‘Let Urbenin sit down,’ I told the Count. ‘He’s standing there in front of you like a little boy.’
‘Oh, how thoughtless of me, Pyotr Yegorych!’ the Count exclaimed, turning to his manager. ‘Please take a seat, you’ve been standing there long enough!’
Urbenin sat down and looked at me with grateful eyes. Invariably healthy and cheerful, this time he struck me as ill and depressed. His face had a wrinkled, sleepy look and his eyes gazed at us lazily and reluctantly.
‘What’s new, Pyotr Yegorych?’ Karneyev asked him. ‘What’s new? Anything special to report, anything out of the ordinary?’
‘Everything’s the same, Your Excellency…’
‘Are there any… nice new girls around, Pyotr Yegorych?’
The deeply virtuous Pyotr Yegorych blushed.
‘I don’t know, Your Excellency. I don’t concern myself with such things.’
‘There are a few, Your Excellency,’ boomed one-eyed Kuzma; who had been silent up to now. ‘And very nice ones they be too!’
‘Pretty?’
‘There’s all kinds, Your Excellency, for every taste. Dark ones, fair ones… all sorts.’
‘You don’t say! Hold on a minute… I remember you now, you’re that former Leporello12 of mine, the clerk at the council offices… Your name’s Kuzma, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right, sir.’
‘I remember, I remember. So, which ones would you recommend? All village girls, I dare say?’
‘Oh yes, most of ’em, but there’s some what’s better-class, like.’
‘And where did you find these “better-class” ones?’ asked Ilya, winking at Kuzma.
‘At Holy Week the postman’s sister-in-law came to stay… her name’s Nastasya Ivanna… A well-oiled girl she is. I’d ’ave taken a bite meself, but I didn’t ’ave no money. All rosy-cheeked – and everything in the right place! And there’s an even better one… She’s been waiting for you, Your Excellency. Ever so young, nice and plump, very jolly – a real smasher! Such a smasher as you’ve never seen the likes of, even in St Pittiburg, Your Excellency!’
‘Who is she?’
‘Olenka, the forester Skvortsov’s little daughter.’
Urbenin’s chair cracked under him. Supporting himself with his hands on the table and turning purple, the manager slowly stood up and turned towards one-eyed Kuzma. The expression of weariness and boredom on his face gave way to violent anger.
‘Shut up, you oaf!’ he snarled. ‘You one-eyed reptile! You can say what you want, but don’t you dare talk about respectable people like that!’
‘I weren’t talking about you, Pyotr Yegorych!’ replied Kuzma, quite unruffled.
‘I don’t mean myself, you idiot! Oh, please forgive me, Your Excellency,’ the manager said, turning to the Count. ‘Forgive me for making a scene, but I would ask Your Excellency to stop that Leporello of yours – as you were pleased to call him – from extending his enthusiasm to people who are in every way deserving of respect!’
‘It’s all right,’ babbled the naïve Count. ‘He didn’t say anything particularly bad.’
Insulted and excited beyond all measure, Urbenin walked away from the table and stood sideways to us. With his arms crossed on his chest and blinking, he hid his purple face from us behind some small branches and became very thoughtful: did this man foresee that in the very near future his moral feelings would have to suffer insults a thousand times more bitter?
‘I can’t understand why he’s taking it so badly,’ the Count whispered. ‘What a queer fish! Nothing offensive was said at all.’
After two years of sobriety the glass of vodka had a slightly intoxicating effect on me. A feeling of lightness, of pleasure, flooded my brain and my whole body. What’s more, I began to feel the cool of evening gradually replacing the stifling heat of the day. I suggested going for a stroll. The Count and his new Polish friend’s jackets were brought from the house and off we went, with Urbenin following us.
III
The Count’s garden, through which we were strolling, deserves a very special description on account of its striking luxuriance. In botanical, horticultural and many other respects it is richer and grander than any other garden I have seen. Besides the romantic avenues described above, with their green vaults, you’ll find everything there that the most fastidious eye might demand from a garden. Here there is every possible kind of indigenous and foreign fruit tree, ranging from cherry and plum, to apricot trees with enormous fruit the size of goose eggs. Mulberries, barberries, French bergamot trees and even olives are to be found at every step. Here there are half-ruined mossy grottoes, fountains, small ponds reserved for goldfish and tame carp, little hillocks, summer-houses, expensive hothouses. And this uncommon luxury, assembled by the hands of grandfathers and fathers, this wealth of large, full roses, of romantic grottoes and endless paths, had been barbarously neglected and left to the mercy of weeds, thieves’ axes and the crows that unceremoniously built their ugly nests on the rare trees. The lawful proprietor of this domain walked at my side and not one muscle of his haggard and self-satisfied face twitched at the sight of all that neglect and blatant human slovenliness, just as though he wasn’t the owner of that garden. Only once, for want of something to do, did he tell the manager that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to scatter a little sand over the paths. Yes, he could pay attention to the absence of sand that no one needed, but he didn’t notice the bare trees that had died during the cold winter and the cows that were straying through the garden! To this observation Urbenin replied that it would take ten workers to look after the garden, and, since His Excellency didn’t wish to live on his estate, any money spent on the garden would be an unnecessary and unproductive luxury. Of course, the Count agreed with this argument.
‘And I must confess – I don’t have the time!’ Urbenin said dismissively. ‘I have to work in the fields in summer, in winter I have to sell grain in town. There’s no time for gardens in this place!’
The main, so-called ‘general’ avenue, whose whole charm lay in its broad lime trees and masses of tulips that stretched in two multicoloured strips along its entire length, ended in the distance in a yellow patch. This was the yellow stone summer-house where once there had been a bar and billiard table, skittles and Chinese board games. Aimlessly, we walked towards it. At the entrance we were met by a living creature that rather unsettled the nerves of my not very courageous companions.
‘A serpent!’ the Count suddenly screamed, gripping my shoulder and turning pale. ‘Just look!’
The Pole took a step backwards, stopped as if rooted to the spot and spread his arms out, just as though he were barring the path of a ghost. On the topmost step of the dilapidated flight of stone steps lay a young snake – a common Russian viper. When it spotted us it raised its tiny head and started moving. The Count screamed again and hid behind my back.
‘Don’t be afraid, Your Excellency!’ Urbenin said lazily, planting his foot on the first step.
‘What if it bites me?’
‘It won’t bite… Incidentally, the harm from this type of snakebite is usually greatly exaggerated. I was once bitten by an old snake and – as you can see – I didn’t die. Human bites are more dangerous than a snake’s!’ sighed Urbenin, unable to resist pointing a moral.
And in fact the manager barely had time to climb two or three more steps before the snake stretched to its full length and darted into a crevice between two flagstones with lightning speed. When we entered the summer-house we saw another living creature. On the old, faded, torn baize of the billiard table lay an old, shortish man, in blue jacket, striped trousers and jockey cap. He was sleeping sweetly and serenely. Around his toothless, cavernous mouth and sharp nose, flies were disporting themselves. As thin as a skeleton, motionless and open-mouthed, he resembled a corpse just brought from the morgue for dissection.
‘Franz!’ Urbenin said, nudging him. ‘Franz!’
After five or six nudges, Franz closed h
is mouth, sat up, looked round at all of us and lay down again. A minute later his mouth was wide open again and the flies that had been frolicking near his nose were once again disturbed by the gentle tremors of his snoring.
‘He’s sleeping, the dissolute pig!’ sighed Urbenin.
‘Isn’t that our gardener, Tricher?’ asked the Count.
‘The man himself… he gets into this state every day. During the day he sleeps like a log and at night he plays cards. I’m told that last night he played until six in the morning.’
‘What does he play?’
‘Games of chance… mainly stukolka.’13
‘Yes, men of his sort are bad at their work. They get paid for doing absolutely nothing.’
‘I didn’t say that by way of complaint or to express my dissatisfaction, Your Excellency… I simply… well… I just felt sorry that such an able man should be slave to his passions. Besides, he’s hard-working – a good man, who earns his money.’
We looked once more at Franz the cardsharp and left the summer-house. From there we headed for the garden gate that led out into the fields.
There are few novels where garden gates don’t play a leading part. If you haven’t noticed this, then ask my Polikarp – he has devoured piles of dreadful and not so dreadful novels in his time and will no doubt confirm that trivial but nonetheless basic fact.
My novel isn’t free of garden gates either. But my gate is different from the others in that my pen will be leading through it many unfortunate wretches and hardly a single happy person – the reverse of what happens in other novels. And worst of all, I’ve already had occasion to describe this gate once, not as a novelist but as an investigating magistrate. In my novel it will let more criminals than lovers pass through.
A quarter of an hour later, leaning on our walking-sticks, we were trudging up the hill that we all knew as ‘Stone Grave’. In neighbouring villages there exists the legend that under this pile of stones rests the body of a Tatar khan who, fearing that his enemies might desecrate his ashes after his death, left instructions in his will for a heap of stones to be piled up over him. But this legend has little truth in it. Those layers of stone, their size and relation to each other, rule out the agency of human hands in the origin of the hill. It stands by itself in a field and resembles an upturned night-cap.
When we had clambered to the top we could see the entire lake in all its enchanting expanse and indescribable beauty. The sun was no longer reflected in it – it had set, leaving a broad crimson strip that illuminated everything around with a pleasant pinkish-yellow light. At our feet lay the Count’s estate, with manor house, church and garden, while in the distance, on the far side of the lake, was the small greyish village where fate had decreed I should reside. As before, the surface of the lake was motionless. Old Mikhey’s little boats had separated from each other and were hurrying towards the bank.
To one side of my little village was the dark railway station, where small clouds of steam rose from locomotives, while behind us, on the other side of Stone Grave, a new vistas opened up. At the foot of Stone Grave stretched a road, bordered by lofty, ancient poplars. This road led to the Count’s forest, that reached to the very horizon.
The Count and I stood on the top of the hill. Urbenin and the Pole, being rather unadventurous people, preferred to wait for us on the road down below.
‘Who’s that bigwig?’ I asked the Count, nodding towards the Pole. ‘Where did you fish him out from?’
‘He’s a very nice chap, Seryozha, very nice!’ the Count said in alarm. ‘You’ll soon be best of friends!’
‘Oh, I hardly think so. Why does he never say a word?’
‘He’s quiet by nature. But he’s really very clever!’
‘And what sort of person is he?’
‘I met him in Moscow. He’s very nice. I’ll tell you all about it later, don’t ask me now. Shall we go down?’
We descended Stone Grave and walked along the road towards the forest. It was growing noticeably darker. From the forest came the cries of cuckoos and the warbling of a tired and probably young nightingale.
‘Ooh! Ooh!’ came the shrill cry of a child as we approached the forest. ‘Try and catch me!’
Out of the forest ran a little girl of about five, in a light-blue frock, her hair as white as flax. When she saw us she laughed out loud, skipped over to Urbenin and put her arms around his knee. Urbenin lifted her and kissed her on the cheek.
‘It’s my daughter Sasha,’ he said. ‘A lovely girl!’
In hot pursuit of Sasha, Urbenin’s fifteen-year-old schoolboy son dashed out of the forest. The moment he saw us he hesitantly doffed his cap, put it on and then pulled it off again. A patch of red slowly followed him. At once our attention was riveted by this patch.
‘What a magical vision!’ exclaimed the Count, grasping my hand. ‘Just look! How charming. Who is this girl? And I never knew that such naiads dwelt in my forest!’
I glanced at Urbenin to ask him who the girl was and – strange to relate – only then did I notice that the estate manager was terribly drunk. Red as a lobster, he gave a wild lurch and grabbed my elbow, enveloping me in alcoholic fumes as he whispered in my ear:
‘Sergey Petrovich, I beg you, please stop the Count from making any more remarks about this girl. He might go too far – from sheer habit! That girl’s a most worthy person, in the highest degree!’
This ‘most worthy person, in the highest degree’ was a girl of about nineteen, with beautiful fair hair, kind blue eyes and long curls. She was dressed in a bright red frock, halfway between a child’s and a young girl’s. Her little legs, as straight as needles in their red stockings, reposed in tiny, almost childish shoes. The whole time I admired her, those round shoulders kept shrinking coquettishly, as if they were cold and as if my gaze were biting them.
‘What a well-developed figure for a girl with such a young face!’ whispered the Count. Ever since his earliest days he had lost all capacity for respecting women and could only look upon them from the viewpoint of a depraved animal.
As for me, I well remember the fine feelings that began to glow within me. I was still a poet and in the presence of forests, a May evening and the first glimmerings of the evening star I could only view women with the eyes of a poet. I looked at the ‘girl in red’ with the same veneration with which I was accustomed to look at the forests, at the azure sky. At that time I still possessed a modicum of sentimentality, inherited from my German mother.
‘Who is she?’ asked the Count.
‘She’s the daughter of Skvortsov the forester, Your Excellency,’ replied Urbenin.
‘Is she the same Olenka whom the one-eyed peasant was talking about?’
‘Yes, he did mention her name,’ the manager replied, looking at me with large, beseeching eyes.
The girl in red let us go by without paying us the least attention, it seemed. Her eyes were looking somewhere to the side, but as someone who was an expert on women I felt that the pupils of her eyes were fixed on me.
‘Which one is the Count?’ I heard her whisper behind me.
‘The one with the long moustache,’ the schoolboy replied.
And we heard silvery laughter behind us. But it was the laughter of disenchantment. She had thought that I was the Count, owner of those vast forests and the wide lake – not that pigmy with the haggard face and long moustache.
I heard a deep sigh from Urbenin’s chest. That man of iron could barely move.
‘Tell your manager to go away,’ I whispered to the Count. ‘He’s either ill… or drunk.’
‘You don’t look very well, Pyotr Yegorych,’ the Count said, turning to Urbenin. ‘I don’t need you just now, so I won’t detain you.’
‘Don’t worry, Your Excellency. Thank you for your concern, but I’m not ill.’
I looked back. The red patch didn’t move and watched us as we left.
Poor little fair-haired girl! Did I imagine for one moment, on that serenest of May
nights, that she would later become the heroine of my troubled novel?
And now, as I write these lines, the autumn rain angrily lashes my warm windows and somewhere above me the wind is howling. I gaze at the dark window and against a background of nocturnal gloom I try hard to recapture in my imagination that dear heroine of mine. I can see her with her innocently childlike, naïve, kind little face and loving eyes, and I want to throw down my pen, tear up, burn all that I have written so far. Why disturb the memory of that young, innocent creature?
But here, next to my inkwell, is her photograph. There that fair little head appears with all the vain grandeur of a beautiful woman who has plumbed the depths of depravity. Her eyes, so weary but proud in that depravity, are motionless: here she is that very snake, the harmfulness of whose bite Urbenin would not have considered exaggerated.
She blew a kiss to that storm – and the storm broke the flower off at its very root. Much was taken – but then, too high a price had been paid. The reader will forgive her sins.
IV
We walked through the forest.
Pine trees are boring in their silent monotony: they are all the same height, they all look exactly the same and they do not change with the seasons, knowing neither death nor vernal renewal. On the other hand they are attractive in their very gloominess – so still, so silent, as if they are thinking melancholy thoughts.
‘Shouldn’t we go back?’ suggested the Count.
This question was unanswered. The Pole couldn’t have cared less where he went, Urbenin didn’t think he had any say in the matter and I was only too delighted with the cool of the forest and the resinous air to turn back. Besides, we had to while away the time somehow until nightfall, even if this meant simply strolling about. The very thought of the wild night that was approaching was accompanied by a delicious sinking of the heart. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I was dreaming of it and already mentally anticipating its pleasures. Judging by the impatience with which the Count constantly looked at his watch, it was obvious that he too was going through agonies of expectation. We felt that we understood one another.
The Shooting Party Page 6