Mitya, a young man of twenty-eight, tall, well-made, and curly-headed,
came into the room, and seeing me, stopped short in the doorway. His
costume was in the German style, but the unnatural size of the puffs on
his shoulders was enough alone to prove convincingly that the tailor
who had cut it was a Russian of the Russians.
'Well, come in, come in,' began the old man; 'why are you bashful? You
must thank your aunt--you're forgiven.... Here, your honour, I commend
him to you,' he continued, pointing to Mitya; 'he's my own nephew, but
I don't get on with him at all. The end of the world is coming!' (We
bowed to one another.) 'Well, tell me what is this you have got mixed
up in? What is the complaint they are making against you? Explain it to
us.'
Mitya obviously did not care to explain matters and justify himself
before me.
'Later on, uncle,' he muttered.
'No, not later--now,' pursued the old man.... 'You are ashamed, I see,
before this gentleman; all the better--it's only what you deserve.
Speak, speak; we are listening.'
'I have nothing to be ashamed of,' began Mitya spiritedly, with a toss
of his head. 'Be so good as to judge for yourself, uncle. Some peasant
proprietors of Reshetilovo came to me, and said, "Defend us, brother."
"What is the matter?"' "This is it: our grain stores were in perfect
order--in fact, they could not be better; all at once a government
inspector came to us with orders to inspect the granaries. He inspected
them, and said, 'Your granaries are in disorder--serious neglect; it's
my duty to report it to the authorities.' 'But what does the neglect
consist in?' 'That's my business,' he says.... We met together, and
decided to tip the official in the usual way; but old Prohoritch
prevented us. He said, 'No; that's only giving him a taste for more.
Come; after all, haven't we the courts of justice?' We obeyed the old
man, and the official got in a rage, and made a complaint, and wrote a
report. So now we are called up to answer to his charges." "But are
your granaries actually in order?" I asked. "God knows they are in
order; and the legal quantity of corn is in them." "Well, then," say I,
"you have nothing to fear"; and I drew up a document for them.... And
it is not yet known in whose favour it is decided.... And as to the
complaints they have made to you about me over that affair--it's very
easy to understand that--every man's shirt is nearest to his own skin.
'Everyone's, indeed--but not yours seemingly,' said the old man in an
undertone. 'But what plots have you been hatching with the
Shutolomovsky peasants?'
'How do you know anything of it?'
'Never mind; I do know of it.'
'And there, too, I am right--judge for yourself again. A neighbouring
landowner, Bezpandin, has ploughed over four acres of the Shutolomovsky
peasants' land. "The land's mine," he says. The Shutolomovsky people
are on the rent-system; their landowner has gone abroad--who is to
stand up for them? Tell me yourself? But the land is theirs beyond
dispute; they've been bound to it for ages and ages. So they came to
me, and said, "Write us a petition." So I wrote one. And Bezpandin
heard of it, and began to threaten me. "I'll break every bone in that
Mitya's body, and knock his head off his shoulders...." We shall see
how he will knock it off; it's still on, so far.'
'Come, don't boast; it's in a bad way, your head,' said the old man.
'You are a mad fellow altogether!'
'Why, uncle, what did you tell me yourself?'
'I know, I know what you will say,' Ovsyanikov interrupted him; 'of
course a man ought to live uprightly, and he is bound to succour his
neighbour. Sometimes one must not spare oneself.... But do you always
behave in that way? Don't they take you to the tavern, eh? Don't they
treat you; bow to you, eh? "Dmitri Alexyitch," they say, "help us, and
we will prove our gratitude to you." And they slip a silver rouble or
note into your hand. Eh? doesn't that happen? Tell me, doesn't that
happen?'
'I am certainly to blame in that,' answered Mitya, rather confused;
'but I take nothing from the poor, and I don't act against my
conscience.'
'You don't take from them now; but when you are badly off yourself,
then you will. You don't act against your conscience--fie on you! Of
course, they are all saints whom you defend!... Have you forgotten
Borka Perohodov? Who was it looked after him? Who took him under his
protection--eh?'
'Perohodov suffered through his own fault, certainly.'
'He appropriated the public moneys.... That was all!'
'But, consider, uncle: his poverty, his family.'
'Poverty, poverty.... He's a drunkard, a quarrelsome fellow; that's
what it is!'
'He took to drink through trouble,' said Mitya, dropping his voice.
'Through trouble, indeed! Well, you might have helped him, if your
heart was so warm to him, but there was no need for you to sit in
taverns with the drunken fellow yourself. Though he did speak so finely
... a prodigy, to be sure!'
'He was a very good fellow.'
'Every one is good with you.... But did you send him?' ... pursued
Ovsyanikov, turning to his wife; 'come; you know?'
Tatyana Ilyinitchna nodded.
'Where have you been lately?' the old man began again.
'I have been in the town.'
'You have been doing nothing but playing billiards, I wager, and
drinking tea, and running to and fro about the government offices,
drawing up petitions in little back rooms, flaunting about with
merchants' sons? That's it, of course?... Tell us!'
'Perhaps that is about it,' said Mitya with a smile.... 'Ah! I had
almost forgotten--Funtikov, Anton Parfenitch asks you to dine with him
next Sunday.'
'I shan't go to see that old tub. He gives you costly fish and puts
rancid butter on it. God bless him!'
'And I met Fedosya Mihalovna.'
'What Fedosya is that?'
'She belongs to Garpentchenko, the landowner, who bought Mikulino by
auction. Fedosya is from Mikulino. She lived in Moscow as a
dress-maker, paying her service in money, and she paid her
service-money accurately--a hundred and eighty two-roubles and a half a
year.... And she knows her business; she got good orders in Moscow. But
now Garpentchenko has written for her back, and he retains her here,
but does not provide any duties for her. She would be prepared to buy
her freedom, and has spoken to the master, but he will not give any
decisive answer. You, uncle, are acquainted with Garpentchenko ... so
couldn't you just say a word to him?... And Fedosya would give a good
price for her freedom.'
'Not with your money I hope? Hey? Well, well, all right; I will speak
to him, I will speak to him. But I don't know,' continued the old man
with a troubled face; 'this Garpentchenko, God forgive him! is a shark;
he buys up debts, lends money at interest, purchases estates at
auctions.... And who brought him into our parts? Ugh, I can't bear
these new-comers! One won't get an answer out of him very quickly....
However, we shall see.'
'Try to manage it, uncle.'
'Very well, I will see to it. Only you take care; take care of
yourself! There, there, don't defend yourself.... God bless you! God
bless you!... Only take care for the future, or else, Mitya, upon my
word, it will go ill with you.... Upon my word, you will come to
grief.... I can't always screen you ... and I myself am not a man of
influence. There, go now, and God be with you!'
Mitya went away. Tatyana Ilyinitchna went out after him.
'Give him some tea, you soft-hearted creature,' cried Ovsyanikov after
her. 'He's not a stupid fellow,' he continued, 'and he's a good heart,
but I feel afraid for him.... But pardon me for having so long kept you
occupied with such details.'
The door from the hall opened. A short grizzled little man came in, in
a velvet coat.
'Ah, Frantz Ivanitch!' cried Ovsyanikov, 'good day to you. Is God
merciful to you?'
Allow me, gentle reader, to introduce to you this gentleman.
Frantz Ivanitch Lejeune, my neighbour, and a landowner of Orel, had
arrived at the respectable position of a Russian nobleman in a not
quite ordinary way. He was born in Orleans of French parents, and had
gone with Napoleon, on the invasion of Russia, in the capacity of a
drummer. At first all went smoothly, and our Frenchman arrived in
Moscow with his head held high. But on the return journey poor Monsieur
Lejeune, half-frozen and without his drum, fell into the hands of some
peasants of Smolensk. The peasants shut him up for the night in an
empty cloth factory, and the next morning brought him to an ice-hole
near the dyke, and began to beg the drummer '_de la Grrrrande Armée_'
to oblige them; in other words, to swim under the ice. Monsieur Lejeune
could not agree to their proposition, and in his turn began to try to
persuade the Smolensk peasants, in the dialect of France, to let him go
to Orleans. 'There, messieurs,' he said, '_my mother is living, une
tendre mère_' But the peasants, doubtless through their ignorance of
the geographical position of Orleans, continued to offer him a journey
under water along the course of the meandering river Gniloterka, and
had already begun to encourage him with slight blows on the vertebrae
of the neck and back, when suddenly, to the indescribable delight of
Lejeune, the sound of bells was heard, and there came along the dyke a
huge sledge with a striped rug over its excessively high dickey,
harnessed with three roan horses. In the sledge sat a stout and
red-faced landowner in a wolfskin pelisse.
'What is it you are doing there?' he asked the peasants.
'We are drowning a Frenchman, your honour.'
'Ah!' replied the landowner indifferently, and he turned away.
'Monsieur! Monsieur!' shrieked the poor fellow.
'Ah, ah!' observed the wolfskin pelisse reproachfully, 'you came with
twenty nations into Russia, burnt Moscow, tore down, you damned
heathen! the cross from Ivan the Great, and now--mossoo, mossoo,
indeed! now you turn tail! You are paying the penalty of your sins!...
Go on, Filka!'
The horses were starting.
'Stop, though!' added the landowner. 'Eh? you mossoo, do you know
anything of music?'
'_Sauvez-moi, sauvez-moi, mon bon monsieur!_' repeated Lejeune.
'There, see what a wretched people they are! Not one of them knows
Russian! Muzeek, muzeek, savey muzeek voo? savey? Well, speak, do!
Compreny? savey muzeek voo? on the piano, savey zhooey?'
Lejeune comprehended at last what the landowner meant, and persistently
nodded his head.
'_Oui, monsieur, oui, oui, je suis musicien; je joue tous les
instruments possibles! Oui, monsieur.... Sauvez-moi, monsieur!_'
'Well, thank your lucky star!' replied the landowner. 'Lads, let him
go: here's a twenty-copeck piece for vodka.'
'Thank you, your honour, thank you. Take him, your honour.'
They sat Lejeune in the sledge. He was gasping with delight, weeping,
shivering, bowing, thanking the landowner, the coachman, the peasants.
He had nothing on but a green jacket with pink ribbons, and it was
freezing very hard. The landowner looked at his blue and benumbed
shoulders in silence, wrapped the unlucky fellow in his own pelisse,
and took him home. The household ran out. They soon thawed the
Frenchman, fed him, and clothed him. The landowner conducted him to his
daughters.
'Here, children!' he said to them, 'a teacher is found for you. You
were always entreating me to have you taught music and the French
jargon; here you have a Frenchman, and he plays on the piano.... Come,
mossoo,' he went on, pointing to a wretched little instrument he had
bought five years before of a Jew, whose special line was eau de
Cologne, 'give us an example of your art; zhooey!'
Lejeune, with a sinking heart, sat down on the music-stool; he had
never touched a piano in his life.
'Zhooey, zhooey!' repeated the landowner.
In desperation, the unhappy man beat on the keys as though on a drum,
and played at hazard. 'I quite expected,' he used to tell afterwards,
'that my deliverer would seize me by the collar, and throw me out of
the house.' But, to the utmost amazement of the unwilling improvisor,
the landowner, after waiting a little, patted him good-humouredly on
the shoulder.
'Good, good,' he said; 'I see your attainments; go now, and rest
yourself.'
Within a fortnight Lejeune had gone from this landowner's to stay with
another, a rich and cultivated man. He gained his friendship by his
bright and gentle disposition, was married to a ward of his, went into
a government office, rose to the nobility, married his daughter to
Lobizanyev, a landowner of Orel, and a retired dragoon and poet, and
settled himself on an estate in Orel.
It was this same Lejeune, or rather, as he is called now, Frantz
Ivanitch, who, when I was there, came in to see Ovsyanikov, with whom
he was on friendly terms....
But perhaps the reader is already weary of sitting with me at the
Ovsyanikovs', and so I will become eloquently silent.