Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (124 page)

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 Jausse 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.”

Fomisha began —

    
“In love God gave a heart

    
Of burning passion to inspire

    
That loving heart with warm desire.”

    
“But there is agony in bliss”

Fimishka chimed in.

    
“And passion free from pain there is,

    
Ah! where, where? tell me, tell me this,”

    
“Ah! where, where? Tell me, tell me this,”

Fomisha put in.

    
“Ah! where, where? tell me, tell me this,”

Fimishka repeated.

    
“Nowhere in all the world, nowhere,

    
Love bringeth grief and black despair,”

they sang together,

    
“And that, love’s gift is everywhere,”

Fomisha sang out alone.

“Bravo!” Paklin exclaimed. “We have had the first verse, now please sing us the second.”

“With the greatest of pleasure,” Fomishka said, “but what about the trill, Snandulia Samsonovna? After my verse there must be a trill.”

“Very well, I will play your trill,” Snandulia replied. Fomishka began again —

    
“Has ever lover loved true

    
And kept his heart from grief and rue?

    
He loveth but to weep anew”

and then Fimishka —

    
“Yea — hearts that love at last are riven

    
As ships that hopelessly have striven

    
For life. To what end were they given?”

“To what end were they given?”

Fomishka warbled out and waited for Snandulia to play the trill.

    
“To what end were they given?”

he repeated, and then they struck up together —

    
“Then take, Oh God, the heart away,

    
Away, away, take hearts away,

    
Away, away, away today.”

“Bravo! Bravo!” the company exclaimed, all with exception of Markelov.

“I wonder they don’t feel like clowns?” Nejdanov thought. “Perhaps they do, who knows? They no doubt think there is no harm in it and may be even amusing to some people. If one looks at it in that light, they are quite right! A thousand times right!”

Under the influence of these reflections he began paying compliments to the host and hostess, which they acknowledged with a courtesy, performed while sitting in their chairs. At this moment Pufka the dwarf and Nurse Vassilievna made their appearance from the adjoining room (a bedroom or perhaps the maids’ room) from whence a great bustle and whispering had been going on for some time. Pufka began squealing and making hideous grimaces, while the nurse first quietened her, then egged her on.

Solomin’s habitual smile became even broader, while Markelov, who had been for some time showing signs of impatience, suddenly turned to Fomishka:

“I did not expect that you,” he began in his severe manner, “with your enlightened mind — I’ve heard that you are a follower of Voltaire — could be amused with what ought to be an object for compassion — with deformity!” Here he remembered Paklin’s sister and could have bitten his tongue off.

Fomishka went red in the face and muttered: “You see it is not my fault... she herself — ”

Pufka simply flew at Markelov.

“How dare you insult our masters?” she screamed out in her lisping voice. “What is it to you that they took me in, brought me up, and gave me meat and drink? Can’t you bear to see another’s good fortune, eh? Who asked you to come here? You fusty, musty, black - faced villain with a moustache like a beetle’s!” Here Pufka indicated with her thick short fingers what his moustache was like; while Nurse Vassilievna’s toothless mouth was convulsed with laughter, re - echoed in the adjoining room.

“I am not in a position to judge you,” Markelov went on. “To protect the homeless and deformed is a very praiseworthy work, but I must say that to live in ease and luxury, even though without injury to others, not lifting a finger to help a fellow - creature, does not require a great deal of goodness. I, for one, do not attach much importance to that sort of virtue!”

Here Pufka gave forth a deafening howl. She did not understand a word of what Markelov had said, but she felt that the “black one” was scolding, and how dared he! Vassilievna also muttered something, while Fomishka folded his hands across his breast and turned to his wife. “Fimishka, my darling,” he began, almost in tears; “do you hear what the gentleman is saying? We are both wicked sinners, Pharisees.... We are living on the fat of the land, oh! oh! oh! We ought to be turned out into the street... with a broom in our hands to work for our living! Oh! oh!”

At these mournful words Pufka howled louder than ever, while Fimishka screwed up her eyes, opened her lips, drew in a deep breath, ready to retaliate, to speak.

God knows how it would have ended had not Paklin intervened.

“What is the matter?” he began, gesticulating with his hands and laughing loudly. “I wonder you are not ashamed of yourselves! Mr. Markelov only meant it as a joke. He has such a solemn face that it sounded a little severe and you took him seriously! Calm yourself! Efimia Pavlovna, darling, we are just going, won’t you tell us our fortunes at cards? You are such a good hand at it. Snandulia, do get the cards, please!”