A Lear of the Steppes and Other Stories

Optin desert, and Father Makary. . . . Harlov assented, said that 'he must . . . he must . . . he would have to . . . his soul' . . . and that was all. He did not regain his cheerfulness before he went away. From time to time he clenched and unclenched his fist, looked at his open hand, said that what he feared above everything was dying without repentance, from a stroke, and that he had made a vow to himself not to get angry, as anger vitiated his blood and drove it to his head. . . . Besides, he had now withdrawn from everything. What grounds could he have for getting angry? Let other people trouble themselves now and vitiate their blood!

As he took leave of my mother he looked at her in a strange way, mournfully and questioningly. . . and suddenly, with a rapid movement, drew out of his pocket the volume of The Worker's Leisure- Hour, and thrust it into my mother's hand.

'What's that?' she inquired.

'Read . . . here,' he said hurriedly, 'where the corner's turned down, about death. It seems to me, it's terribly well said, but I can't make it out at all. Can't you explain it to me, my benefactress? I'll come back again and you explain it me.'

With these words Martin Petrovitch went away.

'He's in a bad way, he's in a bad way,' observed my mother, directly he had disappeared through the doorway, and she set to work upon the Leisure-Hour. On the page turned down by Harlov were the following words:

'Death is a grand and solemn work of nature. It is nothing else than that the spirit, inasmuch as it is lighter, finer, and infinitely more penetrating than those elements under whose sway it has been subject, nay, even than the force of electricity itself, so is chemically purified and striveth upward till what time it attaineth an equally spiritual abiding-place for itself . . .' and so on.

My mother read this passage through twice, and exclaiming, 'Pooh!' she flung the book away.

Three days later, she received the news that her sister's husband was dead, and set off to her sister's country-seat, taking me with her. My mother proposed to spend a month with her, but she stayed on till late in the autumn, and it was only at the end of September that we returned to our own estate. XVI

THE first news with which my valet, Prokofy, greeted me (he regarded himself as the seignorial huntsman) was that there was an immense number of wild snipe on the wing, and that in the birch-copse near Eskovo (Harlov's property), especially, they were simply swarming. I had three hours before me till dinner-time. I promptly seized my gun and my game-bag, and with Prokofy and a setter-dog, hastened to the Eskovo copse. We certainly did find a great many wild snipe there, and, firing about thirty charges, killed five. As I hurried homewards with my booty, I saw a peasant ploughing near the road-side. His horse had stopped, and with tearful and angry abuse he was mercilessly tugging with the cord reins at the animal's head, which was bent on one side. I looked attentively at the luckless beast, whose ribs were all but through its skin, and, bathed in sweat, heaved up and down with convulsive, irregular movements like a blacksmith's bellows. I recognised it at once as the decrepit old mare, with the scar on her shoulder, who had served Martin Petrovitch so many years.

'Is Mr. Harlov living?' I asked Prokofy. The chase had so completely absorbed us, that up to that instant we had not talked of anything.

'Yes, he's alive. Why?'

'But that's his mare, isn't it? Do you mean to say he's sold her?'

'His mare it is, to be sure; but as to selling, he never sold her. But they took her away from him, and handed her over to that peasant.'

'How, took it? And he consented?'

'They never asked his consent. Things have changed here in your absence,' Prokofy observed, with a faint smile in response to my look of amazement; 'worse luck! My goodness, yes! Now Sletkin's master, and orders every one about.'

'But Martin Petrovitch?'

'Why, Martin Petrovitch has become the very last person here, you may say. He's on bread and water,--what more can one say? They've crushed him altogether. Mark my words; they'll drive him out of the house.'

The idea that it was possible to drive such a giant had never entered my head. 'And what does Zhitkov say to it?' I asked at last. 'I suppose he's married to the second daughter?'

'Married?' repeated Prokofy, and this time he grinned all over his face. 'They won't let him into the house. 'We don't want you,' they say; 'get along home with you.' It's as I said; Sletkin directs every one.'

'But what does the young lady say?'

'Evlampia Martinovna? Ah, master, I could tell you . . . but you're young--one must think of that. Things are going on here that are . . . oh! . . . oh! . . . oh! Hey! why Dianka's setting, I do believe!'

My dog actually had stopped short, before a thick oak bush which bordered a narrow ravine by the roadside. Prokofy and I ran up to the dog; a snipe flew up out of the bush, we both fired at it and missed; the snipe settled in another place; we followed it.

The soup was already on the table when I got back. My mother scolded me. 'What's the meaning of it?' she said with displeasure; 'the very first day, and you keep us waiting for dinner.' I brought her the wild snipe I had killed; she did not even look at them. There were also in the room Souvenir, Kvitsinsky, and Zhitkov. The retired major was huddled in a corner, for all the world like a schoolboy in disgrace. His face wore an expression of mingled confusion and annoyance; his eyes were red . . . One might positively have imagined he had recently been in tears. My mother remained in an ill humour. I was at no great pains to surmise that my late arrival did not count for much in it. During dinner-time she hardly talked at all. The major turned beseeching glances upon her from time to time, but ate a good dinner nevertheless. Souvenir was all of a shake. Kvitsinsky preserved his habitual self-confidence of demeanour.

'Vikenty Osipitch,' my mother addressed him, 'I beg you to send a carriage to-morrow for Martin Petrovitch, since it has come to my knowledge that he has none of his own. And bid them tell him to come without fail, that I desire to see him.'

Kvitsinsky was about to make some rejoinder, but he restrained himself.

'And let Sletkin know,' continued my mother, 'that I command him to present himself before me . . . Do you hear? I com . . . mand!'

'Yes, just so . . . that scoundrel ought----' Zhitkov was beginning in a subdued voice; but my mother gave him such a contemptuous look, that he promptly turned away and was silent.

'Do you hear? I command!' repeated my mother.

'Certainly, madam,' Kvitsinsky replied submissively but with dignity.

'Martin Petrovitch won't come!' Souvenir whispered to me, as he came out of the dining-room with me after dinner. 'You should just see what's happened to him! It's past comprehension! It's come to this, that whatever they say to him, he doesn't understand a word! Yes! They've got the snake under the pitchfork!'

And Souvenir went off into his revolting laugh. XVII

SOUVENIR'S prediction turned out correct. Martin Petrovitch would not come to my mother. She was not at all pleased with this, and despatched a letter to him. He sent her a square bit of paper, on which the following words were written in big letters: 'Indeed I can't. I should die of shame. Let me go to my ruin. Thanks. Don't torture me--Martin Harlov.' Sletkin did come, but not on the day on which my mother had 'commanded' his attendance, but twenty-four hours later. My mother gave orders that he should be shown into her boudoir. . . . God knows what their interview was about, but it did not last long; a quarter of an hour, not more. Sletkin came out of my mother's room, crimson all over, and with such a viciously spiteful and insolent expression of face, that, meeting him in the drawing-room I was simply petrified, while Souvenir, who was hanging about there, stopped short in the middle of a snigger. My mother came out of her boudoir, also very red in the face, and announced, in the hearing of all, that Mr. Sletkin was never, upon any pretext, to be admitted to her presence again, and that if Martin Petrovitch's daughters were to make bold--they've impudence enough, said she--to present themselves, they, too, were to be refused admittance. At dinner-time she suddenly exclaimed, 'The vile little Jew! I picked him out of the gutter, I made him a career, he owes everything, everything to me,--and he dares to tell me I've no business to meddle in their affairs! that Martin Petrovitch is full of whims and fancies, and it's impossible to humour him! Humour him, indeed! What a thing to say! Ah, he's an ungrateful wretch! An insolent little Jew!'

Major Zhitkov, who happened to be one of the company at dinner, imagined that now it was no less than the will of the Almighty for him to seize the opportunity and put in his word . . . but my mother promptly settled him. 'Well, and you're a fine one, too, my man!' she commented. 'Couldn't get the upper hand of a girl, and he an officer!