A Sportsman's Sketches: Works of Ivan Turgenev 1

by Ivan Turgenev

  No one answered.

  I went forward at random. Twice I struck against a fence, once I nearly fell into a ditch, and almost stumbled against a peasant’s horse lying on the ground. “Tyeglev! Tyeglev!” I cried.

  All at once, almost behind me, I heard a low voice, “Well, here I am. What do you want of me?”

  I turned round quickly.

  Before me stood Tyeglev with his hands hanging at his sides and with no cap on his head. His face was pale; but his eyes looked animated and bigger than usual. His breathing came in deep, prolonged gasps through his parted lips.

  “Thank God!” I cried in an outburst of joy, and I gripped him by both hands. “Thank God! I was beginning to despair of finding you. Aren’t you ashamed of frightening me like this? Upon my word, Ilya Stepanitch!”

  “What do you want of me?” repeated Tyeglev.

  “I want ... I want you, in the first place, to come back home with me. And secondly, I want, I insist, I insist as a friend, that you explain to me at once the meaning of your actions - - and of this letter to the colonel. Can something unexpected have happened to you in Petersburg?”

  “I found in Petersburg exactly what I expected,” answered Tyeglev, without moving from the spot.

  “That is ... you mean to say ... your friend ... this Masha....”

  “She has taken her life,” Tyeglev answered hurriedly and as it were angrily. “She was buried the day before yesterday. She did not even leave a note for me. She poisoned herself.”

  Tyeglev hurriedly uttered these terrible words and still stood motionless as a stone.

  I clasped my hands. “Is it possible? How dreadful! Your presentiment has come true.... That is awful!”

  I stopped in confusion. Slowly and with a sort of triumph Tyeglev folded his arms.

  “But why are we standing here?” I began. “Let us go home.”

  “Let us,” said Tyeglev. “But how can we find the way in this fog?”

  “There is a light in our windows, and we will make for it. Come along.”

  “You go ahead,” answered Tyeglev. “I will follow you.” We set off. We walked for five minutes and our beacon light still did not appear; at last it gleamed before us in two red points. Tyeglev stepped evenly behind me. I was desperately anxious to get home as quickly as possible and to learn from him all the details of his unhappy expedition to Petersburg. Before we reached the hut, impressed by what he had said, I confessed to him in an access of remorse and a sort of superstitious fear, that the mysterious knocking of the previous evening had been my doing ... and what a tragic turn my jest had taken!

  Tyeglev confined himself to observing that I had nothing to do with it - - that something else had guided my hand - - and this only showed how little I knew him. His voice, strangely calm and even, sounded close to my ear. “But you do not know me,” he added. “I saw you smile yesterday when I spoke of the strength of my will. You will come to know me - - and you will remember my words.”

  The first hut of the village sprang out of the fog before us like some dark monster ... then the second, our hut, emerged - - and my setter dog began barking, probably scenting me.

  I knocked at the window. “Semyon!” I shouted to Tyeglev’s servant, “hey, Semyon! Make haste and open the gate for us.”

  The gate creaked and opened; Semyon crossed the threshold.

  “Ilya Stepanitch, come in,” I said, and I looked round. But no Ilya Stepanitch was with me. Tyeglev had vanished as though he had sunk into the earth.

  I went into the hut feeling dazed.

  XIV

  Vexation with Tyeglev and with myself succeeded the amazement with which I was overcome at first.

  “Your master is mad!” I blurted out to Semyon, “raving mad! He galloped off to Petersburg, then came back and is running about all over the place! I did get hold of him and brought him right up to the gate - - and here he has given me the slip again! To go out of doors on a night like this! He has chosen a nice time for a walk!”

  “And why did I let go of his hand?” I reproached myself. Semyon looked at me in silence, as though intending to say something - - but after the fashion of servants in those days he simply shifted from one foot to the other and said nothing.

  “What time did he set off for town?” I asked sternly.

  “At six o’clock in the morning.”

  “And how was he - - did he seem anxious, depressed?” Semyon looked down. “Our master is a deep one,” he began. “Who can make him out? He told me to get out his new uniform when he was going out to town - - and then he curled himself.”

  “Curled himself?”

  “Curled his hair. I got the curling tongs ready for him.”

  That, I confess, I had not expected. “Do you know a young lady,” I asked Semyon, “a friend of Ilya Stepanitch’s. Her name is Masha.”

  “To be sure I know Marya Anempodistovna! A nice young lady.”

  “Is your master in love with this Marya ... et cetera?”

  Semyon heaved a sigh. “That young lady is Ilya Stepanitch’s undoing. For he is desperately in love with her - - and can’t bring himself to marry her - - and sorry to give her up, too. It’s all his honour’s faintheartedness. He is very fond of her.”

  “What is she like then, pretty?” I inquired.

  Semyon assumed a grave air. “She is the sort that the gentry like.”

  “And you?”

  “She is not the right sort for us at all.”

  “How so?”

  “Very thin in the body.”

  “If she died,” I began, “do you think Ilya Stepanitch would not survive her?”

  Semyon heaved a sigh again. “I can’t venture to say that - - there’s no knowing with gentlemen ... but our master is a deep one.”

  I took up from the table the big, rather thick letter that Tyeglev had given me and turned it over in my hands.... The address to “his honour the Commanding Officer of the Battery, Colonel So and So” (the name, patronymic, and surname) was clearly and distinctly written. The word urgent, twice underlined, was written in the top left - hand corner of the envelope.

  “Listen, Semyon,” I began. “I feel uneasy about your master. I fancy he has some mischief in his mind. We must find him.”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Semyon.

  “It is true there is such a fog that one cannot see a couple of yards ahead; but all the same we must do our best. We will each take a lantern and light a candle in each window - - in case of need.”

  “Yes, sir,” repeated Semyon. He lighted the lanterns and the candles and we set off.

  XV

  I can’t describe how we wandered and lost our way! The lanterns were of no help to us; they did not in the least dissipate the white, almost luminous mist which surrounded us. Several times Semyon and I lost each other, in spite of the fact that we kept calling to each other and hallooing and at frequent intervals shouted - - I: “Tyeglev! Ilya Stepanitch!” and Semyon: “Mr. Tyeglev! Your honour!” The fog so bewildered us that we wandered about as though in a dream; soon we were both hoarse; the fog penetrated right into one’s chest. We succeeded somehow by help of the candles in the windows in reaching the hut again. Our combined action had been of no use - - we merely handicapped each other - - and so we made up our minds not to trouble ourselves about getting separated but to go each our own way. He went to the left, I to the right and I soon ceased to hear his voice. The fog seemed to have found its way into my brain and I wandered like one dazed, simply shouting from time to time, “Tyeglev! Tyeglev!”

  “Here!” I heard suddenly in answer.

  Holy saints, how relieved I was! How I rushed in the direction from which the voice came.... A human figure loomed dark before me.... I made for it. At last!

  But instead of Tyeglev I saw another officer of the same battery, whose name was Tyelepnev.

  “Was it you answered me?” I asked him.

  “Was it you calling me?” he asked in his turn.

  “No; I
was calling Tyeglev.”

  “Tyeglev? Why, I met him a minute ago. What a fool of a night! One can’t find the way home.”

  “You saw Tyeglev? Which way did he go?”

  “That way, I fancy,” said the officer, waving his hand in the air. “But one can’t be sure of anything now. Do you know, for instance, where the village is? The only hope is the dogs barking. It is a fool of a night! Let me light a cigarette ... it will seem like a light on the way.”

  The officer was, so I fancied, a little exhilarated.

  “Did Tyeglev say anything to you?” I asked.

  “To be sure he did! I said to him, ‘good evening, brother,’ and he said, ‘good - bye.’ ‘How good - bye? Why good - bye.’ ‘I mean to shoot myself directly with a pistol.’ He is a queer fish!”

  My heart stood still. “You say he told you ...”

  “He is a queer fish!” repeated the officer, and sauntered off.

  I hardly had time to recover from what the officer had told me, when my own name, shouted several times as it seemed with effort, caught my ear. I recognised Semyon’s voice.

  I called back ... he came to me.

  XVI

  “Well?” I asked him. “Have you found Ilya Stepanitch?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where?”

  “Here, not far away.”

  “How ... have you found him? Is he alive?”

  “To be sure. I have been talking to him.” (A load was lifted from my heart.) “His honour was sitting in his great - coat under a birch tree ... and he was all right. I put it to him, ‘Won’t you come home, Ilya Stepanitch; Alexandr Vassilitch is very much worried about you.’ And he said to me, ‘What does he want to worry for! I want to be in the fresh air. My head aches. Go home,’ he said, ‘and I will come later.’“

  “And you left him?” I cried, clasping my hands.

  “What else could I do? He told me to go ... how could I stay?”

  All my fears came back to me at once.

  “Take me to him this minute - - do you hear? This minute! O Semyon, Semyon, I did not expect this of you! You say he is not far off?”

  “He is quite close, here, where the copse begins - - he is sitting there. It is not more than five yards from the river bank. I found him as I came alongside the river.”

  “Well, take me to him, take me to him.”

  Semyon set off ahead of me. “This way, sir.... We have only to get down to the river and it is close there.”

  But instead of getting down to the river we got into a hollow and found ourselves before an empty shed.

  “Hey, stop!” Semyon cried suddenly. “I must have come too far to the right.... We must go that way, more to the left....”

  We turned to the left - - and found ourselves among such high, rank weeds that we could scarcely get out.... I could not remember such a tangled growth of weeds anywhere near our village. And then all at once a marsh was squelching under our feet, and we saw little round moss - covered hillocks which I had never noticed before either.... We turned back - - a small hill was sharply before us and on the top of it stood a shanty - - and in it someone was snoring. Semyon and I shouted several times into the shanty; something stirred at the further end of it, the straw rustled - - and a hoarse voice shouted, “I am on guard.”

  We turned back again ... fields and fields, endless fields.... I felt ready to cry.... I remembered the words of the fool in King Lear: “This night will turn us all to fools or madmen.”

  “Where are we to go?” I said in despair to Semyon.

  “The devil must have led us astray, sir,” answered the distracted servant. “It’s not natural ... there’s mischief at the bottom of it!”

  I would have checked him but at that instant my ear caught a sound, distinct but not loud, that engrossed my whole attention. There was a faint “pop” as though someone had drawn a stiff cork from a narrow bottle - neck. The sound came from somewhere not far off. Why the sound seemed to me strange and peculiar I could not say, but at once I went towards it.

  Semyon followed me. Within a few minutes something tall and broad loomed in the fog.

  “The copse! here is the copse!” Semyon cried, delighted. “Yes, here ... and there is the master sitting under the birch - tree.... There he is, sitting where I left him. That’s he, surely enough!”

  I looked intently. A man really was sitting with his back towards us, awkwardly huddled up under the birch - tree. I hurriedly approached and recognised Tyeglev’s great - coat, recognised his figure, his head bowed on his breast. “Tyeglev!” I cried ... but he did not answer.

  “Tyeglev!” I repeated, and laid my hand on his shoulder. Then he suddenly lurched forward, quickly and obediently, as though he were waiting for my touch, and fell onto the grass. Semyon and I raised him at once and turned him face upwards. It was not pale, but was lifeless and motionless; his clenched teeth gleamed white - - and his eyes, motionless, too, and wide open, kept their habitual, drowsy and “different” look.

  “Good God!” Semyon said suddenly and showed me his hand stained crimson with blood.... The blood was coming from under Tyeglev’s great - coat, from the left side of his chest.

  He had shot himself from a small, single - barreled pistol which was lying beside him. The faint pop I had heard was the sound made by the fatal shot.

  XVII

  Tyeglev’s suicide did not surprise his comrades very much. I have told you already that, according to their ideas, as a “fatal” man he was bound to do something extraordinary, though perhaps they had not expected that from him. In the letter to the colonel he asked him, in the first place, to have the name of Ilya Tyeglev removed from the list of officers, as he had died by his own act, adding that in his cash - box there would be found more than sufficient money to pay his debts, - - and, secondly, to forward to the important personage at that time commanding the whole corps of guards, an unsealed letter which was in the same envelope. This second letter, of course, we all read; some of us took a copy of it. Tyeglev had evidently taken pains over the composition of this letter.

  “You know, Your Excellency” (so I remember the letter began), “you are so stern and severe over the slightest negligence in uniform when a pale, trembling officer presents himself before you; and here am I now going to meet our universal, righteous, incorruptible Judge, the Supreme Being, the Being of infinitely greater consequence even than Your Excellency, and I am going to meet him in undress, in my great - coat, and even without a cravat round my neck.”

  Oh, what a painful and unpleasant impression that phrase made upon me, with every word, every letter of it, carefully written in the dead man’s childish handwriting! Was it worth while, I asked myself, to invent such rubbish at such a moment? But Tyeglev had evidently been pleased with the phrase: he had made use in it of the accumulation of epithets and amplifications à la Marlinsky, at that time in fashion. Further on he had alluded to destiny, to persecution, to his vocation which had remained unfulfilled, to a mystery which he would bear with him to the grave, to people who had not cared to understand him; he had even quoted lines from some poet who had said of the crowd that it wore life “like a dog - collar” and clung to vice “like a burdock” - - and it was not free from mistakes in spelling. To tell the truth, this last letter of poor Tyeglev was somewhat vulgar; and I can fancy the contemptuous surprise of the great personage to whom it was addressed - - I can imagine the tone in which he would pronounce “a worthless officer! ill weeds are cleared out of the field!”

  Only at the very end of the letter there was a sincere note from Tyeglev’s heart. “Ah, Your Excellency,” he concluded his epistle, “I am an orphan, I had no one to love me as a child - - and all held aloof from me ... and I myself destroyed the only heart that gave itself to me!”

  Semyon found in the pocket of Tyeglev’s great - coat a little album from which his master was never separated. But almost all the pages had been torn out; only one was left on which there was the following calculatio
n:

  Napoleon was born Ilya Tyeglev was born

  on August 15th, 1769. on January 7th, 1811.

  1769 1811

  15 7

  8* 1+

  - - - - - - - - - -

  Total 1792 Total 1819

  * August - - the 8th month + January - - the 1st month

  of the year. of the year.

  1 1

  7 8

  9 1

  2 9

  - - - - - -

  Total 19! Total 19!

  Napoleon died on May Ilya Tyeglev died on

  5th, 1825. April 21st, 1834.

  1825 1834

  5 21

  5* 7+

  - - - - - - - - - -

  Total 1835 Total 1862

  * May - - the 5th month + July - - the 7th month

  of the year. of the year.

  1 1

  8 8

  3 6

  5 23

  - - - -

  Total 17! Total 17!

  Poor fellow! Was not this perhaps why he became an artillery officer?

  As a suicide he was buried outside the cemetery - - and he was immediately forgotten.

  XVIII

  The day after Tyeglev’s burial (I was still in the village waiting for my brother) Semyon came into the hut and announced that Ilya wanted to see me.

  “What Ilya?” I asked.

  “Our pedlar.”

  I told Semyon to call him.

  He made his appearance. He expressed some regret at the death of the lieutenant; wondered what could have possessed him....

  “Was he in debt to you?” I asked.

  “No, sir. He always paid punctually for everything he had. But I tell you what,” here the pedlar grinned, “you have got something of mine.”

  “What is it?”

  “Why, that,” he pointed to the brass comb lying on the little toilet table. “A thing of little value,” the fellow went on, “but as it was a present...”

  All at once I raised my head. Something dawned upon me.

  “Your name is Ilya?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was it you, then, I saw under the willow tree the other night?”