On the day appointed, our big family coach, with seats for four,
harnessed with six bay horses, and with the head coachman, the
grey-bearded and portly Alexeitch, on the box, rolled smoothly up to
the steps of our house. The importance of the act upon which Harlov
was about to enter, and the solemnity with which he had invited us,
had had their effect on my mother. She had herself given orders for
this extraordinary state equipage to be brought out, and had directed
Souvenir and me to put on our best clothes. She obviously wished to
show respect to her protégé. As for Kvitsinsky, he always wore a
frock-coat and white tie. Souvenir chattered like a magpie all the way,
giggled, wondered whether his brother would apportion him anything, and
thereupon called him a dummy and an old fogey. Kvitsinsky, a man of
severe and bilious temperament, could not put up with it at last ‘What
can induce you,’ he observed, in his distinct Polish accent, ‘to keep
up such a continual unseemly chatter? Can you really be incapable of
sitting quiet without these “wholly superfluous” (his favourite phrase)
inanities?’ ‘All right, d’rectly,’ Souvenir muttered discontentedly,
and he fixed his squinting eyes on the carriage window. A quarter of an
hour had not passed, the smoothly trotting horses had scarcely begun to
get warm under the straps of their new harness, when Harlov’s homestead
came into sight. Through the widely open gate, our coach rolled
into the yard. The diminutive postillion, whose legs hardly reached
half-way down his horses’ body, for the last time leaped up with a
babyish shriek into the soft saddle, old Alexeitch at once spread out
and raised his elbows, a slight ‘wo-o’ was heard, and we stopped.
The dogs did not bark to greet us, and the serf boys, in long smocks
that gaped open over their big stomachs, had all hidden themselves.
Harlov’s son-in-law was awaiting us in the doorway. I remember I was
particularly struck by the birch boughs stuck in on both sides of the
steps, as though it were Trinity Sunday. ‘Grandeur upon grandeur,’
Souvenir, who was the first to alight, squeaked through his nose. And
certainly there was a solemn air about everything. Harlov’s son-in-law
was wearing a plush cravat with a satin bow, and an extraordinarily
tight tail-coat; while Maximka, who popped out behind his back, had
his hair so saturated with kvas, that it positively dripped. We went
into the parlour, and saw Martin Petrovitch towering--yes, positively
towering--motionless, in the middle of the room. I don’t know what
Souvenir’s and Kvitsinsky’s feelings were at the sight of his colossal
figure; but I felt something akin to awe. Martin Petrovitch was attired
in a grey Cossack coat--his militia uniform of 1812 it must have
been--with a black stand-up collar. A bronze medal was to be seen on
his breast, a sabre hung at his side; he laid his left hand on the
hilt, with his right he was leaning on the table, which was covered
with a red cloth. Two sheets of paper, full of writing, lay on the
table. Harlov stood motionless, not even gasping; and what dignity was
expressed in his attitude, what confidence in himself, in his unlimited
and unquestionable power! He barely greeted us with a motion of the
head, and barely articulating ‘Be seated!’ pointed the forefinger of
his left hand in the direction of some chairs set in a row. Against
the right-hand wall of the parlour were standing Harlov’s daughters
wearing their Sunday clothes: Anna, in a shot lilac-green dress, with
a yellow silk sash; Evlampia, in pink, with crimson ribbons. Near them
stood Zhitkov, in a new uniform, with the habitual expression of dull
and greedy expectation in his eyes, and with a greater profusion of
sweat than usual over his hirsute countenance. On the left side of
the room sat the priest, in a threadbare snuff-coloured cassock, an
old man, with rough brown hair. This head of hair, and the dejected
lack-lustre eyes, and the big wrinkled hands, which seemed a burden
even to himself, and lay like two rocks on his knees, and the tarred
boots which peeped out beneath his cassock, all seemed to tell of a
joyless laborious life. His parish was a very poor one. Beside him
was the local police captain, a fattish, palish, dirty-looking little
gentleman, with soft puffy little hands and feet, black eyes, black
short-clipped moustaches, a continual cheerful but yet sickly little
smile on his face. He had the reputation of being a great taker of
bribes, and even a tyrant, as the expression was in those days. But
not only the gentry, even the peasants were used to him, and liked
him. He bent very free and easy and rather ironical looks around
him; it was clear that all this ‘procedure’ amused him. In reality,
the only part that had any interest for him was the light lunch and
spirits in store for us. But the attorney sitting near him, a lean man
with a long face, narrow whiskers from his ears to his nose, as they
were worn in the days of Alexander the First, was absorbed with his
whole soul in Martin Petrovitch’s proceedings, and never took his big
serious eyes off him. In his concentrated attention and sympathy, he
kept moving and twisting his lips, though without opening his mouth.
Souvenir stationed himself next him, and began talking to him in a
whisper, after first informing me that he was the chief freemason in
the province. The temporary division of the local court consists, as
every one knows, of the police captain, the attorney, and the rural
police commissioner; but the latter was either absent or kept himself
in the background, so that I did not notice him. He bore, however, the
nickname ‘the non-existent’ among us in the district, just as there are
tramps called ‘the non-identified.’ I sat next Souvenir, Kvitsinsky
next me. The face of the practical Pole showed unmistakeable annoyance
at our ‘wholly superfluous’ expedition, and unnecessary waste of time.…
‘A grand lady’s caprices! these Russian grandees’ fancies!’ he seemed
to be murmuring to himself.… ‘Ugh, these Russians!’