“That’s as you please, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna consented. “If the need arises and you will permit it, my own servants will attend you, too.”
Ovcharov smiled. “Thank you. Now, the most important and central reason for my decision to spend the summer in your bathhouse, in a word: whey. I must drink whey.”
“Whey?” the startled Nastasya Ivanovna replied. “What can be said of it? I have cows, and there will be plenty of that slop.”
“Slop?” Ovcharov exclaimed. “Slop cannot be drunk. First of all, the kind of cows you have determines the quality of the whey—then we can decide what is and isn’t slop. Of course, you can concoct slop out of anything.”
He became agitated. The promise of the curative powers of Snetki seemed about to fade like a dream.
“Whey?” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated, wide-eyed. “We just have the ordinary kind.”
“No, madam, I have no need for the ordinary kind.”
“Well, what kind, my dear man?”
Nastasya Ivanovna, herself, became agitated. “Please explain, Erast Sergeyich. Perhaps, God will provide. Well, don’t we have any whey around? I’ll show you, you’ll take a look. I think there is some, I think I saw it…Olenka, ask Aksinya Mikhailovna if she’s already poured off that slop…or, what to call it? Go, Olenka.”
Olenka went off with a laugh.
“I don’t put it in my mouth, but you teach me about it, Erast Sergeyich.”
Ovcharov began to explain to her in great detail how the previous summer two physicians in Schwalbach had recommended a treatment that was only available in Switzerland, because that was where the best whey was found; how he’d wanted to stay at an inn on the Handeck but left after consulting his physicians by post because the milk there turned out to be too harsh; how, finally, after lengthy search, he’d settled on Mount Rigi, where the whey turned out to be smooth, and he was highly satisfied with both his choice of locale and the society there. While he was speaking, Olenka returned, laughing, in the company of Aksinya Mikhailovna. The old woman stood in the doorway holding a pot of whey.
“Here it is,” Nastasya Ivanovna announced.
“Come and let me have a look, good woman,” Ovcharov beckoned.
Olenka stood grinning. Nastasya Ivanovna also kept quiet in anticipation. Ovcharov brought his face close to the pot, studied it, smelled it, and took a lick. For a moment, you could hear a pin drop. In the end, Ovcharov apparently did not find any significant difference between the wheys of Switzerland and Snetki. He raised his head and pronounced: “Yes, perhaps…This will suffice, it’ll do.”
“How could it not do, Erast Sergeyich!” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, breathing a sigh of relief. “After all, I don’t feed my cows chaff. Thank God, I have a water meadow; our Snetki and Beryozovka meadows are the best in the district. The cows may not, unfortunately, be Swiss—I’ve never had that sort. Five years ago, after the cattle plague, I barely recovered; I had to get new cattle. Maria Osipovna had a cow born of a Circassian cow, so I bought that cow’s heifer…. Well, it’s a shame that the whey is from a Circassian cow rather than a Swiss one.”
“It’s of no consequence,” Ovcharov muttered, reassuring her and becoming a bit flustered himself. “I will oversee the whey myself. So now, let us decide. First of all, what will you charge for the whey?”
Nastasya Ivanovna was all but dumbfounded.
“Even for the whey, you want to pay, Erast Sergeyich?”
“As I said: for everything,” Ovcharov insisted, shrugging his shoulders.
“What on earth would I charge for a thing like that? I can’t imagine.”
“If you would please trouble yourself to calculate it.”
“Erast Sergeyich, please don’t befuddle me.”
“How so, if you please?”
Nastasya Ivanovna fell silent for a moment.
“Erast Sergeyich,” she said in a voice not quite her own, “you are hurting my feelings. I’m an old woman, I knew you when you were small, and my Nikolai Demyanych did, too…. Your mother and you would come to call—it was such a treat for me…. And now you see fit to set terms with me over every little crust, over some accursed whey! Am I really such a miser, such a money-grubber? That’s hurtful, hurtful, Erast Sergeyich. I cannot. I simply cannot calculate what price to put on all this.”
“In that case I will not be lodging with you, Nastasya Ivanovna,” Erast Sergeyevich responded and reached for his hat.
Nastasya Ivanovna lowered her eyes and remained seated. She was greatly distressed. Ovcharov noticed this.
“But it would be better,” he said, “if we could behave like intelligent people. The money goes without saying, and your feelings also go without saying. The two need not get in each other’s way. Write me your terms and I will abide by them, and we will remain dear friends without quarrel or dispute. Otherwise I will not be able to live here; otherwise I will be forced to leave. Well, now, would you really rather refuse me when I could spend the summer to my benefit?”
“However you see fit; pay, if it pleases you,” Nastasya Ivanovna relented.
“Well, it’s about time. Please be so kind as to calculate the price.”
Nastasya Ivanovna laughed.
“I’ll calculate it, I’ll calculate it, dear man, but not now; let me think. It’ll take time to add up such mind-boggling sums and figures! And you should settle in.”
“This very day. Only I must ask that the terms and conditions be formulated today, without delay.”
“Fine, fine…But, how can it be—in a bathhouse—Erast Sergeyich?”
“Well?”
Nastasya Ivanovna fell silent. Deep in thought, she studied the walls around her.
“I’d rather have you in the house.”
“I’ve already told you…”
“I’d rather have you in the house,” she continued, not listening, “but I have a houseguest. And even that wouldn’t matter, there would be plenty of room for a good man, but she’s the sort of guest…”
Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. Ovcharov recalled that this was not the first time his hostess had guardedly mentioned a houseguest. He found this somewhat intriguing. As his future at Snetki was now assured and the tiredness brought on by his walk had yet to pass, he decided to extend his stay a few minutes and find out who this mysterious houseguest might be.
“Perhaps you have a sick relative staying with you?” he asked.
“A relative, yes, but not just any relative, my dear man,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied and suddenly bent all the way down to Ovcharov’s ear. “A holy one. Here a week already.”
“Who is this ‘holy one’?”
“Anna Ilinishna Bobova. She’s my second cousin. In all my life I had only twice laid eyes on her: the year Olenka was born, when Nikolai Demyanych and I went to Moscow, and the year of his passing, when I visited the Trinity St. Sergius Monastery. Anna Ilinishna is a woman who…she was twelve when her mother and father died, and she lived with her benefactress, Princess Paltseva—did you hear about her in Moscow? Rather, she wasn’t exactly her benefactress, as Anna Ilinishna had some money from her parents. The princess took her in because she liked to have the house full of people making a fuss over her. A pious woman, but spiteful!—may she rest in peace. They even talk about her here in our town. You must have heard of her?”
“Who hasn’t? She was renowned in Moscow for her piety, her dinners, and her gossiping.”
“Oh, she was a difficult woman, they say. Cousin was her favorite. Well, the princess died, and Cousin was passed on to her daughter, the widowed Princess Maria Sergeyevna. There is a great friendship between them. Cousin never leaves her side. But now—all of a sudden—they’ve parted ways. The young princess was getting ready for a trip abroad and before leaving went to her village—she has an estate in our province. She will leave from her estate and go abroad directly. But Cousin traveled with her as far as the provincial capital and from there to my house. She’ll b
e staying with me until the princess returns and takes her back. Two or three months she’ll be living here.”
“In other words, you invited her. Or was it a surprise for you?” Ovcharov asked, since he thought he had detected a sigh at the end of this explanation.
“A surprise,” she replied, slightly embarrassed. “I’m terribly happy and Olenka, too…”
“Well, Mama, speak for yourself,” Olenka interrupted her, casting a glance at the closed door that led to the guest’s bedroom. Nastasya Ivanovna shook her head at her daughter.
“I’m terribly happy,” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated. “Cousin is a remarkable woman.”
“Holy, you said?”
Olenka let out a laugh and again looked at the door.
“Just because Auntie brought suitcases full of icons, rosary beads, and communion bread from all sorts of bishops and archbishops with her…”
“Olenka!” her mother interrupted pleadingly.
“Why should I be silent? Erast Sergeyich will see for himself once he’s lived here a bit. Auntie is very delicate, and she had quite an arrival. She appeared with all her worldly goods and without asking Mama, without sending word from town—not even a note. Mama didn’t even recognize her…‘I will be living with you for as long as I need to.’ How do you like that? Such a blessing she’s bestowed on her relatives!”
“Olenka!” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated in alarm.
“And the best thing, Erast Sergeyich,” Olenka continued, addressing him with sudden familiarity and flushing with annoyance, “the best thing is that she took up residence in my room. Mama commanded me to give up my room for her. She immediately sent for Porphyry Ivanich, our priest, to sanctify the room and sprinkle all the corners with holy water. Just as if a devil had been living there—truly!”
“Stop it, Olenka,” her mother screamed at her in a burst of anger. “What will Erast Sergeyich think of you? And what sinfulness! You just remember all the things Anna Ilinishna has been honored to see, what passions she’s experienced in her travels! Oh, youth, youth! Always judging things this way. You forgive her, Erast Sergeyich. Cousin is a most admirable woman. I’m barely worthy to look at her. She’s been to the Holy Sepulchre and all our grandest cloisters. She has an entire box full…”
Nastasya Ivanovna suddenly lowered her voice.
“…an entire box full of letters. Five archbishops write to her and holy fathers, too, and she even has a memento from one anchorite—he gave her a stone to remember him by.”
“Ah! That is no trifle,” Ovcharov remarked with comic earnestness, softly clapping his hands.
“Of course, it’s no trifle. And what hasn’t Cousin experienced in this life! Lord, Lord! Let me tell you all about it.”
A cough sounded from behind the bedroom door. Nastasya Ivanovna suddenly lost her train of thought, pricked up her ears, and stopped short. Ovcharov quickly took hold of his hat.
“That, it seems, is Auntie, wishing to come out; and it looks as if you’ve taken fright, Erast Sergeyich,” Olenka said with a laugh. At that moment, she was not at all unattractive.
“What do you mean, taken fright?” Ovcharov asked, laughing, although he really had gotten up from his seat, if not out of fright, at least out of a desire to depart before the appearance of a new face. “Why have you decided that I’m such a coward or such a sinner that I’m afraid to look upon holiness?”
“I’m not exactly certain yet, but that’s how it looks to me,” Olenka responded, reciprocating his flirtatious tone.
The door squeaked and another cough followed.
“Farewell, my young landlady—after all, from this day forward you will be my landlady, won’t you? We’ll be friends, won’t we?”
He extended his hand to Olenka who shook it very adroitly.
“Well, of course you’ll be friends,” Nastasya Ivanovna intervened, a bit flustered and for some reason making no attempt to detain her guest, whom she had intended to keep in her parlor much longer. “May God grant us warm friendship, most esteemed Erast Sergeyich, and between you and Olenka, as well. That is God’s will, and I myself am so glad, and what could be better…”
“Farewell,” Ovcharov repeated, and before Nastasya Ivanovna could catch up with him, he had already made it to the servants’ foyer, thrown on his coat, and departed with the haste and gait of a man who has jumped aboard many a train just as the final whistle was sounding.
1. City Folk and Country Folk takes place in 1862, one year after the Emancipation Manifesto liberating the serfs. The ensuing reforms required landowners and peasants to agree which lands the former would make available for purchase to the latter. Until this arrangement was finalized, peasants were considered “temporarily obligated” and continued to pay their landowners (in money or in kind) whatever they had been paying as serfs.
2. Gzhel is a town outside of Moscow famous for its blue-and-white ceramic tableware.
3. A verst is a traditional Russian unit of measurement that gave way to the kilometer, its rough equivalent, beginning in the 1920s.
4. All landowners were routinely required to send some percentage of their young male serfs to serve twenty-five years in the military. Additionally, militias were organized at the provincial level in time of war. Nastasya Ivanovna would have been involved in the response to Nicholas I’s 1855 manifesto requiring the organization of men of all classes or estates—not only the peasantry—into temporary militias to be sent to the front during the Crimean War.
5. This is clearly a reference to Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. Nowhere in the novel are we given the name of the province where it takes place, but surely Khvoshchinskaya was primarily inspired by her native Ryazan Province, which the Grande Armée never, in fact, reached.
6. Alexander II was crowned in 1855.
7. Potichomania: A taste for porcelain knickknacks (from the French potiche), Chinese or Japanese porcelain vases.
8. French: The countenance of a thinker.
The moment he left, eleven o’clock chimed in Nastasya Ivanovna’s parlor and her houseguest emerged, at first cautiously, quietly opening her bedroom door just a crack.
“Good morning, Cousin. Did you sleep well?” Nastasya Ivanovna inquired as she walked up to kiss her. Olenka also gave her a kiss, but only after studying her aunt from head to toe without any attempt to hide her scrutiny. Anna Ilinishna nodded at her and, with a hint of distaste, touched her thin lips to the fresh young lips of her relative.
Anna Ilinishna was a forty-three-year-old spinster, exceptionally withered and yellow. Her hair—gray, but thoroughly blackened with pomade—was meticulously gathered under a fashionable hairnet with a bow in the form of a butterfly just above the forehead. Her floral cambric dress, to which an expensive collar had been added, was freshly ironed. Worn modestly, without crinoline or anything around the waist, it cheerlessly outlined her gaunt chest and scrawny back. Probably in an effort to make up for the excessive simplicity of her attire, she had fastened her collar with a brooch right at the throat. Olenka’s attention was particularly drawn to both the brooch, which was adorned with a mosaic parrot, and the butterfly bow on her forehead. After she sat down, her gaze continued to dart between the butterfly and the parrot.
“Did you sleep well?” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated, as Anna Ilinishna had already taken her seat in silence and begun crocheting a small wool rug she had brought with her.
“As always, thank you. Palashka is so thrilled with her new soles, she makes a clatter that will wake you, like it or not. I’ve only just finished my coffee. They brought it to me after they served you. Have you already been out tending to the estate? Or are you planning to go someplace with Olga Nikolayevna?”
She spoke these words with her small, languid eyes fixed on Olenka’s broad crinoline.
“What gave you that idea?” Olenka asked.
“Your attire.”
“I felt like putting it on, so I did,” Olenka replied, purposely rustling her crinoline and spread
ing her dress still wider over her chair.
“Excuse me. It was forward of me to ask.”
“No, we haven’t been anywhere,” Nastasya Ivanovna broke in. “There was no time. We had a visitor.”
“You don’t say? An early visit.”
Nastasya Ivanovna breathed a sigh of relief.
“You didn’t hear?” she asked hurriedly, deathly afraid that Anna Ilinishna had caught the end of their conversation. “I thought we might have disturbed you. We were rather loud.”
“I was unaware that you had a guest. How would I know who comes to visit you? No one informed me.”
Olenka looked at her inquisitively. Nastasya Ivanovna was again gripped by fear.
“Please excuse me if no one informed you, Cousin. I’m glad to acquaint you with any worthy person because you are my dear guest. But I thought, since you didn’t come out, that must mean you were still praying to God.”
Anna Ilinishna grinned. “God has yet to grant me the strength for such feats,” she said, impatiently hooking a loose stitch with her needle. “I cannot stand in prayer for a full five hours. Even Father Feofan Sarovsky can’t quite manage that, let alone me. I was awakened at six, and now it’s eleven.”
Nastasya Ivanovna calmed down. Quiet again reigned in the room.
“Erast Sergeyich was visiting, Ovcharov,” Nastasya Ivanovna resumed the conversation.
Her guest continued crocheting.
“Ovcharov—we took a walk to his Beryozovka. The one who’s always traveling abroad, Cousin.”
Her guest kept crocheting.
“He winters in Moscow. A Moscow resident, you could say.”
“I know that skinny-legs,” Anna Ilinishna blurted out, putting aside her anger. “He was always darkening our doorway at Maria Sergeyevna’s. And how ugly he’s become, when I had a look. He’s going bald—pshaw!”
City Folk and Country Folk Page 6