Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1887
Source: Original Text from Gutenberg.org
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Things remembered and things conceived mixed and mingled with wonderful quickness in my imagination.
"The mentor who is always shouting from the second sledge, what kind of a man must he be? Probably red-haired, thick-set, with short legs, a man somewhat like Feódor Filíppuitch our old butler," is what I say to myself.
And here I see the staircase of our great house, and five of the house-servants who with towels, with heavy steps, carry the pianoforte from the L; I see Feódor Filíppuitch with the sleeves of his nankeen coat tucked up, carrying one of the pedals, and going in advance, unbolting the door, taking hold of the door-knob here, there pushing a little, now crawling under the legs; he is here, there, and everywhere, crying with an anxious voice continually, "Look out, take more weight, you there in front! Be careful, you there at the tail-end! Up—up—up—don't hit the door. There, there!"
"Excuse me, Feódor Filíppuitch! There ain't enough of us," says the gardener timidly, crushed up against the balustrade, and all red with exertion, lifting one end of the grand with all his remaining strength. But Feódor Filíppuitch does not hold his peace.
"And what does it mean?" I ask myself. "Does he think that he is of any use, that he is indispensable for the work in hand? or is he simply glad that God* has given him this self-confident persuasive eloquence, and takes enjoyment in squandering it?"
And I somehow see the pond, the weary servants, who, up to their knees in the water, drag the heavy net; and again Feódor Filíppuitch, shouting to everybody, walking up and down on the bank, and only now and then venturing to the brink, taking with his hand the golden carp, and letting the dirty water run out from his watering-pot, so as to fill it up with fresh.
But here it is midday, in the month of July. Across the newly mown turf of the lawn, under the burning perpendicular rays of the sun, I seem to be going somewhere. I am still very young; I am free from yearnings, free from desires. I am going to the pond, to my own favorite spot between the rose-bushes and the birch-tree alley; and I shall lie down and nap. Keen is the sensation that I have, as I lie down, and look across the red thorny stems of the rose-bushes upon the dark ground with its dry grass and on the gleaming bright-blue mirror of the pond. It is a sensation of a peculiarly simple self-contentment and melancholy. All around me is so lovely, and this loveliness has such a powerful effect upon me, that it seems to me as if I myself were good; and the one thing that vexes me is, that no one is there to admire me.
It is hot. I try to go to sleep for comfort's sake; but the flies, the unendurable flies, even here, give me no rest. They begin to swarm around me, and obstinately, insolently as it were, heavy as cherry-stones, jump from my forehead to my hands. A bee buzzes near me in the sunbeam. Yellow-winged butterflies fly wearily from flower to flower.
I gaze up. It pains my eyes. The sun shines too* bright through the light foliage of the bushy birch-tree, gracefully waving its branches high above my head, and it grows hotter still. I cover my face with my handkerchief. It becomes stifling; and the flies seem to stick to my hands, on which the perspiration stands. In the rose-bush the sparrows twitter under the thick leaves. One hops to the ground almost within my reach, makes two or three feints to peck energetically at the ground, and after making the little twigs crackle, and chirping gaily, flies away from the bushes; another also hops to the ground, wags his little tail, looks around, and, like an arrow, flies off twittering after the first. At the pond are heard the blows of the pounder on the wet clothes; and the noise reechoes, and is carried far away, down along the shore. I hear laughter and talking, and the splashing of bathers. The breath of the wind sweeps the tops of the birches far above my head, and bends them down again. I hear it moving the grass, and now the leaves of the rose-bushes toss and rustle on their stems. And now, lifting the corner of my handkerchief, it tickles my sweaty face, and pours in upon me in a cooling current. Through the opening where the handkerchief is lifted a fly finds his way, and timidly buzzes around my moist mouth. A dry twig begins to make itself felt under my back. No: it becomes unendurable; I must get it out. But now, around the clump of bushes, I hear the sound of footsteps, and the frightened voice of a woman:—
"Mercy on me![12] what's to be done? And no man anywhere!"
"What's the matter?" I ask, running out into the sun, as a serving-woman, screaming, hurries past me.* She merely glances at me, wrings her hands, and hurries along faster. And here comes also the seventy-year-old Matryóna, holding her handkerchief to her head, with her hair all in disorder, and hopping along with her lame leg in woolen stockings. Two girls come running, hand in hand; and a ten-year-old boy in his father's jacket runs behind, clinging to the linen petticoat of one of them.
"What has happened?" I ask of them.
"A muzhík drowned!"
"Where?"
"In the pond."
"Who is he? one of ours?"
"No, a tramp."
The coachman Iván, bustling about in his big boots over the mown grass, and the fat overseer[13] Yakof, all out of breath, come hurrying to the pond; and I follow after them.
I experience the feeling which says to me, "Now jump in, and pull the muzhík out, and save him; and all will admire you," which was exactly what I wanted.
"Where is he? where?" I asked of the throng of domestics gathered on the shore.
"Over there in the deepest part, on the other shore, almost at the baths," says the laundress, stowing away the wet linen on her yoke.... "I see him dove; there he comes up again, then he sinks a second time, and comes up again, and then he cries, 'I'm drowning, help!' And then he goes down again—and then a lot of bubbles. And while I am looking on, the muzhík gets drowned. And so I give the alarm: 'Help! a muzhík is drowning!'"
And the laundress, lifting the yoke upon her shoulder,* turning to one side, goes along the narrow footpath away from the pond.
"See! what a shame," says Yakof Ivánof the overseer, in a despairing voice; "now there'll be a rumpus with the police court[14]—we'll have enough of it."
One muzhík with a scythe makes his way through the throng of peasant women, children, and old men gathered round the shore, and, hanging the scythe on the limb of a willow, leisurely takes off his clothes.
"Where was it? where was he drowned?" I keep asking, having still the desire to jump in, and do something extraordinary.
They point out to me the smooth surface of the pond, which is now and then just ruffled by the puffs of the breeze. It is incomprehensible how he came to drown; for the water lies so smooth, beautiful and calm above him, shining golden in the midday sun, and it seems to me that I could not do any thing or surprise any one, the more as I am a very poor swimmer; but the muzhík is now pulling his shirt over his head, and instantly throws himself into the water. All look at him with hope and anxiety. After going into the water up to his neck, the muzhík turns back, and puts on his shirt again: he knows not how to swim.
People keep coming down to the shore; the throng grows larger and larger; the women cling to each other: but no one brings any help. Those who have just come, offer advice, and groan; fear and despair are stamped on all faces. Of those who had come first, some have sat down, or stand wearily on the grass, others have gone back to their work. The old Matryóna asks her daughter whether she shut the oven-door.* The small boy in his father's jacket industriously flings stones into the water.
And now from the house down the hill comes Trezorka, the butler's dog, barking, and looking at the stupid people. And lo! there is Feódor's tall figure hurrying from the hill-top, and shouting something as he comes out from behind the rose-bushes.
"What are you standing there for?" he shouts, taking off his coat as he runs. "A man drowning, and there you are standing around! Give us a rope."
All look at Feódor with hope and fear while he, leaning his hand on the shoulder of one of the men-servants, pries off his left boot with the toe of the right.
"There it was, where the people are standing, there at the right of the willows, Feódor Filíppuitch, right there," says some one to him.
"I know it," he replies; and knitting his brows; probably as a rebuke to the manifestations of modesty visible among the women, he takes off his shirt and baptismal cross, handing them to the gardener-boy who stands officiously near him, and then stepping energetically across the mown grass comes to the pond.
Trezorka, unable to explain the reason for his master's rapid motions, stands irresolute near the crowd, and noisily eats a few grass-blades on the shore, then looks questioningly at his master, and suddenly with a joyous bark plunges after him into the water. At first nothing can be seen except foam, and splashing water, which reached even to us. But soon the butler, gracefully spreading his arms in long strokes, and with regular motion lifting and sinking his back, swims across to the other shore. Trezorka, however, gurgling in the water, hastily returns, shakes himself near the crowd, and rolls over on his back upon the shore.
*
While the butler is swimming to the other side, two coachmen hasten to the willows with a net fastened to a stake. The butler for some reason lifts up his hands, dives once, twice, three times, each time spewing from his mouth a stream of water, gracefully shaking his long hair, and paying no heed to the questions which are showered upon him from all sides. At last he comes to the shore, and, so far as I can see, arranges for the disposition of the net.
They haul out the net, but it contains nothing except slime and a few small carp flopping in it. They have just cast the net once more as I reach that side.
The voice of the butler giving directions, the water dripping from the wet rope, and the sighs of dismay, alone break the silence. The wet rope stretches to the right wing, covers up more and more of the grass, slowly emerges farther and farther out of the water.
"Now pull all together, friends, once more!" cries the butler's voice. The net appears, dripping with water.
"There's something! it comes heavy, fellows," says some one's voice.
And here the wings with two or three carp flapping in them, wetting and crushing down the grass, are drawn to shore. And through the delicate strata of the agitated depths of the waters, something white gleams in the tightly stretched net. Not loud, but plainly audible amid the dead silence, a sigh of horror passes over the throng.
"Pull it up on the dry land! pull it up, friends!" says the butler's resolute voice; and the drowned man is pulled up across the mown burdocks and other weeds, to the shelter of the willows.
And here I see my good old auntie in her silk dress.* I see her lilac sunshade with its fringe,—which somehow is incongruous with this picture of death terrible in its very simplicity,—and her face ready this moment to be convulsed with sobs. I realize the disappointment expressed on her face, because it is impossible to use the arnica; and I recall the sickening melancholy feeling that I have when she says with the simple egoism of love, "Come, my dear. Ah! how terrible this is! And here you always go in swimming by yourself."
I remember how bright and hot the sun shines on the dry ground, crumpling under the feet; how it gleams on the mirror of the pond; how the plump carp flap on the bank; how the schools of fish stir the smooth surface in the middle of the pond; how high in the air a hawk hangs, watching the ducklings which, quacking and spattering, swim through the reeds toward the center; how the white tumulous thunder-clouds gather on the horizon; how the mud, brought up by the net, is scattered over the bank; and how, as I come to the dike, I again hear the blows of the clothes-pounders at work along the pond.
But the clothes-pounder has a ringing sound; two clothes-pounders, as it were, ring together, making a chord; and this sound torments, pains me, the more as I know that this clothes-pounder is a bell, and Feódor Filíppuitch does not cease to ring it. And this clothes-pounder, like an instrument of torture, squeezes my leg, which is freezing.—I fall into deep sleep.
I was waked by what seemed to me our very rapid progress, and by two voices speaking close to me.
"Say, Ignat, Ignat," says the voice of my driver. "You take my passenger; you've got to go anyway; it's only wasted labor for me: you take him."
*
Ignat's voice near me replies, "What fun would it be for me to answer for a passenger?... Will you treat me to a half-pint of brandy?"
"Now! a half-pint! Call it a glass."
"The idea, a glass!" cries the other voice; "bother my horses for a glass of vodka!"
I open my eyes. Still the same unendurable whirling snowflakes dazzling me, the same drivers and horses, but next me I see some sledge or other. My driver has caught up with Ignat, and for some time we have been going side by side.
Notwithstanding the fact that the voice from the other sledge advises not to take less than the half-pint, Ignat suddenly reins, up his troïka.
"Change the things; just your good luck! You'll give me the brandy when we meet to-morrow. Have you got much luggage?"
My driver, with unwonted liveliness, leaps into the snow, makes me a bow, and begs me to change into Ignat's sledge. I am perfectly willing. But evidently the pious little muzhík is so delighted that he must needs express to every one his gratefulness and pleasure. He bows to me, to Alyoshka, to Ignashka, and thanks us.
"Well, now, thank the Lord! What a scheme this is! Heavens and earth![15] we have been going half the night. Don't know ourselves where we are. He will take you, sir;[16] but my horses are all beat out."
And he transfers the luggage with vigorous activity.
When it was moved, I got into the other sledge in spite of the wind which almost carried me away. The sledge, especially on that side toward which was spread the coat as a protection against the wind, for the two* yamshchíks, was quarter buried in the snow; but behind the coat, it was warm and cosey. The little old man was lying with his legs hanging over, and the story-teller was still spinning his yarn: "At that very same time when the general in the king's name, you know, comes to Marya, you know, in the darkness, at this same time, Marya says to him, 'General, I do not need you, and I cannot love you; and, you know, you are not my lover, but my lover is the prince himself'—At this very time," he was going on to say; but, catching sight of me, he kept silence for a time, and began to puff at his pipe.
"Well, bárin, you missed the story, didn't you?" said the other, whom I have called the mentor.
"Yes; but you are finely provided for behind here," said I.
"Out of sheer dullness,—have to keep ourselves from thinking."'
"But, say, don't you know where we are now?"
This question, as it seemed to me, did not please the yamshchíks.
"Who can tell where we are? Maybe we are going to the Kalmucks," replied the mentor.
"But what are we going to do?" I asked.
"What are we going to do? Well, we are going, and will keep on going," he said in a fretful tone.
"Well, what will keep us from getting lost? Besides, the horses will get tired in the snow. What then?"
"Well, nothing."
"But we may freeze to death."
"Of course we may, because we don't see any hayricks just now; but we may come, you know, to the Kalmucks. First thing, we must look at the snow."
*
"But you aren't afraid of freezing to death, are you, bárin?" asked the little old man with quavering voice.
Notwithstanding that he was making sport of me, as it were, it was plain that he was trembling all over.
"Yes: it is growing very cold," I replied.
"Ekh! bárin! You ought to do like me. No, no: stamp up and down,—that will warm you up."
"Do it the first thing when you get to the sledge," said the mentor.