A Desperate Character and Other Stories

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Punin himself had received his education in a seminary; but, unable to
stand the severe thrashings, and feeling no inclination for the priestly
calling, he had become a layman, and in consequence had experienced all
sorts of hardships; and, finally, had become a vagrant. 'And had I not
met with my benefactor, Paramon Semyonitch,' Punin commonly added (he
never spoke of Baburin except in this way), 'I should have sunk into the
miry abysses of poverty and vice.' Punin was fond of high-sounding
expressions, and had a great propensity, if not for lying, for romancing
and exaggeration; he admired everything, fell into ecstasies over
everything.... And I, in imitation of him, began to exaggerate and be
ecstatic, too. 'What a crazy fellow you've grown! God have mercy on
you!' my old nurse used to say to me. Punin's narratives used to
interest me extremely; but even better than his stories I loved the
readings we used to have together.

It is impossible to describe the feeling I experienced when, snatching
a favourable moment, suddenly, like a hermit in a tale or a good fairy,
he appeared before me with a ponderous volume under his arm, and
stealthily beckoning with his long crooked finger, and winking
mysteriously, he pointed with his head, his eyebrows, his shoulders,
his whole person, toward the deepest recesses of the garden, whither no
one could penetrate after us, and where it was impossible to find us
out. And when we had succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had
satisfactorily reached one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side
by side, and, at last, the book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent
odour, inexpressibly sweet to me then, of mildew and age;--with what a
thrill, with what a wave of dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at
the lips of Punin, those lips from which in a moment a stream of such
delicious eloquence was to flow! At last the first sounds of the
reading were heard. Everything around me vanished ... no, not vanished,
but grew far away, passed into clouds of mist, leaving behind only an
impression of something friendly and protecting. Those trees, those
green leaves, those high grasses screen us, hide us from all the rest
of the world; no one knows where we are, what we are about--while with
us is poetry, we are saturated in it, intoxicated with it, something
solemn, grand, mysterious is happening to us.... Punin, by preference,
kept to poetry, musical, sonorous poetry; he was ready to lay down his
life for poetry. He did not read, he declaimed the verse majestically,
in a torrent of rhythm, in a rolling outpour through his nose, like a
man intoxicated, lifted out of himself, like the Pythian priestess. And
another habit he had: first he would lisp the verses through softly, in
a whisper, as it were mumbling them to himself.... This he used to call
the rough sketch of the reading; then he would thunder out the same
verse in its 'fair copy,' and would all at once leap up, throw up his
hand, with a half-supplicating, half-imperious gesture.... In this way
we went through not only Lomonosov, Sumarokov, and Kantemir (the older
the poems, the more they were to Punin's taste), but even Heraskov's
_Rossiad_. And, to tell the truth, it was this same _Rossiad_ which
aroused my enthusiasm most. There is in it, among others, a mighty
Tatar woman, a gigantic heroine; I have forgotten even her name now;
but in those days my hands and feet turned cold as soon as it was
mentioned. 'Yes,' Punin would say, nodding his head with great
significance, 'Heraskov, he doesn't let one off easily. At times one
comes upon a line, simply heart-breaking.... One can only stick to it,
and do one's best.... One tries to master it, but he breaks away again
and trumpets, trumpets, with the crash of cymbals. His name's been well
bestowed on him--the very word, Herrraskov!' Lomonosov Punin found
fault with for too simple and free a style; while to Derzhavin he
maintained an attitude almost of hostility, saying that he was more of
a courtier than a poet. In our house it was not merely that no
attention was given to literature, to poetry; but poetry, especially
Russian poetry, was looked upon as something quite undignified and
vulgar; my grandmother did not even call it poetry, but 'doggrel
verses'; every author of such doggrel was, in her opinion, either a
confirmed toper or a perfect idiot. Brought up among such ideas, it was
inevitable that I should either turn from Punin with disgust--he was
untidy and shabby into the bargain, which was an offence to my
seignorial habits--or that, attracted and captivated by him, I should
follow his example, and be infected by his passion for poetry.... And
so it turned out. I, too, began reading poetry, or, as my grandmother
expressed it, poring over doggrel trash.... I even tried my hand at
versifying, and composed a poem, descriptive of a barrel-organ, in
which occurred the following two lines:

'Lo, the barrel turns around,
And the cogs within resound.'

Punin commended in this effort a certain imitative melody, but
disapproved of the subject itself as low and unworthy of lyrical
treatment.

Alas! all those efforts and emotions and transports, our solitary
readings, our life together, our poetry, all came to an end at once.
Trouble broke upon us suddenly, like a clap of thunder.

* * * * *

My grandmother in everything liked cleanliness and order, quite in the
spirit of the active generals of those days; cleanliness and order were
to be maintained too in our garden. And so from time to time they
'drove' into it poor peasants, who had no families, no land, no beasts
of their own, and those among the house serfs who were out of favour or
superannuated, and set them to clearing the paths, weeding the borders,
breaking up and sifting the earth in the beds, and so on. Well, one day,
in the very heat of these operations, my grandmother went into the
garden, and took me with her. On all sides, among the trees and about
the lawns, we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all
sides we heard the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of
clods of earth on the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers,
my grandmother with her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was
working with less energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap,
too, with no show of eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young,
with a wasted face, and sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all
torn and patched, scarcely held together over his narrow shoulders.

'Who's that?' my grandmother inquired of Filippitch, who was walking on
tiptoe behind her.

'Of whom ... you are pleased ...' Filippitch stammered.

'Oh, fool! I mean the one that looked so sullenly at me. There, standing
yonder, not working.'

'Oh, him! Yes ... th ... th ... that's Yermil, son of Pavel Afanasiitch,
now deceased.'

Pavel Afanasiitch had been, ten years before, head butler in my
grandmother's house, and stood particularly high in her favour. But
suddenly falling into disgrace, he was as suddenly degraded to being
herdsman, and did not long keep even that position. He sank lower still,
and struggled on for a while on a monthly pittance of flour in a little
hut far away. At last he had died of paralysis, leaving his family in
the most utter destitution.

'Aha!' commented my grandmother; 'it's clear the apple's not fallen far
from the tree. Well, we shall have to make arrangements about this
fellow too. I've no need of people like that, with scowling faces.'

My grandmother went back to the house--and made arrangements. Three
hours later Yermil, completely 'equipped,' was brought under the window
of her room. The unfortunate boy was being transported to a settlement;
the other side of the fence, a few steps from him, was a little cart
loaded with his poor belongings. Such were the times then. Yermil stood
without his cap, with downcast head, barefoot, with his boots tied up
with a string behind his back; his face, turned towards the seignorial
mansion, expressed not despair nor grief, nor even bewilderment; a
stupid smile was frozen on his colourless lips; his eyes, dry and
half-closed, looked stubbornly on the ground. My grandmother was
apprised of his presence. She got up from the sofa, went, with a faint
rustle of her silken skirts, to the window of the study, and, holding
her golden-rimmed double eyeglass on the bridge of her nose, looked at
the new exile. In her room there happened to be at the moment four other
persons, the butler, Baburin, the page who waited on my grandmother in
the daytime, and I.

My grandmother nodded her head up and down....

'Madam,' a hoarse almost stifled voice was heard suddenly. I looked
round. Baburin's face was red ... dark red; under his overhanging brows
could be seen little sharp points of light.... There was no doubt about
it; it was he, it was Baburin, who had uttered the word 'Madam.'

My grandmother too looked round, and turned her eyeglass from Yermil
to Baburin.

'Who is that ... speaking?' she articulated slowly ... through her nose.
Baburin moved slightly forward.

'Madam,' he began, 'it is I.... I venture ... I imagine ... I make bold
to submit to your honour that you are making a mistake in acting as ...
as you are pleased to act at this moment.'

'That is?' my grandmother said, in the same voice, not removing
her eyeglass.

'I take the liberty ...' Baburin went on distinctly, uttering every word
though with obvious effort--'I am referring to the case of this lad who
is being sent away to a settlement ... for no fault of his. Such
arrangements, I venture to submit, lead to dissatisfaction, and to
other--which God forbid!--consequences, and are nothing else than a
transgression of the powers allowed to seignorial proprietors.'

'And where have you studied, pray?' my grandmother asked after a short
silence, and she dropped her eyeglass.

Baburin was disconcerted. 'What are you pleased to wish?' he muttered.

'I ask you: where have you studied? You use such learned words.'

'I ... my education ...' Baburin was beginning.

My grandmother shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. 'It seems,' she
interrupted, 'that my arrangements are not to your liking. That is of
absolutely no consequence to me--among my subjects I am sovereign, and
answerable to no one for them, only I am not accustomed to having people
criticising me in my presence, and meddling in what is not their
business. I have no need of learned philanthropists of nondescript
position; I want servants to do my will without question. So I always
lived till you came, and so I shall live after you've gone. You do not
suit me; you are discharged. Nikolai Antonov,' my grandmother turned to
the steward, 'pay this man off; and let him be gone before dinner-time
to-day! D'you hear? Don't put me into a passion. And the other too ...
the fool that lives with him--to be sent off too. What's Yermilka
waiting for?' she added, looking out of window, 'I have seen him. What
more does he want?' My grandmother shook her handkerchief in the
direction of the window, as though to drive away an importunate fly.
Then she sat down in a low chair, and turning towards us, gave the order
grimly: 'Everybody present to leave the room!'

We all withdrew--all, except the day page, to whom my grandmother's
words did not apply, because he was nobody.

My grandmother's decree was carried out to the letter. Before dinner,
both Baburin and my friend Punin were driving away from the place. I
will not undertake to describe my grief, my genuine, truly childish
despair. It was so strong that it stifled even the feeling of
awe-stricken admiration inspired by the bold action of the republican
Baburin. After the conversation with my grandmother, he went at once to
his room and began packing up. He did not vouchsafe me one word, one
look, though I was the whole time hanging about him, or rather, in
reality, about Punin. The latter was utterly distraught, and he too said
nothing; but he was continually glancing at me, and tears stood in his
eyes ... always the same tears; they neither fell nor dried up. He did
not venture to criticise his 'benefactor'--Paramon Semyonitch could not
make a mistake,--but great was his distress and dejection. Punin and I
made an effort to read something out of the _Rossiad_ for the last time;
we even locked ourselves up in the lumber-room--it was useless to dream
of going into the garden--but at the very first line we both broke down,
and I fairly bellowed like a calf, in spite of my twelve years, and my
claims to be grown-up.

When he had taken his seat in the carriage Baburin at last turned to me,
and with a slight softening of the accustomed sternness of his face,
observed: 'It's a lesson for you, young gentleman; remember this
incident, and when you grow up, try to put an end to such acts of
injustice. Your heart is good, your nature is not yet corrupted....
Mind, be careful; things can't go on like this!' Through my tears, which
streamed copiously over my nose, my lips, and my chin, I faltered out
that I would ... I would remember, that I promised ... I would do ... I
would be sure ... quite sure ...

But at this point, Punin, whom I had before this embraced twenty times
(my cheeks were burning from the contact with his unshaven beard, and I
was odoriferous of the smell that always clung to him)--at this point a
sudden frenzy came over Punin. He jumped up on the seat of the cart,
flung both hands up in the air, and began in a voice of thunder (where
he got it from!) to declaim the well-known paraphrase of the Psalm of
David by Derzhavin,--a poet for this occasion--not a courtier.

'God the All-powerful doth arise
And judgeth in the congregation of the mighty! ...
How long, how long, saith the Lord,
Will ye have mercy on the wicked?
"Ye have to keep the laws...."'

'Sit down!' Baburin said to him.

Punin sat down, but continued:

'To save the guiltless and needy,
To give shelter to the afflicted,
To defend the weak from the oppressors.'

Punin at the word 'oppressors' pointed to the seignorial abode, and then
poked the driver in the back.

'To deliver the poor out of bondage!
They know not! neither will they understand! ...'

Nikolai Antonov running out of the seignorial abode, shouted at the top
of his voice to the coachman: 'Get away with you! owl! go along! don't
stay lingering here!' and the cart rolled away. Only in the distance
could still be heard:

'Arise, O Lord God of righteousness! ...
Come forth to judge the unjust--
And be Thou the only Ruler of the nations!'

'What a clown!' remarked Nikolai Antonov.

'He didn't get enough of the rod in his young days,' observed the
deacon, appearing on the steps. He had come to inquire what hour it
would please the mistress to fix for the night service.

The same day, learning that Yermil was still in the village, and would
not till early next morning be despatched to the town for the execution
of certain legal formalities, which were intended to check the
arbitrary proceedings of the landowners, but served only as a source of
additional revenue to the functionaries in superintendence of them, I
sought him out, and, for lack of money of my own, handed him a bundle,
in which I had tied up two pocket-handkerchiefs, a shabby pair of
slippers, a comb, an old night-gown, and a perfectly new silk cravat.
Yermil, whom I had to wake up--he was lying on a heap of straw in the
back yard, near the cart--Yermil took my present rather indifferently,
with some hesitation in fact, did not thank me, promptly poked his head
into the straw and fell asleep again. I went home somewhat
disappointed. I had imagined that he would be astonished and overjoyed
at my visit, would see in it a pledge of my magnanimous intentions for
the future--and instead of that ...

'You may say what you like--these people have no feeling,' was my
reflection on my homeward way.

My grandmother, who had for some reason left me in peace the whole of
that memorable day, looked at me suspiciously when I came after supper
to say good-night to her.

'Your eyes are red,' she observed to me in French; 'and there's a smell
of the peasant's hut about you. I am not going to enter into an
examination of what you've been feeling and doing--I should not like to
be obliged to punish you--but I hope you will get over all your
foolishness, and begin to conduct yourself once more in a manner
befitting a well-bred boy. However, we are soon going back to Moscow,
and I shall get you a tutor--as I see you need a man's hand to manage
you. You can go.'

We did, as a fact, go back soon after to Moscow.

II

1837

Seven years had passed by. We were living as before at Moscow--but I was
by now a student in my second year--and the authority of my grandmother,
who had aged very perceptibly in the last years, no longer weighed upon
me. Of all my fellow-students the one with whom I was on the friendliest
terms was a light-hearted and good-natured youth called Tarhov. Our
habits and our tastes were similar. Tarhov was a great lover of poetry,
and himself wrote verses; while in me the seeds sown by Punin had not
been without fruit. As is often the case with young people who are very
close friends, we had no secrets from one another. But behold, for
several days together I noticed a certain excitement and agitation in
Tarhov.... He disappeared for hours at a time, and I did not know where
he had got to--a thing which had never happened before. I was on the
point of demanding, in the name of friendship, a full explanation.... He
anticipated me.

One day I was sitting in his room.... 'Petya,' he said suddenly,
blushing gaily, and looking me straight in the face, 'I must introduce
you to my muse.'

'Your muse! how queerly you talk! Like a classicist. (Romanticism was at
that time, in 1837, at its full height.) As if I had not known it ever
so long--your muse! Have you written a new poem, or what?'

'You don't understand what I mean,' rejoined Tarhov, still laughing and
blushing. 'I will introduce you to a living muse.'

'Aha! so that's it! But how is she--yours?'

'Why, because ... But hush, I believe it's she coming here.'

There was the light click of hurrying heels, the door opened, and in the
doorway appeared a girl of eighteen, in a chintz cotton gown, with a
black cloth cape on her shoulders, and a black straw hat on her fair,
rather curly hair. On seeing me she was frightened and disconcerted, and
was beating a retreat ... but Tarhov at once rushed to meet her.

'Please, please, Musa Pavlovna, come in! This is my great friend, a
splendid fellow--and the soul of discretion. You've no need to be afraid
of him. Petya,' he turned to me, 'let me introduce my Musa--Musa
Pavlovna Vinogradov, a great friend of mine.'

I bowed.

'How is that ... Musa?' I was beginning.... Tarhov laughed. 'Ah, you
didn't know there was such a name in the calendar? I didn't know it
either, my boy, till I met this dear young lady. Musa! such a charming
name! And suits her so well!'

I bowed again to my comrade's great friend. She left the door, took two
steps forward and stood still. She was very attractive, but I could not
agree with Tarhov's opinion, and inwardly said to myself: 'Well, she's a
strange sort of muse!'

The features of her curved, rosy face were small and delicate; there was
an air of fresh, buoyant youth about all her slender, miniature figure;
but of the muse, of the personification of the muse, I--and not only
I--all the young people of that time had a very different conception!
First of all the muse had infallibly to be dark-haired and pale. An
expression of scornful pride, a bitter smile, a glance of inspiration,
and that 'something'--mysterious, demonic, fateful--that was essential
to our conception of the muse, the muse of Byron, who at that time held
sovereign sway over men's fancies. There was nothing of that kind to be
discerned in the face of the girl who came in. Had I been a little older
and more experienced I should probably have paid more attention to her
eyes, which were small and deep-set, with full lids, but dark as agate,
alert and bright, a thing rare in fair-haired people. Poetical
tendencies I should not have detected in their rapid, as it were
elusive, glance, but hints of a passionate soul, passionate to
self-forgetfulness. But I was very young then.

I held out my hand to Musa Pavlovna--she did not give me hers--she did
not notice my movement; she sat down on the chair Tarhov placed for her,
but did not take off her hat and cape.

She was, obviously, ill at ease; my presence embarrassed her. She
drew deep breaths, at irregular intervals, as though she were
gasping for air.

'I've only come to you for one minute, Vladimir Nikolaitch,' she
began--her voice was very soft and deep; from her crimson, almost
childish lips, it seemed rather strange;--'but our madame would not let
me out for more than half an hour. You weren't well the day before
yesterday ... and so, I thought ...'

She stammered and hung her head. Under the shade of her thick, low brows
her dark eyes darted--to and fro--elusively. There are dark, swift,
flashing beetles that flit so in the heat of summer among the blades of
dry grass.

'How good you are, Musa, Musotchka!' cried Tarhov. 'But you must stay,
you must stay a little.... We'll have the samovar in directly.'

'Oh no, Vladimir Nikolaevitch! it's impossible! I must go away
this minute.'

'You must rest a little, anyway. You're out of breath.... You're tired.'

'I'm not tired. It's ... not that ... only ... give me another book;
I've finished this one.' She took out of her pocket a tattered grey
volume of a Moscow edition.

'Of course, of course. Well, did you like it? _Roslavlev_,' added
Tarhov, addressing me.

'Yes. Only I think _Yury Miloslavsky_ is much better. Our madame is very
strict about books. She says they hinder our working. For, to her
thinking ...'

'But, I say, _Yury Miloslavsky_'s not equal to Pushkin's _Gipsies_? Eh?
Musa Pavlovna?' Tarhov broke in with a smile.

'No, indeed! The _Gipsies_ ...' she murmured slowly. 'Oh yes, another
thing, Vladimir Nikolaitch; don't come to-morrow ... you know where.'

'Why not?'

'It's impossible.'

'But why?'

The girl shrugged her shoulders, and all at once, as though she had
received a sudden shove, got up from her chair.

'Why, Musa, Musotchka,' Tarhov expostulated plaintively. 'Stay a
little!'

'No, no, I can't.' She went quickly to the door, took hold of the
handle....

'Well, at least, take the book!'

'Another time.'

Tarhov rushed towards the girl, but at that instant she darted out of
the room. He almost knocked his nose against the door. 'What a girl!
She's a regular little viper!' he declared with some vexation, and then
sank into thought.

I stayed at Tarhov's. I wanted to find out what was the meaning of it
all. Tarhov was not disposed to be reserved. He told me that the girl
was a milliner; that he had seen her for the first time three weeks
before in a fashionable shop, where he had gone on a commission for his
sister, who lived in the provinces, to buy a hat; that he had fallen in
love with her at first sight, and that next day he had succeeded in
speaking to her in the street; that she had herself, it seemed, taken
rather a fancy to him.

'Only, please, don't you suppose,' he added with warmth,--'don't you
imagine any harm of her. So far, at any rate, there's been nothing of
that sort between us.

'Harm!' I caught him up; 'I've no doubt of that; and I've no doubt
either that you sincerely deplore the fact, my dear fellow! Have
patience--everything will come right'

'I hope so,' Tarhov muttered through his teeth, though with a laugh.
'But really, my boy, that girl ... I tell you--it's a new type, you
know. You hadn't time to get a good look at her. She's a shy thing!--oo!
such a shy thing! and what a will of her own! But that very shyness is
what I like in her. It's a sign of independence! I'm simply over head
and ears, my boy!'

Tarhov fell to talking of his 'charmer,' and even read me the beginning
of a poem entitled: 'My Muse.' His emotional outpourings were not quite
to my taste. I felt secretly jealous of him. I soon left him.

* * * * *

A few days after I happened to be passing through one of the arcades of
the Gostinny Dvor. It was Saturday; there were crowds of people
shopping; on all sides, in the midst of the pushing and crushing, the
shopmen kept shouting to people to buy. Having bought what I wanted, I
was thinking of nothing but getting away from their teasing importunity
as soon as possible--when all at once I halted involuntarily: in a fruit
shop I caught sight of my comrade's charmer--Musa, Musa Pavlovna! She
was standing, profile to me, and seemed to be waiting for something.
After a moment's hesitation I made up my mind to go up to her and speak.
But I had hardly passed through the doorway of the shop and taken off my
cap, when she tottered back dismayed, turned quickly to an old man in a
frieze cloak, for whom the shopman was weighing out a pound of raisins,
and clutched at his arm, as though fleeing to put herself under his
protection. The latter, in his turn, wheeled round facing her--and,
imagine my amazement, I recognised him as Punin!

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