If newcomers to the little provincial city of S. complained that life
there was monotonous and dull, its inhabitants would answer that, on the
contrary, S. was a very amusing place, indeed, that it had a library and
a club, that balls were given there, and finally, that very pleasant
families lived there with whom one might become acquainted. And they
always pointed to the Turkins as the most accomplished and most
enlightened family of all.
These Turkins lived in a house of their own, on Main Street, next door
to the governor. Ivan Turkin, the father, was a stout, handsome, dark
man with side-whiskers. He often organized amateur theatricals for
charity, playing the parts of the old generals in them and coughing most
amusingly. He knew a lot of funny stories, riddles, and proverbs, and
loved to joke and pun with, all the while, such a quaint expression on
his face that no one ever knew whether he was serious or jesting. His
wife Vera was a thin, rather pretty woman who wore glasses and wrote
stories and novels which she liked to read aloud to her guests.
Katherine, the daughter, played the piano. In short, each member of the
family had his or her special talent. The Turkins always welcomed their
guests cordially and showed off their accomplishments to them with
cheerful and genial simplicity. The interior of their large stone house
was spacious, and, in summer, delightfully cool. Half of its windows
looked out upon a shady old garden where, on spring evenings, the
nightingales sang. Whenever there were guests in the house a mighty
chopping would always begin in the kitchen, and a smell of fried onions
would pervade the courtyard. These signs always foretold a sumptuous and
appetising supper.
So it came to pass that when Dimitri Ionitch Startseff received his
appointment as government doctor, and went to live in Dialij, six miles
from S., he too, as an intelligent man, was told that he must not fail
to make the Turkins’ acquaintance. Turkin was presented to him on the
street one winter’s day; they talked of the weather and the theatre and
the cholera, and an invitation from Turkin followed. Next spring, on
Ascension Day, after he had received his patients, Startseff went into
town for a little holiday, and to make some purchases. He strolled along
at a leisurely pace (he had no horse of his own yet), and as he walked
he sang to himself:
“Before I had drunk those tears from Life’s cup——”
After dining in town he sauntered through the public gardens, and the
memory of Turkin’s invitation somehow came into his mind. He decided to
go to their house and see for himself what sort of people they were.
“Be welcome, if you please!” cried Turkin, meeting him on the front
steps. “I am delighted, delighted to see such a welcome guest! Come, let
me introduce you to the missus. I told him, Vera,” he continued,
presenting the doctor to his wife, “I told him that no law of the Medes
and Persians allows him to shut himself up in his hospital as he does.
He ought to give society the benefit of his leisure hours, oughtn’t he,
dearest?”
“Sit down here,” said Madame Turkin, beckoning him to a seat at her
side. “You may flirt with me, if you like. My husband is jealous, a
regular Othello, but we’ll try to behave so that he shan’t notice
anything.”
“Oh, you little wretch, you!” murmured Turkin, tenderly kissing her
forehead. “You have come at a very opportune moment,” he went on,
addressing his guest. “My missus has just written a splendiferous novel
and is going to read it aloud to-day.”
“Jean,” said Madame Turkin to her husband. “Dites que l’on nous donne du
thé.”
Startseff next made the acquaintance of Miss Katherine, an eighteen-year
old girl who much resembled her mother. Like her, she was pretty and
slender; her expression was childlike still, and her figure delicate and
supple, but her full, girlish chest spoke of spring and of the
loveliness of spring. They drank tea with jam, honey, and sweetmeats and
ate delicious cakes that melted in the mouth. When evening came other
guests began to arrive, and Turkin turned his laughing eyes on each one
in turn exclaiming:
“Be welcome, if you please!”
When all had assembled, they took their seats in the drawing-room, and
Madame Turkin read her novel aloud. The story began with the words: “The
frost was tightening its grasp.” The windows were open wide, and sounds
of chopping could be heard in the kitchen, while the smell of fried
onions came floating through the air. Every one felt very peaceful
sitting there in those deep, soft armchairs, while the friendly
lamplight played tenderly among the shadows of the drawing-room. On that
evening of summer, with the sound of voices and laughter floating up
from the street, and the scent of lilacs blowing in through the open
windows, it was hard to imagine the frost tightening its grasp, and the
setting sun illuminating with its bleak rays a snowy plain and a
solitary wayfarer journeying across it. Madame Turkin read of how a
beautiful princess had built a school, and hospital, and library in the
village where she lived, and had fallen in love with a strolling artist.
She read of things that had never happened in this world, and yet it was
delightfully comfortable to sit there and listen to her, while such
pleasant and peaceful dreams floated through one’s fancy that one wished
never to move again.
“Not baddish!” said Turkin softly. And one of the guests, who had
allowed his thoughts to roam far, far afield, said almost inaudibly:
“Yes—it is indeed!”
One hour passed, two hours passed. The town band began playing in the
public gardens, and a chorus of singers struck up “The Little Torch.”
After Madame Turkin had folded her manuscript, every one sat silent for
five minutes, listening to the old folk-song telling of things that
happen in life and not in story-books.
“Do you have your stories published in the magazines?” asked Startseff.
“No,” she answered. “I have never had anything published. I put all my
manuscripts away in a closet. Why should I publish them?” she added by
way of explanation. “We don’t need the money.”
And for some reason every one sighed.
“And now, Kitty, play us something,” said Turkin to his daughter.
Some one raised the top of the piano, and opened the music which was
already lying at hand. Katherine struck the keys with both hands. Then
she struck them again with all her might, and then again and again. Her
chest and shoulders quivered, and she obstinately hammered the same
place, so that it seemed as if she were determined not to stop playing
until she had beaten the keyboard into the piano. The drawing-room was
filled with thunder; the floor, the ceiling, the furniture, everything
rumbled. Katherine played a long, monotonous piece, interesting only for
its intricacy, and as Startseff listened, he imagined he saw endless
rocks rolling down a high mountainside. He wanted them to stop rolling
as quickly as possible, and at the same time Katherine pleased him
immensely, she looked so energetic and strong, all rosy from her
exertions, with a lock of hair hanging down over her forehead. After his
winter spent among sick people and peasants in Dialij, it was a new and
agreeable sensation to be sitting in a drawing-room watching that
graceful, pure young girl and listening to those noisy, monotonous but
cultured sounds.
“Well, Kitty, you played better than ever to-day!” exclaimed Turkin,
with tears in his eyes when his daughter had finished and risen from the
piano-stool. “Last the best, you know!”
The guests all surrounded her exclaiming, congratulating, and declaring
that they had not heard such music for ages. Kitty listened in silence,
smiling a little, and triumph was written all over her face.
“Wonderful! Beautiful!”
“Beautiful!” exclaimed Startseff, abandoning himself to the general
enthusiasm. “Where did you study music? At the conservatory?” he asked
Katherine.
“No, I haven’t been to the conservatory, but I am going there very soon.
So far I have only had lessons here from Madame Zakivska.”
“Did you go to the high-school?”
“Oh, dear no!” the mother answered for her daughter. “We had teachers
come to the house for her. She might have come under bad influences at
school, you know. While a girl is growing up she should be under her
mother’s influence only.”
“I’m going to the conservatory all the same!” declared Katherine.
“No, Kitty loves her mamma too much for that; Kitty would not grieve her
mamma and papa!”
“Yes, I am going!” Katherine insisted, playfully and wilfully stamping
her little foot.
At supper it was Turkin who showed off his accomplishments. With
laughing eyes, but with a serious face he told funny stories, and made
jokes, and asked ridiculous riddles which he answered himself. He spoke
a language all his own, full of laboured, acrobatic feats of wit, in the
shape of such words as “splendiferous,” “not baddish,” “I thank you
blindly,” which had clearly long since become a habit with him.
But this was not the end of the entertainment. When the well-fed,
well-satisfied guests had trooped into the front hall to sort out their
hats and canes they found Pava the footman, a shaven-headed boy of
fourteen, bustling about among them.
“Come now, Pava! Do your act!” cried Turkin to the lad.
Pava struck an attitude, raised one hand, and said in a tragic voice:
“Die, unhappy woman!”
At which every one laughed.
“Quite amusing!” thought Startseff, as he stepped out into the street.
He went to a restaurant and had a glass of beer, and then started off on
foot for his home in Dialij. As he walked he sang to himself:
“Your voice so languorous and soft——”
He felt no trace of fatigue after his six-mile walk, and as he went to
bed he thought that, on the contrary, he would gladly have walked
another fifteen miles.
“Not baddish!” he remembered as he fell asleep, and laughed aloud at the
recollection.