Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (244 page)

‘Your honour, Arkady Pavlitch,’ the old man began despairingly, ‘have pity, protect us; when have I been impudent? Before God Almighty, I swear it was beyond my strength. Sofron Yakovlitch has taken a dislike to me; for some reason he dislikes me — God be his judge! He will ruin me utterly, your honour…. The last … here … the last boy … and him he….’ (A tear glistened in the old man’s wrinkled yellow eyes). ‘Have pity, gracious lord, defend us!’

‘And it’s not us only,’ the young peasant began….

Arkady Pavlitch flew into a rage at once.

‘And who asked your opinion, hey? Till you’re spoken to, hold your tongue…. What’s the meaning of it? Silence, I tell you, silence!… Why, upon my word, this is simply mutiny! No, my friend, I don’t advise you to mutiny on my domain … on my … (Arkady Pavlitch stepped forward, but probably recollected my presence, turned round, and put his hands in his pockets …) ‘
Je vous demande bien pardon, mon cher
,’ he said, with a forced smile, dropping his voice significantly. ‘
C’est le mauvais côté de la médaille
… There, that’ll do, that’ll do,’ he went on, not looking at the peasants: ‘I say … that’ll do, you can go.’ (The peasants did not rise.) ‘Well, haven’t I told you … that’ll do. You can go, I tell you.’

Arkady Pavlitch turned his back on them. ‘Nothing but vexation,’ he muttered between his teeth, and strode with long steps homewards. Sofron followed him. The village constable opened his eyes wide, looking as if he were just about to take a tremendous leap into space. The bailiff drove a duck away from the puddle. The suppliants remained as they were a little, then looked at each other, and, without turning their heads, went on their way.

Two hours later I was at Ryabovo, and making ready to begin shooting, accompanied by Anpadist, a peasant I knew well. Pyenotchkin had been out of humour with Sofron up to the time I left. I began talking to Anpadist about the Shipilovka peasants, and Mr. Pyenotchkin, and asked him whether he knew the agent there.

‘Sofron Yakovlitch? … ugh!’

‘What sort of man is he?’

‘He’s not a man; he’s a dog; you couldn’t find another brute like him between here and Kursk.’

‘Really?’

‘Why, Shipilovka’s hardly reckoned as — what’s his name? — Mr.

Pyenotchkin’s at all; he’s not the master there; Sofron’s the master.’

‘You don’t say so!’

‘He’s master, just as if it were his own. The peasants all about are in debt to him; they work for him like slaves; he’ll send one off with the waggons; another, another way…. He harries them out of their lives.’

‘They haven’t much land, I suppose?’

‘Not much land! He rents two hundred acres from the Hlinovsky peasants alone, and two hundred and eighty from our folks; there’s more than three hundred and seventy - five acres he’s got. And he doesn’t only traffic in land; he does a trade in horses and stock, and pitch, and butter, and hemp, and one thing and the other…. He’s sharp, awfully sharp, and rich too, the beast! But what’s bad — he beats them. He’s a brute, not a man; a dog, I tell you; a cur, a regular cur; that’s what he is!’

‘How is it they don’t make complaints of him?’

‘I dare say, the master’d be pleased! There’s no arrears; so what does he care? Yes, you’d better,’ he added, after a brief pause; ‘I should advise you to complain! No, he’d let you know … yes, you’d better try it on…. No, he’d let you know….’

I thought of Antip, and told him what I had seen.

‘There,’ commented Anpadist, ‘he will eat him up now; he’ll simply eat the man up. The bailiff will beat him now. Such a poor, unlucky chap, come to think of it! And what’s his offence?… He had some wrangle in meeting with him, the agent, and he lost all patience, I suppose, and of course he wouldn’t stand it…. A great matter, truly, to make so much of! So he began pecking at him, Antip. Now he’ll eat him up altogether. You see, he’s such a dog. Such a cur — God forgive my transgressions! — he knows whom to fall upon. The old men that are a bit richer, or’ve more children, he doesn’t touch, the red - headed devil! but there’s all the difference here! Why he’s sent Antip’s sons for recruits out of turn, the heartless ruffian, the cur! God forgive my transgressions!’

We went on our way.

XI

THE COUNTING - HOUSE

It was autumn. For some hours I had been strolling across country with my gun, and should probably not have returned till evening to the tavern on the Kursk high - road where my three - horse trap was awaiting me, had not an exceedingly fine and persistent rain, which had worried me all day with the obstinacy and ruthlessness of some old maiden lady, driven me at last to seek at least a temporary shelter somewhere in the neighbourhood. While I was still deliberating in which direction to go, my eye suddenly fell on a low shanty near a field sown with peas. I went up to the shanty, glanced under the thatched roof, and saw an old man so infirm that he reminded me at once of the dying goat Robinson Crusoe found in some cave on his island. The old man was squatting on his heels, his little dim eyes half - closed, while hurriedly, but carefully, like a hare (the poor fellow had not a single tooth), he munched a dry, hard pea, incessantly rolling it from side to side. He was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice my entrance.

‘Grandfather! hey, grandfather!’ said I. He ceased munching, lifted his eyebrows high, and with an effort opened his eyes.

‘What?’ he mumbled in a broken voice.

‘Where is there a village near?’ I asked.

The old man fell to munching again. He had not heard me. I repeated my question louder than before.

‘A village?… But what do you want?’

‘Why, shelter from the rain.’

‘What?’

‘Shelter from the rain.’

‘Ah!’ (He scratched his sunburnt neck.) ‘Well, now, you go,’ he said suddenly, waving his hands indefinitely, ‘so … as you go by the copse — see, as you go — there’ll be a road; you pass it by, and keep right on to the right; keep right on, keep right on, keep right on…. Well, there will be Ananyevo. Or else you’d go to Sitovka.’

I followed the old man with difficulty. His moustaches muffled his voice, and his tongue too did not obey him readily.

‘Where are you from?’ I asked him.

‘What?’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Ananyevo.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m watchman.’

‘Why, what are you watching?’

‘The peas.’

I could not help smiling.

‘Really! — how old are you?’

‘God knows.’

‘Your sight’s failing, I expect.’

‘What?’

‘Your sight’s failing, I daresay?’

‘Yes, it’s failing. At times I can hear nothing.’

‘Then how can you be a watchman, eh?’

‘Oh, my elders know about that.’

‘Elders!’ I thought, and I gazed not without compassion at the poor old man. He fumbled about, pulled out of his bosom a bit of coarse bread, and began sucking it like a child, with difficulty moving his sunken cheeks.

I walked in the direction of the copse, turned to the right, kept on, kept right on as the old man had advised me, and at last got to a large village with a stone church in the new style,
i.e.
with columns, and a spacious manor - house, also with columns. While still some way off I noticed through the fine network of falling rain a cottage with a deal roof, and two chimneys, higher than the others, in all probability the dwelling of the village elder; and towards it I bent my steps in the hope of finding, in this cottage, a samovar, tea, sugar, and some not absolutely sour cream. Escorted by my half - frozen dog, I went up the steps into the outer room, opened the door, and instead of the usual appurtenances of a cottage, I saw several tables, heaped up with papers, two red cupboards, bespattered inkstands, pewter boxes of blotting sand weighing half a hundred - weight, long penholders, and so on. At one of the tables was sitting a young man of twenty with a swollen, sickly face, diminutive eyes, a greasy - looking forehead, and long straggling locks of hair. He was dressed, as one would expect, in a grey nankin coat, shiny with wear at the waist and the collar.

‘What do you want?’ he asked me, flinging his head up like a horse taken unexpectedly by the nose.

‘Does the bailiff live here… or — ’

‘This is the principal office of the manor,’ he interrupted. ‘I’m the clerk on duty…. Didn’t you see the sign - board? That’s what it was put up for.’

‘Where could I dry my clothes here? Is there a samovar anywhere in the village?’

‘Samovars, of course,’ replied the young man in the grey coat with dignity; ‘go to Father Timofey’s, or to the servants’ cottage, or else to Nazar Tarasitch, or to Agrafena, the poultry - woman.’

‘Who are you talking to, you blockhead? Can’t you let me sleep, dummy!’ shouted a voice from the next room.

‘Here’s a gentleman’s come in to ask where he can dry himself.’

‘What sort of a gentleman?’

‘I don’t know. With a dog and a gun.’

A bedstead creaked in the next room. The door opened, and there came in a stout, short man of fifty, with a bull neck, goggle - eyes, extraordinarily round cheeks, and his whole face positively shining with sleekness.

‘What is it you wish?’ he asked me.

‘To dry my things.’

‘There’s no place here.’

‘I didn’t know this was the counting - house; I am willing, though, to pay…’

‘Well, perhaps it could be managed here,’ rejoined the fat man; ‘won’t you come inside here?’ (He led me into another room, but not the one he had come from.) ‘Would this do for you?’

‘Very well…. And could I have tea and milk?’

‘Certainly, at once. If you’ll meantime take off your things and rest, the tea shall be got ready this minute.’

‘Whose property is this?’

‘Madame Losnyakov’s, Elena Nikolaevna.’

He went out I looked round: against the partition separating my room from the office stood a huge leather sofa; two high - backed chairs, also covered in leather, were placed on both sides of the solitary window which looked out on the village street. On the walls, covered with a green paper with pink patterns on it, hung three immense oil paintings. One depicted a setter - dog with a blue collar, bearing the inscription: ‘This is my consolation’; at the dog’s feet flowed a river; on the opposite bank of the river a hare of quite disproportionate size with ears cocked up was sitting under a pine tree. In another picture two old men were eating a melon; behind the melon was visible in the distance a Greek temple with the inscription: ‘The Temple of Satisfaction.’ The third picture represented the half - nude figure of a woman in a recumbent position, much fore - shortened, with red knees and very big heels. My dog had, with superhuman efforts, crouched under the sofa, and apparently found a great deal of dust there, as he kept sneezing violently. I went to the window. Boards had been laid across the street in a slanting direction from the manor - house to the counting - house — a very useful precaution, as, thanks to our rich black soil and the persistent rain, the mud was terrible. In the grounds of the manor - house, which stood with its back to the street, there was the constant going and coming there always is about manor - houses: maids in faded chintz gowns flitted to and fro; house - serfs sauntered through the mud, stood still and scratched their spines meditatively; the constable’s horse, tied up to a post, lashed his tail lazily, and with his nose high up, gnawed at the hedge; hens were clucking; sickly turkeys kept up an incessant gobble - gobble. On the steps of a dark crumbling out - house, probably the bath - house, sat a stalwart lad with a guitar, singing with some spirit the well - known ballad:

         ’I’m leaving this enchanting spot

             To go into the desert.’

The fat man came into the room.

‘They’re bringing you in your tea,’ he told me, with an affable smile.

The young man in the grey coat, the clerk on duty, laid on the old card - table a samovar, a teapot, a tumbler on a broken saucer, a jug of cream, and a bunch of Bolhovo biscuit rings. The fat man went out.

‘What is he?’ I asked the clerk; ‘the steward?’

‘No, sir; he was the chief cashier, but now he has been promoted to be head - clerk.’

‘Haven’t you got a steward, then?’

‘No, sir. There’s an agent, Mihal Vikulov, but no steward.’

‘Is there a manager, then?’

‘Yes; a German, Lindamandol, Karlo Karlitch; only he does not manage the estate.’

‘Who does manage it, then?’

‘Our mistress herself.’

‘You don’t say so. And are there many of you in the office?’

The young man reflected.

‘There are six of us.’

‘Who are they?’ I inquired.

‘Well, first there’s Vassily Nikolaevitch, the head cashier; then Piotr, one clerk; Piotr’s brother, Ivan, another clerk; the other Ivan, a clerk; Konstantin Narkizer, another clerk; and me here — there’s a lot of us, you can’t count all of them.’

‘I suppose your mistress has a great many serfs in her house?’

‘No, not to say a great many.’

‘How many, then?’

‘I dare say it runs up to about a hundred and fifty.’

We were both silent for a little.

‘I suppose you write a good hand, eh?’ I began again.

The young man grinned from ear to ear, went into the office and brought in a sheet covered with writing.

‘This is my writing,’ he announced, still with the same smile on his face.

I looked at it; on the square sheet of greyish paper there was written, in a good bold hand, the following document: —