Marjorie L. Hoover
New York City
AN ORDINARY STORY
PART ONE
I
One summer day in the village of Grachi everyone on the modest estate of the landowner Anna Pavlovna Aduyeva got up at dawn, from the lady of the house to the watchdog Barbos.
Everyone except Alexander Fyodorych, Anna Pavlovna’s only son, who went on sleeping the heroic sleep of a twenty-year-old while the others in the house hustled and bustled about. People were moving about on tiptoe, though, and speaking in a whisper so as not to wake the young master. As soon as someone banged something or started to speak loudly, Anna Pavlovna appeared at once like an aroused lioness and punished the careless offender with a strict rebuke or an insulting name, or she sometimes gave him as hard a push as her anger and strength allowed.
Three servants were cooking in the kitchen, doing the work of ten, even though the whole family of masters consisted only of Anna Pavlovna and Alexander Fyodorych. In the barn the carriage was pulled out and greased. Everyone was busy and sweating from work. Only Barbos did nothing, though in his own way he took part in the general bustle. When a lackey or coachman or a maid passed by, he wagged his tail and carefully sniffed the passerby, all the while seeming to ask with his eyes, “Will you tell me at last what the excitement today is about?”
The excitement was because Anna Pavlovna was sending off her son to enter the civil service in St. Petersburg, or, as she said, to see people and let himself be seen. A murderous day for her! That was the reason she was so sad and distraught. In the midst of her turmoil she often opened her mouth to give some order and suddenly stopped in the middle of a word; her voice betrayed her, she turned and–if she was in time–wiped a tear, or–if not–let it fall into the trunk she was packing with Sasha’s linen. The tears had been swelling in her heart for a long time, they rose into her throat, pressed upon her chest and threatened to burst forth in three streams, but somehow she saved them for leave-taking and let out only a few drops from time to time.
She was not alone in weeping over the departure. Evsei, Sasha’s valet, was also in deep mourning. He was leaving for St. Petersburg with the master, losing the warmest corner in the house behind a comfortable stove bench in the room belonging to Agrafena, the prime minister of Anna Pavlovna’s household and–most important for Evsei–her head keeper of the keys.
In the household the story about Agrafena and Evsei was already an old one. People talked about it, as they do about everything in the world, slandered both, and then, as they also will do about everything, kept quiet. The mistress herself got used to seeing them together, and they enjoyed all of ten happy years. Are there many who count ten happy years in the sum of their life? For all that, now the moment of loss had come! Farewell, warm corner; farewell, Agrafena Ivanovna; farewell, card games, and coffee and vodka and homemade liqueur–farewell to everything!
Evsei sat in silence and sighed deeply. Agrafena, frowning, was busily going about her household work. Her grief was revealed in different ways. She was bitter as she poured the tea that day, and instead of serving the first cup of strong tea to the mistress as usual, she threw it out with a splash: “No one shall have you,” she said and staunchly suffered a scolding. The coffee she made boiled over, the cream was scorched, she broke teacups. She did not place the tray on the table, but put it down with a clatter. She did not open the closet and door, but banged them. Still, she didn’t cry, but got mad at everything and everybody. This was, by the way, the most striking feature of her personality in general. She was never content, everything was not as she would have it, she was always protesting, complaining. But at that–for her–fateful moment her character was revealed in all its pathos. Most of all, it seems, she was angry at Evsei.
“Agrafena Ivanovna!” he said pitifully and tenderly in a way which did not at all suit his tall, solid stature.
“Why have you sprawled out there, you idiot?” she answered, as if he were sitting there for the first time. “Get gone, I have to find a towel.”
“Oh, Agrafena Ivanovna!” he repeated lazily with a sigh, and got up from the chair and immediately sat down again once she had fetched the towel.
“He only whines! Look at the idler we’re saddled with. God, who wished this on us! And we can’t get rid of him!”
And with a clatter she dropped a spoon in the slops cup of the tea service. “Agrafena!” came the cry at once from another room. “Have you gone mad! Don’t you know dear Sasha is sleeping? Have you quarreled with your beloved as a farewell?”
“Don’t you move a muscle, sit there like you’re dead!” Agrafena hissed like a serpent, and wiped the cup with both hands, as if she wanted to break it in pieces.
“Farewell, farewell!” said Evsei with a huge sigh. “Our last day, Agrafena Ivanovna!”
“And thank God! The devil take you away from here. We’ll have more room. Just get gone, there’s no place to step the way you’ve stretched out your legs!”
He was about to touch her on the shoulder–how she answered him! He sighed again, but did not move from his place; indeed, he would have moved in vain–Agrafena didn’t want him to. Evsei knew this and was not disturbed.
“Will someone sit in my place?” he ventured, still with a sigh.
“You demon!” she answered abruptly.
“God forbid it be Proshka. And will someone else play cards with you?”
“What if it is Proshka, what’s the harm in that?” she remarked ill-temperedly.
Evsei got up. “Don’t you play cards with Proshka, Heaven help me, don’t!” he said anxiously and almost threateningly.
“And who’ll stop me? Do you think you will, you eyesore?”
“My dear, Agrafena Ivanovna!” he began in a pleading voice, embracing her–I would have said around the waist if she’d had even the slightest sign of a waist.
She answered the embrace with an elbow to his chest.
“My dear, Agrafena Ivanovna!” he repeated, “will Proshka love you as I do? Look what a playboy he is, doesn’t let a single woman get past him. But me, oh! You’re the apple of my eye! But for the will of the masters I’d… Alas!”
At this he groaned and hopelessly waved his arms. Agrafena broke down, and at last her grief revealed itself in tears.
“Will you get away from me, you devil?” she said weeping. “What’s this nonsense, you fool! Me team up with Proshka! Don’t you see yourself that you can’t get a sensible word out of him? He only knows how to paw you with his big hands.”
“And he’s tried it with you? Oh, the scoundrel! And you don’t even tell me! I would have…”
“Let him try it, he’ll find out! Aren’t there women among the servants beside me? I should team up with Proshka! Look what you’ve dreamt up! Even sitting beside him nauseates me–pig of pigs! He’s likely to try and hit you or he’ll gobble up some of the master’s food right under your nose–and you won’t notice.”
“If something like that happens, Agrafena Ivanovna–Satan is strong, after all–then better let Grishka have my place; at least, he’s a quiet, hardworking fellow, not a grimacing fool…”
“What have you thought up now!” Agrafena stormed at him, “saddling me with any and everyone. Am I some kind of… Get out of here! There are plenty of the likes of you around, and I’m supposed to run after every one of them: I’m not that kind. Only you, you demon, did Satan clearly tempt me to get entangled with for my sins, and I repent it… and you’ve dreamt this up!”
“God reward you for your virtue! It’s a stone off my shoulders!” exclaimed Evsei.
“You’re happy! she cried again furiously. “There’s something to be happy about–be happy!”
And her lips whitened with anger. Both were silent.
“Agrafena Ivanovna,” Evsei said hesitantly after a short wait.
“Well, what is it?”
“I forgot to say, not a grain of food has crossed my lips since morning.”
“
Is that all that’s the matter!”
“From grief, my dear.”
From the lower shelf of the pantry, behind the sugar, she fetched a glass of vodka and two enormous slices of bread with ham. Her loving hand had prepared it all for him long before. She thrust it at him as she wouldn’t even to a dog. One slice fell on the floor.
“Here, serve yourself! Oh, that you’d… and quiet, don’t chomp to wake the whole house.”
She turned away from him with an expression that looked like hate, and he slowly began to eat, sullenly watching Agrafena and half-covering his mouth with one hand.
Meanwhile, a driver appeared in the gateway with a troika of horses. An arched yoke had been thrown over the neck of the center horse. The bell tied to the harness swung its tongue dully and with restraint like a drunk who has been bound and thrown into the guardroom. The driver tied up the horses under the overhang of the shed, took off his hat, took a dirty towel from it and wiped the sweat from his face. Anna Pavlovna, seeing him from the window, went pale. Although she was expecting this, her legs gave way and her hands fell down. Getting hold of herself, she called Agrafena.
“Now go on tiptoe, very quietly, and see if Sasha’s asleep,” she said. “My darling will likely sleep late even on his last day. I’ll never tire of seeing him that way. But wait, why you! I’m afraid you will clamber in there like a cow! I’d better go myself…”
And she left.
“Go by yourself, then, you non-cow!” objected Agrafena, returning to her quarters. “Imagine that! She’s discovered a cow! Are there many cows like that?”
Coming toward Anna Pavlovna was Alexander Fyodorych, a blond young man in the flower of youth, health and strength. He merrily greeted his mother, but upon seeing the trunk and bundles, he looked troubled, went silently to the window and started tracing on the glass with his finger. A minute later and he was talking with his mother again and he was carefree, even joyous, looking at the preparations for the road.
“What’s this, my dear, how you’ve overslept,” said Anna Pavlovna, “is your face a bit swollen? Here, I’ll wipe your eyes and cheeks with rosewater.”
“No, Mama, please don’t.”
“What do you want for breakfast: tea first or coffee? I also asked for sautéed meat balls with sour cream. What do you want?”
“I don’t care, Mama.”
Anna Pavlovna went on packing linen, then stopped and looked with sadness at her son.
“Sasha!” she said after a moment.
“What is it, Mama?”
She delayed speaking as if she was afraid of something.
“Where are you going, my dear, why?” she finally asked in a low voice.
“What do you mean where, Mama? To St. Petersburg, so as to… so as to… in order to…”
“Listen, Sasha,” she said excitedly, putting her hand on his shoulder, apparently with the intention of making a last try, “there’s still time. Think it over, stay!”
“Stay! How can I! And look, my things are packed,” he said, not knowing what to say.
“Your things packed! Why, look… look… see–and they’re not.” In three moves she took everything out of the trunk.
“What have you done, Mama? I was all ready–and suddenly again! What will people say…”
He grew sad.
“I’m arguing against it not so much for myself as for you. Why are you going? To seek happiness? Are you really so badly off here? Doesn’t your mother think day after day about satisfying your every wish? Of course, you’ve reached the age when a mother’s indulgences alone are not enough for happiness; and I don’t ask that. But look around you–they’re all looking at you. What about Marya Karpovna’s Sonya? What… you blush? What about her, how she–may God keep her–loves you, my darling. They say she hasn’t slept for three nights!”
“What do you mean, Mama! She…”
“Yes, yes, as if I don’t see… Oh! don’t forget she’s the one who hemmed your handkerchiefs. ‘I,’ she said, ‘I’ll do it myself, I’ll do it, I won’t let anyone else, and I’ll embroider the initial. ’ You see, what more do you want? Stay!”
Looking down, he listened in silence and played with the tassel on his bathrobe.
“What will you find in Petersburg?” she went on. “You think your life there will be the same? Oh, my dear! God knows what you’ll see and suffer. Cold and hunger and need–you’ll endure them all. There are lots of wicked people everywhere, and you won’t find the good ones soon. And respect is respect–whether in the village or in the capital. As soon as you see life in Petersburg, you’ll think that you’re best off living here, and in all ways, my dear! You’re well-educated and clever and handsome. The only joy left me as an old woman will be to look at you. If you marry and God should give you children, I’ll be nursemaid to them–and I’ll live without sorrow and without worries; I’ll live out my life in peace, quietly, not envying anyone. But there, maybe it won’t be good, maybe you’ll remember my words… Stay, dear Sasha–won’t you?”
He coughed and sighed, but said not a word.
“And look here,” she went on, opening the door to the balcony, “aren’t you sorry to leave such a spot?”
The smell of fresh air wafted into the room from the balcony. A garden extended from the house far into the distance, with ancient lime trees, thick wild roses, bird cherry trees, and lilac bushes. Flowers of all different colors bloomed among the trees and little paths led in various directions; further on, a lake quietly lapped against its shores, bathed on one side by the golden rays of the morning sun and smooth as a mirror, and on the other side, dark blue like the sky, which was reflected in it, and barely marked by a ripple. And there in the distance meadows of variegated waving grain spread out, to form an amphitheater, adjoining a thick forest.
Anna Pavlovna shielded her eyes from the sun with one hand and with the other pointed out each thing in turn to her son.
“Look,” she said, “with what beauty God has clothed our fields! From those fields over there we’ll harvest up to three hundred bushels of rye alone, and there is wheat and buckwheat. Though the buckwheat is not as good as last year–it will be poor, it seems. And the forest, how the forest has prospered! Consider how great is the wisdom of God! We shall sell close to a thousand pieces of wood from our plot. And the wild game, the game! And indeed, it’s all yours, my dear boy! I’m only your estate manager. Just look at the lake–what splendor! It’s really heavenly! It’s so full of fish there–we only buy sturgeon, but perch, bass and carp abound both for ourselves and others. Over there graze your very own cows and horses. You alone are lord of everything here, but there anybody might start to order you about. And you want to run away from such bliss, without even knowing where–perhaps to some abyss, God forbid… Stay!”
He was silent.
“But you’re not listening,” she said. “What are you staring at so intently?”
Silently, pensively, he pointed into the distance. Anna Pavlovna looked and her face changed. There the road wound like a snake between the fields and disappeared behind the forest, the road to the Promised Land, to St. Petersburg. Anna Pavlovna remained silent for several minutes in order to regain her composure.
“So that’s the way it is,” she managed to say at last, disheartened. “Well, my dear, God be with you! Go then, if you feel so strongly the urge to get away! I am not keeping you! At least you won’t say that your mother consumed your youth and life.”
Poor mother! So this is the reward for your love! You didn’t expect this! That’s the point: Mothers don’t expect rewards. A mother loves without reason and without knowing why. If you’re great, glorious, handsome, proud, if your name is on everyone’s lips, if your deeds are renowned round the world–your old mother’s head will shake with joy, she’ll cry, laugh and pray long and fervently. And her boy for the most part won’t even think about sharing his fame with his parent. But if you are poor in mind and spirit, if nature has branded you with ugliness, if
the sting of illness bites at your heart or body, in the end people will reject you and there’ll be no place for you among them–then all the more place you’ll find in your mother’s heart. She will press the deformed, failed offspring the closer to her heart and will pray still longer and more fervently.
An Ordinary Story Page 2