A Desperate Character and Other Stories
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Ivan Turgenev >> A Desperate Character and Other Stories
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'Why so?'
'Why, we are dreadfully scared with him.... He's not a man, he's a
wolf,--nothing better than a wolf. He keeps moving and moving about, and
doesn't speak--and looks so wild.... He almost gnashes his teeth at me.
My Katia, you know, is so nervous.... She was so struck with him the
first day.... I'm in terror for her, and indeed for myself too.' ... I
didn't know what to say to my aunt. I couldn't, anyway, turn Misha out,
after inviting him.
He relieved me himself from my difficult position. The same day,--I was
still sitting in my own room,--suddenly I heard behind me a husky and
angry voice: 'Nikolai Nikolaitch, Nikolai Nikolaitch!' I looked round;
Misha was standing in the doorway with a face that was fearful,
black-looking and distorted. 'Nikolai Nikolaitch!' he repeated ... (not
'uncle' now).
'What do you want?'
'Let me go ... at once!'
'Why?'
'Let me go, or I shall do mischief, I shall set the house on fire or cut
some one's throat.' Misha suddenly began trembling. 'Tell them to give
me back my clothes, and let a cart take me to the highroad, and let me
have some money, however little!'
'Are you displeased, then, at anything?'
'I can't live like this!' he shrieked at the top of his voice. 'I can't
live in your respectable, thrice-accursed house! It makes me sick, and
ashamed to live so quietly! ... How _you_ manage to endure it!'
'That is,' I interrupted in my turn, 'you mean--you can't live without
drink....'
'Well, yes! yes!' he shrieked again: 'only let me go to my
brethren, my friends, to the beggars! ... Away from your
respectable, loathsome species!'
I was about to remind him of his sworn promises, but Misha's frenzied
look, his breaking voice, the convulsive tremor in his limbs,--it was
all so awful, that I made haste to get rid of him; I said that his
clothes should be given him at once, and a cart got ready; and taking
a note for twenty-five roubles out of a drawer, I laid it on the
table. Misha had begun to advance in a menacing way towards me,--but
on this, suddenly he stopped, his face worked, flushed, he struck
himself on the breast, the tears rushed from his eyes, and muttering,
'Uncle! angel! I know I'm a ruined man! thanks! thanks!' he snatched
up the note and ran away.
An hour later he was sitting in the cart dressed once more in his
Circassian costume, again rosy and cheerful; and when the horses
started, he yelled, tore off the peaked cap, and, waving it over his
head, made bow after bow. Just as he was going off, he had given me a
long and warm embrace, and whispered, 'Benefactor, benefactor ...
there's no saving me!' He even ran to the ladies and kissed their hands,
fell on his knees, called upon God, and begged their forgiveness! Katia
I found afterwards in tears.
The coachman, with whom Misha had set off, on coming home informed me
that he had driven him to the first tavern on the highroad--and that
there 'his honour had stuck,' had begun treating every one
indiscriminately--and had quickly sunk into unconsciousness.
From that day I never came across Misha again, but his ultimate fate I
learned in the following manner.
VIII
Three years later, I was again at home in the country; all of a sudden a
servant came in and announced that Madame Poltyev was asking to see me.
I knew no Madame Poltyev, and the servant, who made this announcement,
for some unknown reason smiled sarcastically. To my glance of inquiry,
he responded that the lady asking for me was young, poorly dressed, and
had come in a peasant's cart with one horse, which she was driving
herself! I told him to ask Madame Poltyev up to my room.
I saw a woman of five-and-twenty, in the dress of the small tradesman
class, with a large kerchief on her head. Her face was simple, roundish,
not without charm; she looked dejected and gloomy, and was shy and
awkward in her movements.
'You are Madame Poltyev?' I inquired, and I asked her to sit down.
'Yes,' she answered in a subdued voice, and she did not sit down. 'I am
the widow of your nephew, Mihail Andreevitch Poltyev.'
'Is Mihail Andreevitch dead? Has he been dead long? But sit down, I
beg.'
She sank into a chair.
'It's two months.'
'And had you been married to him long?'
'I had been a year with him.'
'Where have you come from now?'
'From out Tula way.... There's a village there,
Znamenskoe-Glushkovo--perhaps you may know it. I am the daughter of the
deacon there. Mihail Andreitch and I lived there.... He lived in my
father's house. We were a whole year together.'
The young woman's lips twitched a little, and she put her hand up to
them. She seemed to be on the point of tears, but she controlled
herself, and cleared her throat.
'Mihail Andreitch,' she went on: 'before his death enjoined upon me to
go to you; "You must be sure to go," said he! And he told me to thank
you for all your goodness, and to give you ... this ... see, this little
thing (she took a small packet out of her pocket) which he always had
about him.... And Mihail Andreitch said, if you would be pleased to
accept it in memory of him, if you would not disdain it.... "There's
nothing else," said he, "I can give him" ... that is, you....'
In the packet there was a little silver cup with the monogram of Misha's
mother. This cup I had often seen in Misha's hands, and once he had even
said to me, speaking of some poor fellow, that he really was destitute,
since he had neither cup nor bowl, 'while I, see, have this anyway.'
I thanked her, took the cup, and asked:
'Of what complaint had Misha died? No doubt....'
Then I bit my tongue ... but the young woman understood my unuttered
hint.... She took a swift glance at me, then looked down again, smiled
mournfully, and said at once: 'Oh no! he had quite given that up, ever
since he got to know me ... But he had no health at all! ... It was
shattered quite. As soon as he gave up drink, he fell into ill health
directly. He became so steady; he always wanted to help father in his
land or in the garden, ... or any other work there might be ... in spite
of his being of noble birth. But how could he get the strength? ... At
writing, too, he tried to work; as you know, he could do that work
capitally, but his hands shook, and he couldn't hold the pen properly.
... He was always finding fault with himself; "I'm a white-handed poor
creature," he would say; "I've never done any good to anybody, never
helped, never laboured!" He worried himself very much about that.... He
used to say that our people labour,--but what use are we? ... Ah,
Nikolai Nikolaitch, he was a good man--and he was fond of me ... and
I... Ah, pardon me....'
Here the young woman wept outright. I would have consoled her, but I did
not know how.
'Have you a child left you?' I asked at last.
She sighed. 'No, no child.... Is it likely?' And her tears flowed faster
than ever.
'And so that was how Misha's troubled wanderings had ended,' the old man
P. wound up his narrative. 'You will agree with me, I am sure, that I'm
right in calling him a desperate character; but you will most likely
agree too that he was not like the desperate characters of to-day;
still, a philosopher, you must admit, would find a family likeness
between him and them. In him and in them there's the thirst for
self-destruction, the wretchedness, the dissatisfaction.... And what it
all comes from, I leave the philosopher to decide.'
BOUGIVALLE, _November_ 1881.
A STRANGE STORY
Fifteen years ago--began H.--official duties compelled me to spend a few
days in the principal town of the province of T----. I stopped at a very
fair hotel, which had been established six months before my arrival by a
Jewish tailor, who had grown rich. I am told that it did not flourish
long, which is often the case with us; but I found it still in its full
splendour: the new furniture emitted cracks like pistol-shots at night;
the bed-linen, table-cloths, and napkins smelt of soap, and the painted
floors reeked of olive oil, which, however, in the opinion of the
waiter, an exceedingly elegant but not very clean individual, tended to
prevent the spread of insects. This waiter, a former valet of Prince
G.'s, was conspicuous for his free-and-easy manners and his
self-assurance. He invariably wore a second-hand frockcoat and slippers
trodden down at heel, carried a table-napkin under his arm, and had a
multitude of pimples on his cheeks. With a free sweeping movement of his
moist hands he gave utterance to brief but pregnant observations. He
showed a patronising interest in me, as a person capable of appreciating
his culture and knowledge of the world; but he regarded his own lot in
life with a rather disillusioned eye. 'No doubt about it,' he said to me
one day; 'ours is a poor sort of position nowadays. May be sent flying
any day!' His name was Ardalion.
I had to make a few visits to official persons in the town. Ardalion
procured me a coach and groom, both alike shabby and loose in the
joints; but the groom wore livery, the carriage was adorned with an
heraldic crest. After making all my official calls, I drove to see a
country gentleman, an old friend of my father's, who had been a long
time settled in the town.... I had not met him for twenty years; he had
had time to get married, to bring up a good-sized family, to be left a
widower and to make his fortune. His business was with government
monopolies, that is to say, he lent contractors for monopolies loans at
heavy interest.... 'There is always honour in risk,' they say, though
indeed the risk was small.
In the course of our conversation there came into the room with
hesitating steps, but as lightly as though on tiptoe, a young girl of
about seventeen, delicate-looking and thin. 'Here,' said my
acquaintance, 'is my eldest daughter Sophia; let me introduce you. She
takes my poor wife's place, looks after the house, and takes care of her
brothers and sisters.' I bowed a second time to the girl who had come in
(she meanwhile dropped into a chair without speaking), and thought to
myself that she did not look much like housekeeping or looking after
children. Her face was quite childish, round, with small, pleasing, but
immobile features; the blue eyes, under high, also immobile and
irregular eyebrows, had an intent, almost astonished look, as though
they had just observed something unexpected; the full little mouth with
the lifted upper lip, not only did not smile, but seemed as though
altogether innocent of such a practice; the rosy flush under the tender
skin stood in soft, diffused patches on the cheeks, and neither paled
nor deepened. The fluffy, fair hair hung in light clusters each side of
the little head. Her bosom breathed softly, and her arms were pressed
somehow awkwardly and severely against her narrow waist. Her blue gown
fell without folds--like a child's--to her little feet. The general
impression this girl made upon me was not one of morbidity, but of
something enigmatical. I saw before me not simply a shy, provincial
miss, but a creature of a special type--that I could not make out. This
type neither attracted nor repelled me; I did not fully understand it,
and only felt that I had never come across a nature more sincere. Pity
... yes! pity was the feeling that rose up within me at the sight of
this young, serious, keenly alert life--God knows why! 'Not of this
earth,' was my thought, though there was nothing exactly 'ideal' in the
expression of the face, and though Mademoiselle Sophie had obviously
come into the drawing-room in fulfilment of those duties of lady of the
house to which her father had referred.
He began to talk of life in the town of T----, of the social amusements
and advantages it offered. 'We're very quiet here,' he observed; 'the
governor's a melancholy fellow; the marshal of the province is a
bachelor. But there'll be a big ball in the Hall of the Nobility the day
after to-morrow. I advise you to go; there are some pretty girls here.
And you'll see all our _intelligentsi_ too.'
My acquaintance, as a man of university education, was fond of using
learned expressions. He pronounced them with irony, but also with
respect. Besides, we all know that moneylending, together with
respectability, developes a certain thoughtfulness in men.
'Allow me to ask, will you be at the ball?' I said, turning to my
friend's daughter. I wanted to hear the sound of her voice.
'Papa intends to go,' she answered, 'and I with him.'
Her voice turned out to be soft and deliberate, and she articulated
every syllable fully, as though she were puzzled.
'In that case, allow me to ask you for the first quadrille.'
She bent her head in token of assent, and even then did not smile.
I soon withdrew, and I remember the expression in her eyes, fixed
steadily upon me, struck me as so strange that I involuntarily looked
over my shoulder to see whether there were not some one or some thing
she was looking at behind my back.
I returned to the hotel, and after dining on the never-varied
'soupe-julienne,' cutlets, and green peas, and grouse cooked to a dry,
black chip, I sat down on the sofa and gave myself up to reflection. The
subject of my meditations was Sophia, this enigmatical daughter of my
old acquaintance; but Ardalion, who was clearing the table, explained my
thoughtfulness in his own way; he set it down to boredom.
'There is very little in the way of entertainment for visitors in our
town,' he began with his usual easy condescension, while he went on at
the same time flapping the backs of the chairs with a dirty
dinner-napkin--a practice peculiar, as you're doubtless aware, to
servants of superior education. 'Very little!'
He paused, and the huge clock on the wall, with a lilac rose on its
white face, seemed in its monotonous, sleepy tick, to repeat his words:
'Ve-ry! ve-ry!' it ticked. 'No concerts, nor theatres,' pursued Ardalion
(he had travelled abroad with his master, and had all but stayed in
Paris; he knew much better than to mispronounce this last word, as the
peasants do)--'nor dances, for example; nor evening receptions among the
nobility and gentry--there is nothing of the kind whatever.' (He paused
a moment, probably to allow me to observe the choiceness of his
diction.) 'They positively visit each other but seldom. Every one sits
like a pigeon on its perch. And so it comes to pass that visitors have
simply nowhere to go.'
Ardalion stole a sidelong glance at me.
'But there is one thing,' he went on, speaking with a drawl, 'in case
you should feel that way inclined....'
He glanced at me a second time and positively leered, but I suppose did
not observe signs of the requisite inclination in me.
The polished waiter moved towards the door, pondered a moment, came
back, and after fidgeting about uneasily a little, bent down to my ear,
and with a playful smile said:
'Would you not like to behold the dead?'
I stared at him in perplexity.
'Yes,' he went on, speaking in a whisper; 'there is a man like that
here. He's a simple artisan, and can't even read and write, but he does
marvellous things. If you, for example, go to him and desire to see any
one of your departed friends, he will be sure to show him you.'
'How does he do it?'
'That's his secret. For though he's an uneducated man--to speak bluntly,
illiterate--he's very great in godliness! Greatly respected he is among
the merchant gentry!'
'And does every one in the town know about this?'
'Those who need to know; but, there, of course--there's danger from the
police to be guarded against. Because, say what you will, such doings
are forbidden anyway, and for the common people are a temptation; the
common people--the mob, we all know, quickly come to blows.'
'Has he shown you the dead?' I asked Ardalion.
Ardalion nodded. 'He has; my father he brought before me as if living.'
I stared at Ardalion. He laughed and played with his dinner-napkin, and
condescendingly, but unflinchingly, looked at me.
'But this is very curious!' I cried at last. 'Couldn't I make the
acquaintance of this artisan?'
'You can't go straight to him; but one can act through his mother. She's
a respectable old woman; she sells pickled apples on the bridge. If you
wish it, I will ask her.'
'Please do.'
Ardalion coughed behind his hand. 'And a gratuity, whatever you think
fit, nothing much, of course, should also be handed to her--the old
lady. And I on my side will make her understand that she has nothing to
fear from you, as you are a visitor here, a gentleman--and of course you
can understand that this is a secret, and will not in any case get her
into any unpleasantness.'
Ardalion took the tray in one hand, and with a graceful swing of the
tray and his own person, turned towards the door.
'So I may reckon upon you!' I shouted after him.
'You may trust me!' I heard his self-satisfied voice say: 'We'll talk to
the old woman and transmit you her answer exactly.'
* * * * *
I will not enlarge on the train of thought aroused in me by the
extraordinary fact Ardalion had related; but I am prepared to admit that
I awaited the promised reply with impatience. Late in the evening
Ardalion came to me and announced that to his annoyance he could not
find the old woman. I handed him, however, by way of encouragement, a
three-rouble note. The next morning he appeared again in my room with a
beaming countenance; the old woman had consented to see me.
'Hi! boy!' shouted Ardalion in the corridor; 'Hi! apprentice! Come
here!' A boy of six came up, grimed all over with soot like a kitten,
with a shaved head, perfectly bald in places, in a torn, striped smock,
and huge goloshes on his bare feet. 'You take the gentleman, you know
where,' said Ardalion, addressing the 'apprentice,' and pointing to me.
'And you, sir, when you arrive, ask for Mastridia Karpovna.'
The boy uttered a hoarse grunt, and we set off.
* * * * *
We walked rather a long while about the unpaved streets of the town of
T----; at last in one of them, almost the most deserted and desolate of
all, my guide stopped before an old two-story wooden house, and wiping
his nose all over his smock-sleeve, said: 'Here; go to the right.' I
passed through the porch into the outer passage, stumbled towards my
right, a low door creaked on rusty hinges, and I saw before me a stout
old woman in a brown jacket lined with hare-skin, with a parti-coloured
kerchief on her head.
'Mastridia Karpovna?' I inquired.
'The same, at your service,' the old woman replied in a piping voice.
'Please walk in. Won't you take a chair?'
The room into which the old woman conducted me was so littered up with
every sort of rubbish, rags, pillows, feather-beds, sacks, that one
could hardly turn round in it. The sunlight barely struggled in through
two dusty little windows; in one corner, from behind a heap of boxes
piled on one another, there came a feeble whimpering and wailing.... I
could not tell from what; perhaps a sick baby, or perhaps a puppy. I sat
down on a chair, and the old woman stood up directly facing me. Her face
was yellow, half-transparent like wax; her lips were so fallen in that
they formed a single straight line in the midst of a multitude of
wrinkles; a tuft of white hair stuck out from below the kerchief on her
head, but the sunken grey eyes peered out alertly and cleverly from
under the bony overhanging brow; and the sharp nose fairly stuck out
like a spindle, fairly sniffed the air as if it would say: I'm a smart
one! 'Well, you're no fool!' was my thought. At the same time she smelt
of spirits.
I explained to her the object of my visit, of which, however, as I
observed, she must be aware. She listened to me, blinked her eyes
rapidly, and only lifted her nose till it stuck out still more sharply,
as though she were making ready to peck.
'To be sure, to be sure,' she said at last; 'Ardalion Matveitch did say
something, certainly; my son Vassinka's art you were wanting.... But we
can't be sure, my dear sir....'
'Oh, why so?' I interposed. 'As far as I'm concerned, you may feel
perfectly easy.... I'm not an informer.'
'Oh, mercy on us,' the old woman caught me up hurriedly, 'what do you
mean? Could we dare to suppose such a thing of your honour! And on what
ground could one inform against us? Do you suppose it's some sinful
contrivance of ours? No, sir, my son's not the one to lend himself to
anything wicked ... or give way to any sort of witchcraft.... God forbid
indeed, holy Mother of Heaven! (The old woman crossed herself three
times.) He's the foremost in prayer and fasting in the whole province;
the foremost, your honour, he is! And that's just it: great grace has
been vouchsafed to him. Yes, indeed. It's not the work of his hands.
It's from on high, my dear; so it is.'
'So you agree?' I asked: 'when can I see your son?'
The old woman blinked again and shifted her rolled up handkerchief from
one sleeve to the other.
'Oh, well, sir--well, sir, I can't say.'
'Allow me, Mastridia Karpovna, to hand you this,' I interrupted, and I
gave her a ten-rouble note.
The old woman clutched it at once in her fat, crooked fingers, which
recalled the fleshy claws of an owl, quickly slipped it into her sleeve,
pondered a little, and as though she had suddenly reached a decision,
slapped her thighs with her open hand.
'Come here this evening a little after seven,' she said, not in her
previous voice, but in quite a different one, more solemn and subdued;
'only not to this room, but kindly go straight up to the floor above,
and you'll find a door to your left, and you open that door; and you'll
go, your honour, into an empty room, and in that room you'll see a
chair. Sit you down on that chair and wait; and whatever you see, don't
utter a word and don't do anything; and please don't speak to my son
either; for he's but young yet, and he suffers from fits. He's very
easily scared; he'll tremble and shake like any chicken ... a sad
thing it is!'
I looked at Mastridia. 'You say he's young, but since he's your son ...'
'In the spirit, sir, in the spirit. Many's the orphan I have under my
care!' she added, wagging her head in the direction of the corner, from
which came the plaintive whimper. 'O--O God Almighty, holy Mother of
God! And do you, your honour, before you come here, think well which of
your deceased relations or friends--the kingdom of Heaven to
them!--you're desirous of seeing. Go over your deceased friends, and
whichever you select, keep him in your mind, keep him all the while till
my son comes!'
'Why, mustn't I tell your son whom ...'
'Nay, nay, sir, not one word. He will find out what he needs in your
thoughts himself. You've only to keep your friend thoroughly in mind;
and at your dinner drink a drop of wine--just two or three glasses; wine
never comes amiss.' The old woman laughed, licked her lips, passed her
hand over her mouth, and sighed.
'So at half-past seven?' I queried, getting up from my chair.
'At half-past seven, your honour, at half-past seven,' Mastridia
Karpovna replied reassuringly.
* * * * *
I took leave of the old woman and went back to the hotel. I did not
doubt that they were going to make a fool of me, but in what way?--that
was what excited my curiosity. With Ardalion I did not exchange more
than two or three words. 'Did she see you?' he asked me, knitting his
brow, and on my affirmative reply, he exclaimed: 'The old woman's as
good as any statesman!' I set to work, in accordance with the
'statesman's' counsel, to run over my deceased friends.
After rather prolonged hesitation I fixed, at last, on an old man who
had long been dead, a Frenchman, once my tutor. I selected him not
because he had any special attraction for me; but his whole figure was
so original, so unlike any figure of to-day, that it would be utterly
impossible to imitate it. He had an enormous head, fluffy white hair
combed straight back, thick black eyebrows, a hawk nose, and two large
warts of a pinkish hue in the middle of the forehead; he used to wear a
green frockcoat with smooth brass buttons, a striped waistcoat with a
stand-up collar, a jabot and lace cuffs. 'If he shows me my old
Dessaire,' I thought, 'well, I shall have to admit that he's a
sorcerer!'
At dinner I followed the old dame's behest and drank a bottle of
Lafitte, of the first quality, so Ardalion averred, though it had a
very strong flavour of burnt cork, and a thick sediment at the bottom
of each glass.
* * * * *
Exactly at half-past seven I stood in front of the house where I had
conversed with the worthy Mastridia Karpovna. All the shutters of the
windows were closed, but the door was open. I went into the house,
mounted the shaky staircase to the first story, and opening a door on
the left, found myself, as the old woman had said, in a perfectly empty,
rather large room; a tallow candle set in the window-sill threw a dim
light over the room; against the wall opposite the door stood a
wicker-bottomed chair. I snuffed the candle, which had already burnt
down enough to form a long smouldering wick, sat down on the chair and
began to wait.
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