City Folk and Country Folk

by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya

  The life of a lower-gentry estate bustles around me, and nothing escapes my gaze. The provincial capital is twenty versts from the village where I live. I can see that its proximity has had a corrupting effect on the tenor of estate life here. It lacks, so to speak, that purity of ignorance that one encounters in the steppe; here one sees a luster applied by the hand of a talentless provincial apprentice.

  But whether or not this is corruption remains to be seen. I am searching, examining, and do not yet know. Before me a young lady of the countryside is wearing some sort of Garibaldi hat on her head, purchased from Madame Mukhina, a purveyor of things foreign in Kazan. It’s the fashion. Of course, a Russian braid over the shoulder would be more fitting. But, perhaps, as a result of wearing a Garibaldi hat, the young lady will somehow find out who Garibaldi is.

  One thing is certain: the country will kill the city. Ceci tuera cela.3 Today I made this prediction to my steward and peasants, with whom I spend up to ten hours a day in conversation. They understand little, but their common sense is amazing. Once new institutions are strengthened, then we will see. But we’re not cowards, and I thirst for nothing more than to “live to see the day,” as the saying goes. Although it is still early to speak of that.

  It is time, however, that we—those of rank, the decrepit aristocrats—realized that we won’t be around much longer. Very soon, we will die off. I’ll put it bluntly: there is no need for the upper crust to go on. Such are the times: we are no longer in fashion and, even if we were, it’s ruinous to support an absurd fashion. We’ve dissipated our fortunes and take a certain pleasure in borrowing money and then squandering it down to the last kopek. Evidence that we are done for can be found in our noble estates, in my own birthright. Neglected, decrepit, one hundred times destined for auction, the mansions of our nobility remind me of other corpses—the aristocratic castles overlooking the Rhine. Life has slipped away from there to the towns and villages. And we, if we want to survive, must slip away too, albeit to less picturesque destinations. We will exchange our noble mansions for semi-bourgeois refuges. And there we’ll live out our lives, but no longer as noblemen.

  But the little people, the owners of small estates, they will endure. Their time has come, as is only just. And for the peasants, even more so. But, oddly, neither the lower gentry nor the peasantry senses their coming primacy. They must be made to understand, and I am ready to help them.

  Contemplating the coming demise of some and emergence of others, the thinker pauses, stunned, and wonders, “How should we guide the inexperienced, and where do we look for guidance ourselves?”

  In all aspects of life, give me the middle ground, give me the middle opinion between two extremes. I am searching for it and will find it, if I haven’t yet put my finger on it. This is another reason I am pleased with myself.

  The quest, the quest—it is a noble undertaking. Blessed is he who devotes all his strength to it….

  Do not laugh, but I was just reminded of a rather prosaic circumstance—reminded because it is linked to my quest. Most likely if you, my friends, look at yourselves, you will find the same circumstance, and we will be proud together, because it is worthy of pride. My reflections led me to a question: How did I manage to lose my village in Tver?

  This small part of my patrimony was sold long ago, and the proceeds from the sale are long gone. I thought and thought and finally was mollified. The entire village was lost during those years when I was toiling away in Heidelberg and later, when I devoted myself to seeking rapport with our great teachers and martyrs. The village melted away in a quest for social good.

  Will those who replace us and whom we are now teaching be so selfless? For instance, when (if ever) will my landlady attain such awareness? She is a good woman and probably allows herself to be taken advantage of by cripples and beggars, but, of course, won’t spend a kopek on educating herself.

  Will we teach them not to revere property, even to despise it for a good cause? This question is vital at a time when love of property has reached new heights. How can we urgently demonstrate the legitimate boundaries of this love? This is the question I put to all our current reformers for thorough discussion.

  1. A porte-plume is the handle (often wooden or bone) to which a writing nib is attached.

  2. French: On the street corner.

  3. French: This will kill that: a statement made by Claude Frollo, archdeacon of Notre-Dame, in Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Frollo is referring to a book produced by the recently invented printing press, which he predicts will prove to be a more powerful force than the edifice of the church.

  While Ovcharov was contemplating Nastasya Ivanovna’s moral reeducation, writing about it, and then copying his ideas out in final form, Nastasya Ivanovna herself was living through many an anxious day.

  She was tormented by doubts as she pondered whether or not it would be permissible for her to visit her guest. Would he allow it, or not? As she saw it, it was her job to get him settled in, personally oversee arrangements for him, and look in on him at least once a day to make sure that Erast Sergeyevich was alive and well, that her dear guest was not in need of anything. But she could not bring herself to do it. Many times she was on the verge of going to see him, but did not go. Nastasya Ivanovna was gripped by a sort of terror, either a terror of breaching the rules of propriety or perhaps of Ovcharov himself, so foreign and sophisticated—God only knows what she was so afraid of, but she stayed away. After gingerly broaching the subject with Olenka every morning—that, really, it was her duty to go, and so forth—Nastasya Ivanovna would fall into a dejected state of confusion for the remainder of the day. In the kitchen, she grumbled and even raised her voice. In the past, she had also raised her voice plenty of times, but never in anger. The cause of this ill temper was Erast Sergeyevich’s dinner and the unfortunate whey. The whey kept Nastasya Ivanovna awake nights. Only on those days when it seemed to her that all the boiling, straining, and purifying had gone without a hitch did Nastasya Ivanovna’s mood improve. Erast Sergeyevich’s steam kettle and magnificent table linen were a true source of torment. How were they being cleaned, how were they being handled, and was Aksinya Mikhailovna giving them her very closest attention, and wouldn’t it be better after all to keep them in her own room? One morning she was deeply chagrined after the soup returned from the bathhouse untouched. Nastasya Ivanovna had the courage to ask his servant why, but received in answer only the laconic, “It was not desired.” She and Olenka sampled the soup once, sampled it twice, and then another twenty times, but found nothing to render it worthy of rejection. Olenka, truth be told, sampled it more out of playfulness. Spitting out the final spoonful and giggling, she said to her mother, who was close to tears:

  “Maybe he has a stomachache, and that’s why he’s not eating. You certainly know how to find things to worry about! Well, if you want, I’ll ask Fedka….”

  “Oh, Olenka! Don’t speak with him! You mustn’t.”

  Nastasya Ivanovna was terrified of Fedka, or rather, the decorous Fyodor Fyodorovich, who wore a short frock coat and gloves and had reddish side whiskers and a curly, blond tuft of hair on the top of his head. Fyodor Fyodorovich was under orders to speak as little as possible. Nastasya Ivanovna had understood this from her first conversation with Ovcharov, and strange as it may have been, she lacked the courage to engage him in conversation, despite a strong desire to do so. In addition to his enforced silence, Fyodor Fyodorovich gave both Nastasya Ivanovna and her household many other grounds for fear. Such a proud and elegant servant had never been seen in Snetki, or even in the provincial capital. Every morning and evening, after completing his journey from Beryozovka to Snetki on foot, he made such a grand entrance into Nastasya Ivanovna’s servants’ quarters and issued such curt orders that the servants hastened to bow to him, even though their bows were never reciprocated. As he walked away down the garden path carrying a napkin-covered tray to his master, the servants followed his progress with
reverent curiosity.

  Fyodor Fyodorovich was worthy of curiosity. First of all, he was a Russified Petersburg German who had retained his native language; second, before entering Ovcharov’s service he had been employed as a waiter on a steamship, where, even in choppy waters, he could carry a glass of vodka without spilling a single drop; and third, he had dealt face-to-face with the steamship’s first-class passengers, even en négligé. Naturally, this was all very impressive. Fyodor Fyodorovich told the Snetki servants all about himself. In Nastasya Ivanovna’s presence he held himself in check, in compliance with his master’s orders (although he was deeply insulted at having to watch what he said in front of the likes of her). Among her servants, however, he was free with his tongue. Having endured more than enough silence during his walk from Beryozovka, upon arriving he rather imposingly launched into his life story and an account of all the wonders he had seen. The Snetki folk listened—and fed the ravenous traveler abundantly. Little by little Fyodor Fyodorovich was tamed; little by little the Snetki servants lost their fear; and little by little they began to regard Fyodor Fyodorovich with a hint of mockery (not overt, of course). This was because Fyodor Fyodorovich revealed a bit too much about himself. He let slip that life on the steamer had been drudgery, that his present life was no bed of roses, that Erast Sergeyevich was an out-and-out tyrant and a miser to boot, that he had been thrown off the steamer because of certain indiscretions, and that he would be leaving this place, without fail would be leaving, as soon as he was able to get the last two months’ wages out of his master. Naturally, the servants passed all this along to Olenka and Nastasya Ivanovna.

  “Enough drivel, you numbskulls, for the love of God,” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, horrified that the gossip might get back to Erast Sergeyevich.

  Her torment doubled. Indeed it tripled once she realized what was happening under her own roof. By fretting over the tea, the whey, the meals, the comfort, the getting-up, the turning-in, the bathing, the walking, and all the other vital functions of her dear guest—fretting loudly minute-by-minute in her parlor, right in front of Anna Ilinishna—Nastasya Ivanovna had brought misfortune upon herself. There was no logical reason why Nastasya Ivanovna’s fretting should have caused this misfortune, but cause it it did. Nastasya Ivanovna began humbly taking her bitter medicine.

  Innocent and suspecting nothing, Ovcharov meanwhile continued to take walks to Beryozovka and sit at home, where for several days he remained oblivious to what was happening at the manor house on his account. Had he bothered to notice it, the expression on his servant’s face would have been enough to indicate that life in the Chulkova household was abnormally agitated. Whatever may have been going on there, Ovcharov adhered to a principle of non-interference and asked no questions. He was beginning to find that peace and rural isolation benefitted him greatly, both as someone in poor health and as an active public figure, and in his most recent sketches sent off to St. Petersburg he went on at great length recommending a period of isolation for all active public figures.

  But suddenly one morning Ovcharov awoke with thoughts of quite a different nature. The sunshine was magnificent, and coolness wafted from the stream; the sweet scent of the flowering apple trees and the lilacs, which were at the peak of their bloom, reached him from the orchard. Ovcharov got out of bed feeling particularly healthy, dressed a bit more stylishly than usual, and even took an extra look in the mirror before he sat down to work. Work, however, was not to be. Ovcharov’s eyes were not on the paper, but on some distant point in the garden.

  There, Olenka was strolling. She had risen early, dressed in a fresh pink frock, and gone out into the garden. For some reason she had firmly resolved that that very morning she would make her way to Ovcharov’s residence.

  “That troublemaker has turned our household upside down, and he doesn’t even show his face,” she said to herself.

  Upon seeing her, Ovcharov hurriedly threw down his pen and went outside. Somehow, the sight of this fresh young girl had a particularly pleasant effect on him. His head was suddenly filled with some completely forgotten notions.

  “Good day to you, Olga Nikolayevna!” he shouted from a distance. “Unpardonable, simply unpardonable! I don’t know how to earn your forgiveness.”

  “What for? Good day.”

  Olenka approached him. Ovcharov squeezed and twice shook her right hand. She dropped her left one, wishing to hide it; it held some printed pages.

  “What is it that you’re apologizing for?” she asked, feigning surprise.

  “For pity’s sake! I’ve been living here, and it’s as if I haven’t even noticed how I’ve constrained you. Since I’ve been here you and your mother haven’t come out into the garden. That’s hardly normal here in the country. I should have asked you not to feel constrained. In fact, I haven’t seen your mother in a long time. Is she well, your mother?”

  Olenka burst out laughing.

  “Thank you. We are all well. Of course, we could have died ten times over before you…But you also, probably, didn’t want to burden us with your attention,” she concluded sarcastically.

  “My behavior’s been unpardonable, but don’t scold me. That’s part of it: I truly didn’t want to foist myself on you. I am a dull and sickly guest, Olga Nikolayevna.”

  “That would be for us to decide. You are always so afraid of imposing, or at least you pretend to be. Anyway—as you please.”

  Olenka turned away, angry, and wanted to walk off.

  “How have you been occupying yourself? What has Mama been up to?” Ovcharov inquired, walking behind her, even stepping on her dress in his eagerness to detain the young woman.

  “Mama?” Olenka wanted to speak her mind. “Mama? She’s all worn out, thanks to you.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Thanks to me?’ ”

  “Is everything just right for you, is it quiet enough for you? If you would’ve just come and said something—but not a word.”

  “How distressing that is,” Ovcharov interrupted her, upset. “But it seemed to me that as long as I said nothing, that would be enough to indicate that I was satisfied with everything. Please do me the favor of reassuring your mother; actually, I’ll come myself…”

  “That’s marvelous. Just marvelous!”

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “Marvelous. I’ll tell her, I’ll reassure her. There’s all kinds of talk at our house. For instance, you send your linens to town to be laundered.” She cast a glance at his blindingly white shirt. “A few days ago you didn’t eat your soup.”

  Ovcharov made no response. “Is she clever or stupid?” he wondered and pronounced solemnly, “I didn’t eat my soup because I was ill. I’m fastidious, Olga Nikolayevna, it’s true, but…but I can also be indulgent.”

  Having spoken these words, Ovcharov for some reason gave his frock coat a tug and then looked at Olenka’s rosy complexion.

  “You promised to honor me with your friendship.”

  “As if you wanted it.”

  “How can I assure you that I do want it? Now, if you were kind, you would do me the honor of taking a walk around the garden with me.”

  “Ah, what a way you have of putting things! Very flattering,” Olenka remarked simpering slightly, but pleased. “Which way should we go?” As she spoke she moved in the direction of his “dacha.”

  “You’ve been reading?”

  Ovcharov offered his arm. Olenka took it, hiding a giggle.

  “I was reading. Just nonsense,” she replied, waving the sheets of paper in the air.

  Ovcharov glanced at them. It was several issues of The Spark.1

  “The day before yesterday Mama and I went into town. Klim Pavlovich, an official there, gave them to me. People say that our governor and his wife are described in here somewhere. I looked, but there isn’t anything: I couldn’t even find what issue they were in.”

  “Do you like to read?”

  Olenka frowned.

  “Well, we take some journals,” she s
aid, sounding bored. Evidently, the conversation was moving in a direction not to her taste. “It’s terribly tiresome reading them. You can’t even understand the stories. How can you live here? Aren’t you afraid?”

  They were approaching the bathhouse.

  “No, there’s nothing to be afraid of here,” Ovcharov replied, for some reason squeezing Olenka’s hand.

  “Oh! How stylish your place is!” she cried, leaning her elbows on the windowsill and peering inside with childlike curiosity. “Although I have seen rugs and furniture better than these. And the books, so many books! Who are the portraits of?”

  “That is…They also wrote many tiresome books, Olga Nikolayevna.”

  “And you spend all your time writing?”

  “A bit. Enough to bore you. But why are we standing here? Do me the honor, please come in.”

  “What! Well, I would, perhaps, sit on the porch. Have you lost your mind? ‘Please come in,’ indeed!”

  “Why do you say that? An Englishwoman would have come in.”

  “Oh, you and your Englishwomen!”

  “Nevertheless…”

  “No, no! Not for anything in the world!” Olenka exclaimed, covering her ears and sitting down on the porch steps.

  “As you wish. It is a rule of mine never to make anyone feel ill at ease. You can relax. I would consider it a crime to force even one of my convictions on you.”

  “What are you talking about? What do you mean, force?”

  “The point is that you, yourself, as you follow your own course of development, will arrive at other convictions, another view of propriety and impropriety, many things…”

  “Well, really!” Olenka exclaimed, looking toward the house. “To sit in a man’s study! Why, Auntie alone would come up with all sorts of gossip. Even without that she’s looking this way. Over there.”