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Read Ebook: Knock Knock Knock and Other Stories by Turgenev Ivan Sergeevich Garnett Constance Translator
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Ebook has 1483 lines and 64625 words, and 30 pages
"Knock ... knock ... knock!"
Tyeglev jumped out of bed, opened the window and thrusting out his head, cried wildly, "Who is there? Who is knocking?" Then he opened the door and repeated his question. A horse neighed in the distance--that was all.
He went back towards his bed.
"Knock ... knock ... knock!"
Tyeglev instantly turned round and sat down.
"Knock ... knock ... knock!"
He rapidly put on his boots, threw his overcoat over his shoulders and unhooking his sword from the wall, went out of the hut. I heard him walk round it twice, asking all the time, "Who is there? Who goes there? Who is knocking?" Then he was suddenly silent, stood still outside near the corner where I was lying and without uttering another word, came back into the hut and lay down without taking off his boots and overcoat.
"Knock ... knock ... knock!" I began again. "Knock ... knock ... knock!"
But Tyeglev did not stir, did not ask who was knocking, and merely propped his head on his hand.
Seeing that this no longer acted, after an interval I pretended to wake up and, looking at Tyeglev, assumed an air of astonishment.
"Have you been out?" I asked.
"Yes," he answered unconcernedly.
"Did you still hear the knocking?"
"Yes."
"And you met no one?"
"No."
"And did the knocking stop?"
"I don't know. I don't care now."
"Now? Why now?"
Tyeglev did not answer.
I felt a little ashamed and a little vexed with him. I could not bring myself to acknowledge my prank, however.
"Do you know what?" I began, "I am convinced that it was all your imagination."
Tyeglev frowned. "Ah, you think so!"
"You say you heard a knocking?"
"It was not only knocking I heard."
"Why, what else?"
Tyeglev bent forward and bit his lips. He was evidently hesitating.
"I was called!" he brought out at last in a low voice and turned away his face.
"You were called? Who called you?"
"Someone...." Tyeglev still looked away. "A woman whom I had hitherto only believed to be dead ... but now I know it for certain."
"I swear, Ilya Stepanitch," I cried, "this is all your imagination!"
"Imagination?" he repeated. "Would you like to hear it for yourself?"
"Yes."
"Then come outside."
I hurriedly dressed and went out of the hut with Tyeglev. On the side opposite to it there were no houses, nothing but a low hurdle fence broken down in places, beyond which there was a rather sharp slope down to the plain. Everything was still shrouded in mist and one could scarcely see anything twenty paces away. Tyeglev and I went up to the hurdle and stood still.
"Here," he said and bowed his head. "Stand still, keep quiet and listen!"
Like him I strained my ears, and I heard nothing except the ordinary, extremely faint but universal murmur, the breathing of the night. Looking at each other in silence from time to time we stood motionless for several minutes and were just on the point of going on.
"Ilyusha ..." I fancied I heard a whisper from behind the hurdle.
I glanced at Tyeglev but he seemed to have heard nothing--and still held his head bowed.
"Ilyusha ... ah, Ilyusha," sounded more distinctly than before--so distinctly that one could tell that the words were uttered by a woman.
We both started and stared at each other.
"Well?" Tyeglev asked me in a whisper. "You won't doubt it now, will you?"
"Wait a minute," I answered as quietly. "It proves nothing. We must look whether there isn't anyone. Some practical joker...."
I jumped over the fence--and went in the direction from which, as far as I could judge, the voice came.
I felt the earth soft and crumbling under my feet; long ridges stretched before me vanishing into the mist. I was in the kitchen garden. But nothing was stirring around me or before me. Everything seemed spellbound in the numbness of sleep. I went a few steps further.
"Who is there?" I cried as wildly as Tyeglev had.
"Prrr-r-r!" a startled corn-crake flew up almost under my feet and flew away as straight as a bullet. Involuntarily I started.... What foolishness!
I looked back. Tyeglev was in sight at the spot where I left him. I went towards him.
"You will call in vain," he said. "That voice has come to us--to me--from far away."
He passed his hand over his face and with slow steps crossed the road towards the hut. But I did not want to give in so quickly and went back into the kitchen garden. That someone really had three times called "Ilyusha" I could not doubt; that there was something plaintive and mysterious in the call, I was forced to own to myself.... But who knows, perhaps all this only appeared to be unaccountable and in reality could be explained as simply as the knocking which had agitated Tyeglev so much.
I walked along beside the fence, stopping from time to time and looking about me. Close to the fence, at no great distance from our hut, there stood an old leafy willow tree; it stood out, a big dark patch, against the whiteness of the mist all round, that dim whiteness which perplexes and deadens the sight more than darkness itself. All at once it seemed to me that something alive, fairly big, stirred on the ground near the willow. Exclaiming "Stop! Who is there?" I rushed forward. I heard scurrying footsteps, like a hare's; a crouching figure whisked by me, whether man or woman I could not tell.... I tried to clutch at it but did not succeed; I stumbled, fell down and stung my face against a nettle. As I was getting up, leaning on the ground, I felt something rough under my hand: it was a chased brass comb on a cord, such as peasants wear on their belt.
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