A Lear Of The Steppes by Ivan Turgenev

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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‘Can Martin Petrovitch have really taken to fishing?’ I asked myself, as I turned towards the pond, which was on one side of the garden. I got on to the dam, looked in all directions.… Martin Petrovitch was nowhere to be seen. I bent my steps along one of the banks of the pond, and at last, at the very top of it, in a little creek, in the midst of flat broken-down stalks of reddish reed, I caught sight of a huge greyish mass.… I looked intently: it was Harlov. Bareheaded, unkempt, in a cotton smock torn at the seams, with his legs crossed under him, he was sitting motionless on the bare earth. So motionless was he that a sandpiper, at my approach, darted up from the dry mud a couple of paces from him, and flew with a flash of its little wings and a whistle over the surface of the water, showing that no one had moved to frighten him for a long while. Harlov’s whole appearance was so extraordinary that my dog stopped short directly it saw him, lifted its tail, and growled. He turned his head a very little, and fixed his wild-looking eyes on me and my dog. He was greatly changed by his beard, though it was short, but thick and curly, in white tufts, like Astrachan fur. In his right hand lay the end of a rod, while the other end hovered feebly over the water. I felt an involuntary pang at my heart. I plucked up my spirits, however, went up to him, and wished him good morning. He slowly blinked as though just awake.

‘What are you doing, Martin Petrovitch,’ I began, ‘catching fish here?’

‘Yes … fish,’ he answered huskily, and pulled up the rod, on which there fluttered a piece of line, a fathom length, with no hook on it.

‘Your tackle is broken off,’ I observed, and noticed the same moment that there was no sign of bait-tin nor worms near Martin Petrovitch.… And what sort of fishing could there be in September?

‘Broken off?’ he said, and he passed his hand over his face. ‘But it’s all the same!’

He dropped the rod in again.

‘Natalia Nikolaevna’s son?’ he asked me, after the lapse of two minutes, during which I had been gazing at him with secret bewilderment. Though he had grown terribly thinner, still he seemed a giant. But what rags he was dressed in, and how utterly he had gone to pieces altogether!

‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘I’m the son of Natalia Nikolaevna B.’

‘Is she well?’

‘My mother is quite well. She was very much hurt at your refusal,’ I added; ‘she did not at all expect you would not wish to come and see her.’

Martin Petrovitch’s head sank on his breast. ‘Have you been there?’ he asked, with a motion of his head.

‘Where?’

‘There, at the house. Haven’t you? Go! What is there for you to do here? Go! It’s useless talking to me. I don’t like it.’

He was silent for a while.

‘You’d like to be always idling about with a gun! In my young days I used to be inclined the same way too. Only my father was strict and made me respect him too. Mind you, very different from fathers nowadays. My father flogged me with a horsewhip, and that was the end of it! I’d to give up idling about! And so I respected him.… Oo!… Yes!…’

Harlov paused again.

‘Don’t you stop here,’ he began again. ‘You go along to the house. Things are managed there now—it’s first-rate. Volodka’.… Here he faltered for a second. ‘Our Volodka’s a good hand at everything. He’s a fine fellow! yes, indeed, and a fine scoundrel too!’

I did not know what to say; Martin Petrovitch spoke very tranquilly.

‘And you go and see my daughters. You remember, I daresay, I had daughters. They’re managers too … clever ones. But I’m growing old, my lad; I’m on the shelf. Time to repose, you know.…’

‘Nice sort of repose!’ I thought, glancing round. ‘Martin Petrovitch!’ I uttered aloud, ‘you really must come and see us.’

Harlov looked at me. ‘Go along, my lad, I tell you.’

‘Don’t hurt mamma’s feelings; come and see us.’

‘Go away, my lad, go away,’ persisted Harlov. ‘What do you want to talk to me for?’

‘If you have no carriage, mamma will send you hers.’

‘Go along!’

‘But, really and truly, Martin Petrovitch!’

Harlov looked down again, and I fancied that his cheeks, dingy as though covered with earth, faintly flushed.

‘Really, do come,’ I went on. ‘What’s the use of your sitting here? of your making yourself miserable?’

‘Making myself miserable?’ he commented hesitatingly.

‘Yes, to be sure—making yourself miserable!’ I repeated.

Harlov said nothing, and seemed lost in musing. Emboldened by his silence, I determined to be open, to act straightforwardly, bluntly. (Do not forget, I was only fifteen then.)

‘Martin Petrovitch!’ I began, seating myself beside him. ‘I know everything, you see, positively everything. I know how your son-in-law is treating you—doubtless with the consent of your daughters. And now you are in such a position.… But why lose heart?’

Harlov still remained silent, and simply dropped in his line; while I—what a sensible fellow, what a sage I felt!

‘Doubtless,’ I began again, ‘you acted imprudently in giving up everything to your daughters. It was most generous on your part, and I am not going to blame you. In our days it is a quality only too rare! But since your daughters are so ungrateful, you ought to show a contempt—yes, a contempt—for them … and not fret——’

‘Stop!’ muttered Harlov suddenly, gnashing his teeth, and his eyes, staring at the pond, glittered wrathfully.… ‘Go away!’

‘But, Martin Petrovitch——’

‘Go away, I tell you, … or I’ll kill you!’

I had come quite close to him; but at the last words I instinctively jumped up. ‘What did you say, Martin Petrovitch?’

‘I’ll kill you, I tell you; go away!’ With a wild moan, a roar, the words broke from Harlov’s breast, but he did not turn his head, and still stared wrathfully straight in front of him. ‘I’ll take you and fling you and your fool’s counsel into the water. You shall learn to pester the old, little milksop!’

‘He’s gone mad!’ flashed through my mind.

I looked at him more attentively, and was completely petrified; Martin Petrovitch was weeping!! Tear after tear rolled from his eyelashes down his cheeks … while his face had assumed an expression utterly savage.…

‘Go away!’ he roared once more, ‘or I’ll kill you, by God! for an example to others!’

He was shaking all over from side to side, and showing his teeth like a wild boar. I snatched up my gun and took to my heels. My dog flew after me, barking. He, too, was frightened.

When I got home, I naturally did not, by so much as a word, to my mother, hint at what I had seen; but coming across Souvenir, I told him—the devil knows why—all about it. That loathsome person was so delighted at my story, shrieking with laughter, and even dancing with pleasure, that I could hardly forbear striking him.

‘Ah! I should like,’ he kept repeating breathless with laughter, ‘to see that fiend, the Swede, Harlov, crawling into the mud and sitting in it.…’

‘Go over to the pond if you’re so curious.’

‘Yes; but how if he kills me?’

I felt horribly sick at Souvenir, and regretted my ill-timed confidence.… Zhitkov, to whom he repeated my tale, looked at the matter somewhat differently.

‘We shall have to call in the police,’ he concluded, ‘or, may be, we may have to send for a battalion of military.’

His forebodings with regard to the military battalion did not come true; but something extraordinary really did happen.

< < < Chapter XX
Chapter XXII > > >

Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – A Lear Of The Steppes – Contents

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