A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

XIV

Souvenir, who had been drinking continuously ever since the beginning of luncheon, suddenly got up from his chair as red as a beetroot, and pointing his finger at Martin Petrovitch, went off into his mawkish, paltry laugh.

‘Generous-hearted! Generous-hearted!’ he began croaking; ‘but we shall see whether this generosity will be much to his taste when he’s stripped naked, the servant of God … and out in the snow, too!’

‘What rot are you talking, fool?’ said Harlov contemptuously.

‘Fool! fool!’ repeated Souvenir. ‘God Almighty alone knows which of us is the real fool. But you, brother, did my sister, your wife, to her death, and now you’ve done for yourself … ha-ha-ha!’

‘How dare you insult our honoured benefactor?’ Sletkin began shrilly, and, tearing himself away from Martin Petrovitch, whose shoulder he had clutched, he flew at Souvenir. ‘But let me tell you, if our benefactor desires it, we can cancel the deed this very minute!’

‘And yet, you’ll strip him naked, and turn him out into the snow …’ returned Souvenir, retreating behind Kvitsinsky.

‘Silence!’ thundered Harlov. ‘I’ll pound you into a jelly! And you hold your tongue too, puppy!’ he turned to Sletkin; ‘don’t put in your word where you’re not wanted! If I, Martin Petrovitch Harlov, have decided to make a deed of partition, who can cancel the same act against my will? Why, in the whole world there is no power…’

‘Martin Petrovitch!’ the attorney began in a mellow bass – he too had drunk a good deal, but his dignity was only increased thereby – ‘but how if the gentleman has spoken the truth? You have done a generous action; to be sure, but how if – God forbid – in reality in place of fitting gratitude, some affront come of it?’

I stole a glance at both Martin Petrovitch’s daughters. Anna’s eyes were simply pinned upon the speaker, and a face more spiteful, more snake-like, and more beautiful in its very spite I had certainly never seen! Evlampia sat turned away, with her arms folded. A smile more scornful than ever curved her full, rosy lips.

Harlov got up from his chair, opened his mouth, but apparently his tongue failed him… He suddenly brought his fist down on the table, so that everything in the room danced and rang.

‘Father,’ Anna said hurriedly, ‘they do not know us, and that is why they judge of us so. But don’t, please, make yourself ill. You are angered for nothing, indeed; see, your face is, as it were, twisted awry.’

Harlov looked towards Evlampia; she did not stir, though Zhitkov, sitting beside her, gave her a poke in the side.

‘Thank you, my daughter Anna,’ said Harlov huskily; ‘you are a sensible girl; I rely upon you and on your husband too.’ Sletkin once more gave vent to a shrill little sound; Zhitkov expanded his chest and gave a little scrape with his foot; but Harlov did not observe his efforts. ‘This dolt,’ he went on, with a motion of his chin in the direction of Souvenir, ‘is pleased to get a chance to teaze me; but you, my dear sir,’ he addressed himself to the attorney, ‘it is not for you to pass judgment on Martin Harlov; that is something beyond you. Though you are a man in official position, your words are most foolish. Besides, the deed is done, there will be no going back from my determination… Now, I will wish you good-day, I am going away. I am no longer the master of this house, but a guest in it. Anna, do you do your best; but I will go to my own room. Enough!’

Martin Petrovitch turned his back on us, and, without adding another word, walked deliberately out of the room.

This sudden withdrawal on the part of our host could not but break up the party, especially as the two hostesses also vanished not long after. Sletkin vainly tried to keep us. The police captain did not fail to blame the attorney for his uncalled-for candour. ‘Couldn’t help it!’ the latter responded… ‘My conscience spoke.’

‘There, you see that he’s a mason,’ Souvenir whispered to me.

‘Conscience!’ retorted the police captain. ‘We know all about your conscience! I suppose it’s in your pocket, just the same as it is with us sinners!’

The priest, meanwhile, even though already on his feet, foreseeing the speedy termination of the repast, lifted mouthful after mouthful to his mouth without a pause.

‘You’ve got a fine appetite, I see,’ Sletkin observed to him sharply.

‘Storing up for the future,’ the priest responded with a meek grimace; years of hunger were expressed in that reply.

The carriages rattled up … and we separated. On the way home, no one hindered Souvenir’s chatter and silly tricks, as Kvitsinsky had announced that he was sick of all this ‘wholly superfluous’ unpleasantness, and had set off home before us on foot. In his place, Zhitkov took a seat in our coach. The retired major wore a most dissatisfied expression, and kept twitching his moustaches like a spider.

‘Well, your noble Excellency,’ lisped Souvenir, ‘is subordination exploded, eh? Wait a bit and see what will happen! They’ll give you the sack too. Ah, a poor bridegroom you are, a poor bridegroom, an unlucky bridegroom!’

Souvenir was positively beside himself; while poor Zhitkov could do nothing but twitch his moustaches.

When I got home I told my mother all I had seen. She heard me to the end, and shook her head several times. ‘It’s a bad business,’ was her comment. ‘I don’t like all these innovations!’

XV

Next day Martin Petrovitch came to dinner. My mother congratulated him on the successful conclusion of his project. ‘You are now a free man,’ she said, ‘and ought to feel more at ease.’

‘More at ease, to be sure, madam,’ answered Martin Petrovitch, by no means, however, showing in the expression of his face that he really was more at ease. ‘Now I can meditate upon my soul, and make ready for my last hour, as I ought.’

‘Well,’ queried my mother, ‘and do the shooting pains still tingle in your arms?’

Harlov twice clenched and unclenched his left arm. ‘They do, madam; and I’ve something else to tell you. As I begin to drop asleep, some one cries in my head, “Take care!” “Take care!”’

‘That’s nerves,’ observed my mother, and she began speaking of the previous day, and referred to certain circumstances which had attended the completion of the deed of partition…

‘To be sure, to be sure,’ Harlov interrupted her, ‘there was something of the sort … of no consequence. Only there’s something I would tell you,’ he added, hesitating – ‘I was not disturbed yesterday by Souvenir’s silly words – even Mr. Attorney, though he’s no fool – even he did not trouble me; no, it was quite another person disturbed me – ’ Here Harlov faltered.

‘Who?’ asked my mother.

Harlov fastened his eyes upon her: ‘Evlampia!’

‘Evlampia? Your daughter? How was that?’

‘Upon my word, madam, she was like a stone! nothing but a statue! Can it be she has no feeling? Her sister, Anna – well, she was all she should be. She’s a keen-witted creature! But Evlampia – why, I’d shown her – I must own – so much partiality! Can it be she’s no feeling for me! It’s clear I’m in a bad way; it’s clear I’ve a feeling that I’m not long for this world, since I make over everything to them; and yet she’s like a stone! she might at least utter a sound! Bows – yes, she bows, but there’s no thankfulness to be seen.’

‘There, give over,’ observed my mother, ‘we’ll marry her to Gavrila Fedulitch … she’ll soon get softer in his hands.’

Martin Petrovitch once more looked from under his brows at my mother. ‘Well, there’s Gavrila Fedulitch, to be sure! You have confidence in him, then, madam?’

‘I’ve confidence in him.’

‘Very well; you should know best, to be sure. But Evlampia, let me tell you, is like me. The character is just the same. She has the wild Cossack blood, and her heart’s like a burning coal!’

‘Why, do you mean to tell me you’ve a heart like that, my dear sir?’

Harlov made no answer. A brief silence followed.

‘What are you going to do, Martin Petrovitch,’ my mother began, ‘in what way do you mean to set about saving your soul now? Will you set off to Mitrophan or to Kiev, or may be you’ll go to the Optin desert, as it’s in the neighbourhood? There, they do say, there’s a holy monk appeared … Father Makary they call him, no one remembers any one like him! He sees right through all sins.’

‘If she really turns out an ungrateful daughter,’ Harlov enunciated in a husky voice, ‘then it would be better for me, I believe, to kill her with my own hands!’

‘What are you saying! Lord, have mercy on you!’ cried my mother. ‘Think what you’re saying! There, see, what a pretty pass it’s come to. You should have listened to me the other day when you came to consult me! Now, here, you’ll go tormenting yourself, instead of thinking of your soul! You’ll be tormenting yourself, and all to no purpose! Yes! Here you’re complaining now, and faint-hearted…’

This reproach seemed to stab Harlov to the heart. All his old pride came back to him with a rush. He shook himself, and thrust out his chin. ‘I am not a man, madam, Natalia Nikolaevna, to complain or be faint-hearted,’ he began sullenly. ‘I simply wished to reveal my feelings to you as my benefactress and a person I respect. But the Lord God knows (here he raised his hand high above his head) that this globe of earth may crumble to pieces before I will go back from my word, or … (here he positively snorted) show a faint heart, or regret what I have done! I had good reasons, be sure! My daughters will never forget their duty, for ever and ever, amen!’

My mother stopped her ears. ‘What’s this for, my good sir, like a trumpet-blast! If you really have such faith in your family, well, praise the Lord for it! You’ve quite put my brains in a whirl!’

Martin Petrovitch begged pardon, sighed twice, and was silent. My mother once more referred to Kiev, the Optin desert, and Father Makary… Harlov assented, said that ‘he must … he must … he would have to … his soul …’ and that was all. He did not regain his cheerfulness before he went away. From time to time he clenched and unclenched his fist, looked at his open hand, said that what he feared above everything was dying without repentance, from a stroke, and that he had made a vow to himself not to get angry, as anger vitiated his blood and drove it to his head… Besides, he had now withdrawn from everything. What grounds could he have for getting angry? Let other people trouble themselves now and vitiate their blood!

As he took leave of my mother he looked at her in a strange way, mournfully and questioningly … and suddenly, with a rapid movement, drew out of his pocket the volume of The Worker’s Leisure-Hour, and thrust it into my mother’s hand.

‘What’s that?’ she inquired.

‘Read … here,’ he said hurriedly, ‘where the corner’s turned down, about death. It seems to me, it’s terribly well said, but I can’t make it out at all. Can’t you explain it to me, my benefactress? I’ll come back again and you explain it me.’

With these words Martin Petrovitch went away.

‘He’s in a bad way, he’s in a bad way,’ observed my mother, directly he had disappeared through the doorway, and she set to work upon the Leisure-Hour. On the page turned down by Harlov were the following words:

‘Death is a grand and solemn work of nature. It is nothing else than that the spirit, inasmuch as it is lighter, finer, and infinitely more penetrating than those elements under whose sway it has been subject, nay, even than the force of electricity itself, so is chemically purified and striveth upward till what time it attaineth an equally spiritual abiding-place for itself …’ and so on.

My mother read this passage through twice, and exclaiming, ‘Pooh!’ she flung the book away.

Three days later, she received the news that her sister’s husband was dead, and set off to her sister’s country-seat, taking me with her. My mother proposed to spend a month with her, but she stayed on till late in the autumn, and it was only at the end of September that we returned to our own estate.

XVI

The first news with which my valet, Prokofy, greeted me (he regarded himself as the seignorial huntsman) was that there was an immense number of wild snipe on the wing, and that in the birch-copse near Eskovo (Harlov’s property), especially, they were simply swarming. I had three hours before me till dinner-time. I promptly seized my gun and my game-bag, and with Prokofy and a setter-dog, hastened to the Eskovo copse. We certainly did find a great many wild snipe there, and, firing about thirty charges, killed five. As I hurried homewards with my booty, I saw a peasant ploughing near the roadside. His horse had stopped, and with tearful and angry abuse he was mercilessly tugging with the cord reins at the animal’s head, which was bent on one side. I looked attentively at the luckless beast, whose ribs were all but through its skin, and, bathed in sweat, heaved up and down with convulsive, irregular movements like a blacksmith’s bellows. I recognised it at once as the decrepit old mare, with the scar on her shoulder, who had served Martin Petrovitch so many years.

‘Is Mr. Harlov living?’ I asked Prokofy. The chase had so completely absorbed us, that up to that instant we had not talked of anything.

‘Yes, he’s alive. Why?’

‘But that’s his mare, isn’t it? Do you mean to say he’s sold her?’

‘His mare it is, to be sure; but as to selling, he never sold her. But they took her away from him, and handed her over to that peasant.’

‘How, took it? And he consented?’

‘They never asked his consent. Things have changed here in your absence,’ Prokofy observed. With a faint smile in response to my look of amazement; ‘worse luck! My goodness, yes! Now Sletkin’s master, and orders every one about.’

‘But Martin Petrovitch?’

‘Why, Martin Petrovitch has become the very last person here, you may say. He’s on bread and water, – what more can one say? They’ve crushed him altogether. Mark my words; they’ll drive him out of the house.’

The idea that it was possible to drive such a giant had never entered my head. ‘And what does Zhitkov say to it?’ I asked at last. ‘I suppose he’s married to the second daughter?’

‘Married?’ repeated Prokofy, and this time he grinned all over his face. ‘They won’t let him into the house. “We don’t want you,” they say; “get along home with you.” It’s as I said; Sletkin directs every one.’

‘But what does the young lady say?’

‘Evlampia Martinovna? Ah, master, I could tell you … but you’re young – one must think of that. Things are going on here that are … oh!.. oh!.. oh! Hey! why Dianka’s setting, I do believe!’

My dog actually had stopped short, before a thick oak bush which bordered a narrow ravine by the roadside. Prokofy and I ran up to the dog; a snipe flew up out of the bush, we both fired at it and missed; the snipe settled in another place; we followed it.

The soup was already on the table when I got back. My mother scolded me. ‘What’s the meaning of it?’ she said with displeasure; ‘the very first day, and you keep us waiting for dinner.’ I brought her the wild snipe I had killed; she did not even look at them. There were also in the room Souvenir, Kvitsinsky, and Zhitkov. The retired major was huddled in a corner, for all the world like a schoolboy in disgrace. His face wore an expression of mingled confusion and annoyance; his eyes were red… One might positively have imagined he had recently been in tears. My mother remained in an ill humour. I was at no great pains to surmise that my late arrival did not count for much in it. During dinner-time she hardly talked at all. The major turned beseeching glances upon her from time to time, but ate a good dinner nevertheless. Souvenir was all of a shake. Kvitsinsky preserved his habitual self-confidence of demeanour.

‘Vikenty Osipitch,’ my mother addressed him, ‘I beg you to send a carriage to-morrow for Martin Petrovitch, since it has come to my knowledge that he has none of his own. And bid them tell him to come without fail, that I desire to see him.’

Kvitsinsky was about to make some rejoinder, but he restrained himself.

‘And let Sletkin know,’ continued my mother, ‘that I command him to present himself before me… Do you hear? I com … mand!’

‘Yes, just so … that scoundrel ought – ’ Zhitkov was beginning in a subdued voice; but my mother gave him such a contemptuous look, that he promptly turned away and was silent.

‘Do you hear? I command!’ repeated my mother.

‘Certainly, madam,’ Kvitsinsky replied submissively but with dignity.

‘Martin Petrovitch won’t come!’ Souvenir whispered to me, as he came out of the dining-room with me after dinner. ‘You should just see what’s happened to him! It’s past comprehension! It’s come to this, that whatever they say to him, he doesn’t understand a word! Yes! They’ve got the snake under the pitch-fork!’

And Souvenir went off into his revolting laugh.

XVII

Souvenir’s prediction turned out correct. Martin Petrovitch would not come to my mother. She was not at all pleased with this, and despatched a letter to him. He sent her a square bit of paper, on which the following words were written in big letters: ‘Indeed I can’t. I should die of shame. Let me go to my ruin. Thanks. Don’t torture me. – Martin Harlov.’ Sletkin did come, but not on the day on which my mother had ‘commanded’ his attendance, but twenty-four hours later. My mother gave orders that he should be shown into her boudoir… God knows what their interview was about, but it did not last long; a quarter of an hour, not more. Sletkin came out of my mother’s room, crimson all over, and with such a viciously spiteful and insolent expression of face, that, meeting him in the drawing-room, I was simply petrified, while Souvenir, who was hanging about there, stopped short in the middle of a snigger. My mother came out of her boudoir, also very red in the face, and announced, in the hearing of all, that Mr. Sletkin was never, upon any pretext, to be admitted to her presence again, and that if Martin Petrovitch’s daughters were to make bold – they’ve impudence enough, said she – to present themselves, they, too, were to be refused admittance. At dinner-time she suddenly exclaimed, ‘The vile little Jew! I picked him out of the gutter, I made him a career, he owes everything, everything to me, – and he dares to tell me I’ve no business to meddle in their affairs! that Martin Petrovitch is full of whims and fancies, and it’s impossible to humour him! Humour him, indeed! What a thing to say! Ah, he’s an ungrateful wretch! An insolent little Jew!’

Major Zhitkov, who happened to be one of the company at dinner, imagined that now it was no less than the will of the Almighty for him to seize the opportunity and put in his word … but my mother promptly settled him. ‘Well, and you’re a fine one, too, my man!’ she commented. ‘Couldn’t get the upper hand of a girl, and he an officer! In command of a squadron! I can fancy how it obeyed you! He take a steward’s place indeed! a fine steward he’d make!’

Kvitsinsky, who was sitting at the end of the table, smiled to himself a little malignantly, while poor Zhitkov could do nothing but twitch his moustaches, lift his eyebrows, and bury the whole of his hirsute countenance in his napkin.

After dinner, he went out on to the steps to smoke his pipe as usual, and he struck me as so miserable and forlorn, that, although I had never liked him, I joined myself on to him at once.

‘How was it, Gavrila Fedulitch,’ I began without further beating about the bush, ‘that your affair with Evlampia Martinovna was broken off? I’d expected you to be married long ago.’

The retired major looked at me dejectedly.

‘A snake in the grass,’ he began, uttering each letter of each syllable with bitter distinctness, ‘has poisoned me with his fang, and turned all my hopes in life to ashes. And I could tell you, Dmitri Semyonovitch, all his hellish wiles, but I’m afraid of angering your mamma.’ (‘You’re young yet’ – Prokofy’s expression flashed across my mind.) ‘Even as it is’ – Zhitkov groaned.

‘Patience … patience … nothing else is left me. (He struck his fist upon his chest.) Patience, old soldier, patience. I served the Tsar faithfully … honourably … yes. I spared neither blood nor sweat, and now see what I am brought to. Had it been in the regiment – and the matter depending upon me,’ he continued after a short silence, spent in convulsively sucking at his cherrywood pipe, ‘I’d have … I’d have given it him with the flat side of my sword … three times over … till he’d had enough…’

Zhitkov took the pipe out of his mouth, and fixed his eyes on vacancy, as though admiring the picture he had conjured up.

Souvenir ran up, and began quizzing the major. I turned away from them, and determined, come what may, I would see Martin Petrovitch with my own eyes… My boyish curiosity was greatly stirred.

XVIII

Next day I set out with my gun and dog, but without Prokofy, to the Eskovo copse. It was an exquisite day; I fancy there are no days like that in September anywhere but in Russia. The stillness was such that one could hear, a hundred paces off, the squirrel hopping over the dry leaves, and the broken twig just feebly catching at the other branches, and falling, at last, on the soft grass – to lie there for ever, not to stir again till it rotted away. The air, neither warm nor chill, but only fragrant, and as it were keen, was faintly, deliciously stinging in my eyes and on my cheeks. A long spider-web, delicate as a silken thread, with a white ball in the middle, floated smoothly in the air, and sticking to the butt-end of my gun, stretched straight out in the air – a sign of settled and warm weather. The sun shone with a brightness as soft as moonlight. Wild snipe were to be met with pretty often; but I did not pay special attention to them. I knew that the copse went on almost to Harlov’s homestead, right up to the hedge of his garden, and I turned my steps in that direction, though I could not even imagine how I should get into the place itself, and was even doubtful whether I ought to try to do so, as my mother was so angry with its new owners. Sounds of life and humanity reached me from no great distance. I listened… Some one was coming through the copse … straight towards me.

‘You should have said so straight out, dear,’ I heard a woman’s voice.

‘Be reasonable,’ another voice broke in, the voice of a man. ‘Can one do it all at once?’

I knew the voices. There was the gleam of a woman’s blue gown through the reddening nut bushes. Beside it stood a dark full coat. Another instant – and there stepped out into the glade, five paces from me, Sletkin and Evlampia.

They were disconcerted at once. Evlampia promptly stepped back, away into the bushes. Sletkin thought a little, and came up to me. There was not a trace to be seen in his face of the obsequious meekness, with which he had paced up and down Harlov’s courtyard, four months before, rubbing up my horse’s snaffle. But neither could I perceive in it the insolent defiance, which had so struck me on the previous day, on the threshold of my mother’s boudoir. It was still as white and pretty as ever, but seemed broader and more solid.

‘Well, have you shot many snipe?’ he asked me, raising his cap, smiling, and passing his hand over his black curls; ‘you are shooting in our copse… You are very welcome. We would not hinder you… Quite the contrary.’

‘I have killed nothing to-day,’ I rejoined, answering his first question; ‘and I will go out of your copse this instant.’

Sletkin hurriedly put on his cap. ‘Indeed, why so? We would not drive you out – indeed, we’re delighted… Here’s Evlampia Martinovna will say the same. Evlampia Martinovna, come here. Where have you hidden yourself?’ Evlampia’s head appeared behind the bushes. But she did not come up to us. She had grown prettier, and seemed taller and bigger than ever.

‘I’m very glad, to tell the truth,’ Sletkin went on, ‘that I have met you. Though you are still young in years, you have plenty of good sense already. Your mother was pleased to be very angry with me yesterday – she would not listen to reason of any sort from me, but I declare, as before God, so before you now, I am not to blame in any way. We can’t treat Martin Petrovitch otherwise than we do; he’s fallen into complete dotage. One can’t humour all his whims, really. But we show him all due respect. Only ask Evlampia Martinovna.’