Fomishka and Fimishka, otherwise Foma Lavrentievitch and Efimia Pavlovna
Subotchev, belonged to one of the oldest and purest branches of the
Russian nobility, and were considered to be the oldest inhabitants in
the town of S. They married when very young and settled, a long time
ago, in the little wooden ancestral house at the very end of the town.
Time seemed to have stood still for them, and nothing “modern” ever
crossed the boundaries of their “oasis.” Their means were not great,
but their peasants supplied them several times a year with all the live
stock and provisions they needed, just as in the days of serfdom,
and their bailiff appeared once a year with the rents and a couple of
woodcocks, supposed to have been shot in the master’s forests, of which,
in reality, not a trace remained. They regaled him with tea at the
drawing-room door, made him a present of a sheep-skin cap, a pair of
green leather mittens, and sent him away with a blessing.
The Subotchevs’ house was filled with domestics and menials just as
in days gone by. The old man-servant Kalliopitch, clad in a jacket
of extraordinarily stout cloth with a stand-up collar and small steel
buttons, announced, in a sing-song voice, “Dinner is on the table,”
and stood dozing behind his mistress’s chair as in days of old. The
sideboard was under his charge, and so were all the groceries and
pickles. To the question, had he not heard of the emancipation, he
invariably replied: “How can one take notice of every idle piece of
gossip? To be sure the Turks were emancipated, but such a dreadful thing
had not happened to him, thank the Lord!” A girl, Pufka, was kept in the
house for entertainment, and the old nurse Vassilievna used to come in
during dinner with a dark kerchief on her head, and would relate all
the news in her deep voice—about Napoleon, about the war of 1812, about
Antichrist and white niggers—or else, her chin propped on her hand,
with a most woeful expression on her face, she would tell of a dream she
had had, explaining what it meant, or perhaps how she had last read her
fortune at cards. The Subotchevs’ house was different from all other
houses in the town. It was built entirely of oak, with perfectly square
windows, the double casements for winter use were never removed all the
year round. It contained numerous little ante-rooms, garrets, closets,
and box-rooms, little landings with balustrades, little statues on
carved wooden pillars, and all kinds of back passages and sculleries.
There was a hedge right in front and a garden at the back, in which
there was a perfect nest of out-buildings: store rooms and cold-store
rooms, barns, cellars and ice-cellars; not that there were many goods
stored in them—some of them, in fact, were in an extremely delapidated
condition—but they had been there in olden days and were consequently
allowed to remain.
The Subotchevs had only two ancient shaggy saddle horses, one of which,
called the Immovable, had turned grey from old age. They were harnessed
several times a month to an extraordinary carriage, known to the whole
town, which bore a faint resemblance to a terrestrial globe with a
quarter of it cut away in front, and was upholstered inside with some
foreign, yellowish stuff, covered with a pattern of huge dots, looking
for all the world like warts. The last yard of this stuff must have
been woven in Utrecht or Lyons in the time of the Empress Elisabeth!
The Subotchev’s coachman, too, was old—an ancient, ancient old man with
a constant smell of tar and cart-oil about him. His beard began just
below the eyes, while the eyebrows fell in little cascades to meet it.
He was called Perfishka, and was extremely slow in his movements. It
took him at least five minutes to take a pinch of snuff, two minutes
to fasten the whip in his girdle, and two whole hours to harness the
Immovable alone. If when out driving in their carriage the Subotchevs
were ever compelled to go the least bit up or down hill, they would
become quite terrified, would cling to the straps, and both cry aloud,
“Oh Lord ... give ... the horses ... the horses ... the strength of
Samson ... and make us ... as light as a feather!”
The Subotchevs were regarded by everyone in the town as very eccentric,
almost mad, and indeed they too felt that they were not in keeping with
modern times. This, however, did not grieve them very much, and they
quietly continued to follow the manner of life in which they had been
born and bred and married. One custom of that time, however, did not
cling to them; from their earliest childhood they had never punished
any of their servants. If one of them turned out to be a thief or a
drunkard, then they bore with him for a long time, as one bears with bad
weather, and when their patience was quite exhausted they would get rid
of him by passing him on to someone else. “Let others bear with him
a little,” they would say. But any such misfortune rarely happened to
them, so rarely that it became an epoch in their lives. They would
say, for instance, “Oh, it was long ago; it happened when we had that
impudent Aldoshka with us,” or “When grandfather’s fur cap with
the fox’s tail was stolen!” Such caps were still to be found at the
Subotchevs’. Another distinguishing characteristic of the old world
was missing in them; neither Fomishka nor Fimishka were very religious.
Fomishka was even a follower of Voltaire, while Fimishka had a mortal
dread of the clergy and believed them to be possessed of the evil eye.
“As soon as a priest comes into my house the cream turns sour!” she used
to say. They rarely went to church and fasted in the Catholic fashion,
that is, ate eggs, butter, and milk. This was known in the town and did
not, of course, add to their reputation. But their kindness conquered
everybody; and although the Subotchevs were laughed at and called cranks
and blessed ones, still they were respected by everyone. No one cared
to visit them, however, but they were little concerned about this, too.
They were never dull when in each other’s company, were never apart, and
never desired any other society.
Neither Fomishka nor Fimishka had ever been ill, and if one or the
other ever felt the slightest indisposition they would both drink some
concoction made of lime-flower, rub warm oil on their stomachs, or drop
hot candle grease on the soles of their feet and the little ailment
would soon pass over. They spent their days exactly alike. They got up
late, drank chocolate in tiny cups shaped like small mortars (tea, they
declared, came into fashion after their time), and sat opposite
one another chatting (they were never at a loss for a subject of
conversation!), or read out of “Pleasant Recreations”, “The World’s
Mirror”, or “Aonides”, or turned over the leaves of an old album, bound
in red morocco, with gilt edges. This album had once belonged, as the
inscription showed, to a certain Madame Barbe de Kabyline. How and
why it had come into their possession they did not know. It contained
several French and a great many Russian poems and prose extracts, of
which the following reflections on Cicero form a fair example—“The
disposition in which Cicero undertook the office of quaestor may be
gathered from the following: Calling upon the gods to testify to the
purity of his sentiments in every rank with which he had hitherto been
honoured, he considered himself bound by the most sacred bonds to the
fulfilment of this one, and denied himself the indulgence, not only of
such pleasures as are forbidden by law, but refrained even from such
light amusements which are considered indispensable by all.” Below
was written, “Composed in Siberia in hunger and cold.” An equally good
specimen was a poem entitled “Tirsis”, which ran like this—
The universe is steeped in calm, The delightful sparkling dew Soothing
nature like a balm Gives to her, her life anew. Tersis alone with aching
heart, Is torn by sadness and dismay, When dear Aneta doth depart What
is there to make him gay?
And the impromptu composition of a certain captain who had visited the
place in the year 1790, dated May 6th—
N’er shall I forget thee, Village that to love I’ve grown, But I ever
shall regret thee And the hours so quickly flown, Hours which I was
honoured in Spending with your owner’s kin, The five dearest days of my
life will hold Passed amongst most worthy people, Merry ladies, young
and old, And other interesting people.
On the last page of the album, instead of verses, there were various
recipes for remedies against stomach troubles, spasms, and worms. The
Subotchevs dined exactly at twelve o’clock and only ate old-fashioned
dishes: curd fritters, pickled cabbage, soups, fruit jellies, minced
chicken with saffron, stews, custards, and honey. They took an
after-dinner nap for an hour, not longer, and on waking up would sit
opposite one another again, drinking bilberry wine or an effervescent
drink called “forty-minds,” which nearly always squirted out of
the bottle, affording them great amusement, much to the disgust of
Kalliopitch, who had to wipe up the mess afterwards. He grumbled at
the cook and housekeeper as if they had invented this dreadful drink on
purpose. “What pleasure does it give one?” he asked; “it only spoils the
furniture.” Then the old people again read something, or got the dwarf
Pufka to entertain them, or sang old-fashioned duets. Their voices
were exactly alike, rather high-pitched, not very strong or steady, and
somewhat husky, especially after their nap, but not without a certain
amount of charm. Or, if need be, they played at cards, always the same
old games—cribbage, écarté, or double-dummy whist. Then the samovar
made its appearance. The only concession they made to the spirit of the
age was to drink tea in the evening, though they always considered it an
indulgence, and were convinced that the nation was deteriorating, owing
to the use of this “Chinese herb.” On the whole, they refrained from
criticising modern times or from exulting their own. They had lived like
this all their lives, but that others might live in a different and even
better way they were quite willing to admit, so long as they were not
compelled to conform to it. At seven o’clock Kalliopitch produced the
inevitable supper of cold hash, and at nine the high striped feather-bed
received their rotund little bodies in its soft embrace, and a calm,
untroubled sleep soon descended upon their eyelids. Everything in the
little house became hushed; the little lamp before the icon glowed and
glimmered, the funny innocent little pair slept the sound sleep of the
just, amidst the fragrant scent of musk and the chirping of the cricket.
To these two odd little people, or poll-parrots as Paklin called them,
who were taking care of his sister, he now conducted his friends.
Paklin’s sister was a clever girl with a fairly attractive face. She had
wonderfully beautiful eyes, but her unfortunate deformity had completely
broken her spirit, deprived her of self-confidence, joyousness, made her
mistrustful and even spiteful. She had been given the unfortunate name
of Snandulia, and to Paklin’s request that she should be re-christened
Sophia, she replied that it was just as it should be; a hunchback ought
to be called Snandulia; so she stuck to her strange name. She was an
excellent musician and played the piano very well. “Thanks to my long
fingers,” she would say, not without a touch of bitterness. “Hunchbacks
always have fingers like that.”
The visitors came upon Fomishka and Fimishka at the very minute when
they had awakened from their afternoon nap and were drinking bilberry
wine.
“We are going into the eighteenth century!” Paklin exclaimed as they
crossed the threshold of the Subotchevs’ house.
And really they were confronted by the eighteenth century in the very
hall, with its low bluish screens, ornamented with black silhouettes
cut out of paper, of powdered ladies and gentlemen. Silhouettes, first
introduced by Lavater, were much in vogue in the eighties of last
century.
The sudden appearance of such a large number of guests—four all at
once—produced quite a sensation in the usually quiet house. A hurried
sound of feet, both shod and unshod, was heard, several women thrust
their heads through the door and instantly drew them back again,
someone was pushed, another groaned, a third giggled, someone whispered
excitedly, “Be quiet, do!”
At last Kalliopitch made his appearance in his old coat, and opening the
drawing-room door announced in a loud voice:
“Sila Samsonitch with some other gentlemen, sir!”
The Subotchevs were less disturbed than their servants, although the
eruption of four full-sized men into their drawing-room, spacious though
it was, did in fact surprise them somewhat. But Paklin soon reassured
them, introducing Nejdanov, Solomin, and Markelov in turn, as good quiet
people, not “governmental.”
Fomishka and Fimishka had a horror of governmental, that is to say,
official people.
Snandulia, who appeared at her brother’s request, was far more disturbed
and agitated than the old couple.
They asked, both together and in exactly the same words, if their guests
would be pleased to partake of some tea, chocolate, or an effervescent
drink with jam, but learning that they did not require anything, having
just lunched with the merchant Golushkin and that they were returning
there to dinner, they ceased pressing them, and, folding their arms
in exactly the same manner across their stomachs, they entered into
conversation. It was a little slow at first, but soon grew livelier.
Paklin amused them very much by relating the well known Gogol anecdote
about a superintendent of police, who managed to push his way into a
church already so packed with people that a pin could scarcely drop,
and about a pie which turned out to be no other than this same
superintendent himself. The old people laughed till the tears rolled
down their cheeks. They had exactly the same shrill laugh and both
went red in the face from the effort. Paklin noticed that people of the
Subotchev type usually went into fits of laughter over quotations
from Gogol, but as his object at the present moment was not so much
in amusing them as in showing them off to his friends, he changed his
tactics and soon managed to put them in an excellent humour.
Fomishka produced a very ancient carved wooden snuff-box and showed it
to the visitors with great pride. At one time one could have discerned
about thirty-six little human figures in various attitudes carved on its
lid, but they were so erased as to be scarcely visible now. Fomishka,
however, still saw them and could even count them. He would point to one
and say, “Just look! this one is staring out of the window.... He has
thrust his head out!” but the place indicated by his fat little finger
with the nail raised was just as smooth as the rest of the box. He then
turned their attention to an oil painting hanging on the wall just above
his head. It represented a hunter in profile, galloping at full speed on
a bay horse, also in profile, over a snow plain. The hunter was clad in
a tall white sheepskin hat with a pale blue point, a tunic of
camel’s hair edged with velvet, and a girdle wrought in gold. A glove
embroidered in silk was gracefully tucked into the girdle, and a dagger
chased in black and silver hung at the side. In one hand the plump,
youthful hunter carried an enormous horn, ornamented with red tassels,
and the reins and whip in the other. The horse’s four legs were all
suspended in the air, and on every one of them the artist had carefully
painted a horseshoe and even indicated the nails. “Look,” Fomishka
observed, pointing with the same fat little finger to four semi-circular
spots on the white ground, close to the horse’s legs, “he has even put
the snow prints in!” Why there were only four of these prints and not
any to be seen further back, on this point Fomishka was silent.
“This was I!” he added after a pause, with a modest smile.
“Really!” Nejdanov exclaimed, “were you ever a hunting man?”
“Yes. I was for a time. Once the horse threw me at full gallop and I
injured my _kurpey_. Fimishka got frightened and forbade me; so I have
given it up since then.”
“What did you injure?” Nejdanov asked.
“My _kurpey_,” Fomishka repeated, lowering his voice.
The visitors looked at one another. No one knew what _kurpey_ meant; at
least, Markelov knew that the tassel on a Cossack or Circassian cap was
called a _kurpey_, but then how could Fomishka have injured that? But
no one dared to question him further.
“Well, now that you have shown off,” Fimishka remarked suddenly, “I
will show off too.” And going up to a small _bonheur du jour_, as they
used to call an old-fashioned bureau, on tiny, crooked legs, with a
round lid which fitted into the back of it somewhere when opened, she
took out a miniature in water colour, in an oval bronze frame, of a
perfectly naked little child of four years old with a quiver over her
shoulders fastened across the chest with pale blue ribbons, trying the
points of the arrows with the tip of her little finger. The child was
all smiles and curls and had a slight squint.
“And that was I,” she said.
“Really?”
“Yes, as a child. When my father was alive a Frenchman used to come
and see him, such a nice Frenchman too! He painted that for my father’s
birthday. Such a nice man! He used to come and see us often. He would
come in, make such a pretty courtesy and kiss your hand, and when going
away would kiss the tips of his own fingers so prettily, and bow to
the right, to the left, backwards and forwards! He was such a nice
Frenchman!”
The guests praised his work; Paklin even declared that he saw a certain
likeness.
Here Fomishka began to express his views on the modern French, saying
that they had become very wicked nowadays!
“What makes you think so, Foma Lavrentievitch?”
“Look at the awful names they give themselves nowadays!”
“What, for instance?”
“Nogent Saint Lorraine, for instance! A regular brigand’s name!”
Fomishka asked incidentally who reigned in Paris now, and when told that
it was Napoleon, was surprised and pained at the information.
“How?... Such an old man—” he began and stopped, looking round in
confusion.
Fomishka had but a poor knowledge of French, and read Voltaire in
translation; he always kept a translated manuscript of “Candide” in the
bible box at the head of his bed. He used to come out with expressions
like: “This, my dear, is _fausse parquet_,” meaning suspicious, untrue.
He was very much laughed at for this, until a certain learned Frenchman
told him that it was an old parliamentary expression employed in his
country until the year 1789.
As the conversation turned upon France and the French, Fimishka resolved
to ask something that had been very much on her mind. She first thought
of addressing herself to Markelov, but he looked too forbidding, so she
turned to Solomin, but no! He seemed to her such a plain sort of person,
not likely to know French at all, so she turned to Nejdanov.
“I should like to ask you something, if I may,” she began; “excuse me,
my kinsman Sila Samsonitch makes fun of me and my woman’s ignorance.”
“What is it?”
“Supposing one wants to ask in French, ‘What is it?’ must one say
‘Kese-kese-kese-la?’”
“Yes.”
“And can one also say ‘Kese-kese-la?’”
“Yes.”
“And simply ‘Kese-la?’”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And does it mean the same thing?”
“Yes, it does.”
Fimishka thought awhile, then threw up her arms.
“Well, Silushka,” she exclaimed; “I am wrong and you are right. But
these Frenchmen.... How smart they are!”
Paklin began begging the old people to sing them some ballad. They
were both surprised and amused at the idea, but consented readily on
condition that Snandulia accompanied them on the harpsichord. In a
corner of the room there stood a little spinet, which not one of them
had noticed before. Snandulia sat down to it and struck several chords.
Nejdanov had never heard such sour, toneless, tingling, jangling notes,
but the old people promptly struck up the ballad, “Was it to Mourn.”