Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (373 page)

David made a dash as though to get out of bed.

“Don’t insult her, I tell you.”

“Hold your tongue.”

“Don’t dare ...”

“Hold your tongue!”

“Don’t dare to insult my betrothed,” cried David at the top of his voice, “my future wife!”

“Betrothed!” repeated my father, with round eyes. “Betrothed! Wife! Ho, ho, ho! ...” (“Ha, ha, ha,” my aunt echoed behind the door.) “Why, how old are you? He’s been no time in the world, the milk is hardly dry on his lips, he is a mere babe and he is going to be married! But I ... but you ...”

“Let me go, let me go,” whispered Raissa, and she made for the door. She looked more dead than alive.

“I am not going to ask permission of you,” David went on shouting, propping himself up with his fists on the edge of the bed, “but of my own father who is bound to be here one day soon; he is a law to me, but you are not; but as for my age, if Raissa and I are not old enough ... we will bide our time whatever you may say....”

“Aië, aië, Davidka, don’t forget yourself,” my father interrupted. “Just look at yourself. You are not fit to be seen. You have lost all sense of decency.”

David put his hand to the front of his shirt.

“Whatever you may say...” he repeated. “Oh, shut his mouth, Porfiry Petrovitch,” piped my aunt from behind the door, “shut his mouth, and as for this hussy, this baggage ... this ...”

But something extraordinary must have cut short my aunt’s eloquence at that moment: her voice suddenly broke off and in its place we heard another, feeble and husky with old age....

“Brother,” this weak voice articulated, “Christian soul.”

XXIII

We all turned round.... In the same costume in which I had just seen him, thin, pitiful and wild looking, Latkin stood before us like an apparition.

“God!” he pronounced in a sort of childish way, pointing upwards with a bent and trembling finger and gazing impotently at my father, “God has chastised me, but I have come for Va ... for Ra ... yes, yes, for Raissotchka.... What ... tchoo! what is there for me? Soon underground -
 
- and what do you call it? One little stick, another ... cross - beam -
 
- that’s what I ... want, but you, brother, diamond - merchant ... mind ... I’m a man, too!”

Raissa crossed the room without a word and taking his arm buttoned his vest.

“Let us go, Vassilyevna,” he said; “they are all saints here, don’t come to them and he lying there in his case” -
 
- he pointed to David -
 
- “is a saint, too, but you and I are sinners, brother. Come. Tchoo.... Forgive an old man with a pepper pot, gentleman! We have stolen together!” he shouted suddenly; “stolen together, stolen together!” he repeated, with evident satisfaction that his tongue had obeyed him at last.

Everyone in the room was silent. “And where is ... the ikon here,” he asked, throwing back his head and turning up his eyes; “we must cleanse ourselves a bit.”

He fell to praying to one of the corners, crossing himself fervently several times in succession, tapping first one shoulder and then the other with his fingers and hurriedly repeating:

“Have mercy me, oh, Lor ... me, oh, Lor ... me, oh, Lor ...” My father, who had not taken his eyes off Latkin, and had not uttered a word, suddenly started, stood beside him and began crossing himself, too. Then he turned to him, bowed very low so that he touched the floor with one hand, saying, “You forgive me, too, Martinyan Gavrilitch,” kissed him on the shoulder. Latkin in response smacked his lips in the air and blinked: I doubt whether he quite knew what he was doing. Then my father turned to everyone in the room, to David, to Raissa and to me:

“Do as you like, act as you think best,” he brought out in a soft and mournful voice, and he withdrew.

My aunt was running up to him, but he cried out sharply and gruffly to her. He was overwhelmed.

“Me, oh, Lor ... me, oh, Lor ... mercy!” Latkin repeated. “I am a man.”

“Good - bye, Davidushka,” said Raissa, and she, too, went out of the room with the old man.

“I will be with you tomorrow,” David called after her, and, turning his face to the wall, he whispered: “I am very tired; it will be as well to have some sleep now,” and was quiet.

It was a long while before I went out of the room. I kept in hiding. I could not forget my father’s threats. But my apprehensions turned out to be unnecessary. He met me and did not utter a word. He seemed to feel awkward himself. But night soon came on and everything was quiet in the house.

XXIV

Next morning David got up as though nothing were the matter and not long after, on the same day, two important events occurred: in the morning old Latkin died, and towards evening my uncle, Yegor, David’s father, arrived in Ryazan. Without sending any letter in advance, without warning anyone, he descended on us like snow on our heads. My father was completely taken aback and did not know what to offer to his dear guest and where to make him sit. He rushed about as though delirious, was flustered as though he were guilty; but my uncle did not seem to be much touched by his brother’s fussy solicitude; he kept repeating: “What’s this for?” or “I don’t want anything.” His manner with my aunt was even colder; she had no great liking for him, indeed. In her eyes he was an infidel, a heretic, a Voltairian ... (he had in fact learnt French to read Voltaire in the original). I found my Uncle Yegor just as David had described him. He was a big heavy man with a broad pock - marked face, grave and serious. He always wore a hat with feathers in it, cuffs, a frilled shirt front and a snuff - coloured vest and a sword at his side. David was unspeakably delighted to see him -
 
- he actually looked brighter in the face and better looking, and his eyes looked different: merrier, keener, more shining; but he did his utmost to moderate his joy and not to show it in words: he was afraid of being too soft. The first night after Uncle Yegor’s arrival, father and son shut themselves up in the room that had been assigned to my uncle and spent a long time talking together in a low voice; next morning I saw that my uncle looked particularly affectionately and trustfully at his son: he seemed very much pleased with him. David took him to the requiem service for Latkin; I went to it, too, my father did not hinder my going but remained at home himself. Raissa impressed me by her calm: she looked pale and much thinner but did not shed tears and spoke and behaved with perfect simplicity; and with all that, strange to say, I saw a certain grandeur in her; the unconscious grandeur of sorrow forgetful of itself! Uncle Yegor made her acquaintance on the spot, in the church porch; from his manner to her, it was evident that David had already spoken of her. He was as pleased with her as with his son: I could read that in David’s eyes when he looked at them both. I remember how his eyes sparkled when his father said, speaking of her: “She’s a clever girl; she’ll make a capable woman.” At the Latkins’ I was told that the old man had quietly expired like a candle that has burnt out, and that until he had lost power and consciousness, he kept stroking his daughter’s head and saying something unintelligible but not gloomy, and he was smiling to the end. My father went to the funeral and to the service in the church and prayed very devoutly; Trankvillitatin actually sang in the choir.

Beside the grave Raissa suddenly broke into sobs and sank forward on the ground; but she soon recovered herself. Her little deaf and dumb sister stared at everyone and everything with big, bright, rather wild - looking eyes; from time to time she huddled up to Raissa, but there was no sign of terror about her. The day after the funeral Uncle Yegor, who, judging from appearances, had not come back from Siberia with empty hands (he paid for the funeral and liberally rewarded David’s rescuer) but who told us nothing of his doings there or of his plans for the future, Uncle Yegor suddenly informed my father that he did not intend to remain in Ryazan, but was going to Moscow with his son. My father, from a feeling of propriety, expressed regret and even tried -
 
- very faintly it is true -
 
- to induce my uncle to alter his decision, but at the bottom of his heart, I think he was really much relieved.

The presence of his brother with whom he had very little in common, who did not even condescend to reproach him, whose feeling for him was more one of simple disgust than disdain -
 
- oppressed him ... and parting with David could not have caused him much regret. I, of course, was utterly crushed by the separation; I was utterly desolate at first and lost all support in life and all interest in it.

And so my uncle went away and took with him not only David but, to the great astonishment and even indignation of our whole street, Raissa and her little sister, too.... When she heard of this, my aunt promptly called him a Turk, and called him a Turk to the end of her days.

And I was left alone, alone ... but this story is not about me.

XXV

So this is the end of my tale of the watch. What more have I to tell you? Five years after David was married to his Black - lip, and in 1812, as a lieutenant of artillery, he died a glorious death on the battlefield of Borodino in defence of the Shevardinsky redoubt.

Much water has flowed by since then and I have had many watches; I have even attained the dignity of a real repeater with a second hand and the days of the week on it. But in a secret drawer of my writing table there is preserved an old - fashioned silver watch with a rose on the face; I bought it from a Jewish pedlar, struck by its likeness to the watch which was once presented to me by my godfather. From time to time, when I am alone and expect no one, I take it out of the drawer and looking at it remember my young days and the companion of those days that have fled never to return.

Paris. -
 
- 1875.

I was sitting in a birch grove in autumn, near the middle of September. It had been drizzling ever since morning; occasionally the sun shone warmly; — the weather was changeable. Now the sky was overcast with watery white clouds, now it suddenly cleared up for an instant, and then the bright, soft azure, like a beautiful eye, appeared from beyond the dispersed clouds. I was sitting looking about me and listening. The leaves were slightly rustling over my head; and by their very rustle one could tell what season of the year it was. It was not the gay, laughing palpitation of spring; not a soft whispering, nor the lingering chatter of summer, nor the timid and cold lisping of late autumn, but a barely audible, drowsy prattle. A faint breeze was whisking over the tree - tops. The interior of the grove, moist from the rain, was forever changing, as the sun shone or hid beyond the clouds; now the grove was all illuminated as if everything in it had burst into a smile; the trunks of the birch trees suddenly assumed the soft reflection of white silk; the small leaves which lay scattered on the ground all at once became variegated and flashed up like red gold; and the pretty stalks of the tall, branchy ferns, already tinted in their autumn hue, resembling the color of overripe grapes, appeared here and there tangling and crossing one another. Now again everything suddenly turned blue; the bright colors died out instantaneously, the birch trees stood all white, lustreless, like snow which had not yet been touched by the coldly playing rays of the winter sun — and stealthily, slyly, a drizzling rain began to sprinkle and whisper over the forest. The leaves on the birches were almost all green yet, though they had turned somewhat pale; only here and there stood a solitary young little birch, all red or all golden, and one should have seen how brightly these birches flushed in the sun when its rays suddenly appeared gliding and flashing through the dense net of the thin branches which had just been washed around by the sparkling rain. Not a single bird was heard; all had found shelter, and were silent; only rarely the mocking voice of the bluebird sang out like a little steel bell. Before stopping in this birch forest I passed with my dog through a poplar grove. I confess I am not very fond of the poplar tree with its pale lilac - colored trunk and its grayish - green, metallic leaves, which it lifts high and spreads in the air like a trembling fan — I do not like the constant shaking of its round, untidy leaves, which are so awkwardly attached to long stems. The poplar is pretty only on certain summer evenings when, rising high amid the low shrubbery, it stands against the red rays of the setting sun, shining and trembling, bathed from root to top in uniform yellowish purple — or when, on a clear windy day, it rocks noisily, lisping against the blue sky, and each leaf seems as if eager to tear itself away, to fly and hurry off into the distance. But in general I do not like this tree, and, therefore, not stopping to rest in the poplar grove, I made my way to the birch forest, and seated myself under a tree whose branches started near the ground, and thus could protect me from the rain. Having admired the surrounding view, I fell asleep — I slept that tranquil, sweet sleep which is familiar to hunters only.

I can not say how long I slept, but when I opened my eyes the entire interior of the forest was filled with sunshine, and everywhere the bright blue sky was flashing through the cheerfully droning leaves; the clouds disappeared, driven asunder by the wind which had begun to play; the weather was clear now, and one felt in the air that peculiar, dry freshness which, filling the heart with a certain vigorous sensation, almost always predicts a quiet, clear night after a rainy day. I was about to rise and try my luck at hunting again, when my eyes suddenly fell on a motionless human figure. I gassed at it fixedly; it was a young peasant girl. She was sitting some twenty feet away from me, her head bowed pensively and her hands dropped on her knees; in one hand, which was half open, lay a heavy bunch of field flowers, and every time she breathed the flowers were softly gliding over her checkered skirt. A clear white shirt, buttoned at the neck and the wrists, fell in short, soft folds about her waist; large yellow beads were hanging down from her neck on her bosom in two rows. She was not at all bad - looking. Her heavy fair hair, of a beautiful ash color, parted in two neatly combed half - circles from under a narrow, dark - red head - band, which was pulled down almost to her ivory - white forehead; the rest of her face was slightly tanned with the golden sunburn peculiar to a tender skin. I could not see her eyes — she did not lift them; but I saw her thin, high eyebrows, her long lashes; these were moist, and on her cheek gleamed a dried - up teardrop, which had stopped near her somewhat pale lips. Her entire small head was very charming; even her somewhat thick and round nose did not spoil it. I liked especially the expression of her face; it was so simple and gentle, so sad and so full of childish perplexity before her own sadness. She was apparently waiting for some one. Something cracked faintly in the forest. Immediately she raised her head and looked around; her eyes flashed quickly before me in the transparent shade — they were large, bright, and shy like a deer’s. She listened for a few seconds, not moving her wide - open eyes from the spot whence the faint sound had come; she heaved a sigh, turned her head slowly, bent down still lower and began to examine the flowers. Her eyelids turned red, her lips quivered bitterly and a new teardrop rolled down from under her heavy eyelashes, stopping and sparkling on her cheek. Thus quite a long while passed; the poor girl did hot stir — only occasionally she moved her hands and listened — listened all the time. Something cracked once more in the forest — she started. This time the noise did not stop, it was becoming more distinct, it was nearing — at last firm footsteps were heard. She straightened herself, and it seemed as if she lost her courage, for her eyes began to quiver. The figure of a man appeared through the jungle. She looked fixedly, suddenly flushed, and, smiling joyously and happily, seemed about to rise, but she immediately cast down her head again, turned pale, confused — only then she lifted her quivering, almost prayerful, eyes to the man as he paused beside her.

I looked at him from my hiding - place with curiosity. I confess he did not produce a pleasant impression upon me. He was, by all appearances, a spoiled valet of some rich young man. His clothes betokened a claim to taste and smart carelessness. He wore a short top - coat of bronze color, which evidently belonged to his master, and which was buttoned up to the very top; he had on a pink necktie with lilac - colored edges; and his black velvet cap, trimmed with gold stripes, was pulled over his very eyebrows. The round collar of his white shirt propped his ears up and cut his cheeks mercilessly, and the starched cuffs covered his hands up to his red, crooked fingers, which were ornamented with silver and gold rings, set with forget - me - nots of turquoise. His red, fresh, impudent face belonged to those countenances which, as far as I have observed, are almost always repulsive to men, but, unfortunately, are often admired by women. Apparently trying to give an expression of contempt and of weariness to his rough features, he was forever closing his small, milky - gray eyes, knitting his brows, lowering the corners of his lips, yawning forcedly, and, with careless, although not too clever, ease, now adjusting his reddish, smartly twisted temple - curls, now fingering the yellow hair which bristled upon his thick upper lip — in a word, he was making an insufferable display of himself. He started to do this as soon as he noticed the young peasant girl who was awaiting him. He advanced to her slowly, with large strides, then stood for a while, twitched his shoulders, thrust both hands into the pockets of his coat, and, casting a quick and indifferent glance at the poor girl, sank down on the ground.

“Well?” he began, continuing to look aside, shaking his foot and yawning. “Have you waited long?”

The girl could not answer him at once.

“Long, Victor Alexandrich,” she said at last, in a scarcely audible voice.

“Ah!” He removed his cap, majestically passed his hand over his thick, curly hair whose roots started almost at his eyebrows, and, looking around with dignity, covered his precious head again cautiously. “And I almost forgot all about it. Besides, you see, it’s raining.” He yawned again. “I have a lot of work to do; you can’t look after everything, and he is yet scolding. We are leaving to - morrow — ”

“To - morrow?” uttered the girl, and fixed a frightened look upon him.

“To - morrow — Come, come, come, please,” he replied quickly, vexed, noticing that she quivered, and bowed her head in silence. “Please, Akulina, don’t cry. You know I can’t bear it” (and he twitched his flat nose). “If you don’t stop, I’ll leave you right away. What nonsense — to whimper!”

“Well, I shan’t, I shan’t,” said Akulina hastily, swallowing the tears with an effort. “So you’re going away to - morrow?” she added, after a brief silence. “When will it please God to have me meet you again, Victor Alexandrich?”

“We’ll meet, we’ll meet again. If it isn’t next year, it’ll be later. My master, it seems, wants to enter the service in St. Petersburg,” he went on, pronouncing the words carelessly and somewhat indistinctly. “And it may be that we’ll go abroad.”

“You will forget me, Victor Alexandrich,” said Akulina sadly.

“No — why should I? I’ll not forget you, only you had rallier be sensible; don’t make a fool of yourself; obey your father — And I’ll not forget you — Oh, no; oh, no.” And he stretched himself calmly and yawned again.

“Do not forget me, Victor Alexandrich,” she resumed in a beseeching voice. “I have loved you so much, it seems — all, it seems, for you — You tell me to obey father, Victor Alexandrich — How am I to obey my father — ?”

“How’s that?” He pronounced these words as if from the stomach, lying on his back and holding his hands under his head.

“Why, Victor Alexandrich — you know it yourself — ”

She fell silent. Victor fingered his steel watch - chain.

“Akulina, you are not a foolish girl,” he said at last, “therefore don’t talk nonsense. It’s for your own good, do you understand me? Of course, you are not foolish, you’re not altogether a peasant, so to say, and your mother wasn’t always a peasant either. Still, you are without education — therefore you must obey when you are told to.”

“But it’s terrible, Victor Alexandrich.”

“Oh, what nonsense, my dear — what is she afraid of! What is that you have there,” he added, moving close to her, “flowers?”

“Flowers,” replied Akulina sadly. “I have picked some field tansies,” she went on, with some animation. “They’re good for the calves, And here I have some marigolds — for scrofula. Here, look, what a pretty flower! I haven’t seen such a pretty flower in all my life. Here are forget - me - nots, and — and these I have picked for you,” she added, taking from under the tansies a small bunch of cornflowers, tied around with a thin blade of grass; “do you want them?”

Victor held out his hand lazily, took the flowers, smelt them carelessly, and began to turn them around in his fingers, looking up with thoughtful importance. Akulina gazed at him. There was so much tender devotion, reverent obedience, and love in her pensive eyes. She at once feared him, and yet she dared not cry, and inwardly she bade him farewell, and admired him for the last time; and he lay there, stretched out like a sultan, and endured her admiration with magnanimous patience and condescension. I confess I was filled with indignation as I looked at his red face, which betrayed satisfied selfishness through his feigned contempt and indifference. Akulina was so beautiful at this moment. All her soul opened before him trustingly and passionately; — it reached out to him, caressed him, and he — He dropped the cornflowers on the grass, took out from the side - pocket of his coat a round glass in a bronze frame and began to force it into his eye; but no matter how hard he tried to hold it with his knitted brow, his raised cheek, and even with his nose, the glass dropped out and fell into his hands.

“What’s this?” asked Akulina at last, with surprise.

“A lorgnette,” he replied importantly.