"Do you know how the Lord punishes ingratitude?" he mumbled feebly,
hoping the reference to God would bring the woman to her senses. But
his remark did not placate the mutineer. She cut him short at once.
"Don't talk me blind!" she exclaimed, "and don't drag in God. I'm not a
baby. Enough! I've had enough of your tyranny."
Porfiry Vladimirych grew silent. His glass of tea stood untouched. His
face grew pale, his lips trembled, as if trying vainly to curl up into
a grin.
"These are Anninka's tricks," he said finally, though without a clear
perception of what he was saying. "It's she, the snake, who has incited
you."
"What tricks do you mean?"
"I mean the way you are talking to me. She, she taught you. No one
else!" he foamed in a rage. "Give her silk dresses! The impudence!
Do you know, you shameless creature, who in your position wears silk
dresses?"
"Tell me and I will know."
"The most--the most dissolute ones. They are the only ones who wear
silk dresses."
But Yevpraksia was not impressed. On the contrary, she answered him
back with saucy arguments.
"I don't know why you call them dissolute. Everybody knows it's the
masters that insist upon it. If a master seduces one of us, well, she
lives with him. You and I are not so saintly either, we are doing the
same as the Mazulina master and his queen."
"Oh, you! Fie, fie, for shame!"
Yudushka stared at his rebellious companion in utter consternation. A
flow of empty words came tripping to his tongue, but for the first time
in his life he felt a vague suspicion that there are occasions when
even talk is useless.
"Well, my friend, I see there's no use talking to you to-day," he said,
rising from the table.
"Neither to-day, nor to-morrow--never! No more of your tyranny! I've
listened to you enough; now it's time for you to listen to me."
Porfiry Vladimirych made a movement as if to throw himself at her with
clenched fists, but she protruded her chest with such determination
that he lost heart. He turned his face to the ikon, lifted up his hands
prayerfully, mumbled a prayer, and trudged slowly away into his room.
The whole day he felt uneasy. He had no definite fears for the future,
but the feeling that something had broken in upon his well-ordered life
and had passed unpunished greatly upset him. He did not go to dinner,
pleading ill health, and in a meek, feeble voice asked that his food
be brought into his room. In the evening after tea, which passed in
silence for the first time in his life, he rose, as was his habit, to
say his prayers. In vain did his lips seek to whisper the customary
words. His agitated mind refused to follow the prayer. A persistent
enervating anxiety pervaded his being, and he involuntarily strained
his ear to catch the dying echoes of the day, which were lingering
in the various corners of the vast manor-house. Finally, when even
the yawning of the people could be heard no more, and the house was
plunged in the profoundest quiet, he could not hold out any longer.
Stealing noiselessly along the corridor, he went to Yevpraksia's room
and put his ear to the door to listen. She was alone, and Yudushka
heard her yawning and saying, "Lord! Savior! Holy Virgin," as she
scratched her back.
Porfiry Vladimirych tried the knob, but the door was locked.
"Yevpraksia, darling, are you there?" he called.
"Yes, but not for you!" she snapped, so rudely that he immediately
retreated to his room.
The next morning there was another conversation. Yevpraksia
intentionally selected morning tea for launching her attacks on Porfiry
Vladimirych. She felt instinctively that a spoiled morning would fill
the entire day with anxiety and pain.
"I'd like to see how some people live," she began in a rather enigmatic
manner.
Yudushka changed countenance. "It's beginning," flashed through his
mind; but he held his tongue and waited for what would come next.
"It's fine to live with a handsome young friend, upon my word. You walk
about in the rooms and look at each other. Not a cross word exchanged.
'My darling' and 'my heart'--that's your whole conversation. Lovely and
noble!"
The subject was peculiarly hateful to Porfiry Vladimirych. Although of
necessity he tolerated adultery within strict limits, he nevertheless
considered lovemaking a diabolical temptation. This time, however, he
restrained himself, all the more so because he wanted his tea. The
tea-pot had been boiling on the samovar for quite some time, but
Yevpraksia seemed to have forgotten about filling the glasses.
"Of course, many of us women are foolish," she went on, impudently
swinging in her chair and drumming on the table with her fingers. "Some
are so silly that they are ready to do anything for a calico dress;
others give themselves away for nothing at all. 'Cider,' you said,
'drink as much as you please,' A fine thing to seduce a woman with!"
"Is it from interest alone that----" Yudushka risked a timid remark,
watching the tea-pot from which steam had begun to escape.
"Who says from interest alone? Is it I who am a selfish woman?" cried
Yevpraksia heatedly, suddenly shifting the conversation. "Do you mean
to reproach me for the bread I eat?"
"I don't reproach you. I only said that not from interest alone do
people----"
"'I said'! Talk, but talk sensibly. The idea! I serve from interest!
Kindly permit me to ask you what particular advantage I have derived
except cider and gherkins?"
"Well, cider and gherkins are not the only things----" ventured
Yudushka, unable to restrain himself.
"What else have I gotten? Let me hear, let me hear!"
"Who sends four sacks of flour to your parents every month?"
"Four sacks. What else?"
"Groats, hemp-seed oil and other things----"
"So you are begrudging my poor parents the wretched groats and oil you
send them? Oh, you!"
"I am not begrudging them. It's you----"
"Now you are accusing me. I can't eat a crust of bread without being
reproached for it, and it's I who am blamed for everything."
Yevpraksia could hold out no longer and burst into tears. Meanwhile
the tea kept on boiling, so that Porfiry Vladimirych became seriously
alarmed. So he suppressed his growing temper, seated himself beside
Yevpraksia and patted her on her back.
"Well, well. All right. Pour the tea. What is all this crying for?"
Yevpraksia emitted a few more sobs, pouted and looked into space with
her dull eyes. "You have just been speaking of young fellows," he
went on, trying to lend his voice as caressing a ring as possible.
"Well--after all, I'm not so old, am I?"
"The idea! Leave me alone."
"Come, come. I--do you know--when I served in St. Petersburg, our
director wanted to give me his daughter in marriage?"
"Must have been an old maid--or a cripple."
"No, she was quite a presentable young lady. And how she sang, how she
sang!"
"Maybe she sang well, but you accompanied her badly," she retorted.
"No, I----"
Porfiry Vladimirych was completely put out. He was ready to act against
his conscience and show that he, too, was skilled in the art of
love-making. So he began to rock his body rather clumsily and went so
far as to make an attempt to embrace Yevpraksia round her waist. But
she drew back firmly from his outstretched arms and cried out angrily:
"Do me a favor and leave me, you goblin! Else I'll scald you with this
boiling water. And I don't want your tea. I don't want anything. The
idea--to reproach me for the piece of bread I eat. I'll go away from
here! By Jesus, I will!"
She banged the door and ran out, leaving Porfiry Vladimirych alone in
the dining-room.
Yudushka was completely puzzled. He began to pour the tea himself, but
his hands trembled so violently that he had to call a servant to his
assistance.
"No, this is impossible. I must think up something, arrange matters,"
he whispered, pacing up and down the dining-room in excitement.
But he turned out to be quite unable "to think up something" or "to
arrange matters." His mind was so accustomed to leaping unrestrainedly
from one fantastic subject to another, that the simplest problem of
workaday reality threw him off his balance. No sooner did he make an
effort to concentrate than a swarm of futile trifles attacked him from
all sides and shut actuality out from his consideration. A strange
stupor, a kind of mental and moral anæmia possessed his being. He was
constantly lured away from the hard realities of life to the pleasant
softness of phantoms, which he could shift and rearrange at will and
without any hindrance whatever.
He spent the entire day in solitude, for Yevpraksia did not make her
appearance at dinner or at evening tea. She stayed at the priest's
the entire time and returned late in the evening. Yudushka's distress
was extreme. He could not apply himself to any task, he even lost his
wonted interest in trifles. One irrepressible thought tormented him:
"I must somehow arrange matters, I must." He could not engage in idle
calculations, nor even say prayers. He felt that a strange ailment was
about to attack him. Many a time he halted before the window in the
hope of concentrating his wavering mind on something, or distracting
his attention, but all in vain.
It was early spring. The trees stood naked and the new grass had not
yet appeared. Black fields, spotted here and there with white cakes of
snow, stretched far away. The road was black and boggy and glittered
with puddles. Yudushka saw it all as through a mist. There was no
one round the rain-soaked servants' buildings, though all the doors
were ajar. Nor could he reach anyone in the manor-house, although he
constantly heard sounds as of doors banging in the distance. "How fine
it would be," he mused, "to turn invisible and overhear what the knaves
are saying about me. Do the rascals appreciate my favors or do they
return abuse for my kindness? You stuff their bellies from morning till
night, and still they squeal for more. Only the other day we opened a
barrel of pickled cucumbers, and----" But no sooner did his thoughts
embark upon the exploration of some fantastic subject, no sooner did
he began to calculate how many pickles the barrel held and how many
pickles one man could consume, than the piercing thought of Yevpraksia
brought him back to harsh reality and upset all his calculations.
"She went away without so much as saying a word to me," he reflected,
while his eyes scanned the distance, endeavoring to sight the priest's
house, in which Yevpraksia was in all probability chatting away at that
moment.
Dinner was served. Yudushka sat at table alone slowly sipping thin
soup (_she_ knew he hated thin soup and had had it cooked watery on
purpose). "I imagine the Father must be distressed by Yevpraksia's
unbidden visit," he reflected. "She's a hearty eater and an extra
dish, perhaps a roast, will have to be served for the guest." His
imagination began to run away with him once more, and his mind began to
ponder over questions like these: How many spoonfuls of cabbage-soup
will Yevpraksia swallow? How many spoonfuls of gruel? What would the
Father say to his wife about Yevpraksia's visit? How do they abuse her
when alone? All this, the food and the conversation, hovered before his
eyes with corporeal vividness.
"I fancy they all guzzle the soup from the same dish. The idea! A
fine place she found to hunt for knick-knacks. Outside it's wet and
slushy--just the kind of weather that breeds disease. Soon she will
return, her skirt all dripping with mud, the disgusting creature. Yes,
I must, I must do something!" All his musings inevitably ended with
this phrase.
After dinner, he lay down for his nap, as usual, but tossed from side
to side, unable to fall asleep. Yevpraksia came back after dark and
stole into her nook so quietly that he did not observe her entrance. He
had ordered the servants to let him know when she returned, but none
of them said a word, as if they had agreed among themselves. He made
another attempt to penetrate into her room, but again found the door
locked.
Next morning Yevpraksia made her appearance at tea, but now her words
were even more alarming and threatening.
"Dear me, where is my little Volodya?" she began, speaking in a
studiously tearful tone.
Porfiry Vladimirych shuddered.
"If I could have the tiniest glimpse of him, if I could see how the
darling suffers away from his mother! But maybe he is dead already."
Yudushka's lips whispered a prayer.
"It isn't the same as at other people's here. When Palageyushka gave
birth to a daughter, they dressed the baby in batiste and silks and
made a pink little bed for her. The nurse received more sarafans and
frontlets than I ever had. And here--oh, you!"
Yevpraksia abruptly turned her head toward the window and sighed
noisily.
"It is true what they say, that all the gentry are an abomination," she
went on. "They make children and then throw them in the swamp, like
puppies. What does it matter to them? They owe no account to anybody.
Is there no God in Heaven? Even a wolf would not act like that."
Porfiry Vladimirych felt like a man sitting on pins and needles. He
restrained himself for a long time, but finally could stand it no
longer and said through clenched teeth:
"This is the third day that I've been listening to your talk."
"Well, why should _you_ do all the talking? Other people have a right
to say a word, too. Yes, sir! You've had a child. What have you done
with it? I bet you let him rot in the hands of a wretched peasant woman
in a dirty hut. I suppose the baby is lying somewhere in filth, sucking
at a bottle turned sour, with no one to take care of it, and feed and
clothe it."
She shed tears and dried her eyes with the end of her neckerchief.
"The Pogorelka lady was right; she said it's horrible here with you. It
_is_ horrible. No pleasures, no joy, nothing but mean, underhand ways.
Prisoners in jail are better off. At least, if I had a baby now, there
would be something to amuse me. But you have taken it away from me."
Porfiry Vladimirych sat shaking his head in torture. From time to time
he groaned.
"Oh, how painful!" he finally said.
"Painful? Well, you have made the bed, lie on it. Upon my word, I
shall go to Moscow and have a look at my dear little Volodya. Volodya,
Volodya! Da-a-ar-ling! Master, shall I take a trip to Moscow?"
"It's no use," answered Porfiry Vladimirych in a hollow voice.
"Then I'll go without asking your permission, and no one can stop me.
Because I am--a mother!"
"What sort of mother are you? You are a strumpet--that's what you are,"
Yudushka finally burst out. "Tell me plainly what you want of me."
Yevpraksia, apparently, was not prepared for this question. She stared
at Yudushka and kept silence, as if wondering what she really wanted of
him.
"So you call me a strumpet already?" she exclaimed, bursting into tears.
"Yes, a strumpet, a strumpet, a strumpet! Fie, fie, fie!"
Utterly enraged, Porfiry Vladimirych leapt to his feet and ran out of
the room.
That was the last flicker of energy. Then he began rapidly to collapse,
while Yevpraksia kept up her campaign. She had enormous power at her
disposal, the stubbornness of stupidity, sometimes truly appalling
because always trained upon the same point with the sole object of
annoying, teasing, plaguing. Little by little the confines of the
dining-room became too narrow for her. She invaded the study and
attacked Yudushka within the precincts of that sanctuary, into which
she would not even have thought of entering formerly when her master
was "busy." She would come in, seat herself at the window, stare
into space, scratch her shoulder blades on the post of the window,
and begin to storm at him. She was especially fond of harping on the
threat of leaving Golovliovo. As a matter of fact, she had never
seriously thought of carrying out her threat, and she would have been
astonished had anyone suggested to her that she return to her parental
roof. But she suspected that Porfiry Vladimirych feared her desertion
more than anything else, and she spared neither time nor energy in
taking advantage of this. She approached the subject cautiously and
in a roundabout way. She would sit a while, scratch her ear, and then
remark, as if in a reminiscent frame of mind:
"To-day, I suppose, they are baking pancakes at father's."
At this prefatory remark Yudushka would grow green with rage. He was
just getting ready to plunge into a complicated computation of how much
he would get for his milk if all the cows of the neighborhood perished
and none but his own, with God's help, remained unharmed and doubled
their yield of milk.
"Why are they baking pancakes there?" he asked, trying to force a
smile. "Goodness, to-day is Memorial Day! Isn't it stupid of me to have
forgotten about it? And there's nothing in the house with which to
honor the memory of my late mother. What a sin!"
"I should like to eat father's pancakes."
"Why not? Give orders to have them baked. Get hold of cook Marya or
Ulita. Ulita cooks delicious pancakes."
"Maybe she has pleased you in some other way, too," remarked Yevpraksia
acidly.
"No, but, oh, she's a witch at cooking pancakes, Ulita is. She cooks
them light, soft--a sheer delight!"
Porfiry Vladimirych was evidently trying to mollify Yevpraksia, but to
no avail.
"What I want is not yours, but father's pancakes," she answered,
playing the spoiled darling.
"Well, that's not difficult. Get hold of the coachman, have him put a
pair of horses to the carriage, and drive over to father's."
"No, sir, that won't do. If I've fallen in the trap, that's my own
fault. Who has any use for one like me? You yourself called me a
strumpet the other day. It's no use!"
"My, my! Isn't it a sin in you to accuse me falsely? Do you know how
God punishes false accusations?"
"You did call me strumpet! You did! You did it in the presence of this
ikon. How I hate your Golovliovo! I shall run away from here. I shall,
by God!"
In the course of this spirited dialogue Yevpraksia behaved in a rather
unconstrained manner. She swung about on the chair, picked her nose,
and scratched her back. She was obviously playing comedy.
"Porfiry Vladimirych, I should like to tell you something," she went on
mischievously. "I want to go home."
"Do you wish to pay a visit to your parents?"
"No, I mean to stay there altogether."
"What's the matter? Has anybody offended you?"
"No, but--I'm not going to stay here forever. Besides, it's too dull
here--it's frightful. The house is like a deserted place. The servants
poke themselves away in the kitchens and their own quarters, and I sit
in the house all alone. Some of these days I shall be murdered. At
night, when I go to bed, strange whispers come from every corner."
Days went by, but Yevpraksia never thought of carrying out her threat;
which did not lessen its effect on Porfiry Vladimirych. It dawned upon
him that in spite of his labors, so-called, he was utterly helpless,
that if there were not someone to take care of his household affairs,
he would have no dinner, no clean linen, no decent clothing. Hitherto
he had not been aware of the fact that his surroundings had been
artificially created. His day had passed in a manner established once
and for all. Everything in the house centered around his person and
existed for him; everything was done in its proper time, everything was
in its proper place; in short, there reigned such mechanical precision
everywhere that he gave no thought to it. Owing to this clock-work
orderliness he could indulge in idle talk and thought without running
against the sharp corners of reality. Of course, this artificial
paradise held together only by a hair; but Yudushka, always centered
in himself, did not know it. His life seemed to him to be built on a
rock-bottom foundation, unchangeable, eternal. And suddenly the edifice
was about to collapse because of Yevpraksia's foolish whim. Yudushka
was completely taken aback. "What if she really leaves?" he reflected
panic-stricken. And he began to frame all sorts of preposterous plans
to keep her from going. He even decided on concessions to Yevpraksia's
rebellious youth which would never before have entered his mind.
"Ugh, ugh, ugh!" he thought, and spat out in disgust when the
possibility of having anything to do with the coachman Arkhip or the
clerk Ignat presented itself to him in all its offensive nakedness.
Soon, however, he became convinced that his fears were groundless.
Thereupon his existence entered a new and quite unexpected phase.
Yevpraksia did not leave him, she even abated her attacks, but, to
compensate, deserted him altogether. May set in, the weather was fair,
and Yevpraksia scarcely ever put in appearance. She ran in for a moment
and the next moment had disappeared. In the morning Yudushka did not
find his clothing in its usual place, and he had to engage in lengthy
negotiations with the servants before he got clean linen. His tea and
meals were served either too early or too late, and he was waited upon
by the tipsy lackey Prokhor, who came in a stained coat emanating a
peculiarly disgusting odor of fish and vodka.
Nevertheless, Porfiry Vladimirych was glad that Yevpraksia left him
in peace. He even reconciled himself to the disorder as long as he
knew that there was someone to bear the responsibility for it. What
frightened him was not so much the disorder as the thought that it
might be necessary for him to interfere personally in the details of
everyday life. He pictured with horror the minute he would have to
administer, give orders and supervise. In anticipation of that awful
moment, he endeavored to stifle the voice of protest that at times rose
in him, tried to shut his eyes to the confusion reigning in the house,
and keep in the background and hold his tongue.
In the meantime open debauchery made its nest in the manor-house. With
the coming of fair weather a new life pervaded the estate, hitherto
quiet and gloomy. In the evening all the servants, both young and old,
went out in the village streets. The young people sang, played the
accordion, laughed merrily, screamed and played tag.
The clerk Ignat appeared in a flaming red shirt and an astonishingly
narrow jacket, that never closed over his chest, thrown out like a
pouter-pigeon's, while the coachman Arkhip took possession of the silk
shirt and plush sleeveless jacket worn on holidays, obviously vying
with Ignat in the conquest of Yevpraksia's heart. The maiden herself
ran from one to the other, bestowing her favors now on the clerk, now
on the coachman. Porfiry Vladimirych dared not look out of the window
for fear of witnessing a love scene; but he could not help hearing
what was going on outside. At times he caught the resounding blow that
Arkhip bestowed playfully upon Yevpraksia's back while playing tag. At
other times he would catch fragments of conversation such as this:
"Yevpraksia Nikitishna! Yevpraksia Nikitishna! Madam!" the drunken
Prokhor would call from the steps of the mansion.
"What do you want?"
"The key of the tea-chest, please. The master is asking for tea."
"Let him wait, the scarecrow!"
CHAPTER III
In a short time Porfiry had completely lost all habits of sociability.
He no longer paid any attention to the confusion that had come into
his existence. He demanded nothing better of life than to be left
alone in his last refuge, his study. He had lost all his former ways
of cavilling with and pestering those about him, and he was timorous
and glumly meek. All ties between him and reality were cut. To hear
nothing, to see nothing, that was his heart's desire. The behavior of
Yevpraksia and the servants no longer concerned him. Formerly, had the
clerk allowed himself the least inaccuracy in presenting his reports
on the various branches of the household management, he would have
talked him to death. Now at times the reports were weeks late, and
he was unresentful except when he needed some data for his fantastic
computations. But when alone in his study he felt himself absolute
master, free to give himself over nonchalantly to inane musings. Both
of his brothers had died from drink. He, too, fell into the clutches
of drunkenness. But his intoxication was mental. Shut up in his study,
he racked his brains from early morning till far into the night over
fantastic problems. He elaborated various fabulous schemes, made
speeches before imaginary audiences, and wove whole scenes about the
first person that crossed his mind.
In this wild maze of fantastic acts and images a morbid passion for
gain played the most important part.
Porfiry Vladimirych had always had a strong leaning toward the
petty annoyance of people and litigation, but because of his lack
of practicality he had derived no direct profit from it. Sometimes
he was even the first to suffer. This proclivity of his was now
transferred to a world of abstractions and phantoms, where there was
no scope for resistance on the part of the oppressed and no need for
self-justification. The dividing line between the weak and the powerful
vanished. In that world there were no police or justices of the peace,
or rather, there were, but they existed solely for the purpose of
protecting his own interests. On this fantastic plane he could freely
enmesh the whole universe in his net of intriguing, cavilling, and
petty oppression.
He loved to torment people, ruin them, make them unhappy, suck their
blood--at least, in his imagination. He would look over the various
branches of his establishment and on each build up a fantastic
structure of all manner of oppression and plunder--a veritable
paradise, but the foulest ever conceived by a landed proprietor. And
everything depended here on overpayments and underpayments assumed
arbitrarily, each overpaid or underpaid kopek served as a pretext for
remodelling the entire edifice, which thus passed through endless
changes.
When his tired thoughts were no longer capable of following out all
the details of the intricate computations on which his imaginary
operations were based, he applied his imagination to a more plastic
material. He recalled every conflict and altercation he had had not
only in recent times, but far back in his youth, and he so manipulated
his reminiscences as always to come out the victor. He took revenge on
those of his former colleagues who had gone over his head in service
and had so deeply wounded his self-love that he renounced his official
career. He revenged himself on his schoolmates who had taken advantage
of their physical strength to tease or persecute him; on the neighbors
that had opposed his claims and stood up for their rights; on the
servants who had offended him or simply had not treated him with
sufficient respect; on "dearest mamma" Arina Petrovna for having wasted
too much of the money that "by law" belonged to him on the repairs
of Pogorelka; on his brother Simple Simon for having nicknamed him
Yudushka; on aunt Varvara Mikhailovna for having unexpectedly given
birth to children, with the result that the property of Gavryushkino
was forever lost to the family. He revenged himself on the living and
he revenged himself on the dead.
Gradually he worked himself into a state of actual intoxication. The
ground vanished from under his feet, wings grew on his shoulders, his
eyes shone, his lips trembled and foamed, his face grew ghastly pale,
and took on a threatening air. The atmosphere around him swarmed with
ghosts, and he fought them in imaginary battles.
His existence became so ample and independent that there was nothing
left for him to desire. The whole universe was at his feet, that
is, the universe of which his wretched mind could conceive. It was
something in the nature of ecstatic clairvoyance, not unlike the
phenomena that take place at the seances of mediums. His untrammeled
imagination created an illusory reality, rendered concrete and almost
tangible by his constant mental frenzy. It was not faith or conviction,
but unrestrained mental debauchery, a sort of trance in which his
tongue involuntarily uttered words and his body made automatic gestures.
Porfiry Vladimirych was happy. He locked up the windows and doors
that he might not hear, he drew down the curtains that he might not
see. He went through the customary functions and duties which had no
connection with the world of his imagination, in haste, almost with
disgust. When the ever-drunken Prokhor rapped at his door and announced
that dinner was served, he ran into the dining-room impatiently,
hurriedly swallowed his three courses and disappeared again into his
study. Something new showed in his manners--a mixture of timidity and
derision, as if he both feared and defied the few people whom he met.
He rose very early and immediately set to work. He cut down the time
devoted to worship, said his prayers indifferently, without thinking of
their meaning, crossed himself and went through the other gestures of
worship mechanically and carelessly. Apparently even the notion of a
hell with its complicated system of punishments was no longer present
in his mind.
Meanwhile Yevpraksia reveled in the satisfaction of carnal desires.
Dancing between the clerk Ignat and the coachman Arkhip, and also
casting glances at the red-faced carpenter Ilyusha, who was mending the
cellars at the head of a gang of workmen, she did not notice what was
going on in the manor-house. She thought the master was playing "a new
comedy," and many a light remark about the master was passed in the
jolly gatherings of the servants. But one day she happened to enter the
dining-room when Yudushka was hurriedly despatching the remnants of
roast goose, and suddenly a kind of dread fell upon her.
Porfiry Vladimirych wore a greasy dressing-gown, through the holes of
which the cotton interlining peeped out. He was pale, unkempt, and his
face bristled with a many days' growth.
"Dear master, what is it? What is the matter?" she turned to him in
fright.
Porfiry Vladimirych only smiled half sheepishly, half derisively, and
the meaning of his smile was: "I'd like to see how you could get at me
now."
"Darling master, what is the matter? Tell me, what has happened to
you?" repeated Yevpraksia.
He rose, fixed on her a gaze brimming over with hatred, and said,
pausing after each word:
"If you, you hussy, ever dare--enter my study--I will kill you!"
CHAPTER IV
As a result of this scene Yudushka's life outwardly changed for
the better. Distracted by no material hindrances, he gave himself
completely over to his solitude, so that he did not even notice how the
summer passed away.
It was late in August, the days grew shorter; it drizzled ceaselessly
and the soil became boggy. The trees looked mournful, with their
yellow leaves bestrewing the ground. Absolute silence reigned in the
court-yard and about the servants' quarters. The domestics sat quietly
under cover, partly because of the weather, partly because they finally
perceived that something was the matter with the master. Yevpraksia
came completely to her senses, forgot the silk dresses and her lovers,
and sat in the maids' room for hours on end, brooding and wondering
what she could do. The drunken Prokhor teased her that she had designs
on the master's life, that she had poisoned him and she could not
escape the road to Siberia.
Meanwhile, Yudushka sat in his study, deep in reveries. The ceaseless
patter of the rain on the window-panes lulled him half to sleep--the
most favorable state for the play of his fancy. He imagined he was
invisible and was inspecting his possessions, accompanied by old Ilya,
who had served as bailiff under Yudushka's father, and whose bones had
long since been rotting in the village churchyard.
"Ilya is a clever fellow," argued Porfiry Vladimirych with himself,
glad that Ilya had arisen from the dead. "An old servant! Nowadays his
kind is getting rare. Nowadays they know how to chat and fidget, but
when it comes to business, they're good for nothing."
After saying an appropriate prayer, Yudushka and Ilya pick their way
leisurely across meadows and ravines, dales and hills, and soon reach
the Ukhovshchina waste. For a while they stand dazed, unable to believe
their own eyes. Straight before them looms up a magnificent pine
forest, their tops tossing in the wind. Some of the trees are so big in
circumference that two or even three men could not embrace them. Their
trunks are straight, naked, crowned with mighty, spreading tops--all
signs of vigor and longevity.
"What a forest, brother!" exclaims Yudushka, enraptured.
"This wood has been protected from felling," explains Ilya. "Under your
late grandfather Mikhail Vasilyevich, a procession with holy ikons went
around it. And look how tall the trees have grown."
"How large do you think the forest is?"
"At that time it held just seventy desyatins, and the desyatin was
then, as you know, one and a half times the present size."
"And how many trees, d'you think, are there on one desyatin?"
"I can't tell. Only God has counted them."
"I reckon there are no less than six or seven hundred trees to a
desyatin. I mean the desyatin now used. Wait! If we take the number to
be six hundred--or, let us say, six hundred and fifty trees, how many
trees are there on one hundred and five desyatins?"
Porfiry Vladimirych takes a sheet of paper and multiplies 105 by 65 and
gets 6,825 trees.
"Now, see here, if I were to sell all this timber, do you think I can
get ten rubles a tree?"
Old Ilya shakes his head.
"Ten is little," he says. "Look at these trees. Each trunk will give
two mill beams and some planks and boards and firewood. What do you
think is the price of a mill-wheel beam?"
Porfiry Vladimirych makes believe he does not know, although he figured
out everything to a kopek long ago.
"Here," continues the peasant, "a beam is worth ten rubles, but if
we take it to Moscow it will be worth its weight in gold. It is a
tremendous beam. You will hardly haul it on a three-horse team. And
think of the second beam that can be made out of the stem, and the
boards and laths and firewood, and branches. Twenty rubles, I should
think, is the lowest price for a tree."
Porfiry Vladimirych listens and takes in his words greedily. A clever,
faithful servant this Ilya. And how well he has picked out his help!
Old Vavilo, Ilya's assistant--he too has been resting in the churchyard
for a good many years--is quite worthy of his superior. The foresters,
too, are all tried, stalwart men, and the hounds at the corn lofts are
fierce. Both the men and the dogs are ready to grapple with the devil
himself for the master's good.
"Let's figure out, brother. If we sell the whole forest, what will it
come to?"
Porfiry Vladimirych again makes a mental calculation of the value of
a large beam, a smaller beam, a plank, a lath, the firewood and the
branches. He adds up, multiplies, now omitting fractions, now adding
them. Columns of numbers fill the sheet.
"Here is the total, brother," says Yudushka, showing Ilya's phantom an
altogether fabulous sum. The old servant is dazed.
"Is it not a little too large?" he says, pensively shrugging his
shoulders.
But Porfiry Vladimirych has already cast off all doubts and giggles
gleefully.
"You are a queer fellow, brother!" he exclaims. "It isn't I who say it,
it's the number that says it. There is a science called arithmetic.
It never tells a lie, brother! Well, this will do for Ukhovshchina.
Now let's have a look at Lisy-Yamy, brother. It's a long time since I
have been there. I have a strong suspicion the peasants have become
thievish. There's Garanka, the guard--I know, I know. Garanka is a
good, faithful guard, that's true enough. Still, you know. It seems to
me he is not what he used to be either."
They plough noiselessly and unseen through a birch thicket, and stop
suddenly, holding their breath. A peasant's cart lies sprawling across
the road on its side, and the peasant is standing by, looking at the
broken axle in perplexity. He has been standing there for some time,
cursing the axle and himself and whipping the horse now and then.
Finally he sees he cannot loaf there all day long. He looks around
and pricks up his ears to make sure no one is coming along the road.
Then he selects a suitable birch tree, and takes out an axe. Meanwhile
Yudushka stands motionless and watches. The young birch shudders, sways
and suddenly sinks to the ground like a sheaf of corn, reaped by the
sickle. The thief is about to lop off the length of an axle from the
trunk, but Yudushka has decided that the moment has come. He steals
upon him and in a trice snatches the axe from his hand.
"Ah!" is all the thief, taken red-handed, has time to exclaim.
"Ah!" Yudushka mimics him. "Are you allowed to steal timber? 'Ah!' Is
it your birch-tree you have just felled?"
"Forgive me, sir!"
"I forgave everyone long ago, brother. I am myself a sinner before the
Lord and I dare not judge another. It is the law, not I, that condemns
you. Take the tree you have felled to the manor-house and pay up a fine
of one ruble. In the meantime, I shall keep your axe. Don't you worry,
it is in good hands, brother."
Glad that he was able to prove to Ilya how well-grounded were his
suspicions in regard to Garanka, Yudushka transports himself in
imagination to the forester's cottage and reprimands him soundly. On
his way back home he catches three hens belonging to peasants in the
act of feeding on his oats.
Back in his study, he falls again to work, and a peculiar system of
household management is suddenly born in his brain. The system is based
on the assumption that all mankind suddenly has begun to steal his wood
and damage his fields by letting cattle graze upon them. But this does
not grieve Yudushka, on the contrary he rubs his hands in delight.
"Let your cattle graze on my fields, fell my trees. I shall be the
better off for it," he repeats, hugely pleased. Then he takes a fresh
sheet of paper and resumes his ciphering and reckoning. The problems
to be solved are these: First, how much oats grows on one desyatin and
what will the fines amount to if the peasants' hens scratch the oats
up? And, second, how many birches grow in Lisy-Yamy and how much money
can they bring in if the peasants fell them illegally and pay the fine?
"A birch, though felled," reflects Yudushka gleefully, "will in the end
get to the house and be used as firewood--firewood free of charge, mind
you!"
Long rows of figures appear on the paper. Yudushka becomes so tired
and excited that he rises from the table all perspiring and lies down
on the sofa to rest. Here his imagination does not cease its work, it
merely selects an easier theme.
"Mamma was a clever woman, mamma was," muses Porfiry Vladimirych. "She
knew how to be exacting and how to set one at ease--that is why people
served her so willingly. Still she was not without sins. Oh, yes, she
had plenty of them."
No sooner does Yudushka think of Arina Petrovna than she appears before
him in person, coming straight from the grave.
"I don't know, my friend, I don't know what fault you have to find with
me," she says dejectedly, "it seems to me that I----"
"I know, I know," Yudushka cuts her short unceremoniously. "Let me be
frank and thrash out the matter with you. For instance, why did you not
stop Aunt Varvara Mikhailovna that time?"
"But how in the world could I stop her? She was of age, and she had the
full right to dispose of herself."
"Oh, no, permit me, mother dear. What sort of a husband had she? An old
drunkard, not much of a man, I should say. Nevertheless, they had four
children. Where did they come from, I'm asking you?"
"But how strangely you speak, my friend. As if I were the cause of it all." |
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