Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (393 page)
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Authors: IVAN TURGENEV
How empty, dull, and useless is almost every day when it is spent! How few the traces it leaves behind it! How meaningless, how foolish those hours as they coursed by one after another!
And yet it is man’s wish to exist; he prizes life, he rests hopes on it, on himself, on the future…. Oh, what blessings he looks for from the future!
But why does he imagine that other coming days will not be like this day he has just lived through?
Nay, he does not even imagine it. He likes not to think at all, and he does well.
‘Ah, to - morrow, to - morrow!’ he comforts himself, till ‘to - morrow’ pitches him into the grave.
Well, and once in the grave, thou hast no choice, thou doest no more thinking.
May 1879.
I dreamed I had come into an immense underground temple with lofty arched roof. It was filled with a sort of underground uniform light.
In the very middle of the temple sat a majestic woman in a flowing robe of green colour. Her head propped on her hand, she seemed buried in deep thought.
At once I was aware that this woman was Nature herself; and a thrill of reverent awe sent an instantaneous shiver through my inmost soul.
I approached the sitting figure, and making a respectful bow, ‘O common Mother of us all!’ I cried, ‘of what is thy meditation? Is it of the future destinies of man thou ponderest? or how he may attain the highest possible perfection and happiness?’
The woman slowly turned upon me her dark menacing eyes. Her lips moved, and
I heard a ringing voice like the clang of iron.
‘I am thinking how to give greater power to the leg - muscles of the flea, that he may more easily escape from his enemies. The balance of attack and defence is broken…. It must be restored.’
‘What,’ I faltered in reply, ‘what is it thou art thinking upon? But are not we, men, thy favourite children?’
The woman frowned slightly. ‘All creatures are my children,’ she pronounced, ‘and I care for them alike, and all alike I destroy.’
‘But right … reason … justice …’ I faltered again.
‘Those are men’s words,’ I heard the iron voice saying. ‘I know not right nor wrong…. Reason is no law for me — and what is justice? — I have given thee life, I shall take it away and give to others, worms or men … I care not…. Do thou meanwhile look out for thyself, and hinder me not!’
I would have retorted … but the earth uttered a hollow groan and shuddered, and I awoke.
August 1879.
‘It happened in 1803,’ began my old acquaintance, ‘not long before
Austerlitz. The regiment in which I was an officer was quartered in
Moravia.
‘We had strict orders not to molest or annoy the inhabitants; as it was, they regarded us very dubiously, though we were supposed to be allies.
‘I had a servant, formerly a serf of my mother’s, Yegor, by name. He was a quiet, honest fellow; I had known him from a child, and treated him as a friend.
‘Well, one day, in the house where I was living, I heard screams of abuse, cries, and lamentations; the woman of the house had had two hens stolen, and she laid the theft at my servant’s door. He defended himself, called me to witness…. “Likely he’d turn thief, he, Yegor Avtamonov!” I assured the woman of Yegor’s honesty, but she would not listen to me.
‘All at once the thud of horses’ hoofs was heard along the street; the commander - in - chief was riding by with his staff. He was riding at a walking pace, a stout, corpulent man, with drooping head, and epaulettes hanging on his breast.
‘The woman saw him, and rushing before his horse, flung herself on her knees, and, bare - headed and all in disorder, she began loudly complaining of my servant, pointing at him.
‘“General!” she screamed; “your Excellency! make an inquiry! help me! save me! this soldier has robbed me!”
‘Yegor stood at the door of the house, bolt upright, his cap in his hand, he even arched his chest and brought his heels together like a sentry, and not a word! Whether he was abashed at all the general’s suite halting there in the middle of the street, or stupefied by the calamity facing him, I can’t say, but there stood my poor Yegor, blinking and white as chalk!
‘The commander - in - chief cast an abstracted and sullen glance at him, growled angrily, “Well?” … Yegor stood like a statue, showing his teeth as if he were grinning! Looking at him from the side, you’d say the fellow was laughing!
‘Then the commander - in - chief jerked out: “Hang him!” spurred his horse, and moved on, first at a walking - pace, then at a quick trot. The whole staff hurried after him; only one adjutant turned round on his saddle and took a passing glance at Yegor.
‘To disobey was impossible…. Yegor was seized at once and led off to execution.
‘Then he broke down altogether, and simply gasped out twice, “Gracious heavens! gracious heavens!” and then in a whisper, “God knows, it wasn’t me!”
‘Bitterly, bitterly he cried, saying good - bye to me. I was in despair.
“Yegor! Yegor!” I cried, “how came it you said nothing to the general?”
‘“God knows, it wasn’t me!” the poor fellow repeated, sobbing. The woman herself was horrified. She had never expected such a dreadful termination, and she started howling on her own account! She fell to imploring all and each for mercy, swore the hens had been found, that she was ready to clear it all up….
‘Of course, all that was no sort of use. Those were war - times, sir!
Discipline! The woman sobbed louder and louder.
‘Yegor, who had received absolution from the priest, turned to me.
‘“Tell her, your honour, not to upset herself…. I’ve forgiven her.”‘
My acquaintance, as he repeated this, his servant’s last words, murmured, ‘My poor Yegor, dear fellow, a real saint!’ and the tears trickled down his old cheeks.
August 1879.
What shall I think when I come to die, if only I am in a condition to think anything then?
Shall I think how little use I have made of my life, how I have slumbered, dozed through it, how little I have known how to enjoy its gifts?
‘What? is this death? So soon? Impossible! Why, I have had no time to do anything yet…. I have only been making ready to begin!’
Shall I recall the past, and dwell in thought on the few bright moments I have lived through — on precious images and faces?
Will my ill deeds come back to my mind, and will my soul be stung by the burning pain of remorse too late?
Shall I think of what awaits me beyond the grave … and in truth does anything await me there?
No…. I fancy I shall try not to think, and shall force myself to take interest in some trifle simply to distract my own attention from the menacing darkness, which is black before me.
I once saw a dying man who kept complaining they would not let him have hazel - nuts to munch!… and only in the depths of his fast - dimming eyes, something quivered and struggled like the torn wing of a bird wounded to death….
August 1879.
‘HOW FAIR, HOW FRESH WERE THE ROSES …’
Somewhere, sometime, long, long ago, I read a poem. It was soon forgotten … but the first line has stuck in my memory —
‘
How fair, how fresh were the roses …
’
Now is winter; the frost has iced over the window - panes; in the dark room burns a solitary candle. I sit huddled up in a corner; and in my head the line keeps echoing and echoing —
‘
How fair, how fresh were the roses …
’
And I see myself before the low window of a Russian country house. The summer evening is slowly melting into night, the warm air is fragrant of mignonette and lime - blossom; and at the window, leaning on her arm, her head bent on her shoulder, sits a young girl, and silently, intently gazes into the sky, as though looking for new stars to come out. What candour, what inspiration in the dreamy eyes, what moving innocence in the parted questioning lips, how calmly breathes that still - growing, still - untroubled bosom, how pure and tender the profile of the young face! I dare not speak to her; but how dear she is to me, how my heart beats!
‘
How fair, how fresh were the roses …
’
But here in the room it gets darker and darker…. The candle burns dim and gutters, dancing shadows quiver on the low ceiling, the cruel crunch of the frost is heard outside, and within the dreary murmur of old age….
‘
How fair, how fresh were the roses …
’
There rise up before me other images. I hear the merry hubbub of home life in the country. Two flaxen heads, bending close together, look saucily at me with their bright eyes, rosy cheeks shake with suppressed laughter, hands are clasped in warm affection, young kind voices ring one above the other; while a little farther, at the end of the snug room, other hands, young too, fly with unskilled fingers over the keys of the old piano, and the Lanner waltz cannot drown the hissing of the patriarchal samovar …
‘
How fair, how fresh were the roses …
’
The candle flickers and goes out…. Whose is that hoarse and hollow cough?
Curled up, my old dog lies, shuddering at my feet, my only companion….
I’m cold … I’m frozen … and all of them are dead … dead …
‘
How fair, how fresh were the roses …
’
Sept. 1879.
I was going from Hamburg to London in a small steamer. We were two passengers; I and a little female monkey, whom a Hamburg merchant was sending as a present to his English partner.
She was fastened by a light chain to one of the seats on deck, and was moving restlessly and whining in a little plaintive pipe like a bird’s.
Every time I passed by her she stretched out her little, black, cold hand, and peeped up at me out of her little mournful, almost human eyes. I took her hand, and she ceased whining and moving restlessly about.
There was a dead calm. The sea stretched on all sides like a motionless sheet of leaden colour. It seemed narrowed and small; a thick fog overhung it, hiding the very mast - tops in cloud, and dazing and wearying the eyes with its soft obscurity. The sun hung, a dull red blur in this obscurity; but before evening it glowed with strange, mysterious, lurid light.
Long, straight folds, like the folds in some heavy silken stuff, passed one after another over the sea from the ship’s prow, and broadening as they passed, and wrinkling and widening, were smoothed out again with a shake, and vanished. The foam flew up, churned by the tediously thudding wheels; white as milk, with a faint hiss it broke up into serpentine eddies, and then melted together again and vanished too, swallowed up by the mist.
Persistent and plaintive as the monkey’s whine rang the small bell at the stern.
From time to time a porpoise swam up, and with a sudden roll disappeared below the scarcely ruffled surface.
And the captain, a silent man with a gloomy, sunburnt face, smoked a short pipe and angrily spat into the dull, stagnant sea.
To all my inquiries he responded by a disconnected grumble. I was obliged to turn to my sole companion, the monkey.
I sat down beside her; she ceased whining, and again held out her hand to me.
The clinging fog oppressed us both with its drowsy dampness; and buried in the same unconscious dreaminess, we sat side by side like brother and sister.
I smile now … but then I had another feeling.
We are all children of one mother, and I was glad that the poor little beast was soothed and nestled so confidingly up to me, as to a brother.
November 1879.
