by Leo Tolstoy
“Oh, another month or so. Well, shall we dine? Fritz, is it ready?”
They went into the dining room. There, beneath a hanging lamp, stood a table laden with candles and an assortment of the most uncommon things: siphons, little dolls on stoppers, uncommon wine in decanters, uncommon appetizers, all kinds of liquors. They drank, ate, drank some more, ate some more, and the conversation finally came to life. Serpukhovskoy grew flushed and began to speak freely.
They talked about women, about who kept which kind: a gypsy, a dancer, a Frenchwoman.
“Well, have you left Mathieu?” asked the host. This was the kept woman who had ruined Serpukhovskoy.
“No, she left me. Brother, I tell you, when I look back on all the things I’ve lost in my life… These days I’m glad when I manage to round up a thousand roubles. I’m glad when I manage to get away from everyone. I can’t stand Moscow. Oh, what’s the use in talking about it?…”
The host was bored. He wanted to talk about himself—to boast. But all Serpukhovskoy wanted to talk about was his own life—his brilliant past. The host refilled his guest’s wine glass and waited for him to finish so that he could finally talk about himself. He wanted to tell him about his stud farm, which was set up better than any other had ever been, and about his Marie, who loved him with all her heart, not only for his money.
“About my stud farm, I wanted to tell you that—” he began. But Serpukhovskoy interrupted him.
“There was a time,” he said, “when I loved the good life, and knew how to live it. You tell me about riding—well, what’s the fastest horse you’ve got?”
The host was delighted to have the chance to say more about his stud farm, and so he began to answer—but Serpukhovskoy interrupted him again.
“Yes, yes,” he said. “But with you breeders, it’s all for the sake of vanity—it isn’t for pleasure, for life. I was different. I was telling you earlier that I had a riding horse, a piebald, just like the one your herdsman rides, same spots. Now that was a horse! You couldn’t have known… This was back in 1842. I had just come to Moscow and I went to a horse-trader and saw him—a piebald gelding. Well put together. I liked him. The price? A thousand. Well, I liked him, so I bought him and drove him. I never had such a horse—and you haven’t either, and you never will. I’ve never seen a better trotter, a stronger, more beautiful horse. You were just a boy then, you couldn’t have known, but I bet you heard of him. He was famous all over Moscow.”
“Yes, I heard of him,” the host responded reluctantly. “But I wanted to tell you about mine—”
“So you heard, then. I bought him just like that—no pedigree, no certificate. Later, Voeikov and I found out the truth. He’d been sired by Gracious I. Pace-setter, they called him, on account of his measured stride. Because he was piebald, they kept him out of the stud at Khrenovoye and gave him to the stable master, who had him castrated and sold him off to the horse-trader. Ah, my friend, they don’t make them like that any more! Those were the days… ‘When we were young!’” he sang the refrain of the gypsy ballad. The wine was getting to him. “Yes, it was a fine time. I was twenty-five and earning eighty thousand silver roubles a year. Not a single grey hair on my head, teeth like pearls. Whatever I tried, it all came out right—and then it was all over.”
“But they weren’t as fast back then,” said the host, taking advantage of the pause. “I tell you, my first horses began to walk without—”
“Your horses? Trust me, ours were faster.”
“What do you mean they were faster?”
“I mean they were faster. Listen, I remember as if it were yesterday. Once I drove out to the races in Moscow. None of my horses were running. I didn’t much like trotters. I kept thoroughbreds—General, Cholet, Mohammed. I had my piebald gelding in harness. My driver was a nice fellow—I loved him, but he’s a drunk now. So I drive up and hear, ‘Serpukhovskoy, when will you get yourself some trotters?’ And I say, ‘I don’t need your damn peasant trotters! My piebald hack can outrun them all.’ And they say, ‘No he won’t.’ So I say, ‘Bet you a thousand.’ We shake on it—and the horses are off and running. Well, mine comes in five seconds ahead, wins a thousand. That’s nothing! Why, one time, I covered sixty-six miles on three thoroughbreds in three hours. All Moscow knows about that.”
And Serpukhovskoy began to lie so smoothly and continuously that the host could not get a word in edgewise. He sat opposite his guest, looking glum, and kept filling their glasses with wine just to keep busy.
They were still sitting there as dawn broke. The host was bored to tears. He got up.
“Well, if it’s time for bed…” said Serpukhovskoy, rising to his feet and staggering a bit. Then he went off to the room set aside for him, panting all the way.
The host was in bed with his mistress.
“He’s completely unbearable. Drunk out of his mind and lying without stop.”
“And he keeps making eyes at me.”
“I’m afraid he’ll ask me for money.”
Serpukhovskoy lay in bed with his clothes on, panting.
Lied through my teeth, he thought. Doesn’t matter. The wine was good, and he’s a rotten pig. A common merchant. I’m a rotten pig, too, he thought and laughed. I used to keep women, now I’m a kept man. Yes, that Winkler dame will support me. I’ll take her money. Serves him right, serves him right… Just need to undress… Boots won’t come off…
“Hey!” he shouted, but the man assigned to help him had gone off to sleep long ago.
He sat down, took off his tunic and waistcoat, and somehow managed to wriggle out of his trousers, but for a long time he could not pull off his boots; his soft belly kept getting in the way. He finally got one of them off, but after struggling and struggling with the other he tired himself out and gave up. And so, with his foot still stuck in the bootleg, he fell back on the bed and began to snore, filling the room with the stench of tobacco, wine and dirty old age.
XII
If memories returned to Pace-setter’s mind that night, they were driven away by Vaska. The lad threw a rug over him and galloped off to the tavern, where he kept him tethered by the door, next to a peasant’s horse, until dawn. The two horses licked each other. In the morning, when the gelding went back to the herd, he kept rubbing himself.
Awfully itchy, he thought. Hurts.
Five days passed. They called in a farrier. He happily declared, “Scabies. Let me sell ’im to the gypsies.”
“What for? Cut his throat and be done with it.”
The morning was still and clear. The herd was taken out to pasture but Pace-setter stayed behind. A strange man appeared—thin, dark, dirty, his caftan bespattered with something black. This was the flayer. Without looking at Pace-setter he took hold of his halter and led him away. Pace-setter went quietly, never glancing back and dragging his legs as usual, his hind feet catching in the straw. After stepping through the gate he pulled towards the well, but the flayer jerked him back and said, “No use now.”
The flayer and Vaska, who was walking behind him, came to a hollow behind the brick shed and stopped, as if there were something special about this very ordinary spot. Handing the halter to Vaska, the flayer removed his caftan, rolled up his sleeves, took a knife and whetstone from his bootleg, and began to sharpen the knife. The gelding reached for the halter, wanting to chew it a bit out of boredom, but it was too far away; he sighed and closed his eyes. His lower lip sagged, revealing his ground-down yellow teeth, and he dozed off to the sound of the knife being sharpened. Only his aching, swollen, outstretched leg kept twitching. Suddenly he felt someone’s hand on his throat, lifting up his head. He opened his eyes. There were two dogs in front of him. One was sniffing at the flayer, while the other sat and gazed at the gelding, as if expecting something from him. The gelding glanced at them and began to rub his jaw against the hand that held him.
Want to treat me, he thought. Well, let them.
And he did indeed feel that something was done to his throat. It hurt. He start
ed, stamped his foot, but restrained himself and waited for what would come next. What came next was liquid, pouring in a thick stream down his neck and chest. He sighed profoundly, his sides heaving. And he felt much better. The whole burden of his life felt lighter. He closed his eyes and began to lower his head—no one was holding it up any longer. Then his neck began to bend, his legs trembled and his entire body swayed. He was not so much frightened as surprised. It was all so new. He was surprised, and he rushed ahead, upwards—but his hind legs got tangled and he reeled sideways. Trying to find a footing with his front legs, he fell forward and onto his left side. The flayer waited until the convulsions had stopped and chased away the dogs, who had been creeping closer; then he grabbed a leg, turned the gelding onto his back, told Vaska to hold the animal still and began to flay it.
“Was a real horse, too,” said Vaska.
“It it hada been better fed, skin woulda been good,” said the flayer.
The herd was returning home that evening, going downhill, and those who walked on the left saw something red down below; dogs fussed around it busily, and crows and kites hovered overhead. One of the dogs, its paws pressed against the carrion, shook its head from side to side and tore off, with a cracking noise, what it had seized in its teeth. The chestnut filly halted, stretched out her head and neck, and stood sniffing the air for a long time. They barely managed to drive her onwards.
At dawn, in the old forest, in a clearing at the overgrown bottom of a ravine, big-headed wolf cubs were howling with joy. There were five of them; four were nearly equal in size, while the fifth was small, its head larger than its body. A lean, moulting she-wolf crawled out of the bushes, dragging her full belly with saggy teats along the ground, and sat down opposite the cubs, who formed a semicircle before her. She walked over to the smallest one, lowered her tail and pointed her muzzle downwards, made several convulsive movements, opened her sharp-toothed mouth and, straining, disgorged a large chunk of horsemeat. The bigger cubs scampered towards her, but she scared them back and let the little one have the whole chunk. Snarling as if he were angry, he pulled the horsemeat under him and began to eat. The she-wolf then disgorged for the second cub, for the third, for all five, and finally lay down in front of them to rest.
A week later only a huge skull and two big bones lay near the brick shed. Everything else had been dragged away. Towards summer a bone-grubbing peasant came by and took these too, so as to put them into use.
The dead body of Serpukhovskoy, which had walked the earth, eating and drinking, was placed in the ground much later. Neither his skin, nor his meat, nor his bones proved to be of any use whatsoever. And just as his dead body, walking the earth, had been a great burden to everyone for a full twenty years, so too did its placement in the ground turn out to be simply another encumbrance for people. For a long time no one had needed him. For a long time he had been nothing but a burden. Nevertheless, the dead who bury their dead found it necessary to dress this bloated, already rotting body in a good uniform and good boots, to lay it in a good new coffin with new tassels on its four corners, to put this new coffin in another one made of lead, and to bring it to Moscow, where they would dig up some long-buried human bones and, in that very spot, hide this rotting, worm-infested body in its new uniform and polished boots, covering it up with earth.
Notes
1 The plot of this story was first conceived by Mikhail Aleksandrovich Stakhovich (1819–1858), a writer and musician who collected and published Russian folk tales and folk songs.
2 Founded by Count Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov-Chesmensky (1737–1808) in 1776, the Khrenovoye stud farm in Voronezh Province is still in operation today.
3 German: “Bring another box. There are two there.”
THREE DEATHS
I
IT WAS AUTUMN. Two carriages were rolling along the high road at a quick trot. The first was occupied by two women. One of these was the mistress, thin and pale, the other her plumpish, lustrously ruddy maid. Strands of hair, short and dry, occasionally escaped from under the maid’s faded cap, and a red hand in a torn glove would shoot up to tuck them out of sight. Her high bosom was covered by a brightly coloured shawl and radiated health; her quick black eyes now watched the fields flying past the window, now glanced timidly at her mistress, now peered restlessly into every corner of the carriage. The mistress’s hat dangled from the ceiling of the carriage right in front of the maid’s nose; a puppy lay on her lap; her feet bounced up from the boxes on the floor and drummed against them, lightly accompanying the creaking springs and rattling windows.
The mistress sat with her hands folded on her knees and her eyes closed. Rocking weakly against the cushions behind her back and wrinkling her forehead ever so slightly, she tried to suppress her cough. She wore a white nightcap and a blue kerchief tied around her pale, delicate neck. A straight line, disappearing under the cap, parted her fair, remarkably flat pomaded hair, and there was something dry and deathly about the whiteness of the skin that showed in this wide parting. Wilted, yellowish skin was drawn loosely over the fine, beautiful features of her face and grew flushed on the cheeks and cheekbones. Her lips were dry and tense, her sparse eyelashes did not curl, and her cloth travelling dress lay in straight folds over her sunken chest. Although the mistress’s eyes were closed, her face expressed weariness, irritation and habitual suffering.
The lackey, reclining on the coachbox, was napping, while the driver shouted briskly at his team of four large, sweaty horses and occasionally looked back at the other driver, who was shouting from the barouche. Smoothly and quickly, the tyres made broad, parallel tracks in the limey mud. The sky was grey and cold, and a damp mist fell on the fields and the road. The carriage was stuffy and smelt of eau de Cologne and dust. The sick woman leant her head back and slowly opened her eyes. They were large and lustrous, of a lovely dark colour.
“Again,” she said, and nervously pushed aside the hem of the maid’s cloak, which had just barely brushed against her leg, with a beautiful, emaciated hand. Her mouth twisted into an expression of pain. Matryosha lifted the hem of her cloak with both hands, rose up on her strong legs, and sat down further away. Her fresh face blushed brightly. The sick woman’s lovely dark eyes greedily followed the maid’s every movement. She had put both her hands on the seat and wanted to raise herself as the maid had done, so as to sit up a bit higher, but her strength failed her. Her mouth twisted again and her whole face was distorted with a look of impotent, malignant irony. “You could at least help me… No, don’t bother, I can do it myself—just don’t put any more of your bags behind me… Will you do me that kindness? No, don’t touch anything—you don’t know how…” The mistress closed her eyes, then quickly lifted her eyelids again and looked at the maid. Matryosha was gazing at her, biting her red lower lip. A heavy sigh rose from the sick woman’s chest but soon transformed into a fit of coughing. She turned away, grimacing and clutching her chest with both hands. After the fit passed off, she again closed her eyes and sat motionless. The carriage and barouche drove into the village. Matryosha drew a plump hand from under her shawl and crossed herself.
“What is this?” the mistress asked.
“Post station, madam.”
“I’m asking why you crossed yourself.”
“There’s a church, madam.”
The sick woman turned to the window and slowly began to cross herself, her large eyes open wide and fixed on the big village church round which the carriage was passing.
They pulled up at the post station. The sick woman’s husband and her doctor stepped out of the barouche and approached her carriage.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked, feeling her pulse.
“How are you, dear friend? Tired?” the husband asked in French. “Would you like to get out?”
Matryosha gathered her bundles and huddled up in a corner, so as not to interfere.
“I’m fine. No worse than before,” the sick woman replied. “I won’t join you.”
/> The husband stood there a while, then went into the station house. Matryosha hopped out of the carriage and ran on tiptoe through the dirt towards the gate.
“My being unwell is no reason why you should skip breakfast,” the sick woman said, smiling slightly at the doctor, who was standing by the window.
None of them care about me—not one bit, she thought to herself as soon as the doctor, after stepping quietly away from the carriage, had trotted up the stairs of the station house. They’re well—that’s all they care about. Oh God…
“Well, Eduard Ivanovich?” the husband greeted the doctor, smiling cheerfully and rubbing his hands. “I’ve sent someone to fetch my wine from the carriage. What do you think?”
“Not a bad idea,” the doctor responded.
“Tell me, how is she?” the husband asked with a sigh, lowering his voice and raising his eyebrows.
“I’ve already told you. She’ll be lucky if she reaches Moscow, God willing, much less Italy. Especially in this weather.”
“God… My God… What are we to do?” the husband asked, placing a hand over his eyes. “Over here!” he added, addressing the man with the wine.
“You should have kept her at home,” the doctor answered with a shrug.
“But tell me, what was I to do?” the husband objected. “I tried everything to dissuade her—told her that our means were limited, that my affairs would suffer, that our children would miss us… She would hear none of it. She’s making plans to live abroad as if she were in perfect health. And to tell her the truth about her condition—why, that would kill her…”
“Vasily Dmitrich, she is already killed. You must accept this. A person can’t live without lungs, and lungs don’t grow back. It is sad, it is difficult, but what can one do? Our job now is to make her last days as easy as possible. What she really needs is a priest.”
“My God… Please understand my position, mentioning her last will… No, I won’t do it—no matter what. You know how good, how kind she is…”