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Title: A Sportsman's Sketches, Volume 2

Author: Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Translator: Constance Garnett

Release date: August 1, 2005 [eBook #8744]
Most recently updated: October 12, 2014

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8744

Credits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A
SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES, VOLUME 2 ***

A SPORTSMAN'S SKETCHES
BY IVAN TURGENEV
Translated from the Russian
By CONSTANCE GARNETT

VOLUME II

CONTENTS

XV. TATYANA BORISSOVNA AND HER NEPHEW
XVI. DEATH
XVII. THE SINGERS
XVIII. PIOTR PETROVITCH KARATAEV
XIX. THE TRYST
XX. THE HAMLET OF THE SHTCHIGRI DISTRICT
XXI. TCHERTOP-HANOV AND NEDOPYUSKIN
XXII. THE END OF TCHERTOP-HANOV
XXIII. A LIVING RELIC
XXIV. THE RATTLING OF WHEELS
XXV. EPILOGUE: THE FOREST AND THE STEPPE

XV

TATYANA BORISSOVNA AND HER NEPHEW

Give me your hand, gentle reader, and come along with me. It is glorious
weather; there is a tender blue in the May sky; the smooth young leaves of
the willows glisten as though they had been polished; the wide even road is
all covered with that delicate grass with the little reddish stalk that the sheep
are so fond of nibbling; to right and to left, over the long sloping hillsides,
the green rye is softly waving; the shadows of small clouds glide in thin
long streaks over it. In the distance is the dark mass of forests, the glitter of
ponds, yellow patches of village; larks in hundreds are soaring, singing,
falling headlong with outstretched necks, hopping about the clods; the
crows on the highroad stand still, look at you, peck at the earth, let you
drive close up, and with two hops lazily move aside. On a hill beyond a
ravine a peasant is ploughing; a piebald colt, with a cropped tail and ruffled
mane, is running on unsteady legs after its mother; its shrill whinnying
reaches us. We drive on into the birch wood, and drink in the strong, sweet,
fresh fragrance. Here we are at the boundaries. The coachman gets down;
the horses snort; the trace-horses look round; the centre horse in the shafts
switches his tail, and turns his head up towards the wooden yoke above it...
the great gate opens creaking; the coachman seats himself.... Drive on! the
village is before us. Passing five homesteads, and turning off to the right,
we drop down into a hollow and drive along a dyke, the farther side of a
small pond; behind the round tops of the lilacs and apple-trees a wooden
roof, once red, with two chimneys, comes into sight; the coachman keeps
along the hedge to the left, and to the spasmodic and drowsy baying of three
pug dogs he drives through the wide open gates, whisks smartly round the
broad courtyard past the stable and the barn, gallantly salutes the old
housekeeper, who is stepping sideways over the high lintel in the open
doorway of the storehouse, and pulls up at last before the steps of a dark
house with light windows.... We are at Tatyana Borissovna's. And here she
is herself opening the window and nodding at us.... 'Good day, ma'am!'

Tatyana Borissovna is a woman of fifty, with large, prominent grey eyes,
a rather broad nose, rosy cheeks and a double chin. Her face is brimming
over with friendliness and kindness. She was once married, but was soon
left a widow. Tatyana Borissovna is a very remarkable woman. She lives on
her little property, never leaving it, mixes very little with her neighbours,
sees and likes none but young people. She was the daughter of very poor
landowners, and received no education; in other words, she does not know
French; she has never been in Moscow--and in spite of all these defects, she
is so good and simple in her manners, so broad in her sympathies and ideas,
so little infected with the ordinary prejudices of country ladies of small
means, that one positively cannot help marvelling at her.... Indeed, a woman
who lives all the year round in the country and does not talk scandal, nor
whine, nor curtsey, is never flurried, nor depressed, nor in a flutter of
curiosity, is a real marvel! She usually wears a grey taffetas gown and a
white cap with lilac streamers; she is fond of good cheer, but not to excess;
all the preserving, pickling, and salting she leaves to her housekeeper. 'What
does she do all day long?' you will ask.... 'Does she read?' No, she doesn't
read, and, to tell the truth, books are not written for her.... If there are no
visitors with her, Tatyana Borissovna sits by herself at the window knitting
a stocking in winter; in summer time she is in the garden, planting and
watering her flowers, playing for hours together with her cats, or feeding
her doves.... She does not take much part in the management of her estate.
But if a visitor pays her a call--some young neighbour whom she likes--
Tatyana Borissovna is all life directly; she makes him sit down, pours him
out some tea, listens to his chat, laughs, sometimes pats his cheek, but says
little herself; in trouble or sorrow she comforts and gives good advice. How
many people have confided their family secrets and the griefs of their hearts
to her, and have wept over her hands! At times she sits opposite her visitor,
leaning lightly on her elbow, and looks with such sympathy into his face,
smiles so affectionately, that he cannot help feeling: 'What a dear, good
woman you are, Tatyana Borissovna! Let me tell you what is in my heart.'
One feels happy and warm in her small, snug rooms; in her house it is
always, so to speak, fine weather. Tatyana Borissovna is a wonderful
woman, but no one wonders at her; her sound good sense, her breadth and
firmness, her warm sympathy in the joys and sorrows of others--in a word,
all her qualities are so innate in her; they are no trouble, no effort to her....
One cannot fancy her otherwise, and so one feels no need to thank her. She

is particularly fond of watching the pranks and follies of young people; she
folds her hands over her bosom, throws back her head, puckers up her eyes,
and sits smiling at them, then all of a sudden she heaves a sigh, and says,
'Ah, my children, my children!'... Sometimes one longs to go up to her, take
hold of her hands and say: 'Let me tell you, Tatyana Borissovna, you don't
know your own value; for all your simplicity and lack of learning, you're an
extraordinary creature!' Her very name has a sweet familiar ring; one is glad
to utter it; it calls up a kindly smile at once. How often, for instance, have I
chanced to ask a peasant: 'Tell me, my friend, how am I to get to
Gratchevka?' let us say. 'Well, sir, you go on first to Vyazovoe, and from
there to Tatyana Borissovna's, and from Tatyana Borissovna's any one will
show you the way.' And at the name of Tatyana Borissovna the peasant
wags his head in quite a special way. Her household is small, in accordance
with her means. The house, the laundry, the stores and the kitchen, are in
the charge of the housekeeper, Agafya, once her nurse, a good-natured,
tearful, toothless creature; she has under her two stalwart girls with stout
crimson cheeks like Antonovsky apples. The duties of valet, steward, and
waiter are filled by Policarp, an extraordinary old man of seventy, a queer
fellow, full of erudition, once a violinist and worshipper of Viotti, with a
personal hostility to Napoleon, or, as he calls him, Bonaparty, and a passion
for nightingales. He always keeps five or six of the latter in his room; in
early spring he will sit for whole days together by the cage, waiting for the
first trill, and when he hears it, he covers his face with his hands, and
moans, 'Oh, piteous, piteous!' and sheds tears in floods. Policarp has, to
help him, his grandson Vasya, a curly-headed, sharp-eyed boy of twelve;
Policarp adores him, and grumbles at him from morning till night. He
undertakes his education too. 'Vasya,' he says, 'say Bonaparty was a
scoundrel.' 'And what'll you give me, granddad?' 'What'll I give you?... I'll
give you nothing.... Why, what are you? Aren't you a Russian?' 'I'm a
Mtchanin, granddad; I was born in Mtchensk.' 'Oh, silly dunce! but where is
Mtchensk?' 'How can I tell?' 'Mtchensk's in Russia, silly!' 'Well, what then,
if it is in Russia?' 'What then? Why, his Highness the late Prince Mihalo
Ilarionovitch Golenishtchev-Kutuzov-Smolensky, with God's aid,
graciously drove Bonaparty out of the Russian territories. It's on that event
the song was composed: "Bonaparty's in no mood to dance, He's lost the
garters he brought from France."... Do you understand? he liberated your
fatherland.' 'And what's that to do with me?' 'Ah! you silly boy! Why, if his

Highness Prince Mihalo Ilarionovitch hadn't driven out Bonaparty, some
mounseer would have been beating you about the head with a stick this
minute. He'd come up to you like this, and say: "Koman voo porty voo?"
and then a box on the ear!' 'But I'd give him one in the belly with my fist'
'But he'd go on: "Bonzhur, bonzhur, veny ici," and then a cuff on the head.'
'And I'd give him one in his legs, his bandy legs.' 'You're quite right, their
legs are bandy.... Well, but suppose he tied your hands?' 'I wouldn't let him;
I'd call Mihay the coachman to help me.' 'But, Vasya, suppose you weren't a
match for the Frenchy even with Mihay?' 'Not a match for him! See how
strong Mihay is!' 'Well, and what would you do with him?' 'We'd get him on
his back, we would.' 'And he'd shout, "Pardon, pardon, seevooplay!"' 'We'd
tell him, "None of your seevooplays, you old Frenchy!"' 'Bravo, Vasya!...
Well, now then, shout, "Bonaparty's a scoundrel!"' 'But you must give me
some sugar!' 'You scamp!'

Of the neighbouring ladies Tatyana Borissovna sees very little; they do
not care about going to see her, and she does not know how to amuse them;
the sound of their chatter sends her to sleep; she starts, tries to keep her eyes
open, and drops off again. Tatyana Borissovna is not fond of women as a
rule. One of her friends, a good, harmless young man, had a sister, an old
maid of thirty-eight and a half, a good-natured creature, but exaggerated,
affected, and enthusiastic. Her brother had often talked to her of their
neighbour. One fine morning our old maid has her horse saddled, and,
without a word to any one, sallies off to Tatyana Borissovna's. In her long
habit, a hat on her head, a green veil and floating curls, she went into the
hall, and passing by the panic-stricken Vasya, who took her for a wood-
witch, ran into the drawing-room. Tatyana Borissovna, scared, tried to rise,
but her legs sank under her. 'Tatyana Borissovna,' began the visitor in a
supplicating voice, 'forgive my temerity; I am the sister of your friend,
Alexy Nikolaevitch K----, and I have heard so much about you from him
that I resolved to make your acquaintance.' 'Greatly honoured,' muttered the
bewildered lady. The sister flung off her hat, shook her curls, seated herself
near Tatyana Borissovna; took her by the hand... 'So this is she,' she began
in a pensive voice fraught with feeling: 'this is that sweet, clear, noble, holy
being! This is she! that woman at once so simple and so deep! How glad I
am! how glad I am! How we shall love each other! I can breathe easily at
last... I always fancied her just so,' she added in a whisper, her eyes riveted

on the eyes of Tatyana Borissovna. 'You won't be angry with me, will you,
my dear kind friend?' 'Really, I'm delighted!... Won't you have some tea?'
The lady smiled patronisingly: 'Wie wahr, wie unreflectiert', she murmured,
as it were to herself. 'Let me embrace you, my dear one!'

The old maid stayed three hours at Tatyana Borissovna's, never ceasing
talking an instant. She tried to explain to her new acquaintance all her own
significance. Directly after the unexpected visitor had departed, the poor
lady took a bath, drank some lime-flower water, and took to her bed. But
the next day the old maid came back, stayed four hours, and left, promising
to come to see Tatyana Borissovna every day. Her idea, please to observe,
was to develop, to complete the education of so rich a nature, to use her
own expression, and she would probably have really been the death of her,
if she had not, in the first place, been utterly disillusioned as regards her
brother's friend within a fortnight, and secondly, fallen in love with a young
student on a visit in the neighbourhood, with whom she at once rushed into
a fervid and active correspondence; in her missives she consecrated him, as
the manner of such is, to a noble, holy life, offered herself wholly a
sacrifice, asked only for the name of sister, launched into endless
descriptions of nature, made allusions to Goethe, Schiller, Bettina and
German philosophy, and drove the luckless young man at last to the
blackest desperation. But youth asserted itself: one fine morning he woke
up with such a furious hatred for 'his sister and best of friends' that he
almost killed his valet in his passion, and was snappish for a long while
after at the slightest allusion to elevated and disinterested passion. But from
that time forth Tatyana Borissovna began to avoid all intimacy with ladies
of the neighbourhood more than ever.

Alas! nothing is lasting on this earth. All I have related as to the way of
life of my kind-hearted neighbour is a thing of the past; the peace that used
to reign in her house has been destroyed for ever. For more than a year now
there has been living with her a nephew, an artist from Petersburg. This is
how it came about.

Eight years ago, there was living with Tatyana Borissovna a boy of
twelve, an orphan, the son of her brother, Andryusha. Andryusha had large,
clear, humid eyes, a tiny little mouth, a regular nose, and a fine lofty brow.

He spoke in a low, sweet voice, was attentive and coaxing with visitors,
kissed his auntie's hand with an orphan's sensibility; and one hardly had
time to show oneself before he had put a chair for one. He had no
mischievous tricks; he was never noisy; he would sit by himself in a corner
with a book, and with such sedateness and propriety, never even leaning
back in his chair. When a visitor came in, Andryusha would get up, with a
decorous smile and a flush; when the visitor went away he would sit down
again, pull out of his pocket a brush and a looking-glass, and brush his hair.
From his earliest years he had shown a taste for drawing. Whenever he got
hold of a piece of paper, he would ask Agafya the housekeeper for a pair of
scissors at once, carefully cut a square piece out of the paper, trace a border
round it and set to work; he would draw an eye with an immense pupil, or a
Grecian nose, or a house with a chimney and smoke coming out of it in the
shape of a corkscrew, a dog, en face, looking rather like a bench, or a tree
with two pigeons on it, and would sign it: 'Drawn by Andrei Byelovzorov,
such a day in such a year, in the village of Maliya-Briki.' He used to toil
with special industry for a fortnight before Tatyana Borissovna's birthday;
he was the first to present his congratulations and offer her a roll of paper
tied up with a pink ribbon. Tatyana Borissovna would kiss her nephew and
undo the knot; the roll was unfolded and presented to the inquisitive gaze of
the spectator, a round, boldly sketched temple in sepia, with columns and an
altar in the centre; on the altar lay a burning heart and a wreath, while
above, on a curling scroll, was inscribed in legible characters: 'To my aunt
and benefactress, Tatyana Borissovna Bogdanov, from her dutiful and
loving nephew, as a token of his deepest affection.' Tatyana Borissovna
would kiss him again and give him a silver rouble. She did not, though, feel
any very warm affection for him; Andryusha's fawning ways were not quite
to her taste. Meanwhile, Andryusha was growing up; Tatyana Borissovna
began to be anxious about his future. An unexpected incident solved the
difficulty to her.

One day eight years ago she received a visit from a certain Mr.
Benevolensky, Piotr Mihalitch, a college councillor with a decoration. Mr.
Benevolensky had at one time held an official post in the nearest district
town, and had been assiduous in his visits to Tatyana Borissovna; then he
had moved to Petersburg, got into the ministry, and attained a rather
important position, and on one of the numerous journeys he took in the

discharge of his official duties, he remembered his old friend, and came
back to see her, with the intention of taking a rest for two days from his
official labours 'in the bosom of the peace of nature.' Tatyana Borissovna
greeted him with her usual cordiality, and Mr. Benevolensky.... But before
we proceed with the rest of the story, gentle reader, let us introduce you to
this new personage.

Mr. Benevolensky was a stoutish man, of middle height and mild
appearance, with little short legs and little fat hands; he wore a roomy and
excessively spruce frock-coat, a high broad cravat, snow-white linen, a gold
chain on his silk waistcoat, a gem-ring on his forefinger, and a white wig on
his head; he spoke softly and persuasively, trod noiselessly, and had an
amiable smile, an amiable look in his eyes, and an amiable way of settling
his chin in his cravat; he was, in fact, an amiable person altogether. God had
given him a heart, too, of the softest; he was easily moved to tears and to
transports; moreover, he was all aglow with disinterested passion for art:
disinterested it certainly was, for Mr. Benevolensky, if the truth must be
told, knew absolutely nothing about art. One is set wondering, indeed,
whence, by virtue of what mysterious uncomprehended forces, this passion
had come upon him. He was, to all appearance, a practical, even prosaic
person... however, we have a good many people of the same sort among us
in Russia.

Their devotion to art and artists produces in these people an
inexpressible mawkishness; it is distressing to have to do with them and to
talk to them; they are perfect logs smeared with honey. They never, for
instance, call Raphael, Raphael, or Correggio, Correggio; 'the divine
Sanzio, the incomparable di Allegri,' they murmur, and always with the
broadest vowels. Every pretentious, conceited, home-bred mediocrity they
hail as a genius: 'the blue sky of Italy,' 'the lemons of the South,' 'the balmy
breezes of the banks of the Brenta,' are for ever on their lips. 'Ah, Vasya,
Vasya,' or 'Oh, Sasha, Sasha,' they say to one another with deep feeling, 'we
must away to the South... we are Greeks in soul--ancient Greeks.' One may
observe them at exhibitions before the works of some Russian painters
(these gentlemen, it should be noted, are, for the most part, passionate
patriots). First they step back a couple of paces, and throw back their heads;
then they go up to the picture again; their eyes are suffused with an oily

moisture.... 'There you have it, my God!' they say at last, in voices broken
with emotion; 'there's soul, soul! Ah! what feeling, what feeling! Ah, what
soul he has put into it! what a mass of soul!... And how he has thought it
out! thought it out like a master!' And, oh! the pictures in their own
drawing-rooms! Oh, the artists that come to them in the evenings, drink tea,
and listen to their conversation! And the views in perspective they make
them of their own rooms, with a broom in the foreground, a little heap of
dust on the polished floor, a yellow samovar on a table near the window,
and the master of the house himself in skull-cap and dressing-gown, with a
brilliant streak of sunlight falling on his cheek! Oh, the long-haired
nurslings of the Muse, wearing spasmodic and contemptuous smiles, that
cluster about them! Oh, the young ladies, with faces of greenish pallor, who
squeal; over their pianos! For that is the established rule with us in Russia; a
man cannot be devoted to one art alone--he must have them all. And so it is
not to be wondered at that these gentlemen extend their powerful patronage
to Russian literature also, especially to dramatic literature.... The Jacob
Sannazars are written for them; the struggle of unappreciated talent against
the whole world, depicted a thousand times over, still moves them
profoundly....

The day after Mr. Benevolensky's arrival, Tatyana Borissovna told her
nephew at tea-time to show their guest his drawings. 'Why, does he draw?'
said Mr. Benevolensky, with some surprise, and he turned with interest to
Andryusha. 'Yes, he draws,' said Tatyana Borissovna; 'he's so fond of it! and
he does it all alone, without a master.' 'Ah! show me, show me,' cried Mr.
Benevolensky. Andryusha, blushing and smiling, brought the visitor his
sketch-book. Mr. Benevolensky began turning it over with the air of a
connoisseur. 'Good, young man,' he pronounced at last; 'good, very good.'
And he patted Andryusha on the head. Andryusha intercepted his hand and
kissed it 'Fancy, now, a talent like that!... I congratulate you, Tatyana
Borissovna.' 'But what am I to do, Piotr Mihalitch? I can't get him a teacher
here. To have one from the town is a great expense; our neighbours, the
Artamonovs, have a drawing-master, and they say an excellent one, but his
mistress forbids his giving lessons to outsiders.' 'Hm,' pronounced Mr.
Benevolensky; he pondered and looked askance at Andryusha. 'Well, we
will talk it over,' he added suddenly, rubbing his hands. The same day he
begged Tatyana Borissovna's permission for an interview with her alone.

They shut themselves up together. In half-an-hour they called Andryusha--
Andryusha went in. Mr. Benevolensky was standing at the window with a
slight flush on his face and a beaming expression. Tatyana Borissovna was
sitting in a corner wiping her eyes. 'Come, Andryusha,' she said at last, 'you
must thank Piotr Mihalitch; he will take you under his protection; he will
take you to Petersburg.' Andryusha almost fainted on the spot. 'Tell me
candidly,' began Mr. Benevolensky, in a voice filled with dignity and
patronising indulgence; 'do you want to be an artist, young man? Do you
feel yourself consecrated to the holy service of Art?' 'I want to be an artist,
Piotr Mihalitch,' Andryusha declared in a trembling voice. 'I am delighted,
if so it be. It will, of course,' continued Mr. Benevolensky,'be hard for you
to part from your revered aunt; you must feel the liveliest gratitude to her.' 'I
adore my auntie,' Andryusha interrupted, blinking. 'Of course, of course,
that's readily understood, and does you great credit; but, on the other hand,
consider the pleasure that in the future... your success....' 'Kiss me,
Andryusha,' muttered the kind-hearted lady. Andryusha flung himself on her
neck. 'There, now, thank your benefactor.' Andryusha embraced Mr.
Benevolensky's stomach, and stretching on tiptoe, reached his hand and
imprinted a kiss, which his benefactor, though with some show of
reluctance, accepted.... He had, to be sure, to pacify the child, and, after all,
might reflect that he deserved it. Two days later, Mr. Benevolensky
departed, taking with him his new protégé.

During the first three years of Andryusha's absence he wrote pretty often,
sometimes enclosing drawings in his letters. From time to time Mr.
Benevolensky added a few words, for the most part of approbation; then the
letters began to be less and less frequent, and at last ceased altogether. A
whole year passed without a word from her nephew; and Tatyana
Borissovna was beginning to be uneasy when suddenly she got the
following note:--

'DEAREST AUNTIE,--Piotr Mihalitch, my patron, died three days ago.
A severe paralytic stroke has deprived me of my sole support. To be sure, I
am now twenty. I have made considerable progress during the last seven
years; I have the greatest confidence in my talent, and can make my living
by means of it; I do not despair; but all the same send me, if you can, as
soon as convenient, 250 roubles. I kiss your hand and remain...' etc.

Tatyana Borissovna sent her nephew 250 roubles. Two months later he
asked for more; she got together every penny she had and sent it him. Not
six weeks after the second donation he was asking a third time for help,
ostensibly to buy colours for a portrait bespoken by Princess Tertereshenev.
Tatyana Borissovna refused. 'Under these circumstances,' he wrote to her, 'I
propose coming to you to regain my health in the country.' And in the May
of the same year Andryusha did, in fact, return to Maliya-Briki.

Tatyana Borissovna did not recognise him for the first minute. From his
letter she had expected to see a wasted invalid, and she beheld a stout,
broad-shouldered fellow, with a big red face and greasy, curly hair. The
pale, slender little Andryusha had turned into the stalwart Andrei Ivanovitch
Byelovzorov. And it was not only his exterior that was transformed. The
modest spruceness, the sedateness and tidiness of his earlier years, was
replaced by a careless swagger and slovenliness quite insufferable; he rolled
from side to side as he walked, lolled in easy-chairs, put his elbows on the
table, stretched and yawned, and behaved rudely to his aunt and the
servants. 'I'm an artist,' he would say; 'a free Cossack! That's our sort!'
Sometimes he did not touch a brush for whole days together; then the
inspiration, as he called it, would come upon him; then he would swagger
about as if he were drunk, clumsy, awkward, and noisy; his cheeks were
flushed with a coarse colour, his eyes dull; he would launch into discourses
upon his talent, his success, his development, the advance he was making....
It turned out in actual fact that he had barely talent enough to produce
passable portraits. He was a perfect ignoramus, had read nothing; why
should an artist read, indeed? Nature, freedom, poetry were his fitting
elements; he need do nothing but shake his curls, talk, and suck away at his
eternal cigarette! Russian audacity is a fine thing, but it doesn't suit every
one; and Polezhaevs at second-hand, without the genius, are insufferable
beings. Andrei Ivanovitch went on living at his aunt's; he did not seem to
find the bread of charity bitter, notwithstanding the proverb. Visitors to the
house found him a mortal nuisance. He would sit at the piano (a piano, too,
had been installed at Tatyana Borissovna's) and begin strumming 'The Swift
Sledge' with one finger; he would strike some chords, tap on the keys, and
for hours together he would howl Varlamov's songs, 'The Solitary Pine,' or
'No, doctor, no, don't come to me,' in the most distressing manner, and his
eyes seemed to disappear altogether, his cheeks were so puffed out and

tense as drums.... Then he would suddenly strike up: 'Be still, distracting
passion's tempest!'... Tatyana Borissovna positively shuddered.

'It's a strange thing,' she observed to me one day, 'the songs they
compose nowadays; there's something desperate about them; in my day
they were very different. We had mournful songs, too, but it was always a
pleasure to hear them.... For instance:--

"'Come, come to me in the meadow,
Where I am awaiting thee;
Come, come to me in the meadow,
Where I'm shedding tears for thee...
Alas! thou'rt coming to the meadow,
But too late, dear love, for me!'"

Tatyana Borissovna smiled slyly.

'I agon-ise, I agon-ise!' yelled her nephew in the next room.

'Be quiet, Andryusha!'

'My soul's consumed apart from thee!' the indefatigable singer continued.

Tatyana Borissovna shook her head.

'Ah, these artists! these artists!'....

A year has gone by since then. Byelovzorov is still living at his aunt's,
and still talking of going back to Petersburg. He has grown as broad as he is
long in the country. His aunt--who could have imagined such a thing?--
idolises him, and the young girls of the neighbourhood are falling in love
with him....

Many of her old friends have given up going to Tatyana Borissovna's.

XVI

DEATH

I have a neighbour, a young landowner and a young sportsman. One fine
July morning I rode over to him with a proposition that we should go out
grouse-shooting together. He agreed. 'Only let's go,' he said, 'to my
underwoods at Zusha; I can seize the opportunity to have a look at
Tchapligino; you know my oakwood; they're felling timber there.' 'By all
means.' He ordered his horse to be saddled, put on a green coat with bronze
buttons, stamped with a boar's head, a game-bag embroidered in crewels,
and a silver flask, slung a new-fangled French gun over his shoulder, turned
himself about with some satisfaction before the looking-glass, and called
his dog, Hope, a gift from his cousin, an old maid with an excellent heart,
but no hair on her head. We started. My neighbour took with him the village
constable, Arhip, a stout, squat peasant with a square face and jaws of
antediluvian proportions, and an overseer he had recently hired from the
Baltic provinces, a youth of nineteen, thin, flaxen-haired, and short-sighted,
with sloping shoulders and a long neck, Herr Gottlieb von der Kock. My
neighbour had himself only recently come into the property. It had come to
him by inheritance from an aunt, the widow of a councillor of state,
Madame Kardon-Kataev, an excessively stout woman, who did nothing but
lie in her bed, sighing and groaning. We reached the underwoods. 'You wait
for me here at the clearing,' said Ardalion Mihalitch (my neighbour)
addressing his companions. The German bowed, got off his horse, pulled a
book out of his pocket--a novel of Johanna Schopenhauer's, I fancy--and sat
down under a bush; Arhip remained in the sun without stirring a muscle for
an hour. We beat about among the bushes, but did not come on a single
covey. Ardalion Mihalitch announced his intention of going on to the wood.
I myself had no faith, somehow, in our luck that day; I, too, sauntered after
him. We got back to the clearing. The German noted the page, got up, put
the book in his pocket, and with some difficulty mounted his bob-tailed,
broken-winded mare, who neighed and kicked at the slightest touch; Arhip
shook himself, gave a tug at both reins at once, swung his legs, and at last
succeeded in starting his torpid and dejected nag. We set off.

I had been familiar with Ardalion Mihalitch's wood from my childhood.
I had often strolled in Tchapligino with my French tutor, Monsieur Désiré
Fleury, the kindest of men (who had, however, almost ruined my
constitution for life by dosing me with Leroux's mixture every evening).
The whole wood consisted of some two or three hundred immense oaks and
ash-trees. Their stately, powerful trunks were magnificently black against
the transparent golden green of the nut bushes and mountain-ashes; higher
up, their wide knotted branches stood out in graceful lines against the clear
blue sky, unfolding into a tent overhead; hawks, honey-buzzards and
kestrels flew whizzing under the motionless tree-tops; variegated wood-
peckers tapped loudly on the stout bark; the blackbird's bell-like trill was
heard suddenly in the thick foliage, following on the ever-changing note of
the gold-hammer; in the bushes below was the chirp and twitter of hedge-
warblers, siskins, and peewits; finches ran swiftly along the paths; a hare
would steal along the edge of the wood, halting cautiously as he ran; a
squirrel would hop sporting from tree to tree, then suddenly sit still, with its
tail over its head. In the grass among the high ant-hills under the delicate
shade of the lovely, feathery, deep-indented bracken, were violets and lilies
of the valley, and funguses, russet, yellow, brown, red and crimson; in the
patches of grass among the spreading bushes red strawberries were to be
found.... And oh, the shade in the wood! In the most stifling heat, at mid-
day, it was like night in the wood: such peace, such fragrance, such
freshness.... I had spent happy times in Tchapligino, and so, I must own, it
was with melancholy feelings I entered the wood I knew so well. The
ruinous, snowless winter of 1840 had not spared my old friends, the oaks
and the ashes; withered, naked, covered here and there with sickly foliage,
they struggled mournfully up above the young growth which 'took their
place, but could never replace them.' [Footnote: In 1840 there were severe
frosts, and no snow fell up to the very end of December; all the wintercorn
was frozen, and many splendid oak-forests were destroyed by that merciless
winter. It will be hard to replace them; the productive force of the land is
apparently diminishing; in the 'interdicted' wastelands (visited by
processions with holy images, and so not to be touched), instead of the
noble trees of former days, birches and aspens grow of themselves; and,
indeed, they have no idea among us of planting woods at all.--Author's
Note.]

Some trees, still covered with leaves below, fling their lifeless, ruined
branches upwards, as it were, in reproach and despair; in others, stout, dead,
dry branches are thrust out of the midst of foliage still thick, though with
none of the luxuriant abundance of old; others have fallen altogether, and lie
rotting like corpses on the ground. And--who could have dreamed of this in
former days?--there was no shade--no shade to be found anywhere in
Tchapligino! 'Ah,' I thought, looking at the dying trees: 'isn't it shameful and
bitter for you?'... Koltsov's lines recurred to me:

'What has become
Of the mighty voices,
The haughty strength,
The royal pomp?
Where now is the
Wealth of green?...

'How is it, Ardalion Mihalitch,' I began, 'that they didn't fell these trees
the very next year? You see they won't give for them now a tenth of what
they would have done before.'

He merely shrugged his shoulders.

'You should have asked my aunt that; the timber merchants came,
offered money down, pressed the matter, in fact.'

'Mein Gott! mein Gott!' Von der Kock cried at every step. 'Vat a bity, vat
a bity!'

'What's a bity!' observed my neighbour with a smile.

'That is; how bitiful, I meant to say.'

What particularly aroused his regrets were the oaks lying on the ground--
and, indeed, many a miller would have given a good sum for them. But the
constable Arhip preserved an unruffled composure, and did not indulge in

any lamentations; on the contrary, he seemed even to jump over them and
crack his whip on them with a certain satisfaction.

We were getting near the place where they were cutting down the trees,
when suddenly a shout and hurried talk was heard, following on the crash
of a falling tree, and a few instants after a young peasant, pale and
dishevelled, dashed out of the thicket towards us.

'What is it? where are you running?' Ardalion Mihalitch asked him.

He stopped at once.

'Ah, Ardalion Mihalitch, sir, an accident!'

'What is it?'

'Maksim, sir, crushed by a tree.'

'How did it happen?... Maksim the foreman?'

'The foreman, sir. We'd started cutting an ash-tree, and he was standing
looking on.... He stood there a bit, and then off he went to the well for some
water--wanted a drink, seemingly--when suddenly the ash-tree began
creaking and coming straight towards him. We shout to him: 'Run, run,
run!'.... He should have rushed to one side, but he up and ran straight before
him.... He was scared, to be sure. The ash-tree covered him with its top
branches. But why it fell so soon, the Lord only knows!... Perhaps it was
rotten at the core.'

'And so it crushed Maksim?'

'Yes, sir.'

'To death?'

'No, sir, he's still alive--but as good as dead; his arms and legs are
crushed. I was running for Seliverstitch, for the doctor.'

Ardalion Mihalitch told the constable to gallop to the village for
Seliverstitch, while he himself pushed on at a quick trot to the clearing.... I
followed him.

We found poor Maksim on the ground. The peasants were standing about
him. We got off our horses. He hardly moaned at all; from time to time he
opened his eyes wide, looked round, as it were, in astonishment, and bit his
lips, fast turning blue.... The lower part of his face was twitching; his hair
was matted on his brow; his breast heaved irregularly: he was dying. The
light shade of a young lime-tree glided softly over his face.

We bent down to him. He recognised Ardalion Mihalitch.

'Please sir,' he said to him, hardly articulately, 'send... for the priest...
tell... the Lord... has punished me... arms, legs, all smashed... to-day's...
Sunday... and I... I... see... didn't let the lads off... work.'

He ceased, out of breath.

'And my money... for my wife... after deducting.... Onesim here knows...
whom I... what I owe.'

'We've sent for the doctor, Maksim,' said my neighbour; 'perhaps you
may not die yet.'

He tried to open his eyes, and with an effort raised the lids.

'No, I'm dying. Here... here it is coming... here it.... Forgive me, lads, if
in any way....'

'God will forgive you, Maksim Andreitch,' said the peasants thickly with
one voice, and they took off their caps; 'do you forgive us!'

He suddenly shook his head despairingly, his breast heaved with a
painful effort, and he fell back again.

'We can't let him lie here and die, though,' cried Ardalion Mihalitch;
'lads, give us the mat from the cart, and carry him to the hospital.'

Two men ran to the cart.

'I bought a horse... yesterday,' faltered the dying man, 'off Efim...
Sitchovsky... paid earnest money... so the horse is mine.... Give it... to my
wife....'

They began to move him on to the mat.... He trembled all over, like a
wounded bird, and stiffened....

'He is dead,' muttered the peasants.

We mounted our horses in silence and rode away.

The death of poor Maksim set me musing. How wonderfully indeed the
Russian peasant dies! The temper in which he meets his end cannot be
called indifference or stolidity; he dies as though he were performing a
solemn rite, coolly and simply.

A few years ago a peasant belonging to another neighbour of mine in the
country got burnt in the drying shed, where the corn is put. (He would have
remained there, but a passing pedlar pulled him out half-dead; he plunged
into a tub of water, and with a run broke down the door of the burning
outhouse.) I went to his hut to see him. It was dark, smoky, stifling, in the
hut. I asked, 'Where is the sick man?' 'There, sir, on the stove,' the
sorrowing peasant woman answered me in a sing-song voice. I went up; the
peasant was lying covered with a sheepskin, breathing heavily. 'Well, how
do you feel?' The injured man stirred on the stove; all over burns, within
sight of death as he was, tried to rise. 'Lie still, lie still, lie still.... Well, how
are you?' 'In a bad way, surely,' said he. 'Are you in pain?' No answer. 'Is
there anything you want?'--No answer. 'Shouldn't I send you some tea, or
anything.' 'There's no need.' I moved away from him and sat down on the
bench. I sat there a quarter of an hour; I sat there half an hour--the silence of
the tomb in the hut. In the corner behind the table under the holy pictures
crouched a little girl of twelve years old, eating a piece of bread. Her
mother threatened her every now and then. In the outer room there was
coming and going, noise and talk: the brother's wife was chopping cabbage.
'Hey, Aksinya,' said the injured man at last. 'What?' 'Some kvas.'Aksinya
gave him some kvas. Silence again. I asked in a whisper, 'Have they given

him the sacrament?' 'Yes.' So, then, everything was in order: he was waiting
for death, that was all. I could not bear it, and went away....

Again, I recall how I went one day to the hospital in the village of
Krasnogorye to see the surgeon Kapiton, a friend of mine, and an
enthusiastic sportsman.

This hospital consisted of what had once been the lodge of the manor-
house; the lady of the manor had founded it herself; in other words, she
ordered a blue board to be nailed up above the door with an inscription in
white letters: 'Krasnogorye Hospital,' and had herself handed to Kapiton a
red album to record the names of the patients in. On the first page of this
album one of the toadying parasites of this Lady Bountiful had inscribed the
following lines:

'Dans ces beaux lieux, où règne l'allégresse
Ce temple fut ouvert par la Beauté;
De vos seigneurs admirez la tendresse
Bons habitants de Krasnogorié!'

while another gentleman had written below:

'Et moi aussi j'aime la nature!
JEAN KOBYLIATNIKOFF.'

The surgeon bought six beds at his own expense, and had set to work in
a thankful spirit to heal God's people. Besides him, the staff consisted of
two persons; an engraver, Pavel, liable to attacks of insanity, and a one-
armed peasant woman, Melikitrisa, who performed the duties of cook. Both
of them mixed the medicines and dried and infused herbs; they, too,
controlled the patients when they were delirious. The insane engraver was
sullen in appearance and sparing of words; at night he would sing a song
about 'lovely Venus,' and would besiege every one he met with a request for
permission to marry a girl called Malanya, who had long been dead. The

one-armed peasant woman used to beat him and set him to look after the
turkeys. Well, one day I was at Kapiton's. We had begun talking over our
last day's shooting, when suddenly a cart drove into the yard, drawn by an
exceptionally stout horse, such as are only found belonging to millers. In
the cart sat a thick-set peasant, in a new greatcoat, with a beard streaked
with grey. 'Hullo, Vassily Dmitritch,' Kapiton shouted from the window;
'please come in.... The miller of Liobovshin,' he whispered to me. The
peasant climbed groaning out of the cart, came into the surgeon's room, and
after looking for the holy pictures, crossed himself, bowing to them. 'Well,
Vassily Dmitritch, any news?... But you must be ill; you don't look well.'
'Yes, Kapiton Timofeitch, there's something not right.' 'What's wrong with
you?' 'Well, it was like this, Kapiton Timofeitch. Not long ago I bought
some mill-stones in the town, so I took them home, and as I went to lift
them out of the cart, I strained myself, or something; I'd a sort of rick in the
loins, as though something had been torn away, and ever since I've been out
of sorts. To-day I feel worse than ever.' 'Hm,' commented Kapiton, and he
took a pinch of snuff; 'that's a rupture, no doubt. But is it long since this
happened?' 'It's ten days now.' 'Ten days?' (The surgeon drew a long inward
breath and shook his head.) 'Let me examine you.' 'Well, Vassily Dmitritch,'
he pronounced at last, 'I am sorry for you, heartily sorry, but things aren't
right with you at all; you're seriously ill; stay here with me; I will do
everything I can, for my part, though I can't answer for anything.' 'So bad as
that?' muttered the astounded peasant. 'Yes, Vassily Dmitritch, it is bad; if
you'd come to me a day or two sooner, it would have been nothing much; I
could have cured you in a trice; but now inflammation has set in; before we
know where we are, there'll be mortification.' 'But it can't be, Kapiton
Timofeitch.' 'I tell you it is so.' 'But how comes it?' (The surgeon shrugged
his shoulders.) 'And I must die for a trifle like that?' 'I don't say that... only
you must stop here.' The peasant pondered and pondered, his eyes fixed on
the floor, then he glanced up at us, scratched his head, and picked up his
cap. 'Where are you off to, Vassily Dmitritch?' 'Where? why, home to be
sure, if it's so bad. I must put things to rights, if it's like that.' 'But you'll do
yourself harm, Vassily Dmitritch; you will, really; I'm surprised how you
managed to get here; you must stop.' 'No, brother, Kapiton Timofeitch, if I
must die, I'll die at home; why die here? I've got a home, and the Lord
knows how it will end.' 'No one can tell yet, Vassily Dmitritch, how it will
end.... Of course, there is danger, considerable danger; there's no disputing

that... but for that reason you ought to stay here.' (The peasant shook his
head.) 'No, Kapiton Timofeitch, I won't stay... but perhaps you will
prescribe me a medicine.' 'Medicine alone will be no good.' 'I won't stay, I
tell you.' 'Well, as you like.... Mind you don't blame me for it afterwards.'

The surgeon tore a page out of the album, and, writing out a prescription,
gave him some advice as to what he could do besides. The peasant took the
sheet of paper, gave Kapiton half-a-rouble, went out of the room, and took
his seat in the cart. 'Well, good-bye, Kapiton Timofeitch, don't remember
evil against me, and remember my orphans, if anything....' 'Oh, do stay,
Vassily!' The peasant simply shook his head, struck the horse with the reins,
and drove out of the yard. The road was muddy and full of holes; the miller
drove cautiously, without hurry, guiding his horse skilfully, and nodding to
the acquaintances he met. Three days later he was dead.

The Russians, in general, meet death in a marvellous way. Many of the
dead come back now to my memory. I recall you, my old friend, who left
the university with no degree, Avenir Sorokoumov, noblest, best of men! I
see once again your sickly, consumptive face, your lank brown tresses, your
gentle smile, your ecstatic glance, your long limbs; I can hear your weak,
caressing voice. You lived at a Great Russian landowner's, called Gur
Krupyanikov, taught his children, Fofa and Zyozya, Russian grammar,
geography, and history, patiently bore all the ponderous jokes of the said
Gur, the coarse familiarities of the steward, the vulgar pranks of the spiteful
urchins; with a bitter smile, but without repining, you complied with the
caprices of their bored and exacting mother; but to make up for it all, what
bliss, what peace was yours in the evening, after supper, when, free at last
of all duties, you sat at the window pensively smoking a pipe, or greedily
turned the pages of a greasy and mutilated number of some solid magazine,
brought you from the town by the land-surveyor--just such another poor,
homeless devil as yourself! How delighted you were then with any sort of
poem or novel; how readily the tears started into your eyes; with what
pleasure you laughed; what genuine love for others, what generous
sympathy for everything good and noble, filled your pure youthful soul!
One must tell the truth: you were not distinguished by excessive sharpness
of wit; Nature had endowed you with neither memory nor industry; at the
university you were regarded as one of the least promising students; at

lectures you slumbered, at examinations you preserved a solemn silence;
but who was beaming with delight and breathless with excitement at a
friend's success, a friend's triumphs?... Avenir!... Who had a blind faith in
the lofty destiny of his friends? who extolled them with pride? who
championed them with angry vehemence? who was innocent of envy as of
vanity? who was ready for the most disinterested self-sacrifice? who
eagerly gave way to men who were not worthy to untie his latchet?... That
was you, all you, our good Avenir! I remember how broken-heartedly you
parted from your comrades, when you were going away to be a tutor in the
country; you were haunted by presentiment of evil.... And, indeed, your lot
was a sad one in the country; you had no one there to listen to with
veneration, no one to admire, no one to love.... The neighbours--rude sons
of the steppes, and polished gentlemen alike--treated you as a tutor: some,
with rudeness and neglect, others carelessly. Besides, you were not pre-
possessing in person; you were shy, given to blushing, getting hot and
stammering.... Even your health was no better for the country air: you
wasted like a candle, poor fellow! It is true your room looked out into the
garden; wild cherries, apple-trees, and limes strewed their delicate blossoms
on your table, your ink-stand, your books; on the wall hung a blue silk
watch-pocket, a parting present from a kind-hearted, sentimental German
governess with flaxen curls and little blue eyes; and sometimes an old
friend from Moscow would come out to you and throw you into ecstasies
with new poetry, often even with his own. But, oh, the loneliness, the
insufferable slavery of a tutor's lot! the impossibility of escape, the endless
autumns and winters, the ever-advancing disease!... Poor, poor Avenir!

I paid Sorokoumov a visit not long before his death. He was then hardly
able to walk. The landowner, Gur Krupyanikov, had not turned him out of
the house, but had given up paying him a salary, and had taken another tutor
for Zyozya.... Fofa had been sent to a school of cadets. Avenir was sitting
near the window in an old easy-chair. It was exquisite weather. The clear
autumn sky was a bright blue above the dark-brown line of bare limes; here
and there a few last leaves of lurid gold rustled and whispered about them.
The earth had been covered with frost, now melting into dewdrops in the
sun, whose ruddy rays fell aslant across the pale grass; there was a faint
crisp resonance in the air; the voices of the labourers in the garden reached
us clearly and distinctly. Avenir wore an old Bokhara dressing-gown; a

green neckerchief threw a deathly hue over his terribly sunken face. He was
greatly delighted to see me, held out his hand, began talking and coughing
at once. I made him be quiet, and sat down by him.... On Avenir's knee lay a
manuscript book of Koltsov's poems, carefully copied out; he patted it with
a smile. 'That's a poet,' he stammered, with an effort repressing his cough;
and he fell to declaiming in a voice scarcely audible:

'Can the eagle's wings
Be chained and fettered?
Can the pathways of heaven
Be closed against him?'

I stopped him: the doctor had forbidden him to talk. I knew what would
please him. Sorokoumov never, as they say, 'kept up' with the science of the
day; but he was always anxious to know what results the leading intellects
had reached. Sometimes he would get an old friend into a corner and begin
questioning him; he would listen and wonder, take every word on trust, and
even repeat it all after him. He took a special interest in German philosophy.
I began discoursing to him about Hegel (this all happened long ago, as you
may gather). Avenir nodded his head approvingly, raised his eyebrows,
smiled, and whispered: 'I see! I see! ah, that's splendid! splendid!'... The
childish curiosity of this poor, dying, homeless outcast, moved me, I
confess, to tears. It must be noted that Avenir, unlike the general run of
consumptives, did not deceive himself in regard to his disease.... But what
of that?--he did not sigh, nor grieve; he did not even once refer to his
position....

Rallying his strength, he began talking of Moscow, of old friends, of
Pushkin, of the drama, of Russian literature; he recalled our little suppers,
the heated debates of our circle; with regret he uttered the names of two or
three friends who were dead....

'Do you remember Dasha?' he went on. 'Ah, there was a heart of pure
gold! What a heart! and how she loved me!... What has become of her now?
Wasted and fallen away, poor dear, I daresay!'

I had not the courage to disillusion the sick man; and, indeed, why
should he know that his Dasha was now broader than she was long, and that
she was living under the protection of some merchants, the brothers
Kondatchkov, that she used powder and paint, and was for ever swearing
and scolding?

'But can't we,' I thought, looking at his wasted face, 'get him away from
here? Perhaps there may still be a chance of curing him.' But Avenir cut
short my suggestion.

'No, brother, thanks,' he said; 'it makes no difference where one dies. I
shan't live till the winter, you see.... Why give trouble for nothing? I'm used
to this house. It's true the people...'

'They're unkind, eh?' I put in.

'No, not unkind! but wooden-headed creatures. However, I can't
complain of them. There are neighbours: there's a Mr. Kasatkin's daughter, a
cultivated, kind, charming girl... not proud...'

Sorokoumov began coughing again.

'I shouldn't mind anything,' he went on, after taking breath, 'if they'd only
let me smoke my pipe.... But I'll have my pipe, if I die for it!' he added, with
a sly wink. 'Thank God, I have had life enough! I have known so many fine
people.

'But you should, at least, write to your relations,' I interrupted.

'Why write to them? They can't be any help; when I die they'll hear of it.
But, why talk about it... I'd rather you'd tell me what you saw abroad.'

I began to tell him my experiences. He seemed positively to gloat over
my story. Towards evening I left, and ten days later I received the following
letter from Mr. Krupyanikov:

'I have the honour to inform you, my dear sir, that your friend, the
student, living in my house, Mr. Avenir Sorokoumov, died at two o'clock in

the afternoon, three days ago, and was buried to-day, at my expense, in the
parish church. He asked me to forward you the books and manuscripts
enclosed herewith. He was found to have twenty-two roubles and a half,
which, with the rest of his belongings, pass into the possession of his
relatives. Your friend died fully conscious, and, I may say, with so little
sensibility that he showed no signs of regret even when the whole family of
us took a last farewell of him. My wife, Kleopatra Aleksandrovna, sends
you her regards. The death of your friend has, of course, affected her
nerves; as regards myself, I am, thank God, in good health, and have the
honour to remain, your humble servant,'

'G. KRUPYANIKOV.'

Many more examples recur to me, but one cannot relate everything. I
will confine myself to one.

I was present at an old lady's death-bed; the priest had begun reading the
prayers for the dying over her, but, suddenly noticing that the patient
seemed to be actually dying, he made haste to give her the cross to kiss. The
lady turned away with an air of displeasure. 'You're in too great a hurry,
father,' she said, in a voice almost inarticulate; 'in too great a hurry.'... She
kissed the cross, put her hand under the pillow and expired. Under the
pillow was a silver rouble; she had meant to pay the priest for the service at
her own death....

Yes, the Russians die in a wonderful way.

XVII

THE SINGERS

The small village of Kolotovka once belonged to a lady known in the
neighbourhood by the nickname of Skin-flint, in illusion to her keen

business habits (her real name is lost in oblivion), but has of late years been
the property of a German from Petersburg. The village lies on the slope of a
barren hill, which is cut in half from top to bottom by a tremendous ravine.
It is a yawning chasm, with shelving sides hollowed out by the action of
rain and snow, and it winds along the very centre of the village street; it
separates the two sides of the unlucky hamlet far more than a river would
do, for a river could, at least, be crossed by a bridge. A few gaunt willows
creep timorously down its sandy sides; at the very bottom, which is dry and
yellow as copper, lie huge slabs of argillaceous rock. A cheerless position,
there's no denying, yet all the surrounding inhabitants know the road to
Kolotovka well; they go there often, and are always glad to go.

At the very summit of the ravine, a few paces from the point where it
starts as a narrow fissure in the earth, there stands a small square hut. It
stands alone, apart from all the others. It is thatched, and has a chimney;
one window keeps watch like a sharp eye over the ravine, and on winter
evenings when it is lighted from within, it is seen far away in the dim frosty
fog, and its twinkling light is the guiding star of many a peasant on his road.
A blue board is nailed up above the door; this hut is a tavern, called the
'Welcome Resort.' Spirits are sold here probably no cheaper than the usual
price, but it is far more frequented than any other establishment of the same
sort in the neighbourhood. The explanation of this is to be found in the
tavern-keeper, Nikolai Ivanitch.

Nikolai Ivanitch--once a slender, curly-headed and rosy-cheeked young
fellow, now an excessively stout, grizzled man with a fat face, sly and
good-natured little eyes, and a shiny forehead, with wrinkles like lines
drawn all over it--has lived for more than twenty years in Kolotovka.
Nikolai Ivanitch is a shrewd, acute fellow, like the majority of tavern-
keepers. Though he makes no conspicuous effort to please or to talk to
people, he has the art of attracting and keeping customers, who find it
particularly pleasant to sit at his bar under the placid and genial, though
alert eye, of the phlegmatic host. He has a great deal of common sense; he
thoroughly understands the landowner's conditions of life, the peasant's, and
the tradesman's. He could give sensible advice on difficult points, but, like a
cautious man and an egoist, prefers to stand aloof, and at most--and that
only in the case of his favourite customers--by remote hints, dropped, as it

were, unintentionally, to lead them into the true way. He is an authority on
everything that is of interest or importance to a Russian; on horses and
cattle, on timber, bricks, and crockery, on woollen stuffs and on leather, on
songs and dances. When he has no customers he is usually sitting like a
sack on the ground before the door of his hut, his thin legs tucked under
him, exchanging a friendly greeting with every passer-by. He has seen a
great deal in his time; many a score of petty landowners, who used to come
to him for spirits, he has seen pass away before him; he knows everything
that is done for eighty miles round, and never gossips, never gives a sign of
knowing what is unsuspected by the most keen-sighted police-officer. He
keeps his own counsel, laughs, and makes his glasses ring. His neighbours
respect him; the civilian general Shtcherpetenko, the landowner highest in
rank in the district, gives him a condescending nod whenever he drives past
his little house. Nikolai Ivanitch is a man of influence; he made a notorious
horse-stealer return a horse he had taken from the stable of one of his
friends; he brought the peasants of a neighbouring village to their senses
when they refused to accept a new overseer, and so on. It must not be
imagined, though, that he does this from love of justice, from devotion to
his neighbour--no! he simply tries to prevent anything that might, in any
way, interfere with his ease and comfort. Nikolai Ivanitch is married, and
has children. His wife, a smart, sharp-nosed and keen-eyed woman of the
tradesman class, has grown somewhat stout of late years, like her husband.
He relies on her in everything, and she keeps the key of the cash-box.
Drunken brawlers are afraid of her; she does not like them; they bring little
profit and make a great deal of noise: those who are taciturn and surly in
their cups are more to her taste. Nikolai Ivanitch's children are still small;
the first four all died, but those that are left take after their parents: it is a
pleasure to look at their intelligent, healthy little faces.

It was an insufferably hot day in July when, slowly dragging my feet
along, I went up alongside the Kolotovka ravine with my dog towards the
Welcome Resort. The sun blazed, as it were, fiercely in the sky, baking the
parched earth relentlessly; the air was thick with stifling dust. Glossy crows
and ravens with gaping beaks looked plaintively at the passers-by, as
though asking for sympathy; only the sparrows did not droop, but, pluming
their feathers, twittered more vigorously than ever as they quarrelled among
the hedges, or flew up all together from the dusty road, and hovered in grey

clouds over the green hempfields. I was tormented by thirst. There was no
water near: in Kolotovka, as in many other villages of the steppes, the
peasants, having no spring or well, drink a sort of thin mud out of the
pond.... For no one could call that repulsive beverage water. I wanted to ask
for a glass of beer or kvas at Nikolai Ivanitch's.

It must be confessed that at no time of the year does Kolotovka present a
very cheering spectacle; but it has a particularly depressing effect when the
relentless rays of a dazzling July sun pour down full upon the brown,
tumble-down roofs of the houses and the deep ravine, and the parched,
dusty common over which the thin, long-legged hens are straying
hopelessly, and the remains of the old manor-house, now a hollow, grey
framework of aspenwood, with holes instead of windows, overgrown with
nettles, wormwood, and rank grass, and the pond black, as though charred
and covered with goose feathers, with its edge of half-dried mud, and its
broken-down dyke, near which, on the finely trodden, ash-like earth, sheep,
breathless and gasping with the heat, huddle dejectedly together, their heads
drooping with weary patience, as though waiting for this insufferable heat
to pass at last. With weary steps I drew near Nikolai Ivanitch's dwelling,
arousing in the village children the usual wonder manifested in a
concentrated, meaningless stare, and in the dogs an indignation expressed in
such hoarse and furious barking that it seemed as if it were tearing their
very entrails, and left them breathless and choking, when suddenly in the
tavern doorway there appeared a tall peasant without a cap, in a frieze
cloak, girt about below his waist with a blue handkerchief. He looked like a
house-serf; thick grey hair stood up in disorder above his withered and
wrinkled face. He was calling to some one hurriedly, waving his arms,
which obviously were not quite under his control. It could be seen that he
had been drinking already.

'Come, come along!' he stammered, raising his shaggy eyebrows with an
effort. 'Come, Blinkard, come along! Ah, brother, how you creep along,
'pon my word! It's too bad, brother. They're waiting for you within, and here
you crawl along.... Come.'

'Well, I'm coming, I'm coming!' called a jarring voice, and from behind a
hut a little, short, fat, lame man came into sight. He wore a rather tidy cloth

coat, pulled half on, and a high pointed cap right over his brows, which
gave his round plump face a sly and comic expression. His little yellow
eyes moved restlessly about, his thin lips wore a continual forced smile,
while his sharp, long nose peered forward saucily in front like a rudder. 'I'm
coming, my dear fellow.' He went hobbling towards the tavern. 'What are
you calling me for?... Who's waiting for me?'

'What am I calling you for?' repeated the man in the frieze coat
reproachfully.' You're a queer fish, Blinkard: we call you to come to the
tavern, and you ask what for? Here are honest folks all waiting for you:
Yashka the Turk, and the Wild Master, and the booth-keeper from Zhizdry.
Yashka's got a bet on with the booth-keeper: the stake's a pot of beer--for
the one that does best, sings the best, I mean... do you see?'

'Is Yashka going to sing?' said the man addressed as Blinkard, with lively
interest. 'But isn't it your humbug, Gabbler?'

'I'm not humbugging,' answered the Gabbler, with dignity; 'it's you are
crazy. I should think he would sing since he's got a bet on it, you precious
innocent, you noodle, Blinkard!'

'Well, come in, simpleton!' retorted the Blinkard.

'Then give us a kiss at least, lovey,' stammered the Gabbler, opening
wide his arms.

'Get out, you great softy!' responded the Blinkard contemptuously,
giving him a poke with his elbow, and both, stooping, entered the low
doorway.

The conversation I had overheard roused my curiosity exceedingly. More
than once rumours had reached me of Yashka the Turk as the best singer in
the vicinity, and here was an opportunity all at once of hearing him in
competition with another master of the art. I quickened my steps and went
into the house.

Few of my readers have probably had an opportunity of getting a good
view of any village taverns, but we sportsmen go everywhere. They are

constructed on an exceedingly simple plan. They usually consist of a dark
outer-shed, and an inner room with a chimney, divided in two by a partition,
behind which none of the customers have a right to go. In this partition
there is a wide opening cut above a broad oak table. At this table or bar the
spirits are served. Sealed up bottles of various sizes stand on the shelves,
right opposite the opening. In the front part of the room, devoted to
customers, there are benches, two or three empty barrels, and a corner table.
Village taverns are for the most part rather dark, and you hardly ever see on
their wainscotted walls any of the glaring cheap prints which few huts are
without.

When I went into the Welcome Resort, a fairly large party were already
assembled there.

In his usual place behind the bar, almost filling up the entire opening in
the partition, stood Nikolai Ivanitch in a striped print shirt; with a lazy smile
on his full face, he poured out with his plump white hand two glasses of
spirits for the Blinkard and the Gabbler as they came in; behind him, in a
corner near the window, could be seen his sharp-eyed wife. In the middle of
the room was standing Yashka the Turk, a thin, graceful fellow of three-and-
twenty, dressed in a long skirted coat of blue nankin. He looked a smart
factory hand, and could not, to judge by his appearance, boast of very good
health. His hollow cheeks, his large, restless grey eyes, his straight nose,
with its delicate mobile nostrils, his pale brown curls brushed back over the
sloping white brow, his full but beautiful, expressive lips, and his whole
face betrayed a passionate and sensitive nature. He was in a state of great
excitement; he blinked, his breathing was hurried, his hands shook, as
though in fever, and he was really in a fever--that sudden fever of
excitement which is so well-known to all who have to speak and sing before
an audience. Near him stood a man of about forty, with broad shoulders and
broad jaws, with a low forehead, narrow Tartar eyes, a short flat nose, a
square chin, and shining black hair coarse as bristles. The expression of his
face--a swarthy face, with a sort of leaden hue in it--and especially of his
pale lips, might almost have been called savage, if it had not been so still
and dreamy. He hardly stirred a muscle; he only looked slowly about him
like a bull under the yoke. He was dressed in a sort of surtout, not over new,
with smooth brass buttons; an old black silk handkerchief was twisted

round his immense neck. He was called the Wild Master. Right opposite
him, on a bench under the holy pictures, was sitting Yashka's rival, the
booth-keeper from Zhizdry; he was a short, stoutly-built man about thirty,
pock-marked, and curly-headed, with a blunt, turn-up nose, lively brown
eyes, and a scanty beard. He looked keenly about him, and, sitting with his
hands under him, he kept carelessly swinging his legs and tapping with his
feet, which were encased in stylish top-boots with a coloured edging. He
wore a new thin coat of grey cloth, with a plush collar, in sharp contrast
with the crimson shirt below, buttoned close across the chest. In the
opposite corner, to the right of the door, a peasant sat at the table in a
narrow, shabby smock-frock, with a huge rent on the shoulder. The sunlight
fell in a narrow, yellowish streak through the dusty panes of the two small
windows, but it seemed as if it struggled in vain with the habitual darkness
of the room; all the objects in it were dimly, as it were, patchily lighted up.
On the other hand, it was almost cool in the room, and the sense of stifling
heat dropped off me like a weary load directly I crossed the threshold.

My entrance, I could see, was at first somewhat disconcerting to Nikolai
Ivanitch's customers; but observing that he greeted me as a friend, they
were reassured, and took no more notice of me. I asked for some beer and
sat down in the corner, near the peasant in the ragged smock.

'Well, well,' piped the Gabbler, suddenly draining a glass of spirits at one
gulp, and accompanying his exclamation with the strange gesticulations,
without which he seemed unable to utter a single word; 'what are we
waiting for? If we're going to begin, then begin. Hey, Yasha?'

'Begin, begin,' chimed in Nikolai Ivanitch approvingly.

'Let's begin, by all means,' observed the booth-keeper coolly, with a self-
confident smile; 'I'm ready.'

'And I'm ready,' Yakov pronounced in a voice thrilled with excitement.

'Well, begin, lads,' whined the Blinkard. But, in spite of the unanimously
expressed desire, neither began; the booth-keeper did not even get up from
the bench--they all seemed to be waiting for something.

'Begin!' said the Wild Master sharply and sullenly. Yashka started. The
booth-keeper pulled down his girdle and cleared his throat.

'But who's to begin?' he inquired in a slightly changed voice of the Wild
Master, who still stood motionless in the middle of the room, his stalwart
legs wide apart and his powerful arms thrust up to the elbow into his
breeches pockets.

'You, you, booth-keeper,' stammered the Gabbler; 'you, to be sure,
brother.'

The Wild Master looked at him from under his brows. The Gabbler gave
a faint squeak, in confusion looked away at the ceiling, twitched his
shoulder, and said no more.

'Cast lots,' the Wild Master pronounced emphatically; 'and the pot on the
table.'

Nikolai Ivanitch bent down, and with a gasp picked up the pot of beer
from the floor and set it on the table.

The Wild Master glanced at Yakov, and said 'Come!'

Yakov fumbled in his pockets, took out a halfpenny, and marked it with
his teeth. The booth-keeper pulled from under the skirts of his long coat a
new leather purse, deliberately untied the string, and shaking out a quantity
of small change into his hand, picked out a new halfpenny. The Gabbler
held out his dirty cap, with its broken peak hanging loose; Yakov dropped
his halfpenny in, and the booth-keeper his.

'You must pick out one,' said the Wild Master, turning to the Blinkard.

The Blinkard smiled complacently, took the cap in both hands, and
began shaking it.

For an instant a profound silence reigned; the halfpennies clinked faintly,
jingling against each other. I looked round attentively; every face wore an
expression of intense expectation; the Wild Master himself showed signs of

uneasiness; my neighbour, even, the peasant in the tattered smock, craned
his neck inquisitively. The Blinkard put his hand into the cap and took out
the booth-keeper's halfpenny; every one drew a long breath. Yakov flushed,
and the booth-keeper passed his hand over his hair.

'There, I said you'd begin,' cried the Gabbler; 'didn't I say so?'

'There, there, don't cluck,' remarked the Wild Master contemptuously.
'Begin,' he went on, with a nod to the booth-keeper.

'What song am I to sing?' asked the booth-keeper, beginning to be
nervous.

'What you choose,' answered the Blinkard; 'sing what you think best.'

'What you choose, to be sure,' Nikolai Ivanitch chimed in, slowly
smoothing his hand on his breast, 'you're quite at liberty about that. Sing
what you like; only sing well; and we'll give a fair decision afterwards.'

'A fair decision, of course,' put in the Gabbler, licking the edge of his
empty glass.

'Let me clear my throat a bit, mates,' said the booth-keeper, fingering the
collar of his coat.

'Come, come, no nonsense--begin!' protested the Wild Master, and he
looked down.

The booth-keeper thought a minute, shook his head, and stepped
forward. Yakov's eyes were riveted upon him.

But before I enter upon a description of the contest itself, I think it will
not be amiss to say a few words about each of the personages taking part in
my story. The lives of some of them were known to me already when I met
them in the Welcome Resort; I collected some facts about the others later
on.

Let us begin with the Gabbler. This man's real name was Evgraf
Ivanovitch; but no one in the whole neighbourhood knew him as anything

but the Gabbler, and he himself referred to himself by that nickname; so
well did it fit him. Indeed, nothing could have been more appropriate to his
insignificant, ever-restless features. He was a dissipated, unmarried house-
serf, whose own masters had long ago got rid of him, and who, without any
employment, without earning a halfpenny, found means to get drunk every
day at other people's expense. He had a great number of acquaintances who
treated him to drinks of spirits and tea, though they could not have said why
they did so themselves; for, far from being entertaining in company, he
bored every one with his meaningless chatter, his insufferable familiarity,
his spasmodic gestures and incessant, unnatural laugh. He could neither
sing nor dance; he had never said a clever, or even a sensible thing in his
life; he chattered away, telling lies about everything--a regular Gabbler!
And yet not a single drinking party for thirty miles around took place
without his lank figure turning up among the guests; so that they were used
to him by now, and put up with his presence as a necessary evil. They all, it
is true, treated him with contempt; but the Wild Master was the only one
who knew how to keep his foolish sallies in check.

The Blinkard was not in the least like the Gabbler. His nickname, too,
suited him, though he was no more given to blinking than other people; it is
a well-known fact, that the Russian peasants have a talent for finding good
nicknames. In spite of my endeavours to get more detailed information
about this man's past, many passages in his life have remained spots of
darkness to me, and probably to many other people; episodes, buried, as the
bookmen say, in the darkness of oblivion. I could only find out that he was
once a coachman in the service of an old childless lady; that he had run
away with three horses he was in charge of; had been lost for a whole year,
and no doubt, convinced by experience of the drawbacks and hardships of a
wandering life, he had gone back, a cripple, and flung himself at his
mistress's feet. He succeeded in a few years in smoothing over his offence
by his exemplary conduct, and, gradually getting higher in her favour, at
last gained her complete confidence, was made a bailiff, and on his
mistress's death, turned out--in what way was never known--to have
received his freedom. He got admitted into the class of tradesmen; rented
patches of market garden from the neighbours; grew rich, and now was
living in ease and comfort. He was a man of experience, who knew on
which side his bread was buttered; was more actuated by prudence than by

either good or ill-nature; had knocked about, understood men, and knew
how to turn them to his own advantage. He was cautious, and at the same
time enterprising, like a fox; though he was as fond of gossip as an old
woman, he never let out his own affairs, while he made everyone else talk
freely of theirs. He did not affect to be a simpleton, though, as so many
crafty men of his sort do; indeed it would have been difficult for him to take
any one in, in that way; I have never seen a sharper, keener pair of eyes than
his tiny cunning little 'peepers,' as they call them in Orel. They were never
simply looking about; they were always looking one up and down and
through and through. The Blinkard would sometimes ponder for weeks
together over some apparently simple undertaking, and again he would
suddenly decide on a desperately bold line of action, which one would
fancy would bring him to ruin.... But it would be sure to turn out all right;
everything would go smoothly. He was lucky, and believed in his own luck,
and believed in omens. He was exceedingly superstitious in general. He was
not liked, because he would have nothing much to do with anyone, but he
was respected. His whole family consisted of one little son, whom he
idolised, and who, brought up by such a father, is likely to get on in the
world. 'Little Blinkard'll be his father over again,' is said of him already, in
undertones by the old men, as they sit on their mud walls gossiping on
summer evenings, and every one knows what that means; there is no need
to say more.

As to Yashka the Turk and the booth-keeper, there is no need to say
much about them. Yakov, called the Turk because he actually was
descended from a Turkish woman, a prisoner from the war, was by nature
an artist in every sense of the word, and by calling, a ladler in a paper
factory belonging to a merchant. As for the booth-keeper, his career, I must
own, I know nothing of; he struck me as being a smart townsman of the
tradesman class, ready to turn his hand to anything. But the Wild Master
calls for a more detailed account.

The first impression the sight of this man produced on you was a sense
of coarse, heavy, irresistible power. He was clumsily built, a 'shambler,' as
they say about us, but there was an air of triumphant vigour about him, and-
-strange to say--his bear-like figure was not without a certain grace of its
own, proceeding, perhaps, from his absolutely placid confidence in his own

strength. It was hard to decide at first to what class this Hercules belonged:
he did not look like a house-serf, nor a tradesman, nor an impoverished
clerk out of work, nor a small ruined landowner, such as takes to being a
huntsman or a fighting man; he was, in fact, quite individual. No one knew
where he came from or what brought him into our district; it was said that
he came of free peasant-proprietor stock, and had once been in the
government service somewhere, but nothing positive was known about this;
and indeed there was no one from whom one could learn--certainly not
from him; he was the most silent and morose of men. So much so that no
one knew for certain what he lived on; he followed no trade, visited no one,
associated with scarcely anyone; yet he had money to spend; little enough,
it is true, still he had some. In his behaviour he was not exactly retiring--
retiring was not a word that could be applied to him: he lived as though he
noticed no one about him, and cared for no one. The Wild Master (that was
the nickname they had given him; his real name was Perevlyesov) enjoyed
an immense influence in the whole district; he was obeyed with eager
promptitude, though he had no kind of right to give orders to anyone, and
did not himself evince the slightest pretension to authority over the people
with whom he came into casual contact He spoke--they obeyed: strength
always has an influence of its own. He scarcely drank at all, had nothing to
do with women, and was passionately fond of singing. There was much that
was mysterious about this man; it seemed as though vast forces sullenly
reposed within him, knowing, as it were, that once roused, once bursting
free, they were bound to crush him and everything they came in contact
with; and I am greatly mistaken if, in this man's life, there had not been
some such outbreak; if it was not owing to the lessons of experience, to a
narrow escape from ruin, that he now kept himself so tightly in hand. What
especially struck me in him was the combination of a sort of inborn natural
ferocity, with an equally inborn generosity--a combination I have never met
in any other man.

And so the booth-keeper stepped forward, and, half shutting his eyes,
began singing in high falsetto. He had a fairly sweet and pleasant voice,
though rather hoarse: he played with his voice like a woodlark, twisting and
turning it in incessant roulades and trills up and down the scale, continually
returning to the highest notes, which he held and prolonged with special
care. Then he would break off, and again suddenly take up the first motive

with a sort of go-ahead daring. His modulations were at times rather bold, at
times rather comical; they would have given a connoisseur great
satisfaction, and have made a German furiously indignant. He was a
Russian tenore di grazia, ténor léger. He sang a song to a lively dance-tune,
the words of which, all that I could catch through the endless maze of
variations, ejaculations and repetitions, were as follows:

'A tiny patch of land, young lass,
I'll plough for thee,
And tiny crimson flowers, young lass,
I'll sow for thee.'

He sang; all listened to him with great attention. He seemed to feel that
he had to do with really musical people, and therefore was exerting himself
to do his best. And they really are musical in our part of the country; the
village of Sergievskoe on the Orel highroad is deservedly noted throughout
Russia for its harmonious chorus-singing. The booth-keeper sang for a long
while without evoking much enthusiasm in his audience; he lacked the
support of a chorus; but at last, after one particularly bold flourish, which
set even the Wild Master smiling, the Gabbler could not refrain from a
shout of delight. Everyone was roused. The Gabbler and the Blinkard began
joining in in an undertone, and exclaiming: 'Bravely done!... Take it, you
rogue!... Sing it out, you serpent! Hold it! That shake again, you dog you!...
May Herod confound your soul!' and so on. Nikolai Ivanitch behind the bar
was nodding his head from side to side approvingly. The Gabbler at last was
swinging his legs, tapping with his feet and twitching his shoulder, while
Yashka's eyes fairly glowed like coal, and he trembled all over like a leaf,
and smiled nervously. The Wild Master alone did not change countenance,
and stood motionless as before; but his eyes, fastened on the booth-keeper,
looked somewhat softened, though the expression of his lips was still
scornful. Emboldened by the signs of general approbation, the booth-keeper
went off in a whirl of flourishes, and began to round off such trills, to turn
such shakes off his tongue, and to make such furious play with his throat,
that when at last, pale, exhausted, and bathed in hot perspiration, he uttered
the last dying note, his whole body flung back, a general united shout

greeted him in a violent outburst. The Gabbler threw himself on his neck
and began strangling him in his long, bony arms; a flush came out on
Nikolai Ivanitch's oily face, and he seemed to have grown younger; Yashka
shouted like mad: 'Capital, capital!'--even my neighbour, the peasant in the
torn smock, could not restrain himself, and with a blow of his fist on the
table he cried: 'Aha! well done, damn my soul, well done!' And he spat on
one side with an air of decision.

'Well, brother, you've given us a treat!' bawled the Gabbler, not releasing
the exhausted booth-keeper from his embraces; 'you've given us a treat,
there's no denying! You've won, brother, you've won! I congratulate you--
the quart's yours! Yashka's miles behind you... I tell you: miles... take my
word for it.' (And again he hugged the booth-keeper to his breast.)

'There, let him alone, let him alone; there's no being rid of you'... said the
Blinkard with vexation; 'let him sit down on the bench; he's tired, see...
You're a ninny, brother, a perfect ninny! What are you sticking to him like a
wet leaf for...'

'Well, then, let him sit down, and I'll drink to his health,' said the
Gabbler, and he went up to the bar. 'At your expense, brother,' he added,
addressing the booth-keeper.

The latter nodded, sat down on the bench, pulled a piece of cloth out of
his cap, and began wiping his face, while the Gabbler, with greedy haste,
emptied his glass, and, with a grunt, assumed, after the manner of
confirmed drinkers, an expression of careworn melancholy.

'You sing beautifully, brother, beautifully,' Nikolai Ivanitch observed
caressingly. 'And now it's your turn, Yasha; mind, now, don't be afraid. We
shall see who's who; we shall see. The booth-keeper sings beautifully,
though; 'pon my soul, he does.'

'Very beautifully,' observed Nikolai Ivanitch's wife, and she looked with
a smile at Yakov.

'Beautifully, ha!' repeated my neighbour in an undertone.

'Ah, a wild man of the woods!' the Gabbler vociferated suddenly, and
going up to the peasant with the rent on his shoulder, he pointed at him with
his finger, while he pranced about and went off into an insulting guffaw.
'Ha! ha! get along! wild man of the woods! Here's a ragamuffin from
Woodland village! What brought you here?' he bawled amidst laughter.

The poor peasant was abashed, and was just about to get up and make
off as fast as he could, when suddenly the Wild Master's iron voice was
heard:

'What does the insufferable brute mean?' he articulated, grinding his
teeth.

'I wasn't doing nothing,' muttered the Gabbler. 'I didn't... I only....'

'There, all right, shut up!' retorted the Wild Master. 'Yakov, begin!'

Yakov took himself by his throat:

'Well, really, brothers,... something.... Hm, I don't know, on my word,
what....'

'Come, that's enough; don't be timid. For shame!... why go back?... Sing
the best you can, by God's gift.'

And the Wild Master looked down expectant. Yakov was silent for a
minute; he glanced round, and covered his face with his hand. All had their
eyes simply fastened upon him, especially the booth-keeper, on whose face
a faint, involuntary uneasiness could be seen through his habitual
expression of self-confidence and the triumph of his success. He leant back
against the wall, and again put both hands under him, but did not swing his
legs as before. When at last Yakov uncovered his face it was pale as a dead
man's; his eyes gleamed faintly under their drooping lashes. He gave a deep
sigh, and began to sing.... The first sound of his voice was faint and
unequal, and seemed not to come from his chest, but to be wafted from
somewhere afar off, as though it had floated by chance into the room. A
strange effect was produced on all of us by this trembling, resonant note; we
glanced at one another, and Nikolai Ivanitch's wife seemed to draw herself

up. This first note was followed by another, bolder and prolonged, but still
obviously quivering, like a harpstring when suddenly struck by a stray
finger it throbs in a last, swiftly-dying tremble; the second was followed by
a third, and, gradually gaining fire and breadth, the strains swelled into a
pathetic melody. 'Not one little path ran into the field,' he sang, and sweet
and mournful it was in our ears. I have seldom, I must confess, heard a
voice like it; it was slightly hoarse, and not perfectly true; there was even
something morbid about it at first; but it had genuine depth of passion, and
youth and sweetness and a sort of fascinating, careless, pathetic melancholy.
A spirit of truth and fire, a Russian spirit, was sounding and breathing in
that voice, and it seemed to go straight to your heart, to go straight to all
that was Russian in it. The song swelled and flowed. Yakov was clearly
carried away by enthusiasm; he was not timid now; he surrendered himself
wholly to the rapture of his art; his voice no longer trembled; it quivered,
but with the scarce perceptible inward quiver of passion, which pierces like
an arrow to the very soul of the listeners; and he steadily gained strength
and firmness and breadth. I remember I once saw at sunset on a flat sandy
shore, when the tide was low and the sea's roar came weighty and menacing
from the distance, a great white sea-gull; it sat motionless, its silky bosom
facing the crimson glow of the setting sun, and only now and then opening
wide its great wings to greet the well-known sea, to greet the sinking lurid
sun: I recalled it, as I heard Yakov. He sang, utterly forgetful of his rival and
all of us; he seemed supported, as a bold swimmer by the waves, by our
silent, passionate sympathy. He sang, and in every sound of his voice one
seemed to feel something dear and akin to us, something of breadth and
space, as though the familiar steppes were unfolding before our eyes and
stretching away into endless distance. I felt the tears gathering in my bosom
and rising to my eyes; suddenly I was struck by dull, smothered sobs.... I
looked round--the innkeeper's wife was weeping, her bosom pressed close
to the window. Yakov threw a quick glance at her, and he sang more
sweetly, more melodiously than ever; Nikolai Ivanitch looked down; the
Blinkard turned away; the Gabbler, quite touched, stood, his gaping mouth
stupidly open; the humble peasant was sobbing softly in the corner, and
shaking his head with a plaintive murmur; and on the iron visage of the
Wild Master, from under his overhanging brows there slowly rolled a heavy
tear; the booth-keeper raised his clenched fist to his brow, and did not stir....
I don't know how the general emotion would have ended, if Yakov had not

suddenly come to a full stop on a high, exceptionally shrill note--as though
his voice had broken. No one called out, or even stirred; every one seemed
to be waiting to see whether he was not going to sing more; but he opened
his eyes as though wondering at our silence, looked round at all of us with a
face of inquiry, and saw that the victory was his....

'Yasha,' said the Wild Master, laying his hand on his shoulder, and he
could say no more.

We all stood, as it were, petrified. The booth-keeper softly rose and went
up to Yakov.

'You... yours... you've won,' he articulated at last with an effort, and
rushed out of the room. His rapid, decided action, as it were, broke the
spell; we all suddenly fell into noisy, delighted talk. The Gabbler bounded
up and down, stammered and brandished his arms like mill-sails; the
Blinkard limped up to Yakov and began kissing him; Nikolai Ivanitch got
up and solemnly announced that he would add a second pot of beer from
himself. The Wild Master laughed a sort of kind, simple laugh, which I
should never have expected to see on his face; the humble peasant as he
wiped his eyes, cheeks, nose, and beard on his sleeves, kept repeating in his
corner: 'Ah, beautiful it was, by God! blast me for the son of a dog, but it
was fine!' while Nikolai Ivanitch's wife, her face red with weeping, got up
quickly and went away, Yakov was enjoying his triumph like a child; his
whole face was tranformed, his eyes especially fairly glowed with
happiness. They dragged him to the bar; he beckoned the weeping peasant
up to it, and sent the innkeeper's little son to look after the booth-keeper,
who was not found, however; and the festivities began. 'You'll sing to us
again; you're going to sing to us till evening,' the Gabbler declared,
flourishing his hands in the air.

I took one more look at Yakov and went out. I did not want to stay--I
was afraid of spoiling the impression I had received. But the heat was as
insupportable as before. It seemed hanging in a thick, heavy layer right over
the earth; over the dark blue sky, tiny bright fires seemed whisking through
the finest, almost black dust. Everything was still; and there was something
hopeless and oppressive in this profound hush of exhausted nature. I made
my way to a hay-loft, and lay down on the fresh-cut, but already almost dry

grass. For a long while I could not go to sleep; for a long while Yakov's
irresistible voice was ringing in my ears.... At last the heat and fatigue
regained their sway, however, and I fell into a dead sleep. When I waked up,
everything was in darkness; the hay scattered around smelt strong and was
slightly damp; through the slender rafters of the half-open roof pale stars
were faintly twinkling. I went out. The glow of sunset had long died away,
and its last trace showed in a faint light on the horizon; but above the
freshness of the night there was still a feeling of heat in the atmosphere,
lately baked through by the sun, and the breast still craved for a draught of
cool air. There was no wind, nor were there any clouds; the sky all round
was clear, and transparently dark, softly glimmering with innumerable, but
scarcely visible stars. There were lights twinkling about the village; from
the flaring tavern close by rose a confused, discordant din, amid which I
fancied I recognised the voice of Yakov. Violent laughter came from there
in an outburst at times. I went up to the little window and pressed my face
against the pane. I saw a cheerless, though varied and animated scene; all
were drunk--all from Yakov upwards. With breast bared, he sat on a bench,
and singing in a thick voice a street song to a dance-tune, he lazily fingered
and strummed on the strings of a guitar. His moist hair hung in tufts over
his fearfully pale face. In the middle of the room, the Gabbler, completely
'screwed' and without his coat, was hopping about in a dance before the
peasant in the grey smock; the peasant, on his side, was with difficulty
stamping and scraping with his feet, and grinning meaninglessly over his
dishevelled beard; he waved one hand from time to time, as much as to say,
'Here goes!' Nothing could be more ludicrous than his face; however much
he twitched up his eyebrows, his heavy lids would hardly rise, but seemed
lying upon his scarcely visible, dim, and mawkish eyes. He was in that
amiable frame of mind of a perfectly intoxicated man, when every passer-
by, directly he looks him in the face, is sure to say, 'Bless you, brother, bless
you!' The Blinkard, as red as a lobster, and his nostrils dilated wide, was
laughing malignantly in a corner; only Nikolai Ivanitch, as befits a good
tavern-keeper, preserved his composure unchanged. The room was thronged
with many new faces; but the Wild Master I did not see in it.

I turned away with rapid steps and began descending the hill on which
Kolotovka lies. At the foot of this hill stretches a wide plain; plunged in the
misty waves of the evening haze, it seemed more immense, and was, as it

were, merged in the darkening sky. I walked with long strides along the
road by the ravine, when all at once from somewhere far away in the plain
came a boy's clear voice: 'Antropka! Antropka-a-a!...' He shouted in
obstinate and tearful desperation, with long, long drawing out of the last
syllable.

He was silent for a few instants, and started shouting again. His voice
rang out clear in the still, lightly slumbering air. Thirty times at least he had
called the name, Antropka. When suddenly, from the farthest end of the
plain, as though from another world, there floated a scarcely audible reply:

'Wha-a-t?'

The boy's voice shouted back at once with gleeful exasperation:

'Come here, devil! woo-od imp!'

'What fo-or?' replied the other, after a long interval.

'Because dad wants to thrash you!' the first voice shouted back hurriedly.

The second voice did not call back again, and the boy fell to shouting
Antropka once more. His cries, fainter and less and less frequent, still
floated up to my ears, when it had grown completely dark, and I had turned
the corner of the wood which skirts my village and lies over three miles
from Kolotovka.... 'Antropka-a-a!' was still audible in the air, filled with the
shadows of night.

XVIII

PIOTR PETROVITCH KARATAEV

One autumn five years ago, I chanced, when on the road from Moscow
to Tula, to spend almost a whole day at a posting station for want of horses.

I was on the way back from a shooting expedition, and had been so
incautious as to send my three horses on in front of me. The man in charge
of the station, a surly, elderly man, with hair hanging over his brows to his
very nose, with little sleepy eyes, answered all my complaints and requests
with disconnected grumbling, slammed the door angrily, as though he were
cursing his calling in life, and going out on the steps abused the postilions
who were sauntering in a leisurely way through the mud with the weighty
wooden yokes on their arms, or sat yawning and scratching themselves on a
bench, and paid no special attention to the wrathful exclamations of their
superior. I had already sat myself down three times to tea, had several times
tried in vain to sleep, and had read all the inscriptions on the walls and
windows; I was overpowered by fearful boredom. In chill and helpless
despair I was staring at the upturned shafts of my carriage, when suddenly I
heard the tinkling of a bell, and a small trap, drawn by three jaded horses,
drew up at the steps. The new arrival leaped out of the trap, and shouting
'Horses! and look sharp!' he went into the room. While he was listening
with the strange wonder customary in such cases to the overseer's answer
that there were no horses, I had time to scan my new companion from top to
toe with all the greedy curiosity of a man bored to death. He appeared to be
nearly thirty. Small-pox had left indelible traces on his face, which was dry
and yellowish, with an unpleasant coppery tinge; his long blue-black hair
fell in ringlets on his collar behind, and was twisted into jaunty curls in
front; his small swollen eyes were quite expressionless; a few hairs sprouted
on his upper lip. He was dressed like a dissipated country gentleman, given
to frequenting horse-fairs, in a rather greasy striped Caucasian jacket, a
faded lilac silk-tie, a waistcoat with copper buttons, and grey trousers
shaped like huge funnels, from under which the toes of unbrushed shoes
could just be discerned. He smelt strongly of tobacco and spirits; on his fat,
red hands, almost hidden in his sleeves, could be seen silver and Tula rings.
Such figures are met in Russia not by dozens, but by hundreds; an
acquaintance with them is not, to tell the truth, productive of any particular
pleasure; but in spite of the prejudice with which I looked at the new-comer,
I could not fail to notice the recklessly good-natured and passionate
expression of his face.

'This gentleman's been waiting more than an hour here too,' observed the
overseer indicating me.

More than an hour! The rascal was making fun of me.

'But perhaps he doesn't need them as I do,' answered the new comer.

'I know nothing about that,' said the overseer sulkily.

'Then is it really impossible? Are there positively no horses?'

'Impossible. There's not a single horse.'

'Well, tell them to bring me a samovar. I'll wait a little; there's nothing
else to be done.'

The new comer sat down on the bench, flung his cap on the table, and
passed his hand over his hair.

'Have you had tea already?' he inquired of me.

'Yes.'

'But won't you have a little more for company.'

I consented. The stout red samovar made its appearance for the fourth
time on the table. I brought out a bottle of rum. I was not wrong in taking
my new acquaintance for a country gentleman of small property. His name
was Piotr Petrovitch Karataev.

We got into conversation. In less than half-an-hour after his arrival, he
was telling me his whole life with the most simple-hearted openness.

'I'm on my way to Moscow now,' he told me as he sipped his fourth
glass; 'there's nothing for me to do now in the country.'

'How so?'

'Well, it's come to that. My property's in disorder; I've ruined my
peasants, I must confess; there have been bad years: bad harvests, and all
sorts of ill-luck, you know.... Though, indeed,' he added, looking away
dejectedly; 'how could I manage an estate!'

'Why's that?'

'But, no,' he interrupted me? 'there are people like me who make good
managers! You see,' he went on, screwing his head on one side and sucking
his pipe assiduously, 'looking at me, I dare say you think I'm not much... but
you, see, I must confess, I've had a very middling education; I wasn't well
off. I beg your pardon; I'm an open man, and if you come to that....'

He did not complete his sentence, but broke off with a wave of the hand.
I began to assure him that he was mistaken, that I was highly delighted to
meet him, and so on, and then observed that I should have thought a very
thorough education was not indispensable for the good management of
property.

'Agreed,' he responded; 'I agree with you. But still, a special sort of
disposition's essential! There are some may do anything they like, and it's
all right! but I.... Allow me to ask, are you from Petersburg or from
Moscow?'

'I'm from Petersburg.'

He blew a long coil of smoke from his nostrils.

'And I'm going in to Moscow to be an official.'

'What department do you mean to enter?'

'I don't know; that's as it happens. I'll own to you, I'm afraid of official
life; one's under responsibility at once. I've always lived in the country; I'm
used to it, you know... but now, there's no help for it... it's through poverty!
Oh, poverty, how I hate it!'

'But then you will be living in the capital.'

'In the capital.... Well, I don't know what there is that's pleasant in the
capital. We shall see; may be, it's pleasant too.... Though nothing, I fancy,
could be better than the country.'

'Then is it really impossible for you to live at your country place?'

He gave a sigh.

'Quite impossible. It's, so to say, not my own now.'

'Why, how so?'

'Well, a good fellow there--a neighbour--is in possession... a bill of
exchange.'

Poor Piotr Petrovitch passed his hand over his face, thought a minute,
and shook his head.

'Well?'... I must own, though,' he added after a brief silence, 'I can't
blame anybody; it's my own fault. I was fond of cutting a dash, I am fond of
cutting a dash, damn my soul!'

'You had a jolly life in the country?' I asked him.

'I had, sir,' he responded emphatically, looking me straight in the face,
'twelve harriers--harriers, I can tell you, such as you don't very often see.'
(The last words he uttered in a drawl with great significance.) 'A grey hare
they'd double upon in no time. After the red fox--they were devils, regular
serpents. And I could boast of my greyhounds too. It's all a thing of the past
now, I've no reason to lie. I used to go out shooting too. I had a dog called
the Countess, a wonderful setter, with a first-rate scent--she took
everything. Sometimes I'd go to a marsh and call "Seek." If she refused, you
might go with a dozen dogs, and you'd find nothing. But when she was after
anything, it was a sight to see her. And in the house so well-bred. If you
gave her bread with your left hand and said, "A Jew's tasted it," she
wouldn't touch it; but give it with your right and say, "The young lady's had
some," and she'd take it and eat it at once. I had a pup of hers--capital pup
he was, and I meant to bring him with me to Moscow, but a friend asked me
for him, together with a gun; he said, "In Moscow you'll have other things
to think of." I gave him the pup and the gun; and so, you know, it stayed
there.'

'But you might go shooting in Moscow.'

'No, what would be the use? I didn't know when to pull myself up, so
now I must grin and bear it.

But there, kindly tell me rather about the living in Moscow--is it dear?'

'No, not very.'

'Not very.... And tell me, please, are there any gypsies in Moscow?'

'What sort of gypsies?'

'Why, such as hang about fairs?'

'Yes, there are in Moscow....'

'Well, that's good news. I like gypsies, damn my soul! I like 'em....'

And there was a gleam of reckless merriment in Piotr Petrovitch's eyes.
But suddenly he turned round on the bench, then seemed to ponder, dropped
his eyes, and held out his empty glass to me.

'Give me some of your rum,' he said.'

'But the tea's all finished.'

'Never mind, as it is, without tea... Ah--h!' Karataev laid his head in his
hands and leaned his elbows on the table. I looked at him without speaking,
and although I was expecting the sentimental exclamations, possibly even
the tears of which the inebriate are so lavish, yet when he raised his head, I
was, I must own, impressed by the profoundly mournful expression of his
face.

'What's wrong with you?'

'Nothing.... I was thinking of old times. An anecdote that... I would tell it
you, but I am ashamed to trouble you....'

'What nonsense!'

'Yes,' he went on with a sigh:--'there are cases... like mine, for instance.
Well, if you like, I will tell you. Though really I don't know....'

'Do tell me, dear Piotr Petrovitch.'

'Very well, though it's a... Well, do you see,' he began; 'but, upon my
word, I don't know.'

'Come, that's enough, dear Piotr Petrovitch.'

'All right. This, then, was what befel me, so to say. I used to live in the
country... All of a sudden, I took a fancy to a girl. Ah, what a girl she was!...
handsome, clever, and so good and sweet! Her name was Matrona. But she
wasn't a lady--that is, you understand, she was a serf, simply a serf-girl. And
not my girl; she belonged to someone else--that was the trouble. Well, so I
loved her--it's really an incident that one can hardly... well, and she loved
me, too. And so Matrona began begging me to buy her off from her
mistress; and, indeed, the thought had crossed my mind too.... But her
mistress was a rich, dreadful old body; she lived about twelve miles from
me. Well, so one fine day, as the saying is, I ordered my team of three
horses to be harnessed abreast to the droshky--in the centre I'd a first-rate
goer, an extraordinary Asiatic horse, for that reason called Lampurdos--I
dressed myself in my best, and went off to Matrona's mistress. I arrived; it
was a big house with wings and a garden.... Matrona was waiting for me at
the bend of the road; she tried to say a word to me, but she could only kiss
her hand and turn away. Well, so I went into the hall and asked if the
mistress were at home?... And a tall footman says to me: "What name shall
I say?" I answered, "Say, brother, Squire Karataev has called on a matter of
business." The footman walked away; I waited by myself and thought, "I
wonder how it'll be? I daresay the old beast'll screw out a fearful price, for
all she's so rich. Five hundred roubles she'll ask, I shouldn't be surprised."
Well, at last the footman returned, saying, "If you please, walk up." I
followed him into the drawing-room. A little yellowish old woman sat in an
armchair blinking. "What do you want?" To begin with, you know, I
thought it necessary to say how glad I was to make her acquaintance....
"You are making a mistake; I am not the mistress here; I'm a relation of
hers.... What do you want?" I remarked upon that, "I had to speak to the
mistress herself." "Marya Ilyinishna is not receiving to-day; she is unwell....

What do you want?" There's nothing for it, I thought to myself; so I
explained my position to her. The old lady heard me out. "Matrona! what
Matrona?"

'"Matrona Fedorovna, Kulik's daughter."

'"Fedor Kulik's daughter.... But how did you come to know her?" "By
chance." "And is she aware of your intention?" "Yes." The old lady was
silent for a minute. Then, "Ah, I'll let her know it, the worthless hussy!" she
said. I was astounded, I must confess. "What ever for? upon my word!... I'm
ready to pay a good sum, if you will be so good as to name it."'

'The old hag positively hissed at me. "A surprising idea you've concocted
there; as though we needed your money!... I'll teach her, I'll show her!... I'll
beat the folly out of her!" The old lady choked with spitefulness. "Wasn't
she well off with us, pray?... Ah, she's a little devil! God forgive my
transgressions!" I fired up, I'll confess. "What are you threatening the poor
girl for? How is she to blame?" The old lady crossed herself. "Ah, Lord
have mercy on me, do you suppose I'd..." "But she's not yours, you know!"
"Well, Marya Ilyinishna knows best about that; it's not your business, my
good sir; but I'll show that chit of a Matrona whose serf she is." I'll confess,
I almost fell on the damned old woman, but I thought of Matrona, and my
hands dropped. I was more frightened than I can tell you; I began entreating
the old lady. "Take what you like," I said. "But what use is she to you?" "I
like her, good ma'am; put yourself in my position.... Allow me to kiss your
little hand." And I positively kissed the wretch's hand! "Well," mumbled the
old witch, "I'll tell Marya Ilyinishna--it's for her to decide; you come back
in a couple of days." I went home in great uneasiness. I began to suspect
that I'd managed the thing badly; that I'd been wrong in letting her notice
my state of mind, but I thought of that too late. Two days after, I went to see
the mistress. I was shown into a boudoir. There were heaps of flowers and
splendid furniture; the lady herself was sitting in a wonderful easy-chair,
with her head lolling back on a cushion; and the same relation was sitting
there too, and some young lady, with white eyebrows and a mouth all awry,
in a green gown--a companion, most likely. The old lady said through her
nose, "Please be seated." I sat down. She began questioning me as to how
old I was, and where I'd been in the service, and what I meant to do, and all

that very condescendingly and solemnly. I answered minutely. The old lady
took a handkerchief off the table, flourished it, fanning herself.... "Katerina
Karpovna informed me," says she, "of your scheme; she informed me of it;
but I make it my rule," says she, "not to allow my people to leave my
service. It is improper, and quite unsuitable in a well-ordered house; it is not
good order. I have already given my orders," says she. "There will be no
need for you to trouble yourself further," says she. "Oh, no trouble, really....
But can it be, Matrona Fedorovna is so necessary to you?" "No," says she,
"she is not necessary." "Then why won't you part with her to me?" "Because
I don't choose to; I don't choose--and that's all about it. I've already," says
she, "given my orders: she is being sent to a village in the steppes." I was
thunderstruck. The old lady said a couple of words in French to the young
lady in green; she went out. "I am," says she, "a woman of strict principles,
and my health is delicate; I can't stand being worried. You are still young,
and I'm an old woman, and entitled to give you advice. Wouldn't it be better
for you to settle down, get married; to look out a good match; wealthy
brides are few, but a poor girl, of the highest moral character, could be
found." I stared, do you know, at the old lady, and didn't understand what
she was driving at; I could hear she was talking about marriage, but the
village in the steppes was ringing in my ears all the while. Get married!...
what the devil!...'

Here he suddenly stopped in his story and looked at me.

'You're not married, I suppose?'

'No.'

'There, of course, I could see it. I couldn't stand it. "But, upon my word,
ma'am, what on earth are you talking about? How does marriage come in? I
simply want to know from you whether you will part with your serf-girl
Matrona or not?" The old lady began sighing and groaning. "Ah, he's
worrying me! ah, send him away! ah!" The relation flew to her, and began
scolding me, while the lady kept on moaning: "What have I done to deserve
it?... I suppose I'm not mistress in my own house? Ah! ah!" I snatched my
hat, and ran out of the house like a madman.

'Perhaps,' he continued, 'you will blame me for being so warmly attached
to a girl of low position; I don't mean to justify myself exactly, either... but
so it came to pass!... Would you believe it, I had no rest by day or by
night.... I was in torment! Besides, I thought, "I have ruined the poor girl!"
At times I thought that she was herding geese in a smock, and being ill-
treated by her mistress's orders, and the bailiff, a peasant in tarred boots,
reviling her with foul abuse. I positively fell into a cold sweat. Well, I could
not stand it. I found out what village she had been sent to, mounted my
horse, and set off. I only got there the evening of the next day. Evidently
they hadn't expected such a proceeding on my part, and had given no order
in regard to me. I went straight to the bailiff as though I were a neighbour; I
go into the yard and look around; there was Matrona sitting on the steps
leaning on her elbow. She was on the point of crying out, but I held up my
finger and pointed outside, towards the open country. I went into the hut; I
chatted away a bit to the bailiff, told him ten thousand lies, seized the right
moment, and went out to Matrona. She, poor girl, fairly hung round my
neck. She was pale and thin, my poor darling! I kept saying to her, do you
know: "There, it's all right, Matrona; it's all right, don't cry," and my own
tears simply flowed and flowed.... Well, at last though, I was ashamed, I
said to her: "Matrona, tears are no help in trouble, but we must act, as they
say, resolutely; you must run away with me; that's how we must act."
Matrona fairly swooned away.... "How can it be! I shall be ruined; they will
be the death of me altogether." "You silly! who will find you?" "They will
find me; they will be sure to find me. Thank you, Piotr Petrovitch--I shall
never forget your kindness; but now you must leave me; such is my fate, it
seems." "Ah, Matrona, Matrona, I thought you were a girl of character!"
And, indeed, she had a great deal of character.... She had a heart, a heart of
gold! "Why should you be left here? It makes no difference; things can't be
worse. Come, tell me--you've felt the bailiff's fists, eh?" Matrona fairly
crimsoned, and her lips trembled. "But there'll be no living for my family
on my account." "Why, your family now--will they send them for soldiers?"
"Yes; they'll send my brother for a soldier." "And your father?" "Oh, they
won't send father; he's the only good tailor among us."

'"There, you see; and it won't kill your brother." Would you believe it, I'd
hard work to persuade her; she even brought forward a notion that I might
have to answer for it. "But that's not your affair," said I.... However, I did

carry her off... not that time, but another; one night I came with a light cart,
and carried her off.'

'You carried her off?'

'Yes... Well, so she lived in my house. It was a little house, and I'd few
servants. My people, I will tell you frankly, respected me; they wouldn't
have betrayed me for any reward. I began to be as happy as a prince.
Matrona rested and recovered, and I grew devoted to her.... And what a girl
she was! It seemed to come by nature! She could sing, and dance, and play
the guitar!... I didn't show her to my neighbours; I was afraid they'd gossip!
But there was one fellow, my bosom friend, Gornostaev, Panteley--you
don't know him? He was simply crazy about her; he'd kiss her hand as
though she were a lady; he would, really. And I must tell you, Gornostaev
was not like me; he was a cultivated man, had read all Pushkin; sometimes,
he'd talk to Matrona and me so that we pricked up our ears to listen. He
taught her to write; such a queer chap he was! And how I dressed her--better
than the governor's wife, really; I had a pelisse made her of crimson velvet,
edged with fur... Ah! how that pelisse suited her! It was made by a Moscow
madame in a new fashion, with a waist. And what a wonderful creature
Matrona was! Sometimes she'd fall to musing, and sit for hours together
looking at the ground, without stirring a muscle; and I'd sit too, and look at
her, and could never gaze enough, just as if I were seeing her for the first
time.... Then she would smile, and my heart would give a jump as though
someone were tickling me. Or else she'd suddenly fall to laughing, joking,
dancing; she would embrace me so warmly, so passionately, that my head
went round. From morning to evening I thought of nothing but how I could
please her. And would you believe it? I gave her presents simply to see how
pleased she would be, the darling! all blushing with delight! How she would
try on my present; how she would come back with her new possession on,
and kiss me! Her father, Kulik, got wind of it, somehow; the old man came
to see us, and how he wept.... In that way we lived for five months, and I
should have been glad to live with her for ever, but for my cursed ill-luck!'

Piotr Petrovitch stopped.

'What was it happened?' I asked him sympathetically. He waved his
hand.

'Everything went to the devil. I was the ruin of her too. My little Matrona
was passionately fond of driving in sledges, and she used to drive herself;
she used to put on her pelisse and her embroidered Torzhok gloves, and cry
out with delight all the way. We used to go out sledging always in the
evening, so as not to meet any one, you know. So, once it was such a
splendid day, you know, frosty and clear, and no wind... we drove out.
Matrona had the reins. I looked where she was driving. Could it be to
Kukuyevka, her mistress's village? Yes, it was to Kukuyevka. I said to her,
"You mad girl, where are you going?" She gave me a look over her shoulder
and laughed. "Let me," she said, "for a lark." "Well," thought I, "come what
may!..." To drive past her mistress's house was nice, wasn't it? Tell me
yourself--wasn't it nice? So we drove on. The shaft-horse seemed to float
through the air, and the trace-horses went, I can tell you, like a regular
whirlwind. We were already in sight of Kukuyevka; when suddenly I see an
old green coach crawling along with a groom on the footboard up behind....
It was the mistress--the mistress driving towards us! My heart failed me;
but Matrona--how she lashed the horses with the reins, and flew straight
towards the coach! The coachman, he, you understand, sees us flying to
meet him, meant, you know, to move on one side, turned too sharp, and
upset the coach in a snowdrift. The window was broken; the mistress
shrieked, "Ai! ai! ai! ai! ai! ai!" The companion wailed, "Help! help!" while
we flew by at the best speed we might. We galloped on, but I thought, "Evil
will come of it. I did wrong to let her drive to Kukuyevka." And what do
you think? Why, the mistress had recognised Matrona, and me too, the old
wretch, and made a complaint against me. "My runaway serf-girl," said she,
"is living at Mr. Karataev's"; and thereupon she made a suitable present. Lo
and behold! the captain of police comes to me; and he was a man I knew,
Stepan Sergyeitch Kuzovkin, a good fellow; that's to say, really a regular
bad lot. So he came up and said this and that, and "How could you do so,
Piotr Petrovitch?... The liability is serious, and the laws very distinct on the
subject." I tell him, "Well, we'll have a talk about that, of course; but come,
you'll take a little something after your drive." He agreed to take something,
but he said, "Justice has claims, Piotr Petrovitch; think for yourself."
"Justice, to be sure," said I, "of course... but, I have heard say you've a little
black horse. Would you be willing to exchange it for my Lampurdos?... But
there's no girl called Matrona Fedorovna in my keeping." "Come," says he,
"Piotr Petrovitch, the girl's with you, we're not living in Switzerland, you

know... though my little horse might be exchanged for Lampurdos; I might,
to be sure, accept it in that way." However, I managed to get rid of him
somehow that time. But the old lady made a greater fuss than ever; ten
thousand roubles, she said, she wouldn't grudge over the business. You see,
when she saw me, she suddenly took an idea into her head to marry me to
her young lady companion in green; that I found out later; that was why she
was so spiteful. What ideas won't these great ladies take into their heads!...
It comes through being dull, I suppose. Things went badly with me: I didn't
spare money, and I kept Matrona in hiding. No, they harassed me, and
turned me this way and that: I got into debt; I lost my health.... So one
night, as I lay in my bed, thinking, "My God, why should I suffer so? What
am I to do, since I can't get over loving her?... There, I can't, and that's all
about it!" into the room walked Matrona. I had hidden her for the time at a
farmhouse a mile and a half from my house. I was frightened. "What? have
they discovered you even there?" "No, Piotr Petrovitch," said she, "no one
disturbs me at Bubnova; but will that last long? My heart," she said, "is
torn, Piotr Petrovitch; I am sorry for you, my dear one; never shall I forget
your goodness, Piotr Petrovitch, but now I've come to say good-bye to
you." "What do you mean, what do you mean, you mad girl?... Good-bye,
how good-bye?"... "Yes... I am going to give myself up." "But I'll lock you
up in a garret, mad girl!... Do you mean to destroy me? Do you want to kill
me, or what?" The girl was silent; she looked on the floor. "Come, speak,
speak!" "I can't bear to cause you any more trouble, Piotr Petrovitch." Well,
one might talk to her as one pleased... "But do you know, little fool, do you
know, mad..."

And Piotr Petrovitch sobbed bitterly.

'Well, what do you think?' he went on, striking the table with his fist and
trying to frown, while the tears still coursed down his flushed cheeks; 'the
girl gave herself up.... She went and gave herself up...'

'The horses are ready,' the overseer cried triumphantly, entering the
room.

We both stood up.

'What became of Matrona?' I asked.

Karataev waved his hand.

*****

A year after my meeting with Karataev, I happened to go to Moscow.
One day, before dinner, for some reason or other I went into a café in the
Ohotny row--an original Moscow café. In the billiard-room, across clouds
of smoke, I caught glimpses of flushed faces, whiskers, old-fashioned
Hungarian coats, and new-fangled Slavonic costumes.

Thin little old men in sober surtouts were reading the Russian papers.
The waiters flitted airily about with trays, treading softly on the green
carpets. Merchants, with painful concentration, were drinking tea. Suddenly
a man came out of the billiard-room, rather dishevelled, and not quite
steady on his legs. He put his hands in his pockets, bent his head, and
looked aimlessly about.

'Ba, ba, ba! Piotr Petrovitch!... How are you?'

Piotr Petrovitch almost fell on my neck, and, slightly staggering, drew
me into a small private room.

'Come here,' he said, carefully seating me in an easy-chair; 'here you will
be comfortable. Waiter, beer! No, I mean champagne! There, I'll confess, I
didn't expect; I didn't expect... Have you been here long? Are you staying
much longer? Well, God has brought us, as they say, together.'

'Yes, do you remember...'

'To be sure, I remember; to be sure, I remember!' he interrupted me
hurriedly; 'it's a thing of the past...'

'Well, what are you doing here, my dear Piotr Petrovitch?'

'I'm living, as you can see. Life's first-rate here; they're a merry lot here.
Here I've found peace.'

And he sighed, and raised his eyes towards heaven.

'Are you in the service?'

'No, I'm not in the service yet, but I think I shall enter. But what's the
service?... People are the chief thing. What people I have got to know
here!...'

A boy came in with a bottle of champagne on a black tray.

'There, and this is a good fellow.... Isn't that true, Vasya, that you're a
good fellow? To your health!'

The boy stood a minute, shook his head, decorously smiled, and went
out.

'Yes, there are capital people here,' pursued Piotr Petrovitch; 'people of
soul, of feeling.... Would you like me to introduce you?--such jolly chaps....
They'll all be glad to know you. I say... Bobrov is dead; that's a sad thing.'

'What Bobrov?'

'Sergay Bobrov; he was a capital fellow; he took me under his wing as
an ignoramus from the wilds. And Panteley Gornostaev is dead. All dead,
all!'

'Have you been living all the time in Moscow? You haven't been away to
the country?'

'To the country!... My country place is sold.'

'Sold?'

'By auction.... There! what a pity you didn't buy it.'

'What are you going to live on, Piotr Petrovitch?'

'I shan't die of hunger; God will provide when I've no money. I shall
have friends. And what is money.... Dust and ashes! Gold is dust!'

He shut his eyes, felt in his pocket, and held out to me in the palm of his
hand two sixpences and a penny.

'What's that? Isn't it dust and ashes' (and the money flew on the floor).
'But you had better tell me, have you read Polezhaev?'

'Yes.'

'Have you seen Motchalov in Hamlet?'

'No, I haven't.'

'You've not seen him, not seen him!...' (And Karataev's face turned pale;
his eyes strayed uneasily; he turned away; a faint spasm passed over his
lips.) 'Ah, Motchalov, Motchalov! "To die--to sleep!"' he said in a thick
voice:

'No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die--to sleep!'

'To sleep--to sleep,' he muttered several times.

'Tell me, please,' I began; but he went on with fire:

'Who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Nymph in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.'

And he dropped his head on the table. He began stammering and talking
at random. 'Within a month'! he delivered with fresh fire:

'A little month, or ere those shoes were old,
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe--all tears; why she, even she--
O God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourned longer!'

He raised a glass of champagne to his lips, but did not drink off the wine,
and went on:

'For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?...
But I'm a dull and muddy mettled-rascal,
Who calls me coward? gives me the lie i' the throat?
... Why I should take it; for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To make oppression bitter.'

Karataev put down the glass and grabbed at his head. I fancied I
understood him.

'Well, well,' he said at last, 'one must not rake up the past. Isn't that so?'
(and he laughed). 'To your health!'

'Shall you stay in Moscow?' I asked him.

'I shall die in Moscow!'

'Karataev!' called a voice in the next room; 'Karataev, where are you?
Come here, my dear fellow!'

'They're calling me,' he said, getting up heavily from his seat. 'Good-bye;
come and see me if you can; I live in....'

But next day, through unforeseen circumstances, I was obliged to leave
Moscow, and I never saw Piotr Petrovitch Karataev again.

XIX

THE TRYST

I was sitting in a birchwood in autumn, about the middle of September.
From early morning a fine rain had been falling, with intervals from time to
time of warm sunshine; the weather was unsettled. The sky was at one time
overcast with soft white clouds, at another it suddenly cleared in parts for
an instant, and then behind the parting clouds could be seen a blue, bright
and tender as a beautiful eye. I sat looking about and listening. The leaves
faintly rustled over my head; from the sound of them alone one could tell
what time of year it was. It was not the gay laughing tremor of the spring,
nor the subdued whispering, the prolonged gossip of the summer, nor the
chill and timid faltering of late autumn, but a scarcely audible, drowsy
chatter. A slight breeze was faintly humming in the tree-tops. Wet with the
rain, the copse in its inmost recesses was for ever changing as the sun shone
or hid behind a cloud; at one moment it was all a radiance, as though
suddenly everything were smiling in it; the slender stems of the thinly-
growing birch-trees took all at once the soft lustre of white silk, the tiny
leaves lying on the earth were on a sudden flecked and flaring with purplish
gold, and the graceful stalks of the high, curly bracken, decked already in
their autumn colour, the hue of an over-ripe grape, seemed interlacing in
endless tangling crisscross before one's eyes; then suddenly again
everything around was faintly bluish; the glaring tints died away
instantaneously, the birch-trees stood all white and lustreless, white as
fresh-fallen snow, before the cold rays of the winter sun have caressed it;
and slily, stealthily there began drizzling and whispering through the wood

the finest rain. The leaves on the birches were still almost all green, though
perceptibly paler; only here and there stood one young leaf, all red or
golden, and it was a sight to see how it flamed in the sunshine when the
sunbeams suddenly pierced with tangled flecks of light through the thick
network of delicate twigs, freshly washed by the sparkling rain. Not one
bird could be heard; all were in hiding and silent, except that at times there
rang out the metallic, bell-like sound of the jeering tomtit. Before halting in
this birch copse I had been through a wood of tall aspen-trees with my dog.
I confess I have no great liking for that tree, the aspen, with its pale-lilac
trunk and the greyish-green metallic leaves which it flings high as it can,
and unfolds in a quivering fan in the air; I do not care for the eternal
shaking of its round, slovenly leaves, awkwardly hooked on to long stalks.
It is only fine on some summer evenings when, rising singly above low
undergrowth, it faces the reddening beams of the setting sun, and shines and
quivers, bathed from root to top in one unbroken yellow glow, or when, on
a clear windy day, it is all rippling, rustling, and whispering to the blue sky,
and every leaf is, as it were, taken by a longing to break away, to fly off and
soar into the distance. But, as a rule, I don't care for the tree, and so, not
stopping to rest in the aspen wood, I made my way to the birch-copse,
nestled down under one tree whose branches started low down near the
ground, and were consequently capable of shielding me from the rain, and
after admiring the surrounding view a little, I fell into that sweet untroubled
sleep only known to sportsmen.

I cannot say how long I was asleep, but when I opened my eyes, all the
depths of the wood were filled with sunlight, and in all directions across the
joyously rustling leaves there were glimpses and, as it were, flashes of
intense blue sky; the clouds had vanished, driven away by the blustering
wind; the weather had changed to fair, and there was that feeling of peculiar
dry freshness in the air which fills the heart with a sense of boldness, and is
almost always a sure sign of a still bright evening after a rainy day. I was
just about to get up and try my luck again when suddenly my eyes fell on a
motionless human figure. I looked attentively; it was a young peasant girl.
She was sitting twenty paces off, her head bent in thought, and her hands
lying in her lap; one of them, half-open, held a big nosegay of wild flowers,
which softly stirred on her checked petticoat with every breath. Her clean
white smock, buttoned up at the throat and wrists, lay in short soft folds

about her figure; two rows of big yellow beads fell from her neck to her
bosom. She was very pretty. Her thick fair hair of a lovely, almost ashen
hue, was parted into two carefully combed semicircles, under the narrow
crimson fillet, which was brought down almost on to her forehead, white as
ivory; the rest of her face was faintly tanned that golden hue which is only
taken by a delicate skin. I could not see her eyes--she did not raise them;
but I saw her delicate high eye-brows, her long lashes; they were wet, and
on one of her cheeks there shone in the sun the traces of quickly drying
tears, reaching right down to her rather pale lips. Her little head was very
charming altogether; even her rather thick and snub nose did not spoil her. I
was especially taken with the expression of her face; it was so simple and
gentle, so sad and so full of childish wonder at its own sadness. She was
obviously waiting for some one; something made a faint crackling in the
wood; she raised her head at once, and looked round; in the transparent
shade I caught a rapid glimpse of her eyes, large, clear, and timorous, like a
fawn's. For a few instants she listened, not moving her wide open eyes from
the spot whence the faint sound had come; she sighed, turned her head
slowly, bent still lower, and began sorting her flowers. Her eyelids turned
red, her lips twitched faintly, and a fresh tear rolled from under her thick
eyelashes, and stood brightly shining on her cheek. Rather a long while
passed thus; the poor girl did not stir, except for a despairing movement of
her hands now and then--and she kept listening, listening.... Again there was
a crackling sound in the wood: she started. The sound did not cease, grew
more distinct, and came closer; at last one could hear quick resolute
footsteps. She drew herself up and seemed frightened; her intent gaze was
all aquiver, all aglow with expectation. Through the thicket quickly
appeared the figure of a man. She gazed at it, suddenly flushed, gave a
radiant, blissful smile, tried to rise, and sank back again at once, turned
white and confused, and only raised her quivering, almost supplicating eyes
to the man approaching, when the latter stood still beside her.

I looked at him with curiosity from my ambush. I confess he did not
make an agreeable impression on me. He was, to judge by external signs,
the pampered valet of some rich young gentleman. His attire betrayed
pretensions to style and fashionable carelessness; he wore a shortish coat of
a bronze colour, doubtless from his master's wardrobe, buttoned up to the
top, a pink cravat with lilac ends, and a black velvet cap with a gold ribbon,

pulled forward right on to his eyebrows. The round collar of his white shirt
mercilessly propped up his ears and cut his cheeks, and his starched cuffs
hid his whole hand to the red crooked fingers, adorned by gold and silver
rings, with turquoise forget-me-nots. His red, fresh, impudent-looking face
belonged to the order of faces which, as far as I have observed, are almost
always repulsive to men, and unfortunately are very often attractive to
women. He was obviously trying to give a scornful and bored expression to
his coarse features; he was incessantly screwing up his milky grey eyes--
small enough at all times; he scowled, dropped the corners of his mouth,
affected to yawn, and with careless, though not perfectly natural
nonchalance, pushed back his modishly curled red locks, or pinched the
yellow hairs sprouting on his thick upper lip--in fact, he gave himself
insufferable airs. He began his antics directly he caught sight of the young
peasant girl waiting for him; slowly, with a swaggering step, he went up to
her, stood a moment shrugging his shoulders, stuffed both hands in his coat
pockets, and barely vouchsafing the poor girl a cursory and indifferent
glance, he dropped on to the ground.

'Well,' he began, still gazing away, swinging his leg and yawning, 'have
you been here long?'

The girl could not at once answer.

'Yes, a long while, Viktor Alexandritch,' she said at last, in a voice hardly
audible.

'Ah!' (He took off his cap, majestically passed his hand over his thick,
stiffly curled hair, which grew almost down to his eyebrows, and looking
round him with dignity, he carelessly covered his precious head again.)
'And I quite forgot all about it. Besides, it rained!' (He yawned again.) 'Lots
to do; there's no looking after everything; and he's always scolding. We set
off to-morrow....'

'To-morrow?' uttered the young girl. And she fastened her startled eyes
upon him.

'Yes, to-morrow.... Come, come, come, please!' he added, in a tone of
vexation, seeing she was shaking all over and softly bending her head;

'please, Akulina, don't cry. You know, I can't stand that.' (And he wrinkled
up his snub nose.) 'Else I'll go away at once.... What silliness--snivelling!'

'There, I won't, I won't!' cried Akulina, hurriedly gulping down her tears
with an effort. 'You are starting to-morrow?' she added, after a brief silence:
'when will God grant that we see each other again, Viktor Alexandritch?'

'We shall see each other, we shall see each other. If not next year--then
later. The master wants to enter the service in Petersburg, I fancy,' he went
on, pronouncing his words with careless condescension through his nose;
'and perhaps we shall go abroad too.'

'You will forget me, Viktor Alexandritch,' said Akulina mournfully.

'No, why so? I won't forget you; only you be sensible, don't be a fool;
obey your father.... And I won't forget you--no-o.' (And he placidly
stretched and yawned again.)

'Don't forget me, Viktor Alexandritch,' she went on in a supplicating
voice. 'I think none could, love you as I do. I have given you everything....
You tell me to obey my father, Viktor Alexandritch.... But how can I obey
my father?...'

'Why not?' (He uttered these words, as it were, from his stomach, lying
on his back with his hands behind his head.)

'But how can I, Viktor Alexandritch?--you know yourself...'

She broke off. Viktor played with his steel watch-chain.

'You're not a fool, Akulina,' he said at last, 'so don't talk nonsense. I
desire your good--do you understand me? To be sure, you're not a fool--not
altogether a mere rustic, so to say; and your mother, too, wasn't always a
peasant. Still you've no education--so you ought to do what you're told.'

'But it's fearful, Viktor Alexandritch.'

'O-oh! that's nonsense, my dear; a queer thing to be afraid of! What have
you got there?' he added, moving closer to her; 'flowers?'

'Yes,' Akulina responded dejectedly. 'That's some wild tansy I picked,'
she went on, brightening up a little; 'it's good for calves. And this is bud-
marigold--against the king's evil. Look, what an exquisite flower! I've never
seen such a lovely flower before. These are forget-me-nots, and that's
mother-darling.... And these I picked for you,' she added, taking from under
a yellow tansy a small bunch of blue corn-flowers, tied up with a thin blade
of grass.' Do you like them?'

Viktor languidly held out his hand, took the flowers, carelessly sniffed at
them, and began twirling them in his fingers, looking upwards. Akulina
watched him.... In her mournful eyes there was such tender devotion,
adoring submission and love. She was afraid of him, and did not dare to cry,
and was saying good-bye to him and admiring him for the last time; while
he lay, lolling like a sultan, and with magnanimous patience and
condescension put up with her adoration. I must own, I glared indignantly
at his red face, on which, under the affectation of scornful indifference, one
could discern vanity soothed and satisfied. Akulina was so sweet at that
instant; her whole soul was confidingly and passionately laid bare before
him, full of longing and caressing tenderness, while he... he dropped the
corn-flowers on the grass, pulled out of the side pocket of his coat a round
eye-glass set in a brass rim, and began sticking it in his eye; but however
much he tried to hold it with his frowning eyebrow, his pursed-up cheek
and nose, the eye-glass kept tumbling out and falling into his hand.

'What is it?' Akulina asked at last in wonder.

'An eye-glass,' he answered with dignity.

'What for?'

'Why, to see better.'

'Show me.'

Viktor scowled, but gave her the glass.

'Don't break it; look out.'

'No fear, I won't break it.' (She put it to her eye.) 'I see nothing,' she said
innocently.

'But you must shut your eye,' he retorted in the tones of a displeased
teacher. (She shut the eye before which she held the glass.)

'Not that one, not that one, you fool! the other!' cried Viktor, and he took
away his eye-glass, without allowing her to correct her mistake.

Akulina flushed a little, gave a faint laugh, and turned away.

'It's clear it's not for the likes of us,' she said.

'I should think not, indeed!'

The poor girl was silent and gave a deep sigh.

'Ah, Viktor Alexandritch, what it will be like for me to be without you!'
she said suddenly.

Victor rubbed the glass on the lappet of his coat and put it back in his
pocket.

'Yes, yes,'he said at last, 'at first it will be hard for you, certainly.' (He
patted her condescendingly on the shoulder; she softly took his hand from
her shoulder and timidly kissed it.) 'There, there, you're a good girl,
certainly,' he went on, with a complacent smile; 'but what's to be done? You
can see for yourself! me and the master could never stay on here; it will
soon be winter now, and winter in the country--you know yourself--is
simply disgusting. It's quite another thing in Petersburg! There there are
simply such wonders as a silly girl like you could never fancy in your
dreams! Such horses and streets, and society, and civilisation--simply
marvellous!...' (Akulina listened with devouring attention, her lips slightly
parted, like a child.) 'But what's the use,' he added, turning over on the
ground, 'of my telling you all this? Of course, you can't understand it!'

'Why so, Viktor Alexandritch! I understand; I understood everything.'

'My eye, what a girl it is!'

Akulina looked down.

'You used not to talk to me like that once, Viktor Alexandritch,' she said,
not lifting her eyes.

'Once?... once!... My goodness!' he remarked, as though in indignation.

They both were silent.

'It's time I was going,' said Viktor, and he was already rising on to his
elbow.

'Wait a little longer,' Akulina besought him in a supplicating voice.

'What for?... Why, I've said good-bye to you.'

'Wait a little,' repeated Akulina.

Viktor lay down again and began whistling. Akulina never took her eyes
off him. I could see that she was gradually being overcome by emotion; her
lips twitched, her pale cheeks faintly glowed.

'Viktor Alexandritch,' she began at last in a broken voice, 'it's too bad of
you... it is too bad of you, Viktor Alexandritch, indeed it is!'

'What's too bad?' he asked frowning, and he slightly raised his head and
turned it towards her.

'It's too bad, Viktor Alexandritch. You might at least say one kind word
to me at parting; you might have said one little word to me, a poor luckless
forlorn.'...

'But what am I to say to you?'

'I don't know; you know that best, Viktor Alexandritch. Here you are
going away, and one little word.... What have I done to deserve it?'

'You're such a queer creature! What can I do?'

'One word at least.'

'There, she keeps on at the same thing,' he commented with annoyance,
and he got up.

'Don't be angry, Viktor Alexandritch,' she added hurriedly, with difficulty
suppressing her tears.

I'm not angry, only you're silly.... What do you want? You know I can't
marry you, can I? I can't, can I? What is it you want then, eh?' (He thrust his
face forward as though expecting an answer, and spread his fingers out.)

'I want nothing... nothing,' she answered falteringly, and she ventured to
hold out her trembling hands to him; 'but only a word at parting.'

And her tears fell in a torrent.

'There, that means she's gone off into crying,' said Viktor coolly, pushing
down his cap on to his eyes.

'I want nothing,' she went on, sobbing and covering her face with her
hands; 'but what is there before me in my family? what is there before me?
what will happen to me? what will become of me, poor wretch? They will
marry me to a hateful... poor forsaken... Poor me!'

'Sing away, sing away,' muttered Viktor in an undertone, fidgeting with
impatience as he stood.

'And he might say one word, one word.... He might say, "Akulina... I..."'

Sudden heart-breaking sobs prevented her from finishing; she lay with
her face in the grass and bitterly, bitterly she wept.... Her whole body shook
convulsively, her neck fairly heaved.... Her long-suppressed grief broke out
in a torrent at last. Viktor stood over her, stood a moment, shrugged his
shoulders, turned away and strode off.

A few instants passed... she grew calmer, raised her head, jumped up,
looked round and wrung her hands; she tried to run after him, but her legs
gave way under her--she fell on her knees.... I could not refrain from

rushing up to her; but, almost before she had time to look at me, making a
superhuman effort she got up with a faint shriek and vanished behind the
trees, leaving her flowers scattered on the ground.

I stood a minute, picked up the bunch of cornflowers, and went out of
the wood into the open country. The sun had sunk low in the pale clear sky;
its rays too seemed to have grown pale and chill; they did not shine; they
were diffused in an unbroken, watery light. It was within half-an-hour of
sunset, but there was scarcely any of the glow of evening. A gusty wind
scurried to meet me across the yellow parched stubble; little curled-up
leaves, scudding hurriedly before it, flew by across the road, along the edge
of the copse; the side of the copse facing the fields like a wall, was all
shaking and lighted up by tiny gleams, distinct, but not glowing; on the
reddish plants, the blades of grass, the straws on all sides, were sparkling
and stirring innumerable threads of autumn spider-webs. I stopped... I felt
sad at heart: under the bright but chill smile of fading nature, the dismal
dread of coming winter seemed to steal upon me. High overhead flew a
cautious crow, heavily and sharply cleaving the air with his wings; he
turned his head, looked sideways at me, flapped his wings and, cawing
abruptly, vanished behind the wood; a great flock of pigeons flew up
playfully from a threshing floor, and suddenly eddying round in a column,
scattered busily about the country. Sure sign of autumn! Some one came
driving over the bare hillside, his empty cart rattling loudly....

I turned homewards; but it was long before the figure of poor Akulina
faded out of my mind, and her cornflowers, long since withered, are still in
my keeping.

XX

THE HAMLET OF THE SHTCHIGRI DISTRICT

On one of my excursions I received an invitation to dine at the house of
a rich landowner and sportsman, Alexandr Mihalitch G----. His property
was four miles from the small village where I was staying at the time. I put
on a frock-coat, an article without which I advise no one to travel, even on a
hunting expedition, and betook myself to Alexandr Mihalitch's. The dinner
was fixed for six o'clock; I arrived at five, and found already a great number
of gentlemen in uniforms, in civilian dress, and other nondescript garments.
My host met me cordially, but soon hurried away to the butler's pantry. He
was expecting a great dignitary, and was in a state of agitation not quite in
keeping with his independent position in society and his wealth. Alexandr
Mihalitch had never married, and did not care for women; his house was the
centre of a bachelor society. He lived in grand style; he had enlarged and
sumptuously redecorated his ancestral mansion, spent fifteen thousand
roubles on wine from Moscow every year, and enjoyed the highest public
consideration. Alexandr Mihalitch had retired from the service ages ago,
and had no ambition to gain official honours of any kind. What could have
induced him to go out of his way to procure a guest of high official position,
and to be in a state of excitement from early morning on the day of the
grand dinner? That remains buried in the obscurity of the unknown, as a
friend of mine, an attorney, is in the habit of saying when he is asked
whether he takes bribes when kindly-disposed persons offer them.

On parting from my host, I began walking through the rooms. Almost all
the guests were utterly unknown to me: about twenty persons were already
seated at the card-tables. Among these devotees of preference were two
warriors, with aristocratic but rather battered countenances, a few civilian
officials, with tight high cravats and drooping dyed moustaches, such as are
only to be found in persons of resolute character and strict conservative
opinions: these conservative persons picked up their cards with dignity, and,
without turning their heads, glared sideways at everyone who approached;
and five or six local petty officials, with fair round bellies, fat, moist little
hands, and staid, immovable little legs. These worthies spoke in a subdued
voice, smiled benignly in all directions, held their cards close up to their
very shirt-fronts, and when they trumped did not flap their cards on the
table, but, on the contrary, shed them with an undulatory motion on the
green cloth, and packed their tricks together with a slight, unassuming, and
decorous swish. The rest of the company were sitting on sofas, or hanging

in groups about the doors or at the windows; one gentleman, no longer
young, though of feminine appearance, stood in a corner, fidgeting,
blushing, and twisting the seal of his watch over his stomach in his
embarrassment, though no one was paying any attention to him; some
others in swallow-tail coats and checked trousers, the handiwork of the
tailor and Perpetual Master of the Tailors Corporation, Firs Klyuhin, were
talking together with extraordinary ease and liveliness, turning their bald,
greasy heads from side to side unconstrainedly as they talked; a young man
of twenty, short-sighted and fair-haired, dressed from head to foot in black,
obviously shy, smiled sarcastically....

I was beginning, however, to feel bored, when suddenly I was joined by
a young man, one Voinitsin by name, a student without a degree, who
resided in the house of Alexandr Mihalitch in the capacity of...it would be
hard to say precisely, of what. He was a first-rate shot, and could train dogs.
I had known him before in Moscow. He was one of those young men who
at every examination 'played at dumb-show,' that is to say, did not answer a
single word to the professor's questions. Such persons were also designated
'the bearded students.' (You will gather that this was in long past days.) This
was how it used to be: they would call Voinitsin, for example. Voinitsin,
who had sat upright and motionless in his place, bathed in a hot perspiration
from head to foot, slowly and aimlessly looked about him, got up, hurriedly
buttoned up his undergraduate's uniform, and edged up to the examiner's
table. 'Take a paper, please,' the professor would say to him pleasantly.
Voinitsin would stretch out his hand, and with trembling fingers fumble at
the pile of papers. 'No selecting, if you please,' observed, in a jarring voice,
an assistant-examiner, an irritable old gentleman, a professor in some other
faculty, conceiving a sudden hatred for the unlucky bearded one. Voinitsin
resigned himself to his fate, took a paper, showed the number on it, and
went and sat down by the window, while his predecessor was answering his
question. At the window Voinitsin never took his eyes off his paper, except
that at times he looked slowly round as before, though he did not move a
muscle. But his predecessor would finish at last, and would be dismissed
with, 'Good! you can go,' or even 'Good indeed, very good!' according to
his abilities. Then they call Voinitsin: Voinitsin gets up, and with resolute
step approaches the table. 'Read your question,' they tell him. Voinitsin
raises the paper in both hands up to his very nose, slowly reads it, and

slowly drops his hands. 'Well, now, your answer, please,' the same professor
remarks languidly, throwing himself backwards, and crossing his arms over
his breast.

There reigns the silence of the tomb. 'Why are you silent?' Voinitsin is
mute. The assistant-examiner begins to be restive. 'Well, say something!'
Voinitsin is as still as if he were dead. All his companions gaze inquisitively
at the back of his thick, close-cropped, motionless head. The assistant-
examiner's eyes are almost starting out of his head; he positively hates
Voinitsin. 'Well, this is strange, really,' observes the other examiner. 'Why
do you stand as if you were dumb? Come, don't you know it? if so, say so.'
'Let me take another question,' the luckless youth articulates thickly. The
professors look at one another.' Well, take one,' the head-examiner answers,
with a wave of the hand. Voinitsin again takes a paper, again goes to the
window, again returns to the table, and again is silent as the grave. The
assistant-examiner is capable of devouring him alive. At last they send him
away and mark him a nought. You would think, 'Now, at least, he will go.'
Not a bit of it! He goes back to his place, sits just as immovably to the end
of the examination, and, as he goes out, exclaims: 'I've been on the rack!
what ill-luck!' and the whole of that day he wanders about Moscow,
clutching every now and then at his head, and bitterly cursing his luckless
fate. He never, of course, touched a book, and the next day the same story
was repeated.

So this was the Voinitsin who joined me. We talked about Moscow,
about sport.

'Would you like me,' he whispered to me suddenly, 'to introduce you to
the first wit of these parts?'

'If you will be so kind.'

Voinitsin led me up to a little man, with a high tuft of hair on his
forehead and moustaches, in a cinnamon-coloured frock-coat and striped
cravat. His yellow, mobile features were certainly full of cleverness and
sarcasm. His lips were perpetually curved in a flitting ironical smile; little
black eyes, screwed up with an impudent expression, looked out from under
uneven lashes. Beside him stood a country gentleman, broad, soft, and

sweet--a veritable sugar-and-honey mixture--with one eye. He laughed in
anticipation at the witticisms of the little man, and seemed positively
melting with delight. Voinitsin presented me to the wit, whose name was
Piotr Petrovitch Lupihin. We were introduced and exchanged the
preliminary civilities.

'Allow me to present to you my best friend,' said Lupihin suddenly in a
strident voice, seizing the sugary gentleman by the arm.

'Come, don't resist, Kirila Selifanitch,' he added; 'we're not going to bite
you. I commend him to you,' he went on, while the embarrassed Kirila
Selifanitch bowed with about as much grace as if he were undergoing a
surgical operation; 'he's a most superior gentleman. He enjoyed excellent
health up to the age of fifty, then suddenly conceived the idea of doctoring
his eyes, in consequence of which he has lost one. Since then he doctors his
peasants with similar success.... They, to be sure, repay with similar
devotion...'

'What a fellow it is!' muttered Kirila Selifanitch. And he laughed.

'Speak out, my friend; eh, speak out!' Lupihin rejoined. 'Why, they may
elect you a judge; I shouldn't wonder, and they will, too, you see. Well, to
be sure, the secretaries will do the thinking for you, we may assume; but
you know you'll have to be able to speak, anyhow, even if only to express
the ideas of others. Suppose the governor comes and asks, "Why is it the
judge stammers?" And they'd say, let's assume, "It's a paralytic stroke."
"Then bleed him," he'd say. And it would be highly indecorous, in your
position, you'll admit.'

The sugary gentleman was positively rolling with mirth.

'You see he laughs,' Lupihin pursued with a malignant glance at Kirila
Selifanitch's heaving stomach. 'And why shouldn't he laugh?' he added,
turning to me: 'he has enough to eat, good health, and no children; his
peasants aren't mortgaged--to be sure, he doctors them--and his wife is
cracked.' (Kirila Selifanitch turned a little away as though he were not
listening, but he still continued to chuckle.) 'I laugh too, while my wife has

eloped with a land-surveyor.' (He grinned.) 'Didn't you know that? What!
Why, one fine day she ran away with him and left me a letter.

"Dear Piotr Petrovitch," she said, "forgive me: carried away by passion, I
am leaving with the friend of my heart."... And the land-surveyor only took
her fancy through not cutting his nails and wearing tight trousers. You're
surprised at that? "Why, this," she said, "is a man with no dissimulation
about him."... But mercy on us! Rustic fellows like us speak the truth too
plainly. But let us move away a bit.... It's not for us to stand beside a future
judge.'...

He took me by the arm, and we moved away to a window.

'I've the reputation of a wit here,' he said to me, in the course of
conversation. 'You need not believe that. I'm simply an embittered man, and
I do my railing aloud: that's how it is I'm so free and easy in my speech.
And why should I mince matters, if you come to that; I don't care a straw
for anyone's opinion, and I've nothing to gain; I'm spiteful--what of that? A
spiteful man, at least, needs no wit. And, however enlightening it may be,
you won't believe it.... I say, now, I say, look at our host! There! what is he
running to and fro like that for? Upon my word, he keeps looking at his
watch, smiling, perspiring, putting on a solemn face, keeping us all starving
for our dinner! Such a prodigy! a real court grandee! Look, look, he's
running again--bounding, positively, look!'

And Lupihin laughed shrilly.

'The only pity is, there are no ladies,' he resumed with a deep sigh; 'it's a
bachelor party, else that's when your humble servant gets on. Look, look,'
he cried suddenly: 'Prince Kozelsky's come--that tall man there, with a
beard, in yellow gloves. You can see at once he's been abroad... and he
always arrives as late. He's as heavy, I tell you, by himself, as a pair of
merchant's horses, and you should see how condescendingly he talks with
your humble servant, how graciously he deigns to smile at the civilities of
our starving mothers and daughters!... And he sometimes sets up for a wit,
but he is only here for a little time; and oh, his witticisms! It's for all the
world like hacking at a ship's cable with a blunt knife. He can't bear me....
I'm going to bow to him.'

And Lupihin ran off to meet the prince.

'And here comes my special enemy,' he observed, turning all at once to
me. 'Do you see that fat man with the brown face and the bristles on his
head, over there, that's got his cap clutched in his hand, and is creeping
along by the wall and glaring in all directions like a wolf? I sold him for
400 roubles a horse worth 1000, and that stupid animal has a perfect right
now to despise me; though all the while he is so destitute of all faculty of
imagination, especially in the morning before his tea, or after dinner, that if
you say "Good morning!" to him, he'll answer, "Is it?" 'And here comes the
general,' pursued Lupihin, 'the civilian general, a retired, destitute general.
He has a daughter of beetroot-sugar, and a manufactory with scrofula....
Beg pardon, I've got it wrong... but there, you understand. Ah! and the
architect's turned up here! A German, and wears moustaches, and does not
understand his business--a natural phenomenon!... though what need for
him to understand his business so long as he takes bribes and sticks in
pillars everywhere to suit the tastes of our pillars of society!'

Lupihin chuckled again.... But suddenly a wave of excitement passed
over the whole house. The grandee had arrived. The host positively rushed
into the hall. After him ran a few devoted members of the household and
eager guests.... The noisy talk was transformed into a subdued pleasant chat,
like the buzzing of bees in spring within their hives. Only the turbulent
wasp, Lupihin, and the splendid drone, Kozelsky, did not subdue their
voices.... And behold, at last, the queen!--the great dignitary entered. Hearts
bounded to meet him, sitting bodies rose; even the gentleman who had
bought a horse from Lupihin poked his chin into his chest. The great
personage kept up his dignity in an inimitable manner; throwing his head
back, as though he were bowing, he uttered a few words of approbation, of
which each was prefaced by the syllable er, drawled through his nose; with
a sort of devouring indignation he looked at Prince Kozelsky's democratic
beard, and gave the destitute general with the factory and the daughter the
forefinger of his right hand. After a few minutes, in the course of which the
dignitary had had time to observe twice that he was very glad he was not
late for dinner, the whole company trooped into the dining-room, the swells
first.

There is no need to describe to the reader how they put the great man in
the most important place, between the civilian general and the marshal of
the province, a man of an independent and dignified expression of face, in
perfect keeping with his starched shirt-front, his expanse of waistcoat, and
his round snuff-box full of French snuff; how our host bustled about, and
ran up and down, fussing and pressing the guests to eat, smiling at the great
man's back in passing, and hurriedly snatching a plate of soup or a bit of
bread in a corner like a schoolboy; how the butler brought in a fish more
than a yard long, with a nosegay in its mouth; how the surly-looking foot-
men in livery sullenly plied every gentleman, now with Malaga, now dry
Madeira; and how almost all the gentlemen, particularly the more elderly
ones, drank off glass after glass with an air of reluctantly resigning
themselves to a sense of duty; and finally, how they began popping
champagne bottles and proposing toasts: all that is probably only too well
known to the reader. But what struck me as especially noteworthy was the
anecdote told us by the great man himself amid a general delighted silence.
Someone--I fancy it was the destitute general, a man familiar with modern
literature--referred to the influence of women in general, and especially on
young men. 'Yes, yes,' chimed in the great man, 'that's true; but young men
ought to be kept in strict subjection, or else, very likely, they'll go out of
their senses over every petticoat.' (A smile of child-like delight flitted over
the faces of all the guests; positive gratitude could be seen in one
gentleman's eyes.) 'For young men are idiots.' (The great man, I suppose for
the sake of greater impressiveness, sometimes changed the accepted
accentuation of words.)

'My son, Ivan, for instance,' he went on; 'the fool's only just twenty--and
all at once he comes to me and says: "Let me be married, father." I told him
he was a fool; told him he must go into the service first.... Well, there was
despair--tears... but with me... no nonsense.' (The words 'no nonsense' the
great man seemed to enunciate more with his stomach than his lips; he
paused and glanced majestically at his neighbour, the general, while he
raised his eyebrows higher than any one could have expected. The civilian
general nodded agreeably a little on one side, and with extraordinary
rapidity winked with the eye turned to the great man.) 'And what do you
think?' the great man began again: 'now he writes to me himself, and thanks
me for looking after him when he was a fool.... So that's the way to act.' All

the guests, of course, were in complete agreement with the speaker, and
seemed quite cheered up by the pleasure and instruction they derived from
him.... After dinner, the whole party rose and moved into the drawing-room
with a great deal of noise--decorous, however; and, as it were, licensed for
the occasion.... They sat down to cards.

I got through the evening somehow, and charging my coachman to have
my carriage ready at five o'clock next morning, I went to my room. But I
was destined, in the course of that same day, to make the acquaintance of a
remarkable man.

In consequence of the great number of guests staying in the house, no
one had a bedroom to himself. In the small, greenish, damp room to which I
was conducted by Alexandr Mihalitch's butler, there was already another
guest, quite undressed. On seeing me, he quickly ducked under the bed-
clothes, covered himself up to the nose, turned a little on the soft feather-
bed, and lay quiet, keeping a sharp look-out from under the round frill of
his cotton night-cap. I went up to the other bed (there were only two in the
room), undressed, and lay down in the damp sheets. My neighbour turned
over in bed.... I wished him good-night.

Half-an-hour went by. In spite of all my efforts, I could not get to sleep:
aimless and vague thoughts kept persistently and monotonously dragging
one after another on an endless chain, like the buckets of a hydraulic
machine.

'You're not asleep, I fancy?' observed my neighbour.

'No, as you see,' I answered. 'And you're not sleepy either, are you?'

'I'm never sleepy.'

'How's that?'

'Oh! I go to sleep--I don't know what for. I lie in bed, and lie in bed, and
so get to sleep.'

'Why do you go to bed before you feel sleepy?'

'Why, what would you have me do?'

I made no answer to my neighbour's question.

'I wonder,' he went on, after a brief silence, 'how it is there are no fleas
here? Where should there be fleas if not here, one wonders?'

'You seem to regret them,' I remarked.

'No, I don't regret them; but I like everything to be consecutive.'

'O-ho!' thought I; 'what words he uses.'

My neighbour was silent again.

'Would you like to make a bet with me?' he said again, rather loudly.

'What about?'

I began to be amused by him.

'Hm... what about? Why, about this: I'm certain you take me for a fool.'

'Really,' I muttered, astounded.

'For an ignoramus, for a rustic of the steppes.... Confess....'

'I haven't the pleasure of knowing you,' I responded. 'What can make you
infer?...'

'Why, the sound of your voice is enough; you answer me so carelessly....
But I'm not at all what you suppose....'

'Allow me....'

'No, you allow me. In the first place, I speak French as well as you, and
German even better; secondly, I have spent three years abroad--in Berlin
alone I lived eight months. I've studied Hegel, honoured sir; I know Goethe
by heart: add to that, I was a long while in love with a German professor's

daughter, and was married at home to a consumptive lady, who was bald,
but a remarkable personality. So I'm a bird of your feather; I'm not a
barbarian of the steppes, as you imagine.... I too have been bitten by
reflection, and there's nothing obvious about me.'

I raised my head and looked with redoubled attention at the queer fellow.
By the dim light of the night-lamp I could hardly distinguish his features.

'There, you're looking at me now,' he went on, setting his night-cap
straight, 'and probably you're asking yourself, "How is it I didn't notice him
to-day?" I'll tell you why you didn't notice me: because I didn't raise my
voice; because I get behind other people, hang about doorways, and talk to
no one; because, when the butler passes me with a tray, he raises his elbow
to the level of my shoulder.... And how is it all that comes about? From two
causes: first, I'm poor; and secondly, I've grown humble.... Tell the truth,
you didn't notice me, did you?'

'Certainly, I've not had the pleasure....'

'There, there,' he interrupted me, 'I knew that.'

He raised himself and folded his arms; the long shadow of his cap was
bent from the wall to the ceiling.

'And confess, now,' he added, with a sudden sideway glance at me; 'I
must strike you as a queer fellow, an original, as they say, or possibly as
something worse: perhaps you think I affect to be original!'

'I must repeat again that I don't know you....'

He looked down an instant.

'Why have I begun talking so unexpectedly to you, a man utterly a
stranger?--the Lord, the Lord only knows!' (He sighed.) 'Not through the
natural affinity of our souls! Both you and I are respectable people, that's to
say, egoists: neither of us has the least concern with the other; isn't it so?
But we are neither of us sleepy... so why not chat? I'm in the mood, and
that's rare with me. I'm shy, do you see? and not shy because I'm a

provincial, of no rank and poor, but because I'm a fearfully vain person. But
at times, under favourable circumstances, occasions which I could not,
however, particularise nor foresee, my shyness vanishes completely, as at
this moment, for instance. At this moment you might set me face to face
with the Grand Lama, and I'd ask him for a pinch of snuff. But perhaps you
want to go to sleep?'

'Quite the contrary,' I hastened to respond; 'it is a pleasure for me to talk
to you.'

'That is, I amuse you, you mean to say.... All the better.... And so, I tell
you, they call me here an original; that's what they call me when my name
is casually mentioned, among other gossip. No one is much concerned
about my fate.... They think it wounds me.... Oh, good Lord! if they only
knew... it's just what's my ruin, that there is absolutely nothing original in
me--nothing, except such freaks as, for instance, my conversation at this
moment with you; but such freaks are not worth a brass farthing. That's the
cheapest and lowest sort of originality.'

He turned facing me, and waved his hands.

'Honoured sir!' he cried, 'I am of the opinion that life on earth's only
worth living, as a rule, for original people; it's only they who have a right to
live. Man verre n'est pas grand, maisje bois dans mon verre, said someone.
Do you see,' he added in an undertone, 'how well I pronounce French? What
is it to one if one's a capacious brain, and understands everything, and
knows a lot, and keeps pace with the age, if one's nothing of one's own, of
oneself! One more storehouse for hackneyed commonplaces in the world;
and what good does that do to anyone? No, better be stupid even, but in
one's own way! One should have a flavour of one's own, one's individual
flavour; that's the thing! And don't suppose that I am very exacting as to that
flavour.... God forbid! There are no end of original people of the sort I
mean: look where you will--there's an original: every live man is an
original; but I am not to be reckoned among them!'

'And yet,' he went on, after a brief silence, 'in my youth what
expectations I aroused! What a high opinion I cherished of my own
individuality before I went abroad, and even, at first, after my return! Well,

abroad I kept my ears open, held aloof from everyone, as befits a man like
me, who is always seeing through things by himself, and at the end has not
understood the A B C!'

'An original, an original!' he hurried on, shaking his head
reproachfully....' They call me an original.... In reality, it turns out that
there's not a man in the world less original than your humble servant. I must
have been born even in imitation of someone else.... Oh, dear! It seems I am
living, too, in imitation of the various authors studied by me; in the sweat of
my brow I live: and I've studied, and fallen in love, and married, in fact, as
it were, not through my own will--as it were, fulfilling some sort of duty, or
sort of fate--who's to make it out?'

He tore the nightcap off his head and flung it on the bed.

'Would you like me to tell you the story of my life?' he asked me in an
abrupt voice; 'or, rather, a few incidents of my life?'

'Please do me the favour.'

'Or, no, I'd better tell you how I got married. You see marriage is an
important thing, the touchstone that tests the whole man: in it, as in a glass,
is reflected.... But that sounds too hackneyed.... If you'll allow me, I'll take a
pinch of snuff.'

He pulled a snuff-box from under his pillow, opened it, and began again,
waving the open snuff-box about.

'Put yourself, honoured sir, in my place.... Judge for yourself, what, now
what, tell me as a favour: what benefit could I derive from the
encyclopaedia of Hegel? What is there in common, tell me, between that
encyclopaedia and Russian life? and how would you advise me to apply it
to our life, and not it, the encyclopaedia only, but German philosophy in
general.... I will say more--science itself?'

He gave a bound on the bed and muttered to himself, gnashing his teeth
angrily.

'Ah, that's it, that's it!... Then why did you go trailing off abroad? Why
didn't you stay at home and study the life surrounding you on the spot? You
might have found out its needs and its future, and have come to a clear
comprehension of your vocation, so to say.... But, upon my word,' he went
on, changing his tone again as though timidly justifying himself, 'where is
one to study what no sage has yet inscribed in any book? I should have been
glad indeed to take lessons of her--of Russian life, I mean--but she's dumb,
the poor dear. You must take her as she is; but that's beyond my power: you
must give me the inference; you must present me with a conclusion. Here
you have a conclusion too: listen to our wise men of Moscow--they're a set
of nightingales worth listening to, aren't they? Yes, that's the pity of it, that
they pipe away like Kursk nightingales, instead of talking as the people
talk.... Well, I thought, and thought--"Science, to be sure," I thought, "is
everywhere the same, and truth is the same"--so I was up and off, in God's
name, to foreign parts, to the heathen.... What would you have? I was
infatuated with youth and conceit; I didn't want, you know, to get fat before
my time, though they say it's healthy. Though, indeed, if nature doesn't put
the flesh on your bones, you won't see much fat on your body!'

'But I fancy,' he added, after a moment's thought, 'I promised to tell you
how I got married--listen. First, I must tell you that my wife is no longer
living; secondly... secondly, I see I must give you some account of my
youth, or else you won't be able to make anything out of it.... But don't you
want to go to sleep?'

'No, I'm not sleepy.'

'That's good news. Hark!... how vulgarly Mr. Kantagryuhin is snoring in
the next room! I was the son of parents of small property--I say parents,
because, according to tradition, I had once had a father as well as a mother,
I don't remember him: he was a narrow-minded man, I've been told, with a
big nose, freckles, and red hair; he used to take snuff on one side of his nose
only; his portrait used to hang in my mother's bedroom, and very hideous he
was in a red uniform with a black collar up to his ears. They used to take me
to be whipped before him, and my mother used always on such occasions to
point to him, saying, "He would give it to you much more if he were here."
You can imagine what an encouraging effect that had on me. I had no

brother nor sister--that's to say, speaking accurately, I had once had a
brother knocking about, with the English disease in his neck, but he soon
died.... And why ever, one wonders, should the English disease make its
way to the Shtchigri district of the province of Kursk? But that's neither
here nor there. My mother undertook my education with all the vigorous
zeal of a country lady of the steppes: she undertook it from the solemn day
of my birth till the time when my sixteenth year had come.... You are
following my story?'

'Yes, please go on.'

'All right. Well, when I was sixteen, my mother promptly dismissed my
teacher of French, a German, Filipóvitch, from the Greek settlement of
Nyezhin. She conducted me to Moscow, put down my name for the
university, and gave up her soul to the Almighty, leaving me in the hands of
my uncle, the attorney Koltun-Babur, one of a sort well-known not only in
the Shtchigri district. My uncle, the attorney Koltun-Babur, plundered me to
the last half-penny, after the custom of guardians.... But again that's neither
here nor there. I entered the university--I must do so much justice to my
mother--rather well grounded; but my lack of originality was even then
apparent. My childhood was in no way distinguished from the childhood of
other boys; I grew up just as languidly and dully--much as if I were under a
feather-bed--just as early I began repeating poetry by heart and moping
under the pretence of a dreamy inclination... for what?--why, for the
beautiful... and so on. In the university I went on in the same way; I
promptly got into a "circle." Times were different then.... But you don't
know, perhaps, what sort of thing a student's "circle" is? I remember
Schiller said somewhere:

Gefährlich ist's den Leu zu wecken
Und schrecklich ist des Tigers Zahn,
Doch das schrecklichste der Schrecken
Das ist der Mensch in seinem Wahn!

He didn't mean that, I can assure you; he meant to say: Das ist ein circle
in der Stadt Moskau!'

'But what do you find so awful in the circle?' I asked.

My neighbour snatched his cap and pulled it down on to his nose.

'What do I find so awful?' he shouted. 'Why, this: the circle is the
destruction of all independent development; the circle is a hideous
substitute for society, woman, life; the circle... oh, wait a bit, I'll tell you
what a circle is! A circle is a slothful, dull living side by side in common, to
which is attached a serious significance and a show of rational activity; the
circle replaces conversation by debate, trains you in fruitless discussion,
draws you away from solitary, useful labour, develops in you the itch for
authorship--deprives you, in fact, of all freshness and virgin vigour of soul.
The circle--why, it's vulgarity and boredom under the name of brotherhood
and friendship! a concatenation of misunderstandings and cavillings under
the pretence of openness and sympathy: in the circle--thanks to the right of
every friend, at all hours and seasons, to poke his unwashed fingers into the
very inmost soul of his comrade--no one has a single spot in his soul pure
and undefiled; in the circle they fall down before the shallow, vain, smart
talker and the premature wise-acre, and worship the rhymester with no
poetic gift, but full of "subtle" ideas; in the circle young lads of seventeen
talk glibly and learnedly of women and of love, while in the presence of
women they are dumb or talk to them like a book--and what do they talk
about? The circle is the hot-bed of glib fluency; in the circle they spy on
one another like so many police officials.... Oh, circle! thou'rt not a circle,
but an enchanted ring, which has been the ruin of many a decent fellow!'

'Come, you're exaggerating, allow me to observe,' I broke in.

My neighbour looked at me in silence.

'Perhaps, God knows, perhaps. But, you see, there's only one pleasure
left your humble servant, and that's exaggeration--well, that was the way I
spent four years in Moscow. I can't tell you, my dear sir, how quickly, how
fearfully quickly, that time passed; it's positively painful and vexatious to
remember. Some mornings one gets up, and it's like sliding downhill on
little sledges.... Before one can look round, one's flown to the bottom; it's
evening already, and already the sleepy servant is pulling on one's coat; one
dresses, and trails off to a friend, and may be smokes a pipe, drinks weak

tea in glasses, and discusses German philosophy, love, the eternal sunshine
of the spirit, and other far-fetched topics. But even there I met original,
independent people: however some men stultify themselves and warp
themselves out of shape, still nature asserts itself; I alone, poor wretch,
moulded myself like soft wax, and my pitiful little nature never made the
faintest resistance! Meantime I had reached my twenty-first year. I came
into possession of my inheritance, or, more correctly speaking, that part of
my inheritance which my guardian had thought fit to leave me, gave a freed
house-serf Vassily Kudryashev a warranty to superintend all my patrimony,
and set off abroad to Berlin. I was abroad, as I have already had the
pleasure of telling you, three years. Well. There too, abroad too, I remained
the same unoriginal creature. In the first place, I need not say that of
Europe, of European life, I really learnt nothing. I listened to German
professors and read German books on their birthplace: that was all the
difference. I led as solitary a life as any monk; I got on good terms with a
retired lieutenant, weighed down, like myself, by a thirst for knowledge but
always dull of comprehension, and not gifted with a flow of words; I made
friends with slow-witted families from Penza and other agricultural
provinces, hung about cafés, read the papers, in the evening went to the
theatre. With the natives I associated very little; I talked to them with
constraint, and never had one of them to see me at my own place, except
two or three intrusive fellows of Jewish extraction, who were constantly
running in upon me and borrowing money--thanks to der Russe's gullibility.
A strange freak of chance brought me at last to the house of one of my
professors. It was like this: I came to him to enter my name for a course of
lectures, and he, all of a sudden, invited me to an evening party at his house.
This professor had two daughters, of twenty-seven, such stumpy little
things--God bless them!--with such majestic noses, frizzed curls and pale-
blue eyes, and red hands with white nails. One was called Linchen and the
other Minchen. I began to go to the professor's. I ought to tell you that the
professor was not exactly stupid, but seemed, as it were, dazed: in his
professorial desk he spoke fairly consecutively, but at home he lisped, and
always had his spectacles on his forehead--he was a very learned man,
though. Well, suddenly it seemed to me that I was in love with Linchen, and
for six whole months this impression remained. I talked to her, it's true, very
little--it was more that I looked at her; but I used to read various touching
passages aloud to her, to press her hand on the sly, and to dream beside her

in the evenings, gazing persistently at the moon, or else simply up aloft.
Besides, she made such delicious coffee! One asks oneself--what more
could one desire? Only one thing troubled me: at the very moments of
ineffable bliss, as it's called, I always had a sort of sinking in the pit of the
stomach, and a cold shudder ran down my back. At last I could not stand
such happiness, and ran away. Two whole years after that I was abroad: I
went to Italy, stood before the Transfiguration in Rome, and before the
Venus in Florence, and suddenly fell into exaggerated raptures, as though an
attack of delirium had come upon me; in the evenings I wrote verses, began
a diary; in fact, there too I behaved just like everyone else. And just mark
how easy it is to be original! I take no interest, for instance, in painting and
sculpture.... But simply saying so aloud... no, it was impossible! I must
needs take a cicerone, and run to gaze at the frescoes.'...

He looked down again, and again pulled off his nightcap.

'Well, I came back to my own country at last,' he went on in a weary
voice. 'I went to Moscow. In Moscow a marvellous transformation took
place in me. Abroad I was mostly silent, but now suddenly I began to talk
with unexpected smartness, and at the same time I began to conceive all
sorts of ideas of myself. There were kindly disposed persons to be found, to
whom I seemed all but a genius; ladies listened sympathetically to my
diatribes; but I was not able to keep on the summit of my glory. One fine
morning a slander sprang up about me (who had originated it, I don't know;
it must have been some old maid of the male sex--there are any number of
such old maids in Moscow); it sprang up and began to throw off outshoots
and tendrils like a strawberry plant. I was abashed, tried to get out of it, to
break through its clinging toils--that was no good.... I went away. Well, in
that too I showed that I was an absurd person; I ought to have calmly waited
for the storm to blow over, just as one waits for the end of nettle-rash, and
the same kindly-disposed persons would have opened their arms to me
again, the same ladies would have smiled approvingly again at my
remarks.... But what's wrong is just that I'm not an original person.
Conscientious scruples, please to observe, had been stirred up in me; I was
somehow ashamed of talk, talk without ceasing, nothing but talk--yesterday
in Arbat, to-day in Truba, to-morrow in Sivtsevy-Vrazhky, and all about the
same thing.... But if that is what people want of me? Look at the really

successful men in that line: they don't ask its use; on the contrary, it's all
they need; some will keep their tongues wagging twenty years together, and
always in one direction.... That's what comes of self-confidence and
conceit! I had that too, conceit--indeed, even now it's not altogether
stifled.... But what was wrong was that--I say again, I'm not an original
person--I stopped midway: nature ought to have given me far more conceit
or none at all. But at first I felt the change a very hard one; moreover, my
stay abroad too had utterly drained my resources, while I was not disposed
to marry a merchant's daughter, young, but flabby as a jelly, so I retired to
my country place. I fancy,' added my neighbour, with another glance
sideways at me, 'I may pass over in silence the first impressions of country
life, references to the beauty of nature, the gentle charm of solitude, etc.'

'You can, indeed,' I put in.

'All the more,' he continued, 'as all that's nonsense; at least, as far as I'm
concerned. I was as bored in the country as a puppy locked up, though I will
own that on my journey home, when I passed through the familiar
birchwood in spring for the first time, my head was in a whirl and my heart
beat with a vague, sweet expectation. But these vague expectations, as
you're well aware, never come to pass; on the other hand, very different
things do come to pass, which you don't at all expect, such as cattle disease,
arrears, sales by auction, and so on, and so on. I managed to make a shift
from day to day with the aid of my agent, Yakov, who replaced the former
superintendent, and turned out in the course of time to be as great, if not a
greater robber, and over and above that poisoned my existence by the smell
of his tarred boots; suddenly one day I remembered a family I knew in the
neighbourhood, consisting of the widow of a retired colonel and her two
daughters, ordered out my droshky, and set off to see them. That day must
always be a memorable one for me; six months later I was married to the
retired colonel's second daughter!...'

The speaker dropped his head, and lifted his hands to heaven.

'And now,' he went on warmly, 'I couldn't bear to give you an
unfavourable opinion of my late wife. Heaven forbid! She was the most
generous, sweetest creature, a loving nature capable of any sacrifice, though
I must between ourselves confess that if I had not had the misfortune to lose

her, I should probably not be in a position to be talking to you to-day; since
the beam is still there in my barn, to which I repeatedly made up my mind
to hang myself!'

'Some pears,' he began again, after a brief pause, 'need to lie in an
underground cellar for a time, to come, as they say, to their real flavour; my
wife, it seems, belonged to a similar order of nature's works. It's only now
that I do her complete justice. It's only now, for instance, that memories of
some evenings I spent with her before marriage no longer awaken the
slightest bitterness, but move me almost to tears. They were not rich people;
their house was very old-fashioned and built of wood, but comfortable; it
stood on a hill between an overgrown courtyard and a garden run wild. At
the bottom of the hill ran a river, which could just be seen through the thick
leaves. A wide terrace led from the house to the garden; before the terrace
flaunted a long flower-bed, covered with roses; at each end of the flower-
bed grew two acacias, which had been trained to grow into the shape of a
screw by its late owner. A little farther, in the very midst of a thicket of
neglected and overgrown raspberries, stood an arbour, smartly painted
within, but so old and tumble-down outside that it was depressing to look at
it. A glass door led from the terrace into the drawing-room; in the drawing-
room this was what met the eye of the inquisitive spectator: in the various
corners stoves of Dutch tiles, a squeaky piano to the right, piled with
manuscript music, a sofa, covered with faded blue material with a whitish
pattern, a round table, two what-nots of china and glass, knicknacks of the
Catherine period; on the wall the well-known picture of a flaxen-haired girl
with a dove on her breast and eyes turned upwards; on the table a vase of
fresh roses. You see how minutely I describe it. In that drawing-room, on
that terrace, was rehearsed all the tragi-comedy of my love. The colonel's
wife herself was an ill-natured old dame, whose voice was always hoarse
with spite--a petty, snappish creature. Of the daughters, one, Vera, did not
differ in any respect from the common run of young ladies of the provinces;
the other, Sofya, I fell in love with. The two sisters had another little room
too, their common bedroom, with two innocent little wooden bedsteads,
yellowish albums, mignonette, portraits of friends sketched in pencil rather
badly (among them was one gentleman with an exceptionally vigorous
expression of face and a still more vigorous signature, who had in his youth
raised disproportionate expectations, but had come, like all of us, to

nothing), with busts of Goethe and Schiller, German books, dried wreaths,
and other objects, kept as souvenirs. But that room I rarely and reluctantly
entered; I felt stifled there somehow. And, too, strange to say, I liked Sofya
best of all when I was sitting with my back to her, or still more, perhaps,
when I was thinking or dreaming about her in the evening on the terrace. At
such times I used to gaze at the sunset, at the trees, at the tiny leaves,
already in darkness, but standing out sharply against the rosy sky; in the
drawing-room Sofya sat at the piano continually playing over and over
again some favourite, passionately pathetic phrase from Beethoven; the ill-
natured old lady snored peacefully, sitting on the sofa; in the dining-room,
which was flooded by a glow of lurid light, Vera was bustling about getting
tea; the samovar hissed merrily as though it were pleased at something; the
cracknels snapped with a pleasant crispness, and the spoons tinkled against
the cups; the canary, which trilled mercilessly all day, was suddenly still,
and only chirruped from time to time, as though asking for something; from
a light transparent cloud there fell a few passing drops of rain.... And I
would sit and sit, listen, listen, and look, my heart would expand, and again
it seemed to me that I was in love. Well, under the influence of such an
evening, I one day asked the old lady for her daughter's hand, and two
months later I was married. It seemed to me that I loved her.... By now,
indeed, it's time I should know, but, by God, even now I don't know
whether I loved Sofya. She was a sweet creature, clever, silent, and warm-
hearted, but God only knows from what cause, whether from living too long
in the country, or for some other reason, there was at the bottom of her heart
(if only there is a bottom to the heart) a secret wound, or, to put it better, a
little open sore which nothing could heal, to which neither she nor I could
give a name. Of the existence of this sore, of course, I only guessed after
marriage. The struggles I had over it... nothing availed! When I was a child
I had a little bird, which had once been caught by the cat in its claws; it was
saved and tended, but the poor bird never got right; it moped, it pined, it
ceased to sing.... It ended by a cat getting into its open cage one night and
biting off its beak, after which it made up its mind at last to die. I don't
know what cat had caught my wife in its claws, but she too moped and
pined just like my unlucky bird. Sometimes she obviously made an effort to
shake herself, to rejoice in the open air, in the sunshine and freedom; she
would try, and shrink up into herself again. And, you know she loved me;
how many times has she assured me that she had nothing left to wish for?--

oof! damn my soul! and the light was fading out of her eyes all the while. I
wondered whether there hadn't been something in her past. I made
investigations: there was nothing forthcoming. Well, you may form your
own judgment; an original man would have shrugged his shoulders and
heaved a sigh or two, perhaps, and would have proceeded to live his own
life; but I, not being an original creature, began to contemplate a beam and
halter. My wife was so thoroughly permeated by all the habits of an old
maid--Beethoven, evening walks, mignonette, corresponding with her
friends, albums, et cetera--that she never could accustom herself to any
other mode of life, especially to the life of the mistress of a house; and yet it
seemed absurd for a married woman to be pining in vague melancholy and
singing in the evening: "Waken her not at the dawn!"

'Well, we were blissful after that fashion for three years; in the fourth,
Sofya died in her first confinement, and, strange to say, I had felt, as it
were, beforehand that she would not be capable of giving me a daughter or
a son--of giving the earth a new inhabitant. I remember how they buried
her. It was in the spring. Our parish church was small and old, the screen
was blackened, the walls bare, the brick floor worn into hollows in parts;
there was a big, old-fashioned holy picture in each half of the choir. They
brought in the coffin, placed it in the middle before the holy gates, covered
it with a faded pall, set three candlesticks about it. The service commenced.
A decrepit deacon, with a little shock of hair behind, belted low down with
a green kerchief, was mournfully mumbling before a reading-desk; a priest,
also an old man, with a kindly, purblind face, in a lilac cassock with yellow
flowers on it, served the mass for himself and the deacon. At all the open
windows the fresh young leaves were stirring and whispering, and the smell
of the grass rose from the churchyard outside; the red flame of the wax-
candles paled in the bright light of the spring day; the sparrows were
twittering all over the church, and every now and then there came the
ringing cry of a swallow flying in under the cupola. In the golden motes of
the sunbeams the brown heads of the few peasants kept rising and dropping
down again as they prayed earnestly for the dead; in a thin bluish stream the
smoke issued from the holes of the censer. I looked at the dead face of my
wife.... My God! even death--death itself--had not set her free, had not
healed her wound: the same sickly, timid, dumb look, as though, even in her

coffin, she were ill at ease.... My heart was filled with bitterness. A sweet,
sweet creature she was, and she did well for herself to die!'

The speaker's cheeks flushed, and his eyes grew dim.

'When at last,' he began again, 'I emerged from the deep depression
which overwhelmed me after my wife's death, I resolved to devote myself,
as it is called, to work. I went into a government office in the capital of the
province; but in the great apartments of the government institution my head
ached, and my eyesight too began to fail: other incidental causes came in....
I retired. I had thought of going on a visit to Moscow, but, in the first place,
I hadn't the money, and secondly... I've told you already: I'm resigned. This
resignation came upon me both suddenly and not suddenly. In spirit I had
long ago resigned myself, but my brain was still unwilling to accept the
yoke. I ascribed my humble temper and ideas to the influence of country
life and happiness!... On the other side, I had long observed that all my
neighbours, young and old alike, who had been frightened at first by my
learning, my residence abroad, and my other advantages of education, had
not only had time to get completely used to me, but had even begun to treat
me half-rudely, half-contemptuously, did not listen to my observations, and,
in talking to me, no longer made use of superfluous signs of respect. I
forgot to tell you, too, that during the first year after my marriage, I had
tried to launch into literature, and even sent a thing to a journal--a story, if
I'm not mistaken; but in a little time I received a polite letter from the editor,
in which, among other things, I was told that he could not deny I had
intelligence, but he was obliged to say I had no talent, and talent alone was
what was needed in literature. To add to this, it came to my knowledge that
a young man, on a visit from Moscow--a most good-natured youth too--had
referred to me at an evening party at the governor's as a shallow person,
antiquated and behind the times. But my half-wilful blindness still
persisted: I was unwilling to give myself a slap in the face, you know; at
last, one fine morning, my eyes were opened. This was how it happened.
The district captain of police came to see me, with the object of calling my
attention to a tumble-down bridge on my property, which I had absolutely
no money to repair. After consuming a glass of vodka and a snack of dried
fish, this condescending guardian of order reproached me in a paternal way
for my heedlessness, sympathising, however, with my position, and only

advising me to order my peasants to patch up the bridge with some rubbish;
he lighted a pipe, and began talking of the coming elections. A candidate for
the honourable post of marshal of the province was at that time one
Orbassanov, a noisy, shallow fellow, who took bribes into the bargain.
Besides, he was not distinguished either for wealth or for family. I
expressed my opinion with regard to him, and rather casually too: I
regarded Mr. Orbassanov, I must own, as beneath my level. The police-
captain looked at me, patted me amicably on the shoulder, and said good-
naturedly: "Come, come, Vassily Vassilyevitch, it's not for you and me to
criticise men like that--how are we qualified to? Let the shoemaker stick to
his last." "But, upon my word," I retorted with annoyance, "whatever
difference is there between me and Mr. Orbassanov?" The police-captain
took his pipe out of his mouth, opened his eyes wide, and fairly roared.
"Well, you're an amusing chap," he observed at last, while the tears ran
down his cheeks: "what a joke to make!... Ah! you are a funny fellow!" And
till his departure he never ceased jeering at me, now and then giving me a
poke in the ribs with his elbow, and addressing me by my Christian name.
He went away at last. This was enough: it was the last drop, and my cup
was overflowing. I paced several times up and down the room, stood still
before the looking-glass and gazed a long, long while at my embarrassed
countenance, and deliberately putting out my tongue, I shook my head with
a bitter smile. The scales fell from my eyes: I saw clearly, more clearly than
I saw my face in the glass, what a shallow, insignificant, worthless,
unoriginal person I was!'

He paused.

'In one of Voltaire's tragedies,' he went on wearily, 'there is some worthy
who rejoices that he has reached the furthest limit of unhappiness. Though
there is nothing tragic in my fate, I will admit I have experienced something
of that sort. I have known the bitter transports of cold despair; I have felt
how sweet it is, lying in bed, to curse deliberately for a whole morning
together the hour and day of my birth. I could not resign myself all at once.
And indeed, think of it yourself: I was kept by impecuniosity in the country,
which I hated; I was not fitted for managing my land, nor for the public
service, nor for literature, nor anything; my neighbours I didn't care for, and
books I loathed; as for the mawkish and morbidly sentimental young ladies

who shake their curls and feverishly harp on the word "life," I had ceased to
have any attraction for them ever since I gave up ranting and gushing;
complete solitude I could not face.... I began--what do you suppose?--I
began hanging about, visiting my neighbours. As though drunk with self-
contempt, I purposely exposed myself to all sorts of petty slights. I was
missed over in serving at table; I was met with supercilious coldness, and at
last was not noticed at all; I was not even allowed to take part in general
conversation, and from my corner I myself used purposely to back up some
stupid talker who in those days at Moscow would have ecstatically licked
the dust off my feet, and kissed the hem of my cloak.... I did not even allow
myself to believe that I was enjoying the bitter satisfaction of irony.... What
sort of irony, indeed, can a man enjoy in solitude? Well, so I have behaved
for some years on end, and so I behave now.'

'Really, this is beyond everything,' grumbled the sleepy voice of Mr.
Kantagryuhin from the next room: 'what fool is it that has taken a fancy to
talk all night?'

The speaker promptly ducked under the clothes and peeping out timidly,
held up his finger to me warningly,

'Sh--sh--!' he whispered; and, as it were, bowing apologetically in the
direction of Kantagryuhin's voice, he said respectfully: 'I obey, sir, I obey; I
beg your pardon.... It's permissible for him to sleep; he ought to sleep,' he
went on again in a whisper: 'he must recruit his energies--well, if only to eat
his dinner with the same relish to-morrow. We have no right to disturb him.
Besides, I think I've told you all I wanted to; probably you're sleepy too. I
wish you good-night.'

He turned away with feverish rapidity and buried his head in the pillow.

'Let me at least know,' I asked, 'with whom I have had the pleasure....'

He raised his head quickly.

'No, for mercy's sake!' he cut me short, 'don't inquire my name either of
me or of others. Let me remain to you an unknown being, crushed by fate,
Vassily Vassilyevitch. Besides, as an unoriginal person, I don't deserve an

individual name.... But if you really want to give me some title, call me...
call me the Hamlet of the Shtchigri district. There are many such Hamlets in
every district, but perhaps you haven't come across others.... After which,
good-bye.'

He buried himself again in his feather-bed, and the next morning, when
they came to wake me, he was no longer in the room. He had left before
daylight.

XXI

TCHERTOP-HANOV AND NEDOPYUSKIN

One hot summer day I was coming home from hunting in a light cart;
Yermolaï sat beside me dozing and scratching his nose. The sleeping dogs
were jolted up and down like lifeless bodies under our feet. The coachman
kept flicking gadflies off the horses with his whip. The white dust rose in a
light cloud behind the cart. We drove in between bushes. The road here was
full of ruts, and the wheels began catching in the twigs. Yermolaï started up
and looked round.... 'Hullo!' he said; 'there ought to be grouse here. Let's get
out.' We stopped and went into the thicket. My dog hit upon a covey. I took
a shot and was beginning to reload, when suddenly there was a loud
crackling behind me, and a man on horseback came towards me, pushing
the bushes apart with his hands. 'Sir... pe-ermit me to ask,' he began in a
haughty voice, 'by what right you are--er--shooting here, sir?' The stranger
spoke extraordinarily quickly, jerkily and condescendingly. I looked at his
face; never in my life have I seen anything like it. Picture to yourselves,
gentle readers, a little flaxen-haired man, with a little turn-up red nose and
long red moustaches. A pointed Persian cap with a crimson cloth crown
covered his forehead right down to his eyebrows. He was dressed in a
shabby yellow Caucasian overcoat, with black velveteen cartridge pockets
on the breast, and tarnish silver braid on all the seams; over his shoulder
was slung a horn; in his sash was sticking a dagger. A raw-boned, hook-

nosed chestnut horse shambled unsteadily under his weight; two lean,
crook-pawed greyhounds kept turning round just under the horse's legs. The
face, the glance, the voice, every action, the whole being of the stranger,
was expressive of a wild daring and an unbounded, incredible pride; his
pale-blue glassy eyes strayed about with a sideway squint like a drunkard's;
he flung back his head, puffed out his cheeks, snorted and quivered all over,
as though bursting with dignity--for all the world like a turkey-cock. He
repeated his question.

'I didn't know it was forbidden to shoot here,' I replied.

'You are here, sir,' he continued, 'on my land.'

'With your permission, I will go off it.'

'But pe-ermit me to ask,' he rejoined, 'is it a nobleman I have the honour
of addressing?'

I mentioned my name.

'In that case, oblige me by hunting here. I am a nobleman myself, and am
very pleased to do any service to a nobleman.... And my name is Panteley
Tchertop-hanov.' He bowed, hallooed, gave his horse a lash on the neck; the
horse shook its head, reared, shied, and trampled on a dog's paws. The dog
gave a piercing squeal. Tchertop-hanov boiled over with rage; foaming at
the mouth, he struck the horse with his fist on the head between the ears,
leaped to the ground quicker than lightning, looked at the dog's paw, spat on
the wound, gave it a kick in the ribs to stop its whining, caught on to the
horse's forelock, and put his foot in the stirrup. The horse flung up its head,
and with its tail in the air edged away into the bushes; he followed it,
hopping on one leg; he got into the saddle at last, however, flourished his
whip in a sort of frenzy, blew his horn, and galloped off. I had not time to
recover from the unexpected appearance of Tchertop-hanov, when suddenly,
almost without any noise, there came out of the bushes a stoutish man of
forty on a little black nag. He stopped, took off his green leather cap, and in
a thin, subdued voice he asked me whether I hadn't seen a horseman riding
a chestnut? I answered that I had.

'Which way did the gentleman go?' he went on in the same tone, without
putting on his cap.

'Over there.'

'I humbly thank you, sir.'

He made a kissing sound with his lips, swung his legs against his horse's
sides, and fell into a jog-trot in the direction indicated. I looked after him
till his peaked cap was hidden behind the branches. This second stranger
was not in the least like his predecessor in exterior. His face, plump and
round as a ball, expressed bashfulness, good-nature, and humble meekness;
his nose, also plump and round and streaked with blue veins, betokened a
sensualist. On the front of his head there was not a single hair left, some
thin brown tufts stuck out behind; there was an ingratiating twinkle in his
little eyes, set in long slits, and a sweet smile on his red, juicy lips. He had
on a coat with a stand-up collar and brass buttons, very worn but clean; his
cloth trousers were hitched up high, his fat calves were visible above the
yellow tops of his boots.

'Who's that?' I inquired of Yermolaï.

'That? Nedopyuskin, Tihon Ivanitch. He lives at Tchertop-hanov's.'

'What is he, a poor man?'

'He's not rich; but, to be sure, Tchertop-hanov's not got a brass farthing
either.'

'Then why does he live with him?'

'Oh, they made friends. One's never seen without the other.... It's a fact,
indeed--where the horse puts its hoof, there the crab sticks its claw.'

We got out of the bushes; suddenly two hounds 'gave tongue' close to us,
and a big hare bounded through the oats, which were fairly high by now.
The dogs, hounds and harriers, leaped out of the thicket after him, and after
the dogs flew out Tchertop-hanov himself. He did not shout, nor urge the

dogs on, nor halloo; he was breathless and gasping; broken, senseless
sounds were jerked out of his gaping mouth now and then; he dashed on,
his eyes starting out of his head, and furiously lashed at his luckless horse
with the whip. The harriers were gaining on the hare... it squatted for a
moment, doubled sharply back, and darted past Yermolaï into the bushes....
The harriers rushed in pursuit. 'Lo-ok out! lo-ok out!' the exhausted
horseman articulated with effort, in a sort of stutter: 'lo-ok out, friend!'
Yermolaï shot... the wounded hare rolled head over heels on the smooth dry
grass, leaped into the air, and squealed piteously in the teeth of a worrying
dog. The hounds crowded about her. Like an arrow, Tchertop-hanov flew
off his horse, clutched his dagger, ran straddling among the dogs with
furious imprecations, snatched the mangled hare from them, and, creasing
up his whole face, he buried the dagger in its throat up to the very hilt...
buried it, and began hallooing. Tihon Ivanitch made his appearance on the
edge of the thicket 'Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!' vociferated Tchertop-hanov
a second time. 'Ho-ho-ho-ho,' his companion repeated placidly.

'But really, you know, one ought not to hunt in summer, 'I observed to
Tchertop-hanov, pointing to the trampled-down oats.

'It's my field,' answered Tchertop-hanov, gasping.

He pulled the hare into shape, hung it on to his saddle, and flung the
paws among the dogs.

'I owe you a charge, my friend, by the rules of hunting,' he said,
addressing Yermolaï. 'And you, dear sir,' he added in the same jerky, abrupt
voice, 'my thanks.'

He mounted his horse.

'Pe-ermit me to ask... I've forgotten your name and your father's.'

Again I told him my name.

'Delighted to make your acquaintance. When you have an opportunity,
hope you'll come and see me.... But where is that Fomka, Tihon Ivanitch?'
he went on with heat; 'the hare was run down without him.'

'His horse fell down under him,' replied Tihon Ivanitch with a smile.

'Fell down! Orbassan fell down? Pugh! tut!... Where is he?'

'Over there, behind the copse.'

Tchertop-hanov struck his horse on the muzzle with his whip, and
galloped off at a breakneck pace. Tihon Ivanitch bowed to me twice, once
for himself and once for his companion, and again set off at a trot into the
bushes.

These two gentlemen aroused my curiosity keenly. What could unite two
creatures so different in the bonds of an inseparable friendship? I began to
make inquiries. This was what I learned.

Panteley Eremyitch Tchertop-hanov had the reputation in the whole
surrounding vicinity of a dangerous, crack-brained fellow, haughty and
quarrelsome in the extreme. He had served a very short time in the army,
and had retired from the service through 'difficulties' with his superiors,
with that rank which is generally regarded as equivalent to no rank at all.
He came of an old family, once rich; his forefathers lived sumptuously, after
the manner of the steppes--that is, they welcomed all, invited or uninvited,
fed them to exhaustion, gave out oats by the quarter to their guests'
coachmen for their teams, kept musicians, singers, jesters, and dogs; on
festive days regaled their people with spirits and beer, drove to Moscow in
the winter with their own horses, in heavy old coaches, and sometimes were
for whole months without a farthing, living on home-grown produce. The
estate came into Panteley Eremyitch's father's hands in a crippled condition;
he, in his turn, 'played ducks and drakes' with it, and when he died, left his
sole heir, Panteley, the small mortgaged village of Bezsonovo, with thirty-
five souls of the male, and seventy-six of the female sex, and twenty-eight
acres and a half of useless land on the waste of Kolobrodova, no record of
serfs for which could be found among the deceased's deeds. The deceased
had, it must be confessed, ruined himself in a very strange way: 'provident
management' had been his destruction. According to his notions, a
nobleman ought not to depend on merchants, townsmen, and 'brigands' of
that sort, as he called them; he set up all possible trades and crafts on his
estate; 'it's both seemlier and cheaper,' he used to say: 'it's provident

management'! He never relinquished this fatal idea to the end of his days;
indeed, it was his ruin. But, then, what entertainment it gave him! He never
denied himself the satisfaction of a single whim. Among other freaks, he
once began building, after his own fancy, so immense a family coach that,
in spite of the united efforts of the peasants' horses, drawn together from the
whole village, as well as their owners, it came to grief and fell to pieces on
the first hillside. Eremey Lukitch (the name of Panteley's father was
Eremey Lukitch), ordered a memorial to be put up on the hillside, but was
not, however, at all abashed over the affair. He conceived the happy
thought, too, of building a church--by himself, of course--without the
assistance of an architect. He burnt a whole forest in making the bricks, laid
an immense foundation, as though for a provincial hall, raised the walls,
and began putting on the cupola; the cupola fell down. He tried again--the
cupola again broke down; he tried the third time---the cupola fell to pieces a
third time. Good Eremey Lukitch grew thoughtful; there was something
uncanny about it, he reflected... some accursed witchcraft must have a hand
in it... and at once he gave orders to flog all the old women in the village.
They flogged the old women; but they didn't get the cupola on, for all that.
He began reconstructing the peasants' huts on a new plan, and all on a
system of 'provident management'; he set them three homesteads together in
a triangle, and in the middle stuck up a post with a painted bird-cage and
flag. Every day he invented some new freak; at one time he was making
soup of burdocks, at another cutting his horses' tails off to make caps for his
servants; at another, proposing to substitute nettles for flax, to feed pigs on
mushrooms.... He had once read in the Moscow Gazette an article by a
Harkov landowner, Hryak-Hrupyorsky, on the importance of morality to the
well-being of the peasant, and the next day he gave forth a decree to all his
peasants to learn off the Harkov landowner's article by heart at once. The
peasants learnt the article; the master asked them whether they understood
what was said in it? The bailiff replied--that to be sure they understood it!
About the same time he ordered all his subjects, with a view to the
maintenance of order and provident management, to be numbered, and each
to have his number sewn on his collar. On meeting the master, each was to
shout, 'Number so-and-so is here!' and the master would answer affably:
'Go on, in God's name!'

In spite, however, of order and provident management, Eremey Lukitch
got by degrees into a very difficult position; he began at first by mortgaging
his villages, and then was brought to the sale of them; the last ancestral
home, the village with the unfinished church, was sold at last for arrears to
the Crown, luckily not in the lifetime of Eremey Lukitch--he could never
have supported such a blow--but a fortnight after his death. He succeeded in
dying at home in his own bed, surrounded by his own people, and under the
care of his own doctor; but nothing was left to poor Panteley but
Bezsonovo.

Panteley heard of his father's illness while he was still in the service, in
the very heat of the 'difficulties' mentioned above. He was only just
nineteen. From his earliest childhood he had not left his father's house, and
under the guidance of his mother, a very good-natured but perfectly stupid
woman, Vassilissa Vassilyevna, he grew up spoilt and conceited. She
undertook his education alone; Eremey Lukitch, buried in his economical
fancies, had no thoughts to spare for it. It is true, he once punished his son
with his own hand for mispronouncing a letter of the alphabet; but Eremey
Lukitch had received a cruel and secret blow that day: his best dog had been
crushed by a tree. Vassilissa Vassilyevna's efforts in regard Panteley's
education did not, however, get beyond one terrific exertion; in the sweat of
her brow she engaged him a tutor, one Birkopf, a retired Alsatian soldier,
and to the day of her death she trembled like a leaf before him. 'Oh,' she
thought, 'if he throws us up--I'm lost! Where could I turn? Where could I
find another teacher? Why, with what pains, what pains I enticed this one
away from our neighbours!' And Birkopf, like a shrewd man, promptly took
advantage of his unique position; he drank like a fish, and slept from
morning till night. On the completion of his 'course of science,' Panteley
entered the army. Vassilissa Vassilyevna was no more; she had died six
months before that important event, of fright. She had had a dream of a
white figure riding on a bear. Eremey Lukitch soon followed his better half.

At the first news of his illness, Panteley galloped home at breakneck
speed, but he did not find his father alive. What was the amazement of the
dutiful son when he found himself, utterly unexpectedly, transformed from
a rich heir to a poor man! Few men are capable of bearing so sharp a
reverse well. Panteley was embittered, made misanthropical by it. From an

honest, generous, good-natured fellow, though spoilt and hot-tempered, he
became haughty and quarrelsome; he gave up associating with the
neighbours--he was too proud to visit the rich, and he disdained the poor--
and behaved with unheard of arrogance to everyone, even to the established
authorities. 'I am of the ancient hereditary nobility,' he would say. Once he
had been on the point of shooting the police-commissioner for coming into
the room with his cap on his head. Of course the authorities, on their side,
had their revenge, and took every opportunity to make him feel their power;
but still, they were rather afraid of him, because he had a desperate temper,
and would propose a duel with knives at the second word. At the slightest
retort Tchertop-hanov's eyes blazed, his voice broke.... Ah, er--er--er,' he
stammered, 'damn my soul!'... and nothing could stop him. And, moreover,
he was a man of stainless character, who had never had a hand in anything
the least shady. No one, of course, visited him... and with all this he was a
good-hearted, even a great-hearted man in his own way; acts of injustice, of
oppression, he would not brook even against strangers; he stood up for his
own peasants like a rock. 'What?' he would say, with a violent blow on his
own head: 'touch my people, mine? My name's not Tchertop-hanov, if I...'

Tihon Ivanitch Nedopyuskin could not, like Panteley Eremyitch, pride
himself on his origin. His father came of the peasant proprietor class, and
only after forty years of service attained the rank of a noble. Mr.
Nedopyuskin, the father, belonged to the number of those people who are
pursued by misfortune with an obduracy akin to personal hatred. For sixty
whole years, from his very birth to his very death, the poor man was
struggling with all the hardships, calamities, and privations, incidental to
people of small means; he struggled like a fish under the ice, never having
enough food and sleep--cringing, worrying, wearing himself to exhaustion,
fretting over every farthing, with genuine 'innocence' suffering in the
service, and dying at last in either a garret or a cellar, in the unsuccessful
struggle to gain for himself or his children a crust of dry bread. Fate had
hunted him down like a hare.

He was a good-natured and honest man, though he did take bribes--from
a threepenny bit up to a crown piece inclusive. Nedopyuskin had a wife,
thin and consumptive; he had children too; luckily they all died young
except Tihon and a daughter, Mitrodora, nicknamed 'the merchants' belle,'
who, after many painful and ludicrous adventures, was married to a retired
attorney. Mr. Nedopyuskin had succeeded before his death in getting Tihon
a place as supernumerary clerk in some office; but directly after his father's
death Tihon resigned his situation. Their perpetual anxieties, their
heartrending struggle with cold and hunger, his mother's careworn
depression, his father's toiling despair, the coarse aggressiveness of
landladies and shopkeepers--all the unending daily suffering of their life
had developed an exaggerated timidity in Tihon: at the mere sight of his
chief he was faint and trembling like a captured bird. He threw up his
office. Nature, in her indifference, or perhaps her irony, implants in people
all sorts of faculties and tendencies utterly inconsistent with their means and
their position in society; with her characteristic care and love she had
moulded of Tihon, the son of a poor clerk, a sensuous, indolent, soft,
impressionable creature--a creature fitted exclusively for enjoyment, gifted
with an excessively delicate sense of smell and of taste...she had moulded
him, finished him off most carefully, and set her creation to struggle up on
sour cabbage and putrid fish! And, behold! the creation did struggle up
somehow, and began what is called 'life.' Then the fun began. Fate, which
had so ruthlessly tormented Nedopyuskin the father, took to the son too; she
had a taste for them, one must suppose. But she treated Tihon on a different
plan: she did not torture him; she played with him. She did not once drive
him to desperation, she did not set him to suffer the degrading agonies of
hunger, but she led him a dance through the whole of Russia from one end
to the other, from one degrading and ludicrous position to another; at one
time Fate made him 'majordomo' to a snappish, choleric Lady Bountiful, at
another a humble parasite on a wealthy skinflint merchant, then a private
secretary to a goggle-eyed gentleman, with his hair cut in the English style,
then she promoted him to the post of something between butler and buffoon
to a dog-fancier.... In short, Fate drove poor Tihon to drink drop by drop to
the dregs the bitter poisoned cup of a dependent existence. He had been, in
his time, the sport of the dull malignity and the boorish pranks of slothful
masters. How often, alone in his room, released at last 'to go in peace,' after

a mob of visitors had glutted their taste for horseplay at his expense, he had
vowed, blushing with shame, chill tears of despair in his eyes, that he would
run away in secret, would try his luck in the town, would find himself some
little place as clerk, or die once for all of hunger in the street! But, in the
first place, God had not given him strength of character; secondly, his
timidity unhinged him; and thirdly, how could he get himself a place?
whom could he ask? 'They'll never give it me,' the luckless wretch would
murmur, tossing wearily in his bed, 'they'll never give it me!' And the next
day he would take up the same degrading life again. His position was the
more painful that, with all her care, nature had not troubled to give him the
smallest share of the gifts and qualifications without which the trade of a
buffoon is almost impossible. He was not equal, for instance, to dancing till
he dropped, in a bearskin coat turned inside out, nor making jokes and
cutting capers in the immediate vicinity of cracking whips; if he was turned
out in a state of nature into a temperature of twenty degrees below freezing,
as often as not, he caught cold; his stomach could not digest brandy mixed
with ink and other filth, nor minced funguses and toadstools in vinegar.
There is no knowing what would have become of Tihon if the last of his
patrons, a contractor who had made his fortune, had not taken it into his
head in a merry hour to inscribe in his will: 'And to Zyozo (Tihon, to wit)
Nedopyuskin, I leave in perpetual possession, to him and his heirs, the
village of Bezselendyevka, lawfully acquired by me, with all its
appurtenances.' A few days later this patron was taken with a fit of apoplexy
after gorging on sturgeon soup. A great commotion followed; the officials
came and put seals on the property.

The relations arrived; the will was opened and read; and they called for
Nedopyuskin: Nedopyuskin made his appearance. The greater number of
the party knew the nature of Tihon Ivanitch's duties in his patron's
household; he was greeted with deafening shouts and ironical
congratulations. 'The landowner; here is the new owner!' shouted the other
heirs. 'Well, really this,' put in one, a noted wit and humourist; 'well, really
this, one may say... this positively is... really what one may call... an heir-
apparent!' and they all went off into shrieks. For a long while Nedopyuskin
could not believe in his good fortune. They showed him the will: he
flushed, shut his eyes, and with a despairing gesture he burst into tears. The
chuckles of the party passed into a deep unanimous roar. The village of

Bezselendyevka consisted of only twenty-two serfs, no one regretted its loss
keenly; so why not get some fun out of it? One of the heirs from Petersburg,
an important man, with a Greek nose and a majestic expression of face,
Rostislav Adamitch Shtoppel, went so far as to go up to Nedopyuskin and
look haughtily at him over his shoulder. 'So far as I can gather, honoured
sir,' he observed with contemptuous carelessness, 'you enjoyed your
position in the household of our respected Fedor Fedoritch, owing to your
obliging readiness to wait on his diversions?' The gentleman from
Petersburg expressed himself in a style insufferably refined, smart, and
correct. Nedopyuskin, in his agitation and confusion, had not taken in the
unknown gentleman's words, but the others were all quiet at once; the wit
smiled condescendingly. Mr. Shtoppel rubbed his hands and repeated his
question. Nedopyuskin raised his eyes in bewilderment and opened his
mouth. Rostislav Adamitch puckered his face up sarcastically.

'I congratulate you, my dear sir, I congratulate you,' he went on: 'it's true,
one may say, not everyone would have consented to gain his daily bread in
such a fashion; but de guslibus non est disputandum, that is, everyone to his
taste.... Eh?'

Someone at the back uttered a rapid, decorous shriek of admiration and
delight.

'Tell us,' pursued Mr. Shtoppel, much encouraged by the smiles of the
whole party, 'to what special talent are you indebted for your good-fortune?
No, don't be bashful, tell us; we're all here, so to speak, en famille. Aren't
we, gentlemen, all here en famille?'

The relation to whom Rostislav Adamitch chanced to turn with this
question did not, unfortunately, know French, and so he confined himself to
a faint grunt of approbation. But another relation, a young man, with
patches of a yellow colour on his forehead, hastened to chime in, 'Wee, wee,
to be sure.'

'Perhaps,' Mr. Shtoppel began again, 'you can walk on your hands, your
legs raised, so to say, in the air?'

Nedopyuskin looked round in agony: every face wore a taunting smile,
every eye was moist with delight.

'Or perhaps you can crow like a cock?'

A loud guffaw broke out on all sides, and was hushed at once, stifled by
expectation.

'Or perhaps on your nose you can....'

'Stop that!' a loud harsh voice suddenly interrupted Rostislav Adamitch;
'I wonder you're not ashamed to torment the poor man!'

Everyone looked round. In the doorway stood Tchertop-hanov. As a
cousin four times removed of the deceased contractor, he too had received a
note of invitation to the meeting of the relations. During the whole time of
reading the will he had kept, as he always did, haughtily apart from the
others.

'Stop that!' he repeated, throwing his head back proudly.

Mr. Shtoppel turned round quickly, and seeing a poorly dressed,
unattractive-looking man, he inquired of his neighbour in an undertone
(caution's always a good thing):

'Who's that?'

'Tchertop-hanov--he's no great shakes,' the latter whispered in his ear.

Rostislav Adamitch assumed a haughty air.

'And who are you to give orders?' he said through his nose, drooping his
eyelids scornfully; 'who may you be, allow me to inquire?--a queer fish,
upon my word!'

Tchertop-hanov exploded like gunpowder at a spark. He was choked
with fury.

'Ss--ss--ss!' he hissed like one possessed, and all at once he thundered:
'Who am I? Who am I? I'm Panteley Tchertop-hanov, of the ancient
hereditary nobility; my forefathers served the Tsar: and who may you be?'

Rostislav Adamitch turned pale and stepped back. He had not expected
such resistance.

'I--I--a fish indeed!'

Tchertop-hanov darted forward; Shtoppel bounded away in great
perturbation, the others rushed to meet the exasperated nobleman.

'A duel, a duel, a duel, at once, across a handkerchief!' shouted the
enraged Panteley, 'or beg my pardon--yes, and his too....'

'Pray beg his pardon!' the agitated relations muttered all round Shtoppel;
'he's such a madman, he'd cut your throat in a minute!'

'I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon, I didn't know,' stammered
Shtoppel; 'I didn't know....'

'And beg his too!' vociferated the implacable Panteley.

'I beg your pardon too,' added Rostislav Adamitch, addressing
Nedopyuskin, who was shaking as if he were in an ague.

Tchertop-hanov calmed down; he went up to Tihon Ivanitch, took him
by the hand, looked fiercely round, and, as not one pair of eyes ventured to
meet his, he walked triumphantly amid profound silence out of the room,
with the new owner of the lawfully acquired village of Bezselendyevka.

From that day they never parted again. (The village of Bezselendyevka
was only seven miles from Bezsonovo.) The boundless gratitude of
Nedopyuskin soon passed into the most adoring veneration. The weak, soft,
and not perfectly stainless Tihon bowed down in the dust before the fearless
and irreproachable Panteley. 'It's no slight thing,' he thought to himself
sometimes, 'to talk to the governor, look him straight in the face.... Christ
have mercy on us, doesn't he look at him!'

He marvelled at him, he exhausted all the force of his soul in his
admiration of him, he regarded him as an extraordinary man, as clever, as
learned. And there's no denying that, bad as Tchertop-hanov's education
might be, still, in comparison with Tihon's education, it might pass for
brilliant. Tchertop-hanov, it is true, had read little Russian, and knew French
very badly--so badly that once, in reply to the question of a Swiss tutor:
'Vous parlez français, monsieur?' he answered: 'Je ne comprehend' and after
a moment's thought, he added pa; but any way he was aware that Voltaire
had once existed, and was a very witty writer, and that Frederick the Great,
king of Prussia, had been distinguished as a great military commander. Of
Russian writers he respected Derzhavin, but liked Marlinsky, and called
Ammalat-Bek the best of the pack....

A few days after my first meeting with the two friends, I set off for the
village of Bezsonovo to see Panteley Eremyitch. His little house could be
seen a long way off; it stood out on a bare place, half a mile from the
village, on the 'bluff,' as it is called, like a hawk on a ploughed field.
Tchertop-hanov's homestead consisted of nothing more than four old
tumble-down buildings of different sizes--that is, a lodge, a stable, a barn,
and a bath-house. Each building stood apart by itself; there was neither a
fence round nor a gate to be seen. My coachman stopped in perplexity at a
well which was choked up and had almost disappeared. Near the barn some
thin and unkempt puppies were mangling a dead horse, probably Orbassan;
one of them lifted up the bleeding nose, barked hurriedly, and again fell to
devouring the bare ribs. Near the horse stood a boy of seventeen, with a
puffy, yellow face, dressed like a Cossack, and barelegged; he looked with a
responsible air at the dogs committed to his charge, and now and then gave
the greediest a lash with his whip.

'Is your master at home?' I inquired.

'The Lord knows!' answered the lad; 'you'd better knock.'

I jumped out of the droshky, and went up to the steps of the lodge.

Mr. Tchertop-hanov's dwelling presented a very cheerless aspect; the
beams were blackened and bulging forward, the chimney had fallen off, the
corners of the house were stained with damp, and sunk out of the

perpendicular, the small, dusty, bluish windows peeped out from under the
shaggy overhanging roof with an indescribably morose expression: some
old vagrants have eyes that look like that. I knocked; no one responded. I
could hear, however, through the door some sharply uttered words:

'A, B, C; there now, idiot!' a hoarse voice was saying: 'A, B, C, D... no!
D, E, E, E!... Now then, idiot!'

I knocked a second time.

The same voice shouted: 'Come in; who's there?'...

I went into the small empty hall, and through the open door I saw
Tchertop-hanov himself. In a greasy oriental dressing-gown, loose trousers,
and a red skull-cap, he was sitting on a chair; in one hand he gripped the
face of a young poodle, while in the other he was holding a piece of bread
just above his nose.

'Ah!' he pronounced with dignity, not stirring from his seat: 'delighted to
see you. Please sit down. I am busy here with Venzor.... Tihon Ivanitch,' he
added, raising his voice, 'come here, will you? Here's a visitor.'

'I'm coming, I'm coming,' Tihon Ivanitch responded from the other room.
'Masha, give me my cravat.'

Tchertop-hanov turned to Venzor again and laid the piece of bread on his
nose. I looked round. Except an extending table much warped with thirteen
legs of unequal length, and four rush chairs worn into hollows, there was no
furniture of any kind in the room; the walls, which had been washed white,
ages ago, with blue, star-shaped spots, were peeling off in many places;
between the windows hung a broken tarnished looking-glass in a huge
frame of red wood. In the corners stood pipestands and guns; from the
ceiling hung fat black cobwebs.

'A, B, C, D,' Tchertop-hanov repeated slowly, and suddenly he cried
furiously: 'E! E! E! E!... What a stupid brute!...'

But the luckless poodle only shivered, and could not make up his mind
to open his mouth; he still sat wagging his tail uneasily and wrinkling up his
face, blinked dejectedly, and frowned as though saying to himself: 'Of
course, it's just as you please!'

'There, eat! come! take it!' repeated the indefatigable master.

'You've frightened him,' I remarked.

'Well, he can get along, then!'

He gave him a kick. The poor dog got up softly, dropped the bread off
his nose, and walked, as it were, on tiptoe to the hall, deeply wounded. And
with good reason: a stranger calling for the first time, and to treat him like
that!

The door from the next room gave a subdued creak, and Mr.
Nedopyuskin came in, affably bowing and smiling.

I got up and bowed.

'Don't disturb yourself, don't disturb yourself,' he lisped.

We sat down. Tchertop-hanov went into the next room.

'You have been for some time in our neighbourhood,' began
Nedopyuskin in a subdued voice, coughing discreetly into his hand, and
holding his fingers before his lips from a feeling of propriety.

'I came last month.'

'Indeed.'

We were silent for a little.

'Lovely weather we are having just now,' resumed Nedopyuskin, and he
looked gratefully at me as though I were in some way responsible for the
weather: 'the corn, one may say, is doing wonderfully.'

I nodded in token of assent. We were silent again.

'Panteley Eremyitch was pleased to hunt two hares yesterday,'
Nedopyuskin began again with an effort, obviously wishing to enliven the
conversation; 'yes, indeed, very big hares they were, sir.'

'Has Mr. Tchertop-hanov good hounds?'

'The most wonderful hounds, sir!' Nedopyuskin replied, delighted; 'one
may say, the best in the province, indeed.' (He drew nearer to me.) 'But,
then, Panteley Eremyitch is such a wonderful man! He has only to wish for
anything--he has only to take an idea into his head--and before you can look
round, it's done; everything, you may say, goes like clockwork. Panteley
Eremyitch, I assure you....'

Tchertop-hanov came into the room. Nedopyuskin smiled, ceased
speaking, and indicated him to me with a glance which seemed to say,
'There, you will see for yourself.' We fell to talking about hunting.

'Would you like me to show you my leash?' Tchertop-hanov asked me;
and, not waiting for a reply, he called Karp.

A sturdy lad came in, in a green nankin long coat, with a blue collar and
livery buttons.

'Tell Fomka,' said Tchertop-hanov abruptly, 'to bring in Ammalat and
Saiga, and in good order, do you understand?'

Karp gave a broad grin, uttered an indefinite sound, and went away.
Fomka made his appearance, well combed and tightly buttoned up, in boots,
and with the hounds. From politeness, I admired the stupid beasts (harriers
are all exceedingly stupid). Tchertop-hanov spat right into Ammalat's
nostrils, which did not, however, apparently afford that dog the slightest
satisfaction. Nedopyuskin, too, stroked Ammalat from behind. We began
chatting again. By degrees Tchertop-hanov unbent completely, and no
longer stood on his dignity nor snorted defiantly; the expression of his face
changed. He glanced at me and at Nedopyuskin....

'Hey!' he cried suddenly; 'why should she sit in there alone? Masha! hi,
Masha! come in here!'

Some one stirred in the next room, but there was no answer.

'Ma-a-sha!' Tchertop-hanov repeated caressingly; 'come in here. It's all
right, don't be afraid.'

The door was softly opened, and I caught sight of a tall and slender girl
of twenty, with a dark gypsy face, golden-brown eyes, and hair black as
pitch; her large white teeth gleamed between full red lips. She had on a
white dress; a blue shawl, pinned close round her throat with a gold brooch,
half hid her slender, beautiful arms, in which one could see the fineness of
her race. She took two steps with the bashful awkwardness of some wild
creature, stood still, and looked down.

'Come, let me introduce,' said Panteley Eremyitch; 'wife she is not, but
she's to be respected as a wife.'

Masha flushed slightly, and smiled in confusion. I made her a low bow. I
thought her very charming. The delicate falcon nose, with distended, half-
transparent nostrils; the bold sweep of her high eyebrows, the pale, almost
sunken cheeks--every feature of her face denoted wilful passion and
reckless devilry. From under the coil of her hair two rows of little shining
hairs ran down her broad neck--a sign of race and vigour.

She went to the window and sat down. I did not want to increase her
embarrassment, and began talking with Tchertop-hanov. Masha turned her
head slyly, and began peeping from under her eyelids at me stealthily, shyly,
and swiftly. Her glance seemed to flash out like a snake's sting.
Nedopyuskin sat beside her, and whispered something in her ear. She
smiled again. When she smiled, her nose slightly puckered up, and her
upper lip was raised, which gave her face something of the expression of a
cat or a lion....

'Oh, but you're one of the "hands off!" sort,' I thought, in my turn
stealing a look at her supple frame, her hollow breast, and her quick,
angular movements.

'Masha,' Tchertop-hanov asked, 'don't you think we ought to give our
visitor some entertainment, eh?'

'We've got some jam,' she replied.

'Well, bring the jam here, and some vodka, too, while you're about it.
And, I say, Masha,' he shouted after her, 'bring the guitar in too.'

'What's the guitar for? I'm not going to sing.'

'Why?'

'I don't want to.'

'Oh, nonsense; you'll want to when....'

'What?' asked Masha, rapidly knitting her brows.

'When you're asked,' Tchertop-hanov went on, with some
embarrassment.

'Oh!'

She went out, soon came back with jam and vodka, and again sat by the
window. There was still a line to be seen on her forehead; the two eyebrows
rose and drooped like a wasp's antennae.... Have you ever noticed, reader,
what a wicked face the wasp has? 'Well,' I thought, 'I'm in for a storm.' The
conversation flagged. Nedopyuskin shut up completely, and wore a forced
smile; Tchertop-hanov panted, turned red, and opened his eyes wide; I was
on the point of taking leave.... Suddenly Masha got up, flung open the
window, thrust out her head, and shouted lustily to a passing peasant
woman, 'Aksinya!' The woman started, and tried to turn round, but slipped
down and flopped heavily on to a dung-heap. Masha threw herself back and
laughed merrily; Tchertop-hanov laughed too; Nedopyuskin shrieked with
delight. We all revived. The storm had passed off in one flash of lightning...
the air was clear again.

Half-an-hour later, no one would have recognised us; we were chatting
and frolicking like children. Masha was the merriest of all; Tchertop-hanov

simply could not take his eyes off her. Her face grew paler, her nostrils
dilated, her eyes glowed and darkened at the same time. It was a wild
creature at play. Nedopyuskin limped after her on his short, fat little legs,
like a drake after a duck. Even Venzor crawled out of his hiding-place in the
hall, stood a moment in the doorway, glanced at us, and suddenly fell to
jumping up into the air and barking. Masha flitted into the other room,
fetched the guitar, flung off the shawl from her shoulders, seated herself
quickly, and, raising her head, began singing a gypsy song. Her voice rang
out, vibrating like a glass bell when it is struck; it flamed up and died
away.... It filled the heart with sweetness and pain.... Tchertop-hanov fell to
dancing. Nedopyuskin stamped and swung his legs in tune. Masha was all
a-quiver, like birch-bark in the fire; her delicate fingers flew playfully over
the guitar, her dark-skinned throat slowly heaved under the two rows of
amber. All at once she would cease singing, sink into exhaustion, and twang
the guitar, as it were involuntarily, and Tchertop-hanov stood still, merely
working his shoulders and turning round in one place, while Nedopyuskin
nodded his head like a Chinese figure; then she would break out into song
like a mad thing, drawing herself up and holding up her head, and Tchertop-
hanov again curtsied down to the ground, leaped up to the ceiling, spun
round like a top, crying 'Quicker!...'

'Quicker, quicker, quicker!' Nedopyuskin chimed in, speaking very fast.

It was late in the evening when I left Bezsonovo....

XXII

THE END OF TCHERTOP-HANOV

I

It was two years after my visit that Panteley Eremyitch's troubles began--
his real troubles. Disappointments, disasters, even misfortunes he had had

before that time, but he had paid no attention to them, and had risen
superior to them in former days. The first blow that fell upon him was the
most heartrending for him. Masha left him.

What induced her to forsake his roof, where she seemed to be so
thoroughly at home, it is hard to say. Tchertop-hanov to the end of his days
clung to the conviction that a certain young neighbour, a retired captain of
Uhlans, named Yaff, was at the root of Masha's desertion. He had taken her
fancy, according to Panteley Eremyitch, simply by constantly curling his
moustaches, pomading himself to excess, and sniggering significantly; but
one must suppose that the vagrant gypsy blood in Masha's veins had more
to do with it. However that may have been, one fine summer evening
Masha tied up a few odds and ends in a small bundle, and walked out of
Tchertop-hanov's house.

For three days before this she had sat crouched up in a corner, huddled
against the wall, like a wounded fox, and had not spoken a word to any one;
she had only turned her eyes about, and twitched her eyebrows, and faintly
gnashed her teeth, and moved her arms as though she were wrapping herself
up. This mood had come upon her before, but had never lasted long:
Tchertop-hanov knew that, and so he neither worried himself nor worried
her. But when, on coming in from the kennels, where, in his huntsman's
words, the last two hounds 'had departed,' he met a servant girl who, in a
trembling voice, informed him that Marya Akinfyevna sent him her
greetings, and left word that she wished him every happiness, but she was
not coming back to him any more; Tchertop-hanov, after reeling round
where he stood and uttering a hoarse yell, rushed at once after the runaway,
snatching up his pistol as he went.

He overtook her a mile and a half from his house, near a birch wood, on
the high-road to the district town. The sun was sinking on the horizon, and
everything was suddenly suffused with purple glow--trees, plants, and earth
alike.

'To Yaff! to Yaff!' groaned Tchertop-hanov directly he caught sight of
Masha. 'Going to Yaff!' he repeated, running up to her, and almost
stumbling at every step.

Masha stood still, and turned round facing him.

She stood with her back to the light, and looked all black, as though she
had been carved out of dark wood; only the whites of her eyes stood out
like silvery almonds, but the eyes themselves--the pupils--were darker than
ever.

She flung her bundle aside, and folded her arms. 'You are going to Yaff,
wretched girl!' repeated Tchertop-hanov, and he was on the point of seizing
her by the shoulder, but, meeting her eyes, he was abashed, and stood
uneasily where he was.

'I am not going to Mr. Yaff, Panteley Eremyitch,' replied Masha in soft,
even tones; 'it's only I can't live with you any longer.'

'Can't live with me? Why not? Have I offended you in some way?'

Masha shook her head. 'You've not offended me in any way, Panteley
Eremyitch, only my heart is heavy in your house.... Thanks for the past, but
I can't stay--no!'

Tchertop-hanov was amazed; he positively slapped his thighs, and
bounced up and down in his astonishment.

'How is that? Here she's gone on living with me, and known nothing but
peace and happiness, and all of a sudden--her heart's heavy! and she flings
me over! She goes and puts a kerchief on her head, and is gone. She
received every respect, like any lady.'

'I don't care for that in the least,' Masha interrupted.

'Don't care for it? From a wandering gypsy to turn into a lady, and she
doesn't care for it! How don't you care for it, you low-born slave? Do you
expect me to believe that? There's treachery hidden in it--treachery!'

He began frowning again.

'There's no treachery in my thoughts, and never has been,' said Masha in
her distinct, resonant voice; 'I've told you already, my heart was heavy.'

'Masha!' cried Tchertop-hanov, striking himself a blow on the chest with
his fist; 'there, stop it; hush, you have tortured me... now, it's enough! O my
God! think only what Tisha will say; you might have pity on him, at least!'

'Remember me to Tihon Ivanitch, and tell him...'

Tchertop-hanov wrung his hands. 'No, you are talking nonsense--you are
not going! Your Yaff may wait for you in vain!'

'Mr. Yaff,' Masha was beginning....

'A fine Mister Yaff!' Tchertop-hanov mimicked her. 'He's an underhand
rascal, a low cur--that's what he is--and a phiz like an ape's!'

For fully half-an-hour Tchertop-hanov was struggling with Masha. He
came close to her, he fell back, he shook his fists at her, he bowed down
before her, he wept, he scolded.

...'I can't,' repeated Masha; 'I am so sad at heart... devoured by
weariness.'

Little by little her face assumed such an indifferent, almost drowsy
expression, that Tchertop-hanov asked her if they had not drugged her with
laudanum.

'It's weariness,' she said for the tenth time.

'Then what if I kill you?' he cried suddenly, and he pulled the pistol out
of his pocket.

Masha smiled; her face brightened.

'Well, kill me, Panteley Eremyitch; as you will; but go back, I won't.'

'You won't come back?' Tchertop-hanov cocked the pistol.

'I won't go back, my dearie. Never in my life will I go back. My word is
steadfast.'

Tchertop-hanov suddenly thrust the pistol into her hand, and sat down on
the ground.

'Then, you kill me! Without you I don't care to live. I have grown
loathsome to you--and everything's loathsome for me!'

Masha bent down, took up her bundle, laid the pistol on the grass, its
mouth away from Tchertop-hanov, and went up to him.

'Ah, my dearie, why torture yourself? Don't you know what we gypsy
girls are? It's our nature; you must make up your mind to it. When there
comes weariness the divider, and calls the soul away to strange, distant
parts, how is one to stay here? Don't forget your Masha; you won't find such
another sweetheart, and I won't forget you, my dearie; but our life together's
over!'

'I loved you, Masha,' Tchertop-hanov muttered into the fingers in which
he had buried his face....

'And I loved you, little friend Panteley Eremyitch.'

'I love you, I love you madly, senselessly--and when I think now that
you, in your right senses, without rhyme or reason, are leaving me like this,
and going to wander over the face of the earth--well, it strikes me that if I
weren't a poor penniless devil, you wouldn't be throwing me over!'

At these words Masha only laughed.

'And he used to say I didn't care for money,' she commented, and she
gave Tchertop-hanov a vigorous thump on the shoulder.

He jumped up on to his feet.

'Come, at least you must let me give you some money--how can you go
like this without a halfpenny? But best of all: kill me! I tell you plainly: kill
me once for all!'

Masha shook her head again. 'Kill you? Why get sent to Siberia, my
dearie?'

Tchertop-hanov shuddered. 'Then it's only from that--from fear of penal
servitude.'

He rolled on the grass again.

Masha stood over him in silence. 'I'm sorry for you, dear,' she said with a
sigh: 'you're a good fellow... but there's no help for it: good-bye!'

She turned away and took two steps. The night had come on by now, and
dim shadows were closing in on all sides. Tchertop-hanov jumped up
swiftly and seized Masha from behind by her two elbows.

'You are going away like this, serpent, to Yaff!'

'Good-bye!' Masha repeated sharply and significantly; she tore herself
away and walked off.

Tchertop-hanov looked after her, ran to the place where the pistol was
lying, snatched it up, took aim, fired.... But before he touched the trigger,
his arm twitched upwards; the ball whistled over Masha's head. She looked
at him over her shoulder without stopping, and went on, swinging as she
walked, as though in defiance of him.

He hid his face--and fell to running.

But before he had run fifty paces he suddenly stood still as though turned
to stone. A well-known, too well-known voice came floating to him. Masha
was singing. 'It was in the sweet days of youth,' she sang: every note
seemed to linger plaintive and ardent in the evening air. Tchertop-hanov
listened intently. The voice retreated and retreated; at one moment it died
away, at the next it floated across, hardly audible, but still with the same
passionate glow.

'She does it to spite me,' thought Tchertop-hanov; but at once he moaned,
'oh, no! it's her last farewell to me for ever,'--and he burst into floods of
tears.

*****

The next day he appeared at the lodgings of Mr. Yaff, who, as a true man
of the world, not liking the solitude of the country, resided in the district
town, 'to be nearer the young ladies,' as he expressed it. Tchertop-hanov did
not find Yaff; he had, in the words of his valet, set off for Moscow the
evening before.

'Then it is so!' cried Tchertop-hanov furiously; 'there was an arrangement
between them; she has run away with him... but wait a bit!'

He broke into the young cavalry captain's room in spite of the resistance
of the valet. In the room there was hanging over the sofa a portrait in oils of
the master, in the Uhlan uniform. 'Ah, here you are, you tailless ape!'
thundered Tchertop-hanov; he jumped on to the sofa, and with a blow of his
fist burst a big hole in the taut canvas.

'Tell your worthless master,' he turned to the valet, 'that, in the absence of
his own filthy phiz, the nobleman Tchertop-hanov put a hole through the
painted one; and if he cares for satisfaction from me, he knows where to
find the nobleman Tchertop-hanov! or else I'll find him out myself! I'll fetch
the rascally ape from the bottom of the sea!'

Saying these words, Tchertop-hanov jumped off the sofa and
majestically withdrew.

But the cavalry captain Yaff did not demand satisfaction from him--
indeed, he never met him anywhere--and Tchertop-hanov did not think of
seeking his enemy out, and no scandal followed. Masha herself soon after
this disappeared beyond all trace. Tchertop-hanov took to drink; however,
he 'reformed' later. But then a second blow fell upon him.

II

This was the death of his bosom friend Tihon Ivanovitch Nedopyuskin.
His health had begun to fail two years before his death: he began to suffer
from asthma, and was constantly dropping asleep, and on waking up could

not at once come to himself; the district doctor maintained that this was the
result of 'something rather like fits.' During the three days which preceded
Masha's departure, those three days when 'her heart was heavy,'
Nedopyuskin had been away at his own place at Bezselendyevka: he had
been laid up with a severe cold. Masha's conduct was consequently even
more unexpected for him; it made almost a deeper impression on him than
on Tchertop-hanov himself. With his natural sweetness and diffidence, he
gave utterance to nothing but the tenderest sympathy with his friend, and
the most painful perplexity... but it crushed and made havoc of everything
in him. 'She has torn the heart out of me,' he would murmur to himself, as
he sat on his favourite checked sofa and twisted his fingers. Even when
Tchertop-hanov had got over it, he, Nedopyuskin, did not recover, and still
felt that 'there was a void within him.' 'Here,' he would say, pointing to the
middle of his breast above his stomach. In that way he lingered on till the
winter. When the frosts came, his asthma got better, but he was visited by,
not 'something rather like a fit' this time, but a real unmistakable fit. He did
not lose his memory at once; he still knew Tchertop-hanov and his friend's
cry of despair, 'How can you desert me, Tisha, without my consent, just as
Masha did?' He even responded with faltering, uncertain tongue, 'O--P--a--
ey--E--e--yitch, I will o--bey you.'

This did not, however, prevent him from dying the same day, without
waiting for the district doctor, who (on seeing the hardly cold body) found
nothing left for him to do, but with a melancholy recognition of the
instability of all things mortal, to ask for 'a drop of vodka and a snack of
fish.' As might have been anticipated, Tihon Ivanitch had bequeathed his
property to his revered patron and generous protector, Panteley Eremyitch
Tchertop-hanov; but it was of no great benefit to the revered patron, as it
was shortly after sold by public auction, partly in order to cover the expense
of a sepulchral monument, a statue, which Tchertop-hanov (and one can see
his father's craze coming out in him here) had thought fit to put up over the
ashes of his friend. This statue, which was to have represented an angel
praying, was ordered by him from Moscow; but the agent recommended to
him, conceiving that connoisseurs in sculpture were not often to be met
with in the provinces, sent him, instead of an angel, a goddess Flora, which
had for many years adorned one of those neglected gardens near Moscow,
laid out in the days of Catherine. He had an excellent reason for doing so,

since this statue, though highly artistic, in the rococo style, with plump little
arms, tossing curls, a wreath of roses round the bare bosom, and a
serpentine figure, was obtained by him, the agent, for nothing. And so to
this day the mythological goddess stands, with one foot elegantly lifted,
above the tomb of Tihon Ivanovitch, and with a genuinely Pompadour
simper, gazes at the calves and sheep, those invariable visitors of our village
graveyards, as they stray about her.

III

On the loss of his faithful friend, Tchertop-hanov again took to drink,
and this time far more seriously. Everything went utterly to the bad with
him. He had no money left for sport; the last of his meagre fortune was
spent; the last of his few servants ran away. Panteley Eremyitch's isolation
became complete: he had no one to speak a word to even, far less to open
his heart to. His pride alone had suffered no diminution. On the contrary,
the worse his surroundings became, the more haughty and lofty and
inaccessible he was himself. He became a complete misanthrope in the end.
One distraction, one delight, was left him: a superb grey horse, of the Don
breed, named by him Malek-Adel, a really wonderful animal.

This horse came into his possession in this fashion.

As he was riding one day through a neighbouring village, Tchertop-
hanov heard a crowd of peasants shouting and hooting before a tavern. In
the middle of the crowd stalwart arms were continually rising and falling in
exactly the same place.

'What is happening there?' he asked, in the peremptory tone peculiar to
him, of an old peasant woman who was standing on the threshold of her
hut. Leaning against the doorpost as though dozing, the old woman stared
in the direction of the tavern. A white-headed urchin in a print smock, with
a cypress-wood cross on his little bare breast, was sitting with little
outstretched legs, and little clenched fists between her bast slippers; a
chicken close by was chipping at a stale crust of rye-bread.

'The Lord knows, your honour,' answered the old woman. Bending
forward, she laid her wrinkled brown hand on the child's head. 'They say
our lads are beating a Jew.'

'A Jew? What Jew?'

'The Lord knows, your honour. A Jew came among us; and where he's
come from--who knows? Vassya, come to your mammy, sir; sh, sh, nasty
brute!'

The old woman drove away the chicken, while Vassya clung to her
petticoat.

'So, you see, they're beating him, sir.'

'Why beating him? What for?'

'I don't know, your honour. No doubt, he deserves it. And, indeed, why
not beat him? You know, your honour, he crucified Christ!'

Tchertop-hanov uttered a whoop, gave his horse a lash on the neck with
the riding-whip, flew straight towards the crowd, and plunging into it,
began with the same riding-whip thrashing the peasants to left and to right
indiscriminately, shouting in broken tones: 'Lawless brutes! lawless brutes!
It's for the law to punish, and not pri-vate per-sons! The law! the law! the
law!'

Before two minutes had passed the crowd had beaten a retreat in various
directions; and on the ground before the tavern door could be seen a small,
thin, swarthy creature, in a nankin long coat, dishevelled and mangled... a
pale face, rolling eyes, open mouth.... What was it?... deadly terror, or death
itself?

'Why have you killed this Jew?' Tchertop-hanov shouted at the top of his
voice, brandishing his riding-whip menacingly.

The crowd faintly roared in response. One peasant was rubbing his
shoulder, another his side, a third his nose.

'You're pretty free with your whip!' was heard in the back rows.

'Why have you killed the Jew, you christened Pagans?' repeated
Tchertop-hanov.

But, at this point, the creature lying on the ground hurriedly jumped on
to its feet, and, running up to Tchertop-hanov, convulsively seized hold of
the edge of the saddle.

'Alive!' was heard in the background.

'He's a regular cat!'

'Your ex-shelency, defend me, save me!' the unhappy Jew was faltering
meanwhile, his whole body squeezed up against Tchertop-hanov's foot; 'or
they will murder me, they will murder me, your ex-shelency!'

'What have they against you?' asked Tchertop-hanov.

'I can't tell, so help me God! Some cow hereabouts died... so they
suspect me... but I...' 'Well, that we'll go into later!' Tchertop-hanov
interrupted; 'but now, you hold on to the saddle and follow me. And you!' he
added, turning to the crowd,' do you know me?--I'm the landowner Panteley
Tchertop-hanov. I live at Bezsonovo,--and so you can take proceedings
against me, when you think fit--and against the Jew too, while you're about
it!'

'Why take proceedings?' said a grey-bearded, decent-looking peasant,
bowing low, the very picture of an ancient patriarch. (He had been no whit
behind the others in belabouring the Jew, however). 'We know your honour,
Panteley Eremyitch, well; we thank your honour humbly for teaching us
better!'

'Why take proceedings?' chimed in the others.

'As to the Jew, we'll take it out of him another day! He won't escape us!
We shall be on the look-out for him.'

Tchertop-hanov pulled his moustaches, snorted, and went home at a
walking pace, accompanied by the Jew, whom he had delivered from his
persecutors just as he had once delivered Tihon Nedopyuskin.

IV

A few days later the one groom who was left to Tchertop-hanov
announced that someone had come on horseback and wanted to speak to
him. Tchertop-hanov went out on to the steps and recognised the Jew, riding
a splendid horse of the Don breed, which stood proud and motionless in the
middle of the courtyard. The Jew was bareheaded; he held his cap under his
arm, and had thrust his feet into the stirrup-straps, not into the stirrups
themselves; the ragged skirts of his long coat hung down on both sides of
the saddle. On seeing Tchertop-hanov, he gave a smack with his lips, and
ducked down with a twitch of the elbows and a bend of the legs. Tchertop-
hanov, however, not only failed to respond to his greeting, but was even
enraged by it; he was all on fire in a minute: a scurvy Jew dare to ride a
magnificent horse like that!... It was positively indecent!

'Hi, you Ethiopian fright!' he shouted; 'get off at once, if you don't want
to be flung off into the mud!'

The Jew promptly obeyed, rolled off the horse like a sack, and keeping
hold of the rein with one hand, he approached Tchertop-hanov, smiling and
bowing.

'What do you want?' Panteley Eremyitch inquired with dignity.

'Your ex-shelency, deign to look what a horse!' said the Jew, never
ceasing to bow for an instant.

'Er... well... the horse is all right. Where did you get it from? Stole it, I
suppose?'

'How can you say that, your ex-shelency! I'm an honest Jew. I didn't steal
it, but I obtained it for your ex-shelency--really! And the trouble, the trouble
I had to get it? But, then, see what a horse it is! There's not another horse
like it to be found in all the Don country! Look, your ex-shelency, what a
horse it is! Here, kindly step this way! Wo!... wo!... turn round, stand
sideways! And we'll take off the saddle. What do you think of him, your ex-
shelency?'

'The horse is all right,' repeated Tchertop-hanov with affected
indifference, though his heart was beating like a sledge-hammer in his
breast. He was a passionate lover of 'horse-flesh,' and knew a good thing
when he saw it.

'Only take a look at him, your ex-shelency! Pat him on the neck! yes,
yes, he-he-he-he! like this, like this!'

Tchertop-hanov, with apparent reluctance, laid his hand on the horse's
neck, gave it a pat or two, then passed his fingers from the forelock along
the spine, and when he had reached a certain spot above the kidneys, like a
connoisseur, he lightly pressed that spot. The horse instantly arched its
spine, and looking round suspiciously at Tchertop-hanov with its haughty
black eye, snorted and moved its hind legs.

The Jew laughed and faintly clapped his hands. 'He knows his master,
your ex-shelency, his master!'

'Don't talk nonsense,' Tchertop-hanov interrupted with vexation. 'To buy
this horse from you... I haven't the means, and as for presents, I not only
wouldn't take them from a Jew; I wouldn't take a present from Almighty
God Himself!'

'As though I would presume to offer you a present, mercy upon me!'
cried the Jew: 'you buy it, your ex-shelency... and as to the little sum--I can
wait for it.'

Tchertop-hanov sank into thought.

'What will you take for it?' he muttered at last between his teeth.

The Jew shrugged his shoulders.

'What I paid for it myself. Two hundred roubles.'

The horse was well worth twice---perhaps even three times that sum.

Tchertop-hanov turned away and yawned feverishly.

'And the money... when?' he asked, scowling furiously and not looking at
the Jew.

'When your ex-shelency thinks fit.'

Tchertop-hanov flung his head back, but did not raise his eyes. 'That's no
answer. Speak plainly, son of Herod! Am I to be under an obligation to you,
hey?'

'Well, let's say, then,' the Jew hastened to add, 'in six months' time... Do
you agree?'

Tchertop-hanov made no reply.

The Jew tried to get a look at his face. 'Do you agree? You permit him to
be led to your stable?'

'The saddle I don't want,' Tchertop-hanov blurted out abruptly. 'Take the
saddle--do you hear?'

'To be sure, to be sure, I will take it,' faltered the delighted Jew,
shouldering the saddle.

'And the money,' Tchertop-hanov pursued... 'in six months. And not two
hundred, but two hundred and fifty. Not a word! Two hundred and fifty, I
tell you! to my account.'

Tchertop-hanov still could not bring himself to raise his eyes. Never had
his pride been so cruelly wounded.

'It's plain, it's a present,' was the thought in his mind; 'he's brought it out
of gratitude, the devil!' And he would have liked to kiss the Jew, and he
would have liked to beat him.

'Your ex-shelency,' began the Jew, gaining a little courage, and grinning
all over his face, 'should, after the Russian fashion, take from hand to
hand....'

'What next? what an idea! A Hebrew... and Russian customs! Hey! you
there! Take the horse; lead him to the stable. And give him some oats. I'll
come myself and look after him. And his name is to be--Malek-Adel!'

Tchertop-hanov turned to go up the steps, but turning sharply back, and
running up to the Jew, he pressed his hand warmly. The latter was bending
down to kiss his hand, but Tchertop-hanov bounded back again, and
murmuring, 'Tell no one!' he vanished through the door.

V

From that very day the chief interest, the chief occupation, the chief
pleasure in the life of Tchertop-hanov, was Malek-Adel. He loved him as he
had not loved even Masha; he became more attached to him than even to
Nedopyuskin. And what a horse it was! All fire--simply explosive as
gunpowder--and stately as a boyar! Untiring, enduring, obedient, whatever
you might put him to; and costing nothing for his keep; he'd be ready to
nibble at the ground under his feet if there was nothing else. When he
stepped at a walking pace, it was like being lulled to sleep in a nurse's arms;
when he trotted, it was like rocking at sea; when he galloped, he outstripped
the wind! Never out of breath, perfectly sound in his wind. Sinews of steel:
for him to stumble was a thing never recorded! To take a ditch or a fence
was nothing to him--and what a clever beast! At his master's voice he would
run with his head in the air; if you told him to stand still and walked away
from him, he would not stir; directly you turned back, a faint neigh to say,
'Here I am.' And afraid of nothing: in the pitch-dark, in a snow-storm he
would find his way; and he would not let a stranger come near him for

anything; he would have had his teeth in him! And a dog dare never
approach him; he would have his fore-leg on his head in a minute! and that
was the end of the beast. A horse of proper pride, you might flourish a
switch over him as an ornament--but God forbid you touched him! But why
say more?--a perfect treasure, not a horse!

If Tchertop-hanov set to describing his Malek-Adel, he could not find
words to express himself. And how he petted and pampered him! His coat
shone like silver--not old, but new silver--with a dark polish on it; if one
passed one's hand over it, it was like velvet! His saddle, his cloth, his bridle-
-all his trappings, in fact, were so well-fitted, in such good order, so bright--
a perfect picture! Tchertop-hanov himself--what more can we say?--with his
own hands plaited his favourite's forelocks and mane, and washed his tail
with beer, and even, more than once, rubbed his hoofs with polish.
Sometimes he would mount Malek-Adel and ride out, not to see his
neighbours--he avoided them, as of old--but across their lands, past their
homesteads... for them, poor fools, to admire him from a distance! Or he
would hear that there was to be a hunt somewhere, that a rich landowner
had arranged a meet in some outlying part of his land: he would be off there
at once, and would canter in the distance, on the horizon, astounding all
spectators by the swiftness and beauty of his horse, and not letting any one
come close to him. Once some hunting landowner even gave chase to him
with all his suite; he saw Tchertop-hanov was getting away, and he began
shouting after him with all his might, as he galloped at full speed: 'Hey,
you! Here! Take what you like for your horse! I wouldn't grudge a
thousand! I'd give my wife, my children! Take my last farthing!'

Tchertop-hanov suddenly reined in Malek-Adel. The hunting gentleman
flew up to him. 'My dear sir!' he shouted, 'tell me what you want? My dear
friend!'

'If you were the Tsar,' said Tchertop-hanov emphatically (and he had
never heard of Shakespeare), 'you might give me all your kingdom for my
horse; I wouldn't take it!' He uttered these words, chuckled, drew Malek-
Adel up on to his haunches, turned him in the air on his hind legs like a top
or teetotum, and off! He went like a flash over the stubble. And the hunting

man (a rich prince, they said he was) flung his cap on the ground, threw
himself down with his face in his cap, and lay so for half an hour.

And how could Tchertop-hanov fail to prize his horse? Was it not thanks
to him, he had again an unmistakable superiority, a last superiority over all
his neighbours?

VI

Meanwhile time went by, the day fixed for payment was approaching;
while, far from having two hundred and fifty roubles, Tchertop-hanov had
not even fifty. What was to be done? how could it be met? 'Well,' he
decided at last, 'if the Jew is relentless, if he won't wait any longer, I'll give
him my house and my land, and I'll set off on my horse, no matter where!
I'll starve before I'll give up Malek-Adel!' He was greatly perturbed and
even downcast; but at this juncture Fate, for the first and last time, was
pitiful and smiled upon him; some distant kinswoman, whose very name
was unknown to Tchertop-hanov, left him in her will a sum immense in his
eyes--no less than two thousand roubles! And he received this sum in the
very nick, as they say, of time; the day before the Jew was to come.
Tchertop-hanov almost went out of his mind with joy, but he never even
thought of vodka; from the very day Malek-Adel came into his hands he
had not touched a drop.

He ran into the stable and kissed his favourite on both sides of his face
above the nostrils, where the horse's skin is always so soft. 'Now we shall
not be parted!' he cried, patting Malek-Adel on the neck, under his well-
combed mane. When he went back into the house, he counted out and
sealed up in a packet two hundred and fifty roubles. Then, as he lay on his
back and smoked a pipe, he mused on how he would lay out the rest of the
money--what dogs he would procure, real Kostroma hounds, spot and tan,
and no mistake! He even had a little talk with Perfishka, to whom he
promised a new Cossack coat, with yellow braid on all the seams, and went
to bed in a blissful frame of mind.

He had a bad dream: he dreamt he was riding out, hunting, not on
Malek-Adel, but on some strange beast of the nature of a unicorn; a white
fox, white as snow, ran to meet him.... He tried to crack his whip, tried to
set the dogs on her--but instead of his riding-whip, he found he had a wisp
of bast in his hand, and the fox ran in front of him, putting her tongue out at
him. He jumped off, his unicorn stumbled, he fell... and fell straight into the
arms of a police-constable, who was taking him before the Governor-
General, and whom he recognised as Yaff....

Tchertop-hanov waked up. The room was dark; the cocks were just
crowing for the second time.... Somewhere in the far, far distance a horse
neighed. Tchertop-hanov lifted up his head.... Once more a faint, faint neigh
was heard.

'That's Malek-Adel neighing!' was his thought.... 'It's his neigh. But why
so far away? Bless us and save us!... It can't be...'

Tchertop-hanov suddenly turned chill all over; he instantly leaped out of
bed, fumbled after his boots and his clothes, dressed himself, and, snatching
up the stable-door key from under his pillow, he dashed out into the
courtyard.

VII

The stable was at the very end of the courtyard; one wall faced the open
country. Tchertop-hanov could not at once fit the key into the lock--his
hands were shaking--and he did not immediately turn the key.... He stood
motionless, holding his breath; if only something would stir inside! 'Malek!
Malek!' he cried, in a low voice: the silence of death! Tchertop-hanov
unconsciously jogged the key; the door creaked and opened.... So, it was
not locked. He stepped over the threshold, and again called his horse; this
time by his full name, Malek-Adel! But no response came from his faithful
companion; only a mouse rustled in the straw. Then Tchertop-hanov rushed
into one of the three horse-boxes in the stable in which Malek-Adel was
put. He went straight to the horse-box, though it was pitch-dark around....

Empty! Tchertop-hanov's head went round; it seemed as though a bell was
booming in his brain. He tried to say something, but only brought out a sort
of hiss; and fumbling with his hands above, below, on all sides, breathless,
with shaking knees, he made his way from one horse-box to another... to a
third, full almost to the top with hay; stumbled against one wall, and then
the other; fell down, rolled over on his head, got up, and suddenly ran
headlong through the half-open door into the courtyard....

'Stolen! Perfishka! Perfishka! Stolen!' he yelled at the top of his voice.

The groom Perfishka flew head-over-heels out of the loft where he slept,
with only his shirt on....

Like drunk men they ran against one another, the master and his solitary
servant, in the middle of the courtyard; like madmen they turned round each
other. The master could not explain what was the matter; nor could the
servant make out what was wanted of him. 'Woe! woe!' wailed Tchertop-
hanov. 'Woe! woe!' the groom repeated after him. 'A lantern! here! light a
lantern! Light! light!' broke at last from Tchertop-hanov's fainting lips.
Perfishka rushed into the house.

But to light the lantern, to get fire, was not easy; lucifer matches were
regarded as a rarity in those days in Russia; the last embers had long ago
gone out in the kitchen; flint and steel were not quickly found, and they did
not work well. Gnashing his teeth, Tchertop-hanov snatched them out of the
hands of the flustered Perfishka, and began striking a light himself; the
sparks fell in abundance, in still greater abundance fell curses, and even
groans; but the tinder either did not catch or went out again, in spite of the
united efforts of four swollen cheeks and lips to blow it into a flame! At
last, in five minutes, not sooner, a bit of tallow candle was alight at the
bottom of a battered lantern; and Tchertop-hanov, accompanied by
Perfishka, dashed into the stable, lifted the lantern above his head, looked
round....

All empty!

He bounded out into the courtyard, ran up and down it in all directions--
no horse anywhere! The hurdle-fence, enclosing Panteley Eremyitch's yard,

had long been dilapidated, and in many places was bent and lying on the
ground.... Beside the stable, it had been completely levelled for a good
yard's width. Perfishka pointed this spot out to Tchertop-hanov.

'Master! look here; this wasn't like this to-day. And see the ends of the
uprights sticking out of the ground; that means someone has pulled them
out.'

Tchertop-hanov ran up with the lantern, moved it about over the
ground....

'Hoofs, hoofs, prints of horse-shoes, fresh prints!' he muttered, speaking
hurriedly.' They took him through here, through here!'

He instantly leaped over the fence, and with a shout, 'Malek-Adel!
Malek-Adel!' he ran straight into the open country.

Perfishka remained standing bewildered at the fence. The ring of light
from the lantern was soon lost to his eyes, swallowed up in the dense
darkness of a starless, moonless night.

Fainter and fainter came the sound of the despairing cries of Tchertop-
hanov....

VIII

It was daylight when he came home again. He hardly looked like a
human being. His clothes were covered with mud, his face had a wild and
ferocious expression, his eyes looked dull and sullen. In a hoarse whisper
he drove Perfishka away, and locked himself in his room. He could hardly
stand with fatigue, but he did not lie on his bed, but sat down on a chair by
the door and clutched at his head.

'Stolen!... stolen!...'

But in what way had the thief contrived by night, when the stable was
locked, to steal Malek-Adel? Malek-Adel, who would never let a stranger
come near him even by day--steal him, too, without noise, without a sound?
And how explain that not a yard-dog had barked? It was true there were
only two left--two young puppies--and those two probably burrowing in
rubbish from cold and hunger--but still!

'And what am I to do now without Malek-Adel?' Tchertop-hanov
brooded. 'I've lost my last pleasure now; it's time to die. Buy another horse,
seeing the money has come? But where find another horse like that?'

'Panteley Eremyitch! Panteley Eremyitch!' he heard a timid call at the
door.

Tchertop-hanov jumped on to his feet.

'Who is it?' he shouted in a voice not his own.

'It's I, your groom, Perfishka.'

'What do you want? Is he found? has he run home?'

'No, Panteley Eremyitch; but that Jew chap who sold him.'...

'Well?'

'He's come.'

'Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!' yelled Tchertop-hanov, and he at once flung open the
door. 'Drag him here! drag him along!'

On seeing the sudden apparition of his 'benefactor's' dishevelled, wild-
looking figure, the Jew, who was standing behind Perfishka's back, tried to
give them the slip; but Tchertop-hanov, in two bounds, was upon him, and
like a tiger flew at his throat.

'Ah! he's come for the money! for the money!' he cried as hoarsely as
though he were being strangled himself instead of strangling the Jew; 'you
stole him by night, and are come by day for the money, eh? Eh? Eh?'

'Mercy on us, your ex-shelency,' the Jew tried to groan out.

'Tell me, where's my horse? What have you done with him? Whom have
you sold him to? Tell me, tell me, tell me!'

The Jew by now could not even groan; his face was rapidly turning livid,
and even the expression of fear had vanished from it. His hands dropped
and hung lifeless, his whole body, furiously shaken by Tchertop-hanov,
waved backwards and forwards like a reed.

'I'll pay you your money, I'll pay it you in full to the last farthing,' roared
Tchertop-hanov, 'but I'll strangle you like any chicken if you don't tell me at
once!'...

'But you have strangled him already, master,' observed the groom
Perfishka humbly.

Then only Tchertop-hanov came to his senses.

He let go of the Jew's neck; the latter fell heavily to the ground.
Tchertop-hanov picked him up, sat him on a bench, poured a glass of vodka
down his throat, and restored him to consciousness. And having restored
him to consciousness, he began to talk to him.

It turned out that the Jew had not the slightest idea that Malek-Adel had
been stolen. And, indeed, what motive could he have to steal the horse
which he had himself procured for his 'revered Panteley Eremyitch.'

Then Tchertop-hanov led him into the stable.

Together they scrutinised the horse-boxes, the manger, and the lock on
the door, turned over the hay and the straw, and then went into the
courtyard. Tchertop-hanov showed the Jew the hoofprints at the fence, and
all at once he slapped his thighs.

'Stay!' he cried. 'Where did you buy the horse?'

'In the district of Maloarchangel, at Verhosensky Fair,' answered the Jew.

'Of whom?'

'A Cossack.'

Stay! This Cossack; was he a young man or old?'

'Middle-aged--a steady man.'

'And what was he like? What did he look like? A cunning rascal, I
expect?'

'Sure to have been a rascal, your ex-shelency.'

'And, I say, what did he say, this rascal?--had he had the horse long?'

'I recollect he said he'd had it a long while.'

'Well, then, no one could have stolen him but he! Consider it yourself,
listen, stand here!... What's your name?'

The Jew started and turned his little black eyes upon Tchertop-hanov.

'What's my name?'

'Yes, yes; what are you called?'

'Moshel Leyba.'

'Well, judge then, Moshel Leyba, my friend--you're a man of sense--
whom would Malek-Adel have allowed to touch him except his old master?
You see he must have saddled him and bridled him and taken off his cloth--
there it is lying on the hay!... and made all his arrangements simply as if he
were at home! Why, anyone except his master, Malek-Adel would have
trampled under foot! He'd have raised such a din, he'd have roused the
whole village? Do you agree with me?'

'I agree, I agree, your ex-shelency.'...

'Well, then, it follows that first of all we must find this Cossack!'

'But how are we to find him, your ex-shelency? I have only seen him one
little time in my life, and where is he now, and what's his name? Alack,
alack!' added the Jew, shaking the long curls over his ears sorrowfully.

'Leyba!' shouted Tchertop-hanov suddenly; 'Leyba, look at me! You see
I've lost my senses; I'm not myself!... I shall lay hands on myself if you
don't come to my aid!'

'But how can I?'...

'Come with me, and let us find the thief.'

'But where shall we go?'

'We'll go to the fairs, the highways and by-ways, to the horse-stealers, to
towns and villages and hamlets--everywhere, everywhere! And don't trouble
about money; I've come into a fortune, brother! I'll spend my last farthing,
but I'll get my darling back! And he shan't escape us, our enemy, the
Cossack! Where he goes we'll go! If he's hidden in the earth we'll follow
him! If he's gone to the devil, we'll follow him to Satan himself!'

'Oh, why to Satan?' observed the Jew; 'we can do without him.'

'Leyba!' Tchertop-hanov went on; 'Leyba, though you're a Jew, and your
creed's an accursed one, you've a soul better than many a Christian soul!
Have pity on me! I can't go alone; alone I can never carry the thing through.
I'm a hot-headed fellow, but you've a brain--a brain worth its weight in
gold! Your race are like that; you succeed in everything without being
taught! You're wondering, perhaps, where I could have got the money?
Come into my room--I'll show you all the money. You may take it, you may
take the cross off my neck, only give me back Malek-Adel; give him me
back again!'

Tchertop-hanov was shivering as if he were in a fever; the sweat rolled
down his face in drops, and, mingling with his tears, was lost in his
moustaches. He pressed Leyba's hands, he besought him, he almost kissed
him.... He was in a sort of delirium. The Jew tried to object, to declare that
it was utterly impossible for him to get away; that he had business.... It was

useless! Tchertop-hanov would not even hear anything. There was no help
for it; the poor Jew consented.

The next day Tchertop-hanov set out from Bezsonovo in a peasant cart,
with Leyba. The Jew wore a somewhat troubled aspect; he held on to the
rail with one hand, while all his withered figure bounded up and down on
the jolting seat; the other hand he held pressed to his bosom, where lay a
packet of notes wrapped up in newspaper. Tchertop-hanov sat like a statue,
only moving his eyes about him, and drawing in deep breaths; in his sash
there was stuck a dagger.

'There, the miscreant who has parted us must look out for himself now!'
he muttered, as they drove out on the high-road.

His house he left in the charge of Perfishka and an old cook, a deaf old
peasant woman, whom he took care of out of compassion.

'I shall come back to you on Malek-Adel,' he shouted to them at parting,
'or never come back at all!'

'You might as well be married to me at once!' jested Perfishka, giving the
cook a dig in the ribs with his elbow. 'No fear! the master'll never come
back to us; and here I shall be bored to death all alone!'

IX

A year passed... a whole year: no news had come of Panteley Eremyitch.
The cook was dead, Perfishka himself made up his mind to abandon the
house and go off to town, where he was constantly being persuaded to come
by his cousin, apprenticed to a barber; when suddenly a rumour was set
afloat that his master was coming back. The parish deacon got a letter from
Panteley Eremyitch himself, in which he informed him of his intention of
arriving at Bezsonovo, and asked him to prepare his servant to be ready for
his immediate return. These words Perfishka understood to mean that he
was to sweep up the place a bit. He did not, however, put much confidence

in the news; he was convinced, though, that the deacon had spoken the
truth, when a few days later Panteley Eremyitch in person appeared in the
courtyard, riding on Malek-Adel.

Perfishka rushed up to his master, and, holding the stirrup, would have
helped him to dismount, but the latter got off alone, and with a triumphant
glance about him, cried in a loud voice: 'I said I would find Malek-Adel,
and I have found him in spite of my enemies, and of Fate itself!' Perfishka
went up to kiss his hand, but Tchertop-hanov paid no attention to his
servant's devotion. Leading Malek-Adel after him by the rein, he went with
long strides towards the stable. Perfishka looked more intently at his master,
and his heart sank. 'Oh, how thin and old he's grown in a year; and what a
stern, grim face!' One would have thought Panteley Eremyitch would have
been rejoicing, that he had gained his end; and he was rejoicing, certainly...
and yet Perfishka's heart sank: he even felt a sort of dread. Tchertop-hanov
put the horse in its old place, gave him a light pat on the back, and said,
'There! now you're at home again; and mind what you're about.' The same
day he hired a freedman out of work as watchman, established himself
again in his rooms, and began living as before....

Not altogether as before, however... but of that later...

The day after his return, Panteley Eremyitch called Perfishka in to him,
and for want of anyone else to talk to, began telling him--keeping up, of
course, his sense of his own dignity and his bass voice--how he had
succeeded in finding Malek-Adel. Tchertop-hanov sat facing the window
while he told his story, and smoked a pipe with a long tube while Perfishka
stood in the doorway, his hands behind his back, and, respectfully
contemplating the back of his master's head, heard him relate how, after
many fruitless efforts and idle expeditions, Panteley Eremyitch had at last
come to the fair at Romyon by himself, without the Jew Leyba, who,
through weakness of character, had not persevered, but had deserted him;
how, on the fifth day, when he was on the point of leaving, he walked for
the last time along the rows of carts, and all at once he saw between three
other horses fastened to the railings--he saw Malek-Adel! How he knew
him at once, and how Malek-Adel knew him too, and began neighing, and
dragging at his tether, and scraping the earth with his hoof.

'And he was not with the Cossack,' Tchertop-hanov went on, still not
turning his head, and in the same bass voice, 'but with a gypsy horse-dealer;
I, of course, at once took hold of my horse and tried to get him away by
force, but the brute of a gypsy started yelling as if he'd been scalded, all
over the market, and began swearing he'd bought the horse off another
gypsy--and wanted to bring witnesses to prove it.... I spat, and paid him the
money: damn the fellow! All I cared for was that I had found my favourite,
and had got back my peace of mind. Moreover, in the Karatchevsky district,
I took a man for the Cossack--I took the Jew Leyba's word for it that he was
my thief--and smashed his face for him; but the Cossack turned out to be a
priest's son, and got damages out of me--a hundred and twenty roubles.
Well, money's a thing one may get again, but the great thing is, I've Malek-
Adel back again! I'm happy now--I'm going to enjoy myself in peace. And
I've one instruction to give you, Perfishka: if ever you, which God forbid,
catch sight of the Cossack in this neighbourhood, run the very minute
without saying a word, and bring me my gun, and I shall know what to do!'

This was what Panteley Eremyitch said to Perfishka: this was how his
tongue spoke; but at heart he was not so completely at peace as he declared.

Alas! in his heart of hearts he was not perfectly convinced that the horse
he had brought back was really Malek-Adel!

X

Troubled times followed for Panteley Eremyitch. Peace was just the last
thing he enjoyed. He had some happy days, it is true; the doubt stirring
within him would seem to him all nonsense; he would drive away the
ridiculous idea, like a persistent fly, and even laugh at himself; but he had
bad days too: the importunate thought began again stealthily gnawing and
tearing at his heart, like a mouse under the floor, and he existed in secret
torture. On the memorable day when he found Malek-Adel, Tchertop-hanov
had felt nothing but rapturous bliss... but the next morning, when, in a low-
pitched shed of the inn, he began saddling his recovered joy, beside whom
he had spent the whole night, he felt for the first time a certain secret

pang.... He only shook his head, but the seed was sown. During the
homeward journey (it lasted a whole week) doubts seldom arose in him;
they grew stronger and more distinct directly he was back at Bezsonovo,
directly he was home again in the place where the old authentic Malek-Adel
had lived.... On the road home he had ridden at a quiet, swinging pace,
looking in all directions, smoking a short pipe, and not reflecting at all,
except at times the thought struck him: 'When the Tchertop-hanovs want a
thing, they get it, you bet!' and he smiled to himself; but on his return home
it was a very different state of things. All this, however, he kept to himself;
vanity alone would have prevented him from giving utterance to his inner
dread. He would have torn anyone to pieces who had dropped the most
distant hint that the new Malek-Adel was possibly not the old one; he
accepted congratulations on his 'successful recovery of his horse,' from the
few persons whom he happened to meet; but he did not seek such
congratulations; he avoided all contact with people more than ever--a bad
sign! He was almost always putting Malek-Adel through examinations, if
one may use the expression; he would ride him out to some point at a little
distance in the open country, and put him to the proof, or would go
stealthily into the stable, lock the door after him, and standing right before
the horse's head, look into his eyes, and ask him in a whisper, 'Is it you? Is it
you? You?'... or else stare at him silently and intently for hours together, and
then mutter, brightening up: 'Yes! it's he! Of course it's he!' or else go out
with a puzzled, even confused look on his face. Tchertop-hanov was not so
much confused by the physical differences between this Malek-Adel and
that one... though there were a few such differences: that one's tail and
mane were a little thinner, and his ears more pointed, and his pasterns
shorter, and his eyes brighter--but all that might be only fancy; what
confounded Tchertop-hanov most were, so to say, the moral differences.
The habits of that one had been different: all his ways were not the same.
For instance, that Malek-Adel had looked round and given a faint neigh
every time Tchertop-hanov went into the stable; while this one went on
munching hay as though nothing had happened, or dozed with his head
bent. Both of them stood still when their master leaped out of the saddle;
but that one came at once at his voice when he was called, while this one
stood stock still. That one galloped as fast, but with higher and longer
bounds; this one went with a freer step and at a more jolting trot, and at
times 'wriggled' with his shoes--that is, knocked the back one against the

front one; that one had never done anything so disgraceful--God forbid!
This one, it struck Tchertop-hanov, kept twitching his ears in such a stupid
way, while with that one it was quite the contrary; he used to lay one ear
back, and hold it so, as though on the alert for his master! That one, directly
he saw that it was dirty about him, would at once knock on the partition of
his box with his hind-leg, but this one did not care if the dung was heaped
up to his belly. That one if, for instance, he were set facing the wind, would
take deep breaths and shake himself, this one simply snorted; that one was
put out by the rain, this one cared nothing for it.... This was a coarser beast--
coarser! And there wasn't the gentleness in it, and hard in the mouth it was--
no denying it! That horse was a darling, but this....

This was what Tchertop-hanov sometimes thought, and very bitter were
such thoughts to him. At other times he would set his horse at full gallop
over some newly ploughed field, or would make him leap down to the very
bottom of a hollow ravine, and leap out again at the very steepest point, and
his heart would throb with rapture, a loud whoop would break from his lips,
and he would know, would know for certain, that it was the real, authentic
Malek-Adel he had under him; for what other horse could do what this one
was doing?

However, there were sometimes shortcomings and misfortunes even
here. The prolonged search for Malek-Adel had cost Tchertop-hanov a great
deal of money; he did not even dream of Kostroma hounds now, and rode
about the neighbourhood in solitude as before. So one morning, four miles
from Bezsonovo, Tchertop-hanov chanced to come upon the same prince's
hunting party before whom he had cut such a triumphant figure a year and a
half before. And, as fate would have it, just as on that day a hare must go
leaping out from the hedge before the dogs, down the hillside! Tally-ho!
Tally-ho! All the hunt fairly flew after it, and Tchertop-hanov flew along
too, but not with the rest of the party, but two hundred paces to one side of
it, just as he had done the time before. A huge watercourse ran zigzagging
across the hillside, and as it rose higher and higher got gradually narrower,
cutting off Tchertop-hanov's path. At the point where he had to jump it, and
where, eighteen months before, he actually had jumped it, it was eight feet
wide and fourteen feet deep. In anticipation of a triumph--a triumph
repeated in such a delightful way--Tchertop-hanov chuckled exultantly,

cracked his riding-whip; the hunting party were galloping too, their eyes
fixed on the daring rider; his horse whizzed along like a bullet, and now the
watercourse was just under his nose--now, now, at one leap, as then!... But
Malek-Adel pulled up sharply, wheeled to the left, and in spite of Tchertop-
hanov's tugging him to the edge, to the watercourse, he galloped along
beside the ravine.

He was afraid, then; did not trust himself!

Then Tchertop-hanov, burning with shame and wrath, almost in tears,
dropped the reins, and set the horse going straight forward, down the hill,
away, away from the hunting party, if only not to hear them jeering at him,
to escape as soon as might be from their damnable eyes!

Covered with foam, his sides lashed unmercifully, Malek-Adel galloped
home, and Tchertop-hanov at once locked himself into his room.

'No, it's not he; it's not my darling! He would have broken his neck
before he would have betrayed me!'

XI

What finally 'did for,' as they say, Tchertop-hanov was the following
circumstance. One day he sauntered, riding on Malek-Adel, about the back-
yards of the priest's quarters round about the church of the parish in which
is Bezsonovo. Huddled up, with his Cossack fur cap pulled down over his
eyes, and his hands hanging loose on the saddle-bow, he jogged slowly on,
a vague discontent in his heart. Suddenly someone called him.

He stopped his horse, raised his head, and saw his correspondent, the
deacon. With a brown, three-cornered hat on his brown hair, which was
plaited in a pig-tail, attired in a yellowish nankin long coat, girt much below
the waist by a strip of blue stuff, the servant of the altar had come out into
his back-garden, and, catching sight of Panteley Eremyitch, he thought it
his duty to pay his respects to him, and to take the opportunity of doing so

to ask him a question about something. Without some such hidden motive,
as we know, ecclesiastical persons do not venture to address temporal ones.

But Tchertop-hanov was in no mood for the deacon; he barely responded
to his bow, and, muttering something between his teeth, he was already
cracking his whip, when....

'What a magnificent horse you have!' the deacon made haste to add: 'and
really you can take credit to yourself for it. Truly you're a man of amazing
cleverness, simply a lion indeed!'

His reverence the deacon prided himself on his fluency, which was a
great source of vexation to his reverence the priest, to whom the gift of
words had not been vouchsafed; even vodka did not loosen his tongue.

'After losing one animal by the cunning of evil men,' continued the
deacon, 'you did not lose courage in repining; but, on the other hand,
trusting the more confidently in Divine Providence, procured yourself
another, in no wise inferior, but even, one may say, superior, since....'

'What nonsense are you talking?' Tchertop-hanov interrupted gloomily;
'what other horse do you mean? This is the same one; this is Malek-Adel....
I found him. The fellow's raving!'....

'Ay! ay! ay!' responded the deacon emphatically with a sort of drawl,
drumming with his fingers in his beard, and eyeing Tchertop-hanov with his
bright eager eyes: 'How's that, sir? Your horse, God help my memory, was
stolen a fortnight before Intercession last year, and now we're near the end
of November.'

'Well, what of that?'

The deacon still fingered his beard.

'Why, it follows that more than a year's gone by since then, and your
horse was a dapple grey then, just as it is now; in fact, it seems even darker.
How's that? Grey horses get a great deal lighter in colour in a year.'

Tchertop-hanov started... as though someone had driven a dagger into his
heart. It was true: the grey colour did change! How was it such a simple
reflection had never occurred to him?

'You damned pigtail! get out!' he yelled suddenly, his eyes flashing with
fury, and instantaneously he disappeared out of the sight of the amazed
deacon.

Well, everything was over!

Now, at last, everything was really over, everything was shattered, the
last card trumped. Everything crumbled away at once before that word
'lighter'!

Grey horses get lighter in colour!

'Gallop, gallop on, accursed brute! You can never gallop away from that
word!'

Tchertop-hanov flew home, and again locked himself up.

XII

That this worthless jade was not Malek-Adel; that between him and
Malek-Adel there was not the smallest resemblance; that any man of the
slightest sense would have seen this from the first minute; that he, Tchertop-
hanov, had been taken in in the vulgarest way--no! that he purposely, of set
intent, tricked himself, blinded his own eyes--of all this he had not now the
faintest doubt!

Tchertop-hanov walked up and down in his room, turning monotonously
on his heels at each wall, like a beast in a cage. His vanity suffered
intolerably; but he was not only tortured by the sting of wounded vanity; he
was overwhelmed by despair, stifled by rage, and burning with the thirst for
revenge. But rage against whom? On whom was he to be revenged? On the

Jew, Yaff, Masha, the deacon, the Cossack-thief, all his neighbours, the
whole world, himself? His brain was giving way. The last card was
trumped! (That simile gratified him.) And he was again the most worthless,
the most contemptible of men, a common laughing-stock, a motley fool, a
damned idiot, an object for jibes--to a deacon!... He fancied, he pictured
vividly how that loathsome pig-tailed priest would tell the story of the grey
horse and the foolish gentleman.... O damn!! In vain Tchertop-hanov tried
to check his rising passion, in vain he tried to assure himself that this...
horse, though not Malek-Adel, was still... a good horse, and might be of
service to him for many years to come; he put this thought away from him
on the spot with fury, as though there were contained in it a new insult to
that Malek-Adel whom he considered he had wronged so already.... Yes,
indeed! this jade, this carrion he, like a blind idiot, had put on a level with
him, Malek-Adel! And as to the service the jade could be to him!... as
though he would ever deign to get astride of him? Never! on no
consideration!!... He would sell him to a Tartar for dog's meat--it deserved
no better end.... Yes, that would be best!'

For more than two hours Tchertop-hanov wandered up and down his
room.

'Perfishka!' he called peremptorily all of a sudden, 'run this minute to the
tavern; fetch a gallon of vodka! Do you hear? A gallon, and look sharp! I
want the vodka here this very second on the table!'

The vodka was not long in making its appearance on Panteley
Eremyitch's table, and he began drinking.

XIII

If anyone had looked at Tchertop-hanov then; if anyone could have been
a witness of the sullen exasperation with which he drained glass after glass-
-he would inevitably have felt an involuntary shudder of fear. The night
came on, the tallow candle burnt dimly on the table. Tchertop-hanov ceased
wandering from corner to corner; he sat all flushed, with dull eyes, which

he dropped at one time on the floor, at another fixed obstinately on the dark
window; he got up, poured out some vodka, drank it off, sat down again,
again fixed his eyes on one point, and did not stir--only his breathing grew
quicker and his face still more flushed. It seemed as though some resolution
were ripening within him, which he was himself ashamed of, but which he
was gradually getting used to; one single thought kept obstinately and
undeviatingly moving up closer and closer, one single image stood out more
and more distinctly, and under the burning weight of heavy drunkenness the
angry irritation was replaced by a feeling of ferocity in his heart, and a
vindictive smile appeared on his lips.

'Yes, the time has come!' he declared in a matter-of-fact, almost weary
tone. 'I must get to work.'

He drank off the last glass of vodka, took from over his bed the pistol--
the very pistol from which he had shot at Masha--loaded it, put some
cartridges in his pocket--to be ready for anything--and went round to the
stables.

The watchman ran up to him when he began to open the door, but he
shouted to him: 'It's I! Are you blind? Get out!' The watchman moved a
little aside. 'Get out and go to bed!' Tchertop-hanov shouted at him again:
'there's nothing for you to guard here! A mighty wonder, a treasure indeed to
watch over!' He went into the stable. Malek-Adel... the spurious Malek-
Adel, was lying on his litter. Tchertop-hanov gave him a kick, saying, 'Get
up, you brute!' Then he unhooked a halter from a nail, took off the
horsecloth and flung it on the ground, and roughly turning the submissive
horse round in the box, led it out into the courtyard, and from the yard into
the open country, to the great amazement of the watchman, who could not
make out at all where the master was going off to by night, leading an
unharnessed horse. He was, of course, afraid to question him, and only
followed him with his eyes till he disappeared at the bend in the road
leading to a neighbouring wood.

XIV

Tchertop-hanov walked with long strides, not stopping nor looking
round. Malek-Adel--we will call him by that name to the end--followed him
meekly. It was a rather clear night; Tchertop-hanov could make out the
jagged outline of the forest, which formed a black mass in front of him.
When he got into the chill night air, he would certainly have thrown off the
intoxication of the vodka he had drunk, if it had not been for another,
stronger intoxication, which completely over-mastered him. His head was
heavy, his blood pulsed in thuds in his throat and ears, but he went on
steadily, and knew where he was going.

He had made up his mind to kill Malek-Adel; he had thought of nothing
else the whole day.... Now he had made up his mind!

He went out to do this thing not only calmly, but confidently,
unhesitatingly, as a man going about something from a sense of duty. This
'job' seemed a very 'simple' thing to him; in making an end of the impostor,
he was quits with 'everyone' at once--he punished himself for his stupidity,
and made expiation to his real darling, and showed the whole world
(Tchertop-hanov worried himself a great deal about the 'whole world') that
he was not to be trifled with.... And, above all, he was making an end of
himself too with the impostor--for what had he to live for now? How all this
took shape in his brain, and why, it seemed to him so simple--it is not easy
to explain, though not altogether impossible; stung to the quick, solitary,
without a human soul near to him, without a halfpenny, and with his blood
on fire with vodka, he was in a state bordering on madness, and there is no
doubt that even in the absurdest freaks of mad people there is, to their eyes,
a sort of logic, and even justice. Of his justice Tchertop-hanov was, at any
rate, fully persuaded; he did not hesitate, he made haste to carry out
sentence on the guilty without giving himself any clear definition of whom
he meant by that term.... To tell the truth, he reflected very little on what he
was about to do. 'I must, I must make an end,' was what he kept stupidly
and severely repeating to himself; 'I must make an end!'

And the guiltless guilty one followed in a submissive trot behind his
back.... But there was no pity for him in Tchertop-hanov's heart.

XV

Not far from the forest to which he was leading his horse there stretched
a small ravine, half overgrown with young oak bushes. Tchertop-hanov
went down into it.... Malek-Adel stumbled and almost fell on him.

'So you would crush me, would you, you damned brute!' shouted
Tchertop-hanov, and, as though in self-defence, he pulled the pistol out of
his pocket. He no longer felt furious exasperation, but that special
numbness of the senses which they say comes over a man before the
perpetration of a crime. But his own voice terrified him--it sounded so wild
and strange under the cover of dark branches in the close, decaying
dampness of the forest ravine! Moreover, in response to his exclamation,
some great bird suddenly fluttered in a tree-top above his head... Tchertop-
hanov shuddered. He had, as it were, roused a witness to his act--and
where? In that silent place where he should not have met a living creature....

'Away with you, devil, to the four winds of heaven!' he muttered, and
letting go Malek-Adel's rein, he gave him a violent blow on the shoulder
with the butt end of the pistol. Malek-Adel promptly turned back,
clambered out of the ravine... and ran away. But the thud of his hoofs was
not long audible. The rising wind confused and blended all sounds together.

Tchertop-hanov too slowly clambered out of the ravine, reached the
forest, and made his way along the road homewards. He was ill at ease with
himself; the weight he had felt in his head and his heart had spread over all
his limbs; he walked angry, gloomy, dissatisfied, hungry, as though some
one had insulted him, snatched his prey, his food from him....

The suicide, baffled in his intent, must know such sensations.

Suddenly something poked him behind between his shoulder blades. He
looked round.... Malek-Adel was standing in the middle of the road. He had
walked after his master; he touched him with his nose to announce himself.

'Ah!' shouted Tchertop-hanov,' of yourself, of yourself you have come to
your death! So, there!'

In the twinkling of an eye he had snatched out his pistol, drawn the
trigger, turned the muzzle on Malek-Adel's brow, fired....

The poor horse sprung aside, rose on its haunches, bounded ten paces
away, and suddenly fell heavily, and gasped as it writhed upon the ground....

Tchertop-hanov put his two hands over his ears and ran away. His knees
were shaking under him. His drunkenness and revenge and blind self-
confidence--all had flown at once. There was left nothing but a sense of
shame and loathing--and the consciousness, unmistakeable, that this time he
had put an end to himself too.

XVI

Six weeks later, the groom Perfishka thought it his duty to stop the
commissioner of police as he happened to be passing Bezsonovo.

'What do you want?' inquired the guardian of order.

'If you please, your excellency, come into our house,' answered the
groom with a low bow.

'Panteley Eremyitch, I fancy, is about to die; so that I'm afraid of getting
into trouble.'

'What? die?' queried the commissioner.

'Yes, sir. First, his honour drank vodka every day, and now he's taken to
his bed and got very thin. I fancy his honour does not understand anything
now. He's lost his tongue completely.'

The commissioner got out of his trap.

'Have you sent for the priest, at least? Has your master been confessed?
Taken the sacrament?'

'No, sir!'

The commissioner frowned. 'How is that, my boy? How can that be--
hey? Don't you know that for that... you're liable to have to answer heavily--
hey?'

'Indeed, and I did ask him the day before yesterday, and yesterday again,'
protested the intimidated groom. "Wouldn't you, Panteley Eremyitch," says
I, "let me run for the priest, sir?" "You hold your tongue, idiot," says he;
"mind your own business." But to-day, when I began to address him, his
honour only looked at me, and twitched his moustache.'

'And has he been drinking a great deal of vodka?' inquired the
commissioner.

'Rather! But if you would be so good, your honour, come into his room.'

'Well, lead the way!' grumbled the commissioner, and he followed
Perfishka.

An astounding sight was in store for him. In a damp, dark back-room, on
a wretched bedstead covered with a horsecloth, with a rough felt cloak for a
pillow, lay Tchertop-hanov. He was not pale now, but yellowish green, like
a corpse, with sunken eyes under leaden lids and a sharp, pinched nose--still
reddish--above his dishevelled whiskers. He lay dressed in his invariable
Caucasian coat, with the cartridge pockets on the breast, and blue
Circassian trousers. A Cossack cap with a crimson crown covered his
forehead to his very eyebrows. In one hand Tchertop-hanov held his hunting
whip, in the other an embroidered tobacco pouch--Masha's last gift to him.
On a table near the bed stood an empty spirit bottle, and at the head of the
bed were two water-colour sketches pinned to the wall; one represented, as
far as could be made out, a fat man with a guitar in his hand--probably
Nedopyuskin; the other portrayed a horseman galloping at full speed.... The
horse was like those fabulous animals which are sketched by children on
walls and fences; but the carefully washed-in dappling of the horse's grey
coat, and the cartridge pocket on the rider's breast, the pointed toes of his
boots, and the immense moustaches, left no room for doubt--this sketch was
meant to represent Panteley Eremyitch riding on Malek-Adel.

The astonished commissioner of police did not know how to proceed.
The silence of death reigned in the room. 'Why, he's dead already!' he
thought, and raising his voice, he said, 'Panteley Eremyitch! Eh, Panteley
Eremyitch!'

Then something extraordinary occurred. Tchertop-hanov's eyelids slowly
opened, the eyes, fast growing dim, moved first from right to left, then from
left to right, rested on the commissioner--saw him.... Something gleamed in
their dull whites, the semblance of a flash came back to them, the blue lips
were gradually unglued, and a hoarse, almost sepulchral, voice was heard.

'Panteley Eremyitch of the ancient hereditary nobility is dying: who can
hinder him? He owes no man anything, asks nothing from any one.... Leave
him, people! Go!'

The hand holding the whip tried to lift it... In vain! The lips cleaved
together again, the eyes closed, and as before Tchertop-hanov lay on his
comfortless bed, flat as an empty sack, and his feet close together.

'Let me know when he dies,' the commissioner whispered to Perfishka as
he went out of the room; 'and I suppose you can send for the priest now.
You must observe due order; give him extreme unction.'

Perfishka went that same day for the priest, and the following morning
he had to let the commissioner know: Panteley Eremyitch had died in the
night.

When they buried him, two men followed his coffin; the groom
Perfishka and Moshel Leyba. The news of Tchertop-hanov's death had
somehow reached the Jew, and he did not fail to pay this last act of respect
to his benefactor.

XXIII

A LIVING RELIC

'O native land of long suffering,
Land of the Russian people.'
F. TYUTCHEV.

A French proverb says that 'a dry fisherman and a wet hunter are a sorry
sight.' Never having had any taste for fishing, I cannot decide what are the
fisherman's feelings in fine bright weather, and how far in bad weather the
pleasure derived from the abundance of fish compensates for the
unpleasantness of being wet. But for the sportsman rain is a real calamity. It
was to just this calamity that Yermolaï and I were exposed on one of our
expeditions after grouse in the Byelevsky district. The rain never ceased
from early morning. What didn't we do to escape it? We put macintosh
capes almost right over our heads, and stood under the trees to avoid the
raindrops.... The waterproof capes, to say nothing of their hindering our
shooting, let the water through in the most shameless fashion; and under the
trees, though at first, certainly, the rain did not reach us, afterwards the
water collected on the leaves suddenly rushed through, every branch
dripped on us like a waterspout, a chill stream made its way under our neck-
ties, and trickled down our spines.... This was 'quite unpleasant,' as
Yermolaï expressed it. 'No, Piotr Petrovitch,' he cried at last; 'we can't go on
like this....There's no shooting to-day. The dogs' scent is drowned. The guns
miss fire....Pugh! What a mess!'

'What's to be done?' I queried.

'Well, let's go to Aleksyevka. You don't know it, perhaps--there's a
settlement of that name belonging to your mother; it's seven miles from
here. We'll stay the night there, and to-morrow....'

'Come back here?'

'No, not here....I know of some places beyond Aleksyevka...ever so
much better than here for grouse!'

I did not proceed to question my faithful companion why he had not
taken me to those parts before, and the same day we made our way to my

mother's peasant settlement, the existence of which, I must confess, I had
not even suspected up till then. At this settlement, it turned out, there was a
little lodge. It was very old, but, as it had not been inhabited, it was clean; I
passed a fairly tranquil night in it.

The next day I woke up very early. The sun had only just risen; there was
not a single cloud in the sky; everything around shone with a double
brilliance--the brightness of the fresh morning rays and of yesterday's
downpour. While they were harnessing me a cart, I went for a stroll about a
small orchard, now neglected and run wild, which enclosed the little lodge
on all sides with its fragrant, sappy growth. Ah, how sweet it was in the
open air, under the bright sky, where the larks were trilling, whence their
bell-like notes rained down like silvery beads! On their wings, doubtless,
they had carried off drops of dew, and their songs seemed steeped in dew. I
took my cap off my head and drew a glad deep breath.... On the slope of a
shallow ravine, close to the hedge, could be seen a beehive; a narrow path
led to it, winding like a snake between dense walls of high grass and nettles,
above which struggled up, God knows whence brought, the pointed stalks
of dark-green hemp.

I turned along this path; I reached the beehive. Beside it stood a little
wattled shanty, where they put the beehives for the winter. I peeped into the
half-open door; it was dark, still, dry within; there was a scent of mint and
balm. In the corner were some trestles fitted together, and on them, covered
with a quilt, a little figure of some sort.... I was walking away....

'Master, master! Piotr Petrovitch!' I heard a voice, faint, slow, and
hoarse, like the whispering of marsh rushes.

I stopped.

'Piotr Petrovitch! Come in, please!' the voice repeated. It came from the
corner where were the trestles I had noticed.

I drew near, and was struck dumb with amazement. Before me lay a
living human being; but what sort of a creature was it?

A head utterly withered, of a uniform coppery hue--like some very
ancient holy picture, yellow with age; a sharp nose like a keen-edged knife;
the lips could barely be seen--only the teeth flashed white and the eyes; and
from under the kerchief some thin wisps of yellow hair straggled on to the
forehead. At the chin, where the quilt was folded, two tiny hands of the
same coppery hue were moving, the fingers slowly twitching like little
sticks. I looked more intently; the face, far from being ugly, was positively
beautiful, but strange and dreadful; and the face seemed the more dreadful
to me that on it--on its metallic cheeks--I saw, struggling...struggling, and
unable to form itself--a smile.

'You don't recognise me, master?' whispered the voice again: it seemed
to be breathed from the almost unmoving lips. 'And, indeed, how should
you? I'm Lukerya....Do you remember, who used to lead the dance at your
mother's, at Spasskoye?... Do you remember, I used to be leader of the choir
too?'

'Lukerya!' I cried. 'Is it you? Can it be?'

'Yes, it's I, master--I, Lukerya.'

I did not know what to say, and gazed in stupefaction at the dark
motionless face with the clear, death-like eyes fastened upon me. Was it
possible? This mummy Lukerya--the greatest beauty in all our household--
that tall, plump, pink-and-white, singing, laughing, dancing creature!
Lukerya, our smart Lukerya, whom all our lads were courting, for whom I
heaved some secret sighs--I, a boy of sixteen!

'Mercy, Lukerya!' I said at last; 'what is it has happened to you?'

'Oh, such a misfortune befel me! But don't mind me, sir; don't let my
trouble revolt you; sit there on that little tub--a little nearer, or you won't be
able to hear me....I've not much of a voice now-a-days!... Well, I am glad to
see you! What brought you to Aleksyevka?'

Lukerya spoke very softly and feebly, but without pausing.

'Yermolaï, the huntsman, brought me here. But you tell me...'

'Tell you about my trouble? Certainly, sir. It happened to me a long while
ago now--six or seven years. I had only just been betrothed then to Vassily
Polyakov--do you remember, such a fine-looking fellow he was, with curly
hair?--he waited at table at your mother's. But you weren't in the country
then; you had gone away to Moscow to your studies. We were very much in
love, Vassily and me; I could never get him out of my head; and it was in
the spring it all happened. Well, one night...not long before sunrise, it
was...I couldn't sleep; a nightingale in the garden was singing so
wonderfully sweet!... I could not help getting up and going out on to the
steps to listen. It trilled and trilled... and all at once I fancied some one
called me; it seemed like Vassya's voice, so softly, "Lusha!"... I looked
round, and being half asleep, I suppose, I missed my footing and fell
straight down from the top-step, and flop on to the ground! And I thought I
wasn't much hurt, for I got up directly and went back to my room. Only it
seems something inside me--in my body--was broken.... Let me get my
breath...half a minute... sir.'

Lukerya ceased, and I looked at her with surprise. What surprised me
particularly was that she told her story almost cheerfully, without sighs and
groans, not complaining nor asking for sympathy.

'Ever since that happened,' Lukerya went on, 'I began to pine away and
get thin; my skin got dark; walking was difficult for me; and then--I lost the
use of my legs altogether; I couldn't stand or sit; I had to lie down all the
time. And I didn't care to eat or drink; I got worse and worse. Your mamma,
in the kindness of her heart, made me see doctors, and sent me to a hospital.
But there was no curing me. And not one doctor could even say what my
illness was. What didn't they do to me?--they burnt my spine with hot irons,
they put me in lumps of ice, and it was all no good. I got quite numb in the
end....

So the gentlemen decided it was no use doctoring me any more, and
there was no sense in keeping cripples up at the great house... well, and so
they sent me here--because I've relations here. So here I live, as you see.'

Lukerya was silent again, and again she tried to smile.

'But this is awful--your position!' I cried... and not knowing how to go
on, I asked: 'and what of Vassily Polyakov?' A most stupid question it was.

Lukerya turned her eyes a little away.

'What of Polyakov? He grieved--he grieved for a bit--and he is married
to another, a girl from Glinnoe. Do you know Glinnoe? It's not far from us.
Her name's Agrafena. He loved me dearly--but, you see, he's a young man;
he couldn't stay a bachelor. And what sort of a helpmeet could I be? The
wife he found for himself is a good, sweet woman--and they have children.
He lives here; he's a clerk at a neighbour's; your mamma let him go off with
a passport, and he's doing very well, praise God.'

'And so you go on lying here all the time?' I asked again.

'Yes, sir, I've been lying here seven years. In the summer-time I lie here
in this shanty, and when it gets cold they move me out into the bath-house: I
lie there.'

'Who waits on you? Does any one look after you?'

'Oh, there are kind folks here as everywhere; they don't desert me. Yes,
they see to me a little. As to food, I eat nothing to speak of; but water is
here, in the pitcher; it's always kept full of pure spring water. I can reach to
the pitcher myself: I've one arm still of use. There's a little girl here, an
orphan; now and then she comes to see me, the kind child. She was here
just now.... You didn't meet her? Such a pretty, fair little thing. She brings
me flowers. We've some in the garden--there were some--but they've all
disappeared. But, you know, wild flowers too are nice; they smell even
sweeter than garden flowers. Lilies of the valley, now... what could be
sweeter?'

'And aren't you dull and miserable, my poor Lukerya?'

'Why, what is one to do? I wouldn't tell a lie about it. At first it was very
wearisome; but later on I got used to it, I got more patient--it was nothing;
there are others worse off still.'

'How do you mean?'

'Why, some haven't a roof to shelter them, and there are some blind or
deaf; while I, thank God, have splendid sight, and hear everything--
everything. If a mole burrows in the ground--I hear even that. And I can
smell every scent, even the faintest! When the buckwheat comes into flower
in the meadow, or the lime-tree in the garden--I don't need to be told of it,
even; I'm the first to know directly. Anyway, if there's the least bit of a wind
blowing from that quarter. No, he who stirs God's wrath is far worse off
than me. Look at this, again: anyone in health may easily fall into sin; but
I'm cut off even from sin. The other day, father Aleksy, the priest, came to
give me the sacrament, and he says: "There's no need," says he, "to confess
you; you can't fall into sin in your condition, can you?" But I said to him;
"How about sinning in thought, father?" "Ah, well," says he, and he laughed
himself, "that's no great sin."

'But I fancy I'm no great sinner even in that way, in thought,' Lukerya
went on, 'for I've trained myself not to think, and above all, not to
remember. The time goes faster.'

I must own I was astonished. 'You're always alone, Lukerya: how can
you prevent the thoughts from coming into your head? or are you constantly
asleep?'

'Oh, no, sir! I can't always sleep. Though I've no great pain, still I've an
ache, there, right inside, and in my bones too; it won't let me sleep as I
ought. No... but there, I lie by myself; I lie here and lie here, and don't
think: I feel that I'm alive, I breathe; and I put myself all into that. I look
and listen. The bees buzz and hum in the hive; a dove sits on the roof and
coos; a hen comes along with her chickens to peck up crumbs; or a sparrow
flies in, or a butterfly--that's a great treat for me. Last year some swallows
even built a nest over there in the corner, and brought up their little ones.
Oh, how interesting it was! One would fly to the nest, press close, feed a
young one, and off again. Look again: the other would be in her place
already. Sometimes it wouldn't fly in, but only fly past the open door; and
the little ones would begin to squeak, and open their beaks directly....I was
hoping for them back again the next year, but they say a sportsman here

shot them with his gun. And what could he gain by it? It's hardly bigger, the
swallow, than a beetle....What wicked men you are, you sportsmen!'

'I don't shoot swallows,' I hastened to remark.

'And once, Lukerya began again, 'it was comical, really. A hare ran in, it
did really! The hounds, I suppose, were after it; anyway, it seemed to
tumble straight in at the door!... It squatted quite near me, and sat so a long
while; it kept sniffing with its nose, and twitching its whiskers--like a
regular officer! and it looked at me. It understood, to be sure, that I was no
danger to it. At last it got up, went hop-hop to the door, looked round in the
doorway; and what did it look like? Such a funny fellow it was!'

Lukerya glanced at me, as much as to say, 'Wasn't it funny?' To satisfy
her, I laughed. She moistened her parched lips.

'Well, in the winter, of course, I'm worse off, because it's dark: to burn a
candle would be a pity, and what would be the use? I can read, to be sure,
and was always fond of reading, but what could I read? There are no books
of any kind, and even if there were, how could I hold a book? Father Aleksy
brought me a calendar to entertain me, but he saw it was no good, so he
took and carried it away again. But even though it's dark, there's always
something to listen to: a cricket chirps, or a mouse begins scratching
somewhere. That's when it's a good thing--not to think!'

'And I repeat the prayers too,' Lukerya went on, after taking breath a
little; 'only I don't know many of them---the prayers, I mean. And besides,
why should I weary the Lord God? What can I ask Him for? He knows
better than I what I need. He has laid a cross upon me: that means that He
loves me. So we are commanded to understand. I repeat the Lord's Prayer,
the Hymn to the Virgin, the Supplication of all the Afflicted, and I lie still
again, without any thought at all, and am all right!'

Two minutes passed by. I did not break the silence, and did not stir on
the narrow tub which served me as a seat. The cruel stony stillness of the
living, unlucky creature lying before me communicated itself to me; I too
turned, as it were, numb.

'Listen, Lukerya,' I began at last; 'listen to the suggestion I'm going to
make to you. Would you like me to arrange for them to take you to a
hospital--a good hospital in the town? Who knows, perhaps you might yet
be cured; anyway, you would not be alone'...

Lukerya's eyebrows fluttered faintly. 'Oh, no, sir,' she answered in a
troubled whisper; 'don't move me into a hospital; don't touch me. I shall
only have more agony to bear there! How could they cure me now?... Why,
there was a doctor came here once; he wanted to examine me. I begged
him, for Christ's sake, not to disturb me. It was no use. He began turning me
over, pounding my hands and legs, and pulling me about. He said, "I'm
doing this for Science; I'm a servant of Science--a scientific man! And you,"
he said, "really oughtn't to oppose me, because I've a medal given me for
my labours, and it's for you simpletons I'm toiling." He mauled me about,
told me the name of my disease--some wonderful long name--and with that
he went away; and all my poor bones ached for a week after. You say "I'm
all alone; always alone." Oh, no, I'm not always; they come to see me--I'm
quiet--I don't bother them. The peasant girls come in and chat a bit; a
pilgrim woman will wander in, and tell me tales of Jerusalem, of Kiev, of
the holy towns. And I'm not afraid of being alone. Indeed, it's better--ay, ay!
Master, don't touch me, don't take me to the hospital.... Thank you, you are
kind; only don't touch me, there's a dear!'

'Well, as you like, as you like, Lukerya. You know, I only suggested it for
your good.'

'I know, master, that it was for my good. But, master dear, who can help
another? Who can enter into his soul? Every man must help himself! You
won't believe me, perhaps. I lie here sometimes so alone...and it's as though
there were no one else in the world but me. As if I alone were living! And it
seems to me as though something were blessing me....I'm carried away by
dreams that are really marvellous!'

'What do you dream of, then, Lukerya?'

'That, too, master, I couldn't say; one can't explain. Besides, one forgets
afterwards. It's like a cloud coming over and bursting, then it grows so fresh
and sweet; but just what it was, there's no knowing! Only my idea is, if

folks were near me, I should have nothing of that, and should feel nothing
except my misfortune.'

Lukerya heaved a painful sigh. Her breathing, like her limbs, was not
under her control.

'When I come to think, master, of you,' she began again, 'you are very
sorry for me. But you mustn't be too sorry, really! I'll tell you one thing; for
instance, I sometimes, even now.... Do you remember how merry I used to
be in my time? A regular madcap!... So do you know what? I sing songs
even now.'

'Sing?... You?'

'Yes; I sing the old songs, songs for choruses, for feasts, Christmas
songs, all sorts! I know such a lot of them, you see, and I've not forgotten
them. Only dance songs I don't sing. In my state now, it wouldn't suit me.'

'How do you sing them?...to yourself?'

'To myself, yes; and aloud too. I can't sing loud, but still one can
understand it. I told you a little girl waits on me. A clever little orphan she
is. So I have taught her; four songs she has learnt from me already. Don't
you believe me? Wait a minute, I'll show you directly....'

Lukerya took breath.... The thought that this half-dead creature was
making ready to begin singing raised an involuntary feeling of dread in me.
But before I could utter a word, a long-drawn-out, hardly audible, but pure
and true note, was quivering in my ears... it was followed by a second and a
third. 'In the meadows,' sang Lukerya. She sang, the expression of her stony
face unchanged, even her eyes riveted on one spot. But how touchingly
tinkled out that poor struggling little voice, that wavered like a thread of
smoke: how she longed to pour out all her soul in it!... I felt no dread now;
my heart throbbed with unutterable pity.

'Ah, I can't!' she said suddenly. 'I've not the strength. I'm so upset with
joy at seeing you.'

She closed her eyes.

I laid my hand on her tiny, chill fingers.... She glanced at me, and her
dark lids, fringed with golden eyelashes, closed again, and were still as an
ancient statue's. An instant later they glistened in the half-darkness.... They
were moistened by a tear.

As before, I did not stir.

'How silly I am!' said Lukerya suddenly, with unexpected force, and
opened her eyes wide: she tried to wink the tears out of them. 'I ought to be
ashamed! What am I doing? It's a long time since I have been like this... not
since that day when Vassya-Polyakov was here last spring. While he sat
with me and talked, I was all right; but when he had gone away, how I did
cry in my loneliness! Where did I get the tears from? But, there! we girls
get our tears for nothing. Master,' added Lukerya, 'perhaps you have a
handkerchief.... If you won't mind, wipe my eyes.'

I made haste to carry out her desire, and left her the handkerchief. She
refused it at first.... 'What good's such a gift to me?' she said. The
handkerchief was plain enough, but clean and white. Afterwards she
clutched it in her weak fingers, and did not loosen them again. As I got used
to the darkness in which we both were, I could clearly make out her
features, could even perceive the delicate flush that peeped out under the
coppery hue of her face, could discover in the face, so at least it seemed to
me, traces of its former beauty.

'You asked me, master,' Lukerya began again, 'whether I sleep. I sleep
very little, but every time I fall asleep I've dreams--such splendid dreams!
I'm never ill in my dreams; I'm always so well, and young.... There's one
thing's sad: I wake up and long for a good stretch, and I'm all as if I were in
chains. I once had such an exquisite dream! Shall I tell it you? Well, listen. I
dreamt I was standing in a meadow, and all round me was rye, so tall, and
ripe as gold!... and I had a reddish dog with me--such a wicked dog; it kept
trying to bite me. And I had a sickle in my hands; not a simple sickle; it
seemed to be the moon itself--the moon as it is when it's the shape of a
sickle. And with this same moon I had to cut the rye clean. Only I was very
weary with the heat, and the moon blinded me, and I felt lazy; and

cornflowers were growing all about, and such big ones! And they all turned
their heads to me. And I thought in my dream I would pick them; Vassya
had promised to come, so I'd pick myself a wreath first; I'd still time to plait
it. I began picking cornflowers, but they kept melting away from between
my fingers, do what I would. And I couldn't make myself a wreath. And
meanwhile I heard someone coming up to me, so close, and calling,
"Lusha! Lusha!"... "Ah," I thought, "what a pity I hadn't time!" No matter, I
put that moon on my head instead of cornflowers. I put it on like a tiara, and
I was all brightness directly; I made the whole field light around me. And,
behold! over the very top of the ears there came gliding very quickly
towards me, not Vassya, but Christ Himself! And how I knew it was Christ I
can't say; they don't paint Him like that--only it was He! No beard, tall,
young, all in white, only His belt was golden; and He held out His hand to
me. "Fear not," said He; "My bride adorned, follow Me; you shall lead the
choral dance in the heavenly kingdom, and sing the songs of Paradise." And
how I clung to His hand! My dog at once followed at my heels... but then
we began to float upwards! He in front.... His wings spread wide over all
the sky, long like a sea-gull's--and I after Him! And my dog had to stay
behind. Then only I understood that that dog was my illness, and that in the
heavenly kingdom there was no place for it.'

Lukerya paused a minute.

'And I had another dream, too,' she began again; 'but may be it was a
vision. I really don't know. It seemed to me I was lying in this very shanty,
and my dead parents, father and mother, come to me and bow low to me,
but say nothing. And I asked them, "Why do you bow down to me, father
and mother?" "Because," they said, "you suffer much in this world, so that
you have not only set free your own soul, but have taken a great burden
from off us too. And for us in the other world it is much easier. You have
made an end of your own sins; now you are expiating our sins." And having
said this, my parents bowed down to me again, and I could not see them;
there was nothing but the walls to be seen. I was in great doubt afterwards
what had happened with me. I even told the priest of it in confession. Only
he thinks it was not a vision, because visions come only to the clerical
gentry.'

'And I'll tell you another dream,' Lukerya went on. 'I dreamt I was sitting
on the high-road, under a willow; I had a stick, had a wallet on my
shoulders, and my head tied up in a kerchief, just like a pilgrim woman!
And I had to go somewhere, a long, long way off, on a pilgrimage. And
pilgrims kept coming past me; they came along slowly, all going one way;
their faces were weary, and all very much like one another. And I dreamt
that moving about among them was a woman, a head taller than the rest,
and wearing a peculiar dress, not like ours--not Russian. And her face too
was peculiar--a worn face and severe. And all the others moved away from
her; but she suddenly turns, and comes straight to me. She stood still, and
looked at me; and her eyes were yellow, large, and clear as a falcon's. And I
ask her, "Who are you?" And she says to me, "I'm your death." Instead of
being frightened, it was quite the other way. I was as pleased as could be; I
crossed myself! And the woman, my death, says to me: "I'm sorry for you,
Lukerya, but I can't take you with me. Farewell!" Good God! how sad I was
then!... "Take me," said I, "good mother, take me, darling!" And my death
turned to me, and began speaking to me.... I knew that she was appointing
me my hour, but indistinctly, incomprehensibly. "After St. Peter's day," said
she.... With that I awoke.... Yes, I have such wonderful dreams!'

Lukerya turned her eyes upwards... and sank into thought....

'Only the sad thing is, sometimes a whole week will go by without my
getting to sleep once. Last year a lady came to see me, and she gave me a
little bottle of medicine against sleeplessness; she told me to take ten drops
at a time. It did me so much good, and I used to sleep; only the bottle was
all finished long ago. Do you know what medicine that was, and how to get
it?'

The lady had obviously given Lukerya opium. I promised to get her
another bottle like it, and could not refrain from again wondering aloud at
her patience.

'Ah, master!' she answered, 'why do you say so? What do you mean by
patience? There, Simeon Stylites now had patience certainly, great patience;
for thirty years he stood on a pillar! And another saint had himself buried in
the earth, right up to his breast, and the ants ate his face.... And I'll tell you
what I was told by a good scholar: there was once a country, and the

Ishmaelites made war on it, and they tortured and killed all the inhabitants;
and do what they would, the people could not get rid of them. And there
appeared among these people a holy virgin; she took a great sword, put on
armour weighing eighty pounds, went out against the Ishmaelites and drove
them all beyond the sea. Only when she had driven them out, she said to
them: "Now burn me, for that was my vow, that I would die a death by fire
for my people." And the Ishmaelites took her and burnt her, and the people
have been free ever since then! That was a noble deed, now! But what am
I!'

I wondered to myself whence and in what shape the legend of Joan of
Arc had reached her, and after a brief silence, I asked Lukerya how old she
was.

'Twenty-eight... or nine.... It won't be thirty. But why count the years!
I've something else to tell you....'

Lukerya suddenly gave a sort of choked cough, and groaned....

'You are talking a great deal,' I observed to her; 'it may be bad for you.'

'It's true,' she whispered, hardly audibly; 'it's time to end our talk; but
what does it matter! Now, when you leave me, I can be silent as long as I
like. Any way, I've opened my heart....'

I began bidding her good-bye. I repeated my promise to send her the
medicine, and asked her once more to think well and tell me--if there wasn't
anything she wanted?'

'I want nothing; I am content with all, thank God!' she articulated with
very great effort, but with emotion; 'God give good health to all! But there,
master, you might speak a word to your mamma--the peasants here are
poor--if she could take the least bit off their rent! They've not land enough,
and no advantages.... They would pray to God for you.... But I want
nothing; I'm quite contented with all.'

I gave Lukerya my word that I would carry out her request, and had
already walked to the door.... She called me back again.

'Do you remember, master,' she said, and there was a gleam of something
wonderful in her eyes and on her lips, 'what hair I used to have? Do you
remember, right down to my knees! It was long before I could make up my
mind to it.... Such hair as it was! But how could it be kept combed? In my
state!... So I had it cut off.... Yes.... Well, good-bye, master! I can't talk any
more.'...

That day, before setting off to shoot, I had a conversation with the
village constable about Lukerya. I learnt from him that in the village they
called Lukerya the 'Living Relic'; that she gave them no trouble, however;
they never heard complaint or repining from her. 'She asks nothing, but, on
the contrary, she's grateful for everything; a gentle soul, one must say, if any
there be. Stricken of God,' so the constable concluded, 'for her sins, one
must suppose; but we do not go into that. And as for judging her, no--no, we
do not judge her. Let her be!'

*****

A few weeks later I heard that Lukerya was dead. So her death had come
for her... and 'after St. Peter's day.' They told me that on the day of her death
she kept hearing the sound of bells, though it was reckoned over five miles
from Aleksyevka to the church, and it was a week-day. Lukerya, however,
had said that the sounds came not from the church, but from above!
Probably she did not dare to say--from heaven.

XXIV

THE RATTLING OF WHEELS

'I've something to tell you,' observed Yermolaï, coming into the hut to
see me. I had just had dinner, and was lying down on a travelling bed to rest
a little after a fairly successful but fatiguing day of grouse-shooting--it was

somewhere about the 10th of July, and the heat was terrific.... 'I've
something to tell you: all our shot's gone.'

I jumped off the bed.

'All gone? How's that? Why, we took pretty nearly thirty pounds with us
from the village--a whole bag!'

'That's so; and a big bag it was: enough for a fortnight. But there's no
knowing! There must have been a hole come in it, or something; anyway,
there's no shot... that's to say, there's enough for ten charges left.'

'What are we to do now? The very best places are before us--we're
promised six coveys for to-morrow....'

'Well, send me to Tula. It's not so far from here; only forty miles. I'll fly
like the wind, and bring forty pounds of shot if you say the word.'

'But when would you go?'

'Why, directly. Why put it off? Only, I say, we shall have to hire horses.'

'Why hire horses? Why not our own?'

'We can't drive there with our own. The shaft horse has gone lame...
terribly!'

'Since when's that?'

'Well, the other day, the coachman took him to be shod. So he was shod,
and the blacksmith, I suppose, was clumsy. Now, he can't even step on the
hoof. It's a front leg. He lifts it up... like a dog.'

'Well? they've taken the shoe off, I suppose, at least?'

'No, they've not; but, of course, they ought to take it off. A nail's been
driven right into the flesh, I should say.'

I ordered the coachman to be summoned. It turned out that Yermolaï had
spoken the truth: the shaft-horse really could not put its hoof to the ground.
I promptly gave orders for it to have the shoe taken off, and to be stood on
damp clay.

'Then do you wish me to hire horses to go to Tula?' Yermolaï persisted.

'Do you suppose we can get horses in this wilderness?' I exclaimed with
involuntary irritation. The village in which we found ourselves was a
desolate, God-forsaken place; all its inhabitants seemed to be poverty-
stricken; we had difficulty in discovering one hut, moderately roomy, and
even that one had no chimney.

'Yes,' replied Yermolaï with his habitual equanimity; 'what you said
about this village is true enough; but there used to be living in this very
place one peasant--a very clever fellow! rich too! He had nine horses. He's
dead, and his eldest son manages it all now. The man's a perfect fool, but
still he's not had time to waste his father's wealth yet. We can get horses
from him. If you say the word, I will fetch him. His brothers, I've heard say,
are smart chaps...but still, he's their head.'

'Why so?'

'Because--he's the eldest! Of course, the younger ones must obey!' Here
Yermolaï, in reference to younger brothers as a class, expressed himself
with a vigour quite unsuitable for print.

'I'll fetch him. He's a simple fellow. With him you can't fail to come to
terms.'

While Yermolaï went after his 'simple fellow' the idea occurred to me
that it might be better for me to drive into Tula myself. In the first place,
taught by experience, I had no very great confidence in Yermolaï: I had
once sent him to the town for purchases; he had promised to get through all
my commissions in one day, and was gone a whole week, drank up all the
money, and came back on foot, though he had set off in my racing droshky.
And, secondly, I had an acquaintance in Tula, a horsedealer; I might buy a
horse off him to take the place of the disabled shaft-horse.

'The thing's decided!' I thought; 'I'll drive over myself; I can sleep just as
well on the road--luckily, the coach is comfortable.'

'I've brought him!' cried Yermolaï, rushing into the hut a quarter of an
hour later. He was followed by a tall peasant in a white shirt, blue breeches,
and bast shoes, with white eyebrows and short-sighted eyes, a wedge-
shaped red beard, a long swollen nose, and a gaping mouth. He certainly
did look 'simple.'

'Here, your honour,' observed Yermolaï, 'he has horses--and he's willing.'

'So be, surely, I'... the peasant began hesitatingly in a rather hoarse voice,
shaking his thin wisps of hair, and drumming with his fingers on the band
of the cap he held in his hands.... 'Surely, I....'

'What's your name?' I inquired.

The peasant looked down and seemed to think deeply. 'My name?'

'Yes; what are you called?'

'Why my name 'ull be--Filofey.'

'Well, then, friend Filofey; I hear you have horses. Bring a team of three
here--we'll put them in my coach--it's a light one--and you drive me in to
Tula. There's a moon now at night; it's light, and it's cool for driving. What
sort of a road have you here?'

'The road? There's naught amiss with the road. To the main road it will
be sixteen miles--not more.... There's one little place... a bit awkward; but
naught amiss else.'

'What sort of little place is it that's awkward?'

'Well, we'll have to cross the river by the ford.'

'But are you thinking of going to Tula yourself?' inquired Yermolaï.

'Yes.'

'Oh!' commented my faithful servant with a shake of his head. 'Oh-oh!'
he repeated; then he spat on the floor and walked out of the room.

The expedition to Tula obviously no longer presented any features of
interest to him; it had become for him a dull and unattractive business.

'Do you know the road well?' I said, addressing Filofey.

'Surely, we know the road! Only, so to say, please your honour, can't... so
on the sudden, so to say...'

It appeared that Yermolaï, on engaging Filofey, had stated that he could
be sure that, fool as he was, he'd be paid... and nothing more! Filofey, fool
as he was--in Yermolaï's words--was not satisfied with this statement alone.
He demanded, of me fifty roubles--an exorbitant price; I offered him ten--a
low price. We fell to haggling; Filofey at first was stubborn; then he began
to come down, but slowly. Yermolaï entering for an instant began assuring
me, 'that fool--('He's fond of the word, seemingly!' Filofey remarked in a
low voice)--'that fool can't reckon money at all,' and reminded me how
twenty years ago a posting tavern established by my mother at the crossing
of two high-roads came to complete grief from the fact that the old house-
serf who was put there to manage it positively did not understand reckoning
money, but valued sums simply by the number of coins--in fact, gave silver
coins in change for copper, though he would swear furiously all the time.

'Ugh, you Filofey! you're a regular Filofey!' Yermolaï jeered at last--and
he went out, slamming the door angrily.

Filofey made him no reply, as though admitting that to be called Filofey
was--as a fact--not very clever of him, and that a man might fairly be
reproached for such a name, though really it was the village priest was to
blame in the matter for not having done better by him at his christening.

At last we agreed, however, on the sum of twenty roubles. He went off
for the horses, and an hour later brought five for me to choose from. The
horses turned out to be fairly good, though their manes and tails were
tangled, and their bellies round and taut as drums. With Filofey came two of
his brothers, not in the least like him. Little, black-eyed, sharp-nosed

fellows, they certainly produced the impression of 'smart chaps'; they talked
a great deal, very fast--'clacked away,' as Yermolaï expressed it--but obeyed
the elder brother.

They dragged the coach out of the shed and were busy about it and the
horses for an hour and a half; first they let out the traces, which were of
cord, then pulled them too tight again! Both brothers were very much set on
harnessing the 'roan' in the shafts, because 'him can do best going down-
hill'; but Filofey decided for 'the shaggy one.' So the shaggy one was put in
the shafts accordingly.

They heaped the coach up with hay, put the collar off the lame shaft-
horse under the seat, in case we might want to fit it on to the horse to be
bought at Tula.... Filofey, who had managed to run home and come back in
a long, white, loose, ancestral overcoat, a high sugar-loaf cap, and tarred
boots, clambered triumphantly up on to the box. I took my seat, looking at
my watch: it was a quarter past ten. Yermolaï did not even say good-bye to
me--he was engaged in beating his Valetka--Filofey tugged at the reins, and
shouted in a thin, thin voice: 'Hey! you little ones!'

His brothers skipped away on both sides, lashed the trace-horses under
the belly, and the coach started, turned out of the gates into the street, the
shaggy one tried to turn off towards his own home, but Filofey brought him
to reason with a few strokes of the whip, and behold! we were already out
of the village, and rolling along a fairly even road, between close-growing
bushes of thick hazels.

It was a still, glorious night, the very nicest for driving. A breeze rustled
now and then in the bushes, set the twigs swinging and died away again; in
the sky could be seen motionless, silvery clouds; the moon stood high and
threw a bright light on all around. I stretched myself on the hay, and was
just beginning to doze... but I remembered the 'awkward place,' and started
up.

'I say, Filofey, is it far to the ford?'

'To the ford? It'll be near upon seven miles.'

'Seven miles!' I mused. 'We shan't get there for another hour. I can have a
nap meanwhile. Filofey, do you know the road well?' I asked again.

'Surely; how could I fail to know it? It's not the first time I've driven.'

He said something more, but I had ceased to listen.... I was asleep.

I was awakened not, as often happens, by my own intention of waking in
exactly an hour, but by a sort of strange, though faint, lapping, gurgling
sound at my very ear. I raised my head....

Wonderful to relate! I was lying in the coach as before, but all round the
coach, half a foot, not more, from its edge, a sheet of water lay shining in
the moonlight, broken up into tiny, distinct, quivering eddies. I looked in
front. On the box, with back bowed and head bent, Filofey was sitting like a
statue, and a little further on, above the rippling water, I saw the curved arch
of the yoke, and the horses' heads and backs. And everything as motionless,
as noiseless, as though in some enchanted realm, in a dream--a dream of
fairyland.... 'What does it mean?' I looked back from under the hood of the
coach.... 'Why, we are in the middle of the river!'... the bank was thirty
paces from us.

'Filofey!' I cried.

'What?' he answered.

'What, indeed! Upon my word! Where are we?'

'In the river.'

'I see we're in the river. But, like this, we shall be drowned directly. Is
this how you cross the ford? Eh? Why, you're asleep, Filofey! Answer, do!'

'I've made a little mistake,' observed my guide;

'I've gone to one side, a bit wrong, but now we've got to wait a bit.'

'Got to wait a bit? What ever are we going to wait for?'

'Well, we must let the shaggy one look about him; which way he turns
his head, that way we've got to go.'

I raised myself on the hay. The shaft-horse's head stood quite motionless.
Above the head one could only see in the bright moonlight one ear slightly
twitching backwards and forwards.

'Why, he's asleep too, your shaggy one!'

'No,' responded Filofey,' 'he's sniffing the water now.'

And everything was still again; there was only the faint gurgle of the
water as before. I sank into a state of torpor.

Moonlight, and night, and the river, and we in it....

'What is that croaking noise?' I asked Filofey.

'That? Ducks in the reeds... or else snakes.'

All of a sudden the head of the shaft-horse shook, his ears pricked up; he
gave a snort, began to move. 'Ho-ho, ho-ho-o!' Filofey began suddenly
bawling at the top of his voice; he sat up and brandished the whip. The
coach was at once tugged away from where it had stuck, it plunged forward,
cleaving the waters of the river, and moved along, swaying and lurching
from side to side.... At first it seemed to me we were sinking, getting
deeper; however, after two or three tugs and jolts, the expanse of water
seemed suddenly lower.... It got lower and lower, the coach seemed to grow
up out of it, and now the wheels and the horses' tails could be seen, and now
stirring with a mighty splashing of big drops, scattering showers of
diamonds--no, not diamonds--sapphires in the dull brilliance of the moon,
the horses with a spirited pull all together drew us on to the sandy bank and
trotted along the road to the hill-side, their shining white legs flashing in
rivalry.

'What will Filofey say now?' was the thought that glanced through my
mind; 'you see I was right!' or something of that sort. But he said nothing.

So I too did not think it necessary to reproach him for carelessness, and
lying down in the hay, I tried again to go to sleep.

But I could not go to sleep, not because I was not tired from hunting, and
not because the exciting experience I had just been through had dispelled
my sleepiness: it was that we were driving through such very beautiful
country. There were liberal, wide-stretching, grassy riverside meadows,
with a multitude of small pools, little lakes, rivulets, creeks overgrown at
the ends with branches and osiers--a regular Russian scene, such as
Russians love, like the scenes amid which the heroes of our old legends
rode out to shoot white swans and grey ducks. The road we were driven
along wound in a yellowish ribbon, the horses ran lightly--and I could not
close my eyes. I was admiring! And it all floated by, softened into harmony
under the kindly light of the moon. Filofey--he too was touched by it.

'Those meadows are called St. Yegor's,' he said, turning to me. 'And
beyond them come the Grand Duke's; there are no other meadows like them
in all Russia.... Ah, it's lovely!' The shaft-horse snorted and shook itself....
'God bless you,' commented Filofey gravely in an undertone. 'How lovely!'
he repeated with a sigh; then he gave a long sort of grunt. 'There, mowing
time's just upon us, and think what hay they'll rake up there!--regular
mountains!--And there are lots of fish in the creeks. Such bream!' he added
in a sing-song voice. 'In one word, life's sweet--one doesn't want to die.'

He suddenly raised his hand.

'Hullo! look-ee! over the lake... is it a crane standing there? Can it be
fishing at night? Bless me! it's a branch, not a crane. Well, that was a
mistake! But the moon is always so deceptive.'

So we drove on and on.... But now the end of the meadows had been
reached, little copses and ploughed fields came into view; a little village
flashed with two or three lights on one side--it was only four miles now to
the main road. I fell asleep.

Again I did not wake up of my own accord. This time I was roused by
the voice of Filofey.

'Master!... hey, master!'

I sat up. The coach was standing still on level ground in the very middle
of the high-road. Filofey, who had turned round on the box, so as to face
me, with wide-open eyes (I was positively surprised at them; I couldn't have
imagined he had such large eyes), was whispering with mysterious
significance:

'A rattle!... a rattle of wheels!'

'What do you say?'

'I say, there's a rattling! Bend down and listen. Do you hear it?'

I put my head out of the coach, held my breath, and did catch,
somewhere in the distance, far behind us, a faint broken sound, as of wheels
rolling.

'Do you hear it?' repeated Filofey.

'Well, yes,' I answered. 'Some vehicle is coming.'

'Oh, you don't hear... shoo! The tambourines... and whistling too....Do
you hear? Take off your cap... you will hear better.'

I didn't take off my cap, but I listened.

'Well, yes... perhaps. But what of it?'

Filofey turned round facing the horses.

'It's a cart coming... lightly; iron-rimmed wheels,' he observed, and he
took up the reins. 'It's wicked folks coming, master; hereabouts, you know,
near Tula, they play a good many tricks.'

'What nonsense! What makes you suppose it's sure to be wicked people?'

'I speak the truth... with tambourines... and in an empty cart.... Who
should it be?'

'Well... is it much further to Tula?'

'There's twelve miles further to go, and not a habitation here.'

'Well, then, get on quicker; it's no good lingering.'

Filofey brandished the whip, and the coach rolled on again.

Though I did not put much faith in Filofey, I could not go to sleep. 'What
if it really is so?' A disagreeable sensation began to stir in me. I sat up in the
coach--till then I had lain down--and began looking in all directions. While
I had been asleep, a slight fog had come over, not the earth, but the sky; it
stood high, the moon hung a whitish patch in it, as though in smoke.
Everything had grown dim and blended together, though it was clearer near
the ground. Around us flat, dreary country; fields, nothing but fields--here
and there bushes and ravines--and again fields, mostly fallow, with scanty,
dusty grass. A wilderness... deathlike! If only a quail had called!

We drove on for half an hour. Filofey kept constantly cracking his whip
and clicking with his lips, but neither he nor I uttered a word. So we
mounted the hillside.... Filofey pulled up the horses, and promptly said
again:

'It is a rattle of wheels, master; yes, it is!'

I poked my head out of the coach again, but I might have stayed under
the cover of the hood, so distinctly, though still from a distance, the sound
reached me of cart-wheels, men whistling, the jingling of tambourines, and
even the thud of horses' hoofs; I even fancied I could hear singing and
laughter. The wind, it is true, was blowing from there, but there was no
doubt that the unknown travellers were a good mile, perhaps two, nearer us.
Filofey and I looked at one another; he only gave his hat a tweak forward
from behind, and at once, bending over the reins, fell to whipping up the
horses. They set off at a gallop, but they could not gallop for long, and fell
back into a trot again. Filofey continued to whip them. We must get away!

I can't account for the fact that, though I had not at first shared Filofey's
apprehensions, about this time I suddenly gained the conviction that we

really were being followed by highwaymen.... I had heard nothing new: the
same tambourines, the same rattle of a cart without a load, the same
intermittent whistling, the same confused uproar.... But now I had no doubt.
Filofey could not have made a mistake!

And now twenty minutes more had gone by.... During the last of these
twenty minutes, even through the clatter and rumble of our own carriage,
we could hear another clatter and another rumbling....

'Stop, Filofey,' I said; 'it's no use--the end's the same!'

Filofey uttered a faint-hearted 'wo'! The horses instantaneously stopped,
as though delighted at the chance of resting!

Mercy upon us! the tambourines were simply booming away just behind
our backs, the cart was rattling and creaking, the men were whistling,
shouting, and singing, the horses were snorting and thumping on the ground
with their hoofs.... They had overtaken us!

'Bad luck,' Filofey commented, in an emphatic undertone; and, clicking
to the horses irresolutely, he began to urge them on again. But at that very
instant there was a sort of sudden rush and whizz, and a very big, wide cart,
harnessed with three lean horses, cut sharply at a rush up to us, galloped in
front, and at once fell into a walking pace, blocking up the road.

'A regular brigand's trick!' murmured Filofey. I must own I felt a cold
chill at my heart.... I fell to staring before me with strained attention in the
half-darkness of the misty moonlight. In the cart in front of us were--half-
lying, half-sitting--six men in shirts, and in unbuttoned rough overcoats;
two of them had no caps on; huge feet in boots were swinging and hanging
over the cart-rail, arms were rising and falling helter-skelter... bodies were
jolting backwards and forwards.... It was quite clear--a drunken party. Some
were bawling at random; one was whistling very correctly and shrilly,
another was swearing; on the driver's seat sat a sort of giant in a cape,
driving. They went at a walking pace, as' though paying no attention to us.

What was to be done? We followed them also at a walking pace... we
could do nothing else.

For a quarter of a mile we moved along in this manner. The suspense
was torturing.... To protect, to defend ourselves, was out of the question!
There were six of them; and I hadn't even a stick! Should we turn back? But
they would catch us up directly. I remembered the line of Zhukovsky (in the
passage where he speaks of the murder of field-marshal Kamensky):

'The scoundrel highwayman's vile axe!...'

Or else--strangling with filthy cord... flung into a ditch...there to choke
and struggle like a hare in a trap....

Ugh, it was horrid!

And they, as before, went on at a walking pace, taking no notice of us.

'Filofey!' I whispered,'just try, keep more to the right; see if you can get
by.'

Filofey tried--kept to the right... but they promptly kept to the right too...
It was impossible to get by.

Filofey made another effort; he kept to the left.... But there, again, they
did not let him pass the cart. They even laughed aloud. That meant that they
wouldn't let us pass.

'Then they are a bad lot,' Filofey whispered to me over his shoulder.

'But what are they waiting for?' I inquired, also in a whisper.

'To reach the bridge--over there in front--in the hollow--above the
stream.... They'll do for us there! That's always their way... by bridges. It's a
clear case for us, master.' He added with a sigh: 'They'll hardly let us go
alive; for the great thing for them is to keep it all dark. I'm sorry for one
thing, master; my horses are lost, and my brothers won't get them!'

I should have been surprised at the time that Filofey could still trouble
about his horses at such a moment; but, I must confess, I had no thoughts

for him.... 'Will they really kill me?' I kept repeating mentally. 'Why should
they? I'll give them everything I have....'

And the bridge was getting nearer and nearer; it could be more and more
clearly seen.

Suddenly a sharp whoop was heard; the cart before us, as it were, flew
ahead, dashed along, and reaching the bridge, at once stopped stock-still a
little on one side of the road. My heart fairly sank like lead.

'Ah, brother Filofey,' I said, 'we are going to our death. Forgive me for
bringing you to ruin.'

'As though it were your fault, master! There's no escaping one's fate!
Come, Shaggy, my trusty little horse,' Filofey addressed the shaft-horse;
'step on, brother! Do your last bit of service! It's all the same...'

And he urged his horses into a trot We began to get near the bridge--near
that motionless, menacing cart.... In it everything was silent, as though on
purpose. Not a single halloo! It was the stillness of the pike or the hawk, of
every beast of prey, as its victim approaches. And now we were level with
the cart.... Suddenly the giant in the cape sprang out of the cart, and came
straight towards us!

He said nothing to Filofey, but the latter, of his own accord, tugged at the
reins.... The coach stopped. The giant laid both arms on the carriage door,
and bending forward his shaggy head with a grin, he uttered the following
speech in a soft, even voice, with the accent of a factory hand:

'Honoured sir, we are coming from an honest feast--from a wedding;
we've been marrying one of our fine fellows--that is, we've put him to bed;
we're all young lads, reckless chaps--there's been a good deal of drinking,
and nothing to sober us; so wouldn't your honour be so good as to favour
us, the least little, just for a dram of brandy for our mate? We'd drink to
your health, and remember your worship; but if you won't be gracious to us-
-well, we beg you not to be angry!'

'What's the meaning of this?' I thought.... 'A joke?... a jeer?'

The giant continued to stand with bent head. At that very instant the
moon emerged from the fog and lighted up his face. There was a grin on the
face, in the eyes, and on the lips. But there was nothing threatening to be
seen in it... only it seemed, as it were, all on the alert... and the teeth were so
white and large....

'I shall be pleased... take this...' I said hurriedly, and pulling my purse out
of my pocket, I took out two silver roubles--at that time silver was still
circulating in Russia--'here, if that's enough?'

'Much obliged!' bawled the giant, in military fashion; and his fat fingers
in a flash snatched from me--not the whole purse--but only the two roubles:
'much obliged!' He shook his hair back, and ran up to the cart.

'Lads!' he shouted, 'the gentleman makes us a present of two silver
roubles!' They all began, as it were, gabbling at once.... The giant rolled up
on to the driver's seat....

'Good luck to you, master!'

And that was the last we saw of them. The horses dashed on, the cart
rumbled up the hill; once more it stood out on the dark line separating the
earth from the sky, went down, and vanished.

And now the rattle of the wheels, the shouts and tambourines, could not
be heard....

There was a death-like silence.

*****

Filofey and I could not recover ourselves all at once.

'Ah, you're a merry fellow!' he commented at last, and taking off his hat
he began crossing himself. 'Fond of a joke, on my word,' he added, and he
turned to me, beaming all over. 'But he must be a capital fellow--on my
word! Now, now, now, little ones, look alive! You're safe! We are all safe! It

was he who wouldn't let us get by; it was he who drove the horses. What a
chap for a joke! Now, now! get on, in God's name!'

I did not speak, but I felt happy too. 'We are safe!' I repeated to myself,
and lay down on the hay. 'We've got off cheap!'

I even felt rather ashamed that I had remembered that line of
Zhukovsky's.

Suddenly an idea occurred to me.

'Filofey!'

'What is it?'

'Are you married?'

'Yes.'

'And have you children?'

'Yes.'

'How was it you didn't think of them? You were sorry for your horses:
weren't you sorry for your wife and children?'

'Why be sorry for them? They weren't going to fall into the hands of
thieves, you know. But I kept them in my mind all the while, and I do now...
surely.' Filofey paused.... 'May be... it was for their sake Almighty God had
mercy on us.'

'But if they weren't highwaymen?'

'How can we tell? Can one creep into the soul of another? Another's soul,
we know, is a dark place. But, with the thought of God in the heart, things
are always better.... No, no!... I'd my family all the time.... Gee... gee-up!
little ones, in God's name!'

It was already almost daylight; we began to drive into Tula. I was lying,
dreamy and half-asleep.

'Master,' Filofey said to me suddenly, 'look: there they're stopping at the
tavern... their cart.'

I raised my head... there they were, and their cart and horses. In the
doorway of the drinking-house there suddenly appeared our friend, the giant
in the cape. 'Sir!' he shouted, waving his cap, 'we're drinking your health!--
Hey, coachman,' he added, wagging his head at Filofey; 'you were a bit
scared, I shouldn't wonder, hey?'

'A merry fellow!' observed Filofey when we had driven nearly fifty yards
from the tavern.

We got into Tula at last: I bought shot, and while I was about it, tea and
spirits, and even got a horse from the horse-dealer.

At mid-day we set off home again. As we drove by the place where we
first heard the rattle of the cart behind us, Filofey, who, having had
something to drink at Tula, turned out to be very talkative--he even began
telling me fairy-tales--as he passed the place, suddenly burst out laughing.

'Do you remember, master, how I kept saying to you, "A rattle... a rattle
of wheels," I said!'

He waved his hand several times. This expression struck him as most
amusing. The same evening we got back to his village.

I related the adventure that had befallen us to Yermolaï. Being sober, he
expressed no sympathy; he only gave a grunt--whether of approval or
reproach, I imagine he did not know himself. But two days later he
informed me, with great satisfaction, that the very night Filofey and I had
been driving to Tula, and on the very road, a merchant had been robbed and
murdered. I did not at first put much faith in this, but later on I was obliged
to believe it: it was confirmed by the police captain, who came galloping
over in consequence.

Was not that perhaps the 'wedding' our brave spirits were returning
from?--wasn't that the 'fine fellow' they had 'put to bed,' in the words of the
jocose giant? I stayed five days longer in Filofey's village. Whenever I meet
him I always say to him: 'A rattle of wheels? Eh?'

'A merry fellow!' he always answers, and bursts out laughing.

EPILOGUE

THE FOREST AND THE STEPPE

'And slowly something began to draw him,
Back to the country, to the garden dark,
Where lime-trees are so huge, so full of shade,
And lilies of the valley, sweet as maids,
Where rounded willows o'er the water's edge
Lean from the dyke in rows, and where the oak
Sturdily grows above the sturdy field,
Amid the smell of hemp and nettles rank...
There, there, in meadows stretching wide,
Where rich and black as velvet is the earth,
Where the sweet rye, far as the eye can see,
Moves noiselessly in tender, billowing waves,
And where the heavy golden light is shed
From out of rounded, white, transparent clouds:
There it is good....'

(From a poem, devoted to the flames.)

The reader is, very likely, already weary of my sketches; I hasten to
reassure him by promising to confine myself to the fragments already

printed; but I cannot refrain from saying a few words at parting about a
sportman's life.

Hunting with a dog and a gun is delightful in itself, für sich, as they used
to say in old days; but let us suppose you were not born a sportsman, but are
fond of nature all the same; you cannot then help envying us sportsmen....
Listen.

Do you know, for instance, the delight of setting off before daybreak in
spring? You come out on to the steps.... In the dark grey sky stars are
twinkling here and there; a damp breeze in faint gusts flies to meet you now
and then; there is heard the secret, vague whispering of the night; the trees
faintly rustle, wrapt in darkness. And now they pull the hood over the cart,
and lay a box with the samovar at your feet. The trace-horses move
restlessly, snort, and daintily paw the ground; a couple of white geese, only
just awake, waddle slowly and silently across the road. On the other side of
the hedge, in the garden, the watchman is snoring peacefully; every sound
seems to stand still in the frozen air--suspended, not moving. You take your
seat; the horses start at once; the cart rolls off with a loud rumble.... You
drive--drive past the church, downhill to the right, across the dyke.... The
pond is just beginning to be covered with mist. You are rather chilly; you
cover your face with the collar of your fur cloak; you doze. The horse's
hoofs splash sonorously through the puddles; the coachman begins to
whistle. But by now you have driven over three miles... the rim of the sky
flushes crimson; the jackdaws are heard, fluttering clumsily in the birch-
trees; sparrows are twittering about the dark hayricks. The air is clearer, the
road more distinct, the sky brightens, the clouds look whiter, and the fields
look greener. In the huts there is the red light of flaming chips; from behind
gates comes the sound of sleepy voices. And meanwhile the glow of dawn
is beginning; already streaks of gold are stretching across the sky; mists are
gathering in clouds over the ravines; the larks are singing musically; the
breeze that ushers in the dawn is blowing; and slowly the purple sun floats
upward. There is a perfect flood of light; your heart is fluttering like a bird.
Everything is fresh, gay, delightful! One can see a long way all round. That
way, beyond the copse, a village; there, further, another, with a white
church, and there a birch-wood on the hill; behind it the marsh, for which
you are bound.... Quicker, horses, quicker! Forward at a good trot!... There

are three miles to go--not more. The sun mounts swiftly higher; the sky is
clear.... It will be a glorious day. A herd of cattle comes straggling from the
village to meet us. You go up the hill.... What a view! The river winds for
ten miles, dimly blue through the mist; beyond it meadows of watery green;
beyond the meadows sloping hills; in the distance the plovers are wheeling
with loud cries above the marsh; through the moist brilliance suffused in the
air the distance stands out clearly... not as in the summer. How freely one
drinks in the air, how quickly the limbs move, how strong is the whole man,
clasped in the fresh breath of spring!...

And a summer morning--a morning in July! Who but the sportsman
knows how soothing it is to wander at daybreak among the underwoods?
The print of your feet lies in a green line on the grass, white with dew. You
part the drenched bushes; you are met by a rush of the warm fragrance
stored up in the night; the air is saturated with the fresh bitterness of
wormwood, the honey sweetness of buckwheat and clover; in the distance
an oak wood stands like a wall, and glows and glistens in the sun; it is still
fresh, but already the approach of heat is felt. The head is faint and dizzy
from the excess of sweet scents. The copse stretches on endlessly.... Only in
places there are yellow glimpses in the distance of ripening rye, and narrow
streaks of red buckwheat. Then there is the creak of cart-wheels; a peasant
makes his way among the bushes at a walking-pace, and sets his horse in
the shade before the heat of the day.... You greet him, and turn away; the
musical swish of the scythe is heard behind you. The sun rises higher and
higher. The grass is speedily dry. And now it is quite sultry. One hour passes
another.... The sky grows dark over the horizon; the still air is baked with
piercing heat.... 'Where can one get a drink here, brother?' you inquire of the
mower. 'Yonder, in the ravine's a well.' Through the thick hazel-bushes,
tangled by the clinging grass, you drop down to the bottom of the ravine.
Right under the cliff a little spring is hidden; an oak bush greedily spreads
out its twigs like great fingers over the water; great silvery bubbles rise
trembling from the bottom, covered with fine velvety moss. You fling
yourself on the ground, you drink, but you are too lazy to stir. You are in the
shade, you drink in the damp fragrance, you take your ease, while the
bushes face you, glowing, and, as it were, turning yellow in the sun. But
what is that? There is a sudden flying gust of wind; the air is astir all about
you: was not that thunder? Is it the heat thickening? Is a storm coming

on?... And now there is a faint flash of lightning.... Ah, this is a storm! The
sun is still blazing; you can still go on hunting. But the storm-cloud grows;
its front edge, drawn out like a long sleeve, bends over into an arch. The
grass, the bushes, everything around grows dark.... Make haste! over there
you think you catch sight of a hay barn... make haste!... You run there, go
in.... What rain! What flashes of lightning! The water drips in through some
hole in the thatch-roof on to the sweet-smelling hay.... But now the sun is
shining bright again. The storm is over; you come out. My God, the joyous
sparkle of everything! the fresh, limpid air, the scent of raspberries and
mushrooms! And then the evening comes on. There is the blaze of fire
glowing and covering half the sky. The sun sets: the air near has a peculiar
transparency as of crystal; over the distance lies a soft, warm-looking haze;
with the dew a crimson light is shed on the fields, lately plunged in floods
of limpid gold; from trees and bushes and high stacks of hay run long
shadows.... The sun has set: a star gleams and quivers in the fiery sea of the
sunset... and now it pales; the sky grows blue; the separate shadows vanish;
the air is plunged in darkness. It is time to turn homewards to the village, to
the hut, where you will stay the night. Shouldering your gun, you move
briskly, in spite of fatigue.... Meanwhile, the night comes on: now you
cannot see twenty paces from you; the dogs show faintly white in the dark.
Over there, above the black bushes, there is a vague brightness on the
horizon.... What is it?--a fire?... No, it is the moon rising. And away below,
to the right, the village lights are twinkling already.... And here at last is
your hut. Through the tiny window you see a table, with a white cloth, a
candle burning, supper....

Another time you order the racing droshky to be got out, and set off to
the forest to shoot woodcock. It is pleasant making your way along the
narrow path between two high walls of rye. The ears softly strike you in the
face; the cornflowers cling round your legs; the quails call around; the horse
moves along at a lazy trot. And here is the forest, all shade and silence.
Graceful aspens rustle high above you; the long-hanging branches of the
birches scarcely stir; a mighty oak stands like a champion beside a lovely
lime-tree. You go along the green path, streaked with shade; great yellow
flies stay suspended, motionless, in the sunny air, and suddenly dart away;
midges hover in a cloud, bright in the shade, dark in the sun; the birds are
singing peacefully; the golden little voice of the warbler sings of innocent,

babbling joyousness, in sweet accord with the scent of the lilies of the
valley. Further, further, deeper into the forest... the forest grows more
dense.... An unutterable stillness falls upon the soul within; without, too, all
is still and dreamy. But now a wind has sprung up, and the tree-tops are
booming like falling waves. Here and there, through last year's brown
leaves, grow tall grasses; funguses stand apart under their wide-brimmed
hats. All at once a hare skips out; the dog scurries after it with a resounding
bark....

And how fair is this same forest in late autumn, when the snipe are on
the wing! They do not keep in the heart of the forest; one must look for
them along the outskirts. There is no wind, and no sun; no light, no shade,
no movement, no sound: the autumn perfume, like the perfume of wine, is
diffused in the soft air; a delicate haze hangs over the yellow fields in the
distance. The still sky is a peacefully untroubled white through the bare
brown branches; in parts, on the limes, hang the last golden leaves. The
damp earth is elastic under your feet; the high dry blades of grass do not
stir; long threads lie shining on the blanched turf, white with dew. You
breathe tranquilly; but there is a strange tremor in the soul. You walk along
the forest's edge, look after your dog, and meanwhile loved forms, loved
faces dead and living, come to your mind; long, long slumbering
impressions unexpectedly awaken; the fancy darts off and soars like a bird;
and all moves so clearly and stands out before your eyes. The heart at one
time throbs and beats, plunging passionately forward; at another it is
drowned beyond recall in memories. Your whole life, as it were, unrolls
lightly and rapidly before you: a man at such times possesses all his past, all
his feelings and his powers--all his soul; and there is nothing around to
hinder him--no sun, no wind, no sound....

And a clear, rather cold autumn day, with a frost in the morning, when
the birch, all golden like some tree in a fairy tale, stands out picturesquely
against the pale blue sky; when the sun, standing low in the sky, does not
warm, but shines more brightly than in summer; the small aspen copse is all
a-sparkle through and through, as though it were glad and at ease in its
nakedness; the hoar-frost is still white at the bottom of the hollows; while a
fresh wind softly stirs up and drives before it the falling, crumpled leaves;
when blue ripples whisk gladly along the river, lifting rhythmically the

heedless geese and ducks; in the distance the mill creaks, half-hidden by the
willows; and with changing colours in the clear air the pigeons wheel in
swift circles above it....

Sweet, too, are dull days in summer, though the sportsmen do not like
them. On such days one can't shoot the bird that flutters up from under your
very feet, and vanishes at once in the whitish dark of the hanging fog. But
how peaceful, how unutterably peaceful it is everywhere! Everything is
awake, and everything is hushed. You pass by a tree: it does not stir a leaf; it
is musing in repose. Through the thin steamy mist, evenly diffused in the
air, there is a long streak of black before you. You take it for a neighbouring
copse close at hand; you go up--the copse is transformed into a high row of
wormwood in the boundary-ditch. Above you, around you, on all sides--
mist.... But now a breeze is faintly astir; a patch of pale-blue sky peeps
dimly out; through the thinning, as it were, smoky mist, a ray of golden
yellow sunshine breaks out suddenly, flows in a long stream, strikes on the
fields and in the copse--and now everything is overcast again. For long this
struggle is drawn out, but how unutterably brilliant and magnificent the day
becomes when at last light triumphs and the last waves of the warmed mist
here unroll and are drawn out over the plains, there wind away and vanish
into the deep, tenderly shining heights....

Again you set off into outlying country, to the steppe. For some ten miles
you make your way over cross-roads, and here at last is the high-road. Past
endless trains of waggons, past wayside taverns, with the hissing samovar
under a shed, wide-open gates and a well, from one hamlet to another;
across endless fields, alongside green hempfields, a long, long time you
drive. The magpies flutter from willow to willow; peasant women with long
rakes in their hands wander in the fields; a man in a threadbare nankin
overcoat, with a wicker pannier over his shoulder, trudges along with weary
step; a heavy country coach, harnessed with six tall, broken-winded horses,
rolls to meet you. The corner of a cushion is sticking out of a window, and
on a sack up behind, hanging on to a string, perches a groom in a fur-cloak,
splashed with mud to his very eyebrows. And here is the little district town
with its crooked little wooden houses, its endless fences, its empty stone
shops, its old-fashioned bridge over a deep ravine.... On, on!... The steppe
country is reached at last. You look from a hill-top: what a view! Round low

hills, tilled and sown to their very tops, are seen in broad undulations;
ravines, overgrown with bushes, wind coiling among them; small copses are
scattered like oblong islands; from village to village run narrow paths;
churches stand out white; between willow-bushes glimmers a little river, in
four places dammed up by dykes; far off, in a field, in a line, an old manor-
house, with its outhouses, fruit-garden, and threshing-floor, huddles close
up to a small lake. But on, on you go. The hills are smaller and ever
smaller; there is scarcely a tree to be seen. Here it is at last--the boundless,
untrodden steppe!

And on a winter day to walk over the high snowdrifts after hares; to
breathe the keen frosty air, while half-closing the eyes involuntarily at the
fine blinding sparkle of the soft snow; to admire the emerald sky above the
reddish forest!... And the first spring day when everything is shining, and
breaking up, when across the heavy streams, from the melting snow, there is
already the scent of the thawing earth; when on the bare thawed places,
under the slanting sunshine, the larks are singing confidingly, and, with glad
splash and roar, the torrents roll from ravine to ravine....

But it is time to end. By the way, I have spoken of spring: in spring it is
easy to part; in spring even the happy are drawn away to the distance....
Farewell, reader! I wish you unbroken prosperity.

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