We were a party of six, gathered together one winter evening at the
house of an old college friend. The conversation turned on Shakespeare,
on his types, and how profoundly and truly they were taken from the
very heart of humanity. We admired particularly their truth to life,
their actuality. Each of us spoke of the Hamlets, the Othellos, the
Falstaffs, even the Richard the Thirds and Macbeths--the two last only
potentially, it is true, resembling their prototypes--whom he had
happened to come across.
‘And I, gentlemen,’ cried our host, a man well past middle age, ‘used
to know a King Lear!’
‘How was that?’ we questioned him.
‘Oh, would you like me to tell you about him?’
‘Please do.’
And our friend promptly began his narrative.
I
‘All my childhood,’ he began, ‘and early youth, up to the age of
fifteen, I spent in the country, on the estate of my mother, a wealthy
landowner in X---- province. Almost the most vivid impression, that
has remained in my memory of that far-off time, is the figure of
our nearest neighbour, Martin Petrovitch Harlov. Indeed it would be
difficult for such an impression to be obliterated: I never in my
life afterwards met anything in the least like Harlov. Picture to
yourselves a man of gigantic stature. On his huge carcase was set, a
little askew, and without the least trace of a neck, a prodigious head.
A perfect haystack of tangled yellowish-grey hair stood up all over
it, growing almost down to the bushy eyebrows. On the broad expanse
of his purple face, that looked as though it had been peeled, there
protruded a sturdy knobby nose; diminutive little blue eyes stared out
haughtily, and a mouth gaped open that was diminutive too, but crooked,
chapped, and of the same colour as the rest of the face. The voice
that proceeded from this mouth, though hoarse, was exceedingly strong
and resonant.… Its sound recalled the clank of iron bars, carried in a
cart over a badly paved road; and when Harlov spoke, it was as though
some one were shouting in a high wind across a wide ravine. It was
difficult to tell just what Harlov’s face expressed, it was such an
expanse.… One felt one could hardly take it all in at one glance. But
it was not disagreeable--a certain grandeur indeed could be discerned
in it, only it was exceedingly astounding and unusual. And what hands
he had--positive cushions! What fingers, what feet! I remember I could
never gaze without a certain respectful awe at the four-foot span of
Martin Petrovitch’s back, at his shoulders, like millstones. But what
especially struck me was his ears! They were just like great twists of
bread, full of bends and curves; his cheeks seemed to support them on
both sides. Martin Petrovitch used to wear--winter and summer alike--a
Cossack dress of green cloth, girt about with a small Tcherkess strap,
and tarred boots. I never saw a cravat on him; and indeed what could
he have tied a cravat round? He breathed slowly and heavily, like a
bull, but walked without a sound. One might have imagined that having
got into a room, he was in constant fear of upsetting and overturning
everything, and so moved cautiously from place to place, sideways for
the most part, as though slinking by. He was possessed of a strength
truly Herculean, and in consequence enjoyed great renown in the
neighbourhood. Our common people retain to this day their reverence for
Titanic heroes. Legends were invented about him. They used to recount
that he had one day met a bear in the forest and had almost vanquished
him; that having once caught a thief in his beehouse, he had flung him,
horse and cart and all, over the hedge, and so on. Harlov himself never
boasted of his strength. ‘If my right hand is blessed,’ he used to say,
‘so it is God’s will it should be!’ He was proud, only he did not take
pride in his strength, but in his rank, his descent, his common sense.
‘Our family’s descended from the Swede Harlus,’ he used to maintain.
‘In the princely reign of Ivan Vassilievitch the Dark (fancy how long
ago!) he came to Russia, and that Swede Harlus did not wish to be a
Finnish count--but he wished to be a Russian nobleman, and he was
inscribed in the golden book. It’s from him we Harlovs are sprung!… And
by the same token, all of us Harlovs are born flaxen-haired, with light
eyes and clean faces, because we’re children of the snow!’
‘But, Martin Petrovitch,’ I once tried to object, ‘there never was
an Ivan Vassilievitch the Dark. Then was an Ivan Vassilievitch the
Terrible. The Dark was the name given to the great prince Vassily
Vassilievitch.’
‘What nonsense will you talk next!’ Harlov answered serenely; ‘since I
say so, so it was!’
One day my mother took it into her head to commend him to his face for
his really remarkable incorruptibility.
‘Ah, Natalia Nikolaevna!’ he protested almost angrily; ‘what a thing
to praise me for, really! We gentlefolk can’t be otherwise; so that no
churl, no low-born, servile creature dare even imagine evil of us! I am
a Harlov, my family has come down from’--here he pointed up somewhere
very high aloft in the ceiling--‘and me not be honest! How is it
possible?’
Another time a high official, who had come into the neighbourhood
and was staying with my mother, fancied he could make fun of Martin
Petrovitch. The latter had again referred to the Swede Harlus, who came
to Russia.…
‘In the days of King Solomon?’ the official interrupted.
‘No, not of King Solomon, but of the great Prince Ivan Vassilievitch
the Dark.’
‘But I imagine,’ the official pursued, ‘that your family is much more
ancient, and goes back to antediluvian days, when there were still
mastodons and megatheriums about.’
These scientific names were absolutely meaningless to Martin
Petrovitch; but he realised that the dignitary was laughing at him.
‘May be so,’ he boomed, ‘our family is, no doubt, very ancient; in
those days when my ancestor was in Moscow, they do say there was as
great a fool as your excellency living there, and such fools are not
seen twice in a thousand years.’
The high official was in a furious rage, while Harlov threw his head
back, stuck out his chin, snorted and disappeared. Two days later, he
came in again. My mother began reproaching him. ‘It’s a lesson for him,
ma’am,’ interposed Harlov, ‘not to fly off without knowing what he’s
about, to find out whom he has to deal with first. He’s young yet, he
must be taught.’ The dignitary was almost of the same age as Harlov;
but this Titan was in the habit of regarding every one as not fully
grown up. He had the greatest confidence in himself and was afraid of
absolutely no one. ‘Can they do anything to me? Where on earth is the
man that can?’ he would ask, and suddenly he would go off into a short
but deafening guffaw.