Sketches from a Hunter's Album (9 page)

‘I won't weary you any longer, and in any case I find it painful to remember. My sick patient died the following day. The Kingdom of Heaven be hers!' (The doctor added this rapidly and with a sigh.) ‘Before she died she asked that the rest of the family should go and I should stay with her alone. “Forgive me,” she said. “Perhaps I'm to blame in your eyes… it's the illness… but believe me, I never loved anyone more than you… don't forget me… take care of my ring…”'

The district doctor turned away. I took his hand.

‘Oh,' he cried, ‘let's talk about something else! Or perhaps you'd like a little game of whist? Chaps like us, you know, shouldn't give way to such highfalutin' feelings. Chaps like us should only bother with things like stopping the children crying or the wife scolding. Since then I've contracted a legal marriage, as they say… Well, you know… I found a merchant's daughter. Dowry of seven thousand roubles. She's called Akulina, which is about right for a Tripthong. She's a woman with a fierce tongue, but thankfully she's asleep all day… What d'you say to some whist?'

We sat down to whist for copeck stakes. Tripthong Ivanych won two and a half roubles off me and went home late, very content with his victory.

One time, wandering with Yermolay through the fields in search of partridges, I noticed a neglected orchard and went off in that direction. I'd hardly entered it when woodcock rose with beating wings from a bush. I fired and at that moment, a few feet from me, there was a cry and the frightened face of a young girl looked out from behind the trees and instantly vanished. Yermolay ran up to me, shouting: ‘Why're you shooting? A landowner lives here!'

I'd hardly had time to answer him, and my dog'd scarcely had time to bring me a dead bird with dignified self-importance, when there was a sound of rapid footsteps and a tall, bewhiskered man emerged from a thicket and stopped in front of me looking very dissatisfied. I apologized as best I could, gave him my name and offered him the bird which I'd shot on his property.

‘As you wish,' he said with a smile. ‘I'll accept the bird, only on the condition that you stay and have dinner with me.'

I confess I wasn't overjoyed at his offer, but it was impossible to refuse.

‘I'm a local landowner and your neighbour, Radilov. You may have heard of me,' my new acquaintance continued. ‘It's Sunday today and the dinner should be a good one, otherwise I wouldn't have invited you.'

I answered as one should answer in such circumstances and set off to follow him. A recently cleared path quickly led us out of the lime grove and we entered a vegetable garden. Amid old apple trees and overgrown gooseberry bushes there grew innumerable round pale-green heads of cabbage with hop tendrils winding round their tall stems; sticking up in the beds were close-set rows of brown sticks all entwined with dried-up peas; large flat pumpkins literally lay about on the ground; cucumbers hung yellowing under dusty angular leaves; tall nettles swayed above the fence; in two or three places there grew masses of wild honeysuckle, elder and dogrose, the remains of what had formerly been well-kept flowerbeds. Beside a small fish pool, filled with reddish, slimy water, was a well surrounded by puddles. Ducks busily splashed and waddled about in these puddles; a dog, shivering and screwing up its eyes, gnawed at a bone on a patch of grass; a piebald cow also lazily nibbled the grass there, occasionally casting its tail over its scrawny back. The path turned to one side and beyond tall willows and birches there glanced at us a small, antiquated, grey house with a shingle roof and crooked porch. Radilov stopped.

‘Of course,' he said, looking at me warmly and directly in the face, ‘the thought has just occurred to me that perhaps you've no wish to come to me at all. In which case…'

I didn't let him finish and assured him that, on the contrary, it would be very pleasant to have dinner with him.

‘Well, you know what I mean…'

We went into the house. A young fellow in a long caftan of thick blue cloth met us on the porch. Radilov at once ordered him to give Yermolay some vodka, at which my hunting companion bowed respectfully towards the back of the benevolent donor. From the hallway, which was papered with various colourful pictures and
hung with birdcages, we entered a small room – Radilov's study. I took off my hunting togs and put my gun in one corner. The young fellow in his long frock-coat busily brushed me down.

‘Well, let's go into the drawing-room,' said Radilov courteously. ‘I'll introduce you to my mother.'

I followed behind him. In the drawing-room, sitting on a divan in the centre of the room, was a tiny old woman in a brown dress and white bonnet, with a kindly, shrunken face and a modest, sad expression.

‘Mother, I'd like to introduce our neighbour Mr —'

The old woman rose and bowed to me without releasing from her bony hands a worsted handbag as fat as a sack.

‘Have you been long in our parts?' she asked in a weak, quiet voice, blinking her eyes.

‘No, ma'am, not long.'

‘Are you intending to stay long?'

‘Until the winter, I think.'

The old woman fell silent.

‘And here,' chimed in Radilov, pointing out to me a tall, thin man I'd not noticed on first entering the drawing-room, ‘is Fyodor Mikheich… Come on, Fedya, give our guest a taste of your art. What are you hiding in the corner for?'

Fyodor Mikheich instantly jumped out of his chair, took from the window ledge a cheap-looking fiddle, picked up a bow – not by the end, as is normal, but by the middle – leaned the fiddle against his chest, closed his eyes and launched into a dance, singing a ditty and sawing away at the strings. In appearance he was about seventy. A long nankeen frock-coat bounced about sadly on his dry bony limbs. He danced, either boldly giving himself a shake, or, as if on the point of collapse, swayed his small bald head, stretched his veiny neck, tapped his feet and sometimes, with evident difficulty, bent his knees. From his toothless mouth came his frail voice. Radilov must have guessed from the expression on my face that Fedya's ‘art' gave little pleasure.

‘Well, old chap, that's enough,' he said. ‘You can go off and receive your reward.'

Fyodor Mikheich at once replaced the fiddle on the window ledge, bowed first to me as a guest, then to the old woman, then to Radilov and then left the room.

‘He was also once a landowner,' continued my friend, ‘and a rich one, but he went bankrupt and now he lives with me… But in his time he was considered the foremost Casanova in the province. He stole two wives from their husbands, used to keep singers, sang himself and was a masterly dancer… Perhaps you'd like some vodka? Dinner's already on the table.'

A young girl, the very one I'd caught sight of in the garden, came into the room.

‘Ah, here's Olya!' noted Radilov, slightly turning his head. ‘I beg you to love and leave her… Well, let's go and have dinner.'

We went into the dining-room and sat down. While we were doing this, Fyodor Mikheich, whose eyes glistened and nose had reddened from his ‘reward', sang out ‘Victory, thy trumpets sound!'
¹
He had a special place laid for him at a small table without a table-napkin. The poor old man could hardly boast of his neatness and he was therefore always kept at some distance from polite society. He crossed himself, sighed and began eating like a shark. The dinner was actually not bad and, since it was Sunday, would not have been passable without some quivering jellies and Spanish vol-au-vents (like small pies). In the course of the dinner Radilov, who'd done ten years' army service in a foot regiment and been in Turkey, launched into various stories. I listened attentively to him and meanwhile observed Olga on the quiet. She wasn't very pretty, but the resolute and calm expression of her face, her broad white forehead, thick hair and, in particular, her hazel eyes, small but intelligent, clear and vivacious, would have struck anyone, no matter who, in my place. She seemed to follow closely Radilov's every word and not sympathy so much as passionate attention was displayed on her face. In years Radilov could've been her father. He used an intimate form of address to her, but I guessed at once she couldn't be his daughter. In the course of our conversation he mentioned his late wife – ‘her sister,' he added, indicating Olga. She quickly blushed and lowered her eyes. Radilov paused and changed the conversation. The old woman didn't say a word throughout the meal, ate practically nothing herself and did not play hostess to me. Her features emanated a kind of timid and hopeless expectancy and the sort of elderly sadness which can squeeze the heart of an onlooker so painfully. Towards the end of the meal Fyodor Mikheich showed signs of
wanting to sing the praises of his hosts and their guest, but Radilov glanced at me and told him to stop. The old man drew his hand across his lips, blinked, bowed and sat down again, but this time on the very edge of his chair. After dinner Radilov and I repaired to his study.

In people who are constantly and strongly preoccupied by one thought or by a single passion there is always some common feature noticeable, some common likeness in behaviour, no matter how different their qualities, their abilities, their position in society and their education. The longer I observed Radilov, the more it seemed to me that he belonged to such a category of person. He would talk about running his estate, about the harvest, about the haymaking, about the war, about the provincial gossip and forthcoming elections, he would talk quite freely, even with a sense of involvement, but suddenly he'd give a sigh and sink into an armchair, drywashing his face like a man worn out by hard work. It seemed his entire spirit, kindly and warm though it was, was penetrated, permeated through and through, by a single feeling. I was struck by the fact that I couldn't find in him any passion for food or wine or hunting or Kursk nightingales or epileptic pigeons or Russian literature or trotting horses or Hungarian jackets or cards or billiards or going dancing in the evening or paying visits to the local town or the capital or paper and sugar-beet factories or brightly decorated gazebos or tea parties or trace-horses driven into bad ways or even fat coachmen with belts right up to their armpits, those magnificent coachmen whose every movement of their necks, God knows why, makes their eyes literally pop out of their heads… ‘What sort of a landowner
is
this?' I thought. Besides he gave no impression whatever of being gloomy or dissatisfied with his fate. On the contrary, he literally radiated indiscriminate goodwill, cordiality and an almost shameful readiness to make friends with all and sundry. It's true you had the feeling at the same time that he couldn't really be friends, couldn't really be on close terms with anyone, and he couldn't not because he didn't really need other people but because his whole life had been turned inwards. Studying Radilov closely I couldn't ever imagine him happy, either now or at any time. He was also not endowed with good looks, but secreted in his eyes, in his smile and in his whole being there was something extraordinarily attractive – and
yet it was secreted. So it seemed you wanted to know him better and really be friends with him. Of course, from time to time he showed signs of being the landowner and steppe-dweller he was, but as a man he was nevertheless a splendid chap.

We'd just begun talking about the new provincial marshal of nobility when suddenly Olga's voice on the other side of the door announced: ‘Tea's ready.' We went into the drawing-room. Fyodor Mikheich sat as usual in his corner, between the window and the door, his legs modestly pressed together. Radilov's mother was knitting a sock. Through the open windows came autumnal freshness and a fragrance of apples. Olga busily poured tea. I watched her now with greater attention than I had during dinner. She spoke very little, as was common among provincial girls, but in her, at least, I saw no inclination to make some fancy remark accompanied by an appalling sense of emptiness and feebleness; nor did she sigh, as if from an excess of inexplicable feelings, nor roll up her eyes, nor smile dreamily and vaguely. She had a calm, cool look about her, as of someone resting after a great happiness or a great distress. Her walk and her gestures were assured and unconstrained. I took a great liking to her.

Radilov and I started talking again. I don't remember how we reached the point of agreeing that it's often the most insignificant things that produce the greatest impression on people, rather than the most important ones.

‘Yes,' said Radilov, ‘I experienced this myself once. I was married, you know. Not for long… just three years. My wife died in childbirth. I thought I'd never get over it. I was appallingly grief-stricken, knocked flat by it, but I couldn't shed a tear and went about the place crazy with it all. They dressed her in suitable clothes and laid her on the table – right here, in this room. The priest came. The deacons came, they started singing, praying, wafting incense. I made all the obeisances, bowed right down to the ground, and yet I couldn't manage a single tear. My heart'd literally turned to stone, my head as well. I couldn't feel a thing. That was how the first day passed. Can you credit it! I even slept that night. The next morning I went in to see her. It was summertime and the sun shone on her from head to toe, and so brightly. Suddenly I saw…' (At this point Radilov shuddered.) ‘What d'you think? One of her eyes wasn't completely shut and over this eye a fly was walking… I collapsed
like scythed corn and when I came to I cried and cried and simply couldn't stop myself…'

Radilov stopped. I looked at him and then at Olga and I'll never forget the expression on her face. The old woman laid the sock on her knees, took a handkerchief from her handbag and stealthily wiped away a tear. Fyodor Mikheich suddenly stood up, seized his fiddle and in his untutored, quavering voice started singing. He very likely wanted to cheer us all up, but we all gave a shudder from the first sound he made and Radilov asked him to stop.

‘Besides,' he went on, ‘it's over and done with. You can't bring back the past and, in the end, you know, all's for the best in the best of all possible worlds… As Voltaire once said, I think,' he added hurriedly.
²

‘Yes, of course,' I agreed. ‘What's more, one can put up with unhappiness, and there's no situation so awful you can't get out of it somehow.'

‘You really think so?' Radilov asked. ‘Well, perhaps you're right. I remember once in Turkey I was lying in a hospital half-dead.
³
I had marsh fever. We couldn't exactly boast of our hospital buildings – after all, it was wartime and a case of God help us! Suddenly more sick ones were brought in, but where could they go? The doctor rushed about here and there, but there wasn't any space. Then he came up to me and asked the orderly if I was still alive. The orderly answered: “He was alive this morning.” The doctor bent down and heard I was breathing. The friendly chap couldn't resist saying: “Nature's a bloody fool. Here's a man dying, absolutely certain to die, but he's just scraping by, just hanging on, and all he's doing is occupying a space and stopping others from coming in.” “Well,” I thought, “you're in a really bad way, Mikhaylo Mikhaylich…” But I got better, you know, and I'm alive to this day, as you can see. So it seems you're right.'