Chapter 13
Chapter 13 of A Sportsman's Sketches. I have already had the honor, kind readers, of introducing to you several of my neighbors. Let me now seize a favorable opportunity, it is always a favorable opportunity with us writers, to make known to you two more gentlemen, on whose lands I often used to go shooting, very worthy, well-intentioned persons who enjoy universal esteem in several districts.
First, I will describe to you the retired general major Vyacheslav Ilarionovich Kvalinsky. Picture to yourselves a tall and once slender man, now inclined to corpulence, but not in the least decrepit or even elderly, a man of ripe age, in his very prime, as they say. It is true, the once regular and even now rather pleasing features of his face have undergone some change, his cheeks are flabby, there are close wrinkles like rays about his eyes,
a few teeth are not as saddy, according to Pushkin used to say. His light brown hair, at least all that is left of it, has assumed a purplish hue, thanks to a composition bought at the Romion horse fair of a Jew who gave himself out as an Armenian. But Vyacheslav Ilarionovich has a smart walk and a ringing laugh, jingles his spurs and curls his mustaches, and finally speaks of himself as an old cavalryman, whereas we all know that really old men never talk of being old.
He usually wears a frock coat buttoned up to the top, a high cravat, starched collars, and grey sprigged trousers of a military cut. He wears his hat tilted over his forehead, leaving all the back of his head exposed. He is a good-natured man, but of rather curious notions and principles. For instance, he can never treat noblemen of no wealth or standing as equals.
When he talks to them, he usually looks sideways at them, his cheek pressed hard against his stiff white collar, and suddenly he turns and silently fixes them with a clear stony stare. While he moves the whole skin of his head under his hair, he even has a way of his own in pronouncing many words. He never says, for instance, Thank you, Pavel Vasilich, or This way, if you please, Mikhail Ivanovich, but always Thanks, Pavel Asilech, or Is why, please, Milvanić.
With persons of the lower grades of society his behaviour is still more quaint. He never looks at them at all, and before making known his desires to them or giving an order, he repeats several times in succession with a puzzled, far-away air, What's your name? What's your name? With extraordinary sharp emphasis on the first word, which gives the phrase a rather close resemblance to the call of a quail, he is very fussy and terribly closed-fisted, but manages his land badly.
He had chosen as overseer on his estate a retired quartermaster, a little Russian, and a man of really exceptional stupidity. None of us, though, in the management of land has ever surpassed a certain great Petersburg dignitary, who, having perceived from the reports of his steward that the corncans in which the corn was dried on his estate were often liable to catch fire, whereby he lost a great deal of grain, gave the strictest orders that for the future they should not put the sheaves in until the fire had been completely put out. This same great personage conceived the brilliant idea of sowing his fields with poppies as the result of an apparently simple calculation.
Poppy being dearer than rye, he argued, it is consequently more profitable to sow poppy. He, it was, too, who ordered his women serfs to wear tiaras after a parent bespoken from Moscow. And to this day the peasant women on his lands do actually wear the tiaras, only they wear them over their skullcaps. But let us return to Vyacheslav Valeriyovitch. Vyacheslav Valeriyovitch is a devoted admirer of the fair sex, and directly he catches sight of a pretty woman in the promenade of his district town.
He is promptly off in pursuit but falls at once into a sort of limping gait that is the remarkable feature of the case. He is fond of playing cards but only with people of a lower standing. They toady him with your excellency in every sentence while he can scold them and find fault to his heart's content. When he chances to play with a governor or any official personage, a marvelous change comes over him. He is all nods and smiles, he looks them in the face, he seems positively flowing with honey.
He even loses without grumbling. Vyacheslav Valeriyovitch does not read much. When he is reading he incessantly works his mustaches and eyebrows up and down as if a wave were passing from below upwards over his face. This undulatory motion in Vyacheslav Valeriyovitch's face is especially marked when, before company of course, he happens to be reading the columns of the Journal de Dibard. In the assemblies of nobility he plays a rather important part but on grounds of economy he declines the honourable dignity of marshal.
Gentleman, he usually says to the nobleman who press that office upon him and he speaks in a voice filled with condescension and self-sufficiency, much indebted for the honour but I have made up my mind to consecrate my leisure to solitude. And as he utters these words he turns his head several times to right and to left and then with a dignified air adjusts his chin and his cheek over his crabat. In his young days he served as adjutant to some very important person whom he never speaks of except by his Christian name and patronymic. They do say he fulfilled other functions than those of an adjutant that for instance in full parade get up buttoned up to the chin he had to lather his chief in his bath.
But one can't believe everything one hears. General Chvalinsky is not however fond of talking himself about his career in the army which is certainly rather curious. It seems that he had never seen active service. General Chvalinsky lives in a small house alone, he has never known the joys of married life and consequently he still regards himself as a possible match and indeed a very eligible one. But he has a housekeeper, a dark-eyed, duck-browed, plump, fresh-looking woman of five and thirty with a moustache.
She wears starched dresses even on weekdays and on Sundays puts on muslin sleeves as well. Vyacheslav Larionovich is at his best at the large invitation dinners given by gentlemen of the neighborhood in honor of the governor and other dignitaries than he is, one may say, in his natural element. On these occasions he usually sits, if not on the governor's right hand, at least at no great distance from him. At the beginning of dinner he is more disposed to nurse his sense of personal dignity and sitting back in his chair he loftily scans the necks and stand-up colors of the guests without turning his head. But towards the end of the meal he unbends, begins smiling in all directions, he had been all smiles for the governor from the first, and sometimes even proposes the toast in honor of the fair sex, the ornament of our planet, as he says.
General Chvalinsky shows to advantage, too, at all solemn public functions, inspections, assemblies and exhibitions. No one in church goes up for the benediction with such style. Vyacheslav Larionovich's servants are never noisy and clamorous on the breaking up of assemblies or in crowded thoroughfares. As they make a way for him through the crowd or call his carriage they say in an agreeable, glattoral, berry tone, Buy your leave, buy your leave, allow General Chvalinsky to pass, or call for General Chvalinsky's carriage.
Chvalinsky's carriage is, it must be admitted, of rather queer design, and the footman's liveries are rather threadbare, that they are gray with red facings it is hardly necessary to remark. His horses, too, have seen a good deal of hard service in their time, but Vyacheslav Larionovich has no pretensions to splendor and goes so far as to think it beneath his rank to make an ostentation of wealth. Chvalinsky has no special gift of eloquence or possibly has no opportunity of displaying his rhetorical powers, as he has a particular aversion not only for disputing but for discussion in general and assiduously avoids long conversation of all sorts, especially with young people. This was certainly judicious on his part. The worst of having to do with the younger generation is that they are so ready to forget the proper respect and submission due to their superiors. In the presence of persons of high rank, Chvalinsky is for the most part silent, while with persons of a lower rank, whom to judge by appearances he despises, though he constantly associates with them, his remarks are sharp and abrupt, expressions such as the following occurring incessantly.
That's a piece of folly what you're saying now, or I feel myself compelled, sir, to remind you, or you ought to realize with whom you are dealing, and so on. He is peculiarly dreaded by postmasters, officers of the local boards and superintendents of posting stations. He never entertains anyone in his house and leaves, as the rumor goes, like a screw. For all that, he is an excellent country gentleman, an old soldier, a disinterested fellow, a man of principle, the Eugreniar, his neighbors say of him, the provincial prosecutor alone, who makes himself to smile when General Chvalinsky's excellent and solid qualities are referred to before him. But what will not envy drive men to? However, we will pass now to another landed proprietor. Mardary Apollonich Stigunov has no sort of resemblance to Chvalinsky. I hardly think he has ever served under government in any capacity, and he has never been reckoned handsome.
Mardary Apollonich is a little, fatish, bald old man of respectable corpulence with a double chin and little soft hands. He is very hospitable and jovial, lives as the saying is for his comfort. Summer and winter alike, he wears a striped, wadded dressing gown. There is only one thing in which he is like General Chvalinsky. He too is a bachelor. He owns 500 souls. Mardary Apollonich's interest in his estate is of a rather superficial description. Not to be behind the age, he ordered a threshing machine from Butinops in Moscow, locked it up in a barn and then felt his mind at rest on the subject. Sometimes on a fine summer day he would have out his racing droshki and drive off to his fields to look at the crops and gather corn flowers. Mardary Apollonich's existence is carried on in quite the old style. His house is of an old-fashioned construction. In the hall there is, of course, a smell of kvass, tallow candles and leather. Close at hand on the right there is a sideboard with pipes and towels. In the dining room, family portraits, flies, a great pot of geraniums and a squeaky piano.
In the drawing room three sofas, three tables, two looking glasses and a wheezy clock of tarnished enamel with engraved bronze hands. In the study a table piled up with papers and a bluish coloured screen covered with pictures cut out of various works of last century. A bookcase full of musty books, spiders and black dust, a puffy armchair, an Italian window, a sealed up door into the garden. Everything in short just as it always is. Mardary Apollonich has a multitude of servants, all dressed in the old-fashioned style, in long blue full coats with high colours, shortish pantaloons over muddy hue and yellow waistcoats. They address visitors as father. His estate is under the superintendence of an agent, a peasant with a beard that covers the whole of his sheepskin. His household is managed by a stingy, wrinkled old woman whose face is always tied up in a cinnamon coloured handkerchief. In Mardary Apollonich's stable there are 30 horses of various kinds. He drives out in a coach built on the estate that weighs four tons. He receives visitors very cordially and entertains them sumptuously.
In other words, thanks to the stupefying powers of our national cookery, he deprives them of all capacity for doing anything but playing preference. For his part he never does anything and has even given up reading the ream book. But there are a good many of our landed gentry in Russia exactly like this. It will be asked, what is my object in talking about him? Well, by way of answering that question let me describe to you one of my visits at Mardary Apollonich's. I arrived one summer evening at 7 o'clock. An evening service was only just over. The priest, a young man apparently very timid and only lately come from the seminary, was sitting in the drawing room near the door on the extreme edge of a chair. Mardary Apollonich received me as usual very cordially. He was genuinely delighted to see any visitor and indeed he was the most good natured of men altogether. The priest got up and took his hat. Wait a bit, wait a bit, father, said Mardary Apollonich, not yet leaving go of my hand. Don't go. I have sent for some vodka for you.
I never drink it, sir, the priest muttered in confusion, blushing up to his ears. What nonsense, answered Mardary Apollonich. Mishka, Yushka, vodka for the father. Yushka, a tall thin old man of eighty, came in with a glass of vodka on a dark colored tray with a few patches of flesh color on it, all that was left of the original enamel. The priest began to decline. Come, drink it up, father, no ceremony, it's too bad of you, observed the landowner reproachfully. The poor young man had to obey.
There, now, father, you may go. The priest took leave. There, there, that'll do, get along with you. A capital fellow, pursued Mardary Apollonich, looking after him. I like him very much. There's only one thing, he's young yet. But how are you, my dear sir? What have you been doing? How are you? Let's come out onto the balcony, such a lovely evening. We went out on the balcony, sat down and began to talk. Mardary Apollonich glanced below and suddenly fell into a state of tremendous excitement.
Whose hands are those? Whose hands are those? he shouted. Whose are those hands roaming about in the garden? Whose are those hands? How many times I've forbidden it? How many times I've spoken about it? Yushka ran out. What disorder! protested Mardary Apollonich. It's horrible! The unlucky hens, two speckled and one white with a top knot, as I still remember, went on stalking tranquilly about under the apple trees, occasionally giving vent to their feelings in a prolonged clocking, when suddenly Yushka, bareheaded and stick in hand with three other house-servs of mature years, flew at them simultaneously.
Then the fun began. The hens clucked, flapped their wings, hopped, raised a deafening cackle. The house-servs ran, tripping up and tumbling over. Their master shouted from the balcony like one possessed, Catch him, catch him, catch him, catch him, catch him, catch him, catch him! At last one servant succeeded in catching the hen with the top knot, tumbling upon her, and at the very same moment a little girl of eleven, with disheveled hair and a dry branch in her hand, jumped over the garden fence from the village street. Ah, we see now whose hens! cried the landowner in triumph. Their year-mill, the coachman's hens. He's sent his Natalka to chase them out. He didn't send his parasah, no fear, the landowner added in a low voice with a significant snigger. Hey, Yushka, let the hens alone. Catch Natalka for me. But before the panting Yushka had time to reach the terrified little girl, the housekeeper suddenly appeared, snatched her by the arm and slapped her several times on the back.
That's it, that's it! cried the master. Tut, tut, tut! And carry off the hens, Avdotya! he added in a loud voice and he turned with a beaming face to me. That was a fine chase, my dear sir, hey? I'm in a regular perspiration, look! And Mardere Apolonych went off into a series of chuckles. We remained on the balcony. The evening was really exceptionally fine. Tea was served us. Tell me, I began, Mardere Apolonych, are those your peasant's huts out there on the high road above the ravine? Yes, why do you ask? I wonder at you, Mardere Apolonych, it's really sinful. The huts allotted to the peasants there are wretched cramped little hovels.
There isn't a tree to be seen near them. There is not a pond even. There is only one well and that's no good. Could you really find no other place to settle them? And they say you're taking away the old hemp grounds too. And what does one to do with this new division of the lands, Mardere Apolonych Gmeydansa? Do you know I've this re-division quite on my mind and I foresee no sort of good from it. And as for my having taken away the hemp ground and there not having dug any ponds or what not, as to that, my dear sir, I know my own business.
I'm a plain man. I go on the old system to my ideas when a man's master, his master and when he's peasant, his peasant. That's what I think about it. To an argument so clear and convincing there was of course no answer. And besides, he went on, those peasants are a wretched lot. They are in disgrace. Particularly two families there. Why, my late father, God rest his soul, couldn't bear them, positively couldn't bear them. And you know my precept is, where the father's a thief, the son's a thief. Say what you like.
Blood. Blood. Oh, that's the great thing. Meanwhile there was a perfect stillness in the air. Only rarely there came a gust of wind which, as it sank for the last time near the house, brought to our ears the sound of rhythmically repeated blows seeming to come from the stable. Marderiy Apolonych was in the act of lifting a saucer full of tea to his lips and was just inflating his nostrils to sniff its fragrance. No true-born Russian, as we all know, can drink his tea without this preliminary.
But he stopped short, listened, nodded his head, sipped his tea, and laying the saucer on the table with the most good-natured smile imaginable he murmured as though involuntarily accompanying the blows. Chukki-chukki-chuk. Chukki-chuk. What is it? I asked, puzzled. Oh, by my order they're punishing a scamp of a fellow. Do you happen to remember Vasya who waits at the sideboard? Which Vasya?
Why, that waited on us at dinner just now. He with the long whiskers. The fiercest indignation could not have stood against the clear mild gaze of Marderiy Apolonych. What are you after, young man? What is it? He said, shaking his head. Am I a criminal or something that you stare at me like that? Whom he loveth, he chasteth. You know that. A quarter of an hour later I had taken leave of Marderiy Apolonych. As I was driving through the village I caught sight of Vasya.
He was walking down the village street cracking nuts. I told the coachman to stop the horses and called him up. Well, my boy, so they've been punishing you today? I said to him. How did you know? answered Vasya. Your master told me. The master himself? What did he order you to be punished for?
Oh, I deserved it, father, I deserved it. They don't punish for trifles among us. That's not the way with us. No, no. Our master's not like that. Our master, you won't find another master like him in all the province. Drive on, I said to the coachman. There you have it, old Russia. I mused on my homeward way. End of two country gentlemen.
