Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (390 page)
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Authors: IVAN TURGENEV
THE WORKMAN AND THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS
WORKMAN. Why do you come crawling up to us? What do ye want? You’re none of us…. Get along!
MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. I am one of you, comrades!
THE WORKMAN. One of us, indeed! That’s a notion! Look at my hands. D’ye see how dirty they are? And they smell of muck, and of pitch — but yours, see, are white. And what do they smell of?
THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS (
offering his hands
). Smell them.
THE WORKMAN (
sniffing his hands
). That’s a queer start. Seems like a smell of iron.
THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Yes; iron it is. For six long years I wore chains on them.
THE WORKMAN. And what was that for, pray?
THE MAN WITH WHITE HANDS. Why, because I worked for your good; tried to set free the oppressed and the ignorant; stirred folks up against your oppressors; resisted the authorities…. So they locked me up.
THE WORKMAN. Locked you up, did they? Serve you right for resisting!
Two Years Later
.
THE SAME WORKMAN TO ANOTHER. I say, Pete…. Do you remember, the year before last, a chap with white hands talking to you?
THE OTHER WORKMAN. Yes;… what of it?
THE FIRST WORKMAN. They’re going to hang him to - day, I heard say; that’s the order.
THE SECOND WORKMAN. Did he keep on resisting the authorities?
THE FIRST WORKMAN. He kept on.
THE SECOND WORKMAN. Ah!… Now, I say, mate, couldn’t we get hold of a bit of the rope they’re going to hang him with? They do say, it brings good luck to a house!
THE FIRST WORKMAN. You’re right there. We’ll have a try for it, mate.
April 1878.
The last days of August…. Autumn was already at hand.
The sun was setting. A sudden downpour of rain, without thunder or lightning, had just passed rapidly over our wide plain.
The garden in front of the house glowed and steamed, all filled with the fire of the sunset and the deluge of rain.
She was sitting at a table in the drawing - room, and, with persistent dreaminess, gazing through the half - open door into the garden.
I knew what was passing at that moment in her soul; I knew that, after a brief but agonising struggle, she was at that instant giving herself up to a feeling she could no longer master.
All at once she got up, went quickly out into the garden, and disappeared.
An hour passed … a second; she had not returned.
Then I got up, and, getting out of the house, I turned along the walk by which — of that I had no doubt — she had gone.
All was darkness about me; the night had already fallen. But on the damp sand of the path a roundish object could be discerned — bright red even through the mist.
I stooped down. It was a fresh, new - blown rose. Two hours before I had seen this very rose on her bosom.
I carefully picked up the flower that had fallen in the mud, and, going back to the drawing - room, laid it on the table before her chair.
And now at last she came back, and with light footsteps, crossing the whole room, sat down at the table.
Her face was both paler and more vivid; her downcast eyes, that looked somehow smaller, strayed rapidly in happy confusion from side to side.
She saw the rose, snatched it up, glanced at its crushed, muddy petals, glanced at me, and her eyes, brought suddenly to a standstill, were bright with tears.
‘What are you crying for?’ I asked.
‘Why, see this rose. Look what has happened to it.’
Then I thought fit to utter a profound remark.
‘Your tears will wash away the mud,’ I pronounced with a significant expression.
‘Tears do not wash, they burn,’ she answered. And turning to the hearth she flung the rose into the dying flame.
‘Fire burns even better than tears,’ she cried with spirit; and her lovely eyes, still bright with tears, laughed boldly and happily.
I saw that she too had been in the fire.
April 1878.
TO THE MEMORY OF U. P. VREVSKY
On dirt, on stinking wet straw under the shelter of a tumble - down barn, turned in haste into a camp hospital, in a ruined Bulgarian village, for over a fortnight she lay dying of typhus.
She was unconscious, and not one doctor even looked at her; the sick soldiers, whom she had tended as long as she could keep on her legs, in their turn got up from their pestilent litters to lift a few drops of water in the hollow of a broken pot to her parched lips.
She was young and beautiful; the great world knew her; even the highest dignitaries had been interested in her. Ladies had envied her, men had paid her court … two or three had loved her secretly and truly. Life had smiled on her; but there are smiles that are worse than tears.
A soft, tender heart … and such force, such eagerness for sacrifice! To help those who needed help … she knew of no other happiness … knew not of it, and had never once known it. Every other happiness passed her by. But she had long made up her mind to that; and all aglow with the fire of unquenchable faith, she gave herself to the service of her neighbours.
What hidden treasure she buried there in the depth of her heart, in her most secret soul, no one ever knew; and now, of course, no one will ever know.
Ay, and what need? Her sacrifice is made … her work is done.
But grievous it is to think that no one said thanks even to her dead body, though she herself was shy and shrank from all thanks.
May her dear shade pardon this belated blossom, which I make bold to lay upon her grave!
September 1878.
We had once been close and warm friends…. But an unlucky moment came … and we parted as enemies.
Many years passed by…. And coming to the town where he lived, I learnt that he was helplessly ill, and wished to see me.
I made my way to him, went into his room…. Our eyes met.
I hardly knew him. God! what sickness had done to him!
Yellow, wrinkled, completely bald, with a scanty grey beard, he sat clothed in nothing but a shirt purposely slit open…. He could not bear the weight of even the lightest clothes. Jerkily he stretched out to me his fearfully thin hand that looked as if it were gnawed away, with an effort muttered a few indistinct words — whether of welcome or reproach, who can tell? His emaciated chest heaved, and over the dwindled pupils of his kindling eyes rolled two hard - wrung tears of suffering.
My heart sank…. I sat down on a chair beside him, and involuntarily dropping my eyes before the horror and hideousness of it, I too held out my hand.
But it seemed to me that it was not his hand that took hold of me.
It seemed to me that between us is sitting a tall, still, white woman. A long robe shrouds her from head to foot. Her deep, pale eyes look into vacancy; no sound is uttered by her pale, stern lips.
This woman has joined our hands…. She has reconciled us for ever.
Yes…. Death has reconciled us….
April 1878.
I was sitting at the open window … in the morning, the early morning of the first of May.
The dawn had not yet begun; but already the dark, warm night grew pale and chill at its approach.
No mist had risen, no breeze was astir, all was colourless and still … but the nearness of the awakening could be felt, and the rarer air smelt keen and moist with dew.
Suddenly, at the open window, with a light whirr and rustle, a great bird flew into my room.
I started, looked closely at it…. It was not a bird; it was a tiny winged woman, dressed in a narrow long robe flowing to her feet.
She was grey all over, the colour of mother - of - pearl; only the inner side of her wings glowed with the tender flush of an opening rose; a wreath of valley lilies entwined the scattered curls upon her little round head; and, like a butterfly’s feelers, two peacock feathers waved drolly above her lovely rounded brow.
She fluttered twice about the ceiling; her tiny face was laughing; laughing, too, were her great, clear, black eyes.
The gay frolic of her sportive flight set them flashing like diamonds.
She held in her hand the long stalk of a flower of the steppes — ’the Tsar’s sceptre,’ the Russians call it — it is really like a sceptre.
Flying rapidly above me, she touched my head with the flower.
I rushed towards her…. But already she had fluttered out of window, and darted away….
In the garden, in a thicket of lilac bushes, a wood - dove greeted her with its first morning warble … and where she vanished, the milk - white sky flushed a soft pink.
I know thee, Goddess of Fantasy! Thou didst pay me a random visit by the way; thou hast flown on to the young poets.
O Poesy! Youth! Virginal beauty of woman! Thou couldst shine for me but for a moment, in the early dawn of early spring!
May 1878.
A tall, bony old woman, with iron face and dull, fixed look, moves with long strides, and, with an arm dry as a stick, pushes before her another woman.
This woman — of huge stature, powerful, thick - set, with the muscles of a Hercules, with a tiny head set on a bull neck, and blind — in her turn pushes before her a small, thin girl.
This girl alone has eyes that see; she resists, turns round, lifts fair, delicate hands; her face, full of life, shows impatience and daring…. She wants not to obey, she wants not to go, where they are driving her … but, still, she has to yield and go.
Necessitas — Vis — Libertas
!
Who will, may translate.
May 1878.
Near a large town, along the broad highroad walked an old sick man.
He tottered as he went; his old wasted legs, halting, dragging, stumbling, moved painfully and feebly, as though they did not belong to him; his clothes hung in rags about him; his uncovered head drooped on his breast…. He was utterly worn - out.
He sat down on a stone by the wayside, bent forward, leant his elbows on his knees, hid his face in his hands; and through the knotted fingers the tears dropped down on to the grey, dry dust.
He remembered….
Remembered how he too had been strong and rich, and how he had wasted his health, and had lavished his riches upon others, friends and enemies…. And here, he had not now a crust of bread; and all had forsaken him, friends even before foes…. Must he sink to begging alms? There was bitterness in his heart, and shame.
The tears still dropped and dropped, spotting the grey dust.
Suddenly he heard some one call him by his name; he lifted his weary head, and saw standing before him a stranger.
A face calm and grave, but not stern; eyes not beaming, but clear; a look penetrating, but not unkind.
‘Thou hast given away all thy riches,’ said a tranquil voice…. ‘But thou dost not regret having done good, surely?’
‘I regret it not,’ answered the old man with a sigh; ‘but here I am dying now.’
‘And had there been no beggars who held out their hands to thee,’ the stranger went on, ‘thou wouldst have had none on whom to prove thy goodness; thou couldst not have done thy good works.’
The old man answered nothing, and pondered.
‘So be thou also now not proud, poor man,’ the stranger began again. ‘Go thou, hold out thy hand; do thou too give to other good men a chance to prove in deeds that they are good.’
The old man started, raised his eyes … but already the stranger had vanished, and in the distance a man came into sight walking along the road.
The old man went up to him, and held out his hand. This man turned away with a surly face, and gave him nothing.
But after him another passed, and he gave the old man some trifling alms.
And the old man bought himself bread with the coppers given him, and sweet to him seemed the morsel gained by begging, and there was no shame in his heart, but the contrary: peace and joy came as a blessing upon him.
May 1878.
