His glance was stealthy and gloomy, the expression not of inner
discontent, but rather of a vague anxiety which seemed to come from
an ever-present fear of death by starvation. He talked ceaselessly
and disconnectedly, passing without transition from one subject to
another. He spoke whether Ivan Mikhailych listened or dozed off under
the soporific of his garrulousness. He was dreadfully uncomfortable,
because there were four people in the diligence and he had to sit with
his legs bent, so that at the end of three or four versts he had an
intolerable pain in his knee-joints. Nevertheless the pain did not
prevent him from talking. Clouds of dust entered through the side
windows of the vehicle, at times flooded by a flaming, scorching sheet
of sunlight. But Stepan Golovliov kept on talking.
"Yes, brother," he held forth, "I have lived hard all my life. It is
high time to rest. I shan't be eating her out of house and home, shall
I? She has enough and to spare. What d'you think, Ivan Mikhailych?"
"Oh, your mother has plenty to eat."
"Yes, but not for me, you mean to say? Yes, friend, she has heaps of
money, but not a copper for me. And to think the hag has always hated
me. Why? But now I'll sing her a different song. I've made up my mind.
I'm desperate. If she tries to drive me out, I won't go. If she doesn't
give me food, I'll take it. I've served my country, brother. Now it's
everyone's duty to help me. There's only one thing I'm afraid of, that
she won't give me tobacco."
"Yes, you'll have to say good-by to tobacco."
"Then I'll put the screw on the bailiff. The devil can well afford to
give his master a present now and then."
"Oh, yes, he may do that, but what if your mother forbids him to?"
"Well, in that case I'll be done for. Tobacco is the only luxury that
has remained of my former style. When I had money I used to smoke not
less than a quarter of a pound of Zhukov's tobacco every day."
"I guess you'll have to do without brandy, too."
"Another calamity. Brandy does me a lot of good. It breaks up my
phlegm. When we were marching to Sebastopol, we had hardly reached
Serpukhov, when each man had already been given three gallons of
brandy."
"You must have lost your senses."
"I don't remember. We marched as far as Kharkov, but I'll be hanged
if I remember anything else. The only thing I can recall is that we
passed through villages and towns and that at Tula an _otkupshchik_
made a speech. He shed tears, the scoundrel did. Yes, our holy mother
Russia drank from the cup of sorrow in those days. _Otkupshchiki,_
contractors, receivers--it's a wonder God succeeded in saving the
country from them."
"Oh, your mother came in for some of the profits. In our village hardly
half of the soldiers returned home. A recruit's receipt is now given
for each man lost in the campaign, and the government rates such a
quittance at more than four hundred rubles."
"Yes, my mater is a cunning blade. She ought to be a minister of state
instead of housekeeper at Golovliovo. Let me tell you, she has been
unjust to me and she has insulted me, but I respect her. The main thing
is, she's clever as the devil. If not for her, where would we have been
now? We would have had nothing but Golovliovo with its one hundred and
one and a half souls. Just think what an enormous pile she has made."
"Well, your brothers will certainly be rich."
"Yes. But I'll have nothing, that's just as certain. Yes, friend, I've
gone to rack and ruin. But my brothers, they'll be rich, especially the
Bloodsucker. He can ensnare a person in no time, and it won't be long
before he'll undo her, too. He'll pump the estate and the money out of
her. I have an eye for these things. But Pavel, he's a fine chap. He
will send my tobacco on the sly. You'll see if he doesn't. As soon as I
reach Golovliovo, I'll send a note off to him: 'Dear brother, it's so
and so with me. Ease my soul.' Ah, if I were rich!"
"What would you do?"
"In the first place, I'd make you roll in wealth."
"Why me? First think of yourself. I'm contented, living as I do under
your mother's rule."
"Oh, no, brother, _attendez!_ I would make you the chief marshal of all
my estates. Yes, my dear friend, you have fed and warmed a soldier,
accept my thanks. If not for your generosity, I should now be footing
it all the way to the home of my fathers. And, of course, I would free
you on the spot and open up all my treasury to you--drink, eat and be
merry. What did you think I would do?"
"You'd better stop worrying about me, sir. What else would you do if
you were rich?"
"In the second place, I'd get a mistress at once. At Kursk I went to
mass once and saw one--a queen! She was very fidgety and restless."
"But maybe she would object to becoming your mistress."
"And how about hard cash? What's the filthy lucre for? If a hundred
thousand is not enough for her, she'll take two hundred thousand. When
I have money, no expense is too great for me, if it is a question of
getting a bit of pleasure out of life. I must confess that at the time
I let her know through our corporal that I would give her three rubles.
But the wench asked five."
"That was too much for you, of course!"
"Well, I can't tell. As I said, I was in a dream the whole time.
Maybe she came to me, but I forget. Those two months of marching have
gone completely out of my mind. No such thing has happened to you, I
suppose?"
Ivan Mikhailych was silent. Stepan Vladimirych looked at him
attentively and discovered that his fellow-traveller was sound asleep.
"Umph," he said. "He has nodded off, the sleepy-head. You have grown
fat, brother, on the tea and fare of your eating-house. I can't sleep,
not a wink. A good chance for a lark."
Golovliov looked around and saw that everybody was asleep. The merchant
at his side was constantly striking his head against a cross-beam, but
kept on sleeping. His face shone as if veneered, and flies swarmed
about his mouth. A splendid idea, Stepan thought, to cram all the flies
down the merchant's throat. His hand began to move toward the merchant,
but halfway he repented and gave up the idea. "No more pranks," he
said, "enough. Sleep, friends, and rest." Meanwhile--where had he
hidden the bottle? Here, the darling! "Let me see you. Lord, save Thy
creatures," he hummed, taking out a bottle from a bag fastened to the
side of the vehicle and applying it to his mouth. "Ah, that's better.
It warms your insides, you know. Shall I have some more? Well, no. The
station is about twenty versts from here. I'll have time to get as
drunk as a lord. But shan't I have just one drop more? The deuce take
it, the vodka. The bottle simply acts like a charm. It's wicked to
drink, but how can you help it, if it is the only way of getting some
sleep? I wish the vodka, the deuce take it, would do for me quick."
He gulped down some more vodka, returned the bottle to its place, and
began to fill his pipe.
"We are all right," he said, talking to himself. "First, we had a sip,
and here we are smoking. She won't let me have any tobacco, the old
hag, sure as fate she won't, the man is right. Will she give me food?
She may send me what is left over from her meals. Well, we, too, had
money, but now we have none. Such is life. To-day you eat and drink
your fill, you enjoy yourself and smoke a pipe,
"'And to-morrow--where art thou, man?'
Still it would not be a bad thing to have a bite now. I drink like a
fish and I hardly ever have a square meal. Doctors say drinking does
you good only when followed by a hearty meal, as the Most Reverend
Smaragd said when we passed through Oboyan. Was it Oboyan? The deuce
knows, it may have been Kromy. But that's immaterial now. The main
question is, how to get something to eat. I recollect that my man put a
sausage and three rolls into the bag. Caviar is too expensive for the
rascal. Look at the fellow--sleeps like a log and sings through his
nose. I wouldn't be surprised if he were sitting on the bag."
He rummaged about in search of the bag, but could not find it.
"Ivan Mikhailych, Ivan Mikhailych," he shouted to the sleeping
innkeeper. The man woke up and for a while could not make out where he
was and how he happened to be sitting opposite his master.
"I was just beginning to nap," he said finally.
"Sleep, friend, sleep. I only want to know where the bag with the food
is."
"Are you hungry? But you would like a drink first, I suppose."
"Right. Where is the bottle?"
Stepan Vladimirych took a drink, and then attacked the sausage, which
happened to be as salty as salt itself and as hard as stone, so that he
had to use the point of his knife to pierce it.
"Some whitefish would taste good now," he remarked.
"Excuse me, sir, I clean forgot about the whitefish. All morning I kept
saying to my wife: 'Be sure to remind me of the whitefish.' I am very
sorry."
"Oh, it doesn't matter. The sausage is good enough for me. When we
were on the campaign, we ate worse things. Father used to tell that two
Englishmen made a bet. One of them was to eat a dead cat, and he ate
it."
"You don't say!"
"He did. And he was as sick as a dog afterwards. He cured himself with
rum. He guzzled two bottles as fast as he could, and that set him right
at once. Another Englishman made a bet that he would live a whole year
on nothing but sugar."
"Did he win?"
"No. He kicked the bucket two days before the end of the year. And how
about you, why don't you take a drink?"
"I never touch it."
"So you swill nothing but tea. No good, brother. That's why your belly
has grown so big. One must be careful with tea. A cup of tea must be
followed by a glass of vodka. Tea gathers phlegm, vodka breaks it up.
Isn't that so?"
"Well, I don't know. You are learned; you know better."
"True. On the campaign we had no time to bother with tea or coffee. But
vodka--that's a holy affair. You unscrew the flask, pour the vodka into
a cup, drink, and that's all. At that time we had to march so fast that
for ten days I went without washing."
"You certainly roughed it, sir."
"Yes, marching on the highroad is not a joke. Still, on our way forward
it was not so bad. People gave us money, and there was plenty to eat
and drink. But when we marched back there was no more feting."
Golovliov gnawed at the sausage and finally chewed up a piece.
"It is very salty, this sausage is," he said. "But I'm not squeamish.
After all, mother won't feed me on tid-bits. A plate of cabbage soup
and some gruel--that's all she'll let me have."
"God is merciful. Maybe she'll give you pie on holidays."
"No, I imagine there'll be no tea, no tobacco, no vodka. People say she
has become fond of playing fool, so she may call me in to take a hand
at the game and give me some tea. As for the rest, there is no hope."
There was a four-hour rest to feed the horses. Golovliov had finished
the bottle and was tormented by hunger. The travellers entered the inn
and settled down to a hearty meal.
Stepan Vladimirych took a stroll in the court, paid a visit to the
backyard, the stables and the dovecote, and even tried to sleep.
Finally he came to the conclusion that the best thing for him to do
was to join his fellow-travellers in the inn. There the cabbage soup
was already steaming and on a wooden tray on the sideboard lay a great
chunk of beef, which Ivan Mikhailych was just then engaged in carving.
Golovliov seated himself a little way from the table, lighted his pipe,
and sat silent for quite a while pondering over the way in which he
could allay the pangs of hunger.
"I wish you a good appetite, gentlemen," he said finally, "the soup
seems to be good and rich."
"The soup is all right," answered Ivan Mikhailych. "Why don't you order
a portion for yourself?"
"Oh, it was only a remark on my part. I'm not hungry."
"Impossible. All you've eaten is a bit of sausage, and the damned
thing only teases one's appetite. Please eat something. I'll have a
separate table laid for you. My dear woman," he turned to the hostess,
"a place for the gentleman."
The passengers silently attacked their meal and now and then exchanged
meaningful looks. Golovliov felt his fellow-travellers suspected how
matters stood, although he had played master throughout the journey,
not without some arrogance, and had addressed the faithful innkeeper as
if he had merely entrusted him with his cash. His brows knitted, and
a thick cloud of smoke escaped from his mouth. In the depths of his
heart he felt he ought to refuse, but so imperative are the dictates
of hunger that he set upon the bowl of cabbage soup like a beast of
prey and emptied it in a trice. Along with satiety came his customary
self-assurance and, as if nothing were the matter, he said, turning to
Ivan Mikhailych:
"Well, my cashier, you will pay up for me, and I am off for the hayloft
to have a talk with Mr. Khrapovitzky."
He jogged over to the hayloft, and as his stomach was full he was soon
fast asleep. He woke up at five o'clock in the morning. Noticing that
the horses stood at their empty bins rubbing their noses against the
edges, he roused the driver. "He sleeps like a top, the rascal," he
shouted. "We're in a hurry, and he's having pleasant dreams."
Soon the travellers reached the station at which the road turned
off to Golovliovo. Here at last Stepan Vladimirych lost some of his
devil-may-care attitude and became crestfallen and taciturn. Ivan
Mikhailych tried to cheer him up and insisted that he part with his
pipe.
"You'd better throw the pipe into the nettles, sir, when you come to
the manor-house," he coaxed. "You will find it later on."
Finally the horses that were to take the innkeeper to the end of his
journey were ready, and the moment of parting came.
"Good-by, brother," said Golovliov in a tremulous voice, kissing Ivan
Mikhailych. "She'll plague the life out of me."
"The Lord is merciful. Keep up a stout heart."
"She'll eat me up alive," repeated Stepan Vladimirych, with such
conviction that the innkeeper involuntarily lowered his eyes.
With these words Golovliov turned sharply along the country road,
walking in a shuffle and leaning on a gnarled stick which he had cut
off a tree.
Ivan Mikhailych followed him with his eyes for a while, and then ran
after him.
"Listen, master," he said. "When I was cleaning your uniform a few
minutes ago, I saw three rubles in your side pocket. Please don't lose
them."
Stepan Vladimirych was visibly irresolute and could not make up his
mind how to act in this contingency. Finally, he stretched out his hand
to the peasant and said, with tears in his eyes:
"I understand--to buy tobacco for the old trooper? Thanks. But she'll
eat me up alive, friend. Sure as hell."
Golovliov found the country road again and several minutes later his
grey soldier's cap showed afar off, now vanishing, now appearing above
the young wood. It was early in the day. The morning mist, touched into
gold by the first rays of the sun, hovered above the country road. The
grass glistened with the dew, and the air was redolent of fir-trees,
mushrooms, and wild berries. The road meandered across a plain swarming
with birds.
Stepan Vladimirych, however, noticed nothing of the beauty about him.
All his frivolity had suddenly gone, and he walked as if to the Last
Judgment. One thought filled his mind to the exclusion of everything
else. In three or four hours he would have reached his goal. He
recalled his life at Golovliovo, and he felt as if the doors of a damp
cellar were opening to let him in, and no sooner would he penetrate
into the gloomy interior than the doors would close behind him and
everything would be over. Memories prophetic of what awaited him at
Golovliovo surged in his mind. There had been uncle Mikhail Petrovich,
popularly known as Mishka the Squabbler, one of the "horrid" members of
the family, whom grandfather Piotr Ivanych had exiled to Golovliovo,
where he had lived in the servants' quarters and eaten out of the
same dish with Trezorka, the house dog. There had been Aunt Vera
Mikhailovna, who had lived on the estate by her brother's favor and
died of "moderate living"; for Arina Petrovna had begrudged her every
mouthful at dinner and every billet of wood for the stove in her room.
And a similar fate awaited him.
He foresaw an endless succession of joyless days losing themselves in
a grey yawning abyss, and he involuntarily shut his eyes. Henceforth
he would have to be alone with a wicked old woman, half dead in the
stagnation of despotism. She would be the death of him before long, as
sure as fate. Not a soul to speak to, not a place to visit. She would
be everywhere, scornful, despotic, deadening. The thought of that
inevitable future made his heart so heavy that he stopped under a
tree in desperation, and struck his head against it several times. His
entire life with all its farcical strutting, idleness, and buffoonery
loomed up as if flooded with sudden light. Then he started on his way
again. He felt there was nothing else left for him. The least of men
can make some effort, can earn his bread. He alone was helpless. It
was a new thought. He had been accustomed in thinking of his future to
picture various prospects, but always prospects of wealth coupled with
idleness, never prospects of work. And now the time had come when he
had to pay for the wickedness and aimlessness of his existence. It was
a bitter settlement, summed up in the terrible phrase: "She will be the
end of me."
It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the white Golovliovo
belfry showed above the forest. The traveller's face grew pale, and his
hands began to tremble. He took off his cap and crossed himself. The
parable of the prodigal son and his return occurred to him, but he at
once rejected the idea as a bit of self-delusion.
Finally, he noticed the boundary-post standing by the wayside, and
presently he was treading the Golovliovo soil, the hateful soil that
had borne him, an unloved child, that had reared him, sent him, hated,
into the wide world, and was now receiving him, the unloved one, back
into its arms again. The sun was high in the heavens and was ruthlessly
scorching the boundless fields of Golovliovo. But Stepan Vladimirych
was growing paler and shivering with ague.
At length he reached the churchyard, and here his courage failed
utterly. The manor-house looked out from behind the trees as if nothing
unpleasant had ever happened there; yet the sight of it worked on him
like the vision of a Medusa head. His paternal abode seemed to be a
tomb. "A tomb, tomb, tomb," he repeated unconsciously. He had not the
courage to go straight to the house, but first called on the priest
and sent him to break the news of his arrival and inquire whether his
mother would receive him.
The priest's wife was very sympathetic and hastened to prepare an
omelette. The village children gathered about him and stared at the
master with wondering eyes. The peasants passing by lifted their hats
in silence and looked at him curiously. One old servant ran up with
the intention of kissing the master's hand. Everyone understood that a
wastrel was before them, an unloved son who had returned to his hated
home never to leave it except for the graveyard. At the thought of it
the people were overwhelmed with a mingled feeling of pity and dread.
At last the priest returned and announced that the lady of the manor
was ready to receive Stepan Vladimirych. Ten minutes later he was
standing in her presence. Arina Petrovna met him severely and solemnly,
and measured him icily from head to foot, but allowed herself no
useless reproaches. She received him, not in the living room, but on
the porch, and ordered the young master to be taken to his father
through another entrance. The old man was dozing in his bed, under a
white coverlet, in a white nightcap, all white like a corpse. When he
felt the presence of his son he woke up and began to laugh idiotically.
"Well, friend, so now you are under the hag's paw," he cried, while his
son kissed his hand. Then he crowed like a cock, burst out laughing
again, and repeated several times: "She'll eat him up! She'll eat him
up!" The phrase found echo in Stepan's soul.
His fears were justified. He was installed in a separate room in
the wing that also housed the counting-room. He was given homespun
underwear and an old discarded dressing-gown of his father's, which he
put on immediately. The doors of the burial vault had opened, let him
in, and closed again.
There now began a long succession of dull, ugly days, which Time's
grey, yawning abyss swallowed up, one after the other. Arina Petrovna
never received him, nor was he allowed to see his father. Three days
after his arrival, his mother informed him through Finogey Ipatych, the
bailiff, that he would receive board and clothing and also a pound of
Faler's tobacco monthly. Stepan Vladimirych listened to the bailiff,
and merely remarked:
"The hag! She's found out that Zhukov's tobacco costs two rubles, while
Faler's is only one ruble ninety kopeks a pound. So she pockets ten
kopeks a month."
The symptoms of the moral sobering that had appeared during the
hours of his approaching Golovliovo on the country road, vanished.
Frivolity reasserted its rights and was followed by an acceptance of
the conditions his mother imposed upon him. The disquieting thought of
the hopeless future, which had once pierced his mind, faded gradually
away and finally was no more. The day and the evil thereof, the petty
interests of existence in all its undisguised ugliness absorbed his
entire being. What part, indeed, could his intentions and opinions play
when the course of the rest of his life in all its details was laid out
in advance in Arina Petrovna's brain?
All day long he walked to and fro in his room, pipe in mouth, humming
bits of songs, passing unaccountably from church tunes to boisterous
airs. If the village clerk happened to be in the office, he went up to
him and engaged in a conversation, of which the chief topic was Arina
Petrovna's income.
"What does she do with all her wealth?" he would exclaim wonderingly,
having reached the sum of more than eighty thousand rubles. "My
brothers' allowances are rather poor; she herself lives shabbily, and
she feeds cured meats to father. She deposits the money in the bank,
that's what she does with it."
On one occasion Finogey Ipatych came to deliver the taxes he had
gathered, and the table was littered with paper money, and Stepan's
eyes glittered.
"Ah, what a heap of money!" he exclaimed. "And it all flows right down
her throat. As for giving her son some of these nice greenbacks, no,
she wouldn't do that. She wouldn't say: 'Here, my son, you who are
visited by sorrow, here is some cash for wine and tobacco.'"
This was usually followed by endless cynical talks about how he could
win over his mother's heart.
"In Moscow," he held forth, "I used to meet a man who knew a magic
word. If his mother refused to give him money he would utter 'the
word,' and she instantly got cramps in her hands and feet, in fact all
over."
"It must have been a spell, I suppose," remarked the village clerk.
"Well, whatever it may have been, it is gospel truth that there is such
a 'word.' Another man told me this: 'Take,' he says, 'a frog, and put
it into an anthill at midnight. By morning the ants will have gnawed
it clean, so that only its skeleton will be left. Take the skeleton,
and when it is in your pocket ask anything you wish of any woman, and
she won't refuse you."
"Well, that's easy."
"The trouble is, one must first damn oneself forever. If it weren't for
that, the old hag would be cringing before me."
Hours on end were spent in such talk, but no remedy was found. The
preliminary condition was that you either had to call a curse down on
yourself, or sell your soul to the devil. There was no help. Stepan
Vladimirych had to go on living under his mother's rule, the only
relief coming in the small voluntary contributions that he raised from
the village officials in the form of tobacco, tea, and sugar. His fare
consisted mainly of what remained from his mother's table, and as Arina
Petrovna was moderate to the point of avarice, his board was meagre,
to say the least; which was all the more painful because ever since
vodka had become unattainable, his appetite had grown considerably
keener. All day long hunger gnawed at him, and his sole preoccupation
was how to fill his stomach. He awaited the hour when his mother would
retire for a rest, then sneaked into the kitchen and looked into the
servants' quarters, snatching a bit here, a bit there. Sometimes he
would sit at his open window watching for passers-by. If one of the
serfs came along, he stopped him and levied toll in the form of an egg,
a curd-cake, and the like.
At the first meeting between mother and son, Arina Petrovna briefly
explained the whole program of his life.
"Live here," she said. "Here is a shelter for you in the
counting-house. Your meals you will get from my table. In other matters
you will have to put up with things as they are. There were never any
dainties in the house, and I shan't change my ways for your sake. Your
brothers will soon arrive. Whatever they will decide about you, I shall
carry out. I shall take no sin upon my soul. Let them dispose of your
fate."
He looked forward to his brothers' arrival with impatience. Not that he
reflected on the influence their arrival might have on his existence,
as he had evidently decided that the matter was not worth his thought.
The only thing that interested him was whether Pavel would bring him
tobacco and how much.
"Maybe he'll hand me over some coin, too," he mused. "Porfishka the
Bloodsucker, he won't, but Pavel ... I'll say to him: 'Brother, give a
soldier some cash for wine.' He'll give me some. He's sure to."
He did not notice the passage of the days, nor did he feel the weight
of his absolute idleness. The only time he was lonesome was in the
evenings, because the constable left at eight, and Arina Petrovna did
not allow her son any candles, on the ground that one can walk to and
fro without light. He soon became accustomed to the dark and even began
to love it, for in the darkness his imagination had free play and
carried him far, far away from the dreary place which was his home. In
those hours only one thing disturbed him. He had a dull pain in the
chest and his heart palpitated queerly, especially when he went to bed.
Sometimes he jumped out of bed and ran about the room, clutching the
left side of his chest.
"I wish I would die," he thought at such moments. "But, no, I shan't
die. But maybe I shall."
One morning when the village clerk with an air of mystery reported that
his brothers had arrived the night before, he shuddered and grew pale.
Something childlike suddenly awoke in him. He felt like running to the
house to see how his brothers were dressed, and find out what beds had
been prepared for them, and whether they had travelling cases like one
he had seen a militia captain carrying, and hear how they would talk
to mother, and spy out what would be served at dinner. In short, a
desire once more arose in him to return to life, which so persistently
rejected him, to fall at "dear mamma's" knees, and obtain her pardon.
Then perhaps he would eat the fatted calf and be merry.
The house was still quiet, but he had already visited, the kitchen and
found out that the following courses had been ordered for dinner: soup
with fresh cabbage, also some soup left over from yesterday, cured meat
served with cutlets of chopped meat for entree, fried mutton chops and
four snipes for the roast, and raspberry pie with cream for dessert.
"Yesterday's soup, cured meat, and the chops--that, brother, is for
me," he said to the cook. "There will be no pie for me, I guess."
"For your mother to say, sir."
"Ah, friend, there was a time when I ate snipe. Yes, I did. Once I made
a bet with Lieutenant Gremykin that I would eat fifteen snipes one
after the other, and what do you think? I won the bet. After that I
couldn't look at snipe for a month."
"But you won't refuse to have some now?"
"She wouldn't let me have any. I can't see, though, what makes her
so stingy. A snipe is a free bird. You don't have to feed it or look
after it. It is self-supporting. She doesn't buy snipes any more than
she buys sheep--and yet! The hag knows snipe tastes better than mutton.
That's why she won't let me have it. She'd rather let it rot than give
it to me. What's ordered for breakfast?"
"Liver, mushrooms in sour cream, and custard."
"Why not send me a custard? Do, brother."
"Well, I'll try hard. Let me tell you, sir. When the brothers sit down
to breakfast, you send the village clerk here. He'll fetch you a couple
of custards under his coat."
Next day Stepan Vladimirych waited the entire morning for his brothers,
but they did not arrive. Finally, about eleven o'clock, the village
clerk brought the two promised custards and reported that the brothers
had just finished breakfast and were closeted with Arina Petrovna in
her bedroom.
CHAPTER IV
Arina Petrovna received her sons solemnly, weighed down by grief. Two
maids supported her under the armpits. Her grey locks streamed out from
under her cap, her head drooped, and shook from side to side, and her
limbs seemed hardly able to support her. She always liked to play the
part of a venerable, careworn mother before her children, moving with
difficulty and getting her maids to assist her. Simple Simon called
such solemn receptions high mass, herself a bishop, and the maids,
Polka and Yulka, mace-bearers. As it was late at night the interview
was almost a silent one. Without saying a word she gave her sons her
hand to kiss; kissed them in turn, and made the sign of the cross over
them; and when Porfiry Vladimirych made it clear that he would gladly
spend the rest of the night with "mother dear," she merely waved her
hand and said:
"Come now. Take a rest, you must be tired after the journey. This is
not the time for discussion. We shall talk to-morrow."
Next morning the two sons went to kiss papa's hand, but papa refused
his hand. He lay on his bed with closed eyes, and when they entered he
cried out:
"Have you come to judge the toll-gatherer? Get out, Pharisees! Get
out!"
But in spite of this reception, Porfiry Vladimirych emerged from papa's
room agitated and with tears on his eyelids, while Pavel Vladimirych,
like "the heartless dolt" that he was, merely picked his nose.
"He is very weak, mother dear, very weak!" exclaimed Porfiry
Vladimirych, throwing himself on his mother's breast.
"Is it so bad?"
"Yes, very bad. He won't live much longer."
"Oh, well, it isn't as bad as that."
"No, dear, no. And although your life has never been too joyful, yet
as I think how Fate deals you so many blows at once, upon my word, I
wonder where you get the strength to bear up under it all."
"Well, my friend, the strength comes if such is the Lord's will. You
know what it says in the Scriptures: 'Bear one another's burdens.' It
seems that our Heavenly Father has chosen me to bear the burdens of my
family."
Arina Petrovna shut her eyes, so delightful was this vision of the
family finding their tables covered for them and of her toiling for
them and bearing their burdens.
"Yes, my friend," she said after a minute's pause, "it's a hard life I
lead in my old age. I have provided for my children, and it is time for
me to rest. It's no joke--four thousand souls! At my age to take care
of such an estate, to have an eye on everybody and everything, to run
back and forth! As for all those bailiffs and managers, they look you
straight in the eye, but, believe me, they are the most faithless kind.
And you," she interrupted herself, turning to Pavel, "what are you
digging in your nose for?"
"What have I to do with it?" snarled Pavel Vladimirych, disturbed in
the very midst of his absorbing occupation.
"What do you mean? After all, he's your father. You might find a word
of pity for him."
"Well--a father! A father like any other father. He has been that way
for ten years. You always make things unpleasant for me."
"Why in the world should I, my boy? I am your mother. Here is Porfisha.
He has found words of affection and pity for me as befits a good son,
but you don't even look at your mother properly. You look at her out of
the corner of your eye, as if she were not your mother, but your foe.
Please don't bite me."
"Well, what----"
"Stop! Hold your tongue for a minute. Let your mother say a word. Do
you remember the commandment, 'Honor thy father and thy mother, and all
will be well with thee?' Am I to understand that you don't wish to be
well?"
Pavel Vladimirych kept silence and looked at his mother in perplexity.
"You see, you're silenced," went on Arina Petrovna, "you are guilty.
But I shall let you alone. For the sake of this joyful meeting we shall
dispense with this talk. God, my child, sees everything. As for me, I
see you through and through, and I always have. Children, children, you
will remember your mother when she lies in her grave. You will remember
her, but it will be too late."
"Mamma dear!" interposed Porfiry Vladimirych. "Away with such black
thoughts, away with them!"
"We must all die," said Arina Petrovna sententiously. "These are not
black, but pious thoughts. I'm growing weak, children, oh, how weak!
Debility and ailments are the only things left of my former strength.
Even the maids have noticed it, and they don't care a rap for me. If I
say one word, they have ten in reply. I have only one threat, that I
shall complain to the young masters. That works sometimes."
Tea was served and then breakfast, during which Arina Petrovna
continued her complaining and self-pitying. After breakfast she invited
her sons to her bedroom.
When the door was locked, she went straight to the business for which
she had convoked the family council.
"Simple Simon is here," she began.
"We heard about it, mamma dear," said Porfiry Vladimirych; and it was
hard to say whether it was irony or the calm complacency of a man who
has just eaten a hearty meal that sounded in his voice.
"He has come here as if that were the proper thing to do. Whatever he
may have done, he seems to think the old mother will always have bread
for him. Think of all his hatred for me, of all the trouble his tricks
and buffoonery have caused me. And what have I not done to get him a
good berth? It all ran off like water from a duck's back. At last, I
made up my mind. Goodness, if he cannot take care of himself, am I to
ruin my life on account of the big lout? I'll give him a piece of the
property, I decided. Perhaps, I thought, once an independent proprietor
he'll sober down. No sooner said than done. I myself found a house
for him and paid out twelve thousand silver rubles for it with my own
hands. And what's the upshot? After less than three years he's hanging
round my neck again. How long am I to stand such insults?"
Porfisha lifted up his eyes and shook his head sorrowfully, as if to
say, "Fine doings. Why disturb mother dear so ruthlessly? Why not
live peacefully and quietly? Then dear mamma would not be angry. Fine
doings." But Porfisha's gestures did not please Arina Petrovna, who
objected to any interruption to the course of her thoughts.
"Wait a minute," she said, "don't shake your head. Listen first. Think
of my feelings when I learned that he had thrown away his parental
blessing like a gnawed bone into a cesspool. Think how he outraged me,
me, who for years refused myself sleep and food. He has done to his
patrimony what one would do to a bauble bought at a fair."
"Oh, mother dear, what a shame, what a shame!" began Porfiry
Vladimirych, but Arina Petrovna stopped him again.
"Wait a minute. Let me have your opinion when I order you to. If at
least the scoundrel had come to me in time and said: 'I am guilty,
dear mamma, I couldn't restrain myself,' I might have bought the house
back for a song. The unworthy son did not know how to make use of the
property. Perhaps the worthier children would. The house easily brought
in fifteen per cent. income yearly. Maybe I would have thrown him out
another thousand rubles in his distress. But instead, he disposed of
the property without so much as saying a word to me. With my own hands,
I paid out twelve thousand rubles for the house, and it was sold at
auction for eight thousand rubles!"
"The main thing, dear mamma, is that he has dealt so basely with the
parental blessing," Porfiry interjected hastily, as if afraid of being
stopped again.
"Yes, that's so, too. My money does not come lightly. I have earned it
with the sweat of my brow. When I married your father, all he owned
was the estate of Golovliovo with one hundred and one souls, and a few
more souls scattered in distant estates, a hundred and fifty in all.
As for me, I had nothing at all. Now look what an estate I have built
up on that foundation. There are four thousand souls, not a single one
less. I can't take them into the grave with me. Do you think it was an
easy task to scrape four thousand souls together? No, dear child, not
easy, far from easy. I spent many a sleepless night trying to work out
a good business scheme, so that no one should smell it out and stand in
my way. And what have I not endured in my business travels? I have had
plenty of hard road and bad weather and slippery ice. It is only lately
that I allow myself the luxury of a coach. In former times I rode in a
plain two-horse peasant's cart with a cover put on extra for me. It was
in nothing but a cart that I used to go to Moscow. And the filth and
stench I had to put up with in the Moscow inns! I begrudged myself the
dime for the cabby, and I walked all the way from Rogozhskaya Street
to Solyanka. The house-porter would say to me wonderingly: "Mistress,
they say you are young and well-to-do, why do you work so hard?" But I
was silent and patient. At first all I had at my disposal were thirty
thousand rubles in bank notes. I sold your father's remote estates with
their one hundred souls, and with what I realized from the sale I set
out to buy a property with a thousand souls. I had a mass said at the
Iverska Church and went to Solyanka to try my luck. What do you think
happened? The Holy Virgin must have seen my bitter tears. She helped
me buy the estate. It was like a miracle. The instant I bid thirty
thousand rubles the auction came to an end. There had been a lot of
noise and excitement, but then the people stopped bidding, and it was
as quiet as could be. The auctioneer got up and congratulated me. I was
dumfounded. Ivan Nikolaich, the lawyer, came over to me and said: 'Let
me congratulate you, madam, on your purchase.' But I stood there stiff
as a post. How great is God's mercy! Think of it, if in my confusion
someone had called out just for spite, 'I bid thirty-five thousand,' I
should certainly have offered every bit of forty thousand. And where
would I have gotten the money from?"
Many a time before had Arina Petrovna regaled her children with the
epical beginnings of her career of acquisition. It had never lost
the charm of novelty for them. Porfiry Vladimirych listened smiling,
sighing, turning up his eye-balls, lowering them, to the tune of the
rapid changes through which the tale passed. As for Pavel Vladimirych,
he sat with wide-open eyes, like a child, listening to a familiar, yet
ever-fascinating fairy tale.
"Do you think your mother built up her fortune without trouble?" went
on Arina Petrovna. "It takes trouble even to make a pimple on your
nose. After the first purchase I was laid up with fever for six weeks.
So judge for yourselves how it must make my heart ache to see my
hard-earned money, money I went through torments to get, you may say,
thrown out into the gutter for no earthly reason."
There was a minute's pause. Porfiry Vladimirych was ready to rend his
garments, but refrained, fearing there would be no one in the village
to mend them. Pavel Vladimirych, as soon as the fairy tale was over,
fell back into his wonted apathy, and his face resumed its customary
dull expression.
"That is why I asked you to come here," began Arina Petrovna anew. "Now
judge us, me and the villain. Whatever you decide will be done. If you
condemn him, he will be guilty. If you condemn me, I shall be guilty.
Only I shall not allow the rascal to get the better of me," she added,
quite unexpectedly.
Porfiry Vladimirych felt his turn had come, and he prepared to hold
forth, but approached the subject in a roundabout way.
"If you will permit me, dearest mother, to express my opinion," he
said, "here it is in two words: children must obey their parents,
blindly do their bidding, cherish them in their old age. That's all!
What are children, dear mother? Children are loving creatures who owe
their parents everything, from their persons to the last rag they
possess. Therefore, parents may judge children, while children may
never judge parents. Children are in duty bound to respect, not to
judge. You say: 'Judge us.' That is magnanimous of you, dear mother,
_mag_nificent! But how can we think about it without fear, we whom from
the first day of our birth you have been clothing with kindness from
head to foot? Say what you may, it would not be judgment but blasphemy.
It would be such blasphemy, such blasphemy----"
"Stop, wait a minute. If you say you cannot sit in judgment on me,
acquit me and condemn _him,_" Arina Petrovna interrupted. She was
listening and trying to search his meaning, but could not make out what
new plot was back of the Bloodsucker's mind.
"No, mother dear, even that I cannot do, or rather I don't dare to. I
have no right to. I can neither acquit nor condemn. I simply cannot
judge. You are the mother; you alone know how to deal with us children.
You have the right to reward us if we deserve it, and chastise us if we
are guilty. Our duty is not to criticise, but to obey. And if at the
moment of parental wrath you exceed the measure of justice, even then
we dare not grumble, for the ways of Providence are hidden from us. Who
knows, perhaps it was necessary. Our brother Stepan has acted basely,
unspeakably, but you alone can determine the degree of punishment he
deserves."
"Then you refuse to help me? You would have me get out of this affair
as best I can?"
"Oh, dearest, dearest, how you misunderstood me! Goodness, goodness! I
said, that however you might be pleased to dispose of brother Stepan's
fate, so shall it be, and you--what horrible thoughts you ascribe to
me."
"All right. And you?" she turned to Pavel Vladimirych.
"Do you want my opinion? But what's my opinion to you?" said he, as if
only half-awake. However, he braced himself unexpectedly and went on:
"Of course, he's guilty. Have him torn to pieces--ground to dust in a
mortar--it's settled in advance. What am I in this?"
Having mumbled these incoherent words, he stopped and stared at his
mother, his mouth wide open, as if not trusting his own ears.
"Well, my dear, I shall speak to you later," Arina Petrovna cut him off
coldly. "I see that you are anxious to tread in Stiopka's tracks. Take
care, my child. You will repent, but it will be too late."
"Why, what's the matter? I'm not saying anything. I say, just as you
please. What is there disrespectful in that?" said Pavel Vladimirych, faintly. |
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