Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (344 page)

Pyetushkov made no answer.

‘Shall I go for the doctor?’ Onisim continued, after a brief pause.

‘I’m quite well…. Go away,’ Ivan Afanasiitch articulated huskily.

‘Well? … no, you’re not well, Ivan Afanasiitch…. Is this what you call being well?’

Pyetushkov did not speak.

‘Just look at yourself. You’ve grown so thin, that you’re simply not like yourself. And what’s it all about? It’s enough to turn one’s brain to think of it. And you a gentleman born, too!’

Onisim paused. Pyetushkov did not stir.

‘Is that the way gentlemen go on? They’d amuse themselves a bit, to be sure … why shouldn’t they … they’d amuse themselves, and then drop it…. They may well say, Fall in love with Old Nick, and you’ll think him a beauty.’

Ivan Afanasiitch merely writhed.

‘Well, it’s really like this, Ivan Afanasiitch. If any one had said this and that of you, and your goings on, why, I would have said, “Get along with you, you fool, what do you take me for?” Do you suppose I’d have believed it? Why, as it is, I see it with my own eyes, and I can’t believe it. Worse than this nothing can be. Has she put some spell over you or what? Why, what is there in her? If you come to consider, she’s below contempt, really. She can’t even speak as she ought…. She’s simply a baggage! Worse, even!’

‘Go away,’ Ivan Afanasiitch moaned into the cushion.

‘No, I’m not going away, Ivan Afanasiitch. Who’s to speak, if I don’t? Why, upon my word! Here, you ‘re breaking your heart now … and over what? Eh, over what? tell me that!’

‘Oh, go away, Onisim,’ Pyetushkov moaned again. Onisim, for propriety’s sake, was silent for a little while.

‘And another thing,’ he began again, ‘she’s no feeling of gratitude whatever. Any other girl wouldn’t know how to do enough to please you; while she! … she doesn’t even think of you. Why, it’s simply a disgrace. Why, the things people are saying about you, one cannot repeat them, they positively cry shame on me. If I could have known beforehand, I’d have….’

‘Oh, go away, do, devil!’ shrieked Pyetushkov, not stirring from his place, however, nor raising his head.

‘Ivan Afanasiitch, for mercy’s sake,’ pursued the ruthless Onisim. ‘I’m speaking for your good. Despise her, Ivan Afanasiitch; you simply break it off. Listen to me, or else I’ll fetch a wise woman; she’ll break the spell in no time. You’ll laugh at it yourself, later on; you’ll say to me, “Onisim, why, it’s marvellous how such things happen sometimes!” You just consider yourself: girls like her, they’re like dogs … you’ve only to whistle to them….’

Like one frantic, Pyetushkov jumped up from the sofa … but, to the amazement of Onisim, who was already lifting both hands to the level of his cheeks, he sat down again, as though some one had cut away his legs from under him…. Tears were rolling down his pale face, a tuft of hair stood up straight on the top of his head, his eyes looked dimmed … his drawn lips were quivering … his head sank on his breast.

Onisim looked at Pyetushkov and plumped heavily down on his knees.

‘Dear master, Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he cried, ‘your honour! Be pleased to punish me. I’m a fool. I’ve troubled you, Ivan Afanasiitch…. How did I dare! Be pleased to punish me, your honour…. It’s not worth your while to weep over my silly words … dear master. Ivan Afanasiitch….’

But Pyetushkov did not even look at his servant; he turned away and buried himself in the corner of the sofa again.

Onisim got up, went up to his master, stood over him, and twice he tugged at his own hair.

‘Wouldn’t you like to undress, sir … you should go to bed … you should take some raspberry tea … don’t grieve, please your honour…. It’s only half a trouble, it’s all nothing … it’ll be all right in the end,’ he said to him every two minutes….

But Pyetushkov did not get up from the sofa, and only twitched his shoulders now and then, and drew up his knees to his stomach….

Onisim did not leave his side all night. Towards morning Pyetushkov fell asleep, but he did not sleep long. At seven o’clock he got up from the sofa, pale, dishevelled, and exhausted, and asked for tea.

Onisim with amazing eagerness and speed brought the samovar.

‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he began at last, in a timid voice, ‘your honour is not angry with me?’

‘Why should I be angry with you, Onisim?’ answered poor Pyetushkov. ‘You were perfectly right yesterday, and I quite agreed with you in everything.’

‘I only spoke through my devotion to you, Ivan Afanasiitch.’

‘I know that.’

Pyetushkov was silent and hung his head.

Onisim saw that things were in a bad way.

‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he said suddenly.

‘Well?’

‘Would you like me to fetch Vassilissa here?’

Pyetushkov flushed red.

‘No, Onisim, I don’t wish it. (‘Yes, indeed! as if she would come!’ he thought to himself.) One must be firm. It is all nonsense. Yesterday, I … It’s a disgrace. You are right. One must cut it all short, once for all, as they say. Isn’t that true?’

‘It’s the gospel truth your honour speaks, Ivan Afanasiitch.’

Pyetushkov sank again into reverie. He wondered at himself, he did not seem to know himself. He sat without stirring and stared at the floor. Thoughts whirled round within him, like smoke or fog, while his heart felt empty and heavy at once.

‘But what’s the meaning of it, after all,’ he thought sometimes, and again he grew calmer. ‘It’s nonsense, silliness!’ he said aloud, and passed his hand over his face, shook himself, and his hand dropped again on his knee, his eyes again rested on the floor.

Intently and mournfully Onisim kept watch on his master.

Pyetushkov lifted his head.

‘Tell me, Onisim,’ he began, ‘is it true, are there really such witches’ spells?’

‘There are, to be sure there are,’ answered Onisim, as he thrust one foot forward. ‘Does your honour know the non - commissioned officer, Krupovaty? … His brother was ruined by witchcraft. He was bewitched to love an old woman, a cook, if your honour only can explain that! They gave him nothing but a morsel of rye bread, with a muttered spell, of course. And Krupovaty’s brother simply lost his heart to the cook, he fairly ran after the cook, he positively adored her — couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She might tell him to do anything, he’d obey her on the spot. She’d even make a joke of him before other people, before strangers. Well, she drove him into a decline, at last. And so it was Krupovaty’s brother died. And you know, she was a cook, and an old woman too, very old. (Onisim took a pinch of snuff.) Confound the lot of them, these girls and women - folk!’

‘She doesn’t care for me a bit, that’s clear, at last; that’s beyond all doubt, at last,’ Pyetushkov muttered in an undertone, gesticulating with his head and hands as though he were explaining to a perfectly extraneous person some perfectly extraneous fact.

‘Yes,’ Onisim resumed, ‘there are women like that.’

‘There are,’ listlessly repeated Pyetushkov, in a tone half questioning, half perplexed.

Onisim looked intently at his master.

‘Ivan Afanasiitch,’ he began, ‘wouldn’t you have a snack of something?’

‘Wouldn’t I have a snack of something?’ repeated Pyetushkov.

‘Or may be you’d like to have a pipe?’

‘To have a pipe?’ repeated Pyetushkov.

‘So this is what it’s coming to,’ muttered Onisim. ‘It’s gone deep, it seems.’

VIII

The creak of boots resounded in the passage, and then there was heard the usual suppressed cough which announces the presence of a person of subordinate position. Onisim went out and promptly came back, accompanied by a diminutive soldier with a little, old woman’s face, in a patched cloak yellow with age, and wearing neither breeches nor cravat. Pyetushkov was startled; while the soldier drew himself up, wished him good day, and handed him a large envelope bearing the government seal. In this envelope was a note from the major in command of the garrison: he called upon Pyetushkov to come to him without fail or delay.

Pyetushkov turned the note over in his hands, and could not refrain from asking the messenger, did he know why the major desired his presence, though he was very well aware of the utter futility of his question.

‘We cannot tell!’ the soldier cried, with great effort, yet hardly audibly, as though he were half asleep.

‘Isn’t he summoning the other officers?’ Pyetushkov pursued.

‘We cannot tell,’ the soldier cried a second time, in just the same voice.

‘All right, you can go,’ pronounced Pyetushkov.

The soldier wheeled round to the left, scraping his foot as he did so, and slapping himself below the spine (this was considered smart in the twenties), withdrew.

Pyetushkov exchanged glances with Onisim, who at once assumed a look of anxiety. Without a word Ivan Afanasiitch set off to the major’s.

The major was a man of sixty, corpulent and clumsily built, with a red and bloated face, a short neck, and a continual trembling in his fingers, resulting from excessive indulgence in strong drink. He belonged to the class of so - called ‘bourbons,’ that’s to say, soldiers risen from the ranks; had learned to read at thirty, and spoke with difficulty, partly from shortness of breath, partly from inability to follow his own thought. His temperament exhibited all the varieties known to science: in the morning, before drinking, he was melancholy; in the middle of the day, choleric; and in the evening, phlegmatic, that is to say, he did nothing at that time but snore and grunt till he was put to bed. Ivan Afanasiitch appeared before him during the choleric period. He found him sitting on a sofa, in an open dressing - gown, with a pipe between his teeth. A fat, crop - eared cat had taken up her position beside him.

‘Aha! he’s come!’ growled the major, casting a sidelong glance out of his pewtery eyes upon Pyetushkov, and not stirring from his place. ‘Sit down. Well, I’m going to give you a talking to. I’ve wanted to get hold of you this long while.’

Pyetushkov sank into a chair.

‘For,’ the major began, with an unexpected lurch of his whole body, ‘you’re an officer, d’ye see, and so you’ve got to behave yourself according to rule. If you’d been a soldier, I’d have flogged you, and that’s all about it, but, as ‘tis, you’re an officer. Did any one ever see the like of it? Disgracing yourself — is that a nice thing?’

‘Allow me to know to what these remarks may refer?’ Pyetushkov was beginning….

‘I’ll have no arguing! I dislike that beyond everything. I’ve said: I dislike it; and that’s all about it! Ugh — why, your hooks are not in good form even; — what a disgrace! He sits, day in and day out, at the baker’s shop; and he a gentleman born! There’s a petticoat to be found there — and so there he sits. Let her go to the devil, the petticoat! Why, they do say he puts the bread in the oven. It’s a stain on the uniform … so it is!’

‘Allow me to submit,’ articulated Pyetushkov with a cold chill at his heart, ‘that all this, as far as I can make out, refers to my private life, so to say….’

‘No arguing with me, I tell you! Private life, he protests, too! If it had been a matter of the service I’d have sent you straight to the guard - room! Alley, marsheer! Because of the oath. Why, there was a whole birch copse, maybe, used upon my back, so I should think I know the service; every rule of discipline I’m very well up in. And I’d have you to understand, I say this just for the honour of the uniform. You’re disgracing the uniform … so you are. I say this like a father … yes. Because all that’s put in my charge. I’ve to answer for it. And you dare to argue too!’ the major shrieked with sudden fury, and his face turned purple, and he foamed at the mouth, while the cat put its tail in the air and jumped down to the ground. ‘Why, do you know … why, do you know what I can do? … I can do anything, anything, anything! Why, do you know whom you’re talking to? Your superior officer gives you orders and you argue! Your superior officer … your superior officer….’