‘He too was a landowner,’ my new friend continued, ‘and a rich one too, but he ruined himself — so he lives now with me…. But in his day he was considered the most dashing fellow in the province; he eloped with two married ladies; he used to keep singers, and sang himself, and danced like a master…. But won’t you take some vodka? dinner is just ready.’
A young girl, the same that I had caught a glimpse of in the garden, came into the room.
‘And here is Olga!’ observed Radilov, slightly turning his head; ‘let me present you…. Well, let us go into dinner.’
We went in and sat down to the table. While we were coming out of the drawing - room and taking our seats, Fyodor Miheitch, whose eyes were bright and his nose rather red after his ‘refreshment,’ sang ‘Raise the cry of Victory.’ They laid a separate cover for him in a corner on a little table without a table - napkin. The poor old man could not boast of very nice habits, and so they always kept him at some distance from society. He crossed himself, sighed, and began to eat like a shark. The dinner was in reality not bad, and in honour of Sunday was accompanied, of course, with shaking jelly and Spanish puffs of pastry. At the table Radilov, who had served ten years in an infantry regiment and had been in Turkey, fell to telling anecdotes; I listened to him with attention, and secretly watched Olga. She was not very pretty; but the tranquil and resolute expression of her face, her broad, white brow, her thick hair, and especially her brown eyes — not large, but clear, sensible and lively — would have made an impression on anyone in my place. She seemed to be following every word Radilov uttered — not so much sympathy as passionate attention was expressed on her face. Radilov in years might have been her father; he called her by her Christian name, but I guessed at once that she was not his daughter. In the course of conversation he referred to his deceased wife — ’her sister,’ he added, indicating Olga. She blushed quickly and dropped her eyes. Radilov paused a moment and then changed the subject. The old lady did not utter a word during the whole of dinner; she ate scarcely anything herself, and did not press me to partake. Her features had an air of timorous and hopeless expectation, that melancholy of old age which it pierces one’s heart to look upon. At the end of dinner Fyodor Miheitch was beginning to ‘celebrate’ the hosts and guests, but Radilov looked at me and asked him to be quiet; the old man passed his hand over his lips, began to blink, bowed, and sat down again, but only on the very edge of his chair. After dinner I returned with Radilov to his study.
In people who are constantly and intensely preoccupied with one idea, or one emotion, there is something in common, a kind of external resemblance in manner, however different may be their qualities, their abilities, their position in society, and their education. The more I watched Radilov, the more I felt that he belonged to the class of such people. He talked of husbandry, of the crops, of the war, of the gossip of the district and the approaching elections; he talked without constraint, and even with interest; but suddenly he would sigh and drop into a chair, and pass his hand over his face, like a man wearied out by a tedious task. His whole nature — a good and warm - hearted one too — seemed saturated through, steeped in some one feeling. I was amazed by the fact that I could not discover in him either a passion for eating, nor for wine, nor for sport, nor for Kursk nightingales, nor for epileptic pigeons, nor for Russian literature, nor for trotting - hacks, nor for Hungarian coats, nor for cards, nor billiards, nor for dances, nor trips to the provincial town or the capital, nor for paper - factories and beet - sugar refineries, nor for painted pavilions, nor for tea, nor for trace - horses trained to hold their heads askew, nor even for fat coachmen belted under their very armpits — those magnificent coachmen whose eyes, for some mysterious reason, seem rolling and starting out of their heads at every movement…. ‘What sort of landowner is this, then?’ I thought. At the same time he did not in the least pose as a gloomy man discontented with his destiny; on the contrary, he seemed full of indiscrimating good - will, cordial and even offensive readiness to become intimate with every one he came across. In reality you felt at the same time that he could not be friends, nor be really intimate with anyone, and that he could not be so, not because in general he was independent of other people, but because his whole being was for a time turned inwards upon himself. Looking at Radilov, I could never imagine him happy either now or at any time. He, too, was not handsome; but in his eyes, his smile, his whole being, there was a something, mysterious and extremely attractive — yes, mysterious is just what it was. So that you felt you would like to know him better, to get to love him. Of course, at times the landowner and the man of the steppes peeped out in him; but all the same he was a capital fellow.
We were beginning to talk about the new marshal of the district, when suddenly we heard Olga’s voice at the door: ‘Tea is ready.’ We went into the drawing - room. Fyodor Miheitch was sitting as before in his corner between the little window and the door, his legs curled up under him. Radilov’s mother was knitting a stocking. From the opened windows came a breath of autumn freshness and the scent of apples. Olga was busy pouring out tea. I looked at her now with more attention than at dinner. Like provincial girls as a rule, she spoke very little, but at any rate I did not notice in her any of their anxiety to say something fine, together with their painful consciousness of stupidity and helplessness; she did not sigh as though from the burden of unutterable emotions, nor cast up her eyes, nor smile vaguely and dreamily. Her look expressed tranquil self - possession, like a man who is taking breath after great happiness or great excitement. Her carriage and her movements were resolute and free. I liked her very much.
I fell again into conversation with Radilov. I don’t recollect what brought us to the familiar observation that often the most insignificant things produce more effect on people than the most important.
‘Yes,’ Radilov agreed, ‘I have experienced that in my own case. I, as you know, have been married. It was not for long — three years; my wife died in child - birth. I thought that I should not survive her; I was fearfully miserable, broken down, but I could not weep — I wandered about like one possessed. They decked her out, as they always do, and laid her on a table — in this very room. The priest came, the deacons came, began to sing, to pray, and to burn incense; I bowed to the ground, and hardly shed a tear. My heart seemed turned to stone — and my head too — I was heavy all over. So passed my first day. Would you believe it? I even slept in the night. The next morning I went in to look at my wife: it was summer - time, the sunshine fell upon her from head to foot, and it was so bright. Suddenly I saw …’ (here Radilov gave an involuntary shudder) ‘what do you think? One of her eyes was not quite shut, and on this eye a fly was moving…. I fell down in a heap, and when I came to myself, I began to weep and weep … I could not stop myself….’
Radilov was silent. I looked at him, then at Olga…. I can never forget the expression of her face. The old lady had laid the stocking down on her knees, and taken a handkerchief out of her reticule; she was stealthily wiping away her tears. Fyodor Miheitch suddenly got up, seized his fiddle, and in a wild and hoarse voice began to sing a song. He wanted doubtless to restore our spirits; but we all shuddered at his first note, and Radilov asked him to be quiet.
‘Still what is past, is past,’ he continued; ‘we cannot recall the past, and in the end … all is for the best in this world below, as I think Voltaire said,’ he added hurriedly.
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘of course. Besides, every trouble can be endured, and there is no position so terrible that there is no escape from it.’
‘Do you think so?’ said Radilov. ‘Well, perhaps you are right. I recollect I lay once in the hospital in Turkey half dead; I had typhus fever. Well, our quarters were nothing to boast of — of course, in time of war — and we had to thank God for what we had! Suddenly they bring in more sick — where are they to put them? The doctor goes here and there — there is no room left. So he comes up to me and asks the attendant, “Is he alive?” He answ
ers, “He was alive this morning.” The doctor bends down, listens; I am breathing. The good man could not help saying, “Well, what an absurd constitution; the man’s dying; he’s certain to die, and he keeps hanging on, lingering, taking up space for nothing, and keeping out others.” Well, I thought to myself, “So you are in a bad way, Mihal Mihalitch….” And, after all, I got well, and am alive till now, as you may see for yourself. You are right, to be sure.’
‘In any case I am right,’ I replied; ‘even if you had died, you would just the same have escaped from your horrible position.’
‘Of course, of course,’ he added, with a violent blow of his fist on the table. ‘One has only to come to a decision…. What is the use of being in a horrible position?… What is the good of delaying, lingering.’
Olga rose quickly and went out into the garden.
‘Well, Fedya, a dance!’ cried Radilov.
Fedya jumped up and walked about the room with that artificial and peculiar motion which is affected by the man who plays the part of a goat with a tame bear. He sang meanwhile, ‘While at our Gates….’
The rattle of a racing droshky sounded in the drive, and in a few minutes a tall, broad - shouldered and stoutly made man, the peasant proprietor, Ovsyanikov, came into the room.
But Ovsyanikov is such a remarkable and original personage that, with the reader’s permission, we will put off speaking about him till the next sketch. And now I will only add for myself that the next day I started off hunting at earliest dawn with Yermolaï, and returned home after the day’s sport was over … that a week later I went again to Radilov’s, but did not find him or Olga at home, and within a fortnight I learned that he had suddenly disappeared, left his mother, and gone away somewhere with his sister - in - law. The whole province was excited, and talked about this event, and I only then completely understood the expression of Olga’s face while Radilov was telling us his story. It was breathing, not with sympathetic suffering only: it was burning with jealousy.
Before leaving the country I called on old Madame Radilov. I found her in the drawing - room; she was playing cards with Fyodor Miheitch.
‘Have you news of your son?’ I asked her at last.
The old lady began to weep. I made no more inquiries about Radilov.
VI
THE PEASANT PROPRIETOR OVSYANIKOV
Picture to yourselves, gentle readers, a stout, tall man of seventy, with a face reminding one somewhat of the face of Kriloff, clear and intelligent eyes under overhanging brows, dignified in bearing, slow in speech, and deliberate in movement: there you have Ovsyanikov. He wore an ample blue overcoat with long sleeves, buttoned all the way up, a lilac silk - handkerchief round his neck, brightly polished boots with tassels, and altogether resembled in appearance a well - to - do merchant. His hands were handsome, soft, and white; he often fumbled with the buttons of his coat as he talked. With his dignity and his composure, his good sense and his indolence, his uprightness and his obstinacy, Ovsyanikov reminded me of the Russian boyars of the times before Peter the Great…. The national holiday dress would have suited him well. He was one of the last men left of the old time. All his neighbours had a great respect for him, and considered it an honour to be acquainted with him. His fellow peasant - proprietors almost worshipped him, and took off their hats to him from a distance: they were proud of him. Generally speaking, in these days, it is difficult to tell a peasant - proprietor from a peasant; his husbandry is almost worse than the peasant’s; his calves are wretchedly small; his horses are only half alive; his harness is made of rope. Ovsyanikov was an exception to the general rule, though he did not pass for a wealthy man. He lived alone with his wife in a clean and comfortable little house, kept a few servants, whom he dressed in the Russian style and called his ‘workmen.’ They were employed also in ploughing his land. He did not attempt to pass for a nobleman, did not affect to be a landowner; never, as they say, forgot himself; he did not take a seat at the first invitation to do so, and he never failed to rise from his seat on the entrance of a new guest, but with such dignity, with such stately courtesy, that the guest involuntarily made him a more deferential bow. Ovsyanikov adhered to the antique usages, not from superstition (he was naturally rather independent in mind), but from habit. He did not, for instance, like carriages with springs, because he did not find them comfortable, and preferred to drive in a racing droshky, or in a pretty little trap with leather cushions, and he always drove his good bay himself (he kept none but bay horses). His coachman, a young, rosy - cheeked fellow, his hair cut round like a basin, in a dark blue coat with a strap round the waist, sat respectfully beside him. Ovsyanikov always had a nap after dinner and visited the bath - house on Saturdays; he read none but religious books and used gravely to fix his round silver spectacles on his nose when he did so; he got up, and went to bed early. He shaved his beard, however, and wore his hair in the German style. He always received visitors cordially and affably, but he did not bow down to the ground, nor fuss over them and press them to partake of every kind of dried and salted delicacy. ‘Wife!’ he would say deliberately, not getting up from his seat, but only turning his head a little in her direction, ‘bring the gentleman a little of something to eat.’ He regarded it as a sin to sell wheat: it was the gift of God. In the year ‘40, at the time of the general famine and terrible scarcity, he shared all his store with the surrounding landowners and peasants; the following year they gratefully repaid their debt to him in kind. The neighbours often had recourse to Ovsyanikov as arbitrator and mediator between them, and they almost always acquiesced in his decision, and listened to his advice. Thanks to his intervention, many had conclusively settled their boundaries…. But after two or three tussles with lady - landowners, he announced that he declined all mediation between persons of the feminine gender. He could not bear the flurry and excitement, the chatter of women and the ‘fuss.’ Once his house had somehow got on fire. A workman ran to him in headlong haste shrieking, ‘Fire, fire!’ ‘Well, what are you screaming about?’ said Ovsyanikov tranquilly, ‘give me my cap and my stick.’ He liked to break in his horses himself. Once a spirited horse he was training bolted with him down a hillside and over a precipice. ‘Come, there, there, you young colt, you’ll kill yourself!’ said Ovsyanikov soothingly to him, and an instant later he flew over the precipice together with the racing droshky, the boy who was sitting behind, and the horse. Fortunately, the bottom of the ravine was covered with heaps of sand. No one was injured; only the horse sprained a leg. ‘Well, you see,’ continued Ovsyanikov in a calm voice as he got up from the ground, ‘I told you so.’ He had found a wife to match him. Tatyana Ilyinitchna Ovsyanikov was a tall woman, dignified and taciturn, always dressed in a cinnamon - coloured silk dress. She had a cold air, though none complained of her severity, but, on the contrary, many poor creatures called her their little mother and benefactress. Her regular features, her large dark eyes, and her delicately cut lips, bore witness even now to her once celebrated beauty. Ovsyanikov had no children.
I made his acquaintance, as the reader is already aware, at Radilov’s, and two days later I went to see him. I found him at home. He was reading the lives of the Saints. A grey cat was purring on his shoulder. He received me, according to his habit, with stately cordiality. We fell into conversation.
‘But tell me the truth, Luka Petrovitch,’ I said to him, among other things; ‘weren’t things better of old, in your time?’
‘In some ways, certainly, things were better, I should say,’ replied Ovsyanikov; ‘we lived more easily; there was a greater abundance of everything. … All the same, things are better now, and they will be better still for your children, please God.’
‘I had expected you, Luka Petrovitch, to praise the old times.’
‘No, I have no special reason to praise old times. Here, for instance, though you are a landowner now, and just as much a landowner as your grandfather was, you have not the same power — and, indeed, you are not yourself the same kind of
man. Even now, some noblemen oppress us; but, of course, it is impossible to help that altogether. Where there are mills grinding there will be flour. No; I don’t see now what I have experienced myself in my youth.’
‘What, for instance?’
‘Well, for instance, I will tell you about your grandfather. He was an overbearing man; he oppressed us poorer folks. You know, perhaps — indeed, you surely know your own estates — that bit of land that runs from Tchepligin to Malinina — you have it under oats now…. Well, you know, it is ours — it is all ours. Your grandfather took it away from us; he rode by on his horse, pointed to it with his hand, and said, “It’s my property,” and took possession of it. My father (God rest his soul!) was a just man; he was a hot - tempered man, too; he would not put up with it — indeed, who does like to lose his property? — and he laid a petition before the court. But he was alone: the others did not appear — they were afraid. So they reported to your grandfather that “Piotr Ovsyanikov is making a complaint against you that you were pleased to take away his land.” Your grandfather at once sent his huntsman Baush with a detachment of men…. Well, they seized my father, and carried him to your estate. I was a little boy at that time; I ran after him barefoot. What happened? They brought him to your house, and flogged him right under your windows. And your grandfather stands on the balcony and looks on; and your grandmother sits at the window and looks on too. My father cries out, “Gracious lady, Marya Vasilyevna, intercede for me! have mercy on me!” But her only answer was to keep getting up to have a look at him. So they exacted a promise from my father to give up the land, and bade him be thankful they let him go alive. So it has remained with you. Go and ask your peasants — what do they call the land, indeed? It’s called “The Cudgelled Land,” because it was gained by the cudgel. So you see from that, we poor folks can’t bewail the old order very much.’
Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) Page 199