Read Ebook: A Family of Noblemen The Gentlemen Golovliov by Saltykov Mikhail Evgrafovich Yarmolinsky Avrahm Translator

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Ebook has 2200 lines and 109583 words, and 44 pages

With her daughter Arina Petrovna dealt as peremptorily as she had with her hated son. She bestowed "a bone" upon her too, in the shape of five thousand rubles and a wretched little village of thirty souls and a manor-house going with it, so dilapidated that the wind blew through the gaping paneless windows and there was not one sound board in the flooring. In two years the young couple had gone through the money, and the cornet took himself off, deserting his wife and two twin girls, Anninka and Lubinka. Three months later the mother died, and Arina Petrovna, willy-nilly, had to take the little orphans into her own house. She installed them in a side-wing and entrusted them to the care of Palashka, old and one-eyed. "The Lord's mercy is great," remarked Arina Petrovna. "The little orphans won't eat much of my bread, but they'll be a solace to me in my old age. God has given me two daughters instead of one." At the same time she wrote to her son, Porfiry Vladimirych: "Your dear sister died as she lived, indecently, and now her two children are hanging round my neck."

What we are going to say may seem cynical, but we feel it our duty to state that the granting of the heritage to Stepan and Anna did not by any means impair Arina Petrovna's financial condition. On the contrary, in reducing the number of shareholders it contributed indirectly to the rounding out of the family estate. For Arina Petrovna was a woman of strict principles, and once having "thrown them a bone," she considered her obligations toward her unloved children completely and definitely settled. In regard to her grandchildren it never entered her mind that in due time she would have to part with something for them. All she cared for was to draw all the income possible from the small estate of her deceased daughter and deposit it in the Chamber of Trustees. "There I am," she would say, "laying by money for the orphans. For feeding and bringing them up I take nothing from them. For the bread they eat it is God who will pay me."

As for the younger children, Porfiry and Pavel, they served in St. Petersburg, the former in a civil capacity, the latter in the army. Porfiry was married; Pavel was an old bachelor.

Porfiry Vladimirych was known in the family by three nicknames, Yudushka , Bloodsucker, and Goody-goody Boy, which had been invented by Simple Simon. From his early childhood Porfiry had been oddly intent upon currying favor with his "dear mamma" and showed a tendency to play the sycophant. He would open the door of his mother's room softly, creep noiselessly into a corner, and sit there, as if entranced, with his eyes fixed on his mother while she wrote or busied herself with accounts. Even in those days Arina Petrovna regarded her son's efforts to insinuate himself into her good graces with vague suspicion. His stare puzzled her. She could not decide what his eyes expressed, whether venom or filial reverence. "I cannot make out what is in his eyes," she sometimes argued with herself. "His glance is like a noose which he is getting ready to throw. He might look like that handing a person poison or enticing him into a pitfall."

In this connection she often recollected highly significant details of the time she was carrying Porfisha. An old man called Porfisha the Saint was at that time living in the manor. He had the reputation of a seer, and Arina Petrovna turned to him whenever she wanted to learn something about the future. She had asked him when she would be delivered of the child and whether it would be a boy or a girl; but the pious old man gave no direct answer. Instead he crowed three times like a cock and then mumbled:

"Cockerel, cockerel, sharp claw! The cock crows and threatens the brood-hen; the brood-hen--cluck! cluck!--but it will be too late!"

That was all he said. Three days later Arina Petrovna gave birth to a son and named him Porfiry in honor of the old soothsayer. The first half of the prophecy had been fulfilled; but what could be the hidden meaning of the mysterious words, "the brood-hen--cluck! cluck!--but it will be too late?" Arina Petrovna often pondered over it, whenever her eyes fell on Porfisha, who sat in his nook with his enigmatic gaze fixed on her.

Meanwhile Porfisha kept on staring, quiet and meek, staring so intently that his wide-open, motionless eyes began to swim in tears, as if he vaguely sensed the doubts that tormented his mother's soul, and wished to behave so as to disarm her most persistent suspicion. At the risk of annoying his mother, he constantly hovered about her, and the expression in his eyes seemed to say: "Look at me! I conceal nothing from you. I am all obedience and devotion, and, mind you, I am obedient and devoted not only from fear but also from loyalty." And although an inner voice constantly sounded warning that the young scoundrel was dangerous in spite of his wheedling and fawning, her heart could not resist such unremitting devotion and her hand involuntarily felt for the best piece in the dish to bestow upon the affectionate child. And yet the very sight of him at times awakened a vague fear of something puzzling and eery.

The exact opposite of Porfiry was his brother, Pavel, the most perfect embodiment of absolute passivity. As a boy he manifested no inclination whatever for study, or games, or playing with other boys, but liked to keep to himself. He would get into a corner, pout, and set to work building air castles, dreaming that he had gorged himself with oatmeal so that his legs had become thin and he had no lessons to learn, or else that he was Davidka, the shepherd, with a growing lump on his forehead, just like David's, and cracked a whip and had no lessons to learn. Arina Petrovna would gaze at him for a long time, and then her motherly feelings would well up:

"Why do you sit there like a mouse on groats?" she would scold. "Is the poison working in you already? Why don't you come over to your mother and say: 'Mamenka darling, hug me?'"

Pavel would leave his place of refuge and slowly approach his mother, as if someone were pushing him from behind. "Mamenka darling," he would repeat in a bass voice unnatural in a child, "hug me."

"Get out of my sight, you sneak. You think if you get into your corner I don't understand. You are mistaken, my darling. I see through and through you. Your plans and projects are as clear as if they were spread on the palm of my hand."

And Pavel would just as slowly retrace his steps and bury himself again in his corner.

Years passed by, and Pavel Vladimirych gradually developed that apathetic, unaccountably gloomy character which often goes with absolute passivity. He was, perhaps, good, but he had done nobody any good; he was, perhaps, not without some intelligence, but he had not achieved anything intelligent in his life. He was hospitable, but people did not like to avail themselves of his hospitality. He spent money readily, but nothing good or pleasant came of his lavishness to anybody. He never harmed anybody, but that was not considered a merit. He was honest, but no one had ever heard it said: "How honorably Pavel Golovliov dealt in that affair!" It must be added that sometimes, not often, he snarled at his mother, although he feared her like poison. I repeat, he was an ill-tempered person, but back of his moroseness was nothing but sheer inertness.

When the brothers reached maturity, the difference in their characters was most conspicuous in their relation to their mother. Yudushka punctually every week sent a lengthy epistle to "mother dear," in which he informed her in the greatest detail of all the minutiae of his life in St. Petersburg, and assured her of his disinterested filial devotion in the most carefully selected terms. As for Pavel, he wrote rarely, laconically, and sometimes even enigmatically, pulling every word out of himself with a pair of tongs, as it were.

As for Pavel, what he wrote on a similar occasion was: "Dear mother, am in receipt of the money, and, according to my calculations, you still owe six and a half rubles, for which I beg to be graciously forgiven."

When Arina Petrovna wrote reprimanding the children for their extravagance--she did so rather frequently, although there was no serious necessity for it--Porfisha invariably received her rebuke submissively and replied: "I am well aware, my dearest friend and mother, that you bear the heaviest burdens for the sake of us, your unworthy children. I know that often our behavior does not justify your motherly solicitude, and what is worse, erring humans that we are, we often forget it, for which I apologize most devotedly and sincerely, in the hope that in the course of time I will overcome my weakness and be more prudent in my expenditure of the funds that you send, my adorable friend and mother, for my maintenance and for other purposes." Pavel would answer back: "Dearest mother, though you have not as yet paid any of my debts, I accept most submissively the name of spendthrift which you choose to bestow upon me, whereof I beg most sincerely to accept my assurance."

Even the replies that the brothers made to the letter announcing the death of their sister, Anna Vladimirovna, were quite different from each other. Porfiry Vladimirych said: "The news of the death of my dear sister and good playmate, Anna Vladimirovna, has filled my heart with sorrow, a sorrow aggravated by the thought that a new cross has been given you to bear, dearest little mother, in the shape of two little orphans. Is it not sufficient that you, common benefactress to us all, deny yourself everything and, without sparing your health, concentrate all your power on the sole object of assuring the family not only the necessaries of life but also the luxuries? Believe me, it is a wicked thing to do, but now and then, I confess, I cannot refrain from grumbling. As far as I can see, the only solace for you, my dearest, in this state of affairs is to remember as often as you can all that Christ himself had to undergo." Pavel's reply ran: "The news of my sister, who has fallen a victim, I have received. I hope, however, that the Most High will rest her in His celestial tent, although this is uncertain."

Arina Petrovna reading these letters would try to guess which of the two sons would be her destruction. At times she felt certain the danger was coming from Porfiry Vladimirych.

"Look how he wags his tongue, a regular fiend at writing!" she would exclaim. "Simple Simon's nickname suits to a tee--Yudushka! Not a word of truth in all this stuff about my burdens, my cross, and the rest. Sheer lies! Not an ounce of feeling in his heart!"

At other times Pavel Vladimirych seemed to be her real enemy.

"A fool, and yet look how deftly he tries to make love to mother on the sly. 'Whereof I beg most sincerely to accept my assurance!' Wait a while! I'll teach you what 'accept assurances' means! I shall deal with you as I did with Simple Simon, and you'll find out what I mean by your 'assurances'!"

In the end a truly tragical cry would burst from her lips. "And for whom am I hoarding all this wealth? For whom am I gathering all this? I deny myself sleep and food--for whom?"

Such were the domestic circumstances of the Golovliovs at the time that the bailiff, Anton Vasilyev, reported to Arina Petrovna that Simple Simon had dissipated "the bone" flung to him, which, in view of its loss, might now be called with especial significance the "parental blessing."

Arina Petrovna sat in her bedroom, all her senses dazed. A vague, unaccountable feeling stirred within her, whether pity, born suddenly and miraculously, for her hated offspring, who, after all, was her son, or whether merely thwarted despotism, the most expert psychologist would have been unable to decide. Her sensations were utterly confused and succeeded each other with bewildering swiftness. Finally, out of the welter of her thoughts there crystallized one emotion, the fear that "the horrid creature" would again be hanging round her neck.

"Aniutka has forced her whelps on me, and now this dunderhead is coming here," she pondered deeply.

Long she sat silent, her eyes fixed and intent. Dinner was brought in, but she hardly touched it; a servant came and said the master wanted brandy. Without looking up she threw him the keys of the store-room. After the meal she ordered the bath to be prepared for her. Then she went into the oratory, ordered all the image lamps to be lit, and shut herself in. These were all clear signs that the mistress was "in a temper," and so the house turned as quiet as a churchyard. The chambermaids walked on tiptoe; Akulina, the housekeeper, ran back and forth like a lunatic. The preparations for preserving had been set for after dinner; the berries had been rinsed and made ready, but the mistress gave no orders either to go ahead or to wait. The gardener, Matvey, came to ask whether it was time to gather the peaches, but such was his reception in the maids' room that he fled precipitately.

Prayers and bath over, Arina Petrovna felt almost reconciled with the world and had the bailiff summoned again.

"Now tell me, what is the numskull doing?" she asked.

"Well, Moscow is big, it would take more than a year to walk through it."

"But he needs something to fill his stomach with, doesn't he?"

"Our peasants feed him. He eats with one, gets money for tobacco from another."

"And who permits them to give him anything?"

"Goodness me, madam! The people don't complain. They give alms to strangers. Should they refuse a mite to their own master's son?"

"I'll teach them to give mites! I'll have the blockhead deported to your estate, and the community will have to maintain him at its own expense."

"As you command, madam."

"What? What did you say?"

"As you command, my lady. If you order it, we shall feed him."

"That's better. But talk sensibly."

A pause ensued. Then the bailiff, true to his nature and his nickname, lost patience and began to shift from one leg to another, obviously burning with the desire to unburden his mind of something.

"He's a clever one, though," he finally blurted out. "People say he brought back a hundred rubles from the campaign. It isn't a fortune, but still one can live on it for a time."

"Well?"

"He thought he might improve his situation and went in for a shady business."

"Go on, go on, and don't give me any lies."

"He went to the German Club. He thought he would find a fool to beat at cards, but instead he happened on a cunning hawk. He tried to get away, but was held up in the lobby. Of course, he was plucked clean."

"I suppose he was roughly handled, too."

"Of course. The next morning he came to our man, Ivan Mikhailych, and told the tale himself. It's queer, he was in high spirits and laughed as if they had treated him like a lord."

"Things run from him like water off a duck's back. But I won't grieve over it, provided he does not come within sight of me."

"But I believe he will."

"Nonsense, I will not allow him to cross my threshold."

"But I'm sure he will," insisted Anton Vasilyev. "He said so in plain words to Ivan Mikhailych. 'Enough,' he says, 'I am going back to the old woman to eat her dry crusts.' And, madam, to speak the truth, where can he lay his head but here? He cannot keep on forever feeding on our men in Moscow. And besides, he needs clothing and comforts."

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