Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (253 page)

 
‘Dans ces beaux lieux, où règne l’allégresse

  
Ce temple fut ouvert par la Beauté;

  
De vos seigneurs admirez la tendresse

  
Bons habitants de Krasnogorié!’

while another gentleman had written below:

 
‘Et moi aussi j’aime la nature!

                         
JEAN KOBYLIATNIKOFF.’

The surgeon bought six beds at his own expense, and had set to work in a thankful spirit to heal God’s people. Besides him, the staff consisted of two persons; an engraver, Pavel, liable to attacks of insanity, and a one - armed peasant woman, Melikitrisa, who performed the duties of cook. Both of them mixed the medicines and dried and infused herbs; they, too, controlled the patients when they were delirious. The insane engraver was sullen in appearance and sparing of words; at night he would sing a song about ‘lovely Venus,’ and would besiege every one he met with a request for permission to marry a girl called Malanya, who had long been dead. The one - armed peasant woman used to beat him and set him to look after the turkeys. Well, one day I was at Kapiton’s. We had begun talking over our last day’s shooting, when suddenly a cart drove into the yard, drawn by an exceptionally stout horse, such as are only found belonging to millers. In the cart sat a thick - set peasant, in a new greatcoat, with a beard streaked with grey. ‘Hullo, Vassily Dmitritch,’ Kapiton shouted from the window; ‘please come in.... The miller of Liobovshin,’ he whispered to me. The peasant climbed groaning out of the cart, came into the surgeon’s room, and after looking for the holy pictures, crossed himself, bowing to them. ‘Well, Vassily Dmitritch, any news?... But you must be ill; you don’t look well.’ ‘Yes, Kapiton Timofeitch, there’s something not right.’ ‘What’s wrong with you?’ ‘Well, it was like this, Kapiton Timofeitch. Not long ago I bought some mill - stones in the town, so I took them home, and as I went to lift them out of the cart, I strained myself, or something; I’d a sort of rick in the loins, as though something had been torn away, and ever since I’ve been out of sorts. To - day I feel worse than ever.’ ‘Hm,’ commented Kapiton, and he took a pinch of snuff; ‘that’s a rupture, no doubt. But is it long since this happened?’ ‘It’s ten days now.’ ‘Ten days?’ (The surgeon drew a long inward breath and shook his head.) ‘Let me examine you.’ ‘Well, Vassily Dmitritch,’ he pronounced at last, ‘I am sorry for you, heartily sorry, but things aren’t right with you at all; you’re seriously ill; stay here with me; I will do everything I can, for my part, though I can’t answer for anything.’ ‘So bad as that?’ muttered the astounded peasant. ‘Yes, Vassily Dmitritch, it is bad; if you’d come to me a day or two sooner, it would have been nothing much; I could have cured you in a trice; but now inflammation has set in; before we know where we are, there’ll be mortification.’ ‘But it can’t be, Kapiton Timofeitch.’ ‘I tell you it is so.’ ‘But how comes it?’ (The surgeon shrugged his shoulders.) ‘And I must die for a trifle like that?’ ‘I don’t say that... only you must stop here.’ The peasant pondered and pondered, his eyes fixed on the floor, then he glanced up at us, scratched his head, and picked up his cap. ‘Where are you off to, Vassily Dmitritch?’ ‘Where? why, home to be sure, if it’s so bad. I must put things to rights, if it’s like that.’ ‘But you’ll do yourself harm, Vassily Dmitritch; you will, really; I’m surprised how you managed to get here; you must stop.’ ‘No, brother, Kapiton Timofeitch, if I must die, I’ll die at home; why die here? I’ve got a home, and the Lord knows how it will end.’ ‘No one can tell yet, Vassily Dmitritch, how it will end.... Of course, there is danger, considerable danger; there’s no disputing that... but for that reason you ought to stay here.’ (The peasant shook his head.) ‘No, Kapiton Timofeitch, I won’t stay... but perhaps you will prescribe me a medicine.’ ‘Medicine alone will be no good.’ ‘I won’t stay, I tell you.’ ‘Well, as you like.... Mind you don’t blame me for it afterwards.’

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

The Russians, in general, meet death in a marvellous way. Many of the dead come back now to my memory. I recall you, my old friend, who left the university with no degree, Avenir Sorokoumov, noblest, best of men! I see once again your sickly, consumptive face, your lank brown tresses, your gentle smile, your ecstatic glance, your long limbs; I can hear your weak, caressing voice. You lived at a Great Russian landowner’s, called Gur Krupyanikov, taught his children, Fofa and Zyozya, Russian grammar, geography, and history, patiently bore all the ponderous jokes of the said Gur, the coarse familiarities of the steward, the vulgar pranks of the spiteful urchins; with a bitter smile, but without repining, you complied with the caprices of their bored and exacting mother; but to make up for it all, what bliss, what peace was yours in the evening, after supper, when, free at last of all duties, you sat at the window pensively smoking a pipe, or greedily turned the pages of a greasy and mutilated number of some solid magazine, brought you from the town by the land - surveyor — just such another poor, homeless devil as yourself! How delighted you were then with any sort of poem or novel; how readily the tears started into your eyes; with what pleasure you laughed; what genuine love for others, what generous sympathy for everything good and noble, filled your pure youthful soul! One must tell the truth: you were not distinguished by excessive sharpness of wit; Nature had endowed you with neither memory nor industry; at the university you were regarded as one of the least promising students; at lectures you slumbered, at examinations you preserved a solemn silence; but who was beaming with delight and breathless with excitement at a friend’s success, a friend’s triumphs?... Avenir!... Who had a blind faith in the lofty destiny of his friends? who extolled them with pride? who championed them with angry vehemence? who was innocent of envy as of vanity? who was ready for the most disinterested self - sacrifice? who eagerly gave way to men who were not worthy to untie his latchet?... That was you, all you, our good Avenir! I remember how broken - heartedly you parted from your comrades, when you were going away to be a tutor in the country; you were haunted by presentiment of evil.... And, indeed, your lot was a sad one in the country; you had no one there to listen to with veneration, no one to admire, no one to love.... The neighbours — rude sons of the steppes, and polished gentlemen alike — treated you as a tutor: some, with rudeness and neglect, others carelessly. Besides, you were not pre - possessing in person; you were shy, given to blushing, getting hot and stammering.... Even your health was no better for the country air: you wasted like a candle, poor fellow! It is true your room looked out into the garden; wild cherries, apple - trees, and limes strewed their delicate blossoms on your table, your ink - stand, your books; on the wall hung a blue silk watch - pocket, a parting present from a kind - hearted, sentimental German governess with flaxen curls and little blue eyes; and sometimes an old friend from Moscow would come out to you and throw you into ecstasies with new poetry, often even with his own. But, oh, the loneliness, the insufferable slavery of a tutor’s lot! the impossibility of escape, the endless autumns and winters, the ever - advancing disease!... Poor, poor Avenir!

I paid Sorokoumov a visit not long before his death. He was then hardly able to walk. The landowner, Gur Krupyanikov, had not turned him out of the house, but had given up paying him a salary, and had taken another tutor for Zyozya.... Fofa had been sent to a school of cadets. Avenir was sitting near the window in an old easy - chair. It was exquisite weather. The clear autumn sky was a bright blue above the dark - brown line of bare limes; here and there a few last leaves of lurid gold rustled and whispered about them. The earth had been covered with frost, now melting into dewdrops in the sun, whose ruddy rays fell aslant across the pale grass; there was a faint crisp resonance in the air; the voices of the labourers in the garden reached us clearly and distinctly. Avenir wore an old Bokhara dressing - gown; a green neckerchief threw a deathly hue over his terribly sunken face. He was greatly delighted to see me, held out his hand, began talking and coughing at once. I made him be quiet, and sat down by him.... On Avenir’s knee lay a manuscript book of Koltsov’s poems, carefully copied out; he patted it with a smile. ‘That’s a poet,’ he stammered, with an effort repressing his cough; and he fell to declaiming in a voice scarcely audible:

 
‘Can the eagle’s wings

    
Be chained and fettered?

  
Can the pathways of heaven

    
Be closed against him?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘They’re unkind, eh?’ I put in.

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

Sorokoumov began coughing again.

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

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

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

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

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