City Folk and Country Folk

by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya

  Yermolai Stepanovich sighed as well. A yawn could be heard from across the room where the young folks stood.

  “Well, so where do we stand?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked cheerfully.

  The discussion of religious tolerance seemed to be drawing to a conclusion. She had triumphed.

  “Please forgive us,” Aksinya Mikhailovna said, and the others followed suit.

  “From here on don’t go blabbing nonsense, and obey your mistress in all things,” she concluded. That was the end of it. “Time to sleep. And don’t forget the stove, may the Lord save you!”

  1. In Russian tradition, “bread and salt” is said by someone walking in on a meal. The phrase is tied to a historical practice among Slavs, which persists to this day, of welcoming honored guests with actual bread and salt.

  Morning is wiser than evening, as the saying goes. Nastasya Ivanovna went to bed that evening fearless and woke up more timid than a rabbit. As dawn broke, the first thought that struck her was that her quarrel was entering its third day. Three days! When would it end?

  Olenka encountered her mother so many times at Anna Ilinishna’s door making attempts to inquire, and even ask forgiveness, that she finally left for her attic refuge.

  “Where are you going?” her utterly abandoned mother called after her.

  “As far as possible from you.”

  “Olenka, what am I to do?”

  “I already told you: don’t let her get away with it.”

  “There you go again!” exclaimed Nastasya Ivanovna in despair. “Head high, head high! And now look what a mess I’ve made thanks to your thoughtful advice!”

  If these wails of despair (which, incidentally, Nastasya Ivanovna kept to a whisper, so as not to “lower herself”) reached the ears of Anna Ilinishna, she must have found them very cheering. As it was, quite a bit did reach her. Since the previous evening, right after the forum on religious tolerance, Anna Ilinishna had already been au courant. Palashka, to whom she had given a number of gifts—an old hairnet, some silk mittens, and part of a faded, muslin dress—told her everything.1 The picture of innocence, to the best of her understanding, Palashka related how Anna Ilinishna had been denounced and how Nastasya Ivanovna had ordered all the servants to denounce her because they were free now and that Erast Sergeyevich had been to visit the metropolitan. Anna Ilinishna listened to everything she had to say, and the picture became clear. Her defeat became clearer still in the morning when, through the window, she saw Aksinya Mikhailovna greeting her mistress in the courtyard and kissing her on the shoulder.

  After seeing this, Anna Ilinishna did not ask for any food all day long.

  “Did Anna Ilinishna have anything to eat today?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked that evening.

  “Nothing at all, Ma’am.”

  Nastasya Ivanovna sat down at the window and started to think. A little later she left the room. She sent for the priest.

  “What did you do that for, Mama?” Olenka asked.

  “Maybe Father will convince her,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied as she paced the room anxiously.

  Evidently, Nastasya Ivanovna did not know her guest very well.

  Father Porphyry arrived. He was a man of about thirty, a childless widower with a cheerful nature and not a trace of avarice. The peasants loved him, as did everyone who knew him well. Feeling that it was no longer appropriate to speak “in the old way” and so far lacking the ability to say anything new, he never delivered sermons, except those required by the rules. No sooner had “enlightenment” and “progress” begun wafting over Rus, than this man fell in love with enlightenment and progress. This love was completely sincere, although Father Porphyry was far from certain in his own mind exactly what kind of enlightenment and what kind of progress he should love and what form they should take. Since there was not much for him to do around the parish and town was not far away, he went there often. In town, he had a multitude of acquaintances among the young men who served as low-ranking officials, but lately he had been drawn to the teachers at the local gymnasium and, in general, to a more serious sort of company. His search for progressive thinkers and his discussions with them filled his heart with joy. The store of knowledge with which his seminary education had equipped him was quite modest. Father Porphyry did not let this bother him. He humbly acknowledged his own ignorance, but, dreamer that he was, he went too far: he concluded that the education the men he associated with in town had received, even the most learned among them, was utterly worthless.

  These men, for their part, looked down on Father Porphyry. They even concluded that he was not very bright. Father Porphyry bore this verdict stoically. He returned to his humble abode in Snetki each time with an expression of serenity on his face, proud and satisfied that he had brought with him a few scraps of knowledge from town, a few snatches of news from the living world. He read a good deal—Russian journals, that is—copying out his favorite passages if he was reading a borrowed copy, and poor sinner that he was, if he truly loved a brochure or book, he simply failed to return it.

  Ovcharov’s arrival was of great interest to him, and if Erast Sergeyevich had not inspired in Nastasya Ivanovna such terror with his talk of “imposing” and “not imposing” on one another, her concerns about which she had shared with Father Porphyry, he would have long since attempted to gain access to this world traveler and writer to boot, someone who might even have seen the Pope in his recent time of crisis.2

  A state of extraordinary harmony existed between Father Porphyry and Nastasya Ivanovna, despite the fact that in his entire life he had received only one gift from her: a belt sewn by Olenka, and that a full five years ago.

  When Fomka appeared at Father Porphyry’s doorstep, the priest immediately knew why he was being summoned. In Snetki, news travels fast.

  “A comedy!” he remarked as he put on his cassock. “Tell them that I’ll be right there.”

  “Please help, Father,” was how Nastasya Ivanovna greeted him at her door.

  Having hurriedly seated him on the couch, she hurriedly poured out her sorrows. Father Porphyry did not interrupt her. He sat tapping his fingers on the table with a smile on his face.

  “You’ve summoned me in vain, Nastasya Ivanovna,” he said when she had finished. “There’s nothing I can do here.”

  “Father, give her a talking to.”

  “Truly, she won’t listen to me.”

  “How can anyone not listen to a priest?”

  “That is, she won’t listen to me, I don’t know about someone else. Anna Ilinishna doesn’t care for me. Haven’t you noticed? Whether it’s in your home or at church, she doesn’t talk to me. It’s perfectly clear: she’s an important lady, and we village priests are inconsequential, nonentities. Anna Ilinishna is used to Moscow. There, everyone knows, you have the clergy in all its splendor. She’s been spoiled. Give her an aristocrat in silk and velvet. Truly. I’d even go so far as to say she doesn’t believe in the very idea of holiness in the countryside. It’s not the right setting. Why are you shaking your head? I’m telling you the truth. Get her some prominent orator, someone high up the table of ranks—then she’ll listen.”

  “My dear, where am I going to find anyone more prominent?” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed.

  Father Porphyry broke out laughing. “It’s as you wish, but I’d say it’s better for me not to go in there. She’ll chase me away.”

  “That can’t be, it can’t be! You don’t want to console me! You’re my only hope.”

  “Well, then I’ll go, I’ll go.” Father Porphyry got up. “But you’ll see that it’ll all be in vain.”

  Father Porphyry was speaking the absolute truth. In less than half an hour (which Nastasya Ivanovna spent at the keyhole with her heart in her mouth) Father Porphyry emerged from Anna Ilinishna’s room and carefully closed the door behind him.

  “Well, I told you. It’s a lost cause,” he said, laughing. “Manage as best you can. What a backward woman! Oh, you women and your dealings! She pounce
d on me—what right do I have, and I’m some sort of Catholic priest, and I’m oppressing her conscience. She promised to complain to this, that, and the other. As if I didn’t know she has more friends in the church than there’s fish in the sea.”

  “What? She wants to complain about you?”

  “Don’t let it upset you, it’s nothing.”

  “At least sit with me a bit, Father Porphyry. Don’t hurry away.”

  “I can’t,” he said, taking his hat. “My advice to you,” he added, as Nastasya Ivanovna’s face was simply too pitiable, “is that you go in there, even if you have to force your way in, and tell her, as the venerable woman that you are, that her actions do not befit a civilized lady…”

  Father Porphyry had not yet finished his sentence when the door swung open and Anna Ilinishna entered the room. Nastasya Ivanovna looked at her and then around the room. She and her cousin were alone.

  Anna Ilinishna had heard everything Father Porphyry said. She loomed before Nastasya Ivanovna threateningly, armed to the teeth with rage.

  However, Nastasya Ivanovna also instantly readied herself for battle, fortified by a sense of righteousness.

  “Well, Nastasya Ivanovna, when will I cease to be persecuted in your house?” Anna Ilinishna pronounced, taking a stand in the middle of the parlor. “And you even turned your priest against me! Well, answer, when will this end?”

  “I’m very glad that you’ve deigned to come out of your room, Cousin,” Nastasya Ivanovna began, fighting to maintain her composure. “I’m very glad. I haven’t the strength to go on like this. My house is not your prison; it’s insulting, I can’t express how insulting it is. Among the neighbors and among everyone I have a reputation as…be so kind as to sit and tell me just what it is that I’ve done to you.”

  Nastasya Ivanovna grabbed the feeble Anna Ilinishna by the hand and pushed her down into an easy chair.

  “What have you done to me? What?” Anna Ilinishna exclaimed, jumping up again. “Ever since your precious Erast Sergeyich arrived, have I had even a modicum of your attention? I’m your prisoner, Nastasya Ivanovna; I’m the one being sacrificed here. You and your Olga Nikolayevna have turned everyone against me. Whom do I have to thank for the fact that Erast Sergeyich wants nothing to do with me? I couldn’t care less about him—but that’s your doing. Olga Nikolayevna runs around with him, you have your little get-togethers with him—but he won’t come to the house. Because I’m here! Am I really the plague? I have put up with everything, but there’s a limit to my patience. Katerina Petrovna comes…and who is it that turned Katerina Petrovna against me, if I may be permitted to ask? And after all that, can I really associate with you as if you were a woman of good society?”

  “Cousin, Cousin!” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, stupefied. “How is any of this my fault? As God is my…they themselves want nothing to do with you!”

  Nastasya Ivanovna stopped short, but the words could not be taken back. Anna Ilinishna’s eyes flashed. The blow seemed to have gone straight to her heart.

  “And who is it that incited your servants to snub me for no reason?” she demanded, but in a much weaker voice.

  “My servants? Well, aren’t you the one who is leading a rebellion against me, Cousin?”

  “And your daughter certainly showers her aunt with attention, your Olga Nikolayevna? Don’t you have any control over that? Aren’t you the one allowing that?”

  “Olenka! Good Lord! Don’t you realize how painful it’s been for me that you two can’t get along?”

  “Painful! Well I should hope so!”

  “In the end, she has a mind of her own,” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, enraged. “I can’t whip a seventeen-year-old girl for not respecting her relative!”

  “Whip whom?” Olenka asked, arriving just in time to hear this last exchange. “What do we have here, a madhouse?”

  “No, be so kind, Cousin,” Nastasya Ivanovna broke in, horrified that her daughter’s appearance would add fuel to the flames, “please calm down. Believe me: you simply imagined everything. Let’s make our peace and live together in harmony. After all, you may be here to stay.”

  “Who told you that? Just as soon as Princess Maria Sergeyevna returns you won’t find a trace of me here!”

  “Maria Sergeyevna? But she won’t be taking you back…”

  “What?”

  Anna Ilinishna looked at her wide-eyed. It struck Nastasya Ivanovna that she had let something slip she should not have.

  “What do you mean, won’t be taking me back? Who said that?” Anna Ilinishna demanded, turning pale.

  “Katerina Petrovna’s servants…well you, Cousin…perhaps it’s just—but that’s what…Now please calm down!”

  “Well that’s just wonderful, incomparable! You’ll pay for this, Maria Sergeyevna,” Anna Ilinishna exclaimed, beside herself. “And it’s even reached here, even here they’re slandering me! I humbly thank you, Nastasya Ivanovna! Only the lowest of beings could believe such a thing!”

  “Cousin, I know nothing…”

  “Fine, marvelous, Maria Sergeyevna! That’s what I get for covering up for her all these years, running all over Moscow to help her with her petty affairs! Fleecing me of my last kopek for her little intrigues and then dismissing me? Noble, very noble of her. Who will protect me now? I’m a pauper—I have nothing left in the whole world!”

  “Cousin, whatever I can do…”

  “You with your pittance, hypocrite! I won’t let her get away with this. I’ll take my revenge against her all over Moscow. Let’s see who’ll shield her now? I’ll remind her of a certain day!”

  “Olenka, be off with you,” Nastasya Ivanovna said.

  “Why are you sending her away? Such innocence! I’m the one who’s corrupting her? Now I’ve heard everything! I humbly thank you!”

  Anna Ilinishna started toward her door.

  “Where are you going, Cousin?”

  “Let me go!” she cried. “I won’t get out of this place. God has condemned me to live here. Now you are free to starve me to death. Do as you wish!”

  “Anna Ilinishna! Have you no fear of God?”

  But the lock was already being turned on the other side of the door and Nastasya Ivanovna was standing alone in her parlor pondering the vicissitudes of this vale of tears.

  1. In the contemporary usage, mittens were cotton or silk fingerless gloves.

  2. In 1860 King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy seized all of the Papal States, leaving only Rome under the control of Pope Pius IX.

  From that day forward, life in the Snetki manor house entered a new phase. Anna Ilinishna locked herself in her room once and for all. She announced to Nastasya Ivanovna that she would be boarding with her while she awaited the arrival of funds, a request for which had been sent to some acquaintances, and that her food would later be paid for in full, as would her prison cell and everything else, and that she should be fed whatever the servants ate rather than what was being served at the manorial table. With the treacherous servants themselves, so changeable in their view of things, she spoke not a word.

  All of this was quite amusing to Olenka, who assumed that the present situation would not drag on forever and, most likely, would soon come to an end, but for Nastasya Ivanovna there was nothing funny about it. As her cousin found staying under her roof so repugnant, it occurred to her that it might be better to offer her money so that she could go elsewhere. This idea, however, was rejected. Anna Ilinishna might, heaven forbid, feel even more deeply insulted.

  In short, Nastasya Ivanovna was at her wit’s end. There was nowhere to turn for advice. Finally, in desperation, she thought of Ovcharov. “He’ll help somehow; he’ll find some way to reconcile us,” she mused, and having latched on to what seemed her last hope, she began waiting for Ovcharov’s arrival with the impatience of a lover.

  The thought crossed her mind that her troubles with Anna Ilinishna revolved, in part, around Ovcharov himself, so how could she discuss them with him? To talk to him
or not? And what if he were to find out on his own what was happening?

  Endlessly pondering these questions, the mistress of Snetki finally began to lose sleep, and not just for one night: five nights in a row passed without a wink. Finally, Ovcharov arrived.

  She caught sight of his carriage standing near the bathhouse and, without pausing to think, threw on her kerchief, straightened the comb that held up her braid, and headed for the door.

  “Where are you off to?” Olenka asked when the two met at the top of the steps. She was holding a note. “This is for you, from Katerina Petrovna. A messenger brought it. She says I should come right away, without fail.”

  “That young man must be there, Olenka.”

  “Must be.”

  Olenka was upset and nibbled the corner of the note in annoyance.

  “We have to go. When will we make the trip?”

  “I don’t know. Erast Sergeyich is here.”

  Nastasya Ivanovna became flustered.

  “I just want to have a little talk with him. I’ll be right back…”

  “You really can’t let it be, can you?” Olenka called after her. “Well, go. The wise man will explain it all to you!”

  Nastasya Ivanovna found Ovcharov angry, upset, ailing, and extremely dissatisfied with his trip. The Beryozovka steward and several peasants, with whom he had just quarreled, were leaving the bathhouse. His valet was bringing him water and medicine. Ovcharov barely rose from his chair when Nastasya Ivanovna entered. He was wrapped in flannel and mixing himself some sort of sedative tonic.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked Nastasya Ivanovna, who immediately understood that she had come at a bad time. Everything that she had thought through and not quite thought through in preparing what she would say flew right out of her head.

  “I wanted to get your advice about a problem I’m having,” she said, looking out the window at the departing peasants. “I’ll have to be resettling mine, too.”

  She stopped.

  “He’s got other things on his mind; he’ll have nothing to say to me,” she thought. But she was wrong.