Chapter IV: Introduction: I (3)

‘Martin Petrovitch is clothed and cared for, and eats what we do. What more does he want? He declared himself that he wanted nothing more in this world but to think of his soul. If only he would realise that everything now, however you look at it, is ours. He says too that we don’t pay him his allowance. But we’ve not always got money ourselves; and what does he want with it, when he has everything provided him? And we treat him as one of the family too. I’m telling you the truth. The rooms, for instance, which he occupies--how we need them! there’s simply not room to turn round without them; but we don’t say a word--we put up with it. We even think how to provide amusement for him. There, on St. Peter’s Day, I bought him some excellent hooks in the town--real English ones, expensive hooks, to catch fish. There are lots of carp in our pond. Let him sit and fish; in an hour or two, there’d be a nice little fish soup provided. The most suitable occupation for old men.’

‘Vladimir Vassilitch!’ Evlampia called for the third time in an incisive tone, and she flung far away from her the grass she had been twisting in her fingers, ‘I am going!’ Her eyes met mine. ‘I am going, Vladimir Vassilievitch!’ she repeated, and vanished behind a bush.

‘I’m coming, Evlampia Martinovna, directly!’ shouted Sletkin. ‘Martin Petrovitch himself agrees with us now,’ he went on, turning again to me. ‘At first he was offended, certainly, and even grumbled, until, you know, he realised; he was, you remember, a hot-tempered violent man--more’s the pity! but there, he’s grown quite meek now. Because he sees his own interest. Your mamma--mercy on us! how she pitched into me!… To be sure: she’s a lady that sets as much store by her own authority as Martin Petrovitch used to do. But you come in and see for yourself. And you might put in a word when there’s an opportunity. I feel Natalia Nikolaevna’s bounty to me deeply. But we’ve got to live too.’

‘And how was it Zhitkov was refused?’ I asked.

‘Fedulitch? That dolt?’ Sletkin shrugged his shoulders. ‘Why, upon my word, what use could he have been? His whole life spent among soldiers--and now he has a fancy to take up farming. He can keep the peasants up to the mark, says he, because he’s been used to knocking men about. He can do nothing; even knocking men about wants some sense. Evlampia Martinovna refused him herself. He was a quite unsuitable person. All our farming would have gone to ruin with him!’

‘Coo--y!’ sounded Evlampia’s musical voice.

‘Coming! coming!’ Sletkin called back. He held out his hand to me. Though unwillingly, I took it.

‘I beg to take leave, Dmitri Semyonovitch,’ said Sletkin, showing all his white teeth. ‘Shoot wild snipe as much as you like. It’s wild game, belonging to no one. But if you come across a hare--you spare it; that game is ours. Oh, and something else! won’t you be having pups from your bitch? I should be obliged for one!’

‘Coo--y!’ Evlampia’s voice rang out again.

‘Coo--y!’ Sletkin responded, and rushed into the bushes.

XIX

I remember, when I was left alone, I was absorbed in wondering how it was Harlov had not pounded Sletkin ‘into a jelly,’ as he said, and how it was Sletkin had not been afraid of such a fate. It was clear Martin Petrovitch really had grown ‘meek,’ I thought, and I had a still stronger desire to make my way into Eskovo, and get at least a glance at that colossus, whom I could never picture to myself subdued and tractable. I had reached the edge of the copse, when suddenly a big snipe, with a great rush of wings, darted up at my very feet, and flew off into the depths of the wood. I took aim; my gun missed fire. I was greatly annoyed; it had been such a fine bird, and I made up my mind to try if I couldn’t make it rise a second time. I set off in the direction of its flight, and going some two hundred paces off into the wood I caught sight--in a little glade, under an overhanging birch-tree--not of the snipe, but of the same Sletkin once more. He was lying on his back, with both hands under his head, and with smile of contentment gazing upwards at the sky, swinging his left leg, which was crossed over his right knee. He did not notice my approach. A few paces from him, Evlampia was walking slowly up and down the little glade, with downcast eyes. It seemed as though she were looking for something in the grass--mushrooms or something; now and then, she stooped and stretched out her hand. She was singing in a low voice. I stopped at once, and fell to listening. At first I could not make out what it was she was singing, but afterwards I recognised clearly the following well-known lines of the old ballad:

‘Hither, hither, threatening storm-cloud,
Slay for me the father-in-law,
Strike for me the mother-in-law,
The young wife I will kill myself!’

Evlampia sang louder and louder; the last words she delivered with peculiar energy. Sletkin still lay on his back and laughed to himself, while she seemed all the time to be moving round and round him.

‘Oh, indeed!’ he commented at last. ‘The things that come into some people’s heads!’

‘What?’ queried Evlampia.

Sletkin raised his head a little. ‘What? Why, what words were those you were uttering?’

‘Why, you know, Volodya, one can’t leave the words out of a song,’ answered Evlampia, and she turned and saw me. We both cried out aloud at once, and both rushed away in opposite directions.

I made my way hurriedly out of the copse, and crossing a narrow clearing, found myself facing Harlov’s garden.

XX

I had no time, nor would it have been of any use, to deliberate over what I had seen. Only an expression kept recurring to my mind, ‘love spell,’ which I had lately heard, and over the signification of which I had pondered a good deal. I walked alongside the garden fence, and in a few moments, behind the silver poplars (they had not yet lost a single leaf, and the foliage was luxuriantly thick and brilliantly glistening), I saw the yard and two little lodges of Martin Petrovitch’s homestead. The whole place struck me as having been tidied up and pulled into shape. On every side one could perceive traces of unflagging and severe supervision. Anna Martinovna came out on to the steps, and screwing up her blue-grey eyes, gazed for a long while in the direction of the copse.

‘Have you seen the master?’ she asked a peasant, who was walking across the yard.

‘Vladimir Vassilitch?’ responded the latter, taking his cap off. ‘He went into the copse, surely.’

‘I know, he went to the copse. Hasn’t he come back? Haven’t you seen him?’

‘I’ve not seen him … nay.’

The peasant continued standing bareheaded before Anna Martinovna.

‘Well, you can go,’ she said. ‘Or no----wait a bit----where’s Martin Petrovitch? Do you know?’

‘Oh, Martin Petrovitch,’ answered the peasant, in a sing-song voice, alternately lifting his right and then his left hand, as though pointing away somewhere, ‘is sitting yonder, at the pond, with a fishing-rod. He’s sitting in the reeds, with a rod. Catching fish, maybe, God knows.’

‘Very well … you can go,’ repeated Anna Martinovna; ‘and put away that wheel, it’s lying about.’

The peasant ran to carry out her command, while she remained standing a few minutes longer on the steps, still gazing in the direction of the copse. Then she clenched one fist menacingly, and went slowly back into the house. ‘Axiutka!’ I heard her imperious voice calling within.

Anna Martinovna looked angry, and tightened her lips, thin enough at all times, with a sort of special energy. She was carelessly dressed, and a coil of loose hair had fallen down on to her shoulder. But in spite of the negligence of her attire, and her irritable humour, she struck me, just as before, as attractive, and I should have been delighted to kiss the narrow hand which looked malignant too, as she twice irritably pushed back the loose tress.

XXI

‘Can Martin Petrovitch have really taken to fishing?’ I asked myself, as I turned towards the pond, which was on one side of the garden. I got on to the dam, looked in all directions.… Martin Petrovitch was nowhere to be seen. I bent my steps along one of the banks of the pond, and at last, at the very top of it, in a little creek, in the midst of flat broken-down stalks of reddish reed, I caught sight of a huge greyish mass.… I looked intently: it was Harlov. Bareheaded, unkempt, in a cotton smock torn at the seams, with his legs crossed under him, he was sitting motionless on the bare earth. So motionless was he that a sandpiper, at my approach, darted up from the dry mud a couple of paces from him, and flew with a flash of its little wings and a whistle over the surface of the water, showing that no one had moved to frighten him for a long while. Harlov’s whole appearance was so extraordinary that my dog stopped short directly it saw him, lifted its tail, and growled. He turned his head a very little, and fixed his wild-looking eyes on me and my dog. He was greatly changed by his beard, though it was short, but thick and curly, in white tufts, like Astrachan fur. In his right hand lay the end of a rod, while the other end hovered feebly over the water. I felt an involuntary pang at my heart. I plucked up my spirits, however, went up to him, and wished him good morning. He slowly blinked as though just awake.

‘What are you doing, Martin Petrovitch,’ I began, ‘catching fish here?’

‘Yes … fish,’ he answered huskily, and pulled up the rod, on which there fluttered a piece of line, a fathom length, with no hook on it.

‘Your tackle is broken off,’ I observed, and noticed the same moment that there was no sign of bait-tin nor worms near Martin Petrovitch.… And what sort of fishing could there be in September?

‘Broken off?’ he said, and he passed his hand over his face. ‘But it’s all the same!’

He dropped the rod in again.

‘Natalia Nikolaevna’s son?’ he asked me, after the lapse of two minutes, during which I had been gazing at him with secret bewilderment. Though he had grown terribly thinner, still he seemed a giant. But what rags he was dressed in, and how utterly he had gone to pieces altogether!

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I’m the son of Natalia Nikolaevna B.’

‘Is she well?’

‘My mother is quite well. She was very much hurt at your refusal,’ I added; ‘she did not at all expect you would not wish to come and see her.’

Martin Petrovitch’s head sank on his breast. ‘Have you been there?’ he asked, with a motion of his head.

‘Where?’

‘There, at the house. Haven’t you? Go! What is there for you to do here? Go! It’s useless talking to me. I don’t like it.’

He was silent for a while.

‘You’d like to be always idling about with a gun! In my young days I used to be inclined the same way too. Only my father was strict and made me respect him too. Mind you, very different from fathers nowadays. My father flogged me with a horsewhip, and that was the end of it! I’d to give up idling about! And so I respected him.… Oo!… Yes!…’

Harlov paused again.

‘Don’t you stop here,’ he began again. ‘You go along to the house. Things are managed there now--it’s first-rate. Volodka’.… Here he faltered for a second. ‘Our Volodka’s a good hand at everything. He’s a fine fellow! yes, indeed, and a fine scoundrel too!’

I did not know what to say; Martin Petrovitch spoke very tranquilly.

‘And you go and see my daughters. You remember, I daresay, I had daughters. They’re managers too … clever ones. But I’m growing old, my lad; I’m on the shelf. Time to repose, you know.…’

‘Nice sort of repose!’ I thought, glancing round. ‘Martin Petrovitch!’ I uttered aloud, ‘you really must come and see us.’

Harlov looked at me. ‘Go along, my lad, I tell you.’

‘Don’t hurt mamma’s feelings; come and see us.’

‘Go away, my lad, go away,’ persisted Harlov. ‘What do you want to talk to me for?’

‘If you have no carriage, mamma will send you hers.’

‘Go along!’

‘But, really and truly, Martin Petrovitch!’

Harlov looked down again, and I fancied that his cheeks, dingy as though covered with earth, faintly flushed.

‘Really, do come,’ I went on. ‘What’s the use of your sitting here? of your making yourself miserable?’

‘Making myself miserable?’ he commented hesitatingly.

‘Yes, to be sure--making yourself miserable!’ I repeated.

Harlov said nothing, and seemed lost in musing. Emboldened by his silence, I determined to be open, to act straightforwardly, bluntly. (Do not forget, I was only fifteen then.)

‘Martin Petrovitch!’ I began, seating myself beside him. ‘I know everything, you see, positively everything. I know how your son-in-law is treating you--doubtless with the consent of your daughters. And now you are in such a position.… But why lose heart?’

Harlov still remained silent, and simply dropped in his line; while I--what a sensible fellow, what a sage I felt!

‘Doubtless,’ I began again, ‘you acted imprudently in giving up everything to your daughters. It was most generous on your part, and I am not going to blame you. In our days it is a quality only too rare! But since your daughters are so ungrateful, you ought to show a contempt--yes, a contempt--for them … and not fret----’

‘Stop!’ muttered Harlov suddenly, gnashing his teeth, and his eyes, staring at the pond, glittered wrathfully.… ‘Go away!’

‘But, Martin Petrovitch----’

‘Go away, I tell you, … or I’ll kill you!’

I had come quite close to him; but at the last words I instinctively jumped up. ‘What did you say, Martin Petrovitch?’

‘I’ll kill you, I tell you; go away!’ With a wild moan, a roar, the words broke from Harlov’s breast, but he did not turn his head, and still stared wrathfully straight in front of him. ‘I’ll take you and fling you and your fool’s counsel into the water. You shall learn to pester the old, little milksop!’

‘He’s gone mad!’ flashed through my mind.

I looked at him more attentively, and was completely petrified; Martin Petrovitch was weeping!! Tear after tear rolled from his eyelashes down his cheeks … while his face had assumed an expression utterly savage.…

‘Go away!’ he roared once more, ‘or I’ll kill you, by God! for an example to others!’

He was shaking all over from side to side, and showing his teeth like a wild boar. I snatched up my gun and took to my heels. My dog flew after me, barking. He, too, was frightened.

When I got home, I naturally did not, by so much as a word, to my mother, hint at what I had seen; but coming across Souvenir, I told him--the devil knows why--all about it. That loathsome person was so delighted at my story, shrieking with laughter, and even dancing with pleasure, that I could hardly forbear striking him.

‘Ah! I should like,’ he kept repeating breathless with laughter, ‘to see that fiend, the Swede, Harlov, crawling into the mud and sitting in it.…’

‘Go over to the pond if you’re so curious.’

‘Yes; but how if he kills me?’

I felt horribly sick at Souvenir, and regretted my ill-timed confidence.… Zhitkov, to whom he repeated my tale, looked at the matter somewhat differently.

‘We shall have to call in the police,’ he concluded, ‘or, may be, we may have to send for a battalion of military.’

His forebodings with regard to the military battalion did not come true; but something extraordinary really did happen.

XXII

In the middle of October, three weeks after my interview with Martin Petrovitch, I was standing at the window of my own room in the second storey of our house, and thinking of nothing at all, I looked disconsolately into the yard and the road that lay beyond it. The weather had been disgusting for the last five days. Shooting was not even to be thought of. All things living had hidden themselves; even the sparrows made no sound, and the rooks had long ago disappeared from sight. The wind howled drearily, then whistled spasmodically. The low-hanging sky, unbroken by one streak of light, had changed from an unpleasant whitish to a leaden and still more sinister hue; and the rain, which had been pouring and pouring, mercilessly and unceasingly, had suddenly become still more violent and more driving, and streamed with a rushing sound over the panes. The trees had been stripped utterly bare, and turned a sort of grey. It seemed they had nothing left to plunder; yet the wind would not be denied, but set to harassing them once more. Puddles, clogged with dead leaves, stood everywhere. Big bubbles, continually bursting and rising up again, leaped and glided over them. Along the roads, the mud lay thick and impassable. The cold pierced its way indoors through one’s clothes to the very bones. An involuntary shiver passed over the body, and how sick one felt at heart! Sick, precisely, not sad. It seemed there would never again in the world be sunshine, nor brightness, nor colour, but this rain and mire and grey damp, and raw fog would last for ever, and for ever would the wind whine and moan! Well, I was standing moodily at my window, and I remember a sudden darkness came on--a bluish darkness--though the clock only pointed to twelve. Suddenly I fancied I saw a bear dash across our yard from the gates to the steps! Not on all-fours, certainly, but as he is depicted when he gets up on his hind-paws. I could not believe my eyes. If it were not a bear I had seen, it was, any way, something enormous, black shaggy.… I was still lost in wonder as to what it could be, when suddenly I heard below a furious knocking. It seemed something utterly unlooked for, something terrible was stumbling headlong into our house. Then began a commotion, a hurrying to and fro.…

I quickly went down the stairs, ran into the dining-room.…

At the drawing-room door facing me stood my mother, as though rooted to the spot. Behind her, peered several scared female faces. The butler, two footmen, and a page, with his mouth wide open with astonishment, were packed together in the doorway of the hall. In the middle of the dining-room, covered with mire, dishevelled, tattered, and soaking wet--so wet that steam rose all round and water was running in little streams over the floor--knelt, shaking ponderously, as it were, at the last gasp … the very monster I had seen dashing across the yard! And who was this monster? Harlov! I came up on one side, and saw, not his face, but his head, which he was clutching, with both hands in the hair that blinded him with filth. He was breathing heavily, brokenly; something positively rattled in his throat--and in all the bespattered dark mass, the only thing that could be clearly distinguished was the tiny whites of the eyes, straying wildly about. He was awful! The dignitary came into my mind whom he had once crushed for comparing him to a mastodon. Truly, so might have looked some antediluvian creature that had just escaped another more powerful monster, attacking it in the eternal slime of the primeval swamps.

‘Martin Petrovitch!’ my mother cried at last, and she clasped her hands. ‘Is that you? Good God! Merciful heavens!’

‘I … I …’ we heard a broken voice, which seemed with effort and painfully to dwell on each sound. ‘Alas! It is I!’

‘But what has happened to you? Mercy upon us!’

‘Natalia Nikolaev … na … I have … run straight … to you … from home … on foot.…’

‘Through such mud! But you don’t look like a man. Get up; sit down, anyway.… And you,’ she turned to the maid-servants, ‘run quick for cloths. And haven’t you some dry clothes?’ she asked the butler.

The butler gesticulated as though to say, Is it likely for such a size?… ‘But we could get a coverlet,’ he replied, ‘or, there’s a new horse-rug.’

‘But get up, get up, Martin Petrovitch, sit down,’ repeated my mother.

‘They’ve turned me out, madam,’ Harlov moaned suddenly, and he flung his head back and stretched his hands out before him. ‘They’ve turned me out, Natalia Nikolaevna! My own daughters, out of my own home.…’

My mother sighed and groaned.

‘What are you saying? Turned you out! What wickedness! what wickedness!’ (She crossed herself.) ‘But do get up, Martin Petrovitch, I beg you!’

Two maid-servants came in with cloths and stood still before Harlov. It was clear they did not know how to attack this mountain of filth. ‘They have turned me out, madam, they have turned me out!’ Harlov kept repeating meanwhile. The butler returned with a large woollen coverlet, and he, too, stood still in perplexity. Souvenir’s little head was thrust in at a door and vanished again.

‘Martin Petrovitch! get up! Sit down! and tell me everything properly,’ my mother commanded in a tone of determination.

Harlov rose.… The butler tried to assist him but only dirtied his hand, and, shaking his fingers, retreated to the door. Staggering and faltering, Harlov got to a chair and sat down. The maids again approached him with their cloths, but he waved them off with his hand, and refused the coverlet. My mother did not herself, indeed, insist; to dry Harlov was obviously out of the question; they contented themselves with hastily wiping up his traces on the floor.

XXIII

‘How have they turned you out?’ my mother asked, as soon as he had a little time to recover himself.

‘Madam! Natalia Nikolaevna!’ he began, in a strained voice,--and again I was struck by the uneasy straying of his eyes; ‘I will tell you the truth; I am myself most of all to blame.’

‘Ay, to be sure; you would not listen to me at the time,’ assented my mother, sinking into an arm-chair and slightly moving a scented handkerchief before her nose; very strong was the smell that came from Harlov … the odour in a forest bog is not so strong.

‘Alas! that’s not where I erred, madam, but through pride. Pride has been my ruin, as it ruined the Tsar Navuhodonosor. I fancied God had given me my full share of sense, and if I resolved on anything, it followed it was right; so … and then the fear of death came … I was utterly confounded! “I’ll show,” said I, “to the last, my power and my strength! I’ll bestow all on them,--and they must feel it all their lives.…”’ (Harlov suddenly was shaking all over.…) ‘Like a mangy dog they have driven me out of the house! This is their gratitude!’

‘In what way----,’ my mother was beginning.…

‘They took my page, Maximka, from me,’ Harlov interrupted her (his eyes were still wandering, he held both hands--the fingers interlaced--under his chin), ‘my carriage they took away, my monthly allowance they cut down, did not pay me the sum specified, cut me short all round, in fact; still I said nothing, bore it all! And I bore it by reason … alas! of my pride again. That my cruel enemies might not say, “See, the old fool’s sorry for it now”; and you too, do you remember, madam, had warned me; “mind you, it’s all to no purpose,” you said! and so I bore it.… Only, to-day I came into my room, and it was occupied already, and my bed they’d thrown out into the lumber-room! “You can sleep there; we put up with you there even only out of charity; we’ve need of your room for the household.” And this was said to me by whom? Volodka Sletkin! the vile hound, the base cur!’

Harlov’s voice broke.

‘But your daughters? What did they do?’ asked my mother.

‘But I bore it all,’ Harlov went on again; ‘bitterness, bitterness was in my heart, let me tell you, and shame.… I could not bear to look upon the light of day! That was why I was unwilling to come and see you, ma’am, from this same feeling, from shame for my disgrace! I have tried everything, my good friend; kindness, affection, and threats, and I reasoned with them, and more besides! I bowed down before them … like this.’ (Harlov showed how he had bowed down.) ‘And all in vain. And all of it I bore! At the beginning, at first, I’d very different thoughts; I’ll up, I thought, and kill them. I’ll crush them all, so that not a trace remains of them!… I’ll let them know! Well, but after, I submitted! It’s a cross, I thought, laid upon me; it’s to bid me make ready for death. And all at once, to-day, driven out, like a cur! And by whom? Volodka! And you asked about my daughters; they’ve no will of their own at all. They’re Volodka’s slaves! Yes!’

My mother wondered. ‘In Anna’s case I can understand that; she’s a wife.… But how comes it your second.…’

‘Evlampia? She’s worse than Anna! She’s altogether given herself up into Volodka’s hands. That’s the reason she refused your soldier, too. At his, at Volodka’s bidding. Anna, to be sure, ought to resent it, and she can’t bear her sister, but she submits! He’s bewitched them, the cursed scoundrel! Though she, Anna, I daresay, is pleased to think that Evlampia, who was always so proud,--and now see what she’s come to!… O … alas … alas! God, my God!’

My mother looked uneasily towards me. I moved a little away as a precautionary measure, for fear I should be sent away altogether.…

‘I am very sorry indeed, Martin Petrovitch,’ she began, ‘that my former protégé has caused you so much sorrow, and has turned out so badly. But I, too, was mistaken in him.… Who could have expected this of him?’

‘Madam,’ Harlov moaned out, and he struck himself a blow on the chest, ‘I cannot bear the ingratitude of my daughters! I cannot, madam! You know I gave them everything, everything! And besides, my conscience has been tormenting me. Many things … alas! many things I have thought over, sitting by the pond, fishing. “If you’d only done good to any one in your life!” was what I pondered upon, “succoured the poor, set the peasants free, or something, to atone for having wrung their lives out of them. You must answer for them before God! Now their tears are revenged.” And what sort of life have they now? It was a deep pit even in my time--why disguise my sins?--but now there’s no seeing the bottom! All these sins I have taken upon my soul; I have sacrificed my conscience for my children, and for this I’m laughed to scorn! Kicked out of the house, like a cur!’

‘Don’t think about that, Martin Petrovitch,’ observed my mother.

‘And when he told me, your Volodka,’ Harlov went on with fresh force, ‘when he told me I was not to live in my room any more,--I laid every plank in that room with my own hands,--when he said that to me,--God only knows what passed within me! It was all confusion in my head, and like a knife in my heart.… Either to cut his throat or get away out of the house!… So, I have run to you, my benefactress, Natalia Nikolaevna … where had I to lay my head? And then the rain, the filth … I fell down twenty times, maybe! And now … in such unseemly.…’

Harlov scanned himself and moved restlessly in his chair, as though intending to get up.

‘Say no more, Martin Petrovitch,’ my mother interposed hurriedly; ‘what does that signify? That you’ve made the floor dirty? That’s no great matter! Come, I want to make you a proposition. Listen! They shall take you now to a special room, and make you up a clean bed,--you undress, wash, and lie down and sleep a little.…’

‘Natalia Nikolaevna! There’s no sleeping for me!’ Harlov responded drearily. ‘It’s as though there were hammers beating in my brain! Me! like some good-for-nothing beast!…’

‘Lie down and sleep,’ my mother repeated insistently. ‘And then we’ll give you some tea,--yes, and we’ll have a talk. Don’t lose heart, old friend! If they’ve driven you out of _your_ house, in _my_ house you will always find a home.… I have not forgotten, you know, that you saved my life.’

‘Benefactress!’ moaned Harlov, and he covered his face with his hand. ‘_You_ must save me now!’

This appeal touched my mother almost to tears. ‘I am ready and eager to help you, Martin Petrovitch, in everything I am able. But you must promise me that you will listen to me in future and dismiss every evil thought from you.’

Harlov took his hands from his face. ‘If need be,’ he said, ‘I can forgive them, even!’

My mother nodded her head approvingly. ‘I am very glad to see you in such a truly Christian frame of mind, Martin Petrovitch; but we will talk of that later. Meanwhile, you put yourself to rights, and, most of all, sleep. Take Martin Petrovitch to what was the master’s room, the green room,’ said my mother, addressing the butler, ‘and whatever he asks for, let him have it on the spot! Give orders for his clothes to be dried and washed, and ask the housekeeper for what linen is needed. Do you hear?’

‘Yes, madam,’ responded the butler.

‘And as soon as he’s asleep, tell the tailor to take his measure; and his beard will have to be shaved. Not at once, but after.’

‘Yes, madam,’ repeated the butler. ‘Martin Petrovitch, kindly come.’ Harlov got up, looked at my mother, was about to go up to her, but stopped, swinging a bow from the waist, crossed himself three times to the image, and followed the steward. Behind him, I, too, slipped out of the room.

XXIV

The butler conducted Harlov to the green room, and at once ran off for the wardroom maid, as it turned out there were no sheets on the bed. Souvenir, who met us in the passage, and popped into the green room with us, promptly proceeded to dance, grinning and chuckling, round Harlov, who stood, his arms held a little away from him, and his legs apart, in the middle of the room, seeming lost in thought. The water was still dripping from him.

‘The Swede! The Swede, Harlus!’ piped Souvenir, doubling up and holding his sides. ‘Mighty founder of the illustrious race of Harlovs, look down on thy descendant! What does he look like? Dost thou recognise him? Ha, ha, ha! Your excellency, your hand, I beg; why, have you got on black gloves?’

I tried to restrain Souvenir, to put him to shame … but it was too late for that now.

‘He called me parasite, toady! “You’ve no roof,” said he, “to call your own.” But now, no doubt about it, he’s become as dependent as poor little me. Martin Petrovitch and Souvenir, the poor toady, are equal now. He’ll have to live on charity too. They’ll toss him the stale and dirty crust, that the dog has sniffed at and refused.… And they’ll tell him to eat it, too. Ha, ha, ha!’

Harlov still stood motionless, his head drawn in, his legs and arms held a little apart.

‘Martin Harlov, a nobleman born!’ Souvenir went on shrieking. ‘What airs he used to give himself. Just look at me! Don’t come near, or I’ll knock you down!… And when he was so clever as to give away and divide his property, didn’t he crow! “Gratitude!…” he cackled, “gratitude!” But why were you so mean to me? Why didn’t you make me a present? May be, I should have felt it more. And you see I was right when I said they’d strip you bare, and.…’

‘Souvenir!’ I screamed; but Souvenir was in nowise daunted. Harlov still did not stir. It seemed as though he were only now beginning to be aware how soaking wet everything was that he had on, and was waiting to be helped off with his clothes. But the butler had not come back.

‘And a military man too!’ Souvenir began again. ‘In the year twelve, he saved his country; he showed proofs of his valour. I see how it is. Stripping the frozen marauders of their breeches is work he’s quite equal to, but when the hussies stamp their feet at him he’s frightened out of his skin.’

‘Souvenir!’ I screamed a second time.

Harlov looked askance at Souvenir. Till that instant he seemed not to have noticed his presence, and only my exclamation aroused his attention.

‘Look out, brother,’ he growled huskily, ‘don’t dance yourself into trouble.’

Souvenir fairly rolled about with laughter. ‘Ah, how you frighten me, most honoured brother. You’re a formidable person, to be sure. You must comb your hair, at any rate, or, God forbid, it’ll get dry, and you’ll never wash it clean again; you’ll have to mow it with a sickle.’ Souvenir all of a sudden got into a fury. ‘And you give yourself airs still. A poor outcast, and he gives himself airs. Where’s your home now? you’d better tell me that, you were always boasting of it. “I have a home of my own,” he used to say, but you’re homeless. “My ancestral roof,” he would say.’ Souvenir pounced on this phrase as an inspiration.

‘Mr. Bitchkov,’ I protested. ‘What are you about? you forget yourself.’

But he still persisted in chattering, and still danced and pranced up and down quite close to Harlov. And still the butler and the wardroom maid did not come.

I felt alarmed. I began to notice that Harlov, who had, during his conversation with my mother, gradually grown quieter, and even towards the end apparently resigned himself to his fate, was beginning to get worked up again. He breathed more hurriedly, it seemed as though his face were suddenly swollen under his ears, his fingers twitched, his eyes again began moving restlessly in the dark mask of his grim face.…

‘Souvenir, Souvenir!’ I cried. ‘Stop it, I’ll tell mamma.’

But Souvenir seemed possessed by frenzy. ‘Yes, yes, most honoured brother,’ he began again, ‘here we find ourselves, you and I, in the most delicate position. While your daughters, with your son-in-law, Vladimir Vassilievitch, are having a fine laugh at you under your roof. And you should at least curse them, as you promised. Even that you’re not equal to. To be sure, how could you hold your own with Vladimir Vassilievitch? Why, you used to call him Volodka, too. You call him Volodka. _He_ is Vladimir Vassilievitch, Mr. Sletkin, a landowner, a gentleman, while--what are you, pray?’

A furious roar drowned Souvenir’s words.… Harlov was aroused. His fists were clenched and lifted, his face was purple, there was foam on his drawn lips, he was shaking with rage. ‘Roof, you say!’ he thundered in his iron voice, ‘curse, you say.… No! I will not curse them.… They don’t care for that.… But the roof … I will tear the roof off them, and they shall have no roof over their heads, like me. They shall learn to know Martin Harlov. My strength is not all gone yet; they shall learn to laugh at me!… They shall have no roof over their heads!’

I was stupefied; never in my life had I witnessed such boundless anger. Not a man--a wild beast--paced to and fro before me. I was stupefied … as for Souvenir, he had hidden under the table in his fright.

‘They shall not!’ Harlov shouted for the last time, and almost knocking over the butler and the wardroom maid, he rushed away out of the house.… He dashed headlong across the yard, and vanished through the gates.

XXV

My mother was terribly angry when the butler came with an abashed countenance to report Martin Petrovitch’s sudden and unexpected retreat. He did not dare to conceal the cause of this retreat; I was obliged to confirm his story. ‘Then it was all your doing!’ my mother cried, at the sight of Souvenir, who had run in like a hare, and was even approaching to kiss her hand: ‘Your vile tongue is to blame for it all!’ ‘Excuse me, d’rectly, d’rectly …’ faltered Souvenir, stuttering and drawing back his elbows behind him. ‘D’rectly, … d’rectly … I know your “d’rectly,”’ my mother repeated reprovingly, and she sent him out of the room. Then she rang the bell, sent for Kvitsinsky, and gave him orders to set off on the spot to Eskovo, with a carriage, to find Martin Petrovitch at all costs, and to bring him back. ‘Do not let me see you without him,’ she concluded. The gloomy Pole bowed his head without a word, and went away.

I went back to my own room, sat down again at the window, and I pondered a long while, I remember, on what had taken place before my eyes. I was puzzled; I could not understand how it was that Harlov, who had endured the insults of his own family almost without a murmur, had lost all self-control, and been unable to put up with the jeers and pin-pricks of such an abject creature as Souvenir. I did not understand in those days what insufferable bitterness there may sometimes be in a foolish taunt, even when it comes from lips one scorns.… The hated name of Sletkin, uttered by Souvenir, had been like a spark thrown into powder. The sore spot could not endure this final prick.

About an hour passed by. Our coach drove into the yard; but our steward sat in it alone. And my mother had said to him--‘don’t let me see you without him.’ Kvitsinsky jumped hurriedly out of the carriage, and ran up the steps. His face had a perturbed look--something very unusual with him. I promptly rushed downstairs, and followed at his heels into the drawing-room. ‘Well? have you brought him?’ asked my mother.

‘I have not brought him,’ answered Kvitsinsky--‘and I could not bring him.’

‘How’s that? Have you seen him?’

‘Yes.’

‘What has happened to him? A fit?’

‘No; nothing has happened.’

‘How is it you didn’t bring him?’

‘He’s pulling his house to pieces.’

‘What?’

‘He’s standing on the roof of the new building, and pulling it to pieces. Forty boards or more, I should guess, must have come down by now, and some five of the rafters too.’ (‘They shall not have a roof over their heads.’ Harlov’s words came back to me.)

My mother stared at Kvitsinsky. ‘Alone … he’s standing on the roof, and pulling the roof down?’

‘Exactly so. He is walking about on the flooring of the garret in the roof, and smashing right and left of him. His strength, you are aware, madam, is superhuman. And the roof too, one must say, is a poor affair; half-inch deal battens, laid wide apart, one inch nails.’

My mother looked at me, as though wishing to make sure whether she had heard aright. ‘Half-inches wide apart,’ she repeated, obviously not understanding the meaning of one word. ‘Well, what then?’ she said at last.

‘I have come for instructions. There’s no doing anything without men to help. The peasants there are all limp with fright.’

‘And his daughters--what of them?’

‘His daughters are doing nothing. They’re running to and fro, shouting … this and that … all to no purpose.’

‘And is Sletkin there?’

‘He’s there too. He’s making more outcry than all of them--but he can’t do anything.’

‘And Martin Petrovitch is standing on the roof?’

‘On the roof … that is, in the garret--and pulling the roof to pieces.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said my mother, ‘half-inches wide apart.’

The position was obviously a serious one. What steps were to be taken? Send to the town for the police captain? Get together the peasants? My mother was quite at her wits’ end. Zhitkov, who had come in to dinner, was nonplussed too. It is true, he made another reference to a battalion of military; he offered no advice, however, but confined himself to looking submissive and devoted. Kvitsinsky, seeing he would not get at any instructions, suggested to my mother--with the contemptuous respectfulness peculiar to him--that if she would authorise him to take a few of the stable-boys, gardeners, and other house-serfs, he would make an effort.…

‘Yes, yes,’ my mother cut him short, ‘do make an effort, dear Vikenty Osipitch! Only make haste, please, and I will take all responsibility on myself!’

Kvitsinsky smiled coldly. ‘One thing let me make clear, madam, beforehand; it’s impossible to reckon on any result, seeing that Mr. Harlov’s strength is so great, and he is so desperate too; he feels himself to have been very cruelly wronged!’

‘Yes, yes,’ my mother assented; ‘and it’s all that vile Souvenir’s fault! Never will I forgive him for it. Go and take the servants and set off, Vikenty Osipitch!’

‘You’d better take plenty of cord, Mr. Steward, and some fire-escape tackle,’ Zhitkov brought out in his bass--‘and if there is such a thing as a net, it would be as well to take that along too. We once had in our regiment.…’

‘Kindly refrain from instructing me, sir,’ Kvitsinsky cut him short, with an air of vexation; ‘I know what is needed without your aid.’

Zhitkov was offended, and protested that as he imagined he, too, was called upon.…

‘No, no!’ interposed my mother; ‘you’d better stop where you are.… Let Vikenty Osipitch act alone.… Make haste, Vikenty Osipitch!’

Zhitkov was still more offended, while Kvitsinsky bowed and went out.

I rushed off to the stable, hurriedly saddled my horse myself, and set off at a gallop along the road to Eskovo.

XXVI

The rain had ceased, but the wind was blowing with redoubled force--straight into my face. Half-way there, the saddle almost slipped round under me; the girth had got loose; I got off and tried to tighten the straps with my teeth.… All at once I heard someone calling me by my name.… Souvenir was running towards me across the green fields. ‘What!’ he shouted to me from some way off, ‘was your curiosity too much for you? But it’s no use.… I went over there, straight, at Harlov’s heels.… Such a state of things you never saw in your life!’

‘You want to enjoy what you have done,’ I said indignantly, and, jumping on my horse, I set off again at a gallop. But the indefatigable Souvenir did not give me up, and chuckled and grinned, even as he ran. At last, Eskovo was reached--there was the dam, and there the long hedge and willow-tree of the homestead.… I rode up to the gate, dismounted, tied up my horse, and stood still in amazement.

Of one third of the roof of the newer house, of the front part, nothing was left but the skeleton; boards and litter lay in disorderly heaps on the ground on both sides of the building. Even supposing the roof to be, as Kvitsinsky had said, a poor affair, even so, it was something incredible! On the floor of the garret, in a whirl of dust and rubbish, a blackish grey mass was moving to and fro with rapid ungainly action, at one moment shaking the remaining chimney, built of brick, (the other had fallen already) then tearing up the boarding and flinging it down below, then clutching at the very rafters. It was Harlov. He struck me as being exactly like a bear at this moment too; the head, and back, and shoulders were a bear’s, and he put his feet down wide apart without bending the insteps--also like a bear. The bitter wind was blowing upon him from every side, lifting his matted locks. It was horrible to see, here and there, red patches of bare flesh through the rents in his tattered clothes; it was horrible to hear his wild husky muttering. There were a lot of people in the yard; peasant-women, boys, and servant-girls stood close along the hedge. A few peasants huddled together in a separate group, a little way off. The old village priest, whom I knew, was standing, bareheaded, on the steps of the other house, and holding a brazen cross in both hands, from time to time, silently and hopelessly, raised it, and, as it were, showed it to Harlov. Beside the priest, stood Evlampia with her back against the wall, gazing fixedly at her father. Anna, at one moment, pushed her head out of the little window, then vanished, then hurried into the yard, then went back into the house. Sletkin--pale all over, livid--in an old dressing-gown and smoking-cap, with a single-barrelled rifle in his hands, kept running to and fro with little steps. He had completely _gone Jewish_, as it is called. He was gasping, threatening, shaking, pointing the gun at Harlov, then letting it drop back on his shoulder--pointing it again, shrieking, weeping.… On seeing Souvenir and me he simply flew to us.

‘Look, look, what is going on here!’ he wailed--‘look! He’s gone out of his mind, he’s raving mad … and see what he’s doing! I’ve sent for the police already--but no one comes! No one comes! If I do fire at him, the law couldn’t touch me, for every man has a right to defend his own property! And I will fire!… By God, I’ll fire!’

He ran off toward the house.

‘Martin Petrovitch, look out! If you don’t get down, I’ll fire!’

‘Fire away!’ came a husky voice from the roof. ‘Fire away! And meanwhile here’s a little present for you!’

A long plank flew up, and, turning over twice in the air, came violently to the earth, just at Sletkin’s feet. He positively jumped into the air, while Harlov chuckled.

‘Merciful Jesus!’ faltered some one behind me. I looked round: Souvenir. ‘Ah!’ I thought, ‘he’s left off laughing now!’

Sletkin clutched a peasant, who was standing near, by the collar.

‘Climb up now, climb up, climb up, all of you, you devils,’ he wailed, shaking the man with all his force, ‘save my property!’

The peasant took a couple of steps forward, threw his head back, waved his arms, shouted--‘hi! here! master!’ shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and then turned back.

‘A ladder! bring a ladder!’ Sletkin addressed the other peasants.

‘Where are we to get it?’ was heard in answer.

‘And if we had a ladder,’ one voice pronounced deliberately, ‘who’d care to climb up? Not such fools! He’d wring your neck for you--in a twinkling!’

‘He’d kill one in no time,’ said one young lad with flaxen hair and a half-idiotic face.

‘To be sure he would,’ the others confirmed. It struck me that, even if there had been no obvious danger, the peasants would yet have been loath to carry out their new owner’s orders. They almost approved of Harlov, though they were amazed at him.

‘Ugh, you robbers!’ moaned Sletkin; ‘you shall all catch it.…’

But at this moment, with a heavy rumble, the last chimney came crashing down, and, in the midst of the cloud of yellow dust that flew up instantly, Harlov--uttering a piercing shriek and lifting his bleeding hands high in the air--turned facing us. Sletkin pointed the gun at him again.

Evlampia pulled him back by the elbow.

‘Don’t interfere!’ he snarled savagely at her.

‘And you--don’t you dare!’ she answered; and her blue eyes flashed menacingly under her scowling brows. ‘Father’s pulling his house down. It’s his own.’

‘You lie: it’s ours!’

‘You say ours; but I say it’s his.’

Sletkin hissed with fury; Evlampia’s eyes seemed stabbing him in the face.

‘Ah, how d’ye do! my delightful daughter!’ Harlov thundered from above. ‘How d’ye do! Evlampia Martinovna! How are you getting on with your sweetheart? Are your kisses sweet, and your fondling?’

‘Father!’ rang out Evlampia’s musical voice.

‘Eh, daughter?’ answered Harlov; and he came down to the very edge of the wall. His face, as far as I could make it out, wore a strange smile, a bright, mirthful--and for that very reason peculiarly strange and evil--smile.… Many years later I saw just the same smile on the face of a man condemned to death.

‘Stop, father; come down. We are in fault; we give everything back to you. Come down.’

‘What do you mean by disposing of what’s ours?’ put in Sletkin. Evlampia merely scowled more angrily.

‘I give you back my share. I give up everything. Give over, come down, father! Forgive us; forgive me.’

Harlov still went on smiling. ‘It’s too late, my darling,’ he said, and each of his words rang out like brass. ‘Too late your stony heart is touched! The rock’s started rolling downhill--there’s no holding it back now! And don’t look to me now; I’m a doomed man! You’d do better to look to your Volodka; see what a pretty fellow you’ve picked out! And look to your hellish sister; there’s her foxy nose yonder thrust out of the window; she’s peering yonder after that husband of hers! No, my good friends; you would rob me of a roof over my head, so I will leave you not one beam upon another! With my own hands I built it, with my own hands I destroy it,--yes, with my hands alone! See, I’ve taken no axe to help me!’

He snorted at his two open hands, and clutched at the centre beam again.

‘Enough, father,’ Evlampia was saying meanwhile, and her voice had grown marvellously caressing, ‘let bygones be bygones. Come, trust me; you always trusted me. Come, get down; come to me to my little room, to my soft bed. I will dry you and warm you; I will bind up your wounds; see, you have torn your hands. You shall live with me as in Christ’s bosom; food shall be sweet to you--and sleep sweeter yet. Come, we have done wrong! yes, we were puffed up, we have sinned; come, forgive!’

Harlov shook his head. ‘Talk away! Me believe you! Never again! You’ve murdered all trust in my heart! You’ve murdered everything! I was an eagle, and became a worm for you … and you,--would you even crush the worm? Have done! I loved you, you know very well,--but now you are no daughter to me, and I’m no father to you … I’m a doomed man! Don’t meddle! As for you, fire away, coward, mighty man of valour!’ Harlov bellowed suddenly at Sletkin. ‘Why is it you keep aiming and don’t shoot? Are you mindful of the law; if the recipient of a gift commits an attempt upon the life of the giver,’ Harlov enunciated distinctly, ‘then the giver is empowered to claim everything back again? Ha, ha! don’t be afraid, law-abiding man! I’d make no claims. I’ll make an end of everything myself.… Here goes!’

‘Father!’ for the last time Evlampia besought him.

‘Silence!’

‘Martin Petrovitch! brother, be generous and forgive!’ faltered Souvenir.

‘Father! dear father!’

‘Silence, bitch!’ shouted Harlov. At Souvenir he did not even glance,--he merely spat in his direction.

XXVII

At that instant, Kvitsinsky, with all his retinue--in three carts--appeared at the gates. The tired horses panted, the men jumped out, one after another, into the mud.

‘Aha!’ Harlov shouted at the top of his voice. ‘An army … here it comes, an army! A whole army they’re sending against me! Capital! Only I give warning--if any one comes up here to me on the roof, I’ll send him flying down, head over heels! I’m an inhospitable master; I don’t like visitors at wrong times! No indeed!’

He was hanging with both hands on to the front rafters of the roof, the so-called standards of the gable, and beginning to shake them violently. Balancing on the edge of the garret flooring, he dragged them, as it were, after him, chanting rhythmically like a bargeman, ‘One more pull! one more! o-oh!’

Sletkin ran up to Kvitsinsky and was beginning to whimper and pour out complaints.… The latter begged him ‘not to interfere,’ and proceeded to carry out the plan he had evolved. He took up his position in front of the house, and began, by way of diversion, to explain to Harlov that what he was about was unworthy of his rank.…

‘One more pull! one more!’ chanted Harlov.

… ‘That Natalia Nikolaevna was greatly displeased at his proceedings, and had not expected it of him.…’