(1881)
I
There were eight of us in the room, and we were discussing contemporary
matters and persons,
"I do not understand these gentlemen!" remarked A.--"They are fellows of
a reckless sort.... Really, desperate.... There has never been anything
of the kind before."
"Yes, there has," put in P., a grey-haired old man, who had been born
about the twenties of the present century;--"there were reckless men in
days gone by also. Some one said of the poet Yázykoff, that he had
enthusiasm which was not directed to anything, an objectless enthusiasm;
and it was much the same with those people--their recklessness was
without an object. But see here, if you will permit me, I will narrate
to you the story of my grandnephew, Mísha Pólteff. It may serve as a
sample of the recklessness of those days."
He made his appearance in God's daylight in the year 1828, I remember,
on his father's ancestral estate, in one of the most remote nooks of a
remote government of the steppes. I still preserve a distinct
recollection of Mísha's father, Andréi Nikoláevitch Pólteff. He was a
genuine, old-fashioned landed proprietor, a pious inhabitant of the
steppes, sufficiently well educated,--according to the standards of that
epoch,--rather crack-brained, if the truth must be told, and subject, in
addition, to epileptic fits.... That also is an old-fashioned malady....
However, Andréi Nikoláevitch's attacks were quiet, and they generally
terminated in a sleep and in a fit of melancholy.--He was kind of heart,
courteous in manner, not devoid of some pomposity: I have always
pictured to myself the Tzar Mikhaíl Feódorovitch as just that sort of a
man.
Andréi Nikoláevitch's whole life flowed past in the punctual discharge
of all the rites established since time immemorial, in strict conformity
with all the customs of ancient-orthodox, Holy-Russian life. He rose and
went to bed, he ate and went to the bath, he waxed merry or wrathful (he
did both the one and the other rarely, it is true), he even smoked his
pipe, he even played cards (two great innovations!), not as suited his
fancy, not after his own fashion, but in accordance with the rule and
tradition handed down from his ancestors, in proper and dignified style.
He himself was tall of stature, of noble mien and brawny; he had a
quiet and rather hoarse voice, as is frequently the case with virtuous
Russians; he was neat about his linen and his clothing, wore white
neckerchiefs and long-skirted coats of snuff-brown hue, but his noble
blood made itself manifest notwithstanding; no one would have taken him
for a priest's son or a merchant! Andréi Nikoláevitch always knew, in
all possible circumstances and encounters, precisely how he ought to act
and exactly what expressions he must employ; he knew when he ought to
take medicine, and what medicine to take, which symptoms he should heed
and which might be disregarded ... in a word, he knew everything that it
was proper to do.... It was as though he said: "Everything has been
foreseen and decreed by the old men--the only thing is not to devise
anything of your own.... And the chief thing of all is, don't go even as
far as the threshold without God's blessing!"--I am bound to admit that
deadly tedium reigned in his house, in those low-ceiled, warm, dark
rooms which so often resounded from the chanting of vigils and
prayer-services,[2] with an odour of incense and fasting-viands,[3]
which almost never left them!
Andréi Nikoláevitch had married, when he was no longer in his first
youth, a poor young noblewoman of the neighbourhood, a very nervous and
sickly person, who had been reared in one of the government institutes
for gentlewomen. She played far from badly on the piano; she spoke
French in boarding-school fashion; she was given to enthusiasm, and
still more addicted to melancholy, and even to tears.... In a word, she
was of an uneasy character. As she considered that her life had been
ruined, she could not love her husband, who, "as a matter of course,"
did not understand her; but she respected, she tolerated him; and as she
was a thoroughly honest and perfectly cold being, she never once so much
as thought of any other "object." Moreover, she was constantly engrossed
by anxieties: in the first place, over her really feeble health; in the
second place, over the health of her husband, whose fits always inspired
her with something akin to superstitious terror; and, in conclusion,
over her only son, Mísha, whom she reared herself with great zeal.
Andréi Nikoláevitch did not prevent his wife's busying herself with
Mísha--but on one condition: she was never, under any circumstances, to
depart from the limits, which had been defined once for all, wherein
everything in his house must revolve! Thus, for example: during the
Christmas holidays and Vasíly's evening preceding the New Year, Mísha
was not only permitted to dress up in costume along with the other
"lads,"--doing so was even imposed upon him as an obligation....[4]
On the other hand, God forbid that he should do it at any other time!
And so forth, and so forth.