Иван Тургенев
A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

XVII

Souvenir’s prediction turned out correct. Martin Petrovitch would not come to my mother. She was not at all pleased with this, and despatched a letter to him. He sent her a square bit of paper, on which the following words were written in big letters: ‘Indeed I can’t. I should die of shame. Let me go to my ruin. Thanks. Don’t torture me. – Martin Harlov.’ Sletkin did come, but not on the day on which my mother had ‘commanded’ his attendance, but twenty-four hours later. My mother gave orders that he should be shown into her boudoir… God knows what their interview was about, but it did not last long; a quarter of an hour, not more. Sletkin came out of my mother’s room, crimson all over, and with such a viciously spiteful and insolent expression of face, that, meeting him in the drawing-room, I was simply petrified, while Souvenir, who was hanging about there, stopped short in the middle of a snigger. My mother came out of her boudoir, also very red in the face, and announced, in the hearing of all, that Mr. Sletkin was never, upon any pretext, to be admitted to her presence again, and that if Martin Petrovitch’s daughters were to make bold – they’ve impudence enough, said she – to present themselves, they, too, were to be refused admittance. At dinner-time she suddenly exclaimed, ‘The vile little Jew! I picked him out of the gutter, I made him a career, he owes everything, everything to me, – and he dares to tell me I’ve no business to meddle in their affairs! that Martin Petrovitch is full of whims and fancies, and it’s impossible to humour him! Humour him, indeed! What a thing to say! Ah, he’s an ungrateful wretch! An insolent little Jew!’

Major Zhitkov, who happened to be one of the company at dinner, imagined that now it was no less than the will of the Almighty for him to seize the opportunity and put in his word … but my mother promptly settled him. ‘Well, and you’re a fine one, too, my man!’ she commented. ‘Couldn’t get the upper hand of a girl, and he an officer! In command of a squadron! I can fancy how it obeyed you! He take a steward’s place indeed! a fine steward he’d make!’

Kvitsinsky, who was sitting at the end of the table, smiled to himself a little malignantly, while poor Zhitkov could do nothing but twitch his moustaches, lift his eyebrows, and bury the whole of his hirsute countenance in his napkin.

After dinner, he went out on to the steps to smoke his pipe as usual, and he struck me as so miserable and forlorn, that, although I had never liked him, I joined myself on to him at once.

‘How was it, Gavrila Fedulitch,’ I began without further beating about the bush, ‘that your affair with Evlampia Martinovna was broken off? I’d expected you to be married long ago.’

The retired major looked at me dejectedly.

‘A snake in the grass,’ he began, uttering each letter of each syllable with bitter distinctness, ‘has poisoned me with his fang, and turned all my hopes in life to ashes. And I could tell you, Dmitri Semyonovitch, all his hellish wiles, but I’m afraid of angering your mamma.’ (‘You’re young yet’ – Prokofy’s expression flashed across my mind.) ‘Even as it is’ – Zhitkov groaned.

‘Patience … patience … nothing else is left me. (He struck his fist upon his chest.) Patience, old soldier, patience. I served the Tsar faithfully … honourably … yes. I spared neither blood nor sweat, and now see what I am brought to. Had it been in the regiment – and the matter depending upon me,’ he continued after a short silence, spent in convulsively sucking at his cherrywood pipe, ‘I’d have … I’d have given it him with the flat side of my sword … three times over … till he’d had enough…’

Zhitkov took the pipe out of his mouth, and fixed his eyes on vacancy, as though admiring the picture he had conjured up.

Souvenir ran up, and began quizzing the major. I turned away from them, and determined, come what may, I would see Martin Petrovitch with my own eyes… My boyish curiosity was greatly stirred.

XVIII

Next day I set out with my gun and dog, but without Prokofy, to the Eskovo copse. It was an exquisite day; I fancy there are no days like that in September anywhere but in Russia. The stillness was such that one could hear, a hundred paces off, the squirrel hopping over the dry leaves, and the broken twig just feebly catching at the other branches, and falling, at last, on the soft grass – to lie there for ever, not to stir again till it rotted away. The air, neither warm nor chill, but only fragrant, and as it were keen, was faintly, deliciously stinging in my eyes and on my cheeks. A long spider-web, delicate as a silken thread, with a white ball in the middle, floated smoothly in the air, and sticking to the butt-end of my gun, stretched straight out in the air – a sign of settled and warm weather. The sun shone with a brightness as soft as moonlight. Wild snipe were to be met with pretty often; but I did not pay special attention to them. I knew that the copse went on almost to Harlov’s homestead, right up to the hedge of his garden, and I turned my steps in that direction, though I could not even imagine how I should get into the place itself, and was even doubtful whether I ought to try to do so, as my mother was so angry with its new owners. Sounds of life and humanity reached me from no great distance. I listened… Some one was coming through the copse … straight towards me.

‘You should have said so straight out, dear,’ I heard a woman’s voice.

‘Be reasonable,’ another voice broke in, the voice of a man. ‘Can one do it all at once?’

I knew the voices. There was the gleam of a woman’s blue gown through the reddening nut bushes. Beside it stood a dark full coat. Another instant – and there stepped out into the glade, five paces from me, Sletkin and Evlampia.

They were disconcerted at once. Evlampia promptly stepped back, away into the bushes. Sletkin thought a little, and came up to me. There was not a trace to be seen in his face of the obsequious meekness, with which he had paced up and down Harlov’s courtyard, four months before, rubbing up my horse’s snaffle. But neither could I perceive in it the insolent defiance, which had so struck me on the previous day, on the threshold of my mother’s boudoir. It was still as white and pretty as ever, but seemed broader and more solid.

‘Well, have you shot many snipe?’ he asked me, raising his cap, smiling, and passing his hand over his black curls; ‘you are shooting in our copse… You are very welcome. We would not hinder you… Quite the contrary.’

‘I have killed nothing to-day,’ I rejoined, answering his first question; ‘and I will go out of your copse this instant.’

Sletkin hurriedly put on his cap. ‘Indeed, why so? We would not drive you out – indeed, we’re delighted… Here’s Evlampia Martinovna will say the same. Evlampia Martinovna, come here. Where have you hidden yourself?’ Evlampia’s head appeared behind the bushes. But she did not come up to us. She had grown prettier, and seemed taller and bigger than ever.

‘I’m very glad, to tell the truth,’ Sletkin went on, ‘that I have met you. Though you are still young in years, you have plenty of good sense already. Your mother was pleased to be very angry with me yesterday – she would not listen to reason of any sort from me, but I declare, as before God, so before you now, I am not to blame in any way. We can’t treat Martin Petrovitch otherwise than we do; he’s fallen into complete dotage. One can’t humour all his whims, really. But we show him all due respect. Only ask Evlampia Martinovna.’

Evlampia did not stir; her habitual scornful smile flickered about her lips, and her large eyes watched us with no friendly expression.

‘But why, Vladimir Vassilievitch, have you sold Martin Petrovitch’s mare?’ (I was particularly impressed by that mare being in the possession of a peasant.)

‘His mare, why did we sell it? Why, Lord have mercy on us – what use was she? She was simply eating her head off. But with the peasant she can work at the plough anyway. As for Martin Petrovitch, if he takes a fancy to drive out anywhere, he’s only to ask us. We wouldn’t refuse him a conveyance. On a holiday, we should be pleased.’

‘Vladimir Vassilievitch,’ said Evlampia huskily, as though calling him away, and she still did not stir from her place. She was twisting some stalks of ripple grass round her fingers and snapping off their heads, slapping them against each other.

‘About the page Maximka again,’ Sletkin went on, ‘Martin Petrovitch complains because we’ve taken him away and apprenticed him. But kindly consider the matter for yourself. Why, what had he to do waiting on Martin Petrovitch? Kick up his heels; nothing more. And he couldn’t even wait on him properly; on account of his stupidity and his youth. Now we have sent him away to a harness-maker’s. He’ll be turned into a first-rate handicraftsman – and make a good thing of it for himself – and pay us ransom-money too. And, living in a small way as we do, that’s a matter of importance. On a little farm like ours, one can’t afford to let anything slip.’

‘And this is the man Martin Petrovitch called a “poor stick,”’ I thought. ‘But who reads to Martin Petrovitch now?’ I asked.

‘Why, what is there to read? He had one book – but, luckily, that’s been mislaid somewhere… And what use is reading at his age.’

‘And who shaves him?’ I asked again.

Sletkin gave an approving laugh, as though in response to an amusing joke. ‘Why, nobody. At first he used to singe his beard in the candle – but now he lets it be altogether. And it’s lovely!’

‘Vladimir Vassilievitch!’ Evlampia repeated insistently: ‘Vladimir Vassilievitch!’

Sletkin made her a sign with his hand.

‘Martin Petrovitch is clothed and cared for, and eats what we do. What more does he want? He declared himself that he wanted nothing more in this world but to think of his soul. If only he would realise that everything now, however you look at it, is ours. He says too that we don’t pay him his allowance. But we’ve not always got money ourselves; and what does he want with it, when he has everything provided him? And we treat him as one of the family too. I’m telling you the truth. The rooms, for instance, which he occupies – how we need them! there’s simply not room to turn round without them; but we don’t say a word – we put up with it. We even think how to provide amusement for him. There, on St. Peter’s Day, I bought him some excellent hooks in the town – real English ones, expensive hooks, to catch fish. There are lots of carp in our pond. Let him sit and fish; in an hour or two, there’d be a nice little fish soup provided. The most suitable occupation for old men.’

‘Vladimir Vassilitch!’ Evlampia called for the third time in an incisive tone, and she flung far away from her the grass she had been twisting in her fingers, ‘I am going!’ Her eyes met mine. ‘I am going, Vladimir Vassilievitch!’ she repeated, and vanished behind a bush.

‘I’m coming, Evlampia Martinovna, directly!’ shouted Sletkin. ‘Martin Petrovitch himself agrees with us now,’ he went on, turning again to me. ‘At first he was offended, certainly, and even grumbled, until, you know, he realised; he was, you remember, a hot-tempered violent man – more’s the pity! but there, he’s grown quite meek now. Because he sees his own interest. Your mamma – mercy on us! how she pitched into me!.. To be sure: she’s a lady that sets as much store by her own authority as Martin Petrovitch used to do. But you come in and see for yourself. And you might put in a word when there’s an opportunity. I feel Natalia Nikolaevna’s bounty to me deeply. But we’ve got to live too.’

‘And how was it Zhitkov was refused?’ I asked.

‘Fedulitch? That dolt?’ Sletkin shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why, upon my word, what use could he have been? His whole life spent among soldiers – and now he has a fancy to take up farming. He can keep the peasants up to the mark, says he, because he’s been used to knocking men about. He can do nothing; even knocking men about wants some sense. Evlampia Martinovna refused him herself. He was a quite unsuitable person. All our farming would have gone to ruin with him!’

‘Coo – y!’ sounded Evlampia’s musical voice.

‘Coming! coming!’ Sletkin called back. He held out his hand to me. Though unwillingly, I took it.

‘I beg to take leave, Dmitri Semyonovitch,’ said Sletkin, showing all his white teeth. ‘Shoot wild snipe as much as you like. It’s wild game, belonging to no one. But if you come across a hare – you spare it; that game is ours. Oh, and something else! won’t you be having pups from your bitch? I should be obliged for one!’

‘Coo – y!’ Evlampia’s voice rang out again.

‘Coo – y!’ Sletkin responded, and rushed into the bushes.

XIX

I remember, when I was left alone, I was absorbed in wondering how it was Harlov had not pounded Sletkin ‘into a jelly,’ as he said, and how it was Sletkin had not been afraid of such a fate. It was clear Martin Petrovitch really had grown ‘meek,’ I thought, and I had a still stronger desire to make my way into Eskovo, and get at least a glance at that colossus, whom I could never picture to myself subdued and tractable. I had reached the edge of the copse, when suddenly a big snipe, with a great rush of wings, darted up at my very feet, and flew off into the depths of the wood. I took aim; my gun missed fire. I was greatly annoyed; it had been such a fine bird, and I made up my mind to try if I couldn’t make it rise a second time. I set off in the direction of its flight, and going some two hundred paces off into the wood I caught sight – in a little glade, under an overhanging birch-tree – not of the snipe, but of the same Sletkin once more. He was lying on his back, with both hands under his head, and with smile of contentment gazing upwards at the sky, swinging his left leg, which was crossed over his right knee. He did not notice my approach. A few paces from him, Evlampia was walking slowly up and down the little glade, with downcast eyes. It seemed as though she were looking for something in the grass – mushrooms or something; now and then, she stooped and stretched out her hand. She was singing in a low voice. I stopped at once, and fell to listening. At first I could not make out what it was she was singing, but afterwards I recognised clearly the following well-known lines of the old ballad:

 
‘Hither, hither, threatening storm-cloud,
Slay for me the father-in-law,
Strike for me the mother-in-law,
The young wife I will kill myself!’
 

Evlampia sang louder and louder; the last words she delivered with peculiar energy. Sletkin still lay on his back and laughed to himself, while she seemed all the time to be moving round and round him.

‘Oh, indeed!’ he commented at last. ‘The things that come into some people’s heads!’

‘What?’ queried Evlampia.

Sletkin raised his head a little. ‘What? Why, what words were those you were uttering?’

‘Why, you know, Volodya, one can’t leave the words out of a song,’ answered Evlampia, and she turned and saw me. We both cried out aloud at once, and both rushed away in opposite directions.

I made my way hurriedly out of the copse, and crossing a narrow clearing, found myself facing Harlov’s garden.

XX

I had no time, nor would it have been of any use, to deliberate over what I had seen. Only an expression kept recurring to my mind, ‘love spell,’ which I had lately heard, and over the signification of which I had pondered a good deal. I walked alongside the garden fence, and in a few moments, behind the silver poplars (they had not yet lost a single leaf, and the foliage was luxuriantly thick and brilliantly glistening), I saw the yard and two little lodges of Martin Petrovitch’s homestead. The whole place struck me as having been tidied up and pulled into shape. On every side one could perceive traces of unflagging and severe supervision. Anna Martinovna came out on to the steps, and screwing up her blue-grey eyes, gazed for a long while in the direction of the copse.

‘Have you seen the master?’ she asked a peasant, who was walking across the yard.

‘Vladimir Vassilitch?’ responded the latter, taking his cap off. ‘He went into the copse, surely.’

‘I know, he went to the copse. Hasn’t he come back? Haven’t you seen him?’

‘I’ve not seen him … nay.’

The peasant continued standing bareheaded before Anna Martinovna.

‘Well, you can go,’ she said. ‘Or no – wait a bit – where’s Martin Petrovitch? Do you know?’

‘Oh, Martin Petrovitch,’ answered the peasant, in a sing-song voice, alternately lifting his right and then his left hand, as though pointing away somewhere, ‘is sitting yonder, at the pond, with a fishing-rod. He’s sitting in the reeds, with a rod. Catching fish, maybe, God knows.’

‘Very well … you can go,’ repeated Anna Martinovna; ‘and put away that wheel, it’s lying about.’

The peasant ran to carry out her command, while she remained standing a few minutes longer on the steps, still gazing in the direction of the copse. Then she clenched one fist menacingly, and went slowly back into the house. ‘Axiutka!’ I heard her imperious voice calling within.

Anna Martinovna looked angry, and tightened her lips, thin enough at all times, with a sort of special energy. She was carelessly dressed, and a coil of loose hair had fallen down on to her shoulder. But in spite of the negligence of her attire, and her irritable humour, she struck me, just as before, as attractive, and I should have been delighted to kiss the narrow hand which looked malignant too, as she twice irritably pushed back the loose tress.

XXI

‘Can Martin Petrovitch have really taken to fishing?’ I asked myself, as I turned towards the pond, which was on one side of the garden. I got on to the dam, looked in all directions… Martin Petrovitch was nowhere to be seen. I bent my steps along one of the banks of the pond, and at last, at the very top of it, in a little creek, in the midst of flat broken-down stalks of reddish reed, I caught sight of a huge greyish mass… I looked intently: it was Harlov. Bareheaded, unkempt, in a cotton smock torn at the seams, with his legs crossed under him, he was sitting motionless on the bare earth. So motionless was he that a sandpiper, at my approach, darted up from the dry mud a couple of paces from him, and flew with a flash of its little wings and a whistle over the surface of the water, showing that no one had moved to frighten him for a long while. Harlov’s whole appearance was so extraordinary that my dog stopped short directly it saw him, lifted its tail, and growled. He turned his head a very little, and fixed his wild-looking eyes on me and my dog. He was greatly changed by his beard, though it was short, but thick and curly, in white tufts, like Astrachan fur. In his right hand lay the end of a rod, while the other end hovered feebly over the water. I felt an involuntary pang at my heart. I plucked up my spirits, however, went up to him, and wished him good morning. He slowly blinked as though just awake.

‘What are you doing, Martin Petrovitch,’ I began, ‘catching fish here?’

‘Yes … fish,’ he answered huskily, and pulled up the rod, on which there fluttered a piece of line, a fathom length, with no hook on it.

‘Your tackle is broken off,’ I observed, and noticed the same moment that there was no sign of bait-tin nor worms near Martin Petrovitch… And what sort of fishing could there be in September?

‘Broken off?’ he said, and he passed his hand over his face. ‘But it’s all the same!’

He dropped the rod in again.

‘Natalia Nikolaevna’s son?’ he asked me, after the lapse of two minutes, during which I had been gazing at him with secret bewilderment. Though he had grown terribly thinner, still he seemed a giant. But what rags he was dressed in, and how utterly he had gone to pieces altogether!

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I’m the son of Natalia Nikolaevna B.’

‘Is she well?’

‘My mother is quite well. She was very much hurt at your refusal,’ I added; ‘she did not at all expect you would not wish to come and see her.’

Martin Petrovitch’s head sank on his breast. ‘Have you been there?’ he asked, with a motion of his head.

‘Where?’

‘There, at the house. Haven’t you? Go! What is there for you to do here? Go! It’s useless talking to me. I don’t like it.’

He was silent for a while.

‘You’d like to be always idling about with a gun! In my young days I used to be inclined the same way too. Only my father was strict and made me respect him too. Mind you, very different from fathers nowadays. My father flogged me with a horsewhip, and that was the end of it! I’d to give up idling about! And so I respected him… Oo!.. Yes!..’

Harlov paused again.

‘Don’t you stop here,’ he began again. ‘You go along to the house. Things are managed there now – it’s first-rate. Volodka’… Here he faltered for a second. ‘Our Volodka’s a good hand at everything. He’s a fine fellow! yes, indeed, and a fine scoundrel too!’

I did not know what to say; Martin Petrovitch spoke very tranquilly.

‘And you go and see my daughters. You remember, I daresay, I had daughters. They’re managers too … clever ones. But I’m growing old, my lad; I’m on the shelf. Time to repose, you know…’

‘Nice sort of repose!’ I thought, glancing round. ‘Martin Petrovitch!’ I uttered aloud, ‘you really must come and see us.’

Harlov looked at me. ‘Go along, my lad, I tell you.’

‘Don’t hurt mamma’s feelings; come and see us.’

‘Go away, my lad, go away,’ persisted Harlov. ‘What do you want to talk to me for?’

‘If you have no carriage, mamma will send you hers.’

‘Go along!’

‘But, really and truly, Martin Petrovitch!’

Harlov looked down again, and I fancied that his cheeks, dingy as though covered with earth, faintly flushed.

‘Really, do come,’ I went on. ‘What’s the use of your sitting here? of your making yourself miserable?’

‘Making myself miserable?’ he commented hesitatingly.

‘Yes, to be sure – making yourself miserable!’ I repeated.

Harlov said nothing, and seemed lost in musing. Emboldened by his silence, I determined to be open, to act straightforwardly, bluntly. (Do not forget, I was only fifteen then.)

‘Martin Petrovitch!’ I began, seating myself beside him. ‘I know everything, you see, positively everything. I know how your son-in-law is treating you – doubtless with the consent of your daughters. And now you are in such a position… But why lose heart?’

Harlov still remained silent, and simply dropped in his line; while I – what a sensible fellow, what a sage I felt!

‘Doubtless,’ I began again, ‘you acted imprudently in giving up everything to your daughters. It was most generous on your part, and I am not going to blame you. In our days it is a quality only too rare! But since your daughters are so ungrateful, you ought to show a contempt – yes, a contempt – for them … and not fret – ’

‘Stop!’ muttered Harlov suddenly, gnashing his teeth, and his eyes, staring at the pond, glittered wrathfully… ‘Go away!’

‘But, Martin Petrovitch – ’

‘Go away, I tell you, … or I’ll kill you!’

I had come quite close to him; but at the last words I instinctively jumped up. ‘What did you say, Martin Petrovitch?’

‘I’ll kill you, I tell you; go away!’ With a wild moan, a roar, the words broke from Harlov’s breast, but he did not turn his head, and still stared wrathfully straight in front of him. ‘I’ll take you and fling you and your fool’s counsel into the water. You shall learn to pester the old, little milksop!’

‘He’s gone mad!’ flashed through my mind.

I looked at him more attentively, and was completely petrified; Martin Petrovitch was weeping!! Tear after tear rolled from his eyelashes down his cheeks … while his face had assumed an expression utterly savage…

‘Go away!’ he roared once more, ‘or I’ll kill you, by God! for an example to others!’

He was shaking all over from side to side, and showing his teeth like a wild boar. I snatched up my gun and took to my heels. My dog flew after me, barking. He, too, was frightened.

When I got home, I naturally did not, by so much as a word, to my mother, hint at what I had seen; but coming across Souvenir, I told him – the devil knows why – all about it. That loathsome person was so delighted at my story, shrieking with laughter, and even dancing with pleasure, that I could hardly forbear striking him.

‘Ah! I should like,’ he kept repeating breathless with laughter, ‘to see that fiend, the Swede, Harlov, crawling into the mud and sitting in it…’

‘Go over to the pond if you’re so curious.’

‘Yes; but how if he kills me?’

I felt horribly sick at Souvenir, and regretted my ill-timed confidence… Zhitkov, to whom he repeated my tale, looked at the matter somewhat differently.

‘We shall have to call in the police,’ he concluded, ‘or, may be, we may have to send for a battalion of military.’

His forebodings with regard to the military battalion did not come true; but something extraordinary really did happen.