City Folk and Country Folk Read online

  Nastasya Ivanovna lowered her voice, and Olenka again blushed.

  “And he came, I would venture to guess, to a most un-Christian end. A terribly disrespectful son to his parents, he was. He’d go to town and there—if it wasn’t billiards it was cards. And he won, too. And with these winnings in hand did he thank God and get out of there? They may have been ill-gotten gains, but still…Not him! Champagne by the cartload! One time they even brought my Nikolai Demyanych home in a sled more dead than alive, slurring his words…I was beside myself! Well, soon after that incident the father had a seizure and died on the spot. Next, the old woman went clean out of her mind and ended her days in a lunatic asylum. And five years before all this, the son fell in with an officer who was passing through and went off to Poland. He came back about a year and a half later with a wife and child. Such a young one the Polish girl was, nothing much to look at, a stupid little thing with not a word of Russian—I could barely look at her without laughing! Another year and they had another child. And the things she put up with, Lord! He beat her and beat her and stole everything that she’d come with, barely a handkerchief was left, and there was nothing to swaddle the children in. Not a single letter did she get from her parts, though she wrote and wrote.

  “She kept trying to come up with some way to rid herself of the scoundrel. And she was jealous, too—you know how Polish girls are. She even got it into her head—the fool—to be jealous of me. Before that, Nikolai Demyanych and I helped her as best we could—you know, we ourselves aren’t rich—but after that I had had enough. We stopped seeing one another. Well, last fall or so we heard that that brigand had gathered up the whole family and taken them to the fair in Kiev. There, he abandoned his wife. For his part, he joined the actors; but we heard they threw him out. Then he robbed a shop with some swindlers and disappeared without a trace. The Polish girl too, as rumor has it, came to a bad end: there were regiments stationed there, well, officers…. Maybe she got remarried, maybe not. Thank God, the children…Turned out they had a kindly grandfather, and he took them back with him to Poland. The estate was taken under trusteeship. By the time the trustees had finished settling accounts, barely a shingle was left for the children. God only knows what will become of them.”

  Nastasya Ivanovna sighed.

  “Olenka, you should see to the coffee,” she said.

  The coffee appeared and, as Ovcharov noticed, it was served neatly and properly. The hostess plied him with refreshments; Ovcharov declined and almost had to wave Nastasya Ivanovna away like a fly. This obtrusive hospitality was very un-European, but the distress with which Nastasya Ivanovna heard his refusals touched him.

  “Why won’t you let me feed you, my dear?” she implored. “It’s been so long since I’ve had the chance! In the past you didn’t hurt my feelings so.”

  “That was when I was a boy and was able to eat a lot, Nastasya Ivanovna, but now it’s not good for me,” Ovcharov demurred, and suddenly the thought of his rheumatism brought a look of anxiety to his face. The healthy years of his youth and the various circumstances of that time flashed before his eyes and he asked: “There were some other landowners here; I seem to remember meeting them as a schoolboy.”

  “Well, of course! There’s an estate beyond the church; you can’t see it from here. The Malinnikovs. They don’t live here either, they just stop in every now and then, rarely. They became one of those writers.”

  Nastasya Ivanovna suddenly spoke in such a conspiratorial whisper that Ovcharov was not able to understand her.

  “One of what writers?” he asked, suppressing a smile.

  “Those writers. They live in Petersburg and write books,” Nastasya Ivanovna lowered her voice even further.

  “Les demoiselles Malinnikov were here last year and wrote a description of our governor’s wife,” Olenka added loudly and with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Malinnikov…Malinnikov…” Ovcharov muttered, trying to recall the name, “I don’t know. I believe I know everyone in literature. Must not be of any consequence…. Malinnikov…Although, to tell the truth, lately I’m a bit behind the times on all that, on all those…” he concluded in a mutter, reluctant to discuss the topic with his current company.

  “They write for journals,” Olenka said, looking off to the side.

  “What extreme differences we’re beginning to see growing out of one and the same provincial soil!” Ovcharov commented, looking around and then out the window. “Snetki literati! Now that’s a surprise!”

  “It was poverty that drove them to it, Erast Sergeyich. Their little estate is one of the worst. Their father racked his brain and then took a position in the governor’s office. The whole family moved to town. Then he was transferred to Petersburg. At the time their son was finishing up his studies at St. Petersburg University. How the dear man made do those six years God only knows. When they moved there, the father and daughters, they themselves started up…Well, I’m not quite sure how to put it…. You tell, Olenka.”

  “Les demoiselles Malinnikov took up their studies again,” Olenka said reluctantly and with a note of mockery. “Their brother brought them with him to his classes. They were always mad about books. They became acquainted with various writers. The two of them translate from French and German and make money that way. Both of them write novels but don’t sign them with their own names…but, Mama, what can I say about them? We’re barely acquainted. Mademoiselles Malinnikov—one is thirty, the other thirty-five years old—and they are both writers.”

  “And at this point, they won’t be getting married,” Nastasya Ivanovna lamented.

  “Why not, Nastasya Ivanovna?” Ovcharov asked, noting that his hostess’s verdict had less to do with the ages of Mademoiselles Malinnikov than their vocation.

  “It’s a frightening thing to take up with one of those smart ones, Erast Sergeyich. At least I know that around here none of the landowners would have them. Of course, intelligence is a fine thing, but all the same it’s frightening. And then they’ll write some critique. Perhaps some schoolteacher…well, and anyway, they haven’t a penny to their name. Oh, they are poor! Last summer when they were here from Petersburg they told us about it. All the livelong day they write—a whole summer will go by and they haven’t had time to take a walk. Their only pleasure, they say, is the theater.”

  “And that—from the gallery,” Olenka interjected.

  “How I laughed when they first got here! They hadn’t been to the country for eight years. Everything amazed them, my little doves, as if they were children. ‘Ooh, and nightingales sing here; ooh, and cows by the stream; ooh! And red currents on the bush, peas in pods! We haven’t seen these things for a hundred years, we’d forgotten it all! Ooh, you fortunate woman, Nastasya Ivanovna!’ It was both funny and sad. They even cried. The elder one had become so thin. They were dressed city fashion, in style. I feel so sorry for the young ladies: they’re bound to be spinsters.”

  “They seem to be having a fine time, Mama,” Olenka commented. “Everyone was very attentive to them here; it’s their affair if they don’t want to take advantage of it. The governor’s wife even invited them. Why didn’t they go? There was some kind of reading there.”

  “Is the governor’s wife a patron of the literary arts?” Ovcharov asked Olenka.

  “I don’t know. She arranges various events. But not many go. Only her own group, and half the town doesn’t get along with them.”

  “Why don’t they get along?”

  Olenka launched into a story about a ball at which there was a scene over some gossip. She, of course, was not at this ball, because she is not acquainted with the governor’s wife—the denizens of Snetki have not yet attained such an honor—but some girls were there from among Olenka’s acquaintances. Ovcharov listened absentmindedly and with a rather sour face. The sour face was attributable to the story being told, and the absentmindedness was provoked by the thought that he had yet to find himself a place to stay. He stroked his beard, not noticing the t
ender pity with which Nastasya Ivanovna was looking at him out of the corner of her eye. Ovcharov would have been very surprised if Nastasya Ivanovna had spoken her thoughts out loud: she found him to be most unattractive.

  She recalled what a handsome schoolboy he had been and, later, how he had looked as a young landowner coming to the provincial capital for elections. Ovcharov had been, as they say, the very picture of health, and now he struck Nastasya Ivanovna as being in worse shape than she. He was of modest height, stooped, and had a sunken chest; his long face had sunken cheeks and thin lips; he had thick sideburns and very sparse hair on his forehead, as well as bony hands with almost transparent skin, and eyes that were a bit dull, although they appeared to be very large due to the thin skin of the eyelids and pale forehead. Nastasya Ivanovna was not aware that many find a certain beauty in this sort of semi-decrepitude, as the loss of freshness in a man attends the formation of what is called une physionomie. She failed to realize how highly this was valued and how highly Ovcharov himself valued it. Ovcharov believed that he had une physionomie de penseur8 and would not have exchanged it for any other. He even had a habit of leaning forward with his hands on his knees as he sat or using his hands to support his chin. His figure made the most gloomy impression on this country woman.

  “Heaven save Olenka from such a feeble husband,” Nastasya Ivanovna thought. “He has one foot in the grave.” She then sighed so loudly that she finally attracted Ovcharov’s attention.

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Nastasya Ivanovna?” he asked, smiling.

  “Well, what can I say, Erast Sergeyich? I can’t get over it—how sickly, and you must forgive me—what an old man you look like. That’s not how it used to be! And your dear departed father was far stronger than you. And we’re all old! If only you would do something about your health while you’re here. You don’t seem to be taking care of yourself, are you?”

  “What do you mean, I’m not taking care of myself!” Ovcharov responded, suddenly becoming animated and with a certain pride. “What respectable man doesn’t look after his health? This is something very important to me. I spare nothing when it comes to my health. Every year I take the waters and bathe in the sea. I consult with all of Europe’s most eminent experts; I have many close friends among them. It’s a shame that one meets charlatans just after money from time to time. I brought one into society, and can you imagine? After I’d taken exemplary care of myself for an entire half year the scoundrel ruined my health in a single day. You cannot conceive how ill I have been and what I’ve been through for the sake of my health!”

  “I can imagine, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied in perplexed awe.

  “I do take care of my health,” Ovcharov continued even more emphatically. “The question of health is no laughing matter. In the countryside, unfortunately, they don’t yet understand how important it is—you will excuse me for saying so. Here it’s nothing to let a disease develop or to call for the physician once a year and even—why bother with a true physician?—just call the local healer woman. In my opinion this just shows a poor attitude toward science and a lack of self-respect.”

  “Of course we are a stupid people,” Nastasya conceded humbly. “And what kind of illnesses do we have here in the country? All good-for-nothing; we don’t have the more refined illnesses here. In town, if you look around, well, there they do have them. And thank God we’re in good health, Erast Sergeyich. But what good does it do to be thin as a rail? Better not to bring yourself to that. I hear that you’ve been ill for a while. It must be ten years since we heard about it. You were spending your winters in Moscow. They say it was fashionable among the well-to-do to go sledding down hills, and you went sledding. You’re sledding along, sledding along and it goes without saying you need something to warm you up: you have a nice little drink—not much, of course—but it’s all so unhealthy. They say that once you and a young lady flipped over—sled and all—and that you bruised your side and almost broke your leg: they carried you home unconscious. So since then, they say, you’ve had such awful rheumatism, Erast Sergeyich.”

  “Perhaps there is some truth to that,” Ovcharov replied, not terribly well-disposed toward his hostess’s naive tale. “The sins of youth; who wasn’t a fool back then? And it was the most foolish of times. But that’s all nonsense. It’s life itself that’s ruined me, Nastasya Ivanovna, that’s the point. Life, and thought, and the search for betterment for myself and for others—you have no idea what that takes out of one. That’s the point.”

  “Of course that’s how it is, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, without the faintest idea what her guest was talking about. Ovcharov fell silent, stared into space, and absentmindedly clapped his hands together. Quiet presided over the room. Olenka yawned. Ovcharov paused a moment, deep in thought. Suddenly he said:

  “I have a favor to ask of you, Nastasya Ivanovna.”

  “What sort of favor? Please do, Erast Sergeyich. Your father and mother…I loved them so…Ask me anything, anything I can do.”

  “I’m only afraid of imposing on you. However, I’ll leave that to you to speak up as your conscience dictates. I don’t want to move to town, fresh air is essential to me, and at Beryozovka there’s no place for me. I noticed you’re building a bathhouse. If it were possible for me to take up residence there for the summer…”

  Nastasya Ivanovna was somewhat taken aback.

  “In the bathhouse? Erast Sergeyich, is that really possible? Hardly a peaceful sort of lodging. Now, if you could live in my house, but as fate would have it…”

  Nastasya Ivanovna suddenly lowered her voice.

  “…as fate would have it, I have a houseguest. There is no room.”

  “Oh, no,” Ovcharov interrupted. “I tell you in all frankness that I cherish my freedom. That would inconvenience both of us. If the bathhouse were available, I would rent it from you.”

  “Rent? How could you, Erast Sergeyich? That even hurts my feelings,” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, blushing.

  “Why on earth? Please!”

  “To take money for such a trifle…I’ve never heard of such a thing. What price could be set for such quarters…I wouldn’t be able to come up with one. No, please, Erast Sergeyich.”

  “If that’s how it is, I take back my request,” he replied coldly.

  Nastasya Ivanovna was crestfallen. Ovcharov continued:

  “Order is necessary in all things, Nastasya Ivanovna. Germans understand this, but we Russians haven’t appreciated it. Why should you pass up an opportunity for gain, and why should I accept gifts or sacrifices from you? That’s nothing but Russia’s outdated lack of moral discipline—simple disorder. If I live on your property, there is no question but that I will pay you for everything. It would be better if you just told me whether or not I can live in your bathhouse.”

  Nastasya Ivanovna was utterly perplexed. Olenka’s grin expressed something between mockery and mirth.

  “The bathhouse, I’ll admit, is new. The shelving, thank God, isn’t in yet. The doors and hinges are ready—they just need to be hung. It is, if you please, rather spacious—I myself don’t know why I built it so large—but how can you live there, Erast Sergeyich?”

  Nastasya Ivanovna spoke these words with such sorrow and distress, it was as if she was asking herself whether it might somehow be possible to instantly transform the bathhouse into an elegant mansion.

  “That’s wonderful, if the bathhouse will serve,” Ovcharov responded. “So be it. We Russian gentlemen must be able to adapt to any situation. We ourselves are to blame. I’ve brought my house to ruin and am paying the price. Well, now, another condition and favor: I’m sickly and adhere to a strict diet. All I need is chicken broth, a piece of white bread, a chicken cutlet for lunch, and a cup of tea in the morning—there you have my entire day. Might I hope that this can all be prepared in your kitchen and that you’ll supervise the cook?”

  Nastasya Ivanovna beamed. “Really, Erast Sergeyich,
that goes without saying. For my part, I can claim without boasting: none of the neighbors can match us in cooking and here, cleanliness rules. You should at least try the coffee. And Aksinya Mikhailovna bakes marvelous white bread, and I myself…”

  “Fine, fine, we’ll see. However, with your permission, I will send my man; he’ll show the cook how to prepare my food. I’m a bit fastidious. I will pay your cook, of course, and for all provisions.”

  Nastasya Ivanovna turned away.

  “Without fail,” Ovcharov continued with exuberant firmness. “Whatever is lacking or, perhaps, of poor quality—after all, if you’ll excuse me, I know that we are fated to eat in the country—well, my man will purchase in town; I’ll send him.”

  “How will you find space for your man, Erast Sergeyich?” Nastasya Ivanovna asked dejectedly. “It will be too crowded in the bathhouse. I’ll give him my late husband’s, Nikolai Demyanych’s, study…. But he won’t hear you calling from the house—it’s too far.”

  “I won’t be bringing him here at all; I’ll leave him at Beryozovka,” Ovcharov replied, smirking at the notion of Nikolai Demyanovich’s study. “First of all, I’ve become accustomed to getting by on my own: I don’t need to be waited on over the course of the day. Second, I cannot abide the sight of manservants busying themselves with nonsense: that’s nothing but antiquated Russian lordliness and I, thank God, grew unaccustomed to such things during my travels. My man will come from Beryozovka before I get up in the morning; I’ll tell him what I need—and that will be that. The walk will do him good: the exercise will prevent him from becoming lazy. He’ll be spoiled if he stays in your house—telling stories or sleeping endlessly; he’ll lose all his polish. No, he’ll be no good after that. In general, skilled city help is strongly tainted by country life.”