Sketches from a Hunter's Album (29 page)

I stopped him; the doctor had forbidden him to talk. I knew how
to indulge him. Sorokoumov had never, as they say, ‘followed' science, but he was always curious to know what, so to speak, the great minds of the present day had been thinking and what conclusions had been reached. There had been a time when he used to catch a fellow-student in a corner and began plying him with questions: he would listen, wonder, believe every word and afterwards repeat it all as his own. German philosophy held a particularly strong fascination for him. I began to tell him about Hegel (as you can appreciate, these matters relate to days long since gone by). Avenir gave affirmative nods of the head, raised his eyebrows, smiled, saying in a whisper, ‘I understand, I understand!… Ah, that's good, that's good!' The child-like curiosity of the dying man, of this poor, neglected, homeless fellow, touched me, I confess, to the point of tears. It must be said that Avenir, in contrast to most consumptives, never deluded himself in the least about his illness. And why should he? He did not sigh over it, and was not crushed in spirit by it, nor did he once make reference to his condition.

Gathering his strength, he began to talk about Moscow, about fellow-students, about Pushkin and the theatre and Russian literature; he recalled our feastings, the heated debates which occurred in our circle and with regret he uttered the names of two or three friends who had died…

‘Do you remember Dasha?' he added finally. ‘There was a soul of pure gold! A pure heart! And how she loved me!… What's happened to her now? Probably dried up, wasted away, hasn't she, poor thing?'

I did not dare to disenchant the sick man – and, indeed, there was no reason for him to be told that his Dasha was now fatter than she was tall and carrying on with merchants, the brothers Kondachkov, and powdered and rouged herself, and spoke in a squeaky voice and used bad language.

However, I thought, looking at his exhausted features: is it impossible to drag him out of this place? Perhaps there is still a chance of curing him… But Avenir would not let me finish what I was proposing.

‘No, thank you, good friend,' he murmured, ‘it doesn't matter where one dies. You can see I won't live until the winter, so why bother people unnecessarily? I'm used to this house. It's true that the people in charge here…'

‘… are bad people, do you mean?' I inserted.

‘No, not bad, just rather like bits of wood. But I haven't any reason to complain about them. There are neighbours: Kasatkin, the landowner, has a daughter who is educated, kind, the sweetest of girls… not one of the proud kind…'

Sorokoumov once again had a fit of coughing.

‘It would be all right,' he continued, having got his breath back, ‘if they'd just allow me to smoke a pipe… No, I'm not going to die before I smoke a whole pipe!' he added, winking slyly at me. ‘Good Lord, I've lived enough, and I've known some good people…'

‘You ought at least to write to your relatives,' I interrupted him.

‘What for? To ask for help? They won't be able to help me, and they'll learn about me soon enough when I die. There's no point in talking about it… Better, tell me what you saw when you were abroad.'

I began to tell him. He stared at me, drinking in my words. Towards evening, I left, and about ten days later I received the following letter from Mr Krupyanikov:

There are many other examples that occur to me, so many that it would be impossible to tell them all. I will limit myself to one only.

An elderly lady, a landowner, was dying in my presence. The priest began to read the prayer for the dying over her, when he suddenly noticed that the sick woman was in fact passing on and
hurriedly handed her the cross. The elderly lady took umbrage at this.

‘Why all the hurry, sir?' she said with a tongue that was already stiffening. ‘You'll be in time…'

She lay back and she had just placed her hand under her pillow when she drew her last breath. There was a rouble piece lying under the pillow: she had wanted to pay the priest for reading the prayer for her own death…

Yes, Russians surprise one when it comes to dying!

At the head of the ravine, a few steps from the point where it begins as a narrow crevice, there stands a small, square hut, quite by itself and apart from the others. It is roofed with straw and it has a chimney; one window is turned towards the ravine like a watchful eye, and on winter evenings, when illumined from within, may be seen far off through the faint frost-haze twinkling like a lodestar for many a passing peasant. A small blue sign has been fixed above the door of the hut, since this hut is a tavern, nicknamed The Welcome.
*
Drink cannot be said to be sold in this tavern below the normal price but it is patronized much more assiduously than all the other establishments of this kind in the locality. The reason for this is mine host, Nikolay Ivanych.

Nikolay Ivanych – at one time a well-built, curly-headed, red-cheeked youngster, but now an extraordinarily stout, greying man with a plump face, slyly good-humoured eyes and fleshy temples crisscrossed with wrinkles as fine as threads – has lived more than twenty years in Kolotovka. He is a busy and competent man, like the majority of tavern-keepers. Though outstanding neither for unusual kindliness, nor for a gift of the gab, he possesses the knack of attracting and keeping his patrons, who are happy after their fashion to sit in front of his brew under the calm and welcoming, albeit watchful, gaze of such a phlegmatic host. He has a great deal of sound good sense; he is equally familiar with the way of life of the landowners, the peasants and the townspeople; when difficulties arise he can offer advice that is not at all stupid, but, being a man of cautious and egotistical nature, he prefers to remain on the sidelines and only by remote, as it were, hints, uttered without the least apparent intent, does he suggest to his patrons – and then only his favourite patrons – the right course to take. He has a good grasp of all the important or interesting things a Russian should know: of horses, cattle, forestry, brick-making, crockery, textiles, and leather-ware, singing and dancing. When he has no patrons, he usually sits like a sack on the ground outside the door of his hut, his thin little legs drawn up under him, and exchanges pleasantries with all who pass by. He has seen a great deal in his time and has survived more than his fair number of small-time gentry who have dropped in on him for ‘a spot of the pure stuff'; he knows all that's going on in the entire region and yet he never gossips, never even so much as gives a sign that he knows what a policeman with the keenest nose for crime could not even suspect. He keeps what he knows to himself, occasionally chuckling and shuffling his tankards about. Neighbours show him respect: General Sherepetenko, the highest ranking of the landowners in the county, gives him a deferential bow every time he drives past his little hut. Nikolay Ivanych is a man with influence: he forced a well-known horse thief to return a horse which he had taken from the yard of one of his friends and talked persuasively to peasants from a neighbouring village who were reluctant to accept a new manager, and so on. But one mustn't imagine that he does such things out of a love of justice or community zeal – oh, no! He simply endeavours to put a stop to whatever might disturb his own peace of
mind. Nikolay Ivanych is married and he has children. His wife, a brisk, sharp-nosed woman of middle-class origins, with eyes that dart to and fro, has recently grown plump, like her husband. He relies upon her for everything, and it is she who keeps the money under lock and key. Loud-mouthed drunkards are wary of her, nor is she fond of them: there is little profit to be got from them, only a lot of noise; the taciturn and serious patrons are more to her liking. Nikolay Ivanych's children are still little; the first children all died in infancy, but the surviving ones have grown to look like their parents. It is a pleasure to see the intelligent little faces of those healthy boys.

It was an intolerably hot July day when, slowly dragging one foot after another, I and my dog climbed up the hill beside the Kolotovka ravine in the direction of The Welcome tavern. The sun blazed in the sky, as if fit to explode; it steamed and baked everything remorselessly, and the air was full of suffocating dust. Glossy-feathered rooks and crows hung their beaks and gazed miserably at those who passed by, as if literally imploring their sympathy. Only the sparrows kept their spirits up and, spreading their feathers, chirruped away more fiercely than ever, squabbled round the fences, took off in flight from the dusty roadway and soared in grey clouds above the plantations of green hemp. I was tormented by thirst. There was no water to be got close by: in Kolotovka, as in so many other steppe villages, the peasants, for want of springs and wells, are accustomed to drink a kind of liquid mud from the ponds… But who would call that beastly drink water? I wanted to beg a glass of beer or
kvas
from Nikolay Ivanych.

It has to be confessed that at no time of year does Kolotovka offer a spectacle to please the eye; but it evokes an especially sad feeling when the glittering July sun pours its merciless rays down on the rust-coloured and only partly thatched roofs of the huts, and the deep ravine, and the scorched, dust-laden common ground where gaunt chickens roam about hopelessly on spindly legs, and the grey, skeletal frame of a house of aspen wood, which has holes in place of windows and is all that remains of the former manor house (now overgrown with nettles, wormwood and other weeds), and the dark-green, literally sun-smelted pond, covered with bits of goose fluff and edged with half-dried mud, and a dam knocked askew, beside which, on earth so finely trodden it resembles ash, sheep
huddle miserably together, sneezing and scarcely able to draw breath from the heat, and with patient despondency hang their heads as low as possible, as if awaiting the time when the intolerable heat will finally pass.

With weary steps I drew close to Nikolay Ivanych's dwelling, arousing, quite naturally, a state of excitement in the little boys which grew into an intently senseless staring, and in the dogs a state of dissatisfaction which expressed itself in barks so shrill and malicious that it seemed their innards were being torn out of them and they were left with nothing to do but cough and catch their breaths – when suddenly there appeared in the tavern doorway a tall, hatless man in a frieze overcoat tied low down with a blue sash. To all appearances he was a house-serf; clusters of grey hair rose untidily above his dry and wrinkled face. He called to someone, making hurried motions with his arms which clearly waved about a good deal more expansively than he wished. It was obvious that he had already managed to have something to drink.

‘Come on, come on now!' he burbled, with an effort raising his thick eyebrows. ‘Come on, Winker, will you! You just go at a crawl, you do, mate. It's no good, it isn't. Here they're waitin' for you, and you just goin' at a crawl… Come on.'

‘Well, I'm coming, I'm coming,' responded a querulous voice, and there appeared from behind the hut on the right a smallish man, who was fat and lame. He wore a fairly smart cloth jacket, with his arm through one of the sleeves; a tall, pointed cap, tilted directly forward over his brows, lent his round, puffy face a sly and comic look. His little yellow eyes darted about and a strained, deferential smile never left his thin lips; while his nose, long and sharp, projected impudently in front of him like a rudder. ‘I'm coming, my dear fellow,' he continued, limping in the direction of the drinking establishment. ‘Why're you calling to me? Who's waiting for me?'

‘Why'm I callin' to you?' the man in the frieze overcoat said reproachfully. ‘Oh, you, Winker, you're a wonder, mate, you are – they're callin' you to the tavern, and you go askin' why? It's all good fellows that're waitin' for you – Yashka the Turk's there, and Gentleman Wildman, and Barrowboy from Zhizdra. Yashka's made a bet with Barrowboy – a pot of ale he's staked on whoever gets the better of whom, who sings the best, that's to say… See?'

‘Yashka'll be singing?' the man nicknamed Winker asked with lively interest. ‘Do you really mean that, you Nit?'

‘I do mean that,' the Nit answered with dignity, ‘and there's no need for you to be askin' silly questions. 'Course he'll be singin' if he's made a bet, you old bumbler you, you ruddy menace, Winker!'

‘Well, get going, then, you dimwit!' Winker retorted.

‘Come on, then, and give me a kiss, me old dear,' the Nit said in his prattling way, holding wide his arms.

‘Look at him, gone soft in the head in his old age,' Winker responded contemptuously, thrusting him aside with his elbow, and both of them, bending down, went in through the low door.

The conversation I had heard strongly aroused my curiosity. More than once rumours had reached me about Yashka the Turk as the best singer in the region, and now I was suddenly presented with a chance of hearing him in competition with another master. I redoubled my steps and entered the establishment.

Probably few of my readers have had a chance of seeing the inside of a rural tavern; but we hunters drop in anywhere and everywhere! They are exceedingly simply arranged. They consist usually of a dark entrance and a parlour divided in two by a partition beyond which none of the patrons has the right to go. In this partition, above a wide oak table, there is a big longitudinal opening. The drink is sold at this table, or counter. Labelled bottles of various sizes stand in rows on the shelves directly opposite the opening. In the forward part of the hut, which is given over to the patrons, there are benches, one or two empty barrels and a corner table. Rural taverns are for the most part fairly dark, and you will hardly ever see on the log walls any of those brightly coloured popular prints with which most peasant huts are adorned.

When I entered The Welcome tavern, quite a large company was already gathered there.

Behind the counter, as usual, and occupying almost the whole width of the opening, stood Nikolay Ivanych, dressed in a colourful calico shirt and, with a lazy smirk on his plump cheeks, pouring out with his large white hand two glasses of liquor for the two friends who had just entered, Winker and the Nit; while at his back, in a corner beside the window, his sharp-eyed wife could be seen. In the middle of the parlour stood Yashka the Turk, a thin, lithe man of
about twenty-three dressed in a long-hemmed coat of a light shade of blue. He looked like a daredevil factory lad and, so it seemed, could hardly boast of perfect health. His sunken cheeks, large restless grey eyes, straight nose with delicate spirited nostrils, white sloping forehead below backswept light-auburn curls, large but beautiful, expressive lips – his entire face betokened a man of sensibility and passion. He was in a state of great excitement: he blinked his eyes, breathed irregularly and his hands shook feverishly – indeed, he was in a fever, that anxious, sudden state of fever which is familiar to everyone who speaks or sings before an assembled company. Beside him stood a man of about forty, broad-shouldered, with broad cheekbones, a low forehead, narrow Mongol eyes, short flat nose, square chin and black shiny hair as hard as bristles. The expression on his dark, lead-coloured face, especially on his pale lips, could have been called savage, had it not also been so tranquilly thoughtful. He hardly stirred at all and did no more than look slowly round him from time to time, like an ox looking round from beneath a yoke. He was dressed in a kind of very worn frockcoat with smooth bronze buttons; an old black silk kerchief encased his huge neck. He was called Gentleman Wildman. Directly opposite him, on a bench beneath the icons, sat Yashka's rival, Barrowboy from Zhizdra. He was a thickset man of about thirty, small in stature, pock-marked and curly-headed, with a blunt turned-up nose, lively brown eyes and a wispy little beard. He was glancing rapidly about him, his hands tucked under him, carelessly chattering and now and then tapping his dandified, fancifully decorated boots. His dress consisted of a new thin peasant coat of grey cloth with a velveteen collar, to which the edge of the red shirt tightly fastened round his neck stood out in sharp contrast. In the opposite corner, to the right of the door, there sat at a table some little peasant or other wearing a narrow, worn-out coat with an enormous tear in the shoulder. Sunlight streamed in a pale yellow flood through the dusty panes of the two small windows and seemed to be unable to overcome the habitual darkness of the parlour: everything was so meagrely lit that it seemed blurred. Despite this, the air was almost cool, and all sense of the suffocating and oppressive heat slipped from my shoulders like a discarded burden as soon as I stepped through the porch.

My arrival, as I could sense, somewhat confused Nikolay Ivanych's
guests to start with; but seeing that he bowed to me as to someone familiar, they were put at their ease and paid no more attention to me. I asked for some beer and sat down in the corner next to the peasant in the torn coat.

‘Well, what's doing?' the Nit suddenly roared, drinking back his glass at a gulp and accompanying his exclamation with the same strange waving gestures, without which he evidently never pronounced a single word. ‘What're we waiting for? Begin now, if you're goin' to begin. Eh? Yashka?'

‘Get started, get started,' Nikolay Ivanych added by way of encouragement.

‘We'll begin, presuming it's all right,' Barrowboy announced with cold-blooded audacity and a self-confident smile. ‘I'm ready.'

‘And I'm ready,' Yakov declared excitedly.

‘Well, get going, lads, get going,' Winker hissed squeakily.

But, despite the unanimously expressed wish, no one began; Barrowboy did not even rise from the bench. There was a general air of expectancy.

‘Begin!' said Gentleman Wildman in a sharp, sullen voice.

Yakov shuddered. Barrowboy rose, gave a tug at his sash and coughed.

‘An' who's to begin?' he asked in a slightly less confident voice, speaking to Gentleman Wildman who continued to stand motion-lessly in the middle of the room, his stout legs set wide apart and his powerful arms thrust into the pockets of his broad trousers, almost up to the elbows.