A score of years have passed. Much water has run since then, many men have
died, many children have been born, many have grown up and become old;
still more thoughts have been born and perished. Much that was beautiful
and much that was ugly in the past have disappeared; much that is beautiful
in the new has been brought forth, and still more that is incomplete and
abortive of the new has appeared in God's world.
Count Feódor Turbin was long ago killed in a duel with some foreigner whom
he struck on the street with his long whip. His son, who was as like him as
two drops of water, had already reached the age of two or three and twenty,
and was a lovely fellow, already serving in the cavalry.
Morally the young Count Turbin was entirely different from his father.
There was not a shadow of those fiery, passionate, and in truth be it said,
corrupt inclinations, peculiar to the last century.
Together with intelligence, cultivation, and inherited natural gifts, a
love for the proprieties and amenities of life, a practical view of men and
circumstances, wisdom and forethought, were his chief characteristics.
The young count made admirable progress in his profession; at twenty-three
he was already lieutenant.... When war broke out, he came to the conclusion
that it would be more for his interests to enter the regular army; and he
joined a regiment of hussars as captain of cavalry, where he soon was given
command of a battalion.
In the month of May, 1848, the S. regiment of hussars was on its way
through the government of K., and the very battalion which the young Count
Turbin commanded was obliged to be quartered for one night at Morozovka,
Anna Fedorovna's village. Anna Fedorovna was still alive, but was now so
far from being young that she no longer called herself young, which, for a
woman, means much.
She had grown very stout, and this, it is said, restores youth in a woman.
But that was not the worst of it: over her pale, stout flesh was a net-work
of coarse, flabby wrinkles. She no longer went to the city, she even found
it hard to mount into her carriage; but still she was just as good-natured
and as completely vacant-minded as ever,--the truth might safely be told,
now that it was no longer palliated by her beauty.
Under her roof lived her daughter Liza, a rustic Russian belle of
twenty-three summers, and her brother, our acquaintance the cavalryman, who
had spent all his patrimony in behalf of others, and now, in his old age,
had taken refuge with Anna Fedorovna.
The hair on his head had become perfectly gray; his upper lip was sunken,
but the mustache that it wore was carefully dyed. Wrinkles covered not only
his brow and cheeks, but also his nose and neck; and yet his weak bow-legs
gave evidence of the old cavalryman.
Anna Fedorovna's whole family and household were gathered in the small
parlor of the ancient house. The balcony door and windows, looking out into
a star-shaped garden shaded by lindens, were open. Anna Fedorovna, in her
gray hair and a lilac-colored gown,[74] was sitting on the sofa, before a
small round mahogany table, shuffling cards. The old brother, dressed in
spruce white pantaloons and a blue coat, had taken up his position near the
window, knitting strips of white cotton on a fork, an occupation which his
niece had taught him, and which gave him great enjoyment, as he had nothing
else to do, his eyes not being strong enough to enable him to read
newspapers, which was his favorite occupation. Near him Pímotchka, a
_protégée_ of Anna Fedorovna, was studying her lessons under the guidance
of Liza, who with wooden knitting-needles was knitting stockings of
goat-wool for her uncle.
[Footnote 74: _katsavéïka._]
The last rays of the setting sun, as always at this time, threw under the
linden alley their soft reflections on the last window-panes and the little
_étagère_ which stood near it.
In the garden it was so still that one could hear the swift rush of a
swallow's wings, and so quiet in the room that Anna Fedorovna's gentle
sigh, or the old man's cough as he kept changing the position of his legs,
was the only sound.
"How does this go, Lízanka? show me, please. I keep forgetting," said Anna
Fedorovna, pausing in the midst of her game of patience. Liza, without
stopping her work, went over to her mother, and, glancing at the cards,
"Ah!" says she. "You have mixed them all up, dear mamasha," said she,
arranging the cards. "That is the way they should be placed. Now they come
as you desired," she added, secretly withdrawing one card.
"Now you are always managing to deceive me! You said that it would go."
"No, truly; it goes, I assure you. It has come out right."
"Very well, then; very well, you rogue! But isn't it time for tea?"
"I have just ordered the samovár heated. I will go and see about it
immediately. Shall we have it brought here?... Now, Pímotchka, hasten and
finish your lessons, and we will go and take a run."
And Liza started for the door.
"Lízotchka! Lízanka!" cried her uncle, steadfastly regarding his fork,
"again it seems to me I have dropped a stitch. Arrange it for me, my
darling."[75]
[Footnote 75: _golúbchik._]
"In a moment, in a moment. First I must have the sugar broken up."
And in point of fact, within three minutes, she came running into the room,
went up to her uncle, and took him by the ear.
"That's to pay you for dropping stitches," said she laughing. "You have not
been knitting as I taught you."
"Now, that'll do, that'll do, adjust it for me; there seems to be some sort
of a knot."
Liza took the fork, pulled out a pin from her kerchief, which was blown
back a little by the breeze coming through the window, picked it out a
couple of times, and handed it back to her uncle.
"Now you must kiss me for that," said she, putting up her rosy cheek toward
him, and re-adjusting her kerchief. "You shall have rum in your tea to-day.
To-day is Friday, you see."
And again she went to the tea-room.
"Uncle dear, come and look! some hussars are riding up toward the house!"
her ringing voice was heard to say. Anna Fedorovna and her brother hastened
into the tea-room, the windows of which faced the village, and looked at
the hussars. Very little was to be seen; through the cloud of dust it could
be judged only that a body of men was advancing.
"What a pity, sister," remarked the uncle to Anna Fedorovna, "what a pity
that we are so cramped, and the wing is not built yet, so that we might
invite the officers here. Officers of the hussars! they are such glorious,
gay young fellows! I should like to have a glimpse at them."
"Well, I should be heartily glad, but you know yourself that there is
nowhere to put them: my sleeping-room, Liza's room, the parlor, and then
your room,--judge for yourself. Mikháïlo Matveef has put the
_stárosta's_[76] house in order for them; he says it will be nice there."
[Footnote 76: Village elder.]
"But we must find you a husband, Lízotchka, among them,--a glorious
hussar!" said the uncle.
"No, I do not want a hussar: I want an uhlan. Let me see, you served among
the uhlans, didn't you, uncle?... I don't care to know these hussars. They
say they are desperate fellows."
And Liza blushed a little, and then once more her ringing laugh was heard.
"There's Ustiushka running: we must ask her what she saw," said she. Anna
Fedorovna sent to have Ustiushka brought in.
"She has no idea of sticking to her work, she must always be running off to
look at the soldiers," said Anna Fedorovna.... "Now, where have they lodged
the officers?"
"With the Yeremkins, your ladyship. There are two of them, such lovely men!
One of them is a count, they tell me."
"What's his name?"
"Kazárof or Turbínof. I don't remember, excuse me."
"There now, you're a goose, you don't know how to tell any thing at all.
You might have remembered his name!"
"Well, I'll run and find out."
"I know that you are quite able to do that. But no, let Danílo
go.--Brother, go and tell him to go; have him ask if there is not something
which the officers may need; every thing must be done in good form; have
them understand that it is the lady of the house who has sent to find out."
The old people sat down again in the tea-room, and Liza went to the
servants' room to put the lumps of sugar in the sugar-bowl. Ustiushka was
telling them there about the hussars.
"O my dear young lady, what a handsome man he is! that count!" she said,
"absolutely a little cherubim,[77] with black eyebrows. You ought to have
such a husband as that; what a lovely little couple you would make!" The
other maids smiled approvingly; the old nurse, sitting by the window with
her stocking, sighed, and, drawing a long breath, murmured a prayer.
[Footnote 77: _kherubimchik._]
"It seems to me that the hussars have given you a great deal of pleasure,"
said Liza. "You are a master hand at description. Bring me the _mors_,[78]
Ustiushka, please; we must give the officers something sour to drink." And
Liza, laughing, went out with the sugar-bowl.
[Footnote 78: A sour beverage made of cranberries.]
"But I should like to see what sort of a man this hussar is,--whether he is
brunet or blondin. And I imagine he would not object to making our
acquaintance. But he will go away, and never know that I was here and was
thinking about him. And how many have passed by me in this way! No one ever
sees me except uncle and Ustiushka! How many times I have arranged my hair,
how many pairs of cuffs I have put on, and yet no one ever sees me or falls
in love with me," she thought with a sigh, contemplating her white, plump
hand.
"He must be tall, and have big eyes, and a nice little black mustache....
No! I am already over twenty-two, and no one has ever fallen in love with
me except the pock-marked Iván Ipátuitch. And four years ago I was still
better-looking; and so my girlhood has gone, and no one is the better for
it. Ah! I am an unhappy country maiden!"
Her mother's voice, calling her to bring the tea, aroused the country
maiden from this momentary revery.
She shook her little head, and went into the tea-room.
The best things always happen unexpectedly; and the more you try to force
them, the worse they come out. In the country it is rare that any attempt
is made to impart education, and therefore when a good one is found it is
generally a surprise. And thus it happened, in a notable degree, in the
case of Liza. Anna Fedorovna, through her own lack of intelligence and
natural laziness, had not given Liza any education at all; had not taught
her music, nor the French language which is so indispensable. But the girl
had fortunately been a healthy, bright little child: she had intrusted her
to a wet-nurse and a day-nurse; she had fed her, and dressed her in print
dresses and goat-skin shoes, and let her run wild and gather mushrooms and
berries; had her taught reading and arithmetic by a resident seminarist.
And thus, as fate would have it, at the age of sixteen, she found in her
daughter a companion, a soul who was always cheerful and good-natured, and
the actual mistress of the house.
Through her goodness of heart, Anna Fedorovna always had in her house some
_protégée_, either a serf or some foundling. Liza, from the time she was
ten years old, had begun to take care of them; to teach them, clothe them,
take them to church, and keep them still when they were inclined to be
mischievous.
Then her old broken-down but good-natured uncle made his appearance, and he
had to be taken care of like a child. Then the domestic servants and the
peasants began to come to the young mistress with their desires and their
ailments; and she treated them with elderberry, mint, and spirits of
camphor. Then the domestic management of the house fell into her hands
entirely. Then came the unsatisfied craving for love, which found
expression only in nature and religion.
Thus Liza, by chance, grew into an active, good-naturedly cheerful,
self-poised, pure, and deeply religious young woman.
To be sure, she had her little fits of jealousy and envy when she saw, all
around her in church, her neighbors dressed in new, fashionable hats that
came from K.; she was sometimes vexed to tears by her old, irritable
mother, and her caprices; she had her dreams of love in the most absurd and
even the crudest forms, but her healthy activity, which she could not
shirk, drove them away; and now, at twenty-two, not a single spot, not a
single compunction, had touched the fresh, calm soul of this maiden, now
developed into the fulness of perfect physical and moral beauty.
Liza was of medium height, rather plump than lean; her eyes were brown,
small, with a soft dark shade on the lower lid; she wore her flaxen hair in
a long braid.
In walking she took long steps, and swayed like a duck, as the saying is.
The expression of her face, when she was occupied with her duties, and
nothing especially disturbed her, seemed to say to all who looked into it,
"Life in this world is good and pleasant to one who has a heart full of
love, and a pure conscience."
Even in moments of vexation, of trouble, of unrest, or of melancholy, in
spite of her tears, of the drawing-down of the left brow, of the compressed
lips, of the petulance of her desires, even then in the dimples of her
cheeks, in the corners of her mouth, and in her brilliant eyes, so used to
smile and rejoice in life,--even then there shone a heart good and upright,
and unspoiled by knowledge.