I had long been curious to see how Martin Petrovitch arranged his
household, what sort of a home he had. One day I invited myself to
accompany him on horseback as far as Eskovo (that was the name of his
estate). ‘Upon my word, you want to have a look at my dominion,’ was
Martin Petrovitch’s comment. ‘By all means! I’ll show you the garden,
and the house, and the threshing-floor, and everything. I have plenty
of everything.’ We set off. It was reckoned hardly more than a couple
of miles from our place to Eskovo. ‘Here it is--my dominion!’ Martin
Petrovitch roared suddenly, trying to turn his immovable neck, and
waving his arm to right and left. ‘It’s all mine!’ Harlov’s homestead
lay on the top of a sloping hill. At the bottom, a few wretched-looking
peasants’ huts clustered close to a small pond. At the pond, on a
washing platform, an old peasant woman in a check petticoat was beating
some soaked linen with a bat.
‘Axinia!’ boomed Martin Petrovitch, but in such a note that the rooks
flew up in a flock from an oat-field near.… ‘Washing your husband’s
breeches?’
The peasant woman turned at once and bowed very low.
‘Yes, sir,’ sounded her weak voice.
‘Ay, ay! Yonder, look,’ Martin Petrovitch continued, proceeding at a
trot alongside a half-rotting wattle fence, ‘that is my hemp-patch; and
that yonder’s the peasants’; see the difference? And this here is my
garden; the apple-trees I planted, and the willows I planted too. Else
there was no timber of any sort here. Look at that, and learn a lesson!’
We turned into the courtyard, shut in by a fence; right opposite the
gate, rose an old tumbledown lodge, with a thatch roof, and steps up to
it, raised on posts. On one side stood another, rather newer, and with
a tiny attic; but it too was a ramshackly affair. ‘Here you may learn
a lesson again,’ observed Harlov; ‘see what a little manor-house our
fathers lived in; but now see what a mansion I have built myself.’ This
‘mansion’ was like a house of cards. Five or six dogs, one more ragged
and hideous than another, welcomed us with barking. ‘Sheep-dogs!’
observed Martin Petrovitch. ‘Pure-bred Crimeans! Sh, damned brutes!
I’ll come and strangle you one after another!’ On the steps of the new
building, there came out a young man, in a long full nankeen overall,
the husband of Martin Petrovitch’s elder daughter. Skipping quickly up
to the droshky, he respectfully supported his father-in-law under the
elbow as he got up, and even made as though he would hold the gigantic
feet, which the latter, bending his bulky person forward, lifted with a
sweeping movement across the seat; then he assisted me to dismount from
my horse.
‘Anna!’ cried Harlov, ‘Natalia Nikolaevna’s son has come to pay us a
visit; you must find some good cheer for him. But where’s Evlampia?’
(Anna was the name of the elder daughter, Evlampia of the younger.)
‘She’s not at home; she’s gone into the fields to get cornflowers,’
responded Anna, appearing at a little window near the door.
‘Is there any junket?’ queried Harlov.
‘Yes.’
‘And cream too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, set them on the table, and I’ll show the young gentleman my own
room meanwhile. This way, please, this way,’ he added, addressing me,
and beckoning with his forefinger. In his own house he treated me less
familiarly; as a host he felt obliged to be more formally respectful.
He led me along a corridor. ‘Here is where I abide,’ he observed,
stepping sideways over the threshold of a wide doorway, ‘this is my
room. Pray walk in!’
His room turned out to be a big unplastered apartment, almost empty;
on the walls, on nails driven in askew, hung two riding-whips, a
three-cornered hat, reddish with wear, a single-barrelled gun, a sabre,
a sort of curious horse-collar inlaid with metal plates, and the
picture representing a burning candle blown on by the winds. In one
corner stood a wooden settle covered with a particoloured rug. Hundreds
of flies swarmed thickly about the ceiling; yet the room was cool. But
there was a very strong smell of that peculiar odour of the forest
which always accompanied Martin Petrovitch.
‘Well, is it a nice room?’ Harlov questioned me.
‘Very nice.’
‘Look-ye, there hangs my Dutch horse-collar,’ Harlov went on, dropping
into his familiar tone again. ‘A splendid horse-collar! got it by
barter off a Jew. Just you look at it!’
‘It’s a good horse-collar.’
‘It’s most practical. And just sniff it … what leather!’ I smelt the
horse-collar. It smelt of rancid oil and nothing else.
‘Now, be seated,--there on the stool; make yourself at home,’ observed
Harlov, while he himself sank on to the settle, and seemed to fall
into a doze, shutting his eyes and even beginning to snore. I gazed
at him without speaking, with ever fresh wonder; he was a perfect
mountain--there was no other word! Suddenly he started.
‘Anna!’ he shouted, while his huge stomach rose and fell like a wave on
the sea; ‘what are you about? Look sharp! Didn’t you hear me?’
‘Everything’s ready, father; come in,’ I heard his daughter’s voice.
I inwardly marvelled at the rapidity with which Martin Petrovitch’s
behests had been carried out; and followed him into the drawing-room,
where, on a table covered with a red cloth with white flowers on
it, lunch was already prepared: junket, cream, wheaten bread, even
powdered sugar and ginger. While I set to work on the junket, Martin
Petrovitch growled affectionately, ‘Eat, my friend, eat, my dear boy;
don’t despise our country cheer,’ and sitting down again in a corner,
again seemed to fall into a doze. Before me, perfectly motionless, with
downcast eyes, stood Anna Martinovna, while I saw through the window
her husband walking my cob up and down the yard, and rubbing the chain
of the snaffle with his own hands.