A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1

by Ivan Turgenev

  III

  On the day of my arrival, Narkiz, having given me lunch and cleared the table, stood in the doorway, looked intently at me, and with some play of the eyebrows observed:

  ‘What are you going to do now, sir?’

  ‘Well, really, I don’t know. If Nikolai Petrovitch had kept his word and come, we should have gone shooting together.’

  ‘So you really expected, sir, that he would come at the time he promised?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘H’m.’ Narkiz looked at me again and shook his head as it were with commiseration. ‘If you ‘d care to amuse yourself with reading,’ he continued: ‘there are some books left of my old master’s; I’ll get them you, if you like; only you won’t read them, I expect.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They’re books of no value; not written for the gentlemen of these days.’

  ‘Have you read them?’

  ‘If I hadn’t read them, I wouldn’t have spoken about them. A dream - book, for instance … that’s not much of a book, is it? There are others too, of course … only you won’t read them either.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They are religious books.’

  I was silent for a space…. Narkiz was silent too.

  ‘What vexes me most,’ I began, ‘is staying in the house in such weather.’

  ‘Take a walk in the garden; or go into the copse. We’ve a copse here beyond the threshing - floor. Are you fond of fishing?’

  ‘Are there fish here?’

  ‘Yes, in the pond. Loaches, sand - eels, and perches are caught there. Now, to be sure, the best time is over; July’s here. But anyway, you might try…. Shall I get the tackle ready?’

  ‘Yes, do please.’

  ‘I’ll send a boy with you … to put on the worms. Or maybe I ‘d better come myself?’ Narkiz obviously doubted whether I knew how to set about things properly by myself.

  ‘Come, please, come along.’

  Narkiz, without a word, grinned from ear to ear, then suddenly knitted his brows … and went out of the room.

  IV

  Half an hour later we set off to catch fish. Narkiz had put on an extraordinary sort of cap with ears, and was more dignified than ever. He walked in front with a steady, even step; two rods swayed regularly up and down on his shoulders; a bare - legged boy followed him carrying a can and a pot of worms.

  ‘Here, near the dike, there’s a seat, put up on the floating platform on purpose,’ Narkiz was beginning to explain to me, but he glanced ahead, and suddenly exclaimed: ‘Aha! but our poor folk are here already … they keep it up, it seems.’

  I craned my head to look from behind him, and saw on the floating platform, on the very seat of which he had been speaking, two persons sitting with their backs to us; they were placidly fishing.

  ‘Who are they?’ I asked.

  ‘Neighbours,’ Narkiz responded, with displeasure. ‘They’ve nothing to eat at home, and so here they come to us.’

  ‘Are they allowed to?’

  ‘The old master allowed them…. Nikolai Petrovitch maybe won’t give them permission…. The long one is a superannuated deacon — quite a silly creature; and as for the other, that’s a little stouter — he’s a brigadier.’

  ‘A brigadier?’ I repeated, wondering. This ‘brigadier’s’ attire was almost worse than the deacon’s.

  ‘I assure you he’s a brigadier. And he did have a fine property once. But now he has only a corner given him out of charity, and he lives … on what God sends him. But, by the way, what are we to do? They’ve taken the best place…. We shall have to disturb our precious visitors.’

  ‘No, Narkiz, please don’t disturb them. We’ll sit here a little aside; they won’t interfere with us. I should like to make acquaintance with the brigadier.’

  ‘As you like. Only, as far as acquaintance goes … you needn’t expect much satisfaction from it, sir; he’s grown very weak in his head, and in conversation he’s silly as a little child. As well he may be; he’s past his eightieth year.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Vassily Fomitch. Guskov’s his surname.’

  ‘And the deacon?’

  ‘The deacon? … his nickname’s Cucumber. Every one about here calls him so; but what his real name is — God knows! A foolish creature! A regular ne’er - do - well.’

  ‘Do they live together?’

  ‘No; but there — the devil has tied them together, it seems.’

  V

  We approached the platform. The brigadier cast one glance upon us … and promptly fixed his eyes on the float; Cucumber jumped up, pulled back his rod, took off his worn - out clerical hat, passed a trembling hand over his rough yellow hair, made a sweeping bow, and gave vent to a feeble little laugh. His bloated face betrayed him an inveterate drunkard; his staring little eyes blinked humbly. He gave his neighbour a poke in the ribs, as though to let him know that they must clear out…. The brigadier began to move on the seat.

  ‘Sit still, I beg; don’t disturb yourselves,’ I hastened to say. ‘You won’t interfere with us in the least. We’ll take up our position here; sit still.’

  Cucumber wrapped his ragged smock round him, twitched his shoulders, his lips, his beard…. Obviously he felt our presence oppressive and he would have been glad to slink away, … but the brigadier was again lost in the contemplation of his float…. The ‘ne’er - do - weel’ coughed twice, sat down on the very edge of the seat, put his hat on his knees, and, tucking his bare legs up under him, he discreetly dropped in his line.

  ‘Any bites?’ Narkiz inquired haughtily, as in leisurely fashion he unwound his reel.

  ‘We’ve caught a matter of five loaches,’ answered Cucumber in a cracked and husky voice: ‘and he took a good - sized perch.’

  ‘Yes, a perch,’ repeated the brigadier in a shrill pipe.

  VI

  I fell to watching closely — not him, but his reflection in the pond. It was as clearly reflected as in a looking - glass — a little darker, a little more silvery. The wide stretch of pond wafted a refreshing coolness upon us; a cool breath of air seemed to rise, too, from the steep, damp bank; and it was the sweeter, as in the dark blue, flooded with gold, above the tree tops, the stagnant sultry heat hung, a burden that could be felt, over our heads. There was no stir in the water near the dike; in the shade cast by the drooping bushes on the bank, water spiders gleamed, like tiny bright buttons, as they described their everlasting circles; at long intervals there was a faint ripple just perceptible round the floats, when a fish was ‘playing’ with the worm. Very few fish were taken; during a whole hour we drew up only two loaches and an eel. I could not say why the brigadier aroused my curiosity; his rank could not have any influence on me; ruined noblemen were not even at that time looked upon as a rarity, and his appearance presented nothing remarkable. Under the warm cap, which covered the whole upper part of his head down to his ears and his eyebrows, could be seen a smooth, red, clean - shaven, round face, with a little nose, little lips, and small, clear grey eyes. Simplicity and weakness of character, and a sort of long - standing, helpless sorrow, were visible in that meek, almost childish face; the plump, white little hands with short fingers had something helpless, incapable about them too…. I could not conceive how this forlorn old man could once have been an officer, could have maintained discipline, have given his commands — and that, too, in the stern days of Catherine! I watched him; now and then he puffed out his cheeks and uttered a feeble whistle, like a little child; sometimes he screwed up his eyes painfully, with effort, as all decrepit people will. Once he opened his eyes wide and lifted them…. They stared at me from out of the depths of the water — and strangely touching and even full of meaning their dejected glance seemed to me.

  VII

  I tried to begin a conversation with the brigadier … but Narkiz had not misinformed me; the poor old man certainly had become weak in his intellect. He asked me my surname, and after repeating his inquiry twic
e, pondered and pondered, and at last brought out: ‘Yes, I fancy there was a judge of that name here. Cucumber, wasn’t there a judge about here of that name, hey?’ ‘To be sure there was, Vassily Fomitch, your honour,’ responded Cucumber, who treated him altogether as a child. ‘There was, certainly. But let me have your hook; your worm must have been eaten off…. Yes, so it is.’

  ‘Did you know the Lomov family?’ the brigadier suddenly asked me in a cracked voice.

  ‘What Lomov family is that?’

  ‘Why, Fiodor Ivanitch, Yevstigney Ivanitch, Alexey Ivanitch the Jew, and

  Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer, … and then, too …’

  The brigadier suddenly broke off and looked down confused.

  They were the people he was most intimate with,’ Narkiz whispered, bending towards me; ‘it was through them, through that same Alexey Ivanitch, that he called a Jew, and through a sister of Alexey Ivanitch’s, Agrafena Ivanovna, as you may say, that he lost all his property.’

  ‘What are you saying there about Agrafena Ivanovna?’ the brigadier called out suddenly, and his head was raised, his white eyebrows were frowning…. ‘You’d better mind! And why Agrafena, pray? Agrippina Ivanovna — that’s what you should call her.’

  ‘There — there — there, sir,’ Cucumber was beginning to falter.

  ‘Don’t you know the verses the poet Milonov wrote about her?’ the old man went on, suddenly getting into a state of excitement, which was a complete surprise to me. ‘No hymeneal lights were kindled,’ he began chanting, pronouncing all the vowels through his nose, giving the syllables ‘an,’ ‘en,’ the nasal sound they have in French; and it was strange to hear this connected speech from his lips: ‘No torches … No, that’s not it:

  ”Not vain Corruption’s idols frail

  Not amaranth nor porphyry

  Rejoiced their hearts …

  One thing in them …”

  ‘That was about us. Do you hear?

  ”One thing in them unquenchable,

  Subduing, sweet, desirable,

  To nurse their mutual flame in love!”

  And you talk about Agrafena!’

  Narkiz chuckled half - contemptuously, half - indifferently. ‘What a queer fish it is!’ he said to himself. But the brigadier had again relapsed into dejection, the rod had dropped from his hands and slipped into the water.

  VIII

  ‘Well, to my thinking, our fishing is a poor business,’ observed Cucumber; ‘the fish, see, don’t bite at all. It’s got fearfully hot, and there’s a fit of “mencholy” come over our gentleman. It’s clear we must be going home; that will be best.’ He cautiously drew out of his pocket a tin bottle with a wooden stopper, uncorked it, scattered snuff on his wrist, and sniffed it up in both nostrils at once…. ‘Ah, what good snuff!’ he moaned, as he recovered himself. ‘It almost made my tooth ache! Now, my dear Vassily Fomitch, get up — it’s time to be off!’

  The brigadier got up from the bench.

  ‘Do you live far from here?’ I asked Cucumber.

  ‘No, our gentleman lives not far … it won’t be as much as a mile.’

  ‘Will you allow me to accompany you?’ I said, addressing the brigadier.

  I felt disinclined to let him go.

  Narkiz was surprised at my intention; but I paid no attention to the disapproving shake of his long - eared cap, and walked out of the garden with the brigadier, who was supported by Cucumber. The old man moved fairly quickly, with a motion as though he were on stilts.

  IX

  We walked along a scarcely trodden path, through a grassy glade between two birch copses. The sun was blazing; the orioles called to each other in the green thicket; corncrakes chattered close to the path; blue butterflies fluttered in crowds about the white, and red flowers of the low - growing clover; in the perfectly still grass bees hung, as though asleep, languidly buzzing. Cucumber seemed to pull himself together, and brightened up; he was afraid of Narkiz — he lived always under his eye; I was a stranger — a new comer — with me he was soon quite at home.

  ‘Here’s our gentleman,’ he said in a rapid flow; ‘he’s a small eater and no mistake! but only one perch, is that enough for him? Unless, your honour, you would like to contribute something? Close here round the corner, at the little inn, there are first - rate white wheaten rolls. And if so, please your honour, this poor sinner, too, will gladly drink on this occasion to your health, and may it be of long years and long days.’ I gave him a little silver, and was only just in time to pull away my hand, which he was falling upon to kiss. He learned that I was a sportsman, and fell to talking of a very good friend of his, an officer, who had a ‘Mindindenger’ Swedish gun, with a copper stock, just like a cannon, so that when you fire it off you are almost knocked senseless — it had been left behind by the French — and a dog — simply one of Nature’s marvels! that he himself had always had a great passion for the chase, and his priest would have made no trouble about it — he used in fact to catch quails with him — but the ecclesiastical superior had pursued him with endless persecution; ‘and as for Narkiz Semyonitch,’ he observed in a sing - song tone, ‘if according to his notions I’m not a trustworthy person — well, what I say is: he’s let his eyebrows grow till he’s like a woodcock, and he fancies all the sciences are known to him.’ By this time we had reached the inn, a solitary tumble - down, one - roomed little hut without backyard or outbuildings; an emaciated dog lay curled up under the window; a hen was scratching in the dust under his very nose. Cucumber sat the brigadier down on the bank, and darted instantly into the hut. While he was buying the rolls and emptying a glass, I never took my eyes off the brigadier, who, God knows why, struck me as something of an enigma. In the life of this man — so I mused — there must certainly have been something out of the ordinary. But he, it seemed, did not notice me at all. He was sitting huddled up on the bank, and twisting in his fingers some pinks which he had gathered in my friend’s garden. Cucumber made his appearance, at last, with a bundle of rolls in his hand; he made his appearance, all red and perspiring, with an expression of gleeful surprise on his face, as though he had just seen something exceedingly agreeable and unexpected. He at once offered the brigadier a roll to eat, and the latter at once ate it. We proceeded on our way.

  X

  On the strength of the spirits he had drunk, Cucumber quite ‘unbent,’ as it is called. He began trying to cheer up the brigadier, who was still hurrying forward with a tottering motion as though he were on stilts. ‘Why are you so downcast, sir, and hanging your head? Let me sing you a song. That’ll cheer you up in a minute.’ He turned to me: ‘Our gentleman is very fond of a joke, mercy on us, yes! Yesterday, what did I see? — a peasant - woman washing a pair of breeches on the platform, and a great fat woman she was, and he stood behind her, simply all of a shake with laughter — yes, indeed! … In a minute, allow me: do you know the song of the hare? You mustn’t judge me by my looks; there’s a gypsy woman living here in the town, a perfect fright, but sings — ’pon my soul! one’s ready to lie down and die.’ He opened wide his moist red lips and began singing, his head on one side, his eyes shut, and his beard quivering:

  ’The hare beneath the bush lies still,

  The hunters vainly scour the hill;

  The hare lies hid and holds his breath,

  His ears pricked up, he lies there still

  Waiting for death.

  O hunters! what harm have I done,

  To vex or injure you? Although

  Among the cabbages I run,

  One leaf I nibble — only one,

  And that’s not yours!

  Oh, no!’

  Cucumber went on with ever - increasing energy:

  ’Into the forest dark he fled,

  His tail he let the hunters see;

  ”Excuse me, gentlemen,” says he,

  ”That so I turn my back on you —

  I am not yours!”‘

  Cucumber was not singing now … he was bellowing:r />
  ’The hunters hunted day and night,

  And still the hare was out of sight.

  So, talking over his misdeeds,

  They ended by disputing quite —

  Alas, the hare is not for us!

  The squint - eye is too sharp for us!’

  The first two lines of each stanza Cucumber sang with each syllable drawn out; the other three, on the contrary, very briskly, and accompanied them with little hops and shuffles of his feet; at the conclusion of each verse he cut a caper, in which he kicked himself with his own heels. As he shouted at the top of his voice: ‘The squint - eye is too sharp for us!’ he turned a somersault…. His expectations were fulfilled. The brigadier suddenly went off into a thin, tearful little chuckle, and laughed so heartily that he could not go on, and stayed still in a half - sitting posture, helplessly slapping his knees with his hands. I looked at his face, flushed crimson, and convulsively working, and felt very sorry for him at that instant especially. Encouraged by his success, Cucumber fell to capering about in a squatting position, singing the refrain of: ‘Shildi - budildi!’ and ‘Natchiki - tchikaldi!’ He stumbled at last with his nose in the dust…. The brigadier suddenly ceased laughing and hobbled on.

  XI

  We went on another quarter of a mile. A little village came into sight on the edge of a not very deep ravine; on one side stood the ‘lodge,’ with a half - ruined roof and a solitary chimney; in one of the two rooms of this lodge lived the brigadier. The owner of the village, who always resided in Petersburg, the widow of the civil councillor Lomov, had — so I learned later — bestowed this little nook upon the brigadier. She had given orders that he should receive a monthly pension, and had also assigned for his service a half - witted serf - girl living in the same village, who, though she barely understood human speech, was yet capable, in the lady’s opinion, of sweeping a floor and cooking cabbage - soup. At the door of the lodge the brigadier again addressed me with the same eighteenth - century smile: would I be pleased to walk into his ‘apartement’? We went into this ‘apartement.’ Everything in it was exceedingly filthy and poor, so filthy and so poor that the brigadier, noticing, probably, by the expression of my face, the impression it made on me, observed, shrugging his shoulders, and half closing his eyelids: ‘Ce n’est pas … oeil de perdrix.’ … What precisely he meant by this remained a mystery to me…. When I addressed him in French, I got no reply from him in that language. Two objects struck me especially in the brigadier’s abode: a large officer’s cross of St. George in a black frame, under glass, with an inscription in an old - fashioned handwriting: ‘Received by the Colonel of the Tchernigov regiment, Vassily Guskov, for the storming of Prague in the year 1794’; and secondly, a half - length portrait in oils of a handsome, black - eyed woman with a long, dark face, hair turned up high and powdered, with postiches on the temple and chin, in a flowered, low - cut bodice, with blue frills, the style of 1780. The portrait was badly painted, but was probably a good likeness; there was a wonderful look of life and will, something extraordinarily living and resolute, about the face. It was not looking at the spectator; it was, as it were, turning away and not smiling; the curve of the thin nose, the regular but flat lips, the almost unbroken straight line of the thick eyebrows, all showed an imperious, haughty, fiery temper. No great effort was needed to picture that face glowing with passion or with rage. Just below the portrait on a little pedestal stood a half - withered bunch of simple wild flowers in a thick glass jar. The brigadier went up to the pedestal, stuck the pinks he was carrying into the jar, and turning to me, and lifting his hand in the direction of the portrait, he observed: ‘Agrippina Ivanovna Teliegin, by birth Lomov.’ The words of Narkiz came back to my mind; and I looked with redoubled interest at the expressive and evil face of the woman for whose sake the brigadier had lost all his fortune.