The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories Part 19

"He is a reckless man--that 's a fact. But the mistress pins her hopes on thee in that respect."

"I obey, sir."

"It 's a pity about one thing:.... there 's that deaf man, Garaska, who 's paying court to thee. And how hast thou bewitched that bear? I do believe he 'll kill thee, the bear that he is...."

"He will, Gavrila Andreitch, he 'll infallibly kill me."

"He will.... Well, we 'll see about that. What makes thee say, 'He 'll kill me'? Has he the right to kill thee, pray? Judge for thyself."

"Why, I don't know, Gavrila Andreitch, whether he has a right or not."

"What a girl! I suppose thou hast not made him any promise...."

"What do you mean, sir?"

The major-domo paused for a while, and thought:

"Thou art a meek soul!"--"Well, very good,"--he added; "we will have another talk about it, and now, go thy way, Tatyana; I see that thou really art an obedient girl."

Tatyana turned, leaned lightly against the door-jamb, and left the room.

"But perhaps the mistress will have forgotten about this wedding by to-morrow,"--meditated the major-domo. "Why have I been alarmed? We 'll pinion that insolent fellow if he makes any trouble--we 'll send word to the police.... Ustinya Feodorovna!"--he shouted in a loud voice to his wife, "prepare the samovar, my good woman...."

All that day, Tatyana hardly quitted the laundry. At first she wept, then she wiped away her tears, and set to work as of yore. Kapiton sat until the dead of night in a drinking establishment with a friend of gloomy aspect, and narrated to him in detail how he had lived in Peter with a certain gentleman who had everything that heart could desire, and was a great stickler for order, and withal permitted himself one little delinquency: he was wont to get awfully fuddled, and as for the feminine s.e.x, he simply had all the qualities to attract... His gloomy comrade merely expressed a.s.sent; but when Kapiton announced, at last, that, owing to certain circ.u.mstances, he must lay violent hands upon himself on the morrow, the gloomy comrade remarked that it was time to go to bed. And they parted churlishly, and in silence.

In the meantime, the major-domo's expectations were not realised. The idea of Kapiton's wedding had so captivated the mistress, that even during the night she had talked of nothing else with one of her companions, whom she kept in the house solely in case of sleeplessness, and who, like night cabmen, slept by day. When Gavrila entered her room after tea with his report, her first question was:

"And how about our wedding?"

He replied, of course, that it was progressing famously, and that Kapiton would present himself to her that same day to thank her.

The mistress was slightly indisposed; she did not occupy herself long with business. The major-domo returned to his own room and called a council. The matter really did require particular consideration. Tatyana did not make any objection, of course; but Kapiton declared, in the hearing of all, that he had but one head, and not two or three heads....

Gerasim gazed surlily and swiftly at everybody, never left the maids'

porch, and, apparently, divined that something unpleasant for him was brewing. The a.s.sembled company (among them was present the old butler, nicknamed Uncle Tail, to whom all respectfully turned for advice, although all they heard from him was "Yes! yes! yes! yes!") began, by way of precaution, for safety, by locking Kapiton up in the lumber-room with the filtering-machine and set to thinking hard. Of course, it was easy to resort to force; but G.o.d forbid! there would be a row, the mistress would get uneasy--and a calamity would ensue! What was to be done?

They thought and thought, and eventually they hit upon something. It had been repeatedly noticed that Gerasim could not abide intoxicated persons.... As he sat at the gate, he turned away angrily whenever any man with a load of drink aboard pa.s.sed him with unsteady steps, and the visor of his cap over his ear. They decided to instruct Tatyana to pretend to be intoxicated, and to walk past Gerasim reeling and staggering. The poor girl would not consent for a long time, but they prevailed upon her; moreover, she herself saw that otherwise she would not be able to get rid of her adorer. She did it. Kapiton was released from the lumber-room; the affair concerned him, anyhow. Gerasim was sitting on the guard-stone at the gate and jabbing the ground with his shovel.... There were people staring at him from round all the corners, from behind the window-shades....

The ruse was completely successful. When first he caught sight of Tatyana, he nodded his head with an affectionate bellow; then he took a closer look, dropped his shovel, sprang to his feet, stepped up to her, put his face close down to her face... She reeled worse than ever with terror, and closed her eyes.... He seized her by the arm, dashed the whole length of the courtyard, and entering the room where the council was in session with her, he thrust her straight at Kapiton. Tatyana was fairly swooning.... Gerasim stood there, glared at her, waved his hand, laughed, and departed, clumping heavily to his little den.... For four-and-twenty hours he did not emerge thence. Antipka, the postilion, related afterward how, peeping through a crack, he had beheld Gerasim seated on his bed, with his head resting on his hand, quietly, peaceably, and only bellowing from time to time; then he would rock himself to and fro, cover his eyes, and shake his head, as postilions or stevedores do when they strike up their melancholy chanteys. Antipka was frightened, and he retreated from the crack. But when, on the following day, Gerasim emerged from his den, no particular change was noticeable in him. He merely seemed to have become more surly, and paid not the slightest attention to Tatyana and Kapiton. On that same evening, both of them, with geese under their arms, wended their way to the mistress, and a week later they were married. On the wedding-day itself, Gerasim did not alter his demeanour in the slightest degree; only, he returned from the river without water: somehow, he had smashed the cask on the road; and at night, in the stable, he so zealously curried his horse that the animal reeled like a blade of gra.s.s in a gale, and shifted from foot to foot under his iron fists.

All this took place in the spring. Another year pa.s.sed, in the course of which Kapiton finally became a thorough-going drunkard, and as a man utterly unfit for anything, was despatched with the train of freight-sledges to a distant village, together with his wife. On the day of departure he made a great show of courage at first, and declared that, no matter where they might send him, even to the place where the peasant-wives wash shirts and put their clothes-beaters in the sky, he would not come to grief; but afterward he became low-spirited, began to complain that he was being taken to uncivilised people, and finally weakened to such a degree that he was unable even to put his own cap on his head. Some compa.s.sionate soul pulled it down on his brow, adjusted the visor, and banged it down on top. And when all was ready, and the peasants were already holding the reins in their hands, and only waiting for the word: "With G.o.d's blessing!" Gerasim emerged from his tiny chamber, approached Tatyana, and presented her with a souvenir consisting of a red cotton kerchief, which he had bought expressly for her a year before. Tatyana, who up to that moment had borne all the vicissitudes of her life with great equanimity, could hold out no longer, and then and there burst into tears, and, as she took her seat in the cart, exchanged three kisses with Gerasim, in Christian fashion.[30] He wanted to escort her to the town barrier, and at first walked alongside her cart, but suddenly halted at the Crimean Ford, waved his hand and directed his steps along the river.

This happened toward evening. He walked quietly, and stared at the water. Suddenly it seemed to him as though something were floundering in the ooze close to the bank. He bent down, and beheld a small puppy, white with black spots, which, despite all its endeavours, utterly unable to crawl out of the water, was struggling, slipping, and quivering all over its wet, gaunt little body. Gerasim gazed at the unfortunate puppy, picked it up with one hand, thrust it into his breast, and set out with great strides homeward. He entered his little den, laid the rescued puppy on his bed, covered it with his heavy coat, ran first to the stable for straw, then to the kitchen for a cup of milk. Cautiously throwing back the coat and spreading out the straw, he placed the milk on the bed. The poor little dog was only three weeks old; it had only recently got its eyes open, and one eye even appeared to be a little larger than the other; it did not yet know how to drink out of a cup, and merely trembled and blinked. Gerasim grasped it lightly with two fingers by the head, and bent its muzzle down to the milk. The dog suddenly began to drink greedily, snorting, shaking itself and lapping. Gerasim gazed and gazed, and then suddenly began to laugh.... All night he fussed over it, put it to bed, wiped it off, and at last fell asleep himself beside it in a joyous, tranquil slumber.

No mother tends her infant as Gerasim tended his nursling. (The dog proved to be a b.i.t.c.h.) In the beginning she was very weak, puny, and ill-favoured, but little by little she improved in health and looks, and at the end of eight months, thanks to the indefatigable care of her rescuer, she had turned into a very fair sort of a dog of Spanish breed, with long ears, a feathery tail in the form of a trumpet, and large, expressive eyes. She attached herself pa.s.sionately to Gerasim, never left him by a pace, and was always following him, wagging her tail. And he had given her a name, too,--the dumb know that their bellowing attracts other people's attention to them:--he called her Mumu. All the people in the house took a liking to her, and also called her dear little Mumu. She was extremely intelligent, fawned upon every one, but loved Gerasim alone. Gerasim himself loved her madly .... and it was disagreeable to him when others stroked her: whether he was afraid for her, or jealous of her--G.o.d knows! She waked him up in the morning by tugging at his coat-tails; she led to him by the reins the old water-horse, with whom she dwelt in great amity; with importance depicted on her face, she went with him to the river; she stood guard over the brooms and shovels, and allowed no one to enter his room. He cut out an aperture in his door expressly for her, and she seemed to feel that only in Gerasim's little den was she the full mistress, and therefore, on entering it, with a look of satisfaction, she immediately leaped upon the bed. At night she did not sleep at all, but she did not bark without discernment, like a stupid watch-dog, which, sitting on its haunches and elevating its muzzle, and shutting its eyes, barks simply out of tedium, at the stars, and usually three times in succession; no!

Mumu's shrill voice never resounded without cause! Either a stranger was approaching too close to the fence, or some suspicious noise or rustling had arisen somewhere..... In a word, she kept capital watch.

Truth to tell, there was, in addition to her, an old dog in the courtyard, yellow in hue speckled with dark brown, Peg-top by name (_Voltchok_); but that dog was never unchained, even by night, and he himself, owing to his decrepitude, did not demand freedom, but lay there, curled up in his kennel, and only now and then emitted a hoa.r.s.e, almost soundless bark, which he immediately broke off short, as though himself conscious of its utter futility.

Mumu did not enter the manor-house, and when Gerasim carried wood to the rooms she always remained behind and impatiently awaited him, with ears p.r.i.c.ked up, and her head turning now to the right, then suddenly to the left, at the slightest noise indoors....

In this manner still another year pa.s.sed. Gerasim continued to discharge his avocations as yard-porter and was very well satisfied with his lot, when suddenly an unexpected incident occurred.... Namely, one fine summer day the mistress, with her hangers-on, was walking about the drawing-room. She was in good spirits, and was laughing and jesting; the hangers-on were laughing and jesting also, but felt no particular mirth; the people of the household were not very fond of seeing the mistress in merry mood, because, in the first place, at such times she demanded instantaneous and complete sympathy from every one, and flew into a rage if there was a face which did not beam with satisfaction; and, in the second place, these fits did not last very long, and were generally succeeded by a gloomy and cross-grained frame of mind. On that day, she seemed to have got up happily; at cards, she held four knaves: the fulfilment of desire (she always told fortunes with the cards in the morning),--and her tea struck her as particularly delicious, in consequence whereof the maid received praise in words and ten kopeks in money. With a sweet smile on her wrinkled lips, the lady of the house strolled about her drawing-room and approached the window. A flower-garden was laid out in front of the window, and in the very middle of the border, under a rose-bush, lay Mumu a.s.siduously gnawing a bone. The mistress caught sight of her.

"My G.o.d!"--she suddenly exclaimed;--"what dog is that?"

The hanger-on whom the mistress addressed floundered, poor creature, with that painful uneasiness which generally takes possession of a dependent person when he does not quite know how he is to understand his superior's exclamation.

"I ... d .. do .... on't know, ma'am," she stammered; "I think it belongs to the dumb man."

"My G.o.d!"--her mistress interrupted her:--"why, it is a very pretty dog!

Order it to be brought hither. Has he had it long? How is it that I have not seen it before?... Order it to be brought hither."

The hanger-on immediately fluttered out into the anteroom.

"Man, man!"--she screamed,--"bring Mumu here at once! She is in the flower-garden."

"And so her name is Mumu,"--said the mistress;--"a very nice name."

"Akh, very nice indeed, ma'am!"--replied the dependent.--"Be quick, Stepan!"

Stepan, a st.u.r.dy young fellow, who served as footman, rushed headlong to the garden and tried to seize Mumu; but the latter cleverly slipped out of his fingers, and elevating her tail, set off at full gallop to Gerasim, who was in the kitchen beating out and shaking out the water-cask, twirling it about in his hands like a child's drum. Stepan ran after her, and tried to seize her at the very feet of her master; but the agile dog would not surrender herself into the hands of a stranger, and kept leaping and evading him. Gerasim looked on at all this tumult with a grin; at last Stepan rose in wrath, and hastily gave him to understand by signs that the mistress had ordered the dog to be brought to her. Gerasim was somewhat surprised, but he called Mumu, lifted her from the ground, and handed her to Stepan. Stepan carried her into the drawing-room, and placed her on the polished wood floor. The mistress began to call the dog to her in a caressing voice. Mumu, who had never in her life been in such magnificent rooms, was extremely frightened, and tried to dart through the door, but, rebuffed by the obsequious Stepan, fell to trembling, and crouched against the wall.

"Mumu, Mumu, come hither to me,"--said the mistress;--"come, thou stupid creature .... don't be afraid...."

"Come, Mumu, come to the mistress,"--repeated the dependents;--"come!"

But Mumu looked anxiously about and did not stir from the spot.

"Bring her something to eat,"--said the mistress.--"What a stupid thing she is! She won't come to the mistress. What is she afraid of?"

"She feels strange still,"--remarked one of the dependents, in a timid and imploring voice.

Stepan brought a saucer of milk and set it in front of Mumu, but Mumu did not even smell of the milk, and kept on trembling and gazing about her, as before.

"Akh, who ever saw such a creature!"--said the mistress, as she approached her, bent down and was on the point of stroking her; but Mumu turned her head and displayed her teeth in a snarl.--The mistress hastily drew back her hand.

A momentary silence ensued. Mumu whined faintly, as though complaining and excusing herself... The mistress retreated and frowned. The dog's sudden movement had frightened her.

"Akh!"--cried all the dependents with one accord:--"She didn't bite you, did she? G.o.d forbid!" (Mumu had never bitten any one in her life.) "Akh!

akh!"

"Take her away,"--said the old woman, in an altered voice,--"the horrid little dog! What a vicious beast she is!"

And slowly turning, she went toward her boudoir. The dependents exchanged timorous glances and started to follow her, but she paused, looked coldly at them, said: "Why do you do that? for I have not bidden you," and left the room.

The dependents waved their hands in despair at Stepan; the latter picked up Mumu and flung her out into the yard as speedily as possible, straight at Gerasim's feet; and half an hour later a profound stillness reigned in the house, and the old gentlewoman sat on her divan more lowering than a thunder-cloud.

What trifles, when one comes to think of it, can sometimes put a person out of tune!

The lady was out of sorts until evening, talked with no one, did not play cards, and pa.s.sed a bad night. She took it into her head that they had not given her the same _eau de cologne_ which they usually gave her, that her pillow smelled of soap, and made the keeper of the linen-closet smell all the bed-linen twice,--in a word, she was upset and extremely incensed. On the following morning she ordered Gavrila to be summoned to her presence an hour earlier than usual.