A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1

by Ivan Turgenev

  “Nothing of the kind. Don’t frighten us,” Nejdanov remarked. “You know the old saying, ‘As you make your bed so you must lie on it.’“

  “Yes, I know. But the beds are so narrow nowadays that you can’t get out of them!”

  “Have you any children?” Mariana asked to change the subject.

  “Yes, I have a boy. He goes to school now. I had a girl too, but she’s gone, the little bird! An accident happened to her. She fell under a wheel. If only it had killed her at once! But no, she suffered a long while. Since then I’ve become more tender - hearted. Before I was as wild and hard as a tree!”

  “Why, did you not love your Pavel?”

  “But that’s not the same. Only a girl’s feelings. And you — do you love HIM?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Very much?

  “Ever so much.”

  “Really?...” Tatiana looked from one to the other, but said nothing more.

  “I’ll tell you what I would like. Could you get me some coarse, strong wool? I want to knit some stockings...plain ones.”

  Tatiana promised to have everything done, and clearing the table, went out of the room with her firm, quiet step.

  “Well, what shall we do now?” Mariana asked, turning to Nejdanov, and without, waiting for a reply, continued, “Since our real work does not begin until tomorrow, let us devote this evening to literature. Would you like to? We can read your poems. I will be a severe critic, I promise you.”

  It took Nejdanov a long time before he consented, but he gave in at last and began reading aloud out of his copybook. Mariana sat close to him and gazed into his face as he read. She had been right; she turned out to be a very severe critic. Very few of the verses pleased her. She preferred the purely lyrical, short ones, to the didactic, as she expressed it. Nejdanov did not read well. He had not the courage to attempt any style, and at the same time wanted to avoid a dry tone. It turned out neither the one thing nor the other. Mariana interrupted him suddenly by asking if he knew Dobrolubov’s beautiful poem, which begins, “To die for me no terror holds.” She read it to him — also not very well — in a somewhat childish manner.

  [To die for me no terror holds, Yet one fear presses on my mind, That death should on me helpless play A satire of the bitter kind. For much I fear that o’er my corpse The scalding tears of friends shall flow, And that, too late, they should with zeal Fresh flowers upon my body throw. That fate sardonic should recall The ones I loved to my cold side, And make me lying in the ground, The object of love once denied. That all my aching heart’s desires, So vainly sought for from my birth, Should crowd unbidden, smiling kind Above my body’s mound of earth.]

  Nejdanov thought that it was too sad and too bitter. He could not have written a poem like that, he added, as he had no fears of any one weeping over his grave... there would be no tears.

  “There will be if I outlive you,” Mariana observed slowly, and lifting her eyes to the ceiling she asked, in a whisper, as if speaking to herself:

  “How did he do the portrait of me? From memory?”

  Nejdanov turned to her quickly.

  “Yes, from memory.”

  Mariana was surprised at his reply. It seemed to her that she merely thought the question. “It is really wonderful...” she continued in the same tone of voice. “Why, he can’t draw at all. What was I talking about?” she added aloud. “Oh yes, it was about Dobrolubov’s poems. One ought to write poems like Pushkin’s, or even like Dobrolubov’s. It is not poetry exactly, but something nearly as good.”

  “And poems like mine one should not write at all. Isn’t that so?” Nejdanov asked.

  “Poems like yours please your friends, not because they are good, but because you are a good man and they are like you.”

  Nejdanov smiled.

  “You have completely buried them and me with them!” Mariana slapped his hand and called him naughty. Soon after she announced that she was tired and wanted to go to bed.

  “By the way,” she added, shaking back her short thick curls, “do you know that I have a hundred and thirty roubles? And how much have you?”

  “Ninety - eight.”

  “Oh, then we are rich... for simplified folk. Well, good night, until tomorrow.”

  She went out, but in a minute or two her door opened slightly and he heard her say, “Goodnight!” then more softly another “Goodnight!” and the key turned in the lock.

  Nejdanov sank on to the sofa and covered his face with his hands. Then he got up quickly, went to her door and knocked.

  “What is it?” was heard from within.

  “Not till tomorrow, Mariana... not till tomorrow!”

  “Till tomorrow,” she replied softly.

  XXIX

  EARLY the next morning Nejdanov again knocked at Mariana’s door.

  “It is I,” he replied in answer to her “Who’s that?” “Can you come out to me?”

  “In a minute.”

  She came out and uttered a cry of alarm. At first she did not recognise him. He had on a long - skirted, shabby, yellowish nankin coat, with small buttons and a high waist; his hair was dressed in the Russian fashion with a parting straight down the middle; he had a blue kerchief round his neck, in his hand he held a cap with a broken peak, on his feet a pair of dirty leather boots.

  “Heavens!” Mariana exclaimed. “How ugly you look!” and thereupon threw her arms round him and kissed him quickly. “But why did you get yourself up like this? You look like some sort of shopkeeper, or pedlar, or a retired servant. Why this long coat? Why not simply like a peasant?”

  “Why?” Nejdanov began. He certainly did look like some sort of fishmonger in that garb, was conscious of it himself, and was annoyed and embarrassed at heart. He felt uncomfortable, and not knowing what to do with his hands, kept patting himself on the breast with the fingers outspread, as though he were brushing himself.

  “Because as a peasant I should have been recognised at once Pavel says, and that in this costume I look as if I had been born to it ... which is not very flattering to my vanity, by the way.”

  “Are you going to begin at once?” Mariana asked eagerly.

  “Yes, I shall try, though in reality — ”

  “You are lucky!” Mariana interrupted him.

  “This Pavel is a wonderful fellow,” Nejdanov continued. “He can see through and through you in a second, and will suddenly screw up his face as if he knew nothing, and would not interfere with anything for the world. He works for the cause himself, yet laughs at it the whole time. He brought me the books from Markelov; he knows him and calls him Sergai Mihailovitch; and as for Solomin, he would go through fire and water for him.”

  “And so would Tatiana,” Mariana observed. “Why are people so devoted to him?”

  Nejdanov did not reply.

  “What sort of books did Pavel bring you?” Mariana asked.

  “Oh, nothing new. ‘The Story of the Four Brothers,’ and then the ordinary, well - known ones, which are far better I think.”

  Mariana looked around uneasily.

  “I wonder what has become of Tatiana? She promised to come early.”

  “Here I am!” Tatiana exclaimed, coming in with a bundle in her hand. She had heard Mariana’s exclamation from behind the door.

  “There’s plenty of time. See what I’ve brought you!”

  Mariana flew towards her.

  “Have you brought it?”

  Tatiana patted the bundle.

  “Everything is here, quite ready. You have only to put the things on and go out to astonish the world.”

  “Come along, come along, Tatiana Osipovna, you are a dear — ”

  Mariana led her off to her own room.

  Left alone, Nejdanov walked up and down the room once or twice with a peculiarly shuffling gait (he imagined that all shopkeepers walked like that), then he carefully sniffed at this sleeves, the inside of his cap, made a grimace, looked at himself in the little looking - glass hanging in betw
een the windows, and shook his head; he certainly did not look very prepossessing. “So much the better,” he thought. Then he took several pamphlets, thrust them into his side pocket, and began to practise speaking like a shopkeeper. “That sounds like it,” he thought, “but after all there is no need of acting, my get - up is convincing enough.” Just then he recollected a German exile, who had to make his escape right across Russia with only a poor knowledge of the language. But thanks to a merchant’s cap which he had bought in a provincial town, he was taken everywhere for a merchant and had successfully made his way across the frontier.

  At this moment Solomin entered.

  “I say!” he exclaimed. “Arrayed in all your war paint? Excuse me, my dear fellow, but in that garb one can hardly speak to you respectfully.”

  “Please don’t. I had long meant to ask you — ”

  “But it’s early as yet. It doesn’t matter if you only want to get used to it, only you must not go out yet. My employer is still here. He’s in bed.”

  “I’ll go out later on,” Nejdanov responded. “I’ll explore the neighbourhood a little, until further orders come.”

  “Capital! But I tell you what, Alexai... I may call you Alexai, may I not?”

  “Certainly, or Lexy if you like,” Nejdanov added with a smile.

  “No; there is no need to overdo things. Listen. Good counsel is better than money, as the saying goes. I see that you have pamphlets. Distribute them wherever you like, only not in the factory on any account!”

  “Why not?”

  “In the first place, because it won’t be safe for you; in the second, because I promised the owner not to do that sort of thing here. You see the place is his after all, and then something has already been done... a school and so on. You might do more harm than good. Further than that, you may do as you like, I shall not hinder you. But you must not interfere with my workpeople.”

  “Caution is always useful,” Nejdanov remarked with a sarcastic smile.

  Solomin smiled his characteristic broad smile.

  “Yes, my dear Alexai, it’s always useful. But what do I see? Where are we?”

  The last words referred to Mariana, who at that moment appeared in the doorway of her room in a print dress that had been washed a great many times, with a yellow kerchief over her shoulders and a red one on her head. Tatiana stood behind her, smiling good - naturedly. Mariana seemed younger and brighter in her simple garment and looked far better than Nejdanov in his long - skirted coat.

  “Vassily Fedotitch, don’t laugh, please,” Mariana implored, turning as red as a poppy.

  “There’s a nice couple!” Tatiana exclaimed, clapping her hands. “But you, my dear, don’t be angry, you look well enough, but beside my little dove you’re nowhere.”

  “And, really, she is charming,” Nejdanov thought; “oh, how I love her!”

  “Look now,” Tatiana continued, “she insisted on changing rings with me. She has given me a golden ring and taken my silver one.”

  “Girls of the people do not wear gold rings,” Mariana observed.

  Tatiana sighed.

  “I’ll take good care of it, my dear; don’t be afraid.”

  “Well, sit down, sit down both of you,” Solomin began; he had been standing all the while with his head bent a little to one side, gazing at Mariana. “In olden days, if you remember, people always sat down before starting on a journey. And you have both a long and wearisome one before you.”

  Mariana, still crimson, sat down, then Nejdanov and Solomin, and last of all Tatiana took her seat on a thick block of wood. Solomin looked at each of them in turn.

  “Let us step back a pace,

  Let us step back a bit,

  To see with what grace

  And how nicely we sit,”

  he said with a frown. Suddenly he burst out laughing, but so good - naturedly that no one was in the least offended, on the contrary, they all began to feel merry too. Only Nejdanov rose suddenly.

  “I must go now,” he said; “this is all very nice, but rather like a farce. Don’t be uneasy,” he added, turning to Solomin. “I shall not interfere with your people. I’ll try my tongue on the folk around about and will tell you all about it when I come back, Mariana, if there is anything to tell. Wish me luck!”

  “Why not have a cup of tea first?” Tatiana remarked.

  “No thanks. If I want any I can go into an eating - house or into a public house.”

  Tatiana shook her head.

  “Goodbye, goodbye... good luck to you!” Nejdanov added, entering upon his role of small shopkeeper. But before he had reached the door Pavel thrust his head in from the passage under his very nose, and handing him a thin, long staff, cut out all the way down like a screw, he said:

  “Take this, Alexai Dmitritch, and lean on it as you walk. And the farther you hold it away from yourself the better it will look.”

  Nejdanov took the staff without a word and went out. Tatiana wanted to go out too, but Mariana stopped her.

  “Wait a minute, Tatiana Osipovna. I want you.”

  “I’ll be back directly with the samovar. Your friend has gone off without tea, he was in such a mighty hurry. But that is no reason why you should not have any. Later on things will be clearer.”

  Tatiana went out and Solomin also rose. Mariana was standing with her back to him, but when at last she turned towards him, rather surprised that he had not said a single word, she saw in his face, in his eyes that were fixed on her, an expression she had not seen there before; an expression of inquiry, anxiety, almost of curiosity. She became confused and blushed again. Solomin, too, was ashamed of what she had read in his face and began talking louder than was his wont.

  “Well, well, Mariana, and so you have made a beginning.”

  “What sort of beginning, Vassily Fedotitch? Do you call this a beginning? Alexai was right. It’s as if we were acting a farce.”

  Solomin sat down again.

  “But, Mariana... what did you picture the beginning to be like? Not standing behind the barricades waving a flag and shouting, ‘Hurrah for the republic!’ Besides, that is not a woman’s work. Now, today you will begin teaching some Lukeria, something good for her, and a difficult matter it will be, because you won’t understand your Lukeria and she won’t understand you, and on top of it she will imagine that what you are teaching is of no earthly use to her. In two or three weeks you will try your hand on another Lukeria, and meanwhile you will be washing a baby here, teaching another the alphabet, or handing some sick man his medicine. That will be your beginning.”

  “But sisters of mercy do that, Vassily Fedotitch! What is the use of all this, then?” Mariana pointed to herself and round about with a vague gesture. “I dreamt of something else.”

  “Did you want to sacrifice yourself?”

  Mariana’s eyes glistened.

  “Yes, yes, yes!”

  “And Nejdanov?”

  Mariana shrugged her shoulders.

  “What of Nejdanov? We shall go together... or I will go alone.”

  Solomin looked at her intently.

  “Do you know, Mariana... excuse the coarse expression... but, to my mind, combing the scurfy head of a gutter child is a sacrifice; a great sacrifice of which not many people are capable.”

  “I would not shirk that, Vassily Fedotitch.”

  “I know you would not. You are capable of doing that and will do it, until something else turns up.

  “But for that sort of thing I must learn of Tatiana!”

  “You could not do better. You will be washing pots and plucking chickens... And, who knows, maybe you will save your country in that way!”

  “You are laughing at me, Vassily Fedotitch.”

  Solomin shook his head slowly.

  “My dear Mariana, believe me, I am not laughing at you. What I said was the simple truth. You are already, all you Russian women, more capable and higher than we men.”

  Mariana raised her eyes.

  “I wou
ld like to live up to your idea of us, Solomin... and then I should be ready to die.”

  Solomin stood up.

  “No, it is better to live! That’s the main thing. By the way, would you like to know what is happening at the Sipiagins? Won’t they do anything? You have only to drop Pavel a hint and he will find out everything in a twinkling.”

  Mariana was surprised.

  “What a wonderful person he is!”

  “Yes, he certainly is wonderful. And should you want to marry Alexai, he will arrange that too with Zosim, the priest. You remember I told you about him. But perhaps it is not necessary as yet, eh?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Very well.” Solomin went up to the door dividing the two rooms, Mariana’s and Nejdanov’s, and examined the lock.

  “What are you doing?” Mariana asked. “Does it lock all right?”

  “Yes,” Mariana whispered.

  Solomin turned to her. She did not raise her eyes.

  “Then there is no need to bother about the Sipiagins,” he continued gaily, “is there?”

  Solomin was about to go out.

  “Vassily Fedotitch...”

  “Yes...”

  “Why is it you are so talkative with me when you are usually so silent? You can’t imagine what pleasure it gives me.”

  “Why?” Solomin took both her soft little hands in his big hard ones. “Why, did you ask? Well, I suppose it must be because I love you so much. Good - bye.”

  He went out. Mariana stood pensive looking after him. In a little while she went to find Tatiana who had not yet brought the samovar. She had tea with her, washed some pots, plucked a chicken, and even combed out some boy’s tangled head of hair.

  Before dinner she returned to her own rooms and soon afterwards Nejdanov arrived.

  He came in tired and covered with dust and dropped on to the sofa. She immediately sat down beside him.

  “Well, tell me what happened.”

  “You remember the two lines,” he responded in a weary voice:

  “It would have been so funny Were it not so sad.”

  “Do you remember?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Well, these lines apply admirably to my first expedition, excepting that it was more funny than sad. I’ve come to the conclusion that there is nothing easier than to act a part. No one dreamed of suspecting me. There was one thing, however, that I had not thought of. You must be prepared with some sort of yarn beforehand, or else when any one asks you where you’ve come from and why you’ve come, you don’t know what to say. But, however, even that is not so important. You’ve only to stand a drink and lie as much as you like.”