But + tell me, Musa Pavlovna,’ I began, when she sank at last into a chair (till + then she had been standing up, as though on the point of setting off at + once to the aid of Baburin), ‘how Paramon Semyonitch, at his age, comes to + be mixed up in such an affair? I feel sure that there are none but young + people implicated in it, like the one who came in yesterday to warn + you....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Those young people are our friends!’ cried Musa, and her eyes flashed and + darted as of old. Something strong, irrepressible, seemed, as it were, to + rise up from the bottom of her soul, ... and I suddenly recalled the + expression ‘a new type,’ which Tarhov had once used of her. ‘Years are of + no consequence when it is a matter of political principles!’ Musa laid a + special stress on these last two words. One might fancy that in all her + sorrow it was not unpleasing to her to show herself before me in this new, + unlooked-for character—in the character of a cultivated and mature + woman, fit wife of a republican! ... ‘Some old men are younger than some + young ones,’ she pursued, ‘more capable of sacrifice.... But that’s not + the point.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I think, Musa Pavlovna,’ I observed, ‘that you are exaggerating a little. + Knowing the character of Paramon Semyonitch, I should have felt sure + beforehand that he would sympathise with every ... sincere impulse; but, + on the other hand, I have always regarded him as a man of sense.... Surely + he cannot fail to realise all the impracticability, all the absurdity of + conspiracies in Russia? In his position, in his calling ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, of course,’ Musa interrupted, with bitterness in her voice, ‘he is a + working man; and in Russia it is only permissible for noblemen to take + part in conspiracies, ... as, for instance, in that of the fourteenth of + December, ... that’s what you meant to say.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘In that case, what do you complain of now?’ almost broke from my lips, + ... but I restrained myself. ‘Do you consider that the result of the + fourteenth of December was such as to encourage other such attempts?’ I + said aloud. + </p> + <p> + Musa frowned. ‘It is no good talking to you about it,’ was what I read in + her downcast face. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is Paramon Semyonitch very seriously compromised?’ I ventured to ask her. + Musa made no reply.... A hungry, savage mewing was heard from the attic. + </p> + <p> + Musa started. ‘Ah, it is a good thing Nikander Vavilitch did not see all + this!’ she moaned almost despairingly. ‘He did not see how violently in + the night they seized his benefactor, our benefactor—maybe, the best + and truest man in the whole world,—he did not see how they treated + that noble man at his age, how rudely they addressed him, ... how they + threatened him, and the threats they used to him!—only because he + was a working man! That young officer, too, was no doubt just such an + unprincipled, heartless wretch as I have known in my life....’ + </p> + <p> + Musa’s voice broke. She was quivering all over like a leaf. + </p> + <p> + Her long-suppressed indignation broke out at last; old memories stirred + up, brought to the surface by the general tumult of her soul, showed + themselves alive within her.... But the conviction I carried off at that + moment was that the ‘new type’ was still the same, still the same + passionate, impulsive nature.... Only the impulses by which Musa was + carried away were not the same as in the days of her youth. What on my + first visit I had taken for resignation, for meekness, and what really was + so—the subdued, lustreless glance, the cold voice, the quietness and + simplicity—all that had significance only in relation to the past, + to what would never return.... + </p> + <p> + Now it was the present asserted itself. + </p> + <p> + I tried to soothe Musa, tried to put our conversation on a more practical + level. Some steps must be taken that could not be postponed; we must find + out exactly where Baburin was; and then secure both for him and for Musa + the means of subsistence. All this presented no inconsiderable difficulty; + what was needed was not to find money, but work, which is, as we all know, + a far more complicated problem.... + </p> + <p> + I left Musa with a perfect swarm of reflections in my head. + </p> + <p> + I soon learned that Baburin was in the fortress. + </p> + <p> + The proceedings began, ... dragged on. I saw Musa several times every + week. She had several interviews with her husband. But just at the moment + of the decision of the whole melancholy affair, I was not in Petersburg. + Unforeseen business had obliged me to set off to the south of Russia. + During my absence I heard that Baburin had been acquitted at the trial; it + appeared that all that could be proved against him was, that young people + regarding him as a person unlikely to awaken suspicion, had sometimes held + meetings at his house, and he had been present at their meetings; he was, + however, by administrative order sent into exile in one of the western + provinces of Siberia. Musa went with him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Paramon Semyonitch did not wish it,’ she wrote to me; ‘as, according to + his ideas, no one ought to sacrifice self for another person, and not for + a cause; but I told him there was no question of sacrifice at all. When I + said to him in Moscow that I would be his wife, I thought to myself—for + ever, indissolubly! So indissoluble it must be till the end of our + days....’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <h3> + 1861 + </h3> + <p> + Twelve more years passed by.... Every one in Russia knows, and will ever + remember, what passed between the years 1849 and 1861. In my personal + life, too, many changes took place, on which, however, there is no need to + enlarge. New interests came into it, new cares.... The Baburin couple + first fell into the background, then passed out of my mind altogether. Yet + I kept up a correspondence with Musa—at very long intervals, + however. Sometimes more than a year passed without any tidings of her or + of her husband. I heard that soon after 1855 he received permission to + return to Russia; but that he preferred to remain in the little Siberian + town, where he had been flung by destiny, and where he had apparently made + himself a home, and found a haven and a sphere of activity.... + </p> + <p> + And, lo and behold! towards the end of March in 1861, I received the + following letter from Musa:— + </p> + <p> + ‘It is so long since I have written to you, most honoured Piotr + Petrovitch, that I do not even know whether you are still living; and if + you are living, have you not forgotten our existence? But no matter; I + cannot resist writing to you to-day. Everything till now has gone on with + us in the same old way: Paramon Semyonitch and I have been always busy + with our schools, which are gradually making good progress; besides that, + Paramon Semyonitch was taken up with reading and correspondence and his + usual discussions with the Old-believers, members of the clergy, and + Polish exiles; his health has been fairly good.... So has mine. But + yesterday! the manifesto of the 19th of February reached us! We had long + been on the look-out for it. Rumours had reached us long before of what + was being done among you in Petersburg, ... but yet I can’t describe what + it was! You know my husband well; he was not in the least changed by his + misfortune; on the contrary, he has grown even stronger and more + energetic, and has a will as strong as iron, but at this he could not + restrain himself! His hands shook as he read it; then he embraced me three + times, and three times he kissed me, tried to say something—but no! + he could not! and ended by bursting into tears, which was very astounding + to see, and suddenly he shouted, “Hurrah! hurrah! God save the Tsar!” Yes, + Piotr Petrovitch, those were his very words! Then he went on: “Now lettest + Thou Thy servant depart” ... and again: “This is the first step, others + are bound to follow it”; and, just as he was, bareheaded, ran to tell the + great news to our friends. There was a bitter frost, and even a snowstorm + coming on. I tried to prevent him, but he would not listen to me. And when + he came home, he was all covered with snow, his hair, his face, and his + beard—he has a beard right down to his chest now—and the tears + were positively frozen on his cheeks! But he was very lively and cheerful, + and told me to uncork a bottle of home-made champagne, and he drank with + our friends that he had brought back with him, to the health of the Tsar + and of Russia, and all free Russians; and taking the glass, and fixing his + eyes on the ground, he said: “Nikander, Nikander, do you hear? There are + no slaves in Russia any more! Rejoice in the grave, old comrade!” And much + more he said; to the effect that his “expectations were fulfilled!” He + said, too, that now there could be no turning back; that this was in its + way a pledge or promise.... I don’t remember everything, but it is long + since I have seen him so happy. And so I made up my mind to write to you, + so that you might know how we have been rejoicing and exulting in the + remote Siberian wilds, so that you might rejoice with us....’ + </p> + <p> + This letter I received at the end of March. At the beginning of May + another very brief letter arrived from Musa. She informed me that her + husband, Paramon Semyonitch Baburin, had taken cold on the very day of the + arrival of the manifesto, and died on the 12th of April of inflammation of + the lungs, in the 67th year of his age. She added that she intended to + remain where his body lay at rest, and to go on with the work he had + bequeathed her, since such was the last wish of Paramon Semyonitch, and + that was her only law. + </p> + <p> + Since then I have heard no more of Musa. + </p> + <h3> + PARIS, 1874. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + OLD PORTRAITS + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + About thirty miles from our village there lived, many years ago, a distant + cousin of my mother’s, a retired officer of the Guards, and rather wealthy + landowner, Alexey Sergeitch Teliegin. He lived on his estate and + birth-place, Suhodol, did not go out anywhere, and so did not visit us; + but I used to be sent, twice a year, to pay him my respects—at first + with my tutor, but later on alone. Alexey Sergeitch always gave me a very + cordial reception, and I used to stay three or four days at a time with + him. He was an old man even when I first made his acquaintance; I was + twelve, I remember, on my first visit, and he was then over seventy. He + was born in the days of the Empress Elisabeth—in the last year of + her reign. He lived alone with his wife, Malania Pavlovna; she was ten + years younger than he. They had two daughters; but their daughters had + been long married, and rarely visited Suhodol; they were not on the best + of terms with their parents, and Alexey Sergeitch hardly ever mentioned + their names. + </p> + <p> + I see, even now, the old-fashioned house, a typical manor-house of the + steppes. One story in height, with immense attics, it was built at the + beginning of this century, of amazingly thick beams of pine,—such + beams came in plenty in those days from the Zhizdrinsky pine-forests; they + have passed out of memory now! It was very spacious, and contained a great + number of rooms, rather low-pitched and dark, it is true; the windows in + the walls had been made small for the sake of greater warmth. In the usual + fashion (I ought rather to say, in what was then the usual fashion), the + offices and house-serfs’ huts surrounded the manorial house on all sides, + and the garden was close to it—a small garden, but containing fine + fruit-trees, juicy apples, and pipless pears. The flat steppe of rich, + black earth stretched for ten miles round. No lofty object for the eye; + not a tree, nor even a belfry; somewhere, maybe, jutting up, a windmill, + with rents in its sails; truly, well-named Suhodol, or Dry-flat! Inside + the house the rooms were filled with ordinary, simple furniture; somewhat + unusual was the milestone-post that stood in the window of the + drawing-room, with the following inscription:—‘If you walk + sixty-eight times round this drawing-room you will have gone a mile; if + you walk eighty-seven times from the furthest corner of the parlour to the + right-hand corner of the billiard-room, you will have gone a mile,’ and so + on. But what most of all impressed a guest at the house for the first time + was the immense collection of pictures hanging on the walls, for the most + part works of the so-called Italian masters: all old-fashioned landscapes + of a sort, or mythological and religious subjects. But all these pictures + were very dark, and even cracked with age;—in one, all that met the + eye was some patches of flesh-colour; in another, undulating red draperies + on an unseen body; or an arch which seemed to be suspended in the air; or + a dishevelled tree with blue foliage; or the bosom of a nymph with an + immense breast, like the lid of a soup-tureen; a cut water-melon, with + black seeds; a turban, with a feather in it, above a horse’s head; or the + gigantic brown leg of an apostle, suddenly thrust out, with a muscular + calf, and toes turned upwards. In the drawing-room in the place of honour + hung a portrait of the Empress Catherine II., full length; a copy of the + famous portrait by Lampi—an object of the special reverence, one + might say the adoration, of the master of the house. From the ceiling hung + glass lustres in bronze settings, very small and very dusty. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch himself was a stumpy, paunchy little old man, with a + chubby face of one uniform tint, yet pleasant, with drawn-in lips, and + very lively little eyes under high eyebrows. He wore his scanty locks + combed to the back of his head; it was only since 1812 that he had given + up wearing powder. Alexey Sergeitch invariably wore a grey ‘redingote,’ + with three capes falling over his shoulders, a striped waistcoat, + chamois-leather breeches, and high boots of dark red morocco, with + heart-shaped scallops and tassels at the tops; he wore a white muslin + cravat, a jabot, lace cuffs, and two gold English ‘turnip watches,’ one in + each pocket of his waistcoat. In his right hand he usually carried an + enamelled snuff-box full of ‘Spanish’ snuff, and his left hand leaned on a + cane with a silver-chased knob, worn smooth by long use. Alexey Sergeitch + had a little nasal, piping voice, and an invariable smile—kindly, + but, as it were, condescending, and not without a certain self-complacent + dignity. His laugh, too, was kindly—a shrill little laugh that + tinkled like glass beads. Courteous and affable he was to the last degree—in + the old-fashioned manner of the days of Catherine—and he moved his + hands with slow, rounded gestures, also in the old style. His legs were so + weak that he could not walk, but ran with hurried little steps from one + armchair to another, in which he would suddenly sit down, or rather fall + softly, like a cushion. + </p> + <p> + As I have said already, Alexey Sergeitch went out nowhere, and saw very + little of his neighbours, though he liked society, for he was very fond of + talking! It is true that he had society in plenty in his own house; + various Nikanor Nikanoritchs, Sevastiey Sevastietchs, Fedulitchs, + Miheitchs, all poor gentlemen in shabby cossack coats and camisoles, often + from the master’s wardrobe, lived under his roof, to say nothing of the + poor gentlewomen in chintz gowns, black kerchiefs thrown over their + shoulders, and worsted reticules in their tightly clenched fingers—all + sorts of Avdotia Savishnas, Pelagea Mironovnas, and plain Feklushkas and + Arinkas, who found a home in the women’s quarters. Never less than fifteen + persons sat down to Alexey Sergeitch’s table.... He was such a hospitable + man! Among all those dependants two were particularly conspicuous: a + dwarf, nicknamed Janus, or the Double-faced, of Danish—or, as some + maintained, Jewish—extraction, and the mad Prince L. Contrary to + what was customary in those days, the dwarf did nothing to amuse the + master or mistress, and was not a jester—quite the opposite; he was + always silent, had an ill-tempered and sullen appearance, and scowled and + gnashed his teeth directly a question was addressed to him. Alexey + Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and positively respected him; at table + the dishes were handed to him first, after the guests and master and + mistress. ‘God has afflicted him,’ Alexey Sergeitch used to say; ‘such is + His Divine will; but it’s not for me to afflict him further.’ ‘How is he a + philosopher?’ I asked him once. (Janus didn’t take to me; if I went near + him he would fly into a rage, and mutter thickly, ‘Stranger! keep off!’) + ‘Eh, God bless me! isn’t he a philosopher?’ answered Alexey Sergeitch. + ‘Look ye, little sir, how wisely he holds his tongue!’ ‘But why is he + double-faced?’ ‘Because, little sir, he has one face on the outside—and + so you, surface-gazers, judge him.... But the other, the real face he + hides. And that face I know, and no one else—and I love him for it + ... because that face is good. You, for instance, look and see nothing ... + but I see without a word: he is blaming me for something; for he’s a + severe critic! And it’s always with good reason. That, little sir, you + can’t understand; but you may believe an old man like me!’ The real + history of the two-faced Janus—where he came from, and how he came + into Alexey Sergeitch’s hands—no one knew; but the story of Prince + L. was well known to every one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and + distinguished family, to Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards. + At the first levee the Empress Catherine noticed him, stood still before + him, and, pointing at him with her fan, she said aloud, addressing one of + her courtiers, who happened to be near, ‘Look, Adam Vassilievitch, what a + pretty fellow! a perfect doll!’ The poor boy’s head was completely turned; + when he got home he ordered his coach out, and, putting on a ribbon of St. + Anne, proceeded to drive all over the town, as though he had reached the + pinnacle of fortune. ‘Drive over every one,’ he shouted to his coachman, + ‘who does not move out of the way!’ All this was promptly reported to the + empress: the decree went forth that he should be declared insane, and put + under the guardianship of two of his brothers; and they, without a + moment’s delay, carried him off to the country, and flung him into a stone + cell in chains. As they wanted to get the benefit of his property, they + did not let the poor wretch out, even when he had completely recovered his + balance, and positively kept him locked up till he really did go out of + his mind. But their evil doings did not prosper; Prince L. outlived his + brothers, and, after long years of adversity, he came into the charge of + Alexey Sergeitch, whose kinsman he was. He was a stout, completely bald + man, with a long, thin nose and prominent blue eyes. He had quite + forgotten how to talk—he simply uttered a sort of inarticulate + grumbling; but he sang old-fashioned Russian ballads beautifully, + preserving the silvery freshness of his voice to extreme old age; and, + while he was singing, he pronounced each word clearly and distinctly. He + had attacks at times of a sort of fury, and then he became terrible: he + would stand in the corner, with his face to the wall, and all perspiring + and red—red all down his bald head and down his neck—he used + to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with his feet, order some + one—his brothers probably—to be punished. ‘Beat ‘em!’ he + growled hoarsely, coughing and choking with laughter; ‘flog ‘em, don’t + spare ‘em! beat, beat, beat the monsters, my oppressors! That’s it! That’s + it!’ On the day before his death he greatly alarmed and astonished Alexey + Sergeitch. He came, pale and subdued, into his room, and, making him a low + obeisance, first thanked him for his care and kindness, and then asked him + to send for a priest, for death had come to him—he had seen death, + and he must forgive every one and purify his soul. ‘How did you see + death?’ muttered Alexey Sergeitch in bewilderment at hearing connected + speech from him for the first time. ‘In what shape? with a scythe?’ ‘No,’ + answered Prince L.; ‘a simple old woman in a jacket, but with only one eye + in her forehead, and that eye without an eyelid.’ And the next day Prince + L. actually did die, duly performing everything, and taking leave of every + one in a rational and affecting manner. ‘That’s just how I shall die,’ + Alexey Sergeitch would sometimes observe. And, as a fact, something of the + same sort did happen with him—but of that later. + </p> + <p> + But now let us go back to our story. Of the neighbours, as I have stated + already, Alexey Sergeitch saw little; and they did not care much for him, + called him a queer fish, stuck up, and a scoffer, and even a ‘martiniste’ + who recognised no authorities, though they had no clear idea of the + meaning of this term. To a certain extent the neighbours were right: + Alexey Sergeitch had lived in his Suhodol for almost seventy years on end, + and had had hardly anything whatever to do with the existing authorities, + with the police or the law-courts. ‘Police-courts are for the robber, and + discipline for the soldier,’ he used to say; ‘but I, thank God, am neither + robber nor soldier!’ Rather queer Alexey Sergeitch certainly was, but the + soul within him was by no means a petty one. I will tell you something + about him. + </p> + <p> + To tell the truth, I never knew what were his political opinions, if an + expression so modern can be used in reference to him; but, in his own way, + he was an aristocrat—more an aristocrat than a typical Russian + country gentleman. More than once he expressed his regret that God had not + given him a son and heir, ‘for the honour of our name, to keep up the + family.’ In his own room there hung on the wall the family-tree of the + Teliegins, with many branches, and a multitude of little circles like + apples in a golden frame. ‘We Teliegins,’ he used to say, ‘are an ancient + line, from long, long ago: however many there’ve been of us Teliegins, we + have never hung about great men’s ante-rooms; we’ve never bent our backs, + or stood about in waiting, nor picked up a living in the courts, nor run + after decorations; we’ve never gone trailing off to Moscow, nor intriguing + in Petersburg; we’ve sat at home, each in his hole, his own man on his own + land ... home-keeping birds, sir!—I myself, though I did serve in + the Guards—but not for long, thank you.’ Alexey Sergeitch preferred + the old days. ‘There was more freedom in those days, more decorum; on my + honour, I assure you! but since the year eighteen hundred’ (why from that + year, precisely, he did not explain), ‘militarism, the soldiery, have got + the upper hand. Our soldier gentlemen stuck some sort of turbans of cocks’ + feathers on their heads then, and turned like cocks themselves; began + binding their necks up as stiff as could be ... they croak, and roll their + eyes—how could they help it, indeed? The other day a police corporal + came to me; “I’ve come to you,” says he, “honourable sir,” ... (fancy his + thinking to surprise me with that! ... I know I’m honourable without his + telling me!) “I have business with you.” And I said to him, “My good sir, + you’d better first unfasten the hooks on your collar. Or else, God have + mercy on us—you’ll sneeze. Ah, what would happen to you! what would + happen to you! You’d break off, like a mushroom ... and I should have to + answer for it!” And they do drink, these military gentlemen—oh, oh, + oh! I generally order home-made champagne to be given them, because to + them, good wine or poor, it’s all the same; it runs so smoothly, so + quickly, down their throats—how can they distinguish it? And, + another thing, they’ve started sucking at a pap-bottle, smoking a + tobacco-pipe. Your military gentleman thrusts his pap-bottle under his + moustaches, between his lips, and puffs the smoke out of his nose, his + mouth, and even his ears—and fancies himself a hero! There are my + sons-in-law—though one of them’s a senator, and the other some sort + of an administrator over there—they suck the pap-bottle, and they + reckon themselves clever fellows too!’ + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch could not endure smoking; and moreover, he could not + endure dogs, especially little dogs. ‘If you’re a Frenchman, to be sure, + you may well keep a lapdog: you run and you skip about here and there, and + it runs after you with its tail up ... but what’s the use of it to people + like us?’ He was exceedingly neat and particular. Of the Empress Catherine + he never spoke but with enthusiasm, and in exalted, rather bookish + phraseology: ‘Half divine she was, not human! Only look, little sir, at + that smile,’ he would add, pointing reverentially to Lampi’s portrait, + ‘and you will agree: half divine! I was so fortunate in my life as to be + deemed worthy to behold that smile close, and never will it be effaced + from my heart!’ And thereupon he would relate anecdotes of the life of + Catherine, such as I have never happened to read or hear elsewhere. Here + is one of them. Alexey Sergeitch did not permit the slightest allusion to + the weaknesses of the great Tsaritsa. ‘And, besides,’ he exclaimed, ‘can + one judge of her as of other people?’ + </p> + <p> + One day while she was sitting in her peignoir during her morning toilette, + she commanded her hair to be combed.... And what do you think? The + lady-in-waiting passed the comb through, and sparks of electricity simply + showered out! Then she summoned to her presence the court physician + Rogerson, who happened to be in waiting at the court, and said to him: ‘I + am, I know, censured for certain actions; but do you see this electricity? + Consequently, as such is my nature and constitution, you can judge for + yourself, as you are a doctor, that it is unjust for them to censure me, + and they ought to comprehend me!’ The following incident remained + indelible in Alexey Sergeitch’s memory. He was standing one day on guard + indoors, in the palace—he was only sixteen at the time—and + behold the empress comes walking past him; he salutes ... ‘and she,’ + Alexey Sergeitch would exclaim at this point with much feeling, ‘smiling + at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me her hand to kiss and patted my + cheek, and asked me “who I was? where I came from? of what family?” and + then’ ... here the old man’s voice usually broke ... ‘then she bade me + greet my mother in her name and thank her for having brought up her + children so well. And whether I was on earth or in heaven, and how and + where she deigned to vanish, whether she floated away into the heights or + went her way into the other apartments ... to this day I do not know!’ + </p> + <p> + More than once I tried to question Alexey Sergeitch about those far-away + times, about the people who made up the empress’s circle.... But for the + most part he edged off the subject. ‘What’s the use of talking about old + times?’ he used to say ... ‘it’s only making one’s self miserable, + remembering that then one was a fine young fellow, and now one hasn’t a + tooth left in one’s head. And what is there to say? They were good old + times ... but there, enough of them! And as for those folks—you were + asking, you troublesome boy, about the lucky ones!—haven’t you seen + how a bubble comes up on the water? As long as it lasts and is whole, what + colours play upon it! Red, and blue, and yellow—a perfect rainbow or + diamond you’d say it was! Only it soon bursts, and there’s no trace of it + left. And so it was with those folks.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But how about Potiomkin?’ I once inquired. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch looked grave. ‘Potiomkin, Grigory Alexandrovitch, was a + statesman, a theologian, a pupil of Catherine’s, her cherished creation, + one must say.... But enough of that, little sir!’ + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch was a very devout man, and, though it was a great effort, + he attended church regularly. Superstition was not noticeable in him; he + laughed at omens, the evil eye, and such ‘nonsense,’ but he did not like a + hare to run across his path, and to meet a priest was not altogether + agreeable to him. For all that, he was very respectful to clerical + persons, and went up to receive their blessing, and even kissed the + priest’s hand every time, but he was not willing to enter into + conversation with them. ‘Such an extremely strong odour comes from them,’ + he explained: ‘and I, poor sinner, am fastidious beyond reason; they’ve + such long hair, and all oily, and they comb it out on all sides—they + think they show me respect by so doing, and they clear their throats so + loudly when they talk—from shyness may be, or I dare say they want + to show respect in that way too. And besides, they make one think of one’s + last hour. And, I don’t know how it is, but I still want to go on living. + Only, my little sir, don’t you repeat my words; we must respect the clergy—it’s + only fools that don’t respect them; and I’m to blame to babble nonsense in + my old age.’ + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch, like most of the noblemen of his day, had received a + very slight education; but he had, to some extent, made good the + deficiency himself by reading. He read none but Russian books of the end + of last century; the more modern authors he thought insipid and deficient + in style.... While he read, he had placed at his side on a round, + one-legged table, a silver tankard of frothing spiced kvas of a special + sort, which sent an agreeable fragrance all over the house. He used to put + on the end of his nose a pair of big, round spectacles, but in latter + years he did not so much read as gaze dreamily over the rims of his + spectacles, lifting his eyebrows, chewing his lips, and sighing. Once I + caught him weeping with a book on his knees, greatly, I own, to my + surprise. + </p> + <p> + He had recalled these lines: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘O pitiful race of man! + Peace is unknown to thee! + Thou canst not find it save + In the dust of the grave.... + Bitter, bitter is that sleep! + Rest, rest in death ... but living weep!’ +</pre> + <p> + These lines were the composition of a certain Gormitch-Gormitsky, a + wandering poet, to whom Alexey Sergeitch had given a home in his house, as + he struck him as a man of delicate feeling and even of subtlety; he wore + slippers adorned with ribbons, spoke with a broad accent, and frequently + sighed, turning his eyes to heaven; in addition to all these + qualifications, Gormitch-Gormitsky spoke French decently, having been + educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexey Sergeitch only ‘followed + conversation.’ But having once got terribly drunk at the tavern, that same + subtle Gormitsky showed a turbulence beyond all bounds; he gave a fearful + thrashing to Alexey Sergeitch’s valet, the man cook, two laundry-maids who + chanced to get in his way, and a carpenter from another village, and he + broke several panes in the windows, screaming furiously all the while: + ‘There, I’ll show them, these Russian loafers, rough-hewn billy-goats!’ + </p> + <p> + And the strength the frail-looking creature put forth! It was hard work + for eight men to master him! For this violent proceeding Alexey Sergeitch + ordered the poet to be turned out of the house, after being put, as a + preliminary measure, in the snow—it was winter-time—to sober + him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ Alexey Sergeitch used to say, ‘my day is over; I was a spirited + steed, but I’ve run my last race now. Then, I used to keep poets at my + expense, and I used to buy pictures and books of the Jews, geese of the + best breeds, and pouter-pigeons of pure blood.... I used to go in for + everything! Though dogs I never did care for keeping, because it goes with + drinking, foulness, and buffoonery! I was a young man of spirit, not to be + outdone. That there should be anything of Teliegin’s and not first-rate + ... why, it was not to be thought of! And I had a splendid stud of horses. + And my horses came—from what stock do you think, young sir? Why, + from none other than the celebrated stables of the Tsar, Ivan Alexeitch, + brother of Peter the Great ... it’s the truth I’m telling you! All + fawn-coloured stallions, sleek—their manes to their knees, their + tails to their hoofs.... Lions! And all that was—and is buried in + the past. Vanity of vanities—and every kind of vanity! But still—why + regret it? Every man has his limits set him. There’s no flying above the + sky, no living in the water, no getting away from the earth.... We’ll live + a bit longer, anyway!’ + </p> + <p> + And the old man would smile again and sniff his Spanish snuff. + </p> + <p> + The peasants liked him; he was, in their words, a kind master, not easily + angered. Only they, too, repeated that he was a worn-out steed. In former + days Alexey Sergeitch used to go into everything himself—he used to + drive out to the fields, and to the mill, and to the dairy, and peep into + the granaries and the peasants’ huts; every one knew his racing droshky, + upholstered in crimson plush, and drawn by a tall mare, with a broad white + star all over her forehead, called ‘Beacon,’ of the same famous breed. + Alexey Sergeitch used to drive her himself, the ends of the reins crushed + up in his fists. But when his seventieth year came, the old man let + everything go, and handed over the management of the estate to the bailiff + Antip, of whom he was secretly afraid, and whom he called Micromegas (a + reminiscence of Voltaire!), or simply, plunderer. ‘Well, plunderer, what + have you to say? Have you stacked a great deal in the barn?’ he would ask + with a smile, looking straight into the plunderer’s eyes. ‘All, by your + good favour, please your honour,’ Antip would respond cheerfully. + ‘Favour’s all very well, only you mind what I say, Micromegas! don’t you + dare touch the peasants, my subjects, out of my sight! If they come to + complain ... I’ve a cane, you see, not far off!’ ‘Your cane, your honour, + Alexey Sergeitch, I always keep well in mind,’ Antip Micromegas would + respond, stroking his beard. ‘All right, don’t forget it.’ And the master + and the bailiff would laugh in each other’s faces. With the servants, and + with the serfs in general, his ‘subjects’ (Alexey Sergeitch liked that + word) he was gentle in his behaviour. ‘Because, think a little, nephew; + nothing of their own, but the cross on their neck—and that copper—and + daren’t hanker after other people’s goods ... how can one expect sense of + them?’ It is needless to state that of the so-called ‘serf question’ no + one even dreamed in those days; it could not disturb the peace of mind of + Alexey Sergeitch: he was quite happy in the possession of his ‘subjects’; + but he was severe in his censure of bad masters, and used to call them the + enemies of their order. He divided the nobles generally into three + classes: the prudent, ‘of whom there are too few’; the prodigal, ‘of whom + there are quite enough’; and the senseless, ‘of whom there are shoals and + shoals.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And if any one of them is harsh and oppressive with his subjects’—he + would say—‘then he sins against God, and is guilty before men!’ + </p> + <p> + Yes, the house-serfs had an easy life of it with the old man; the + ‘subjects out of sight’ no doubt fared worse, in spite of the cane with + which he threatened Micromegas. And what a lot there were of them, those + house-serfs, in his house! And for the most part sinewy, hairy, grumbling + old fellows, with stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen coats, + belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging to them. + And on the women’s side, one could hear nothing but the patter of bare + feet, the swish of petticoats. The chief valet was called Irinarh, and + Alexey Sergeitch always called him in a long-drawn-out call: + ‘I-ri-na-a-arh!’ The others he called: ‘Boy! Lad! Whoever’s there of the + men!’ Bells he could not endure: ‘It’s not an eating-house, God forbid!’ + And what used to surprise me was that whatever time Alexey Sergeitch + called his valet, he always promptly made his appearance, as though he had + sprung out of the earth, and with a scrape of his heels, his hands behind + his back, would stand before his master, a surly, as it were angry, but + devoted servant! + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch was liberal beyond his means; but he did not like to be + called ‘benefactor.’ ‘Benefactor to you, indeed, sir! ... I’m doing myself + a benefit, and not you, sir!’ (when he was angry or indignant, he always + addressed people with greater formality). ‘Give to a beggar once,’ he used + to say, ‘and give him twice, and three times.... And—if he should + come a fourth time, give to him still—only then you might say too: + “It’s time, my good man, you found work for something else, not only for + your mouth.”’ ‘But, uncle,’ one asked, sometimes, ‘suppose even after that + the beggar came again, a fifth time?’ ‘Oh, well, give again the fifth + time.’ He used to have the sick, who came to him for aid, treated at his + expense, though he had no faith in doctors himself, and never sent for + them. ‘My mother,’ he declared, ‘used to cure illnesses of all sorts with + oil and salt—she gave it internally, and rubbed it on too—it + always answered splendidly. And who was my mother? She was born in the + days of Peter the Great—only fancy that!’ + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch was a Russian in everything; he liked none but Russian + dishes, he was fond of Russian songs, but the harmonica—a + ‘manufactured contrivance’—he hated; he liked looking at the + serf-girls’ dances and the peasant-women’s jigs; in his youth, I was told, + he had been an enthusiastic singer and a dashing dancer; he liked steaming + himself in the bath, and steamed himself so vigorously that Irinarh, who, + serving him as bathman, used to beat him with a bundle of birch-twigs + steeped in beer, to rub him with a handful of tow, and then with a woollen + cloth—the truly devoted Irinarh used to say every time, as he crept + off his shelf red as a ‘new copper image’: ‘Well, this time I, the servant + of God, Irinarh Tolobiev, have come out alive. How will it be next time?’ + </p> + <p> + And Alexey Sergeitch spoke excellent Russian, a little old-fashioned, but + choice and pure as spring water, continually interspersing his remarks + with favourite expressions: ‘’Pon my honour, please God, howsoever that + may be, sir, and young sir....’ + </p> + <p> + But enough of him. Let us talk a little about Alexey Sergeitch’s wife, + Malania Pavlovna. Malania Pavlovna was born at Moscow. + </p> + <p> + She had been famous as the greatest beauty in Moscow—<i>la Vénus de + Moscou</i>. I knew her as a thin old woman with delicate but insignificant + features, with crooked teeth, like a hare’s, in a tiny little mouth, with + a multitude of finely crimped little yellow curls on her forehead, and + painted eyebrows. She invariably wore a pyramidal cap with pink ribbons, a + high ruff round her neck, a short white dress, and prunella slippers with + red heels; and over her dress she wore a jacket of blue satin, with a + sleeve hanging loose from her right shoulder. This was precisely the + costume in which she was arrayed on St. Peter’s Day in the year 1789! On + that day she went, being still a girl, with her relations to the Hodinskoe + field to see the famous boxing-match arranged by Orlov. ‘And Count Alexey + Grigorievitch’ (oh, how often I used to hear this story!) ‘noticing me, + approached, bowed very low, taking his hat in both hands, and said: + “Peerless beauty,” said he, “why have you hung that sleeve from your + shoulder? Do you, too, wish to try a tussle with me? ... By all means; + only I will tell you beforehand you have vanquished me—I give in! + And I am your captive.” And every one was looking at us and wondering.’ + And that very costume she had worn continually ever since. ‘Only I didn’t + wear a cap, but a hat <i>à la bergère de Trianon</i>; and though I was + powdered, yet my hair shone through it, positively shone through it like + gold!’ Malania Pavlovna was foolish to the point of ‘holy innocence,’ as + it is called; she chattered quite at random, as though she were hardly + aware herself of what dropped from her lips—and mostly about Orlov. + Orlov had become, one might say, the principal interest of her life. She + usually walked ... or rather swam, into the room with a rhythmic movement + of the head, like a peacock, stood still in the middle, with one foot + strangely turned out, and two fingers holding the tip of the loose sleeve + (I suppose this pose, too, must once have charmed Orlov); she would glance + about her with haughty nonchalance, as befits a beauty—and with a + positive sniff, and a murmur of ‘What next!’ as though some importunate + gallant were besieging her with compliments, she would go out again, + tapping her heels and shrugging her shoulders. She used, too, to take + Spanish snuff out of a tiny bonbonnière, picking it up with a tiny golden + spoon; and from time to time, especially when any one unknown to her was + present, she would hold up—not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, + but to her nose—a double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with + a coquettish turn of her little white hand, one finger held out separate + from the rest. How often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding + in the church of the Ascension, in Arbaty—such a fine church!—and + how all Moscow was there ... ‘and the crush there was!—awful! + Carriages with teams, golden coaches, outriders ... one outrider of Count + Zavadovsky got run over! and we were married by the archbishop himself—and + what a sermon he gave us! every one was crying—wherever I looked I + saw tears ... and the governor-general’s horses were tawny, like tigers. + And the flowers, the flowers that were brought! ... Simply loads of + flowers!’ And how on that day a foreigner, a wealthy, tremendously wealthy + person, had shot himself from love—and how Orlov too had been + there.... And going up to Alexey Sergeitch, he had congratulated him and + called him a lucky man.... ‘A lucky man you are, you silly fellow!’ said + he. And how in answer to these words Alexey Sergeitch had made a wonderful + bow, and had swept the floor from left to right with the plumes of his + hat, as if he would say: ‘Your Excellency, there is a line now between you + and my spouse, which you will not overstep!’ And Orlov, Alexey + Grigorievitch understood at once, and commended him. ‘Oh! that was a man! + such a man!’ And how, ‘One day, Alexis and I were at his house at a ball—I + was married then—and he had the most marvellous diamond buttons! And + I could not resist it, I admired them. “What marvellous diamonds you have, + Count!” said I. And he, taking up a knife from the table, at once cut off + a button and presented it to me and said: “In your eyes, my charmer, the + diamonds are a hundred times brighter; stand before the looking-glass and + compare them.” And I stood so, and he stood beside me. “Well, who’s + right?” said he, while he simply rolled his eyes, looking me up and down. + And Alexey Sergeitch was very much put out about it, but I said to him: + “Alexis,” said I, “please don’t you be put out; you ought to know me + better!” And he answered me: “Don’t disturb yourself, Melanie!” And these + very diamonds are now round my medallion of Alexey Grigorievitch—you’ve + seen it, I dare say, my dear;—I wear it on feast-days on a St. + George ribbon, because he was a brave hero, a knight of St. George: he + burned the Turks.’ + </p> + <p> + For all that, Malania Pavlovna was a very kind-hearted woman; she was + easily pleased. ‘She’s not one to snarl, nor to sneer,’ the maids used to + say of her. Malania Pavlovna was passionately fond of sweet things—and + a special old woman who looked after nothing but the jam, and so was + called the jam-maid, would bring her, ten times a day, a china dish with + rose-leaves crystallised in sugar, or barberries in honey, or sherbet of + bananas. Malania Pavlovna was afraid of solitude—dreadful thoughts + are apt to come over one, she would say—and was almost always + surrounded by companions, whom she would urgently implore: ‘Talk, talk! + why do you sit like that, simply keeping your seats warm!’ and they would + begin twittering like canaries. She was no less devout than Alexey + Sergeitch, and was very fond of praying; but as, in her own words, she had + never learned to repeat prayers well, she kept for the purpose a poor + deacon’s widow who prayed with such relish! Never stumbled over a word in + her life! And this deacon’s widow certainly could utter the words of + prayer in a sort of unbroken flow, not interrupting the stream to breathe + out or draw breath in, while Malania Pavlovna listened and was much moved. + She had another widow in attendance on her—it was her duty to tell + her stories in the night. ‘But only the old ones,’ Malania Pavlovna would + beg—‘those I know already; the new ones are all so far-fetched.’ + Malania Pavlovna was flighty in the extreme, and at times she was fanciful + too; some ridiculous notion would suddenly come into her head. She did not + like the dwarf, Janus, for instance; she was always fancying he would + suddenly get up and shout, ‘Don’t you know who I am? The prince of the + Buriats. Mind, you are to obey me!’ Or else that he would set fire to the + house in a fit of spleen. Malania Pavlovna was as liberal as Alexey + Sergeitch; but she never gave money—she did not like to soil her + hands—but kerchiefs, bracelets, dresses, ribbons; or she would send + pies from the table, or a piece of roast meat, or a bottle of wine. She + liked feasting the peasant-women, too, on holidays; they would dance, and + she would tap with her heels and throw herself into attitudes. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch was well aware that his wife was a fool; but almost from + the first year of his marriage he had schooled himself to keep up the + fiction that she was very witty and fond of saying cutting things. + Sometimes when her chatter began to get beyond all bounds, he would + threaten her with his finger, and say as he did so: ‘Ah, the tongue, the + tongue! what it will have to answer for in the other world! It will be + pierced with a redhot pin!’ + </p> + <p> + Malania Pavlovna was not offended, however, at this; on the contrary, she + seemed to feel flattered at hearing a reproof of that sort, as though she + would say, ‘Well! is it my fault if I’m naturally witty?’ + </p> + <p> + Malania Pavlovna adored her husband, and had been all her life an + exemplarily faithful wife; but there had been a romance even in her life—a + young cousin, an hussar, killed, as she supposed, in a duel on her + account; but, according to more trustworthy reports, killed by a blow on + the head from a billiard-cue in a tavern brawl. A water-colour portrait of + this object of her affections was kept by her in a secret drawer. Malania + Pavlovna always blushed up to her ears when she mentioned Kapiton—such + was the name of the young hero—and Alexey Sergeitch would designedly + scowl, shake his finger at his wife again, and say: ‘No trusting a horse + in the field nor a woman in the house. Don’t talk to me of Kapiton, he’s + Cupidon!’ Then Malania Pavlovna would be all of a flutter and say: + ‘Alexis, Alexis, it’s too bad of you! In your young days you flirted, I’ve + no doubt, with all sorts of misses and madams—and so now you + imagine....’ ‘Come, that’s enough, that’s enough, my dear Malania,’ Alexey + Sergeitch interrupted with a smile. ‘Your gown is white—but whiter + still your soul!’ ‘Yes, Alexis, it is whiter!’ ‘Ah, what a tongue, what a + tongue!’ Alexis would repeat, patting her hand. + </p> + <p> + To speak of ‘views’ in the case of Malania Pavlovna would be even more + inappropriate than in the case of Alexey Sergeitch; yet I once chanced to + witness a strange manifestation of my aunt’s secret feelings. In the + course of conversation I once somehow mentioned the famous chief of + police, Sheshkovsky; Malania Pavlovna turned suddenly livid—positively + livid, green, in spite of her rouge and paint—and in a thick and + perfectly unaffected voice (a very rare thing with her—she usually + minced a little, intoned, and lisped) she said: ‘Oh, what a name to utter! + And towards nightfall, too! Don’t utter that name!’ I was astonished; what + kind of significance could his name have for such a harmless and + inoffensive creature, incapable—not merely of doing—even of + thinking of anything not permissible? Anything but cheerful reflections + were aroused in me by this terror, manifesting itself after almost half a + century. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch died in his eighty-eighth year—in the year 1848, + which apparently disturbed even him. His death, too, was rather strange. + He had felt well the same morning, though by that time he never left his + easy-chair. And all of a sudden he called his wife: ‘Malania, my dear, + come here.’ ‘What is it, Alexis?’ ‘It’s time for me to die, my dear, + that’s what it is.’ ‘Mercy on you, Alexey Sergeitch! What for?’ ‘Because, + first of all, one must know when to take leave; and, besides, I was + looking the other day at my feet.... Look at my feet ... they are not mine + ... say what you like ... look at my hands, look at my stomach ... that + stomach’s not mine—so really I’m using up another man’s life. Send + for the priest; and meanwhile, put me to bed—from which I shall not + get up again.’ Malania Pavlovna was terribly upset; however, she put the + old man to bed and sent for the priest. Alexey Sergeitch confessed, took + the sacrament, said good-bye to his household, and fell asleep. Malania + Pavlovna was sitting by his bedside. ‘Alexis!’ she cried suddenly, ‘don’t + frighten me, don’t shut your eyes! Are you in pain?’ The old man looked at + his wife: ‘No, no pain ... but it’s difficult ... difficult to breathe.’ + Then after a brief silence: ‘Malania,’ he said, ‘so life has slipped by—and + do you remember when we were married ... what a couple we were?’ ‘Yes, we + were, my handsome, charming Alexis!’ The old man was silent again. + ‘Malania, my dear, shall we meet again in the next world?’ ‘I will pray + God for it, Alexis,’ and the old woman burst into tears. ‘Come, don’t cry, + silly; maybe the Lord God will make us young again then—and again we + shall be a fine pair!’ ‘He will make us young, Alexis!’ ‘With the Lord all + things are possible,’ observed Alexey Sergeitch. ‘He worketh great + marvels!—maybe He will make you sensible.... There, my love, I was + joking; come, let me kiss your hand.’ ‘And I yours.’ And the two old + people kissed each other’s hands simultaneously. + </p> + <p> + Alexey Sergeitch began to grow quieter and to sink into forgetfulness. + Malania Pavlovna watched him tenderly, brushing the tears off her + eyelashes with her finger-tips. For two hours she continued sitting there. + ‘Is he asleep?’ the old woman with the talent for praying inquired in a + whisper, peeping in behind Irinarh, who, immovable as a post, stood in the + doorway, gazing intently at his expiring master. ‘He is asleep,’ answered + Malania Pavlovna also in a whisper. And suddenly Alexey Sergeitch opened + his eyes. ‘My faithful companion,’ he faltered, ‘my honoured wife, I would + bow down at your little feet for all your love and faithfulness—but + how to get up? Let me sign you with the cross.’ Malania Pavlovna moved + closer, bent down.... But the hand he had raised fell back powerless on + the quilt, and a few moments later Alexey Sergeitch was no more. + </p> + <p> + His daughters arrived only on the day of the funeral with their husbands; + they had no children either of them. Alexey Sergeitch showed them no + animosity in his will, though he never even mentioned them on his + death-bed. ‘My heart has grown hard to them,’ he once said to me. Knowing + his kindly nature, I was surprised at his words. It is hard to judge + between parents and children. ‘A great ravine starts from a little rift,’ + Alexey Sergeitch said to me once in this connection: ‘a wound a yard wide + may heal; but once cut off even a finger nail, it will not grow again.’ + </p> + <p> + I fancy the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old parents. + </p> + <p> + A month later and Malania Pavlovna too passed away. From the very day of + Alexey Sergeitch’s death she had hardly risen from her bed, and had not + put on her usual attire; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and with + Orlov’s medallion on her shoulder, only without the diamonds. Those her + daughters divided, on the pretext that the diamonds should be used in the + setting of some holy pictures; in reality, they used them to adorn their + own persons. + </p> + <p> + And so I can see my old friends as though they were alive and before my + eyes, and pleasant is the memory I preserve of them. And yet on my very + last visit to them (I was a student by then) an incident occurred which + jarred upon the impression of patriarchal harmony always produced in me by + the Teliegin household. + </p> + <p> + Among the house-serfs there was one Ivan, called ‘Suhys’ Ivan,’ a coachman + or coach-boy, as they called him on account of his small size, in spite of + his being no longer young. He was a tiny little man, brisk, snub-nosed, + curly-headed, with an everlastingly smiling, childish face, and little + eyes, like a mouse’s. He was a great joker, a most comic fellow; he was + great at all sorts of tricks—he used to fly kites, let off fireworks + and rockets, to play all sorts of games, gallop standing up on the horse’s + back, fly higher than all the rest in the swing, and could even make + Chinese shadows. No one could amuse children better; and he would gladly + spend the whole day looking after them. When he started laughing, the + whole house would seem to liven up; they would answer him—one would + say one thing, one another, but he always made them all merry.... And even + if they abused him, they could not but laugh. Ivan danced marvellously, + especially the so-called ‘fish dance.’ When the chorus struck up a dance + tune, the fellow would come into the middle of the ring, and then there + would begin such a turning and skipping and stamping, and then he would + fall flat on the ground, and imitate the movement of a fish brought out of + the water on to dry land; such turning and wriggling, the heels positively + clapped up to the head; and then he would get up and shriek—the + earth seemed simply quivering under him. At times Alexey Sergeitch, who + was, as I have said already, exceedingly fond of watching dancing, could + not resist shouting, ‘Little Vania, here! coach-boy! Dance us the fish, + smartly now’; and a minute later he would whisper enthusiastically: ‘Ah, + what a fellow it is!’ + </p> + <p> + Well, on my last visit, this Ivan Suhih came into my room, and, without + saying a word, fell on his knees. ‘Ivan, what’s the matter?’ ‘Save me, + sir.’ ‘Why, what is it?’ And thereupon Ivan told me his trouble. + </p> + <p> + He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by ‘the Suhy family for a serf of the + Teliegins’;—simply exchanged without any kind of formality or + written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys + had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch’s house + as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his origin. But + now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into other hands; + and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and oppressive man, + having learned that one of his serfs was detained without cause or reason + at Alexey Sergeitch’s, began to demand him back; in case of refusal he + threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was not an empty one, as he + was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and had great weight in the + province. Ivan had rushed in terror to Alexey Sergeitch. The old man was + sorry for his dancer, and he offered the privy councillor to buy Ivan for + a considerable sum. But the privy councillor would not hear of it; he was + a Little Russian, and obstinate as the devil. The poor fellow would have + to be given up. ‘I have spent my life here, and I’m at home here; I have + served here, here I have eaten my bread, and here I want to die,’ Ivan + said to me—and there was no smile on his face now; on the contrary, + it looked turned to stone.... ‘And now I am to go to this wretch.... Am I + a dog to be flung from one kennel to another with a noose round my neck? + ... to be told: “There, get along with you!” Save me, master; beg your + uncle, remember how I always amused you.... Or else there’ll be harm come + of it; it won’t end without sin.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What sort of sin, Ivan?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I shall kill that gentleman. I shall simply go and say to him, “Master, + let me go back; or else, mind, be careful of yourself.... I shall kill + you.”’ + </p> + <p> + If a siskin or a chaffinch could have spoken, and had begun declaring that + it would peck another bird to death, it would not have reduced me to + greater amazement than did Ivan at that moment. What! Suhys’ Vania, that + dancing, jesting, comic fellow, the favourite playfellow of children, and + a child himself, that kindest-hearted of creatures, a murderer! What + ridiculous nonsense! Not for an instant did I believe him; what astonished + me to such a degree was that he was capable of saying such a thing. Anyway + I appealed to Alexey Sergeitch. I did not repeat what Ivan had said to me, + but began asking him whether something couldn’t be done. ‘My young sir,’ + the old man answered, ‘I should be only too happy—but what’s to be + done? I offered this Little Russian an immense compensation—I + offered him three hundred roubles, ‘pon my honour, I tell you! but he—there’s + no moving him! what’s one to do? The transaction was not legal, it was + done on trust, in the old-fashioned way ... and now see what mischief’s + come of it! This Little Russian fellow, you see, will take Ivan by force, + do what we will: his arm is powerful, the governor eats cabbage-soup at + his table; he’ll be sending along soldiers. And I’m afraid of those + soldiers! In old days, to be sure, I would have stood up for Ivan, come + what might; but now, look at me, what a feeble creature I have grown! How + can I make a fight for it?’ It was true; on my last visit I found Alexey + Sergeitch greatly aged; even the centres of his eyes had that milky colour + that babies’ eyes have, and his lips wore not his old conscious smile, but + that unnatural, mawkish, unconscious grin, which never, even in sleep, + leaves the faces of very decrepit old people. + </p> + <p> + I told Ivan of Alexey Sergeitch’s decision. He stood still, was silent for + a little, shook his head. ‘Well,’ said he at last, ‘what is to be there’s + no escaping. Only my mind’s made up. There’s nothing left, then, but to + play the fool to the end. Something for drink, please!’ I gave him + something; he drank himself drunk, and that day danced the ‘fish dance’ so + that the serf-girls and peasant-women positively shrieked with delight—he + surpassed himself in his antics so wonderfully. + </p> + <p> + Next day I went home, and three months later, in Petersburg, I heard that + Ivan had kept his word. He had been sent to his new master; his master had + called him into his room, and explained to him that he would be made + coachman, that a team of three ponies would be put in his charge, and that + he would be severely dealt with if he did not look after them well, and + were not punctual in discharging his duties generally. ‘I’m not fond of + joking.’ Ivan heard the master out, first bowed down to his feet, and then + announced it was as his honour pleased, but he could not be his servant. + </p> + <p> + ‘Let me off for a yearly quit-money, your honour,’ said he, ‘or send me + for a soldier; or else there’ll be mischief come of it!’ + </p> + <p> + The master flew into a rage. ‘Ah, what a fellow you are! How dare you + speak to me like that? In the first place, I’m to be called your + excellency, and not your honour; and, secondly, you’re beyond the age, and + not of a size to be sent for a soldier; and, lastly, what mischief do you + threaten me with? Do you mean to set the house on fire, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, your excellency, not the house on fire.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Murder me, then, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan was silent. ‘I’m not your servant,’ he said at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh well, I’ll show you,’ roared the master, ‘whether you ‘re my servant + or not.’ And he had Ivan cruelly punished, but yet had the three ponies + put into his charge, and made him coachman in the stables. + </p> + <p> + Ivan apparently submitted; he began driving about as coachman. As he drove + well, he soon gained favour with the master, especially as Ivan was very + quiet and steady in his behaviour, and the ponies improved so much in his + hands; he turned them out as sound and sleek as cucumbers—it was + quite a sight to see. The master took to driving out with him oftener than + with the other coachmen. Sometimes he would ask him, ‘I say, Ivan, do you + remember how badly we got on when we met? You’ve got over all that + nonsense, eh?’ But Ivan never made any response to such remarks. So one + day the master was driving with Ivan to the town in his three-horse sledge + with bells and a highback covered with carpet. The horses began to walk up + the hill, and Ivan got off the box-seat and went behind the back of the + sledge as though he had dropped something. It was a sharp frost; the + master sat wrapped up, with a beaver cap pulled down on to his ears. Then + Ivan took an axe from under his skirt, came up to the master from behind, + knocked off his cap, and saying, ‘I warned you, Piotr Petrovitch—you’ve + yourself to blame now!’ he struck off his head at one blow. Then he + stopped the ponies, put the cap on his dead master, and, getting on the + box-seat again, drove him to the town, straight to the courts of justice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s the Suhinsky general for you, dead; I have killed him. As I told + him, so I did to him. Put me in fetters.’ + </p> + <p> + They took Ivan, tried him, sentenced him to the knout, and then to hard + labour. The light-hearted, bird-like dancer was sent to the mines, and + there passed out of sight for ever.... + </p> + <p> + Yes; one can but repeat, in another sense, Alexey Sergeitch’s words: ‘They + were good old times ... but enough of them!’ + </p> + <h3> + 1881. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE BRIGADIER + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + Reader, do you know those little homesteads of country gentlefolks, which + were plentiful in our Great Russian Oukraïne twenty-five or thirty years + ago? Now one rarely comes across them, and in another ten years the last + of them will, I suppose, have disappeared for ever. The running pond + overgrown with reeds and rushes, the favourite haunt of fussy ducks, among + whom one may now and then come across a wary ‘teal’; beyond the pond a + garden with avenues of lime-trees, the chief beauty and glory of our + black-earth plains, with smothered rows of ‘Spanish’ strawberries, with + dense thickets of gooseberries, currants, and raspberries, in the midst of + which, in the languid hour of the stagnant noonday heat, one would be sure + to catch glimpses of a serf-girl’s striped kerchief, and to hear the + shrill ring of her voice. Close by would be a summer-house standing on + four legs, a conservatory, a neglected kitchen garden, with flocks of + sparrows hung on stakes, and a cat curled up on the tumble-down well; a + little further, leafy apple-trees in the high grass, which is green below + and grey above, straggling cherry-trees, pear-trees, on which there is + never any fruit; then flower-beds, poppies, peonies, pansies, milkwort, + ‘maids in green,’ bushes of Tartar honeysuckle, wild jasmine, lilac and + acacia, with the continual hum of bees and wasps among their thick, + fragrant, sticky branches. At last comes the manor-house, a one-storied + building on a brick foundation, with greenish window-panes in narrow + frames, a sloping, once painted roof, a little balcony from which the + vases of the balustrade are always jutting out, a crooked gable, and a + husky old dog in the recess under the steps at the door. Behind the house + a wide yard with nettles, wormwood, and burdocks in the corners, + outbuildings with doors that stick, doves and rooks on the thatched roofs, + a little storehouse with a rusty weathercock, two or three birch-trees + with rooks’ nests in their bare top branches, and beyond—the road + with cushions of soft dust in the ruts and a field and the long hurdles of + the hemp patches, and the grey little huts of the village, and the cackle + of geese in the far-away rich meadows.... Is all this familiar to you, + reader? In the house itself everything is a little awry, a little rickety—but + no matter. It stands firm and keeps warm; the stoves are like elephants, + the furniture is of all sorts, home-made. Little paths of white footmarks + run from the doors over the painted floors. In the hall siskins and larks + in tiny cages; in the corner of the dining-room an immense English clock + in the form of a tower, with the inscription, ‘Strike—silent’; in + the drawing-room portraits of the family, painted in oils, with an + expression of ill-tempered alarm on the brick-coloured faces, and + sometimes too an old warped picture of flowers and fruit or a mythological + subject. Everywhere there is the smell of kvas, of apples, of linseed-oil + and of leather. Flies buzz and hum about the ceiling and the windows. A + daring cockroach suddenly shows his countenance from behind the + looking-glass frame.... No matter, one can live here—and live very + well too. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Just such a homestead it was my lot to visit thirty years ago ... it was + in days long past, as you perceive. The little estate in which this house + stood belonged to a friend of mine at the university; it had only recently + come to him on the death of a bachelor cousin, and he was not living in it + himself.... But at no great distance from it there were wide tracts of + steppe bog, in which at the time of summer migration, when they are on the + wing, there are great numbers of snipe; my friend and I, both enthusiastic + sportsmen, agreed therefore to go on St. Peter’s day, he from Moscow, I + from my own village, to his little house. My friend lingered in Moscow, + and was two days late; I did not care to start shooting without him. I was + received by an old servant, Narkiz Semyonov, who had had notice of my + coming. This old servant was not in the least like ‘Savelitch’ or ‘Caleb’; + my friend used to call him in joke ‘Marquis.’ There was something of + conceit, even of affectation, about him; he looked down on us young men + with a certain dignity, but cherished no particularly respectful + sentiments for other landowners either; of his old master he spoke + slightingly, while his own class he simply scorned for their ignorance. He + could read and write, expressed himself correctly and with judgment, and + did not drink. He seldom went to church, and so was looked upon as a + dissenter. In appearance he was thin and tall, had a long and good-looking + face, a sharp nose, and overhanging eyebrows, which he was continually + either knitting or lifting; he wore a neat, roomy coat, and boots to his + knees with heart-shaped scallops at the tops. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + On the day of my arrival, Narkiz, having given me lunch and cleared the + table, stood in the doorway, looked intently at me, and with some play of + the eyebrows observed: + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you going to do now, sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, really, I don’t know. If Nikolai Petrovitch had kept his word and + come, we should have gone shooting together.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘So you really expected, sir, that he would come at the time he promised?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I did.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘H’m.’ Narkiz looked at me again and shook his head as it were with + commiseration. ‘If you ‘d care to amuse yourself with reading,’ he + continued: ‘there are some books left of my old master’s; I’ll get them + you, if you like; only you won’t read them, I expect.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They’re books of no value; not written for the gentlemen of these days.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you read them?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If I hadn’t read them, I wouldn’t have spoken about them. A dream-book, + for instance ... that’s not much of a book, is it? There are others too, + of course ... only you won’t read them either.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘They are religious books.’ + </p> + <p> + I was silent for a space.... Narkiz was silent too. + </p> + <p> + ‘What vexes me most,’ I began, ‘is staying in the house in such weather.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Take a walk in the garden; or go into the copse. We’ve a copse here + beyond the threshing-floor. Are you fond of fishing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are there fish here?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, in the pond. Loaches, sand-eels, and perches are caught there. Now, + to be sure, the best time is over; July’s here. But anyway, you might + try.... Shall I get the tackle ready?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, do please.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll send a boy with you ... to put on the worms. Or maybe I ‘d better + come myself?’ Narkiz obviously doubted whether I knew how to set about + things properly by myself. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, please, come along.’ + </p> + <p> + Narkiz, without a word, grinned from ear to ear, then suddenly knitted his + brows ... and went out of the room. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + Half an hour later we set off to catch fish. Narkiz had put on an + extraordinary sort of cap with ears, and was more dignified than ever. He + walked in front with a steady, even step; two rods swayed regularly up and + down on his shoulders; a bare-legged boy followed him carrying a can and a + pot of worms. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here, near the dike, there’s a seat, put up on the floating platform on + purpose,’ Narkiz was beginning to explain to me, but he glanced ahead, and + suddenly exclaimed: ‘Aha! but our poor folk are here already ... they keep + it up, it seems.’ + </p> + <p> + I craned my head to look from behind him, and saw on the floating + platform, on the very seat of which he had been speaking, two persons + sitting with their backs to us; they were placidly fishing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who are they?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + ‘Neighbours,’ Narkiz responded, with displeasure. ‘They’ve nothing to eat + at home, and so here they come to us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Are they allowed to?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The old master allowed them.... Nikolai Petrovitch maybe won’t give them + permission.... The long one is a superannuated deacon—quite a silly + creature; and as for the other, that’s a little stouter—he’s a + brigadier.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A brigadier?’ I repeated, wondering. This ‘brigadier’s’ attire was almost + worse than the deacon’s. + </p> + <p> + ‘I assure you he’s a brigadier. And he did have a fine property once. But + now he has only a corner given him out of charity, and he lives ... on + what God sends him. But, by the way, what are we to do? They’ve taken the + best place.... We shall have to disturb our precious visitors.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, Narkiz, please don’t disturb them. We’ll sit here a little aside; + they won’t interfere with us. I should like to make acquaintance with the + brigadier.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘As you like. Only, as far as acquaintance goes ... you needn’t expect + much satisfaction from it, sir; he’s grown very weak in his head, and in + conversation he’s silly as a little child. As well he may be; he’s past + his eightieth year.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s his name?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassily Fomitch. Guskov’s his surname.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And the deacon?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The deacon? ... his nickname’s Cucumber. Every one about here calls him + so; but what his real name is—God knows! A foolish creature! A + regular ne’er-do-well.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Do they live together?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No; but there—the devil has tied them together, it seems.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + We approached the platform. The brigadier cast one glance upon us ... and + promptly fixed his eyes on the float; Cucumber jumped up, pulled back his + rod, took off his worn-out clerical hat, passed a trembling hand over his + rough yellow hair, made a sweeping bow, and gave vent to a feeble little + laugh. His bloated face betrayed him an inveterate drunkard; his staring + little eyes blinked humbly. He gave his neighbour a poke in the ribs, as + though to let him know that they must clear out.... The brigadier began to + move on the seat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sit still, I beg; don’t disturb yourselves,’ I hastened to say. ‘You + won’t interfere with us in the least. We’ll take up our position here; sit + still.’ + </p> + <p> + Cucumber wrapped his ragged smock round him, twitched his shoulders, his + lips, his beard.... Obviously he felt our presence oppressive and he would + have been glad to slink away, ... but the brigadier was again lost in the + contemplation of his float.... The ‘ne’er-do-weel’ coughed twice, sat down + on the very edge of the seat, put his hat on his knees, and, tucking his + bare legs up under him, he discreetly dropped in his line. + </p> + <p> + ‘Any bites?’ Narkiz inquired haughtily, as in leisurely fashion he unwound + his reel. + </p> + <p> + ‘We’ve caught a matter of five loaches,’ answered Cucumber in a cracked + and husky voice: ‘and he took a good-sized perch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, a perch,’ repeated the brigadier in a shrill pipe. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + I fell to watching closely—not him, but his reflection in the pond. + It was as clearly reflected as in a looking-glass—a little darker, a + little more silvery. The wide stretch of pond wafted a refreshing coolness + upon us; a cool breath of air seemed to rise, too, from the steep, damp + bank; and it was the sweeter, as in the dark blue, flooded with gold, + above the tree tops, the stagnant sultry heat hung, a burden that could be + felt, over our heads. There was no stir in the water near the dike; in the + shade cast by the drooping bushes on the bank, water spiders gleamed, like + tiny bright buttons, as they described their everlasting circles; at long + intervals there was a faint ripple just perceptible round the floats, when + a fish was ‘playing’ with the worm. Very few fish were taken; during a + whole hour we drew up only two loaches and an eel. I could not say why the + brigadier aroused my curiosity; his rank could not have any influence on + me; ruined noblemen were not even at that time looked upon as a rarity, + and his appearance presented nothing remarkable. Under the warm cap, which + covered the whole upper part of his head down to his ears and his + eyebrows, could be seen a smooth, red, clean-shaven, round face, with a + little nose, little lips, and small, clear grey eyes. Simplicity and + weakness of character, and a sort of long-standing, helpless sorrow, were + visible in that meek, almost childish face; the plump, white little hands + with short fingers had something helpless, incapable about them too.... I + could not conceive how this forlorn old man could once have been an + officer, could have maintained discipline, have given his commands—and + that, too, in the stern days of Catherine! I watched him; now and then he + puffed out his cheeks and uttered a feeble whistle, like a little child; + sometimes he screwed up his eyes painfully, with effort, as all decrepit + people will. Once he opened his eyes wide and lifted them.... They stared + at me from out of the depths of the water—and strangely touching and + even full of meaning their dejected glance seemed to me. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + I tried to begin a conversation with the brigadier ... but Narkiz had not + misinformed me; the poor old man certainly had become weak in his + intellect. He asked me my surname, and after repeating his inquiry twice, + pondered and pondered, and at last brought out: ‘Yes, I fancy there was a + judge of that name here. Cucumber, wasn’t there a judge about here of that + name, hey?’ ‘To be sure there was, Vassily Fomitch, your honour,’ + responded Cucumber, who treated him altogether as a child. ‘There was, + certainly. But let me have your hook; your worm must have been eaten + off.... Yes, so it is.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you know the Lomov family?’ the brigadier suddenly asked me in a + cracked voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘What Lomov family is that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Fiodor Ivanitch, Yevstigney Ivanitch, Alexey Ivanitch the Jew, and + Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer, ... and then, too ...’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier suddenly broke off and looked down confused. + </p> + <p> + They were the people he was most intimate with,’ Narkiz whispered, bending + towards me; ‘it was through them, through that same Alexey Ivanitch, that + he called a Jew, and through a sister of Alexey Ivanitch’s, Agrafena + Ivanovna, as you may say, that he lost all his property.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you saying there about Agrafena Ivanovna?’ the brigadier called + out suddenly, and his head was raised, his white eyebrows were + frowning.... ‘You’d better mind! And why Agrafena, pray? Agrippina + Ivanovna—that’s what you should call her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There—there—there, sir,’ Cucumber was beginning to falter. + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t you know the verses the poet Milonov wrote about her?’ the old man + went on, suddenly getting into a state of excitement, which was a complete + surprise to me. ‘No hymeneal lights were kindled,’ he began chanting, + pronouncing all the vowels through his nose, giving the syllables ‘an,’ + ‘en,’ the nasal sound they have in French; and it was strange to hear this + connected speech from his lips: ‘No torches ... No, that’s not it: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Not vain Corruption’s idols frail + Not amaranth nor porphyry + Rejoiced their hearts ... + One thing in them ...” + </pre> + <p> + ‘That was about us. Do you hear? + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “One thing in them unquenchable, + Subduing, sweet, desirable, + To nurse their mutual flame in love!” + </pre> + <p> + And you talk about Agrafena!’ + </p> + <p> + Narkiz chuckled half-contemptuously, half-indifferently. ‘What a queer + fish it is!’ he said to himself. But the brigadier had again relapsed into + dejection, the rod had dropped from his hands and slipped into the water. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + ‘Well, to my thinking, our fishing is a poor business,’ observed Cucumber; + ‘the fish, see, don’t bite at all. It’s got fearfully hot, and there’s a + fit of “mencholy” come over our gentleman. It’s clear we must be going + home; that will be best.’ He cautiously drew out of his pocket a tin + bottle with a wooden stopper, uncorked it, scattered snuff on his wrist, + and sniffed it up in both nostrils at once.... ‘Ah, what good snuff!’ he + moaned, as he recovered himself. ‘It almost made my tooth ache! Now, my + dear Vassily Fomitch, get up—it’s time to be off!’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier got up from the bench. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you live far from here?’ I asked Cucumber. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, our gentleman lives not far ... it won’t be as much as a mile.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Will you allow me to accompany you?’ I said, addressing the brigadier. I + felt disinclined to let him go. + </p> + <p> + Narkiz was surprised at my intention; but I paid no attention to the + disapproving shake of his long-eared cap, and walked out of the garden + with the brigadier, who was supported by Cucumber. The old man moved + fairly quickly, with a motion as though he were on stilts. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX + </h2> + <p> + We walked along a scarcely trodden path, through a grassy glade between + two birch copses. The sun was blazing; the orioles called to each other in + the green thicket; corncrakes chattered close to the path; blue + butterflies fluttered in crowds about the white, and red flowers of the + low-growing clover; in the perfectly still grass bees hung, as though + asleep, languidly buzzing. Cucumber seemed to pull himself together, and + brightened up; he was afraid of Narkiz—he lived always under his + eye; I was a stranger—a new comer—with me he was soon quite at + home. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s our gentleman,’ he said in a rapid flow; ‘he’s a small eater and + no mistake! but only one perch, is that enough for him? Unless, your + honour, you would like to contribute something? Close here round the + corner, at the little inn, there are first-rate white wheaten rolls. And + if so, please your honour, this poor sinner, too, will gladly drink on + this occasion to your health, and may it be of long years and long days.’ + I gave him a little silver, and was only just in time to pull away my + hand, which he was falling upon to kiss. He learned that I was a + sportsman, and fell to talking of a very good friend of his, an officer, + who had a ‘Mindindenger’ Swedish gun, with a copper stock, just like a + cannon, so that when you fire it off you are almost knocked senseless—it + had been left behind by the French—and a dog—simply one of + Nature’s marvels! that he himself had always had a great passion for the + chase, and his priest would have made no trouble about it—he used in + fact to catch quails with him—but the ecclesiastical superior had + pursued him with endless persecution; ‘and as for Narkiz Semyonitch,’ he + observed in a sing-song tone, ‘if according to his notions I’m not a + trustworthy person—well, what I say is: he’s let his eyebrows grow + till he’s like a woodcock, and he fancies all the sciences are known to + him.’ By this time we had reached the inn, a solitary tumble-down, + one-roomed little hut without backyard or outbuildings; an emaciated dog + lay curled up under the window; a hen was scratching in the dust under his + very nose. Cucumber sat the brigadier down on the bank, and darted + instantly into the hut. While he was buying the rolls and emptying a + glass, I never took my eyes off the brigadier, who, God knows why, struck + me as something of an enigma. In the life of this man—so I mused—there + must certainly have been something out of the ordinary. But he, it seemed, + did not notice me at all. He was sitting huddled up on the bank, and + twisting in his fingers some pinks which he had gathered in my friend’s + garden. Cucumber made his appearance, at last, with a bundle of rolls in + his hand; he made his appearance, all red and perspiring, with an + expression of gleeful surprise on his face, as though he had just seen + something exceedingly agreeable and unexpected. He at once offered the + brigadier a roll to eat, and the latter at once ate it. We proceeded on + our way. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + On the strength of the spirits he had drunk, Cucumber quite ‘unbent,’ as + it is called. He began trying to cheer up the brigadier, who was still + hurrying forward with a tottering motion as though he were on stilts. ‘Why + are you so downcast, sir, and hanging your head? Let me sing you a song. + That’ll cheer you up in a minute.’ He turned to me: ‘Our gentleman is very + fond of a joke, mercy on us, yes! Yesterday, what did I see?—a + peasant-woman washing a pair of breeches on the platform, and a great fat + woman she was, and he stood behind her, simply all of a shake with + laughter—yes, indeed! ... In a minute, allow me: do you know the + song of the hare? You mustn’t judge me by my looks; there’s a gypsy woman + living here in the town, a perfect fright, but sings—‘pon my soul! + one’s ready to lie down and die.’ He opened wide his moist red lips and + began singing, his head on one side, his eyes shut, and his beard + quivering: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘The hare beneath the bush lies still, + The hunters vainly scour the hill; + The hare lies hid and holds his breath, + His ears pricked up, he lies there still + Waiting for death. + O hunters! what harm have I done, + To vex or injure you? Although + Among the cabbages I run, + One leaf I nibble—only one, + And that’s not yours! + Oh, no!’ +</pre> + <p> + Cucumber went on with ever-increasing energy: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Into the forest dark he fled, + His tail he let the hunters see; + “Excuse me, gentlemen,” says he, + “That so I turn my back on you— + I am not yours!”’ +</pre> + <p> + Cucumber was not singing now ... he was bellowing: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘The hunters hunted day and night, + And still the hare was out of sight. + So, talking over his misdeeds, + They ended by disputing quite— + Alas, the hare is not for us! + The squint-eye is too sharp for us!’ +</pre> + <p> + The first two lines of each stanza Cucumber sang with each syllable drawn + out; the other three, on the contrary, very briskly, and accompanied them + with little hops and shuffles of his feet; at the conclusion of each verse + he cut a caper, in which he kicked himself with his own heels. As he + shouted at the top of his voice: ‘The squint-eye is too sharp for us!’ he + turned a somersault.... His expectations were fulfilled. The brigadier + suddenly went off into a thin, tearful little chuckle, and laughed so + heartily that he could not go on, and stayed still in a half-sitting + posture, helplessly slapping his knees with his hands. I looked at his + face, flushed crimson, and convulsively working, and felt very sorry for + him at that instant especially. Encouraged by his success, Cucumber fell + to capering about in a squatting position, singing the refrain of: + ‘Shildi-budildi!’ and ‘Natchiki-tchikaldi!’ He stumbled at last with his + nose in the dust.... The brigadier suddenly ceased laughing and hobbled + on. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI + </h2> + <p> + We went on another quarter of a mile. A little village came into sight on + the edge of a not very deep ravine; on one side stood the ‘lodge,’ with a + half-ruined roof and a solitary chimney; in one of the two rooms of this + lodge lived the brigadier. The owner of the village, who always resided in + Petersburg, the widow of the civil councillor Lomov, had—so I + learned later—bestowed this little nook upon the brigadier. She had + given orders that he should receive a monthly pension, and had also + assigned for his service a half-witted serf-girl living in the same + village, who, though she barely understood human speech, was yet capable, + in the lady’s opinion, of sweeping a floor and cooking cabbage-soup. At + the door of the lodge the brigadier again addressed me with the same + eighteenth-century smile: would I be pleased to walk into his + ‘apartement’? We went into this ‘apartement.’ Everything in it was + exceedingly filthy and poor, so filthy and so poor that the brigadier, + noticing, probably, by the expression of my face, the impression it made + on me, observed, shrugging his shoulders, and half closing his eyelids: + ‘Ce n’est pas ... oeil de perdrix.’ ... What precisely he meant by this + remained a mystery to me.... When I addressed him in French, I got no + reply from him in that language. Two objects struck me especially in the + brigadier’s abode: a large officer’s cross of St. George in a black frame, + under glass, with an inscription in an old-fashioned handwriting: + ‘Received by the Colonel of the Tchernigov regiment, Vassily Guskov, for + the storming of Prague in the year 1794’; and secondly, a half-length + portrait in oils of a handsome, black-eyed woman with a long, dark face, + hair turned up high and powdered, with postiches on the temple and chin, + in a flowered, low-cut bodice, with blue frills, the style of 1780. The + portrait was badly painted, but was probably a good likeness; there was a + wonderful look of life and will, something extraordinarily living and + resolute, about the face. It was not looking at the spectator; it was, as + it were, turning away and not smiling; the curve of the thin nose, the + regular but flat lips, the almost unbroken straight line of the thick + eyebrows, all showed an imperious, haughty, fiery temper. No great effort + was needed to picture that face glowing with passion or with rage. Just + below the portrait on a little pedestal stood a half-withered bunch of + simple wild flowers in a thick glass jar. The brigadier went up to the + pedestal, stuck the pinks he was carrying into the jar, and turning to me, + and lifting his hand in the direction of the portrait, he observed: + ‘Agrippina Ivanovna Teliegin, by birth Lomov.’ The words of Narkiz came + back to my mind; and I looked with redoubled interest at the expressive + and evil face of the woman for whose sake the brigadier had lost all his + fortune. + </p> + <p> + ‘You took part, I see, sir, in the storming of Prague,’ I began, pointing + to the St. George cross, ‘and won a sign of distinction, rare at any time, + but particularly so then; you must remember Suvorov?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Alexander Vassilitch?’ the brigadier answered, after a brief silence, in + which he seemed to be pulling his thoughts together; ‘to be sure, I + remember him; he was a little, brisk old man. Before one could stir a + finger, he’d be here and there and everywhere (the brigadier chuckled). He + rode into Warsaw on a Cossack horse; he was all in diamonds, and he says + to the Poles: “I’ve no watch, I forgot it in Petersburg—no watch!” + and they shouted and huzzaed for him. Queer chaps! Hey! Cucumber! lad!’ he + added suddenly, changing and raising his voice (the deacon-buffoon had + remained standing at the door), ‘where’s the rolls, eh? And tell Grunka + ... to bring some kvas!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Directly, your honour,’ I heard Cucumber’s voice reply. He handed the + brigadier the bundle of rolls, and, going out of the lodge, approached a + dishevelled creature in rags—the half-witted girl, Grunka, I suppose—and + as far as I could make out through the dusty little window, proceeded to + demand kvas from her—at least, he several times raised one hand like + a funnel to his mouth, and waved the other in our direction. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XII + </h2> + <p> + I made another attempt to get into conversation with the brigadier; but he + was evidently tired: he sank, sighing and groaning, on the little couch, + and moaning, ‘Oy, oy, my poor bones, my poor bones,’ untied his garters. I + remember I wondered at the time how a man came to be wearing garters. I + did not realise that in former days every one wore them. The brigadier + began yawning with prolonged, unconcealed yawns, not taking his drowsy + eyes off me all the time; so very little children yawn. The poor old man + did not even seem quite to understand my question.... And he had taken + Prague! He, sword in hand, in the smoke and the dust—at the head of + Suvorov’s soldiers, the bullet-pierced flag waving above him, the hideous + corpses under his feet.... He ... he! Wasn’t it wonderful! But yet I could + not help fancying that there had been events more extraordinary in the + brigadier’s life. Cucumber brought white kvas in an iron jug; the + brigadier drank greedily—his hands shook. Cucumber supported the + bottom of the jug. The old man carefully wiped his toothless mouth with + both hands—and again staring at me, fell to chewing and munching his + lips. I saw how it was, bowed, and went out of the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now he’ll have a nap,’ observed Cucumber, coming out behind me. ‘He’s + terribly knocked up to-day—he went to the grave early this morning.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To whose grave?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To Agrafena Ivanovna’s, to pay his devotions.... She is buried in our + parish cemetery here; it’ll be four miles from here. Vassily Fomitch + visits it every week without fail. Indeed, it was he who buried her and + put the fence up at his own expense.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Has she been dead long?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, let’s think—twenty years about.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Was she a friend of his, or what?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Her whole life, you may say, she passed with him ... really. I myself, I + must own, never knew the lady, but they do say ... what there was between + them ... well, well, well! Sir,’ the deacon added hurriedly, seeing I had + turned away, ‘wouldn’t you like to give me something for another drop, for + it’s time I was home in my hut and rolled up in my blanket?’ + </p> + <p> + I thought it useless to question Cucumber further, so gave him a few + coppers, and set off homewards. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIII + </h2> + <p> + At home I betook myself for further information to Narkiz. He, as I might + have anticipated, was somewhat unapproachable, stood a little on his + dignity, expressed his surprise that such paltry matters could ‘interest’ + me, and, finally, told me what he knew. I heard the following details. + </p> + <p> + Vassily Fomitch Guskov had become acquainted with Agrafena Ivanovna + Teliegin at Moscow soon after the suppression of the Polish insurrection; + her husband had had a post under the governor-general, and Vassily Fomitch + was on furlough. He fell in love with her there and then, but did not + leave the army at once; he was a man of forty with no family, with a + fortune. Her husband soon after died. She was left without children, poor, + and in debt.... Vassily Fomitch heard of her position, threw up the + service (he received the rank of brigadier on his retirement) and sought + out his charming widow, who was not more than five-and-twenty, paid all + her debts, redeemed her estate.... From that time he had never parted from + her, and finished by living altogether in her house. She, too, seems to + have cared for him, but would not marry him. ‘She was froward, the + deceased lady,’ was Narkiz’s comment on this: ‘My liberty,’ she would say, + ‘is dearer to me than anything.’ But as for making use of him—she + made use of him ‘in every possible way,’ and whatever money he had, he + dragged to her like an ant. But the frowardness of Agrafena Ivanovna at + times assumed extreme proportions; she was not of a mild temper, and + somewhat too ready with her hands.... Once she pushed her page-boy down + the stairs, and he went and broke two of his ribs and one leg.... Agrafena + Ivanovna was frightened ... she promptly ordered the page to be shut up in + the lumber-room, and she did not leave the house nor give up the key of + the room to any one, till the moans within had ceased.... The page was + secretly buried.... ‘And had it been in the Empress Catherine’s time,’ + Narkiz added in a whisper, bending down, ‘maybe the affair would have + ended there—many such deeds were hidden under a bushel in those + days, but as ...’ here Narkiz drew himself up and raised his voice:’ as + our righteous Tsar Alexander the Blessed was reigning then ... well, a + fuss was made.... A trial followed, the body was dug up ... signs of + violence were found on it ... and a great to-do there was. And what do you + think? Vassily Fomitch took it all on himself. “I,” said he, “am + responsible for it all; it was I pushed him down, and I too shut him up.” + Well, of course, all the judges then, and the lawyers and the police ... + fell on him directly ... fell on him and never let him go ... I can assure + you ... till the last farthing was out of his purse. They’d leave him in + peace for a while, and then attack him again. Down to the very time when + the French came into Russia they were worrying at him, and only dropped + him then. Well, he managed to provide for Agrafena Ivanovna—to be + sure, he saved her—that one must say. Well, and afterwards, up to + her death, indeed, he lived with her, and they do say she led him a pretty + dance—the brigadier, that is; sent him on foot from Moscow into the + country—by God, she did—to get her rents in, I suppose. It was + on her account, on account of this same Agrafena Ivanovna—he fought + a duel with the English milord Hugh Hughes; and the English milord was + forced to make a formal apology too. But later on the brigadier went down + hill more and more.... Well, and now he can’t be reckoned a man at all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who was that Alexey Ivanitch the Jew,’ I asked, ‘through whom he was + brought to ruin?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, the brother of Agrafena Ivanovna. A grasping creature, Jewish indeed. + He lent his sister money at interest, and Vassily Fomitch was her + security. He had to pay for it too ... pretty heavily!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer—who was she?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Her sister too ... and a sharp one too, as sharp as a lance. A terrible + woman!’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XIV + </h2> + <p> + ‘What a place to find a Werter!’ I thought next day, as I set off again + towards the brigadier’s dwelling. I was at that time very young, and that + was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting nature + of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story I had + heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make him talk + freely. ‘I’ll first refer to Suvorov again,’ so I resolved within myself; + ‘there must be some spark of his former fire hidden within him still ... + and then, when he’s warmed up, I’ll turn the conversation on that ... + what’s her name? ... Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer name for a “Charlotte”—Agrafena!’ + </p> + <p> + I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few + steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut, + overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut + some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly slipping + and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort of green + stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just pulled a + young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm ‘to clean + it,’ proceeded to chew its thin tail.... I bowed to him, and inquired + after his health. + </p> + <p> + He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting—that + is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off + munching the carrot. + </p> + <p> + ‘You didn’t go fishing to-day?’ I began, in the hope of recalling myself + to his memory by this question. + </p> + <p> + ‘To-day?’ he repeated and pondered ... while the carrot, stuck into his + mouth, grew shorter and shorter. ‘Why, I suppose it’s Cucumber fishing! + ... But I’m allowed to, too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course, of course, most honoured Vassily Fomitch.... I didn’t mean + that.... But aren’t you hot ... like this in the sun.’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier was wearing a thick wadded dressing-gown. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh? Hot?’ he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and, + having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards. + </p> + <p> + ‘Would you care to step into my apartement?’ he said suddenly. The poor + old man had, it seemed, only this phrase still left him always at his + disposal. + </p> + <p> + We went out of the kitchen-garden ... but there involuntarily I stopped + short. Between us and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to + the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily and + furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the dust + up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his tail, + and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly, and + bellowed—not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time menacingly. + I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped forward with + perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, ‘Now then, country + bumpkin,’ shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again, bowed his + horns ... suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging his head from + side to side. + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s no doubt he took Prague,’ I thought. + </p> + <p> + We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which + was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, ‘Fa!’ ... squatted down on the + edge of a chair ... bowed his head gloomily.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,’ I began my diplomatic approaches, + ‘because, as you have served under the leadership of the great Suvorov—have + taken part altogether in such important events—it would be very + interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier stared at me.... His face kindled strangely—I began to + expect, if not a story, at least some word of approval, of sympathy.... + </p> + <p> + ‘But I, sir, must be going to die soon,’ he said in an undertone. + </p> + <p> + I was utterly nonplussed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, Vassily Fomitch, ‘I brought out at last, ‘what makes you ... suppose + that?’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier suddenly flung his arms violently up and down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Because, sir ... I, as maybe you know ... often in my dreams see + Agrippina Ivanovna—Heaven’s peace be with her!—and never can I + catch her; I am always running after her—but cannot catch her. But + last night—I dreamed—she was standing, as it were, before me, + half-turned away, and laughing.... I ran up to her at once and caught her + ... and she seemed to turn round quite and said to me: “Well, Vassinka, + now you have caught me.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you conclude from that, Vassily Fomitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, sir, I conclude: it has come, that we shall be together. And glory + to God for it, I tell you; glory be to God Almighty, the Father, the Son, + and the Holy Ghost (the brigadier fell into a chant): as it was in the + beginning, is now and ever shall be, Amen!’ + </p> + <p> + The brigadier began crossing himself. I could get nothing more out of him, + so I went away. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XV + </h2> + <p> + The next day my friend arrived.... I mentioned the brigadier, and my + visits to him.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes! of course! I know his story,’ answered my friend; ‘I know Madame + Lomov very well, the privy councillor’s widow, by whose favour he obtained + a home here. Oh, wait a minute; I believe there must be preserved here his + letter to the privy councillor’s widow; it was on the strength of that + letter that she assigned him his little cot.’ My friend rummaged among his + papers and actually found the brigadier’s letter. Here it is word for + word, with the omission of the mistakes in spelling. The brigadier, like + every one of his epoch, was a little hazy in that respect. But to preserve + these errors seemed unnecessary; his letter bears the stamp of his age + without them. + </p> + <p> + ‘HONOURED MADAM, RAÏSSA PAVLOVNA!—On the decease of my friend, and + your aunt, I had the happiness of addressing to you two letters, the first + on the first of June, the second on the sixth of July of the year 1815, + while she expired on the sixth of May in that year; in them I discovered + to you the feelings of my soul and of my heart, which were crushed under + deadly wrongs, and they reflected in full my bitter despair, in truth + deserving of commiseration; both letters were despatched by the imperial + mail registered, and hence I cannot conceive that they have not been + perused by your eye. By the genuine candour of my letters, I had counted + upon winning your benevolent attention; but the compassionate feelings of + your heart were far removed from me in my woe! Left on the loss of my one + only friend, Agrippina Ivanovna, in the most distressed and + poverty-stricken circumstances, I rested, by her instructions, all my + hopes on your bounty; she, aware of her end approaching, said to me in + these words, as it were from the grave, and never can I forget them: “My + friend, I have been your serpent, and am guilty of all your unhappiness. I + feel how much you have sacrificed for me, and in return I leave you in a + disastrous and truly destitute situation; on my death have recourse to + Raïssa Pavlovna”—that is, to you—“and implore her aid, invite + her succour! She has a feeling heart, and I have confidence in her, that + she will not leave you forlorn.” Honoured madam, let me call to witness + the all-high Creator of the world that those were her words, and I am + speaking with her tongue; and, therefore, trusting firmly in your + goodness, to you first of all I addressed myself with my open-hearted and + candid letters; but after protracted expectation, receiving no reply to + them, I could not conceive otherwise than that your benevolent heart had + left me without attention! Such your unfavourable disposition towards me, + reduced me to the depths of despair—whither, and to whom, was I to + turn in my misfortune I knew not; my soul was troubled, my intellect went + astray; at last, for the completion of my ruin, it pleased Providence to + chastise me in a still more cruel manner, and to turn my thoughts to your + deceased aunt, Fedulia Ivanovna, sister of Agrippina Ivanovna, one in + blood, but not one in heart! Having present to myself, before my mind’s + eye, that I had been for twenty years devoted to the whole family of your + kindred, the Lomovs, especially to Fedulia Ivanovna, who never called + Agrippina Ivanovna otherwise than “my heart’s precious treasure,” and me + “the most honoured and zealous friend of our family”; picturing all the + above, among abundant tears and sighs in the stillness of sorrowful night + watches, I thought: “Come, brigadier! so, it seems, it is to be!” and, + addressing myself by letter to the said Fedulia Ivanovna, I received a + positive assurance that she would share her last crumb with me! The + presents sent on by me, more than five hundred roubles’ worth in value, + were accepted with supreme satisfaction; and afterwards the money too + which I brought with me for my maintenance, Fedulia Ivanovna was pleased, + on the pretext of guarding it, to take into her care, to the which, to + gratify her, I offered no opposition. + </p> + <p> + If you ask me whence, and on what ground I conceived such confidence—to + the above, madam, there is but one reply: she was sister of Agrippina + Ivanovna, and a member of the Lomov family! But alas and alas! all the + money aforesaid I was very soon deprived of, and the hopes which I had + rested on Fedulia Ivanovna—that she would share her last crumb with + me—turned out to be empty and vain; on the contrary, the said + Fedulia Ivanovna enriched herself with my property. To wit, on her saint’s + day, the fifth of February, I brought her fifty roubles’ worth of green + French material, at five roubles the yard; I myself received of all that + was promised five roubles’ worth of white piqué for a waistcoat and a + muslin handkerchief for my neck, which gifts were purchased in my + presence, as I was aware, with my own money—and that was all that I + profited by Fedulia Ivanovna’s bounty! So much for the last crumb! And I + could further, in all sincerity, disclose the malignant doings of Fedulia + Ivanovna to me; and also my expenses, exceeding all reason, as, among the + rest, for sweetmeats and fruits, of which Fedulia Ivanovna was exceedingly + fond;—but upon all this I am silent, that you may not take such + disclosures against the dead in bad part; and also, seeing that God has + called her before His judgment seat—and all that I suffered at her + hands is blotted out from my heart—and I, as a Christian, forgave + her long ago, and pray to God to forgive her! + </p> + <p> + ‘But, honoured madam, Raïssa Pavlovna! Surely you will not blame me for + that I was a true and loyal friend of your family, and that I loved + Agrippina Ivanovna with a love so great and so insurmountable that I + sacrificed to her my life, my honour, and all my fortune! that I was + utterly in her hands, and hence could not dispose of myself nor of my + property, and she disposed at her will of me and also of my estate! It is + known to you also that, owing to her action with her servant, I suffer, + though innocent, a deadly wrong—this affair I brought after her + death before the senate, before the sixth department—it is still + unsettled now—in consequence of which I was made accomplice with + her, my estate put under guardianship, and I am still lying under a + criminal charge! In my position, at my age, such disgrace is intolerable + to me; and it is only left me to console my heart with the mournful + reflection that thus, even after Agrippina Ivanovna’s death, I suffer for + her sake, and so prove my immutable love and loyal gratitude to her! + </p> + <p> + ‘In my letters, above mentioned, to you, I gave you an account with every + detail of Agrippina Ivanovna’s funeral, and what masses were read for her—my + affection and love for her spared no outlay! For all the aforesaid, and + for the forty days’ requiems, and the reading of the psalter six weeks + after for her (in addition to above, fifty roubles of mine were lost, + which were given as security for payment for the stone, of which I sent + you a description)—on all the aforesaid was spent of my money seven + hundred and fifty roubles, in which is included, by way of donation to the + church, a hundred and fifty roubles. + </p> + <p> + ‘In the goodness of your heart, hear the cry of a desperate man, crushed + beneath a load of the crudest calamities! Only your commiseration and + humanity can restore the life of a ruined man! Though living—in the + suffering of my heart and soul I am as one dead; dead when I think what I + was, and what I am; I was a soldier, and served my country in all fidelity + and uprightness, as is the bounden duty of a loyal Russian and faithful + subject, and was rewarded with the highest honours, and had a fortune + befitting my birth and station; and now I must cringe and beg for a morsel + of dry bread; dead above all I am when I think what a friend I have lost + ... and what is life to me after that? But there is no hastening one’s + end, and the earth will not open, but rather seems turned to stone! And so + I call upon you, in the benevolence of your heart, hush the talk of the + people, do not expose yourself to universal censure, that for all my + unbounded devotion I have not where to lay my head; confound them by your + bounty to me, turn the tongues of the evil speakers and slanderers to + glorifying your good works—and I make bold in all humility to add, + comfort in the grave your most precious aunt, Agrippina Ivanovna, who can + never be forgotten, and who for your speedy succour, in answer to my + sinful prayers, will spread her protecting wings about your head, and + comfort in his declining days a lonely old man, who had every reason to + expect a different fate! ... And, with the most profound respect, I have + the honour to be, dear madam, your most devoted servant, + </p> + <h3> + VASSILY GUSKOV, + </h3> + <p> + <i>Brigadier and cavalier.</i>’ + </p> + <p> + Several years later I paid another visit to my friend’s little place.... + Vassily Fomitch had long been dead; he died soon after I made his + acquaintance. Cucumber was still flourishing. He conducted me to the tomb + of Agrafena Ivanovna. An iron railing enclosed a large slab with a + detailed and enthusiastically laudatory epitaph on the deceased woman; and + there, beside it, as it were at her feet, could be seen a little mound + with a slanting cross on it; the servant of God, the brigadier and + cavalier, Vassily Guskov, lay under this mound.... His ashes found rest at + last beside the ashes of the creature he had loved with such unbounded, + almost undying, love. + </p> + <h3> + 1867. + </h3> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PYETUSHKOV + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0036" id="link2H_4_0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + In the year 182- ... there was living in the town of O—— the + lieutenant Ivan Afanasiitch Pyetushkov. He was born of poor parents, was + left an orphan at five years old, and came into the charge of a guardian. + Thanks to this guardian, he found himself with no property whatever; he + had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. He was of medium height, and + stooped a little; he had a thin face, covered with freckles, but rather + pleasing; light brown hair, grey eyes, and a timid expression; his low + forehead was furrowed with fine wrinkles. Pyetushkov’s whole life had been + uneventful in the extreme; at close upon forty he was still youthful and + inexperienced as a child. He was shy with acquaintances, and exceedingly + mild in his manner with persons over whose lot he could have exerted + control.... + </p> + <p> + People condemned by fate to a monotonous and cheerless existence often + acquire all sorts of little habits and preferences. Pyetushkov liked to + have a new white roll with his tea every morning. He could not do without + this dainty. But behold one morning his servant, Onisim, handed him, on a + blue-sprigged plate, instead of a roll, three dark red rusks. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov at once asked his servant, with some indignation, what he meant + by it. + </p> + <p> + ‘The rolls have all been sold out,’ answered Onisim, a native of + Petersburg, who had been flung by some queer freak of destiny into the + very wilds of south Russia. + </p> + <p> + ‘Impossible!’ exclaimed Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sold out,’ repeated Onisim; ‘there’s a breakfast at the Marshal’s, so + they’ve all gone there, you know.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim waved his hand in the air, and thrust his right foot forward. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch walked up and down the room, dressed, and set off himself + to the baker’s shop. This establishment, the only one of the kind in the + town of O——, had been opened ten years before by a German + immigrant, had in a short time begun to flourish, and was still + flourishing under the guidance of his widow, a fat woman. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov tapped at the window. The fat woman stuck her unhealthy, + flabby, sleepy countenance out of the pane that opened. + </p> + <p> + ‘A roll, if you please,’ Pyetushkov said amiably. + </p> + <p> + ‘The rolls are all gone,’ piped the fat woman. + </p> + <p> + ‘Haven’t you any rolls?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How’s that?—really! I take rolls from you every day, and pay for + them regularly.’ + </p> + <p> + The woman stared at him in silence. ‘Take twists,’ she said at last, + yawning; ‘or a scone.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t like them,’ said Pyetushkov, and he felt positively hurt. + </p> + <p> + ‘As you please,’ muttered the fat woman, and she slammed to the + window-pane. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch was quite unhinged by his intense vexation. In his + perturbation he crossed to the other side of the street, and gave himself + up entirely, like a child, to his displeasure. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sir!’ ... he heard a rather agreeable female voice; ‘sir!’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch raised his eyes. From the open pane of the bakehouse + window peeped a girl of about seventeen, holding a white roll in her hand. + She had a full round face, rosy cheeks, small hazel eyes, rather a turn-up + nose, fair hair, and magnificent shoulders. Her features suggested + good-nature, laziness, and carelessness. + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s a roll for you, sir,’ she said, laughing, ‘I’d taken for myself; + but take it, please, I’ll give it up to you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I thank you most sincerely. Allow me ...’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov began fumbling in his pocket. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no! you are welcome to it.’ + </p> + <p> + She closed the window-pane. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov arrived home in a perfectly agreeable frame of mind. + </p> + <p> + ‘You couldn’t get any rolls,’ he said to his Onisim; ‘but here, I’ve got + one, do you see?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim gave a bitter laugh. + </p> + <p> + The same day, in the evening, as Ivan Afanasiitch was undressing, he asked + his servant, ‘Tell me, please, my lad, what’s the girl like at the + baker’s, hey?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked away rather gloomily, and responded, ‘What do you want to + know for?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing,’ said Pyetushkov, taking off his boots with his own hands. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, she’s a fine girl!’ Onisim observed condescendingly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, ... she’s not bad-looking,’ said Ivan Afanasiitch, also looking + away. ‘And what’s her name, do you know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And do you know her?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim did not answer for a minute or two. + </p> + <p> + ‘We know her.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was on the point of opening his mouth again, but he turned over + on the other side and fell asleep. + </p> + <p> + Onisim went out into the passage, took a pinch of snuff, and gave his head + a violent shake. + </p> + <p> + The next day, early in the morning, Pyetushkov called for his clothes. + Onisim brought him his everyday coat—an old grass-coloured coat, + with huge striped epaulettes. Pyetushkov gazed a long while at Onisim + without speaking, then told him to bring him his new coat. Onisim, with + some surprise, obeyed. Pyetushkov dressed, and carefully drew on his + chamois-leather gloves. + </p> + <p> + ‘You needn’t go to the baker’s to-day,’ said he with some hesitation; ‘I’m + going myself, ... it’s on my way.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sir,’ responded Onisim, as abruptly as if some one had just given + him a shove from behind. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov set off, reached the baker’s shop, tapped at the window. The + fat woman opened the pane. + </p> + <p> + ‘Give me a roll, please,’ Ivan Afanasiitch articulated slowly. + </p> + <p> + The fat woman stuck out an arm, bare to the shoulder—a huge arm, + more like a leg than an arm—and thrust the hot bread just under his + nose. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch stood some time under the window, walked once or twice up + and down the street, glanced into the courtyard, and at last, ashamed of + his childishness, returned home with the roll in his hand. He felt ill at + ease the whole day, and even in the evening, contrary to his habit, did + not drop into conversation with Onisim. + </p> + <p> + The next morning it was Onisim who went for the roll. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0037" id="link2H_4_0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + Some weeks went by. Ivan Afanasiitch had completely forgotten Vassilissa, + and chatted in a friendly way with his servant as before. One fine morning + there came to see him a certain Bublitsyn, an easy-mannered and very + agreeable young man. It is true he sometimes hardly knew himself what he + was talking about, and was always, as they say, a little wild; but all the + same he had the reputation of being an exceedingly agreeable person to + talk to. He smoked a great deal with feverish eagerness, with lifted + eyebrows and contracted chest—smoked with an expression of intense + anxiety, or, one might rather say, with an expression as though, let him + have this one more puff at his pipe, and in a minute he would tell you + some quite unexpected piece of news; at times he would even give a grunt + and a wave of the hand, while himself sucking at his pipe, as though he + had suddenly recollected something extraordinarily amusing or important, + then he would open his mouth, let off a few rings of smoke, and utter the + most commonplace remarks, or even keep silence altogether. After gossiping + a little with Ivan Afanasiitch about the neighbours, about horses, the + daughters of the gentry around, and other such edifying topics, Mr. + Bublitsyn suddenly winked, pulled up his shock of hair, and, with a sly + smile, approached the remarkably dim looking-glass which was the solitary + ornament of Ivan Afanasiitch’s room. + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s no denying the fact,’ he pronounced, stroking his light brown + whiskers, ‘we’ve got girls here that beat any of your Venus of Medicis + hollow.... Have you seen Vassilissa, the baker girl, for instance?’ ... + Mr. Bublitsyn sucked at his pipe. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov started. + </p> + <p> + ‘But why do I ask you?’ pursued Bublitsyn, disappearing in a cloud of + smoke,—‘you’re not the man to notice, don’t you know, Ivan + Afanasiitch! Goodness knows what you do to occupy yourself, Ivan + Afanasiitch!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The same as you do,’ Pyetushkov replied with some vexation, in a drawling + voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch, not a bit of it.... How can you say so?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, why not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense, nonsense.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why so, why so?’ + </p> + <p> + Bublitsyn stuck his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and began + scrutinising his not very handsome boots. Pyetushkov felt embarrassed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, Ivan Afanasiitch!’ pursued Bublitsyn, as though + sparing his feelings. ‘But as to Vassilissa, the baker girl, I can assure + you: a very, ve-ry fine girl, ... ve-ry.’ + </p> + <p> + Mr. Bublitsyn dilated his nostrils, and slowly plunged his hands into his + pockets. + </p> + <p> + Strange to relate, Ivan Afanasiitch felt something of the nature of + jealousy. He began moving restlessly in his chair, burst into explosive + laughter at nothing at all, suddenly blushed, yawned, and, as he yawned, + his lower jaw twitched a little. Bublitsyn smoked three more pipes, and + withdrew. Ivan Afanasiitch went to the window, sighed, and called for + something to drink. + </p> + <p> + Onisim set a glass of kvas on the table, glanced severely at his master, + leaned back against the door, and hung his head dejectedly. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you so thoughtful about?’ his master asked him genially, but + with some inward trepidation. + </p> + <p> + ‘What am I thinking about?’ retorted Onisim; ‘what am I thinking about? + ... it’s always about you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘About me!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course it’s about you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what is it you are thinking?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, this is what I’m thinking.’ (Here Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) + ‘You ought to be ashamed, sir—you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ashamed?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, ashamed.... Look at Mr. Bublitsyn, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Tell me if + he’s not a fine fellow, now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I don’t understand you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t understand me.... Oh yes, you do understand me.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim paused. + </p> + <p> + ‘Mr. Bublitsyn’s a real gentleman—what a gentleman ought to be. But + what are you, Ivan Afanasiitch, what are you? Tell me that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, I’m a gentleman too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A gentleman, indeed!’ ... retorted Onisim, growing indignant. ‘A pretty + gentleman you are! You’re no better, sir, than a hen in a shower of rain, + Ivan Afanasiitch, let me tell you. Here you sit sticking at home the whole + blessed day ... much good it does you, sitting at home like that! You + don’t play cards, you don’t go and see the gentry, and as for ... well + ...’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim waved his hand expressively. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now, come ... you really go ... too far ...’ Ivan Afanasiitch said + hesitatingly, clutching his pipe. + </p> + <p> + ‘Too far, indeed, Ivan Afanasiitch, too far, you say! Judge for yourself. + Here again, with Vassilissa ... why couldn’t you ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what are you thinking about, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov interrupted + miserably. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know what I’m thinking about. But there—I’d better let you alone! + What can you do? Only fancy ... there you ...’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘There, there, if you please, you hold your tongue,’ he said quickly, + seeming to be searching for Onisim with his eyes; ‘I shall really, you + know ... I ... what do you mean by it, really? You’d better help me + dress.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim slowly drew off Ivan Afanasiitch’s greasy Tartar dressing-gown, + gazed with fatherly commiseration at his master, shook his head, put him + on his coat, and fell to beating him about the back with a brush. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov went out, and after a not very protracted stroll about the + crooked streets of the town, found himself facing the baker’s shop. A + queer smile was playing about his lips. + </p> + <p> + He had hardly time to look twice at the too well-known ‘establishment,’ + when suddenly the little gate opened, and Vassilissa ran out with a yellow + kerchief on her head and a jacket flung after the Russian fashion on her + shoulders. Ivan Afanasiitch at once overtook her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where are you going, my dear?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa glanced swiftly at him, laughed, turned away, and put her hand + over her lips. + </p> + <p> + ‘Going shopping, I suppose?’ queried Ivan Afanasiitch, fidgeting with his + feet. + </p> + <p> + ‘How inquisitive we are!’ retorted Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why inquisitive?’ said Pyetushkov, hurriedly gesticulating with his + hands. ‘Quite the contrary.... Oh yes, you know,’ he added hastily, as + though these last words completely conveyed his meaning. + </p> + <p> + ‘Did you eat my roll?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure I did,’ replied Pyetushkov: ‘with special enjoyment.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa continued to walk on and to laugh. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s pleasant weather to-day,’ pursued Ivan Afanasiitch: ‘do you often go + out walking?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, how I should like....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What say?’ + </p> + <p> + The girls in our district utter those words in a very queer way, with a + peculiar sharpness and rapidity.... Partridges call at sunset with just + that sound. + </p> + <p> + ‘To go out walking, don’t you know, with you ... into the country, or ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How can you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why not?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, upon my word, how you do go on!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But allow me....’ + </p> + <p> + At this point they were overtaken by a dapper little shopman, with a + little goat’s beard, and with his fingers held apart like antlers, so as + to keep his sleeves from slipping over his hands, in a long-skirted bluish + coat, and a warm cap that resembled a bloated water-melon. Pyetushkov, for + propriety’s sake, fell back a little behind Vassilissa, but quickly came + up with her again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then, what about our walk?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa looked slily at him and giggled again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you belong to these parts?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa passed her hand over her hair and walked a little more slowly. + Ivan Afanasiitch smiled, and, his heart inwardly sinking with timidity, he + stooped a little on one side and put a trembling arm about the beauty’s + waist. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa uttered a shriek. + </p> + <p> + ‘Give over, do, for shame, in the street.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come now, there, there,’ muttered Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <p> + ‘Give over, I tell you, in the street.... Don’t be rude.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A ... a ... ah, what a girl you are!’ said Pyetushkov reproachfully, + while he blushed up to his ears. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa stood still. + </p> + <p> + ‘Now go along with you, sir—go along, do.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov obeyed. He got home, and sat for a whole hour without moving + from his chair, without even smoking his pipe. At last he took out a sheet + of greyish paper, mended a pen, and after long deliberation wrote the + following letter. + </p> + <p> + ‘DEAR MADAM, VASSILISSA TIMOFYEVNA!—Being naturally a most + inoffensive person, how could I have occasioned you annoyance? If I have + really been to blame in my conduct to you, then I must tell you: the hints + of Mr. Bublitsyn were responsible for this, which was what I never + expected. Anyway, I must humbly beg you not to be angry with me. I am a + sensitive man, and any kindness I am most sensible of and grateful for. Do + not be angry with me, Vassilissa Timofyevna, I beg you most humbly.—I + remain respectfully your obedient servant, + </p> + <h3> + IVAN PYETUSHKOV.’ + </h3> + <p> + Onisim carried this letter to its address. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0038" id="link2H_4_0038"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III + </h2> + <p> + A fortnight passed. Onisim went every morning as usual to the baker’s + shop. One day Vassilissa ran out to meet him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good morning, Onisim Sergeitch.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim put on a gloomy expression, and responded crossly, ‘’Morning.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How is it you never come to see us, Onisim Sergeitch?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim glanced morosely at her. + </p> + <p> + ‘What should I come for? you wouldn’t give me a cup of tea, no fear.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I would, Onisim Sergeitch, I would. You come and see. Rum in it, + too.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim slowly relaxed into a smile. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I don’t mind if I do, then.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When, then—when?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘When ... well, you are ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To-day—this evening, if you like. Drop in. + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, I’ll come along,’ replied Onisim, and he sauntered home with + his slow, rolling step. + </p> + <p> + The same evening in a little room, beside a bed covered with a striped + eider-down, Onisim was sitting at a clumsy little table, facing + Vassilissa. A huge, dingy yellow samovar was hissing and bubbling on the + table; a pot of geranium stood in the window; in the other corner near the + door there stood aslant an ugly chest with a tiny hanging lock; on the + chest lay a shapeless heap of all sorts of old rags; on the walls were + black, greasy prints. Onisim and Vassilissa drank their tea in silence, + looking straight at each other, turning the lumps of sugar over and over + in their hands, as it were reluctantly nibbling them, blinking, screwing + up their eyes, and with a hissing sound sucking in the yellowish boiling + liquid through their teeth. At last they had emptied the whole samovar, + turned upside down the round cups—one with the inscription, ‘Take + your fill’; the other with the words, ‘Cupid’s dart hath pierced my heart’—then + they cleared their throats, wiped their perspiring brows, and gradually + dropped into conversation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Onisim Sergeitch, how about your master ...’ began Vassilissa, and did + not finish her sentence. + </p> + <p> + ‘What about my master?’ replied Onisim, and he leaned on his hand. ‘He’s + all right. But why do you ask?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I only asked,’ answered Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘But I say’—(here Onisim grinned)—‘I say, he wrote you a + letter, didn’t he?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, he did.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim shook his head with an extraordinarily self-satisfied air. + </p> + <p> + ‘So he did, did he?’ he said huskily, with a smile. ‘Well, and what did he + say in his letter to you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, all sorts of things. “I didn’t mean anything, Madam, Vassilissa + Timofyevna,” says he, “don’t you think anything of it; don’t you be + offended, madam,” and a lot more like that he wrote.... But I say,’ she + added after a brief silence: ‘what’s he like?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s all right,’ Onisim responded indifferently. + </p> + <p> + ‘Does he get angry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He get angry! Not he. Why, do you like him?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa looked down and giggled in her sleeve. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come,’ grumbled Onisim. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, what’s that to you, Onisim Sergeitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, come, I tell you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ Vassilissa brought out at last, ‘he’s ... a gentleman. Of course + ... I ... and besides; he ... you know yourself ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I do,’ Onisim observed solemnly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course you’re aware, to be sure, Onisim Sergeitch.’ ... Vassilissa was + obviously becoming agitated. + </p> + <p> + ‘You tell him, your master, that I’m ...; say, not angry with him, but + that ...’ + </p> + <p> + She stammered. + </p> + <p> + ‘We understand,’ responded Onisim, and he got up from his seat. ‘We + understand. Thanks for the entertainment.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come in again some day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, all right.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim approached the door. The fat woman came into the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good evening to you, Onisim Sergeitch,’ she said in a peculiar chant. + </p> + <p> + ‘Good evening to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,’ he said in the same sing-song. + </p> + <p> + Both stood still for a little while facing each other. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna,’ Onisim chanted out again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, good day to you, Onisim Sergeitch,’ she responded in the same + sing-song. + </p> + <p> + Onisim arrived home. His master was lying on his bed, gazing at the + ceiling. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you been?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have I been?’ ... (Onisim had the habit of repeating reproachfully + the last words of every question.) ‘I’ve been about your business.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What business?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, don’t you know? ... I’ve been to see Vassilissa.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov blinked and turned over on his bed. + </p> + <p> + ‘So that’s how it is,’ observed Onisim, and he coolly took a pinch of + snuff. ‘So that’s how it is. You’re always like that. Vassilissa sends you + her duty.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really? So that’s all about it. Really! ... She told me to say, Why is + it, says she, one never sees him? Why is it, says she, he never comes?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and what did you say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did I say? I told her: You’re a silly girl—I told her—as + if folks like that are coming to see you! No, you come yourself, I told + her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and what did she say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What did she say? ... She said nothing.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That is, how do you mean, nothing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, nothing, to be sure.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov said nothing for a little while. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and is she coming?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim shook his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘She coming! You’re in too great a hurry, sir. She coming, indeed! No, you + go too fast.’ ... + </p> + <p> + ‘But you said yourself that ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, well, it’s easy to talk.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was silent again. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, but how’s it to be, then, my lad?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How? ... You ought to know best; you ‘re a gentleman.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nonsense! come now!’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim swayed complacently backwards and forwards. + </p> + <p> + ‘Do you know Praskovia Ivanovna?’ he asked at last. + </p> + <p> + ‘No. What Praskovia Ivanovna?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, the baker woman!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh yes, the baker woman. I’ve seen her; she’s very fat.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s a worthy woman. She’s own aunt to the other, to your girl.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Aunt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, didn’t you know?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I didn’t know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well ...’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim was restrained by respect for his master from giving full + expression to his feelings. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s whom it is you should make friends with.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, I’ve no objection.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked approvingly at Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <p> + ‘But with what object precisely am I to make friends with her?’ inquired + Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘What for, indeed!’ answered Onisim serenely. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch got up, paced up and down the room, stood still before + the window, and without turning his head, with some hesitation he + articulated: + </p> + <p> + ‘Onisim!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Won’t it be, you know, a little awkward for me with the old woman, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that’s as you like.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, well, I only thought it might, perhaps. My comrades might notice it; + it’s a little ... But I’ll think it over. Give me my pipe.... So she,’ he + went on after a short silence—Vassilissa, I mean, says then ...’ + </p> + <p> + But Onisim had no desire to continue the conversation, and he assumed his + habitual morose expression. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0039" id="link2H_4_0039"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV + </h2> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch’s acquaintance with Praskovia Ivanovna began in the + following manner. Five days after his conversation with Onisim, Pyetushkov + set off in the evening to the baker’s shop. ‘Well,’ thought he, as he + unlatched the creaking gate, ‘I don’t know how it’s to be.’ ... + </p> + <p> + He mounted the steps, opened the door. A huge, crested hen rushed, with a + deafening cackle, straight under his feet, and long after was still + running about the yard in wild excitement. From a room close by peeped the + astonished countenance of the fat woman. Ivan Afanasiitch smiled and + nodded. The fat woman bowed to him. Tightly grasping his hat, Pyetushkov + approached her. Praskovia Ivanovna was apparently anticipating an honoured + guest; her dress was fastened up at every hook. Pyetushkov sat down on a + chair; Praskovia Ivanovna seated herself opposite him. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have come to you, Praskovia Ivanovna, more on account of....’ Ivan + Afanasiitch began at last—and then ceased. His lips were twitching + spasmodically. + </p> + <p> + ‘You are kindly welcome, sir,’ responded Praskovia Ivanovna in the proper + sing-song, and with a bow. ‘Always delighted to see a guest.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov took courage a little. + </p> + <p> + ‘I have long wished, you know, to have the pleasure of making your + acquaintance, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Much obliged to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + Followed a silence. Praskovia Ivanovna wiped her face with a + parti-coloured handkerchief; Ivan Afanasiitch continued with intense + attention to gaze away to one side. Both were rather uncomfortable. But in + merchant and petty shopkeeper society, where even old friends never step + outside special angular forms of etiquette, a certain constraint in the + behaviour of guests and host to one another not only strikes no one as + strange, but, on the contrary, is regarded as perfectly correct and + indispensable, particularly on a first visit. Praskovia Ivanovna was + agreeably impressed by Pyetushkov. He was formal and decorous in his + manners, and moreover, wasn’t he a man of some rank, too? + </p> + <p> + ‘Praskovia Ivanovna, ma’am, I like your rolls very much,’ he said to her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Really now, really now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very good they are, you know, very, indeed.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘May they do you good, sir, may they do you good. Delighted, to be sure.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve never eaten any like them in Moscow.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You don’t say so now, you don’t say so.’ + </p> + <p> + Again a silence followed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna,’ began Ivan Afanasiitch; ‘that’s your niece, + I fancy, isn’t it, living with you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘My own niece, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How comes it ... she’s with you?’.... + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s an orphan, so I keep her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And is she a good worker?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Such a girl to work ... such a girl, sir ... ay ... ay ... to be sure she + is.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch thought it discreet not to pursue the subject of the + niece further. + </p> + <p> + ‘What bird is that you have in the cage, Praskovia Ivanovna?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God knows. A bird of some sort.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘H’m! Well, so, good day to you, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A very good day to your honour. Pray walk in another time, and take a cup + of tea.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘With the greatest pleasure, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov walked out. On the steps he met Vassilissa. She giggled. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where are you going, my darling?’ said Pyetushkov with reckless daring. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, give over, do, you are a one for joking.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He, he! And did you get my letter?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa hid the lower part of her face in her sleeve and made no + answer. + </p> + <p> + ‘And you’re not angry with me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa!’ came the jarring voice of the aunt; ‘hey, Vassilissa!’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa ran into the house. Pyetushkov returned home. But from that day + he began going often to the baker’s shop, and his visits were not for + nothing. Ivan Afanasiitch’s hopes, to use the lofty phraseology suitable, + were crowned with success. Usually, the attainment of the goal has a + cooling effect on people, but Pyetushkov, on the contrary, grew every day + more and more ardent. Love is a thing of accident, it exists in itself, + like art, and, like nature, needs no reasons to justify it, as some clever + man has said who never loved, himself, but made excellent observations + upon love. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov became passionately attached to Vassilissa. He was completely + happy. His soul was aglow with bliss. Little by little he carried all his + belongings, at any rate all his pipes, to Praskovia Ivanovna’s, and for + whole days together he sat in her back room. Praskovia Ivanovna charged + him something for his dinner and drank his tea, consequently she did not + complain of his presence. Vassilissa had grown used to him. She would + work, sing, or spin before him, sometimes exchanging a couple of words + with him; Pyetushkov watched her, smoked his pipe, swayed to and fro in + his chair, laughed, and in leisure hours played ‘Fools’ with her and + Praskovia Ivanovna. Ivan Afanasiitch was happy.... + </p> + <p> + But in this world nothing is perfect, and, small as a man’s requirements + may be, destiny never quite fulfils them, and positively spoils the whole + thing, if possible.... The spoonful of pitch is sure to find its way into + the barrel of honey! Ivan Afanasiitch experienced this in his case. + </p> + <p> + In the first place, from the time of his establishing himself at + Vassilissa’s, Pyetushkov dropped more than ever out of all intercourse + with his comrades. He saw them only when absolutely necessary, and then, + to avoid allusions and jeers (in which, however, he was not always + successful), he put on the desperately sullen and intensely scared look of + a hare in a display of fireworks. + </p> + <p> + Secondly, Onisim gave him no peace; he had lost every trace of respect for + him, he mercilessly persecuted him, put him to shame. + </p> + <p> + And ... thirdly.... Alas! read further, kindly reader. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0040" id="link2H_4_0040"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V + </h2> + <p> + One day Pyetushkov (who for the reasons given above found little comfort + outside Praskovia Ivanovna’s doors) was sitting in Vassilissa’s room at + the back, and was busying himself over some home-brewed concoction, + something in the way of jam or syrup. The mistress of the house was not at + home. Vassilissa was sitting in the shop singing. + </p> + <p> + There came a knock at the little pane. Vassilissa got up, went to the + window, uttered a little shriek, giggled, and began whispering with some + one. On going back to her place, she sighed, and then fell to singing + louder than ever. + </p> + <p> + ‘Who was that you were talking to?’ Pyetushkov asked her. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa went on singing carelessly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, do you hear? Vassilissa!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What do you want?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whom were you talking to?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s that to you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I only asked.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov came out of the back room in a parti-coloured smoking-jacket + with tucked-up sleeves, and a strainer in his hand. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, a friend of mine,’ answered Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘What friend?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, Piotr Petrovitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Piotr Petrovitch? ... what Piotr Petrovitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He’s one of your lot. He’s got such a difficult name.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Bublitsyn?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, yes ... Piotr Petrovitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And do you know him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Rather!’ responded Vassilissa, with a wag of her head. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov, without a word, paced ten times up and down the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘I say, Vassilissa,’ he said at last, ‘that is, how do you know him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How do I know him? ... I know him ... He’s such a nice gentleman.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How do you mean nice, though? how nice? how nice?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa gazed at Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <p> + ‘Nice,’ she said slowly and in perplexity. ‘You know what I mean.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov bit his lips and began again pacing the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘What were you talking about with him, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa smiled and looked down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Speak, speak, speak, I tell you, speak!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How cross you are to-day!’ observed Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was silent. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come now, Vassilissa,’ he began at last; ‘no, I won’t be cross.... Come, + tell me, what were you talking about?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa laughed. + </p> + <p> + ‘He is a one to joke, really, that Piotr Petrovitch!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, what did he say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He is a fellow!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was silent again for a little. + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, you love me, don’t you?’ he asked her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, so that’s what you’re after, too!’ + </p> + <p> + Poor Pyetushkov felt a pang at his heart. Praskovia Ivanovna came in. They + sat down to dinner. After dinner Praskovia Ivanovna betook herself to the + shelf bed. Ivan Afanasiitch himself lay down on the stove, turned over and + dropped asleep. A cautious creak waked him. Ivan Afanasiitch sat up, + leaned on his elbow, looked: the door was open. He jumped up—no + Vassilissa. He ran into the yard—she was not in the yard; into the + street, looked up and down—Vassilissa was nowhere to be seen. He ran + without his cap as far as the market—no, Vassilissa was not in + sight. Slowly he returned to the baker’s shop, clambered on to the stove, + and turned with his face to the wall. He felt miserable. Bublitsyn ... + Bublitsyn ... the name was positively ringing in his ears. + </p> + <p> + ‘What’s the matter, my good sir?’ Praskovia Ivanovna asked him in a drowsy + voice. ‘Why are you groaning?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing, ma’am. Nothing. I feel a weight oppressing me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s the mushrooms,’ murmured Praskovia Ivanovna—‘it’s all those + mushrooms.’ + </p> + <p> + O Lord, have mercy on us sinners! + </p> + <p> + An hour passed, a second—still no Vassilissa. Twenty times + Pyetushkov was on the point of getting up, and twenty times he huddled + miserably under the sheepskin.... At last he really did get down from the + stove and determined to go home, and positively went out into the yard, + but came back. Praskovia Ivanovna got up. The hired man, Luka, black as a + beetle, though he was a baker, put the bread into the oven. Pyetushkov + went again out on to the steps and pondered. The goat that lived in the + yard went up to him, and gave him a little friendly poke with his horns. + Pyetushkov looked at him, and for some unknown reason said ‘Kss, Kss.’ + Suddenly the low wicket-gate slowly opened and Vassilissa appeared. Ivan + Afanasiitch went straight to meet her, took her by the hand, and rather + coolly, but resolutely, said to her: + </p> + <p> + ‘Come along with me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But, excuse me, Ivan Afanasiitch ... I ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come with me,’ he repeated. + </p> + <p> + She obeyed. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov led her to his lodgings. Onisim, as usual, was lying at full + length asleep. Ivan Afanasiitch waked him, told him to light a candle. + Vassilissa went to the window and sat down in silence. While Onisim was + busy getting a light in the anteroom, Pyetushkov stood motionless at the + other window, staring into the street. Onisim came in, with the candle in + his hands, was beginning to grumble ... Ivan Afanasiitch turned quickly + round: ‘Go along,’ he said to him. + </p> + <p> + Onisim stood still in the middle of the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Go away at once,’ Pyetushkov repeated threateningly. + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked at his master and went out. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch shouted after him: + </p> + <p> + ‘Away, quite away. Out of the house. You can come back in two hours’ + time.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim slouched off. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov waited till he heard the gate bang, and at once went up to + Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you been?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa was confused. + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you been? I tell you,’ he repeated. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa looked round ... + </p> + <p> + ‘I am speaking to you ... where have you been?’ And Pyetushkov raised his + arm ... + </p> + <p> + ‘Don’t beat me, Ivan Afanasiitch, don’t beat me,’ Vassilissa whispered in + terror. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned away. + </p> + <p> + ‘Beat you ... No! I’m not going to beat you. Beat you? I beg your pardon, + my darling. God bless you! While I supposed you loved me, while I ... I + ... ‘ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch broke off. He gasped for breath. + </p> + <p> + ‘Listen, Vassilissa,’ he said at last. ‘You know I’m a kind-hearted man, + you know it, don’t you, Vassilissa, don’t you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I do,’ she said faltering. + </p> + <p> + ‘I do nobody any harm, nobody, nobody in the world. And I deceive nobody. + Why are you deceiving me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I’m not deceiving you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You aren’t deceiving me? Oh, very well! Oh, very well! Then tell me where + you’ve been.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I went to see Matrona.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s a lie!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, I’ve been at Matrona’s. You ask her, if you don’t believe me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And Bub—what’s his name ... have you seen that devil?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I did see him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You did see him! you did see him! Oh! you did see him!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned pale. + </p> + <p> + ‘So you were making an appointment with him in the morning at the window—eh? + eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘He asked me to come.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And so you went.... Thanks very much, my girl, thanks very much!’ + Pyetushkov made Vassilissa a low bow. + </p> + <p> + ‘But, Ivan Afanasiitch, you’re maybe fancying ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You’d better not talk to me! And a pretty fool I am! There’s nothing to + make an outcry for! You may make friends with any one you like. I’ve + nothing to do with you. So there! I don’t want to know you even.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa got up. + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s for you to say, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where are you going?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, you yourself ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m not sending you away,’ Pyetushkov interrupted her. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch.... What’s the use of my stopping here?’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov let her get as far as the door. + </p> + <p> + ‘So you’re going, Vassilissa?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You keep on abusing me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I abuse you! You’ve no fear of God, Vassilissa! When have I abused you? + Come, come, say when?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why! Just this minute weren’t you all but beating me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, it’s wicked of you. Really, it’s downright wicked.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And then you threw it in my face, that you don’t want to know me. “I’m a + gentleman,” say you.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch began wringing his hands speechlessly. Vassilissa got + back as far as the middle of the room. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch. I’ll keep myself to myself, and + you keep yourself to yourself.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense, Vassilissa, nonsense,’ Pyetushkov cut her short. ‘You think + again; look at me. You see I’m not myself. You see I don’t know what I’m + saying.... You might have some feeling for me.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You keep on abusing me, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Vassilissa! Let bygones be bygones. Isn’t that right? Come, you’re + not angry with me, are you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You keep abusing me,’ Vassilissa repeated. + </p> + <p> + ‘I won’t, my love, I won’t. Forgive an old man like me. I’ll never do it + in future. Come, you’ve forgiven me, eh?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God be with you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, laugh then, laugh.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa turned away. + </p> + <p> + ‘You laughed, you laughed, my love!’ cried Pyetushkov, and he capered + about like a child. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI + </h2> + <p> + The next day Pyetushkov went to the baker’s shop as usual. Everything went + on as before. But there was a settled ache at his heart. He did not laugh + now as often, and sometimes he fell to musing. Sunday came. Praskovia + Ivanovna had an attack of lumbago; she did not get down from the shelf + bed, except with much difficulty to go to mass. After mass Pyetushkov + called Vassilissa into the back room. She had been complaining all the + morning of feeling dull. To judge by the expression of Ivan Afanasiitch’s + countenance, he was revolving in his brain some extraordinary idea, + unforeseen even by him. + </p> + <p> + ‘You sit down here, Vassilissa,’ he said to her, ‘and I’ll sit here. I + want to have a little talk with you.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa sat down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, Vassilissa, can you write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I can’t.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What about reading?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I can’t read either.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Then who read you my letter?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The deacon.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov paused. + </p> + <p> + ‘But would you like to learn to read and write?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what use would reading and writing be to us, Ivan Afanasiitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What use? You could read books.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what good is there in books?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘All sorts of good ... I tell you what, if you like, I’ll bring you a + book.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But I can’t read, you see, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll read to you.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But, I say, won’t it be dull?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nonsense! dull! On the contrary, it’s the best thing to get rid of + dulness.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Maybe you’ll read stories, then.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You shall see to-morrow.’ + </p> + <p> + In the evening Pyetushkov returned home, and began rummaging in his boxes. + He found several odd numbers of the Library of Good Reading, five grey + Moscow novels, Nazarov’s arithmetic, a child’s geography with a globe on + the title-page, the second part of Keydanov’s history, two dream-books, an + almanack for the year 1819, two numbers of Galatea, Kozlov’s <i>Natalia + Dolgorukaia</i>, and the first part of <i>Roslavlev</i>. He pondered a + long while which to choose, and finally made up his mind to take Kozlov’s + poem, and <i>Roslavlev</i>. + </p> + <p> + Next day Pyetushkov dressed in haste, put both the books under the lapel + of his coat, went to the baker’s shop, and began reading aloud Zagoskin’s + novel. Vassilissa sat without moving; at first she smiled, then seemed to + become absorbed in thought ... then she bent a little forward; her eyes + closed, her mouth slightly opened, her hands fell on her knees; she was + dozing. Pyetushkov read quickly, inarticulately, in a thick voice; he + raised his eyes ... + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, are you asleep?’ + </p> + <p> + She started, rubbed her face, and stretched. Pyetushkov felt angry with + her and with himself.... + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s dull,’ said Vassilissa lazily. + </p> + <p> + ‘I tell you what, would you like me to read you poetry?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What say?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Poetry ... good poetry.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, that’s enough, really.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov hurriedly picked up Kozlov’s poem, jumped up, crossed the room, + ran impulsively up to Vassilissa, and began reading. Vassilissa let her + head drop backwards, spread out her hands, stared into Ivan Afanasiitch’s + face, and suddenly went off into a loud harsh guffaw ... she fairly rolled + about with laughing. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch flung the book on the floor in his annoyance. Vassilissa + went on laughing. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what are you laughing at, silly?’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa roared more than ever. + </p> + <p> + ‘Laugh away, laugh away,’ Pyetushkov muttered between his teeth. + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa held her sides, gasping. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what is it, idiot?’ But Vassilissa could only wave her hands. + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch snatched up his cap, and ran out of the house. With + rapid, unsteady steps, he walked about the town, walked on and on, and + found himself at the city gates. Suddenly there was the rattle of wheels, + the tramp of horses along the street.... Some one called him by name. He + raised his head and saw a big, old-fashioned wagonette. In the wagonette + facing him sat Mr. Bublitsyn between two young ladies, the daughters of + Mr. Tiutiurov. Both the girls were dressed exactly alike, as though in + outward sign of their immutable affection; both smiled pensively, and + carried their heads on one side with a languid grace. On the other side of + the carriage appeared the wide straw hat of their excellent papa; and from + time to time his round, plump neck presented itself to the gaze of + spectators. Beside his straw hat rose the mob-cap of his spouse. The very + attitude of both the parents was a sufficient proof of their sincere + goodwill towards the young man and their confidence in him. And Bublitsyn + obviously was aware of their flattering confidence and appreciated it. He + was, of course, sitting in an unconstrained position, and talking and + laughing without constraint; but in the very freedom of his manner there + could be discerned a shade of tender, touching respectfulness. And the + Tiutiurov girls? It is hard to convey in words all that an attentive + observer could trace in the faces of the two sisters. Goodwill and + gentleness, and discreet gaiety, a melancholy comprehension of life, and a + faith, not to be shaken, in themselves, in the lofty and noble destiny of + man on earth, courteous attention to their young companion, in + intellectual endowments perhaps not fully their equal, but still by the + qualities of his heart quite deserving of their indulgence ... such were + the characteristics and the feelings reflected at that moment on the faces + of the young ladies. Bublitsyn called to Ivan Afanasiitch for no special + reason, simply in the fulness of his inner satisfaction; he bowed to him + with excessive friendliness and cordiality. The young ladies even looked + at him with gentle amiability, as at a man whose acquaintance they would + not object to.... The good, sleek, quiet horses went by Ivan Afanasiitch + at a gentle trot; the carriage rolled smoothly along the broad road, + carrying with it good-humoured, girlish laughter; he caught a final + glimpse of Mr. Tiutiurov’s hat; the two outer horses turned their heads on + each side, jauntily stepping over the short, green grass ... the coachman + gave a whistle of approbation and warning, the carriage disappeared behind + some willows. + </p> + <p> + A long while poor Pyetushkov remained standing still. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m a poor lonely creature,’ he whispered at last ... ‘alone in the + world.’ + </p> + <p> + A little boy in tatters stopped before him, looked timidly at him, held + out his hand ... + </p> + <p> + ‘For Christ’s sake, good gentleman.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov pulled out a copper. + </p> + <p> + ‘For your loneliness, poor orphan,’ he said with effort, and he walked + back to the baker’s shop. On the threshold of Vassilissa’s room Ivan + Afanasiitch stopped. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘these are my friends. Here is my family, this is + it.... And here Bublitsyn and there Bublitsyn.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa was sitting with her back to him, winding worsted, and + carelessly singing to herself; she was wearing a striped cotton gown; her + hair was done up anyhow.... The room, insufferably hot, smelt of feather + beds and old rags; jaunty, reddish-brown ‘Prussians’ scurried rapidly here + and there across the walls; on the decrepit chest of drawers, with holes + in it where the locks should have been, beside a broken jar, lay a woman’s + shabby slipper.... Kozlov’s poem was still where it had fallen on the + floor.... Pyetushkov shook his head, folded his arms, and went away. He + was hurt. + </p> + <p> + At home he called for his things to dress. Onisim slouched off after his + better coat. Pyetushkov had a great desire to draw Onisim into + conversation, but Onisim preserved a sullen silence. At last Ivan + Afanasiitch could hold out no longer. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why don’t you ask me where I’m going?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what do I want to know where you’re going for?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What for? Why, suppose some one comes on urgent business, and asks, + “Where’s Ivan Afanasiitch?” And then you can tell him, “Ivan Afanasiitch + has gone here or there.”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Urgent business.... But who ever does come to you on urgent business?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, are you beginning to be rude again? Again, hey?’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim turned away, and fell to brushing the coat. + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, Onisim, you are a most disagreeable person.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked up from under his brows at his master. + </p> + <p> + ‘And you ‘re always like this. Yes, positively always.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim smiled. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what’s the good of my asking you where you’re going, Ivan + Afanasiitch? As though I didn’t know! To the girl at the baker’s shop!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There, that’s just where you’re wrong! that’s just where you’re mistaken! + Not to her at all. I don’t intend going to see the girl at the baker’s + shop any more.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim dropped his eyelids and brandished the brush. Pyetushkov waited for + his approbation; but his servant remained speechless. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not the proper thing,’ Pyetushkov went on in a severe voice—‘it’s + unseemly.... Come, tell me what you think?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What am I to think? It’s for you to say. What business have I to think?’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov put on his coat. ‘He doesn’t believe me, the beast,’ he thought + to himself. + </p> + <p> + He went out of the house, but he did not go to see any one. He walked + about the streets. He directed his attention to the sunset. At last a + little after eight o’clock he returned home. He wore a smile; he + repeatedly shrugged his shoulders, as though marvelling at his own folly. + ‘Yes,’ thought he, ‘this is what comes of a strong will....’ + </p> + <p> + Next day Pyetushkov got up rather late. He had not passed a very good + night, did not go out all day, and was fearfully bored. Pyetushkov read + through all his poor books, and praised aloud one story in the Library of + Good Reading. As he went to bed, he told Onisim to give him his pipe. + Onisim handed him a wretched pipe. Pyetushkov began smoking; the pipe + wheezed like a broken-winded horse. + </p> + <p> + ‘How disgusting!’ cried Ivan Afanasiitch; ‘where’s my cherry wood pipe?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘At the baker’s shop,’ Onisim responded tranquilly. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov blinked spasmodically. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, you wish me to go for it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, you needn’t; don’t go ... no need, don’t go, do you hear?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + The night passed somehow. In the morning Onisim, as usual, gave Pyetushkov + on the blue sprigged plate a new white roll. Ivan Afanasiitch looked out + of window and asked Onisim: + </p> + <p> + ‘You’ve been to the baker’s shop?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Who’s to go, if I don’t?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov became plunged in meditation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, please, did you see any one there?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course I did.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Whom did you see there, now, for instance?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, of course, Vassilissa.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch was silent. Onisim cleared the table, and was just going + out of the room.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Onisim,’ Pyetushkov cried faintly. + </p> + <p> + ‘What is it?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Er ... did she ask after me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Of course she didn’t.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov set his teeth. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘that’s all it’s worth, her + love, indeed....’ His head dropped. ‘Absurd I was, to be sure,’ he thought + again. ‘A fine idea to read her poetry. A girl like that! Why, she’s a + fool! Why, she’s good for nothing but to lie on the stove and eat + pancakes. Why, she’s a post, a perfect post; an uneducated workgirl.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She’s never come,’ he whispered, two hours later, still sitting in the + same place, ‘she’s never come. To think of it; why, she could see that I + left her out of temper; why, she might know that I was hurt. There’s love + for you! And she did not even ask if I were well. Never even said, “Is + Ivan Afanasiitch quite well?” She hasn’t seen me for two whole days—and + not a sign.... She’s even again, maybe, thought fit to meet that Bub—Lucky + fellow. Ouf, devil take it, what a fool I am!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov got up, paced up and down the room in silence, stood still, + knitted his brows slightly and scratched his neck. ‘However,’ he said + aloud, ‘I’ll go to see her. I must see what she’s about there. I must make + her feel ashamed. Most certainly ... I’ll go. Onisim! my clothes.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well,’ he mused as he dressed, ‘we shall see what comes of it. She may, I + dare say, be angry with me. And after all, a man keeps coming and coming, + and all of a sudden, for no rhyme or reason, goes and gives up coming. + Well, we shall see.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch went out of the house, and made his way to the baker’s + shop. He stopped at the little gate, he wanted to straighten himself out + and set himself to rights.... Pyetushkov clutched at the folds of his coat + with both hands, and almost pulled them out altogether.... Convulsively he + twisted his tightly compressed neck, fastened the top hook of his collar, + drew a deep breath.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Why are you standing there?’ Praskovia Ivanovna bawled to him from the + little window. ‘Come in.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov started, and went in. Praskovia Ivanovna met him in the + doorway. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why didn’t you come to see us yesterday, my good sir? Was it, maybe, some + ailment prevented you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, I had something of a headache yesterday....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, you should have put cucumber on your temples, my good sir. It would + have taken it away in a twinkling. Is your head aching now?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, it’s not.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah well, and thank Thee, O Lord, for it.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch went off into the back room. Vassilissa saw him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah! good day, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good day, Vassilissa Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Where have you put the tap, Ivan Afanasiitch?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Tap? what tap?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The wine-tap ... our tap. You must have taken it home with you. You are + such a one ... Lord, forgive us....’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov put on a dignified and chilly air. + </p> + <p> + ‘I will direct my man to look. Seeing that I was not here yesterday,’ he + pronounced significantly.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, why, to be sure, you weren’t here yesterday.’ Vassilissa squatted + down on her heels, and began rummaging in the chest.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Aunt, hi! aunt!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What sa-ay?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Have you taken my neckerchief?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What neckerchief?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, the yellow one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘The yellow one?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes, the yellow, figured one.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’ve not taken it.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov bent down to Vassilissa. + </p> + <p> + ‘Listen to me, Vassilissa; listen to what I am saying to you. It is not a + matter of taps or of neckerchiefs just now; you can attend to such trifles + another time.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa did not budge from her position; she only lifted her head. + </p> + <p> + ‘You just tell me, on your conscience, do you love me or not? That’s what + I want to know, once for all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, what a one you are, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Well, then, of course.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If you love me, how was it you didn’t come to see me yesterday? Had you + no time? Well, you might have sent to find out if I were ill, as I didn’t + turn up. But it’s little you cared. I might die, I dare say, you wouldn’t + grieve.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, one can’t be always thinking of one thing, one’s + got one’s work to do.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure,’ responded Pyetushkov; ‘but all the same ... And it’s + improper to laugh at your elders.... It’s not right. Moreover, it’s as + well in certain cases ... But where’s my pipe?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Here’s your pipe.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov began smoking. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0042" id="link2H_4_0042"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VII + </h2> + <p> + Several days slipped by again, apparently rather tranquilly. But a storm + was getting nearer. Pyetushkov suffered tortures, was jealous, never took + his eyes off Vassilissa, kept an alarmed watch over her, annoyed her + horribly. Behold, one evening, Vassilissa dressed herself with more care + than usual, and, seizing a favourable instant, sallied off to make a visit + somewhere. Night came on, she had not returned. Pyetushkov at sunset went + home to his lodgings, and at eight o’clock in the morning ran to the + baker’s shop.... Vassilissa had not come in. With an inexpressible sinking + at his heart, he waited for her right up to dinner-time.... They sat down + to the table without her.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Whatever can have become of her?’ Praskovia Ivanovna observed + serenely.... + </p> + <p> + ‘You spoil her, you simply spoil her utterly!’ Pyetushkov repeated, in + despair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eh! my good sir, there’s no looking after a girl!’ responded Praskovia + Ivanovna. ‘Let her go her way! So long as she does her work.... Why + shouldn’t folks enjoy themselves? ...’ + </p> + <p> + A cold shudder ran over Pyetushkov. At last, towards evening, Vassilissa + made her appearance. This was all he was waiting for. Majestically + Pyetushkov rose from his seat, folded his arms, scowled menacingly.... But + Vassilissa looked him boldly in the face, laughed impudently, and before + he could utter a single word she went quickly into her own room, and + locked herself in. Ivan Afanasiitch opened his mouth, looked in amazement + at Praskovia Ivanovna.... Praskovia Ivanovna cast down her eyes. Ivan + Afanasiitch stood still a moment, groped after his cap, put it on askew, + and went out without closing his mouth. + </p> + <p> + He reached home, took up a leather cushion, and with it flung himself on + the sofa, with his face to the wall. Onisim looked in out of the passage, + went into the room, leaned his back against the door, took a pinch of + snuff, and crossed his legs. + </p> + <p> + ‘Are you unwell, Ivan Afanasiitch?’ he asked Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov made no answer. + </p> + <p> + ‘Shall I go for the doctor?’ Onisim continued, after a brief pause. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m quite well.... Go away,’ Ivan Afanasiitch articulated huskily. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well? ... no, you’re not well, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Is this what you call + being well?’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov did not speak. + </p> + <p> + ‘Just look at yourself. You’ve grown so thin, that you’re simply not like + yourself. And what’s it all about? It’s enough to turn one’s brain to + think of it. And you a gentleman born, too!’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim paused. Pyetushkov did not stir. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is that the way gentlemen go on? They’d amuse themselves a bit, to be + sure ... why shouldn’t they ... they’d amuse themselves, and then drop + it.... They may well say, Fall in love with Old Nick, and you’ll think him + a beauty.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch merely writhed. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, it’s really like this, Ivan Afanasiitch. If any one had said this + and that of you, and your goings on, why, I would have said, “Get along + with you, you fool, what do you take me for?” Do you suppose I’d have + believed it? Why, as it is, I see it with my own eyes, and I can’t believe + it. Worse than this nothing can be. Has she put some spell over you or + what? Why, what is there in her? If you come to consider, she’s below + contempt, really. She can’t even speak as she ought.... She’s simply a + baggage! Worse, even!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Go away,’ Ivan Afanasiitch moaned into the cushion. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’m not going away, Ivan Afanasiitch. Who’s to speak, if I don’t? + Why, upon my word! Here, you ‘re breaking your heart now ... and over + what? Eh, over what? tell me that!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, go away, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov moaned again. Onisim, for propriety’s + sake, was silent for a little while. + </p> + <p> + ‘And another thing,’ he began again, ‘she’s no feeling of gratitude + whatever. Any other girl wouldn’t know how to do enough to please you; + while she! ... she doesn’t even think of you. Why, it’s simply a disgrace. + Why, the things people are saying about you, one cannot repeat them, they + positively cry shame on me. If I could have known beforehand, I’d + have....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, go away, do, devil!’ shrieked Pyetushkov, not stirring from his + place, however, nor raising his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch, for mercy’s sake,’ pursued the ruthless Onisim. ‘I’m + speaking for your good. Despise her, Ivan Afanasiitch; you simply break it + off. Listen to me, or else I’ll fetch a wise woman; she’ll break the spell + in no time. You’ll laugh at it yourself, later on; you’ll say to me, + “Onisim, why, it’s marvellous how such things happen sometimes!” You just + consider yourself: girls like her, they’re like dogs ... you’ve only to + whistle to them....’ + </p> + <p> + Like one frantic, Pyetushkov jumped up from the sofa ... but, to the + amazement of Onisim, who was already lifting both hands to the level of + his cheeks, he sat down again, as though some one had cut away his legs + from under him.... Tears were rolling down his pale face, a tuft of hair + stood up straight on the top of his head, his eyes looked dimmed ... his + drawn lips were quivering ... his head sank on his breast. + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked at Pyetushkov and plumped heavily down on his knees. + </p> + <p> + ‘Dear master, Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he cried, ‘your honour! Be pleased to + punish me. I’m a fool. I’ve troubled you, Ivan Afanasiitch.... How did I + dare! Be pleased to punish me, your honour.... It’s not worth your while + to weep over my silly words ... dear master. Ivan Afanasiitch....’ + </p> + <p> + But Pyetushkov did not even look at his servant; he turned away and buried + himself in the corner of the sofa again. + </p> + <p> + Onisim got up, went up to his master, stood over him, and twice he tugged + at his own hair. + </p> + <p> + ‘Wouldn’t you like to undress, sir ... you should go to bed ... you should + take some raspberry tea ... don’t grieve, please your honour.... It’s only + half a trouble, it’s all nothing ... it’ll be all right in the end,’ he + said to him every two minutes.... + </p> + <p> + But Pyetushkov did not get up from the sofa, and only twitched his + shoulders now and then, and drew up his knees to his stomach.... + </p> + <p> + Onisim did not leave his side all night. Towards morning Pyetushkov fell + asleep, but he did not sleep long. At seven o’clock he got up from the + sofa, pale, dishevelled, and exhausted, and asked for tea. + </p> + <p> + Onisim with amazing eagerness and speed brought the samovar. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he began at last, in a timid voice, ‘your honour is + not angry with me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why should I be angry with you, Onisim?’ answered poor Pyetushkov. ‘You + were perfectly right yesterday, and I quite agreed with you in + everything.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I only spoke through my devotion to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I know that.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was silent and hung his head. + </p> + <p> + Onisim saw that things were in a bad way. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he said suddenly. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Would you like me to fetch Vassilissa here?’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov flushed red. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, Onisim, I don’t wish it. (‘Yes, indeed! as if she would come!’ he + thought to himself.) One must be firm. It is all nonsense. Yesterday, I + ... It’s a disgrace. You are right. One must cut it all short, once for + all, as they say. Isn’t that true?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s the gospel truth your honour speaks, Ivan Afanasiitch.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov sank again into reverie. He wondered at himself, he did not + seem to know himself. He sat without stirring and stared at the floor. + Thoughts whirled round within him, like smoke or fog, while his heart felt + empty and heavy at once. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what’s the meaning of it, after all,’ he thought sometimes, and again + he grew calmer. ‘It’s nonsense, silliness!’ he said aloud, and passed his + hand over his face, shook himself, and his hand dropped again on his knee, + his eyes again rested on the floor. + </p> + <p> + Intently and mournfully Onisim kept watch on his master. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov lifted his head. + </p> + <p> + ‘Tell me, Onisim,’ he began, ‘is it true, are there really such witches’ + spells?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There are, to be sure there are,’ answered Onisim, as he thrust one foot + forward. ‘Does your honour know the non-commissioned officer, Krupovaty? + ... His brother was ruined by witchcraft. He was bewitched to love an old + woman, a cook, if your honour only can explain that! They gave him nothing + but a morsel of rye bread, with a muttered spell, of course. And + Krupovaty’s brother simply lost his heart to the cook, he fairly ran after + the cook, he positively adored her—couldn’t keep his eyes off her. + She might tell him to do anything, he’d obey her on the spot. She’d even + make a joke of him before other people, before strangers. Well, she drove + him into a decline, at last. And so it was Krupovaty’s brother died. And + you know, she was a cook, and an old woman too, very old. (Onisim took a + pinch of snuff.) Confound the lot of them, these girls and women-folk!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘She doesn’t care for me a bit, that’s clear, at last; that’s beyond all + doubt, at last,’ Pyetushkov muttered in an undertone, gesticulating with + his head and hands as though he were explaining to a perfectly extraneous + person some perfectly extraneous fact. + </p> + <p> + ‘Yes,’ Onisim resumed, ‘there are women like that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There are,’ listlessly repeated Pyetushkov, in a tone half questioning, + half perplexed. + </p> + <p> + Onisim looked intently at his master. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he began, ‘wouldn’t you have a snack of something?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Wouldn’t I have a snack of something?’ repeated Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Or may be you’d like to have a pipe?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘To have a pipe?’ repeated Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘So this is what it’s coming to,’ muttered Onisim. ‘It’s gone deep, it + seems.’ + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0043" id="link2H_4_0043"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VIII + </h2> + <p> + The creak of boots resounded in the passage, and then there was heard the + usual suppressed cough which announces the presence of a person of + subordinate position. Onisim went out and promptly came back, accompanied + by a diminutive soldier with a little, old woman’s face, in a patched + cloak yellow with age, and wearing neither breeches nor cravat. Pyetushkov + was startled; while the soldier drew himself up, wished him good day, and + handed him a large envelope bearing the government seal. In this envelope + was a note from the major in command of the garrison: he called upon + Pyetushkov to come to him without fail or delay. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned the note over in his hands, and could not refrain from + asking the messenger, did he know why the major desired his presence, + though he was very well aware of the utter futility of his question. + </p> + <p> + ‘We cannot tell!’ the soldier cried, with great effort, yet hardly + audibly, as though he were half asleep. + </p> + <p> + ‘Isn’t he summoning the other officers?’ Pyetushkov pursued. + </p> + <p> + ‘We cannot tell,’ the soldier cried a second time, in just the same voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘All right, you can go,’ pronounced Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + The soldier wheeled round to the left, scraping his foot as he did so, and + slapping himself below the spine (this was considered smart in the + twenties), withdrew. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov exchanged glances with Onisim, who at once assumed a look of + anxiety. Without a word Ivan Afanasiitch set off to the major’s. + </p> + <p> + The major was a man of sixty, corpulent and clumsily built, with a red and + bloated face, a short neck, and a continual trembling in his fingers, + resulting from excessive indulgence in strong drink. He belonged to the + class of so-called ‘bourbons,’ that’s to say, soldiers risen from the + ranks; had learned to read at thirty, and spoke with difficulty, partly + from shortness of breath, partly from inability to follow his own thought. + His temperament exhibited all the varieties known to science: in the + morning, before drinking, he was melancholy; in the middle of the day, + choleric; and in the evening, phlegmatic, that is to say, he did nothing + at that time but snore and grunt till he was put to bed. Ivan Afanasiitch + appeared before him during the choleric period. He found him sitting on a + sofa, in an open dressing-gown, with a pipe between his teeth. A fat, + crop-eared cat had taken up her position beside him. + </p> + <p> + ‘Aha! he’s come!’ growled the major, casting a sidelong glance out of his + pewtery eyes upon Pyetushkov, and not stirring from his place. ‘Sit down. + Well, I’m going to give you a talking to. I’ve wanted to get hold of you + this long while.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov sank into a chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘For,’ the major began, with an unexpected lurch of his whole body, + ‘you’re an officer, d’ye see, and so you’ve got to behave yourself + according to rule. If you’d been a soldier, I’d have flogged you, and + that’s all about it, but, as ‘tis, you’re an officer. Did any one ever see + the like of it? Disgracing yourself—is that a nice thing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow me to know to what these remarks may refer?’ Pyetushkov was + beginning.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll have no arguing! I dislike that beyond everything. I’ve said: I + dislike it; and that’s all about it! Ugh—why, your hooks are not in + good form even;—what a disgrace! He sits, day in and day out, at the + baker’s shop; and he a gentleman born! There’s a petticoat to be found + there—and so there he sits. Let her go to the devil, the petticoat! + Why, they do say he puts the bread in the oven. It’s a stain on the + uniform ... so it is!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Allow me to submit,’ articulated Pyetushkov with a cold chill at his + heart, ‘that all this, as far as I can make out, refers to my private + life, so to say....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No arguing with me, I tell you! Private life, he protests, too! If it had + been a matter of the service I’d have sent you straight to the guard-room! + Alley, marsheer! Because of the oath. Why, there was a whole birch copse, + maybe, used upon my back, so I should think I know the service; every rule + of discipline I’m very well up in. And I’d have you to understand, I say + this just for the honour of the uniform. You’re disgracing the uniform ... + so you are. I say this like a father ... yes. Because all that’s put in my + charge. I’ve to answer for it. And you dare to argue too!’ the major + shrieked with sudden fury, and his face turned purple, and he foamed at + the mouth, while the cat put its tail in the air and jumped down to the + ground. ‘Why, do you know ... why, do you know what I can do? ... I can do + anything, anything, anything! Why, do you know whom you’re talking to? + Your superior officer gives you orders and you argue! Your superior + officer ... your superior officer....’ + </p> + <p> + Here the major positively choked and spluttered, while poor Pyetushkov + could only draw himself up and turn pale, sitting on the very edge of his + chair. + </p> + <p> + ‘I must have’ ... the major continued, with an imperious wave of his + trembling hand, ‘I must have everything ... up to the mark! Conduct + first-class! I’m not going to put up with any irregularities! You can make + friends with whom you like, that makes no odds to me! But if you are a + gentleman, why, act as such ... behave like one! No putting bread in the + oven for me! No calling a draggletail old woman auntie! No disgracing the + uniform! Silence! No arguing!’ + </p> + <p> + The major’s voice broke. He took breath, and turning towards the door into + the passage, bawled, ‘Frolka, you scoundrel! The herrings!’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov rose hurriedly and darted away, almost upsetting the page-boy, + who ran to meet him, carrying some sliced herring and a stout decanter of + spirits on an iron tray. + </p> + <p> + ‘Silence! No arguing!’ sounded after Pyetushkov the disjointed + exclamations of his exasperated superior officer. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0044" id="link2H_4_0044"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IX + </h2> + <p> + A queer sensation overmastered Ivan Afanasiitch when, at last, he found + himself in the street. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why am I walking as it were in a dream?’ he thought to himself. ‘Am I out + of my mind, or what? Why, it passes all belief, at last. Come, damn it, + she’s tired of me, come, and I’ve grown tired of her, come, and ... What + is there out of the way in that? + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov frowned. + </p> + <p> + ‘I must put an end to it, once for all,’ he said almost aloud. ‘I’ll go + and speak out decisively for the last time, so that it may never come up + again.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov made his way with rapid step to the baker’s shop. The nephew of + the hired man, Luka, a little boy, friend and confidant of the goat that + lived in the yard, darted swiftly to the little gate, directly he caught + sight of Ivan Afanasiitch in the distance. + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna came out to meet Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Is your niece at home?’ asked Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov was inwardly relieved at Vassilissa’s absence. + </p> + <p> + ‘I came to have a few words with you, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What about, my good sir?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll tell you. You comprehend that after all ... that has passed ... + after such, so to say, behaviour (Pyetushkov was a little confused) ... in + a word ... But, pray, don’t be angry with me, though.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly not, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘On the contrary, enter into my position, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You’re a reasonable woman, you’ll understand of yourself, that ... that I + can’t go on coming to see you any more.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Certainly, sir,’ Praskovia Ivanovna repeated slowly. + </p> + <p> + ‘I assure you I greatly regret it; I confess it is positively painful to + me, genuinely painful ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘You know best, sir,’ Praskovia Ivanovna rejoined serenely. ‘It’s for you + to decide, sir. And, oh, if you’ll allow me, I’ll give you your little + account, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov had not at all anticipated such a prompt acquiescence. He had + not desired acquiescence at all; he had only wanted to frighten Praskovia + Ivanovna, and above all Vassilissa. He felt wretched. + </p> + <p> + ‘I know,’ he began, ‘this will not be disagreeable to Vassilissa; on the + contrary, I believe she will be glad.’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna got out her reckoning beads, and began rattling the + counters. + </p> + <p> + ‘On the other hand,’ continued Pyetushkov, growing more and more agitated, + ‘if Vassilissa were, for instance, to give an explanation of her behaviour + ... possibly.... Though, of course ... I don’t know, possibly, I might + perceive that after all there was no great matter for blame in it.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘There’s thirty-seven roubles and forty kopecks in notes to your account, + sir,’ observed Praskovia Ivanovna. ‘Here, would you be pleased to go + through it?’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch made no reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘Eighteen dinners at seventy kopecks each; twelve roubles sixty kopecks.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And so we are to part, Praskovia Ivanovna.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘If so it must be, sir. Things do turn out so. Twelve samovars at ten + kopecks each ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you might just tell me, Praskovia Ivanovna, where it was Vassilissa + went, and what it was she ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, I never asked her, sir.... One rouble twenty kopecks in silver.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch sank into meditation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Kvas and effervescing drinks,’ pursued Praskovia Ivanovna, holding the + counters apart on the frame not with her first, but her third finger, + ‘half a rouble in silver. Sugar and rolls for tea, half a rouble. Four + packets of tobacco bought by your orders, eighty kopecks in silver. To the + tailor Kuprian Apollonov ...’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch suddenly raised his head, put out his hand and mixed up + the counters. + </p> + <p> + ‘What are you about, my good man?’ cried Praskovia Ivanovna. ‘Don’t you + trust me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Praskovia Ivanovna,’ replied Pyetushkov, with a hurried smile, ‘I’ve + thought better of it. I was only, you know ... joking. We’d better remain + friends and go on in the old way. What nonsense it is! How can we separate—tell + me that, please?’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna looked down and made him no reply. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, we’ve been talking nonsense, and there’s an end of it,’ pursued + Ivan Afanasiitch, walking up and down the room, rubbing his hands, and, as + it were, resuming his ancient rights. ‘Amen! and now I’d better have a + pipe.’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna still did not move from her place.... + </p> + <p> + ‘I see you are angry with me,’ said Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve offended you, perhaps. Well! well! forgive me generously.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘How could you offend me, my good sir? No offence about it.... Only, + please, sir,’ added Praskovia Ivanovna, bowing, ‘be so good as not to go + on coming to us.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not for you, sir, to be friends with us, your honour. So, please, do + us the favour ...’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna went on bowing. + </p> + <p> + ‘What ever for?’ muttered the astounded Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, nothing, sir. For mercy’s sake ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, Praskovia Ivanovna, you must explain this! ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa asks you. She says, “I thank you, thank you very much, and + from my heart; only for the future, your honour, give us up.”’ + </p> + <p> + Praskovia Ivanovna bowed down almost to Pyetushkov’s feet. + </p> + <p> + ‘Vassilissa, you say, begs me not to come?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Just so, your honour. When your honour came in to-day, and said what you + did, that you didn’t wish, you said, to visit us any more, I felt + relieved, sir, that I did; thinks I, Well, thank God, how nicely it’s all + come about! But for that, I should have had hard work to bring my tongue + to say it.... Be so good, sir.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned red and pale almost at the same instant. Praskovia + Ivanovna still went on bowing.... + </p> + <p> + ‘Very good,’ Ivan Afanasiitch cried sharply. ‘Good-bye.’ + </p> + <p> + He turned abruptly and put on his cap. + </p> + <p> + ‘But the little bill, sir....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Send it ... my orderly shall pay you.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov went with resolute steps out of the baker’s shop, and did not + even look round. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0045" id="link2H_4_0045"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + X + </h2> + <p> + A fortnight passed. At first Pyetushkov bore up in an extraordinary way. + He went out, and visited his comrades, with the exception, of course, of + Bublitsyn; but in spite of the exaggerated approbation of Onisim, he + almost went out of his mind at last from wretchedness, jealousy, and + ennui. Conversations with Onisim about Vassilissa were the only thing that + afforded him some consolation. The conversation was always begun, + ‘scratched up,’ by Pyetushkov; Onisim responded unwillingly. + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s a strange thing, you know,’ Ivan Afanasiitch would say, for + instance, as he lay on the sofa, while Onisim stood in his usual attitude, + leaning against the door, with his hands folded behind his back, ‘when you + come to think of it, what it was I saw in that girl. One would say that + there was nothing unusual in her. It’s true she has a good heart. That one + can’t deny her.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good heart, indeed!’ Onisim would answer with displeasure. + </p> + <p> + ‘Come, now, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov went on, ‘one must tell the truth. It’s a + thing of the past now; it’s no matter to me now, but justice is justice. + You don’t know her. She’s very good-hearted. Not a single beggar does she + let pass by; she’ll always give, if it’s only a crust of bread. Oh! And + she’s of a cheerful temper, that one must allow, too.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What a notion! I don’t know where you see the cheerful temper!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I tell you ... you don’t know her. And she’s not mercenary either ... + that’s another thing. She’s not grasping, there’s no doubt of it. Why I + never gave her anything, as you know.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s why she’s flung you over.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, that’s not why!’ responded Pyetushkov with a sigh. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, you’re in love with her to this day,’ Onisim retorted malignantly. + ‘You’d be glad to go back there as before.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘That’s nonsense you’re talking. No, my lad, you don’t know me either, I + can see. Be sent away, and then go dancing attendance—no, thank you, + I’d rather be excused. No, I tell you. You may believe me, it’s all a + thing of the past now.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Pray God it be so!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why ever shouldn’t I be fair to her, now after all? If now I say + she’s not good-looking—why, who’d believe me?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A queer sort of good looks!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, find me,—well, mention anybody better-looking ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, you’d better go back to her, then! ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Stupid! Do you suppose that’s why I say so? Understand me ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh! I understand you,’ Onisim answered with a heavy sigh. + </p> + <p> + Another week passed by. Pyetushkov had positively given up talking with + his Onisim, and had given up going out. From morning till night he lay on + the sofa, his hands behind his head. He began to get thin and pale, eat + unwillingly and hurriedly, and did not smoke at all. Onisim could only + shake his head, as he looked at him. + </p> + <p> + ‘You’re not well, Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he said to him more than once. + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’m all right,’ replied Pyetushkov. + </p> + <p> + At last, one fine day (Onisim was not at home) Pyetushkov got up, rummaged + in his chest of drawers, put on his cloak, though the sun was rather hot, + went stealthily out into the street, and came back a quarter of an hour + later.... He carried something under his cloak.... + </p> + <p> + Onisim was not at home. The whole morning he had been sitting in his + little room, deliberating with himself, grumbling and swearing between his + teeth, and, at last, he sallied off to Vassilissa. He found her in the + shop. Praskovia Ivanovna was asleep on the stove, rhythmically and + soothingly snoring. + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, how d’ye do, Onisim Sergeitch,’ began Vassilissa, with a smile; ‘why + haven’t we seen anything of you for so long?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Good day.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why are you so depressed? Would you like a cup of tea?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not me we’re talking about now,’ rejoined Onisim, in a tone of + vexation. + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what then?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What! Don’t you understand me? What! What have you done to my master, + come, you tell me that.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What I’ve done to him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘What have you done to him? ... You go and look at him. Why, before we can + look round, he’ll be in a decline, or dying outright, maybe.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘It’s not my fault, Onisim Sergeitch.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Not your fault! God knows. Why, he’s lost his heart to you. And you, God + forgive you, treated him as if he were one of yourselves. Don’t come, says + you, I’m sick of you. Why, though he’s not much to boast of, he’s a + gentleman anyway. He’s a gentleman born, you know.... Do you realise + that?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But he’s such a dull person, Onisim Sergeitch....’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Dull! So you must have merry fellows about you!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘And it’s not so much that he’s dull: he’s so cross, so jealous.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ah, you, you’re as haughty as a princess! He was in your way, I dare + say!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But you yourself, Onisim Sergeitch, if you remember, were put out with + him about it; “Why is he such friends?” you said; “what’s he always coming + for?”’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, was I to be pleased with him for it, do you suppose?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, then, why are you angry with me now? Here, he’s given up coming.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim positively stamped. + </p> + <p> + ‘But what am I to do with him, if he’s such a madman?’ he added, dropping + his voice. + </p> + <p> + ‘But how am I in fault? What can I do?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ll tell you what: come with me to him.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘God forbid!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why won’t you come?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But why should I go to see him? Upon my word!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why? Why, because he says you’ve a good heart; let me see if you’ve a + good heart.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But what good can I do him?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, that’s my business. You may be sure things are in a bad way, since + I’ve come to you. It’s certain I could think of nothing else to do.’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim paused for a while. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, come along, Vassilissa, please, come along.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Oh, Onisim Sergeitch, I don’t want to be friendly with him again ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, and you needn’t—who’s talking of it? You’ve only to say a + couple of words; to say, Why does your honour grieve? ... give over.... + That’s all.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Really, Onisim Sergeitch ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, am I to go down on my knees to you, eh? All right—there, I’m + on my knees ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘But really ...’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Why, what a girl it is! Even that doesn’t touch her! ...’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa at last consented, put a kerchief on her head, and went out + with Onisim. + </p> + <p> + ‘You wait here a little, in the passage,’ he said to her, when they + reached Pyetushkov’s abode, ‘and I’ll go and let the master know ...’ + </p> + <p> + He went in to Ivan Afanasiitch. Pyetushkov was standing in the middle of + the room, both hands in his pockets, his legs excessively wide apart; he + was slightly swaying backwards and forwards. His face was hot, and his + eyes were sparkling. + </p> + <p> + ‘Hullo, Onisim,’ he faltered amiably, articulating the consonants very + indistinctly and thickly: ‘hullo, my lad. Ah, my lad, when you weren’t + here ... he, he, he ...’ Pyetushkov laughed and made a sudden duck forward + with his nose. ‘Yes, it’s an accomplished fact, he, he, he.... However,’ + he added, trying to assume a dignified air, ‘I’m all right.’ He tried to + lift his foot, but almost fell over, and to preserve his dignity + pronounced in a deep bass, ‘Boy, bring my pipe!’ + </p> + <p> + Onisim gazed in astonishment at his master, glanced round.... In the + window stood an empty dark-green bottle, with the inscription: ‘Best + Jamaica rum.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’ve been drinking, my lad, that’s all,’ Pyetushkov went on. ‘I’ve been + and taken it. I’ve been drinking, and that’s all about it. And where’ve + you been? Tell us ... don’t be shy ... tell us. You’re a good hand at a + tale.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Ivan Afanasiitch, mercy on us!’ wailed Onisim. + </p> + <p> + ‘To be sure. To be sure I will,’ replied Pyetushkov with a vague wave of + his hand. ‘I’ll have mercy on you, and forgive you. I forgive every one, I + forgive you, and Vassilissa I forgive, and every one, every one. Yes, my + lad, I’ve been drinking.... Dri-ink-ing, lad.... Who’s that?’ he cried + suddenly, pointing to the door into the passage; ‘who’s there?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Nobody’s there,’ Onisim answered hastily: ‘who should be there? ... where + are you going?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, no,’ repeated Pyetushkov, breaking away from Onisim, ‘let me go, I + saw—don’t you talk to me,—I saw there, let me go.... + Vassilissa!’ he shrieked all at once. + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov turned pale. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well ... well, why don’t you come in?’ he said at last. ‘Come in, + Vassilissa, come in. I’m very glad to see you, Vassilissa.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa glanced at Onisim and came into the room. Pyetushkov went + nearer to her.... He heaved deep, irregular breaths. Onisim watched him. + Vassilissa stole timid glances at both of them. + </p> + <p> + ‘Sit down, Vassilissa,’ Ivan Afanasiitch began again: ‘thanks for coming. + Excuse my being ... what shall I say? ... not quite fit to be seen. I + couldn’t foresee, couldn’t really, you’ll own that yourself. Come, sit + down, see here, on the sofa ... So ... I’m expressing myself all right, I + think.’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa sat down. + </p> + <p> + ‘Well, good day to you,’ Ivan Afanasiitch pursued. ‘Come, how are you? + what have you been doing?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I’m well, thank God, Ivan Afanasiitch. And you?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘I? as you see! A ruined man. And ruined by whom? By you, Vassilissa. But + I’m not angry with you. Only I’m a ruined man. You ask him. (He pointed to + Onisim.) Don’t you mind my being drunk. I’m drunk, certainly; only I’m a + ruined man. That’s why I’m drunk, because I’m a ruined man.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Lord have mercy on us, Ivan Afanasiitch!’ + </p> + <p> + ‘A ruined man, Vassilissa, I tell you. You may believe me. I’ve never + deceived you. Oh, and how’s your aunt?’ + </p> + <p> + ‘Very well, Ivan Afanasiitch. Thank you.’ + </p> + <p> + Pyetushkov began swaying violently. + </p> + <p> + ‘But you’re not quite well to-day, Ivan Afanasiitch. You ought to lie + down.’ + </p> + <p> + ‘No, I’m quite well, Vassilissa. No, don’t say I’m not well; you’d better + say I’ve fallen into evil ways, lost my morals. That’s what would be just. + I won’t dispute that.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch gave a lurch backwards. Onisim ran forward and held his + master up. + </p> + <p> + ‘And who’s to blame for it? I’ll tell you, if you like, who’s to blame. + I’m to blame, in the first place. What ought I to have said? I ought to + have said to you: Vassilissa, I love you. Good—well, will you marry + me? Will you? It’s true you’re a working girl, granted; but that’s all + right. It’s done sometimes. Why, there, I knew a fellow, he got married + like that. Married a Finnish servant-girl. Took and married her. And you’d + have been happy with me. I’m a good-natured chap, I am! Never you mind my + being drunk, you look at my heart. There, you ask this ... fellow. So, you + see, I turn out to be in fault. And now, of course, I’m a ruined man.’ + </p> + <p> + Ivan Afanasiitch was more and more in need of Onisim’s support. + </p> + <p> + ‘All the same, you did wrong, very wrong. I loved you, I respected you ... + what’s more, I’m ready to go to church with you this minute. Will you? + You’ve only to say the word, and we’ll start at once. Only you wounded me + cruelly ... cruelly. You might at least have turned me away yourself—but + through your aunt, through that fat female! Why, the only joy I had in + life was you. I’m a homeless man, you know, a poor lonely creature! Who is + there now to be kind to me? who says a kind word to me? I’m utterly alone. + Stript bare as a crow. You ask this ...’ Ivan Afanasiitch began to cry. + ‘Vassilissa, listen what I say to you,’ he went on: ‘let me come and see + you as before. Don’t be afraid.... I’ll be ... quiet as a mouse. You can + go and see whom you like, I’ll—be all right: not a word, no + protests, you know. Eh? do you agree? If you like, I’ll go down on my + knees.’ (And Ivan Afanasiitch bent his knees, but Onisim held him up under + the arms.) ‘Let me go! It’s not your business! It’s a matter of the + happiness of a whole life, don’t you understand, and you hinder....’ + </p> + <p> + Vassilissa did not know what to say. + </p> + <p> + ‘You won’t ... Well, as you will! God be with you. In that case, good-bye! + Good-bye, Vassilissa. I wish you all happiness and prosperity ... but I + ... but I ...’ + </p> + <p> + And Pyetushkov sobbed violently. Onisim with all his might held him up + from behind ... first his face worked, then he burst out crying. And + Vassilissa cried too. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0046" id="link2H_4_0046"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + XI + </h2> + <p> + Ten years later, one might have met in the streets of the little town of O—— + a thinnish man with a reddish nose, dressed in an old green coat with a + greasy plush collar. He occupied a small garret in the baker’s shop, with + which we are familiar. Praskovia Ivanovna was no longer of this world. The + business was carried on by her niece, Vassilissa, and her husband, the + red-haired, dim-eyed baker, Demofont. The man in the green coat had one + weakness: he was over fond of drink. He was, however, always quiet when he + was tipsy. The reader has probably recognised him as Ivan Afanasiitch. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Desperate Character and Other Stories, by +Ivan Turgenev + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DESPERATE CHARACTER AND *** + +***** This file should be named 8871-h.htm or 8871-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/8/7/8871/ + + +Text files produced by Distributed Proofreaders + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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