A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1

by Ivan Turgenev

  This letter I received at the end of March. At the beginning of May another very brief letter arrived from Musa. She informed me that her husband, Paramon Semyonitch Baburin, had taken cold on the very day of the arrival of the manifesto, and died on the 12th of April of inflammation of the lungs, in the 67th year of his age. She added that she intended to remain where his body lay at rest, and to go on with the work he had bequeathed her, since such was the last wish of Paramon Semyonitch, and that was her only law.

  Since then I have heard no more of Musa.

  PARIS, 1874.

  OLD PORTRAITS

  About thirty miles from our village there lived, many years ago, a distant cousin of my mother’s, a retired officer of the Guards, and rather wealthy landowner, Alexey Sergeitch Teliegin. He lived on his estate and birth - place, Suhodol, did not go out anywhere, and so did not visit us; but I used to be sent, twice a year, to pay him my respects — at first with my tutor, but later on alone. Alexey Sergeitch always gave me a very cordial reception, and I used to stay three or four days at a time with him. He was an old man even when I first made his acquaintance; I was twelve, I remember, on my first visit, and he was then over seventy. He was born in the days of the Empress Elisabeth — in the last year of her reign. He lived alone with his wife, Malania Pavlovna; she was ten years younger than he. They had two daughters; but their daughters had been long married, and rarely visited Suhodol; they were not on the best of terms with their parents, and Alexey Sergeitch hardly ever mentioned their names.

  I see, even now, the old - fashioned house, a typical manor - house of the steppes. One story in height, with immense attics, it was built at the beginning of this century, of amazingly thick beams of pine, — such beams came in plenty in those days from the Zhizdrinsky pine - forests; they have passed out of memory now! It was very spacious, and contained a great number of rooms, rather low - pitched and dark, it is true; the windows in the walls had been made small for the sake of greater warmth. In the usual fashion (I ought rather to say, in what was then the usual fashion), the offices and house - serfs’ huts surrounded the manorial house on all sides, and the garden was close to it — a small garden, but containing fine fruit - trees, juicy apples, and pipless pears. The flat steppe of rich, black earth stretched for ten miles round. No lofty object for the eye; not a tree, nor even a belfry; somewhere, maybe, jutting up, a windmill, with rents in its sails; truly, well - named Suhodol, or Dry - flat! Inside the house the rooms were filled with ordinary, simple furniture; somewhat unusual was the milestone - post that stood in the window of the drawing - room, with the following inscription: — ’If you walk sixty - eight times round this drawing - room you will have gone a mile; if you walk eighty - seven times from the furthest corner of the parlour to the right - hand corner of the billiard - room, you will have gone a mile,’ and so on. But what most of all impressed a guest at the house for the first time was the immense collection of pictures hanging on the walls, for the most part works of the so - called Italian masters: all old - fashioned landscapes of a sort, or mythological and religious subjects. But all these pictures were very dark, and even cracked with age; — in one, all that met the eye was some patches of flesh - colour; in another, undulating red draperies on an unseen body; or an arch which seemed to be suspended in the air; or a dishevelled tree with blue foliage; or the bosom of a nymph with an immense breast, like the lid of a soup - tureen; a cut water - melon, with black seeds; a turban, with a feather in it, above a horse’s head; or the gigantic brown leg of an apostle, suddenly thrust out, with a muscular calf, and toes turned upwards. In the drawing - room in the place of honour hung a portrait of the Empress Catherine II., full length; a copy of the famous portrait by Lampi — an object of the special reverence, one might say the adoration, of the master of the house. From the ceiling hung glass lustres in bronze settings, very small and very dusty.

  Alexey Sergeitch himself was a stumpy, paunchy little old man, with a chubby face of one uniform tint, yet pleasant, with drawn - in lips, and very lively little eyes under high eyebrows. He wore his scanty locks combed to the back of his head; it was only since 1812 that he had given up wearing powder. Alexey Sergeitch invariably wore a grey ‘redingote,’ with three capes falling over his shoulders, a striped waistcoat, chamois - leather breeches, and high boots of dark red morocco, with heart - shaped scallops and tassels at the tops; he wore a white muslin cravat, a jabot, lace cuffs, and two gold English ‘turnip watches,’ one in each pocket of his waistcoat. In his right hand he usually carried an enamelled snuff - box full of ‘Spanish’ snuff, and his left hand leaned on a cane with a silver - chased knob, worn smooth by long use. Alexey Sergeitch had a little nasal, piping voice, and an invariable smile — kindly, but, as it were, condescending, and not without a certain self - complacent dignity. His laugh, too, was kindly — a shrill little laugh that tinkled like glass beads. Courteous and affable he was to the last degree — in the old - fashioned manner of the days of Catherine — and he moved his hands with slow, rounded gestures, also in the old style. His legs were so weak that he could not walk, but ran with hurried little steps from one armchair to another, in which he would suddenly sit down, or rather fall softly, like a cushion.

  As I have said already, Alexey Sergeitch went out nowhere, and saw very little of his neighbours, though he liked society, for he was very fond of talking! It is true that he had society in plenty in his own house; various Nikanor Nikanoritchs, Sevastiey Sevastietchs, Fedulitchs, Miheitchs, all poor gentlemen in shabby cossack coats and camisoles, often from the master’s wardrobe, lived under his roof, to say nothing of the poor gentlewomen in chintz gowns, black kerchiefs thrown over their shoulders, and worsted reticules in their tightly clenched fingers — all sorts of Avdotia Savishnas, Pelagea Mironovnas, and plain Feklushkas and Arinkas, who found a home in the women’s quarters. Never less than fifteen persons sat down to Alexey Sergeitch’s table…. He was such a hospitable man! Among all those dependants two were particularly conspicuous: a dwarf, nicknamed Janus, or the Double - faced, of Danish — or, as some maintained, Jewish — extraction, and the mad Prince L. Contrary to what was customary in those days, the dwarf did nothing to amuse the master or mistress, and was not a jester — quite the opposite; he was always silent, had an ill - tempered and sullen appearance, and scowled and gnashed his teeth directly a question was addressed to him. Alexey Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and positively respected him; at table the dishes were handed to him first, after the guests and master and mistress. ‘God has afflicted him,’ Alexey Sergeitch used to say; ‘such is His Divine will; but it’s not for me to afflict him further.’ ‘How is he a philosopher?’ I asked him once. (Janus didn’t take to me; if I went near him he would fly into a rage, and mutter thickly, ‘Stranger! keep off!’) ‘Eh, God bless me! isn’t he a philosopher?’ answered Alexey Sergeitch. ‘Look ye, little sir, how wisely he holds his tongue!’ ‘But why is he double - faced?’ ‘Because, little sir, he has one face on the outside — and so you, surface - gazers, judge him…. But the other, the real face he hides. And that face I know, and no one else — and I love him for it … because that face is good. You, for instance, look and see nothing … but I see without a word: he is blaming me for something; for he’s a severe critic! And it’s always with good reason. That, little sir, you can’t understand; but you may believe an old man like me!’ The real history of the two - faced Janus — where he came from, and how he came into Alexey Sergeitch’s hands — no one knew; but the story of Prince L. was well known to every one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and distinguished family, to Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards. At the first levee the Empress Catherine noticed him, stood still before him, and, pointing at him with her fan, she said aloud, addressing one of her courtiers, who happened to be near, ‘Look, Adam Vassilievitch, what a pretty fellow! a perfect doll!’ The poor boy’s head was completely turned; when he got home he ordered his coach out, and, putting on a ribbon of St. Anne, pro
ceeded to drive all over the town, as though he had reached the pinnacle of fortune. ‘Drive over every one,’ he shouted to his coachman, ‘who does not move out of the way!’ All this was promptly reported to the empress: the decree went forth that he should be declared insane, and put under the guardianship of two of his brothers; and they, without a moment’s delay, carried him off to the country, and flung him into a stone cell in chains. As they wanted to get the benefit of his property, they did not let the poor wretch out, even when he had completely recovered his balance, and positively kept him locked up till he really did go out of his mind. But their evil doings did not prosper; Prince L. outlived his brothers, and, after long years of adversity, he came into the charge of Alexey Sergeitch, whose kinsman he was. He was a stout, completely bald man, with a long, thin nose and prominent blue eyes. He had quite forgotten how to talk — he simply uttered a sort of inarticulate grumbling; but he sang old - fashioned Russian ballads beautifully, preserving the silvery freshness of his voice to extreme old age; and, while he was singing, he pronounced each word clearly and distinctly. He had attacks at times of a sort of fury, and then he became terrible: he would stand in the corner, with his face to the wall, and all perspiring and red — red all down his bald head and down his neck — he used to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with his feet, order some one — his brothers probably — to be punished. ‘Beat ‘em!’ he growled hoarsely, coughing and choking with laughter; ‘flog ‘em, don’t spare ‘em! beat, beat, beat the monsters, my oppressors! That’s it! That’s it!’ On the day before his death he greatly alarmed and astonished Alexey Sergeitch. He came, pale and subdued, into his room, and, making him a low obeisance, first thanked him for his care and kindness, and then asked him to send for a priest, for death had come to him — he had seen death, and he must forgive every one and purify his soul. ‘How did you see death?’ muttered Alexey Sergeitch in bewilderment at hearing connected speech from him for the first time. ‘In what shape? with a scythe?’ ‘No,’ answered Prince L.; ‘a simple old woman in a jacket, but with only one eye in her forehead, and that eye without an eyelid.’ And the next day Prince L. actually did die, duly performing everything, and taking leave of every one in a rational and affecting manner. ‘That’s just how I shall die,’ Alexey Sergeitch would sometimes observe. And, as a fact, something of the same sort did happen with him — but of that later.

  But now let us go back to our story. Of the neighbours, as I have stated already, Alexey Sergeitch saw little; and they did not care much for him, called him a queer fish, stuck up, and a scoffer, and even a ‘martiniste’ who recognised no authorities, though they had no clear idea of the meaning of this term. To a certain extent the neighbours were right: Alexey Sergeitch had lived in his Suhodol for almost seventy years on end, and had had hardly anything whatever to do with the existing authorities, with the police or the law - courts. ‘Police - courts are for the robber, and discipline for the soldier,’ he used to say; ‘but I, thank God, am neither robber nor soldier!’ Rather queer Alexey Sergeitch certainly was, but the soul within him was by no means a petty one. I will tell you something about him.

  To tell the truth, I never knew what were his political opinions, if an expression so modern can be used in reference to him; but, in his own way, he was an aristocrat — more an aristocrat than a typical Russian country gentleman. More than once he expressed his regret that God had not given him a son and heir, ‘for the honour of our name, to keep up the family.’ In his own room there hung on the wall the family - tree of the Teliegins, with many branches, and a multitude of little circles like apples in a golden frame. ‘We Teliegins,’ he used to say, ‘are an ancient line, from long, long ago: however many there’ve been of us Teliegins, we have never hung about great men’s ante - rooms; we’ve never bent our backs, or stood about in waiting, nor picked up a living in the courts, nor run after decorations; we’ve never gone trailing off to Moscow, nor intriguing in Petersburg; we’ve sat at home, each in his hole, his own man on his own land … home - keeping birds, sir! — I myself, though I did serve in the Guards — but not for long, thank you.’ Alexey Sergeitch preferred the old days. ‘There was more freedom in those days, more decorum; on my honour, I assure you! but since the year eighteen hundred’ (why from that year, precisely, he did not explain), ‘militarism, the soldiery, have got the upper hand. Our soldier gentlemen stuck some sort of turbans of cocks’ feathers on their heads then, and turned like cocks themselves; began binding their necks up as stiff as could be … they croak, and roll their eyes — how could they help it, indeed? The other day a police corporal came to me; “I’ve come to you,” says he, “honourable sir,” … (fancy his thinking to surprise me with that! … I know I’m honourable without his telling me!) “I have business with you.” And I said to him, “My good sir, you’d better first unfasten the hooks on your collar. Or else, God have mercy on us — you’ll sneeze. Ah, what would happen to you! what would happen to you! You’d break off, like a mushroom … and I should have to answer for it!” And they do drink, these military gentlemen — oh, oh, oh! I generally order home - made champagne to be given them, because to them, good wine or poor, it’s all the same; it runs so smoothly, so quickly, down their throats — how can they distinguish it? And, another thing, they’ve started sucking at a pap - bottle, smoking a tobacco - pipe. Your military gentleman thrusts his pap - bottle under his moustaches, between his lips, and puffs the smoke out of his nose, his mouth, and even his ears — and fancies himself a hero! There are my sons - in - law — though one of them’s a senator, and the other some sort of an administrator over there — they suck the pap - bottle, and they reckon themselves clever fellows too!’

  Alexey Sergeitch could not endure smoking; and moreover, he could not endure dogs, especially little dogs. ‘If you’re a Frenchman, to be sure, you may well keep a lapdog: you run and you skip about here and there, and it runs after you with its tail up … but what’s the use of it to people like us?’ He was exceedingly neat and particular. Of the Empress Catherine he never spoke but with enthusiasm, and in exalted, rather bookish phraseology: ‘Half divine she was, not human! Only look, little sir, at that smile,’ he would add, pointing reverentially to Lampi’s portrait, ‘and you will agree: half divine! I was so fortunate in my life as to be deemed worthy to behold that smile close, and never will it be effaced from my heart!’ And thereupon he would relate anecdotes of the life of Catherine, such as I have never happened to read or hear elsewhere. Here is one of them. Alexey Sergeitch did not permit the slightest allusion to the weaknesses of the great Tsaritsa. ‘And, besides,’ he exclaimed, ‘can one judge of her as of other people?’

  One day while she was sitting in her peignoir during her morning toilette, she commanded her hair to be combed…. And what do you think? The lady - in - waiting passed the comb through, and sparks of electricity simply showered out! Then she summoned to her presence the court physician Rogerson, who happened to be in waiting at the court, and said to him: ‘I am, I know, censured for certain actions; but do you see this electricity? Consequently, as such is my nature and constitution, you can judge for yourself, as you are a doctor, that it is unjust for them to censure me, and they ought to comprehend me!’ The following incident remained indelible in Alexey Sergeitch’s memory. He was standing one day on guard indoors, in the palace — he was only sixteen at the time — and behold the empress comes walking past him; he salutes … ‘and she,’ Alexey Sergeitch would exclaim at this point with much feeling, ‘smiling at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me her hand to kiss and patted my cheek, and asked me “who I was? where I came from? of what family?” and then’ … here the old man’s voice usually broke … ‘then she bade me greet my mother in her name and thank her for having brought up her children so well. And whether I was on earth or in heaven, and how and where she deigned to vanish, whether she floated away into the heights or went her way into the other apartments … to this day I do not know!’

 
; More than once I tried to question Alexey Sergeitch about those far - away times, about the people who made up the empress’s circle…. But for the most part he edged off the subject. ‘What’s the use of talking about old times?’ he used to say … ‘it’s only making one’s self miserable, remembering that then one was a fine young fellow, and now one hasn’t a tooth left in one’s head. And what is there to say? They were good old times … but there, enough of them! And as for those folks — you were asking, you troublesome boy, about the lucky ones! — haven’t you seen how a bubble comes up on the water? As long as it lasts and is whole, what colours play upon it! Red, and blue, and yellow — a perfect rainbow or diamond you’d say it was! Only it soon bursts, and there’s no trace of it left. And so it was with those folks.’