‘So, what more need I say!?’
‘That peasant obviously wants to create a scandal, but that’s not what’s important… what’s important is the fact itself, the blow I inflicted. Surely you don’t think I’m capable of fighting? And why should I strike a miserable peasant?’
‘Well, my dear sir… Of course, I couldn’t refuse him a medical certificate, but I didn’t forget to advise him to come and see you about it. You’ll sort it all out with him one way or the other. It’s only a slight bruise, but from an official point of view any head wound penetrating the skull is a serious matter. You frequently come across cases where apparently the most trivial head wound that had been considered relatively minor led to necrosis of the skull bones and therefore a journey ad patres.’29
Carried away, Screwy stood up, paced the room close to the walls, waved his arms and started expounding his knowledge of surgical pathology for my benefit. Necrosis of the skull bones, inflammation of the brain, death and other horrors, simply poured from his lips, together with interminable explanations of the macroscopic and microscopic processes that are normally to be found in that hazy terra incognita30 which was of no interest to me.
‘That’s enough, you old windbag!’ I said, putting an end to his medical chatter. ‘Don’t you realize how boring all this stuff is for me!’
‘Boring or not – that isn’t the point. You must listen and show a little remorse. Perhaps you’ll be more careful another time and not do such stupid, unnecessary, things. You could lose your job because of that oaf Osipov – if you don’t patch things up with him. For one of the high priests of Themis31 to be taken to court for common assault would be simply scandalous!’
Pavel Ivanovich is the only person whose pronouncements I can listen to with a light heart, without frowning, whom I can allow to peer into my eyes questioningly and to lower his probing hand into the convolutions of my soul. We’re friends in the very best sense of the word and we respect one another, although there do exist between us grievances of an unpleasant, rather ticklish nature. Like a black cat, a woman had come between us. This eternal casus belli32 had given rise to many conflicts, but it didn’t make us fall out and we continued to live in peace. Screwy is a very fine fellow… I love his simple and far from supple face with its big nose, screwed-up eyes and thin, small, reddish beard. I love his tall, slim, narrow-shouldered figure from which his frock-coat and overcoat dangle as if from a clothes peg.
His badly made trousers hang in ugly folds at the knees and his boots are shamelessly down at heel. His white tie is never in the right place. But please don’t think he’s slovenly. One look at his kind, serious face is enough to tell you that he has no time to bother about his appearance – and he wouldn’t know how to, anyway. He’s young, honest, unpretentious and he loves medicine. He’s always on the go – that suffices to explain in his favour all the shortcomings of his unpretentious attire. Like an artist, he doesn’t know the value of money: without turning a hair he sacrifices his own comfort and life’s blessings to some trivial vices of his own, and as a result he gives the impression of a man without means, of someone who can barely make ends meet. He neither smokes nor drinks; he doesn’t spend money on women. All the same, the two thousand he earns from hospital work and private practice passes through his hands as quickly as my own money does when I’m on a drinking spree. Two passions drain his resources: one is lending money, the other is ordering items from newspaper advertisements. He’ll lend money to anyone who asks, without a murmur, without any mention of repayment. No tool could ever root out his reckless faith in people’s conscientiousness and this faith is even more blatantly obvious in his perpetual ordering of items extolled in newspaper advertisements. He orders everything, whether he needs it or not. He writes away for books, telescopes, humorous magazines, hundred-piece dinner services, chronometers. And it’s not surprising that patients who call on Pavel Ivanovich take his room for an arsenal or a museum. He’s always been cheated and is still being cheated, but his faith remains as firm and rocklike as ever. He’s really a splendid fellow and we shall meet him more than once in the pages of this novel.
‘Heavens, I’ve really outstayed my welcome!’ he suddenly realized, looking at the cheap watch with one lid that he’d ordered from Moscow – it had a ‘five-year guarantee’ but nonetheless had twice been back to the repairer’s. ‘Well, time I was off, old man! Goodbye – and mark my words, these sprees of the Count’s will get you into hot water! And I don’t only mean your health! Ah, yes! Are you going to Tenevo tomorrow?’
‘What’s happening there tomorrow?’
‘A church fête! Everyone will be there. You simply must come! I promised that you’d come, without fail. Now, don’t make me out to be a liar.’
To whom he had given his word there was no need to ask. We understood each other. After saying goodbye the doctor put on his shabby coat and drove off.
I was left alone. To stifle the unpleasant thoughts that were starting to swarm around my head, I went over to my writing-desk and started opening my letters, trying not to think or take stock. The first envelope that caught my eye contained the following letter:
My darling Seryozha,
I’m sorry to trouble you, but I’m so stunned I don’t know whom to turn to. It’s really shocking! Of course, I can’t get them back now and I have no regrets, but just judge for yourself: if you let thieves have their way, then a respectable woman can’t feel safe anywhere. After you left I woke up on the couch and found lots of my things were missing: they’d stolen a bracelet, a gold stud, ten pearls from my necklace and about a hundred roubles were taken from my purse. I wanted to complain to the Count, but as he was asleep I left. It’s shocking! The house of a Count, yet they steal there as if it were a pub. You must tell the Count.
Love and kisses
Your affectionate Tina
That His Excellency’s house was alive with thieves was nothing new to me and I added Tina’s letter to the information on that score I’d already preserved in my memory. Sooner or later I would be obliged to put this information into action. I knew who the thieves were…
VIII
Black-eyed Tina’s letter, her florid, flamboyant handwriting reminded me of the mosaic drawing-room and gave me the urge, so it seemed, to have a ‘morning-after drink’. But I took a grip on myself and by sheer willpower forced myself to work. At first I found it boring beyond words to decipher the bold handwriting of district police officers, but then my attention gradually became fixed on a burglary and I began to enjoy my work. All day long I sat at my desk, while Polikarp constantly walked past, incredulously watching me at work. He had no confidence in my powers of abstinence and expected me to get up from my desk any minute and order him to saddle Zorka. But towards evening, when he saw how doggedly I was working, he was reassured and that sullen look of his gave way to an expression of satisfaction. He started walking around on tiptoe and speaking in whispers. When some youths went past the windows playing their accordions, he went out into the street and shouted:
‘What you devils making such a racket for? Can’t you go down another street? Or don’t you know, you infidels, that the Master’s working?’
When he brought the samovar into the dining-room that evening, he quietly opened the door and amiably asked me to come and have some tea.
‘Please have some tea!’ he said, gently sighing and respectfully smiling.
And while I was drinking it he quietly came up behind me and kissed me on the shoulder.
‘Now, that’s better, Sergey Petrovich,’ he muttered. ‘To hell with that tow-haired devil, may he damned well… Is it right for someone of your lofty intellect, an educated man like you, to concern himself with such weak characters? Your work is noble. Everyone should respect your wishes, fear you, but if you go around with that devil, breaking people’s heads and swimming fully clothed in the lake, people will say: “He’s got no brains at all! What a trivial man!” And this reputation will follow you e
verywhere! One expects irresponsible behaviour from a shopkeeper, but not from a gentleman! Gentlemen need to be knowledgeable, they have a job of work to do…’
‘All right! Enough is enough!’
‘Don’t get mixed up with that Count, Sergey Petrovich. If you need a friend, then why not Dr Pavel Ivanych. I know he goes around like a tramp, but he’s really highly intelligent!’
Polikarp’s sincerity touched me deeply. I wanted to say a few kind words to him.
‘What novel are you reading now?’ I asked.
‘The Count of Monte Christo. Now, there’s a Count for you! A real Count, not like that scruffy devil of yours!’
After tea I got down to work again and carried on until my eyelids began to droop and my weary eyes began to close. When I went to bed I told Polikarp to wake me at five o’clock.
IX
After five o’clock next morning, gaily whistling and knocking the heads off the flowers in the meadows with my walking-stick, I made my way on foot to Tenevo, where the church fête was being held and to which my friend Screwy had invited me. It was a delightful morning. Happiness itself seemed to be hovering over the earth – it was reflected in every diamond-like drop of dew and was beckoning the soul of every passer-by. Bathed in morning sunlight, the woods were quiet and motionless, as if listening to my footsteps and to the chirping of the feathered fraternity who greeted me by voicing their mistrust and alarm. The air was saturated with the exhalations of vernal greenery and caressed my healthy lungs with its softness. I breathed it in, and as I surveyed the open prospect with my enraptured eyes, I sensed the presence of spring, of youth – and it seemed that those young birches, the grass by the wayside and the incessantly humming cockchafers were sharing my feelings.
‘But why is it back there, in the world,’ I reflected, ‘that men herd themselves together in wretched, cramped hovels, confine themselves to narrow, constricting ideas, while there’s such freedom and scope for life and thought here? Why don’t they come out here?’
And my imagination that had waxed so poetic had no desire to encumber itself with thoughts of winter and earning a living – those two afflictions that drive poets into cold, prosaic St Petersburg and filthy Moscow, where they pay fees for poetry, but provide no inspiration.
Peasants’ carts and landowners’ carriages, hurrying to Mass and the fête, kept passing me. Constantly I had to doff my cap and acknowledge friendly bows from peasants and some squires I knew. Everyone offered me a lift, but walking was better than riding and I refused all their offers. Amongst others, the Count’s gardener Franz, in his blue jacket and jockey cap, passed me in a racing droshky. He lazily glanced at me with his sleepy, sour-looking eyes. Tied to the droshky was a twelve-gallon, iron-hooped barrel evidently containing vodka. Franz’s repulsive mug and his vodka barrel somewhat spoiled my poetic mood, but poetry soon triumphed again when I heard the sound of carriage wheels behind me. As I looked back, I saw a lumbering wagonette drawn by a pair of little bays. On a leather, box-shaped seat in the wagonette I saw my new acquaintance, the ‘girl in red’, who two days before had spoken to me of the ‘electricity’ that had killed her mother. Olenka’s pretty, freshly washed and rather sleepy little face shone and flushed slightly when she saw me striding out along the boundary path that separated the forest from the road. She nodded cheerfully to me and smiled welcomingly, the way only old friends smile at each other.
‘Good morning!’ I shouted to her.
She waved her hand and disappeared from sight, together with the lumbering wagonette, without giving me the chance to have a good look at her pretty, fresh little face. This time she wasn’t dressed in red, but in some dark-green costume with large buttons, and a broad-brimmed straw hat. Despite this, I liked her no less than before. It would have given me great pleasure to talk to her and listen to her voice. I wanted to peer into her blue eyes in the brilliance of the sunlight, just as I had looked into them that evening when the lightning was flashing. I wanted to take her down from that ugly wagonette and suggest she walk the rest of the way with me – I would certainly have done so but for the conventions of society. For some reason I felt that she would have eagerly agreed to my suggestion. Not for nothing did she look back twice at me when the wagonette turned off behind some tall alders.
It was about four miles from my abode to Tenevo – an almost negligible distance on a fine morning for a young man. Shortly after six o’clock I was already making my way between carts and booths to the church there. The air was already filled with the sound of trade, despite the early hour and the fact that Mass hadn’t finished. The creaking of carts, neighing of horses, lowing of cows, blowing of toy trumpets – all this mingled with the shouts of the gipsy horse dealers and the songs of peasants who had already managed to ‘get sozzled’, as they say. So many cheerful, festive faces, so many different types! So much charm and movement in the mass of people, with their brightly coloured clothes, bathed in the morning sunshine! By the thousand, these people swarmed and moved around, making a great din, trying to complete their business in a few hours and disperse by evening, leaving behind them on the open space – as if they were mementoes – scattered wisps of hay, oats spilled here and there, nutshells… People were flocking in dense crowds to and from the church.
The cross on the church gave off golden rays as bright as the sun itself. It glittered and seemed to be burning with golden fire. Below it the cupola was aflame with the same fire and the newly painted green dome gleamed in the sun, while beyond the glittering cross the transparent blue sky stretched into the far distance.
I passed through the crowded churchyard and made my way into the church. Mass had only just started and when I entered they were still reading from the Gospels. In the church silence reigned, broken only by the reader’s voice and the footsteps of the priest with his censer. The congregation stood humbly, motionless, gazing reverentially at the wide-open holy altar gates and listening to the long drawn-out reading. Rural etiquette – rather, rural propriety – clamps down very heavily on any violation of the awesome quiet of a church. I always used to feel ashamed when something there made me smile or speak. Unfortunately, only on rare occasions did I fail to meet some of my friends in church and of these, I regret to say, I had great numbers. Usually, the moment I entered the church, some member of the local ‘intelligentsia’ would immediately come up to me and, after a long preamble about the weather, would start talking about his own footling, trivial affairs. I would usually reply yes or no, but I’m so punctilious that I could never bring myself to ignore that person altogether. And my punctiliousness cost me dear. I would chat away and look awkwardly at my neighbours at prayer, afraid that they would take offence at my idle prattle.
And on this occasion too I failed to escape from my friends.
Just as I was entering the church I saw my heroine – that very same ‘girl in red’ whom I had met on my way to Tenevo. That poor girl, red as a lobster and perspiring, was standing in the middle of the congregation, looking around at all those faces with imploring eyes, in search of a deliverer. She was stuck fast in that dense crowd; unable to move either forwards or backwards, she resembled a bird held tightly squeezed in a fist. When she saw me she smiled bitterly and nodded at me with her pretty little chin.
‘For goodness’ sake, take me to the front!’ she said, seizing my sleeve. ‘It’s terribly stuffy and cramped here… I beg you!’
‘It’s just as crowded at the front!’ I replied.
‘But there everyone’s well dressed and respectable, while here there’s only common peasants. Besides, we have a place reserved for us at the front. And you should be there too.’
So, she wasn’t red in the face because it was stuffy and crowded in the church – oh no! Her pretty little head was tormented by thoughts of precedence! I took note of that vain girl’s entreaties and by carefully pushing people aside managed to lead her as far as the pulpit, where the whole flower of our provincial beau monde33 had already assembl
ed. After settling Olenka in a position that was in keeping with her aristocratic pretensions, I stationed myself behind the beau monde and began observing all that was going on.
As usual, the ladies and gentlemen were whispering and giggling. Kalinin, the Justice of the Peace, gesticulating with his fingers and rolling his head, was telling Squire Deryaev about his ailments in an undertone. Deryaev was cursing doctors in an almost inaudible voice and advised the JP to go and get treatment from a certain Yevstrat Ivanych. When the ladies saw Olenka they seized upon her as a good subject for gossip and started whispering among themselves. Only one girl was apparently praying. She was kneeling and kept moving her lips as she stared in front of her with her blue eyes. She didn’t notice the lock of hair that had come loose under her hat and was hanging untidily over her pale temple. She didn’t notice when Olenka and I came and stood beside her.
She was Nadezhda Nikolayevna, the JP’s daughter. When I spoke earlier of the woman who had run like a black cat between myself and the doctor, I was referring to her. The doctor loved her as only such fine natures as my dear old Screwy’s were capable of loving. Now he stood beside her, stiff as a poker, hands on trouser seams and craning his neck. Now and then he cast his loving, questioning eyes on her intent face. It was as if he were watching over her prayers and in his eyes there shone a melancholy, passionate yearning to be the object of her prayers. But, sadly for him, he knew for whom she was praying… it was not for him.
I motioned to Pavel Ivanovich when he looked round and we both left the church.
‘Let’s have a little wander around the fair,’ I suggested.
We lit our cigarettes and went over to the booths.
‘How’s Nadezhda Nikolayevna?’ I asked the doctor as we entered a tent where they sold toys.
The Shooting Party Page 10