Chapter 7

Alexyéi Sergyéitch had received a scanty education,[36] like all nobles of that epoch; but he had completed it, to a certain degree, by reading. He read only Russian books of the end of the last century; he considered the newer writers unleavened and weak in style. During his reading he placed beside him, on a round, one-legged little table, a silver jug filled with a special effervescent kvas flavoured with mint, whose pleasant odour disseminated itself through all the rooms. He placed large, round spectacles on the tip of his nose; but in his later years he did not so much read as stare thoughtfully over the rims of the spectacles, elevating his brows, mowing with his lips and sighing. Once I caught him weeping, with a book on his knees, which greatly surprised me, I admit.

He recalled the following wretched doggerel:

O all-conquering race of man! Rest is unknown to thee! Thou findest it only When thou swallowest the dust of the grave.... Bitter, bitter is this rest! Sleep, ye dead.... But weep, ye living!

These verses were composed by a certain Górmitch-Gormítzky, a roving poetaster, whom Alexyéi Sergyéitch had harboured in his house because he seemed to him a delicate and even subtle man; he wore shoes with knots of ribbon, pronounced his _o's_ broadly, and, raising his eyes to heaven, he sighed frequently. In addition to all these merits, Górmitch-Gormítzky spoke French passably well, for he had been educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexyéi Sergyéitch only "understood" it. But having once drunk himself dead-drunk in a dram-shop, this same subtle Gormítzky displayed outrageous violence. He thrashed "to flinders" Alexyéi Sergyéitch's valet, the cook, two laundresses who happened along, and even an independent carpenter, and smashed several panes in the windows, yelling lustily the while: "Here now, I'll just show these Russian sluggards, these unlicked katzápy!"[37]--And what strength that puny little man displayed! Eight men could hardly control him! For this turbulence Alexyéi Sergyéitch gave orders that the rhymster should be flung out of the house, after he had preliminarily been rolled in the snow (it happened in the winter), to sober him.

"Yes," Alexyéi Sergyéitch was wont to say, "my day is over; the horse is worn out. I used to keep poets at my expense, and I used to buy pictures and books from the Jews--and my geese were quite as good as those of Mukhán, and I had genuine slate-coloured tumbler-pigeons.... I was an amateur of all sorts of things! Except that I never was a dog-fancier, because of the drunkenness and the clownishness! I was mettlesome, untamable! God forbid that a Telyégin should be anything but first-class in everything! And I had a splendid horse-breeding establishment.... And those horses came ... whence, thinkest thou, my little sir?--From those very renowned studs of the Tzar Iván Alexyéitch, the brother of Peter the Great.... I'm telling you the truth! All stallions, dark brown in colour, with manes to their knees, tails to their hoofs.... Lions! Vanity of vanities, all is vanity! But what's the use of regretting it? Every man has his limit fixed for him.--You cannot fly higher than heaven, nor live in the water, nor escape from the earth.... Let us live on a while longer, at any rate!"

And again the old man smiled and took a pinch of his Spanish tobacco.

His peasants loved him. Their master was kind, according to them, and not a heart-breaker.--Only, they also repeated that he was a worn-out steed. Formerly Alexyéi Sergyéitch had gone into everything himself: he had ridden out into the fields, and to the flour-mill, and to the oil-mill and the storehouses, and looked in to the peasants' cottages; every one was familiar with his racing-drozhky,[38] upholstered in crimson plush and drawn by a well-grown horse with a broad blaze extending clear across its forehead, named "Lantern"--from that same famous breeding establishment. Alexyéi Sergyéitch drove him himself with the ends of the reins wound round his fists. But when his seventieth birthday came the old man gave up everything, and entrusted the management of his estate to the peasant bailiff Antíp, of whom he secretly stood in awe and called Micromegas (memories of Voltaire!), or simply "robber."

"Well, robber, hast thou gathered a big lot of stolen goods?" he would say, looking the robber straight in the eye.

"Everything is according to your grace," Antíp would reply merrily.

"Grace is all right, only just look out for thyself, Micromegas! Don't dare to touch my peasants, my subjects behind my back! They will make complaint ... my cane is not far off, seest thou?"

"I always keep your little cane well in mind, dear little father Alexyéi Sergyéitch," replied Antíp-Micromegas, stroking his beard.

"That's right, keep it in mind!" and master and bailiff laughed in each other's faces.

With his house-serfs, with his serfs in general, with his "subjects" (Alexyéi Sergyéitch loved that word), he dealt gently.--"Because, judge for thyself, little nephew, if thou hast nothing of thine own save the cross on thy neck,[39] and that a brass one, don't hanker after other folks' things.... What sense is there in that?" There is no denying the fact that no one even thought of the so-called problem of the serfs at that epoch; and it could not disturb Alexyéi Sergyéitch. He very calmly ruled his "subjects"; but he condemned bad landed proprietors and called them the enemies of their class.

He divided the nobles in general into three categories: the judicious, "of whom there are not many"; the profligate, "of whom there is a goodly number"; and the licentious, "of whom there are enough to dam a pond." And if any one of them was harsh and oppressive to his subjects, that man was guilty in the sight of God, and culpable in the sight of men!--Yes; the house-serfs led an easy life in the old man's house; the "subjects behind his back" were less well off, as a matter of course, despite the cane wherewith he threatened Micromegas.--And how many there were of them--of those house-serfs--in his manor! And for the most part they were old, sinewy, hairy, grumbling, stoop-shouldered, clad in long-skirted nankeen kaftans, and imbued with a strong acrid odour! And in the women's department nothing was to be heard but the trampling of bare feet, and the rustling of petticoats.--The head valet was named Irinárkh, and Alexyéi Sergyéitch always summoned him with a long-drawn-out call: "I-ri-na-a-árkh!"--He called the others: "Young fellow! Boy! What subject is there?!"--He could not endure bells. "God have mercy, this is no tavern!" And what amazed me was, that no matter at what time Alexyéi Sergyéitch called his valet, the man instantly presented himself, just as though he had sprung out of the earth, and placing his heels together, and putting his hands behind his back, stood before his master a grim and, as it were, an irate but zealous servant!

Alexyéi Sergyéitch was lavish beyond his means; but he did not like to be called "benefactor."--"What sort of a benefactor am I to you, sir?... I'm doing myself a favour, not you, my good sir!" (When he was angry or indignant he always called people "you.")--"To a beggar give once, give twice, give thrice," he was wont to say.... "Well, and if he returns for the fourth time--give to him yet again, only add therewith: 'My good man, thou shouldst work with something else besides thy mouth all the time.'"

"Uncle," I used to ask him, "what if the beggar should return for the fifth time after that?"

"Why, then, do thou give to him for the fifth time."

The sick people who appealed to him for aid he had cured at his own expense, although he himself did not believe in doctors, and never sent for them.--"My deceased mother," he asserted, "used to heal all maladies with olive-oil and salt; she both administered it internally and rubbed it on externally, and everything passed off splendidly. And who was my mother? She had her birth under Peter the First--only think of that!"

Alexyéi Sergyéitch was a Russian man in every respect; he loved Russian viands, he loved Russian songs, but the accordion, "a factory invention," he detested; he loved to watch the maidens in their choral songs, the women in their dances. In his youth, it was said, he had sung rollickingly and danced with agility. He loved to steam himself in the bath,--and steamed himself so energetically that Irinárkh, who served him as bath-attendant, thrashed him with a birch-besom soaked in beer, rubbed him down with shredded linden bark,[40] then with a bit of woollen cloth, rolled a soap bladder over his master's shoulders,--this faithfully-devoted Irinárkh was accustomed to say every time, as he climbed down from the shelf as red as "a new brass statue": "Well, for this time I, the servant of God, Irinárkh Tolobyéeff, am still whole.... What will happen next time?"

And Alexyéi Sergyéitch spoke splendid Russian, somewhat old-fashioned, but piquant and pure as spring water, constantly interspersing his speech with his pet words: "honour bright," "God have mercy," "at any rate," "sir," and "little sir."...

Enough concerning him, however. Let us talk about Alexyéi Sergyéitch's spouse, Malánya Pávlovna.

Malánya Pávlovna was a native of Moscow, and had been accounted the greatest beauty in town, _la Vénus de Moscou_.--When I knew her she was already a gaunt old woman, with delicate but insignificant features, little curved hare-like teeth in a tiny little mouth, with a multitude of tight little curls on her forehead, and dyed eyebrows. She constantly wore a pyramidal cap with rose-coloured ribbons, a high ruff around her neck, a short white gown and prunella shoes with red heels; and over her gown she wore a jacket of blue satin, with the sleeve depending from the right shoulder. She had worn precisely such a toilet on St. Peter's day, 1789! On that day, being still a maiden, she had gone with her relatives to the Khodýnskoe Field,[41] to see the famous prize-fight arranged by the Orlóffs.

"And Count Alexyéi Grigórievitch ..." (oh, how many times did I hear that tale!), ... "having descried me, approached, made a low obeisance, holding his hat in both hands, and spake thus: 'My stunning beauty, why dost thou allow that sleeve to hang from thy shoulder? Is it that thou wishest to have a match at fisticuffs with me?... With pleasure; only I tell thee beforehand that thou hast vanquished me--I surrender!--and I am thy captive!'--and every one stared at us and marvelled."

And so she had worn that style of toilet ever since.

"Only, I wore no cap then, but a hat _à la bergère de Trianon_; and although I was powdered, yet my hair gleamed through it like gold!"

Malánya Pávlovna was stupid to sanctity, as the saying goes; she chattered at random, and did not herself quite know what issued from her mouth--but it was chiefly about Orlóff.--Orlóff had become, one may say, the principal interest of her life. She usually entered--no! she floated into--the room, moving her head in a measured way like a peacock, came to a halt in the middle of it, with one foot turned out in a strange sort of way, and holding the pendent sleeve in two fingers (that must have been the pose which had pleased Orlóff once on a time), she looked about her with arrogant carelessness, as befits a beauty,-- she even sniffed and whispered "The idea!" exactly as though some important cavalier-adorer were besieging her with compliments,--then suddenly walked on, clattering her heels and shrugging her shoulders.-- She also took Spanish snuff out of a tiny bonbon box, scooping it out with a tiny golden spoon, and from time to time, especially when a new person made his appearance, she raised--not to her eyes, but to her nose (her vision was excellent)--a double lorgnette in the shape of a pair of horns, showing off and twisting about her little white hand with one finger standing out apart.

How many times did Malánya Pávlovna describe to me her wedding in the Church of the Ascension, "which is on the Arbát Square--such a fine church!--and all Moscow was present at it ... there was such a crush! 'T was frightful! There were equipages drawn by six horses, golden carriages, runners ... one of Count Zavadóvsky's runners even fell under the wheels! And the bishop himself married us,[42] and what an address he delivered! Everybody wept--wherever I looked there was nothing but tears, tears ... and the Governor-General's horses were tiger-coloured.... And how many, many flowers people brought!... They overwhelmed us with flowers! And one foreigner, a rich, very rich man, shot himself for love on that occasion, and Orlóff was present also.... And approaching Alexyéi Sergyéitch he congratulated him and called him a lucky dog.... 'Thou art a lucky dog, brother gaper!' he said. And in reply Alexyéi Sergyéitch made such a wonderful obeisance, and swept the plume of his hat along the floor from left to right ... as much as to say: 'There is a line drawn now, Your Radiance, between you and my spouse which you must not step across!'--And Orlóff, Alexyéi Grigórievitch, immediately understood and lauded him.--Oh, what a man he was! What a man! And then, on another occasion, Alexis and I were at a ball in his house--I was already married--and what magnificent diamond buttons he wore! And I could not restrain myself, but praised them. 'What splendid diamonds you have, Count!' And thereupon he took a knife from the table, cut off one button and presented it to me--saying: 'You have in your eyes, my dear little dove, diamonds a hundredfold finer; just stand before the mirror and compare them.' And I did stand there, and he stood beside me.--'Well? Who is right?'--says he--and keeps rolling his eyes all round me. And then Alexyéi Sergyéitch was greatly dismayed; but I said to him: 'Alexis,' I said to him, 'please do not be dismayed; thou shouldst know me better!' And he answered me: 'Be at ease, Mélanie!'--And those same diamonds I now have encircling a medallion of Alexyéi Grigórievitch--I think, my dear, that thou hast seen me wear it on my shoulder on festival days, on a ribbon of St. George--because he was a very brave hero, a cavalier of the Order of St. George: he burned the Turks!"[43]

Notwithstanding all this, Malánya Pávlovna was a very kind woman; she was easy to please.--"She doesn't nag you, and she doesn't sneer at you," the maids said of her.--Malánya Pávlovna was passionately fond of all sweets, and a special old woman, who occupied herself with nothing but the preserves, and therefore was called the preserve-woman, brought to her, half a score of times in a day, a Chinese plate now with candied rose-leaves, again with barberries in honey, or orange sherbet. Malánya Pávlovna feared solitude--dreadful thoughts come then--and was almost constantly surrounded by female hangers-on whom she urgently entreated: "Talk, talk! Why do you sit there and do nothing but warm your seats?"--and they began to twitter like canary-birds. Being no less devout than Alexyéi Sergyéitch, she was very fond of praying; but as, according to her own words, she had not learned to recite prayers well, she kept for that purpose the widow of a deacon, who prayed so tastily! She would never stumble to all eternity! And, in fact, that deacon's widow understood how to utter prayerful words in an irrepressible sort of way, without a break even when she inhaled or exhaled her breath--and Malánya Pávlovna listened and melted with emotion. She had another widow also attached to her service; the latter's duty consisted in telling her stories at night,--"but only old ones," entreated Malánya Pávlovna, "those I already know; all the new ones are spurious."

Malánya Pávlovna was very frivolous and sometimes suspicious. All of a sudden she would take some idea into her head. She did not like the dwarf Janus, for example; it always seemed to her as though he would suddenly start in and begin to shriek: "But do you know who I am? A Buryát Prince! So, then, submit!"--And if she did not, he would set fire to the house out of melancholy. Malánya Pávlovna was as lavish as Alexyéi Sergyéitch; but she never gave money--she did not wish to soil her pretty little hands--but kerchiefs, ear-rings, gowns, ribbons, or she would send a patty from the table, or a bit of the roast, or if not that, a glass of wine. She was also fond of regaling the peasant-women on holidays. They would begin to dance, and she would click her heels and strike an attitude.

Alexyéi Sergyéitch was very well aware that his wife was stupid; but he had trained himself, almost from the first year of his married life, to pretend that she was very keen of tongue and fond of saying stinging things. As soon as she got to chattering he would immediately shake his little finger at her and say: "Okh, what a naughty little tongue! What a naughty little tongue! Won't it catch it in the next world! It will be pierced with red-hot needles!"--But Malánya Pávlovna did not take offence at this; on the contrary, she seemed to feel flattered at hearing such remarks--as much as to say: "Well, I can't help it! It isn't my fault that I was born witty!"

Malánya Pávlovna worshipped her husband, and all her life remained an exemplary and faithful wife. But there had been an "object" in her life also, a young nephew, a hussar, who had been slain, so she assumed, in a duel on her account---but, according to more trustworthy information, he had died from a blow received on the head from a billiard-cue, in tavern company. The water-colour portrait of this "object" was preserved by her in a secret casket. Malánya Pávlovna crimsoned to the very ears every time she alluded to Kapítonushka--that was the "object's" name;--while Alexyéi Sergyéitch scowled intentionally, again menaced his wife with his little finger and said, "Trust not a horse in the meadow, a wife in the house! Okh, that Kapítonushka, Kupidónushka!"--Then Malánya Pávlovna bristled up all over and exclaimed:

"Alexis, shame on you, Alexis!--You yourself probably flirted with divers little ladies in your youth--and so you take it for granted...."

"Come, that will do, that will do, Malániushka," Alexyéi Sergyéitch interrupted her, with a smile;--"thy gown is white, and thy soul is whiter still!"

"It is whiter, Alexis; it is whiter!"

"Okh, what a naughty little tongue, on my honour, what a naughty little tongue!" repeated Alexyéi Sergyéitch, tapping her on the cheek.

To mention Malánya Pávlovna's "convictions" would be still more out of place than to mention those of Alexyéi Sergyéitch; but I once chanced to be the witness of a strange manifestation of my aunt's hidden feelings. I once chanced, in the course of conversation, to mention the well-known Sheshkóvsky.[44] Malánya Pávlovna suddenly became livid in the face,--as livid as a corpse,--turned green, despite the layer of paint and powder, and in a dull, entirely-genuine voice (which very rarely happened with her--as a general thing she seemed always somewhat affected, assumed an artificial tone and lisped) said: "Okh! whom hast thou mentioned! And at nightfall, into the bargain!--Don't utter that name!" I was amazed; what significance could that name possess for such an inoffensive and innocent being, who would not have known how to devise, much less to execute, anything reprehensible?--This alarm, which revealed itself after a lapse of nearly half a century, induced in me reflections which were not altogether cheerful.

Alexyéi Sergyéitch died in his eighty-eighth year, in the year 1848, which evidently disturbed even him. And his death was rather strange. That morning he had felt well, although he no longer quitted his arm-chair at all. But suddenly he called to his wife: "Malániushka, come hither!"

"What dost thou want, Alexis?"

"It is time for me to die, that's what, my darling."

"God be with you, Alexyéi Sergyéitch! Why so?"

"This is why. In the first place, one must show moderation; and more than that; I was looking at my legs a little while ago ... they were strange legs--and that settles it!--I looked at my hands---and those were strange also! I looked at my belly--and the belly belonged to some one else!--Which signifies that I am devouring some other person's life.[45] Send for the priest; and in the meanwhile, lay me on my bed, from which I shall not rise again."

Malánya Pávlovna was in utter consternation, but she put the old man to bed, and sent for the priest. Alexyéi Sergyéitch made his confession, received the holy communion, took leave of the members of his household, and began to sink into a stupor. Malánya Pávlovna was sitting beside his bed.

"Alexis!" she suddenly shrieked, "do not frighten me, do not close thy dear eyes! Hast thou any pain?"

The old man looked at his wife.--"No, I have no pain ... but I find it ... rather difficult ... difficult to breathe." Then, after a brief pause:--"Malániushka," he said, "now life has galloped past--but dost thou remember our wedding ... what a fine young couple we were?"

"We were, my beauty, Alexis my incomparable one!"

Again the old man remained silent for a space.

"And shall we meet again in the other world, Malániushka?"

"I shall pray to God that we may, Alexis."--And the old woman burst into tears.

"Come, don't cry, silly one; perchance the Lord God will make us young again there--and we shall again be a fine young pair!"

"He will make us young, Alexis!"

"Everything is possible to Him, to the Lord," remarked Alexyéi Sergyéitch.--"He is a worker of wonders!--I presume He will make thee a clever woman also.... Come, my dear, I was jesting; give me thy hand to kiss."

"And I will kiss thine."

And the two old people kissed each other's hands.

Alexyéi Sergyéitch began to quiet down and sink into a comatose state. Malánya Pávlovna gazed at him with emotion, brushing the tears from her eyelashes with the tip of her finger. She sat thus for a couple of hours.

"Has he fallen asleep?" asked in a whisper the old woman who knew how to pray so tastily, peering out from behind Irinárkh, who was standing as motionless as a pillar at the door, and staring intently at his dying master.

"Yes," replied Malánya Pávlovna, also in a whisper. And suddenly Alexyéi Sergyéitch opened his eyes.

"My faithful companion," he stammered, "my respected spouse, I would like to bow myself to thy feet for all thy love and faithfulness--but how am I to rise? Let me at least sign thee with the cross."

Malánya Pávlovna drew nearer, bent over.... But the hand which had been raised fell back powerless on the coverlet, and a few moments later Alexyéi Sergyéitch ceased to be.

His daughters with their husbands only arrived in time for the funeral; neither one of them had any children. Alexyéi Sergyéitch had not discriminated against them in his will, although he had not referred to them on his death-bed.

"My heart is locked against them," he had said to me one day. Knowing his kind-heartedness, I was surprised at his words.--It is a difficult matter to judge between parents and children.--"A vast ravine begins with a tiny rift," Alexyéi Sergyéitch had said to me on another occasion, referring to the same subject. "A wound an arshín long will heal over, but if you cut off so much as a nail, it will not grow again!"

I have an idea that the daughters were ashamed of their eccentric old folks.

A month later Malánya Pávlovna expired also. She hardly rose from her bed again after the day of Alexyéi Sergyéitch's death, and did not array herself; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and with the medal of Orlóff on her shoulder, only minus the diamonds. The daughters shared those between them, under the pretext that those diamonds were to be used for the setting of holy pictures; but as a matter of fact they used them to adorn their own persons.