In the course of a fortnight, Fedor Ivanitch had brought Glafira
Petrovna’s little house into order and had cleared the court-yard and
the garden. From Lavriky comfortable furniture was sent him; from the
town, wine, books, and papers; horses made their appearance in the
stable; in brief Fedor Ivanitch provided himself with everything
necessary and began to live--not precisely after the manner of a country
landowner, nor precisely after the manner of a hermit. His days
passed monotonously; but he was not bored though he saw no one; he set
diligently and attentively to work at farming his estate, rode about the
neighbourhood and did some reading. He read little, however; he found it
pleasanter to listen to the tales of old Anton. Lavretsky usually sat at
the window with a pipe and a cup of cold tea. Anton stood at the door,
his hands crossed behind him, and began upon his slow, deliberate
stories of old times, of those fabulous times when oats and rye were not
sold by measure, but in great sacks, at two or three farthings a sack;
when there were impassable forests, virgin steppes stretching on every
side, even close to the town. “And now,” complained the old man, whose
eightieth year had passed, “there has been so much clearing, so much
ploughing everywhere, there’s nowhere you may drive now.” Anton used to
tell many stories, too, of his mistress, Glafira Petrovna; how prudent
and saving she was; how a certain gentleman, a young neighbour, had
paid her court, and used to ride over to see her, and how she was even
pleased to put on her best cap, with ribbons of salmon colour, and her
yellow gown of tru-tru lévantine for him; but how, later on, she had
been angry with the gentleman neighbour for his unseemly inquiry, “What,
madam, pray, might be your fortune?” and had bade them refuse him the
house; and how it was then that she had given directions that, after her
decease, everything to the last rag should pass to Fedor Ivanitch.
And, indeed, Lavretsky found all his aunt’s household goods intact, not
excepting the best cap with ribbons of salmon colour, and the yellow
gown of tru-tru lévantine. Of old papers and interesting documents,
upon which Lavretsky had reckoned, there seemed no trace, except one old
book, in which his grandfather, Piotr Andreitch, had inscribed in
one place, “Celebration in the city of Saint Petersburg of the peace,
concluded with the Turkish empire by his Excellency Prince Alexander
Alexandrovitch Prozorovsky;” in another place a recipe for a pectoral
decoction with the comment, “This recipe was given to the general’s
lady, Prascovya Federovna Soltikov, by the chief priest of the Church of
the Life-giving Trinity, Fedor Avksentyevitch:” in another, a piece of
political news of this kind: “Somewhat less talk of the French tigers;”
and next this entry: “In the Moscow Gazette an announcement of the death
of Mr. Senior-Major Mihal Petrovitch Kolitchev. Is not this the son of
Piotr Vassilyevitch Kolitchev? Lavretsky found also some old calendars
and dream-books, and the mysterious work of Ambodik; many were the
memories stirred by the well-known; but long-forgotten Symbols and
Emblems. In Glafira Petrovna’s little dressing-table, Lavretsky found a
small packet, tied up with black ribbon, sealed with black sealing wax,
and thrust away in the very farthest corner of the drawer. In the parcel
there lay face to face a portrait, in pastel, of his father in his
youth, with effeminate curls straying over his brow, with almond-shaped
languid eyes and parted lips, and a portrait, almost effaced, of a pale
woman in a white dress with a white rose in her hand--his mother. Of
herself, Glafira Petrovna had never allowed a portrait to be taken. “I,
myself, little father, Fedor Ivanitch,” Anton used to tell Lavretsky,
“though I did not then live in the master’s house, still I can remember
your great-grandfather, Andrey Afanasyevitch, seeing that I had come
to my eighteenth year when he died. Once I met him in the garden and my
knees were knocking with fright indeed; however, he did nothing, only
asked me my name, and sent me to his room for his pocket-handkerchief.
He was a gentleman--how shall I tell you--he didn’t look on any one as
better than himself. For your great-grandfather had, I do assure you, a
magic amulet; a monk from Mount Athos made him a present of this amulet.
And he told him, this monk did, “It’s for your kindness, Boyar, I give
you this; wear it, and you need not fear judgment.” Well, but there,
little father, we know what those times were like; what the master
fancied doing, that he did. Sometimes, if even some gentleman saw fit to
cross him in anything, he would just stare at him and say, “You swim
in shallow water;” that was his favourite saying. And he lived, your
great-grandfather of blessed memory, in a small log-house; and what
goods he left behind him, what silver, and stores of all kinds! All
the storehouses were full and overflowing. He was a manager. That very
decanter, that you were pleased to admire, was his; he used to drink
brandy out of it. But there was your grandfather, Piotr Andreitch, built
himself a palace of stone, but he never grew rich; everything with him
went badly, and he lived worse than his father by far, and he got no
pleasure from it for himself, but spent all his money, and now there is
nothing to remember him by--not a silver spoon has come down from him,
and we have Glafira Petrovna’s management to thank for all that is
saved.
“But is it true,” Lavretsky interrupted him, “they called her the old
witch?”
“What sort of people called her so, I should like to know!” replied
Anton with an air of displeasure.
“And little father,” the old man one day found courage to ask, “what
about our mistress, where is she pleased to fix her residence?”
“I am separated from my wife,” Lavretsky answered with an effort,
“please do not ask questions about her.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the old man mournfully.
After three weeks had passed by, Lavretsky rode into O----- to the
Kalitins, and spent an evening with them. Lemm was there; Lavretsky
took a great liking to him. Although thanks to his father, he played
no instrument, he was passionately fond of music, real classical music.
Panshin was not at the Kalitins’ that evening. The governor had sent him
off to some place out of the town. Lisa played alone and very correct;
Lemm woke up, got excited, twisted a piece of paper into a roll, and
conducted. Marya Dmitrievna laughed at first, as she looked at him,
later on she went off to bed; in her own words, Beethoven was too
agitating for her nerves. At midnight Lavretsky accompanied Lemm to his
lodging and stopped there with him till three o’clock in the morning.
Lemm talked a great deal; his bent figure grew erect, his eyes opened
wide and flashed fire; his hair even stood up on his forehead. It was
so long since any one had shown him any sympathy, and Lavretsky was
obviously interested in him, he was plying him with sympathetic and
attentive questions. This touched the old man; he ended by showing the
visitor his music, played and even sang in a faded voice some extracts
from his works, among others the whole of Schiller’s ballad, Fridolin,
set by him to music. Lavretsky admired it, made him repeat some
passages, and at parting, invited him to stay a few days with him. Lemm,
as he accompanied him as far as the street, agreed at once, and warmly
pressed his hand; but when he was left standing alone in the fresh, damp
air, in the just dawning sunrise, he looked round him, shuddered, shrank
into himself, and crept up to his little room, with a guilty air. “Ich
bin wohl nicht klug” (I must be out of my senses), he muttered, as he
lay down in his hard short bed. He tried to say that he was ill, a few
days later, when Lavretsky drove over to fetch him in an open carriage;
but Fedor Ivanitch went up into his room and managed to persuade him.
What produced the most powerful effect upon Lemm was the circumstance
that Lavretsky had ordered a piano from town to be sent into the country
expressly for him.
They set off together to the Kalitins’ and spent the evening with them,
but not so pleasantly as on the last occasion. Panshin was there, he
talked a great deal about his expedition, and very amusingly mimicked
and described the country gentry he had seen; Lavretsky laughed,
but Lemm would not come out of his corner, and sat silent, slightly
tremulous all over like a spider, looking dull and sullen, and he only
revived when Lavretsky began to take leave. Even when he was sitting in
the carriage, the old man was still shy and constrained; but the warm
soft air, the light breeze, and the light shadows, the scent of the
grass and the birch-buds, the peaceful light of the starlit, moonless
night, the pleasant tramp and snort of the horses--all the witchery
of the roadside, the spring and the night, sank into the poor German’s
soul, and he was himself the first to begin a conversation with
Lavretsky.