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A Desperate Character and Other Stories

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev · English · Gutenberg #8871 · 423,232 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Desperate Character and Other Stories

Author: Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Translator: Constance Garnett


        
Release date: September 1, 2005 [eBook #8871]
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Language: English

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A DESPERATE CHARACTER, AND OTHER STORIES

By Ivan Turgenev

Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett


1899


THE NOVELS OF IVAN TURGENEV

Complete in Fifteen Volumes.

           i. Rudin.
          ii. A House of Gentlefolk.
         iii. On the Eve.
          iv. Fathers and Children.
           v. Smoke.
   vi. & vii. Virgin Soil. 2 Vols.
  viii, & ix. A Sportsman’s Sketches. 2 Vols.
           x. Dream Tales and Prose Poems.
          xi. The Torrents of Spring and other Stories.
         xii. A Lear of the Steppes and other Stories.
        xiii. The Diary of a Superfluous Man and other Stories.
         xiv. A Desperate Character and other Tales.
          xv. The Jew and other Stories.



TO JOSEPH CONRAD

WHOSE ART IN ESSENCE OFTEN RECALLS

THE ART AND ESSENCE OF TURGENEV




INTRODUCTION

The six tales now translated for the English reader were written by
Turgenev at various dates between 1847 and 1881. Their chronological
order is:--


_Pyetushkov_,  1847

_The Brigadier_,  1867

_A Strange Story_,  1869

_Punin and Baburin_,  1874

_Old Portraits_,  1881

_A Desperate Character_,  1881


_Pyetushkov_ is the work of a young man of twenty-nine, and its lively,
unstrained realism is so bold, intimate, and delicate as to contradict
the flattering compliment that the French have paid to one another--that
Turgenev had need to dress his art by the aid of French mirrors.

Although _Pyetushkov_ shows us, by a certain open _naïveté_ of style,
that a youthful hand is at work, it is the hand of a young master,
carrying out the realism of the ‘forties’--that of Gogol, Balzac, and
Dickens--straightway, with finer point, to find a perfect equilibrium
free from any bias or caricature. The whole strength and essence of the
realistic method has been developed in _Pyetushkov_ to its just limits.
The Russians are _instinctive_ realists, and carry the warmth of life
into their pages, which warmth the French seem to lose in clarifying
their impressions and crystallising them in art. _Pyetushkov_ is not
exquisite: it is irresistible. Note how the reader is transported bodily
into Pyetushkov’s stuffy room, and how the major fairly boils out of the
two pages he lives in! (pp. 301, 302). That is _realism_ if you like. A
woman will see the point of _Pyetushkov_ very quickly. Onisim and
Vassilissa and the aunt walk and chatter around the stupid Pyetushkov,
and glance at him significantly in a manner that reveals everything
about these people’s world. All the servants who appear in the tales in
this volume are hit off so marvellously that one sees the lower-class
world, which is such a mystery to certain refined minds, has no secrets
for Turgenev.

Of a different, and to our taste more fascinating, _genre_ is _The
Brigadier_. It is greater art because life’s prosaic growth is revealed
not merely realistically, but also poetically, life as a tiny part of
the great universe around it. The tale is a microcosm of Turgenev’s own
nature; his love of Nature, his tender sympathy for all humble, ragged,
eccentric, despised human creatures; his unfaltering keenness of gaze
into character, his fine sense of proportion, mingle in. _The
Brigadier_, to create for us a sense of the pitiableness of man’s tiny
life, of the mere human seed which springs and spreads a while on earth,
and dies under the menacing gaze of the advancing years. ‘Out of the
sweetness came forth strength’ is perhaps the best saying by which one
can define Turgenev’s peculiar merits in _The Brigadier_.

_Punin and Baburin_ presents to us again one of those ragged ones, one
of ‘the poor in spirit,’ the idealist Punin, a character whose portrait
challenges Dostoievsky’s skill on the latter’s own ground. That
delicious Punin! and that terrible grandmother’s scene with Baburin! How
absolutely Slav is the blending of irony and kindness in the treatment
of Punin, Cucumber, and Pyetushkov, few English readers will understand.
All the characters in _Punin and Baburin_ are so strongly drawn, so
intensely alive, that, like Rembrandt’s portraits, they make the living
people, who stand looking at them, absurdly grey and lifeless by
comparison! Baburin is a Nihilist before the times of Nihilism, he is a
type of the strong characters that arose later in the movement of the
‘eighties.’

A pre-Nihilistic type is also the character of Sophie in _A Strange
Story_. But the chief value of this last psychological study is that it
gives the English mind a clue to the fundamental distinction that marks
off the Russian people from the peoples of the West. Sophie’s
words--‘You spoke of the will--that’s what must be broken’ (p.
61)--define most admirably the deepest aspiration of the Russian soul.
To be lowly and suffering, to be despised, sick, to be under the lash of
fate, to be trampled under foot by others, _to be_ unworthy, all this
secret desire of the Russian soul implies that the Russian has little
_will_, that he finds it easier to resign himself than to make the
effort to be powerful, triumphant, worthy. It is from the resignation
and softness of the Russian nature that all its characteristic virtues
spring. Whereas religion with the English mind is largely an anxiety to
be moral, to be _right_ and righteous, to be ‘a chosen vessel of the
Lord,’ religion with the Russian implies a genuine abasement and loss of
self, a bowing before the will of Heaven, and true brotherly love. The
Western mind rises to greatness by concentrating the will-power in
action, by assertion of all its inner force, by shutting out forcibly
whatever might dominate or distract or weaken it. But the Russian mind,
through its lack of character, will-power, and hardness, rises to
greatness in its acceptance of life, and in its sympathy with all the
unfortunate, the wretched, the poor in spirit. Of course in practical
life the Russian lacks many of the useful virtues the Western peoples
possess and has most of their vices; but certainly his pity, charity,
and brotherliness towards men more unfortunate than himself largely
spring from his fatalistic acceptance of his own unworthiness and
weakness. So in Sophie’s case the desire for self-sacrifice, and her
impregnable conviction that to suffer and endure is _right_, is truly
Russian in the sense of letting the individuality go _with_ the stream
of fate, not _against_ it. And hence the formidable spirit of the
youthful generation that sacrificed itself in the Nihilistic movement:
the strenuous action of ‘the youth’ once set in movement, the spirit of
self-sacrifice impelled it calmly towards its goal despite all the
forces and threats of fate. Sophie is indeed an early Nihilist born
before her time.

We have said that the lack of will in the Russian nature is at the root
of Russian virtues and vices, and in this connection it is curious to
remark that a race’s soul seems often to grow out of the race’s
_aspiration towards what it is not in life_. Is not the French
intellect, for example, so cool, clear-headed, so delicately analytic of
its own motives, that through the principle of _counterpoise_ it strives
to lose itself and release itself in continual rhetoric and emotional
positions? Is not the German mind so alive to the material facts of
life, to the necessity of getting hold of concrete advantages in life,
and of not letting them go, that it deliberately slackens the bent bow,
and plunges itself and relaxes itself in floods of abstractions, and
idealisations, and dreams of sentimentality? Assuredly it is because the
Russian is so inwardly discontented with his own actions that he is such
a keen and incisive critic of everything _false_ and exaggerated, that
he despises all French rhetoric and German sentimentalism. And in this
sense it is that the Russian’s lack of will comes in to deepen his soul.
He surrenders himself thereby to the universe, and, as do the Asiatics,
does not let the tiny shadow of his fate, dark though it may be, shut
out the universe so thoroughly from his consciousness, as does the
aggressive struggling will-power of the Western man striving to let his
individuality have full play. The Russian’s attitude may indeed be
compared to a bowl which catches and sustains what life brings it; and
the Western man’s to a bowl inverted to ward off what drops from the
impassive skies. The mental attitude of the Russian peasant indeed
implies that in blood he is nearer akin to the Asiatics than Russian
ethnologists have wished to allow. Certainly in the inner life of
thought, intellectually, morally, and emotionally, he is a half-way
house between the Western and Eastern races, just as geographically he
spreads over the two continents. By natural law his destiny calls him
towards the East. Should he one day spread his rule further and further
among the Asiatics and hold the keys of an immense Asiatic empire, well!
future English philosophers may feel thereat a curious fatalistic
satisfaction.

EDWARD GARNETT.

_October_ 1899.




CONTENTS


     A DESPERATE CHARACTER
     A STRANGE STORY
     PUNIN AND BABURIN
     OLD PORTRAITS
     THE BRIGADIER
     PYETUSHKOV





A DESPERATE CHARACTER




I


... We were a party of eight in the room, and we were talking of
contemporary affairs and men.

‘I don’t understand these men!’ observed A.: ‘they’re such desperate
fellows.... Really desperate.... There has never been anything like
it before.’

‘Yes, there has,’ put in P., a man getting on in years, with grey hair,
born some time in the twenties of this century: ‘there were desperate
characters in former days too, only they were not like the desperate
fellows of to-day. Of the poet Yazikov some one has said that he had
enthusiasm, but not applied to anything--an enthusiasm without an
object. So it was with those people--their desperateness was without an
object. But there, if you’ll allow me, I’ll tell you the story of my
nephew, or rather cousin, Misha Poltyev. It may serve as an example of
the desperate characters of those days.

He came into God’s world, I remember, in 1828, at his father’s native
place and property, in one of the sleepiest corners of a sleepy province
of the steppes. Misha’s father, Andrei Nikolaevitch Poltyev, I remember
well to this day. He was a genuine old-world landowner, a God-fearing,
sedate man, fairly--for those days--well educated, just a little
cracked, to tell the truth--and, moreover, he suffered from epilepsy....
That too is an old-world, gentlemanly complaint.... Andrei
Nikolaevitch’s fits were, however, slight, and generally ended in sleep
and depression. He was good-hearted, and of an affable demeanour, not
without a certain stateliness: I always pictured to myself the tsar
Mihail Fedorovitch as like him. The whole life of Andrei Nikolaevitch
was passed in the punctual fulfilment of every observance established
from old days, in strict conformity with all the usages of the old
orthodox holy Russian mode of life. He got up and went to bed, ate his
meals, and went to his bath, rejoiced or was wroth (both very rarely, it
is true), even smoked his pipe and played cards (two great
innovations!), not after his own fancy, not in a way of his own, but
according to the custom and ordinance of his fathers--with due decorum
and formality. He was tall, well built, and stout; his voice was soft
and rather husky, as is so often the case with virtuous people in
Russia; he was scrupulously neat in his dress and linen, and wore white
cravats and full-skirted snuff-coloured coats, but his noble blood was
nevertheless evident; no one could have taken him for a priest’s son or
a merchant! At all times, on all possible occasions, and in all possible
contingencies, Andrei Nikolaevitch knew without fail what ought to be
done, what was to be said, and precisely what expressions were to be
used; he knew when he ought to take medicine, and just what he ought to
take; what omens were to be believed and what might be disregarded ...
in fact, he knew everything that ought to be done.... For as everything
had been provided for and laid down by one’s elders, one had only to be
sure not to imagine anything of one’s self.... And above all, without
God’s blessing not a step to be taken!--It must be confessed that a
deadly dulness reigned supreme in his house, in those low-pitched, warm,
dark rooms, that so often resounded with the singing of liturgies and
all-night services, and had the smell of incense and Lenten dishes
almost always hanging about them!

Andrei Nikolaevitch--no longer in his first youth--married a young
lady of a neighbouring family, without fortune, a very nervous and
sickly person, who had had a boarding-school education. She played the
piano fairly, spoke boarding-school French, was easily moved to
enthusiasm, and still more easily to melancholy and even tears....
She was of unbalanced character, in fact. She regarded her life as
wasted, could not care for her husband, who, ‘of course,’ did not
understand her; but she respected him, ... she put up with him; and
being perfectly honest and perfectly cold, she never even dreamed of
another ‘affection.’ Besides, she was always completely engrossed in
the care, first, of her own really delicate health, secondly, of the
health of her husband, whose fits always inspired in her something
like superstitious horror, and lastly, of her only son, Misha, whom
she brought up herself with great zeal. Andrei Nikolaevitch did not
oppose his wife’s looking after Misha, on the one condition of his
education never over-stepping the lines laid down, once and for all,
within which everything must move in his house! Thus, for instance, at
Christmas-time, and at New Year, and St. Vassily’s eve, it was
permissible for Misha to dress up and masquerade with the servant
boys--and not only permissible, but even a binding duty.... But, at
any other time, God forbid! and so on, and so on.




II


I remember Misha at thirteen. He was a very pretty boy, with rosy little
cheeks and soft lips (indeed he was soft and plump-looking all over),
with prominent liquid eyes, carefully brushed and combed, caressing and
modest--a regular little girl! There was only one thing about him I did
not like: he rarely laughed; but when he did laugh, his teeth--large
white teeth, pointed like an animal’s--showed disagreeably, and the
laugh itself had an abrupt, even savage, almost animal sound, and there
were unpleasant gleams in his eyes. His mother was always praising him
for being so obedient and well behaved, and not caring to make friends
with rude boys, but always preferring feminine society. ‘A mother’s
darling, a milksop,’ his father, Andrei Nikolaevitch, would call him;
‘but he’s always ready to go into the house of God.... And that I am
glad to see.’ Only one old neighbour, who had been a police captain,
once said before me, speaking of Misha, ‘Mark my words, he’ll be a
rebel.’ And this saying, I remember, surprised me very much at the time.
The old police captain, it is true, used to see rebels on all sides.

Just such an exemplary youth Misha continued to be till the eighteenth
year of his age, up to the death of his parents, both of whom he lost
almost on the same day. As I was all the while living constantly at
Moscow, I heard nothing of my young kinsman. An acquaintance coming from
his province did, it is true, inform me that Misha had sold the paternal
estate for a trifling sum; but this piece of news struck me as too
wildly improbable! And behold, all of a sudden, one autumn morning there
flew into the courtyard of my house a carriage, with a pair of splendid
trotting horses, and a coachman of monstrous size on the box; and in the
carriage, wrapped in a cloak of military cut, with a beaver collar two
yards deep, and with a foraging cap cocked on one side, _à la diable
m’emporte_, sat ... Misha! On catching sight of me (I was standing at
the drawing-room window, gazing in astonishment at the flying equipage),
he laughed his abrupt laugh, and jauntily flinging back his cloak, he
jumped out of the carriage and ran into the house.

‘Misha! Mihail Andreevitch!’ I was beginning, ... ‘Is it you?’

‘Call me Misha,’--he interrupted me. ‘Yes, it’s I, ... I, in my own
person.... I have come to Moscow ... to see the world ... and show
myself. And here I am, come to see you. What do you say to my
horses?... Eh?’ he laughed again.

Though it was seven years since I had seen Misha last, I recognised him
at once. His face had remained just as youthful and as pretty as
ever--there was no moustache even visible; only his cheeks looked a
little swollen under his eyes, and a smell of spirits came from his
lips. ‘Have you been long in Moscow?’ I inquired.

‘I supposed you were at home in the country, looking after the
place.’ ...

‘Eh! The country I threw up at once! As soon as my parents died--may
their souls rest in peace--(Misha crossed himself scrupulously, without
a shade of mockery) at once, without a moment’s delay, ... _ein, zwei,
drei!_ ha, ha! I let it go cheap, damn it! A rascally fellow turned up.
But it’s no matter! Anyway, I am living as I fancy, and amusing other
people. But why are you staring at me like that? Was I, really, to go
dragging on in the same old round, do you suppose? ... My dear fellow,
couldn’t I have a glass of something?’

Misha spoke fearfully quick and hurriedly, and, at the same time, as
though he were only just waked up from sleep.

‘Misha, upon my word!’ I wailed; ‘have you no fear of God? What do you
look like? What an attire! And you ask for a glass too! And to sell such
a fine estate for next to nothing....’

‘God I fear always, and do not forget,’ he broke in.... ‘But He is good,
you know--God is.... He will forgive! And I am good too.... I have
never yet hurt any one in my life. And drink is good too; and as for
hurting,... it never hurt any one either. And my get-up is quite the most
correct thing.... Uncle, would you like me to show you I can walk
straight? Or to do a little dance?’

‘Oh, spare me, please! A dance, indeed! You’d better sit down.’

‘As to that, I’ll sit down with pleasure.... But why do you say nothing
of my greys? Just look at them, they’re perfect lions! I’ve got them on
hire for the time, but I shall buy them for certain, ... and the
coachman too.... It’s ever so much cheaper to have one’s own horses. And
I had the money, but I lost it yesterday at faro. It’s no matter, I’ll
make it up to-morrow. Uncle, ... how about that little glass?’

I was still unable to get over my amazement. ‘Really, Misha, how old are
you? You ought not to be thinking about horses or cards, ... but going
into the university or the service.’

Misha first laughed again, then gave vent to a prolonged whistle.

‘Well, uncle, I see you’re in a melancholy humour to-day. I’ll come
back another time. But I tell you what: you come in the evening to
Sokolniki. I’ve a tent pitched there. The gypsies sing, ... such
goings-on.... And there’s a streamer on the tent, and on the streamer,
written in large letters: “The Troupe of Poltyev’s Gypsies.” The
streamer coils like a snake, the letters are of gold, attractive for
every one to read. A free entertainment--whoever likes to come! ... No
refusal! I’m making the dust fly in Moscow ... to my glory! ... Eh? will
you come? Ah, I’ve one girl there ... a serpent! Black as your boot,
spiteful as a dog, and eyes ... like living coals! One can never tell
what she’s going to do--kiss or bite! ... Will you come, uncle? ...
Well, good-bye, till we meet!’

And with a sudden embrace, and a smacking kiss on my shoulder, Misha
darted away into the courtyard, and into the carriage, waved his cap
over his head, hallooed,--the monstrous coachman leered at him over his
beard, the greys dashed off, and all vanished!

The next day I--like a sinner--set off to Sokolniki, and did actually
see the tent with the streamer and the inscription. The drapery of the
tent was raised; from it came clamour, creaking, and shouting. Crowds of
people were thronging round it. On a carpet spread on the ground sat
gypsies, men and women, singing and beating drums, and in the midst of
them, in a red silk shirt and velvet breeches, was Misha, holding a
guitar, dancing a jig. ‘Gentlemen! honoured friends! walk in, please!
the performance is just beginning! Free to all!’ he was shouting in a
high, cracked voice. ‘Hey! champagne! pop! a pop on the head! pop up to
the ceiling! Ha! you rogue there, Paul de Kock!’

Luckily he did not see me, and I hastily made off.

I won’t enlarge on my astonishment at the spectacle of this
transformation. But, how was it actually possible for that quiet and
modest boy to change all at once into a drunken buffoon? Could it all
have been latent in him from childhood, and have come to the surface
directly the yoke of his parents’ control was removed? But that he had
made the dust fly in Moscow, as he expressed it--of that, certainly,
there could be no doubt. I have seen something of riotous living in my
day; but in this there was a sort of violence, a sort of frenzy of
self-destruction, a sort of desperation!




III


For two months these diversions continued.... And once more I was
standing at my drawing-room window, looking into the courtyard.... All
of a sudden--what could it mean? ... there came slowly stepping in at the
gate a pilgrim ... a squash hat pulled down on his forehead, his hair
combed out straight to right and left below it, a long gown, a leather
belt ... Could it be Misha? He it was!

I went to meet him on the steps.... ‘What’s this masquerade for?’
I demanded.

‘It’s not a masquerade, uncle,’ Misha answered with a deep sigh: since
all I had I’ve squandered to the last farthing--and a great repentance
too has come upon me--so I have resolved to go to the Sergiev monastery
of the Holy Trinity to expiate my sins in prayer. For what refuge was
left me? ... And so I have come to you to say good-bye, uncle, like a
prodigal son.’

I looked intently at Misha. His face was just the same, rosy and fresh
(indeed it remained almost unchanged to the end), and the eyes, liquid,
affectionate, and languishing--and the hands, as small and white.... But
he smelt of spirits.

‘Well,’ I pronounced at last, ‘it’s a good thing to do--since there’s
nothing else to be done. But why is it you smell of spirits?’

‘A relic of the past,’ answered Misha, and he suddenly laughed, but
immediately pulled himself up, and, making a straight, low bow--a monk’s
bow--he added: ‘Won’t you help me on my way? I’m going, see, on foot to
the monastery....’

‘When?’

‘To-day ... at once.’

‘Why be in such a hurry?’

‘Uncle, my motto always was, “Make haste, make haste!”’

‘But what is your motto now?’

‘It’s the same now.... Only, make haste towards _good_!’

And so Misha went off, leaving me to ponder on the vicissitudes of
human destiny.

But he soon reminded me of his existence. Two months after his visit, I
got a letter from him, the first of those letters, of which later on he
furnished me with so abundant a supply. And note a peculiar fact: I
have seldom seen a neater, more legible handwriting than that
unbalanced fellow’s. And the wording of his letters was exceedingly
correct, just a little flowery. Invariable entreaties for assistance,
always attended with resolutions to reform, vows, and promises on his
honour.... All of it seemed--and perhaps was--sincere. Misha’s
signature to his letters was always accompanied by peculiar strokes,
flourishes, and stops, and he made great use of marks of exclamation.
In this first letter Misha informed me of a new ‘turn in his fortune.’
(Later on he used to refer to these turns as plunges, ... and frequent
were the plunges he took.) He was starting for the Caucasus on active
service for his tsar and his country in the capacity of a cadet! And,
though a certain benevolent aunt had entered into his impecunious
position, and had sent him an inconsiderable sum, still he begged me to
assist him in getting his equipment. I did what he asked, and for two
years I heard nothing more of him.

I must own I had the gravest doubts as to his having gone to the
Caucasus. But it turned out that he really had gone there, had, by
favour, got into the T---- regiment as a cadet, and had been serving in
it for those two years. A perfect series of legends had sprung up there
about him. An officer of his regiment related them to me.




IV


I learned a great deal which I should never have expected of him.--I
was, of course, hardly surprised that as a military man, as an officer,
he was not a success, that he was in fact worse than useless; but what I
had not anticipated was that he was by no means conspicuous for much
bravery; that in battle he had a downcast, woebegone air, seemed
half-depressed, half-bewildered. Discipline of every sort worried him,
and made him miserable; he was daring to the point of insanity when only
his _own personal_ safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him to
accept; but do harm to others, kill, fight, he could not, possibly
because his heart was too good--or possibly because his ‘cottonwool’
education (so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself he was
quite ready to murder in any way at any moment.... But others--no.
‘There’s no making him out,’ his comrades said of him; ‘he’s a flabby
creature, a poor stick--and yet such a desperate fellow--a perfect
madman!’ I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit
drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his life, and so
on. He always had one answer--‘wretchedness.’

‘But why are you wretched?’

‘Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one’s self, begins to
feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well,
it’s all over with me! ... one’s so wretched at once--one wants to put a
bullet through one’s head! One’s forced to start drinking.’

‘Why ever do you drag Russia in?’

‘How can I help it? Can’t be helped! That’s why I’m afraid to think.’

‘It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.’

‘But I don’t know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one’s
life, and stake it on a card--that I can do! Come, you tell me what I
ought to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I’ll ...’

‘But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?’

‘I can’t! You say I act thoughtlessly.... But what else can I do? ... If
one starts thinking--good God, all that comes into one’s head! It’s only
Germans who can think! ...’

What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate man, and that’s all
one can say.

Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will tell you two or
three. One day, in a party of officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre
he had got by exchange--‘a genuine Persian blade!’ The officers
expressed doubts as to its genuineness. Misha began disputing. ‘Here
then,’ he cried at last; ‘they say the man that knows most about sabres
is Abdulka the one-eyed. I’ll go to him, and ask.’ The officers
wondered. ‘What Abdulka? Do you mean that lives in the mountains? The
rebel never subdued? Abdul-khan?’ ‘Yes, that’s him.’ ‘Why, but he’ll
take you for a spy, will put you in a hole full of bugs, or else cut
your head off with your own sabre. And, besides, how are you going to
get to him? They’ll catch you directly.’ ‘I’ll go to him, though, all
the same.’ ‘Bet you won’t!’ ‘Taken!’ And Misha promptly saddled his
horse and rode off to Abdulka. He disappeared for three days. All felt
certain that the crazy fellow had come by his end. But, behold! he came
back--drunk, and with a sabre, not the one he had taken, but another.
They began questioning him. ‘It was all right,’ said he; ‘Abdulka’s a
nice fellow. At first, it’s true, he ordered them to put irons on my
legs, and was even on the point of having me impaled. Only, I explained
why I had come, and showed him the sabre. “And you’d better not keep
me,” said I; “don’t expect a ransom for me; I’ve not a farthing to bless
myself with--and I’ve no relations.” Abdulka was surprised; he looked at
me with his solitary eye. “Well,” said he, “you are a bold one, you
Russian; am I to believe you?” “You may believe me,” said I; “I never
tell a lie.” (And this was true; Misha never lied.) Abdulka looked at me
again. “And do you know how to drink wine?” “I do,” said I; “give me as
much as you will, I’ll drink it.” Abdulka was surprised again; he called
on Allah. And he told his--daughter, I suppose--such a pretty creature,
only with an eye like a jackal’s--to bring a wine-skin. And I began to
get to work on it. “But your sabre,” said he, “isn’t genuine; here, take
the real thing. And now we are pledged friends.” But you’ve lost your
bet, gentlemen; pay up.’

The second legend of Misha is of this nature. He was passionately fond
of cards; but as he had no money, and could never pay his debts at cards
(though he was never a card-sharper), no one at last would sit down to a
game with him. So one day he began urgently begging one of his comrades
among the officers to play with him! ‘But if you lose, you don’t pay.’
‘The money certainly I can’t pay, but I’ll put a shot through my left
hand, see, with this pistol here!’ ‘But whatever use will that be to
me?’ ‘No use, but still it will be curious.’ This conversation took
place after a drinking bout in the presence of witnesses. Whether it was
that Misha’s proposition struck the officer as really curious--anyway he
agreed. Cards were brought, the game began. Misha was in luck; he won a
hundred roubles. And thereupon his opponent struck his forehead with
vexation. ‘What an ass I am!’ he cried, ‘to be taken in like this! As if
you’d have shot your hand if you had lost!--a likely story! hold out
your purse!’ ‘That’s a lie,’ retorted Misha: ‘I’ve won--but I’ll shoot
my hand.’ He snatched up his pistol--and bang, fired at his own hand.
The bullet passed right through it ... and in a week the wound had
completely healed.

Another time, Misha was riding with his comrades along a road at
night ... and they saw close to the roadside a narrow ravine like a deep
cleft, dark--so dark you couldn’t see the bottom. ‘Look,’ said one of
the officers, ‘Misha may be a desperate fellow, but he wouldn’t leap
into that ravine.’ ‘Yes, I’d leap in!’ ‘No, you wouldn’t, for I dare say
it’s seventy feet deep, and you might break your neck.’ His friend knew
his weak point--vanity.... There was a great deal of it in Misha. ‘But
I’ll leap in anyway! Would you like to bet on it? Ten roubles.’ ‘Good!’
And the officer had hardly uttered the word, when Misha and his horse
were off--into the ravine--and crashing down over the stones. All were
simply petrified.... A full minute passed, and they heard Misha’s voice,
dimly, as it were rising up out of the bowels of the earth: ‘All right!
fell on the sand ... but it was a long flight! Ten roubles you’ve lost!’

‘Climb out!’ shouted his comrades. ‘Climb out, I dare say!’ echoed
Misha. ‘A likely story! I should like to see you climb out. You’ll have
to go for torches and ropes now. And, meanwhile, to keep up my spirits
while I wait, fling down a flask....’

And so Misha had to stay five hours at the bottom of the ravine; and
when they dragged him out, it turned out that his shoulder was
dislocated. But that in no way troubled him. The next day a bone-setter,
one of the black-smiths, set his shoulder, and he used it as though
nothing had been the matter.

His health in general was marvellous, incredible. I have already
mentioned that up to the time of his death he kept his almost childishly
fresh complexion. Illness was a thing unknown to him, in spite of his
excesses; the strength of his constitution never once showed signs of
giving way. When any other man would infallibly have been seriously ill,
or even have died, he merely shook himself, like a duck in the water,
and was more blooming than ever. Once, also in the Caucasus ... _this_
legend is really incredible, but one may judge from it what Misha was
thought to be capable of.... Well, once, in the Caucasus, in a state of
drunkenness, he fell down with the lower half of his body in a stream of
water; his head and arms were on the bank, out of water. It was
winter-time, there was a hard frost, and when he was found next morning,
his legs and body were pulled out from under a thick layer of ice, which
had formed over them in the night--and he didn’t even catch cold!
Another time--this was in Russia (near Orel, and also in a time of
severe frost)--he was in a tavern outside the town in company with seven
young seminarists (or theological students), and these seminarists were
celebrating their final examination, but had invited Misha, as a
delightful person, a man of ‘inspiration,’ as the phrase was then. A
very great deal was drunk, and when at last the festive party got ready
to depart, Misha, dead drunk, was in an unconscious condition. All the
seven seminarists together had but one three-horse sledge with a high
back; where were they to stow the unresisting body? Then one of the
young men, inspired by classical reminiscences, proposed tying Misha by
his feet to the back of the sledge, as Hector was tied to the chariot of
Achilles! The proposal met with approval ... and jolting up and down
over the holes, sliding sideways down the slopes, with his legs torn and
flayed, and his head rolling in the snow, poor Misha travelled on his
back for the mile and a half from the tavern to the town, and hadn’t as
much as a cough afterwards, hadn’t turned a hair! Such heroic health had
nature bestowed upon him!




V


From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian dress, a
dagger in his sash, a high-peaked cap on his head. This costume he
retained to the end, though he was no longer in the army, from which he
had been discharged for outstaying his leave. He stayed with me,
borrowed a little money ... and forthwith began his ‘plunges,’ his
wanderings, or, as he expressed it, ‘his peregrinations from pillar to
post,’ then came the sudden disappearances and returns, and the showers
of beautifully written letters addressed to people of every possible
description, from an archbishop down to stable-boys and mid-wives! Then
came calls upon persons known and unknown! And this is worth noticing:
when he made these calls, he was never abject and cringing, he never
worried people by begging, but on the contrary behaved with propriety,
and had positively a cheerful and pleasant air, though the inveterate
smell of spirits accompanied him everywhere, and his Oriental costume
gradually changed into rags. ‘Give, and God will reward you, though I
don’t deserve it,’ he would say, with a bright smile and a candid blush;
‘if you don’t give, you’ll be perfectly right, and I shan’t blame you
for it. I shall find food to eat, God will provide! And there are people
poorer than I, and much more deserving of help--plenty, plenty!’ Misha
was particularly successful with women: he knew how to appeal to their
sympathy. But don’t suppose that he was or fancied himself a
Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very modest. Whether it was that
he had inherited a cool temperament from his parents, or whether indeed
this too is to be set down to his dislike for doing any one harm--as,
according to his notions, relations with a woman meant inevitably doing
a woman harm--I won’t undertake to decide; only in all his behaviour
with the fair sex he was extremely delicate. Women felt this, and were
the more ready to sympathise with him and help him, until at last he
revolted them by his drunkenness and debauchery, by the desperateness of
which I have spoken already.... I can think of no other word for it.

But in other relations he had by that time lost every sort of delicacy,
and was gradually sinking to the lowest depths of degradation. He once,
in the public assembly at T----, got as far as setting on the table a
jug with a notice: ‘Any one, to whom it may seem agreeable to give the
high-born nobleman Poltyev (authentic documents in proof of his
pedigree are herewith exposed) a flip on the nose, may satisfy this
inclination on putting a rouble into this jug.’ And I am told there
were persons found willing to pay for the privilege of flipping a
nobleman’s nose! It is true that one such person, who put in only one
rouble and gave him _two_ flips, he first almost strangled, and then
forced to apologise; it is true, too, that part of the money gained in
this fashion he promptly distributed among other poor devils ... but
still, think what a disgrace!

In the course of his ‘peregrinations from pillar to post,’ he made his
way, too, to his ancestral home, which he had sold for next to nothing
to a speculator and money-lender well known in those days. The
money-lender was at home, and hearing of the presence in the
neighbourhood of the former owner, now reduced to vagrancy, he gave
orders not to admit him into the house, and even, in case of necessity,
to drive him away. Misha announced that he would not for his part
consent to enter the house, polluted by the presence of so repulsive a
person; that he would permit no one to drive him away, but was going to
the churchyard to pay his devotions at the grave of his parents. So in
fact he did.

In the churchyard he was joined by an old house-serf, who had once been
his nurse. The money-lender had deprived this old man of his monthly
allowance, and driven him off the estate; since then his refuge had been
a corner in a peasant’s hut. Misha had been too short a time in
possession of his estate to have left behind him a particularly
favourable memory; still the old servant could not resist running to the
churchyard as soon as he heard of his young master’s being there. He
found Misha sitting on the ground between the tombstones, asked for his
hand to kiss, as in old times, and even shed tears on seeing the rags
which clothed the limbs of his once pampered young charge.

Misha gazed long and silently at the old man. ‘Timofay!’ he said at
last; Timofay started.

‘What do you desire?’

‘Have you a spade?’

‘I can get one.... But what do you want with a spade, Mihailo
Andreitch, sir?’

‘I want to dig myself a grave, Timofay, and to lie here for time
everlasting between my father and mother. There’s only this spot left me
in the world. Get a spade!’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Timofay; he went and got it. And Misha began at once
digging in the ground, while Timofay stood by, his chin propped in his
hand, repeating: ‘It’s all that’s left for you and me, master!’

Misha dug and dug, from time to time observing: ‘Life’s not worth
living, is it, Timofay?’

‘It’s not indeed, master.’

The hole was already of a good depth. People saw what Misha was about,
and ran to tell the new owner about it. The money-lender was at first
very angry, wanted to send for the police: ‘This is sacrilege,’ said he.
But afterwards, probably reflecting that it was inconvenient anyway to
have to do with such a madman, and that it might lead to a scandal,--he
went in his own person to the churchyard, and approaching Misha, still
toiling, made him a polite bow. He went on with his digging as though he
had not noticed his successor. ‘Mihail Andreitch,’ began the
money-lender, ‘allow me to ask what you are doing here?’

‘You can see--I am digging myself a grave.’

‘Why are you doing so?’

‘Because I don’t want to live any longer.’

The money-lender fairly threw up his hands in amazement. ‘You don’t
want to live?’

Misha glanced menacingly at the money-lender. ‘That surprises you?
Aren’t you the cause of it all? ... You? ... You? ... Wasn’t it you,
Judas, who robbed me, taking advantage of my childishness? Aren’t you
flaying the peasants’ skins off their backs? Haven’t you taken from
this poor old man his crust of dry bread? Wasn’t it you? ... O God!
everywhere nothing but injustice, and oppression, and evil-doing....
Everything must go to ruin then, and me too! I don’t care for life, I
don’t care for life in Russia!’ And the spade moved faster than ever in
Misha’s hands.

‘Here’s a devil of a business!’ thought the money-lender; ‘he’s
positively burying himself alive.’ ‘Mihail Andreevitch,’ he began
again: ‘listen. I’ve been behaving badly to you, indeed; they told me
falsely of you.’

Misha went on digging.

‘But why be desperate?’

Misha still went on digging, and kept throwing the earth at the
money-lender’s feet, as though to say, ‘Here you are, land-grabber.’

‘Really, you ‘re wrong in this. Won’t you be pleased to come in to have
some lunch, and rest a bit?’

Misha raised his head. ‘So that’s it now! And anything to drink?’

The money-lender was delighted. ‘Why, of course ... I should think so.’

‘You invite Timofay too?’

‘Well, ... yes, him too.’

Misha pondered. ‘Only, mind ... you made me a beggar, you know.... Don’t
think you can get off with one bottle!’

‘Set your mind at rest ... there shall be all you can want.’

Misha got up and flung down the spade.... ‘Well, Timosha,’ said he to
his old nurse; ‘let’s do honour to our host.... Come along.’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered the old man.

And all three started off to the house together. The money-lender knew
the man he had to deal with. At the first start Misha, it is true,
exacted a promise from him to ‘grant all sorts of immunities’ to the
peasants; but an hour later, this same Misha, together with Timofay,
both drunk, were dancing a galop in the big apartments, which still
seemed pervaded by the God-fearing shade of Andrei Nikolaevitch; and an
hour later still, Misha in a dead sleep (he had a very weak head for
spirits), laid in a cart with his high cap and dagger, was being driven
off to the town, more than twenty miles away, and there was flung under
a hedge.... As for Timofay, who could still keep on his legs, and only
hiccupped--him, of course, they kicked out of the house; since they
couldn’t get at the master, they had to be content with the old servant.




VI


Some time passed again, and I heard nothing of Misha.... God knows what
he was doing. But one day, as I sat over the samovar at a
posting-station on the T---- highroad, waiting for horses, I suddenly
heard under the open window of the station room a hoarse voice, uttering
in French the words: ‘Monsieur ... monsieur ... prenez pitié d’un pauvre
gentil-homme ruiné.’ ... I lifted my head, glanced.... The
mangy-looking fur cap, the broken ornaments on the ragged Circassian
dress, the dagger in the cracked sheath, the swollen, but still rosy
face, the dishevelled, but still thick crop of hair.... Mercy on us!
Misha! He had come then to begging alms on the high-roads. I could not
help crying out. He recognised me, started, turned away, and was about
to move away from the window. I stopped him ... but what could I say to
him? Give him a lecture? ... In silence I held out a five-rouble note;
he, also in silence, took it in his still white and plump, though
shaking and dirty hand, and vanished round the corner of the house.

It was a good while before they gave me horses, and I had time to give
myself up to gloomy reflections on my unexpected meeting with Misha; I
felt ashamed of having let him go so unsympathetically.

At last I set off on my way, and half a mile from the station I observed
ahead of me, in the road, a crowd of people moving along with a curious,
as it seemed rhythmic, step. I overtook this crowd--and what did I see?

Some dozen or so beggars, with sacks over their shoulders, were walking
two by two, singing and leaping about, while in front of them danced
Misha, stamping time with his feet, and shouting, ‘Natchiki-tchikaldy,
tchuk, tchuk, tchuk! ... Natchiki-tchikaldy, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk!’
Directly my carriage caught them up, and he saw me, he began at once
shouting, ‘Hurrah! Stand in position! right about face, guard of the
roadside!’

The beggars took up his shout, and halted; while he, with his peculiar
laugh, jumped on to the carriage step, and again yelled: Hurrah!

‘What’s the meaning of this?’ I asked with involuntary astonishment.

‘This? This is my company, my army--all beggars, God’s people, friends
of my heart. Every one of them, thanks to you, has had a glass; and
now we are all rejoicing and making merry! ... Uncle! Do you know it’s
only with beggars, God’s people, that one can live in the world ... by
God, it is!’

I made him no answer ... but at that moment he struck me as such
a kind good creature, his face expressed such childlike
simple-heartedness.... A light seemed suddenly as it were to dawn upon
me, and I felt a pang in my heart.... ‘Get into the carriage,’ I said
to him. He was taken aback....

‘What? Into the carriage?’

‘Yes, get in, get in,’ I repeated; ‘I want to make you a suggestion. Sit
down.... Come along with me.’

‘Well, as you will.’ He sat down. ‘Well, and you, my honoured friends,
my dear comrades,’ he added, addressing the beggars, ‘fare-well, till we
meet again.’ Misha took off his high cap, and bowed low. The beggars all
seemed overawed.... I told the coachman to whip up the horses, and the
carriage rolled off.

The suggestion I wanted to make Misha was this: the idea suddenly
occurred to me to take him with me to my home in the country, about
five-and-twenty miles from that station, to rescue him, or at least to
make an effort to rescue him. ‘Listen, Misha,’ I said; ‘will you come
along and live with me? ... You shall have everything provided you; you
shall have clothes and linen made you; you shall be properly fitted out,
and you shall have money to spend on tobacco, and so on, only on one
condition, that you give up drink.... Do you agree?’

Misha was positively aghast with delight; he opened his eyes wide,
flushed crimson, and suddenly falling on my shoulder, began kissing me,
and repeating in a broken voice, ‘Uncle ... benefactor ... God reward
you.’ ... He burst into tears at last, and taking off his cap fell to
wiping his eyes, his nose, his lips with it.

‘Mind,’ I observed; ‘remember the condition, not to touch strong drink.’

‘Damnation to it!’ he cried, with a wave of both arms, and with this
impetuous movement, I was more than ever conscious of the strong smell
of spirits with which he seemed always saturated.... ‘Uncle, if you
knew what my life has been.... If it hadn’t been for sorrow, a cruel
fate.... But now I swear, I swear, I will mend my ways, I will show
you.... Uncle, I’ve never told a lie--you can ask whom you like.... I’m
honest, but I’m an unlucky fellow, uncle; I’ve known no kindness from
any one....’

Here he broke down finally into sobs. I tried to soothe him, and
succeeded so far that when we reached home Misha had long been lost in a
heavy sleep, with his head on my knees.




VII


He was at once assigned a room for himself, and at once, first thing,
taken to the bath, which was absolutely essential. All his clothes, and
his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he
was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which,
as is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt
themselves to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean,
and fresh, he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such
joyful gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was
completely transformed.... Boys of twelve have faces like that on Easter
Sundays, after the communion, when, thickly pomaded, in new jacket and
starched collars, they come to exchange Easter greetings with their
parents. Misha was continually--with a sort of cautious
incredulity--feeling himself and repeating: ‘What does it mean? ... Am I
in heaven?’ The next day he announced that he had not slept all night,
he had been in such ecstasy.

I had living in my house at that time an old aunt with her niece; both
of them were extremely disturbed when they heard of Misha’s presence;
they could not comprehend how I could have asked him into my house!
There were very ugly rumours about him. But in the first place, I knew
he was always very courteous with ladies; and, secondly, I counted on
his promises of amendment. And, in fact, for the first two days of his
stay under my roof Misha not merely justified my expectations but
surpassed them, while the ladies of the household were simply enchanted
with him. He played piquet with the old lady, helped her to wind her
worsted, showed her two new games of patience; for the niece, who had a
small voice, he played accompaniments on the piano, and read Russian and
French poetry. He told both the ladies lively but discreet anecdotes; in
fact, he showed them every attention, so that they repeatedly expressed
their surprise to me, and the old lady even observed how unjust people
sometimes were.... The things--the things they had said of him ... and
he such a quiet fellow, and so polite ... poor Misha! It is true that at
table ‘poor Misha’ licked his lips in a rather peculiar, hurried way, if
he simply glanced at the bottle. But I had only to shake my finger at
him, and he would turn his eyes upwards, and lay his hand on his
heart ... as if to say, I have sworn.... ‘I am regenerated now,’ he
assured me.... ‘Well, God grant it be so,’ was my thought.... But
this regeneration did not last long.

The first two days he was very talkative and cheerful. But even on the
third day he seemed somehow subdued, though he remained, as before, with
the ladies and tried to entertain them. A half mournful, half dreamy
expression flitted now and then over his face, and the face itself was
paler and looked thinner. ‘Are you unwell?’ I asked him.

‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘my head aches a little.’ On the fourth day he was
completely silent; for the most part he sat in a corner, hanging his
head disconsolately, and his dejected appearance worked upon the
compassionate sympathies of the two ladies, who now, in their turn,
tried to amuse him. At table he ate nothing, stared at his plate, and
rolled up pellets of bread. On the fifth day the feeling of compassion
in the ladies began to be replaced by other emotions--uneasiness and
even alarm. Misha was so strange, he held aloof from people, and kept
moving along close to the walls, as though trying to steal by unnoticed,
and suddenly looking round as though some one had called him. And what
had become of his rosy colour? It seemed covered over by a layer of
earth. ‘Are you still unwell?’ I asked him.

‘No, I’m all right,’ he answered abruptly.

‘Are you dull?’

‘Why should I be dull?’ But he turned away and would not look me
in the face.

‘Or is it that wretchedness come over you again?’ To this he made no
reply. So passed another twenty-four hours.

Next day my aunt ran into my room in a state of great excitement,
declaring that she would leave the house with her niece, if Misha was to
remain in it.

‘Why so?’

‘Why, we are dreadfully scared with him.... He’s not a man, he’s a
wolf,--nothing better than a wolf. He keeps moving and moving about, and
doesn’t speak--and looks so wild.... He almost gnashes his teeth at me.
My Katia, you know, is so nervous.... She was so struck with him the
first day.... I’m in terror for her, and indeed for myself too.’ ... I
didn’t know what to say to my aunt. I couldn’t, anyway, turn Misha out,
after inviting him.

He relieved me himself from my difficult position. The same day,--I was
still sitting in my own room,--suddenly I heard behind me a husky and
angry voice: ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch, Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ I looked round;
Misha was standing in the doorway with a face that was fearful,
black-looking and distorted. ‘Nikolai Nikolaitch!’ he repeated ... (not
‘uncle’ now).

‘What do you want?’

‘Let me go ... at once!’

‘Why?’

‘Let me go, or I shall do mischief, I shall set the house on fire or cut
some one’s throat.’ Misha suddenly began trembling. ‘Tell them to give
me back my clothes, and let a cart take me to the highroad, and let me
have some money, however little!’

‘Are you displeased, then, at anything?’

‘I can’t live like this!’ he shrieked at the top of his voice. ‘I can’t
live in your respectable, thrice-accursed house! It makes me sick, and
ashamed to live so quietly! ... How _you_ manage to endure it!’

‘That is,’ I interrupted in my turn, ‘you mean--you can’t live without
drink....’

‘Well, yes! yes!’ he shrieked again: ‘only let me go to my
brethren, my friends, to the beggars! ... Away from your
respectable, loathsome species!’

I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha’s frenzied
look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs,--it was
all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his
clothes should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking
a note for twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the
table. Misha had begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,--but
on this, suddenly he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck
himself on the breast, the tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering,
‘Uncle! angel! I know I’m a ruined man! thanks! thanks!’ he snatched
up the note and ran away.

An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his
Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses
started, he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his
head, made bow after bow. Just as he was going off, he had given me a
long and warm embrace, and whispered, ‘Benefactor, benefactor ...
there’s no saving me!’ He even ran to the ladies and kissed their hands,
fell on his knees, called upon God, and begged their forgiveness! Katia
I found afterwards in tears.

The coachman, with whom Misha had set off, on coming home informed me
that he had driven him to the first tavern on the highroad--and that
there ‘his honour had stuck,’ had begun treating every one
indiscriminately--and had quickly sunk into unconsciousness.
From that day I never came across Misha again, but his ultimate fate I
learned in the following manner.



VIII


Three years later, I was again at home in the country; all of a sudden a
servant came in and announced that Madame Poltyev was asking to see me.
I knew no Madame Poltyev, and the servant, who made this announcement,
for some unknown reason smiled sarcastically. To my glance of inquiry,
he responded that the lady asking for me was young, poorly dressed, and
had come in a peasant’s cart with one horse, which she was driving
herself! I told him to ask Madame Poltyev up to my room.

I saw a woman of five-and-twenty, in the dress of the small tradesman
class, with a large kerchief on her head. Her face was simple, roundish,
not without charm; she looked dejected and gloomy, and was shy and
awkward in her movements.

‘You are Madame Poltyev?’ I inquired, and I asked her to sit down.

‘Yes,’ she answered in a subdued voice, and she did not sit down. ‘I am
the widow of your nephew, Mihail Andreevitch Poltyev.’

‘Is Mihail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long? But sit down, I
beg.’

She sank into a chair.

‘It’s two months.’

‘And had you been married to him long?’

‘I had been a year with him.’

‘Where have you come from now?’

‘From out Tula way.... There’s a village there,
Znamenskoe-Glushkovo--perhaps you may know it. I am the daughter of the
deacon there. Mihail Andreitch and I lived there.... He lived in my
father’s house. We were a whole year together.’

The young woman’s lips twitched a little, and she put her hand up to
them. She seemed to be on the point of tears, but she controlled
herself, and cleared her throat.

‘Mihail Andreitch,’ she went on: ‘before his death enjoined upon me to
go to you; “You must be sure to go,” said he! And he told me to thank
you for all your goodness, and to give you ... this ... see, this little
thing (she took a small packet out of her pocket) which he always had
about him.... And Mihail Andreitch said, if you would be pleased to
accept it in memory of him, if you would not disdain it.... “There’s
nothing else,” said he, “I can give him” ... that is, you....’

In the packet there was a little silver cup with the monogram of Misha’s
mother. This cup I had often seen in Misha’s hands, and once he had even
said to me, speaking of some poor fellow, that he really was destitute,
since he had neither cup nor bowl, ‘while I, see, have this anyway.’

I thanked her, took the cup, and asked:

‘Of what complaint had Misha died? No doubt....’

Then I bit my tongue ... but the young woman understood my unuttered
hint.... She took a swift glance at me, then looked down again, smiled
mournfully, and said at once: ‘Oh no! he had quite given that up, ever
since he got to know me ... But he had no health at all! ... It was
shattered quite. As soon as he gave up drink, he fell into ill health
directly. He became so steady; he always wanted to help father in his
land or in the garden, ... or any other work there might be ... in spite
of his being of noble birth. But how could he get the strength? ... At
writing, too, he tried to work; as you know, he could do that work
capitally, but his hands shook, and he couldn’t hold the pen properly.
... He was always finding fault with himself; “I’m a white-handed poor
creature,” he would say; “I’ve never done any good to anybody, never
helped, never laboured!” He worried himself very much about that.... He
used to say that our people labour,--but what use are we? ... Ah,
Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a good man--and he was fond of me ... and
I... Ah, pardon me....’

Here the young woman wept outright. I would have consoled her, but I did
not know how.

‘Have you a child left you?’ I asked at last.

She sighed. ‘No, no child.... Is it likely?’ And her tears flowed faster
than ever.

‘And so that was how Misha’s troubled wanderings had ended,’ the old man
P. wound up his narrative. ‘You will agree with me, I am sure, that I’m
right in calling him a desperate character; but you will most likely
agree too that he was not like the desperate characters of to-day;
still, a philosopher, you must admit, would find a family likeness
between him and them. In him and in them there’s the thirst for
self-destruction, the wretchedness, the dissatisfaction.... And what it
all comes from, I leave the philosopher to decide.’


BOUGIVALLE, _November_ 1881.




A STRANGE STORY




I


Fifteen years ago--began H.--official duties compelled me to spend a few
days in the principal town of the province of T----. I stopped at a very
fair hotel, which had been established six months before my arrival by a
Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that it did not flourish
long, which is often the case with us; but I found it still in its full
splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like pistol-shots at night;
the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of soap, and the painted
floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the opinion of the
waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean individual, tended to
prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former valet of Prince
G.’s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and his
self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and slippers
trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and had a
multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of his
moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He
showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating
his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in
life with a rather disillusioned eye. ‘No doubt about it,’ he said to me
one day; ‘ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying
any day!’ His name was Ardalion.

I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion
procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the
joints; but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an
heraldic crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a
country gentleman, an old friend of my father’s, who had been a long
time settled in the town.... I had not met him for twenty years; he had
had time to get married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a
widower and to make his fortune. His business was with government
monopolies, that is to say, he lent contractors for monopolies loans at
heavy interest.... ‘There is always honour in risk,’ they say, though
indeed the risk was small.

In the course of our conversation there came into the room with
hesitating steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of
about seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. ‘Here,’ said my
acquaintance, ‘is my eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She
takes my poor wife’s place, looks after the house, and takes care of her
brothers and sisters.’ I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in
(she meanwhile dropped into a chair without speaking), and thought to
myself that she did not look much like housekeeping or looking after
children. Her face was quite childish, round, with small, pleasing, but
immobile features; the blue eyes, under high, also immobile and
irregular eyebrows, had an intent, almost astonished look, as though
they had just observed something unexpected; the full little mouth with
the lifted upper lip, not only did not smile, but seemed as though
altogether innocent of such a practice; the rosy flush under the tender
skin stood in soft, diffused patches on the cheeks, and neither paled
nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in light clusters each side of
the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, and her arms were pressed
somehow awkwardly and severely against her narrow waist. Her blue gown
fell without folds--like a child’s--to her little feet. The general
impression this girl made upon me was not one of morbidity, but of
something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a shy, provincial
miss, but a creature of a special type--that I could not make out. This
type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully understand it,
and only felt that I had never come across a nature more sincere. Pity
... yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the sight of
this young, serious, keenly alert life--God knows why! ‘Not of this
earth,’ was my thought, though there was nothing exactly ‘ideal’ in the
expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had obviously
come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady of the
house to which her father had referred.

He began to talk of life in the town of T----, of the social amusements
and advantages it offered. ‘We’re very quiet here,’ he observed; ‘the
governor’s a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province is a
bachelor. But there’ll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the day
after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here.
And you’ll see all our _intelligentsi_ too.’

My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using
learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with
respect. Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with
respectability, developes a certain thoughtfulness in men.

‘Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?’ I said, turning to my
friend’s daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice.

‘Papa intends to go,’ she answered, ‘and I with him.’

Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated
every syllable fully, as though she were puzzled.

‘In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.’

She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile.

I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed
steadily upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked
over my shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing
she was looking at behind my back.

I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied
‘soupe-julienne,’ cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry,
black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The
subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my
old acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my
thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom.

‘There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our
town,’ he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at
the same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty
dinner-napkin--a practice peculiar, as you’re doubtless aware, to
servants of superior education. ‘Very little!’

He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its
white face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words:
‘Ve-ry! ve-ry!’ it ticked. ‘No concerts, nor theatres,’ pursued Ardalion
(he had travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in
Paris; he knew much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the
peasants do)--‘nor dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the
nobility and gentry--there is nothing of the kind whatever.’ (He paused
a moment, probably to allow me to observe the choiceness of his
diction.) ‘They positively visit each other but seldom. Every one sits
like a pigeon on its perch. And so it comes to pass that visitors have
simply nowhere to go.’

Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me.

‘But there is one thing,’ he went on, speaking with a drawl, ‘in case
you should feel that way inclined....’

He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did
not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me.

The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came
back, and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear,
and with a playful smile said:

‘Would you not like to behold the dead?’

I stared at him in perplexity.

‘Yes,’ he went on, speaking in a whisper; ‘there is a man like that
here. He’s a simple artisan, and can’t even read and write, but he does
marvellous things. If you, for example, go to him and desire to see any
one of your departed friends, he will be sure to show him you.’

‘How does he do it?’

‘That’s his secret. For though he’s an uneducated man--to speak bluntly,
illiterate--he’s very great in godliness! Greatly respected he is among
the merchant gentry!’

‘And does every one in the town know about this?’

‘Those who need to know; but, there, of course--there’s danger from the
police to be guarded against. Because, say what you will, such doings
are forbidden anyway, and for the common people are a temptation; the
common people--the mob, we all know, quickly come to blows.’

‘Has he shown you the dead?’ I asked Ardalion.

Ardalion nodded. ‘He has; my father he brought before me as if living.’

I stared at Ardalion. He laughed and played with his dinner-napkin, and
condescendingly, but unflinchingly, looked at me.

‘But this is very curious!’ I cried at last. ‘Couldn’t I make the
acquaintance of this artisan?’

‘You can’t go straight to him; but one can act through his mother. She’s
a respectable old woman; she sells pickled apples on the bridge. If you
wish it, I will ask her.’

‘Please do.’

Ardalion coughed behind his hand. ‘And a gratuity, whatever you think
fit, nothing much, of course, should also be handed to her--the old
lady. And I on my side will make her understand that she has nothing to
fear from you, as you are a visitor here, a gentleman--and of course you
can understand that this is a secret, and will not in any case get her
into any unpleasantness.’

Ardalion took the tray in one hand, and with a graceful swing of the
tray and his own person, turned towards the door.

‘So I may reckon upon you!’ I shouted after him.

‘You may trust me!’ I heard his self-satisfied voice say: ‘We’ll talk to
the old woman and transmit you her answer exactly.’

       *       *       *       *       *

I will not enlarge on the train of thought aroused in me by the
extraordinary fact Ardalion had related; but I am prepared to admit that
I awaited the promised reply with impatience. Late in the evening
Ardalion came to me and announced that to his annoyance he could not
find the old woman. I handed him, however, by way of encouragement, a
three-rouble note. The next morning he appeared again in my room with a
beaming countenance; the old woman had consented to see me.

‘Hi! boy!’ shouted Ardalion in the corridor; ‘Hi! apprentice! Come
here!’ A boy of six came up, grimed all over with soot like a kitten,
with a shaved head, perfectly bald in places, in a torn, striped smock,
and huge goloshes on his bare feet. ‘You take the gentleman, you know
where,’ said Ardalion, addressing the ‘apprentice,’ and pointing to me.
‘And you, sir, when you arrive, ask for Mastridia Karpovna.’

The boy uttered a hoarse grunt, and we set off.

       *       *       *       *       *

We walked rather a long while about the unpaved streets of the town of
T----; at last in one of them, almost the most deserted and desolate of
all, my guide stopped before an old two-story wooden house, and wiping
his nose all over his smock-sleeve, said: ‘Here; go to the right.’ I
passed through the porch into the outer passage, stumbled towards my
right, a low door creaked on rusty hinges, and I saw before me a stout
old woman in a brown jacket lined with hare-skin, with a parti-coloured
kerchief on her head.

‘Mastridia Karpovna?’ I inquired.

‘The same, at your service,’ the old woman replied in a piping voice.
‘Please walk in. Won’t you take a chair?’

The room into which the old woman conducted me was so littered up with
every sort of rubbish, rags, pillows, feather-beds, sacks, that one
could hardly turn round in it. The sunlight barely struggled in through
two dusty little windows; in one corner, from behind a heap of boxes
piled on one another, there came a feeble whimpering and wailing.... I
could not tell from what; perhaps a sick baby, or perhaps a puppy. I sat
down on a chair, and the old woman stood up directly facing me. Her face
was yellow, half-transparent like wax; her lips were so fallen in that
they formed a single straight line in the midst of a multitude of
wrinkles; a tuft of white hair stuck out from below the kerchief on her
head, but the sunken grey eyes peered out alertly and cleverly from
under the bony overhanging brow; and the sharp nose fairly stuck out
like a spindle, fairly sniffed the air as if it would say: I’m a smart
one! ‘Well, you’re no fool!’ was my thought. At the same time she smelt
of spirits.

I explained to her the object of my visit, of which, however, as I
observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes
rapidly, and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply,
as though she were making ready to peck.

‘To be sure, to be sure,’ she said at last; ‘Ardalion Matveitch did say
something, certainly; my son Vassinka’s art you were wanting.... But we
can’t be sure, my dear sir....’

‘Oh, why so?’ I interposed. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you may feel
perfectly easy.... I’m not an informer.’

‘Oh, mercy on us,’ the old woman caught me up hurriedly, ‘what do you
mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what
ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it’s some sinful
contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son’s not the one to lend himself to
anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid
indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three
times.) He’s the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province;
the foremost, your honour, he is! And that’s just it: great grace has
been vouchsafed to him. Yes, indeed. It’s not the work of his hands.
It’s from on high, my dear; so it is.’

‘So you agree?’ I asked: ‘when can I see your son?’

The old woman blinked again and shifted her rolled up handkerchief from
one sleeve to the other.

‘Oh, well, sir--well, sir, I can’t say.’

‘Allow me, Mastridia Karpovna, to hand you this,’ I interrupted, and I
gave her a ten-rouble note.

The old woman clutched it at once in her fat, crooked fingers, which
recalled the fleshy claws of an owl, quickly slipped it into her sleeve,
pondered a little, and as though she had suddenly reached a decision,
slapped her thighs with her open hand.

‘Come here this evening a little after seven,’ she said, not in her
previous voice, but in quite a different one, more solemn and subdued;
‘only not to this room, but kindly go straight up to the floor above,
and you’ll find a door to your left, and you open that door; and you’ll
go, your honour, into an empty room, and in that room you’ll see a
chair. Sit you down on that chair and wait; and whatever you see, don’t
utter a word and don’t do anything; and please don’t speak to my son
either; for he’s but young yet, and he suffers from fits. He’s very
easily scared; he’ll tremble and shake like any chicken ... a sad
thing it is!’

I looked at Mastridia. ‘You say he’s young, but since he’s your son ...’

‘In the spirit, sir, in the spirit. Many’s the orphan I have under my
care!’ she added, wagging her head in the direction of the corner, from
which came the plaintive whimper. ‘O--O God Almighty, holy Mother of
God! And do you, your honour, before you come here, think well which of
your deceased relations or friends--the kingdom of Heaven to
them!--you’re desirous of seeing. Go over your deceased friends, and
whichever you select, keep him in your mind, keep him all the while till
my son comes!’

‘Why, mustn’t I tell your son whom ...’

‘Nay, nay, sir, not one word. He will find out what he needs in your
thoughts himself. You’ve only to keep your friend thoroughly in mind;
and at your dinner drink a drop of wine--just two or three glasses; wine
never comes amiss.’ The old woman laughed, licked her lips, passed her
hand over her mouth, and sighed.

‘So at half-past seven?’ I queried, getting up from my chair.

‘At half-past seven, your honour, at half-past seven,’ Mastridia
Karpovna replied reassuringly.

       *       *       *       *       *

I took leave of the old woman and went back to the hotel. I did not
doubt that they were going to make a fool of me, but in what way?--that
was what excited my curiosity. With Ardalion I did not exchange more
than two or three words. ‘Did she see you?’ he asked me, knitting his
brow, and on my affirmative reply, he exclaimed: ‘The old woman’s as
good as any statesman!’ I set to work, in accordance with the
‘statesman’s’ counsel, to run over my deceased friends.

After rather prolonged hesitation I fixed, at last, on an old man who
had long been dead, a Frenchman, once my tutor. I selected him not
because he had any special attraction for me; but his whole figure was
so original, so unlike any figure of to-day, that it would be utterly
impossible to imitate it. He had an enormous head, fluffy white hair
combed straight back, thick black eyebrows, a hawk nose, and two large
warts of a pinkish hue in the middle of the forehead; he used to wear a
green frockcoat with smooth brass buttons, a striped waistcoat with a
stand-up collar, a jabot and lace cuffs. ‘If he shows me my old
Dessaire,’ I thought, ‘well, I shall have to admit that he’s a
sorcerer!’

At dinner I followed the old dame’s behest and drank a bottle of
Lafitte, of the first quality, so Ardalion averred, though it had a
very strong flavour of burnt cork, and a thick sediment at the bottom
of each glass.

       *       *       *       *       *

Exactly at half-past seven I stood in front of the house where I had
conversed with the worthy Mastridia Karpovna. All the shutters of the
windows were closed, but the door was open. I went into the house,
mounted the shaky staircase to the first story, and opening a door on
the left, found myself, as the old woman had said, in a perfectly empty,
rather large room; a tallow candle set in the window-sill threw a dim
light over the room; against the wall opposite the door stood a
wicker-bottomed chair. I snuffed the candle, which had already burnt
down enough to form a long smouldering wick, sat down on the chair and
began to wait.

The first ten minutes passed rather quickly; in the room itself there
was absolutely nothing which could distract my attention, but I listened
intently to every rustle, looked intently at the closed door.... My
heart was throbbing. After the first ten minutes followed another ten
minutes, then half an hour, three-quarters of an hour, and not a stir of
any kind around! I coughed several times to make my presence known; I
began to feel bored and out of temper; to be made a fool of in just that
way had not entered into my calculations. I was on the point of getting
up from my seat, taking the candle from the window, and going
downstairs.... I looked at it; the wick again wanted snuffing; but as I
turned my eyes from the window to the door, I could not help starting;
with his back leaning against the door stood a man. He had entered so
quickly and noiselessly that I had heard nothing. He wore a simple blue
smock; he was of middle height and rather thick-set. With his hands
behind his back and his head bent, he was staring at me. In the dim
light of the candle I could not distinctly make out his features. I saw
nothing but a shaggy mane of matted hair falling on his forehead, and
thick, rather drawn lips and whitish eyes. I was nearly speaking to him,
but I recollected Mastridia’s injunction, and bit my lips. The man, who
had come in, continued to gaze at me, and, strange to say, at the same
time I felt something like fear, and, as though at the word of command,
promptly started thinking of my old tutor. _He_ still stood at the door
and breathed heavily, as though he had been climbing a mountain or
lifting a weight, while his eyes seemed to expand, seemed to come closer
to me--and I felt uncomfortable under their obstinate, heavy, menacing
stare; at times those eyes glowed with a malignant inward fire, a fire
such as I have seen in the eyes of a pointer dog when it ‘points’ at a
hare; and, like a pointer dog, _he_ kept _his_ eyes intently following
mine when I ‘tried to double,’ that is, tried to turn my eyes away.

       *       *       *       *       *

So passed I do not know how long--perhaps a minute, perhaps a quarter of
an hour. He still gazed at me; I still experienced a certain discomfort
and alarm and still thought of the Frenchman. Twice I tried to say to
myself, ‘What nonsense! what a farce!’ I tried to smile, to shrug my
shoulders.... It was no use! All initiative had all at once ‘frozen up’
within me--I can find no other word for it. I was overcome by a sort of
numbness. Suddenly I noticed that he had left the door, and was standing
a step or two nearer to me; then he gave a slight bound, both feet
together, and stood closer still.... Then again ... and again; while the
menacing eyes were simply fastened on my whole face, and the hands
remained behind, and the broad chest heaved painfully. These leaps
struck me as ridiculous, but I felt dread too, and what I could not
understand at all, a drowsiness began suddenly to come upon me. My
eyelids clung together ... the shaggy figure with the whitish eyes in
the blue smock seemed double before me, and suddenly vanished
altogether! ... I shook myself; he was again standing between the door
and me, but now much nearer.... Then he vanished again--a sort of mist
seemed to fall upon him; again he appeared ... vanished again ...
appeared again, and always closer, closer ... his hard, almost gasping
breathing floated across to me now.... Again the mist fell, and all of a
sudden out of this mist the head of old Dessaire began to take distinct
shape, beginning with the white, brushed-back hair! Yes: there were his
warts, his black eyebrows, his hook nose! There too his green coat with
the brass buttons, the striped waistcoat and jabot.... I shrieked, I got
up.... The old man vanished, and in his place I saw again the man in the
blue smock. He moved staggering to the wall, leaned his head and both
arms against it, and heaving like an over-loaded horse, in a husky voice
said, ‘Tea!’ Mastridia Karpovna--how she came there I can’t say--flew to
him and saying: ‘Vassinka! Vassinka!’ began anxiously wiping away the
sweat, which simply trickled from his face and hair. I was on the point
of approaching her, but she, so insistently, in such a heart-rending
voice cried: ‘Your honour! merciful sir! have pity on us, go away, for
Christ’s sake!’ that I obeyed, while she turned again to her son.
‘Bread-winner, darling,’ she murmured soothingly: ‘you shall have tea
directly, directly. And you too, sir, had better take a cup of tea at
home!’ she shouted after me.

       *       *       *       *       *

When I got home I obeyed Mastridia and ordered some tea; I felt
tired--even weak. ‘Well?’ Ardalion questioned me, ‘have you been? did
you see something?’

‘He did, certainly, show me something ... which, I’ll own, I had not
anticipated,’ I replied.

‘He’s a man of marvellous power,’ observed Ardalion, carrying off the
samovar; ‘he is held in high esteem among the merchant gentry.’ As I
went to bed, and reflected on the incident that had occurred to me, I
fancied at last that I had reached some explanation of it. The man
doubtless possessed a considerable magnetic power; acting by some means,
which I did not understand of course, upon my nerves, he had evoked
within me so vividly, so definitely, the image of the old man of whom I
was thinking, that at last I fancied that I saw him before my eyes....
Such ‘metastases,’ such transferences of sensation, are recognised by
science. It was all very well; but the force capable of producing such
effects still remained, something marvellous and mysterious. ‘Say what
you will,’ I thought, ‘I’ve seen, seen with my own eyes, my dead tutor!’

       *       *       *       *       *

The next day the ball in the Hall of Nobility took place. Sophia’s
father called on me and reminded me of the engagement I had made with
his daughter. At ten o’clock I was standing by her side in the middle
of a ballroom lighted up by a number of copper lamps, and was preparing
to execute the not very complicated steps of the French quadrille to
the resounding blare of the military band. Crowds of people were there;
the ladies were especially numerous and very pretty; but the first
place among them would certainly have been given to my partner, if it
had not been for the rather strange, even rather wild look in her eyes.
I noticed that she hardly ever blinked; the unmistakable expression of
sincerity in her eyes did not make up for what was extraordinary in
them. But she had a charming figure, and moved gracefully, though with
constraint. When she waltzed, and, throwing herself a little back, bent
her slender neck towards her right shoulder, as though she wanted to
get away from her partner, nothing more touchingly youthful and pure
could be imagined. She was all in white, with a turquoise cross on a
black ribbon.

I asked her for a mazurka, and tried to talk to her. But her answers
were few and reluctant, though she listened attentively, with the same
expression of dreamy absorption which had struck me when I first met
her. Not the slightest trace of desire to please, at her age, with her
appearance, and the absence of a smile, and those eyes, continually
fixed directly upon the eyes of the person speaking to her, though they
seemed at the same time to see something else, to be absorbed with
something different.... What a strange creature! Not knowing, at last,
how to thaw her, I bethought me of telling her of my adventure of the
previous day.

       *       *       *       *       *

She heard me to the end with evident interest, but was not, as I had
expected, surprised at what I told her, and merely asked whether he was
not called Vassily. I recollected that the old woman had called him
‘Vassinka.’ ‘Yes, his name is Vassily,’ I answered; ‘do you know him?’

‘There is a saintly man living here called Vassily,’ she observed; ‘I
wondered whether it was he.’

‘Saintliness has nothing to do with this,’ I remarked; ‘it’s simply
the action of magnetism--a fact of interest for doctors and students
of science.’

I proceeded to expound my views on the peculiar force called magnetism,
on the possibility of one man’s will being brought under the influence
of another’s will, and so on; but my explanations--which were, it is
true, somewhat confused--seemed to make no impression on her. Sophie
listened, dropping her clasped hands on her knees with a fan lying
motionless in them; she did not play with it, she did not move her
fingers at all, and I felt that all my words rebounded from her as from
a statue of stone. She heard them, but clearly she had her own
convictions, which nothing could shake or uproot.

‘You can hardly admit miracles!’ I cried.

‘Of course I admit them,’ she answered calmly. ‘And how can one help
admitting them? Are not we told in the gospel that who has but a grain
of faith as big as a mustard seed, he can remove mountains? One need
only have faith--there will be miracles!’

‘It seems there is very little faith nowadays,’ I observed; ‘anyway, one
doesn’t hear of miracles.’

‘But yet there are miracles; you have seen one yourself. No; faith is
not dead nowadays; and the beginning of faith ...’

‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom,’ I interrupted.

‘The beginning of faith,’ pursued Sophie, nothing daunted, ‘is
self-abasement ... humiliation.’

‘Humiliation even?’ I queried.

‘Yes. The pride of man, haughtiness, presumption--that is what must be
utterly rooted up. You spoke of the will--that’s what must be broken.’

I scanned the whole figure of the young girl who was uttering such
sentences.... ‘My word, the child’s in earnest, too,’ was my thought. I
glanced at our neighbours in the mazurka; they, too, glanced at me, and
I fancied that my astonishment amused them; one of them even smiled at
me sympathetically, as though he would say: ‘Well, what do you think of
our queer young lady? every one here knows what she’s like.’

‘Have you tried to break your will?’ I said, turning to Sophie again.

‘Every one is bound to do what he thinks right,’ she answered in a
dogmatic tone. ‘Let me ask you,’ I began, after a brief silence, ‘do you
believe in the possibility of calling up the dead?’

Sophie softly shook her head.

‘There are no dead.’

‘What?’

‘There are no dead souls; they are undying and can always appear, when
they like.... They are always about us.’

‘What? Do you suppose, for instance, that an immortal soul may be at
this moment hovering about that garrison major with the red nose?’

‘Why not? The sunlight falls on him and his nose, and is not the
sunlight, all light, from God? And what does external appearance
matter? To the pure all things are pure! Only to find a teacher, to
find a leader!’

‘But excuse me, excuse me,’ I put in, not, I must own, without malicious
intent. ‘You want a leader ... but what is your priest for?’

Sophie looked coldly at me.

‘You mean to laugh at me, I suppose. My priestly father tells me what I
ought to do; but what I want is a leader who would show me himself in
action how to sacrifice one’s self!’

She raised her eyes towards the ceiling. With her childlike face, and
that expression of immobile absorption, of secret, continual perplexity,
she reminded me of the pre-raphaelite Madonnas....

‘I have read somewhere,’ she went on, not turning to me, and hardly
moving her lips, ‘of a grand person who directed that he should be
buried under a church porch so that all the people who came in should
tread him under foot and trample on him.... That is what one ought to
do in life.’

Boom! boom! tra-ra-ra! thundered the drums from the band.... I must own
such a conversation at a ball struck me as eccentric in the extreme; the
ideas involuntarily kindled within me were of a nature anything but
religious. I took advantage of my partner’s being invited to one of the
figures of the mazurka to avoid renewing our quasi-theological
discussion.

A quarter of an hour later I conducted Mademoiselle Sophie to her
father, and two days after I left the town of T----, and the image of
the girl with the childlike face and the soul impenetrable as stone
slipped quickly out of my memory.

Two years passed, and it chanced that that image was recalled again to
me. It was like this: I was talking to a colleague who had just
returned from a tour in South Russia. He had spent some time in the
town of T----, and told me various items of news about the
neighbourhood. ‘By the way!’ he exclaimed, ‘you knew V. G. B. very
well, I fancy, didn’t you?’

‘Of course I know him.’

‘And his daughter Sophia, do you know her?’

‘I’ve seen her twice.’

‘Only fancy, she’s run away!’

‘How’s that?’

‘Well, I don’t know. Three months ago she disappeared, and nothing’s
been heard of her. And the astonishing thing is no one can make out whom
she’s run off with. Fancy, they’ve not the slightest idea, not the
smallest suspicion! She’d refused all the offers made her, and she was
most proper in her behaviour. Ah, these quiet, religious girls are the
ones! It’s made an awful scandal all over the province! B.’s in
despair.... And whatever need had she to run away? Her father carried
out her wishes in everything. And what’s so unaccountable, all the
Lovelaces of the province are there all right, not one’s missing.’

‘And they’ve not found her up till now?’

‘I tell you she might as well be at the bottom of the sea! It’s one rich
heiress less in the world, that’s the worst of it.’

This piece of news greatly astonished me. It did not seem at all in
keeping with the recollection I had of Sophia B. But there! anything
may happen.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the autumn of the same year fate brought me--again on official
business--into the S---- province, which is, as every one knows, next to
the province of T----. It was cold and rainy weather; the worn-out
posting-horses could scarcely drag my light trap through the black slush
of the highroad. One day, I remember, was particularly unlucky: three
times we got ‘stuck’ in the mud up to the axles of the wheels; my driver
was continually giving up one rut and with moans and grunts trudging
across to the other, and finding things no better with that. In fact,
towards evening I was so exhausted that on reaching the posting-station
I decided to spend the night at the inn. I was given a room with a
broken-down wooden sofa, a sloping floor, and torn paper on the walls;
there was a smell in it of kvas, bast-mats, onions, and even
turpentine, and swarms of flies were on everything; but at any rate I
could find shelter there from the weather, and the rain had set in, as
they say, for the whole day. I ordered a samovar to be brought, and,
sitting on the sofa, settled down to those cheerless wayside reflections
so familiar to travellers in Russia.

They were broken in upon by a heavy knocking that came from the common
room, from which my room was separated by a deal partition. This sound
was accompanied by an intermittent metallic jingle, like the clank of
chains, and a coarse male voice boomed out suddenly: ‘The blessing of
God on all within this house. The blessing of God! the blessing of God!
Amen, amen! Scatter His enemies!’ repeated the voice, with a sort of
incongruous and savage drawl on the last syllable of each word.... A
noisy sigh was heard, and a ponderous body sank on to the bench with the
same jingling sound. ‘Akulina! servant of God, come here!’ the voice
began again: ‘Behold! Clothed in rags and blessed! ... Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo!
Merciful God, merciful God, merciful God!’ the voice droned like a
deacon in the choir. ‘Merciful God, Creator of my body, behold my
iniquity.... O-ho-ho! Ha-ha! ... Tfoo! And all abundance be to this house
in the seventh hour!’

‘Who’s that?’ I asked the hospitable landlady, who came in with
the samovar.

‘That, your honour,’ she answered me in a hurried whisper, ‘is a
blessed, holy man. He’s not long come into our parts; and here he’s
graciously pleased to visit us. In such weather! The wet’s simply
trickling from him, poor dear man, in streams! And you should see the
chains on him--such a lot!’

‘The blessing of God! the blessing of God!’ the voice was heard again.
‘Akulina! Hey, Akulina! Akulinushka--friend! where is our paradise? Our
fair paradise of bliss? In the wilderness is our paradise, ...
para-dise.... And to this house, from beginning of time, great
happiness, ... o ... o ... o ...’ The voice muttered something
inarticulate, and again, after a protracted yawn, there came the hoarse
laugh. This laugh broke out every time, as it were, involuntarily, and
every time it was followed by vigorous spitting.

‘Ah, me! Stepanitch isn’t here! That’s the worst of it!’ the landlady
said, as it were to herself, as she stood with every sign of the
profoundest attention at the door. ‘He will say some word of salvation,
and I, foolish woman, may not catch it!’

She went out quickly.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the partition there was a chink; I applied my eye to it. The crazy
pilgrim was sitting on a bench with his back to me; I saw nothing but
his shaggy head, as huge as a beer-can, and a broad bent back in a
patched and soaking shirt. Before him, on the earth floor, knelt a
frail-looking woman in a jacket, such as are worn by women of the
artisan class--old and wet through--and with a dark kerchief pulled down
almost over her eyes. She was trying to pull the holy man’s boots off;
her fingers slid off the greasy, slippery leather. The landlady was
standing near her, with her arms folded across her bosom, gazing
reverently at the ‘man of God.’ He was, as before, mumbling some
inarticulate words.

At last the woman succeeded in tugging off the boots. She almost fell
backwards, but recovered herself, and began unwinding the strips of rag
which were wrapped round the vagrant’s legs. On the sole of his foot
there was a wound.... I turned away.

‘A cup of tea wouldn’t you bid me get you, my dear?’ I heard the hostess
saying in an obsequious voice.

‘What a notion!’ responded the holy man. ‘To indulge the sinful body....
O-ho-ho! Break all the bones in it ... but she talks of tea! Oh, oh,
worthy old woman, Satan is strong within us.... Fight him with hunger,
fight him with cold, with the sluice-gates of heaven, the pouring,
penetrating rain, and he takes no harm--he is alive still! Remember the
day of the Intercession of the Mother of God! You will receive, you will
receive in abundance!’

The landlady could not resist uttering a faint groan of admiration.

‘Only listen to me! Give all thou hast, give thy head, give thy shirt!
If they ask not of thee, yet give! For God is all-seeing! Is it hard for
Him to destroy your roof? He has given thee bread in His mercy, and do
thou bake it in the oven! He seeth all! Se ... e ... eth! Whose eye is
in the triangle? Say, whose?’

The landlady stealthily crossed herself under her neckerchief.

‘The old enemy is adamant! A ... da ... mant! A ... da ... mant!’ the
religious maniac repeated several times, gnashing his teeth. ‘The old
serpent! But God will arise! Yes, God will arise and scatter His
enemies! I will call up all the dead! I will go against His enemy....
Ha-ha-ha! Tfoo!’

‘Have you any oil?’ said another voice, hardly audible; ‘let me put some
on the wound.... I have got a clean rag.’

I peeped through the chink again; the woman in the jacket was still
busied with the vagrant’s sore foot.... ‘A Magdalen!’ I thought.

‘I’ll get it directly, my dear,’ said the woman, and, coming into my
room, she took a spoonful of oil from the lamp burning before the
holy picture.

‘Who’s that waiting on him?’ I asked.

‘We don’t know, sir, who it is; she too, I suppose, is seeking
salvation, atoning for her sins. But what a saintly man he is!’

‘Akulinushka, my sweet child, my dear daughter,’ the crazy pilgrim was
repeating meanwhile, and he suddenly burst into tears.

The woman kneeling before him lifted her eyes to him.... Heavens! where
had I seen those eyes?

The landlady went up to her with the spoonful of oil. She finished her
operation, and, getting up from the floor, asked if there were a clean
loft and a little hay.... ‘Vassily Nikititch likes to sleep on hay,’
she added.

‘To be sure there is, come this way,’ answered the woman; ‘come this
way, my dear,’ she turned to the holy man, ‘and dry yourself and rest.’
The man coughed, slowly got up from the bench--his chains clanked
again--and turning round with his face to me, looked for the holy
pictures, and began crossing himself with a wide movement.

I recognised him instantly: it was the very artisan Vassily, who had
once shown me my dead tutor!

His features were little changed; only their expression had become still
more unusual, still more terrible.... The lower part of his swollen face
was overgrown with unkempt beard. Tattered, filthy, wild-looking, he
inspired in me more repugnance than horror. He left off crossing
himself, but still his eyes wandered senselessly about the corners of
the room, about the floor, as though he were waiting for something....

‘Vassily Nikititch, please come,’ said the woman in the jacket with a
bow. He suddenly threw up his head and turned round, but stumbled and
tottered.... His companion flew to him at once, and supported him under
the arm. Judging by her voice and figure, she seemed still young; her
face it was almost impossible to see.

‘Akulinushka, friend!’ the vagrant repeated once more in a shaking
voice, and opening his mouth wide, and smiting himself on the breast
with his fist, he uttered a deep groan, that seemed to come from the
bottom of his heart. Both followed the landlady out of the room.

I lay down on my hard sofa and mused a long while on what I had seen. My
mesmeriser had become a regular religious maniac. This was what he had
been brought to by the power which one could not but recognise in him!

       *       *       *       *       *

The next morning I was preparing to go on my way. The rain was falling
as fast as the day before, but I could not delay any longer. My
servant, as he gave me water to wash, wore a special smile on his
face, a smile of restrained irony. I knew that smile well; it
indicated that my servant had heard something discreditable or even
shocking about gentlefolks. He was obviously burning with impatience
to communicate it to me.

‘Well, what is it?’ I asked at last.

‘Did your honour see the crazy pilgrim yesterday?’ my man began at once.

‘Yes; what then?’

‘And did you see his companion too?’

‘Yes, I saw her.’

‘She’s a young lady, of noble family.’

‘What?’

‘It’s the truth I’m telling you; some merchants arrived here this
morning from T----; they recognised her. They did tell me her name, but
I’ve forgotten it.’

It was like a flash of enlightenment. ‘Is the pilgrim still
here?’ I asked.

‘I fancy he’s not gone yet. He’s been ever so long at the gate, and
making such a wonderful wise to-do, that there’s no getting by. He’s
amusing himself with this tomfoolery; he finds it pay, no doubt.’

My man belonged to the same class of educated servants as Ardalion.

‘And is the lady with him?’

‘Yes. She’s in attendance on him.’

       *       *       *       *       *

I went out on to the steps, and got a view of the crazy pilgrim. He was
sitting on a bench at the gate, and, bent down with both his open hands
pressed on it, he was shaking his drooping head from right to left, for
all the world like a wild beast in a cage. The thick mane of curly hair
covered his eyes, and shook from side to side, and so did his pendulous
lips.... A strange, almost unhuman muttering came from them. His
companion had only just finished washing from a pitcher that was hanging
on a pole, and without having yet replaced her kerchief on her head, was
making her way back to the gate along a narrow plank laid across the
dark puddles of the filthy yard. I glanced at her head, which was now
entirely uncovered, and positively threw up my hands with astonishment:
before me stood Sophie B.!

She turned quickly round and fixed upon me her blue eyes, immovable as
ever. She was much thinner, her skin looked coarser and had the
yellowish-ruddy tinge of sunburn, her nose was sharper, and her lips
were harder in their lines. But she was not less good-looking; only
besides her old expression of dreamy amazement there was now a different
look--resolute, almost bold, intense and exalted. There was not a trace
of childishness left in the face now.

I went up to her. ‘Sophia Vladimirovna,’ I cried, ‘can it be you? In
such a dress ... in such company....’

She started, looked still more intently at me, as though anxious to find
out who was speaking to her, and, without saying a word to me, fairly
rushed to her companion.

‘Akulinushka,’ he faltered, with a heavy sigh, ‘our sins, sins ...’

‘Vassily Nikititch, let us go at once! Do you hear, at once, at once,’
she said, pulling her kerchief on to her forehead with one hand, while
with the other she supported the pilgrim under the elbow; ‘let us go,
Vassily Nikititch: there is danger here.’

‘I’m coming, my good girl, I’m coming,’ the crazy pilgrim responded
obediently, and, bending his whole body forward, he got up from the
seat. ‘Here’s only this chain to fasten....’

I once more approached Sophia, and told her my name. I began beseeching
her to listen to me, to say one word to me. I pointed to the rain,
which was coming down in bucketsful. I begged her to have some care for
her health, the health of her companion. I mentioned her father.... But
she seemed possessed by a sort of wrathful, a sort of vindictive
excitement: without paying the slightest attention to me, setting her
teeth and breathing hard, she urged on the distracted vagrant in an
undertone, in soft insistent words, girt him up, fastened on his
chains, pulled on to his hair a child’s cloth cap with a broken peak,
stuck his staff in his hand, slung a wallet on her own shoulder, and
went with him out at the gate into the street.... To stop her actually
I had not the right, and it would have been of no use; and at my last
despairing call she did not even turn round. Supporting the ‘man of
God’ under his arm, she stepped rapidly over the black mud of the
street; and in a few moments, across the dim dusk of the foggy morning,
through the thick network of falling raindrops, I saw the last glimpse
of the two figures, the crazy pilgrim and Sophie.... They turned the
corner of a projecting hut, and vanished for ever.

       *       *       *       *       *

I went back to my room. I fell to pondering. I could not understand it;
I could not understand how such a girl, well brought up, young, and
wealthy, could throw up everything and every one, her own home, her
family, her friends, break with all her habits, with all the comforts of
life, and for what? To follow a half-insane vagrant, to become his
servant! I could not for an instant entertain the idea that the
explanation of such a step was to be found in any prompting, however
depraved, of the heart, in love or passion.... One had but to glance at
the repulsive figure of the ‘man of God’ to dismiss such a notion
entirely! No, Sophie had remained pure; and to her all things were pure;
I could not understand what Sophie had done; but I did not blame her,
as, later on, I have not blamed other girls who too have sacrificed
everything for what they thought the truth, for what they held to be
their vocation. I could not help regretting that Sophie had chosen just
_that_ path; but also I could not refuse her admiration, respect even.
In good earnest she had talked of self-sacrifice, of abasement ... in
_her_, words were not opposed to acts. She had sought a leader, a guide,
and had found him, ... and, my God, what a guide!

Yes, she had lain down to be trampled, trodden under foot.... In the
process of time, a rumour reached me that her family had succeeded at
last in finding out the lost sheep, and bringing her home. But at home
she did not live long, and died, like a ‘Sister of Silence,’ without
having spoken a word to any one.

Peace to your heart, poor, enigmatic creature! Vassily Nikititch is
probably on his crazy wanderings still; the iron health of such
people is truly marvellous. Perhaps, though, his epilepsy may have
done for him.

BADEN-BADEN, 1869.




PUNIN AND BABURIN

PIOTR PETROVITCH’S STORY




I


... I am old and ill now, and my thoughts brood oftenest upon death,
every day coming nearer; rarely I think of the past, rarely I turn the
eyes of my soul behind me. Only from time to time--in winter, as I sit
motionless before the glowing fire, in summer, as I pace with slow tread
along the shady avenue--I recall past years, events, faces; but it is
not on my mature years nor on my youth that my thoughts rest at such
times. They either carry me back to my earliest childhood, or to the
first years of boyhood. Now, for instance, I see myself in the country
with my stern and wrathful grandmother--I was only twelve--and two
figures rise up before my imagination....

But I will begin my story consecutively, and in proper order.



I

1830


The old footman Filippitch came in, on tiptoe, as usual, with a cravat
tied up in a rosette, with tightly compressed lips, ‘lest his breath
should be smelt,’ with a grey tuft of hair standing up in the very
middle of his forehead. He came in, bowed, and handed my grandmother on
an iron tray a large letter with an heraldic seal. My grandmother put on
her spectacles, read the letter through....

‘Is he here?’ she asked.

‘What is my lady pleased ...’ Filippitch began timidly.

‘Imbecile! The man who brought the letter--is he here?’

‘He is here, to be sure he is.... He is sitting in the counting-house.’

My grandmother rattled her amber rosary beads....

‘Tell him to come to me.... And you, sir,’ she turned to me, ‘sit
still.’

As it was, I was sitting perfectly still in my corner, on the stool
assigned to me.

My grandmother kept me well in hand!

       *       *       *       *       *

Five minutes later there came into the room a man of five-and-thirty,
black-haired and swarthy, with broad cheek-bones, a face marked with
smallpox, a hook nose, and thick eyebrows, from under which the small
grey eyes looked out with mournful composure. The colour of the eyes and
their expression were out of keeping with the Oriental cast of the rest
of the face. The man was dressed in a decent, long-skirted coat. He
stopped in the doorway, and bowed--only with his head.

‘So your name’s Baburin?’ queried my grandmother, and she added to
herself: ‘_Il a l’air d’un arménien._’

‘Yes, it is,’ the man answered in a deep and even voice. At the first
brusque sound of my grandmother’s voice his eyebrows faintly quivered.
Surely he had not expected her to address him as an equal?

‘Are you a Russian? orthodox?’

‘Yes.’

My grandmother took off her spectacles, and scanned Baburin from head
to foot deliberately. He did not drop his eyes, he merely folded his
hands behind his back. What particularly struck my fancy was his beard;
it was very smoothly shaven, but such blue cheeks and chin I had never
seen in my life!

‘Yakov Petrovitch,’ began my grandmother, ‘recommends you strongly
in his letter as sober and industrious; why, then, did you leave
his service?’

‘He needs a different sort of person to manage his estate, madam.’

‘A different ... sort? That I don’t quite understand.’

My grandmother rattled her beads again. ‘Yakov Petrovitch writes to me
that there are two peculiarities about you. What peculiarities?’

Baburin shrugged his shoulders slightly.

‘I can’t tell what he sees fit to call peculiarities. Possibly that
I ... don’t allow corporal punishment.’

My grandmother was surprised. ‘Do you mean to say Yakov Petrovitch
wanted to flog you?’

Baburin’s swarthy face grew red to the roots of his hair.

‘You have not understood me right, madam. I make it a rule not to employ
corporal punishment ... with the peasants.’

My grandmother was more surprised than ever; she positively threw up
her hands.

‘Ah!’ she pronounced at last, and putting her head a little on one side,
once more she scrutinised Baburin attentively. ‘So that’s your rule, is
it? Well, that’s of no consequence whatever to me; I don’t want an
overseer, but a counting-house clerk, a secretary. What sort of a hand
do you write?’

‘I write well, without mistakes in spelling.’

‘That too is of no consequence to me. The great thing for me is for it
to be clear, and without any of those new copybook letters with tails,
that I don’t like. And what’s your other peculiarity?’

Baburin moved uneasily, coughed....

‘Perhaps ... the gentleman has referred to the fact that I am not
alone.’

‘You are married?’

‘Oh no ... but ...’

My grandmother knit her brows.

‘There is a person living with me ... of the male sex ... a comrade, a
poor friend, from whom I have never parted ... for ... let me see ...
ten years now.’

‘A relation of yours?’

‘No, not a relation--a friend. As to work, there can be no possible
hindrance occasioned by him,’ Baburin made haste to add, as though
foreseeing objections. ‘He lives at my cost, occupies the same room with
me; he is more likely to be of use, as he is well educated--speaking
without flattery, extremely so, in fact--and his morals are exemplary.’

My grandmother heard Baburin out, chewing her lips and half
closing her eyes.

‘He lives at your expense?’

‘Yes.’

‘You keep him out of charity?’

‘As an act of justice ... as it’s the duty of one poor man to help
another poor man.’

‘Indeed! It’s the first time I’ve heard that. I had supposed till now
that that was rather the duty of rich people.’

‘For the rich, if I may venture to say so, it is an entertainment ... but
for such as we ...’

‘Well, well, that’s enough, that’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him
short; and after a moment’s thought she queried, speaking through her
nose, which was always a bad sign, ‘And what age is he, your protégé?’

‘About my own age.’

‘Really, I imagined that you were bringing him up.’

‘Not so; he is my comrade--and besides ...’

‘That’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him short a second time. ‘You’re a
philanthropist, it seems. Yakov Petrovitch is right; for a man in your
position it’s something very peculiar. But now let’s get to business.
I’ll explain to you what your duties will be. And as regards wages....
_Que faites vous ici?_’ added my grandmother suddenly, turning her dry,
yellow face to me:--‘_Allez étudier votre devoir de mythologie._’

I jumped up, went up to kiss my grandmother’s hand, and went out,--not
to study mythology, but simply into the garden.

       *       *       *       *       *

The garden on my grandmother’s estate was very old and large, and was
bounded on one side by a flowing pond, in which there were not only
plenty of carp and eels, but even loach were caught, those renowned
loach, that have nowadays disappeared almost everywhere. At the head
of this pond was a thick clump of willows; further and higher, on both
sides of a rising slope, were dense bushes of hazel, elder,
honeysuckle, and sloe-thorn, with an undergrowth of heather and clover
flowers. Here and there between the bushes were tiny clearings,
covered with emerald-green, silky, fine grass, in the midst of which
squat funguses peeped out with their comical, variegated pink, lilac,
and straw-coloured caps, and golden balls of ‘hen-dazzle’ blazed in
light patches. Here in spring-time the nightingales sang, the
blackbirds whistled, the cuckoos called; here in the heat of summer it
was always cool--and I loved to make my way into the wilderness and
thicket, where I had favourite secret spots, known--so, at least, I
imagined--only to me.

On coming out of my grandmother’s room I made straight for one of these
spots, which I had named ‘Switzerland.’ But what was my astonishment
when, before I had reached ‘Switzerland,’ I perceived through the
delicate network of half-dry twigs and green branches that some one
besides me had found it out! A long, long figure in a long, loose coat
of yellow frieze and a tall cap was standing in the very spot I loved
best of all! I stole up a little nearer, and made out the face, which
was utterly unknown to me, also very long and soft, with small reddish
eyes, and a very funny nose; drawn out as long as a pod of peas, it
positively over-hung the full lips; and these lips, quivering and
forming a round O, were giving vent to a shrill little whistle, while
the long fingers of the bony hands, placed facing one another on the
upper part of the chest, were rapidly moving with a rotatory action.
From time to time the motion of the hands subsided, the lips ceased
whistling and quivering, the head was bent forward as though listening.
I came still nearer, examined him still more closely.... The stranger
held in each hand a small flat cup, such as people use to tease
canaries and make them sing. A twig snapped under my feet; the stranger
started, turned his dim little eyes towards the copse, and was
staggering away ... but he stumbled against a tree, uttered an
exclamation, and stood still.

I came out into the open space. The stranger smiled.

‘Good morning,’ said I.

‘Good morning, little master!’

I did not like his calling me little master. Such familiarity!

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked sternly.

‘Why, look here,’ he responded, never leaving off smiling, ‘I’m calling
the little birds to sing.’ He showed me his little cups. ‘The
chaffinches answer splendidly! You, at your tender years, take delight,
no doubt, in the feathered songsters’ notes! Listen, I beg; I will begin
chirping, and they’ll answer me directly--it’s so delightful!’

He began rubbing his little cups. A chaffinch actually did chirp in
response from a mountain ash near. The stranger laughed without a sound,
and winked at me.

The laugh and the wink--every gesture of the stranger, his weak,
lisping voice, his bent knees and thin hands, his very cap and long
frieze coat--everything about him suggested good-nature, something
innocent and droll.

‘Have you been here long?’ I asked.

‘I came to-day.’

‘Why, aren’t you the person of whom ...’

‘Mr. Baburin spoke to the lady here. The same, the same.’

‘Your friend’s name’s Baburin, and what’s yours?’

‘I’m Punin. Punin’s my name; Punin. He’s Baburin and I’m Punin.’ He set
the little cups humming again. ‘Listen, listen to the chaffinch.... How
it carols!’

This queer creature took my fancy ‘awfully’ all at once. Like almost all
boys, I was either timid or consequential with strangers, but I felt
with this man as if I had known him for ages.

‘Come along with me,’ I said to him; ‘I know a place better than
this; there’s a seat there; we can sit down, and we can see the dam
from there.’

‘By all means let us go,’ my new friend responded in his singing voice.
I let him pass before me. As he walked he rolled from side to side,
tripped over his own feet, and his head fell back.

I noticed on the back of his coat, under the collar, there hung a small
tassel. ‘What’s that you’ve got hanging there?’ I asked.

‘Where?’ he questioned, and he put his hand up to the collar to feel.
‘Ah, the tassel? Let it be! I suppose it was sewn there for ornament!
It’s not in the way.’

I led him to the seat, and sat down; he settled himself beside me. ‘It’s
lovely here!’ he commented, and he drew a deep, deep sigh. ‘Oh, how
lovely! You have a most splendid garden! Oh, o--oh!’

I looked at him from one side. ‘What a queer cap you’ve got!’ I couldn’t
help exclaiming. ‘Show it me here!’

‘By all means, little master, by all means.’ He took off the cap; I was
holding out my hand, but I raised my eyes, and--simply burst out
laughing. Punin was completely bald; not a single hair was to be seen on
the high conical skull, covered with smooth white skin. He passed his
open hand over it, and he too laughed. When he laughed he seemed, as it
were, to gulp, he opened his mouth wide, closed his eyes--and vertical
wrinkles flitted across his forehead in three rows, like waves. ‘Eh,’
said he at last, ‘isn’t it quite like an egg?’

‘Yes, yes, exactly like an egg!’ I agreed with enthusiasm. ‘And have you
been like that long?’

‘Yes, a long while; but what hair I used to have!--A golden fleece like
that for which the Argonauts sailed over the watery deeps.’

Though I was only twelve, yet, thanks to my mythological studies, I knew
who the Argonauts were; I was the more surprised at hearing the name on
the lips of a man dressed almost in rags.

‘You must have learned mythology, then?’ I queried, as I twisted his cap
over and over in my hands. It turned out to be wadded, with a
mangy-looking fur trimming, and a broken cardboard peak.

‘I have studied that subject, my dear little master; I’ve had time
enough for everything in my life! But now restore to me my covering, it
is a protection to the nakedness of my head.’

He put on the cap, and, with a downward slope of his whitish eyebrows,
asked me who I was, and who were my parents.

‘I’m the grandson of the lady who owns this place,’ I answered. ‘I live
alone with her. Papa and mamma are dead.’

Punin crossed himself. ‘May the kingdom of heaven be theirs! So then,
you’re an orphan; and the heir, too. The noble blood in you is visible
at once; it fairly sparkles in your eyes, and plays like this ... sh ...
sh ... sh ...’ He represented with his fingers the play of the blood.
‘Well, and do you know, your noble honour, whether my friend has come to
terms with your grandmamma, whether he has obtained the situation he was
promised?’

‘I don’t know.’

Punin cleared his throat. ‘Ah! if one could be settled here, if only for
a while! Or else one may wander and wander far, and find not a place to
rest one’s head; the disquieting alarms of life are unceasing, the soul
is confounded....’

‘Tell me,’ I interrupted: ‘are you of the clerical profession?’

Punin turned to me and half closed his eyelids. ‘And what may be the
cause of that question, gentle youth?’

‘Why, you talk so--well, as they read in church.’

‘Because I use the old scriptural forms of expression? But that ought
not to surprise you. Admitting that in ordinary conversation such forms
of expression are not always in place; but when one soars on the wings
of inspiration, at once the language too grows more exalted. Surely your
teacher--the professor of Russian literature--you do have lessons in
that, I suppose?--surely he teaches you that, doesn’t he?’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ I responded. ‘When we stay in the country I have no
teacher. In Moscow I have a great many teachers.’

‘And will you be staying long in the country?’

‘Two months, not longer; grandmother says that I’m spoilt in the
country, though I have a governess even here.’

‘A French governess?’

‘Yes.’

Punin scratched behind his ear. ‘A mamselle, that’s to say?’

‘Yes; she’s called Mademoiselle Friquet.’ I suddenly felt it
disgraceful for me, a boy of twelve, to have not a tutor, but a
governess, like a little girl! ‘But I don’t mind her,’ I added
contemptuously. ‘What do I care!’

Punin shook his head. ‘Ah, you gentlefolk, you gentlefolk! you’re too
fond of foreigners! You have turned away from what is Russian,--towards
all that’s strange. You’ve turned your hearts to those that come from
foreign parts....’

‘Hullo! Are you talking in verse?’ I asked.

‘Well, and why not? I can do that always, as much as you please; for it
comes natural to me....’

But at that very instant there sounded in the garden behind us a loud
and shrill whistle. My new acquaintance hurriedly got up from the bench.

‘Good-bye, little sir; that’s my friend calling me, looking for me....
What has he to tell me? Good-bye--excuse me....’

He plunged into the bushes and vanished, while I sat on some time longer
on the seat. I felt perplexity and another feeling, rather an agreeable
one ... I had never met nor spoken to any one like this before.
Gradually I fell to dreaming, but recollected my mythology and sauntered
towards the house.

       *       *       *       *       *

At home, I learned that my grandmother had arranged to take Baburin; he
had been assigned a small room in the servants’ quarters, overlooking
the stable-yard. He had at once settled in there with his friend.

When I had drunk my tea, next morning, without asking leave of
Mademoiselle Friquet, I set off to the servants’ quarters. I wanted to
have another chat with the queer fellow I had seen the day before.
Without knocking at the door--the very idea of doing so would never have
occurred to us--I walked straight into the room. I found in it not the
man I was looking for, not Punin, but his protector--the philanthropist,
Baburin. He was standing before the window, without his outer garment,
his legs wide apart. He was busily engaged in rubbing his head and neck
with a long towel.

‘What do you want?’ he observed, keeping his hands still raised, and
knitting his brows.

‘Punin’s not at home, then?’ I queried in the most free-and-easy manner,
without taking off my cap.

‘Mr. Punin, Nikander Vavilitch, at this moment, is not at home, truly,’
Baburin responded deliberately; ‘but allow me to make an observation,
young man: it’s not the proper thing to come into another person’s room
like this, without asking leave.’

I! ... young man! ... how dared he! ... I grew crimson with fury.

‘You cannot be aware who I am,’ I rejoined, in a manner no longer
free-and-easy, but haughty. ‘I am the grandson of the mistress here.’

‘That’s all the same to me,’ retorted Baburin, setting to work with his
towel again. ‘Though you are the seignorial grandson, you have no right
to come into other people’s rooms.’

‘Other people’s? What do you mean? I’m--at home here--everywhere.’

‘No, excuse me: here--I’m at home; since this room has been assigned to
me, by agreement, in exchange for my work.’

‘Don’t teach me, if you please,’ I interrupted: ‘I know better than
you what ...’

‘You must be taught,’ he interrupted in his turn, ‘for you’re at an age
when you ... I know my duties, but I know my rights too very well, and
if you continue to speak to me in that way, I shall have to ask you to
go out of the room....’

There is no knowing how our dispute would have ended if Punin had not at
that instant entered, shuffling and shambling from side to side. He most
likely guessed from the expression of our faces that some unpleasantness
had passed between us, and at once turned to me with the warmest
expressions of delight.

‘Ah! little master! little master!’ he cried, waving his hands wildly,
and going off into his noiseless laugh: ‘the little dear! come to pay me
a visit! here he’s come, the little dear!’ (What’s the meaning of it? I
thought: can he be speaking in this familiar way to me?) ‘There, come
along, come with me into the garden. I’ve found something there.... Why
stay in this stuffiness here! let’s go!’

I followed Punin, but in the doorway I thought it as well to turn round
and fling a glance of defiance at Baburin, as though to say, I’m not
afraid of you!

He responded in the same way, and positively snorted into the
towel--probably to make me thoroughly aware how utterly he despised me!

What an insolent fellow your friend is!’ I said to Punin, directly the
door had closed behind me.

Almost with horror, Punin turned his plump face to me.

‘To whom did you apply that expression?’ he asked me, with round eyes.

‘Why, to him, of course.... What’s his name? that ... Baburin.’

‘Paramon Semyonevitch?’

‘Why, yes; that ... blackfaced fellow.’

‘Eh ... eh ... eh ...!’ Punin protested, with caressing reproachfulness.
‘How can you talk like that, little master! Paramon Semyonevitch is the
most estimable man, of the strictest principles, an extraordinary
person! To be sure, he won’t allow any disrespect to him, because--he
knows his own value. That man possesses a vast amount of knowledge--and
it’s not a place like this he ought to be filling! You must, my dear,
behave very courteously to him; do you know, he’s ...’ here Punin bent
down quite to my ear,--‘a republican!’

I stared at Punin. This I had not at all expected. From Keidanov’s
manual and other historical works I had gathered the fact that at some
period or other, in ancient times, there had existed republicans, Greeks
and Romans. For some unknown reason I had always pictured them all in
helmets, with round shields on their arms, and big bare legs; but that
in real life, in the actual present, above all, in Russia, in the
province of X----, one could come across republicans--that upset all my
notions, and utterly confounded them!

‘Yes, my dear, yes; Paramon Semyonitch is a republican,’ repeated Punin;
‘there, so you’ll know for the future how one should speak of a man like
that! But now let’s go into the garden. Fancy what I’ve found there! A
cuckoo’s egg in a redstart’s nest! a lovely thing!’

I went into the garden with Punin; but mentally I kept repeating:
‘republican! re ... pub ... lican!’

‘So,’ I decided at last--‘that’s why he has such a blue chin!’

       *       *       *       *       *

My attitude to these two persons--Punin and Baburin--took definite shape
from that very day. Baburin aroused in me a feeling of hostility with
which there was, however, in a short time, mingled something akin to
respect. And wasn’t I afraid of him! I never got over being afraid of
him even when the sharp severity of his manner with me at first had
quite disappeared. It is needless to say that of Punin I had no fear; I
did not even respect him; I looked upon him--not to put too fine a point
on it--as a buffoon; but I loved him with my whole soul! To spend hours
at a time in his company, to be alone with him, to listen to his
stories, became a genuine delight to me. My grandmother was anything but
pleased at this _intimité_ with a person of the ‘lower classes’--_du
commun_; but, whenever I could break away, I flew at once to my queer,
amusing, beloved friend. Our meetings became more frequent after the
departure of Mademoiselle Friquet, whom my grandmother sent back to
Moscow in disgrace because, in conversation with a military staff
captain, visiting in the neighbourhood, she had had the insolence to
complain of the dulness which reigned in our household. And Punin, for
his part, was not bored by long conversations with a boy of twelve; he
seemed to seek them of himself. How often have I listened to his
stories, sitting with him in the fragrant shade, on the dry, smooth
grass, under the canopy of the silver poplars, or among the reeds above
the pond, on the coarse, damp sand of the hollow bank, from which the
knotted roots protruded, queerly interlaced, like great black veins,
like snakes, like creatures emerging from some subterranean region!
Punin told me the whole story of his life in minute detail, describing
all his happy adventures, and all his misfortunes, with which I always
felt the sincerest sympathy! His father had been a deacon;--‘a splendid
man--but, under the influence of drink, stern to the last extreme.’

Punin himself had received his education in a seminary; but, unable to
stand the severe thrashings, and feeling no inclination for the priestly
calling, he had become a layman, and in consequence had experienced all
sorts of hardships; and, finally, had become a vagrant. ‘And had I not
met with my benefactor, Paramon Semyonitch,’ Punin commonly added (he
never spoke of Baburin except in this way), ‘I should have sunk into the
miry abysses of poverty and vice.’ Punin was fond of high-sounding
expressions, and had a great propensity, if not for lying, for romancing
and exaggeration; he admired everything, fell into ecstasies over
everything.... And I, in imitation of him, began to exaggerate and be
ecstatic, too. ‘What a crazy fellow you’ve grown! God have mercy on
you!’ my old nurse used to say to me. Punin’s narratives used to
interest me extremely; but even better than his stories I loved the
readings we used to have together.

It is impossible to describe the feeling I experienced when, snatching
a favourable moment, suddenly, like a hermit in a tale or a good fairy,
he appeared before me with a ponderous volume under his arm, and
stealthily beckoning with his long crooked finger, and winking
mysteriously, he pointed with his head, his eyebrows, his shoulders,
his whole person, toward the deepest recesses of the garden, whither no
one could penetrate after us, and where it was impossible to find us
out. And when we had succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had
satisfactorily reached one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side
by side, and, at last, the book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent
odour, inexpressibly sweet to me then, of mildew and age;--with what a
thrill, with what a wave of dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at
the lips of Punin, those lips from which in a moment a stream of such
delicious eloquence was to flow! At last the first sounds of the
reading were heard. Everything around me vanished ... no, not vanished,
but grew far away, passed into clouds of mist, leaving behind only an
impression of something friendly and protecting. Those trees, those
green leaves, those high grasses screen us, hide us from all the rest
of the world; no one knows where we are, what we are about--while with
us is poetry, we are saturated in it, intoxicated with it, something
solemn, grand, mysterious is happening to us.... Punin, by preference,
kept to poetry, musical, sonorous poetry; he was ready to lay down his
life for poetry. He did not read, he declaimed the verse majestically,
in a torrent of rhythm, in a rolling outpour through his nose, like a
man intoxicated, lifted out of himself, like the Pythian priestess. And
another habit he had: first he would lisp the verses through softly, in
a whisper, as it were mumbling them to himself.... This he used to call
the rough sketch of the reading; then he would thunder out the same
verse in its ‘fair copy,’ and would all at once leap up, throw up his
hand, with a half-supplicating, half-imperious gesture.... In this way
we went through not only Lomonosov, Sumarokov, and Kantemir (the older
the poems, the more they were to Punin’s taste), but even Heraskov’s
_Rossiad_. And, to tell the truth, it was this same _Rossiad_ which
aroused my enthusiasm most. There is in it, among others, a mighty
Tatar woman, a gigantic heroine; I have forgotten even her name now;
but in those days my hands and feet turned cold as soon as it was
mentioned. ‘Yes,’ Punin would say, nodding his head with great
significance, ‘Heraskov, he doesn’t let one off easily. At times one
comes upon a line, simply heart-breaking.... One can only stick to it,
and do one’s best.... One tries to master it, but he breaks away again
and trumpets, trumpets, with the crash of cymbals. His name’s been well
bestowed on him--the very word, Herrraskov!’ Lomonosov Punin found
fault with for too simple and free a style; while to Derzhavin he
maintained an attitude almost of hostility, saying that he was more of
a courtier than a poet. In our house it was not merely that no
attention was given to literature, to poetry; but poetry, especially
Russian poetry, was looked upon as something quite undignified and
vulgar; my grandmother did not even call it poetry, but ‘doggrel
verses’; every author of such doggrel was, in her opinion, either a
confirmed toper or a perfect idiot. Brought up among such ideas, it was
inevitable that I should either turn from Punin with disgust--he was
untidy and shabby into the bargain, which was an offence to my
seignorial habits--or that, attracted and captivated by him, I should
follow his example, and be infected by his passion for poetry.... And
so it turned out. I, too, began reading poetry, or, as my grandmother
expressed it, poring over doggrel trash.... I even tried my hand at
versifying, and composed a poem, descriptive of a barrel-organ, in
which occurred the following two lines:


  ‘Lo, the barrel turns around,
  And the cogs within resound.’


Punin commended in this effort a certain imitative melody, but
disapproved of the subject itself as low and unworthy of lyrical
treatment.

Alas! all those efforts and emotions and transports, our solitary
readings, our life together, our poetry, all came to an end at once.
Trouble broke upon us suddenly, like a clap of thunder.

       *       *       *       *       *

My grandmother in everything liked cleanliness and order, quite in the
spirit of the active generals of those days; cleanliness and order were
to be maintained too in our garden. And so from time to time they
‘drove’ into it poor peasants, who had no families, no land, no beasts
of their own, and those among the house serfs who were out of favour or
superannuated, and set them to clearing the paths, weeding the borders,
breaking up and sifting the earth in the beds, and so on. Well, one day,
in the very heat of these operations, my grandmother went into the
garden, and took me with her. On all sides, among the trees and about
the lawns, we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all
sides we heard the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of
clods of earth on the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers,
my grandmother with her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was
working with less energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap,
too, with no show of eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young,
with a wasted face, and sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all
torn and patched, scarcely held together over his narrow shoulders.

‘Who’s that?’ my grandmother inquired of Filippitch, who was walking on
tiptoe behind her.

‘Of whom ... you are pleased ...’ Filippitch stammered.

‘Oh, fool! I mean the one that looked so sullenly at me. There, standing
yonder, not working.’

‘Oh, him! Yes ... th ... th ... that’s Yermil, son of Pavel Afanasiitch,
now deceased.’

Pavel Afanasiitch had been, ten years before, head butler in my
grandmother’s house, and stood particularly high in her favour. But
suddenly falling into disgrace, he was as suddenly degraded to being
herdsman, and did not long keep even that position. He sank lower still,
and struggled on for a while on a monthly pittance of flour in a little
hut far away. At last he had died of paralysis, leaving his family in
the most utter destitution.

‘Aha!’ commented my grandmother; ‘it’s clear the apple’s not fallen far
from the tree. Well, we shall have to make arrangements about this
fellow too. I’ve no need of people like that, with scowling faces.’

My grandmother went back to the house--and made arrangements. Three
hours later Yermil, completely ‘equipped,’ was brought under the window
of her room. The unfortunate boy was being transported to a settlement;
the other side of the fence, a few steps from him, was a little cart
loaded with his poor belongings. Such were the times then. Yermil stood
without his cap, with downcast head, barefoot, with his boots tied up
with a string behind his back; his face, turned towards the seignorial
mansion, expressed not despair nor grief, nor even bewilderment; a
stupid smile was frozen on his colourless lips; his eyes, dry and
half-closed, looked stubbornly on the ground. My grandmother was
apprised of his presence. She got up from the sofa, went, with a faint
rustle of her silken skirts, to the window of the study, and, holding
her golden-rimmed double eyeglass on the bridge of her nose, looked at
the new exile. In her room there happened to be at the moment four other
persons, the butler, Baburin, the page who waited on my grandmother in
the daytime, and I.

My grandmother nodded her head up and down....

‘Madam,’ a hoarse almost stifled voice was heard suddenly. I looked
round. Baburin’s face was red ... dark red; under his overhanging brows
could be seen little sharp points of light.... There was no doubt about
it; it was he, it was Baburin, who had uttered the word ‘Madam.’

My grandmother too looked round, and turned her eyeglass from Yermil
to Baburin.

‘Who is that ... speaking?’ she articulated slowly ... through her nose.
Baburin moved slightly forward.

‘Madam,’ he began, ‘it is I.... I venture ... I imagine ... I make bold
to submit to your honour that you are making a mistake in acting as ...
as you are pleased to act at this moment.’

‘That is?’ my grandmother said, in the same voice, not removing
her eyeglass.

‘I take the liberty ...’ Baburin went on distinctly, uttering every word
though with obvious effort--‘I am referring to the case of this lad who
is being sent away to a settlement ... for no fault of his. Such
arrangements, I venture to submit, lead to dissatisfaction, and to
other--which God forbid!--consequences, and are nothing else than a
transgression of the powers allowed to seignorial proprietors.’

‘And where have you studied, pray?’ my grandmother asked after a short
silence, and she dropped her eyeglass.

Baburin was disconcerted. ‘What are you pleased to wish?’ he muttered.

‘I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.’

‘I ... my education ...’ Baburin was beginning.

My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. ‘It seems,’ she
interrupted, ‘that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of
absolutely no consequence to me--among my subjects I am sovereign, and
answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having people
criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their
business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript
position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always
lived till you came, and so I shall live after you’ve gone. You do not
suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,’ my grandmother turned to
the steward, ‘pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time
to-day! D’you hear? Don’t put me into a passion. And the other too ...
the fool that lives with him--to be sent off too. What’s Yermilka
waiting for?’ she added, looking out of window, ‘I have seen him. What
more does he want?’ My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the
direction of the window, as though to drive away an importunate fly.
Then she sat down in a low chair, and turning towards us, gave the order
grimly: ‘Everybody present to leave the room!’

We all withdrew--all, except the day page, to whom my grandmother’s
words did not apply, because he was nobody.

My grandmother’s decree was carried out to the letter. Before dinner,
both Baburin and my friend Punin were driving away from the place. I
will not undertake to describe my grief, my genuine, truly childish
despair. It was so strong that it stifled even the feeling of
awe-stricken admiration inspired by the bold action of the republican
Baburin. After the conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to
his room and began packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one
look, though I was the whole time hanging about him, or rather, in
reality, about Punin. The latter was utterly distraught, and he too said
nothing; but he was continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his
eyes ... always the same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did
not venture to criticise his ‘benefactor’--Paramon Semyonitch could not
make a mistake,--but great was his distress and dejection. Punin and I
made an effort to read something out of the _Rossiad_ for the last time;
we even locked ourselves up in the lumber-room--it was useless to dream
of going into the garden--but at the very first line we both broke down,
and I fairly bellowed like a calf, in spite of my twelve years, and my
claims to be grown-up.

When he had taken his seat in the carriage Baburin at last turned to me,
and with a slight softening of the accustomed sternness of his face,
observed: ‘It’s a lesson for you, young gentleman; remember this
incident, and when you grow up, try to put an end to such acts of
injustice. Your heart is good, your nature is not yet corrupted....
Mind, be careful; things can’t go on like this!’ Through my tears, which
streamed copiously over my nose, my lips, and my chin, I faltered out
that I would ... I would remember, that I promised ... I would do ... I
would be sure ... quite sure ...

But at this point, Punin, whom I had before this embraced twenty times
(my cheeks were burning from the contact with his unshaven beard, and I
was odoriferous of the smell that always clung to him)--at this point a
sudden frenzy came over Punin. He jumped up on the seat of the cart,
flung both hands up in the air, and began in a voice of thunder (where
he got it from!) to declaim the well-known paraphrase of the Psalm of
David by Derzhavin,--a poet for this occasion--not a courtier.

  ‘God the All-powerful doth arise
  And judgeth in the congregation of the mighty! ...
  How long, how long, saith the Lord,
  Will ye have mercy on the wicked?
  “Ye have to keep the laws....”’

‘Sit down!’ Baburin said to him.

Punin sat down, but continued:

  ‘To save the guiltless and needy,
  To give shelter to the afflicted,
  To defend the weak from the oppressors.’

Punin at the word ‘oppressors’ pointed to the seignorial abode, and then
poked the driver in the back.

  ‘To deliver the poor out of bondage!
  They know not! neither will they understand! ...’

Nikolai Antonov running out of the seignorial abode, shouted at the top
of his voice to the coachman: ‘Get away with you! owl! go along! don’t
stay lingering here!’ and the cart rolled away. Only in the distance
could still be heard:

  ‘Arise, O Lord God of righteousness! ...
  Come forth to judge the unjust--
  And be Thou the only Ruler of the nations!’

‘What a clown!’ remarked Nikolai Antonov.

‘He didn’t get enough of the rod in his young days,’ observed the
deacon, appearing on the steps. He had come to inquire what hour it
would please the mistress to fix for the night service.

The same day, learning that Yermil was still in the village, and would
not till early next morning be despatched to the town for the execution
of certain legal formalities, which were intended to check the
arbitrary proceedings of the landowners, but served only as a source of
additional revenue to the functionaries in superintendence of them, I
sought him out, and, for lack of money of my own, handed him a bundle,
in which I had tied up two pocket-handkerchiefs, a shabby pair of
slippers, a comb, an old night-gown, and a perfectly new silk cravat.
Yermil, whom I had to wake up--he was lying on a heap of straw in the
back yard, near the cart--Yermil took my present rather indifferently,
with some hesitation in fact, did not thank me, promptly poked his head
into the straw and fell asleep again. I went home somewhat
disappointed. I had imagined that he would be astonished and overjoyed
at my visit, would see in it a pledge of my magnanimous intentions for
the future--and instead of that ...

‘You may say what you like--these people have no feeling,’ was my
reflection on my homeward way.

My grandmother, who had for some reason left me in peace the whole of
that memorable day, looked at me suspiciously when I came after supper
to say good-night to her.

‘Your eyes are red,’ she observed to me in French; ‘and there’s a smell
of the peasant’s hut about you. I am not going to enter into an
examination of what you’ve been feeling and doing--I should not like to
be obliged to punish you--but I hope you will get over all your
foolishness, and begin to conduct yourself once more in a manner
befitting a well-bred boy. However, we are soon going back to Moscow,
and I shall get you a tutor--as I see you need a man’s hand to manage
you. You can go.’

We did, as a fact, go back soon after to Moscow.




II

1837


Seven years had passed by. We were living as before at Moscow--but I was
by now a student in my second year--and the authority of my grandmother,
who had aged very perceptibly in the last years, no longer weighed upon
me. Of all my fellow-students the one with whom I was on the friendliest
terms was a light-hearted and good-natured youth called Tarhov. Our
habits and our tastes were similar. Tarhov was a great lover of poetry,
and himself wrote verses; while in me the seeds sown by Punin had not
been without fruit. As is often the case with young people who are very
close friends, we had no secrets from one another. But behold, for
several days together I noticed a certain excitement and agitation in
Tarhov.... He disappeared for hours at a time, and I did not know where
he had got to--a thing which had never happened before. I was on the
point of demanding, in the name of friendship, a full explanation.... He
anticipated me.

One day I was sitting in his room.... ‘Petya,’ he said suddenly,
blushing gaily, and looking me straight in the face, ‘I must introduce
you to my muse.’

‘Your muse! how queerly you talk! Like a classicist. (Romanticism was at
that time, in 1837, at its full height.) As if I had not known it ever
so long--your muse! Have you written a new poem, or what?’

‘You don’t understand what I mean,’ rejoined Tarhov, still laughing and
blushing. ‘I will introduce you to a living muse.’

‘Aha! so that’s it! But how is she--yours?’

‘Why, because ... But hush, I believe it’s she coming here.’

There was the light click of hurrying heels, the door opened, and in the
doorway appeared a girl of eighteen, in a chintz cotton gown, with a
black cloth cape on her shoulders, and a black straw hat on her fair,
rather curly hair. On seeing me she was frightened and disconcerted, and
was beating a retreat ... but Tarhov at once rushed to meet her.

‘Please, please, Musa Pavlovna, come in! This is my great friend, a
splendid fellow--and the soul of discretion. You’ve no need to be afraid
of him. Petya,’ he turned to me, ‘let me introduce my Musa--Musa
Pavlovna Vinogradov, a great friend of mine.’

I bowed.

‘How is that ... Musa?’ I was beginning.... Tarhov laughed. ‘Ah, you
didn’t know there was such a name in the calendar? I didn’t know it
either, my boy, till I met this dear young lady. Musa! such a charming
name! And suits her so well!’

I bowed again to my comrade’s great friend. She left the door, took two
steps forward and stood still. She was very attractive, but I could not
agree with Tarhov’s opinion, and inwardly said to myself: ‘Well, she’s a
strange sort of muse!’

The features of her curved, rosy face were small and delicate; there was
an air of fresh, buoyant youth about all her slender, miniature figure;
but of the muse, of the personification of the muse, I--and not only
I--all the young people of that time had a very different conception!
First of all the muse had infallibly to be dark-haired and pale. An
expression of scornful pride, a bitter smile, a glance of inspiration,
and that ‘something’--mysterious, demonic, fateful--that was essential
to our conception of the muse, the muse of Byron, who at that time held
sovereign sway over men’s fancies. There was nothing of that kind to be
discerned in the face of the girl who came in. Had I been a little older
and more experienced I should probably have paid more attention to her
eyes, which were small and deep-set, with full lids, but dark as agate,
alert and bright, a thing rare in fair-haired people. Poetical
tendencies I should not have detected in their rapid, as it were
elusive, glance, but hints of a passionate soul, passionate to
self-forgetfulness. But I was very young then.

I held out my hand to Musa Pavlovna--she did not give me hers--she did
not notice my movement; she sat down on the chair Tarhov placed for her,
but did not take off her hat and cape.

She was, obviously, ill at ease; my presence embarrassed her. She
drew deep breaths, at irregular intervals, as though she were
gasping for air.

‘I’ve only come to you for one minute, Vladimir Nikolaitch,’ she
began--her voice was very soft and deep; from her crimson, almost
childish lips, it seemed rather strange;--‘but our madame would not let
me out for more than half an hour. You weren’t well the day before
yesterday ... and so, I thought ...’

She stammered and hung her head. Under the shade of her thick, low brows
her dark eyes darted--to and fro--elusively. There are dark, swift,
flashing beetles that flit so in the heat of summer among the blades of
dry grass.

‘How good you are, Musa, Musotchka!’ cried Tarhov. ‘But you must stay,
you must stay a little.... We’ll have the samovar in directly.’

‘Oh no, Vladimir Nikolaevitch! it’s impossible! I must go away
this minute.’

‘You must rest a little, anyway. You’re out of breath.... You’re tired.’

‘I’m not tired. It’s ... not that ... only ... give me another book;
I’ve finished this one.’ She took out of her pocket a tattered grey
volume of a Moscow edition.

‘Of course, of course. Well, did you like it? _Roslavlev_,’ added
Tarhov, addressing me.

‘Yes. Only I think _Yury Miloslavsky_ is much better. Our madame is very
strict about books. She says they hinder our working. For, to her
thinking ...’

‘But, I say, _Yury Miloslavsky_‘s not equal to Pushkin’s _Gipsies_? Eh?
Musa Pavlovna?’ Tarhov broke in with a smile.

‘No, indeed! The _Gipsies_ ...’ she murmured slowly. ‘Oh yes, another
thing, Vladimir Nikolaitch; don’t come to-morrow ... you know where.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s impossible.’

‘But why?’

The girl shrugged her shoulders, and all at once, as though she had
received a sudden shove, got up from her chair.

‘Why, Musa, Musotchka,’ Tarhov expostulated plaintively. ‘Stay a
little!’

‘No, no, I can’t.’ She went quickly to the door, took hold of the
handle....

‘Well, at least, take the book!’

‘Another time.’

Tarhov rushed towards the girl, but at that instant she darted out of
the room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. ‘What a girl!
She’s a regular little viper!’ he declared with some vexation, and then
sank into thought.

I stayed at Tarhov’s. I wanted to find out what was the meaning of it
all. Tarhov was not disposed to be reserved. He told me that the girl
was a milliner; that he had seen her for the first time three weeks
before in a fashionable shop, where he had gone on a commission for his
sister, who lived in the provinces, to buy a hat; that he had fallen in
love with her at first sight, and that next day he had succeeded in
speaking to her in the street; that she had herself, it seemed, taken
rather a fancy to him.

‘Only, please, don’t you suppose,’ he added with warmth,--‘don’t you
imagine any harm of her. So far, at any rate, there’s been nothing of
that sort between us.

‘Harm!’ I caught him up; ‘I’ve no doubt of that; and I’ve no doubt
either that you sincerely deplore the fact, my dear fellow! Have
patience--everything will come right’

‘I hope so,’ Tarhov muttered through his teeth, though with a laugh.
‘But really, my boy, that girl ... I tell you--it’s a new type, you
know. You hadn’t time to get a good look at her. She’s a shy thing!--oo!
such a shy thing! and what a will of her own! But that very shyness is
what I like in her. It’s a sign of independence! I’m simply over head
and ears, my boy!’

Tarhov fell to talking of his ‘charmer,’ and even read me the beginning
of a poem entitled: ‘My Muse.’ His emotional outpourings were not quite
to my taste. I felt secretly jealous of him. I soon left him.

       *       *       *       *       *

A few days after I happened to be passing through one of the arcades of
the Gostinny Dvor. It was Saturday; there were crowds of people
shopping; on all sides, in the midst of the pushing and crushing, the
shopmen kept shouting to people to buy. Having bought what I wanted, I
was thinking of nothing but getting away from their teasing importunity
as soon as possible--when all at once I halted involuntarily: in a fruit
shop I caught sight of my comrade’s charmer--Musa, Musa Pavlovna! She
was standing, profile to me, and seemed to be waiting for something.
After a moment’s hesitation I made up my mind to go up to her and speak.
But I had hardly passed through the doorway of the shop and taken off my
cap, when she tottered back dismayed, turned quickly to an old man in a
frieze cloak, for whom the shopman was weighing out a pound of raisins,
and clutched at his arm, as though fleeing to put herself under his
protection. The latter, in his turn, wheeled round facing her--and,
imagine my amazement, I recognised him as Punin!

Yes, it was he; there were his inflamed eyes, his full lips, his soft,
overhanging nose. He had, in fact, changed little during the last seven
years; his face was a little flabbier, perhaps.

‘Nikander Vavilitch!’ I cried. ‘Don’t you know me?’ Punin started,
opened his mouth, stared at me....

‘I haven’t the honour,’ he was beginning--and all at once he piped out
shrilly: ‘The little master of Troïtsky (my grandmother’s property was
called Troïtsky)! Can it be the little master of Troïtsky?’

The pound of raisins tumbled out of his hands.

‘It really is,’ I answered, and, picking up Punin’s purchase from the
ground, I kissed him.

He was breathless with delight and excitement; he almost cried, removed
his cap--which enabled me to satisfy myself that the last traces of hair
had vanished from his ‘egg’--took a handkerchief out of it, blew his
nose, poked the cap into his bosom with the raisins, put it on again,
again dropped the raisins.... I don’t know how Musa was behaving all
this time, I tried not to look at her. I don’t imagine Punin’s agitation
proceeded from any extreme attachment to my person; it was simply that
his nature could not stand the slightest unexpected shock. The nervous
excitability of these poor devils!

‘Come and see us, my dear boy,’ he faltered at last; ‘you won’t be too
proud to visit our humble nest? You’re a student, I see ...’

‘On the contrary, I shall be delighted, really.’

‘Are you independent now?’

‘Perfectly independent.’

‘That’s capital! How pleased Paramon Semyonitch will be! To-day he’ll be
home earlier than usual, and madame lets her, too, off for Saturdays.
But, stop, excuse me, I am quite forgetting myself. Of course, you don’t
know our niece!’

I hastened to slip in that I had not yet had the pleasure.

‘Of course, of course! How could you know her! Musotchka ... Take note,
my dear sir, this girl’s name is Musa--and it’s not a nickname, but her
real name ... Isn’t that a predestination? Musotchka, I want to
introduce you to Mr. ... Mr. ...’

‘B.,’ I prompted.

‘B.,’ he repeated. ‘Musotchka, listen! You see before you the most
excellent, most delightful of young men. Fate threw us together when he
was still in years of boyhood! I beg you to look on him as a friend!’

I swung off a low bow. Musa, red as a poppy, flashed a look on me from
under her eyelids, and dropped them immediately.

‘Ah!’ thought I, ‘you ‘re one of those who in difficult moments don’t
turn pale, but red; that must be made a note of.’

‘You must be indulgent, she’s not a fine lady,’ observed Punin, and he
went out of the shop into the street; Musa and I followed him.

       *       *       *       *       *

The house in which Punin lodged was a considerable distance from the
Gostinny Dvor, being, in fact, in Sadovoy Street. On the way my former
preceptor in poetry had time to communicate a good many details of his
mode of existence. Since the time of our parting, both he and Baburin
had been tossed about holy Russia pretty thoroughly, and had not
long--only a year and a half before--found a permanent home in Moscow.
Baburin had succeeded in becoming head-clerk in the office of a rich
merchant and manufacturer. ‘Not a lucrative berth,’ Punin observed with
a sigh,--‘a lot of work, and not much profit ... but what’s one to do?
One must be thankful to get that! I, too, am trying to earn something by
copying and lessons; only my efforts have so far not been crowned with
success. My writing, you perhaps recollect, is old-fashioned, not in
accordance with the tastes of the day; and as regards lessons--what has
been a great obstacle is the absence of befitting attire; moreover, I
greatly fear that in the matter of instruction--in the subject of
Russian literature--I am also not in harmony with the tastes of the day;
and so it comes about that I am turned away.’ (Punin laughed his sleepy,
subdued laugh. He had retained his old, somewhat high-flown manner of
speech, and his old weakness for falling into rhyme.) ‘All run after
novelties, nothing but innovations! I dare say you, too, do not honour
the old divinities, and fall down before new idols?’

‘And you, Nikander Vavilitch, do you really still esteem Heraskov?’

Punin stood still and waved both hands at once. ‘In the highest degree,
sir! in the high ... est de ... gree, I do!’

‘And you don’t read Pushkin? You don’t like Pushkin?’

Punin again flung his hands up higher than his head.

‘Pushkin? Pushkin is the snake, lying hid in the grass, who is endowed
with the note of the nightingale!’

While Punin and I talked like this, cautiously picking our way over the
unevenly laid brick pavement of so-called ‘white-stoned’ Moscow--in
which there is not one stone, and which is not white at all--Musa walked
silently beside us on the side further from me. In speaking of her, I
called her ‘your niece.’ Punin was silent for a little, scratched his
head, and informed me in an undertone that he had called her so ...
merely as a manner of speaking; that she was really no relation; that
she was an orphan picked up and cared for by Baburin in the town of
Voronezh; but that he, Punin, might well call her daughter, as he loved
her no less than a real daughter. I had no doubt that, though Punin
intentionally dropped his voice, Musa could hear all he said very well;
and she was at once angry, and shy, and embarrassed; and the lights and
shades chased each other over her face, and everything in it was
slightly quivering, the eyelids and brows and lips and narrow nostrils.
All this was very charming, and amusing, and queer.

       *       *       *       *       *

But at last we reached the ‘modest nest.’ And modest it certainly was,
the nest. It consisted of a small, one-storied house, that seemed almost
sunk into the ground, with a slanting wooden roof, and four dingy
windows in the front. The furniture of the rooms was of the poorest, and
not over tidy, indeed. Between the windows and on the walls hung about a
dozen tiny wooden cages containing larks, canaries, and siskins. ‘My
subjects!’ Punin pronounced triumphantly, pointing his finger at them.
We had hardly time to get in and look about us, Punin had hardly sent
Musa for the samovar, when Baburin himself came in. He seemed to me to
have aged much more than Punin, though his step was as firm as ever, and
the expression of his face altogether was unchanged; but he had grown
thin and bent, his cheeks were sunken, and his thick black shock of hair
was sprinkled with grey. He did not recognise me, and showed no
particular pleasure when Punin mentioned my name; he did not even smile
with his eyes, he barely nodded; he asked--very carelessly and
drily--whether my _granny_ were living--and that was all. ‘I’m not
over-delighted at a visit from a nobleman,’ he seemed to say; ‘I don’t
feel flattered by it.’ The republican was a republican still.

Musa came back; a decrepit little old woman followed her, bringing in a
tarnished samovar. Punin began fussing about, and pressing me to take
things; Baburin sat down to the table, leaned his head on his hands, and
looked with weary eyes about him. At tea, however, he began to talk. He
was dissatisfied with his position. ‘A screw--not a man,’ so he spoke of
his employer; ‘people in a subordinate position are so much dirt to him,
of no consequence whatever; and yet it’s not so long since he was under
the yoke himself. Nothing but cruelty and covetousness. It’s a bondage
worse than the government’s! And all the trade here rests on swindling
and flourishes on nothing else!’

Hearing such dispiriting utterances, Punin sighed expressively,
assented, shook his head up and down, and from side to side; Musa
maintained a stubborn silence.... She was obviously fretted by the
doubt, what I was, whether I was a discreet person or a gossip. And if I
were discreet, whether it was not with some afterthought in my mind. Her
dark, swift, restless eyes fairly flashed to and fro under their
half-drooping lids. Only once she glanced at me, but so inquisitively,
so searchingly, almost viciously ... I positively started. Baburin
scarcely talked to her at all; but whenever he did address her, there
was a note of austere, hardly fatherly, tenderness in his voice.

Punin, on the contrary, was continually joking with Musa; she responded
unwillingly, however. He called her little snow-maiden, little
snowflake.

‘Why do you give Musa Pavlovna such names?’ I asked.

Punin laughed. ‘Because she’s such a chilly little thing.’

‘Sensible,’ put in Baburin: ‘as befits a young girl.’

‘We may call her the mistress of the house,’ cried Punin. ‘Hey? Paramon
Semyonitch?’ Baburin frowned; Musa turned away ... I did not understand
the hint at the time.

So passed two hours ... in no very lively fashion, though Punin did his
best to ‘entertain the honourable company.’ For instance, he squatted
down in front of the cage of one of the canaries, opened the door, and
commanded: ‘On the cupola! Begin the concert!’ The canary fluttered out
at once, perched on the _cupola_, that is to say, on Punin’s bald pate,
and turning from side to side, and shaking its little wings, carolled
with all its might. During the whole time the concert lasted, Punin kept
perfectly still, only conducting with his finger, and half closing his
eyes. I could not help roaring with laughter ... but neither Baburin nor
Musa laughed.

Just as I was leaving, Baburin surprised me by an unexpected question.
He wished to ask me, as a man studying at the university, what sort of
person Zeno was, and what were my ideas about him.

‘What Zeno?’ I asked, somewhat puzzled.

‘Zeno, the sage of antiquity. Surely he cannot be unknown to you?’

I vaguely recalled the name of Zeno, as the founder of the school of
Stoics; but I knew absolutely nothing more about him.

‘Yes, he was a philosopher,’ I pronounced, at last.

‘Zeno,’ Baburin resumed in deliberate tones, ‘was that wise man, who
declared that suffering was not an evil, since fortitude overcomes all
things, and that the good in this world is one: justice; and virtue
itself is nothing else than justice.’

Punin turned a reverent ear.

‘A man living here who has picked up a lot of old books, told me that
saying,’ continued Baburin; ‘it pleased me much. But I see you are not
interested in such subjects.’

Baburin was right. In such subjects I certainly was not interested.
Since I had entered the university, I had become as much of a republican
as Baburin himself. Of Mirabeau, of Robespierre, I would have talked
with zest. Robespierre, indeed ... why, I had hanging over my
writing-table the lithographed portraits of Fouquier-Tinville and
Chalier! But Zeno! Why drag in Zeno?

As he said good-bye to me, Punin insisted very warmly on my visiting
them next day, Sunday; Baburin did not invite me at all, and even
remarked between his teeth, that talking to plain people of nondescript
position could not give me any great pleasure, and would most likely be
disagreeable to my _granny_. At that word I interrupted him, however,
and gave him to understand that my grandmother had no longer any
authority over me.

‘Why, you’ve not come into possession of the property, have you?’
queried Baburin.

‘No, I haven’t,’ I answered.

‘Well, then, it follows ...’ Baburin did not finish his sentence; but I
mentally finished it for him: ‘it follows that I’m a boy.’

‘Good-bye,’ I said aloud, and I retired.

I was just going out of the courtyard into the street ... Musa suddenly
ran out of the house, and slipping a piece of crumpled paper into my
hand, disappeared at once. At the first lamp-post I unfolded the paper.
It turned out to be a note. With difficulty I deciphered the pale
pencil-marks. ‘For God’s sake,’ Musa had written, ‘come to-morrow after
matins to the Alexandrovsky garden near the Kutafia tower I shall wait
for you don’t refuse me don’t make me miserable I simply must see you.’
There were no mistakes in spelling in this note, but neither was there
any punctuation. I returned home in perplexity.

       *       *       *       *       *

When, a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, next day, I began
to get near the Kutafia tower (it was early in April, the buds were
swelling, the grass was growing greener, and the sparrows were noisily
chirrupping and quarrelling in the bare lilac bushes), considerably to
my surprise, I caught sight of Musa a little to one side, not far from
the fence. She was there before me. I was going towards her; but she
herself came to meet me.

‘Let’s go to the Kreml wall,’ she whispered in a hurried voice, running
her downcast eyes over the ground; ‘there are people here.’

We went along the path up the hill.

‘Musa Pavlovna,’ I was beginning.... But she cut me short at once.

‘Please,’ she began, speaking in the same jerky and subdued voice,
‘don’t criticise me, don’t think any harm of me. I wrote a letter to
you, I made an appointment to meet you, because ... I was afraid.... It
seemed to me yesterday,--you seemed to be laughing all the time.
Listen,’ she added, with sudden energy, and she stopped short and turned
towards me: ‘listen; if you tell with whom ... if you mention at whose
room you met me, I’ll throw myself in the water, I’ll drown myself, I’ll
make an end of myself!’

At this point, for the first time, she glanced at me with the
inquisitive, piercing look I had seen before.

‘Why, she, perhaps, really ... would do it,’ was my thought.

‘Really, Musa Pavlovna,’ I protested, hurriedly: ‘how can you have such
a bad opinion of me? Do you suppose I am capable of betraying my friend
and injuring you? Besides, come to that, there’s nothing in your
relations, as far as I’m aware, deserving of censure.... For goodness’
sake, be calm.’

Musa heard me out, without stirring from the spot, or looking at me
again.

‘There’s something else I ought to tell you,’ she began, moving forward
again along the path, ‘or else you may think I’m quite mad! I ought to
tell you, that old man wants to marry me!’

‘What old man? The bald one? Punin?’

‘No--not he! The other ... Paramon Semyonitch.’

‘Baburin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it possible? Has he made you an offer?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you didn’t consent, of course?’

‘Yes, I did consent ... because I didn’t understand what I was about
then. Now it’s a different matter.’

I flung up my hands. ‘Baburin--and you! Why, he must be fifty!’

‘He says forty-three. But that makes no difference. If he were
five--and--twenty I wouldn’t marry him. Much happiness I should find in
it! A whole week will go by without his smiling once! Paramon Semyonitch
is my benefactor, I am deeply indebted to him; he took care of me,
educated me; I should have been utterly lost but for him; I’m bound to
look on him as a father.... But be his wife! I’d rather die! I’d rather
be in my coffin!’

‘Why do you keep talking about death, Musa Pavlovna?’

Musa stopped again.

‘Why, is life so sweet, then? Even your friend Vladimir Nikolaitch, I
may say, I’ve come to love from being wretched and dull: and then
Paramon Semyonitch with his offers of marriage.... Punin, though he
bores me with his verses, he doesn’t scare me, anyway; he doesn’t make
me read Karamzin in the evenings, when my head’s ready to drop off my
shoulders for weariness! And what are these old men to me? They call me
cold, too. With them, is it likely I should be warm? If they try to make
me--I shall go. Paramon Semyonitch himself’s always saying: Freedom!
freedom! All right, I want freedom too. Or else it comes to this!
Freedom for every one else, and keeping me in a cage! I’ll tell him so
myself. But if you betray me, or drop a hint--remember; they’ll never
set eyes on me again!’

Musa stood in the middle of the path.

‘They’ll never set eyes on me again!’ she repeated sharply. This time,
too, she did not raise her eyes to me; she seemed to be aware that she
would infallibly betray herself, would show what was in her heart, if
any one looked her straight in the face.... And that was just why she
did not lift her eyes, except when she was angry or annoyed, and then
she stared straight at the person she was speaking to.... But her small
pretty face was aglow with indomitable resolution.

‘Why, Tarhov was right,’ flashed through my head; ‘this girl is a
new type.’

‘You’ve no need to be afraid of me,’ I declared, at last.

‘Truly? Even, if ... You said something about our relations.... But even
if there were ...’ she broke off.

‘Even in that case, you would have no need to be afraid, Musa Pavlovna.
I am not your judge. Your secret is buried here.’ I pointed to my bosom.
‘Believe me, I know how to appreciate ...’

‘Have you got my letter?’ Musa asked suddenly.

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘In my pocket.’

‘Give it here ... quick, quick!’

I got out the scrap of paper. Musa snatched it in her rough little hand,
stood still a moment facing me, as though she were going to thank me;
but suddenly started, looked round, and without even a word at parting,
ran quickly down the hill.

I looked in the direction she had taken. At no great distance from the
tower I discerned, wrapped in an ‘Almaviva’ [‘Almavivas’ were then in
the height of fashion), a figure which I recognised at once as Tarhov.

‘Aha, my boy,’ thought I, ‘you must have had notice, then, since you’re
on the look-out.’

And whistling to myself, I started homewards.

       *       *       *       *       *

Next morning I had only just drunk my morning tea, when Punin made his
appearance. He came into my room with rather an embarrassed face, and
began making bows, looking about him, and apologising for his intrusion,
as he called it. I made haste to reassure him. I, sinful man, imagined
that Punin had come with the intention of borrowing money. But he
confined himself to asking for a glass of tea with rum in it, as,
luckily, the samovar had not been cleared away. ‘It’s with some
trepidation and sinking of heart that I have come to see you,’ he said,
as he nibbled a lump of sugar. ‘You I do not fear; but I stand in awe of
your honoured grandmother! I am abashed too by my attire, as I have
already communicated to you.’ Punin passed his finger along the frayed
edge of his ancient coat. ‘At home it’s no matter, and in the street,
too, it’s no harm; but when one finds one’s self in gilded palaces,
one’s poverty stares one in the face, and one feels confused!’ I
occupied two small rooms on the ground floor, and certainly it would
never have entered any one’s head to call them palaces, still less
gilded; but Punin apparently was referring to the whole of my
grandmother’s house, though that too was by no means conspicuously
sumptuous. He reproached me for not having been to see them the previous
day; ‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ said he, ‘expected you, though he did declare
that you would be sure not to come. And Musotchka, too, expected you.’

‘What? Musa Pavlovna too?’ I queried.

‘She too. She’s a charming girl we have got with us, isn’t she? What
do you say?’

‘Very charming,’ I assented. Punin rubbed his bare head with
extraordinary rapidity.

‘She’s a beauty, sir, a pearl or even a diamond--it’s the truth I am
telling you.’ He bent down quite to my ear. ‘Noble blood, too,’ he
whispered to me, ‘only--you understand--left-handed; the forbidden fruit
was eaten. Well, the parents died, the relations would do nothing for
her, and flung her to the hazards of destiny, that’s to say, despair,
dying of hunger! But at that point Paramon Semyonitch steps forward,
known as a deliverer from of old! He took her, clothed her and cared for
her, brought up the poor nestling; and she has blossomed into our
darling! I tell you, a man of the rarest qualities!’

Punin subsided against the back of the armchair, lifted his hands, and
again bending forward, began whispering again, but still more
mysteriously: ‘You see Paramon Semyonitch himself too.... Didn’t you
know? he too is of exalted extraction--and on the left side, too. They
do say--his father was a powerful Georgian prince, of the line of King
David.... What do you make of that? A few words--but how much is said?
The blood of King David! What do you think of that? And according to
other accounts, the founder of the family of Paramon Semyonitch was an
Indian Shah, Babur. Blue blood! That’s fine too, isn’t it? Eh?’

‘Well?’ I queried, ‘and was he too, Baburin, flung to the hazards
of destiny?’

Punin rubbed his pate again. ‘To be sure he was! And with even greater
cruelty than our little lady! From his earliest childhood nothing but
struggling! And, in fact, I will confess that, inspired by Ruban, I
composed in allusion to this fact a stanza for the portrait of Paramon
Semyonitch. Wait a bit ... how was it? Yes!

  ‘E’en from the cradle fate’s remorseless blows
  Baburin drove towards the abyss of woes!
  But as in darkness gleams the light, so now
  The conqueror’s laurel wreathes his noble brow!’

Punin delivered these lines in a rhythmic, sing-song voice, with full
rounded vowels, as verses should be read.

‘So that’s how it is he’s a republican!’ I exclaimed.

‘No, that’s not why,’ Punin answered simply. ‘He forgave his father long
ago; but he cannot endure injustice of any sort; it’s the sorrows of
others that trouble him!’

I wanted to turn the conversation on what I had learned from Musa the
day before, that is to say, on Baburin’s matrimonial project,--but I did
not know how to proceed. Punin himself got me out of the difficulty.

‘Did you notice nothing?’ he asked me suddenly, slily screwing up his
eyes, ‘while you were with us? nothing special?’

‘Why, was there anything to notice?’ I asked in my turn.

Punin looked over his shoulder, as though anxious to satisfy himself
that no one was listening. ‘Our little beauty, Musotchka, is shortly to
be a married lady!’

‘How so?’

‘Madame Baburin,’ Punin announced with an effort, and slapping his
knees several times with his open hands, he nodded his head, like a
china mandarin.

‘Impossible!’ I cried, with assumed astonishment. Punin’s head
slowly came to rest, and his hands dropped down. ‘Why impossible,
allow me to ask?’

‘Because Paramon Semyonitch is more fit to be your young lady’s father;
because such a difference in age excludes all likelihood of love--on the
girl’s side.’

‘Excludes?’ Punin repeated excitedly. ‘But what about gratitude? and
pure affection? and tenderness of feeling? Excludes! You must consider
this: admitting that Musa’s a splendid girl; but then to gain Paramon
Semyonitch’s affection, to be his comfort, his prop--his spouse, in
short! is that not the loftiest possible happiness even for such a girl?
And she realises it! You should look, turn an attentive eye! In Paramon
Semyonitch’s presence Musotchka is all veneration, all tremor and
enthusiasm!’

‘That’s just what’s wrong, Nikander Vavilitch, that she is, as you say,
all tremor. If you love any one you don’t feel tremors in their
presence.’

‘But with that I can’t agree! Here am I, for instance; no one, I
suppose, could love Paramon Semyonitch more than I, but I ... tremble
before him.’

‘Oh, you--that’s a different matter.’

‘How is it a different matter? how? how?’ interrupted Punin. I simply
did not know him; he got hot, and serious, almost angry, and quite
dropped his rhythmic sing-song in speaking. ‘No,’ he declared; ‘I notice
that you have not a good eye for character! No; you can’t read people’s
hearts!’ I gave up contradicting him ... and to give another turn to the
conversation, proposed, for the sake of old times, that we should read
something together.

Punin was silent for a while.

‘One of the old poets? The real ones?’ he asked at last.

‘No; a new one.’

‘A new one?’ Punin repeated mistrustfully.

‘Pushkin,’ I answered. I suddenly thought of the _Gypsies_ which Tarhov
had mentioned not long before. There, by the way, is the ballad about
the old husband. Punin grumbled a little, but I sat him down on the
sofa, so that he could listen more comfortably, and began to read
Pushkin’s poem. The passage came at last, ‘old husband, cruel husband’;
Punin heard the ballad through to the end, and all at once he got up
impulsively.

‘I can’t,’ he pronounced, with an intense emotion, which impressed even
me;--‘excuse me; I cannot hear more of that author. He is an immoral
slanderer; he is a liar ... he upsets me. I cannot! Permit me to cut
short my visit to-day.’

I began trying to persuade Punin to remain; but he insisted on having
his own way with a sort of stupid, scared obstinacy: he repeated several
times that he felt upset, and wished to get a breath of fresh air--and
all the while his lips were faintly quivering and his eyes avoided mine,
as though I had wounded him. So he went away. A little while after, I
too went out of the house and set off to see Tarhov.

       *       *       *       *       *

Without inquiring of any one, with a student’s usual lack of ceremony,
I walked straight into his lodgings. In the first room there was no
one. I called Tarhov by name, and receiving no answer, was just going
to retreat; but the door of the adjoining room opened, and my friend
appeared. He looked at me rather queerly, and shook hands without
speaking. I had come to him to repeat all I had heard from Punin; and
though I felt at once that I had called on Tarhov at the wrong moment,
still, after talking a little about extraneous matters, I ended by
informing him of Baburin’s intentions in regard to Musa. This piece of
news did not, apparently, surprise him much; he quietly sat down at the
table, and fixing his eyes intently upon me, and keeping silent as
before, gave to his features an expression ... an expression, as though
he would say: ‘Well, what more have you to tell? Come, out with your
ideas!’ I looked more attentively into his face.... It struck me as
eager, a little ironical, a little arrogant even. But that did not
hinder me from bringing out my ideas. On the contrary. ‘You’re showing
off,’ was my thought; ‘so I am not going to spare you!’ And there and
then I proceeded straightway to enlarge upon the mischief of yielding
to impulsive feelings, upon the duty of every man to respect the
freedom and personal life of another man--in short, I proceeded to
enunciate useful and appropriate counsel. Holding forth in this manner,
I walked up and down the room, to be more at ease. Tarhov did not
interrupt me, and did not stir from his seat; he only played with his
fingers on his chin.

‘I know,’ said I ... (Exactly what was my motive in speaking so, I have
no clear idea myself--envy, most likely; it was not devotion to
morality, anyway!) ‘I know,’ said I, ‘that it’s no easy matter, no
joking matter; I am sure you love Musa, and that Musa loves you--that it
is not a passing fancy on your part.... But, see, let us suppose! (Here
I folded my arms on my breast.) ... Let us suppose you gratify your
passion--what is to follow? You won’t marry her, you know. And at the
same time you are wrecking the happiness of an excellent, honest man,
her benefactor--and--who knows? (here my face expressed at the same time
penetration and sorrow)--possibly her own happiness too....’

And so on, and so on!

For about a quarter of an hour my discourse flowed on. Tarhov was still
silent. I began to be disconcerted by this silence. I glanced at him
from time to time, not so much to satisfy myself as to the impression my
words were making on him, as to find out why he neither objected nor
agreed, but sat like a deaf mute. At last I fancied that there was ...
yes, there certainly was a change in his face. It began to show signs of
uneasiness, agitation, painful agitation.... Yet, strange to say, the
eager, bright, laughing something, which had struck me at my first
glance at Tarhov, still did not leave that agitated, that troubled face!
I could not make up my mind whether or no to congratulate myself on the
success of my sermon, when Tarhov suddenly got up, and pressing both my
hands, said, speaking very quickly, ‘Thank you, thank you. You’re right,
of course, ... though, on the other side, one might observe ... What is
your Baburin you make so much of, after all? An honest fool--and nothing
more! You call him a republican--and he’s simply a fool! Oo! That’s what
he is! All his republicanism simply means that he can never get on
anywhere!’

‘Ah! so that’s your idea! A fool! can never get on!--but let me tell
you,’ I pursued, with sudden heat, ‘let me tell you, my dear Vladimir
Nikolaitch, that in these days to get on nowhere is a sign of a fine, a
noble nature! None but worthless people--bad people--get on anywhere and
accommodate themselves to everything. You say Baburin is an honest fool!
Why, is it better, then, to your mind, to be dishonest and clever?’

‘You distort my words!’ cried Tarhov. ‘I only wanted to explain how I
understand that person. Do you think he’s such a rare specimen? Not a
bit of it! I’ve met other people like him in my time. A man sits with an
air of importance, silent, obstinate, angular.... O-ho-ho! say you. It
shows that there’s a great deal in him! But there’s nothing in him, not
one idea in his head--nothing but a sense of his own dignity.’

‘Even if there is nothing else, that’s an honourable thing,’ I broke
in. ‘But let me ask where you have managed to study him like this? You
don’t know him, do you? Or are you describing him ... from what Musa
tells you?’

Tarhov shrugged his shoulders. ‘Musa and I ... have other things to talk
of. I tell you what,’ he added, his whole body quivering with
impatience,--‘I tell you what: if Baburin has such a noble and honest
nature, how is it he doesn’t see that Musa is not a fit match for him?
It’s one of two things: either he knows that what he’s doing to her is
something of the nature of an outrage, all in the name of gratitude ...
and if so, what about his honesty?--or he doesn’t realise it ... and in
that case, what can one call him but a fool?’

I was about to reply, but Tarhov again clutched my hands, and again
began talking in a hurried voice. ‘Though ... of course ... I confess
you are right, a thousand times right.... You are a true friend ... but
now leave me alone, please.’

I was puzzled. ‘Leave you alone?’

‘Yes. I must, don’t you see, think over all you’ve just said,
thoroughly.... I have no doubt you are right ... but now leave me
alone!’

‘You ‘re in such a state of excitement ...’ I was beginning.

‘Excitement? I?’ Tarhov laughed, but instantly pulled himself up. ‘Yes,
of course I am. How could I help being? You say yourself it’s no joking
matter. Yes; I must think about it ... alone.’ He was still squeezing my
hands. ‘Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye!’

‘Good-bye,’ I repeated. ‘Good-bye, old boy!’ As I was going away I flung
a last glance at Tarhov. He seemed pleased. At what? At the fact that I,
like a true friend and comrade, had pointed out the danger of the way
upon which he had set his foot--or that I was going? Ideas of the most
diverse kind were floating in my head the whole day till evening--till
the very instant when I entered the house occupied by Punin and Baburin,
for I went to see them the same day. I am bound to confess that some of
Tarhov’s phrases had sunk deep into my soul ... and were ringing in my
ears.... In truth, was it possible Baburin ... was it possible he did
not see she was not a fit match for him?

But could this possibly be: Baburin, the self-sacrificing Baburin--an
honest fool!

       *       *       *       *       *

Punin had said, when he came to see me, that I had been expected there
the day before. That may have been so, but on this day, it is certain,
no one expected me.... I found every one at home, and every one was
surprised at my visit. Baburin and Punin were both unwell: Punin had a
headache, and he was lying curled up on the sofa, with his head tied up
in a spotted handkerchief, and strips of cucumber applied to his
temples. Baburin was suffering from a bilious attack; all yellow,
almost dusky, with dark rings round his eyes, with scowling brow and
unshaven chin--he did not look much like a bridegroom! I tried to go
away.... But they would not let me go, and even made tea. I spent
anything but a cheerful evening. Musa, it is true, had no ailment, and
was less shy than usual too, but she was obviously vexed, angry.... At
last she could not restrain herself, and, as she handed me a cup of
tea, she whispered hurriedly: ‘You can say what you like, you may try
your utmost, you won’t make any difference.... So there!’ I looked at
her in astonishment, and, seizing a favourable moment, asked her, also
in a whisper, ‘What’s the meaning of your words?’ ‘I’ll tell you,’ she
answered, and her black eyes, gleaming angrily under her frowning
brows, were fastened for an instant on my face, and turned away at
once: ‘the meaning is that I heard all you said there to-day, and thank
you for nothing, and things won’t be as you ‘d have them, anyway.’ ‘You
were there,’ broke from me unconsciously.... But at this point
Baburin’s attention was caught, and he glanced in our direction. Musa
walked away from me.

Ten minutes later she managed to come near me again. She seemed to enjoy
saying bold and dangerous things to me, and saying them in the presence
of her protector, under his vigilant eye, only exercising barely enough
caution not to arouse his suspicions. It is well known that walking on
the brink, on the very edge, of the precipice is woman’s favourite
pastime. ‘Yes, I was there,’ whispered Musa, without any change of
countenance, except that her nostrils were faintly quivering and her
lips twitching. ‘Yes, and if Paramon Semyonitch asks me what I am
whispering about with you, I’d tell him this minute. What do I care?’

‘Be more careful,’ I besought her. ‘I really believe they are noticing.’

‘I tell you, I’m quite ready to tell them everything. And who’s
noticing? One’s stretching his neck off the pillow, like a sick duck,
and hears nothing; and the other’s deep in philosophy. Don’t you be
afraid!’ Musa’s voice rose a little, and her cheeks gradually flushed a
sort of malignant, dusky red; and this suited her marvellously, and
never had she been so pretty. As she cleared the table, and set the cups
and saucers in their places, she moved swiftly about the room; there was
something challenging about her light, free and easy movement. ‘You may
criticise me as you like,’ she seemed to say; ‘but I’m going my own way,
and I’m not afraid of you.’

I cannot disguise the fact that I found Musa bewitching just that
evening. ‘Yes,’ I mused; ‘she’s a little spitfire--she’s a new type....
She’s--exquisite. Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say....
What of it! No matter!’

‘Paramon Semyonitch,’ she cried suddenly, ‘isn’t a republic an empire in
which every one does as he chooses?’

‘A republic is not an empire,’ answered Baburin, raising his head, and
contracting his brows; ‘it is a ... form of society in which everything
rests on law and justice.’

‘Then,’ Musa pursued, ‘in a republic no one can oppress any one else?’

‘No.’

‘And every one is free to dispose of himself?’

‘Quite free.’

‘Ah! that’s all I wanted to know.’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Oh, I wanted to--I wanted _you_ to tell me that.’

‘Our young lady is anxious to learn,’ Punin observed from the sofa.

When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course,
from politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I
took leave, ‘Can you really love him so much?’

‘Whether I love him, or whether I don’t, that’s _my_ affair,’ she
answered. ‘What is to be, will be.’

‘Mind what you’re about; don’t play with fire ... you’ll get burnt.’

‘Better be burnt than frozen. You ... with your good advice! And how can
you tell he won’t marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to
get married? If I am ruined ... what business is it of yours?’

She slammed the door after me.

I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my
friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new
type.... He ought to have to pay something for his happiness!

That he would be happy, I was--regretfully--unable to doubt.

Three days passed by. I was sitting in my room at my writing-table, and
not so much working as getting myself ready for lunch.... I heard a
rustle, lifted my head, and I was stupefied. Before me--rigid, terrible,
white as chalk, stood an apparition ... Punin. His half-closed eyes were
looking at me, blinking slowly; they expressed a senseless terror, the
terror of a frightened hare, and his arms hung at his sides like sticks.

‘Nikander Vavilitch! what is the matter with you? How did you come here?
Did no one see you? What has happened? Do speak!’

‘She has run away,’ Punin articulated in a hoarse, hardly audible voice.

‘What do you say?’

‘She has run away,’ he repeated.

‘Who?’

‘Musa. She went away in the night, and left a note.’

‘A note?’

‘Yes. “I thank you,” she said, “but I am not coming back again. Don’t
look for me.” We ran up and down; we questioned the cook; she knew
nothing. I can’t speak loud; you must excuse me. I’ve lost my voice.’

‘Musa Pavlovna has left you!’ I exclaimed. ‘Nonsense! Mr. Baburin must
be in despair. What does he intend to do now?’

‘He has no intention of doing anything. I wanted to run to the
Governor-general: he forbade it. I wanted to give information to the
police; he forbade that too, and got very angry. He says, “She’s free.”
 He says, “I don’t want to constrain her.” He has even gone to work, to
his office. But he looks more dead than alive. He loved her
terribly....Oh, oh, we both loved her!’

Here Punin for the first time showed that he was not a wooden image, but
a live man; he lifted both his fists in the air, and brought them down
on his pate, which shone like ivory.

‘Ungrateful girl!’ he groaned; ‘who was it gave you food and drink,
clothed you, and brought you up? who cared for you, would have given all
his life, all his soul ... And you have forgotten it all? To cast me
off, truly, were no great matter, but Paramon Semyonitch, Paramon ...’

I begged him to sit down, to rest.

Punin shook his head. ‘No, I won’t. I have come to you ... I don’t know
what for. I’m like one distraught; to stay at home alone is fearful;
what am I to do with myself? I stand in the middle of the room, shut my
eyes, and call, “Musa! Musotchka!” That’s the way to go out of one’s
mind. But no, why am I talking nonsense? I know why I have come to you.
You know, the other day you read me that thrice-accursed poem ... you
remember, where there is talk of an old husband. What did you do that
for? Did you know something then ... or guessed something?’ Punin
glanced at me. ‘Piotr Petrovitch,’ he cried suddenly, and he began
trembling all over, ‘you know, perhaps, where she is. Kind friend, tell
me whom she has gone to!’

I was disconcerted, and could not help dropping my eyes....

‘Perhaps she said something in her letter,’ I began....

‘She said she was leaving us because she loved some one else! Dear, good
friend, you know, surely, where she is? Save her, let us go to her; we
will persuade her. Only think what a man she’s bringing to ruin.’

Punin all at once flushed crimson, the blood seemed to rush to his
head, he plumped heavily down on his knees. ‘Save us, friend, let us
go to her.’

My servant appeared in the doorway, and stood still in amazement.

I had no little trouble to get Punin on to his feet again, to convince
him that, even if I did suspect something, still it would not do to act
like that, on the spur of the moment, especially both together--that
would only spoil all our efforts--that I was ready to do my best, but
would not answer for anything. Punin did not oppose me, nor did he
indeed hear me; he only repeated from time to time in his broken voice,
‘Save her, save her and Paramon Semyonitch.’ At last he began to cry.
‘Tell me at least one thing,’ he asked ... ‘is _he_ handsome, young?’

‘Yes, he is young,’ I answered.

‘He is young,’ repeated Punin, smearing the tears over his cheeks; ‘and
she is young.... It’s from that that all the trouble’s sprung!’

This rhyme came by chance; poor Punin was in no mood for versifying. I
would have given a good deal to hear his rhapsodical eloquence again, or
even his almost noiseless laugh.... Alas! his eloquence was quenched for
ever, and I never heard his laugh again.

I promised to let him know, as soon as I should find out anything
positive.... Tarhov’s name I did not, however, mention. Punin suddenly
collapsed completely. ‘Very good, very good, sir, thank you,’ he said
with a pitiful face, using the word ‘sir,’ which he had never done
before; ‘only mind, sir, do not say anything to Paramon Semyonitch ...
or he’ll be angry. In one word, he has forbidden it. Good-bye, sir.’

As he got up and turned his back to me, Punin struck me as such a poor
feeble creature, that I positively marvelled; he limped with both legs,
and doubled up at each step....

‘It’s a bad look-out. It’s the end of him, that’s what it means,’
I thought.

       *       *       *       *       *

Though I had promised Punin to trace Musa, yet as I set off the same day
to Tarhov’s, I had not the slightest expectation of learning anything,
as I considered it certain that either I should not find him at home, or
that he would refuse to see me. My supposition turned out to be a
mistaken one. I found Tarhov at home; he received me, and I found out
indeed all I wanted to know; but there was nothing gained by that.
Directly I crossed the threshold of his door, Tarhov came resolutely,
rapidly, to meet me, and his eyes sparkling and glowing, his face grown
handsomer and radiant, he said firmly and briskly: ‘Listen, Petya, my
boy; I guess what you’ve come for, and what you want to talk about; but
I give you warning, if you say a single word about her, or about her
action, or about what, according to you, is the course dictated to me by
common sense, we’re friends no longer, we’re not even acquainted, and I
shall beg you to treat me as a stranger.’

I looked at Tarhov; he was quivering all over inwardly, like a tightly
drawn harpstring; he was tingling all over, hardly could he hold back
the tide of brimming youth and passion; violent, ecstatic happiness had
burst into his soul, and had taken full possession of him--and he of it.

       *       *       *       *       *

‘Is that your final decision?’ I pronounced mournfully.

‘Yes, Petya, my boy, it’s final.’

‘In that case, there’s nothing for me but to say good-bye.’

Tarhov faintly dropped his eyelids.... He was too happy at that moment.

‘Good-bye, Petya, old boy,’ he said, a little through his nose, with a
candid smile and a gay flash of all his white teeth.

What was I to do? I left him to his ‘happiness.’ As I slammed the door
after me, the other door of the room slammed also--I heard it.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was with a heavy heart that I trudged off next day to see my luckless
acquaintances. I secretly hoped--such is human weakness--that I should
not find them at home, and again I was mistaken. Both were at home. The
change that had taken place in them during the last three days must have
struck any one. Punin looked ghastly white and flabby. His talkativeness
had completely vanished. He spoke listlessly, feebly, still in the same
husky voice, and looked somehow lost and bewildered. Baburin, on the
contrary, seemed shrunk into himself, and blacker than ever; taciturn at
the best of times, he uttered nothing now but a few abrupt sounds; an
expression of stony severity seemed to have frozen on his countenance.

I felt it impossible to be silent; but what was there to say? I confined
myself to whispering to Punin, ‘I have discovered nothing, and my advice
to you is to give up all hope.’ Punin glanced at me with his swollen,
red little eyes--the only red left in his face--muttered something
inaudible, and hobbled away. Baburin most likely guessed what I had been
speaking about to Punin, and opening his lips, which were tightly
compressed, as though glued together, he pronounced, in a deliberate
voice, ‘My dear sir, since your last visit to us, something disagreeable
has happened to us; our young friend, Musa Pavlovna Vinogradov, finding
it no longer convenient to live with us, has decided to leave us, and
has given us a written communication to that effect. Not considering
that we have any right to hinder her doing so, we have left her to act
according to her own views of what is best. We trust that she may be
happy,’ he added, with some effort; ‘and I humbly beg you not to allude
to the subject, as any such references are useless, and even painful.’

‘So he too, like Tarhov, forbids my speaking of Musa,’ was the thought
that struck me, and I could not help wondering inwardly. He might well
prize Zeno so highly. I wished to impart to him some facts about that
sage, but my tongue would not form the words, and it did well.

I soon went about my business. At parting neither Punin nor Baburin
said, ‘Till we meet!’ both with one voice pronounced, ‘Good-bye.’

Punin even returned me a volume of the _Telegraph_ I had brought him, as
much as to say, ‘he had no need of anything of that kind now.’

A week later I had a curious encounter. An early spring had set in
abruptly; at midday the heat rose to eighteen degrees Réaumur.
Everything was turning green, and shooting up out of the spongy, damp
earth. I hired a horse at the riding-school, and went out for a ride
into the outskirts of the town, towards the Vorobyov hills. On the road
I was met by a little cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies,
splashed with mud up to their ears, with plaited tails, and red ribbons
in their manes and forelocks. Their harness was such as sportsmen
affect, with copper discs and tassels; they were being driven by a
smart young driver, in a blue tunic without sleeves, a yellow striped
silk shirt, and a low felt hat with peacock’s feathers round the crown.
Beside him sat a girl of the artisan or merchant class, in a flowered
silk jacket, with a big blue handkerchief on her head--and she was
simply bubbling over with mirth. The driver was laughing too. I drew my
horse on one side, but did not, however, take particular notice of the
swiftly passing, merry couple, when, all at once, the young man shouted
to his ponies.... Why, that was Tarhov’s voice! I looked round.... Yes,
it was he; unmistakably he, dressed up as a peasant, and beside
him--wasn’t it Musa?

But at that instant their ponies quickened their pace, and they were
out of my sight in a minute. I tried to put my horse into a gallop
in pursuit of them, but it was an old riding school hack, that
shambled from side to side as it moved; it went more slowly
galloping than trotting.

‘Enjoy yourselves, my dear friends!’ I muttered through my teeth.

I ought to observe that I had not seen

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