Tchornobai’s. I inquired: ‘At home?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ said I; ‘here you’ve sold me a broken- winded horse.’
‘Broken-winded?… God forbid!’
‘Yes, and he’s lame too, and vicious besides.’
‘Lame! I know nothing about it: your coachman must have ill-treated him somehow…. But before God, I—’
‘Look here, Anastasei Ivanitch, as things stand, you ought to take him back.’
‘No, my good sir, don’t put yourself in a passion; once gone out of the yard, is done with. You should have looked before, sir.’
I understood what that meant, accepted my fate, laughed, and walked off. Luckily, I had not paid very dear for the lesson.
Two days later I left, and in a week I was again at Lebedyan on my way home again. In the café I found almost the same persons, and again I came upon Prince N——at billiards. But the usual change in the fortunes of Mr. Hlopakov had taken place in this interval: the fair- haired young officer had supplanted him in the prince’s favours. The poor ex-lieutenant once more tried letting off his catchword in my presence, on the chance it might succeed as before; but, far from smiling, the prince positively scowled and shrugged his shoulders. Mr. Hlopakov looked downcast, shrank into a corner, and began furtively filling himself a pipe….
END OF VOL. I.
A SPORTSMAN’S SKETCHES
BY IVAN TURGENEV
Translated from the Russian By CONSTANCE GARNETT
XV
TATYANA BORISSOVNA AND HER NEPHEW
Give me your hand, gentle reader, and come along with me. It is glorious weather; there is a tender blue in the May sky; the smooth young leaves of the willows glisten as though they had been polished; the wide even road is all covered with that delicate grass with the little reddish stalk that the sheep are so fond of nibbling; to right and to left, over the long sloping hillsides, the green rye is softly waving; the shadows of small clouds glide in thin long streaks over it. In the distance is the dark mass of forests, the glitter of ponds, yellow patches of village; larks in hundreds are soaring, singing, falling headlong with outstretched necks, hopping about the clods; the crows on the highroad stand still, look at you, peck at the earth, let you drive close up, and with two hops lazily move aside. On a hill beyond a ravine a peasant is ploughing; a piebald colt, with a cropped tail and ruffled mane, is running on unsteady legs after its mother; its shrill whinnying reaches us. We drive on into the birch wood, and drink in the strong, sweet, fresh fragrance. Here we are at the boundaries. The coachman gets down; the horses snort; the trace-horses look round; the centre horse in the shafts switches his tail, and turns his head up towards the wooden yoke above it… the great gate opens creaking; the coachman seats himself…. Drive on! the village is before us. Passing five homesteads, and turning off to the right, we drop down into a hollow and drive along a dyke, the farther side of a small pond; behind the round tops of the lilacs and apple-trees a wooden roof, once red, with two chimneys, comes into sight; the coachman keeps along the hedge to the left, and to the spasmodic and drowsy baying of three pug dogs he drives through the wide open gates, whisks smartly round the broad courtyard past the stable and the barn, gallantly salutes the old housekeeper, who is stepping sideways over the high lintel in the open doorway of the storehouse, and pulls up at last before the steps of a dark house with light windows…. We are at Tatyana Borissovna’s. And here she is herself opening the window and nodding at us…. ‘Good day, ma’am!’
Tatyana Borissovna is a woman of fifty, with large, prominent grey eyes, a rather broad nose, rosy cheeks and a double chin. Her face is brimming over with friendliness and kindness. She was once married, but was soon left a widow. Tatyana Borissovna is a very remarkable woman. She lives on her little property, never leaving it, mixes very little with her neighbours, sees and likes none but young people. She was the daughter of very poor landowners, and received no education; in other words, she does not know French; she has never been in Moscow—and in spite of all these defects, she is so good and simple in her manners, so broad in her sympathies and ideas, so little infected with the ordinary prejudices of country ladies of small means, that one positively cannot help marvelling at her…. Indeed, a woman who lives all the year round in the country and does not talk scandal, nor whine, nor curtsey, is never flurried, nor depressed, nor in a flutter of curiosity, is a real marvel! She usually wears a grey taffetas gown and a white cap with lilac streamers; she is fond of good cheer, but not to excess; all the preserving, pickling, and salting she leaves to her housekeeper. ‘What does she do all day long?’ you will ask…. ‘Does she read?’ No, she doesn’t read, and, to tell the truth, books are not written for her…. If there are no visitors with her, Tatyana Borissovna sits by herself at the window knitting a stocking in winter; in summer time she is in the garden, planting and watering her flowers, playing for hours together with her cats, or feeding her doves…. She does not take much part in the management of her estate. But if a visitor pays her a call—some young neighbour whom she likes—Tatyana Borissovna is all life directly; she makes him sit down, pours him out some tea, listens to his chat, laughs, sometimes pats his cheek, but says little herself; in trouble or sorrow she comforts and gives good advice. How many people have confided their family secrets and the griefs of their hearts to her, and have wept over her hands! At times she sits opposite her visitor, leaning lightly on her elbow, and looks with such sympathy into his face, smiles so affectionately, that he cannot help feeling: ‘What a dear, good woman you are, Tatyana Borissovna! Let me tell you what is in my heart.’ One feels happy and warm in her small, snug rooms; in her house it is always, so to speak, fine weather. Tatyana Borissovna is a wonderful woman, but no one wonders at her; her sound good sense, her breadth and firmness, her warm sympathy in the joys and sorrows of others—in a word, all her qualities are so innate in her; they are no trouble, no effort to her…. One cannot fancy her otherwise, and so one feels no need to thank her. She is particularly fond of watching the pranks and follies of young people; she folds her hands over her bosom, throws back her head, puckers up her eyes, and sits smiling at them, then all of a sudden she heaves a sigh, and says, ‘Ah, my children, my children!’… Sometimes one longs to go up to her, take hold of her hands and say: ‘Let me tell you, Tatyana Borissovna, you don’t know your own value; for all your simplicity and lack of learning, you’re an extraordinary creature!’ Her very name has a sweet familiar ring; one is glad to utter it; it calls up a kindly smile at once. How often, for instance, have I chanced to ask a peasant: ‘Tell me, my friend, how am I to get to Gratchevka?’ let us say. ‘Well, sir, you go on first to Vyazovoe, and from there to Tatyana Borissovna’s, and from Tatyana Borissovna’s any one will show you the way.’ And at the name of Tatyana Borissovna the peasant wags his head in quite a special way. Her household is small, in accordance with her means. The house, the laundry, the stores and the kitchen, are in the charge of the housekeeper, Agafya, once her nurse, a good-natured, tearful, toothless creature; she has under her two stalwart girls with stout crimson cheeks like Antonovsky apples. The duties of valet, steward, and waiter are filled by Policarp, an extraordinary old man of seventy, a queer fellow, full of erudition, once a violinist and worshipper of Viotti, with a personal hostility to Napoleon, or, as he calls him, Bonaparty, and a passion for nightingales. He always keeps five or six of the latter in his room; in early spring he will sit for whole days together by the cage, waiting for the first trill, and when he hears it, he covers his face with his hands, and moans, ‘Oh, piteous, piteous!’ and sheds tears in floods. Policarp has, to help him, his grandson Vasya, a curly-headed, sharp-eyed boy of twelve; Policarp adores him, and grumbles at him from morning till night. He undertakes his education too. ‘Vasya,’ he says, ‘say Bonaparty was a scoundrel.’ ‘And what’ll you give me, granddad?’ ‘What’ll I give you?… I’ll give you nothing…. Why, what are you? Aren’t you a Russian?’ ‘I’m a Mtchanin, granddad; I was born in Mtchensk.’ ‘Oh, silly dunce! but where is Mtchensk?’ ‘How can I tell?’ ‘Mtchensk’s in Russia, silly!’ ‘Well, what then, if it is in Russia?’ ‘What then? Why, his Highness the late Prince Mihalo Ilarionovitch Golenishtchev-Kutuzov-Smolensky, with God’s aid, graciously drove Bonaparty out of the Russian territories. It’s on that event the song was composed: «Bonaparty’s in no mood to dance, He’s lost the garters he brought from France.»… Do you understand? he liberated your fatherland.’ ‘And what’s that to do with me?’ ‘Ah! you silly boy! Why, if his Highness Prince Mihalo Ilarionovitch hadn’t driven
