A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1

by Ivan Turgenev

  At one meidan [Footnote 1: Meidan is the name given to a place where tar has been made. — Author’s Note.] Yegor suddenly stopped and called me up.

  ‘A bear has been trying to get water,’ he observed, pointing to a broad, fresh scratch, made in the very middle of a hole covered with fine moss.

  ‘Is that the print of his paw?’ I inquired.

  ‘Yes; but the water has dried up. That’s the track of him too on that pine; he has been climbing after honey. He has cut into it with his claws as if with a knife.’

  We went on making our way into the inner - most depths of the forest. Yegor only rarely looked upwards, and walked on serenely and confidently. I saw a high, round rampart, enclosed by a half - choked - up ditch.

  ‘What’s that? a meidan too?’ I inquired.

  ‘No,’ answered Yegor; ‘here’s where the thieves’ town stood.’

  ‘Long ago?’

  ‘Long ago; our grandfathers remember it. Here they buried their treasure. And they took a mighty oath: on human blood.’

  We went on another mile and a half; I began to feel thirsty.

  ‘Sit down a little while,’ said Yegor: ‘I will go for water; there is a well not far from here.’

  He went away; I was left alone.

  I sat down on a felled stump, leaned my elbows on my knees, and after a long stillness, raised my head and looked around me. Oh, how still and sullenly gloomy was everything around me — no, not gloomy even, but dumb, cold, and menacing at the same time! My heart sank. At that instant, at that spot, I had a sense of death breathing upon me, I felt I almost touched its perpetual closeness. If only one sound had vibrated, one momentary rustle had arisen, in the engulfing stillness of the pine - forest that hemmed me in on all sides! I let my head sink again, almost in terror; it was as though I had looked in, where no man ought to look…. I put my hand over my eyes — and all at once, as though at some mysterious bidding, I began to remember all my life….

  There passed in a flash before me my childhood, noisy and peaceful, quarrelsome and good - hearted, with hurried joys and swift sorrows; then my youth rose up, vague, queer, self - conscious, with all its mistakes and beginnings, with disconnected work, and agitated indolence…. There came back, too, to my memory the comrades who shared those early aspirations … then like lightning in the night there came the gleam of a few bright memories … then the shadows began to grow and bear down on me, it was darker and darker about me, more dully and quietly the monotonous years ran by — and like a stone, dejection sank upon my heart. I sat without stirring and gazed, gazed with effort and perplexity, as though I saw all my life before me, as though scales had fallen from my eyes. Oh, what have I done! my lips involuntarily murmured in a bitter whisper. O life, life, where, how have you gone without a trace? How have you slipped through my clenched fingers? Have you deceived me, or was it that I knew not how to make use of your gifts? Is it possible? is this fragment, this poor handful of dusty ashes, all that is left of you? Is this cold, stagnant, unnecessary something — I, the I of old days? How? The soul was athirst for happiness so perfect, she rejected with such scorn all that was small, all that was insufficient, she waited: soon happiness would burst on her in a torrent — and has not one drop moistened the parched lips? Oh, my golden strings, you that once so delicately, so sweetly quivered, — I have never, it seems, heard your music … you had but just sounded — when you broke. Or, perhaps, happiness, the true happiness of all my life, passed close by me, smiled a resplendent smile upon me — and I failed to recognise its divine countenance. Or did it really visit me, sit at my bedside, and is forgotten by me, like a dream? Like a dream, I repeated disconsolately. Elusive images flitted over my soul, awakening in it something between pity and bewilderment … you too, I thought, dear, familiar, lost faces, you, thronging about me in this deadly solitude, why are you so profoundly and mournfully silent? From what abyss have you arisen? How am I to interpret your enigmatic glances? Are you greeting me, or bidding me farewell? Oh, can it be there is no hope, no turning back? Why are these heavy, belated drops trickling from my eyes? O heart, why, to what end, grieve more? try to forget if you would have peace, harden yourself to the meek acceptance of the last parting, to the bitter words ‘good - bye’ and ‘for ever.’ Do not look back, do not remember, do not strive to reach where it is light, where youth laughs, where hope is wreathed with the flowers of spring, where dovelike delight soars on azure wings, where love, like dew in the sunrise, flashes with tears of ecstasy; look not where is bliss, and faith and power — that is not our place!

  ‘Here is water for you,’ I heard Yegor’s musical voice behind me: ‘drink, with God’s blessing.’

  I could not help starting; this living speech shook me, sent a delightful tremor all through me. It was as though I had fallen into unknown, dark depths, where all was hushed about me, and nothing could be heard but the soft, persistent moan of some unending grief…. I was faint and could not struggle, and all at once there floated down to me a friendly voice, and some mighty hand with one pull drew me up into the light of day. I looked round, and with unutterable consolation saw the serene and honest face of my guide. He stood easily and gracefully before me, and with his habitual smile held out a wet flask full of clear liquid…. I got up.

  ‘Let’s go on; lead the way,’ I said eagerly. We set off and wandered a long while, till evening. Directly the noonday heat was over, it became cold and dark so rapidly in the forest that one felt no desire to remain in it.

  ‘Away, restless mortals,’ it seemed whispering sullenly from each pine. We came out, but it was some time before we could find Kondrat. We shouted, called to him, but he did not answer. All of a sudden, in the profound stillness of the air, we heard his ‘wo, wo,’ sound distinctly in a ravine close to us…. The wind, which had suddenly sprung up, and as suddenly dropped again, had prevented him from hearing our calls. Only on the trees which stood some distance apart were traces of its onslaught to be seen; many of the leaves were blown inside out, and remained so, giving a variegated look to the motionless foliage. We got into the cart, and drove home. I sat, swaying to and fro, and slowly breathing in the damp, rather keen air; and all my recent reveries and regrets were drowned in the one sensation of drowsiness and fatigue, in the one desire to get back as soon as possible to the shelter of a warm house, to have a good drink of tea with cream, to nestle into the soft, yielding hay, and to sleep, to sleep, to sleep….

  SECOND DAY

  The next morning the three of us set off to the ‘Charred Wood.’ Ten years before, several thousand acres in the ‘Forest’ had been burnt down, and had not up to that time grown again; here and there, young firs and pines were shooting up, but for the most part there was nothing but moss and ashes. In this ‘Charred Wood,’ which is reckoned to be about nine miles from Svyatoe, there are all sorts of berries growing in great profusion, and it is a favourite haunt of grouse, who are very fond of strawberries and bilberries.

  We were driving along in silence, when suddenly Kondrat raised his head.

  ‘Ah!’ he exclaimed: ‘why, that’s never Efrem standing yonder! ‘Morning to you, Alexandritch,’ he added, raising his voice, and lifting his cap.

  A short peasant in a short, black smock, with a cord round the waist, came out from behind a tree, and approached the cart.

  ‘Why, have they let you off?’ inquired Kondrat.

  ‘I should think so!’ replied the peasant, and he grinned. ‘You don’t catch them keeping the likes of me.’

  ‘And what did Piotr Filippitch say to it?’

  ‘Filippov, is it? Oh, he’s all right.’

  ‘You don’t say so! Why, I thought, Alexandritch — well, brother, thought

  I, now you ‘re the goose that must lie down in the frying - pan!’

  ‘On account of Piotr Filippov, hey? Get along! We’ve seen plenty like him. He tries to pass for a wolf, and then slinks off like a dog. — Going shooting your honour, hey?’ the peasant suddenly inqu
ired, turning his little, screwed - up eyes rapidly upon me, and at once dropping them again.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And whereabouts, now?’

  ‘To the Charred Wood,’ said Kondrat.

  ‘You ‘re going to the Charred Wood? mind you don’t get into the fire.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of woodcocks,’ the peasant went on, seeming all the while to be laughing, and making Kondrat no answer. ‘But you’ll never get there; as the crow flies it’ll be fifteen miles. Why, even Yegor here — not a doubt but he’s as at home in the forest as in his own back - yard, but even he won’t make his way there. Hullo, Yegor, you honest penny halfpenny soul!’ he shouted suddenly.

  ‘Good morning, Efrem,’ Yegor responded deliberately.

  I looked with curiosity at this Efrem. It was long since I had seen such a queer face. He had a long, sharp nose, thick lips, and a scanty beard. His little blue eyes positively danced, like little imps. He stood in a free - and - easy pose, his arms akimbo, and did not touch his cap.

  ‘Going home for a visit, eh?’ Kondrat questioned him.

  ‘Go on! on a visit! It’s not the weather for that, my lad; it’s set fair. It’s all open and free, my dear; one may lie on the stove till winter time, not a dog will stir. When I was in the town, the clerk said: “Give us up,” says he, “‘Lexandritch; you just get out of the district, we’ll let you have a passport, first - class one …” but there, I’d pity on you Svyatoe fellows: you’d never get another thief like me.’

  Kondrat laughed.

  ‘You will have your joke, uncle, you will, upon my word,’ he said, and he shook the reins. The horses started off.

  ‘Wo,’ said Efrem. The horses stopped. Kondrat did not like this prank.

  ‘Enough of your nonsense, Alexandritch,’ he observed in an undertone: ‘don’t you see we’re out with a gentleman? You mind; he’ll be angry.’

  ‘Get on with you, sea - drake! What should he be angry about? He’s a good - natured gentleman. You see, he’ll give me something to drink. Hey, master, give a poor scoundrel a dram! Won’t I drink it!’ he added, shrugging his shoulder up to his ear, and grating his teeth.

  I could not help smiling, gave him a copper, and told Kondrat to drive on.

  ‘Much obliged, your honour,’ Efrem shouted after us in soldierly fashion. ‘And you’ll know, Kondrat, for the future from whom to learn manners. Faint heart never wins; ‘tis boldness gains the day. When you come back, come to my place, d’ye hear? There’ll be drinking going on three days at home; there’ll be some necks broken, I can tell you; my wife’s a devil of a woman; our yard’s on the side of a precipice…. Ay, magpie, have a good time till your tail gets pinched.’ And with a sharp whistle, Efrem plunged into the bushes.

  ‘What sort of man is he?’ I questioned Kondrat, who, sitting in the front, kept shaking his head, as though deliberating with himself.

  ‘That fellow?’ replied Kondrat, and he looked down. ‘That fellow?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes. Is he of your village?’

  ‘Yes, he’s a Svyatoe man. He’s a fellow…. You wouldn’t find the like of him, if you hunted for a hundred miles round. A thief and cheat — good Lord, yes! Another man’s property simply, as it were, takes his eye. You may bury a thing underground, and you won’t hide it from him; and as to money, you might sit on it, and he’d get it from under you without your noticing it.’

  ‘What a bold fellow he is!’

  ‘Bold? Yes, he’s not afraid of any one. But just look at him; he’s a beast by his physiognomy; you can see by his nose.’ (Kondrat often used to drive with gentlemen, and had been in the chief town of the province, and so liked on occasion to show off his attainments.) ‘There’s positively no doing anything with him. How many times they’ve taken him off to put him in the prison! — it’s simply trouble thrown away. They start tying him up, and he’ll say, “Come, why don’t you fasten that leg? fasten that one too, and a little tighter: I’ll have a little sleep meanwhile; and I shall get home before your escort.” And lo and behold! there he is back again, yes, back again, upon my soul! Well as we all about here know the forest, being used to it from childhood, we’re no match for him there. Last summer he came at night straight across from Altuhin to Svyatoe, and no one had ever been known to walk it — it’ll be over thirty miles. And he steals honey too; no one can beat him at that; and the bees don’t sting him. There’s not a hive he hasn’t plundered.’

  ‘I expect he doesn’t spare the wild bees either?’

  ‘Well, no, I won’t lay a false charge against him. That sin’s never been observed in him. The wild bees’ nest is a holy thing with us. A hive is shut in by fences; there’s a watch kept; if you get the honey — it’s your luck; but the wild bee is a thing of God’s, not guarded; only the bear touches it.’

  ‘Because he is a bear,’ remarked Yegor.

  ‘Is he married?’

  ‘To be sure. And he has a son. And won’t he be a thief too, the son! He’s taken after his father. And he’s training him now too. The other day he took a pot with some old coppers in it, stolen somewhere, I’ve no doubt, went and buried it in a clearing in the forest, and went home and sent his son to the clearing. “Till you find the pot,” says he, “I won’t give you anything to eat, or let you into the place.” The son stayed the whole day in the forest, and spent the night there, but he found the pot. Yes, he’s a smart chap, that Efrem. When he’s at home, he’s a civil fellow, presses every one; you may eat and drink as you will, and there’ll be dancing got up at his place and merry - making of all sorts. And when he comes to the meeting — we have a parish meeting, you know, in our village — well, no one talks better sense than he does; he’ll come up behind, listen, say a word as if he chopped it off, and away again; and a weighty word it’ll be, too. But when he’s about in the forest, ah! that means trouble! We’ve to look out for mischief. Though, I must say, he doesn’t touch his own people unless he’s in a fix. If he meets a Svyatoe man: “Go along with you, brother,” he’ll shout, a long way away; “the forest devil’s upon me: I shall kill you!” — it’s a bad business!’

  ‘What can you all be thinking about? A whole district can’t get even with one man?’

  ‘Well, that’s just how it is, any way.’

  ‘Is he a sorcerer, then?’

  ‘Who can say! Here, some days ago, he crept round at night to the deacon’s near, after the honey, and the deacon was watching the hive himself. Well, he caught him, and in the dark he gave him a good hiding. When he’d done, Efrem, he says to him: “But d’you know who it is you’ve been beating?” The deacon, when he knew him by his voice, was fairly dumfoundered.

  “Well, my good friend,” says Efrem, “you won’t get off so easily for this.” The deacon fell down at his feet. “Take,” says he, “what you please.” “No,” says he. “I’ll take it from you at my own time and as I choose.” And what do you think? Since that day the deacon’s as though he’d been scalded; he wanders about like a ghost. “It’s taken,” says he, “all the heart out of me; it was a dreadful, powerful saying, to be sure, the brigand fastened upon me.” That’s how it is with him, with the deacon.’

  ‘That deacon must be a fool,’ I observed.

  ‘A fool? Well, but what do you say to this? There was once an order issued to seize this fellow, Efrem. We had a police commissary then, a sharp man. And so a dozen chaps went off into the forest to take Efrem. They look, and there he is coming to meet them…. One of them shouts, “Here he is, hold him, tie him!” But Efrem stepped into the forest and cut himself a branch, two fingers’ thickness, like this, and then out he skips into the road again, looking so frightful, so terrible, and gives the command like a general at a review: “On your knees!” All of them fairly fell down. “But who,” says he, “shouted hold him, tie him? You, Seryoga?” The fellow simply jumped up and ran … and Efrem after him, and kept swinging his branch at his heels…. For nearly a mile he stroked him down. And a
fterwards he never ceased to regret: “Ah,” he’d say, “it is annoying I didn’t lay him up for the confession.” For it was just before St. Philip’s day. Well, they changed the police commissary soon after, but it all ended the same way.’

  ‘Why did they all give in to him?’

  ‘Why! well, it is so….’

  ‘He has frightened you all, and now he does as he likes with you.’

  ‘Frightened, yes…. He’d frighten any one. And he’s a wonderful hand at contrivances, my goodness, yes! I once came upon him in the forest; there was a heavy rain falling; I was for edging away…. But he looked at me, and beckoned to me with his hand like this. “Come along,” says he, “Kondrat, don’t be afraid. Let me show you how to live in the forest, and to keep dry in the rain.” I went up to him, and he was sitting under a fir - tree, and he’d made a fire of damp twigs: the smoke hung about in the fir - tree, and kept the rain from dripping through. I was astonished at him then. And I’ll tell you what he contrived one time’ (and Kondrat laughed); ‘he really did do a funny thing. They’d been thrashing the oats at the thrashing - floor, and they hadn’t finished; they hadn’t time to rake up the last heap; well, they ‘d set two watch - men by it for the night, and they weren’t the boldest - hearted of the chaps either. Well, they were sitting and gossiping, and Efrem takes and stuffs his shirt - sleeves full of straw, ties up the wrist - bands, and puts the shirt up over his head. And so he steals up in that shape to the thrashing - floor, and just pops out from behind the corner and gives them a peep of his horns. One chap says to the other: “Do you see?” “Yes,” says the other, and didn’t he give a screech all of a sudden … and then the fences creaked and nothing more was seen of them. Efrem shovelled up the oats into a bag and dragged it off home. He told the story himself afterwards. He put them to shame, he did, the chaps…. He did really!’