The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories Part 6

(1840)

"The neighbours" const.i.tute one of the most serious drawbacks to country life. I knew one landed proprietor of the Government of Vologda, who, at every convenient opportunity, was wont to repeat the following words: "Thank G.o.d, I have no neighbours!"--and I must admit that I could not refrain from envying that lucky mortal.

My little village is situated in one of the most thickly-populated governments of Russia. I am surrounded by a vast mult.i.tude of petty neighbours, beginning with the well-intentioned and respected landed proprietors, clad in capacious dress-coats, and more capacious waistcoats,--and ending with arrant roysterers, who wear hussar-jackets with long sleeves and the so-called "fimsky" knot on the back. In the ranks of these n.o.bles, however, I have accidentally discovered one very amiable young fellow. Once upon a time he was in the military service, then he retired, and settled down for good and all in the country.

According to his account, he served two years in the B*** regiment; but I positively cannot understand how that man could have discharged any duties whatsoever, not only for the s.p.a.ce of two years, but even for the s.p.a.ce of two days. He was born "for a peaceful life, for rustic tranquillity," that is to say, for indolent, careless vegetation, which, I may remark in parenthesis, is not devoid of great and inexhaustible charms.

He enjoyed a very respectable property: without troubling himself too much about the management of his estate, he spent about ten thousand rubles[16] a year, procured for himself a capital cook (my friend was fond of good eating); he also imported from Moscow the newest French books and journals. He read nothing in Russian except the reports of his overseer, and that with great difficulty. From morning until dinner (if he did not go off hunting), he did not doff his dressing-gown; he sorted over some sketches or other pertaining to the management, or betook himself to the stable, or to the threshing-shed, and indulged in a good laugh with the peasant wives, who rattled their chains, as the saying is, in his presence, out of ostentation. After dinner my friend dressed himself before the mirror with great care, and drove off to some neighbour endowed with two or three pretty young daughters; heedlessly and pacifically, he dangled after one of them, played at blind-man's buff with them, returned home rather late, and immediately sank into heroic slumber. He could not feel bored, because he never devoted himself to absolute inaction, and he was not fastidious as to his choice of occupations, and, like a child, was amused with the smallest trifle.

On the other hand, he felt no special attachment to life, and, it sometimes happened, that when it became necessary to outrun a wolf or a fox, he would launch his horse at full speed over such ravines, that to this day I cannot understand why he did not break his neck a hundred times. He belonged to the category of people who evoke in you the thought that they are not aware of their own value, that beneath their external generosity great and mighty pa.s.sions are concealed; but he would have laughed in your face, if he could have guessed that you cherished such an opinion concerning him; yes, and, I am bound to admit, I think myself that if my friend was haunted in his youth by any aspiration, indistinct but powerful, toward what is very prettily called "something higher," that aspiration had long, long ago calmed down in him and pined away.

He was rather obese, and enjoyed splendid health. In our age, it is impossible not to like people who give little thought to themselves, because they are extremely rare .... and my friend almost completely forgot his own person. However, I have already said too much about him, I think--and my chattering is all the more ill-placed, since he does not serve as the subject of my story. His name was Piotr Feodorovitch Lutchinoff.

One autumn day, five of us thorough-going sportsmen had a.s.sembled together at Piotr Feodorovitch's. We had spent the entire morning in the fields, had coursed two wolves and a mult.i.tude of hares, and had returned home in the ravishingly-agreeable frame of mind which invades every well-regulated man after a successful hunt.

Twilight was descending. The wind was playing over the dark fields, and noisily rocking the naked crests of the birches and lindens which surrounded Lutchinoff's house. We arrived, and alighted from our horses... On the porch I halted and glanced about me: long storm-clouds were crawling heavily across the grey sky; a dark-brown bush was writhing in the wind, and creaking piteously; the yellow gra.s.s bent feebly and sadly to the ground; flocks of blackbirds were flying to and fro among the mountain-ash trees, dotted with cl.u.s.ters of bright-scarlet berries;[17] in the slender and brittle branches of the birch-trees tomt.i.ts were hopping and whistling; the dogs were barking hoa.r.s.ely in the village. Melancholy overpowered me .... for which reason I entered the dining-room with genuine pleasure. The shutters were closed; on the round table, covered with a cloth of dazzling whiteness, in the midst of crystal caraffes filled with red wine, burned eight candles in silver candlesticks; a fire blazed merrily on the hearth--and an old, very comely butler, with a huge bald spot, dressed in English fashion, stood in respectful immobility in front of another table, which was already adorned with a large soup-tureen, encircled with a light, fragrant steam. In the anteroom we had pa.s.sed another respectable man, engaged in cooling the champagne--"according to the strict rules of the art."

The dinner was, as is usual on such occasions, extremely agreeable; we laughed, recounted the incidents which had occurred during the hunt, and recalled with rapture two notable "drives." After having dined rather heartily, we disposed ourselves in broad arm-chairs in front of the fireplace; a capacious silver bowl made its appearance on the table, and, a few moments later, the flitting flame of rum announced to us our host's pleasant intention to "brew a punch."--Piotr Feodorovitch was a man not lacking in taste; he knew, for example, that nothing has such deadly effect on the fancy as the even, cold, and pedantic light of lamps--therefore he ordered that only two candles should be left in the room. Strange half-shadows quivered on the walls, produced by the fitful play of the fire on the hearth, and the flame of the punch .... a quiet, extremely agreeable comfort replaced in our hearts the somewhat obstreperous jollity which had reigned at dinner.

Conversations have their fates--like books (according to the Latin apothegm), like everything in the world. Our conversation on that evening was peculiarly varied and vivacious. In part it rose to decidedly important general questions, then lightly and unconstrainedly returned to the commonplaces of everyday life.... After chatting a good deal, we all suddenly fell silent. At such times, they say, the angel of silence flits past.

I do not know why my companions ceased talking, but I stopped because my eyes had suddenly paused on three dusty portraits in black wooden frames. The colours had been rubbed off, and here and there the canvas was warped, but the faces could still be distinguished. The middle portrait represented a woman, young in years, in a white gown with lace borders, and a tall coiffure of the eighties. On her right, against a perfectly black background, was visible the round, fat face of a good-natured Russian landed proprietor five-and-twenty years of age, with a low, broad forehead, a stubby nose, and an ingenuous smile. The powdered French coiffure was extremely out of keeping with the expression of his Slavonic countenance. The artist had depicted him in a kaftan of crimson hue with large stra.s.s b.u.t.tons; in his hand he held some sort of unusual flower. The third portrait, painted by another and more experienced hand, represented a man of thirty, in a green uniform of the period of Katherine II, with red facings, a white under-waistcoat, and a thin batiste neckerchief. With one hand he leaned on a cane with a gold head, the other he had thrust into his waistcoat.

His thin, swarthy face breathed forth insolent arrogance. His long, slender eyebrows almost met over his pitch-black eyes; on his pale, barely-perceptible lips played an evil smile.

"What makes you stare at those faces?"--Piotr Feodorovitch asked me.

"Because!"--I answered, looking at him.

"Would you like to hear the whole story about those three persons?"

"Pray, do us the favour to tell it,"--we replied with one voice.

Piotr Feodorovitch rose, took a candle, raised it to the portraits, and in the voice of a man who is exhibiting wild animals, "Gentlemen!"

he proclaimed: "this lady is the adopted daughter of my own great-grandfather, Olga Ivanovna NN., called Lutchinoff, who died unmarried forty years ago. This gentleman,"--pointing to the portrait of the man in uniform,--"is sergeant of the Guards, Vasily Ivanovitch Lutchinoff, who departed this life, by the will of G.o.d, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety. And this gentleman, to whom I have not the honour to be related, is a certain Pavel Afanasievitch Rogatchyoff, who never served anywhere, so far as I am aware. Please to note the hole which is in his breast, in the exact place of the heart.

This hole, which is, as you see, regular, and three-cornered, probably could not have happened accidentally.... Now,"--he went on in his ordinary voice,--"please to take your seats, arm yourselves with patience, and listen."

GENTLEMEN (he began) I descend from a fairly ancient race. I am not proud of my descent, because my ancestors were all frightful spendthrifts. This reproach, however, does not apply to my great-grandfather, Ivan Andreevitch Lutchinoff,--on the contrary, he bore the reputation of being an extraordinarily penurious and even miserly man--during the last years of his life, at all events. He pa.s.sed his youth in Petersburg, and was a witness of Elizaveta's reign.

In Petersburg he married, and had by his wife, who was also my great-grandmother, four children--three sons, Vasily, Ivan and Pavel (my grandfather), and one daughter, Natalya. In addition to these, Ivan Andreevitch took into his family the daughter of a distant relative, a full and nameless orphan,--Olga Ivanovna, of whom I have already spoken. My great-grandfather's subjects were, probably, aware of his existence, because they were in the habit of sending to him (when no particular catastrophe had happened) a very considerable sum in quit-rents;--but they had never beheld his face. The village of Lutchinovko, deprived of the light of its master's countenance, was thriving,--when, all of a sudden, one fine morning, a heavy travelling carriage drove into the village, and drew up in front of the Elder's cottage. The peasants, startled by such an unprecedented event, flocked thither and beheld their master, mistress, and all the pair's offspring, with the exception of the eldest, Vasily, who had remained in Petersburg. From that memorable day forth, and to the very day of his death, Ivan Andreevitch never quitted Lutchinovko. He built himself a house, this very house in which I now have the pleasure of chatting with you; he also built the church, and began to live the life of a landed proprietor. Ivan Andreevitch was a man of huge stature, gaunt, taciturn, and extremely slow in all his movements; he never wore a dressing-gown, and no one, with the exception of his valet, had ever seen him with unpowdered hair. Ivan Andreevitch habitually walked with his hands clasped behind his back, slowly turning his head at every step. Every day he walked in the long linden alley, which he had planted with his own hands,--and before his death he had the satisfaction of enjoying the shade of those lindens.

Ivan Andreevitch was extremely parsimonious of his words; this remarkable circ.u.mstance may serve as a proof of his taciturnity--that in the s.p.a.ce of twenty years he never said a single word to his spouse, Anna Pavlovna. Altogether, his relations to Anna Pavlovna were of a very strange nature.--She administered all the domestic affairs, at dinner she always sat by her husband's side,--he would ruthlessly have chastised any man who presumed to utter one disrespectful word to her,--and yet he himself never spoke to her, and never touched her hand.

Anna Pavlovna was a pale, timid, crushed woman; every day she prayed in church on her knees,[18] and never smiled. It was said that formerly, that is to say, before their arrival in the country, they had lived in grand style; it was said, also, that Anna Pavlovna had broken her marital vows, that her husband had found out about her fault.... However that may have been, Ivan Andreevitch, even when he lay dying, did not become reconciled to her. She never left him during his last illness; but he seemed not to notice her. One night, Anna Pavlovna was sitting in Ivan Andreevitch's bedroom; he was tortured with insomnia; the shrine-lamp was burning in front of the holy picture; my great-grandfather's servant, Yuditch, concerning whom I shall have a couple of words to say to you hereafter, had left the room. Anna Pavlovna rose, crossed the chamber, and flung herself, sobbing, on her knees before her husband's bed, tried to say something--and stretched out her arms.... Ivan Andreevitch looked at her--and shouted in a weak but firm voice: "Man!" The servant entered. Anna Pavlovna hastily rose to her feet, and returned, reeling, to her place.

Ivan Andreevitch's children were extremely afraid of him. They grew up in the country, and were witnesses of Ivan Andreevitch's strange behaviour to his wife. They all pa.s.sionately loved Anna Pavlovna, but dared not express their love. She herself seemed to shun them.... You remember my grandfather, gentlemen: to the day of his death, he always used to go about on tiptoe, and he spoke in a whisper .... that 's what habit will do! My grandfather and his brother Ivan Ivanovitch were plain, kind, peaceable and melancholy people; my _grand'tante_ Natalya married a coa.r.s.e, stupid man, as you know, and until her death cherished for him a dumb, servile, sheep-like love; but their brother Vasily was not like that.

I think I have told you that Ivan Andreevitch left him in Petersburg. He was twenty years old at the time. His father confided him to the care of a distant relative, a man no longer young, a bachelor and a frightful Voltairian.

Vasily grew up, and entered the service. He was small of stature, but well built and extremely agile; he spoke French splendidly, and was renowned for his skill at fighting with the broadsword. He was considered one of the most brilliant young men of the beginning of Katherine II's reign. My father often told me that he knew more than one old woman who could not mention Vasily Ivanovitch Lutchinoff without heartfelt emotion. Picture to yourself a man gifted with remarkable strength of will, pa.s.sionate and calculating, patient and daring, secretive to the last degree and--according to the words of all his contemporaries--bewitchingly, enchantingly amiable. He had neither conscience nor good-nature nor honour, although no one could call him a positively bad man. He was selfish--but knew how to conceal his selfishness, and was pa.s.sionately fond of independence. When Vasily Ivanovitch used, smilingly, to screw up his black eyes, when he wanted to fascinate any one, they say that it was impossible to resist him--and even people who were convinced of the coldness and hardness of his spirit more than once surrendered to the bewitching power of his influence. He zealously served himself, and made others toil also for his benefit, and always succeeded in everything, because he never lost his head, did not disdain flattery as a means, and understood how to flatter.

Ten years after Ivan Andreevitch settled in the country, he came to Lutchinovko as a brilliant officer of the Guards, for four months,--and in that s.p.a.ce of time succeeded in turning the head even of the surly old man, his father. It is strange! Ivan Andreevitch listened with delight to his son's tales of his conquests. His brothers were dumb in his presence, and admired him as a superior being. And even Anna Pavlovna herself came to love him almost more than all her other children, who were so sincerely devoted to her.

Vasily Ivanovitch came to the country, in the first place, in order to see his relatives; but, in the second place also, in order to get as much money as possible out of his father. He had lived sumptuously and kept open house in Petersburg, and had contracted a mult.i.tude of debts.

It was not easy for him to reconcile himself to his parent's stinginess, and, although Ivan Andreevitch gave him for his trip alone more money, in all probability, than he gave all his other children in the s.p.a.ce of the twenty years which they spent in the paternal house, yet Vasily stuck to the familiar Russian rule: "Take all you can get!"

Ivan Andreevitch had a servant, Yuditch by name, as tall, gaunt, and taciturn a man as his master. They say that this Yuditch was, in part, the cause of the strange behaviour of Ivan Andreevitch to Anna Pavlovna: they say that it was he who discovered the guilty liaison of my great-grandmother with one of my great-grandfather's best friends.

Probably Yuditch deeply repented of his ill-judged zeal, because it would be difficult to conceive of a more kind-hearted man. His memory is held sacred to this day by all my house-serfs. Yuditch enjoyed the unbounded confidence of my great-grandfather. At that period, landed proprietors had money, but did not hand it over to loan inst.i.tutions for safe-keeping, but kept it themselves in coffers, in cellars, and the like. Ivan Andreevitch kept all his money in a huge iron-bound coffer, which stood under the head of his bed. The key to this coffer was handed over to Yuditch. Every evening, when he went to bed, Ivan Andreevitch ordered this chest to be opened in his presence, tapped all the tightly-stuffed sacks in turn with his cane, and on Sat.u.r.days, he and Yuditch untied the sacks and carefully counted over the money.

Vasily found out about all these performances and was fired with a desire to rummage a bit in the sacred coffer. In the course of five or six days he _mollified_ Yuditch, that is to say, he reduced the poor old fellow to such a state that--as the saying is--he fairly worshipped his young master. After having properly prepared him, Vasily a.s.sumed a careworn and gloomy aspect, for a long time refused to answer Yuditch's inquiries and, at last, told him that he had gambled away all his money, and intended to lay violent hands on himself if he did not obtain money from somewhere. Yuditch began to sob, flung himself on his knees before him, begged him to remember G.o.d, not to ruin his soul. Vasily, without uttering a word, locked himself up in his chamber. After a while, he heard some one knocking cautiously on his door. He opened the door and beheld on the threshold Yuditch, pale and trembling, with a key in his hands. Vasily immediately understood everything. At first he resisted for a long time. Yuditch kept repeating with tears: "Pray, master, take it!"... At last, Vasily consented. This happened on Monday. The idea occurred to Vasily to replace the money he abstracted with bits of gla.s.s. He reckoned on Ivan Andreevitch's not paying any special heed to the barely perceptible difference in the sound when he tapped the sacks with his cane,--and by Sat.u.r.day he hoped to obtain money and replace it in the sacks. No sooner thought than done. His father, in fact, did not notice anything. But Vasily did not obtain money by Sat.u.r.day: he had hoped, with the money he had taken, to clean out at the card-table a certain wealthy neighbour--and, on the contrary, he lost everything himself. In the meantime, Sat.u.r.day arrived; the turn came for the sacks stuffed with bits of gla.s.s. Picture to yourselves, gentlemen, the amazement of Ivan Andreevitch!

"What 's the meaning of this?"--he thundered.

Yuditch made no reply.

"Hast thou stolen this money?"

"No, sir."

"Then has some one taken the key from thee?"

"I have not given the key to any one."

"Not to any one? If thou hast not given it to any one--thou art the thief. Confess!"

"I am not a thief, Ivan Andreevitch."

"Whence came these bits of gla.s.s, d.a.m.n it? So thou art deceiving me? For the last time I say to thee--confess!"

Yuditch hung his head and clasped his hands behind his back.

"Hey there, people!" shouted Ivan Andreevitch in a raging voice.--"The rods!"

"What? You mean to .... whip ... me?" whispered Yuditch.

"Thou shalt catch it! And how art thou any better than the rest? Thou art a thief! Well, now, Yuditch! I had not expected such rascality from thee!"

"I have grown grey in your service, Ivan Andreevitch," said Yuditch with an effort.

"And what care I about thy grey hair? May the devil take thee and thy service!"

The people entered.

"Take him, and give him a good flogging!"

Ivan Andreevitch's lips were pale and trembling. He ramped about the room like a wild beast in a confined cage.

The men did not dare to execute his commands.

"What are you standing there for, you vile serfs? have I got to lay hands on him myself, I 'd like to know?"

Yuditch started for the door.