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 XXIX > > >
XXVIII
They ran up to Harlov, rolled the beam off him, turned him over on his back. His face was lifeless, there was blood about his mouth; he did not seem to breathe. ‘The breath is gone out of him,’ muttered the peasants, standing about him. They ran to the well for water, brought a whole bucketful, and drenched Harlov’s head. The mud and dust ran off his face, but he looked as lifeless as ever. They dragged up a bench, set it in the house itself, and with difficulty raising the huge body of Martin Petrovitch, laid it there with the head to the wall. The page Maximka approached, fell on one knee, and, his other leg stretched far behind him, in a theatrical way, supported his former master’s arm. Evlampia, pale as death, stood directly facing her father, her great eyes fastened immovably upon him. Anna and Sletkin did not come near him. All were silent, all, as it were, waited for something. At last we heard broken, smacking noises in Harlov’s throat, as though he were swallowing.… Then he feebly moved one, his right, hand (Maximka supported the left), opened one, the right eye, and slowly gazing about him, as though drunken with some fearful drunkenness, groaned, articulated, stammering, ‘I’m sma-ashed …’ and as though after a moment’s thought, added, ‘here it is, the ra … aven co … olt!’ The blood suddenly gushed thickly from his mouth … his whole body began to quiver.…
‘The end!’ I thought.… But once more Harlov opened the same eye (the left eyelid lay as motionless as on a dead man’s face), and fixing it on Evlampia, he articulated, hardly above a breath, ‘Well, daugh … ter … you, I do not.…’
Kvitsinsky, with a sharp motion of his hand, beckoned to the priest, who was still standing on the step.… The old man came up, his narrow cassock clinging about his feeble knees. But suddenly there was a sort of horrible twitching in Harlov’s legs and in his stomach too; an irregular contraction passed upwards over his face. Evlampia’s face seemed quivering and working in the same way. Maximka began crossing himself.… I was seized with horror; I ran out to the gates, squeezed myself close to them, not looking round. A minute later a soft murmur ran through the crowd, behind my back, and I understood that Martin Petrovitch was no more.
His skull had been fractured by the beam and his ribs injured, as it appeared at the post-mortem examination.
< < < Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXIX > > >
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – A Lear Of The Steppes – Contents
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