“Nothing to be done. Not a single horse.”
“Well, tell them to bring me a samovar. I’ll wait, there’s nothing else for it.”
The new arrival sat down on a bench, threw his cap on the table, and passed his hand over his hair.
“Have you had tea?” he asked me.
“Yes.”
“Won’t you have some more, to keep me company?”
I consented. The fat, reddish samovar appeared for the fourth time on the table. I got out a bottle of rum. I had not been wrong in taking my interlocutor for one of the smaller landowning gentry. His name was Pyotr Petrovich Karataev.
We fell into conversation. Not more than half an hour after his arrival he had, with all the good nature and outspokenness in the world, told me the story of his life.
“Now, I’m on my way to Moscow,” he informed me, as he finished his fourth glass of tea. “There’s nothing more I can do in the country.”
“How so?”
“There just isn’t. The land’s been ruined by mismanagement, let’s admit it. I’ve played havoc with the peasants; we’ve had some bad years: poor crops, and one thing and another, you know. . . . Yes, and anyway,” he added, with a rueful sideways smile, “I’m a fine one for looking after land!”
“Why?”
“No,” he broke in. “To be quite honest, you can’t manage land the way I do. You see,” he went on, screwing his head to one side and sucking away hard at his pipe, “you here, looking at me, might think that I’m . . . well, I must confess, I had a middling sort of education; we weren’t well off. You’ll forgive me, I’m an outspoken chap, and on the whole . . .”
He left the sentence unfinished and waved a hand. I began to assure him that he was mistaken, that I was very glad to meet him, and so forth, and then I remarked that the running of an estate didn’t seem to me to call for any excessive degree of education.
“Agreed,” he answered. “I quite agree with you. But you need a special sort of disposition. Some fellows play hell with it all, and no harm’s done, but I . . . Tell me, sir, are you from ‘Peter’ or from Moscow?”
“From Petersburg.”
He blew a long stream of smoke from his nostrils.
“I’m going to Moscow to join the Government service.”
“Which branch d’you think of joining?”
“I don’t know; it depends how things go there. I don’t mind telling you, I’m scared of the Government service; you get landed with responsibilities at once. I’ve always lived in the country; I’ve grown used to it, you know . . . but it can’t be helped . . . needs must! Oh, how I hate that ‘needs must’!”
“But you’ll be living in the capital.”
“Yes . . . well, I don’t know what’s so good about that. I’ll see, perhaps it will be good. But as for a home in the country, I don’t think there’s anything can be better than that.”
“But can’t you go on living there any longer?”
He sighed.
“No. It seems that it doesn’t belong to me any more.”
“What’s happened, then?”
“There’s a good man there, a neighbor . . . a bill of exchange . . .”
Poor Pyotr Petrovich passed a hand over his face, thought, and shook his head.
“Well, there it is! . . . And to tell the truth,” he added after a slight pause, “I can’t blame a soul—it’s my own fault. I liked cutting a dash! . . . I still do, damn it!”
“You had a gay time of it at home?” I asked him.
“Sir,” he answered with deliberation, looking me straight in the eyes, “I kept twelve couple of hounds, such hounds as you’ll seldom see, I can tell you.” He pronounced the word “seldom” in a sing-song tone. “They’d only to put up a hare or a deer—and they’d be off like snakes, regular snakes. And my horses were something to boast about, too. Now it’s all past history, there’s no point in telling lies. I used to go out shooting. I had a dog called Kontesska, a wonderful pointer, she had a sublime nose and never missed. I’d go up to a bog and say, seek! and if she wouldn’t start seeking, then you could take a dozen dogs, but you’d be wasting your time, you wouldn’t find a thing. But when she did start—why, she’d be ready to die on the spot! . . . And indoors she had such good manners. You’d give her a bit of bread in your left hand, and say, ‘A Jew ate it,’ and she wouldn’t take it, but give it to her in your right hand, and say, ‘A lady ate it’—she’d take it and eat it up at once. I had a puppy from her too, a capital puppy, I even wanted to take him to Moscow, but a friend of mine asked me for him and for my gun too. He said: ‘In Moscow, my friend, you won’t have time for this sort of thing; it’s all quite different there.’ I gave him the puppy, and the gun too; so, you see, I left everything behind.”
“But even in Moscow you could get some shooting.”
“No, what’s the use? I couldn’t control myself before, and now I’ve got to pay for it. I’d rather you told me, if you will, what it’s like living in Moscow—expensive?”
“No, not too bad.”
“Not too bad? . . . But, tell me, it’s true that gypsies live in Moscow?”
“What gypsies?”
“The ones that go the rounds of the fairs?”
“Yes, in Moscow . . .”
“Well, that’s good. I love the gypsies, damn it, so I do . . .” and Pyotr Petrovich’s eyes sparkled with rakish merriment. But suddenly he began to fidget on his bench, then grew thoughtful, looked down, and held out to me his empty glass.
“Give me some of your rum,” he said.
“But your tea is all finished.”
“Never mind, I’ll have it like that, without tea . . . Ugh!”
Karataev put his head in his hands and leant on the table. I looked at him in silence, anticipating those emotional exclamations, nay, those tears even, which come so easily to the man who has had a drop; but, when he raised his head, I confess I was struck by the expression of deep sorrow on his face.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I’d remembered the old times. It’s quite a story. . . . I’d tell you, only I don’t want to bore you . . .”
“Please!”
“Yes,” he continued with a sigh. “The things that happen . . . even in my case, for example. Why, if you like, I’ll tell you about it. I don’t know, though . . .”
“Tell me the story, my dear Pyotr Petrovich.”
“Very well, although it’s rather . . . Well, you see,” he began, “but I really don’t know . . .”
“Oh, that’s quite enough, my dear Pyotr Petrovich.”
“Very well then. This is roughly my story. I lived in the country . . . Suddenly a girl caught my fancy, oh, and what a girl she was . . . Beautiful, clever, and so good-hearted too! Her name was Matrona. She was a simple girl, that’s to say a serf, you understand, just a serf-girl. And she was not mine, but someone else’s—that was the whole devil of it. So I fell in love with her—quite a story you see—well, and so did she. So Matrona started to ask me to buy her from her mistress, and I’d had the same idea myself. . . . Her mistress was rich, a terrible old hag; she lived about fifteen versts away from me. Well, one fine day, as the expression is, I ordered my three-horse drozhky to be harnessed—my shaft-horse was a trotter, a regular rascal, he was called Lampurdos, too—I put on my best clothes and drove off to see Matrona’s mistress. I arrived there; a big house with wings and a garden . . . Matrona was waiting for me at the turning, she seemed to want to talk to me, but she only kissed my hand and went away. So I went to the front hall and asked ‘At home?’ and a great tall footman says to me: ‘Whom shall I announce?’ I say: ‘Announce, my friend, that the landowner Karataev has come to discuss business.’ The footman went off, and I waited by myself and wondered what would happen. Supposing the beastly woman put a frightful price on her, in spite of being so rich. Suppose she asked five hundred rubles. Well, at last the footman comes back and says, ‘This way, please.’ I go after him into the dr
awing-room. In an armchair sits a little yellowish old woman and blinks her eyes and says, ‘What can I do for you?’ First of all, you know, I thought I ought to say that I was glad to make her acquaintance. ‘You’re mistaken, I’m not the lady of the house, I am a relation of hers. What can I do for you?’ I told her on the spot that I had something to discuss with the lady of the house. ‘Marya Ilyinichna is not receiving to-day: she is indisposed. . . . What can I do for you?’ There was nothing for it, I thought to myself, but to explain my position to her. The old woman heard me out. ‘Matrona? which Matrona?’ ‘Matrona Fyodorova, Kulik’s daughter.’
“‘Fyodor Kulik’s daughter . . . and how do you know her?’ ‘Just by chance.’ ‘Is she aware of your intention?’ ‘Yes.’ The old woman paused. ‘Why, I’ll give it her, the good-for-nothing hussy!’ I confess I was surprised. ‘Whatever for, for goodness’ sake! . . . I’m ready to pay cash for her, if you’ll kindly just name a sum.’ The old sour-puss fairly began to hiss. ‘That’s a fine surprise you’ve planned: your money means such a lot to us! But I’ll just show her. I’ll give it her . . . I’ll knock the nonsense out of her . . .’ The old woman had a coughing-fit from sheer spite. ‘Doesn’t she like it here with us, or what? . . . Oh, she’s a little devil, may the Lord forgive me my trespasses!’ Here I confess that I exploded. ‘What are you threatening the poor girl for, what is she to blame for?’ The old woman crossed herself. ‘Oh, Lord Jesus Christ! Can’t I do what I like, even with my own serfs?’
“‘But she’s not yours!’
“‘Well, that’s Marya Ilyinichna’s affair, it’s nothing to do with you, sir; but I’ll show that little Matrona whose serf she is.’ I confess that I nearly went for the wretched hag, but I remembered Matrona and lowered my hands. I was so scared, I just can’t tell you; I started begging the old woman to take whatever she liked. ‘But what is she to you?’ ‘I like her, madam; put yourself in my situation . . . Allow me to kiss your hand.’ And so I kissed the old villain’s hand. ‘Well,’ muttered the old woman, ‘I’ll tell Marya Ilyinichna; it will be for her to decide; you come back in two days’ time.’ I drove home in great anxiety. I began to suspect that I had handled the affair clumsily, that I had been wrong to give my situation away, but I had spotted it too late. Two days later I went to see the lady. I was shown into the study. Masses of flowers, wonderful ornaments, and the lady herself, sitting in one of those funny armchairs, with her head thrown back on a pillow, and her relative, who had been there before, sitting there too, and also another lady with pale hair and a green dress and a crooked mouth—a companion, she must have been. The old lady bowed: ‘Please be seated.’ I sat down. She began asking me how old I was, where I had served, what my plans were, the whole thing very lofty and dignified. I answered her fully. The old lady took a handkerchief from the table and waved it and waved it towards herself. . . . ‘I—’ she said, ‘I have learned from Katerina Karpovna of your intention. I have learned,’ she said, ‘but I have made it my rule,’ she said, ‘never to release my serfs for service elsewhere. It is not proper, it is not worthy of a well-ordered household: it is not in order. I have already taken the necessary steps,’ she said. ‘You have no further cause for concern.’ ‘How do you mean, please—concern? . . . But perhaps you need Matrona Fyodorova?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t need her.’ ‘Well, why ever don’t you want to hand her over to me?’ ‘Because it doesn’t suit me; it doesn’t suit me, and that’s the end of it. I have already told you that I have taken the necessary measures: she has been sent to my property in the steppes.’ It hit me like a thunderclap. The old woman said a couple of words in French to the lady in green, who went out. ‘And I,’ she said, ‘am a woman of strict principles, and my health is poor, I can’t stand worry. You’re still a young man: I’m an old woman and in a position to give you advice. Would it not be better for you to settle down, marry, look for a good parti; heiresses are scarce, but you ought to be able to find some poor girl of good character.’ I looked at the old woman without understanding at all what she was driving at; I heard her speaking about marriage, but ‘my property in the steppes’ kept ringing in my ears. Marriage! . . . Damnation take it . . .”
Here the narrator suddenly stopped and looked at me.
“I say, you’re not married?”
“No.”
“Well, of course, you know how it is. I couldn’t stand it any longer: ‘For heaven’s sake, madam, what nonsense is this, what has marriage got to do with it? I simply wish to learn from you whether you will hand over to me your girl Matrona or not.’ The old woman groaned: ‘Oh, he’s upset me! Oh, tell him to go away! Oh! . . .’ Her kinswoman darted up to her and started screaming at me and the old woman kept on groaning: ‘What have I done to deserve this? Am I not mistress in my own house? Oh, oh!’ I snatched up my hat and ran away like a madman.
“Perhaps,” continued the narrator, “you will blame me for having formed such a strong attachment for a girl of low estate; indeed I have no intention of defending myself . . . It just happened like that! . . . Believe me, I had no peace, day or night . . . I was in torment! Why, I thought, I had ruined the poor girl! Then all of a sudden I would think of how she would be chasing geese, wearing a peasant’s coat, and kept in disgrace by her mistress’s orders, and how the overseer, a peasant in high boots, would be roaring loudly at her—and cold sweat would fairly roll off me. Well, I couldn’t stand it; I found out what estate she had been sent to, saddled my horse, and rode over. It wasn’t until nearly evening on the second day that I arrived. Evidently they had never expected me to make such a stroke, and no instructions had been given about me. I went straight to the overseer, as if I had been a neighbor; I went into his yard, and what did I see but Matrona, sitting on the porch with her head in her hands. She was just going to cry out, but I shook my finger at her and pointed towards the back yard and the fields. I went into the cabin; I had a chat with the overseer, spun him the devil of a yarn, waited for my moment, and went out to Matrona. Poor thing, she fairly hung on my neck. She had got pale and thin, my darling had. Then, you know, I told her: ‘Never mind, Matrona, never mind, don’t cry,’ but the tears were simply streaming down my own cheeks. Then, at last, I grew ashamed. I said to her: ‘Matrona, tears won’t put things right, what we must do is this: we must take what they call decisive measures; you must run away with me, that’s what we must do.’ Matrona practically fainted. ‘How can I! I’d be done for, they’d eat me right up!’ ‘You silly, who’s going to find you?’ ‘They’ll find me all right. Thank you, Pyotr Petrovich—I’ll never forget your kindness, but you must leave me now; it’s just the hand of fate.’ ‘Why, Matrona, and I took you for a girl of character.’ And so she was, she had lots of character. She was gold, pure gold! ‘Why on earth should I leave you here! Whatever happens, it can’t be worse than this. Tell me: you’ve had a taste of the overseer’s fists?’ Matrona flared up and her lips began to tremble. ‘But my family won’t be given any peace, all on my account.’ ‘Well, what will they do to your family? . . . Send them away, will they?’ ‘Yes, they’ll send my brother away, for sure.’ ‘And your father?’ ‘They won’t send my father away, he’s the only good tailor in the place.’ ‘Well, there you are, you see; and it won’t mean the end of your brother.’ I can tell you, I had a job to talk her around; she had the idea of arguing some more, about how I would have to answer for it. . . . ‘But that isn’t your affair,’ I told her. . . . Anyway I just carried her off. . . . Not that time, but another time: it was at night, I came with a cart—and carried her off.”
“You carried her off?”
“Yes . . . So she settled down at my place. I had a small house and not many servants. My people adored me, I’ll make no bones about it; they wouldn’t have given me away for anything in the world. I was in clover. Matrona had a good rest and got better; I grew fonder and fonder of her. . . . What a girl she was! Where had she got it all from? She could sing, dance, play the guitar . . . I didn’t show her to the
neighbors, they’d only have talked. But I had a friend, a bosom friend, Pantelei Gornostaev—you may know him? He simply worshipped her; he kissed her hand as if she had been a lady, really he did, and I can tell you, Gornostaev is not my sort: he’s an educated man, he’s read the whole of Pushkin; he would get talking to Matrona and me, and we’d be all ears. He taught her to write, amazing fellow! And then the clothes I gave her—better than the governor’s wife’s, absolutely they were; I had a coat made for her of raspberry-colored velvet with trimmings of fur . . . and how that coat suited her! It had been made by one of those Madams in Moscow, in the new style, with a tight waist. Oh, she was a marvellous girl, Matrona! She would start thinking and sit for hours on end, looking at the floor, not moving an eyebrow; and I would sit too, and look at her, and I just couldn’t look at her enough, it was as if I’d never seen her in my life. She would smile, and my heart would give a sort of shiver, as if somebody was tickling it. Then suddenly she’d be in the mood to laugh and joke and dance, she’d embrace me so warmly, and hold me so tight, that my head would be in a whirl. From morning to night all I’d think about was how I could make her happy. And I tell you, I’d give her presents, just to see how pleased she’d be, the darling, how she’d go all red from joy, how she’d try my present on, how she’d come up to me in her new clothes and give me a kiss. I can’t think how her father, Kulik, smelt the story out, but the old man came to have a look at us and fairly burst into tears. . . . Tears of joy, of course, what did you think? We gave him presents. As he was leaving, she gave him a five-ruble note, the darling—and he plumped down at her feet—it was so funny! We lived for five months in this way; and I wouldn’t have minded living like that with her for ever. But I reckoned without my cursed bad luck.”
He paused.
“What happened, then?” I asked sympathetically.
He waved his hand.
“It all ended devilish badly. I was the ruin of her, too. My little Matrona was mad keen on sledge rides, and used to drive herself; she’d put on her fur coat and her embroidered gloves, and simply shout for joy. We always went for our drives in the evening, so as not to meet anybody. Then there came one really glorious day: frosty, clear, not a breath of wind. We set out. Matrona took the reins. Suddenly I looked and saw where she was making for. Could she really be making for Kukuevka, for her mistress’s estate? Yes, Kukuevka it was. I said to her: ‘Are you crazy? Where are you going?’ She gave me a look over her shoulder and grinned. ‘Let’s cut a dash,’ she said. Oho, I thought, let’s . . . it’s a good idea to drive right past the mistress’s house—don’t you think? On we drove. My trotter fairly swam along; as for the side-horses, I can tell you, they absolutely whirled—already we could see the church at Kukuevka; and then, creeping along the road, comes an old green winter-carriage with a footman sticking up on the boot . . . It was the mistress, so it was, driving towards us! I was getting scared, but Matrona flicked the horses with the reins and darted straight at the carriage! The coachman saw us flying towards him—tried to get out of the way, turned too sharply and tipped the carriage up into a snowdrift. The window broke—the lady screamed, ‘Ai-ai-ai! ai-ai-ai!’—the companion squeaked, ‘Hold on! Hold on!’ and we—God give us legs to run with—got past. We galloped off, and I thought to myself: it will be a bad business, I was wrong to let her drive to Kukuevka. Well, what d’you expect? The old lady had recognized Matrona and myself, and she started proceedings against me: ‘A runaway girl of mine is living at Mr. Karataev’s,’ she said; and she produced something suitable in the way of a sweetener. The next thing I knew, I got a visit from the district police-inspector; he was an acquaintance of mine, Stepan Sergeich Kuzovkin, a good man, or rather, not really a good man. Well, he arrives and says: ‘It’s like this and like that, Pyotr Petrovich—what’s this that you’ve been up to? . . . It’s a serious responsibility, the law is quite clear on the point.’ I say to him: ‘Well, of course, we must have a chat about that, but won’t you have a bite after your journey?’ He agreed to have a bite, but he said: ‘The law must take its course, Pyotr Petrovich, you can see for yourself that it must.’ ‘Yes, of course, the law,’ I said; ‘of course . . . By the way, I believe you’ve got a black horse, you wouldn’t like to change it for my Lampurdos? . . . But there’s no such girl as Matrona Fyodorova here!’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Pyotr Petrovich, the girl’s here, we don’t live in Switzerland . . . but as for Lampurdos, I could certainly change my horse for him; or, if you liked, I could just take him.’ ‘Well, on that occasion, somehow or other, I got him out of the house. But the old lady made a worse fuss than ever: ‘I shan’t mind if it costs me ten thousand,’ she said. You see, when she first saw me, she had suddenly taken it into her head to marry me off to her green companion—so I found out afterwards: that’s why she took it all so much to heart. What ideas these ladies get! It must be the boredom, I suppose. Things went badly for me. I didn’t spare money, and I kept Matrona hidden—but no! They harried me like a driven hare. I got into debt, my health failed, and, well, one night I was lying in bed thinking: Oh Lord, what am I suffering for? What am I going to do, if I can’t stop loving her? . . . and I just can’t, and that’s all there is to it!—when suddenly Matrona came into my room. At that time I’d been hiding her in one of my farms, two versts away from the house. I had quite a shock. ‘What? Have they been bothering you, even there?’ ‘No, Pyotr Petrovich,’ she said. ‘No one disturbs me at Bubnov; but this can’t go on any longer. It tears my heart,’ she said; ‘I’m so sorry for you, my darling; I’ll never, never forget your kindness, Pyotr Petrovich, but now I’ve come to say good-bye.’ ‘What d’you mean? Are you crazy? . . . What d’you mean, to say good-bye?’ ‘Just like that . . . I’m going to give myself up.’ ‘You’re crazy, I’ll lock you up in the attic . . . D’you want to be the death of me, d’you mean to kill me, or what?’ But the girl said nothing, and looked at the floor. ‘Well, go on, say something!’ ‘I don’t want to cause you any more trouble, Pyotr Petrovich!’ Well, go on, argue with her . . . ‘But you see, you fool, you see, you crazy girl . . .’”
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