Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (179 page)

VII

MY mother did not like Harlov’s elder daughter; she called her a stuck - up thing. Anna Martinovna scarcely ever came to pay us her respects, and behaved with chilly decorum in my mother’s presence, though it was by her good offices she had been well educated at a boarding - school, and had been married, and on her wedding - day had received a thousand roubles and a yellow Turkish shawl, the latter, it is true, a trifle the worse for wear. She was a woman of medium height, thin, very brisk and rapid in her movements, with thick fair hair and a handsome dark face, on which the pale - blue narrow eyes showed up in a rather strange but pleasing way. She had a straight thin nose, her lips were thin too, and her chin was like the loop - end of a hair - pin. No one looking at her could fail to think: “Well, you are a clever creature -
 
- and a spiteful one, too!” And for all that, there was something attractive about her too. Even the dark moles, scattered “like buck - wheat” over her face, suited her and increased the feeling she inspired. Her hands thrust into her kerchief, she was slily watching me, looking downwards (I was seated, while she was standing). A wicked little smile strayed about her lips and her cheeks and in the shadow of her long eyelashes. “Ugh, you pampered little fine gentleman!” this smile seemed to express. Every time she drew a breath, her nostrils slightly distended -
 
- this, too, was rather strange. But all the same, it seemed to me that were Anna Martinovna to love me, or even to care to kiss me with her thin cruel lips, I should simply bound up to the ceiling with delight. I knew she was very severe and exacting, that the peasant women and girls went in terror of her -
 
- but what of that? Anna Martinovna secretly excited my imagination . . . though after all, I was only fifteen then, -
 
- and at that age! . . .

Martin Petrovitch roused himself again. “Anna!” he shouted, “you ought to strum something on the pianoforte . . . young gentlemen are fond of that.”

I looked round; there was a pitiful semblance of a piano in the room.

“Yes, father,” responded Anna Martinovna. “Only what am I to play the young gentleman? He won’t find it interesting.”

“Why, what did they teach you at your young ladies’ seminary?”

“I’ve forgotten everything -
 
- besides, the notes are broken.”

Anna Martinovna’ s voice was very pleasant, resonant and rather plaintive -
 
- like the note of some birds of prey.

“Very well,” said Martin Petrovitch, and he lapsed into dreaminess again. “Well,” he began once more, “wouldn’t you like, then, to see the threshing - floor, and have a look round? Volodka will escort you. -
 
- Hi, Volodka!” he shouted to his son - in - law, who was still pacing up and down the yard with my horse, “take the young gentleman to the threshing - floor. . . and show him my farming generally. But I must have a nap! So! good - bye!”

He went out and I after him. Anna Martinovna at once set to work rapidly, and, as it were, angrily, clearing the table. In the doorway, I turned and bowed to her. But she seemed not to notice my bow, and only smiled again, more maliciously than before.

I took my horse from Harlov’s son - in - law and led him by the bridle. We went together to the threshing - floor, but as we discovered nothing very remarkable about it, and as he could not suppose any great interest in farming in a young lad like me, we returned through the garden to the main road.

VIII

I WAS well acquainted with Harlov’s son - in - law. His name was Vladimir Vassilievitch Sletkin. He was an orphan, brought up by my mother, and the son of a petty official, to whom she had intrusted some business. He had first been placed in the district school, then he had entered the “seignorial counting - house,” then he had been put into the service of the government stores, and, finally, married to the daughter of Martin Petrovitch. My mother used to call him a little Jew, and certainly, with his curly hair, his black eyes always moist, like damson jam, his hook nose, and wide red mouth, he did suggest the Jewish type. But the colour of his skin was white and he was altogether very good - looking. He was of a most obliging temper, so long as his personal advantage was not involved. Then he promptly lost all self - control from greediness, and was moved even to tears. He was ready to whine the whole day long to gain the paltriest trifle; he would remind one a hundred times over of a promise, and be hurt and complain if it were not carried out at once. He liked sauntering about the fields with a gun; and when he happened to get a hare or a wild duck, he would thrust his booty into his game - bag with peculiar zest, saying, “Now, you may be as tricky as you like, you won’t escape me! Now you’re
mine!”

“You’ve a good horse,” he began in his lisping voice, as he assisted me to get into the saddle; “I ought to have a horse like that! But where can I get one? I’ve no such luck. If you’d ask your mamma, now -
 
- remind her.”

“Why, has she promised you one?”

“Promised? No; but I thought that in her great kindness -
 
-
 
-
 
- “

“You should apply to Martin Petrovitch.”

“To Martin Petrovitch?” Sletkin repeated, dwelling on each syllable. “To him I’m no better than a worthless page, like Maximka, He keeps a tight hand on us, that he does, and you get nothing from him for all your toil.”

“Really?”

“Yes, by God. He’ll say, ‘My word’s sacred!’ -
 
- and there, it’s as though he’s chopped it off with an axe. You may beg or not, it’s all one. Besides, Anna Martinovna, my wife, is not in such favour with him as Evlampia Martinovna. O merciful God, bless us and save us!” he suddenly interrupted himself, flinging up his hands in despair. “Look! what’s that? A whole half - rood of oats, our oats, some wretch has gone and cut. The villain! Just see! Thieves! thieves! It’s a true saying, to be sure, don’t trust Eskovo, Beskovo, Erino, and Byelino! (these were the names of four villages near). Ah, ah, what a thing! A rouble and a half’s worth, or, maybe, two roubles, loss!”

In Sletkin’s voice, one could almost hear sobs. I gave my horse a poke in the ribs and rode away from him.

Sletkin’s ejaculations still reached my hearing, when suddenly at a turn in the road, I came upon the second daughter of Harlov, Evlampia, who had, in the words of Anna Martinovna, gone into the fields to get cornflowers. A thick wreath of those flowers was twined about her head. We exchanged bows in silence. Evlampia, too, was very good - looking; as much so as her sister, though in a different style. She was tall and stoutly built; everything about her was on a large scale: her head, and her feet and hands, and her snow - white teeth, and especially her eyes, prominent, languishing eyes, of the dark blue of glass beads. Everything about her, while still beautiful, had positively a monumental character (she was a true daughter of Martin Petrovitch). She did not, it seemed, know what to do with her massive fair mane, and she had twisted it in three plaits round her head. Her mouth was charming, crimson and fresh as a rose, and as she talked her upper lip was lifted in the middle in a very fascinating way. But there was something wild and almost fierce in the glance of her huge eyes. “A free bird, wild Cossack breed,” so Martin Petrovitch used to speak of her. I was in awe of her. . . This stately beauty reminded one of her father.

I rode on a little farther and heard her singing in a strong, even, rather harsh voice, a regular peasant voice; suddenly she ceased. I looked round and from the crest of the hill saw her standing beside Harlov’s son - in - law facing the rood of oats. The latter was gesticulating and pointing, but she stood without stirring. The sun lighted up her tall figure, and the wreath of cornflowers shone brilliantly blue on her head.

IX

I BELIEVE I have already mentioned that, for this second daughter of Harlov’s too, my mother had already prepared a match. This was one of the poorest of our neighbours, a retired army major, Gavrila Fedulitch Zhitkov, a man no longer young, and, as he himself expressed it, not without a certain complacency, however, as though recommending himself, “battered and broken down.” He could barely read and write, and was exceedingly stupid, but secretly aspired to become my mother’s steward, as he felt himself to be a “man of action.” “I can warm the peasant’s hides for them, if I can do anything,” he used to say, almost gnashing his own teeth, “because I was used to it,” he used to explain, “in my former duties, I mean.” Had Zhitkov been less of a fool, he would have realised that he had not the slightest chance of being steward to my mother, seeing that, for that, it would have been necessary to get rid of the present steward, one Kvitsinsky, a very capable Pole of great character, in whom my mother had the fullest confidence. Zhitkov had a long face, like a horse’s; it was all overgrown with hair of a dusty whitish colour; his cheeks were covered with it right up to the eyes; and even in the severest frosts, it was sprinkled with an abundant sweat, like drops of dew. At the sight of my mother, he drew himself upright as a post, his head positively quivered with zeal, his huge hands slapped a little against his thighs, and his whole person seemed to express: “Command! . . . and I will strive my utmost!” My mother was under no illusion on the score of his abilities, which did not, however, hinder her from taking steps to marry him to Evlampia.

“Only, will you be able to manage her, my good sir?” she asked him one day.

Zhitkov smiled complacently.

“Upon my word, Natalia Nikolaevna! I used to keep a whole regiment in order; they were tame enough in my hands; and what’s this? A trumpery business!”

“A regiment’s one thing, sir, but a well - bred girl, a wife, is a very different matter,” my mother observed with displeasure.

“Upon my word, ma’am! Natalia Nikolaevna!” Zhitkov cried again, “that we’re quite able to understand. In one word: a young lady, a delicate person!”

“Well!” my mother decided at length, “Evlampia won’t let herself be trampled upon.”

X

ONE day -
 
- it was the month of June, and evening was coming on -
 
- a servant announced the arrival of Martin Petrovitch. My mother was surprised: we had not seen him for over a week, but he had never visited us so late before. “Something has happened!” she exclaimed in an undertone. The face of Martin Petrovitch, when he rolled into the room and at once sank into a chair near the door, wore such an unusual expression, it was so preoccupied and positively pale, that my mother involuntarily repeated her exclamation aloud. Martin Petrovitch fixed his little eyes upon her, was silent for a space, sighed heavily, was silent again, and articulated at last that he had come about something. . . which. . . was of a kind, that on account of. . .

Muttering these disconnected words, he suddenly got up and went out.

My mother rang, ordered the footman, who appeared, to overtake Martin Petrovitch at once and bring him back without fail, but the latter had already had time to get into his droshky and drive away.

Next morning my mother, who was astonished and even alarmed, as much by Martin Petrovitch’s strange behaviour as by the extraordinary expression of his face, was on the point of sending a special messenger to him, when he made his appearance. This time he seemed more composed.

“Tell me, my good friend, tell me,” cried my mother, directly she saw him, “what ever has happened to you? I thought yesterday, upon my word I did Mercy on us! I thought, ‘Hasn’t our old friend gone right off his head?’“

“I’ve not gone off my head, madam,” answered Martin Petrovitch; “I’m not that sort of man. But I want to consult with you.”

“What about?”

“I’m only in doubt, whether it will be agreeable to you in this same contingency -
 
-
 
-
 
- “

“Speak away, speak away, my good sir, but more simply. Don’t alarm me! What’s this same contingency? Speak more plainly. Or is it your melancholy come upon you again?”

Harlov scowled. “No, it’s not melancholy -
 
- that comes upon me in the new moon; but allow me to ask you, madam, what do you think about death?”

My mother was taken aback. “About what?”

“About death. Can death spare any one whatever in this world?”

“What have you got in your head, my good friend? Who of us is immortal? For all you’re born a giant, even to you there’ll be an end in time.”

“There will! oh, there will!” Harlov assented and he looked downcast. “I’ve had a vision come to me in my dreams,” he brought out at last.

“What are you saying?” my mother interrupted him.

“A vision in my dreams,” he repeated -
 
- “I’m a seer of visions, you know!”

“You!”

“I. Didn’t you know it?” Harlov sighed. “Well, so. . . . Over a week ago, madam, I lay down, on the very last day of eating meat before St. Peter’s fast - day; I lay down after dinner to rest a bit, well, and so I fell asleep, and dreamed a raven colt ran into the room to me. And this colt began sporting about and grinning. Black as a beetle was the raven colt.” Harlov ceased.

“Well?” said my mother.

“And all of a sudden this same colt turns round, and gives me a kick in the left elbow, right in the funny bone. . . . I waked up; my arm would not move nor my leg either. Well, thinks I, it’s paralysis; however, I worked them up and down, and got them to move again; only there were shooting pains in the joints a long time, and there are still. When I open my hand, the pains shoot through the joints.”

“Why, Martin Petrovitch, you must have lain upon your arm somehow and crushed it.”

“No, madam; pray, don’t talk like that! It was an intimation . . . referring to my death, I mean.”

“Well, upon my word,” my mother was beginning.

“An intimation. Prepare thyself man, as ‘twere to say. And therefore, madam, here is what I have to announce to you, without a moment’s delay. Not wishing,” Harlov suddenly began shouting, “that the same death should come upon me, the servant of God, unawares, I have planned in my own mind this: to divide -
 
- now during my lifetime -
 
- my estate between my two daughters, Anna and Evlampia, according as God Almighty directs me -
 
- “ Martin Petrovitch stopped, groaned, and added, “without a moment’s delay.”

“Well, that would be a good idea,” observed my mother; “though I think you have no need to be in a hurry.”

“And seeing that herein I desire,” Harlov continued, raising his voice still higher, “to be observant of all due order and legality, so humbly beg your young son, Dmitri Semyonovitch -
 
- I would not venture, madam, to trouble you -
 
- I beg the said Dmitri Semyonovitch, your son, and I claim of my kinsman, Bitchkov, as a plain duty, to assist at the ratification of the formal act and transference of possession to my two daughters -
 
- Anna, married, and Evlampia, spinster. Which act will be drawn up in readiness the day after to - morrow at twelve o’clock, at my own place, Eskovo, also called Kozulkino, in the presence of the ruling authorities and functionaries, who are thereto invited.”

Martin Petrovitch with difficulty reached the end of this speech, which he had obviously learnt by heart, and which was interspersed with frequent sighs. . . . He seemed to have no breath left in his chest; his pale face was crimson again, and he several times wiped the sweat off it.

“So you’ve already composed the deed dividing your property?” my mother queried. “When did you manage that?”

“I managed it . . . oh! Neither eating, nor drinking -
 
-
 
-
 
- “

“Did you write it yourself?”

“Volodka . . . oh! helped.”

“And have you forwarded a petition?”

“I have, and the chamber has sanctioned it, and notice has been given to the district court, and the temporary division of the local court has . . . oh! . . . been notified to be present.”

My mother laughed. “I see, Martin Petrovitch, you’ve made every arrangement already -
 
- and how quickly. You’ve not spared money, I should say?”

“No, indeed, madam.”

“Well, well. And you say you want to consult with me. Well, my little Dmitri can go; and I’ll send Souvenir with him, and speak to Kvitsinsky. . . . But you haven’t invited Gavrila Fedulitch?”

“Gavrila Fedulitch -
 
- Mr. Zhitkov -
 
- has had notice . . . from me also. As a betrothed, it was only fitting.”

Martin Petrovitch had obviously exhausted all the resources of his eloquence. Besides, it always seemed to me that he did not look altogether favourably on the match my mother had made for his daughter; possibly, he had expected a more advantageous marriage for his darling Evlampia.

He got up from his chair, and made a scrape with his foot. “Thank you for your consent.”

“Where are you off to?” asked my mother. “Stay a bit; I’ll order some lunch to be served you.”

“Much obliged,” responded Harlov. “But I cannot. . . . Oh! I must get home.”

He backed and was about to move sideways, as his habit was, through the door.

“Stop, stop a minute,” my mother went on. “Can you possibly mean to make over the whole of your property without reserve to your daughters?”

“Certainly, without reserve.”

“Well, but how about yourself -
 
- where are you going to live?”

Harlov positively flung up his hands in amazement. “You ask where? In my house, at home, as I’ve lived hitherto . . . so hence - forward. Whatever difference could there be?”

“You have such confidence in your daughters and your son - in - law, then?”

“Were you pleased to speak of Volodka? A poor stick like him? Why, I can do as I like with him, whatever it is . . . what authority has he? As for them, my daughters, that is, to care for me till I’m in the grave, to give me meat and drink, and clothe me. . . . Merciful heavens! it’s their first duty. I shall not long be an eyesore to them. Death’s not over the hills -
 
- it’s upon my shoulders.”

“Death is in God’s hands,” observed my mother; “though that is their duty, to be sure. Only pardon me, Martin Petrovitch; your elder girl, Anna, is well known to be proud and imperious, and -
 
- well -
 
- the second has a fierce look. . . .”

“Natalia Nikolaevna!” Harlov broke in, “why do you say that? . . . Why, as though they . . . My daughters . . . Why, as though I . . . Forget their duty? Never in their wildest dreams . . . Offer opposition? To whom? Their parent . . . Dare to do such a thing? Have they not my curse to fear? They’ve passed their life long in fear and in submission -
 
- and all of a sudden . . . Good Lord!”

Harlov choked, there was a rattle in his throat.

“Very well, very well,” my mother made haste to soothe him; “only I don’t understand all the same what has put it into your head to divide the property up now. It would have come to them afterwards, in any case. I imagine it’s your melancholy that’s at the bottom of it all.”

“Eh, ma’am,” Harlov rejoined, not without vexation, “you will keep coming back to that. There is, maybe, a higher power at work in this, and you talk of melancholy. I thought to do this, madam, because in my own person, while still in life, I wish to decide in my presence, who is to possess what, and with what I will reward each, so that they may possess, and feel thankfulness, and carry out my wishes, and what their father and benefactor has resolved upon, they may accept as a bountiful gift.”

Harlov’s voice broke again.

“Come, that’s enough, that’s enough, my good friend,” my mother cut him short; “or your raven colt will be putting in an appearance in earnest.”

“O Natalia Nikolaevna, don’t talk to me of it,” groaned Harlov. “That’s my death come after me. Forgive my intrusion. And you, my little sir, I shall have the honour of expecting you the day after to - morrow.”

Martin Petrovitch went out; my mother looked after him, and shook her head significantly. “This is a bad business,” she murmured, “a bad business. You noticed” -
 
- she addressed herself to me -
 
- “he talked, and all the while seemed blinking, as though the sun were in his eyes; that’s a bad sign. When a man’s like that, his heart’s sure to be heavy, and misfortune threatens him. You must go over the day after to - morrow with Vikenty Osipovitch and Souvenir.”