THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 IVAN TURGENIEFF 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY 
 
 ISABEL F. HAPGOOD 
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 
 SCRIBNER'^ 
 
 
 THE JEFFERSON PRESS 
 BOSTON NEW YORK
 
 Copyright, 1903, by 
 Charles Sceibneb's Sons
 
 Pr-. 
 
 n 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I Khor and Kali'nitch 3 
 
 II Ermolai and the Miller's Wife 26 
 
 III The Raspberry Water 47 
 
 IV The District Doctor Q5 
 
 V My Neighbour Radiloff 83 
 
 VI Freeholder Ovsyanikoff 98 
 
 VII Lgoff 132 
 
 VIII Byezhin Meadow 151 
 
 IX Kasyan from the Fair-Metcha 188 
 
 X The Agent 221 
 
 XI The Counting-House 246 
 
 XII The Wolf 277 
 
 XIII Two Landed Proprietors . . . , . . » . 292 

 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 (1852)
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 KHOR AND KALINITCH 
 
 ANY one who has had occasion to pass from 
 XjL the Bolkhoff district to the Zhizdrin dis- 
 trict, has, in all probability, been struck by the 
 sharp difference between the races of people in 
 the Governments of Orel ^ and Kaluga. The 
 Orel peasant is small of stature, round-shoul- 
 dered, surly, gazes askance from beneath his 
 brows, lives in miserable huts of ash lumber, dis- 
 charges husbandry-service for the lord of the 
 manor, does not occupy himself with trading, 
 eats bad food, and wears plaited slippers of lin- 
 den bark ; the Kaluga peasant, who pays the lord 
 of the manor a quit-rent in lieu of personal hus- 
 bandry-service, is tall of stature, his gaze is bold 
 and merry, he is clean and white of face, he deals 
 in butter and tar, and wears boots on festival 
 days. An Orel village (we are speaking of the 
 eastern part of the Orel Government) is gener- 
 ally situated in the midst of tilled fields, near a ra- 
 vine somehow converted into a filthy pond. With 
 
 '■ Pronounced: Arjol. — Translator. 
 
 3
 
 ME.AIOIKS OF A SrOHTSMAN 
 
 the exception of a few willow-trees, which are 
 always ready for service, and two or three puny 
 l)irches, vou will not see a tree for a verst round 
 ahout; cottage clings close to cottage, tiie roofs 
 
 are covered with rotten straw A Kaluga 
 
 village, on the contrary, is generally surrounded 
 by a forest; the cottages stand further apart 
 and more upright, and are covered with boards; 
 the gates are fast locked, and the wattled fence 
 round the back yard is not broken down, nor 
 does it bulge outward, inviting a visit from 
 
 every passing pig And things are 
 
 better for the huntsman, also, in the Kaluga Gov- 
 ernment. In the Orel Government, the forests 
 and squares ' will disappear within the next five 
 years, and there is not a sign of a marsh; in the 
 Kaluga Government, on the contrary, the clear- 
 ings covered with a growth of bushes extend for 
 hundreds, the marshes for scores, of versts," and 
 that noble game-bird the black-cock has not 
 been exterminated, the amiable snipe abounds, 
 and that busybody the partridge gladdens and 
 startles both gunner and dog with its abrupt 
 flight. 
 
 While visiting the Zhizdrin district, in the 
 capacity of a s])ortsman, I met in the fields, and 
 
 ' " Squares," in tlie Government of Orel, is the desifrnation for 
 vast, flat masses of bushes; the dialect of Orel is distinguished, 
 as a whole, hv a nndtitude of peculiar, sometimes very well-aimed, 
 sometimes decidedly uncouth, words and turns of speech. — Authok. 
 
 'A verst is two-tiiirds of a mile. — Translator.
 
 KlIOR AND KALIMTCII 
 
 struck up an acquaintance with, a petty landed 
 proprietor of Kaluga, Polutykiu, who was pas- 
 sionately fond of hunting and was, consequently, 
 a splendid fellow. He had a few weaknesses, it 
 is true: for example, he was in the habit of offer- 
 ing himself in marriage to all the wealthy mar- 
 riageable girls in the Government, and when his 
 hand and house were declined, with shattered 
 heart he confided his grief to all his friends 
 and acquaintances, but continued to send sour 
 peaches and other unripe products of his garden 
 to the parents of the marriageable girls; he was 
 fond of repeating the selfsame anecdote over 
 and over again, which, notwithstanding ]\Ir. Po- 
 lutykin's reverence for its qualities, absolutely 
 never made a single person laugh; he was in the 
 habit of lauding the writings of Akim Na- 
 khimofF and the novel "Pinna"; he stuttered; 
 he called his dog Astronomer; he said odndtche 
 instead of odndko (but), and had set up in his 
 house a French system of cookery, the secret 
 whereof, according to his cook's understanding 
 of the matter, consisted in completely altering 
 the taste of every viand: meat, from the hands 
 of this skilful artist, smacked of fish, fish tasted 
 like mushrooms, macaroni like gunpowder; on 
 the other hand, not a single carrot ever got into 
 the soup, without having assumed the shape of 
 a lozenge or a trapezium. But, with the excep- 
 tion of these few and insignificant failings, INIr. 
 
 5
 
 MEMOIUS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 Poliitykiii was, as I have already said, a splendid 
 I'ellow. 
 
 On the first day of my acqnaintance with ]Mr. 
 Polutykin, he invited me to spend the night with 
 him. 
 
 " It is ahont five versis to my honse," — he 
 added: — " "t is a long way to trudge afoot; let 
 us drop in first at Khor's." (The reader will ex- 
 cuse me if I do not reproduce his stuttering.) 
 
 " And who is Khor? " 
 
 " Why, a peasant of mine lie lives 
 
 not far from here." 
 
 We wended our Avay thither. In the middle 
 of the forest, in a cleared and cultivated glade, 
 Khor's isolated farmstead was erected. It con- 
 sisted of several edifices of pine logs, connected 
 by fences; in front of the principal cottage 
 stretched a penthouse, supported by slender 
 posts. We entered. We were greeted by a young 
 lad, tw^enty years of age, tall and handsome. 
 
 "All, Fedya! Is Khor at home? "— ]\Ir. Polu- 
 tykin asked him. 
 
 " No. Khor has gone to town," — replied the 
 young fellow, displaying a row of snow-white 
 teeth. "Is it j^our order that I harness up the 
 little cart? " 
 
 " Yes, brother. And fetch us some kvas." ^ 
 
 ' A sort of stnall hecr, made by j)()uring water on the crusts 
 of the sour, hhick, rye bread (or on rye meal) and fermenting it. 
 I leave the friendly, simj)le " brotlier " in literal translation, here
 
 KIIOR AND KALTNTTCH 
 
 We entered the cottage. Not a single Suzdal ' 
 picture was pasted upon the neat timber walls; 
 in the corner, in front of a heavy, holy picture 
 in a silver setting, burned a shrine-lanip; the 
 linden-wood table had been recently planed off 
 and washed; no lively cockroaches" were roaming 
 between the planks and over the frames of the 
 windows, neither were any meditative black bee- 
 tles concealed there. The young man speedily 
 made his appearance with a large white jug 
 filled with good kvas, a huge hunk of wheaten 
 bread, and a dozen salted cucumbers in a wooden 
 bowl. He placed all these eatables on the table, 
 leaned against the door, and began to gaze at us 
 with a smile. Before we had had time to finish 
 our refreshments, the cart rumbled up in front 
 of the porch. We went out. A boy of fif- 
 teen, curly-haired and rosy-cheeked, was sitting 
 in the driver's place, and with difficulty holding 
 in a well-fed piebald stallion. Round about the 
 cart stood six young giants, all of whom bore a 
 strong resemblance both to each other and to 
 Fedya. " All young Polecats! " ^ remarked Po- 
 lutykin. " All young Polecats," — chimed in 
 Fedya, who had followed us out to the porch: 
 
 as elsewhere, instead of using " my dear fellow," " my boy," " my 
 lad," or tlie like. — Translator. 
 
 * A kind of cheap lithograj)li made in tlie town named. — Thans- 
 
 LATOR. 
 
 '■' " Prussians," literally. — Translator. 
 
 'Khor', a polecat; Khor'ki, young polecats, or Khor's sons. — 
 Translator.
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 " and this is nut all, cither: Potiip is in the forest, 
 and Sidor has gone to town with old Klior. . . . 
 See here, Vasya," he went on, addressing the 
 driver: — " go like the wind: thou art driving the 
 master. Only, look out, and slow down at the 
 jolting-places: otherwise thou wilt spoil the cart 
 and disturb the master's belly!" The remain- 
 ing young Kliors grinned at Fedya's sallies. — 
 "Help Astronomer in!" exclaimed ]Mr. Polu- 
 tvkin, solemnlv. Fedva, not witliout satisfaction, 
 lifted the dog, which was smiling in a forced way, 
 into the air, and deposited him on the bottom of 
 the cart. Vasya gave the horse his head. We 
 drove off. " That 's my counting-house yonder," 
 said j\Ir. Polutykin suddenly to me, pointing at a 
 small, low house: — " would you like to go in? " — 
 " With pleasiu'e." — " It is abolished now," he re- 
 marked, as he alighted: — " but it 's worth inspec- 
 tion, all the same." — The office consisted of two 
 empty rooms. The watchman, a crooked old 
 man, ran in from the back vard. — " Good day, 
 Minyaitch," said ]Mr. Polutykin: " But where 's 
 the water? " — The crooked old man vanished, 
 and immediately returned with a bottle of water 
 and two glasses. " Try it," said Polutykin to me: 
 " It 's good spring water." We drank a glass 
 apiece, whereupon the old man made us a rever- 
 ence to the girdle. — " Well, now, I think we can 
 drive on," remarked mv new friend. " In this 
 office I sold to merchant Alleluieff' four desya- 
 
 8
 
 KIIOR AND KALINITCH 
 
 tin as ^ of forest, at a good price." — We seated 
 ourselves in the cart, and half an hour later we 
 drove into the yard of the manor-house. 
 
 " Tell me, please," I asked Polutykin at sup- 
 per: — "why does your Khor live apart from 
 your other peasants? " 
 
 " This is why: he 's a clever peasant. Five and 
 twenty years ago, his cottage hurned down; so 
 then he came to my late father, and said : ' Per- 
 mit me, Nikolai Kuzmitch, to settle in your for- 
 est, on the marsh. I '11 pay you a good quit- 
 rent there.' — ' But why dost thou wish to settle 
 on the marsh? ' — ' Well, because I do: only, dear 
 little father, Nikolai Kuzmitch, be so good as 
 not to use me for work any more, but impose 
 whatever quit-rent you see fit.' — ' Fifty rubles 
 a year! ' — ' All right.' — ' And look out, I won't 
 tolerate any arrears ! ' — ' Of course, there shall 
 
 be no arrears.' And so he settled on the 
 
 marsh. Since that time, the people have nick- 
 named him The Polecat (Khor)," 
 
 " Well, and has he grown rich? " 
 
 " Yes. Now he pays me a hundred rubles 
 quit-rent, and I 'm thinking of raising it again, 
 ^lore than once I have said to him : ' Buy thy 
 freedom! Khor, take my advice, buy thy free- 
 dom !'.... But he, the beast, assures me that 
 he can't afford to ; he has n't any money, he says. 
 . . . But, of course, he has! " 
 
 ' A desyatina is 2.70 acres. — Translatoh. 
 
 9
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 On the following day, we went oft' hunting 
 again as soon as we had drunk tea. As we were 
 passing through the village, ]Mr. Polutykin or- 
 dered the coachman to lialt at a low-roofed cot- 
 tage, and shouted loudly: " Kalinitch! '' — "Im- 
 mediately, master, I "11 he there immediately," — 
 rano- out a voice from the yard: — " I 'm tving on 
 my linden-hark slippers." — AVe drove at a foot- 
 pace; outside of the village we were overtaken 
 by a man of forty, tall of stature, gaunt, with a 
 small head which was bent backward. This was 
 Kalinitch. His good-natured, swarthy face, 
 pitted here and there with pock-marks, pleased 
 me at the first glance. Kalinitch (as I afterward 
 learned) went hunting with his master every 
 day, carried his game-bag, sometimes his gun 
 also, spied out where the bird alighted, fetched 
 water, picked strawberries, erected huts of shel- 
 ter, ran behind the drozhky; ^Nlr. Polutykin could 
 not take a step without him. Kalinitch was a 
 man of the merriest, gentlest possible nature, 
 was incessantly humming to himself, casting 
 care-free glances in all directions, spoke some- 
 what through his nose, smilingly screwed up his 
 bright-blue eyes, and frequently clasped his 
 thin, w^edge-shaped beard in his hand. He 
 walked in a leisurely way, but with huge strides, 
 leaning lightly on a long, slender staff". In the 
 whole course of the day, he never addressed me 
 once, served me witliout servility, but looked 
 
 10
 
 KIIOR AND KALiNITCH 
 
 after his master as he would after a child. When 
 the intolerable sultriness of midday made us seek 
 a shelter, he led us to his bee-farm, in the depths 
 of the forest. Kalfnitch threw open to us the 
 tiny cottage, (li-a])ed with trusses of dry, sweet- 
 smelling grass, made us a bed on the fresh hay, 
 and j^utting on his head a sort of sack with a net, 
 took a knife, a pot, and a fire-brand, and betook 
 himself to his l)ee]ii\'es, to cut out some honey 
 for us. We drank the warm, transparent honey 
 like spring-water, and fell asleep to the monoto- 
 nous humming of the bees and the chattering 
 rustle of the leaves. A light gust of wind 
 
 awakened me I opened my eyes, and 
 
 saw Kalfnitch : he was sitting on the threshold of 
 the half -open door, and carving a spoon with his 
 knife. For a long time I admired his face, gen- 
 tle and clear as the sky at eventide. JNIr. Polu- 
 tykin also awoke. We did not rise at once= It 
 is pleasant, after a long tramp and a deep sleep, 
 to lie motionless on the hay: the body luxuriates 
 and languishes, the face is flushed with a faint 
 heat, sweet languor closes the eyelids. At last 
 we rose, and went out to roam about until the 
 evening. At supper I began to talk again about 
 Khor and also about Ivalinitch. — " Kalfnitch is 
 a good peasant," — said jNIr. Polutykin to me: — 
 " a zealous and obliging peasant; but he cannot 
 keep his domestic affairs in order: I am always 
 taking him away. Every day he goes hiniting 
 
 11
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SrOKTSMAX 
 
 A\ itli me. . . What sort of fann-management is 
 possible under the circumstanees — ^you eaii judge 
 for yourself." — I agreed with him, and we went 
 to bed. 
 
 On the following day, JNlr. Polutykin was 
 obliged to go to town on business connected 
 with his neighbour Pitchukoff. His neighbour 
 Pitchukoft' tilled some of his land, and on the 
 land thus tilled had whipped one of his peasant 
 women. I went hunting alone, and toward even- 
 ing dropped in at Khor's. On the threshold of 
 the cottage an old man received me, — a bald old 
 man, low of stature, broad-shouldered, and thick- 
 set—the Polecat himself. I gazed with curiosity 
 at this Khor. The cut of his countenance re- 
 minded me of Socrates : there was the same lofty, 
 knobby brow, the same small eyes, the same snub 
 nose. We entered the cottage together. The 
 same Fedya brought me milk and black bread. 
 Khor seated himself on the bench, and stroking 
 his curly beard with the utmost composure, en- 
 tered into conversation with me. He felt his dig- 
 nity, ap})arently, and moved and spoke slowly, 
 occasionally smiling beneath his long moustache. 
 
 We chatted together about the seed-])lanting 
 and the harvest, about the life of the peasants. . . . 
 He seemed to agree thoroughly with me; only, 
 afterward, I became ashamed, and felt that I 
 had not been saying the right thing. . . . Some- 
 how, it turned out so strangely. 7\hor sometimes 
 
 12
 
 KlIOll AND KALINITCH 
 
 expressed himself queerly, out of wariness, it 
 iiiiist have been. . . . Here is a sample of our 
 conversation : 
 
 " See here, Khor," I said to him: " why dost 
 not thou buy thy freedom from thy master? " 
 
 " And whv should 1 buy niv freedom? As 
 it is, 1 know my master, and I know M^hat quit- 
 rent 1 have to pay. . . . we have a good 
 master." 
 
 " But it is better to be free, nevertheless," — I 
 remarked. 
 
 Khor gazed askance at me. 
 
 " Of course," said he. 
 
 " Well, then, why dost not thou buy thyself 
 free? " 
 
 Khor twisted his head around. 
 
 " Wherewith wouldst thou have me buy my 
 freedom, dear little father? " 
 
 " Come now, enough of that, old man " 
 
 "If Khor were to become a freeman," he went 
 on in an undertone, as though speaking to him- 
 self: — " any one who lives without a beard 
 would be Khor's superior." 
 
 " But shave oif thy beard." 
 
 " What 's the beard? the beard is grass: it can 
 be mown." 
 
 "Well, what then?" 
 
 " Why, you know, Khor will fall straightway 
 amons" the merchants ; the merchants lead a com 
 fortable life, and they wear beards." 
 
 13
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPOKTSMAN 
 
 " AVhat then, thou art engaged in trade also, 
 art thou not? " — I asked him. 
 
 " We do a httle trade in hutter and tar 
 
 Dost thou command us to harness up the hght 
 cart, dear httle father? " 
 
 " Thou keej^est a tight rein on th}^ tongue, and 
 art a man who knows his own mind," I thought. 
 "No," I said aloud: — ''I don't want the cart; 
 I shall be roaming in the vicinity of thy farm to- 
 morrow, and, with thy permission, I will stoj) and 
 pass the night in thy hay -barn." 
 
 " Pray do. But wilt thou be comfortable in 
 the barn? I will order the women to spread a 
 sheet and place a pillow for thee. Hey there, 
 women!" — he shouted, rising from his seat: — 
 "hither, women! .... And do thou go with 
 him, Fedya. For women are a stupid lot. 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, Fedya escorted me 
 to the barn with a lantern. I threw myself down 
 on the fragrant hay; my dog curled himself up 
 at my feet ; Fedya bade me good night, the door 
 squeaked and slammed. It was a good while 
 before I could get to sleep. A cow came to the 
 door, and breathed hard a couple of times; my 
 dog growled at her with dignity ; a pig passed by, 
 grunting meditatively; a horse somewhere near 
 at hand began to chew hay and snort .... at 
 last I fell asleep. 
 
 At dawn Fedya waked me. That merry, dash- 
 ing young fellow pleased me greatly; and, so 
 
 14
 
 KTTOR AND KiVLINITCII 
 
 far as 1 had been able to ()bser^x', he was a fa- 
 vourite with old Klior also. The two bantered 
 each other very amiably. The old man came out 
 to meet me. Whether it was because I had 
 passed the night under his roof, or for some 
 other reason, at all events, Klior treated mc 
 much more graciously than on the preceding 
 evening. 
 
 " The samovar is ready for thee,"^ — he said to 
 me, with a smile: — " let us go and drink tea." 
 
 We seated ourselves around the table. A ro- 
 bust peasant woman, one of his daughters-in-law, 
 brought a pot of milk. All his sons entered the 
 cottage in turn. " What a tall family thou 
 hast! " — I remarked to the old man. 
 
 " Yes," he said, biting off a tiny morsel of 
 sugar: — " they have, apparently, no complaints 
 to make against me or against my old woman." 
 
 " And do thev all live with thee? " 
 
 " Yes. They want to, themselves, so here they 
 live." 
 
 " And are all of them married? " 
 
 " That one yonder, the scamp, won't marry," 
 - — he replied, pointing at Fedya, who, as before, 
 was leaning against the door. — " Vaska is too 
 young, he must wait a while." 
 
 " But why should I marry? " retorted Fedya: 
 " I 'm comfortable as I am. What do I w^ant 
 with a wife? For the sake of snarling at each 
 other, pray? " 
 
 15
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 " Oh, get out! ... 1 know thee! thou Avearest 
 
 a silver ring.' Thou wouldst hke to be 
 
 sniffing around the women among the house- 
 serfs. . . . 'Stop that, you impudent thing!'" 
 went on tlie old man, imitating tlie house-maids. 
 "I know thee thoroughly, thou lazy creature!" 
 
 " And what is there good about a woman? " 
 
 " A woman is a worker," — remarked Khor, 
 impressively. " A woman is a man's servant." 
 
 " But what do I want with a worker? " 
 
 " That 's exactly the point, thou art f(md of 
 picking uj) the hot coals by making a catspaw 
 of other people. We know all about fellows of 
 your stamp." 
 
 " Well, marry me off, then, if that 's the case. 
 Hey? Wliat (fost thou say to that? Why art 
 thou silent? " 
 
 " Come, that will do, that will do, jester. Dost 
 thou not see that we are bothering the gentleman. 
 I '11 marry thee off, never fear. . . And be not 
 angry, dear little father: the child is little as yet, 
 seest thou, and has n't succeeded in acquiring 
 
 sense." 
 
 Fedya shook his head 
 
 " Is Khor at home? " — resounded a familiar 
 voice outside the door, — and Kah'nitch entered 
 the cottage with a bunch of wild strawberries in 
 his hand, which he had plucked for his friend 
 
 * That is, he was getting foppish and so showing 
 an interest — 'rnAxsi.AToit. 
 
 10
 
 KIIOR AXD KAT.INTTCH 
 
 Khor. The old man gave liiin a cordial greetings 
 I stared in amazement at Kalinitcli : I mnst con- 
 fess, that I had not expected such " sentimen- 
 tality " from a peasant. 
 
 On that (lav, 1 set out on mv hunt four hours 
 later than usual, and spent the three following 
 days with Khor. IMy new acquaintances inter- 
 ested me. I do not know how I won their con- 
 fidence, hut they talked unresei-vedly with me. 
 I listened to them and watched them with plea- 
 sure. The two friends did not resemhle each 
 other in the least. Khor was a decisive, practi- 
 cal man with an administrative head, a ration- 
 alist; Kalinitch, on the contrary, belonged to 
 the class of idealists, romanticists, exalted and 
 dreamy people. Khor understood reality, that 
 is to say: he had established himself comfortably, 
 he had amassed a little money, he got along well 
 with his master, and with the other authorities; 
 Kalinitch wore linden-bark slippers, and worried 
 along as best he might. Khor had bred a large 
 family, obedient and harmonious; Kalinitch had 
 had a wife, once upon a time, of w^hom he had 
 been afraid, and had never had anv children at 
 all. Khor saw through Mr. Polutykin; Kali- 
 nitch worshipped his master. Khor loved Kali- 
 nitch, and afforded him his protection; Kalinitch 
 loved and respected Khor. Khor talked little, 
 laughed and reasoned to himself; Kalinitch ex- 
 pressed himself with fervour, although he could 
 
 17
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 not oabble as fluently ' as a dashino- factory hand. 
 . . . But Kalinitcli was endowed with preroga- 
 tiyes which Khor himself recognised; for exam- 
 ple: he could conjure blood," fear, madness, and 
 expel worms ; he was successful with bees, he had 
 a light hand. Khor, in my presence, requested 
 him to lead a newly bought horse into the stable, 
 and Kalinitch, with conscientious pompousness,'' 
 complied with the old sceptic's request. Kali- 
 nitch stood closer to nature; but Khor to people, 
 to society; Kalinitch did not like to reason, and 
 belieyed eyerything blindly: Khor rose eyen to 
 the ironical point of yiew on life. He had seen 
 a great deal, he knew a great deal, and I learned 
 much from him. For instance: from his narra- 
 tiyes I learned that eyery summer, before the 
 mowing, a small peasant cart of a peculiar as- 
 pect makes its appearances in the villages. In 
 this cart sits a man jn a kaftan, and sells scythes. 
 For cash, he charges a ruble and twenty-fiye 
 kopeks in coin, or a ruble and fifty kopeks in 
 bank-bills; on credit, he asks three paper rubles 
 and a silver ruble. xVU the peasants buy on 
 credit, of course. Two or three weeks later, he 
 makes his appearance again, and demands his 
 money. The peasants oats are just reaped, so he 
 has the wherewithal to pay, he goes with the mer- 
 chant to the dram-shop, and there he discharges 
 
 ' Russian: "Sing like a nightingale." — Translator. 
 
 - Stop the flow, as in nosebleed. — Traxslator. 
 
 ^ Because lie had " the lucky hand." — Translator. 
 
 18
 
 KIIOR AND KALINITCH 
 
 his debt. Some landed proprietors conceived 
 the idea of buying the scythes themselves, for 
 cash, and distributing them, on credit, to the 
 peasants, at the same price; but the peasants 
 proved to be dissatisfied, and even fell into a state 
 of dejection; they had been deprived of the satis- 
 faction of tapping the scythe and listening to the 
 ring of it, of turning it about in their hands, and 
 asking the crafty merchant from the petty 
 burgher class, twenty times in succession: " See 
 here, young fellow, that is n't such a very good 
 scythe, is it?" — The same tricks take place also 
 over^the purchase of reaj)ing-hooks, with merely 
 this difference, that in this case the women take a 
 hand in the matter, and sometimes force the ped- 
 lar to thrash them, for their own benefit. But 
 the women are the greatest sufferers in any case. 
 The men who contract to supply material for the 
 paper-mills entrust the purchase of rags of a 
 special sort to men who, in some districts, are 
 called " eagles." An " eagle " of this sort re- 
 ceives from the merchant a couple of hundred 
 rubles in bank-bills, and sets forth in quest of 
 bootv. But, in contrast to the noble bird from 
 whom he has received his name, he does not swoop 
 down openly and boldly, — quite the reverse: 
 the " eagle " resorts to craft and wiles. He 
 leaves his little cart somewhere or other in the 
 bushes near the village, and sets forth along the 
 back yards and back doors, just as though he 
 
 19
 
 MEiNIOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 were some passiii"" stran'»er, or simply a roving 
 vagrant. The women divine his approaeh by 
 instinet, and steal forth to meet him. The trad- 
 ing compact is completed in haste. For a few 
 copi^er farthings the peasant woman delivers to 
 the " eagle " not only every useless rag, but fre- 
 quently her husband's shirt and her own gown. 
 Of late, the women have fomid it profitable to 
 steal from themselves, and rid themselves in this 
 manner of the hemp, especially of hemp-yarn, — 
 an important extension and imi)rovement of the 
 " eagles' " industry! On the otlier hand, the peas- 
 ant men ha\'e grown alert, and at the slight- 
 est suspicion, at tlie mere distant rumour, of 
 the appearance of an " eagle," they proceed 
 swiftly and vivaciously to corrective and pre- 
 cautionary measures. And, as a matter of fact, 
 is it not an outrage? Selling the hemp is their 
 business, — and thev reallv do sell it — not in 
 town, — they woidd have to trudge to the town, — 
 but to travelling dealers, who, for the lack of 
 scales, reckon forty handfuls as a pud,^ — and 
 you know what sort of a fist and what sort 
 of a palm the Russian man possesses, especially 
 when he " waxes zealous "! Of such tales I, an 
 inexperienced man, and a " resident " in the 
 country (as we say in our government of Orel), 
 lieard aplenty. Rut Khor did not tell stories all 
 the time; he questioned me about many things. 
 
 ' A trifle over thirty-six pounds, Englisii. — Traxslator 
 
 20
 
 KIIOR AND KALINITCH 
 
 He learned that 1 had been abroad, and his cu- 
 riosity was inflamed. . . . Kah'nitch kept pace 
 with him; but Kah'nitch was more affected by 
 descriptions of nature, of mountains, waterfalls, 
 remarkable buildings, great towns; administra- 
 tive and governmental questions interested Khor. 
 He inquired into everything in turn: — " Do they 
 have everything yonder just as we have, or is it 
 different? . . Come, tell me, dear little father, 
 how is it? .... "Ah! Akh! O Lord, Thy 
 will be done! " — Kah'nitch would exclaim in the 
 course of my narrative ; Khor maintained silence, 
 contracted his thick eyebrows in a frown, and 
 merely remarked, from time to time, " That 
 would n't suit us, but it 's good — it 's right." — I 
 cannot transmit to you all his queries, and there 
 is no reason that I should; but I carried away 
 from our conversations one conviction, which, in 
 all probability, will be utterly unexpected to my 
 readers, — the conviction that Peter the Great 
 was pre-eminently a Russian man — Russian, to 
 wit, in his reforms. The Russian man is so con- 
 vinced of his strength and vigour that he is not 
 averse to making a violent effort: he takes little 
 interest in his past, and looks boldly ahead. 
 What is good pleases him, what is sensible he 
 wants to have given to him, and whence it comes 
 is a matter of perfect indifference to him. His 
 healthy mind is fond of jeering at the lean Ger- 
 man brain; but the Germans, in Khor's words, 
 
 21
 
 me:moirs of a spoutsmax 
 
 are an interesting little race, and he was ready to 
 learn of them. Thanks to the exclusive nature 
 of his situation, of his practical independence, 
 Khor talked to me about many things which you 
 could n't pi-y out of any other man with a crow- 
 bar, — as the peasants say, grind out with a mill- 
 stone. He really understood his position. In 
 chatting with Khor, I heard, for the first time, 
 the simple, clever speech of the Russian peasant. 
 His knowledge was tolerably extensive, of its 
 kind, but he did not know how to read; Kalinitch 
 did. " Reading and writing came easy to that 
 blockhead," remarked Khor: — " and his bees 
 have never died when they swarmed." — " But 
 thou hast had thy children taught to read and 
 write? " — Khor remained silent for a while. — 
 " Fedya knows how." — " And the others? " — 
 "The others don't."— " Why not? "—The old 
 man made no reply, and changed the conversa- 
 tion. ^Moreover, sensible as he was, he had a 
 great many prejudices and bigoted ideas. For 
 example, he despised women from the bottom of 
 his soul, and when he was in merry mood he 
 jeered at and ridiculed them. His wife, aged 
 and waspish, never descended from the oven all 
 day long, and grumbled and scolded incessantly; 
 her sons paid no attention to her, but she kept her 
 daughters-in-law in the fear of God, — under 
 her thumb. Not without reason does the hus- 
 band's mother sing in Russian ballads: "What 
 
 99
 
 KIIOU AND KALINITCH 
 
 sort of a son art thou to nie, what sort of a family 
 man! thou beatest not thy wife, thou beatest not 
 
 the young woman " 1 once took it into 
 
 my head to stand up for the daughters-in-law, 
 I tried to arouse Klior's compassion; but he 
 calmly replied to me, " ^Vhy do you bother your- 
 self with such trifles, — let the women 
 
 wrangle; .... if they are interfered with 
 't will be all the worse, and it is n't worth while 
 to soil one's hands. " Sometimes the ill-tempered 
 old woman crawled down from the oven, called 
 the watch-dog in from the anteroom, saying: 
 " Come here, come here, doggy! " and beat it on 
 its gaunt back with the oven-fork, or took up 
 her stand under the penthouse and " yowled," 
 as Khor expressed it, at all the passers-by. But 
 she feared her husband, and, at his command, she 
 took herself off to her place on the oven. But 
 the most curious thing of all was to listen to a 
 dispute between Khor and Kalinitch, when JNIr. 
 Polutykin was in question. — " Don't touch him, 
 Khor,"^ — said Kalinitch. — " But why does n't he 
 have some boots made for thee? " retorted the 
 other. — " Eka, boots! .... what do I want of 
 boots? I 'm a serf." . . . . " Well, and here am 
 I a serf too, but see here — " .... At this word, 
 Khor elevated his leg, and showed Kalinitch his 
 boot, carved, probably, out of mammoth hide. — 
 " Ekh, but art thou one of us? " rejDlied Kali- 
 nitch. — " Well, he might, at least, give thee some 
 
 23
 
 :ME:\rOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 bark slippers: for thou goest a-hunting witli liini; 
 tliou must wear out a pair a day, I should think." 
 — " He does give me money for slippers." — 
 " Yes, and last year he presented thee with a ten- 
 kopek piece." — Kalinitcli turned away in vexa- 
 tion, but Khor burst out laughing, whereat his 
 little eyes completely disappeared. 
 
 Kalinitch sang quite agreeably, and played on 
 the hdhildika.^ Klior would listen and listen to 
 him, then suddenly loll his head on one side, and 
 begin to chime in, in a mournful voice. He was 
 especially fond of the song: " Oh, thou my Fate, 
 my Fate! " Fedya omitted no opportunity to 
 banter his father. " ^Vhat has moved thee to 
 pity, old man? " But Khor propped his cheek on 
 his hand, shut his eyes, and continued to bewail 
 
 his fate On the other hand, there was 
 
 no more active man than he at any other time; 
 he was eternally busy about something or other 
 — mending a cart, propping up the fence, look- 
 ing over the harness. He did not, however, af- 
 fect any special degree of cleanliness, and in re- 
 \A\ to my comments he once said that " the 
 cottage must smell as though it were inhabited." 
 
 "But just see," — I retorted: — "how clean 
 ever\i:hing is at Kalinitch's bee-farm." 
 
 " The bees would n't live otherwise,"^ — he said 
 with a sigh. 
 
 " And hast thou a hereditary estate of thine 
 
 ' A triangular, three-stringed guitar. — Translator. 
 
 24
 
 KHOR AND KAI.INITCH 
 
 own?" — he asked me on another occasion. — 
 "Yes." — "Is it far from liere?" — "About a 
 hundred versts." — " And dost thou hve on thy 
 estate, dear httle father? " — " Ves, 1 do." — "And 
 thou amusest thyself chiefly with thy gun, I sup- 
 pose? " — " I must confess that I do." — "And a 
 good thing it is, too, dear httle father; shoot as 
 many black-cock as thou wilt, and change thy 
 steward as often as possible." 
 
 On the fourth day, at evening, Mr. Polutykin 
 sent for me. I was sorry to part from the old 
 man. In company with Kalinitch, I seated my- 
 self in the cart. "Well, good-bye, Khor; may 
 
 health be thine!" I said "Good-bye, 
 
 Fedya." — " Good-bye, dear little father, good- 
 bye; don't forget us." We drove off; the sunset 
 had just begun to blaze out. — " The weather will 
 be sj)lendid to-morrow%" I said, glancing at the 
 clear sky. — " No, there will be rain," — Kalinitch 
 replied: — "the ducks yonder are splashing, and 
 the grass smells awfully strong." — We drove 
 among the bushes. Kalinitch began to sing in 
 a low tone, as he bounced about on the driver's 
 seat, and kept staring, staring at the sunset 
 glow 
 
 On the following day, I quitted Mr. Polu- 
 tykin's hospitable roof. 
 
 25
 
 II 
 
 ERMOLAI AND THE MILLER S WIFE 
 
 Ix the evening, Ermolai and I set off to tlie 
 " stand-shooting." .... But, possibly, not all 
 my readers know what that is. Listen then, gen- 
 tlemen. 
 
 A quarter of an hour before sunset, in sj^riiig, 
 you enter the woods with your gun, and without 
 your dog. You search out for yourself a spot 
 somewhere close to the border of the woods, scan 
 your surroundings, look to your percussion-cap, 
 exchange winks with youi' companion. A quar- 
 ter of an hour has elapsed. The sun has set, but 
 it is still light in the forest; the air is pure and 
 limpid; the birds are chirping volubl}^; the young 
 grass gleams with the gay shimmer of an emerald 
 . . . you wait. The interior of the forest gradu- 
 ally grows dark; the scarlet light of the evening 
 sky glides slowly along the roots and })oles of 
 the trees, rises ever higher and higher, passes 
 from the lower, almost bare ])oughs, to the mo- 
 tionless crests of the trees, which are falling 
 asleep. . . . And lo, now tlie crests also liave 
 grown dim; the crimson lieaven turns blue. The 
 odour of the forest is intensified, a warm moisture 
 
 2«
 
 THE ^MILLER'S WIFE 
 
 is lightly wafted abroad; the fleeting breeze dies 
 away around you. Tlie birds sink to sleep — not 
 all at once — but according to their species: now 
 the chaffinches have fallen silent, in a few mo- 
 ments the hedge-sparrows will do the same, and 
 after them the greenfinches. In the forest, 
 everything grows darker and darker. The trees 
 flow together in huge, blackish masses; the first 
 tiny stars peer out timidly in the blue sky. All 
 the birds are asleep. The redtails, the little 
 woodpeckers, alone are still chirping sleepily. 
 . . . And now they, also, have grown silent. 
 Once more the resonant voice of the pewit has 
 rung out overhead; an oriole has uttered a 
 mournful cry somewhere or other; the nightin- 
 gale has trilled for the first time. Your heart is 
 languishing with anticipation, and all of a sud- 
 den — but only sportsmen will understand me — 
 all of a sudden, athwart the profound silence, a 
 peculiar sort of croaking and hissing rings out, 
 the measured swxep of rapid wings becomes au- 
 dible, — and a woodcock, his long beak hand- 
 somely bent on one side, flies swimmingly from 
 behind a dark birch-tree to meet your shot. 
 
 That is what " stand-shooting " means. 
 
 So, as I was saying, Ermolai and I set out for 
 the stand-shooting; but pardon me, gentlemen; 
 I must first make you acquainted with Ermolai. 
 
 Picture to yourselves a man five and forty 
 years of age, tall, gaunt, with a long, thin nose, 
 
 27
 
 IMEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 a narrow forehead, small grey eyes, dishevelled 
 hair, and broad, mocking lips. This man went 
 about, winter and summer, in a vellowisii nankeen 
 kaftan, of German cut, but girt with a belt; he 
 wore blue, full trousers, and a cap with a lamb- 
 skin border, presented to him by a ruined landed 
 proprietor in a merry mood. To his girdle were 
 attached two bags, one in front, artfully twisted 
 into two halves, for powder and shot, — the other 
 behind, for game; but the wads Krmolai pro- 
 cured from his own, seemingly inexhaustible, 
 cap. He might easil}' have bought himself a 
 cartridge-box and a game-bag out of the money 
 i^aid to him for the game he sold, but he never 
 once even so much as thought of such a purchase, 
 and continued to load his gun as before, excit- 
 ing the amazement of spectators by the art 
 wherewith he avoided the danger of spilling or 
 mixing the powder and shot. His gun was sin- 
 gle-barrelled, with a flint lock, addicted, more- 
 over, to the bad habit of " kicking " viciously, 
 the result of M^hich was, that Krmolai's right 
 cheek was always plumper than the left. How 
 he could hit anything with that gun was more 
 than even a clever man could divine; but hit he 
 did. He had a setter dog, Valetka,^ a very re- 
 markable creature. Ermolai never fed him. 
 " As if I were going to feed a dog," — he argued : 
 — " moreover, a dog is a clever animal, it will 
 
 'Little knave or valet; also, knave at cards. — Traxslator. 
 
 28
 
 THE ]\rrLLKirs wife 
 
 find food for itself/' xVnd, in fact, although Va- 
 letka astonished even the indifferent passer-by 
 witli his emaciation, still he lived, and lived long; 
 and even, in sjiite of his wretched condition, he 
 never once got lost, nor exhibited a desire to aban- 
 don his master. Once upon a time, during his 
 youthful years, he absented himself for a couple 
 of days, led astray by love ; but that folly speed- 
 ily broke away from him. Valetka's most re- 
 markable quality was his incomprehensible in- 
 difference to everything on earth If I 
 
 were not speaking of a dog, I would use the 
 word disenchantment. He generally sat with 
 his bob-tail tucked up under him, scowled, shiv- 
 ered, now and then, and never smiled. (Every- 
 one knows that dogs have the power of smiling, 
 and even of smiling very prettily.) He was 
 extremely ill-favoured, and not a single idle 
 house-serf omitted an opportunity to jeer spite- 
 fully at his appearance; but Valetka endured all 
 these jeers and even blows with remarkable cool- 
 ness. He afforded particular satisfaction to the 
 cooks, who immediately tore themselves from 
 their work, and set out in pursuit of him with hue 
 and cry, when he, in consequence of a weakness 
 not confined to dogs alone, thrust his hungry 
 snout through the half -open door of the seduc- 
 lively warm and sweet-smelling kitchen. On a 
 hunt, he distinguished himself by indefatigabil- 
 ity, and he had a very respectable scent; but if 
 
 29
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 he accidentally overtook a wounded hare, he 
 promptly devoured every bit of him, to the very 
 last little bone, with great gusto, somewhere in 
 the cool shade, at a respectful distance from Er- 
 molai, who swore in all known and unknown 
 dialects. 
 
 Ermolai belonged to one of my neighbours, a 
 country squire of tlie ancient sort. These old- 
 fashioned landed proprietors do not like " snipe," 
 and stick to domestic fowls. It is only on excep- 
 tional occasions — on birth-davs, saints' days, and 
 election days ' — that the cooks of squires of the 
 ancient cut undertake to prepare the long-billed 
 birds, and, waxing furious, as a Russian is wont 
 to do when he himself does not quite imderstand 
 M'hat he is about, they invent for them such coni- 
 2)licated sauces, that most of the guests survey 
 with curiosity and attention the viands placed 
 before them, but cannot possibly bring them- 
 selves to taste them. Ermolai had orders to fur- 
 nish his master's table, once a month, w^ith a 
 couple of brace of black-cock and partridges, 
 and, for the rest, was permitted to live where and 
 how he pleased. He was discarded, as a man 
 who was fit for no work whatsoever, — " a ne'er 
 do well," as we say in the Government of Orel. 
 They did not furnish him with powder and shot, 
 as a matter of course, in consonance with the self- 
 same principle on which he did not feed his dog. 
 
 ' For Marshal of tlie Xobility.— Thaxslator. 
 
 30
 
 THE MTTJ.EK'S WIFE 
 
 Erniolai was a man of a very singular nature; 
 care-free as a bird, decidedly loquacious, absent- 
 minded, and clumsy in apj^earance; he was ex- 
 tremely fond of drink, never lived long in one 
 place, shuffled his feet as he walked, and swayed 
 from side to side, — and with all his shuffling and 
 swaying to and fro, he would cover a distance of 
 fifty versts in twenty-four liours. He exposed 
 himself to the most varied experiences; he would 
 pass the night in the marshes, in trees, on roofs, 
 under bridges, more than once he sat locked up 
 in garrets, cellars, and barns, lost his gun, his dog, 
 his most indispensable garments, was thrashed 
 long and violently, — and, notwithstanding, after 
 a while, he would return home clothed, with his 
 gun and his dog. It was impossible to call him 
 a jolly man, although he was almost always in a 
 fairly cheerful mood; his general aspect was 
 that of a droll fellow. Ermolai was fond of chat- 
 ting with a nice man, especially over a glass of 
 liquor, but even that not for long at a time; he 
 would rise and walk off. — " But where the devil 
 art thou going? Night is falling." — " Why, to 
 Tchaplino."^ — "But what hast thou got to trudge 
 to Tchaplino for — ten versts away? " — " Why, 
 to spend the night there with peasant Sofron." — 
 " Come, spend the night here." — " No, I can't." 
 — And off would go Ermolai, with his Valetka, 
 into the dark night, through the bushes and the 
 ravines, and, as likely as not, the poor peasant 
 
 31
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 Sofron would not let him into the house, and, in 
 all probability, would puniniel his back for him 
 to boot: " Don't go bothering honest folks." On 
 the other hand, there was no one who could be 
 compared with Ermolai in the art of catching 
 fish at flood-water in spring, of getting crawfish 
 with his hands, of searching out game by instinct, 
 of decoying woodcock, of training hawks, of en- 
 ticing nightingales with the " forest pipes," with 
 " cuckoo call." ^ . . . . One thing he could not 
 do : train dogs ; he had not the patience. He had 
 a wife. He went to see her once a week. She 
 dwelt in a miserable, half-ruined little hut, 
 scraped along somehow or other, and often did 
 not know at night whether she would have 
 enough to eat on the morrow or not, and, in gen- 
 eral, her lot was a bitter one. Ermolai, that care- 
 free, good-natured man, treated her harshly and 
 roughly, ■ assuming at home a threatening and 
 surly aspect, — and his poor wife did not know 
 how to please him, trembled at his glance, 
 bought him liquor with her last farthing, and 
 servilely covered him with her sheepskin coat 
 when he, stretching himself out majestically on 
 the oven, fell into a heroic slumber. INIore than 
 once I had occasion to observe in him the involun- 
 tary manifestations of a certain surly ferocity. 
 I did not like the expression of his face when 
 
 ' Hunters for nifihtiiiffalcs are familiar witli these terms: they desig- 
 nate the best "passages" in the ni{ihtiiigale*s song.— Author. 
 
 32
 
 THE MITJ.ER'S WIFE 
 
 lie bit the neck of a wounded bird. But Ermolai 
 never remained at home for more than one day; 
 and, away from home, he was again transformed 
 into " Ermolka," as he was called for a hundred 
 versts round about, and as he occasionally called 
 himself.' Tlie meanest house-serf was conscious 
 of his superiority over this vagabond, — and, pos- 
 sibly for that very reason, treated him in a 
 friendly manner; while the peasants first gladly 
 pursued and caught him, like a hare in the field, 
 but afterward released him and bade liim God- 
 speed, and having once recognised the fact that 
 he was a queer fish, they did not touch him again, 
 but even gave him bread, and entered into con- 
 versation with him This was the man 
 
 whom I took with me as a hunter, and with him 
 I set out for " stand-shooting " in a large birch 
 grove on the bank of the Ista. 
 
 Many Russian rivers have one hilly shore and 
 the other in level plains, like the Volga; so has 
 the Ista. This little river winds about in an ex- 
 tremely capricious way, writhing like a snake, 
 never flows straight for a single half-verst, and, 
 in some places, from the crest of a steep hill, 
 about ten versts of it are visible, with dams and 
 ponds, mills, vegetable-plots enclosed with wil- 
 lows, and dense gardens. The Ista abounds 
 in fish, especially in mullet (the peasants catch 
 
 * The diminutive form conveys the idea of an unliable, good fel- 
 low. Ermolka may also mean the skull-ca]>. — Translator. 
 
 33
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SrORTS:MxVX 
 
 them, with their haiuls, in the lieat of tlie day, 
 uiuler the hushes). Small sandpipers fly whis- 
 tling along the roeky shores, dotted with cold, 
 hright springs; wild ducks swim out into the cen- 
 tre of the ponds, and gaze cautiously about; 
 herons stand out prominently in the shadow, in 
 
 the bays, under the precipices We had 
 
 been standing at " stand-shooting " for about an 
 hoiu', and had killed a couple of brace of wood- 
 cock ; and, being desirous of trying our luck once 
 more before sunrise (one can also go stand-shoot- 
 ing early in the morning), we decided to pass 
 the night in the nearest mill. AVe emerged 
 from the grove, and descended the hill. The 
 river was flowing on in dark-blue waves; the air 
 had grown thick, burdened with the nocturnal 
 moisture. We knocked at the gate. The dogs 
 began to bark in the yard. " Who 's there? " — 
 rang out a hoarse, sleepy voice. — " Sportsmen: 
 let us in to pass the night." — There was no an- 
 swer. — " We will pay." — " I '11 go and tell the 
 master. . . Shut up, you damned beasts! . . . . 
 Ekh, I 'd like to murder vou! " — We heard the 
 labourer enter the cottage; he speedily returned 
 to the gate. — " Xo," he said, " the master does 
 not command me to admit you." — " Why not? " 
 — " Why, he 's afraid: vou are hunters; the first 
 thing anybody knows, you '11 be setting the mill 
 afire; you see, you have that sort of ammunition." 
 — " \Vhat nonsense! " — " Anyhow, our mill was 
 
 34
 
 THE iNIILLER'S WIFE 
 
 burned down the year before last: some cattle- 
 drovers spent the night here, and, you know, 
 probably they set it ablaze." — " But, brother, we 
 can't spend the night out of doors, of course! " — 
 " As you please." .... He went off, clumping 
 with his boots. 
 
 Ermolai wished him divers unpleasant things. 
 " Let 's go to the village," — he ejaculated, at 
 last, with a sigh. But it was two versts to the 
 village. ..." Let 's pass the night here," — said 
 I: — ^" it is warm out of doors; the miller will 
 send us out some straw, if we pay for it." 
 — Ermolai agreed, without making any difficul- 
 ties.^ — Again we began to thump on the gate. — 
 " What do you want now? " — rang out the voice 
 of the hired man again: — "I told you, you 
 could n't." — We explained to him what we 
 wanted. He went to consult his master, and 
 came back accompanied by the latter. The 
 wicket screeched. The miller made his appear- 
 ance, a man of lofty stature, with a fat face, a 
 bull neck, and a huge, round belly. He assented 
 to my proposal. A hundred paces from the mill 
 there was a tiny shed, open on all sides. Thither 
 they brought us straw and haj^; the workman 
 placed the samovar on the grass beside the 
 stream, and squatting down on his heels, began 
 
 zealously to blow into the pipe The coals 
 
 flared up brilliantly, illuminating his youthful 
 face. The miller ran to arouse his wife, and, at 
 
 35
 
 ME^SrOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 last, himself suggested to me thai we should 
 spend the night in his cottage; but I preferred 
 to remain in the open air. The miller's M'ife 
 brought us milk, eggs, potatoes, and bread. The 
 samovar soon began to hiss, and we set to drink- 
 ing tea. Vapours rose from the river; there was 
 no wind; the corncrakes were calling all around 
 us; faint noises resounded near the mill-wheels: 
 now the drops dripped from the blades, again 
 the w^ater trickled through the bars of the sluice- 
 gate. We built a small bonfire. AVhile Ermolai 
 was roasting the 2)otatoes in the ashes, I managed 
 to fall into a doze A faint, repressed whis- 
 pering aroused me. I raised my head: before 
 the fire, on an overturned cask, sat the miller's 
 w^ife, chatting with my huntsman. I had al- 
 ready, from her garb, her moA ements, and her 
 mode of speech, divined that she w^as of the 
 house-serf class^ — not a peasant w'oman, and not 
 a petty burgheress; but only now did I scan her 
 face w^ell. Apparently, she was about thirty 
 years of age; her thin, ])ale face still preserved 
 traces of remarkable beauty; I was particularly 
 pleased by her eyes, which were large and mourn- 
 ful. She had her elbows propped on her knees, 
 and her face rested on her hands. Ermolai was 
 sitting wqth his back toward me, and feeding the 
 fire with chips. 
 
 " There 's murrain in Zheltukhino again," — 
 said the miller's wife: — "both of Father Ivan's 
 
 36
 
 THE JMII.LER'S WIFE 
 
 cows are tk)\vii with it Lord have 
 
 mercy! " 
 
 " And how are your pigs? " — inquired Ermo- 
 lai, after a pause. 
 
 " Thev re ahve." 
 
 " You miglit, at least, give me a sucking-pig." 
 
 The miller's wife remained silent for a while, 
 then sighed. 
 
 " Who 's this you 're with? " — she asked. 
 
 " With a gentleman — the gentleman from 
 Kostomarovsk." 
 
 Ermoliii flung several fir-hranches on the fire; 
 the branches immediately began to crackle vig- 
 orously, the thick, white smoke puffed out 
 straight in his face. 
 
 " Why would n't your husband let us into the 
 cottage? " 
 
 " He 's afraid." 
 
 "What a fat-belly! .... My dear httle 
 dove, Arina Timofyeevna, do thou fetch me out 
 a little glass of liquor! " 
 
 The miller's wife rose, and disappeared into 
 the gloom. Ermolai began to sing in an under- 
 tone : 
 
 " When cO my loved one I did go, 
 All my boots I quite wore out. 
 
 ?> 
 
 Arina returned with a small caraffe and a 
 glass. Ermolai half rose to his feet, crossed him- 
 
 37
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 self, and tossed off' a glassful at a gulp. " I 
 love it! " he added. 
 
 Again the miller's wife seated herself on the 
 cask. 
 
 " AVell, how gims it, Arina Timofyeevna, — 
 thou art still ailing, I suppose? " 
 
 " XT' T " 
 
 Yes, 1 am. 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 " INIy cough torments me at night." 
 
 " The gentleman has fallen asleep, appar- 
 ently," — said Ermolai, after a hrief silence. — - 
 "Don't go to the doctor, Arina: 'twill be the 
 worse for thee." 
 
 " I 'm not going, as it is." 
 
 " But do thou come and stay with me." 
 
 Arina bowed her head. 
 
 " I 11 drive my own wife away, in that case," 
 — went or) Ermolai. . . " I really will, ma'am." 
 
 " You 'd better wake up your master, Ermolai 
 Petrovitch ; the potatoes are roasted enough, you 
 see." 
 
 " Why, let him go on with his nap," — re- 
 marked my faithful servant, indiff'erently, — " he 
 has run his legs off*, so he is sleepy." 
 
 I turned over on the hav. Ermolai rose, and 
 came over to me. — " The potatoes are ready, sir, 
 please eat." 
 
 I emerged from beneath the shed-roof; the 
 miller's wufe rose from the cask, and started to 
 go away. I entered into conversation with her. 
 
 38
 
 THE MII.LER'S WIFE 
 
 " Is it lon<>- since you took over this mill? " 
 " Our second year began on Trinity-day." ^ 
 " Where does tliy husband come from? " 
 Anna did not understand my question. 
 "Whence comes thy husband?"^ — repeated 
 Ermolai, raising* Ijis voice. 
 
 " From Byelyoff . He is a burgher of Bye- 
 lyofF." 
 
 " And art thou also from ByelyoiF? " 
 " No, I 'm a serf. ... I was a serf." 
 "Whose?" 
 
 " Mr. Zvyerkoff 's. Now I 'm a free woman." 
 "Of what Zvyerkoff?" 
 " Alexander Silitch." 
 " Wert not thou his wife's maid? " 
 " And how do you know that? — Yes, I was." 
 I gazed at Arina with redoubled curiosity and 
 sympathy. 
 
 " I know thy master," — I went on. 
 " Do you? " — she replied, in a low voice, — and 
 dropped her eyes. 
 
 I must tell the reader why I gazed upon Arina 
 with so much sympathy. During my sojourn 
 in Petersburg, I had accidentally made the ac- 
 quaintance of iNIr. Zvyerkoff.'' He occupied a 
 
 ^ In the Eastern Cluirch this is Whitsunday, or Pentecost. Tlie 
 following day, which is an equally great feast, is " the Day of the 
 Descent of the Holy Spirit." But the grand Pentecost celebra- 
 tion is on Trinity-day. — Translator. 
 
 -The gentleman says, correctly, "otkiida" (whence); Ermoldi 
 says, incorrectly, " otkeleva." — Translator. 
 
 ^ Zvyerkoff is derived from Zvycr, a wild beast. — Translator. 
 
 39
 
 ME.ArOlHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 rather important post, and bore the reputation 
 of being a clever and active man. He had a wife, 
 plump, sensitive, tearfid, and ill-tempered, a 
 lieavy, commonplace creature; he had also a son, 
 a regular little squire's son of the old-fashioned 
 type, spoiled and stupid. ISlr. Zvyerkoff 's per- 
 sonal appearance did not predispose one much in 
 his favour: tiny, mouse-like eyes gazed craftily 
 out of a broad, almost square face, a large, sharp- 
 pointed nose, with flaring nostrils, projected 
 from it ; closely-clipped grey hair reared itself in 
 a brush above a furrowed brow, thin lips twitched 
 and smiled incessantly. JNIr. Zvyerkoff gener- 
 ally stood with his legs straddled far apart, and 
 his thick little hands thrust into his pockets. It 
 once fell to my lot to drive out of town in the 
 same carriage with him. We fell into conversa- 
 tion. Being an experienced, energetic man, INIr. 
 Zvyerkoif began to instruct me in the " way of 
 truth." 
 
 " Permit me to remark to you," — he squeaked, 
 at last: — ■" all you young men reason and talk 
 about everything at random: you kno\v very little 
 about your own fatherland; Russia is an un- 
 known country to j^ou, gentlemen, — that 's what 
 it is! ... . You never read anything but German 
 books. Here, for example, you are telling me 
 this, that, and the other, about . . . well, that is 
 to say, about house-serfs. . . . Very good, I 
 don't deny it, that 's all very good ; but you don't 
 
 40
 
 THE IMILLKK'S WIFE 
 
 know tliem, yon don't know what sort of folks 
 they are/' JNlr. Zvyerkoff hlew his nose loudly, 
 and took a pinch of snuff. " iVUow me to relate 
 to you, as an example, one little anecdote: you 
 may find it interesting." (^Ir. Zvyerkoff* cleared 
 his throat). " You know, I suppose, what sort 
 of a wife 1 have: apparently, it would be difficult 
 to find a kinder woman than she, you must 
 agree to that. Her maids never have any hard- 
 ships — their life is simply paradise visibly re- 
 alised But my wife has laid it down as 
 
 a rule for herself: not to keep married maids. 
 Really, it 's not the thing to do: children will ar- 
 rive, — and this, and that, — well, and how is a 
 maid to look after her mistress then, as she 
 should, and attend to her ways: she no longer 
 cares for that, she 's no longer thinking of that. 
 One must reason humanely. So, sir, we were 
 once driving through our village, it must be — I 
 want to tell you accurately, not to lie — fifteen 
 years ago. We saw that the Elder had a little girl, 
 a daughter, a very pretty creature; there was 
 even, you know, something obsequious about her 
 manners. INIy wife says to me: ' Koko,' — that is 
 to say, you understand, that 's what she calls 
 me, — ' let 's take this young girl to Petersburg ; 
 she pleases me, Koko.' . . . ' We '11 take her, 
 with pleasure,' says I. The Elder, of course, 
 fell at our feet; he could not have expected such 
 
 luck, you understand Well, of course, 
 
 41
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 the girl wept, out of folly. Now, it really is 
 rather painful, at first : the parental house . . . . 
 in general .... it 's not in the least surpris- 
 ing. Rut she soon got used to us; at first we put 
 her in the maids' room; they taught her, of 
 course. And what do you think? .... The 
 girl made astonishing progress; my wife simply 
 took a violent fancy to her, and at last appointed 
 her as her personal maid, over the head of the 
 
 other maids ohserve! . . . And I must do 
 
 her the justice to sav, that mv wife had never 
 before had such a maid, — positively, never; oblig- 
 ing, modest, obedient — simply, everything that 
 is required. On the other hand, I must admit 
 that my wife petted her too much: she dressed 
 her capitally, fed her from our own table,^ gave 
 her tea to drink .... well, and every sort of 
 thing you can imagine! So, after this fashion, 
 she ser\'ed my wife for ten years. x\ll of a sud- 
 den, one fine morning, just fancy, Arina comes 
 in — her name was Arina — comes into my study, 
 without being announced, — and, flop! she goes 
 at my feet. ... I will tell you frankly, that I 
 cannot endure that sort of thing. A man should 
 never forget his dignity, is n't that so? " — ' What 
 dost thou want?' — 'Dear little father, Alexan- 
 der Silitch, I crave a favour.' — ' AVhat is it?' — 
 ' Permit me to marry.' — I must confess to you 
 
 ' Russian servants always used to have, and generally have still, 
 their own cook and special food, such as cal)l)age soujj, Ijuckwheal 
 groats, and sour, black rye bread. — Transi-atoh. 
 
 42
 
 THE MILLER'S WIFE 
 
 that I was amazed. — ' But dost not thou know, 
 fool, that thy mistress has no other maid? ' — ' I 
 will serve the mistress as usual.' — ' Nonsense! 
 Nonsense! thy mistress does not keep married 
 maids.' — ' Malanya can take my place.' — ' I beg 
 
 that thou wilt not argue! ' — ' As you will.' 
 
 I must admit, that I was dumfounded. I tell 
 you this is the sort of man I am: nothing so 
 offends me, I venture to assert, so violently of- 
 fends me, as ingratitude For there is no 
 
 need of my telling you — you know what sort of 
 a wife I have: an angel in the flesh, kindness in- 
 expressible It seems as though even a 
 
 malefactor would have pity on her. I ordered 
 Arina out of the room. Perhaps she '11 recover 
 her senses, I thought ; one does n't wish, you 
 know, to believe evil, black ingratitude in a per- 
 son. But what do you think? Six months later, 
 she is good enough to apply to me again, with the 
 same request. Then I drove her away in wrath, 
 I admit it, and threatened her, promised to tell 
 
 my wife. I was upset But conceive my 
 
 surprise: a little while later, my wife comes to 
 me, in tears, so agitated that I was fairly fright- 
 ened. — ' What has happened ? ' — ' Arma 
 
 You understand. ... I am ashamed to speak 
 out.' — 'It cannot be! ... . who is it?' — ' Pe- 
 trushka, the footman.' I flew into a rage. 
 That 's the kind of man I am .... don't like 
 
 half-measures! Petrushka .... is not to 
 
 43
 
 MEiyiOlKS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 blame. Wc can punish him; but, in my opinion, 
 he is not to bhime. Arina .... well, what is 
 there .... well, well, what more is there to be 
 said? ' Of course, I immediately gave orders to 
 have her hair cut off short, to clothe her in striped 
 ticking, and to exile her to the country. ]My wife 
 was deprived of an excellent maid, but tliere was 
 no help for it : one cannot tolerate disorder in the 
 household. It is better to amputate an ailing 
 
 member at one blow AVell, well, and now, 
 
 judge for yoiu'self, — well, now, you know what 
 my wife is, you see, you see, she 's,she 's,she 's . . . . 
 an angel, in short! .... She had got attached 
 to Arina, you see, — and Arina kne-\v it, and was 
 
 not ashamed Hey? No, tell me . . . 
 
 hey? But what 's the use of discussing it! In any 
 case, there was nothing else to be done. And that 
 girl's ingratitude pained me, me myself, for a 
 
 long time. Say what you will you. need 
 
 not look for heart, for feeling in those creatures! 
 You may feed a wolf as you will, he always has 
 
 his eye on the forest Forward march, 
 
 science! But I merely wished to prove to 
 you " 
 
 And, without finishing his sentence, INIr. 
 Zvyerkoff tiu-ned away liis head, and wi-a])ped 
 himself more closely in his cloak, manfully 
 stifling his involuntary emotion. 
 
 The reader now understands, ])robably, why 
 I gazed at Arina with sympathy. 
 
 4>4>
 
 THE INIILLER'S WIFE 
 
 " Hast thou been inarrieil long to the miller? " 
 — I asked her, at last. 
 
 " Two years." 
 
 " But is it possible that thy master permitted 
 it?" 
 
 " ^ly freedom was purchased." 
 
 " By whom? " 
 
 " Savely Alexyeevitch." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 " My husband." (Ermolai smiled to himself.) 
 " But did my master talk to you about me? " — 
 added Arina, after a brief silence. 
 
 I did not know what reply to make to her ques- 
 tion. "Arina!" shouted the miller from afar. 
 She rose and went away. 
 
 "Is her husband a good man?" — I asked 
 Ermolai. 
 So-so. 
 
 " And have they any children? " 
 
 " They had one, but it died." 
 
 " How did it come about — did the miller take 
 a liking to her? Did he pay a large ransom for 
 her? " 
 
 " I don't know. She knows how to read and 
 
 write; in his business it that sort of 
 
 thing .... is an advantage. Consequently, 
 he must have taken a fancy to her. 
 
 " And hast thou known her long? 
 
 " Yes. I used to go to her master's formerly. 
 Their manor is not far from here." 
 
 45 
 
 5>
 
 MEMOIKS OF A SrOKTSMAX 
 
 " Aiul dost thou know Petriishka the foot- 
 man? 
 
 " Piotr \^asiHevitchJ' Of course 1 know him." 
 
 " Where is he now? " 
 
 " He has become a sokher." 
 
 We fell silent. 
 
 " She appears to be ill?" — I asked Ermolai, 
 
 at last. 
 
 "111? I should say so! .... I think the 
 stand-shooting will l)e good to-morrow. It 
 would n't be a bad thing for you to get some sleep 
 now." 
 
 A flock of wild ducks dashed whistling over 
 our heads, and we heard them drop down on the 
 river, not far from us. It was completely dark 
 now, and beginning to grow cold; a nightingale 
 was trilling loudly in the grove. We buried our- 
 selves in tlie hay, and went to sleep. 
 
 46
 
 Ill 
 
 THE RASPBERRY WATER 
 
 The heat often becomes unbearable at the be- 
 ginning of August. At that time, between 
 twelve and three o'clock, the most resolute and 
 concentrated man is in no condition to go hunt- 
 ing, and the most devoted dog begins " to clean 
 the sportsman's spurs," that is to say, trots be- 
 hind him at a foot-pace, with his eyes painfully 
 screwed up, and his tongue lolling out in an 
 exaggerated manner; and, in reply to his mas- 
 ter's reproaches, he meekly wags his tail, and ex- 
 presses confusion on his countenance, but does 
 not advance. Precisely on such a day I chanced 
 to be out on a hunt. For a long time, I resisted 
 " the temptation to lie down somewhere in the 
 shade, if only for a moment ; for a long time, my 
 indefatigable dog continued to rummage among 
 the bushes, although, evidently, he did not expect 
 any rational result from his feverish activity. At 
 last, the stifling sultriness compelled me to think 
 of saving my last strength and faculties. I man- 
 aged to drag myself to the little river Ista, al- 
 ready familiar to my indulgent readers, lowered 
 myself from a crag, and strolled along the damp, 
 
 47
 
 MEMOIKS OF A SPORTS.MAN 
 
 yt'llow saiicl in the direction of a spring known 
 throughout the whole neighbourhood as " The 
 Raspberry Water." This spring wells forth 
 from a crevice in the bank, which gradually is 
 converted into a small but deep ravine, and 
 twenty paces thence it falls into the river with 
 a merry, babbling sound. Oak bushes have 
 overgrown the slopes of the ravine; around the 
 spring, soft, velvety grass gleams green; the 
 sun's rays hardly ever touch its cold, silvery 
 waters. I reached the spring; on the grass lay 
 a birch-bark dipper, left behind by some passing 
 peasant for public use. I took a drink, lay down 
 in the shade, and cast a glance around me. At 
 the bay formed by the spring's entrance into the 
 river, and for that reason always covered with 
 a faint ripple, sat two old men, ^vith their backs 
 toward me. One of them, rather tliickset and 
 lofty of stature, in a neat, dark-green kaftan 
 and a flat felt cap, Avas catching flsli, — the other, 
 a thin, small man in a patched seersucker short 
 coat, and without a cap, was holding the pot of 
 worms on his lap, and now and then })assing his 
 hand over his small grey head, as though desirous 
 of protecting it from the sun. \ looked more in- 
 tently at him. and recognised in him Styopushka 
 from Shumikhino. I beg the reader's permission 
 to introduce this man to him. 
 
 A few versts distant from my handet, lies the 
 large village Shumikliino, with a stone church, 
 
 48
 
 THE RxVSPBKKK\ W^ATER 
 
 erected in the luinie of Saints. Koziiia and Da- 
 mitin. Opposite this ehm'ch, a spacious manor- 
 house of a huided proprietor formerly flaunted 
 itself, surrounded by various out!)uildings, — 
 offices, work-shops, bath-houses, and temporary 
 kitchens, detached wings for visitors and stew- 
 ards, hot-houses for flowers, swings for the re- 
 tainers, and other moi'e or less useful structures. 
 In this mansion dwelt wealthy landed gentry, 
 and everything was proceeding in an orderly 
 manner with them, — when, all of a sudden, one 
 fine morning, this whole blessed establishment ' 
 was burned to the ground. The gentry removed 
 to another nest; the farm sank into a state of 
 desolation. The vast heap of ashes where the 
 manor had stood was converted into a vegetable- 
 garden, encumbered here and there by piles of 
 bricks, the remnants of the former foundations. 
 A tinv hut had hastilv been constructed from the 
 surviving beams, covered with barge-planks," 
 which had been purchased ten years previously 
 for the erection of a pavilion in the Gothic style ; 
 and the gardener, Mitrofan, with his wife, Ak- 
 sinya, and their seven children were established 
 therein. jNIitrofan received orders to supply the 
 master's table, one hundred and fifty versts dis- 
 
 ' In the original, blagoddl, l)Iessing. — Translator. 
 
 - Tlif ha'rges used on Hiissian rivers to transport firewood and 
 sa forth are riveted togetiier with huge wooden pegs only, and 
 are i)roken up at the end of tlie voyage. The lavishly perforated 
 planks sell for a very low price. Tuansi.ator. 
 
 49
 
 ME.AIOIRS OF xV SPORTSMAN 
 
 tant, witli fresh licrbs and vegetables; to Aksinya 
 was entrusted tlie oversight of the Tyrolean cow, 
 which had been purchased at a high price in ]Mos- 
 cow, but was unfortunately deprived of all pos- 
 sibility of reproduction, and, consequently, had 
 never given any milk since she had been acquired; 
 into her hands was given also a crested, smoke- 
 coloured drake, the "quality's" sole fowl; no 
 duties were assigned to the children, on account 
 of their tender age, which, nevertheless, did not, 
 in the least, prevent their becoming thoroughly 
 lazy. I chanced to pass the night, on a couple of 
 occasions, with this gardener, — I was in the habit 
 of getting cucumbers from him in passing, which 
 cucumbers, heaven knows why, were character- 
 ised even in summer by their size, their worth- 
 less, watery flavoiu", and their thick, yellow skin. 
 It was at his house that I had seen Styopushka 
 for the first time. With the exception of Mitro- 
 fan and his family, and of the deaf, old church- 
 warden, Gerasim, who lived as a charity in a tiny 
 chamber at the house of the one-eyed soldier's 
 widow, not a single house-serf remained in Shu- 
 mikhino, for it was not possible to regard Styo- 
 pushka, whom I intend to introduce to the reader, 
 either as a man in general, or as a house-serf in 
 particular. 
 
 Every individual has at least some sort of posi- 
 tion in society, some connection or other; every 
 house-serf receives, if not wages, at least the so- 
 
 50
 
 THE RASPBERRY WATER 
 
 called "allowance": Styopuslika received abso- 
 lutely no aid, was related to no one, no one knew 
 of his existence. This man had not even a past; 
 no one mentioned him ; it is hardly probable tliat 
 he was even included in the revision-lists/ Ob- 
 scure rumours were in circulation, to the effect 
 that, once upon a time, he had been valet to som^^i 
 one; but who he was, whence he came, whose son 
 he was, how he had got into the number of the 
 Shumfkhino subjects, in w^hat manner he had 
 acquired the seersucker kaftan which he had 
 worn from time immemorial, where he lived, 
 what he lived on, — as to these jDoints positively 
 no one had the slightest idea, and, to tell the 
 truth, no one bothered himself about these ques- 
 tions. Grandpa Trofimitch, who knew the gene- 
 alogy of all the house-serfs in an ascending line 
 back to the fourth generation, once said merely, 
 that Stepan was related to a Turkish woman, 
 whom the late master. Brigadier" Alexyei Ro- 
 manitch, had been pleased to bring back wdth him 
 from a campaign, in his baggage-train. And 
 it even happened that, on festival days, days 
 of universal gifts and hospitable entertainment, 
 with buckw^heat patties and green wine, after the 
 ancient Russian custom, — even on such days, 
 
 ' The revised lists of male serfs, made at intervals of years, in 
 tlie pre-emanci})ati()ii days, as a basis of taxation. — TuAxsi.ATOii. 
 
 " A military rank between Colonel and IJeutenant-General, 
 instituted by Peter the Great, and abolished under Paul I. — 
 Translator. 
 
 51
 
 ]ME:\rOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 Styopusliku was not wont to present Iiinisell' at 
 the tables set forth or at the casks of liquor, did 
 not make his reverence, did not kiss the master's 
 hand, did not drain off at a draught a glass under 
 the master's eye and to tlie master's health, a 
 glass filled by the fat hand ol* the superinten- 
 dent, — perchance, some kind soul, in passing, 
 woidd bestow upon the })oor fellow the bit of 
 patty whjcli he had not been able to finish off. 
 At Easter, people exclianged the kiss of greeting 
 with him, but he did not tuck up his greasy sleeve, 
 he did not pull a red egg out of his rear pocket, 
 he did not present it, panting and blinking, to the 
 young master, or even to the gentlewoman, the 
 mistress herself. In shimmer, he lived in a pen 
 behind the chicken-coop, and in winter, in the 
 anteroom of the bath-house; in extremely cold 
 weather he spent tlie night in the hay-loft. 
 People got used to seeing him about, they even 
 gave him a kick sometimes, but no one entered 
 into conversation with him, and he himself, ap- 
 parently, had never opened his mouth since he 
 was born. After the conflagration, this forsaken 
 man took refuge with the gardener, INlitrofan. 
 The gardener let him alone, he did not say to 
 him, " Live with me," but he did not turn him out 
 of doors. And Styopushka did not live with tlie 
 gardener: he lodged in, he hovered about, tlie 
 vegetable-garden. He walked and moved with- 
 out making a soimd; he sneezed and coughed 
 
 52
 
 THE RASPBERKY WATER 
 
 nto his liand, not without terror; he was eternally 
 hustling ahout and making liimself husy, like an 
 mt; and all for his food, for his food alone. 
 And, as a matter of fact, had he not worried 
 iihout his nourishment from morning until night, 
 —my Styopushka would have died of hunger. 
 T is a bad tiling not to know in the morning 
 what you will have had to eat by nightfall! Now, 
 Styopushka would be sitting under the hedge, 
 gnawing at a radish, or sucking at a carrot, or 
 crushing a dirty head of cabbage beneath him; 
 again, he would be carrying a bucket of water 
 somewhere or other, and grunting over it; and 
 again, he would light a tiny fire under a pot, and 
 fling some black morsels, drawn from the breast 
 of his shirt, into the pot ; or he would be pounding 
 away at his own place in the store-room with a 
 billet of wood, driving in a nail, or putting up a 
 small shelf for his bread. And all this he did in 
 silence, as though from around a corner: cast a 
 glance, and he had already vanished. And then, 
 all of a sudden, he would absent himself for a 
 couple of days ; of course, no one noticed his ab- 
 sence And the first you knew, there he was 
 
 again, somewhere near the hedge, placing chips 
 stealthily under the tripod. His face was small, 
 his eyes were yellowish, his hair grew clear down 
 to his eyebrows, he had a small, pointed nose, 
 very large ears, transparent like those of a bat, 
 a beard which looked as apparently of a fort- 
 
 53
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 night's growtli, never any more of it, never any 
 less. This was the Styopiishka whom I encoun- 
 tered on the hank of the Ista, in the company of 
 another old man. 
 
 I went up to him, hade him good morning, 
 and seated mvself hv his side. In Stvopiishka's 
 companion I recognised another acquaintance; 
 he Mas a man who had belonged to Count Piotr 
 Hitch * * *, and had been set at liberty by 
 him, ]Mikhailo Savelitch, nicknamed The Fog 
 (Tuman). He lived with the consumptive petty 
 burgher of BolkhofF who kept the posting-house, 
 where I stopped quite frequently. The young 
 officials and other j^ersons of leisure who traverse 
 the Orel highway (the merchants, laden with 
 their striped feather-beds,^ care not for it) can 
 still see, at a short distance from the big, church- 
 village of Troitzkoe (Trinity), a huge, wooden, 
 two-storied house utterlv deserted, with roof fall- 
 ing to ruin, and windows tightly nailed up, which 
 stands on the very verge of the road. xVt mid- 
 day, in clear, sunny weather, nothing more mel- 
 ancholy can be imagined than this ruin. Here 
 once dwelt Count Piotr Ilitch, famous for his 
 hospitality, a wealthy grandee of the olden days. 
 All the government used to assemble at his house, 
 and dance and amuse themselves gloriously, to 
 the deafening thunder of a home-trained orches- 
 
 ' Even now, in some parts of Russia, mattresses, sheets, and 
 towels must l)e carried by the traveller; and down-pillows, also, are 
 very generally carried. — Translator. 
 
 54
 
 THE RASPBEKRV WATER 
 
 tra, the crash of rockets iiiid Roman candles; and, 
 in all prohability, more than one old woman, who 
 now passes the deserted mansion of the gentry, 
 sighs and recalls the days gone by, and her van- 
 ished youth, l^ong did the Count hold wassail, 
 long did he stroll about, with a courteous smile, 
 among the throng of his obsequious guests; but, 
 unhappily, his estate did not hold out to the end 
 of his life. Completely ruined, he betook him- 
 self to Petersbiu'g, sought a jilace in the service, 
 and died in a hotel chamber, before he had re- 
 ceived an answer. The Fog had served as his 
 butler, and had received his emancipation papers 
 during the Count's lifetime. He was a man of 
 sixt}^, with a regular and agreeable countenance. 
 He smiled almost constantly, as only people of 
 Katherine the Second's time do smile nowa- 
 days, good-naturedly and majestically; when 
 he talked, he slowly thrust forward and com- 
 pressed his lips, caressingly screwed up his eyes, 
 and uttered his words somewhat through his nose. 
 He blew his nose and took snufF in a leisurely 
 way also, as though he were engaged in serious 
 business. 
 
 " Well, how goes it, INIikhailo Savelitch," — I 
 began: — " hast thou caught any fish? " 
 
 " Wh}^ please to look in the basket yonder: 
 I 've caught two perch, and five small mullet. 
 » . . Show them, Styopka. " 
 
 Styopushka held the wicker basket toward me. 
 
 55
 
 MEMOIRS or A SPORTSMAN 
 
 "How art thou getting on, Stepan?" — I 
 asked him. 
 
 " L .... i .... i . . . a-a .... so-so-o, dear 
 little father, pretty well," — replied Stepan, 
 stammering as though a pud weight were hung 
 on his tongue. 
 
 "And is ^Nlitrofan welH " 
 
 " Yes, o-o-of course, dear little fa- 
 ther." 
 
 The poor fellow turned away. 
 
 " The fish are n't hiting well, somehow," — re- 
 marked The Fog: — "it's awfully hot; the fish 
 have all hidden themselves under the bushes, and 
 
 gone to sleep Bait the hook with a 
 
 worm, Styopa." (Styopushka got a worm, laid 
 it on his palm, gave it a couple of whacks, put it 
 on the hook, spat on it, and gave it to The Fog. ) 
 
 " Thanks, Styopa. . . . And you, dear little 
 father," — he went on, turning to me : — " you are 
 pleased to go a-hunting? " 
 As you see. 
 
 " Just so, sir And what 's that hound 
 
 of yours, Fnglish or some sort of Kurland ani- 
 mal? " 
 
 The old man was fond of showing off : as nmch 
 as to say, " We 've seen the world also ! " . 
 
 " I don't know of what breed he is, but he 's a 
 good one." 
 
 " Just so, sir. . . . And are you pleased to 
 travel with dogs? " 
 
 " I have a couple of l-^ashes." 
 
 56
 
 THE RASPBERRY WATER 
 
 The Fog smiled, and shook his head. 
 
 " That 's exactly the way: one man is i'ond of 
 dogs, and another would n't take them as a gift. 
 What 1 think, according to my simple judg- 
 ment, is: that dogs should he kept more for the 
 
 dignity of the thing, so to speak And 
 
 that everything should he kept in style : and that 
 the horses shoidd he in style, as is proper, and 
 everything in style. The late Count — may the 
 kingdom of heaven he his! -was not a sportsman 
 by nature, I nuist admit; but he kept dogs, and 
 was ])leased to go out with them a couple of times 
 a year. The whippers-in would assemble in the 
 courtyard, in scarlet kaftans trimmed with gal- 
 loon, and blow blasts on their horns; his lUus- 
 triousness would condescend to come out, and his 
 Illustriousness's horse would be led up; his Illus- 
 triousness would mount, and the head huntsman 
 would put his feet into the stirrups, take off his 
 cap, and present the reins to him in it. His 
 Illustriousness would deign to crack his hunt- 
 ing-crop, and the whippers-in would begin to 
 halloo, and move away from the courtyard. A 
 groom would ride behind his Illustriousness, and 
 lead the master's two favourite hounds in a leash, 
 with his own hands, and would so keep a watch, 
 
 you know And he sits high aloft, the 
 
 groom does, on a kazak saddle,^ such a rosy- 
 cheeked fellow he was, and rolls his little eyes 
 
 'The kazak saddle has a fat down-cushion, between a liigh pom- 
 mel and hifch I)ack. — Traxslator. 
 
 o7
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 around Well, and of course there were 
 
 guests on this occasion. And amusement and 
 honoiu' were observed. . . . Akh, he lias broken 
 loose, the Asiatic! " — he suddenly added, pulling 
 out liis hook. 
 
 " They say that the Count led a pretty lively 
 life in his day — how was that? " — I asked. 
 
 The old man spat on the worm, and flung in his 
 hook. 
 
 " He was a very lordly man, everybody knew, 
 sir. The leading persons from Petersburg, as 
 one may say, used to come to visit him. They 
 used to sit at table and eat in their blue ribbons. 
 Well, and he was a master-hand at entertaining 
 them. He would summon me to him: ' Fog,' 
 says he, ' I require some live sterlet to-morrow; 
 order them to be procured, dost thou hear? ' — 
 ' I obey, your Illustriousness.' He used to im- 
 port embroidered coats, wigs, canes, perfumes, 
 ladekolon ^ snuff-boxes, such huge pictures, of 
 the best quality, from Paris itself. He would 
 give a l)anquet, — O Lord and Sovereign INIaster 
 of my life ! - what fireworks and pleasure-drives 
 there would be! They would even fire off can- 
 non. There were forty musicians alone on hand. 
 He kept a (German bandmaster; and the Cxcrman 
 was awfully conceited: he wanted to eat at the 
 same table with the gentlemen and ladies; so his 
 
 ' Eau de Cologne. — Translator. 
 
 ^ A quotation from a familiar ]irayer, by St. Ephraim of 
 Syria, used during the Oreat Fast (Lent). — Tuaksi.ator. 
 
 58
 
 THE RASPBKlUn^ WATER 
 
 Illustriousness gave orders that he should be 
 turned out of doors, and bidden godspeed : ' My 
 niusieians understand their })usiness without him,' 
 says he. You know how it was: the master had 
 the power to do as he hked. They woukl set 
 to dancing, and (huice until dawn, and chiefly the 
 
 lakosez-matradura 'eh eh 
 
 eh thou art caught, brother! " . . . . 
 
 (The old man pulled a small perch out of the 
 water.) " Take it, Styopa. — He was the right 
 sort of a master, the master was," — pursued the 
 old man, throwing his line again: — " and he was 
 a kind soul too ! He 'd thrash vou, on occasion — 
 and the flrst you knew, he 'd have forgotten all 
 about it. Okh, those mistresses. Lord forgive! 
 'T was they that ruined him. And, you see, he 
 chose them chiefly from the lower classes. You 'd 
 suppose that they could n't want for anything 
 more. But no, — you must give them the most 
 costly thing in the whole of Europe ! And I must 
 say: why not live at ease, — that 's the proper 
 thing for a gentleman but as for ruin- 
 ing yourself, that 's not right. There was one 
 in particular : her name was Akulina ; she 's dead 
 now,- — the kingdom of heaven be hers! She was 
 a simple wench, the daughter of the village po- 
 liceman of Sitovo, and such a termagant! She 
 used to slap the Count's cheeks. She bewitched 
 him utterly. She shaved the brow of my 
 
 ' L'^cossais. — Translator. 
 
 59
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 nephew : ' he had spilled ehocolate on her new 
 gown .... and he was not the only one w^hose 
 brow she shaved. Yes And neverthe- 
 less, it was a good little time!" — added the old 
 man, with a deep sigh, as he dropped his eyes 
 and rela2)sed into silence. 
 
 " But you had a severe master, I see," — I be- 
 gan, after a brief pause. 
 
 " That was the taste then, dear little father," 
 — returned the old man, shaking his head. 
 
 " That is no longer done now," — I remarked, 
 without remo^'ing my eyes frcnn him. 
 
 He surveyed me with a sidelong glance. 
 
 " Now, things are better, certainly," — he mut- 
 tered — and flung his line far out. 
 
 We were sitting in the shade; but even in the 
 shade it was stifling. The heavy, sultry air 
 seemed to have died down; the burning face 
 sought the breeze with anguish, but there was no 
 breeze. The sun fairly beat from the blue, dark- 
 ling sky; directly in front of us, on the other 
 shore, a field of oats gleamed yellow, overgrown 
 here and there with wormwood, and not a single 
 ear of the grain stirred. A little lower down, a 
 peasant's horse was standing in the river up to 
 his knees, and lazily swishing himself with his 
 wet tail; no^\' and then, a large fish swam up 
 under an overhanging bush, emitted a bubble, 
 
 ' That is, liad him inacle a soldier for the long term then 
 obligatory. The iiair was shaved to mark the man and prevent 
 desertion. — Traxslator. 
 
 60
 
 THE RASPBERRY WATER 
 
 and gently sank to the bottom, leaving behind 
 him a faint surge. The grasshoppers were shrill- 
 ing in the rusty grass; the quails were calling in 
 a reluctant sort of way; hawks floated above the 
 fields, and frequently came to a standstill, swiftly 
 fluttering their wings, and spreading out their 
 tails like a fan. We sat motionless, overwhelmed 
 with the heat. All at once, behind us, in the 
 ravine, a noise resounded: some one was descend- 
 ing to the spring. I looked round, and beheld 
 a peasant about fifty years of age, dusty, in shirt 
 and bark-slippers, with a ^ilaited birch-bark wallet 
 and a long coat thrown over his shoulders. He 
 approached the spring, drank eagerly, and rose 
 to his feet. 
 
 "Eh, Vlas?" — cried The Fog, taking a look 
 at him: — " good day, brother. Whence has God 
 brought thee? " 
 
 " Good day, Mikhailo Savelitch," — said the 
 peasant, advancing toward us, — " from afar." 
 
 "Where hast thou been?" — The Fog asked 
 him. 
 
 " I have been to Moscow, to the master." 
 
 "AVhy?" 
 
 " I went to petition him." 
 
 " To petition him about what? " 
 
 " Why, that he would reduce my quit-rent, or 
 put me on husbandry-service, or send me for set- 
 tlement elsewhere, perhaj)s. . . . ]My son is dead 
 — so I can't manage it now alone." 
 
 61
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 "Is thv son dead? " 
 
 " Yes. The deceased," — added the peasant, 
 after a brief silence: — " hved in ^Moscow, as a 
 cabman; I must confess that he paid my quit- 
 rent." 
 
 " But is it possible that thou art on quit-rent 
 now J 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What did thy master say? " 
 
 " What did the master sav ? He drove me off ! 
 * How darest thou come straight to me,' says he; 
 ' thou art bound to report first to the steward 
 .... and where am I to transfer thee for set- 
 tlement? Do thou first,' says he, ' pay up thine 
 arrears.' He was thoroughly angry." 
 
 " Well, and so thou hast come back? " 
 
 " So I have come home. I should have liked 
 to find out whether the deceased had left any 
 goods behind him, but I could n't get a straight 
 answer. I says to his employer, says I : ' I 'm 
 Philip's father; ' and he saj's to me: ' How do I 
 know that? — And thy son left nothing,' says 
 he; ' he 's in debt to me, to boot.' Well, and so 
 I went mv wav." 
 
 The peasant told us all this with a grin, as 
 though it were a question of some one else; but 
 a tear welled up in his small, puckered-up eyes, 
 and his lips quivered. 
 
 Art thou going liome now? " 
 
 Why, where else should I be going? Of 
 
 62 

 
 THE RASPBERRY WATER 
 
 course, I 'm going home. INIy wife must be 
 whistling into lier fist now with hunger, 1 think." 
 
 " But tliou miglitcst . . . knowest thou . . ." be- 
 gan Styopushka suddenly, — then grew confused, 
 stopped short, and began to rummage in the pot. 
 
 " And shalt thou go to the steward? " — went 
 on The Fog, glancing at Styopa not without sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " AVhy should I go to him? .... I 'm in ar- 
 rears, anyway. INIy son was ailing for about a 
 year before he died, so that he did not pay even 
 his own quit-rent. . . . And I don't care: there 
 is nothing to be got from me. . . . Be as crafty 
 as you will here, brother, — 't is in vain : mv head 
 is not responsible!" The peasant broke into a 
 laugh. " Kintilyan Semyonitch may worry over 
 it as he will . . . .but . . . ." 
 
 Again Vlas laughed. 
 
 "Well, that's bad, brother Vlas,"— articu- 
 lated The Fog, pausing between his words. 
 
 " How is it bad? No " Vlas's voice 
 
 broke. " How hot it is! " — he went on, mopping 
 his brow with his sleeve. 
 
 " Who is your master? " — I inquired. 
 
 " Count * * *, Valerian Petrovitch." 
 
 "The son of Piotr Ilitch? " 
 
 " Yes, the son of Piotr Ilitch," — replied The 
 Fog. " The deceased Piotr Ilitch allotted Vlas's 
 village to him during his lifetime." 
 
 "Is the Count well?" 
 
 63
 
 ME:srOTT^S OF A SPORTS:\rAN 
 
 
 Yes, thank God," — respoi ukd Vlas. — 
 
 Handsome as steel, his face is as though it 
 were stuffed with fat." 
 
 " See there, dear httle father," — continued 
 The Fog, turning to me: — " it would be all right 
 near IMoscow, but he has put him on quit-rent 
 here." 
 
 " But at how much a houseliold? " 
 
 " Ninety-five rubles a household, ' — muttered 
 Vlas. 
 
 "Well, there now, you see; and there's only 
 the littlest bit of ground, because 't is all the 
 master's forest." 
 
 " And the}' say he has sold that," — remarked 
 the peasant. 
 
 " Well, there now, you see .... Styopa, give 
 
 me a worm Hey, Styopa? What 's the 
 
 matter with thee? hast thou fallen asleep?" 
 
 Styopushka started. The peasant sat down 
 beside us. Again we maintained silence for 
 a while. On the other shore, some one started up 
 a song, and such a mournful one! . . . INIy poor 
 Vlas grew dejected 
 
 Half an hour later we parted company. 
 
 64
 
 IV 
 
 THE DISTKICT DOCTOR 
 
 One day, in aiitiiinii, on my way home from the 
 distant fields, I eaught cold, and was taken ill. 
 Fortunately, the fever ()\'ertook me in the coun- 
 ty-town, in the hotel. 1 seiit for the doctor. Half 
 an hour later, the district physician made his ap- 
 pearance, a man of short stature, thin and hlack- 
 haired. He prescribed for me the customary 
 sudorific, ordered the application of mustard- 
 plasters, very deftly tucked my five-ruble 
 bank-note under his cufF, — but emitted a dry 
 cough and glanced aside as he did so, — and was 
 on the very verge of going off about his own 
 affairs, but somehow got to talking and re- 
 mained. The fever oppressed me; I foresaw a 
 sleepless night, and was glad to chat with the 
 kindly man. Tea was served. IVIy doctor began 
 to talk. He was far from a stupid young fellow, 
 and expressed himself vigorously and quite enter- 
 tainingly. Strange things happen in the world: 
 you may live a long time, and on friendly terms, 
 with one man, and never once speak frankly from 
 your soul with him; witli another you hardly 
 manage to make ac(|uaintance — and behold: 
 
 65
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 either you have })lurted out to him your most 
 secret thoughts, as though you were at confes- 
 sion, or he has blurted out his to vou. 1 know 
 not how I won the confidence of mv new 
 friend, — only, without rhyme or reason, as the 
 saying is, he " took " and told me about a rather 
 remarkable occurrence; and now I am going to 
 impart his narrative to the indulgent reader. I 
 shall endeavour to express myself in the physi- 
 cian's words. 
 
 " You are not acquainted," — he began, in a 
 weak and quavering voice (such is the effect 
 of unadulterated Bervozoff snufF) : — "vou are 
 not acquainted with the judge here, Pavel Lii- 
 
 kitch ]\Iyloft', are you? You are not? 
 
 Well, never mind." (He cleared his 
 
 throat and wiped his eyes.) " AVell, then, please 
 to observe that the affair happened^ — to be accu- 
 rate — during the Great Fast, in the very height 
 of the thaw. I was sitting with him at his house, 
 our judge's, and playing preference. Our judge 
 is a nice man, and fond of playing preference. 
 All of a sudden " (my doctor frequently em- 
 j^loyed that expression: " all of a sudden ") " I 
 am told: 'A man is asking for you.' 'What 
 does he want if ' — said I. Thev tell me: ' He has 
 brought a note — it must be from a sick person.' 
 — ' Give me the note,' — said I. And so it 
 
 proved to be iiom a sick person W^ell, 
 
 very good, — that 's our bread and butter, you un- 
 
 66
 
 TTTK DTSTKTCT DOCTOR 
 
 (lerstand And this was what was the 
 
 matter: the person who wrote to me was a 
 hmded proprietress, a widow; she says: 'My 
 (huii>liter is dying, come for the sake of our Tjord 
 God, and horses have been sent for you.' A Veil, 
 and all that is of no consecpience. . » . . But she 
 lives twenty versts from town, night is falling, 
 and the roads are such, that — faugh! And she 
 herself was the poorest of the poor, I could n't 
 expect to receive more than two rubles,^ and even 
 that much was doubtful; and, in all probability, 
 I should be obliged to take a bolt of crash-linen 
 and some scraps or other. However, you under- 
 stand, duty before everything. All of a sudden, 
 I hand over my cards to Kalliopin, and set off 
 homeward. I look: a wretched little peasant- 
 cart is standing in front of my porch; peasant- 
 horses, — pot-bellied, extremely pot-bellied, — the 
 hair on them a regular matted felt; and the 
 coachman is sitting hatless, by way of respect. 
 Well, thinks I to mvself : evidently, brother, thy 
 
 masters don't eat off gold You are 
 
 pleased to laugh, but I can tell you a poor man, 
 like myself, takes everything into consideration. 
 .... If the coachman sits like a prince, and 
 doesn't doff his cap, and grins in his beard to 
 
 ^ The doctor's fee, as fixed bj^ law, in Russia, is absurdly small. 
 Every one, tliercforo, gives what he sees fit — certain prices being 
 only tacitly understood as projjcr for certain men. Tlie doctor 
 is sujjposed to accept wliat is ottered, and it is contrary to eti- 
 quette for him to remonstrate against the sum. — Thanslator. 
 
 67
 
 ME^rOTl^S OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 boot, and waggles his whip, you may het boldly 
 on getting a couple of bank-bills! But, in this 
 case, I see that the matter does not smack of tliat. 
 However, thought 1 to myself, it can't be helped: 
 duty before everything. I catch up the most in- 
 dispensable remedies, and set out. Will you be- 
 lieve it, we barely managed to drag ourselves 
 to our goal. Tlie road was hellish : brooks, snow, 
 mud, water-washed gullies; for, all of a sudden, 
 a dam had burst— alas! Notwithstanding, I got 
 there. The house is tiny, with a straw-thatched 
 roof. The windows are illuminated: which sig- 
 nifies, that they are expecting me. ^Vn old 
 woman comes out to receive me, — such a dignified 
 old woman, in a mob-cap; ' Save her,' says she, 
 ' she is dying.' ' Pray don't worry,' I say to 
 
 her 'Where is the patient?' — 
 
 'Here, please come this way.'— I look: 'tis a 
 neat little room, in the corner a shrine-lamp, on 
 the bed a girl of twenty years, unconscious. She 
 is fairly burning with heat, she breathes heavily: 
 — 't is fever. There are two other young girls 
 present, her sisters, — thoroughly frightened, in 
 tears. — ' See there,' say they, ' yesterday she was 
 ])erfectly well, and ate with appetite: this morn- 
 ing she complained of her head, and toward 
 evening, all of a sudden, she got into this condi- 
 tion.' .... I said again: 'Pray don't worry,' 
 — you know, the doctor is bound to say that, — 
 and set to work. I let blood, ordered the appli- 
 
 68
 
 THE DISTRICT DOCTOR 
 
 cation of niiistanl-phisters, pi-cscribed a potion. 
 Ill tlie iiicaiitiiiie, I looked and looked at her, and 
 do you know: — well, upon my word, I never 
 before had seen such a face .... a beauty, in 
 one word! I fairly go to pieces with compassion. 
 
 Such pleasing features, eyes Well, 
 
 thank God, she quieted down; the perspiration 
 broke out, she seemed to regain consciousness, 
 cast a glance around her, smiled, passed her hand 
 
 over her face Her sisters bent over her, 
 
 and inquired: 'What ails thee?' — 'Nothing,' — 
 
 says she, and turned away I look . . and 
 
 lo, she has fallen asleep. ' Well,' I say, ' now the 
 patient must be left in peace.' So we all went 
 out of the room on tiptoe; only the maid re- 
 mained, in case she should be needed! And in 
 the drawing-room, the samovar was already 
 standing on the table, and there was Jamaica 
 rum also: in our business, we cannot get along 
 without it. They gave me tea, and begged me 
 to spend the night there. . • • I consented : what 
 was the use of going away now ! The old woman 
 kept moaning. ' What 's the matter with you? ' 
 said I : ' she '11 live, pray do not feel uneasy, and 
 the best thing you can do is to get some rest your- 
 self: it's two o'clock.' — 'But will you give 
 orders tliat I am to be awakened, if anything 
 should liappen?'— 'I will, I will.'— The old 
 woman went off, and the girls also betook them- 
 selves to their own room; they made up a bed 
 
 69
 
 ME.MOIKS OF xV SPORTSMxVX 
 
 for me in tlie drawing-room. So I lay down, — 
 but I couldn't get to sleep, — and no wonder! I 
 seemed to be fretting over something. 1 could n't 
 get my sick girl out of my mind. At last, I 
 could endure it no longer, and all of a sudden, 
 I got up : 1 thought : ' 1 '11 go and see how the pa- 
 tient is getting along.' Her bedroom adjoined 
 the drawing-room. AW'll, 1 rose, and opened the 
 door softly, — and mv heart began to beat vio- 
 lently. I took a look: the maid was fast asleep, 
 with her jiiouth open, and even snoring, the beast! 
 and the sick girl was lying with lier face toward 
 me, and throwing her arms about, the poor thing! 
 I went up to her. . . All of a sudden, she opened 
 
 her eyes, and fixed them on me ! ' Who is 
 
 this? Wilt) is this?' — I was disconcerted. — 'Don't 
 be alarmed, madam,' said I : ' I 'm the doctor, I 
 have come to see how you are feeling.' — ' You 
 
 are the doctor? ' — ' Yes, the doctor Your 
 
 mamma sent to the town for me; we have bled 
 you, madam; now, please to lie quiet, and in a 
 couple of days, God willing, we 11 have you on 
 your feet again.' — ' Akh, yes, yes, doctor, don't 
 let me die .... please, please don't ! ' — ' What 
 makes vou sav that, God bless vou ! ' — ' Her 
 fever is starting up again,' 1 thought to myself. 
 I felt her pulse: it was the fever, sure enough. 
 She looked at me, — then, all of a sudden, she 
 seized my liand. — ' I '11 tell you why I don't want 
 to die, I '11 tell you, I '11 tell you .... now we 
 
 70
 
 THE DISTINCT DOCTOR 
 
 are alone ; only, if you please, you must n't let 
 anybody know .... listen! ' .... I bent down: 
 she brought her lips to my very ear, her hair 
 swept my cheek, — 1 confess that my head reeled, 
 — and began to whisper 1 could under- 
 stand nothing Akh, why, she was de- 
 lirious She whispered and whispered, 
 
 and very rapidly at that, and not in Russian, fin- 
 ished, shuddered, dropped her head back on the 
 pillow, and menaced me with her finger. — ' See 
 that you tell no one, doctor.' . . . Somehow or 
 other, I contrived to soothe her, gave her a drink, 
 waked up the maid, and left the room." 
 
 Here the doctor took snufF frantically, and 
 grew torpid for a moment. 
 
 " But, contrary to my expectation," — he went 
 on, — " the patient was no better on the follow- 
 ing day. I cogitated, and cogitated, and all of a 
 sudden, I decided to remain, although other pa- 
 tients were expecting me. . . . But, you know, 
 that cannot be neglected: your practice suffers 
 from it. But, in the first place, the sick girl was, 
 really, in a desperate condition; and, in the 
 second place, I must tell the truth, I felt strongly 
 attracted to her. JNIoreover, the whole family 
 pleased me. Although they were not wealthy 
 people, yet their culture was, I may say, rare. 
 .... Their father had been a learned man, a 
 writer; he had died in poverty, of course, but 
 had managed to impart a splendid education 
 
 71
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 to his children; he had also left behind him 
 many books. AVhether it was because I worked 
 so zealously over the sick girl, or for other 
 reasons, at all events, 1 venture to assert that 
 they became as fond of me as though I had 
 
 been a relative In the meantime, the 
 
 thaw had reduced the roads to a frightful con- 
 dition: all communications were, so to speak, ut- 
 terly cut off. . . . The sick girl did iiot get well 
 . . . day after day, day after day. . . . But so, 
 sir ... . then, sir . . . ." (The doctor paused 
 for a M'hile). — " Really, I do not know how to 
 state it to j^ou, sir . . ." (Again he took snuff, 
 grunted, and swallowed a mouthful of tea.) " I 
 will tell you, without circumlocution, — my pa- 
 tient .... anyhow .... well, either she fell in 
 love with me or, no, she did n't ex- 
 actly fall in love with me . . . but, anyw^ay . . . 
 really, how^ shall I put it? . . ." (The doctor 
 dropped his eyes, and flushed crimson.) 
 
 "No," — he went on with vivacity: — "she 
 did n't fall in love with me! One must, after all, 
 estimate one's self at one's true value. She was a 
 cultivated girl, clever, well-read, and I had for- 
 gotten even my Latin, completely, I may say. 
 So far as my figure is concerned " (the doctor 
 surveyed himself with a smile), "also, I have 
 nothing to boast of, apparently. But the Lord 
 God did n't distort me into a fool, either: I won't 
 call white black; I understand a thing ov two 
 
 72
 
 THE DISTRICT DOCTOR 
 
 myself. For exaniple, 1 uiulerstood very well 
 indeed that Alexandra Andreevna — her name 
 was Alexandra Andreevna — did not feel love 
 for me, but, so to speak, a friendly inelination, 
 respect, something of that sort. Although she 
 herself, possibly, was mistaken on that pointy yet 
 her condition was such, as you can judge for 
 
 yourself However," — added the doctor, 
 
 who had uttered all these disjointed speeches 
 without stopping to take breath, and with obvious 
 embarrassment: — " I have strayed from the sub- 
 ject a bit, 1 think. ... So you will not under- 
 stand anything but here now, with your 
 
 permission, I '11 tell you the whole story in due 
 order." 
 
 He finished his glass of tea, and began to talk 
 in a more composed voice. 
 
 " Well, then, to proceed, sir. My patient grew 
 constantly worse, and worse, and worse. You 
 are not a medical man, my dear sir; you cannot 
 comprehend what takes place in the soul of a 
 fellow-being, especially when he first begins to 
 divine that his malady is conquering him. What 
 becomes of his self-confidence! All of a sudden, 
 you grow inexpressibly timid. It seems to you, 
 that you have forgotten everything you ever 
 knew, and that the patient does not trust you 
 and that others are beginning to observe that you 
 have lost your wifs, and communicate the symp- 
 toms to you umvillingly, gaze askance at yon, 
 
 73
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPOUTS.MxVX 
 
 whis2)er tot^cther eh, 't is an evil 
 
 plight! J^ut there certainly ninst be a remedy 
 for this malady, you think, if you could only 
 find it. Here now, is n't this it? You try it — no, 
 that 's not it ! You don't ^wa the medicine time 
 to act properly .... now you grasp at this, 
 now at that. You take your prescription-book, 
 — it certainly must be there, you think. To tell 
 the truth, you sometimes open it at liaphazard: 
 
 perchance Fate, you think to yourself 
 
 But, in the meanwhile, the person is dying; and 
 some other 2^hysician might have saved him. A 
 consultation is necessary, you say: ' I will not 
 assume the responsibility.' xVnd what a fool 
 you seem under such circumstances! Well, and 
 you '11 leani to bear it patiently, in course of time 
 you won't mind it. The man dies — it is no fault 
 of yours: you have followed the rules. But 
 there's another torturing thing about it: you 
 behold blind confidence in you, and you yourself 
 feel that you are not capable of helping. Well 
 then, that was precisely the sort of confidence 
 that Alexandra Andreevna's whole family had 
 in me:— and they forgot to think that their 
 daughter was in danger. I, also, on my side, as- 
 sured them that it was all right, while my soul 
 sank into my heels. To crown the calamity, the 
 thaw and breaking up of the roads were so bad, 
 that the coachman ^vould travel whole days at 
 a time in quest of medicine. And I never left 
 
 74
 
 THE DISTRICT DOCTOR 
 
 tlie sick-chamber, 1 could n't tear myself away;, 
 you know, 1 related ridiculous little anecdotes, 
 and played cards with her. 1 sat up all night. 
 ]My old woman thanked me with tears; but 1 
 thought to myself: ' I don't deserve your grati- 
 tude.' I will confess to you frankly, — there 's 
 no reason why I should dissimulate now,- — ^I had 
 fallen in love with my patient. And Alexandra 
 Andreevna had become attached to me: she 
 would let no one but me enter the room. She 
 woidd begin to chat with me, and would interro- 
 gate me — where I had studied, how I lived, who 
 were my parents, whom did I visit? And I felt 
 that she ought not to talk, but as for prohibiting 
 her, positively, you know, I could n't do it. I 
 would clutch my head : — ' What art thou doing, 
 thou villain ? ' — -But then, she would take my 
 hand, and hold it, and gaze at me, gaze long, very 
 long, turn away, sigh, and say: ' How kind you 
 are ! ' Her hands were so hot, her eyes were big 
 and languishing. — ' Yes,' she would say, — ' you 
 are a good man, you are not like our neighbours 
 . . . no, you are not that sort. . . . How is 
 it that I have never known vou until now ! ' 
 — ' Calm yourself, Alexandra Andreevna,' — I 
 would sav. . . . ' I assure vou, I feel I do not 
 know how I have merited .... only, compose 
 yourself, for God's sake .... everything will 
 be all right, you will get well.' — And yet, I must 
 confess to you," added the doctor, bending for- 
 
 75
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 ward, and elevating his eyebrows:— " tliat they 
 had very little to do with the neighbours, because 
 the lower sort were not their ecjuals, and pride 
 prevented their becoming acquainted with the rich 
 ones. As I liave told vou, it was an extremely 
 cultured family: — and, so, you know, I felt flat- 
 tered. She would take her medicine from no 
 hands but mine . . . she would sit up half-way, 
 the poor girl, with my assistance, take it, and 
 look at me .... and my heart would fairly 
 throb. But, in the meantime, she grew worse and 
 worse: ' She will die,' I thought, ' she will infal- 
 libly die.' Will you ])elieve it, I felt like lying 
 down in the grave myself: but her mother and 
 sisters were w^atching, and looking me in the eye 
 .... and their confidence disappeared. 
 
 '"What is it? What is the matter? '—' No- 
 thing, ma'am ; 't is all right, ma'am ! ' — but it 
 wasn't all right, I had merely lost my head! 
 Well, sir, one night I was sitting alone once 
 more, beside the sick girl. The maid was sitting 
 in the room also, and snoring with all her might. 
 . . . Well, there w^as no use in being hard on the 
 unfortunate maid: she w'as harassed enough. 
 Alexandra Andreevna had been feeling very 
 badly all the evening; she w^as tortured by the 
 fever. She kept tossing herself about clear up 
 to midnight; at last, she seemed to fall asleep; 
 at all events, she did not stir, but lay quietly. 
 The shrine-lamp was burning in front of the 
 
 76
 
 TUK DISTRICT DOCTOR 
 
 holy picture in tiic corner. 1 was sitting, you 
 know, with drooping head, and do/ing also. All 
 of a sudden, I felt exactly as though some one 
 had nudged nie in the ribs. 1 turned I'ound. . . 
 
 Lord, my (xod! Alexandra Andreevna was 
 
 staring at me with all her eyes her lips 
 
 parted, her cheeks fairly blazing. — ' What is the 
 matter \\'ith you ? '— ' Doctor, surely I am dy- 
 ing? ' — ' Cxod forbid! ' — ' No, doctor, no; please 
 don't tell me that I shall recover .... don't tell 
 me ... if you only knew . . . listen, for God's 
 sake, don't conceal my condition from me ! ' — and 
 she breathed very fast. — ' If I know for certain 
 that I must die .... I will tell you everything, 
 everything! ' — ' For heaven's sake, Alexandra 
 Andreevna! ' — ' Listen, I have n't been asleep at 
 all, you see; I 've been watching you this long- 
 while .... for God's sake ... I believe in 
 you, you are a kind man, you are an honest man ; 
 
 1 adjure you, by all that is holy on earth — tell 
 me the truth! If you only knew how important 
 it is to me. . . Doctor, tell me, for God's sake, 
 am I in danger? ' — ' What shall I say to you, Al- 
 exandra Andreevna, for mercy's sake ! ' — ' For 
 God's sake, I beseech you ! ' — ' I cannot conceal 
 from you, Alexandra Andreevna, the fact that 
 you really are in danger, but God is merciful 
 
 '— ' I shall die, I shall die! ' . . . . And 
 
 she seemed to be glad, her face became so cheer- 
 ful; I was frightened. — 'But don't be afraid, 
 
 77
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 don't be afraid, death does not terrify me in the 
 least.' — All of a sudden, she raised herself up, 
 and propped herself on her elbow. — ' Now .... 
 well, now I can tell you that I am grateful to 
 you with all my soul, that you are a kind, good 
 man, that I love you.' .... I stared at her like 
 a crazy man; dread fell upon me, you know. . . 
 ' Do you hear? — I love you! '....' Alexandra 
 Andreevna, how liave 1 deserved this!' — 'No, 
 no, you don't understand me .... thou dost 
 not understand me.' .... And all of a sudden, 
 she stretched out her arms, clasped my head, and 
 kissed me. . . . AVill you believe it, I came near 
 
 shrieking aloud I flung myself on my 
 
 knees, and hid my head in the pillow. She was 
 silent; her fingers trembled on my hair; I heard 
 her weeping. I began to comfort her, to reassure 
 her .... to tell the truth, I really do not know 
 what I said to her. — ' You will waken the maid, 
 Alexandra Andreevna,' I said to her. . . ' I 
 thank you .... believe me .... calm your- 
 self.'^ — -' Yes, enough, enough,' she repeated. 
 ' God be with them all; well, they will wake; well, 
 they will come — it makes no difference: for I 
 
 shall die But why art thou timid, what 
 
 dost thou fear? raise thy head. . . . Can it be 
 myself ? .... in that case, forgive me,' — ' Alex- 
 andra Andreevna, what are you saying? .... 
 I love you, Alexandra Andreevna.' — She looked 
 me straight in the eye, and opened her arms. 
 
 78
 
 THE DISTRICT DOCTOR 
 
 — ' Then embrace me.' . . I will tell you frankly: 
 1 don't understand why I did not go crazy that 
 night. 1 was conscious that my patient was kill- 
 ing herself; I saw that she was not quite clear 
 in lier head; I understood, also, that had she not 
 tiiought herself on the brink of death, she would 
 not have thought of me; for, you may say 
 what you like, 't is a terrible thing, all the same, 
 to die at the age of twenty, without having loved 
 any one: that is what was tormenting her, you 
 see ; that is why she, in her despair, clutched even 
 at me, — do you understand now? But she did not 
 release me from her arms. — ' Spare me, Alexan- 
 dra Andreevna, and spare yourself also,' I said. 
 — ' Why should I? ' she said. ' For I must die, 
 you know.' . . . She kept repeating this inces- 
 santly. — ' See here, now; if I knew that I would 
 recover, and become an honest young lady again, 
 I should be ashamed, actually ashamed .... 
 but as it is, what does it matter? ' — ' But who 
 told you that you were going to die? ' — ' Eh, no, 
 enough of that, thou canst not deceive me, thou 
 dost not know how to lie; look at thyself.' — ' You 
 will live, Alexandra Andreevna ; I will cure you. 
 We will ask your mother's blessing on our mar- 
 riage. \ . . We will unite ourselves in the bonds. 
 . . We shall be happy.' — ' No, no, I have taken 
 your word for it, I must die .... thou hast prom- 
 ised me . . . thou hast told me so.' . . . This was 
 bitter to me, bitter for many reasons. And you 
 
 79
 
 .AIE.AIOIRS OF A SPORTS^MxVN 
 
 can j 11(1^0 for yourself, what trifling things hap- 
 pen: they seem to be nothing, yet they hurt. She 
 took it into her head to ask nie \\hat my name 
 was, — not my surname, hut my baptismal name. 
 My ill-luck decreed that it should be Trifon. 
 Yes, sir, yes, sir; Trifon, Trifon Ivanovitch. 
 Everybody in the house addressed me as doctor. 
 There was no help for it, I said : ' Trifon, mad- 
 am.' She narrowed lier eyes, shook her liead, and 
 whispered something in French, — okli, yes, and 
 it was something bad, and then she laughed, and 
 in an ugly way too. A Veil, and I spent the 
 greater part of the night with her in that man- 
 ner. In the morning, I left the room, as though 
 I had been a madman; I went into her room 
 again by daylight, after tea. ]My God, my God! 
 She was unrecognisable: corpses have more col- 
 our when they are laid in their coffins. I swear 
 to you, by my lionour, T do not understand now, * 
 I positively do not understand, how 1 survived 
 that torture. Three days, three niglits more did 
 my patient linger on ... . and what nights 
 they were! AVliat was there that she did not say 
 to me! .... And, on tlie last night, just ima- 
 gine, — I was sitting beside her, and beseeching 
 one thing only of God : ' Take her to Thyself, 
 as speedily as may be, and me along with her.' 
 . . . All of a sudden, the old mother bursts into 
 
 the room I had already told her, on the 
 
 preceding day, that there was but little hope, that 
 
 80
 
 THE DISTRICT DOCTOR 
 
 the girl was in a bad way, and that it wonld not 
 be out ol' j)hice to send lor the priest. As soon 
 as the siek girl beheld her mother, she said: — 
 ' Well, now, 't is a good thing thou hast come 
 . . . look at us, we love each other, we have given 
 t^'aeli other our promise.' — ' What does she mean, 
 doctor, what does she mean ? ' — I turned deathly 
 pale. — ' She 's delirious, ma'am,' said I ; ' 't is the 
 fever heat.' . . But the girl said : ' Enough of 
 that, enough of that, thou hast just said some- 
 thing entirely different to me, and hast accepted 
 a ring from me AVhy dost thou dissimu- 
 late? My mother is kind, she will forgive, she will 
 understand; but I am dying — I have no object 
 in lying; give me thy hand.' .... I sprang up 
 and lied from the room. The old woman, of 
 course, guessed how things stood. 
 
 " But I will not weary you, and I must admit 
 that it is painful to me to recall all this. My 
 patient died on the following day. The kingdom 
 of heaven be hers!" added the doctor hastily, 
 with a sigh. " Before she died, she asked her 
 family to leave the room, and leave me alone with 
 her. — ' Forgive me,' — she said, — ' perhaps I am 
 
 culpable in your sight my illness . . . 
 
 but, believe me, I have never loved any one more 
 than I have loved you .... do not forget me 
 .... take care of my ring.' " 
 
 The doctor turned away ; I took his hand. 
 
 " Ekh,"— he said,—" let 's talk of something 
 
 81
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 else, or would iTt yoii like to play preference for 
 a while? ^Nleii like us, you know, ought not to 
 yield to such lofty sentiments. All we fellows 
 have to think of is: how to keep the children from 
 squalling, and our wiyes from scolding. For 
 since then, you see, I haye managed to contract 
 a legal marriage, as the saying is. . . Of course 
 . . . . I took a merchant's daughter: she had 
 seyen thousand ruhles of dowry. Her name is 
 Akulina; just a match for Trifon. She's a 
 yixen, I must tell you ; hut, luckily, she sleeps all 
 day. . . But how ahout that game of prefer- 
 ence? " 
 
 We sat down to play preference, for kopek 
 stakes. Trifon lyanitch won t^^'o rubles and a 
 half from me — and went away late, greatly 
 elated with his yictory. 
 
 82
 
 MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOFF 
 
 In autuiiiii, the woodcock frequently take up 
 •their stand in ancient hnden parks. We have a 
 good many such parks in the Government of 
 Orel. Our great-grandfathers, in selecting resi- 
 dence sites, invariahly laid out a couple of desya- 
 tinas of good land in a fruit-orchard, with alleys 
 of linden-trees. During the last fifty — at the 
 most, seventy — years, these farms, these " nohle- 
 men's nests," have been gradually disappearing 
 from the face of the earth; their manors have 
 rotted away or have been sold for removal, the 
 stone offices have become converted into heaps 
 of ruins, the ajjple-trees have died out and gone 
 for firewood, the fences and wattled hedges have 
 been annihilated. Only the lindens have thriven 
 gloriously as of yore, and now, surrounded by 
 tilled fields, proclaim to our volatile race " our 
 fathers and brethren departed this life." ^ A 
 most beautiful tree is such an aged linden. 
 
 'A quotation from the " aiifiinciited litany" in the services of 
 the Eastern Catholic Church; " I'urtiierniore, we pray for ... . 
 all our devout fathers and brethren departed this life before us. 
 Orthodox believers, who here, and in all the world, lie asleep in 
 the Lord." — Translatok. 
 
 83
 
 ME.MUiKh OF A SrOKTS.MAN 
 
 Even the ruthless axe of the Russian 
 
 peasant spares it. Its leaves are small, its mighty 
 boughs spread out widely in all direetions, be- 
 neath them reigns eternal shadow. 
 
 One day, as 1 was roving with Ermolai over 
 the fields in quest of partridges, 1 espied on one 
 side an abandoned park, and directed my foot- 
 steps thither. No sooner had 1 entered the edge 
 of the grove than a woodcock rose with a whir 
 from the bushes. 1 fired, and at the same mo- 
 ment a cry rang out a few paces from me: the 
 frightened face of a young girl peered forth from 
 behind the trees, and immediatelv vanished. Er- 
 molai rushed up to me. — " Why do you shoot 
 here? A landed proprietor lives here." 
 
 Before I could answer him, before my dog, 
 with noble dignity, could fetch me the bird 1 had 
 killed, hasty footsteps made themselves audible, 
 and a man of lofty stature, with moustaches, 
 emerged from the grove, and halted in front of 
 me, with an aspect of displeasure. I made my 
 excuses as best I might, mentioned my name, and 
 offered him the bird which had been shot on his 
 domain. 
 
 " Very well," — he said to me, with a smile, " I 
 will accept your game, but only on one condi- 
 tion: that you will stay to dinner with us." 
 
 I must confess that I was not greatly pleased 
 at his suggestion, but it was impossible to refuse. 
 
 " I am the proprietor who lives here, and your 
 
 S4<
 
 MY NEIGHBOUR RADIT.OTF 
 
 neighbour, Kadilofi'; pcrlui])s you have lieard of 
 me," — went on my new acciuaintance: — "this is 
 Sun(hiy, and my dinner ought to be fairly decent, 
 otherwise I would not have invited you." 
 
 I made the sort of reply which is customary 
 on such occasions, and started to follow him. 
 The recently cleaned path soon led us out of the 
 linden grove; we entered the kitchen-garden. 
 Among the aged apple-trees and overgrown 
 gooseberry bushes gleamed round, pale-green 
 heads of cabbage; hop-vines garlanded the tall 
 poles in festoons ; dark-brown sticks rose in dense 
 array from the beds, entangled with dried pea- 
 vines ; huge, flat squashes seemed to be wallowing 
 on the ground; cucumbers gleamed yellow from 
 beneath their dusty, angular leaves; along the 
 wattled fence tall nettles rocked to and fro; in 
 two or three places Tatar honeysuckle, elder- 
 trees, and sweet-briar grew in masses, — the re- 
 mains of bygone " flower-plots." By the side of 
 a small fish-pond, filled with reddish and slimy 
 water, a well was visible, surrounded by puddles. 
 Ducks were busily splashing and waddling in 
 these puddles; a dog, trembling all over and with 
 eyes screwed up, was gnawing a bone in the open 
 glade; a piebald cow was nipping idly at the 
 grass there, now and then flirting her tail over 
 her gaunt back. The path swerved aside; from 
 behind thick willows and birches, there peeped 
 forth at us a small, aged grey house, with a board 
 
 85
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 roof and a crooked porch. Radilofi' halted. — 
 " By the wa}^" — he said good-naturedly, look- 
 ing me square in the face: — " Now 1 come to 
 think of it; perhaps you don't want to enter my 
 house at all; in that case " 
 
 I did not give him an opportunity to finish, 
 and assiu'ed him that, on the contrary, it would 
 give me great pleasure to dine with him. 
 
 " Well, as you like." 
 
 We entered the house. A young fellow in a 
 long kaftan of heavy blue cloth met us on the 
 porch. RadilofF immediately ordered him to 
 give Ermolai some vodka; my huntsman made 
 a respectfid obeisance to the back of the mag- 
 nanimous giver. From the anteroom, papered 
 with divers motley-hued pictures and hung 
 around w'ith cages, we entered a small room — 
 RadilofF's study. I took off my hunting accou- 
 trements, and set my gun in one corner; the 
 young fellow in the long-tailed kaftan bi'ushed 
 me off with alacrity. 
 
 " Come, now let us go into the drawing-room," 
 — said Radiloff, cordiallv: — " I will introduce 
 you to my mother." 
 
 I followed him. In the drawing-room, on the 
 central divan, sat an old lady of short stature, in 
 a light-])rown gown and a white mob-cap, with 
 a kindly, emaciated face, a timid and mournful 
 gaze. 
 
 " Here, mother, let me introduce our neigh- 
 bour, * * *." 
 
 86
 
 MY NEiGlllU)Uli RADILOFF 
 
 The old lady half-rose, and bowed to me, witli- 
 jut letting go her hold on a coarse worsted reti- 
 cule in the shape of a bag. 
 
 " Have you been long in our parts? " — she 
 asked, in a weak and gentle voice, blinking her 
 eyes. 
 
 " No, madam, not long." 
 
 " Do you intend to stay here long? " 
 
 " Until winter, 1 think." 
 
 The old lady relapsed into silence. 
 
 " And here," — joined in Hadiloff, pointing to 
 a tall, thin man, whom 1 had not noticed on en- 
 tering the drawing-room: — "this is Feodor Mi- 
 khyeitch. . . . Come on, Fedya, show the visitor 
 thine art. Why hast thou tucked thyself into 
 a corner? " 
 
 Feodor IMikhyeitch immediately rose from his 
 chair, picked up from the window-sill a miserable 
 fiddle, grasped his bow — not by the end, as is the 
 proper way, but by the middle, leaned the fiddle 
 against his breast, shut his eyes, and began to 
 dance, singing a song and sawing away on the 
 strings. Judging from his appearance, he was 
 seventy years old; a long nankeen coat dangled 
 mournfully against his thin, bony limbs. He 
 danced; now he shook his small, bald head in a 
 dashing way, again he twisted it about, stretched 
 out his sinewy neck, stamped his feet up and 
 down on one spot, and sometimes, with evident 
 difficulty, he bent his knees. His toothless mouth 
 emitted a decrepit voice. IladilofF must have 
 
 87
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSxMAN 
 
 divined, from the expression of my face, that 
 Fedya's " art " did not afford me much pleasure. 
 
 " Come, very good, old man, that will do," — 
 he said: — " thou mayest go and reward thyself." 
 
 Feodor Mikhveitch immechatelv laid the fiddle 
 on the \\ indow-sill, bowed first to me, as visitor, 
 then to the old lady, then to Radiloff, and left 
 the room. 
 
 " He was once a landed proprietor also," — 
 pursued my new friend:—" and a rich one, but 
 he ruined himself — so now he lives with me .... 
 but in his day he was regarded as the leading gay 
 rake in the government; he carried two wives 
 away from their husbands, he kept singers, he 
 himself danced and sang in a masterly manner. 
 . . . But wouldn't you like some vodka? for 
 dinner is already on the table." 
 
 A young girl, the one of whom I had caught 
 a glimpse in the garden, entered the room. 
 
 " Ah, here 's Olya too! " — remarked Radiloff, 
 slightly turning away his head: — "I beg that 
 you will love and favour her. . . . Well, let 's 
 go to dinner." 
 
 We betook ourselves to the dining-room, and 
 seated ourselves. While we were walking from 
 the drawing-room and taking our seats, Feodor 
 Mikhyeitch, whose eyes had begun to beam and 
 his nose to flush a little red from liis " reward," 
 sang: "Let the thunder of victory resound!" 
 A special place was set for him in one corner, at 
 
 88
 
 MY NETCTT130ITR RADILOFF 
 
 a little tabic witliout a cloth. The poor old man 
 could not boast of cleanliness, and therefore he 
 was always kept at a certain distance from the 
 company. He crossed himself, sighed, and be- 
 gan to eat like a shark. The dinner really was 
 far from bad, and, in its quality of a Sunday din- 
 ner, did not lack quivering jelly and Spanish 
 breezes (patties). At table, Radiloff, who had 
 served for ten years in an army infantry regi- 
 ment, and had been in Turkey, began to tell 
 stories. I listened to him attentively, and 
 stealthily watched Olga. She was not very 
 pretty; but the calm and decided expression of 
 her face, her broad, white brow, thick hair, and, 
 in particular, her brown eyes, small but sensible, 
 clear and vivacious, would have struck any one 
 else in my place. She seemed to watch Radik)fF's 
 every word; it was not interest but passionate 
 attention which was depicted on her countenance. 
 RadilofF, as to years, might have been her father; 
 he called her " thou," but I instantly divined that 
 she was not his daughter. In the course of the 
 conversation he mentioned his deceased wife — 
 " her sister," he added, indicating Olga. She 
 blushed swiftly, and dropped her eyes. Radiloff 
 paused for a while, and changed the subject. 
 The old lady never uttered a word throughout 
 the dinner, ate hardly anything herself, and did 
 not press anything on me. Her features ex- 
 haled a sort of timorous and hoj^eless expecta- 
 
 89
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 tion, that sadness of old age whieh makes the 
 onlookers heart contract painfully. Toward the 
 end of the dinner Feodor Mikhyeitch undertook 
 to " glorify " ' the hosts and the guest, but Radi- 
 loff, after a glance at me, requested him to hold 
 his tongue; the old man passed his hand across 
 his mouth, blinked his eves, bowed and sat down 
 again, but this time on the very edge of his chair. 
 After dinner, Radiloff and I betook ourselves 
 to his study. 
 
 In people who are powerfully and constantly 
 occupied by a single thought or a single passion, 
 there is perceptible something common to them 
 all, a certain external resemblance in demeanour, 
 however different, nevertheless, may be their 
 qualities, capacities, positions in the world, and 
 
 ^ The " Glory " is reckoned among the Christmas songs, or carols, 
 and in its dignified form relates, like many other folk-songs, to 
 the harvest. In this form, extracts or adaptations of it are used 
 in connection with solemn occasions — a fragment of it appeared 
 as part of the miniature decoration of the menu for the present 
 Emperor's coronation banquet, for instance. In another form, it 
 is one of tlie Twelfth-Niglit songs among young people, and used 
 like the divining games conunon to All-Hallowe'en. In this lat- 
 ter form, Ostrovsky has utilized it in his play, "Poverty is not a 
 Sin," Act II, Scene v. Tlie form referred to above is the stately 
 one, and runs somewhat as follows: "Glory to God in heaven. 
 Glory .'—To our Lord on tliis earth, Olori/! — May our Lord (the 
 word used is ijusuddi-, wiiicli, witli a ca])ital, means tlie I^mperor), 
 never grow old. Glory! — May liis l)right robes never be spoiled, 
 Glory! — May his good steeds never lie worn out, Glory! — May his 
 trusty servants never falter, Glory! — May tlie right throughout 
 Russia, Glory! — Be fairer than the bright Sun, Glory! — May the 
 Tzar's golden treasury. Glory! — He for ever full to the brim. 
 Glory! — May the great rivers. Glory! — Hear their renown to the 
 sea, Glory! — The little streams to the mill. Glory!" — Obviously, 
 this can easily be adapted to any circumstances. — Translator. 
 
 90
 
 MY NEIGH HOUR KADIT.OIF 
 
 education. The more 1 observed Kadiloff, the 
 more did it seem to me that he belonged to the 
 category of such people. He talked about farm- 
 ing, about the harvest, the mowing, about the 
 war, about the county gossip and the approach- 
 ing elections,' talked without constraint, even 
 with interest, but suddenly he heaved a sigh, 
 dropped into an arm-chair, like a man who is 
 exhausted with heavy toil, and passed his hand 
 over his face. His whole soul, kind and warm, 
 seemed to be permeated through and through, 
 saturated with one feeling. I had already been 
 struck by the fact that I could not discern in him 
 a passion either for eating, or for liquor, or for 
 hunting, or for Kursk nightingales," or for 
 pigeons afflicted with epilepsy, or for Russian 
 literature, or for pacers, or for hussar jackets, 
 or for card-playing or billiards, or for dancing 
 parties, or for paper-mills and beet-sugar fac- 
 tories, or for embellished arbours, or for tea, or 
 for trace-horses trained to the degree of perver- 
 sion," or for fat coachmen girt directly under 
 the armpits, for those magnificent coachmen, 
 whose eyes — God knows why — twist asquint and 
 
 1 For Marshal of Nobility; for the Governmeut or district.— Trans- 
 lator. 
 
 - Tiie iiiglitingales from tlie Kurtsii Govcrnnieiit arc reputed the 
 finest in the country, and have several extra " tifrns " to their song. 
 — Translator. 
 
 ■' Meaning — the side horses in llie troika or tlu'ec-iiorse team, 
 trained to gallop spread out like a fan from the central trotter, with 
 heads held down and backwards, so that those in the ccjuipage can see 
 their eyes and nostrils — tiiis in extremes. — Translator. 
 
 91
 
 ME.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 fairly pop out of their heads at every iiiove- 
 nient of their necks. . . . ** What sort of a coun- 
 try squire is he, I d hke to know! " 1 thought. 
 And in the meantime, he put on no airs of heing 
 a gloomy man, and discontented with liis lot; on 
 the contrary, he fairly reeked with an atmo- 
 sphere of unfastidious good-will, cordiality, and 
 almost offensive readiness to be hail-fellow-well- 
 met with every one who came along, without dis- 
 crimination. It is true that, at the same time, 
 you felt that he could not make friends, really 
 become intimate, with any one whomsoever, and 
 that he could not, not because he had no need of 
 other people in general, but because his whole 
 life had, for the time being, turned inward. As 
 I intently observed Radiloff, I could not possi- 
 bly imagine liim to myself as happy, either now 
 or at any other time. He was not a beauty, 
 either; but in his glance, in his smile, in his whole 
 being there was concealed something extremely 
 attractive, — precisely tliat: concealed. So, aj)- 
 parently, one w^ould have liked to know him 
 better, to love him. Of course, the country 
 squire, the steppe-dweller, was apparent in him 
 at times; but, notwithstanding, he was a splendid 
 fellow. 
 
 We had just begun to discuss the new INIarshal 
 of the Nobility for the district, wlien, all of a 
 sudden, Olga's voice resounded at the door: 
 " Tea is ready." We went to the drawing-room. 
 
 92
 
 MY NElCilTHOUlJ HADILOFF 
 
 Feodor JMikhyeitcli was sitting, as before, in liis 
 nook between the small window and the door, 
 with his feet modestly tucked up. lladiloff' s 
 mother was knitting a stocking. Through the 
 windows ojien toward the garden there wafted 
 in the chill of autumn and a scent of apples. 
 Olga was busily poiu'ing out tea. I surveyed 
 her now with greater attention than at dinner. 
 She spoke very little, like all country maidens 
 in general, but in her, at least, I did not observe 
 any desire to say something fine, together with 
 a torturing sense of emptiness and impotence; 
 she did not sigh, as though from a superabun- 
 dance of inex])ressible sentiments, did not roll 
 up her eyes, did not smile dreamily and indefi- 
 nitely. Her gaze was calm and indifferent, like 
 that of a person who is resting after a great hap- 
 piness, or a great anxiety. Her walk, her move- 
 ments, were decided and unconstrained. She 
 pleased me greatly. 
 
 RadilofF and I got to talking again. I cannot 
 now recall how we arrived at the familiar re- 
 mark: how^ frequently the most insignificant 
 things produce a greater impression than the 
 most important. 
 
 "Yes,"— said RadilofF:—"! have had that 
 experience myself. I have been married, as you 
 know. Not long .... three years; mj^ wife 
 died in childbed. I thought that I should not 
 survive her; I w^as frightfully afflicted, over- 
 
 93
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 whelmed, but 1 could not weep — I went about 
 like a madman. They dressed her, in tlie usual 
 way, and placed her on the table — here, in this 
 room. The priest came; the chanters came, and 
 they began to sing, to pray, to cense with incense; 
 1 made reverences to tlie earth, but not a tear 
 did 1 shed. jNIv heart seemed to have turned to 
 stone, and my head also, — and I had grown 
 heavy all over. Thus passed the first day. On 
 the following morning I went to my wife, — it 
 was in summer, the sun ilhmiined lier from head 
 to feet, and so brilliantl^^ — All at once I saw 
 . . . ." Here RadilofF involuntarily shud- 
 dered. . . " what do vou tliink ? One of her eves 
 was not quite closed, and on that eye a fly was 
 walking. ... I fell to the floor in a heap, un- 
 conscious, and when I recovered mv senses, I 
 began to w^eep, to weep, — I coifld not stop. ..." 
 
 Radilofl' relapsed into silence. I looked at 
 him, tlien at Olga. ... I shall never forget the 
 expression of her face as long as I live. The old 
 lady dropped the stocking on her knees, pulled a 
 handkerchief from her reticifle, and stealthily 
 wiped away a tear. Feodor ^Nlikhyeitch sud- 
 denly rose to his feet, seized his fiddle, and started 
 a song in a hoarse, wild voice. He probably 
 wished to cheer us up; but we all shuddered at his 
 first sound, and Radflofl' requested him to be 
 quiet. 
 
 "However," — he went on: — "what has haj^- 
 
 94
 
 MY NEICTTBOn? HADILOFF 
 
 pened, has happened; the past eaiiiiot be recalled, 
 and, after all ... . everything is for the best 
 in this world, as Voltaire — I think it was — once 
 said," he added hastily. 
 
 "Yes," — I returned: — "of course. Besides, 
 every misfortune may be borne, and there is 
 no situation so bad, but that one can escape 
 from it." 
 
 " Do you think so? " — remarked RadilofF. — 
 " Well, perha]:)s you are right. I remember 
 lying half -dead in the hospital in Turkey: I had 
 putrid fever. Well, our quarters were nothing 
 to brag of — of course, it was war-time, — and we 
 thanked God for even that much! All of a sud- 
 den, more patients were brought to us, — where 
 were they to be put? The doctor rushed hither 
 and thither : there was no room. At last he came 
 up to me, and asked the assistant: ' Is he alive? ' 
 The man answered: ' He was this morning.' The 
 doctor bent over me, listening: I was breathing. 
 My friend lost patience. ' Well, he has got a 
 stupid sort of nature,' — said he : — ' why, the man 
 will die, he will infallibly die, and he keej)s 
 creaking on, dragging along; he merely takes 
 up space, and interferes with others.' Well, I 
 thought to myself, thou art in a bad way, Mi- 
 khailo ^likhailitch. . . . And behold, I got well 
 and am alive at the present moment, as you maj^ 
 see. So, you must be right." 
 
 " I am right, in any case," — I replied: — ■" even 
 
 95
 
 me:moirs of a sportsman 
 
 if 3^ou Imtl died, you would have escaped from 
 your evil state."' 
 
 " Of course, of course," — he added, — dealing 
 the table a heavy blow with his hand. ..." All 
 
 that is required, is to make up one's mind 
 
 What 's the sense of enduring a bad situation? 
 .... Why delay, drag matters out? . . ." 
 
 Olga rose swiftly and went out into the 
 garden. 
 
 " Come, now, Fedya, a dance-tune," — ex- 
 claimed Radilotf. 
 
 Fedya leaped to his feet, strode about the room 
 with that peculiar dandified gait wherewith the 
 familiar " goat " treads around the tame bear, 
 and struck up: " When at our gate . . . ." 
 
 The rumble of a racing-gig resounded at the 
 entrance, and a few moments later there came 
 into the room an old man of lofty stature, broad- 
 shouldered and heavily-built, freeholder Ovsy- 
 anikoff. . . . But Ovsyanikoff is so remarkable 
 and original a person, that, with the reader's 
 permission, we will discuss him in another ex- 
 cerpt. But now, I will merely add, on my ac- 
 count, that on the following day Ermolai and 
 I set off a-lninting as soon as it was light, and 
 from the hunt went home; . . , that a week 
 later, I ran in to see Radiloff, but found neither 
 him nor Olga at home, and two weeks afterward 
 learned that he had suddenly disappeared, aban- 
 doned his mother, and gone off somewhere or 
 
 96
 
 MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOFF 
 
 other with his sistcr-in-hiw. The vvliole govern- 
 ment was in eommotion, and gossiping about this 
 occurrenee, and only then, at hist, did I under- 
 stand the expression of Olga's face during Ra- 
 diloff's story. It had not breathed forth compas- 
 sion alone then: it had also flamed with jealousy. 
 
 Before my departure from the country I 
 called on old JMme. Radiloff . I found her in the 
 drawing-room; she was playing "fool" with 
 Feodor INIikhyeitch. 
 
 "Have you any news from your son?"^ — I 
 asked her at last. 
 
 The old lady began to weep. I questioned her 
 no further about RadilofF.^ 
 
 * Marriage with a sister-in-law is prohibited in the Eastern 
 Catholic Church. Two brothers may not even wed two sisters. — 
 Translator. 
 
 97
 
 VI 
 
 FREEHOLDER OVSYANIKOFF * 
 
 Picture to yourselves, dear readers, a stout, tall 
 man, seventy years of age, with a face somewhat 
 suggestive of that of Kryloff ,- with a clear and 
 intelligent gaze, heneath overhanging eyehrows: 
 with a stately mien, deliberate speech, slow gait; 
 there is OvsyanikofF for you. He wore a ca- 
 pacious blue surtout with long sleeves, a lilac silk 
 kerchief round his neck, briglitly-polished boots 
 with tassels, and, altogether, resembled a well-to- 
 do merchant. His hands were very handsome, 
 soft and white; in the course of conversation, he 
 frequently fingered a button of his coat. Ovsy- 
 iinikoff, by his dignity and impassiveness, his 
 intelligence and la/iness, his straightforwardness 
 and stubbornness, reminded me of the Russian 
 
 ' The " freeholders " constitute a peculiar intermediate class, 
 neither gentry nor peasants. Ihey are: 1. Settlers wiio regard 
 tlicniselves of noble lineaire, and, in some cases, fornu'riy owned 
 serfs. 2. Descendants of nobles of tlic court service and of military 
 men who were colonised in the Ukraina (Border-Marches) in the 
 XVlTlh century. They are found chiefly in tiie governments of 
 Taml)(')ir, N'oronezii, and neigiibouring governments, once the 
 Border-Marches.— Translator. 
 
 -Ivan Andreevitch Krylotf (1TG3-I84i), the famous Russian 
 fabulist. — Translator. 
 
 98
 
 IREEIIOl.DKR OVSYANIKOFF 
 
 boyars of the times jinterior to Peter tlie Great: 
 .... the feryaz ' would have suited his style. 
 He was one of the last survivors of the oldeu 
 days. All his neighbours respected him ex- 
 tremely, and regarded it as an honour to know 
 him. His brother freeholders all but said their 
 prayers to him, doffed their caps to him from 
 afar, were proud of him. Generally speaking, 
 to this day, we find it difficult to distinguish a 
 freeholder from a peasant: his farming-opera- 
 tions are almost worse than those of a peasant, 
 his calves are forever in the buckwheat fields, his 
 horses are barely alive, his harness is of ropes. 
 Ovsyanikoff was an exception to the general 
 ride, although he was not reputed to be wealthy. 
 He lived alone with his wife, in a snug, neat little 
 house, kept only a small staff of servants, clothed 
 his people in Russian style, and called them la- 
 bourers. And they really tilled his land. He did 
 not claim to be a nobleman, he did not pretend 
 to be a landed proprietor, he never, as the saying 
 is, " forgot himself," he did not seat himself at 
 the first invitation, and at the entrance of a new 
 visitor he invariably rose from his seat, but with 
 so much dignit}', with so much majestic courtesy, 
 that the visitor involuntarily saluted him the 
 more profoundly. Ovsyanikoff held to ancient 
 customs not out of superstition (he had a fairly 
 
 * An ancient, long-skirted coat, with long sleeves, no collar, 
 and no defined waist-line.— Than si.ator. 
 
 99
 
 MEISrOIRS OF A SPORTS.MAX 
 
 liberal soul), but from liabit. For example, he 
 did not like ecjuipages with springs, because he 
 did not find them comfortable, and drove about 
 either in a racing-gig, or in a small, handsome 
 cart with a leather cushion, and himself held the 
 reins over a good bay trotter. (He kept only 
 bay horses.) The coachman, a rosy-cheeked 
 young fellow, with his hair cut in a bowl-shaped 
 crop, clad in a bluish long coat and a low sheep- 
 skin cap, and with a strap for a girdle, sat re- 
 spectfully by his side. Ovsyanikoff always slept 
 after dinner, went to the bath on Saturdavs, read 
 only religious books (on which occasions he 
 pompously set a j^air of silver-mounted specta- 
 cles astride of his nose), rose and went to bed 
 early. But he shaved off his beard, and wore his 
 hair in foreign fashion. He w^elcomed visitors 
 with much affection and cordiality, but did not 
 bow to their girdles, did not fuss, did not treat 
 them to all sorts of dried and salted viands. — 
 "Wife!" he would sav deliberatelv, without 
 rising from his seat, and turning his head slightly 
 in her direction :- — " Fetch the gentlemen some 
 dainty morsel or other." He regarded it as a sin 
 to sell grain, the gift of God, and in the year 
 1840, at a time of general famine and fright- 
 fully high prices, he distributed his entire store 
 to the neigh})()uring landed proprietors and 
 peasants; in the following year, they repaid their 
 debt to him in kind, with gratitude. The neigh- 
 
 100
 
 FREEHOLDKl^ OVSYANIKOFF 
 
 hours frc(|iiently resorted to Ovsyaiiikoff' with 
 appeals to arhitrate, to effect reconeihations he- 
 tween them, and ahiiost always suhniitted to his 
 decree, oheyed his advice. INIany, thanks to him, 
 got the houndaries of thejr land definitely set- 
 tled But after two or three skirmishes 
 
 with landed proprietresses, he announced that 
 he declined any sort of intervention hetween per- 
 sons of the female "sex. lie could not endure 
 haste, agitated precipitation, women's chatter 
 and " fussiness." Once it happened that his 
 house caught fire. A labourer rushed precipi- 
 tately to him, yelling: "Fire! Fire!" — "Well, 
 what art thou yelling for? " said Ovsyanikoff, 
 calmly: — "Give me my hat and staff." — He 
 was fond of breaking in his horses for himself. 
 One day, a mettlesome Bitiuk ^ dashed headlong 
 down-hill ^\\\\\ him, toward a precipice. " Come, 
 that will do, that will do, thou green colt, — thou 
 wilt kill thyself," Ovsyanikoff remarked good- 
 naturedly to him, and a moment later flew over 
 the precipice, along with his racing-drozhky, the 
 small lad who was sitting behind, and the horse. 
 Luckily, the sand lay in heaps at the bottom of 
 the ravine. No one was injured, but the Bitiuk 
 dislocated his leg.—" Well, there, thou seest,"— 
 went on Ovsyanikoff in a calm voice, as he rose 
 
 '" Bitiiiks "—horses from Bitiuk; a special race, which were 
 reared in the Government of Voronezh, near the well-known 
 "Khryenovoy" (the former stud-farm of Count Orloflf).— Trans- 
 lator. 
 
 101
 
 31E.M01KS OF A SrOKTS.MAN 
 
 from the ground: — " 1 told thee so." — xVnd lie 
 had found himself a wife to match him. Tatyana 
 Ih'nitc'hna Ovsyanikolf was a woman of lofty 
 stature, dignified and taciturn, Avith a cinnamon- 
 hrown silk kerchief forever hound ahout her 
 head. She exhaled a chilly atmosphere, although 
 not oidy did no one accuse her of being severe, 
 hut, on the contrary, many poor wretches called 
 her " dear little mother " and " benefactress." 
 Kegidar features, large, dark eyes, thin lips, still 
 bore witness to her formerly renowned beauty. 
 OvsvanikofF had no children. 
 
 I made his acquaintance, as the reader already 
 is aware, at Radiloif "s, and a couple of days later 
 I went to see him. I found him at home. He 
 was sitting in a large leathern arm-chair, and 
 reading the Tchetva-]Minava.^ A grev cat was 
 purring on his shoulder. He welcomed me, ac- 
 cording to his wont, caressingly and in stately 
 wise. We entered into conversation. 
 
 " But pray tell me truly. Luka Petrovitch," — 
 I said, among other things; — " Things were bet- 
 ter formerlv. in vour time, were n't thev? " 
 
 " Some things reallv were better, I will 
 tell vou," — returned OvsvanikofF: — "We lived 
 more peacefully: there was greater ease, really. 
 . . . But, nevertheless, things are better now; 
 and they will be better still for our children, God 
 willing." 
 
 ' " The Martyrologj"," or Lives of the Saints. — Tbakslatob. 
 
 102
 
 FREEHOLDER OVSYAXIKOFF 
 
 "But 1 expected, Eukji Fetrovitcli, tliut ycni 
 would laud the olden days to me." 
 
 " No, I have no special cause to laud tlie olden 
 times. Here, now, to give an instance, you are 
 a landed proprietor at the present day, just such 
 a landed proprietor as your deceased grandfather 
 was hefore vou, but vou will never have the 
 power he had! and you are not the same sort of 
 a man, either. Other gentlemen oppress us now- 
 adays; but, evidently, that cannot be dispensed 
 with. You can't make an omelette without 
 breaking eggs. Xo, I no longer see what I 
 used to wonder at in my youth." 
 
 "And what was that, for example?" 
 
 " Why, take this now, for instance, I will refer 
 to your grandfather once more. He was an 
 overbearing man! he wronged folks like me. 
 Xow, perhaps you know — and how can you help 
 knowing about your land? — that wedge wliich 
 
 runs from Tcheplygino to jNIalinino; 
 
 You have it planted to oats now. . . . Well, 
 that 's ours, vou know, — every bit of it ours. 
 Your grandfather took it away from us; he rode 
 out on horseback, pointed it out with his hand, 
 said: " ]My property," — and took possession of 
 it. My father, now dead (the kingdom of heaven 
 be his!), was a just man, but he was also a hot- 
 tempered man, and he would not j)ut up with 
 that, — and who does like to lose his property? 
 — and he appealed to the court of law. One 
 
 103
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 judge gave it to him, but the others did not agree, 
 — they were afraid. So they reported to your 
 grandfather to the effeet that ' Piotr Ovsyani- 
 koff is making a eomphiint against you; lie says 
 you hav'e been jjleased to deprive him of his land.' 
 .... Your grandfather immediately sent his 
 huntsman Bausch to us, with a squad. ... So 
 they took my father and carried him off to your 
 hereditary estate. I was a little lad then, and ran 
 after them, barefooted. AVhat next? .... Thev 
 took him to your house, and flogged him in front 
 of the windows. And your grandfather stood 
 on the balcony, and looked on; and your grand- 
 mother sat at the window and looked on also. 
 My father shouts: ' Dear little mother, JMarya 
 Vasilievna, intercede! Do you, at least, spare 
 me ! ' But all she did was to keep rising up, now 
 and then, and taking a look. So then they made 
 my father promise to retire from the land, and 
 they ordered him to return thanks, to boot, that 
 they had let him go alive. And so it has remained 
 in your possession. Just go and ask your own 
 peasants: ' What is that land called? ' The land 
 of the oaken cudgel ^ it is called, because it was 
 taken away by an oaken cudgel. And that is 
 why it is impossible for us, the petty people, very 
 greatly to regret the ancient order of things." 
 
 I did not know what reply to make to Ovsy- 
 anikofF, and did not dare to look him in the face. 
 
 ' Dubovshntchimi, in Russian. — TnAXSLAxoR. 
 
 104
 
 1 REKIIOI.DKU OVSYANl KOFF 
 
 " And then take another of our nei^hhours, 
 who made his nest among us in those days, — K6- 
 molf, Stepjin Niktopohonitch. lie tormented 
 my fatlier to death: if not with biting, witli 
 serateliing. lie was a drunken fellow, and fond 
 of standing treat, and when he had taken a 
 glass too much, he would say in French, ' C'est 
 bon,' and carry on so, that it was enough to 
 make one want to take the holy pictiu'es out 
 of the room, with shame! He would send and 
 invite all the neighbours to favour him with their 
 company. He had trcVikas standing ready har- 
 nessed ; and if you did n't come, he 'd drop 
 down on you himself. . . . And such a strange 
 man as he was! When he was sober, he did 
 not lie; but as soon as he began to drink he 
 would begin to relate that in Peter ^ he had 
 three houses on the Fontanka: one red, with one 
 chimney; another yellow, with two chimneys; 
 and the third blue, with no chimnejs — and three 
 sons (but he was not married) : one in the infan- 
 try, one in the cavalry, and the third a gentleman 
 of leisure. . . . And, he said, that in each of his 
 houses dwelt one of his sons; that admirals came 
 to visit the eldest, generals to visit the second, 
 and nothing but Englishmen to visit the third! 
 Well, and he would rise to his feet and say: ' To 
 the health of my eldest son, he 's the most re- 
 spectfvd!' — and begin to weep. And woe be 
 
 ' Petersburg. — Translator. 
 
 105
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPOUTSxMAX 
 
 to the man wlio uiKlcrtook to refuse! ' I '11 shoot 
 him,' — he would sav: 'and 1 won't allow him to 
 be buried! ' . . . . Or he would spring up and be- 
 gin to shout : ' Dance, ye people of God, for your 
 own amusement and my consolation ! ' AVell, 
 you 'd dance, though you miglit die for it, you 'd 
 dance. lie utterly wore out his serf girls. They 
 used to sing in chorus all night long until the 
 morning, and the one who raised her voice the 
 highest got a reward. And if they began to 
 tire, he would drop liis head on liis hands, and 
 begin to grieve: ' Okh, an orphaned orplian am 
 I ! they are abandoning me, the dear little doves ! ' 
 Then the stablemen would immediately admin- 
 ister a little encouragement to the girls. He 
 took a fancy to my father: how could one help 
 that '{ He almost drove my father into his grave, 
 you know; and he really would liave driven liim 
 into it, had he not died himself, thank the Lord: 
 he tumbled headlong from the pigeon-house, in 
 a drunken fit. . . . So that 's the sort of nice 
 neighbours we used to have! " 
 
 " How times have changed! " — I remarked. 
 
 " Yes, yes,"^ — assented Ovsyanikoff. . . . 
 " Well, and there 's this to be said: in the olden 
 days, the nobles really lived more sumptuously. 
 Not to mention the grandees: I had a chance 
 to admire them in ]Moscow\ 'T is said they have 
 now died out there also." 
 
 " Have you been in jNIoscow? " 
 
 106
 
 FREEHOl.DEli () VS VAN I K ()1 F 
 
 " Yes, long ago, very long ago. I 'm now in 
 my seventy-third year, and 1 travelled to Moscow 
 when 1 was sixteen." 
 
 Ovsyanikoff heaved a sigh. 
 
 " And wliom did you see there? " 
 
 " Why, I saw a great many grandees — and 
 everybody saw them: they lived openly, glo- 
 rionsly, and amazingly. Only, not one of them 
 equalled Count Alexyei Grigorievitch Orloff- 
 Tehesmenskj\' I used to see Alexyei Grigorie- 
 vitch frequently: my uncle served him as major- 
 domo. The Count deigned to live at the Kaluga 
 Gate, on Shablovka street. There was a grandee 
 for you! It is impossible to imagine to one's self 
 such an imposing carriage, such gracious cour- 
 tesy, and impossible to describe it. What was 
 not his stature alone worth, his strength, his 
 glance! Until you knew him, you would n't enter 
 his house — you 'd be afraid, regularly intimi- 
 dated; but if you did go in, you felt as though 
 the sun were warming you, and you 'd get cheer- 
 ful all tln-ough. He admitted ever}' one to his 
 presence, and was fond of everything. At races 
 he drove himself, and would race with anybody; 
 and he woidd never overtake them all at once, 
 he would n't hurt their feelings, he would n't cut 
 
 'One of Katlieriiio II's favourites, wlio won his title of " Tches- 
 m^nsky " by his victory over the Turivisii fleet at Tchesine in 17C9. 
 A silver dinner-plate which he twisted into a roll with his fingers 
 is j)rescrvcd in the Ilerniitage Museum, St. Petersburg. — Trans- 
 
 LATOH. 
 
 107
 
 MEIMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 them off short, l)iit probably lie would pass 
 them just at the end; and he was so caressing, 
 — he would comfort his adversary, praise his 
 horse. lie kept first-class tumbler pigeons. He 
 used to come out into the courtyard, seat himself 
 in an arm-chair, and order them to set the pigeons 
 flying; and all around, on the roofs, stood men 
 with guns, to ward off the hawks. A big silver 
 vase of water was placed at the Count's feet ; and 
 he would look into the water and w^atch the 
 pigeons. The poor and the needy lived on his 
 bread by the hundred . . . and how much money 
 he gave away! But when he got angry, it was 
 like the thunder roaring. A great alarm, but 
 nothing to cry about: the first you knew, — he 
 would be smiling. He would give a feast, — and 
 furnish drink for all jNIoscow! .... and what 
 a clever man he was! he conquered the Turk, you 
 know. He was fond of w^restling, too; they 
 brought strong men to him from Tiila, from 
 Kharkoff, from Tamboff, from everywhere. If 
 he overcame a man, he would reward him ; but 
 if any one conquered him, he would load that 
 man witli gifts, and kiss him on the li])s. . . . 
 And during my stay in Moscow, he organised 
 such a hare-hunt as never was seen in Russia; he 
 invited all the sportsmen in the whole empire to 
 be his guests, and ap])ointed a day three months 
 ahead. Well, and so they assembled. They 
 brought dogs, huntsmen, — well, an army arrived, 
 
 108
 
 1 KEEllOLDEH OVS YANl KOFF 
 
 a regular army! First they feasted, as was 
 proper, and then they set oli* for the barrier. 
 An innumerable throng of people had collected. 
 
 And what do you think? .... Why, 
 
 your grandfather's dog outran them all." 
 
 " \Vas n't it ISlilovidka? " ' I asked. 
 
 " Yes, ]Milovidka. . . . So, the Count began 
 to entreat him: ' Sell me thy dog,' says he: ' ask 
 what price thou wilt.' — ' No, <^^-ount,' says he, 
 ' I 'm not a merchant : I don't sell useless rags, 
 and for the sake of honour, 1 'm even willing to 
 
 surrender my wife, only not INIilovidka 
 
 I '11 surrender myself as a prisoner first.' And 
 Alexyei Grigorievitch praised him: ' I like that,' 
 says he. And he drove yoiu' grandfather back 
 in his own carriage; and when JVIilovidka died, 
 they buried her in the garden with music,— they 
 buried the bitch, and placed a stone with an in- 
 scription on it over the bitch's grave." 
 
 " Why, so Alexyei Grigorievitch really never 
 did offend any one," — I remarked. 
 
 " Yes, he was always like that : the man who is 
 sailing in shallow water himself is the one who 
 picks quarrels." 
 
 " And what sort of a man was that Bausch? " 
 — I asked, after a brief pause. 
 
 " How is it tliat you have heard about Milo- 
 vidka, and not about Bausch? .... He was 
 the head huntsman and whipper-in of your 
 
 'From miJiy, j)ietty, and I'id, aspect. — Translator. 
 
 109
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 grandfather. Your grandfather loved him no 
 less than he did jNlilovidka. He was a desperado, 
 and no matter what your grandfather ordered, 
 he executed it in the twinkling of an eye, even 
 
 if it was to hurl himself on a knife And 
 
 when he halloed on the hounds, it was as though 
 a groan filled the forest. And all of a sudden, 
 he would get a fit of obstinacy, and alight from 
 his horse, and lie down. . . . And just as soon 
 as the hounds ceased to hear his voice, it was all 
 over! They would abandon a hot scent, they 
 would n't continue the chase, on any terms what- 
 soever. I-ikh, how angry your grandfather used 
 to get! ' I '11 turn thee wrong side out, thou 
 antichrist ! I 11 pull thy heels out through thy 
 throat, thou soul-ruiner! ' And it would end in 
 his sending to inquire what he wanted, why he 
 was not uttering the halloo! And in such cases, 
 Bausch would generally demand liquor, would 
 drink it off, get up, and begin to whoop again 
 magnificently." 
 
 " You seem to be fond of hunting also, Luka 
 Petrovitch ? " 
 
 " I would have liked it ... . that 's a fact, 
 but not now: now my day is over, — but in my 
 youth .... and, you know, it 's awkward, be- 
 cause of my rank. Pc is n't proper for the like 
 of me to try to imitate the nobles. That 's the 
 truth of it: one man of our class — a drunkard 
 and incapable — used to tag on to the gentry .... 
 
 110
 
 FRKKIIOLDKli OVSYANIKOFF 
 
 but what pleasure is there in that! You only put 
 yourself to shame. They gave him a miserable, 
 stvunbling horse; and they kept picking off his 
 cap and flinging it on the ground; they would 
 strike him with their hunting-whips, as though 
 he were a horse ; and he would laugh all the while 
 himself, and make the others laugh. No, I tell 
 you: the smaller the rank, the more rigidly must 
 you behave, otherwise, the first thing you know, 
 you will be disgracing yourself." 
 
 " Yes," — pursued Ovsyanikoif , with a sigh, — 
 " much water has flowed past since I have lived 
 in the world: other days have, arrived. Espe- 
 cially in the nobles do I perceive a great change. 
 The petty gentry have all either entered the gov- 
 ernment service, or else they don't stay still in 
 one place; and as for the greater estate-owners, 
 they are unrecognisable. I have had a good look 
 at them, at the big men, in connection with the 
 delimitation of boundaries. And I must tell 
 you, my heart rejoices as I look at them: 
 they are affable, polite. Only this is what sur- 
 prises me: they have all studied the sciences, 
 they talk so fluently that your soul is moved 
 within you, but they don't understand real busi- 
 ness, they are n't even awake to their own advan- 
 tage : why, a serf, their manager, can drive them 
 whithersoever he pleases, like a slave. Here 
 now, for example, perhaps you are- acquainted 
 with KorolyofF, Alexander Vladimirovitch, — 
 
 111
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 isn't he a regular noble? A beauty, rich, edu- 
 cated at the " diversity,' I believe, and has been 
 abroad, talks iiuently, modestly, shakes hands 
 with all of us. You do know him? .... well, 
 then hearken to me. Last week, we assembled 
 at l^eryozovka, on the invitation of the arbitrator, 
 Xikifor Ilitcli. And the arbitrator, Nikifor 
 Hitch, says to us: ' Gentlemen, mc must fix the 
 boundaries; 'tis a shame that our section has 
 lagged behind all the rest; let's get to w^ork.' 
 So we set to work. Discussions and disputes 
 began, as is usual; our attorney began to put 
 on airs. But Porfiry OvtchinnikofF was the first 
 to make a row. . . . And on what groimd does 
 the man make a row? He doesn't own an inch 
 of land himself: he manages it on behalf of his 
 brother. He shouts: ' No! you can't cheat me! 
 no, you 've got hold of the wrong man ! hand over 
 the plans, give me the surveyor, the seller of 
 Christ, hand him over to me ! ' — ' But what is 
 your claim ? ' — ' So you think you 've caught a 
 fool, forsooth! have n't I just announced my de- 
 mands to you? . . . no, you just hand over those 
 2)lans, — so there now ! ' And he is thwacking the 
 plans with his hand the while. He dealt a deadly 
 insult to ^Slarfa Dmitrievna. She shrieks: ' How 
 dare you sully my reputation?' — 'I,' — says he, 
 ' w^ould n't want my brown mare to have your 
 reputation.' They administered some madeira 
 to him by force. They got him ({uieted down, 
 
 112
 
 1 UKEITOLDEK OVS\ ANIKOFF 
 
 — and others l)egan to make a rumpus. Alex- 
 ander Vladiniiriteli Korolyoff, my dear little 
 dove, sits in a corner, nibbling at the knob of his 
 cane, and merely shaking his head. I felt 
 ashamed, 't was more than I could endure, I 
 wanted to flee from tlie room. ' What does the 
 man think of us? ' I said to myself. And behold, 
 my Alexander Vladimiritch rises, shows that he 
 wishes to speak. The arbitrator begins to fuss, 
 says: ' Gentlemen, gentlemen, Alexander Vladi- 
 miritch wants to speak.' And one can't help prais- 
 ing the nobles: all of them immediately became 
 silent. So Alexander Vladimiritch began and 
 said: 'We appear to have forgotten the object for 
 which we have come together; although the de- 
 limitation of boundaries is, indisputably, advan- 
 tageous for the pi-oprietors, yet in reality, it is 
 established for what purpose? — it is for the pur- 
 pose of making things easier for the peasant, so 
 that he can toil and discliarge his obligations the 
 more conveniently; but as things stand now, he 
 does not know even which land is his, and not in- 
 frequently has to travel five versts to till the soil, 
 — and he cannot be held to account.' Then Alex- 
 ander Vladimiritch said that it was a sin for a 
 landed proprietor not to look out for the welfare 
 of the peasants; that, in short, the sensible way 
 cf viewing the matter was, that their advantage 
 and our advantage are identical: if they are well 
 ofT, we are well off, if they are in evil ])light, so 
 
 113
 
 ME.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 are we ; . . . . and that, consequently, 't is a sin 
 and foolish to fail of agreement hecause of 
 trifles. . . . And he went on, and on. . . . And how 
 he did talk! It fairly gripped your soul. . . . 
 And all the nobles hung their heads, I myself 
 was on the very verge of melting into tears. 
 'T is a fact, that there are no such speeches in the 
 ancient books. . . . And what came of it? He 
 himself would n't surrender four desyatinas of 
 moss-bog, and would n"t sell it either. Says he: 
 ' I '11 have my men drain that swamp, and I '11 
 set up — I '11 set up a cloth-mill on it, with im- 
 provements. I,' says he, ' have already selected 
 that location : I have my own calculations on that 
 score. . . And if it had only been just! But the 
 simple facts in the case were, — that Alexander 
 Vladimiritch's neighbour, Anton KarasikofF, 
 had been too stingy to bribe Alexander Vladimi- 
 ritch's manager with a hundred rubles. So we 
 parted without ha^'ing accomplished any busi- 
 ness. And Alexander Vladimiritch considers 
 himself to be in the right up to the present time, 
 and keeps babbling idly about a cloth-mill, but 
 he does n't set about draining the bog." 
 "And how does he manage his estate? " 
 " He is all the time introducing new-fangled 
 notions. The peasants don't approve of them, 
 — but there's no use in ])aying any attention 
 to them. Alexander Madimiritch is acting 
 rightly." 
 
 114
 
 FKKKUOLDKU OVSVANIKOFF 
 
 " How so, Lukti Petrovitch^ 1 thought you 
 clung to the old ways." 
 
 " I — am quite a different matter. 1 'm not a 
 noble, you see, nor a landed proprietor. What 
 does my farming amount to? ... . And I don't 
 know any different way, either. I try to act 
 according to justice and the law, — and tliat 's all 
 a man can do. The young gentlemen don't like 
 the former ways: I a])plau(l tliem. . .'T is time 
 to use their brains. Only, there 's this sad point 
 about it : the young gentlemen are awfully subtle. 
 They treat the peasants as though they were 
 dolls: turn them this way and that, break them 
 and cast them aside. And the manager, a serf, 
 or the steward, of German parentage, gets the 
 peasants into his claws again. And if one of the 
 young gentlemen would only set an example, 
 would demojistrate : ' This is the way things 
 should be managed !'.... But what is to be 
 the end of it? Is it possible that I shall die with- 
 out having beheld the new order of things? . . . 
 Why is it? the old has died out, and the new does 
 not prosper! " 
 
 I did not know how to answer Ovsyanikoff. 
 He cast a glance about, moved closer to me, and 
 continued, in an undertone: 
 
 " Have you heard about A'asily Nikolaitcli 
 Liubozvonoff ? " 
 
 ".No, I have not." 
 
 " Please to explain to me what sort of marvels 
 
 115
 
 ME.MOIKS OF A SrORTSMAN 
 
 are these. 1 am utterly at a loss to uiulerstand. 
 Why, his o\\n peasants told the tale, but I will 
 not take their speeehes into aeeount. He 's a 
 young man, you know, who came into his inheri- 
 tance not long ago, at his mother's death. AVell, 
 and he comes to his patrimonial estate. The 
 peasants have assembled to have a look at their 
 master. A^'asily Xikolaitch comes out to them. 
 The peasants look, and — amazing to relate! — the 
 master is wearing velveteen trousers as though 
 he were a coachman, and has donned short boots 
 with fancy tops; he has put on a red shirt, and 
 a coachman's kaftan also; he has let his beard 
 grow, and has sucli a queer little cap on his head, 
 and his face is queer too, — not precisely drunk, 
 but as thotigh he Avere out of his wits. ' Good 
 day, my lads ! ' ^ says he : ' Good luck to you ! ' ^ 
 The peasants make him a reverence to the girdle, 
 — but in silence: they had got frightened, you 
 know. And he himself seemed to be timid. He 
 began to make a speech: 
 
 " ' I 'm a Russian,' says he, 'and you are Rus- 
 sians too; I love everything Russian I 
 
 have a Russian soul,' savs he, ' and mv blood is 
 Russian also.' .... And all of a sudden, as 
 though it were a command : ' Come now, my 
 
 ' Literally : " Health, my l;uls ! " The official greeting of an 
 officer to his soldiers, to which there is an official reply. — 
 Trans I. A TOR. 
 
 ^Literally: "God l)e your hcl))er." The customary greeting to 
 any jx-asant one may meet. — Tijansi.atok. 
 
 IIG
 
 FUK ETTOT.DEU OVS^^\NI KOFF 
 
 children, sing ca Russian folk-song! ' The jx?as- 
 ants' hamstrings began to tremble; they turned 
 utterly stupid. One bold lad tried to strike up 
 a tune, but immediately squatted down on the 
 
 ground, hid himself behind the rest And 
 
 there was cause for amazement: there used to be 
 among us landed proprietors, desperate fellows, 
 arrant rakes, to tell the truth: they dressed almost 
 like coachmen, and danced themselves,^ played 
 on the guitar, sang and drank wdth the worthless 
 house-serfs, feasted with the peasants; but this 
 Vasily Nikolaitch, you see, is just like a hand- 
 some girl : he 's always reading books, or writing, 
 when he is n't declaiming verses aloud, — he never 
 converses with any one, he holds himself aloof, 
 he 's forever strolling in the garden, as though 
 he were bored or sad. The former manager w^as 
 thoroughly intimidated, at first; before the ar- 
 rival of Vasily Nikolaitch, he made the rounds 
 of all the peasants' houses, made obeisance to 
 everybody, — evidently, the cat knew whose meat 
 he had eaten, — that he was in fault! And the 
 peasants cherished hopes ; they thought : ' Fiddle- 
 sticks, brother! — thou wilt soon be called to ac- 
 count, dear little dove; thou wilt soon be weeping 
 thy fill, thou extortioner! ' . . . . But it turned 
 out instead, — how^ shall I announce it to you! 
 
 'The view taken of danrine, in olden days, in Russia was — ■ 
 that it was derogatory to tiie dignity of gentlefolks; something 
 to be performed for them by their serfs, or paid inferiors. — 
 Translator. 
 
 117
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 The Lord Himself eoiikl n't make head or tail 
 of what happened! Vasily Xikolaiteh sum- 
 moned him to his presence, and says to him, 
 Hushing scarlet himself the while, and hreathing 
 fast — so. you know: ' Be just, don t op])ress any 
 one on mv estate, — dost thou hear? ' And from 
 that day forth, he has never ordered him to ap- 
 pear before him! He lives on his own paternal 
 estate, as though he were a stranger. AVell, and 
 the overseer breathed freely and enjoyed him- 
 self; but the peasants don't dare to approach 
 Vasily Nikolaitch : they 're afraid. And, you 
 see, here 's another thing which is deserving of 
 surjirise: the master bows to them, and looks 
 courteous,^ — ^but their bellies fairly ache with 
 fright. Now, what sort of queer goings-on do 
 vou sav these are, dear little father? . . . . 
 Either 1 have become stupid, or grown old, — but 
 I don't understand." 
 
 I answered OvsyanikofF, that, in all proba- 
 ])ility, ^Ir. Liubozvonoff was ill. 
 
 " 111, indeed ! He 's thicker through than I 
 am, and his face, God be with him, is very big 
 around, in S2:>ite of his youth. . . . However, the 
 I^ord knows!" (And Ovsyanikoff heaved a 
 deep sigh.) 
 
 "Well, setting aside the nobles," — I began: 
 — " AVhat have vou to sav to me about the free- 
 holders, Luka Petrovitch? " 
 
 " No, you must excuse me from that," — he 
 
 118
 
 IRKKIIOLDKR OVSYAMKOFF 
 
 said hastily:—" really ... 1 would tell you . . . 
 but what's the use!" (Oysyaiiikoff ^vayed tlie 
 subject aside with his hand.) "We 'd better drink 
 tea. . . . Peasants, downright peasants; neyer- 
 theless, to tell the truth, what are we to do? " 
 
 He fell silent. Tea was seryed. Tatyiina lli- 
 nitchna rose from her place and seated herself 
 nearer to us. During the course of the eyening, 
 she had noiselessly left the room seyeral times, 
 and as noiselessly returned. Silence reigned in 
 the room. Oysyanikoff drank cup after cup, hi 
 a slow and stately way. 
 
 " Mitya was here to-day," — remarked Ta- 
 tyana Ilinitchna in an undertone. 
 
 Oysyanikoff frowned. 
 
 "What does he want?" 
 
 " He came to ask forgiyeness." 
 
 Oysyanikoff shook his head. 
 
 " No\y, just look at that," — he continued, ad- 
 dressing me: — "what ought a man to do about 
 his relatiyes? 'T is impossible to. renounce them. 
 . . Here now, God has rewarded me with a 
 nephew. He 's a young fellow with brains, a 
 dashing young fellow, there's no disputing that; 
 he studied well, only, I can't expect to get any 
 good of him. . . He was in the goyernment ser- 
 yice — he abandoned the seryice: you see, he had 
 no chance of promotion. . . . Was he a noble? 
 And eyen nobles don't get to be generals instan- 
 taneously. And so, now he is liying in idleness. 
 
 119
 
 ME.AIOIUS OF A SrOKTSMAN 
 
 . . . And that miglit pass, — but he has turned 
 into a pettifogger! He composes petitions for 
 the j^easants, Avrites reports, teaches the rural 
 pohcemen, shows up the surveyors for \vluit they 
 are, lounges about the dram-shops, picks up ac- 
 quaintance at the posting-houses with petty 
 burghers from the town, and with yard-porters. 
 Isn't a catastrophe inmiinent? And the captain 
 and commissary of the rural police have already 
 threatened him. But lie, luckily, knows how to 
 jest, he makes them laugh, and then, afterward, 
 he '11 stir up a mess for them. . . . Come now, 
 isn't he sitting in thy chamber?" . . he added, 
 turning to his wife: — " I know thy ways: tliou 
 art such a tender-hearted creature, — thou show- 
 est him thy protection." 
 
 Tatyana Ilinitchna dropped her eyes and 
 blushed. 
 
 " Come, that 's how it is," — went on Ovsyani- 
 koff. ..." Okh, thou spoiler! ^Vell, order him 
 to come in, — so. be it, for the sake of our dear 
 guest, I will forgive the stui)id fellow. : . Come, 
 order him in, order him in " 
 
 Tatyana Ilinitchna went to the door and called 
 out: "'Mitya!" 
 
 j\Iitya, a young fellow of eight and twenty 
 years, tall, finely built, and curly-haired, entered 
 the room, and, catching siglit of me, halted on the 
 threshold. His clothing was of foreign cut, but 
 the unnatural size of the puffs on the shoulders 
 
 120
 
 IREEIIOT.DER OVSYANIKOFF 
 
 vv^erc sullicieiit proof in tlicniselves that it had 
 heen made not only by a Russian tailor, but by a 
 Russian of the Russians. 
 
 " Well, come on, come on,"- — said the old man: 
 "of what art thou ashamed? Thank thy aunt: 
 thou art forgiven. . . Here, dear little father, 
 let me introduce him," — he went on, pointing to 
 Mitya: — "he's my own blood nephew, but I 
 shall nev^er be able to get on with him. The 
 end of the world has come! " (We bowed to each 
 other.) " Come, speak up, what sort of a scrape 
 hast thou got into yonder? What are they com- 
 plaining about tliee for! Tell us? " 
 
 INlitya, evidently, did not wish to explain and 
 defend himself before me. 
 
 " Afterward, uncle," — he muttered. 
 
 " No, not afterward, but now," — went on the 
 old man. ..." I know that thou art ashamed 
 before the noble squire: so much the better, pun- 
 ish thyself. Pray, be so good as to speak out. 
 . . . We are listening." 
 
 " I have no reason to feel ashamed," — began 
 JNIitya, vvdth vivacity, and shook his head. — 
 " Pray judge for yourself, dear uncle. The 
 Ryeshetilovo freeliolders come to me and say: 
 ' Defend us, bi-other.' — ' What do you want? ' — 
 ' Why, tliis : our grain warehouses are in accurate 
 order, — that is to say, nothing could be better; 
 all at once, an official comes in : " I have orders to 
 inspect the warehouses." He inspected them, and 
 
 121
 
 :S1EM01KS OF A SPORTS.AIAX 
 
 says: " Your warehouses are in disorder, there 
 are important omissions, I am bound to report 
 to the authorities." — " Why, wlierein consist the 
 omissions? " — " I know what they are," says he. 
 .... We came together, and decided to thank 
 the official in proper fashion, — but okl Proklior- 
 itch interfered; savs he: "In tliat wav, you'll 
 only whet his appetite for more. Well, really 
 now% haven't we any riglits? " — So we heeded 
 the old man, but the official flew into a rage, 
 and made a complaint, wrote a report." — ' But 
 were your warehouses really in proper order? ' 
 I asked. — ' As God sees me, they were in order 
 and we have the legal quantity of grain. . . .' 
 ' Well,' said I, ' then there 's no cause for you 
 to fear,' and I wrote the document for them. 
 .... And no one yet knows in whose favour it 
 will be decided. . . . And as for people having 
 complained to you about me in this connection, — 
 that is easy to understand: everybody looks out 
 for number one." 
 
 " Kverybody else, — only, evidently, not thou>" 
 
 — said the old man in an undertone 
 
 " And what sort of intrigues hast thou been en- 
 gaging in, witli the Shutolomovo peasants? " 
 
 " How do you know about that? " 
 
 " I do know. 
 
 " I was in the right tliere also, — please judge 
 for yourself again. lk"/])an(lin, a neighbour of 
 the Shutolomovo peasants, ploughed four desya- 
 
 122
 
 rUKKHOLDKH OVSYAX I KOKF 
 
 tinus of land. ' The land is mine,' said he. The 
 Shutoloniovo men are on quit-rent, their s(iuire 
 has gone abroad, — judge for yourself, — who is 
 there to stand up for them? But the land is 
 theirs, indisputably, has belonged to the serfs 
 since time immemorial. So they come to me, and 
 say: ' Write a petition.' And I wrote it. But 
 Bezpandin heard about it, and began to make 
 threats : ' I '11 pull that JNIitka's shoulder-blades 
 out of their sockets,' says he, ' if I don't tear his 
 head clean off his shoulders. . . .' Let 's see 
 how he '11 tear it off : it 's whole up to the present 
 moment." 
 
 " Well, don't boast ; thy head 's of no use to 
 thee," — remarked the old man: — "thou art a 
 downright crazy man! " 
 
 " But, uncle, was n't it you yourself who said 
 to me " 
 
 " I know, I know what thou art going to say to 
 me," — Ovsyanikoff interrupted him; — "exactly 
 so: a man should live according to justice, and 
 is bound to aid his neighbour. There are times 
 when he should not even spare himself. . . But 
 dost thou always act in that manner? Don't folks 
 lead thee to the dram-shop? don't they treat thee 
 to drinks ? don't they pay thee respect ? ' Dmitry 
 Alexyeitch, dear little father,' say they, ' help 
 us, and we will show thee our gratitude,' — and 
 thnist a ruble or a blue bank-note into thy 
 hand under their coat-tails? Hey? Isn't that 
 
 123
 
 ' ME^IOIRS OF A SPOHTS^IAN 
 
 what happens? Tell iiic, isn't that the Avay 
 of it?" 
 
 " In tliat respect, I really am guilty," — replied 
 JNIitya, dropping his eyes, — " but I take nothing 
 from tlie poor, and don't act against my con- 
 science." 
 
 " Thou dost not take now, but when thou find- 
 est thyself in evil state, — thou wilt take. Thou 
 dost not act against thy conscience .... ekh, 
 shame on thee! Thou always upholdest saints, 
 that means! — But hast thou forgotten Borka ^ 
 Perekhodoff? . . . AVho bustled about on his 
 behalf? Who lent him protection? Hey?" 
 
 " Perekhodoff suffered through his own fault, 
 t IS true. . . . 
 
 " He spent the government money. ... A 
 nice joke that! " 
 
 " But just consider, dear uncle: poverty, a 
 family " 
 
 " Poverty, poverty. . . He 's a drinking man, 
 a hard drinker; . . . that's what he is!" 
 
 " He took to drink from misery," — remarked 
 INIitya, lowering his voice. 
 
 "From misery! Well, thou mightest have 
 helped him, if thy heart is so warm, but thou 
 mightest have refrained from sitting in the dram- 
 shop with a drunken man thyself. That he talks 
 eloquently, — much of a rarity that is, forsooth ! " 
 
 " He 's the kindest man possible " 
 
 " Everybody 's kind, according to thee 
 
 *The disrespectful diniiiuitive of Boris. — Tkansi.atok. 
 
 124
 
 FKKKITOT.DER OVSYAXIKOFF 
 
 Anyhow," — continued OvsyanikofF, addressing 
 his wife: — " they have sent him off .... well, 
 yonder, thou knowest whither." .... 
 
 Tatyana Ih'nitchna nodded her head. 
 
 " ^Vhere hast thou (hsappeared to these 
 (hiys? " — hegan the old man again. 
 
 " I have been in the town." 
 
 " I suppose thou hast been playing billiards 
 all the while, and guzzling tea, and twanging on 
 the guitar, and slipping stealthily through the 
 public offices, concocting petitions in back rooms, 
 and showing thyself off in great style with the 
 young merchants ? That 's so, is n't it ? . . . . 
 Tell me!" 
 
 " Probably it is," — said Mitya, with a smile. 
 . . " Akh, yes! I came near forgetting: Fiinti- 
 koff, Anton Parfenitch, invites you to dine with 
 him on Sunday." 
 
 " I won't go to that big-bellied fellow's house. 
 He '11 serve us with fish worth a hundred rubles, 
 and prepared with tainted butter. I '11 have no- 
 thing whatever to do with him! " 
 
 " By the way, I met Fedosya Mikhailovna." 
 
 "What Fedosya is that? " 
 
 " Why, the one who belongs to Squire Gar- 
 pentchenko, you know, who bought INIikulino at 
 suction.^ Fedosya is from Mikulino. She lives 
 in Moscow as a seamstress, and paid quit-rent, 
 one hundred and eighty-two rubles a year. . . . 
 And she knows her business: she received fine 
 
 ^ Auction, — Translator. 
 
 125
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 orders in Moscow. Rut now, (rurpentchenko 
 has ordered lier back, and is keeping her here 
 idle, and assigns lier no (hities. She is ready 
 to purchase her freedom, and has tokl her Jiiaster 
 so. but he announces no decision. You are 
 acquainted witli (xarpentchenko, uncle, — so 
 coukl n't you speak just a httle word to him? 
 And Fedosya will pay a good ransom." 
 
 " Xot out of thy money, is it? Well, well, all 
 right, all right, I '11 speak to him. Only, I don't 
 know," — went on the old man, with a displeased 
 countenance: — " that Gar])entchenko,' I>ord for- 
 give him, is an extortioner: he buys in notes, lends 
 at usurious interest, acquires estates under the 
 
 hammer And who brought him to our 
 
 parts? Okh, how I detest these newcomers! It 
 won't be a short matter to get any satisfaction 
 from him ;— however, we shall see." 
 
 " Use your efforts, uncle." 
 
 "Good! I will. Only, see here now, mind 
 what I say! Come, come, don't defend thyself. 
 . . . God bless thee, God bless thee! . . . Only, 
 hereafter, look out, or, by heaven, jNIitya, 't will 
 be the worse for thee, — thou wilt come to grief, 
 by heaven, thou wilt! ... I can't carry thee on 
 my shoulders forever. ... I 'm not an influen- 
 tial man myself. Now go, with Crod's blessing." 
 
 ^ Evidently, from liis name, ending in ciiko, the man was a 
 Little Russian, whose compatriots bear in linssia the reputation 
 of l)eing as "canny" as tiic Scotch in iMigland, or as "sharp" 
 as the Yankees in America. — Tkaxslator. 
 
 126
 
 FREEHOLDKU OVSVANIKOFF 
 
 JMitya left the room. Tatyana Ilinitelina fol- 
 lowed him. 
 
 " Give him some tea, thou child-spoiler," — 
 
 shouted Ovsyanikolf after her " He 's 
 
 not a stupid young' fellow," he went on: — "and 
 lie has a kind soul, only, I 'm afraid for him. 
 . . . But pardon me, for having taken up so 
 much of your time with trifles." 
 
 The door into the anteroom opened. There 
 entered a short, greyish-haired man, in a velvet 
 coat. 
 
 "Ah, Franz Ivanitch!" — exclaimed Ovsyani- 
 koff: — "good morning, what mercies does God 
 show to you? " 
 
 Permit me, amiahle reader, to make you ac- 
 quainted with this gentleman also. 
 
 Franz Ivanitch Lejeune, my neighbour and a 
 landed proprietor of Orel, attained to the hon- 
 ourable rank of a Russian noble in manner not 
 entirely usual. He was born in Orleans, of 
 French parents, and set off in company with 
 Xapoleon to conquer Russia, in the capacity of 
 a drummer. At first, everything went as though 
 on oiled wheels, and our Frenchman entered 
 Moscow with head erect. But on the return 
 join-ney poor JNI — r. Lejeune, half frozen and 
 without his drum, fell into the hands of the 
 Smolensk peasants. The Smolensk peasants 
 locked him up for the night in an empty fulling- 
 mill, and on the following morning led him to a 
 
 127
 
 ME^NIOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 hole in the ice, elose It) the dam, and began to 
 entreat the drummer " de la grrrrande armee," 
 to do them a favour, that is, to dive under the 
 ice. JNI — r. Lejeune could not assent to their pro- 
 posal, and, in return, he began to try to prevail 
 upon the Smolensk peasants, in the French dia- 
 lect, to set him free to return to Orleans. 
 " There, messieurs," said he, " dwells my mother, 
 line tendre mere."' But the peasants, probably 
 in consequence of their ignorance as to the 
 geographical situation of Orleans, continued to 
 propose to him a trip under the ice, with the 
 downward current of the winding little river 
 Gnilotyorka, and had already begun to encour- 
 age him with gentle thrusts in the vertebra^ of his 
 neck and back, when, all of a sudden, to the inde- 
 scribable joy of Lejeune, the sound of a small 
 bell rang out, and on to the dam drove a huge 
 sledge with a gay-hued rug on the exaggeratedly 
 elevated foot-board beliind, and drawn by a team 
 of three roan-horses. In the sledge sat a fat, 
 red-faced landed pro])rietor in a wolf -skin coat. 
 
 " What are you doing there? " — he asked the 
 peasants. 
 
 " Why, we 're drowning a Frenchman, dear 
 little father." 
 
 "All!" — returned the squire, indifferently, 
 and turned awa5^ 
 
 "Monsieur! ^Monsieur!" — shrieked the poor 
 
 man. 
 
 128
 
 FREKIIOLDKR OVSYANIKOFF 
 
 "All, all!" — remarked the wolf-skiii eoat, re- 
 provingly: — "lie has eome to Russia with the 
 twelve nations,' lias hurned JMoscow, — the ac- 
 cursed one! — has torn the cross from Ivan Ve- 
 liky,- and now 'tis ' ]\Iusieu, INIusieu!' and now 
 he has tucked his tail hetween his legs! The thief 
 ought to suffer torture Drive on, Filka! " 
 
 The horses started. 
 
 "Ah, stop, though!" — added the s(iuire. . . . 
 " hey, thou, IMusieu, dost understand music? " 
 
 " Sauvez-moi, sauvez-rnoi, man hon mon- 
 sieur! " — repeated Fe jeune. 
 
 "Did any one ever see such a race! and not 
 one of them knows a single word of Russian! 
 Musiquc, tnii.siqiic, savez musique vous? — on 
 piano jouez savez? " 
 
 Lejeune understood, at last, what the landed 
 proprietor was driving at, and nodded his head 
 affirmatively. 
 
 " Old, monsieur, oui, oui, je suis musicien; je 
 joue tons les instruments possibles! Oui, mon- 
 sieur Sauvez-7noi, monsieur! " 
 
 " Well, thou hast had a narrow escape," — re- 
 torted the squire. . . "Release him, my lads: 
 here 's a twenty-kopek piece for you, for liquor." 
 
 * In the grand Te Deum which is celebrated always on Christ- 
 mas Day, ill commemoration of tiie delivery of Russia, in 1812, 
 the French and their allies are called "the Gaids and the Twelve 
 Nations " — the word employed for nation being the one which is 
 derived from the same root as the word heathen. — Translator. 
 The great l)elfry of the Kremlin. — Translator. 
 
 129
 
 MEMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 , " Thanks, dear little father, thanks. Please 
 take him/' 
 
 They seated Lejeune in the sledge. He was 
 choking with joy, he wept, trembled, made obei- 
 sance, thanked the squire, the coachman, the 
 peasants. He wore a green under- jacket with 
 pink ribbons, and the weather was gloriously 
 cold. The squire cast a silent glance at his blue 
 and benumbed limbs, wrapped the unliappy man 
 in his fur cloak, and carried him home. The ser- 
 vants flocked together. They hastily warmed, 
 fed, and clothed the Frenchman. The squire 
 conducted him to his daugliters. 
 
 " Here, children, "^ — he said to them: — " I 've 
 found a teacher for you. You have kept pester- 
 ing me, ' Teach us music and the French dialect ': 
 so here 's a Frencliman for you, and he plays on 
 the piano too. . . . Come on, IMusieu," — he con- 
 tinued, pointing to the miserable little piano, 
 which lie liad 2:)urchased five years previously 
 from a Je^v, who, however, peddled Cologne 
 water: — " show us your skill: jouez!" 
 
 Lejeune, wdth sinking heart, seated himself 
 on the stool: he had never laid finger on a piano 
 since he was born. 
 
 " Come, joucz, joucz! " — repeated the squire. 
 
 In desperation, the ])oor fellow banged on the 
 keys as though they had been a drum, and played 
 
 at haphazard "I really thought," he 
 
 said, as he told the story afterward, " that my res- 
 
 130
 
 FREEHOLDER OVSVANIKOFF 
 
 ciier would seize me by the collar, and fling me 
 out of the house." Rut, to tlie intense amaze- 
 ment of the involuntary improvisatore, the 
 landed proprietor, after a while, slapi)ed him ap- 
 provingly on the shoulder. " Good, good," — 
 said he, "I see that thou knowest how; go now, 
 and rest." 
 
 A couple of weeks later, Lejeune was trans- 
 ferred from this landed proprietor to another, a 
 wealthy and cultivated man, became a favourite 
 with him tlu'ough his cheerful and gentle dispo- 
 sition, married his pupil, entered the government 
 service, married his daughter to landed pro- 
 prietor EobysanyefF of the Orel government, a 
 retired dragoon and poet, and himself removed 
 his residence to Orel. 
 
 And it was this same Lejeune, or, as he was 
 now called, Franz Ivanitch, who entered the 
 room of OvsyanikofF, with whom he was on 
 friendly terms 
 
 Rut, perliaps, the reader is already tired of sit- 
 ting witli me at Freeholder Ovsvanikoff's, and 
 therefore I will preserve an eloquent silence. 
 
 131
 
 VII 
 
 LGOFF ^ 
 
 " Let 's go to Lgoff ," — said Ermolai, who is 
 already known to the reader, to me one day; — 
 " we can shoot a lot of dncks there." 
 
 Although a wild duck offers nothing particu- 
 larly attractive for a genuine sportsman, still, 
 in the temporary absence of other game (it was 
 the beginning of September; the woodcock had 
 not yet arrived, and I had got tired of tramping 
 over the fields after partridges), I gave heed to 
 my huntsman, and set off for logoff. 
 
 logoff is a large \illage on the steppe, with an 
 extremely ancient stone church of one cuj^ohi, 
 and two mills, on the marshy little river Rosota. 
 Five versts from Lgoff tliis little stream becomes 
 a broad pond, overgrown along the edges and 
 here and there in the middle with dense reeds 
 On this ])ond, in the bays or stagnant spots amid 
 the reeds, there bred and dwelt an innumerable 
 mass of ducks of all possible varieties: widgeon, 
 semi-widgeon, pintails, teals, mergansers, and so 
 
 ' The soft sifin between the J and the r/ rendei-s the former 
 soft: so that lliis is j)ronounc'C(l ahnost as though s])elU'(l I>[i]goff. — 
 Translatoh. 
 
 132
 
 T.GOFF 
 
 forth. Small coveys were constantly flying to 
 and fro, hovering over the water, and a shot 
 started up such clouds of them, that the sports- 
 man involuntarily clai)pcd one hand to his cap 
 and emitted a prolonged: " Phe-e-ew!" — Efrmo- 
 lai and 1 started to walk along the edge of the 
 pond, but, in the first place, the duck, which is 
 a wary bird, does not take up its stand on the 
 shore itself; in the second place, even if any lag- 
 gard and inexperienced teal had succumbed to 
 our shots and lost its life, our dogs would not 
 have been able to retrieve it in the dense reed- 
 growth: in spite of the most noble self-sacrifice, 
 they could neither have swum, nor walked on the 
 bottom, and would have cut their precious noses 
 against the sharp edges of the reeds all in vain. 
 
 "No," — said Krmolai at last: — "this won't 
 do : we must get a boat. . . . Let 's return to 
 LgofF." 
 
 We set off. We had taken only a few steps 
 when from behind a thick willow, a decidedly 
 wretched setter ran forth to meet us, and in its 
 wake a man made his appearance — a man of me- 
 dium stature, in a blue, very threadbare coat, a 
 yellowish waistcoat, trousers of the tint known as 
 gris-de-laine or hleu-d' amour, hastily tucked 
 into boot's full of holes, with a red kerchief on 
 his neck, and a single-barrelled gun on liis shoul- 
 der. While our dogs, with the Chinese ceremo- 
 nial habitual to their race, sniffed at the unfa- 
 
 133
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 miliar individual, who was evidently intimidated, 
 tucked his tail hetween his legs, dropped his ears, 
 and hriskly wriggled all over without bending 
 his knees and showing his teeth the while, — the 
 stranger came up to us, and made a very polite 
 obeisance. Judging by his appearance, he was 
 about five and twenty years of age; his long, 
 light chestnut hair, strongly impregnated with 
 kvas, stuck out in motionless little pig-tails, — his 
 small brown eyes blinked amiably, — his whole 
 face, bound up with a black kerchief, as though 
 he were suffering from the toothache, beamed 
 voluptuously. 
 
 " Allow me to introduce myself, "^ — he began, 
 in a soft, insinuating voice: — "I 'm the huntsman 
 here, A^ladimir On hearing of your ar- 
 rival, and learning that you had deigned to di- 
 rect your steps to the shores of our pond, 1 have 
 decided, if it will not be disagreeable to you, to 
 offer you my services." 
 
 Huntsman A^ladimir talked precisely like a 
 young provincial actor who plays the parts of 
 the leading lovers. I accepted his proposal, and 
 before we reached LgofF I had succeeded in 
 learning his history. He was a house-serf who 
 had been set at liberty; in his tender youth, he 
 had studied music, then had served as valet, knew 
 how to read and write, had read a few little books, 
 so far as 1 could make out, and while now exist- 
 ing, as many do exist in Russia, without a far-
 
 LGOFF 
 
 thing in cash, without any fixed occupation, sub- 
 sisted on something pi'ctty near akin to heavenly 
 manna. He expressed himself with remarkable 
 elegance and obviously took a foppish pride in his 
 manners; he must have been a frightful dangler 
 after the women, too, and, in all probability, en- 
 joyed successes in that line: Russian maidens love 
 ekxpience. Among other things, he directed my 
 attention to the fact, that he sometimes called on 
 the neighbouring landed proprietors, and went 
 to town to visit, and played preference, and was 
 acquainted with people in the county capital. 
 He smiled in a masterly manner, and with ex- 
 treme diversity; the modest, reserved smile 
 which played over his lips wiien he was listening 
 to the remarks of other people, was particularly 
 becoming to him. He would listen to you, and 
 agree with you perfectly, but nevertheless he did 
 not lose the sense of his own dignity, and seemed 
 to be desirous of giving you to understand that, 
 on occasion, he might put forth an opinion of his 
 own. Ermolai, being a man of not too much edu- 
 cation, and not in the least " subtle," undertook 
 to address him as " thou." You ought to have 
 seen the grin with which Vladimir addressed him 
 as " you-sir." .... 
 
 " Why are you wearing that kerchief-band- 
 age?" — I asked him. — "Have you the tooth- 
 ache?" 
 
 "No, sir," — he replied :^ — "it is, rather, the 
 
 135
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 noxious result of imprudence. I had a friend, a 
 tine man, sir, not a huntsman at all, as that some- 
 times happens, sir. Well, sir, one day he says to 
 me: ' J\ly dear friend, take me a-hunting: I feel 
 curious to know what diversion there is in that.' 
 Naturally, 1 did not wish to refuse my comrade; 
 I furnished him w ith a guii, sir, for nty part, and 
 took him a-hunting, sir. Well, sir, we hunted 
 our fill, as was proper ; and, at last, we took it into 
 our heads to rest, sir. I sat down under a tree; 
 but he, on his side, on the contrary, began to play 
 pranks with his gun, sir, and took aim at me. I 
 requested him to stop it, but, in his inexperience, 
 he did not heed me, sir. The gun went off, and 
 1 lost my chin and the forefinger of my right 
 hand " 
 
 We reached Lgoff. But Vladimir and Er- 
 moliii had decided that it was impossible to hunt 
 without a boat. 
 
 " Sutchok has a barge-plank punt," ^ — re- 
 marked Vladimir: — " but I don't know where he 
 has hidden it. I must run to him." 
 
 " To whom? " I asked. 
 
 " Why, a man lives here whose nickname is 
 Sutchok" (The Twig). 
 
 Vladimir, with Ermolai, set off in quest of 
 The Twig. I told them that I Mould wait for 
 them at the cliurch. As I inspected the tomb- 
 stones in the churchyard, I hit upon a blackened, 
 (juadrangular urn, with the following inscrip- 
 
 ' A flat boat knocked together from old barge planks. 
 
 136
 
 T.GOFF 
 
 tions: on one side, in Fieneli characters: " Ci-git 
 'I'heophile-Henri, Viconite de Blangy;" on an- 
 other: "Beneath this stone is interred the body 
 of Count Blangy, French subject; born 1737, 
 died 1799, at the age of 62; " on the third side: 
 " Peace to his ashes; "on the fourth side: 
 
 Beneath this stone lies a French emigrant: 
 
 He had birth distinguished and talent. 
 
 By the massacre of wife and family distressed, 
 
 He abandoned his fatherland by the tyrant oppressed ; 
 
 The shores of the Russian land having attained, 
 
 In his old age a hospitable roof-tree he gained ; 
 
 The children he taught, the parents consoled 
 
 Here the Almighty Judge has given rest to his soul. 
 
 The arrival of Ermolai, Vladimir, and the man 
 with tlie strange nickname. The Twig, inter- 
 rupted my meditations. 
 
 Barefooted, tattered, and dishevelled. The 
 Twig seemed, from his appearance, to be a re- 
 tired house-serf, about sixty years of age. 
 
 " Hast thou a boat? " — I asked. 
 
 " I have," — he replied, in a dull and cracked 
 voice: — " but it 's very bad." 
 
 " How so? " 
 
 " It 's coming apart; and the plugs have fallen 
 out of the holes." * 
 
 "A great misfortune that," put in Ermolai: 
 " but we can stuff in tow." 
 
 * See note on page 21 . — Traxslator- 
 
 137
 
 MEIMOIRS OF A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 " Of course, that is possible," — assented The 
 Twig. 
 
 "But who art thou?" 
 
 " The squire's fisherman." 
 
 " How canst thou be a fisherman, and have 
 thy boat in such disrepair? " 
 
 " Why, there are no fish in our river." 
 
 " Fish don't hke rusty swamp-water," — re- 
 marked my huntsman, pompously. 
 
 " AVell," — I said to Ermolai: — " go, get some 
 tow, and repair the boat for us, and be quick 
 about it." 
 
 Ermolai departed. 
 
 " Well, I suppose we shall go to the bottom, 
 anywaj^? " — I said to Vladimir. 
 
 " God is merciful," — he replied. " In any 
 case, w^e are bound to suppose that the pond is 
 not deep." 
 
 " No, it is n't deep," — remarked The Twig, 
 who talked in a curious manner, as though half 
 asleep: — "and there is slime and grass on the 
 bottom, and it 's all overgrown with grass. 
 However, there are pit-holes too." 
 
 " But if the grass is so strong," — remarked 
 Vladimir: — " it will be impossible to row." 
 
 " Why, but who does row a punt? It must be 
 shoved with a pole; I have a pole yonder, — or a 
 shovel will do." 
 
 " A shovel is clumsy, 1 don't suppose one coidd 
 toucli hottom with it in some places," — said 
 Vladimir. 
 
 138
 
 LGOFl' 
 
 " That 's true, it is awkward." 
 
 I sat down on a grave to ^vait for Erniolai. 
 Vladimir went off a little way, from a sense of 
 propriety, and sat down also. The Twig con- 
 tinued to stand in the same spot, with drooping 
 head, and hands folded behind his back, out of 
 old habit. 
 
 "Tell me, please," — I began: — "hast thou 
 
 been a fisherman here long? " 
 
 " This is the seventh year," — he replied, with 
 a start. 
 
 " And what was thy previous occupation? " 
 
 " Formerly I was a coachman." 
 
 " Who discharged thee from the post of coach- 
 man { 
 
 " Why, the new mistress." 
 
 " What mistress? " 
 
 " Why, the one who has bought us. You don't 
 know her: Alyona [Elena] Timofyeevna, such 
 a fat w^oman .... and not young." 
 
 " What made her take it into her head to pro- 
 mote thee to be the fisherman? " 
 
 " God knows. . She came to us from her es- 
 tate, from Tamb6fi\ ordered all the house-serfs 
 to assemble, and came out to us. First of all, we 
 went and kissed her hand, and she made no ob- 
 jection: she was not angry. . . And then she 
 began to question us, one after the other: what 
 did each do, what duties did he perform? My 
 turn came; so she asks: ' What hast thou been? ' 
 I sav: ' A coachman! ' — ' A coachman? Well, a 
 
 139
 
 me:\ioirs of a spoutsmax 
 
 pretty sort of coachman tliuii art ; just look at 
 thyself: a coachman, forsooth! 'T is not fit that 
 thou shouldst be a coachman: thou shalt be my 
 fisherman, and thou must shave off thy beard. 
 AVlien I come hither, thou art to supply fish for 
 mv table, dost hear ? ' . . . So from that time 
 forth, I have been reckoned a fisherman. And 
 it is my business, you see, to keep the pond in 
 order But how is it to be kept in order? " 
 
 " To whom did you formerly belong? " 
 
 " Why, to Sergyei Sergyeitch Pekhteroff. 
 We came to him through inheritance. But he 
 did not own us long, — six years in all. And I 
 served as coachman to him . . . but not in town 
 — there he had others, })ut in the country." 
 
 " And wert thou always a coachman, from thy 
 youth up? " 
 
 "A coachman, indeed! I became a coachman 
 under Sergyei Sergyeitch, but before that I was 
 the cook, — but not in town, but thus, in the coun- 
 
 try." 
 
 " And whose cook wert thou? " 
 " Why, my former master's, Afanasy Xefyo- 
 ditch, uncle to Sergyei Sergyeitch. Pie bought 
 LgofF, Afanasy Xefyoditch bought it, and Ser- 
 gyei Sergyeitcli inlierited the estate." 
 " From whom did he buy it? " 
 "Why, from Tatyana Vasilievna!" 
 " From what Tatyana Vasilievna? " 
 Why, the one yonder, who died year before 
 
 <(
 
 i.(;()FF 
 
 last, near B(ilklu')fF .... I mean to say, near 
 
 Kanitclievo,— a spinster And she was 
 
 never married. Don't you know her? We came 
 to her from her father, from Vasily Semyonitch. 
 She owned us a pretty long time .... ahout 
 twenty years." 
 
 " Well, and so thou wert her cook? " 
 " At first, in fact, I was a cook, and then I he- 
 came kofischenk." 
 "What?" 
 " Kofischenk." 
 
 " What sort of an employment is that? " 
 " Why, I don't know, dear little father. I 
 was attached to the hutler's pantry, and my 
 name was Anton, and not Kuzma. Those were 
 the mistress's orders." 
 
 " Is thy real name Kuzma? " 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And wert thou kofischenk all the time? " 
 " No, not all the time: I was also an actor." 
 " Is it possible? " 
 
 " Of course I was. ... I played in the 
 keatre. Our mistress set up a keatre in her 
 house." 
 
 " What parts didst thou play? " 
 " What were you pleased to ask, sir? " 
 " What didst thou do in the theatre? " 
 " Whv, don't A^ou know? Well, thev would 
 take and dress me up; and I would Avalk about 
 decked out, or stand, or sit, as the case miglit be. 
 
 141
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 They would tell nie: ' This is what thou must 
 say ' — and 1 would say it. Once I represented a 
 blind man. . . They put a pea under each of 
 mv eyelids. . . So thev did! " 
 
 " And after that, what wert thou? " 
 
 " After that, I became a cook again." 
 
 " ^Vhy did they degrade thee to the position 
 of cook? " 
 
 " Why, my brother ran away." 
 
 " Well, and what wert thou with the father of 
 thy first mistress? " 
 
 " Why, I discharged various duties: first I 
 was a page, a falet, a shoemaker, and also a 
 whipper-in." 
 
 "A whipper-in? .... And didst thou ride 
 to hounds? " 
 
 "I did, and injured myself: I fell from my 
 horse, and hurt the horse. Our old master was 
 veiy severe; he ordered me to be flogged, and to 
 be apprenticed to a shoemaker in JNIoscow." 
 
 " What dost thou mean by apprenticeship? I 
 don't suppose thou wert a whipper-in while thou 
 wert a child? " 
 
 " I was over twenty." 
 
 " And what sort of instruction could there be 
 at twenty? " 
 
 " Of coiu'se, if the master ordered, there was 
 no help. But, luckily, he died soon after, — and 
 they brought me back to the village." 
 
 142
 
 I.GOFF 
 
 " But when diclst thou Ituni the art of cook- 
 ery? 
 
 Tlie Twig raised his thin, sallow face a little, 
 and laughed aloud. 
 
 " Why, does one learn that? — But even the 
 peasant women can cook! " 
 
 " Well," said I : — " thou hast seen sights in thy 
 day, Ku'/nia! And what dost thou do now, as 
 fisherman, if there are no fish on thy mistress's 
 estate? " 
 
 " Wliy, dear little father, I have nothing to 
 complain of. And thank God that I was made 
 the lisherman. For the mistress ordered just 
 such another old fellow as me — Andrei Pupyr — 
 to the paper-mill as water-carrier. ' 'T is sinful,' 
 says she, ' to eat the hread of idleness.' .... 
 And Pupyr was counting on favour: his first 
 cousin's son is clerk in the mistress's office, and 
 he had promised to report about him to the mis- 
 tress, to remind her of him. IMuch he reminded 
 her! . . . And Pupyr, before my very eyes, 
 bowed down to liis cousin-nephew's feet." 
 
 " Hast thou any family? Hast thou been mar- 
 ried? " 
 
 " No, dear little father. The late Tatyana Va- 
 silievna — the kingdom of heaven be hers! — per- 
 mitted no one to marry. God forbid! She used 
 to say: ' 1 live unwedded, as you see. What self- 
 indulgence! who needs it?'". 
 
 143
 
 ME.AIOIRS OF A SPORTS^IAN 
 
 " On what dost thou hvc now? Dost thou re- 
 ceive wages? " 
 
 " Wages, indeed, dear little father! . . . They 
 give me my victuals — and thanks to Thee, O 
 Lord, for that same! I 'm well satisfied. May 
 God prolong our mistress's life!" 
 
 Ermoliii returned. 
 
 " The boat is repaired,'' — he said surlily. — 
 " Go fetch thy pole— thou! " The Twig ran for 
 his pole. During the whole time of my conver- 
 sation with the poor old man, A^ladimir the hunts- 
 man had stared at him with a scornful smile. 
 
 " A stupid man, sir," — he said, when tlie latter 
 went awav: — "an entirely uneducated man, a 
 peasant, sir, nothing more, sir. He cannot be 
 called a house-serf, sir ... he was just brag- 
 ging all the time, sir. . . . Just judge for your- 
 self, sir, how could he be an actor, sir? You have' 
 deigned to bother yourself unnecessarily, you 
 have condescended to chat \\'ith him, sir! " 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, we were seated in 
 the punt. (We had left the dog in the cottage, 
 under the oversight of the coachman legudiil.) 
 We were not very comfortable, but hunters are 
 not extremely fastidious folks. The Twig stood 
 at the blunt-pointed stern, and " shoved." Vla- 
 dimir and I sat on the cross-seats of the boat. 
 Ermolai placed himself in front, at the very bow. 
 In spite of the tow, water speedily made its 
 a])])earance under our feet. Fortunately, tlie 
 
 144
 
 LGOFF 
 
 weather was calm, and the pond was as quiet as 
 though asleep. 
 
 We floated on rather slowly. The old man 
 with difficulty pulled his long pole out of the 
 ooze, all wound ahout with the green threads 
 of the submarine sedges; the thick, circular 
 pads of tlie marsli lilies also impeded the progress 
 of our boat. iVt last we reached the reeds, 
 and the fun began. The ducks rose noisily, 
 " tore themselves " from thfe pond, frightened by 
 our unexpected appearance in their domain, shots 
 followed them thick and fast, and it w^as divert- 
 ing to see those bob-tailed birds turn somersaults 
 in the air and flop down heavily on the water. 
 As a matter of course, we did not retrieve all the 
 ducks we shot : the slightly wounded dived ; some, 
 killed outright, fell into such dense clumps of 
 reeds that even Ermohii's carroty-hued little 
 eyes could not detect them; but, nevertheless, by 
 dinner-time our boat was flUed to overflowing" 
 with game. 
 
 Vladimir, to the great amazement of Ermolai, 
 proved to be very far from a good shot, and after 
 each unsuccessful discharge felt surprised, in- 
 spected and blew into bis gun, was puzzled, and, 
 at last, explained to us the reason why he had 
 missed his aim. Ermolai shot, as usual, with tri- 
 umphant success; I, quite badly, according to 
 my wont. The Twig gazed at us with the eyes 
 of a man w^ho has been in the service of the gen- 
 
 145
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 try from liis youth up, shouted now and then, 
 "Yonder, yonder is another (hick!" — and kept 
 incessantly scratcliin*;- his hack — not with his 
 hands, hut with his shoulders, which he set in mo- 
 tion. The weather was magnificent: round, 
 white clouds floated hii>h and softly ov^er our 
 heads, and were clearly reflected in the water ; the 
 reeds whispered aroimd us; the pond, in spots, 
 glittered like steel in the sunlight. We were pre- 
 paring to return to the village, when, all of a 
 sudden, a decidedly unpleasant accident hap- 
 pened to us. 
 
 We had long since noticed that the water had 
 been gradually but constantly gathering in our 
 punt. Vladimir was commissioned to bail it out, 
 by means of a dip])er, which my provident hunts- 
 man had abstracted, in case of need, from a peas- 
 ant woman who was not watching. Things went 
 on as they shoidd, until Vladimir forgot his duty. 
 But toward the end of the hunt, as though by way 
 of farewell, the ducks began to rise in such flocks, 
 that we hardly had time to load our guns. In 
 the smoke of the firing, \\e paid no attention to 
 the condition of our punt, — and suddenly, at a 
 violent motion on the i)art of Krmolai (he was 
 trying to secure a duck which had been killed, 
 and was bearing his full weight against the gun- 
 wale), our decrepit vessel careened, filled with 
 water, and triumphantly went to the bottom, — 
 fortunately, at a spot Avhere the water was not 
 
 146
 
 LGOFF 
 
 deep. \Ve cried out, but it was already too late: 
 a moment later, we were standing up to our necks 
 in the water, surrounded by the floating carcasses 
 of the dead ducks. I cannot now recall without 
 laughter the frightened, pallid countenances of 
 my c()ni[)anions (probably, my own face was not 
 distinguished by its high colour at the time, 
 either) ; but at that moment, I must confess, it 
 never entered my head to laugh. Kach of us 
 held his gun over his head, and The Twig, proba- 
 bly owing to his habit of imitating his superiors, 
 elevated his pole on high also. Ermolai was the 
 first to break tlie silence. 
 
 "Whew, damn it!" — he muttered, spitting 
 into the water: " here 's a pretty mess! And it 's 
 all thy fault, thou old devil! " — he added angrily, 
 turning to The Twig: — " what sort of a boat 
 dost thou call that? " 
 
 " Forgive me ! " — faltered the old man. 
 
 " Yes, and thou art a nice one too," — went on 
 my liuntsman, turning his head in the direction 
 of Vladimir: — " why wert not thou on the look- 
 out? ^^'hy didst thou not bail? thou, thou, 
 thou . . . ." 
 
 But Vladimir was already past retorting; he 
 was trembling like a leaf, his teeth were chatter- 
 ing, and he was smiling in a wholly senseless 
 way. AVhat had become of his fine language, 
 his sense of delicate propriety, and his own dig- 
 nity! 
 
 147
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 The accursed punt rocked \\eakly under our 
 feet. . . . At the nionient of our ship-wreck, the 
 water had seemed to ns extremely cold, hut we 
 soon got used to it. \Mien the first alarm suh- 
 sided, I glanced ahout me: all around, at a dis- 
 tance of ten paces from us, grew reeds ; far away, 
 over their tops, the shore was visible. " We 're 
 in a had plight!" I thought. 
 
 " AVhat are we to do? " — I asked Elrmolai. 
 
 " Why, here now, let 's see; we can't spend the 
 night here," — he replied. — " Here now, hold my 
 gun," — he said to Vladimii'. 
 
 Vladimir suhmissivelv obeyed. 
 
 " I '11 go and search out a ford," — went on 
 Ermolai, with confidence, as though in every 
 pond there must, infallibly, exist a ford, — took 
 the pole from The Twig, and set off in the direc- 
 tion of the shore, cautiously probing the bottom. 
 
 " But canst thou swim? " — I asked him. 
 
 " Xo, I can't," — rang out his voice, from be- 
 hind the reeds. 
 
 " Well, then he '11 drown," — indifferently re- 
 marked The Twig, who had at first been fright- 
 ened, not at the danger, but at our wrath, and 
 now, with perfect composure, merely drew a long 
 breath from time to time, and, apparently, felt 
 no imperative necessity to alter his situation. 
 
 " And he '11 perish quite uselessly, sir," — 
 added Vladimir, plaintively. 
 
 Ermolai did not returxi for more than an hour. 
 
 148
 
 LGOFF 
 
 That hour seemed an eternity to us. At first wt 
 exchanged shouts with him very assi(hiously; tlien 
 he began to answer our calls more infrequently, 
 and at last he fell silent altogether. In the vil- 
 lage the bells began to ring for vespers. We did 
 not talk with each other, we even tried not to look 
 at each other. The ducks hovered over our 
 heads; some prepared to alight beside us, but 
 suddenly soared aloft, " like a shot," as the say- 
 ing is, and flew quacking away. We began to 
 grow numb. The Twig blinked his eyes, as 
 though he were inclined to be sleepy. 
 
 At last, to oiu* indescribable joy, Ermolai re- 
 turned. 
 
 " Well, what now?" 
 
 " I have been to the shore; I have found a 
 ford." 
 
 " Let us go." 
 
 We wanted to set off on the instant; but first 
 he drew a rope from his pocket under water, 
 tied the dead ducks by their legs, took both 
 ends in his teeth, and strode on in front; Vladi- 
 mir followed him, I followed Vladimir, and The 
 Twig closed the procession. It was about two 
 hundred paces to the shore. Ermolai walked 
 onward boldly, and without a halt (so well had 
 he taken note of the road ) , only calling out, 
 from time to time: " More to the left, — ^there 's 
 a sink-hole on the right! " or: " To the right, — 
 there on the left j^ou '11 stick fast." .... At 
 
 149
 
 ME]M01RS OF A SPORTS^SIAN 
 
 times tlie water reached our throats, and twice 
 the poor Twit>', bein<r lower of stature than the 
 rest of us, choked and emitted bubbles. — " Come, 
 come, come!" — shouted Krmolai menacingly at 
 him, — and The Twig scrambled^ floundered 
 about witli his feet, hopped, and, somehow or 
 other, reached a shallower spot; but, even in ex- 
 tremity, he could not bring himself to clutch the 
 tail of my coat. Worn out, dirty, soaked, we 
 reached the shore at last. 
 
 Two hours later, we were all sitting, dried so 
 far as that was possible, in a large hay-shed, and 
 preparing to sup. legudiil, extremely slow to 
 start, disinclined to move, sagacious and sleepy, 
 stood at the gate, and assiduously regaled The 
 Twig with snuff. ( 1 have noticed that coachmen 
 in Russia speedily strike up friendship.) The 
 Twig snuffed it up furiously to the point of 
 nausea: spat, coughed, and, to all appearances, 
 exj^erienced great satisfaction. Vladimir as- 
 sumed a languid air, lolled his head on one 
 side, and said little. The dogs wagged tlieir 
 tails with exaggerated briskness, in anticipation 
 of oatmeal porridge; the horses were stamping 
 
 and neighing under the shed The sun 
 
 had set; its last rays dispersed in crimson streaks; 
 little golden clouds spread over the sky, grow- 
 ing ever thinner and thinner, like a fleece washed 
 
 and combed Songs resounded in 
 
 the village. 
 
 150
 
 VIII 
 
 BYEZIIIN ME.VDOAV 
 
 It was a magnificent July day, one of those 
 days which come only wlien the weather has been 
 fair for a long time. From the very earliest 
 dawn the sky is clear; the morning glow does not 
 flame like a conflagration: it pours itself forth 
 in a gentle flush. The sun, not fiery, not red-hot, 
 as in the season of sultry drought, not of a (hill 
 crimson, as before a tempest, but bright, and 
 agreeably radiant, glides up peace f idly under 
 a long, narrow cloudlet, beams freshly, and 
 plunges into its lilac mist. The thin upper edges 
 of the outstretched cloudlet begin to flash like 
 darting serpents; their gleam resembles the 
 gleam of hammered silver. . . . But now the 
 sportive rays liave burst forth once more, — and 
 the mighty luminary rises merrily and majesti- 
 cally, as though flying. In the neighbourhood of 
 midday, a multitude of round, high-hanging 
 clouds make their appearance, of a golden-grey 
 hue, with tender white rims. Like islands, scat- 
 tered upon a river wliich lias overflowed to an 
 endless extent, and streams around them in ])ro- 
 foundly-transparent branches of level azure, they 
 
 151
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 liardly stir from tlieir places. Further away, 
 toward the horizon, they move to meet each other, 
 press close upon one another, and there is no azure 
 to be seen betMeen them, but they themselves are 
 as blue as the sky: they are all permeated, 
 tlu'ouoh and through, with liyht and warmth. 
 The colour of the horizon, a liglit, pale lilac, does 
 not undergo any change all day long, and is the 
 same all the way round; nowhere does it grow 
 darker, nowhere is a thunder-storm brewing; 
 here and there, perhaps, bluish streaks run down- 
 ward from above, or a barely perceptible shower 
 sprinkles down. Toward evening, these clouds 
 vanish; the last of them, blackish and undefined 
 in form, like smoke, lie in rosy, curling wreaths 
 over against the setting sun; at the place where 
 it has gone down as trancjuilly as it rose in the 
 sky, a scarlet aureole stands, for a little while, 
 above the darkening earth, and, flickering softly, 
 like a carefully carried tajier, the evening. star 
 kindles in it. On such days, the coloiu's are all 
 softened, bright but not gaudy; over everything 
 rests the imprint of a certain touching gentle- 
 ness. On such days the heat is sometimes very 
 great; sometimes, even, it is "stewing hot" on 
 the slopes of the fields; but the breeze chases 
 away, disperses the accumulated sultriness, cir- 
 cling wind-gusts — an unfailing sign of settled 
 weather — wander in tall white columns of dust 
 along the roads across the tilled land. The dry, 
 
 152
 
 byp:zitin meadow 
 
 pure air is redolent of wormwood, cnislitd rye, 
 buckwheat; even an hour before nightfall, you 
 will feel no dampness. This is the sort of 
 weatlier which the farmer craves for liarvesting 
 his grain. 
 
 On precisely such a day, I was once hunting 
 partridges in the Tcliyornoye distri^-t of tlic I'lihi 
 goverrmient. I had found and shot (juite a lot 
 of game; my well-filled game-bag was cutting 
 pitilessly into my shoulder; but the evening glow 
 had already died out, and in the air, which was 
 still light, although no longer illuminated by the 
 rays of the setting sun, the chilly shadows were 
 beginning to thicken and spread abroad when, at 
 last, 1 decided to return home. With swift 
 strides 1 traversed a long " square " of second - 
 growth bushes, climbed a hill, and, instead of the 
 familiar level stretch Avith its oak copse, which 
 I had expected to see on my right, and the low- 
 browed white church in the distance, I beheld an 
 entirely different set of places, with which 1 was 
 not acquainted. At my feet stretched a narrow^ 
 vale; directly opposite, a dense grove of aspen 
 trees rose in a steep wall. 1 halted in bewilder- 
 ment, and glanced about me '!Oho!" I 
 
 thought: " why, I have lost my way completely: 
 I have kept too much to the right,"' and, amazed 
 at my mistake, I brisklv descended the hill. I 
 was immediately beset by a disagreeable, motion- 
 less dampness, as tliough I liad entered a cellar: 
 
 153
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 the thick, tall grass on the floor of the vale, all 
 wet tlirough, gleamed like a smooth, white table- 
 cloth; somehow, one felt uneasy about stepping 
 on it. I scram})le(l up the opposite slope as 
 alertly as possible, keeping to the left, along the 
 aspen grove. Rats were already flitting above its 
 slumbering crests, mysteriously circling and quiv- 
 ering against the confusedly-clear sky, a belated 
 hawk flew past smartly and directly upward, 
 hurrying to its nest. " Now, as soon as I turn 
 yonder corner," I thought to myself, " I shall 
 immediately strike the road; — but I ha^'e made 
 a loop of a verst! " 
 
 At last, I reached the corner of the forest, but 
 there was no road: some low-growing, unfelled 
 bushes spread out broadly in front of me, and 
 beyond them, far, far away, a stretch of waste 
 land was visible. Again I came to a standstill. 
 " What 's the meaning of this? . . . Why, where 
 am I? "—I began to recall how and where I had 
 roamed during the course of the day. . . "Eh! 
 why, these are the Parakhinsko bushes!" I ex- 
 claimed at last: " that 's it exactly! that must be 
 the Sindyeevo coj^se yonder. . . Rut how in the 
 world did I get here? So far? .... 'T is 
 strange! Xow I must keep to the right again." 
 
 I went to the right, through the bushes. In the 
 meantime night was drawing on, and growing- 
 like a thunder-cloud; it seemed as though, along 
 Avith the nocturnal exhalations, the darkness rose 
 
 154
 
 BYEZIIIN JNIEADOW 
 
 from all directions, and even streamed down 
 from on high. I hit upon an unbeaten, over- 
 grown path; 1 advanced along it, attentively 
 gazing ahead. Everything around was swiftly 
 growing black and silent, — only the quails ut- 
 tered a call from time to time. A small night 
 bird, darting inaudibly and low on its soft wings, 
 almost came into collision with me, and dived 
 aside in affright. X emerged upon the edge of 
 the bush-growth, and wended my way along the 
 boundary strip of sward between two fields. Al- 
 ready I could make out distant objects only with 
 difficulty: the field gleamed dimly white around 
 me ; beyond it, moving nearer with every passing- 
 moment in huge masses, sin-ged up the grim 
 gloom. jNly footsteps resounded dully in the 
 chilly air. The sky, wliich had paled, began to 
 turn blue again, — but it was the nocturnal blue 
 now. Tiny stars began to twinkle, to stir in it. 
 
 That which I had been on the point of taking 
 for a grove, turned out to be a dark, round 
 hillock. " But where am I, then? " I repeated, 
 once more, aloud, halted for the third time, and 
 stared inquiringly at my English, yellows-spotted 
 hound, Dianka, positively the cleverest of all 
 foiu'-footed creatures. But the cleverest of 
 quadrupeds only wagged her tail, ])linked her 
 weary eyes dolefully, and gave me no practical 
 advice. I felt ashamed in her presence, and 
 rushed desperately onward, as though I had sud- 
 
 155
 
 :ME3iUlKS OF A SrORTS.MAN 
 
 (Icnly di\ined wliitlier I ouglit to go, skirted 
 the hilloek, and found myself in a shallow de- 
 pression, tilled all around. A strange feeling im- 
 mediately took possession of me. This hollow 
 had almost the form of a regular kettle, with 
 sloping sides; on its bottom several large, white 
 boidders reared themselves on end, — they seemed 
 to Iiave crawled down there to hold a secret con- 
 ference, and the place was so deaf and dumb, the 
 sky hung over it so flatly, so dejectedly, that my 
 heart contracted within me. Some sort of a 
 small, wild animal was whining weakly and piti- 
 fully among the boulders. 1 made haste to re- 
 treat behind the hillock. Up to tliis moment, I 
 had not yet lost hope of finding my way liome; 
 but now I became definitively convinced that I 
 was completely lost, and without making the 
 slightest further effort to recognise mv sur- 
 roundings, which were almost entirely drowned 
 in the mist, I walked straiglit ahead, guided by 
 the stars, at random. ... I continued to walk 
 thus for al)out half an hour, with difficulty put- 
 ting one foot before the other. It seemed to me 
 that, never since 1 was born, had I ])een in such 
 desert places: not a single light twinkled any- 
 where, not a sound was audible. One sloping hill 
 succeeded another, fields stretched out after 
 fields in endless succession, bushes seemed faiily 
 to spring out of tlie eartli in front of my very 
 nose. I kept walking on and on, and was already 
 
 1.56
 
 BYEZHIX MP:AD0\V 
 
 making ready to lie down somewhere until the 
 morning, when, suddenly. I I'ound myself on the 
 brink of a frightful ahvss. 
 
 I hastily drew baek my loot, which was thrust 
 forward, and athwart the barely penetrable 
 gloom of night I tlescried, far down beneath me, 
 a vast ravine. A broad river swept around it in 
 .a semicircle ^vllich swerved away from me: steely 
 gleams of water, flashing forth rarely and dimly, 
 designated its course. The hill on which I foimd 
 myself descended in an almost perpendicular 
 precipice; its huge outlines stood out, darkling, 
 against the bluish aerial waste, and directly be- 
 neath me, in the angle formed by the precipice 
 and the level plain, beside the river, which, at that 
 point, stood like a dark, motionless mirror, be- 
 neath the very steep face of the hill, burned and 
 smoked, side bv side, two fires. Around them 
 people were swarming, shadows were flickering, 
 the front half of a small, curly head was at times 
 brilliantly illuminated. . . 
 
 I recognised, at last, whither I had come. This 
 meadow is renowned in our vicinity under the 
 
 name of the Byezhin Meadow But 
 
 there was no possibility of getting home, es- 
 pecially by night; my legs were giving way be- 
 neath me with weariness. I made up my mind 
 to approach the fires, and. in the company of the 
 people, whom I took for drovers, to await the 
 dawn. I made a successful descent, but before I 
 
 157
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 could release from mv hand the last bou^rh I had 
 clutched, two large, white, shaggy dogs flew at 
 me, barking viciously. Ringing childish voices 
 resounded around the tires; two or three little 
 boys rose hastily from the ground. They ran 
 toward me, called off the dogs, who had been 
 particularly surprised by the appearance of my 
 Dianka, and I approached them. 
 
 1 had made a mistake in taking the persons 
 who were sitting round those fires for drovers. 
 They were simply peasant children from the 
 neighbouring village, who were herding the 
 horses. In our parts, during the hot sunmier 
 weather, the horses are driven out to graze in the 
 fields at night: by day, the flies and gadflies 
 would give them no jjcace. It is a great treat for 
 the peasant lads to drive the herd out at eventide 
 and drive them home at dawn. Seated, capless, 
 and in old half -coats, on the most restive nags, 
 they dash on with merry w^hoops and shouts, with 
 dangling arms and legs, bouncing high aloft, 
 with ringing laughter. The light dust rises in a 
 column and blows along the road; far away, the 
 vigorous trampling of hoofs is borne on the air, 
 the horses race onward, pricking up their ears; 
 in front of all, flirting its tail, and incessantly 
 changing foot, gallops a shagg}^ reddish-yellow 
 beast, with burdock burs in its tangled mane. 
 
 I told the little lads that I had lost my way, 
 and sat down with them. They asked me 
 
 158
 
 BYEZHIN MEADOW 
 
 whence I had come, fell silent, drew aside. We 
 chatted a little. I lay down nnder a gnawed 
 bush, and began to look about me. It was a won- 
 derful picture; around tlie fires quivered, and, as 
 it were, flickered, resting against the darkness, a 
 round, reddish reflection; the flame, flashing up 
 now and then, cast swift gleams beyond the limit 
 of that circle; a thin tongue of light would lick 
 the bare boughs of the scrub-willows and in- 
 stantly vanish ;^long, sharp-pointed shadows, 
 breaking forth, for a moment, in their turn, 
 rushed up to the very fires: the gloom wrestled 
 with the light. Sometimes, when the flame 
 burned more feebly, and the circle of light con- 
 tracted, a horse's head would suddenly thrust 
 itself forward out of the invading gloom, — a 
 brown horse, with a sinuous white mark on the 
 forehead, or all white, — and gaze attentively and 
 dully at us, briskly chewing a long tuft of grass 
 the while, and, lowering again, immediately dis- 
 appear. All that was audible was, that it con- 
 tinued to chew and snort. From the illuminated 
 place, it was difficult to discern what was going 
 on in the darkness, and, consequently, everything 
 near at hand seemed enveloped in an almost black 
 curtain; but further away, toward the horizon, 
 hills and forests could be dimly descried, in long 
 splashes. The dark, pure sky stood solemnly and 
 boundlessly high above us, with all its mysterious 
 majesty. The breast felt sweet oppression as it 
 
 159
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 inhaled that pecuhar, fresh and enervatino- fra- 
 grance — the fragrance of a Russian summer 
 night. Hardly a sound was audi])le round ahout. 
 . . . Only now and then, in the near-by riyer, a 
 large fish would s})lasli with sudden sonorousness, 
 and the reeds upon the banks would rustle faintly, 
 barely rocked ])y a truant waye. . . . The fires 
 alone crackled softly. 
 
 The little boys sat around them; there, also, 
 sat the two dogs, ^^'llo would haye liked to deyour 
 me. For a long time, they could not reconcile 
 themselyes to my presence, and, sleepily screwing 
 up their eyes, and casting sidelong glances at 
 the fire, they growled, now and then, with the 
 consciousness of their own dignity; first they 
 growled, and then whined faintly, as though 
 they regretted the impossibility of fulfilling their 
 desire. There were fiye lads in all : Fedva, Pav- 
 lusha, Iliusha, Kostya, and Vanya. (I learned 
 their names from their conyersation, and intend 
 to introduce them at once to the reader. ) 
 
 You would haye said that the first, the oldest 
 of them all, Fedva, was fourteen. He was a 
 graceful lad, with handsome, delicate, and rather 
 small features, curly fair hair, light eyes, and a 
 constant, half -merry, half-abstracted smile. He 
 belonged, by all the tokens, to a rich family, and 
 Avent out thus into tlie fields, not through neces- 
 sity, but because he wished it, for amusement. 
 He wore a gay print shirt with a yellow border; 
 
 160
 
 BYEZHIN :MEAD0W 
 
 ii siiuill, new peasant's long-coat, lianging fron» 
 his shoulders, the sleeves unused, hardly held in 
 place on liis narrow shoulders; from his sk\'-l)lue 
 girdle hung a small comb. His boots, with 
 narrow leg-pieces, were really his boots — not his 
 father's. The second lad, Pavliisha, had tangled, 
 black hair, grey eyes, broad cheek-bones, a ])ale, 
 pockmarked face, a large, but regular mouth ; his 
 whole head was huge as a beer-kettle, as the ex- 
 pression is, his body stubby, uncouth. He was 
 a homely little fellow, — tliere 's no denying that ! 
 — but, nevertheless, he pleased me: his gaze was 
 very sensible and direct, and power resounded in 
 his Aoice. His garments were nothing to boast 
 of: they consisted of a plain hemp-cloth shirt 
 and patched trousers. The face of the third, 
 lliusJia, was rather insignificant; hook-nosed, 
 long, mole-eyed, it expressed a sort of stupid, 
 sickly anxiety; his tiglitly compressed lips did 
 not move, his knitted brows did not unbend, — he 
 seemed to be always screening his eyes from the 
 fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in 
 pointed tufts from beneath a low-crowned, felt 
 cap, which he was incessantly pulling down over 
 his ears with both hands. He wore new linden- 
 bark sli})pers and leg-cloths; a thick cord, wound 
 thrice around his body, carefully confined his 
 neat, black coat. He and Pavliisha were, appar- 
 ently, not over twelve years of age. The fourth, 
 Kostya, a little lad of ten, excited my curiosity 
 
 161
 
 ME:M01KS of a SrOllTSJSIAN 
 
 by his thoughtful and iiichuicholy gaze. His 
 whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed be- 
 low, like that of a squirrel; his lips were hardly 
 discernible; but his large, black eyes, shining with 
 a liquid gleam, produced a strange impression: 
 they seemed to want to express something for 
 which the tongue — his tongue, at all events — had 
 no words. He was short of stature, of fragile 
 build, and dressed quite poorly. At first, I came 
 near not noticing the last one, Vanya: he was 
 lying on the ground, peaceably curled up under 
 an angular rug, and oidy now and then did 
 he thrust out from beneath it his curly chest- 
 nut head. This boy was, at most, seven years of 
 age. 
 
 So I lay there under a bush, a})art, and sur- 
 veyed the little lads. A small kettle hung over 
 one of the fires: in it they were boiling " 'taties." 
 Pavlusha was watching it, and, kneeling, thrust 
 a chip into the frothing water. Fedya was lying 
 propped on his elbow, with the tails of his coat 
 spread apart. Iliusha was sitting beside Kostya, 
 and also screwing up his eyes intently. Kostya 
 had dropped his head a little, and was gazing oil' 
 somewhere into the distance. A'anya did not stir 
 imder his rug. 1 pretended to be asleep. 
 Gradually, the boys began to talk again. 
 
 At first they prattled about one thing and an- 
 other, about the toils of the morrow, about the 
 horses; but, all of a sudden, Fedya turned to 
 
 162
 
 BYEZTTTN MEADOW 
 
 Iliiisha and, as though renewing an interrupted 
 conversation, asked him: 
 
 " Well, and what wert ihou saying — hast thou 
 seen the domovoy? " ^ 
 
 " No, I have not seen him, and it is n't possible 
 to see him," — replied Iliusha, in a hoarse, weak 
 voice, whose sound precisely matched the expres- 
 sion of his face. " I heard liim And 1 
 
 was n't the only one." 
 
 " And whereabouts on your premises does he 
 liaunt? " — inquired Pavlusha. 
 
 " In the old stuff -chest room." ^ 
 
 " But do you go to the mill? " 
 
 " Of course we do. IVIy brother Avdiushka 
 and I are plater-boys." 
 
 " See there, now — you are mill-hands ! " . . . . 
 
 " Well, and how didst thou come to hear 
 him? " — asked Fedya. 
 
 " Why, this way. It happened that brother 
 Avdiushka and I, along with Feodor :Mikhyeev- 
 sky and the squint-eyed Ivashka, and another 
 Ivashka, who is from the Red Hills, and still an- 
 other Ivashka SukliorukofF, and other boys also; 
 there were ten of us lads in all, — the whole gang, 
 that is to say; well, and it happened that we had 
 to pass the night in the stufF-chest room, — that is 
 to say, it did n't happen so, but NazarofiP, the 
 
 * House-sprite, like the banshee. — Traxslator. 
 = The huiiding, in paper-mills, where tlie pajier is bailed out of 
 the stuflF-chests. It is close to the dam, under tlie wheel. 
 
 163
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 overseer, forbade iis lo go home: says he: 
 ' What 's the good,' says he, ' of 3^011 boys trudg- 
 ing home ; there 's a lot of work for to-morrow, 
 so don't you go home, my lads/ And so we 
 stayed, and all lay down together, and Avdi- 
 lishka savs, ' ^Vell, bovs, and what if the domo- 
 voy should come? ' . . . . And before lie, Avdyei 
 that is, had finished speaking, some one suddenly 
 walked across over our heads; but we were Ivin^' 
 down-stairs, and lie was walking up-stairs, by 
 the wheel. We hear him walking, and the 
 boards fairly bend under him, and crack; now 
 he has j^assed over our heads; the water suddenly 
 begins to roar and roar against the wheel; the 
 wheel begins to bang and bang, and to turn; but 
 the sluice-gate is shut. ^\''e wonder: — who can 
 have raised it, so that tlie water comes tlirough.? 
 But the wheel went on turning and turning, and 
 then stopped. Then tliat person went to the door 
 up-stairs again, and began to descend the stairs, 
 and came down as though he were in no liurry; 
 
 the steps fairly groaned beneath him Well, 
 
 the person came to our door, waited, waited, — 
 and suddenly the door flew wide ojieii. We 
 started up in terror, we looked — nothing! .... 
 All of a sudden, behold, the mould at one of the 
 stuft'-chests began to move, rose up, tii)pe(l, and 
 floated, floated like that, through the air, as 
 though some one were rinsing with it, and tlien 
 went back to its i)lace. Then, at anotlier chest, 
 
 164
 
 BYEZTIIX ^MEADOW 
 
 the hook was taken from the nail, and put back 
 on the nail again; then some one seemed to go to 
 the door, and suddenly began to cough and hawk, 
 
 like some sort of sheep, and so noisily 
 
 We all tumbled together m a heap, and crawled 
 
 under one another How scared we were 
 
 that time! " 
 
 " You don't say so! " — remarked Pavel. — 
 " What made him cough? " 
 
 " I don't know; the dampness, perhaps." 
 
 All relapsed into silence. 
 
 " Well," — inquired Fedya: — " are the 'taties 
 done? " 
 
 Pavliisha felt of them. 
 
 " No, they 're still raw Whew, what a 
 
 splash," — he added, tin'ning his face in the direc- 
 tion of the river: — " it must be a pike .... and 
 yonder is a shooting star." 
 
 " See here, fellows, I 11 tell you something," — 
 began Kostya, in a thin little voice: — -"Listen 
 to what daddy told me the other day." 
 
 " Come on, we 're listening," — said Fedya, 
 M'ith a patronising mien. 
 
 " Of course, you know Gavrilo, the village 
 carpenter? " 
 
 " Well, yes; we do." 
 
 " But do you know why he is always such a 
 melancholy man: always silent, you know? This 
 is why he is so melancholy: Once on a time, fel- 
 lows, says my daddy, he went to the forest for 
 
 165
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 nuts. So lie \veiit to the forest for nuts, and 
 got lost; God knows where he came out. So 
 he walked and walked, fellows, — but no! he 
 could n't find the road! and niglit was already at 
 hand. So he sat down under a tree; ' I 11 just 
 Mait until morning,' says he to himself, — so he 
 sat down, and fell into a doze. And while he was 
 sleeping, he suddenly heard some one calling 
 him. He looks — no one. Again he fell asleep, 
 — again came the call. Again he looks and looks 
 around: and in front of him, on a bough, sits a 
 water-nymph; she rocks to and fro, and calls him 
 to her, while she herself is dying with laughter. 
 And she laughs so! . . . .And the moon was shin- 
 ing strongly, — so strongly, clearly is the moon 
 shining, that everything is visible, my boys. So 
 she calls him, and sits there on the bough, all 
 brilliant, and white, just like a roach or a gud- 
 geon, — or a carp, also, is whitish and silvery like 
 
 that Gavrilo the carpenter fairly fell 
 
 back in a swoon, fellows; but she, you know, 
 shrieked with laughter, and kept beckoning him 
 to her with her hand, like this. Gavrilo tried to 
 rise, tried to obey the water-nymph, fellows, but, 
 you see, the Lord suggested something to him: 
 he just made the sign of the cross over himself. 
 . . . And how hard he found it to make that sign 
 of the cross, fellows! He says: ' jNly hand was 
 simply like stone, it would n't move. . . . Akh, 
 thou wicked nymph, ah!' — So, fellows, when he 
 
 100
 
 BYEZHIN MEADOW 
 
 made the sign of the cross, that water-sprite 
 ceased to laugh, and suddenly hegan to weep, as 
 it were. . . . She weeps, fellows, and wipes her 
 eyes with her hair, and her hair is as green as thy 
 hemp. So Gavrilo stared and stared at her, and 
 hegan to question her: ' Why weepest thou, thou 
 imp of the forest? ' But the water-sprite says to 
 him: ' Thou shouldst not have crossed thyself, O 
 man,' says she; 'thou nnghtest have lived with 
 me to the end of thy days; and I am weeping, I 
 am pining away, hecause thou hast crossed thy- 
 self; and 'tis not I alone, who shall phie: pine 
 thou, also, until the end of thy daj's.' Then she 
 vanished, fellows, and Gavrilo immediately un- 
 derstood how he was to get out of the forest. . . . 
 Only, from that time forth, he goes ahout always 
 in that melancholy way." 
 
 "Ekha!" — remarked Fedya, after a brief si- 
 lence : — " but how can such a wicked forest 
 demon spoil a Christian soul, — he ought n't to 
 have listened to her! " 
 
 "Oh, go along with you!" — said Kostya. — 
 " And Gavrilo said she had such a thin, wailing 
 voice, like a toad's." 
 
 "Did thy dad narrate that himself?" — went 
 on Fedya. 
 
 " Yes, he did. I was lying on the platform 
 over the oven, and heard everything." 
 
 "A wonderful affair! Why should he be 
 melancholy? .... Why, you know, if she 
 
 167
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 called him, 't was because ' she had taken a fancy 
 to hini.' " 
 
 Yes, she had taken a fancy to hmi! " — ])ut in 
 Iliusha. — -" Of course, slie wanted to tickle him, 
 — that 's what she Nvanted. That 's wliat they do, 
 tliose water-nymphs." 
 
 " W^hy, and there must be water-nymphs here, 
 too," — remarked Fedya. 
 
 "No," — replied Kostya: — "this is a clean 
 place, a free place; for one thing, the river is 
 liard by." 
 
 All fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the 
 far distance, there rang out a long-drawn, sonor- 
 ous, almost moaning sound, one of those incom- 
 prehensible nocturnal noises, which sometimes 
 well up in the midst of profound stillness, rise 
 aloft, hang suspended in the air, and slowly dis- 
 perse, at last, as though they died away. You 
 strain your ear, — and it seems as though there 
 were nothing, yet it is tinkling. It seemed as 
 though some one had shouted for a long, long 
 time, at the very horizon, and some one else had 
 answered his shout from the forest with a thin, 
 shrill laugh, and a weak, hissing whistle flew 
 with Hghtning speed along the river. The little 
 lads exchanged glances, and shuddered. 
 
 " The power of the cross be with us! " — whis- 
 pered Ilya. 
 
 " Kkh, you simpletons! " — cried Pavel: " what 
 are you frightened at? T.ook here, the 'taties are 
 
 i(;8
 
 BYEZITTX INIEADOW 
 
 boiled soft." (They moved up round the little 
 kettle, and began to eat the snioking-hot pota- 
 toes; Vanya alone did not stir.) " What's the 
 matter with thee? " — said Pavel. 
 
 But he did not erawl forth from under his 
 linden-bast rug. The little kettle was speedily 
 emptied completely. 
 
 " But have you heard, my lads," — began lli- 
 usha: — " wliat happened the other day at Var- 
 navitzy? " 
 
 " On the dam, thou meanest? " — asked Fedya. 
 
 " Yes, yes, on the dam, the broken dam. 'T is 
 an unhallowed place, you know, so unhallowed, 
 and so God-forsaken. Everywhere around there 
 are such ravines and precipices, and down the 
 precipices snakes breed." 
 
 " Well, what happened? Go ahead and tell us." 
 
 " Why, this is what happened. Perhaps thou 
 dost not know it, Fedya, but we have a drow^ned 
 man buried there, and he was drowned long, long 
 ago, when the pond was still deep; only his grave 
 is still visible, and even that is barely visible : 't is 
 
 just a tiny mound Well, the other day, 
 
 the manager calls up Ermfl the dog-keeper; says 
 he: ' Go to the post-office, Ermil.' Ermil always 
 does ride to the post-office: he has starved off all 
 his dogs : that 's why they don't live with him, and ^ 
 they never did live w ith him, anyway, but he 's 
 a fine whipper-in, he has all the gifts. So Ennil 
 rode off for the mail, and he lagged in the town, 
 
 169
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTS^NIAN 
 
 and lie was {Iriiiik when lie started to ride back. 
 And tlie night was a briglit night: the moon was 
 shining. . . . So Ermil is .riding across the dam: 
 his road hiy that way. And as he is ri(hng ak)ng, 
 hnntsman Ermil sees, on tlie (h-owned man's 
 grave, a young ram stroUing about, — such a 
 white, curly, prett}^ httle ram. So Ermil thinks 
 to himself: ' I '11 catch him, — why should he be 
 wasted like this?' — so he slipped off his horse, 
 and took him in his hands. . . . But the ram 
 did n't mind it at all. So Ermil goes to his horse, 
 but the horse opens his eyes wide and stares, and 
 neighs and tosses his head; but he untied it, 
 mounted, and the ram with .him, and started off 
 again: he held the young ram in front of him. 
 He looked at it, and the ram just stared him 
 straight in the eye. He began to feel uneasy, 
 did Ermil the huntsman : ' I don't remember ever 
 to have heard,' savs he, ' that rams stared folks 
 in the eye in this fashion ; ' however, he did n't 
 mind; he began to stroke its fur, — and says he: 
 ' Ba-a, ba-a!' And all of a sudden, the ram 
 showed his teeth, and savs to him the same: 
 ' Ba-a, ba-a! . . .' " 
 
 Before the narrator could utter this last word, 
 the two dogs suddenly rose with one impulse, 
 rushed away from the fire, barking convulsively, 
 and vanished into the darkness. All the boys 
 were thoroughly frightened. \'^anya jumped 
 out from under liis mat. Pa\ h'lsiika flew after 
 
 170
 
 EYEZTTIN MEADOW 
 
 the dogs with a yell. Tlieir barking swiftly re- 
 treated into the distance. . . . The uneasy run- 
 ning to and fro of the startled herd of horses 
 was audible. Pavlusha shouted loudly: " Grey! 
 Beetle!" In a few moments, the bark- 
 ing ceased; Pavel's voice was already wafted to 
 
 us from afar A little more time elapsed; 
 
 the boys exchanged glances of bewilderment, as 
 though anticipating that something was about 
 to happen. . . . Suddenly the hoof-beats of a 
 galloping horse became audible; it stopped ab- 
 ruptly at the very fire, and Pavlusha, who had 
 been clinging to its mane, leaped from its back. 
 The two dogs also sprang into the circle of light, 
 and immediately sat down, lolling out their red 
 tongues. 
 
 " What was it yonder? What was the mat- 
 ter? " — asked the boys. 
 
 " Nothing," — replied Pavel, waving his 
 hand toward the horse: — "'twas just that the 
 dogs scented something. 1 thought it was a 
 wolf," — he added in an indifferent voice, 
 })reathing fast, with the full capacity of his 
 chest. 
 
 I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was 
 very handsome at that moment. His ugly face, 
 animated by the swift ride, l)lazed with dashing 
 gallantry and firm resolution. Without even a 
 switch in his hand, he had darted off alone, by 
 night, without the slightest hesitation, to en- 
 
 171
 
 ME^rOTRS OF A SPORTS^IAN 
 
 counter a uolf " What a splendid hoy!" 
 
 I tliought, as 1 gazed at him. 
 
 " And have you seen them, — the wolves, I 
 mean?" — asked cowardly Kostya. 
 
 " There are always a lot of them here,"— re- 
 plied Pavel: — " but they are uneasy only in 
 winter." 
 
 Again he curled up in front of the fire. As 
 he seated himself on the ground, he dropped his 
 liand on the shaggy neck of (jue of the dogs, and 
 for a long time the delighted animal did not 
 turn its head, as it gazed sidelong, with grateful 
 pride, at Pavlusha. 
 
 Vanya cuddled up under his mat again. 
 
 " What were those horrors thou wert narrat- 
 ing to us, Iliusha? " — began Fedya, to whose lot, 
 as the son of a wealthy peasant, it fell to act the 
 part of leader (he himself said very little, as 
 though he were afraid of lowering his dignity). 
 — " And \ was the Fvil One who ])rompted the 
 dogs to set up that barking. . . . But, in fact, 
 I have lieard that that locality of yours is unhal- 
 lowed." 
 
 " Varnavitzv? .... I should sav so! unhal- 
 lowed the worst \\i\\\ The old master has been 
 seen there more than once, they say — the de- 
 ceased master. He wears a long-skirted dress- 
 ing-gown, they say, and keeps sighing all the 
 while, as though he were hunting for something 
 on the ground. Grandaddy Trofiniitch met him 
 
 172
 
 BYEZIIIX MKAUOW 
 
 once. — ' What is it, dear little father, Ivan Ivan- 
 itcli,' says he, ' that thou art searching for on the 
 ground? ' " 
 
 "He asked him that?" — interrupted the as- 
 tounded Fedya. 
 
 " Yes, he asked him." 
 
 " Well, Trofimitch is a gallant fellow to do 
 that. . . . Well, and what happened?" 
 
 " ' I 'm looking for the saxifrage,' says he. 
 And he talks in such a dull, dull voice :^ — ' The 
 saxifrage.' ^ — ' And what dost thou want of 
 saxifrage, dear little father, Ivan Ivanitch? ' — 
 ' jNIy grave is crushing me, crushing me, Trofi- 
 mitch ; I want to get out, to get out ' " 
 
 "What a fellow!" — remarked Fedya; — 
 " Probably he had n't lived long enough." 
 
 " What a marvel! " said Kostya: — " I thought 
 dead folks could be seen only on Relatives' Sat- 
 urday." ^ 
 
 " Dead folks can be seen at any hour," — con- 
 fidently put in Iliusha, who, so far as I was able 
 to observe, was better acquainted than the rest 
 with all the rural superstitions " But on 
 
 * Literally, rend-rock — tlie rock-spliltiiig })lant. — Tkanslator. 
 
 - Certain Saturda}S in tlie year, on which requiem services are 
 held for dead relatives. One such Saturday occurs in Lent; an- 
 other in the autumn, called " Dmitry's Day," when dead ancestors 
 in fieneral, and in particular those who fell on that day in the 
 l)attle of Kulikovo, 1380, under Prince Dmitry ' Donskoy ' (of the 
 Don), which broke the Tatar yoke, are connnemorated. Rut the 
 one particularly referred to iiere is that which precedes Pentecost 
 (Trinity Sunday and the Day of the Spirit, Monday). — Traxs- 
 
 I,ATOtt. 
 
 173
 
 me:moirs of a spokts.aiax 
 
 Kelatives' Saturdav vou can also set- the liviiiiJ- 
 person whose turn it is to die that year. All you 
 have to do is to sit on the church 2)orch, and keep 
 staring at the road; and those who are destined 
 to die that year will pass by. Peasant-wife 
 Uliyana, of oui* ^■illage, went and sat on the 
 chiu'cli porch last year." 
 
 "Well, and did she see any one?" — inquired 
 Kostya, with interest. 
 
 " Of coiu'se she did. At first, she sat there a 
 long, long time, without seeing or hearing any- 
 body .... but a dog seemed to keep barking 
 
 and barking somewhere or other All at 
 
 once, she looks, and a little boy, Avith nothing on 
 but his shirt, comes walking along the path. She 
 looked closeh' — 't was Ivashka FeodosyefF . . ." 
 
 " The one who died last spring? " — inter- 
 rupted Fedya. 
 
 " The very same. He was walking along, 
 without raising his little head. . . . And Uli- 
 yana recognised him. . . But tlieii she looked 
 again, and a woman was coming along. She 
 stared and stared, — akh, O Lord ! — 't was she her- 
 self, Uliyana herself, who was coming along the 
 road." 
 
 " Was it reallv she herself? " — asked Fedya. 
 
 " God is my witness, it was." 
 
 "Well, what of it? — she isn't dead vet, you 
 know." 
 
 " But tlie year is n't over yet. .Tust take a 
 look at lier: slie 's on the point of death." 
 
 174
 
 BYEZIIIN MP:A1)C)\V 
 
 All relapsed into silence again. Pavel flung a 
 handful of dry twigs on the fire. They turned 
 sharply hlaek with the suddenly upflaring flame, 
 crackled, began to smoke, and set to writhing, 
 thrusting upward their singed tips. The reflec- 
 tion of the Are darted out in all directions, with 
 abrupt flickering^, especially upward. All at 
 once, from somewhere or other, a white pigeon 
 flew straight into this reflection, circled with af- 
 fright in one spot, all flooded with the hot glare, 
 and disappeared, with flapping wings. 
 
 " It must have escaped from home," — re- 
 marked Pavel. — " Now it will fly until it hits 
 against something, and it will spend the ni^ht, 
 until daybreak, on whatever it hits against." 
 
 " See here, Pavliisha," — said Kostya: — " is n't 
 it true, that it was a spirit flying to heaven, hey? " 
 
 Pavel tossed another handful of twigs on the 
 fire. 
 
 " Perhaps so," — he said at last. 
 
 " But tell me, please, Pavlusha,"- — began 
 Fedya: — "was the heavenly vision^ visible also 
 with you in Shalamovo? " 
 
 " When the sun was invisible? Certainly." 
 
 " You must have been frightened too, I 
 think?" 
 
 " Well, we were n't the only ones. Our mas- 
 ter, although he had explained to us beforehand 
 that we should see a vision, was so scared himself, 
 they say, when it began to grow dark, that he 
 
 ' That is what our peasants call an eclipse of the sun. 
 
 17a
 
 ME.AIOIRS OF A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 was beside himself with fear. xViid in the house- 
 serfs' cottage, the peasant-wife cook, just as 
 soon as it began to grow dark, 1 hear, took and 
 smashed all the pots in the oven with the oven- 
 fork. ' Wlio wants to eat now ? ' says she : ' the day 
 of judgment has come.' ^Vnd such I'umours were 
 circulating in our \ilhige, brother,^ — to the effect 
 that white wolves would overrun the earth, and 
 eat up the people, a bird of prey would swoop 
 down, and then Trishka himself would be seen." ^ 
 
 "What is that Trishka?" — asked Kostya. 
 
 "Dost not thou know?" — put in Iliusha 
 hotly: — " well, brother, whence comest thou that 
 tliou (lost not knoAv about Trishka? You 're 
 great stay-at-homes in your village, that's what 
 you are! Trishka ^\ill be a wonderful man who 
 will come, and he will be such a wonderfid man 
 that it will be impossible to catch him, and no one 
 will be able to do any thin f? to him: so wonderful 
 will the man be. The peasants will want to seize 
 him, for example: they will go out against him 
 with cudgels, they will surround him, but he will 
 avert their eyes, — he will avert their eyes in such 
 a way, that they will slay each other. They will 
 put him in prison, for example, — he will ask for 
 a drink of water in a dipper: they will fetch him 
 the dipper, and he will dive down into it, and 
 that 's the last they will ever see of him. They 
 
 '^he belief in " Tri'slika " is, probal)ly, a reflection of tlie legend 
 
 al)i)iit Anticlirist. 
 
 176
 
 BYEZITIN MEADOW 
 
 M'ill put chains on him, but he will shake his hands 
 and they will fall off' him. Well, and that 
 Trishka will go through the villages and the 
 towns ; and that Trishka, the cunning fellow, will 
 lead astray the Christian race . .* . . well, and 
 
 they will not be able to do anything to him 
 
 He will be such a wonderful, such a crafty man." 
 " Well, yes," — went on Pavlusha, in his drawl- 
 ing voice: — " that 's the man. They 've been ex- 
 pecting him in oin* village too. The old folks 
 said, that as soon as the heavenly vision began, 
 Trishka would come. So the vision began. All 
 the people scattered out into the street, into the 
 fields, to wait and see what would happen. And 
 we have a conspicuous, extensive site, you know. 
 They are gazing when, suddenly, down-hill from 
 the town, comes some man or other, such a pecu- 
 liar man, with such a wonderful head . . . they 
 all shout out at once: ' ()i, Trishka 's coming! 61, 
 Trishka 's coming!' but 'twas nothing of the 
 sort. Our elder crawled into the ditch; his wife 
 got stuck fast in the board at the bottom of the 
 gate, and yelled at the top of her voice; she 
 scared her watch-dog so that it broke loose from 
 its chain, and leaped over the wattled hedge, and 
 fled off to the forest; and Kuzka's father, Doro- 
 fyeitch, sprang into the oats, and squatted down, 
 and set to piping like a quail: he thought, per- 
 haps, the enemy, the soul-spoiler, would have 
 mercy on a mere })ird. So they all set up a rum- 
 
 177
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 pus! . , . . But the man who was coming was 
 our cooper, Vavila; he had hought liimself a new 
 tub with handles, and had put the empty tub on 
 his liead." 
 
 All the boys burst out laughing, and again be- 
 came silent for a moment, as it often happens 
 with people who are conversing in the open air. 
 I cast a glance around: the night reigned, sov- 
 ereign, triumpliant ; the damp chill of late evening 
 had given way to the dry warmth of midnight, 
 and it still had long to lie like a soft cover- 
 let over the slumbering fields; a long time still 
 remained before the first lisp, the first fine dews 
 of dawn. There was no moon in the sky : at that 
 time it rose late. Innumerable golden stars 
 seemed all to have glided softly, twinkling in 
 emulation of one another, in the direction of the 
 ^Nlilky AVay, and, in truth, as you gazed at them, 
 you yourself began to feel the headlong, uninter- 
 rupted onward flight of the earth. . . A strange, 
 sharp, wailing cry suddenly rang out twice in 
 succession over the river, and, after the lapse of 
 a few seconds, was repeated farther away. . . . 
 
 Kostya shuddered: "What's that?" 
 
 "That 's a heron screaming," — returned Pa- 
 vel, composedly. 
 
 " A heron," — repeated Kostya. ..." But 
 wliat was it, Pavluslia, that I heard last night," 
 — he added, after a short silence: — " perhaps 
 thou knowest " 
 
 178
 
 BYEZIIIN MEADOW 
 
 "\Vhat didst thou hear?" 
 
 " ^^^ly, this is what 1 heard. I was going from 
 Kainennaya-Crryada [Stone-Kidge] to Shash- 
 kiiio. First I kept altogether in our hazel-eopse, 
 and tlien went by the pool — thou knowest, at the 
 plaee where it makes a sharp turn into the eliff, — 
 there 's a deep pit there, you see, made by the 
 spring freshets, which never dries up; it's still 
 all overgrown with reeds, you know ; so, as I was 
 walking past that water-hole, boys, somebody 
 began to groan from that same hole, and so 
 pitifully, so pitifully . . ' Oo-oo . . . oo-oo 
 . . . oo-oo ! ' I was seized with such terror, my 
 brothers: the hour was late, and the voice 
 was so painful. — What could it have been? 
 hey?" 
 
 " Thieves drowned Akim the forester in that 
 pool the year before last," — remarked Pavliisha; 
 — " so, perhaps, it was his soul wailing." 
 
 " Why, that must have been it, my brothers," 
 — returned Kostya, opening wide his eyes, which 
 w^re huge already. ..." I did n't know that 
 they had drowned Akim in that pool: I would 
 have been scared much worse." 
 
 " But they say there are small frogs," — went 
 on Pavlusha, — " which cry out in that pitiful 
 way." 
 
 " Frogs? well, no, it wasn't frogs . . . which 
 
 made that " (The heron screamed again 
 
 above the river). — "Deuce take it!" — ejacu- 
 
 179
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 lated Kostya, involuntarily: — " it shrieks like the 
 forest-demon."' 
 
 "The forest-demon doesn't shriek, — he's 
 dumb,"- — put in Iliusha: — "he only elaps his 
 hands and cracks . . . ." 
 
 " And hast thou seen him, — the forest-demon? 
 I 'd like to know," — Fedya interrupted him, 
 sneeringly. 
 
 " Xo, I have n't, and Cxod forbid that 1 
 should see him; but other folks have seen 
 him. The other day now, he tricked a peas- 
 ant; he led him on and on through the forest, 
 and all the while round one and the self -same 
 meadow He barely got home by day- 
 light." 
 
 " Well, and did he ser. him? " 
 
 " Yes. He says he stands so big, so big, and 
 dark, and muffled up, behind a tree, as it were, 
 so that you can't get a good look at him, as though 
 he were hiding from the moon, and he stares and 
 stares with his little eyes, and blinks them, and 
 blinks . . . ." 
 
 " Do stop that ! " — exclaimed Fedya, w'ith a 
 slight shudder, and a twitch of his shoulders: — 
 "Pfu! . . . ." 
 
 " And why is this nasty crew distributed over 
 the w^orld?" — remarked Pavel: — "really now, 
 why? " 
 
 Again a pause ensued. 
 
 " Look, look, boys," — suddenly rang out 
 
 180
 
 BYEZIllN JNIKADOW^ 
 
 Vunya's childish voice: — " T^nok at God's little 
 stars, like bees swarming! " 
 
 He poked liis fresli little face out from under 
 the mat, propped himself on his little fist, and 
 slowly raised on high his large, tranquil eyes. 
 The eves of all tlie little lads were raised to the 
 sky, and were not soon lowered. 
 
 " Well, Vanya," — began Fedya, aifection- 
 ately: — "how about thy sister Aniutka, — is she 
 well?" 
 
 " Yes," — replied Vanya, with a slight lisp. 
 
 " Tell her, we want to know why she does n't 
 come to see us." 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Tell her that she must come." 
 
 " I '11 tell her." 
 
 " Tell her that 1 '11 give her a present." 
 
 " And wilt thou give me one too? " 
 
 " Yes, I '11 give thee one too." 
 
 Vanya sighed. 
 
 " Well, no, I don't want it. Better give it to 
 her: she 's such a good girl." 
 
 And again Vanya laid his head on the ground. 
 Pavel rose, and took the empt}'- kettle in his hand. 
 
 " Where art thou going? " — Fedya asked him. 
 
 " To the river to dip up some water. I want 
 a drink of water." 
 
 The dogs rose and followed him. 
 
 " Look out, don't tumble into the river! " — 
 shouted Iliusha after him. 
 
 181
 
 ME.AIOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 "Why should he tumble in?" — said Fedya: 
 — " He '11 take care of himself." 
 
 "" Vcs, so he will. All sorts of things happen: 
 he '11 stoop down and heuin to dip up the water, 
 and the water-sprite will grab him by the hand 
 and pull him in to himself. Then people will 
 begin to say: ' The little fellow tumbled into the 
 
 water. . . .' ^lueh he did! Yo-onder, 
 
 he has made his way in among the rushes," he 
 added, listening. 
 
 The rushes, in fact, were moving, — " whisper- 
 ing," as they express it among us. 
 
 "And is it true," — asked Kostya: — "that 
 Akulina the fool has been crazy ever since the 
 time she was in the water? " 
 
 " Yes, ever since then. . . Just look at her 
 now! But they say that before that, she used to 
 be a beauty. The water-sprite spoiled her. He 
 did n"t expect, you see, that they would pidl her 
 out so soon. So he spoiled her, down on the bot- 
 tom, at his own place." 
 
 (I had met that Akulina more than once my- 
 self. Covered with rags, frightfully thin, with 
 a face as black as a coal, a confused look, and 
 teeth eternally exposed in a grin, she would stamp 
 up and down for hours in one and the self-same 
 spot, somewhere on the highway, with her bony 
 ai'ms pressed tightly to her breast, and slowly 
 shifting from one i'oot to the other, like a wild 
 beast in a cage. She understood nothing that 
 
 182
 
 BYKZiriX MKADOW 
 
 was said to her, and oidy laughed convulsively 
 from time to time.) 
 
 " But they say/'— went on Kostya, — " that 
 Akulina threw herself into the river, because her 
 lover deceived her." 
 
 " That 's exactly why she did it." 
 
 "And dost tlioii remember Vasya? " — added 
 Kostya, sadly. 
 
 " What Viisya? " — incjuired Fedya. 
 
 " Why, the one who ^vas drowned," — replied 
 Kostya. " ^Vliat a boy he was! i-ikh, what a boy 
 he was! His mother, Feklista, ho^\' she did love 
 him, that Vasya! And she seemed to have a pre- 
 sentiment, did Feklista, that water would be his 
 ruin. When Vasya used to go to the river with 
 us boys, to bathe, in summer, she would just 
 quiver all over. The other women did n't mind : 
 they would go past with their wash-troughs them- 
 selves, waddling along, but Feklista would set 
 her trough ^ on the ground and begin to call to 
 him. ' Come back,' says she, ' come back, light 
 of my eyes! okh, come back, my dear little fal- 
 con ! ' — And how he came to get drowned, the 
 Lord knows. He was playing on the shore, and 
 his mother was there also, raking up the hay; 
 all at once, she heard some one making bubbles 
 in the water, — and behold, nothing but Vasya's 
 little cap was floating on the water. Alas, ever 
 
 ^ The Russian ])easant wash-tub is like a loniz', shallow troug^h, 
 or chopping-tray, made of a halved and hollowed log. — Trans- 
 lator. 
 
 183
 
 me:moiks of a sports.aian 
 
 since then, Feklistti has not been in lier riglit 
 mind : — she '11 come and lie down on that spot 
 where he was drowned ; she "11 lie there, brothers, 
 and strike np a song, — you remember, Vasya 
 always sang the same song, — so she will strike up 
 that song, and weep, and weep, and complain 
 
 bitterly to God " 
 
 Yonder comes Pavliisha," — said Fedya. 
 
 Pavlusha came up to the fire with a full kettle 
 in his hand. 
 
 " Well, boys," — he began, after a brief pause: 
 — " something is wrong." 
 
 " Why, what 's the matter? " — asked Kostya, 
 hastily. 
 
 " 1 have heard Vasya's voice." 
 
 All fairly shuddered. 
 
 " What dost thou mean, what dost thou 
 mean? " — stammered Kostya. 
 
 " God is my witness. No sooner had 1 begun 
 to stoop down to the water, than suddenly I 
 heard myself called by \'asya's little voice, and 
 from under the water, as it were : ' Pavlusha, 
 hey there, Pavlusha, come hither.' 1 went away. 
 But I dipped up the water all the same." 
 
 " Akh, O my Lord! akh, O Lord! " — cried the 
 little lads, crossing themselves. 
 
 " That was the water-sprite calling thee, for 
 sure, Pavel," — added Fedya. . . " And we have 
 just been talking about him, — about Vasya." 
 
 " Akh, 't is a bad omen," — faltered Iliiisha. 
 
 184
 
 BYEZIIIX ^MEADOW 
 
 "Come, 'tis nothing, drop it!" — said Pavel, 
 decisively, and sat down again: — "you can't 
 escape your fate." 
 
 The boys subsided into silence. It was evident 
 that Pavel's words had produced a profound im- 
 pression upon them. They began to stretch 
 themseh es out in front of the fire, as though pre- 
 paring to go to sleep. 
 
 "What's that?" — asked Kostya, suddenly, 
 raising his head. 
 
 Pavel listened intently. 
 
 " 'T is the woodcock flying, — they are whis- 
 tling." 
 
 " But whither are they flying? " 
 
 " Away yonder, where, they say, there is no 
 winter." 
 
 " And is it possible that there is such a coun- 
 
 try?" 
 
 " There is." 
 
 " Is it far away? " 
 
 " Yes, far, far away, beyond the warm seas." 
 
 Kostya sighed, and closed his eyes. 
 
 More than three hours had already elapsed 
 since I had joined the boys. The moon rose at 
 last: I did not immediately observe it, it was so 
 small and slender. This moonless night, appar- 
 ently, was as magnificent as before But 
 
 many stars which had but lately stood high in the 
 heavens, were already sinking toward tlie dark 
 rim of the earth ; everything round about had be- 
 
 185
 
 .MKMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 come perfectly quiet, as things generally do only 
 toward dawn: everything was sleeping, with the 
 deep, motionless slumher which precedes the hreak 
 of day. The air was no longer so strongly per- 
 fumed, — it seemed to have again hecome impreg- 
 nated with moisture. . . . Summer niglits are 
 not long! . . . The prattle of the little lads had 
 died down with the bonfires. . . . The dogs, 
 too, were sleeping; the horses, so far as I was 
 able to make out by the barely-shining, faintly- 
 spreading light of the stars, were also lying 
 down, ^vith drooping heads. ... A light for- 
 getfulness descended upon me; it passed into 
 slumber. 
 
 A fresh ciu'rent of air blew across my face. I 
 opened my eyes: — morning was breaking. The 
 dawn was not, as yet, glowing red anywhere, but 
 the east was already beginning to grow white. 
 Everything had become visible, tliough dimly 
 visible, all around. The pale-grey sky w^as light- 
 ing up, turning cold and blue; the stars now 
 twinkled with a faint light, now disappeared; the 
 earth had grown damp, the foliage had begun to 
 sweat; here and there living sounds, voices, were 
 beginning to resound, and a thin, early breeze 
 had begun to stray abroad and flutter ovei' the 
 earth. My body responded to it with a slight, 
 cheerful shiver. I rose brisklv to my feet, and 
 walked toward the little boys. They were all 
 sleeping like dead men around the smouldering 
 
 18G
 
 m'EZHlN JNIEADOW 
 
 bonfire; Pavel alone hall-rose, and gazed intently 
 at me. 
 
 1 nodded my liead to liim and went my way, 
 along the mist-wreathed river. Before I had pro- 
 ceeded two versts, tliere had streamed forth all 
 around me over the wide, wet meadow, ahead of 
 me, over the hills which were beginning to gleam 
 green, from forest to forest, and behind me, over 
 the long, dusty highway, over the glittering, crim- 
 son-tinted bushes, and the river, shyly glinting 
 blue from beneath the dispersing fog — there had 
 streamed forth first scarlet, then red, then golden 
 
 torrents of young, blazing light Ever}'- 
 
 thing began to stir, awoke, began to sing, to make 
 a noise, to chatter. Everywhere, like radiant bril- 
 liants, glowed great dewdrops; the sounds of a 
 bell were wafted toward me, pure and clear, as 
 though they, also, had been washed by the morn- 
 ing freshness, and, suddenly, the rested herd of 
 horses dashed headlong past me, driven by the 
 lads I have mentioned. . . . 
 
 Unfortunately, I am bound to add that Pavel 
 died that same year. He was not drowned; he 
 was killed by falling from a horse. 'T is a pity, 
 for he was a splendid young fellow ! 
 
 187
 
 IX 
 
 KASYAN FROM THE FAIR-METCHA * 
 
 I WAS retiiriiing home from the chase in a jolting 
 peasant cart, and, overwhehned by the stifling 
 heat of the snltry, overcast summer's day (every 
 one knows that, on such days, the heat is some- 
 times even more intolerable than on clear days, es- 
 pecially when there is no breeze) , was dozing and 
 rolling about, with surly impatience surrendering 
 myself wholly to be devoured by the fine, white 
 dust, which rose incessantly from the beaten road 
 from beneath tlie disjointed and rickety wheels, — 
 when, all of a sudden, my attention was aroused 
 by the uneasiness and the agitated movements of 
 the body of my coachman, who, up to that mo- 
 ment, had been even more sound asleep than my- 
 self. He was jerking at the reins, fidgeting about 
 on the box, and began to shout at tlie horses, 
 every now and then casting a glance to one side. 
 I looked round. We were driving over a tilled 
 plain; low hillocks, also tilled, ran athwart it, in 
 remarkably steep, wave-like slopes; the eye could 
 take in, at most, only about five versts of waste 
 
 'The Metdisi is a river of Central R^issia to which the epithet 
 "Fair" is applied as "Dear little mother" (Mdiushka) is to the 
 \'olga. — Translator. 
 
 188
 
 KASYAN FROM THE 1 Alli-JNIETCIIA 
 
 expanse; far away in the distance, small biich 
 C()[)ses alone broke the almost straight line of the 
 hori/on with their rounded, yet jagged crests. 
 Narnnv paths stretched out through the fields, 
 lost themselves in ravines, wound around swells 
 of the land, and on one of them, which intersected 
 oiu' road about five hundred paces ahead of us, I 
 descried some sort of procession. This was what 
 my coachman was looking at. 
 
 It was a funeral. In front, in a peasant cart, 
 drawn by one horse, rode the priest at a foot-pace ; 
 the chanter sat beside him and drove; behind the 
 cart, four peasant men, with bared heads, bore the 
 coffin, covered with white linen ; two peasant wo- 
 men walked behind the coffin. The shrill, lugu- 
 brious voice of one of them reached my ears; I 
 listened: she was wailing. Mournfully did that 
 varying yet monotonous, hopelessly-sorrowful 
 chant resound amid the empty fields. The coach- 
 man whipped up his horses: he wanted to get 
 ahead of this procession. 'T is a bad omen to 
 meet a funeral on the road. As a matter of fact, 
 he did succeed in galloping past along the road 
 before the corpse managed to reach it; but we 
 had not proceeded a hundred paces, when, all at 
 once, our cart gave a violent lurch, careened on 
 one side, and almost toppled over. The coach- 
 man pulled up his horses, which had started to 
 run away, waved his hand in despair, and spat. 
 
 " What 's the matter? "—I asked. 
 
 189
 
 me:moirs of a sportsman 
 
 My coachman ali<>lite(l in silence, and without 
 haste. 
 
 " Hut what 's tlie matter? " 
 
 " The axletree is l)i-()ken hurne(t 
 
 through," — he rephed gloomily, and suddenly 
 adjusted the hreeching on the trace-horse with 
 such iiuhgnation that the horse came near going 
 over on its side, hut retained its footing, snorted, 
 shook itself, and hegan very calmly to scratch 
 itself with its teeth helow tlie knee of the right 
 leg. 
 
 I aliglited, and stood for some time in the road, 
 confusedly ahsorhed hy a feeling of disagreeable 
 surprise. The right wheel was turned almost 
 completely under the cart, and seemed to have 
 elevated its liub on high, in dumb despair. 
 
 " ^Vhat is to be done now? " — I asked, at last. 
 
 " Yonder 's the one who is to blame!" — said 
 my coachman, pointing with his whip at the pro- 
 cession, which had already had time to turn into 
 the highway, and was ajjproaching us: — " I 've 
 always noticed it," — he continued: — " 'T is a sure 
 sign — to meet a corpse Yes." 
 
 And again he ^vorried the trace-horse who, per- 
 ceiving his displeasure and harshness, decided to 
 remain impassive, and only swished its tail mod- 
 estly from time to time. 1 walked back and forth 
 for a while, and again came to a halt in front of 
 the wheel. 
 
 In the meantime, the corpse had overtaken us. 
 
 190
 
 KASYAX FllOM THE FAIU-METC HA 
 
 'riiruino- out peaceably from the road upon the 
 grass, the mournful procession passed our cart. 
 The coacliman and I removed our caps, ex- 
 changed bows witli the priest, and ghmces with 
 the bearers. Tliev walked with difficulty; their 
 broad chests heaved high. Of the two women 
 who walked behind the coffin, one was very aged 
 and pale ; her impassive f eatiu'es, cruelly distorted 
 with grief, retained an expression of strict, rig- 
 orous dignity. She w^alked on in silence, from 
 time to time raising her gaunt hand to her thin, 
 sunken lips. The eyes of the other woman, a 
 yoimg one about five-and-twenty years of age, 
 were red and moist, and her whole face was swol- 
 len with weeping; as they came alongside of us, 
 she ceased to wail, alid covered her face with her 
 
 sleeve But now tlie corpse had passed 
 
 us, had turned out again into the highway, and 
 her mournful, soul-breaking chant rang out once 
 more. Having silently gazed after the coffin, as 
 it rocked with regular motion, my coachman 
 turned to me. 
 
 " 'T is Martyn the carpenter they 're burying," 
 — said he: — "the one from Ryabaya." 
 
 " How dost thou know that? " 
 
 " I found it out by the women. The old one 
 is his mother, and the young one is his wife." 
 
 "Was he ill?" 
 
 " Yes .... he had the fever The 
 
 overseer sent for the doctor day before yesterday, 
 
 191
 
 me:\i()trs of a sportsman 
 
 but they did n't find the doctor at liome 
 
 And he was a good carpenter; ratlier given to 
 (h'inking, })ut a fine carpenter he was. You see 
 
 how that woman of his is kilhng herself 
 
 AVell, yes, 'tis well known: women's tears are 
 cheap. \Vomen's tears are just tlie same as water. 
 
 • • • • A. t^i3* 
 
 And he bent down, crawled under the rein of 
 the trace-horse, and seized the arch with both 
 hands.' 
 
 " But," — I remarked: — " what are w^e to do? " 
 JNIy coachman first braced his knee against the 
 shoulder of the shaft-horse, shook the arch a 
 couple of times, adjusted the saddle, then crawled 
 back again under the rein of the trace-horse, and, 
 giving it a shove in the muzzle in passing, he 
 stepped up to the wheel — stepped up to it, and, 
 without removing his gaze from it, pulled from 
 beneath the skirts of his coat a birch-bark snuff- 
 box, slowly tugged at the strap on its cover, 
 slowly thrust his two thick fingers into the snuff- 
 box (and it would hardly hold two), kneaded 
 and kneaded the snuff, puckered up his nose in 
 advance, inhaled tlie snuff with pauses between, 
 accompanying each sniff with a prolonged grimt, 
 and, screwing up his lids in a painful way, and 
 blinking his tearful eyes, he plunged into pro- 
 found meditation. 
 
 ' Tlie arch connect iiip the shafts, over the neck of the trotter. 
 The side horses (sonictnnes only one is used, instead of two) are 
 very slightly attached liy traces. — Traxsi.ator. 
 
 192
 
 KASYAN FROM THE FAIR-IMKTCHA 
 
 " Well, what now? " — I said at last. 
 
 My coachman carefully- replaced the snuff-box 
 in his pocket, pulled his cap down on his eye- 
 brows, without using his hands, with a movement 
 of his head alone, and thoughtfully climbed upon 
 his box. 
 
 " Whither art thou going? " — I asked him, not 
 without surprise. 
 
 " Please take your seat," — he replied calmly, 
 and gathered up the reins. 
 
 " But how are we going to drive? " 
 
 " We '11 drive on all right, sir." 
 
 " But the axle. ..." 
 
 " Please take your seat." 
 
 " But the axle is broken " 
 
 " 'T is broken, yes, 'tis broken; but we shall 
 manage to get to the settlement .... at a 
 walk, — that is to say, yonder, behind the grove, 
 there are dwellings: 'tis called Yiidino." 
 
 " And dost thou think that we can get there? " 
 
 My coachman did not vouchsafe me an an- 
 swer. 
 
 " I would rather go afoot," — said I. 
 
 "As you please, sir " 
 
 And he flourished his whip. The horses 
 started. 
 
 We really did reach the settlement, although 
 the right front wheel hardly held, and revolved 
 in a remarkably strange manner. On one hillock, 
 it came near flying off; but my coachman shouted 
 
 193
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 in a vicious voice, and we made the descent in 
 safety. ' 
 
 The Yiidino hamlet consisted of six tinv, low- 
 roofed cottages, which had already managed to 
 sag down to one side, although, in all prohability, 
 they had been erected not long before; not all 
 their yards were enclosed with wattled hedges. 
 As we drove into this settlement, we encountered 
 not a single living soul; there were no hens, nor 
 dogs even, visible in the street; only one black 
 dog, with a bob-tail, sprang out at our appear- 
 ance, from a completely dried trough, where it 
 must have been driven by thirst, and immedi- 
 ately, without barking, darted headlong under a 
 gate. 1 entered the first cottage, opened the door 
 into the anteroom, called for the owners, — no one 
 answered me. I shouted a second time: the hun- 
 gry mewing of a cat resounded on the other side 
 of the door. I pushed it open with my foot; an 
 emaciated cat slipped quickly past me, her green 
 eyes flashing in the dark. I put my head into 
 the room, and looked: it was dark, smoky, and 
 empty. I betook myself to the back yard, and 
 there was no one there, either. ... A calf was 
 bleating in the paddock; a lame, grey goose was 
 hobbling about a little to one side. I went on to 
 the second cottage, — and there was not a soul in 
 
 the second cottage. I went to the yard . 
 
 In the very middle of the brightly illuminated 
 yard, in the very heart of the heat, as the expres- 
 
 194
 
 KASYAN FROISI I TTK FAIR-METCHA 
 
 sion is, there was lying, as it seemed to me, a small 
 boy, face to the groiuul, his head covered with 
 [lis long peasant coat. A few paces from him, 
 beside a wretched little cart, stood an emaciated 
 horse in a tattered harness under a thatched shed. 
 The sunlight, falling in streams through the nar- 
 row interstices of the rickety penthouse roof, 
 streaked its shaggy, reddish-brown hide with 
 small, bright blotches. There, also, in a lofty 
 bird-house, the starlings were chattering, staring 
 down with calm curiosity from their aerial little 
 dwelling. I went up to the sleeper, and began 
 to rouse him 
 
 He raised his head, saw me, and immediately 
 sprang to his feet. ..." What is it, what 's 
 wanted? What 's the matter? " he muttered, half^ 
 awake. 
 
 I did not answer him on the instant: so aston- 
 ished was I by his personal appearance. Picture 
 to yourself a dwarf fifty years of age, with a tiny, 
 swarthy, wrinkled face, a sharp-pointed little 
 nose, small, brown, hardly visible eyes, and thick, 
 curly black hair, which sat on his tiny head like 
 the broad cap on a mushroom. 
 
 His whole body was extremely puny and 
 thin, and it is absolutely impossible to convey 
 in words how strange and remarkable was his 
 glance. 
 
 " What 's wanted? " — he asked me again. 
 
 I explained to him the state of the case; he lis- 
 
 195
 
 ME^rOTRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 tened to me, never taking his slowly blinking eyes 
 oft* me. 
 
 " Cannot we obtain a new axle? " — 1 said at 
 last:—" I sliould be glad to pay for it." 
 
 " But -mIio are you ( sportsmen? " — he incjuired, 
 surveying me from head to foot witli a glance. 
 les. 
 
 " You shoot the l)irds of heaven, I suppose? . . 
 and wild beasts? .... And don't vou think it 
 is a sin to slay (rod's birds, to shed innocent 
 blood?" 
 
 The queer little old man spoke with great de- 
 liberation. The sound of his voice also surprised 
 me. Xot only was there nothing infirm audible 
 in it, — it was wonderfully sweet, youtlifid, and 
 almost eft'eminately tender. 
 
 " I have no axle," — he added, after a brief 
 pause: — "that one yonder is of no use" — (he 
 pointed at his little cart) — "you have a large 
 cart, I suppose? " 
 
 " And cannot one be found in the village? " 
 
 " AVhat sort of a village do you call this! . . . 
 No one here has one. . . And there 's no one at 
 home, either : they are all at work. Go your way," 
 — he said suddenly, and lay down again on the 
 ground. 
 
 I had not in the least expected this termination. 
 
 " Tiisten, old man," — I began, touching his 
 shoulder:—" please, to hel]) me." 
 
 "Go vour way, and God be with vou! I'm 
 
 196
 
 KASYAN FROM TIIK 1 AIR-METCHA 
 
 tired : 1 '\'e been to the town," — he said to nie, and 
 dragged liis coat over his head. 
 
 " But please do me the favour,"— I went on: — • 
 " I ... I will pay." 
 
 " I don't want thy pay." 
 
 " But ])lease, old man . . . ." 
 
 He half raised himself, and sat up, with liis 
 thin little legs crossed. 
 
 " I might guide thee to the place where they 
 are felling timber. Some merchants have bought 
 our grove, — may God judge them, they are carry- 
 ing off our grove, and have ])uilt an office, — may 
 God be their judge! Perhaps thou couldst order 
 an axle of them there, or buy one ready-made." 
 
 " Capital! "- — I exclaimed joyously. . . " The 
 very thing! . . . let us go." 
 
 " An oaken axle, a good one," — he went on, 
 without rising from his place. 
 
 " And is it far to the timber-felling place? " 
 
 " Three versts." 
 
 " Well, never mind ! We can drive there in thy 
 
 tit 
 . 
 
 " But you can't . . . ." 
 
 " Come along, let 's start," — said I. — -'' Let 's 
 start, old man! My coachman is waiting for us 
 in the street." 
 
 The old man rose reluctantly, and followed me 
 to the street. My coachman was in an exas- 
 perated state of mind : he had undertaken to water 
 his horses, but there turned out to be extremely 
 
 197
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 little water in the w cU, and it had a bad flavour, 
 which, so coachmen say, is of prime importance. 
 . . . Xevertheless, at the sight of the old man, 
 he grinned, nodded his head, and exclaimed: 
 
 " Ah, Kasyanushka! morning! " 
 
 " iSIorning, Erofei, upright man!" — replied 
 Kasyan, in a dejected voice. 
 
 1 immediately communicated his proposition 
 to the coachman; Erofei expressed his assent, and 
 drove into the yard. AVhile he, with deliberate 
 bustle, unharnessed his horses, the old man stood, 
 with his shoulders leaning against the gate, and 
 stared uncheerfully now at him, now at me. He 
 seemed, somehow, perplexed: he was not over- 
 joyed at our appearance, so far as I could observe. 
 
 " And dost thou mean to say tliat they have 
 sent thee too off here to settle? " — asked Erofei, 
 suddenly, as he removed the arch from the shaft- 
 horse. 
 
 " Me too." 
 
 " Ekh! "^ — said my coachman through his teeth. 
 — " Knowest thou Martyn the carpenter . . . 
 for thou dost know ^lartyn from Ryabaya, of 
 course? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Well, he 's dead. We have just met his 
 coffin." 
 
 Kasyan shuddered. 
 
 " He 's dead? " — he said, and dropped his eyes. 
 " Yes, he is dead. Why didst not thou cure 
 
 198
 
 KASVAN FROM THE FAIK-MKTCHA 
 
 him, liey ? For they say that thou dost cure, that 
 thou art a healer." 
 
 My coachman was, evidently, amusing himself, 
 ridiculing- the old man. 
 
 " And is this thy cart? " — he added, indicating- 
 it with his shoulder. 
 Yes. 
 
 "Well, what a cart! .... d' ye call that a 
 cart? "—he repeated, and taking it by the shafts, 
 
 he almost turned it upside down "A cart! 
 
 . . . And what are }^ou going to drive to the 
 clearing in? ... . You can't harness our horse 
 in these shafts: our horses are large, — and what 
 do you call that? " 
 
 " I don't know," — replied Kasyan, — " what 
 you will ride in : perhaps on that little beast yon- 
 der," — he added, with a sigh. 
 
 " On that one, dost thou mean? " — put in Ero- 
 fei, and stepping up to Kasyan's wretched nag, 
 he poked it disdainfully in the neck with the 
 third finger of his right hand. — " Humph," — he 
 added reproachfully: — "it's fast asleep, the 
 idiot ! " 
 
 I requested Erofei to harness it to the cart as 
 speedily as possible. I wanted to drive with Kas- 
 yan to the clearing: partridges are frequently to 
 be fovmd at such spots. When the cart was quite 
 ready, and I had contrived, somehow or other, to 
 ensconce myself and my dog on its warped, lin- 
 den-bark bottom, and Kasyan, curling himself up 
 
 199
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 in a ball and with his previous dejected expres- 
 sion on his face, had also taken his seat, on the 
 front rim,— Erofei approached me, and with a 
 mysterions aspect whispered: 
 
 " And well have yon done, dear little father, 
 in driving with him. For he 's that sort of a man, 
 he 's a holy fool,' and his nickname is — The Flea. 
 I don't know how yon managed to nnderstand 
 him. . . . o" I wanted to remark to Erofei, that, 
 so far, Kasyan had seemed to me to be a very 
 sensible man; but my coachman inmiediately pro- 
 ceeded, in the same tone: 
 
 " Just you keep a sharp watch, to see that he 
 takes you to the right place. And please to pick 
 out the axle yourself: please to get as healthy an 
 axle as possible * 
 
 "How now. Flea," — he added aloud: — "can 
 a body get a bit of bread from you? " 
 
 " Seek: perchance, it may be found,"— replied 
 Kasyan, jerking the reins, and we drove off. 
 
 His little horse, to my sincere amazement, went 
 far from badly. During the entire course of our 
 drive, Kasyan preserved an obstinate silence, and 
 to my questions replied abruptly and reluctantly. 
 We soon reached the felling-place, and there be- 
 took ourselves to the office, a lofty cottage, which 
 stood isolated above a small ravine that had been 
 hastily spanned by a dam and converted into a 
 
 These " holy fools," or siinple-niinded eccentrics, are greatly re- 
 spected even at the present day in Russia. — Translator. 
 
 200
 
 KASYAN FRO.AI TIIK 1 AIR-MKTCIlA 
 
 pond. Ill that office 1 found two young mer- 
 chants' clerks, with snow-white teeth, sweet eyes, 
 sweet, alert speech, and sweetly-wily little smiles, 
 struck a bargain with them for an axle, and set 
 oft' for the clearing. I thought that Kasyan 
 would remain with the horse, and wait for me; 
 but he suddenly stepped up to me. 
 
 " Art thou going to shoot birds? " — he began: 
 —"hey?" 
 
 " Yes, if 1 find any." 
 
 " I '11 go with thee. . . . May I ? " 
 
 " Yes, thou mayest." 
 
 And he went. — The area which had been 
 cleared was, altogether, about a verst in extent. 
 I must confess, that 1 looked more at Kasyan than 
 at my dog. Not without reason was he called 
 The Flea. Plis black, wholly uncovered head 
 (moreover, his hair was a fine substitute for any 
 cap) fairly hopped tlirough the bushes. He 
 walked with remarkable briskness, and kept con- 
 stantly skipping, as it were, as he walked, bent 
 down incessantly, plucked some weeds or other, 
 thrust them into his bosom, muttered to himself, 
 and kept looking at me and my dog, with a very 
 strange, searching glance. In the low bushes, in 
 the undergrowth, and on clearings there dwell 
 small grey birds, wliich are incessantly flitting 
 from tree to tree and cliiiping, suddenly swoop- 
 ing in flight. Kasyan mimicked them, and an- 
 swered their calls ; a young quail flew up, twitter- 
 
 201
 
 ME.MOIKS OF A SrOllTSMAN 
 
 ing, from under his very feet, — he twittered hack 
 to it; a hirk hegaii to descend ahove him, flutter- 
 ing its wings and warhhng loudly, — Kasyan 
 joined in its song. AVith me he still would not 
 talk. . . 
 
 The weather was magnificent, still finer than 
 hefore; hut the heat did not ahate. Athwart 
 the clear sky floated infrequent, high-hanging 
 clouds of a yellowish-white line, like late-lying 
 sno\^' in spring, flat and long, like reefed sails. 
 Their fancifully-patterned edges, light and 
 downy as cotton, slowly but A'isibly changed wdth 
 every passing moment: they melted away, those 
 clouds, and no shadow fell from them. Kasyan 
 and I roamed for a long time about the clearing. 
 The young shoots, which had not, as yet, managed 
 to extend themselves longer than an arsliin,' sur- 
 rounded with their smooth, slender stems the low, 
 blackened stumps; round, spongy excrescences 
 with grey borders, those same punk-growths from 
 which tinder is made, clung close to the stumps; 
 the strawberry had sent forth its rosy tendrils 
 over them; and mushrooms sat there also, close- 
 crowded in famihes. One's feet were incessantly 
 entangled and held fast in the long grass, dried 
 tlu'ough and through by the burning sun; every- 
 where the eyes were dazzled by the sharp, metal- 
 lic glitter of the young, reddish leaves on the 
 
 ^ Twenty-eifrht inches — tlie Russian measure corresponding 
 to tiie yard. — Tkaksi.atok. 
 
 202 
 
 I
 
 KASYAX FROlNr THE FATR-^SIETCHA 
 
 trees; all about, the blue elusters of the vetch, the 
 golden ehaliees of the buttercups, the half-purple 
 half-vellow Mowers of John-and-JNIarv ' i'ormed 
 a gay-coloured carpet; here and there, alongside 
 the abandoned paths, whereon the traces of wheels 
 were indicated by streaks of ii fine, red weed, rose 
 piles of firewood blackened by wind and rain, 
 each containing a cord; a faint shadow was cast 
 by their slanting corners, — there was no other 
 shadow anywhere. A light breeze now woke up, 
 now subsided: it would suddenly blow straight 
 in my face, and frolic, as it were, — rustle merrily, 
 nod and flutter around, gracefully rock the slen- 
 der tips of the ferns,^and I would rejoice in it 
 . . . but, lo, it has died down, and everything is 
 calm again. Only the grasshoppers shrilled vig- 
 orously, as though angry, — and that uninter- 
 rupted, harsh, piercing sound is fatiguing. It 
 is suited to the importunate heat of midday; it 
 seems to be born of it, evoked by it, as it were, 
 from the red-hot earth. 
 
 At last, without having hit upon a single lair 
 of game, we reached the new clearing. There 
 the recently felled aspens lay sadly on the 
 ground, crushing the grass and the undergrowth; 
 on some, leaves still green, but already dead, hung 
 limply from the motionless boughs; on others, 
 they had already dried and ciu'led up. From the 
 
 ' A iniiit-likc plant wliicli has l)riclit-piir))le leaves and stems and 
 brifiht-yellow flowers, called " Iv.-'ni-da-Marva." — Translatob. 
 
 203
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 fresh, goklt'ii-wliite chips, which hiy in heaps 
 arouiul the hrilhantly moist stumps, there was ex- 
 haled iiVi extremely agreeahle, hitter odour. Far 
 away, nearer the grove, the axes were tapping 
 dully, and, at times, solemnly and quietly, as 
 though howing and spreading out its arms, a 
 curlv-foliaged tree sank earthward. 
 
 For a long time, I found no game ; at last, out 
 of a spreading oak-hush, through the wormwood 
 with which it was overgrown, a corncrake flew 
 forth. I fired; it turned a somersault in the air, 
 and fell. On hearing the shot, Kasyan swiftly 
 covered his eyes M'ith his hand, and did not move 
 until I had reloaded my gun and picked up. the 
 corncrake. But when I started onward, he went 
 up to the spot where the dead hird had fallen, hent 
 down to the grass, on which a few drops of blood 
 were sprinkled, shook his head, cast a frightened 
 
 glance at me Afterward, I heard him 
 
 whispering: " A sin! .... Akh, this is a sin!" 
 
 The heat made us, at last, enter the grove. I 
 threw myself down under a tall hazel-bush, over 
 which a stately young maple spread finely abroad 
 its light branches. Kasyan seated himself on the 
 thick end of a felled birch-tree. I looked at him. 
 The foliage was swaying faintly up aloft, and its 
 li(|uid greenish shadows sli])])ed gently back and 
 forth over his puny body, wra]:)ped u]), after a 
 fashion, in his dark coat, over his small face. He 
 did not raise his head. Bored bv his taciturnity^ 
 
 204
 
 KASYAX FKOM THE 1 AIK-MKTCIIA 
 
 I lay on my back, aiitl began to admire tbe peace- 
 ful play of the tangled leaves against the far-oft* 
 brilliant sky. "T is a wonderfully agreeable oc- 
 cu])atiori, to lie on one's back in the forest, and 
 stare u})ward ! It seems to you as though you were 
 gazing into a bottomless sea, that it spreads 
 broadly beneath you, that the trees do not rise out 
 of the earth, but, like the roots of huge plants, 
 descend, hang suspended, in those crystal-clear 
 wa\'es; the leaves on the trees now are of trans- 
 lucent emerald, again thicken into golden, almost 
 black green. Somewhere, far away, terminating 
 a slender branch, a separate leaf stands motionless 
 against the blue patch of transparent sky, and by 
 its side sways another, recalling by its movements 
 the play of a fish's gills, as though the movement 
 proceeded from its own volition, and were not 
 produced by the breeze. The white, round clouds 
 softly float and softly pass, like enchanted sub- 
 marine islands, — and then, all of a sudden, that 
 whole sea, that radiant atmosphere, those boughs 
 and leaves flooded with sunlight, begin to undu- 
 late, to tremble with a fugitive gleam, and a fresh, 
 hurried lisping, resembling the unending, tiny 
 plash of swelling surge, arises. You do not stir 
 — you gaze: and it is impossible to express in 
 words what joy, tranquillity, and sweetness 
 reign in your heart. You gaze : — that deep, pure 
 azure evokes a smile upon your lips, as innocent 
 as itself; as the clouds sail over the sky, and in 
 
 205
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSISIAN 
 
 their company, as it were, happy ineniories pass 
 in garhiiuls through your soul, and it seems to 
 you tliat vour uaze recedes further and further 
 awav, and (h'aws vou after it, into that cahn, 
 beaming abyss, and that it is impossible to tear 
 yourself i'rom that height, from that depth .... 
 
 "Master, hev there, master!" — said Kasyan, 
 suddenly, in his melodious yoice. 
 
 I half-rose M'ith amazement; hitherto, he had 
 barely answered my (juestions, and now he had 
 suddenly begun to speak of his own accord. 
 
 " AN^iat dost thou want^ " — I asked. 
 
 "Well, why didst thou kill that bird?"— he 
 began, looking me straight in the face. 
 
 " AVhat dost thou mean by ' why '?.... The 
 corncrake is game: it can be eaten." 
 
 " That 's not the reason why thou didst kill it, 
 master: much thou wilt eat it! Thou hast killed 
 it for thine amusement." 
 
 " AVhy, surely, thou thyself, I suppose, dost 
 eat geese and chickens? " 
 
 " That is a bird appointed by God for man, but 
 the corncrake is a free bird, a forest bird. And 
 not he alone: there are quantities of them, of all 
 sorts of forest creatures, and creatures of the field, 
 and the I'iver, and the swamp, both up-stream 
 and down-stream, — and 't is a sin to kill them, 
 and they ought to l)e allowed to live on the earth 
 until their time comes. . . . Rut another food is 
 appointed to man, a (hfferent food and a different 
 
 2()(>
 
 KASYAN VnOM THE 1 AIIMNIKTCIIA 
 
 drink: grain is God's blessed gift, and the waters 
 of heaven, and tame fowl, from our ancient fa- 
 thers' day." 
 
 I stared in amazement at Kasyan. Ilis words 
 flowed fluently; he did not pause to seek them, 
 he spoke with quiet enthusiasm and gentle digni- 
 nity, closing his eyes from time to time. 
 
 " And so, according to thy view, it is sinful to 
 kill a fish, also?" — I asked. 
 
 " A fish has cold blood," — he returned, with 
 confidence: — " a flsh is a dumb brute. It does not 
 fear, it does not rejoice: a flsh is a creature with- 
 out the power of speech. A flsh does not feel, the 
 blood in it is not lively. . . Blood," — he went on, 
 after a pause, — " is a holy thing! Blood does not 
 behold God's dear little sun, blood hides itself 
 from the light . . . 't is a great sin to show blood 
 to the light, a great sin and horror. . . . Okh, 
 very great! " 
 
 He sighed, and cast down his eyes. I 
 must admit, that I stared at the strange old 
 man in utter amazement. His speech did not 
 have the ring of a peasant: the common peo- 
 ple do not speak like that, neither do flne 
 talkers. This language was thoughtfully-solemn 
 and strange. ... I had never heard anything 
 like it. 
 
 " Tell me, please, Kasyan," — I began, without 
 taking my eyes from his slightly-flushed face: — 
 " what is thy occupation? " 
 
 207
 
 MEMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 He did not at once answer my (juestion. His 
 gaze roved uneasily for a moment. 
 
 " I live as the Lord commands," — he said at 
 last, — " and, as for an occupation, — no, I have 
 none. I have n't had much sense since my 
 childhood; I work, as long as my strength lasts, 
 — I 'm a poor workman .... how should I 
 be otherwise! 1 have no health, and my hands 
 are stupid. Well, and in springtime I snare 
 nightingales." 
 
 "Thou snarest nightingales!' — But didst not 
 thou say, that one should not touch any creature 
 of the forest or the field, and so forth? " 
 
 " They must not be killed, that is true; death 
 will take his own, in any case. There 's ]\Iartvn 
 the carpenter, for example: INIartyn lived and 
 did not live long, and died ; now his wife is wast- 
 ting away with sorrow over her husband and her 
 little children. . . . Neither man nor beast can 
 cheat death. Death does not run, and you can- 
 not run from it; but vou must n't aid it. And I 
 don't kill the nightingales, — the Lord forbid! I 
 don't catch them for torture, nor for the destruc- 
 tion of their life, but for man's pleasure, consola- 
 tion, and delectation." 
 
 " Dost thou go to Kursk ' to catch them? " 
 
 "I do go to Kursk, and even further, as it 
 happens. I pass the night in the marshes, and 
 
 ' The nightingales of the Kursk Government are accounted the 
 finest in Russia. — Traxsi-ator. 
 
 208
 
 KASYAX FRO]\r THE FiVIR-MP:TCIIA 
 
 on the borders of the forest; 1 spend the night 
 alone in the fields, in the wilds: there the snipe 
 whistle, there the hares ery, there the wild drakes 
 quack.^ — In the evening I observe, in the morn- 
 ing I listen, at dawn I spread my nets over 
 the bushes. . » . . Sometimes a nightingale 
 sings so moui'nfnlly, so sweetly .... even 
 mournfully." 
 
 " And ciost thou sell them? " 
 
 " I give them away to good people." 
 
 " And what else dost thou do? " 
 
 " What do 1 do?" 
 
 " What is thy business? " 
 
 The old man remained silent a while. 
 
 " I have no business. ... I 'm a bad work- 
 man. But I can read and write." 
 
 " Thou canst? " 
 
 " I can. The Lord, and good people, have 
 aided me.'' 
 
 " Well, art thou a family man? " 
 
 " No, I have no family." 
 
 "How is that? . . . Have they all died? " 
 
 " No, it just happened so; it didn't chance to 
 be my luck in life. But that is all under God's 
 care, we all go under God's care; and a man 
 must be upright, — so he must! He must please 
 God, that is to say." 
 
 " And hast thou no relatives? " 
 
 " I have . . . yes .... in a way . . ." 
 
 The old man stammered. 
 
 209
 
 ME.AIOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 "Tell me, please," — I began: — "I heard my 
 coaciimaii ask thee, why thou didst not heal Mar- 
 tynJ* Dost thou know how to heal? *' 
 
 " Thy eoachman is an u])right nian," — Kasyan 
 answered me, thoughtfully: — "but he is not 
 without sin also. Tliey call me a physician. ..la 
 physician, forsooth! .... and who can cure? 
 All that comes from God. But there are . . . 
 there are plants, there are flowers: they do help, 
 really. Here 's the bur-marigold, for example ; 
 't is a good weed for man ; here 's the plantain, 
 too ; i is no disgrace to speak of them ; they are 
 clean plants — (xod's plants. Well, but others are 
 not like that : and they help, hut 't is a sin ; and 
 't is a sin to speak of tliem. It might be done 
 with ])rayei', perhaps. .... Well, of course, 
 thei-e are words which .... And he who be- 
 lieves shall be saved/' — he added, lowering his 
 voice. 
 
 " Didst thou not give JNIartvn anvthiny? " — I 
 asked. 
 
 "I heard of it too late," — replied the old man. 
 — " But what of that! — each one will get what is 
 written in liis fate. ^lartyn was not destined to 
 live long on earth : that 's a fact. Xo, the dear 
 sun does not warm a man who is not fated to live 
 long on earth, as it does other men, and neither 
 does his bread profit him, — 't is as though some- 
 thing summoned him away. . . . Yes; Lord 
 rest his soul! " 
 
 210
 
 KASYAN FROM THE 1 AIR-M 1<:TC HA 
 
 " Is it loim' since tlicv sent vou to live in our 
 jjarts? " — 1 asked liini, after a brief silence. 
 
 Kasyan gave a start. 
 
 " No, not long: four years. In the old master's 
 time, we always lixed in our former place, but the 
 Council of (iuardians removed us. Our old mas- 
 ter was a gentle soul, a meek man, — the kingdom 
 of heaven be his! Well, the Council of Guar- 
 dians judged rightly, of course; 't is evident, that 
 so it was right." 
 
 " But where did you formerly live? " 
 
 " We are from the Fair-Metcha." 
 
 " Is that far from here? " 
 
 " About a hundred versts." 
 
 " And was it better than here? " 
 
 " Yes . . . 't was better. There the lands were 
 fertile river-meadows, our nest; but here we 
 have cramped lands, and drought. . . . We are 
 orphaned here. Yonder, at our Fair-lNIetcha you 
 would climb a hill, and climb — and, O I^ord my 
 God, what did you see? hey ? River, and meadows, 
 and forest; and there was a church there, and 
 then the meadows began again, you could see 
 far, far away. How far you could see! . . . you 
 gaze and gaze, — akh, truly, you cannot express 
 your feelings! Well, here, to tell the truth, the 
 land is better: clay, good- clay, say the peasants; 
 and my orain bears well everywhere." 
 
 " Come, old man, tell me the truth: I think 
 thou wouldst like to visit thy native place? " 
 
 211
 
 aME:S101KS OF A SPOKTS:\IAN 
 
 <* A''. 
 
 Yes, I would like to have u look at it. But 
 't is good everywhere. 1 in a man without a 
 family, a rover. Well, and that 's nothing! can 
 one sit much at home ( But when you walk, when 
 you walk," he interposed, raising his voice, " your 
 heart is lighter, in truth. The dear little sun 
 lights you, and you are more visihle to God, and 
 can sing in hettei" tune. Vou look to see what 
 grass is growing; well, you ohserve it, you pluck 
 it. The water flows fresh from a spring, for ex- 
 ample: holy water; so you drink your fill, — you 
 note it also. The heavenly birds sing. . . And 
 then, beyond Kursk lie steppes, such level steppes, 
 and there is wonder and satisfaction for a man, 
 there is liberty, there is God's grace! And they 
 extend, so people say, clear to the warm seas, 
 where the bird Gamaiun the sweet-voiced dwells, 
 and the leaves do not fall from the trees in winter, 
 nor in autumn, and golden apples grow on silver 
 boughs, and every man lives in abundance and 
 uprightness, . . For I "ve been in ever so many 
 places! I 've been to Romyon, and in Simbirsk 
 the splendid town, and in golden-domed ^Moscow 
 too; I 've been on our benefactress the Oka 
 River, and on the Tzna, the darling, and on dear 
 little mother Volga, and have seen many people, 
 kind peasants, and have tarried in honourable 
 towns. . . . Well, T would like to go thither — 
 and you see .... and yet .... And I 'm not 
 the only sinful one .... many other peasants 
 
 212 
 
 1
 
 KASYAN FROM THE 1 AIR-METCIIA 
 
 wear liiulen-bark slippers, roam about the world, 
 seek the truth .... yes! .... 15ut as for 
 home, hey? There's no upriglitness in man — 
 that there is n't " 
 
 These last words Kasyan uttered rapidly, al- 
 most unintelligibly; tlien he said something more, 
 which 1 could not catch, and his face assumed such 
 a strange expression, tliat I involuntarily recalled 
 the appellation " holy fool." He cast down his 
 eyes, cleared his throat, and seemed to recover 
 himself. 
 
 "What a dear little sun!" — he said in an 
 undertone: — "What grace,- — O I^ord! what 
 warmth in the forest! " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, paused for a mo- 
 ment, glanced abstractedly about, and began to 
 sing softly. I could not catch all the words of 
 his drawling song; but I heard the following: 
 
 " They call me Kasyan, 
 Nicknamed The Flea. . , ." 
 
 "Eh!"^ — thought I: — "why, he's improvis- 
 ing." .... All at once he started, and stopped 
 short, staring intently into the dense part of the 
 forest. I turned round, and perceived a small 
 peasant maiden, ten years of age, in a little blue 
 sarafan,^ ^^'ith a checked kerchief on her head, 
 
 ' The true peasant gown, gatliered full on a band, falling in 
 straight folds from the armpits, and sujijiorted by cross-bands 
 over the shoulders. — Traxslator. 
 
 213
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 and a j^laited basket in her bare, sunburned hand. 
 She had, probably, not in the least expected to 
 encounter us; she had hit on us, as the expression 
 is, and stood motionless in a green clump of hazel- 
 bushes in a shady little glade, timidly gazing at 
 me with her black eyes. 1 barely managed to 
 suryey her : she immediately ducked behind a tree. 
 
 "Annushka! xVnnushka! come hither, fear 
 not," — called the old man, affectionately. 
 
 " I 'm afraid," — resounded a shrill little yoice. 
 
 " Don't be afraid, come to me." 
 
 Annushka silently abandoned her ambush, 
 softly made the circuit of it, — her childish foot- 
 steps were hardly audi})le on the thick grass, — 
 and emerged from the thicket close to the old 
 man. She was not a child of eight, as she had 
 seemed to me at first, from her stunted growth, 
 but of thirteen or fourteeen. Her whole body 
 was small and thin, but very well made and agile, 
 and her pretty little face bore a remarkable re- 
 semblance to that of Kasyan, although Kasyan 
 was not a beauty. There Avere the same sharp 
 features, the same strange gaze, cunning and con- 
 fiding, thoughtful and piercing, and the move- 
 ments were the same. . . . Kasyan lan his eyes 
 over her; she was standing with her side to him. 
 
 " Well, hast thou been gathering nuishrooms? " 
 — he asked. 
 
 " Yes, mushrooms,"^ — she replied, with a shy 
 smile.
 
 K AS VAN 1 JiOiM TllK FA I H-M J yiC'II A 
 
 " Iliist thou foiHul iiiiiiiy? " 
 
 " Yes." (She darted a swift glaiiee at him, 
 and smiled again.) 
 
 " And are there any white ones? " 
 
 " Yes, some are white." 
 
 " Show tlicm, show tlicm." . . . (She lowered 
 the hasket from her arm and half -raised a broad 
 burdoek leaf, whieh covered the mnslirooms. ) — 
 "Kh!"— said Kasyan, ])en(ling over the basket; 
 "why, what splendid ones! Good for thee, An- 
 nushka! " 
 
 Is this thy daughter, Kasyan?" — I asked. 
 ( Annushka's face flushed faintly.) 
 
 "No, just a relative," — said Kasyan, with 
 i'eigncd carelessness. — " A Yell, run along, An- 
 mishka," — he immediately added: — "run along, 
 iind Ciod be with thee. And see here . . . ." 
 
 " But why should she go afoot? " — I inter- 
 rupted him. — " We will drive her with us." 
 
 Annushka flushed as scarlet as a poppy, seized 
 tlie handle of the basket witli both hands, and cast 
 a glance of trepidation at the old man. 
 
 " No, she '11 get there, all right," — he re- 
 turned, in the same indifferently-drawling tone. 
 — " What is it to her? . . . She '11 get there as 
 she is. . . . Run along." 
 
 Annushka w^alked off briskly into the forest. 
 Kasyan gazed after her, then cast down his eyes, 
 and smiled. In that prolonged smile, in the few 
 words which he had uttered to Annushka, in the 
 
 215
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 very sound ui' his voice when he spoke to her, 
 there was inexphcahle, passionate love and ten- 
 derness. He cast another ghmce in the direction 
 whither she had gone, smiled again, and, mopping 
 his face, shook his head several times. 
 
 "Why didst tliou send her off so soon?" — I 
 asked him: — " I would have liked to })uy her 
 mushrooms " 
 
 " But you can huy them at home, just as well, 
 whenever you like,"- — he answered me, for the 
 first time addressing me as " you." 
 
 " Thou hast there a very pretty girl." 
 
 " Xo. . . . The idea! .... So-so . . ." he 
 replied, reluctantly, as it were; and, from that 
 moment, relapsed into his former taciturnity. 
 
 Perceiving that all my efforts to make him talk 
 again were vain, I wended my way to the clear- 
 ing. jNIoreover, the heat had decreased some- 
 what; but my ill-success continued, and I re- 
 turned to the settlement with nothing but the 
 one corncrake and a new axle. As we were driv- 
 ing into the yard, Kasyan suddenly turned to 
 me. 
 
 "Master, eh. Master," — said he: — "I am to 
 blame toward thee ; f pr 't was I that drove all the 
 game away from thee." 
 
 " How so? " 
 
 " Well, that 's mv secret. And thou hast a 
 trained hound, and a good one, but thou couldst 
 do nothing. AVIien you come to think of it, what 
 
 2ir>
 
 KASYAN ymm riiK iaik-metcha 
 
 are men, — men, hey? Man's a \\'\\d beast, but see 
 what lias been done with him! " 
 
 It would have been useless for me t(j try 
 to convince Kasyan that it was impossible to 
 " bewitcli " the game, therefore 1 made him no 
 reply. And besides, we immediatelj^ turned into 
 the gate. 
 
 Annushka was not in the cottage ; she had man- 
 aged to get there already and leave her basket of 
 mushrooms. Erofei fitted the axle in place, after 
 having subjected it preliminarily to severe and 
 unjust criticism; and an hour later, I drove out, 
 having left Kasyan a little money, which, at first, 
 he did not wish to accept; but afterward, when he 
 had reflected and held it in his palm, he thrust 
 it into his bosom. He hardly uttered a single 
 word during the course of that hour; he stood 
 as before, leaning against the gate, made no re- 
 ply to the reproaches of my coachman, and took 
 an extremely cold leave of me. 
 
 As soon as I returned, I observed that my 
 Erofei ^vas again in a gloomy frame of mind. 
 . . . And, in fact, he had not found a morsel to 
 eat in the village, and the watering facilities for 
 his horses Avere bad. We drove off. With dissat- 
 isfaction expressed even in the nape of his neck, 
 he sat on the box and was frightfully anxious to 
 enter into conversation with mc; but, in antici- 
 pation of my putting tlie first question, he con- 
 fined himself to a low growling under his breath, 
 
 21T
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 and hortatory, sometimes vicious s})eeches ad- 
 dressed to liis horses. — -"A viUa(>'e!" — he mut- 
 tered: "A pretty sort of village, forsooth! I 
 asked for just a little kvas — and there was no 
 
 kvas Akh, O Lord! ^Vnd the water, — 
 
 simply — phew!" (He spat aloud.) "No cu- 
 cumhers, no kvas, — no nothing. . . . Come now, 
 thou,"^ — ^he added in a loud tone, addressing the 
 right trace-horse: — "I know thee, thou pam- 
 pered heast ! Thou 'rt fond of indulging thyself, 
 I think. . . ." (And he lashed it witli his whip.) 
 " The horse has grown thoroughly crafty, hut 
 what a willing heast it used to he! . . . Come, 
 come, look round this way! " ^ 
 
 " Tell me, j^lease, Erofei," — I hegan: — " what 
 sort of a man is Kasvan? " 
 
 Erofei did not answer me promptly; he was, 
 in general, a deliberate, leisurely man ; but I was 
 instantly able to divine that my question had 
 delighted and reassiu'ed him. 
 
 " The Flea, you mean? " — he said, at last, jerk- 
 ing at the reins: — " he 's a splendid man: a holy 
 fool, right enough he is; you won't soon find 
 another such fine man. Now, for example, he 's, 
 point for point, exactly like our roan horse yon- 
 der: he 's incorrigible, has got out of hand, — that 
 is to say, he has struck work. Well, and, after all, 
 
 'A well-trained trace-horse (which gallops), in a three-horse 
 span (a tr6ika), is supposed to hold its iiead lowered and twisted 
 backward, so that the jiersons in tlie carriage can see its eyes and 
 nostrils. — Tkansi.atoh. 
 
 218
 
 KASYxVX FROM TIIK 1 AIU-^SIETCIIA 
 
 what sort of a workman is he, what a wretclicd 
 body holds Iiis soul, — well, and, all the same .... 
 You see, he has been so from his ehildhood. At 
 first, he used to go with his uncles in the carrying 
 business: he had three of them; well, and then, 
 later on, you know, he got tired of that — he 
 threw it up. He began to live at home, and he 
 would n't even sit still at home : such an uneasy 
 man he was, — a regular flea. Luckily for him, 
 he happened to have a kind master who did n't 
 force him. So, from that time forth, he has been 
 lounging about, like an unconfined sheep. And 
 such a wonderful man he is, God knows: some- 
 times he 's as silent as a stump, then, all of a 
 sudden, he '11 start to talk, — and what he '11 say, 
 God knows. Is that any way to do? 'T is not. 
 He 's an inconsistent man, so he is. But he sings 
 w^ell. So solemnly — 't is fine, fine." 
 
 " And does he really heal? " 
 
 " Heal, do you mean? . . . Come, how could 
 he! As if he were that sort of a man! But he 
 cured me of scrofula. . . How could he ! He 's 
 a stupid man, so he is," — he added, after a brief 
 pause. 
 
 " Hast thou known him long? " 
 
 " Yes. He and I were neighbours in Syt- 
 chovko, on the Fair JNIetcha." 
 
 " And who is that young girl, Annushka, who 
 met us in the forest, — is she a relative of 
 his? " 
 
 219
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 Erofei glanced at iiic over his shoulder, and 
 grinned to the full extent of his mouth. 
 
 "Eh! .... Yes, she's a relative. She's an 
 orphan : she has no mother, and no one knows who 
 her mother was. Well, and she must he related 
 to him: she's awfully like him. . . . Well, and 
 slie lives with liim. She 's a sharp-witted girl, 
 there 's no denying it: she 's a good girl, and he, 
 the old man, fairly adores her: she is a good girl. 
 And 't is very likely, although you might not be- 
 lieve it, that he has taken it into his head to teach 
 his Annushka to read and write. That 's just 
 what you might expect of liim: he 's such a pecu- 
 liar man. So fickle, even ill-balanced, even . . . 
 E-e-eh!" my coachman suddenly interrupted 
 himself, and pulling up his horses, bent over to 
 one side, and began to sniff the air. — " Don't I 
 smell something burning? That I do! 1 would n't 
 give a rap for these new axles. . . . But, appar- 
 ently, I greased it all right. I must go and fetch 
 some water: yonder is a ])ond handy, by the way." 
 
 And Erofei slowly climbed down from his seat, 
 untied the bucket, went to the pond, and, on his 
 return, listened, not without satisfaction, to the 
 hissing of the wheel-box, suddenly gripped by 
 the water. ... In the space of about ten versts, 
 he was forced to deluge the axle six times, and 
 niglit had fully closed in when we reached home. 
 
 220
 
 THE AGENT 
 
 About fifteen versts from my estate, lives an ac- 
 (luaintance of mine, a young landed proprietor, 
 a retired officer of the Ciuards, Arkady Pavliteli 
 Pyenotchkin. He has a great deal of game on his 
 estate, his house is huilt after a plan by a French 
 architect, his servants are dressed in English style, 
 he gives capital dinners, welcomes his guests cor- 
 dially, and, nevertheless, one is reluctant to go to 
 his house. He is a sagacious, positive man, has 
 received a fine education, as is proper, has been 
 in the service, has mingled with the highest so- 
 ciety, and now occupies himself, very success- 
 fully, with the administration of his property. 
 Arkady Pavlitch, to use his own words, is stern 
 but just, is deeply concerned for the welfare of 
 his subjects, and chastises them — for their own 
 good. " One must treat them like children," he 
 says, on such occasions: "their ignorance, mo?i 
 cher, il faut prendre ccla en consideration." But 
 on tlie occasions of such so-called sad necessity, 
 lie avoids harsh and impetuous movements, and is 
 not fond of raising liis voice, but is rather given 
 to poking his finger straight out before him, 
 calmly remarking: " Thou knowest, I requested 
 
 221
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 thee, my dear fellow," or: " What ails thee, my 
 friend? Come to thy senses;" merely compressing 
 his lips a little the while, and twisting his mouth. 
 He is short of stature, elegantly built, very good- 
 looking, keeps his liands and finger-nails with the 
 greatest neatness; his rosy lips and face fairly 
 glow with health. His laugh is resonant and 
 care-free, he screws up his bright brown ej'^es 
 a^ffahly. He dresses extremely well, and with 
 taste; he imports French books, pictures, and 
 newspapers, but is not very fond of reading: he 
 has barely conquered " The Wandering Jew." 
 He plays cards in a masterlj^ manner. Alto- 
 gether, Arkady Pavlitch is regarded as one of 
 the most cultured noblemen and most enviable 
 matrimonial catches in our government; the la- 
 dies are wild over him, and praise his manners in 
 particular. His demeanour is wonderfully good, 
 he is as cautious as a cat, and has never been 
 mixed up in any scandal since he was born, al- 
 though, on occasion, he is fond of asserting 
 himself and reducing a timid man to confusion. 
 He positively loathes bad company — he is afraid 
 of compromising himself; on the other hand 
 in jovial moments, he announces himself to be 
 a disciple of Epicurus, although, on the whole, 
 he speaks ill of philosophy, calling it " the 
 foggy food of German brains," and sometimes 
 simply " nonsense." He is fond of music, also; 
 at cards, he hums through his teeth, but with feel- 
 
 222 
 
 -f
 
 THE AGENT 
 
 ing; he remembers something)' from ".Lucia " and 
 " Sonnambiila, " but always gets the pitcli rather 
 liigh. In winter, he goes to Petersburg. His 
 liouse is in remarkable order; even his coachmen 
 have succumbed to his influence, and every day 
 they not only wipe off the horse-collars and brush 
 their coats, but even wash their own faces. Ar- 
 kady Pavlitch's house-serfs, 't is true, have a 
 rather sidelong look, — but with us in Russia one 
 cannot distinguish the surly man from the sleepy 
 man. Arkady Pavlitch speaks in a soft and 
 agreeable voice, with pauses, emitting every 
 word with pleasure, as it were, through his hand- 
 some, perfumed moustache; he also employs a 
 great many French expressions, such as : " Mais, 
 cest imimyahle! " — " Mais, co7nment done? " — 
 and so forth. Nevertheless, I, for one, am not 
 overfond of visiting him, and if it were not for 
 the black-cock and partridges, I should, in all 
 probability, drop his acquaintance entirely. A 
 certain strange uneasiness takes possession of 
 you in his house ; even the comfort does not glad- 
 den you, and every time that, at evening, the 
 ciu'led valet presents himself before you, in his 
 sky-blue livery with buttons stamped with a coat 
 of arms, and begins obsequiously to pull off your 
 boots, you feel that if, instead of his pale and 
 lean face the wonderfully broad cheek-bones and 
 incredibly-blunt nose of a stalwart young peas- 
 ant, only just taken from the plough by his mas- 
 
 223
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 ter, but who had ah-eady contrived to burst in 
 half a score of places, the seams of the nankeen 
 coat recently presented to him, were suddenly to 
 appear before you, — you would be unspeakably 
 delighted, and would willingly subject yourself 
 to the danger of being stripped of your boot and 
 
 your leg, together, up to the very hip- joint 
 
 In spite of my dislike for Arkady Pavlitch, I 
 once happened to pass the night with liim. On 
 the following day, early in the morning, I or- 
 dered my calash to be harnessed up, but he would 
 not let me go without breakfast in the English 
 fashion, and conducted me to his study. Along 
 with tea, thev served us cutlets, soft-boiled eggs, 
 butter, honey, cheese, and so forth. Two valets, 
 in clean white gknes, swiftly and silently antici- 
 pated our slightest wishes. We sat on a Persian 
 divan. Arkady Pavlitch wore full trousers. of 
 silk, a black velvet round jacket, a red fez with a 
 blue tassel, and yellow Chinese slippers, without 
 heels. He drank tea, laughed, inspected his 
 finger-nails, smoked, tucked pillows under his 
 ribs, and, altogether, felt in a capital frame of 
 mind. After having breakfasted heartily, and 
 with evident pleasure, Arkady Pavlitch poured 
 himself out a glass of red wine, raised it to his 
 lips, and suddenly contracted his brows in a 
 
 frown. 
 
 "Why hasn't the wine been warmed?" — ^he 
 asked one of the valets in a rather sharp voice. 
 
 224
 
 THE AGENT 
 
 The valet grew confused, stood stock-still, and 
 turned pale. 
 
 " Am not I asking thee a question, my dear 
 fellow?" — went on Arkady Pavlitch, calmly, 
 without taking his eyes off him. 
 
 The unhappy valet shifted from foot to foot 
 where he stood, twisted his napkin, and uttered 
 never a word. Arkady Pavlitch lowered his 
 head, and gazed thouglitfully askance at him. 
 
 " Pardon, mem clierf — he said, with a pleasant 
 smile, giving my knee a friendly touch with his 
 hand, and again rivetting his eyes on the valet. — 
 " Well, go," — he added, after a hrief silence, ele- 
 vated his eyebrows, and rang the bell. 
 
 There entered a thick-set, swarthy, black- 
 haired man, with a low forehead, and eyes com- 
 pletely buried in fat. 
 
 " With regard to Feodor take mea- 
 sures," — said Arkady Pavlitch in an undertone, 
 and with entire self-possession. 
 
 " I obey, sir,"^ — replied the thick-set man, and 
 left the room. 
 
 " Voila, mon cher, les desagrhnents de la cam- 
 pagne" — remarked Arkady Pavlitch, merrily. 
 " But where are you going? stay, sit with me a 
 while longer." 
 
 " No," — I answered: — " I must go." 
 
 "Always hunting! Okh, I have no patience 
 with those sportsmen! But where are you 
 gomg f 
 
 225
 
 .ME.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 " To Rviibovo, forty versts from here." 
 
 " To Ryabovo? Akh, good heavens, in that 
 case I will go w ith you. Ryabovo is only five 
 versts from my Shipilovka, and 1 have n't been 
 to Sliipilovka for ever so long: 1 have never man- 
 aged to make the time. Now it has happened 
 (luite opportunely: do you hunt at Ryabovo to- 
 day, and come to my house in the evening. Ce 
 sera channant. Wa will sup together, — we will 
 take a cook with us, — you shall spend the night 
 with m.e. Splendid! splendid! " — he added, with- 
 out awaiting my reply. " C'est arrange. . . . 
 Hey, who is there ? Order the calash to be brought 
 round for us, and be quick about it. You have n't 
 been to Shipilovka ? I should be ashamed to sug- 
 gest your passing the night in my agent's cottage, 
 ^vere it not that I know you are not fastidious, 
 and would have to pass the night in a hay-barn at 
 Ryabovo. . . . Come on, come on! " 
 
 And Arkady Pavlitcli began to sing some 
 French romance or other. 
 
 " But perhaps you do not know," — he went on, 
 rocking himself to and fro on both legs: — " my 
 peasants there are on quit-rent. I 'm such a li))- 
 eral man, — but what are you going to do about 
 it? They pay me their dues promptly, however; 
 I would have put them on husbandry-service 
 long ago, I confess, but there is too little land; 
 and I 'm amazed, as it is, how they make both 
 ends meet. However, c'est leur affaire. My 
 
 226
 
 THE AGENT 
 
 agent there is a fine fellow, unc forte tctc, a states- 
 man! VoLi will see. . . . How eonveniently this 
 has happened, really! " 
 
 Thei"e was no help for it. Instead of setting 
 out at ten o'clock in the morning, we set out at 
 two. Sportsmen will understand my impatience. 
 Arkady Pa\'litch was fond, as he expressed him- 
 self, of indulging himself on occasion, and took 
 with him such an endless mass of linen, provisions, 
 clothing, perfumes, pillows, and various dressing- 
 cases, that an economical and self-contained Ger- 
 man would have thought tliere w^as enough of 
 these blessings to last him a whole year. Every 
 time we descended a declivity, Arkady Pavlitch 
 made a brief but powerful speech to the coach- 
 man, from which I w as able to deduce the infer- 
 ence, that my friend was a good deal of a coward. 
 However, the joiu'ney was accomplished with 
 entire safety; only on one recently-repaired 
 ])ridge the cart with the cook tumbled in, and the 
 hind wheel crushed his stomach. 
 
 Arkady Pavlitch, at the sight of the downfall 
 of his home-bied Karem, became seriously fright- 
 ened, and immediately gave orders to inquire: 
 "Were his arms w^hole?" On receiving an affirma- 
 tive answer, he immediately regained his compo- 
 sure. Nevertheless, we were a good while on the 
 way; I rode in the same calash with Arkady Pav- 
 litch, and toward the end of the iournev I felt 
 bored to death, the more so as in the course of 
 
 227
 
 me:moirs of a sportsman 
 
 several hours my acquaintance had turned utterly 
 insipid, and had begun to proclaim liberal views. 
 At last, we arrived, only not at Ryabovo but di- 
 rectly at Shipilovka: somehow, that was the way 
 it turned out. Even without that, I coidd not 
 have hunted my fill on that day, and therefore, 
 possessing my soul in patience, I submitted to 
 my fate. 
 
 The cook had arrived a few minutes in advance 
 of us, and, evidently, had already succeeded in 
 making his arrangements, and notifying the 
 proper persons, for at our very entrance into the 
 boundaries we were met by the elder (the agent's 
 son), a stalwart and red-haired peasant, a good 
 seven feet in height, on horseback and without his 
 cap, in a new peasant-coat wide-open on the chest. 
 "And where is SofrcSn?" — -Arkady Pavlitch 
 asked him. The elder first sprang alertly from 
 his horse, made an obeisance to the girdle to his 
 master, said: " Good-morning, dear little father, 
 Arkady Pavlitch," then raised his head, shook 
 himself, and announced that Sofron had gone 
 to PerofF, })ut that he had already been sent for. 
 — " Well, follow us," — said Arkadv Pavlitch. 
 The elder led his horse aside, out of decorum, 
 sprang on its back, and set off at a trot behind 
 the calash, holding his cap in his hand. AVe drove 
 through the village. Several peasants in empty 
 carts met us; they were driving from the thresh- 
 ing-floor and singing songs, jouncing about with 
 
 228
 
 THE AGENT 
 
 their whole bodies, and with their legs dangling 
 in the air; but at the sight of our calash and of 
 the elder, they suddenly fell silent, doffed their 
 winter caps (it was summer-time), and half -rose, 
 as though awaiting orders. Arkady Pavlitch 
 graciously saluted them. An alarming agitation 
 liad, evidently, spread abroad throughout the vil- 
 lage. Women in plaidcd, liome-woven wool pet- 
 ticoats were flinging chi])s at unsagacious or too 
 zealous dogs, a lame old man with a beard which 
 started just under his eyes jerked his lialf- 
 watered horse away from the v/e\\, smote it in the 
 ribs, for some unknown reason, and then made his 
 obeisance. Dirty little boys, in long shirts, ran 
 howling to the cottages, flung themselves, belly 
 down, on the thresholds, Iiung their heads, kicked 
 their legs in the air, and in this manner rolled 
 with great agility past the door, into the dark an- 
 teroom, whence they did not again emerge. 
 Even the chickens scuttled headlong, in an accel- 
 erated trot, under the board at the bottom of the 
 gate ; one gallant cock, with a black breast, which 
 resembled a black-satin waistcoat, and a hand- 
 some tail, which curled over to his very comb, had 
 intended to remain in the road, and was on the 
 very point of crowing, but suddenly was seized 
 with confusion, and fled also. The agent's cot- 
 tage stood apart from the rest, in the middle of a 
 thick green hemp-patch. We drew up at the 
 gate. Mr. Pyenotchkin rose, picturesquely 
 
 229
 
 JNIEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 flung aside his cloak, and alighted from the ca- 
 lash, casting courteous glances around him. The 
 agent's wife received us with low reverences, and 
 approached to kiss the master's hand. Arkady 
 Pavlitch allowed her to kiss it to her heart's con- 
 tent, and ascended to the porch. In the ante- 
 room, in a dark corner, stood the elder's wife, and 
 she also bowed low, but did not venture to kiss 
 his hand. In the so-called cold cottage,^ on the 
 right of the anteroom, two other women were al- 
 ready bustling about : they had carried thence all 
 sorts of rubbish, empty tubs, sheepskin coats 
 which had grown stiff as wood, butter-pots, and 
 a cradle with a pile of rags and a gay-coloured 
 baby, and had swept up the dirt witli a bath- 
 besom. 
 
 Arkady Pavlitch banished them from the 
 room, and placed himself on the wall-bench, 
 under the holy pictures. The coachmen began 
 to bring in trunks, coffers, and other conveni- 
 ences, using their utmost endeavours to subdue 
 the clumping of their heavy boots. 
 
 In the meantime, Arkady Pavlitch was ques- 
 tioning the elder about tjie harvest, the sowing, 
 and other agricultural subjects. The elder re- 
 plied satisfactorily, but, somehow, languidly and 
 awkwardly, as though he were buttoning his kaf- 
 tan witli half-frozen fingers. He stood by the 
 
 ' A '* cold " cottage, or cliurcli, in Russia means one that is not 
 furnished with the means of heating. — TKAXsi.ATon. 
 
 230
 
 THE AGENT 
 
 door, and kept watching and glancing round, 
 every now and tlien, making way tor tlie alert 
 valet. I managed to catch a glimpse, past his 
 hroad shoulders, of the agent's wife silently 
 thrashing some other woman in the anteroom. 
 All at once, a peasant-cart rattled up and halted 
 in front of the porch : the agent entered. 
 
 This " statesman," acording to Arkady Pav- 
 litch's words, w^as short of stature, broad-shoul- 
 dered, grey-haired, and thick-set, with a red nose, 
 small blue eyes, and a beard in the shape of a fan. 
 We may remark, by the way, that ever since Rus- 
 sia has stood, there has never been an instance in 
 it of a man who has grown corpulent and waxed 
 wealthy, without a wide-spreading beard; a man 
 may have worn a thin, wedge-shaped beard all his 
 life long, — and suddenly, lo and behold, it 
 has encircled his face like a halo, — and where 
 does the hair come from! The agent must have 
 been carousing in PerofF: his face Avas consid- 
 erably bloated, and he exhaled an odom* of 
 liquor. 
 
 " Aldi, you, our fathers, our gracious ones," — 
 he began in a sing-song tone, and with so much 
 emotion depicted on his face, that it seemed as 
 though the tears were on the point of gushing 
 forth; — " at last, you have done us the favour to 
 come to us! ... . Thy hand, dear little father, 
 thy dear little hand," — he added, protruding his 
 lips in advance. 
 
 231
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTS.AIAX 
 
 Arkady Pavlitch complied with liis wish. — 
 " Well, now then, hrother Sofron, how are thy 
 affairs thriving? " — he asked, in a caressing 
 voice. 
 
 " Akh, you, our fathers," — exclaimed Sofron: 
 " but how could they go badly, those affairs! For 
 you, our fathers, our benefactors, you have 
 deigned to illuminate our wretched little village 
 with your coming, you have rendered us happy 
 until the day of our coffins. Glorv to Thee, 
 O I^ord, Arkady Pavlitch, glory to Thee, O 
 Lord! Everything is thriving, thanks to your 
 mercy. ..." 
 
 Here Sofron stopped short, darted a glance at 
 his master, and, as though again carried away by 
 a trans2)ort of feeling ( and the liquor was begin- 
 ning to assert itself, to boot ) , he again besought 
 the privilege of kissing his hand, and w^ent on 
 worse than before. 
 
 " Akh, you, our fathers, our benefactors 
 
 and what am I saying! 
 
 By God, I have gone perfectly mad with joy. 
 . . . Heaven is my witness, I look, and cannot 
 believe my eyes Akh, you, our fa- 
 thers! . . . ." 
 
 Arkady Pavlitch glanced at me, laughed, and 
 said: '' N'est-ce pas que c'est touchant! " 
 
 " Yes, dear little father, Arkady Pavlitch,"— 
 went on the indefatigable agent: — "how could 
 you do such a thing! you afflict me to the last de- 
 
 232
 
 THE ACCENT 
 
 grce, dear little father: you did not deign to no- 
 tify me of your eoniing. iVnd where are you to 
 spend the night? For the dirt, the ruhhish 
 here " 
 
 " Never mind, Sofron, never mind," — replied 
 Arkady Pavlitch, with a smile: — " it 's very nice 
 here." 
 
 " Yes, but you, our fathers, — for whom is it 
 nice ? for the likes of us peasants 't is well enough ; 
 but you .... akh, vou, mv fathers, benefactors, 
 akh, you, my fathers! . . . Forgive me, I 'm a 
 fool, I '^'e lost my wits, by God, I 've gone utterly 
 crazy." 
 
 In the meantime, supper was served; — Arkady 
 Pavlitch began to eat. The old man drove his 
 son away, — " Thou wilt make the air close," said 
 he. 
 
 " Well, old man, and hast thou settled the 
 boundaries?" — asked i\Ir. Pyenotchkin, who, 
 evidently, was desirous of imitating the peasant 
 style of sj^eech, and winked at me." 
 
 "We have, dear little father: all by thy bounty. 
 We signed the affidavit day before yesterday. 
 The KhlynofF folks were inclined to resist, at first 
 . . . and they really did kick up a row, father. 
 They demanded .... they demanded .... 
 God only knows what it was they demanded ; but 
 they are a foolish lot, dear little father, a stupid 
 set of folks. But we, dear little father, by thy 
 
 ^ He said slarind, instead of star'ik, for " old man."— Translator. 
 
 233
 
 MEMUIKS OF A SPORTS.MAN 
 
 mercy, showed our gratitude ' to Mikolai ]\Iiko- 
 laiteh, the iniddleniau; we satisfied him; we acted 
 entirely acconhng to thy conmiaud, dear httle 
 father; as tliou wert pleased to command, so we 
 acted, and everything was done with the know- 
 ledge of Yegor Dmitritch." 
 
 " Yegor reported to me," — remarked Arkady 
 Pavlitch, })ompously. 
 
 " Of course, dear little father, Yegor Dmi- 
 tritch did so, of course." 
 
 " Well, and 1 suppose you are satisfied 
 nowf 
 
 This was all that Sofron was waiting for. — 
 " Akh, you, our fathers, our henefactors! " — he 
 began to whine again. ..." Have mercy on 
 me! .... for don't we pray to the Lord God, 
 day and night, on behalf of you, our fathers. . . . 
 There is n't much land, of course " 
 
 Pyenotchkin interrupted him. — " Well, all 
 right, all right, Sofron; I know thou servest me 
 zealously. . . . Well, and how about the 
 threshing? " 
 
 Sofron heaved a sigh. 
 
 " Well, you, our fathers, the threshing is n't 
 very good. And here now, dear little father, Ar- 
 kady Pavlitcli, allow me to announce to you what 
 sort of a little business has come up." (Here he 
 came close up to JNIr. Pyenotclikin, throwing his 
 hands apart, bent down, and screwed up one 
 
 ' That is — bribed. — Translator. 
 
 234
 
 TTTE AGENT 
 
 eye.) " We have found a dead b(x]y on our 
 land." 
 
 " How did that come about? " 
 
 " WHiy, I myself can't comprehend it, dear lit- 
 tle father, you, our fathers, — evidently, the devil 
 made the mess, set the snare. And, luckily, it 
 turned out to be near another man's boundary- 
 line; only, what 's the use of concealing tiie sin? 
 'T was on our land. I immediately gave orders 
 to have it dragged on to the other man's strip of 
 land,^ while it was possible, and I set a guard 
 over it, and gave him command: 'Hold thy 
 tongue! ' says I. And I exj)lained it to the com- 
 missary of police, by way of precaution. ' This 
 was the way of it,' says I ; and I treated him to 
 tea, and gratitude. . . . Now, what do you think 
 of it, dear little father? You see, it has been left 
 on the necks of others; for one has to pay two 
 hundred rubles for a dead body, — as surely as 
 one has to pay for a penny roll." 
 
 INIr. Pyenotchkin laughed a great deal at his 
 agent's clever ruse, and said to me several times, 
 nodding his head in his direction: "Quel gaillard, 
 eh?" 
 
 In the meantime, it had grown completely dark 
 out of doors; Arkady Pa\'litch ordered the table 
 to be cleared, and hay to be brought. The valet 
 
 ' Endless invcstisrations by the police, and complications, ensue 
 from the finding of a dead body. The jierson wlio owns the 
 land is compelled to explain how it came there, and who mur 
 dercd the victim. — Translator. 
 
 23o
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 spread out sheets for us, and laid out pillows ; we 
 lay down. Sofrcui went to his own (quarters, after 
 receiving his orders for the following day. Ar- 
 kady Piivlitch, wliile getting to sleep, talked a 
 little more ahout the capital qualities of the Rus- 
 sian peasant, and then immediately observed to 
 me that, since Sofron had been in charge, the 
 Shipilovka serfs had never been a penny in ar- 
 rears The watclmian tapped on his 
 
 board;' the ])aby, who, evidently, had not yet 
 succeeded in becoming thoroughly permeated 
 with a sense of dutiful self-sacrifice, set up a yell 
 somewhere in the cottage, . . AVe fell asleep. 
 
 We rose quite early on the following morning. 
 I was on the point of setting off for Ryabovo, but 
 Arkady Pavlitch wished to show me his estate, 
 and begged me to remain. I was not averse to 
 convincing myself, by actual observation, as to 
 the capital qualities of the statesman Sofron. 
 The agent presented himself. He wore a blue 
 long-coat, girt with a red belt. He talked much 
 less than on tlie preceding evening, gazed vigi- 
 lantly and intently in his master's eyes, replied 
 fluently and in business-like fashion. We went 
 with him to tlie thresliing-floor. Sofron's son, 
 the seven-foot elder, ])y all the tokens a very 
 stupid fellow, also followed us, and the village 
 scribe, Fedosyeitch, a former soldier, with a 
 
 ^ To prove that he was alert; as with the modern watchman's clock- 
 reeord. Sometimes the "boards" were sheets of iron. Some such 
 can still l)e seen beaten into holes in monasteries. — Tkansi^atoe. 
 
 230
 
 THE A(;kxt 
 
 huge moustache aud an extremely strange ex- 
 pression of couutenauee, jonied us: it seemed 
 as though he must have beheld something re- 
 markable \'ery long ago, and had never recov- 
 ered himself from the sight since. We inspected 
 the threshing-fioor, the barns, tiie grain-ricks, the 
 sheds, the windmill, the cattle-vard, the aarden- 
 stuff", the hemp-plots; everything really was in 
 ca])ital order: the dejected faces of the serfs alone 
 caused me some perplexity. In addition to the 
 useful, Sofron looked after the agreeable: he had 
 planted willows along all the ditches ; he had laid 
 out paths and strewn them with sand between the 
 ricks on the threshing-floor; he had constructed 
 a weather-vane on the windmill, in the shape of 
 a bear with gaping jaws, and a red tongue; he 
 had fastened something in the nature of a Greek 
 pediment to the brick cattle-shed, and had written 
 in white-lead, under the pediment: " Bilt in the 
 villige of Shipilofke in onetousan eigh Ilun- 
 dert farty. This catle shet."— Arkady Pavlitch 
 melted completely, took to setting forth to me, 
 in the French language, the advantages of the 
 quit-rent system, — remarking, however, in that 
 connection, that husbandry-service was more 
 profitable for the peasants, — and any quantity of 
 other things! He began to give the agent advice, 
 how to plant potatoes, how to prepare the fodder 
 for the cattle, and so forth. Sofron listened to 
 his master's remarks with attention, replying now 
 
 237
 
 .MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSxMAN 
 
 and then; but he no longer addressed Arkady 
 I'livlitch either as " father," or as " benefactor," 
 and kept insisting that they had very httle hind, 
 that it would n't be amiss to buy some more. 
 " Well then, buy some," — said Arkady Pavlitch: 
 — " I 'm not ayerse to having it bought in my 
 name. ' — To these words, Sofron made no reply, 
 but merely stroked his beard. — " But it would n't 
 be a bad idea to go to the forest now," — remarked 
 jNIr. Pyenotchkin. Saddle-horses were immedi- 
 ately brought for us ; we rode to the forest, or, as 
 they say in our parts, " the forbidden ground." ^ 
 In this " forbidden spot " we found an immense 
 amount of thicket and game, for which Arkady 
 Pavlitch praised Sofron, and patted him on the 
 shoulder. Mr. Pyenotchkin, in the matter of for- 
 estry, adhered to Russian ideas, and there, on the 
 spot, he nariated to me what, according to his as- 
 sertion, was a very amusing incident, — how a 
 landed proprietor, given to jesting, had taught 
 his forester a lesson, by plucking out about one- 
 half of his beard, to demonstrate that the forest 
 does not grow any thicker for being thinned out, 
 .... However, in other respects, neither Sofron 
 nor Arkady Pavlitch avoided innovations. On 
 our return to the \ illage, the agent led us to in- 
 
 ' The peasants Iiave no riglit to wood from the forests, and no 
 forest-hmd was allotted to them after the Kmancijiation. To pre- 
 vent their stealing timber (as in "The Wolf," which follows), 
 i)road, deej) ditches are often dug across the forest roads by the 
 T)roi)riet(jrs. — Translator. 
 
 238
 
 THE a(;ent 
 
 spect a winnowing-machiiic, whicli had recently 
 been imported from ^loseow. The vvinnowiiig- 
 machine really did work well, but if Sofron had 
 known what an unpleasant ex])erience was await- 
 ing him and his master during this final stroll, 
 he would, in all probability, have remained at 
 home with us. 
 
 This is what happened. As we emerged from 
 the shed, we beheld the following spectacle. A 
 few paces from the door, beside a filthy puddle, 
 in which three ducks were carelessly splashing, 
 stood two serfs: one was an old man of sixty 
 years, the other a young fellow of twenty, both 
 in home-made, patched shirts, barefooted, and 
 girt with ropes. The scribe, Fedosyeitch, was 
 bustling zealously about them, and would, proba- 
 bly, have succeeded in prevailing upon them to 
 withdraw, if we had tarried a little longer in the 
 shed; but, on catching sight of us, he drew him- 
 self up in military fashion, fingers on his trous- 
 ers-seams, and stood stock-still on the spot. The 
 elder was standing there also, with mouth agape, 
 and suspended in the act of striking fists. Ar- 
 kady Pavlitch frowned, bit his lips, and stepped 
 up to the peasants. Both bowed to his feet, in 
 silence. 
 
 " What do you want? What are you petition- 
 ing about?" — he asked, in a stern voice, and 
 somewhat through his nose. (The peasants 
 glanced at each other and uttered never a word, 
 
 230
 
 ME^IOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 but merely screwed up their eyes, as though 
 screening them from the sun, and began to 
 breathe faster.) 
 
 " Come now, what is it ? " — went on Arkady 
 Pavlitch, and immediately turned to Sofron: — 
 " from wliat family are they? ' 
 
 " From the Tol)olyeefF family," — replied the 
 agent, slowly. 
 
 " Come now, what do you want? " — said 
 Mr. Pyenotchkin again: — " Haye n't you any 
 tongues, pray? Tell me, thou, what dost thou 
 want ? " — he added, nodding his head at the old 
 man. — " And don't be afraid, thou fool." 
 
 The old man stretched out his dark-brown, 
 wrinkled neck, opened awr}'' his lips, w^hich had 
 turned blue, ejaculated in a hoarse yoice: " Inter- 
 cede, sir! " and again banged his brow against 
 the ground. The young serf also bowed low. 
 Arkady Paylitch gazed pompously at the napes 
 of their necks, tossed back his head, and straddled 
 his legs somew^hat. — " AVhat 's the matter? 
 Against whom are you complaining? " 
 
 " Haye mercy, sir! Giye us a chance to 
 
 breathe We are tcjrtured to death." 
 
 (The old man spoke with difficult^^) 
 
 " Who has tortured thee? " 
 
 " Why, Sofron Yakoylevitch, dear little fa- 
 ther." 
 
 Arkady Paylitch said notliing for a while. 
 
 "What's thy name?" 
 
 240
 
 THE ACCENT 
 
 " Antip, dear little father." 
 
 "And who is this r' 
 
 " My son, dear little father." 
 
 Arkady Pavlitch again remained silent for a 
 while, and twitched his moustache. 
 
 " Well, and how does he torture thee? " — he 
 began again, glancing at the old man through 
 his moustache. 
 
 " Dear little father, he has utterly ruined us. 
 He has given tw^o of my sons as recruits out of 
 their turn, dear little father, and now he is taking 
 away the third one. Yesterday, dear little father, 
 he took my last poor cow from my yard, and 
 thrashed my wife — that 's his lordship yonder." 
 (He pointed at the elder.) 
 
 " H'm," — ^ejaculated Arkady Pavlitch. 
 
 " Do not let him utterly ruin me, mv l)enefac- 
 tor!" 
 
 Mr. Pyenotchkin frowned. — " What 's the 
 meaning of this? " — he asked the agent in an un- 
 dertone and with a look of displeasure. 
 
 " He 's a drunkard, sir/' — replied the agent, 
 for the first time emplojdng the "sir": — "he 
 won't work. He 's always in arrears, these last 
 five years, sir." 
 
 " Sofron Yakovlevitch has paid up my arrears 
 for me, dear little father," — went on the old 
 man: — "this is the fifth year that he has paid, 
 and how has he paid — he has made me his serf, 
 dear little father, and so " 
 
 241
 
 MEMOIRS OF xV SPORTSMAN 
 
 " Aiul how didst thou come to be in arrears? " 
 asked Mr. Pyenotclikin, iiieiuicingly. (The old 
 man hung his head.) — "Thou art fond of get- 
 ting drunk, I think, — of roaming around among 
 the dram-sliops ? " (The old man tried to open 
 his mouth.) 
 
 " 1 know vou," — went on Arkady Pavliteh. 
 with vehemence: — " your business is drinking and 
 lying on the oven; and a good peasant must be 
 responsible for you. ' 
 
 " And he 's an insolent beast, too," the agent 
 interjected into the gentleman's speech. 
 
 " Well, that one understands as a matter of 
 course. That is always the case: I have observed 
 it more than once. He leads a dissolute life for 
 a whole year, is insolent, and now flings himself 
 at my feet." 
 
 " Dear little father, Arkady Pavhtch," — said 
 the old man in despair: — "have mercy, defend 
 us,- — I 'm not insolent! I speak as I would before 
 the Lord God, 't is more than I can bear. So- 
 fron Yakovlevitch has taken a dislike to me, — as 
 for the reason why he has taken the dislike, the 
 Lord be his judge ! He is ruining me utterly, dear 
 little father. . , . This is my last son, here .... 
 
 and you see " (A tear glittered in the old 
 
 man's yellow, wrinkled eyes.) — " Have mercy, 
 sir, defend us." 
 
 " Yes, and not us alone — " began the young 
 serf 
 
 All at once, Arkady l^jivlitch flared up: 
 
 242
 
 TllK AGENT 
 
 " And who asked tlRv. hcy^ wlicn thou art not 
 asked, hokl thy tongue. . . . What 's the mean- 
 ing of this? Hold thy tongue, I tell thee! Hold 
 
 tliy tongue! Akh, my God! why, this is 
 
 simply mutiny! No, brother, I wouldn't advise 
 anv one to mutiny on mv estate. . . I have 
 
 " (Arkady Pavliteh began to stride baek 
 
 and forth, then, probably, recalled to himself my 
 ])resence, turned away, and put his hands in his 
 
 pockets.) " Je voils vans demande hien 
 
 pardon, mon clier" — he said, with a constrained 
 smile, significantly lowering his voice. — " C'est 
 Jc mauvais cote de la 7nedaille. . . . Come, very 
 good, very good," — he went on, ^vithout looking 
 at the peasant men: — " I will give orders . . . 
 good, go your way." — (The peasants did not 
 i-ise.) — " Well, have n't I told you? ... it 's all 
 right. Go aw^ay, — I '11 give orders, I tell you." 
 
 Arkadv Pavliteh turned his back on them.^ — 
 " Eternal dissatisfaction," — he said betw^een his 
 teeth, and walked off homeward with huge 
 strides. Sofron followed him. The scribe's 
 eyes bulged out, as thougli lie were on the point 
 of making a long leap in some direction. Tlie 
 elder scared the ducks out of the puddle. The 
 petitioners stood a while longer on the same spot, 
 stared at each other, and trudged away whence 
 they came. 
 
 A couple of hours later, I >vas in Kyabovo, 
 and, in company with Anpadist, a peasant of 
 my acquaintance, was preparing to set off hunt- 
 
 243
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 ing. Pyenotc'hkiii had sulked at Sofron up to 
 the very monieiit of my departure. I hegan to 
 talk with ^Vupadist ahout the Slii])il6vka serfs, 
 about iSIr. Pyenotehkin ; I asked him, whether he 
 knew the agent there. 
 
 " Sofron Yakovlevitch, you mean? .... 
 Oh, dont 1 just! " 
 
 " And what sort of a man is he? " 
 
 " He 's a dog, and not a man: you won't find 
 sueh another dog this side of Kursk." 
 
 " But what dost thou mean? " 
 
 " Why, Shipilovka merely stands in the name 
 of ... . how do you call him? Pyenkin; he 
 does n't own it, you see: Sofron owns it." 
 
 " You don't say so? " 
 
 " He runs it as his own property. The peas- 
 ants are up to their ears in debt to him: they 
 drudge for him like hired men: he sends one off 
 with the carrier's train, another somewhere else 
 he harries them altogether." 
 
 " They have not much land, it seems? " 
 
 " Xot much? He hires eighty desvatinas from 
 the Khli'novo folks alone, and fj-om us, one 
 hundred and twenty; there's a whole hundred 
 and fifty desyatinas there besides for you. And 
 land is not the only thing he trades in: he trades 
 in horses, and cattle, and tar, and butter, and 
 flax, and a lot of things besides. . . . He 's 
 clever, awfully clever, and rich too, the beast! 
 But this is the bad part of it — he assaults folks. 
 
 244
 
 THE AGENT 
 
 He 's a wild beast, not a man ; — -I 've said it: he 's 
 a dog, a dirty dog, that 's what lie is — a dirty dog." 
 
 " But vvliy don't the people eoniplain of him? " 
 
 " Eksta! What does the master eare! What is 
 it to him, so long as the money is not in arrears? 
 Yes, just try it," — he added, after a brief pause: 
 — " complain. No, he '11 let thee . . . well, just 
 try it . . . No, he '11 give you to under- 
 stand ..." I mentioned Antip, and related 
 what I had seen. 
 
 "Well," — said Anpadist: — "now he'll de- 
 vour him alive ; he '11 devour that man utterly. 
 Now the elder will beat him. The poor, un- 
 happy fellow, just think of it! And why is 
 he suffering? . . . He picked a quarrel with 
 him at the village-council, — with that agent, — 
 things had got beyond endurance, you see. . . 
 A great matter, forsooth! So then he began 
 to peck at him, — at Antip, I mean. Now he '11 
 make an end of him. For he 's such a dirty dog, 
 a hound, — the Lord forgive my sin! — he know-s 
 whom to oppress. The old men, — he does n't 
 touch those that are richer, — and with larffe 
 families, the bald-headed devil, — but now he '11 
 let himself loose! You see, he gave Antip's sons 
 for recruits out of their turn, — the cruel rascal, 
 the dirty dog, — may the Lord forgive my great 
 sin!" 
 
 We set off on oiu- hunt. 
 
 Salzbukg IX Silesia, July, 184.7. 
 
 245
 
 XI 
 
 THE COUNTING-HOUSE 
 
 It happened in tlie autumn. I liad been roving 
 about for several hours over the fields, with my 
 gun; and, in all probability, would not have re- 
 turned before the evening to the posting-station 
 on the Kui'sk highwav, where mv troika was 
 ^^•aiting for me, had not the extremely fine and 
 cold, drizzling rain, which had been sticking to 
 me ever since the morning, indefatigably and 
 pitilessly, like an old maid, made me, at last, 
 seek a temporary shelter, at least, somewhere in 
 the vicinity. While I was deliberating in which 
 direction to go, a low-roofed hut suddenly pre- 
 sented itself to my eyes, beside a field sown with 
 peas. I went to the hut, cast a glance under the 
 straw penthouse, and beheld an old man so de- 
 crepit, tliat lie immediately reminded me of that 
 dying goat which Robinson Crusoe found in one 
 of the caves of his island. The old man was 
 squatting on his heels, puckering up his purblind, 
 tiny eyes, and hurriedly but cautiously, like a 
 hare (the poor fellow had not a single tooth), 
 chewing a hard, dry pea, incessantly rolling it 
 from side to side. Pie was so engrossed in his 
 occu])ation, that he did not notice my ajiproach. 
 
 24G
 
 THE COUNTIXCMIOrSK 
 
 "Grandpa! Hey thci-e, grandpa! "' — 1 said. 
 
 He ceased chewing, elevated his eyebrows and, 
 with an effort, opened his eyes. 
 
 " What? " — he mumbled in a lioarse voice. 
 
 " Where is there a village near at hand? " — I 
 asked. 
 
 The old man set to chewing again. He liad 
 not lieard me. I repeated my question more 
 loudly than before. 
 
 "A village? .... but what dost thou 
 want? " 
 
 " Why, to shelter myself from this rain." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " To shelter myself from the rain." 
 
 " Yes! " (He scratched his sunburned neck.) 
 " Well, thou must go, seest thou," — he began 
 suddenly, flourishing his hands loosely: — " yo . . . 
 yonder, right past the little wood, thou must go, 
 — yonder, as thou goest — there '11 be a road ; do 
 thou let it — the road, that is — alone, and keep on 
 always to the right, keep right on, keep right 
 
 on, keep right on Well, and then thou 
 
 wilt come to Ananyevo. Or thou canst go 
 througii to Sitovko." 
 
 It was with difficulty that I understood the old 
 man. His moustache interfered with him, and 
 his tongue obeyed him badly. 
 
 " But whence comest thou? " — I asked him. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Whence art thou?" 
 
 247
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 " From Aiuinyc'vo." 
 
 " What art thou doing here?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " What art thou doing here? " 
 
 " I 'm the watchman." 
 
 " But what art thou guarding? " 
 
 " AVhy, the peas." 
 
 I could not lielp bursting into a laugh. 
 
 "Why, good gracious, — how old art thou?" 
 
 " God knows." 
 
 "Thy sight is bad, is n't it?" 
 
 " Yes. There are times when I hear nothing." 
 
 " Then, how canst thou act as watchman, 
 pray?" 
 
 " Mv elders know." 
 
 " Thy elders," I thought, and surveyed the 
 poor old man, not Mithout compassion. He fum- 
 bled about his person, got a crust of stale bread 
 from his bosom, and began to suck at it, like a 
 child, drawing in with an effort his cheeks, which 
 were sunken enough ^vithout that. 
 
 I walked off in the direction of the wood, 
 turned to the right, kept on and on, as the old 
 man had advised me, and at last reached a large 
 village with a stone church in the new style, that 
 is to say, with columns, and a spacious manor- 
 house, also with columns. Already from afar, 
 athwart the close network of the rain, I had ob- 
 served a cottage with a board roof, and two chim- 
 neys taller than the others, — in all probability, 
 
 248
 
 TTTE COTTXTTNG-TIOUSE 
 
 the dwelling of the elder, - and thither 1 direeted 
 my steps, in the hope of finding in his house a 
 samovar, tea, sugar, and cream which was not 
 completely sour. Accompanied by my thor- 
 oughly benumbed dog, 1 ascended the porch, en- 
 tered the anteroom, and opened the door; but, in- 
 stead of the customary appliances of a cottage, I 
 beheld several tables loaded down with papers, 
 two red cupboards spattered with ink, a leaden 
 sand-box weighing about a pud, very long pens, 
 and so forth. At one of the tables sat a young 
 fellow of twenty years, with a puiFy and sickly 
 face, tiny little ej^es, a greasy forehead, and in- 
 terminable curls on his temples. He was dressed, 
 as was proper, in a grey nankeen kaftan shiny 
 on the collar and the stomach. 
 
 " What do you want? " — he asked me, throw- 
 ing his head upward, like a horse which has not 
 been expecting to be seized by the muzzle. 
 
 " Does the manager live here or " 
 
 " This is the squire's principal counting- 
 house," — he interrupted me. — " I 'm the clerk on 
 duty. . . . Do you mean to say you did n't 
 see the sign? That 's what the sign is nailed up 
 for." 
 
 " And where can I dry myself? Has any one 
 in the village a samovar? " 
 
 "Why shouldn't there be a samovar?" — re- 
 torted the young fellow in the grey kaftan, pom- 
 pously: " Go to Father Timofei, or to the cot- 
 
 249
 
 .aie:moihs of a sportsman 
 
 tage of the hovise-serfs, or to Xazar Tanisitcli, or 
 to Agrafena the i)()iiltrv-woiiian." 
 
 " Who 's that tlioii art talking to, tliou doH '. 
 thou wilt not let one sleep, dolt!" — rang out a 
 voice from the adjoining room. 
 
 " A\'^hy, here \s some gentleman or other h : : 
 come in, and is asking where he can dry himself. " 
 
 " AVhat gentleman is it? " 
 
 " I don't know. He has a dog and a gun." 
 
 A hed creaked in the adjoining room. The 
 door opened, and there entered a man about fifty 
 years of age, low of stature, squat, with a bull- 
 neck, protruding eyes, remarkably round cheeks, 
 and a polish all over his face. 
 
 "What do you want?" — he asked me. 
 
 " To dr}-^ myself." 
 
 " This is not the place for that." 
 
 " I did not know that this was a counting- 
 house; moreover, I am ready to pay " 
 
 " You miglit do it here," — returned the fat 
 man: — "please to come this way." (He con- 
 ducted me into another room, only not the one 
 from which he had emerged.) — " Shall you be 
 comfortable here? " 
 
 " Yes. . . . But cannot I get some tea M'ith 
 cream f 
 
 " Certainly, directly. In the meantime, please 
 to undress voiu'self and rest, and the tea shall be 
 readv immediately." 
 
 " Whose estate is this? " 
 
 250
 
 THK COnXTING-HOUSE 
 
 " The estate of IMiiie. l^osiiyakoft*, Klriia \i- 
 kolcievna." 
 
 He left the room. 1 looked about me: along 
 the partition whieh separated my room from the 
 eounting-lionse stood a huge, leather-covered 
 divan; two chairs, also upholstered in leather, 
 with extremely high backs, reared themselves in 
 the air, one on each side of the single window, 
 which opened on the street. On the walls, hung 
 with dark-green paper with pink patterns, were 
 three enormous pictures, painted in oils. One 
 depicted a setter liound with a blue collar and 
 the inscription: "This is my delight;" at the 
 dog's feet flowed a river, and on the opposite 
 shore of the river, beneath a pine-tree, sat a hare 
 of extravagant size, with ears pricked up. In 
 the other picture, two old men were eating water- 
 melon: beyond the watermelon, in the distance, 
 a Greek portico was visible bearing the in- 
 scription: " The Temple of Contentment." The 
 third picture presented a half-naked woman 
 in a reclining attitude, en raccoiirci, with red 
 knees and very thick heels. ^ly dog, without 
 the slightest delay, with superhuman efi'ort, 
 crawled under the divan, and apparently found 
 a great deal of dust there, for he began to sneeze 
 frightfully. I walked to the window. Across 
 the street, from the manor-house to the countin"'- 
 house of the estate, in a diagonal line, lay boards: 
 a very useful precaution, because everywhere 
 
 251
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SrOKTS.MAX 
 
 around, tluuiks to our ])lack soil, and to tlie 
 prolonged rain, the mud was frightful. Round 
 ahout the scju ire's residence, whieli stood with its 
 hack to the street, that was going on which usu- 
 ally does go on around the manors of the gentry: 
 maids in faded cotton frocks were whisking to 
 and fro; house-serfs were strolling through the 
 mud, halting and meditatively scratching their 
 spines, the nn*al policeman's horse, whicli was 
 tied, was idly swishing its tail, and, with its muz- 
 zle tossed aloft, was nihhling the fence; hens 
 were cackling; consumptive turkeys were inces- 
 santly calling to one another. On the porch of a 
 dark and rotting building, ])rohably the bath- 
 house, sat a sturdy young fellow with a guitar, 
 singing, not without spirit, the familiar ballad: 
 
 " E — I '11 to the desert hie myself away 
 From these most lovely scenes " — 
 
 and so forth.^ 
 
 The fat man entered my room. 
 
 " Here, they 're bringing your tea," — he said 
 to me, with a pleasant smile. 
 
 The young fellow in the grey kaftan, the clerk 
 on duty, set out on an old 1 'ombre table the samo- 
 var, the tea-pot, a glass with a cracked saucer, a 
 pot of cream, and a bundle of Rolkhoff ring- 
 rolls as hard as stone. The fat man withdrew. 
 
 * The man's atrocious j)roiiiiiici;iti()n cannot he rejiroduced in 
 English. — 'J'liANsi.ATou. 
 
 252
 
 THE COUNTING-HOUSE 
 
 " Who is that," — I asked the clerk on duty: — 
 " the manager? " 
 
 " Oil, no, sir; he used to be the head cashier, 
 hut now lie has been promoted to be the head 
 office-clerk." 
 
 " But have you no manager here? " 
 
 " No, sir, none. There 's a peasant overseer, 
 Mikhailo Vikuloff, but there 's no manager." 
 
 " So there 's an agent? " 
 
 " Certainly, there is: a German, Lindamandol, 
 Karlo Karlitch ; — only he does n't manage af- 
 fairs." 
 
 " But who does the managing? " 
 
 " The mistress herself." 
 
 " You don't say so! — And have you a large 
 force in the office? " 
 
 The young fellow reflected. 
 Six men. 
 
 " Who are they? " — I asked. 
 
 "Why, these: — first, there's Vasily Niko- 
 laevitch, the head cashier; and next, Piotr 
 the clerk; Piotr's brother Ivan, a clerk; an- 
 other clerk, Ivan ; Koskenkin ^ Narkizoff , also a 
 clerk ; and myself ; — and you could n't reckon 
 up all." 
 
 " Your mistress has a great many menials, I 
 suppose? " 
 
 " No, not so very many. . . ." 
 
 " But how many? " 
 
 ' Konstantfn. — Translator. 
 
 253
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 " Thev sum lu) \o about ii liundred and fifty 
 persons, probably/' 
 
 AVe both remained silent for a while. 
 
 " Well, and dost thou write well? " — I began 
 again. 
 
 The young fellow grinned to the full capacity 
 of his mouth, nodded his head, went into the 
 office, and brought back a written sheet of paper. 
 
 " This is my writing,"— said he, without ceas- 
 ing to grin. 
 
 I looked at it: on a quarter-sheet of greyish 
 paper, the following was written in a large, 
 handsome script: 
 
 "ORDINANCE" 
 
 "From the head home office of the Andnyevo 
 estate, to the Overseer Mikhailo VikiUoff , No. 
 209r 
 
 " Thou art ordered, immediately on receipt of 
 this, to institute an inquiry: who it was that, dur- 
 ing the past night, in a state of intoxication and 
 with improper songs, walked through the Eng- 
 lish park, and waked up and disturbed the 
 French governess, INIme. Eugenie? and what the 
 watchman was about, and who was on guard in 
 the park and permitted such disorder? Thou art 
 ordered to report without delay to the office 
 concerning the aforesaid, in full detail. 
 
 Head clerlx, Nikolai Khvostoff. 
 254 
 
 5>
 
 THE COrXTINO-HOUSE 
 
 A huge seal, bearing a coat of arms, was at- 
 taclied to the orchiianee, with the inscription: 
 " Seal of the head office of the Ananyevo es- 
 tate; " and below was the signature: " To be exe- 
 cuted punctually: Klkna Losnyakoff." 
 
 " Did the mistress herself sign that, pray? " — 
 I asked. 
 
 " Certainly, sir, she herself: she always signs 
 herself. Otherwise, the order cannot take 
 effect." 
 
 " Well, and shall vou send this ordinance to 
 the overseer? " 
 
 " No, sir. He will come himself and read it. 
 That is to say, it will be read to him; for he can't 
 read and write." (The clerk on duty lapsed into 
 silence again.) 
 
 "Well, sir," — he added, smilingly: — "it's 
 well written, isn't it, sir?" 
 1 es. 
 
 " Of course, I did n't comjwse it. Koskenkin 
 is a master-hand at that." 
 
 " What? Dost thou mean to say that 
 
 with you the orders are first composed? " 
 
 "How else, sir? They cannot be written out 
 fairly straight off." 
 
 " And how much of a salary dost thou re- 
 ceive? " — I asked. 
 
 " Thirty-five rubles a year, and five rubles for 
 boots." 
 
 " And art thou satisfied? " 
 
 " Certainly I am. — Not every one can get into 
 
 25.5
 
 MEMOIRS (3F A SPORTSMAN 
 
 our counting-lioiise. (toiI himself ordered me 
 there, to tell tlie trutli: my uncle serves as 
 hutler/' 
 
 "And art thou well off?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. To tell the truth," — he went on, 
 with a sigh: — " the likes of us are better off with 
 the merchants. Fellows like me are very well 
 off with the merchants. Xow, for instance, yes- 
 terday there came to us a merchant from Ven- 
 yovo, — so his workman told me. . . . They 're 
 well off, there s no denying it, — well off." 
 
 " But do the merchants give bigger wages? " 
 
 "God forbid! Why, a merchant would pitch 
 you out of doors by the scruff of the neck if you 
 were to ask wages from him. No, you must live 
 in faith and in fear with a merchant. He gives 
 you food, and drink, and clothing, and every- 
 thing. If you please him, — he '11 give you even 
 more. . . . What do you want with wages! you 
 don't need any at all. . . . And the merchant 
 lives simply in Russian fashion, in our own fash- 
 ion : if you go on the road with him, he drinks tea, 
 and you drink tea ; what he eats, that you eat also. 
 A merchant .... why, there 's no comparison : 
 a merchant is not the same as a well-born master. 
 A merchant is n't capricious ; now, if he gets an- 
 gry, he '11 thrash you, and that 's the end of it. 
 lie does n't nag and jeer. . . . Rut with the 
 well-born master, — woe be to you! Nothing 
 suits him : this is not right, and he is n't satisfied 
 
 256 
 
 I
 
 THE COUNTIXG-HOUSE 
 
 witli the (jthcr. If you give him a ghiss of water 
 or food, — ' Akh, the water stinks! akh, the food 
 stinks!' Y^)u carry it away, and stand outside 
 tlie door a l)it, and carry it in again: — 'Well, 
 now, that 's good; well, now, that doesn't stink.' 
 And the lady mistresses, I can just tell you, the 
 lady mistresses! . . . or, take the young la- 
 dies! " 
 
 The clerk on duty briskly left the room. I fin- 
 ished my glass of tea, lay down on the divan, and 
 fell asleep. I slept two hours. 
 
 On waking, I tried to rise, but indolence over- 
 powered me ; I closed my eyes, but did not get to 
 sleep again. A low-voiced conversation was in 
 2>rogress in tlie office, on the other side of the par- 
 tition. 1 involuntarily began to listen. 
 
 " Yis, sir, yis, sir, Nikolai Eremyeitch," — said 
 one voice: — " vis, sir. That cannot be taken into 
 account, sir; it really can't. . . . H m! " (The 
 speaker coughed.) 
 
 " Pray believe me, Gavrila Antonitch," — re- 
 turned the fat man's voice: — "judge for your- 
 self, whether I don't know the course of affairs 
 here." 
 
 " Who else should know it, Nikolai Eremye- 
 itch: you are the first person here, sir, one may 
 say. Well, and how is it to be, sir; " — pursued 
 the voice which was unfamiliar to me : — " what 
 shall we decide on, Nikolai Eremyeitch? — per- 
 mit me to inquire." 
 
 257
 
 .MK.MOIKS OF A SrORTSMA^ 
 
 " What sliall we decide on, (Javrila x\nt6niteli;' 
 The matter depends on you, so to s^Deak: you 
 don't care about it, apparently." 
 
 "Good oracious, Xikohii Kremyeitch: wliat 
 are vou savins'? I'm a mercliant, a merchant; 
 my business is to buy. That 's wliat we mer- 
 chants stand on, Nikolai Eremyeitch, — 1 may 
 say." 
 
 " Eight rubles," — said the fat man, pausing 
 between his words. 
 
 A sigh was audible. 
 
 " Nikolai Eremyeitch, you are pleased to de- 
 mand an awful lot." 
 
 " I can't do otherwise, Gavrila Antonitch, — 
 't is impossible, — I speak as in the presence of the 
 Lord God." 
 
 A silence ensued. 
 
 I raised myself softly on my elbow, and peered 
 through a crack in the partition. The fat man 
 was sitting with his back toward me. Facing 
 him, sat a merchant, about forty years old, gaunt 
 and pale, as though smeared with fasting butter.' 
 He kept incessantly running his fingers through 
 his beard, blinking his eyes very rapidly, and 
 twitching his lips. 
 
 " The crops are wonderfully fine tliis year, 
 sir," — he began again: — "all the time T have 
 
 'That is, witli oil, hiitlcr l)ein_ii forhiddcn during the Great Fast 
 (Lent), because it is an animal ])roduc't. The wealthy replace 
 it with costly nut-oils; the poor, with sunHower-seed and other 
 strong, coarse oils. — Thaxslator. 
 
 258
 
 TITE COTTNTTXG-TTOTTSE 
 
 been driving I luive been admiring tbeni. Be- 
 ginning witb Voronezh, they are splencHd, first- 
 class, sir, 1 may say." 
 
 " The crops really are n't bad," — replied the 
 head of the counting-honse : "but, surely, you 
 know, Gavrila Antonitch, that the autumn gives 
 good promise, but 't will be as the spring wills." 
 
 "That's a fact, Nikolai Eremyeitch: every- 
 thing is according to God's will; you have 
 
 deigned to speak the exact truth But I 
 
 think your visitor has waked up, sir." 
 
 The fat man turned round .... and lis- 
 tened. 
 
 " No, he 's asleep. However, possibly you 
 know " 
 
 He stepped to the door. 
 
 " No, he 's asleep,"^ — he rejjeated, and re- 
 turned to his place. 
 
 " Well, and how is it to be, Nikolai Eremye- 
 itch? "^ — began the merchant again: — " we really 
 must close the bargain. . . . Let it go at that 
 then, Nikolai Eremyeitch, let it go at that,"— -he 
 went on, winking uninterruptedly: "two grey 
 bank-notes and one white note for your grace, 
 and yonder — " (he nodded his head in the direc- 
 tion of the manor-house) " — six rubles and a 
 half. Shall we strike hands on it? " 
 
 " Four grey notes," ^ — replied the clerk. 
 
 ' The (old-time) grey hank-note was for two rubles; the white, 
 one ruble. — Translator. 
 
 259
 
 .AIEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 " Come, three." 
 
 " Four grey witliout the white." 
 
 " Three, Nikolai Eremveitch." 
 
 " Three and a half, not a kopek less." 
 
 " Three, Nikolai Eremveitch." 
 
 " Don't even mention such a thing, Gavrila 
 Antonitch." 
 
 "What a pig-headed fellow!" — muttered the 
 merchant. — " I think I 'd ])etter settle the matter 
 myself witli the lady."' 
 
 "As you like," — replied the fat man: — "you 
 ought to Imve done it long ago. Really, what 's 
 the use of ])othering yourself? . . 'T is much 
 hetter so! " 
 
 " Come, enough! Stop that, Nikolai Eremye- 
 itcli. Why, he flies into a rage on the instant ! I 
 was only saying that, you know, to liear myself 
 talk." ^ "• * 
 
 " No, reallv now . . . ." 
 
 " Have done, I tell you. ... I was joking, I 
 tell you. Come, take three and a half, — what 
 can one do with you? " 
 
 " I ought to take foiu', hut, like a fool, I have, 
 been too iiasty, ' — muttered the fat man. 
 
 " So, yonder, at the house, six and a half, sir, 
 Nikolai Eremyeitch, — the grain is sold for six 
 and a half? " 
 
 " Six and a half, ves, vou 've alreadv been 
 told." 
 
 " Well, then, strike liands on tlie bargain, 
 Nikolai Eremveitch — " (the merchant smote the 
 
 260
 
 THE couxrixcMiorsK 
 
 clerk's palm with his outspread lingers) " — and 
 God bless us!" (Tiie merchant rose.) — "So 
 now 1 '11 be off to the lady mistress, dear little 
 father, Nikolai Kremyeitch, and order them to 
 announce me, and 1 '11 say: ' Nikolai Eremyeitch 
 has settled on six and a half, ma'am.' " 
 
 " Say just that, (iavrila Antonitch." 
 
 " And now, please to accept." 
 
 The mercliant handed over to the clerk a small 
 bundle of paper-money, made his bow, shook his 
 head, took up liis luit with two fingers, twitched 
 his shoulders, imparted to his figure an undulat- 
 ing motion, and left tlie room, his boots squeak- 
 ing decorously. Nikolai Eremyeitch walked to 
 the wall, and, so far as I could observe, began 
 to sort over the money which the merchant had 
 given him. A red head with thick side-whiskers 
 thrust itself in at the door. 
 
 " AVell, hoAv are things? " — inquired the head: 
 — " Is everything as it should be? " 
 1 es. 
 
 " How much? " 
 
 The fat man waved his hand ^vith vexation, 
 and pointed toward my room. 
 
 "Ah, very good!" returned the head, and 
 vanished. 
 
 The fat man went to the table, sat down, 
 opened a book, got out liis abacus,' and began to 
 
 ' Tlic iiicrdiiiiits still use liu' i-oiinlinjz-fnuiif, r.tttliiig tlio CDlorcd 
 balls on the wires to and fro with iiiarxelloiis rapidity, and thus 
 lierforming the most intricate calculations, instead of using paper 
 and pencil. — Translator. 
 
 261
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 deduct and add tlie hone balls, using for the pur- 
 pose not his forefinger, hut the third linger of his 
 right hand, wiiieh is more decorous. 
 
 The clerk on duty entered. 
 
 "What dost thou want?" 
 
 " Sidor has arrived from Goloplyok." 
 
 " Ah! well, call him in. Stay, stay Go 
 
 first, and see whether that strange gentleman in 
 there is still asleep, or whether he has waked 
 up. 
 
 The clerk on duty cautiously entered my 
 room. T laid my head on my game-bag, which 
 served me in lieu of a pillow, and shut my eyes. 
 
 " He 's asleep," — whispered the office-boy, re- 
 turning to the office. 
 
 The fat man emitted a growl between his 
 teeth. 
 
 " Well, summon Sidor," — he said at last. 
 
 Again I raised mj'self on my elbow. There 
 entered a peasant of huge stature, about thirty 
 years of age, healthy, rosy-cheeked, with light, 
 chestnut hair, and a small, curly beard. He 
 prayed before the holy pictures, bowed to the 
 head clerk, took his cap in both hands, and 
 straightened himself u^). 
 
 " Good-day, Sidor," — said the fat man, rat- 
 tling his counting-frame. 
 
 " Good . . day, Nikolai Eremyeitch." 
 
 " Well, and how 's the road? " 
 
 " Good, Nikolai Eremyeitch. xV trifle mud- 
 
 262
 
 THE COUNTING-ITOXTSE 
 
 dy." (The peasant spoke neither fast nor 
 l()U(ll3^ ) 
 
 " Is thy wife well? " 
 
 " What should ail her! She 's all right." 
 
 The peasant heaved a sigh, and thrust out his 
 leg. Nikolai Eremyeitch stuck liis pen behind 
 his ear, and blew his nose. 
 
 "Well, and why hast thou come?" — he went 
 on with his questions, stuffing his checked hand- 
 kerchief into his pocket. 
 
 " Why, we 've heard, Nikolai Eremyeitch, 
 that carpenters are required from us." 
 
 " Well, what of that — are n't there any among 
 you, I 'd like to know? " 
 
 "Of course there are, Nikolai Eremyeitch: 
 ours is a forest hamlet, — j^ou know well. But 
 'tis our working season, Nikolai Eremyeitch." 
 
 "Your working season! That's precisely the 
 point I you 're fond enough of working for other 
 folks, but you don't like to work for your own 
 mistress. ... It amounts to the same thing!" 
 
 " The work is the same, in fact, Nikolai Ere- 
 myeitch .... but . . . ." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " The pay is . . . you know .... awfully ..." 
 
 " As if it was n't enough for you ! Just see, 
 liow spoiled you are! Get out with you! " 
 
 " Yes, and I want to sav, Nikolai Eremyeitch, 
 there 's only work enough for a w-eek, but we 
 shall be detained a month. First the material 
 
 2G3
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 gives out, and then we '11 be sent into the garden 
 to clean the paths.'" 
 
 " A pretty reason ! The mistress herself has 
 deigned to command, and 't is not for me and 
 thee to make anv argument." 
 
 Sidor said notliing for a \vhile, and began to 
 shift from foot to foot. 
 
 Nikolai Eremyeitch twisted his head on one 
 side, and rattled the reckoning-beads vigorously. 
 
 " Our .... peasants .... Nikolai Ere- 
 myeitch " began Sidor at last, stammer- 
 ing over every word: — " have ordered me to give 
 your grace . . . and here — there are . . . ." 
 (He thrust his huge hand into the breast of his 
 long coat, and began to draw thence a folded 
 towel with red patterns.) 
 
 " What dost thou mean, what dost thou mean, 
 fool? hast thou gone crazy, pray? " — the fat man 
 hastily interrupted him. — " Go, go to me in my 
 cottage," — he continued, almost pushing out the 
 astounded peasant; — "ask there for my wife 
 . . . . she'll give thee some tea; I'll be there 
 directly. Go thy way ! Pray, hast not thou been 
 told to go? " 
 
 Sidor left the room. 
 
 "What a bear!" — muttered the 
 
 head clerk after him, shook his head, and began 
 again on his reckoning-frame. 
 
 Suddenly shouts of: " Kuprya! Kuprya! you 
 can't upset Kuprya!" — resounded on the street 
 
 264 M 
 
 1
 
 THE COUNTING-HOUSE 
 
 and on the porch, and a little latei- there entered 
 tlie office a man of low stature, consumptive in 
 appearance, with a remarkably long nose, large, 
 impassive eyes, and a very haughty mien. He 
 was clad in a tattered old great-coat, Adelaida 
 colour, — or, as it is called among us, ' oddeloida,' 
 — with a velveteen collar and tiny buttons. He 
 carried a fagot of firewood on his shoulders. 
 Five house-serfs crowded around him, and all 
 were shouting, " Kuprya! you can't upset Ku- 
 prya! Kuprya has been appointed to be stove- 
 tender! " But the man in the great-coat with the 
 velveteen collar paid not the slightest attention 
 to the turbulence of his companions, and never 
 changed countenance. With measured steps he 
 walked to the stove, flung down his burden, rose, 
 pulled a snuff'-box from his rear pocket, opened 
 his eyes wide, and began to stuff his nose with 
 powdered melilot mixed with ashes. 
 
 When the noisy horde entered, the fat man 
 was on the point of frowning, and half-rose from 
 his seat; but on seeing what the matter was, he 
 smiled, and merely ordered them not to shout: 
 " There 's a sportsman asleep in the next room," 
 — said he. 
 
 "What sportsman ? "—asked a couple of the 
 men, with one accord. 
 
 " A landed proprietor." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " Let them go on with theii' row," — said the 
 
 20.5
 
 ]ME]MOIKS OF A SPORT S^SI AX 
 
 man with tlie velveteen collar, flinging wide his 
 anns: — " what do I care! ii' only they don't touch 
 me. I have heen appointed to he the stove- 
 tender! " 
 
 "The stove-tender! the stove-tender!" — joy- 
 ously chimed in the crowd. 
 
 " The mistress ordered it," — he went on, 
 shrugging his shoulders: — "hut just you wait 
 .... you '11 be appointed swineherds yet. But 
 that I have heen a tailor, and a good tailor, and 
 learned my business in^ the best workshops in 
 Moscow, and sewed for ' Enerals,' is sometliing 
 that nobody can take away from me. But what 
 are you putting on big airs about? . . . what? 
 3^ou are sluggards, drones, nothing more. If 
 they were to set me free, I sliould n't die of hun- 
 ger, I shouldn't go to destruction; give me a 
 passport, — and I '11 pay in a good quit-rent, and 
 satisfy the masters. But how about j^ou? You'd 
 perish, perish like flies, and tliat 's all about it! " 
 
 " Thou liast lied," — interrupted a pockmarked 
 vounff fellow witli white eyebrows and lashes, a 
 red neckerchief, and ragged el])ows: — "thou 
 liast had a passport, and the masters never saw 
 a kopek of quit-rent from thee, and thou hast 
 never earned a penny for thyself: thou hadst all 
 tliou could do to drag thy legs home, and ever 
 since that time thou hast lived in one wretched 
 kaftan." 
 
 " And what is one to do, Konstantni Xarki- 
 
 266
 
 TITE COTTNTTXCx-TTOITSE 
 
 zitcli!" — retorted Kupriyan: — "if a man has 
 fallen in love, and perished and gone to ruin? 
 Do thou first go through my experience, Kon- 
 stantin Narkiziteh, and then thou ma vest con- 
 demn me." 
 
 " And a pretty person thou didst choose to fall 
 in love with! a regular monster!" 
 
 " Xo, don't say that, Konstantin Xarkizitch." 
 
 " But to whom art thou making that asser- 
 tion? Why, I 've seen her myself; last year, in 
 Moscow, I saw her with my own eyes." 
 
 " Last year she really had gone off a hit in her 
 looks,"— remarked Kupriyan. 
 
 " No, gentlemen, see here," — interposed, in a 
 scornful and negligent voice, a tall man, with a 
 face S2)rinkled with pimples, and all curled and 
 oiled, — prohably the valet: — " here now, suppose 
 w^e let Kupriyan Afanasitch sing his httle song. 
 Come on, begin, Kupriyan Afanasitch ! " 
 
 "Yes, yes!" — chorused the others. — "Hey, 
 there, Alexandra! thou hast caught Kuprya! 
 there's no denying it. . . . Sing away, Kuprya! 
 — Gallant lad, Alexandra!" (House-serfs, by 
 way of showing greater tenderness, frequently 
 use the feminine terminations in speaking of a 
 man.) — " Pipe u])! " 
 
 " This is not the place to sing," — retorted 
 Kuprya, firmly: — "this is the gentry's count- 
 ing-house." 
 
 But what business is that of thine? I do be- 
 
 267 

 
 ME^rOIUS OF A SPOKTS:SIAX 
 
 lieve thou art aiming at becoming liead of the 
 office thyself! " — replied Konstantin, with a 
 coarse laugh. — " It must be so! " 
 
 " Everj-thing is in the power of the mistress/' 
 — remarked the poor fellow. 
 
 "See, see what he's aiming at! See there, 
 wliat sort of a fellow lie is! Phew! phew! 
 ah!" 
 
 And all burst into violent laughter, and some 
 even jumped. The one who laughed loudest of 
 all was a wretched lad of fifteen, probably the 
 son of an- aristocrat among the house-serfs ; he 
 wore a waistcoat with bronze buttons, a neck- 
 cloth of a lilac hue, and had already succeeded 
 in acquiring a portly belly. 
 
 " Hearken now, Kuprya, confess," — began 
 Xikolai Eremyeitch, in a self-satisfied way, visi- 
 bly in a sweat and affected: — " 't is a bad thing 
 to be the stove-tender? Isn't it now? a trifling 
 business, altogether, I fancy? " 
 
 " And what of that, Xikolai Eremyeitch," — 
 remarked Kupriyan: — "here you are now our 
 head clerk, 't is true ; there 's no disputing that, 
 it 's a fact ; but you were under the ban once, and 
 lived in a peasant's hut yourself too." 
 
 " Just look out for thyself, don't forget thy- 
 self before me," — the fat man interrupted snap- 
 pishly: — "they're jesting witli thee, fool; thou 
 should feel it, and be grateful, fool, that tliey 
 bother tliemselves about tliee, fool." 
 
 208
 
 THE COUNTING-HOUSE 
 
 " It just slipped off my tongue, Nikolai Ere- 
 myeitch, pardon me. . . /' 
 
 " Just so, 't was a slip of the tongue." 
 
 The door flew wide open, and a page ran in. 
 
 " Nikolai Eremyeitch, the mistress summons 
 you to her presence." 
 
 " AVho is with the mistress?" — he asked the 
 page. 
 
 " Aksinya Nikitishna and a merchant from 
 Venyovo." 
 
 " I 11 be there in a minute. And as for you, 
 brothers," — he went on, in a persuasive voice: — 
 " you 'd better take yourself away from here, 
 with the newly appointed stove-tender: nobody 
 knows when the German may drop in, and he '11 
 complain on the spot." 
 
 The fat man smoothed his hair, coughed into 
 his hand almost entirely covered by his coat- 
 sleeve, hooked up his coat, and wended his way 
 to the mistress, straddling his legs far apart as he 
 walked. After waiting a while, the whole horde 
 followed him, including Kuprya. ^ly old ac- 
 quaintance, the clerk on duty, was left alone. 
 He started to clean a pen, but fell asleep where 
 he sat. Several flies immediately took advan- 
 tage of the fortunate opportunity, and stuck 
 themselves around his mouth. A mosquito 
 alighted on his forehead, planted its little legs 
 in regular order, and slowly plunged its whole 
 stini2f into liis soft bodv. The former red-head 
 
 269
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 with side-wliiskcrs made its appearance again 
 from behind the door, stared and stared, and en- 
 tered the office with its decidedly ut»lv IkkIv. 
 
 "Fedinshka! Hey, Fedinshka! thou art eter- 
 nally asleep ! " — said the head cashier. 
 
 The clerk on duty opened his eyes, and rose 
 from his chair. 
 
 " Has Xikolai Eremyeitch gone to the mis- 
 tress? " 
 
 " He has, Vasilv Xikolaitch." 
 
 "Ah! ah!"— thought I: — "'tis he, the head 
 cashier! " 
 
 The head cashier began to walk about the 
 room. However, he stole about, rather than 
 walked, and, altogether, bore a strong resem- 
 blance to a cat. From his shoulders depended an 
 old, black dress-coat, with very narrow tails; he 
 kept one hand on his breast, and with the other 
 kept constantly clutching at his tall, tight stock 
 of horsehair, and twisting his head in a strained 
 way. He wore goatskin boots, and trod veiy 
 softly. 
 
 " Squire Yagiishkin was asking for you to- 
 day," — added the clerk on duty. 
 
 " H'm, — was he? What did he say?" 
 
 " He said that he was going to Tiutiiirevo this 
 evening, and would expect you. ' 1 must have a 
 talk with Vasily Nikolaitch about a certain mat- 
 ter,' says he, — but what the business was, he 
 didn't mention: 'Vasily Nikolaitch will know,' 
 says he. 
 
 270
 
 THE COUNTINCMIOUSE 
 
 " H'm! "- — returned the head eashier, and 
 went to the window. 
 
 " Is Nikolai Eremyeitch in the office? " — rang 
 out a loud voice in the anteroom, and a tall man, 
 evidently in a rage, \\ith an irregular, but bold 
 and expressive face, and quite neatly dressed, 
 strode over the threshold. 
 
 "Isn't he here?" — he asked, casting a swift 
 glance around. 
 
 " Nikolai Eremyeitch is with the mistress," — 
 replied the cashier. — " Tell me what you want, 
 Pavel Andreitch: vou can tell me. . . . What 
 do you wish? " 
 
 " What do I want? You wish to know what I 
 want? " (The cashier nodded his head in a sickly 
 way.) — " I want to teach him a lesson, the fat- 
 bellied wretch, the vile tale-bearing slanderer. . . 
 I '11 teach him to tell tales! " 
 
 Pavel flung himself on a chair. 
 
 " What do you mean, A\'hat do you mean, 
 Pavel Andreitch? Calm yourself. . . . . . 
 
 Aren't you ashamed? Don't you forget of 
 whom you are speaking, Pavel Andreitch!" — 
 stammered the cashier. 
 
 " Of whom I 'm speaking? And what do I 
 care, that he has been appointed head clerk! A 
 pretty one they have picked out for the appoint- 
 ment, I must say ! They 've actually let the goat 
 into the vegetable-garden, one may say! " 
 
 " That will do, that will do, Pavel Andreitch, 
 that will do! stop that . . . what nonsense!" 
 
 271
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 " AVcll, Lisa Patrikycvna,' go wag thy tail 
 and fawn! ... I '11 wait for him,"— said Pavel, 
 anarilv, and banned his hand down on the table. 
 — " ^Vh, yonder he comes," — he added, glancing 
 out of the window: — "talk of the devil. . . . 
 You are welcome! " (He rose.) 
 
 Nikolai Eremyeitch entered the office. His 
 face was beaming with satisfaction, but at the 
 sight of Pjivel he grew somewhat embarrassed. 
 
 " Good day, Nikolai Eremyeitch," — said 
 Pavel, significantly, as he moved slowly toward 
 him: — " good day." 
 
 The head clerk made no reply. The mer- 
 chant's face made its appearance in the doorway. 
 
 "Why don't you deign to answer me?" — 
 went on Pavel. — " But, no ... . no," — ^he 
 added: — " that 's not the point; nothing is to be 
 gained by shouting and abuse. No, you 'd better 
 tell me amicably, Nikolai Eremyeitch, why do 
 you persecute me? why do you want to ruin me? 
 Come, speak, speak." 
 
 " This is not the place to give you an explana- 
 tion," — replied the head clerk, not without agita- 
 tion: — " and this is not the proper time. Only, 
 I must confess that one thing amazes mc: 
 whence have you derived the idea that I want to 
 ruin you, or that I am persecuting you? And 
 how, in short, can I persecute you? You are not 
 in mv office." 
 
 'The Russian eqinvalciil of "Reynard tlie Fox."— Translator. 
 
 '^72
 
 THE COUNTING-HOUSE 
 
 " I should think not," — rephed Pavel: — " that 
 is the last straw! But whv do vou dissimulate, 
 Nikolai Eremyeitch? — You understand me, vou 
 see. 
 
 " No, I don't understand you." 
 
 " Yes, you do." 
 
 "No,- by God, I don't!" 
 
 " And he swears into the bargain! Well, then, 
 if it has come to that, tell me : come, j'ou 're not 
 afraid of God ! Well, why can't you let the poor 
 girl alone? What do you want of her? " 
 
 " Of whom are you speaking, Pavel Andre- 
 itch? " — asked the fat man, with feigned amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 "Eka! you don't know% I suppose? I'm 
 speaking of Tatyana. Have the fear of God 
 before your eyes — what are you avenging your- 
 self for? Shame on 5''ou: you are a married man, 
 you have children as old as I am. But I mean 
 
 nothing else than I want to many: I 
 
 am acting honourably." 
 
 " How am I to blame in the matter, Pavel 
 Andreitch? Our mistress will not allow you to 
 marry : 't is her ladyship's will ! What have 1 to 
 do with that?" 
 
 " What have you to do with it? and have n't 
 you and that old witch, the housekeeper, entered 
 into collusion, I 'd like to know? Aren't you a 
 calumniator, I 'd like to know, hey! Tell me, 
 are n't you accusing an innocent young girl of 
 
 273
 
 31K.MOIRS OF A SPORTSMxVN 
 
 all sorts of fictitious things? It is n't thanks to 
 your gracious offices, 1 suppose, that she has been 
 appointed disli-waslier instead of laundress? 
 And they don't heat her, and keep her clad in 
 striped ticking. })y youi- grace? . . . Sluune on 
 3^ou, shame on you, you old man! The first j''ou 
 know, you '11 be smitten with paralysis. . . . 
 You will have to answer to God." 
 
 " Curse away, Pavel Andreitch, curse away. 
 .... You won't have a chance to curse long! " 
 
 Pavel flared up. 
 
 "What? Hast thou taken it into thy head 
 to threaten me?" — he began angrily. — "Dost 
 think that I fear thee? No, brother, thou hast 
 got hold of the wrong man! what liave I to fear? 
 .... I can earn my bread anywhere. . But 
 thou — that's another matter! Thou canst do 
 nothing Init dwell here, and slander, and 
 steal. ..." 
 
 " Just see how conceited he is! " — the clerk in- 
 terrupted him, beginning to lose patience: — " a 
 medical man, a plain medical man, an ordinary 
 little peasant-surgeon; and just listen to him, — 
 whew, what an important peisonage! " 
 
 " Yes, I am a peasant-surgeon, and were it not 
 for that, your gi-acious person would now be rot- 
 ting in the cemetery. . . . And "t was the Evil 
 One who prompted me to cure him," — he added, 
 between his teeth. 
 
 " Thou (hdst cure me? .... Xo, tiiou didst 
 
 274
 
 THE COUNTINCMTOUSE 
 
 try to poison inc; thou didst give me a potion of 
 aloes," — put in the elerk. 
 
 " And wliat if nothing hut aloes would take 
 effect on thee? " 
 
 " Aloes are prohihited by the medical authori- 
 ties," — went on Nikolai: — "I can enter a com- 
 plaint about thee yet. . . . Thou didst try to 
 murder me — that 's what! But the Lord did not 
 permit." 
 
 " That will do, that will do, gentlemen," — the 
 cashier tried to speak. . . . 
 
 " Stop that! "—shouted the clerk.—" He tried 
 to poison me! Dost thou understand that? " 
 
 " Much I care! .... Hearken to me, Niko- 
 lai Eremyeitch," — said Pavel in desperation: — 
 " For the last time I entreat thee .... thou 
 hast forced me to it — my patience is exhausted. 
 Leave us in peace, dost thou understand? other- 
 wise, by God, 't will be the worse for some one of 
 you, I tell thee." 
 
 The fat man flew into a rage. 
 
 " I 'm not afraid of thee,"— he yelled:—" dost 
 hear me, booby! 1 mastered thy father, 1 broke 
 his horns for him, — let that be a warning for 
 thee, look out! " 
 
 " Don't remind me of my father, Nikolai 
 Eremyeitch, don't remind me of him! " 
 
 " Get out! I don't take any orders from 
 thee!" 
 
 " Don't remind me of him, I tell thee! " 
 
 275
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTS^NIAX 
 
 " And I tell thee, don't forget th3^self. . . . 
 As the mistress does not need thee in thy line, if 
 she had to choose between us two, thou Avouldst 
 not be tlie winner, my dear little dove! Xo one is 
 permitted to mutiny, look out!" (Pavel was 
 quivering with rage.) — "And the girl Tatyana 
 is getting what she deserves. . . . Just wait, and 
 she '11 get something worse." 
 
 I'iivel darted forward with upraised arms, and 
 the clerk rolled heavily to the floor. 
 
 "Handcuff him, handcuff him!" — moaned 
 Nikolai Eremyeitch. . , . 
 
 I will not undertake to describe the end of 
 this scene. I am afraid I have wounded the sen- 
 sibilities of the reader as it is. 
 
 I returned home the same day. A week later, 
 I learned that oNIme. LosnyakofF had retained 
 both Pavel and Nikolai in her service, but had 
 banished the girl Tatyana ; evidently, she was not 
 wanted. 
 
 276
 
 XII 
 
 THE WOLF 
 
 I WAS driving from the chase one evening alone 
 in a racing-drozhky.' 1 was eight versts from 
 my house; my good mare was stepping briskly 
 along the dusty road, snorting and twitching 
 her ears from time to time; my weary dog never 
 (juitted the hind wheels, as though he had been 
 tied there. A thunder-storm was coming on. 
 In front of me a huge, purplish cloud was slowly 
 rising from beliind the forest; overhead, and ad- 
 vancing to meet me, floated long, grey clouds; 
 the willows were rustling and whispering with 
 apprehension. The stifling lieat suddenly gave 
 way to a damp chill; the shadows swiftly thick- 
 ened. I slapped the reins on the horse's back, 
 descended into a ravine, crossed a dry brook 
 all overgrown with scrub-willows, ascended a 
 hillock, and drove into the forest. The road in 
 front of me wound along amid thick clumps 
 of hazel-bushes, and was already inundated with 
 gloom; I advanced with difficulty. JNIy drozhky 
 
 ' The racing-drozhky, which is also much used in the country, 
 consists of a plank attached (without springs) to four small 
 wheels. The driver sits astride of the plank, with his feet on the 
 shafts. — Translator. 
 
 277
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 jolted over the firm roots of the centenarian 
 oaks and lindens, whicli incessantly intersected 
 tlic long, deep ruts — the traces of cart-wlieels ; 
 my horse began to stumble. ^V strong wind 
 suddenly began to drone aloft, the trees grew 
 turbulent, big drops of rain pattered sliarply and 
 splashed on the leaves, the lightning and thunder 
 burst forth, the rain poured in torrents. I drove 
 on at a foot-pace and was speedily compelled to 
 halt ; my horse had stuck fast. I could not see a 
 single object. I sheltered myself, after a fash- 
 ion, under a wide-spreading bush. Bent double, 
 with my face wrapped up, I was patiently await- 
 ing the end of the storm, when, suddenly, by the 
 gleam of a lightning flash, it seemed to me that 
 I descried a tall figure on the road. I began to 
 gaze attentively in that direction — the same 
 figm'e sprang out of the eartli, as it were, bj' my 
 side. 
 
 " Who is this? " — asked a sonorous voice. 
 
 " Who are you yourself? " 
 
 " I 'm the forester here." 
 
 I mentioned my name. 
 
 "Ah, I know; vou are on your way home?" 
 
 " Yes ; but you see what a storm . . . ." 
 
 " Yes, it is a thunder-storm," — replied the 
 voice. A white flash of lightning illuminated the 
 forester from head to foot ; a short, crashing peal 
 of thunder resounded immediately afterward. 
 The rain poured down with redoubled force. 
 
 278
 
 THE WOLF 
 
 " It will not pass over very soon," continued 
 the forestei'. 
 
 "What is to be done?" 
 
 " I '11 conduct you to my cottage, if you like," 
 — he said abrnpth\ 
 
 " Pray do." 
 
 " Please take your seat." 
 
 He stepped to the mare's head, took her by the 
 bridle, and turned her from the spot. We set 
 out. I clung to the cushion of the drozhky, 
 which rocked like a skiff at sea, and called my 
 dog. JNIy poor mare splashed her hoofs lieavily 
 through the mire, slipping and stumbling: the 
 forester swayed to right and left in front of the 
 shafts, like a spectre. Thus we proceeded for 
 quite a long time. At last my guide came to a 
 halt. — " Here we are at home, master," — he said, 
 in a calm voice. A wicket-gate squeaked, sev- 
 eral puppies began to bark in unison. I raised 
 my head and by the glare of the lightning I 
 descried a tiny hut, in the centre of a spacious 
 yard, surrounded with a wattled hedge.^ From 
 one tiny window, a small light cast a dull gleam. 
 The forester led the horse up to the porch, and 
 knocked at the door. "Right away! Right 
 away!" — resounded a shrill little voice, and a 
 patter of bare feet became audible, the bolt 
 
 ' In central and southern Russia, wliere timber is scarce, long 
 boughs of trees arc plaited into picturesque iiedges, to replace 
 board fences. Farm buildings frequently have their walls of the 
 same wattled work. — Translator. 
 
 270
 
 me:moirs of a sportsman 
 
 screeched, aiul a little girl about twelve years of 
 age, clad in a miserable little smock, girt about 
 with a bit of list, and holding a lantern in her 
 hand, made her appearance on the threshold. 
 
 " Light the gentleman," — he said to her: — 
 " and I will put his carriage under the shed." 
 
 The little lass glanced at me, and entered the 
 cottage. I followed her. The forester's cottage 
 consisted of a single room, smoke-begrimed, low- 
 ceiled, and bare, without any sleeping-shelf over 
 the oven, and without any partitions: a tattered 
 sheepskin coat hung against the wall. On the 
 wall-bench lav a single-barrelled gun: in one 
 corner trailed a heap of rags; two Lirge pots 
 stood beside the oven. A pine-knot was burning 
 on the table, sputtering mournfully, and was on 
 the point of going out. Exactly in the middle 
 of the room hung a cradle, suspended from the 
 end of a long pole.' The little maid extin- 
 guished the lantern, seated herself on a tinv 
 bench, and began to rock the cradle with her left 
 hand, while with her right she put the pine-knot 
 in order. 1 looked about, and mv heart grew sad: 
 it is not cheerful to enter a peasant's hut by 
 
 ' A stout, long, supple sapliui;- is tixed lirnily ajrainst one wall. 
 The tip is in the niiildle of tlie room, anil from it is suspended 
 the cradle, which depresses it, and acts as a natural sprin-j. The 
 iradle mav he (like Peter the Great's, which is in the museum 
 of the Kremlin in Moscow) of strong linen, distended liy poles 
 at the ends, hammock-fashion; or even of a splint basket. It is 
 often rocked from a distance Ity means of a rope attached to one 
 of the anjrle-cords. — Tkaksi.atoh. 
 
 280
 
 TIIK WOLF 
 
 nijL^ht. The baby in the cradlo was biratliino 
 ht'a^ ilv and rai)i(llv. 
 
 " Is it possible tliat thou art alone liere? " — I 
 asked the little girl. 
 
 Ves," — she artieulated, almost inaudibly. 
 
 "Art thou the forester's daui>liter? " 
 
 " Yes,"— she whispered. 
 
 The door ereaked, and tlie forester stepped 
 across the threshold, bendin«)- his head as he did 
 so. lie pieked up the lantern from the floor, 
 went to the table, and ignited the wiek. 
 
 " Pro})ably you are not accustomed to a pine- 
 knot," — he said, tossing back his curls. 
 
 I looked at him. Karelv has it been mv for- 
 tune to behold such a line, dashing fellow. lie 
 was tall of stature, broad-shouldered, and splen- 
 didly built. From beneath his dripping shirt, 
 which was open on the breast, his mighty nmscles 
 stood forth prominently. A curly black beard 
 covered half of his surly and manly face; from 
 beneath his broad eyebrows, which met over his 
 nose, small brown eyes gazed gallantly forth. 
 He set his hands lightly on his hips, and stood 
 bef(H-e me. 
 
 I thanked him, and asked his name. 
 
 "My name is Imiuki " ('IMiomas), he replied 
 — " but my nickname is ' The \Volf.' " ^ 
 
 'Ah, are you The WolfT' 
 
 * III lln' (lUMTiinuMit of Orel, a solitary, surly man is callod a 
 
 wolf (hiriiik). 
 
 •281
 
 MEMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 I gazed at him with i-edoubled interest. . 
 From mv Ermolai and from others I had often 
 heard about the forester — ^The AVolf, whom all 
 the peasants round about feared like fire. Ac- 
 cording to their assertions, never before had 
 there existed in the ^vorld such a master of his 
 craft. " He gives no one a chance to carry 
 off trusses of brushwood, no matter what the 
 hour may be; even at midnight lie drops down 
 on you like snow on your head, and you need 
 not think of offering resistance — he 's as strong 
 and as crafty as the devil. . . . And it 's impos- 
 sible to catch him by any means whatever; 
 neither with liquor, nor witli monej"; he won't 
 yield to any allurement. 31 ore than once good 
 men have made preparations to put him out of 
 the world ; but no, he does n't give them a chance." 
 
 That was the way the neighbouring peasants 
 expressed tliemselves about The Wolf. 
 
 "So thou art The Wolf,"— I repeated.— 
 " I 've heard of thee, brother. They say that 
 thou givest no quarter to any one." 
 
 He pulled his axe from his girdle, sat down 
 on the floor, and began to chop a pine-knot. 
 
 " Hast thou no housew^ife?" — I asked him. 
 
 " No," — he replied, and brandished his axe 
 fiercely. 
 
 " She is dead, apparently." 
 
 " No — yes — she is dead," — he added, and 
 turned away. 
 
 282
 
 THE WOLF 
 
 I said nothing; he raised his eyes, und h)()ked 
 at nie. 
 
 " She ran away with a X'^'tty burghei- wh(j 
 came along," — he remarked, with a harsh smile. 
 The little girl dropped her eyes; the baby waked 
 up, and began to cry ; the girl went to the cradle. 
 —"There, give him that,"— said The Wolf, 
 thrusting into her hand a dirty horn.^ — " And 
 she abandoned him," — he went on, in a low tone, 
 pointing at the baby. He walked to the door, 
 and turned round. 
 
 " Probably, master," — he said, — " you cannot 
 eat our bread; and I have nothing but bread." 
 
 " I am not hungry." 
 
 " Well, 'suit yourself. I would boil tlie sa- 
 movar for you, only I have no tea. . . I '11 go 
 and see how your horse is getting along." 
 
 He went out and slammed the door. I sur- 
 veyed my surroundings. The hut seemed to me 
 more doleful than before. The bitter odour of 
 chilled smoke oppressed my breathing. The 
 little girl did not stir from her place, and did 
 not raise her eyes; from time to time, she gave 
 the cradle a gentle shove, or timidly hitched up 
 on her shoulder her smock, wliicli had slipped 
 down; her bare legs hung motionless. 
 
 " What is thy name? " — I asked. 
 
 ' The Russian peasants use a cow's horn, with a cow's teat tied 
 over the tip, as a nursing-hot tie. The dried teats arc for sale 
 in the connnon street-markets. — Traxsi.ator. 
 
 283
 
 .AIEMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 " Ulita," — she said, drooping her sad httle 
 face still lower than hefore. Tlie forester en- 
 tered, and seated himself on the wall-bench. 
 
 " The thunder-storm is passing over," — he re- 
 marked, after a brief silence; — " if you com- 
 mand, I will guide you out of the forest." 
 
 I rose. The Wolf picked up his gun, and in- 
 spected the priming. 
 
 " What is that for? " — I inquired. 
 
 " They are stealing in the forest. They 're 
 felling a tree at tlie Hare's Ravine," — he added, 
 in reply to my glance of inquiry. 
 
 " Can it be heard from here? " 
 
 " It can from the yard." 
 
 We went out together. The rain had ceased. 
 Heavy masses of cloud were piled up in the dis- 
 tance, long streaks of lightning flashed forth 
 from time to time; but over our heads tlie dark- 
 blue sky was visible; here and there, little stars 
 twinkled through the thin, swiftly-flying clouds. 
 The outlines of the trees, besprinkled with rain 
 and fluttered by the wind, were beginning to 
 stand forth from the gloom. We began to lis- 
 ten. The forester took off* his cap, and dropped 
 his eyes. " The — there," he said suddenly, and 
 stretched out his arm; — "you see what a night 
 they have chosen. ' 
 
 I heard nothing save the rustling of the leaves. 
 The Wolf led my horse out from under the shed. 
 — " But I shall probably let him shp, as matters 
 
 •284
 
 THE WOI.F 
 
 stand," — he added aloud. — " 1 '11 o() with thee, 
 may I?" — "All right," — he replied, and haeked 
 the horse.^ — ^" We '11 eateh him in a trice, and then 
 I '11 guide you out. Come on ! " 
 
 We set off. The Wolf in advance, I hehind 
 him. God knows how he found the road, hut lie 
 rarely halted, and then only to listen to the sound 
 of the axe. — " You see," — he muttered between 
 his teeth. — " You hear? do you hear? " — " But 
 where?" — The Wolf shrugged his shoulders. 
 We descended into a ravine, the wind died down 
 for an instant, measured blows distinctly reached 
 my ear. The Wolf glanced at me, and shook 
 his head. On we went, over the wet ferns and 
 nettles. A dull, prolonged roar rang out 
 
 " He has felled it,"— muttered The Wolf. 
 
 In the meantime tlie skv had continued to 
 * 
 clear; it was almost light in the forest. We 
 
 made our way out of the ravine at last. — " Wait 
 here," — whispered the forester to me, crouched 
 down, and raising his gun aloft, vanished among 
 the bushes. 1 began to listen with strained in- 
 tentness. Athwart the constant noise of the 
 wind, I thought I discerned faint sovmds not far 
 away: an axe was cautiousl}^ hewing branches, a 
 horse was neighing. 
 
 "Where art thou going? Halt!" — the iron 
 voice of .The Wolf suddenly thundered out. An- 
 other voice shrieked plaintively, after the fashion 
 of a hare A struggle began. — " Thou 
 
 285
 
 ME.AIOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 li-iest, tlioii li-iest," — The Wolf kept repeating, 
 panting the while; "thou shalt not escape." — I 
 (lashed forward in the direction of the noise, and 
 ran to the scene of hattle, stunihling at every 
 step. Beside the felled tree on the ground, the 
 forester was tumbling about: he held the thief 
 beneath him, and was engaged in binding the 
 man's hands behind his back with his girdle. I 
 stepped up. The Wolf rose, and set him on his 
 feet. I beheld a peasant, soaked through, in 
 rags, with a long, dishevelled beard. A misera- 
 ble little nag, half-covered with a small, stiff 
 mat, stood hard by, with the running-gear of a 
 peasant-cart. The forester uttered not a word; 
 the peasant, also, maintained silence, and merely 
 shook his head. 
 
 " Let him go," — I whispered in The Wolf's 
 ear. — " I will pay for the tree." 
 
 The Wolf, M'ithout replying, grasped the 
 horse's foretop with his left hand ; with his right 
 he held the thief by the girdle. — " Come, move 
 on, booby!" — he ejaculated surlih\ 
 
 " Take my axe yonder," — muttered the peas- 
 ant. — "Why should it be wasted?" — said the 
 forester, and picked up the axe. We started. I 
 
 walked in the rear The rain began to 
 
 descend again in a drizzle, and soon was pouring 
 in torrents. A\'ith difficultv we made our way 
 to the cottage. The Wolf turned the captiu'ed 
 nag loose in the yard, led the peasant into the 
 
 286
 
 THE WOI.F 
 
 house, loosened the knot of the girdle, and seated 
 him in one corner. The little girl, wlio had al- 
 most fallen asleep hy the oven, sprang uj), and 
 hegan to stare at ns in (hnnb affright. I seated 
 myself on the wall-beneli. 
 
 " Kkh, what a downpour!" — remarked tlie 
 forester. — " We must wiut until it stops. 
 Would n't you like to lie down? " 
 
 " Thanks." 
 
 "I would lock liim up in the lumber-room, on 
 account of your grace," — he went on, pointing 
 at the peasant, — " but, you see, the bolt " 
 
 " Leave him there, — don't touch him," — I in- 
 terrupted The Wolf. 
 
 The peasant darted a sidelong glance at me. 
 T inwardly registered a vow that I would save 
 the poor fellow at any cost. He sat motionless 
 on the wall-bench. By the light of the lantern 
 I was able to scrutinise his dissipated, wrinkled 
 face, his pendent, yellow eyebrows, his thin 
 limbs. . . . The little girl lay down on the 
 floor, at his very feet, and fell asleep again. The 
 Wolf sat by the table, witli his head propped on 
 his hand. A grasshopper was chirping in one 
 corner. . . . The rain beat down upon tlie roof, 
 and dripped down the windows; we all main- 
 tained silence. 
 
 " Foma Kuzmitch," — began the peasant, sud- 
 denly, in a dull, cracked voice: — "hey, there, 
 Foma Kuzmitch!" 
 
 287
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 "What dost thou want?" 
 
 " Let me go." 
 
 The Wolf made no reply. 
 
 " Let me go Hunger drove me to it. 
 
 .... Let me go." 
 
 " I know you," — retorted the forester, grimly. 
 " You 're all alike in your village, — a pack of 
 thieves." 
 
 " Let me go," — repeated the peasant. — " The 
 manager .... w'e 're ruined, that s what it is 
 let me go ! " 
 
 "Ruined! .... Xo one ought to steal!" 
 
 " Let me go, Foma Kuzmitch don't de- 
 stroy me. Thy master, as thou knowest, will de- 
 vour me, so he will." 
 
 The Wolf turned away. The peasant was 
 twitching all over, as though racked with fever. 
 He kept shaking his head, and his breatli came 
 irregularly. 
 
 " Let me go," — he repeated, with mournful 
 desperation. — " Let me go, for God's sake, let 
 me go! I '11 pay, that I will, God is my witness. 
 As God is my witness, hunger drove me to it 
 the children were squalling, thou know- 
 est how it is thyself. 'T is hard on a man, that 
 
 it IS. 
 
 " All the same, don't go a-thieving." 
 " My horse," — went on the peasant, — 
 " there 's my horse, take it if thou ^vilt . . . , 
 'tis my only beast ..... let me go!" 
 
 288
 
 THE WOLF 
 
 " Impossible, I tell thee. I, ulso, am a sub- 
 ordinate; I shall be held responsible. And it 
 is n't right, either, to eonnive at thy deed." 
 
 " I jet me go! Poverty, Foma Kiizmiteh, pov- 
 erty, that 's what \s the trouble let me go! " 
 
 '*'I know thee!" 
 
 " Ihit do let me go! " 
 
 " Eili, what 's the use of arguing with thee; sit 
 still, or 1 '11 give it to thee, understand? Dost 
 thou not see the gentleman? " 
 
 The poor fellow di'opped his eyes. .... The 
 Wolf vawned, and laid his head on the table. 
 The rain had not stopped. I waited to see what 
 would happen. 
 
 The peasant suddenly straightened himself 
 up. His eyes began to blaze, and the colour flew 
 to his face. — " Well, go ahead, devour! Go 
 ahead, oppress! Go ahead!" — he began, screw- 
 ing up his eyes, and dropping the corners of his 
 lips: — " Go ahead, damned mui-derer of the soul, 
 drink Christian blood, drink!" 
 
 The forester turned round. 
 
 " I 'm talking to thee, — to thee, Asiatic, blood- 
 drinker, — to thee!" 
 
 " Art drunk, that thou hast taken it into thy 
 head to curse ! " — said the forester in amaze- 
 ment. — " Hast thou gone crazy? " 
 
 " Drunk ! .... It was n't on thy money, 
 thou damned soul-murderer, thou \vild beast, 
 beast, beast! " 
 
 289
 
 MEMUIKS or A SrOKTS.MAN 
 
 " Akh, iliou .... I '11 give it to thee!" 
 
 " What do I care? 'T is all one to me — I shall 
 perish anyway; what can I do without a horse? 
 Kill me — it comes to the same thing; whether 
 Mitli hunger, or thus, it makes no difference. 
 Let everything go to destruction: wife, children, 
 — let tliem all perish. . . . But just wait, thou 
 shalt hear from us! " 
 
 The AVolf half-rose to his feet. 
 
 " Kill, kill," — the peasant hegan again, in a 
 
 savage voice: " Kill, go ahead, kill " 
 
 (The little girl sprang hastily from the floor, 
 and riveted her eves on him.) — "Kill, kill!" 
 
 " Hold thy tongue! " — thundered the forester, 
 and advanced a couple of strides. 
 
 " Enough, that will do, Foma Kuzmitch," — I 
 shouted: — "let him alone. . . . Don't bother 
 with hjm. ..." 
 
 " I won't hold my tongue," — went on the un- 
 fortunate man. — " It makes no difference how .; 
 he murders me. Thou soul-miu'derer, thou wild 
 
 beast, hanging is too good for thee But 
 
 just wait a bit. . . Thou hast not long to vaunt 
 thyself! They'll strangle thy throat for thee. 
 Just w^ait a bit! " 
 
 The Wolf seized him by the shoulder. . . I 
 rushed to the rescue of the peasant. 
 
 " Don't touch us, master! " — the foreste 
 yelled at me. 
 
 I did not fear his threats, and was on the point 
 
 290 
 
 I
 
 THE WOT.F 
 
 of stretching fortli my arm \\iien, to my extreme 
 amazement, with one twist of the luind, he tore 
 the girdle from the peasant's elhows, grasped 
 Iiim hy the eolhir, banged his cap down over liis 
 eyes, finng open the door, and thrust liim out. 
 
 " Take tliyself and thy horse off to the devil! " 
 — he shouted after him: — " and look out, an- 
 other time I '11 . . . ." 
 
 He came back into the cottage, and began to 
 poke about in the corner. 
 
 "Well, Wolf,"— I said at last;— "thou hast 
 astonished me. I see that thou art a s])lendid 
 voung fellow\" 
 
 " Ekh, stop that, master," — he interrupted 
 me, with vexation. — " Only, please don't tell 
 about it. Now I 'd better show you your way," 
 — he added; — "because you can't wait for the 
 rain to stop." 
 
 The wheels of the peasant's cart rumbled 
 through the yard. 
 
 " You see, he has dragged himself oiF." — he 
 muttered; — " but I '11 give it to him! " 
 
 Half an hoiu* later he bade me farewell on the 
 edge of the forest. 
 
 291
 
 XIII 
 
 TWO LANDED PROPRIETORS 
 
 I haat: already liad tlie honour of introducing 
 to you, my indulgent readers, several of my gen- 
 tlemen neighbours ; permit me now, therefore, b}'^ 
 the way (for us writers everything is " by tlie 
 way " ) , to make you accjuainted ^^'ith two more 
 landed proprietors, on whose property I have 
 often hunted, extremely worthy, well-inten- 
 tioned individuals, who enjoy the universal re- 
 spect of several counties. 
 
 I will first describe to you retired INIajor-Gen- 
 eral VyatcheslafF Ilarionovitch Khvalvnskv. 
 Picture to yourselves a tall man, finely propor- 
 tioned in days gone by, but now somewhat pot- 
 bellied, though not in the least decrepit, not even 
 aged, a man of mature years, in the very prime 
 of life, as the expression is. His once regular 
 and still agreeable features have changed some- 
 what, 't is true ; his cheeks have grown pendent 
 in jowls, numerous radiating wrinkles have clus- 
 tered round his eyes, some teeth are already miss- 
 ing, as Saadi said, according to Puslikin's state- 
 ment; his light-chestnut hair — all that is left 
 of it, at least — has turned lilac, thanks to a 
 preparation ])()ught at the Romny horse-fair 
 
 292
 
 TWO LANDED I'ROriUKTOHS 
 
 I'roni a Jew wlio gave liiiiiself out as being an Ar- 
 menian; but A'vateheslaft' llarionovitcb steps out 
 alertly, lias a ringing laugli, elanks bis s])urs, 
 twirls bis moustaebe, ealls biniself, in sliort, an 
 old eavalrvnian, wbile it is a well-known fact tbat 
 real old men never call tbemselves old men. He 
 generally wears a surtout buttoned up to the 
 tbroat, a tall stock witb a starcbed collar, and 
 trousers of a speckled grey, of military cut; and 
 be wears bis bat straight on bis forehead, leaving 
 the whole back of his head outside. He is a very 
 kind-hearted man, but with decidedly peculiar 
 ideas and habits. For example : be is utterly un- 
 able to treat noblemen who are not wealthy nor of 
 official rank as his equals. In talking witb them, 
 be generally gazes at them askance, with bis 
 cheek leaning heavily on liis firm, white collar, 
 or he will suddenly take and illumine them with 
 a clear, impassive stare, maintain silence, and 
 wrioo'le the whole of his skin on his head mider 
 his hair; lie even pronounces bis words in a dif- 
 ferent way, and does not sav, for instance: 
 " Thanks, Pavel Vasilitch," or: " Please come 
 hither, ^likhailo Ivanitcb," but: " T'anks, Pall 
 'Asilicb," or: " Pe-ease come hither, Mikhal' 
 'Van itch." And be behaves in a still stranger 
 manner to ])eople who stand on the lower rungs of 
 the society ladder: be does not look at them at all, 
 and before announcing bis wishes to them, or giv- 
 •Mg them an order, be repeats several times in suc- 
 
 293
 
 MEISIOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 cession, with a preoccupied and dreamy aspect: 
 " What 's thy name? . . . What 's thy name? "-^ 
 generally with a remarkably sharp emphasis on 
 the first word, " wliat," and uttering the rest 
 very rapidly, which imparts to his whole mode of 
 speech a pretty close likeness to the cry of the 
 male quail. He is a frightfully fussy man, and 
 a skinflint, and a bad farmer: lie has taken to 
 himself as manager a retired <iuartermaster, a 
 Little Russian, a remarkably stupid man. How- 
 ever, in the matter of estate management, no one 
 in our parts has, so far, outdone a certain impor- 
 tant Petersburg official, who, on perceiving from 
 his overseer's report that grain-kilns on his es- 
 tate were subject to frequent conflagrations, 
 which caused the loss of much grain, issued 
 stringent orders that, henceforth, no sheaves 
 were to be placed in the kiln until the fire was 
 completely extinguished. This same dignitary 
 once took it into his head to sow all his fields 
 witli poppies, in consequence of what was, 
 apparently, an extremely simple calculation. 
 " Poppies are more expensive tlian rye," said he: 
 " therefore, it w^ill be more profitable to plant 
 poppies." And he also commanded his peasant 
 women to wear kokoshniki ^ made after a pattern 
 
 ' The kokushnik is the round, coronet-shaped head-dress of the 
 peasant women. It varies in sliai)e and appelhition in different 
 districts, kokdxlinik hcing the generic name. Tlie kika is tall and 
 j)ointed in front, like the mitre of a Roman or an Anglican bishop. 
 — Thanslatoh. 
 
 294 
 
 t
 
 TWO LANDED PKOrilTETORS 
 
 sent from Petershiir*^-; and, as a matter of fact, 
 to this day the peasant women on his estates 
 
 wear the round-coronet head-(h-ess only, 
 
 it runs up to a sliarp point at the front, hke a 
 
 kika But let us return to Vyatcheslaff 
 
 Ilarionovitch. Vyatcheslaff Ihuionovitch is ter- 
 ribly fond of the fair sex, and, just as soon as he 
 catches sight of a pretty person on the boulevard 
 of his county town, he instantly sets out in pur- 
 suit of her, but also immediately takes to limping 
 — which is a noteworthy circumstance. He is 
 fond of playing cards, but only with persons 
 df a lower class; they say to him, " Your P2xcel- 
 lency," and he can chide them and scold them to 
 his heart's content. But when he chances to play 
 with the Governor, or with some official person- 
 age, a wonderful change takes place in him: he 
 smiles, and nods his head, and stares with all his 
 eyes, — he is fairly redolent of honey. .... He 
 even loses without complaint. Vyatcheslaff 
 Ilarionovitch reads little, and while he is read- 
 ing he keeps his moustache and his brows in 
 incessant motion, as though a wave were flowing 
 over his face, from below upward. Especialh'' 
 noteworthy is this undulating movement on Vyat- 
 cheslaff Ilarionovitch's face, when he happens (in 
 the presence of visitors, of course) to run through 
 the columns of the Journal dcs Dcbats. He 
 plays quite an important part at the elections, 
 but declines the honourable post of JNIarshal of 
 
 295
 
 MEISrOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 the Xobility out of parsimony. — " Gentlemen," 
 — he generally says to tlie nobles who approacli 
 him, and he says it in a voice tilled with patron- 
 age and independence: — " I am greatly ol)liged 
 for tlie honour; ])ut I have decided to devote my 
 leisure to solitude." — And, having uttered these 
 words, he turns his head sevei-al times to right 
 and left, and then, with dignity, drops his chin 
 and his clieeks on his neckerchief. In his j'outh, 
 he served as adjutant to some distinguished per- 
 son, whom he never mentions otherwise than by 
 his baptismal name and patronymic; 'tis said, 
 that he took upon himself not alone the duties of 
 an adjutant, — that, for instance, donning liis full 
 parade-uniform, and even fastening the hooks, 
 he steamed his superior in the bath — but one can- 
 not believe every rumour. ^Moreover, General 
 Khvalynsky is not fond of referring to his career 
 in the service, which is, on the whole, rather odd; 
 it apjiears, also, that he has not been to war. 
 General Khvalynsky lives in a small house, 
 alone; he has never experienced conjugal bliss in 
 his life, and therefore, to this day, he is regarded 
 as a marriageable man, and even a good catch. 
 On the other hand, his housekeeper, a woman 
 of three-and-thirtv years, black-eved, black- 
 browed, plump, fresh, and with a moustache, 
 wears starched gowns on week-days, and puts 
 on muslin sleeves of a Simday.^ Vyatcheslaff 
 
 ' " Sleeves," in central and southern Russia, means the chemise, 
 of whicli the full sleeves and the guimpe-like neck portion are 
 
 296
 
 TWO LANDED ri^OrHIKTORS 
 
 Ilarionovitch is happy at great, formal dinners, 
 given by landed proprietors in honour of gover- 
 nors and other powers that be: then he is, so to 
 speak, thoroughly in his element. On such occa- 
 sions he sits, if not at the right hand of tlie Gov- 
 ernor, at least not very far from him ; at tlie be- 
 ginning of the banquet, he is generally engaged 
 in maintaining the sense of his own dignity, and 
 throwing himself back in his chair, but not turn- 
 ing his head, he drops a sidelong look ui)()n the 
 round napes and standing collars of the guests; 
 on the other hand, toward the end of the dinner, 
 he cheers up, begins to smile on all sides (he has 
 been smiling in the direction of the Cxovernor 
 from the very beginning of the feast) , and some- 
 times even proposes a toast in honour of the 
 fair sex, " the ornament of our planet," as he 
 phrases it. General Klivalynsky also makes a 
 far from bad appearance at all solemn and public 
 sessions, examinations, assemblies, and exhibi- 
 tions; and he is, moreover, a master-hand at ap- 
 proaching an ecclesiastical dignitary and receiv- 
 ing his blessing.^ Vyatcheslaif Ilarionovitch's 
 l^eople do not shout and create an uproar when 
 they meet another carriage at the cross-roads or 
 ferries, and in other similar circumstances; on 
 
 visible above the sarafan, or full frock. The sarafan itself has 
 no sleeves, and its upper edge passes under the arms, from which 
 narrow straps pass over the shoulders. — Tuansi.atok. 
 
 ' Consideral)le art and practice arc required to receive a bishop's 
 hand properly and gracefully, on the upturned palms, held in 
 boat-shape, raise it reverently to the lips, and kiss it, in return for 
 the cross of blessing bestowed.- 'ritANSLATOK. 
 
 297
 
 MEMOiKS OF A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 the contrary, when pushing people aside, or call- 
 ing the carriage, they say, in an agreeable gut- 
 tural i)aritone voice: " Pray, pray, allow General 
 Khvalynsky to pass through," or; " General 
 Khvalynsky's equipage." .... Khvalynsky's 
 equipage is, trutli to tell, of rather ancient fash- 
 ion; his lackeys' liveries are decidedly threadbare 
 (that they are grey, with trimmings of red braid, 
 it is hardly necessary to mention) ;' the horses, 
 also, are somewhat aged, and have seen hard ser- 
 vice; but Yyatcheslaff Ilarionovitch makes no 
 pretensions to foppishness, and does not even 
 consider it becoming to his rank to throw dust in 
 the eyes of the public. Khvalynsky is not en- 
 dowed with any special gift of language, or, per- 
 haps, he has no opportunity to display his elo- 
 quence, because he not only will not tolerate dis- 
 cussion, but even rejoinder in general, and sedu- 
 lously avoids all long conversations, particularly 
 with young persons. 'T is safer, in fact ; other- 
 wise, with the present generation of men, a ca- 
 lamity might befall: they might immediately be- 
 come insubordinate and lose their reverence. 
 In the presence of persons of superior rank, 
 Khvalynsky maintains silence, in the majority 
 of cases, but to persons of a lower rank, whom, 
 evidently, he despises, but with whom alone 
 he consorts, he makes abrupt and harsh speeches, 
 
 The regular j)rerogative of a general: the cape-coats arc trimmed 
 with rows of scarlet braid. — Translator. 
 
 298
 
 TWO T.ANDED PKOPKIETOKS 
 
 incessantly cmplovino' expressions such as the 
 following: " But what you are saying is non- 
 sense; " or: "I find myself compelled, in 
 short, m' dea' si', to call to your attention," or: 
 " But, after all, you ought to know with wlioni 
 you are dealing," and so forth. lie is es- 
 pecially dreaded by postmasters, permanent jus- 
 tices of the peace, and station superintendents. 
 He never invites any one to his own house, 
 and lives, so says rumour, after the fashion of 
 a miser. Notwithstanding all which, he is a very 
 fine landed proprietor, — " an ex-soldier, a disin- 
 terested man, with principles, vieucV grognardf' 
 his neiohbonrs say of him. One governmental 
 procurator permits himself to smile when Gen- 
 eral Khvalynsky's excellent and solid qualities 
 are referred to in his presence, — but what will 
 not envy do! 
 
 However, let us pass on to the other landed 
 proprietor. 
 
 INIardary Apollonitch Stegunoff does not re- 
 semble Klivalynsky in any respect. 'T is not 
 likely that he was ever in the service anywhere, 
 and he never has regarded himself as a beauty. 
 Mardary Apollonitch is a short, plump, bald old 
 gentleman, with a double chin and a good-sized 
 paunch. He is very hospitable and fond of jest- 
 ing; he lives, as the saying is, at his ease; winter 
 and summer he goes about in a wadded striped 
 dressing-gown. In one point only does he agree 
 
 299
 
 ME^SIOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 with General Khvalvnskv: lie, also, is a hachelor. 
 He has five hiindrcd souls. ^ ^Nlardary Apollo- 
 iiitcli busies himself with liis estate in a pretty su- 
 perfieial manner; ten years ago he purehased 
 from Butenop, in jNIoscow,— in order not to be 
 Ix^hind his age, — a threshing-machine, locked it 
 up in a barn, and relapsed into contentment. 
 Occasionally, on a fine summer's da}^ he will 
 order his racing-drozhky to be harnessed up, and 
 will drive to the fields to take a look at the grain 
 and to pluck corn-flowers. JNIardarj^ Apollonitch 
 lives thoroughly in the ancient fashion. And his 
 house, also, is of ancient construction: the ante- 
 room, as is fitting, reeks of kvas, tallow candles, 
 and leather; there, also, on the right, is a buffet, 
 with smoke-pipes" and towels; in the dining- 
 room are family portraits, flies, a huge pot of 
 geranium, and a jingling piano; in the drawing- 
 room are three couches, three tables, two mirrors, 
 and a hoarse clock with carved liands of black- 
 ened enamel and bron/e; in the study are a table 
 with papers, a screen of bluisli hue with small 
 pictures pasted on it wliieh have been cut from 
 various ])ublications of the last century, a cup- 
 board filled Avith stinking })ooks, spiders, and 
 l)lack dust, a fat arm-chair, an Italian window, 
 a nailed-up door leading to the garden. . . 
 
 ^ That is, male serfs. The women were not iiK-liided in the Re- 
 vision Lists. — Translator. 
 
 - For ijrcjj.irin}^ tlie .samov^ir: the pipes, leading;- to the outer air, 
 being attached to the samovar at need.— Tkanslatou. 
 
 300
 
 TWO l.AXDED PROPRIETOKS 
 
 In a word, everything is as it should be. Mardaiy 
 Apollonitch has a multitude of doinesties, and all 
 are garbed in aneient fashion: in long, blue 
 kaftans, with tall collars, trousers of a muddy 
 eolour, and short, yellowisli waistcoats. They 
 address visitors as: "Dear little father." His 
 farming operations are presided over by a peas- 
 ant bailiff, who has a beard that spreads all over 
 his sheepskin coat; his house, by a wrinkled and 
 stingy old woman, with her head enveloped in 
 a light-brown kerchief. In INIardary Aj)oll6n- 
 itch's stables stand thirty horses, of varied qual- 
 ity; he drives out in a home-made calash, 
 weighing one hundred and fifty puds.' He re- 
 ceives visitors very cordially, and entertains 
 them gloriously, — that is to say, thanks to the stu- 
 pefying properties of Russian cookery, he de- 
 prives them of all possibility of occupying them- 
 selves with anything but preference until close 
 on nightfall. But he himself never occupies 
 himself with anything whatsoever, and has even 
 ceased to j^eruse the " Dream-book." But there 
 are still a good many landed proprietors of that 
 sort, among us in Russia — the question is: To 
 what end have I begun to speak about him, 
 and why? .... So now, permit me, in lieu of 
 a reply, to tell you the story of one of my visits 
 to jMardary Apollonitch. 
 
 I arrived at his house in summer, about seven 
 
 'A pud is a littk- over Uiliiy->i\ pouiuls. — Translator. 
 
 301
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 o'clock in the evening. Tlie Vigil service had 
 just ended, ^ and tlie priest, evidently a very timid 
 young man, who had not been long out of the 
 theological seminary, was sitting in the drawing- 
 room, near the d(K)r, on the very edge of a chair. 
 iSIardary Apollonitch received me very affec- 
 tionately, according to his w'ont: he sincerely re- 
 joiced over every guest, and, in general, he was 
 a very kind-hearted man. The priest rose, and 
 picked up his hat. 
 
 " Wait, wait, batiushka," " said ^lardary 
 Apollonitch, without releasing my hand. — 
 " Don't go. . I have ordered them to bring thee 
 some vodka." 
 
 " I don't drink, sir," — mvu'mured the priest 
 in confusion, and flushed scarlet to his very 
 ears. 
 
 " What nonsense ! " — replied JNIardary Apol- 
 lonitch: — " JNIishka! Yushka! vodka for the 
 batiushka ! " 
 
 Yushka, a tall, thin old man of eighty years, 
 entered with a wane-glass of vodka on a dark- 
 painted tray Variegated with spots of flesh- 
 colour. 
 
 The priest began to refuse. 
 
 ' The All-Night Vigil, consisting of Vespers (or Compline) and 
 Matins, which is obligatory before the celebration of the morning 
 Liturgy, may be read in an unconsecrated l)ui]ding, even by a 
 layman, and is not mfrcquently requested by the devout. — Trans- 
 lator. 
 
 '"Dear little father": the form of address for ecclesiastics, in 
 particular. — Translator. 
 
 302
 
 TWO T.AXDED ruorui K/rous 
 
 " Drink, bdliiislika, don't put on airs, il is n't 
 nice," — remarked the squire, reprovingly. 
 
 The poor young man obeyed. 
 
 " Well, noNv thou mayest go, batiushka." 
 
 The priest began to bow liis farewell. 
 
 " Come, very good, very good, go along. . . . 
 A very fine man," — went on JNIardary iVpoUo- 
 nitcli, glancing after him: — "I'm very well 
 satisfied with him, only — he 's young yet. 15ut 
 how about you, mv dear fellow V .... How are 
 you? ^vhat liave you been doing with yourself? 
 Let 's go out on the balcony — just see what a 
 magnificent evening it is." 
 
 We went out on the balcony, sat down, and 
 began to chat. Mardary ApoUonitch glanced 
 down, and suddenly became frightfully agitated. 
 
 "Whose hens are those? whose hens are 
 those?" — he began to shout: — "whose hens are 
 those running in the garden? .... Yi'ishka! 
 Yiishka! go, find out instantly whose hens those 
 are running in the garden! — Whose hens are 
 those? How many times have I forbidden it — 
 how many times have I spoken about that? " 
 
 Off rushed Yushka. 
 
 " What disorder! " jNIardary ApoUonitch kept 
 reiterating: — " 't is frightful! " 
 
 The unlucky hens, as I now recall the circum- 
 stances, two speckled and one white with a crest, 
 
 ' Bdtkishka, in adclrt'ssing social equals, has this 
 sense. — riiAxsLATon. 
 
 303
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 continued to stalk about ^ erv quieth^ under the 
 apple-trees, now and then giving vent to their 
 feelings by a prolonged cackling, when sud- 
 denly Yushka, hatless and stick in hand, and 
 three other adult house-serfs, all fell upon them 
 energetically and in unison. The fun began. 
 The hens shrieked, flapped their wings, cackled 
 deafeningly; the house-serfs rushed about, stum- 
 bled, and fell; the master, from the balcony, 
 yelled like a fanatic: " Catch, catch, catch, catch 
 them! catch, catch, catch them! . . . Whose hens 
 are those — whose hens are those?" 
 
 At last, one of the men succeeded in seizing 
 the crested hen and squeezing her throat to the 
 ground, and, at the same moment, over the hedge 
 of the garden leaped a little girl of eleven years, 
 all dishevelled and with a switch in her hand. 
 
 " Hey, so that 's the owner of the hens! " ex- 
 claimed the squire, triumphantly: — " Ermil the 
 coachman's hens! There, he has sent his Xatalka 
 to drive them home — I wonder why he did n't 
 send Parasha," — added the squire in an un- 
 dertone, and grinned significantly. — -" Hey, 
 Yushka! drop those hens: catch Xatalka for 
 me." 
 
 But before the panting Yushka could over- 
 take the frightened little maid, the housekeeper 
 made her appearance from somewhere or other, 
 grasped her by the arm, and slapped her several 
 times on the back. 
 
 304
 
 TWO LANDED PROI'RIKIOUS 
 
 " That 's right, that 's right," — chimed in the 
 squire, — " te, te, te! te, te, te! — But take the hens 
 away from her, Avdotya," — lie added in a loud 
 voice, and, turning to me with a radiant counte- 
 nance: — "What a hunt, wasn't it, my dear fel- 
 low, hey? — Just look, I 'm all in a ]:)erspira- 
 tion. 
 
 And INIardary ApoUonitch burst out laughing. 
 
 We remained on the balcon^^ The evening 
 really was extremely fine. 
 
 Tea was served. 
 
 " Pray tell me," — I began, — " INIardary Apol- 
 lonitch: are those your homesteads transplanted 
 over yonder, on the highway, beyond the ra- 
 vinef 
 
 "Yes— why?" 
 
 " How could you do such a thing, INIardary 
 ApoUonitch? Why, that's a sin. The peasants 
 have been assigned to wretched, cramped little 
 huts ; there is n't a single tree to be seen all 
 around ; there 's not even a pond ; there is only 
 one well, and that is good for nothing. Is it pos- 
 sible that you could find no other spot? — And 't is 
 said that you have even deprived them of their 
 old hemp-patches?" 
 
 " But what is one to do with the boundary- 
 survey?" replied jNIardary ApoUonitch. "This 
 is where the survey sits with me." (He pointed 
 to the nape of his neck.) "And I foresee no 
 profit whatever from that survey. And as for 
 
 30.5
 
 mk:moirs of a sports.aiax 
 
 my having dejirived them of their hemp-patches 
 and ponds, or not having dug any there, — why, 
 mv dear fellow, 1 know my own business. I 'm 
 a simple man, — I proceed in the good old way. 
 In my opinion, if one is a gentleman — why, let 
 him be a gentleman ; if he 's a peasant — then let 
 him be a peasant. — So there you have it." 
 
 Of course, it was impossible to make any an- 
 swer to such a clear and convincing evasion. 
 
 "And besides," — he went on: — "they are 
 bad, disgraced peasants. There are two families 
 there, in particular: my late father, even, — God 
 grant him the kingdom of heaven! — did not fa- 
 vour them, was very far from favouring them. 
 And I take this as a sign, I must tell you: if the 
 father is a thief, the son is a thief also; you may 
 say what you like — oh, blood, blood is a great 
 thing! " 
 
 In the meantime the air had become perfectly 
 quiet. Only now and then did the breeze blow 
 in gusts, and, as it died down, for the last time, 
 around the house, it wafted to our ears measured 
 blows which followed one another quickly, re- 
 sounding from the direction of the stables. JNIar- 
 dary Apollonitch had only just raised his saucer 
 of tea to his lips, and was already inflating his 
 nostrils, without which, as every one knows, not 
 a single genuine primitive Russian imbibes tea, 
 — but he i^aused, listened, nodded his head, took 
 a sip, and setting the saucer on the table, he ar- 
 
 30G
 
 TWO LANDED PUOrUlKTOKS 
 
 ticiilated, with tlic most good-natured of smiles, 
 and as though iiivohmtarily kee])ing time to the 
 hlows: " Teliiuki-tehiuki-tehiuk! tehiuki-tchiuk! 
 tchiiiki-tehiuk ! " 
 
 " What 's that? "- — 1 asked in amazement. 
 
 " Why, by my orders, that misehievous mon- 
 key is being whipped yonder. — Do you know 
 Vasya the butler? " 
 
 "What Vasya?" 
 
 " Why, the one who waited on us at dinner 
 a little while ago. The one who wears such huge 
 side-whiskers." 
 
 The fiercest wrath could not have withstood 
 the clear and gentle gaze of jNIardary Apollo- 
 nitch. 
 
 " What do you mean, young man, what do 
 you mean?" — he said, shaking his head. "Am 
 I a malefactor, I 'd like to know, that you stare 
 at me like that ? Whom he loveth, he chasteneth : 
 you know that yourself." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later I bade JNIardary 
 Apollonitcli farewell. As I drove through the 
 village, I caught sight of Vasya the butler. He 
 was walking along the street, nibbling nuts. I 
 ordered my coachman to stop the horses, and 
 called him to me. 
 
 " Well, brothc]*, so they have been flogging 
 thee to-day? " — I asked him. 
 
 " And how do you know? " — answered Vasya. 
 
 " Thy master told me." 
 
 307
 
 ME:M0IKS OP" A SPORTSMAX 
 
 "The jiiastcr liiiiiself?" 
 
 " What did lie order thee to be whipped for? " 
 
 *' I deserved it, dear httle father, I deserved 
 it. We are not whipped for trifles ; that 's not 
 the enstom with us — naw, naw. Our master is 
 not that sort of a man; our master — why, j^ou 
 could n"t find such another master in the whole 
 government." 
 
 "Drive on!" — I said to my coachman. 
 "Here's ancient Russia for you!" — I said to 
 myself, on my homeward journey. 
 
 308
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 (1852)
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGF 
 
 1 Lebedyan 3 
 
 II Tatyana Borisovna and her Nephew .... 25 
 
 III Death 47 
 
 IV The Singers 69 
 
 V PioTR Petrovitch Karataeff ...... 102 
 
 VI The Tryst 129 
 
 VII Hamlet of Shshtchi'gry County 146 
 
 VIII Tchertopkhanoff and Nedopiuskin , . . .191 
 
 IX The End of Tchertopkhanoff 224 
 
 X Living Holy Relics 285 
 
 XI The Rattling SIO 
 
 Epilogue: Forest and Steppe 336
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 LEBEDYAN * 
 
 OXE of the chief advantages of hunting, my 
 dear readers, consists in this — that it forces 
 you to go about constantly from place to place, 
 which is extremely agreeable for an unoccupied 
 man. In sootli, it is not always a very cheerful 
 matter, especially in rainy weather, to roam about 
 on the country roads, to go " cross-country," to 
 stop any peasant you may meet with the ques- 
 tion: " Hey there, my good fellow! how can we 
 get to Mordovka? " and in Mordovka inquire of 
 a dull-witted peasant wife (for the labourers are 
 all in the fields) whether it is far to the posting- 
 stations on the highway, and how one is to reach 
 them, — and, after having traversed ten versts, in- 
 stead of a posting-house, to find one's self in the 
 extremely dilapidated little manorial hamlet of 
 Khudobubnovo, to the intense surprise of a whole 
 herd of swine, buried to tlieir ears in tlie dark- 
 
 ^ I.ebedyan is the capital of the Government of Tamboff, and is 
 celebrated for its horse-fair, to which cavniiy remount-officers resort 
 to purchase horses. — Translatoii. 
 
 3
 
 ME.AIOJKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 brown mud in the very middle of the street, and 
 not at all expecting to be disturbed. Xeitlier is it 
 exhilarating to cross (juaking little ])ridges, de- 
 scend into ravines, and ford swampy brooks; it is 
 not exhilarating to drive — for \\ hole days to drive 
 along the greenish sea of the highways, or, which 
 God forbid, to get bemired for several hours in 
 front of a striped mile-post with the figures " 22 " 
 on one side and " 23 " on the other; it is not ex- 
 liilarating to subsist for weeks on eggs, milk, and 
 the vaunted sour rye bread. . . . But all these 
 discomforts and misadventures are redeemed by 
 another sort of benefits and pleasures. However, 
 let us begin the story. 
 
 After all that has been said above, there is no 
 necessity for my explaining to the reader, how I 
 happened to come upon Lebedyan, five years 
 ago, at the very height of the annual fair.^ We 
 sportsmen may drive forth, some fine morning, 
 from our more or less hereditary estates, with the 
 intention of returning by the evening of the fol- 
 lowing day, and, little by little, without ceasing 
 to shoot woodcock, finally arrive on the blessed 
 shores of the Petchora River. JNIoreover, every 
 one who is fond of dog and gun is a passionate 
 respecter of the most noble animal in the world 
 — the horse. Thus, T arrived at I..ebedyan, ])ut 
 up at the inn, changed my clothes, and set out 
 
 * There are innumerable aiiniiMl fnirs in Russia, in the govern- 
 ments and districts. — Translator.
 
 LEBEDYAN 
 
 for the i'uir. (The waitci-, a loii^- and ^aiint 
 young- i'cllow, of twenty years, witli a sweet, 
 nasal tenor voiee, had aheady contrived to im- 
 part to me, that Their ' Illustrious Highness, 
 Prince N., remount-ollicei- of the * * * regiment, 
 was stopping at our inn; that many other gen- 
 tlemen had arrived; that the gipsies sang in the 
 evenings, and that " Pan Tvardovsky " - was 
 being played in the theatre; that horses, 'twas 
 said, were selling for high prices, — and good 
 horses had been brought to the fair.) 
 
 On the fair-ground, in interminable rows, 
 stretched peasant carts, and behind the carts 
 were horses of all possible sorts: trotters, stud- 
 farm horses, J)iiiuk'i '' draught-horses, ])osting- 
 horses, and ])lain peasant-horses. Some, well- 
 fed and smooth, assorted according to colour, 
 covered with horse-cloths of varied hues, hitched 
 short to a high rack, w^ere appit'hensively rolling 
 their eyes backward at the too familiar whips of 
 their owners, the horse-dealers; the horses of 
 landed proprietors, sent by noblemen of the 
 steppes one or two hundred vei'sts away, under 
 the supervision of some decrepit coachman and 
 two or three hard-headed grooms, were flour- 
 ishing their long necks, stamping their hoofs, and 
 gnawing the posts out of boredom; roan Vyatka 
 
 "The respectful form for His. — Tr vvsi.ATori. 
 ^The dramatisation of a novel of tliat title, published (1859) 
 by Jos])eh Ignatius Kras(;'e\vsky (181:2-1887). — Translator. 
 ^ Sec note on p. 101, Vol. I. 
 
 5
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 Iiorses pressed close to one another; in majestic 
 inini()l)ilitv, like lions, stood the broad-liaunclied 
 trotters with waving tails and shaggy pasterns, 
 dapple-grey, black, and brown. Experts pansed 
 respectfully in front of them. In the streets 
 formed by the carts, i)eople of all sorts of classes, 
 stature, and aspect thronged: the horse-dealers, 
 in blue kaftans and tall caps, craftily watched 
 and waited for purchasers; goggle-eyed, curly- 
 haired gipsies darted to and fro like madmen, in- 
 spected the horses' teeth, lifted their feet and 
 tails, shouted, Avrangled, served as go-betweens, 
 cast lots, or fawned upon some remount-officer 
 in military cap and cloak with beaver collar. A 
 stalwart kazak towered up astride of a lank 
 gelding with a deer-neck and sold it, " in one 
 lot," that is to say, witli saddle and bridle. 
 Peasants, in sheepskin coats tattered under the 
 armpits, descended by tens on a cart, drawn by 
 a horse which must be " tried," or, somewhere 
 apart, with the aid of a cunning gipsy, they bar- 
 gained until they were worn out, struck hands 
 on the deal a hundred times in succession, each 
 insisting on his own price, while the object of 
 their dispute, a ^^•retche(l little nag covered with 
 a shrunken rug, merely blinked its eyes, as 
 though the matter did not concern it. . . . And, 
 in fact, was it not all the same to it who would 
 beat it! Broad-browed landed proprietors with 
 dyed moustaches, and an expression of dignity 
 
 6
 
 LEBEDYAN 
 
 on tlieir faces, in braided jackets and canielot 
 peasant-coats, worn with an arm in one sleeve, 
 condescendin^iy conversed with })ot-helh*ed mer- 
 chants in beaver Iiats and green ghnes. Officers 
 of varions regiments were discnssing matters 
 tliere also; a remarkably tall cuirassier, of (Ger- 
 man extraction, was coolly asking a horse-dealer 
 how much he expected to get foi- that sorrel 
 horse. A fair-haired young hussar, nineteen 
 years of age, was picking out a trace horse to go 
 with an emaciated pacer; a postilion, in a low- 
 crowned hat, surrounded with peacock feathers, 
 in a bro\vn long-coat, and with leather mittens 
 thrust into his narrow, greenish belt, was looking 
 for a shaft-horse for a troika. The coachmen 
 plaited their horses' tails, dampened their manes, 
 and gave deferential advice to their masters. On 
 concluding the trade, they hastened to the eating- 
 tavern or the dram-shop, according to their 
 means. . . . And all this uproar, shouting, 
 bustle, wrangling, reconciliations, cursing, and 
 laughter was going on in mud knee-deep. I 
 wanted to buy a troika of fairly good horses, for 
 my britchka: mine were beginning to shirk their 
 work. I found two, but could not manage to 
 match them with a third. After dinner, which 
 I will not undertake to describe (even iEneas 
 knew how unpleasant it is to recall bygone woe), 
 I set out for the so-called coffee-house, where 
 every evening the remount-officers, stud-farm 
 
 7
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 men, and otlier visitors ^vere wont to assemble. 
 In the l)illiar(l-room, drowned in floods of 
 leaden-hiied tobacco-smoke, were abont a score 
 of men. There were free-and-easy young landed 
 proprietors in braided luissar- jackets and grey 
 trousers, with long mutton-chop whiskers and 
 })omade(l moustaches, gazing loftily and boldly 
 about ; other nobles in kazak coats, with remarka- 
 bly short necks and little eyes swimming in fat, 
 were painfully snoring away there also; the mer- 
 chants sat apart, " pricking up their ears," as the 
 saying is; the officers chatted freely among 
 themselves. Prince N., a young man of five and 
 twentv, with a merrv and somewhat scornfvd 
 face, clad in a coat thrown open on the breast, a 
 red silk shirt, and full velvet trousers, was play- 
 ing billiards; he was playing with Viktor Khlo- 
 pakofF*, a retired lieutenant. 
 
 Ex-Lieutenant Viktor Khlopakoff, a thin and 
 swarthy little man of thirty j'ears, Mith thin, 
 black hair, brown eyes, and a short, tip-tilted 
 snub-nose, is a diligent attendant upon elections 
 and fairs. He skips as he walks, sets his arms 
 akimbo swaggeringly, wears his cap on one ear, 
 and turns up tlie sleeves of his military coat, 
 lined with bluish calico. Mr. Khlopakoff under- 
 stands how to curry favour with the wealthy 
 Petersburg rakes, smokes, drinks, and plays 
 cards with them, and addresses them as " thou." 
 Why they favour him is a good deal of a puzzle. 
 
 8
 
 LET3E1)YAN 
 
 He is not clever, he is not even anuising; neither 
 is he iisefnl as a Ijuft'oon. To tell tlie truth, tht'v 
 treat liini in an aniieahly-careless wav, hke a 
 good-natured l)ut enipty-pated fellow; they 
 haunt his society for the space of two or three 
 weeks, and then suddenly cease even to how to 
 him, and he, also, no longer bows to them. A 
 peculiarity of lieutenant Khlopakoff consists in 
 this: that he uses one and the same expression 
 constantly for the period of a year, sometimes 
 two years, appropriately and inappropriately, 
 an expression not in the least amusing, hut 
 which, God knows wdiy, sets every one to laugh- 
 ing. Eight years ago, he used to say, at every 
 step, " JNIy respects to you, I thank you most 
 humbly," and his patrons of that epoch fairly ex- 
 pired with laughter every time and made him re- 
 l)eat, " ^ly respects " ; then he began to use a 
 rather complicated expression, " No, now you 
 know, keskese — that proves proved," and with 
 the same dazzling success; two years later, he in- 
 vented a new quaint saying, " Ne vous gonjai- 
 chez ^ pas, you man of (iod, sewn up in a 
 sheepskin," and so forth. ^Vnd lo! as you see, 
 his far from ingenious little remarks supply him 
 with food, drink, and apparel. (He has long- 
 ago squandered his property, and lives exclu- 
 sively at the expense of his friends.) Observe, 
 that he possesses positively no other amiable 
 
 ^ OoryatchitDi/a, to get heated, angry. — Thanslatob. 
 
 9
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 characteristics: 'tis true, tliat lie will smoke a 
 hundred pipes of Zln'ikoff ' tobacco a day, and, 
 when playin«>' billiards, he raises his right foot 
 higher than his head, and as he takes aim, wrig- 
 gles his cue violently in his hand; — well, but not 
 every one is an admirer of such merits. He is 
 a good drinker, also .... but it is difficult to 
 distinguish one's self in Russia by that means. . . . 
 In a word, his success is a complete mystery to 
 me. . . . There may be one reason for it, per- 
 haps: he is cautious, never tells tales out of 
 school, never utters a bad word about anybody. 
 
 " Come," — I thought, at sight of Khlopakoff : 
 — " what 's his catchword at present? " 
 
 The Prince pocketed the w^hite. 
 
 " Thirty and nothing," roared the consumptive 
 marker. 
 
 The Prince drove the yelloAV ball into the i'ur- 
 thest pocket with a crash. 
 
 " Ekh!" approvingly grunted, with his whole 
 body, a fat merchant, who sat in one corner at a 
 tottering little table on a single leg, — grunted 
 and quailed. But, luckily, no one noticed him. 
 He sighed and stroked his beard. 
 
 "Thirtv-six and verv little!"- shouted the 
 marker through his nose. 
 
 ' Equivalent to " navy-plup: " — tlie coarsest sort of tobacco. — 
 Thaxsi.ator. 
 
 "The game alluded to is a game witii five balls. It is a fasliion- 
 able fad for the marker to say, instead of " tliirty and nothing," 
 "tliirty and very little," even substituting "nobody" for "no- 
 thing." — Tkanslatok. 
 
 10
 
 LKHKDVAX 
 
 " Well, what do yon lliiiik of thai, hrollicr:' " 
 the Prince asked Klilopakolf. 
 
 " Wliy, of course, rrrrakaliooon, a ic^iilar 
 rrnakalioooii! " ' 
 
 Tlic l*rincc huist out lau^l»ing. 
 
 " \\'hat, what *s that^ say it again! " 
 
 " Hrnakaiioon! " repeated the ex-heutenant, 
 conceitedly. 
 
 " That ^'s the word! " I thouolit. 
 
 The Prince pocketed tlie red. 
 
 "Kkh! that's wron<4-. Prince, tliat 's wrong," 
 — suddenly stammered the fair-haired young 
 officer with the reddened eyes, the tiny nose, and 
 the childishly sleepy face. ..." ^^ou don't play 
 right .... you ought to haye .... that 's 
 wrong! " 
 
 "How so?" asked the Prince oyer his 
 shouldei'. 
 
 " Vou ought to haye .... you know .... 
 witli a triplet. . . ." 
 
 "Really?' muttered the Prince through his 
 teeth. 
 
 " ^Vell, Prince, shall we go to the gipsies to- 
 day? " put in the emharrassed young man. 
 " vStyoshka is going to sing. . . . lliushka . . . ." 
 
 The Prince did not answer him. 
 
 " Rrrrakaliooon, my good fellow," said Khlo- 
 pakoff, cunningly screwing up liis left eye. 
 
 ' Rakalii/d means n scainji or ^ood-for-iiotliiiifr. Rut it lias no 
 ajjpariiit coiiiiection with tliis nonsnisc- -Thansi.atok. 
 
 11
 
 ME.MOIUS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 And the Prince Inirst into a roar of laiigliter. 
 
 " Thirty-nine and nothing," proclaimed the 
 marker. 
 
 " All .... just look now, what I 'm going 
 to do witli tliat yellow . . . ." Khlopakoff 
 wriaaled the cue in his hand, took aim, and 
 missed. 
 
 " Eh, rrakahoon," he sliouted wrathfully. 
 
 Again the Prince laughed. 
 
 "What, wliat, what?" 
 
 But Khlopakoff did not wish to repeat his 
 word : one must cocpiet a hit. 
 
 " You have made a miscue," — remarked the 
 scorer. — " Please to chalk .... Forty and very 
 little!" 
 
 " Yes, gentlemen," said the Prince, turning to 
 the Avhole assembly, but not looking at any one 
 in particular: — "you know, we must call out 
 Verzhembitzkaya." 
 
 " Of course, of course, without fail," several 
 visitors vied with eacli other in exclaiming, being 
 wonderfully flattered by the possibiHty of reply- 
 ing to the remark of a Prince: — " Verzhembitz- 
 kaya. . . ." 
 
 " Verzhembitzkaya is a capital actress, — far 
 better tlian Sopnyakova," scpieaked a rascally- 
 looking man, with moustache and spectacles, 
 from one corner. Unhappy man! in secret he 
 was sighing violently for Mme. Soi)nyak6fF, but 
 the Prince did not deign even to look at him. 
 
 12
 
 LEEEDVAN 
 
 " Wai-er, hey, a pipe," said a tall man in a 
 stock, with a regular face, and the most nohle of 
 miens, — hut yet hy all the signs, a ear(l-shar])er. 
 
 The waiter ran for a l)ipe, and on his retm-n 
 announced to His Illustrious Iligimess: " Posi- 
 tilion l^akhiga is asking for you, sir." 
 
 "Ah! well, order him to wait, and give him 
 some vodka." 
 
 " Verj' good, sir." 
 
 Baklaga (The Flask) , as I was afterward told, 
 was the nickname of a young, handsome, and ex- 
 tremely petted postilion ; the Prince was fond of 
 him, gave him liorses, di'ove races with him, spent 
 whole nights witli him. . . . You would not rec- 
 ognise that Prince — formerly a scapegrace and a 
 spendthrift — now. . . . How puffed up, tight- 
 laced, and perfumed lie is! How engrossed in 
 the service, — and, chief of all, how soher- 
 minded ! 
 
 But the tohacco-smoke hegan to irritate my 
 eyes. After listening to KhlopakofF's exclama- 
 tion and the Prince's shout of laughter, for the 
 last time, I betook myself to my chamber, where, 
 on a narrow divan, with broken springs, covered 
 with horse-hair, and with a tall, curved back, my 
 man had already made up my bed. 
 
 On the following day I ins])ected the horses 
 in the yards, and began with tlie well-known 
 horse-dealer Sitnikoff. Tln-ough a wicket 1 en- 
 tered a coiu'tyard sprinkled with sand. In front 
 
 13
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 of the wide-open door of the stable stood the 
 proprietor himself, a man no longer young, tall 
 and st(jut, in a short-eoat of peasant shape, 
 lined with liareskin, and with a standing collar 
 turned down. On perceiving me, he slowly 
 moved to meet me, held his cap above his 
 head with both hands, and said, in a singsong 
 tone: 
 
 " Ah, our respects to yon. I su])pose yon 
 want to look at horses? " 
 
 " Yes, I came to look at horses." 
 
 " And what sort; exactly, may I venture to 
 inquire? " 
 
 " Show me what you have." 
 
 " With pleasure." 
 
 We entered the stable. Several white curs 
 rose from the hay, and ran to us, wagging their 
 tails ; a long-bearded goat stalked off to one side, 
 in displeasure; three grooms, in strong but dirty 
 sheepskin coats, bowed to us in silence. On the 
 right and the left, in cleverly i-aised stalls, stood 
 about thirty horses, splendidly groomed and 
 cleaned. Pigeons w^ere hopping along the cross- 
 beams and cooing. 
 
 " For what, that is to say, do you recjuire the 
 horse: for driving or the stud-farm? " — SitnikofF 
 asked me. 
 
 " Both for driving and for the stud." 
 
 " I understand, sir, 1 understand, sir, I under- 
 
 14
 
 LEBEDYAN 
 
 stand, sir," articulatccl tlic horse-dealer, pausin*;' 
 between liis words. — " Petya, show tlie gentle- 
 man Ermine." 
 
 We went ont into the yard. 
 
 " Would n't you like to have a beneh brought 
 out from the house? .... You don't want it? 
 .... As you please." 
 
 Hoofs thundered over planks, a whip cracked, 
 and Petya, a man of forty years, pockmarked 
 and swarthy, sprang forth from the stable, in 
 company with a grey and fairly well-made stal- 
 lion, allowed him to rear uj), ran with him a 
 couple of times round the yard, and cleverly 
 pulled him up at the show spot. Ermine 
 stretched himself out, snorted with a whistling- 
 sound, flirted his tail, twitched his muzzle, and 
 gazed askance at us. 
 
 " A well-trained l)ird! " thought I. 
 
 " Give him his head, give him his head," said 
 SitnikofF and fixed his eyes on me. 
 
 " What do you think of him, sir? " — he asked, 
 at last. 
 
 " He is n't a bad horse — his fore legs are not 
 sound." 
 
 " His legs are splendid! " — returned Sitnikoff, 
 with conviction. — " And his loins .... be so 
 good as to look .... a regular oven; you might 
 even sleep your fill on them." 
 
 " His cannon-bones are long." 
 
 15
 
 MEMOIKS OF A SPOKTS^MAX 
 
 " AMiat do you call long — good gracious! 
 Run, Petya, run, and at a trot, trot, trot .... 
 don't let liini gallop." 
 
 Again Petya ran round tlie yard with Ermine. 
 We all maintained silence. 
 
 " Well, put him back in his phice," said Sitni- 
 kofF: — ^" and bring out Falcon." 
 
 Falcon, a stallion bhick as a beetle, of Dutch 
 pedigree, with a sloping back, and lean, proved 
 to be little better than Ermine. lie belonged to 
 the category of horses of w^hich sjiortsmen say 
 that " tliey hack and cut and take prisoner," — 
 that is to say, in action tliey turn out and fling 
 out their fore legs to the right and left, but make 
 little headway.' JMiddle-aged merchants ad- 
 mire that sort of horses: their gait is suggestive 
 of the dashing pace of an alert waiter; they are 
 good in single harness, for a drive after dinner; 
 stepping out cock-a-hoop, curving their necks, 
 they zealously drag the clumsy drozhky, laden 
 with a coachman who has eaten liimself into a 
 state of numbness, and a squeezed merchant '■ 
 suffering from heart-burn, and a lymphatic mer- 
 chant's wife, in a sky-blue silk sleeved coat, and 
 
 ^Dishing, in J'higli.sh. — Translator. 
 
 ^ The smaller the drozhky, the more popular and stylish it is. 
 If the passengers bulge over, and the eoacliman, through his own 
 admired fat and the tightness of the drozhky, lias to straddle the 
 dashboard with his knees, and keep his feet on iron supports out- 
 side, the heiglit of fashion and hajijiiness is assured. If not 
 fat enough naturally, eusliions are added to secure the " broad 
 seat" which Russians consider stylish and safe. — Translator. 
 
 16
 
 LEBEDVAX 
 
 with a lilac kerchief on her head.' I declined 
 Falcon. SitnikoiV showed nie several other 
 horses. . . . At last one, a dappled-grey stallion, 
 of \'oieikoff hreed, pleased nie. I could not re- 
 frain from patting liim on the i'orelock with 
 pleasure. SitnikofF immediately feigned indif- 
 ference. 
 
 " Does he drive well? " — I inquired. (The 
 word " go " is not used of trotters.) 
 
 " Yes," — replied the horse-dealer, calmly. 
 
 " Cannot I see him? " . . . . 
 
 " Why not? — certainly, sir. Ilej', there, 
 Kuzya, put Overtaker in a drozhky." 
 
 Kuzya, the jockey, a master of his business, 
 drove past us three times along the street. The 
 horse went well, did not break, did not sway, his 
 action was free, he held his tail up and stepped 
 out firmly, with a long, regular stride. 
 
 " And what do you ask for him? " 
 
 Sitnikoff mentioned a preposterous price. 
 We had begun to chaffer there, in the street, 
 when, suddenly, from round the corner thun- 
 dered swiftly a splendidly matched posting- 
 troika, and drew up in dashing fashion in front 
 of the gate to Sitnikoff's house. In the dandi- 
 fied sporting-cart sat Prince X.; beside him 
 towered Khlopakoff. The Flask was driving, — 
 
 ' Old-fashioned women of the nurciiant class, no matter how 
 wealthy they may be, still wear no lionnets, but merely a silk ker- 
 chief on the head. — TnANSt.ATon. 
 
 17
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMxVX 
 
 and how lie drove! he could have got through an 
 earring, the rascal ! The hrown side-horses, small, 
 vivacious, hlack-eyed, lilack-legged, were fairly 
 on fire, fairly gathered themselves together with 
 nen^ous tension; if one had whistled, they would 
 have vanislied like a shot. The dark -bay shaft- 
 horse stood firmly, with his neck curved like a 
 swan's, his chest thrown forward, his legs hke 
 arrows; he shook his head and proudly screwed 
 up his eyes. — Good ! 'T was like some one taking 
 a drive on the bright festival (Easter). 
 
 " Your Illustrious Ilighness! Deign to fa- 
 vour us! " cried SitnikofF. 
 
 The Prince sprang from his cart. Khlopa- 
 koff slowly alighted on the other side. 
 
 " Good morning, brother. . . . Have you any 
 horses? " 
 
 " Of course I have for Your Illustrious High- 
 ness. Be pleased to enter.- — Petya, bring out 
 Peacock, — and let Meritorious be made ready. 
 And you and I, dear little father," — he con- 
 tinued, addressing me : — " will settle our busi- 
 ness another time. . . . Fomka, a bench for His 
 Illustrious Highness." 
 
 Peacock was led out from a special stable, 
 which I had not noticed before. The powerful 
 dark-brown horse fairly reared with all four feet 
 in the air. SitnikofF even turned his head away 
 and narrowed his eyes. 
 
 "Ugh, rrakalion!" — proclaimed KhlopakofF. 
 — " Zhemsa " (J'aime^a). 
 
 18
 
 I.EBEDVAN 
 
 The Prince laughed. 
 
 lY^acock was halted with difHculty: he fairly 
 dragged the stablemen round the yard; at hist 
 they pressed him against the wall, lie snorted, 
 quivered, and gathered himself together, hut 
 Sitnikoff still teased him, flourishing a whip at 
 him. 
 
 " Where art thou staring? 1 11 give it to thee! 
 ugh!" said the horse-dealer, with affectionate 
 menace, himself involuntarily admiring his 
 horse. 
 
 " How much? " — asked the Prince. 
 
 " For Your Illustrious Highness, five thou- 
 sand." 
 
 " Three." 
 
 " Can't be done, Your Illustrious Highness, 
 upon my word — " 
 
 " You 've been told three, rrakalion," put in 
 Khlopakoff. 
 
 I did not wait to see the end of the bargain, 
 and went away. At the extreme end of the 
 street I noticed at the gate of a greyish little 
 house a large sheet of paper pasted up. At the 
 top was a pen-and-ink sketch of a horse, with a 
 tail in the shape of a trumpet and an endless 
 neck, and under the horse's hoofs stood the fol- 
 lowing words, written in old-fashioned script: 
 
 " P'or suk- here, horses of various colours, brought to 
 the Lcbcdvi'iii fair from the well-kiioun st ud-fai-iii dii the 
 steppe of Anastasey Ivanitcli Tchernobay, landed pro- 
 
 19
 
 ME.MOIUS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 prietor of TainbufF. These horses arc of excellent form, 
 perfectly trained, and of gentle disposition. ^Messrs. 
 Buyers will be so good as to ask for Anastasey Ivanitch 
 himself: should Anastasey Ivanitch be absent, then ask 
 for his coachman, Naz;vr Kuln'shkin. We beg the 
 Messrs. Buyers to honour an old man." 
 
 I halted. " Come," I thought, " I '11 take a 
 look at the horses of tlie well-known horse- 
 breeder, ]Mr. Tchernobav." 
 
 I tried to enter the wicket-gate, but, contrary 
 to custom, I found it locked. I knocked. 
 
 "Who's there? .... A buyer?" — piped a 
 feminine voice. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Directly, dear little father, directly." 
 
 The wicket opened. 1 beheld a peasant wo- 
 man about fifty years of age, her hair uncovered, 
 in boots and a sheepskin coat open on the breast. 
 
 " Please to enter, benefactor, and I '11 go at 
 once and announce you to Anastasey Ivanitch. 
 . . . Nazar, hey, Nazar! " 
 
 " What 's wanted? " mumbled the voice of an 
 old man of seventy from the stable. 
 
 " Get the horses ready; a buyer has come." 
 
 The old woman ran into the house. 
 
 " A buyer, a buyer," Nazar growled after her 
 in reply. — " I have n't got all their tails w^ashed 
 yet." 
 
 "Oh, Arkadia!" I thought. 
 
 20
 
 LKHKDVAN 
 
 "Good morning, dcai- little f'ntlirr, I hcg yonr 
 favour."- a succiik-nl and agivcablc xoicr re- 
 sounded hcliind my hack. I glanced lound: in 
 front of me, in a iong-slvirted, blue cloak, stood 
 an old man ol' medium height, with white hair, an 
 amiahle smile, and very handsome hlue eyes. 
 
 " Didst thou want a horse!' Certainly, dear 
 little i'ather, certaiidy. . . . I^ut wilt not thou 
 first come in and drink a cup of tea with me? " 
 
 I dechned, witli thanks. 
 
 " Well, as thou wilt. Thou must excuse me, 
 dear little father: 1 hold to the old-fashioned 
 ways, seest thou?" (Mr. Tehernohay spoke 
 without haste, with a rotund pronunciation of the 
 o.' ) — "Everything ahout me is very sim])le, 
 thou knowest. . . . Xazar, hey, Nazar," — he 
 added in a drawl, and without I'aising his voice. 
 
 Nazar, a wrinkled little old man with a hawk- 
 like nose and a wedge-shaped little heard, made 
 his appearance on the threshold of the stable. 
 
 " \Vhat sort of horses dost thou require, dear 
 little father? " went on Mr. Tehernohay. 
 
 " Some that are not too dear, well broken to 
 harness, for mv kibitka." 
 
 " Very well — 1 have such .... certainly. 
 
 ' I'll less tin- accent wliicli is variaMe Iiapi>eiis to fall on the 
 o, it is pronounced slij:lilin;rly, somewhat lii<e <t. This is tlie new- 
 f angled, fashionable inctiiod. The other for:;; indieates either 
 rusticity, clinjriiiir to old fashions, or that the s|)cak«T helonps to 
 the ecclesiastical class, the o i)eing very rotund in the Old Slavonic, 
 which is always used in the services of the Cliureh. — Thaxslator. 
 
 21
 
 me:sioirs of a sportsman 
 
 . . . Xazar, Xaziir, show the gentleman the 
 grey gelding, the one whieh stands at the end, 
 thou knowest, and the hay with the star,^ — -or no, 
 not that one .... tlie other ha}^ the one of 
 ]5eauty's get, knowest thou?" 
 
 Xa/iir went baek into the stable. 
 
 " And do thou lead them out by their halters," 
 shouted ]Mr. Tchernobay after him. 
 
 " I don't do, dear Ijttle fatlier," he w^ent on, 
 looking me frankly and gently in the face, " as 
 horse-dealers do — confound them! they use gin- 
 ger in various shapes, and salt and malt;' I wash 
 my hands of them completely! — But I have 
 everything aboveboard, without trickery, please 
 to observe." 
 
 The horses were led out. I did not like 
 them. 
 
 " Well, put them in their places, with God's 
 blessing," said Anastasey Ivanitch. " Show us 
 some others." 
 
 Thev showed some others. At last I selected 
 one as cheap as possible. We began to haggle. 
 Mr. Tchernobay did not get heated, he talked so 
 sensibly, with so much pompousness, that I could 
 not help " honouring the old man "; I made a de- 
 posit. 
 
 "Well, now," said Anastasey Ivanitch: — 
 " permit me, in accordance witli ancient custom, 
 to transfer tlie horse to thee from coat-skirt to 
 
 ' Salt and mall fatten a horse \en" quickly. 
 
 22
 
 LKBEDVAX 
 
 coat-skirt Thou wilt thank nie i'oi- it . . . . 
 
 't is a i'rcsh beast, sound as a nut .... without 
 a thiw .... a gen-u-inc horse of the steppe! 
 It will go in any harness." 
 
 He crossed himself, laid the skirt ol' his great 
 cloak on his hand, took the halter and transferred 
 the horse to nie. 
 
 "■ Possess it, with God's blessing, now 
 
 And thou still dost not wish any tea? " 
 
 " No, I 'm greatly obliged to you : it is time I 
 was going home." 
 
 " As thou wilt. . . . And shall my coachman 
 lead the horse after thee now? " 
 
 " Yes, now, if you will permit." 
 
 " Certainly, my dear man, certainly. . . . 
 Vasily, hey, A^asily, go with the gentleman; lead 
 the horse, and receive the money. AVell, good- 
 bye, dear little father, God bless thee." 
 
 " Good-bye, Anastasev Ivanitch." 
 
 My horse was led home. On the following 
 day, it turned out to be foundered and lame. I 
 undertook to harness it: my horse backed, and it 
 was struck with the whip; it began to balk, kick, 
 and lie down. 1 betook myself at once to ]Mr. 
 Tchernobiiy. 1 asked: 
 
 " Is he at home? " 
 
 " He is." 
 
 "What do vou mean bv it?" said I: — "you 
 have sold me a foundered horse." 
 
 " Foundered?— God forbid! " 
 
 23
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SP01{TSMAN 
 
 " And it 's lame to boot, and balks into the 
 bargain." 
 
 " Lame? I know nothing about that; evidently 
 thy coachman has mined it somehow, — but, I, as 
 in the sight of (iod — " 
 
 " By rights, Anastasey Ivanitch, you ought to 
 take it back." 
 
 "No, dear little father, don't be angry: once 
 the horse has left the yard — there 's an end of 
 it. Thou shouldst have looked at it before." 
 
 I understood liow the land lay, submitted to 
 my fate, laughed, and departed. Fortunately, I 
 had not paid so very dear for iny lesson. 
 
 Two days later I drove awav, and after the 
 lapse of a week I passed through Lebedyan on 
 my way home. In the coffee-house I found 
 nearly the same persons as before, and Prince N. 
 at the billiard-table. But the customary change 
 in Mr. Khlopakoff 's fate had already had time to 
 take place. The fair-haired young officer had re- 
 placed him in the Prince's favour. The poor ex- 
 lieutenant made an effort to set off h.is little 
 word once more in my presence, — perchance, 
 thought he, it will please as heretofore, — •l)ut the 
 Prince not only did not smile, he even frowned 
 and shrugged his shoulders. IMr. Khlopakoff 
 drop2)ed his eyes, shrunk together, stole into a 
 corner, and began softly to stuff his pipe 
 full 
 
 24
 
 II 
 
 TATYANA IJOKISOVXA AND IIKR NKPllFAV 
 
 CiivE me your hand, my umlahlc reader, and 
 come with me. The weather is magnificent; tlie 
 May sky is of a soft azure hue; the smooth, 
 young leaves of the willows glisten as thougli 
 they had heen washed; the hroad, level road is 
 all covered with that fine, reddish-hladed grass 
 Avliich the sheep are so fond of nihhling; to right 
 and left, on the long declivities of the slo])ing 
 hills, the green rye is waving gently; the shadows 
 of small cloudlets slip across it in thin s])lotches. 
 In tlie distance forests darkle, ponds ghmmer, 
 villages gleam yellow; larks soar upward hy hun- 
 dreds, warhle, fall headlong downward, and ])erch 
 upon small clods with outstretched necks; daws 
 halt on the highway, stare at you, and cower 
 down to the ground ; they allow you to ])ass, and, 
 giving a couple of hops, fly off to one side; on 
 tlie lieiglit, heyond the ravine, a peasant is 
 ploughing; a piebald colt, witli a stubby tail and 
 dishevelled mane, is running on unsteady legs 
 after its mother; its shrill neiii'hing is audible. 
 We drive into a birch coppice; the strong, fresh 
 odour agreeably oppresses our breatli. Here is 
 
 25
 
 MKMOIKS Ol A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 tlu- iK.iiiMlaiv-lViKr; the coacliiiian desceiuls from 
 his st-at. tlir" li.»rses snort, the side-horses glance 
 an.un.l. the shalt-horse thrts liis tail, and leans 
 
 hi.s head against tiie areh ' the rude 
 
 bars «»|H-n with a s(|neaU. Tlie coachman re- 
 sumes his seat. . . . Drive on! ahead of us is a 
 xiUa^^'e. After passing five homesteads, we turn 
 to the riglit. descend into a Iiollow. and drive on 
 the (him. Beyond the small \nmd, from behind 
 tiie rounded heads of apple-trees and lilac- 
 huslies. a ImuihI rool" u liich lias once been red, with 
 two ehimneys. is visible. The coachman directs 
 liis eourse along the fence to the left; accom- 
 panied hy the iioarse and yelping barks of very 
 aged curs, he drives through the wide-open gate, 
 daslies a<boitly round the spacious yard, past the 
 .stabU-s and cai riage-hoiises, bestows a swagger- 
 ing l)ow ii|)oii the old hou.sekeeper, who is step- 
 ping sidtways o\ er the lofty threshold into the 
 npeji door of tile storehouse, and draws up, at last, 
 in front of the small ])o!-eh of a tiny, dark house, 
 
 with hrigiit windows We are at Tatyana 
 
 Horisovna's. And ydiidci- is she herself, opening 
 
 the hinged paru'. and nodding to us Good 
 
 morning. m;itu.slikal " 
 
 Tatyjina Hoiisovna is a woman about fifty 
 years of age, with large, grey, prominent eyes, 
 a ratlur blunt nose, red cheeks, and a double chin. 
 
 ' 'I In- iiri'li <-oiiiu'<-tiii^' \\\r slijifts. Thansiaiou. 
 ' I.iti-raily. " Dt-ar littlr motlu'r"; an affectionately respectful 
 riKMic <»f nddrfv; fcir any woman, of any class. — Translator. 
 
 2G
 
 TxVTVAXA BOUISOVXA 
 
 Her face breathes forth welcome antl corrliahty. 
 She was nian-ied once, but soon was left a widow. 
 Tatyana Borisovna is an extremely remarkable 
 woman. She resides on her tiny estate, never 
 leaves it, has very little intercourse with lier 
 neighbours, and receives and likes only young 
 people. She was the daughter of very })oor gen- 
 try, and received no education whatever, — that is 
 to say, she does not speak French; she has never 
 even been in INIoscow, — and, despite all these 
 defects, she bears herself so simply and finely, 
 she feels and thinks so freely, she is so little in- 
 fected with the ordinary infirmities of the petty 
 landed proprietress, that, in truth, it is impos- 
 sible not to feel amazed. . . . And, in fact, 
 think of a woman who lives the j''ear round in the 
 country, in the wilds — and does not gossip, does 
 not squeal, does not courtesy, does not get ex- 
 cited, does not choke, does not quiver with curi- 
 osity She's a marvel! She generally 
 
 wears a grey taffeta gown and a white cap with 
 pendent lilac ribbons ; she is fond of good eating, 
 but not to excess; she leaves the preparation of 
 preserves and dried and salted provisions to the 
 housekeeper. " What does she do all day long? " 
 
 you ask "Does she read?" — No, she 
 
 does not read; and, to tell the truth, books are 
 not printed for her benefit. ... If she has no 
 visitors, mv Tatvana Borisovna sits at the win- 
 dow and knits stockings in winter; in summer 
 
 27
 
 M KM OIKS OF A srORTSMxVN 
 
 slR- stn.lls in the -anlc.i. i)laMt.s and waters her 
 llouc IS plavs with the kittens for hours too-ether, 
 
 IVftls tin- pi-cms She oeeupies herself 
 
 verv httlc- with the- h.uisekeeping. But if a guest 
 ttunes, S..MU- young Meighl)our wlioni slie hkes, 
 thtn Tatvana liorisovna hiightens up all over; 
 she givesliini a seat, treats liim to tea, listens to 
 his Ttories, hiughs, pats him on the eheek from 
 time to time, hut she lierself says little: in ca- 
 lamity, in grief, she will eomfort, will give good 
 adviee. llow n»any people have confided to her 
 tiu-ir domestic, their intimate secrets, and have 
 wtpt in lur arms! She will seat herself opposite 
 a guest, lean softly on lier elhows, and gaze into 
 his eyes with so much sympathy, will smile in so 
 friendly a manner, that the thought will, inevi- 
 tahlv. i.ceur to the visitor: "What a splendid 
 woman thou art. Tatyana Borisovna! Come 
 iiou. I 11 tell thee what 1 have on my heart." A 
 man feels at ease and warm in her small, cosy 
 rooms: the weather is always fine in her house, if 
 one mav so ex])ress one's self. A wonderfid wo- 
 man is Tatyiina 15orisovna. hut no one is sur- 
 prised at her: her sound sense, firmness, and free- 
 jjom. lit I- ardent svm])ithv with the woes and 
 joys <♦!' other pe');,le. in a word, all her fine quali- 
 ties seem to ha\e heen horn with her, to liave 
 cost her no lahour or anxiety. ... It is impos- 
 sihle to imagine her otherwise; consequently, 
 there is nothing to thank her for. She is particu- 
 
 28
 
 TATYANA EORISOVNA 
 
 iarly fond of watcliing the games and pranks of 
 young people; she will fold her hands on lier hip, 
 lay her head on one side, screw up her eyes, and 
 sit smiling; then, all of a sudden, she will sigh and 
 
 say: " Akli, you, my children, children! " 
 
 So that you feel like going to her, and taking her 
 hand, and saying to her: " Listen, Tatyana Bori- 
 sovna, 5^ou don't know your own value, for, with 
 all your simplicity and lack of education, you are 
 a remarkahle being! " Her very name has a sort 
 of familiar, cordial ring, one utters it with pleas- 
 ure, it evokes a friendly smile. How many times 
 has it happened to me, for instance, to ask a peas- 
 ant whom I chanced to meet: " How am I to get 
 to Gratchyovko," let us say, " brother? " — "Well, 
 dear little father, do you go first to Vyazovoe, 
 and thence to Tatyana Borisovna's, and from 
 Tatyana Borisovna's any one will point out the 
 way to you." And at the name of Tatyana Bori- 
 sovna the peasant will shake his head in quite a 
 peculiar manner. She keeps only a small staff 
 of servants, in consonance with her means. In 
 the house, the laundry, storeroom, and kitchen 
 are under the charge of the housekeeper, Aga- 
 fya, formerly her nurse, an extremely good- 
 hearted, tearful, and toothless creature; two 
 buxom maids, with strong, purplish-red cheeks, 
 after the pattern of Antonoff (winter) apples, 
 are under her orders. The duties of valet, butler, 
 and pantry-man are discharged by Polikarp, p 
 
 29
 
 Ml. Mollis C)l' A srOUTSMAN 
 
 siTvaiit (>r scvtiity ytars, a remarkably eccentric 
 Itt-rsuu. a UL-ll-rcad man. a iormer violinist and 
 W(ir>liii)i)cr of Viotti. a personal foe of Xapo- 
 Kmhi. itr. as lie says, of ' H()nai)arlishka," ' and a 
 passionate adorer of ni^litinoales. He always 
 keejjs five or six of them in his room; early in the 
 ^prin^^ he sits lieside their eat>es for whole days 
 at a tinu-. awaiting- tlieir first "warble"; and 
 when it comes lie covers his face with his hands 
 and moans: " Okh, 'tis j)itifnl, pitiful! "—and 
 heiriiis to weep as thou<ih his heart would break. 
 lN)lik;ir|)'s orandson. A'asya, a lad of twelve 
 years, eiiily-iiaired and keen-eyed, is appointed 
 to assist him: Polikarp loves him unboundedly, 
 and «rninil)les at him from morning until night. 
 But he I'usies himself with his education. — 
 " Vasya." he says, "tell me: is Bonapartishka 
 a brigand:' " — "What wilt thou give, daddy?" 
 — " What will 1 give!* ... 1 won't give thee 
 anything . . \Vh() art thou, 1 'd like to know? 
 Art thon a Russian?" — "I'm an Amtclianin, 
 daddy: I was born in Amtchensk." ^ "Oh, 
 stupid head! and where 's Aintchensk? " — 
 "IIow should I know!" — "Is Amtchensk in 
 Russia, stupid;' *" — " \Vell, and if it is in Russia, 
 what thin;' " — " A\'iiat dost thou mean by ' what 
 
 ' Tin* (liiiiiiiutivc of scorn and utter worthlessness ends thus in 
 ishka. — Tba sgi.AToit. 
 
 'In |M>])ular s|)i'<-(li, tin- town of .Mtziiisk is failed Anitehensk, 
 and its «iti/.«iis Aintcliiiiii. The Auitehani men are daring; not 
 without reason is an enemy witii us promised "an auitchanin." 
 
 30
 
 tatyAna borisovna 
 
 then '? His Illustrious Ilif^hness the late Prince 
 INIikhailo llarionnvitch Golenishshtcheff-Kutu- 
 zoff-Sniolensky, with the help of (xod, Mas 
 pleased to expel Boiui})artishka from the con- 
 fines of Russia. On that occasion, also, the hal- 
 lad was composed : ' Bonaparte does n't feel like 
 
 dancing, he has lost his garters/ Dost 
 
 understand? He freed thy fatherland." — " And 
 what care I for that? " — " Akh, thou stupid boy, 
 thou stupid! Why, if the most illustrious Prince 
 Mikhailo Ilarionovitch had not chased out Bona- 
 partishka, some ' mossoo ' or other would be 
 whacking thee over the head with a stick, seest 
 thou? He would come up to thee and say: 
 ' Coman vu porte vu?' — and whack, whack!" — 
 " Then I 'd hit him in the belly with my fist." — 
 " And he 'd say to thee: ' Bonzhur, vene isi,' — and 
 he 'd grab thee by the hair, by the hair! "— " And 
 I 'd stamp on his feet, his feet, his knobby feet." 
 
 — " That 's so, they do have knobby feet 
 
 Well, and when he began to bind thy arms, what 
 wouldst thou do then?" — " I wouldn't let him: 
 I 'd call Mikhei the coachman to my assis- 
 tance." — " And dost thou think, Vasya, that the 
 Frenchman could not overpower Mikhei? " — 
 "Overpower him, indeed! just see how robust 
 Mikhei is!" — "Well, and what would you two 
 do to him? " — " We 'd beat him on his back, — yes, 
 on his back." — "And he'd begin to shriek: 
 'Pardon! pardon, pardon, sivuplay!'" — "And 
 
 31
 
 MKMOTllS OF A SPOKTSAIAX 
 
 we'd .say to liiin: ' X«^ sivuplay tor thee, thou 
 (iMiniiecl Kreiiehiiiaii! . . .' " "Brave lad, Vasyal 
 Come, now, shout: ' Honapartishka is a bri- 
 ^rand! ' "— " Then ilo tliou give me some sugar! " 
 — " \\'hat a boy! " . . . . 
 
 Tatvana Horisovna eonsorts very little with 
 till- landed proprietors: they go to her reluc- 
 tantly, and she does not know how to entertain 
 tlKiii; she falls into a doze at the noise of their 
 remarks, gives a start, makes an effort to open 
 lier eyes, and again relapses into slumber. In 
 general, Tatyana Borisovna is not fond of wo- 
 men. ( )ne of her friends, a tine, peaceable yovmg 
 man. had a sister, an old maid of eight and thirty 
 years and a half, the kindest of beings, but un- 
 natural, affected, and given to enthusiasms. Her 
 brother freciuently narrated to her anecdotes of 
 tlieir neighbour. One fine morning, my old 
 maid, without saying a word to any one, ordered 
 her horse to l)e saddled, and set out to see Ta- 
 tyana l^)ri.sovna. In her long habit, with her hat 
 on iier head and a green veil and curls floating, 
 she entered the anteroom, and dodging tlie panic- 
 stricken Vasya, wlio took her for a water-nymph, 
 slie ran into tlie drawing-room. Tatyana Bori- 
 sovna was frightened, and tried to rise, but her 
 limbs gave way beneath her. — " Tatyana Bori- 
 sovna," — began the visitor, in a tone of entreaty, 
 "excuse my l)()l(lne.ss; I am the sister of your 
 friend, Alexyei Nikolaevitch K * * *, and I 
 
 32
 
 TATYANA liOKlSOVNA 
 
 have heard so mueh about you iVoni him, tluit I 
 made u}) my mind to become accjuainted with 
 you." — " 1 feel greatly honoured," murmured the 
 astounded hostess. The visitor threw off her hat, 
 shook back her curls, seated herself beside Ta- 
 tyiina Borisovna, and took her hand. ..." So, 
 this is she," — she began in a pensive, touched 
 voice: — "this is that good, serene, noble, holy 
 being! This is she! this simple and, at the same 
 time, profound woman! How glad I am, how 
 glad I am! How we shall love each other! I 
 shall rest, at last. . . . She is exactly as I have 
 pictured her to myself," — she added, in a whis- 
 per, boring her eyes into the eyes of Tatyana 
 Borisovna. " You will not be angry with me, 
 will you, my kind, my good one! " — " Really, I 
 
 am very glad Would not you like some 
 
 tea? " — The visitor smiled condescendingly. 
 
 " Wie tcalir, uie unreflccMrt/' — she whispered, 
 as though to herself. " Permit me to embrace 
 you, my dear." 
 
 The old maid sat for three hours with Tatyana 
 Borisovna, and never held her peace for a mo- 
 ment. She tried to expound to her new acquain- 
 tance her own significance. . . . Immediately after 
 the departure of the unexpected visitor, the poor 
 gentlewoman betook herself to the bath, drank 
 a dose of linden-flower tea, and went to bed. 
 But on the following day, the old maid returned, 
 sat four hours, and withdrew promising to visit 
 
 33
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 Tatyaiia liorisovna every day. Vou will please 
 tt> observe, that slie had taken it into her head to 
 develop, to i)iit the tinisliing touches to the edu- 
 eati«)n of sneh a lieli nature, as she expressed 
 herself; and. jjiohahly, she would have com- 
 pletely exhausted it in the end, had it not been 
 for the fact that, in the first place, she got 
 " utterly " disenchanted as to her brother's friend 
 in the course of a fortnight; and, in the second 
 place, if she had not fallen in love with a passing 
 student, with whom she instantly entered into an 
 active and ardent correspondence; in her epistles, 
 as was fitting, she blessed him for a holy and most 
 beautiful life, oft'ered " the whole of herself " as 
 a sacrifice, demanded only the name of sister, 
 plunged into descri])tions of nature, alluded to 
 (ioethe, Schiller, Eettina, and (German philoso- 
 phy, — and. at last, drove the poor young man to 
 grim despair. But youth asserted its rights: one 
 fine morning, he awoke with such exasperated 
 hatred for his " sister and best friend," that he 
 came near knocking his valet down, in the heat of 
 passion, and, for a long time, all but bit at the 
 slightest hint about exalted and disinterested 
 love. . . . Rut, from that time forth Tatyana 
 Rorisovna began more than ever to avoid inti- 
 macy with her neighbours. 
 
 Alas! nothing is stable upon earth. Every- 
 thing whieh I have related concerninii- mv kind 
 gentlewoman's mode of life is a thing of the 
 
 34
 
 TATYANA BORISOVNA 
 
 past; the tranquillity which reigned in her house 
 has heen destroyed forever. For more than a 
 year now, her nephew, an artist from Peters- 
 burg, has been living with her. This is the way 
 it came about. 
 
 Eight years ago, there hved with Tatyana 
 Eorfsovna a boy of twelve, orphaned of father 
 and mother, Andriiisha, the son of her deceased 
 brother. Andriiisha had large, bright, humid 
 eyes, a tiny mouth, a regular nose, and a very 
 handsome, lofty brow. He spoke in a soft, sweet 
 voice, kept himself tidy and decorous, was cordial 
 and attentive to visitors, and kissed his aunt's 
 hand with an orphan's sensibility. No sooner 
 would you make your appearance than, lo and 
 behold, he was ali'eady bringing you an arm- 
 chair. He never played any pranks at all; he 
 never made any noise; he would sit by himself 
 in a corner, over his book, so modestly and sub- 
 missively, and not even lean against the back of 
 the chair. A visitor would enter, — my Andri- 
 iisha would rise, smile coiu'teously, and flush ; the 
 visitor would leave the room; — he w^ould seat 
 himself again, pull a little brush and mirror from 
 his pocket, and arrange his hair. He had felt an 
 inclination for drawing from his earliest years. 
 If a scrap of j)aper fell into his hands, he would 
 immediately ask Agafya the housekeeper for her 
 scissors, carefully cut from the paper a regular 
 square, draw a narrow frame around it, and set 
 
 35
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 to work: lie unuld draw an vyv w illi a huge pupil, 
 or a (iivrian ?><)sc, or a house with a ehininey and 
 smoke in the form of a serew, a dog " en face," 
 resenihhng a htiieh. a tree with two doves, and 
 sitrn it: "Drawn 1)V .Vndrei Bvelovzoroff, on 
 sueh a date, of such a year, village of ^laliya 
 liryki." lie toiled with particular zeal, for a 
 coui)le of weeks before Tatyana Borisovna's 
 name-day,' was the first to present himself to 
 congratulate her, and offered a roll tied up with 
 a j)iiik lihhon. . Tatyana Eorisovna kissed her 
 nephew on the brow, and untied the knot; the roll 
 spread out, and disclosed to the curious view of 
 the sj)ectator a round temple with an altar in 
 the middle, boldly washed in in India ink; on the 
 altar lay a flaming heart and a w'reath, and above, 
 on an undulating scroll, in 2)lain letters, stood 
 written: " To my aunt and l/cnefactress Tatyana 
 liorfsovna Hogdanoff, from her res])ectful and 
 loving nephew, in token of the most profound 
 devotion." Tatyana Borisovna kissed him again 
 and gave liim a ruble. J^ut she felt no great af- 
 fection for him: Andriusha's obsecpiiousness did 
 not altogether please her. In the meantime, An- 
 driusha was growing up; Tatyana Borisovna was 
 beginning to grow anxious as to his future. An 
 unexj)ected event rescued her from her di- 
 lemma. . . . 
 
 ''lilt- iiaiiio-diiy— llie (l;.y of the Saint after whom a person is 
 named Ls eelehraled instead of tl;- hiiihday.— Tkanslator. 
 
 36
 
 TATYANA RORISOVNA 
 
 To wit: one day, eight years ago, a certain 
 Mr. 15ene\'olensky, a collegiate assessor ^ arid 
 cavalier of an order, dropped in to call. Mr. 
 Benevolenskv had formerly been in the service 
 in the neighbouring county town, and had been 
 an assiduous visitor at Tatyana Borisovna's ; he 
 had removed to Petersburg, had entered a min- 
 istry, had attained to a fairly important post, and 
 during one of his frequent trips on government 
 business he had recalled his old friend, and 
 dropj^ed in to see her, with the intention of res1>- 
 ing for a couple of days from the cares of the 
 service, " in the lap of rustic tranquillity." Ta- 
 tyana Borisovna received him with her habitual 
 cordiality, and Mr. Benevolensky .... But 
 before we go on with om* story, permit us, dear 
 reader, to make you acquainted with this new 
 person. 
 
 ]Mr. Benevolensky was a rather fat man, of 
 medium height, soft in aspect, with small, short 
 feet, and plump little hands; he wore a capacious 
 and extremely neat swallow-tailed coat, a tall 
 and broad neckerchief, snow-white linen, a gold 
 chain on his silk waistcoat, a ring with a stone 
 on his forefinger, and a blond wig; he talked 
 persuasively and gently, walked noiselessly, 
 smiled pleasantly, rolled his eyes about pleas- 
 
 ^ Grade No. 8, corresponding to the (former) title of Major, 
 in Peter the Great's famous Table of RaniiS. There are fourteen 
 grades in all. — Translator. 
 
 37
 
 .MKMOIKS Oi' A srOUTSMAN 
 
 ant In , plun^v*! liis diiii into his neckerchief 
 pleaNiintlv: altooetlier, lie was a pleasant man. 
 The Lord h;nl also endowed him with the kindest 
 (.f hearts: lie wept and went into raptures easily; 
 ahove all, he Innned with disinterested ardour 
 lor art, and this ardour was genuinely disin- 
 teresteil. for, ji' the truth must he told, it was pre- 
 cisely in the matter of art that Mr. Benevolensky 
 had positively no understanding whatsoever. 
 One even marvelled whence, hy virtue of what 
 mysterious and incomprehensihle laws, he had 
 l>ecome infected with that passion. Apparently, 
 
 he was a sedate, even a commonplace man 
 
 howcN er, there are quite a good many sucli people 
 among us in Uussia. 
 
 Love for art and artists imparts to these peo- 
 j)lr an inexplieahle mawkishness; it is torture to 
 know them, to converse with them: they are regu- 
 lai- hloekheads smeared with honey. For exam- 
 \Av. they never call Raphael Raphael, or Correg- 
 u:'u) CorreMiiio: thev sav, " the divine Sanzio, the 
 ineomj)arahle de Allegris," and invariahly they 
 jironounce their o's hroadly. They laud every 
 homespun, conceited, over-elaborated and medi- 
 ocre talent as a genius, or, to be more accurate, 
 "janius"; the blue sky of Italy, the southern 
 lemon, the perfumed gales of the shores of the 
 Hrenta, are eternally on their lips. " Kkh, 
 \"anya, Viinya," or " Kkh, Sasha, Siisha," they 
 say to each other with ecstasy, " we ought to go 
 
 38
 
 TATYANA lUJRiSOVNA 
 
 to the south, to the southland . . . for you and I 
 are Greeks in spirit, ancient Crreeks! " They 
 may be observed at exhi})itions, in front of the 
 productions of certain Russian painters. (We 
 must remark, that the majority of these gen- 
 tlemen are frightfully patriotic.) First they 
 retreat a pace, and loll their heads on one side, 
 then they approach the picture again; their little 
 eyes become suffused with an oily moisture. . 
 " Phew, O my Ciod," — they say, at last, in a voice 
 broken with emotion, — " what soul, what soul! 
 What heart, what heart! how much soul he has 
 put into it! a vast amount of soul! .... And 
 how it is conceived ! conceived in a masterly man- 
 ner! " — And what pictures they have in their 
 own drawing-rooms! What artists frequent 
 them of an evening, drink their tea, listen to their 
 conversation! AVhat perspective views of their 
 own rooms they offer them, with a brush in the 
 right foreground, a pile of dirt on the polished 
 floor, a yellow samovar on a table by the window, 
 and the master of the house himself, in dressing- 
 gown and skull-cap, with a brilliant spot of light 
 on his cheek! What long-haired nurslings of 
 the JNIuses, with feverishly-scornful smile, visit 
 them! What pale-green young ladies squeal at 
 their pianos! For that is the established order of 
 things with us in Russia: a man cannot devote 
 himself to one art alone — -give him all! Hence, 
 it is not in the least surprising, that these gentle- 
 
 39
 
 ME>rOTRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 iiien-aniatcurs also (lisi)lay great patronage to 
 Kiissiaii literature, especially to draniatie litera- 
 ture. . . . 'IMk ■ .laeol) Saupasaros " are written 
 lor tlieiii: the eoiiHiet of unrecognised talent with 
 peoj)le, with the whole world, which has been de- 
 j)ieted a thousand times, shakes them to the very 
 lM)ttoni of the soul. . . . 
 
 On the day following the arrival of Mr. 
 Benevolensky, Tatyana Eorisovna, at tea, com- 
 nianded her nephew to show the visitor his 
 drawiuiis. " ^Vnd dcx^s yoin* relative draw?" 
 ejaculated Mr. Eenevolenskv, not without sur- 
 prise, and turned sympathetically to Andrinsha. 
 " C'ertainl\' he does! " — said Tatyana Borisovna: 
 — "he's so fond of it! and he does it all alone, 
 without anv teacher, von know." — " Aldi, show 
 me. show me," — interposed ^Nlr. Benevolensk5\ 
 y\ndriusha, blushing and smiling, brought his 
 sketch-book to the visitor. Mr. Benevolenskj'^ 
 l)egan, with the air of a connoisseur, to turn over 
 the lea\es. " (rOod, young man," — he said at 
 last: — " Good, very good." And he stroked 
 Andiiiisha's head. iVndriusha kissed his hand on 
 the Hy. — 'Just see, what talent! I con- 
 gratulate you, Tatyana Borisovna, I congratu- 
 late you!"— "But what is to be done, Piotr 
 Mikhailitch^ I cannot find any teacher for him 
 here. It costs too much to have one come from 
 town; there is an artist at my neighbours', the 
 Artamonofi's, and a capital one he is, they say, 
 
 40
 
 TATYANA BORISOVNA 
 
 but the lady forbids liini to give lessons to 
 outsiders. She says he will s|)oil liis taste." — 
 " H'm," — ejaculated Mr. Beuevolensky, as he 
 fell to meditating, and east sidelong glances at 
 Andriusha. " Well, we will talk the matter 
 over," — he suddenly added, rubbing his hands. 
 That same day he requested permission of Ta- 
 tyana Borisovna to have a private conversation 
 wnth lier. They locked themselves up. Half an 
 hour later, they called Andriusha. Andriusha 
 entered. INIr. Benevolensky was standing at the 
 window, with his face slightly flushed and his eyes 
 beaming. Tatyana Borisovna was sitting in one 
 corner, and wiping away her tears. — " Well, An- 
 driusha," — she began at last: — "thank Piotr 
 Mikhailitch: he is going to take thee under his 
 charge, and carry thee off to Petersburg." An- 
 driusha was fairly petrified where he stood. — 
 " Tell me frankly," — began Mr. Benevolensky, 
 in a voice permeated with dignity and condescen- 
 sion: — " Do you wish to become an artist, young 
 man, do you feel a sacred vocation for art? " — 
 " I do want to be an artist, Piotr Mikhailitch," — 
 affirmed Andriusha, tremulously. — " In that 
 case, I am very glad. Of course," — pursued Mr. 
 Benevolensky, — " you will find it hard to part 
 from your respected aunt ; you must feel the live- 
 liest gratitude to lier." — " I adore my aunty," — 
 Andriusha interrupted him, blinking his eyes. — 
 " Of course, of course, that is very natural and 
 
 41
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 does you imit'li lionnur: ])ut. on the other hand, 
 just iina«iiiR', wliat joy, in course of time .... 
 your successes. . ."— " Enibnice me, Andri- 
 lisha,"— murmured the kind hidy. Andriusha 
 Huinr liiniself on lier neck. — " Well, and now 
 thank thy benefactor. . . ." Andriusha em- 
 braced Mr. Jicnevolensky's paunch, raised him- 
 self on tiptoe, and so managed to grasp his hand, 
 which the benefactor, truth to tell, accepted, yet 
 made no great haste to accept. . . . The child 
 must l)e soothed, satisfied, — well, and one may 
 indukre one's self also. Two days later Mr. Be- 
 nevolensky departed, and carried with him his 
 new protege. 
 
 During the first three years of his absence, 
 Andriusha wrote with tolerable frequency, some- 
 times enclosing drawings in his letters. Mr. 
 Iknevolensky occasionally added also a few 
 words from himself, chiefly of apj^roval; then 
 the letters became more and more infrequent, 
 and, at last, ceased altogether. Tatyana Bori- 
 sovna's nephew maintained silence for a whole 
 yeai': slie had already begun to worry, when, 
 suddeidy, she received a note whose contents 
 were as follows: 
 
 " Dkar Aunty! 
 
 " Two (lays ago, Piotr ^Nlikliaflovitch, my benefactor, 
 (lied. A severe shock of paralysis has deprived me of 
 my last support. Of course, I am already twenty years 
 
 42
 
 TATYANA BORISOVNA 
 
 of age ; in the course of seven years I have made notable 
 progress ; I have strong hopes of my talent and can earn 
 my living* by means of it; I am not downcast, but, nev- 
 ertheless, if you can, send me, for present expenses, two 
 hundred and fifty rubles. I kiss your hands, and re- 
 main," — and so forth. 
 
 Tatyiina Borisovna sent her nephew the two 
 hundred and fifty rubles. Two months later, he 
 demanded some more; she gathered together her 
 last resources, and sent again. Six weeks had 
 not elapsed after the last despatch, when he 
 asked for the third time, nominally for the pur- 
 pose of purchasing paints for a portrait which 
 a Princess Tertereshneff had ordered from him. 
 Tatyana Borisovna refused. " In that case," he 
 wrote to her, " I intend to come to you, in the 
 country, to recuperate my health." And, in fact, 
 in the month of INI ay of that same year, Andri- 
 lisha retiu'ned to INIaliya Bryki. 
 ^ At first, Tatyana Borisovna did not recognise 
 him. From his letters, she had expected a thin 
 and sickly man, but she beheld a broad-shoul- 
 dered, stout young fellow, with a broad, red face 
 and curly, greasy hair. The pale, slender An- 
 driusha had been converted into sturdy Andrei 
 IvanofF ByelovzorofF. His external appear- 
 ance was not the only thing in him which had 
 undergone a change. The sensitive shyness, the 
 caution and neatness of former years, Iiad been 
 replaced by a careless swagger, by intolerable 
 
 43
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 slovenliness: lie swayed to rii^lit and left as he 
 walked, (lung liiinsell' into arni-ehairs, sprawled 
 over the table, lolled, yawned to the fifll extent 
 of liis jaws, and behaved imjjudently to his aunt 
 and the servants, — as much as to say: " I 'm an 
 artist, a free kazjik! 1 "11 show' you what stuff 
 I ni made of! " For whole days together, he 
 would not take a brush in his hand; when the so- 
 called inspiration came upon him, he w^ould be- 
 have as wildly as though he were intoxicated, 
 painfullv, awkwardly, noisily; his cheeks would 
 burn w ith a coarse flush, his eyes w^ould grow in- 
 ebriated: he would set to prating about his tal- 
 ent, his successes, of how he was deyeloping and 
 advancing. . . . But, as a matter of fact, it 
 turned out that his gift barely sufficed for tol- 
 ei-ably fair ])etty portraits. He was an utter ig- 
 iioiaiiius, lie had read nothing; and wlw should 
 an artist read ^ Nature, freedom, poetry, — those 
 are his elements. So, shake thy curls, and chatter 
 away volubly, and inhale Zhukoff > with frenzy! 
 Russian swagger is a good thing, but it is not 
 becoming to many; and talentless second-rate 
 PolezluieiTs are intolerable. Our Andrei lyan- 
 iteh continued to live at his aunt's: evidently, 
 gratuitous food was to his taste. He inspired 
 visitors with deadly ennui. He would seat him- 
 self at the piano (Tatyana Bdrisovna had set up 
 a piano also) and begin to pick out with one 
 
 ' The coarsest sort of tobacco.— Translatoe. 
 
 44
 
 TATYANA BORISOVNA 
 
 finger " Tlie dashing Troiku"'; he would strike 
 chords, and thump tlie keys; for hours at a 
 stretch he would howl ^^arlanloff's romances 
 " The solitary Pine," or " No, Doctor, no, do 
 not come," and the fat would close over his eyes, 
 
 and his cheeks would sliine like a drum 
 
 And then, suddenly, he would thunder: " Be- 
 gone, ye tumults of passion!" .... And Ta- 
 tyana Borisovna would fairly jump in dismay. 
 " 'T is extraordinary," — she remarked to me 
 one day, — " what songs are composed nowadays, 
 — they are all so despairing, somehow; in my 
 day, they used to compose a different sort: there 
 were sad ones then too, but it was always agreea- 
 ble to listen to them For example : 
 
 " Come, come to me in the meadow, 
 Where I wait for thee in vain ; 
 Come, come to me in the meadow. 
 Where my tears flow hour after liour .... 
 Alas, thou wilt come to me in the meadow, 
 But then 't will be too late, dear friend ! " 
 
 Tatyana Borisovna smiled guilefully. 
 
 " ' I shall suf-fer, I shall suf-fer,' " howled her 
 nephew in the adjoining room. 
 
 " Stop that, Andriuslia! " 
 
 " ' My soul is lan-guishing in part-mg,' " con- 
 tinued the irrepressible singer. 
 
 Tatyana Borisovna shook her head. 
 
 45
 
 MEMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 ' ( )kli. tliosf artists! '".... 
 
 A WAV lias j)assc'(l since \hv\\. Byelovzoroff is 
 still li\ iii^- N\ itii liis amit, and still preparing to go 
 to I'ett'ishnig. lit has become broader than he 
 is Ion;* in the conntrv. His annt — who would 
 have thought it f--is perfectly devoted to him, and 
 the young girls of the neighbourhood fall in love 
 with him. . . . 
 
 Many of Tatyana Borisovna's former acquahi- 
 tances have ceased to visit her. 
 
 46
 
 Ill 
 
 DEATH 
 
 I HA>'E a neighbour, a young agriculturist and 
 young spoi'tsman. One fine morning I dropped 
 in on him for a call, on horseback, with the sug- 
 gestion that we should set out together in quest 
 of woodcock. He consented. " Only," said he, 
 " let us go through my tract of second growth of 
 trees to the Zusha; I '11 take a look at Tchaply- 
 gino by the way. Do you know my oak forest? 
 It is being felled." — "Come on."^ — He ordered his 
 horse to be saddled, donned a green surtout with 
 bronze buttons representing boars' heads, a game- 
 bag embroidered in worsted, and a silver flask, 
 threw over his shoulder a rather new French gun, 
 turned himself about, not without pleasure, in 
 front of the mirror, and called his dog Esperance, 
 which had been presented him by his cousin, an 
 old maid with an excellent heart, but without any 
 hair. We set out. JNIy neighbour took with him 
 the village policeman Arkhip, a fat and ex- 
 tremely short peasant with a square face and 
 cheek-bones of antediluvian development, and a 
 recently-engaged superintendent from the Baltic 
 
 47
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 provimrs, a young fellow of nineteen years, thin, 
 lair-liaiivtl, niok-eyed, with sloping shoulders, 
 and a long neck, Mr. Gottlieb von der Koch. ]My 
 neighbour hiniscH" had entered into possessioH of 
 his estate not long before. It had come to him 
 by inheritance from his aunt, the wife of Coun- 
 cillor of State ' Kardon-Kataeff, a remarkably 
 la I woman, wlio, even when she was lying in bed, 
 groaned in a prolonged and plaintive manner. 
 \Vc rode into the tract of second growth trees. 
 ■ WnW for me here, in the glade," said Ardalion 
 Mikhailitcli (my neighbour), turning to his satel- 
 lites. The German bowed, slipped off his horse, 
 pulled a small book from his pocket, apparently a 
 romance ])y Johann Schopenhauer, and sat down 
 under a bush; iVrkbip remained in the sun, and 
 never moved for the space of an hour. We made 
 a circuit through the bushes, and found not a sin- 
 gle covey. Ardalion ^likhailitch announced that 
 he intended to !)etake himself to the forest. For 
 some reason or other, I myself had no faith in the 
 success of our hunt on that day: I wended my 
 way after him. The German noted his page, 
 rose, put the book in his pocket, and mounted, not 
 without difhculty, liis bob-tailed, imperfect mare, 
 uhich s(iuealed and kicked out at the slightest 
 touch: Arkhip gave a start, jerked both reins si- 
 multaneously, flung his feet about, and, at last, 
 
 ' The fifth grade from tlie top, in Peter the Great's Table of 
 Hanks. — Translator. 
 
 48
 
 DEATH 
 
 got his stupefied and spiritless little nag to move 
 from the spot. We rode off. 
 
 Ardalion ^Nlikhailitch's forest had been fa- 
 miliar to me from my childhood. In company 
 with my French tutor, ]M — r. Desire Fleury, the 
 kindest of men (who, nevertheless, came near 
 ruining my health for life, by making me drink 
 De Roy's potion of an evening), I frequently 
 walked to Tchaplygino. The entire forest con- 
 sisted of about two or three hundred enormous 
 oak-trees and maples. Their stately, mighty 
 boles darkled magnificently against the translu- 
 cent golden-green of the hickories and mountain- 
 ashes; they rose higher, outlined themselves 
 gracefully against the clear azure, and there, at 
 last, flung wide the canopy of their broad, 
 gnarled boughs; hawks, honey-buzzards, kestrels 
 soared whistling over the motionless crests, 
 spotted woodpeckers tapped vigorously on the 
 thick bark ; the resonant song of the black thrush 
 suddenly rang forth in the dense foliage, follow- 
 ing the variable cry of the oriole ; down below, in 
 the bushes, hedge-sparrows, finches, and pewits 
 twittered and warbled ; chaffinches hopped briskly 
 along the paths ; a white hare stole along the edge 
 of the woods, cautiously "limping"; a reddish- 
 brown squirrel leaped in an offhand way from 
 tree to tree, and suddenly sat down, with tail 
 aloft, over our heads. In the grass, near the tall 
 ant-hills, beneath the liglit shadow of the deeply 
 
 49
 
 .MK.MOllJS or A SPORTSMAN 
 
 dented ht-iiitifiil fronds of the ferns, violets and 
 lilies of the valley l)loonied, and mushrooms of 
 various sorts, and erimson fly-agaric orevv; in 
 the httle ^la(ks. amid the hushes, strawherries 
 "learned red. . . And what shade there was in 
 the forest! In the \ ery height of the heat, at 
 noonday, it was perfect night: silence, perfume, 
 coolness. . . . Cheerfully had I passed the time 
 in Tehaplygino, and therefore, I confess, it was 
 not without a feeling of sadness that I now rode 
 into the forest which was but too familiar to me. 
 The pernicious, snowdess winter of 1840 had not 
 spared my old friends, the oaks and maples; with- 
 ered, stripped hare, here and there covered with 
 consunij)ti\e foliage, they drooped mournfully 
 o\ci- the young coppice which had " taken their 
 place hut not I'eplaced them." ' Some, still 
 clothed with leaves helow, reared their lifeless, 
 hroken l)ougiis aloft as though with reproach and 
 despaii-: in the case of others, from the foliage, 
 still tolerahly dense, though not abundant, not 
 copious as of yore, thick, dry, dead branches pro- 
 truded; the hark of others had fallen at a dis- 
 
 ' III tlu' year IS+O, althougli tlicre was a most rigorous frost, no 
 Miow fell until the very end of December; all the crops were 
 frozen, a!iil many fine oak forests were ruined by that ruthless 
 winter. It is difticnlt to re})lace them: the productive power of 
 the soil is evidently lesseiiinfr; on " forliidden " winter-killed 
 lands (around which tiicre had i)een a procession wiiii holy j)ic- 
 tures), in ])lace of the former noble trees, birches and aspens are 
 sprinfrinp up of themselves; and with us no one knows how to 
 propagate woods otherwise. 
 
 50
 
 DEATH 
 
 tance; others still had rallen altogether, and were 
 rotting, like corpses, on the ground. Who could 
 have foreseen it — that it would be impossible to 
 find shade — shade in Tchaplygino — anywhere! 
 Well, I thought, as 1 gazed at the moribund 
 trees: I think you must feel ashamed and bitter. 
 .... Koltzoff 's ^ verse recurred to my mind : 
 
 " What has become 
 Of the lofty speech, 
 The haughty power, 
 Th' imperial valour.'' 
 Where now is thy 
 Green might . . . ," 
 
 " Why is this, Ardalion Mikhailitch,"^ — I be- 
 gan: — "Why didn't you fell these trees last 
 year? You will not get a tenth j^art as much for 
 them now, you see, as you would have got then." 
 
 He merely shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " You VI better have asked my aunt; — but the 
 merchants came, brought their money, and im- 
 portuned her." 
 
 " Mein Gott!" — von der Koch exclaimed at 
 every step. — " Vat a prank! vat a prank! ' 
 
 " What prank do you mean? " — remarked my 
 neighbour, with a smile. 
 
 " Dat is, vat a peety, I meanttt to zay." (It is 
 a well-known fact, that all Germans, when they 
 
 *Alexyei ^'asilievitc•h Koltzoff (1809-184.2), a writer of extremely 
 original natiojial ballads. — Traxslator. 
 
 51
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPOUTSJMAN 
 
 have at last iiiastcircl our lettti- /. with hard pro- 
 muK-iatioii, throw rciiiarkahlc stress upon it.') 
 
 1 1 is rt'«rrt't was particuhirly aroused by the 
 oaks uliic-li l:i\ on the onnind, — and, as a mat- 
 ter t)!' f'aet. any miller would have paid a high 
 price lor them. On the other hand, xVrkhip, 
 the village polieemaii. maintained imperturbable 
 e<»mj)osure, and did not grieve in the least; on the 
 ct>ntrary. he lea})ed over them not without satis- 
 faetioii. and lashed them with his whip. 
 
 \\'e w c re making our way to the spot where the 
 fVlliiig was ill ])rogress, when suddenly, follow- 
 ing the noise ol" a falling tree, a shout and talking 
 rang out. and a few moments later a young peas- 
 ant, pale and dishevelled, sprang out of the 
 thieket toward us. 
 
 ' What 's the matter? — Whither art thou nm- 
 ning'" — Ardalion ^likhailitch asked him. 
 
 lie immediately came to a halt. 
 
 "Akh. dear liUle father, Ardalion Mikhai- 
 liteh, i is a catastrophe! " 
 
 " \\'hat has hai)i)ened? ". 
 
 " Maxim, dear little father, has been hurt by a 
 tree." 
 
 " I low did that hapi)en? . . . Maxim the 
 eniitraetori' " 
 
 " Yes, the contraetoi-, dear little father. We 
 
 ''I lie ii.inl / is so difficult of pronunciation that some Russians 
 renounce the attempt, and substitute oo: e.g., oodshad (horse) for 
 Uinfuid. Tlu- word lure is khnti/rlll. and I have trebled the / to rep- 
 rt'ient the author's trebled /.- Tuanslatob. 
 
 52
 
 • DEATH 
 
 began to fell a maple, and he stood and watched. 
 . . . He stood and stood, then went off to the 
 well for water : he wanted a drink, you see ; when, 
 an at once, the maple began to crack and fell 
 straight toward him. We shouted at him, ' Run, 
 run, run ! ' . . . He ought to have leaped to one 
 side, but he took and ran straight toward it ... . 
 he must have got frightened. And the ma2:)Ie 
 covered him with its upper boughs. And why it 
 fell so suddenly, — the I^ord knows. . . . The 
 heart must have been rotten." 
 
 " Well, and did it injure Maxim? " 
 
 " It did, dear little father." 
 
 "Mortally?" 
 
 " No, dear little father, he is still alive, — but 
 what of that? it has broken his arms and legs. So 
 I 'm running for Selivestritch, — for the doctor." 
 
 Ardalion Mikhailitch ordered the policeman to 
 gallop to the village for Selivestritch, and he 
 himself rode forward at a swift trot to the clear- 
 ing. . . . T followed him. 
 
 We found poor INIaxim on the ground. Half 
 a score of peasants were standing around him. 
 We alighted. He was hardly groaning; from 
 time to time he opened and dilated his eyes, gazed 
 around him, as though in surprise, and bit his lips, 
 which were turning blue. . . . His chin quiv- 
 ered, his hair adhered to his brow, his chest 
 heaved unevenly : he was dying. The light shade 
 of a young linden flitted across his face. 
 
 53
 
 MKMOIKS or A SPORTSMAN 
 
 \\\ hciit over liim. He recognised Ardalion 
 
 Mikliailiteli. 
 
 • Dear little lather,"— he began, in a barely 
 audible tone:— "order .... the priest ....'. 
 to l.c- sent for Tlie Lord .... has pun- 
 ished nie .... my legs and arms are all 
 smashed. . . . To-day .... is Sunday .... 
 and I . . . . and I . . . . you see . . . did 
 not let tlic lads go." 
 
 lie ceased speaking. His breath failed him. 
 
 " And give my money .... to my 
 
 wife .... to my wife .... after deducting 
 .... lor my debts. . . Onisim here knows 
 
 to whom I am in debt." 
 
 " We have sent for the doctor, Maxim," — said 
 my neighbour: — " perhaps thou wilt not die yet." 
 He tried to open his eyes, and raised his lids 
 and his eyebrows with the effort. 
 
 " Yes, I shall die. Yonder .... yonder it is 
 tapping, yonder it is, yonder For- 
 give uv\ my lads, if in anything " 
 
 " (iod pardons thee, Maxim Andreitch," — said 
 the peasants dully with one voice, and took off 
 their caps: — " do thou forgive us." 
 
 He .suddenly shook his head in a desperate way, 
 painfiiily heaved his chest, and lowered it again. 
 " Hui Ik cannot be left to die here," — ex- 
 claimed Ardali('»ii Mikhailitch: — "fetch hither a 
 mat lioiii tlie earl yonder, my lads, — let's carry 
 iiiiii to the hospital." 
 
 A r<iii|i|< (tf men rushed li the cart. 
 
 54
 
 DEATH 
 
 " I bought a horse . . . yesterday," — stam- 
 mered the dying man, — " from P^frim .... 
 Sytchovsky .... I gave him .... a deposit 
 
 so tlie horse is mine .... give it . . . . 
 
 to my wife .... also " 
 
 They began to lay him on the mat he 
 
 quivered all over like a bird which has been shot, 
 and straightened himself 
 
 " He is dead," — muttered the peasants. 
 
 We mounted our horses in silence, and rode 
 away. 
 
 The death of poor INIaxim caused me to reflect. 
 'T is wonderful how the Russian man dies ! It is 
 impossible to call his condition before the end in- 
 difference or stupidity ; he dies, as though he were 
 performing a rite, coldly and simply. 
 
 Several years ago, in the village of another of 
 my neighbours, a peasant was fatally burned in 
 the grain-kiln. (He would have remained in the 
 kiln, but a petty burgher who was passing by 
 dragged him out, — he threw himself into a vat of 
 water, and with the force of his flight he burst 
 open the door beneath the flaming shed. ) I went 
 to see him in his cottage. It was dark, stifling, 
 smoky in the cottage. I inquired where the sick 
 man was. — " Why, yonder, dear little father, on 
 the oven-bench," — answered the grieving peas- 
 ant-wife in a sing-song tone. I stepped up to 
 him — -the man was lying there, covered with his 
 sheepskin coat, breathing heavily. — " Well, how 
 dost thou feel? " — The sick man fidgeted about 
 
 55
 
 MF.ATOTRS OF A SPOirrSMAN 
 
 on the oven, and tried to raise himself, but was 
 covered witli wouiuls and on the verge of death. 
 •• Lie still, lie still, lie still. . . . AVell, how goes 
 itf how art tlioji? " — " Bad, of course," said he. — 
 " Art thou iu pain:' ' — Xo answer. — " Dost thou 
 want anything f" — Xo answer. — "Shall not 
 1 send tliee some tea?" — " It is n't necessary." — 
 1 left him, and seated myself on the bench. I sat 
 tliere foi' a (juarter of an hour. 1 sat for half an 
 hour, — the silence of the grave reigned in the cot- 
 tage. In tlie corner, at the table beneatli the holy 
 pictures,' a little maiden of five years was hiding, 
 and eating l)read. The mother shook her finger 
 at her now and tlien. People were walking about, 
 j)ounding and chattering in the anteroom. The 
 brother's wife was chopping up cabbage. — "Hey, 
 Aksinya!"^ — said the sick man at last. — "What 
 is itf " — "Give me some kvas." — Aksinya gave 
 him the kvas. Again silence reigned. I asked in 
 a wliisper: " Has he received the communion? " — 
 " Yes." — ^^'ell, then evervthing was in due order: 
 he was waiting for death, that was all. I could 
 not endure it, and left the house. . . . 
 
 I remember, too, that 1 once dropped in at the 
 liospital in the ^ illage of Krasnogorye, to see my 
 accjuaintance, Peasant-Surgeon Kaj^iton, an ar- 
 dent sportsman.^ 
 
 ' 'Unit is, in the right-hand corner, facing the door. — Translator. 
 
 ''I'he ('icrnian feldnherr, a doctor's assistant; or (in cases liiic the 
 r.iir hiT«- rcfcrn-d to) an indejiendcnt doctor, for tlic peasants, 
 \*ith mimir di|ili)tii;i,- 'I'ransi.ator. 
 
 56
 
 DEATH 
 
 This hospital consisted of ii former wing of the 
 seigniorial manor-house; the lady-owner of the 
 estate herself had arranged it,^ — that is to say, she 
 had given orders that over the door should he 
 nailed up a hlue hoard, with the inscription in 
 white letters, " The Krasnogorye Hospital," and 
 she had personally handed to Kapiton a hand- 
 some alhum wherein to jot down the names of the 
 patients. On the first page of this alhum one of 
 the philanthropic benefactress's dish-lickers and 
 servile fawners had traced the following lines : 
 
 " Dans ces beaux lieux, ou regne I'allegresse, 
 Ce temple f ut ouvert par la Bcaute ; 
 De vos seigneurs admirez la tendresse, 
 Bons habitants de Krasnogorie ! " 
 
 And another gentleman had added below: 
 
 " Et moi aussi j'aime la nature! 
 
 "Jean Kobyliatnikoff." 
 
 The doctor had purchased six beds with his 
 own money, and had started out, invoking a bless- 
 ing on himself with the sign of the cross, to heal^ 
 God's people. There were, in addition to himself, 
 two persons attached to the hospital: Pavel the 
 carver, who was subject to fits of insanity, and a 
 peasant woman with a withered hand, ^Nlelikitrisa, 
 who discharged the functions of cook. Both of 
 them prepared the medicines, and dried and in- 
 fused the herbs; they also restrained the fever 
 
 57
 
 MI.MOlIvS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 patients, 'riit- crazy carver was gloomy of as- 
 pect, and parsimonious as to words: at night he 
 was wont to sing a song about " Venus most 
 I'air.'atid to appeal to every passer-by for permis- 
 sion to \\((l a certain maiden, Malanya bv name, 
 wlio liad long been dead. The cripj^le-handed 
 pcasant-uiie beat him, and forced him to tend 
 her turkeys. \\\A\, then, I was sitting one day 
 with Doctor Kapiton. We had begun to chat 
 about our last hn?it. when, suddenly, there drove 
 into tlie yard a |)easant-cart drawn by a remarka- 
 I>ly lat grty horse, such as millers use. In the 
 cart .sal a robust peasant, in a new long-coat, and 
 with a streaky beard.—" Iley there, Vasily Dmi- 
 tritcli," — sliouted Kapiton from the window: — 
 " pray come in ... . 'T is the miller from Ly- 
 l)(')lf ■' he whispered to me. The peasant de- 
 .scended. gruiiting, from his cart, entered the doc- 
 tor's room, sought the holy pictures with his eyes, 
 and crossed himself.—" Well, what now, Vasily 
 Dmitritch. what \s the news .... But you must 
 be ill: your face doesn't look right." — "Yes, 
 .Kapit('>ti Timofeeitch, something's wrone-." — 
 ' W'iiat s the matter with you?" — "Why, this, 
 Kaj)iloii Timofeeitch. Xot long ago, I bought 
 a mill-stone in town: well, 1 brought it home, 
 and wlien I began to unload it from the cart, I 
 strained inxsrlf. probably, or something of the 
 sort, and tlieic- was a ripping in my belly, as 
 though something had broken . . . and ever 
 
 58
 
 DEATH 
 
 since then I have heen aihng all the time. To- 
 day I even feel very bad." — " H'm," — said 
 Kapiton, and took a pinch of snuff: " that means, 
 yon 've ruptured yoiu'self . And did this happen 
 to you long since? "^ — "Why, ten days ago." — 
 "Ten days?" (The doctor inhaled the air through 
 his teeth, and shook liis head.) "Allow me to 
 feel of you. . . . Well, Vasily Dmitritch," he said 
 at last: " 1 'm sorry for thee, my dear fellow, but 
 thou 'rt in a bad way, thou 'rt seriously ill ; remain 
 here with me; I will use every effort, but I will 
 guarantee nothing."^ — " Is it as bad as that? " — 
 muttered the astonished miller. — " Yes, Vasily 
 Dmitritch, it is very bad ; you ought to have come 
 to me a couj^le of days earlier, and it would n't 
 have amounted to anything; I could have relieved 
 you easilj^; but now there is inflammation, that 's 
 what 's the matter : the first you know, gangrene 
 will set in." — ^" But it cannot be, Kapiton Timo- 
 feeitch."— " But I tell you it is so."— " But 
 why?" — (The doctor shrugged his shoulders.) 
 — " And must I die from that trifle? " — " I don't 
 say that .... but do stay here." The peasant 
 meditated, meditated, stared at the floor, then at 
 us, scratched his head, then caught up his cap. 
 " Whither art thou going, Vasily Dmitritch? " — 
 " Whither? home, of course, if matters are as bad 
 as that. I must make my arrangements, if that 
 is so." — " But, g(wd hea\ens! you will do yourself 
 an injury, A^asily Dnn'tritch; I 'm amazed that 
 
 59
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 v<.u niAiniiXvd t.. oct licre, as it is. Uo stay."— 
 •• Ni.. bn.tlKT. Kapitoii Tiinofeeitch, if I must 
 (lie, tluu 1 II (lie at home; for if 1 were to die 
 here, the Lord oidy knows what would happen at 
 iiiv house."—" We don't know, as yet, Vasily 
 
 Dinitriteh, liow the affair will turn out 
 
 'riuie is danger, of eourse, very great danger, 
 
 there's n<> (lis|)uting tliat but that is 
 
 preeiscly the ivason why you ought to remain." 
 (The peasant shook iiis head.)— "No, Kapiton 
 
 'riniof'eeiteh. I will not stay but won't 
 
 vou i)reseril)e some medicine?" — "Medicine 
 alone will not help."—" I won't stay, I tell you." 
 — '* \\\11. do as you please .... only, look out, 
 that \nii dont blame me afterward!" 
 
 Tlie doctor tore a leaf out of the album, and, 
 haxiiiL' written a prescription, he advised him 
 wlmt to do in addition. The peasant took the 
 j)ai)er, gave Kapiton lialf a ruble, left the room, 
 and c]iml)ed into his cart. — " Well, good-bye, 
 Kaj)it(')n Timofeeiteh: don't bear me ill-will, and 
 
 dont forget my orphans, if anything " 
 
 ■ II( y. stay here. \^isily! " — The peasant merely 
 shook his head, slapped his horse with the reins, 
 and drove out of the yard. I went out into the 
 street and "a/ed after liim. The road was muddv 
 and full ol" holes: tlie miller drove cautiously, 
 without haste, guiding the horse skilfully, and 
 
 nodding to the ])ersons whom he met On 
 
 the fourth dav he died. 
 
 GO
 
 DEATH 
 
 On the whole, it is wonderful how Russians 
 (lie. JNIany dead now recur to my mind. I recall 
 thee, my old friend, Avenir Sorokoiimoff', my 
 fellow-student, who did not finish his course, a 
 fine, nohle man! Again 1 hehold thy consump- 
 tive, greenish face, thy thin, reddish hair, thy 
 gentle smile, thy ecstatic glance, thy long limbs; 
 I hear thy weak, caressing voice. Thou livedst 
 with the Great Russian landed proprietor, Gur 
 Kupryanikoff ; thou didst teach his children, Fof a 
 and Zyozo, to read and write Russian, together 
 with geography and history ; thou didst patienth^ 
 endure the heavy jokes of Gur himself, the 
 coarse amiability of the butler, the stale pranks 
 of the malicious little boys; not without a bitter 
 smile, but also without complaint, didst thou 
 comply with the capricious demands of the bored 
 lady of the manor ; on the other hand, when thou 
 wert resting, how blissfully happy wert thou in 
 the evening, after supper, when, having rid thy- 
 self, at last, of all obligations and occupations, 
 thou wert wont to seat thyself at the window, and 
 pensively smoke thy pipe, or eagerly turn over 
 the leaves of a mutilated and soiled number of 
 the thick journal brought from town by the sur- 
 veyor, the same sort of homeless wight as thyself ! 
 How pleased wert thou then by all poems and 
 novels, how easily did the tears well up to thine 
 eyes, with what pleasure didst thou laugh, with 
 what genuine love for mankind, with what noble 
 
 61
 
 MK.M(MKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 sviiii)atliv lor tvcrvliiin^- tliat was good and 
 
 * * •I'll 
 
 iK-aiitiliil was thy soul— pure as that of a child — 
 pcriiK-atcd! I must say, to tell the truth, thou 
 wcrt not distinguished for extraordinary wit; 
 nature liad not gifted thee with either memory or 
 studi(»usness; in the university thou wert reck- 
 oned one (.f the worst students; at the lectures 
 thou ut rt wont to sleep, — at the examinations, 
 to maintain a solemn silence; but whose eyes 
 heamed with iov, whose breath came short over 
 the success, ovei the good fortune of a comrade? 
 — Avenir's. . . . \Vho believed blindly in the 
 lofty mission of his friends, who extolled them 
 with pride, wlio defended them with obduracy? 
 Who was it tliat knew neither envy nor self-love, 
 who was it tliat disinterestedly sacrificed himself, 
 who was it that ^villin<>•lv vielded submission to 
 peoj)le wlio were not .vorth the soles of his shoes? 
 
 .\lwavs thou, always thou, our kind 
 
 Avem'rl 1 remember, that thou l)a(lest thy com- 
 rades I'arewell w ith broken heart, when thou ^vert 
 setting off to become a tutor; evil premonitions 
 tormented thee. . . . iVnd, in fact, thou didst fare 
 l)ut ill in the country; in the country there was no 
 one foi- thee to listen to adoringly, no one to ad- 
 mire, no one to love And those steppe- 
 dwellers and cultivated gentry treated thee like 
 a teacher: some roughly, others carelessl3\ And 
 moreover, tliou didst not ])re(lispose in thy favour 
 l>y thine ap[)earance; thou wert shy, thou didst 
 
 62
 
 DEATH 
 
 blush, cast down thine eyes, stammer. . . . The 
 country air did not even restore thy health: thou 
 didst melt away like a candle, poor fellow! 
 Truth to tell, thy chamber looked on the garden; 
 bird-cherry trees, apple-trees, linden-trees shed 
 their light blossoms on thy table, on thy ink- 
 bottle, on thj^ books ; on the wall hung a little blue 
 silk cushion for thy watch, given to thee at the 
 hour of parting by a kind, sentimental little 
 German governess with blonde curls and small 
 blue eyes ; sometimes an old friend from Moscow 
 dropped in to see thee, and wrought thee to ec- 
 stasy by other people's verses, or even by his own ; 
 but solitude, the intolerable slavery of the teach- 
 er's calling, the impossibility of winning freedom, 
 the endless autumns and winters, importunate 
 illness. . . . Poor, poor Avenir! 
 
 I visited SorokoiimoiF not long before his 
 death. He w as hardly able to walk. Squire Gur 
 Kupryanikoff did not eject him from his house, 
 but he ceased to pay him any salary, and hired an- 
 other tutor for Zyozo. . . . Fofa had been sent 
 off to the cadet school. Avenir w^as sitting by 
 his window, in an old Voltaire chair. The 
 weather w^as magnificent. The bright autumnal 
 sky gleamed blue above the dark -brown row of 
 naked lindens; here and there the last bright- 
 yellow leaves on them were rustling and whisper- 
 ing. The earth, penetrated with frost, w^as 
 sweating and thawing in the sun; its slanting 
 
 63
 
 ^IKMOTRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 crimson rays beat .)l)liciiiely on tlie pale grass; one 
 tVlt conscious of a slight crackling in the air; the 
 voices of tilt' hihourers resounded clearly and in- 
 tclligilily in tlir garden. Avenir wore an old 
 IJukhani (hvssing-gown: a green neckerchief cast 
 a dcathlv hue upon liis dreadfully emaciated face. 
 He was extremely delighted to see me, stretched 
 out his hand, and began to speak, and to cough. 
 1 allowed him to quiet down, and seated myself 
 l)eside him. ... On Avenir's lap lay a note- 
 !)ook filK'd with poems of Koltzoif, carefully 
 copied; he tapped it with the other hand. 
 • There was a poet,'' he faltered, with an effort 
 repressing his cough, and tried to declaim, in a 
 barely audible voice: 
 
 "Or luith the falcon 
 Fettered wings? 
 Or are his patlis 
 All ordered?" 
 
 I sto])ped him: the doctor had forbidden him 
 to talk. I knew what would please him. Soro- 
 koiimoff' had never, as the saying is, " kept in 
 touch "" with science, but he was curious to know 
 what the great minds had done, and how far they 
 had got now. lie would, sometimes, take a com- 
 lade off in one corner, and begin to interrogate 
 hijn: he would listen, and marvel, and believe him 
 imi)licitly, and then re])eat it all after liim. 
 (ierman philosophy in particular possessed a 
 
 64)
 
 DEATH 
 
 strong interest for him. — I began to talk to him 
 about Hegel (this happened long ago, as you 
 see). Avenir nodded his head affirmatively, ele- 
 vated his eyebrows, smiled, whispered: " I under- 
 stand, I understand .... ah! good, good! . . . ." 
 The childlike curiosity of the poor, dying, home- 
 less, and discarded fellow touched me to tears, 
 I admit. I must remark, that Avenir, contrary 
 to the habit of most consumptives, did not deceive 
 himself in the least as to his malady .... and 
 what then? He did not sigh, he did not grieve, he 
 did not even once refer to his condition. . . . 
 
 Collecting his forces, he talked of INIoscow, of 
 his comrades, of Pushkin, of the theatre, and 
 of Russian literature; he recalled our merry- 
 makings, the heated discussions of our circle, 
 with regret he mentioned the names of two or 
 three friends who had died 
 
 " Dost thou remember Dasha? " — he added at 
 last: — " that was a soul of gold! that was a heart! 
 and how she loved me! ... . What has become 
 of her now? — I think she must have withered 
 away, gone into a decline, has n't she, poor girl? " 
 
 I did not dare to undeceive the sick man, — 
 and, in fact, wliy should he know that his Dasha 
 was now twice as broad as she was long, 
 and consorted with merchants — with the brothers 
 Kondatchkoff, powdered and painted herself, 
 squealed and wrangled? 
 
 " But," I said to myself, as I gazed at his ex- 
 
 65
 
 MK.MOl HS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 haustcd I'acf, " cannot he be got caway from here? 
 Perliaps tlRiv is still a possibility of curing 
 bini ....'" -But Avcnir did not permit me to 
 finish my ]iroi)osal. 
 
 •• No, brother, thanks,"— he said: — "it makes 
 IK. (liflVrence wheie I die. I certainly shall not 
 survive- nntil the winter. . . . Why disturb peo- 
 ple unnecessarily^ I have become accustomed to 
 this house. To tell the truth, the master and mis- 
 tress here are . . . ." 
 
 " Air unkind, thou meanest?" I interpolated. 
 
 '' \o, not unkind! they are wooden creatures, 
 somehow. However, 1 cannot complain of them. 
 There are neighbours: I^anded Proprietor Kasat- 
 kin has a daughter, a cultivated, amiable, ex- 
 tremely kind young girl .... not proud . . . ." 
 
 Again Sorokoumofi* had a fit of coughing. 
 
 " Nothing would matter," — he went on, after 
 resting: — " if I were only permitted to smoke 
 my i)ipe. . . . 15ut I 'm not going to die like 
 this. I will smoke my pipe! " — he added, with a 
 sly wink.^ — " Thank God, I 've lived enough, 
 enough. I "ve known good people. . . ." 
 
 " Hut Ihou shouldst write to thy relatives," — 
 I interrupted him. 
 
 " What 's the good of w'riting to my relatives? 
 So far as helj)ing is concerned, — they won't help 
 me: when I die, they will hear of it. But what 's 
 the use ol" talking about this. . . . Tell me, 
 rather, what hast thou .seen abroad? " 
 
 66
 
 DEATH 
 
 I began to narrate. He fairly bored his eyes 
 into me. Toward evening I went away, and ten 
 days later I received the following letter from 
 Mr. KupryanikofF : 
 
 " I have the honour to inform you herewith, my dear 
 sir, that your friend, tlie student Mr. Avenir Sorokoil- 
 mofF, who resided in my house, died three days ago, at 
 two o'clock in the afternoon, and was buried to-day in 
 my parish church at my expense. He requested me to 
 send you the accompanying seven books and note-books. 
 It turned out that he had twenty-two rubles and a half, 
 which, together with his remaining things, become the 
 property of his relatives. Your friend died perfectly 
 conscious, and, I may say, with equal lack of feeling, 
 without having displayed any signs whatsoever of regret, 
 even when our entire family bade him farewell. My con- 
 soi-t, Kleopatra Alexandrovna, sends you her compli- 
 ments. The death of your friend could not fail to have 
 an effect upon her nerves ; so far as I am concerned, I am 
 well, thank God, and have the honour to be — 
 
 Your most humble servant 
 
 G. KupryanikofF." 
 
 Many other instances occur to my mind, — but 
 it would be impossible to recount them all. I will 
 confine myself to one. 
 
 An aged landed proprietress died in my pres- 
 ence. The priest began to read over her the pray- 
 ers for a departing soul, but suddenly observed 
 that she was actually dying, and with all haste 
 
 67
 
 MI.MOllJS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 iiuw licr the cross to kiss. The ladv tlinist it aside 
 impaticiitlv. \\'li\ art thou in such a luirrv, ba- 
 tiuslikaf" — she said w itii her sluggish tongue: — 
 " thou will lia\c ])lcnty of time." . . . She 
 kissed the cross, tried to thrust her hand under the 
 pilIo\\. and (h'cw her hist breath. Under the pil- 
 low lay a siKcr ruble: she wanted to pay the 
 priest lor her own prayer-service. . . . 
 
 Ves. wonderful is the wav in which Russians 
 
 die! 
 
 68
 
 IV 
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 The small village of Kolotovka, which formerly 
 belonged to a landed proprietress who was known 
 throughout the neighbourhood as the Planer 
 on account of her energetic and evil disposition 
 (her real name remained unknown), but now the 
 property of some Petersburg Germans or other, 
 lies on the slope of a bare hill, intersected from 
 top to bottom by a frightful ravine, which, yawn- 
 ing like a bottomless pit, winds its way, cleft and 
 excavated by torrents, through the very middle 
 of the street, and separates the two sides of the 
 poor little hamlet Avorse than a river, — for across 
 a river a bridge may, at least, be built. A few 
 spindling willows timidly descend its sandy 
 slopes; at the very bottom, dry and yellow as 
 brass, lie huge slabs of clayey stone. The aspect 
 is cheerless, there 's no denying that, — and yet, 
 all the inhabitants of the neighbourhood are well 
 acquainted with the road to Kolotovka: they re- 
 sort thither often and gladly. 
 
 At the very apex of the ravine, a few paces 
 
 69
 
 MKATOIKS OF A SrOHTSMAX 
 
 Irniii tijc point wluii- it lias its hc'^iiining as a 
 narrow clvi'i, stands a tiny lour-sqiiarc cottage, — 
 alont', apart from the rest. It is roofed with 
 straw thatcli, and has a cliimney; one window is 
 turnt-d t(. the ra\ inr, Hke a vigilant eye, and on 
 winter e\enings. illuminated from within, it is 
 visihle from afai', athwart tlie dim mist of the 
 frost, and twinkles forth as a guiding star to 
 man\ a wayfaring peasant. Over the door of the 
 cottage a hlue hoard is nailed n]): this cot is a 
 dram-shop, called " The Pritvnnv." ^ Pro})abIv 
 the licjuoi" ill this dram-shop is not sold for an}'' 
 less than the current price, but it is much more 
 diligently fre(juented than all the other establish- 
 ments of the same character in the vicinity. 
 Xikohii Ivaniteh. the tapster, is the cause. 
 
 Xikohii l\;t!iiteh. once upon a time a slender, 
 eiirlv-haired. I'osv-cheeked voung fellow, but now 
 a icmarkahly obese man, already turning grey, 
 with a lace swimming in fat, cunning but good- 
 natured little eves, and a Heshv brow, intersected 
 by thi-ead-like wi'inkles, has been living in Ko- 
 l<)t(n ka foi- more than twenty years. Nikolai 
 I\;initeh is a smart, shrewd man, like the ma- 
 jority of dram-shop keepers. Without being dis- 
 tinguished by any s])ecial amiability or loquacity, 
 he possesses the gift of attracting and retaining 
 his patrons, w Ik;, i'or some reason, find it particu- 
 
 ' Any place wlicre p«-<>j»le arc fond of asseiiil)ling, any agreeable 
 (priyatny) place, is called " pritynny." 
 
 70
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 larly jolly to sit in front of his counter, beneath 
 the calm and cordial, though keen gaze of tlie 
 ])hlegmatic liost. lie has a great deal of com- 
 mon sense; he is well acquainted with the ways of 
 the gentry and of the peasantry and of tlie 
 burghers; in (hffieulties, he might give advice 
 which was far from stupid, but, as a cautious man 
 and an egoist, he prefers not to interfere, and, at 
 most, merely by distant hints uttered as though 
 wholly devoid of intention, will he guide his pa- 
 trons — and even then only his favourite patrons 
 — into the way of truth. He is a good judge of 
 everything which is important or interesting to 
 the Russian man : of horses and cattle, of forests 
 and of bricks, of crockery and dry-goods and 
 leather wares, of songs and dances. When he has 
 no guests, he generally sits, like a sack, on the 
 ground in front of his cottage, with his thin legs 
 tucked up under him, and exchanges affable re- 
 marks with all the passers-by. He has seen a 
 great deal in his day, he has outlived scores of 
 petty gentry who have come to him for " alco- 
 hol," he know^s everything that is going on for a 
 hundred versts round about, and never blurts it 
 out, never even has the appearance of knowing 
 tliat which not even the most penetrating com- 
 missioner of rural police so much as suspects. 
 He minds his own business, holds his tongue, 
 smiles to himself, and shifts his drinking-glasses 
 about. The neighbours respect him. The ci- 
 
 71
 
 MKMOIRS OF A SPOHTS:srAN 
 
 .ilian Cic-m-ral ' Slislitcherspetenko, tlic Icadino- 
 s«iuirc 111" tlic district as to rank, always nods con- 
 dtscvndin«il\- to liini wlienevci- he passes his little 
 iiouse. Nikolai Ivaniteh is a man of influence: he 
 forced a well-known horse-thief to restore a horse 
 wiiich he had ahstracted from the yard of one of 
 his aciiiiaintances, he hrought to their senses the 
 peasants of a neighbouring village who were un- 
 \\illing to accept a new manager, and so forth. 
 Hilt it must not be supposed that he did this out 
 of love for justice, out of zeal for his neighbours 
 no! lie simply endeavours to prevent anything 
 whicli may in any way disturb his tranquillity. 
 Nikolai Ivaniteh is married, and has children. 
 His wife, an alert, sharp-nosed, and quick-ej^ed 
 woman of the burgher class, has also grown 
 rather heavv in bodv of late, like her husband. 
 lie relies upon her thoroughly, and she keeps 
 their money under lock and key. Boisterous 
 drunkards fear her; she is not fond of them: there 
 is little j)rofit from them, but much uproar; the 
 silent, surly sort are more to her taste. Xikolai 
 Ivanitch's children are still small; all the first- 
 born have died, but the rest resemble their pa- 
 rents: it is a pleasure to look at the clever faces 
 of these robust vounosters. 
 
 ' Aorordiiig to Peter the Great's famous Table of Ranks, civil- 
 ians liohi military titles (though they are rarely used, except in 
 the case of " general ") which correspond with tlie grade they 
 have attained. In order of precedence, tlie "generals" run as 
 follows: Actual Privy Councillor corresponds to General of Cav- 
 alry. Infantry, or Artillery; Privy Councillor, to Meutenant-Gen- 
 cral; Actual Councillor of State, to xMajor-General.— Tkanslator. 
 
 72
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 It was an intolerably hot July day, when, 
 slowly putting one foot before the other, and ac- 
 companied by my dog, I made my way upward 
 along the Kolotovka ravine in the direction of the 
 Pritynny dram-sho}). The sun was blazing in the 
 sky, as though in a furious rage; it stewed and 
 baked one unremittingly; the air was impreg- 
 nated with stifling dust. The daws and crows, 
 covered with gloss, with gaping bills stared at 
 the passers-by, as though entreating their sympa- 
 thy ; the sparrows were the only ones who did not 
 grieve, and puffing out their feathers, they twit- 
 tered more violently than ever, and fought in the 
 hedges, flew amicably from the dusty road, and 
 soared in grey clouds above the green patches 
 of hemp. I was suff"ering tortures from thirst. 
 There was no water near; in Kolotovka, as in 
 many other villages of the steppes, the peasants 
 drink a sort of liquid mud from the pond, in de- 
 fault of springs or wells. . . . But who would 
 call that repulsive beverage water? I wanted to 
 ask Nikolai Ivanitch for a glass of beer or kvas. 
 
 I must admit that Kolotovka does not present 
 a very cheerful spectacle at any season of the 
 year; but it arouses a particularly sad feeling 
 when the glittering July sun with its pitiless rays 
 is heating the dark-brown, half -dispersed thatches 
 of the houses, and that deep ravine, and the 
 burnt-up, dusty pasture, across which hopelessly 
 wander gaunt, long-legged hens, and the grey, 
 aspen framework with holes in lieu of windows, 
 
 73
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTS.MAX 
 
 tlu- niiiiKiiit oi' the* fornicr manor-house, com 
 plfttly ovirgrowii with ritttles, steppe-grass, and 
 wonuuootl, and covered with goose-down, the 
 hhiek pond, n-d-hot as it were, with a fringe of 
 half-drifd nind. and a dam, twisted awry, by 
 whose sidt . (»ii the asli-hUe soil, trodden fine,sheep, 
 barely l)reathing and sneezing with the dust, 
 sadl\- imddlc close to one another, and with de- 
 jected patience bow their lieads as though wait- 
 ing for that intolerable heat to pass off at last. 
 With wiaiy stc])s I approached the abode of Ni- 
 kolai haiiiteli, exoking in the small brats, as was 
 j)roj)er, a suiprise which rose to the pitch of 
 .strainedly-irrational stares, and in the dogs wrath 
 u Inch was expressed by l>arking so hoarse and 
 vicious, that it seemed as though all their entrails 
 were bring torn out of them, and they themselves 
 coughed and panted after it, — when, all of a sud- 
 den, on the threshold of the dram-shop there made 
 his ap{)earance a peasant of lofty stature, capless, 
 in a frieze cloak, girt low v»ith a sky-blue girdle. 
 I'rom his apj)earance, he seemed to be a house- 
 servant; his thick grey hair rose in disorder above 
 his lean, \\ rinkled face. He called some one, hur- 
 riedly gesticulating with his arms, which, evi- 
 dently, made more sweeping flourishes than he 
 himself intended. It was obvious that he had al- 
 ready succeeded in getting intoxicated. 
 
 " Come along, come along, I say!" — he stam- 
 mered, ele\ating his thick eyebrows with an ef- 
 
 74
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 fort: — " come along, Blinker, come along! deuce 
 take thee, my good fellow, thou fairly crawlest, 
 upon my word. 'T is not well, my good fellow. 
 They are waiting for thee, and here thou art 
 crawling. . . . Come along." 
 
 " Well, I 'm coming, 1 'm coming," — re- 
 sounded a quavering voice, and from behind the 
 cottage, on the right, a short, fat, lame man made 
 his a])pearance. He wore a fairly clean woollen 
 overcoat, with his arm in one sleeve only; a tall, 
 conical cap, pulled straight down to his brows, 
 imparted to his round, plump face a sly and jeer- 
 ing expression. His small, yellow eyes fairly 
 darted about, a repressed, constrained smile never 
 left his lips, and his long, sharp nose pro- 
 jected audaciously in front like a rudder. — 
 " I 'm coming, my dear fellow," — he went on, 
 hobbling in the direction of the dram-shop: — 
 "why dost thou call me? . . . Who is waiting 
 for me? " 
 
 " Why do I call thee? " — said the man in the 
 frieze coat, reproachfully. — ^" Thou 'rt a queer 
 fellow, Blinker: thou art called to the dram-shoji, 
 and thou askest : ' Why ? ' Good men are waiting 
 for thee: Turk-Yashka, and Wild Gentleman, 
 and the contractor from Zhisdra. Yashka and 
 the contractor have made a bet: thev have wa- 
 gered a gallon of beer as to which one of them 
 will outdo the other, — that is to say, which will 
 sing the best Dost understand? " 
 
 7o
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 "Is Vaslika ^oino- to sing?" — said tlie man 
 callfd lilinker, with vivacity, — "And art not thou 
 \\\\\^. Ninny :* " 
 
 •' 1 III not lyinu/' — replied The Ninny, with 
 (h'tJ-nitv: •' hut thou art talking- crazy nonsense. 
 Oi" course he "s going to sing, if he has made a bet, 
 thou hi(ly-hug, tliou rogue, Blinker!" 
 
 *' Well, come on then, silly," retorted Blinker. 
 
 " Come, kiss me at least, my darling," — stam- 
 mered The NiiHiy, opening his arms widely. 
 
 " Pshaw . wliat a tender ^-Esop," — replied 
 Hhnker, scornfully, irpulsing him with his elbow, 
 and both, l)ending down, entered the low-browed 
 d(X)r. 
 
 The conversation I had overheard powerfully 
 excited my curiosity. JNIore than once rumours 
 liad readied me about Turk-Yashka as the best 
 singer in the vicinity, and an opportunity^ had 
 now presented itself to me to hear him in compe- 
 tition with another master of the art. I redoubled 
 my i)ace, and entered the establishment. In all 
 l)robal)ihtv, not many of mv readers have had a 
 chance to take a peep at country dram-shoj^s; but 
 into what i)laces do not we sportsmen enter! 
 Their arrangement is extremely simple. They 
 usually consist of a dark anteroom and a light cot- 
 tsige, separated into two divisions by a partition, 
 behind which no visitor has the right to go. In 
 this partition, above the broad, oaken table, a 
 large, oblong opening is made. On the table or 
 
 76
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 counter the liquor is sold. Sealed square bottles 
 of various sizes stand in rows on shelves, directly 
 opposite the aperture. In tlie central ])art of the 
 cottage, designed for patrons, are benches, two 
 or three empty casks, and a corner table. The 
 majority of country dram-shops are rather dark, 
 and almost never Mill you see on their board walls 
 any of the brilliantly coloured cheap pictures 
 which are lacking in very few cottages. 
 
 When I entered the Pritynny dram-shop, a 
 fairly numerous company was already assembled 
 there. 
 
 Behind the counter, as w^as proper, almost to 
 the full extent of the aperture, Nikolai Ivanitch 
 was standing in a gay-coloured cotton shirt and 
 with a languid smile on his plump cheeks, and 
 pouring out w ith his fat, white hands two glasses 
 of liquor for the friends who had just entered. 
 Blinker and The Ninny; and behind him, in the 
 corner, near the window, his brisk-ej^ed wife was 
 to be seen. In the middle of the room stood 
 Yashka-the-Turk, a spare and well-built man of 
 three-and-twenty years, clad in a long-tailed nan- 
 keen kaftan, blue in coloin*. He looked like a 
 dashing factory-hand, and, apparently, could not 
 boast of very robust health. His sunken cheeks, 
 his large, uneasy grey eyes, his straight nose with 
 thin, mobile nostrils, his white receding brow, 
 with light chestnut curls tossed back, his large but 
 handsome and expressive lips — his whole counte-= 
 
 77
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 iiaiuv (li-nott'd ;iii iiiij)ivssionablc and ])assi()nate 
 man. I h was in a state of gvvat excitement: his 
 eyes were w inking' Iianl, lie was breathini>' irregu- 
 larlv, his hands were trenibhn^' as though with 
 fever,- -and lie really had a fever, that palpitat- 
 inir. sudden fexcr whieh is so familiar to all 
 peopli' who speak or sing })efore un audience. 
 Jieside him stood a man about forty years of age, 
 broad-shouldered, with broad cheek-bones, and a 
 low brow , nairow Tatar eyes, a short, thick nose, 
 a scjuarc cliiii, and shining bhick liair as stiff as 
 bristles. The expression of his swarthy and 
 leaden-hued face, especially of his pallid lips, 
 might ha\e been designated as almost fierce, had 
 it not been so composedly-meditative. He 
 hardly stiiTed. and only slowly glanced around 
 him, like ;'n ox from beneath his yoke. He w'as 
 dre.s.sed in some sort of a threadbare coat with 
 sMUJotii, l)rass l)uttons; an old, black silk kerchief 
 encircled liis Imgc mek. He was called the Wild 
 (ientleman. Directly opposite him, on the bench, 
 beneath tlu' holy })ictu,res, sat Yashka's com- 
 j)etitor, the contractor from Zhisdra: he was a 
 thick-set j)easant, low of stature, aged thirty, 
 j)ockmarked and curly-haired, witli a stub})y, 
 snub nose, small, lively brown eyes, and a small, 
 thin beard. lie cast bold glances about him, with 
 liis Ii.uKJs tucked under him, chattered inces- 
 santly, and kept tapping with his feet, which were 
 shod ill danditied boots with a border. 
 
 78
 
 THE SINCxERS 
 
 He wore a new, thin arniyak ' of grey cloth, 
 with a velveteen collar, against which tlie edge of 
 a scarlet shirt, closely hiittoned around the throat, 
 stood out sliarply. In the opposite corner, to the 
 right of the door, at the tal)le, an insignificant lit- 
 tle peasant was sitting, clad in a scant, threadbare 
 smock-frock with a huge hole in the shoulder. 
 The sunlight streamed in a thin, yellowisli flood 
 through tlie dusty panes of two tiny windows, 
 and, apparently, could not conquer the liahitual 
 gloom of the room: all the objects were scantily 
 illuminated, — in spots, as it were. On the other 
 liand, it was almost cool there, and the sensation 
 of suffocation and sultry heat slipped from my 
 shoulders, like a burden, as soon as I had stepped 
 across the threshold. 
 
 My arrival — I could see it — somewhat discon- 
 certed Nikolai Ivanitch's guests at first; but, 
 perceiving that he boAved to me, as to an acquain- 
 tance, they recovered their composure, and paid 
 no further attention to me. I ordered some beer, 
 and seated myself in the corner, beside the peas- 
 ant in the torn smock. 
 
 "Well, what now!" — suddenly roared The 
 Ninny, tossing oil" a glass of beer at one gulp, 
 and accompanying his exclamation with the same 
 strange flourishing of the hands, without which, 
 
 ^ A coat wliich is fitted as far as the waist-line, folds dia<roiially 
 across the front, and lias considerai)Ie fullness ini]>arted to tlie 
 tails by plaits inserted at the waist where the curving seams from 
 the shoulders join the si<irt.— Tuan'si.ator. 
 
 79
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMxVN 
 
 cvidi-iitly. lit' never uttered a single word. — 
 • What are wt- waiting for^ If you 're going to 
 Iks' in, \\\\\ lie-in. Ilev^ Yashka? ..." 
 
 *' lie«'in. I)e^•in,'■ — chimed in Xikolai Ivanitch, 
 aj>i)n»vingly. 
 
 ■ \\\ \\ ill l)ei'iii. il' voii like," — said the con- 
 tractor, coolly, and Nvith a self-satisfied smile: — 
 
 1 III iiady." 
 
 " And 1 III ready," — enunciated Yakoff, with 
 agitation. 
 
 " Well, hegin, my lads, begin," piped Blinker. 
 
 IJiit, despite the unanimously expressed desire, 
 no one did l)egin; the contractor did not even rise 
 from his bench, — all seemed to be waiting for 
 sometliing. 
 
 Hegin! " — said the AVild Gentleman, sharply 
 and morosely. 
 
 ^'akof^ gave a start. The contractor rose, 
 pulled (low II his girdle, and cleared his throat. 
 
 "But who's to begin?" — he asked, in a 
 slightly altered voice of the Wild Gentleman, 
 wjio still continued to stand motionless in the 
 middle of the room, with his thick legs strad- 
 dled I'ar apart, and his mighty arms thrust into 
 the pockets of his full trousers almost to the 
 elhow . 
 
 " Tlioii. thou, contractor," — lisped The Ninny, 
 — " thou, my good fellow." 
 
 The Wild (ientleman darted a sidelonfy glance 
 at him. The Xinny gave a faint squeak, grew 
 
 80
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 confused, stjired at some point on the ceiling, 
 twitclied his shoulders, and relapsed into silence. 
 
 " Cast lots," — said the Wild Gentleman with 
 a pause between his words: — " and let the meas- 
 ure of beer be placed on the counter." 
 
 Nikolai Ivanitch bent down, picked up the 
 measure from the floor, ^vitli a grunt, and set it 
 on the table. 
 
 The Wild Gentleman glanced at Yakoff, and 
 said: " Go ahead! " 
 
 Yakoff fumbled in his pockets, drew forth a 
 two-kopek piece, and bit a mark in it. The con- 
 tractor pulled from beneath the tails of his kaf- 
 tan a new leathern purse, deliberately untied the 
 cords, and pouring out a quantity of small change 
 into his hand, selected a new two-kopek bit. The 
 Ninny held out his well-worn cap, with its 
 broken and ripped visor; Yakoff tossed his coin 
 into it, and the contractor tossed in his. 
 
 " 'T is for thee to draw,"— said the Wild Gen- 
 tleman, turning to Blinker. 
 
 Blinker laughed in a self-satisfied way, took 
 the cap in both hands, and began to shake it. 
 
 Instantaneously a profound silence reigned: 
 the coins, faintly jingling, clinked against each 
 other. I cast an attentive glance around: all 
 faces expressed strained expectation; the Wild 
 Gentleman himself screwed up his eyes; my 
 neighboiu-, the wretched little peasant in the torn 
 smock, even craned out his neck with curiosity. 
 
 81
 
 MKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 HIiiiktr tlinist his hand into tlic cap and drew out 
 the contractors coin: all heaved a sigh. Yakoff 
 fhislud scarlet, and the contractor passed his 
 hand over his hair. 
 
 '* There, did n"t I say that thou sliouldst be- 
 •riu."— exclaimed The Ninny. " 1 told you so! " 
 
 " Well. well, don't s({uawk," ' — remarked 
 the Wild (ientlenian. disdainfully. "Begin," — 
 he added, noddirjg his head at the contractor. 
 
 'What song shall I sing? " — inquired the con- 
 tractor, hecoming flustered. 
 
 '■ Whatever one thou wilt," — replied Blinker. 
 ■ Whatever song comes into thy head, sing 
 that." 
 
 Wluitever one thou pleasest, of course, "^ — ■ 
 added Nikolai Ivanileli, slowly folding his arms 
 on liis chest. — "There's no decree for thee on 
 that matter. Sing what thou wilt; only, sing 
 well; and afterward, we will decide according to 
 our consciences." 
 
 " According to our consciences, of course," — 
 put in The Ninny, and licked the rim of his empty 
 glass. 
 
 " Let me clear my throat a bit, my good fel= 
 lows," — began the contractor, drawing his fingers 
 alf)ng the- cdllai- of his kaftan. 
 
 ■'Come, come, don't dawdle — begin!" — said 
 the Wild Crentleman, with decision, and dropped 
 his eves. 
 
 * 
 
 ' Hawks squawk wlien they are frightened by anything. 
 
 82
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 The contractor reflected a while, shook his head, 
 and advanced a pace. Yakoff riveted his eyes 
 upon him. ... 
 
 But before 1 enter upon a description of the 
 contest itself, 1 consider it not superfluous to say 
 a few words about each of the acting personages 
 of my tale. The life of several of them was al- 
 ready known to me, when I encountered them in 
 the Pritynny dram-shop; I collected information 
 concerning the others later on. 
 
 Let us begin with The Ninny. This man's real 
 name was Evgraf Ivanoff ; but no one in all the 
 country round about called him anything but The 
 Ninny, and he alluded to himself by this nick- 
 name also; so well did it fit him. And, as a mat- 
 ter of fact, nothing could have been better suited 
 to his insignificant, eternally alarmed features. 
 He was an idle, unmarried house-serf, who had 
 very long since been discarded by his owners, and 
 who, although he had nc duties and received not a 
 penny of wages, found the means, nevertheless, 
 to indulge in daily sprees at other people's ex- 
 pense. He had a multitude of acquaintances, 
 who treated him to licjuor and to tea, without 
 themselves knowing why they did so, because he 
 not only was not entertaining in company, but 
 even, on the contrary, bored every one with his 
 senseless chatter, his unbearable insolence, his 
 feverish movements and incessant, unnatural 
 laughter. He could neither sing nor dance; in all 
 
 83
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 his lilV lie- had not uttered a witty nor even a sensi- 
 ble word: lie did nothing but "tipple" and lie 
 at random — a regular ninny! And yet, not a 
 single drinking-bout took place within a circuit 
 of forty \ersts ^^'ithout his long-limbed figure 
 turning u}) among the guests, — so wonted had 
 they become to him, and so tolerant of his pres- 
 ence as an inevitable evil. He was treated scorn- 
 I'ully, it is true, but no one except the AVild Gen- 
 tleman knew how to put a stop to his inopportune 
 outbursts. 
 
 Blinker did not in the least resemble The Ninny. 
 Tiie name Blinker suited him also, although he 
 did not ])link his eyes more than other people: 't is 
 a ^^ell-known fact that the Russian populace are 
 master-hands at bestowing nicknames. Despite 
 my efforts to investigate more circumstantially 
 the past of this man, there yet remained for me — 
 and, probably, for others also — dark spots in his 
 life, i)laces, as the men learned in book-lore ex- 
 press it, veiled in the profound gloom of obscur- 
 ity. All 1 found out was, that he had formerly 
 been the coachman of an old, childless landed 
 ])roprietres.5, had absconded with the team of 
 three horses entrusted to him, had disappeared 
 for a \vhole year, and having become convinced 
 by experience, it is to be presumed, of the disad- 
 \antages and miseries of a vagabond existence, 
 had returned of liis own accord, but lame, had 
 liung himself at the feet of his mistress, and. 
 
 84
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 Iiaving for the space of several j^ears atoned 
 for his crime by exemplary conduct, had gradu- 
 ally got into her good graces, had at last won 
 her complete confidence, had been made over- 
 seer, and after the death of his mistress now 
 turned cut to have been emancipated, no one 
 knew how, had inscribed himself in the burgher 
 class, had begun to hire ground for raising mel- 
 ons and cucumbers from the neighbours, had 
 grown rich, and now lived in clover. He was a 
 man of experience, opinionated, neither good- 
 natured nor malicious, but calculating, rather; 
 he was a cunning rogue, acquainted with men's 
 ways, and knew how to take advantage of 
 them. He was cautious and, at the same time, 
 enterprising, like a fox ; loquacious as an old wo- 
 man, yet never made a slip of the tongue, while 
 he made every one else betray himself in speech; 
 moreover, he did not pretend to be a simpleton, as 
 some crafty persons of the same stamp do; and, 
 indeed, it would have been difficult for him to dis- 
 simulate: I have never seen more piercing and 
 clever eyes than his tiny, crafty " peepers." ^ 
 They never simply looked — they were ahvays 
 watching or spying out. Blinker would some- 
 times consider for weeks at a stretch some appar- 
 ently simple undertaking, and then suddenly de- 
 cide upon some desperately-bold operation, in 
 
 The people of the Orel (Aryol) Government call eyes "peepers," 
 as thej^ call the mouth " the eater." 
 
 85
 
 MKMOIKS OK A SPORTSMAN 
 
 uliiili. t.. all apiK-araiiccs, lie was sure to l»reak 
 
 his iRvk Viul the first you knew,— every- 
 
 thin«r had turneil out a success, everything was 
 niiiiiiiii'- as though on oiled wheels. He was 
 lucky, and i)elieved in his luck, and believed in 
 omens. Altogether, he was very superstitious. 
 He was not hcloNcd, because he cared nothing for 
 any one, but he was respected. His entire family 
 consisted of one small son, whom he fairly adored, 
 and who, reared by such a father, would in all 
 probability go far. "Little Blinker" (Morga- 
 tchonok) "takes after his father," the old peo- 
 ple already said of him, with bated breath, as they 
 sat on the earthen banks around the cottages 
 and chatted among themselves on summer even- 
 ings; and everybody understood what that meant, 
 and added not a word more. 
 
 There is no necessity for occupying ourselves 
 {ouir with "S'likofF-the-Turk and the contractor. 
 ^'^ikof!^ nicknamed the Turk, because he really 
 was descended from a Turkish woman captive, 
 was ill soul an artist in every sense of the word, 
 and by profession a moulder in the paper-mill 
 of a merchant; as for the contractor, he seemed 
 to me to be a i-(?sourceful and dashing town- 
 dweller of the burgher class. But it is worth 
 while to speak in more detail concerning the 
 Wild (ientleman. 
 
 The first impression which the as})ect of this 
 man made upon you was a sensation of some 
 
 86
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 coarse, heavy but irresistible force. He was avvk- 
 vvardly Iniilt, " flung together," as our expression 
 runs, but he exhaled an atmosphere of invincible 
 health, and, strange to say, his ursine figure 
 was not devoid of a certain peculiar grace, enia^ 
 nating, possibly, from perfectly composed confi- 
 dence in his own might. It was difficult to de- 
 cide, ofF-hand, to A\'hat social class this Hercules 
 belonged; he resembled neither a house-serf noi- 
 a biu'gher, nor an impoverished pettifogger out 
 of a job, nor a ruined nobleman of small estate — 
 a keeper of dogs and bully: in truth, he was 
 a unique specimen. Xo one knew whence he had 
 descended upon our district; it was said that liis 
 ancestors had been peasant-freeholders,^ and it 
 was supposed that he had formerly been in the 
 government service somewhere, but no one knew 
 anything definite in regard to that; and from 
 whom were they to find out — certainly not from 
 the man himself : there never was a more taciturn 
 and surly person. Moreover, no one could say 
 with authority what were his means of subsis- 
 tence ; he cccupied himself with no handicraft, he 
 visited no one, he knew hardly any one, yet he 
 was supplied with money, — not much, to tell the 
 truth, but enough. His demeanour was not pre-, 
 cisely unassuming, — on the w^iole, there was no- 
 thing unassuming about him, — but quiet : he lived 
 as thouo^h he did not notice any one around him, 
 
 1 See the sketch in Vol. I, " Freeholder Ovsyanikoff," p. 98. 
 
 87
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPOHTSMAX 
 
 ami (It'citlctUv stood in no need of anv one. The 
 \Vild (ientlenian (sueli was the nieknanie whicli 
 liad been eonfefred upon him: but his real name 
 was Perevlyesoff ) enjoyed immense intiuenee 
 throui^iiout the whole eountryside ; people yieldetl 
 him instantaneous and Avilling obedience, al- 
 tbouuh he not onlv liad no shadow of rii>ht to 
 issue orders to any one whomsoever, hut did not 
 even manifest the slightest pretensions to the obe- 
 dience of the people with Mhom he came into con- 
 tact. He s[)()ke, — he was oheyed; power always 
 asserts its rights. He drank hardly any licjuor, 
 did not consort with women, and was passionately 
 fond of singing. There was a great deal that was 
 mysterious about this man; it seemed as thouffh 
 some \ ast forces or other were morosely reposing 
 within iiim, as though aware that, having once 
 risen up, having once broken loose, they were 
 bound to destroy both themselves and evervthina' 
 with wliich they should come into contact; and I 
 am greatly mistaken, if such an outburst had not 
 already taken place in that man's life, if he, 
 taught l)y experience and barely rescued from 
 perdition, were not now holding a very tight rein 
 over himself. AVhat especially struck me in him 
 was tlu mixture of a certain innate, natural 
 fii rceness and an e(iually innate nobility, — a mix- 
 tuie wliicli I jiave never encountered in any one 
 else. 
 
 So tlien. tiie contractor stepped forward, half^ 
 
 88
 
 TITE SINGEHS 
 
 closed liis eyes, and began to sing in a high fal- 
 setto. His voice wrfs tolerably agreeable and 
 sweet, although somewhat husky ; he played with 
 his voice and flung it about like a whirligig, inces- 
 santly trilling and executing roulades in a de- 
 scending scale, and incessantly returning to his 
 upper notes, which he held and drew out with pe- 
 culiar pains, then paused, and again suddenly 
 took up his former refrain with a certain daring, 
 s])irited dash. His transitions were sometimes 
 quite bold, sometimes quite amusing: they would 
 have afforded connoisseurs great satisfaction; a 
 German would have been enraged by them. He 
 was a Russian tenorc di grazia, tenor leger. He 
 sang a merry dance-tune, the words of which, so 
 far as I could make them out amid the inter- 
 minable ornamentation, the supplementary con- 
 sonants and exclamations, were as follows : 
 
 « 
 " I '11 plough, will I, the stripling young, 
 
 A little patch of ground : 
 
 I '11 sow, will I, the stripling 3'oung, 
 
 A little flower of scarlet hue." 
 
 He sang; all listened to him with great atten- 
 tion. He evidently felt that he had to deal with 
 people who were good judges, and therefore, as 
 the saying is, he fairly " crawled out of his skin " 
 in his efforts. As a matter of fact, people in am- 
 parts are good judges of singing, and not with- 
 
 89
 
 MK.MUIHS UF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 out cause is tilt' \illagc' oi' Scrgicvskoe, on the 
 givat Orel higliuay, reno%vned throughout the 
 whole of Hussia for its pecuharly agreeable and 
 hannonioMs nielodv. For a long time the con- 
 traetor continued to sing, witliout evoking any 
 special sympalliy in his hearers. 
 
 lit lacked the su])p()rt of a chorus; at last, at 
 one [)articulai"ly successful passage, which made 
 even the Wild (ientleman smile, The Ninny could 
 contain liiniself no longer, and shouted aloud with 
 delight. K\ery one gave a start. The Ninny 
 and Blinker began to hum in an undertone, to 
 accompany Iiini. and to shout: " That 's a dandy! 
 
 (ro ahead, thou rascal! . . . Go 
 
 ahead, keep on, thou brigand! Lash out again! 
 Split thy throat again, thou dog, thou hound! 
 . . . Let Herod slav thy soul!" . . . and so 
 
 « ^ 
 
 forth. Nikolai Ivanitch, behind his counter, 
 nodded his head to right and left in approbation. 
 At last. The Ninny began to stamp his feet, to 
 shift from foot to foot, and to twitch his shoul- 
 (leis, and ^'akoff^s eyes fairly blazed up like 
 coals of tire, and he (juivered all over like a leaf, 
 and smiled flabbily. The Wild Gentleman alone 
 did not change countenance, and, as before, did 
 not stir from his seat; but his gaze, riveted upon 
 the contractoi-, l)ecame somewhat softer, although 
 the exj)rcssion of his lips remained scornful. En- 
 couraged by these tokens of universal approval, 
 the contractor became a perfect Avbirlwind, and 
 
 90
 
 TllK SlXCiEHS 
 
 began to emit such fioriturc, clicked and drummed 
 so with his tongue, made liis throat perform such 
 frantic feats, that wlien, at hist, exhausted, pale, 
 and drenched in l)()iling perspiration, he threw 
 his whole body backward and gave vent to a final 
 expiring outcry, a general unanimous shout re- 
 sponded to him in a vehement outburst. The 
 Ninny flung himself upon his neck, and began to 
 choke him with his long, bony arms; on Nikolai 
 Ivanitch's fat face a flush broke forth, and he 
 seemed to have grown young again; Yakoff 
 shouted like a madman: "Well done! well 
 done! " ' — even my neighbour, the peasant in the 
 torn smock, could not contain himself, and smit- 
 ing the table with his flst, he shouted: "A-ha! 
 good, devil take it— 't is good ! " — and spat de- 
 cisively to one side, 
 
 " Well, brother, thou hast diverted us! " — cried 
 The Ninny, without releasing the exhausted con- 
 tractor from his embrace, — " thou hast diverted 
 us, there's no denying that! Thou hast won, 
 brother, thou hast won ! I congratulate thee, — the 
 measure of beer is thine! Yashka is far behind 
 thee. . . . Just mark what I am saying to thee: 
 thou 'rt far ahead of him. . . . Believe me ! " 
 (And again he clasped the contractor to his 
 breast.) 
 
 " Come, let him go, let him go, thou nui- 
 
 ' Literally: "Fine, dashing young fellow." Possibly, "Bully for 
 you ! " would be the more accurate translation. — Translator. 
 
 91
 
 M 
 
 MOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 siinee . . ." said IJlii.ker, with vexation:— " let 
 IniM sit (1..NM1 nil the heiieh ; dost not thou see 
 he's tired! . . . What a ninny thou art, my good 
 iVIL.w. really, a ninny ! Wliy dost thou stick to 
 him lilaa hath-leaiT' ^ 
 
 • Will, all light, let liim sit down, and I '11 
 drinU t.. his health,' —said The Ninny, steppmg 
 up to Ilk- eounter.— " At thy expense, brother," — 
 lie added, addressing the contractor. 
 
 'Vhc latter nodded in assent, seated himself on 
 till- IkmcIi. i)ulled a towel out of his cap, and be- 
 gan to mop his face; hut The Ninny, with greedy 
 liaste, (h-ained his glass, and, accordmg to the cus- 
 tom of confirmed drunkards, he assumed a 
 grieved and careworn aspect. 
 
 " Tiion singest well, brother, well," — i-emarked 
 Nikolai Ivanitcli, caressingly. — "And nov.^ 'tis 
 tliv turn, ^'ashka: look out, don't be timid. Let 's 
 see who s who; let's see. . . But the contractor 
 sinus well, — hv heaven, he does! " 
 
 " Very well, indeed," — remarked Nikolai Ivan- 
 itch's wife, glancing at Yakoff with a smile. 
 
 "Wry well indee-ed!" repeated my neigh- 
 hour, in a!i undertone. 
 
 ■ llev, Savage-Polvekha! " ^ suddenly roared 
 
 ' The usual l)ath-i)esoin, for agreeable massage after the steain- 
 l)ath, is a fan-like hiincii of hircli-hraiiclies, with the leaves left on, 
 and (ii|)i>e(l in hot water to i)revent tiieir falling off. Sometimes 
 the peasants use htniches of nettles. — Transi.atok. 
 
 'Tlie inhaliitants of southern Polyesye are called Polyekhi. 
 'I'he I'oiyesyi- is a long forest tract which hegins at tiie hoiiiulary 
 of tlic HolklKiff ami Zhizdra districts. Its iiihahitants are distin- 
 
 92
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 The Ninny, and stalking np to the peasant with 
 the hole on his shoulder, he pointed his finger at 
 him, began to skip about, and burst into a peal oi' 
 laughter. — "A Polyekha! a Polyekha! Ha, 
 bddijc,^ drive on. Savage? Why hast thou fa- 
 voured us with thy company? " he shouted, 
 through his laughter. The poor peasant was dis- 
 concerted, and was making ready to rise and de- 
 part as speedily as possible, when suddenly the 
 Wild Gentleman's brazen voice rang out: 
 
 " Why, what intolerable animal is this? " — he 
 ejacidated, gnashing his teeth. 
 
 "I didn't do anythhig," ^ — mumbled The 
 Ninny: — "I didn't do anything. ... I only 
 just . . . ." 
 
 "Well, very good, hold thy tongue!" — re- 
 torted the Wild Gentleman. — " YakofF, begin! " 
 
 Yatoff clutched his throat w ith his hand. 
 
 " Well, brother, you know . . . somehow . . . 
 H'm . . . . I don't know, really, somehow, you 
 know . . . ." 
 
 " Come, have done with that, don't get fright- 
 ened. Art ashamed? . . . Why dost thou wrig- 
 gle? Sing as God j^rompts thee." 
 
 And the Wild Gentleman lowered his eyes in 
 anticipation. 
 
 guished by many peculiarities in their manner of life, customs, 
 and dialect. Tliey are called savages because of tlieir suspicious 
 and dull dlsjiositioii. 
 
 ' The Polyekhi add the exclamation "■ ha ! " to nearly every word, 
 also " oddye." The Ninny says " panyai " instead of "pogon- 
 ydi " ("drive on"), also in mimicry. 
 
 93
 
 MK.MOIHS OF A SrOUTSMAN 
 
 ^';ll^nlr lifid his peace for a little, cast a 
 glaiKc loiiml him, and covered his face with his 
 liand. Kverv one fairlv bored into him with his 
 eyes, especially tlie contractor, upon whose coun- 
 tenance, athwart his wonted self-assurance, and 
 the triumph of success, there broke forth a faint, 
 in\()hintary uneasiness. He leaned back against 
 tile wall and a«4ain tucked both his hands under 
 him. hut \\v \\n longer swung his feet to and 
 fro. W'luii. at last, Vakoff uncovered his face, 
 it ^^ as i)ale as that of a corpse, and his eyes barely 
 gleamed through his lowered lashes. He heaved 
 a deep sigh, and began to sing. . . . The 
 first sound of his voice was weak and uneven, 
 and. aj)parently, did not emanate from his chest, 
 but was wafted from some distant place, as 
 though it had flown accidentally into the room. 
 This tremulous, ringing sound had a strange 
 eft'ect on all of us; we glanced at one another, 
 and Xikolai Ivanitch's wife actually straight- 
 ened Iierself up. This first sound was followed 
 by another, more firm and prolonged, but still 
 <)b\iouslv tremulous, like a chord when, suddenly 
 resounding beneath a strong finger, it quivers 
 with a final, expiring tremor; the second note 
 was followed by a third, and, gradually, warm- 
 ing II J) and broadening, a melancholy song 
 poured lorth. 
 
 " Not one path alone in the field is trodden," 
 
 94
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 he sang, and we all felt sweetness and sadness in 
 our hearts. I am bound to confess, that rarely 
 have I heard such a voice: it was slightly broken, 
 and had a cracked ring ; at first it even had a sort 
 of sickly sound; but it contained both genuine 
 and profound passion, and youth, and power, and 
 sweetness, and a certain captivatingly-care-free, 
 despondent pain. iVn upright, burning, Russian 
 soul resounded and breathed in it, and fairly 
 gripped our hearts, laid hold directly upon their 
 Russian chords. 'The song swelled and broad- 
 ened. Yakoff, evidently, had been seized with a 
 fit of rapture ; he was no longer timid, he surren- 
 dered himself wholly to his bliss; his voice no 
 longer trembled, — it quivered, but with that 
 barely perceptible inward quiver of passion, 
 which pierces the soul of the hearer like an arrow, 
 and grew constantly stronger, firmer, more volu- 
 minous. I remember having seen, once upon a 
 time, of an evening, at ebb-tide, on the flat, sandy 
 shore of the sea, which was roaring menacingly 
 and heavily in the distance, a large white sea-gull ; 
 it was sitting motionless, with its silky breast 
 exposed to the crimson glow of the sunset, and 
 only now and then did it slowly spread its long 
 wings in the direction of its familiar ocean, 
 toward the purpling sun : I recalled that sea-gull 
 as I listened to Yakoff. He sang on, utterly 
 oblivious of his rival, and of us all, but evidently 
 upborne, like a \'igorous swimmer by the waves, 
 
 95
 
 MKMOIIJS OF A SrORTS^rAX 
 
 Ity our siknt. passionate interest. He sang, and 
 every sound of his voice breatlied forth something 
 which was akin to us, and boundlessly vast, as 
 though the familiar steppes were unrolling them- 
 selves iR'fore us, stretching out into the illimitable 
 distance. I felt that tears were gathering in my 
 heart, and welling up into my eyes; dull, sup- 
 pressed .sobs suddenly startled me I 
 
 glanced around — the i)ublican's wife was weep- 
 ing, bent forwaid, witli her bo.som against the 
 window. Viikoff' shot a swift glance at her, and 
 l)egan to warble even more sweetly than be- 
 fore. Nikolai Ivanitch dropped his eyes; Blinker 
 turned away: The Xinny, completely melted, 
 stood with his mouth stupidly agape; the grey 
 little peasant was sobbing softly in his corner, 
 shaking Iiis head with a bitter whisper; and across 
 the iron face of the Wild Gentleman, from be- 
 neath his l)rows, which were completely contracted 
 in a frown, a heavy tear was trickling slowdy; 
 tli( contractor raised his clenched fist to his brow, 
 and (lid not stir. ... I know^ not in what the uni- 
 versal anguish would have culminated, had not 
 ^'akoff' suddeidy wound up on a liigh, remarka- 
 bly thin note— as though his voice had broken off 
 short. Xo one cried out, no one even stirred; all 
 .seemed to be waiting to see whether he would not 
 sing some more; but he opened his eyes, as though 
 suri)rised at oin- silence, surveyed us all with an 
 HKjuiriiig glance, and saw that the victory was 
 liis. . . . 
 
 96
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 " Yjishka," — said the W'^ild Gentleman, laying 
 his hand on his shoulder, and — said no more. 
 
 We all stood as though stunned. The con- 
 tractor rose softly, and stepped up to YakofF. — 
 " Thou .... thy .... thou hast won," — he 
 enunciated at last with difficulty, and rushed 
 headlong from the room. 
 
 His swift, decisive movement seemed to hreak 
 the spell: all suddenly hegan to talk noisily, joy- 
 ously. The Ninny gave an upward leap, stam- 
 mered, fluttered his arms like the wings of a wind- 
 mill; Blinker hohhled up to YakofF and began to 
 kiss him; Nikolai Ivanitch half rose, and sol- 
 emnly announced that he would add an extra 
 measure of beer on his account. The Wild Gen- 
 tleman laughed with a good-natured sort of 
 laugh, which I had never expected to encounter 
 on his face ; the wretched little peasant kept reit- 
 erating in his corner, as he wiped his eyes, cheeks, 
 nose, and beard with both his sleeves: " But 'tis 
 good, — by heaven, 't is good ! Well, now, I '11 re- 
 nounce my parents and become a dog if it is n't 
 good! " while Nikolai Ivanitch's wife, all flushed, 
 rose hastily and withdrew. YakofF enjoyed his 
 victory like a child ; his whole face was trans- 
 figured; his eyes, in particular, fairly beamed 
 with hap])iness. He was dragged to the counter; 
 he called to him the tear-sodden peasant, de- 
 spatched the tapster's little son for the contractor, 
 whom the boy did not find, however, and the ca- 
 rouse began. — " Thou wilt sing for us again, 
 
 97
 
 MKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 tlion wilt sing lor us until the evening," The 
 Ninny lapt irpeating, raising his hands on 
 
 hiiifli. 
 
 1 east one more ghuice at YakofF, and de- 
 parted. I di<l not wisli to remain, — I was afraid 
 ol' spoiling my imi)ressi()n. lint the sultry heat 
 was as unhearahle as ever. It seemed to he hang- 
 ing elose to the \ery earth, in a dense, heavy 
 stratum; in the dark-l)lue sky, eertain tiny, bright 
 flames seemed to he whirling about, athwart the 
 very fine, almost blaek dust. All was silent; there 
 was something hopeless, oppressive in that pro- 
 found silenee of debilitated nature. I wended 
 ni\ wav to the hav-loft and lav down on the 
 
 • • • ^ 
 
 fresh l\-mown but already almost dry grass. For 
 a long time 1 did not fall asleep; for a long time, 
 
 \'jikofr\s irresistible voice rang in my ears 
 
 At last the heat and my fatigue asserted their 
 rights, however, and I sank into a death-like 
 slumbei-. \\'hen I awoke, all was dark; the grass 
 scattered round about emitted a strong fra- 
 grance, and had grown somewhat damp; through 
 the thin boards of the half-open roof pale little 
 stars were twinkling. I went outside. The sun- 
 set glow had long since died out, and its last traces 
 were biirelv visible, like a w^hite streak on the 
 liorizon ; but in the air, recently red-hot, warmth 
 was still perceptible athwart the nocturnal cool- 
 ness, and the lungs still thirsted for a cold blast. 
 There was no breeze, there was not even a cloud; 
 
 98
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 round about, tlic sky was perfectly clear and 
 transparently-dark, softly scintillating with in- 
 numerable but barely visible stars. Eights 
 gleamed in the village; from the brilliantly- 
 lighted dram-shop hard by was wafted a con- 
 fused, discordant uproar, amid which it seemed to 
 me that I recognised YakofF's voice. Shrill 
 laughter arose thence in gusts, from time to time. 
 I stepped up to the tiny window, and pressed my 
 face to the pane. I beheld a cheerless, though 
 motley and lively picture: everybody was drunk 
 — everybody, beginning with Yakoff. He was 
 sitting, with bared breast, on the wall-bench, and 
 singing in a hoarse voice some dancing-tune of 
 the street, as lie lazily ran his fingers over and 
 twanged the strings of a guitar. His damp hair 
 hung in elf-locks over his horribly pale face. In 
 the middle of the dram-shop, The Ninny, com- 
 pletely " unscrewed " and minus his kaftan, was 
 dancing with leaps and s(i[uattings in front of the 
 peasant in the greyish armyak; the miserable 
 little peasant, in his turn, was stamping and 
 shuffling his enfeebled feet with difficidty, and 
 smiling foolishly through his dishevelled beard, 
 and flourished one hand from time to time, as 
 much as to say: "I don't care a rap for anybody!" 
 Nothing could be more ridiculous than his face: 
 no matter how much he twitched his brows up- 
 ward, his fatigue-laden lids would not rise, and 
 continued to lie upon the barely perceptible, in 
 
 99
 
 M KM OIKS OF A SPORTS:SIAN 
 
 toxicateil. hut si ill very sweet little eyes. He was 
 in the eii«,^a«4iii«>- eoiulitioii of a man who has got 
 thoroughly tipsy, when every passer-by, on glanc- 
 ing at his I'aee, will infallibly say: " 'T is good, 
 brothtr. t is good!" Blinker, all scarlet as a 
 eraylish, and u itli his nostrils widely inflated, was 
 jeering spitefully from a corner; Nikolai Ivan- 
 itch alone, as is befitting a genuine publican, pre- 
 served his invariable coolness. A number of new 
 individuals had assembled in the room; but I did 
 not see the Wild (ientleman among them. 
 
 I turned away, and with swift steps began to 
 descend the hill on which Kolotovka lies. At the 
 foot of this hill, the broad ravine spreads out; sub- 
 merged in the misty billows of the evening fog, 
 it appeared more limitless than ever, and seemed 
 to merge into the darkened sky. I was proceed- 
 ing with great strides on the road which runs 
 along the precipice, when suddenh', far away in 
 tlie ravine, there rang out the resonant voice of a 
 boy. — "Antropka! iVntropka-a-a! " — it shouted 
 in persistent and tearful desperation, prolonging 
 tile last syllable for a very, very long time. 
 
 He st()j)i)ed for a few moments, and again be- 
 gan to shout. His voice rang out sonorously on 
 the MH'tionless, lightly-slumbering air. Thirty 
 times, at least, had he shouted the name of An- 
 tropka, wiien suddenly from the opposite end of 
 the field, as though from another world, the 
 barely audible reply was wafted: 
 
 100
 
 THE SINGERS 
 
 "Wlia-ca-aaat?" 
 
 The boy's voice instantly shouted with joyous 
 wrath : 
 
 " Come hither, thou devil, thou forest-fi-i-i- 
 iend! " 
 
 " Why-y-y-y ? "—replied the second voice, 
 after a long pause. 
 
 " Why, because thy daddy wants to spa-a-a-a- 
 ank thee," — hastily shouted the first voice. 
 
 The second voice did not respond again, and 
 again the boy began to call Antropka. His 
 shouts, which grew ever weaker and more infre- 
 quent, still continued to reach my ear, when it had 
 already grown completely dark, and I was dou- 
 bling the edge of the forest which surrounded my 
 hamlet and was situated four versts from Ko- 
 lotovka 
 
 " Antropka-a-a! " seemed to be still audible in 
 the air, filled with the shades of night. 
 
 101
 
 I'lOTK I'KTKOVITCH KARATAEFF 
 
 Five years ago, in autuniii, I was compelled to sit 
 for almost an entire day in a postiiig-Iiouse on the 
 Iiiiiiiwav from Moscow to Tula, for lack of 
 horses. I was returning from a hunting-expedi- 
 tion, and had heen so incautious as to send my 
 troika on ahead. The superintendent, a surly 
 fellow, alieady aged, with hair which hung over 
 his nose, and tiny, sleepy eyes, replied to all my 
 eomi)laints and requests by a growl, slammed the 
 door \\ i-atiil'nlly, as tliough cursing his own office, 
 and emerging upon the porch, set to berating the 
 2>ostilions, who were slowly tramping through 
 the mud with arches weighing about forty 
 ]>oun(ls apiece in their arms, or were sitting on 
 the l)ench, yawning and scratching their heads, 
 and paid no particular attention to the angry ex- 
 clamations of their superior. I had already set 
 to woi'k three times to drink tea, I had several 
 times \ainly endeavoured to get to sleep, I had 
 perused all the inscriptions on the windows and 
 on the walls; 1 wds oppressed by frightful te- 
 dium. I was staring with chill and hoj)eless de- 
 spair at tlu' upturned shafts of my tarantas, when 
 
 102
 
 PIOTR PETROVITCH KARATAEFF 
 
 suddenly a small hell resounded, and a little cart, 
 drawn by three weary horses, drew up hefore the 
 porch. The newcomer sprang from his cart, and 
 witli tlie shout: " Horses, and be quick about it! " 
 entered the room. Wliile he listened, with the 
 customary strange surprise, to the superinten- 
 dent's reply, that there were no horses, 1 suc- 
 ceeded, witli tlie eager curiosity of a bored man, 
 in scanning my new companion from head to foot 
 with a glance. Apparently, he was about thirty 
 years of age. The smallpox had left ineffaceable 
 traces on his face, which was harsh and yellow, 
 with an unpleasant brazen tint; his long, bluish- 
 black hair fell in rings upon his collar behind, in 
 front it curled in dashing ringlets on the temples ; 
 his small, swollen eyes had sight, and that was all ; 
 on his upper lip, several small hairs stuck out. 
 He was dressed like a dissolute landed proprietor, 
 a frequenter of liorse-fairs, in a flowered Cauca- 
 sian overcoat, considerably soiled, a faded silk 
 neckerchief of lilac hue, a waistcoat with brass 
 buttons, and grey trousers with huge bell-bot- 
 toms, from beneath which the tips of his un- 
 cleaned boots were barely visible. He reeked 
 strongly of tobacco and vodka; on his fat, red 
 fingers, which were almost covered by the sleeves 
 of the overcoat, silver and Tiila rings of gold and 
 black steel were discernible. Such figures are 
 to be encountered in Russia not by the dozen but 
 by the hundred ; acquaintance with them, truth to 
 
 103
 
 MKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 tell, (Iocs not all'ord any pleasure whatever, but, 
 in spite of the prejudice wherewith I surveyed 
 the newcomer, 1 could not but notice the uncon- 
 cernedly good-natured and passionate expression 
 of his face. 
 
 " Tiiey ' have been waiting here for more than 
 an hour, sir,"— said the superintendent, pointing 
 
 at me. 
 
 More than an hour! — The malefactor was 
 
 making fun of me. 
 
 ■ Hut perhai)s he does not need them so badly," 
 — replied the newcomer. 
 
 " We can't tell about that, sir," — ^^said the su- 
 l)erintendent, surlily. 
 
 " And is n't it possible to manage it in some 
 way ^ ^Vre there positively no horses? " 
 
 " Can't be done, sir. There is n't a single 
 lorse. 
 
 " \W'll, then, order the samovar to be brought 
 lor me. I '11 wait, there 's nothing else to be 
 one. 
 
 The newcomer seated himself on the wall- 
 bench, flung his cap on the table, and passed his 
 hand over his hair. 
 
 "And have you already drunk tea?" — he 
 asked me. 
 1 es. 
 
 " Won't you drink again, to keep me com- 
 pany? " 
 
 'Respectful form for "he." — Translator. 
 
 104.
 
 PIOTR PETKOVITCH KARATAEFF 
 
 I consented. The fat, reddisli sinnovar made 
 its appearance on the table for the fonrth time, 
 I prodnced a bottle of rnm. I had made no mis- 
 take in taking .my interlocutor for a noble of 
 small estate. His name was Piotr Petrovitch 
 Karataeif. 
 
 We entered into conversation. Half an hour 
 had not elapsed since his arrival before he, with 
 the most good-humoured frankness, had related 
 to me the story of his life. 
 
 " Now I 'm going to Moscow,"^ — he said to me, 
 as he drained his fourth cup: — " there 's nothing 
 more for me to do in the country now." 
 
 " Why not? " 
 
 " Just because there is n't . . . not a thing. 
 My farming operations are thoroughly disor- 
 ganised, I have ruined the peasants, I must 
 confess; we have had bad years; poor harvests, 
 various calamities, you know. . . . And besides," — 
 he added, with a dejected glance aside: — " I 'm 
 no sort of a landlord ! " 
 
 " How so? " 
 
 " Because I 'm not," — he interrupted me. 
 " There are geod landlords of a very different 
 sort from me. See here, now," — he went on, 
 twisting his head on one side, and sucking dili- 
 gently at his pipe: — " Perhaps you are thinking, 
 as you look at me, that I — you know .... but 
 I must admit to you, that I received a medio- 
 cre education ; means were lacking. You must 
 
 105
 
 MK.MUIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 excuse inc, 1 "in an outspoken man, and in 
 
 .slldlt .... 
 
 * Uv (lid not finish liis remark and waved his 
 hand. I he«ian to assure him, that lie was in error, 
 that 1 was very <>lad that we had met, and so 
 lorth, after whieh I remarked that, for the man- 
 aiiement of an estate, too intense culture was not 
 necessary, apparently. 
 
 "Agreed," — he replied: — "I agree with you. 
 Hut nevertheless, a certain special inchnation is 
 retjuisite! One man will do God knows what, and 
 it 's all right! hut I . . . . Permit me to inquire, 
 are you I'rom Peter ^ or from jNIoscow? " 
 
 " 1 am from Petersburg." 
 
 lie emitted a long wreath of smoke through his 
 nosti'ils. 
 
 " And 1 'm going to ]SIoscow to enter the gov- 
 eniment service." 
 
 " Where do you intend to establish yourself? " 
 
 "That I don't know: as fortune favours. I 
 must confess to vou, that I 'm afraid of the ser- 
 \ ice: the first y{ni know, you incur some responsi- 
 bilitv. I have alwavs lived in the countrv; I 'm 
 used to that, you know .... but there's no 
 help foi- it ... . necessity compels! Okh, hang 
 that necessity! " 
 
 ■'()ii the other hand, you will reside in the 
 ca|)ital.'' 
 
 ^'c s, ill the capital .... well, I don't know 
 
 ' Abbreviation of St. Petersburg. — Tuaxslatoh. 
 
 lOG
 
 PIOTR PETKOVITCII KARATAEFF 
 
 what there is good there, in the capital. We shall 
 see, perhaps it is good. . . . But I think that i\p- 
 thing can be better than the countiy." 
 
 " But is it impossible for you to live in the 
 country any longer if " 
 
 He heaved a sigh. 
 
 " It is. The village is hardly mine any more." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 " Why, a kind man there — a neighbour has in- 
 stituted .... a lawsuit there was a 
 
 note of hand " Poor Piotr Petrovitch 
 
 passed his hand over his face, meditated, and 
 shook his head. 
 
 "Well, never mind! .... But I must ad- 
 mit," — he added, after a brief pause: — " I have 
 no complaint to make of any one, I myself am to 
 blame. I was fond of having my own way, — 
 devil take it, I was fond of showing my inde- 
 pendence! " 
 
 "Did you live in jolly style in the country? " 
 — I asked him. 
 
 " Sir," — he answered me, pausing between his 
 words, and looking me straight in the eye, — " I 
 had twelve leashes of greyhounds, — such grey- 
 hounds, I must tell you, are rare." (He pro- 
 nounced this last word with a drawl.) — "They 
 would shake the life out of a hare on the instant, 
 and as for deer, — they were serpents, regular 
 asps. But that 's a thing of the past now, there 's 
 no use in lying about it. I used to hunt with a 
 
 107
 
 Ml.MolKS OF A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 ^aiM. 1 had a do^'. Koiiteska: a remarkable 
 pointer, slit- took c\{.'rvtliiiig by her extremely 
 tine seent. I used to approaeh the marsh, and 
 say: 'Charge!' and she wouldn't hunt; even if 
 you were to pass hy with a dozen dogs, — you 
 would waste your time, nothing would you find! 
 hut when she thd begin, — you 'd simply be glad to 
 (he on the spot! .... And she Avas so polite in 
 the house, (rive her bread with your left hand 
 and say: — 'A Jew bit it,' — and she wouldn't 
 take it. lint give it to her with your right hand, 
 and say: " A young lady tasted it,' — and instantly 
 siie (1 take it and eat it. I had a pup of hers, a 
 eapital pu]), and I wanted to take it to ^Moscow, 
 but a friend begged it of me, along with my gun; 
 says he: ' In Moscow, brother, you will have no 
 use f'oi- tlieni: everything will be quite different 
 there, brother.' So 1 gave him the pup, and the 
 gun too; everything remained there — behind, you 
 know." 
 
 " Hut you might have bunted in Moscow 
 so. 
 
 " No; what 's the use? I have n't known how to 
 Ik 'id my ground, so now let me endure with pa- 
 tience. IJut iiere now, permit me rather to in- 
 (|uire, how is living in ^Moscow— dear? " 
 
 " Xo, not very." 
 
 "Not very? .... Hut tell me, please, the 
 gipsies live in Moscow, don't they? " 
 
 " ^Vhat gij)sies? " 
 
 108
 
 PIOTR PKTHOVTTC IT KARATAEFF 
 
 " Why, the ones wlio travel round to tlie 
 fairs? " 
 
 " Yesr, they live in INIoscow. . . ." 
 
 " Well, that 's good. I 'ni fond of gipsies, — 
 damn it, 1 love them " 
 
 And Piotr Petrovitch's eyes s})arkled with au- 
 dacious jollity. But, all at once, he began to 
 wriggle about on the bench, then grew thought- 
 ful, drooped his head, and stretched out his 
 empty glass to me. 
 
 " Give me some of your rum, pray," — said he. 
 
 " But the tea is all gone." 
 
 " Never mind, I '11 take it so, without tea. 
 . . . . Ekh!" 
 
 KarataefF laid his head on his hands, and 
 propped his arms on the table. I gazed at him in 
 silence, and waited for those emotional exclama- 
 tions, probably, even, those tears, of which a man 
 in a carouse is so lavish; but when he raised his 
 head, the profoundly-melancholy expression of 
 his face amazed me, I must confess. 
 
 " What is the matter with you? " 
 
 " Nothing, sir. ... I have been recalling old 
 times. There 's an anecdote, sir. . . . I 'd tell it 
 to you, only I 'm ashamed to disturb you. . . ." 
 
 " Pray, do not mention it! " 
 
 "Yes," — he went on, with a sigh: — "things 
 happen . . . however, i'or instance, to me also. 
 Here now, if you like, I '11 tell you the story. 
 However, I don't know. . 
 
 109 
 
 ?5
 
 ^TKMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 *' 'IVll lUf. my dear I'iotr Petrovitch." . . . 
 
 " Vtrv utll. altlioii^h it's rather .... Well, 
 you see."— he l)egan: — " l)ut really, I don't 
 know 
 
 " Come. enoii^Ii ol' tliat, my dear Piotr Petro- 
 
 viteh. ■ 
 
 " Well, as you like. So then, this is what hap- 
 pened to me, so to say. I was living in the vil- 
 la crt- sir All at once, I took a fancy to a 
 
 y«)uu«i- i^irl. Akh, what a girl she was! . . . . 
 i)eautif'ul. clever, and so good-natured! Her 
 name was Matryona, sir. And she was a simple 
 lass, that is to say, you understand, a serf, sim- 
 ])1\- a slave, sir. And she was n't my girl, but the 
 property of another, — and therein lay tlie misfor- 
 tune. Well and so I fell in love with her, — 
 really, sir, the anecdote is of a sort, — well, here 
 troes. So ]SIatrv6na began to entreat nie to buy 
 her from her mistress; and I was thinking of that 
 same thing myself. . . . But her mistress was 
 wealthy, a dreadful old woman; she lived about 
 fifteen \ersts from me. Well, one fine day, as 
 the saying is, I ordered my troika to be harnessed, 
 — I had a pacer for a shaft-horse, a wonderful 
 Asiatic heast, and his name was I.ampurdos, by 
 the way, — dressed myself in mv best, and drove 
 oil* to Matryona's mistress. I arrived: 'twas a 
 
 hig house, with wings, in a park jNIatryo- 
 
 iia was waiting for me at the tm'n of the road, 
 and tried to s[)eak to me, but merely kissed my 
 
 110
 
 piOiu rKTUovncii karataeff 
 
 hand and stepped aside. So then, I entered the 
 anteroom, and inquired: ' Is the lady at home? ' 
 .... And a footman as tall as that, says : 'What 
 name shall I announce? ' Says I: ' My good fel- 
 low, announce that S(iuire Karataeff has come to 
 talk over a matter of business.' The lackey with- 
 drew; I waited, and thought to myself: 'How 
 will it turn out? I suppose tlie beast will demand 
 a frightfid price, in spite of the fact that she 's 
 rich.' Well, at last, the footman returned, and 
 said: ' Please come with me.' I followed him to 
 the drawing-room. In an arm-chair sat a tiny 
 sallow old woman, blinking her eyes. . . . 
 ' What do you want ? ' — I thought it necessary 
 first, you know, to declare that I came to make 
 her acquaintance. — ' You are mistaken, I am not 
 the mistress of the house, I am a relation of hers. 
 . . . What do you want ? ' — Thereupon I re- 
 marked to her, that 1 must speak with the mis- 
 tress herself. — ' JNIarya Ilinitchna is not receiving 
 
 to-day; she is not well What do you 
 
 want? '....' There 's no help for it,' said I 
 to myself, ' I '11 explain the circumstances to 
 her.' The old woman heard me to the end. — ' Ma- 
 tryona? what jNIatryona? — Matryona Feodoroff, 
 the daughter of Kulikoff — Feodor Kulikoff's 
 daughter? .... but how do you know her? ' 
 ' Accidentally.' — ' And is she acquainted with 
 your intention? ' — ' Slie is.' — The old woman was 
 silent for a while. — ' I '11 give it to her, the 
 
 111
 
 MK.MOIirS OF A sroRTs:\rAN 
 
 wrclc-lil ... 1 Nvas aiiia/cd, 1 iiiiist admit. — 
 ' What lor, yood »>raci()iis! .... I am ready to 
 j)a\- a ^(><id suMi tor her, only i)lease to designate 
 it.' — Tlif old hag- fairly frothed at the mouth. — 
 ' \Vell. a prettN- wav von 've devised to astonish 
 
 I • • « 
 
 IK'oi)lt': niiK'h wc care for your money! . . . . 
 hut won't I Li'iNe it to her, though! I "11 deal with 
 lier. ... I 11 thi-ash the folly out of her.'— The 
 old woman fell into a fit of eoughing with rage. 
 Isn't she well off with us, 1 \1 like to know^? 
 ALIi, she's a devil. Lord forgive my sin!' — I 
 tlaied II]). I must eonfess. — ' Why do you make 
 threats against the poor girl? In what wa}" is she 
 to hlame?' — The old woman crossed herself. — 
 ' Akli, () Lord, do you mean to say that I . . .' 
 — ' ]iut she doesn't helong to you, you know!' 
 — * ^^'cll. Miirya Ilinitchna knows all about that; 
 't is no business of yours, my good man; but just 
 wait, I 11 show that wretched ]Matry6na whose 
 slave she is.' — I must confess, that I came near 
 Hinging myself on the cursed old woman, but I 
 remembered Matryona, and dropped my hands. 
 It is impossible to tell you hov/ timid I became; 
 I began to entreat the old woman. ' Take what 
 \-ou will," 1 said. — ' But what do you Mant of 
 h(rr' — 'I've taken a fancy to her, matushka; 
 put \()iirself in my place. . . . Permit me to kiss 
 \oiii- lilUc hand.' — And I actually kissed the vil- 
 lain's hand!—' Well! ' mumbled the old witch:— 
 ' 1 11 tell .Marya Ilinitchna; it will be as she com- 
 
 112
 
 piOtr petrovitc it karataeff 
 
 mands; and do you drop in again a couple of days 
 hence.' — I drove home in great perturbation. 1 
 had begun to divine that 1 had managed the busi- 
 ness badly, that 1 had made a mistake in allowing 
 my affection to be seen, but I had thought of it 
 too late. A couple of days later I set off' to call 
 on the lady. I was shown into her study. There 
 was a profusion of flowers, the decorations were 
 fine ; the lady herself was seated in such a curious 
 easy-chair, with her head reclining on cushions; 
 and the relative whom I had seen before was sit- 
 ting there also; and, besides these, some young 
 lady or other with white eyebrows and lashes, in a 
 green gown, a wry-mouthed creature, a compan- 
 ion, probably. The old woman snuffled out: 
 ' Please sit down.' I sat down. She began to 
 question me, as to how old I was, and where I had 
 served, and what I intended to do ; and all this in 
 a patronising, pompous way. I replied in detail. 
 The old woman took a handkerchief from the 
 table, and fanned and fanned herself with it. . . . 
 ' Katerina Karpovna lias made a report to me 
 concerning your intentions,' said she ; ' she has re- 
 ported to me,' said she; ' but I have made it a 
 rule,' said she, ' not to release my people to go 
 out to service. It is not seemly, and it is not 
 proper in a respectable house : it is n't good form. 
 I have already taken the proper measures,' said 
 she, ' and there is no necessity for troubling you 
 further.' — ' It is no trouble, I assure you. . . . But 
 
 113
 
 MK^rOTHS OF A SPORTSMA^ 
 
 jKrliajj.s you need Matrvoiia Feodorovna ? '^ — 
 ' Xn,' said slie, ' I don t need her.' — ' Then why 
 will not yon Kt me liave her? ' — ' Because 1 don't 
 ehoose, hceause 1 don't clioose to do it, and that 's 
 n\\ there is to he said. I have ah'eady made ar- 
 rangements,' said she: ' she is to he sent to a vil- 
 hige on the steppes.' — This was hke a clap of 
 thunder to me. Tiie old woman said a couple of 
 words in French to the green young lady: the lat- 
 ter lel't the room. — ' I 'm a woman of strict prin- 
 ciples,' said she, ' and my health is not strong. I 
 cannot endure heing worried. You are still a 
 young man, and I am already an old woman, and 
 entitled to give you advice. Would not it be 
 l)etter for you to settle down, to marry, to hunt 
 up a good match ^ AVealtliy brides are rare, but a 
 l)(X)i- gill, and one of good moral character, can be 
 I'ound.' — Do you know, I stared at the old wo- 
 man, and did n't understand a word of what she 
 was jabbering; I heard her saying something 
 about marriage, })ut the village on the steppes 
 kept ringing in my ears. ' Marry! ISIarry! ' . . . . 
 what the devil! . . . ." 
 
 At this point the narrator suddenly halted, and 
 cast a glance at me. 
 
 " You 're not married, are you? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " AVell, certainly not, as a matter of course. I 
 couldn't hear it:— ' Why, good gracious, ma- 
 tushka, uliat nonsense are you babbling? What 
 
 114
 
 PIOTR PETROVITCII KARATAEIF 
 
 has marriage to do with it? I simply want to 
 know, whether you will sell your maid Matryoua 
 or not? ' — The old woman began to groan. — 
 ' Akh, he has worried me ! Akh, order him to go 
 away! akh! . . . .' The relative sprang to her 
 assistance, and began to scream at me. And the 
 old woman kept on moaning : — ' How have I de- 
 served this? . . . Am I no longer mistress in 
 my own house? Akh, akh! ' I seized my hat, and 
 rushed out of the house like a madman. 
 
 " Perhaps," pursued the narrator, " you will 
 condemn me for having become so attached to a 
 mr\ of the lower classes: and I have no intention 
 of defending myself. It was no fault of mine! 
 If you will believe it, I had no peace day or night. 
 ... I tortured myself! ' Why have I ruined the 
 unhappy girl?' I thought. As soon as I called 
 to mind that she was herding the geese in a coarse, 
 collarless smock, and ill-treated by her mistress's 
 command, and the overseer, a peasant in tarred 
 boots, was swearing at her and calling her names, 
 the cold sweat would begin fairly to drip off me. 
 Well, I could n't endure it : I found out to what 
 village she had been sent, mounted m}^ horse, and 
 rode thither. I did not arrive until toward even- 
 ing of the second day. Evidently, they had not 
 expected such a caper on my part, and no orders 
 had been given concerning me. I went straight to 
 the overseer, like a neighbour; I entered the farm- 
 yard, and behold, there sat Matryona on the steps, 
 
 115
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 with her liead propped on her hand. She was on 
 the point of crying out, hut I shook my finger at 
 her, and pointed to the hack-yard, to the fields. I 
 entered the cottage, chatted with the overseer, 
 told him a devilisli lot of hes, took advantage 
 of a good opportunity, and went out to meet INIa- 
 tryona. She, poor girl, fairly hung upon my 
 neck. She liad grown pale, and thin, my dear 
 little dove. And, do you know, I said to her: 
 ' Xever mind, ^latryona, never mind, don't cry; ' 
 — but my own tears were flowing all the while. 
 . . . Well, anvwav, at last I felt ashamed ; I said 
 to her: — ' ^Nlatryona, tears will not help: we must 
 act with decision, as the saying is; thou must flee 
 with me ; that 's tlie way we must act.' — jNIatryona 
 almost swooned. . . . ' How can I do that ? why, 
 I shall be ruined, and they will persecute me 
 worse than ever ! ' — ' Thou silly, who will find 
 thee?' — 'They will find me, they will find me 
 without fail. I thank you, Piotr Petrovitch, — 
 so long as 1 live I shall never forget thy kindness, 
 but do tliou leave me now; evidently, such is my 
 fate.' — ' Ekh, ^latryona, ^latryona, I had 
 thought that thou wert a girl of firm character.' 
 — And, in fact, she had a lot of firmness .... 
 she had a soid, a soul of gold ! — ' Why shouldst 
 thou stay here? it will make no difference; thou 
 wilt be none the worse off. Come now, tell me: 
 hast thou tasted the overseer's fists, hey? ' — Ma- 
 tryona fairly boiled with wrath, and her lips be- 
 
 11(3
 
 PIOTR I'KTROVTTCTT KARA TAEFF 
 
 gun to quiver. — ' Rut my family \\ ill be perse- 
 cuted on mv account.'- ' Damn thy family. . . 
 AVill they exile it, ])ray?' — 'Yes, they will cer- 
 tainly send my brother into exile.' — ' And thy 
 lather?' — 'Well, they will not exile my father; 
 he is a vei\y good tailor.' — ' There now, seest 
 thou; and thy brother will not be ruined by that.' 
 — If you will believe me, I prevailed upon her 
 by force; she tried to argue a while longer, say- 
 ing: ' They will hold thee to account for it. . . .' 
 ' Rut that 's no business of thine,' said I. ... So 
 I just carried her off .... not on that occasion, 
 but on anotlier: I came by night, in a cart^and 
 carried her off." 
 
 " You carried her off? " 
 
 " I did. . . . Well, and so she settled down 
 with me. JVIy house was not large, my servants 
 were few. ]\Iy people, I will say it without cir- 
 cumlocution, respected me ; they would n't have 
 betrayed me for any sort of good fortune. I be- 
 gan to live like a fighting-cock. My dear little 
 Matryona got rested, and recovered her health; 
 and I got so attached to her. . . And what a girl 
 she was! she could sing, and dance, and play the 
 guitar. . . . I did n't show her to the neighbours: 
 they 'd have proclaimed the affair abroad the very 
 first thing! Rut I had a friend, a bosom-friend, 
 Pantelei GornostaefF — perhaps you are ac- 
 quainted with him? He simply adored her: he 
 used to kiss her hand as though she had been a 
 
 117
 
 Mi:\K)lKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 well-lH)ni lady, lie really did. And I must tell 
 vou, that (ioniostaeir was no mate I'or me: he 
 was an edneated man. he had read Pnshkin all 
 through: whtii \\v henan to talk to ^latryona 
 and me. u f would i'airlv x)rick up our ears. 
 \U tanuht her tn write, such an eccentric fellow 
 1r- was! And how I used to dress her, — better 
 than the (governors wil'e, and that's all there is 
 to it; 1 had a fur-lined cloak of crimson velvet, 
 
 with a fur horder, made for her And 
 
 how hfeoiiiin^u' that cloak was to her! A ^loscow 
 mantna-maker madame made that fur cloak after 
 a new pattern, fitted in at the waist.' And how 
 wondronslv beautiful ^latrvona w^as! She used 
 to sit foi- hours at a time, staring at the floor, and 
 never iiio\ in^- an eyelash: and I would sit there 
 also, and ,i»aze at her, and never could gaze my fill, 
 just as though I had never beheld her before. 
 . . . . She woukl smile, and my lieart would 
 fairly (|uiver, as though some one had tickled it. 
 .And then all of a sudden, she would set to laugh- 
 ing, and jesting, and dancing; she would embrace 
 me so warmly, so strongly, that my head would 
 gro\\ (li/,/y. From morning till night, the only 
 thing 1 used to think about, was: ' How can I 
 give her |)leasure? ' And if you will believe me, I 
 used to give hei' presents sim])ly for the sake of 
 
 'The ordinary Russian "slu'iha" is of [\\c old-fashioned " cirou- 
 hii " shape, reacliinfr from tlte neck to tiie jrround, fur-lined, and 
 wiUi a ion;; " sliawi "-siiapcd fni' collar, wliicli c-an l)c tlrawn up 
 arouml the ears.— 'ruA.ssi.ATou. 
 
 118
 
 PIOTH PKTROVnClI KARATAEFF 
 
 seeing lunv slie, my dailiiig, would rejoice, and 
 blush all over with joy, and begin to try on my 
 gift, and come to display herself to me in her new 
 things, and kiss me. I don't know how her fa- 
 ther, Kulik, ferreted out the business ; the old man 
 came to take a look at us, and began to cry. . . . 
 Thus we lived for five months, and I had no ob- 
 jections to spending my whole life with her, but 
 my fate is such an accin*sed one! " 
 
 Piotr Petrovitch paused. 
 
 "What happened?" — I asked him with in- 
 terest. 
 
 He waved his hand. 
 
 " Everything went to the devil. And it was I 
 that ruined her. INIatryona was excessively fond 
 of sleigh-riding, and used to drive herself; she 
 woidd don her fur cloak, and embroidered Tor- 
 zhok ^ mittens, and do nothing but shout. We 
 always drove in the evening, so that w^e might 
 not meet any one, you know. So, once we 
 picked out a magnificent day; very cold and 
 clear, with no wind . . . and set off. JMatryona 
 took the reins. So I looked to see where she 
 was going. Could it be to Kukuevko, the vil- 
 lage of her mistress? Exactly so, it was to Ku- 
 kuevko. I said to her: 'Thou crazy girl, whither 
 art thou going? ' She glanced over her shoulder 
 
 ^ The leather wares made in Torzhok, not far from Moscow, 
 are an imitation of the l)caiitifnl. many-hued and eml^roidercd 
 goods made at Kazan by the Tatilrs. In comparison with the 
 latter, they are coarse, and the embroidery in silks, gold, and silver 
 is very perishable. — Translator. 
 
 119
 
 MIMOlirs OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 at inc. ami laii^licil. As iiiucli as to say: ' Let me 
 sliou luy daring! ' ' All! " I thouoht: ' well, here 
 jr(H»s! ' . . . . 'T \\as a nice thing to drive past the 
 nianoi-hoiisf, \\as n't it? tell me yourself — was n't 
 it nicrf W'tll, wc drove on. My pacer fairly 
 floatfd along, and the trace-liorses went like the 
 wind. 1 can tell yon, — and soon the church at 
 Knkncvko cinie in sight; and behold an old green 
 coach on iiinncrs is crawling along the road, and 
 a footman is towering up on the footboard be- 
 hind. . . . 'T was tlie lady, the lady driving! 1 
 was I'rightcncd, but how ^latryona slapjjed the 
 reins on thr horses' backs, and how we did dash 
 straight at the coadi! Tlic coachman! He, you 
 understand, saw tliat some wild phantom or other 
 was Hying to meet him, — and tried to turn out, 
 you know, but turned too short, and overturned 
 the coach into a snow-drift. The window was 
 smashed, the lady shrieked: ' Ai, ai, ai! ai, a'l, ai! ' 
 the companion squealed: 'Stop, stop!' but we 
 drove })ast as fast as we could go. As I galloped 
 on I thought: ' Harm will come of this; I 
 ought n"t to have allowed her to drive to Ku- 
 kucvko.' And what do you think? the lady had 
 recognised Matryona, and had recognised me, the 
 old thing, and she made a complaint against me: 
 ' My fugitive serf -girl is living with nobleman 
 Karatjiefi'; ' and thereupon she showed the 
 ]>roper gratitude.^ And behold, the rural chief of 
 
 ' Tlial is, liiilicd in the proper quarter. — Tkanslator, 
 
 120
 
 PIOTR PETROVITCII KARAT AEFF 
 
 police conies to inc; and this chief of police was a 
 man I knew, Stepan Sergyeitch Kuzovkin, a nice 
 man ; that is to say, in reality not a nice man. So 
 he comes and says: thus and so, Piotr Petro- 
 vitch, — how came you to do this? .... 'T is a 
 heavy responsibility, and the laws are clear on 
 this point. — I said to him : ' Well, of course, you 
 and I will talk this over, but won't you have a 
 bite after your journey? ' He consented to have 
 a bite, but said : ' Justice demands, Piotr Petro- 
 vitch, judge for yourself.' — ' It 's all right about 
 justice, of course,' — said I: 'that's understood 
 . . . but see here, I have heard, that you have a 
 black horse, so would n't you like to swap it for 
 my Lampurdos ? . . . . And I have n't got the 
 girl Matryona Feodorova in my house.' — ' Well, 
 Piotr Petrovitch,' says he ; ' the girl is in your 
 house, we are n't living in Switzerland, you know 
 .... but I might swap my horse for your Lam- 
 purdos; I might take him now, if you like.' So 
 I managed to get rid of him that time, somehow. 
 But the old lady made a bigger fuss than before ; 
 ' I won't hesitate to spend ten thousand rubles,' 
 said she. You see, as she looked at me, she Jiad 
 suddenly taken it into her head, to marry me to 
 her green companion, — I found that out after- 
 ward; and that is why she made such a row. 
 What whims those well-born ladies do take into 
 their heads! . . . Out of boredom, I suppose. 
 I was in a bad fix: I did not spare my 
 
 121
 
 MKMOIKS OF A S1M)HTSMAN 
 
 money, and I concealed Matryona, — in vain! 
 They harassed me to deatli. tliey got me com- 
 pletely tied II J) in a snarl. I got into debt, I 
 lost my health. . . . So, one night 1 lay in 
 my hed and thought: ' () Lord my God, why 
 do I endure itf What am I to do, if I can't 
 renounce my love for her? . . . Well, I can't, 
 and that 's all there is about it! ' — and INIatryona 
 walks into my room. All this time I had been 
 hiding iier at my farm, a couple of versts from 
 my house. 1 was frightened. — ' What 's the 
 matter' have they discovered thee there? ' — ' No, 
 ri(')tr Petn'nitch,'^ — says she: ' no one is troubling 
 me at Bubnova: but can this continue long? jNIy 
 heart/ says she. ' is breaking, Piotr Petrovitch; 
 1 'm so sorry l'(n- you, my darling: as long as I 
 live I shall never forget your kindness, Piotr Pe- 
 trovitch, but I have come now to bid you fare- 
 well.' — ' A\'hat art thou saying, what art thou 
 .saying, thou madwoman^ . . . What dost thou 
 mean, what dost thou mean, by bidding me fare- 
 wells ' — ' Whv, so . . I '11 go and surrender mv- 
 self.' — ' But 1 '11 lock thee up in the garret, thou 
 mad creature. . . . Ilast thou taken it into thy 
 head to ruin me? dost thou wish to kill me, pray? ' 
 — The girl said nothing, but stared at the floor. — 
 'Come, speak, s])eak!' — 'I don't want to cause 
 you any more trouble, Piotr Petrovitch.' — Well, 
 it was no use talking to her. . . ' But knowest 
 thou, Tool, knowest thou, thou era .... crazy 
 woman ' " 
 
 122
 
 riOTR PF/IHOVITCII KARxVl AEIF 
 
 And Piotr Petrovitcli burst out sobbing bit- 
 terly. 
 
 "And, wbut do you think?" — he went on, 
 smiting the table with his fist, and trying to 
 frown, while the tears continued to stream down 
 his flushed cheeks: — " the girl actually gave her- 
 self up, — she went and gave herself up. . . ." 
 
 " The horses are ready, sir! " — cried the super- 
 intendent solemnly, entering the room. 
 
 We both rose. 
 
 " And what did they do with JNIatryona? " — I 
 asked. 
 
 KarataefF waved his hand. 
 
 A year after my meeting with KarataefF, I hap- 
 pened to go to Moscow. One day, before dinner, 
 I entered a cafe whicli is situated behind the 
 Okhotny Ryady,' — an original, Moscow cafe. 
 In the billiard-room athwart the billows of smoke, 
 one caught fleeting glances of reddened faces, 
 moustaches, crest-curls, old-fashioned hussar- 
 jackets, and the newest-patterned coats. Gaunt 
 old men in plain coats were reading the Rus- 
 sian newspapers. Waiters were flitting briskly 
 about with trays, treading softly on the green 
 carpets. JMerchants were drinking tea with 
 painful assiduity. All at once there emerged 
 from the billiard-room a man who was some- 
 what dishevelled, and not quite steady on his 
 legs. He thrust his hands into his pockets, 
 
 ^ Or, " gainc-iii.irket." — Translatob. 
 
 123
 
 MIMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 luiiiLi Ills IkmiI. and stared stupidly around 
 
 liiin. 
 
 •Ha. l.a, l.a! Tiotr IVtrovitcli I .... How 
 
 are you '. 
 
 Piotr IVtrovitcli I'aiily hurled himself on my 
 neck, ;.iid drew me aside with somewhat stag- 
 ^eriu«»- steps, into a pi'ivate room. 
 
 •• litre now,"- -lie said, solicitously seating 
 mc in an casy-ehair: — '' Here you will be com- ' 
 tnrtahle. Waiter, beer! No, I mean cham- 
 pagne! Well, I admit, that I wasn't expecting, 
 I was n't expecting. . . . Have j^ou been 
 in town longf are you here for long? Here, 
 (hxI has hiought, as the saying is, the 
 
 nuui . . ." 
 
 " Hut, do you remember . . . . " 
 
 ■' How could I fail to remember? how could I 
 fail to lemember? "— he hastily interrupted me: 
 — " "t is an affair of the past .... an affair of 
 the past. ..." 
 
 Well, what are you doing here, my dear 
 l»iotr retnnitchr' 
 
 ■ I ani living, as you are pleased to observe. 
 Life is good here, the people are cordial. I have 
 recovered my composure here." 
 
 And he sighed, and raised his eyes to heaven. 
 
 " Aw yon in the service? " 
 
 " Xo sii\ I 111 not serving yet, but 1 'm think- 
 ing of finding a position soon. And what 's the 
 Jici'vice? People — that 's tjie principal 
 
 124.
 
 riOTR PKl HOVITCH KARATAEFF 
 
 thing. What tine people i ha\e made acquain- 
 tance with here ! " .... 
 
 A boy entered with a bottle of champagne on 
 a black tray. 
 
 " Here, he 's a fine man too . . . thou art a 
 fine man, art thou not, Vasya? To thy health! " 
 
 The lad stood still for a moment, shaking his 
 little head decorously, then smiled, and left the 
 room. 
 
 " Yes, the people here are nice," — went on 
 Piotr Petrovitch: — "they have sentiment, they 
 have soul. ... I '11 introduce you, shall I? Such 
 splendid fellows. . . . They will all be delighted 
 to know you. I must tell you. . . . BobrofF is 
 dead, and that 's a pity." 
 
 "What BobrofF?" 
 
 " Sergyei Bobroff. He was a splendid man; 
 he took care of me, an ignoramus, a steppe- 
 dweller. And Pantelei GornostaefF is dead too. 
 All are dead, all ! " 
 
 " Have you been living all the time in JNIoscow? 
 Have you not made a trip to your village? " 
 
 " To the village .... they have sold my 
 village." 
 
 "Sold it?" 
 
 " At suction^ It 's a pity that you did not 
 buy it! " 
 
 " What are you going to live on, Piotr Petro- 
 vitch? " 
 
 ^ Auction. — Translator. 
 
 125
 
 .MKMOIIJS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 " W'liN . I shall not (lie of hunger. God will 
 piovidcl \\ 1 have no money, 1 shall have 
 friends. And \shat is money? — -dust! Gold 
 dust!" 
 
 He sercweii up his eyes, fumbled in his pocket 
 with his hand, and held out to me on his palm two 
 Hfteen-kopek pieces, and a ten-kopek piece. 
 
 *' What's that? Dust, isn't it?" (And the 
 money t^e^\• to the floor.) " But do you tell me, 
 rather, ha\e yon I'ead Polezhaeff ? " 
 1 es. 
 
 " Have you seen JNIotchalofF in Hamlet? " 
 
 " No, I have not seen him." 
 
 " You haven't seen him, you have n't seen 
 iiim. . .'' (And Karataeff's face turned pale, 
 liis eyes roved uneasily; faint convulsive twitches 
 flitted across his lips.) 
 
 "Akh, ISlotchalofl-, Motchaloif! 'To die, to 
 sleep ' " — he quoted, in a dull voice: 
 
 '* No iiioi'L-; aiul by a sleep to say we end 
 The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 
 
 'I'liat flesh is heir to 'T is a consummation 
 
 Devoutly to he wished! To die, — to sleep. ... 
 
 " ' 'J\) sleep, to sleep! ' " — he muttered, several 
 times in succession. 
 
 " Tell me, please," — I began; but he went on 
 fervidly: 
 
 " I-'or wlio would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
 'i'he ()])j)ressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
 
 126
 
 PIOTR PETROX riCII KARAT AEFF 
 
 The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, 
 When he himself might his quietus make 
 With a bare bodkin? .... Nymph, in thy orisons 
 Be all my sins remembered ! " 
 
 And lie dropped his head on the table. He was 
 beginning to hiccough and to talk at random. 
 
 " ' And in one month,' " he enunciated, with 
 fresh force : 
 
 " A little month, or ere those shoes were old 
 With which she followed my poor father's body, 
 Like Niobe, all tears, — why, she, even she, — 
 O God ! a beast, that wants discourse of reason, 
 Would have mourned longer. . . ." 
 
 He raised his glass of champagne to his lips, 
 but did not drink the wine, and continued : 
 
 " For Hecuba ! 
 What 's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, 
 That he should weep for her.'' .... 
 Yet I .... a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, 
 Like John-a-dreams ! Who calls mc villain ? 
 Gives me the lie i' the throat.'* 
 'Swounds, I should take it ; for it cannot be 
 But I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall 
 To make oppression bitter. . . ." 
 
 KarataefF dropped his glass and clutched his 
 head. It seemed to me that I understood him. 
 " Well, never mind," — he said at last: — " when 
 
 127
 
 ME^rOTKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 M)rnj\\ is asleep, wake it not. ... Is n't that 
 tnief" (And he l)eoan to huigli.) — "To your 
 heahhl" 
 
 " Shall you iciiiain in .Moscow?" — I asked 
 
 hint. 
 
 " 1 sliall die in Moseow! '" 
 
 '* Karatiieft'," — shouted some one in tlie ad- 
 ioiniuir room — " KarataefF, where art thou? 
 come liither, my dear fe-ow! " ^ 
 
 " They are calling me," — he said, rising heav- 
 ily from liis seat. — " Ciood-bye; drop in to see me 
 if you can, I live in * * *." 
 
 Hut on the i'ollowing day, owing to unforeseen 
 circumstances, I was obliged to leave JNIoscow, 
 and never saw Piotr Petrovitch Karataeff again. 
 
 ' It is rather fasliional)le to ])ronounce tchelovyek tche-a-ek. 
 'I'luTchy, .'ilso, the " liard /" is avoided, which is as difficult to pro- 
 iioimce, for some Russians (not to mention foreigners), as the r is 
 for many Knplishnicn and Americans.- — Translator. 
 
 128
 
 VI 
 
 THi: TRYST 
 
 I WAS sitting ill ji bircli grove in autumn, about 
 the middle of September. A fine dri/zling rain 
 had been descending ever since dawn, inter- 
 spersed at times wixli >\'arm sunshine; the weather 
 was inconstant. Now the sky would be com- 
 pletely veiled in porous white clouds; again, all of 
 a sudden, it would clear up in spots for a moment, 
 and then, from behind the parted thunderclouds, 
 the clear and friendly azure would show itself, 
 like a beautiful eye. I sat, and gazed about me, 
 and listened. The leaves were rustling in a barely 
 audible manner overhead ; from their sound alone 
 one could tell what season of the year it was. It 
 was not the cheerful, laughing rustle of spring- 
 time, not the soft whispering, not the long conver- 
 sation of summer, not the cold and timid stam- 
 mering of late autumn, but a barely audible, 
 dreamy chatter. A faint breeze swept feebly 
 across the tree-tops. The interior of the grove, 
 moist with the rain, kept changing incessantly, ac- 
 cording to whether the sun shone forth, or was 
 covered with a cloud; now it was all illuminated, 
 
 • 
 
 as though everything in it were suddenly smiling: 
 
 129
 
 MKMOIKS OF A STOKTSMAN 
 
 tlic slfiuli r l»<>k's (if tlie Jiot too thickly set birches 
 MuKkiiiy assimicd the tender gleam of white silk, 
 thf small leaves w hieh hiy on the ground smldenly 
 grew varitgatt'd and Hgiited up with the golden 
 hue of dueats, and the handsome stalks of the tall, 
 eurlv feiiis, already stained with their autum- 
 nal hue. hke the colour of over-ripe grapes, 
 seemed fairly transparent, as they intertwined 
 interminal)l\- and crossed one another before 
 one's eves; now, ol" a sudden, everything round 
 about wouhl turn slightly blue: the brilliant hues 
 were extinguished i'or a moment, the birches 
 stood there all white, devoid of reflections, white 
 as newly fallen snow, which has not yet been 
 tt)uche(l i)y the spai'kling rays of the winter sun; 
 and tlie fine rain began stealthily, craftily, to 
 sprinkle and whisiier through the forest. The 
 I'oliage on the trees was still almost entirely 
 green, although it had faded perceptibly; only 
 here and there stood one, some young tree, all 
 .scarlet, or all gold, and you should have seen 
 how brilliantly it flamed up in the sun, when the 
 rays gliding and changing, suddenly pierced 
 through the thick network of the slender branches, 
 oidy just washed clean by the glittering rain. 
 Xol a single bird was to be heard; they had 
 all taken refuge, and fallen silent; only now and 
 then did the jeering little voice of the tom-tit ring 
 our like a tiny steel belh Before I had come to a 
 halt iti this hiirh-forest i and my dog had trav- 
 
 I'M)
 
 THE TRYST 
 
 ersed a grove of lofty aspens. I must confess that 
 I am not particularly fond of that tree, the aspen, 
 with its pale-lilac trunk, and greyish-green, me- 
 tallic foliage, which it elevates as high aloft as 
 possible, and spreads forth to the air in a trem- 
 bling fan ; I do not like the eternal rocking of its 
 round, dirty leaves, awkwardly fastened to their 
 long stems. It is a fine tree only on some summer 
 evenings when, rising isolated amid a plot of low- 
 growing bushes, it stands directly in the line of 
 the glowing rays of the setting sun, and glistens 
 and quivers from its root to its crest, all deluged 
 with a uniform reddish-yellow stain, — or when, 
 on a bright, windy day, it is all noisily rippling 
 and lisping against the blue sky, and its every 
 leaf, caught in the current, seems to want to 
 wrench itself free, fly ofl" and whirl away into the 
 distance. But, on the whole, I do not like that 
 tree, and therefore, without halting to rest in that 
 grove, I wended my way to the little birch-cop- 
 pice, nestled down under one small tree, whose 
 boughs began close to the ground, and, conse- 
 quently, could protect me from the rain, and 
 after having admired the surrounding view, I 
 sank into that untroubled and benignant slumber 
 which is known to sportsmen alone. 
 
 I cannot tell how long I slept, but when I 
 opened my eyes, — the whole interior of the forest 
 was filled with sunlight, and in all directions, 
 athwart the joyously rustling foliage, the bright- 
 
 131
 
 M KM OIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 l»luf sky sttiiR-d to l)c sparklin-^-: tlie clouds had 
 vaiiislud. (lisjKTSfd l»y the sportive hree/c; the 
 weathtr had cleared, ami in the atmosphere was 
 jHretptil)le that i)eeuliar, dry chill which, tilling 
 tlic hiart \\ith a sort of sensation of alertness, al- 
 most always is the liarhinger of a clear evening 
 after a stormy (hiy. I was ])reparing to rise to 
 my feet, and try my luck again, when suddenly 
 mv eyis lialted on a motionless human form. I 
 took a more attentive look: it was a young peas- 
 ant maiden. Slie was sitting twenty paces distant 
 from me. w ith hei- liead drooping thoughtfully, 
 and holli arms lying idly on lier knees; on one of 
 them, wiiieh was half hare, lay a thick hunch of 
 field How CIS. w hich went slipping softly down her 
 plaid |)etticoat at each hreath she drew. Her 
 dean w Iiite chemise, unlnittoned at the throat and 
 wrists, fell in short, soft folds ahout her figure: 
 two rows of large yellow pearl-heads depended 
 from her neck upon her hreast. She was very 
 comely. Ilei- thick, fair hair, of a fine ash-hlond 
 hue, fell in two carefully hrushed semi-circles 
 from heneath a narrow, red hand which was 
 pulled down almost on her very hrow, as white as 
 ivory: the rest of her face was slightly sunhurned 
 to that golden tint which only a fine skin assumes. 
 I coidd not see her eyes— she did not raise them; 
 hut 1 did see her high, slender eyehrows, her long 
 eyelashes; tliey were mf)ist. and on one of her 
 cheeks there glittered in the sunlight the dried 
 
 132
 
 THE TRYST 
 
 trace of a tear, that had stopped short close to her 
 h"ps, which had grown sh'ghtly pale. Her whole 
 little head was extremely charming; even her 
 rather tliick and rounded nose did not spoil it. 1 
 was particularly pleased with the expression of 
 her face: it was so simple and gentle, so sad and 
 so full of childish surpi-ise at its own sadness. 
 She was evidently waiting for some one; some- 
 thing crackled faintly in the forest. She imme- 
 diately raised her head and looked about her; in 
 the transparent shadow her eyes flashed swiftly 
 before me, — large, clear, timorous eyes, like those 
 of a doe. She listened for several moments, with- 
 out taking her widely opened eyes from the spot 
 where the faint noise had resoimded, sighed, 
 gently turned away her head, bent down still 
 lower than before, and began slowlj^ to sort over 
 her flowers. Her eyelids reddened, her lips 
 moved bitterly, and a fresh tear rolled from be- 
 neath her thick eyelashes, halting and glittering 
 radiantly on her cheek. Quite a long time passed 
 in this manner; the poor girl did not stir, — only 
 now and then she moved her hands about and lis- 
 tened, listened still. . . . Again something made 
 a noise in the forest, — she gave a start. The noise 
 did not cease, grew more distinct, drew nearer ; at 
 last brisk, decided footsteps made themselves 
 audible. She drew herself up, and seemed to be 
 frightened; her attentive glance wavered, with, 
 expectation, apparently. A man's figure flitted 
 
 133
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 swiftly tliioiiLili IIr' thicket. She glanced at 
 it, suddenly lluslitd up, smiled joyously and hap- 
 j)ily, tried to rise to her feet, and immediately 
 htnt clear nwv once more, grew pale and con- 
 fused,— and only laised her palpitating, almost 
 iK-seechiiig glance lo the approaching man when 
 the latter had come to a halt hy her side. 
 
 I gazed at him with interest from my ambush. 
 I must confess that he did not produce a pleasant 
 impression on me. From all the signs, he was the 
 petted \;il(t of a young, wealthy gentleman. His 
 clothing hetrayed pretensions to taste and fop- 
 pish carelessness: he wore a short overcoat of 
 hronze hue, i)rol)al)ly the former property of his 
 master, buttoned to the throat, a small ^Jink neck- 
 erchief with lilac ends, and a black velvet cap, 
 with gold galloon, j)ulle(l down to his very eye- 
 brows. The round collar of his white shirt 
 j)ropj)e(l up his ears, and ruthlessly sawed his 
 cheeks, and his starched cuffs covered the whole 
 of his hands down to his red, crooked finders, 
 adorned with gold and silver rings with turquoise 
 forget-me-nots. His fresh, rosy, bold face be- 
 longed to the category of visages which, so far as 
 I ha\e been able to observe, almost always irritate 
 men and. unfortunately, very often please women. 
 He was, obviously, trying to impart to his some- 
 what coarse features a scornful and bored ex- 
 pression; he ke])t incessantly screwing up bis 
 little milky-grey eyes, which were small enough 
 
 VS4>
 
 n^ 
 
 THE TRYST 
 
 without that, knitting liis hrows, drawing down 
 the corners of his hps, constrainedly yawning, 
 and with careless, although not quite skilful ease 
 of manner he now adjusted with his hand his 
 sandy, dashingly upturned temple-curls, now 
 plucked at the small yellow hairs which stuck out 
 on his thick upper lip, — in a word, he put on in- 
 tolerable airs. He began to put on airs as soon 
 as he caught sight of the young peasant girl who 
 was waiting for him; slowly, with a swaggering 
 stride, he approached her, stood for a moment, 
 shrugged his shoulders, thrust both hands into 
 the pockets of his coat, and, barely vouchsafing 
 the poor girl a fugitive and indifferent glance, he 
 dropped down on the ground. 
 
 " Well," — he began, continuing to gaze off 
 somewhere to one side, dangling his foot and 
 yawning: — " hast thou been here long? " 
 
 The girl could not answer him at once. 
 
 " A long time, sir, Viktor Alexandrovitch," — 
 she said at last, in a barely audible voice. 
 
 " All! " (He removed his cap, passed his hand 
 majestically over his thick, tightly curled hair, 
 which began almost at his very eyebrows, and 
 after glancing around him with dignity, he care- 
 fully covered his precious head again.) "Why, 
 I came pretty near forgetting all about it. And 
 then, there was the rain, you know!" (He 
 yawned again.) — "I have a lot of things to 
 do: I can't attend to them all, and he scolds 
 
 135
 
 MKMOTKS or A SPORTSMAN 
 
 into the- har^aiii. To-inorrow we are going 
 away. ... 
 
 • ro-iiKiriow :■ '" — ejaculated the girl, and 
 ti\t.(i a IriLilitciird glaiRv on him. 
 
 " \\s. to-iuoiTow. . . . Come, come, come, 
 piay." he interposed liastily and with vexation, 
 seeing tliat .she was heginning to tremhle, and had 
 .softly drooped her head: — "Pray, don't crjs 
 Akulina. Thou knowest that 1 cannot endure 
 that." ( And he wrinkled up his stuhhy nose.) — 
 *' 11' thnii (lost, T Ml go away instantly. .... 
 How stupid it is lo whimper! " 
 
 " AVdI. I wont, 1 won't," — hastily articulated 
 ^Akulina, swallowing her tears wuth an effort. — 
 ".So you are going away to-morrow?"- — she 
 added after a .short silence: — " When will God 
 grant ine to see you again, Viktor Alexandro- 
 vitehr" 
 
 " We shall see each other again, we shall see 
 each other again. If not next year, then later on. 
 I think the master intends to enter the ffov- 
 ernment .service in Petershurg," — he went on, 
 uttering his words carelessly and somewhat 
 through his nose: — "and perhaps we shall go 
 ah road." 
 
 " You will forget me, Viktor Alexandro- 
 vitch," — said iVkulina sadly. 
 
 " Xo, why .should I? I will not forget thee: 
 only, thou must he sensihle, don't make a fool of 
 thyself, heed thy father. . . . And I won't for-
 
 THE TRYST 
 
 get thee — no-o-o." (And he cahnly stretched 
 himself and yawned again.) 
 
 " Do not forget me, Viktor Alexandrovitcli," 
 she continued, in a tone of entreaty. " I think 
 that I have loved you to such a degree, it always 
 seems as though for you, I would .... you say, 
 I must obey my father, Viktor Alexandrovitcli. 
 . . . But how am I to obey my father " 
 
 " But why not? " (He uttered these words as 
 though from his stomach, as he lay on his back, 
 with his arms under his head. ) 
 
 " But what do you mean, Viktor Alexandro- 
 vitcli . . . you know yourself. . . ." 
 
 She stopped short, Viktor toyed with the steel 
 chain of his watch. 
 
 " Thou art not a stupid girl, Akulina," — he 
 began at last: — "therefore, don't talk nonsense. 
 I desire thy welfare, dost understand me? Of 
 course, thou art not stupid, not a regular peasant, 
 so to speak ; and thy mother also was not always 
 a peasant. All the same, thou hast no education 
 — so thou must obey when people give thee 
 orders." 
 
 " But I 'm afraid, Viktor Alexandrovitcli." 
 
 " I-i, what nonsense, my dear creature! What 
 hast thou to be afraid of? What 's that thou hast 
 there," — he added, moving toward her: — "flow- 
 ers? 
 
 " Yes," — replied Akidina, dejectedly. — "I 
 have been plucking some wild tansy," — she went 
 
 137
 
 Ml. Mollis OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 on, after a hiicf pause :^ — " 'T is <j;ooc1 for the 
 calves. AikI this lieie is a good remedy for 
 scrofula. See, what a wouderfully heautiful 
 flower I 1 lia\ e uever seen such a beautiful flower 
 in my life. Here are forget-me-nots, and here is 
 a violet. . . . ^Vnd this, here, I got for you," — 
 she added, drawing from beneath the yellow 
 tansy a small bunch of blue corn-flowers, bound 
 together with a slender blade of grass: — "Will 
 you take them? " 
 
 \'ikt(»i' languidly put out his hand, took the 
 flowers, .smelled of them carelessly, and began to 
 twist them about in his Angers, staring pompously 
 upward. Akulina glanced at him. ... In her 
 sorrowful gaze there was a great deal of devotion, 
 of adoring submission to him. And she w-as 
 afraid of him also, and did not dare to cry, and 
 was bidding him farewell and gloating upon him 
 for the last time; but he lay there, sprawhng out 
 like a sultan, and tolerated her adoration with 
 magnanimous patience and condescension. I 
 must confess, that I gazed with indignation at his 
 red face, whereon, athwart the feignedly-scorn- 
 ful indifference, there peered forth satisfied, 
 satiated self-conceit. Akulina was so fine at that 
 moment: lier whole soul opened confidingly, pas- 
 sionately before him, reached out to him, fawned 
 ujK)!! liim, and he .... he dropped the corn- 
 flowers on the grass, ))ulled a round monocle in a 
 bronze setting from the side-pocket of his pale- 
 
 138
 
 THE TRYST 
 
 tot, and ]>e*>an to stick it into his eye; but try as 
 he would to hold it fast with his frowning- brows, 
 the monocle kept tumbling out and falling into 
 his hand. 
 
 " What is that? "^ — inquired the amazed Aku- 
 lina at last. 
 
 " A lorgnette," — he replied pompously. 
 
 " What is it for? " 
 
 " To see better with." 
 
 " Pray let me see it." 
 
 Viktor frowned, but gave her the monocle. 
 
 " Look out, see that thou dost not break it." 
 
 "Never fear, I won't break it." (She raised 
 it timidly to her eye.) " I can see nothing," — she 
 said innocently. 
 
 " Why, pucker up thine eye,"^ — he retorted in 
 the tone of a displeased preceptor. ( She screwed 
 up the eye in front of which she was holding the 
 glass.) 
 
 " Not that one, not that one, the other one! " — 
 shouted Viktor, and without giving her a chance 
 to repair her mistake, he snatched the lorgnette 
 away from her. 
 
 Akulina blushed scarlet, smiled faintly, and 
 turned away. 
 
 " Evidently, it is not suited to the like of me," 
 — said she. 
 
 " I should say not! " 
 
 The poor girl made no reply, and sighed 
 deeply. 
 
 139
 
 MI.MOIHS OV A SPOirrSMAN 
 
 " Akii. N'iktor Alexjiiulrovitch, what shall I do 
 Nsithoiit you! "she siuidtnly said. \^ikt6r wiped 
 tile loryriette with the tail of his coat, and put it 
 haek in his ptjcket. 
 
 "Yes, yes," — lie said at last: — "thou wilt 
 really lind it \ery hard at first." (He patted her 
 eondeseendingly on the shoulder; she softly re- 
 moved his liand from her shoulder, and kissed it 
 timidlv.) — "Well, ves, ves, thou really art a 
 good girl," lie went on, with a conceited smile; 
 " l)iit wliat can one do? Judge for thyself! 
 tile master and I cannot remain here; winter 
 will soon l)e iiere, and the country in winter — 
 tliou knowest it tliyself — is simpty yile. 'T is 
 (juite anotlier matter in Petersburg! There are 
 simply swell marvels there as thou, silly, canst not 
 even imagine in tliy dreams. Such houses, such 
 streets, and society, culture — simply astound- 
 ing! . . ." (xVknlina listened to him with de- 
 vouring attention, her hps slightly parted, like 
 those of a ciiild.) — " Eut what am I telling thee 
 all this for? " — he added, turning over on the 
 ground. " Of course, thou canst not under- 
 stand! " 
 
 " Wliy not, A'iktor Alexandrovitch? 1 have 
 understood — I have understood everythinsr." 
 
 " Did any one ever see such a girl! " 
 
 iVkuli'na dropped her eyes. 
 
 " You did not use to talk to me formerly in that 
 
 14.0
 
 THE TKYST 
 
 way, Viktor Alexiindrovitcli," — she said, without 
 raising her eyes. 
 
 " Foi'inerly? . . . formerly! Just see there, 
 now! .... Formerly!" — he remarked, as 
 though vexed. 
 
 Both maintained silence for a while. 
 
 " But I must be off," — said Viktor, and began 
 to raise himself on his elbow 
 
 " Wait a little longer," — articulated Akulina, 
 in a beseeching voice. 
 
 " What 's the use of waiting? ... I have al- 
 ready bade thee farewell, have n't I? " 
 
 " Wait," — repeated Akulina. 
 
 Viktor stretched himself out again, and began 
 to whistle. Still Akulina never took her eyes 
 from him. I could perceive that she had grown 
 somewhat agitated: her lips were twitching, her 
 pale cheeks had taken on a faint flush. . . . 
 
 " Viktor Alexandrovitch," — she said at last, in 
 a broken voice: — " 'tis sinful of you . . . sinful 
 of you, Viktor Alexandrovitch: by heaven, it is! " 
 
 "What's sinful?" — he asked, knitting his 
 brows, and he half rose and turned toward her. 
 
 " 'T is sinful, Viktor Alexandrovitch. You 
 might at least speak a kind word to me at ])art- 
 ing; you might at least say one little word to me, 
 an unhappy orphan. ..." 
 
 " But what am I to sav to thee? " 
 
 " I don't know ; you know that better than I do, 
 
 141
 
 MKMOIKS OF A S1H)UTSMAX 
 
 X'iktor Alexiiiulrovilcli. Here you are going 
 away, and not a single word. . . How have T de- 
 served swell ti-eatnient:" " 
 
 " A\'liat a (]iR'er ereature tliou art! What can 
 1 dor" 
 
 " Voii inii>ht say one little word. . . ." 
 
 " Come, thou 'rt wound uj) to saj' the same 
 tiling over and over," — he said testily, and rose 
 to his feet. 
 
 " Don't l)e angry, Viktor Alexandrovitch," — 
 .she added hurriedly, hardly able to repress her 
 tears. 
 
 " I 'm not angry, only thou art so stupid. . . . 
 What is it thou wantest? I can't marry thee, can 
 1 '. 1 cant, can I ? Well, then, what is it thou dost 
 want:* What?" (He turned his face toward 
 her, as though awaiting an answer, and sjjread his 
 fingers far apart.) 
 
 " I want nothing nothing," — she re- 
 plied, stammering, and barely venturing to 
 .stretch out to him her trembling arms: — "but 
 yet, if you would sav only one little word in fare- 
 well. ..." 
 
 And the tears streamed down her face in a 
 torrent. 
 
 " Weil, there she goes! She 's begun to cry," 
 said X^iktor coldly, pulling his cap forw^ard over 
 liis eyes. 
 
 " T want nothing," — she went on, sobbing, and 
 C()\erino- her face with both hands; — "but how 
 
 142
 
 THE TRYST 
 
 do I stand now with my family, what is my posi- 
 tion? and what will happen to me, what will be- 
 come of me, unhappy one? They will marry off 
 the poor deserted one to a man she does not love. 
 .... Woe is me ! " 
 
 " O, go on, go on," — muttered Viktor in an un- 
 dertone, shifting from foot to foot where he 
 stood. 
 
 " And if he would say only one word, just one. 
 . . . . such as: ' Akulina, 1 ' " 
 
 Sudden sobs, which rent her breast, prevented 
 her finishing her sentence — she fell face down- 
 ward on the grass, and wept bitterly, bitterly. 
 . . . Her whole body was convulsively agitated, 
 
 the back of her neck fairly heaved 
 
 Her long-suppressed woe had burst forth, at 
 last, in a flood. Viktor stood over her, stood 
 there a while, and shrugged his shoulders, 
 then wheeled round, and marched off with long 
 strides. 
 
 Several minutes elapsed She quieted 
 
 down, raised her head, glanced around, and 
 clasped her hands ; she tried to run after him, but 
 her limbs gave way under her — she fell on her 
 
 knees I could not restrain myself, and 
 
 rushed to her; but no sooner had she glanced at 
 me than strength from some source made its ap- 
 pearance, — she rose to her feet with a faint shriek, 
 and vanished behind the trees, leaving her flowers 
 scattered on the ground. 
 
 143
 
 >If:M(MRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 1 nIixkI tlicif lor a wliilc, picked up the bunch 
 of coni-Howers, aiul emerged from tlie grove into 
 the Helds. The sun hung low in the palely-clear 
 skv, its ravs, too. seemed to liave grown ])allid, 
 somehow, and cold: tliey did not beam, they dis- 
 .seminated an even, almost watery light. Xot 
 more tlian half an hour remained before night- 
 fall, and the sunset glow was only just begin- 
 ning to kindle. A gusty breeze dashed swiftly 
 to meet me across the yellow, dried-up stubble- 
 field; small, ^varped leaves rose hastily before it, 
 and darted past, across the road, along the edge 
 of the \NOO(ls; the side of the grove, turned toward 
 the field like a wall, was all quivering and spark- 
 liiig with a drizzling glitter, distinct but not bril- 
 liant: on tlie reddish turf, on the blades of grass, 
 oil the straws, everywhere around, gleamed and 
 undulated the innumerable threads of autumnal 
 spiders' webs. I halted. ... I felt sad: athwart 
 the cheerful though chilly smile of. fading nature, 
 the mournful tei-ror of not far-distant winter 
 seemed to be creeping up. High above me, cleav- 
 ing the air heavily and sharply with its wings, a 
 cautious I'aven flew past, cast a sidelong glance 
 at me, soared aloft and, floating on outstretched 
 wings, disa])peared behind the forest, croaking 
 s])asmo(iieal]y: a large flock of ])igeons fluttered 
 sharply from the tliresliing-floor and, suddenly 
 rising in a cloud, eagerly dispersed over the fields 
 — a sign of autumn! Some one was driving past 
 
 144
 
 THE TRYST 
 
 behind the bare hill, iiis empty cart runi])lino- 
 loudly. . . . 
 
 I returned home; but the image of poor Akii- 
 lina did not leave my mind for a long time, and 
 her corn-flowers, long since withered, I have pre- 
 served to this day. . . .
 
 VII 
 
 HAMLET OF SHSHTCHIGRY COUNTY 
 
 l)ri?TX(; one of my excursions, I received an in^^ 
 \ itation to dine with a wealthy landed proprietor, 
 who was also a sportsman, Alexander Mikhailo- 
 \itc'ii (;***. His large village was situated 
 five versts distant from tlie tiny hamlet where I 
 had settled down at that time. I donned my 
 dress-suit, without which I would not advise any 
 one to leave home, even on a hunting-expedition, 
 and set off for Alexander ^likhailovitch's house. 
 The (hnner was ai)pointed for six o'clock; I ar- 
 rived at five, and found a large number of nobles, 
 ill uiiifoiins, civilian garb, and other arrays, al- 
 ready there. The host received me cordially, but 
 immediately ran off to the butler's pantry. He 
 was expecting an important dignitary and felt a 
 certain pei-tur})ation, which was entirely incom- 
 jjatible with his independent position in the 
 world and his wealth. Alexander Mikhailo- 
 vitch had never married, and did not like women; 
 it was bachelor society which assembled at his 
 house. He lived on a grand scale, had aug- 
 mented and refitted his ancestral mansion in mag- 
 nificent stvle, imi)ovted every year from Moscow
 
 HAMLET OF SIISHTCHIGRY 
 
 fifteen thousand rubles' worth of wine, and, alto- 
 gether, enjoyed the greatest respect. Alexander 
 Mikhailovitch had long since resigned from the 
 
 service, and aspired to no honours What, 
 
 then, induced him to invite the dignitary to be his 
 guest, and agitate himself from daybreak on the 
 day of the ceremonious dinner? That is a point 
 which remains shrouded in the gloom of obscu- 
 rity, as a certain attorney of my acquaintance was 
 wont to say when asked whether he accepted 
 bribes from willing givers. 
 
 On parting from my host, I began to stroll 
 through the rooms. Almost all the guests were 
 entire strangers to me ; a dozen men were already 
 seated at the card-tables. Among the number of 
 these devotees of preference were two military 
 men with noble but somewhat worn countenances ; 
 several civilians in tight, tall stocks and with pen- 
 dent, dyed moustaches, such as are possessed only 
 by decided but well-intentioned persons (these 
 well-intentioned persons were pompously gather- 
 ing up their cards, and casting sidelong glances 
 at those who approached them, but without turn- 
 ing their heads) ; and five or six officials of the dis- 
 trict with rotund paunches, plump, perspiring 
 hands, and discreetly-impassive feet (these gen- 
 tlemen were talking in low tones, smiling benig- 
 nantly on all sides, holding their cards tightly 
 against their shirt-fronts, and, when they 
 trumped, they did not bang the table, but, on the 
 
 147
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 coiitiarv (lr.>iM'^»' *''^"" '''^^''^'^' '^^'^'^ ^"^ luululating 
 inovciiR-iit (.11 the orcrn cloth, and wlien they 
 gathcml in their tricks they produced a light, ex- 
 tremely courteous and decorous grating noise). 
 The rJst of the no])les were sitting on the divans 
 and huddling in groups round the doors and win- 
 dows: one landed proprietor, no longer young 
 hut of eifeniinate ai)pearance, was standing in a 
 corner, (piaking and hlushing, and twisting his 
 watch-chain on his stomach with perturhation, al- 
 tliougli no one was paying any attention to him; 
 other gentlemen, in round-tailed dress-coats and 
 checked trousers, the work of a ^Moscow tailor, the 
 |)erpetual meml>er of the guild and master, Firs 
 Kliukhin, were chatting with unwonted ease of 
 manner and alertness, freely turning their fat and 
 hare napes; a young man of twenty, mole-eyed 
 and fair-haired, clad in hlack from head to foot, 
 was evidently intimidated, hut smiled spite- 
 
 fully. . . . 
 
 I was beginning to be somewhat bored, how- 
 ever, when suddenly I was joined by a certain 
 \"oinitzyn, a young man who had not completed 
 his studies, and wlio lived in xVlexander ^likhai- 
 
 lovitcir.s house in the capacity it w^ould 
 
 be difficult to say in precisely what capacity. lie 
 was a capital shot, and knew how to train dogs. 
 1 had known him previously, in ^Moscow. He 
 belonged to tlie category' of young men who, at 
 every examination, " played the dumb game," — 
 
 148
 
 HAIMLET OF STTSHTCHIGRY 
 
 that is to say, did not answci- the professors' ques- 
 tions by a single word. Tliese gentlemen were 
 also called sidewhiskerites, by wa}^ of fine lan- 
 guage. (This happened long ago, as you can 
 easily see.) This is the way it was done: Voinit- 
 zyn, for example, was called up. Voinitzyn — 
 wlio, up to that moment, had been sitting motion- 
 less and bolt uprigiit on liis bench, bathed from 
 head to foot in boiling-liot perspiration, and roll- 
 ing his eyes about slowly but stupidly — rose, has- 
 tily buttoned liis undress uniform up to the 
 throat, and stole sideways to the table of the ex- 
 aminers. — " Please take a ticket," the professor 
 said to him, pleasantly. Voinitzyn stretched out 
 his hand, and tremulously touched the package of 
 tickets with his fingers. — " Be so good as not to 
 pick and choose," — remarked some irritable old 
 man who had nothing to do with the matter, a 
 professor from some other faculty, who had con- 
 ceived a sudden hatred for the unlucky sidewhis- 
 kerite. Voinitzyn yielded to his fate, took a ticket, 
 showed the number, and went off and took his 
 seat near the window, while the man ahead of him 
 answered his question. At the window, Voinit- 
 zyn never took his eyes from the ticket, unless it 
 was to gaze about him slowly, as before, and 
 otherwise he did not move a limb. But now the 
 man ahead of him has answered his question, and 
 the professors say to him: " Good, you may go," 
 or even: " Good, sir, very good, sir," according to 
 
 149
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMxVN 
 
 his capacities. 'I'licii they call up A^iinitzyn; — 
 Voinit/yn rises, and ai)pn)aches the table with 
 firm steps. — " Head your ticket," they say to him. 
 X'oitu'tzyu lifts the ticket to his very nose with 
 l)()tii hands, slowly reads it, and slowly lowers his 
 hands. — " \Vell, sir, please give the answer," lan- 
 ^aiidly articulates the same professor, throwing 
 hack his body, and folding his arms on his chest. 
 A piofonnd silence reigns. — " \Vhat have you to 
 sayC" — \'oinitzyn maintains silence. He be- 
 i»ins to net on the nerves of the old man who is 
 not concerned. — "Come, say something!" — My 
 \'oinit/yn remains silent, just as though he had 
 expired. His closely-clip})ed nape rears itself up 
 in front of the curious glances of all his conn*ades. 
 The eyes of the meddlesome old man are ready to 
 ])()p out of his head: he has finally arrived at de- 
 testation of Voinitzyn.— " But this is strange," 
 — I'cmarks the other examiner: — " Why do you 
 stand there like a dumb man? come now, don't you 
 know? if you do, then s])eak." — " Allow me to 
 take another ticket," articulates the unlucky 
 night dully. The professors exchange glances. 
 — " AVell, do so," — replies the head-examiner, 
 w itii a wave of the hand. Again Voinitzyn takes 
 a ticket, again he goes off to the window% again 
 he returns to the table, and again he maintains 
 silence like that of a dead man. The unconcerned 
 old man is ready to devour him alive. At last 
 they (lri\e him off, and ])lace a ciy)her against his 
 
 1.50
 
 HAMLET OF SlISHTCIIIcaiY 
 
 name. You think: " Now he will go away, at 
 least?" Nothing of the sort ! He returns to his 
 place, sits there in the same impassive manner 
 until the end of the examination, and as he takes 
 his departure he exclaims: " Well, that was like 
 a hot bath! what a tough job! " — And he roams 
 about jMoscow all that day, from time to time 
 clutching at his head, and bitterly upbraiding his 
 unhappy lot. As a matter of course, he does not 
 touch a book, and the next morning the same 
 story is repeated. So then, this Voinitzyn joined 
 me. We chatted together about JMoscow, about 
 sport. 
 
 " Would n't you like to have me introduce you 
 to the leading wit of these parts? " — he suddenly 
 whispered to me. 
 
 " Pray do." 
 
 Voinitzyn led me to a man of short stature, 
 with a lofty curled crest and a moustache, in a cin- 
 namon-b]-own dress-coat and a flowered necker- 
 chief. His bilious, mobile features really did ex- 
 hale cleverness and malice. His lips curled 
 incessantly in a fleeting, caustic smile; his small 
 black eyes, which he kept screwed up, peered forth 
 audaciously from beneath uneven lashes. B}^ his 
 side stood a landed proprietor, a broad, soft, sweet 
 man, — a regular Sugar-Honey, — and with only 
 one eve. He lauffhed in advance at the witticisms 
 of the little man, and seemed to be fairly raptur- 
 ous with delight. Voinitzyn presented me to the 
 
 151
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 wit. whose name was Piotr Petmvitch Lupikhin. 
 We made ae(]uaiiitance, and exehanged the pre- 
 liminary greetings. 
 
 *• And allow me to iiitrodiiee to you my best 
 friend." ^said Lupikhin suddenly, in a sharp 
 voice, seizino- the sweet proprietor by the hand. — 
 " Come now, don't hang back, Kirila Selifan- 
 itch," — he added : — " nobody is going to bite 
 \()ii. Here, sir," — he went on, wdiile the discon- 
 certed Kirila Selifanitch bowed as awkwardly as 
 thongh his paunch were falhng off: — " Here, sir, 
 I recommend him to you, sir, a splendid noble. 
 He enjoyed excellent health up to the age of 
 fifty, and all of a sudden took it into his head to 
 put himself through a course of treatment for his 
 eyes, in consecjuence of which he has lost the 
 siiiht of one of them. Ever since then, he has 
 
 been treating his peasants with like success 
 
 Well, and they, of course, with the same devo- 
 ion .... 
 
 " What a fellow he is! " — muttered Kirila Se- 
 lifanitch — and burst out laughing. 
 
 " Si)eak ont, my friend — ekh, finish what you 
 were about to say," — interpolated Lupikhin. — 
 " Whv, the first vou know, vou may be elected 
 judge, and you will be elected, see if you are n't. 
 Well, of course the assessors will do your think- 
 ing for you, I suppose; for, you know% 't is neces- 
 sary, in case of need, to understand how to enun 
 
 152
 
 HAMLET OF SHSIITCIIK^RY 
 
 ciate other people's ideas, at least. Perhaps the 
 Governor will drop in; — he will ask: 'What 
 makes the judge stammer? ' \Vell, let us assume 
 that they tell him: ' He has had a stroke of pa- 
 ralysis.' — ' Then bleed him,' he will say. And 
 that is unseemly in your position, you must admit 
 yourself." 
 
 The sweet landed proprietor fairly roared with 
 laughter. 
 
 " There, you see, he 's laughing," — pursued 
 Lupikhin, with a vieious glance at Kirila Seli- 
 fanitch's heaving paunch. — " And why should n't 
 he laugh?" — he added, addressing me: — "he's 
 full-fed, healthy, has no children, his serfs are not 
 mortgaged, and he gives them medical treat- 
 ment, — his wife is rather crack-brained." (Ki- 
 rila Selifanitch turned somewhat aside, as though 
 he had not heard, and went on roaring with 
 laughter.) — " I laugh also, and my wife eloped 
 with a surveyor." (He grinned.) 
 
 " Why, did n't you know that? Certainly! She 
 just took and ran away, and left a letter for me: 
 ' jNIy dear Piotr Petrovitch,' says she, ' excuse 
 me: carried away by passion, I am departing 
 with the friend of my heart. . . .' And the sur- 
 veyor fascinated her simply because he did n't cut 
 his finger-nails, and wore trousers like tights. 
 You are surprised? Here 's a frank man, you 
 say. — I-i, good heavens, we steppe-dwellers 
 
 153
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 speak the tnitli straight out. But let us step 
 •isiilc \\'1»\ shoukl we stand by the future 
 
 jiidufef 
 
 He took my arm, and we walked off to the 
 
 u intioNv. 
 
 •• 1 hear the reputation of a wit here," — he said 
 to nie in the eourse of our eonversation : — " don't 
 vou helieve it. I am simply an embittered man, 
 and I am shearing aloud: that is why I am so free 
 and easy. xVnd, as a matter of fact, why should 
 1 stand on ceremony? I don't care a copper for 
 anybodx's opinion, and am not in quest of any- 
 thing: I am spiteful, — what of that! A spiteful 
 man stands in no need of brains, at least. And 
 you would n"t believe how refreshing it is. . . . 
 Here, now, for example, — here now% just look at 
 our host I Xow why' is he rushing about, for 
 mercy's sake, constantly looking at his watch, 
 smiHng, })erspiring, assuming a pompous mien, 
 torturing us with hunger? A pretty thing, truly, 
 a dignitary! There, there he is rushing about 
 again, — he has even begun to limp, — just look! " 
 
 xVnd Lupikhin laughed shrilly. 
 
 " 'T is a great pity that there are no ladies," — 
 he went on, with a deep sigh; — " it is a bachelor 
 (hnner, — and there 's no profit for the likes of us 
 in that. Look, look," — he suddenly exclaimed: 
 — " yonder comes Prince Kozelsky — that tall 
 man with the beard, in yellow gloves. It is im- 
 mediately evident that he has been abroad .... 
 
 154
 
 HAMLET OF SHSHTCHIGRY 
 
 and he always arrives so late. I '11 tell you one 
 thing, though: he's as stupid as a pair of mer- 
 cliant's horses; and you just ought to see how 
 condescendingly he talks to men like me, how 
 maffuanimouslv he deigns to smile at the amiahle 
 attentions of our hungry wives and daughters! 
 .... And he sometimes makes a joke, although 
 he lives here only temporarily; — but what jokes! 
 Precisely as though he were sawing at a hawser 
 with a dull knife. He can't endure me. ... I '11 
 go and make my bow to him." 
 
 And Lupikhin hastened to meet the Prince. 
 
 " And yonder comes my personal foe," — he 
 said, suddenly returning to me: — "do you see 
 that fat man, with the dark -brown face, and the 
 brush on his head, — yonder, — the one who has his 
 cap clutched in his hand, and is making his way 
 along the wall, and darting glances on all sides, 
 like a wolf? I sold him for four hundred rubles 
 a horse which was worth one thousand rubles, and 
 that dumb beast now has a perfect right to despise 
 me ; but he is so devoid of capacity for thinking, 
 especially of a morning, before tea, or immedi- 
 ately after dinner, that if you saj^ to him : ' Good 
 morning,' he will reply: ' what, sir? ' And yonder 
 comes the General," went on Lupikhin: — " a ci- 
 vilian general on the retired list, a bankrupt gen- 
 eral. He has a daughter made of beet-root sugar 
 and a scrofula factory. . . . Excuse me, I did n't 
 mean to say that .... well, you understand. 
 
 155
 
 .ArE:NroTKs of a sportsman 
 
 Ah' and tlit- arcliitect has got Jiere! A German, 
 aiul witli a iiioustachc, and does n't know his busi- 
 ness, — astounding! — But why should he know his 
 business f all he has to do is to take bribes, and set 
 up as many columns and pillars as possible for 
 our ancient nobility." ^ 
 
 Again Lupikhin began to laugh violently. 
 . . . Hut suddenly a breathless agitation spread 
 all ()\cr the house. The dignitary had arrived. 
 Tiic host fairlv Hew headlong to the anteroom, 
 licliind him scurried several devoted domestics 
 and zealous guests. . . . The noisy conversation 
 was converted into a soft, agreeable murmur, re- 
 sembling the humming of bees in their native hive 
 in springtime. The irrepressible wasp, Lupi- 
 khin. and the magnificent drone, Kozelsky, 
 alone did not lower their voices. . . . And now, 
 at last, tlie queen-bee entered — the dignitary en- 
 tered. Hearts flew to greet him, heavy seated 
 bodies rose; even the landed proprietor wdio had 
 bought Lupikliin's horse cheap, even that pro- 
 prietor tlu'ust his chin into his chest. The dig- 
 nitary preser\'ed his dignity to perfection: nod- 
 ding his liead backward, as though bowing, he 
 uttered a few words of approval, each one of 
 which began with the letter a, enunciated with 
 a drawl through the nose; — with indignation 
 which reached the pitch of biting, he stared at 
 
 ' A pun is here intended. Slolh, a pillar or ])ost, stolhovoi dvo- 
 ryaniit (c<)liiMin-nol)lc), a nobleman of ancient family.— Trans 
 
 LATOb. 
 
 156
 
 HAMLET OF SHSHTCHIGRY 
 
 Prince Kozelsky's beard, and gave the ruined 
 civil General with the factory and the daughter 
 the forefinger of his left hand. After a few 
 moments, during the coiu'se of which the digni- 
 tary had managed to remark twice that he was 
 very glad he had not arrived late for dinner, the 
 whole company wended their way to the dining- 
 room, big-wigs at the head. 
 
 Is it necessary for me to describe to the reader 
 how the dignitary was given the principal seat, 
 between the civil /General and the INIarshal of No- 
 bility for the Government, a man with a free and 
 dignified expression of countenance, which thor- 
 oughly matched his starched shirt-front, his capa- 
 cious waistcoat, and his circular snuff-box filled 
 with French snuff; — how the host fussed and ran 
 about, and Inistled, and urged the guests to eat, 
 bestowed a smile in passing on the dignitary's 
 back, and, standing in one corner, like a school- 
 boy, hurriedly swallowed a plate of soup, or a bit 
 of roast beef; — how the butler served a fish an 
 arshin and a half ^ in length, and with a nosegay 
 in its mouth ; — how the liveried servants, surly of 
 aspect, gruffly plied each nobleman now with 
 Malaga, now with dry Madeira, and how almost 
 all the noblemen, especially the elderly ones, 
 drank glass after glass, as though resigning 
 themselves to a sense of duty: — how, in conclu- 
 sion, bottles of champagne were cracked, and they 
 
 ^ Forty-two inoC-3S. — Traxslatou. 
 
 157
 
 Ml^.MOlKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 lK.«ran to tlriiik toasts to the health of various 
 |>ersoiisf All this is, prohahly, hut too familiar to 
 the reader. IJut what struek nie as especially 
 noteworthy was an anecdote, related hy the dig- 
 nitarv himself amid universal iovous silence. 
 
 Some one the ruined General I think it was, 
 a man aeciuainted with the newest literatiu'e — al- 
 luded to the influence of women in general, and 
 upon young men in particular. — " Yes, yes," — 
 put ill tlif dignitary: — " that is true; young men 
 should he kept under strict discipline, otherwise 
 they are likely to go out of their heads over every 
 petticoat." (A smile of childlike mirth flitted 
 across the faces of all the guests; the gratitude 
 of one landed ])roprietor even glistened in his 
 glance.) — " For young men are foolish." (The 
 dignitary, prohahly with a view to increasing 
 their imixntance, sometimes altered the generallj^- 
 received accentuation, of words.) — "Now, there 's 
 my son Ivjin, for instance," he continued: "the 
 fool is only twenty years of age, and all of a sud- 
 den he says to me: ' Dear little father, permit me 
 to marrv.' I sav to him: ' Serve first, thou fool! ' 
 
 .... Well, then came despair, tears 
 
 hut 1 *m . . . you know . . . ." (The words 
 " you know " the dignitary uttered with his helly 
 rather than with Jiis lips; then he remained silent 
 a little while, and cast a majestic glance at his 
 neighhoui- the C^eneral, at the same time elevating 
 his eyehrous more than one might have expected 
 
 158
 
 HAMLET OF SHSIITCHICxRY 
 
 from liiin. The civilian General bowed his head 
 pleasantly somewhat on one side, and winked the 
 eye which was turned toward the dignitary with 
 extreme rapidity.) — "And what do you think," 
 — began the dignitary again, " now he writes to 
 me, saying: ' Thanks, father, for having taught 
 the fool a lesson.' .... That 's the way one 
 must proceed." — All the guests entirely agreed 
 with the narrator, as a matter of course, and 
 seemed to brighten up as a result of the pleasure 
 and instruction which they had received. . . . 
 After dinner, the whole company rose and with- 
 drew to the drawing-room with great but decor- 
 ous uproar, as though it were permitted on 
 
 this occasion They sat down to play 
 
 cards. 
 
 I managed to while away the evening, and hav- 
 ing enjoined my coachman to have my calash 
 ready at five o'clock on. the following morning, I 
 retired to rest. But it was my lot to make ac- 
 quaintance on that same day with still another 
 remarkable man. 
 
 In consequence of the multitude of guests who 
 had arrived, no one had a bedroom to himself. In 
 the small, greenish, and rather damp chamber 
 to which Alexander INIikhailovitch's butler con- 
 ducted me, there was already another guest, com- 
 pletely undressed. On catching sight of me, he 
 briskly dived under the coverlet, covered himself 
 up with it to his very nose, nestled about a little 
 
 159
 
 MKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 in the spoil t^ry feather-bed, and quieted down, 
 peerin-r l*>i'tli keenly from ])eneath the round bor- 
 (kr of liis eollon nigliteap. I stepped up to the 
 other l)ed (there were only two in the room), un- 
 dressed, and lay down in the damp sheets. ]My 
 
 neiirlibonr turned over in his bed I 
 
 wished him good ni«4ht. 
 
 Half an hour elapsed. Despite my efforts, I 
 eould not ^et to sleep; useless and ill-defined 
 thou«Ahts followed one another in endless succes- 
 sion, persistently and monotonously, like the 
 buckets of a pumping-machine. 
 
 " Vou are not sleepy, apparently," — remarked 
 my neighbour. 
 
 " As you see,"— I replied.—" And you 're not 
 sleepy, either? " 
 
 " 1 'm never sleepy." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 " Because I fall asleep I don't know why; I 
 lie and lie. and then get to sleep." 
 
 " But why do you go to bed before you feel 
 like sleeping? " 
 
 " Whv, what would vou have me do? " 
 
 I made no answer to my neighbour's question. 
 
 " I 'm surprised," he went on, after a brief 
 pause: — " that there are no fleas here. I thought 
 they were everywhere.," 
 
 " ^'^ou seem to regret them," — I remarked. 
 
 " Xo, I don't regret them; but I like logical 
 sequence in everything." 
 
 160
 
 HAJNILET OF SHSITTC II KiRY 
 
 " You don't say so," — I reniurked to niystlf : 
 " what words lie uses! " 
 
 Again my neighbour was silent for a while. 
 
 " Would vou like to make a bet with me? " — 
 he suddenly said, in quite a loud voice. 
 
 "What about?" 
 
 I was beginning to find my neighbour amus- 
 ing. 
 
 " H'm .... what about? Why, about this: 
 I 'm convinced that you take me for a fool." 
 
 " Good gracious," — I murmured in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " For a steppe-dweller, an ignoramus. — Con- 
 
 X Coo» • • • 
 
 " I have not the pleasure of knowing you," — 
 I returned. — " How have you arrived at the con- 
 clusion? . . . ." 
 
 " How? Why, from the mere sound of your 
 voice: you answ^er me so carelessly. . . . But 
 I 'm not in the least what you think. . . ." 
 
 " Permit me ..." 
 
 " No, do you permit me. In the first place, I 
 speak French quite as well as you do, and German 
 even better; in the second place, I have spent 
 three years abroad: I have lived eight months in 
 Berlin alone. I have studied Hegel, my dear sir, 
 I know Goethe by heart; more than that, I was 
 for a long time in love with the daughter of a' Ger- 
 man professor, and married at home a consump- 
 tive young gentlewoman, — a bald, but very re- 
 
 161
 
 me:moirs of a sportsman 
 
 inarkal)lc iiulix icliuil. Consequently, I am a 
 l)crrv from the same field as yourself; I 'm not a 
 rustic steppe-ihveller, as you suppose. . . . I also 
 am bitten with reflex action, and there 's nothing 
 (hreet alM)ut me. . . ." 
 
 I raised my liead, and looked at the eccentric 
 w ilh redoubled attention. In the dim light of the 
 night-lami) I could barely distinguish his fea- 
 tures. 
 
 " There now, you are staring at me," — he went 
 on, adjusting his nightcap, — " and, probably, you 
 are asking yourself: ' How comes it that I did not 
 notice liim to-day? ' I will tell you why you did 
 not notice me: — because 1 do not raise my voice; 
 because 1 hide behind other people, stand behind 
 doors, converse with no one ; because the butler, as 
 he passes me with a tray, elevates his elbow in ad- 
 vance on a level with my breast. . . . And 
 wlience does all this proceed? From two causes: 
 in the first place, I am poor, and in the second, I 
 am resigned. . . . Speak the truth, you did n't 
 observe me, did you? " 
 
 " I really did not have the pleasure. . . ." 
 
 "Well, wtII, yes," — he interrupted me: — "I 
 knew it." 
 
 He raised himself half-way, and folded his 
 arms; the long shadow of his nightcap flitted 
 from the wall to the ceiling. 
 
 " Come now, confess," — he suddenly added, 
 casting a sidelong glance at me: — " I must seem 
 
 162
 
 HAMLET OF SHSHTCHIGRY 
 
 to you a great eccentric, an original, as they say, 
 or, perhaps, even something still worse; perhaps 
 you think that I pretend to be an eccentric?" 
 
 " I must repeat to you, once more, that I do not 
 know you. . ." 
 
 He cast down his eyes for a moment. 
 
 " Why I have so unexpectedly set to talking 
 with you, — with a man who is an entire stranger 
 to me, — the Lord — the Lord only knows! " (He 
 sighed.) " 'T is not in consequence of the af- 
 finity of our souls ! Both you and I are respecta- 
 ble persons, egoists; you have nothing to do with 
 me, neither have I the slightest thing to do with 
 you; isn't that so? But neither of us is sleepy. 
 . . . Why not have a chat ? I 'm in the mood, and 
 that rarely ha])pens with me. I 'm timid, you see, 
 and not timid in virtue of the fact that I am a 
 provincial, without official rank, a poor man, but 
 in virtue of the fact that I am a frightfully con- 
 ceited man. But sometimes, under the influence 
 of propitious circumstances, accidents, which I 
 am unable, however, either to define or foresee, 
 my timidity disappears completely, as on the 
 present occasion, for instance. You might set me 
 face to face with the Dalai-Lama himself now, — 
 and I 'd ask him for a pinch of snufF. But per- 
 haps you want to go to sleep? " 
 
 " On the contrary," — I hastily returned: — " I 
 find it very agreeable to chat with you." 
 
 " That is, I amuse you, you mean to say. . . . 
 
 163
 
 MKMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 So imuh tlu- iK'tter. ... So tlicn, sir, I must in- 
 i'oiiii you, that 1 am called an original in these 
 parts: that is to say. I am so called by those from 
 wliosc ton o IRS my name chances, accidentally, to 
 fall. ali'iiLi' witli otlicr trifling things. ' Xo one is 
 urcatlv concerned as to mv fate.' . . . They 
 
 think to wound me O my God! if they 
 
 only knew . . . why, I 'm perishing precisely 
 because there is positively nothing original about 
 me, nothing except such sallies as my present con- 
 versation witli you, for example; l)ut, you see, 
 those sallies are n't worth a copper coin. That 's 
 tlie very clieapest and most vulgar sort of origi- 
 nality." 
 
 lie tui-ned his face toward me and w^aved his 
 hands. 
 
 " My dear sir! " — he exclaimed: — " My opin- 
 ion is, that tlie originals are the only people who 
 enjoy life on earth; they alone have the right to 
 live. 3lon verre nest pas grand, mais je hois dans 
 mon verre, some one has said. — ^You see," — he 
 added in an undertone: — "what pure French I 
 speak. \Vliat care I if a man has a great and ca- 
 pacious head, and understands everything, knows 
 a great deal, and keeps abreast of the times, — but 
 iias notliing s])ecial of his own! It merely makes 
 one storeliouse for commonplaces more in the 
 world, — and who derives any satisfaction out of 
 that? Xo, be stupid if you will, only do it in your 
 own way! Have an odour of your own, that's 
 
 164
 
 HAMLF/r OF SIISIITCHiGRY 
 
 what! — And do not imagine that my demands 
 
 with respect to that odour are great 
 
 God forbid ! There 's a mass of such originals : no 
 matter in what direction you look, you behold an 
 original; every living man is an original, but for 
 some reason I have n't fallen into their cate- 
 gory! . o . 
 
 " And yet," — he went on, after a brief pause: 
 —"what expectations 1 aroused in my youth! 
 what a lofty opinion 1 cherished of myself before 
 I went abroad, and diu'ing the early days after 
 my return thence! Well, while I was abroad, I 
 kept on the alert, I always made my way about 
 alone, as is fitting for a fellow like me, who under- 
 stands everything, is up to everything ; and in the 
 end, lo and behold, — he has n't understood the 
 first thing ! . . . 
 
 "An original, an original! "^ — he resumed, 
 shaking his head reproachfully. . o . " They call 
 me an original as a matter of fact, it ap- 
 pears that there is n't a less original man in the 
 world than your most humble servant. I must 
 have been born in imitation of some one else. . . . 
 By heaven, I must! I exist as though in imita- 
 tion of the writers I have studied, I exist in the 
 sweat of my brow; and I have studied, and fallen 
 in love, and married, in conclusion, just as though 
 it were not of my own volition, just as though I 
 were performing some duty, executing some les- 
 son, — who can explain it ! " 
 
 165
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 lit tore llic nightcap from his head and tluiig 
 it on tlic hetl. 
 
 " Shall 1 Icll you the story of my life?" — he 
 asked me in a spasmodic voice: — "or, rather, a 
 few incidents of my Hfe? " 
 
 " Pray do." 
 
 " C)r — no, 1 had hetter tell you how I came to 
 niarr\-. For marriage is an important affair, the 
 test-stone of every man; in it, as in a mirror, is re- 
 flected .... Rut tliat c()m])arison is too hack- 
 neyed. ... If you permit, 1 will take a pinch of 
 snuff." 
 
 lie pulled a snuff-box from under his pillow, 
 opened it, and began to talk again, waving the 
 open I)ox. 
 
 " Put yourself in my position, my dear sir. — 
 Judge for yoiu'self, what profit, — come now, for 
 mercy's sake, tell me, — what profit could I extract 
 from IlegeFs encycloptedia? Tell me, what has 
 that encyclopfcdia in common with Russian life? 
 And how would you have me apply it to our ex- 
 istence — and not that encyclopiedia alone, but 
 (Tcrman philosophy in general .... I will say 
 more — German science? " 
 
 He leaped up in his bed, and muttered in an un- 
 derto!ie. viciouslv setting- his teeth: 
 
 " Ah, that 's the point, that 's the point! 
 
 Then why didst thou trot off abroad? AVhy didst 
 not thou stay at home, and study the life which 
 surrounded thee on the spot? Thou wouldst have 
 
 106
 
 HAMLET OF SIISnTCTIIGRY 
 
 learned its requirements and its future, and thou 
 wouldst have become clear concerning tliine own 
 v^ocation, so to speak. . . . But good gracious," 
 — he continued, again altering his voice, as though 
 defending himself and quailing: — " how is a man 
 like me to inform himself about a thing concern- 
 ing which not a single wiseacre has written any- 
 thing in a book! I would be glad to take lessons 
 from it, from tliat same Russian life, — but it 
 maintains silence, my dear little dove. ' Under- 
 stand me,' it says, 'as I am;' but that is beyond my 
 power: give me the deductions, present to me the 
 
 conclusion of the matter The conclusion? — 
 
 'Here is the conclusion for thee,' people say: 'just 
 listen to our Moscow folks — they 're nightin- 
 gales, are n't they ? ' — And precisely therein lies 
 the calamity, that they warble like Kursk night- 
 ingales, but don't talk like human beings 
 
 So I meditated and meditated, — you see, science 
 is the same everywhere, apparently, and is the 
 only genuine thing, — and took and set off, with 
 God's aid, to foreign parts, to infidels. . . . What 
 would you have,^ — I was besotted with youth, w^ith 
 pride. I was n't willing, you know, to swim in fat 
 before my time, although 't is healthy, they say. 
 However, the person who has not been endowed 
 by nature with flesh, will never behold fat on his 
 body ! 
 
 " But I believe," — he added, after reflecting a 
 while, — " that I promised to narrate to you how 
 
 167
 
 ME.MOTHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 1 came ti) yvt married. IJsten, then. In the 
 first placr. I must ini'orm yoii that my wife is no 
 lnii«r(.i- iii thf world: in the second place . . . . 
 hut ill the second place, I perceive that I mnst tell 
 vou ahout niv vouth, otherwise vou will not un- 
 
 derstand anything You are sure you 
 
 don't want to go to sleep? " 
 ■ No, 1 don't." 
 
 " A^'ery good. Just listen .... how vulgarly 
 M !•. Kaiitagriukhin is snoring yonder, in the next 
 room! — I am the son of poor parents, — parents, 
 1 say, hecause, in addition to a mother, there is a 
 tradition that I had a father also. I do not re- 
 memher him; thev sav that he was a man of lim- 
 ited eai)acity, liad a huge nose and freckles, and 
 took snuff up one nostril; in my mother's bed- 
 room hung his portrait, in a red uniform with a 
 hlack collar reaching up to his ears, and remarka- 
 hly hideous. They used to lead me past it on my 
 way to a whipping, and on such occasions my 
 mother always pointed it out to me, with the re- 
 mark: 'Thou wouldst have fared still worse at 
 his hands.' You can imagine how greatly this 
 encouraged me. I had neither brothers nor sis- 
 ters; that is to say, to tell tlie truth, I did have a 
 .sort of wretched little brother, who was afflicted 
 with the rickets, but he died very soon. . . . And 
 why should the rickets perch in the Zhigry dis- 
 trict of the Kursk government? But that is not 
 the point. My mother busied lierself over my 
 
 168
 
 HAMLET OF SIISHTCHIGRY 
 
 education witli the headlong zeal of a hinded pro- 
 prietress of tlie steppes; she hnsied herself with it 
 from the very magnifieeiit day of my birth until 
 I had attained the age of sixteen. . . . Do you 
 follow the thi'ead of mv storv? " 
 
 " Certainly, proceed." 
 
 " Well, good. So then, when I had attained 
 the age of sixteen, my mother without delay took 
 and dismissed my French tutor and the German 
 Philipovitch from the Greeks of Nyezhin : ^ she 
 took me to JMoscow, entered me in the university, 
 and surrendered her soul to the Almighty, leaving 
 me in the hands of my own uncle, the pettifogger 
 Koltun-Babur, a bird who was known to more 
 than the Zhigry district. This own uncle of 
 mine, the pettifogger Koltun-Babur, robbed me 
 of my last penny, as is the custom. . . . But 
 again, that is not the point. I entered the univer- 
 sity, to do my mother justice, tolerably well pre- 
 pared; but the lack of originality was discerni- 
 ble in me even then. ]\Iy childhood had differed 
 in no respect from the childhood of other j^ouths : 
 I had grown up as stupid and drowsy as though 
 I had been under a feather-bed, and began just 
 as early to commit verses to memory, and to lan- 
 guish under the pretext of an inclination to 
 
 dreaminess and all the rest of it. In 
 
 the university I did not travel along a new road: 
 I immediately fell into a circle. Times were 
 
 ^A Greek colony in Little Russia. — Translatoh. 
 
 1C9
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 dillVrent then Rut perhaps you do not 
 
 know what a cirele is?— I remember that Schiller 
 says somewhere : 
 
 " Gefalirlich ist's, den Leu zu wcckcn, 
 Und sclireckHcli is dcs Tigers Zaliii, 
 Doch das schrecklichste der Schrecken — 
 Das ist der Mensch in seincm Wahn ! 
 
 " He did not mean to say that, I assure you; he 
 
 meant to say : ' Das is ein circle in 
 
 der Stadt Moskau! 
 
 " Rut what is it that you find dreadful in a cir- 
 cle? " — I inquired. 
 
 My neighbour snatclied up his nightcap, and 
 pulled it down on his nose. 
 
 ''Wliat is it that I find dreadful? "—he 
 sliouted. — " Why, this: a circle — why, that is the 
 penhtion of all independent development; a circle 
 is a hideous substitute for society, women, life ; a 
 circle. . . . O, but wait; I will tell you what a 
 circle is! A circle is that sluggish and drow^sy 
 dwelling together, side by side, to which the sig- 
 nificance and aspect of a sensible deed is attached; 
 a circle substitutes arguments for conversation, 
 trains men to fruitless jabbering, diverts you 
 from solitary, beneficent work, infects you wath 
 the literary itch; it robs you, in short, of your 
 freshness and virginal lirmness of soul. A circle 
 — why, it is staleness and boredom under the 
 
 170
 
 HAMLET OF SHSHTCHIGRY 
 
 name of brotherhood aiul friendship, a coneate- 
 nation of misunderstanchngs and cavilhngs under 
 the pretext of frankness and sympathy; in a cir- 
 cle — thanks to the right of every friend to thrust 
 his unwashed fingers, at all seasons, at all hours, 
 straight into the interior of a comrade — no one 
 has a pure, imtouched spot in his soid ; in a circle, 
 men bow down before an empty, fine talker, a 
 conceited clever fellow, a premature old man; 
 they bear aloft in their arms the talentless scrib- 
 bler of verses, but with ' hidden ' thoughts ; in a 
 circle, young fellows of seventeen discourse craf- 
 tily and wisely of women, or talk with them just 
 as in a book, — and what things they talk about! 
 In a circle cunning eloquence flourishes; in a cir- 
 cle, men watch each other in a way not at all in- 
 ferior to police officials. . . . O circle! thou art 
 not a circle : thou art an enchanted ring, in which 
 more than one honest man has gone to destruc- 
 tion!" 
 
 " Come, you are exaggerating, allow me to ob- 
 serve to you," — I interrupted him. 
 
 My neighbour stared at me in silence. 
 
 " Perhaps, — the Lord knows, — perhaps I am. 
 But, you see, only one pleasure is left to fellows 
 like me — to exaggerate. So, sir, in this man- 
 ner I spent four years in Moscow. I am not 
 able to describe to you, my dear sir, with what 
 rapidity, with what frightful rapidity, that time 
 passed ; it even makes me sad and vexed to recall 
 
 171
 
 \T 
 
 mi;m()IH.s of a stortsman 
 
 it. "'1' is as tlu)iif»li you rose in tlie morning and 
 
 NMiit coasting down liill on a sled The 
 
 first Noii know, lol \ou have readied the end; and 
 already it is evening; here's the sleepy servant 
 pulling otr your eoat, — and you change your 
 tlress, and wend your way to your friend, and set 
 to smoking a i)i{)e, and drinking glasses of weak 
 tea, and discussing German philosophy, love, the 
 eternal sun of the spirit, and other remote objects. 
 Hut there also I met original, independent peo- 
 ple-: IK) matter how capricious one of them might 
 he, no matter liow much he hid himself in a 
 corner, still natiu'c would assert her rights; I 
 alone, unhaj)py wight, moulded myself like soft 
 wax, and my miserable nature did not display the 
 slightest resistance! In the meantime, 1 had 
 reached the age of one and twenty. I entered 
 into possession oi' my inheritance, or, to speak 
 more accurately, of that 2)ortion of my inheri- 
 tance which my guardian had graciously seen fit 
 to leave me, gave a power of attorney to manage 
 all my hereditary estates to an emancipated house- 
 serf, \"asilv Kudrvasheff, and went abroad to 
 Ikrlin. I remained abroad, as I have already 
 had the honour to inform you, three years. And 
 what came of that? There, abroad, also, I re- 
 mained the same un-original being. In the first 
 ])lace, there 's no disputing the fact, that I did not 
 make ac(|uaintance with the actual Euro])e, with 
 European existence, not the least bit; 1 listened 
 
 172
 
 HAMI.ET OF STTSTTTCITTOKY 
 
 to the German professors, and read (iernian 
 
 books on the very spot of their birth 
 
 that is all the differenee there was. I led an iso- 
 lated life, jnst as thon(>h I had been a monk; I 
 consorted with retired lientenants who were op- 
 pressed, like myself, with a thirst for knowledge, 
 bnt were very dnll of understanding, and not en- 
 dowed with the gift of words; I fiXMjuented the 
 society of dull-witted families from I'enza and 
 other grain-producing governments; I lolled 
 in the cafes, read the newspapers, went to the 
 theatre in the evenings. I had little acquain- 
 tance with the natives of the country, I talked 
 with them in a constrained sort of way, and never 
 saw a single one of them at my own (juarters, 
 with the exception of two or three intrusive 
 young fellows of Jewish extraction, who kept 
 incessantl}* running to me and borrowing money 
 from me, — luckily, dcr Ilusse was confiding. A 
 strange freak of chance at last took me into the 
 house of one of my })rofessors; and this was the 
 way it came about : I went to him to enter myself 
 in his course, and the first I knew he suddenly in- 
 vited me to spend the evening with him. Tliis 
 professor had two daughters, twenty-seven years 
 of age, such buxom girls — God ])less them! — such 
 magnificent noses, curls in papers, ]:)ale-blue eyes, 
 and red hands with ])allid nnils. One was named 
 I.inchen, the other Minchen. I began to frequent 
 the professor's house. I must tell you that that 
 
 173
 
 MKMOTRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 professor was not exactly stupid, but cracked as it 
 wtre; he talked (juite coherently on the lecture- 
 platform, hut at home he lisped, and kept his 
 si)ectacles always on his forehead; moreover, he 
 was an extremely learned man. . . . And what 
 came of it!" ^Vll of a sudden, I took it into my 
 head that I had fallen in love with Linchen, — and 
 for six whole months I thought so. I talked very 
 littk- to her. it is true, — I chiefly stared at her; 
 l)ut I read aloud to her divers affecting compo- 
 sitions, pressed her hand on the sly, and of an 
 evening meditated by her side, gazing intently at 
 the moon, or simply into the air. INIoreover, she 
 did make such capital coffee! . . . .' What more 
 do I want? ' I thought to myself. One thing 
 troubled me: at the very moments of inexpressi- 
 ble bliss, as the saying is, I always had a pain in 
 the lower part of my chest, for som^ reason or 
 other, and an acute, cold chill coursed through 
 my stomach. At last, I could endure such happi- 
 ness no longer, and I fled. I spent two whole 
 years abroad after that: I was in Italy, in Rome 
 I .stood in front of the ' Transfiguration,' in Flor- , 
 ence in front of the ' Venus ' ; all at once, I went 
 into exaggerated raptures, as though seized w^ith 
 a fit of ferocity; in the evenings I scribbled verses, 
 and started a diary; in a word, I conducted my- 
 self there as everybody does. And yet, just see 
 how easv it is to be orioinal. I understand no- 
 thing about j)ainting and sculpture, for example. 
 
 174
 
 HAMLET OF SHSHTCHlGRY 
 
 ... I might simply have said that aloud . . . , . 
 no, impossible. I engage a cicerone, and run and 
 look at the frescoes. . . ." 
 
 Again he dropped his eyes, and again flung off 
 his nightcap. 
 
 " So, at last, I returned to my native land," — 
 he went on, in a weary tone: — " I arrived in INIos- 
 cow. In Moscow I underwent an amazing 
 change. Abroad I had chiefly held my tongue, 
 but here, all of a sudden, I began to talk with 
 unexpected boldness, and at the same time, con- 
 ceived God knows what lofty opinion of my- 
 self. Indulgent people turned up, to whom I ap- 
 peared something very like a genius; but I was 
 not able to maintain myself at the height of my 
 glory. One fine morning a calumny sprang into 
 existence with regard to me (who brought it fortli 
 into the light of God, I know not: some old maid 
 of the male sex, it must have been, — there 's a lot 
 of such old maids in jNIoscow), — sprang into ex- 
 istence, and began to put forth shoots and run- 
 ners, just as though it had been a strawberry- 
 plant. I got confused, tried to jump out of it, 
 to break asunder the adhesive threads, — but it 
 
 could n't be done I went away. In that 
 
 case also, I proved myself an absurd man; I 
 ought to have quite quietly awaited the attack, 
 waited for this misfortune to run its course, just 
 as one awaits the end of nettlerash, and those 
 same indulgent persons would again have opened 
 
 175
 
 AfEMOTRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 tljc'ir arms to im-, tliose same ladies would again 
 
 liavc smiled at my speeches But there 's 
 
 the pity oi' it : 1 "m not an original man. Consci- 
 entiousness, yon will he pleased to ohserve, sud- 
 denly awoke in me: for some reason, I became 
 ashamed to chatter, chatter without ceasing, to 
 chatter — N'esterdav on the Arbat, to-day on the 
 Truhil, to-morrow at the Sivtzevoy-Vrazhek/ 
 And forever ahont tlie selfsame thing, . . . And 
 was it wanted ? Just look at the genuine warriors 
 ill that career: that is a matter of no consequence 
 to them: on the contrary, that is all they require; 
 some of them will toil twenty years with their 
 tonii'ues, and alwavs in the same direction. . . . 
 Th.at "s what confidence in one's self and self- 
 conceit will do for a man! And I had it, too, — 
 self-conceit, — and it has not entirely quieted 
 down even yet. . . . But the fatal point, I will 
 i"ei)eat it once more, is, tliat 1 am not an original 
 man, I stopped short in mid-career: nature should 
 Iiave allotted to me a great deal more conceit, or 
 not given me any at all. But, at first, I really 
 did have a pretty hard time: in addition to 
 tins, my trip abroad liad completelj^ exhausted 
 my resources, and I did not wish to marrj^ a mer- 
 chant's widow, witli a youthful but already flabby 
 l)ody, in the nature of jelly, and so I withdrew 
 to my estate in the country. I think," — added 
 
 ' Squares and streets in Moscow. — Translator. 
 
 176
 
 HAMLET OF SHSHTCHTORV 
 
 my neighbour, casting another sidelong ghmco 
 at me, — " that I may pal^s over in silence my first 
 impressions of country life, allusions to the 
 beauty of nature, the tranquil charm of solitude, 
 and so forth. ..." 
 
 " Vou may, you may," — I replied. 
 
 " The more so," — pursued the narrator, — 
 " as all that is nonsense, — at least, so it seems to 
 me. I got as bored in the country as a locked-up 
 puppy, although I admit that, as I passed, for 
 the first time, in springtime, on my homeward 
 journey, through the familiar birch -grove, my 
 head began to swim and my heart to beat with 
 confused, sweet anticipation. But these sweet 
 anticipations, as you yourself know, never are re- 
 alised, but, on the contrary, other things come to 
 pass, which you are not in the least expecting, 
 such as: murrain, tax-arrears, sales at public auc- 
 tion, and so forth, and so forth. I made shift to 
 live from day to day, with the assistance of the 
 peasant overseer Yakoff, who had superseded 
 the former manager, and proved, later on, to be 
 as great a thief as he, if not even greater than he, 
 and who poisoned my existence, into the bargain, 
 with the odour of his tarred boots. ... I one day 
 called to mind a neighbouring family, with whom 
 I was acquainted, consisting of the widow of a re- 
 tired Colonel and her two daughters, ordered my 
 drozhky harnessed, and drove off to my neigh- 
 
 177
 
 MEArOTRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 lK)iirs. That day must forever remain memorable 
 to me; six montlis later, I married the Coloneless' 
 second daughter. . . . ' 
 
 The narrator hung his head, and raised his arms 
 to heaven. 
 
 " A\u\ yet," — he went on with fervour:—" I 
 do not w ish to inspire you with a bad opinion of 
 my deceased wife. Ciod forbid! She was the no- 
 blest, kindest creature, a loving creature, and ca- 
 j)al)le of every sacrifice, although I must confess, 
 bttwtcii ourselves, if I had not had the misfor- 
 tune to lose her, I probably should not have been 
 in a position to chat with you to-day, for there 
 still exists, in the cellar. Df my cherry-shed,^ a 
 beam on ^\•llich I repeatedly made preparations 
 to liang mvself ! 
 
 " Some pears," — he began again, after a brief 
 pause, — "must be allowed to lie for a certain 
 time in the cellar, jn order, as the saying is, to 
 ae(juire their real savour; my deceased wife, evi- 
 dently, also belonged to that sort of products 
 of nature. Oidy now do I do her full justice. 
 Only now, for example, do the memories of cer- 
 tain evenings, which 1 spent with her before the 
 wedding, fad to arouse in me the slightest bit- 
 terness, but, on the contrary, affect me almost to 
 tears. They were not wealthy people; their 
 Iiouse, very old, of wood, but comfortable, stood 
 
 ' In districts where the winter is too severe for unprotected 
 cherry-trees, they are phinted in a rouglily-roofed, deep trench.^ 
 
 TUANSI.ATOU. 
 
 178
 
 HAMLET OF SHSHTCHIGRY 
 
 on a hill between a neglected park and an over- 
 grown yard. At the foot of the hill Howed a 
 river, which was barely visible through the dense 
 foliage. A large veranda led from the house to 
 the garden; in front of the veranda flaunted a 
 long flower-bed, covered with roses; at each end 
 of the bed grew two acacias, which in their youth 
 had been interwoven in the form of a spiral by 
 the deceased owner. A little further off, in the 
 very thickest part of the neglected raspberry-plot, 
 which had run wild, stood an arbour, very art- 
 fully painted inside, but so aged and decrepit 
 outside, that it made one uncomfortable to look at 
 it. A glazed door led from the veranda into the 
 drawing-room; and in the drawing-room this is 
 what presented itself to the curious gaze of the 
 observer : in the corners, tiled stoves ; a discordant 
 piano on the right, loaded down with manuscri])t 
 music; a divan, upholstered in faded sky-blue 
 material with whitish patterns; a circular table; 
 two etageres, with trifles of porcelain and glass 
 beads dating from the time of Katherine II ; on 
 the wall, the familiar portrait of a fair-haired 
 young girl with a dove on her bosom and her eyes 
 rolled heavenward ; on the table, a vase filled w ith 
 fresh roses You see how minutely I de- 
 scribe. In that drawing-room and on that terrace 
 the entire tragicomedy of miy love was enacted. 
 ]My neighbour's wife herself Avas a spiteful wo- 
 man, with a permanent hoarseness of malice in 
 
 179
 
 ME.MOIKS Ol A srORTSiMAN 
 
 Irt throat, — a Ma^i.iiin- aiul (juarrelsome person; 
 one of her (hm^^Iiters. Vcni, was in no waj' differ- 
 ent from ordinary young eountry gentlewomen; 
 the other was S(')fya, — and I fell in love with 
 S(')f\a. TIk- two sisters had still another room, 
 tlitir eoiiiniou hedroom, with two innoeent little 
 wooden hcds, yellowish alhums, mignonette, and 
 portraits of their friends, male and female, drawn 
 in |)tiK-il, and pretty hadly done; among them one 
 was especially noteworthy, — that of a gentleman 
 with a remarkahly energetic expression of coun- 
 tenance and a still more energetic signature, who 
 in his yf)uth had aroused incommensurable expec- 
 tations, and had ended, like all the rest of us, in — 
 nothing; with busts of Goethe and Schiller, with 
 German books, withered wreaths, and other ob- 
 jects whicli had been preserved in commemora- 
 tion. JJut 1 entered this room rarely and unwil- 
 lingly: foi- some reason or other, my breathing 
 was ')pj)ressed there. ]Moreover — strange to say! 
 — I liked Sofya best of all when I was sitting with 
 niy back to her, or still more, probably, when I 
 was thinking or meditating about her, especially 
 in the evening, on the veranda. Then I gazed at 
 tlie sunset glow, at the trees, at the tiny green 
 leaves, which had already grown dark but were 
 still distinctly discernible against the rosy sky; 
 in the drawing-room, at the piano, sat Sofya, un- 
 interru])te(lly ])laying some favourite, passion- 
 ately i)ensive passage from Beethoven ; the spite- 
 
 180
 
 HAMLET OF STTSTTTCTTKiRY 
 
 fill old woman snored reynlarlv, as she sat on tlic 
 divan; in the dining-room, illuminated by a flood 
 of crimson light. Vera busied herself "with the 
 tea; the samovar hissed sportively, as though re- 
 joicing over something; the cracknels broke with 
 a merry snap, the teas])oons rattled resonantly 
 against the cups; tlie canary-bird, which had been 
 trilling ruthlessly all day long, had suddenly 
 quieted down, and only now and then gave vent 
 to a chirp, as though making an inquiry about 
 something; sparse rain-drops fell from a light, 
 transparent little cloud as it swept past. . . . 
 And I sat and sat, and listened and listened, and 
 my heart swelled, and again it seemed to me that 
 I was in love. So, under the influence of an even- 
 ing of tliis sort, I one day asked the old woman 
 for her daughter's hand, and two months later 
 I was married. It seemed to me that I loved her. 
 . . . And even now, though it is time for me to 
 know, yet, by heaven, I don't know even now 
 whether I loved Sofya. She was a good-natured, 
 clever, taciturn creature, ^^'ith a warm heart; but, 
 God knows why, whether from having lived so 
 long in the country, (3r from some other causes, at 
 the bottom of her soul ( if there be such a thing as 
 a bottom to the soul) she had a hidden wound, or, 
 to express it better, she had a running sore, which 
 nothing could heal, and neither she nor I was able 
 to put a name to it. The existence of this wound 
 I divined, of course, only long after the wedding. 
 
 181 .
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 And what efforts 1 nuule over her — all was to no 
 avail! In my eliildhood I had a fineh wliich the 
 cat oiur held in lier paws for a while: the finch 
 was resfued and nursed, hut it never recovered; 
 it sulked, pined away, and ceased to sing. . . . The 
 end of it was. that one night a mouse got into its 
 open cage, and gnawed off its bill, in consequence 
 (if uhleh. at last, it made up its mind to die. I 
 know not what cat had held my wife in its claws, 
 hut she sulked and j)ine(l in exactly the same way 
 as my unhaj)i)y finch. Sometimes it was evident 
 that she herself wanted to shake her wings, to re- 
 joice in the fresh air, in the sunshine, and at lib- 
 erty: she would make the effort — and curl up in 
 a l)all! .Vnd yet she loved me: how many times 
 did slie assure me that she had nothing more to 
 wish for, — whew, damii it! — and her eyes would 
 darken the while. I thought to myself: ' Isn't 
 tliere something in her past?' I made incjuiries: 
 I found that there had been nothing. Well, so 
 now then, judge for yovn-self : an original man 
 would have shrugged his shoulders, heaved a 
 couple of sighs, and taken to living in his own 
 way: l)ut I 'm not an original being, I began to 
 stai-e at tlie rafters. My wife had become so thor- 
 oughly corroded with all the habits of an old 
 maid, — Beethoven, nocturnal rambles, mignon- 
 ette, corres])on(lence with her friends, albums, 
 and so forth, — that it was utterly im])ossible for 
 ill r to get used to any other mode of life, espe- 
 
 • 182
 
 HAMLET OF SIISHTCIIIGRY 
 
 cially to the life of the mistress of the house; and 
 yet, it is ridieulous for a married woman to lan- 
 guish with a nameless woe, and sing in the even- 
 ing : ' Wake thou her not at dawn ! ' 
 
 " So, sir, after this fashion we enjoyed felicity 
 for three years; in the fourth year Sofya died in 
 childhed with her first child, — and, strange to 
 say, I seemed to have had a presentiment that she 
 would not be capable of giving me a daughter or 
 a son, a new inhabitant for the earth. I remember 
 her funeral. It was in the spring. Our parish 
 church is small and old, the ikonostasis has turned 
 black, the walls are bare, the brick floor is broken 
 in places; on each side of the choir is a large, an- 
 cient holy picture. The coflin was brought in, 
 and placed in the very centre, in front of the Im- 
 perial Door,^ draped in a faded pall, and three 
 candlesticks were set around it. The service be- 
 gan. The decrepit lay-reader, with his little pig- 
 tail behind, girt low on the hips with a green 
 girdle, mumbled mournfully in front of the fold- 
 ing reading-desk; the priest, also aged, with a 
 kindly and sightless face, in a lilac cope with 
 yellow patterns, did his own j)art of the service 
 and the deacon's also. The fresh young foliage 
 of the weeping birches fluttered and whispered 
 to the full extent of the open windows; the fra- 
 grance of the grass was wafted in from out of 
 
 ^ The double central door in tiie ikonostasis (image-screen), 
 which corresponds to tlie chancel-rail in the Western Church. — 
 Translator. 
 
 183
 
 MK.MOIKS Ol' A SPORTSMAN 
 
 cl(M)rs: thf ivd lianif of the wax candles paled 
 ill the elieeiriil li^lit of the spring day; the spar- 
 rows fairly filled the ehureh with their twittering; 
 and now and then, up under the cupola, resounded 
 the ringing eiv of a swallow which had flown in. 
 The reddish-hrown heads of a few peasants, 
 who ^^ere /ealously praying for the dead woman, 
 rose and fell in the golden dust of the sun's rays; 
 the smoke escaped from the orifice of the censer 
 in a slender, hluish stream. I looked at the dead 
 face of mv wife. . . . Mv God! even death, 
 death itself, had not released her, had not healed 
 her wound: there was the same painful, timid, 
 dumh expression, — as thougli she were not at her 
 ease even in the grave. . . . JNIy blood surged 
 bitterly within me. She was a good, good crea- 
 ture, but she did a good thing for herself wiien she 
 died!" 
 
 The narrator's cheeks reddened and his eyes 
 grew dim. 
 
 " Having, at last, got rid of the heavy depres- 
 sion which took possession of me after the death 
 of my wife," — he began again, — " I conceived the 
 notion of taking to business, as the saying is. I 
 entered government service in" the capital of the 
 (.o\ernment,' but the huge rooms of the govern- 
 mental establishment made my head ache, and 
 my eyes worked badly; and other causes pre- 
 sented themselves also, by the way I re- 
 
 ' Corrpspoiulinp to a State In the United States.— Thaxslator. 
 
 184
 
 HAMLET OF S11SIITCII1(;RV 
 
 tired. 1 wanted to go to Moscow, but, in the 
 first place, I lacked the money; and, in the second 
 2)lace .... I have already told 3'ou that I have 
 become resigned. This resignation came upon 
 me botii suddenly and not suddenly. In spirit I 
 had long since become resigned, but my head still 
 refused to bend. I ascribed the modest frame of 
 my feelings and tliouglits to the inlhience of 
 country life, of unhappiness. . . . On the other 
 hand, 1 had already long before noticed that al- 
 most all my neighbours, old and young, Avho had 
 been frightened at first by my learning, by my 
 trip abroad, and by the other opportunities of my 
 education, had not only succeeded in becoming 
 thoroughly accustomed to me, but had even be- 
 gun to treat me, if not rudely, at least with sneer- 
 ing condescension, did not listen to me to the end 
 when I was arguing, and in speaking with me no 
 longer used the ' sir.' ^ I have also forgotten to 
 tell you that during the course of the first year 
 after my marriage 1 had tried my hand at litera- 
 ture, out of tedium, and had even sent an article 
 to a newspaper, — a story, if I mistake not; but 
 some time afterward I received a polite letter 
 from the editor, in which, among other things, 
 he said that while it could not be denied that I had 
 brains, it could be denied that I had talent, and in 
 literature talent was necessary. In addition to 
 
 ^The addition of the letter s to words, here indicated, is not 
 precisely "sir" or "madam," hut a courteous, lesser equivalent, 
 Mliich must he rendered thus. — Tkanslator. 
 
 185
 
 MKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 this, it came to my knowledge that a man from 
 Moscow, wlio chanced to he passing tln'oiigh, — an 
 extremely amiahle young fellow, hy the way, — 
 had rel'erred to me in i)assing as an extinct and 
 tinpty mail, at an evening party at the Gov- 
 ernor's. Hut my semi-voluntary hlindness still 
 continued: 1 did n't want to ' hox my own ears,' 
 you know : at last, one fine morning, I opened my 
 eves. This is the wav it came ahout. The chief 
 of ruial police dropped in to see me, with the ])ur- 
 ])ose of calling my attention to a ruined hridge 
 on my domains, which 1 positively had not the 
 means of mending. As he washed down a bit of 
 dried sturgeon with a glass of vodka, this patro- 
 nising guardian of order reproved me in a pater- 
 nal ^^ay for my thoughtlessness, but entered into 
 my situation, and merely recommended me to 
 order my peasants to throw on a little manure, 
 lighted his ])ipe, and began to talk about the ap- 
 proaching elections. A certain OrbassanofF, an 
 emi)ty swashbuckler, and a bribe-taker to boot, 
 was at that time a candidate for the honourable 
 post of ^Marshal of the Nobility for the Govern- 
 ment. Moreover, he was not noteworthy either 
 for his wealth or for his distinction. I expressed 
 my opinion concerning him, and rather carelessly 
 at that: 1 must confess that I looked down upon 
 Mr. OrbassiinofT. The chief of police looked at 
 me, tapped me affectionately on the shoulder, and 
 said good-naturedly: — ' Ekh, Vasily Vasilievitch, 
 
 186
 
 HAMLET OF SITSITTCTIIC;RY 
 
 't is not for you and me to judge of such persons; 
 — how can we? .... Let every one keep his 
 proper place.' ^ — 'Why, good gracious!' — I re- 
 torted with vexation, ' what difference is there 
 between me and ]Mr. OrbassanoflP? ' — The chief 
 took liis pipe out of his mouth, opened liis 
 eyes very w^de, and fairly burst witli laugliter. 
 — ' Come, you funny man,' — he said at last, 
 through his tears: ' \\'liat a joke you have got off 
 
 ah! wasn't that a good one! ' — and he 
 
 never stopped making fun of me until he de- 
 parted, now and then nudging me in the ribs with 
 his elbow and even addressing me as ' thou.' He 
 went away at last. That was the last drop: the 
 cup overflowed. I paced up and down the room 
 a few times, halted in front of the mirror, stared 
 for a long, long time at my disconcerted counte- 
 nance, and, slowly sticking out my tongue, shook 
 my head with a Ijitter smile. The veil fell from 
 my eyes; I saw clearh% more clearly than I saw 
 my face in the mirror, what an empty, insignifi- 
 cant, and useless, unoriginal man I was! " 
 
 The narrator made a brief pause. 
 
 " In one of Voltaire's tragedies," — he went on 
 dejectedly,—" a certain gentleman is delighted 
 that he has reached the extreme limits of ill luck. 
 Although there is nothing tragic in my fate, yet 
 I must confess that I have tasted something of 
 
 'In Russian, literally: "Let the cricket know his 
 hearth." — Traxslatoh. 
 
 187
 
 MKMOIRS OF A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 tliat mm(. 1 have learned to know the venomous 
 raptures of eold despair; 1 iiave learned by expe- 
 rienee liow sweet it is to lie, without haste, in bed 
 for an entire niornino- and curse the day and bour 
 of iiiv hirtii; — I eould not resign myself all at 
 once. And. in fact, judge for yourself: my lack 
 of money lettered me to my detested country- 
 place; I was tit for nothing, — neither agriculture, 
 nor the service, nor literature; I avoided tlie 
 hmded proprietors, books revolted me; for the 
 dropsical and sickiy-scntimental young ladies, 
 who shook their curls and feverisbly reiterated 
 the word ' life,' I bad ceased to be in the least at- 
 tractive as soon as I ceased to chatter and go into 
 ecstasies: I did not know bow to isolate myself 
 completely, neither could I do so. ... I began 
 to — what do you think? — I began to haunt my 
 neighi)ours. As though intoxicated witli scorn 
 for myself. 1 purposely subjected myself to all 
 sorts of petty liumiliations. They passed me 
 over at the ta})le, they greeted me coldly and 
 liaughtily; at last, they took no notice wbatever 
 of me; they did not even allow me to mingle in 
 tlie general conversation, and I myself used de- 
 liberately to back up from a corner some ex- 
 tremely stupid babbler, who at one time, in Mos- 
 cow, would have kissed mv feet, the hem of mv 
 cloak, in rapture. , . I did not even permit my- 
 self to think that I was surrendering myself to 
 the bitter satisfaction of irony. . . . Good 
 
 188
 
 lIAMi>KT OF SIISiriCllKiKV 
 
 heavens, what is irony in sohtude! This, sir, is the 
 way 1 hehaved for several years in succession, 
 and the way I am behaving up to the present 
 time, . . ." 
 
 " Why, this is outrageous," growled the sleepy 
 voice of ISlv. Kantagrii'ikhin, from the adjoining 
 room: — " What fool has taken it into his head to 
 prate by night? " 
 
 The narrator briskly dived down under his 
 coverlet and, timjdly peering out, shook his finger 
 at me. 
 
 " Sh sssssh!" — he whispered; and, as 
 
 though apologising and bowing in the direction 
 of JNIr. Kantagriiikhin's voice, he said respect- 
 fully: — ■" I obey, sir; I obey, sir; excuse me, sir. 
 .... It is permissible for him to sleep, he has a 
 right to sleep," — he went on again in a whisper: 
 " he must gather fresh strength, well, if only in 
 order that he may eat with his usual satisfaction 
 to-morrow. We have no right to disturb him. 
 Moreover, I think I have told you all I wished; 
 probably, you would like to go to sleep also. I 
 wish you a good night." 
 
 The narrator turned over with feverish haste, 
 and bvu'ied his head in his pillows. 
 
 " Permit me at least to incpiire," — I asked : — 
 " W'ith whom liave I the honour . . . ." 
 
 He raised his head alertly. 
 
 " No, for God's sake," — he interrupted me: — 
 " don't ask my name of me or of others. Let me
 
 ME.AIUIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 remain for you an unknown being, Vasily Vasilie- 
 viteh, l)rnisetl by fate, ^loreover, as an unorigi- 
 nal man. I do not deserve to have a name of my 
 own. . . . l^ut if you absolutely insist upon giv- 
 ing me some api)ellation. then call me .... call 
 me the Ilandet of Shshtehigry County. There 
 are lots of such Hamlets in every county, but per- 
 haps von have not encountered any others. . . . 
 Herewith, farewell." 
 
 Again he ])uried liimself in his feather-bed, 
 and on the following morning, when they came to 
 wake me, he was no longer in the room. He had 
 departed at daybreak. 
 
 190
 
 VIII 
 
 TCHERTOPKHANOFF AND NEDOPIUSKIN 
 
 One hot summer day I was returning from the 
 hunt in a peasant cart; Ermolai was dozing as he 
 sat beside me, and bobbing his head forward. 
 The skimbering hounds were jolting about hke 
 dead bodies under our feet. Tlie coachman kept 
 incessantly flicking the gadflies ofl* the horses 
 with his whip. The white dust floated in a light 
 cloud after the cart. We drove into the bushes. 
 The road became more full of pits, the wheels be- 
 gan to come in contact with the branches. Kr- 
 molai gave a start, and glanced around him. . . . 
 "Eh!"^ — said he: — "why, there ought to be 
 black-cock here. Let 's alight." — We halted and 
 entered the tract of second gro^\i:li and bushes- 
 ]My dog hit upon a covey of birds. I fired, and 
 was beginning to reload my gun when, suddenly, 
 behind me, a loud crash made itself heard, and, 
 j^arting the bushes with his hands, a man on horse- 
 back rode up to me. — " Per-mit me to inquire," 
 — he said, in an arrogant voice, " by what right 
 you are shooting here, m' d'r s'r." ' 
 
 The stranger spoke with unusual rapidity, ab- 
 
 ^ His pronunciation is indicated as affected. — Translator. 
 
 191
 
 MK.MOTKS or .\ SPOKTSMAN 
 
 niptly, .111(1 tliidu^h liis nose, i looked liiiii in the 
 
 latr: ncvci- in my lifV had I beheld anything hke 
 
 him. Fiiiure to yourself, dear readers, a tiny, 
 
 lair-iiaired man u itli a little red snub-nose and a 
 
 loriLT red moustaehe. An octagonal Persian cap 
 
 with a crimson cloth top covered his forehead to 
 
 his \(r\- l)ro\\s. Tic was chul in a long, thread- 
 
 i)are. yellow Caucasian coat with black velveteen 
 
 cartri('ge-sheaths on the breast and faded silver 
 
 galloon on all the seams; across his shoulder hung 
 
 his hunting-horn, a dagger projected from his 
 
 belt. His emaciated, roman-nosed, sorrel horse 
 
 staggered beneath him, like a drunken creature; 
 
 two greyhounds, gaunt and wry-footed, pranced 
 
 about between its legs. The face, the glance, the 
 
 \()ice, every movement, the whole person of the 
 
 stranger exhaled mad hardihood and boundless, 
 
 unprecedented pride; his pale-blue, glassy eyes 
 
 were shifty and squinting, like those of a tipsy 
 
 man; lie flung his head })ack, puffed out his 
 
 cheeks, snorted and quivered all over, as though 
 
 wlih excess of pride — for all the world like a 
 
 tuikey-cock. He repeated his question. 
 
 " I did not know that sluxjting here was for- 
 bidden," — I replied. 
 
 " You are on my land here, my dear sir," — he 
 went on. 
 
 " Very well, I will go." 
 
 " Jiut per-mit me to inquire," — he returned: 
 
 192
 
 TCHERTOPKHANOFF 
 
 " have I the honour to explain niyseli* with a 
 noble? '' 
 
 I mejitioned my name. 
 
 " In that case, pray go on shooting. 1 am a 
 noble mj^self, and am very glad to be of service to 
 
 a noble JNIy name is Tchertop-khanofF, 
 
 Pantelei." 
 
 He bent forward, gave a whoop, lashed his 
 horse on the neck witli his whip, shook his head, 
 dashed aside, and cruslied the paw of one of his 
 dogs. The dog began to wliimper shrilly. Tcher- 
 topkhanoff began to seethe and hiss, smote his 
 liorse on the head between the ears, s})rang to the 
 earth quicker than a flash of lightning, scru- 
 tinised the dog's paw, spat on the wound, kicked 
 the animal in the side with his foot to stop its out- 
 cries, grasj^ed the horse's forelock, and tln-ust his 
 foot into the stirrup. The horse tossed its muzzle, 
 elevated its tail, and darted sideways into the 
 bushes; he went hopping after it on one leg, but 
 vaulted into the saddle at last; he flourished his 
 kazak whip like a man in a frenzy, blew a blaring 
 blast on his horn, and galloped off". Before I 
 could recover myself from this unexpected ap- 
 parition of Tchertopkhanoff', suddenly, almost 
 without a sound, a rather corpulent man of forty 
 rode out of the bushes on a small, black nag. He 
 drew up, removed from his head a green leather 
 cap of military shape, and in a shrill, soft voice 
 
 193
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 asked mc uhctlicr I liad seen a rider on a sorrel 
 horse. I leplied that 1 luul. 
 
 " In what (lireetion (Hd they' deign to ride?" 
 — lie Weill on. in tlie same tone, and without put- 
 ting on his eap. 
 
 " In that (hreetion, sir." 
 " I am greatly ohliged to you, sir." 
 He ehirrui)ed, jogged his feet against the 
 horse's rihs, and rode off at a trot, — jog-trot, — in 
 the (lireetion indicated. 1 watched him until his 
 peaked eaj) \ anished among the boughs. This 
 new stranger did not in the least resemble his pre- 
 decessor, so far as his external appearance was 
 concerned. His face, round and puffy as a ball, 
 expressed bashfulness, good-nature, and gentle 
 resignation: his nose, which was also round and 
 ])uffy and si)eckled with blue veins, betrayed the 
 sensualist. Not a single hair remained on his 
 head in fiont; at the back, thin red hair stuck out; 
 his small eyes, which seemed to have been cleft 
 with a cutting sedge, blinked amiably; his red, 
 lush lips smiled sweetly. He \vore a surtout with 
 a standing collar and brass buttons, extremely 
 threadbare, but clean; above the yellow^ tops of 
 liis boots, his fat calves w^ere visible. 
 
 " ^Vho is that? " — I inquired of Krmolai. 
 "That? Xedopiuskin, Tikhon Ivanitch. He 
 lives with Tehertoi)khanoff." 
 
 'The respectful torm of "lie" or "she," according to the 
 context. — Translator. 
 
 194
 
 TCITERTOrKTTAXOFF 
 
 " What is he, — a poor man? " 
 
 "He isn't rich; but tlien, TchertopkhanofF 
 has n't a brass cent." 
 
 " Then why has he taken up his abode with 
 him? " 
 
 " Why, they have struck up a friendship, yon 
 see. The friend never goes anywhere without his 
 friend 'T is a regular case of whitherso- 
 ever the steed goes with his hoofs, thither also 
 "oes the crab with his claws. . . ." 
 
 We emerged from the bushes; all at once, the 
 two huntsmen began to " give the view-halloo " 
 alongside of us, and a huge grey hare rolled 
 over the oats, which were already fairly tall. In 
 their wake, the harriers and harehounds leaped 
 out of the edge of the woods, and in the wake of 
 the dogs forth flew TchertopkhanoflP himself. 
 He was not shouting nor urging them on, nor 
 hallooing; he was panting and gasping; from his 
 gaping mouth abrupt, unintelligible sounds broke 
 forth from time to time; he dashed onward, with 
 protruding eyes, and flogging his unhappy horse 
 frantically with his kazak whip. The hare- 
 hounds " overshot " ; the hare squatted, 
 
 turned sharply back on its track, and dashed past 
 
 Ermolai into tlie bushes The hounds swept 
 
 by. — " L-1-l-look o-o-out, 1-1-1-look o-o-out! " fal- 
 tered the fainting sportsman, with an efl'ort, as 
 though stammei'ing: — "look out, my good 
 man!" Ermolai flred .... the wounded hare 
 
 195
 
 MKMOIRS OF A SPOKTSMAN 
 
 rolled like a spimiiii^-top over the smooth, dry 
 grass. «rjive a leap upward, and began to scream 
 j)itifnll\ ill the tcetli of the dogwhichwas rendmg 
 him asumlri-: the harriers immediatelydashed up. 
 
 TehertopUhanoft' flew' off his liorse like a tum- 
 l)ler j)ige(»n. jerked out his dagger, ran up, strad- 
 dhng his legs far ai)art, to the dogs, with wrathful 
 exclamations wrested from them the tortured 
 hare, and with his face all twisted awry. ])lunged 
 liis daauer ui) to the very hilt into the creature's 
 throat .... plunged it in, and began to cackle. 
 Tikhoii Iviiniteh made his appearance on the 
 edge of the woods. " Ilo-ho-ho-ho-lio-ho-ho! " 
 roared Tehei'topkhanoff a second time. . . . 
 " Ilo-ho-ho-ho."' repeated his comrade quietly. 
 
 " But. you know, it isn't the proper thing to 
 hunt in the summer," — I remarked, indicating 
 the rtattened oats to Tchertopkhanoff. 
 
 " "T is my field,' — replied Tchertopkhanoff, 
 barely breathing. 
 
 lie ripped up the hare, disembowelled it, and 
 distributed the paws to the dogs. 
 
 " Charge the cartridge to me, my dear fellow," 
 —he said, according to the rides of sport, address- 
 ing Krmolai. — " And as for you, my dear sir," 
 — he added in the same abrupt and cutting voice: 
 — " I tliank you." 
 
 lie mounted his horse. 
 
 " I'er-mit me to iiKpiire ... 1 forgot about 
 that . . . youi- name and surname." 
 
 196
 
 TCHKHTOPKITANOFF 
 
 Again J intioduced myself. 
 
 " Very glad to make your aecjiiaiiitaiiee. If 
 you happen to come my way, j^ray droj) in to see 
 
 me But where 's that Fomka, TiUhon 
 
 IvanitchJ'" — he went on testily : — "the hare has 
 been run down in his absence." 
 
 " His liorse tumbled down under him," replied 
 Tikhon Ivanitch, with a smile. 
 
 "Tumbled down? Orbassan tumbled down! 
 
 Phew, pshaw! Where is he, where is 
 
 he?" 
 
 " Yonder — the other side of the wood." 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff lashed his horse on the muz- 
 zle with his kazak whipj and galloped off at a 
 breakneck pace. Tikhon Ivanitch made me a 
 couple of bows, — one for himself, one on his com- 
 rade's account, — and again set oiF at a trot 
 through the bushes. 
 
 These two gentlemen had strongly excited my 
 curiosity. . . . What could unite in the bonds of 
 indestructible friendship two beings so utterly 
 different? I began to make inquiries. This is 
 what I learned. 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff, Pantelei Eremyeitch, bore 
 the reputation throughout the whole countryside 
 of being a dangerous and crackbrained man, an 
 arrogant man and bully of the worst sort. He 
 
 ' This nagaika is a cruel — a deadly iiuplenient. It consists of 
 a short, thick handle, jointed to a stiff "lash" of nearly tiie same 
 lenptl) (l)oth of rawhide), terminal ing in a small, flat disk, also of 
 rawhide. — Traxslatou. 
 
 197
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SrORTSMxVN 
 
 had served ior a \ ery brief period in the army, and 
 liad retired from it, " in eonsequence of mipleas- 
 antnesses," with that rank concerning which there 
 exists a wide-spread opinion that a "chicken is not 
 a l)ird " — that is, too insignificant to be considered 
 as rank at all. He was descended from an an- 
 cient house wliich liad once been wealthy; his an- 
 cestors had lived luxuriously after the manner of 
 the stepi^es: that is to say, they welcomed bidden 
 and un!)idden guests and fed them to satiety, as 
 though for slaughter: provided strange coachmen 
 w ith half a dozen bushels of oats for their troika 
 horses; kept musicians, singers, buffoons and 
 hounds: travelled to ^loscow in the winter in their 
 own i)onderous ancient coaches; on festival days 
 supplied the populace with liquor and home-made 
 heel": and sometimes were without a penny for 
 months at a stretch, and subsisted on horse-prov- 
 ender.' Pantelei Eremyeitcirs father inherited 
 the property in a ruined condition; he, in his turn, 
 also '' caroused," and, dying, left to his onlj^ son 
 and heir, I'antelei, the mortgaged hamlet of Bez- 
 sonovo, with thirty-five souls of the male sex and 
 se\enty-six of the female sex, together with four- 
 teen desyatinas and an eighth of inconvenient 
 land in the Kolobrod waste, to which, however, 
 the deceased possessed no documentary proofs of 
 his ownership. The deceased had ruined himself 
 
 ' Oatiiieiil and coriimcal (wliicli I;ist is Uiiowii iti llic south of 
 Russia) would coiiit' undtr tliis licad. — Translator. 
 
 198
 
 TCIIKllTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 in a very strange manner, it must be confessed 
 — " domestic economy " luid been bis ])erdition. 
 According to bis ideas, a nobleman ougbt not to 
 depend upon tbe mercliants, tbe town-dwellers, 
 and sucb-like "brigands," as he expressed it; be 
 set up on bis estate all sorts of handicrafts 
 and workshops: " 'T is both more seemly and 
 cheaper," — he was wont to say: "'tis domestic 
 economy! " He never got rid of that pernicious 
 idea to the end of his life; and it ruined him. 
 On the other hand, bow he did enjoy himself! 
 He never denied himself a single whim. Among 
 other caprices, he once had constructed, accord- 
 ing to bis own designs, such a huge family car- 
 riage that, in spite of the vigorous efforts of 
 the peasants' horses, which had been impressed 
 from the entire village, along with their owners, 
 it tumbled down at the first declivity, and went 
 to pieces. Efremyei Liikitcb (that was the 
 name of Pantelei's father) caused a monument 
 to be erected on the bill, but was not in tbe 
 least disconcerted. He also took it into bis head 
 to build a church, on his own responsibility, 
 of course, without tbe aid of an architect. He 
 burned a whole forest to bake tbe bricks, he laid 
 an enormous foundation, as though for the cathe- 
 dral of a government capital, reared the walls, 
 and began to construct the arch for the cupola: 
 the cupola caved in. He rebuilt it, — again the 
 cupola fell ; he did it a third time, and for tbe third 
 
 199
 
 .MKMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 time tlie fui)()la IVll to pieces. My Eremyei Lu- 
 kiteh relteeted. " There 's sometliino- wrong," he 
 
 tlioijoht " some damned witchcraft is 
 
 mixed ii[) with it . . . ." and all of a sudden he 
 ordered that all the old jjcasant women in the 
 village should he fiogged. The women were 
 flogged, — but the cupola refused to be con- 
 structed, nevertheless. He began to rebuild the 
 peasants' cottages on a new plan, and all at his 
 own expense; he built three cottages together 
 in a triangle, and in the centre he erected a pole 
 surmounted by a painted starling-house and a 
 Hag. He was in the habit of devising a fresh 
 freak every day: now he made soup of burdock, 
 ai»ain he shaved off the tails of the horses to 
 make caps for his house-serfs, next he made 
 j)re])arations to replace flax with nettles, or to 
 feed his pigs on mushrooms. . . . One day he 
 read in TJic Moscotc News an article by a land- 
 owner of the Kluirkhoff Government, named 
 Khrvak-Khrupyorsky, concerning the advan- 
 tages of morality in the life of the serfs, and on 
 the very next day he issued an order to all the 
 serfs that they should forthwith learn the Khar- 
 khoff s(|uire's article by heart. The serfs learned 
 the article; their noble master asked them: " Did 
 they understand what was written therein? " The 
 overseer replied: " How could they fail to under- 
 stand ? " About the same time he commanded all 
 his subjects, on the score of order and domestic 
 
 200
 
 re 1 1 KUTOPKHAXOFF 
 
 economy, to he iiiunhered, and each one to have 
 his number sewn on his collar. Each person, on 
 meeting the master, used to call out: " Such-and- 
 such a number is coming! " and the master would 
 reply amiably: " (ro thv way, and God protect 
 thee!" 
 
 But, in spite of order and domestic econom^^ 
 Eremyei Lukitch gradually got into very difficult 
 straits: first he began to mortgage his estates, 
 then he proceeded to sell them, and the last one, 
 the ancestral nest, the large village witli the un- 
 finished church, was sold by the treasury, fortu- 
 nately, not during the lifetime of Eremyei Lii- 
 kitch, — he could not have borne that blow, — but 
 two wrecks after his death. He managed to ex- 
 pire in his own house, in liis own bed, surrounded 
 by his own people, and under the supervision of 
 his own medical man, but poor Pantelei inherited 
 nothing except Bezsonovo. 
 
 Pantelei was already in the service, in the very 
 thick of the above-mentioned "unpleasantnesses," 
 when he heard of his father's death. He had re- 
 cently attained the age of eighteen. From his 
 very childhood, he had never quitted the parental 
 roof, and under the guidance of his mother, an 
 extremely amiable, but tlioroughly dull-witted 
 woman, Vasilisa Vasilievna, he had grown u]) a 
 spoiled child, and a regular little country squire. 
 She alone took charge of his education; Eremyei 
 Liikitch, absorbed as he was in his experiments in 
 
 201
 
 ME^roiRS OF A sports:ma>; 
 
 tloiiiestic economy, had no time for that. To tell 
 the truth, lie did once chastise his son with his own 
 hands I'or pronouncing the letter Rtzy,' artzy; 
 but that (lav. Kremvei Liikitch ^vas ijrofoundlv 
 and secretly afflicted; his best hound had been 
 killed against a tree. However, Vasilisa Vasi- 
 lievna's anxieties in regard to the education of 
 Pantiusha were confined to torturing effort 
 alone; in the sweat of her brow she hired for him 
 as governor an ex-soldier, an Alsatian, a certain 
 BirchhofF (and to the day of her death, she trem- 
 bled like a leaf before him: " Well," she said to 
 herself, '' if he resigns — I am lost! What shall I 
 do? Where shall I find another teacher? Even 
 this one I liu'ed awav from a neighbour with the 
 greatest difficulty!"'). xVnd BirchhofF, like the 
 shrewd man he was, immediately took advantage 
 of his exceptional position : he drank himself dead 
 drunk, and slept from morning till night. At the 
 conclusion of his " course of sciences," Pantelei 
 entered the service. Vasilisa A^asflievna was no 
 longer living. She had died six months previous 
 to this important event, from fright; in her 
 dreams she had ])eheld a vision of a white man rid- 
 ing a bear. Eremyei I^ukitch speedily followed 
 his better half. 
 
 Pantelei, at the first news of his illness, gal- 
 
 ' The Slavonic name of the letter R. Russian children are taught 
 a certain amount of Old Church Slavonic, to enable them to un- 
 derstand the services of tiie Church, which arc conducted ex- 
 clusively in that language. — Traxsi.atoh. 
 
 202
 
 TCIlKJ{T(/iM\IlA\C)FF 
 
 loped home at breakneck speed, hut (hd not find 
 his parent ahve. But what was the amazement of 
 the res2)eetful son, wlien he suddenly found him- 
 self con\ erted fi'om a wealthy heir into a paujjer! 
 Few are able to endure so abrupt a change. Pan- 
 telei grew unsociable and hard. From an honour- 
 able, lavish, amiable, though harebrained and hot- 
 tempered fellow, he changed into an arrogant 
 man and a bully, and ceased to hold intercourse 
 with his neighbours,— he was ashamed before the 
 wealthy, despised the poor, and behaved with 
 unheard-of insolence to everybody — even to the 
 constituted authorities; as much as to say: " I 'm a 
 nobleman of ancient lineage." Once he came 
 near shoctting the commissary of rural ])olice, who 
 had entered his room with his cap on his head. 
 The powers, of course, on their side, did not par- 
 don his attitude, and, on occasion, made them- 
 selves felt; yet, all the same, he was feared, be- 
 cause he was a frightfully hot-tempered man, and 
 at the second word pi'o])osed a duel with knives. 
 At the slightest 02)i)osition, Tchertopkhanoff's 
 eyes began to groA\' wild, his voice began to break. 
 .... "Ah,va-va-va-va-va! " he stammered, "damn 
 my head! '".... And bang it would go against 
 the wall! iVnd more than that, he was a clean 
 man, and not mixed up in anything. Of course 
 no one went to his house And, neverthe- 
 less, his was a kind, even a great soul, in its way: 
 he would not tolerate injustice or oppression even 
 
 203
 
 .MKMOUiS OF A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 toNsanl a .straii«>vr: lie stood up for liis peasants 
 l)y cNtrv ineaiis in his power. — " Wliat ? " lie said, 
 i'rantieally slai)pint4- his own liead:— " toueli my 
 pe()i)le, my pe()i)le^ Not while 1 am Tcliertop- 
 khanott'! ." . . ." 
 
 Unlike l\intelei Eremyeiteh, Tikhon Ivanitch 
 Xedopiuskin could not cherish pride in his ex- 
 traction. His father had come of the petty free- 
 holder class, and only bv dint of forty years of 
 .service had he acquired nobility. ]Mr. Xedopiu- 
 skin Senior had belonged to the category of peo- 
 ple whom ill-liK'k pursues with an obduracy 
 which resembles personal hatred. For the space 
 of sixty whole years, from his very birth to his 
 very death, the poor man had contended with all 
 the poverty, infirmities, and calamities which are 
 ])eculiar to petty people; he floundered like a flsh 
 on the ice, never had food or sleep enough, 
 cringed, toiled, grieved, and languished, trembled 
 over every ko})ck, actually sufl^'ered in the service, 
 though innocent, and died, at last, in a garret or 
 a cellar, without having succeeded in amassing 
 either for himself or his children a bit of daily 
 bread. Fate had shaken him as a dog shakes a 
 hare in the chase. He had been a good and hon- 
 est man, but had taken bribes — ranging from a 
 twenty-ko})ek piece to two rubles, inclusive.. X^e- 
 dopiuskin bad had a wife, a thin, consumptive 
 woman: and he had had children: luckily, they 
 had all died soon, with the exception of Tikbon 
 
 204
 
 TC'IIKHTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 and a daughter ]Mitrod6ra, by profession a 
 " dandy of tlie niercliant class," who, after many 
 sorrowful and ridiculous adventures, liad married 
 a retired pettifogger. Mr. Xedopiuskin Senior 
 had managed, during his lifetime, to get Ti'khon 
 appointed as sui)crnumerary official in a chan- 
 cellery; but immediately after his parent's death, 
 Tfkhon resigned. The eternal trepidations, the 
 torturing battle with cold and hunger, the melan- 
 choly dejection of his mother, the toilsome, anx- 
 ious despair of his father, the rough oppressions 
 of landlords and shopkeepers, — all this daily, un- 
 intermittent woe had bred in Tfkhon inexpressi- 
 ble timidity: at the very sight of his superior offi- 
 cial he would begin to quake and turn faint, like 
 a captured bird. He abandoned the service. In- 
 different, and perhaps derisive, nature imbues 
 people with various cajjacities and inclinations, 
 which are not at all in accordance with their posi- 
 tion in society and with their means; with the care 
 and love peculiar to her, she had moulded Tfkhon, 
 the son of the poverty-stricken official, into a sen- 
 sitive, indolent, soft, impressionable being, ad- 
 dicted exclusively to enjoyment, gifted with an 
 excessively delicate sense of smell and taste .... 
 had moulded him, carefully put on the finishing 
 touches, and had left her production to grow up 
 on sour cabbage and putrid fish. But he did grow 
 up, that product of hers, and began, as the saying- 
 goes, to " live." Then the fun began. Fate, 
 
 205
 
 MK.MOIHS OF A Sl^ORTSMAX 
 
 whicli had nnrcniittintrly tormented Nedopiuskiu 
 Senior, hegan on his son: eviilently, she had ac- 
 (juirecl a taste. Hnt with Tikhon slie adopted a 
 diflVrent eonrse: slie did not tortnre liim, — she 
 amnsed lieisclf w itli liini. She never once drove 
 him to despair, never made him experience the 
 mortilyin^- tortnre of linnger. hnt slie drove him 
 all over Knssia, from A\'liky-Usting to Tzarevo- 
 Kokshiiisk, from one hnmiliatino- and ridicnlous 
 employment to another: now she promoted him to 
 !)(.■ ■ iiiajordomo " to a \'ixenis]i and splenetic 
 henefactress of nol)le hirth; then appointed him 
 at tile head of the domestic chancellery of a 
 mole-eyed nohleman with his hair clipped in the 
 Knglish fashion; then made him half-hutler, half- 
 jester to a master of the honnds In a 
 
 word. Fate forced poor Tikhon to drain drop by 
 (li'op. and to the last drop, the whole bitter and 
 venomons j)oti()n oj' an inferior existence. He 
 sei\i(l. III his time, the ponderons caprice, the 
 sleepy and spiteful tedium, of idle gentlefolk. 
 . . . . How many times, alone in his chamber, 
 dismissed at last with the words " God be with 
 thee " ' after a horde of guests had amused them- 
 selves with him to their fill, had he vowed, all 
 flushed with shame, with cold tears of des])air in 
 his ( yes, to run away secretly that very day, to 
 tiy his hick in the town, to find himself some 
 petty j)lace, if only that of a copying-clerk; or, 
 
 ' EquivaU-iil to ])olite dismissal. Tkanslatoh. 
 
 206
 
 TCIIERTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 once for all, to die of hunger in the street. lUit, 
 in the first place, God did not give him tlie 
 strength for that; in the second place, timidity 
 began to torment him; and, in the third place, in 
 conclusion, — how was he to obtain a ])lace for 
 liimself, whom was he to ask? " They won't give 
 me one," the unhappy man would whisper, as he 
 tossed dejectedly on his bed: " they won't give me 
 one! " On the following day, he would begin to 
 bear the yoke again. . His position was all tlie 
 more painful, in that nature had not troubled her- 
 self to endow him with even a small modicum oi' 
 those capacities and gifts without which the part 
 of jester is almost impossible. For example, he 
 could not dance until he dropped with fatigue in 
 a bear's skin worn wrong side but; neither could 
 he play the buffoon and the courtier in the im- 
 mediate vicinity of freeh' used dog-whips; when 
 put out of doors naked at a temperatiu'e of 
 twenty degrees below zero, he sometimes caught 
 cold; his stomach could digest neither wine mixed 
 with ink and other filth, nor toadstools and 
 poison-mushrooms crumbled up in vinegar. Tlie 
 liOrd knows what would have become of Tikhon, 
 if the last of his benefactors, a distiller who had 
 acquired wealth, had not taken it into his head, in 
 a jovial hour, to add a codicil to his will: " And 
 to Zyoza (also called Tikhon) Nedopiuskin I 
 bequeatli for eternal and hereditary possession 
 my village :^f Bezselendyeevka, acquired by my- 
 
 207
 
 MKMOIKS Ol' A srOHTSMAX 
 
 self, toiivtlu r \\ itii all ils (lo|K!uKM\i'ii\s." Sf\ i mm] 
 iljivs hitiT, tlu' Ih'Iu r.u-lor dii'ii of m stroke" of j);i- 
 ralvsis. omt a sltiKt soiii). 'riuro w as a comnu)- 
 tii>n; tiu" olliirrs o\' [\\c law made' a (k'scriil aiul 
 atlixcHJ M'als io the property in tlu' ri\<4ular I'onn. 
 'Vhv ix'lalixfs assi'iiibU'd ; llu' will was oj)eMH>(l; 
 tlicv read it, aiui drinaiuK-d Xi'dopiuskin. \ih1o- 
 piuskin pri'sciitrd liimsell'. 'Pin- majority ni' \\\c 
 asscMiilih N\ ere aware oi' tlu- i)osl wliii-h Tikhon 
 Ivaniti'h IkuI oc'i'iii)i<.'d iiiulcr his boiicl'ai'lor; 
 ik'atViiin*»" (.'xolamations. jieiinL!' I'onnratiilalions, 
 wcro siiowcMvd iii)oii liim on his a])i)caraiKV. 
 " 'Vhc landed prv^j)rittoi\ tluii- he is, the new 
 landed ])roj)rietor! " yelled the othei- luars. 
 " Well, now yon know," j)nt in one well-known 
 jester anel wit: '" \ow, really, yon know, one" m.ay 
 
 sav re'allv, \ou know .... thai .... 
 
 is what is ealle-el .... that 's the 
 
 heir." .\nel all I'airly hursl \\ilh huiiihler. l'\>r 
 a long time, Xedopii'iskin we)nlel not he>lie"\ e in his 
 good fortnne. They slu)weel him the will, he 
 turned searlet, seri'weel \\\) his eyevs, iR^gan to 
 brandish his arms, anel fell to w e\>i)ing in torrents. 
 The ne)isv langhter e)l' tlu" assembly ehanoeel into 
 a thiek anel unanime)us roar. The> village' of 
 Bezseientlyeevka eonsisteel, in all, ol' two-anel- 
 twenty serfs; ne) e)ne greatly begruelged it ; there- 
 fore, why not ha\e se^me spe)rt out of it ^. Owe heir 
 nidy, a man from Pe'te'i-shnrg, a pom])e>ns man 
 with a (ireeian nose anel the nuxst ne)ble' e\- 
 
 '20S
 
 rCHKHTOIMxIIAXr)! ] 
 
 pnrssion of '■()\\h\<i\:iM'-<-. Ilostislaff ArJ;irnitf.-h 
 Sf'lifoppfrJ, coiiM fifjt rndijff: jt, u\<)\<(\ up sidf;- 
 ways fo \<:(\<)])\usk]ti, utid stared at )iir/i uvro- 
 ^antly over liis sliouJdcf. " So far as 1 can see, 
 rrjy (jear sir," he said, in a seornf'ulJy-eareless 
 manner, " yon ]\;i\'- \)<(n Ii\'inf^- wit,}) the re- 
 Sf)ected FeorJo/- J'f ofJoro\itf}] in the e-apacitv of 
 jester, or servant, so to speak? " 'J'he gentleman 
 i'loin I*ete'rsf>nr^' expressecJ liimself in insnfrer- 
 afily elear, (k;M, nnd legular Janr>uage. 'Idie flus- 
 tered, njj;'\\ii\<(l \'doj;irisl:in did nr;t eateh the 
 words of tlie strange gentJenjan, fiut alJ t}je others 
 imnjediately fell silen^; tlie wit smiled conde- 
 seerjdingly. Mr. Sehtoppf 1 nih}>ed his hanrjs anrl 
 r-epejd'd liis (juestion. Xf-dojjiriskin raiser] Ijis 
 eyes in ama/ement, and opr-ned his /nonth. Ilos- 
 tishifl* Adjimiteh narrowed his eyes \(./ionjfjusJy. 
 I efjngialniate you, my dear sir, I eongratu- 
 late you," he went on:—" truth U) teJJ, not every 
 one woiilfJ have consented to earrrrn his daily 
 hread i»i that manner; hut de guHtibuH non est dis- 
 '/mtandum, that is to say, every one to his taste. 
 . . . Is n't t}i?it so? " 
 
 Some onr- in the rear ranks gave a swift hut de- 
 corous squeal of surj>rise and delight. 
 
 "Tell me," pursued Mr. Sehtoppel, greatly 
 en(;ourau('d hv the smiles of the assemhiv: — "to 
 which talent in [)articular are you indehted for 
 your gofnl fortune? No, he not ashamed, speak 
 out; we are all of the family here, so to speak, 
 
 200
 
 MKMOIUS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 cji fdniillf. Wc arc liere eu famillc, are wc not, 
 gentlemen ? " 
 
 Tlie lieir to w lioni RostislafF Achiniitch chanced 
 to appeal with this (piestion did not know French, 
 unfortunately, and therefore confined himself to 
 emitting a I'aint grunt of approval. On the other 
 hand, another heir, a young man with yellowish 
 hlotciies on his hrow, made haste to put in: "Voui, 
 voiii , ol' course! " 
 
 " Perhaps," — hegan ]Mr. Schto])pel again, 
 " vou can walk on your hands, with your feet ele- 
 vated, so to speak, in the air? " 
 
 Xedopiiiskin cast a sorrowful glance around 
 him — all faces wore a spiteful smile, all eyes were 
 covered with the moisture of satisfaction. 
 
 " Or, perchance, you can crow like a cock? " 
 
 A gufi'aw of laughter ran the round, and im- 
 mediately ceased, quelled hy expectation. 
 
 " Or, perchance, you can halance things on 
 
 your nose 
 
 Stop! " — -a sharp, loud voice suddenly in- 
 terrupted Kostislaff Adamitch: — "aren't you 
 ashamed to torment the poor man! " 
 
 All glanced round. At the door stood Tcher- 
 topkhanoff. In his quality of nephew thrice 
 removed of the deceased distiller, he also had re- 
 ceived a note of invitation to the family gather- 
 ing. During the whole time of the reading, he — 
 as always — had held himself haughtily apart 
 fi'oMi llie rest. 
 
 210
 
 TCTIEKTOl^KIIAXOFF 
 
 "Stop!" — he repeated, throwing liis head 
 back arrogantly. 
 
 JMr. Schtoppel turned swiftly round, and, be- 
 holding a man poorly clad, not good-looking, he 
 asked his neighbour in a low tone (caution is 
 never amiss) : 
 
 "Who is that?" 
 
 " TchertopkhanofF, a person of no impor- 
 tance," the latter replied in his ear. 
 
 RostislafF Adamitcli assumed an arrogant 
 mien. 
 
 " How came you to be conmiander? " — he said 
 through his nose, puckering up his eyes. — " What 
 sort of a bird are you, permit me to inquire? " 
 
 TchertopkhanofF flared up, like powder at a 
 spark. Rage stopped his breath. 
 
 " Dz-dz-dz-dz," — he hissed, like a choking 
 man, and suddenly thundered out: 
 
 " Who am I? who am I? I am Pantelei Tcher- 
 topkhanofl^, a noble of ancient lineage, — my 
 great-great-grandfather's grandfather served the 
 Tzar, — but who art thou? " 
 
 Rostislaif Adamitcli turned pale, and retreated 
 a pace. He had not anticipated such resistance. 
 
 " I am a bird, I — I a bird! .... Oo . . o! . . . ." 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff darted forward; Schtoppel 
 sprang aside in great perturbation, the guests 
 flew at the irritated squire. 
 
 " Exchange shots, exchange sliots this very 
 momeni, across a handkerchief! " — shouted the 
 
 211
 
 MKMOIKS OF A STOUTSMAN 
 
 thon)u<>lil\ infiiriatcil Pantelei: — "or thou must 
 beg my pardon, aiul liis 
 
 " llv^x liis pardoii, hvy; liis pardon," — mur- 
 mured till- startled heirs round about Selitoppel: 
 " he 's a reguhu- madman, you know, — quite 
 ready to cut your throat." 
 
 " Kxeuse me, excuse me, 1 did not know," — 
 stammered Selitoppel: — " I did not know " 
 
 " And do thou ask his pardon also!" — roared 
 the irrepressible Pantelei. 
 
 " And do you pray excuse me also," — added 
 Rostislaff Adamitch, turning to Nedopiuskin, 
 who was shaking as though with fever. 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff calmed down, went up to 
 Ti'khoti hanitch, took him by the hand, cast a 
 challenging glance around, and, without meet- 
 ing any one's eye, left the room in triumph, ac- 
 companied by the new owner of the village of 
 Bezselendyeevka. 
 
 Fiom that day forth, they never parted com- 
 pany again. (The village of Bezselendyeevka 
 was only eiyht versts distant from BezscSnovo.) 
 Xedoi)iuskin's unbounded gratitude speedily 
 pa.ssed into servile adoi-ation. The weak, soft, not 
 altogether clean Ti'khon bowed down in the dust 
 before the fearless and disinterested Pantelei. 
 " 'T is no small matter," he sometimes thought to 
 himself: — "he talks with the Governor, he looks 
 him straight in the eye. . . . Christ is my witness, 
 ^je looks him in the eye, that he does! " 
 
 lie admired him to ihc ])oint of perplexity, to 
 
 212
 
 TCTIKRTOPKTTAXOFF 
 
 the enfeeblement of his mental powers; he re- 
 garded liini as a remarkable, a wise, a learned 
 man. And, truth to tell, bad as Tchertopkha- 
 noff's education had been, still, in comparison 
 with that of Tfkhon, it might be considered bril- 
 liant. Tcherto})kluinoff\ it is true, read little in 
 Russian, understood French imperfectly, — so im- 
 perfectly that one day, in reply to the question of 
 a Swiss tutor: "Vous paiiez fran^ms. Monsieur?" 
 he answered: '" je ne understand," and after re- 
 flecting a while, he added : '' pas " ; — but, never- 
 theless, he remembered that there had existed in 
 the world a very wittv writer, Voltaire, and also 
 that Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, had 
 distinguished himself in the military line. 
 Among Russian writers he respected Derzhavin, 
 but loved jMiirlinsky, and named his best dog 
 Ammalat-Beg. . . . 
 
 A few days after my first encounter with the 
 two friends, I set off for the hamlet of Bezso- 
 novo, to call upon Pantelei Eremyeitch. His 
 tiny house was visible from afar; it reared itself 
 up on a bare spot, half a verst from the \'illage, 
 " in an exposed site," as the saying is, like a hawk 
 hovering over ploughed fields. Tchertopkha- 
 noff's entire manor consisted of four ancient log 
 edifices of various sizes, namely : a wing, a stable, 
 a carriage-house, and a bath-house.' 
 
 ' The bath-house is always sepaiattd from the house, and consists 
 generally of an anteroom iiml tin- main diamber, witii slielves 
 of different heights. The steam is generated i>\ throwing coM 
 
 213
 
 Ml.MOlirs OF A Sin)RTSMAX 
 
 Kai'li loo -house stood apart by itself: neither 
 Wnvv loimd abcnit iioi- gate was visible. ]My 
 coaehiuaii halted in perplexity at the half-rotten 
 and ehoked-up well. Near the carriage-house, 
 several gaunt and shaggy hare-hounds were tear- 
 ing a dtad horse, — probably Orbassan; one of 
 theni raised his bloody muzzle, gave a hurried 
 yelp, and began again to gnaw at the bared ribs. 
 Heside the horse stood a voung fellow of seven- 
 teen, with a bloated and sallow face, dressed as a 
 page, and with bare feet: he was pompously 
 watehing the dogs, which were entrusted to his 
 oversight, and now and then he lashed the most 
 greedy of them with a long whip. 
 
 " Is the master at home? " — I asked. 
 
 ■ Why. the Lord only knows! " — 'replied the 
 voung fellow. — " Knock." 
 
 I sprang out of my drozhky and walked to the 
 ])()i'eh ol' the wing. 
 
 'I'hi' dwelling of ]Mr. TchertopkhanofF pre- 
 senled a very sorry aspect: the beams had turned 
 black, and protruded themselves forward " in a 
 paunch," iiie chimney had tumbled down, the 
 corners were ruined with dampness, and were tot- 
 tering, the tiny, dim, dark-blue windows gazed 
 foi'th ',\ith indescribable sourness from beneath 
 the shaggy roof, which sagged forward: some 
 aged street-walkers have eyes like that. I 
 
 uatrr on stones hciti'd to a plow wlicn a liatli is wanted. Peter 
 the Creat, in some of his haths, api)ro])ria1ely used eaiinoii-balls. 
 
 TaANSI.A'l-OK. 
 
 214
 
 TCHERTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 knocked; no one responded. But 1 heard these 
 words sharply uttered on the otlier side of tlie 
 door : 
 
 "A, B, V;' come now, you fool," — said a 
 
 hoarse voice;— "A, B, V, G Not that 
 
 way! G, D, E, E! . . . . Come now, you fool ! " 
 
 I knocked again. 
 
 The same voice sliouted: — " Come in, — who 's 
 there? . . . ." 
 
 I entered a bare little anteroom, and through 
 the open dooi- I descried Tcliertopkhanoff liim- 
 self. Clad in a dirty Bukhara dressing-gown 
 and full trousers, with a red fez on his head, 
 he was sitting at a table, gripping the muzzle 
 of a young poodle with one hand, and with 
 the other holding a bit of bread directly above 
 his nose. 
 
 " Ah! " — he said with dignity, without stirring 
 from his seat: — " I am very glad of your visit. 
 Pray take a seat. I 'm bothering over Venzor - 
 here, as vou see. . . . Tikhon Ivanitch," — he 
 added, raising his voice: — "please come hither. 
 A visitor has arrived." 
 
 " Immediately, immediately," — replied Ti- 
 khon Ivanitch from the adjoining room. — 
 " Masha, give me my neckerchief." 
 
 Tcliertopkhanoff again turned his attention to 
 Venzor, and laid the bit of bread on his nose. I 
 
 ^ The Russian alphabet runs in the order here indicated. — ■ 
 Translator. 
 
 ^ Probal)ly intended for Windsor. — Translatob. 
 
 215
 
 M KM OIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 ^laiK't'd al)()iit inc. There was absolutely no fur- 
 niture ill tlie room, with the exception of a 
 NNarpnl extensioii-tahle on thirteen legs of iiii- 
 e(jual leniith. and lour clila])idate(l straw-seated 
 chairs: the walls, which had been whitewashed 
 long, long ago, with blue spots in the shape of 
 stars, hail peeled off in many places; between 
 the windows hung a cracked and dimmed little 
 mirror in a huge frame of imitation mahogany. 
 In the corners stood Turkish pipes and guns; 
 from the ceiling depended thick, l)lack spiders' 
 webs. 
 
 " A, 15, V, G, D," — enunciated Tchertopkha- 
 noff slowly, then suddenly cried fierceh': — "E! 
 E! E! . .". . What a stupid beast! . .\ . E!" 
 Rut the ill-starred poodle only trembled, and 
 could not make up his mind to open his mouth; 
 he continued to sit there, with his tail painfully 
 tucked between his legs, and, contorting his muz- 
 zle, blinked dejectedly and screwed u]) his eyes, 
 as though he were saying to himself: " As you 
 like, of course ! " 
 
 " Come, eat, dost hear! Take! " — repeated the 
 irrepressible s(]uire. 
 
 " You have frightened him," — I remarked. 
 
 " Well, then away Avith him! " 
 
 He gave him a kick. The poor animal rose 
 
 (juietly, dropped the bread from his nose, and 
 
 went off, on tiptoe as it were, to the anteroom, 
 
 deeply wounded. And, in fact, a strange man 
 
 216
 
 TCHEKTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 liad arrived for the first time, and tliat was the 
 way he was heing treated! 
 
 The door from the adjoining room creaked 
 cantionsly, and ^Nlr. Xedopiiiskin entered, amia- 
 bly bowing and smihng. 
 
 I rose and mude my boAv. 
 
 " Don't disturb yourself, don't disturb your- 
 self," — he stammered. 
 
 We took our seats. Tehertopkhanoff with- 
 drew into the next room. 
 
 "Have you been long in our parts?" — said 
 Nedopiiiskin in a soft voice, discreetly coughing 
 behind liis hand, and, out of a sense of propriety, 
 keeping his fingers in front of his lips. 
 
 " This is the second month." 
 
 " Just so, sir." 
 
 We were silent for a while. 
 
 " We are having fine weather just now," — 
 went on Nedopiiiskin, and looked at me with 
 gratitude, as thougli the w^eather depended upon 
 me: — "the grain is thriving wonderfully, one 
 may say." 
 
 I inclined my head, in token of assent. Again 
 we were silent for a space. 
 
 " Pantelei Eremyeitch ran down two grey 
 hares yesterday," — began Xedopiiiskin again, 
 with an effort, being obviously desirous of enli- 
 vening the conversation: — "Yes, sir, two ex- 
 tremely large grey hares." 
 
 " Has jNIr. Tehertopkhanoff good dogs? " 
 
 217
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 • Wry R'liiarkable dogs, sir!" — returned Xe- 
 dopii'iskin, with pleasure: — " the best in the Gov- 
 eriinient, 1 may say." (He moved up closer to 
 me.) *' Hut it s a I'aet, sir! Pantelei Eremye- 
 iteh is that sort of a man! Xo sooner does he 
 wish I'or a thing — no sooner does he take a thing 
 into his liead — the first you know, there it is ac- 
 e(iiiij)hshed, everything is fairly seething, sir. 
 Pantelei Eremveitch, 1 must tell you . . . ." 
 
 'IV'hertopkhanoff entered the room. X'^edo- 
 pii'iskin grinned, fell silent, and indicated him to 
 me with his eyes, as much as to say: " There, 
 convince yourself." We began to chat about 
 hunting. 
 
 '' \\\)uld you like to have me show you my 
 lea,sh of hounds?" — TchertopkhanofF asked me, 
 and, without waiting for an answer, he called 
 Karp. 
 
 There entered the room a robust young fellow 
 in a nankeen kaftan green in hue with a sky-blue 
 collar and livery buttons. 
 
 " Order Fomka," — said TchertopkhanofF ab- 
 rui)tly: — "to fetch in Ammalat and Saiga (Ga- 
 zelle), and in proper order, dost understand? " 
 
 l\ai-p grinned to the full extent of his mouth, 
 emitted a vague sound, and left the room. Foma 
 made his appearance, with his hair brushed, his 
 belt dra^vn tight, booted, and with the dogs. I, 
 out of [)ropriety, admired the stupid animals (all 
 hare-hounds are extremely stupid). Tchertop- 
 
 218
 
 TC HEin UPK H ANOFF 
 
 kluinoff spat straight into Aninialats nostrils, 
 which, however, apparently, did not afford the 
 dog tlie shghtcst pleasnre. Xedopiuskin ca- 
 ressed iVmniahit from behind also. Again we 
 began to chat. Tchei'topkhanoff gradually grew 
 thoronghly mild, and ceased to bear himself like 
 a cock and to snort; the expression of his face un- 
 derwent a change. He glanced at me and at Ne- 
 dopiuskin. 
 
 " Eh ! " — he suddenly exclaimed : — " Why 
 should she sit there alone? Masha! hey there, 
 Masha! come hither! " 
 
 Some one stirred in the adjoining room, but 
 there was no reply. 
 
 " ^la-a-asha," — repeated Tchertopkhanoff ca- 
 ressingly: — "Come hither. There's nothing 
 wrong, have no fear." 
 
 The door opened softly, and I beheld a woman 
 of twenty, tall and slender, with a swarthy gipsy 
 face, yellowish-brown eyes, and hair as black as 
 pitch ; her large, white teeth fairly glittered from 
 beneath her full red lips. She wore a white 
 gown; a light blue shawl, fastened close around 
 tlie throat with a golden pin, half covered her 
 slender, high-bred hands. 
 
 " Here, let me commend her to your favour," 
 — said Pantelei Eremyeitch: — " she 's not exactly 
 mv wife, but the same as a wife." 
 
 ^lasha flushed slightly and smiled in coni'u- 
 sion. I made her a \'ery low bow. She pleased 
 
 219
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 nie •'^rcath-. Tier thin, a(|uiliiu' nose, witli its 
 (iptii. lialf-transpaiviil nostrils, the hold line 
 of \wv arching- evehrows, her pale, slightly 
 sunken cheeks, — all tlie features of her face, 
 expressed way\\ai-d passion and reckless daring. 
 From ])eneath (1r' coils of lier hair, down npon 
 her hroad neck, ran two small tufts of shin- 
 ing littk' hairs — a token of good ])lood and of 
 strength. 
 
 She walked to the window and sat down. I 
 did not wish to heighten her confusion, and be- 
 gan to talk to Tchertopkhanoff. ]Masha turned 
 lier head slightly, and began to dart sidelong, 
 stealthy, wild, swift glances at me. Her gaze 
 Hashed out like the sting of a serpent. Xedo- 
 ])iuskin sat down beside her and whispered some- 
 thing in her ear. She smiled again. When she 
 smiled, she slightly Avrinkled up her nose and ele- 
 vated her upper lip, which imparted to her face 
 an expression which was not exactly that of a cat, 
 nor yet that of a lion 
 
 " Oh yes, thou art a ' touch-me-not,' " — I 
 thought, in my turn stealthily inspecting her 
 willowy form, her sunken chest, and angular, 
 agile movements. 
 
 " Well, now, Masha,"^ — asked Tchertopkha- 
 nofF: — " Must the visitor be treated to some sort 
 of refreshments, hey? " 
 
 " We liave some preserves," — she replied. 
 
 " Well, fetch Jiitlier the preserves, and some 
 
 220
 
 TCIIKRTOPKIIANOFF 
 
 vodka too, by llie way. And listen, Maslia," — lie 
 shouted after Iier: — " fetcli thy guitar also." 
 
 " What 's the guitar for? 1 won't sing." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " I don't feel like it." 
 
 " Kh, nonsense, thou wilt feel like it, if . . ." 
 
 " If what? " — asked JNlasha, swiftly eontract- 
 ing her brows. 
 
 " If thou art asked," — Tchertopkhanolf' eoni- 
 pleted his phrase, not without eonfusion. 
 
 "All!" 
 
 She left the room, speedily returned with the 
 preserves and the vodka, and again seated herself 
 by the window. The furrow was still visible on 
 her forehead; both her eyebrows kept rising and 
 falhng, hke the feelers of a wasp. . . . Have you 
 observed, reader, what a vicious face the wasp 
 has? "Well," I said to myself, "there's going 
 to be a thunderstorm." The conversation would 
 not go. Nedopiuskin became absolutely dumb 
 and smiled constrainedly; TchertopkhanofF 
 puffed, and flushed, and protruded his eyes; I 
 
 was preparing to take my departure 
 
 when, suddenly, Masha rose to her feet, threw 
 open the window with one movement, tlirust out 
 her head, and screamed angrily to a passing peas- 
 ant-woman: "Aksinya!" The woman gave a 
 start, tried to turn round, but slipped and fell 
 heavily to the ground. JNIasha threw herself 
 backward, and burst into a ringing laugli ; Tcher 
 
 221
 
 M KM OIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 t()j)klK'tiK)tt" also began to laugh; Xedopiiiskin 
 sciuealt'il with delight. We shook out our feath- 
 ers. The thunilerstorni had dissolved in one flash 
 
 ol' liuhlninii' the air had eleared. 
 
 Half an hour later, no one would have recog- 
 nised us: we were chattering and frolicking like 
 children. Masha was playing the maddest pranks 
 of all, Tchertopkhanoff was fairly devouring her 
 with his eyes. Her face had grown pale, her nos- 
 trils were dilated, her glance blazed and darkened 
 at one and the same time. The savage was be- 
 ginning to rise in her. Xedopiiiskin waddled 
 after her on his short, thick legs, like a drake after 
 a duck. Kven Venzor crawled out from under 
 the wall-bench in the anteroom, stood for a wiiile 
 on the threshold, gazed at us, and suddenly began 
 to lea}) and bark. ^lasha fluttered out into the 
 adjoining room, brought her guitar, flung the 
 shawl from her shoulders, briskly took a seat, 
 I'aised her head, and struck up a gipsy song. Her 
 voice tinkled and (piivered like a tiny cracked 
 glass bell, it flared up and died away. ... It 
 l)ro(liiced a pleasing yet painful sensation in 
 one's heart. — " A'l, burn away, spread out!" 
 . . . Tchertopkhanoff* began to dance. jNIasha 
 writhed all over, like a piece of birch-bark in the 
 fire: her slender Angers flew^ rapidly (ner the 
 guitar, her swarthy neck heaved slowly under her 
 necklace consisting of a double row of amber 
 beads. Then, all of a sudden, she stopped short, 
 
 222
 
 TCHERTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 merely shrugged lier shoulders, and fidgeted 
 about on her seat, while Nedopiuskin wagged 
 his head like a porcelain Chinaman; — then she 
 began to warble again, like a madwoman, draw- 
 ing up her figure and protruding her chest, and 
 again Tcliertopkhanoff began to squat down to 
 the ground and leaj) u]) to the very ceiling,' 
 spinning round like a peg-top and shouting: 
 " Faster! " . . . . 
 
 " Faster, faster, faster, faster! " — chimed in 
 Nedopiiiskin, volubly. 
 
 I^ate at night I took my departure from Bez- 
 sonovo. . . . 
 
 ^ These are figures, so to speak, in the favourite Russian 
 dance. — Translator, 
 
 223
 
 IX 
 
 THE END OF TCHERTOPKHANOFF 
 
 Two years after my visit, Pantelei Eremyeitch's 
 calamities — precisely that, calamities — began. 
 He had experienced unpleasantnesses, failures, 
 and even misfortunes before that, but he had paid 
 no attention to them, and had " reigned " as 
 hitherto. The first calamity which overtook him 
 was for him the most acute of all: Masha left him. 
 A\'hat it was that made her abandon his roof, 
 to wliieh, apparently, she had become so thor- 
 ouuhlv accustomed, it would be difficult to sav. 
 Tchertopkhcinoff, to the end of his days, cher- 
 ished the conviction that the cause of ^lasha's 
 treachery was a certain youthful neighbour, a re- 
 tired captain of ulilans, nicknamed YafF, who, 
 according to Pantelei Kremyeitch's assertion, had 
 fascinated her merely bv incessantly twirling his 
 moustache, using pomatum in excessive (pianti- 
 ties, and smiling affectedly to a very decided de- 
 gree ; but we must assume, rather, that the roving 
 gipsy ])lood which flowed in jNIashas veins had 
 asserted itself. At any rate, one fine summer 
 
 224
 
 THE END OF TC UEK lOlMvIlANOFF 
 
 evening, Maslui took liersell' off from Tcherlop- 
 khiinoff's house, after having made up a small 
 bundle of some rags of elothing. 
 
 For three days l)efore that she had sat in a 
 corner, bent double and huddling closely against 
 the wall, like a wounded fox, — and not a word 
 would she utter to any one, but merely rolled her 
 eyes about, and mused, and twitched her brows, 
 and displayed her teeth in a faint grin, and moved 
 her liands aliout as though she were wrapping 
 herself up. This " quiet fit " had come over her 
 on previous occasions, but had never lasted long; 
 Tchertopkhanoff was aware of this, — and conse- 
 quently Mas not worried himself, neither did he 
 worry her. But when, on his return from his ken- 
 nels, — where, according to the statement of his 
 whipper-in, his last two greyhounds were 
 " moulting," — he met a maid-servant, who in a 
 trembling voice announced to him that ^larya 
 Akinfievna had ordered her to present her com- 
 pliments to him, and to say that she wished him 
 everything that was good, but would never return 
 to him again — Tchertopkhanoff, after si)inning 
 round a couple of times on tlie spot where he 
 stood and emitting a hoarse roar, immediately 
 dashed off in pursuit of the fugitive, catching up 
 his pistol by the way. 
 
 He overtook her a couple of versts from his 
 house, beside a birch coi)pice, on the highway 
 leading to the county town. The sun hung low 
 
 225
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 above the horizon, and cvervtliing round about — 
 the trees, the grass, and the earth — suddenly 
 turned erinison. 
 
 "To Vafi'! to Vaff'!"— moaned Tchertopkha- 
 lioil". as soon as he espied Masha: — "to VafF! " 
 — lie repeated, as lie rushed up to her, stumbling 
 at almost every step. 
 
 Masha halted and turned her face toward him. 
 She stood with her back to the light, and appeared 
 com])letely Iilack, as though carved out of dark 
 wood. Onlv the whites of her eyes stood out like 
 silver almonds, while the eyes themselves — the 
 ])upils — grew darker than ever. 
 
 She tossed her bundle aside, and folded her 
 arms. 
 
 " She has set off for YafF, the good-for- 
 nothing hussy! " — repeated Tchertopkhanoff, at- 
 tempting to seize her by the shoulder; — but the 
 glance he encountered from her intimidated him, 
 and made him stop short on the spot. 
 
 " I have not started for ]Mr. YafF, Pantelei 
 Kremyeitch,"^ — replied ]Masha in a (juiet, even 
 tone: — " onlv, I cannot live with vou anv longer." 
 
 " AVhy canst not thou live with me^ Wby so? 
 Have I offended thee in any way? " 
 
 Miislia shook her head. — " You have not of- 
 fended me in any wa}^ Pantelei Eremyeitch, only 
 I have begun to languish at your house. ... I 
 thank voii for the past, but stay I cannot — 
 no!" 
 
 226
 
 THE END OF TCIIEIU OPKH AXOFF 
 
 Tchertopkluinoff was cli unfounded; he even 
 smote his hps with his hands, and gave a leaj). 
 
 " How so^ Thou hast Hved on and on, and hasu 
 experienced nothing but pleasure and traiujuil- 
 lity — and, all of a sudden, thou hast taken to |)in- 
 ing! ' Herewith,' says she, ' I 11 abandon him! ' 
 She takes and throws a kerchief on her head — 
 and off she goes. She has received every respect, 
 just as much as a born lady. . . ." 
 
 " I coidd have dispensed with that, at least," — 
 interrupted JNIasha. 
 
 " Why couldst thou have dispensed with it? 
 From a gipsy stroller, thou hast got into the sta- 
 tion of a born lady — yes: thou didst not care for 
 it^ ^Vlly not, thou base-born miscreant? Is tliat 
 credible? There's treachery concealed here, — 
 treachery ! " 
 
 Again he began to foam at the mouth. 
 
 " There is no treachery whatever in mv 
 thoughts, and there has been none," — said Masha 
 in her drawling, distinct voice; — " but 1 have al- 
 ready told you: I was seized with a pining." 
 
 "iNIasha!" — cried Tchertopkhanoff, and smote 
 his breast with his clenched fist: — " come, stop it, 
 enough, thou hast tortured me ... . come, 
 enough of this. ^Vnd by God! only thin.k what 
 Tisha will say; thou mightest, at least, have pity 
 on him ! " 
 
 " Give my regards to Tikhon Iviinitch, and tell 
 
 him . . ." 
 
 227
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTS^NIAX 
 
 'rc-lR-rt()j)kli;ui()f!' l)i'an(lishe(l his arms. — " But 
 !i(). thou art l\in«>- — tliou \\ ilt not <rn away! Yaff 
 sliall wait for thee iu vaiu!" 
 
 ■' M r. Ydit' — " Mjisha made an effort to 
 say. . . . 
 
 ■■ ' Mis-ftr Yaff," forsooth, ''^ — TehertopkluinofF 
 mimicked her. — " He 's a sly dog, if ever there 
 was one. a swindler — and he has the ])liiz of an 
 ape. 
 
 For lull half an liour did Tehertopkhanoff 
 eontend with .Masha. Now he stepped up close 
 to lier, again lie sj)rang' away, now he brandislied 
 his liands at her, again he made her reverences to 
 lier girdle, weeping and cursing. . . . 
 
 " I can't," — Maslu: kept reiterating: — " I 'm 
 so dejected. ... I 'm tortured witli boredom." 
 
 Jiittk' hy little her face assumed such an in- 
 (hlferent, almost sleej)y exj^ression, that Tcher- 
 toj)khanolt' asked her whether she had been 
 drugged with stramonium. 
 
 " 'T is })oredom,"— she said, i'or the tenth time. 
 
 "Well, now, what if I kill thee? "—he sud- 
 denly shouted, and pulled the 23istol from his 
 ]K)cket. 
 
 Masha smiled; her face became animated. 
 
 " \Vhat thenf Kill me, Pantelei Eremyeitch: 
 as you please; but as for returning, — I simply 
 won't do it." 
 
 "Thou wilt not return?" — Tchertopkhanoff 
 cocked his pistol. 
 
 228
 
 THE END OF TCIIKRTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 " I will not, iii\' (Icai- lilllc dove. I won't re- 
 turn as long as I live. jNly word is firm." 
 
 Teliertopklidnoff suddenly thrust the pistol 
 into her hand, and squatted down on the ground. 
 
 " Well, then do thou kill met without thee 1 do 
 not wish to live. I have . become abhorrent to 
 thee, — and everything has become abhorrent to 
 me. 
 
 jNlasha bent down, picked up her bundle, threw 
 the pist(^l on the grass, with the muzzle turned 
 away from Tchertopkhanoff, and moved up close 
 to him. 
 
 " Ekh, my deai- little dove, why dost thou 
 grieve without cause:" Uost not thou know us 
 gipsy women? 'T is our character, our custom. 
 If the yearning for departure begins to breed, 
 and summons the soul to distant, foreign i>arts, — 
 why remain? Uo thou remember thy ^lasha, — 
 such another friend thou wilt never find, — and I 
 shall not forget thee, my falcon; — but my life 
 and thine together is at an end! " 
 
 " I have loved thee, ^Masha," — murmured 
 TchertopkhiinofF into his fingers, wherewith he 
 had covered his face. . . 
 
 " And I have loved thee, dear friend, Pantelei 
 Eremyeitch! " 
 
 " I have loved thee, I do love thee madly, un- 
 boundedly, — and when I think now that thou art 
 al)andoning me thus, for no cause, without rliyme 
 or reason, and art setting out to wander about the 
 
 229
 
 MKMOIKS OF A SPOliTSMAX 
 
 NVDild, well, tlitn I l)egii) tc imagine that were 
 I not an 11 111 lap J )y beggar, thou wouldst not have 
 cast mv off! " 
 
 Masha nicrcly laut^iied at these words. 
 
 " \\'li\ , I was a ])enniless vagrant myself when 
 thou didst take nie in!" — she said, and gave 
 Tchertopkhanofr a flourishing slap on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 He sj)rang to his feet. 
 
 " A\'ell, at least take some money from me, — 
 liow canst thou go off so, without a farthing? 
 lint best oi' all: kill me! I'm talking sense to 
 thee: kill me on the spot! " 
 
 Again Mjisha shook her head. — " Kill thee? 
 But what are people sent to Siberia for, my dear 
 little dove?" 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff shuddered.—" So 't is only 
 for that, out of fear of the gallevs, that thou wilt 
 not." 
 
 Again he fell prone on the grass. 
 
 ^Iiisha stood over him in silence. — " I 'm sorry 
 for thee, Pantelei Eremyeiteh," — she said, with a 
 
 sigh: — "thou art a good man but 
 
 there 's no help for it: farewell! " 
 
 She turned away, and took a couple of steps. 
 Xight had already begun to close in, and dim 
 shadows were Ixiginning to glide up from all. 
 (piarters. Tchertopkhanoff rose briskly to his 
 feet and grasped ]Masha by both elbo^vs from 
 behind. 
 
 •J30
 
 THE END OF TCIIEHTOPKHAXOFF 
 
 " So thou art going, serpents To VafF! " 
 "Farewell!" — repeated ^Nlasha signifieantly 
 and sharply, wrenched herself free, and walked 
 
 away. 
 
 Tchertopkluinoff' stared after her, ran to the 
 spot where tlie })istol lay, seized it, took aim, and 
 fired. . . . l-Jnt hefore he pidled the trigger he 
 threw liis hand upward; the bullet whistled past 
 over JNlasha's head. She darted a glance at him 
 over her shoulder, without pausing, — and pro- 
 ceeded on her way, swaying her hips as she 
 walked, as though to provoke him. 
 
 He covered his face^ — and set off on a run. . . . 
 
 But before he had run fifty paces, he came to a 
 sudden halt, as tliough rooted to the spot. A fa- 
 miliar, a too-familiar voice reached his ears. Ma- 
 sha was singing. " Life young, life charming," 
 — she sang; every sound seemed prolonged in 
 the evening air — wailing and resonant. Tcher- 
 topkhanoff lent an ear. The voice retreated fur- 
 ther and further; now it died away, again it 
 floated to him in a barely audible, but still burn- 
 
 ing wave. 
 
 She 's doing that to irritate me," thouglit 
 Tchertopkhanoff ; but immediately added, with a 
 groan: " Okh, no! she is taking leave of me for- 
 ever; " — and burst into a flood of tears. 
 
 On the following da\% he ])resented himself at 
 the quarters of ^Ir. Yaff, who. like a true man of 
 
 231
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 the world, not liking the solitiulc of the country, 
 liad removed to the county town,—" nearer to the 
 vouno- ladies," as he expressed it. Tchertopkha- 
 iiott' did not find Vaff; the latter, according to 
 the statement of his valet, had set out for Mos- 
 cow on the i)receding day. 
 
 "Exactly so!" — exclaimed Tchertopklianoff 
 in a fury:—'' it was a plot between them; she has 
 eloped with him .... but wait a bit!" 
 
 He forced his way into the study of the young 
 cavalry captain, despite the valet's opposition. 
 In the study, over the divan, hung a portrait of 
 the master of the house, in his uhlan uniform, 
 painted in oils. — " Ah, there thou art, thou tail- 
 less ape!" — thundered Tchertopkhanoff, as he 
 sprang upon the divan, — and smiting the tightly- 
 stretched canvas ^^ ith his fist, he broke a huge hole 
 in it. 
 
 " Sav to thv rascally master," — he said, ad- 
 dressini>[ the valet, — " that in default of his own 
 disgusting phiz, nobleman Tchertopkhanoff has 
 disfigured his painted phiz; and if he desires satis- 
 faction from me, he knows whei-e to find noble- 
 man Tchertopkhanoff! — If he does not, I will 
 find him! I 11 hunt out the dastardly ape at the 
 bottom (jf the sea! " 
 
 As he uttered these w^ords, Tcherto])klianofF 
 sprang from the divan and withdrew in triumph. 
 
 Rut Captain Vaff did not demand any satis- 
 faction from him, — he did not even encounter him 
 
 232
 
 THE END OF TC TTEirrOPTCTlAXOFF 
 
 anywhere, — and Tchertopklidnoff did not divam 
 of looking up his enemy, and no scan(hd resulted 
 from this affair. xMasha herself soon afterwai'd 
 disappeared without leaving ii trace. Tehertop- 
 khanofi' would have liked to take to drink; he 
 " saw the error of his ways," however. But at 
 this point, a second calamity overtook him. 
 
 II 
 
 Namely: his bosom friend, Tikhon Ivanitch Ne- 
 dopiuskin, expired. The latter's health had be- 
 gun to fail tw o years previous to his death : he had 
 begun to suffer from asthma, was incessantly 
 falling asleep, and, on waking, he was slow in 
 coming to himself: the county physician declared 
 that he had had slight strokes of apoplexy. Dur- 
 ing the three days which preceded the departure 
 of JNIasha, — those three days w^ien she had been 
 " pining,"^ — Nedopiuskin had been lying in bed at 
 his own home in Bezselendyeevka : he had caught 
 a heavy cold. The shock of ^Nlasha's behaviour 
 was all the more unexpected to him: he was al- 
 most more deeply affected by it than even Tcher- 
 topkhanoff himself. Thanks to the gentleness 
 and timidity of his character, he displayed no 
 emotion, save tender sympathy for his friend, and 
 pained surprise .... but everything within 
 him broke and relaxed. " She has taken the soul 
 out of me," he whispered to himself, as he sat on 
 
 233
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 his favourite little couch covered with oiled cloth, 
 and twiddled his fingers. Kven when Tchertop- 
 kluinol!" recovered, he, Xedo})iuskin, did not re- 
 cover,^ — and continued to feel that " there was a 
 void within hini." — " Right here," — he was wont 
 to say, })ointing to the centre of his hreast, above 
 tlie stomach. lie dragged on thus until the win- 
 ter. His asthma was relieved by the first cold 
 weather, but on the other hand, he was visited not 
 by a small shock of apoplexy, but by a real one. 
 He did not immediately lose consciousness; he 
 could still recognise TchertopkhanofF, and even to 
 liis friend's despairing cry: " How comes it that 
 thou, Tisha, art leaving me without my per- 
 mission, just like ]Masha? " replied with falter- 
 ing tongue: — "But, P .... a .... lei 
 K . . . e . . . yeitcli . . . I al . . . ays 
 .... have .... mind .... ed ... . you . . ." 
 This did not prevent his dying the same day, how- 
 ever, before the arrival of the county physician, 
 for whom, at the sight of his corpse, which was 
 barely cold, there was nothing left to do except, 
 with melancholy consciousness of the transitori- 
 ness of all things earthly, to request " a little 
 vodka and dried sturgeon." Tikhon Ivanitch 
 had b'j(iueathed his property, as might have been 
 expected, to his " most respected benefactor, Pan- 
 telei Eremyeitch TchertopklianofF " ; but it did 
 not do his most respected benefactor much good, 
 for it was speedily sold at public auction, — partly 
 
 234.
 
 THE END OF TCIIEKTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 in order to defray the expenses of a mortuary 
 nioniinient, a statue, wliich TehertopkhanoiF — 
 (evidently, a cliaracteristic of his father's was 
 making itself felt!) — had taken it into his head to 
 erect over the ashes of his friend. This statue, 
 which was intended to represent an angel in 
 prayer, he had ordered from. Moscow; but the 
 commissioner who had been recommended to him, 
 taking into consideration the fact that expert 
 judges of sculpture are rare in the iin*al districts, 
 had sent him, instead of the angel, a statue of the 
 goddess Flora, which for many years had adorned 
 one of the neglected parks in the vicinity of ^los- 
 cow of the Empress Katherine II's day; — as he, 
 the agent, had obtained the said statue — which 
 was an elegant one, in the rococo taste, with 
 plump little hands, curling locks, and a garland 
 of roses around its bare bosom and curved figure 
 — for nothing. Consequently, to this day, the 
 mythological goddess stands, with one foot grace- 
 fully uplifted, over the grave of Tikhon Ivan- 
 itch, and, with a genuine Pompadour-like grim- 
 ace, surveys the calves and sheep, those inevitable 
 visitors of our cemeteries, which roam round 
 about her. 
 
 Ill 
 
 After losing his faithful friend, Tchertopkha- 
 nofF again took to drink, and this time far more 
 seriously. His affairs were completely on the 
 
 235
 
 .MEMOIRS OF A SrOKTSMAN 
 
 downward path, 'riicrc was nothing lel'l to hunt, 
 liis hist slender resources were exhausted, his last 
 wretched serfs had fled. A reign of absolute iso- 
 lation set in for Pantelei Eremyeitch: there was 
 not a soul with whom he could exchange a word, 
 much less any one to whom he could unburden his 
 mind. The oidy thing in him which was not di- 
 minished was his pride. On the contrary: the 
 worse his circumstances became, the more arro- 
 gant and haughty and unapproachable did he be- 
 come. At last, he grew^ thoroughly wild. One 
 consolation, one iov, alone remained to him: a 
 marvellous grev saddle-horse of Don breed, 
 which he had named INIalek-Adel, and was, 
 really, a remarkable animal. 
 
 lie had ac(iuired the horse in the following 
 manner: 
 
 As he was passing one day, on horseback, 
 through a neighbouring village, TchertopkhanofF 
 heard an u])roar among the peasants, and the 
 shouting oi" a crowd around the dram-shop. In 
 the centre of this crowd, robust arms kept inces- 
 santly rising and falling. 
 
 " \\'hat \s going on there? " — he inquired, in 
 the imperious tone peculiar to him, of an old 
 ])casant-woman, who w^as standing on the thresh- 
 old oj' her cottage. 
 
 Leaning against the lintel of the door, and 
 seemin<i,lv in a do/e, the woman was staring iii the 
 direction of the dram-shop. ^V tow-headed little 
 
 230
 
 THE END OF T( ITERTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 hoy in :i calico sliii't, u itli a siiiall cypress-wood 
 cross on his hare hreast,' was sittin*>-, with his feet 
 wide apart and his httle fists clenched, hetvveen 
 her plaited bast-slippers; in the same place a siiiall 
 chicken was pecking at a crust of rye bread as 
 hard as wood. 
 
 " The I^ord only knows, dear little father," — 
 replied the old woman, — and, bending forward, 
 she laid her dark, wrinkled hand on the head of 
 the little boy: " 1 've heard say that our lads are 
 beating a Jew." 
 
 "A Jew? What Jew?" 
 
 " The Lord knows, dear little father. Some 
 Jew or other made his appearance among us; and 
 whence he came — who knows? Vasya, my little 
 gentleman, come to mamma: 'ssh, 'ssh, thou good- 
 for-nothing! " 
 
 The woman friglitened off the chicken, and 
 Vasya clutched hold of her plaid petticoat of 
 homespun. 
 
 " And so, sir, they 're thrashing him yonder." 
 
 "Thrashing him? What for? " 
 
 " AVhy, I don't know, dear little father. For 
 cause, it must be. And how could they fail to 
 thrash him? For he crucified Christ, dear little 
 father!" 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff gave a view-halloo, lashed his 
 
 ' The cross ])lac{'<l there duriiifj; tlie I)ai)tisiiial cerciiioiiy by tlie 
 priest and worn (hiring life. Tlie material of the cross varies, 
 naturally, according to circumstances. — Traxsi.atok. 
 
 237
 
 MKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 horse witli I lis kazak wlii]) on the neck, dashed 
 iieadlon^- straight into the crowd, and, having 
 penetrated it, hegan with the said whip to deal 
 l)l()ws to ri»>lit and left, without discrimination, 
 on tlie peasants, crying as he did so, in a very ab- 
 rupt voice: — " Ta . . . . king the law .... 
 
 into your own hands! Ta king the 
 
 law .... into your own hands! The law ought 
 to chastise — hut the un . . . hap . . . . py 
 peo .... pie! The law! The law! the 
 la .... a ... . aw! ! " 
 
 Two minutes had not elapsed before the whole 
 crowd had dispersed in various directions; and 
 on the ground, in front of the dram-shop, there 
 ap])eared a small, thin, swarthy-visaged being in 
 
 a nankeen kaftan, dishevelled and mauled 
 
 The pallid face, the eyes rolled up, the mouth 
 agape .... Wliat was it? ihe swoon of terror, 
 or death itself. 
 
 " Whv have vou killed the Jew?" — shouted 
 TchertopkhanofF loudly, as he brandished his 
 whi]) menacingly. 
 
 The throng buzzed faintly in reply. One peas- 
 ant was clutching his shoulder, another his side, 
 a third his no.se. 
 
 " 'T ^v'as a hearty thrashin<]^! " was heard from 
 the real' ranks. 
 
 "With a kazak whip, too!" said another 
 voice. 
 
 " Why have you killed the Jew? I ask j'ou, 
 
 238
 
 THE EXD OF TC IIKUTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 you damned Asiatics!" — repeated Tchertopkha- 
 noff. 
 
 At this point, tlic l)eing who was lying on the 
 ground sprang alertly to his feet, and I'unning 
 after Tchertopkhanoff, convulsively grasped tlie 
 edge of his saddle. 
 
 A hearty laugh thundered through the throng. 
 
 "He's alive!" proceeded a voice once more 
 from the rear ranks. " He 's jast like a cat! " 
 
 " Defend me, save me, Your Veil-Born! " — the 
 unhappy Jew stammered, the while pressing him- 
 self, with his whole hreast, against Tchertopkha- 
 noff's foot: " or they vill kill me, they vill kill me, 
 Your Veil-Born ! " 
 
 "What did they do that to you for? "—in- 
 quired TchertopkhanofF. 
 
 " Vy, God ees my vitness, 1 cannot tell! — Zeir 
 cattle begin to die .... and zey suspect me 
 .... but, as God ees my vitness, I . . . ." 
 
 " Well, we '11 look into that later on ! " — inter- 
 rupted Tchertopkhanoff — " but now, do j^ou lay 
 hold of my saddle, and follow me.— And as for 
 you!" — lie added, turning to the crowd, — "you 
 know me ? — I 'm landed proprietor Pantelei 
 Tchertopkhanoff, and I live in the village of Bez- 
 sonovo, — well, and that means that you can com- 
 plain of me whenever you see fit, — and of the Jew 
 also, by the way! " 
 
 "Why should we complain?" — said a stately,, 
 grey-bearded peasant, a perfect patriarch of the 
 
 239
 
 ^rKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 oUkn (lays, in a low tone. — (He had not been 
 worrying the .Jew with the rest, by the way.) — 
 " \Vv know thy grace well, dear httle father, 
 Tantelei Krcniyeitch; we are greatly indebted to 
 thy grace i'or the lesson thou hast given us! " 
 
 "Why complain!" — joined in others: — "but 
 we will lune our will wdth that pagan! He shall 
 not escape us ! — We '11 hunt him like a hare in the 
 fields. . .' 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff twitched his moustache, 
 snorted, and rode off at a foot-pace to his own 
 \illage, accompanied by the Jew whom he had 
 rescued from his oppressors, as he had formerly 
 rescued Tikhon Ivanitch. 
 
 IV 
 
 A FEW days later, TchertopkhanofF's sole re- 
 maining page announced to him that some man 
 or other had arrived on horseback, and wished to 
 speak to him. Tchertopkhanoff w^nt out on the 
 j)orch, and beheld his acquaintance the little Jew, 
 mounted on a fine horse of the Don, which was 
 standing motionless and proudly in the middle of 
 the court-yard. — The Jew wore no cap — he w^as 
 holding it under his arm; he had not put his feet 
 into the stirrups themselves, but into the stirrup- 
 straps; the tattered tails of his kaftan hung down 
 on each side of the saddle. On catching sight of 
 Tchertoj)khanoff he began to make a smacking 
 
 240
 
 THE END OF TCTTERTOPKHAXOFF 
 
 noise witli his lips aiul to twitch his clhows and 
 jerk his legs about, l^iit Tchertopkhanoff' not 
 only (lid not reply to his greeting, but even flew 
 into a rage; he suddenly flared up all over: a 
 scabby Jew had the audacity to sit on such a mag- 
 nificent horse .... how indecent! 
 
 "Hey there, thou Ethiopian phiz!" — he 
 shouted: — "dismount this instant, if tliou dost 
 not wish to be hauled ofl' into the mud! " 
 
 The Jew innncdiately obeyed, tumbled in a 
 heap ont of the saddle like a sack, and holding the 
 bridle with one hand, moved toward Tchertoj^- 
 khanoff*, smiling and bowing. 
 
 "What dost thou want?" — asked Pantelei 
 Eremyeitch, with dignity. 
 
 " Your Veil-Born, please to look, — is n't dis'a 
 fine little horse? " — said the Jew, continuing to 
 bow. 
 
 " H'm .... ves .... 't is a ffood horse. 
 
 •/ CD 
 
 Where didst thou get it? Stole it, I suppose? " 
 
 " No, indeed I deed n't. Your Veil-Born ! — 
 I 'm an honest Jew, I deed n't steal it, but I got 
 it for Your Veil-Born, really I deed! And vat 
 trouble I have, vat trouble! And vat a horse eet 
 ees! You can't find such anoder horse in all ze 
 Don Proveence. See, Your Veil-Born, vat a 
 horse eet ees ! Blease to gome here ! Whoa there 
 whoa turn round, stand side- 
 ways! — And ve vill take off ze saddle. — Vat do 
 you zink of heem, Your Veil-Born? " 
 
 241
 
 MK^rOlRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 " T is a good liorse," — repeated Tchertop- 
 kluinoft". with iVit>iR'd indifference, — but his heart 
 heiran lairlv to tliunin in liis breast. He was a 
 passionate lox t r oi' " horse-flesli," and was a fine 
 jii(l«4e of it. 
 
 " Hut zhiist inspect heem, Your Yell-Born! 
 Stroke hees naick, hee, hee, hee! That 's^ right! " 
 
 Tcliertoi)khanoff, as though unwillingly, laid 
 his iiand on tlie horse's neck, administered a 
 couple of pats, then ran his fingers down the ani- 
 nials back, beginning with his forelock, and on 
 reacliing a certain place above the kidneys, he 
 exerted a slight pressure on the spot, in expert 
 fashion. — The steed instantly arched his back, 
 and darting a sidelong glance round at Tchertop- 
 khanofi* from his haughty black eye, he snorted 
 and shifted his forefeet. 
 
 The Jew burst out laughing, and clapped his 
 hands softly. — " He recognises hees master, Your 
 Yell-Born, hees master! " 
 
 " Come now, don't lie," — interposed Tchertop- 
 khanofi'. testily. — "I haven't tlie means where- 
 with to buv this horse of thee . . . and I have 
 never yet accepted a gift from the Lord God 
 Himself, much less from a Jew! " 
 
 " And how zhould I dare to gif you anyzing, 
 good gracious! " — exclaimed the Jew: — " Buy it, 
 "S^our Yell-Born .... and as for ze money, I 
 \ ait for heem." 
 
 Tchc rtopkhcinofF reflected. 
 
 24.2
 
 THE END OF TC IIKRTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 " Wiiat wilt thou take?" — he said at hist, 
 ■through his teeth. 
 
 The Jew slirugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Vat 1 pay niyzelf — two hundred rul)les." 
 
 The liorse was worth dou})le, — ^pro})ahly exen 
 thriee that sum. 
 
 Tehertopkhanoff turned away, and yawned 
 feverishly. 
 
 " And when dost thou want the money? " he 
 asked, eontraeting his brows with an effort, and 
 without looking at the Jew. 
 
 " Venever Your Veil-Born likes." 
 
 Tehertopkhanoff threw })ack his head, but did 
 not raise his eyes. — " That 's not an answer. 
 Talk sense, thou Herod's race! — Am I to run 
 into debt to thee, pray? " 
 
 " Veil, zen, let us zay zo," — said the Jew^ has- 
 tily, — " in seex monts .... ees eet a bargain? " 
 
 Tehertopkhanoff made no reply. 
 
 The Jew tried to get a look at his eyes. — " Do 
 you agree? Vill you order ze horse to be taken 
 to ze stable? " 
 
 "I don't want the saddle," — articulated Teher- 
 topkhanoff,. abruptly. — " Take off the saddle — 
 dost hear me? " 
 
 " Zertainly, zertainly, I vill take eet, I vill take 
 eet," — stammered the delighted Jew, and threw 
 the saddle over his shoulder. 
 
 " And the money," — went on Tehertopkhanoff 
 . ..." is to be paid six months hence. — x\nd not 
 
 ' 243
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 two Immlifil rubles, l)ul two hundred and fifty. 
 Hold tliv tonoue! Two hundred and fifty, I tell 
 thee! Follow nie." 
 
 Tchertopkhanoflf still could not bring himself 
 to raise his eyes. Never had liis pride suffered so. 
 — " Obviously, 't is a gift," — he said to himself: 
 " this devil is offering it to me out of gratitude! " 
 And Ik- would have liked ])oth to embrace the 
 .lew and to murder him. . . . 
 
 " Vour A'^ell-Born," — began the Jew, gaining 
 courage, and displaying his teeth in a grin: — 
 " you ought, after ze Russian custom, to receive 
 heem from ze coat-tail to ze coat-tail." .... 
 
 " \W'll, here 's a pretty thing thou hast taken 
 into thy head! — A Jew .... and Russian cus- 
 tom! — Hev, who's there? Take the horse, lead 
 him to the stable. — And give hhn some oats. I '11 
 he there directly mvself, and look him over. xVnd 
 understand: his name is ]Malek-Adel! " 
 
 Tehertopkhanoff' started to ascend the porch- 
 steps, but wheeled sharply round on his heels, and 
 running up to the Jew, he shook him warmly by 
 the hand. — The latter bent forward, and had al- 
 ready thrust out his lips — but Tchertopkluinoff 
 sprang back and, saying in an undertone: " Don't 
 tell anybody! " he disappeared through the door. 
 
 l''i(o.M that day forth, ]Malek-Adel became Tcher- 
 topkhanoff's chief business,' liis chief care, his 
 
 244
 
 THE EXD OF 'IC IIKUroPKIIAXOFF 
 
 greatest joy in life. He eume to lo\c him as lie 
 had not loved even iMaslui, he beeunie more at- 
 tached to liim than to Xedopiiiskhi. — And wliat a 
 horse it was! Fire, regidar fire, simply powder — 
 and stately as a hoyar! — Indefatigable, with 
 great power of en(hn"ance, turn him wliitherso- 
 ever you would, he ol)eyed implicitly; and it cost 
 nothing to feed him: if tliere was nothing else, lie 
 would eat the eartli undei* liis hoofs. ^Vhen he 
 went at a foot-pace, his rider felt as though he 
 were being borne in arms; wlien he trotted, — as 
 though he were being rocked on the surge of the 
 sea; and when he galloped, the very wind could 
 not overtake him. He never got blown, for liis 
 lungs were fine. His legs were of steel; and as 
 ff)r stumbling — there was never even a hint of 
 such a thing! It was a mere nothing for him to 
 leap over a ditch or a paling. And what a clever 
 beast he was! Pie would run in answer to a call, 
 tossing back his head; order him to stand still, and 
 go away yourself — and he would not stir; as soon 
 as vou started to retiu*n, he would whinny ahnost 
 inaudibly, as mucli as to say: " Here am I!" — 
 And he was afraid of nothing: he would find his 
 road in pitch-darkness, or in a blinding snow- 
 storm; and he would not let a stranger touch him 
 on any account whatsoever: he would bite him. 
 And let no dog sneak about him: he would smite 
 the dog instantly on the brow witli liis hoof, 
 whack! and that was the last of tlie dog. — He was 
 a s])irited steed: you might flourish a whip 
 
 245
 
 M KM OIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 oMT liini hy way of display — but God preserve 
 tlif person wlio should touch him with it! But 
 what is the use of going into lengthy details? — 
 lie was a perfect treasure, not a horse! 
 
 W'lieii Tehertopkhanoff undertook to describe 
 his Mak k-A(kl, he could not lind words to do him 
 justice. And liow he caressed and petted him! — 
 The creatures coat shone with the gleam of 
 silver — and not of old. but of new silver, which 
 has a dai'k gloss; pass your hand over it and it 
 \sas like velvet! The saddle, the horse-cloth, the 
 bit, — all his trappings were accurately adjusted, 
 and burnished to such a degree that you might 
 take a pencil and make sketches on them! Teher- 
 topkhanoff' — and what more can one say? — per- 
 sonally, with his own hands, plaited his pet's fore- 
 lock, and washed its mane and tail with beer, and 
 even anointed its hoofs with salve. . . . 
 
 He used to mount >Malek-Adel and ride off — 
 not to call on his neighbours, — for, as in the past, 
 he had no intercourse with them, — but across 
 their fields, past their manor-houses. . . . As 
 much as to sav: " ^Vdmire from a distance, vou 
 fools! " And if he heard that a hunt was on hand 
 anywhere, — that a wealthy gentleman was pre- 
 paring to set off for remote fields, — he immedi- 
 ately betook himself thither, and pranced about 
 at a distance, on the horizon, astounding all be- 
 holders w ith the beauty and swiftness of his steed, 
 hut ])ei-niitting no one to ap])roach close to him. 
 
 240
 
 TPIE END OF ICIIEKTOIMkHAXOFF 
 
 On one occasion, a sportsman, accompanied by his 
 whole suite, pursued him; perceiving tliat Tcher- 
 t()j)khanoiF was escaping him, lie began to shout 
 at him at the top of his lungs, galloping at top- 
 speed the while: " Iley, there! Listen! I '11 pay 
 thee whatever thou askest for thy horse! I won't 
 begrudge a thousand rubles! 1 '11 give my wife, 
 my children! Take my last farthing! " 
 
 TchertopkluinofF suddenly reined Malek-Adel 
 up short. The sportsman dashed up to him. — 
 "Dear little father!" he cried: "tell me, what 
 wilt thou take? My own father! " 
 
 " If thou wert the Tzar," — said Tchertopkha- 
 noff, enunciating each word distinctly {and never 
 in his life had he heard of Shakespeare), — ^" and 
 if thou wert to give me thy whole kingdom for my 
 horse, — I wouldn't accept it!" — So saying, he 
 gave a guffaw, made JNIalek-Adel rear up on his 
 hind legs, wheeled him round in the air, on his 
 hind legs alone, just as though the animal had 
 been a peg-top or a teetotum, — and off he flew! 
 He fairly flashed in sparks over the stubble-field. 
 And the sportsman (they say that he was a very 
 wealthy prince) " dashed his cap on the ground," 
 — -and then flung himself, face down, on his cap ! 
 And there he lay for the space of half an hour. 
 
 And how could Tchertopkhanoff fail to prize 
 his horse? Was it not thanks to him that he again 
 became superior to all his neighbours — indubita- 
 bly, deflnitively superior to all his neighbours^ 
 
 247
 
 .AIKMOIHS OF A SPOKTSMAiN 
 
 VI 
 
 In tlie meanwliilc, time passed, the term for pay- 
 iiRiit (Ircu near — and TeliertopkluinofF had not 
 tirt\- i'nl)le.s, niueh less two liundred and fifty. 
 What was to be done, how was the situation to be 
 redeemed ^ — " Never mind," — he decided at hist, 
 " if tlie Jew Avill not show mercv, if lie will not 
 wait a little longer, — I "11 hand over to him my 
 house and my land, — and I myself will ride off 
 on the horse in some direction, at random! I '11 
 })erish with hunger, — but ^lalek-Adel I will not 
 surrender! " lie became greatly agitated, and 
 even grew pensive; but at this point Fate — for 
 tlie first and last time — showed pity on him, 
 smiled on him: some distant aunt, whose very 
 name TchertopkhanofF did not know, left him 
 in her w ill what was a huge sum in his eyes — two 
 thousand rul)les! — And he received this mone}' 
 just in time, so to speak: the day before the Jew's 
 arrival. Tchertopkhanoff nearlj^ went out of his 
 senses for joy — but the thought of vodka did not 
 enter his head: he had not taken a drop into his 
 mouth since the day ^lalek-Adel had come to him. 
 He hastened to the stable, and kissed his friend on 
 both sides of his muzzle above the nostrils, in the 
 spot where a horse's skin is so soft. — " Now we 
 shall not be parted!" — he cried, patting ]\Ialek- 
 Adel's neck, beneath the well-combed mane. On 
 
 24-8
 
 THE END OF TCTTERTOrKTlAXOFF 
 
 his return to the house, he counted out and sealed 
 up in a packet two liundred and fifty ruhles. 
 Then he mused, as lie lay on his back and smoked 
 his pipe, as to how he should dispose of the re- 
 maining- money — in fact, as to what sort of 
 hounds he should get, — genuine Kostroma 
 hounds, and they must, without fail, be the red- 
 spotted variety! He even had a chat with Per- 
 fishka, to ^^'holn he promised a new kaziik coat 
 with yellow galloon on all the seams — and went 
 to bed in the most blissful mood possible. 
 
 He had a bad dream : he thought he had ridden 
 out to a hunt: only, not on JNIalek-Adel, but on 
 some strange animal, in the nature of a camel; a 
 white fox, white as snow, came running to meet 
 him. . . . He tried to swing his whip, he tried to 
 set the dogs on it — but in his hand, instead of a 
 whip he found a wisp of bast,^ and the fox kej)t 
 trotting on in front of him, and sticking out its 
 tongue at him in mockery. He sprang from his 
 camel, stumbled, fell .... and fell straight into 
 the arms of a gendarme, who summoned him to 
 the Governor-General, in whom he recognised 
 
 Yaff. ... 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff awoke. The room was dark ; 
 the cocks had just crowed for the second time. . . . 
 
 Somewhere, far, far away, a horse was neigh- 
 ing. 
 
 'Bunches of shredded h:\s\ from tlic inner hark of the Ihulen 
 tree form tlic favoriU- hath-sponges. — Translator. 
 
 2M)
 
 MKMOIKS OF A wSPOKTSMAN 
 
 Tcliertopklij'uiofF raised liis head Again 
 
 a i'aliit, faint nei^liing was audible. 
 
 ■ Thai s Maleiv-Adel neighing!" — he said to 
 liiiiiself "That's liis neigh! But why is 
 
 it so i'ar away? Good heavens! ... It cannot 
 
 I '' 
 
 1)0 ... . 
 
 ^VIl at once, Tchertopkhanoff turned cold all 
 over, leaped from his bed on the instant, found his 
 hoots, his elotl)ing, by groping, dressed himself, 
 and, snatching the kev to the stable from beneath 
 his pillow, he rushed out into the court-yaid. 
 
 VII 
 
 The stable was situated at the very end of the 
 yard; one of its walls abutted on the open fields. 
 Tchertopkhanoff did not immediately insert the 
 key into the lock — his hands were trembling — - 
 and did not immediately turn the keA^. . . . He 
 stood motionless, holding his breath, to see if any- 
 thing Avere stirring behind the door. " ISIaleshka! 
 Maletz!" he called in an undertone: deathly si- 
 lence! Tchertopkhanoff involuntarily pulled out 
 the key: the door creaked on its hinges, and 
 opened. . . . That meant, that the door had not 
 been locked. He stepped across the threshold 
 and again called his horse — this time by his full 
 name: " ^laiek-Adel! " But his faithful comrade 
 did not respond, only a mouse rustled in the straw. 
 Then Tchertopkhanoff flung himself into that 
 
 250
 
 THE END OF TCHERTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 one of three stalls in which ]Malek-Adel had Ikch 
 lodged. He went straight to that stall, although 
 such darkness reigned all around that it was ini- 
 possihle to see a hand's-breadth in front of one. 
 . . . It was empty! Tchertopkhanoff's head 
 reeled; a bell seemed to be booming under his 
 skull, lie tried to say something — but merely 
 hissed, and groping with his hands above, below, 
 on all sides, panting, with knees bending under 
 him, he made his way from one stall to the second 
 .... to the third, which was filled witli hay al- 
 most to the top, hit against one wall, then the 
 other, fell, rolled heels over head, rose to his feet, 
 and suddenly rushed headlong through the half- 
 open door into the court -yard. ... 
 
 " They have stolen him! Perfishka! Perfishka! 
 They have stolen him! " — he roared, at the top of 
 his lungs. 
 
 Perfishka the page flew out of the garret in 
 which he slept, topsy-turvy, clad in nothing but 
 his shirt. ... 
 
 The two crashed together like drunken men — 
 the gentleman and his solitary sertant — in the 
 middle of the yard ; they spun round like madmen 
 in front of each other. The gentleman could not 
 explain wliat the matter was; neither could the 
 servant comprehend what was wanted of him. — 
 "Alas! alas!" — stammered Tchertopkhanoff. — 
 " Alas! alas! " the page repeated after him. — " A 
 lantern! give me tlie lantern, light the lantern! A 
 
 251
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAiX 
 
 liulit I A liiilitl "" hurst J'ortli, at last, iVoni Teller- 
 topUhaiioft's exhausted hreast. Perfishka flew to 
 the house. 
 
 Hut it was no easy matter to light the lantern, 
 or to get a light: sulphur matches were consid- 
 ered a rarity in Russia at that epoch; the last em- 
 bers in the kitchen had long since died out; flint 
 and steel were not speedily to be found, and 
 worked badly, (ruashing his teeth, Tchertopkha- 
 nofl' snatched them from the hands of the panic- 
 stricken Perfishka, and began to strike a light 
 liiinself: sparks showered forth in abundance, 
 oaths and even groans showered forth in still 
 greater abundance — but the tinder either did not 
 take fire at all, or went out, despite the strenu- 
 ous efl'orts of four inflated cheeks and lips! At 
 last, at the end of five minutes, no sooner, the 
 morsel of tallow candle was burning in the bot- 
 tom of the broken lantern, and Tchertopkha- 
 noft', accompanied by Perfishka, precipitated 
 himself into the stable, elevated the lantern above 
 
 his head, looked about him Completely 
 
 empty! 
 
 He rushed out into the yard, traversed it in all 
 directions at a run — the horse was nowhere to be 
 found! The wattled fence surrounding Pantelei 
 Kremyeitch's manor had long since fallen to de- 
 cay, and in many ])laces it was bent over and 
 hanging close to the ground. . . . Alongside the 
 stable it had tumbled down completely for a 
 
 252
 
 THE END OF ICIIEliiOrK II AXOKF 
 
 space more than two feet in width. Perfislika 
 pointed out this place to TchertopklianoiF. 
 
 " Master! look here: this was not so to-day. 
 Yonder, the posts are sticking out of the ground, 
 too; some one must have pulled them out." 
 
 Tchertopkluinoff daslied up with liis lantern, 
 passed it along the ground. . . . 
 
 " Hoofs, hoofs, the prints of a horse's shoes, 
 prints, fresh prints!" — he muttered rapidly. — 
 " Here is where they led liim through, here, 
 here! " 
 
 He instantly leaped over the hedge, and with 
 the cry: " JNIalek-Adel ! ]Malek-Adel! " he ran 
 straight olf across the fields. 
 
 Perfishka remained standing in bewilderment 
 by the wattled fence. The bright circle cast by 
 the lantern speedily vanished from his eyes, swal- 
 lowed up by the thick darkness of the starless and 
 moonless night. 
 
 TchertopkhanofF's despairing cries resounded 
 with ever-increasing faintness. . . . 
 
 VIII 
 
 Day was dawning when he retiu'ned home. He 
 no longer bore the semblance of a man : his entire 
 clotliing was covered with mud, his face had as- 
 sumed a strange and savage aspect, his eyes had 
 a morose and stupid look. In a hoarse wliisper 
 he drove Perfishka away from him, and locked 
 
 2.53
 
 .MKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 hiinsclt' u]) in his own room. He could scarcely 
 stand, so exliausted was he, — yet he did not go to 
 bed, l)ut sat down on a chair near the door, and 
 clasped liis head in liis liands. 
 
 '* They liave stolen him! stolen him!" 
 
 Rut how had the thief contrived to steal jNIalek- 
 Adel l)y ni<^ht from the fast-locked stable? 
 Malek-Adel. who bv dav would not allow a 
 stranger to come near him — to steal him without 
 noise, without a sound? And how is it to be ex- 
 l)lained that not a single yard-dog barked? To 
 tell the truth, tliere M'ere only two of them, two 
 young puppies, and even they had buried them- 
 selves in the ground, with cold and hunger — but 
 notwithstanding. . . . 
 
 " And ^vhat am I to do now without ^lalek- 
 Adel? " thought TchertopkhanofF. " I have now 
 been deprived of my last joy — it is time for me to 
 die. Sliall 1 buy another horse, seeing that I am 
 now provided ^^ ith money? Rut where am I to 
 find another horse like that? " 
 
 "Pantelei Eremveitch! Pantelei Eremveitch!" 
 — a timid call made itself audible outside the 
 door. 
 
 Tchertopkhanoif sprang to his feet. 
 
 " ^Mio is it?" — he shouted in an unnatural 
 voice. 
 
 " 'T is I, your page, Perfishka." 
 
 " ^^^lat dost tliou want? Has he been found, 
 lias he run home? " 
 
 254
 
 THE END OF TCIIERTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 " Not at all, sir, Pantelei Eremyeitch ; but tliat 
 little Jew who sold him . . . ." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " He has arrived." 
 
 " Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho ! " — TchertopkhanofF guf- 
 fawed with laughter, — and flung the door open 
 with a bang. — " Drag him hither, drag him, drag 
 him!" 
 
 At the sight of the savage, disordered figure of 
 his " benefaccor," which thus suddenly presented 
 itself, the Jew, who was standing behind Per- 
 fishka, made an attempt to take to his heels; but 
 TchertopkhanofF overtook him in two bounds, 
 and seized him by the throat like a tiger. 
 
 " Ah! thou hast come for thy money! for thy 
 money! " — he yelled hoarsely, as though he were 
 being strangled, instead of himself doing the 
 strangling; "thou hast stolen him by night, and 
 by day hast come for thy money? Hey? Hey?" 
 
 "Have mercy, Yo . . ur Ve-ell-Bo-orn ! " 
 groaned the Jew. 
 
 " Tell me, where is mv horse? What hast thou 
 done with him? To whom hast thou disposed of 
 him? Tell me, tell me, tell me! " 
 
 The Jew could no longer groan; even the ex- 
 pression of terror had vanished from his face, 
 which had turned blue. His hands dropped and 
 swung limply; his wliole body, vehemently shaken 
 by TchertopkhanofF, swayed back and forth like 
 a reed. 
 
 255
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 '■ 1 11 i)ay [hvv thy money, 1 '11 pay thee thy 
 money in full, to the uttermost kopek," — yelled 
 Tehertopkhanoff — " only I '11 strangle thee, like 
 the meanest of chiekens, if thou dost not instantly 
 tell me. . . .' 
 
 " But you have strangled him, master," — re- 
 marked the })age Perfishka suhmissively. 
 
 Only then did Tehertopkhiinoff come to his 
 senses. 
 
 He relinquished his hold on the Jew's throat; 
 the latter fell in a heap on the floor. Tchertop- 
 khanofl' picked him up, seated him on a bench, 
 poiH'ed a glass of vodka down his throat — and 
 restored him to consciousness. And .having re- 
 stored him to consciousness, he entered into 
 conversation with him. 
 
 It appeared that the Jew had not the slightest 
 comprehension as to the tlieft of ^lalek-AdeL 
 And why should he steal the horse which he him- 
 self had obtained for " his most respected Pan- 
 telei Eremyeitch "? 
 
 Then TchertopkhanofF led him to the stable. 
 
 Together they inspected the stall, the manger, 
 the lock on the door; they rummaged in the hay, 
 the straw, and then went into the yard; Tchertop- 
 khanofi' pointed out to the Jew the imprints of 
 hoofs beside the wattled fence — and all at once 
 smote himself on the thigh. 
 
 " Stop! " — he cried. — " Where didst thou buy 
 tlie horse? " 
 
 256
 
 THE END OF TCITEK rOPKTIAXOFF 
 
 " In INlaloarkliangel district, at tlie Verkliosen- 
 skoe horse-fair," — replied the Jew. 
 " From whom? " 
 " From a kazak." 
 Stay! Was tliat kazak a young mati or an old 
 
 one 
 
 7 " 
 
 A sedate man, of middle age." 
 
 " And what was he like? How did he look? A 
 sly rascal, I suppose." 
 
 " He must have been a rascal, Your Veil- 
 Born." 
 
 " And what did that rascal say to you, — had he 
 owned the horse long? " 
 
 " I remember that he said he had." 
 
 " Well, then, no one but himself could have 
 stolen it! Judge for thyself, listen, stand here 
 . . . . what's thy name?" 
 
 The Je^^' gave a start, and turned his little 
 black eyes on Tchertopkhanoif . 
 
 " What is mi) name? " 
 
 " Well, yes; what art thou called? " 
 
 " INIoshel Leiba." 
 
 " Well, judge for thyself, Leiba, my friend, — - 
 thou art a clever man, — into whose hands, save 
 those of his former master, would Malek-Adel 
 have surrendered himself? For he saddled him, 
 and bridled him, and took his blanket off him— 
 yonder it lies on the hay! He simply be- 
 haved as though he were at home! ]\Ialek-Adel 
 would certainly have crushed under his iioofs any 
 
 2.57
 
 MEMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 one who was not his master! He would have 
 raised siieh an uproar that he would have thor- 
 out»lily ahirnied the whole village! Dost thou 
 agree willi nieC ' 
 
 ■' I (Im. I do. Your Veil-Born. . . ." 
 ■ Well, then, first of all, we must find that 
 kaziik! " 
 
 " Hut how are ve to find him, Yoiu* Veil-Born? 
 1 have never seen him except vun little time — and 
 vera ees he now — and vat is hees name? Ai, va'i, 
 vai! " — added the Jew, dolefully shaking his ear- 
 locks. 
 
 " Leiba! " — shouted Tchertoj)khanofF sud- 
 denly, — " Leiba, look at me! I have lost my mind, 
 I am not mvself ! .... I shall lav violent hands 
 oil myself, if thou wilt not help me! " 
 
 " But how can I? . . ." 
 
 " Come with me — and we will find that thief! " 
 
 " But vere zhall ve go? " 
 
 " Among the fairs, on the big highways, on the 
 little highways, to the horse-thieves, the towns, 
 the villages, the farms — everywhere, everywhere! 
 And as for money, thou needst not wony : I have 
 received an inheritance, brother! I '11 squander 
 the last kopek— but I '11 get my friend. And the 
 kazak, that villain, shall not escape us! AVhither- 
 soever he goes, thither will we go also! If he is 
 under the earth — we, too, will go under the earth! 
 If he goes to the devil — we '11 go to Satan 
 too!" 
 
 258
 
 THE END OF TCIIER TOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 " Veil, but vy to Zatan? " — remarked the Jew, 
 — " ve can get along vizoiit heem." 
 
 "Leiba!" — interposed TchertopklianofF, — 
 " Leiba, although thou art a Jew, and thy faith 
 is accursed — yet thou hast a soul better than that 
 of many a Christian! Thou hast taken i)itv on 
 me! there is no use in my setting off alone, I can- 
 not deal with this affair alone. I am hot-headed — 
 but tluMi hast a good liead, a head of gold ! That 's 
 the way with thy race: it has attained to every- 
 tiling without science! Perhaps thou hast thy 
 doubts, and sayest to thyself : ' Whence has he the 
 money? ' Come into my room with me — 1 '11 show 
 thee all the money. Take it, take my cross, from 
 my neck — only give me ^lalek-Adel, give him to 
 me, give him to me! " 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff shook as though in fever: the 
 perspiration poured down his face in streams, and 
 mingling with his tears, became lost in liis mous- 
 tache. He pressed Leiba's hands, he entreated 
 him, he almost kissed him. . . He had got into a 
 transport. The Jew tried to reply, to convince 
 him that it was impossible for him to absent him- 
 self from his business In vain ! Tchertop- 
 khanoff would not listen to anything. There was 
 no help for it : poor Leiba was forced to consent. 
 
 On the following day, Tchertopkhanoff, ac- 
 companied by Leiba, drove away from Bezsonovo 
 in a peasant-cart. The Jew wore a somewhat dis- 
 concerted aspect, clung to tlie rail with one hand, 
 
 259
 
 >rKM()TKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 and liis wliok- w i/.cmd IuhIv jolted about on tlie 
 (|iiakin^- scat; tlir other liand lie pressed to his 
 breast, where lay a package of bank-notes, 
 \\ ra|)ped up in a bit of newspaper. Tchcrtopkha- 
 noir sat hhe a statue, merely turned his eyes about 
 him, and took the air into his lungs in deep 
 breaths: a dagger j)rojccted from his belt. 
 
 Look out foi- thyself now, thou villain-sepa- 
 rator! he muttei-ed, as they emerged upon the 
 highway. 
 
 He Iiad entrusted his house to Perfishka, the 
 page, and to the peasant who acted as his cook, a 
 deaf old woman, whom he had taken under his 
 protection out of compassion. 
 
 " I shall return to vou on ^Falek-Adel," — he 
 shouted to them in farewell, — " or I shall not re- 
 tui-n at all! " 
 
 " Thou mightest, at least, many me, T think! " 
 — jested Perfishka, nudging the old woman in 
 the ribs with his elbow. — "Anyhow, — we. shall 
 never see the master again, and otherwise, thou 
 Avilt certainly exjjire with tedium! " 
 
 IX 
 
 A YEA If. jxissed a whole year: no news 
 
 arrived of Pantelei Eremyeitch. The old woman 
 died: Peilishka himself was preparing to aban- 
 don the house and betake himself to the town, 
 whither he was })eiug lured by his cousin, who was 
 
 260
 
 THE END OF TCIIEHTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 living tilt re as ussistaiil lo a liaii-dresser, — wlicn, 
 suddenly, a rumour became current that tlie mas- 
 ter was coming back! The deacon of the ])arish 
 had received a letter from Pantelei Eremyeitch 
 himself, in which the latter informed him of his 
 intention to come to Bezsonovo, and recpiested 
 him to notify his servants, in order that the 
 proper reception miglit be made ready. These 
 words Perfislika understood in the sense that he 
 must wipe off a little of tlie dust; he had not much 
 faith in the accuracy of the news, however: but 
 he was forced to the conviction that the deacon 
 had told the truth when, a few days later, Pan- 
 telei P^remyeitch himself, in person, made his ap- 
 pearance in the court-yard of the manor-house, 
 mounted on JNIalek-Adel. 
 
 Perfishka rushed to his master, and, holding his 
 stirrup, attempted to assist him in alighting from 
 his horse ; but the hitter sprang off unaided, swept 
 a triumphant glance around him, and exclaimed 
 in a loud voice: " 1 said that I would find Malek- 
 Adel, and I have found him, to the discomfiture 
 of my enemies and of Fate itself! " Perfishka 
 advanced to kiss his hand, but Tchertopkhanoff 
 paid no heed to his servant's zeal. Leading Ma- 
 lek-Adel after him by the bridle he wended his 
 way with long strides to the stable. Perfishka 
 scrutinised his master with more attention — and 
 quailed: — " Okh, how thin and old he has grown 
 in the course of the year — and how stern and grim 
 
 261
 
 MK.MOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 liis i'licc lias bcconiu! " Vet it would have seemed 
 fittin«^- lliat Paiitelei Eremyeitch should rejoice, 
 ill view of the fact that he had accomplished his 
 oil jcct ; and lie tlid rejoice, as a matter of fact .... 
 and. nevertlieless, Perfishka quailed and even felt 
 afraid. Tchertopkhanoff jjlaced the horse in his 
 former stall, slai)pcd him gently on the crupper, 
 and said: " Now, then, thou art at home again! 
 Look out! . . . ." On tliat same day he hired 
 a trustwortliy watchman, an untaxable, landless 
 peasant, established himself once more in his own 
 rooms, and began to live as of yore. ... 
 
 Hut not altogether as of yore Of this, 
 
 however, later on. 
 
 On the day following his return, Paiitelei Ere- 
 myeitch summoned Perfishka to his presence, and, 
 in tile absence of any other companion, began to 
 nan-ate to him — without losing the sense of his 
 own dignity, of course, and in a bass voice — in 
 what manner he had succeeded in finding JNIalek- 
 Adel. While the story was in progress, Tcher- 
 topkhanoif sat with his face to the ^vindow, smok- 
 ing the pipe of a long Turkish tchibiik, while 
 I'erfishka sUxkI on the threshold of the door, with 
 his hands clasped behind him, and gazing respect- 
 fully at the back of his master's head, listened to 
 the story of how, after many fruitless efforts and 
 l)eregri nations, Pantelei Eremyeitch had, at last, 
 arrived at the fair in Romny, alone, Avithout the 
 Jew Leiba, who, through weakness of character, 
 
 202
 
 TH^ END OF TCHERTOPKIIAXOl F 
 
 luul not lield out and had deserted him; how, on 
 the fii'tli (hiv, wlien he was ah-eadv on tlie |)<)iiit oi' 
 departiiig, he had passed, for the hist time, al()n<^ 
 tlie rows of carts, and Iiad suddenly espied, anion «^" 
 tliree otlier horses hitched to the • canvas feed- 
 trough — had espied ^lalek-Adel! How he liad 
 recognised liim on the instant, — and how ]\lalek- 
 Adel had also recognised him, had begun to 
 whinny and paw the earth with his lioof . — " And 
 he was not with the kazak," — pursued Tchertop- 
 khanofF, still without turning his head, and in the 
 same bass voice as before, — " but with a gipsy 
 horse-dealer; naturally, I immediately seized on 
 my horse, and tried to recover it by force; but the 
 beast of a gipsy set up a howd, as though he were 
 being scalded, and began to swear, in the hearing 
 of the whole market-place, that he had bought the 
 horse from another gipsy, and wanted to produce 
 his witnesses. ... I spat — and paid him money : 
 devil take him! For me the chief thing, the 
 precious thing, was that I had found my friend, 
 and had recovered my S2:)iritual peace. But, seest 
 thou, I had grabbed a kazak, as the Jew Leiba 
 put it, in the Karat chevoe district, — 1 had taken 
 him for my thief,- — and had smashed in his whole 
 ugly phiz; but the kazak turned out to be the son 
 of a priest, and was infamous enough to wring 
 one hundred and twenty rubles from me. Well, 
 money is a thing that can be acquired; but the 
 Xn-uicipal point is, that ]Malek-Adel is with me 
 
 263
 
 MK.MOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 once more! Now I am liappy — I shall enjoy 
 tran(|iiillity. And here are thy instnietions, Por- 
 i'l'n : .just as soon as thou shalt heliokl a kaziik 
 in the- nciuhhourhood — whieh Ciod forhid! — run 
 and I'etelinie niv "un that verv second, without 
 utterino- out- word, and I shall know how to act! " 
 
 'IMuis spake Pantelei Eremyeitch Tchertop- 
 kliaiioff': this was what his lips expressed; hut he 
 was not so trancjuil at heart as he asserted. 
 
 Alas! in the depths of his soul he was not fully 
 con\inee(l that the horse he had brought home was 
 really Malek-Adel. 
 
 X 
 
 A DIFFICULT time began for Pantelei Eremye- 
 itch. Tranquillity was precisely the thing which 
 he enjoyed least of all. (xood days did come, it is 
 true: the doubt which had assailed him seemed to 
 him nonsense, he thrust from him the awkward 
 thought as he would an importunate fly, and even 
 laughed at himself; but he had his bad days 
 also: the persistent thought began again to prey 
 stealthily on his lieart and to gnaw at it, like a 
 mouse under the floor, — and he tormented himself 
 keenly, and in secret. In the course of that mem- 
 orable day on which he had found JNIalek-Adel, 
 Tchertojjkhanoff' had felt only blissful joy .... 
 but on the following morning, when, under the 
 low j)enthouse of the posting-station, he began to 
 saddle his treasure-trove, close to which lie had 
 
 264
 
 THE END OF rciIERTOPKHANOlF 
 
 passed the night — something stung him for the 
 first time. . . . He merely shook his head — hut 
 the seed was sown. In the course of his home- 
 ward journey (it lasted for about a week) , doubts 
 awoke rarely within him : they became more pow- 
 erful and distinct as soon as he had reached his 
 Bezsonovo, as soon as he found himself in the 
 place where the former, the indubitable INIalek- 
 Adel had dwelt. . . . On the road he had ridden 
 mainly at a foot-pace, at a jog-trot, gazing about 
 him on all sides, had smoked his tobacco from a 
 short pipe, and had indulged in no meditations, 
 unless it were to say to himself, " Whatever the 
 TchertopkhanofFs want, that they get ! " and 
 grin ; but A\'hen he got home, it was quite a differ- 
 ent matter. All this, of course, he kept to him- 
 self: his pride alone forbade his displaying his 
 inward trepidation. He would have " rent asun- 
 der " any one who had even distantly hinted that 
 Malek-Adel did not appear to be the former 
 horse; he accepted congratulations on his " lucky 
 find " from the few persons with whom he 
 chanced to come in contact; but he did not seek 
 these congratulations, and avoided intercourse 
 with people more assiduously than ever — which 
 is a bad sign ! He was almost constantly putting 
 Malek-Adel through his examination, if one may 
 so express it; he would ride off on him to some 
 extremely distant spot in the fields, and put him 
 to the test; or he would creep stealthily into the 
 
 265
 
 MEMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 stable, l(K'k tlic door beliind him, and, placing the 
 horse's head before him, would gaze into his eyes, 
 askiim' in a whis])er: " xVrt thou he^ Art thou he? 
 ^Art thou hef . . . ." or he would stare at him in 
 silence, and so intently, foi- whole hoin's at a 
 stretch, now rejoicing and muttering: " Yes! 
 'T is he! Of course, 'tis he! " — again perplexed 
 and disconcerted. 
 
 And TchertopkhanofF was perturbed not so 
 much by the ])hy.sical dissimilarity between that 
 ^lalek-Adel and this one — it was not so very 
 great: that one's mane and tail seemed to have 
 been thinner, his ears more pointed, his cannon- 
 bones shorter, and his eyes brighter, — moreover, 
 that might only seem to be the case; but what 
 troubled 'J'chertopkhanofF was, so to speak, the 
 moral dissimilarity. That one had different 
 habits, his whole moral nature was unlike. For 
 example: that ]Malek-Adel had been wont to 
 glance round and whinny slightly ever}^ time 
 TchertopkhanofF entered the stable; but this one 
 went on munching his hay, as though nothing 
 were ha2)pening- — or dozed with drooping head. 
 Neither of them stirred from the spot when their 
 master sprang from the saddle; but that one, 
 when lie was called, immediately advanced toward 
 the voice, — while this one continued to stand 
 stock-still. TJiat one galloped with equal swift- 
 ness, but jumped higher and further; this one had 
 a more undulating gait when walking, but jolted 
 
 26G
 
 THE END OF TCHERTOPKHANOFF 
 
 more on a trot, and sometimes interfered witli his 
 shoes — that is to say, struck the hind shoe against 
 the fore shoe; iJuit one never had such a disgrace- 
 ful trick — God forbid! This one, so it seemed to 
 TchertopkhiinofF, was forever twisting his ears, 
 — wliile with the other the contrary was the case : 
 lie w^ould lay one ear back, and keep it so, — watch- 
 ing his master! TJiat one, as soon as he saw that 
 there was dirt around him, would immediately 
 tap on the wall of his stall with his hind foot ; but 
 this one did not mind if the manure acciunulated 
 up to his very belly. That one, if he were placed 
 head on to the wind, for example, — would im- 
 mediately begin to inhale with all his lungs, and 
 shake himself, but this one would simply snort; 
 that one was disturbed by dampness foreboding 
 rain — this one cared nothing for it. . . . This 
 one was coarser, coarser! And this one had no 
 charm, as that one had, and was hard-mouthed- 
 there was no denying it! The other was a pleas- 
 ing horse — while this one .... 
 
 This was the way things sometimes seemed to 
 Tchertopkhanoff, and these reflections bred bit- 
 terness in him. On the other hand, there were 
 times when he would launch his steed at full 
 gallop over some unploughed field or make liim 
 leaj) to tlie very bottom of a ravine washed out by 
 the rains and leap back again straight uj) the 
 steep, and his heart would swoon within him for 
 rapture, a thui'<lerous lialloo would burst from 
 
 267
 
 .MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 liis lips, and hf knew for a certainty that he had 
 under hiin tlie genuine, in(hi])itahle Malek-xVdel, 
 i'ov wluii other horse was eapahle of doing what 
 
 this one (hd .'' 
 
 Hut even so. errors and eahiniities were not 
 hiekino-. Tlie prolonged search for Malek-Adel 
 had cost Tehertopkhanoit" a great deal of money: 
 he no longer (h'eanied of the Kostroma hounds, 
 and rode ahout the country-side in sohtude, as of 
 vore. Antl lo, one morning, about five versts 
 from Rezs6no\(), Tchertopkhanofi' ran across 
 tliat same princely hunting-train before which he 
 had pranced in so dashing a manner a year and a 
 half before. And this incident must needs hap- 
 pen : precisely as on that other day, so now, a grey 
 liare leaped out in front of the hounds from under 
 the hedge on the slope of a hill ! 
 
 "Tallvho! tallvho!"— The whole hunt fairly 
 dashed onward, and Tchertopkluinoff dashed on 
 also — only not with them, but a couple of hun- 
 dred paces to one side of them — precisely as on 
 the former occasion. A tremendous gully in- 
 tersected the declivity on a slant, and, rising 
 higher and higher, gradually contracted, in- 
 tercepting Tchert()])khanoff 's road. At the point 
 where he was ol)lige(l to leap it — and where he 
 actually had leaped it eighteen months pre- 
 viously — it was still eight paces in width, and a 
 couple of fathoms in de])th. In antici])ation of 
 a triumph, — of a triumph so miraculously re- 
 
 268
 
 THE END OF TC'IIEKTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 peated, — Tchertojiklianof!' l)cgan to cackle victo- 
 riously, brandishing his kazak whip; the hunts- 
 men galloped on, never taking their eyes from the 
 hold horseman, — his horse was flying forward like 
 an arrow, — and now, the gully is right in*f ront of 
 his nose! Come, come, at a bound, as before! .... 
 
 Eut Malek-Adel balked abrupth^ wheeled to 
 the left, and galloped along the brink, jerk his 
 head to the side as TchertopkhanofF might, in the 
 direction of the gully. . . . 
 
 The fact was, he had turned cowardly, he had 
 no confidence in himself! 
 
 Then Tchertopkhanoff , all glowing with shame 
 and wrath, almost in tears, dropped the reins and 
 urged the horse straight ahead, up-hill, away, 
 away from those sportsmen, if only that he might 
 avoid hearing how they jeered at him, if only that 
 he might escape as speedily as possible from their 
 accursed eyes! 
 
 With flanks covered with stripes, all bathed in 
 foam, ^[alek-Adel galloped home, and Tchertop- 
 khanofF immediately locked himself up in his own 
 room. 
 
 " No, it is not he, it is not my friend ! That one 
 would have broken his neck, — but he would not 
 have betrayed me! " 
 
 XI 
 
 The following incident definitively " finished " 
 TchertopkhanofF, as the saying is. ^Mounted on 
 
 269
 
 AIK^rOTRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 Malek-A(kl. lit- was one day making his way 
 throuoli the l):ick-yar(ls of tlie ecclesiastical set- 
 tlement snrroiinding the chnrch to whose parish 
 the hamlet of Bezsonovo pertained. With his 
 kazak cap pulled well down over his eyes, bend- 
 ing forward, and with both hands resting on the 
 saddle-how. he was slowly advancing; everything 
 was cheerless and perturbed in his soul. All at 
 once, some one called him by name. 
 
 lie (hew up liis horse, raised his head, and be- 
 held his correspondent the deacon. With a dark- 
 brown three-cornered hat on his dark-brown locks 
 j)laited in a small pig-tail, arrayed in a kaftan of 
 yellowish nankeen girt considerably lower than 
 the waist with a fragment of sky-blue stuff, the 
 servitor of the altar had come out to visit his 
 " little granary," and, catching sight of Pan- 
 telei Eremyeitch, considered it his duty to express 
 his respects to him, — and, incidentally, to get 
 .something out of him. It is a well-understood 
 fact that ecclesiastical persons never enter into 
 conversation with laymen without some ulterior 
 motive of that sort. 
 
 But Tchertopkhanoff was in no mood to attend 
 to the deacon; he barely returned his salutation, 
 and, grumbling something through his teeth, he 
 was already flourishing his kazak whip. 
 
 "But w^hat a superb horse you have!" — the 
 deacon hastened to add: — " really, vou mav con- 
 gratulate yourself on it. Of a truth, you are 
 
 270
 
 THE END OF TCITEHTOrKlIAXOKF 
 
 a man of wonderful mind; simply, like unto ii 
 lion!" — The deacon was renowned for his elo- 
 quence — which greatly vexed the father-priest, 
 whom Fate had not endowed witli the gift of 
 words: even vodka did not loosen his tongue. — 
 " You have been deprived of one animal, tlirough 
 the machinations of evil-doers," — went on the 
 deacon, — " and, not in the least discouraged, but, 
 on the contrarv, relying still more firmlv on I)i- 
 vine Providence, you have procured for yourself 
 another quite as good, and even better, I think 
 for . . . ." 
 
 " What nonsense art thou prating? " — broke 
 in Tchertopkhanoff angrily: "What dost thou 
 mean by another horse? This is the identical one: 
 this is Malek-Adel. ... 1 hunted him up. Thou 
 art babbling at random. ..." 
 
 "Eh! eh! eh! eh!" — ejaculated the deacon, 
 with pauses between, and as though prolonging 
 his words, running his fingers through his beard, 
 and surveying Tchertopkhanoff with his bright, 
 greedy eyes. — " What do you mean by that, sir? 
 Your horse was stolen, if God gives me memory, 
 a couple of weeks after the Feast of the Inter- 
 cession ^ last year, and now we are at the end of 
 November." 
 
 " Well, then, and what of that? " 
 
 The deacon still continued to pla}^ with his 
 beard. — " It means that more than a year has 
 
 ^October I, O. S.; 1 i, N. S.— Tuansi.ator. 
 
 271
 
 MK.MOIHS OF A siHmTs:srAX 
 
 elapsed since that time, and your horse was then 
 a ilappled "rev as he is now; he has even grown 
 (hirker. llow al>oiit tliat^" Grev horses turn very 
 white ill oiif year. 
 
 Teliertopkhanoft" shuddered .... it was just 
 as tli()u«4li some one had pricked liis heart with a 
 spear. And. in fact, grey horses do change col- 
 ourl How was it that so simple a thought had 
 not entered his head up to that moment? 
 
 " Tliou damned pig-tail!^ Get out!" — he 
 yelled suddenly, his eyes flashing with fury — and 
 instantly vanished from the sight of the as- 
 tounded deacon. 
 
 ^^'ell! All was at an end! 
 
 Kvervthing was reallv at an end now% every- 
 thing had hurst, the last card was trumped! 
 Everything had crashed into ruin at that one 
 phrase: " They turn white! " 
 
 Grey horses turn white ! 
 
 Gallop, gallop, thou accursed one! Thou canst 
 not gallop away from that word! 
 
 Tchertopkhanoif dashed home, and again 
 locked himself up. 
 
 XII 
 
 That this wretched nag was not JSIalek-Adel; 
 that not the slightest likeness existed bet^veen him 
 and ^lalek-Adel; that any man who had the least 
 
 ' Ecclesiastics in Russia all wear their hair lonj;, and, as described 
 in this story, often braid it to keep it out of the way, in private life. 
 
 — TUANSLATOK.
 
 TIIK END OF T( irKKTOPKirAXOKF 
 
 sense must have perceived this at the very first 
 glance; that he, Pantelei Tchertopkluinoff", had 
 deceived himself in the most vulgar manner — no! 
 That he had deliberately, with premeditation 
 cheated himself, had lowered that haze over him- 
 self — there now remained not the faintest doubt! 
 Tchertopkhanoff ])aeed back and forth in his 
 room, wheeling on his heels as he reached each 
 wall, exactly as a wild beast does in a cage. His 
 pride was suffering intolerably; but it was not 
 wounded pride alone which was harrying him: 
 despair had taken possession of him, fury was 
 choking him, the thirst for vengeance was kindled 
 witliin him. But against whom? On whom was 
 he to revenge himself? The Jew, Yaff, ^lasha, 
 the deacon, the thieving kazak, all his neighbours, 
 the whole w^orld, himself in conclusion? His 
 mind became confused. His last card had been 
 trumped ! ( This comparison pleased him. ) And 
 again he was the most insignificant, the most de- 
 spised of men, a general laughing-stock, a ridicu- 
 lous fool, a thorough-going idiot, an object of 
 derision to — the deacon ! ! . . . He imagined that 
 he could picture clearljr to himself how that vile 
 pig-tail w^ould take to telling about the grey horse, 
 about the stupid gentleman. . . . O damn it! . . . 
 In vain did Tchertopkhanoff strive to suppress 
 the rising bile; in vain did he strive to convince 
 
 himself that that horse, although not 
 
 Malek-Adel, was every whit as good as he, and 
 
 273
 
 .MKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 Fiiiiiht SLr\(.' him for iiianv years: lie immediatelv 
 repelled this thought with vehemence, as though 
 it contained a fresh insult for that ]Malek-Adel 
 toward \\hoMi he ali'eady, and without that, felt 
 
 himself to blame The idea! Like a blind 
 
 man, like a dolt, he had placed that carrion, that 
 jade, on a le\ el w ith him, with 3Ialek-Adel! And 
 as for the service which that vile nag might still 
 render him . . . . why, would he ever deign to 
 mount it^ \ot for anything on earth! Never! ! 
 .... He would give it to a Tatar,' to the dogs 
 to eat — that was all it was good for. . . . Yes! 
 that would be best of all ! 
 
 Foi- more than two hours Tchertopkhanoff 
 wandered about his room. 
 
 "Perfishka!" — he suddenly issued his com- 
 mand. '■ Go to the dram-shop this very instant; 
 bring hither a gallon and a half of vodka! Dost 
 hear me? A gallon and a half of vodka, and be 
 (juiek about it! Let the vodka be here instantly, 
 and standing on my table! " 
 
 The vodka made its appearance without delay 
 on Pantelei Eremyeitch's table, and he began to 
 drink! 
 
 XIII 
 
 Any one who had looked at Tchertopkhanoff 
 then, any one wlio could have witnessed the grim 
 \iciousness wlierewith he drained glass after glass, 
 
 ' Tlie Tatirs are extremely fond of horseflesh. In St. Petersburg 
 and Moscow (where thej' pursue tlie avocations of old-clothes men 
 and \\aiters) horse-meat shops exist for their benefit. — Tkansi^vtor. 
 
 274
 
 THE END OF TClIEKTOPKnAxOEF 
 
 would certainly have felt an involuntary terror. 
 Night came; a tallow candle hurned dimly on the 
 table. Tchertopkhanoff' liad ceased to rove from 
 corner to corner; he sat, all red in the face, with 
 dimmCvl eyes, wliich he sometimes lowered to the 
 floor, sometimes riveted persistently on the dark 
 window; he would rise to his feet, ])oin' himself 
 out some vodka, drink it off, then sit down again, 
 again fix his eyes on one point, and never stir — 
 except that his breathing grew quick, and his face 
 more scarlet. It seemed as though some decision 
 were ripening within him, which daunted him, 
 but to ^vhich he w'as gradually accustoming liim- 
 self ; one and the same thought importunately and 
 unintermittently moved up ever closer and closer, 
 one and the same image delineated itself ever 
 more and more clearly ahead; and in his heart, 
 under the inflaming pressure of heavy intoxica- 
 tion, the irritation of wrath was replaced by a 
 feeling of flerceness, and a grin which boded no 
 good made its appearance on his lips. 
 
 " Well, all the same, 't is time! " — he said, in a 
 businesslike, almost bored tone: — "'tis time to 
 stop taking my ease! " 
 
 He drank off the last glass of the vodka, got 
 his pistol from under his bed, — -the same pistol 
 from which he had fired at INIasha, — loaded it, put 
 several percussion-caps in his pocket, " in case of 
 need," and set off* for the stable. 
 
 The watcliman stai'ted to i-un to liini when he 
 began to o^x^n the door, hut he shouted at him; 
 
 275
 
 :mem()iks or a sportsman 
 
 '• It is 11 l)«)st iiol thou sec? Ik'gone!" The 
 w atclimaii withch'cw a little to one side. " Go off 
 to thy hedl" TehertopkluiiiofF shouted at him: 
 • there \s no neeil for thee to stand on guard 
 liere! A fine wonder, what a treasure! " He en- 
 tered the stahle. :Malek-xVdel .... the false 
 Malek-Adel, was lying on the litter. Tchertop- 
 khiinoft' gave him a kick, saying: " Get up, thou 
 crow ! " Then he untied the halter from the man- 
 ger, took oft' the hlanket and flung it on the 
 ground, and roughly turning the obedient horse 
 round in the stall, he led it forth into the yard, 
 and from the yard into the open fields, to the in- 
 tense amazement of the watchman, who could not 
 possibly comprehend where the master was going 
 l)v niuht with the bridleless horse in tow. He 
 was afraid to ask him, of course; so merely fol- 
 lowed him with his eyes until he disappeared at 
 the turn of the road which led to the neighbour- 
 
 inir forest. 
 
 XIV 
 
 TcHEKTOPKHANOFF Walked witli huge strides, 
 neither halting nor looking behind him. Malek- 
 Adel — w'e shall call him by that name to the end — 
 followed submissi\ely in his wake. The night 
 was fairly light; Tchertopkhanoff could distin- 
 guish the indented outline of the forest, which 
 rose blackly in front of him, like a dark blotch. 
 Thus embraced bv the nocturnal chill, he cer- 
 
 270
 
 THE END OF ICTTKirrOPKHANOFE 
 
 tainlv would have felt the intoxicatini*- effeets of 
 the vodka lie had drunk, had it not heen .... had 
 it not heen for another, a more powerful intoxi- 
 eation, whieh had taken complete possession of 
 him. His head grew heavy, the blood throbbed 
 with a roar in his throat and ears, but he walked 
 on firmly, and knew where he was going. 
 
 He had decided to kill JNIalek-Adel ; all day 
 
 long he had thought of nothing else 
 
 Now he had reached a decision! 
 • He j^roceeded to this deed, not precisely with 
 composure, but with confidence, irrevocably, as a 
 man proceeds who is obeying a sense of duty. It 
 seemed to him a very " simple matter " to annihi- 
 late this pretender, he would thereby be quits with 
 " everybody," would also punisli himself for his 
 stupidity, justify himself to liis genuine friend, 
 and demonstrate to the whole world (Tchertop- 
 khiinoff was greatly concerned about " the whole 
 world") that no one could jest with him. . . . 
 But the principal thing was, — that he meant to 
 annihilate himself along with the pretender, for 
 what w^as there now left for him to live for? How 
 all this had stowed itself awav in his head, and 
 whv it seemed to him so simi)le, it is not easy, al- 
 though it is not utterly impossible, to explain: 
 wounded, solitary, without a single human soul 
 who was near to him, without a copper fartliing, 
 and with his blood lieated by liquor, to boot, he was 
 in a condition bordering on insanity, and there 
 
 277
 
 MKMOIRS OF A SPORTSMxVX 
 
 can be no duubl tlial, in the most absurd freaks 
 of insane people, tliere is a sort of looie and even 
 i-iyht in their eyes. As to tlie right, Tchertopkha- 
 nofl' was. at any rate, fully convinced; he did not 
 hesitate, he made haste to execute the sentence on 
 the criminal, without, however, clearly rendering 
 himsell' an account as to whom, precisely, he was 
 calling 1)\ that name. . . . Truth to tell, he had 
 reflected vvvy little on what he was about to do. 
 " I must make an end of it — I must," was what he 
 kept repeating to himself, dully and sternly: " I 
 must make a!i end of it! " 
 
 And the innocent culprit trotted obediently 
 behind him. . . . But there was no pity in Tcher- 
 topkhanoff's heart. 
 
 XV 
 
 X(yr far from the edge of the forest, whither he 
 was leading his horse, stretched a small ravine, 
 half overgrown with oak bushes. Tchertopkha- 
 noff descended into it. . . . j\Ialek-Adel stum- 
 bled and came near falling on him. 
 
 "Dost want to crush me, damn thee!" — 
 sliouted Tchertopkhanoff — and, as though de- 
 fending himself, he jerked the pistol out of his 
 pocket. 
 
 He MO longer felt hardness, but that jjeculiar 
 \voo(len rigidity of the emotions which is said to 
 take possession of a man before the perpetration 
 of a ci-ime. But his own voice frightened him — 
 so sa\age]y did it resound bcneatli the canopy of 
 
 •278
 
 THE KM) OF TCIIKKTOPKIIAXOFF 
 
 the dark boughs, in the decaying and stilling 
 dampness of the forest ravine! jNloreover, in re- 
 ply to his exchimation, some hirge bird or other 
 suddenl}' began to rustle in tlie crest of the tree 
 over his head. . . . TchertopkhanofF shuddered. 
 It was as tliough he had aroused a witness to his 
 deed — and where? In this remote spot, where he 
 should not have encountered a single living crea- 
 ture! ... 
 
 " Begone, devil, to the four winds! " — he said 
 through his teeth — and relintjuishing JNIalek- 
 Adel's bridle, he dealt him a flourishing blow on 
 the shoulder with the butt of the pistol. ^Nlalek- 
 Adel immediately turned back, scrambled out of 
 the ravine .... and set off at a gallop. But 
 the sound of his hoof -beats was not audible long. 
 The rising wind interfered and shrouded all 
 sounds. 
 
 Tchertopkhanoff, in his turn, slowly made his 
 way out of the ravine, gained the edge of the for- 
 est, and trudged homeward. He was dissatisfied 
 with himself: the heaviness which he felt in his 
 head and in his heart diffused itself over all his 
 limbs; he strode onward — angry, gloomy, dissat- 
 isfied, hungry, exactly as though some one had 
 insulted him, had robbed him of his booty, his 
 food. . . . 
 
 A suicide who has been prevented from carry- 
 ing out his intentions is acquainted with such sen- 
 sations. 
 
 All at once, something touched him from be- 
 
 270
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 hind, on the shoulder. He glanced round. . . . 
 Malek-A(K1 was standing in the middle of the 
 road. lie iiad followed his master, he had 
 touched him with his muzzle, he had announced 
 his presence. . . . 
 
 " Ah ! " — screamed TchertopkhanofF, — " so 
 thou hast come thyself, of thine own accord, to 
 tliy deatlil Then take that!" 
 
 In the twinkling of an eye he pulled out his 
 pistol, c(K'ked it, placed the muzzle to Malek- 
 Adel's forehead, and fired. . . . 
 
 The poor horse sprang to one side, reared up 
 on his hind legs, leaped hack half a score of paces, 
 and suddenly fell heavily to the ground and be- 
 gan to I'attle hoarsely in his throat, as he writhed 
 convulsively on the ground. . . . 
 
 Tchert(^pkhanoff stopped up his ears with 
 both hands and set off on a run. His knees gave 
 way beneatli liim. Intoxication, and furv, and 
 hlind self-confidence — all deserted him on the in- 
 stant. Xothing remained but a feeling of shame 
 and disgust, and the consciousness, the indubi- 
 table consciousness, that this time he had done for 
 himself also. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Six weeks later, Perfishka the page considered it 
 his duty to stop the commissaiy of rural police 
 as the latter was passing EezscSnovo manor-house. 
 
 280
 
 THE END OF TCTTKRTOPKHANOFF 
 
 " What dost thou want? " — inquired tlie guar- 
 dian of order. 
 
 " Please, Your \Vell-Born, come into our 
 house," — repHed the page, with a low bow: 
 " Pantelei Eremyeitcli seems to be on tlie point 
 of deatli; and so, I 'm afraid." 
 
 " What? He is dying? " questioned the com- 
 missary. 
 
 " Exactly so, sir. At first he drank vodka 
 every day, but now, you see, he has taken to liis 
 bed, and has got very ill. I don't suppose he can 
 understand anything now. He 's perfectly 
 speechless." 
 
 The commissary alighted from his cart. — 
 " Well, hast thou not been to summon the priest, 
 at least? Has thy master made his confession? 
 Has he received the Sacrament? " 
 
 " No, sir, he has not." 
 
 The commissary of police frowned. — " How 
 comes that, my good fellow? Is that the proper 
 way to behave — hey? Or dost not thou know . . . 
 that the responsibility for it is very great — hey? " 
 
 " But I asked him the day before yesterday, 
 and yesterday, too," put in the intimidated page, 
 — " ' Do not you command me,' says I, ' Pan- 
 telei Eremyeitch, to run for the priest? ' — ' Hold 
 thy tongue, fool,' says he. ' Don't meddle in 
 what isn't thy business.' And to-day, when I 
 began to repoi't — he merely stared at me — and 
 twitched his moustache." 
 
 281
 
 MK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 "xVirI lias lie drunk iiuicli vodka?" — asked the 
 c'oiiiiiiissarv. 
 
 " Aw an fill lot! — But Ix,' so good, Your Well- 
 born, as to c-onie to his room." 
 
 " \\\\], kad the way! " — growled the commis- 
 sary, and I'ollowed l*erfishka. 
 
 ^Vn astonishing sight awaited him. 
 
 In the rear room of the house, dark and damp, 
 on a niiseral)le pallet, covered with a horse- 
 hlanket, with a shaggy kazak felt cloak in place 
 of a pillow, lay Tchertopkhanoff , no longer pale, 
 hut of a yellowish-green hue, like a corpse, with 
 eyes sunken heneath glossy lids, with a sharpened 
 hut still crimson nose above his dishevelled mous- 
 tache, lie was lying arrayed in his inevitable 
 kaziik coat, with the cartridge-cases on his breast, 
 and full Circassian trousers. A kazak fur cap 
 with a deep crimson top covered his forehead to 
 his very eyebrows. In one hand Tchertopkha- 
 noff held his kazak hunting-whip, in the other an 
 embroidered tobacco-j^ouch, JNlasha's last gift. 
 On the table by the bedside stood an empty 
 liquor-bottle; and at the head of the bed, fas- 
 tened to the wall with pins, two water-colour 
 drawings were visible: one, so far as could be dis- 
 cernedj represented a fat man wath a guitar in his 
 hands — probably, Xedopiiiskin; the other de- 
 picted a gallo])ing horseman The horse 
 
 resembled those fabulous animals which children 
 draw on walls and fences; but the carefully 
 
 282
 
 THE END OF TCTTERTOPKTIAXOFF 
 
 shaded dapples on its flanks and tlie cartridge- 
 cases on the rider's breast, the pointed toes of his 
 boots, and his luige moustache left no room for 
 doubt : tlie sketch was intended to depict Pantelei 
 Eremyeitch mounted on jNIalek-Adel. 
 
 The astonished commissary of ])()lice (hd not 
 know what to do. Deathly silence reigned in the 
 room. " Why, he has already expired," he said to 
 himself, and, raising his voice, he said: — "Pan- 
 telei Eremyeitch! Hey there, Pantelei Eremye- 
 itch!" 
 
 Then something remarkable took place. 
 Tchertopkhanoff 's eyes slowly opened, the extin- 
 guished pupils moved first to the right, then to the 
 left, came to a rest on the visitor, and saw him. 
 . . . Something glimmered in their dull white- 
 ness, the semblance of a glance made its appear- 
 ance in them; — the lips, already blue, gradually 
 parted, and a hoarse, already sepulchral voice 
 made itself heard. 
 
 " Pantelei Tchertopkhanoff, nobleman of an- 
 cient lineage, is dying; who can hinder him? — He 
 is indebted to no one, he demands nothing. . . . 
 Leave him, ye jjeople! Begone! " 
 
 The hand wliich held the kazak whip made 
 
 an effort to rise In vain ! The lips again 
 
 adhered to each other, the eyes closed, and Tcher- 
 topkhanoff' lay as before on his hard pallet, 
 stretched out flat and with his feet drawn close 
 together. 
 
 283
 
 AIKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 ** Let me kntnv when he is dead."-- whispered 
 the commissary of i)olice to Perfislika, as he left 
 the room: "and 1 think thou mightest go for 
 tlie priest now . Due order must be observed, — ^lie 
 must reeeive Holy l^nction." ' 
 
 Tliat same (hiy Perfislika went for the priest; 
 and on the following morning he had to notify 
 the commissary of police that Pantelei Eremye- 
 itch had died that night. 
 
 At his funeral, his coffin was escorted by two 
 men: Perfishka, the page, and ^Nloshel Leiba. 
 Tlie news of Tchertopkhanoff's demise had, in 
 some manner, reached the Jew; and he had not 
 failed to pay his last debt to his benefactor. 
 
 ^This unction in the Eastern Catholic Church is not Extreme 
 Unction in the sense of those words in the Roman Church, although 
 it is pciieraily administered before death. In the true spirit of 
 James v, 1 1— Ij it may be administered any number of times during 
 life, when a person is ill and not expected to die. 'Ihe full rite 
 calls for seven priests, but one priest can administer it. — Trans- 
 lator. 
 
 284
 
 X 
 
 LIVING HOLY RELICS 
 
 O native land of ])atient fortitude — 
 Land of the Russian folk art thou! 
 
 F. TlUTCIIEFF. 
 
 A French saying runs: " A dry fisherman and 
 a wet sportsman are sorry sights." As -1 have no 
 partiaHly for fishing, I am not able to judge of 
 a fisherman's feehngs in fine, clear weather, and 
 to what degree the satisfaction afforded liim in 
 stormy weather by an abundant catch outweighs 
 the unpleasantness of being wet. But for the 
 sportsman rain is a veritable calamity. To pre- 
 cisely such a calamity were Eremyei and I ex- 
 posed during one of our excursions after wood- 
 cock in the Byelovoe district. The rain had not 
 ceased falling since daybreak. What did not we 
 do to escape from it! We drew our rubber coats 
 up almost over our heads, and stood under trees, 
 so that there might be less dripping. . . . The 
 waterproof coats let the water througii in the most 
 shameless manner, not to mention the fact that 
 they interfered witli om- shooting; while, al- 
 though at first it did not appear to drip under the 
 trees, yet later on the moisture, which had been 
 gradually accumulating on the foliage, suddenly 
 
 285
 
 MKMOIKS OF A SPORTSMxVX 
 
 l)n)kt' tliioiigli. cNcrv branch showered down on 
 us watir as llioiigh from a rain-spout, a chilly 
 stream maik- its way under my neckerchief and 
 trickled down my spine. . . . AVell, this was " the 
 last stra^^• "! as Krmolai was wont to express him- 
 self. — " Xo, Piotr Petrovitch," — he exclaimed at 
 last. " This is unendurable! .... We cannot 
 hunt t()-(hiy. The dogs' scent will be drowned 
 out; tlie ^nns will miss fire. . . . Phew! What 
 a mess! "' 
 
 " Whiit is to l)e done? " — I asked. 
 
 " Why, this. — Let us go to Alexyeevka. Per- 
 haps you (h) not know that there is a farm there 
 which belongs to your mother; it is eight versts 
 from here. We can pass the night there, and to- 
 morrow . . . ." 
 
 " AVe can return here? " 
 
 " No, not here. ... I know some places the 
 
 other side of Alexyeevka mucli better 
 
 places for woodcock." 
 
 I did not interrogate my faithful companion as 
 to wliy he liad not guided me straight to those 
 places and that same day we reached ni}' mother's 
 farm, wliose existence, I must confess, I had not 
 hitherto suspected. At the farm there turned out 
 to be a small, detached building, very old, but not 
 inliabited, and therefore clean; in it I passed a 
 fairly (juiet night. 
 
 On the following morning I awoke very earlj'. 
 The sun had only just risen; there was not a sin- 
 
 280
 
 t;ivixg ttot.y relics 
 
 gle cloud in the sky; everything round ahoiit was 
 ghstening with a powerful (l()ul)le gleam: tlie 
 gleam oi' tlie young morning rays, and of the 
 heavy rain of the day before. — While my two- 
 wheeled cart was being harnessed, I went off for 
 a stroll in the small garden, which had formerly 
 been a fruit orchard, and was now utterly run 
 wild, surrounding tlie little wing on all sides witli 
 its fragrant, succulent thickets. Akh, how good 
 it was in the open air, beneath the clear sky, 
 where the larks were trilling, whence the silver 
 notes of their ringing voices showered down! 
 They had, probably, borne off drops of dew on 
 tlieir wings, and their songs seemed besprinkled 
 vvith dew. I even took my liat from my head, and 
 inhaled joyously, to the full extent of my kmgs. 
 . . . On the slope of a small ravine, close beside 
 the wattled fence, a collection of beehives was 
 visible; a narrow path led to it, winding in ser- 
 pentine fashion between dense walls of tall 
 steppe-grass and nettles, over whieli liung, 
 brought God knows whence, the sharp-tipped 
 stalks of dark-green hemp. 
 
 I wended my way along this path, and readied 
 the beehives. Alongside them, stood a small 
 shed with wattled walls,' a so-called ain.shdnik, 
 where coals are stored for winter use. I glanced 
 in at the half -open door; it was dark, still, dry; 
 
 ' In the ceiitrp and south of Russia, where wood is scarce, fences 
 and walls are made of lrec-l)oughs interwoven. — Tuansi.atok. 
 
 287
 
 .AIEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 there was an odour of mint and sweet-clover. In 
 one corner a platfoi-m had been fitted, and on it, 
 covered witli a (luilt, \ay a tiny figure. ... I was 
 on the point of l)cating a retreat .... 
 
 " ;Master, liey, master! Piotr Petrovitch! " — I 
 heard a voice, weak, slow, and hoarse, like the rus- 
 thng of marsh sedges. 
 
 1 stopped. 
 
 " Piotr Petrovitcli ! Come hither, please ! " — 
 repeated the voice. It was wafted to me from the 
 corner with the platform which I had noticed. 
 
 I approached — and grew rigid with amaze- 
 ment. Before me lay a living human being; but 
 what did it mean? 
 
 The head was completely dried up, all of one 
 bronze hue, — precisely like a holy picture painted 
 in ancient times; the nose was as narrow as the 
 blade of a knife; the lips were hardly visible, — 
 only the teeth and the eyes gleamed white, and 
 from beneath the kerchief thin strands of j^ellow 
 hair escaped upon the foreliead. Two tiny hands, 
 also bronze in colour, were moving by the chin, at 
 the fold of the coverlet, the fingers like little sticks 
 intertwining slowly. I looked more attentively: 
 the face was not only not hideous, it was even 
 beautiful, — but terrible, remarkable. And the 
 face seemed all the more terrible to me, because 
 I saw that a smile was striving .... striving 
 to spread over it, — over its metallic cheeks, — and 
 could not. 
 
 288
 
 LTVTNC; ITOLV RKTJCS 
 
 " Don't you recognise nic, master? " — wliis- 
 pered the voice again; it seemed to evaporate 
 from the barely-moving hps. — " But how should 
 you! — I am Lukerya. . . . You remember, the 
 one who used to lead the choral songs and dances 
 at your mother's, at Spasskoe? ... I was the 
 leader of the singers, as well; don't you remem- 
 ber? " 
 
 "Lukerya!" — 1 exclaimed. — "Art thou she? 
 Is it possible? " 
 
 " Yes, it is 1, master, — I am Lukerya." 
 
 I did not know what to say, and stared like one 
 stunned at that dark, motionless face with the 
 clear and deathly eyes riveted upon me. Was it 
 possible? That mummy was Lukerya, the great- 
 est beauty among all our domestics, — tall, plump, 
 white, and red, — the giggler, the dancer, the 
 singer! Lukerya, the clever Lukerya, to whom 
 all our young men had paid court, for whom I 
 myself had sighed in secret, — I, a lad of sixteen ! 
 
 "Good heavens, Lukerva," — I said at last: — 
 " what has liappened to thee? " 
 
 " Why, such a calamity has befallen me ! But 
 do not look at me with aversion, master, do not 
 loathe my misfortune, — sit down on that small 
 tub yonder, — come nearer, or you will not be 
 able to hear me. ... I have become so loud- 
 voiced, you see! ... . Well, and how glad I 
 am to see you! How comes it that you are in 
 Alexyeevka? " 
 
 289
 
 >rEMOTRS OF A SPORTSMxVX 
 
 Liiktrya .si)()ke very softly and feebly, but 
 witbout any breaks. 
 
 " Krniolai tbe lumter brougbt nie bitber. . But 
 tell nie . . . . " 
 
 " I am to tell you about my misfortune? — Cer- 
 tainly, master. It liappened to me long since, — 
 six or seven years am). Tbev bad just betrotbed 
 me to Vasilv PolvakofF, — do vou remember, be 
 was sueb a stately, curly-baired fellow,^ — be used 
 to serve in yom* motber's bouse as butler? But 
 you were no longer in tbe country at tbat time; 
 you bad gone away to ^Moscow to study. — Vasily 
 and I were very mucb in love witb eacb otber; I 
 tbougbt of bim continually; and it bappened in 
 tbe spring. So, one nigbt ... it was not long 
 before dawn . . . and I coidd not sleep: tbe 
 nigbtingale in tbe garden was singing witb such 
 
 wonderful sweetness! I could bear it no 
 
 longer, so I got up, and went out on tbe porcb to 
 listen to it. It warbled and warbled . . . and 
 suddeidy it seemed to me tbat some one was call- 
 ing me in Yasya's voice, softly, so: ' Liisba! ' . . . . 
 I glanced aside, and not being fully awake, j^ou 
 know, I made a misstep, straight from tbe land- 
 ing, and flew down — bang! on tbe ground. And 
 I did not appear to liave burt myself badly, for 
 I soon rose and returned to my chamber. Only, 
 it was as though something inside me — in my 
 belly — had been broken. . . . Let me take 
 breath for just a minute .... master." 
 
 290
 
 T.IVING TTOT.Y REIJCS 
 
 Liikerya stopped speaking, and 1 stared at lier 
 in amazement. Wliat particukirly astonnded me 
 was, that she told her story almost cheerily, .vith- 
 out any groans and sighs, without making the 
 slightest complaint, and without any appeal for 
 sympathy. 
 
 " From the moment of that accident," — went 
 on liukerya, — " I hegan to wither, to pine away; 
 I hegan to turn black ; it became difficult for me to 
 walk, and I had not full control of my legs; I 
 could neither stand nor sit; I wanted to lie down 
 all the time. I did n't feel like either eating or 
 drinking: I grew worse and worse. Your motlier, 
 in her goodness, showed me to the doctors, and 
 sent me to the hospital. But I obtained no relief. 
 And not a single doctor could even tell what sort 
 of malady 1 liad. They did all sorts of things 
 to me: they burned my back with red-liot irons, 
 they laid me in cracked ice — but it did no good. 
 
 At last, I got perfectly ossified Then 
 
 the gentlemen decided that it was useless to 
 treat me any longer, and it was n't fitting that 
 a cripple should be kept in the gentry's manor- 
 house well, and so they transferred me 
 
 hither, — I have relatives here. And so I live as 
 you see." 
 
 Again Lukerya ceased speaking, and again she 
 tried to smile. 
 
 "But th}^ condition is frightful!" — I ex- 
 claimed . . . and, without knowing what more 
 
 291
 
 MEMOTKS OF A SPOKTSMAX 
 
 to say, 1 iiujuired: — "And wliat alxnit Vasily 
 I'olvakoffV " — Tt was a very stupid question. 
 
 J.ukerya turned her eyes aside. 
 
 *' What about PolyakofF? — He grieved and 
 nricved, — and then he married another, a girl 
 fVoni (Th'nnoe. Do you know Gh'nnoe? It lies 
 not far from us. Her name was Agrafena. He 
 \\ as \ cry i'ond of me, — but he was a young man, 
 \<)ii see, — lie eould not remain a bachelor. And 
 liow eould I be his dear friend? But lie has found 
 foi- himself a good, kind wife,- — and he has chil- 
 dren. He lives there as manager to a neiglibour; 
 your mother gave him his passport, and he \s 
 doing very well, thank God! " 
 
 " And so thou liest here always like this? " — I 
 put another question. 
 
 " And so I lie here like this, master, this is the 
 seventh year. In summer I lie here in this wat- 
 tled shed, and when cold weather comes on they 
 carry me to the anteroom of the bath-house. 
 There I lie." 
 
 "But who tends on thee? Does any one look 
 after thee?" 
 
 " Why, there are kind people here also. They 
 do not desert me. And I do not need much look- 
 ing after. As for eating — I eat hardly anything, 
 and as for water — yonder it is, in that jug: it 
 always stands filled with pure spring water. I 
 can reach the jug for myself: I can still use one 
 of mv hands. And tlien there is a little girl, an 
 
 292
 
 LIVING IIOI-Y KET;rCS 
 
 orplian; slie always gives iiic wluit I need, tlwiiiks 
 
 to her. She was here a httle while ago 
 
 Did n't you meet her? She 's sueh a pretty, white 
 little thing. She brings nie flow^ers; I'm very 
 fond of them, — of flowers, I mean. We have no 
 garden-flowers here, — there were some, but tliey 
 have run out. But the wild flowers are nice too, 
 you know ; they smell even better than the garden - 
 flowers. Take lilies of the valley, for instance 
 . . . . what can be more agreeable! " 
 
 " Dost thou never feel bored or afraid, my ])oor 
 Lukerya? " 
 
 " But what is one to do? I will not lie — at flrst 
 I found it very tiresome; but afterward I got 
 used to it, I grew^ patient, — 't is nothing, some 
 ])eople are still worse off." 
 How^ so: 
 
 " Why, one person has no shelter! Another is 
 blind or deaf! But 1, thank (xod, can see splen- 
 didly, and hear everything, everything. If a 
 mole is burrowing underground, I hear it. And 
 I can detect every odour, no matter how faint it 
 is! If the buckw^heat in the fields comes into 
 bloom, or the linden in the garden, — it is not 
 necessary to tell me about it : I am the first of all 
 to perceive it, if only the breeze blow s from that 
 quarter. No, why anger God? — many people 
 are worse ofl" than I. Take this, for example: a 
 healthy man can very easily fall into sin; l)iit 
 from me sin has departed of itself. A while ago, 
 
 293
 
 MEMO IKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 Father Alexyei undertook to give me the Sacra- 
 ment, anil lie said : ' There 's no use in confessing 
 thee: is it possible for thee to sin in thy condition?' 
 — Hut I answered him: — 'And how about sin of 
 thought, batiushka? ' ' — ' Well,' says he, and be- 
 gins to laugh, ' that 's no great sin.' 
 
 " And it must be that I am not very guilty of 
 that same, — that mental sin," — went on Lukerya> 
 — -" because I have trained myself so; not to 
 think, and — most of all — not to remember. The 
 time passes more quickly so." 
 
 I must confess that I was astonished. — " Thou 
 art always entirely alone, Lukeryai* Then how 
 canst thou prevent thoughts from coming into 
 thy headi" Or dost thou sleep all the time? " 
 
 '* Oi, no, master! I am not always able to 
 sleep. Althougli I do not suffer great pain, — 
 yet there is a gnawing there inside me, and in my 
 bones also; it will not let me sleep as I should. 
 No. ... I just lie here by myself, and lie and 
 lie — and don't think; I am conscious that I am 
 alive, I breathe — and that is all. I see, I hear. 
 The bees hum and drone among the hives; a 
 pigeon alights on the roof and begins to coo; a 
 mother-hen comes along with her chicks and be- 
 gins to peck up the crumbs; or a sparrow or a 
 butterlly flutters in — ^which pleases me very much. 
 The year before last the swallows built themselves 
 
 •"Dear little father," literally; used in respect fully-aflFeetionate 
 address to a man of any rank, from tiie l-".ini)er()r down, hut es- 
 pecially the prerogative of the priesthood. — Tuansi-atok. 
 
 294
 
 LIVINC; llOLV KKLICS 
 
 a nest yonder in tlie corner, and i-aised their 
 brood. How interesting it was! One would lly 
 to the nest, alight on it, and feed the l)al)ies — and 
 off it would go again. And lo, the other one 
 would take its place. Sometimes tlie bird would 
 not fly in, but merely dash across the open door — 
 but the nestlings would immediately begin to 
 squeak, and ojjen their bills, ... I watched for 
 them the next year, but I was told that one of the 
 sportsmen in the neighbourhood had shot them. 
 And why did he covet them? For, altogether, a 
 swallow is no bigger than a beetle. . . . How 
 wicked you sportsmen are! " 
 
 " I do not shoot swallows," — I hastened to 
 remark. 
 
 " And then, once, what a good laugh I had! " 
 - — began Lukerya again. — " A hare ran in, — it 
 really did ! The dogs were chasing it, I suppose, 
 — ^only it seemed just to roll in through the door! 
 .... It squatted down quite close to me, and 
 sat there for a long time,^ — and kept moving its 
 nose and twitching its moustache, just like an 
 officer! And it stared at me. It understood, 
 probably, that 1 was not dangerous to it. At last 
 it got up, went hop-hop to the door, glanced 
 round on the threshold — and vanished from 
 sight! It w^as so funny! " 
 
 Lukerya cast a glance at me .... as much 
 as to ask: "Wasn't it funny?" I laughed to 
 please her. She bit her withered lips. 
 
 " Well, and in wintei', I am not so well off, of 
 
 295
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTS^SIAN 
 
 course: because it is dark; one hates to light a 
 caiulle. and wliat 's the use of it? Although I can 
 read and write, and was always fond of reading, 
 \shat is tliere for nie to read? There are no 
 hooks wliatever here, and even if there were any, 
 how could 1 hold a book? Father Alexyei 
 Ijiouffht me a calendar to divert me, but saw that 
 it was useless, so he took and carried it away 
 again. But although it is dark, there is always 
 something to listen to: a cricket will begin to 
 chirp or a mouse to gnaw somewhere. — And un- 
 der such circumstances it is a good thing not to 
 think! 
 
 " And then I recite prayers," — continued Lu- 
 kerya, after resting a while. — " Only I don't 
 know many of them, — of those same prayers. 
 ^Vnd why sliould I worry the Lord God? What 
 can I ask of Him? He knows better than I do 
 \vhat I need. He has sent me a cross — which sig- 
 nifies that He loves me. We are commanded to 
 understand it so. I repeat the Our Father, the 
 Hail Mary, the acathistus ^ to the Virgin of Sor- 
 rows, — and then I go on lying here without any 
 thought at all. And I don't mind it! " 
 
 A couple of minutes passed. I did not break 
 the silence, and did not stir on the narrow^ tub 
 \\hich served me as a seat. The stiff, stony im- 
 
 ' A service of liymns and prayers to the Saviour, tlie Virgin 
 Mother, or a Saint. The congregation stands throughout. — Traxs- 
 
 LATOU. 
 
 296
 
 LIVING HOLY RELICS 
 
 mobility of the living, iinliappy being who lay 
 there before me had communicated itself to me; 
 I also seemed to have become petrified. 
 
 " Hearken, Lukerya," — I said at last. — 
 " Hearken to the proposition which I am about 
 to make to thee. I will have thee taken to a hos- 
 pital, to a good hospital in the town: wouldst thou 
 like that? Perhaps they can cm-e thee — who 
 knows? At any rate, thou wilt not be alone. . . ." 
 
 Lukerya contracted her brows almost imper- 
 ceptibly. — " Okh, no, master," — she said, in an 
 anxious whisper, — " don't transfer me to the 
 hospital, don't touch me. I shall only undergo 
 more tortures there. — Cure me indeed! Why, a 
 doctor once came here, and wanted to examine 
 me. I begged him : ' Do not disturb me, for 
 Christ's sake ! ' It was no use ! He began to turn 
 me about, he kneaded and bent my arms and legs, 
 and says he: 'I 'm doing this in the interests of 
 science ; that 's what I 'm a learned man in the ser- 
 vice for! And thou,' says he, ' canst not oppose 
 me, because I have been given an Order to wear 
 on my neck for my laboiu-s, and I exert myself for 
 the benefit of you fools ! ' He mauled me, and 
 mauled me, and told me the name of my ailment, 
 — such a hard name, — and then he went away. 
 And all my bones ached for a whole week after- 
 ward. You say that I am alone, always alone. 
 No, not always. People come to me. I am quiet, 
 I do not disturb them. The young peasant girls 
 
 297
 
 .AIKMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 ilrop in, and chatter; a pilgrim strays in, and be- 
 gins to tell me about Jerusalem, about Kieff, 
 al)out the holy cities. And I am not afraid to be 
 alone. I even like it better so, truly I do! ... . 
 Don't touch me, master, don't take me to the hos- 
 pital I thank you, — you are kind, — 
 
 only don't touch me, my dear little dove." 
 
 " Well, as thou wilt, as thou wilt, Lukerya. I 
 meant it for thy good, seest thou. . . ." 
 
 " I know, master, that it was for my good. 
 But, master dear, who can help another? Who 
 can enter into this soul? A man must help him- 
 self! Xow, you will not believe it — but I some- 
 
 times lie here alone like this and it seems 
 
 as though there were not another person in all the 
 world except myself. I alone am living! And 
 I feel as though something were blessing me. 
 . . . Thoughts come to me — even wonderful 
 thoughts." 
 
 " What dost thou think about at such times, 
 Lukerya? " 
 
 " 'T is utterly impossible to tell thee that, mas- 
 ter: it can't be explained. And one forgets it 
 afterward, too. It is as though a little cloud de- 
 scended, and spread al)road, and everything be- 
 comes so cool and pleasant, — but what has hap- 
 pened you can't understand. Only, I think to 
 myself: ' If there were people about me, nothing 
 of this sort wordd take place, and I should feel 
 nothing, except my own misfortune.' " 
 
 298
 
 LIVING IIOLV HKLKS 
 
 Lukerya drew brejith with difficulty. Her 
 lungs did not obey her, any more than the rest of 
 her members. 
 
 " When I look at you, master," — she began 
 again, — " I feel very sorry for you. l^nt you 
 must not pity me too much, really! 111 tell 
 you something, for example: sometimes, even 
 now, I .... Of course, you remember what a 
 merry girl I was in my day? A dashing maid! 
 . . . So, do you know what? I sing songs even 
 now." 
 
 "Songs? .... Thou?" 
 
 " Yes, songs, ancient ballads, choral songs, ^ 
 Christmas carols, all sorts of songs! 1 knew a 
 great many, you see, and have not forgotten 
 them. Only I don't sing any dance-songs. It 
 is n't fitting, — in my present condition." 
 
 " But how dost thou sing them to 
 
 thyself? " 
 
 " Both to myself and with my voice. I can't 
 sing loudly, but they are audible, nevertheless. 
 There now, I have told you that a little maid 
 comes to me. She 's a (juick-witted orphan, you 
 see. So I have taught her; she has already 
 learned four songs from me. Don't you believe 
 it? Wait, — in a minute I '11 . . . ." 
 
 Lukerya mustered her forces. . . . The 
 thought that this half -dead being was preparing 
 
 ' The choral songs whicli accompany the games of the jjeasant 
 girls. Many of these games consist of slow, circling movements. — 
 Translator. 
 
 299
 
 .MKMOlliS OF A SrORTSMAX 
 
 lo shiy: aroused in inc involuntary terror. But 
 before I could utter a word, a prolonged, barely 
 audible, but pure and true sound tienibled on my 
 ears .... followed by a second, a tliird. Lu- 
 kerya was singing " In tlie Meadows." Sbe sang 
 witiiout altering the expression of her petrified 
 eountenance, even fixing her eyes in a stare. 
 But so touchingly did that poor, forced little 
 voice ring forth, like a wreath of luidulating 
 smoke, so greatly did her soul long to pour itself 
 out .... that I no longer felt terror: unutter- 
 able pity gripped my heart. 
 
 " Okh, 1 cannot!" — she said suddenly, — "I 
 
 have not the strength It has given me 
 
 great pleasure to see you." 
 
 She closed her eyes. 
 
 I laid my hand on her tiny, cold fingers. . . . 
 She darted a glance at me — and her dark eyelids, 
 fringed with golden lashes, as in an ancient statue, 
 closed again. A moment later, they began to 
 
 aleam in the semi-darkness Thev were 
 
 wet with tears. 
 
 As before, I did not stir. 
 
 "What a goose I am!" — said Lukerya sud- 
 denly, with unexpected force, and opening her 
 eyes wide, she tried to wink the tears from them. 
 — " Isn't it shameful^ What ails me? 'T is a 
 long time since anything of this sort happened 
 with me .... not since the day when Vasily 
 Polyakofi^' came to me, last spring. As long as he 
 
 300
 
 rjvrxc; iioT.Y kelics 
 
 was sitting uiicl talking with mc, it was all right; 
 but when he went away, I iust cried all bv niv- 
 self! I can't tell what made me do it! ... . 
 Tears come easy to us women, you know. Mas- 
 ter," — added Lukerya, — " you haye a handker- 
 chief, I suppose. . . . Don't disdain to wipe my 
 eyes. ..." 
 
 I hastened to comply with her request — and 
 left her the handkei'chief. At first she tried to 
 
 refuse saying: " ^Vhy should you make 
 
 me such a gift? " The handkercliief was a yery 
 plain one, but clean and white. Then she seized 
 it in her feeble fingers, and did not relax them 
 again. Haying become accustomed to the gloom 
 in which we both were, 1 could distinctly' discern 
 her features, could eyen detect a faint flush which 
 flitted across the bronze of her face, coidd dis- 
 coyer in that face — at least so it seemed to me — 
 traces of its former beauty. 
 
 " You w^ere asking me, master," — Lukerya 
 again began to speak, — " whether I sleep? As a 
 matter of fact, I sleep rarely; but when I do, I 
 haye such fine dreams! I neyer see myself as ill: 
 in my dreams I am always so healthy and young. 
 . . . . One thing is unfortunate: I wake up, and 
 want to stretch myself well, and lo! 1 am as 
 though fettered all o\'er. Once I had a wonder- 
 ful dream! I '11 tell you about it, shall I ?— Well 
 then, listen. — I seem to be standing in a field, and 
 all around is rye, so tall and ripe and golden ! . . . 
 
 301
 
 :mkmoirs of a sportsman 
 
 And I seem to have with me a small, reddish dog, 
 a \ c TV, very vieious beast — it is continually trying 
 to bite me. xVnd there seems to be a reaping-hook 
 in niv hands — not an oi-dinary hook, but exactly 
 like the moon when it resembles a reaping-hook. 
 And with that moon I am to reap the rye clean, 
 l^it I am greatly fatigued with the heat, and that 
 moon dazzles me, and languor comes upon me; 
 and all around corn-flowers are growing, and such 
 big ones ! And they have turned their little heads 
 toward me. And T think to myself: ' I will pluck 
 those corn-flowers; Vasya has promised to come 
 — so I Avill first weave myself a wreath; I shall 
 have time to do the reaping.' I begin to pluck 
 corn-flowers, but they begin to melt away, — melt 
 away between my Angers, — I never saw anything 
 like it! And I cannot weave myself a wreath. 
 Ikit, in the meantime, I hear some one coming 
 toward me, so close, and calling : ' Liisha ! 
 
 Lusha!' ' Ai,' thinks I to mj'self, 'woe 
 
 is me, I have n't got through the reaping! Nev- 
 ertheless, I will place the moon on my head in- 
 stead of the corn-flowers.' I put on the moon ex- 
 actly like a kokoshnik,' and immediately I myself 
 began to beam all over, and lighted up the whole 
 fleld. And lo! over the verj^ crests of the vye- 
 ears, there comes swiftly advancing toward me — 
 not Vasya, but Christ Himself! And how I 
 
 * The c-oronet-shaped head-dress of the peasant 
 maidens. — Tkansi.atoii. 
 
 302
 
 LIVINC; HOLY RELICS 
 
 knew that it was Christ, I cannot tell. — He is not 
 painted in that way, — hnt it was no one else but 
 He! 15eardless, tall, young, clad all in wliite, — 
 only His girdle was of gold, — and He stretches 
 out His hand to me. — ' Fear not, my bride adorned 
 for my coming,' — He says, ' follow me: tliou 
 shalt lead the chorals in my heavenly kingdom, 
 and play the songs of paradise!' — And how I 
 glue ni}^ lips to His hand! — JVIy dog instantly 
 falls at my feet .... but tlieii we soared up- 
 ward! He in front .... His wings spread out 
 over all the sky, as long as those of a sea-gull, — 
 and I after Him. And the little dog was forced 
 to leave me. Only then did I understand that 
 that dog was my malady, and that in the kingdom 
 of heaven there will be no room for it." 
 
 Lukerya paused for a moment. 
 
 " And I saw something else in a dream," — she 
 began anew, — " or perhaps it was a vision — 
 really, I do not know. It seemed to me that I am 
 lying in this same wattled shed, and my dead pa- 
 rents come to me,^ — mv father and mv mother, — 
 and bow low before me, but say nothing. And I 
 ask them : ' Whv do you do reverence to me, dear 
 father and mother? ' — ' Because,' — thev sav to 
 me, ' in that thou sufFerest great torture in this 
 world, thou hast not only lightened thine own 
 soul, but hast removed from us also a great bur- 
 den. And things have become much more pro- 
 pitious for us in the other world. Thou hast al- 
 
 303
 
 MKMOIirs OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 rciulv finisliecl with thine own sins; now thou art 
 con(iuering our sins.' And having spoken thus, 
 my paients did nic reverence again — and became 
 invisible; t)iily tlie walls were visible. I was 
 greatly perplexed al'terward as to what had hap- 
 pened to me. I even told the priest about it in 
 confession. I5ut he thinks that it was not a vision, 
 because only persons of the ecclesiastical profes- 
 sion have visions. 
 
 " And then, here is another dream I had," — 
 pursued Lukerya. — " I see myself sitting, appar- 
 entlv, on the hi<'liwav, under a willow-tree, hold- 
 ing a peeled staff in my hand, with a wallet on 
 my shoulders, and my head enveloped in a ker- 
 chief — a regular tramp! And I have to go 
 somewhere very, very far off, on a pilgrimage. 
 And tramps keep passing me; they are walking 
 softly, as though unwillingly, and all in one di- 
 rection; all their faces are dejected, and they all 
 resemble one another greatly. And I see that a 
 woman is winding in and out, darting about 
 among them; and she is a whole head taller than 
 all the rest, ami she wears a peculiar garb, not 
 like ours, not Russian. And she has a peculiar 
 face, too, — a fasting, stern face. And all the 
 others seem to draw a^^'ay from her, and, all of a 
 sudden, she wheels round, and makes straight 
 toward me. She comes to a halt and gazes, and 
 her eyes are like those of a falcon, yellow, large, 
 and bright, very bright. And I ask her: 'Who 
 
 304
 
 LIVING IIOT.Y KEIJCS 
 
 art thou?' — And she says to me: '1 am thv 
 death.' I suppose I ought to liave felt afraid ; hut, 
 on the contrary, I am ghid, so very glad, and I 
 cross myself! And the woman says to me: ' I am 
 sorry for thee, Lukerva, hut I cannot take thee 
 with me. — Farewell!' — O Lord! how sad I he- 
 came then !....' Take me,' I say, ' dear little 
 mother, my dear little dove, take me ! ' — And my 
 death turned round to me, and hegan to repri- 
 mand me I understand that she is ap- 
 pointing me my hour, but so unintelligibly, indis- 
 tinctly. . . . ' After the fast of St. Peter,' says 
 she. . . Thereupon I awoke. ... I do have such 
 wonderful dreams ! " 
 
 Lukerya raised her eyes upward .... he- 
 came pensive. . . . 
 
 '' Only, this is my misfortune: it sometimes 
 happens that a whole week ^^'ill pass without my 
 getting to sleep a single time. Last year a lady 
 passed by, and saw me, and gave me a phial with 
 medicine to prevent sleeplessness; she ordered me 
 to take ten drops at a time. It helped me a great 
 deal, and I slept ; only the phial was emptied long 
 ago. . . . Don't you know what medicine it was, 
 and how I could get some? " 
 
 The passing lady had, evidently, given Lu- 
 kerya opium. I promised to procure for her an- 
 other such phial, and again could not help ex- 
 pressing aloud my amazement at her patience. 
 
 " Ekh, master! " — she returned. — " What 
 
 30.5
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 makes vou sav thatr What do you mean by 
 I)atience^ Tliere was Simeon the StyHte, he had 
 •^rieat patience: he stood for thirty years on a pil- 
 hirl And another saint ordered them to bury 
 him in the earth up to his very chest, and the ants 
 devoured his face. . . . And here is something 
 whicli a well-read person once told me: there was 
 a certain country, and Agarians ^ conquered that 
 countrv, and thev tortured and slew all the inhabi- 
 tants: and do what the inhabitants would, they 
 could not possibly free themselves. And then a 
 holy, chaste virgin woman made her appearance 
 among those inhabitants; she took a great sw^ord, 
 put on armour eighty pounds in weight, went 
 against the Agarians, and drove them all beyond 
 the sea. Then, after she had driven them out, she 
 said to the people: ' Xo^y do you burn me, for 
 such was my vow, that I would die a death by fire 
 for my people.' — ^And the Agarians took her and 
 burned her, and that people set themselves free, 
 from that time forth forever! That was a feat! 
 But what have I done! " 
 
 Thereupon, I marvelled inwardly, at the place 
 and the form ^^•hieh the legend of Jeanne d'Arc 
 had attained, and, after preserving silence for a 
 few moments, I asked Lukerya how old she was. 
 
 " Twenty-eight .... or nine. ... I am not 
 yet thirty. But ^\•hat is the use of reckoning 
 
 *In Russian, EngVushmen is AnijUlchdne. Lukerya says 
 A(/ary<in('. 'I'uansi.ator. 
 
 306
 
 I.IVING IIOLV 1{KLICS 
 
 the years! Here's sonietliiiig else 1 must tell 
 you. . . ." 
 
 Siiddenly Lukerya gave a dull cough, and 
 groaned. . . . 
 
 " Thou art talking a great deal," — I remarked 
 to- her, — " it may injure thee." 
 
 " That is true," — she whispered in a barely 
 audible tone, — "our conversation must end; but 
 never mind! Now, when you are gone I can 
 keep silent to my heart's content. At all events 
 I have eased my soul. . . ." 
 
 I began to take leave of her, repeated my 
 promise to send her the medicine, re(|uested her to 
 think it over once more thoroughly, and tell me 
 whether she did not want something. 
 
 " 1 want nothing; I am content with every- 
 thing, thank God ! " — she articulated with a tre- 
 mendous eflPort, but with emotion. — " May God 
 grant health to all men! And see here, master, 
 you ought to persuade your mother to reduce the 
 quit-rent of the peasants here a little, at least — 
 for they are very poor. They have not sufficient 
 
 land, they have no pasture-land They 
 
 M'ould pray to God for you if you did it. . . . 
 But I need nothing. — I am content with every- 
 thing." 
 
 I gave Lukerya my word that I Mould comply 
 with her request, and was alrc^idy at the door — 
 when she called to me again. 
 
 " Do you remember, master," she said, — and 
 
 307
 
 JMK.MOIKS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 sonietliiiig ^^•olulerfvll flitted through her eyes 
 and over her Hps, — " what magnificent hair I 
 hacH It reached my very knees, — you remem- 
 ber! For a long time, I could not bring myself 
 to ... . Such hair as it was! — But how could 
 I comb it? In my condition ! — So I cut it off . . . 
 Yes. . . . Well, good-bye, master! IMy strength 
 is gone. . . ." 
 
 That same day, before I set out on my hunt, I 
 had a conversation about Lukerya with the assis- 
 tant manager of the farm. From him I learned 
 that she was called in the village " The Living 
 Holy Relics" ; that no one ever beheld her uneasy: 
 neither murmuring nor complaint was to be heard 
 from her. — " She asks for nothing herself, but, 
 on the contrarj^ she is thankful for everything; 
 she 's the quietest of the quiet, I must say. She 
 has been smitten by God," — wound up the assis- 
 tant manager,- — " for her sins, it must be; but we 
 don't go into that. And as for condemning 
 lier, — no, we do not condemn her. Leave her in 
 peace ! " 
 
 A ¥BW weeks later, I heard that Lukerya was 
 dead. Death had come for her, after all ... . 
 and " after St. Peter's Day." The people nar- 
 i-ated how, on the day of her death, she had heard 
 uninterruptedly the chiming of bells, although it 
 is reckoned more than five versts from Alex- 
 
 308
 
 LIVING HOLY RELICS 
 
 veevka to the church, and it ^\'as a week-day. 
 Moreover, Lukerya had said that the ringing did 
 not proceed from the church, but " from up 
 above." Probably she had not dared to say 
 " from heaven." 
 
 309
 
 XI 
 
 THE KATTIJNG 
 
 " I MUST tell you something," — said Ermolai, as 
 he entered my cottage: I had just eaten my din- 
 ner, and had lain down on the camp-bed, with a 
 view to resting a little after a fairly successful, 
 ])ut fatiguing hunt for woodcock — it was about 
 the tentli of July, and the heat was frightful. . . . 
 " I must tell you sometliing: we are completely 
 out of bird-sliot." 
 
 I sprang from the bed. 
 
 " Out of bird-shot? How is that? Why, we 
 took about tliirty pounds with us when we started 
 from the village — a whole sackful ! " 
 
 " That 's so; and it was a big sack: it ought to 
 have been enough for a fortnight. Hut who 
 knows! There may have been a hole in it; . . 
 anyhow, there is n't any .... there 's enough 
 left for about ten sliots." 
 
 " Wliat are we to do now? The very best 
 places are ahead of us — we were promised six 
 coveys for to-morro\\'. . . ." 
 
 "Send me to Tula. — It isn't far off: forty- 
 five versts in all. I '11 tly like the wind and bring 
 a wliole [)U(1 ' of bird-shot if you command me." 
 
 ' Aliout tliirty-six ])()uii(ls. — 'ru ansi atoii. 
 
 310
 
 THE RATTLING 
 
 " But when wilt thuu go? " 
 
 " Why, this very instant, if you hkc. What 's 
 the use of putting it oif ? Only, here 's one thing : 
 I must hire horses/' 
 
 " What (lost thou mean by liiring horses? — 
 And what are our own for? " 
 
 " Our own can't he used. — The shaft-horse has 
 gone lame .... awfully!" 
 
 "When did that hai)pen? '' 
 
 " Why, a little while ago, — the coachman took 
 him to be shod. Well, and they shod him. He 
 must have hit on a bad blacksmith. — Now the 
 horse can't even step on that foot — his fore foot. 
 So he carries it ... . like a dog." 
 
 "What then? Haven't they removed the 
 shoe, at least? " 
 
 " No, they haven't; but he certainly ought to 
 have the shoe taken off. . . I think the nail must 
 have been driven into the very flesh." 
 
 I ordered the coachman to be summoned. It 
 turned out that Ermolai had told the truth: the 
 shaft-horse reallv could not stand on his foot. — I 
 immediately took measures for having the shoe 
 removed and the horse placed on damp clay. 
 
 " Well? Do vou order me to hire horses for 
 Tula? " — Ermolai pressed me for an answer. 
 
 " Why, is it possible to find any horses in this 
 remote wilderness?" — I exclaimed with involun- 
 tary irritation. . . . 
 
 The village in which we found ourselves was 
 
 311
 
 MK>r()IHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 (Jilt of the way, in the wilds; all its inhabitants ap- 
 peared to be poverty-stricken; it was with diffi- 
 culty that we had hunted up one cottage which, if 
 not clean, w as at least tolerably spacious. 
 
 " It is, ' re])lie(l Ennoliii with his customary 
 ini})erturl)ability. — '' You have spoken truly 
 al)out this vi]la<>e; only, in this same place there 
 used to li\e one peasant. — Such a clever fellow! 
 So rich! He Iiad nine horses. He is dead, and 
 his eldest son now administers everything. He 's 
 a man — the stupidest of the stu])id. Imt he has n't 
 yet managed to get rid of all the paternal goods. 
 — ^Ve '11 get some horses from him. — If you com- 
 mand, I will bring him here. — His brothers are 
 lively lads, I 'm told .... nevertheless, he is 
 their head." 
 
 "Why is that?" 
 
 " Because he 's the eldest ! — That means, — 
 Younger lads, obey!" — At this point, Ermolai 
 expressed himself in strong and unprintable lan- 
 guage about younger brothers in general. — " I '11 
 bring him. He 's simple-minded. — You can 
 make your own terms with him." 
 
 While Krmolai went in search of his " simple- 
 minded " man, the idea occurred to me: " Would 
 it not be better for me to go to Tiila myself ? " In 
 the first place, taught by experience, I had not 
 much confidence in Ermolai; I had once sent him 
 to town to make some ])urchases, he had promised 
 to execute my commissions in the space of one day 
 
 312
 
 TTTE K ATI 1. IXC 
 
 — tiiid had disappeared for a whole week, liad 
 drunk up all the money, and had returned on foot, 
 although he had set out in a racing-drozhky. In 
 the second place, I was acquainted with a horse- 
 dealer in Tula; I might buy from him a horse 
 to take the place of the lame shaft-horse. 
 
 " That settles it! "—I thought.—" I '11 go my- 
 self; and I can sleep on tlie road — luckily, the 
 tarantas is comfortable." 
 
 "I've brought him!" — exclaimed Ermolai, a 
 quarter of an hour later, tumbling into the cot- 
 tage. — In his wake there entered a tall peasant, 
 in a white shirt, blue trousers, and plaited linden- 
 bark slippers, — a man with white eyelashes, blear- 
 eyed, with a small, red, wedge-shaped beard, a 
 long, thick nose, and a gaping mouth. He really 
 did look like a " weak-minded " person. 
 
 " Here, if you please," — said Ermolai, — " he 
 has horses, and he consents." 
 
 " This you see, — I . . . ." the peasant began 
 in a husky voice and with a stutter, tossing back 
 his thin hair, and fingering the rim of his caj), 
 which he held in his hands. — " I, you see " 
 
 " What is thy name? " — I inquired. 
 
 The peasant dropped his eyes and seemed to be 
 meditating. — " What is my name, did you say? " 
 
 "Yes; what is thy name?" 
 
 " Why, my name will be Filofei." 
 
 " Well, see here now, my good Filofei ; 1 hear 
 
 31.3
 
 MKMOIUS OF A SrORTSMAN 
 
 tliat thou liast horses.— Bring hither a troika- 
 \ve will hitch them to my tarantas, — it is a light 
 Qi^e, — aiul do thou drive me to Tula. It is a 
 moonlight night, the trip will be light and cool. 
 What sort of a road have you thither?" 
 
 "Koad^ The road's all right. — It's twenty 
 versts, all told, to the highway. Tliere 's one 
 
 small stretch wliich is bad; otherw^ise, 
 
 it 's all right." 
 
 '* What is that bad stretch?" 
 
 " \Miy. the river must be forded." 
 
 " 15ut are you going to Tiila yourself?" — in- 
 (juired Ermolai. 
 1 es, I am. 
 
 " Weill " — said my faithful servitor, and shook 
 his head, — " We-e-ell!" — he repeated, spat, and 
 left the room. 
 
 The trip to Tula, evidently, no longer had any 
 attractions; it had become for him an empty and 
 uninteresting matter. 
 
 " Dost thou know the road well? " — I said, ad- 
 dressing Filofei, 
 
 "Why shouldn't w^e know the road! — Only, 
 you see, 1 can't go anyhow .... it 's so sud- 
 den " 
 
 It turned out that Ermolai, in hiring Filofei, 
 had announced to him that he had no doubt that 
 he, the fool, would be ])ai(l and nothing- 
 more ! Filofei, although he was a fool, accord- 
 ing to Krmolai's statement, was not satisfied 
 
 314
 
 THE RAT TTJXG 
 
 with that annouiiccnieiit alone. He deniaiuled 
 from me fifty rubles, — a huge sum; 1 offered him 
 ten rubles, — a low price. — We began to haggle; 
 at first, Filofei was obdurate — then he began to 
 yield, but slowly. I]irmolai, who came in for a 
 minute, began to assure me that " this fool " — 
 (" Evidently, he has taken a fancy to the word! " 
 — commented Filofei in an undertone) — "this 
 fool does n't know the value of money " — and, 
 incidentally, reminded me how, twenty years pre- 
 viously, the posting-station erected by my mother 
 on a fine site, at the intersection of two highways, 
 had sunk into utter decay, owing to the fact that 
 the old house-serf, who had been placed there to 
 manage the establishment, reallj'^ did not know 
 how to reckon money, and judged of it accord- 
 ing to its quantity,^ — that is, he would give, 
 for instance, a silver quarter-ruble for six 
 copper five-kopek pieces, swearing roundly the 
 while. 
 
 " Ekh, thou, Filofei, art a regular Filofei ! " — 
 ejaculated Ermolai at last, — and quitting the 
 room in a rage, he banged the door behind him. 
 
 Filofei made him no reply, as tliough conscious 
 of the fact that to be named Filofei was, in re- 
 ality, not (|uite expedient, and that a man may be 
 upbraided for it, although, pro])erly speaking, 
 the person to blame in the matter is the ])riest, 
 who has not been as benignant to him as he should 
 have been. 
 
 315
 
 M KM OIKS OF A SrOKTSMAX 
 
 But, ;it hist, we agreed upon twenty rubles.— ^^ 
 He went oti' to get the horses, and an liour hiter 
 led up five from wliieh I was to make my ehoice. 
 The horses seemed to l)e pretty good, although 
 theii- manes and tails were tangled, and their bel- 
 lies were bii>- and taut as a drum. — With Filof ei 
 eame two of his brothers, who bore not the slight- 
 est resemblanee to liim. Small, black-eyed, sharp- 
 nosed, they really did produce the impression of 
 heinii' " lively lads "; thev talked much and fast, 
 — " cackled," as Ermolai expressed it,— but ren- 
 dered obedience to their elder brother. 
 
 They rolled the tarantas from beneath the shed, 
 and worked over it and tlie horses for an hour and 
 a half; now they loosened the rope traces, again 
 they hitched them up very tight!. Both brothers 
 insisted upon harnessing the " roan " in the 
 shafts, because " you kin let that critter fidl-tilt 
 down hill"; ' — but Filof ei decided in favour of 
 a very shaggy horse. — So the shaggy horse was 
 put in the shafts. 
 
 They stuffed the tarantas full of hay, and 
 thrust under the seat the lame horse's collar — in 
 case it should prove necessary to fit it to the 
 newly-purchased horse in Tula. . . . Filofei. 
 who liad contrived to run home and return thence 
 in a long, white peasant-coat which had belonged 
 to his father, a tall conical cap, and oiled boots, 
 clambered solemnly to the driver's box. — I took 
 
 ' Russians drive at full speed down and up liiils. — Translator. 
 
 316
 
 TIIK UATTLIXC; 
 
 my seat, and looked at my watcli: it was a quai- 
 ter past ten. — Ermolai did not e\'en take leave of 
 me, having set about thrashing his Valetka; 
 Filofei jerked the reins, shouted in an extremely 
 shrill little voice: " Kkh, you tiny beasts!" — his 
 brothers sprang up on each side, lashed the trace- 
 horses under the belly, and the tarantas rolled off, 
 and turned through the gate into the street. The 
 shaggy horse made an attempt to dash to his place 
 in the yard, — but Filofei brought him to his senses 
 by a few blows of his whip, — and we had soon left 
 the village behind and were bowling along a tol- 
 erably level road, between dense thickets of nut- 
 bushes. 
 
 The night was calm and magnificent, the most 
 convenient sort for driving. 
 
 At times, the breeze would rustle among the 
 bushes, rocking the branches; at times it would die 
 away completely: but here and there in the sky 
 motionless silvery clouds were visible; the moon 
 rode hif^h, brilliantly illuminating the country- 
 side. — I stretched myself out on the hay, and was 
 
 already beginning to fall into a doze 
 
 when the " bad stretch " suddenly recurred to my 
 memory, and I started up. 
 
 " How now, Filofei ? Is it far to the ford ? " 
 
 " To the ford, you say? It will be about eight 
 
 versts." 
 
 " ' Eight versts,' "—I thought to myself.— 
 *' We shall not get there under an hour. — I can 
 
 ;)17
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SrOUTSMAN 
 
 take a nap." — " Dost thou know the road well, 
 Filofeif " — 1 Lisktd another (juestion. 
 
 " \Vhy, how could 1 help it, knowing the 
 roadf T is n't tlie first time I 've been over it." 
 
 He added something more, hut I was no longer 
 listening- to liini. ... I was asleep. 
 
 \y 1 1 AT aroused me was not my intention to awake 
 l)recisel\' an liour later, as is often the case, — but 
 a strange, though faint dragging through mud 
 and gurgling directly under my ear. — I raised my 
 head. . . . 
 
 What marvel Avas this ? — I was lying, as before, 
 in tlie tarantas; but around the tarantas, — and 
 about fourteen inches — not more — from its rim, 
 a \\ atei-y expanse, lighted up by tlie moon, was 
 dimpling and undulating in small, distinct rip- 
 ples. I cast a glance ahead: on the box, with 
 drooping head and bowed back, sat Filofei, like 
 a statue, — and further away still, over the purl- 
 ing water, — the curving line of the shaft-arch 
 and the heads and backs of the horses were visible. 
 — And everything was so motionless, so noiseless, 
 — exactly as in the realm of encliantment: in a 
 dream, a fantastic dream. . . . AVhat did it 
 mean? — I darted a glance backward from be- 
 neath the liood of the tarantas. . . . Why, we 
 were in the very middle of the river .... the 
 sliores were more than thirty paces distant from 
 
 us! 
 
 318
 
 THE RATTLING 
 
 "Filolei!"— 1 shouted. 
 
 " What r'— he replied. 
 
 " What dost thou mean by ' wliat '? Good gra- 
 cious! Where are we?" 
 
 " In the river." 
 
 " I see tliat we are in the river. — But if we go 
 on like this, we shall drown. — Dost mean to say 
 that thou art traversing the ford in this manner? 
 Hey? — Why, thou art fast asleep, Filofei! 
 Come, answer me! " 
 
 " I 've got a trifle astray," — said my driver: — 
 " I 've gone to one side, you know, more 's the 
 pity ; but now we must wait." 
 
 "What dost thou mean by 'must wait'? — 
 What are we to wait for? " 
 
 " Why, here, let the shaggy horse look about 
 him: wherever he turns, there the ford will 
 be, you see, and we must drive in that direc- 
 tion." 
 
 I half sat up on the straw. — The head of the 
 shaggy horse hung motionless over the water. — 
 The only thing that could be seen by the clear 
 light of the moon was, that one of its ears was 
 moving backward and forward almost impercep- 
 tibly. 
 
 " Why, he 's fast asleep also, thy shaggy 
 horse! " 
 
 "No," — replied Filofei: — "he's sniffing the 
 water now." 
 
 Again everything relapsed into silence, and, as 
 
 319
 
 MKMOlirS OF A SPOHTSMzVX 
 
 IkIoic, tlierc uas no sound save the purling 
 of the water. — I also grew benumbed. 
 
 Tlie Miooiilight, and the night, and the river, 
 and wc in it ... . 
 
 ■ What 's that making such a hoarse sound?" 
 — 1 asked Filoiei. 
 
 "That^ — Dneklings in the reeds .... or 
 snakes." 
 
 All at once the head of the shaft-horse began 
 to shake, he pricked up his ears, he began to snort, 
 and turned round. — " Xo-no-no-noo! " Filofei 
 suddenly roai-ed at the top of his lungs, and, half- 
 rising, he brandished his whip. The tarantas im- 
 mediately moved from its stand, dashing forward 
 at an angle across the current of the river — and 
 advanced, quivering and swaying. ... At first 
 it seemed to me that we w^ere sinking, plunging 
 into the depths; but after two or three jolts and 
 dives, the watery expanse seemed suddenly to 
 grow shallower. ... It kept sinking lower and 
 lower, the tarantas kept rising higher and higher 
 out of it, — lo! the wheels and the horses' tails had 
 already made their a])pearance, — and now% with 
 mighty and violent splashings, raising sheaves of 
 diamonds, — no, not of diamonds, but of sap- 
 I)hires, which dispersed in the full gleam of the 
 moon, — the horses dragged us cheerily and w ith a 
 final effort on to the sandy shore, and proceeded 
 along the road, up-hill, vying with each other in 
 trotting along with their shining, wet hoofs.
 
 THE KATTTJXG 
 
 "What will Filolci say now r'— flushed 
 through my mind: " ' Vou see I was right! ' — or 
 something of that sort t " Hut he said nothing at 
 all. Consequently, I did not consider it necessary 
 to upbraid him for his lack of caution, and 
 stretching myself out again upon the hay, I tried 
 to get to sleep. 
 
 But I could not get to sleep, not because I was 
 fatigued with hunting, and not because the trepi- 
 dation I had undergone had driven slumber from 
 me, — but probably because we were obliged to 
 pass through very beautiful places. Now there 
 WTre spacious, luxiu'iant, grassy water-meadows, 
 with a multitude of small pools, lakes, brooks, 
 creeks overgrown at their extremities with wil- 
 lows and vines, genuine Russian spots, beloved of 
 the Russian folk, similar to those whither the 
 heroes of our ancient epic songs ^ were wont to 
 go to shoot white swans and grey ducks. The 
 well-beaten road wovmd in a yellowish ribbon, the 
 horses ran lightly — and I could not close an eye, 
 — to such a degree was I admiring things! And 
 all this glided past me so softly and sedately, be- 
 neath the friendly moon. — Even Filofei was af- 
 fected. 
 
 " Those are what are called among us the 
 Saint-George meadows," — he said, turning to 
 me; — "and next come the Grand-Prince mea- 
 
 *See "The Epic Songs of Russia," l)y Isabel F. Hapgood. 
 Charles Seribner's Sons. 
 
 321
 
 MEMOIRS OF A srORTSMAN 
 
 (lows; tlRTc are no otlier meadows like them in all 
 
 Russia They are very heautiful!" — The 
 
 sliat't-horse snorted and shook himself. . . . 
 
 • Lord hless thee! " said Filofei, staidly 
 
 and in an undertone. — '' Aren't they beautiful! " 
 he repeated, u itli a sigh, and then indidged in a 
 prolonged groan. " The mowing-lands begin 
 pretty soon, now, and what a lot of hay they get 
 from them — an awful lot! — And there are quan- 
 tities of fish in the ereeks, too. — Such bream! " — 
 he added in a (lra\\l. " In a word : there is no need 
 of dying from hunger! " 
 
 Suddenly he raised his hand. 
 
 "Ehva! — just look yonder! over yonder lake 
 
 .... is n't it a heron standing there? can it be 
 
 possil)le that it is catcliing fish by night? Ekh-ma! 
 
 t is a stump, not a heron. I was fooled that time! 
 
 but the moon always deceives." 
 
 Thus did we drive on and on. . . . But now 
 the meadows came to an end, small tracts of for- 
 est made their appearance, and tilled fields; a 
 handet on one side twinkled with two or three 
 lights, — not more than five versts remained to the 
 highway. — I fell asleep. 
 
 Again I did not wake of my own accord. This 
 time Filofei's voice aroused me. 
 
 "Master .... hey, master!" 
 
 I raised myself on my elbow. — The tarantas 
 was standing still on a level spot, in the very mid- 
 dle of ihe highway; turned round toward me on 
 
 322
 
 THE RATTLING 
 
 the box, full face, with his eyes widely opened 
 (1 was even astonished, not having- supj)()se(l that 
 he had such large eyes), Filofei whispered sig- 
 nificantly and mysteriously: 
 
 "There's a rattling! .... There's a rat- 
 tling!" 
 
 " What 's that thou 'rt saying? " 
 
 " I say there 's a rattling! — Just bend down 
 and listen. Do you hear? " 
 
 I thrust my head out of the tarantas, and 
 held my breath: — and, in fact, I did hear some- 
 where in the distance, far away from us, a faint, 
 spasmodic rattling, as though of rumbling 
 wheels. 
 
 " Do you hear? " — repeated Filofei. 
 
 " Well, yes," — I replied. " Some equipage is 
 driving on the road." 
 
 "But you don't hear it hist! There 
 
 it is ... , harness-bells and a whistle 
 
 too Do you hear? Come, take off 5^our 
 
 cap you will hear more distinctly." 
 
 I did not take off my cap, but lent an ear. — 
 
 " Well, yes perhaps I do. — But what 
 
 of that?" 
 
 Filofei turned his face toward his horses. 
 
 " A peasant-cart is rolling swiftly 
 
 unladen, tlie wheels have tires," he said, as he 
 gathered up his reins. ^—" It means, master, that 
 evil peo[)le are driving yonder; for here, in the vi- 
 cinity of Tula, there 's a lot of frolicking." 
 
 323
 
 MKMOIHS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 • What nonsense! Why dost thou assume that 
 tliey must, iiif'allihly, he wieked people?" 
 
 •■ I 111 ulhno you truly. — Witli hells . . . . 
 and in an unladen eart. . . . Who can it he? " 
 • \\\11. and is it very far to Tula still T' 
 
 • It must l)e a good fifteen versts, and there 's 
 noi a sign of a dwelhng/' 
 
 •• Well, tluii, drive on as rapidly as possihle; we 
 must make no delay." 
 
 Filofei flourished his whip, and again the ta- 
 rantas rolled on. 
 
 Although I did not helieve Filofei, still I coidd 
 no longer sleep.— And what if, in reality . . . . ? 
 An unpleasant sensation hegan to stir within me. 
 — 1 sat up in the tarantas — up to that time I had 
 been lying down — and began to gaze on all sides. 
 While I had been asleep, a thin mist had gathered 
 — not over the earth, but over the sky; it lay 
 liigh up, — the moon hung in it like a whitish s])ot, 
 as tliough veiled in crape. Everytliing had 
 grown dull and confused, although below things 
 were more visible. — All around lay flat, melan- 
 choly places; fields, and more fields, here and 
 tliere a few bushes, ravines — and then more fields, 
 and chiefly fallow land, w itli sparse, weedy grass. 
 Empty .... dead! Not even a quail was call- 
 ing. 
 
 We drove on for half an hour. — Filofei was 
 contiriually cracking his whip and chirru]iing 
 
 324
 
 TTTK T^ATTTJXC; 
 
 with liis lips, but ucitlRi- lie iioi- i iitleivd a word. 
 
 Now we ascended a hillock r'iloiei 
 
 stopped the troika, and ininiediately said: 
 
 " There 's a rattlin<4- a raltlin<>\ mas- 
 ter! '' 
 
 Again 1 hung out of the tarantas; I)ut 1 niight 
 as well have remained under the hood, so clearly, 
 though distinctly, was there now borne to my ears 
 the sound of cart-^^•heels, men whistling, the jing- 
 ling of the harness-hells, and the trampling of 
 horses' hoofs; 1 even fancied I heard singing and 
 laughter. The breeze, it is true, was blowing 
 from that qnarter, but there was no doubt of the 
 fact that the unknown travellers had drawn 
 nearer to us l)y a whole verst — possibly, even, by 
 two versts. 
 
 Filofei and I exchanged glances, — he merely 
 moved his cap from the back of his head over his 
 brow, and immediately, bending over the reins, 
 began to lash the horses. They set out at a gal- 
 lop, but could not keep up the pace long, and 
 again dropped into a trot. — Filofei continued to 
 belabour them. We must make our escape! 
 
 T could not account to myself for the fact that 
 this time I, who had not at first shared Filofei's 
 sus])icions, had suddenly acquired the conviction 
 that it was really evil-doers who were driving in 
 pursuit of us. ... I had heard nothing new: 
 there Avere the same bells, there was the same 
 rattlino- sound of an unloaded cart, the same whis-
 
 MEMOIRS OF A SP01iTSMA^ 
 
 tling, the same confused uproar. . . . But I now 
 no longer cherished any doubt. . Filofei could 
 not he mistaken! 
 
 And thus twenty more minutes passed. . . . 
 In the course of these last twenty minutes, 
 athwait the rattling and rumbling of our own 
 equipage, we could hear another rattling, another 
 rumbling. . . . 
 
 ■ Hall, Filofei! " — I said: " it makes no differ- 
 ence — there can be but one end to this:' " 
 
 Filofei uttered a faint-hearted " Whoa! " The 
 horses stopped instantly, as though delighted at 
 the possibility of taking a rest! 
 
 Good heavens! the bells were simply roaring 
 behind our backs, the cart was thundering on 
 with a rattle, men were whistling, shouting, and 
 singing, the horses were neighing and pounding 
 the earth M'ith their hoofs. . . . 
 
 They had overtaken us ! 
 
 " Ca-la-mee-ty! " — said Filofei brokenly, in an 
 undertone — and, with an irresolute chirrup, he 
 began to urge on his horses. But at the same mo- 
 ment, something seemed suddenly to give way 
 with a crash and a roar and a groan, — and a very 
 large, broad peasant-cart, drawn by three ema- 
 ciated horses, overtook us abruptly, like a whirl- 
 wind, dashed past us, and immediately slowed 
 down to a walk, blocking the road. 
 
 "A regular brigand trick!" — whispered 
 Filofei. 
 
 326 
 
 /
 
 TIIK RATTLING 
 
 1 must admit tluit my heart began to l)cat 
 wildly. ... I began to stare intently into the 
 semi-gloom of the moonlight veiled in va])onrs. 
 In the cart, in front of us, half-sitting, half-lying, 
 were six men in shirts, with their peasant-coats 
 wide open on the breast ; two of them were bare- 
 headed ; huge feet in boots dangled, jolting, over 
 
 the rail; hands rose and fell at random 
 
 bodies heaved to and fro It was plain 
 
 that the whole gang was drunk. Some were yell- 
 ing hoarsely w'hatever happened to come into 
 their heads; one w^as w'histling in a very clear 
 and piercing manner, another was swearing; 
 on the driver's seat sat a sort of giant in a 
 short, sheepskin coat, driving. They drove on 
 at a foot-pace, as though paying no attention 
 to us. 
 
 What was to be done? We drove after them, 
 also at a foot-pace. 
 
 For a quarter of a verst we proceeded in this 
 
 manner. — Anticipation was torturing 
 
 What chance was there of saving ourselves, de- 
 fending ourselves! There were six of them: and 
 I had not even a stick with me! Should we turn 
 back on our course? — but they would immediately 
 overtake us. I recalled a verse of Zhukovsky 
 (where he is speaking of the murder of Field- 
 Marshal Kamensky) : 
 
 <( 
 
 The despised axe of the brigand . 
 327 
 
 »>
 
 MKMOTRS OF A SPORTSMAX 
 
 If not that, tluy would strangle us with a 
 filtliy rope .... and fling us into the ditch 
 . . . . . and tliere we might rattle in the throat 
 and struggle like a hare in a snare 
 
 Kkh. we were in a had plight! 
 
 IJut tliev continued to drive at a walk, as be- 
 fore, and pay no attention to us. 
 
 " Filofei! "—1 whispered, — " pray try to turn 
 more to the right. Endeavour to pass them." 
 
 Filofei made the attempt, — and turned out to 
 the riglit .... hut they immediately drove to 
 the. right also; .... evidently, it was impossi- 
 ])le to pass them. 
 
 Filofei tried again: he turned out to the left. 
 .... But they did not let him pass on that side, 
 either. They even burst out laughing. Which 
 mea?it, that they would not let us pass. 
 
 ''Regular brigands!" — whispered Filofei to 
 me over his shoulder. 
 
 " But wliat are they waiting for? " — I asked, 
 also in a whisper. 
 
 " Whv, vonder — ahead, in the ravine, over the 
 stream — is a small bridge. . . . They 're going to 
 attack us there! They always do like that .... 
 near a l)ridge. We're done for, master!" — he 
 added, witli a sigh : — " it is n't likely that they will 
 release us alive; l)ecause the principal thing with 
 tliem is — to hide all traces. — I 'm sorry for one 
 tiling, master: my troika-team will be lost, and 
 mv brothers will not get it! " 
 
 328
 
 TITE RATTLING 
 
 I was surprised that Filofei could worry about 
 his horses at such a monieut, — and I must confess 
 
 that 1 did not think much of him just then 
 
 " Is it possible tliat they will kill us? " I kept re- 
 iterating mentally. — " What for? I will give up 
 to them everything I have about me. . . ." 
 
 And the bridge drew nearer and nearer, became 
 more and more clearly visible. 
 
 Suddenly a sharp yell rang out, the troika in 
 front of us seemed to soar into the air, dashed off, 
 and having galloped to the bridge, came to an ab- 
 rupt halt, as though rooted to the spot, a little to 
 one side of the road. Mv heart fairly sank into 
 my boots. 
 
 " Okh, brother Filofei,"— said I:—" tliou and 
 I are driving to our death. — Forgive me, if I 
 have destroyed thee." 
 
 " How is it thy fault, master! No one can es- 
 cape his fate! Come on, shaggy, my faithful 
 nag," — said Filofei, addressing the shaft-horse, 
 — " go ahead, brother! Render us the last service! 
 
 — All together now! Lord, give us thy 
 
 blessing! " 
 
 He launched his troika at a gentle trot. 
 
 We began to approach the bridge, — to ap- 
 proach that motionless, menacing cart. . . . ^Vll 
 had grown silent in it, as though of set purpose. 
 Not a sound was to be heard ! Thus does the pike, 
 the hawk, every beast of prey grow silent wh.en 
 its prey is approaching. — And now we came 
 
 329
 
 ME.AIOIRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 alongside the eart Suddenly the giant in 
 
 the short sheepskin coat gave a great leap from 
 it, and dashed straight at us! 
 
 Not a word did he say to Filofei, but the latter 
 immediately drew rein. . . . The tarantas came 
 to a standstill. 
 
 The giant laid his hands on the carriage-door — 
 and bending forward his shaggy head, and grin- 
 ning broadly, he uttered the following w^ords in 
 a quiet, even voice, with the accent of a factory- 
 hand : 
 
 " Respected sir, we are on our way from an 
 honourable carouse, from a wedding-feast; we 
 have been marrying off our fine young fellow, 
 you know; we have just put the young pair to 
 bed ; we lads are all young, reckless, — we 've 
 drunk a lot, — but there was n't enough for us to 
 get drunk on; — so, will not you do us a favour, 
 will not you contribute to us just the least little 
 bit of money, — so that we may buy a dram 
 of liquor for each brother of us? — We would 
 drink your health, we would remember Your 
 Stateliness; ^ — but if you will not do us the 
 favour, — well, then, we beg that you will not 
 be angry." 
 
 " What 's the meaning of this? " — I said to 
 
 ' Step^nstvo, the title given by the populace to respected per- 
 sons of their own and of the burgher class. In Siberia, Orenburg, 
 and the Caucasus, the title is applied to Asiatic suHans, inurzas, 
 l)ftty princes, and elders, while it is decreed by law to the Kirghiz 
 sultans. But Khans are called "Your High-Statelines»"— Trans- 
 lator. 
 
 330
 
 THE RATTLING 
 
 myself. ..." Is it raillery? .... Is lie jeer- 
 ing at me? " 
 
 The giant eontinued to stand there, witli bowed 
 
 head. At that instant the moon emerged from the 
 
 mist, and illuminated liis face. It was smihntJ-, 
 
 •was that face — both with eyes and lips. iVnd no 
 
 menace was perceptible in it only, it 
 
 seemed to be all alert and his teeth were 
 
 so white, and so large. . . 
 
 " I will contribute with pleasure Here, 
 
 take this. ..." I said hastily — and drawing 
 my purse from my pocket, I took from it 
 two silver rubles: at that time, silver money was 
 still current in Russia. — " Here, if this is 
 enough." 
 
 "We're very grateful!" — bawled the giant, 
 in soldier fashion — and his thick fingers instantly 
 snatched from me — not my whole piu'se — but 
 only those two rubles. " We 're very grate- 
 ful!" — He shook back his hair, and ran to the 
 cart. 
 
 "My lads!" — he shouted: "The gentleman- 
 traveller contributes two rubles to us ! " — They 
 
 all instantly began to yell The giant 
 
 clambered to the box. . . . 
 
 " May you be happy! "... 
 
 The horses started off, the cart thundered up 
 hill, — once more it flashed through the dark streak 
 which separated earth from heaven, sank into it, 
 and vanished. 
 
 331
 
 MK^rOTRS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 Aiul now the rattling, and the shoiithig, and 
 the bells were no longer to be heard. . . . 
 Deathlike silence reigned. 
 
 FiLOFEi and 1 did not speedily recover ourselves. 
 
 " Akh, curse thee, what a jester thou art! " — 
 said Filofei at last— and taking off his cap, he 
 began to cross himself.—" Rea%, he is a joker," 
 — he added, and turned to me, all radiant with 
 delight.—" But he must be a good man — really! 
 — No-no-noo, my little ones! bestir yourselves! — 
 You 're safe and sound ! We 're all safe and 
 sound ! — That 's why he would n't let us pass ; 
 he was driving the horses. What a joker of 
 a lad. — No-no-no-noo ! — proceed, with God's 
 blessing! " 
 
 I held my peace, — but I also felt relieved in 
 soul. " We 're safe and sound! " — I repeated to 
 myself, and stretched myself out on the hay. — 
 " We got off cheaply ! " 
 
 I even felt a little conscience-stricken at hav- 
 ing recalled Zhukovsky's lines. 
 
 All at once an idea occurred to me : 
 
 "Filofei!" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Art thou married? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And hast thou children? " 
 
 " I have." 
 
 " How was it tliat thou didst not think of them? 
 
 332
 
 THE RATTLING 
 
 Thou wert sorry about the liorses — but not about 
 thy wife and eliildren?" 
 
 " But why should I feel sorry for them? They 
 would n't have fallen into the hands of tliieves, 
 you see. — And 1 kept them in my thoughts all 
 the while, — and I 'm keeping them there now 
 .... so I am." — Filofei stopped. — " Perhaps 
 .... it was for their sakes that the Lord God 
 had mercy on you and me." 
 
 " But supposing they were not brigands? " 
 
 "And how do we know? — Is it possible to 
 crawl into another man's soul, I 'd like to know? 
 — Another man's soul is ... . darkness . . . 
 everybody knows that. But 't is always better to 
 have God's blessing. — No . . as for my family, 
 I always .... Now-now-now, little ones, Go-d 
 be with us! " 
 
 It was almost daybreak when we began to enter 
 Tula. I was lying in the semi-forgetfulness of 
 slumber. . . . 
 
 " JNIaster," — said Filofei suddenh^ to me, 
 "look yonder: there it stands, yonder by the 
 dram-shop their cart." 
 
 I raised my head .... it was they, in fact, 
 and their cart, and their horses. On the threshold 
 of the drinking-establishment the familiar giant 
 in the short sheepskin coat suddenly made his aj)- 
 pearance. " Sir! " he exclaimed, waving his cap, 
 "We're drinking up your money!— Well, and 
 your coachman," — he added, nodding his head 
 
 33.3
 
 ME:NrOIKS OF A SPORTSMAN 
 
 toward Filofei, — " 1 fancy that fellow w^as pretty 
 well scared, — was n't he? " 
 
 " A very jolly fellow," — remarked Filofei, 
 Avhen we had driven about twenty fathoms from 
 the dram-shop. 
 
 We arrived in Tula at last; I bought the bird- 
 shot, and wine and tea also, by the way, — and 
 even took a horse from the horse-dealer. — At mid- 
 day we set off on our return journey. As we 
 drove past the spot where, for the first time, we 
 had heard the rattling of the cart behind us, Filo- 
 fei, who liad drunk considerable liquor in Tula, 
 showed himself to be a very loquacious man, — he 
 even narrated stories to me, — as we drove past 
 that spot, Filofei suddenly burst out laughing. 
 
 " But dost thou remember, master, how I kept 
 saying to thee : ' There 's a rattling '....' there 's 
 a rattling,' I said . . . . ' there 's a rattling! ' " 
 
 lie brandished his hand several times 
 
 These words struck him as very amusing. 
 
 That same evening we reached his village 
 again. 
 
 I imparted our adventure to Ermolai. As he 
 was sober, he expressed no sympathy, and merely 
 grinned, — whether approvingly or reprovingly, 
 is more than he himself knew, I suppose. But a 
 couple of days later he informed me, with much 
 satisfaction, that on that same night when Filofei 
 and I liad driven to Tula, — and on that selfsame 
 road, — a merchant had been robbed and mur- 
 
 334
 
 THE RATTLING 
 
 dered. At first I did not believe this news; ])ut 
 afterward I was eonipelled to: tlie eoniniissary 
 of rural poliee confirmed its veracity to me, as he 
 galloped by to the inquest. — Was it not from 
 that " wedding-feast " that our bold lads were re- 
 turning, and was not he that " dashing young fel- 
 low " whom, according to the expression of the 
 giant-jester, they had " put to bed "? I remained 
 for five days longer in Filofei's village. — And on 
 every occasion that I chanced to meet him, I said 
 to him: — " Hey! There 's a rattling! " 
 
 " A jolly fellow," — he replied to me every 
 time, and began to laugh. 
 
 as 5
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 FOREST AND STEPPE 
 
 .... And backward, frradually, longing him to draw 
 
 Began; to the country, to the dusky park. 
 
 Whose hndens are so vast, so dense with shade, 
 
 And hhes of the valley are so virginally sweet, 
 
 Where globe-shaped willows from the dam 
 
 In serried ranks over the water bend. 
 
 Where grows tlie luxuriant oak upon the luxuriant raeadj 
 
 Where hemp and nettle their perfume emit .... 
 
 Thither, thither away, to the abundant fields. 
 
 Where, like unto velvet black the earth lies duskilj-. 
 
 Where, — turn your eyes whichever way you will, — 
 
 The rye streams gently on in billows soft. 
 
 And from behind transparent, round, white clouds 
 
 A heavy ray of yellow light falls down 
 
 So beautifully .... 
 
 (From a poem consigned to the flames.) 
 
 PERCHANCE, the reader is already bored 
 with mv memoirs ; I hasten to reassure him 
 with the promise to confine myself to the frag- 
 ments which have been printed ; but in taking my 
 leave of him, I cannot refrain from saying a few 
 words about hunting. 
 
 Hunting with gun and hound is very fine in 
 itself, /'//■/' sich, as people used to say in days of 
 old; })ut, supposing you were not born a sports- 
 man : nevertheless, you are a lover of nature ; con- 
 
 336
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 sequently, you cannot but envy liuntsmen like 
 us. . . . Listen. 
 
 Do you know, for example, what a delight it 
 is to sally forth in springtime before the dawn? 
 You step out on the porch. ... In the dark-blue 
 sky stars are twinkling here and there; a damp 
 breeze SAveeps past, from time to time, in light 
 gusts; the repressed, ill-defined whispering of the 
 night is audible; the trees are rustling, as they 
 stand enveloped in shadow^ Now they lay a rug 
 in the peasant-cart, and place a box with the 
 samovar at your feet. The trace-horses fidget, 
 neigh, and shift coquettishly from foot to foot ; a 
 pair of white geese, which have just waked up, 
 waddle silently and slowly across the road. Be- 
 yond the wattled hedge, in the garden, the watch- 
 man is snoring peacefully; every sound seems to 
 hang suspended in the chill}^ air, — to hang and 
 not pass on. Now you have taken your seat ; the 
 horses have set off on the instant, the cart has 
 begun to rattle loudly .... you drive on and 
 on ... . past tlie church, down-hill to the right, 
 across the dam The pond is barely be- 
 ginning to smoke. You feel a little cold, you 
 cover up your face with the collar of your cloak ; 
 you sink into a doze. The horses plash their hoofs 
 sonorously through puddles; the coachman be- 
 gins to whistle. But now, you have got four 
 versts from home .... the rim of the sky is be- 
 ginning to flush crimson; the daws scatter over 
 
 337
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 the birch-trees, flying aA\k\vardly from tree to 
 tree: the sparrows are chirping around the dark 
 ricks. Tlie air grows clearer, the road becomes 
 \isihle, sleepy voices make themselves heard be- 
 ll ind tlie o-ates. And in tlie meantime, the dawn 
 's kindling; and lo, already golden streaks have 
 tlium" themselves athwart the skv, the mists are 
 swirling in the ravines; the larks are warbling 
 loudly; the breeze which precedes the dawn has 
 begun to blow, — and the crimson sun glides softly 
 up. Tlie light fairly gushes forth in a flood; j^our 
 heart flutters within you, like a bird. All is 
 bright, cheerful, agreeable! For a long distance 
 round about everytliing is visible. There, behind 
 the grove, lies a village; yonder, further away, is 
 another, with a white church; yonder is a small 
 birch-coppice, on the hill; behind it lies the marsh 
 whither you are directing your course. . . . 
 Faster, ye steeds, still faster! Advance at a 
 smart ti'ot! .... Only three versts remain, not 
 more. The sun is rising swiftly; the sky is clear. 
 .... The weather will be magniflcent. A flock 
 of sheep is advancing in a long line, from the vil- 
 lage, to meet you. You have ascended the hill. 
 . . . AVhat a view! The river winds about for ten 
 versts, gleaming dully blue through the mist; be 
 yond it lie watery-green meadows; beyond the 
 meadows are sloping hillocks; far away, lapwings 
 are hovering and calling over the marsh; athwart 
 the moist gleam difl'used in the air, the distance 
 
 338
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 stands forth clearly .... not as in suinincr. 
 How boldly the bosom heaves, how swiitly the 
 limbs move, how strong the whole man becomes, 
 thus seized in the embrace of the fresh breath of 
 the spring! . . . 
 
 And the summer — July — morning! AVho, save 
 the sportsman, has experienced the joy of wan- 
 dering at dawn among the bushes? The trace of 
 your footsteps leaves a green line on tlic dewy, 
 whitened grass. You thrust aside the wet bushes, 
 — you are fairly drenched with the warm perfume 
 which has accumulated over night; the air is all 
 impregnated with the fresh bitterness of worm- 
 wood, the honey of buckwheat and clover; far 
 away, like a wall, stands an oak forest, glittering 
 and crimsoning in tlie sun ; it is still chill}^ but the 
 approaching heat can be felt. The head swims 
 with the excess of perfume. There is no end to 
 the thicket. . . . Here and there, perchance, in 
 the distance, the ripening rye gleams yellow, and 
 the narrow strips of buckwheat shine with a red- 
 dish glint. Now a cart creaks; a peasant is 
 making his way along at a foot-pace, to put his 
 horse in the shade as soon as possible. . . . You 
 have exchanged greetings with him, and have 
 gone on, when the ringing whine of the scythe re- 
 sounds behind vou. The sun rides higher and 
 higher. The grass will soon be drv. It is already 
 hot. One hour passes, then anotlicr. . . . The 
 sky grows dark along the rim; the motionless air 
 
 339
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 is l)laziiig with stingino- heat. — " Where can I get 
 a (h-ink, hrotherT' — you ask a mower. — " Yon- 
 (kr, in tlie ravine, is a well." You descend to the 
 l)ottoin of the ravine, tlu'ongh tlie dense hazel- 
 hushes, all intertwined witli tenacious grass. 
 And, in fact, heneatli the very cliff a spring is 
 concealed; an oak-hush has eagerly thrown over 
 the water its claw-like branches; great, silvery 
 l)ubbles rise, dimpling, from the bottom cov- 
 ered witli fine, velvety moss. You throw yourself 
 down on the ground, you drink> but languor is be- 
 ginning to stir within von. You are in the shade, 
 you are inhaling the fragrant moisture, you are 
 comfortable^ wliile opposite you the bushes are 
 getting red-liot, and seem to be turning yellow in 
 the sun. But what is this? A breeze has sud- 
 denly flown up and dashed past; the surrounding 
 air has quivered; is not that a clap of thunder? 
 You emerge from the ravine .... what is yon 
 leaden streak on the horizon? Is the sultry heat 
 growing more intense? Is it a tliunder-cloud 
 coming up? .... But now comes a faint flash 
 of lightning. . . . Eh, yes, it is a thunder-storm! 
 The sun is still shining brilliantly round about 
 you; it is still possible to hunt. But the cloud 
 waxes: its front edge throws out a branch, it bends 
 over into a vault. The grass, the bushes, every- 
 thing round about lias grown dark of a sudden. 
 . . . Be quick! yonder, methinks, a hay-barn is 
 \isi})le .... be quick! You have fled 
 
 340
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 to it, have entered. . . . What rain! what h^lit- 
 ning! Here and there the water has di'ipped 
 througli upon the fragrant liay. . . . But now 
 the sun has hroken forth again. The thunder- 
 storm lias passed over; you step out. Heavens, 
 liow merrily everything round ahout is sparkling, 
 how fresh and thin the air is, what a strong scent 
 of strawberries and mushrooms is abroad! . . . 
 
 But now evening is drawing on. The sun- 
 set glow has embraced half the sky in its confla- 
 gration. The sun is setting. The air close at 
 hand seems somehow peculiarly translucent, like 
 glass; far away a soft mist is spreading, and is 
 warm in aspect; along with the dew a crimson 
 glow falls upon the fields, so recently flooded with 
 streams of liquid gold ; long shadows have begun 
 to run out from the trees, from the bushes, from 
 the lofty ricks of hay. . . . The sun has set; a 
 star has kindled and is trembling in the fiery sea 
 of the sunset. . . . Now it waxes pale; the sky 
 grows blue; separate shadows disappear; the air 
 is permeated with vapour. 'T is time to go home 
 to the village, to the cottage where you are to 
 spend the night. Throwing your gun over your 
 shoulder, you walk briskly on, in spite of the dis- 
 tance. . . . And, in the meantime, night has 
 come ; you can no longer see twenty ])aces in front 
 of you ; the dogs are barely visible as ^vhite spots 
 in the gloom; yonder, above the black bushes, the 
 
 rim of the sky is confusedly perceptible 
 
 341
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 Whid is that?— a fire? ... . No, it is the moon 
 risinff. And vonder, down below, to the right, the 
 tinv hghts of a viUage are twinkhng. . . . Now, 
 at last, you reach your cottage. Through the tiny 
 window you descry the table, covered wdth a wliite 
 cloth, a burning candle, — supper. . . . 
 
 Or you order your racing-drozhky to be har- 
 nessed up, and set out in quest of hazel-hens. 
 'T is jolly to make your way along the narrow 
 path, between two walls of lofty rye. The ears 
 slap you gently in the face, the corn-flowers cling 
 al)(>ut your feet, the quail utter their calls all 
 around you, your horse runs on in a lazy trot. 
 And now here is the forest. Shade and silence. 
 The stately aspens are whispering high overhead ; 
 the long, pendent branches of the birch-trees are 
 barely stirring; a mighty oak stands, like a war- 
 rior, by the side of a handsome linden. You drive 
 along the green pathway flecked with shadows; 
 huge yellow flies hang motionless in the golden 
 air and suddenly fly away; gnats circle in a col- 
 umn, gleaming brightly in the shadow, darkling 
 in the sunlight; birds warble peacefully. The 
 golden voice of the hedge-sparrow rings with in- 
 nocent, loquacious joy; it fits in with the perfume 
 of the lilies of tlie valley. Further, further yet, 
 into the depths of the forest. . . . The forest 
 grows dense. . . . Inexpressible tranquillity 
 falls upon the soul; and all round is so dreamy 
 and (juiet! But now a breeze has sprung up, and 
 
 342
 
 EPlLOCiUE 
 
 the crests of the trees have begun to ripple, hkc 
 falling waves. Here and thei-e tall blades oj' 
 grass are springing up through last year's brown 
 foliage; mushrooms stand apart beneath their 
 caps. A hare suddenly leaps out, a dog dashes in 
 pursuit with a ringing bark. ... 
 
 And how fine is the same forest in late autumn, 
 when the woodcock are flying! They do not har- 
 bour in the very densest parts: they must be 
 sought along the edges. There is no wind, tliere 
 is neither sun, nor light, nor shadow, nor move- 
 ment, nor noise; the autumnal scent, akin to the 
 smell of wine, is disseminated through the soft 
 air; a thin mist stands far off aliove the vellow 
 fields. The motionless sky gleams peacefully 
 white between the brown, naked branches of the 
 trees ; here and there on the lindens hang the last 
 golden leaves. The damp earth is springy under 
 foot; the tall, dry grass-blades do not stir; long- 
 threads glisten on the whitened grass. The 
 breast rises and falls in quiet breathing, and a 
 strange disquietude descends upon tlie soul. You 
 stroll along the skirt of the forest, you glance at 
 your dog, and, meanwhile, beloved images, be- 
 loved faces, both dead and living, come to mind, 
 impressions long since sunk to sleej) unexpect- 
 edly wake up; your imagination flutters and soars 
 like a bird, and everything moves along and 
 stands before the eves so clearlv. The heart sud- 
 denly begins to quiver and throb, dashes passion- 
 
 343
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 ately ahead, or is irrevocably submerged in 
 memories. The n\ hole of life unfolds lightly and 
 swiftly, like a scroll; the man is in full possession 
 of his past, his feelings, his whole soul. And no- 
 thing round about him hinders — there is no sun, 
 no \\ind, uo noise. . . . 
 
 And the clear, somewhat chilly autumnal day, 
 which has been cold in early morning, when the 
 birch, like a fabulous tree, all gold, is beautifully 
 outlined against the pale-blue sky, when the low- 
 hanging sun no longer warms, but shines more 
 brilliantly than in summer, the small aspen grove 
 is all glittering through and through, as though 
 it found it a merry and easy thing to stand naked, 
 the hoar-frost is still lying white on the bottom of 
 the ravine, and the fresh breeze is softly stirring 
 and driving along the fallen, withered leaves, — - 
 when blue waves dash gaih^ down the river, rock- 
 ing the scattered geese in regular measure, and 
 far away a mill is clattering, half-hidden by wil- 
 lo^vs, and pigeons circle swiftly above it, flashing 
 in motley hues through the bright air. . . 
 
 Beautiful also are the cloudy summer daj^s, al- 
 though the sportsman does not love them. On 
 such days shooting is impossible: a bird, after flut- 
 tering up from under your very feet, instantly 
 disappears in the whitish mist of the motionless 
 haze. But how quiet, how inexpressibly quiet is 
 everything around! Everything is awake, and 
 everything is silent. You walk past a tree — it is 
 
 344.
 
 EPIT.OGUE 
 
 not rustling; it is taking its ease. A long streak 
 lies blaekly before you, spread out evenly in tlie 
 air, like a thin vapour. You take it for the forest 
 hard by; you approacli — the forest turns into a 
 tall bed of wormwood on the grass-strip between 
 the tilled fields. Above you, around you, — every- 
 where, lies the mist. . . . But now the breeze is 
 beginning to stir lightly. — A scrap of pale-blue 
 sky stands forth confusedly through the tliinning, 
 smoke-like vapour, a golden-yellow ray of sun- 
 light suddenly breaks forth, begins to stream in a 
 long flood, beats upon the fields, rests upon the 
 grove, — and now, everything is again shrouded in 
 clouds. For a long time does this conflict last; 
 but how unutterably magnificent and clear does 
 the day become, when the light at last triumphs, 
 and the last waves of heated mist roll away and 
 spread out like a table-cloth, or wreathe about and 
 vanish in the deep, tenderly-radiant heights of 
 heaven! . . . 
 
 But now you have betaken yourself to the re- 
 mote fields, to the steppes. You have driven ten 
 versts along country roads, — and here, at last, is 
 the highway. For a long, long time, you drive 
 past endless trains of freight-wagons, past tiny 
 posting-stations with a hissing samovar under the 
 shed, wide-open gates and a well, from one 
 church-village to another, through boundless 
 fields, along green hemp-patches. ^Magpies flut- 
 ter from willow to willow; peasant women, with 
 
 345
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 long rakes in their hands, roam about the fields; a 
 wayfare)\ in a tliieadbare nankeen kaftan, with a 
 wallet on his back, trudges wearily along; the 
 heavy carriage of a landed proprietor rolls 
 sniootlily to\\ard you, drawn by six well-grown 
 and broken-winded horses. From the window 
 projects the corner of a pillow, and on the foot- 
 board, clinging to a cord, sits a footman sideways, 
 wrap|)e(l in a cloak, and mud-bespattered to the 
 very eyebro\vs. Here is a wretched little county 
 town, with wooden houses all askew, interminable 
 fences, uninhabited stone buildings belonging to 
 merchants, and an ancient bridge over a deep 
 ra^'ine. . . . Furtlier, further! .... The steppe 
 regions have begun. You cast a glance from the 
 crest of a hill — what a view! Round, low hillocks, 
 l)l()ughcd and planted to their very summits, 
 s])read out in broad waves; ravines overgrown 
 with bushes wind about between them; small 
 groves are scattered ab(jut, like long islands ; from 
 village to village run narrow paths; churches 
 gleam white; between the sides of the cliffs a 
 little river glitters, traversed in four places bj-- 
 dams; far away in the fields bustards stand up 
 prominently in goose file; an ancient manor- 
 liouse, with its offices, its fruit-orchard and thresh- 
 ing-floor, is nestled down beside a tiny pond. 
 But you drive further and further. The hills 
 grow smaller and smaller, hardly a tree is to be 
 
 346
 
 EPIIX)(;UE 
 
 seen. Here it is, at last, the boundless, limitless 
 steppe! . . . 
 
 And on a winter day to roam anion <»• the tall 
 snow-drifts in seareh of hares, to inhale the keen, 
 frosty air, involuntarily to narrow the eyes from 
 the dazzling, fine glitter of the soft snow, to ad- 
 mire the green hue of the sky aboAe the reddish 
 forest! .... And the first spring days, when 
 everything round about is glittering and falling; 
 athwart the heavy steam of the meltino; snow 
 there is already an odour of the warming earth; 
 on the thawed spots, beneath the slanting rays of 
 the sun, the larks are warbling with confidence; 
 and, with merry noise and roar, the floods gather 
 from ravine to ravine. . . . 
 
 But it is time to end. Ey the way, — I have 
 mentioned the spring: in spring it is easy to part, 
 in spring the happy long to rove afar. . . . 
 Farewell, reader: I wish you permanent good 
 fortune. 
 
 347
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 (1858)
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 THE brilliant, spring day was inclining 
 toward the evening, tiny rose-tinted cloud- 
 lets hung high in the heavens, and seemed not to 
 be floating past, but retreating into the very 
 depths of the azin-e. 
 
 In front of the open window of a handsome 
 house, in one of the outlying streets of O * * * 
 the capital of a Go\ ernment, sat two women ; one 
 fifty years of age, the other seventy years old, and 
 already aged. 
 
 The former was named INIarya Dmitrievna 
 Kalitin. Her husband, formerly the govern- 
 mental procurator, well known in his day as an 
 active official — a man of energetic and decided 
 character, splenetic and stubborn — had died ten 
 years previously. He had received a fairly go(xl 
 education, had studied at the university, l)ut, liax- 
 ing been born in a poverty-stricken class of so- 
 ciety, he had early comprehended the necessity 
 of opening up a way for himself, and of accumu- 
 lating money. jNIarya Dmitrievna had married 
 
 3
 
 A XOBI.EMAX'S NEST 
 
 liim for love-; he was far from uncomely in ap- 
 pearance, 1r' was clever, and, when he chose, he 
 couUi be very amiable, ^larya Dnn'trievna (her 
 maiden name had been PestofF) had lost her pa- 
 rents in early childhood, had spent several j^ears 
 in ^loseo^\ , in a government educational institute, 
 nil 1, on returning thence, had lived fifty versts 
 from ()***, in her native village, Pokrovskoe, 
 with lier aunt and her elder brother. This bro- 
 ther soon removed to Petersburg on service, and 
 kept his sister and his aunt on short commons, 
 until liis sudden death put an end to his career. 
 ]Marya Dnn'trievna inherited Pokrovskoe, but did 
 not live there long; din-ing the second year after 
 her marriage to Kalitiii, who succeeded in con- 
 quering her heart in the course of a few days, Po- 
 krcSvskoe w^as exchanged for another estate, mucli 
 more profitable, but ugly and without a manor- 
 house, and, at the same time, Kalitin acquired a 
 house in the town of O * * *, and settled down 
 there permanently with his wife. A large gar- 
 den was attaelied to the house; on one side, it 
 joined (hrectly on to the open fields, beyond the 
 town. Kalitin, — who greatly disliked the stagna- 
 tion of the country, — had evidently made up his 
 mind, that there w^as no reason for dragging out 
 existence on the estate. Marya Dnn'trievna, manv 
 a time, in her own mind regretted Iier pretty Po- 
 krovskoe, with its merry little stream, its broad 
 meadows, and verdant groves; but she opposed 
 
 4
 
 A NOBLKi\IAN\S NEST 
 
 ner Imsbaiid in nothing, and worsliippcd his clev- 
 erness and knowledge of the world. But when, 
 after fifteen years of married life, he died, leav- 
 ing a son and two daughters, Marya Dniitrievna 
 had become so wonted to her house, and to town 
 life, that she herself did not wish to leave O * * *. 
 
 In her youth, IVIarya Dmitrievna had enjoyed 
 the reputation of being a pretty blonde, and at 
 the age of fifty her features were not devoid 
 of attraction, although they had become some- 
 what swollen and indefinite in outline. She was 
 more sentimental than kind, and even in her ma- 
 ture age she had preserved the habits of her 
 school-days; she indulged herself, was easily irri- 
 tated, and even wept when her ways were inter- 
 fered with; on the other hand, she was very af- 
 fectionate and amiable, when all her wishes were 
 complied with, and when no one contradicted 
 her. Her house was one of the most agreeable 
 in the town. Her fortune was very considerable, 
 not so much her inherited fortune, as that acquired 
 by her husband. Both her daughters lived with 
 her; her son was being educated at one of the 
 best government institutions in Petersburg. 
 
 The old woman, who was sitting by the window 
 with ^larya Dmitrievna, was that same aunt, her 
 father's sister, with whom she had spent several 
 years, in days gone by, at Pokrovskoe. Her name 
 was Marfa Timofeevna PestofF. She bore the 
 reputation of being eccentric, had an independent 
 
 5
 
 A XOET.EMAX'S XEST 
 
 c'liaracter, tokl tlie entire truth to every one, 
 straight in tlie face, and, with the most scanty 
 resources, bore herself as though she possessed 
 tliousands. She had not been able to endure the 
 deceased Kalitin, and as soon as her niece married 
 liim, she retired to her tiny estate, where she lived 
 for ten whole years in the hen-liouse of a peasant. 
 ]Marya Dmitrievna was afraid of lier. Black- 
 haired and brisk-eyed even in her old age, tiny, 
 sliarp-nosed Marfa Timofeevna walked quickty, 
 held herself ui)riglit, and talked rapidly and in- 
 telligibly, in a shrill, ringing voice. She always 
 wore a white cap and a wliite jacket. 
 
 " What art thou doing that for? — " she sud- 
 denly inquired of INIarya Dmitrievna. — " What 
 art thou sighing about, my mother? " 
 
 " Because," said the other. — " What wonder- 
 full v beautiful clouds!" 
 
 " So, thou art sorry for them, is that it? " 
 
 ]Marva Dmitrievna made no replv. 
 
 " Isn't that Gedeonovsky coming yonder?" — 
 said ^larfa Timofeevna, briskly moving her knit- 
 ting-needles (she was knitting a huge, motley- 
 hued scarf). " He might keep thee company in 
 sighing, — or, if not, he might tell us some lie or 
 other."' 
 
 " How harslily thou always speakest about 
 liim! Sergyei Petrovitch is an — estimable man." 
 
 "FiStimable!" repeated the old woman re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 6
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NPLST 
 
 " And how devoted he was to my dead hus- 
 band!" remarked Marya Dniitrievna; — "to this 
 day, 1 cannot tliink of it with indifference." 
 
 " I shoukl think not! he ])ulled liim out of the 
 mire by his ears," — growled ^larfa Timofeevna, 
 and her knitting-needles moved still more swiftly 
 in her hands. 
 
 " He looks like such a meek creature," — slie 
 began again, — " his head is all grey, but no sooner 
 does he open his mouth, than he lies or calumni- 
 ates. And he 's a State Councillor, to boot ! 
 Well, he's a priest's son: and there's nothing- 
 more to be said ! " 
 
 "Who is without sin, aunty? Of course, he 
 has that weakness. Sergyei Petrovitch received 
 no education, — of course he does not speak 
 French ; but, say what you will, he is an agreeable 
 man." 
 
 " Yes, he 's always licking thy hand. He 
 does n't talk French, — what a calamity ! I 'm not 
 strong on the French ' dialect ' myself. 'T would 
 be better if he did not speak any language at all : 
 then he would n't lie. But there he is, by the way 
 — speak of the devil, — " added INIarfa Timo- 
 feevna, glancing into the street. — " There he 
 strides, thine agreeable man. What a long-legged 
 fellow, just like a stork." 
 
 Marya Dmitrievna adjusted her curls. Marfa 
 Timofeevna w^atchcd her with a grin. 
 
 " Hast thou not a grey liair there, my mother? 
 
 7
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 Thou sliouldst scold thy Paldshka. Why does n't 
 she see it ? " 
 
 " Oh. aiiiitv, you're always so ... " muttered 
 Marya Dniitrievna, with yexation, and drummed 
 on the arm of her chair witli her fingers. 
 
 " Sergyei Petroyitch Gedeonoysky ! " squeaked 
 a red-cheeked page-lad, springing in through the 
 door. 
 
 8
 
 II 
 
 There entered a man of lofty stature, in a neat 
 coat, short trousers, grey chamois-skin gloves, and 
 two neckties — one black, on top, and the other 
 wliite, underneath. Everything about Iiim ex- 
 haled decorum and propriety, beginning with his 
 good-looking face and smoothly brushed temple- 
 curls, and ending with his boots, wliicli liad neither 
 heels nor squeak. He bowed first to the mistress 
 of the house, then to Marfa Timofeevna, and 
 slowly drawing off his gloves, took Marya Dmi- 
 trievna's hand. After kissing it twice in suc- 
 cession, with respect, he seated himself, without 
 haste, in an arm-chair, and said with a smile, as 
 he rubbed the very tips of his fingers : 
 
 "And is Elizaveta JNIikhailovna well?" 
 
 " Yes," — replied JNIarya Dmitrievna, — " she is 
 in the garden." 
 
 " And Elena INIikhailovna? " 
 
 " Lyenotchka is in the garden also. Is there 
 anything new? " 
 
 " How could there fail to be, ma'am, how could 
 there fail to be," —returned tlie visitor, slowly 
 blinking his eyes, and protruding his lips. " Hm ! 
 
 9
 
 A XOl^LKMxVN S NEST 
 
 . . . now , here s a bit of news, if you please, and 
 a very astounding' bit: Lavretzky, Feodor Iva- 
 nitch, has arrived/' 
 
 •• FedyaT' — exchiimed INIarfa Timofeevna. 
 — " But come now. my father, art not thou in- 
 venting that? " 
 
 " Xot in the least, ma'am, I saw him myself." 
 
 " AVell, that 's no proof." 
 
 " He has recovered his health finely," — went 
 on Gedeonovsky, pretending not to hear ISIarfa 
 Timofeevna's remark: — "he has grown broader 
 in the shoulders, and the rosy colour cov^ers the 
 whole of his cheeks." 
 
 " He has recovered his health," — ejaculated 
 ]Marya Dmitrievna, with pauses: — "that means, 
 that he had something to recover from? " 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," — returned Gedeonovsky: — 
 " Any other man, in his place, wovdd have l>een 
 ashamed to show himself in the world." 
 
 " Why so? " — interrupted Marfa Timofeevna; 
 — " what nonsense is this? A man returns to his 
 native place — what would you have him do with 
 himself? And as if he were in any way to blame !" 
 
 " The husband is always to blame, madam, I 
 \enture to assure you, when the wife behaves 
 badly." 
 
 " Thou sayest that, my good sir, because thou 
 hast never been married thyself." Gedeonovsky 
 smiled in a constrained way. 
 
 " Permit me to inquire," he asked, after a brief 
 
 10
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 pause, — " for whom is that very pretty scarf 
 destined? " 
 
 Marfa Timofeevna cast a swift ghmee at Iiiiii. 
 
 " It is destined " — she retorted, — "for the man 
 who never gossips, nor uses craft, nor hes, if such 
 a man exists in the world. I know Fedya well; 
 his sole fault is, that he was too indulgent to his 
 wife. Well, he married for love, and nothing 
 good ever comes of those love-marriages," — 
 added the old woman, casting a sidelong glance 
 at jMarya Dmitrievna, and rising. — "And now, 
 dear little father, thou mayest whet thy teeth on 
 whomsoever thou wilt, only not on me; I 'm going 
 away, I won't interfere." — And Marfa Timo- 
 feevna withdrew. 
 
 " There, she is always like that," — said ]Marva 
 Dmitrievna, following her aunt with her eyes: — 
 " Always! " 
 
 " It 's her age ! There 's no help for it, ma'am!" 
 remarked Gedeonovsky. — " There now, she per- 
 mitted herself to say : ' the man who does not use 
 craft.' But who does n't use craft nowadays? 
 it 's the spirit of the age. One of my friends, a 
 very estimable person, and, I must tell you, a man 
 of no mean rank, was wont to say : that ' now- 
 adays, a hen approaches a grain of corn craftily 
 — she keeps watching her chance to get to it from 
 one side.' But when I look at vou, mv ladv, vou 
 have a truly angelic disposition ; please to favour 
 me with your snow-white little hand." 
 
 11
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 Marya Dniitricviia smiled faintly, and ex- 
 tended her plump hand, with the little finger 
 standing out apart, to Gedeonovsky. He applied 
 his lips to it, and she moved her arm-chair closer 
 to him, and hending slightly toward him, she 
 asked in a low tone: 
 
 " So, you have seen him? Is he really — all 
 right, well, cheerful ? " 
 
 "He is cheerful, ma'am; all right, ma'am," 
 returned Gedeonovsky, in a whisper. 
 
 " And you have not heard where his wife is 
 now? " 
 
 " She has recently been in Paris, ma'am; now, 
 I hear, she has removed to the kingdom of Italy." 
 
 " It is dreadful, really, — Fedya's position ; I 
 do not know how he can endure it. Accidents do 
 happen, w^ith every one, in fact; but he, one may 
 say, has been advertised all over Europe." 
 
 Gedeonovsky sighed. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am; yes, ma'am. Why, she, they 
 say, has struck up accjuaintance with artists, and 
 ])ianists, and, as they call it in their fashion, with 
 lions and wild beasts. She has lost her shame, 
 completely. . ." 
 
 " It is very, very sad," — said INIarya Dmi- 
 trievna: — "on account of the relationship; for 
 you know, Sergyei Petrovitch, he 's my nephew, 
 once removed." 
 
 " Of course, ma'am; of course, ma'am. How 
 could I fail to be aware of everything which 
 
 12
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 relates to your family C Upon my word, 
 ma am ! 
 
 " Will he come to see us, — what do you think? " 
 
 " We must assume that he will, ma'am; hut 1 
 hear, that he is going to his country estate." 
 
 JNIarya Dmltrie^'na cast her eyes heavenward. 
 
 " Akh, Sergyei Petrovitch, when 1 think of it, 
 how circumspectly we women must behave! " 
 
 " There are different sorts of women, Marya 
 Dmitrievna. T Unfortunately, there are some of 
 fickle character . . . well, and it 's a question of 
 age, also; then, again, the rules have not been in- 
 culcated in their childhood." (Sergvei PetnS- 
 vitch pulled a checked blue handkerchief out of 
 his pocket, and began to unfold it). — "Such 
 women exist, of course," (Sergyei Petrovitch 
 raised a corner of the handkerchief to his eyes, 
 one after the other), — " but, generally speaking, 
 if we take into consideration, that is . . . There is 
 an unusual amount of dust in town," he con- 
 cluded. 
 
 " Main an, main an " — screamed a pretty little 
 girl of eleven, as she rushed into the room: — 
 " Vladimir Nikolaitch is coming to our house on 
 horseback! " 
 
 Marya Dmitrievna rose; Sergyei Petrovitcli 
 also rose and bowed: — " Our most humble salute 
 to Elena ^likhailovna," he said, and withdrawing 
 into a corner, out of propriety, he began to blow 
 his long and regularly-formed nose. 
 
 13
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 *' What a splendid horse he has! — " went on 
 tlii? httle girl. — " He was at the gate just now, 
 and told Liza and me, that he would ride up to 
 the porch." 
 
 The trampling of hoofs became audible; and a 
 stately horseman, on a fine brown steed, made his 
 appearance in the street, and halted in front of 
 the open window. 
 
 14
 
 Ill 
 
 "Good afternoon, Marya Dmitrievna!" — ex- 
 claimed the horsenian, in a ringing, agreeable 
 voice. — " How do you like my new purchase? " 
 
 Marya Dmitrievna went to the window. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Woldemar! Akh, wliat a 
 magnificent horse! From whom did j'^ou buy it? " 
 
 " From the remount officer. . . He asked a 
 high price, the robber! " 
 
 " What is its name? " 
 
 "Orlando. . . . But that's a stupid name; I 
 want to change it. . . Eh hien, eh hien, mon 
 gaiyon. . . What a turbulent beast ! " The horse 
 snorted, shifted from foot to foot, and tossed his 
 foaming muzzle. 
 
 " Pat liim, Lenotchka, have no fears. . . " 
 
 The little girl stretched her hand out of the 
 window, but Orlando suddenly reared up, and 
 leaped aside. The rider did not lose control, 
 gripped the horse with liis knees, gave him a lash 
 on the neck with his whip, and, despite his oppo- 
 sition, placed him once more in front of the 
 window. 
 
 ''Prenez garde! jjrenez garde!" — ^larya Dmi- 
 trievna kept repeating. 
 
 15
 
 A XOTU.EMAN S XEST 
 
 " Pat liiiii, Lycnotdika," — returned the rider, 
 — " I will not permit him to be wilful." 
 
 Again the little girl stretehed forth her hand, 
 and timidly touched the quivering nostrils of Or- 
 lando, wlio trembled incessantly and strained at 
 the bit. 
 
 " Bravo! " — exclaimed ^larya Dnu'trievna, — 
 " and now, dismount, and come in." 
 
 The liorseman turned his steed round adroitly, 
 gave him the spurs, and after dashing along the 
 street at a brisk gallop, rode into the yard. A 
 minute later, he ran in through the door of the 
 anteroom into the drawing-room, flourishing his 
 whip; at the same moment, on the threshold of 
 another door, a tall, graceful, black-haired girl 
 of nineteen — ^larya Dmitrievna's eldest daugh- 
 ter, Liza — made her appearance. 
 
 16
 
 IV 
 
 The young man, with whom we have just made 
 the reader acquainted, was named Vladimir Niko- 
 laitch Piinshin. He served in Petersburg, as an 
 official for special commissions, in the Ministry 
 of the Interior. He had come to the town of 
 O * * * to execute a temporary governmental 
 commission, and was under the command of 
 Governor-General Zonnenberg, to whom he was 
 distantly related. Panshin's father, a staff -cap- 
 tain of cavalry on the retired list, a famous gam- 
 bler, a man with a crumpled visage and a nervous 
 twitching of the lips, liad passed his whole life 
 in the society of people of quality, had frequented 
 the English Clubs in both capitals, and bore the 
 reputation of an adroit, not verj'' trustworthy, but 
 charming and jolly fellow. In spite of his adroit- 
 ness, he found himself almost constantly on the 
 very verge of indigence, and left behind him to 
 his only son a small and impaired fortune. On 
 the other hand, he had, after his own fashion, 
 taken pains with his education: Vladimir Niko- 
 laitch spoke French capitally, English well, and 
 German badly; but it is permissible to let fall a 
 German word in certain circumstances — chiefly 
 
 17
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 huiiioious, — "c'est meme trh chic" as the Peters- 
 burg Parisians express themselves. "N^hidimir 
 Nikoliiitch ah-eady iiiiderstood, at the age of fif- 
 teen, how to enter any drawing-room whatever 
 witlioiit embarrassment, how to move about in it 
 agreeably, and to withdraw at the proper time. 
 Piinshin's father had procured for his son many 
 influential connections; as he shuffled the cards 
 between two rubbers, or after a successful capture 
 of all the tricks, he let slip no opportunity to drop 
 a nice little word about his " Volodka " to some 
 important personage wlio was fond of social 
 games. On his side, Vladimir Xikolaitch, during 
 his stay in the university, whence he emerged with 
 the rank of actual student, made acquaintance 
 with several young men of quality, and became 
 a frequenter of the best houses. He was received 
 gladly everywhere; he was extremely good-look- 
 ing, easy in his manners, entertaining, always well 
 and ready for everything; where it was requisite, 
 lie was respectful; where it was possible, he was 
 insolent, a capital companion, //// charmant 
 gar foil. The sacred realm opened out before him. 
 Piinshin speedily grasped the secret of the science 
 of society; he understood how to imbue himself 
 with genuine respect for its decrees; he under- 
 stood how, w^ith half-bantering gravity, to busy 
 himself with nonsense and assume the appear- 
 ance of regarding everything serious as trivial; 
 he danced exquisitely, he dressed in Knglish style. 
 
 18
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 In a short time he became renowned as one of the 
 most agreeable and adroit young men in Peters- 
 bm'g. Piinshin was, in reahty, very adroit, — no 
 less so than his father: but lie was, also, very 
 gifted. He could do everything : he sang prettily, 
 he drew dashingly, he wrote verses, he acted very 
 far from badly on the stage. He had only just 
 passed his twenty-eighth birthday, but he was al- 
 ready Junior Gentleman of the Emperor's bed- 
 chamber, and had a very tolerable rank. Panshin 
 firmly believed in himself, in his brains, in his 
 penetration; he advanced boldly and cheerfully, 
 at full swing; his life flowed along as on oil. 
 He was accustomed to jilease everybody, old and 
 young, and imagined that he was a judge of peo- 
 ple, especially of women: he did know well their 
 everyday weaknesses. As a man not a stranger 
 to art, he felt within him both fervour, and some 
 enthusiasm, and rapture, and in consequence of 
 this he permitted himself various deviations from 
 the rules: he caroused, he picked up acquaintance 
 with persons who did. not belong to society, and, 
 in general, maintained a frank and simple de- 
 meanour; but in soul he was cold and cunning, and 
 in the midst of the wildest carouse his clever little 
 brown eye was always on guard, and watching; 
 this bold, this free young man could never for- 
 get himself and get completel) carried away. To 
 his honour it must be said, that he never bragged 
 of his conquests. He had hit upon ^Marya Dmi- 
 
 19
 
 A XOBT.EMAX'S NEST 
 
 trieviia's liouse iiiiiiiediatcly on his arrival in 
 O * * *, and liad j)roniptly made himself en- 
 tirely at iioino tliere. Marva Dmitrievna fairly 
 adored him. 
 
 PaMshiii amial)ly saluted all >vho were in the 
 room, shook hands witli Mtirya Dmitrieyna and 
 Lizaveta Mikhailovna, lightly ta])ped Gedeonoy- 
 sky on the shoulder, and whirling round on his 
 heels, eaught Lyenotehka by the head, and kissed 
 her on the brow. 
 
 " xVnd you are not afraid to ride sueh a yicious 
 horse?" — ^larya Dmitrievna asked him. 
 
 " Good gracious! it is a very peaceable beast; 
 but I 11 tell you what I am afraid of: I 'm afraid 
 to play preference with Sergyei Petrovitch; last 
 night, at the Byelenitzyns', he won my last 
 farthing." 
 
 Gedeonovsky laughed a shrill and servile 
 laugh : he fawned on the brilliant young official 
 from Petersburg, the pet of the governor. In 
 his conversations with ]Marya Dmitrievna, he fre- 
 quently alluded to Panshin's remarkable capaci- 
 ties. " For why should not I praise him? " he ar- 
 gued. " The young man is making a success in 
 the highest sphere of life, discharges his service 
 in an exemplary manner, and is not the least bit 
 proud." INIoreover, even in Petersburg Panshin 
 was considered an energetic official: he got 
 through an immense amount of work; he alluded 
 to it jestingly, as is befitting a fashionable man 
 
 20
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 who attaches no particidar importance to liis la- 
 bours, but he was " an executor." Tlie hi^lier 
 officials love such subordinates; he never had the 
 slightest doubt hinisell', tliat, if he so wished, lie 
 could become a INl inister in course of time. 
 
 " You are pleased to say that I beat you at 
 cards," — remarked Gedeonovsky: — " but who 
 was it that won twelve rubles from me last week? 
 and besides . . . ." 
 
 " Villain, villain," Panshin interrupted him, 
 with a caressing but almost disdainful careless- 
 ness, and without paying any further attention to 
 him, he stepped up to Liza. 
 
 " I have not been able to find the overture of 
 ' Oberon ' here," he began: — " Mme. Byelenit- 
 zyn was merely boasting, that she had all the 
 classical music, — as a matter of fact, she has no- 
 thing except polkas and waltzes; but I have al- 
 ready written to JNIoscow, and within a week I 
 shall have that overture. By the way," — he con- 
 tinued, — " I wrote a new romance yesterday; the 
 words also are my own. Would you like to have 
 me sinff it for you? I do not know how it has 
 turned out; Mme. Byelenitzyn thought it ex- 
 tremely charming, but her words signify no- 
 thing, — I wish to know your opinion. However, 
 I think it will be better later on " 
 
 "Why later on? "—interposed Marya Dmi- 
 trievna: — " Why not now? " 
 
 " I obey, ma'am,"— said Panshin, with a cer- 
 
 21
 
 A XOHLKMAX'S NEST 
 
 tain bright, sweet smile, which was wont to appear 
 on liis face, and suddenly to vanish, — pushed for- 
 ward a chair with his knee, seated himself at the 
 piano, and after striking several chords, he began 
 to sing, clearly enunciating the words, the follow- 
 ing romance: 
 
 The moon floats high above the earth 
 
 Amid tlic clouds so pale; 
 But from the crest of the sea surge moveth 
 
 A magic ray. 
 The sea of my soul hath acknowledged thee 
 
 To be its moon, 
 And 't is moved, — in joy and in sorrow, — 
 
 By thee alone. 
 With the anguish of love, the anguish of dumb aspira- 
 tions, 
 
 The soul is full ; 
 I suff'er pain. . . But thou from agitation art as free 
 
 As that moon. 
 
 Panshin sang the second couplet with peculiar 
 expression and force; the surging of the waves 
 could be heard in the tem])estuous accompani- 
 ment. After the words: " I suffer pain. . ." he 
 lieaved a slight sigh, dropped his eyes, and low- 
 ered his voice, — morendo. When he had finished, 
 IJza praised the motive, ^Nlarya Dmitrievna said : 
 "It is charming;" — while Gedeonovsky even 
 shouted: "Ravishing! both ])oetry and harmony 
 are equally ravishing! . . . "' Lyenotchka, with 
 
 22
 
 A X()15LE]MAN'S NP:ST 
 
 childish adoration, gazed at the singer. In a 
 word, the com])osition of the youthl'nl (hlettante 
 pleased all present extremely; but outside of the 
 door of the drawing-room, in the anteroom, stfK)d 
 an elderly man, who had just arrived, to wliom, 
 judging by the expression of his downcast face 
 and the movement of his shoulders, Pansliin's ro- 
 mance, charming as it was, afforded no pleasure. 
 After waiting a wliile, and whisking the dust 
 from his boots with a coarse handkerchief, this 
 man suddenly screwed up his eyes, pressed his 
 lips together grimly, bent his back, which was al- 
 ready sufficiently bowed witliout that, and slowly 
 entered the drawing-room. 
 
 " Ah ! Christof or Feodoritch, g(K)d after- 
 noon ! "— Panshin was the first of all to exclaim, 
 and sprang hastily from his seat. — " I had no sus- 
 picion that you were here, — I could not, on any 
 account, have made uj) my mind to sing my ro- 
 mance in your presence. I know that you do not 
 care for frivolous music." 
 
 " I vas not listening," remarked the new- 
 comer, in imperfect Russian, and having saluted 
 all, he remained awkwardly standing in the mid- 
 dle of the room. 
 
 " Have vou come, JNIonsieur Lemm," — said 
 Marya Dmitrievna, — " to give a music lesson to 
 Liza? " 
 
 " No, not to Lisafeta Mikliailovna, ])ut to Elena 
 Mikhai'lovna." 
 
 23
 
 A NOHLKMAXS XEST 
 
 "Ah! Well,— very good. Lyenotchka, go 
 ii]).stairs with Monsieur lA^mni." 
 
 Tlie okl man was on the point of following the 
 little girl, but Piinshin stopped him. 
 
 " Do not "o away after the lesson, Christofor 
 Feodoritcli." — he said: — " I.izaveta ^likhailovna 
 and I will ]il:iy a Ik'ethoven sonata for four 
 hands. 
 
 The old man muttered something, but Panshin 
 went on in German, pronouncing his words badly: 
 
 " Lizaveta Mikliailovna lias shown me the 
 si)iritual cantata which you presented to her — 't is 
 a very fine thing! Please do not think that I am 
 incai)able of a])preciating serious music, — quite 
 tlie contrary: it is sometimes tiresome, but, on the 
 other hand, it is very beneficial." 
 
 The old man crimsoned to his very ears, cast a 
 sidelong glance at Liza, and hastily left the 
 room. 
 
 Marya Dmitrievna requested Panshin to re- 
 peat the romance; but he declared, that he did 
 not wish to wound the ears of the learned Ger- 
 man, and proposed to Liza that they should oc- 
 cupy themselves with the Beethoven sonata. 
 Then Marya Dmitrievna sighed, and in her turn, 
 proposed to Gedeonovsky that he should take a 
 stroll in the garden with her. — " I wish," — she 
 said, " to talk and take counsel with you still fur- 
 tliei'. over our poor Fedya." Gedeonovsky 
 grinned, bowed, took up — with two fingers, his 
 
 24
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 hat, and liis gloves neatly laid on its brim, and 
 withdrew, in com])any with ^Slarya Dmitrievna. 
 Panshin and I^iza were left alone in the room; 
 she fetched the sonata, and opened it : both seated 
 themselves, in silence, at the piano. — From 
 above, the faint sonnds of scales, played by T^ye- 
 notchka's nncertain little fingers, were wafted to 
 them. 
 
 Oi 
 
 25
 
 Christopher-Thkodore-Gottijeb Lemm was 
 horn in the year 1786, in the kingdom of Sax- 
 ony, in tlie town of Chemnitz, of poor musicians. 
 His father })hiye(l the French horn, his mother the 
 harp: lie himself, at the age of five, was already 
 practising on three different instruments. At 
 eiglit years of age he hecame an orphan, and at 
 the age of ten he hegan to earn a bit of bread for 
 Iiimself by his art. For a long time he led a wan- 
 dering life, played everywhere — in inns, at fairs, 
 and at peasant weddings and at balls; at last, he 
 got into an orchestra, and rising ever higher and 
 higher, he attained to the post of director. He 
 was rather a ])oor executant; but he possessed a 
 tliorough knowledge of music. At the age of 
 twenty-eight he removed to Russia. He was im- 
 ported by a great gentleman, who himself could 
 not endure music, but maintained an orchestra as 
 a matter of pride. liCmm lived seven years with 
 him, in the capacity of musical conductor, and 
 left him with empty hands; the gentleman was 
 ruined, and wished to give him a note of hand, 
 but afterward refused him even this, — in a word, 
 (lid not j)ay him a farthing. Peo})Ie advised him 
 
 26
 
 A NOBI.KiMAX S XKST 
 
 to leave the country: but he was not willing to 
 return home in ])overty from Russia, from great 
 Russia, that gold-mine of artists; he decided to 
 remain, and try his luck. For the space of twenty 
 years he did try his luck: he sojourned with vari- 
 ous gentry, he lived in JNIoscow and in the capitals 
 of various governments, he suffered and endured 
 a great deal, he learned to know want, he floun- 
 dered like a flsh on the ice ; but the idea of return- 
 ing to his native land never abandoned him in 
 the midst of all these calamities to which he was 
 subjected; it alone upheld him. But it did not 
 suit Fate to render him happy with this last and 
 first joy: at the age of fifty, ill, prematurely in- 
 firm, he got stranded in the town of O * * * and 
 there remained for good, having finally lost all 
 hope of quitting the Russia which he detested, 
 and managing, after a fashion, to support his 
 scanty existence by giving lessons. Lemm's ex- 
 ternal appearance did not predispose one in his 
 favour. He was small of stature, round-shoul- 
 dered, with shoulder-blades which projected 
 crookedly, and a hollow chest, with huge, flat 
 feet, with pale-blue nails on the stiff", unbend- 
 ing fingers of his sinewy, red hands; he had a 
 wrinkled face, sunken cheeks, and tightly-com- 
 pressed lips, that he was incessantly moving as 
 though chewing, whicli, added to his customary 
 taciturnity, produced an almost malevolent im- 
 pression; his grey hair Imng in elf-locks over his 
 
 27
 
 A XOHLEMAX S XEST 
 
 low brow ; his tiiiv, motionless eyes smouldered 
 like eoals whieh had just been extinguished; he 
 walked hea\ ily, swaying his clumsy body from 
 side to side at every step. Some of his move- 
 ments were suggestive of the awkward manner 
 ill which an owl in a cage plumes itself when it 
 is conscious that it is l)cing watched, though it 
 itself hardly sees anything with its huge, yellow, 
 timorouslv and dozilv blinking eyes. Confirmed, 
 inexorable grief had laid upon tlie poor musician 
 its ineffaceable seal, had distorted and disfigured 
 liis already ill-favoured figure; but for any one 
 who knew enough not to stop at first impres- 
 sions, something unusual was visible in this half- 
 wrecked being. A worshipper of Bach and 
 Handel, an expert in his profession, gifted with 
 a lively imagination, and with that audacity of 
 thought which is accessible only to the German 
 race, I^emm, in course of time — who knows? — 
 might have entered the ranks of the great com- 
 ])osers ol' his native land, if life had led him 
 differently; but he had not been born under a 
 fortunate star! He had written a great deal in 
 his day — and he had not succeeded in seeing a 
 single one of his compositions published; he had 
 not understood how to set about the^iiatter in 
 the proper way, to cringe opportunely, to bustle 
 at the right moment. Once, long, long ago, one 
 of his admirers and friends, also a German and 
 also ])oor, had published two of his sonatas at 
 
 28
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 his own expense, — and the wliole edition re- 
 mained in the cellars of the musical shops; they 
 had vanished dully, without lea\'ing a trace, as 
 though some one had flung them into the river 
 by night. At last Lemm gave up in despair; 
 moreover, his years were making themselves felt: 
 he had begun to grow rigid, to stiffen, as his 
 fingers stiffened also. Alone, with an aged cook, 
 whom he had taken from the almshouse (he had 
 never been married), he hved on in () * * *, 
 in a tiny house, not far from the Kalitin residence; 
 he walked a great deal, read the Bible and col- 
 lections of Protestant psalms, and Shakespeare 
 in Schlegel's translation. It was long since he 
 had composed anything; but, evidently, Liza, his 
 best pupil, understood how to arouse him: he had 
 written for her the cantata to which Ptinshin had 
 alluded. He had taken the words for this cantata 
 from the psalms ; several verses he had composed 
 himself; it was to be sung by two choruses, — the 
 chorus of the happy, and the chorus of the un- 
 happy; both became reconciled, in the end, and 
 sang together: "O merciful God, have mercy 
 upon us sinners, and purge out of us by fire all 
 evil thoughts and earthly hopes! "—On the title- 
 page, ve^ carefully written, and even drawn, 
 stood the following: " Oidy the Just are Right. 
 A Spiritual Cantata. Com.posed and dedicated 
 to Miss Elizaveta Kalitin, my beloved inipil, by 
 her teacher, C. T. G. Lemm." Lhe words: 
 
 20
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NP^ST 
 
 " Only the Just are Right," and " Elizaveta 
 Kah'tin, " were surrounded hy rays. Below was 
 added: "For you alone," — "Fur Sie allein." — 
 Therefore Lemni liad crimsoned and had cast 
 a sidelong glance at Liza; it pained him greatly 
 when Panshin spoke of his cantata in his presence. 
 
 30 
 
 f
 
 VI 
 
 Panshin struck the opening chords of the sonata 
 loudly, and with decision (he was playing the 
 second hand), but Liza did not begin her part. 
 He stopped, and looked at her. Liza's eyes, 
 fixed straight upon him, expressed displeasure; 
 her lips were not smiling, her whole face was 
 stern, almost sad. 
 
 " What is the matter with you? "—he inquired. 
 
 " Why did not you keep your word? " said she. 
 — " I showed you Christofor Fe6doritch\s cantata 
 on condition that you would not mention it to 
 him." 
 
 " Pardon me, Lizaveta JNIikhailovna, it was a 
 slip of the tongue." 
 
 " You have wounded him — and me also. Now 
 he will not trust me any more." 
 
 " What would you ha\'e me do, Lizaveta JVIi- 
 khailovna! From mj^ earliest childhood, I have 
 never been able to endure the sight of a German: 
 something simply impels me to stir him up." 
 
 "Why do you say that, Vladimir Xikolaitch! 
 This German is a poor, solitary, broken man — 
 and you feel no pity for him? You want to stir 
 him up? " 
 
 31
 
 A XOliLK.MAX S NEST 
 
 Paiisliin \vas disconcerted. 
 
 ■' You are right, Lizaveta ^Nlikhailovna," — he 
 said. '* My eternal thoughtlessness is responsible 
 for Ihf wliole thing. No, do not say a word; I 
 know inyscir well. My thoughtlessness has done 
 me many an ill turn. Thanks to it, I have won 
 the reputation of an egoist." 
 
 Pjinsliin [)aused for a moment. Xo matter how 
 lie began a conversation, he habitually wound up 
 by speaking of himself, and he did it in a charm- 
 ing, soft, confidential, almost involuntary wav. 
 
 " And here in vour house," — he went on: — 
 " your mother likes me, of course, — she is so kind; 
 you . . . however, I do not know your opinion 
 of me; l)ut your aimt, on the contrary, cannot 
 bear me. I must have offended her, also, by some 
 thouglitless, stujjid remark. For she does not 
 like me, does she? " 
 
 " No," said Liza, with some hesitation: — " j^ou 
 do not please her." 
 
 Panshin swept his fingers swiftly over the 
 keys; a barely perceptible smile flitted across his 
 lips. 
 
 "Well, and you?"^ — he said: — "Do I seem 
 an egoist to you also? " 
 
 " I know you very slightly," — returned Liza: 
 — " but I do not consider you an egoist; on the 
 contrary, I ought to feel grateful to you. ..." 
 
 " I know. I know, what you mean to say," — 
 Pansliin interru])ted her, and again ran his fin- 
 
 32
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 gers over the keys: — " for the iiiusic, for tlie books 
 which 1 ])ring you, for the ])a(l (h-awiiio-s witli 
 which 1 decorate your album, and so forth and so 
 on. 1 can do all that — and still be an egoist. J 
 venture to think, that you are not bored in my 
 company, and that you do not regard me as a 
 bad man, but still you assume, that I — how in 
 the world shall I express it? — would not spare my 
 own father or friend for the sake of a jest." 
 
 " You are heedless and forgetful, like all 
 worldly j^eople," — said Eiza: — "that is all." 
 
 Panshin frowned slightly. ' 
 
 " Listen," he said: — " let us not talk any more 
 about me ; let us play our sonata. One thing only 
 I will ask of you," — he said, as with his hand he 
 smoothed out the leaves of the bound volume 
 which stood on the music-rack: — " think what you 
 will of me, call me an egoist even, — so be it! but 
 do not call me a worldly man: that appellation is 
 intolerable to me. . . . AncJiio son inttore. I 
 also am an artist, — and I will immediately prove 
 it to you in action. Let us begin." 
 
 " We will begin, if you please," — said liiza. 
 
 The first adagio went quite successfully, al- 
 though Panshin rnade more than one mistake. 
 He played his own com])ositions and those whicli 
 he had practised very ])rettily, but he read music 
 badly. On the other hand, the second part of the 
 sonata — a rather brisk allegro — did not go at all : 
 at the twentieth measure, Panshin, who had got 
 
 33
 
 A XOHLKMAN'S NEST 
 
 two iiRasurcs behind, could hold out no longer, 
 and })iishL'd back his chair with a laugh. 
 
 "No!" — he exclaimed: — "I cannot pla}^ to- 
 day; it is well that Lenmi does not hear us: he 
 would fall down in a swoon." 
 
 Liza rose, shut the piano, and turned to 
 Pcinshin. 
 
 " AVhat shall we do now? " — she asked. 
 
 " I recognise you in that question! You can- 
 not possil)ly sit with folded hands. Come, if you 
 like, let us draw, before it has gro^Mi completely 
 dark. Perha])s the other muse, — the muse of 
 drawing .... what 's her name? I 've forgot- 
 ten .... will be more gracious to me. AVhere 
 is your album? Do you remember? — my land- 
 scape there is not finished." 
 
 I^iza went into the next room for her album, 
 and Piinshin, when he was left alone, pulled a 
 batiste handkerchief from his pocket, polished his 
 nails, and gazed somewhat askance at his hands. 
 Thev were very handsome and white; on the 
 thumb of the left hand he wore a sj^iral gold 
 ring. Liza returned ; Panshin seated himself near 
 the window, and opened the album. 
 
 "Aha! " — he exclaimed: — "I see that you have 
 beguii to copy my landscape — and that is fine. 
 Very good! Only here— give me a pencil — the 
 shadows are not put on thickly enougli. . . . 
 Look." 
 
 And Pansliin, with a bold sweep, prolonged 
 
 34
 
 A NOm.KMAN'S NKST 
 
 several long strokes. He eonstaiitly drew one 
 and the same landseape: in the foreground were 
 large, dishevelled trees, in the distanee, a meadow, 
 and saw-toothed mountains on the horizon. Liza 
 looked over his shoulder at his work. 
 
 " In drawing, and in life in general," — said 
 Piinshin, hending his head now to the right, now 
 to the left: — "lightness and boldness are the 
 principal thing." 
 
 At that moment, Lemm entered the room, and, 
 with a curt inclination, was on the point of de- 
 parting; but Panshin flung aside the album and 
 pencil, and barred his way. 
 
 " Whither are you going, my dear Christofor 
 Feodoritch ? Are not you going to stay and drink 
 tea? " 
 
 " I must go home," — said Lemm in a surly 
 voice: — " my head aches." 
 
 " Come, what nonsense! — stay. You and I 
 will have a dispute over Shakespeare." 
 
 " My head aches," — repeated the old man. 
 
 " We tried to play a Beethoven sonata without 
 you," — went on Panshin, amiably encircling liis 
 waist with his arm, and smiling brightly: — 
 " but we could n't make it go at all. Just ima- 
 gine, I could n't play two notes in succession 
 correctly." 
 
 " You vould haf done better to sing your ro- 
 mantz," — retorted Ijcmm, ])ushing aside Pan- 
 shin's arm, and left the room. 
 
 35
 
 A XOBLEMAX S XEST 
 
 Liza ran after liiin. She overtook liini on the 
 steps. 
 
 ■ C'hiistofor Feodoritch, listen,"— she said to 
 him in Ciernian, as she accompanied him to the 
 gate, across tlie close-cropped green grass of the 
 yard: — " 1 am to hlame toward you — forgive 
 me. 
 
 Lemm made no reply. 
 
 " I showed your cantata to Vladimir Niko- 
 laitch; I was convinced that he would appreciate 
 it, — and it really did please him greatly." 
 
 Lemm halted. 
 
 " Zat is nozing,"^ — he said in Russian, and 
 then added in liis native tongue: — " but he can- 
 not understand anything; how is it that you do 
 not perceive that? — he is a dilettante — and that 's 
 all there is to it ! " 
 
 " You are unjust to him," — returned Liza: — 
 " he understands everything, and can do nearly 
 everything himself." 
 
 " Yes, everything is second-class, light-weight, 
 hasty work. That pleases, and he pleases, and 
 he is content with that — well, and bravo! But I 
 am not angry; that cantata and I — we are old 
 fools; I am somewhat asliamed, but that does not 
 matter." 
 
 " Forgive me, Christofor Feodoritch," — said 
 Liza again. 
 
 " It does not mattair, it does not mattair," he 
 repeated again in Russian: — "you are a goot 
 
 80
 
 A NOBT.EMAX'S XKST 
 
 girl . . . but see yonder, some vuii is eoming to 
 your house. Good-bye. You are ji fery goot 
 gu-1. 
 
 And Lemrn, witli liasty strides, betook himself 
 toward the gate, througli ^^•hich was entering a 
 gentleman witli whom lie was not aecjuainted, 
 clad in a grey coat and a broad-brimmed straw 
 hat. Courteously saluting him (he bowed to all 
 newcomers in the town of O * * * ; he turned 
 away from his ac(juaintances on the street — that 
 was the rule which he had laid down for himself) , 
 Lemm passed him, and disappeared behind the 
 hedffe. The stranger looked after him in amaze- 
 ment, and, exchanging a glance with Liza, ad- 
 vanced straight toward her. 
 
 37
 
 VII 
 
 " You do not recognise me," — he said, removing 
 Ills hat, — " hut 1 recognise you, although eight 
 yeais have passed since I saw you last. You were 
 a child then. I am Lavretzkv. Is your mother 
 at liome!' Can I see her? " 
 
 " ]\Ianima will be very glad," — replied Liza: — 
 " she lias heard of your arrival." 
 
 "Your name is Elizaveta, I believe?" — said 
 Lavretzky, as he mounted the steps of the porch, 
 les. 
 
 " I remember you well ; you had a face, at that 
 time, such as one does not forget ; I used to bring 
 you bonbons then." 
 
 Liza blushed and thought, " What a strange 
 man he is! " Lavretzky i:)aused for a minute in 
 the anteroom. Liza entered the drawing-room, 
 where Panshins voice and laughter were re- 
 sounding; he had imparted some gossip of the 
 town to Marya Dmitrievna and Gedeonovsky, 
 who had already returned from the garden, and 
 was himself laughing loudly at what he had nar- 
 rated. At the name of Lavretzkv, INIarva Dmi- 
 trievna started in utter trepidation, turned pale, 
 and advanced to meet him. 
 
 38
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 " How do 3^ou do, 1k)\\' do you do, my dear 
 cousin! " — she exclaimed, in a drawling and al- 
 most tearful voice : — " how glad 1 am to see you ! " 
 
 " How do you do, my kind cousin," — returned 
 Lavretzky; and shook her proffered hand in a 
 friendly way: — " how does the Lord sho\v mercy 
 on you? " 
 
 " Sit down, sit down, my dear Feodor Ivanitch. 
 Akh, how deliglited 1 am ! Permit me, in tlie first 
 place, to present to you my daughter Liza. . . " 
 
 " I have already introduced myself to Lizaveta 
 Mikhailovna," — Lavretzky interrupted her. 
 
 " Monsieur Panshin .... Sergyei Petro- 
 vitch Gedeonovsky .... But pray sit down! I 
 look at you, and I simply cannot hclieve my eyes. 
 How is your health? " 
 
 " As you see, I am blooming. And you, 
 cousin, — I don't want to cast the evil eye on you 
 — you have not grown thin during these eight 
 years." 
 
 " Just think, what a long time it is since we 
 saw each other," — remarked ^Nlarya Dmitrievna, 
 dreamily. — " Whence come you now? Where 
 have you left .... that is, I meant to say " — she 
 hastily caught herself up — " 1 meant to say, are 
 you to be with us long? " 
 
 " I have just come from Berlin," — returned 
 Lavretzky,—" and to-morrow I set out for my 
 estate — probably to lemain there a long time." 
 
 " Of course, y»)u will live at Tjavriki? " 
 
 39
 
 A XOBT.KMAX'S NEST 
 
 ■ No, not at Lavn'ki, l)iit 1 have a tiny village 
 about twenty-five versts from here; I am going- 
 there. ' 
 
 •" The village u liieh yon inherited I'roni Glafira 
 
 IVtrovna? " 
 1 lie same. 
 
 " Good graeious, Feodor Ivanitch! Vou have 
 a splendid house at I^avriki! " 
 
 Laxret/.ky scowled slightly. 
 
 " Yes .... hut in that little estate there is a 
 .small wing: and, for the present, I need nothing 
 more. That place is the most convenient for 
 me just now." 
 
 ^Slarya Dmitrievna again became so perturbed, 
 that she even straightened herself up, and fiung 
 her hands apart. Panshin came to her assistance, 
 and entered into conversation with Lavretzky. 
 iSIarya Dmitrievna recovered her composure, 
 leaned back in her chair, and only interjected a 
 word from time to time; but, all the while, she 
 gazed so compassionately at her visitor, she sighed 
 so sionificantlv, and shook her head so mourn- 
 fully, that the latter, at last, could endure it no 
 longer, and asked her, quite sharply: was she 
 well? 
 
 "Thank God, yes,"— replied INIarya Dmi- 
 trievna, — " why? " 
 
 " Because it seemed to me that you were not 
 quite yourself." 
 
 Marya Dmitrievna assumed a dignified and 
 
 40
 
 A NOHLKAFAN'S NKST 
 
 somewhat off'ciuled aspect. — ^" If tliat 's the way 
 you take it," — she said to lierself, — " 1 don't care 
 in the least; evidently, my good man, nothing af- 
 fects thee any more than water does a goose; any 
 one else would have pined away with gi'ief, hut 
 it swells thee up more tlian ever." ]Marya l)n)i- 
 trievna did not stand on ceremony with herself; 
 she expressed herself more elegantly aloud. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Lavretzky did not resemhle 
 a victim of fate. His rosy-cheeked, purely-Kus- 
 sian face, with its large, w^hite hrow, rather thick 
 nose, and hroad, regular lijjs, fairly overflowed 
 with native health, with strong, durahle force. 
 He was Qiagnificently huilt, — and his hlond hair 
 curled all over his head, like a young man's. Only 
 in his eyes, which were blue and prominent and 
 fixed, was there to be discerned something which 
 was not re\ ery, nor yet weariness, and his voice 
 sounded rather too even. 
 
 In the meantime, Panshin had continued to 
 keep up the conversation. He turned it on the 
 profits of sugar-refining, concerning which two 
 French pamphlets had recently made tlieir a])- 
 pearance, and with calm modesty undertook to 
 set forth their contents, but without saying one 
 word about them. 
 
 "Why, here's Fedya!" suddenly rang out 
 Marfa Timofeevna's voice in the adjoining room, 
 behind the half-closed door: — " Actually. Fe- 
 dj^a!" And the old woman briskly entered the 
 
 41
 
 A XOBLKMAN S NKST 
 
 room. 15efore Lavretzky could rise from his 
 c'liair, she dasped him in her embrace. — " Come, 
 sho\\ thyself, show thyself," — she said, moving 
 back from his face. — " Eh! What a splendid fel- 
 low thou art! Thou hast grown older, but hast 
 not grown in the least less comely, really! But 
 w liy art thou kissing my hands, — kiss me myself, 
 if my ^MMnkled cheeks are not repulsive to thee. 
 Can it be, that thou didst not ask after me: ' Well, 
 tell me, is aunty alive?' \Vhy, thou wert born 
 into my arms, thou rogue! Well, never mind 
 that; why shouldst tliou have remembered me? 
 Only, thou art a sensil)le fellow, to have come. 
 W^'ll, my mother," — she added, addressing Ma- 
 rya Dmitrievna, — " hast thou given him any re- 
 freshments? " 
 
 " I want nothing," — said Lavretzky, hastily. 
 
 " Come, drink some tea, at least, my dear little 
 father. O Lord my God! He has come, no 
 one knows whence, and they don't give him a cup 
 of tea ! Go, Liza, and see about it, as quickly as 
 possible. I remember that, as a little fellow, he 
 was a dreadful glutton, and he must be fond of 
 eating even now." 
 
 " iSIy respects, Marfa Timofeevna,"— said 
 Panshin, approaching the angry old woman from 
 one side, and bowing low. 
 
 " Excuse me, sir," — retorted jNIarfa Timo- 
 feevna, — " I did not notice you for joy. — Thou 
 liast grown to resemble thy mother, the darling," 
 
 42
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 — she went on, turning again to Lavrelzky: — 
 " only, thy nose was and remains hkc thy fa- 
 ther's. Well — and art thou to he long with us^ " 
 
 " I am going away to-morrow, aunty." 
 
 "Whither?" 
 
 " Home, to Vasilievskoe." 
 
 " To-morrow? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, if it must be to-morrow, it must. God 
 be with thee, — thou knowest best. Only, see here, 
 thou must come to say farewell." — The old 
 woman tapped him on the cheek. — " I did not 
 think I should live to see thee; and that not be- 
 cause I was preparing to die ; no — I am good for 
 another ten years, probably: all we Pestoffs are 
 tenacious of life; thy deceased grandfather used 
 to call us double-lived; but the Lord only knew 
 how much longer thou woiddst ramble about 
 abroad. Well, but thou art a dashing fine fel- 
 low, a fine fellow; thou canst still lift ten puds 
 in one hand as of yore, I suppose ? Thy deceased 
 father, excuse me, was cranky in some respects, 
 but he did well when he hired a Swiss for thee; 
 thou rememberest, how thou and he had fist- 
 fights; that's called gymnastics, isn't it? — But 
 why have I been cackling thus ? I have only been 
 keeping Mr. Panshin " (she never called him 
 Panshin, as she ought) " from arguing. But we 
 had better drink tea; let us go and drink it on the 
 terrace, my dear ; our cream — is not like what you 
 
 43
 
 A XOBT.EMAX S XEST 
 
 get ill your LoikIdiis and Parises. Let us go, let 
 us go, and do thou, Fediusha, give me thy arm. 
 ()! how thick it is! There 's no danger of falling 
 with tliee." 
 
 .Vll rose and betook themselves to the terrace, 
 with tlie exception of Gedeonovsky, who quietly 
 departed. During the entire duration of La- 
 vretzky's coinersation with the mistress of the 
 house, Piinshin, and ^larfa Timofeevna, he had 
 sat in a corner, attentively blinking, and sticking 
 out his lips, in childish curiosity: he now hastened 
 to carry the news about the new visitor through- 
 out tlie town. 
 
 On that same day, at eleven o'clock in the even- 
 ing, this is what was going on at jNIme. Kalitin's 
 liouse. Down-stairs, on the threshold of the 
 drawing-room, Vladimir Xikolaitch, having seized 
 a favourable moment, was saying farew^ell to 
 Liza, and telling her, as he held lier hand: " You 
 know w^ho it is that attracts me hither ; you know 
 ^^•hy I am incessantly coming to your house ; what 
 is the use of words, when everything is so plain? " 
 Liza made him no reply, and without a smile, and 
 witli eyebrows slightly elevated, and blusliing, she 
 stared at the floor, but did not withdraw her 
 hand; and up-stairs, in Marfa Timofeevna's 
 chamber, b}^ the light of the shrine-lamp, which 
 hung in front of the dim, ancient lioly pictures, 
 Lavretzky was sitting in an arm-chair, with his 
 
 44
 
 A NOBLKMAN'S NKST 
 
 elbows on his knees, and his face in his hands; the 
 old woman, standing before him, was silently 
 stroking his liair, from time to time. Tie spent 
 more than an honr with lier, after taking leave 
 of tlie mistress of the honse; he said almost 
 nothing to his kind old friend, and she did not 
 interrogate him. . . And what was tlie nse of 
 talking, what was there to interrogate him alxMit? 
 She nnderstood everything as it was, and she 
 sym])athised with everything wherewith his heart 
 was full to overflowing. 
 
 45
 
 VIII 
 
 Fkodou Ivanovitch T^avretzky (we must ask 
 tlie reader's permission to break the thread of our 
 nai-rative I'or a time) was descended from an an- 
 cient family of the nobihty. The ancestral foun- 
 der of tlie Layretzkys had come out of Prussia 
 (hning tlie j^rinccly reign of Vasily the Bhnd, 
 and had been granted two hundred quarters^ of 
 land, on l^yezhetsk Heights. Many of his de- 
 scendants were members of yarious branches of 
 the j3ublic seryice, and sat under princes and (Hs- 
 tinguishcd personages in distant goyernorships, 
 but not one of them eyer rose aboye the rank of 
 table-decker at the Court of the Tzars, or ac- 
 (juired any considerable fortune. The most opu- 
 lent and noteworthy of all the I^ayretzkys had 
 been P^eodor lyanitch's great-grandfather, An- 
 drei, a harsh, insolent, cleyer, and crafty man. 
 Down to the day of which ^^e are speaking, the 
 fame of his arbitrary yiolence, of his fiendish dis- 
 })osition, his mad layishness, and unquenchable 
 thirst had not died out. He had been ver}^ stout 
 and lofty of stature, swarthy of yisage, and 
 
 ' An ancient laiul-nicasiire, varying in different localities; the 
 average "quarter" being aLjout thirty by forty fathoms. — Tuans- 
 
 LATOtt. 
 
 ^6
 
 A XOULKMAN S XKST 
 
 beardless; lie lisped, and a[)peared to be sleepy; 
 but the more soi'tly he spoke, the more did rwvv 
 one around him tremble. lie obtained I'oi- him- 
 self a wife to mateh. (i()i><iile-eyed, with hawk- 
 like nose, with a round, sallow faee, a ^ipsy h\ 
 birth, (|uiek-tempered and revengeful, she was not 
 a whit behind her husband, who almost starved 
 her to death, and whom she did not survive, al- 
 though she was eternally snarling at him. 
 
 Andrei's son, I'iotr, Feodor's grandfather, did 
 not resemble his father: he was a simple squire of 
 the steppes, deeidedly hare-brained, a swash- 
 buckler and dawdler, rough but not malieious, 
 hospitable, and fond of dogs. He was more than 
 thirty years old when he inherited from his fa- 
 ther two thousand souls in capital order; but lie 
 speedily dispersed them, sold a part of his es- 
 tate, and spoiled his house-servants. Petty little 
 people, acquaintances and non-acquaintances, 
 crawled from all sides, like black-beetles, to his 
 spacious, warm, and slovenly mansion; all these 
 ate whatever came to hand, but ate their fill, 
 drank themselves drunk, and carried off what 
 they could, lauding and magnifying the amiable 
 host; and the host, when he was not in a good 
 humour, also magnified his guests — as drones and 
 blackguards — but he was bored witlu^it them. 
 Piotr Andreitch's wife was a meek person: he 
 took her from a neighbouring family, at his fa- 
 ther's choice and command; her name was ^Viina 
 
 4-7
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 Pavlovim. She never interfered with anything, 
 received visitors cordially, and was fond of going 
 out herself, although powdering her hair, accord- 
 ing to her o\\ II words, was death to her. They put 
 a felt liood on your head, she was wont to narrate 
 in her old age, combed your hair all up on top, 
 smeared it with tallow, sprinkled on flour, stuck 
 in iron i)ins, — and vou could not wash yourself 
 afterward ; but to go visiting without powder was 
 impossible — people would take offence; — tor- 
 ture ! — She was fond of driving after trotters, was 
 ready to play cards from morning until night, 
 and always covered up with her hand the few 
 farthings of winnings set down to her when her 
 husl)an(l approached the card-table; but she gave 
 her dowry and all her money to him, and required 
 no accounting for its use. Slie bore him two 
 children: a son, Ivan, Feodor's father, and a 
 daughter, Glafira. 
 
 Ivan was not brought up at home, but at the 
 house of a wealthy old aunt, Princess Kuben- 
 skoy; she had designated him as her heir (had 
 it not been for that, his father would not have 
 let him go) ; she dressed him like a doll, hired 
 every sort of teacher for him, provided him with 
 a governor, a Frenchman, a former abbe, a disci- 
 ple of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a certain M. 
 Courtin de Vaucelles, an adroit and subtle in- 
 triguer, — the most fine flcur of the emigration, 
 as she expressed it, — and ended by marrying this 
 
 48
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 " fine-fleur " when she was ahiiost seventy years 
 of age; she transferred to his name her entire for- 
 tune, and soon afterward, rouged, seented witii 
 amher, a la liiclicUcu, surrounded by small ne- 
 groes, slender-legged dogs, and sereeehing par- 
 rots, she died on a. crooked little couch of the time 
 of Louis XV, with an enamelled snuff-box, the 
 work of Petitot, in her hands, — and died, deserted 
 by her husband: the sneaking M. Courtin had 
 preferred to retire to Paris with her money. 
 
 Ivan was only in his twentieth year when this 
 blow (we are speaking of the Princess's marriage, 
 not of her death) descended upon him; he did not 
 wish to remain in his aunt's house, where from a 
 wealthy heir he had suddenly been converted into 
 a parasite; in Petersburg, the society in which he 
 had been reared, was closed to him; to service, be- 
 ginning with the lowest ranks, difficult and dark, 
 he felt repugnance (all this took place at the 
 very beginning of the reign of the Emperor 
 Alexander). He was compelled, perforce, to 
 return to the country, to his father. Dirty, poor, 
 tattered did his native nest appear to him: the 
 dulness and soot of existence on the steppes of- 
 fended him at every step ; he was tormented with 
 boredom; on the other hand, every one in the 
 house, with the exception of his mother, looked 
 upon him with unfriendly eyes. His father did not 
 like his habits of the capital ; his dress-suits, frilled 
 shirts, books, his flute, his cleanliness, in which, 
 
 49
 
 A XOBLKMAX S XEST 
 
 not without reason, they scented his fastidious- 
 ness; he was constantly coniphiining and gnini- 
 ])hng at his son. — " Nothing here suits him," lie 
 was wont to sav: " at table he is dainty, he does 
 not eat, he cannot endure the odour of the ser- 
 vants, the stitling- atmosphere; the sight of 
 drunken men disturbs him, and you must n't dare 
 to tight in his presence, either; he will not enter 
 government service: he's frail in health, for- 
 sooth; jjhew, what an effeminate creature! And 
 all because Voltaire sticks in his head! " 
 
 The old man cherished a particular dislike for 
 Voltaire, and for the " fanatic " Diderot, al- 
 though he had never read a single line of their 
 writings: I'eading was not in his line. Piotr An- 
 dreitch Mas not mistaken: Diderot and A'^oltaire 
 really were sticking in his son's head, and not they 
 only, — but Rousseau and Raynal and Helvetius, 
 and many other writers of the same sort, were 
 sticking in his head, — but only in his head. Ivan 
 Petrovitch's former tutor, the retired abbe and 
 encyclopedist, had contented himself with pour- 
 ing the whole philosophy of the XVIII century 
 into his pu])il in a mass, and the latter went about 
 ))rimful of it; it gained lodgment within him, 
 without mingling with his blood, without penetra- 
 ting into his soul, without making itself felt as a 
 firm conviction. . . And could convictions be de- 
 manded of a young fellow of fifty years ago, 
 when we have not even yet grown up to them? 
 
 50
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 He also embarrassed tlie visitors to his fallKi's 
 house: he loathed tlieni, and tliey feared him; and 
 with his sister, Cxlafira, who was twelve years 
 older than he, he did not get on at all. 
 
 This Crlafira was a strange being; homely, 
 hunehbaeked, gaunt, with stern, staring eyes and 
 thin, tightly compressed lips; in face, voice, and 
 quick, angular movements, she recalled her grand- 
 mother, the gipsy, the wife of Andrei. Per- 
 sistent, fond of power, she would not even hear 
 of marriage. Tlie return of Ivan Petrovitch did 
 not please her; so long as the Princess Kubenskoy 
 had kept him witli her, she had cherislied the hope 
 of receiving at least half of the parental estate: 
 she resembled her grandmother in her avarice. 
 Moreover, Glafira was envious of her brother: 
 he was so cultivated, he spoke French so well, witli 
 a Parisian accent, while slie was scarcely able to 
 say: "^ bon jour," and ''comment vous portez 
 vous? " To tell the truth, her parents did not un- 
 derstand any French at all, — but that did not 
 render it any the more pleasant for her. 
 
 Ivan Petrovitch did not know what to do with 
 himself for tedium and melancholy; he spent 
 nearly a year in the country, and it seemed to him 
 like ten years. — Only with his mother did he re- 
 lieve his heart, and he was wont to sit, by the hour, 
 in her low-ceiled rooms, listening to the simple 
 prattle of the good woman, and gorging liimself 
 with preserves. It so happened, that among 
 
 51
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 Anna l*a\ loviia's maids tliere was one very pretty- 
 girl . \\ itli clear, gentle eyes and delicate features, 
 named Mahinya, both clever and modest. She 
 pleased Ivan l'etr(3Aitch at first sight, and he fell 
 in l()\e witli her: he fell in love with her timid 
 walk, her shy answers, her soft voice, her gentle 
 smile; with every passing day she seemed to him 
 more charming. And she became attached to Ivan 
 Petroviteh with her whole soul, as only Russian 
 girls can become attached — and gave herself to 
 liim. 
 
 In the country manor-house of a landed pro- 
 prietor, no secret can be kept long: every one 
 soon knew of the bond between the j'oung master 
 and ^lalanya: the tidings of this connection at 
 last reached Piotr Andreitch himself. At any 
 other time, he would, in all probability, have paid 
 no heed to such an insignificant matter; but he 
 had long been in a rage with liis son, and rejoiced 
 at the opportunity to ])ut to shame the Peters- 
 burg philosopher and dandy. Tumult, shrieks, 
 and uproar arose: jNIalanya was locked up in the 
 lumber-room; Ivan Petroviteh was summoned to 
 his parent. Anna Pavlovna also hastened up at 
 the outcry. She made an effort to pacify her hus- 
 band, but Piotr Andreitch no longer listened to 
 anything. Like a vulture he pounced upon liis 
 son, upbraided liim with immorality, with im- 
 piety, with liypocrisy; incidentally, he vented on 
 liim all liis accumulated wrath against tlie 
 
 52
 
 A NOBLEISrAX S NEST 
 
 Princess Kubenskoy, and overwhelmed him with 
 insnlting epitliets. At first, Ivan Petrovitch lield 
 his peace, a!id stood firm, but when liis father took 
 it into his liead to tin-eaten him Avith a disarace- 
 ful chastisement, he lost ])atience. " The fa- 
 natic Diderot has come on the statue again," he 
 thought, — "so just wait. Til put him in action; 
 I '11 astonish you all." 
 
 Thereupon, in a quiet voice, although trem- 
 bling in every limb, Ivan Petrovitch announced 
 to his father, that there was no necessity for up- 
 braiding him with immorality, that, although he 
 did not intend to justify his fault, yet he was 
 ready to rectify it, and that the more willingly be- 
 cause he felt himself superior to all i)rejudices 
 — in short, he was ready to marry Malanya. By 
 uttering these words, Ivan Petrovitch did, un- 
 doubtedly, attain his object: he astounded Piotr 
 Andreitch to such a degree, that the latter stared 
 with all his eyes, and was rendered dumb for a 
 moment; but he immediately recovered himself, 
 and just as he was, clad in a short coat lined with 
 squirrel-skin, and with slippers on his bare feet, 
 he flung himself with clenched fists upon Ivan 
 Petrovitch, who that day, as though expressly, 
 had his hair dressed a la Titus, and had donned a 
 new blue English dress-coat, boots with tassels, 
 and dandified chamois trousers, skin-tight. Anna 
 Pavlovna shrieked at the top of her voice, and 
 covered her face with her hands, but her son ran 
 
 53
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S XEST 
 
 tlirougli the whole house, sprang out into the 
 yard, rushed into the vegetable garden, across the 
 garden, flew nut upon the highway, and kept run- 
 ning, without looking behind him, until, at last, 
 he ceased to hear behind him the heavy tramp of 
 iiis father's footsteps, and his violent, broken 
 shouts. ..." Stop, rascal! " lie roared, — " stop! 
 I 11 curse thee! ' 
 
 Ivan Petrovitch hid himself in the house of a 
 neighbouring })easant proprietor, while Piotr An- 
 dreitcli i-eturned home utterly exhausted and 
 perspiring, and announcing almost before he had 
 recovered his breath, that he would deprive his 
 son of his blessing and his heritage, ordered all 
 his idiotic books to be burned, and the maid Ma- 
 lanya to be sent forthwith to a distant village. 
 Kind peo])le turned uj), who sought out Ivan Pe- 
 trovitch and informed him of all. JNIortified, en- 
 raged, he vowed that he would take revenge on 
 his father; and that very night, lying in wait for 
 the peasant cart in w^hich JSIalanj^a w'as being car- 
 ried off, he rescued her by force, galloped off with 
 lier to the nearest town, and married her. He w^as 
 supplied with money b}-^ a neighbour, an eternally 
 intoxicated and extremely good-natured retired 
 naval officer, a passionate lover of every sort of 
 noble adventure, as he expressed it. On the fol- 
 lowing day, Ivan Petrovitch wrote a caustically- 
 cold and courteous letter to Piotr Andreitch, and 
 Ijctook himself to an estate where dwelt his sec- 
 
 54
 
 A NOELEMAN S XKST 
 
 ond cousin, Dmitry Pcstoft', and liis sister, jNlurl'a 
 Tiniofeevna, already known to the reader. He 
 told them everything, announced tliat lie intended 
 to go to Petersburg to seek a place, and recjuested 
 them to give shelter to his wife, for a time at 
 least. At the word " wife " he fell to weeping 
 bitterly, and, despite his city breeding and his 
 philosophy, he prostrated himself humbly, after 
 the fashion of a Russian beggar, before the feet 
 of his relatives, and even beat his brow against 
 the floor. The Pestoffs, kind and compassionate 
 people, gladly acceded to his request; he spent 
 three weeks with them, in secret ex])ectation of a 
 reply from his father; but no reply came, — and 
 none could come. Piotr Andreitch, on learning 
 of his son's marriage, had taken to his bed, and 
 had forbidden the name of Ivan Petrovitch to 
 be mentioned in his presence; but his mother, 
 without the knowledge of her husband, borrowed 
 five hundred rubles from the ecclesiastical super- 
 visor of the diocese, and sent them to him, to- 
 gether with a small holy picture for his wife;^ she 
 was afraid to write, but she gave orders that Ivan 
 Petrovitch was to be told, by the lean ])easant her 
 envoy, who managed to walk sixty versts in 
 the course of twenty-four hours, that he must not 
 grieve too much, that, God willing, everything 
 would come right, and his father v/ould convert 
 wrath into mercy ; that she, also, ^^'ould have pre- 
 
 ^ That is to say, she scut licr iiiatt-rnal l)lessing. — Thaxslator. 
 
 55
 
 A XOT^LEMxVN'S NEST 
 
 Icrrctl a iliflVRnl dauglittr-iii-law, but that, evi- 
 dently, God had so willed it, and she sent her ma- 
 ternal blessing to ^lalanya Sergyeevna. The 
 lean little peasant received a ruble, requested per- 
 mission to see liis new mistress, to whom he was 
 ivlated as co-sponsor at a baptism, kissed her 
 hand, and hastened off homeward. 
 
 And I\an I'etrovitch set off for Petersburg 
 with a light lieart. The unknown future awaited 
 him; poverty, perhaps, menaced him, but he had 
 bidden farewell to the life in the country which 
 he detested, and, most important of all, he had not 
 betrayed his teachers, he really had " put in ac- 
 tion " and justified in fact Kousseau, Diderot, 
 and la declaration des droits de l'}ioimi\e. . A 
 sense of duty accomplished, of triumph, of pride, 
 filled his soul; and his separation from his wife 
 did not greatly alarm him; the necessity of living 
 uninterruptedly with his wife would have per- 
 turbed him more. That affair was ended; he 
 must take up other affairs. In Petersburg, con- 
 trary to liis own expectation, fortune smiled on 
 liim: I'rincess Kubenskoy — whom Monsieur 
 Courtin had already succeeded in abandoning, 
 but who had not yet succeeded in dying, — by way, 
 in some measure, of repairing the injury which 
 she had done to her nephew, recommended him to 
 tlie good graces of all her friends, and gave him 
 five thousand rubles,— almost her last farthing, — 
 and a I.e])fkovsky watch with his coat of arms 
 
 56
 
 A XOBT.E^fAX S XEST 
 
 in a o-arland of cupids. Tliree months liad not 
 elapsed, when he had ah-eady obtained a phiee in 
 the Rnssian mission to London, and he went to 
 sea on the first En*>lisli ship wliicli sailed (tliere 
 was no thouglit of steamers in those days). A 
 few months later, he received a letter from l^es- 
 toff. The kind-hearted sqm're conf»ratnhited 
 Ivan Petroviteli on tlie birth of a son, who had 
 made his appearance in the world, in tlie \ illage 
 of Pokrovskoe, on Angnst 20, 1807, and was 
 named Feodor, in honour of the holy martyi-, 
 Feodor the Strategist. Owing to her extreme 
 weakness, JNIalanya Sergyeevna added only a few 
 lines; but those few lines astonished Ivan Petro- 
 vitch: he was not aware that ^Nlarfa Timofeevna 
 had taught liis w^ife to read and write. However, 
 Ivan Petrovitch did not give himself up for long 
 to the sweet agitation of paternal emotions: he 
 was paying court to one of the most famous 
 Phrynes or Laises of the period (classical a^jpel- 
 lations were still flourishing at that epocli) ; the 
 peace of Tilsit had just been concluded, and 
 everybody was making haste to enjoyment, every- 
 thing was whirling round in a sort of mad whirl- 
 wind. He had very little money; but he played 
 luckily at cards, lie ])icked up acquaintances, he 
 took part in all the merrymakings, — in a word, 
 he was dashing along under full sail. 
 
 57
 
 IX 
 
 It was long before old Lavretzky could forgive 
 his son for his marriage; if, after the lapse of 
 lialf a year, Ivan Petrovitch had presented him- 
 self in contrition, and liad flung himself at his 
 feet, he would, probal)ly, have pardoned him, af- 
 ter first scolding him roundly, and administering 
 a few taps with his crutch, by way of inspiring 
 awe; but Ivan Petrovitch was living abroad, and, 
 evidently, cared not a ra]). — " Hold your tongue! 
 Don't dare ! " Piotr Andreitch kept repeating to 
 his wife, as soon as she tried to incline him to 
 mercy: " He ought to pray to God for me for- 
 ever, the pup, for not having laid my curse upon 
 him ; my late father would have slain him with his 
 own hands, the good-for-nothing, and he would 
 liave done right." At such terrible speeches, Anna 
 Pcivlovna merely crossed herself furtively. As 
 for Ivan Petrovitch's wife, Piotr Andreitch, at 
 first, would not allow her to be mentioned, and 
 even in reply to a letter of PestofF, wherein the 
 latter alluded to his daughter-in-law, he gave or- 
 ders to sav to him, that he knew nothing whatever 
 about any daughter-in-law of liis, and tliat it was 
 j)rohibited by the laws to harbour runaway maids, 
 
 58
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 on which point he regarded it as his duty to warn 
 him; but hiter on, when he learned ol' the birth 
 of a grandson, he softened, gave orders that in- 
 (juiries should be made on the sly concerning the 
 health of the young mother, and sent her, also as 
 tliough it did not come from him, a little money. 
 Fedya had not reached his first birtliday, when 
 Anna Pavlovna was seized with a fatal illness. A 
 few days before her end, when she could no longer 
 leave her bed, she declared to her husband, in the 
 presence of the priest, that she wished to see and 
 bid farewell to her daughter-in-law, and to bestow 
 her blessing on her grandchild. The afflicted old 
 man soothed her, and immediately sent his own 
 equipage for his daughter-in-law, for the first 
 time calling her JNIalanya Sergyeevna.^ She came 
 with her son and with INIarfa Timofeerna, who 
 would not let her go alone on any terms, and 
 would not have allowed her to be affronted. Half 
 dead with terror, JMalanya entered Piotr Andre- 
 itch's study. The nurse carried Fedya after her. 
 Piotr Andreitch gazed at her in silence; she ap- 
 proached to kiss his hand; her quivering lips 
 hardly met in a noiseless kiss. 
 
 " Well, new^-ground, undried noblewoman,"' — 
 he said at last: — " how do you do; let us go to the 
 mistress." 
 
 He rose and bent over Fedya ; tlie baby smiled, 
 
 ^ Serfs were not addresst-d w itli tlicir j)atn)iiymic by tlicir 
 superiors.— TitANsi.ATOK. 
 
 59
 
 A XOliLEMAX S NEST 
 
 and stretclied out his little, white arms. The old 
 man was completely upset. 
 
 '' Okh," he said, — "thou orphan! Thou hast 
 plead thy father's cause with me; I will not aban- 
 don tliee. my hirdling! " 
 
 As soon as ^lalanya Sergyeevna entered the 
 bedcliamber of Anna Pavlovna, she knelt down 
 near the door. ^Vnna Pavlovna beckoned her to 
 the bed, embraced her, blessed her son ; then, turn- 
 ing her countenance, ravaged by disease, to her 
 husband, she tried to sj^eak. . . 
 
 '' 1 know, I know what entreaty thou desirest 
 to make," — said Piotr Andreitch :— " do not 
 worry: she sliall stay with us, and I will pardon 
 A'iinka for her sake." 
 
 Anna Pavlovna, with an effort, grasped her 
 husband's hand, and pressed it to her lips. On 
 that same evening she died. 
 
 Piotr Andreitch kept his word. He informed 
 his son, that, for the sake of his mother's dying 
 hour, for the sake of baby Feodor, he restored to 
 him his blessing, and would keep ^lalanya Ser- 
 gyeevna in his own house. Two rooms were set 
 apart for lier use in the entresol, he introduced 
 her to his most respected visitor, one-eyed Briga- 
 dier Skuryokhin, and to his wife; he presented 
 her with two maids and a page-boy for errands, 
 ^larfa Timofeevna bade her farewell; she de- 
 tested Glafira, and quarrelled with her thrice in 
 the course of one day. 
 
 60
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 At first tlic poor woman found litr situation 
 painful and awkward; but afterward, slie learned 
 to bear things patiently, and became accustomed 
 to her father-in-law. He, also, became accus- 
 tomed to her, he even grew to love her, although 
 he almost never spoke to her, although in his ca- 
 resses a certain involuntary disdain toward her 
 was perceptible. JNlalanya Sergyeevna had most 
 of all to endure from her sister-in-law. Gla- 
 fira, already during her mother's lifetime, had 
 succeeded in getting gradually the entire house 
 into her hands : every one, beginning with her fa- 
 ther, was subject to her; not a lump of sugar was 
 given out without her permission ; she would have 
 consented to die, rather than to share the power 
 with any other mistress of the house! Her bro- 
 ther's marriage had angered her even more than 
 it had Piotr Andreitch: she took it upon herself 
 to teach the upstart a lesson, and from the very 
 first hour INIalanya Sergyeevna became her slave. 
 
 And ho\v could she contend witli the self- 
 willed, arrogant Glafira, she who was mild, con- 
 stantly 'agitated, and terrified, and also weak in 
 health? Not a day passed, that Glafira did not re- 
 mind her of her former position, did not ])raise 
 her for not forgetting her place. ^lalanya Ser- 
 gyeevna would gladly have reconciled herself to 
 these reminders and praises, however bitter they 
 miffht be ... . but thev took Fedva awav from 
 her: that was what broke her heart. Under the
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 pretext tliat she \\ as not competent to take charge 
 of liis education, she was hardly permitted to see 
 him: Ghifira took this matter upon herself; the 
 child passed under her full control. Malanj^a 
 Sergyeevna hegan, out of grief, to entreat Ivan 
 I'etrovitch. in her letters, to come home as s}3eed- 
 ily as possible; Piotr xVndrcitch liimself wished to 
 see his son : but he merely wrote in reply, thanking 
 his father about his wife, and for the money sent, 
 and promising to come soon, — and did not come. 
 The year "12 recalled him, at last, to his father- 
 land from abroad. 
 
 On meeting again, for the first time, after their 
 six years' separation, the father and son ex- 
 changed embraces, and did not allude, by so much 
 as a word, to their former dissensions; they were 
 not in the mood for it then: all Russia had risen 
 against the enemy, and both of them felt that 
 Russian blood ^^'as flowing in their veins. Piotr 
 Andreitch, at his own expense, clothed an entire 
 regiment of soldiers. But the war came to an 
 end, the danger passed; again Ivan Petrovitch 
 began to feel bored, again he longed for far-away 
 places, for the world to which he had grown fast, 
 and where he felt himself at home. INIalanya Ser- 
 gyeevna could not hold him back; she counted for 
 too little witli him. Even her hopes had not been 
 realised: her husband, also, deemed it much more 
 fitting that Fedya's education should be entrusted 
 to Cilafira. Ivan Pet rov itch's poor wife could 
 
 62
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 not withstand this blow, could not endure this sec- 
 ond parting: without a murmur, in a few days 
 she expired. During tlie wliole course of her life, 
 she had never been able to offer resistance, and 
 she did not combat her malady. She could no 
 longer S])eak, the shadows of the toinl) liad al- 
 ready descended upon her face, but hei- features, 
 as of old, expressed patient ])er])lexity, and the 
 steadfast gentleness of submission; with the same 
 dumb humility she gazed at Glafira, and, like 
 Anna Pavlovna on her deathbed, she kissed the 
 hand of Piotr Andreitch, and pressed her li])s to 
 Glafira's hand also, entrusting to her, Glafira, 
 her only son. Thus ended its earthly careei- a 
 kind and gentle being, torn, God alone knows 
 why, from its native soil and inmiediately flung 
 aside, like an uprooted sajjling, witli its roots 
 to the sun; it faded away, it vanished, without a 
 trace, that being, and no one mentioned it. Those 
 who grieved for Malanya Sergyeevna were her 
 maid and Piotr Andreitcli. The old man missed 
 her silent presence. " Forgive — farewell, my pa- 
 tient one! " he whispered, as he made her the part- 
 ing reverence in church. He wept as he threw 
 a handful of earth into the grave. 
 
 He did not long survive lier — not more than 
 five years. In the winter of 1811), lie died peace- 
 fully in Moscow, \vhither he had removed with 
 Glafira and his grandson, and left orders in his 
 will, that he should be buried by the side of Anna 
 
 63
 
 A XOTJLEMAN'S XEST 
 
 Pdvlovna and " Malasha." Ivan Petrovitcli was 
 in Paris at the time, for his pleasure; he had re- 
 signed from tlie service soon after 1815. On 
 lieariptj" of liis father's death, he decided to return 
 to Russia. It was necessary to consider the or- 
 ganisation of tlie estate . . . and Fedya, ac- 
 conhng to Glaffra's letter, had reached the age 
 of twelve years, and tlie time had arrived for oc- 
 cupying himself seriously witli the hoy's educa- 
 tion. 
 
 o4
 
 X 
 
 Ivan Petkovitch returned to Russia an Aiiirlo- 
 maniac. His closely-clipped liair, starched neck- 
 cloth, long-skirted, yellowish-gray overcoat with 
 a multitude of capes, his sour expression of vis- 
 age, a certain harshness and also indifference of 
 demeanour, his manner of talking through his 
 teeth, a w ooden, ahrupt laugh, the ahsence of 
 smiles, a conversation exclusively political and 
 politico-economical, a passion for hloody roast 
 beef and port wine, — everything about him fairly 
 reeked of Great Britain ; he seemed thoroughly 
 imbued with her spirit. But — strange to say! 
 while he had turned into an Anglomaniac, Ivan 
 Petr()vitch had simultaneously become a patriot; 
 at all events, he called himself a patriot, although 
 he was but badly acquaijited with Russia, was not 
 wedded to a single Russian habit, and expressed 
 himself queerly in Russian: in ordinary conver- 
 sation, his speech was clumsy and ])ithless, studded 
 all over with Gallicisms; but no sooner did the dis- 
 cussion touch upon important topics, than Ivan 
 Petrovitch instantly brought out such expressions 
 as: " to show new proofs of self-zeal,"^ " that dotif 
 
 ' That is to say, he used sucli fundamentally national words as oc- 
 cur only in the Old Church Slavonic, well-nitrh untranslatable here, 
 also employed upon occasions of ceremony. — Translator. 
 
 65
 
 A XOHLEMAX S XEST 
 
 not agree \\itli the imturu of the eircumstances," 
 and so forth. Ivan Petrovitch brought with him 
 several nianuseript plans touching the organisa- 
 tion and amelioration of the empire; he was ex- 
 tremely dissatisfied with everything he saw, — the 
 absence of system, in particular, stirred up his 
 ])ile. On meeting his sister, he announced to her, 
 wWh his \ery first words, that he intended to in- 
 troduce radical reforms, that henceforth every- 
 thing on his estate should i)roceed upon a new 
 system. Glafira Petrovna made no reply to Ivan 
 Petrovitch, but merely set her teeth, and said to 
 herself: " And what is to become of me? "—But 
 when she reached the country estate, in company 
 with her brother and her nephew, she speedily re- 
 gained her composure. In the house, several 
 changes actually took place: the female hangers- 
 on and drones were subjected to instant expul- 
 sion; among their number two old women suf- 
 fered, one who was blind and the other crippled 
 with paralysis, also a decrepit INIajor of the 
 Otchakoflf period, who, on account of his truly 
 astonishing \'oracity, was fed on nothing but black 
 bread and lentils. A decree was also issued, that 
 the former guests were not to be received: they 
 were superseded by a distant neighbour, a fair- 
 Jiaired, scrofulous baron, a very well educated 
 and very stupid man. New furniture from INIos- 
 cow made its appearance; cuspidors, and bells, 
 and wash-stands were introduced and they began
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 to serve the noon breakfast (lifTVinitly; foi- 
 eign wines took the place of vodka and lionic- 
 made li(|ueurs; new liveries were made f(^r tlic 
 servants; the motto, " in recto virtus," was addrd 
 to the family coat of arms. . . . But, in reality, 
 (rlafira's power was not diminished: all the dis- 
 bursements and purcliases depended on hei-, as 
 before; the imported Alsatian valet made an at- 
 tempt to vie with her — and lost his place, in spite 
 of the fact that his master took his side. So far 
 as the management, the administration, of the 
 estates was concerned (Glafira Petrovna entered 
 into all these matters), despite Ivan Petrovitch's 
 frequently expressed intention " to infuse new 
 life into this chaos," everything remained as of 
 yore, except that, here and there, the quit-rents 
 were augmented, and the husbandry-service be- 
 came more oppressive, and the peasants were for- 
 bidden to apply directly to Ivan Petrovitch. The 
 patriot heartily despised his fellow-citizens. Ivan 
 Petrovitch's sj^stem w^as applied, in its full force, 
 to Fedj'a only: his education actually was sub- 
 jected to " radical reform " ; his father had ex- 
 clusive charge of it. 
 
 67
 
 XI 
 
 Up to the time of Ivan Petrovitch's return from 
 abroad, Fedya had been, as we have already said, 
 in the liands of Glafira Petrovna. He was less 
 tlian eight years of age when his mother died, he 
 had not seen her every day, and he had loved her 
 passionately : the memory of her, of her pale and 
 gentle face, her melancholy glances and timid 
 caresses, had forever imprinted itself upon his 
 heart; but he dimly comprehended her position 
 in the house; he was conscious that between him 
 and her there existed a barrier which she dared 
 not and could not overthrow. He shunned his 
 father, and Ivan Petrovitch never petted him; 
 his grandfather occasionally stroked his head, and 
 permitted him to kiss his hand, but he called him 
 and considered liim a little fool. After the death 
 of ]\Ialanya Sergyeevna, his aunt took him in 
 hand definitively. Fedya feared her, — feared her 
 ])riglit, keen eyes, her sharp voice; he dared not 
 utter a sound in her presence; it sometimes hap- 
 pened that when he had merely fidgeted on his 
 chair, she would scream out : " AVliere art thou 
 going? sit still! " On Sundays, after the Liturgy, 
 he was ])ermitted to play, — tliat is to say, lie was 
 
 08
 
 A NORLKMAX S NEST 
 
 given ii tliick book, a mysterious l)ook, the work 
 of a eertaiii Maxiinoviteh-Anihodik, enlitk-d: 
 " Symbols and Kmbkms." This book contained 
 about a thousand in part very puzzHng pictures, 
 with equally i)U'/zling explanations in five lan- 
 guages. Cupid, with a plump, naked body, 
 played a great part in these pictures. To one of 
 them, labelled " Saffron and Rainbow," was ap- 
 pended the explanation : " The action of this is 
 great . . . "; opposite another, which represented 
 " A Heron flying with a violet blossom in his 
 mouth," stood the inscription: " All of them are 
 known unto thee." Cupid and a bear licking its 
 cub was designated as: " Little by little." Fedj^a 
 contemplated these pictures ; he was familiar with 
 the most minute details of them all ; some of them 
 • — always the same ones — set him to thinking and 
 excited his imagination; he knew no other diver- 
 sions. Whei? the time came to teach him lan- 
 guages and music, Glafira Petrovna hired, for a 
 paltry sum, an eklerly spinster, a Swede, with 
 frightened, hare-like eyes, who spoke French and 
 German indifferently, played the piano after a 
 fashion, and, in addition, knew how to salt cu- 
 cumbers in first-class style. In the society of this 
 instructress, of his aunt, and of an old chamber- 
 maid, Vasilievna, Fedya passed four whole years. 
 He used to sit in the corner with, his " Emblems " 
 — and sit . . . and sit . . . while the low-ceiled 
 room smelled of geraniums, a solitary tallow 
 
 69
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 candle burned dimly, a cricket chirped monoto- 
 nously, as tlu)u<>li it were bored, the little clock 
 ticked hastily on the wall, a mouse stealthily 
 scratched and gnawed behind the wall-hangings, 
 and the three old maids, like the Parca?, moved 
 their knitting-needles silently and swiftly to and 
 fro, the shadows cast by their hands now flitted, 
 again (juivered strangeh' in the semi-darkness, 
 and strange thoughts, also half-dark, swarmed in 
 the child's head. Xo one would have called Fedya 
 an interesting child : he was quite pallid, but fat, 
 awkwardly built, and clumsy, — " a regular peas- 
 ant," according to Glaf ira Petrovna's expression ; 
 the pallor would speedily have disappeared from 
 his face if he had been permitted to go out of 
 doors more frequently. He studied tolerably 
 well, although he frequently idled; he never 
 wept; on the other hand, at times a fierce obsti- 
 nacy came over him; then no one could do any- 
 thing with him. Fedya loved none of the j^er- 
 
 sons around him Woe to the heart which 
 
 loves not in its youth ! 
 
 Thus did Ivan Petrovitch find him, and with- 
 out loss of time he set to work to apply his sys- 
 tem to him. — " I want to make a man of him first 
 of all, un Iwmme," — he said to Glafira Petrovna: 
 — " and not only a man, but a Spartan." Ivan 
 Petrovitch began the execution of his intention 
 by dressing his son in Highland garb: the lad 
 of twelve began to go about with bare knees, 
 
 TO
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 and with a cock's feather in his crush-cap; the 
 Swede was superseded by a youn;^' SnnIss man, 
 who had learned gymnastics to pcri'ection; music, 
 as an occupation unwortiiy of a man, was han- 
 islied forever; the natural sciences, international 
 law, mathematics, the car])enter's trade after the 
 advice of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and heraldry, 
 for the maintenance of knio-htly sentiments — 
 these were the things wherewith the future 
 " man " was to occupy himself; he was waked at 
 four o'clock in the morning, was immediately 
 drenched with cold water, and made to run around 
 a tall pillar, at the end of a rope; he ate once a 
 day, one dish, rode on horseback, practised firing 
 a cross-bow; on every convenient opportunity he 
 exercised his strength of will, after the model of 
 his parent, and every evening he noted down in 
 a special book an account of the past day and his 
 impressions; and Ivan Petrovitch, on his side, 
 wrote him precepts in French, in which he called 
 him mon fits, and addressed him as vous. In Rus- 
 sian Fedya called his father " thou," but he dared 
 not sit down in his presence. The " system "' be- 
 wildered the boy, introduced confusion into his 
 head, squeezed it; but, on the other hand, the new 
 mode of life acted beneficially on his health: at 
 first he caught a fever, but soon recovered, and 
 became a fine, dashing fellow. His father was 
 proud of him, and called him, in his strange jar- 
 ji-on: "A son of nature, iiiv i)roduct." When 
 
 71
 
 A XOBT.EMAX'S XEST 
 
 Fedya reached tlie age of sixteen, Ivan Petro- 
 vitch reaarded it as iiis dutv to instil into liini be- 
 times scorn for the fair sex, — and the youthful 
 Spartan, with timidity in his soul, with the first 
 down upon his lips, full of vigour, strength, and 
 blood, attempted to appear indifferent, cold, and 
 harsli. 
 
 ^Meanwhile, time passed and passed. Ivan Pe- 
 trovitch spent the greater part of the year at 
 I^avriki (that was the name of his paternal es- 
 tate), and in tlie winters he went alone to ]Mos- 
 cow, stopped at an inn, diligently frequented the 
 club, orated and set forth liis ])lans in drawing- 
 rooms, and conducted himself more like an An- 
 glomaniac, a grumbler, and a statesman than 
 ever. But the year 1825 arrived, and brought 
 \\ ith jt much woe.^ Ivan Petrovitch's intimate 
 friends and acquaintances were subjected to se- 
 vere trials. Ivan Petrovitch made haste to re- 
 treat to his country estate, and locked himself up 
 in his house. Another year elapsed, and Ivan 
 Petrovitch suddenly grew feeble, weakened, de- 
 clined, his health deserted him. A free-thinker 
 — he took to going to church, and to ordering ser- 
 vices of prayer; a European — he began to steam 
 himself at the bath, to dine at two o'clock, to go to 
 bed at nine, to fall asleep to the chatter of the 
 aged butler; a statesman — he burned all his plans, 
 all his correspondence, trembled before the gov- 
 
 ' At tlic accession to the tlirone of Nicholas I. — Traxslator. 
 
 72
 
 A NOBLKiMAN S XKST 
 
 eriior, and fidgeted in the presence of the rural 
 chief of i)()liee; a man with a will of iron-he 
 whimpered and complained when an ahscess 
 broke out on him, when he was sensed with a j)late 
 of cold soiip. (xlafira I'etrovna again reigned 
 over everything in the house; again clerks, village 
 bailiffs, common peasants, began to creep through 
 the back entrance to the " ill-tempered old hag," 
 — that was what the house-servants called her. 
 The change in Ivan I^etrovitch gave his son a 
 great shock ; he was already in his nineteenth year, 
 and had begun to reason and to free himself 
 from the weight of the hand which oppressed 
 him. He had noticed, even before this, a dis- 
 crepancy between his father's words and deeds, 
 between his broad and liberal theories and his 
 harsh, petty despotism; but he had not anticipated 
 such a sudden break. The inveterate egoist sud- 
 denly revealed himself at full length. Young 
 Lavretzky was getting ready to go to Moscow, 
 to prepare himself for the university, — when an 
 unforeseen, fresh calamity descended upon the 
 head of Ivan Petroviteh: he became blind, and 
 that hopelessly, in one day. 
 
 Not trusting in the skill of Russian physicians, 
 he began to take measures to obtain permission 
 to go abroad. It was refused. Then he took his 
 son with him, and for three whole years he 
 roamed over Russia, from one doctor to anotiier, 
 incessantly journeying from town to town and 
 
 73
 
 A XORLKMAX S NEST 
 
 driving the j)Iiy.sic'iajis, his son, his servants, to 
 despair by his pusilhniiniity and impatience. He 
 returned to I^avriki a perfect rag, a tearful and 
 capricious child. Bitter days ensued, every one 
 ciuhncd much at his hands. Ivan Petrovitcli 
 cahned down only while he was eating his dinner; 
 lie had never eaten so greedily, nor so much; all 
 the rest of the time he never gave himself or 
 others any peace. He prayed, grumbled at fate, 
 railed at himself, reviled politics, his system, — re- 
 viled everything which he had made his boast and 
 upon which he had prided himself, everything 
 which he had held up as an example for his son; 
 he insisted that he believed in notliing, and then 
 I)rayed again; he could not bear to be left alone 
 for a single moment, and demanded from the 
 members of his household, that they should sit 
 uninterruptedly, day and night, beside his arm- 
 chair, and amuse him with stories, which he in- 
 cessantly interrupted with the exclamation: "You 
 are inventing the whole of it — what trash ! " 
 
 Glaf ira Petrovna had a particulai'ly hard time ; 
 he positively could not get along without her — 
 and to the end she comj)lie(l with all the invalid's 
 whims, although sometimes she could not make 
 up her mind on the instant to answer him, lest 
 the sound of her voice should betray her inward 
 ^^I•ath. In this mannev he lingered on two years, 
 and died in the beginning of May, when he had 
 been carried out upon the balcony, in the sunshine. 
 
 74
 
 A NOBLKINJiVX S NEST 
 
 " Glashka, Glashka! the bouillon, the bouillon, 
 
 you old foo " lisped his stiffening tongue, 
 
 and without finishing the last word, it became si- 
 lent forever. Glafira I'etrovna, who had just 
 snatched the cup of bouillon from the hands of 
 the butler, stopped short, stared her brothei- in 
 the face, crossed herself slowly and broadly, and 
 wntlidrew in silence; and his son, who was present, 
 said nothing, either, but leaned against the railing 
 of the balcony, and gazed for a long time into the 
 garden, all fragrant and verdant, all glittering 
 in the rays of the golden sun of spring. He was 
 twenty-three years old; how terribly, how im- 
 perceptibly fast those three and twenty years had 
 sped past! Life was opening before him. 
 
 75
 
 XII 
 
 After having buried his father, and entrusted to 
 the ininiutable Glafira Fetrovna the management 
 of the farming and the oversight over the clerks, 
 young Lavretzky betook himself to ^Moscow, 
 ^\•hitller he was drawn by an obscure but powerful 
 sentiment. He recognised the defects of his edu- 
 cation, and intended to repair omissions, so far 
 as possible. During the last five years, he had 
 read a great deal, and had seen some things ; many 
 thoughts had been seething in his brain; any pro- 
 fessor might have envied him some of his know- 
 ledge, but, at the same time, he did not know 
 mucli with which every gymnasium lad has long 
 been familiar. The Anglomaniac had played his 
 son an evil trick; his whimsical education had 
 borne its fruits. For long years, he had abased 
 himself before his father without a question ; but 
 when, at last, he had divined him, the deed was 
 done, the habits had become rooted. He did not 
 know how to make acquaintance with people: at 
 twenty-three years of age, with an indomitable 
 thirst for love in his sliame-stricken heart, he did 
 not dare to look a single woman in the eye. With 
 liis clear, solid ])ut somewhat heavy sense, wuth 
 
 76
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 his inclination to stubl)ornness, conteni])latioii, 
 and indolence, he ought, I'roni his earliest years, 
 to have been cast into the whirlpool oi' life, l)Mt 
 he had been ke^jt in an artificial isolation. . . . 
 And now the charmed circle was broken, yet he 
 continued to stand in one spot, locked up, ti<4hlly 
 compressed in himself. It was ridiculous, at his 
 age, to don a student's uniform: but he was not 
 afraid of ridicule: his Spartan training had served 
 its turn to this extent at least, that it had devel- 
 oped in him scorn for other people's remarks, — 
 and so, unabashed, he donned the uniform of a 
 student. He entered the physico-mathematical 
 department. Healthy, rosy-cheeked, with a well- 
 grown beard, taciturn, he produced a strange im- 
 pression upon his conn-ades; they did not suspect 
 that in this surly man, who punctually drove to 
 the lectures in a roomy country sledge and pair, 
 there was concealed almost a child. He seemed 
 to them some sort of wise pedant; they did not 
 need him and did not seek his society, he avoided 
 them. In the course of the first two years which 
 he spent at the university, he came into close con- 
 tact with ordy one student, from whom he took 
 lessons in Latin. This student, Mikhalevitch by 
 name, an enthusiast and a poet, sincerely loved 
 Lavretzky, and quite innocently became the cause 
 of an important change in his fate. 
 
 One day, at the theatre (JNIotchaloiF was then 
 at the height of his fame, and I^avretzky never 
 
 77
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 missed a performance), he* saw a young girl in 
 a box of the bd-ctage, — and, although no woman 
 ever passed his surly figure without causing his 
 heart to (|ui\ei-. it never yet had beaten so vio- 
 lently. With her elbows resting on the velvet 
 of the box, the young girl sat motionless; alert, 
 young life sparkled in every feature of her pretty, 
 round, dark-skinned face; an elegant mind was 
 expressed in the beautiful eyes which gazed at- 
 tentivelv and softly from beneath slender brows, 
 in the swift smile of her expressive lips, in the 
 very attitude of her head, her arms, her neck; she 
 was chai'mingly dressed. Beside her sat a wrin- 
 kled, sallow woman, forty-five years of affe, with 
 a toothless smile on her constrainedly-anxious and 
 empty countenance, and in the depths of the box 
 an elderly man was visible, wearing an ample 
 coat and a tall neckcloth, w^ith an expression of 
 feeble stateliness and a certain obsequious sus- 
 picion in his little eyes, with dyed moustache and 
 side-whiskers, an insignificant, huge forehead, 
 and furrowed cheeks, — a retired General, by all 
 the signs. Lavretzky could not take his eyes from 
 the young girl who had startled him ; all at once, 
 the door of the ])ox opened, and ^likhalevitch en- 
 tered. The appearance of that man, almost his 
 sole acquaintance in all Moscow, — his appearance 
 in the company of the only young girl who had 
 engrossed his whole attention, seemed to La- 
 vretzky strange and significant. As he continued 
 
 78
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 to gaze at the box, he iioliecd that all tlie persons 
 in it treated JNlikhalevitch hke an old friend. 
 The perforniaiiee on the stage ceased to intei-est 
 Lavretzky; Motchalof!' himself, although that 
 evening he was " in high feather," did not |)io- 
 duce upon him the customary impression. In one 
 very pathetic passage, Lavretzky involuntai-ily 
 glanced at his beauty: she was bending her whole 
 body forward, her cheeks were aflame; under the 
 influence of his persistent gaze, her eyes, which 
 were riveted on the stage, turned slowly, and 
 rested upon him. . . . All night long, those eyes 
 flitted before his vision. At last, the artificiall\- 
 erected dam had given way: he trembled and 
 burned, and on the following day he betook him- 
 self to jMikhalevitch. From him he learned, thai 
 the l^eauty's name was Varvara Pavlovna Ko- 
 robyn; that the old man and woman who had sat 
 with her in the box were her father and mother, 
 and that he himself, Mikhalevitch, had made 
 their acquaintance a year previously, during his 
 stay in the suburbs of INIoscow, " on contract ser- 
 vice " (as tutor) with Count N. The enthusiast 
 expressed himself in the most laudatory manner 
 concerning Varvara Pavlovna — " ^ly dear fel- 
 low," he exclaimed, with the im])etuous harmony 
 in his voice which Mas peculiar to him, — " that 
 young girl is an amazing, a talented being, an 
 artist in the genuine sense of the word, and ex- 
 tremely amiable to boot." — Perceiving from I^a- 
 
 79
 
 A XOHLEMAX S XEST 
 
 vrttzky's (jucstion wliat an impression Varvara 
 Pjivlovna liad produced u])on him, he himself pro- 
 posed to introduce liim to her, adding that he 
 was quite at liome in their house; that the General 
 was not at all a proud man, and the mother was 
 so stupid that she all but sucked a rag. Lavret- 
 zky blushed, muttered something unintelligible, 
 and fled. For five whole days he wrestled with 
 his timidity; on the sixth day the young Spartan 
 donned a new uniform, and placed himself at the 
 disi)osition of ^Mikhalevitch, who being his own 
 valet, confined liimself to brushing his hair, — 
 and the two set out for the Korobvns'. 
 
 80
 
 XIII 
 
 The fatlier of Varvara Pavlovna, Pavel Petro- 
 vitch Korobyu, INIajor-Cieneral on the retired 
 list, had spent his whole life in Petersburg, in 
 the service; had borne the reputation, in his youth, 
 of being an accomplished dancer and officer of 
 the line; found himself, owing to poverty, the 
 adjutant of two or three ill-favoured Generals; 
 married the daughter of one of them, receiv- 
 ing twenty-five thousand rubles as her dowry; ac- 
 quired, in its finest details, the love of drills 
 and reviews; toiled, and toiled hard, for his liveli- 
 hood, and at last, at the end of twenty years, at- 
 tained to the rank of General, and received a 
 regiment. It was time for him to rest, and with- 
 out delay to establish his prosperity on a firm ba- 
 sis; this was what he calculated on doing, but he 
 managed the matter somewhat incautiously: he 
 hit u23on a new method of putting the coin of 
 the realm into circulation, — the method proved 
 to be a capital one, but he did not get out in sea- 
 son: a complaint was made against him; a more 
 than unpleasant, an ugly scandal ensued. The 
 (ieneral managed to wriggle out of the scandal, 
 after a fashion, but his career was ruined: he was 
 
 81
 
 A XOBLEMAX S NEST 
 
 advised to resign. He hung about in Petersburg 
 for a couple of years longer in the hope that 
 some snug little place would get stranded on him: 
 hut the place did not strand on him, and his 
 daughter came out of the government school, and 
 his expenses increased eveiy day. . . . Repress- 
 ing his wiath, he decided to remove to INIoscow for 
 the sake of economy, hired a tinv, low-roofed 
 house on Old Stable Street, with a coat of arms 
 a fathom tall on the roof, and began to live the 
 life of a Moscow General on the retired list, 
 spending 27.'50 rubles a year. JNIoscow is a hos- 
 pitable town, glad to welcome everybody who 
 comes along, and more particularly', Generals; 
 Pavel Petrovitch's heavy figure, which yet was 
 not lacking in military mien, speedily began to 
 make its appearance in the best drawing-rooms of 
 M()sco\N'. His bald nape, with tufts of dyed hair, 
 and the dirty ribbon of the order of St. Anna on 
 a neckcloth the hue of the raven's wing, began to 
 be well known to all the easily bored and pallid 
 young men who morosely hovered around the 
 gambling-tables while dancing was in progress. 
 Pavel Petrovitch understood how to ])lace himself 
 in society; he talked little, but, by force of old 
 habit, thiough his nose, — of course, not with indi- 
 viduals l)elonging to the higher ranks; he played 
 cards cautiously, at home he ate sparingly, but 
 when visiting he ate for six. Concerning his wife, 
 there is hardly anything to say: her name was 
 
 82
 
 A xNOBLKMAN'S XKST 
 
 Kalliopc Karluviui; a tear uozcd Iroin lur kit 
 eye, by virtue of whicli Kalliope KarloMia (she 
 was, moreover, of (ierinan extraction) regarded 
 herself as a woniau of sentiment; slie hved in con- 
 stant fear of something, never seemed to have had 
 quite enougli to eat, and wore tight velvet gowns, 
 a tur])an, and dull bracelets of hollow metal. 
 Varvara Pavlovna, the only daughter of Pavel 
 Petrovitch and Kalli6j)e Karlovna, had just 
 passed her seventeenth birthday when she came 
 out of the * * * Institute, where she had been 
 considered, if not the greatest beauty, certaiidy 
 the cleverest girl and the best musician, and where 
 she had received the chiffrc;^ she was not yet 
 nineteen when Lavretzkv beheld her for the iirst 
 time. 
 
 1 In the Government Institutes for girls, the chief prize is 
 the Empress's initial, in jewels. — Traxslator. 
 
 8S
 
 XIV 
 
 TjiE legs of the Spartan gave way beneath hhn 
 wlicn ]Mikhalevitoh conducted him into the rather 
 shabbily furnished drawing-room of the Koro- 
 l)yns, and presented him to the master and mis- 
 tress of the house. But the feehng of timidity 
 ^liich had taken possession of him promptly dis- 
 appeared: in the (ieneral the kindliness of na- 
 ture innate in all Russians was greatly increased 
 by that special sort of courtesy which is peculiar 
 to all besmirched people; the Generaless soon 
 disappeared, somehow; as for Varvara Pavlovna, 
 she was so calm and self-possessedly amiable, that 
 anv one would immediately have felt himself at 
 home in her presence; moreover, from the whole 
 of her enchanting person, from her smiling eyes, 
 from her innocently-sloping shoulders and 
 faintly-rosy hands, from her light and, at the 
 same time, rather languid gait, from the very 
 sound of her voice, which was low and sweet, — 
 there breathed forth an insinuating charm, as 
 intangible as a delicate perfimie, a soft and as 
 yet modest intoxication, something which it is 
 diliicult to express in words, but which touched 
 and excited, — and, of course, excited something 
 which was not timidity. Lavretzky turned the 
 
 84
 
 A NOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 conversation on tlie theatre, on the perrorinanec 
 of the preceding evening; she immechately hegan, 
 herself, to sjjeak of ^NIotehalofF, and did not con- 
 fine lierself merely to exclamations and sighs, l)iit 
 uttered several just and femininelv-l)enetratin<i' 
 remarks concerning his acting. Mikiiale\itch 
 alluded to music; without any affectation she 
 seated lierself at the piano, and played with pre- 
 cision several mazurkas l)y Chopin, which had 
 only just come into fashion. The dinner-hour 
 arrived; Lavretzky made a motion to depart, hut 
 they kept him ; at tahle, the General treated him 
 to good claret, for which the Generars lackey had 
 galloped in a cah to Depre's. Late at nigiit, 
 Lavretzky returned home, and sat for a long 
 time, without undressing, his eyes covered with 
 his hand, in dumh enchantment. It seemed to 
 him, that only now had he come to understand 
 why life was worth living; all his hypotheses, his 
 intentions, all that nonsense and rubhish, van- 
 ished instantaneously ; his whole soul was merged 
 in one sentiment, in one desire, in the desire for 
 happiness, possession, love, the sweet love of 
 woman. From that day forth, he began to go 
 often to the Korobyns'. Six montlis later, he 
 declared himself to Varvara Pavlovna, and of- 
 fered her his hand. His proposal was accepted; 
 the General had long since, almost on the eve of 
 his first visit, incjuired of ^likhalevitch how many 
 serfs he, Lavretzky, had: and Varvara Pavlovna 
 
 85
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 also, who. (luring the whole period of the young 
 man's courtsliij3 and even at the moment of his 
 declaration, had ])reserved her habitual tranquil- 
 lity and clearness of soul, — Varvara Pavlovna 
 also \\as well aware that her lover was rich; 
 and Kalliope Karlovna said to herself: " jNIeine 
 Tocliter macht eine schone Partie " — and bought 
 herself a new turban.
 
 XV 
 
 So his proposal was accepted, but on cei'tain coii- 
 (litioMs. Ill the first place, Lavretzky must im- 
 mediately leave the university: who marries a 
 student? and what a dreadful idea, — for a landed 
 proprietor, ricli, and twenty-six years old, to take 
 lessons hke a school-boy! In the second ])hice, 
 Varvara Pavlovna took upon herself the laboui- 
 of ordering and purchasing tlie trousseau, even 
 of choosing the bridegroom's gifts. Slie had a 
 great deal of practical sense, much taste, much 
 love for comfort, and a great knack for secur- 
 ing for herself that comfort. This knack partic- 
 ularly astonished Lavretzky when, immediately 
 after the wedding, he and his wife set out in a 
 commodious carriage, whicli she had bought, for 
 Lavriki. How everything which surrounded him 
 had been planned, foreseen, provided for by Var- 
 vara Pavlovna! What charming travelling re- 
 quisites, what fascinating toilet-boxes and coffee- 
 pots, made their appearance in divers snug nooks, 
 and how prettily Varvara Pavlovna herself boiled 
 the coffee in the mcn'nings! But Lavretzky was 
 not then in a mood for observation: he was in a 
 beatific state, he was intoxicating himself with 
 
 87
 
 A XOIJLKMANVS NEST 
 
 liiippiiiess; he gave liiiiiself up to it like a 
 child. . . Aiul he was as innocent as a child, 
 that young .Vlcides. Not in vain did witchery 
 exhale Ironi the whole being of his young wife; 
 not in \ ain did she i)roniise to the senses the secret 
 luxury of unknown delights; she fulfilled more 
 than she had promised. On arriving at Lavriki, 
 in the very hottest part of the summer, she found 
 the house dirty and dark, the servants ridiculous 
 and antiquated, but she did not find it necessary 
 even to hint at this to her husband. If she had 
 been making preparations to settle down at La- 
 vriki, she would have made o\'er everything about 
 it, beginning, of course, with the house; but the 
 idea of remaining in that God-forsake,n corner of 
 the steppes ne^'er entered her mind for one mo- 
 ment; she lived in it, as though camping out, 
 gently enduring all the inconveniences and mak- 
 ing amusing jests over tliem. ]Marfa Timofeevna 
 came to see her nursling; Varvara Pavlovna took 
 a great liking for her, but she did not take a 
 liking for Varvara Pavlovna. Xeither did the 
 new mistress of the house get on well with Glaf ira 
 Petrovna; she Avould have left her in peace, but 
 old Korohyn wanted to feather his nest from his 
 son-in-law's affairs; " it was no shame, even for 
 a General," said he, " to manage the estate of so 
 near a relative." It must be assumed that Pavel 
 Petrovitch would not have disdained to busy liim- 
 .self w ith the estate of an entire stranger. Var- 
 
 88
 
 A XOET.KMAX S XKST 
 
 vara Pavlovna coiuliicted her attack in a very art- 
 ful manner: without tlu-ustin^- herself forward, 
 and still, to all a])])earances, wholly ahsorhed in 
 the felicity of the honeymoon, in (juiet country 
 life, in music and readint)-, she little hy little drove 
 Glafira Petrovna to such a state, thai one morn- 
 ing the latter rushed like a madwoman into 
 I^avretzky's study, and, hurling her hunch of keys 
 on the ta})le, announced that it was heyond her 
 power to occupy herself with the h()usekeei)ing, 
 and that she did not wish to remain in the country. 
 Having heen properly prepared in advance, La- 
 vretzky immediately consented to her departure. 
 — Glafira Petrovna had not expected this. " Very 
 well," said she, and her eyes grew dark, — " I see 
 that T am not wanted here ! T know who it is that 
 is driving me hence — from my native nest. But 
 do thou remember my words, nephew : thou shalt 
 never be able to build thyself a nest anywhere, 
 thou must wander all thy life. That is my legacy 
 to thee." — That very day she departed to her own 
 little estate, and a week later General Korobyn 
 arrived, and with agreeable melancholy in his 
 gaze and movements, took the management of the 
 entire estate into his hands. 
 
 In September, Varvara Petrovna carried her 
 husband off to Petersburg. She spent two win- 
 ters in Petersburg (they removed to Tz/irskoe 
 Selo for the summer), in a beautiful, light, ele- 
 gantly furnished a])artment: they made many 
 
 80
 
 A XOBLE.ArAX S XEST 
 
 acquaintances in middle-class and even in the 
 liigher circles of society, they went out and re- 
 ceived a great deal, and gave most charming mu- 
 sical and dancing parties. Varvara Pavlovna at- 
 tracted iiuests as a flame attracts moths. Such a 
 dissipated life did not altogether })lease Feodor 
 Iviinitch. His wife advised him to enter the ser- 
 vice; owing to his father's old memories, and his 
 own conceptions, he would not serve, but to please 
 his wife he remained in Petersburg. But he 
 speedily divined that no one prevented his iso- 
 lating himself, that it was not for nothing that 
 he had the (juietest and most comfortable study 
 in all Petersburg, that his solicitous wife was even 
 ready to help him to isolate himself, — and from 
 that time forth all went splendidly. Once more 
 he took up his own education, which, in his opin- 
 ion, was unfinished, once more he began to read, 
 he even began to study the p]inglish language. It 
 was strange to see his mighty, broad-shouldered 
 figure, eternally bent over his writing-table, his 
 full, hairy, ruddy face half concealed by the pages 
 of a dictionary or an exercise-book. Every morn- 
 ing he spent in work, dined capitally (Varvara 
 Pavlovna was an excellent housewife) , and in the 
 evening he entered an enchanting, fragrant, bril- 
 liant world, all populated with young, merry 
 faces, — and the central point of that world was 
 also the zealous hostess, his wife. She gladdened 
 him with the birth of a son, but the poor boy did 
 
 90
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 not live long: he died in the spiliig, and in Die 
 summer, hy the adviee of the physieians, Jai- 
 vretzky took his wife abroad, to the l)atiis. Di- 
 version ^vas indispensable to her, after sueh a 
 bereavement, and her health recjuired a warm 
 climate. They spent the summer and autumn in 
 Germany and Switzerland, and in the winter, as 
 might have been expected, they went to Paris. 
 In Paris Varvara Pavlovna blossomed out like a 
 rose, and managed to build a little nest for her- 
 self as promptly and as adroitly as in Petersburg. 
 She found an extremely pretty apartment, in one 
 of the quiet but fashionable Paris streets; she 
 made her husband such a dressing-gown as he had 
 never owned before; she hired a trim maid, a 
 capital cook, a smart footman; she got an en- 
 chanting carriage, a charming little piano. A 
 week had not passed before she crossed a street, 
 wore her shawl, opened her parasol, and put on 
 her gloves in a style equal to that of the purest- 
 blooded Parisienne. And she soon provided her- 
 self with acquaintances. At first, only Russians 
 went to her house, then Frenchmen began to 
 make their appearance, very amiable, courteous, 
 unmarried, Avith beautiful manners and eui)honi- 
 ous family names ; they all talked fast and much, 
 bovv^ed with easy grace, and screwed up their eyes 
 in a pleasing way; all of tliem had white teetli 
 which gleamed beneath rosy lips, — and h(nv they 
 did understand the art of smiling! Every one of 
 
 91
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 them hroimlit his rrieiuls, aiul " hi belle ]Madame 
 (le Lin retzki " soon became known from the 
 Chaussee d'Antin to the Rue de Lille. In those 
 days (this took place in 1836), that tribe of 
 feuilleton and chronicle writers, which now swarm 
 everywhere, like ants in an ant-hill which has 
 been cut open, had not nmltiplied; but even then, 
 a certain M — r Jules presented himself in Var- 
 viira Piivlovna's salon, a gentleman of insignifi- 
 cant ai)pearance, with a scandalous reputation, 
 insolent and base, like all duellists and beaten 
 men. This ]M — r Jules was extremely repulsive 
 to ^''arvara P/nlovna, but she received him be- 
 cause he scribbled for various journals, and inces- 
 santlv alluded to her, calling her now " Mme. de 
 X/ * * * tzki," now " Mine, de * * * cette graude 
 dame Russe si distlngiiee, qui demeure rue de P." ; 
 narrating to all the world, that is to say, to a few 
 hundred subscribers, who cared nothing whatever 
 about " Mme. de L * * * tzki," how that pretty 
 and charming lady was a real French^^'oman in 
 mind (ime vraie fraufaise par l' esprit), — there is 
 no higher encomium for the French, — what a re- 
 markable nuisician she was, and how wonderfully 
 she waltzed (Varvara Pavlovna, in reality, did 
 waltz in such a manner as to draw all hearts after 
 the hem of her light, fluttering gown) ... in a 
 word, he spread her fame thi'oughout the world, 
 — and assuredly that is agreeable, say what you 
 will. Mile. ]\Iars had already left the stage, and 
 
 92
 
 A NOBLKMAWS XKST 
 
 jMlle. Kaclicl liad not yt-t iiiade her apjjcaiaiicc; 
 nev^ertheless, Varvara Pavlovna diliointlv \'vv- 
 quented the theatres. She went into eestasies 
 over Itahan niiisie, and laii<^lied at tlie ruins of 
 Odra, yawned deeorously at the C'onieche Fran- 
 caise, and wept at the acting of Mnie. Dorval in 
 some ultra-romantic melodrama or other; hul, 
 chief of all, Liszt ])layed a couple of times at her 
 house, and was so nice, so sim})le"-it was de- 
 lightful! In sucli pleasant sensations jjassed a 
 winter, at the end of which Varv^ara Pavlovna 
 w^as even presented at Court. Feodor Ixtinitch, 
 on his side, was not bored, altliough life, at times, 
 weighed heavily on his shoulders, — heavily, be- 
 cause it was empty. He read the newspa])ers, he 
 listened to lectures at the Sorbonne and tlie Col- 
 lege de France, he kept track of the debates in 
 parliament, he undertook the translation of a 
 well-known scientific work on irrigation. " I am 
 not wasting time," — he said to himself, — " all 
 this is useful; but next winter I must, without 
 fail, return to Russia and set to work." It is dif- 
 ficult to say, whether he was clearly conscious 
 in what that work consisted, and God knows 
 whether he would have succeeded in returning to 
 Russia for the winter, — in the meantime, he went 
 with his wife to Baden-Baden. . . xVn unex- 
 pected event destroyed all liis plans. 
 
 93
 
 XVI 
 
 One day, on entering A^arvara Pavlovna's bou- 
 doir in her absence, Lavretzky beheld on the floor 
 a tiny, carefully-folded scrap of paper. He 
 nieclianically picked it up, mechanically unfolded 
 it, and read the following, written in French: 
 
 " Dear angel Betsy ! ( I cannot possibly bring myself 
 to call thee Barbe or Varvsira). I waited in vain for 
 thee at the corner of the Boulevard ; come to-morrow, 
 at half-past one, to our little apartment. Thy good 
 fatty (ton gros bonhomme de mari) generally buries 
 himself in his books at that hour; again we will sing 
 the song of your poet Puskin (de voire poete Poiis- 
 kine) which thou hast taught me : ' Old husband, men- 
 acing husband ! ' — A thousand kisses on thy hands and 
 feet ! I await thee." 
 
 " Ernest." 
 
 Lavretzky did not, on the instant, understand 
 what sort of thing it was he had read ; he perused 
 it a second time — and his head reeled, the floor 
 swayed beneath his feet, like the deck of a steamer 
 when it is pitching — he cried out, and sobbed and 
 wept simultaneously. 
 
 He lost his senses. He had so blindly trusted 
 
 94
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 his wife, that the possihility of (lece])ti()ii, of 
 treachery, had never presented itself to his mind. 
 That Ernest, tliat lover of his wife's was a i'air- 
 haired, good-looking hoy of three and twenty, 
 with a small snuh nose and thin moustache, almost 
 the most insignificant of all her admirers. vSev- 
 eral minutes passed, half an hour passed; Lavret- 
 zky still stood, crushing the fatal missive in his 
 hand and staring senselessly at the floor; through 
 a sort of dark whirlwind, visions of pale faces 
 flitted hefore him; his heart sank within him, in 
 anguish; it seemed to him that he was falling, 
 falling, falling . . . and that there was no end 
 to it. The light, familiar rustle of a silken robe 
 aroused him from his state of stupefaction ; Var- 
 vara Pavlovna, in bonnet and shawl, had hastily 
 returned from her stroll. Lavretzky trembled all 
 over, and rushed out of the room ; he felt that at 
 that moment he was capable of tearing her to 
 pieces, of beating her until she was half dead, in 
 peasant fashion, of strangling her M'itli his hands. 
 The astonished Varvara Pavlovna tried to stop 
 him; he coidd only whisper: " Betsy" — and fled 
 from the house. 
 
 Lavretzky took a carriage, and ordered the 
 man to drive him out of town. The entire re- 
 mainder of the day, and the whole night long until 
 the morning, he roamed about, incessantly hail- 
 ing and wringing his lunids: now he raged, again 
 it seemed rathei" ridiculous to him, even i-athrr 
 
 95
 
 A XOIU.KMAX S XEST 
 
 amusing. In the inorning he was chilled through, 
 antl entered a wretched suburban inn, asked for 
 a room, and seated himself on a chair by the win- 
 do\\-. A convulsive yawning seized hold upon 
 him. lie could liardlv stand on his feet, his body 
 was exhausted, — but he was conscious of no 
 fatigue, — yet fatigue claimed its rights: he sat 
 and stared, and understood nothing; he did not 
 understand wliat liad happened to him, why he 
 found himself alone, with benumbed limbs, with 
 a bitterness in liis mouth, with a stone on his 
 breast, in a bare, strange room ; he did not under- 
 stand what had made her, Varya, give herself to 
 that Frenchman, and how she had been able, 
 knowing herself to be unfaithful, to be as calm, 
 amiable, and confiding toward him as before! " I 
 understand nothing! " whispered his parched lips. 
 " Who will guarantee me now, that in Peters- 
 burg <,..." And he did not finish the question, 
 and yawned again, quivering and writhing all 
 over. The bright and the dark memories tor- 
 mented him equally ; it suddenly occurred to him, 
 that a few days previously, in his presence and in 
 that of Ernest, she had seated herself at the piano 
 and had sung: " Old husband, menacing hus- 
 band ! " lie recalled the expression of her face, 
 the strange glitter of her eyes, and the flush on 
 her cheeks, — and he rose from his chair; he 
 wanted to go and to sav to them : " You have 
 made a mistake in trifling witli me; my great- 
 
 96
 
 A NOBI.KMAN'S XKST 
 
 graiidfatlicr used to liaji<4 the ])L'a.sanl.s up l,y the 
 ribs, and my grandfather himself uas a peasant " 
 —and kill them both. Then, all of a sudden, it 
 seemed to him, that everything whieh was taking 
 place with him was a dream,and not even a dieaiii, 
 but merely some nonsense or other: that all he 
 had to do Avas to shake liimself, to look about 
 him. . . . He did look about him, and as the 
 hawk buries his claws in the bird he has captured, 
 anguish pierced more and more deeply into his 
 heart. To crown all, Lavretzky Mas hoping at 
 the end of a few months to become a father. . . 
 The past, the future, his whole life was poisoned. 
 He returned, at last, to Paris, put up at a hotel, 
 and sent \^arvara Pavlovna the note of M — r 
 Ernest, with the following letter: 
 
 " The accompanying document will explain cvcrytliinn; 
 to you. I will say to you, by the way, that I did not 
 recognise you: you, always such a precise person, to 
 drop such an important paper ! " ( This phrase poor La- 
 vretzky had prepared and cherished for the space of sev- 
 eral hours.) " I can see you no more; I assume that you, 
 also, cannot wish to meet mo. I have assigned fifteen 
 thousand francs a 3'car to you ; I cannot give more. 
 Send your address to the office of the estate. Do wliat 
 you will, live where you please. I wish you happiness. 
 No answer is necessary," 
 
 Lavretzky wrote to his wife, that no answer 
 was necessary . . . but he waited, he thirsted for 
 
 97
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 an answer, an explanation of this incomprehensi 
 l)le, this incredible affair. Varvara Pavlovna, 
 that very day, sent him a long letter in French. 
 It made an end of him; his last doubts vanished, 
 —and he felt ashamed that he had still cherished 
 doubts. Varvara Pavlovna did not defend her- 
 self: she merely wished to see him, she entreated 
 him not to condemn her irrevocably. The letter 
 was cold and constrained, although the traces of 
 tears were visible here and there. Lavretzky ut- 
 tered a bitter laugh, and bade the messenger say 
 that it was all very good. Three days later, he 
 had quitted Paris: but he went, not to Russia, but 
 to Italy. He himself did not know why he had 
 chosen Italy, in particular; in reality, it made no 
 difference to him whither he went, — provided it 
 were not home. He sent instructions to his peas- 
 ant-steward in regard to his wife's pension, or- 
 dered him, at the same time, to take all matters 
 pertaining to the estate instantly out of the hands 
 of General Korobyn, without awaiting the sur- 
 render of the accounts, and to make arrangements 
 for the departure of His Excellency from La- 
 \ riki; he formed a vivid picture to himself, of the 
 consternation, the fruitless haughtiness of the 
 ejected General, and, with all his grief, he felt a 
 certain malicious satisfaction. Then he invited 
 (xlafira Petrovna, in a letter also, to return to 
 I^avriki, and sent her a power of attorney. 
 Glafira Petrovna did not return to Lavriki, 
 
 98
 
 A NOIU.EMAX S XEST 
 
 and herself published in Ihe iie\vsi)a])ei's that 
 she had destroyed the power of attorney, whieh 
 was quite superfluous. Ilidin*^- himself in a small 
 Italian town, it was a long time still before La- 
 vretzky could foi-ee himself not to watch his 
 wife. He learned from the newspa])ers, that she 
 had quitted Paris, as it was supposed, foi- Haden- 
 Baden : her name soon made its ap])earance in an 
 article written by that same M'sieu Jules. In 
 this article, a sort of friendly condolence i)iereed 
 through the customary playfulness; Feodor 
 Ivanitch's soul was in a very ugly state when he 
 read that article. Later on, he learned that a 
 daughter had been born to him; at the end of a 
 couple of months, he was informed by his peasant- 
 steward, that Varvara Pavlo\'na had demanded 
 the first third of her allowance. Then more and 
 more evil reports began to arrive ; at last, a tragi- 
 comic tale made the rounds — creating a sensa- 
 tion — of the newspapers, wherein his wife played 
 an unenviable part. All was at an end : Varvai-a 
 Pavlovna had become " a celebrity." 
 
 Lavretzky ceased to follow her career; but he 
 was not able speedily to concjuer himself. At 
 times, he was seized with such a longing for his 
 wife, that it seemed to him, he would give every- 
 thing — he would even, if necessary . . . forgive 
 her — if only he might again hear her caressing 
 voice, again feel her hand in his hand. But time 
 went on, and not in \ain. He was not l)orn to 
 
 99
 
 A XOET.EMAX'S XEST 
 
 be a martyr: liis healthy nature asserted its rights. 
 Much became clear to him: the very blow which 
 had assailed him, no longer seemed to him un- 
 foreseen : he understood his wife, — one under- 
 stands a person who is near to one, when parted 
 from him. Again he was able to occupy himself, 
 to work, altliough with far less zeal than of yore: 
 scepticism, for wliicli the way had been prepared 
 by the experiences of life, by his education, defin- 
 itively took possession of his soul. He became 
 extremely indifferent to everything. Four years 
 ela])sed, and he felt liimself strong enough to re- 
 turn to his native land, to meet his own people. 
 Without halting either in Petersburg or INIoscow, 
 he arrived in the town of O * * * where we took 
 leave of him, and whither we now beg the indul- 
 gent reader to return with us. 
 
 TOO
 
 XVII 
 
 On the morning following the day which we 
 have described, at nine o'clock, Lavretzky as- 
 cended the porch of tlic Kalitin house. Li/a 
 emerged to meet him, in hat and gloves. 
 
 " Where are j'ou going? " he asked her. 
 
 " To church. To-day is Sunday." 
 
 " And do you really care to go to the IJturgy?" 
 
 Liza said nothing, but gazed at him in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 " Pardon me, please," — said Lavretzky, — 
 " I ... I did not mean to say that. I came to 
 say good-bye to you: I am going to my country 
 place an hour hence." 
 
 " It is not far from here, is it? " — inquired 
 Liza. 
 
 " Twenty-five versts." 
 
 Lyenotchka made her appearance on the 
 threshold of the door, accompanied by a maid. 
 
 " See that you do not forget us," — said Liza, 
 and descended the steps. 
 
 " And do not you forget me. And see here," — 
 he added, — "you are going to church: pray for 
 me also, by the way-" 
 
 Liza paused and turned toward him. 
 
 " Certainly," — she said, looking him straight in 
 
 101
 
 A NOHLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 tlic lace: - ' 1 Nvill pray for you. Come along, 
 liVciiotchka/' 
 
 Lavrctzkv found Marva Dniitrievna alone in 
 the (ll•a^ving-room. An odour of eau de cologne 
 and mint emanated from her. She had a head- 
 ache, according to lier own account, and she liad 
 passed a restless night. She welcomed him with 
 her customary languid amiability, and gradually 
 got to talking. 
 
 " \Vhat an agreeable young man Vladimir 
 Xikolaitch is," she inquired: — "is he not?" 
 
 '' What Vladimir Xikolaitch? " 
 
 " Why, Panshin, you know, — the one who was 
 here yesterday evening. He took an immense 
 liking to you; I will tell you, as a secret, mo?2 cher 
 cousin, he is simply beside himself over my Liza. 
 AVhat do you think of that? He comes of a good 
 family, he discluirges his service splendidly, he 
 is clever, well, and a Junior Gentleman of the 
 Bedchamber, and if it be God's will .... I, on 
 my side, as a mother, shall be very glad. It is a 
 great responsibility, of course: up to the ]3resent 
 time, whether it be for good or evil, you see, I 
 am alwavs, everywhere, entirely alone: I have 
 reared my children, I have taught them, I have 
 done everything .... and now I have ordered 
 a governess from jNIme. Bolius " 
 
 Miirya Dmitrievna launched out into a de- 
 scription of her toils, her efforts, and her ma- 
 ternal feelings. Lavretzky listened to her in si- 
 
 102
 
 A NOBLKxMAX S NKST 
 
 lence, and twirled his hat in his hands. His cohl. 
 heavy gaze (hsconcerted the loquacious lady. 
 
 "And how do you like I.iza? "^ — she asked. 
 
 " I^izaveta INlikhailovna is an extremely heau- 
 tiful girl," — replied Lavretzky, rose, l)owe(l, and 
 went to INIarfa Tiniof eevna. INIarya Diiiitrievna 
 gazed after him with displeasure, and said to 
 herself; "What a dolt, what a peasant! Well, 
 now 1 understand why his wife could not remain 
 faithful to liim." 
 
 INlarfa Timofeevna was sitting in her own 
 room, surrounded by her suite. It consisted of 
 five beings, almost e(]ually near to her heart: a fat- 
 jowled trained bulliincli, which she loved because 
 he had ceased to whistle and draw water; a tiny, 
 very timorous and peaceable dog, Roska; an an- 
 gry cat jMatros (Sailor) ; a black-visaged nimble 
 little girl of nine, with huge eyes and a sliarp 
 little nose, who was named Schiirotchka; and an 
 elderly woman, fifty years of age, in a white 
 cap, and a light brown, bob-tailed jacket over a 
 dark gown, by name Nastasya Kiirpovna Ogar- 
 kofF. Schiirotchka was of the petty burgher 
 class, a full orphan. JNLirfa Timofeevna had 
 taken charge of her out of pity, as she had of 
 Roska: she had picked up both the dog and the 
 girl in the street; both were thin and hungry, both 
 were beins; drenched bv tlie autumnal rain, no 
 one had hunted u]) Roska, and Schiirotchka's 
 uncle, a drunken shoeniakei-, wlio had not enough 
 
 103
 
 A XOBI.KMAX'S NEST 
 
 to eat himself, and who (hd not feed his niece» 
 thouo-h he l)eat her over the head with his last, 
 iiladlv surrendered her to ^larfa Timofeevna. 
 With \astasya Karpovna, Marfa Timofeevna 
 had made aequaintanee on a pilgrimage, in a 
 monastery; she herself had gone up to her in 
 ehureh (Marfa Timofeevna liked her because, to 
 use her own words, "she prayed tastily"), had 
 herself begun the conversation, and had invited 
 her to come to her for a cup of tea. From that 
 day forth, she had never parted with her. Xasta- 
 sya Karpovna was a woman of the merriest and 
 gentlest disposition, a childless widow, member 
 of a po\'erty-stricken family of the petty no- 
 bility; she had a round, grey head, soft white 
 hands, a soft face, with large, kindly features, and 
 a rather ridiculous snub nose; she fairly" wor- 
 shipped ]\rarfa Timofeevna, and the latter loved 
 her greatly, although she jeered at her tender 
 heart: Xastiisya Karpovna felt a weakness for all 
 young people, and involuntarily blushed like a 
 girl at the most innocent jest. Her entire capital 
 consisted of twelve hundred paper rubles; she 
 lived at the expense of INIarfa Timofeevna, but on 
 e(jual terms with her: Marfa Timofeevna woidd 
 not have tolerated servility. 
 
 " Ah, Fedya! " she began, as soon as she caught 
 sight of him: — " last night, thou didst not see my 
 family: admire it. We are all assembled for tea: 
 this is our second, feast-dav tea. Thou mayest 
 
 • * 
 
 104
 
 A NOHLKMAWS XKST 
 
 pet all: only Schiirotdika will not allow tlicr, and 
 the cat scratches. Art thou ^oiii'^' away to-day^ " 
 
 " Ves," — Lavretzky seated hiinsell' on a nai- 
 row little chair. — " I have already said I'arewell 
 to Marya Dmitrievna. I have also seen Lizaveta 
 jNIikhailovna." 
 
 " Call her Liza, my father, — why should she he 
 ISIikhailovna to thee! And sit still, or thou wilt 
 hreak Schurotehka's chair." 
 
 " She has gone to church," — pursued La- 
 vretzky. " Is she pious? " 
 
 " Yes, Fedya, — very. More than thou and I, 
 P^edya." 
 
 " But are not you pious?" — remarked Xastji- 
 sya Karpovna, in a whisper. " And to-day: you 
 did not get to the early Liturgy, but you will go 
 to the later one." 
 
 " Not a bit of it — thou wilt go alone: 1 am 
 lazy, my mother," — retorted iNIarfa Timofeevna, 
 — " I am pampering myself greatly with my 
 tea."^ — She called Nastasya thoUj although she 
 lived on equal terms with her, — she was not a 
 PestofF for nothing: three PestofFs are recorded 
 w ith distinction in the Book of Remembrance of 
 Ivan Vasilievitch, the Terrible;' 3Iarfa Timo- 
 feevna kne^v it. 
 
 ' Ivan the Terrible left a long record of his distinguished vietinis, 
 for the repose of whose souls he ordered prayers to he said in j)er- 
 petuity- "Book of Renienihranee " contains the names of per- 
 sons who are to be prayed for at the general requiem services, and 
 so forth. — -Translator. 
 
 105
 
 A xoblp:man s nest 
 
 *' Tell inc. please," — began Lavretzky again :— 
 " Miirya Dniitrievna has just been talking about 
 tiiat .... what \s liis name .... Panshin. What 
 sort of a person is he? " 
 
 '* \Vhat a ehatterbox, the Lord forgive her!" 
 — grumbled ^larfa Timofeevna: — " I suppose 
 she imparted to you, as a secret, what a fine suitor 
 lias turned up. She might do her whispering with 
 her priest's son; but no, that is not enough for 
 her. But there 's nothing in it, as yet, and thank 
 God for that! but she \s babbling already." 
 
 " Why ' thank God ' ? "—asked Lavretzky. 
 
 " Why, because the young fellow does not 
 j)lease me; and what is there to rejoice about? " 
 
 " lie does not please you? " 
 
 " Yes, he cannot fascinate everybody. It 's 
 enough that Nastasya l\ar[)ovna here should be 
 in love with him." 
 
 The poor widow was thoroughly startled. 
 
 " AVhat makes vou say that, iNIarfa Timo- 
 feevna? You do not fear (iod! " — she exclaimed, 
 and a blush instantly suffused her face and 
 neck. 
 
 " And he certainly knows the rogue," — JMarfa 
 Timofeevna interrupted her: — " he knows how to 
 ca])tivate her: he presented her with a snufF-box. 
 Fedya, ask her to give thee a pinch of snuff; thou 
 wilt see what a splendid snuff-box it is: on the 
 lid is depicted a hussar on horseback. Thou hadst 
 better not defend thyself, my mother." 
 
 106
 
 A XOin.KMAX'S XKST 
 
 Nastasya Karpovna merely repelled the sug- 
 gestion with a wave of her hands. 
 
 " Well,"— inquired J.avret/ky, '' and is Liza 
 not indifferent to him? " 
 
 " Apparently, she likes him,— however, the 
 Lord only knows. Another man's soul, tliou 
 knowest, is a dark forest, much more the soul ol' 
 a young girl. Now, there 's Schurotehka's soul- 
 try to dissect that ! AVhy has she been hidiuo- her- 
 self, and yet does not go away, ever since thou 
 earnest? " 
 
 Schiirotchka snorted with suj)pressed laughter 
 and ran out of the room, and Lavretzky rose from 
 his seat. 
 
 "Yes," — he said slowly: — "a maiden's soul 
 is not to be divined." 
 
 He began to take leave. 
 
 "Well? Shall we see thee again soon?" — 
 asked ]Marfa Timofeevna. 
 
 " That 's as it may happen, aunty; it is not far 
 off." 
 
 " Yes, but thou art going to Vasilievskoe. 
 Thou wilt not live at Lavriki: — well, that is 
 thy affair; only, go and salute the tomb of thy 
 mother, and the tomb of thy grandmother too. l)y 
 the bye. Thou hast acquired all sorts of learning 
 yonder abroad, and who knows, perchance they 
 Avill feel it in their graves that thou hast come to 
 them. And don't forget, Fedya, to have a le- 
 quiem service celebrated for Glafi'ra Petrovna 
 
 107
 
 A XOBLEMAN'S XEST 
 
 also ; here 's a silver ruble for thee. Take it, take 
 it, I want to pay for having a requiem service for 
 her. During her lifetime I did not hke her, but 
 there 's no denying it, the woman had plenty of 
 character. She was a clever creature; and she 
 did not wrong thee, either. And now go, with 
 God's blessing, or thou wilt grow weary of me." 
 
 And ]Marfa Timofeevna embraced her nephew. 
 
 " And Liza shall not marry Panshin, — don't 
 worry about that ; that 's not the sort of husband 
 she deserves." 
 
 " Why, I am not worrying in the least," replied 
 Ijavretzkv, and withdrew. 
 
 108
 
 XVIII 
 
 Four hours later, he was driving homeward. Ills 
 tarantas rolled swiftly along the soft countiy 
 road. There had heen a drought for a fortnight; 
 a thin milkj^ cloud was diffused through the air, 
 and veiled the distant forests; it reeked with tlie 
 odour of hurning. A multitude of small, dark 
 cloudlets, with indistinctly delineated edges, were 
 creeping across the pale-hlue sky; a fairly strong 
 wind was whisking along in a dry, uninterrupted 
 stream, without dispelling the sultriness. Lean- 
 ing his head against a cushion, and folding 
 his arms on his hreast, Lavretzky gazed at the 
 strips of ploughed land, in fan-shape, which Hew 
 past, at the willow-trees slowly flitting hy, at tlie 
 stupid crows and daws gazing with dull suspicion 
 askance at the passing equipage, at the long strips 
 of turf between the cultivated sections, overgrown 
 with artemisia, wormwood, and wild tansy; lie 
 gazed .... and that fresh, fertile nakedness 
 and wildness of the steppe, that verdure, those 
 long hillocks, the ravines with stubby oak ])uslies, 
 the grey hamlets, the flexible birch-trees, — this 
 whole Russian picture, which he had not seen for 
 a long time, wafted into his soul sweet and, at 
 
 109
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 the same time, painful sensations, weighed on his 
 hreast with a certain agreeable oppression. His 
 thoughts slowly roved about; their outlines were 
 as indistinet and confused as the outlines of those 
 loftv cloudlets, which, also, seemed to be roving. 
 He recalled his childhood, his mother; he remem- 
 bered how she died, how they had carried him to 
 her, and how she, pressing his head to her bosom, 
 had begun to sing feebly over him, but had cast 
 a glance at Glafira Petrovna — and had relapsed 
 into silence. He recalled his father, at first alert, 
 dissatisfied Avith every one, and with a brazen 
 voice, — then blind, tearful, and with a dirty grey 
 beard; he recalled how, one day, at table, after 
 drinking an extra glass of wine, and spilling the 
 sauce over his napkin, he had suddenly burst out 
 laughing, and had begun, winking his sightless 
 eyes and flushing crimson, to tell stories of his 
 conquests; he recalled Varvara Pavlovna, — and 
 involuntarily screwed up his eyes, as a man does 
 from momentary inward pain, and shook his 
 head. Then his thoughts came to a pause on 
 Liza. 
 
 " Here," he thought, " is a new being, who 
 is only just entering upon life. A splendid 
 young girl, what will become of her? She is 
 comely. A pale, fresh face, such serious eyes 
 and lijjs, and an honest and innocent gaze. It is 
 a pity that she seems to be somewhat enthusiastic. 
 A splendid figure, and she walks so lightly, and 
 
 110
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 her voice is soft. I greatly like to see liei- j)aiise 
 suddenly, listen attentively, without a smile, and 
 then meditate, and toss baek her liair. Keally, 
 it strikes nie that Panshin is not worthy of her. 
 But what is there wi-ong about hiniC Slie will 
 traverse the road whieh all traverse. 1 had better 
 take a nap." And Lavretzky closed his eyes. 
 
 He coidd not get to sleep, but plunged into the 
 dreamy stupor of the road. Images of the past, 
 as before, arose in leisurely fashion, floated 
 through his soul, mingling and entangling them- 
 selves with other scenes. I^avretzky, God knows 
 why, began to think about Robert Peel . . . 
 about French history . . . about how he would 
 win a battle if he were a general; he thought he 
 heard shots and shrieks. . . His head sank to one 
 side, he opened his eyes. . . The same fields, the 
 same view-s of the steppe; the polished shoes of 
 the trace-horse flashed in turn through the billow- 
 ing dust; the shirt of the postilion, yellow, with 
 red gussets at the armpits, puffed out in the 
 wind. ... "A pretty way to return to my na- 
 tive land " — flashed through Lavretzky's head ; 
 and he shouted: " Faster! " wrapped himself up 
 in his cloak, and leaned back harder against liis 
 pillow. The tarantas gave a jolt: liavretzky sat 
 upright, and opened his eyes wide. Before liim, 
 on a hillock, a tiny hamlet lay outspread; a 
 little to the right, a small, ancient manor-house 
 was to be seen, with closed shutters and a crooked 
 
 111
 
 A XOHLEMAX S XEST 
 
 porch; all over the spacious yard, from the very 
 gates, grew nettles, green and thick as hemp; 
 tliere, also, stood a small oaken store-house, still 
 sound. This was Vasilievskoe. 
 
 The postilion turned up to the gate, and 
 brought the horses to a standstill; I^avretzky's 
 footman rose on the box, and, as though prepar- 
 ing to spring down, shouted: " Hey! " A hoarse, 
 dull barking rang out, but not even the dog 
 showed himself; the lackey again prepared to 
 leap down, and again shouted: " Hey! " The de- 
 crejjit barking was renewed, and, a moment later, 
 a man ran out into the yard, no one could tell 
 M-hence, — a man in a nankeen kaftan, with a head 
 as white as snow; shielding his ej^es with his hand, 
 he stared at the tarantas, suddenly slapped him- 
 self on both thighs, at first danced about a little 
 on one spot, then ran to open the gate. The ta- 
 rantas drove into the yard, the wheels rustling 
 against the nettles, and halted in front of the 
 porch. The white-headed man, very nimble, to 
 all appearances, was already standing, with his 
 feet planted \'ery wide apart and very crooked, 
 on the last step; and having unbuttoned the 
 ai)ron, convulsively held uj) the leather and aided 
 the master to descend to the earth, and then kissed 
 his hand. 
 
 " Good-day, good-day, brother,"— said La- 
 vretzky,— " I think thy name is Anton? Thou 
 art still alive?" 
 
 112
 
 A NORLEMAX'S XKST 
 
 The old man bowed in silence, and ran to fetch 
 the keys. While he was gone, the postilion sat 
 motionless, bending sideways and ga/ing at the 
 locked door; bnt Lavretzky's lackey remained 
 standing as he had s])rnng down, in a pictiirescnu' 
 pose, with one hand resting on the box. Tlic old 
 man brought the keys, and quite unnecessarily 
 writhing like a serpent, raising his elbows on 
 liigh, he unlocked the door, stepped aside, and 
 again bowed to his girdle. 
 
 " Here I am at home, here I have got back," — 
 said Lavretzky to himself, as he entered the tiny 
 anteroom, while the shutters were opened, one 
 after the other, with a bang and a squeak, and 
 the daylight penetrated into the deserted rooms. 
 
 113
 
 XIX 
 
 The liny house where Lavretzky had arrived, 
 and ^vhere, two years previously, Glafira Pe- 
 trovna had breathed her last, had been built in 
 the previous century, out of sturdy pine lumber; 
 in apjiearance it was decrepit, but was capable 
 of stan(hn<>- another fifty years or more. La- 
 vretzivy made the round of all the rooms, and, to 
 the great discomfiture of the aged, languid flies, 
 with white dust on their backs, who were sitting 
 motionless under the lintels of the doors, he or- 
 dered all the windows to be opened; no one had 
 opened them since the death of Glafira Petrovna. 
 Kvervtliing in the house remained as it had been: 
 the small, si)indle-legged couches in the draw'ing- 
 room, covered \\ ith glossy grey material, worn 
 through and flattened down, vividly recalled the 
 days of Katlierine II; in the drawnng-room, also, 
 stood the mistress's favourite chair, with a tall, 
 straight back, against wiiich, even in her old age, 
 she had not leaned. On the principal wall hung 
 an ancient portrait of Feodor's great-grand- 
 father, iVndrei Lavretzky; the dark, sallow face 
 was barely discernible against the war])ed and 
 blackened background; tlie small, vicious eyes 
 
 114
 
 A NOIU.K^IAX'S NEST 
 
 gazed surlily from bcncatii pendent, swoIIlii lids; 
 the blaek hair, devoid of powder, rose in a hrush 
 over the heavy, deeply-seamed brow. On the 
 corner of the portrait hung a wreath of (hisly 
 immortelles. " Glafira Petrovna herself was 
 pleased to weave it," announced Anton. In tlie 
 bedchamber rose a narrow bed, under a tester 
 of ancient, striped material, of very excellent 
 quality; a mountain of faded pillows, and a thin 
 quilted coverlet, lay on the bed, and by the head 
 of the bed hung an image of the Presentation 
 in the Temple of the All-Holy 15irthgiver of 
 God, the very same image to which the old 
 spinster, as she lay dying alone and forgotten 
 by every one, had pressed for the last time, her 
 lips which were already growing cold. The 
 toilet-table, of inlaid wood with brass trimmings 
 and a crooked mirror with tarnished gilding, 
 stood by the window. Alongside the bedroom 
 was the room for the holy pictures, a tiny cham- 
 ber, with bare walls and a heavy shrine of images 
 in the corner ; on the floor lay a small, threadbare 
 rug, spotted with w^ax; Glafira Petrovna had 
 been wont to make her prostrations upon it. 
 Anton went off with Lavretzky's lackey to open 
 the stable and carriage-house; in his stead, there 
 presented herself an old woman, almost of the 
 same age as he, with a kerchief bound round her 
 head, down to her very brows; her head trembled, 
 and her eyes gazed dully, but expressed zeal, and 
 
 115
 
 A XOHLKMAN'S XEST 
 
 11 long-cstahlishcd liabit of serving with assiduity, 
 and, at the same time, a certain respectful com- 
 miseration. She kissed Lavretzky's liand, and 
 })aused at the door, in anticipation of orders. He 
 positi\ely was unable to recall her name; he could 
 not even remember whether he had ever seen her. 
 It turned out tliat her name was Apraxyeya; 
 ff)rty years before, that same Glafira Petrovna 
 had banished her from the manor-house service, 
 and had ordered her to attend to the fowls; how- 
 ever, she said Httle, — as though she had outlived 
 her mind, — and only looked on cringingly. In 
 addition to tliese two old people, and three pot- 
 bellied brats in long shirts, Anton's great-grand- 
 children, there dwelt in tlie service-rooms of the 
 manor a one-armed little old peasant, who was 
 exem])t fi'(^m compulsory service; he made a 
 drumming noise like a woodcock when he spoke, 
 and was not capable of doing anything. Not 
 much more iiseful than he was the decrepit dog, 
 who had welcomed Lavretzky's home-coming 
 with his bark: it liad already been fastened up for 
 ten years with a heavy chain, bought by order of 
 Glafira Petrovna, and was barely in a condition 
 to move and drag its burden. After inspecting 
 the house, Lavretzky went out into the park, 
 and was satisfied with it. It was all overgrown 
 M'ith tall grass, burdock, and gooseberry and rasp- 
 ])erry bushes; but there was much shade in it: 
 tliere were many old linden-trees, which surprised 
 
 llC)
 
 A NOBLE^FAX'S XKS T 
 
 the beholder by their liuge si/c and tlu- strange 
 arrangement of tlieir ])ran('lie.s; they had btiri too 
 closely planted, and at some time or otbrr a 
 hundred years before — had l)een pollaided. Tlie 
 park ended in a small, clear pond, with a liin 
 of tall, reddish reeds. The traces of human hie 
 fade awav very nuicklv: Glafira Petnn na\s farm 
 had not succeeded in running wild, ])ut it already 
 seemed plunged in that tranquil dream where- 
 with everything on earth doth dream, where the 
 restless infection of people does not exist. Feo- 
 dor Ivanitch also strolled through the village; tlie 
 women stared at him from the thresholds of tlieir 
 cottages, each with her cheek propped on one 
 hand; the peasant men saluted liim from afar; the 
 children ran away; the dogs barked indifferently. 
 At last he felt hungry, but he did not expect his 
 servants and cook until toward evening; the cart 
 with provisions from I^avriki had not yet arrived, 
 — he was compelled to appeal to Anton. ^Vnton 
 immediately arranged matters: he cauglit an old 
 hen, cut its throat, and plucked it; Apraxyeya 
 rubbed and scrubbed it for a long time, and 
 washed it, like linen, before she placed it in the 
 stew-pan; when, at last, it ^vas cooked, ^Vnton ])nl 
 on the table-cloth and set the table, ]daced in 
 front of the plate a blackened salt-cellar of plated 
 ware on three feet, and a small faceted carafe 
 with a round glass stopper and a narrow neck; 
 then he announced to T.avretzky, in a chanting 
 
 117
 
 A XOBl.EMAX S NEST 
 
 voice, that the meal was ready, — and took up his 
 post behind his eliair, having wound a napkin 
 around his right fist, and disseminating some 
 strong, ancient odour, which resembled the odour 
 of cypress wood. I^avretzky tasted the soup, and 
 came u])on the hen; its skin was all covered with 
 big pimples, a thick tendon ran down each leg, its 
 flesh had a flavour of charcoal and lye. When he 
 had finished his dinner, Lavretzky said that he 
 
 would like some tea, if " This very moment, 
 
 sir, I will serve it, sir," — interrupted the old man, 
 —and he kept his promise. A pinch of tea was 
 hunted up, wrapped in a scrap of red paper, a 
 small but very mettlesome and noisy samovar was 
 searched out, also sugar, in very tiny bits, that 
 seemed to have been melted around the edges. 
 Lavretzky drank his tea out of a large cup; he 
 remembered that cup in his childhood: playing- 
 cards were depicted on it, only visitors drank out 
 of it, — and he now drank out of it, like a visitor. 
 Toward evening, his servants arrived; La- 
 ^■retzky did not wish to sleep in his aunt's bed; 
 he gave orders that a bed should be made up for 
 him in the dining-room. Extinguishing the 
 candle, he stared about him for a long time, and 
 meditated on cheerless thoughts; he experienced 
 the sensation familiar to every man wdio chances 
 to })ass the night, for the first time, in a place 
 which has long been uninhabited; it seemed to 
 him that the darkness which surrounded him on 
 
 118
 
 A XOHLKMAX'S XKST 
 
 all sides could not accustom itscll" to the new in- 
 habitant, that the very walls of the house were 
 waxing indignant. At last he sighed, drew the 
 coverlet up over him, and fell asleep. i\nton i-c- 
 mained afoot longer than the rest; foi- a long- 
 time he whispered with Apraxyeya, groaned in 
 a low tone, and crossed himself a couple of* limes. 
 Neither of them expected tliat the niaster would 
 settle down among them at Vasilie\sk()e. when, 
 near at hand, he owned such a magnificent estate, 
 with a capitally-organised manor-house; they did 
 not even susj^ect that it was precisely that manor- 
 house which was repugnant to Lavretzky: it 
 evoked in him oppressive memories. After hav- 
 ing whispered his fill, Anton took his staff', and 
 beat upon tlie board at the store-house which had 
 long been hanging silent,^ and immediately lay 
 down for a nap in the yard, without covering up 
 his grey head with anything. The May night 
 was tranquil and caressing — and the old man 
 slumbered sweetly. 
 
 ^ It is the duty of tlic iii<i:lil-w;itcliniaii to licat upon \hc hoard at 
 reguhir intervals, to show tiiat lie is vigilant. — Thaxsi.atok. 
 
 119
 
 XX 
 
 The next morning Lavretzky rose quite early, 
 liad a talk with tlie overseer, visited the threshing- 
 floor, ordered the chain to be removed from the 
 watch-do"-, M-ho only barked a little,- but did not 
 even move away from his kennel; — and on his 
 return home, sank into a sort of peaceful torpor, 
 from which he did not emerge all day. " I have 
 sunk down to the very l)ottom of the river now," 
 he said to himself more than once. He sat by the 
 windo^\^ made no movement, and seemed to be 
 listening to the current of tranquil life which sur- 
 rounded him, to the infrequent noises of the 
 country solitudes. Yonder, somewhere beyond 
 the nettles, some one began to sing, in the shrillest 
 of voices; a gnat seemed to be chiming in with 
 the voice. No^v it ceased, but the gnat still 
 squeaked on; athwart the energetic, insistently- 
 plaintive buzzing of the flies resounded the boom- 
 ing of a fat bumble-bee, wliich kept biunping its 
 head against the ceiling ; a cock on the road began 
 to crow, hoarsely prolonging the last note; a 
 peasant cart rumbled ])ast; the gate toward the 
 village creaked. " Well? " suddenly quavered a 
 woman's voice. — "Okh, thou my dear little sweet- 
 
 120
 
 A NOBI.E>rAX S NEST 
 
 heart," said Anton to a little ^irl of two years, 
 whom he was dandljn^- in his arms. " Feteh 
 some kvas," repeats the same female ^•()ice, — and 
 all at once a deatlilike silenee ensues; iiolhiuii' 
 makes any noise, nothing stirs; the hree/e does 
 not flutter a leaf; the swallows dart alonn- near 
 the ground, one after the other, without a ery, and 
 sadness descends upon the soul from their silent 
 flight. — " Here I am, sunk down to the hottom 
 of the river," Lavret/ky says to himself again. — 
 " And life is at all times tranquil, leisurely here," 
 he thinks: — "whoever enters its cirele must he- 
 come submissive: here there is nothing to agitate 
 one's self about, nothing to disturb; here success 
 awaits only him who lays out his path without 
 haste, as the husbandman lavs the furrow with his 
 plough." And what strength there is all around, 
 what health there is in this inactive calm! Yonder 
 now, under the window, a sturdy burdock is 
 making its way out from among the thick grass; 
 above it, the lovage is stretching forth its succu- 
 lent stalk, the Virgin's-tears ' toss still higher 
 their rosv tendrils; and vonder, further away, in 
 the fields, the rye is gleaming, and the oats are 
 beginning to shoot up their stalks, and every leaf 
 on every tree, every blade of grass on its stalk, 
 spreads itself out to its fullest extent. " My best 
 years have been spent on the love of a woman," 
 
 *This plant bears round seed-pods of mottled-prey, whioh an- 
 often used to make very pretty rosaries.— Tuaxsivtuh. 
 
 121
 
 A XOBI.EMAX'S XEST 
 
 l^iiMvtzky pursued his meditations: — "may the 
 irk son HI less here sober me, may it soothe me, pre- 
 })are ine so that 1 may understand how to do my 
 work without haste "; and a^j^ain lie began to lend 
 an ear to the silence, expecting nothing, — and, at 
 the same time, as it were incessantly expecting 
 sometliing: tlie silence enfolds him on all sides, 
 the sun glides (juietly across the calm blue sky, 
 a cloud Moats gently in its wake; it seems as 
 though tliev know wliitlier and whv thev are 
 floating. At that same moment, in other spots 
 on earth, life was seething, bustling, roaring; here 
 the same life was flowing on inaudibly, like water 
 amid marsh-grass; and until the very evening, 
 Lavretzky could not tear himself from the con- 
 templation of that life fleeting, flowing onward; 
 grief for the past melted in his soul like snows 
 of spi'ingtime, — and, strange to say! — never had 
 the feeling of his native land been so deep and 
 strong within him. 
 
 122
 
 XXI 
 
 In the course of a fortnight, Feodor Ivjuiitcli 
 hrought Glafira Petrovna's httle liouse into or- 
 der; cleaned up the yard, the garden; conif()rtal)le 
 furniture was brought to him from Layriki, wine, 
 books, newspapers from the town; horses made 
 their appearance in the stables; in a word, Feodor 
 Ivanitch provided himself with everytliing that 
 was necessary and began to live — not exactly 
 like a country squire, nor yet exactly like a re- 
 cluse. His days passed monotonously, but he was 
 not bored, although he saw no one; he occupied 
 himself diligently and attentively witli tlie farm- 
 ing operations, he rode about the neighbourliood 
 on horseback, he read. He read but little, how- 
 ever: it was more agreeable for him to listen to 
 the tales of old Anton. As a rule, Lavretzky 
 would seat himself with a pipe of tobacco and 
 a cup of cold tea near the window; Anton would 
 stand near the door, with his hands clasped beliind 
 him, and begin his leisurely stories of olden 
 times, — of those fabulous times — when tlie oats 
 and barley were sold not by measures ])ut ])y liuge 
 sacks, at two or three kopeks the sack; when in all 
 directions, even close to tlic town, stretched iiii- 
 
 1 '2H
 
 A XOBLKMAX S NEST 
 
 penetrable forests, untouched steppes. " And 
 no^^ ."' \vailed the old man, who was already over 
 eighty years of age: — "they have felled and 
 ])loughed up everything until there is no place 
 to drive through." Anton, also, related many 
 things concerning his mistress Glafira Petrovna: 
 how sagacious and economical she had been ; liow 
 a certain gentleman, a youthful neighbour, had 
 attempted to gain her good-will, had taken to 
 calling frequently, — and how she had been 
 pleased, for his benefit, even to don her cap with 
 rose-purple ribbons, and her yellow gown of tru- 
 tru levantine ; but how, later on, having flown into 
 a rage with her neighbour, on account of the 
 unseemly question: "What might your capital 
 amount to, madam?" she had given orders that 
 he should not be admitted, and how she had then 
 commanded, that everything, down to the very 
 smallest scrap, should be given to Feodor Ivanitch 
 after her death. And, in fact, Lavretzky found 
 all his aunt's effects intact, not excepting the 
 festival cap, with the rose-purple ribbons, and the 
 gown of yellow tru-tru levantine. The ancient 
 pa}:)ers and curious documents, which Lavretzky 
 had counted upon, proved not to exist, with the 
 exception of one tattered little old book, in which 
 his grandfather, Piotr Andreitch, had jotted 
 down, now—" Celebration in the city of Saint 
 Petersburg of the peace concluded with the Turk- 
 ish Empire by his Illustriousness Prince Alexan- 
 
 124
 
 A NOBI.KMAX S XKS T 
 
 tier Alexiindrovitc'li Prozomvsky " ; now a recipe 
 for a decoction for the chest, with the comment: 
 " This instrnction was given to Cieneraless Pras- 
 kovya Feodorovna Saltykoff, by Feodor A\ ksen- 
 tievitch, Arclipriest of the Chnrch of tin Life- 
 giving Trinity"; again, some item ol" pohtieal 
 news, like the following: "In the ' Mo.scorv 
 News/ it is annonnced that Premier-Major Mi- 
 khail Petrovitch Kolytcheff" has died. Was not 
 he the son of Piotr Vasilievitch Kolytehelfr' 
 Lavretzky also fonnd several ancient calendars 
 and dream-books, and the mystical works of Mr. 
 Ambodik; many memories were awakened in him 
 by the long-forgotten but famiUar " Symbols 
 and Emblems." In Glafira Petrovna's toilet- 
 table Lavretzky found a small packet, tied with 
 black ribbon, and sealed with black wax, thrust 
 into the remotest recesses of the drawer. In the 
 packet, face to face, lay a pastel portrait of his 
 father in his youth, with soft curls tumbling over 
 his brow, with long, languid eyes, and mouth 
 half opened, — and the almost effaced portrait of 
 a pale w^oman in a white gown, with a A\hite rose 
 in her hand, — his mother. Glafira Petrovna liad 
 never permitted her own portrait to be made. — 
 "Dear little father Feodor Ivaniteh." -Anton 
 was wont to say to Lavretzky: — " althougli I did 
 not then have my residence in the manor-house 
 of the masters, yet T remember your great-grand- 
 father, Andrei Afaiuisievitch, — that T do: I was 
 
 12.5
 
 A XOBLKMxVN'S NEST 
 
 (.ightceii years of age when lie died. Once I met 
 liini in the garden, — my very hamstrings shook; 
 hut he chd nothing, only inquired my name, — 
 and sent me to his chamher for a pocket-handker- 
 chief. He was a real gentleman, there 's no gain- 
 saying that, — and he recognised no superior over 
 him. For I must inform you, that your great- 
 grandfather had a wonderful amulet, — a monk 
 from Mount Athos gave him that amulet. And 
 that monk said to him : ' I give thee this for thine 
 airabililv, Bovarin; wear it^ — and fear not fate.' 
 AW'll, and of course, dear little father, you 
 know, ^^hat sort of times those were; what the 
 master took a notion to do, that he did. Once 
 in a while, some one, even one of the gentry, 
 would take it into his head to thwart him; 
 but no sooner did he look at him, than he would 
 say : ' You 're sailing in shoal water ' — that was 
 his favourite expression. And he lived, your 
 great-grandfather of blessed memory, in a tiny 
 wooden mansion; but what property he left be- 
 hind him, what silver, and all sorts of supplies, — 
 all the cellars were filled to the brim ! He was a 
 master. That little carafe, which you were 
 pleased to praise, — belonged to him: he drank 
 vodka from it. And then your grandfather, 
 Piotr Ivanitch, built himself a stone mansion; but 
 he acquired no property; with him ever\i:hing 
 went at sixes and sevens ; and he lived worse than 
 his papa, and got no pleasiu'e for himself, — but 
 
 126
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 wasted all the money, and tliere was none to pay 
 for requiems for his soul; he left not even a silver 
 spoon behind him, so jt was Ineky that (ilaffra 
 Petrovna brought things into order." 
 
 " And is it true," — Lavretzky interrupted him, 
 — " that slie was called an ill-tempered old hag? " 
 
 "Why, surely, some did call her that!" — re- 
 turned iVnton, in displeasure. 
 
 " Well, little father," — the old man one day 
 summoned the courage to ask ; — " and how about 
 our young mistress; where is she pleased to have 
 her residence? " 
 
 " I have separated from my wife," — said La- 
 vretzky, with an effort: — " please do not inquire 
 about her." 
 
 " I obey, sir,"— replied the old man, sadly. 
 
 After the lapse of three weeks, Lavretzky rode 
 into O * * * on horseback, to the Kalitins', and 
 passed the evening with them. I^emm was there ; 
 I^avretzky conceived a great liking for him. Al- 
 though, thanks to his father, he did not play on 
 any instrument, yet he was passionately fond of 
 music, — intelligent, classical music. Pansliin was 
 not at the Kalitins' that evening. The Governor 
 had sent him off somewhere, out of town. Liza 
 played alone, and with great precision; liCmm 
 grew animated, excited, rolled a piece of paper 
 into a baton, and beat time. Marya Dmitrievna 
 iaughed, at first, as she watclied him. and then 
 
 127
 
 A XOBLE:\rAX'S XEST 
 
 went off to bed; as she said, Beethoven was too 
 agitating for her nerves. At midnight, La- 
 vretzky escorted Lemm to his lodgings, and sat 
 with him until three o'clock jn the morning. 
 Lemm talked a great deal; his bent shoulders 
 straightened up, his eyes opened widely and 
 sparkled; his ver}' hair stood upright above his 
 brow. It was such a very long time since any 
 one had taken an interest in him, but Lavretzky 
 evidently did take an interest, and interrogated 
 him solicitously and attentively. This touched 
 the old man ; he ended by showing his visitor his 
 music, he even played and sang to him, with his 
 ghost of a voice, several selections from his com- 
 positions, — among others, the whole of Schiller's 
 ballad " Fridolin," which he had set to music. 
 Lavretzky lauded it, made him repeat portions 
 of it, and invited him to visit him for a few days. 
 Lemm, who was escorting him to the street, im- 
 mediately accepted, and shook his hand warmly; 
 but when he was left alone, in the cool, damp air 
 of the day which was just beginning to dawn, 
 he glanced around him, screwed up his eyes, 
 writhed, and went softlv to his tinv chamber, like 
 a guilty creature: " Icli bin wohl nicht klug " 
 (I 'm not in my riglit mind), — he muttered, as 
 he lay down on his hard, short bed. He tried to 
 assert that he was ill when, a few days later, T^a- 
 vretzkv came for him in a calash; but Feodor 
 Ivanitch went to him, in his room, and persuaded 
 
 128
 
 A NOBI.EIMAN'S XKST 
 
 him. The circimistant'c which ()j)tralc(l most 
 powerfully of all on Lemm was, thai Lavretzky 
 had ordered a piano to be sent to iiis eoi in try- 
 house f I'om the town : a piano for his — Lemm's — 
 use. Together they went to the Kalitins', and 
 spent the evening, but not so agreea})ly as on the 
 former occasion. Panshin Mas there, had a great 
 deal to narrate about his journey, and very amus- 
 ingly mimicked and illustrated in action the coun- 
 try squires he had seen; Lavretzky laughed, })ut 
 Lemm did not emerge from his corner, main- 
 tained silence, quietly quivered all ovei- like a 
 spider, looked glum and dull, and grew animated 
 only when Lavretzky began to take his leave. 
 Even when he was seated in the calash, the old 
 man continued to be shy and to fidget; but the 
 quiet, warm air, the light breeze, the delicate 
 shadows, the perfume of the grass, of the birch 
 buds, the peaceful gleam of the starry, moonless 
 heaven, the energetic hoof -beats and snorting of 
 the horses, all the charms of the road, of s])ring, 
 of night, — descended into the heart of the i)0()r 
 German, and he himself was the first to address 
 Lavretzky. 
 
 129
 
 XXII 
 
 He began to talk of music, of Liza, then again 
 of music. He seemed, somehov/, to utter his 
 words more slowly when he spoke of Liza. La- 
 vretzky turned the conversation on his composi- 
 tions, and, half in jest, proposed to write a libretto 
 for him. 
 
 " H'm, a libretto!" — rejoined Lemm: — "no, 
 that is beyond me : I liave not that animation, that 
 phiy of fancy, which is indispensable for an 
 
 opera ; I have already lost my powers But 
 
 if I could still do something, — I would be satis- 
 fied with a romance ; of course, I should like some 
 good words. . . ." 
 
 He relapsed into silence, and sat for a long 
 time motionless, with his eyes raised heavenward. 
 
 " For example," he said at last: — " something 
 of this sort : ' Ye stars, O ye pure stars ' ? " . . . 
 
 La\'retzky turned his face slightlj^ toward him 
 and began to stare at liim. 
 
 " ' Ye stars, ye pure stars,' " — repeated Lemm. 
 . . . " ' Ye gaze alike upon the just and upon the 
 guiltv .... but onlv the innocent of heart,' — 
 or something of that sort . . . ' understand you,' 
 that is to say, no, — ' love you.' However, I am 
 
 130
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S XEST 
 
 not a poet . . how should 1 ht* ! But soiiKtliini^ ii- 
 that style, something- lofty." 
 
 Lemm pushed his hat hack on the nape of his 
 neck; in the delicate gloom of the linht Flight, his 
 face seemed whiter and more youthlul. 
 
 And ye also,' " — he went on, with a voice 
 which gradually grew quieter: — " ' ye know who 
 loves, who knows how to love, for ye are pure, 
 ye, alone, can comfort.' . . . Xo, that 's not 
 right yet! I am not a poet,"— he said: — "hut 
 something of that sort. . . ." 
 
 " I regret that I am not a poet," — remarked 
 LavretzkJ^ 
 
 " Empty visions!" retorted Lemm, and liuddlcd 
 in the corner of the calash. He closed his eyes, 
 as though preparing to go to sleep. 
 
 Several moments elapsed. . . . Lavretzky lis- 
 tened. . . . " ' Stars, pure stars, love,' " — the old 
 man was whispering. 
 
 " Love," — Lavretzky repeated to himself, })e- 
 came thoughtful, and Jiis soul grew heavy within 
 him. 
 
 " You have written some very heautiful music 
 for ' Fridolin,' Christofor Feodoritch," — he said 
 aloud: — " and what think you; did that Fridolin, 
 after the Count had led him to his wife, hecome 
 her lover — hey? " 
 
 " That is what you think," — returned Lemm: 
 " hecause, prohahly, experience . . . . " He sud- 
 denly fell silent, and turned away in confusion, 
 
 131
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 Lavretzky laughed in a constrained way, turned 
 away also, and began to stare along the road. 
 
 The stars had already begun to pale, and the 
 sky was grey, \\hen the calash rolled up to the 
 porch of the little house at Vasilievskoe. La- 
 vretzky conducted his guest to the chamber which 
 had been assigned to him, returned to his study, 
 and sat down by the window. In the park, a 
 nightingale was singing its last lay before the 
 dawn. I^avretzky remembered that a nightingale 
 had been singing in the Kalitins' garden also; 
 he recalled, too, the tranquil movement of Liza's 
 eyes when, at the first sounds of it, they had 
 turned toward the dark window. He began to 
 think of her, and his heart grew calm within him. 
 " Pure little star," — he said to himself, in a low 
 tone: — " pure stars," — he added, with a smile, 
 and calmly lay down to sleep. 
 
 But Lemm sat, for a long time, on his bed, 
 with a book of music-paper on his knees. It 
 seemed as though a strange, sweet melody were 
 about to visit him: he was already burning and 
 growing agitated, he already felt the lassitude 
 and sweetness of its approach . . . but it did 
 not come. 
 
 " I am not a poet, and not a musician! " — he 
 whispered at last 
 
 And his weary head sank back heavily on the 
 pillow. 
 
 132
 
 XXIII 
 
 On the following morning, host and guest drank 
 tea in the garden, under an ancient linden-tree. 
 
 "JSIaestro!" — said I.avretsky, among other 
 things: — "you will soon have to compose a tri- 
 umphal cantata." 
 
 " On what occasion? " 
 
 " On the occasion of the marriage of JNlr. 
 Panshin to Liza. Did you notice how he was 
 paying court to her last evening? It seems as 
 though everything were going smoothly witli 
 them." 
 
 " That shall not be! " exclaimed Lemm. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because it is impossible. However," — he 
 added, after a pause: — "everything is possible 
 in this world. Especially here, with you, in 
 Russia." 
 
 " Let us leave Russia out of the question for 
 the present; but what evil do you see in that mar- 
 riage ? 
 
 " All is evil, all. Lizaveta IVIikhaflovna is an 
 upright, serious maiden, with exalted senti- 
 ments, — but he he is a di-let-tante, in 
 
 one word." 
 
 133
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 " But surely she loves him? " 
 
 Lenmi rose from the bench. 
 
 " No, she does not love him, that is to say, she 
 is very pure in heart, and does not know herself 
 what ' love ' means. INIadam von Kalitin tells 
 lier, that he is a nice young man, and she listens 
 to ^Nladam von Kalitin, because she is still a 
 perfect child, although she is nineteen years of 
 age: she says her prayers in the morning, she 
 says her prajxrs in the evening, — and that is very 
 praiseworthy; but she does not love him. She 
 can love only the fine, but he is not fine; that is, 
 his soul is not fine." 
 
 Lemm uttered this whole speech coherently 
 and with fervour, pacing back and forth, with 
 short strides, in front of the tea-table, and with 
 his eyes flitting over the ground. 
 
 "My dearest ^Maestro!" — exclaimed Lavret- 
 zky all at once: — " it strikes me, that you are in 
 love with my cousin yourself." 
 
 Lemm came to a sudden halt. 
 
 " Please," — he began in an uncertain voice: — 
 " do not jest thus with me. I am not a lunatic." 
 
 Lavretzky felt sorr}?^ for the old man; he en- 
 treated his forgiveness. After tea, Lemm 
 played him his cantata, and at dinner, being 
 instigated thereto by Lavretzky himself, he 
 again began to talk about Liza. Lavretzky lis- 
 tened to him with attention and curiosity. 
 
 " What think vou, Christofor Feodoritch," — 
 
 134
 
 A NOBTvEMAN'S XKST 
 
 he said at last — " everytliiiio- appears to be in 
 order with us now, the garden is in full bloom. 
 .... Shall not we invite her here for tlie day, 
 together with her mother and my old aunt, — 
 hey? Wovdd that be agreeable to j'^ou? " 
 
 Lemm bent his head over his ])late. 
 
 " Invite her," — he said, almost inaudibly. 
 
 " And Panshin need not be asked? " 
 
 " He need not," — replied the old man, with a 
 half -childlike smile. 
 
 Two days later, Feodor Ivaniteh set out for 
 the town, to the Kalitins. 
 
 135
 
 XXIV 
 
 He found them all at home, but he did not im- 
 mediately announce to them his intention: he 
 wished, first, to have a talk alone with Liza. 
 Chance aided him: they were left alone together 
 in the drawing-room. They fell into conversa- 
 tion: she had succeeded in getting used to him, — - 
 and, in general, she was not shy of any one. He 
 listened to her, looked her straight in the face, 
 and mentally repeated Lemm's words, and 
 agreed with him. It sometimes happens, that 
 two persons who are already acquainted, but not 
 intimate, suddenly and swiftly draw near to each 
 other in the course of a few minutes, — and the 
 consciousness of this approach is immediately re- 
 flected in their glances, in their friendly, quiet 
 smiles, in their very movements. Precisely this 
 is what took place with Lavretzky and Liza. 
 " So that 's what he is like," she thought, gazing 
 caressingly at him; "so that's what thou art 
 like," he said to himself also. And therefore, 
 he was not greatly surprised when she, not with- 
 out a slight hesitation, however, announced to 
 him, that she had long had it in her heart to say 
 something to him, but liad been afraid of annoy- 
 ing him. 
 
 13r.
 
 A X()HLKMAX\S XKST 
 
 "Have no fear; speak out," — he said, and 
 halted in front of her. 
 
 Liza raised her elear eyes to his. 
 
 " You are so kind," — she began, and, at the 
 same time, she said to herself: — " ' yes, he reallv 
 is kind ' . . . you will pardon me, })ut 1 oughl 
 not to speak of this to you .... hut how eould 
 you . . . why did you separate from your ^^•ife? " 
 
 Lavretzky shuddered, glanced at Liza, and 
 seated himself beside her. 
 
 " My child," he began, — " please do not toucli 
 that wound ; your hands are tender, but neverthe- 
 less I shall suffer pain." 
 
 " I know," — went on Liza, as though she had 
 not heard him: — " she is culpable toward you, 1 
 do not wish to defend her; but how is it possible 
 to put asunder that which God has joined to- 
 gether? " 
 
 " Our convictions on that point are too dis- 
 similar, Lizaveta jNIikhailovna," — said Lavret- 
 zky, rather sharply; — "we shall not understand 
 each other." 
 
 Liza turned pale; her whole body quivered 
 slightly ; but she did not hold her peace. 
 
 "You ought to forgive," — she said softly: — 
 " if you wisli to be forgiven." 
 
 "Forgive!" — Lavretzky caught her up: — 
 " Ought not you first to know for whom you are 
 pleading? Forgive that woman, take her back 
 into my house,— her,— tliat empty, heartless crea- 
 
 137
 
 A XOBLEMxVN'S NEST 
 
 til re! And who has told you, tliat she M'ishes to 
 return to me^ Good heavens, she is entirely sat- 
 isfied with lier position But wliat is the 
 
 use of talkin<>- ahout it! Her name ought not to 
 be uttered by you. Vou are t(w pure, you are 
 not even in a position to understand what sort of 
 a being she is." 
 
 " Why vihfy her? " — said Eiza, Avitli an effort. 
 Tlie trenibhng of lier hands became visible. " It 
 was you yourself who abandoned her, Feodor 
 Ivaniteh." 
 
 " But I tell vou," — retorted Lavretzkv, with 
 an involuntary outburst of impatience: — "that 
 you do not know what sort of a creature 
 she is! " 
 
 " Then why did you marry her? " — whispered 
 Liza, and dropped her eyes. 
 
 Lavretzkv sprang up hastily from his seat. 
 
 " Why did 1 marry? I was young and inex- 
 perienced then; I was deceived, I w^as carried 
 away by a beautiful exterior. 1 did not know 
 women, I did not know anything. God grant 
 that you may make a happier marriage! But, be- 
 lieve me, it is impossible to vouch for anything." 
 
 " And I may be just as unhappy," — said Liza 
 (her voice began to break) : " but, in that case, 
 I must submit; I do not know how to talk, but 
 if we do not submit . . ." 
 
 Lavretzkv clenched liis fists and stamped his 
 foot. 
 
 138
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 "Be not angry; forgive nie! " — ejaculated 
 Liza, hastily. 
 
 At that moment, IVIarya Dniitrievna entered. 
 Liza rose, and started to leave the room. 
 
 " Stop! " — Lavretzky unexpectedly called 
 after her. " I have a great favour to ask of your 
 mother and of you: make me a visit to celehrate 
 my new home. You know, I have set up a ])iano; 
 Lemm is staying with me; the lilacs are now in 
 bloom; you will get a breath of the country 
 air, and can return the same day, — do you 
 accept? " 
 
 Liza glanced at her mother, and ISIarya Dnii- 
 trievna assumed an air of suffering, but Lavret- 
 zky, without giving her a chance to open her 
 mouth, instantly kissed both her hands. Marya 
 Dmitrievna, who was always susceptible to en- 
 dearments, and had not expected such amiability 
 from " the dolt," was touched to the soul, and 
 consented. While she was considering what day 
 to appoint, Lavretzky approached I^iza, and, still 
 greatly agitated, furtively whispered to her: 
 " Thank you, you are a good girl, I am to blame." 
 .... And her pale face flushed crimson with a 
 cheerful — bashful smile; her eyes also smiled, — 
 up to that moment, she had been* afraid that she 
 had oiFended him. 
 
 "May Vladimir Nikohiiteh go with us?" — 
 asked Marya Dmi'trie\'na. 
 
 " Certainly," — responded Lavretzky: — " but 
 
 139
 
 A NOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 would it not be better if we confined ourselves 
 to our own family circle?" 
 
 " Yes, certainly, but you see . . . ." Marj^-a 
 Dinitrievna began. " However, as you like," 
 sbe added. 
 
 It was decided to take Lyenotcbka and Scbu- 
 rotcbka. Marfa Tiniofeevna declined to make 
 the iournev. 
 
 " It is too hard for me, my dear," — she said, — 
 "my old bones ache: and I am sure there is no 
 j^lace at yoiu* house where I can spend the night ; 
 and I cannot sleep in a strange bed. Let these 
 young people do the gallivanting." 
 
 Lavretzky did not succeed in being alone 
 again with I^iza; but he looked at her in such a 
 way, that she felt at ease, and rather ashamed, 
 and sorry for him. On taking leave of her, he 
 pressed her hand warmly; when she was left 
 alone, she fell into thought. 
 
 140
 
 XXV 
 
 When Lavretzky reached home, he was met on 
 the thresliold of the drawing-room hy a tall, thin 
 man, in a threadbare bine coat, with frowzy grey 
 side-whiskers, a long, straight nose, and small, 
 inflamed eyes. This was :Mikhalevitch, his 
 former comrade at the university. Lavretzky 
 did not recognise him at fii-st, but embraced him 
 warmly as soon as he mentioned his name. They 
 had not seen each other since the ^loscow days. 
 There was a shower of exclamations, of ques- 
 tions; long-smothered memories came forth into 
 the Hght of day. Hurriedly smoking pipe after 
 pij)e, drinking down tea in gulps, and floui*- 
 ishing his long arms, JNIikhalevitch narrated his 
 adventures to Lavretzky; there was nothing very 
 cheerful about them, he could not boast of success 
 in his enterprises, — but he laughed incessantly, 
 with a hoarse, nervous laugli. A month pre- 
 viously, he had obtained a situation in the private 
 counting-house of a wealthy distiller, about three 
 hundred versts from the town of Q * * *, and, 
 on learning of Lavretzky's return from abroad, 
 he had turned aside from his road, in order to see 
 
 141
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 his old friend. ]Mikhalevitch talked as abruptly 
 as in his younger days, was as noisy and effer- 
 vescent as ever. Lavretzky was about to allude 
 to his circumstances, but ]Mikhalevitch inter- 
 rupted him, hastily muttering: "I've heard, 
 brother, I 've heard about it, — who could have 
 anticipated it?" — and immediately turned the 
 conversation into the region of general com- 
 ments. 
 
 "I, })rother," — he said: — "must leave thee 
 to-morrow; to-day, thou must excuse me — we 
 will go to bed late — I positively must find out 
 what are thy opinions, convictions, what sort of 
 a person thou hast become, what life has taught 
 thee." (Mikhalevitch still retained the phrase- 
 ology of the '30s. ) " So far as I myself am con- 
 cerned, I have changed in many respects, bro- 
 ther: the billows of life have fallen upon my 
 breast,— who the dickens was it that said that? — 
 although, in imj)ortant, essential points, I have 
 not changed; I believe, as of yore, in the good, 
 in the truth; but I not only believe, — I am now 
 a believer, yes — I am a believer, a religious be- 
 liever. Hearken, thou knowest that I write 
 verses; there is no poetry in them, but there is 
 truth. I will recite to thee my last piece: in it I 
 have given expression to my most sincere convic- 
 tions. Listen." — IMiklialevitch began to recite a 
 poem; it was rather long, and wound up with 
 the following lines: 
 
 142
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 "To new feeling- I liuve suit; lulered nivsili" uith all 
 my heart, 
 I have become like a child in soul : 
 And I have burned all that I worshipped. 
 I have worshipped all that I burned." 
 
 As he declaimed these last two lines, Miklia- 
 levitch was on the verge of tears; slight convul- 
 sive twitchings, the signs of deep feeling — flitted 
 across his broad lips, his ugly face lighted up. 
 Lavretzky listened and listened to him; tlie spii'it 
 of contradiction began to stir within him: the 
 ever-ready, incessantly-seething enthusiasm of 
 the Moscow student irritated liim. A (luarttr 
 of an hour had not elapsed, before a dispute 
 flared up between them, one of those intermina- 
 ble disputes, of which only Russians are capable. 
 After a separation of many years' duration, 
 spent in two widely-different spheres, under- 
 standing clearly neither other people's thoughts 
 nor their own, — cavilling at words and retorting 
 with mere words, they argued about the most ab- 
 stract subjects, — and argued as though it were 
 a matter of life and death to both of them : they 
 shouted and yelled so, that all the people in the 
 house took fright, and poor Lemm, who, from 
 the moment of JMikhalevitch's arrival, had locked 
 himself up in his room, became bewildered, and 
 began, in a confused way, to be afraid. 
 
 "But what art thou after this? disillusioned? " 
 
 143
 
 A XORLEMxVX'S NEST 
 
 ■ — shouted iSIiklialevitdi at one o'clock in the 
 iiiorniiig-. 
 
 " Arc tlicrc any such chsiUusioncd people? " — 
 retorted Lavretzky: — " they are all poor and ill, 
 — and I '11 pick thee up with one hand, sliall I? " 
 
 " Well, if not a (lisUlusioned man, then a scep- 
 tuik, and that is still worse." (Mikhalevitch's 
 pronunciation still smacked of his native Little 
 Russia.) "And what right hast thou to be a 
 sceptic? Thou hast had bad luck in life, granted; 
 tliat was no fault of thine: thou wert born with 
 a passionate, loving soul, and thou wert forcibly 
 kej^t away from women: the first \\'oman that 
 came in thv wav was bound to deceive thee." 
 
 " And she did deceive me," — remarked La- 
 vretzky, gloomily. 
 
 " Granted, granted ; 1 was the instrument of 
 fate there, — "but what nonsense am I talking? — 
 there 's no fate about it ; it 's merely an old habit 
 of expressing myself inaccurately. But what 
 does that prove? " 
 
 " It proves, that they dislocated me in my 
 childhood." 
 
 " But set thy joints! to that end thou art a 
 liuman being, a man ; thou hast no need to borrow 
 energy! But, at any rate, is it possible, is it per- 
 missible, to erect a private fact, so to speak, into 
 a general law, into an immutable law? " 
 
 "Where is the rule?" — interrupted Lavret- 
 zky, — " I do not admit . . ." 
 
 144
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S XEST 
 
 " Yes, it is tliy rule, tliy rule," Mikhalevitch 
 interrupted him in his turn. . . . 
 
 "Thou art an egoist, that's what thou art!" 
 — he thundered, an hour later: -" thou hasl de- 
 sired thine own personal enjoyment, thou hast 
 desired happiness in life, thou hast desired to live 
 for thyself alone. ..." 
 
 " What dost thou mean hy personal enjoy- 
 ment?" 
 
 "And everything has deeeived thee; every- 
 thing has crumhled awav heneath thv feet." 
 
 "What is personal enjoyment, — I ask thee?" 
 
 " And it was bound to crumble. For thou 
 hast sought support where it was not to be found, 
 for thou hast built thy house on a (|uieksand. . ." 
 
 " Speak more plainly, without metaphors, be- 
 cause I do not understand thee." 
 
 " Because,- — laugh if it pleases thee, — because 
 there is no faith in thee, no warmth of heart; 
 mind, merely a farthing mind; thou art sim])ly 
 a pitiful, lagging Voltairian — that 's what thou 
 art! " 
 
 " Who — I am a Voltairian ? " 
 
 " Yes, just the same sort as thy father was, 
 and dost not suspect it thyself." 
 
 " After that,"— cried Eavretzky,— " I have 
 a right to say that thou art a i'anatie! " 
 
 "Alas'." — returned Mikhaieviteh, with contri- 
 tion:— " unha])pily, as yet I have in no way 
 earned so lofty an appellation. . ." 
 
 145
 
 A XOBLEMAX S NEST 
 
 " Now 1 have di.sco^•ered what to call thee," — ■ 
 shouted this same Miklialevitch, at three o'clock 
 ill the morning; — " thou art not a sceptic, not a 
 disillusioned man, not a Voltairian, — thou art a 
 triHer, and thou art an evil-minded trifler, a con- 
 scious trifler, not an ingenuous trifler. Ingenuous 
 triflers lie around on the oven and do nothing, 
 hecause they do not know how to do anything; 
 and they think of nothing. But thou art a 
 thinking man, — and thou liest around; thou 
 mightest do something — and thou dost nothing; 
 thou liest with thy well-fed belly upward and 
 sayest: ' It is proper to lie thus, because every- 
 tliing that men do is nonsense, and twaddle which 
 leads to nothing.' " 
 
 " But what makes thee tliink that I trifle," — 
 insisted Lavretzky: — "why dost thou assume 
 such thoughts on my part? " 
 
 " And more than that, all of you, all the people 
 of your sort," — pursued the obstreperous JNIikha- 
 levitch : — " are erudite triflers. You know on 
 what foot the German limps, you .know what is 
 bad about the English and the French, — and your 
 knowledge comes to your assistance, justifies your 
 shameful laziness, your disgusting inactivity. 
 Some men will even pride themselves, and say, 
 ' What a clever fellow I am! — 1 lie around, but 
 the others, the fools, bustle about.' Yes!— And 
 there are such gentlemen among us, — I am not 
 saying this with reference to thee, however,—- 
 
 146
 
 A N015LKMAX\S XEST 
 
 who puss their whole hves in a sort of stupor of 
 tedium, grow accustomed to it, sit in it hke .... 
 hke a mushroom in soui- cream," Mikhalevitch 
 caught himself up, and hurst out laughing at his 
 own comparison. — " Oli, lluit stupor of techuni 
 is the ruin of the Russians! The repulsive Irilkr, 
 all his life long, is getting ready to work " 
 
 " Come, what art thou calling names for? " — 
 roared T>avrctzky, in his turn. — " Work . . . 
 act . . . Tell me, rather, \\'hat to do, hut don't call 
 names, j^ou Poltava Demosthenes! " 
 
 " Just see what a freak he has taken! 1 '11 not 
 tell thee that, brother; every one must know that 
 himself," retorted Demosthenes, ironically. — " A 
 landed proprietor, a nobleman — and he does n't 
 know what to do! Thou hast no faith, or thou 
 wouldst know; thou hast no faith — and there is 
 no revelation." 
 
 " Give me a rest, at any rate, you devil: give 
 me a chance to look around me," — entreated 
 Lavretzky. 
 
 "Not a minute, not a second of respite!" — 
 retorted iMikhalevitch, with an imperious gestuie 
 of the hand. — "Not one second! — Death does 
 not wait, and life ought not to wait." . . . 
 
 " And when, where did men get the idea of 
 becoming triflers? " — he shouted, at four o'clock 
 in the morning, but his voice had now begun to 
 be rather hoarse: "among us! now! in Knssia! 
 when on every separate individual a tluty, a great 
 
 147
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 ohliiiatioii is incumbent toward God, toward the 
 nation, toward himself! We are sleeping, but 
 time is passing on; we are sleeping. . . ." 
 
 " Permit me to observe to thee," — said La- 
 vretzky, — " that we are not sleeping at all, now, 
 but are, rather, preventing others from sleeping. 
 We are cracking our throats like cocks. Hark, 
 is n't that tlie third cock-crow? " 
 
 « 
 
 This sally disconcerted and calmed down 
 ^likhalevitcli. " Farewell until to-morrow,"^ — 
 he said, with a smile, — and thrust his pipe into 
 his tobacco-pouch. " Farewell until to-morrow," 
 repeated I^avretzky. But the friends conversed 
 for an hour longer. However, their voices were 
 no longer raised, and their speeches were quiet, 
 sad, and kind. 
 
 jNIikhalevitch departed on the following day, 
 in spite of all Tjavretzky's efforts to detain him. 
 Feodor Ivanitch did not succeed in persuading 
 liim to remain; but he talked with him to his 
 heart's content. It came out, that ]Mikhalevitch 
 had not a penny in the world. Already, on the 
 preceding evening, I^avretzky, with compassion, 
 had observed in him all the signs and habits of 
 confirmed poverty; his boots were broken, a but- 
 ton was missing from the back of his coat, his 
 hands were guiltless of gloves, down was visible 
 in his hair; on his arrival, it had not occurred to 
 him to ask for washing materials, and at supper 
 he ate like a sliark tearing the meat apart with 
 
 148
 
 A NOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 his hands, and cracking the hones noisily witli 
 his strong, hhick teetli. It ap|)eare(l, also, tlial 
 the service had heen of no henetit to liim, that he- 
 liad staked all his hopes on the revenue-farmer, 
 who had engaged liim sini])ly witli tlie ohject of 
 having in his counting-house " an echicated man." 
 In spite of all this, IMiklialevitch was not de- 
 jected, and lived on as a cynic, an idealist, a poet, 
 sincerely rejoicing and grieving over the lot of 
 mankind, over his own calling, — and trouhled 
 himself very little as to how he was to keep him- 
 self from dying with hunger. ]\likhalevitch had 
 not married, hut had heen in love times witliout 
 number, and wrote verses about all his lady-loves; 
 with especial fervour did he sing the praises of 
 one mysterious " panna "^ with })lack and curling 
 locks. . . . Rumours were in circulation, it is time, 
 to the effect that the " panna " in question was a 
 plain Jewess, well known to many cavalry offi- 
 cers . . . but, when vou come to think of it, — 
 does that make any difference? 
 
 Mikhalevitch did not get on well with Lemm: 
 his vociferous speeches, his harsh manners, f riglit- 
 ened the German, who was not used to such 
 things. . . An unfortunate wretch always scents 
 another unfortunate wretch from afar, but 
 rarely makes up to him in old age, — and this is 
 not in the least to be wondered at: he has nothing 
 to share with him, — not even hopes. 
 
 * Polish for " gentlewoman." — Tran'8i.atoh. 
 
 14.9
 
 A XOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 Before his departure, ^likhalevitch had an- 
 other long talk with Lavretzky, prophesied per- 
 dition to him, if he did not come to a sense of his 
 errors, entreated him to oecupj^ himself seriously 
 with the existence of his peasants, set himself up 
 as an example, saying, that he had been purified 
 in the furnace of affliction, — and immediately 
 thereafter, several times mentioned himself as a 
 happy man, compared himself to the birds of 
 heaven, the lilies of the field " 
 
 " A black lily, at any rate," — remarked La- 
 vretzky. 
 
 " Eh, brother, don't put on any of your 
 aristocratic airs," — retorted INIikhalevitch, good- 
 naturedly : — " but thank God, rather, that in thy 
 veins flows honest, plebeian blood. But I per- 
 ceive, that thou art now in need of some pure, 
 unearthly being, who shall wrest thee from this 
 apathy of thine." 
 
 "Thanks, brother," — said Lavretzky: — "I 
 have had enough of those unearthly beings." 
 
 " Shut up, cuinuih! " — exclaimed Mikhale- 
 vitch. 
 
 " Cynic," — Lavretzky corrected him. 
 
 " Just so, cuinuih" — repeated Miklialevitch, 
 in no wise disconcerted. 
 
 Even as he took his seat in tlie tarantas, to 
 which his flat, yellow, strangely light trunk was 
 carried forth, he continued to talk; wrapped up 
 in some sort of a Spanish cloak with a rusty col- 
 
 150
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 lar, and lion's paws in place oi' chisi).s, lu- still 
 went on setting forth his views as to the fate of 
 Russia, and waving liis swarthy luind tlirougli 
 the air, as though he were sowing the seeds of its 
 future welfare. At last the horses started. . . . 
 " Bear in mind my last three words,"— he 
 shouted, thrusting his whole hody out of the ta- 
 rantas, and balancing himself: — " religion, prog- 
 ress, humanity! .... Farewell! " His head, with 
 its cap pulled down to the very eyes, vanislied. 
 Lavretzky remained standing alone on the porch 
 and staring down the road until the tarantds dis- 
 appeared from his sight. " But I think he 
 probably is right," — he said to himself, as lie re- 
 entered the house: — " probably I am a trifler." 
 Many of Mikhalevitch's words had sunk indelibly 
 into his soul, although he had disputed and had 
 not agreed with him. If only a man be kindly, no 
 one can repulse him. 
 
 151
 
 XXVI 
 
 Two davs later, JNIarva Dmitrievna arrived with 
 all her young people at Vasilievskoe,, in accord- 
 ance with her promise. The little girls imme- 
 diately ran out into the garden, while Marya 
 Dmitrievna languidly traversed the rooms, and 
 languidly praised everything. Her visit to La- 
 vretzky she regarded as a token of great .con- 
 descension, almost in the light of a good deed. 
 She smiled affahly when Anton and Apraxyeya, 
 after the ancient custom of house-serfs, came 
 to kiss her hand, — and in an enervated voice, 
 through her nose, she asked them to give her some 
 tea. To the great vexation of Anton, who had 
 donned white knitted gloves, the jiewly-arrived 
 lady was served with tea not by him, but by La- 
 vretzky's hired valet, who, according to the as- 
 sertion of the old man, knew nothing whatever 
 about proper forms. On the other hand, Anton 
 reasserted his rights at dinner: firm as a post he 
 stood behind ^larva Dmitrievna's chair — and 
 yielded his place to no one. The long-unpre- 
 cedented arrival of visitors at Vasilievskoe both 
 agitated and rejoiced the old man: it pleased him 
 to see, tliat liis master knew nice people. How- 
 
 152
 
 A XOBLE:\rAX'S XEST 
 
 ever, he was not tlie only one wlio was excited 
 on that day: Lemm, also, was excited. lie put 
 on a short, snufF-colonred i'rock-coat, willi a 
 sharp-pointed collar, honnd his ncckerchicl* 
 tiglitly, and incessantly con*>hc(l and stepped 
 aside, with an agreeahle and conrteons mien, I .a- 
 vretzky noted, with satisfaction, that the close 
 relations hetween himself and Liza still contin- 
 ued: no sooner did she enter, than she offered him 
 her hand, in friendly wise. After dinner, Lemm 
 drew forth, from the hack pocket of his coat, into 
 which he had heen constantly thrusting his hand, 
 a small roll of music, and pursing up his lips, he 
 silently laid it on the piano. It was a romance, 
 which he had composed on the preceding day to 
 old-fashioned German words, in which the stars 
 were alluded to. Liza immediately seated her- 
 self at the piano and hegan to decipher the 
 romance. . . . Alas, the music turned out to he 
 complicated, and disagreeahly strained; it was 
 ohvious that the composer had attem])ted to ex- 
 press some passionate, profound sentiment, hnt 
 nothing had come of it: so the attempt remained 
 merely an attempt. . Lavretzky and Liza hoth 
 felt this, — and Lemm understood it: lie said not 
 a word, put his romance hack in his p(x*ket. and 
 in reply to Liza's proposal to ])lay it over again, 
 he merely said significantly, with a shake of his 
 head: "Enough — for the present!" — hent his 
 shoulders, shrank together, and left the room. 
 
 153
 
 A xoble:max\s nest 
 
 Toward evening, they ail went fishing to- 
 gether. Tlie })()n(l beyond the garden contained 
 a quantity of carp and loach. They placed 
 Miirya Dniitrievna in an arm-chair near the bank, 
 in the shade, spread a rug under her feet, and 
 gave her the best hook; xVnton, in the quality of 
 an old and expert fisherman, offered liis services. 
 He assiduously spitted worms on the hook, 
 slapped them down with his hand, spat on them, 
 and even himself flung the line and hook, bend- 
 ing forward \vith his whole body. That same 
 day, iSIarya Dmitrievna expressed herself to 
 Feodor Ivanitcli, with regard to him, in the fol- 
 lowing phrase, in the French language of girls' 
 institutes: " II ny a plus maintenant de ces gens 
 comme f'« com me autrefois." Lemm, with the 
 two little girls, went further away, to the dam; 
 Lavretzky placed himself beside Liza. The fish 
 bit incessantly, the carp w^hich were caught were 
 constantly flashing their sides, now gold, now 
 silver, in the air; the joyous exclamations of the 
 little girls w^ere unceasing; Marya Dmitrievna 
 herself gave vent to a couple of shrill, feminine 
 shrieks. I^avretzkv and Liza caug-ht few^er than 
 the others; tliis, probably, resulted from the fact 
 that they paid less attention than the rest to their 
 fishing, and allowed their floats to drift close in- 
 shore. The tall, reddish reeds rustled softly 
 around tliem, in front of them the motionless 
 water gleamed softly, and their conversation was 
 
 154.
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NKST 
 
 soft also. Liza stood on a small raft; Lavrctzk}- 
 sat on the inclined trunk of a willow; Liza wore 
 a white gown, girt about tlie waist with a Ijroad 
 ribbon, also white in hue; her straw hat was hang- 
 ing from one hand, with the other, slie suj)i)()rte(l, 
 with some effort, the curved fishing-iod. La- 
 vretzky gazed at the pure, rather severe profile, 
 at her hair tucked behind her ears, at her soft 
 cheeks, which were as sunburned as those of a 
 child, — and said to himself: " () how charm- 
 ingl}^ thou standest on my pond! " T^iza did not 
 turn toward him, but stared at the water, — and 
 half smiled, half screwed up her eyes. The 
 shadow of a linden-tree near at hand fell upon 
 both of them. 
 
 "Do you know,"^ — began Lavretzky: — ^" I 
 have been thinking a great deal about my last 
 conversation with vou, and have come to the con- 
 elusion, that you are extraordinarily kind." 
 
 " I did not mean it in that way at all ... ." 
 Liza began, — and was overcome with shame. 
 
 " You are kind," — repeated Lavretzky. " I 
 am a rough man, but I feel that every one must 
 love you. There 's Lemm now, for example: he 
 is simply in love with you." 
 
 Liza's brows quivered, rather than contracted; 
 this always happened with her when she heard 
 something" disagreeable. 
 
 " I felt verv sorrv for him to-day," — Lavret- 
 
 » • * 
 
 zky resumed: — "with his unsuccessful romance. 
 
 1.3.5 
 
 k
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 To be youn^', and be able to do a thing — that 
 can be borne; but to grow old, and not have the 
 power — is painful. And the offensive thing 
 about it is, that you are not conscious when your 
 powers begin to wane. It is difficult for an old 
 man to endiu'e these shocks! .... T^ook out, 
 the fish are biting at your hook. . . They say," 
 — added Lavret/ky, after a brief pause, — " that 
 Vladimir Nikolaitch has written a very pretty 
 romance." 
 
 " Yes," — replied Liza; — " it is a trifle, but it is 
 not bad." 
 
 " And M'hat is your opinion," — asked Lavret- 
 zky: — " is he a good musician? " 
 
 " It seems to me that he has great talent for 
 music; ))ut up to the present time he has not cul- 
 tivated it as he should." 
 
 " Exactly. And is he a nice man? " 
 
 Liza laughed, and cast a quick glance at Feo- 
 dor Ivanitch. 
 
 "What a strange question ! "—she exclaimed, 
 drawing up her hook, and flinging it far out 
 again. 
 
 *' Why is it strange? — I am asking you about 
 him as a man who has recently come hither, as 
 your relative." 
 
 " As a relative? " 
 
 " Yes. I believe I am a sort of uncle to 
 you." 
 
 " Vladimir Nikolaitch has a kind heart," — said 
 
 156
 
 A NOBT.E:\rAN\S XEST 
 
 Liza; — "he is clever; inaninia is very rond of 
 him." 
 
 " And do you hke him? " 
 
 "He is a nice man: why sliould not I hke 
 him? " 
 
 "Ah!" — said Lavretzky, and icla[)s(,(! into si- 
 lence. A half-mournful, half-sneerinn- expres- 
 sion flitted across his face. His tenacious gaze 
 discomfited Liza, hut she continued to smile. 
 "Well, God grant them hai)|)iness! " — he mut- 
 tered, at last, as though to himself, and turned 
 away his head. 
 
 Ijiza hlushed. 
 
 " You are mistaken, Feodor Ivaniteh," — she 
 said: — " there is no cause for your thinking .... 
 But do not you like Vladimir Xikolaitch?" 
 
 " I do not." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " It seems to me, that he has no heart." 
 
 The smile vanished from I^iza's face. 
 
 " You have hecome accustomed to judge i)eo- 
 ple harshly," — she said, after a long silence. 
 
 " I think not. What right have I to .judge 
 others harshly, when I myself stand in need of 
 indulgence? Or have you forgotten that a hi/y 
 man is the only one who does not laugh at 
 me? .... Well," — he added: — "and have yon 
 kept your promise? " 
 
 " AVhat promise? " 
 
 " Have you prayed for me? " 
 
 157
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 " Yes, I have prayed, and I do pray for you 
 every day. But please do not speak lightly of 
 that." 
 
 Lavretzky began to assure Liza, that such a 
 thing had ne\'er entered his head, that he enter- 
 tained a profound respect for all convictions; 
 then he entered upon a discussion of religion, 
 its significance in the history of mankind, the 
 significance of Christianity. . . . 
 
 " One must be a Christian," — said Liza, not 
 without a certain effort: — "not in order to un- 
 derstand heavenly things yonder . . . 
 
 earthly things, but because every man must 
 die." 
 
 Lavretzk}^ with in^'oluntary surprise, raised 
 his eyes to Liza's, and encountered her glance. 
 
 "What a word you have uttered!" — said 
 he. 
 
 " The word is not mine," — she replied. 
 
 " It is not yours. . . But why do you speak 
 of death? " 
 
 " I do not know. I often think about it." 
 
 "Often?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " One would not sav so, to look at vou now: 
 you have such a merry, bright face, you are 
 smiling " 
 
 " Yes, I am very merry now," — returned Liza, 
 ingenuously. 
 
 158
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 Lavretzky felt like seizing both Iicr liaiids, and 
 clasping them tightly. 
 
 "Liza, Liza!" — called INIarya Dmitrievna, — 
 "come hither, look! What a carp I liave caught!" 
 
 "Immediately, maman," — replied Liza, and 
 went to her, but Lavretzky remained on his wil- 
 low-tree. 
 
 " I talk with her as though I were not a man 
 whose life is finished," he said to liimself. As she 
 departed, Liza had luuig her hat on a bough; 
 with a strange, almost tender sentiment, Lavret- 
 zky gazed at the hat, at its long, rather crumpled 
 ribbons. Liza speedily returned to liim, and 
 again took up her stand on tlie laft. 
 
 " Why do you think that Vladimir Nikolaiteh 
 has no heart? "- — she inquired, a few moments 
 later. 
 
 " I have already told you, that I may be mis- 
 taken; however, time will show." 
 
 Liza became thoughtful. I^avretzky began to 
 talk about his manner of life at Vasilievskoe, 
 about Mikhalevitch, about Anton; he felt im- 
 pelled to talk to Liza, to communicate to her 
 evervthinof that occurred to his soul: she was so 
 charming, she listened to him so attentively; her 
 infrequent comments and replies seemed to liim 
 so simple and wise. Pie even told lier so. 
 
 Liza was amazed. 
 
 "Really?"— she said;— "why. T have always 
 
 159
 
 A XOBLE:\rAX\S XEST 
 
 thought that 1, hke my maid Xastya, had no 
 woixls oi" my own. One day she said to her be- 
 trotlu'd: ' Tliou must find it tiresome with me; 
 thou always sayest such fine things to me, but I 
 ha^•e uo words of my own.' " 
 
 "And thank God for that!" thought La- 
 vretzkv. 
 
 100
 
 XXVII 
 
 In the meantime, evening drew on, and jNlarya 
 Dmitrievna expressed a desire to return home. 
 The httle girls were, with difficulty, torn away 
 from the pond, and made ready. Lavretzky an- 
 nounced his intention to escort his guests half 
 way, and ordered liis horse to be saddled. As 
 he seated Marya Dmitrievna in the carriage, he 
 remembered Lemm ; but the old man was nowhere 
 to be found. He had disappeared as soon as the 
 angling was over. Anton slammed to the carriage 
 door, with a strength remarkable for his years, 
 and grimly shouted: "Drive on, coacliman!" 
 The carriage rolled off. On the back seat sat 
 Marya Dmitrievna and Liza; on tlie front seat, 
 the little girls and the maid. The evening was 
 warm and still, and the windows were lowered on 
 both sides. Lavretzky rode at a trot bv I-.iza's 
 side of the carriage, with his hand resting on 
 the door, — he had dropped the reins on the neck 
 of his steed, which was trotting smoothly, — and 
 from time to time exchanged a few words witli 
 the young girl. The sunset glow vanished; night 
 descended, and the air grew even warmer. ^Mtirya 
 Dmitrievna soon fell into a doze; the httle girls 
 and the maid also dropped off to sleep. The 
 
 161
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 carriage rolled swiftly and smoothly onward; 
 Liza leaned forward; the moon, which had just 
 risen, shone on her face, the fragrant night 
 breeze blew on her cheeks and neck. She felt at 
 ease. Her hand lay on the door of the carriage, 
 alongside of Lavretzky's hand. And he, also, 
 felt at ease: he was being borne along through 
 tlie tranquil nocturnal warmth, never taking his 
 eyes from the kind young face, listening to the 
 youthful voice, which was ringing even in a whis- 
 per, saying simple, kindly things ; he did not even 
 notice that he had passed the half-way point. He 
 did not wish to awaken ^larya Dmitrievna, 
 pressed I^iza's hand lightly, and said: — " We are 
 friends, now, are we not? " She nodded, he drew 
 up his horse. The carriage rolled on, gently 
 swaying and lurching: Lavretzky proceeded 
 homeward at a footpace. The w^itchery of the 
 summer night took possession of him ; everything 
 around him seemed so unexpectedly strange, and, 
 at the same time, so long, so sweetly familiar ; far 
 and near, — and things were visible at a long dis- 
 tance, although the eye did not comprehend much 
 of what it beheld, — everything was at rest; 
 young, blossoming life made itself felt in that 
 very repose. Lavretzky's horse walked briskly, 
 swaying regularly to right and left; its huge 
 ])lack shadow kept j^^ce alongside; there was 
 something mysterioush^ pleasant in the tramp of 
 its Iioofs, something cheerful and wondrous in the 
 
 162
 
 A NOBLEMxVN'S NEST 
 
 resounding call of the quail. The stars were hid- 
 den in a sort of hrilliant smoke; the moon, not yet 
 at the full, shone with a steady gleam; its liglil 
 flooded the hlue sky in streams, anil fell like a 
 stain of smoky gold upon the thin cloudlets 
 whicli floated past; the crispness of the air called 
 forth a slight moisture in the eyes, caressingly 
 enveloped all the limhs, poured in an abundant 
 flood into the breast. Lavretzky enjoyed himself, 
 and rejoiced at his enjoyment. " Come, life is 
 still before us," he thought : — " it has not been 
 
 completely ruined yet by " He did not 
 
 finish his sentence, and sav who or Avhat had 
 ruined it. . . Then he began to think of Liza, that 
 it was hardly likely that she loved Panshin; that 
 had he met her under different circumstances, — 
 God knows what miglit have come of it ; that he 
 understood Lemm, although she had no " words 
 of her own." Yes, but that was not tiiie: she 
 had words of her own. ..." Do not speak 
 lightly of that," recurred to I.avretzky's memory. 
 He rode for a long time, with drooping liead, 
 then he straightened himself u[), and slowly 
 recited : 
 
 " And I have burned all that I worshipped, 
 I have worshipped all that I burned . . . ." 
 
 but immediately gave his horse a cut with the 
 whip, and rode at a gallop all the rest of the way 
 home. 
 
 163
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 xVs he alighted from his horse, he cast a last 
 «>lance around him, with an involuntary, grate- 
 ful smile. Night, the speechless, caressing night, 
 lay upon the hills and in the valleys; from afar, 
 from its fragrant depths, God knows whence, — 
 whether from heaven or earth, — emanated a 
 soft, quiet warmth. Lavretzky wafted a last 
 salutation to I^iza, and ran up the steps. 
 
 The following day passed rather languidly. 
 Rain fell from early morning; Lemm cast furtive 
 glances from beneath his eyebrows, and pursed 
 up his lips more and more tightly, as though he 
 had vowed to himself never to open them again. 
 On lying do^vii to sleep, Lavretzky had taken to 
 bed with him a whole pile of French newspaj^ers, 
 which had already been lying on his table for 
 two weeks, with their wrappers unbroken. He 
 set to work idly to strip off the wrappers, and 
 glance 'through the columns of the papers, which, 
 however, contained nothing new. He was on the 
 point of throwing them aside,— when, all of a 
 sudden, he sprang out of bed as though he had 
 been stung. In the feuilleton of one of the pa- 
 pers, IVI'sieu Jules, already know^i to us, imparted 
 to his readers " a sad bit of news ": " The charm- 
 ing, bewitching native of Moscow," he wrote, 
 " one of the queens of fashion, the ornament of 
 Parisian salons, ^ladame de Lavretzki, had died 
 almost instantaneously, — and this news, unhap- 
 pily only too true, had only just reached him, 
 
 164
 
 A NOBr.KMANS XKST 
 
 M. Jules. He was," — he continued, " li< mi^lit 
 
 say, a friend of tlie deceased " 
 
 Lavretzky dressed himself, went out into the 
 garden, and until morning dawned, he paced 
 back and forth in one and the same alley. 
 
 165
 
 XXVIII 
 
 On the following morning, at tea, Lemm re- 
 quested LaA'retzky to furnish him with horses, 
 tliat he might return to town. "It is time that 
 I sliould set ahout my work, — that is to say, my 
 lessons," remarked the old man: — "but here I 
 am only wasting time in vain." Lavretzky did 
 not immediately reply to him: he seemed pre- 
 occupied. "Very well," — he said at last; — ^" I 
 will accompany you myself." — Without any aid 
 from the servants, grunting and fimiing, Lemm 
 packed his small trunk, and tore up and burned 
 several sheets of music-paper. The horses were 
 brought round. As he emerged from his study, 
 Lavretzky thrust into his pocket the newspaper 
 of the day before. During the entire journey, 
 Lemm and Lavretzky had very little to say to 
 each other: each of them was engrossed with his 
 own thoughts, and each was delighted that the 
 other did not disturb him. And they parted rather 
 coldly, — which, by the way, frequently happens 
 between friends in Russia. Lavretzky drove the 
 old man to his tiny house: the latter alighted, got 
 out his trunk, and without offering his hand to 
 his friend (he held liis trunk in front of his chest 
 
 160
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 with both hands), without even looking- at him, — 
 he said in Russian: " (rood-bye, sir!" — " (xood- 
 bye," — repeated Eavretzky, and ordered liis 
 coachman to drive him to his own lodgings. (He 
 had hired a lodging in the town of () * * * in 
 case he might require it.) After writing several 
 letters and dining in haste, I..avretzky took his 
 way to the Kalitins. In their drawing-ioom he 
 found no one but Panshin, who informed liini 
 that JNIarya Dmitrievna would be down directly, 
 and immediately entered into conversation with 
 him, with the most cordial amiability. Up to 
 that day, Panshin had treated Lavretzky, not ex- 
 actly in a patronizing way, yet condescendingly; 
 but Liza, in telling Panshin about her jaunt of 
 the day before, had expressed herself to the effect 
 that Lavretzky was a very fine and clever man; 
 that was enough: the " very fine " man must be 
 captivated. Panshin began with compliments to 
 Lavretzky, with descriptions of the raptures with 
 which, according to his statement, ]Marya Dmi- 
 trievna's whole family had expressed themselves 
 about Vasilievskoe, and then, according to his 
 wont, passing adroitly to himself, he began to 
 talk about his own occupations, his views of life, 
 of the world, of the government service; — he said 
 a couple of words about the future of Russia, 
 about the proper v/ay of keeping the governors 
 in hand; thereupon, merrily jeered at himself, 
 and added, that, among other things, he had been 
 
 107
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 commissioned in Petersburg — "dc populariser 
 Vidcc du cadastre/' He talked for quite a long 
 time, ^vitll careless self-confidence solving all dif- 
 ficulties, and juggling with the most weighty ad- 
 ministrative and political questions, as a sleight- 
 of-hand performer juggles with liis balls. The 
 expressions: " This is what I would do, if I were 
 the government " ; " You, as a clever man, will 
 immediately agree with me " — were never absent 
 from his tongue. Lavretzky listened coldly to 
 Panshin's idle chatter: he did not like this hand- 
 some, clever, and unconstrainedly elegant man, 
 with his brilliant smile, courteous voice, and 
 searching eyes. Panshin speedily divined, with 
 the swift comprehension of other peoj^le's senti- 
 ments which was peculiar to him, that he was not 
 affording his interlocutor any particular pleasure, 
 and made his escape, under a plausible pretext, de- 
 ciding in his own mind that Lavretzky might be 
 a very fine man, but that he was not sympathetic, 
 was ''aigri," and, '' en somme" rather ridiculous. 
 — INIarya Dmitrievna made her appearance ac- 
 companied by Gedeonovsky; then JNIarfa Timo- 
 feevna entered with I^iza; after them followed the 
 other members of the household; then came that 
 lover of music, INIme. Byelenitzyn, a small, thin 
 lady, with an almost childish, fatigued and hand- 
 some little face, in a rustling black gown, with a 
 motley-hued fan, and heavy gold bracelets; her 
 husband also came, a rosy-cheeked, plump man, 
 
 168
 
 A XOHLEMAN'S XKST 
 
 with huge feet and hands, ^vith wliite evelashes, 
 and an ini|)assive smile on liis thiek hps; in com- 
 pany his wife never spoke to him, l)iit at liomc 
 in moments of tenderness, she was wont to call 
 liim " lier little ])ig"; Panshin returned: the 
 rooms became very full of peo])le and very noisy. 
 Such a throng of peo])le was not to La\retzky's 
 liking; ]\Ime. Byelenit/yn ])articulai-ly enraged 
 him by constantly staring at him throuiili hei- 
 lorgnette. He would have withdrawn at once, 
 had it not been for Liza: he wished to say two 
 words to her in private, but for a long time he 
 was not able to seize a convenient moment, and 
 contented himself with watching her in secret 
 joy; never had her face seemed to him more nohic 
 and charming. She appeared to great a(haii- 
 tage from the proximity of Mme. Byelenitzyn. 
 The latter was incessantly fidgeting about on 
 her chair, shrugging her narrow little shoidders, 
 laughing, in an enervated way, and screwing uj) 
 her eyes, then suddenly opening them very wide. 
 Liza sat quietly, her gaze was direct, and she did 
 not laugh at all. The hostess sat down to play 
 cards w^ith Marfa Timofeevna, Mme. l^yelenit- 
 zyn, and Gedeonovsky, who played very slo\\ly, 
 was constantly making mistakes, blinking his 
 eyes, and mopping his face with his ha'ul- 
 kerchief. Panshin assumed a melancholy mien, 
 expressed himself with brevity, with great sig- 
 nificance and mournfulness, — for all the world 
 
 1()9
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S XEST 
 
 like an artist who has not had his say, — but de- 
 spite the entreaties of ^Ime. Byelenitzyn, who 
 was having a a iolent flirtation with him, he would 
 not consent to sing his romance: Lavretzky 
 embarrassed him. Feodor Ivanitch also said 
 little; the peculiar expression of his face had 
 startled Liza, as soon as he entered the room : she 
 immediately felt that he had something to com- 
 municate to her, but, without herself knowing 
 wliy, she was afraid to interrogate him. At last, 
 as she passed into the hall ^ to pour tea, she invol- 
 untarily turned her head in his direction. He 
 immediately followed her. 
 
 " What is the matter wdth you? " — she said, as 
 she placed the teapot on the samovar. 
 
 " Have you noticed it? " 
 
 " You are not the same to-day as I have seen 
 vou heretofore." 
 
 Lavretzky bent over the table. 
 
 " I wanted," — he began, — " to tell you a cer- 
 tain piece of news, but now it is not possible. — 
 However, read w^hat is marked with pencil in 
 this feuilleton," — he added, giving her the copy 
 of the newspaper which he had brought with him. 
 — " I beg that you will keep this secret ; I will 
 call on you to-morrow morning." 
 
 I^iza was surprised. . . Panshin made his ap- 
 pearance on the threshold of the door: she put 
 the newspaper in lier pocket. 
 
 ' A conjl)ination of music-room, ball-room, play-room, also used for 
 all sorts of purposes, in all wclMo-do Russian houses.— Translatou. 
 
 170
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NKST 
 
 " Have you read Obermann, Lizaveta Mikhai- 
 lovna? " — Panshin asked her meditatively. 
 
 Liza gave him a superfieial answer, left the 
 hall, and went up-stairs. Lavretzky retui'iied to 
 the drawing-room, and approached the eai'd- 
 table. JNIarfa Timofeevna, with her eap-ril)l)<)ns 
 mitied, and red in the face, began to comi)Iaiii to 
 him about her partner, Gedeonovsky, who, ac- 
 cording to her, did not know how to lead. 
 
 " Evidently," — she said, — " playing cards is 
 quite a different thing from inventing fibs." 
 
 Her partner continued to blink and mop his 
 face. I^iza entered the drawing-room, and seated 
 herself in a corner; Lavretzky looked at her, she 
 looked at him, — and something like dread fell 
 upon them both. He read surprise and a sort of 
 secret reproach in her face. I^ong as he might to 
 talk to her, he could not do it; to remain in the 
 same room with her, a guest among strangers, 
 was painful to him: he decided to go away. As 
 he took leave of her, he managed to repeat that 
 he would come on the morrow, and he added tliat 
 he trusted in her friendship. 
 
 " Come,"- — she replied, with the same amaze- 
 ment on her face. 
 
 Panshin brightened up after Lavretzky's de- 
 parture; he began to give advice to Gedeonovsky, 
 banteringly paid court to ^Ime. Byelenitzyn, 
 and, at last, sang his romance. But he talked \vitli 
 Liza and gazed at her as before: significantly and 
 rather sadly. 
 
 171
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 ^Vnd again, Lavretzky did not sleep all night 
 long. He did not feel sad, he was not excited, 
 he had grown altogether calm; hut he could not 
 sleep. He did not even recall the past ; he simply 
 gazed at his life: his heart beat strongly and 
 evenly, the hours flew past, but he did not even 
 think of sleeping. At times, only, did the thought 
 come to the surface in his mind: " But that is not 
 true, it is all nonsense," — and he paused, lowered 
 his head, and began again to gaze at his life. 
 
 172
 
 XXIX 
 
 Marya Dmitrievna (lid not receive I^avretzky 
 with any excess of cordiality, when he presented 
 himself on the following day. " Well, you are 
 making yourself pretty free of the house," — she 
 said to herself. Personally, he did not greatly 
 please her, and, in addition, Panshin, under whose 
 influence she was, had sung his praises in a very 
 sly and careless manner on tlie preceding even- 
 ing. As she did not look upon him in the light 
 of a guest, and did not consider it necessary to 
 trouble herself about a relative almost a mem- 
 ber of the family, half an hour had not elapsed 
 before he was strolling down an alley in the 
 garden with Liza. Lyenotchka and Schurotchka 
 were frolicking a sliort distance away, among the 
 flower-beds. 
 
 Liza was composed, as usual, but paler than 
 usual. She took from her pocket and handed to 
 Lavretzky the sheet of newspaper, folded small. 
 
 " This is dreadful! "—said she. 
 
 Lavretzky made no reply. 
 
 " But perhaps it is not yet true," — added Liza. 
 
 " That is why I asked you not to mention it 
 to any one." 
 
 173
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 Liza walked on a little waj\ 
 
 " Tell iiie," — she began : — " you are not 
 grieved^ Not in the least?" 
 
 " 1 do not know myself what my feelings are," 
 — replied Lavretzky. 
 
 " Bnt, assnredlv, vou used to love her? " 
 
 " Yes, I did." 
 
 " Very much? " 
 
 " Very much." 
 
 " And you are not grieved by her death? " 
 
 " It is not now that she has died to me." 
 
 " ^Vhat you say is sinful. . . . Do not be 
 angry Avith me. You call me your friend: a 
 friend may say anything. To tell the truth, I 
 feel terrified. . . . Your face was so malign 
 yesterday. . . . Do you remember, how you 
 were complaining of her, not long ago? — and 
 perhaps, already, at that very time, she was no 
 longer alive. This is terrible. It is exactly as 
 though it had been sent to you as a chastise- 
 ment." 
 
 Lavretzky laughed bitterly. 
 
 "Do you tliink so? . . . At all events, I am 
 free now." 
 
 Liza gave a slight start. 
 
 " Stop, do not talk like that. Of what use 
 to you is your freedom? You must not think 
 about that now, but about forgiveness. . ." 
 
 " I forgave her long ago," — interrupted La- 
 vretzky, A\itli a w'ave of the hand. 
 
 174
 
 " xr. 
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 No, not that," — retiinitd l.i/a, and lihislicd. 
 
 You did not understand nie ri^litly. You 
 must take means to obtain foigiveness. . . ." 
 
 " Wlio is there to forgive me^' 
 
 "Who?— God. Who else In.t (Jod ean for- 
 give usf 
 
 Lavretzkv cauglit hei- liand. 
 
 " Akh, Lizaveta Mikliailovna, heheve riie," — 
 he exclaimed: — "I have been sutHeiently \n\\\- 
 ished as it is. I have already atoned for c\eiy- 
 thing, believe me." 
 
 "You cannot know that," — said Liza in a 
 low voice. " You have forgotten; — not \ery 
 long ago, — when you were talking to me, — you 
 were not willing to forgive her. . . ." 
 
 The two walked silently down the allev. 
 
 " And how about vour daughter? " — Liza sud- 
 denly inquired, and halted. 
 
 Lavretzk}^ started. 
 
 " Oh, do not worry yourself! I ha\e already 
 despatched letters to all the proper places. Tlie 
 future of my daughter, as you call .... as you 
 say ... is assured. Do not disquiet yourself." 
 
 Liza smiled sadly. 
 
 " But you are right," — went on Lavi'etzky: — 
 " what can I do with my freedom? Of what use 
 is it to me? " 
 
 "When did you receive tliat news])aj)er? " — 
 said Liza, making no reply to his (piestion. 
 
 " The day after your visit." 
 
 175
 
 A XOBLEMAN'S XEST 
 
 *' And is it possible .... is it possible that 
 you did not even weep? " 
 
 " Xo. I was stunned ; but where were the tears 
 to come from? Weep over the past, — but, you 
 see, it is entirely extirpated in my case! .... 
 Her behaviour itself did not destroy my happi- 
 ness, but merely proved to me that it had never 
 existed. What was there to cry about? But, 
 who knows? — perhaps I should have been more 
 grieved if I had received this news two weeks 
 earlier " 
 
 " Two weeks? " — returned Liza. " But what 
 has happened in those two weeks?" 
 
 Lavretzky made no answer, and Liza suddenly 
 blushed more fm*iouslv than before. 
 
 " Yes, yes, you have guessed it," — interposed 
 Lavretzky: — "in the course of those two weeks 
 I have learned what a pure woman's soul is like, 
 and my past has retreated still fiu'ther from me." 
 
 Liza became confused, and softly M^alked 
 toward the flow^er-garden, to Lyenotchka and 
 Schurotchka. 
 
 " And I am glad that I have shown you this 
 newspaper," — said Lavretzky, as he followed 
 her: — " I have already contracted the habit of 
 concealing nothing from you, and I hope that 
 you will repay me with tlie same confidence." 
 
 "Do you think so? "^ — said Liza, and stopped 
 
 short. " In that case, I ought to but 
 
 no! That is impossible." 
 
 176
 
 A NOHLKMAWS XKST 
 
 " What is it? Speak, speak! " 
 
 " Really, it seems to me that I ought not. . . . 
 However," added Liza, and turned to Lavi-etzky 
 with a smile: — " what is half-frankness worths — 
 Do vou know? I received a letter to-dav." 
 
 " From Panshin? " 
 
 " Yes, from him How did you know!'" 
 
 " He asks your hand? " 
 
 " Yes," — uttered I^iza, and looked seriously 
 in Lavretzky's eyes. 
 
 Lavretzky, in his turn, gazed seriously at Liza. 
 
 " Well, and what reply have you made to 
 him? " — he said at last. 
 
 " I do not know what re[)ly to make," — replied 
 Liza, and dropped her clasped hands. 
 
 "What? Surely, you like him?" 
 
 "Yes, he pleases me; he seems to he a nice 
 man. . . ." 
 
 " You said the same thing to me, in those very 
 same words, three days ago. What I want to 
 know is, whether you love him with tliat strong, 
 passionate feeling which we are accustomed to 
 call love? " 
 
 " As you understand it,- -no." 
 
 " You are not in love with him?" 
 
 " No. But is that necessary? " 
 
 " Of course it is! " 
 
 "Mamma likes him," pursued Liza:— "he 
 is amiahle; I have nothing against him." 
 
 " Still, you are wavering? " 
 
 177
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 " Yes . . . and perhaj^s, — your words may be 
 the cause of it. Do you remember what you said 
 day l)efore yesterday^ But that weakness . . . ." 
 
 "Oh, my cliild!" — suddenly exclaimed La- 
 vretzky^ — and his voice trembled: — "do not 
 argue artfully, do not designate as weakness the 
 cry of \our heart, which does not wish to surren- 
 der itself without love. Do not take upon your- 
 self that terrible responsibility toward a man 
 whom you do not love and to whom you do not 
 wish to belong. . . .' 
 
 " I am listening, — I am taking nothing u])on 
 myself. . ." Liza was beginning. 
 
 " Listen to your heart; it alone will tell you the 
 truth," — I^avretzky interrupted her. . . " Ex- 
 perience, reasoning — all that is stuff and non- 
 sense! Do not deprive yourself of the best, the 
 only happiness on earth." 
 
 " Is it you, Feodor Ivanitch, who are speak- 
 ing thus? You, yourself, married for love — and 
 were you happy? " 
 
 Lavretzky wrung his hands. 
 
 " Akh, do not talk to me of that ! You cannot 
 even understand all that a young, untried, ab- 
 surdly educated lad can mistake for love! . . . 
 Yes, and in short, why calumniate one's self? I 
 just told you, that I had not known happiness 
 .... no! I was hap])y! " 
 
 " It seems to me, Feodor Ivanitch, "^ — said 
 Liza, lo\vering her voice (when she did not agree 
 
 178
 
 A NOBT.EMAN'S XKST 
 
 with her mterlocutor, she always lowered Ik i- 
 voiee; and, at the same time, she heeame gieatlv 
 agitated) :-" happiness on earth does not (K- 
 pend upon us. . . .' 
 
 " It does, it does depend upon us, Ijclieve me " 
 (he seized both her hands; Liza turned [)ale, and 
 gazed at him almost in terror, l)iil with atten- 
 tion) : — " if only we have not ruined our own 
 lives. For some people, a love-marriage may 
 prove unhappy; hut not for you, with your calm 
 temperament, M'ith your clear soul! I entreat 
 you, do not marry without love, from a sense of 
 
 duty, of renunciation, or anything else 
 
 That, also, is want of faith, that is calculation, — 
 and even worse. Believe me, — I have a right to 
 speak thus: I have paid dearly for that right. 
 And if your God . . . ." 
 
 At that moment, T^avretzky noticed that Lye- 
 notchka and Schurotchka were standing beside 
 Liza, and staring at him with dumb amazement. 
 He released Liza's hands, said hastily: " Pray 
 pardon me," — and walked toward the house. 
 
 " I have only one request to make of you," — 
 he said, returning to Liza: — "do not decide in- 
 stantly, wait, think over what I have said to you. 
 Even if you have not believed me, if you have 
 made up your mind to a marriage of reason, — 
 even in that case, you ought not to marry Mr. 
 Panshin: he cannot be your luisband. . . . 
 Promise me, will you not. not to be in a hurry ^ " 
 
 179
 
 A x()blp:max's nest 
 
 Liza tried to answer Lavretzky, but did not 
 utter a word, — not because she had made up her 
 mind " to be in a liurry "; but because her heart 
 was beating too violently, and a sensation re- 
 sembling fear had stopped her breath. 
 
 180
 
 XXX 
 
 As he was leaving the Kah'tins' house, Lavretzky 
 encountered Panshin; thev sahitcd each other 
 coldly. Lavretzky went home to his ai)artnient, 
 and locked himself in. He experienced a sensa- 
 tion such as he had, in all proha])iIity, never ex- 
 perienced before. Had he remained lon^- in that 
 state of " peaceful numbness "? had lie long con- 
 tinued to feel, as he liad expressed it, " at tlie bot- 
 tom of the river"? AVhat had altered his posi- 
 tion? what had brought him out, to tlie surface? 
 the most ordinary, inevitable though always un- 
 expected of events; — death? Yes: but he (hd 
 not tliink so much about tlie death of his wife, 
 about his freedom, as, — what sort of answer 
 would Liza give to Panshin:' He was conscious 
 that, in the course of the last three days, he had 
 come to look upon her with different eyes; he re- 
 called how, on returning home, and tliinking 
 about her in the silence of the night, he had said 
 to himself: " If . . . ." That " if," wherein he 
 had alluded to the past, to the inii)ossible, had 
 come to pass, although not in. tlie way lie had an- 
 ticipated, — but this was little in itself. " She will 
 obey her mother," he thought, " she will marry 
 
 181
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 ranshin; but even if she refuses him, — is it not 
 all tlie same to me? " As he passed in front of 
 the mirror, he cast a cursory glance at his face, 
 and shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 The day sped swiftly by in these reflections; 
 evening arrived. Lavretzkv wended his way to 
 the Kalitins. He walked briskly, but approached 
 their house with lingering steps. In front of the 
 steps stood Piinshin's drozhky. " Come," — 
 thought Ijavretzky, — " I will not be an egoist," 
 and entered the house. Inside he met no one, 
 and all was still in the drawing-room; he opened 
 the door, and beheld Marya Dmitrievna, playing 
 picquet with Ptinshin. Panshin bowed to him 
 in silence, and the mistress of the house uttered 
 a little scream: — "How unexpected!" — and 
 frowned slightly. I^avretzky took a seat by her 
 side, and began to look over her cards. 
 
 "Do you know how to play picquet?" — 
 she asked him, with a certain dissembled vexa- 
 tion, and immediately announced that she dis- 
 carded. 
 
 Panshin reckoned up ninety, and politely and 
 calmly began to gather up the tricks, with a 
 severe and dignified expression on his coun- 
 tenance. That is the way in which diplomats 
 should play; probably, that is the way in which 
 he was wont to play in Petersburg, with some 
 powerful dignitary, whom he desired to impress 
 with a favourable opinion as to his solidity and 
 
 182
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NKST 
 
 maturity. " One hundred and one, one liuudivd 
 and two, hearts; one hun(h-ed and three,"— ran^- 
 out his measured tone, and Lavretzky eould not 
 understand what note resounded in it: reproach 
 or self-conceit. 
 
 "Is Marfa Timofeevna to he seen?" — lie 
 asked, observing that Panshin, still with great 
 dignity, was heginning to shuffle the cards. Not 
 a trace of the artist was, as yet, to be observed in 
 him. 
 
 " Yes, I think so. She is in her own apart- 
 ments, up-stairs," — replied jNItirya Dmitrievna: 
 - — " you had better inquire." 
 
 Lavretzky went up-stairs, and found Marfa 
 Timofeevna at cards also: she was playing 
 duratchki (fools) with Nastasya Karpovna. 
 Roska barked at him; but both the old ladies wel- 
 comed him cordially, and jNIarfa Timofeevna, in 
 particular, seemed to be in high spirits. 
 
 "Ah! Fedya! Pray come in," — she said: — 
 " sit down, my dear little father. AVe shall be 
 through our game directly. AVouldst thou like 
 some preserves? Schurotchka, get him a jar of 
 strawberries. Thou dost not want it ? \Vell, then 
 sit as thou art; but as for smoking — thou must 
 not: I cannot bear thy tobacco, and. moreover, it 
 makes JMatros sneeze." 
 
 Lavretzky made haste to assert that he did 
 not care to smoke. 
 
 "Hast thou been down-stairs?" — went on the 
 
 183
 
 () 
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 1(1 woniaii:— " whom didst thou see there? Is 
 Panshin still on hand, as usual? And didst thou 
 see Liza? No? She intended to come hither. . . . 
 Yes, there she is; speak of an angel. . ." 
 
 Liza entered the room and, on perceiving La- 
 vretzky, she blushed. 
 
 " I have run in to see you for a minute, JNIarfa 
 Timofeevna," she began. . . . 
 
 "Why for a minute?" — returned the old 
 woman. " ^Vhat makes all you young girls such 
 restless creatures? Thou seest, that I have a 
 visitor: chatter to him, entertain him." 
 
 Liza seated herself on the edge of a chair, 
 raised her eyes to Lavretzkv, — and felt that it 
 was impossible not to give him to understand how 
 her interview with Panshin had ended. But how 
 was that to be done? She felt both ashamed and 
 awkward. She had not been acquainted with 
 him long, with that man who both went rarely 
 to church and bore with so much indifference 
 the death of liis wife, — and here she was already 
 imparting her secrets to him. . . . He took an in- 
 terest in her, it is true; she, herself, trusted him, 
 and felt attracted to him; but, nevertheless, she 
 felt ashamed, as though a stranger had entered 
 her pure, virgin chamber. 
 
 ]Marfa Timofeevna came to her assistance. 
 
 " If thou wilt not entertain him," — she began, 
 " who will entertain him, poor fellow? I am too 
 old for him, he is too clever for me, and for 
 
 184
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 Nastasya Karpovna lie is too old, you must give 
 her nothing but very young men." 
 
 "How can I entertain Feodor Tvauiteh^'— 
 said Liza. — " Tf he hkes, 1 will play something 
 for him on the piano," — she added, irresolutely. 
 
 " Very good indeed: that 's mj' clever girl," — 
 replied INIarfa Timofeevna, — " Go down-stairs, 
 my dear people; when you are through, come 
 back ; for I have been left the ' fool,' and I feel 
 insulted, and want to win back." 
 
 Liza rose: Lavretzky followed her. As they 
 were descending the staircase, Liza halted. 
 
 "They tell the truth," — she began: — "when 
 they say that the hearts of men are full of contra- 
 dictions. Your example ought to frighten me, 
 to render me distrustful of marriage for love, 
 but I " 
 
 "You have refused him?" — interrupted La- 
 vretzky. 
 
 "No; but I have not accepted him. I told 
 him everything, everything that I felt, and asked 
 him to wait. iVre you satisfied? " — she added, 
 with a swift smile, — and lightly touching the 
 railing with her hand, she ran down the stairs. 
 
 " What shall I play for you? "—she asked, as 
 she raised the lid of the piano. 
 
 " Whatever you like," — replied Lavretzky, 
 and seated himself in such a position that he could 
 watch her. 
 
 Liza began to play, and, for a long time, never 
 
 185
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 took her eyes from her lingers. At last, she 
 o-lanced at I.avretzky, and stopped short: so won- 
 derl'nl and strange did his face appear to her. 
 
 " ^Vllat is the matter with you?" — she asked. 
 
 " Notliing,"— he rephed:— "all is very well 
 with me; I am glad for j^ou, I am glad to look at 
 you, — go on. ' 
 
 " It seems to me," — said Liza, a few moments 
 later: — " that if he really loved me, he would not 
 liave written that letter ; he ought to have felt that 
 I could not answer him noW'." 
 
 " That is of no importance," — said Lavretzky: 
 — " the important point is, that you do not love 
 
 him." 
 
 " Stop, — w'hat sort of a conversation is this! I 
 keep having visions of your dead w^ife, and you 
 are terrible to me ! " 
 
 " ]\Iy Lizeta plays charmingly, does she not, 
 Valdemar?" — ^larya Umitrievna was saying to 
 Panshin at the same moment. 
 
 " Yes," — replied Panshin ; — " very charm- 
 ingly." 
 
 ^larya Dmitrievna gazed tenderly at her 
 young partner; but the latter assumed a still more 
 important and careworn aspect, and announced 
 fourteen kings. 
 
 186
 
 XXXI 
 
 Lavretzky was not a young man; he could not 
 long deceive liiniself as to the sentiments witli 
 which Liza had inspired him; he })ecame defin- 
 itively convinced, on that day, that lie had fallen 
 in love with her. This conviction hrought no 
 great joy to him. " Is it possihle," he tliought, 
 " that at the age of five and thirty I liave notiiing 
 hetter to do than to put my soul again into tlie 
 hands of a woman? But Liza is not like iliat one: 
 she would not require from me shameful sacri- 
 fices; she would not draw me away from m\' oc- 
 cupations; she herself would encourage me to 
 honourable, severe toil, and we would advance to- 
 gether toward a fine goal. Yes," lie wound uj) 
 his meditations: — "all that is good, but the bad 
 thing is, that she will not in the least wisli to 
 marry me. It was not for nothing tliat she told 
 me, that I am terrible to her. On the other hand, 
 she does not love that Panshin either. ... A jxxn* 
 consolation ! " 
 
 Lavretzky rode out to Vasilievskoe ; but he did 
 not remain four days, — it seemed so irksome to 
 him there. He was tortured, also, by ex])ectaiK\ : 
 the information imparted by JNl — r. .Tnles n- 
 
 187
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 quired contirniation, and he had received no let- 
 ters. He returned to the town, and sat out the 
 evening at the Kah'tins'. It was easy for hirA 
 to see, that ^Nlarya Dniitrievna had risen in revolt 
 against him; but he succeeded in appeasing her 
 somewhat by losing fifteen rubles to her at 
 picquet, — and he spent about half an hour alone 
 M'ith Liza, in spite of the fact that her mother, 
 no longer ago than the day before, had advised 
 her not to be too familiar with a man ''qui a un si 
 grand ridicule/' He found a change in her: she 
 seemed, somehow, to have become more thought- 
 ful, she upbraided him for his absence, and asked 
 him — would he not go to church on the following 
 morning (the next day was Sunday) ? 
 
 " Go," — she said to him, before he had suc- 
 ceeded in replying: — " we w'\\\ pray together for 
 the repose of her soul." — Then she added, that 
 she did not know what she ought to do, — she did 
 not know whether she had the right to make 
 Panshin wait any longer for her decision. 
 
 " Why? "—asked Lavretzky. 
 
 "Because," — said she: "I am already begin- 
 ning to suspect what that decision will be." 
 
 She declared that her liead ached, and went 
 off to her own room up-stairs, irresolutely offer- 
 ing Lavretzky the tips of her fingers. 
 
 The next <\&.y, Lavretzky went to the morning 
 service. Liza was already in tlie cliurch when 
 he arrived. She observed liim, although she did 
 
 188
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 not turn toward him. She prayed devoutly; lier 
 eyes sparkled softly, her head hent and rose 
 softly. He felt that she was praying for liiin 
 also, — and a wonderful emotion filled his soul. 
 He felt happy, and somewhat conseienee-strieken. 
 The decorously-standing congregation, the fa- 
 miliar faces, the melodious chanting, the odour of 
 the incense, the long, shuiting rays of light from 
 the windows, the very gloom of the walls and 
 vaulted roof, — all spoke to his ear. He had not 
 been in a church for a long time, he had not ap- 
 pealed to God for a long time: and even now, 
 he did not utter any words of prayer, — he did 
 not even pray without words, but for a moment, 
 at least, if not in body, certainly with all his mind, 
 he prostrated himself and bowed humbly to the 
 very earth. He recalled how, in his childhood, 
 he had prayed in church on every occasion until 
 he became conscious of some one's cool touch on 
 his brow; " this," he had been accustomed to say 
 to himself at that time, " is my guardian-angel 
 accepting me, laying upon me the seal of the 
 chosen." He cast a glance at Liza. ..." Thou 
 hast brought me hither," he thought: — " do thou 
 also touch me, touch my soul." She continued 
 to pray in the same calm manner as before; her 
 face seemed to him joyful, and he was profoundly 
 moved once more ; he entreated for that other soul 
 
 — peace, for his own — pardon 
 
 They met in the porch; she greeted liiin with 
 
 189
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 cheerful and amiable diiinitv. Tlie sun brilliantly 
 illuminated the young grass in the churchyard, 
 and the motley-hued gowns and kerchiefs of the 
 women; the bells of the neighbouring churches 
 were booming aloft ; the sparrows were chirping 
 in the hedoerows. Lavretzkv stood Avith head un- 
 covered, and smiled; a light breeze lifted his hair, 
 and the tips of the ribbons on Liza's hat. He put 
 Liza into her carriage, distributed all his small 
 cliange to the poor, and softly wended his way 
 homeward. 
 
 190..
 
 XKXII 
 
 Difficult days arri(\e(I for F'^^^'"' Ivaiiitcli. 
 He found liiinself i/?i a coiistj^it fever. Every 
 niornincj- he went t^) the pos'-offiee, with exeite- 
 ment l)roke tlie seal^ of iiis Icttci-s and newspapers, 
 — and nowliere did he find anything which niiglit 
 have confirmed or refuted the fateful rumour. 
 Sometimes he became repulsive even to himself: 
 " Why am I thus waiting," — he said to himself, 
 " like a crow for blood, for the sure news of mv 
 wife's death?" He went to the Kalitins' every 
 day; but even there he was no more at his ease: 
 the mistress of the house opeidy sulked at him, 
 received him with condescension; Panshin treated 
 him with exaggerated courtesy; Lemm had be- 
 come misanthropic, and hardly even bowed to 
 him, — and, chief of all, I^iza seemed • to avoid 
 him. But when she chanced to be left alone with 
 him, in place of her previous trustfulness, confu- 
 sion manifested itself in hei-: slu' did not know 
 what to say to him, and he liini'^elf felt agitation. 
 In the course of a few days, Liza had become 
 quite different from herself as lie had ])reviously 
 known her: in her movements, her voice, in her 
 very laugh, a secret trepidation was pcrcei)tiblc, 
 
 191
 
 A XOBT.K^MAXVS XEST 
 
 '^'-mevenness wliich hJi^^l not heretofore existed. 
 ^^'^•'.i Dinitrievna, lik\^ the genuine egoist she 
 was, ^^,)ecte(l nothing; Vhi; ]Marfa Timofeevna 
 hegan tt.^^..^^^^^]^ her I'avoA n-ite. I^avretzky more 
 than once isproached hinii^^lf with having shown 
 to Liza the c^^y of the ne''Avspaper which he had 
 received : he cot\(\ not fail vo recognise the fact, 
 tliat in his spiritual conditicftn there was an ele- 
 ment which was peh^irbing tcp pure feeling. He 
 also assumed tliat the changi* in IJza had been 
 brought about by her conflict: with herself, by 
 her doubts: what answer should she give to Pan- 
 shin? One day she brought him a book, one of 
 Walter Scott's novels, which she herself had 
 asked of him. 
 
 " Have you read this book?"— he ask^d. 
 
 " No; I do not feel in a mood for ])ooks now," 
 — she replied, and turned to go, 
 
 " \Vait a minute: I have not been alone with 
 you for a long time. You seem to be afraid of 
 
 me." 
 
 " Yes.'-' 
 
 " ^Vhy so, pray? " 
 
 "I do not know." 
 
 Lavretzky said nothing for a while. 
 
 "Tell me," — he began: — "you have not yet 
 made up your mind? " 
 
 "What do you mean by that?"— she said, 
 without raising lier eyes. 
 
 " You understand me. ..." 
 
 192
 
 A NORl 
 
 .kmA's XKST 
 
 Liza siuldciily Ihislied nj). 
 
 " Ask iiR' IK) (|U(stior>'' alxnil ;iii\ lliid;^," sIh 
 ejaculated, witli \i\acity: — "1 know iiofliiii;^. 1 
 do not even know mystlt' " i\ii(l she im- 
 mediately heal a retreat. 
 
 On the followiti^day, J^a\ rel/ky ariixcd at the 
 Kalitins' af'tei- diiHitr, and i'onnd all ])it para- 
 tions made to have the All-Xi^ht \'i^il serviee 
 held there.^ In one corner of the (liiiin<4-n)()iii, 
 on a square table, covered with a clean cloth, small 
 holy pictures in gold settings, with tiny, dnll 
 brilliants in tlieir halos, were already |)laced, 
 leanino' a<>ainst the wall. An old man-servant, 
 in a oTev frock-coat and sli|)i)ers, walked the 
 whole length of the room in a deliberate manner, 
 and without making any noise with his heels, and 
 placed two wax tapers in slender candlesticks in 
 front of the holy images, crossed himself, made 
 a reverence, and softly withdrew. The unlinhted 
 drawini^r-room was deserted. Lavretzk\- walked 
 down the dining-room, and intjuired -was it not 
 some one's Name-day? Tie was answered, in a 
 whisper, that it was not, but that the Mgil ser- 
 vice had been ordered at the desire of Li/aveta 
 Mikhailovna and jNIarfa Timofeevna: that the in- 
 tention had been to bring thither the wonder- 
 w^lrking ikona, but it had gone to a sick person. 
 
 r This service, c-onsistiiij;: (genern.ry) of V-Jspers aiul Matins, can Ix- 
 r4d in private houses, and even by laymen: whereas, the I.iturKy, or 
 rJ^'ss, must be celebrated at a duly consecrated altar, by a duly <>r- 
 /ined priest.— Tkanslatoh. 
 
 193
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NEST 
 
 thirty versts distjint. There soon arrived, also, in 
 eonipany with tlie elianters, the priest, a man 
 no longer young, with a small hald spot, who 
 eoughed loudly in the anteroom; the ladies all 
 immediately trooped in single file from the bou- 
 doir, and a})pr()aehed to receive his blessing; 
 Lavretzkv saluted him in silence; and he returned 
 the salute in silence. The priest stood still for 
 a short time, then cleared his throat again, and 
 asked in a low tone, with a bass voice: 
 " Do you command me to proceed? " 
 " Proceed, batiushka," — replied JNIarya Dmi- 
 trievna. 
 
 He began to vest himself; the chanter obsequi- 
 ously asked for a live coal; the incense began to 
 diffuse its fragrance. The maids and lackeys 
 emerged from the anteroom and halted in a 
 dense throng close to the door. Roska, who 
 never came down-stairs, suddenly made his ap- 
 pearance in the dining-room : they began to 
 drive him out, and he became confused, turned 
 around and sat down; a footman picked him 
 up and carried him away. The A^igil service 
 began. Lavretzkv pressed himself into a corner; 
 his sensations were strange, almost melancholy; 
 he himself was not able clearly to make out what 
 he felt. iNIarya Dmitrievna stood in front of 
 them all, before an arm-chair ; she crossed herse^lf 
 with enervated carelessness, in regular lord, v 
 fashion, — now glancing around her, again sue • 
 denly casting her eyes u})ward: she was bore( 
 
 VJ4<
 
 A NOBLEMAN S N KST 
 
 Marfa 'riinofeevna seemed troiihlcd: Nastasva 
 Karpoviia kept pr().straliii«>' herself, and lisiiin 
 with a sort of modest, soi'l rustle; Li/.a look up 
 her stand, and never stirred from her |)laee, never 
 moved; from the eoneentrated exjjression of her 
 countenance, it was ])ossihle to divine thai she 
 was praying assiduously and fervetitiy. When 
 she kissed the cross, at the end of the sei\ ice. she 
 also kissed the priest's large, red hand. Maiya 
 Dmitrievna invited him to drink tea: lie took of!" 
 his stole, assumed a rather secular air, and |)ass((l 
 into the drawing-room with the ladies. A not 
 over animated conversation began. The piiest 
 drank four cups of tea, incessantly moj)j)ing his 
 bald spot with his handkerchief, and narrated, 
 among other things, that merchant Avo.shnikoff 
 had contributed seven hundred rubles to gild the 
 "cupola" of the church, and he also imj)arted 
 a sure cure for freckles. Tjavretzky tried to seat 
 himself beside I^iza, but she maintained a seMre. 
 almost harsli demeanour, and never once glanced 
 at him; she appeared to be deliberately refrain- 
 ing from noticing him; a certain cold, dignified 
 rapture had descended upon lui-. I'oi- some rea- 
 son or other, Lavretzky felt inclined to smile nn- 
 irterruptedly, and say something amusing: but 
 there was confusion in bis heart, and he went 
 away at last, secretly ])erple\ed. . . . lie felt 
 that there was something in Liza into which he 
 could not penetrate. 
 
 On another occasion. Lavretzky, as he .sat \\\ 
 
 195
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 the drawing-room, and listened to the insinuating 
 but lieavv cliatter of Gedeonovsky, suddenly 
 turned round, without himself knowing why he 
 did so, and caught a deep, attentive, questioning 
 
 ffaze in Liza's eves It was riveted on 
 
 him, tliat puzzling gaze, afterward. I^avretzky 
 thought about it all niglit long. Pie had not 
 fallen in love in boyish fashion, it did not suit him 
 to sigh and languish, neither did Liza arouse that 
 sort of sentiment; but love has its sufferings at 
 every age, — and he underwent them to the full. 
 
 196
 
 XXXI u 
 
 One day, acconliii<4' to his ciistoni, Lavrctzky was 
 sitting at the Kah'tiiis'. A f'ationinoly-lioi day 
 had been followed by so line an evening, that 
 jMarya Dmitrievna, despite her aversion to the 
 fresh air, had ordered all the windows and doors 
 into the garden to be opened, and had annonneed 
 that she would not play eards, that it was a sin 
 to play cards in such weather, and one must en- 
 joy nature. Panshin was the only visitor. Tuned 
 up by the evening, and unwilling to sing l)efore 
 Lavretzkv, vet conscious of an influx of artistic 
 emotions, he turned to poetry: he recited well, 
 but with too much self-consciousness, and with 
 unnecessary subtleties, several of Lermontofi's 
 poems (at that time, Pushkin had not yet become 
 fashionable again) — and, all at once, as though 
 ashamed of his ex])ansiveness, he began, apropos 
 of the familiar " Thought," to upl)raid and 
 reprove the present generation: in that connec- 
 tion, not missing the opportunity to set forth, 
 how he would turn everything around in liis own 
 way, if the power were in his hands. " Uussia," 
 said he, — "has lagged behind Europe; she must 
 catch up with it. People assert, that we are young 
 
 197
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 C — that is nonsense; and moreover, that we pos- 
 ^ sess no inventive genius: X . . . himself admits 
 V that A\e have not even invented a mouse-trap. 
 Consequently, we are compelled, willy-nilly, to 
 borrow from others. ' We are ill,' — says Ler- 
 montoff, — I agree with him; but we are ill be- 
 V cause we have onlv half converted ourselves into 
 <^ Europeans; that is where we have made our mis- 
 take, and that is what we must be cured of." (''l^c 
 cadastre'' — thought Lavretzky). — "The best 
 heads among us," — he went on, — '' Ics meilleurs 
 ^ tetes — have long since become convinced of this; 
 ' all nations are, essentially, alike; only introduce 
 '^^ good institutions, and there 's an end of the mat- 
 ter. One ma}^ even conform to the existing na- 
 tional life; that is our business, the business of 
 men . . . ." (he came near saying: "of states- 
 men ") " who are in the service; but, in ease of 
 need, be not uneasy: the institutions will trans- 
 form that same existence." JNIarya Dmitrievna, 
 with emotion, backed up Panshin. " What a 
 clever man this is," — she thought, — " talking in 
 my house!" Liza said nothing, as she leaned 
 against a window-frame; Lavretzky also main- 
 tained silence ; JNIarf a Timof eevna, who was play- 
 ing cards in the corner with her friend, nnittered 
 something to herself. Panshin strode up and 
 down the room, and talked elo(juently, but with a 
 secret spite: he seemed to be scolding not the 
 whole race, ])ut certain individuals of his ac- 
 
 198
 
 A NOBLEMAN S XKST 
 
 quaintancc. In the Kalitiiis" oank'ii. in .1 l;ii..( 
 lilac-busli, dwelt a iii<»litin<4ale, wliose fiist e\in- 
 ing notes rang forth in the intervals ol' this elo- 
 quent harangue; the first stars lighted up in the 
 rosy sky, above the motionless crests of the lin- 
 dens. Lavret/ky rose, and began to reply to 
 l^arishin; an argument ensued. Lavret/ky de- 
 fended the youth and independence of l{ussia: 
 he siuTendered himself, his generation as sacrifice, 
 — but upheld the new men, their convictions, antl 
 their desires; Panshin retorted in a sharp and irri- 
 tating way, declared that clever men must reform 
 everything, and went so far, at last, that, I'orget- 
 ting his rank of Junior Gentleman of the Im- 
 perial Bedchamber, and his official career, he 
 called Lavretzky a " laggard conservative," lie 
 even hinted, — in a very remote way, it is true, — 
 at his false position in society. Lavretzky did 
 not get angry, did not raise his voice (he remem- 
 bered that ]Miklialevitch also had called him a 
 laggard — only, a Voltairian) — and ealml\ \ ;m- 
 quished Panshin on every ])oint. He demon- 
 strated to him the impossibility of leaps and 
 supercilious reforms, unjustified either l)y a 
 knowledge of the native land or actual faith in an 
 ideal, even a negative ideal; he cited, as an exam- 
 ple, his own education, and demanded, first of all, 
 a recognition of national truth and submission to 
 it, — that submission without which even bohhiess 
 against falsehood is imi)ossible: he did not evade, 
 
 199 
 
 ^
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 in conclusion, the reproach — merited, in his opin- 
 ion — of frivolons waste of time and strength. 
 
 "All that is very fine!" — exclaimed the en- 
 raged Panshin, at last: — "Here, you have re- 
 turned to Russia, — what do you intend to do? " 
 
 "Till the soil," — replied Lavretzky: — "and 
 try to till it as well as possible." 
 
 " That is very praiseworthy, there 's no dis- 
 puting that," — rejoined Panshin: — " and I have 
 been told, that you have already had great suc- 
 cess in that direction; but you must admit, that 
 not every one is fitted for that sort of occu- 
 pation. . . " 
 
 " Une nature poetique" — began Marya Dmi- 
 trievna, — " of course, cannot till the soil . . . . et 
 puis, you are called, Vladimir Nikolaitch, to do 
 everything en grand" 
 
 This w^as too much even for Panshin: he 
 stopped short, and the conversation stopped short 
 also. He tried to turn it on the beauty of the 
 starry sky, on Schubert's music — but, for some 
 reason, it would not run smoothly; he ended, by 
 suggesting to Marya Dmitrievna, that he should 
 play picquet with her. — "What! on such an 
 evening?" — she replied feebly; but she ordered 
 the cards to be brought. 
 
 Panshin, with a crackling noise, tore open the 
 fresh pack, while Liza and Lavretzky, as though 
 in pursuance of an agreement, both rose, and 
 placed themselves beside INIarfa Timofeevna. 
 
 200
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 Thev both, siKldciilv, i'cll :; > xvv\ imicli ;il case 
 that they were even afraid to he left alone to- 
 gether, — and, at the same time, holii IVlt that tlu- 
 embarrassment whicli tliev liad ex})erieneed dur- 
 ing the last few days had vanished, ne\er more 
 to retnrn. The old woman stealthily j)atte(l La- 
 vretzky on the eheek, slyly screwed u\) her eyes, 
 and shook her head several times, remarking in 
 a whispei': " Thon hast got the best of the clever 
 fellow, thanks." Everything in the room became 
 still; the only sound was the faint crackling of 
 the wax candles, and, now and then, the taj)ping 
 of hands on the table, and an exclamation, or the 
 reckoning of the spots, — and the song, mighty, 
 resonant to the verge of daring, of the night- 
 ingale, poured in a broad stream through the 
 w indow, in company with the dewy coolness. 
 
 201
 
 XXXIV 
 
 Liza had not uttered a single word during the 
 course of the dispute between Lavretzky and 
 Piinshin, but had attentively followed it, and had 
 been entirely on Lavretzky's side. Politics pos- 
 sessed very little interest for her; but the self- 
 confident tone of the fashionable official (he had 
 never, hitherto, so completely expressed himself) 
 had repelled her ; his scorn of Russia had woimded 
 her. It had never entered Liza's head, that she 
 was a patriot; but she was at her ease with Rus- 
 / sian people; tlie Russian turn of mind gladdened 
 , her; without anj^ affectation, for hoiu-s at a time, 
 (^ she chatted with the overseer of her mother's es- 
 ' tate, when he came to town, and talked with him 
 as with an equal, without any lordly condescen- 
 sion. Lavretzky felt all this: he would not have 
 undertaken to reply to Panshin alone; he had 
 been talking for Liza only. They said nothing 
 to each other, even their eves met but rarelv; but 
 botli understood that they had come very close 
 together tliat e^'ening, understood that they 
 loved and did not love the same things. On only 
 one point did they differ; but Liza secretly hoped 
 to bring him to God. Thej'^ sat beside JNIarfa 
 ~ 202
 
 A NOBLE.AIAX'S NEST 
 
 Timofeeviia, and apjR'ared to he watching- hw 
 play; and they really were watehino- it, hut. ;,, 
 the meanwhile, their hearts hud waxed ^reat in 
 their hosonis, and notliino- esea|)e(l tlieni: for them 
 the nightingale was singing, the stars were sinn- 
 ing, and the trees were sol'tly whispering, lulled 
 hoth hv slumher and hy the softness ol" the sum- 
 mer, and hy the warmth. Layretzky surrendered 
 himself wholly to the hillow whieh was hearing 
 him onward, — and rejoiced; hut no word can ex- 
 press that which took place in the young girl's 
 pure soul: it was a secret to herself; so let it 
 remain for all others. Xo one laiows. no one has 
 seen, and no one ever will see, how that whieh is 
 called into life and blossom pours forth and ma- 
 tures grain in the bosom of the earth. 
 
 The clock struck ten. Marfa Timofcevna went 
 off to her rooms up-stairs, with Xastasya Kar- 
 povna; Lavret/ky and Liza strolled through the 
 room, halted in front of the open door to the 
 garden, gazed into the dark distance, then at each 
 other — and smiled; they would have liked, it aj)- 
 peared, to take each other by the hand, and talk 
 their fill. They returned to jNIarya Dnn'trievna 
 and Panshin, whose picfjuet had become pro- 
 tracted. The last " king " came to an end at 
 length, and the hostess rose, groaning and sigh- 
 ing, from the cushion.-gainished arm-chair; I'jin- 
 shin took his hat, kissed Marya Dinih'icvna's 
 hand, remarked that nothing now prevented other 
 
 203
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 liappy mortals from going to bed, or enjoying 
 the night, bnt that he must sit over stupid papers 
 until the morning dawned, bowed eoldly to Liza 
 (he had not expected that in reply to his offer 
 of marriage, she would ask him to wait, — and 
 therefore he was sulking at her) — and went 
 away. Lavretzky followed him. At the gate 
 they parted; Panshin aroused his coachman by 
 poking him with the tip of his cane in the neck, 
 seated himself in his drozhky, and drove off. La- 
 vretzky did not feel like going home; he walked 
 out beyond the town, into the fields. The night 
 was tranquil and bright, although there was no 
 moon ; Lavretzky roamed about on the dewy grass 
 for a long time; he came by accident upon a 
 narrow path; he walked along it. It led him to 
 a long fence, to a wicket-gate; he tried, without 
 himself knowing why, to push it open : it creaked 
 softly, and opened, as though it had been await- 
 ing the pressure of hir: hand; Lavretzky found 
 himself in a garden, advanced a few paces along 
 an avenue of lindens, and suddenly stopped short 
 in amazement: he recognised the garden of the 
 Kalitins. 
 
 He immediately stepped into a black blot of 
 shadow which was cast by a thick hazel-bush, and 
 stood for a long time motionless, wondering and 
 shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 " This has not happened for nothing," he 
 thought. 
 
 204
 
 A NORT.E:\rAX'S XKST 
 
 Everything^ was sikul round al)()ul : tml a soninl 
 was borne to him from the (hi-cctlon of the house. 
 He cautiously advanced Lo, al Mir turn in the 
 avenue, the whole liouse suddeidy «4a/.i(l al liim 
 with its dark front; oidy in two of tlu- n|)|)( r win- 
 dows M-ere lights twinkling: in Ij/as room, a 
 candle was burning ))ehind a wiiile sliadc, and in 
 JNfarfa Timofeevna's bedroom a shrine-lamp was 
 glowing with a red gleam in front of llie liolv 
 pictures, reflecting itself in an even halo iii the 
 golden settings; down-stairs, the dooi- lead- 
 ing out on the balcony yawned broadly, as it stood 
 wide open. I^avretzky seated himself on a 
 wooden bench, propped his head on his hand, and 
 began to gaze at the door and the window. Mid- 
 night struck in the town; in the house, the small 
 clocks shrilly rang out twelve; the watchman beat 
 with a riffle of taps on the board. Lavretzky 
 thought of nothing, expected nothing: it was 
 pleasant to him to feel himself near Liza, to sit in 
 her garden on the bench, where she also Iiad sat 
 
 more than once The light disai)peare(l in 
 
 Liza's room. 
 
 "Good night, my dear girl." whisi)ered La- 
 vretzky, as he continued to sit motionless, and 
 without taking his eyes from the darkened 
 window. 
 
 Suddenly a light appeared in one of the win- 
 dows of the lower storey. ])assed to a second, a 
 tlnrd. . . . Some one was walking through the 
 
 205
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 rooms with a candle. " Can it be Liza? Im- 
 possible! " . . . . Lavretzky half rose to his feet. 
 A familiar figure flitted past, and Liza made her 
 appearance in the drawing-room. In a white 
 gown, with her hair hanging loosely on her 
 shoulders, she softly approached a table, bent over 
 it, set down the candle, and searched for some- 
 thing; then, turning her face toward the garden, 
 she approached the open door, and, all white, 
 light, graceful, paused on the threshold. A 
 quiver ran through Lavretzky's limbs. 
 
 " Liza! " — burst from his lips, in barely audi- 
 ble tones. 
 
 She started, and began to stare into the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 "Liza!" — repeated Lavretzky more loudly, 
 and emerged from the shadow of the avenue. 
 
 Liza, in alarm, stretched forth her head, and 
 staggered backward. He called her for the third 
 time, and held out his arms toward her. She left 
 the door, and advanced into the garden. 
 
 " Is it you?" — she said. — " Are you here? " 
 
 " It is I I . . . listen to me," — whispered 
 
 Lavretzky, and, grasping her hand, he led her to 
 the bench. 
 
 She followed him without resistance; her pale 
 face, her impassive eyes, all her movements, were 
 expressive of unutterable amazement. I^avret- 
 zky seated lier on the bench, and himself took up 
 his stand in front of her. 
 
 206
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 " I had no thought of coniiii"^ IiitlitT," Ik l.c- 
 
 gan: — " I came hither hy cliaiice I . . . . 
 
 I ... I love you," — he said, with irivoluiitaiv 
 terror. 
 
 Liza slowly glanced at him; aj)|)arently, s\\v 
 had ordy that moment compreliended where she 
 was, and that she was with him. She tried to 
 rise, hut could not, and covered her face with her 
 hands. 
 
 " Liza," — said Lavretzky: — " Liza," — lie re- 
 peated, and bowed down at her feet. . . . 
 
 Her shoulders began to quiver sh"ghtly, the 
 fingers of her pale hands were pressed more 
 tightly to her face. 
 
 " What is the matter with you? " — Lavretzky 
 uttered, and caught the sound of soft sobl)iiig. 
 His heart turned cold. . . . He understood the 
 meaning of those tears. " Can it be that you 
 love me? " — he whispered, and touched her knee. 
 
 " Rise," he heard her voice: — " rise, Feodor 
 Ivanitch. What is this that you and I are 
 doing? " 
 
 He rose, and seated himself bv her side on the 
 bench. She was no longer weeping, but was 
 gazing attentively at him with her wet eyes. 
 
 " I am frightened: what are we doing? " — she 
 repeated. 
 
 " I love you," — he said agnin: — " 1 am ready 
 to give the whole of my life to you. " 
 
 Again she shuddered, as though something 
 
 207
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 liad si'iing lier, and raised her gaze heaven- 
 ward. 
 
 " All this is in God's power," — she said. 
 
 " But do you love me, Liza? Shall we be 
 happy?" 
 
 Slie dropped lier eyes; he softly drew her to 
 him, and lier head sank upon his slioulder. . . . 
 He turned lier head a little to one side, and 
 touched her pale lips. 
 
 Half an hour later, I^avretzky was standing be- 
 fore the wicket. He found it locked, and was 
 obliged to leap across the fence. He returned 
 to the town, and walked through the sleeping 
 streets. A sensation of great, of unexpected 
 happiness filled his soul; all doubts had died 
 within him. " Vanish, past, dark spectre," he 
 thought: " she loves me, she will be mine." All 
 at once, it seemed to him that in the air, over his 
 head, wondrous, triumphant sounds rang out; 
 the sounds rolled on still more magnificently; in 
 a chanting, miglity flood they streamed on, — and 
 in them, so it seemed, all his happiness was sjieak- 
 ing and singing. He glanced around him: the 
 sounds were floating from two upper windows 
 of a tiny house. 
 
 "Lemm!" — cried Lavretzkv, and ran to the 
 liouse. — " Lemm! I^emm! " — he repeated loudly. 
 
 The sounds died away, and the figure of the 
 old man in his dressing-gown, with breast bare, 
 
 208
 
 A NOrJT.EIMAX'S XKST 
 
 and hair dishevelled, niade its appearance ;il ihc 
 window. 
 
 "Aha!" — he said, with di«>nitv: — "is that 
 you?" 
 
 " Christofor Feodoritcli! wliat s])]eiidid music! 
 For God's sake, let nie in." 
 
 The old man, Avithout ntterin^- a word, with 
 a majestic movement of the arm fluno- the door- 
 key out of the window into the street. I .avretzk v 
 briskly ran up-stairs, entered the I'oom, and was 
 on the ])oint of rushing at T.enim. hnl the latter 
 imperiously motioned him to a chair; he said, 
 abruptly, in Russian: "Sit down and listen!" 
 seated himself at the piano, oa/ed proudly and 
 sternly about him, and began to i)lay. It was 
 long since Lavretzky had heard anything of the 
 sort: a sweet, passionate melody, which gripj)ed 
 the heart from its very first notes; it was all beam- 
 ing and languishing with inspiration, with luip- 
 piness, with beauty; it swelled and melted away: 
 it touched everything which exists on earth of 
 precious, mysterious, holy; it breathed foitli 
 deathless sadness, and floated away to die- in 
 heaven. Lavretzky straightened liimseli" u]) and 
 stood there, cold and pale with i*apture. Those 
 sounds fairly sank into his soul, which had only 
 just been shaken with the bliss of love; they lluin- 
 selves were flaming with love. " Repeat it." - 
 he whispered, as soon as the last chord resoujidcd. 
 The old man cast u])on him an lagle glance, 
 
 •200
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 struck his breast with his hand, and saying delib- 
 erately, in his native language: — -" I made that, 
 for I am a great musician," — he again played his 
 wonderful composition. There was no candle 
 in the room; the light of the rising moon fell 
 aslant through the window; the sensitive air 
 trembled resonantly ; the pale, little room seemed 
 a sanctuary, and the head of the old man rose 
 high and inspired in the silvery semi-darkness. 
 I^avretzky approached and embraced him. At 
 first, Lemm did not respond to his embrace, he 
 even repulsed it with liis elbow; for a long time, 
 without moving a single limb, he continued to 
 gaze forth, as before, sternly, almost roughly, 
 and only bellowed a couple of times: "Aha!" 
 At last his transfigured face grew calm, relaxed, 
 and, in reply to Lavretzky's warm congratula- 
 tions, he first smiled a little, then fell to weeping, 
 feebly sobbing like a cliild. 
 
 "This is marvellous," — he said: — "that pre- 
 cisely you should now liave come; but 1 know — I 
 know^ all." 
 
 "You know all?" — ejaculated Lavretzky, in 
 confusion. 
 
 "You have heard me," — returned Lemm: — 
 " have not j'ou understood that I know all? " 
 
 Lavretzky could not get to sleep until the 
 morning: all niglit long, he sat on his bed. And 
 Liza did not sleep: slie prayed. 
 
 210
 
 XXXV 
 
 The reader knows how Lavretzky had ^rowii uj) 
 and devek)ped; let us say a few words al)()ut 
 Liza's hringing up. She was ten years okl wIrii 
 her father (Hed; hut he had paid httle heed to 
 her. Overwhehned with husiness, eonstaiitly al)- 
 sorbed in increasing his })ropcrty, splenetic, 
 harsli, impatient, he furnished money unsparingly 
 for teachers, tutors, clothing, and the other wants 
 of the cliildren; but he could not endure, as he 
 expressed it, " to dandle the scpialling ])rats," — 
 and he had no time to dandle them: he worked, 
 toiled over his business, slept little, occasionally 
 played cards, worked again; he compared himself 
 to a horse liarnessed to a tlu'eshing-machine. 
 " My life has rushed by fast," lie said on liis death- 
 bed, with a proud smile on his parched lii)s. 
 Marya Dmitrievna, in reality, troubled herself 
 about Liza hardly more than did the fathei-, al- 
 though she had boasted to -Lavretzky that she 
 alone had reared her children; she had dressed 
 Liza like a doll, in the presence of visitors had 
 patted her on the head, and called her, to her face, 
 a clever child and a darling — and that was all: 
 any regular care wearied the lazy gentlewoniaii. 
 
 211
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 During lier father's lifetime, Liza had been in tlie 
 hands of a governess, ^Nllle. ^Nloreau, from Paris, 
 and after his death she had passed into the charge 
 of ]Marfa Timofeevna. The reader is acquainted 
 with ^larfa Timofeevna; but jNIlle. JNloreau was a 
 tinv, wrinkled creature, with birdlike ways and a 
 tiny, birdlike mind. In her youth she had led 
 a very dissipated life, and in her riper years she 
 had but two passions left — for dainties and for 
 cards. ^Vhen she w^as gorged, was not playing 
 cards, and not chattering, her face instanth^ as- 
 sumed an almost deathlike expression : she would 
 sit, and gaze, and breathe, and it was evident 
 that no thought was passing through her head. 
 It was not even possible to call her good- 
 natured : there are also birds which are not good- 
 natured. ^Vhether it was in consequence of her 
 frivolously-spent youth, or of the Paris air, which 
 she had breathed since her childhood, — she har- 
 boured within her a certain cheap, general 
 scepticism, which is usually expressed by the 
 words : " tout fa c'est des hetises." She talked 
 an irregular, but purely Parisian jargon, did not 
 gossip, was not capncious, — and what more could 
 be desired in a governess? On Liza she had little 
 influence; all the more powerful upon her was 
 the influence of her nurse, Agafya Vlasievna. 
 
 The lot of this woman was remarkable. She 
 sprang from a peasant family ; at the age of six- 
 teen, they married her to a peasant; but there 
 
 212
 
 A NOBLKMAX'S XEST 
 
 was a sharp (listinction bctwctii lie r .ind her sister- 
 peasant women. For twenty years Ik r r.itlicr 
 had been the village elder, had accmniilalcd a 
 good deal of money, and had petted lur. SIk- was 
 a wonderful beauty, the most dashingly-clcgarit 
 peasant maid in all the country romid about, 
 clever, a good talker, daring. Her masttr, Dmi'- 
 try Pestoff, the father of Marya Dmitrieviia. a 
 modest, quiet man, caught sight oi' her one day 
 at the threshing, talked with her, and fell passion- 
 ately in love with her. 
 
 Soon afterward, she became a widow: I'estoff, 
 although he was a married man, took her into his 
 house, and clothed her in the style ol' a house- 
 servant. Agafva immediately accommodated 
 herself to her new position, exactly as though she 
 had never lived in any other way. Her skin be- 
 came white, she grew plum}); her arms, under 
 their muslin sleeves, became " like fine wheat 
 flour," like those of a cook; the samovar stood 
 constantly on her table; she would wear nothing 
 but velvet and silk, she slept on a feather-bed of 
 down. This blissful life lasted for the space of 
 five years; but Dmitry Pestoff died: his widow, 
 a good-natured gentlewoman, desirous of sparing 
 her husband's memory, was not willing to be- 
 have dishonoiu'ably towai'd her rival, the more 
 so, as Agafya had never forgotten herself before 
 her; but she married her to the cow-herd, and 
 sent her out of her sight. Three yeai-s jiassed. 
 
 213
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 Once, on a hot suinnier dav, the lady of the manor 
 went to her dairy. Agafya treated her to such 
 splendid cold cream, bore herself so modestly, and 
 was so neat in person, and so cheerful and satis- 
 fied with everytliing, that her mistress announced 
 to her her pardon, and permitted her to come to 
 the manor-house; and six months later, she had 
 become so attached to her, that she promoted her 
 to the post of housekeeper, and entrusted the en- 
 tire management to her. Again Agafj^a came 
 into power, again she grew plump and white- 
 skinned; her mistress had complete confidence 
 in her. In this manner, five more years elapsed. 
 Again misfortune fell upon Agafya. Her hus- 
 band, whom she had had raised to the post of foot- 
 man, took to drink, began to disappear from the 
 house, and wound up by stealing six of the fam- 
 ily's silver spoons, and hiding them— imtil a con- 
 venient opportunity — in his wife's chest. This 
 was discovered. He was again degraded to the 
 rank of cow-herd, and a sentence of disgrace was 
 pronounced upon Agafya; she was not banished 
 from tlie house, but she was reduced from the 
 place of housekeeper to tliat of seamstress, and 
 ordered to wear a kerchief on her head, instead 
 of a cap. To the amazement of all, Agafya ac- 
 cepted the blow which had overtaken her with 
 humble submission. She was then over thirty 
 years of age, all her children had died, and her 
 husband did not long survive. The time had ar- 
 
 214
 
 A NOBLEMAN S NKS T 
 
 rived for her to eome to a sense of Irt position- 
 she did so. She heeaiiie very taeitmii and dcNout. 
 never missed a single ^Matins serviee, nor a single 
 Liturgy, and gave away all her fine- clotlus. Fif- 
 teen years she spent (juietly, i)eaeelully, \s itii dig- 
 nity, quarrelling with no one, yielding to every 
 one. If any one spoke rudely to her, — she merely 
 bowed, and returned thanks for the les.soii. Her 
 mistress had forgiven her long sinee, had re- 
 moved the ban from her, and had given her a 
 cap from her own head; but she herself refused 
 to remove her kerchief, and always went about 
 in a dark-hued gown; and after the death of her 
 mistress, she became still more quiet and humble. 
 A Russian easily conceives fear and affection; 
 but it is difficidt to win his respect: it is not soon 
 given, nor to every one. Every one in the house 
 respected Agafya; no one even recalled her for- 
 mer sins, as though they had been buried in the 
 earth, along with the old master. 
 
 When Kalftin became the husband of Marya 
 Dmitrievna, he wished to entrust the housekeep- 
 ing to AgJifya; but she declined, " because oi' tlir 
 temptation"; he roared at her, she made him a 
 lowly reverence, and left the room. The clever 
 Kalftin understood people; and he also under- 
 stood Agafya, and did not forget hei'. On re- 
 moving his residence to the town, he api)ointt(l 
 her, with her own consent, as nurse to Liza. \\ lio 
 had just entered her fifth year. 
 
 21o
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 At first, Liza was frightened by the serious 
 and stern face of her new nurse; but she speedily 
 became accustomed to lier, and conceived a strong 
 affection for her. She herself was a serious child ; 
 lier features recalled the clear-cut, regular face 
 of Kalitin; only, she had not her father's eyes; 
 hers beamed with a tranquil attention and kind- 
 ness wliich are rare in children. She did not like 
 to play with dolls, her laughter was neither loud 
 nor long, she bore herself M'ith decorum. She 
 was not often thoughtful, and was never so with- 
 out cause; after remaining silent for a time, she 
 almost always ended by turning to some one of 
 lier elders, with a question which showed that her 
 brain was working over a new impression. She 
 very early ceased to lisp, and already in her fourth 
 year she spoke with perfect distinctness. She 
 was afraid of her father; her feeling toward her 
 mother was undefined, — she did not fear her, 
 neither did she fondle her ; but she did not fondle 
 Agafya either, although she loved only her alone. 
 Agafya and she were never separated. It was 
 strange to see them together. Agafya, all in 
 black, with a dark kerchief on her head, with a face 
 thin and transparent as wax, yet still beautiful 
 and expressive, would sit upright, engaged in 
 knitting a stocking; at her feet, in a little arm- 
 chair, sat Liza, also toiling over some sort of 
 work, or, with her bright eyes uplifted gravely, 
 listening to what Agafya was relating to her, and 
 
 216
 
 A X()BLK>rAN\S XKST 
 
 Agafya did not tell her fairy-stories; in a meas- 
 ured, even voiee, she would narrate the life of the 
 Most-pure Virgin, the lives of liie hermits, tin- 
 saints of God, of the holy martyrs; she would tell 
 Liza how the holy men Ii\ed in the deserts, how 
 they worked out their salvation, endured hunner 
 and want, — and, fearing not kings, eonfessed 
 Christ; how the hirds of heaven hrought them 
 food, and the wild heasts oheyed them; how on 
 those spots where their hlood fell, flowers sjjrang 
 up. — '"Yellow violets?" — one day asked Li/n, 
 wh(^ was very fond of flowers. . . . Agai'yn 
 talked gravely and meekly to Liza, as though she 
 felt that it w^as not for her to utter sueh lofty and 
 sacred words. Liza listened to her and the 
 image of the Omnipresent, Omniscient (rod pene- 
 trated into her soul with a cei'tain sweet powei-, 
 filled her with pure, devout awe, and Christ he- 
 came for her a person close to her, almost a rela- 
 tive: and Agafya taught her to pray. Some- 
 times she woke Liza early, at davhreak, hastilv 
 dressed her, and surreptitiously took hei- to 
 Matins: I^iza followed her on tiptoe, hardly 
 breathing; the chill and semi-ohscurity of the 
 dawn, the freshness and emptiness of the sticets, 
 the very mysteriousness of these nnex peeled ;ih- 
 sences, the cautious return to the house, to In-d, 
 all this mingling of the forbidden, the strange, 
 the holy, agitated the little girl, penetrated into 
 the very depths of her l)eing. iVgjifya never eon- 
 
 217
 
 A XOBLEMAX S XEST 
 
 demned anybody, and did not scold Liza for her 
 pranks. ^Vhen she was displeased over anything, 
 she simply held her peace; and Liza understood 
 that silence ; with the swift perspicacity of a child, 
 she also understood verv well when Ao'afva was 
 displeased with other people — with ^Nlarya Dmi- 
 trievna herself, or with Kalitin. Aoafva took 
 care of Liza for a little more than three years; 
 she was replaced by ^Ille. ^loreau; but the frivo- 
 lous Frenchwoman, with her harsh manners and 
 her exclamation: "tout ^yi cest des hctiscs," — 
 could not erase from T^iza's heart her beloved 
 nurse: the seeds which had been sown had struck 
 down roots too deep. jMoreover, Agafya, al- 
 though she had ceased to have charge of Liza, re- 
 mained in the house, and often saw her nursling, 
 who confided in her as befcM-e. 
 
 l^ut Ao'afva could not "'et alono- with Marfa 
 Timofeevna, when the latter came to live in the 
 Kalitin house. The stern dio-nitv of the former 
 " peasant woman " did not please the impatient 
 and self-willed <^ld woman. Agafya begged per- 
 mission to go on a pilgrimage, and did not retiu'n. 
 Dark rumours circulated, to the effect that she 
 had withdrawn to a convent of Old Ritualists. 
 But the traces left by her in Lizas soul were not 
 effaced. xVs before, the latter went to the Liturgy 
 as to a festival, prayed with delight, with a cer- 
 tain repressed and bashful enthusiasm, which se- 
 cretly amazed >hirya Dnu'trievna not a little, al- 
 
 218
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NKST 
 
 though slie put no coiistrainl upon Li/a, hut 
 mereh^ endeavoured to moderate her zeal, and did 
 not permit her to make an exeessive nunihcr of 
 prostrations: that was not lady-hke niaiincis, she 
 said. Liza stuched well, — that is to say, assi(hi- 
 ously; God had not endowed liei- willi particularly 
 hrilliant capacities, with a great mind; she ac- 
 quired nothing Avithout lahour. She i)layed well 
 on the piano; ])ut Lemm alone knew what it cost 
 her. She read little; she had no " words of her 
 own," but she had thoughts of her own, and she 
 went her own way. It was not for nothing that 
 she resembled her father: he, also, had not been 
 wont to ask others what he should do. Thus she 
 grew up — quietly, at leisure; thus she attained 
 her nineteenth year. She was very pretty, with- 
 out herself being aware of the fact. An uncon- 
 scious, rather awkward grace revealed itself in her 
 every movement; her voice rang with the silvery 
 sound of unaffected youth, the slightest sensa- 
 tion of pleasure evoked a winning smile on her 
 lips, imparted a deep gleam and a certain mys- 
 terious caress to her sparkling eyes. Thoroughly 
 imbued with the sense of duty, with the fear of 
 wounding any one whatsoever, with a kind and 
 gentle heart, she loved every one in general, and 
 no one in particular; God alone she loved with 
 rapture, timidly, tenderly. Lavretzky \vas the 
 first to break in upon her tranquil inner life. 
 Such was I^iza. 
 
 219
 
 XXXVI 
 
 At tM'clve o'clock on the following day, La- 
 vretzky set out for the Kalitins'. On the way 
 tliither, he met Panshin, who galloped past him 
 t)n horseback, with his hat pulled down to his 
 verv eyebrows. At the Kalitins', Lavretzky was 
 not admitted, — for the first time since he had 
 known them. IMarya Dmitrievna was " lying 
 down," — so the lackey announced; "they" had 
 a headache. Neither Marfa Timofeevna nor 
 Lizaveta jNIikhailovna was at home. Lavretzky 
 strolled along the garden, in anxious hope of 
 meeting Liza, but saw no one. He returned a 
 couple of hours later, and received the same an- 
 swer, in connection with which the lackey be- 
 stowed a sidelong glance upon liim. It seemed 
 to Lavretzky impolite to intrude himself upon 
 them for a third time that day — and he decided 
 to drive out to Vasilievskoe, where, without ref- 
 erence to this, he had business to attend to. On 
 the way he constructed various plans, each more 
 beautiful than the other; but in his aunt's hamlet, 
 sadness fell upon him; he entered into conversa- 
 tion witli Anton; the old man, as though ex- 
 pressly, had nothing but cheerless thoughts in his 
 
 220
 
 A XOTU.KMAX S XKST 
 
 niiiul. He narratctl lo La\rcl/ky, liow (ilalira 
 Petroviia, before her death, had hittcii her own 
 hand, — and, after a shoit pause-, lie a(hled: 
 "Everyman, niaster---dear little fatlitr. is i/\\v]\ 
 to devouring himself." It was ahcady late w lien 
 Lavretzky set out on tlie ictuiii jouiiu y. 'I'he 
 sounds of the preeeding (hiy took i)ossessioii of 
 him, the image of Liza arose in his soul in all its 
 gentle trans])areney : he melted at tiic thought 
 that she loved him, — and drove up to his little 
 town-house in a eomposed and haj)])y frame of 
 mind. 
 
 The first thing whieh struck him on entering 
 the anteroom was the scent of patcliouli, which 
 was very repulsive to him; several tali trunks 
 and coffers Avere standing there. The face ol" the 
 valet who ran forth to receive him seemed to him 
 strange. Without accounting to himself for his 
 impressions, he crossed the threshold of the draw- 
 ing-room From the couch there rose to 
 
 greet him a lady in a black gown with Hounces, 
 and raising a batiste handkerchief to lier pale 
 face, she advanced several paces, bent her care- 
 fully-dressed head, — and fell at liis feet. . . . 
 Then only did he recognise her: the lady was — 
 his wife. 
 
 It took his breath away. . . He leaned against 
 the w^all. 
 
 " Theodore, do not drive me away! " — she said 
 in French, and her voice cut his heart like a knife. 
 
 221
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 He glaiiced at her without comprehending, yet 
 he imniechately noticed that she had grown pale 
 and thin. 
 
 " Theodore/' — she went on, from time to time 
 raising her eyes, and cautiously wringing her 
 wondrously-heautifid fingers, with rosy, polished 
 nails: — " Theodore, I am to blame toward vou, 
 deeply to blame, — I will say more, I am a crim- 
 inal ; but do you listen to me ; repentance tortures 
 me, I have become a burden to myself, I could 
 not longer endure my position; how many times 
 have I meditated returning to you, but I feared 
 your wrath ; — I have decided to break every con- 
 nection with the ]3ast .... inds, j'ai ete si malade, 
 — I have been so ill," — she added, and passed her 
 hand across her brow and her cheek, — " I have 
 taken advantage of the rumour of my death which 
 had got into circulation, I have abandoned every- 
 thing; witliout halting, day and night I have 
 hastened hither; I have hesitated, for a long time, 
 to present mj^self before you, my judge- — paraitre 
 devant vous, inon juge, — but, at last, I made up 
 my mind, remembering your invariable kindness, 
 to come to j^ou; I learned your address in Mos- 
 cow. Believe me," she continued, softly rising 
 from the floor, and seating lierself on the very 
 edge of an arm-chair: — " I have often meditated 
 death, and I would luive summoned up sufficient 
 courage to take my life — akh, life is now an In- 
 tolerable burden to me! — but the thought of my 
 
 222
 
 A N015LKMAX S XKST 
 
 (laughter, of my Adotclika, held mv l)ack; sht- 
 is here, she is asleep in the adjoining room, poor 
 child! She is weary, — you sludl see lier: she, at 
 least, is not guilty toward you, and 1 am so >m- 
 liappy, so unlKijjpy!" — exclaimed Mwiv. i.avret- 
 zky, and hurst into tears. 
 
 Lavretzky came to himself, at last; lie sep- 
 arated himself from the wall, and moved toward 
 the door. 
 
 "You are going away?" — said his wife, in 
 despair: — "oh, this is cruel! — Without saying 
 one word to me, without even one reproach. . . . 
 This scorn is Idlling me, this is terrible! " 
 
 Lavretzky stopped short. 
 
 " What is it that you wish to hear from me? " 
 —he uttered, in a toneless voice. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing," — she caught him u}) with 
 vivacity: — " I know that I have no right to de- 
 mand anything; — I am not a fool, believe me; — 
 I do not hope, I do not dare to hope for your 
 forgiveness; — I only venture to entreat you, that 
 you will give me directions what 1 am to do, 
 where I am to live? — I will fulfil your eonunand, 
 whatever it may be, like a slave." 
 
 " I have no commands to give you," — returned 
 Lavretzky, in the same voice: — " you know, that 
 everything is at an end between us . . . and 
 now more than ever. — Vou may live wheie you 
 see fit; — and if your allowance is insufficient . . ." 
 
 "Akh, do not utter such di-eadful words,"— 
 
 223
 
 A XOBT.EMAX S NEST 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna interrupted him: — -" spare me, 
 if only .... if only for the sake of that 
 
 angel " And, as she said these words, 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna flew headlong into the next 
 room, and immediately returned with a tiny, very 
 elegantly dressed little girl in her arms. Heavy, 
 ruddy-gold curls fell over her pretty, rosy little 
 face, over her large, black, sleepy eyes; she 
 smiled, and blinked at the light, and clung with 
 her chubby hand to her mother's neck. 
 
 "Ada, vols, cest ton pere/' — said Varvara Pav- 
 lovna, pushing the curls aside from her eyes, and 
 giving her a hearty kiss: — " prie le avec moi." 
 
 " Cest fa, papa? " — lisped the little girl, 
 brokenl5\ 
 
 "Old, mon enfant, nest ce pas, que tu Vaimes? " 
 
 But this was too much for Lavretzky. 
 
 " In what melodrama is it that there is pre- 
 cisely such a scene? " — ^he muttered, and left the 
 room. 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna stood for a while rooted to 
 the spot, slightly shrugged her shoulders, carried 
 the little girl into the other room, undressed her, 
 and put her to bed. Then she got a book, sat 
 down near the lamp, waited for about an hour, 
 and, at last, lay down on the bed herself. 
 
 "l^li hien, madame? " — inquired her maid, a 
 Frenchwoman, whom she had brought from Paris, 
 as she removed her corsets. 
 
 " Eh hien, Justine," — she replied ; — " he has 
 
 224
 
 A NOTJT.KMAWS XKST 
 
 aged greatly, but it strikes ww Ilia I lie is as good- 
 natured as ever. — Give nie my gloves for the 
 night, prepare my high-neeked grey gown I'oi- to- 
 morrow; and do not forget the mutton (■ho])s for 
 Ada. . . . Really, it will he dillieull lo ol)lain 
 them here; but we must make the effort." 
 
 '^A la guerre, comme a la guerre '' — responded 
 Justine, and put out the light. 
 
 225
 
 XXXVII 
 
 For more than two hours Lavretzkv roamed 
 about the streets of the town. The night which he 
 had spent in the suburbs of Paris recurred to his 
 mind. His heart swelled to bursting within him, 
 and in his head, which was empty, and, as it w^ere, 
 stunned, the same set of thoughts kept swirling, 
 —dark, wrathful, evil thoughts. " She is alive, 
 she is here," he whispered, with constantly aug- 
 menting amazement. He felt that he had lost 
 Liza. Bile choked him ; this blow had struck him 
 too suddenlv. How could he so lightlv have be- 
 lieved the absurd gossip of a feuilleton, a scrap 
 of paper? " Well, and if I had not believed it, 
 Avhat difference Avould that have made? I should 
 not have knowii that Liza loves me; she herself 
 would not have known it." He could not banish 
 from himself the form, the voice, the glances of 
 his wife .... and he cursed himself, cursed every- 
 thing in the world. 
 
 Worn out, he arrived toward morning at 
 Lemm's. For a long time, he could produce no 
 effect with his knocking; at last, the old man's 
 head, in a nightcap, made its appearance in the 
 
 22f>
 
 A N015LKMAX S XKST 
 
 window, sour, wrinkled, no JonocT lu-arin^r tlu- 
 sliglitest rescnihlant'f to tiiat iiispirc'dlv-inorosc 
 head vvhieh, four and cwenty hours previously, 
 had gazed on Lavretzky from tiie lull JKlght of 
 its artistie majesty. 
 
 " ^Vhat do you want? "— iiKpiiic d Leinni: — 
 " I cannot play every night; 1 have taken a de- 
 coction." — But, evidently, Lavretzky's face was 
 very strange: the old man made a shield I'oi- liis 
 eyes out of his hands, stared at his nocturnal 
 visitor, and admitted liim. 
 
 Lavretzky entered the room, and sank down 
 on a cliair; the old man halted in front of him, 
 with the skirts of his motley-hued, old dressing- 
 gown tucked up, writhing and mumhling with 
 his lips. 
 
 " My wife has arrived," — said I^avretzky, 
 raising his head, and suddenly hreaking into an 
 involuntarj^ laugh. 
 
 Lemm's face expressed surprise, hut he did not 
 even smile, and only wrapped himself more 
 closely in his dressing-gown. 
 
 You see, you do not know," — went on La- 
 vretzky: — " I imagined .... I read in n news- 
 paper, that she was no longer alive." 
 
 "O — o, 3^ou read that a short time ago?" — 
 asked I^emm. 
 1 es. 
 
 " O — o," — repeated the old man, and elevated 
 his eyebrows. — "And she has arrived?" 
 
 227
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 " Yes. She is now at my house ; but I ... I 
 am an unhappy man." 
 
 And again he broke into a hiugh. 
 
 " You are an unhappy man," — repeated 
 Lemm, slowly. 
 
 " Christofor Feodoritch," — began Lavretzky: 
 — " will you undertake to deliver a note? " 
 
 " H'm. May I inquire, to whom?" 
 
 "To Liza. .'. ." 
 
 " Ah, — yes, yes, I understand. Very well. 
 But when must the note be delivered?" 
 
 " To-morrow, as early as possible." 
 
 " H'm. I can send Katrina, my cook. No, I 
 will go myself." 
 
 " And will vou bring me the answer? " 
 
 " Yes, I will." 
 
 liemm sighed. 
 
 " Yes, my poor young friend ; you really are 
 — an vmhappy man." 
 
 Lavretzky wrote a couple of words to Liza: 
 he informed her of his wife's arrival, begged her 
 to appoint a meeting, — and flung himself on the 
 narrow divan, face to the wall; and the old man 
 lay down on the bed, and tossed about for a long 
 time, coughing and taking sips of his decoction. 
 
 IVIorning came: they both rose. With strange 
 eyes they gazed at each other. Lavretzky wanted 
 to kill himself at that moment. The cook, Ka- 
 trina, brought tliem some bad coffee. The clock 
 struck eight. Lemm put on his hat, and saying 
 
 228
 
 A NOT^T.KMAX S XKST 
 
 that he had a lesson lo <»i\(' al the Kali'tins' at 
 nine, hut that lie would find a deecMit |)iiU\l, set 
 out. Lavretzky again Hung hinisell" on I he little 
 couch, and again, from the depths ol' liis soul, a 
 sorrowful laugh welled up. lie tiiouglit of how 
 his wife had driven him out of his house; lie pic- 
 tured to himself Liza s position, closed his eyes, 
 and threw his hands hehjnd his Jicad. At last 
 Lemm retiu'ned, and hrought him a scrap of pa- 
 per, on which Liza had scrawled with pencil the 
 following words: " We cannot see each other to- 
 day; perhaps — to-morrow evening. I'arewell." 
 Lavretzky quietly and abstractedly thanked 
 Lemm, and went to his own house. 
 
 He found his wife at breakfast; Ada, all curls, 
 in a white frock M'ith blue ribl)ons, was eating a 
 mutton chop. Varvara Pavlovna immediately 
 rose, as soon as Lavretzky entered the room, and 
 approached him, witli humility (lej)ieted on lur 
 face. He requested her to follow him to his 
 study, locked the door behind liim, and began to 
 stride to and fro; she sat down, laid one hand 
 modestly on the other, and began to watch liini 
 w^ith her still beautiful, although slightly painted 
 'eyes. 
 
 For a long time Lavretzky did not speak: he 
 felt that he could not control himself: he per- 
 ceived clearly, that Varvara PavloN na was not in 
 the least afraid of him, but was assuming the air 
 of being on the very verge of falling into a swoon. 
 
 2*20
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 " Listen, madam,"— he began, at last, breath- 
 ing heavily at times, grinding liis teeth: — " there 
 is no necessity for our dissembling with each 
 other; I do not believe in your repentance; and 
 even if it were genuine, it is impossible for me to 
 become reconciled to you, to live with you again." 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna compressed her lips and 
 narrowed her eyes. " This is disgust," — she 
 thought: — ^" of course! I am no longer even a 
 woman to him." 
 
 " It is imjjossible," — repeated Lavretzky, and 
 buttoned up his coat to the throat. — " I do not 
 know whv you have taken it into your head to 
 come hither: probably, you have no money 
 left." 
 
 "Alas! you are insulting me," — whispered 
 Varvara Pavlovna. 
 
 " However that may be, — you are, unliappily, 
 my wife, nevertheless. I cannot turn you out 
 .... and this is what I have to propose to you. 
 You may set out, this very day, if you like, for 
 Lavriki, and live there; the house is good, as you 
 know; you will receive all that is necessary, m 
 addition to your allowance. . . . Do you agree? " 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna raised her embroidered 
 handkerchief to her eyes. 
 
 " I have already told you," — she said, her lips 
 twitching nervously: — " that I shall agree to any- 
 thing whatever you may see fit to do with me: on 
 this occasion, nothing is left for me to do, except 
 
 230
 
 A NOBLK.MAX S XKST 
 
 to ask you: will you permit mc, at least, to thank 
 you for your niagiiauiniity!; " 
 
 " No gratitude, I beg of you; il is Ixtlcr so," — 
 hastily returned Lavretzkv. — " Aceordiimlv," — 
 he went on, ai)i)roaehing tlie door: -" I may 
 count upon . . . ." 
 
 " To-morrow I shall be at I^avriki," — said \'ar- 
 vara Pavlovna, respectfully rising from her seat, 
 — " But, Feodor Ivanitch " (she no longer ealkd 
 him Theodore) .... 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 " I know that I have, as yet, in no way eanud 
 my forgiveness; may I hope, at least, in 
 time , . . ." 
 
 " Ekh, Varvjira Pavlovna,"^ — I^avretzky in- 
 terrupted her: — " you are a clever woman, and as 
 I am not a fool, I know that that is (|uite un- 
 necessary for you. And I forgave you long ago: 
 but there was always a gulf between us." 
 
 " I shall know how to submit," — replied Var- 
 vara Pavlovna, and bowed her head. " I lia\e 
 not forgotten my fault; I should not be sur- 
 prised to learn that you were even delighted 
 at the news of my death," — .she added gently, 
 pointing slightly with her hand at the eoi)y ol" the 
 newspaper which lay on the table, forgotten 1>\ 
 Lavretzky. 
 
 Feodor Tvaniteli shuddered: the Ceuillrtoii was 
 marked with a pencil. Varvara Pavlovna gazed 
 at him with still greater humility. She was very
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 pretty at that moment. Her grey Paris gown 
 "■racefnllv clotlied licr willowy form, M'hich was 
 almost that of a girl of seventeen; her slender, 
 (U'licate neck encircled with a white collar, her 
 bosom which rose and fell evenly, her arms de- 
 void of bracelets and rings, — her whole figure, 
 from her shining hair to the tip of her barely 
 
 revealed little boot, was so elegant 
 
 Lavretzky swept an angry glance over her, 
 came near exclaiming: '' Brava! " came near smit- 
 ing her in the temple M'ith his fist — and left 
 the room. An hour later, he had already set out 
 for A'^asilievskoe, and two hours later, Varvara 
 Pavlovna gave orders that the best carriage in 
 town should be engaged, donned a simple straw 
 hat with a black veil, and a modest mantle, en- 
 trusted Ada to Justine, and set out for the Kali- 
 tins: from the inquiries instituted by her servant 
 she had learned that her husband was in the habit 
 of going to them every day. 
 
 232
 
 XXXNIII 
 
 The day oi' the aiTi\al oT La\ irt/.k\ s wife in 
 town of () * * *, a du'crk'ss day InV liim, was 
 also a painful day lor Liza. She had not snc- 
 ceeded in going down-stairs and hidchng Ikt 
 mother " good morning," hd'orc tin- tramphng of 
 a horse's hoofs resounded under the window, and 
 with secret terror she heheld Pansliiu ridino- into 
 the yard: " He has presented himself thus carlv 
 for a definitive explanation,"— she tliought and 
 she was not mistaken; after spending a whili- in 
 the drawing-room, he suggested that she should 
 go with him into the garden, and demanded lier 
 decision as to his fate. Li/a summoned np Ik r 
 courage, and informed him that she could not he 
 his wife. He hstened to her to the end, as he 
 stood wdth his side toward her, and his hat j)ulle(l 
 down on his hrows; courteously, I)ut in an altered 
 tone, he asked her: was that hei last '.void, and 
 had he, in any way, given hei- cause for such a 
 change in her ideas^ then lie ])ressed his lunid to 
 his eyes, sighed hriefly and ahruj)tly, and removed 
 his hand from his face. 
 
 " I have not wished to follow the heaten i)atii. " 
 — he said, in a dull voice, — " I have wished to find 
 
 '2Xi
 
 A XOBLEMAX S XEST 
 
 my companion after the inclination of the heart; 
 but. evidently, that was not destined to be. Fare- 
 well, dream!" — He bowed profoundl}^ to Liza, 
 and returned to the house. 
 
 She hoped that he would immediately take his 
 departure ; but he went into Marya Dmitrievna's 
 boudoir, and sat with her for about an hour. As 
 he went awav, he said to Liza: " Voire mere vous 
 appelle; adieu a jamais . . " mounted his horse, 
 and set off from the very porch at full gallop. 
 Liza went in to ^Nlarya Dmitrievna, and found 
 her in tears : Panshin had communicated to her his 
 misfortune. 
 
 "Why hast thou killed me? Why hast thou 
 killed me? " — in this wise did the mortified widow 
 begin her complaints. — " AVhom else didst thou 
 want? What! is not he a suitable husband for 
 thee? A Junior Gentleman of the Emperor's 
 Bedchamber! not interessant! He might marry 
 any INIaid of Honour he chose in Petersburg. 
 And I — I had been hoping so! And hast thou 
 changed long toward him? What has sent this 
 cloud drifting hither — it did not come of itself! 
 Can it be that ninny? A pretty counsellor thou 
 hast found ! 
 
 " And he, my dear one," — pursued Marya 
 Dmitrievna: — "how respectful, how attentive, 
 even in his own grief! Pie has promised not to 
 abandon me. Akh, I shall not survive this! Akh, 
 I have got a deadly headache. Send Palasha to 
 
 234
 
 A NOHLKMAX'S XKST 
 
 me. Thou wilt l)e the death of inc if thou dost 
 not change thy mind, — dost tliou hearT' And 
 calHng lier an ingrate a eouj)k' of limes, Marva 
 Dnn'trievna sent Liza away. 
 
 She went to her own room. But before she liad 
 time to recover her breath from her explanation 
 with Panshin and her mother, another thunder- 
 storm broke over her, and this time from a (juar- 
 ter whence she had least ex])eeted it. MVul'a 
 Timofeevna entered her room, and immediately 
 slammed the door behind her. The old woman's 
 face was pale, her cap was awry, her eyes were 
 flashing, her hands and lips were tix-mbHiig. 
 Liza was amazed: never before had she seen her 
 sensible and reasonable aunt in such a state. 
 
 "Very fine, madam," — began Marfa Timo- 
 feevna, in a tremulous and broken whisper: " ^•ery 
 fine indeed! From whom hast thou learned this, 
 my mother? . . . Give me water; I cannot sj)eak." 
 
 " Calm yourself, aimtv; what is the matter witli 
 you? " — said Liza, giving her a glass of water. — 
 " Why, you yourself did not favour Mr. P.-in- 
 shin." 
 
 Marfa Timofeevna set down the glass. 
 
 " I cannot drink: I shall knock out my last rt- 
 maininff teeth. What dost thou mean i)v Pan- 
 shfn? What has Panshin to do with it ^ Do tlmn 
 tell me, rather, who taught thee to appoint iriule/- 
 vous by night — hey? my mother? " 
 
 Liza turned pale. 
 
 235
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 " Please do not think of excusing thyself," — 
 continued Mdvi'n Timofeevna. — " Schurotchka 
 herself saw all, and told me. I have forbidden 
 her to chatter, but she does not lie." 
 
 " I have made no excuses, aunty," — said Liza, 
 in a barely audible voice. 
 
 "All, ah! Now, see here, my mother; didst 
 thou appoint a meeting with him, with that old 
 sinner, that quiet man?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then how did it come about? " 
 
 " I went down-stairs, to the drawing-room, for 
 a book; he was in the garden, and called me." 
 
 "And thou wentest? Very fine. And thou 
 lovest him, dost thou not? " 
 
 " I do," — replied Liza, in a tranquil voice. 
 
 "Gracious heavens! she loves him!" — Marfa 
 Timof eevna tore off her cap. — " She loves a mar- 
 ried man! Hey? she loves! " 
 
 " He told me," — began Liza .... 
 
 " What did he tell thee, the darling, wha-at 
 was it? " 
 
 " He told me that his wife was dead." 
 
 INIarfa Timofeevna crossed herself. — " The 
 kingdom of heaven be hers," — she whispered: — 
 "she was a frivolous woman — God forgive her. 
 So that 's how it is: then he 's a wddower. Yes, I 
 see that he is equal to anything. Pie killed off his 
 first wife, and now he 's after another. Thou art 
 a sly one, art thou not? Only, this is what I have 
 to say to thee, niece: in my time, w-hen I was 
 
 236
 
 A NOBT.K.MAN S \KST 
 
 young, girls were severely pnriislicd tor siieli 
 capers. Thou must uol he angry witli hk . my 
 mother; only fools get angry at the trulii. 1 li;i\ e 
 given orders that he is not to he admiltcd to-day. 
 I am fond of him, hut I shall ne\cr lorgivt- liiin 
 for this. A w idowei-, forsooth! (iive me some 
 water. . . ]5ut thou art my hrave girl, for send- 
 ing Panshin off with a long face; only. d( 1 sit 
 
 out nights with that goat's hreed, — with men, 
 do not grieve me, an old woman! Vov I am not 
 always amiahle — I know how to hite, also! . . . . 
 A widower! " 
 
 ]Marfa Timofeevna departed, hut Liza sat 
 down in the corner and hegan to cry. She I'elt 
 hitter in soul; she had not deserved such humilia- 
 tion. Her love had not announced its presence 
 by cheerfulness; this was the second time she had 
 wept since the night hefore. That new. unex- 
 pected feeling had barely come to life in her 
 heart when she had had to pay so heavily for it, 
 when strange hands had roughly touched her 
 private secret! She felt ashamed, and |);iiiu(l. 
 and bitter: but there was neither doubt noi- terror 
 in her, — and l^avretzky became all the deaitr to 
 her. She had hesitated as long as she did not 
 understand herself; but after that meeting she 
 could hesitate no longer; she knew that she lo\ed, 
 — and had fallen in love h.onouiably. not .jest- 
 ingly, she had become strongly attached, lor her 
 whole life; she felt that force could not break 
 that bond. 
 
 237
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Marya Dmitrievna was greatly perturbed 
 when the arrival of Varvara Pavlovna was an- 
 nounced to her; she did not even know whether 
 to receive her; she was afraid of offending Feo- 
 dor Ivanitch. At last, curiosity carried the day. 
 " What of it? " — she said to herself, — " why, she 
 is a relative also," — and seating herself in her 
 arm-chair, she said to the lackey: "Ask her in! " 
 Several minutes elapsed; the door opened, Var- 
 vara Pavlovna approached INIarya Dmitrievna 
 swiftly, with barely audible footsteps, and, with- 
 out giving her a chance to rise from her chair, 
 almost went down on her knees before her. 
 
 " Thank you, aunty,"^ — she began in a touched 
 and gentle voice, in Russian: "thank you! 1 
 had not hoped for such condescension on your 
 part; you are as kind as an angel." 
 
 As she uttered these words, Varvara Pavlovna 
 unexpectedly took possession of one of Marya 
 Dmitrievna's liands, and pressing it lightly in her 
 pale-lilac gloves, obsequiously i-aised it to her full, 
 rosy lips. Marya Dmitrievna completely lost 
 her head, on beholding such a beautiful, charm- 
 ingly-dressed woman, almost on her knees at her 
 
 238
 
 A noble:max\s XKST 
 
 feet; slic did iiol know wlmt lo d,,.; she did not 
 wish to withdraw her hand, sht- wislicd to ^ivc 
 her a seat, and to say soniethinn- aiMial)le to ht r; 
 she ended hy risino-, and kissino- \'arvaia Pav- 
 lovna on her sni(K>tli. i'l-a^^Tanl l)i()\\. \'ai\.iia 
 Pavlovna was perfectly (hind'oundcd hy this kiss. 
 
 "Good morning, — bon jo////' said .M.iiya 
 
 Dmitrievna: — "of conrsc, I liad no i(l( a 
 
 however, of course, 1 am dehglited to see yon. 
 You understand, my dear, — it is not for me to sit 
 in judgme?it hetween wife and liushand." 
 
 " JNIv hushand is wliollv in the right," V-av- 
 xiira Pavlovna interrupted her: — " I alone am to 
 blame." 
 
 " That is a very praisewortliy sentiment," — 
 returned Marva Dmitrievna: — " very. Have 
 you been here long? Have you seen hirnf Hut 
 sit dovvn, pray." 
 
 " I arrived yesterday," — replied A'arviira Pa\ - 
 lovna, meekly seating herself on a cliair: ' I have 
 seen Feodor Ivanitcli, I liave talked with liiiii. " 
 
 " Ah! Well, and hoAv does he take it ( " 
 
 " I was afraid that my sudden ai ri\al would 
 arouse his wrath," — went on Varviira P;i\l()\na: 
 — " but he did not deprive me of his presence." 
 
 " That is to say, he did not .... ^\'s, yes, 1 
 understand," — ejaculated M/irya Dmitriex iia.— 
 " He is only rather rougli in a|)pearane( . hut his 
 heart is soft." 
 
 "Feodor Ivanitcli has not lorgixen nu : lie
 
 A XOBT.EMAX'S NEST 
 
 would not listen to nie. . . . But lie was so kind 
 as to appoint Lavriki for my place of residence." 
 
 " Ah! ^V very fine estate! " 
 
 " I set out thither to-morrow, in compliance 
 with his will ; but I considered it my duty to call 
 on you first." 
 
 " I am very, very grateful to you, my dear. 
 One must never forget one's relatives. And, do 
 you know, I am astonished that you speak Rus- 
 sian so well. C'est ctonnaut!" 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna sighed. 
 
 " I have spent too much time abroad, INIarya 
 Dmitrievna, I know that; but my heart has al- 
 ways been Russian, and I have not forgotten my 
 native land." 
 
 " Exactly so, exactly so ; that is the best of all. 
 Feodor Ivanitch, however, did not in the least ex- 
 pect you. . . . Yes; believe my experience; la 
 patrie avant tout. Akh, please show me, — what a 
 charming mantle that is you have on ! " 
 
 "Do you like it?" — Varvara Pavlovna 
 promptly dropped it from her shoulders. — " It 
 is a very simple thing, from ]Madame Baudran." 
 
 " That is instantly perceptible. From Madame 
 Baudran. . . . How charming, and what taste! 
 I am convinced that you have brought with you 
 a mass of the most entrancing things. I should 
 like to look them over." 
 
 " My entire toilette is at your service, my dear- 
 est aunt. If you will ])ermit, I can give your 
 
 240
 
 A XoniJvMAWS XKST 
 
 maid some points. I li.ivc- a maid-scrxanl f,om 
 Paris, — a woiidci lul seamstress." 
 
 "You are very kind, my dear. Hul. really. I 
 am ashamed." 
 
 "Ashamed! . . ." repeated Vaivara IVivlovna. 
 reproachfidly.— " If you wish to make me lia|)j)y, 
 — command me, as thonnh I helon^e,! i,, you." 
 
 ^larya Dmitrievna tliawed. 
 
 "Vous ctes charmanic," she said.—" Hul uiiy 
 do not you take off your honnet, your n loves? " 
 
 " What? You permit? "—asked Yarvara l»av- 
 lovna, clasping her liands, as though with emotion. 
 
 " Of course; for vou will dine with us. I hope. 
 I .... I will introduce you to mv (humhter." — 
 Marya Dmitrievna hecame slightly eonfnsed. 
 " Well! here goes! "—she said to liei-scll'. " She 
 is not quite well to-day." 
 
 "Oh, ma laiilc, how kind you are!" — ex- 
 claimed Yarvara Pavlovna, and raised her hand- 
 kerchief to her eyes. 
 
 A page announced the arrival of (iede(')no\ sky. 
 The old chatterl)ox entered, made his hows, and 
 smiled. INIarya Dmitrievna presented him lo lici- 
 visitor. He came near heing discomfited at jiist : 
 but Yarvara Pavlovna treated him with such 
 coquettish respect, that his eai's hegan lo l>iini. 
 and fibs, scandals, amiable remarks ti'iekled out 
 of his mouth like lioney. \"ar\'ara l\i\ lo\ iia lis- 
 tened to him with a rej)i-essed smile, and heeanie 
 rather talkative herself. She modestly talke'l 
 
 241
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 about Paris, about ber travels, about Baden; 
 twice slie made Marya Diiiitrievna laugb, and on 
 eacb occasion sbe beaved anotber bttle sigb, as 
 tbou<>li slie were mentally reproaciiing berself for 
 ber ill-timed mirtb; sbe asked permission to bring 
 Ada ; removing ber gloves, she showed, with her 
 smooth liands washed with soap a la guimauve , 
 bow and where flounces, ruches, lace, and knots 
 of ribbon were worn; she promised to bring a 
 phial of the new^ English })erfume, Victoria's Es- 
 sence, and rejoiced like a child when INIarya Dmi- 
 trievna consented to accept it as a gift ; she wept 
 at the remembrance of the feeling sbe bad ex- 
 perienced when, for the first time, she had beard 
 the Russian bells; — "so profoundly did they 
 stagger my very heart," — she said. 
 
 At that moment, Liza entered. 
 
 From the morning, from the very moment 
 when, chilled with terror, she had perused La- 
 vretzky's note, I^iza had been preparing herself 
 to meet his wife; sbe bad a presentiment that she 
 should see her, by w^ay of ])unisbment to her own 
 criminal hopes, as she called them. She bad made 
 up her mind not to shun her. The sudden cri- 
 sis in her fate bad shaken her to the very foun- 
 dations; in the course of about two hours ber 
 face had grown haggard; but sbe did not shed 
 a tear. " It serves me riglit ! " — she said to lier- 
 self, witli difficulty and agitation suppressing in 
 her soul certain bitter, spiteful impulses, which 
 
 242
 
 A NOHLKMAX'S XKST 
 
 alarmed even herself*:— " Conie, 1 imist ^o 
 down!"— she thought, as soon as slic heard of 
 Mme. Lavretzky's .-iiTivMl. and slic uinl. 
 For a lon<>- time she stood outside liie door ol' the 
 drawing-room. Ijel'oi-e she eould hiing lieisell' to 
 open it; with tiie thought: " I am to hiame toward 
 her," — she erossed the threshold, and CokkI Ikt- 
 self to look at her, foreed herself to smih . \'ar- 
 vara Pavlovna advaneed to meet lier as soon as 
 she saw her, arid made a slight hut ne\t rtlii-less 
 respectful inclination hefore her. — " Allow me 
 to introduce myself," — siie hegaii, in an insin- 
 uating voice: — '' youv ni a in an is so indulgent to- 
 ward me, that I hope you will also he kind. " 
 
 The expression on Varvara Pa\io\iia*s I'aee, as 
 she uttered this last word, her sly smile, he r cold 
 and at the same time soft glance, the movement 
 of her arms and shoulders, her very gown, her 
 whole being, aroused in Liza such a feeling of 
 repulsion, that she could make her no answer, and 
 with an effort she offered her hand. " Tiiis 
 young lady despises me,"- — thought \'ai\ara 
 Pavlovna, as she wannly pressed Liza's cold fin- 
 gers, and, turning to ^Nlarya l)mitrie\ na. she said 
 in an undertone: ''Mais cllr csf (Ii'l/ciciisi! " Li/a 
 flushed faintly, insult was audihle to lui- in this 
 exclamation; but she made up her mind not to 
 trust her impressions, and seated herself l»y the 
 window, at her embroidery-frame. Kven then-. 
 Varvara Pavlovna did not leave her in peace: she 
 
 243
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 went up to her, began to praise her taste, her 
 art. . . . liiza's heart beat violently and pain- 
 fully, slie could hardly control herself, she could 
 liardly sit still on her chair. It seemed to her 
 tliat Varviira Pavlovna knew everything, and, 
 secretly triumphing, was jeering at her. For- 
 tunately for lier, Gedeonovsky entered into con- 
 versation with \^arvara Pavlovna, and distracted 
 her attention. Liza bent over her embroidery- 
 frame, and stealthily watched her. " He loved 
 that Avoman," — she said to herself. But she im- 
 mediately banished from her head the thought of 
 Lavretzky: she was afraid of losing control over 
 herself, she felt that her head was softly whirling. 
 jNIarya Dmitrievna began to talk about music. 
 
 " I have heard, my dear," — she began: — " that 
 you are a wonderful performer." 
 
 " It is a long time since I have j^layed," — re- 
 plied Varvara Pavlovna, as she seated herself, in 
 a leisurely manner, at the piano, and ran her fin- 
 gers in a dashing way over the keys. — " Would 
 you like to have me play? " 
 
 " Pray do." 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna played a brilliant and diffi- 
 cult etude of Herz in a masterly style. She had 
 a great deal of strength and execution. 
 
 "A sylph!" — exclaimed Gedeonovsky. 
 
 "Remarkable!" — assented INIarya Dmitri- 
 evna. — " Well, Varvara Pavlovna, I must con- 
 fess," — she said, calling her, for the first time, 
 
 244
 
 A NOBLEMAN S XKST 
 
 by her name: — " yoii Imve amazed me; you mi^^lit 
 even give concerts. \\c have- an old musician 
 here, a (German, an eccentric fellow, \(r\- learned; 
 he gives Liza lessons: he will simply go out oi' 
 his mind over you." 
 
 " Lizaveta ^likliailovna is also a mnsiciaFJ? " — 
 inquired Varvara Pavlovna, turning her head 
 shglitly in her direction. 
 
 " Yes, she plays qnite well, and loves music; 
 but what does that signify, in comparison uilli 
 you? But there is a young man liere; you ought 
 to make his acquaintance. lie is — an artist in 
 soul, and composes very prettily. lie is the only 
 one who can fully ai)i)reciate you." 
 
 " A young man? " — said Varvjira Pavlovna. — 
 " Who is he? Some poor fellow? " 
 
 " Good gracious, — he 's our chief cavalier, and 
 not among us only — et a Pctershonrg. A Junior 
 Gentleman of the Bedchamber, received in the 
 best society. You certainly must have heard of 
 him, — Panshin, Vladimir Xikolaitch. He is here 
 on a government commission .... a future jNIin- 
 ister, upon my word ! " 
 
 " And an artist? " 
 
 " An artist in soul, and such a charming fel- 
 low. You shall see him. He lias been at my 
 house very frequently of late; I have invited Iiim 
 for this evening; I hoj>e that he will come," — 
 added Marya Dmitrievna, with a gentle sigli and 
 a sidelong bitter smile. 
 
 24.5
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S XEST 
 
 lAza understood the significance of that smile; 
 hut she cared nothing for it. 
 
 " And is he young? " — repeated Varvara Pav- 
 lovna, hghtly modulating from one key to an- 
 other. 
 
 " He is eight and twenty — and of the most 
 happy personal apj^earance. Un jeune liomme 
 accompli, upon my word." 
 
 " A model young man, one may say," — re- 
 marked Gedeonovskv. 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna suddenly began to play a 
 noisy Strauss waltz, which started with such a 
 mighty and rapid trill as made even Gedeonov- 
 sky start; in the very middle of the waltz, she 
 abruptly changed into a mournful motif, and 
 wound up with the aria from "Lucia": " Fra 
 poco." . . . She had reflected that merry music 
 was not compatible with her situation. The aria 
 from " Lucia," with emphasis on the sentimental 
 notes, greatly affected JMarya Dmitrievna. 
 
 "What soul! ' — she said, in a low tone, to 
 Gedeonovskv. 
 
 "A sylph!" — repeated Gedeonovsky, and 
 rolled his eyes heavenward. 
 
 Dinner-time arrived. ]Marfa Timofeevna 
 came down-stairs when the soup was already 
 standing on the table. She treated Varvara Pav- 
 lovna very coolly, replying with half-words to her 
 amiabilities, and not looking at her. Varvara Pav- 
 lovna herself sj)eedily comprehended that she 
 
 246
 
 A XOTU.EMAX S \ KS r 
 
 could do notliing wiHi 11,^ old uoiiiaii, and erased 
 to address her; on the otlur hand, Marva Dmi- 
 trievna became more affectionate than cxci- with 
 her guest: her aunt's discourtesy cnra«>c(i |i,.|-. 
 However, Varvara Pavlovna was no! the onlx 
 person at whom Marfa TiniofVcv na idnMd to 
 look: she never cast a glanee at Li/.a, (.itiu r, al- 
 though her eyes fairly flashed. She sal like a 
 stone image, all sallow, pale, with tightly com- 
 pressed lips — and ate nothing. Li/a seemed to 
 be composed; and, as a matter of fact, all had 
 become more traufjuil in her soul; a strange in- 
 sensibility, the insensibility of the man condemned 
 to death, had come upon her. At dinner \^ii\;ira 
 Pavlovna talked little: she seemed to iiave be- 
 come timid once more, and spread over her face 
 an expression of modest melancholy, (rcded- 
 novsky alone enlivened the conversation with liis 
 tales, although he kept casting cowardly glances 
 at Marfa Timofeevna, and a cough and tickling 
 in the throat seized upon him every time that he 
 undertook to lie in her presence, — but she did rn>t 
 hinder him, she did not jntcrmpt him. Altii- 
 dinner it appeared that Varvjira 1M\ loMia was 
 extremely fond of preference: this pleasi-d Ma- 
 rya Dmitrievna to such a degree, that she i\t(i 
 became o-reatlv affected, and thouuht to herself: 
 — " But what a fool Feodor Ixanitch must he: he 
 was not able to appreciate such a woman! 
 
 She sat down to })lay cai-ds with her and 
 
 247
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 Gedeonovsky, while ^liirfa Timofeevna led Liza 
 off to her own rooms iip-stairs, saying that she 
 looked ill, that her head must be aching. 
 
 " Yes, she has a frightful headache," — said 
 JNIarya Dmitrievna, turning to Varvara Pav- 
 lovna, and rolling up her eyes. — " I myself have 
 
 such sick-headaches " Liza entered her 
 
 aunt's room and dropped on a chair, exhausted. 
 Miirfa Timofeevna gazed at her for a long time, 
 in silence, knelt down softly in front of her — and 
 began, in the same speechless manner, to kiss 
 her hands, in turn. Liza leaned forward, blushed, 
 and fell to weeping, but did not raise jNIarfa 
 Timofeevna, did not v/itlidraw her hands: she 
 felt that she had not the right to withdraw them, 
 had not the right to prevent the old woman show- 
 ing her contrition, her sympathy, asking her par- 
 don for M'hat had taken place on the day before; 
 and JNIarfa Timofeevna could not have done with 
 kissing those poor, pale, helpless hands — and si- 
 lent tears streamed from her eyes and from Liza's 
 eyes; and the cat JNIatros purred in the wide arm- 
 chair beside the ball of yarn and the stocking, 
 the elongated flame of the shrine-lamp quivered 
 gently and flickered in front of the holy picture, 
 — in the adjoining room, behind the door, stood 
 Nastasj'^a Karpovna, and also stealthily wiped 
 her eyes, with a checked handkerchief rolled up 
 into a ball. 
 
 248
 
 XL 
 
 And, in the meaiitiiiu', <lo\vn-st;iirs in lln- draw- 
 ing-room preference was in progress; Marva 
 Dmitrievnu won, and was in liiuli sj)irits. A 
 footman entered, and announced tlie arrival of 
 Panshin. 
 
 jNIarya Dmftrievna dropped lier cards, and 
 fidgeted about in lier chair: \'ar\ara IMvlovna 
 looked at lier with a half-smile, tiien directed her 
 gaze to the door. Panshin made his appearance, 
 in a black frock-coat, with a tall English collar, 
 buttoned up to the throat. " It was i)ainrnl loi- 
 me to obey, but you see I ha\e come." That was 
 what his freshlv-shaved, unsmilin«>' i'ace ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 "Goodness, J/ ''o/r/c///*'//*."— exclaimed M.iiya 
 Dmitrievna: — " von always used to enter without 
 being announced ! " 
 
 Panshin replied to Marya Dmi'trit\ na nurrly 
 with a look, bowed courteously to her. In it did 
 not kiss her hand. She introduced iiiin to \'ai- 
 vara Pavlovna; he retreated a j)ace, bowed to 
 her with equal courtesy, but with a shade ol' ele- 
 gance and deference, and seated liiinself at the 
 card-table. The game of |)reference soon came 
 to an end. Panshin iminii'ed alter liizaveta Mi- 
 
 241)
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S XEST 
 
 kliai'lcnna, learned tliat she did not feel quite well, 
 and ex))ressed his regrets; then he entered into 
 conversation with Varvara Pavlovna, weighing 
 and chiselling clearly every word, in diplomatic 
 fashion, respectfully listening to her replies to the 
 very end. Eut the importance of his diplomatic 
 tone had no effect on Varvara Pavlovna, did not 
 communicate itself to her. Quite the contrary: 
 she ga'/ed into his face with merry attention, 
 talked in a free-and-easy way, and her delicate 
 nostrils quivered slightly, as though with sup- 
 pressed laughter. jNIarya Dmitrievna hegan to 
 extol her talent; Panshin inclined his head as 
 [)olitely as his collar permitted, declared that " he 
 was convinced of it in advance," — and turned 
 the conversation almost on iNIetternich himself. 
 Varvara Pavlovna narrowed her velvety eyes, 
 and saying, in a low tone: " Whj^ you also are an 
 artist yourself, uti confrere"- — added in a still 
 lower tone: " Venez!" — and nodded her head in 
 the direction of the piano. That one carelessly 
 dropped word : " Venez! " — instantaneously, as 
 though by magic, altered Panshin's entire aspect. 
 His careworn mien vanished; he smiled, became 
 animated, unlnittoned his coat, and repeating: 
 " What sort of an artist am I, alas! But you, I 
 hear, are a genuine artist "—wended his way, in 
 company with Varvara Pavlovna, to the piano. 
 "Make him sing his romance: — 'When the 
 moon floats,' " — exclaimed INIarya Dmitrievna. 
 
 2.)0
 
 A XOHMvMAXS XKST 
 
 " Do you siiigT" said N'iirvjira IMvlovua. il 
 
 luminatinu- liini witli a hrioht, swift ^rlaiicf. 
 
 " Sit down." 
 
 Piinsliin began to dcclim . 
 
 " Sit down," — slic ivj)calc(l, iiisislcnf 1\ laji- 
 ping the back of the chaii'. 
 
 He sat down, eoiiglu-d. |)ullt(l (i|)< n his coll.n-, 
 and sang his ronianee. 
 
 "Channant! " — said \'ar\ai-a l*a\l«i\iia: 
 " you sing beautifully, x'ok.s arc::: du .st//lf, \ing 
 it again." 
 
 She walked round the ])iano, and look ii|) Ik r 
 stand directly opposite IMnshin. lie sang his 
 romance again, imparting a melodramatic (|iii\(r 
 to his voice. Varvara l^avlo\-na gazi-d intently 
 at him, with her elbows i)ro])ped on the piano, 
 and her white hands on a IcncI with In r lij)s. 
 Panshin finished. 
 
 "Charmant, cJiarmantc idee," — said she. with 
 the calm confidence of an exj)erl. " Tell iim . 
 have vou written anvthing for the female voice, 
 for a mezzo-soprano? " 
 
 " I hardly write anything," — re|)lied Panshin: 
 — " you see, I only do this sort of thing in the in- 
 tervals betw^een business ali'aiis .... but do 
 you sing? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Oh! do sing something for us," — said Marya 
 Dmftrievna. 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna pu.shed back Ik i- hair from 
 
 2.51
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 her flushed cheeks A\'ith her hand, and shook her 
 head. 
 
 " Our voices ought to go well together," — she 
 said, turning to Panshin : — " let us sing a duet. 
 Do you know ' Son geloso,' or ' La ci darem,' or 
 ' Mira la bianca luna ' ? " 
 
 " I used to sing ' Mira la bianca luna,' "—re- 
 plied Panshin : — " but I have forgotten it long 
 ago." 
 
 " Xever mind, we will try it over in an under- 
 tone. Let me come." 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna sat down at the piano. Pan- 
 shin stood beside her. They sang the duet in an 
 undertone, Varvara Pavlovna correcting him sev- 
 eral times ; then they sang it aloud, then they re- 
 peated it twice : " jNIira la bianca lu . . . u . . . una." 
 Varvara Pavlovna's voice had lost its freshness, 
 but she managed it very adroitly. Panshin was 
 timid at first, and sang rather out of tune, but 
 later on he warmed up, and if he did not sing 
 faultlessly, at least he wriggled his shoulders, 
 swayed his whole body, and elevated his hand 
 now and then, like a genuine singer, ^^arvara 
 Pavlovna played two or three little things of 
 Thal])erg's, and coquettishly " recited " a French 
 ariette. ^larya Dmitrievna no longer knew how 
 to express her deliglit; several times she was on 
 the point of sending for Liza; Gedeonovsky, also, 
 found no words and merely rocked liis head, — but 
 all of a sudden he. yawned, and barely succeeded 
 
 252
 
 IIS 
 
 A XOHIJvMANS .\ KST 
 
 ill concealing liis moutli with liis IkhmI. 'ii 
 yawn did not escape Vanaia Pavlov mm . sIk sud- 
 denly turned her hack lo tlic piano, said : "J.s.h-z 
 de musiquc, conunc ya; id us eliat."' and folded 
 her hands. "Oiii, as.sc: dc >nnsi(/nc." inirrily 
 repeated Panshin-and sti-uck ii|) a coiiNcrsation 
 with her, — daring, light, in tin- Freiidi language. 
 "Exactly as in the hcsl Parisian salon/' 
 thought Marya Dinitrievna, as slu- listened to 
 their evasive and ninil)le speeches. Pansliin IVlt 
 perfectly contented; his eyes sj)arkled, he smiled: 
 at first, he passed liis hand ()\(i- liis face, con- 
 tracted his brows, and sighed spasmodically w lien 
 he chanced to meet the glances of ^Nhirya Dini- 
 trievna; but later on, he entirely forgot her. and 
 surrendered himself conii)letelv to the eniovment 
 of the half-fashionahle, half-artistic chatter. 
 Yarvara Pavlovna showed herself to he a great 
 philosopher: she had an answer ready for every- 
 thing, she did not hesitate over anything, she 
 doubted nothing; it could be seen that she had 
 talked much and often with clever ])ersons of 
 various sorts. All her thoughts, all her feelings, 
 ch'cled about Paris. Panshin turned the eotiMi-- 
 sation on literature: it appeared that she. as well 
 as he, read only French books: (ieorges .Sand 
 excited her indignation: lialzac she admired, al- 
 though he fatigued her: In Sue and .Seribi- she 
 discerned great exjjerts of the heart: she adored 
 Dumas and Feval; in her soul she [)referred 
 
 2,53
 
 A XOBLEMxVN'S NEST 
 
 Paul (le Kock to the whole of them, but, of 
 course, she did not even mention his name. To 
 tell tlie truth, literature did not interest her 
 greatly. A^arvara Pavlovna very artfully avoided 
 evervthino- wliich could even distantlv recall her 
 position; there was not a hint about love in her 
 remarks: on tlie contrary, they were rather dis- 
 tinguislied by severity toward the impulses of 
 passion, by disenchantment, by meekness. Pan- 
 shin retorted; she disagreed with him .... but, 
 stransie to sav! — at the very time when words of 
 condemnation, often harsh, were issuing from her 
 lips, the sound of those words caressed and ener- 
 vated, and her eyes said precisely what 
 
 those lovely eyes said, it Avould be difficult to 
 state; but their speech was not severe, not clear, 
 yet sweet. Panshin endeavoured to understand 
 their mysterious significance, endeavoured to talk 
 with his own eyes, but he was conscious that he 
 was not at all successful; he recognised the fact 
 that Varvara Pavlovna, in her quality of a genu- 
 ine foreign lioness, stood above him, and there- 
 fore he was not in full control of himself. Var- 
 vara Pavlovna had a habit, while talking, of 
 lightly touching the sleeve of her interlocutor; 
 these momentar}^ touches greatly agitated Vla- 
 dimir Nikolaitch. Varvara Pavlovna possessed 
 the art of getting on easily with every one; two 
 hours had not elapsed before it seemed to Pan- 
 shin that he had known her always, and Liza, 
 
 254
 
 A NOBLE^rAX'S NEST 
 
 that same Liza, wIkmti he loved, iR-vcrtheliss. to 
 whom he had offered liis liaiid on fhc pnccdiii^r 
 day, — vanished as in a mist. Tea was sei-ved : the 
 eonversation heeame still more unconstrained. 
 JNlarya Dniitrievna riiwjj; for licr pa^e, and or- 
 dered him to tell Li/,a to come (low n-stairs if li< r 
 head felt better. Panshin, on hearing- Liza's 
 name, set to talking about self-saeritiee, about 
 who was the more capable of sacrifice —man or 
 woman? INIarya Dmftrievna immediately be- 
 came agitated, began to assert that woman is 
 the more capable, declared that she would prove 
 it in two words, got entangled, and wound u|» 
 by a decidedly infelicitous comparison. \^n\ara 
 Pavlovna picked np a music-book, half-concealed 
 herself with it, and leaning over in the direction 
 of Panshin, nibbling at a biscuit, with a ealiu 
 smile on her lips and in her glance, she remarked, 
 in an undertone: "FJllc n'a pas inventc hi poudrc. 
 la bonne dame" Panshin was somewhat alarmed 
 and amazed at Varvara Pavlovna's audacity; but 
 he did not understand how much scorn for liini, 
 himself, was concealed in that unexpected sally. 
 and, forgetting the affection and the devotion of 
 Marya Dmitrievna, forgetting the dinners where- 
 with she had fed him, the money which she had 
 lent him, — he, with the same little smile, the .same 
 tone, replied (unlucky wight!) : '\le crois hien." 
 — and not even: "Je crois hirn," but: — "Je crois 
 ben! " 
 
 •2.55
 
 A XOBLE.AIAN S XEST 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna cast a friendly glance at 
 him, and rose. Liza had entered; in vain had 
 ^liirfa Timofeevna sought to hold her back: she 
 liad made up her mind to endure the trial to the 
 end. Varvara Pavlovna advanced to meet her, 
 in company with Panshin, on whose face the for- 
 mer diplomatic exj^ression had again made its 
 appearance. 
 
 " How is your health? " — he asked Liza. 
 
 " I feel better now, thank you," — she replied. 
 
 " We have been having a little music here ; it is 
 a pity that you did not hear Varvara Pavlovna. 
 She sings superbly, uu artiste consommee." 
 
 " Come here, ma clierie," — rang out Marya 
 Dmitrievna's voice. 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna instantly, with the submis- 
 siveness of a little child, went up to her, and 
 seated herself on a small tabouret at her feet. 
 ^Nlarya Dmitrievna had called her for the pur- 
 pose of leaving her daughter alone with Panshin, 
 if only for a moment : she still secretly cherished 
 the hope that the girl would come to her senses. 
 Moreover, a thought had occurred to her, to 
 which she desired to give immediate expression. 
 
 " Do you know," — she whispered to Varvara 
 Pavlovna: — " I want to make an effort to re- 
 concile vou with yom* husband : I do not guarantee 
 success, but I will try. You know that he has 
 great respect for me." 
 
 Varvara Pa^'lovna slowly raised her eyes to 
 
 256
 
 A NOBLEMAxN S NKST 
 
 INIdrya Dmitricvna, and clasi)!.!! licr li.inds 
 prettily. 
 
 "You would be my saviour, nui hinli,"— ahv 
 said, in a mournful voice: — " 1 do not know how 
 to thank vou for all vour affection; hut 1 am loo 
 guilty toward Feodor Ivjinlteh; he cannot foi- 
 give me." 
 
 " But is it possible that you .... really " 
 
 began Marya Dnn'trievna, with curiosity. 
 
 " Do not ask me," — Varviira I'aviovna inter- 
 rupted her, and dropped her eyes. — " I ^vas 
 young, giddy. . . . However, I do not wisli to 
 defend myself." 
 
 " Well, nevertheless, why not make the effort ? 
 Do not despair," — returned Marya l)Fniti"ievna, 
 and was on the point of patting her on the shoul- 
 der, but glanced at her face — and grew timid. 
 " She is a modest, modest creature," — she 
 thought, — "and exactly like a young girl still." 
 
 " Are you ill? " — Panshin was saying, mean- 
 while, to I^iza. 
 
 " Yes, I am not very well." 
 
 " I understand you," — he said, after a rather 
 prolonged silence. — " Yes, I under.stand you." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " I understand you," — significantly i(.j)cated 
 Panshin, who simply did not know what to say. 
 
 Liza became con.fused, and tlien .said to her- 
 self: " So be it! " Panshin a.ssumed a my.sterious 
 air, and fell silent, gazing severely to one side. 
 
 2.57
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 " But tlie clock lias struck eleven, I think," — 
 remarked ]Marya Dmitrievna. 
 
 The guests understood the hint, and began to 
 take their leave. Varvara Pavlovna was made to 
 promise that she would come to dinner on the 
 morrow, and bring ^Vda; Gedeonovsky, who had 
 almost fallen asleep as he sat in one corner, of- 
 fered to escort her home. Panshin solemnly sa- 
 luted every one, and at the steps, as he put Var- 
 vara Pjivlovna into her carriage, he ^^ressed her 
 hand and shouted after her: ''Au revoir!" Gedeo- 
 novsky seated himself by her side; all the way 
 home, she amused herself by placing the tip of 
 her foot on his foot, as though by accident; he 
 became confused, and paid her compliments; she 
 giggled and made eyes at him when the light 
 from a street-lantern fell on the carriage. The 
 ^valtz which she had herself played, rang in her 
 head, and excited her; wherever she happened to 
 find herself, all she had to do was to imagine to 
 herself lights, a ball-room, the swift whirling to 
 the sounds of music — and her soul went fairly 
 aflame, her eyes darkened strangely, a smile hov- 
 ered over her lips, something gracefully-bacchic 
 was disseminated all over her body. On arriving 
 at home, Varvara Pavlovna sprang lightly from 
 the carriage, — only fashionable lionesses know 
 how to spring out in that way, — turned to Ge- 
 deonovsky, and suddenly Imrst into a ringing 
 laugh, straight in his face. 
 
 258
 
 A XOBT.E>rAX S XKST 
 
 "A charming jkmvsoji," Uiou^^lit tlic Sl.tl* 
 Councillor, as he wended liis way lioinew.ird to his 
 lodgings, w^herc his servant was awaiting him 
 with a bottle of eau de Cologne: " it is \v(ll tliat 
 I am a staid man .... only, wlial was she 
 laughing at? " 
 
 Marfa Timofeevna sat all night long hy Liza's 
 pillow. 
 
 259
 
 XLI 
 
 Lavretzky spent a day and a half at Vasiliev- 
 skoe, and during nearly the whole of that time 
 he wandered about the neighbourhood. He could 
 not remain long in one place: anguish gnawed 
 him; he experienced all the torture of incessant, 
 impetuous, and impotent impulses. He recalled 
 the feeling M'hich had taken possession of his 
 soul on the daj^ following his arrival in the coun- 
 try; he recalled his intentions at that time, and 
 waxed very angry with himself. What could 
 have torn him away from that which he recog- 
 nised as his duty, the sole task of his future ? The 
 thirst for happiness — once more, the thirst for 
 happiness! — " Obviously, ^Nlikhalevitch is right," 
 he thought. " Thou hast wished once more to 
 taste of happiness in life," — he said to himself, — 
 " thou hast forgotten what a luxury, what an 
 umiierited mercy it is when it has visited a man 
 even once. It was not complete, thou wilt say? 
 But put forth thy claims to complete, genuine 
 happiness ! Look about thee : who of those around 
 thee is blissful, who enjoys himself? Yonder, 
 a peasant is driving to the reaping; 2:)erchance, 
 he is satisfied with his lot. . . . What of that? 
 Wouldst thou change with him? Remember 
 thy mother: how insignificantly small were her 
 
 260
 
 A XOHI.KMAN S XKST 
 
 demands, and what lot (Vll to Ikt sliaic' Tlinu 
 hast, evidently, only heen hianni,,^ hcloic- Tan- 
 shin, wlien thou saidst to him, that thou hadst 
 come to Russia in oi-dc-r to till liic cMrlii; iiioii 
 hast come in order to run altir liu- niijs in thiiii- 
 old age. The news of thy Irtrdoni caiiir, and 
 thou didst discard everything, thou didst lor^'tt 
 everything, thou didst run hkc a little hoy aflir 
 a butterfly." .... Liza's iniagv luiintirruptcdly 
 presented itself before his thougiits: with an ef- 
 fort he drove it away, as he did also anotiur 
 importunate image, other iniperturhahly-crafty, 
 beautiful, and detested features. Old Antiai no- 
 ticed that his master was not himself: after heav- 
 ing several sighs outside the door, and several 
 more on the threshold, he made uj) his mind to 
 approach him, and advised him to diink some- 
 thing warm. Lavretzky shouted at him, oideied 
 him to leave the room, but afterward begged his 
 pardon; but this caused Anton to grow still more 
 disconsolate. Lavretzky could not sit in the 
 drawing-room; he felt as though his great-grand- 
 father Andrei were gazing scornfully from the 
 canvas at his puny descendant. — " Kkh, look out 
 for thyself! thou art sailing in shoal water! " his 
 lips, pursed up on one side, seemed to he saying. 
 " Can it be,"— he thought,—" that I shall not be 
 able to conquer myself, — tliat I shall give in to 
 this- — nonsense?" (The severely-wounded in war 
 ahvavs call their wounds " non.sense." 1 1 a man 
 
 261
 
 A NOBLKMAX'S NEST 
 
 could not deceive liiinself, — he could not live on 
 the earth.) "Am I realh^ a niiserahle little boy? 
 Well, yes: 1 have beheld close by, I have almost 
 held in my hand, the possibility of happiness for 
 mv whole life— it has suddenly vanished; and in 
 a lottery, if you turn the wheel just a little fur- 
 ther, a poor man might become a rich one. If it 
 was not to be, it was not to be, — and that 's the 
 end of the matter. I '11 set to work, with clenched 
 teeth, and I will command mvself to hold mv 
 tongue ; luckily, it is not the first time I have had 
 to take myself in hand. And why did I run 
 away, why am I sitting here, with my head 
 thrust into a bush, like an ostrich? To be afraid 
 to look catastrophe in the face — is nonsense! — 
 Anton!" — he called loudly, — ^" order the taran- 
 tas to be harnessed up immediately. Yes," — 
 he meditated once more, — " I must command 
 myself to hold my tongue, I must keep a tight 
 rein on myself." .... 
 
 V^'\\\\ such arouments did Lavretzky strive to 
 alleviate his grief ; but it was great and powerful ; 
 and even Apraxyeya, who had outlived not so 
 much her mind as every feeling, even Apraxyeya 
 shook her head, and sorrowfully followed him 
 with her eyes, when he seated himself in the 
 tarantas, in order to drive to the town. The 
 horses galloped off; he sat motionless and up- 
 right, and stared impassively ahead along the 
 road. 
 
 262
 
 XLII 
 
 Liza had written to Lavretzky on llu- day ht- 
 fore, that he was to come to theii- Ikhisj in llic 
 evening; but lie first went n[) to liis ow n (|narter.s. 
 He did not find either liis wife or his daughter at 
 home; from the servants he karned tiiat she liad 
 gone with her to the Kah'tins'. Tliis n(\\.s Iiotli 
 startled and enraged him. " Kvidently, N'arvara 
 Pavlovna is determined not to give me a ehanec to 
 hve," — he thought, with the excitement of wratli 
 in his heart. He began to stride to and fro. 
 incessantly thrusting aside with liis iVcl and 
 hands the child's toys, the books, and Hit.- IVini- 
 nine appurtenances which came in liis way; In- 
 summoned Justine, and ordered Ir r lo remove all 
 that "rubbish." — ■" Qui, in o n. si c ii r, " sn'ul she. 
 with a grimace, and began to put the room in 
 order, gracefully bending, and gi^ ing La\ rt't/ky 
 to understand, bv everv movement, thai shi' re- 
 garded him as an unlicked bear. With haired lu 
 watched her worn but still " piciuanl." sneering. 
 Parisian face, her white cuffs, her silken apion. 
 and light cap. He sent lier away, at last, and 
 after long wavering (Varvara P;i\lo\na still did 
 not return) he made up his mind to hitake him-
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 self to the Kalitins', — not to Marya 13mitrievna 
 — (not, on any account, would he have entered 
 her drawing-room, that drawing-room where his 
 wife was ) , but to JNIarf a Timof eevna ; he remem- 
 bered that a rear staircase from the maids' en- 
 trance led straight to her rooms. This is w^hat 
 Lavretzky did. Chance favoured him: in the 
 yard he met Schurotchka; she conducted him to 
 IMarfa Timofeevna. He found her, contrary to 
 her wont, alone; she was sitting in a corner, with 
 hair uncovered, bowed over, with her hands clasped 
 in her lap. On perceiving Lavretzky, the old 
 W'Oman was greatly alarmed, rose briskly to her 
 feet, and began to walk hither and yon in the 
 room, as though in search of her cap. 
 
 " Ah, here thou art, here thou art," — she began, 
 avoiding his gaze, and bustling about — " well, 
 how do vou do? Come, what now? What is to 
 be done? Where wert thou yesterday? Well, she 
 
 has come, — w^ell, yes. Well, we must just 
 
 somehow or other." 
 
 Lavretzky dropped into a chair. 
 
 " Come, sit down, sit down," — went on the old 
 w^oman. — " Thou hast come straight up-stairs. 
 Well, yes, of coiu'se. What? thou art come to 
 look at me? Thanks." 
 
 The old woman was silent for a while ; I^avret- 
 zky did not know what to saj'' to her ; but she un- 
 derstood him. 
 
 " Liza .... yes, Liza was here just now," — 
 
 264
 
 A XOBLEMAX S XKST 
 
 went on Mtiri'a TinKjlecM! :, iylw^ .iihI imtvin^r 
 the cords of her retieiile. " She is iiol <|uilc well. 
 Sehiirotehka, where art lliou^ Come liitlur, my 
 mother, why canst thou iiol sit stillf And I have 
 a headache. It must he from I hat from tlie sin^r. 
 mg and from the music." 
 
 " From what sin^in«^\ aunty? " 
 
 " Why, of course, tliey keep si?iniM(r wliat 
 do you call it? — duets. And always in Italian: 
 tchi-tchi, and tcha-tchu, regular mag|)i( s. Tlicv 
 begin to drag the notes out, and it \s just like tug- 
 ging at your soul, l^ansliin and that wifV of 
 yours. And all that lias come about so (juiekly; 
 already thev are on the footing of relatives, thev 
 do not stand on ceremony. However, I will say 
 this mnch: even a dog seeks a refuge: no harm 
 will come to her, so long as peo])k' dorTt turn her 
 out." 
 
 " Nevertheless, I must confess tliat I did not 
 exjject this," — replied J^avrctzky: — "it must 
 have required great boldness." 
 
 " No, my dear soul, that is not l)ol(lness: it is 
 calculation. The I^ord l)e with Ik r I want 
 nothing to do with her! They tell me that thou 
 art sending her to Lavriki, — is it true? " 
 
 " Yes, I am pkieing tliat estate at the (lisjK)sal 
 of Varvara Pavlovna." 
 
 " Has she asked for money?" 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 "Well, it will not he- long helore she does. 
 
 •2(5.5
 
 A XOBT.EMAX'S NEST 
 
 But I have only just taken a good look at thee. 
 Art tliou well ? " 
 les. 
 
 " Seliurotchka,"^ — suddenly cried INIarfa Timo- 
 feevna: — "go, and tell liizaveta INIikhailovna — 
 that is to sa3% no, ask her . . . she 's down-stairs, 
 is n't she? " 
 
 1 es, ma am. 
 
 " Well, yes; then ask her: ' Where did she put 
 my book?' She knows." 
 
 " I obey, ma'am." 
 
 Again the old woman began to bustle about, 
 and to open the drawers of her commode. La- 
 vretzky sat motionless on his chair. 
 
 Suddenly light footsteps became audible on 
 the stairs — and Liza entered. Lavretzky rose 
 to his feet, and bowed ; Liza halted by the door. 
 
 " Liza, Lizotchka," — said INIarfa Timofeevna 
 hastily; — "where is my book, where didst thou 
 put my book? " 
 
 "What book, aunty?" 
 
 " Why, my book; good heavens! However, I 
 did not call thee .... Well, it makes no differ- 
 ence. What are you doing there — down-stairs? 
 See here, Feodor Ivanitch has come. — How is 
 thy head?" 
 
 " It is all right." 
 
 " Thou art always saying: ' It is all right.' 
 What 's going on with you down-stairs, — music 
 agam f 
 
 266
 
 A NOBT.KMAX S XKST 
 
 " No — they arc pla\ iii«>- cards." 
 
 "Yes, of course, she is uj) lo ex (.lyUiin^r. 
 Schiirotchka, I perceive thai Ihoii \\ ishcst tn 
 have a run in the "anlcii. (io alorm." 
 
 " Why, no, Marfa TiMiolccMia ' 
 
 " Don't argue, if you please, (iol Xaslasyii 
 Karpovna lias gone into the garden alone: stay 
 with her. Kespect the old woman." Schurolchka 
 left the room. — " Why, where is my cap^ Ideally, 
 now, where has it got to? " 
 
 " Pray let me look for it," — said Liza. 
 
 "Sit down, sit down; mv own le<»s haven't 
 given out yet. 1 mu.st have left it yonder, in my 
 hedroom." 
 
 And, casting a sidelong glance at Lavret/ky. 
 Marfa Timofeevna left the room. She was on 
 the point of leaving the d(M)r open, hut suddenly 
 turned round toward it, and shut it. 
 
 Liza leaned against the hack of her chair, and 
 gently lifted her hands to her face: Lavretzky 
 remained standing, as he was. 
 
 " This is how we were to meet again," Ik. 
 said, at last. 
 
 Liza took lier hands from hei" face. 
 
 " Yes," — she said dully: — " we were prom])tly 
 punished." 
 
 "Punished?"— said Lavretzky. " l?ut what 
 were you puni.shed fnr? " 
 
 Liza raised her eves to him. Tliev expressed 
 neither grief nor anxiety: they looked smaller 
 
 207
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 and dimmer. Her face was pale; her slightly 
 parted lips had also grown pale. 
 
 Lavretzky's heart shuddered with pity and 
 with love. 
 
 " You wrote to me : ' All is at an end,' " — he 
 whispered: — "Yes, all is at an end — before it 
 has begun." * 
 
 " We must forget all that," — said Liza: — " I 
 am glad that you came ; I wanted to write to you, 
 but it is better thus. Only, we must make use, 
 as promptly as possible, of these minutes. It re- 
 mains for both of us to do our duty. You, Feo- 
 dor Ivanitch, ought to become reconciled to your 
 wife." 
 
 " Liza! " 
 
 " I implore you to do it; in that way alone 
 can we expiate . . . everything which has taken 
 place. Think it over — and you will not refuse 
 me." 
 
 " Liza, for God's sake, — you are demanding 
 the impossible. I am ready to do everything you 
 command ; but become reconciled to her now! . . . 
 I agree to everything, I have forgotten every- 
 thing; but I cannot force my heart to 
 
 Have mercy, this is cruel! " 
 
 *' I do not require from you . . . what you 
 think; do not live with her, if you cannot; but 
 become reconciled," — replied Liza, and again 
 raised her hand to her eyes. — " Remember your 
 little daughter; do this for me." 
 
 268
 
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S XKST 
 
 "Very well,"— said Lavretzkv, tliiounl, |,i.s 
 teeth: — " I will do it; let ns assunic tliat tlurchy 
 I am fulfilling my duty. Well, and yon in 
 what does your duty consist ^ " 
 
 " I know what it is." 
 
 Lavretzky suddenly started. 
 
 " Surely, you are not preparing to marry Tan- 
 shin? " — he asked. 
 
 Liza smiled almost imperee])tibly. 
 Oh, no! " — she said. 
 
 Akh, Liza, Liza!" — cried Lavretzky: — 
 how happy we might have been! " 
 
 Again Liza glanced at him. 
 
 " Now yovi see yourself, Feodor Ivanitcli. that 
 happiness does not depend upon us, hut upon 
 God." 
 
 " Yes, because you . . . ." 
 
 The door of the adjoining room ()1)(.ir<1 
 swiftly, and jNIarfa Timofeevna entered, witli lici- 
 cap in her hand. 
 
 " I have found it at last," — slif said, taking 
 up her stand between Lavretzky and Liza. — " T 
 had mislaid it myself. That's what it is to Ik- 
 old, alack! However, youth is no better. W'til. 
 and art thou going to T^avriki thy sell", with thy 
 wife?" — she added, addressing Feodor Ixiinitcli. 
 
 "With her, to Lavriki^ — I do not know," — 
 he said, after a pause. 
 
 " Thou art not going down-stairs? " 
 
 " Not to-dav." 
 
 269
 
 A xoble:man's xest 
 
 "Well, very ^ood, as it pleases thee; but I 
 think thou shouldst go down-stairs, Liza. Akh, 
 gracious gCKxlness! — and I liave forgotten to give 
 the bullfineli liis food. Just wait, I 11 be back 
 directly " 
 
 And ]Marfa Tiniofeevna ran ovit of the room, 
 witliout putting on her cap. 
 
 Lavretzky went quickly up to Liza. 
 
 "Liza," — he began in a beseeching voice: — 
 " we are parting forever, my heart is breaking, — 
 give me your hand in farewell." 
 
 Liza raised her head. Her weary, almost ex- 
 tinct gaze rested on him. . . 
 
 " Xo," — she said, and drew back the hand 
 which she had already put forward — " no. La- 
 vretzky "- — (she called him thus, for the first 
 time) — " I will not give you my hand. To what 
 end? Go away, I entreat vou. You know that I 
 love you,' — she added, with an effort: — " but no 
 . . . no." 
 
 And she raised her handkerchief to her eyes. 
 
 The door creaked. . . The handkerchief slipped 
 off Liza's knees. Lavretzky caught it before 
 it fell to the floor, hastily thrust it into his side 
 pocket, and, tiu-ning round, his ej^es met those 
 of Marfa Timofeevna. 
 
 " Lizotchka, I think thy mother is calling 
 thee," — remarked the old woman. 
 
 Liza immediately rose, and left the room. 
 
 270
 
 ii 
 
 A XOIJLK.MAX S XKST 
 
 Miirl'a 'rimofc'CN iia sal (Ijwh a^aiii in lu r cor- 
 ner. Lavrctzky l)C'^ai» to take leave ol' lier. 
 Fedya," -slie suddenly said. 
 What, aunty ( " 
 Art thou an houourahlc mini!'" 
 
 "Whatr' 
 
 " I ask thee: art tlioii nn lioiiour.-iMc man !* " 
 
 " I hope so." 
 
 " H'ni. Hut give me tliy word of lionour that 
 thou art an honoui'ahle man." 
 
 "Certainly.— But why?" 
 
 " I know whv. Yes, and thou also, ni\ heue- 
 factor, if thou wilt think it over well, I'oi- thou 
 art not stupid, -wilt understand thysell' why 1 
 ask this of thee. ^Vnd now, farewelK my deai'. 
 Thanks for thy visit; and remem])er the woid that 
 has been spoken, Fedya, and kiss me. Okli, my 
 soul, it is hard for thee, I know: l)ut then, life is 
 not easy for any one. Tiiat is \\h\ 1 ustd to 
 envy the flies; here, 1 thouglil. is something tliat 
 finds hfe good; ])ut once, in the night, 1 heard a 
 fly grieving in the cla\vs of a spider, no. I 
 thought, a thundercloud hangs om r lluiii also. 
 What is to be done, Fedya ^ but rcnicmlur thy 
 word, nevertheless. — Go."' 
 
 Lavretzky emerged from the back eiitianc-i', 
 and was already approaching the gate . . . when 
 a lackey overtook liini. 
 
 " Marva Dmiti-ievna ordei-cd me to ask >ou to 
 
 271
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 be so good as to come to her," — he annouiicecl to 
 Lavretzky. 
 
 " Say to her, my good fellow, that I cannot at 
 present . . .' began Feodor Ivanitch. 
 
 " She ordered me to entreat you urgently," — 
 went on the lackey: — " she ordered me to say, 
 that she is at home." 
 
 "But have the visitors gone?" — asked La- 
 vretzky. 
 
 " Yes, sir," — returned the lackey, and grinned. 
 
 Lavretzky shrugged his shoulders, and fol= 
 lowed him. 
 
 272
 
 Marya D.MITKIKVNA w as siUiii^' alone, in her 
 boudoir, in a sofa-chair, and sniflinn «an dt- 
 Cologne; a glass ol' orangc-llowci- water was 
 standing beside her, on a small tahU . Slie was 
 excited, and seemed to hv t inn irons. 
 
 Lavretzky entered. 
 
 " You wished to see me,"^ — lie said, saluting 
 her coldly. 
 
 " Yes," — returned Marya Dmitrievna, an<l 
 drank a little of the water. '" I lieaid that yon 
 went straight up-stairs to aunty; 1 gave orders 
 that you should be reciue.sted to eome to me: I 
 must have a talk witli yon. Sit down, if yon 
 please." — JNIarya Dmitrievna took breath. - 
 "You know," — she went on: — "that yoni- wife 
 has arrived? " 
 
 " That fact is known to me," — saitl Lavret/ky. 
 
 " Well, yes, — that is, 1 meant to say, she eame 
 to me, and I received her: that is what I wish to 
 have an explanation about with yon now. Feo<l«)r 
 Ivanitch. I, thank (xod. have won nniversal re- 
 spect, I may say, and I wonld not do anything 
 improper for all the world. Althongii 1 fore- 
 saw that it would be disagreeable to yon, still. 1 
 
 '27 li
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 could not make up my mind to refuse her, Feodor 
 Ivanitch; she is my relative — through you: put 
 yourself in m}^ place — what right had I to turn 
 her out of my house ? — You agree with me ? " 
 
 " There is no necessity for your agitating your- 
 self, Marya Dmitrievna," — returned Lavretzky: 
 " you have hehaved verj^ well indeed; I am not in 
 the least angry. I have not the slightest intention 
 of depriving Varvara Pavlovna of the right to 
 see her acquaintances ; I only refrained from en- 
 tering j^our apartments to-day because I wished 
 to avoid meeting her, — that was all." 
 
 " Akli, how delighted I am to hear that from 
 you, Feodor Ivanitch," — exclaimed JNIarya Dmi- 
 trievna: — " however, I always expected this from 
 your noble sentiments. But that I should feel 
 agitated, is not wonderf id : I am a woman and a 
 mother. And 3^our wife .... of course, I can- 
 not judge between her and you — I told her so 
 myself; but she is such an amiable lady, that she 
 cannot cause anything but pleasure." 
 
 Lavretzky laughed, and played with his hat. 
 
 " And this is what I ^vished to say to you, Feo- 
 dor Ivanitch, "^ — went on ^Marva Dmitrievna, 
 moving a little nearer to him: — "if you had 
 onh^ seen hov/ modestly, liow respectfully she 
 behaves! — Reallv, it is touching. But if vou had 
 heard how she speaks of you! ' I am wholly 
 culpable with regard to Jiim,' she says; 'I did 
 not know how to appreciate him,' she says; ' he is 
 
 274
 
 A NOHLKMAX S XKST 
 
 an angel,' she says, ' not a man.' 'i'luly, slic did 
 say that, ' an an<4\l.' She is so pcniknt .... 
 I never beheld such penitence, I ^ivc ynu my 
 word! " 
 
 " Well, ^larya Diiiilric\ iia," said I .a\ icl/ky : 
 — "permit me to ask \()n a (inistion : I am told 
 that Varvara Ptivlovna has htcn sin;4in^ Tin- 
 you; did she sing dnrin<^' \\vv rcixiitancc or 
 how? " . . . . 
 
 " Akh, aren't yon ashamed to talk hkc tliati 
 She sang and played merely with tlic ohjeet of 
 giving me pleasure, because 1 begged, ahnost 
 commanded her to do so. 1 perceive that she is 
 distressed — so distressed, I wonder liow 1 ca?i (h- 
 vert her. And I had heard that slie liad sncli a 
 fine talent. — Upon my word, Fendoi- Ivaiiitch, 
 she is a completely crushed, overwhelmed woman 
 —ask Sergyei Petrovitch if she is not, fmil ii 
 fait, — what have you to say to that ( " 
 
 Lavretzky simply shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "And then, wliat a little angel that Ada of 
 your is, what a darling! — How pretty slie is, l»ow 
 clever! how well slie talks Freiieli; and she un- 
 derstands Russian— she called me Iz/nicnha 
 [aunty]. And do you know, as foi- l)eing sliy, 
 like nearly all children of her age,— there is no 
 shyness about her. She is awi'nlly llki- you, 
 Feodor I van itch. Her eyes, her brows . . . 
 well, she's you all over again, your perfect 
 image. I am not very fond of such small ehil- 
 
 275
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 dren, I must confess; but I have simply lost my 
 lieart to your little daughter." 
 
 " ]\Iarya Dmitrievna," — exclaimed Lavret- 
 zky, suddenly: — " allow me to ask you why you 
 are pleased to say all this to me? " 
 
 "Why?" — ag-ain ^larva Dmitrievna sniffed 
 at her eau de Cologne, and sipped her water: — 
 " I say it, Feodor Ivanitch, because .... you 
 see, I am a relative, I take the closest interest 
 in you. ... I know that you have the very kind- 
 est of hearts. Hearken to me, moii cousin, — I 
 am a woman of experience, and I am not talking 
 at random: forgive, forgive your wife." — JNIarya 
 Dmitrievna's eyes suddenly filled with tears. — 
 " Reflect: youth, inexperience . . . well, perhaps, 
 a bad example — she luid not the sort of a mother 
 who might have put her on the right road. For- 
 give her, Feodor Ivanitch; she has been suffi- 
 ciently punished." 
 
 Tears trickled down Marya Dmitrievna's 
 cheeks ; she did not wipe them away : she loved to 
 weep. Lavretzky sat as on hot coals. " My 
 God," — he thought, — " what sort of tortm-e, what 
 sort of a day has fallen to my lot! " 
 
 " You do not answer," — began ]Marya Dmi- 
 trievna again: — "what am I to understand by 
 that? — is it possible that you can be so cruel? No, 
 I will not believe that. I feel that my words 
 have convinced you. Feodor Ivanitch, God 
 will reward you for your kindness of heart, 
 
 276
 
 A XOliLEMAN S X KS 1' 
 
 and you will now ivciixc your uilV Imm m\ 
 hands. ..." 
 
 Lavretzky involuiilaiiiy rose from his cliaii-; 
 Marya Dniitrieviia also rosr, and .sl< jipin^^ 
 briskly behind a screen, led iorlli N'arvara l'a\- 
 lovna. Pale, half'-faintino-, wilh eyes east down, 
 she seemed to have renounced every tlioii^lit. 
 every impulse oi* lier own — to have phiced herself 
 wholly in the hands of ^Tarya I)niitii(\ na. 
 
 Lavretzky retreated a pace. 
 
 " You were here? " — he exclaimed. 
 
 "Do not blame her," — said Miirya Dmitrievna. 
 hastily; — "she did not wisli lo remain on any 
 account whatever, but 1 ordered hei* to stay, and 
 placed her there ])ehind the screen. She assured 
 me that it would only make you more anfirv; ))ul 
 I would not listen to her: I know you better than 
 she does. Receive your ^^•ife from iny hands; ^o, 
 Varya, be not afraid, fall at your husband's I'eet " 
 (she tugged at her hand) — " and my blessing on 
 you! 
 
 Wait, ^Nlcirya Dnn'trievna," La\ let/.kv in- 
 terrupted her, in a (hill, hut (piixei-ing xoice: 
 " you are, pro])ably, fond of si'ntiniental scenes." 
 (Lavretzky was not mistaken: M;irya Dmitri- 
 evna had retained from her boarding-school days 
 a passion for a certain theatricalness) ; "they 
 amuse you; but others suffer from them. How- 
 ever, I will not discuss the matter with you: in 
 tJiis scene you are not the i)rincipal actor. What 
 
 277
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 do you want of mc, madam?" — he added, ad- 
 dressing his wife. " Have not I done for you 
 all that 1 could ( Do not retort, that you have not 
 pk)tted this meeting; I shall not believe you, — 
 and you know that I cannot believe you. ^Vhat, 
 then, do you want? You are clever, — vou never 
 do anything without an object. You must un- 
 derstand that I am not capable of living with 
 you as I used to live; not because I am angry 
 ^^•ith you, but because I have become a different 
 man. 1 told vou that on the day after your re- 
 turn, and you yourself, at that moment, acqui- 
 esced with me in your own soul. But you wish to 
 reinstate yourself in public opinion; it is not 
 enough for you to live in my house, you want to 
 live under one roof with me, — is not that the 
 truth?" 
 
 " I want you to forgive me," — said Varvara 
 Pavlovna, without raising her ej^es. 
 
 " She wants you to forgive her," — repeated 
 Marya Dmitrievna. 
 
 " And not for my ow^n sake, but for Ada's," — 
 whispered Varvara Pavlovna. 
 
 " Xot for her sake, but for Ada's," — repeated 
 IVIarya Dmitrievna. 
 
 "Very good. You wish that?" — ejaculated 
 Lavretzky, with an eiFort. "As you like, I agree 
 to that." * 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna cast a swift glance at 
 him, and Marya Dmitrievna cried out: — " Well, 
 
 278
 
 A XOTJLKMAXS NKST 
 
 God he praised!" and a^aiii tii^^cd at \ ar- 
 vara I'avloxiia's hand. " Now receive- from 
 
 me 
 
 Wait, 1 tell you," La\ rtlzky inlernij)led 
 her. " 1 consent to live with you, \'arvara P.-iv- 
 lovna," — he continued: ''That is t(» say, I will 
 take von to La\ riUi. and I will live with vou as 
 long as my strengtli liolds out, and tli< n I shall ^o 
 away, — and return now and tlu n. ^'ou sec I d(» 
 not wish to deceive vou; hut do not demand anv- 
 thing more. Vou yourself would smile, were 1 
 to comi)ly with the desire of your respected rela- 
 tive, and press you to my heart, and assure you 
 that .... there had heen no past, that the I'elled 
 tree could hurst into hlossom once more. Hut I 
 perceive that I must suhmit. ^'on will not un- 
 derstand that word; .... it matters not. I re- 
 peat, I will live with yon .... or, no, I cannot 
 promise that ... I will join you, 1 w ill regard 
 you again as my wife 
 
 " But give her yovn* hand on that, at least," 
 said ^Nlarya Dmitrievna, who.se tears were long 
 since dried uj). 
 
 "Up to the ])re.sent moment, 1 ha\( not de- 
 ceived Varvara Pavlovfia," — returned Lavret- 
 zky; — " she will helievc nic as it is. I w ill take 
 her to Lavriki; and recollect, \'arvara Tiiv- 
 lovna: our compact will he regarded as hrokeii 
 just as soon as you leave that i)lace. And now. 
 permit me to withdraw." 
 
 270
 
 A XOBLKxMAN S NEST 
 
 He bowed lo both ladies, and hastily quitted 
 the room. 
 
 "You are not taking her with you," — called 
 jMarya Dnn'trievna after him. ..." Let him 
 alone," — Varvara Pavlovna whispered to her, 
 and immediately thi-ew her arms round her, be- 
 gan to utter thanks, to kiss her hands, and to call 
 her her saviour. 
 
 IVIarya Dnn'trievna accepted her caresses with 
 condescension ; but in her secret soul she was 
 pleased neither with Lavretzky nor with Varvara 
 Pavlovna, nor with the whole scene which she 
 had planned. There had turned out to be verj'- 
 little sentimentality; Varvara Pavlovna, in her 
 opinion, should have flung herself at her hus- 
 band's feet. 
 
 " How was it that you did not understand 
 me? " — she commented: — " why, I told you: ' fall 
 at his feet.' " 
 
 "It was better thus, dear aunty; do not dis- 
 turb yourself — everything is all right,"^ — insisted 
 Varvara Pavlovna. 
 
 " Well, and he is as cold as ice," — remarked 
 Marya Dnn'trievna. " Even if you did not weep, 
 why, I fairly overflowed before him. He means 
 to shut you up in Lavri'ki. The idea, — and you 
 cannot even come to see me! All men are un- 
 feeling," — she said, in conclusion, and shook her 
 head significantly. 
 
 " On the other hand, women know how to 
 
 280
 
 A XOIU.K.MAX S XKSr 
 
 value kindness and nia;^iianimil\ . ' said \'ar- 
 vara Pavlovna, and scil'tly dr()i)|)in^ on Ik r knees 
 before Mai'va Dnii'tricvna, slu iDiltraci d tlu lat- 
 ter's corpuk'iit form with Ik r aiiiis. aiwl |)ressr<l 
 her face a<^ainsl hei-. 'IMial lace wore a (iniet 
 smile, but ^farya Diniti-ievna's tears wci-c flow- 
 ing again. 
 
 And Lavretzkv went lK)nie, loeked hiiiisell' \\\) 
 in his valet's room, flung liiniself on the di\aii 
 and lay there until the nKJiiiing. 
 
 281
 
 XLIV 
 
 The next day was Sunday. The chiming of the 
 hells for the early Litiu-oy did not awaken La- 
 ^•retzky — he had not closed an eye all night long 
 — hut it did remind him of another Sunday, when, 
 at the wish of I^iza, he had gone to church. He 
 hastily rose; a certain secret yoice told him that 
 he would see her there again to-day. He noise- 
 lessly quitted the house, ordered Varvara Pav- 
 lovna to be informed that he ^^ould return to din- 
 ner, and with great strides wended his way 
 thither, whither the monotonously-mournful 
 chiming summoned him. He arriyed early: there 
 was hardly any one in the church; a chanter in 
 the choir was reading the Hours; his yoice, occa- 
 sionally broken by a cough, boomed on in meas- 
 ured cadence, now rising, now falling. Layret- 
 zky took up his stand not far from the entrance. 
 The prayerfully inclined arriyed one by one, 
 paused, crossed themselyes, bowed on all sides ;^ 
 their footsteps resounded in the emptiness and 
 silence, distinctly re-echoing from tlie arches 
 oxerhead. A decrepit little old woman, in an 
 ancient hooded cloak, knelt down beside Layret- 
 
 ' That IS — tliey fipriirativcly liegged tlie pardon of all whom they 
 might have offended, hefore entering on the Church service. The 
 oflBciating priest does the same. — Translator. 
 
 282
 
 A N01U.KMAA S XKST 
 
 zky, and began to pray assiduously; lur ytllow, 
 toothless, wrinkled face expressed intense emo- 
 tion; her red eyes gazed fixedly upWMnI at the 
 holy pictnre on tlie ikoiiostasis: Ik r hony hand 
 kept incessantly eniei-giiig jVom iii„|,i- |„ r doak, 
 and slowly hut vigorously iiindc a grial, sweep- 
 ing sign of the cross. A |)easaiil. with a thick 
 beard and a surlv face, tousled and dislicNcllrd. 
 entered tlie church, went do^^Il at once on both 
 knees, and immediately set to ciossing iiiinself, 
 hastily flinging back his head and shaking it after 
 every prostration. Such bitter woe was depicted 
 on his countenance, and in all his niovi-ments, 
 that Lavretzky made u}) his mind to aj)|)roach 
 and ask him what was the matter. 'I'he |)casant 
 started back timidly and roughly, and looked at 
 him. ..." My son is dead," — he said, in hasty 
 accents — and again began to prostrate himself 
 to the floor. " What can take the place, i'or them, 
 of the consolation of the chureli?" — Lavretzky 
 thought, — and tried to pray himself: but his heart 
 had grown heavy and hard, and his thoughts were 
 faraway. He was still expecting Liza but Liza 
 did not come. The church l)egan to fill \\itli 
 people; still she did not come. The Liturgy be- 
 gan, the deacon had already read the (iospel. the 
 bell had pealed for the hymn "Worthy";' 
 
 '"Worthy and rijrlit is it. to Im". vlivwn to the FatluT, niid to the 
 Son, and to tht- Holy Spirit, to fho rrinity, consiilistnnliiil and in- 
 divisible "—at a very solemn point, and (piitc late in tlu- l.itnrgj-. - 
 Translator. 
 
 28;3
 
 A XOBLEMAX'S NEST 
 
 Lavretzky moved a little, — and suddenly caught 
 sight of I^iza. She had arrived before him, but 
 he had not descried her; crowded into the space 
 between the ^all and the choir, she neither 
 glanced around noi- moved. Lavretzky did not 
 take his eyes from her until the very end of the 
 Liturgy: he was bidding her farewell. The con- 
 gregation began to disperse, but she still stood 
 on ; she seemed to be awaiting Lavretzky's de- 
 parture. At last, she crossed herself for the last 
 time, and went away, without looking round ; she 
 had only a maid w^ith her. Lavretzky followed 
 her out of the chiu'ch, and overtook her in the 
 street; she was walking very rapidly, with her 
 head bowed and her veil lowered over her face. 
 
 " Good morning, Lizaveta INIikhailovna,"^ — 
 said he, loudly, with forced ease: — "may I ac- 
 company^ you? " 
 
 She said nothing ; he walked along by her side. 
 
 " Are you satisfied M'ith me? " — he asked her, 
 lowering his voice. — " You have heard what took 
 place last night? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," — she said in a whisper: — " you 
 did well."* 
 
 And she walked on faster than ever. 
 
 " You are satisfied? " 
 
 Liza only nodded her head. 
 
 " Feodor Ivanitch," — she began, in a com- 
 posed, but weak voice: — " I have wanted to ask 
 you : do not come to our liouse again ; go away as 
 
 284,
 
 A NOHlJvMAX S \KST 
 
 speedily as possible; we can see each nlhcr later 
 on, — sometime, a year hence, lint now, do this 
 forme; comply with my recjnest, for (;()(i'.s sake." 
 
 "I am ready to obey you in :ill things, Li/,a- 
 veta jNlikhadox na; l)nl is it jxjssihle that we arc 
 to part thns:' will you not say a single word lo 
 me? " 
 
 " Fecklor Ivaniteh, here yon arc jiow . walkin^r 
 by my side. But yon arc already lar away t'loin 
 me. And not yon alone, but also . . . ." 
 
 "Finish, I entreat yon!" — exclaimed Lavret- 
 zky: — " what is it that von mean to sav;" " 
 
 You will hear, perhai)s . . . . but wliatever 
 happens, forget . . . no. do not f'oi-gct me, re- 
 member me." 
 
 " I forget yon! . . . ." 
 
 "Enough; farewell. Do not j'ollow mc." 
 
 " Liza . . ."■ — Lavretzky was beginning. 
 
 " Farewell, farewell! " — she repeated, dropped 
 her veil still lower, and advanced almost at a run. 
 
 Lavretzky gazed after her. and (lr()pj)ing hi?^ 
 head, went back down the street. lie hit upon 
 Lemm, who was also walking along, \\ illi bis hat 
 pulled down on his no.se, and staring at tln' 
 ground under bis feet. 
 
 Tliey stared al each otlu r in silence. 
 
 " Well, what have vou to sav:* "- — said La\ I'ct- 
 zky at last. 
 
 " What have 1 to say;* " — returned 1a nun sui- 
 lilv: — " I have notliing to .sav. Fvervtiiing is 
 
 28.5
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 dead, and we are dead. (Alles ist todt und wir 
 sind todt. ) You are going to the right, I think? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then I go to the left. Good-bye." 
 
 On the following morning, Feodor Ivanitch 
 and his wife set out for Lavriki. She drove in 
 front, in the carriage, with Ada and Justine; he 
 came behind, in his tarantas. The pretty little 
 girl never quitted the carriage-window during the 
 whole journey; she was surprised at everything: 
 at the peasants, the peasant women, the wells, the 
 shaft-arches, the carriage-bells, at the multitude 
 of jackdaws; Justine shared her surprise. Var- 
 vara Pavlovna laughed at their comments and 
 exclamations. . . She was in high spirits; before 
 their departure from the town of O * * * she 
 had had an explanation with her husband. 
 
 " I understand your position," — she had said 
 to him, — and he, from the expression of her 
 clever eves, was able to conclude that she did 
 fully understand his position, — " but you must 
 do me the justice, at least, to say that I am easy 
 to live with ; I shall not obtrude myself upon you, 
 embarrass you ; I wanted to assure Ada's future. 
 I need nothing further." 
 
 " Yes, and you have attained your object," — 
 said Feodor Ivanitch. 
 
 " ]My sole idea now is to shut myself up in the 
 wilds; I shall forever remember your good deed 
 in my prayers. . . ." 
 
 286
 
 A NORLKMAX S XKST 
 
 " Faugh! . . . onoufTli <>f" that," -he interrupted 
 her. 
 
 " And 1 shall know how to iLspccl your inde- 
 pendence, and your repose," — she completed her 
 phrase, which she had pre})ared in advance. 
 
 Lavretzky had made her a low l)ow. N'arvarti 
 Pavlovna understood that hei- luishMiid. in his 
 sold, was grateful to her. 
 
 On the second day, toward the evening, they 
 reached liavriki; a week later, Lavretzky set oft' 
 for INIoscow, leaving his wife five thousand riihles 
 for her expenses — and tlie day after Lavretzky's 
 departure, Panshin, whom Varvara Pavlovna 
 had hegged not to forget her in her isolation, 
 made his appearance. She gave him the w;irni- 
 est sort of a welcome, and until late into the night 
 the loftv rooms of the house and the verv t»arden 
 rang with the sounds of music, singing, and merry 
 French speeches. Panshin visited Varvjira Pav- 
 lovna for three days; when he took leave of her, 
 and Avarmly pressed her heautiful hands, he 
 promised to return very soon — and he kej)t his 
 promise. 
 
 287
 
 XLV 
 
 Liza had a separate little room, on the second 
 story of her mother's house, small, clean, bright, 
 witli a white bed, pots of flowers in the corners 
 and in front of the holy pictures, with a tiny writ- 
 ing-table, a case of books, and a crucifix on the 
 wall. This little chamber was called the nursery; 
 Liza had been born in it. On returning to it 
 from church, where she had seen Lavretzky, she 
 put everything in order, even more carefully 
 than usual, wiped the dust off everything, looked 
 over and tied up with ribbons her note-books and 
 the letters of her friends, locked all the drawers, 
 watered the plants, and touched every flower with 
 her hand. She did all this without haste, without 
 noise, with a certain touched and tranquil solici- 
 tude on her face. She halted, at last, in the mid- 
 dle of the room, slowly looked around her, and 
 stepping up to the table over which hung the 
 crucifix, she knelt down, laid her head on her 
 clasped hands, and remained motionless. 
 
 JNIarfa Timofeevna entered, and found her in 
 this position. Liza did not notice her entrance. 
 The old woman went outside the 'door, on tiptoe, 
 and gave vent to several loud coughs. Liza 
 
 288
 
 A NOHLKMAX'S XKST 
 
 rose quickly to her red, and ui|H(l lu r eyes, in 
 which glittered clear tears whicli had 11..I Vallen. 
 
 " I see that thou hast heen arranging- lliy httli- 
 cell again,"'- -said Marl'a TimolV-ev !ia. and hdit 
 low over a pot containing a young rosc-husli: 
 "what a splendid i)errumc il has!" 
 
 Liza gazed thoughtfully at lu r aunt. 
 
 " What a word you have uttered! " — slit- whis- 
 pered. 
 
 "What sort of a word, what word f " inter- 
 posed the old woman, vivaciously: — " what dost 
 thou mean? — This is dreadful," — she said, sud- 
 denly tearing off her cap, and seating iierself on 
 Liza's bed: — "this is beyond inv streniith! to- 
 day is the fourth day that 1 seem to he seithing 
 in a kettle; I can no longer pretend that I notice 
 nothing, — I cannot see thee growing i)ale, wither- 
 ing away, weeping, — I cannot, 1 cannot!" 
 
 " Why, what is the matter with you, aunty ^ " 
 — said Liza: — "I am all right. . . .'" 
 
 " All right?" — exclaimed Marfa Timofeevna: 
 — " tell that to others, but not to me! All right! 
 But who was it that was on her knees just now' 
 whose eyelashes are still wet ^\ith tears f All 
 right! Why, look at thyself, what hast th<»u done 
 to thy face, what has l)eeome of thiiic eves? — 
 All right! As though I did not know all!" 
 
 "It will ])ass off, aunty; give uw tinic." 
 
 " It will pass off, hut wIrii.'' () Lord (iod. my 
 Master! is it possible that thou didst lo\c liim 
 
 •281)
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 so? whv, he is an old man, I^izotchka. Well, I 
 do not dispute that he is a good man, he does not 
 bite; but M'liat does that signify? we are all good 
 people: the world is large, there will always be 
 plenty of that sort." 
 
 " I tell 5^ou, that it will all pass off, it is all 
 over already." 
 
 " Listen, Lizotchka, to what I have to say 
 to thee," — said ]Marfa Timofeevna, suddenly, 
 making Liza sit down beside her on the bed, and 
 adjusting now her hair, now her kerchief. — " It 
 only seems to you, while it is fresh, that your 
 grief is beyond remedy. Ekh, my darling, 
 for death alone there is no remedj^! Only say to 
 thyself : ' I won't ffive in — so there now ! ' 
 and afterward thou wilt be amazed thyself — how 
 soon, how well, it will pass off. Only have 
 patience." 
 
 " Aunty," — replied Liza: — " it is already past, 
 all is over already." 
 
 " Past — over — forsooth! Why, even thy little 
 nose has grown pointed, and thou sayest : ' It is 
 over — it is over! 
 
 " Yes, it is over, aunty, if you will only help 
 me," — cried Liza, with sudden animation, and 
 tln-ew herself on Marfa Timofeevna's neck. — 
 " Dear aunty, be my friend, help me; do not be 
 angry, understand me." 
 
 " Why, what is this, what is this, my mother? 
 Don't frighten me, please; I shall scream in an- 
 
 290
 
 A NOBLKMAX S XKST 
 
 other minute; don't look at nie like that: tell nir 
 quickly what thou meanest?" 
 
 "I ... I want " Liza hid h( r faee in 
 
 Marfa Timofeevna\s hosom. ..." I want to in- 
 ter a convent," — she said, in a (hill torn-. 
 
 The old woman fairly leaped on tlie hed. 
 
 "Cross thyself, my motlier, Lizotehka; conic 
 to thy senses: God he with thee, wliat dost thou 
 mean?" — she stammered at last: " lit down, my 
 darling, sleep a little: this comes from lack of 
 sleep, my dear." 
 
 Liza raised her head, her cheeks were hurning. 
 
 " No, aunty," — she articulated, " do not speak 
 like that. I have made up my mind, I have 
 prayed, I have asked counsel of God; all is 
 ended, my life with }''ou is ended. Sucli a lesson 
 is not in vain; and it is not the first time I have 
 thought of this. Happiness was not suited to 
 me; even when I cherished hopes of happiness, 
 my heart was always heavy. I know everytliing, 
 my own sins and the sins of others, and how papa 
 acquired his wealth ; I know everything. All that 
 must be atoned for by prayer — -atoned I'or ])y 
 prayer. I am sorry for all of you — I am sorry 
 for mamma, for Lyenotclika; but there is no help 
 for it; I feel that I cannot live here; I have al- 
 ready taken leave of everything, I have made my 
 reverence to everytliin.g in tlie house for the last 
 time; something is calling me hence; I am weary; 
 I want to shut myself up forever. Do not hold 
 
 291
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 me back, do not dissuade me; help me, or I will 
 go away alone." 
 
 ]Marfa Timofeevna listened in terror to her 
 niece. 
 
 " She is ill, she is raving," — she thought: — " I 
 must send for a doctor; but for which? Gedeo- 
 novsky was praising some one the other day; 
 he 's always lying, — but, perhaps, he told the 
 trutli that time." But when she became con- 
 vinced that Liza was not ill, and was not raving, 
 when to all her objections Liza steadfastly made 
 one and the same reply, ^Nlarfa Timofeevna be- 
 came seriously frightened and grieved. — " But 
 thou dost not know, my darling," — she began to 
 try to prevail upon her; — "what sort of a life 
 thev lead in convents! Why, my own one, they 
 will feed thee with green hemp-oil ; they will put 
 on thee coarse, awfully coarse linen; they will 
 make thee go about cold; thou canst not endure 
 all that, Lizotchka. All that is the traces of Aga- 
 f ya in thee ; it was she who led thee astray. Why, 
 she began by living her life, living a gay life; do 
 thou live thy life also. Let me, at least, die in 
 peace, and then do what thou wilt. And who 
 ever heard of any one going into a convent, all 
 on account of such a goat's beard — the Lord for- 
 give me! — on account of a man? Come, if thy 
 lieart is so heavy, go away on a journey, pray to 
 a saint, have a prayer-service said, but don't put 
 
 292
 
 A NOHLKMAX S XKST 
 
 the black cowl on lliy lund, iii\ dt ar little rallicr, 
 my dear little niothei- " 
 
 And iMarf'a TiinolVrvnn ))c^an lo wccj) l»il- 
 terly. 
 
 Liza comforted Ik r, w ijxd :i\\;ty Ik r tears, hut 
 remained inflexible. In Ikt despair. M.irfa 
 Timofeevna tried lo risorl to liiit.its: sIk wnuld 
 tell Tiiza's mother e\ ci-ylliin^^ : i)iil ( \( n that wa.s 
 of no avail. Only as a concession Id tin old 
 woman's urgent entreaties, did Li/a coiisi iit tn 
 defer the fultilnienl of lier intention loi- six 
 months; in return, Miirfa Timofeex na was cntii- 
 pelled to give her her word that she would IkIj) 
 her, and obtain the permission of Marya Diiii- 
 trievna if, at the end of six months, siie had not 
 changed her mind. 
 
 AVitli the advent ol" the first cold wcatiier, 
 Varvara Pavlovna, desi)ile her i)romise to shut 
 herself up in the depths of the country, after j)ro- 
 vidinff herself with monev, removed to IVtcrs- 
 burg, where she hired a modest hut |)i-(,tty aj)ait- 
 ment, which had l)een fouiul i'or Ik i- hy ranshiii. 
 who had quitted the (iovernjnent of () * * * he- 
 fore her. During the latter pai't of his so')ouiii in 
 O * * * he had completely fallen out of fa\<>ur 
 with iNIarya Dnn'trievna: he had suddeidy ceased 
 to call upon her and liardly ever (piitted La\ riki. 
 Varvara Pavlovna had enslaved him, precisely 
 
 293
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 that, — enslaved him; no other word will express 
 her unlimited, irrevocable, irresponsible power 
 over him. 
 
 Lavretzky passed the winter in ^Moscow, but 
 in the spring of the following year the news 
 readied liim that Liza had entered the B * * * 
 convent, in one of the most remote corners of 
 Kussia. 
 
 294
 
 EPILOCiUK 
 
 EIGHT years liave passed. Sprinn- luis coim 
 again. . . lint first, let us say a IVu \v(»i(ls 
 about the fate of Miklialeviteh, IMiisliin. .Mi.n, 
 Lavretzky — and take our leave of them. Mi- 
 khalevitch, after long- peregrinations, has tiiialiy 
 hit upon his real voeation: he has obtained thr 
 post of head inspeetoi- in a govennnent insti- 
 tution. He is very well satisfied with his lot, and 
 his pupils "adore" him, although they mimic 
 him. Panshin has advanced greatly in lank, and 
 already has a directorship in view; he walks with 
 his back somewhat bent: it must be the cross of 
 the Order of Vladimir, which has been conferred 
 upon him, that drags him forward. The oflicial 
 in him has, decidedly, carried the day omi- the 
 artist; his still youthful face has tuiiud (|nite 
 yellow, his hair has grown thin, and lu- no longer 
 sings or draws, but secretly oecuj)ie.s himstif 
 with literature: he has written a little coniedy. in 
 the natvn-e of " a proverb," — and, as every one 
 who writes nowadays " show s uj) " .some one or 
 something, he has shown up in it a co(|uette. and 
 he reads it surreptitiously to two oi- three ladies 
 who are favourably disj)ose(l towai'd him. lint 
 
 2\)5
 
 A XOBLEMAX S XEST 
 
 he has not married, altlioiigh many fine oppor- 
 tunities of so doing have presented themselves: 
 for this Varvara Pavlovna is responsible. As 
 for her, she lives uninterruptedly in Paris, as of 
 yore : Feodor I vanitch has "iven her a bill of ex- 
 change on himself, and bought himself free 
 from her, — from the possibility of a second, un- 
 expected invasion. She has grown old and fat, 
 but it is still pretty and elegant. Every person 
 has his own ideal: Varvara Pavlovna has found 
 hers — in the dramatic productions of Dumas 
 fils. She assiduously frequents the theatre where 
 consumptive and sentimental ladies of the frail 
 class are put on the stage; to be JMme. Doche 
 seems to her the very apex of human felicity ; one 
 day, she declared that she desired no better lot for 
 her daughter. It is to be ho])ed that fate will 
 deliver Mademoiselle Ada from such felicity: 
 from a rosy, plump child, she has turned into a 
 weak-chested, pale-faced young girl; her nerves 
 are already deranged. Tlie mnnber of Varvara 
 Pavlovna's admirers has decreased ; but they have 
 not transferred their allegiance: she will, in all 
 probability, retain several of them to the end of 
 her life. The most ardent of them, of late, has 
 been a certain Zakurdalo-SkubyrnikofF, one of 
 the retired dandies of the Cruards, a man of eight 
 and thirty, of remarkably robust build. The 
 Frenchmen who frequent INIme. Lavretzkj^'s 
 salon call him " le gros taureau de VUhrdine " ; 
 
 296
 
 A XOHLKMAX S XKST 
 
 Varvara Pavlovna never iiiviUs liim lo h, i i.-isli- 
 ionable evening- gatlicrin^s, hul Ik (tijoys licr 
 favour in the fullesl measure. 
 
 So ... . eiglit years Ijave passed. Ag.iin llic 
 sky is breathing forth the heaniiug liappimss ol" 
 spring; again it is suiihng ui)()n the earth and 
 upon men; again, beneath its eares.s, everything 
 has burst into blossom, into love and song. 'I'he 
 town of O * * * has undergone very little- change 
 in the course of those eight years; hut .M:iiva 
 Dmitrievna's house seems to liave grown Nounu : 
 its recently painted walls shine as in weleotni-. 
 and the panes of the open windows aic erini- 
 soning and glittering in the rays of the setting 
 Sim. Through these windows, out upon the 
 street, are wafted the sounds of ringing young 
 voices, of incessant laughter; the whole Iioiis( 
 seems bubbling with lii'e, and o\ ei-llow ing the 
 brim with merriment. The mistress of the house 
 herself has long since gone to her grave: Mjirya 
 Dmitrievna died two years after Liza's profes- 
 sion as a nun; and Marfa Timoieevna did not 
 long survive her neice; they rest side hv side- 
 in the town cemetery. Xastasva Karpovna, also, 
 is dead; the faithful old woman went, cMry 
 week, for the space of several yeais. to pray o\ er 
 the ashes of her friend. . . Her time came, and 
 her bones also were laid in the (lam|) earth. Hut 
 Marva Dmitrievna's house has not passed into 
 the hanels e)f strangers, has not le It lui- fainily : the- 
 
 •ii)7
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 nest lias not been destroyed: Lyenotchka,who has 
 become a stately, beautiful young girl, and her 
 betrothed, a fair-haired officer of hussars; ^la- 
 rya Dmitrievna's son, who has just been married 
 in Petersburg, and has come with his young wife 
 to spend the spring in O * * * ; his wife's sister, an 
 Institute-girl of sixteen, with brilliantly scarlet 
 cheeks and clear eyes ; Schiirotchka, who has also 
 grown up and become pretty — these are the 
 young folks who are making the walls of the 
 Kalitin house re-echo with laughter and chatter. 
 Everything about it has been changed, everything 
 has been brought into accord with the new in- 
 habitants. Beardless young house-servants, who 
 grin and jest, have taken the places of the former 
 sedate old servitors ; where overgrown Roska was 
 wont to stroll, two setters are chasing madly 
 about, and leaping over the divans ; the stable has 
 been filled with clean-limbed amblers, high- 
 spirited shaft-horses, fiery trace-horses ^ with 
 braided manes, and riding-horses from the Don ; 
 the hours for breakfast, dinner, and supper have 
 become mixed up and confused ; according to the 
 expression of the neighbours, " an unprecedented 
 state of affairs " has been established. 
 
 On the evening of which we are speaking, the 
 inhabitants of the Kalitin house (the oldest of 
 them, Lyenotchka's betrothed, was only four and 
 
 'The trotter as shaft-horse, and the galloping side-horses 
 of a troika. — Translatok. 
 
 298
 
 A NOHLKMAX S NKST 
 
 twenty) were engaged in a lai- Iroin cnnijilicatcd. 
 but, judging from their vigorous laughhr, a 
 very amusing game: tliey were ninning llnougli 
 the rooms, and eatehing eaeh oUu r: the dogs, also, 
 were running and harking, and the canaries which 
 hung in eages in IVonl of the windows vied with 
 each other in singing at tlie t()|)s of their voices, 
 increasing the uproai- ol" ringing xolleys of 
 noise with their furious ehirj)ing. While this 
 deafening diversion was at its very heiglit, a 
 nmd-stained tarantiis drove n|) to the gate, and 
 a man of forty-five, chid in lra\elhng garh, (K- 
 scended from it, and stopped short in ama/ement. 
 He stood motionless for some time, s\\(.j)l an at- 
 tentive glance over tlie house, passed through tlie 
 gate into the yard, and slowly ascended the steps. 
 There was no one in the anteroom to receive him; 
 but the door of the "hall" Hew wide ()i)en; 
 through it, all flushed, bounced Schiirotclika, and 
 instantly, in pursuit of her, with rifiging laughter, 
 rushed the whole youthful band. She came to a 
 sudden halt and fell silent at tiie sight of tlie 
 stranger; but the clear eyes fa.stened u\h)i\ liim 
 were as caressing as ever, the fresh faces did not 
 cease to smile. ISIarya Dnn'trievna's .son .stepped 
 up to the visitor, and courteously asked him wliat 
 he \vished. 
 
 " I am Lavretzky," — .said the \ isitor. 
 
 A vigorous shout rang out in response and 
 not because all the.se young people were so e\- 
 
 299
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 tremely delighted at the arrival of the distant, al- 
 most forgotten relative, hut simph^ because they 
 were ready to make an uproar and rejoice on 
 every convenient opportunity. They immediately 
 surrounded Lavretzky: Lyenotchka, in the qual- 
 ity of an old acquaintance, was the first to intro- 
 duce herself, and to assure him that, in another 
 moment, she certainly would have recognised 
 him, and then she j^i'esented all the rest of the 
 company, calling each one of them, including her 
 betrothed, by his pet name. The whole throng 
 moved through the dining-room to the drawing- 
 room. The hangings in both rooms were differ- 
 ent, but the furniture remained the same; 
 Lavretzky recognised the piano; even the same 
 embroidery-frame was standing in the window, 
 in the same position — and almost with the same 
 unfinished bit of embroidery as eight years pre- 
 viously. They made him sit down in a comfort- 
 able easy-chair; all seated themselves decorously 
 around him. Questions, exclamations, stories 
 showered down without cessation. 
 
 " But it is a long time since we have seen you," 
 — remarked Lyenotchka, ingenuously: — "and 
 we have not seen Varvara Pavlo\Tia either." 
 
 " I should think so! " — interposed her brother, 
 hurriedly. " I carried thee off to Petersburg, 
 but Feodor Ivanitch lived in the country all the 
 time." 
 
 " Yes, and manmia has died since, you Imow." 
 
 300
 
 A XOHIJvMAX s .\i<:s'r 
 
 "And Marfa Timofeevna,"— sai(I Scln'i 
 rotchka. 
 
 "And Nastiisya Karpovna," — rcjoiiKd \ac- 
 notchka. — " And JSI'sieu Lenini " 
 
 "What? And is Lemm dead also^"- askt-d 
 Tiavretzky. 
 
 "Yes,"- — replied young Kalilin: "lie went 
 away from here to Odessa — they say that some 
 one decoyed him thither; and there he died." 
 
 " You do not know — whether he left any music 
 hehind him? " 
 
 " I don't know, — it is hardly probable." 
 
 All fell silent, and exchanged glances. A 
 cloud of sadness had descended u])on all tlie 
 young faces. 
 
 " And Matroska is alive," — suddenly remarked 
 Lyenotchka. 
 
 " And Gedeonovsky is alive," — added her 
 brother. 
 
 At the name of Gedeonovsky a vigorous peal 
 of laughter rang out in unison. 
 
 " Yes, he is alive, and lies just as he always 
 did," — w^ent on Marya Dmitrievna's son: — 
 " and just imagine, that naughty child there " 
 (and he pointed at his wife's sister, tlie In- 
 stitute-girl) " put pepper in his snuff-])ox yes- 
 terday." 
 
 " How he did sneeze! " exclaimed Lyenotchka : 
 — and again a peal of irrepressible laughter rang 
 out.
 
 A XOBLEMAX S NEST 
 
 " We received news of Liza recently,"— said 
 young Kalitin, — and again everything grew still 
 round about: — "things are well with her, — her 
 health is now improving somewhat." 
 
 " Is she still in the same convent? " — asked 
 I^avretzky, not without an effort. 
 
 " Yes, still in the same place." 
 
 " Does she write to you? " 
 
 " Xo, never; the news reaches us through other 
 people." — A sudden, profound silence ensued. 
 " The angel of silence has flown past," all said to 
 themselves. 
 
 " Would not you like to go into the garden? " 
 — Kalitin turned to Lavretzky: — "it is very 
 pretty now, although we have rather neglected it." 
 
 I^avretzky went out into the garden, and the 
 first thiuQ- that struck his eves was the bench 
 on which he had once spent with Liza a few 
 happy moments, never to be repeated; it had 
 grown black and crooked; but he recognised it, 
 and his soul was seized by that feeling which has 
 no peer in sweetness and in sorrow, — the feeling 
 of living grief for vanished youth, for happiness 
 which it once possessed. In company with the 
 young people, he strolled through the alleys: the 
 linden-trees had not grown much older and taller 
 during the last eight years, but their shade had 
 become more dense; on the other hand, all the 
 shrubs had sprung upward, the raspberry-bushes 
 had waxed strong, the hazel co])se had become 
 
 302
 
 A XOHLKMAX S NKST 
 
 entirely im])ciR'tral)l(.', and (.'vcrvuhirc Www was 
 an odour of thickets, forest, grass, and lilacs. 
 
 "What a good place this would Ik- tn |)lay 
 at i)uss-in-the-eorner," — suddeidv crird Lnc- 
 notcldva, as they entered a small, \c rdant glade, 
 hemmed in ])v hndens: — " l»v tlu wav. tli( ic aic 
 
 • • • 
 
 five of us." 
 
 "And hast tliou forgotUii I'eodor I\ ;iiiitcli ' " 
 — her brother observed to lier. . . " Or art thou 
 not reckoning in thyself? " 
 
 Lyenotchka blushed faintlv. 
 
 "But is it possible that KccMJor haiiitcli. al 
 his age, can . . ."' — she began. 
 
 " Please play,' — interposed Lavretzky, has- 
 tily: — " pay no heed to me. It will be all the 
 more agreeable to me if I kncnv that 1 am not rin- 
 barrassing you. And there is no need for you to 
 bother about me; we old fellows have occupations 
 of which you, as yet, know nothing, and which no 
 diversion can replace: memories." 
 
 The young people listened to Lavretzky with 
 courteous and almost mocking respect. — exactly 
 as though their teacher were reading them a Us- 
 son, — and suddeidy all of them flew away from 
 him, and ran over the glade: four of tiurn took 
 up their stand neai- the trees, one stood in the 
 centre, — and the liin l)cgan. 
 
 But I.avret/ky i-eturned to the house. \v< iit into 
 the dining-room, a|)proached Die piano, and 
 touched one of the keys: a laint. l)nt |iuic sound
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 rang out, and secretly trembled in his heart: with 
 that note began that inspired melody wherewith, 
 long ago, on that same blissful night, Lemm, the 
 dead Lemm, had led him to such raptures. Then 
 Lavretzky passed into the drawing-room, and did 
 not emerge from it for a long time : in that room, 
 where he had so often seen Liza, her image rose 
 up before him more vividlj^ than ever; it seemed 
 to him, that he felt around him the traces of her 
 presence; but his grief for her was exhausting 
 and not light: there was in it none of the tran- 
 quillity which death inspires. Liza was still liv- 
 ing somewhere, dully, far away; he thought of 
 her as among the living, but did not recognise the 
 young girl w^hom he had once loved in that pale 
 spectre swathed in the conventual garment, sur- 
 rounded by smoky clouds of incense. Lavretzky 
 would not have recognised himself, had he been 
 able to contemplate himself as he mentall}' con' 
 templated Liza. In the course of those eight 
 years the crisis had, at last, been effected in his 
 life ; that crisis which many do not experience, but 
 without which it is not possible to remain an hon- 
 ourable man to the end: he had really ceased tc 
 think of his own happiness, of selfish aims. He 
 had calmed down, and — why should the truth be 
 concealed? — he had aged, not alone in face and 
 body, he had aged in soul; to preserve the heart 
 youthful to old age, as some say, is difficult, and 
 almost absurd: he may feel content who has not 
 
 ao4.
 
 A XoHlJvMAXS NKS'I" 
 
 lost I'aitli ill •^(uhI, stead last iK.vs oT will. diMif loj- 
 activity. . . . Lavirtzky had a li^rhi to Iffi suti.s- 
 fied: he iiad Ircouk' a irally line- aM-ricidtiirist. In- 
 had really Icanifd to till the soil, .ind l,c had 
 toiled not for hiinscll' aloiu-: in s<» far as he- 
 had hc-ei) ahlc, he had freed fr<»iii care and estah- 
 lished oTi a firm foundation the i-xisteiiee of his 
 serf's. 
 
 Lavret/ky einerord from the house into tin- 
 L»arden: he seated himself on the familiar Ixrieh 
 — and in that dear spot, in the face of the house, 
 where he had, on the last oceasion. stretched out 
 his hands in vain to the i'atal ciij) in which seetlies 
 and sparkles the wine of delight, — he, a solitary, 
 homeless wanderer,- to the sounds of the merry 
 cries of the vounyer «»eneration which had alreadv 
 superseded hini, — took a snr\iy of iiis life. Ilis 
 heart was sad, hut not hea\ y and not \ery sor- 
 rowful; he had notliin<^' which li< had lu cd to 
 regret or be ashamed of. " IMay on. make merry, 
 grow on, young forces," he thought, and there 
 was no l)itterness in his meditations: " life lies 
 before vou, and it will he easier for mmi to live: 
 vou will not he conipelled. as we ha\r hetii. to 
 seek your road, to struggle, to fall, and to rise 
 to your feet again amid the gloom ; we liave given 
 ourselves great trouble, that we might n-main 
 whole, — and how many of us liave failed in that! 
 — but you must do deeds, work, and the blessing 
 of old fellows like mi' Ix upon \«iii. Hut all that 
 
 30.')
 
 A NOBLEMAN'S NEST 
 
 remains for me, after to-day, after these emo- 
 tions, is to make my final reverence to you, and, 
 although with sadness, yet without envy, without 
 any dark feelings, to say, in view of the end, in 
 view of God who is awaiting me: 'Long live 
 solitary old age! Burn thyself out, useless 
 life!'" 
 
 Lavretzky rose softly, and softly went away; 
 no one noticed him, no one detained him; the 
 merry cries resounded more loudly than ever in 
 the garden behind the green, dense wall of lofty 
 lindens. He seated himself in his tarantas, and 
 ordered the coachman to drive home, and not to 
 press the horses hard. 
 
 "And the end ?" perchance some dissatisfied 
 reader will say. " And what became of Lavret- 
 zky? of Liza?" But what can one say about 
 people who are still alive, but who have already 
 departed from the earthly arena, — why revert 
 to them? They say that Lavretzky paid a visit 
 to that distant convent where Liza had hidden 
 herself — and saw her. In going from one choir 
 to the other, she passed close to him — passed with 
 the even, hurriedly-submissive gait of a nun— 
 and did not cast a glance at him ; only the lashes 
 of the eye which was turned toward him trembled 
 almost imperceptibly, and her haggard face was 
 bowed a little lower than usual — and the fingers 
 of her clasped hands, interlaced with her rosary, 
 
 ^06
 
 A XOHl.KMAX S NKSr 
 
 were pressed more tiglitly to one iiiiotlier. What 
 did they both think, — what did tluy hoth feel? 
 Who knows? Who sliall sav? There are nio- 
 ments in life, there are feelings . . . \vc can only 
 indicate them, — and pass by. 
 
 307
 
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