Part 6

“Flowers,” replied Akulina sadly. “I have picked some field tansies,” she went on, with some animation. “They’re good for the calves. And here I have some marigolds--for scrofula. Here, look, what a pretty flower! I haven’t seen such a pretty flower in all my life. Here are forget-me-nots, and--and these I have picked for you,” she added, taking from under the tansies a small bunch of cornflowers, tied around with a thin blade of grass; “do you want them?”

Victor stretched out his hand lazily, took the flowers, smelt them carelessly, and began to turn them around in his fingers, looking up with thoughtful importance. Akulina gazed at him. There was so much tender devotion, reverent obedience, and love in her pensive eyes. She at once feared him, and yet she dared not cry, and inwardly she bade him farewell, and admired him for the last time; and he lay there, stretched out like a sultan, and endured her admiration with magnanimous patience and condescension. I confess I was filled with indignation as I looked at his red face, which betrayed satisfied selfishness through his feigned contempt and indifference. Akulina was so beautiful at this moment. All her soul opened before him trustingly and passionately--it reached out to him, caressed him, and he.... He dropped the cornflowers on the grass, took out from the side-pocket of his coat a round glass in a bronze frame and began to force it into his eye; but no matter how hard he tried to hold it with his knitted brow, his raised cheek, and even with his nose, the glass dropped out and fell into his hands.

“What’s this?” asked Akulina at last, with surprise.

“A lorgnette,” he replied importantly.

“What is it for?”

“To see better.”

“Let me see it.”

Victor frowned, but gave her the glass.

“Look out; don’t break it.”

“Don’t be afraid, I’ll not break it.” She lifted it timidly to her eye.

“I can’t see anything,” she said naively.

“Shut your eye,” he retorted in the tone of a dissatisfied teacher. She closed the eye before which she held the glass.

“Not that eye, not that one, you fool! The other one!” exclaimed Victor, and, not allowing her to correct her mistake, he took the lorgnette away from her.

Akulina blushed, laughed slightly, and turned away.

“It seems it’s not for us.”

“Of course not!”

The poor girl maintained silence, and heaved a deep sigh.

“Oh, Victor Alexandrovich, how will I get along without you?” she said suddenly.

Victor wiped the lorgnette and put it back into his pocket.

“Yes, yes,” he said at last. “At first it will really be hard for you.” He tapped her on the shoulder condescendingly; she quietly took his hand from her shoulder and kissed it. “Well, yes, yes, you are indeed a good girl,” he went on, with a self-satisfied smile; “but it can’t be helped! Consider it yourself! My master and I can’t stay here, can we? Winter is near, and to pass the winter in the country is simply nasty--you know it yourself. It’s a different thing in St. Petersburg! There are such wonders over there that you could not imagine even in your dreams, you silly.--What houses, what streets, and society, education--it’s something wonderful!--” Akulina listened to him with close attention, slightly opening her lips like a child. “However,” he added, wriggling on the ground, “why do I say all this to you? You can’t understand it anyway!”

“Why not, Victor Alexandrovich? I understood, I understood everything.”

“Just think of her!”

Akulina cast down her eyes.

“You did not speak to me like this before, Victor Alexandrovich,” she said, without lifting her eyes.

“Before?--Before! Just think of her!--Before!” he remarked, indignantly.

Both grew silent.

“However, it’s time for me to go,” said Victor, and leaned on his elbow, about to rise.

“Wait a little,” said Akulina in an imploring voice.

“What for? I have already said to you, Good-by!”

“Wait,” repeated Akulina.

Victor again stretched himself on the ground and began to whistle. Akulina kept looking at him steadfastly. I could see that she was growing agitated by degrees--her lips twitched, her pale cheeks were reddening.

“Victor Alexandrovich,” she said at last in a broken voice, “it’s a sin for you, it’s a sin, Victor Alexandrovich, by God!”

“What’s a sin?” he asked, knitting his brows. He raised his head and turned to her.

“It’s a sin, Victor Alexandrovich. If you would only say a good word to me before leaving--if you would only say one word to me, miserable little orphan that I am--”

“But what shall I say to you?”

“I don’t know. You know that better than I do, Victor Alexandrovich. Here you are going away--if you would only say one word.--What have I done to deserve this?”

“How strange you are! What can I say?”

“If only one word--”

“There she’s firing away one and the same thing,” he muttered with vexation, and got up.

“Don’t be angry, Victor Alexandrovich,” she added hastily, unable to repress her tears.

“I’m not angry--only you are foolish.--What do you want? I can’t marry you! I can’t, can I? Well, then, what do you want? What?” He stared at her, as if awaiting an answer, and opened his fingers wide.

“I want nothing--nothing,” she replied, stammering, not daring to outstretch her trembling hands to him, “but simply so, at least one word, at parting--”

And the tears began to stream from her eyes.

“Well, there you are, she’s started crying,” said Victor indifferently, pulling the cap over his eyes.

“I don’t want anything,” she went on, sobbing and covering her face with her hands; “but how will I feel now at home, how will I feel? And what will become of me, what will become of me, wretched one that I am? They’ll marry the poor little orphan off to a man she does not like. My poor little head!”

“Keep on singing, keep on singing,” muttered Victor in a low voice, stirring restlessly.

“If you only said one word, just one: ‘Akulina--I--’”

Sudden heart-rending sobs interrupted her. She fell with her face upon the grass and cried bitterly, bitterly--All her body shook convulsively, the back of her neck seemed to rise.--The long-suppressed sorrow at last burst forth in a stream of tears. Victor stood a while near her, then he shrugged his shoulders, turned around and walked off with large steps.

A few moments went by. She grew silent, lifted her head, looked around and clasped her hands; she was about to run after him, but her feet failed her--she fell down on her knees. I could not endure it any longer and rushed over to her; but before she had time to look at me, she suddenly seemed to have regained her strength--and with a faint cry she rose and disappeared behind the trees, leaving the scattered flowers on the ground.

I stood a while, picked up the bunch of cornflowers, and walked out of the grove to the field. The sun was low in the pale, clear sky; its rays seemed to have faded and turned cold; they did not shine now, they spread in an even, almost watery, light. There was only a half-hour left until evening, and twilight was setting in. A violent wind was blowing fast toward me across the yellow, dried-up stubble-field; the small withered leaves were carried quickly past me across the road; the side of the grove which stood like a wall by the field trembled and flashed clearly, but not brightly; everywhere on the reddish grass, on the blades, and the straw, innumerable autumn cobwebs flashed and trembled. I stopped. I began to feel sad; it seemed a dismal fear of approaching winter was stealing through the gay, though fresh, smile of fading nature. High above me, a cautious raven flew by, heavily and sharply cutting the air with his wings; then he turned his head, looked at me sidewise, and, croaking abruptly, disappeared beyond the forest; a large flock of pigeons rushed past me from a barn, and, suddenly whirling about in a column, they came down and stationed themselves bustlingly upon the field--a sign of spring autumn! Somebody rode by beyond the bare hillock, making much noise with an empty wagon.

I returned home, but the image of poor Akulina did not leave my mind for a long time, and the cornflowers, long withered, are in my possession to this day.

THE COUNTING-HOUSE BY IVAN TURGENEV

Translated by Constance Garnett.

It was autumn. For some hours I had been strolling across country with my gun, and should probably not have returned till evening to the tavern on the Kursk high-road, where my three-horse trap was awaiting me, had not an exceedingly fine and persistent rain, which had worried me all day with the obstinacy and ruthlessness of some old maiden lady, driven me at last to seek at least a temporary shelter somewhere in the neighborhood. While I was still deliberating in which direction to go, my eye suddenly fell on a low shanty near a field sown with peas. I went up to the shanty, glanced under the thatched roof, and saw an old man so infirm that he reminded me at once of the dying goat Robinson Crusoe found in some cave on his island. The old man was squatting on his heels, his little dim eyes half closed, while hurriedly, but carefully, like a hare (the poor fellow had not a single tooth), he munched a dry, hard pea, incessantly rolling it from side to side. He was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice my entrance.

“Grandfather! hey, grandfather!” said I. He ceased munching, lifted his eyebrows high, and with an effort opened his eyes.

“What?” he mumbled in a broken voice.

“Where is there a village near?” I asked.

The old man fell to munching again. He had not heard me. I repeated my question louder than before.

“A village?--But what do you want?”

“Why, shelter from the rain?”

“What?”

“Shelter from the rain.”

“Ah!” He scratched his sunburnt neck. “Well, now, you go,” he said suddenly, waving his hands indefinitely, “so--as you go by the copse--see, as you go--there’ll be a road; you pass it by, and keep right on to the right; keep right on, keep right on, keep right on.--Well, there will be Ananyevo. Or else you’d go to Sitovka.”

I followed the old man with difficulty. His mustaches muffled his voice, and his tongue too did not obey him readily.

“Where are you from?” I asked him.

“What?”

“Where are you from?”

“Ananyevo.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m watchman.”

“Why, what are you watching?”

“The peas.”

I could not help smiling.

“Really!--how old are you?”

“God knows.”

“Your sight’s failing, I expect.”

“What?”

“Your sight’s failing, I daresay?”

“Yes, it’s failing. At times I can hear nothing.”

“Then how can you be a watchman, eh?”

“Oh, my elders know about that.”

“Elders!” I thought, and I gazed not without compassion at the poor old man. He fumbled about, pulled out of his bosom a bit of coarse bread, and began sucking it like a child, with difficulty moving his sunken cheeks.

I walked in the direction of the copse, turned to the right, kept on, kept right on as the old man had advised me, and at last got to a large village with a stone church in the new style, _i. e._, with columns, and a spacious manor-house, also with columns. While still some way off I noticed through the fine network of falling rain a cottage with a deal roof, and two chimneys, higher than the others, in all probability the dwelling of the village elder; and toward it I bent my steps in the hope of finding, in this cottage, a samovár, tea, sugar, and some not absolutely sour cream. Escorted by my half-frozen dog, I went up the steps into the outer room, opened the door, and instead of the usual appurtenances of a cottage, I saw several tables, heaped up with papers, two red cupboards, bespattered inkstands, pewter boxes of blotting sand weighing half a hundred-weight, long penholders, and so on. At one of the tables was sitting a young man of twenty with a swollen, sickly face, diminutive eyes, a greasy-looking forehead, and long, straggling locks of hair. He was dressed, as one would expect, in a gray nankeen coat, shiny with wear at the waist and the collar.

“What do you want?” he asked me, flinging his head up like a horse taken unexpectedly by the nose.

“Does the bailiff live here--or--”

“This is the principal office of the manor,” he interrupted. “I’m the clerk on duty.--Didn’t you see the sign-board? That’s what it was put up for.”

“Where could I dry my clothes here? Is there a samovár anywhere in the village?”

“Samovars, of course,” replied the young man in the gray coat with dignity; “go to Father Timofey’s, or to the servants’ cottage, or else to Nazar Tarasitch, or to Agrafena, the poultry woman.”

“Who are you taking to, you blockhead? Can’t you let me sleep, dummy!” shouted a voice from the next room.

“Here’s a gentleman’s come in to ask where he can dry himself.”

“What sort of a gentleman?”

“I don’t know. With a dog and a gun.”

A bedstead creaked in the next room. The door opened, and there came in a stout, short man of fifty, with a bull neck, goggle eyes, extraordinarily round cheeks, and his whole face positively shining with sleekness.

“What is it you wish?” he asked me.

“To dry my things.”

“There’s no place here.”

“I didn’t know this was the counting-house; I am willing, though, to pay--”

“Well, perhaps it could be managed here,” rejoined the fat man; “won’t you come inside here?” He led me into another room, but not the one he had come from. “Would this do for you?”

“Very well.--And could I have tea and milk?”

“Certainly, at once. If you’ll meantime take off your things and rest, the tea shall be got ready this minute.”

“Whose property is this?”

“Madame Losnyakova’s, Elena Nikolaevna.”

He went out. I looked round: against the partition separating my room from the office stood a huge leather sofa; two high-backed chairs, also covered in leather, were placed on both sides of the solitary window which looked out on the village street. On the walls, covered with a green paper with pink patterns on it, hung three immense oil paintings. One depicted a setter dog with a blue collar, bearing the inscription: “This is my consolation”; at the dog’s feet flowed a river; on the opposite bank of the river a hare of quite disproportionate size, with ears cocked up, was sitting under a pine tree. In another picture two old men were eating a melon; behind the melon was visible in the distance a Greek temple with the inscription: “The Temple of Satisfaction.” The third picture represented the half-nude figure of a woman in a recumbent position, much foreshortened, with red knees and very big heels. My dog had, with superhuman efforts, crouched under the sofa, and apparently found a great deal of dust there, as he kept sneezing violently. I went to the window. Boards had been laid across the street in a slanting direction from the manor-house to the counting-house--a very useful precaution, as, thanks to our rich black soil and the persistent rain, the mud was terrible. In the grounds of the manor-house, which stood with its back to the street, there was the constant going and coming there always is about manor-houses: maids in faded chintz gowns flitted to and fro; house-serfs sauntered through the mud, stood still, and scratched their spines meditatively; the constable’s horse, tied up to a post, lashed his tail lazily, and, with his nose high up, gnawed at the hedge; hens were clucking; sickly turkeys kept up an incessant gobble-gobble. On the steps of a dark, crumbling out-house, probably the bath-house, sat a stalwart lad with a guitar, singing with some spirit the well-known ballad:

“I’m leaving this enchanting spot To go into the desert.”

The fat man came into the room.

“They’re bringing you in your tea,” he told me, with an affable smile.

The young man in the gray coat, the clerk on duty, laid on the old card-table a samovár, a teapot, a tumbler on a broken saucer, a jug of cream, and a bunch of Bolhovo biscuit rings. The fat man went out.

“What is he?” I asked the clerk; “the steward?”

“No, sir; he was the chief cashier, but now he has been promoted to be head clerk.”

“Haven’t you got a steward, then?”

“No, sir. There’s an agent, Mihal Vikulov, but no steward.”

“Is there a manager, then?”

“Yes; a German, Lindamandol, Karlo Karlitch; only he does not manage the estate.”

“Who does manage it, then?”

“Our mistress herself.”

“You don’t say so. And are there many of you in the office?”

The young man reflected.

“There are six of us.”

“Who are they?” I inquired.

“Well, first there’s Vassily Nikolaevitch, the head cashier; then Piotr, one clerk; Piotr’s brother, Iván, another clerk; the other Iván, a clerk; Konstantin Narkizer, another clerk; and me here--there’s a lot of us, you can’t count all of them.”

“I suppose your mistress has a great many serfs in her house?”

“No, not to say a great many.”

“How many, then?”

“I dare say it runs up to about a hundred and fifty.”

We were both silent for a little.

“I suppose you write a good hand, eh?” I began again.

The young man grinned from ear to ear, went into the office and brought in a sheet covered with writing.

“This is my writing,” he announced, still with the same smile on his face.

I looked at it; on the square sheet of grayish paper there was written, in a good bold hand, the following document:

“ORDER: From the Chief Office of the Manor of Ananyevo to the Agent, Mihal Vikulov. No. 209.

“_Whereas_, Some person unknown entered the garden at Ananyevo last night in an intoxicated condition, and with unseemly songs waked the French governess, Madame Engêne, and disturbed her; and whether the watchman saw anything, and who were on watch in the garden and permitted such disorderliness: as regards all the above-written matters, your orders are to investigate in detail, and report immediately to the Office.”

“_Head Clerk_, NIKOLAI HVOSTOV.”

A huge heraldic seal was attached to the order, with the inscription: “Seal of the chief office of the manor of Ananyevo;” and below stood the signature: “To be executed exactly, Elena Losnyakova.”

“Your lady signed it herself, eh?” I queried.

“To be sure; she always signs herself. Without that the order would be of no effect.”

“Well, and now shall you send this order to the agent?”

“No, sir. He’ll come himself and read it. That’s to say, it’ll be read to him; you see, he’s no scholar.” The clerk on duty was silent again for a while. “But what do you say?” he added, simpering; “is it well written?”

“Very well written.”

“It wasn’t composed, I must confess, by me. Konstantin is the great one for that.”

“What?--Do you mean the orders have first to be composed among you?”

“Why, how else could we do? Couldn’t write them off straight without making a fair copy.”

“And what salary do you get?” I inquired.

“Thirty-five rubles, and five rubles for boots.”

“And are you satisfied?”

“Of course I am satisfied. It’s not every one can get into an office like ours. It was God’s will, in my case, to be sure; I’d an uncle who was in service as a butler.”

“And you’re well off?”

“Yes, sir. Though, to tell the truth,” he went on, with a sigh, “a place at a merchant’s, for instance, is better for the likes of us. At a merchant’s they’re very well off. Yesterday evening a merchant came to us from Venev, and his man got talking to me.--Yes, that’s a good place, no doubt about it; a very good place.”

“Why? Do the merchants pay more wages?”

“Lord preserve us! Why, a merchant would soon give you the sack if you asked him for wages. No, at a merchant’s you must live on trust and on fear. He’ll give you food, and drink, and clothes, and all. If you give him satisfaction, he’ll do more.--Talk of wages, indeed! You don’t need them.--And a merchant, too, lives in plain Russian style, like ourselves; you go with him on a journey--he has tea, and you have it; what he eats, you eat. A merchant--one can put up with; a merchant’s a very different thing from what a gentleman is; a merchant’s not whimsical; if he’s out of temper, he’ll give you a blow, and there it ends. He doesn’t nag nor sneer.--But with a gentleman it’s a woeful business! Nothing’s as he likes it--this is not right, and that he can’t fancy. You hand him a glass of water or something to eat: ‘Ugh, the water stinks! positively stinks!’ You take it out, stay a minute outside the door, and bring it back: ‘Come, now, that’s good; this doesn’t stink now.’ And as for the ladies, I tell you, the ladies are something beyond everything!--and the young ladies above all!--”

“Fedyushka!” came the fat man’s voice from the office. The clerk went out quickly. I drank a glass of tea, lay down on the sofa, and fell asleep. I slept for two hours.

When I woke I meant to get up, but I was overcome by laziness; I closed my eyes, but did not fall asleep again. On the other side of the partition, in the office, they were talking in subdued voices. Unconsciously I began to listen.

“Quite so, quite so, Nikolai Eremyitch,” one voice was saying; “quite so. One can’t but take that into account; yes, certainly! Hm!” The speaker coughed.

“You may believe me, Gavrila Antonitch,” replied the fat man’s voice; “don’t I know how things are done here? Judge for yourself.”

“Who does, if you don’t, Nikolai Eremyitch? You’re, one may say, the first person here. Well, then, how’s it to be?” pursued the voice I did not recognize; “what decision are we to come to, Nikolai Eremyitch? Allow me to put the question.”

“What decision, Gavrila Antonitch? The thing depends, so to say, on you; you don’t seem overanxious.”

“Upon my word, Nikolai Eremyitch, what do you mean? Our business is trading, buying; it’s our business to buy. That’s what we live by, Nikolai Eremyitch, one may say.”

“Eight rubles a measure,” said the fat man emphatically.

A sigh was audible.

“Nikolai Eremyitch, sir, you ask a heavy price.”

“Impossible, Gavrila Antonitch, to do otherwise; I speak as before God Almighty; impossible.”

Silence followed.

I got up softly and looked through a crack in the partition. The fat man was sitting with his back to me. Facing him sat a merchant, a man about forty, lean and pale, who looked as if he had been rubbed with oil. He was incessantly fingering his beard, and very rapidly blinking and twitching his lips.

“Wonderful the young green crops this year, one may say,” he began again; “I’ve been going about everywhere admiring them. All the way from Voronezh they’ve come up wonderfully, first-class, one may say.”

“The crops are pretty fair, certainly,” answered the head clerk; “but you know the saying, Gavrila Antonitch, autumn bids fair, but spring may be foul.”

“That’s so, indeed, Nikolai Eremyitch; all is in God’s hands; it’s the absolute truth what you’ve just remarked, sir.--But perhaps your visitor’s awake now?”

The fat man turned round--listened--

“No, he’s asleep. He may, though--”

He went to the door.