Part 7

Piótr Feódorovitch rose, took a candle, raised it to the portraits, and in the voice of a man who is exhibiting wild animals, "Gentlemen!" he proclaimed: "this lady is the adopted daughter of my own great-grandfather, Olga Ivánovna NN., called Lutchínoff, who died unmarried forty years ago. This gentleman,"--pointing to the portrait of the man in uniform,--"is sergeant of the Guards, Vasíly Ivánovitch Lutchínoff, who departed this life, by the will of God, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety. And this gentleman, to whom I have not the honour to be related, is a certain Pável Afanásievitch Rogatchyóff, who never served anywhere, so far as I am aware. Please to note the hole which is in his breast, in the exact place of the heart. This hole, which is, as you see, regular, and three-cornered, probably could not have happened accidentally.... Now,"--he went on in his ordinary voice,--"please to take your seats, arm yourselves with patience, and listen."

GENTLEMEN (he began) I descend from a fairly ancient race. I am not proud of my descent, because my ancestors were all frightful spendthrifts. This reproach, however, does not apply to my great-grandfather, Iván Andréevitch Lutchínoff,--on the contrary, he bore the reputation of being an extraordinarily penurious and even miserly man--during the last years of his life, at all events. He passed his youth in Petersburg, and was a witness of Elizavéta's reign. In Petersburg he married, and had by his wife, who was also my great-grandmother, four children--three sons, Vasíly, Iván and Pável (my grandfather), and one daughter, Natálya. In addition to these, Iván Andréevitch took into his family the daughter of a distant relative, a full and nameless orphan,--Olga Ivánovna, of whom I have already spoken. My great-grandfather's subjects were, probably, aware of his existence, because they were in the habit of sending to him (when no particular catastrophe had happened) a very considerable sum in quit-rents;--but they had never beheld his face. The village of Lutchínovko, deprived of the light of its master's countenance, was thriving,--when, all of a sudden, one fine morning, a heavy travelling carriage drove into the village, and drew up in front of the Elder's cottage. The peasants, startled by such an unprecedented event, flocked thither and beheld their master, mistress, and all the pair's offspring, with the exception of the eldest, Vasíly, who had remained in Petersburg. From that memorable day forth, and to the very day of his death, Iván Andréevitch never quitted Lutchínovko. He built himself a house, this very house in which I now have the pleasure of chatting with you; he also built the church, and began to live the life of a landed proprietor. Iván Andréevitch was a man of huge stature, gaunt, taciturn, and extremely slow in all his movements; he never wore a dressing-gown, and no one, with the exception of his valet, had ever seen him with unpowdered hair. Iván Andréevitch habitually walked with his hands clasped behind his back, slowly turning his head at every step. Every day he walked in the long linden alley, which he had planted with his own hands,--and before his death he had the satisfaction of enjoying the shade of those lindens.

Iván Andréevitch was extremely parsimonious of his words; this remarkable circumstance may serve as a proof of his taciturnity--that in the space of twenty years he never said a single word to his spouse, Anna Pávlovna. Altogether, his relations to Anna Pávlovna were of a very strange nature.--She administered all the domestic affairs, at dinner she always sat by her husband's side,--he would ruthlessly have chastised any man who presumed to utter one disrespectful word to her,--and yet he himself never spoke to her, and never touched her hand. Anna Pávlovna was a pale, timid, crushed woman; every day she prayed in church on her knees,[18] and never smiled. It was said that formerly, that is to say, before their arrival in the country, they had lived in grand style; it was said, also, that Anna Pávlovna had broken her marital vows, that her husband had found out about her fault.... However that may have been, Iván Andréevitch, even when he lay dying, did not become reconciled to her. She never left him during his last illness; but he seemed not to notice her. One night, Anna Pávlovna was sitting in Iván Andréevitch's bedroom; he was tortured with insomnia; the shrine-lamp was burning in front of the holy picture; my great-grandfather's servant, Yúditch, concerning whom I shall have a couple of words to say to you hereafter, had left the room. Anna Pávlovna rose, crossed the chamber, and flung herself, sobbing, on her knees before her husband's bed, tried to say something--and stretched out her arms.... Iván Andréevitch looked at her--and shouted in a weak but firm voice: "Man!" The servant entered. Anna Pávlovna hastily rose to her feet, and returned, reeling, to her place.

Iván Andréevitch's children were extremely afraid of him. They grew up in the country, and were witnesses of Iván Andréevitch's strange behaviour to his wife. They all passionately loved Anna Pávlovna, but dared not express their love. She herself seemed to shun them.... You remember my grandfather, gentlemen: to the day of his death, he always used to go about on tiptoe, and he spoke in a whisper .... that 's what habit will do! My grandfather and his brother Iván Ivánovitch were plain, kind, peaceable and melancholy people; my _grand'tante_ Natálya married a coarse, stupid man, as you know, and until her death cherished for him a dumb, servile, sheep-like love; but their brother Vasíly was not like that.

I think I have told you that Iván Andréevitch left him in Petersburg. He was twenty years old at the time. His father confided him to the care of a distant relative, a man no longer young, a bachelor and a frightful Voltairian.

Vasíly grew up, and entered the service. He was small of stature, but well built and extremely agile; he spoke French splendidly, and was renowned for his skill at fighting with the broadsword. He was considered one of the most brilliant young men of the beginning of Katherine II's reign. My father often told me that he knew more than one old woman who could not mention Vasíly Ivánovitch Lutchínoff without heartfelt emotion. Picture to yourself a man gifted with remarkable strength of will, passionate and calculating, patient and daring, secretive to the last degree and--according to the words of all his contemporaries--bewitchingly, enchantingly amiable. He had neither conscience nor good-nature nor honour, although no one could call him a positively bad man. He was selfish--but knew how to conceal his selfishness, and was passionately fond of independence. When Vasíly Ivánovitch used, smilingly, to screw up his black eyes, when he wanted to fascinate any one, they say that it was impossible to resist him--and even people who were convinced of the coldness and hardness of his spirit more than once surrendered to the bewitching power of his influence. He zealously served himself, and made others toil also for his benefit, and always succeeded in everything, because he never lost his head, did not disdain flattery as a means, and understood how to flatter.

Ten years after Iván Andréevitch settled in the country, he came to Lutchínovko as a brilliant officer of the Guards, for four months,--and in that space of time succeeded in turning the head even of the surly old man, his father. It is strange! Iván Andréevitch listened with delight to his son's tales of his conquests. His brothers were dumb in his presence, and admired him as a superior being. And even Anna Pávlovna herself came to love him almost more than all her other children, who were so sincerely devoted to her.

Vasíly Ivánovitch came to the country, in the first place, in order to see his relatives; but, in the second place also, in order to get as much money as possible out of his father. He had lived sumptuously and kept open house in Petersburg, and had contracted a multitude of debts. It was not easy for him to reconcile himself to his parent's stinginess, and, although Iván Andréevitch gave him for his trip alone more money, in all probability, than he gave all his other children in the space of the twenty years which they spent in the paternal house, yet Vasíly stuck to the familiar Russian rule: "Take all you can get!"

Iván Andréevitch had a servant, Yúditch by name, as tall, gaunt, and taciturn a man as his master. They say that this Yúditch was, in part, the cause of the strange behaviour of Iván Andréevitch to Anna Pávlovna: they say that it was he who discovered the guilty liaison of my great-grandmother with one of my great-grandfather's best friends. Probably Yúditch deeply repented of his ill-judged zeal, because it would be difficult to conceive of a more kind-hearted man. His memory is held sacred to this day by all my house-serfs. Yúditch enjoyed the unbounded confidence of my great-grandfather. At that period, landed proprietors had money, but did not hand it over to loan institutions for safe-keeping, but kept it themselves in coffers, in cellars, and the like. Iván Andréevitch kept all his money in a huge iron-bound coffer, which stood under the head of his bed. The key to this coffer was handed over to Yúditch. Every evening, when he went to bed, Iván Andréevitch ordered this chest to be opened in his presence, tapped all the tightly-stuffed sacks in turn with his cane, and on Saturdays, he and Yúditch untied the sacks and carefully counted over the money.

Vasíly found out about all these performances and was fired with a desire to rummage a bit in the sacred coffer. In the course of five or six days he _mollified_ Yúditch, that is to say, he reduced the poor old fellow to such a state that--as the saying is--he fairly worshipped his young master. After having properly prepared him, Vasíly assumed a careworn and gloomy aspect, for a long time refused to answer Yúditch's inquiries and, at last, told him that he had gambled away all his money, and intended to lay violent hands on himself if he did not obtain money from somewhere. Yúditch began to sob, flung himself on his knees before him, begged him to remember God, not to ruin his soul. Vasíly, without uttering a word, locked himself up in his chamber. After a while, he heard some one knocking cautiously on his door. He opened the door and beheld on the threshold Yúditch, pale and trembling, with a key in his hands. Vasíly immediately understood everything. At first he resisted for a long time. Yúditch kept repeating with tears: "Pray, master, take it!"... At last, Vasíly consented. This happened on Monday. The idea occurred to Vasíly to replace the money he abstracted with bits of glass. He reckoned on Iván Andréevitch's not paying any special heed to the barely perceptible difference in the sound when he tapped the sacks with his cane,--and by Saturday he hoped to obtain money and replace it in the sacks. No sooner thought than done. His father, in fact, did not notice anything. But Vasíly did not obtain money by Saturday: he had hoped, with the money he had taken, to clean out at the card-table a certain wealthy neighbour--and, on the contrary, he lost everything himself. In the meantime, Saturday arrived; the turn came for the sacks stuffed with bits of glass. Picture to yourselves, gentlemen, the amazement of Iván Andréevitch!

"What 's the meaning of this?"--he thundered.

Yúditch made no reply.

"Hast thou stolen this money?"

"No, sir."

"Then has some one taken the key from thee?"

"I have not given the key to any one."

"Not to any one? If thou hast not given it to any one--thou art the thief. Confess!"

"I am not a thief, Iván Andréevitch."

"Whence came these bits of glass, damn it? So thou art deceiving me? For the last time I say to thee--confess!"

Yúditch hung his head and clasped his hands behind his back.

"Hey there, people!" shouted Iván Andréevitch in a raging voice.--"The rods!"

"What? You mean to .... whip ... me?" whispered Yúditch.

"Thou shalt catch it! And how art thou any better than the rest? Thou art a thief! Well, now, Yúditch! I had not expected such rascality from thee!"

"I have grown grey in your service, Iván Andréevitch," said Yúditch with an effort.

"And what care I about thy grey hair? May the devil take thee and thy service!"

The people entered.

"Take him, and give him a good flogging!"

Iván Andréevitch's lips were pale and trembling. He ramped about the room like a wild beast in a confined cage.

The men did not dare to execute his commands.

"What are you standing there for, you vile serfs? have I got to lay hands on him myself, I 'd like to know?"

Yúditch started for the door.

"Stop!" yelled Iván Andréevitch.--"Yúditch, for the last time I say to thee, I entreat thee, Yúditch, confess."

"I cannot," moaned Yúditch.

"Then seize him, the old sycophant!... Flog him to death! On my head be it!" thundered the maddened old man. The torture began....

Suddenly the door flew open, and Vasíly entered. He was almost paler than his father, his hands trembled, his upper lip was raised and disclosed a row of white, even teeth.

"I am guilty," he said in a dull but steady voice.--"I took the money."

The men stopped short.

"Thou! what?! thou, Váska! without the consent of Yúditch?"

"No!"--said Yúditch:--"with my consent. I myself gave the key to Vasíly Ivánovitch. Dear little father, Vasíly Ivánovitch! why have you deigned to trouble yourself?"

"So that 's who the thief is!"--shouted Iván Andréevitch.--"Thanks, Vasíly, thanks! But I shall not spare thee, Yúditch, all the same. Why didst not thou confess all to me at once? Hey, there, you! why have you stopped? or do you no longer recognise my authority? And I 'll settle with you, my dear little dove!" he added, turning to Vasíly.

The men were on the point of setting to work again on Yúditch.

"Don't touch him!" whispered Vasíly through his teeth. The servants did not heed him.--"Back!" he shouted, and hurled himself upon them.... They staggered back.

"Ah! a rebel!"--moaned Iván Andréevitch, and raising his cane, he advanced on his son.

Vasíly leaped aside, grasped the hilt of his sword, and bared it half-way. All began to tremble. Anna Pávlovna, attracted by the noise, frightened and pale, made her appearance in the doorway.

Iván Andréevitch's face underwent a frightful change. He staggered, dropped his cane, and fell heavily into an arm-chair, covering his face with both hands. No one stirred; all stood as though rooted to the spot, not excepting even Vasíly. He convulsively gripped the steel hilt of his sword, his eyes flashed with a morose, evil gleam....

"Go away all ... begone,"--said Iván Andréevitch in a low voice, without removing his hands from his face.

The whole throng withdrew. Vasíly halted on the threshold, then suddenly tossed his head, embraced Yúditch, kissed his mother's hand ... and two hours later he was no longer in the village. He had departed for Petersburg.

On the evening of that day, Yúditch was sitting on the porch of the house-serfs' cottage. The servants swarmed around him, pitied him, and bitterly blamed the master.

"Stop, my lads," he said to them at last;--"enough of that .... why do you abuse him? I don't believe that he, our dear little father, is pleased himself with his desperate deed...."

As a result of this affair, Vasíly never saw his parents again. Iván Andréevitch died without him, probably with such grief at his heart as may God spare any of us from experiencing. In the meantime, Vasíly Ivánovitch went out in society, made merry after his own fashion, and squandered money. How he obtained the money, I cannot say with certainty. He procured for himself a French servant, a clever and intelligent young fellow, a certain Boursier. This man became passionately attached to him, and aided him in all his numerous performances. I have no intention of narrating to you in detail all the pranks of my great-uncle; he distinguished himself by such unbounded audacity, such snaky tact, such incredible cold-bloodedness, such adroit and subtle wit, that, I must confess, I can understand the limitless power of that unprincipled man over the most noble souls....

Soon after his father's death, Vasíly Ivánovitch, notwithstanding all his tact, was challenged to a duel by an outraged husband. He fought, severely wounded his antagonist, and was forced to quit the capital: he was ordered to reside permanently on his hereditary estate. Vasíly Ivánovitch was thirty years of age. You can easily imagine, gentlemen, with what feelings this man, who had become accustomed to the brilliant life of the capital, journeyed to his native place. They say that, on the road, he frequently got out of his kibítka, flung himself face down on the snow, and wept. No one in Lutchínovko recognised the former jolly, amiable Vasíly Ivánovitch. He spoke to no one, he went off hunting from morning until night, with visible impatience endured the timid caresses of his mother, and jeered pitilessly at his brothers, and at their wives (both of them were already married)....

So far I have said nothing to you, I believe, about Olga Ivánovna. She had been brought to Lutchínovko as an infant at the breast; she had almost died on the way. Olga Ivánovna had been reared, as the saying is, in the fear of God and of her parents.... It must be confessed that Iván Andréevitch and Anna Pávlovna both treated her like a daughter. But there was concealed in her a feeble spark of that fire which blazed so brightly in the soul of Vasíly Ivánovitch. In the meantime, while Iván Andréevitch's own children did not dare to indulge in conjectures concerning the strange, speechless quarrel between their parents, Olga, from her earliest years had been disturbed and pained by the position of Anna Pávlovna. Like Vasíly, she loved independence; all oppression revolted her. She had attached herself to her benefactress with all the powers of her soul; she hated old Lutchínoff, and more than once, as she sat at table, she had fixed upon him such sombre glances, that even the man who was serving the viands felt frightened. Iván Andréevitch did not notice all those glances, because, in general, he paid no attention whatever to his family.

At first, Anna Pávlovna endeavoured to exterminate this hatred in her--but several bold questions on Olga's part forced her to complete silence. Iván Andréevitch's children adored Olga, and the old woman loved her also, although with rather a cold affection.

Prolonged sorrow had crushed all cheerfulness, all strong feeling, in this poor woman; nothing so clearly proves Vasíly's bewitching amiability as the fact that he made even his mother love him ardently. Effusions of tenderness on the part of children was not in the spirit of that age, and therefore it is not surprising that Olga did not venture to display her devotion, although she always kissed Anna Pávlovna's hand with particular respect in the evening, when she bade her good-night. She was barely able to read and write. Twenty years later, Russian girls began to read novels in the style of the "Adventures of Marquis G***,"--"Fanfan and Lolotte,"--of "Alexyéi; or, The Cot in the Forest";--they began to learn to play on the clavichord and to sing romances in the style of the following, once very familiar song:

"Men in the light Cling to us like flies"--and so forth.

But in the '70s (Olga Ivánovna was born in the year 1757), our rustic beauties had no conception of all these accomplishments. It would be difficult for us now to picture to ourselves a young Russian girl of good birth of that epoch. We can, it is true, judge from our grandmothers as to the degree of education of noble gentlewomen in the times of Katherine II; but how is one to distinguish that which was inculcated in them in the course of their long life, from that which they were in the days of their youth?

Olga Ivánovna spoke a little French, but with a strong Russian accent; in her day, there was no thought of such a thing as the _emigrés_.[19] In a word, with all her good qualities, she was, nevertheless, a decided _savage_, and, probably, in the simplicity of her heart, she more than once administered chastisement with her own hands to some unlucky maid....

Some time before Vasíly Ivánovitch's arrival, Olga Ivánovna had been betrothed to a neighbour,--Pável Afanásievitch Rogatchyóff, an extremely good-natured and honourable man. Nature had forgotten to endow him with gall. His own servants did not obey him; they sometimes all went off, from the first to the last of them, and left poor Rogatchyóff without any dinner ... but nothing could disturb the tranquillity of his soul. He had been distinguished, even from his childhood, by his obesity and sluggishness; he had never served anywhere, and he was fond of going to church and singing in the choir. Look at that good-natured, round face, gentlemen; gaze at that tranquil, brilliant smile .... does not it make you feel cheerful yourselves? Once in a while his father had driven over to Lutchínovko, and had brought with him, on festival days, his Pávlusha, whom the little Lutchínoffs tormented in every possible way. Pávlusha grew up, began to go to Iván Andréevitch's of his own accord, fell in love with Olga Ivánovna, and offered her his hand and his heart--not to her personally, but to her benefactors. Her benefactors gave their consent. They never even thought of asking Olga Ivánovna whether she liked Rogatchyóff. At that epoch,--as our grandmothers used to say,--"such luxuries were not in fashion." But Olga speedily got used to her betrothed: it was impossible not to grow attached to that gentle, indulgent being.

Rogatchyóff had received no education whatsoever; all he could say in French was "bonzhour"--and in secret he even regarded that word as improper. And some jester had also taught him the following, which professed to be a French song: "Sónetchka, Sónetchka! Que voulez-vous de moi--I adore you--mais je ne peux pas."... He was always humming this song in an undertone when he felt in good spirits. His father also was a man of indescribably kind disposition; he was forever going about in a long nankeen coat, and no matter what was said to him, he assented to everything with a smile.

From the time of Pável Afanásievitch's betrothal both the Rogatchyóffs--father and son--began to bustle about frightfully; they made over their house, they built on various "galleries," they chatted in friendly wise with the workmen, they treated them to vodka. They did not manage to finish all the additional building by winter--so they deferred the wedding until the summer; in the summer, Iván Andréevitch died--and the wedding was postponed until the following spring; in the winter, Vasíly Ivánovitch arrived. Rogatchyóff was introduced to him; Vasíly received him coldly and carelessly, and in the course of time, frightened him to such a degree by his arrogant treatment that poor Rogatchyóff quivered like a leaf at his mere appearance, maintained silence, and smiled constrainedly. Vasíly once came near driving him off for good--by offering to bet with him that he, Rogatchyóff, was unable to stop smiling. Poor Pável Afanásievitch almost wept with confusion, but--'t is an actual fact!--the smile, the very stupid, constrained smile, would not quit his face! And Vasíly slowly toyed with the ends of his neckcloth, and stared at him in quite too scornful a manner.