I questioned the mediator about Evlampia Martinovna, and learnt that
she had been lost sight of completely ever since she left home, and
probably ‘had departed this life long ago.’
So our worthy mediator expressed himself … but I am convinced that I
_have seen_ Evlampia, that I have come across her. This was how it was.
Four years after my interview with Anna Martinovna, I was spending the
summer at Murino, a little hamlet near Petersburg, a well-known resort
of summer visitors of the middle class. The shooting was pretty decent
about Murino at that time, and I used to go out with my gun almost
every day. I had a companion on my expeditions, a man of the tradesman
class, called Vikulov, a very sensible and good-natured fellow; but,
as he said of himself, of no position whatever. This man had been
simply everywhere, and everything! Nothing could astonish him, he knew
everything--but he cared for nothing but shooting and wine. Well,
one day we were on our way home to Murino, and we chanced to pass a
solitary house, standing at the cross-roads, and enclosed by a high,
close paling. It was not the first time I had seen the house, and every
time it excited my curiosity. There was something about it mysterious,
locked-up, grimly-dumb, something suggestive of a prison or a hospital.
Nothing of it could be seen from the road but its steep, dark,
red-painted roof. There was only one pair of gates in the whole fence;
and these seemed fastened and never opened. No sound came from the
other side of them. For all that, we felt that some one was certainly
living in the house; it had not at all the air of a deserted dwelling.
On the contrary, everything about it was stout, and tight, and strong,
as if it would stand a siege!
‘What is that fortress?’ I asked my companion. ‘Don’t you know?’
Vikulov gave a sly wink. ‘A fine building, eh? The police-captain of
these parts gets a nice little income out of it!’
‘How’s that?’
‘I’ll tell you. You’ve heard, I daresay, of the Flagellant
dissenters--that do without priests, you know?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, it’s there that their chief mother lives.’
‘A woman?’
‘Yes--the mother; a mother of God, they say.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘I tell you, it is so. She is a strict one, they say.… A regular
commander-in-chief! She rules over thousands! I’d take her, and all
these mothers of God.… But what’s the use of talking?’
He called his Pegashka, a marvellous dog, with an excellent scent, but
with no notion of setting. Vikulov was obliged to tie her hind paws to
keep her from running so furiously.
His words sank into my memory. I sometimes went out of my way to
pass by the mysterious house. One day I had just got up to it, when
suddenly--wonderful to relate!--a bolt grated in the gates, a key
creaked in the lock, then the gates themselves slowly parted, there
appeared a large horse’s head, with a plaited forelock under a
decorated yoke, and slowly there rolled into the road a small cart,
like those driven by horse-dealers, and higglers. On the leather
cushion of the cart, near to me, sat a peasant of about thirty, of a
remarkably handsome and attractive appearance, in a neat black smock,
and a black cap, pulled down low on his forehead. He was carefully
driving the well-fed horse, whose sides were as broad as a stove.
Beside the peasant, on the far side of the cart, sat a tall woman, as
straight as an arrow. Her head was covered by a costly-looking black
shawl. She was dressed in a short jerkin of dove-coloured velvet, and
a dark blue merino skirt; her white hands she held discreetly clasped
on her bosom. The cart turned on the road to the left, and brought
the woman within two paces of me; she turned her head a little, and I
recognised Evlampia Harlov. I knew her at once, I did not doubt for one
instant, and indeed no doubt was possible; eyes like hers, and above
all that cut of the lips--haughty and sensual--I had never seen in any
one else. Her face had grown longer and thinner, the skin was darker,
here and there lines could be discerned; but, above all, the expression
of the face was changed! It is difficult to do justice in words to the
self-confidence, the sternness, the pride it had gained! Not simply the
serenity of power--the satiety of power was visible in every feature.
The careless glance she cast at me told of long years of habitually
meeting nothing but reverent, unquestioning obedience. That woman
clearly lived surrounded, not by worshippers, but by slaves. She had
clearly forgotten even the time when any command, any desire of hers,
was not carried out at the instant! I called her loudly by her name and
her father’s; she gave a faint start, looked at me a second time, not
with alarm, but with contemptuous wrath, as though asking--‘Who dares
to disturb me?’ and barely parting her lips, uttered a word of command.
The peasant sitting beside her started forward, with a wave of his arm
struck the horse with the reins--the horse set off at a strong rapid
trot, and the cart disappeared.
Since then I have not seen Evlampia again. In what way Martin
Petrovitch’s daughter came to be a Holy Virgin in the Flagellant sect
I cannot imagine. But, who knows, very likely she has founded a sect
which will be called--or even now is called--after her name, the
Evlampieshtchin sect? Anything may be, anything may come to pass.
And so this is what I had to tell you of my _Lear of the Steppes_, of
his family and his doings.
The story-teller ceased, and we talked a little longer, and then
parted, each to his home.