‘Ha, Aksinya!’ he mumbled eventually.
‘What is it?’
‘Give me a little kvas.’
Aksinya gave him some. The silence once more returned. I asked in a whisper: ‘Have they given him the last rites?’
‘Yes.’
In that case, everything was in order: he was simply awaiting death, nothing else. I could not stand it any more and left.
On another occasion, I remember, I called in at the hospital in Red Hills village to see the assistant doctor, Kapiton, an acquaintance of mine and a devoted hunter.
The hospital occupied what had formerly been the wing of the manor. The lady of the manor had herself established it – that is, she had ordered to be placed over the door a blue sign with letters in white reading: ‘Red Hills hospital’, and she had herself entrusted to Kapiton a beautiful album for noting down the names of the sick. On the first page of this album one of the benevolent lady’s sycophants and time-servers had inscribed the following trite verses:
Dans ces beaux lieux, où règne l’allégresse,
Ce temple fut ouvert par la Beauté;
De vos seigneurs admirez la tendresse,
Bons habitants de Krasnogorié!*
And another gentleman had added below:
Et moi aussi j’aime la nature!
Jean Kobyliatnikoff
The assistant doctor had purchased six beds out of his own money and, after calling down a blessing on his work, had set about caring for all God’s people. Apart from himself, the hospital had a staff of two; Pavel, a wood-carver, given to fits of madness, and a woman with a withered arm, Melikitrisa, who was the hospital cook. Both of them made up medicines, dried herbs and concocted herbal infusions; they also used to subdue patients if they became delirious. The mad wood-carver was sullen in appearance and a man of few words: by night he used to sing a ditty concerning ‘a beautiful Venus’ and he would importune every visitor to the hospital with the request that he be allowed to marry a certain Malanya, a girl long since dead. The woman with the withered arm used to beat him and made him look after the turkeys.
One day I was sitting with Kapiton. We had just begun to chat about our most recent hunting expedition when suddenly a cart drove into the yard with an unusually fat grey horse in harness (of the dray-horse variety only used by millers). In the cart sat a solid-looking peasant, in a new coat, sporting a mottled beard.
‘Hey there, Vasily Dmitrich,’ Kapiton shouted out of the window, ‘you’re welcome to come in… It’s the Lybovshinsky miller,’ he whispered to me.
The peasant climbed down from the cart, groaning as he did so, and entered Kapiton’s room, where he glanced round for the icon and crossed himself.
‘Well, Vasily Dmitrich, what’s new? You’re ill, that’s obvious: your face looks pasty.’
‘Yes, Kapiton Timofeyich, something’s wrong.’
‘What’s the trouble?’
‘It’s like this, Kapiton Timofeyich. Not long ago I bought millstones in the town. Well, I brought them home, but when I started unloading them from the cart, I put too much into it, you know, and something went pop in my stomach, just as if it’d got torn. And from then on I’ve felt bad all the time. Today it hurts real bad.’
‘Hmmm,’ murmured Kapiton and sniffed some tobacco, ‘that means a hernia. How long ago did this happen to you?’
‘It’s ten days ago, now.’
‘Ten?’ Kapiton drew in breath through his teeth and shook his head. ‘Let me feel. Well, Vasily Dmitrich,’ he said at last, ‘I’m sorry for you, because I like you, but that condition of yours is not at all good. You’re ill right enough, and no joking. Stay here with me, and I’ll do all I can for you, but I don’t promise anything.’
‘You really mean it’s that bad?’ muttered the astonished miller.
‘Yes, Vasily Dmitrich, it’s that bad. If you’d come to me a couple of days earlier, I’d have been able to put you right with a flick of the wrist. But now you’ve got an inflammation here, that’s what it is, and before long it’ll turn into St Anthony’s fire.’
‘But it’s just not possible, Kapiton Timofeyich.’
‘And I’m telling you it is.’
‘But how can it be!’ (In response Kapiton shrugged his shoulders.) ‘Am I going to die because of this silly business?’
‘I’m not saying that. I’m simply telling you to stay here.’
The peasant thought about this a bit, looked at the floor, then glanced up at us, scratched the nape of his neck and was ready to put his cap on.
‘Where are you off to, Vasily Dmitrich?’
‘Where to? It’s obvious where to – home, if things are that bad. If things are like that, there’s a lot to be put in order.’
‘But you’ll do yourself real harm, Vasily Dmitrich. I’m surprised that you even got here at all. Stay here, I beg you.’
‘No, Brother Kapiton Timofeyich, if I’m going to die, I’ll die at home. If I died here, God knows what a mess there’d be at home.’
‘It’s still not certain, Vasily Dmitrich, how it’s going to turn out… Of course, it’s dangerous, there’s no doubt about that, and that’s why you ought to stay here.’
The peasant shook his head. ‘No, Kapiton Timofeyich, I won’t stay. Just you write out a prescription for a little medicine.’
‘Medicine by itself won’t help.’
‘I’m not staying, I’m telling you that.’
‘Well, as you wish… Mind you, you’ve only yourself to blame afterwards!’
Kapiton tore a little page out of the album and, after writing out a prescription, gave some advice on what still had to be done. The peasant took the sheet of paper, gave Kapiton a half-rouble piece, walked out of the room and sat in his cart.
‘Goodbye, then, Kapiton Timofeyich. Think kindly of me and don’t forget the little orphans, if it should happen…’
‘Stay here, Vasily, stay here!’
The peasant merely gave a shake of the head, struck the horse with the reins and rode out of the yard. I went out on to the street and looked after him. The road was muddy and pot-holed. The miller drove carefully, without hurrying, skilfully guiding the horse and bowing to those he met on the way… Four days later he was dead.
In general, Russians surprise one when it comes to dying. I can recall to mind now many who have died. You I recall, my friend of old, the student who never completed his education, Avenir Sorokoumov, fine and most noble person! I see again your consumptive, greenish face, your thin, russet-coloured hair, your timid smile, your fascinated gaze and long-limbed body; I hear your weak, kindly voice. You lived at the house of the Great Russian landowner, Gur Krupyanikov, taught Russian grammar, geography and history to his children, Fofa and Zyoza, and patiently endured the heavy-handed humour of Gur himself, the crude familiarity of his butler, the tasteless pranks of his wicked little boys and not without a bitter smile, but also without complaint, fulfilled all the capricious demands made upon you by his bored wife; despite this, how you used to enjoy your leisure, how filled with beatitude were your evenings, after supper, when, finally rid of all obligations and duties, you would sit by the window, thoughtfully smoking your pipe or greedily thumbing through some mutilated and much-fingered copy of a thick journal which had been brought from town by a surveyor who was just as homeless a wretch as you were! How you used to enjoy in those days all kinds of verses and stories, how easily tears would be brought to your eyes, with what pleasure you used to laugh, how rich was your childishly pure soul in sincere love for mankind and in high-minded compassion for all that was good and beautiful! True, you were not remarkable for undue wit: nature had endowed you neither with a good memory, nor with diligence; at the university you were considered one of the worst students; you used to sleep during lectures and preserved a solemn silence at examinations. But whose eyes lit up with joy, who used to catch his breath at the success and accomplishments of a fellow-student? You did, Avenir… Who believed blindly in the high cal
ling of his friends, who took such pride in extolling them, who was so fierce in their defence? Who knew neither envy nor ambition, who selflessly sacrificed his own interests, who gladly deferred to people who were unworthy so much as to unlatch the buckle of his shoes?… You did, you did, my good Avenir! I remember how you said goodbye to your comrades with a heavy heart when you went off to your ‘temporary employment’; evil forebodings tormented you… And for good reason: in the country things were bad for you; there was no one in the country at whose feet you could sit in reverent attentiveness, no one to wonder at, no one to love… Both the provincials and the educated landowners treated you simply as a schoolteacher, some displaying rudeness, others indifference. And you, for your own part, cut a poor figure with your shyness, and blushing, and sweatiness, and your stammer… Even your health was not improved by the country air; you melted away, poor fellow, like a wax candle! True, your little room looked out on to the garden; cherry trees, apple trees and limes sprinkled their delicate blossoms on your table, your ink-pot and your books; on the wall hung a little pale-blue silk cushion for a watch, given to you as a parting gift by a warm-hearted and sensitive little German governess with fair curls and sweet blue eyes; and sometimes an old friend from your Moscow days would visit and put you in an ecstasy of excitement over his own or another’s verses; but your loneliness, the unbearable grind of your vocation as a teacher, the impossibility of freeing yourself, but the endless autumns, the endless winters, the relentless advance of disease… Wretched, wretched Avenir!
I visited Sorokoumov shortly before his death. He was almost unable to walk. The landowner, Gur Krupyanikov, had not driven him from his house, but had ceased to pay him and had hired another teacher for Zyoza. Fofa had been put in the cadet corps. Avenir was sitting beside the window in an ancient Voltairean armchair. The weather was wonderful. A bright autumn sky shone a gay blue above a dark-brown row of naked limes; here and there on their boughs the last, radiantly golden leaves fluttered and rustled. The frost-bound earth perspired and thawed in the sunlight; its slanting, pink-tinged rays struck lengthwise across the pale grass; a faint crackling seemed to dwell in the air, and in the garden the voices of workmen had a clear, sharp resonance.
Avenir wore an antiquated Bokhara dressing-gown; a green neckerchief cast a deathly hue upon his terribly wasted face. He was extremely delighted to see me, stretched out his hand, began to say something and started coughing. I gave him time to compose himself and took a seat near him. On Avenir’s knees lay an exercise book into which the poems of Koltsov had been painstakingly copied. Giving a smile, he tapped the book with his hand.
‘That’s a poet,’ he managed to say, with an effort holding back his cough, and embarked on declaiming some of the verse in a scarcely audible voice:
What if a falcon’s
Wings are tied?
What if all ways
Are to him denied?5
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:
With this letter I have the honour to acquaint you, my dear sir, with the fact that your friend, the student Mr Avenir Sorokoumov, who has been residing at my house, passed away four days ago at two o’clock in the afternoon and was today given a funeral in my parish at my expense. He begged me to send you the accompanying volumes and exercise books. It transpired that he had twenty-two and one half roubles in his possession, which, together with his other things, will be delivered into the possession of his relatives. Your friend passed away in full command of his senses and, it may be said, with a similar degree of insensitiveness, without exhibiting the slightest signs of regret even when we were saying goodbye to him in a family group. My wife, Kleopatra Alexandrovna, sends you her respects. The death of your friend could not but have an adverse effect on her nerves; so far as I am concerned, I am well, God be praised, and I have the honour to remain –
Your most humble servant,
G. 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!
SINGERS
/> THE small village of Kolotovka, which belonged at one time to a female landowner who had been nicknamed locally The Stripper on account of her fast and lively temperament (her real name remained unknown), but which now belongs to some St Petersburg German, is situated on the slope of a bare hill, split from top to bottom by an awful ravine that gapes like an abyss and winds its pitted and eroded course right down the centre of the main street, dividing the two sides of the miserable settlement more effectively than a river since a river can at least be bridged. A few emaciated willows straggle timidly down its sandy sides; on the very bottom, which is dry and yellow as copper, he enormous slabs of clayey stone. There is no denying that its appearance is far from happy, and yet all who live in the locality are thoroughly familiar with the road to Kolotovka, travelling there gladly and often.
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.