The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

by Nikolai Gogol

  When Ivan Fyodorovich woke up the next day, the fat landowner was no longer there. This was the only remarkable event that befell him on the road. Three days later he was nearing his farmstead.

  He felt his heart pound hard when the windmill peeked out, its sails turning, and when, as the Jew drove his nags up the hill, a row of pussy willows appeared down below. A pond gleamed vividly and brightly through them, breathing freshness. Here he once used to swim, in this very pond he used to wade with other boys, up to his neck in the water, hunting for crayfish. The kibitka rode up the dam, and Ivan Fyodorovich saw the same little thatch-roofed old house; the same apple and cherry trees he used to climb on the sly. As soon as he drove into the yard, dogs of all sorts came running from every side: brown, black, gray, spotted.

  Some threw themselves, barking, under the horses' hooves, others ran behind, noticing that the axle was greased with lard; one stood by the kitchen, covering a bone with his paw and howling at the top of his voice; another barked from a distance as he ran back and forth wagging his tail, as if to say: "Look, good Christian folk, what a wonderful young fellow I am!"

  Boys in dirty shirts came running to see. A sow, strolling in the yard with sixteen piglets, raised her snout with an inquisitive air and grunted louder than usual. In the yard there were many canvases with wheat, millet, and oats drying in the sun. On the roof there were also many varieties of herbs drying: chicory, hawkweed, and others.

  Ivan Fyodorovich was so busy gazing at it all that he came to his senses only when the spotted dog bit the Jew on the calf as he was getting down from the box. The people of the household came running, including the cook, one woman, and two girls in woolen shirts, and after the first exclamations—"Why, it's our young master!"—announced that the aunt was in the kitchen garden planting sweet corn together with the girl Palashka and the coachman Omelko, who often carried out the duties of gardener and watchman. But the aunt, who had seen the bast-covered kibitka from far off, was already there. And Ivan Fyodorovich was amazed when she all but picked him up, as if he couldn't believe this was the aunt who had written to him about her illness and decrepitude.

  III: The Aunt

  AUNT VASILISA KASHPOROVNA was then about fifty years old. She had never been married, and she used to say that her maidenly life was dearer to her than anything. However, as far as I can recall, no one had ever offered to marry her. The reason for that was that all men felt some sort of timidity in her presence and simply could not get up the courage to propose to her.

  "Vasilisa Kashporovna has quite a character!" her wooers used to say, and they were perfectly right, because Vasilisa Kashporovna could make anyone feel lower than grass. The drunken miller, who had been good for absolutely nothing at all, she managed, through her own manly pulling of his topknot every day, without any extraneous remedies, to turn not into a man but into pure gold. She was of almost gigantic height and of corresponding build and strength. It seemed that nature had committed an unpardonable error in having arranged for her to wear a dark brown housecoat with little ruffles on weekdays and with a red cashmere shawl on Easter Sunday and her name day, whereas the most becoming things would have been a dragoon's mustache and jackboots. On the other hand, her occupations corresponded perfectly to her appearance: she rowed the boat herself, handling the oars more skillfully than any fisherman; she hunted game; she stood over the mowers all the while they worked; she knew the exact number of melons and watermelons in her patch; she took a toll of five kopecks per cart from those passing over her dam; she climbed the trees to shake down the pears; she gave beatings to her vassals with her terrible hand, and with the same awesome hand offered a glass of vodka to the deserving. Almost simultaneously she cursed, dyed yarn, ran the kitchen, made kvass, cooked jam with honey; she bustled all day and had time for everything. The result was that Ivan Fyodorovich's little estate, which, according to the latest census, consisted of eighteen souls, 6 flourished in the full sense of the word. Besides, she loved her nephew all too ardently and carefully saved every kopeck for him.

  On his homecoming, Ivan Fyodorovich's life decidedly changed and took a totally different path. It seemed as if nature had created him precisely for managing an eighteen-soul estate. The aunt herself noticed that he was going to make a good proprietor, though, all the same, she did not yet allow him to enter into all branches of management. "He's still a young lad," she used to say, despite the fact that Ivan Fyodorovich was just shy of forty, "he can't know everything!"

  However, he was constantly present in the fields beside the reapers and mowers, and this brought inexplicable delight to his meek soul. The swinging in unison of a dozen or more shining scythes; the swish of grass falling in orderly rows; the occasional pealing song of the women reapers, now merry as the welcoming of guests, now melancholy as parting; the calm, clear evenings— and what evenings! how free and fresh the air! how everything comes alive then: the steppe turns red and blue and glows with flowers; quails, bustards, gulls, grasshoppers, thousands of insects, and from them comes whistling, buzzing, chirring, crying, and suddenly a harmonious chorus; and it's all never silent for a moment! And the sun is going down and disappearing. Oh! how fresh and good! In the fields, now here, now there, cookfires are started, with cauldrons over them, and around the cauldrons mustached mowers sit; steam rises from the dumplings. The dusk turns gray . . . It's hard to say what went on inside Ivan Fyodorovich then. When he joined the mowers, he would forget to sample their dumplings, which he liked very much, and stand motionless in one spot, his eyes following a gull vanishing in the sky, or counting the shocks of harvested grain that studded the field.

  Before too long there was talk everywhere of Ivan Fyodorovich being a great manager. The aunt was utterly overjoyed with her nephew and never missed an opportunity to boast about him. One day—this was after the harvest was over and, namely, at the end of July—Vasilisa Kashporovna, taking Ivan Fyodorovich by the hand, said with a mysterious air that she now wished to talk with him about a matter that had long occupied her.

  "You know, gentle Ivan Fyodorovich," so she began, "that there are eighteen souls on your farmstead; that is according to the census, however, while without it one might count as many as twenty-four. But that's not the point. You know the woods behind our pasture, and you must know the wide meadow beyond that same woods: it measures a little less than fifty acres, and there's so much grass that you could sell more than a hundred roubles' worth a year, especially if, as people say, a cavalry regiment is to be stationed here."

  "Of course I know it, Auntie—the grass is very good."

  "I know myself that it's very good, but do you know that in reality all that land is yours? Why do you pop your eyes so? Listen, Ivan Fyodorovich! Do you remember Stepan Kuzmich? What am I saying—remember! How could you! You were so little then, you couldn't even say his name! I remember, when I came, just before St. Philip's, 7 I picked you up, and you almost ruined my whole dress. Fortunately, I handed you over to the nanny Matryona just in time. Such a nasty boy you were then! . . . But that's not the point. All the land beyond our farmstead, and the village of Khortyshche itself, belonged to Stepan Kuzmich. Even before you came into the world, I must tell you, he started visiting your mother— true, at times when your father wasn't home. Not that I say it in reproach of her! God rest her soul!—though the dear departed was always unfair to me. But that's not the point. Be that as it may, only Stepan Kuzmich left you a deed of gift for that very estate I've been talking about. But, just between us, your late mother was of a most whimsical character. The devil himself, Lord forgive me the vile word, wouldn't have been able to understand her. What she did with that deed, God alone knows. I simply think it's in the hands of that old bachelor Grigory Grigorievich Storchenko. That fat-bellied rogue got the whole estate. I'm ready to stake God knows what that he concealed the deed."

  "Allow me to say, Auntie—isn't that the Storchenko I became acquainted with at the posting station?"

  Here Ivan Fyodorov
ich told of his encounter.

  "Who knows about him!" the aunt replied, after pondering a little. "Maybe he's not a scoundrel. True, it's only six months since he moved here to live, not long enough to get to know the man. The old woman, his mother, is a very sensible woman, I've heard, and a great expert at pickling cucumbers, they say. Her serf girls make excellent rugs. But since you say he was nice to you, go and see him! Maybe the old sinner will listen to his conscience and give back what doesn't belong to him. You're welcome to take the britzka, only those cursed children pulled all the nails out in the rear. The coachman Omelko must be told to tack the leather down all over."

  "What for, Auntie? I'll take the dogcart you sometimes go hunting in."

  At that the conversation ended.

  IV: The Dinner

  AT DINNERTIME IVAN Fyodorovich drove into the village of Khortyshche and turned a bit timid as he began to approach the master's house. This house was long and covered not with a thatched roof, such as many neighboring landowners had, but with wood. The two barns in the yard also had wooden roofs; the gates were of oak. Ivan Fyodorovich was like that dandy who, having come to a ball, looks around and sees that everyone is dressed more smartly than he is. Out of deference, he stopped his cart by the barn and went on foot to the porch.

  "Ah! Ivan Fyodorovich!" cried the fat Grigory Grigorievich, who was walking about the yard in a frock coat but with no tie, waistcoat, or suspenders. However, even this outfit seemed to burden his corpulent girth, because he was sweating profusely. "Why, you said you'd just greet your aunt and come straight over, and then you didn't!" After which words, Ivan Fyodorovich's lips met with the same familiar pillows.

  "It's mostly the cares of the estate . . . I've come for a moment, sir, on business, as a matter of fact. . ."

  "For a moment? Now, that won't do. Hey, boy!" cried the fat host, and the same boy in the Cossack blouse ran out from the kitchen. "Tell Kasian to lock the gates at once, do you hear, lock them tight! And unharness the gentleman's horses this minute! Please go in, it's so hot here my shirt's soaking wet."

  Ivan Fyodorovich, having gone in, resolved not to lose any time, and, despite his timidity, to attack resolutely.

  "My aunt had the honor. . . she told me that a deed of gift from the late Stepan Kuzmich . . ." It's hard to describe what a disagreeable look these words produced on the vast face of Grigory Grigorievich.

  "By God, I can't hear a thing!" he replied. "I must tell you, I once had a cockroach sitting in my left ear. Those cursed Russians breed cockroaches everywhere in their cottages. No pen can describe what a torment it was. Tickle, tickle, tickle. An old woman helped me with the simplest remedy . . ."

  "I wanted to say . . ." Ivan Fyodorovich ventured to interrupt, seeing that Grigory Grigorievich deliberately meant to divert their talk to other things, "that the late Stepan Kuzmich's will mentions, so to speak, a deed of gift. . . according to which, sir, there is owing to me ..."

  "I know, it's your aunt who's managed to talk you up. It's a lie, by God, a lie! My uncle never made any deed of gift. True, there's mention of some deed in the will, but where is it? No one has produced it. I'm telling you this because I sincerely wish you well. By God, it's a lie!" Ivan Fyodorovich fell silent, considering that, indeed, it may only have been his aunt's imagination.

  "And here comes mama with my sisters!" said Grigory Grigorievich, "which means dinner is ready. Come along!" Whereupon he dragged Ivan Fyodorovich by the arm to a room with a table on which vodka and appetizers stood.

  At the same time a little old lady came in, short, a veritable coffee pot in a bonnet, with two young ladies, one fair and one dark. Ivan Fyodorovich, being a well-bred cavalier, went up to kiss the old lady's hand first, and then the hands of the two young ladies.

  "This is our neighbor, mama, Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka!" said Grigory Grigorievich.

  The old lady looked intently at Ivan Fyodorovich, or perhaps it only seemed that she did. Anyhow, she was kindness itself. It seemed all she wanted was to ask Ivan Fyodorovich how many cucumbers they had pickled for the winter.

  "Did you drink some vodka?" the little old lady asked.

  "Mama, you must not have had enough sleep," said Grigory Grigorievich. "Who asks a guest whether he's had a drink? Just keep offering, and whether we've drunk or not is our business. Ivan Fyodorovich, if you please, centaury or caraway flavored, which do you prefer? What are you doing standing there, Ivan Ivanovich?" Grigory Grigorievich said, turning around, and Ivan Fyodorovich saw Ivan Ivanovich approaching the vodka in a long-skirted frock coat with an enormous standing collar that covered the nape of his neck completely, so that his head sat in the collar as in a britzka.

  Ivan Ivanovich approached the vodka, rubbed his hands, examined the glass well, filled it, held it up to the light, poured all the vodka from the glass into his mouth without swallowing it, rinsed his mouth well with it, after which he swallowed it and, downing some bread with salted mushrooms, turned to Ivan Fyodorovich:

  "Do I have the honor of speaking with Mr. Shponka, Ivan Fyodorovich?"

  "Yes, sir," answered Ivan Fyodorovich.

  "You've changed considerably, if I may say so, since the time when I first knew you. Yes, indeed," Ivan Ivanovich went on, "I remember you just so high!" Saying which, he held his hand two feet from the floor. "Your late papa, God rest his soul, was a rare man. His melons and watermelons were such as you won't find anywhere nowadays. Here, for instance," he went on, drawing him aside, "they'll serve you melons at table. What sort of melons are they? You don't even want to look at them! Would you believe it, my dear sir, he had watermelons," he said with a mysterious look, spreading his arms as if he wanted to put them around a stout tree, "by God, like that!"

  "Let's go to the table!" said Grigory Grigorievich, taking Ivan Fyodorovich by the arm.

  Everyone went to the dining room. Grigory Grigorievich sat in his usual place at the head of the table, covering himself with an enormous napkin and looking like the heroes that barbers portray on their signboards. Ivan Fyodorovich, blushing, sat in the place assigned to him, across from the two young ladies; and Ivan Ivanovich did not fail to place himself next to him, heartily rejoicing that he had someone with whom to share his knowledge.

  "You shouldn't have taken the pope's nose, Ivan Fyodorovich! It's a turkey!" said the little old lady, addressing Ivan Fyodorovich, who at that moment was being offered a platter by a rustic waiter in a gray tailcoat with a black patch. "Take the back!"

  "Mama! no one asked you to interfere!" said Grigory Grigorievich. "You may be sure our guest knows what to take himself! Take a wing, Ivan Fyodorovich, the other one, with the gizzard! Why did you take so little? Take the thigh! You with the platter, what are you gawking at? Beg! On your knees, scoundrel! Say at once: 'Ivan Fyodorovich! Take the thigh!'"

  "Ivan Fyodorovich, take the thigh!" the waiter with the platter bellowed, kneeling down.

  "Hm, what sort of turkey is this?" Ivan Ivanovich said in a low voice, with a disdainful look, turning to his neighbor. "This isn't how turkey ought to be! You should see my turkeys! I assure you, one of mine has more fat on it than a dozen of these. Would you believe it, my dear sir, when they walk in the yard it's even disgusting to look at them, they're so fat! . . ."

  "You're lying, Ivan Ivanovich!" said Grigory Grigorievich, who had listened in on his speech.

  "I'll tell you," Ivan Ivanovich went on talking to his neighbor in the same way, pretending not to have heard Grigory Grigorievich's words, "last year, when I sent them to Gadyach, I was paid fifty kopecks apiece. And even so I didn't want to sell."

  "You're lying, I tell you, Ivan Ivanovich!" Grigory Grigorievich said more loudly, stressing each syllable for better clarity.

  But Ivan Ivanovich, pretending it had nothing to do with him, went on in the same way, only much more softly.

  "Precisely so, my dear sir, I didn't want to sell. Not a single landowner in Gadyach had . . ."

  "Ivan Ivanovich! you're just stupid and n
othing more," Grigory Grigorievich said loudly.

  "Ivan Fyodorovich knows it all better than you do and is surely not going to believe you."

  Here Ivan Ivanovich became thoroughly offended, fell silent, and started packing away the turkey, even though it was not as fat as those that were disgusting to look at. The noise of knives, spoons, and plates replaced the conversation for a time; but loudest of all was Grigory Grigorievich's sucking out of a lamb's marrowbone.

  "Have you read," Ivan Ivanovich asked of Ivan Fyodorovich after a certain silence, sticking his head out of his britzka, "Korobeinikov's Journey to the Holy Places? 8 A true delight for heart and soul! They don't publish such books anymore. Most regretful, I didn't notice the year."

  Ivan Fyodorovich, hearing that the matter concerned a book, began assiduously serving himself sauce.

  "It's truly surprising, my dear sir, when you think that a simple tradesman passed through all those places. Nearly two thousand miles, my dear sir! Nearly two thousand miles! Truly, the Lord himself granted him to visit Palestine and Jerusalem."

  "So you say," said Ivan Fyodorovich, who had already heard a lot about Jerusalem from his orderly, "that he was also in Jerusalem?. ."

  "What are you talking about, Ivan Fyodorovich?" Grigory Grigorievich spoke from the other end of the table.

  "I, that is, had occasion to observe that there are such remote countries in the world!" said Ivan Fyodorovich, heartily pleased to have uttered so long and difficult a sentence.

  "Don't believe him, Ivan Fyodorovich!" said Grigory Grigorievich, not hearing very well.

  "It's all lies!"

  Meanwhile dinner was over. Grigory Grigorievich went to his room, as usual, to have a little snooze; and the guests followed the old hostess and the young ladies to the living room, where the same table on which they had left the vodka when they went to dinner was, as if by some metamorphosis, covered with little dishes of various sorts of preserves and platters with watermelons, cherries, and melons.