Read Ebook: Smoke by Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich Garnett Constance Translator

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Ebook has 1075 lines and 67529 words, and 22 pages

'He took it and kept it. And that was done by Prince Barnaulov, the well-known rich grandee, invested with special powers, the representative of the government. What is one to expect after that!'

The whole frail person of Madame Suhantchikov was shaking with indignation, spasms passed over her face, her withered bosom was heaving convulsively under her flat corset; of her eyes it is needless to speak, they were fairly leaping out of her head. But then they were always leaping, whatever she might be talking about.

'A crying shame, a crying shame!' cried Bambaev. 'No punishment could be bad enough!'

'Mmm.... Mmm.... From top to bottom it's all rotten,' observed Gubaryov, without raising his voice, however. 'In that case punishment is not ... that needs ... other measures.'

'But is it really true?' commented Litvinov.

'Is it true?' broke in Madame Suhantchikov. 'Why, that one can't even dream of doubting ... can't even d-d-d-ream of it.' She pronounced these words with such energy that she was fairly shaking with the effort. 'I was told of that by a very trustworthy man. And you, Stepan Nikolaitch, know him--Elistratov, Kapiton. He heard it himself from eyewitnesses, spectators of this disgraceful scene.'

'What Elistratov?' inquired Gubaryov. 'The one who was in Kazan?'

'Yes. I know, Stepan Nikolaitch, a rumour was spread about him that he took bribes there from some contractors or distillers. But then who is it says so? Pelikanov! And how can one believe Pelikanov, when every one knows he is simply--a spy!'

'No, with your permission, Matrona Semyonovna,' interposed Bambaev, 'I am friends with Pelikanov, he is not a spy at all.'

'Yes, yes, that's just what he is, a spy!'

'A spy, a spy!' shrieked Madame Suhantchikov.

'No, no, one minute, I tell you what,' shrieked Bambaev in his turn.

'A spy, a spy,' persisted Madame Suhantchikov.

'No, no! There's Tentelyev now, that's a different matter,' roared Bambaev with all the force of his lungs.

Madame Suhantchikov was silent for a moment.

'I know for a fact about that gentleman,' he continued in his ordinary voice, 'that when he was summoned before the secret police, he grovelled at the feet of the Countess Blazenkrampff and kept whining, "Save me, intercede for me!" But Pelikanov never demeaned himself to baseness like that.'

'Mm ... Tentelyev ...' muttered Gubaryov, 'that ... that ought to be noted.'

Madame Suhantchikov shrugged her shoulders contemptuously.

'Come, I think that's exaggerated,' observed Bambaev. '"Go away" she certainly did say, that's a fact, but she didn't give him a smack!'

'She did, she did!' repeated Madam Suhantchikov with convulsive intensity: 'I am not talking idle gossip. And you are friends with men like that!'

'Excuse me, excuse me, Matrona Semyonovna, I never spoke of Tentelyev as a friend of mine; I was speaking of Pelikanov.'

'Well, if it's not Tentelyev, it's another. Mihnyov, for example.'

'What did he do then?' asked Bambaev, already showing signs of alarm.

'What? Is it possible you don't know? He exclaimed on the Poznesensky Prospect in the hearing of all the world that all the liberals ought to be in prison; and what's more, an old schoolfellow came to him, a poor man of course, and said, "Can I come to dinner with you?" And this was his answer. "No, impossible; I have two counts dining with me to-day ... get along with you!"'

'But that's slander, upon my word!' vociferated Bambaev.

'Prince Vahrushkin,' Gubaryov interpolated severely, 'is my cousin; but I don't allow him to enter my house.... So there is no need to mention him even.'

'In the second place,' continued Madame Suhantchikov, with a submissive nod in Gubaryov's direction, 'Praskovya Yakovlovna told me so herself.'

'You have hit on a fine authority to quote! Why, she and Sarkizov are the greatest scandal-mongers going.'

'I never read novels now,' was Madame Suhantchikov's dry and sharp reply.

'Why?'

'Because I have not the time now; I have no thoughts now but for one thing, sewing machines.'

'What machines?' inquired Litvinov.

'Sewing, sewing; all women ought to provide themselves with sewing-machines, and form societies; in that way they will all be enabled to earn their living, and will become independent at once. In no other way can they ever be emancipated. That is an important, most important social question. I had such an argument about it with Boleslav Stadnitsky. Boleslav Stadnitsky is a marvellous nature, but he looks at these things in an awfully frivolous spirit. He does nothing but laugh. Idiot!'

'All will in their due time be called to account, from all it will be exacted,' pronounced Gubaryov deliberately, in a tone half-professorial, half-prophetic.

'Yes, yes,' repeated Bambaev, 'it will be exacted, precisely so, it will be exacted. But, Stepan Nikolaitch,' he added, dropping his voice, 'how goes the great work?'

'I am collecting materials,' replied Gubaryov, knitting his brows; and, turning to Litvinov, whose head began to swim from the medley of unfamiliar names, and the frenzy of backbiting, he asked him what subjects he was interested in.

Litvinov satisfied his curiosity.

'Ah! to be sure, the natural sciences. That is useful, as training; as training, not as an end in itself. The end at present should be ... mm ... should be ... different. Allow me to ask what views do you hold?'

'What views?'

'Yes, that is, more accurately speaking, what are your political views?'

Litvinov smiled.

'Strictly speaking, I have no political views.'

The broad-shouldered man sitting in the corner raised his head quickly at these words and looked attentively at Litvinov.

'How is that?' observed Gubaryov with peculiar gentleness. 'Have you not yet reflected on the subject, or have you grown weary of it?'

'Aha! he belongs to the undeveloped,' Gubaryov interrupted him, with the same gentleness, and going up to Voroshilov, he asked him: 'Had he read the pamphlet he had given him?'

Voroshilov, to Litvinov's astonishment, had not uttered a word ever since his entrance, but had only knitted his brows and rolled his eyes . He now expanded his chest in soldierly fashion, and with a tap of his heels, nodded assent.

'Well, and how was it? Did you like it?'

'As regards the fundamental principles, I liked it; but I did not agree with the inferences.'

'Mmm ... Andrei Ivanitch praised that pamphlet, however. You must expand your doubts to me later.'

'You desire it in writing?'

Gubaryov was obviously surprised; he had not expected this; however, after a moment's thought, he replied:

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