Clara Mílitch by Ivan Turgenev

A TALE

1882

Translated from the Russian by Isabel F. Hapgood

Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – Clara Mílitch – Contents

I

In the spring of 1878 there lived in Moscow, in a small wooden house on Shabólovka Street, a young man five-and-twenty years of age, Yákoff Arátoff by name. With him lived his aunt, an old maid, over fifty years of age, his father’s sister, Platonída Ivánovna. She managed his housekeeping and took charge of his expenditures, of which Arátoff was utterly incapable. He had no other relations. Several years before, his father, a petty and not wealthy noble of the T—— government, had removed to Moscow, together with him and Platonída Ivánovna who, by the way, was always called Platósha; and her nephew called her so too. When he quitted the country where all of them had constantly dwelt hitherto, old Arátoff had settled in the capital with the object of placing his son in the university, for which he had himself prepared him; he purchased for a trifling sum a small house on one of the remote streets, and installed himself therein with all his books and “preparations.” And of books and preparations he had many, for he was a man not devoid of learning … “a supernatural eccentric,” according to the words of his neighbours. He even bore among them the reputation of a magician: he had even received the nickname of “the insect-observer.” He busied himself with chemistry, mineralogy, entomology, botany, and medicine; he treated voluntary patients with herbs and metallic powders of his own concoction, after the method of Paracelsus. With those same powders he had sent into the grave his young, pretty, but already too delicate wife, whom he had passionately loved, and by whom he had had an only son. With those same metallic powders he had wrought considerable havoc with the health of his son also, which, on the contrary, he had wished to reinforce, as he detected in his organisation anæmia and a tendency to consumption inherited from his mother. The title of “magician” he had acquired, among other things, from the fact that he considered himself a great-grandson—not in the direct line, of course—of the famous Bruce, in whose honour he had named his son Yákoff.[51] He was the sort of man who is called “very good-natured,” but of a melancholy temperament, fussy, and timid, with a predilection for everything that was mysterious or mystical…. “Ah!” uttered in a half-whisper was his customary exclamation; and he died with that exclamation on his lips, two years after his removal to Moscow.

His son Yákoff did not, in outward appearance, resemble his father, who had been homely in person, clumsy and awkward; he reminded one rather of his mother. There were the same delicate, pretty features, the same soft hair of ashblonde hue, the same plump, childish lips, and large, languishing, greenish-grey eyes, and feathery eyelashes. On the other hand in disposition he resembled his father; and his face, which did not resemble his father’s, bore the stamp of his father’s expression; and he had angular arms, and a sunken chest, like old Arátoff, who, by the way, should hardly be called an old man, since he did not last to the age of fifty. During the latter’s lifetime Yákoff had already entered the university, in the physico-mathematical faculty; but he did not finish his course,—not out of idleness, but because, according to his ideas, a person can learn no more in the university than he can teach himself at home; and he did not aspire to a diploma, as he was not intending to enter the government service. He avoided his comrades, made acquaintance with hardly any one, was especially shy of women, and lived a very isolated life, immersed in his books. He was shy of women, although he had a very tender heart, and was captivated by beauty…. He even acquired the luxury of an English keepsake, and (Oh, for shame!) admired the portraits of divers, bewitching Gulnares and Medoras which “adorned” it…. But his inborn modesty constantly restrained him. At home he occupied his late father’s study, which had also been his bedroom; and his bed was the same on which his father had died.

The great support of his whole existence, his unfailing comrade and friend, was his aunt, that Platósha, with whom he exchanged barely ten words a day, but without whom he could not take a step. She was a long-visaged, long-toothed being, with pale eyes in a pale face, and an unvarying expression partly of sadness, partly of anxious alarm. Eternally attired in a grey gown, and a grey shawl which was redolent of camphor, she wandered about the house like a shadow, with noiseless footsteps; she sighed, whispered prayers—especially one, her favourite, which consisted of two words: “Lord, help!”—and managed the housekeeping very vigorously, hoarding every kopék and buying everything herself. She worshipped her nephew; she was constantly fretting about his health, was constantly in a state of alarm, not about herself but about him, and as soon as she thought there was anything the matter with him, she would quietly approach and place on his writing-table a cup of herb-tea, or stroke his back with her hands, which were as soft as wadding.

This coddling did not annoy Yákoff, but he did not drink the herb-tea, and only nodded approvingly. But neither could he boast of his health. He was extremely sensitive, nervous, suspicious; he suffered from palpitation of the heart, and sometimes from asthma. Like his father, he believed that there existed in nature and in the soul of man secrets, of which glimpses may sometimes be caught, though they cannot be understood; he believed in the presence of certain forces and influences, sometimes well-disposed but more frequently hostile … and he also believed in science,—in its dignity and worth. Of late he had conceived a passion for photography. The odour of the ingredients used in that connection greatly disturbed his old aunt,—again not on her own behalf, but for Yásha’s sake, on account of his chest. But with all his gentleness of disposition he possessed no small portion of stubbornness, and he diligently pursued his favourite occupation. “Platósha” submitted, and merely sighed more frequently than ever, and whispered “Lord, help!” as she gazed at his fingers stained with iodine.

Yákoff, as has already been stated, shunned his comrades; but with one of them he struck up a rather close friendship, and saw him frequently, even after that comrade, on leaving the university, entered the government service, which, however, was not very exacting: to use his own words, he had “tacked himself on” to the building of the Church of the Saviour[52] without, of course, knowing anything whatever about architecture. Strange to say, that solitary friend of Arátoff’s, Kupfer by name, a German who was Russified to the extent of not knowing a single word of German, and even used the epithet “German”[53] as a term of opprobrium,—that friend had, to all appearance, nothing in common with him. He was a jolly, rosy-cheeked young fellow with black, curly hair, loquacious, and very fond of that feminine society which Arátoff so shunned. Truth to tell, Kupfer breakfasted and dined with him rather often, and even—as he was not a rich man—borrowed small sums of money from him; but it was not that which made the free-and-easy German so diligently frequent the little house on Shabólovka Street. He had taken a liking to Yákoff’s spiritual purity, his “ideality,”—possibly as a contrast to what he daily encountered and beheld;—or, perhaps, in that same attraction toward “ideality” the young man’s German blood revealed itself. And Yákoff liked Kupfer’s good-natured frankness; and in addition to this, his tales of the theatres, concerts, and balls which he constantly attended—in general of that alien world into which Yákoff could not bring himself to penetrate—secretly interested and even excited the young recluse, yet without arousing in him a desire to test all this in his own experience. And Platósha liked Kupfer; she sometimes thought him too unceremonious, it is true; but instinctively feeling and understanding that he was sincerely attached to her beloved Yásha, she not only tolerated the noisy visitor, but even felt a kindness for him.

[51] Yákoff (James) Daniel Bruce, a Russian engineer, of Scottish extraction, born in Moscow, 1670, became Grand Master of the Artillery in 1711, and died in 1735.—TRANSLATOR.

[52] The great cathedral in commemoration of the Russian triumph in the war of 1812, which was begun in 1837, and completed in 1883. —TRANSLATOR.

[53] Nyémetz, “the dumb one,” meaning any one unable to speak Russian (hence, any foreigner), is the specific word for a German.—TRANSLATOR.

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Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – Clara Mílitch – Contents

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