I
... I am old and ill now, and my thoughts brood oftenest upon death,
every day coming nearer; rarely I think of the past, rarely I turn the
eyes of my soul behind me. Only from time to time--in winter, as I sit
motionless before the glowing fire, in summer, as I pace with slow tread
along the shady avenue--I recall past years, events, faces; but it is
not on my mature years nor on my youth that my thoughts rest at such
times. They either carry me back to my earliest childhood, or to the
first years of boyhood. Now, for instance, I see myself in the country
with my stern and wrathful grandmother--I was only twelve--and two
figures rise up before my imagination....
But I will begin my story consecutively, and in proper order.
I
1830
The old footman Filippitch came in, on tiptoe, as usual, with a cravat
tied up in a rosette, with tightly compressed lips, ‘lest his breath
should be smelt,’ with a grey tuft of hair standing up in the very
middle of his forehead. He came in, bowed, and handed my grandmother on
an iron tray a large letter with an heraldic seal. My grandmother put on
her spectacles, read the letter through....
‘Is he here?’ she asked.
‘What is my lady pleased ...’ Filippitch began timidly.
‘Imbecile! The man who brought the letter--is he here?’
‘He is here, to be sure he is.... He is sitting in the counting-house.’
My grandmother rattled her amber rosary beads....
‘Tell him to come to me.... And you, sir,’ she turned to me, ‘sit
still.’
As it was, I was sitting perfectly still in my corner, on the stool
assigned to me.
My grandmother kept me well in hand!
* * * * *
Five minutes later there came into the room a man of five-and-thirty,
black-haired and swarthy, with broad cheek-bones, a face marked with
smallpox, a hook nose, and thick eyebrows, from under which the small
grey eyes looked out with mournful composure. The colour of the eyes and
their expression were out of keeping with the Oriental cast of the rest
of the face. The man was dressed in a decent, long-skirted coat. He
stopped in the doorway, and bowed--only with his head.
‘So your name’s Baburin?’ queried my grandmother, and she added to
herself: ‘_Il a l’air d’un arménien._’
‘Yes, it is,’ the man answered in a deep and even voice. At the first
brusque sound of my grandmother’s voice his eyebrows faintly quivered.
Surely he had not expected her to address him as an equal?
‘Are you a Russian? orthodox?’
‘Yes.’
My grandmother took off her spectacles, and scanned Baburin from head
to foot deliberately. He did not drop his eyes, he merely folded his
hands behind his back. What particularly struck my fancy was his beard;
it was very smoothly shaven, but such blue cheeks and chin I had never
seen in my life!
‘Yakov Petrovitch,’ began my grandmother, ‘recommends you strongly
in his letter as sober and industrious; why, then, did you leave
his service?’
‘He needs a different sort of person to manage his estate, madam.’
‘A different ... sort? That I don’t quite understand.’
My grandmother rattled her beads again. ‘Yakov Petrovitch writes to me
that there are two peculiarities about you. What peculiarities?’
Baburin shrugged his shoulders slightly.
‘I can’t tell what he sees fit to call peculiarities. Possibly that
I ... don’t allow corporal punishment.’
My grandmother was surprised. ‘Do you mean to say Yakov Petrovitch
wanted to flog you?’
Baburin’s swarthy face grew red to the roots of his hair.
‘You have not understood me right, madam. I make it a rule not to employ
corporal punishment ... with the peasants.’
My grandmother was more surprised than ever; she positively threw up
her hands.
‘Ah!’ she pronounced at last, and putting her head a little on one side,
once more she scrutinised Baburin attentively. ‘So that’s your rule, is
it? Well, that’s of no consequence whatever to me; I don’t want an
overseer, but a counting-house clerk, a secretary. What sort of a hand
do you write?’
‘I write well, without mistakes in spelling.’
‘That too is of no consequence to me. The great thing for me is for it
to be clear, and without any of those new copybook letters with tails,
that I don’t like. And what’s your other peculiarity?’
Baburin moved uneasily, coughed....
‘Perhaps ... the gentleman has referred to the fact that I am not
alone.’
‘You are married?’
‘Oh no ... but ...’
My grandmother knit her brows.
‘There is a person living with me ... of the male sex ... a comrade, a
poor friend, from whom I have never parted ... for ... let me see ...
ten years now.’
‘A relation of yours?’
‘No, not a relation--a friend. As to work, there can be no possible
hindrance occasioned by him,’ Baburin made haste to add, as though
foreseeing objections. ‘He lives at my cost, occupies the same room with
me; he is more likely to be of use, as he is well educated--speaking
without flattery, extremely so, in fact--and his morals are exemplary.’
My grandmother heard Baburin out, chewing her lips and half
closing her eyes.
‘He lives at your expense?’
‘Yes.’
‘You keep him out of charity?’
‘As an act of justice ... as it’s the duty of one poor man to help
another poor man.’
‘Indeed! It’s the first time I’ve heard that. I had supposed till now
that that was rather the duty of rich people.’
‘For the rich, if I may venture to say so, it is an entertainment ... but
for such as we ...’
‘Well, well, that’s enough, that’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him
short; and after a moment’s thought she queried, speaking through her
nose, which was always a bad sign, ‘And what age is he, your protégé?’
‘About my own age.’
‘Really, I imagined that you were bringing him up.’
‘Not so; he is my comrade--and besides ...’
‘That’s enough,’ my grandmother cut him short a second time. ‘You’re a
philanthropist, it seems. Yakov Petrovitch is right; for a man in your
position it’s something very peculiar. But now let’s get to business.
I’ll explain to you what your duties will be. And as regards wages....
_Que faites vous ici?_’ added my grandmother suddenly, turning her dry,
yellow face to me:--‘_Allez étudier votre devoir de mythologie._’
I jumped up, went up to kiss my grandmother’s hand, and went out,--not
to study mythology, but simply into the garden.
* * * * *
The garden on my grandmother’s estate was very old and large, and was
bounded on one side by a flowing pond, in which there were not only
plenty of carp and eels, but even loach were caught, those renowned
loach, that have nowadays disappeared almost everywhere. At the head
of this pond was a thick clump of willows; further and higher, on both
sides of a rising slope, were dense bushes of hazel, elder,
honeysuckle, and sloe-thorn, with an undergrowth of heather and clover
flowers. Here and there between the bushes were tiny clearings,
covered with emerald-green, silky, fine grass, in the midst of which
squat funguses peeped out with their comical, variegated pink, lilac,
and straw-coloured caps, and golden balls of ‘hen-dazzle’ blazed in
light patches. Here in spring-time the nightingales sang, the
blackbirds whistled, the cuckoos called; here in the heat of summer it
was always cool--and I loved to make my way into the wilderness and
thicket, where I had favourite secret spots, known--so, at least, I
imagined--only to me.
On coming out of my grandmother’s room I made straight for one of these
spots, which I had named ‘Switzerland.’ But what was my astonishment
when, before I had reached ‘Switzerland,’ I perceived through the
delicate network of half-dry twigs and green branches that some one
besides me had found it out! A long, long figure in a long, loose coat
of yellow frieze and a tall cap was standing in the very spot I loved
best of all! I stole up a little nearer, and made out the face, which
was utterly unknown to me, also very long and soft, with small reddish
eyes, and a very funny nose; drawn out as long as a pod of peas, it
positively over-hung the full lips; and these lips, quivering and
forming a round O, were giving vent to a shrill little whistle, while
the long fingers of the bony hands, placed facing one another on the
upper part of the chest, were rapidly moving with a rotatory action.
From time to time the motion of the hands subsided, the lips ceased
whistling and quivering, the head was bent forward as though listening.
I came still nearer, examined him still more closely.... The stranger
held in each hand a small flat cup, such as people use to tease
canaries and make them sing. A twig snapped under my feet; the stranger
started, turned his dim little eyes towards the copse, and was
staggering away ... but he stumbled against a tree, uttered an
exclamation, and stood still.