A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

Harlov’s voice broke.

‘But your daughters? What did they do?’ asked my mother.

‘But I bore it all,’ Harlov went on again; ‘bitterness, bitterness was in my heart, let me tell you, and shame… I could not bear to look upon the light of day! That was why I was unwilling to come and see you, ma’am, from this same feeling, from shame for my disgrace! I have tried everything, my good friend; kindness, affection, and threats, and I reasoned with them, and more besides! I bowed down before them … like this.’ (Harlov showed how he had bowed down.) ‘And all in vain. And all of it I bore! At the beginning, at first, I’d very different thoughts; I’ll up, I thought, and kill them. I’ll crush them all, so that not a trace remains of them!.. I’ll let them know! Well, but after, I submitted! It’s a cross, I thought, laid upon me; it’s to bid me make ready for death. And all at once, to-day, driven out, like a cur! And by whom? Volodka! And you asked about my daughters; they’ve no will of their own at all. They’re Volodka’s slaves! Yes!’

My mother wondered. ‘In Anna’s case I can understand that; she’s a wife… But how comes it your second…’

‘Evlampia? She’s worse than Anna! She’s altogether given herself up into Volodka’s hands. That’s the reason she refused your soldier, too. At his, at Volodka’s bidding. Anna, to be sure, ought to resent it, and she can’t bear her sister, but she submits! He’s bewitched them, the cursed scoundrel! Though she, Anna, I daresay, is pleased to think that Evlampia, who was always so proud, – and now see what she’s come to!.. O … alas … alas! God, my God!’

My mother looked uneasily towards me. I moved a little away as a precautionary measure, for fear I should be sent away altogether…

‘I am very sorry indeed, Martin Petrovitch,’ she began, ‘that my former protégé has caused you so much sorrow, and has turned out so badly. But I, too, was mistaken in him… Who could have expected this of him?’

‘Madam,’ Harlov moaned out, and he struck himself a blow on the chest, ‘I cannot bear the ingratitude of my daughters! I cannot, madam! You know I gave them everything, everything! And besides, my conscience has been tormenting me. Many things … alas! many things I have thought over, sitting by the pond, fishing. “If you’d only done good to any one in your life!” was what I pondered upon, “succoured the poor, set the peasants free, or something, to atone for having wrung their lives out of them. You must answer for them before God! Now their tears are revenged.” And what sort of life have they now? It was a deep pit even in my time – why disguise my sins? – but now there’s no seeing the bottom! All these sins I have taken upon my soul; I have sacrificed my conscience for my children, and for this I’m laughed to scorn! Kicked out of the house, like a cur!’

‘Don’t think about that, Martin Petrovitch,’ observed my mother.

‘And when he told me, your Volodka,’ Harlov went on with fresh force, ‘when he told me I was not to live in my room any more, – I laid every plank in that room with my own hands, – when he said that to me, – God only knows what passed within me! It was all confusion in my head, and like a knife in my heart… Either to cut his throat or get away out of the house!.. So, I have run to you, my benefactress, Natalia Nikolaevna … where had I to lay my head? And then the rain, the filth … I fell down twenty times, maybe! And now … in such unseemly…’

Harlov scanned himself and moved restlessly in his chair, as though intending to get up.

‘Say no more, Martin Petrovitch,’ my mother interposed hurriedly; ‘what does that signify? That you’ve made the floor dirty? That’s no great matter! Come, I want to make you a proposition. Listen! They shall take you now to a special room, and make you up a clean bed, – you undress, wash, and lie down and sleep a little…’

‘Natalia Nikolaevna! There’s no sleeping for me!’ Harlov responded drearily. ‘It’s as though there were hammers beating in my brain! Me! like some good-for-nothing beast!..’

‘Lie down and sleep,’ my mother repeated insistently. ‘And then we’ll give you some tea, – yes, and we’ll have a talk. Don’t lose heart, old friend! If they’ve driven you out of your house, in my house you will always find a home… I have not forgotten, you know, that you saved my life.’

‘Benefactress!’ moaned Harlov, and he covered his face with his hand. ‘You must save me now!’

This appeal touched my mother almost to tears. ‘I am ready and eager to help you, Martin Petrovitch, in everything I am able. But you must promise me that you will listen to me in future and dismiss every evil thought from you.’

Harlov took his hands from his face. ‘If need be,’ he said, ‘I can forgive them, even!’

My mother nodded her head approvingly. ‘I am very glad to see you in such a truly Christian frame of mind, Martin Petrovitch; but we will talk of that later. Meanwhile, you put yourself to rights, and, most of all, sleep. Take Martin Petrovitch to what was the master’s room, the green room,’ said my mother, addressing the butler, ‘and whatever he asks for, let him have it on the spot! Give orders for his clothes to be dried and washed, and ask the housekeeper for what linen is needed. Do you hear?’

‘Yes, madam,’ responded the butler.

‘And as soon as he’s asleep, tell the tailor to take his measure; and his beard will have to be shaved. Not at once, but after.’

‘Yes, madam,’ repeated the butler. ‘Martin Petrovitch, kindly come.’ Harlov got up, looked at my mother, was about to go up to her, but stopped, swinging a bow from the waist, crossed himself three times to the image, and followed the steward. Behind him, I, too, slipped out of the room.

XXIV

The butler conducted Harlov to the green room, and at once ran off for the wardroom maid, as it turned out there were no sheets on the bed. Souvenir, who met us in the passage, and popped into the green room with us, promptly proceeded to dance, grinning and chuckling, round Harlov, who stood, his arms held a little away from him, and his legs apart, in the middle of the room, seeming lost in thought. The water was still dripping from him.

‘The Swede! The Swede, Harlus!’ piped Souvenir, doubling up and holding his sides. ‘Mighty founder of the illustrious race of Harlovs, look down on thy descendant! What does he look like? Dost thou recognise him? Ha, ha, ha! Your excellency, your hand, I beg; why, have you got on black gloves?’

I tried to restrain Souvenir, to put him to shame … but it was too late for that now.

‘He called me parasite, toady! “You’ve no roof,” said he, “to call your own.” But now, no doubt about it, he’s become as dependent as poor little me. Martin Petrovitch and Souvenir, the poor toady, are equal now. He’ll have to live on charity too. They’ll toss him the stale and dirty crust, that the dog has sniffed at and refused… And they’ll tell him to eat it, too. Ha, ha, ha!’

Harlov still stood motionless, his head drawn in, his legs and arms held a little apart.

‘Martin Harlov, a nobleman born!’ Souvenir went on shrieking. ‘What airs he used to give himself. Just look at me! Don’t come near, or I’ll knock you down!.. And when he was so clever as to give away and divide his property, didn’t he crow! “Gratitude!..” he cackled, “gratitude!” But why were you so mean to me? Why didn’t you make me a present? May be, I should have felt it more. And you see I was right when I said they’d strip you bare, and…’

‘Souvenir!’ I screamed; but Souvenir was in nowise daunted. Harlov still did not stir. It seemed as though he were only now beginning to be aware how soaking wet everything was that he had on, and was waiting to be helped off with his clothes. But the butler had not come back.

‘And a military man too!’ Souvenir began again. ‘In the year twelve, he saved his country; he showed proofs of his valour. I see how it is. Stripping the frozen marauders of their breeches is work he’s quite equal to, but when the hussies stamp their feet at him he’s frightened out of his skin.’

‘Souvenir!’ I screamed a second time.

Harlov looked askance at Souvenir. Till that instant he seemed not to have noticed his presence, and only my exclamation aroused his attention.

‘Look out, brother,’ he growled huskily, ‘don’t dance yourself into trouble.’

Souvenir fairly rolled about with laughter. ‘Ah, how you frighten me, most honoured brother. You’re a formidable person, to be sure. You must comb your hair, at any rate, or, God forbid, it’ll get dry, and you’ll never wash it clean again; you’ll have to mow it with a sickle.’ Souvenir all of a sudden got into a fury. ‘And you give yourself airs still. A poor outcast, and he gives himself airs. Where’s your home now? you’d better tell me that, you were always boasting of it. “I have a home of my own,” he used to say, but you’re homeless. “My ancestral roof,” he would say.’ Souvenir pounced on this phrase as an inspiration.

‘Mr. Bitchkov,’ I protested. ‘What are you about? you forget yourself.’

But he still persisted in chattering, and still danced and pranced up and down quite close to Harlov. And still the butler and the wardroom maid did not come.

I felt alarmed. I began to notice that Harlov, who had, during his conversation with my mother, gradually grown quieter, and even towards the end apparently resigned himself to his fate, was beginning to get worked up again. He breathed more hurriedly, it seemed as though his face were suddenly swollen under his ears, his fingers twitched, his eyes again began moving restlessly in the dark mask of his grim face…

‘Souvenir, Souvenir!’ I cried. ‘Stop it, I’ll tell mamma.’

But Souvenir seemed possessed by frenzy. ‘Yes, yes, most honoured brother,’ he began again, ‘here we find ourselves, you and I, in the most delicate position. While your daughters, with your son-in-law, Vladimir Vassilievitch, are having a fine laugh at you under your roof. And you should at least curse them, as you promised. Even that you’re not equal to. To be sure, how could you hold your own with Vladimir Vassilievitch? Why, you used to call him Volodka, too. You call him Volodka. He is Vladimir Vassilievitch, Mr. Sletkin, a landowner, a gentleman, while – what are you, pray?’

A furious roar drowned Souvenir’s words… Harlov was aroused. His fists were clenched and lifted, his face was purple, there was foam on his drawn lips, he was shaking with rage. ‘Roof, you say!’ he thundered in his iron voice, ‘curse, you say… No! I will not curse them… They don’t care for that… But the roof … I will tear the roof off them, and they shall have no roof over their heads, like me. They shall learn to know Martin Harlov. My strength is not all gone yet; they shall learn to laugh at me!.. They shall have no roof over their heads!’

I was stupefied; never in my life had I witnessed such boundless anger. Not a man – a wild beast – paced to and fro before me. I was stupefied … as for Souvenir, he had hidden under the table in his fright.

‘They shall not!’ Harlov shouted for the last time, and almost knocking over the butler and the wardroom maid, he rushed away out of the house… He dashed headlong across the yard, and vanished through the gates.

XXV

My mother was terribly angry when the butler came with an abashed countenance to report Martin Petrovitch’s sudden and unexpected retreat. He did not dare to conceal the cause of this retreat; I was obliged to confirm his story. ‘Then it was all your doing!’ my mother cried, at the sight of Souvenir, who had run in like a hare, and was even approaching to kiss her hand: ‘Your vile tongue is to blame for it all!’ ‘Excuse me, d’rectly, d’rectly …’ faltered Souvenir, stuttering and drawing back his elbows behind him. ‘D’rectly, … d’rectly … I know your “d’rectly,”’ my mother repeated reprovingly, and she sent him out of the room. Then she rang the bell, sent for Kvitsinsky, and gave him orders to set off on the spot to Eskovo, with a carriage, to find Martin Petrovitch at all costs, and to bring him back. ‘Do not let me see you without him,’ she concluded. The gloomy Pole bowed his head without a word, and went away.

I went back to my own room, sat down again at the window, and I pondered a long while, I remember, on what had taken place before my eyes. I was puzzled; I could not understand how it was that Harlov, who had endured the insults of his own family almost without a murmur, had lost all self-control, and been unable to put up with the jeers and pin-pricks of such an abject creature as Souvenir. I did not understand in those days what insufferable bitterness there may sometimes be in a foolish taunt, even when it comes from lips one scorns… The hated name of Sletkin, uttered by Souvenir, had been like a spark thrown into powder. The sore spot could not endure this final prick.

About an hour passed by. Our coach drove into the yard; but our steward sat in it alone. And my mother had said to him – ‘don’t let me see you without him.’ Kvitsinsky jumped hurriedly out of the carriage, and ran up the steps. His face had a perturbed look – something very unusual with him. I promptly rushed downstairs, and followed at his heels into the drawing-room. ‘Well? have you brought him?’ asked my mother.

‘I have not brought him,’ answered Kvitsinsky – ‘and I could not bring him.’

‘How’s that? Have you seen him?’

‘Yes.’

‘What has happened to him? A fit?’

‘No; nothing has happened.’

‘How is it you didn’t bring him?’

‘He’s pulling his house to pieces.’

‘What?’

‘He’s standing on the roof of the new building, and pulling it to pieces. Forty boards or more, I should guess, must have come down by now, and some five of the rafters too.’ (‘They shall not have a roof over their heads.’ Harlov’s words came back to me.)

My mother stared at Kvitsinsky. ‘Alone … he’s standing on the roof, and pulling the roof down?’

‘Exactly so. He is walking about on the flooring of the garret in the roof, and smashing right and left of him. His strength, you are aware, madam, is superhuman. And the roof too, one must say, is a poor affair; half-inch deal battens, laid wide apart, one inch nails.’

My mother looked at me, as though wishing to make sure whether she had heard aright. ‘Half-inches wide apart,’ she repeated, obviously not understanding the meaning of one word. ‘Well, what then?’ she said at last.

‘I have come for instructions. There’s no doing anything without men to help. The peasants there are all limp with fright.’

‘And his daughters – what of them?’

‘His daughters are doing nothing. They’re running to and fro, shouting … this and that … all to no purpose.’

‘And is Sletkin there?’

‘He’s there too. He’s making more outcry than all of them – but he can’t do anything.’

‘And Martin Petrovitch is standing on the roof?’

‘On the roof … that is, in the garret – and pulling the roof to pieces.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said my mother, ‘half-inches wide apart.’

The position was obviously a serious one. What steps were to be taken? Send to the town for the police captain? Get together the peasants? My mother was quite at her wits’ end. Zhitkov, who had come in to dinner, was nonplussed too. It is true, he made another reference to a battalion of military; he offered no advice, however, but confined himself to looking submissive and devoted. Kvitsinsky, seeing he would not get at any instructions, suggested to my mother – with the contemptuous respectfulness peculiar to him – that if she would authorise him to take a few of the stable-boys, gardeners, and other house-serfs, he would make an effort…

‘Yes, yes,’ my mother cut him short, ‘do make an effort, dear Vikenty Osipitch! Only make haste, please, and I will take all responsibility on myself!’

Kvitsinsky smiled coldly. ‘One thing let me make clear, madam, beforehand; it’s impossible to reckon on any result, seeing that Mr. Harlov’s strength is so great, and he is so desperate too; he feels himself to have been very cruelly wronged!’

‘Yes, yes,’ my mother assented; ‘and it’s all that vile Souvenir’s fault! Never will I forgive him for it. Go and take the servants and set off, Vikenty Osipitch!’

‘You’d better take plenty of cord, Mr. Steward, and some fire-escape tackle,’ Zhitkov brought out in his bass – ‘and if there is such a thing as a net, it would be as well to take that along too. We once had in our regiment…’

‘Kindly refrain from instructing me, sir,’ Kvitsinsky cut him short, with an air of vexation; ‘I know what is needed without your aid.’

Zhitkov was offended, and protested that as he imagined he, too, was called upon…

‘No, no!’ interposed my mother; ‘you’d better stop where you are… Let Vikenty Osipitch act alone… Make haste, Vikenty Osipitch!’

Zhitkov was still more offended, while Kvitsinsky bowed and went out.

I rushed off to the stable, hurriedly saddled my horse myself, and set off at a gallop along the road to Eskovo.

XXVI

The rain had ceased, but the wind was blowing with redoubled force – straight into my face. Half-way there, the saddle almost slipped round under me; the girth had got loose; I got off and tried to tighten the straps with my teeth… All at once I heard someone calling me by my name… Souvenir was running towards me across the green fields. ‘What!’ he shouted to me from some way off, ‘was your curiosity too much for you? But it’s no use… I went over there, straight, at Harlov’s heels… Such a state of things you never saw in your life!’

‘You want to enjoy what you have done,’ I said indignantly, and, jumping on my horse, I set off again at a gallop. But the indefatigable Souvenir did not give me up, and chuckled and grinned, even as he ran. At last, Eskovo was reached – there was the dam, and there the long hedge and willow-tree of the homestead… I rode up to the gate, dismounted, tied up my horse, and stood still in amazement.

Of one third of the roof of the newer house, of the front part, nothing was left but the skeleton; boards and litter lay in disorderly heaps on the ground on both sides of the building. Even supposing the roof to be, as Kvitsinsky had said, a poor affair, even so, it was something incredible! On the floor of the garret, in a whirl of dust and rubbish, a blackish grey mass was moving to and fro with rapid ungainly action, at one moment shaking the remaining chimney, built of brick, (the other had fallen already) then tearing up the boarding and flinging it down below, then clutching at the very rafters. It was Harlov. He struck me as being exactly like a bear at this moment too; the head, and back, and shoulders were a bear’s, and he put his feet down wide apart without bending the insteps – also like a bear. The bitter wind was blowing upon him from every side, lifting his matted locks. It was horrible to see, here and there, red patches of bare flesh through the rents in his tattered clothes; it was horrible to hear his wild husky muttering. There were a lot of people in the yard; peasant-women, boys, and servant-girls stood close along the hedge. A few peasants huddled together in a separate group, a little way off. The old village priest, whom I knew, was standing, bareheaded, on the steps of the other house, and holding a brazen cross in both hands, from time to time, silently and hopelessly, raised it, and, as it were, showed it to Harlov. Beside the priest, stood Evlampia with her back against the wall, gazing fixedly at her father. Anna, at one moment, pushed her head out of the little window, then vanished, then hurried into the yard, then went back into the house. Sletkin – pale all over, livid – in an old dressing-gown and smoking-cap, with a single-barrelled rifle in his hands, kept running to and fro with little steps. He had completely gone Jewish, as it is called. He was gasping, threatening, shaking, pointing the gun at Harlov, then letting it drop back on his shoulder – pointing it again, shrieking, weeping… On seeing Souvenir and me he simply flew to us.

‘Look, look, what is going on here!’ he wailed – ‘look! He’s gone out of his mind, he’s raving mad … and see what he’s doing! I’ve sent for the police already – but no one comes! No one comes! If I do fire at him, the law couldn’t touch me, for every man has a right to defend his own property! And I will fire!.. By God, I’ll fire!’

He ran off toward the house.

‘Martin Petrovitch, look out! If you don’t get down, I’ll fire!’

‘Fire away!’ came a husky voice from the roof. ‘Fire away! And meanwhile here’s a little present for you!’

A long plank flew up, and, turning over twice in the air, came violently to the earth, just at Sletkin’s feet. He positively jumped into the air, while Harlov chuckled.

‘Merciful Jesus!’ faltered some one behind me. I looked round: Souvenir. ‘Ah!’ I thought, ‘he’s left off laughing now!’

Sletkin clutched a peasant, who was standing near, by the collar.

‘Climb up now, climb up, climb up, all of you, you devils,’ he wailed, shaking the man with all his force, ‘save my property!’

The peasant took a couple of steps forward, threw his head back, waved his arms, shouted – ‘hi! here! master!’ shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and then turned back.

‘A ladder! bring a ladder!’ Sletkin addressed the other peasants.

‘Where are we to get it?’ was heard in answer.

‘And if we had a ladder,’ one voice pronounced deliberately, ‘who’d care to climb up? Not such fools! He’d wring your neck for you – in a twinkling!’

‘He’d kill one in no time,’ said one young lad with flaxen hair and a half-idiotic face.

‘To be sure he would,’ the others confirmed. It struck me that, even if there had been no obvious danger, the peasants would yet have been loath to carry out their new owner’s orders. They almost approved of Harlov, though they were amazed at him.

‘Ugh, you robbers!’ moaned Sletkin; ‘you shall all catch it…’

But at this moment, with a heavy rumble, the last chimney came crashing down, and, in the midst of the cloud of yellow dust that flew up instantly, Harlov – uttering a piercing shriek and lifting his bleeding hands high in the air – turned facing us. Sletkin pointed the gun at him again.

Evlampia pulled him back by the elbow.

‘Don’t interfere!’ he snarled savagely at her.

‘And you – don’t you dare!’ she answered; and her blue eyes flashed menacingly under her scowling brows. ‘Father’s pulling his house down. It’s his own.’

‘You lie: it’s ours!’

‘You say ours; but I say it’s his.’

Sletkin hissed with fury; Evlampia’s eyes seemed stabbing him in the face.

‘Ah, how d’ye do! my delightful daughter!’ Harlov thundered from above. ‘How d’ye do! Evlampia Martinovna! How are you getting on with your sweetheart? Are your kisses sweet, and your fondling?’

‘Father!’ rang out Evlampia’s musical voice.

‘Eh, daughter?’ answered Harlov; and he came down to the very edge of the wall. His face, as far as I could make it out, wore a strange smile, a bright, mirthful – and for that very reason peculiarly strange and evil – smile… Many years later I saw just the same smile on the face of a man condemned to death.

‘Stop, father; come down. We are in fault; we give everything back to you. Come down.’

‘What do you mean by disposing of what’s ours?’ put in Sletkin. Evlampia merely scowled more angrily.

‘I give you back my share. I give up everything. Give over, come down, father! Forgive us; forgive me.’

Harlov still went on smiling. ‘It’s too late, my darling,’ he said, and each of his words rang out like brass. ‘Too late your stony heart is touched! The rock’s started rolling downhill – there’s no holding it back now! And don’t look to me now; I’m a doomed man! You’d do better to look to your Volodka; see what a pretty fellow you’ve picked out! And look to your hellish sister; there’s her foxy nose yonder thrust out of the window; she’s peering yonder after that husband of hers! No, my good friends; you would rob me of a roof over my head, so I will leave you not one beam upon another! With my own hands I built it, with my own hands I destroy it, – yes, with my hands alone! See, I’ve taken no axe to help me!’

He snorted at his two open hands, and clutched at the centre beam again.

‘Enough, father,’ Evlampia was saying meanwhile, and her voice had grown marvellously caressing, ‘let bygones be bygones. Come, trust me; you always trusted me. Come, get down; come to me to my little room, to my soft bed. I will dry you and warm you; I will bind up your wounds; see, you have torn your hands. You shall live with me as in Christ’s bosom; food shall be sweet to you – and sleep sweeter yet. Come, we have done wrong! yes, we were puffed up, we have sinned; come, forgive!’