A Desperate Character and Other Stories
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Ivan Turgenev >> A Desperate Character and Other Stories
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XIV
'What a place to find a Werter!' I thought next day, as I set off again
towards the brigadier's dwelling. I was at that time very young, and
that was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting
nature of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story
I had heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make
him talk freely. 'I'll first refer to Suvorov again,' so I resolved
within myself; 'there must be some spark of his former fire hidden
within him still ... and then, when he's warmed up, I'll turn the
conversation on that ... what's her name? ... Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer
name for a "Charlotte"--Agrafena!'
I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few
steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut,
overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut
some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly
slipping and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort
of green stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just
pulled a young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm
'to clean it,' proceeded to chew its thin tail.... I bowed to him, and
inquired after his health.
He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting--that
is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off
munching the carrot.
'You didn't go fishing to-day?' I began, in the hope of recalling myself
to his memory by this question.
'To-day?' he repeated and pondered ... while the carrot, stuck into his
mouth, grew shorter and shorter. 'Why, I suppose it's Cucumber
fishing! ... But I'm allowed to, too.'
'Of course, of course, most honoured Vassily Fomitch.... I didn't mean
that.... But aren't you hot ... like this in the sun.'
The brigadier was wearing a thick wadded dressing-gown.
'Eh? Hot?' he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and,
having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards.
'Would you care to step into my apartement?' he said suddenly. The
poor old man had, it seemed, only this phrase still left him always at
his disposal.
We went out of the kitchen-garden ... but there involuntarily I stopped
short. Between us and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to
the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily
and furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the
dust up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his
tail, and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly,
and bellowed--not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time
menacingly. I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped
forward with perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, 'Now then,
country bumpkin,' shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again,
bowed his horns ... suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging
his head from side to side.
'There's no doubt he took Prague,' I thought.
We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which
was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, 'Fa!' ... squatted down on the
edge of a chair ... bowed his head gloomily....
'I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,' I began my diplomatic approaches,
'because, as you have served under the leadership of the great
Suvorov--have taken part altogether in such important events--it would
be very interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.'
The brigadier stared at me.... His face kindled strangely--I began to
expect, if not a story, at least some word of approval, of sympathy....
'But I, sir, must be going to die soon,' he said in an undertone.
I was utterly nonplussed.
'Why, Vassily Fomitch, 'I brought out at last, 'what makes you ...
suppose that?'
The brigadier suddenly flung his arms violently up and down.
'Because, sir ... I, as maybe you know ... often in my dreams see
Agrippina Ivanovna--Heaven's peace be with her!--and never can I catch
her; I am always running after her--but cannot catch her. But last
night--I dreamed--she was standing, as it were, before me, half-turned
away, and laughing.... I ran up to her at once and caught her ... and she
seemed to turn round quite and said to me: "Well, Vassinka, now you
have caught me."'
'What do you conclude from that, Vassily Fomitch?'
'Why, sir, I conclude: it has come, that we shall be together. And glory
to God for it, I tell you; glory be to God Almighty, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost (the brigadier fell into a chant): as it was in
the beginning, is now and ever shall be, Amen!'
The brigadier began crossing himself. I could get nothing more out of
him, so I went away.
XV
The next day my friend arrived.... I mentioned the brigadier, and my
visits to him....
'Oh yes! of course! I know his story,' answered my friend; 'I know
Madame Lomov very well, the privy councillor's widow, by whose favour he
obtained a home here. Oh, wait a minute; I believe there must be
preserved here his letter to the privy councillor's widow; it was on the
strength of that letter that she assigned him his little cot.' My friend
rummaged among his papers and actually found the brigadier's letter.
Here it is word for word, with the omission of the mistakes in spelling.
The brigadier, like every one of his epoch, was a little hazy in that
respect. But to preserve these errors seemed unnecessary; his letter
bears the stamp of his age without them.
'HONOURED MADAM, RAISSA PAVLOVNA!--On the decease of my friend, and your
aunt, I had the happiness of addressing to you two letters, the first on
the first of June, the second on the sixth of July of the year 1815,
while she expired on the sixth of May in that year; in them I discovered
to you the feelings of my soul and of my heart, which were crushed under
deadly wrongs, and they reflected in full my bitter despair, in truth
deserving of commiseration; both letters were despatched by the imperial
mail registered, and hence I cannot conceive that they have not been
perused by your eye. By the genuine candour of my letters, I had counted
upon winning your benevolent attention; but the compassionate feelings
of your heart were far removed from me in my woe! Left on the loss of my
one only friend, Agrippina Ivanovna, in the most distressed and
poverty-stricken circumstances, I rested, by her instructions, all my
hopes on your bounty; she, aware of her end approaching, said to me in
these words, as it were from the grave, and never can I forget them: "My
friend, I have been your serpent, and am guilty of all your unhappiness.
I feel how much you have sacrificed for me, and in return I leave you in
a disastrous and truly destitute situation; on my death have recourse to
Raissa Pavlovna"--that is, to you--"and implore her aid, invite her
succour! She has a feeling heart, and I have confidence in her, that she
will not leave you forlorn." Honoured madam, let me call to witness the
all-high Creator of the world that those were her words, and I am
speaking with her tongue; and, therefore, trusting firmly in your
goodness, to you first of all I addressed myself with my open-hearted
and candid letters; but after protracted expectation, receiving no reply
to them, I could not conceive otherwise than that your benevolent heart
had left me without attention! Such your unfavourable disposition
towards me, reduced me to the depths of despair--whither, and to whom,
was I to turn in my misfortune I knew not; my soul was troubled, my
intellect went astray; at last, for the completion of my ruin, it
pleased Providence to chastise me in a still more cruel manner, and to
turn my thoughts to your deceased aunt, Fedulia Ivanovna, sister of
Agrippina Ivanovna, one in blood, but not one in heart! Having present
to myself, before my mind's eye, that I had been for twenty years
devoted to the whole family of your kindred, the Lomovs, especially to
Fedulia Ivanovna, who never called Agrippina Ivanovna otherwise than "my
heart's precious treasure," and me "the most honoured and zealous friend
of our family"; picturing all the above, among abundant tears and sighs
in the stillness of sorrowful night watches, I thought: "Come,
brigadier! so, it seems, it is to be!" and, addressing myself by letter
to the said Fedulia Ivanovna, I received a positive assurance that she
would share her last crumb with me! The presents sent on by me, more
than five hundred roubles' worth in value, were accepted with supreme
satisfaction; and afterwards the money too which I brought with me for
my maintenance, Fedulia Ivanovna was pleased, on the pretext of guarding
it, to take into her care, to the which, to gratify her, I offered no
opposition.
If you ask me whence, and on what ground I conceived such confidence--to
the above, madam, there is but one reply: she was sister of Agrippina
Ivanovna, and a member of the Lomov family! But alas and alas! all the
money aforesaid I was very soon deprived of, and the hopes which I had
rested on Fedulia Ivanovna--that she would share her last crumb with
me--turned out to be empty and vain; on the contrary, the said Fedulia
Ivanovna enriched herself with my property. To wit, on her saint's day,
the fifth of February, I brought her fifty roubles' worth of green
French material, at five roubles the yard; I myself received of all that
was promised five roubles' worth of white pique for a waistcoat and a
muslin handkerchief for my neck, which gifts were purchased in my
presence, as I was aware, with my own money--and that was all that I
profited by Fedulia Ivanovna's bounty! So much for the last crumb! And I
could further, in all sincerity, disclose the malignant doings of
Fedulia Ivanovna to me; and also my expenses, exceeding all reason, as,
among the rest, for sweetmeats and fruits, of which Fedulia Ivanovna was
exceedingly fond;--but upon all this I am silent, that you may not take
such disclosures against the dead in bad part; and also, seeing that God
has called her before His judgment seat--and all that I suffered at her
hands is blotted out from my heart--and I, as a Christian, forgave her
long ago, and pray to God to forgive her!
'But, honoured madam, Raissa Pavlovna! Surely you will not blame me for
that I was a true and loyal friend of your family, and that I loved
Agrippina Ivanovna with a love so great and so insurmountable that I
sacrificed to her my life, my honour, and all my fortune! that I was
utterly in her hands, and hence could not dispose of myself nor of my
property, and she disposed at her will of me and also of my estate! It
is known to you also that, owing to her action with her servant, I
suffer, though innocent, a deadly wrong--this affair I brought after her
death before the senate, before the sixth department--it is still
unsettled now--in consequence of which I was made accomplice with her,
my estate put under guardianship, and I am still lying under a criminal
charge! In my position, at my age, such disgrace is intolerable to me;
and it is only left me to console my heart with the mournful reflection
that thus, even after Agrippina Ivanovna's death, I suffer for her sake,
and so prove my immutable love and loyal gratitude to her!
'In my letters, above mentioned, to you, I gave you an account with
every detail of Agrippina Ivanovna's funeral, and what masses were read
for her--my affection and love for her spared no outlay! For all the
aforesaid, and for the forty days' requiems, and the reading of the
psalter six weeks after for her (in addition to above, fifty roubles
of mine were lost, which were given as security for payment for
the stone, of which I sent you a description)--on all the aforesaid
was spent of my money seven hundred and fifty roubles, in which is
included, by way of donation to the church, a hundred and fifty roubles.
'In the goodness of your heart, hear the cry of a desperate man, crushed
beneath a load of the crudest calamities! Only your commiseration and
humanity can restore the life of a ruined man! Though living--in the
suffering of my heart and soul I am as one dead; dead when I think what
I was, and what I am; I was a soldier, and served my country in all
fidelity and uprightness, as is the bounden duty of a loyal Russian and
faithful subject, and was rewarded with the highest honours, and had a
fortune befitting my birth and station; and now I must cringe and beg
for a morsel of dry bread; dead above all I am when I think what a
friend I have lost ... and what is life to me after that? But there is
no hastening one's end, and the earth will not open, but rather seems
turned to stone! And so I call upon you, in the benevolence of your
heart, hush the talk of the people, do not expose yourself to universal
censure, that for all my unbounded devotion I have not where to lay my
head; confound them by your bounty to me, turn the tongues of the evil
speakers and slanderers to glorifying your good works--and I make bold
in all humility to add, comfort in the grave your most precious aunt,
Agrippina Ivanovna, who can never be forgotten, and who for your speedy
succour, in answer to my sinful prayers, will spread her protecting
wings about your head, and comfort in his declining days a lonely old
man, who had every reason to expect a different fate! ... And, with the
most profound respect, I have the honour to be, dear madam, your most
devoted servant,
VASSILY GUSKOV,
_Brigadier and cavalier._'
Several years later I paid another visit to my friend's little place....
Vassily Fomitch had long been dead; he died soon after I made his
acquaintance. Cucumber was still flourishing. He conducted me to the
tomb of Agrafena Ivanovna. An iron railing enclosed a large slab with a
detailed and enthusiastically laudatory epitaph on the deceased woman;
and there, beside it, as it were at her feet, could be seen a little
mound with a slanting cross on it; the servant of God, the brigadier and
cavalier, Vassily Guskov, lay under this mound.... His ashes found rest
at last beside the ashes of the creature he had loved with such
unbounded, almost undying, love.
1867.
PYETUSHKOV
I
In the year 182- ... there was living in the town of O---- the
lieutenant Ivan Afanasiitch Pyetushkov. He was born of poor parents, was
left an orphan at five years old, and came into the charge of a
guardian. Thanks to this guardian, he found himself with no property
whatever; he had a hard struggle to make both ends meet. He was of
medium height, and stooped a little; he had a thin face, covered with
freckles, but rather pleasing; light brown hair, grey eyes, and a timid
expression; his low forehead was furrowed with fine wrinkles.
Pyetushkov's whole life had been uneventful in the extreme; at close
upon forty he was still youthful and inexperienced as a child. He was
shy with acquaintances, and exceedingly mild in his manner with persons
over whose lot he could have exerted control....
People condemned by fate to a monotonous and cheerless existence often
acquire all sorts of little habits and preferences. Pyetushkov liked to
have a new white roll with his tea every morning. He could not do
without this dainty. But behold one morning his servant, Onisim, handed
him, on a blue-sprigged plate, instead of a roll, three dark red rusks.
Pyetushkov at once asked his servant, with some indignation, what he
meant by it.
'The rolls have all been sold out,' answered Onisim, a native of
Petersburg, who had been flung by some queer freak of destiny into the
very wilds of south Russia.
'Impossible!' exclaimed Ivan Afanasiitch.
'Sold out,' repeated Onisim; 'there's a breakfast at the Marshal's, so
they've all gone there, you know.'
Onisim waved his hand in the air, and thrust his right foot forward.
Ivan Afanasiitch walked up and down the room, dressed, and set off
himself to the baker's shop. This establishment, the only one of the
kind in the town of O----, had been opened ten years before by a German
immigrant, had in a short time begun to flourish, and was still
flourishing under the guidance of his widow, a fat woman.
Pyetushkov tapped at the window. The fat woman stuck her unhealthy,
flabby, sleepy countenance out of the pane that opened.
'A roll, if you please,' Pyetushkov said amiably.
'The rolls are all gone,' piped the fat woman.
'Haven't you any rolls?'
'No.'
'How's that?--really! I take rolls from you every day, and pay for them
regularly.'
The woman stared at him in silence. 'Take twists,' she said at last,
yawning; 'or a scone.'
'I don't like them,' said Pyetushkov, and he felt positively hurt.
'As you please,' muttered the fat woman, and she slammed to the
window-pane.
Ivan Afanasiitch was quite unhinged by his intense vexation. In his
perturbation he crossed to the other side of the street, and gave
himself up entirely, like a child, to his displeasure.
'Sir!' ... he heard a rather agreeable female voice; 'sir!'
Ivan Afanasiitch raised his eyes. From the open pane of the bakehouse
window peeped a girl of about seventeen, holding a white roll in her
hand. She had a full round face, rosy cheeks, small hazel eyes, rather a
turn-up nose, fair hair, and magnificent shoulders. Her features
suggested good-nature, laziness, and carelessness.
'Here's a roll for you, sir,' she said, laughing, 'I'd taken for myself;
but take it, please, I'll give it up to you.'
'I thank you most sincerely. Allow me ...'
Pyetushkov began fumbling in his pocket.
'No, no! you are welcome to it.'
She closed the window-pane.
Pyetushkov arrived home in a perfectly agreeable frame of mind.
'You couldn't get any rolls,' he said to his Onisim; 'but here, I've got
one, do you see?'
Onisim gave a bitter laugh.
The same day, in the evening, as Ivan Afanasiitch was undressing, he
asked his servant, 'Tell me, please, my lad, what's the girl like at the
baker's, hey?'
Onisim looked away rather gloomily, and responded, 'What do you want to
know for?'
'Oh, nothing,' said Pyetushkov, taking off his boots with his own hands.
'Well, she's a fine girl!' Onisim observed condescendingly.
'Yes, ... she's not bad-looking,' said Ivan Afanasiitch, also looking
away. 'And what's her name, do you know?'
'Vassilissa.'
'And do you know her?'
Onisim did not answer for a minute or two.
'We know her.'
Pyetushkov was on the point of opening his mouth again, but he turned
over on the other side and fell asleep.
Onisim went out into the passage, took a pinch of snuff, and gave his
head a violent shake.
The next day, early in the morning, Pyetushkov called for his clothes.
Onisim brought him his everyday coat--an old grass-coloured coat, with
huge striped epaulettes. Pyetushkov gazed a long while at Onisim without
speaking, then told him to bring him his new coat. Onisim, with some
surprise, obeyed. Pyetushkov dressed, and carefully drew on his
chamois-leather gloves.
'You needn't go to the baker's to-day,' said he with some hesitation;
'I'm going myself, ... it's on my way.'
'Yes, sir,' responded Onisim, as abruptly as if some one had just given
him a shove from behind.
Pyetushkov set off, reached the baker's shop, tapped at the window. The
fat woman opened the pane.
'Give me a roll, please,' Ivan Afanasiitch articulated slowly.
The fat woman stuck out an arm, bare to the shoulder--a huge arm, more
like a leg than an arm--and thrust the hot bread just under his nose.
Ivan Afanasiitch stood some time under the window, walked once or twice
up and down the street, glanced into the courtyard, and at last, ashamed
of his childishness, returned home with the roll in his hand. He felt
ill at ease the whole day, and even in the evening, contrary to his
habit, did not drop into conversation with Onisim.
The next morning it was Onisim who went
for the roll.
II
Some weeks went by. Ivan Afanasiitch had completely forgotten
Vassilissa, and chatted in a friendly way with his servant as before.
One fine morning there came to see him a certain Bublitsyn, an
easy-mannered and very agreeable young man. It is true he sometimes
hardly knew himself what he was talking about, and was always, as they
say, a little wild; but all the same he had the reputation of being an
exceedingly agreeable person to talk to. He smoked a great deal with
feverish eagerness, with lifted eyebrows and contracted chest--smoked
with an expression of intense anxiety, or, one might rather say, with an
expression as though, let him have this one more puff at his pipe, and
in a minute he would tell you some quite unexpected piece of news; at
times he would even give a grunt and a wave of the hand, while himself
sucking at his pipe, as though he had suddenly recollected something
extraordinarily amusing or important, then he would open his mouth, let
off a few rings of smoke, and utter the most commonplace remarks, or
even keep silence altogether. After gossiping a little with Ivan
Afanasiitch about the neighbours, about horses, the daughters of the
gentry around, and other such edifying topics, Mr. Bublitsyn suddenly
winked, pulled up his shock of hair, and, with a sly smile, approached
the remarkably dim looking-glass which was the solitary ornament of Ivan
Afanasiitch's room.
'There's no denying the fact,' he pronounced, stroking his light brown
whiskers, 'we've got girls here that beat any of your Venus of Medicis
hollow.... Have you seen Vassilissa, the baker girl, for instance?' ...
Mr. Bublitsyn sucked at his pipe.
Pyetushkov started.
'But why do I ask you?' pursued Bublitsyn, disappearing in a cloud of
smoke,--'you're not the man to notice, don't you know, Ivan Afanasiitch!
Goodness knows what you do to occupy yourself, Ivan Afanasiitch!'
'The same as you do,' Pyetushkov replied with some vexation, in a
drawling voice.
'Oh no, Ivan Afanasiitch, not a bit of it.... How can you say so?'
'Well, why not?'
'Nonsense, nonsense.'
'Why so, why so?'
Bublitsyn stuck his pipe in the corner of his mouth, and began
scrutinising his not very handsome boots. Pyetushkov felt embarrassed.
'Ah, Ivan Afanasiitch, Ivan Afanasiitch!' pursued Bublitsyn, as though
sparing his feelings. 'But as to Vassilissa, the baker girl, I can
assure you: a very, ve-ry fine girl, ... ve-ry.'
Mr. Bublitsyn dilated his nostrils, and slowly plunged his hands into
his pockets.
Strange to relate, Ivan Afanasiitch felt something of the nature of
jealousy. He began moving restlessly in his chair, burst into explosive
laughter at nothing at all, suddenly blushed, yawned, and, as he yawned,
his lower jaw twitched a little. Bublitsyn smoked three more pipes, and
withdrew. Ivan Afanasiitch went to the window, sighed, and called for
something to drink.
Onisim set a glass of kvas on the table, glanced severely at his master,
leaned back against the door, and hung his head dejectedly.
'What are you so thoughtful about?' his master asked him genially, but
with some inward trepidation.
'What am I thinking about?' retorted Onisim; 'what am I thinking
about? ... it's always about you.'
'About me!'
'Of course it's about you.'
'Why, what is it you are thinking?'
'Why, this is what I'm thinking.' (Here Onisim took a pinch of snuff.)
'You ought to be ashamed, sir--you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'
'Ashamed?'
'Yes, ashamed.... Look at Mr. Bublitsyn, Ivan Afanasiitch.... Tell me if
he's not a fine fellow, now.'
'I don't understand you.'
'You don't understand me.... Oh yes, you do understand me.'
Onisim paused.
'Mr. Bublitsyn's a real gentleman--what a gentleman ought to be. But
what are you, Ivan Afanasiitch, what are you? Tell me that.'
'Why, I'm a gentleman too.'
'A gentleman, indeed!' ... retorted Onisim, growing indignant. 'A pretty
gentleman you are! You're no better, sir, than a hen in a shower of
rain, Ivan Afanasiitch, let me tell you. Here you sit sticking at home
the whole blessed day ... much good it does you, sitting at home like
that! You don't play cards, you don't go and see the gentry, and as
for ... well ...'
Onisim waved his hand expressively.
'Now, come ... you really go ... too far ...' Ivan Afanasiitch said
hesitatingly, clutching his pipe.
'Too far, indeed, Ivan Afanasiitch, too far, you say! Judge for
yourself. Here again, with Vassilissa ... why couldn't you ...'
'But what are you thinking about, Onisim,' Pyetushkov interrupted
miserably.
'I know what I'm thinking about. But there--I'd better let you alone!
What can you do? Only fancy ... there you ...'
Ivan Afanasiitch got up.
'There, there, if you please, you hold your tongue,' he said quickly,
seeming to be searching for Onisim with his eyes; 'I shall really,
you know ... I ... what do you mean by it, really? You'd better help
me dress.'
Onisim slowly drew off Ivan Afanasiitch's greasy Tartar dressing-gown,
gazed with fatherly commiseration at his master, shook his head, put him
on his coat, and fell to beating him about the back with a brush.
Pyetushkov went out, and after a not very protracted stroll about the
crooked streets of the town, found himself facing the baker's shop. A
queer smile was playing about his lips.
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