office.
"And where are the witnesses?"
"They must have gone to tea, your honor."
On the right was the parlor, the travelers' or gentry's room; on the
left the kitchen, with a big stove and sleeping shelves under the
rafters. The doctor and the examining magistrate, followed by the
constable, holding the lamp high above his head, went into the parlor.
Here a still, long body covered with white linen was lying on the floor
close to the table-legs. In the dim light of the lamp they could clearly
see, besides the white covering, new rubber goloshes, and everything
about it was uncanny and sinister: the dark walls, and the silence, and
the goloshes, and the stillness of the dead body. On the table stood a
samovar, cold long ago; and round it parcels, probably the eatables.
"To shoot oneself in the Zemstvo hut, how tactless!" said the doctor.
"If one does want to put a bullet through one's brains, one ought to do
it at home in some outhouse."
He sank on to a bench, just as he was, in his cap, his fur coat, and his
felt overboots; his fellow-traveler, the examining magistrate, sat down
opposite.
"These hysterical, neurasthenic people are great egoists," the doctor
went on hotly. "If a neurasthenic sleeps in the same room with you, he
rustles his newspaper; when he dines with you, he gets up a scene with
his wife without troubling about your presence; and when he feels
inclined to shoot himself, he shoots himself in a village in a Zemstvo
hut, so as to give the maximum of trouble to everybody. These gentlemen
in every circumstance of life think of no one but themselves! That's why
the elderly so dislike our 'nervous age.'"
"The elderly dislike so many things," said the examining magistrate,
yawning. "You should point out to the elder generation what the
difference is between the suicides of the past and the suicides of to-
day. In the old days the so-called gentleman shot himself because he had
made away with Government money, but nowadays it is because he is sick
of life, depressed.... Which is better?"
"Sick of life, depressed; but you must admit that he might have shot
himself somewhere else."
"Such trouble!" said the constable, "such trouble! It's a real
affliction. The people are very much upset, your honor; they haven't
slept these three nights. The children are crying. The cows ought to be
milked, but the women won't go to the stall--they are afraid... for fear
the gentleman should appear to them in the darkness. Of course they are
silly women, but some of the men are frightened too. As soon as it is
dark they won't go by the hut one by one, but only in a flock together.
And the witnesses too...."
Dr. Startchenko, a middle-aged man in spectacles with a dark beard, and
the examining magistrate Lyzhin, a fair man, still young, who had only
taken his degree two years before and looked more like a student than an
official, sat in silence, musing. They were vexed that they were late.
Now they had to wait till morning, and to stay here for the night,
though it was not yet six o'clock; and they had before them a long
evening, a dark night, boredom, uncomfortable beds, beetles, and cold in
the morning; and listening to the blizzard that howled in the chimney
and in the loft, they both thought how unlike all this was the life
which they would have chosen for themselves and of which they had once
dreamed, and how far away they both were from their contemporaries, who
were at that moment walking about the lighted streets in town without
noticing the weather, or were getting ready for the theatre, or sitting
in their studies over a book. Oh, how much they would have given now
only to stroll along the Nevsky Prospect, or along Petrovka in Moscow,
to listen to decent singing, to sit for an hour or so in a restaurant!
"Oo-oo-oo-oo!" sang the storm in the loft, and something outside slammed
viciously, probably the signboard on the hut. "Oo-oo-oo-oo!"
"You can do as you please, but I have no desire to stay here," said
Startchenko, getting up. "It's not six yet, it's too early to go to bed;
I am off. Von Taunitz lives not far from here, only a couple of miles
from Syrnya. I shall go to see him and spend the evening there.
Constable, run and tell my coachman not to take the horses out. And what
are you going to do?" he asked Lyzhin.
"I don't know; I expect I shall go to sleep."
The doctor wrapped himself in his fur coat and went out. Lyzhin could
hear him talking to the coachman and the bells beginning to quiver on
the frozen horses. He drove off.
"It is not nice for you, sir, to spend the night in here," said the
constable; "come into the other room. It's dirty, but for one night it
won't matter. I'll get a samovar from a peasant and heat it directly.
I'll heap up some hay for you, and then you go to sleep, and God bless
you, your honor."
A little later the examining magistrate was sitting in the kitchen
drinking tea, while Loshadin, the constable, was standing at the door
talking. He was an old man about sixty, short and very thin, bent and
white, with a naive smile on his face and watery eyes, and he kept
smacking with his lips as though he were sucking a sweetmeat. He was
wearing a short sheepskin coat and high felt boots, and held his stick
in his hands all the time. The youth of the examining magistrate aroused
his compassion, and that was probably why he addressed him familiarly.
"The elder gave orders that he was to be informed when the police
superintendent or the examining magistrate came," he said, "so I suppose
I must go now.... It's nearly three miles to the volost, and the storm,
the snowdrifts, are something terrible--maybe one won't get there before
midnight. Ough! how the wind roars!"
"I don't need the elder," said Lyzhin. "There is nothing for him to do
here."
He looked at the old man with curiosity, and asked:
"Tell me, grandfather, how many years have you been constable?"
"How many? Why, thirty years. Five years after the Freedom I began going
as constable, that's how I reckon it. And from that time I have been
going every day since. Other people have holidays, but I am always
going. When it's Easter and the church bells are ringing and Christ has
risen, I still go about with my bag--to the treasury, to the post, to the
police superintendent's lodgings, to the rural captain, to the tax
inspector, to the municipal office, to the gentry, to the peasants, to
all orthodox Christians. I carry parcels, notices, tax papers, letters,
forms of different sorts, circulars, and to be sure, kind gentleman,
there are all sorts of forms nowadays, so as to note down the
numbers--yellow, white, and red--and every gentleman or priest or well-to-
do peasant must write down a dozen times in the year how much he has
sown and harvested, how many quarters or poods he has of rye, how many
of oats, how many of hay, and what the weather's like, you know, and
insects, too, of all sorts. To be sure you can write what you like, it's
only a regulation, but one must go and give out the notices and then go
again and collect them. Here, for instance, there's no need to cut open
the gentleman; you know yourself it's a silly thing, it's only dirtying
your hands, and here you have been put to trouble, your honor; you have
come because it's the regulation; you can't help it. For thirty years I
have been going round according to regulation. In the summer it is all
right, it is warm and dry; but in winter and autumn it's uncomfortable.
At times I have been almost drowned and almost frozen; all sorts of
things have happened--wicked people set on me in the forest and took away
my bag; I have been beaten, and I have been before a court of law."
"What were you accused of?"
"Of fraud."
"How do you mean?"
"Why, you see, Hrisanf Grigoryev, the clerk, sold the contractor some
boards belonging to someone else--cheated him, in fact. I was mixed up in
it. They sent me to the tavern for vodka; well, the clerk did not share
with me--did not even offer me a glass; but as through my poverty I
was--in appearance, I mean--not a man to be relied upon, not a man of any
worth, we were both brought to trial; he was sent to prison, but, praise
God! I was acquitted on all points. They read a notice, you know, in the
court. And they were all in uniforms--in the court, I mean. I can tell
you, your honor, my duties for anyone not used to them are terrible,
absolutely killing; but to me it is nothing. In fact, my feet ache when
I am not walking. And at home it is worse for me. At home one has to
heat the stove for the clerk in the volost office, to fetch water for
him, to clean his boots."
"And what wages do you get?" Lyzhin asked.
"Eighty-four roubles a year."
"I'll bet you get other little sums coming in. You do, don't you?"
"Other little sums? No, indeed! Gentlemen nowadays don't often give
tips. Gentlemen nowadays are strict, they take offense at anything. If
you bring them a notice they are offended, if you take off your cap
before them they are offended. 'You have come to the wrong entrance,'
they say. 'You are a drunkard,' they say. 'You smell of onion; you are a
blockhead; you are the son of a bitch.' There are kind-hearted ones, of
course; but what does one get from them? They only laugh and call one
all sorts of names. Mr. Altuhin, for instance, he is a good-natured
gentleman; and if you look at him he seems sober and in his right mind,
but so soon as he sees me he shouts and does not know what he means
himself. He gave me such a name 'You,' said he,..." The constable
uttered some word, but in such a low voice that it was impossible to
make out what he said.
"What?" Lyzhin asked. "Say it again."
"'Administration,'" the constable repeated aloud. "He has been calling
me that for a long while, for the last six years. 'Hullo,
Administration!' But I don't mind; let him, God bless him! Sometimes a
lady will send one a glass of vodka and a bit of pie and one drinks to
her health. But peasants give more; peasants are more kind-hearted, they
have the fear of God in their hearts: one will give a bit of bread,
another a drop of cabbage soup, another will stand one a glass. The
village elders treat one to tea in the tavern. Here the witnesses have
gone to their tea. 'Loshadin,' they said, 'you stay here and keep watch
for us,' and they gave me a kopeck each. You see, they are frightened,
not being used to it, and yesterday they gave me fifteen kopecks and
offered me a glass."
"And you, aren't you frightened?"
"I am, sir; but of course it is my duty, there is no getting away from
it. In the summer I was taking a convict to the town, and he set upon me
and gave me such a drubbing! And all around were fields, forest--how
could I get away from him? It's just the same here. I remember the
gentleman, Mr. Lesnitsky, when he was so high, and I knew his father and
mother. I am from the village of Nedoshtchotova, and they, the Lesnitsky
family, were not more than three-quarters of a mile from us and less
than that, their ground next to ours, and Mr. Lesnitsky had a sister, a
God-fearing and tender-hearted lady. Lord keep the soul of Thy servant
Yulya, eternal memory to her! She was never married, and when she was
dying she divided all her property; she left three hundred acres to the
monastery, and six hundred to the commune of peasants of Nedoshtchotova
to commemorate her soul; but her brother hid the will, they do say burnt
it in the stove, and took all this land for himself. He thought, to be
sure, it was for his benefit; but--nay, wait a bit, you won't get on in
the world through injustice, brother. The gentleman did not go to
confession for twenty years after. He kept away from the church, to be
sure, and died impenitent. He burst. He was a very fat man, so he burst
lengthways. Then everything was taken from the young master, from
Seryozha, to pay the debts--everything there was. Well, he had not gone
very far in his studies, he couldn't do anything, and the president of
the Rural Board, his uncle--'I'll take him'--Seryozha, I mean--thinks he,
'for an agent; let him collect the insurance, that's not a difficult
job,' and the gentleman was young and proud, he wanted to be living on a
bigger scale and in better style and with more freedom. To be sure it
was a come-down for him to be jolting about the district in a wretched
cart and talking to the peasants; he would walk and keep looking on the
ground, looking on the ground and saying nothing; if you called his name
right in his ear, 'Sergey Sergeyitch!' he would look round like this,
'Eh?' and look down on the ground again, and now you see he has laid
hands on himself. There's no sense in it, your honor, it's not right,
and there's no making out what's the meaning of it, merciful Lord! Say
your father was rich and you are poor; it is mortifying, there's no
doubt about it, but there, you must make up your mind to it. I used to
live in good style, too; I had two horses, your honor, three cows, I
used to keep twenty head of sheep; but the time has come, and I am left
with nothing but a wretched bag, and even that is not mine but
Government property. And now in our Nedoshtchotova, if the truth is to
be told, my house is the worst of the lot. Makey had four footmen, and
now Makey is a footman himself. Petrak had four laborers, and now Petrak
is a laborer himself."
"How was it you became poor?" asked the examining magistrate.
"My sons drink terribly. I could not tell you how they drink, you
wouldn't believe it."
Lyzhin listened and thought how he, Lyzhin, would go back sooner or
later to Moscow, while this old man would stay here for ever, and would
always be walking and walking. And how many times in his life he would
come across such battered, unkempt old men, not "men of any worth," in
whose souls fifteen kopecks, glasses of vodka, and a profound belief
that you can't get on in this life by dishonesty, were equally firmly
rooted.
Then he grew tired of listening, and told the old man to bring him some
hay for his bed, There was an iron bedstead with a pillow and a quilt in
the traveler's room, and it could be fetched in; but the dead man had
been lying by it for nearly three days (and perhaps sitting on it just
before his death), and it would be disagreeable to sleep upon it now....
"It's only half-past seven," thought Lyzhin, glancing at his watch. "How
awful it is!"
He was not sleepy, but having nothing to do to pass away the time, he
lay down and covered himself with a rug. Loshadin went in and out
several times, clearing away the tea-things; smacking his lips and
sighing, he kept tramping round the table; at last he took his little
lamp and went out, and, looking at his long, gray-headed, bent figure
from behind, Lyzhin thought:
"Just like a magician in an opera."
It was dark. The moon must have been behind the clouds, as the windows
and the snow on the window-frames could be seen distinctly.
"Oo-oo-oo!" sang the storm, "Oo-oo-oo-oo!"
"Ho-ho-ly sa-aints!" wailed a woman in the loft, or it sounded like it.
"Ho-ho-ly sa-aints!"
"B-booh!" something outside banged against the wall. "Trah!"
The examining magistrate listened: there was no woman up there, it was
the wind howling. It was rather cold, and he put his fur coat over his
rug. As he got warm he thought how remote all this--the storm, and the
hut, and the old man, and the dead body lying in the next room--how
remote it all was from the life he desired for himself, and how alien it
all was to him, how petty, how uninteresting. If this man had killed
himself in Moscow or somewhere in the neighborhood, and he had had to
hold an inquest on him there, it would have been interesting, important,
and perhaps he might even have been afraid to sleep in the next room to
the corpse. Here, nearly a thousand miles from Moscow, all this was seen
somehow in a different light; it was not life, they were not human
beings, but something only existing "according to the regulation," as
Loshadin said; it would leave not the faintest trace in the memory, and
would be forgotten as soon as he, Lyzhin, drove away from Syrnya. The
fatherland, the real Russia, was Moscow, Petersburg; but here he was in
the provinces, the colonies. When one dreamed of playing a leading part,
of becoming a popular figure, of being, for instance, examining
magistrate in particularly important cases or prosecutor in a circuit
court, of being a society lion, one always thought of Moscow. To live,
one must be in Moscow; here one cared for nothing, one grew easily
resigned to one's insignificant position, and only expected one thing of
life--to get away quickly, quickly. And Lyzhin mentally moved about the
Moscow streets, went into the familiar houses, met his kindred, his
comrades, and there was a sweet pang at his heart at the thought that he
was only twenty-six, and that if in five or ten years he could break
away from here and get to Moscow, even then it would not be too late and
he would still have a whole life before him. And as he sank into
unconsciousness, as his thoughts began to be confused, he imagined the
long corridor of the court at Moscow, himself delivering a speech, his
sisters, the orchestra which for some reason kept droning: "Oo-oo-oo-oo!
Oo-oooo-oo!"
"Booh! Trah!" sounded again. "Booh!"
And he suddenly recalled how one day, when he was talking to the
bookkeeper in the little office of the Rural Board, a thin, pale
gentleman with black hair and dark eyes walked in; he had a disagreeable
look in his eyes such as one sees in people who have slept too long
after dinner, and it spoilt his delicate, intelligent profile; and the
high boots he was wearing did not suit him, but looked clumsy. The
bookkeeper had introduced him: "This is our insurance agent."
"So that was Lesnitsky,... this same man," Lyzhin reflected now.
He recalled Lesnitsky's soft voice, imagined his gait, and it seemed to
him that someone was walking beside him now with a step like
Lesnitsky's.
All at once he felt frightened, his head turned cold.
"Who's there?" he asked in alarm.
"The conshtable!"
"What do you want here?"
"I have come to ask, your honor--you said this evening that you did not
want the elder, but I am afraid he may be angry. He told me to go to
him. Shouldn't I go?"
"That's enough, you bother me," said Lyzhin with vexation, and he
covered himself up again.
"He may be angry.... I'll go, your honor. I hope you will be
comfortable," and Loshadin went out.
In the passage there was coughing and subdued voices. The witnesses must
have returned.
"We'll let those poor beggars get away early to-morrow,..." thought the
examining magistrate; "we'll begin the inquest as soon as it is
daylight."
He began sinking into forgetfulness when suddenly there were steps
again, not timid this time but rapid and noisy. There was the slam of a
door, voices, the scratching of a match....
"Are you asleep? Are you asleep?" Dr. Startchenko was asking him
hurriedly and angrily as he struck one match after another; he was
covered with snow, and brought a chill air in with him. "Are you asleep?
Get up! Let us go to Von Taunitz's. He has sent his own horses for you.
Come along. There, at any rate, you will have supper, and sleep like a
human being. You see I have come for you myself. The horses are
splendid, we shall get there in twenty minutes."
"And what time is it now?"
"A quarter past ten."
Lyzhin, sleepy and discontented, put on his felt overboots, his fur-
lined coat, his cap and hood, and went out with the doctor. There was
not a very sharp frost, but a violent and piercing wind was blowing and
driving along the street the clouds of snow which seemed to be racing
away in terror: high drifts were heaped up already under the fences and
at the doorways. The doctor and the examining magistrate got into the
sledge, and the white coachman bent over them to button up the cover.
They were both hot.
"Ready!"
They drove through the village. "Cutting a feathery furrow," thought the
examining magistrate, listlessly watching the action of the trace
horse's legs. There were lights in all the huts, as though it were the
eve of a great holiday: the peasants had not gone to bed because they
were afraid of the dead body. The coachman preserved a sullen silence,
probably he had felt dreary while he was waiting by the Zemstvo hut, and
now he, too, was thinking of the dead man.
"At the Von Taunitz's," said Startchenko, "they all set upon me when
they heard that you were left to spend the night in the hut, and asked
me why I did not bring you with me."
As they drove out of the village, at the turning the coachman suddenly
shouted at the top of his voice: "Out of the way!"
They caught a glimpse of a man: he was standing up to his knees in the
snow, moving off the road and staring at the horses. The examining
magistrate saw a stick with a crook, and a beard and a bag, and he
fancied that it was Loshadin, and even fancied that he was smiling. He
flashed by and disappeared.
The road ran at first along the edge of the forest, then along a broad
forest clearing; they caught glimpses of old pines and a young birch
copse, and tall, gnarled young oak trees standing singly in the
clearings where the wood had lately been cut; but soon it was all merged
in the clouds of snow. The coachman said he could see the forest; the
examining magistrate could see nothing but the trace horse. The wind
blew on their backs.
All at once the horses stopped.
"Well, what is it now?" asked Startchenko crossly.
The coachman got down from the box without a word and began running
round the sledge, treading on his heels; he made larger and larger
circles, getting further and further away from the sledge, and it looked
as though he were dancing; at last he came back and began to turn off to
the right.
"You've got off the road, eh?" asked Startchenko.
"It's all ri-ight...."
Then there was a little village and not a single light in it. Again the
forest and the fields. Again they lost the road, and again the coachman
got down from the box and danced round the sledge. The sledge flew along
a dark avenue, flew swiftly on. And the heated trace horse's hoofs
knocked against the sledge. Here there was a fearful roaring sound from
the trees, and nothing could be seen, as though they were flying on into
space; and all at once the glaring light at the entrance and the windows
flashed upon their eyes, and they heard the good-natured, drawn-out
barking of dogs. They had arrived.
While they were taking off their fur coats and their felt boots below,
"Un Petit Verre de Clicquot" was being played upon the piano overhead,
and they could hear the children beating time with their feet.
Immediately on going in they were aware of the snug warmth and special
smell of the old apartments of a mansion where, whatever the weather
outside, life is so warm and clean and comfortable.
"That's capital!" said Von Taunitz, a fat man with an incredibly thick
neck and with whiskers, as he shook the examining magistrate's hand.
"That's capital! You are very welcome, delighted to make your
acquaintance. We are colleagues to some extent, you know. At one time I
was deputy prosecutor; but not for long, only two years. I came here to
look after the estate, and here I have grown old--an old fogey, in fact.
You are very welcome," he went on, evidently restraining his voice so as
not to speak too loud; he was going upstairs with his guests. "I have no
wife, she's dead. But here, I will introduce my daughters," and turning
round, he shouted down the stairs in a voice of thunder: "Tell Ignat to
have the sledge ready at eight o'clock to-morrow morning."
His four daughters, young and pretty girls, all wearing gray dresses and
with their hair done up in the same style, and their cousin, also young
and attractive, with her children, were in the drawing-room.
Startchenko, who knew them already, began at once begging them to sing
something, and two of the young ladies spent a long time declaring they
could not sing and that they had no music; then the cousin sat down to
the piano, and with trembling voices, they sang a duet from "The Queen
of Spades." Again "Un Petit Verre de Clicquot" was played, and the
children skipped about, beating time with their feet. And Startchenko
pranced about too. Everybody laughed.