Translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – A Lear Of The Steppes – Contents
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Chapter XVIII > > >
XVII
Souvenir’s prediction turned out correct. Martin Petrovitch would not come to my mother. She was not at all pleased with this, and despatched a letter to him. He sent her a square bit of paper, on which the following words were written in big letters: ‘Indeed I can’t. I should die of shame. Let me go to my ruin. Thanks. Don’t torture me.—Martin Harlov.’ Sletkin did come, but not on the day on which my mother had ‘commanded’ his attendance, but twenty-four hours later. My mother gave orders that he should be shown into her boudoir.… God knows what their interview was about, but it did not last long; a quarter of an hour, not more. Sletkin came out of my mother’s room, crimson all over, and with such a viciously spiteful and insolent expression of face, that, meeting him in the drawing-room, I was simply petrified, while Souvenir, who was hanging about there, stopped short in the middle of a snigger. My mother came out of her boudoir, also very red in the face, and announced, in the hearing of all, that Mr. Sletkin was never, upon any pretext, to be admitted to her presence again, and that if Martin Petrovitch’s daughters were to make bold—they’ve impudence enough, said she—to present themselves, they, too, were to be refused admittance. At dinner-time she suddenly exclaimed, ‘The vile little Jew! I picked him out of the gutter, I made him a career, he owes everything, everything to me,—and he dares to tell me I’ve no business to meddle in their affairs! that Martin Petrovitch is full of whims and fancies, and it’s impossible to humour him! Humour him, indeed! What a thing to say! Ah, he’s an ungrateful wretch! An insolent little Jew!’
Major Zhitkov, who happened to be one of the company at dinner, imagined that now it was no less than the will of the Almighty for him to seize the opportunity and put in his word … but my mother promptly settled him. ‘Well, and you’re a fine one, too, my man!’ she commented. ‘Couldn’t get the upper hand of a girl, and he an officer! In command of a squadron! I can fancy how it obeyed you! He take a steward’s place indeed! a fine steward he’d make!’
Kvitsinsky, who was sitting at the end of the table, smiled to himself a little malignantly, while poor Zhitkov could do nothing but twitch his moustaches, lift his eyebrows, and bury the whole of his hirsute countenance in his napkin.
After dinner, he went out on to the steps to smoke his pipe as usual, and he struck me as so miserable and forlorn, that, although I had never liked him, I joined myself on to him at once.
‘How was it, Gavrila Fedulitch,’ I began without further beating about the bush, ‘that your affair with Evlampia Martinovna was broken off? I’d expected you to be married long ago.’
The retired major looked at me dejectedly.
‘A snake in the grass,’ he began, uttering each letter of each syllable with bitter distinctness, ‘has poisoned me with his fang, and turned all my hopes in life to ashes. And I could tell you, Dmitri Semyonovitch, all his hellish wiles, but I’m afraid of angering your mamma.’ (‘You’re young yet’—Prokofy’s expression flashed across my mind.) ‘Even as it is’——Zhitkov groaned.
‘Patience … patience … nothing else is left me. (He struck his fist upon his chest.) Patience, old soldier, patience. I served the Tsar faithfully … honourably … yes. I spared neither blood nor sweat, and now see what I am brought to. Had it been in the regiment—and the matter depending upon me,’ he continued after a short silence, spent in convulsively sucking at his cherrywood pipe, ‘I’d have … I’d have given it him with the flat side of my sword … three times over … till he’d had enough.…’
Zhitkov took the pipe out of his mouth, and fixed his eyes on vacancy, as though admiring the picture he had conjured up.
Souvenir ran up, and began quizzing the major. I turned away from them, and determined, come what may, I would see Martin Petrovitch with my own eyes.… My boyish curiosity was greatly stirred.
< < < Chapter XVI
Chapter XVIII > > >
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – A Lear Of The Steppes – Contents
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