A Reckless Character, and Other Stories Part 11

On the wall of his study hung the genealogical tree of the Telyegins, with very profuse branches, and mult.i.tudinous circles in the shape of apples, enclosed in a gilt frame.

"We Telyegins,"[32] he said, "are a very ancient stock, existing from remote antiquity; there have been a great many of us Telyegins, but we have not run after foreigners, we have not bowed our backs, we have not wearied ourselves by standing on the porches of the mighty, we have not nourished ourselves on the courts, we have not earned wages, we have not pined for Moscow, we have not intrigued in Peter;[33] we have sat still, each on his place, his own master on his own land ... thrifty, domesticated birds, my dear sir!--Although I myself have served in the Guards, yet it was not for long, I thank you!"

Alexyei Sergyeitch preferred the olden days.--"Things were freer then, more seemly, I a.s.sure you on my honour! But ever since the year one thousand and eight hundred" (why precisely from that year he did not explain), "this warring and this soldiering have come into fas.h.i.+on, my dear fellow. These military gentlemen have mounted upon their heads some sort of plumes made of c.o.c.ks' tails, and made themselves like c.o.c.ks; they have drawn their necks up tightly, very tightly ... they speak in hoa.r.s.e tones, their eyes are popping out of their heads--and how can they help being hoa.r.s.e? The other day some police corporal or other came to see me.--'I have come to you, Your Well-Born,' quoth he.... (A pretty way he had chosen to surprise me! ... for I know myself that I am well-born....) 'I have a matter of business with you.' But I said to him: 'Respected sir, first undo the hooks on thy collar. Otherwise, which G.o.d forbid, thou wilt sneeze! Akh, what will become of thee! What will become of thee!--Thou wilt burst like a puff-ball.... And I shall be responsible for it!' And how they drink, those military gentlemen--o-ho-ho! I generally give orders that they shall be served with champagne from the Don, because Don champagne and Pontacq are all the same to them; it slips down their throats so smoothly and so fast--how are they to distinguish the difference? And here's another thing: they have begun to suck that sucking-bottle, to smoke tobacco. A military man will stick that same sucking-bottle under his moustache, between his lips, and emit smoke through his nostrils, his mouth, and even his ears--and think himself a hero! There are my horrid sons-in-law, for example; although one of them is a senator, and the other is some sort of a curator, they suck at the sucking-bottle also,--and yet they regard themselves as clever men!..."

Alexyei Sergyeitch could not endure smoking tobacco, nor dogs, especially small dogs.--"Come, if thou art a Frenchman, then keep a lap-dog. Thou runnest, thou skippest hither and thither, and it follows thee, with its tail in the air ... but of what use is it to fellows like me?"--He was very neat and exacting. He never spoke of the Empress Katherine otherwise than with enthusiasm, and in a lofty, somewhat bookish style: "She was a demi-G.o.d, not a human being!--Only contemplate yon smile, my good sir," he was wont to add, pointing at the Lampi portrait, "and admit that she was a demi-G.o.d! I, in my lifetime, have been so happy as to have been vouchsafed the bliss of beholding yon smile, and to all eternity it will never be erased from my heart!"--And thereupon he would impart anecdotes from the life of Katherine such as it has never been my lot to read or hear anywhere. Here is one of them.

Alexyei Sergyeitch did not permit the slightest hint at the failings of the great Empress. "Yes, and in conclusion," he cried: "is it possible to judge her as one judges other people?--One day, as she was sitting in her powder-mantle, at the time of her morning toilet, she gave orders that her hair should be combed out.... And what happened? The waiting-woman pa.s.ses the comb through it, and electric sparks fly from it in a perfect shower!--Then she called to her the body physician, Rodgerson, who was present on duty, and says to him: 'I know that people condemn me for certain actions; but dost thou see this electricity?

Consequently, with such a nature and const.i.tution as mine, thou mayest thyself judge, for thou art a physician, that it is unjust to condemn me, but they should understand me!'"

The following incident was ineffaceably retained in the memory of Alexyei Sergyeitch. He was standing one day on the inner watch in the palace, and he was only sixteen years of age. And lo, the Empress pa.s.ses him--he presents arms.... "And she," cried Alexyei Sergyeitch, again with rapture, "smiling at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me her hand to kiss, and patted me on the cheek, and inquired who I was, and whence I came, and from what family? And then ..." (here the old man's voice generally broke) ... "then she bade me give my mother her compliments and thank her for rearing her children so well. And whether I was in heaven or on earth, and how and whither she withdrew,--whether she soared up on high, or pa.s.sed into another room,--I know not to this day!"

I often tried to question Alexyei Sergyeitch about those olden days, about the men who surrounded the Empress.... But he generally evaded the subject. "What's the use of talking about old times?"--he said ... "one only tortures himself. One says to himself,--'Thou wert a young man then, but now thy last teeth have vanished from thy mouth.' And there's no denying it--the old times were good ... well, and G.o.d be with them!

And as for those men--I suppose, thou fidgety child, that thou art talking about the accidental men? Thou hast seen a bubble spring forth on water? So long as it is whole and lasts, what beautiful colours play upon it! Red and yellow and blue; all one can say is, ''Tis a rainbow or a diamond!'--But it soon bursts, and no trace of it remains. And that's what those men were like."

"Well, and how about Potyomkin?" I asked one day.

Alexyei Sergyeitch a.s.sumed a pompous mien. "Potyomkin, Grigory Alexandritch, was a statesman, a theologian, a nursling of Katherine's, her offspring, one must say.... But enough of that, my little sir!"

Alexyei Sergyeitch was a very devout man and went to church regularly, although it was beyond his strength. There was no superst.i.tion perceptible in him; he ridiculed signs, the evil eye, and other "twaddle," yet he did not like it when a hare ran across his path, and it was not quite agreeable for him to meet a priest.[34] He was very respectful to ecclesiastical persons, nevertheless, and asked their blessing, and even kissed their hand every time, but he talked with them reluctantly.--"They emit a very strong odour," he explained; "but I, sinful man that I am, have grown effeminate beyond measure;--their hair is so long[35] and oily, and they comb it out in all directions, thinking thereby to show me respect, and they clear their throats loudly in the middle of conversation, either out of timidity or because they wish to please me in that way also. Well, but they remind me of my hour of death. But be that as it may, I want to live a while longer. Only, little sir, don't repeat these remarks of mine; respect the ecclesiastical profession--only fools do not respect it; and I am to blame for talking nonsense in my old age."

Alexyei Sergyeitch had received a scanty education,[36] like all n.o.bles of that epoch; but he had completed it, to a certain degree, by reading.

He read only Russian books of the end of the last century; he considered the newer writers unleavened and weak in style. During his reading he placed beside him, on a round, one-legged little table, a silver jug filled with a special effervescent kvas flavoured with mint, whose pleasant odour disseminated itself through all the rooms. He placed large, round spectacles on the tip of his nose; but in his later years he did not so much read as stare thoughtfully over the rims of the spectacles, elevating his brows, mowing with his lips and sighing. Once I caught him weeping, with a book on his knees, which greatly surprised me, I admit.

He recalled the following wretched doggerel:

O all-conquering race of man!

Rest is unknown to thee!

Thou findest it only When thou swallowest the dust of the grave....

Bitter, bitter is this rest!

Sleep, ye dead.... But weep, ye living!

These verses were composed by a certain Gormitch-Gormitzky, a roving poetaster, whom Alexyei Sergyeitch had harboured in his house because he seemed to him a delicate and even subtle man; he wore shoes with knots of ribbon, p.r.o.nounced his _o's_ broadly, and, raising his eyes to heaven, he sighed frequently. In addition to all these merits, Gormitch-Gormitzky spoke French pa.s.sably well, for he had been educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexyei Sergyeitch only "understood" it. But having once drunk himself dead-drunk in a dram-shop, this same subtle Gormitzky displayed outrageous violence. He thrashed "to flinders"

Alexyei Sergyeitch's valet, the cook, two laundresses who happened along, and even an independent carpenter, and smashed several panes in the windows, yelling l.u.s.tily the while: "Here now, I'll just show these Russian sluggards, these unlicked katzapy!"[37]--And what strength that puny little man displayed! Eight men could hardly control him! For this turbulence Alexyei Sergyeitch gave orders that the rhymster should be flung out of the house, after he had preliminarily been rolled in the snow (it happened in the winter), to sober him.

"Yes," Alexyei Sergyeitch was wont to say, "my day is over; the horse is worn out. I used to keep poets at my expense, and I used to buy pictures and books from the Jews--and my geese were quite as good as those of Mukhan, and I had genuine slate-coloured tumbler-pigeons.... I was an amateur of all sorts of things! Except that I never was a dog-fancier, because of the drunkenness and the clownishness! I was mettlesome, untamable! G.o.d forbid that a Telyegin should be anything but first-cla.s.s in everything! And I had a splendid horse-breeding establishment.... And those horses came ... whence, thinkest thou, my little sir?--From those very renowned studs of the Tzar Ivan Alexyeitch, the brother of Peter the Great.... I'm telling you the truth! All stallions, dark brown in colour, with manes to their knees, tails to their hoofs.... Lions!

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity! But what's the use of regretting it?

Every man has his limit fixed for him.--You cannot fly higher than heaven, nor live in the water, nor escape from the earth.... Let us live on a while longer, at any rate!"

And again the old man smiled and took a pinch of his Spanish tobacco.

His peasants loved him. Their master was kind, according to them, and not a heart-breaker.--Only, they also repeated that he was a worn-out steed. Formerly Alexyei Sergyeitch had gone into everything himself: he had ridden out into the fields, and to the flour-mill, and to the oil-mill and the storehouses, and looked in to the peasants' cottages; every one was familiar with his racing-drozhky,[38] upholstered in crimson plush and drawn by a well-grown horse with a broad blaze extending clear across its forehead, named "Lantern"--from that same famous breeding establishment. Alexyei Sergyeitch drove him himself with the ends of the reins wound round his fists. But when his seventieth birthday came the old man gave up everything, and entrusted the management of his estate to the peasant bailiff Antip, of whom he secretly stood in awe and called Micromegas (memories of Voltaire!), or simply "robber."

"Well, robber, hast thou gathered a big lot of stolen goods?" he would say, looking the robber straight in the eye.

"Everything is according to your grace," Antip would reply merrily.

"Grace is all right, only just look out for thyself, Micromegas! Don't dare to touch my peasants, my subjects behind my back! They will make complaint ... my cane is not far off, seest thou?"

"I always keep your little cane well in mind, dear little father Alexyei Sergyeitch," replied Antip-Micromegas, stroking his beard.

"That's right, keep it in mind!" and master and bailiff laughed in each other's faces.

With his house-serfs, with his serfs in general, with his "subjects"

(Alexyei Sergyeitch loved that word), he dealt gently.--"Because, judge for thyself, little nephew, if thou hast nothing of thine own save the cross on thy neck,[39] and that a bra.s.s one, don't hanker after other folks' things.... What sense is there in that?" There is no denying the fact that no one even thought of the so-called problem of the serfs at that epoch; and it could not disturb Alexyei Sergyeitch. He very calmly ruled his "subjects"; but he condemned bad landed proprietors and called them the enemies of their cla.s.s.

He divided the n.o.bles in general into three categories: the judicious, "of whom there are not many"; the profligate, "of whom there is a goodly number"; and the licentious, "of whom there are enough to dam a pond."

And if any one of them was harsh and oppressive to his subjects, that man was guilty in the sight of G.o.d, and culpable in the sight of men!--Yes; the house-serfs led an easy life in the old man's house; the "subjects behind his back" were less well off, as a matter of course, despite the cane wherewith he threatened Micromegas.--And how many there were of them--of those house-serfs--in his manor! And for the most part they were old, sinewy, hairy, grumbling, stoop-shouldered, clad in long-skirted nankeen kaftans, and imbued with a strong acrid odour! And in the women's department nothing was to be heard but the trampling of bare feet, and the rustling of petticoats.--The head valet was named Irinarkh, and Alexyei Sergyeitch always summoned him with a long-drawn-out call: "I-ri-na-a-arkh!"--He called the others: "Young fellow! Boy! What subject is there?!"--He could not endure bells. "G.o.d have mercy, this is no tavern!" And what amazed me was, that no matter at what time Alexyei Sergyeitch called his valet, the man instantly presented himself, just as though he had sprung out of the earth, and placing his heels together, and putting his hands behind his back, stood before his master a grim and, as it were, an irate but zealous servant!

Alexyei Sergyeitch was lavish beyond his means; but he did not like to be called "benefactor."--"What sort of a benefactor am I to you, sir?...

I'm doing myself a favour, not you, my good sir!" (When he was angry or indignant he always called people "you.")--"To a beggar give once, give twice, give thrice," he was wont to say.... "Well, and if he returns for the fourth time--give to him yet again, only add therewith: 'My good man, thou shouldst work with something else besides thy mouth all the time.'"

"Uncle," I used to ask him, "what if the beggar should return for the fifth time after that?"

"Why, then, do thou give to him for the fifth time."

The sick people who appealed to him for aid he had cured at his own expense, although he himself did not believe in doctors, and never sent for them.--"My deceased mother," he a.s.serted, "used to heal all maladies with olive-oil and salt; she both administered it internally and rubbed it on externally, and everything pa.s.sed off splendidly. And who was my mother? She had her birth under Peter the First--only think of that!"

Alexyei Sergyeitch was a Russian man in every respect; he loved Russian viands, he loved Russian songs, but the accordion, "a factory invention," he detested; he loved to watch the maidens in their choral songs, the women in their dances. In his youth, it was said, he had sung rollickingly and danced with agility. He loved to steam himself in the bath,--and steamed himself so energetically that Irinarkh, who served him as bath-attendant, thrashed him with a birch-besom soaked in beer, rubbed him down with shredded linden bark,[40] then with a bit of woollen cloth, rolled a soap bladder over his master's shoulders,--this faithfully-devoted Irinarkh was accustomed to say every time, as he climbed down from the shelf as red as "a new bra.s.s statue": "Well, for this time I, the servant of G.o.d, Irinarkh Tolobyeeff, am still whole....

What will happen next time?"

And Alexyei Sergyeitch spoke splendid Russian, somewhat old-fas.h.i.+oned, but piquant and pure as spring water, constantly interspersing his speech with his pet words: "honour bright," "G.o.d have mercy," "at any rate," "sir," and "little sir."...

Enough concerning him, however. Let us talk about Alexyei Sergyeitch's spouse, Malanya Pavlovna.

Malanya Pavlovna was a native of Moscow, and had been accounted the greatest beauty in town, _la Venus de Moscou_.--When I knew her she was already a gaunt old woman, with delicate but insignificant features, little curved hare-like teeth in a tiny little mouth, with a mult.i.tude of tight little curls on her forehead, and dyed eyebrows. She constantly wore a pyramidal cap with rose-coloured ribbons, a high ruff around her neck, a short white gown and prunella shoes with red heels; and over her gown she wore a jacket of blue satin, with the sleeve depending from the right shoulder. She had worn precisely such a toilet on St. Peter's day, 1789! On that day, being still a maiden, she had gone with her relatives to the Khodnskoe Field,[41] to see the famous prize-fight arranged by the Orloffs.

"And Count Alexyei Grigorievitch ..." (oh, how many times did I hear that tale!), ... "having descried me, approached, made a low obeisance, holding his hat in both hands, and spake thus: 'My stunning beauty, why dost thou allow that sleeve to hang from thy shoulder? Is it that thou wishest to have a match at fisticuffs with me?... With pleasure; only I tell thee beforehand that thou hast vanquished me--I surrender!--and I am thy captive!'--and every one stared at us and marvelled."

And so she had worn that style of toilet ever since.

"Only, I wore no cap then, but a hat _a la bergere de Trianon_; and although I was powdered, yet my hair gleamed through it like gold!"

Malanya Pavlovna was stupid to sanct.i.ty, as the saying goes; she chattered at random, and did not herself quite know what issued from her mouth--but it was chiefly about Orloff.--Orloff had become, one may say, the princ.i.p.al interest of her life. She usually entered--no! she floated into--the room, moving her head in a measured way like a peac.o.c.k, came to a halt in the middle of it, with one foot turned out in a strange sort of way, and holding the pendent sleeve in two fingers (that must have been the pose which had pleased Orloff once on a time), she looked about her with arrogant carelessness, as befits a beauty,-- she even sniffed and whispered "The idea!" exactly as though some important cavalier-adorer were besieging her with compliments,--then suddenly walked on, clattering her heels and shrugging her shoulders.-- She also took Spanish snuff out of a tiny bonbon box, scooping it out with a tiny golden spoon, and from time to time, especially when a new person made his appearance, she raised--not to her eyes, but to her nose (her vision was excellent)--a double lorgnette in the shape of a pair of horns, showing off and twisting about her little white hand with one finger standing out apart.

How many times did Malanya Pavlovna describe to me her wedding in the Church of the Ascension, "which is on the Arbat Square--such a fine church!--and all Moscow was present at it ... there was such a crus.h.!.+ 'T was frightful! There were equipages drawn by six horses, golden carriages, runners ... one of Count Zavadovsky's runners even fell under the wheels! And the bishop himself married us,[42] and what an address he delivered! Everybody wept--wherever I looked there was nothing but tears, tears ... and the Governor-General's horses were tiger-coloured.... And how many, many flowers people brought!... They overwhelmed us with flowers! And one foreigner, a rich, very rich man, shot himself for love on that occasion, and Orloff was present also....

And approaching Alexyei Sergyeitch he congratulated him and called him a lucky dog.... 'Thou art a lucky dog, brother gaper!' he said. And in reply Alexyei Sergyeitch made such a wonderful obeisance, and swept the plume of his hat along the floor from left to right ... as much as to say: 'There is a line drawn now, Your Radiance, between you and my spouse which you must not step across!'--And Orloff, Alexyei Grigorievitch, immediately understood and lauded him.--Oh, what a man he was! What a man! And then, on another occasion, Alexis and I were at a ball in his house--I was already married--and what magnificent diamond b.u.t.tons he wore! And I could not restrain myself, but praised them.

'What splendid diamonds you have, Count!' And thereupon he took a knife from the table, cut off one b.u.t.ton and presented it to me--saying: 'You have in your eyes, my dear little dove, diamonds a hundredfold finer; just stand before the mirror and compare them.' And I did stand there, and he stood beside me.--'Well? Who is right?'--says he--and keeps rolling his eyes all round me. And then Alexyei Sergyeitch was greatly dismayed; but I said to him: 'Alexis,' I said to him, 'please do not be dismayed; thou shouldst know me better!' And he answered me: 'Be at ease, Melanie!'--And those same diamonds I now have encircling a medallion of Alexyei Grigorievitch--I think, my dear, that thou hast seen me wear it on my shoulder on festival days, on a ribbon of St.

George--because he was a very brave hero, a cavalier of the Order of St.

George: he burned the Turks!"[43]

Notwithstanding all this, Malanya Pavlovna was a very kind woman; she was easy to please.--"She doesn't nag you, and she doesn't sneer at you," the maids said of her.--Malanya Pavlovna was pa.s.sionately fond of all sweets, and a special old woman, who occupied herself with nothing but the preserves, and therefore was called the preserve-woman, brought to her, half a score of times in a day, a Chinese plate now with candied rose-leaves, again with barberries in honey, or orange sherbet.

Malanya Pavlovna feared solitude--dreadful thoughts come then--and was almost constantly surrounded by female hangers-on whom she urgently entreated: "Talk, talk! Why do you sit there and do nothing but warm your seats?"--and they began to twitter like canary-birds. Being no less devout than Alexyei Sergyeitch, she was very fond of praying; but as, according to her own words, she had not learned to recite prayers well, she kept for that purpose the widow of a deacon, who prayed so tastily!

She would never stumble to all eternity! And, in fact, that deacon's widow understood how to utter prayerful words in an irrepressible sort of way, without a break even when she inhaled or exhaled her breath--and Malanya Pavlovna listened and melted with emotion. She had another widow also attached to her service; the latter's duty consisted in telling her stories at night,--"but only old ones," entreated Malanya Pavlovna, "those I already know; all the new ones are spurious."

Malanya Pavlovna was very frivolous and sometimes suspicious. All of a sudden she would take some idea into her head. She did not like the dwarf Ja.n.u.s, for example; it always seemed to her as though he would suddenly start in and begin to shriek: "But do you know who I am? A Buryat Prince! So, then, submit!"--And if she did not, he would set fire to the house out of melancholy. Malanya Pavlovna was as lavish as Alexyei Sergyeitch; but she never gave money--she did not wish to soil her pretty little hands--but kerchiefs, ear-rings, gowns, ribbons, or she would send a patty from the table, or a bit of the roast, or if not that, a gla.s.s of wine. She was also fond of regaling the peasant-women on holidays. They would begin to dance, and she would click her heels and strike an att.i.tude.

Alexyei Sergyeitch was very well aware that his wife was stupid; but he had trained himself, almost from the first year of his married life, to pretend that she was very keen of tongue and fond of saying stinging things. As soon as she got to chattering he would immediately shake his little finger at her and say: "Okh, what a naughty little tongue! What a naughty little tongue! Won't it catch it in the next world! It will be pierced with red-hot needles!"--But Malanya Pavlovna did not take offence at this; on the contrary, she seemed to feel flattered at hearing such remarks--as much as to say: "Well, I can't help it! It isn't my fault that I was born witty!"

Malanya Pavlovna wors.h.i.+pped her husband, and all her life remained an exemplary and faithful wife. But there had been an "object" in her life also, a young nephew, a hussar, who had been slain, so she a.s.sumed, in a duel on her account---but, according to more trustworthy information, he had died from a blow received on the head from a billiard-cue, in tavern company. The water-colour portrait of this "object" was preserved by her in a secret casket. Malanya Pavlovna crimsoned to the very ears every time she alluded to Kapitonushka--that was the "object's"