A Family of Noblemen 1

	A Family of Noblemen 1

A Family of Noblemen, by Mikhail Saltykov               Book I         THE FAMILY COUNCIL               Book II         AS BECOMES GOOD KINSFOLK               Book III         FAMILY ACCOUNTS SETTLED               Book IV         THE GOOD LITTLE NIECE               Book V         FORBIDDEN FAMILY JOYS               Book VI         THE DESERTED MANOR-HOUSE               Book VII         THE SETTLEMENT BOOK I THE FAMILY COUNCIL CHAPTER I Anton Vasilyev, the manager of a remote estate, was giving his mistress, Arina Petrovna Golovliov, an account of his trip to Moscow. He had gone there to collect the money due from those of her peasant serfs who bought the right to live in the city by paying her a tax. When he had finished with his report, she told him he might retire, but he lingered on irresolutely, as though he had something else to say, yet could not make up his mind to say it. Arina Petrovna knew her servants through and through; she knew the meaning of their slightest gestures, she could even divine their inmost thoughts. And her steward's manner immediately aroused her disquietude. "What else?" she asked, looking at him keenly. "That's all," he replied evasively. "Don't lie. There is something else. I can see it by your eyes." Anton Vasilyev still hesitated and continued to shift from one foot to the other. "What is it? Tell me!" she shouted imperiously. "Out with it, out with it! And don't wag your whole body like a dog, Telltale!" Arina Petrovna liked to call her managers and domestics by nicknames. She used Telltale for Anton Vasilyev, not because she had found him to carry gossip treacherously, but simply because he had a loose tongue. The centre of the estate that he managed was an important trading village in which there were many taverns. He liked to take a glass of tea in a tavern and boast of his mistress's great power. And in the course of his boasting he would sometimes unconsciously blab out secrets. His mistress was always with a lawsuit on her hands, so that her trusty's garrulousness sometimes brought her sly stratagems to the surface before they could be executed. "Yes, I have got something else to say," Anton finally mumbled. "What is it?" Arina Petrovna asked excitedly. An imperious woman, with an extraordinarily lively imagination, she instantly pictured all sorts of disagreeable opposition and antagonism, and the thought so instantly took complete possession of her that she turned white and jumped up from her chair. "Stepan Vladimirych's house in Moscow has been sold," Anton said after a pause. "Well?" "It's been sold." "Why? How? Tell me." "For debts, I suppose. Of course it can't be because of something nice." "The police, the court, sold it, I suppose?" "I suppose so. They say it was sold at auction for 8,000 rubles." Arina Petrovna dropped back heavily into her armchair and gazed fixedly at the window panes. She was so stunned by the news that she seemed to have lost consciousness for a while. Had she heard that Stepan Vladimirych had killed somebody, or that the Golovliov peasant serfs had risen in revolt and refused to render the service due her on her estates, or that serfdom had been abolished, she would not have been so shocked. Her lips trembled, her eyes stared vacantly into the distance, but she saw nothing. She did not even see the little girl, Duniashka, run past the window carrying something hidden under her apron; she did not see the child stop suddenly on beholding her mistress and wheel round and then dart back guiltily to where she had come from. Such suspicious conduct at any other time would have led to a thorough investigation. Finally Arina Petrovna came to herself and managed to bring out: "A good joke, I must say." After which there again followed several minutes of ominous silence. "So the police sold the house for eight thousand?" she asked again. "Yes, madam." "So that's what he's done with his patrimony! Splendid! The blackguard!" Arina Petrovna felt that the news called for a prompt decision, but nothing occurred to her. Her thoughts ran confusedly in exactly opposite directions. On the one hand she thought: "The police sold it. But the police could not have sold it in a minute. An inventory must first have been taken, then an appraisal made, and then the sale must have been advertised. Sold for eight thousand when I myself two years ago paid twelve thousand rubles for it, not a penny less. Had I only known it was going to be up for sale, I could have bought it myself for eight thousand rubles." Her other thoughts ran: "The police sold it for eight thousand. That's what he's done with his patrimony. To sell one's patrimony for eight thousand rubles!" "Who told you?" she asked, realizing finally that the house had been sold and the chance to secure it cheaply was gone forever. "Ivan Mikhailov, the inn-keeper." "Why didn't he let me know in time?" "I suppose he was afraid." "Afraid? I'll teach him to be afraid. I'll make him come here from Moscow, and the moment he comes I'll have him drafted into the army. He was afraid!" Although on the decline, serfdom still existed. Anton Vasilyev had known his mistress to impose the most peculiar punishments, but, even so, her present decision was so unexpected that it made him miserable. He thought of his nickname Telltale. Ivan Mikhailov was an upright peasant, and Anton never dreamed that misfortune would touch him. Besides, Ivan Mikhailov was his friend and godfather. Now, all of a sudden, he was to be made a soldier just because he, Anton Vasilyev, the Telltale, could not hold his tongue. "Forgive him--Ivan Mikhailov, I mean," he pleaded. "Go away, you mollycoddler," she shouted in a voice so loud that he lost all desire to intercede any further for his friend. CHAPTER II Arina Petrovna was sixty years old, still of sound health and accustomed to have her own way in everything. Her manner was severe. She lived alone, and managed the huge Golovliov estate all by herself, without having to answer to any one else. She calculated closely, almost parsimoniously, was not intimate with her neighbors, was gracious to the local authorities, and exacted implicit obedience from her children. They were not to do anything without first asking themselves, "What would mamenka say about it?" She was independent, inflexible, even stubborn, though her stubbornness was not so much native as due chiefly to the circumstance that there was not one person in the whole Golovliov family that could oppose her. Her husband was a trifling creature, and drank. Arina Petrovna used to say of herself that she was neither a widow nor a married woman. Some of the children were in St. Petersburg, the others took after their father and were relegated to the class of "horrid creatures," who were unfit for household duties. In these circumstances Arina Petrovna soon began to feel all left alone, and grew totally disaccustomed to family life, although the word "family" was constantly on her lips, and outwardly she seemed to be exclusively guided in all her work by the desire to build up the family estate and keep the family affairs in order. The head of the family, Vladimir Mikhailych Golovliov, was known from his youth as a dissolute, quarrelsome fellow, with nothing in his character that would be sympathetic to a serious, active woman like Arina Petrovna. He led a lazy, good-for-nothing existence, usually stayed locked up in his room, where he imitated the warble of the starlings, the crowing of cocks, and the like, and composed ribald doggerel. In bursts of confidence he would boast that he had been a friend of the poet Barkov, intimating that the poet had blessed him on his deathbed. Arina Petrovna disliked her husband's verses from the very first. "Nasty stuff!" "Trash!" she called them. And since Vladimir Mikhailych's very object in marrying had been to have someone ever at hand to listen to his poetry, the result was that quarrels soon began, which grew worse and worse and more frequent until they ended with Arina Petrovna utterly indifferent and contemptuous of her clown husband, and Vladimir Mikhailych hating his wife sincerely, with a hatred considerably mixed with fear. The husband called the wife a "hag" and a "devil"; the wife called the husband a "windmill" and a "balalaika without strings." They lived together in this way for more than forty years, and it never occurred to either of them that there was anything unnatural in such a life. Time did not diminish Vladimir Mikhailych's quarrelsomeness; on the contrary, it took on a still sharper edge. Apart from the poetical exercising in Barkov's spirit that he did, he began to drink and to lie in wait eagerly for the servant girls in the corridors. At first Arina Petrovna looked on this new occupation of her husband's with repugnance. She even got wrought up over it, not so much from jealousy as that she felt it to be an interference with her authority. After a while, however, she shrugged her shoulders, and merely watched out that the "dirty wenches" should not fetch brandy for their master. From that time on, having said to herself once for all that her husband was not a companion, she directed her efforts exclusively to one object, the building up of the estate. And in the forty years of her married life she actually succeeded in multiplying her property tenfold. With astonishing patience and acumen she kept her eye on the near and distant villages, found out in secret ways the relations that existed between the neighboring landowners and the board of trustees, and always appeared at the auctions like snow on the head. In this fantastic hunt for new acquisitions Vladimir Mikhailych receded more and more into the background, turned seedy and at last dropped out of social life completely. He was now a decrepit old man already, keeping his bed almost the whole time. On the rare occasions that he left his room it was only to stick his head through the half-open door of his wife's bedroom and shout: "Devil!" After which he would go back and close himself up in his own room again. Arina Petrovna was not much happier in her children. She was of a celibate nature, so to speak, independent and self-sufficient, and her children were nothing to her but a useless burden. The only times when she breathed freely was when she was alone with her accounts and her household affairs, and when no one interfered with her business talks with her managers, stewards, housekeepers, and so on. In her eyes, children were one of the preordained things in life that she felt she had no right to protest against. Nevertheless they did not touch a single chord in her inner being, which was given over wholly to the numberless details of the household. There were four children, one daughter and three sons. Of the oldest son and the daughter she did not even like to speak; toward the youngest son she was indifferent. It was only for the middle one, Porfisha, that she cherished any feeling at all, a feeling not of love, but of something very akin to fear. Stepan Vladimirych, the oldest son, passed in the family by the name of Simple Simon, or The Saucebox. He was very young when he was put into the class of "horrid creatures," and from childhood up played the role of half pariah, half clown. Unfortunately he was a bright child, susceptible to the impressions of his environment. From his father he inherited an irresistible inclination to play tricks, from his mother the ability to divine the weak sides of people's natures. The first characteristic soon made him his father's favorite, which still further intensified his mother's dislike of him. Often when the mother was absent on business, the father and the boy would betake themselves into the study adorned with the portrait of Barkov, read ribald poems, and gossip, the chief butt of their raillery being the "hag," that is to say, Arina Petrovna. The "hag," instinctively divining their occupation, would drive up to the front steps very quietly, then tiptoe to the study door and listen to their fun-making. The murderous punishment of Simple Simon followed swift and cruel. But Stiopka was not subdued. He was impervious either to blows or to admonitions, and in half an hour was back again at his tricks. He would cut up Aniutka's, the servant girl's, scarf, or he would stick flies into Vasiutka's mouth while he slept, or he would run into the kitchen and carry off a cake (Arina Petrovna kept her children half hungry), which he always divided with his brothers. "You ought to be killed," his mother said. "I'll kill you, and I won't have to answer for it either. Even God won't punish me for it." This humiliation, constantly put upon a nature soft, yielding and forgetful, did not remain without its effect. It did not embitter him, nor did it make him rebellious. It made him servile, disposed to buffoonery, with no sense of the fitness of things, and devoid of all foresight and prudence. Such natures yield to all influences and may become almost anything--drunkards, beggars, buffoons, even criminals. At the age of twenty Stepan Golovliov graduated from the gymnasium in Moscow and entered the university. But his student's life was a bitter one. In the first place, his mother gave him just enough money to keep him from dying of hunger. Secondly, he did not show the least inclination to work. Instead, he developed an accursed talent, which expressed itself chiefly in mimickry. And he suffered from a desire for constant companionship. He hated to be alone a single instant. So he played the light role of hanger-on and parasite, and thanks to his readiness for any prank he soon became the favorite of the rich students. However, though they received him into their society, they looked on him, not as one of them, but as a clown; and the reputation clung to him. Once placed on such a plane, he naturally slid down lower and lower, and at the end of the fourth year was thoroughly confirmed in his clownship. Nevertheless, thanks to his receptive ability and good memory, he passed the examinations successfully and received his bachelor's degree. When he appeared before his mother with the diploma, she merely shrugged her shoulders and said: "Well, that's funny." Then, after letting him spend a month in the country, she shipped him back to St. Petersburg with an allowance of a hundred rubles a month. Now there began for him endless visits to various government offices. He had neither patrons nor the determination to make his own way by hard work. The lad's mind had lost so completely the habit of concentration that bureaucratic tasks such as the drawing up of briefs and case abstracts were beyond his power. After four years of struggle Stepan was forced to admit that there was no hope of his ever rising above the rank of a government clerk. In reply to his lamentations, Arina Petrovna wrote him a stern letter which began with the words: "I was sure that would happen," and wound up with a command to return at once to Moscow. There, at the conclave of Arina Petrovna's favorite peasants, it was decided to place Simple Simon in the Aulic Court, entrusting him to the care of a pettifogger who from time immemorial had been the legal adviser of the Golovliov family. What Stepan Vladimirych did in the Aulic Court and how he behaved there is a mystery. What is certain is that at the end of the third year he was there no longer. Then Arina Petrovna took a heroic measure. She "threw her son a bone," which was also supposed to fill the part of the "parental blessing," that is to say, the patrimony. "The bone" consisted of a house in Moscow, for which she had paid twelve thousand rubles. For the first time in his life Stepan Golovliov breathed freely. The house promised to bring him an income of a thousand silver rubles, a sum which in comparison with his former income, seemed like genuine prosperity. He kissed his mamma's hand effusively, and promised to justify her kindness, whereupon Arina Petrovna said: "That's better; but mind you, you numskull, that's all you get from me!" But, alas! so little was he used to handling money, so absurd was his estimation of real values in life, that before long what he thought to be a fabulous revenue proved insufficient. In five or six years he was totally ruined, and was only too glad to enter the militia, which was then being organized. No sooner, however, did the militia troops reach Kharkov than peace was concluded, and Golovliov went back to Moscow, dressed in a somewhat threadbare uniform and high boots. By this time his house had already been sold, and the only thing he owned was a hundred rubles. He began "speculating" with this capital, that is, he tried his luck at cards, but in a short time he lost all he had. Then he conceived the plan of visiting his mother's well-to-do peasants who lived in Moscow. Some of them invited him to dinner, others, yielding to his importunings, gave him tobacco or lent him small sums of money. At last the hour came when he found himself before a blind wall, as it were. He was already almost forty years old, and had to confess to himself that his nomadic existence was too much for his strength. There was only one thing left to him, to take the road leading to Golovliovo. After Stepan Vladimirych, the oldest child, came Anna Vladimirovna, about whom Arina Petrovna did not like to speak either. The truth of the matter was, the old lady had placed definite expectations in Annushka, but she, far from fulfilling her mother's hopes, had perpetrated a scandal which set the whole district agog. When Annushka left the girls' boarding-school, Arina Petrovna installed her at the village, hoping to make of her a sort of unpaid private secretary and bookkeeper, but instead Annushka eloped one fine night with cornet Ulanov and married him. "They have married like dogs, without a parent's blessing!" complained Arina Petrovna. "Lucky, though, that he submitted to a wedding ceremony at all. Another man would have taken advantage of her--and vanished into thin air. A fine chance for catching a bird." With her daughter Arina Petrovna dealt as peremptorily as she had with her hated son. She bestowed "a bone" upon her too, in the shape of five thousand rubles and a wretched little village of thirty souls and a manor-house going with it, so dilapidated that the wind blew through the gaping paneless windows and there was not one sound board in the flooring. In two years the young couple had gone through the money, and the cornet took himself off, deserting his wife and two twin girls, Anninka and Lubinka. Three months later the mother died, and Arina Petrovna, willy-nilly, had to take the little orphans into her own house. She installed them in a side-wing and entrusted them to the care of Palashka, old and one-eyed. "The Lord's mercy is great," remarked Arina Petrovna. "The little orphans won't eat much of my bread, but they'll be a solace to me in my old age. God has given me two daughters instead of one." At the same time she wrote to her son, Porfiry Vladimirych: "Your dear sister died as she lived, indecently, and now her two children are hanging round my neck." What we are going to say may seem cynical, but we feel it our duty to state that the granting of the heritage to Stepan and Anna did not by any means impair Arina Petrovna's financial condition. On the contrary, in reducing the number of shareholders it contributed indirectly to the rounding out of the family estate. For Arina Petrovna was a woman of strict principles, and once having "thrown them a bone," she considered her obligations toward her unloved children completely and definitely settled. In regard to her grandchildren it never entered her mind that in due time she would have to part with something for them. All she cared for was to draw all the income possible from the small estate of her deceased daughter and deposit it in the Chamber of Trustees. "There I am," she would say, "laying by money for the orphans. For feeding and bringing them up I take nothing from them. For the bread they eat it is God who will pay me." As for the younger children, Porfiry and Pavel, they served in St. Petersburg, the former in a civil capacity, the latter in the army. Porfiry was married; Pavel was an old bachelor. Porfiry Vladimirych was known in the family by three nicknames, Yudushka (diminutive of Judas), Bloodsucker, and Goody-goody Boy, which had been invented by Simple Simon. From his early childhood Porfiry had been oddly intent upon currying favor with his "dear mamma" and showed a tendency to play the sycophant. He would open the door of his mother's room softly, creep noiselessly into a corner, and sit there, as if entranced, with his eyes fixed on his mother while she wrote or busied herself with accounts. Even in those days Arina Petrovna regarded her son's efforts to insinuate himself into her good graces with vague suspicion. His stare puzzled her. She could not decide what his eyes expressed, whether venom or filial reverence. "I cannot make out what is in his eyes," she sometimes argued with herself. "His glance is like a noose which he is getting ready to throw. He might look like that handing a person poison or enticing him into a pitfall." In this connection she often recollected highly significant details of the time she was carrying Porfisha. An old man called Porfisha the Saint was at that time living in the manor. He had the reputation of a seer, and Arina Petrovna turned to him whenever she wanted to learn something about the future. She had asked him when she would be delivered of the child and whether it would be a boy or a girl; but the pious old man gave no direct answer. Instead he crowed three times like a cock and then mumbled: "Cockerel, cockerel, sharp claw! The cock crows and threatens the brood-hen; the brood-hen--cluck! cluck!--but it will be too late!" That was all he said. Three days later (the seer crowed three times!) Arina Petrovna gave birth to a son ("cockerel! cockerel!") and named him Porfiry in honor of the old soothsayer. The first half of the prophecy had been fulfilled; but what could be the hidden meaning of the mysterious words, "the brood-hen--cluck! cluck!--but it will be too late?" Arina Petrovna often pondered over it, whenever her eyes fell on Porfisha, who sat in his nook with his enigmatic gaze fixed on her. Meanwhile Porfisha kept on staring, quiet and meek, staring so intently that his wide-open, motionless eyes began to swim in tears, as if he vaguely sensed the doubts that tormented his mother's soul, and wished to behave so as to disarm her most persistent suspicion. At the risk of annoying his mother, he constantly hovered about her, and the expression in his eyes seemed to say: "Look at me! I conceal nothing from you. I am all obedience and devotion, and, mind you, I am obedient and devoted not only from fear but also from loyalty." And although an inner voice constantly sounded warning that the young scoundrel was dangerous in spite of his wheedling and fawning, her heart could not resist such unremitting devotion and her hand involuntarily felt for the best piece in the dish to bestow upon the affectionate child. And yet the very sight of him at times awakened a vague fear of something puzzling and eery. The exact opposite of Porfiry was his brother, Pavel, the most perfect embodiment of absolute passivity. As a boy he manifested no inclination whatever for study, or games, or playing with other boys, but liked to keep to himself. He would get into a corner, pout, and set to work building air castles, dreaming that he had gorged himself with oatmeal so that his legs had become thin and he had no lessons to learn, or else that he was Davidka, the shepherd, with a growing lump on his forehead, just like David's, and cracked a whip and had no lessons to learn. Arina Petrovna would gaze at him for a long time, and then her motherly feelings would well up: "Why do you sit there like a mouse on groats?" she would scold. "Is the poison working in you already? Why don't you come over to your mother and say: 'Mamenka darling, hug me?'" Pavel would leave his place of refuge and slowly approach his mother, as if someone were pushing him from behind. "Mamenka darling," he would repeat in a bass voice unnatural in a child, "hug me." "Get out of my sight, you sneak. You think if you get into your corner I don't understand. You are mistaken, my darling. I see through and through you. Your plans and projects are as clear as if they were spread on the palm of my hand." And Pavel would just as slowly retrace his steps and bury himself again in his corner. Years passed by, and Pavel Vladimirych gradually developed that apathetic, unaccountably gloomy character which often goes with absolute passivity. He was, perhaps, good, but he had done nobody any good; he was, perhaps, not without some intelligence, but he had not achieved anything intelligent in his life. He was hospitable, but people did not like to avail themselves of his hospitality. He spent money readily, but nothing good or pleasant came of his lavishness to anybody. He never harmed anybody, but that was not considered a merit. He was honest, but no one had ever heard it said: "How honorably Pavel Golovliov dealt in that affair!" It must be added that sometimes, not often, he snarled at his mother, although he feared her like poison. I repeat, he was an ill-tempered person, but back of his moroseness was nothing but sheer inertness. When the brothers reached maturity, the difference in their characters was most conspicuous in their relation to their mother. Yudushka punctually every week sent a lengthy epistle to "mother dear," in which he informed her in the greatest detail of all the minutiæ of his life in St. Petersburg, and assured her of his disinterested filial devotion in the most carefully selected terms. As for Pavel, he wrote rarely, laconically, and sometimes even enigmatically, pulling every word out of himself with a pair of tongs, as it were. "My adorable friend and dear mother," is what Porfiry Vladimirych wrote, for instance, "I have received the money from the peasant Yerofeyev, and I send you my most heartfelt thanks for forwarding the sum, which, according to your gracious wish, dearest mamenka, is to be spent for my maintenance. I also kiss your hands with sincere filial devotion. What worries and grieves me is the thought that you are straining your precious health all too much by your ceaseless efforts to satisfy not only our needs, but our whims as well. I don't know what brother thinks, but I----" etc., etc. As for Pavel, what he wrote on a similar occasion was: "Dear mother, am in receipt of the money, and, according to my calculations, you still owe six and a half rubles, for which I beg to be graciously forgiven." When Arina Petrovna wrote reprimanding the children for their extravagance--she did so rather frequently, although there was no serious necessity for it--Porfisha invariably received her rebuke submissively and replied: "I am well aware, my dearest friend and mother, that you bear the heaviest burdens for the sake of us, your unworthy children. I know that often our behavior does not justify your motherly solicitude, and what is worse, erring humans that we are, we often forget it, for which I apologize most devotedly and sincerely, in the hope that in the course of time I will overcome my weakness and be more prudent in my expenditure of the funds that you send, my adorable friend and mother, for my maintenance and for other purposes." Pavel would answer back: "Dearest mother, though you have not as yet paid any of my debts, I accept most submissively the name of spendthrift which you choose to bestow upon me, whereof I beg most sincerely to accept my assurance." Even the replies that the brothers made to the letter announcing the death of their sister, Anna Vladimirovna, were quite different from each other. Porfiry Vladimirych said: "The news of the death of my dear sister and good playmate, Anna Vladimirovna, has filled my heart with sorrow, a sorrow aggravated by the thought that a new cross has been given you to bear, dearest little mother, in the shape of two little orphans. Is it not sufficient that you, common benefactress to us all, deny yourself everything and, without sparing your health, concentrate all your power on the sole object of assuring the family not only the necessaries of life but also the luxuries? Believe me, it is a wicked thing to do, but now and then, I confess, I cannot refrain from grumbling. As far as I can see, the only solace for you, my dearest, in this state of affairs is to remember as often as you can all that Christ himself had to undergo." Pavel's reply ran: "The news of my sister, who has fallen a victim, I have received. I hope, however, that the Most High will rest her in His celestial tent, although this is uncertain." Arina Petrovna reading these letters would try to guess which of the two sons would be her destruction. At times she felt certain the danger was coming from Porfiry Vladimirych. "Look how he wags his tongue, a regular fiend at writing!" she would exclaim. "Simple Simon's nickname suits to a tee--Yudushka! Not a word of truth in all this stuff about my burdens, my cross, and the rest. Sheer lies! Not an ounce of feeling in his heart!" At other times Pavel Vladimirych seemed to be her real enemy. "A fool, and yet look how deftly he tries to make love to mother on the sly. 'Whereof I beg most sincerely to accept my assurance!' Wait a while! I'll teach you what 'accept assurances' means! I shall deal with you as I did with Simple Simon, and you'll find out what I mean by your 'assurances'!" In the end a truly tragical cry would burst from her lips. "And for whom am I hoarding all this wealth? For whom am I gathering all this? I deny myself sleep and food--for whom?" Such were the domestic circumstances of the Golovliovs at the time that the bailiff, Anton Vasilyev, reported to Arina Petrovna that Simple Simon had dissipated "the bone" flung to him, which, in view of its loss, might now be called with especial significance the "parental blessing." Arina Petrovna sat in her bedroom, all her senses dazed. A vague, unaccountable feeling stirred within her, whether pity, born suddenly and miraculously, for her hated offspring, who, after all, was her son, or whether merely thwarted despotism, the most expert psychologist would have been unable to decide. Her sensations were utterly confused and succeeded each other with bewildering swiftness. Finally, out of the welter of her thoughts there crystallized one emotion, the fear that "the horrid creature" would again be hanging round her neck. "Aniutka has forced her whelps on me, and now this dunderhead is coming here," she pondered deeply. Long she sat silent, her eyes fixed and intent. Dinner was brought in, but she hardly touched it; a servant came and said the master wanted brandy. Without looking up she threw him the keys of the store-room. After the meal she ordered the bath to be prepared for her. Then she went into the oratory, ordered all the image lamps to be lit, and shut herself in. These were all clear signs that the mistress was "in a temper," and so the house turned as quiet as a churchyard. The chambermaids walked on tiptoe; Akulina, the housekeeper, ran back and forth like a lunatic. The preparations for preserving had been set for after dinner; the berries had been rinsed and made ready, but the mistress gave no orders either to go ahead or to wait. The gardener, Matvey, came to ask whether it was time to gather the peaches, but such was his reception in the maids' room that he fled precipitately. Prayers and bath over, Arina Petrovna felt almost reconciled with the world and had the bailiff summoned again. "Now tell me, what is the numskull doing?" she asked. "Well, Moscow is big, it would take more than a year to walk through it." "But he needs something to fill his stomach with, doesn't he?" "Our peasants feed him. He eats with one, gets money for tobacco from another." "And who permits them to give him anything?" "Goodness me, madam! The people don't complain. They give alms to strangers. Should they refuse a mite to their own master's son?" "I'll teach them to give mites! I'll have the blockhead deported to your estate, and the community will have to maintain him at its own expense." "As you command, madam." "What? What did you say?" "As you command, my lady. If you order it, we shall feed him." "That's better. But talk sensibly." A pause ensued. Then the bailiff, true to his nature and his nickname, lost patience and began to shift from one leg to another, obviously burning with the desire to unburden his mind of something. "He's a clever one, though," he finally blurted out. "People say he brought back a hundred rubles from the campaign. It isn't a fortune, but still one can live on it for a time." "Well?" "He thought he might improve his situation and went in for a shady business." "Go on, go on, and don't give me any lies." "He went to the German Club. He thought he would find a fool to beat at cards, but instead he happened on a cunning hawk. He tried to get away, but was held up in the lobby. Of course, he was plucked clean." "I suppose he was roughly handled, too." "Of course. The next morning he came to our man, Ivan Mikhailych, and told the tale himself. It's queer, he was in high spirits and laughed as if they had treated him like a lord." "Things run from him like water off a duck's back. But I won't grieve over it, provided he does not come within sight of me." "But I believe he will." "Nonsense, I will not allow him to cross my threshold." "But I'm sure he will," insisted Anton Vasilyev. "He said so in plain words to Ivan Mikhailych. 'Enough,' he says, 'I am going back to the old woman to eat her dry crusts.' And, madam, to speak the truth, where can he lay his head but here? He cannot keep on forever feeding on our men in Moscow. And besides, he needs clothing and comforts." That was exactly the thing Arina Petrovna dreaded. It was the very essence of the obscure thought that so deeply alarmed her. "Yes, he will turn up," she said to herself, "he has no other place to go to, there's no doubt of it." He would always be there, within her sight, that accursed, hated stranger of a son. What had been the good of throwing his portion to him? She had thought that, having received "his due," he would drop into eternity. And there he was, rising from the dead. He would come, make insolent demands, and hang on like a leech, shocking everybody by his beggarly appearance. And she would have to meet his demands, because he was a brazen-faced bully, capable of any violence. You cannot put such a man under restraint; he is capable of parading in tatters before strangers, of the wildest debauchery, of running away to the neighbors and telling them the ins and outs of the family affairs. Should she have him deported to the Suzdal Monastery, which was said to be a place for ridding parents in distress of the sight of their refractory children? But the Lord knows whether that fabulous institution existed at all. People said there were such things as houses of correction. But how could one get an overgrown dolt into one of them? In short, Arina Petrovna was altogether upset by the thought of how the arrival of Simple Simon was going to disturb her peaceful existence. "I shall billet him upon you," was her threat to the bailiff. "Feed him at your own expense." "Why so, madam?" "Because you stand there croaking: 'He's sure to come,'" she mimicked. "Get out of my sight, you raven!" Anton Vasilyev turned to go, but Arina Petrovna stopped him: "Wait a minute. Is it true that he is starting out for Golovliovo?" "I'm not in the habit of telling lies, madam. He said so plainly--'I am going back to the old woman to eat her dry crusts.'" "He'll soon find out what kind of crusts the old woman has prepared for him." "But, madam, he won't live with you long." "Why not?" "Well, madam, he coughs very badly and keeps on clutching the left side of his chest. He won't live long." "That kind generally lives very long. He'll outlive us all. The coughing doesn't hurt him. Well, we shall see about it later. Leave me now. I have several matters to attend to." Arina Petrovna spent the whole evening pondering over this problem. Finally she found it best to convoke the family council for the purpose of deciding what was to be done with Simple Simon. Such constitutionalism was not her habit. She made up her mind to digress from the traditions of autocracy solely for the purpose of shielding herself from public censure, and as she did not doubt the outcome of the conference, she sat down with a light heart to write to Porfiry and Pavel asking them to come to Golovliovo immediately. CHAPTER III Meanwhile, the cause of all this mess, Simple Simon, was on his way to Golovliovo. In Moscow he engaged a seat in one of the so-called "diligences," in which small merchants and peasant traders used to travel, and which are still seen in some districts. The diligence had the city of Vladimir as its point of destination, and Stepan was enabled to travel in it through the liberality of the aforesaid innkeeper Ivan Mikhailych, who also paid for his master's meals on the journey. "Listen," said Ivan Mikhailych, with the air of an accomplice. "Do this, get off at the station and go straight up to your mother just as you are." "Yes, yes, yes," answered Stepan Vladimirych approvingly. "The house is only about fifteen versts from there. I can walk it in no time. I shall appear before her all dirty and dusty." "When your mother sees you in that rig, perhaps she'll take pity on you." "She will, she will. Mother, after all, is a kindly old woman." Stepan Golovliov was not quite forty, but he looked like fifty. Life had so thoroughly worn him out that there was not a vestige of his noble origin left, not a single trace of his university education nor of the enlightening word of science which in days bygone had been addressed to him, too. He was tall as a Maypole, racked by hunger, unkempt, untidy, with a sunken chest and long bony arms. His bloated face, his dishevelled hair, streaked with grey, his loud, hoarse voice, his bulging, bloodshot eyes were unmistakable signs of heavy drinking and a weather-beaten life. He wore an old, threadbare uniform, with the galloons gone--they had been sold to a smelter--and a pair of reddish boots, patched and sadly worn. Beneath his coat, when unbuttoned, peeped a dirty shirt, as black as if it had been smeared with soot. With the cynicism of a militiaman, he called it "a flea nest."