At last, it was off … and I was running, running away at full speed, with something flying behind me, upon my heels, overtaking me.
XVI
All I had felt and gone through was probably written on my face when I got home. My mother abruptly drew herself up directly I went into her room, and looked with such urgent inquiry at me, that, after an unsuccessful attempt to explain, I ended by holding out the ring to her in silence. She turned fearfully white, her eyes opened extraordinarily and looked dead, like those eyes; she uttered a faint cry, snatched the ring, reeled, fell on my breast, and fairly swooned away, her head falling back, and her blank wide - open eyes staring at me. I threw both my arms about her, and standing where I was, without moving, told her slowly, in a subdued voice, everything, without the slightest concealment: my dream, and the meeting, and everything, everything…. She heard me to the end without uttering a single word, only her bosom heaved more and more violently, and her eyes suddenly flashed and sank. Then she put the ring on her third finger, and, moving away a little, began getting her cape and hat. I asked her where she was going. She lifted eyes full of surprise upon me, and tried to answer, but her voice failed her. She shuddered several times, rubbed her hands, as though she were trying to warm them, and at last said, ‘Let us go there at once.’
‘Where, mother?’
‘Where he is lying … I want to see … I want to know … I will know….’
I endeavoured to persuade her not to go; but she almost fell into a nervous attack. I saw it was impossible to oppose her wish, and we set off.
XVII
And now I was again walking along the sand; but this time not alone. I had my mother on my arm. The sea had ebbed away, had retreated farther still; it was calmer, but its roar, though fainter, was still menacing and malignant. There, at last, rose the solitary rock before us; there was the seaweed too. I looked intently, I tried to distinguish that curved object lying on the ground — but I saw nothing. We went closer; instinctively I slackened my pace. But where was the black still object? Only the tangles of seaweed rose black against the sand, which had dried up by now. We went right up to the rock…. There was no corpse to be seen; and only where it had been lying there was still a hollow place, and one could see where the arms and where the legs had lain…. The seaweed around looked as it were crushed, and prints were visible of one man’s feet; they crossed the dune, then were lost, as they reached the heaped - up shingle.
My mother and I looked at each other, and were frightened at what we saw in each other’s faces….
Surely he had not got up of himself and gone away?
‘You are sure you saw him dead?’ she asked in a whisper.
I could only nod in assent. Three hours had not passed since I had come upon the baron’s corpse…. Some one had discovered and removed it. I must find out who had done it, and what had become of it.
But first I had to look after my mother.
XVIII
While she had been walking to the fatal spot she had been in a fever, but she controlled herself. The disappearance of the dead body came upon her as a final blow. She was struck dumb. I feared for her reason. With great difficulty I got her home. I made her lie down again on her bed, again I sent for the doctor, but as soon as my mother had recovered herself a little, she at one desired me to set off without delay to find out ‘that man.’ I obeyed. But, in spite of every possible effort, I discovered nothing. I went several times to the police, visited several villages in the neighbourhood, put several advertisements in the papers, collected information in all directions, and all in vain! I received information, indeed, that the corpse of a drowned man had been picked up in one of the seaside villages near…. I at once hastened off there, but from all I could hear the body had no resemblance to the baron. I found out in what ship he had set sail for America; at first every one was positive that ship had gone down in the storm; but a few months later there were rumours that it had been seen riding at anchor in New York harbour. Not knowing what steps to take, I began seeking out the negro I had seen, offering him in the papers a considerable sum of money if he would call at our house. Some tall negro in a cloak did actually call on us in my absence…. But after questioning the maid, he abruptly departed, and never came back again.
So all traces were lost of my … my father; so he vanished into silence and darkness never to return. My mother and I never spoke of him; only one day, I remember, she expressed surprise that I had never told her before of my strange dream; and added, ‘It must mean he really….’, but did not utter all her thought. My mother was ill a long while, and even after her recovery our former close relations never returned. She was ill at ease with me to the day of her death…. Ill at ease was just what she was. And that is a trouble there is no cure for. Anything may be smoothed over, memories of even the most tragic domestic incidents gradually lose their strength and bitterness; but if once a sense of being ill at ease installs itself between two closely united persons, it can never be dislodged! I never again had the dream that had once so agitated me; I no longer ‘look for’ my father; but sometimes I fancied — and even now I fancy — that I hear, as it were, distant wails, as it were, never silent, mournful plaints; they seem to sound somewhere behind a high wall, which cannot be crossed; they wring my heart, and I weep with closed eyes, and am never able to tell what it is, whether it is a living man moaning, or whether I am listening to the wild, long - drawn - out howl of the troubled sea. And then it passes again into the muttering of some beast, and I fall asleep with anguish and horror in my heart.
The Short Stories
The famous statue dedicated to Turgenev at St. Petersburg
A SPORTSMAN’S SKETCHES
Translated by Constance Garnett, 1895
This collection of short stories, first published in book form in 1852, were Turgenev’s first printed work and at once established his reputation as an up and coming writer of fiction. The short stories are based on his own observations while hunting at his mother’s estate at Spasskoye, where he learned of the abuse of the serfs and the injustices of the Russian system that enslaved them. The frequent abuse of Turgenev by his mother certainly had an effect on this work. The stories were first published in The Contemporary with each story in a separate magazine. He was about to give up writing when the first story Khor and Khalinich received acclaim.
The collection is part of the Russian Realist tradition, featuring a narrator that is usually an uncommitted observer of the people he meets. The work as a whole actually led to Turgenev’s house arrest at Spasskoye and was later partly responsible for the abolishment of serfdom in Russia.
CONTENTS
I
HOR AND KALINITCH
II
YERMOLAÏ AND THE MILLER’S WIFE
III
RASPBERRY SPRING
IV
THE DISTRICT DOCTOR
V
MY NEIGHBOUR RADILOV
VI
THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
VII
LGOV
VIII
BYEZHIN PRAIRIE
IX
KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS
X
THE AGENT
XI
THE COUNTING - HOUSE
ORDER
XII
BIRYUK
XIII
TWO COUNTRY GENTLEMEN
XIV
LEBEDYAN
XV
TATYANA BORISSOVNA AND HER NEPHEW
XVI
DEATH
XVII
THE SINGERS
XVIII
PIOTR PETROVITCH KARATAEV
XIX
THE TRYST
XX
THE HAMLET OF THE SHTCHIGRI DISTRICT
XXI
TCHERTOP - HANOV AND NEDOPYUSKIN
XXII
THE END OF TCHERTOP - HANOV
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XXIII
A LIVING RELIC
XXIV
THE RATTLING OF WHEELS
EPILOGUE
THE FOREST AND THE STEPPE
I
HOR AND KALINITCH
Anyone who has chanced to pass from the Bolhovsky district into the Zhizdrinsky district, must have been impressed by the striking difference between the race of people in the province of Orel and the population of the province of Kaluga. The peasant of Orel is not tall, is bent in figure, sullen and suspicious in his looks; he lives in wretched little hovels of aspen - wood, labours as a serf in the fields, and engages in no kind of trading, is miserably fed, and wears slippers of bast: the rent - paying peasant of Kaluga lives in roomy cottages of pine - wood; he is tall, bold, and cheerful in his looks, neat and clean of countenance; he carries on a trade in butter and tar, and on holidays he wears boots. The village of the Orel province (we are speaking now of the eastern part of the province) is usually situated in the midst of ploughed fields, near a water - course which has been converted into a filthy pool. Except for a few of the ever - accommodating willows, and two or three gaunt birch - trees, you do not see a tree for a mile round; hut is huddled up against hut, their roofs covered with rotting thatch…. The villages of Kaluga, on the contrary, are generally surrounded by forest; the huts stand more freely, are more upright, and have boarded roofs; the gates fasten closely, the hedge is not broken down nor trailing about; there are no gaps to invite the visits of the passing pig…. And things are much better in the Kaluga province for the sportsman. In the Orel province the last of the woods and copses will have disappeared five years hence, and there is no trace of moorland left; in Kaluga, on the contrary, the moors extend over tens, the forest over hundreds of miles, and a splendid bird, the grouse, is still extant there; there are abundance of the friendly larger snipe, and the loud - clapping partridge cheers and startles the sportsman and his dog by its abrupt upward flight.
On a visit to the Zhizdrinsky district in search of sport, I met in the fields a petty proprietor of the Kaluga province called Polutikin, and made his acquaintance. He was an enthusiastic sportsman; it follows, therefore, that he was an excellent fellow. He was liable, indeed, to a few weaknesses; he used, for instance, to pay his addresses to every unmarried heiress in the province, and when he had been refused her hand and house, broken - hearted he confided his sorrows to all his friends and acquaintances, and continued to shower offerings of sour peaches and other raw produce from his garden upon the young lady’s relatives; he was fond of repeating one and the same anecdote, which, in spite of Mr. Polutikin’s appreciation of its merits, had certainly never amused anyone; he admired the works of Akim Nahimov and the novel Pinna; he stammered; he called his dog Astronomer; instead of ‘however’ said ‘howsomever’; and had established in his household a French system of cookery, the secret of which consisted, according to his cook’s interpretation, in a complete transformation of the natural taste of each dish; in this artiste’s hands meat assumed the flavour of fish, fish of mushrooms, macaroni of gunpowder; to make up for this, not a single carrot went into the soup without taking the shape of a rhombus or a trapeze. But, with the exception of these few and insignificant failings, Mr. Polutikin was, as has been said already, an excellent fellow.
On the first day of my acquaintance with Mr. Polutikin, he invited me to stay the night at his house.
‘It will be five miles farther to my house,’ he added; ‘it’s a long way to walk; let us first go to Hor’s.’ (The reader must excuse my omitting his stammer.)
‘Who is Hor?’
‘A peasant of mine. He is quite close by here.’
We went in that direction. In a well - cultivated clearing in the middle of the forest rose Hor’s solitary homestead. It consisted of several pine - wood buildings, enclosed by plank fences; a porch ran along the front of the principal building, supported on slender posts. We went in. We were met by a young lad of twenty, tall and good - looking.
‘Ah, Fedya! is Hor at home?’ Mr. Polutikin asked him.
‘No. Hor has gone into town,’ answered the lad, smiling and showing a row of snow - white teeth. ‘You would like the little cart brought out?’
‘Yes, my boy, the little cart. And bring us some kvas.’
We went into the cottage. Not a single cheap glaring print was pasted up on the clean boards of the walls; in the corner, before the heavy, holy picture in its silver setting, a lamp was burning; the table of linden - wood had been lately planed and scrubbed; between the joists and in the cracks of the window - frames there were no lively Prussian beetles running about, nor gloomy cockroaches in hiding. The young lad soon reappeared with a great white pitcher filled with excellent kvas, a huge hunch of wheaten bread, and a dozen salted cucumbers in a wooden bowl. He put all these provisions on the table, and then, leaning with his back against the door, began to gaze with a smiling face at us. We had not had time to finish eating our lunch when the cart was already rattling before the doorstep. We went out. A curly - headed, rosy - cheeked boy of fifteen was sitting in the cart as driver, and with difficulty holding in the well - fed piebald horse. Round the cart stood six young giants, very like one another, and Fedya.
‘All of these Hor’s sons!’ said Polutikin.
‘These are all Horkies’ (i.e. wild cats), put in Fedya, who had come after us on to the step; ‘but that’s not all of them: Potap is in the wood, and Sidor has gone with old Hor to the town. Look out, Vasya,’ he went on, turning to the coachman; ‘drive like the wind; you are driving the master. Only mind what you’re about over the ruts, and easy a little; don’t tip the cart over, and upset the master’s stomach!’
The other Horkies smiled at Fedya’s sally. ‘Lift Astronomer in!’ Mr. Polutikin called majestically. Fedya, not without amusement, lifted the dog, who wore a forced smile, into the air, and laid her at the bottom of the cart. Vasya let the horse go. We rolled away. ‘And here is my counting - house,’ said Mr. Polutikin suddenly to me, pointing to a little low - pitched house. ‘Shall we go in?’ ‘By all means.’ ‘It is no longer used,’ he observed, going in; ‘still, it is worth looking at.’ The counting - house consisted of two empty rooms. The caretaker, a one - eyed old man, ran out of the yard. ‘Good day, Minyaitch,’ said Mr. Polutikin; ‘bring us some water.’ The one - eyed old man disappeared, and at once returned with a bottle of water and two glasses. ‘Taste it,’ Polutikin said to me; ‘it is splendid spring water.’ We drank off a glass each, while the old man bowed low. ‘Come, now, I think we can go on,’ said my new Friend. ‘In that counting - house I sold the merchant Alliluev four acres of forest - land for a good price.’ We took our seats in the cart, and in half - an - hour we had reached the court of the manor - house.
‘Tell me, please,’ I asked Polutikin at supper; ‘why does Hor live apart from your other peasants?’
‘Well, this is why; he is a clever peasant. Twenty - five years ago his cottage was burnt down; so he came up to my late father and said: “Allow me, Nikolai Kouzmitch,” says he, “to settle in your forest, on the bog. I will pay you a good rent.” “But what do you want to settle on the bog for?” “Oh, I want to; only, your honour, Nikolai Kouzmitch, be so good as not to claim any labour from me, but fix a rent as you think best.” “Fifty roubles a year!” “Very well.” “But I’ll have no arrears, mind!” “Of course, no arrears”; and so he settled on the bog. Since then they have called him Hor’ (i.e. wild cat).
‘Well, and has he grown rich?’ I inquired.
‘Yes, he has grown rich. Now he pays me a round hundred for rent, and I shall raise it again, I dare say. I have said to him more than once, “Buy your freedom, Hor; come, buy your freedom.” … But he declares, the rogue, that he can’t; has no money,
he says…. As though that were likely….’
A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1 Page 193