Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (346 page)

‘What I’ve done to him?’

‘What have you done to him? … You go and look at him. Why, before we can look round, he’ll be in a decline, or dying outright, maybe.’

‘It’s not my fault, Onisim Sergeitch.’

‘Not your fault! God knows. Why, he’s lost his heart to you. And you, God forgive you, treated him as if he were one of yourselves. Don’t come, says you, I’m sick of you. Why, though he’s not much to boast of, he’s a gentleman anyway. He’s a gentleman born, you know…. Do you realise that?’

‘But he’s such a dull person, Onisim Sergeitch….’

‘Dull! So you must have merry fellows about you!’

‘And it’s not so much that he’s dull: he’s so cross, so jealous.’

‘Ah, you, you’re as haughty as a princess! He was in your way, I dare say!’

‘But you yourself, Onisim Sergeitch, if you remember, were put out with him about it; “Why is he such friends?” you said; “what’s he always coming for?”‘

‘Well, was I to be pleased with him for it, do you suppose?’

‘Well, then, why are you angry with me now? Here, he’s given up coming.’

Onisim positively stamped.

‘But what am I to do with him, if he’s such a madman?’ he added, dropping his voice.

‘But how am I in fault? What can I do?’

‘I’ll tell you what: come with me to him.’

‘God forbid!’

‘Why won’t you come?’

‘But why should I go to see him? Upon my word!’

‘Why? Why, because he says you’ve a good heart; let me see if you’ve a good heart.’

‘But what good can I do him?’

‘Oh, that’s my business. You may be sure things are in a bad way, since

I’ve come to you. It’s certain I could think of nothing else to do.’

Onisim paused for a while.

‘Well, come along, Vassilissa, please, come along.’

‘Oh, Onisim Sergeitch, I don’t want to be friendly with him again …’

‘Well, and you needn’t — who’s talking of it? You’ve only to say a couple of words; to say, Why does your honour grieve? … give over…. That’s all.’

‘Really, Onisim Sergeitch …’

‘Why, am I to go down on my knees to you, eh? All right — there, I’m on my knees …’

‘But really …’

‘Why, what a girl it is! Even that doesn’t touch her! …’

Vassilissa at last consented, put a kerchief on her head, and went out with Onisim.

‘You wait here a little, in the passage,’ he said to her, when they reached Pyetushkov’s abode, ‘and I’ll go and let the master know …’

He went in to Ivan Afanasiitch. Pyetushkov was standing in the middle of the room, both hands in his pockets, his legs excessively wide apart; he was slightly swaying backwards and forwards. His face was hot, and his eyes were sparkling.

‘Hullo, Onisim,’ he faltered amiably, articulating the consonants very indistinctly and thickly: ‘hullo, my lad. Ah, my lad, when you weren’t here … he, he, he …’ Pyetushkov laughed and made a sudden duck forward with his nose. ‘Yes, it’s an accomplished fact, he, he, he…. However,’ he added, trying to assume a dignified air, ‘I’m all right.’ He tried to lift his foot, but almost fell over, and to preserve his dignity pronounced in a deep bass, ‘Boy, bring my pipe!’

Onisim gazed in astonishment at his master, glanced round…. In the window stood an empty dark - green bottle, with the inscription: ‘Best Jamaica rum.’

‘I’ve been drinking, my lad, that’s all,’ Pyetushkov went on. ‘I’ve been and taken it. I’ve been drinking, and that’s all about it. And where’ve you been? Tell us … don’t be shy … tell us. You’re a good hand at a tale.’

‘Ivan Afanasiitch, mercy on us!’ wailed Onisim.

‘To be sure. To be sure I will,’ replied Pyetushkov with a vague wave of his hand. ‘I’ll have mercy on you, and forgive you. I forgive every one, I forgive you, and Vassilissa I forgive, and every one, every one. Yes, my lad, I’ve been drinking…. Dri - ink - ing, lad…. Who’s that?’ he cried suddenly, pointing to the door into the passage; ‘who’s there?’

‘Nobody’s there,’ Onisim answered hastily: ‘who should be there? … where are you going?’

‘No, no,’ repeated Pyetushkov, breaking away from Onisim, ‘let me go, I saw — don’t you talk to me, — I saw there, let me go…. Vassilissa!’ he shrieked all at once.

Pyetushkov turned pale.

‘Well … well, why don’t you come in?’ he said at last. ‘Come in,

Vassilissa, come in. I’m very glad to see you, Vassilissa.’

Vassilissa glanced at Onisim and came into the room. Pyetushkov went nearer to her…. He heaved deep, irregular breaths. Onisim watched him. Vassilissa stole timid glances at both of them.

‘Sit down, Vassilissa,’ Ivan Afanasiitch began again: ‘thanks for coming. Excuse my being … what shall I say? … not quite fit to be seen. I couldn’t foresee, couldn’t really, you’ll own that yourself. Come, sit down, see here, on the sofa … So … I’m expressing myself all right, I think.’

Vassilissa sat down.

‘Well, good day to you,’ Ivan Afanasiitch pursued. ‘Come, how are you? what have you been doing?’

‘I’m well, thank God, Ivan Afanasiitch. And you?’

‘I? as you see! A ruined man. And ruined by whom? By you, Vassilissa. But I’m not angry with you. Only I’m a ruined man. You ask him. (He pointed to Onisim.) Don’t you mind my being drunk. I’m drunk, certainly; only I’m a ruined man. That’s why I’m drunk, because I’m a ruined man.’

‘Lord have mercy on us, Ivan Afanasiitch!’

‘A ruined man, Vassilissa, I tell you. You may believe me. I’ve never deceived you. Oh, and how’s your aunt?’

‘Very well, Ivan Afanasiitch. Thank you.’

Pyetushkov began swaying violently.

‘But you’re not quite well to - day, Ivan Afanasiitch. You ought to lie down.’

‘No, I’m quite well, Vassilissa. No, don’t say I’m not well; you’d better say I’ve fallen into evil ways, lost my morals. That’s what would be just. I won’t dispute that.’

Ivan Afanasiitch gave a lurch backwards. Onisim ran forward and held his master up.

‘And who’s to blame for it? I’ll tell you, if you like, who’s to blame. I’m to blame, in the first place. What ought I to have said? I ought to have said to you: Vassilissa, I love you. Good — well, will you marry me? Will you? It’s true you’re a working girl, granted; but that’s all right. It’s done sometimes. Why, there, I knew a fellow, he got married like that. Married a Finnish servant - girl. Took and married her. And you’d have been happy with me. I’m a good - natured chap, I am! Never you mind my being drunk, you look at my heart. There, you ask this … fellow. So, you see, I turn out to be in fault. And now, of course, I’m a ruined man.’

Ivan Afanasiitch was more and more in need of Onisim’s support.

‘All the same, you did wrong, very wrong. I loved you, I respected you … what’s more, I’m ready to go to church with you this minute. Will you? You’ve only to say the word, and we’ll start at once. Only you wounded me cruelly … cruelly. You might at least have turned me away yourself — but through your aunt, through that fat female! Why, the only joy I had in life was you. I’m a homeless man, you know, a poor lonely creature! Who is there now to be kind to me? who says a kind word to me? I’m utterly alone. Stript bare as a crow. You ask this …’ Ivan Afanasiitch began to cry. ‘Vassilissa, listen what I say to you,’ he went on: ‘let me come and see you as before. Don’t be afraid…. I’ll be … quiet as a mouse. You can go and see whom you like, I’ll — be all right: not a word, no protests, you know. Eh? do you agree? If you like, I’ll go down on my knees.’ (And Ivan Afanasiitch bent his knees, but Onisim held him up under the arms.) ‘Let me go! It’s not your business! It’s a matter of the happiness of a whole life, don’t you understand, and you hinder….’

Vassilissa did not know what to say.

‘You won’t … Well, as you will! God be with you. In that case, good - bye!

Good - bye, Vassilissa. I wish you all happiness and prosperity … but

I … but I …’

And Pyetushkov sobbed violently. Onisim with all his might held him up from behind … first his face worked, then he burst out crying. And Vassilissa cried too.

XI

Ten years later, one might have met in the streets of the little town of O —
 
— a thinnish man with a reddish nose, dressed in an old green coat with a greasy plush collar. He occupied a small garret in the baker’s shop, with which we are familiar. Praskovia Ivanovna was no longer of this world. The business was carried on by her niece, Vassilissa, and her husband, the red - haired, dim - eyed baker, Demofont. The man in the green coat had one weakness: he was over fond of drink. He was, however, always quiet when he was tipsy. The reader has probably recognised him as Ivan Afanasiitch.

A STUDY

I

We all settled down in a circle and our good friend Alexandr Vassilyevitch Ridel (his surname was German but he was Russian to the marrow of his bones) began as follows:

I am going to tell you a story, friends, of something that happened to me in the ‘thirties ... forty years ago as you see. I will be brief -
 
- and don’t you interrupt me.

I was living at the time in Petersburg and had only just left the University. My brother was a lieutenant in the horse - guard artillery. His battery was stationed at Krasnoe Selo -
 
- it was summer time. My brother lodged not at Krasnoe Selo itself but in one of the neighbouring villages; I stayed with him more than once and made the acquaintance of all his comrades. He was living in a fairly decent cottage, together with another officer of his battery, whose name was Ilya Stepanitch Tyeglev. I became particularly friendly with him.

Marlinsky is out of date now -
 
- no one reads him -
 
- and even his name is jeered at; but in the ‘thirties his fame was above everyone’s -
 
- and in the opinion of the young people of the day Pushkin could not hold candle to him. He not only enjoyed the reputation of being the foremost Russian writer; but -
 
- something much more difficult and more rarely met with -
 
- he did to some extent leave his mark on his generation. One came across heroes
à la
Marlinsky everywhere, especially in the provinces and especially among infantry and artillery men; they talked and corresponded in his language; behaved with gloomy reserve in society -
 
- “with tempest in the soul and flame in the blood” like Lieutenant Byelosov in the “
Frigate Hope
.” Women’s hearts were “devoured” by them. The adjective applied to them in those days was “fatal.” The type, as we all know, survived for many years, to the days of Petchorin. [Footnote: The leading character in Lermontov’s
A Hero of Our Time
. -
 
-
Translator’s Note
.] All sorts of elements were mingled in that type. Byronism, romanticism, reminiscences of the French Revolution, of the Dekabrists -
 
- and the worship of Napoleon; faith in destiny, in one’s star, in strength of will; pose and fine phrases -
 
- and a miserable sense of the emptiness of life; uneasy pangs of petty vanity -
 
- and genuine strength and daring; generous impulses -
 
- and defective education, ignorance; aristocratic airs -
 
- and delight in trivial foppery.... But enough of these general reflections. I promised to tell you the story.

II

Lieutenant Tyeglev belonged precisely to the class of those “fatal” individuals, though he did not possess the exterior commonly associated with them; he was not, for instance, in the least like Lermontov’s “fatalist.” He was a man of medium height, fairly solid and round - shouldered, with fair, almost white eyebrows and eyelashes; he had a round, fresh, rosy - cheeked face, a turn - up nose, a low forehead with the hair growing thick over the temples, and full, well - shaped, always immobile lips: he never laughed, never even smiled. Only when he was tired and out of heart he showed his square teeth, white as sugar. The same artificial immobility was imprinted on all his features: had it not been for that, they would have had a good - natured expression. His small green eyes with yellow lashes were the only thing not quite ordinary in his face: his right eye was very slightly higher than his left and the left eyelid drooped a little, which made his eyes look different, strange and drowsy. Tyeglev’s countenance, which was not, however, without a certain attractiveness, almost always wore an expression of discontent mingled with perplexity, as though he were chasing within himself a gloomy thought which he was never able to catch. At the same time he did not give one the impression of being stuck up: he might rather have been taken for an aggrieved than a haughty man. He spoke very little, hesitatingly, in a husky voice, with unnecessary repetitions. Unlike most “fatalists,” he did not use particularly elaborate expressions in speaking and only had recourse to them in writing; his handwriting was quite like a child’s. His superiors regarded him as an officer of no great merit -
 
- not particularly capable and not over - zealous. The brigadier - general, a man of German extraction, used to say of him: “He has punctuality but not precision.” With the soldiers, too, Tyeglev had the character of being neither one thing nor the other. He lived modestly, in accordance with his means. He had been left an orphan at nine years old: his father and mother were drowned when they were being ferried across the Oka in the spring floods. He had been educated at a private school, where he had the reputation of being one of the slowest and quietest of the boys, and at his own earnest desire and through the good offices of a cousin who was a man of influence, he obtained a commission in the horse - guards artillery; and, though with some difficulty, passed his examination first as an ensign and then as a second lieutenant. His relations with other officers were somewhat strained. He was not liked, was rarely visited -
 
- and he hardly went to see anyone. He felt the presence of strangers a constraint; he instantly became awkward and unnatural ... he had no instinct for comradeship and was not on really intimate terms with anyone. But he was respected, and respected not for his character nor for his intelligence and education -
 
- but because the stamp which distinguishes “fatal” people was discerned in him. No one of his fellow officers expected that Tyeglev would make a career or distinguish himself in any way; but that Tyeglev might do something extraordinary or that Tyeglev might become a Napoleon was not considered impossible. For that is a matter of a man’s “star” -
 
- and he was regarded as a “man of destiny,” just as there are “men of sighs” and “of tears.”

III

Two incidents that marked the first steps in his career did a great deal to strengthen his “fatal” reputation. On the very first day after receiving his commission -
 
- about the middle of March -
 
- he was walking with other newly promoted officers in full dress uniform along the embankment. The spring had come early that year, the Neva was melting; the bigger blocks of ice had gone but the whole river was choked up with a dense mass of thawing icicles. The young men were talking and laughing ... suddenly one of them stopped: he saw a little dog some twenty paces from the bank on the slowly moving surface of the river. Perched on a projecting piece of ice it was whining and trembling all over. “It will be drowned,” said the officer through his teeth. The dog was slowly being carried past one of the sloping gangways that led down to the river. All at once Tyeglev without saying a word ran down this gangway and over the thin ice, sinking in and leaping out again, reached the dog, seized it by the scruff of the neck and getting safely back to the bank, put it down on the pavement. The danger to which Tyeglev had exposed himself was so great, his action was so unexpected, that his companions were dumbfoundered -
 
- and only spoke all at once, when he had called a cab to drive home: his uniform was wet all over. In response to their exclamations, Tyeglev replied coolly that there was no escaping one’s destiny -
 
- and told the cabman to drive on.

“You might at least take the dog with you as a souvenir,” cried one of the officers. But Tyeglev merely waved his hand, and his comrades looked at each other in silent amazement.

The second incident occurred a few days later, at a card party at the battery commander’s. Tyeglev sat in the corner and took no part in the play. “Oh, if only I had a grandmother to tell me beforehand what cards will win, as in Pushkin’s
Queen of Spades
,” cried a lieutenant whose losses had nearly reached three thousand. Tyeglev approached the table in silence, took up a pack, cut it, and saying “the six of diamonds,” turned the pack up: the six of diamonds was the bottom card. “The ace of clubs!” he said and cut again: the bottom card turned out to be the ace of clubs. “The king of diamonds!” he said for the third time in an angry whisper through his clenched teeth -
 
- and he was right the third time, too ... and he suddenly turned crimson. He probably had not expected it himself. “A capital trick! Do it again,” observed the commanding officer of the battery. “I don’t go in for tricks,” Tyeglev answered drily and walked into the other room. How it happened that he guessed the card right, I can’t pretend to explain: but I saw it with my own eyes. Many of the players present tried to do the same -
 
- and not one of them succeeded: one or two did guess
one
card but never two in succession. And Tyeglev had guessed three! This incident strengthened still further his reputation as a mysterious, fatal character. It has often occurred to me since that if he had not succeeded in the trick with the cards, there is no knowing what turn it would have taken and how he would have looked at himself; but this unexpected success clinched the matter.

IV

It may well be understood that Tyeglev clutched at this reputation. It gave him a special significance, a special colour ... “
Cela le posait
,” as the French express it -
 
- and with his limited intelligence, scanty education and immense vanity, such a reputation just suited him. It was difficult to acquire it but to keep it up cost nothing: he had only to remain silent and hold himself aloof. But it was not owing to this reputation that I made friends with Tyeglev and, I may say, grew fond of him. I liked him in the first place because I was rather an unsociable creature myself -
 
- and saw in him one of my own sort, and secondly, because he was a very good - natured fellow and in reality, very simple - hearted. He aroused in me a feeling of something like compassion; it seemed to me that apart from his affected “fatality,” he really was weighed down by a tragic fate which he did not himself suspect. I need hardly say I did not express this feeling to him: could anything be more insulting to a “fatal” hero than to be an object of pity? And Tyeglev, on his side, was well - disposed to me; with me he felt at ease, with me he used to talk -
 
- in my presence he ventured to leave the strange pedestal on which he had been placed either by his own efforts or by chance. Agonisingly, morbidly vain as he was, yet he was probably aware in the depths of his soul that there was nothing to justify his vanity, and that others might perhaps look down on him ... but I, a boy of nineteen, put no constraint on him; the dread of saying something stupid, inappropriate, did not oppress his ever - apprehensive heart in my presence. He sometimes even chattered freely; and well it was for him that no one heard his chatter except me! His reputation would not have lasted long. He not only knew very little, but read hardly anything and confined himself to picking up stories and anecdotes of a certain kind. He believed in presentiments, predictions, omens, meetings, lucky and unlucky days, in the persecution and benevolence of destiny, in the mysterious significance of life, in fact. He even believed in certain “climacteric” years which someone had mentioned in his presence and the meaning of which he did not himself very well understand. “Fatal” men of the true stamp ought not to betray such beliefs: they ought to inspire them in others.... But I was the only one who knew Tyeglev on that side.

V

One day -
 
- I remember it was St. Elijah’s day, July 20th -
 
- I came to stay with my brother and did not find him at home: he had been ordered off for a whole week somewhere. I did not want to go back to Petersburg; I sauntered about the neighbouring marshes, killed a brace of snipe and spent the evening with Tyeglev under the shelter of an empty barn where he had, as he expressed it, set up his summer residence. We had a little conversation but for the most part drank tea, smoked pipes and talked sometimes to our host, a Russianised Finn or to the pedlar who used to hang about the battery selling “fi - ine oranges and lemons,” a charming and lively person who in addition to other talents could play the guitar and used to tell us of the unhappy love which he cherished in his young days for the daughter of a policeman. Now that he was older, this Don Juan in a gay cotton shirt had no experience of unsuccessful love affairs. Before the doors of our barn stretched a wide plain gradually sloping away in the distance; a little river gleamed here and there in the winding hollows; low growing woods could be seen further on the horizon. Night was coming on and we were left alone. As night fell a fine damp mist descended upon the earth, and, growing thicker and thicker, passed into a dense fog. The moon rose up into the sky; the fog was soaked through and through and, as it were, shimmering with golden light. Everything was strangely shifting, veiled and confused; the faraway looked near, the near looked far away, what was big looked small and what was small looked big ... everything became dim and full of light. We seemed to be in fairyland, in a world of whitish - golden mist, deep stillness, delicate sleep.... And how mysteriously, like sparks of silver, the stars filtered through the mist! We were both silent. The fantastic beauty of the night worked upon us: it put us into the mood for the fantastic.