A Desperate Character and Other Stories Read online

  And the old man would smile again and sniff his Spanish snuff.

  The peasants liked him; he was, in their words, a kind master, not easily angered. Only they, too, repeated that he was a worn-out steed. In former days Alexey Sergeitch used to go into everything himself—he used to drive out to the fields, and to the mill, and to the dairy, and peep into the granaries and the peasants' huts; every one knew his racing droshky, upholstered in crimson plush, and drawn by a tall mare, with a broad white star all over her forehead, called 'Beacon,' of the same famous breed. Alexey Sergeitch used to drive her himself, the ends of the reins crushed up in his fists. But when his seventieth year came, the old man let everything go, and handed over the management of the estate to the bailiff Antip, of whom he was secretly afraid, and whom he called Micromegas (a reminiscence of Voltaire!), or simply, plunderer. 'Well, plunderer, what have you to say? Have you stacked a great deal in the barn?' he would ask with a smile, looking straight into the plunderer's eyes. 'All, by your good favour, please your honour,' Antip would respond cheerfully. 'Favour's all very well, only you mind what I say, Micromegas! don't you dare touch the peasants, my subjects, out of my sight! If they come to complain … I've a cane, you see, not far off!' 'Your cane, your honour, Alexey Sergeitch, I always keep well in mind,' Antip Micromegas would respond, stroking his beard. 'All right, don't forget it.' And the master and the bailiff would laugh in each other's faces. With the servants, and with the serfs in general, his 'subjects' (Alexey Sergeitch liked that word) he was gentle in his behaviour. 'Because, think a little, nephew; nothing of their own, but the cross on their neck—and that copper—and daren't hanker after other people's goods … how can one expect sense of them?' It is needless to state that of the so-called 'serf question' no one even dreamed in those days; it could not disturb the peace of mind of Alexey Sergeitch: he was quite happy in the possession of his 'subjects'; but he was severe in his censure of bad masters, and used to call them the enemies of their order. He divided the nobles generally into three classes: the prudent, 'of whom there are too few'; the prodigal, 'of whom there are quite enough'; and the senseless, 'of whom there are shoals and shoals.'

  'And if any one of them is harsh and oppressive with his subjects'—he would say—'then he sins against God, and is guilty before men!'

  Yes, the house-serfs had an easy life of it with the old man; the 'subjects out of sight' no doubt fared worse, in spite of the cane with which he threatened Micromegas. And what a lot there were of them, those house-serfs, in his house! And for the most part sinewy, hairy, grumbling old fellows, with stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen coats, belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging to them. And on the women's side, one could hear nothing but the patter of bare feet, the swish of petticoats. The chief valet was called Irinarh, and Alexey Sergeitch always called him in a long-drawn-out call: 'I-ri-na-a-arh!' The others he called: 'Boy! Lad! Whoever's there of the men!' Bells he could not endure: 'It's not an eating-house, God forbid!' And what used to surprise me was that whatever time Alexey Sergeitch called his valet, he always promptly made his appearance, as though he had sprung out of the earth, and with a scrape of his heels, his hands behind his back, would stand before his master, a surly, as it were angry, but devoted servant!

  Alexey Sergeitch was liberal beyond his means; but he did not like to be called 'benefactor.' 'Benefactor to you, indeed, sir! … I'm doing myself a benefit, and not you, sir!' (when he was angry or indignant, he always addressed people with greater formality). 'Give to a beggar once,' he used to say, 'and give him twice, and three times…. And—if he should come a fourth time, give to him still—only then you might say too: "It's time, my good man, you found work for something else, not only for your mouth."' 'But, uncle,' one asked, sometimes, 'suppose even after that the beggar came again, a fifth time?' 'Oh, well, give again the fifth time.' He used to have the sick, who came to him for aid, treated at his expense, though he had no faith in doctors himself, and never sent for them. 'My mother,' he declared, 'used to cure illnesses of all sorts with oil and salt—she gave it internally, and rubbed it on too—it always answered splendidly. And who was my mother? She was born in the days of Peter the Great—only fancy that!'

  Alexey Sergeitch was a Russian in everything; he liked none but Russian dishes, he was fond of Russian songs, but the harmonica—a 'manufactured contrivance'—he hated; he liked looking at the serf-girls' dances and the peasant-women's jigs; in his youth, I was told, he had been an enthusiastic singer and a dashing dancer; he liked steaming himself in the bath, and steamed himself so vigorously that Irinarh, who, serving him as bathman, used to beat him with a bundle of birch-twigs steeped in beer, to rub him with a handful of tow, and then with a woollen cloth—the truly devoted Irinarh used to say every time, as he crept off his shelf red as a 'new copper image': 'Well, this time I, the servant of God, Irinarh Tolobiev, have come out alive. How will it be next time?'

  And Alexey Sergeitch spoke excellent Russian, a little old-fashioned, but choice and pure as spring water, continually interspersing his remarks with favourite expressions: ''Pon my honour, please God, howsoever that may be, sir, and young sir….'

  But enough of him. Let us talk a little about Alexey Sergeitch's wife,

  Malania Pavlovna. Malania Pavlovna was born at Moscow.

  She had been famous as the greatest beauty in Moscow—la Vénus de Moscou. I knew her as a thin old woman with delicate but insignificant features, with crooked teeth, like a hare's, in a tiny little mouth, with a multitude of finely crimped little yellow curls on her forehead, and painted eyebrows. She invariably wore a pyramidal cap with pink ribbons, a high ruff round her neck, a short white dress, and prunella slippers with red heels; and over her dress she wore a jacket of blue satin, with a sleeve hanging loose from her right shoulder. This was precisely the costume in which she was arrayed on St. Peter's Day in the year 1789! On that day she went, being still a girl, with her relations to the Hodinskoe field to see the famous boxing-match arranged by Orlov. 'And Count Alexey Grigorievitch' (oh, how often I used to hear this story!) 'noticing me, approached, bowed very low, taking his hat in both hands, and said: "Peerless beauty," said he, "why have you hung that sleeve from your shoulder? Do you, too, wish to try a tussle with me? … By all means; only I will tell you beforehand you have vanquished me—I give in! And I am your captive." And every one was looking at us and wondering.' And that very costume she had worn continually ever since. 'Only I didn't wear a cap, but a hat à la bergère de Trianon; and though I was powdered, yet my hair shone through it, positively shone through it like gold!' Malania Pavlovna was foolish to the point of 'holy innocence,' as it is called; she chattered quite at random, as though she were hardly aware herself of what dropped from her lips—and mostly about Orlov. Orlov had become, one might say, the principal interest of her life. She usually walked … or rather swam, into the room with a rhythmic movement of the head, like a peacock, stood still in the middle, with one foot strangely turned out, and two fingers holding the tip of the loose sleeve (I suppose this pose, too, must once have charmed Orlov); she would glance about her with haughty nonchalance, as befits a beauty—and with a positive sniff, and a murmur of 'What next!' as though some importunate gallant were besieging her with compliments, she would go out again, tapping her heels and shrugging her shoulders. She used, too, to take Spanish snuff out of a tiny bonbonnière, picking it up with a tiny golden spoon; and from time to time, especially when any one unknown to her was present, she would hold up—not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, but to her nose—a double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with a coquettish turn of her little white hand, one finger held out separate from the rest. How often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding in the church of the Ascension, in Arbaty—such a fine church!—and how all Moscow was there … 'and the crush there was!—awful! Carriages with teams, golden coaches, outriders … one outrider of Count Zavadovsky got run over! and we were married by the arch
bishop himself—and what a sermon he gave us! every one was crying—wherever I looked I saw tears … and the governor-general's horses were tawny, like tigers. And the flowers, the flowers that were brought! … Simply loads of flowers!' And how on that day a foreigner, a wealthy, tremendously wealthy person, had shot himself from love—and how Orlov too had been there…. And going up to Alexey Sergeitch, he had congratulated him and called him a lucky man…. 'A lucky man you are, you silly fellow!' said he. And how in answer to these words Alexey Sergeitch had made a wonderful bow, and had swept the floor from left to right with the plumes of his hat, as if he would say: 'Your Excellency, there is a line now between you and my spouse, which you will not overstep!' And Orlov, Alexey Grigorievitch understood at once, and commended him. 'Oh! that was a man! such a man!' And how, 'One day, Alexis and I were at his house at a ball—I was married then—and he had the most marvellous diamond buttons! And I could not resist it, I admired them. "What marvellous diamonds you have, Count!" said I. And he, taking up a knife from the table, at once cut off a button and presented it to me and said: "In your eyes, my charmer, the diamonds are a hundred times brighter; stand before the looking-glass and compare them." And I stood so, and he stood beside me. "Well, who's right?" said he, while he simply rolled his eyes, looking me up and down. And Alexey Sergeitch was very much put out about it, but I said to him: "Alexis," said I, "please don't you be put out; you ought to know me better!" And he answered me: "Don't disturb yourself, Melanie!" And these very diamonds are now round my medallion of Alexey Grigorievitch—you've seen it, I dare say, my dear;—I wear it on feast-days on a St. George ribbon, because he was a brave hero, a knight of St. George: he burned the Turks.'

  For all that, Malania Pavlovna was a very kind-hearted woman; she was easily pleased. 'She's not one to snarl, nor to sneer,' the maids used to say of her. Malania Pavlovna was passionately fond of sweet things—and a special old woman who looked after nothing but the jam, and so was called the jam-maid, would bring her, ten times a day, a china dish with rose-leaves crystallised in sugar, or barberries in honey, or sherbet of bananas. Malania Pavlovna was afraid of solitude— dreadful thoughts are apt to come over one, she would say—and was almost always surrounded by companions, whom she would urgently implore: 'Talk, talk! why do you sit like that, simply keeping your seats warm!' and they would begin twittering like canaries. She was no less devout than Alexey Sergeitch, and was very fond of praying; but as, in her own words, she had never learned to repeat prayers well, she kept for the purpose a poor deacon's widow who prayed with such relish! Never stumbled over a word in her life! And this deacon's widow certainly could utter the words of prayer in a sort of unbroken flow, not interrupting the stream to breathe out or draw breath in, while Malania Pavlovna listened and was much moved. She had another widow in attendance on her—it was her duty to tell her stories in the night. 'But only the old ones,' Malania Pavlovna would beg—'those I know already; the new ones are all so far-fetched.' Malania Pavlovna was flighty in the extreme, and at times she was fanciful too; some ridiculous notion would suddenly come into her head. She did not like the dwarf, Janus, for instance; she was always fancying he would suddenly get up and shout, 'Don't you know who I am? The prince of the Buriats. Mind, you are to obey me!' Or else that he would set fire to the house in a fit of spleen. Malania Pavlovna was as liberal as Alexey Sergeitch; but she never gave money—she did not like to soil her hands—but kerchiefs, bracelets, dresses, ribbons; or she would send pies from the table, or a piece of roast meat, or a bottle of wine. She liked feasting the peasant-women, too, on holidays; they would dance, and she would tap with her heels and throw herself into attitudes.

  Alexey Sergeitch was well aware that his wife was a fool; but almost from the first year of his marriage he had schooled himself to keep up the fiction that she was very witty and fond of saying cutting things. Sometimes when her chatter began to get beyond all bounds, he would threaten her with his finger, and say as he did so: 'Ah, the tongue, the tongue! what it will have to answer for in the other world! It will be pierced with a redhot pin!'

  Malania Pavlovna was not offended, however, at this; on the contrary, she seemed to feel flattered at hearing a reproof of that sort, as though she would say, 'Well! is it my fault if I'm naturally witty?'

  Malania Pavlovna adored her husband, and had been all her life an exemplarily faithful wife; but there had been a romance even in her life—a young cousin, an hussar, killed, as she supposed, in a duel on her account; but, according to more trustworthy reports, killed by a blow on the head from a billiard-cue in a tavern brawl. A water-colour portrait of this object of her affections was kept by her in a secret drawer. Malania Pavlovna always blushed up to her ears when she mentioned Kapiton—such was the name of the young hero—and Alexey Sergeitch would designedly scowl, shake his finger at his wife again, and say: 'No trusting a horse in the field nor a woman in the house. Don't talk to me of Kapiton, he's Cupidon!' Then Malania Pavlovna would be all of a flutter and say: 'Alexis, Alexis, it's too bad of you! In your young days you flirted, I've no doubt, with all sorts of misses and madams—and so now you imagine….' 'Come, that's enough, that's enough, my dear Malania,' Alexey Sergeitch interrupted with a smile. 'Your gown is white—but whiter still your soul!' 'Yes, Alexis, it is whiter!' 'Ah, what a tongue, what a tongue!' Alexis would repeat, patting her hand.

  To speak of 'views' in the case of Malania Pavlovna would be even more inappropriate than in the case of Alexey Sergeitch; yet I once chanced to witness a strange manifestation of my aunt's secret feelings. In the course of conversation I once somehow mentioned the famous chief of police, Sheshkovsky; Malania Pavlovna turned suddenly livid—positively livid, green, in spite of her rouge and paint—and in a thick and perfectly unaffected voice (a very rare thing with her—she usually minced a little, intoned, and lisped) she said: 'Oh, what a name to utter! And towards nightfall, too! Don't utter that name!' I was astonished; what kind of significance could his name have for such a harmless and inoffensive creature, incapable—not merely of doing—even of thinking of anything not permissible? Anything but cheerful reflections were aroused in me by this terror, manifesting itself after almost half a century.

  Alexey Sergeitch died in his eighty-eighth year—in the year 1848, which apparently disturbed even him. His death, too, was rather strange. He had felt well the same morning, though by that time he never left his easy-chair. And all of a sudden he called his wife: 'Malania, my dear, come here.' 'What is it, Alexis?' 'It's time for me to die, my dear, that's what it is.' 'Mercy on you, Alexey Sergeitch! What for?' 'Because, first of all, one must know when to take leave; and, besides, I was looking the other day at my feet…. Look at my feet … they are not mine … say what you like … look at my hands, look at my stomach … that stomach's not mine—so really I'm using up another man's life. Send for the priest; and meanwhile, put me to bed—from which I shall not get up again.' Malania Pavlovna was terribly upset; however, she put the old man to bed and sent for the priest. Alexey Sergeitch confessed, took the sacrament, said good-bye to his household, and fell asleep. Malania Pavlovna was sitting by his bedside. 'Alexis!' she cried suddenly, 'don't frighten me, don't shut your eyes! Are you in pain?' The old man looked at his wife: 'No, no pain … but it's difficult … difficult to breathe.' Then after a brief silence: 'Malania,' he said, 'so life has slipped by—and do you remember when we were married … what a couple we were?' 'Yes, we were, my handsome, charming Alexis!' The old man was silent again. 'Malania, my dear, shall we meet again in the next world?' 'I will pray God for it, Alexis,' and the old woman burst into tears. 'Come, don't cry, silly; maybe the Lord God will make us young again then—and again we shall be a fine pair!' 'He will make us young, Alexis!' 'With the Lord all things are possible,' observed Alexey Sergeitch. 'He worketh great marvels!—maybe He will make you sensible…. There, my love, I was joking; come, let me kiss your hand.' 'And I yours.' And the two old people kissed each other's hands simultaneously.

&n
bsp; Alexey Sergeitch began to grow quieter and to sink into forgetfulness. Malania Pavlovna watched him tenderly, brushing the tears off her eyelashes with her finger-tips. For two hours she continued sitting there. 'Is he asleep?' the old woman with the talent for praying inquired in a whisper, peeping in behind Irinarh, who, immovable as a post, stood in the doorway, gazing intently at his expiring master. 'He is asleep,' answered Malania Pavlovna also in a whisper. And suddenly Alexey Sergeitch opened his eyes. 'My faithful companion,' he faltered, 'my honoured wife, I would bow down at your little feet for all your love and faithfulness—but how to get up? Let me sign you with the cross.' Malania Pavlovna moved closer, bent down…. But the hand he had raised fell back powerless on the quilt, and a few moments later Alexey Sergeitch was no more.

  His daughters arrived only on the day of the funeral with their husbands; they had no children either of them. Alexey Sergeitch showed them no animosity in his will, though he never even mentioned them on his death-bed. 'My heart has grown hard to them,' he once said to me. Knowing his kindly nature, I was surprised at his words. It is hard to judge between parents and children. 'A great ravine starts from a little rift,' Alexey Sergeitch said to me once in this connection: 'a wound a yard wide may heal; but once cut off even a finger nail, it will not grow again.'