Obryv. English
Page 4
CHAPTER III
Boris came in on his aunt during the children's breakfast. TatianaMarkovna clapped her hands and all but jumped from her chair; the plateswere nearly shaken off the table.
"Borushka, tiresome boy! You have not even written, but descend like athunderclap. How you frightened me!"
She took his head in her hands, looked for a full minute into his face,and would have wept, but she glanced away at his mother's portrait, andsighed.
"Well, well!" she seemed to say, but in fact said nothing, but smiledand wiped away her tears with her handkerchief. "Your mother's boy," shecried, "her very image! See how lovely she was, look, Vassilissa! Do youremember? Isn't he like her?"
With youthful appetite Boris devoured coffee, tea, cakes and bread, hisaunt watching all the while.
"Call the people, tell the Starost and everybody that the Master is here,the real Master, the owner. Welcome, little father, welcome home!" shesaid, with an ironic air of humility, laughing and mimicking thepleasant speech. "Forsake us not with your favour. Tatiana Markovnainsults us, ruins us, take us over into your charge.... Ha! Ha! Here arethe keys, the accounts, at your service, demand a reckoning from the oldlady. Ask her what she has done with the estate money, why the peasants'huts are in ruins. See how the Malinovka peasants beg in the streets ofthe town. Ha! Ha! Under your guardian and uncle in the new estate, Ibelieve, the peasants wear polished boots and red shirts, and live intwo-storied houses. Well, Sir, why this silence? Why do you not ask forthe accounts? Have your breakfast, and then I will show you everything."
After breakfast Tatiana Markovna took her sunshade, put on herthick-soled shoes, covered her head with a light hood, and went toshow Boris the garden.
"Now, Sir, keep your eyes wide open, and if there is anything wrong,don't spare your Grandmother. You will see I have just planted out thebeds in front of the house. Veroshka and Marfinka play here under myeyes, in the sand. One cannot trust any nurse."
They reached the yard.
"Kirusha, Eromka, Matroshka, where have you all hidden yourselves? Oneof you come here."
Matroshka appeared, and announced that Kirusha and Eromka had gone intothe village to fetch the peasants.
"Here is Matroshka. Do you remember her? What are you staring there for,fool. Kiss your Master's hand."
Matroshka came nearer. "I dare not," she said.
Boris shyly embraced the girl.
"You have built a new wing to the buildings, Grandmother," he said.
"You noticed that. Do you remember the old one? It was quite rotten, hadholes in the floors as broad as my hand, and the dirt and the soot! Andnow look!"
They went into the new wing. His aunt showed Boris the alterations inthe stables, the horses and the separate space for fowls, the laundryand byres.
"Here is the new kitchen which I built detached so that the kitchenrange is outside the house, and the servants have more room. Now eachhas his own corner. Here is the pantry, there the new ice-cellar. Whatare you standing there for?" she said, turning to Matrona. "Go and tellEgorka to run into the village and say to the Starost that we are goingover there."
In the garden his aunt showed him every tree and every bush, led himthrough the alleys, looked down from the top of the precipice into thebrushwood, and went with him into the village. It was a warm day, andthe winter corn waved gently in the pleasant breeze.
"Here is my nephew, Boris Pavlovich," she said to the Starost. "Are yougetting in the hay while the warm weather lasts? We are sure to haverain before long after this heat. Here is the Master, the real Master,my nephew," she said, turning to the peasants. "Have you seen him before,Garashka? Take a good look at him. Is that your calf in the rye,Iliusha?" she said in passing to a peasant, while her attention alreadywandered to the pond.
"There they are again, hanging out the clothes on the trees," sheremarked angrily to the village elder. "I have given orders for a lineto be fixed. Tell blind Agasha so. It is she that likes to hang herthings out on the willows. The branches will break...."
"We haven't a line long enough," answered the Starost sleepily. "Weshall have to buy one in the town."
"Why did you not tell Vassilissa? She would have let me know. I go intothe town every week, and would have brought a line long ago."
"I have told her, but she forgets, or says it is not worth while tobother the Mistress about it."
Tatiana Markovna made a knot in her handkerchief. She liked it to besaid that nothing could be done without her; a clothes-line, forinstance, could be bought by anybody, but God forbid that she shouldtrust anybody with money. Although by no means avaricious, she wassparing with money. Before she brought herself to part with it she wasthoughtful, sometimes angry, but the money once spent, she forgot allabout it and did not like keeping account of it.
Besides the more important arrangements, her life was full of smallmatters of business. The maids had to be put to cutting out and sewing,or to cooking and cleaning. She arranged so that everything was carriedout before her own eyes. She herself did not touch the actual work, butwith the dignity of age she stood with one hand on her hip and the otherpointing out exactly where and how everything was to be done. Theclattering keys opened cupboards, chests, strong boxes, which containeda profusion of household linen, costly lace yellow with age, diamonds,destined for the dowry of her nieces, and money. The cupboards where tea,sugar, coffee and other provisions were kept were in Vassilissa's charge.
In the morning, after coffee, when she had given her orders for the farm,Tatiana Markovna sat down at her bureau to her accounts, then sat by thewindow and looked out into the field, watched the labourers, saw whatwas going on in the yard, and sent Yakob or Vassilissa when there wasanything of which she disapproved.
When necessary she drove into the town to the market hall, or to makevisits, but never was long away, returning always in time for the middaymeal. She herself received many guests; she liked to be dispensinghospitality from morning to night.
When in winter afternoons she sat by the stove, she was silent andthoughtful, and liked everything around her quiet. Summer afternoons shespent in the garden, when she put on her gardening gloves and took aspade, a rake, or a watering can, by way of obtaining a little exercise.Then she spent the evening at the tea-table in the company of TietNikonich Vatutin, her oldest and best friend and adviser.
Tiet Nikonich was a gentleman of birth and breeding. He owned in theprovince two or three hundred "souls"--he did not exactly know how many,and never attended to his estate, but left his peasants to do as theyliked, and to pay him what dues they pleased. Shyly, and withoutcounting it, he took the money they brought him, put it in his bureau,and signed to them to go where they pleased. He had been in the army,and old people remembered him as a handsome young officer, a modest,frank young man. In his youth he often visited his mother on the estate,and spent his leave with her. Eventually he took his discharge, and thenbuilt himself a little grey house in the town with three windows on tothe street, and there established himself.
Although he had only received a moderate education in the cadet school,he liked to read, occupying himself chiefly with politics and naturalscience. In his speech, his manners and his gait he betrayed a gentleshyness, never obtruded his dignity, but was ready to show it ifnecessity arose. However intimate he might be with anyone, he alwaysmaintained a certain courtesy and reserve in word and gesture. He bowedto the Governor or a friend or a new acquaintance with the sameold-fashioned politeness, drawing back one foot as he did so. In thestreet he addressed ladies with uncovered head, was the first to pick upa handkerchief or bring a footstool. If there were young girls in a househe visited he came armed with a pound of bonbons, a bunch of flowers,and tried to suit his conversation to their age, their tastes and theiroccupations. He always maintained his delicate politeness, tinged withthe respectful manner of a courtier of the old school. When ladies werepresent he always wore his frock-coat. He neither smoked, nor usedperfume, nor tried to make himself look youn
ger, but was always spotless,and distinguished in his dress. His clothes were simple but dazzlinglyneat. His nankeen trousers were freshly pressed, and his blue frock-coatlooked as if it had come straight from the tailor. In spite of his fiftyyears, he had, with his perruque and his shaven chin, the air of a fresh,rosy-cheeked young man. With all his narrow means he gave the impressionof wealth and good breeding, and put down his hundred roubles as if hehad thousands to throw about.
For Tatiana Markovna he showed a respectful friendship, but one sodevoted and ardent that it was evident from his manner that he loved herbeyond all others. But although he was her daily guest he gave no signof intimacy before strangers.
She showed great friendship for him, but there was more vivacity in hertone. Those who remembered them when they were young, said she had beena very beautiful girl. When she had thrown on her shawl and sat lookingmeditatively before her, she resembled a family portrait in the galleryof the old house. Occasionally there came over her moods which betrayedpride and a desire for domination; when this happened her face wore anearnest, dreamy expression, as if she were leading another life far fromthe small details of her actual existence.
Hardly a day went by that Tiet Nikonich did not bring some present forGrandmother or the little girls, a basket of strawberries, oranges,peaches, always the earliest on the market.
At one time it had been rumoured in the town--a rumour long sincestilled--that Tiet Nikonich had loved Tatiana Markovna and TatianaMarkovna him, but that her parents had chosen another husband for her.She refused to assent, and remained unmarried. What truth there was inthis, none knew but herself. But every day he came to her, either atmidday or in the evening.
He liked to talk over with her what was going on in the world, who wasat war, and with whom, and why. He knew why bread was cheap in Russia;the names of all the noble houses; he knew by heart the names of all theministers and the men in high commands and their past history; he couldtell why one sea lay at a higher tide than another; he was the first toknow what the English or the French had invented, and whether theinventions were useful or not. If there was any business to be arrangedin the law courts, Tiet Nikonich arranged it, and sometimes concealedthe sums that he spent in so doing. If he was found out, she scolded him;he could not conceal his confusion, begged her pardon, kissed her hand,and took his leave.
Tatiana Markovna was always at loggerheads with the bureaucracy of theneighbourhood. If soldiers were to be billeted on her, the roads to beimproved, or the taxes collected, she complained of outrage, argued andrefused to pay. She would hear nothing about the public interest. In heropinion everyone had his own business to mind. She strongly objected tothe police, and especially to the Superintendent, who was in her view arobber. More than once Tiet Nikonich tried, without success, toreconcile her to the doctrine of the public interest; he had to becontent if she was reconciled with the officials and the police.
This was the patriarchal, peaceful atmosphere which young Raiskyabsorbed. Grandmother and the little girls were mother and sisters tohim, and Tiet Nikonich the ideal uncle.