A month later and Malania Pavlovna too passed away. From the very day of
Alexey Sergeitch’s death she had hardly risen from her bed, and had not
put on her usual attire; but they buried her in the blue jacket, and
with Orlov’s medallion on her shoulder, only without the diamonds. Those
her daughters divided, on the pretext that the diamonds should be used
in the setting of some holy pictures; in reality, they used them to
adorn their own persons.
And so I can see my old friends as though they were alive and before my
eyes, and pleasant is the memory I preserve of them. And yet on my very
last visit to them (I was a student by then) an incident occurred which
jarred upon the impression of patriarchal harmony always produced in me
by the Teliegin household.
Among the house-serfs there was one Ivan, called ‘Suhys’ Ivan,’ a
coachman or coach-boy, as they called him on account of his small size,
in spite of his being no longer young. He was a tiny little man, brisk,
snub-nosed, curly-headed, with an everlastingly smiling, childish face,
and little eyes, like a mouse’s. He was a great joker, a most comic
fellow; he was great at all sorts of tricks--he used to fly kites, let
off fireworks and rockets, to play all sorts of games, gallop standing
up on the horse’s back, fly higher than all the rest in the swing, and
could even make Chinese shadows. No one could amuse children better; and
he would gladly spend the whole day looking after them. When he started
laughing, the whole house would seem to liven up; they would answer
him--one would say one thing, one another, but he always made them all
merry.... And even if they abused him, they could not but laugh. Ivan
danced marvellously, especially the so-called ‘fish dance.’ When the
chorus struck up a dance tune, the fellow would come into the middle of
the ring, and then there would begin such a turning and skipping and
stamping, and then he would fall flat on the ground, and imitate the
movement of a fish brought out of the water on to dry land; such turning
and wriggling, the heels positively clapped up to the head; and then he
would get up and shriek--the earth seemed simply quivering under him. At
times Alexey Sergeitch, who was, as I have said already, exceedingly
fond of watching dancing, could not resist shouting, ‘Little Vania,
here! coach-boy! Dance us the fish, smartly now’; and a minute later he
would whisper enthusiastically: ‘Ah, what a fellow it is!’
Well, on my last visit, this Ivan Suhih came into my room, and, without
saying a word, fell on his knees. ‘Ivan, what’s the matter?’ ‘Save me,
sir.’ ‘Why, what is it?’ And thereupon Ivan told me his trouble.
He was exchanged, twenty years ago, by ‘the Suhy family for a serf of
the Teliegins’;--simply exchanged without any kind of formality or
written deed: the man given in exchange for him had died, but the Suhys
had forgotten about Ivan, and he had stayed on in Alexey Sergeitch’s
house as his own serf; only his nickname had served to recall his
origin. But now his former masters were dead; the estate had passed into
other hands; and the new owner, who was reported to be a cruel and
oppressive man, having learned that one of his serfs was detained
without cause or reason at Alexey Sergeitch’s, began to demand him back;
in case of refusal he threatened legal proceedings, and the threat was
not an empty one, as he was himself of the rank of privy councillor, and
had great weight in the province. Ivan had rushed in terror to Alexey
Sergeitch. The old man was sorry for his dancer, and he offered the
privy councillor to buy Ivan for a considerable sum. But the privy
councillor would not hear of it; he was a Little Russian, and obstinate
as the devil. The poor fellow would have to be given up. ‘I have spent
my life here, and I’m at home here; I have served here, here I have
eaten my bread, and here I want to die,’ Ivan said to me--and there was
no smile on his face now; on the contrary, it looked turned to stone....
‘And now I am to go to this wretch.... Am I a dog to be flung from one
kennel to another with a noose round my neck? ... to be told: “There,
get along with you!” Save me, master; beg your uncle, remember how I
always amused you.... Or else there’ll be harm come of it; it won’t end
without sin.’
‘What sort of sin, Ivan?’
‘I shall kill that gentleman. I shall simply go and say to him,
“Master, let me go back; or else, mind, be careful of yourself.... I
shall kill you.”’
If a siskin or a chaffinch could have spoken, and had begun declaring
that it would peck another bird to death, it would not have reduced me
to greater amazement than did Ivan at that moment. What! Suhys’ Vania,
that dancing, jesting, comic fellow, the favourite playfellow of
children, and a child himself, that kindest-hearted of creatures, a
murderer! What ridiculous nonsense! Not for an instant did I believe
him; what astonished me to such a degree was that he was capable of
saying such a thing. Anyway I appealed to Alexey Sergeitch. I did not
repeat what Ivan had said to me, but began asking him whether something
couldn’t be done. ‘My young sir,’ the old man answered, ‘I should be
only too happy--but what’s to be done? I offered this Little Russian an
immense compensation--I offered him three hundred roubles, ‘pon my
honour, I tell you! but he--there’s no moving him! what’s one to do? The
transaction was not legal, it was done on trust, in the old-fashioned
way ... and now see what mischief’s come of it! This Little Russian
fellow, you see, will take Ivan by force, do what we will: his arm is
powerful, the governor eats cabbage-soup at his table; he’ll be sending
along soldiers. And I’m afraid of those soldiers! In old days, to be
sure, I would have stood up for Ivan, come what might; but now, look at
me, what a feeble creature I have grown! How can I make a fight for it?’
It was true; on my last visit I found Alexey Sergeitch greatly aged;
even the centres of his eyes had that milky colour that babies’ eyes
have, and his lips wore not his old conscious smile, but that unnatural,
mawkish, unconscious grin, which never, even in sleep, leaves the faces
of very decrepit old people.
I told Ivan of Alexey Sergeitch’s decision. He stood still, was silent
for a little, shook his head. ‘Well,’ said he at last, ‘what is to be
there’s no escaping. Only my mind’s made up. There’s nothing left, then,
but to play the fool to the end. Something for drink, please!’ I gave
him something; he drank himself drunk, and that day danced the ‘fish
dance’ so that the serf-girls and peasant-women positively shrieked with
delight--he surpassed himself in his antics so wonderfully.
Next day I went home, and three months later, in Petersburg, I heard
that Ivan had kept his word. He had been sent to his new master; his
master had called him into his room, and explained to him that he would
be made coachman, that a team of three ponies would be put in his
charge, and that he would be severely dealt with if he did not look
after them well, and were not punctual in discharging his duties
generally. ‘I’m not fond of joking.’ Ivan heard the master out, first
bowed down to his feet, and then announced it was as his honour pleased,
but he could not be his servant.
‘Let me off for a yearly quit-money, your honour,’ said he, ‘or send me
for a soldier; or else there’ll be mischief come of it!’
The master flew into a rage. ‘Ah, what a fellow you are! How dare you
speak to me like that? In the first place, I’m to be called your
excellency, and not your honour; and, secondly, you’re beyond the age,
and not of a size to be sent for a soldier; and, lastly, what mischief
do you threaten me with? Do you mean to set the house on fire, eh?’
‘No, your excellency, not the house on fire.’
‘Murder me, then, eh?’
Ivan was silent. ‘I’m not your servant,’ he said at last.
‘Oh well, I’ll show you,’ roared the master, ‘whether you ‘re my servant
or not.’ And he had Ivan cruelly punished, but yet had the three ponies
put into his charge, and made him coachman in the stables.
Ivan apparently submitted; he began driving about as coachman. As he
drove well, he soon gained favour with the master, especially as Ivan
was very quiet and steady in his behaviour, and the ponies improved so
much in his hands; he turned them out as sound and sleek as
cucumbers--it was quite a sight to see. The master took to driving out
with him oftener than with the other coachmen. Sometimes he would ask
him, ‘I say, Ivan, do you remember how badly we got on when we met?
You’ve got over all that nonsense, eh?’ But Ivan never made any response
to such remarks. So one day the master was driving with Ivan to the town
in his three-horse sledge with bells and a highback covered with carpet.
The horses began to walk up the hill, and Ivan got off the box-seat and
went behind the back of the sledge as though he had dropped something.
It was a sharp frost; the master sat wrapped up, with a beaver cap
pulled down on to his ears. Then Ivan took an axe from under his skirt,
came up to the master from behind, knocked off his cap, and saying, ‘I
warned you, Piotr Petrovitch--you’ve yourself to blame now!’ he struck
off his head at one blow. Then he stopped the ponies, put the cap on his
dead master, and, getting on the box-seat again, drove him to the town,
straight to the courts of justice.
‘Here’s the Suhinsky general for you, dead; I have killed him. As I told
him, so I did to him. Put me in fetters.’
They took Ivan, tried him, sentenced him to the knout, and then to hard
labour. The light-hearted, bird-like dancer was sent to the mines, and
there passed out of sight for ever....
Yes; one can but repeat, in another sense, Alexey Sergeitch’s words:
‘They were good old times ... but enough of them!’
1881.