‘What a place to find a Werter!’ I thought next day, as I set off again
towards the brigadier’s dwelling. I was at that time very young, and
that was possibly why I thought it my duty not to believe in the lasting
nature of love. Still, I was impressed and somewhat puzzled by the story
I had heard, and felt an intense desire to stir up the old man, to make
him talk freely. ‘I’ll first refer to Suvorov again,’ so I resolved
within myself; ‘there must be some spark of his former fire hidden
within him still ... and then, when he’s warmed up, I’ll turn the
conversation on that ... what’s her name? ... Agrafena Ivanovna. A queer
name for a “Charlotte”--Agrafena!’
I found my Werter-Guskov in the middle of a tiny kitchen-garden, a few
steps from the lodge, near the old framework of a never-finished hut,
overgrown with nettles. On the mildewed upper beams of this skeleton hut
some miserable-looking turkey poults were scrambling, incessantly
slipping and flapping their wings and cackling. There was some poor sort
of green stuff growing in two or three borders. The brigadier had just
pulled a young carrot out of the ground, and rubbing it under his arm
‘to clean it,’ proceeded to chew its thin tail.... I bowed to him, and
inquired after his health.
He obviously did not recognise me, though he returned my greeting--that
is to say, touched his cap with his hand, though without leaving off
munching the carrot.
‘You didn’t go fishing to-day?’ I began, in the hope of recalling myself
to his memory by this question.
‘To-day?’ he repeated and pondered ... while the carrot, stuck into his
mouth, grew shorter and shorter. ‘Why, I suppose it’s Cucumber
fishing! ... But I’m allowed to, too.’
‘Of course, of course, most honoured Vassily Fomitch.... I didn’t mean
that.... But aren’t you hot ... like this in the sun.’
The brigadier was wearing a thick wadded dressing-gown.
‘Eh? Hot?’ he repeated again, as though puzzled over the question, and,
having finally swallowed the carrot, he gazed absently upwards.
‘Would you care to step into my apartement?’ he said suddenly. The
poor old man had, it seemed, only this phrase still left him always at
his disposal.
We went out of the kitchen-garden ... but there involuntarily I stopped
short. Between us and the lodge stood a huge bull. With his head down to
the ground, and a malignant gleam in his eyes, he was snorting heavily
and furiously, and with a rapid movement of one fore-leg, he tossed the
dust up in the air with his broad cleft hoof, lashed his sides with his
tail, and suddenly backing a little, shook his shaggy neck stubbornly,
and bellowed--not loud, but plaintively, and at the same time
menacingly. I was, I confess, alarmed; but Vassily Fomitch stepped
forward with perfect composure, and saying in a stern voice, ‘Now then,
country bumpkin,’ shook his handkerchief at him. The bull backed again,
bowed his horns ... suddenly rushed to one side and ran away, wagging
his head from side to side.
‘There’s no doubt he took Prague,’ I thought.
We went into the room. The brigadier pulled his cap off his hair, which
was soaked with perspiration, ejaculated, ‘Fa!’ ... squatted down on the
edge of a chair ... bowed his head gloomily....
‘I have come to you, Vassily Fomitch,’ I began my diplomatic approaches,
‘because, as you have served under the leadership of the great
Suvorov--have taken part altogether in such important events--it would
be very interesting for me to hear some particulars of your past.’
The brigadier stared at me.... His face kindled strangely--I began to
expect, if not a story, at least some word of approval, of sympathy....
‘But I, sir, must be going to die soon,’ he said in an undertone.