Another time, I remember, I looked in at the village infirmary of Krasnogore to see my friend Kapiton, the medical orderly, who was a keen sportsman.
The infirmary consisted of what had been an outlying wing of the manor house; the lady herself had arranged it, that’s to say, she had ordered that upon the door should be stuck up a blue board with the inscription in white letters “Infirmary of Krasnogore,” and had herself given Kapiton a handsome album to record the names of his patients. On the first page of this album, one of the good lady’s spongers and toadies had written the following lines:
Dans ces beaux lieux, où règne l’allégresse,
Ce temple fut ouvert par la Beauté;
De vos seigneurs admirez la tendresse,
Bons habitants de Krasnogorié!
and another gentleman had added below:
Et moi aussi j’aime la nature!
Jean Kobyliatnikoff.
The orderly had bought six beds at his own expense and, wishing himself luck, had launched out on his career of healing. Besides himself, the hospital staff consisted of two: Pavel the wood-carver, who was subject to fits of madness, and a peasant woman named Melikitrisa, who had a shrivelled arm and occupied the position of cook. Both of them prepared medicines and dried herbs and made infusions from them; they also calmed patients with the fever; the mad wood-carver had a surly appearance and was sparing of words; at night he sang a song about “Beauteous Venus,” and approached every passer-by with the request that he should be allowed to marry a girl named Malanya, who had been dead for some time. The woman with the shrivelled arm used to beat him and make him take care of the turkeys. Well, one day I was sitting with Kapiton, the orderly. We had started talking about our last shoot, when suddenly a cart drove into the yard, harnessed to an unusually stout gray horse of the sort that only millers possess. In the cart sat a sturdy peasant in a new overcoat, with a pepper and salt beard. “Hey, Vasily Dmitrich,” called Kapiton from the window, “welcome to you. . . . It’s the miller from Lyubovshin,” he whispered to me. With a groan, the peasant climbed down from the cart, came into the orderly’s room, looked for the icon, and crossed himself. “Well, Vasily Dmitrich, what’s the news? Why, you must be poorly: your face is off-color.” “Yes, Kapiton Timofeich, I’ve got something wrong.” “What’s the matter?” “Here’s the matter, Kapiton Timofeich. The other day I bought some grindstones in the town; well, I brought them home, and, as I was getting them out of the cart, I must have strained myself or something, there was a sort of ‘plonk’ in my innards as if something had torn . . . And, ever since, I’ve been poorly all the time. To-day it’s pretty bad.” “H’m,” said Kapiton, and took a pinch of snuff. “It must be rupture. Is it long since it took you that way?” “Ten days.” “Ten?” The orderly drew in a long breath through his teeth and shook his head. “Let me feel you. . . . Well, Vasily Dmitrich,” he said at last, “I’m sorry for you with all my heart, but you’re in a bad way; you’re ill, beyond a joke; you’d better stay here. I’ll do my best for you, but I don’t promise anything.” “Is it as bad as that?” murmured the miller in astonishment. “Yes, Vasily Dmitrich, it’s bad; if you’d come to me two days earlier, it would have been nothing at all, just a hand’s turn; but now you’ve got inflammation, that’s the trouble; before you’ve time to look, it’ll have turned to gangrene.” “But it can’t be, Kapiton Timofeich!” “But I tell you it is.” “But how can it be?” The orderly shrugged his shoulders. “And am I going to die from this sort of nonsense?” “That, I didn’t say . . . but just you stay here.” The peasant thought and thought, looked at the floor, then glanced at us, scratched the back of his head, and reached for his cap. “Where are you off to, Vasily Dmitrich?” “Where to? Why, home of course, if I’m as bad as that. I must put things in order, if that’s how it is.” “But you’ll bring on the worst, Vasily Dmitrich, for goodness’ sake; why, even as it is, I can’t think how you got here. Stay.” “No, Kapiton Timofeich, my friend, if I’ve got to die, I’ll die at home; if I die here, God knows what will happen at home.” “It’s too early yet to say how it will go, Vasily Dmitrich. . . . Of course there’s danger, great danger, and no denying it, but that’s all the more reason for your staying.” The peasant shook his head. “No, Kapiton Timofeich, I won’t stay . . . just you prescribe me a little medicine.” “Medicine alone won’t help you.” “I’m not staying, I tell you.” “Well, do as you like, only don’t blame me afterwards!”
The orderly tore a page from the album and, after writing out a prescription, gave certain further instructions. The peasant took the paper, gave Kapiton half a ruble, left the room, and took his place in the cart. “Well, good-bye, Kapiton Timofeich, don’t hold it against me, and don’t forget the orphans, if anything . . .” “Hey, Vasily, stay here!” The peasant simply jerked his head, flicked his horses with the reins and drove out of the yard. I went into the road and looked after him. The road was muddy and full of pot-holes; the miller was driving carefully, unhurriedly, guiding his horse with skill, exchanging greetings with passers-by. Three days later he was dead.
Yes, people die strangely in Russia. I can call many such cases to mind. I remember my old friend Avenir Sorokoümov, the student who never finished his studies—the best and noblest of men. I can see again his greenish, consumptive face, his thin blond hair, his gentle smile, his look of enthusiasm, his long limbs; I can hear his soft sweet voice. He lived with a landowner in Great Russia named Gur Krupyanikov, taught his children, Fofa and Zyozya, reading and writing in Russian, geography, and history, patiently bore the heavy jokes of Gur Krupyanikov himself and the coarse familiarities of the butler and the vulgar pranks of the naughty little boys; with a bitter smile, but without a murmur, he carried out the capricious demands of his bored lady; then the relief, the sheer bliss, when, after dinner, finished at last with all duties and occupations, he could sit down before the window and reflectively smoke a pipe, or dip avidly into some mutilated, greasy copy of a bulky journal, brought from town by the surveyor, another homeless wretch like himself! How he loved all kinds of poems and stories; how easily tears started in his eyes; how gaily he laughed; how sincerely he loved his fellows; how penetrated with noble sympathy for everything good and beautiful was that pure and youthful soul! The truth must out: no special brilliance was his; nature had endowed him with neither memory nor concentration; at the University he passed for one of the worst students; at lectures he slept, at examinations he preserved a solemn silence; but whose were the eyes that shone with joy, whose the breath that had a catch in it, at the success or triumph of a comrade? Avenir’s. . . . Who believed blindly in the high calling of his friends? Who would extol them with pride and defend them with ferocity? Who knew no envy, no self-love? Who would sacrifice himself without a thought of his own interests? Who would eagerly take second place after people unworthy to undo the latchet of his shoes? . . . Always our good Avenir! I remember how brokenheartedly he took leave of his friends as he drove away on his “contract”; what evil forebodings beset him . . . And with reason: in the country he fared ill; in the country there was no one for him to listen to with reverence, no one to admire, no one to love. . . . The gentry, boors and cultivated ones alike, treated him as a tutor, some roughly, others with indifference. Indeed he was not an impressive figure; shy, blushing, sweating, stammering. . . . Even his health got no benefit from the country air; the poor fellow wasted away like a candle. True, his little room opened on to the garden; cherries, apple-trees, and limes scattered over his table, his ink-pot, his books, their light blossoms; on the wall hung a little blue silk cushion for his watch, given to him at the moment of parting by a kind and sensitive German governess with fair hair and blue eyes; now and then an old friend came out to see him from Moscow and delighted him with verses composed by others or even by himself; but the loneliness, the intolerable slavery of the tutor’s condition, the impossibility of freeing himself from it, the endless autumns and winters, the persistent malady . .
. Poor, poor Avenir!
I visited Sorokoümov not long before his death. He was already practically unable to walk. The landowner Gur Krupyanikov did not turn him out of his house, but stopped paying his wages, and Zyozya was given another tutor. Fofa had been sent off to the Corps of Cadets. Avenir was sitting by the window in an old armchair of Voltairean design. It was a wonderful day. The bright autumn sky was gay and blue above a dark-brown wall of bare lime trees, on which, here and there, the last bright-gold leaves stirred and fluttered. The frost-pierced earth was sweating and thawing in the sun; its slanting, ruddy rays fell lightly on the pale grass; a faint crackling could be heard in the air; workers’ voices came loud and clear from the garden. Avenir wore an old Bokhara robe; a green neckerchief threw a corpse-like tinge over his terribly emaciated face. He was very glad to see me, held out his hand, talked, and coughed. I made him collect himself and sat down beside him . . . On Avenir’s knees lay a notebook containing Koltsov’s poems, carefully written out; he tapped it, with a smile. “There’s a poet for you!” he murmured, smothering a cough with an effort and beginning to recite in a scarcely audible voice:
Is the falcon’s
Pinion bound?
Or his journeying
Hedged around?
I stopped him: it was against doctor’s orders for him to talk too long. I knew how to please him. Sorokoümov had never “kept up,” as they say, with science, but he liked hearing, as he put it, “how far our great minds have got.” He would take a friend aside into a corner and begin cross-examining him: he would listen, he would be astonished, he would believe every word, and repeat it all after his friend. German philosophy interested him especially. I began talking to him about Hegel. (It is a story of days long since, as you can see.) Avenir nodded his head approvingly, raised his eyebrows, smiled, whispered: “I see, I see! . . . Oh, good, good!” I confess that the childlike curiosity of this poor wretch, dying homeless and abandoned, touched me to tears. I should observe that Avenir, unlike consumptives in general, had no sort of illusions about his illness . . . and yet he never sighed, showed no sign of distress, never even alluded to his condition. . . .
After mustering his strength, he began to talk of Moscow, his friends, Pushkin, the theater, Russian literature; he mentioned our carouses, the heated discussions of our circle, and pronounced with regret the names of two or three of our friends who had died.
“D’you remember Dasha?” he added at last. “There was a heart of solid gold! and how she loved me! . . . What’s become of her now? I suppose the poor girl has faded and pined away?”
I had not the heart to disillusion the sick man—and indeed, why should he know that his Dasha was now broader than she was long, went around with merchants, with the brothers Kondrachkov, that she powdered and rouged herself and had become a squeaking scold. And yet, I thought, looking at his exhausted face, is it impossible to get him out of here? It may be that there is still a chance of moving him . . . But Avenir didn’t allow me to finish my suggestion.
“No, thank you, my friend,” he said. “It’s all the same to me where I die. I shan’t see the winter . . . Why upset people to no purpose? I’ve got used to this house! It’s true that the family here . . .”
“Nasty, eh?” I took him up.
“No, not nasty; just wooden. But I can’t complain about them. There are neighbors: the landowner Kasatkin has a daughter, a cultivated, charming, delightful girl . . . not proud . . .”
Sorokoümov had another coughing fit.
“I shouldn’t mind at all,” he went on, when he had got his breath, “if only they allowed me to smoke my pipe . . . But I won’t die without managing to smoke one first,” he added with a cunning wink. “Praise be to God, I’ve lived my time, I’ve known some good people . . .”
“You might write to your family,” I interrupted him.
“What for? Help—they won’t give it; if I die—they’ll find out. So there’s nothing more to be said about it. No, tell me what you saw when you were abroad.”
I began to tell him. He fairly drank my words in. Towards evening I left, and ten days later I got the following letter from Mr. Krupyanikov.
“I have the honor, my dear Sir, to advise you hereby that your friend, the student who lived in my house, Mr. Avenir Sorokoümov, passed away three days ago at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and that to-day he was buried at my expense in my parish church. He asked me to forward to you the enclosed books and notebooks. He left 22½ rubles, which, with his other effects, are being duly transmitted to his relatives. Your friend was fully conscious when he passed away and, I may also say, fully insensible, for he showed no signs of regret, even when my whole family said good-bye to him. My wife Kleopatra Alexandrovna sends you her regards. The death of your friend could not fail to have its effect on her nerves; for my own part, I am, thank God, in good health, and have the honour to remain,
Your most humble Servant,
G. Krupyanikov.”
Many more instances still come to mind, but I cannot relate them all. I will confine myself to one.
I was present at the death of an old lady, the wife of a landowner. The priest had begun to read the last rites over her, when suddenly he noticed that the sick woman was really expiring and hurriedly gave her the cross. The lady moved back in displeasure. “Why so quick, Father?” she said, with faltering tongue. “There’s plenty of time . . .” She kissed the cross, put her hand under the pillow, and—drew her last breath. Under the pillow lay a silver ruble: she had wanted to pay the priest for her own last rites . . .
Yes, death takes the Russian strangely!
The Singers
THE SMALL VILLAGE OF KOLOTOVKA, WHICH ONCE BELONGED to a lady known in the neighborhood as Fidget from her bold and spirited ways (her real name is not recorded) but is now owned by some German or other from Petersburg, lies on the slope of a bare hill, cleft from top to bottom by a fearsome ravine, which, yawning like an abyss, winds its hollow, eroded way along the very middle of the village street, and, worse than any river (for a river could at least be bridged), divides the unfortunate hamlet into two. A few lean willows droop timidly along its sandy sides; at the bottom, which is dry and copper-yellow, lie huge flagstones of shale. A cheerless sight, there’s no denying—but nevertheless the road to Kolotovka is well-known to all the people of the neighborhood: they use it frequently and as a matter of course.
Right at the top of the ravine, a few paces off the spot where it begins as a narrow crevice, stands a small square cabin, on its own, apart from the others. It is thatched with straw and has a chimney; a single window, like a watchful eye, looks towards the ravine, and on winter evenings, lit up from within, can be seen from afar through the dull frost-haze and, for many a peasant on his way, shines out like a guiding star. Over the door of the cabin is nailed a little blue board; the cabin is a pot-house, and goes by the name of the “Snug Nook.” It is a pot-house where in all probability drinks are sold no cheaper than the fixed price, but it is much better attended than any other establishment of the same sort in the neighborhood. The reason for this is the tapster, Nikolai Ivanich.
Nikolai Ivanich was once a lithe, curly-headed, ruddy peasant lad, but is now an extremely stout, already grizzled man, with a face deep in fat, eyes of a sly benevolence, and a greasy forehead criss-crossed with a web of wrinkles. He has lived at Kolotovka for more than twenty years. Nikolai is a man of sagacity and resource, as most tapsters are. Without any special amiability or talkativeness, he has the knack of attracting and holding customers, who somehow find it entertaining to sit in front of his counter, under the calm, hospitable, but watchful eye of their phlegmatic host. He has plenty of common sense; he is well acquainted with the ways of landowner, peasant, and townsman; in difficult situations he can give shrewd advice, but, like the cautious egoist that he is, he prefers to stay on the sideline and goes no further than a vague hint, uttered as if without the least purpose, to guide his clients—and then only his favorite cli
ents—in the way of truth. He knows what he is talking about on every subject of importance or interest to the Russian male: horses and cattle, timber, bricks, crockery, textiles and leather, singing and dancing. When he has no custom, he is in the habit of sitting like a sack on the ground in front of the door of his cabin, his thin legs tucked up beneath him, swapping pleasantries with every passer-by. He has seen plenty in his time, has outlived more than a dozen of the lesser gentry who used to look in on him for a drop of “distilled,” knows everything that happens for a hundred versts around, never lets on, never shows so much as in his look that he knows what even the most penetrating police officer fails to suspect. He simply keeps mum, chuckles, and busies himself with the glasses. The neighbors respect him deeply: His Excellency Mr. Shcherepetenko, the leading magnate of the district, bows to him affably every time he passes his abode. Nikolai Ivanich is a man of influence: he forced a well-known horse-thief to return a horse stolen from someone of his acquaintance; he made the peasants of a neighboring village listen to reason when they had refused to accept a new factor, and so on. Incidentally, it mustn’t be supposed that he did this from love of fair play, from any zeal for his neighbors’ interest; no, he is simply at pains to avert anything that might in any way disturb his own peace. Nikolai Ivanich is married and has children. His wife, a brisk, sharp-nosed, quick-eyed townswoman, has lately put on a good deal of weight, just like her husband. He relies on her absolutely, and the money is locked up in her charge. The noisily-drunk hold her in awe; she dislikes them; there is no profit from them, only a lot of noise; the silent and sullen ones are closer to her heart. Nikolai’s children are still small. The first ones all died, but the survivors resemble their parents; it is a pleasure to look at these healthy children with their clever little faces.
A Sportsman's Notebook Page 26
