A Desperate Character and Other Stories Read online

  The laugh and the wink—every gesture of the stranger, his weak, lisping voice, his bent knees and thin hands, his very cap and long frieze coat—everything about him suggested good-nature, something innocent and droll.

  'Have you been here long?' I asked.

  'I came to-day.'

  'Why, aren't you the person of whom …'

  'Mr. Baburin spoke to the lady here. The same, the same.'

  'Your friend's name's Baburin, and what's yours?'

  'I'm Punin. Punin's my name; Punin. He's Baburin and I'm Punin.' He set the little cups humming again. 'Listen, listen to the chaffinch…. How it carols!'

  This queer creature took my fancy 'awfully' all at once. Like almost all boys, I was either timid or consequential with strangers, but I felt with this man as if I had known him for ages.

  'Come along with me,' I said to him; 'I know a place better than this; there's a seat there; we can sit down, and we can see the dam from there.'

  'By all means let us go,' my new friend responded in his singing voice. I let him pass before me. As he walked he rolled from side to side, tripped over his own feet, and his head fell back.

  I noticed on the back of his coat, under the collar, there hung a small tassel. 'What's that you've got hanging there?' I asked.

  'Where?' he questioned, and he put his hand up to the collar to feel.

  'Ah, the tassel? Let it be! I suppose it was sewn there for ornament!

  It's not in the way.'

  I led him to the seat, and sat down; he settled himself beside me. 'It's lovely here!' he commented, and he drew a deep, deep sigh. 'Oh, how lovely! You have a most splendid garden! Oh, o—oh!'

  I looked at him from one side. 'What a queer cap you've got!' I couldn't help exclaiming. 'Show it me here!'

  'By all means, little master, by all means.' He took off the cap; I was holding out my hand, but I raised my eyes, and—simply burst out laughing. Punin was completely bald; not a single hair was to be seen on the high conical skull, covered with smooth white skin. He passed his open hand over it, and he too laughed. When he laughed he seemed, as it were, to gulp, he opened his mouth wide, closed his eyes—and vertical wrinkles flitted across his forehead in three rows, like waves. 'Eh,' said he at last, 'isn't it quite like an egg?'

  'Yes, yes, exactly like an egg!' I agreed with enthusiasm. 'And have you been like that long?'

  'Yes, a long while; but what hair I used to have!—A golden fleece like that for which the Argonauts sailed over the watery deeps.'

  Though I was only twelve, yet, thanks to my mythological studies, I knew who the Argonauts were; I was the more surprised at hearing the name on the lips of a man dressed almost in rags.

  'You must have learned mythology, then?' I queried, as I twisted his cap over and over in my hands. It turned out to be wadded, with a mangy-looking fur trimming, and a broken cardboard peak.

  'I have studied that subject, my dear little master; I've had time enough for everything in my life! But now restore to me my covering, it is a protection to the nakedness of my head.'

  He put on the cap, and, with a downward slope of his whitish eyebrows, asked me who I was, and who were my parents.

  'I'm the grandson of the lady who owns this place,' I answered. 'I live alone with her. Papa and mamma are dead.'

  Punin crossed himself. 'May the kingdom of heaven be theirs! So then, you're an orphan; and the heir, too. The noble blood in you is visible at once; it fairly sparkles in your eyes, and plays like this … sh … sh … sh …' He represented with his fingers the play of the blood. 'Well, and do you know, your noble honour, whether my friend has come to terms with your grandmamma, whether he has obtained the situation he was promised?'

  'I don't know.'

  Punin cleared his throat. 'Ah! if one could be settled here, if only for a while! Or else one may wander and wander far, and find not a place to rest one's head; the disquieting alarms of life are unceasing, the soul is confounded….'

  'Tell me,' I interrupted: 'are you of the clerical profession?'

  Punin turned to me and half closed his eyelids. 'And what may be the cause of that question, gentle youth?'

  'Why, you talk so—well, as they read in church.'

  'Because I use the old scriptural forms of expression? But that ought not to surprise you. Admitting that in ordinary conversation such forms of expression are not always in place; but when one soars on the wings of inspiration, at once the language too grows more exalted. Surely your teacher—the professor of Russian literature—you do have lessons in that, I suppose?—surely he teaches you that, doesn't he?'

  'No, he doesn't,' I responded. 'When we stay in the country I have no teacher. In Moscow I have a great many teachers.'

  'And will you be staying long in the country?'

  'Two months, not longer; grandmother says that I'm spoilt in the country, though I have a governess even here.'

  'A French governess?'

  'Yes.'

  Punin scratched behind his ear. 'A mamselle, that's to say?'

  'Yes; she's called Mademoiselle Friquet.' I suddenly felt it disgraceful for me, a boy of twelve, to have not a tutor, but a governess, like a little girl! 'But I don't mind her,' I added contemptuously. 'What do I care!'

  Punin shook his head. 'Ah, you gentlefolk, you gentlefolk! you're too fond of foreigners! You have turned away from what is Russian,—towards all that's strange. You've turned your hearts to those that come from foreign parts….'

  'Hullo! Are you talking in verse?' I asked.

  'Well, and why not? I can do that always, as much as you please; for it comes natural to me….'

  But at that very instant there sounded in the garden behind us a loud and shrill whistle. My new acquaintance hurriedly got up from the bench.

  'Good-bye, little sir; that's my friend calling me, looking for me….

  What has he to tell me? Good-bye—excuse me….'

  He plunged into the bushes and vanished, while I sat on some time longer on the seat. I felt perplexity and another feeling, rather an agreeable one … I had never met nor spoken to any one like this before. Gradually I fell to dreaming, but recollected my mythology and sauntered towards the house.

  * * * * *

  At home, I learned that my grandmother had arranged to take Baburin; he had been assigned a small room in the servants' quarters, overlooking the stable-yard. He had at once settled in there with his friend.

  When I had drunk my tea, next morning, without asking leave of Mademoiselle Friquet, I set off to the servants' quarters. I wanted to have another chat with the queer fellow I had seen the day before. Without knocking at the door—the very idea of doing so would never have occurred to us—I walked straight into the room. I found in it not the man I was looking for, not Punin, but his protector—the philanthropist, Baburin. He was standing before the window, without his outer garment, his legs wide apart. He was busily engaged in rubbing his head and neck with a long towel.

  'What do you want?' he observed, keeping his hands still raised, and knitting his brows.

  'Punin's not at home, then?' I queried in the most free-and-easy manner, without taking off my cap.

  'Mr. Punin, Nikander Vavilitch, at this moment, is not at home, truly,' Baburin responded deliberately; 'but allow me to make an observation, young man: it's not the proper thing to come into another person's room like this, without asking leave.'

  I! … young man! … how dared he! … I grew crimson with fury.

  'You cannot be aware who I am,' I rejoined, in a manner no longer free-and-easy, but haughty. 'I am the grandson of the mistress here.'

  'That's all the same to me,' retorted Baburin, setting to work with his towel again. 'Though you are the seignorial grandson, you have no right to come into other people's rooms.'

  'Other people's? What do you mean? I'm—at home here—everywhere.'

  'No, excuse me: here—I'm at home; since this room has been assigned to me, by agreement, in exchange for my work.'
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  'Don't teach me, if you please,' I interrupted: 'I know better than you what …'

  'You must be taught,' he interrupted in his turn, 'for you're at an age when you … I know my duties, but I know my rights too very well, and if you continue to speak to me in that way, I shall have to ask you to go out of the room….'

  There is no knowing how our dispute would have ended if Punin had not at that instant entered, shuffling and shambling from side to side. He most likely guessed from the expression of our faces that some unpleasantness had passed between us, and at once turned to me with the warmest expressions of delight.

  'Ah! little master! little master!' he cried, waving his hands wildly, and going off into his noiseless laugh: 'the little dear! come to pay me a visit! here he's come, the little dear!' (What's the meaning of it? I thought: can he be speaking in this familiar way to me?) 'There, come along, come with me into the garden. I've found something there…. Why stay in this stuffiness here! let's go!'

  I followed Punin, but in the doorway I thought it as well to turn round and fling a glance of defiance at Baburin, as though to say, I'm not afraid of you!

  He responded in the same way, and positively snorted into the towel—probably to make me thoroughly aware how utterly he despised me!

  What an insolent fellow your friend is!' I said to Punin, directly the door had closed behind me.

  Almost with horror, Punin turned his plump face to me.

  'To whom did you apply that expression?' he asked me, with round eyes.

  'Why, to him, of course…. What's his name? that … Baburin.'

  'Paramon Semyonevitch?'

  'Why, yes; that … blackfaced fellow.'

  'Eh … eh … eh …!' Punin protested, with caressing reproachfulness. 'How can you talk like that, little master! Paramon Semyonevitch is the most estimable man, of the strictest principles, an extraordinary person! To be sure, he won't allow any disrespect to him, because—he knows his own value. That man possesses a vast amount of knowledge—and it's not a place like this he ought to be filling! You must, my dear, behave very courteously to him; do you know, he's …' here Punin bent down quite to my ear,—'a republican!'

  I stared at Punin. This I had not at all expected. From Keidanov's manual and other historical works I had gathered the fact that at some period or other, in ancient times, there had existed republicans, Greeks and Romans. For some unknown reason I had always pictured them all in helmets, with round shields on their arms, and big bare legs; but that in real life, in the actual present, above all, in Russia, in the province of X——, one could come across republicans—that upset all my notions, and utterly confounded them!

  'Yes, my dear, yes; Paramon Semyonitch is a republican,' repeated Punin; 'there, so you'll know for the future how one should speak of a man like that! But now let's go into the garden. Fancy what I've found there! A cuckoo's egg in a redstart's nest! a lovely thing!'

  I went into the garden with Punin; but mentally I kept repeating: 'republican! re … pub … lican!'

  'So,' I decided at last—'that's why he has such a blue chin!'

  * * * * *

  My attitude to these two persons—Punin and Baburin—took definite shape from that very day. Baburin aroused in me a feeling of hostility with which there was, however, in a short time, mingled something akin to respect. And wasn't I afraid of him! I never got over being afraid of him even when the sharp severity of his manner with me at first had quite disappeared. It is needless to say that of Punin I had no fear; I did not even respect him; I looked upon him—not to put too fine a point on it—as a buffoon; but I loved him with my whole soul! To spend hours at a time in his company, to be alone with him, to listen to his stories, became a genuine delight to me. My grandmother was anything but pleased at this intimité with a person of the 'lower classes'—du commun; but, whenever I could break away, I flew at once to my queer, amusing, beloved friend. Our meetings became more frequent after the departure of Mademoiselle Friquet, whom my grandmother sent back to Moscow in disgrace because, in conversation with a military staff captain, visiting in the neighbourhood, she had had the insolence to complain of the dulness which reigned in our household. And Punin, for his part, was not bored by long conversations with a boy of twelve; he seemed to seek them of himself. How often have I listened to his stories, sitting with him in the fragrant shade, on the dry, smooth grass, under the canopy of the silver poplars, or among the reeds above the pond, on the coarse, damp sand of the hollow bank, from which the knotted roots protruded, queerly interlaced, like great black veins, like snakes, like creatures emerging from some subterranean region! Punin told me the whole story of his life in minute detail, describing all his happy adventures, and all his misfortunes, with which I always felt the sincerest sympathy! His father had been a deacon;—'a splendid man—but, under the influence of drink, stern to the last extreme.'

  Punin himself had received his education in a seminary; but, unable to stand the severe thrashings, and feeling no inclination for the priestly calling, he had become a layman, and in consequence had experienced all sorts of hardships; and, finally, had become a vagrant. 'And had I not met with my benefactor, Paramon Semyonitch,' Punin commonly added (he never spoke of Baburin except in this way), 'I should have sunk into the miry abysses of poverty and vice.' Punin was fond of high-sounding expressions, and had a great propensity, if not for lying, for romancing and exaggeration; he admired everything, fell into ecstasies over everything…. And I, in imitation of him, began to exaggerate and be ecstatic, too. 'What a crazy fellow you've grown! God have mercy on you!' my old nurse used to say to me. Punin's narratives used to interest me extremely; but even better than his stories I loved the readings we used to have together.

  It is impossible to describe the feeling I experienced when, snatching a favourable moment, suddenly, like a hermit in a tale or a good fairy, he appeared before me with a ponderous volume under his arm, and stealthily beckoning with his long crooked finger, and winking mysteriously, he pointed with his head, his eyebrows, his shoulders, his whole person, toward the deepest recesses of the garden, whither no one could penetrate after us, and where it was impossible to find us out. And when we had succeeded in getting away unnoticed; when we had satisfactorily reached one of our secret nooks, and were sitting side by side, and, at last, the book was slowly opened, emitting a pungent odour, inexpressibly sweet to me then, of mildew and age;—with what a thrill, with what a wave of dumb expectancy, I gazed at the face, at the lips of Punin, those lips from which in a moment a stream of such delicious eloquence was to flow! At last the first sounds of the reading were heard. Everything around me vanished … no, not vanished, but grew far away, passed into clouds of mist, leaving behind only an impression of something friendly and protecting. Those trees, those green leaves, those high grasses screen us, hide us from all the rest of the world; no one knows where we are, what we are about—while with us is poetry, we are saturated in it, intoxicated with it, something solemn, grand, mysterious is happening to us…. Punin, by preference, kept to poetry, musical, sonorous poetry; he was ready to lay down his life for poetry. He did not read, he declaimed the verse majestically, in a torrent of rhythm, in a rolling outpour through his nose, like a man intoxicated, lifted out of himself, like the Pythian priestess. And another habit he had: first he would lisp the verses through softly, in a whisper, as it were mumbling them to himself…. This he used to call the rough sketch of the reading; then he would thunder out the same verse in its 'fair copy,' and would all at once leap up, throw up his hand, with a half-supplicating, half-imperious gesture…. In this way we went through not only Lomonosov, Sumarokov, and Kantemir (the older the poems, the more they were to Punin's taste), but even Heraskov's Rossiad. And, to tell the truth, it was this same Rossiad which aroused my enthusiasm most. There is in it, among others, a mighty Tatar woman, a gigantic heroine; I have forgotten even her name now; but in those days my hands and feet turned cold as soon as it was mentioned. 'Yes,' Pun
in would say, nodding his head with great significance, 'Heraskov, he doesn't let one off easily. At times one comes upon a line, simply heart-breaking…. One can only stick to it, and do one's best…. One tries to master it, but he breaks away again and trumpets, trumpets, with the crash of cymbals. His name's been well bestowed on him—the very word, Herrraskov!' Lomonosov Punin found fault with for too simple and free a style; while to Derzhavin he maintained an attitude almost of hostility, saying that he was more of a courtier than a poet. In our house it was not merely that no attention was given to literature, to poetry; but poetry, especially Russian poetry, was looked upon as something quite undignified and vulgar; my grandmother did not even call it poetry, but 'doggrel verses'; every author of such doggrel was, in her opinion, either a confirmed toper or a perfect idiot. Brought up among such ideas, it was inevitable that I should either turn from Punin with disgust—he was untidy and shabby into the bargain, which was an offence to my seignorial habits—or that, attracted and captivated by him, I should follow his example, and be infected by his passion for poetry…. And so it turned out. I, too, began reading poetry, or, as my grandmother expressed it, poring over doggrel trash…. I even tried my hand at versifying, and composed a poem, descriptive of a barrel-organ, in which occurred the following two lines:

  'Lo, the barrel turns around,

  And the cogs within resound.'

  Punin commended in this effort a certain imitative melody, but disapproved of the subject itself as low and unworthy of lyrical treatment.

  Alas! all those efforts and emotions and transports, our solitary readings, our life together, our poetry, all came to an end at once. Trouble broke upon us suddenly, like a clap of thunder.

  * * * * *

  My grandmother in everything liked cleanliness and order, quite in the spirit of the active generals of those days; cleanliness and order were to be maintained too in our garden. And so from time to time they 'drove' into it poor peasants, who had no families, no land, no beasts of their own, and those among the house serfs who were out of favour or superannuated, and set them to clearing the paths, weeding the borders, breaking up and sifting the earth in the beds, and so on. Well, one day, in the very heat of these operations, my grandmother went into the garden, and took me with her. On all sides, among the trees and about the lawns, we caught glimpses of white, red, and blue smocks; on all sides we heard the scraping and clanging of spades, the dull thud of clods of earth on the slanting sieves. As she passed by the labourers, my grandmother with her eagle eye noticed at once that one of them was working with less energy than the rest, and that he took off his cap, too, with no show of eagerness. This was a youth, still quite young, with a wasted face, and sunken, lustreless eyes. His cotton smock, all torn and patched, scarcely held together over his narrow shoulders.