The works of Iva��n Turge��nieff

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THE DOG S23

THE guests had long since departed. The clock had struck half -past twelve. There remained in the room only the host, Sergyei Nikolaevitch, and Vladimir. Petrovitch.

II

I HAD a^habit of prowling about our garden every evening, gun in hand, and standing guard against the crows. — I had long cherished a hatred., for those wary,, ra^pacious and crafty birds. On the day of which I have been speaking, I went into the garden as usual, and, after having fruitlessly made the round of all the alleys (the crows recognised me from afar, and merely cawed spasmodically at a distance) , I accidentally approached the low fence which separated our territory from the narrow strip of garden extending behind the right-hand wing and appertaining to it. I was walking along with drooping head. Suddenly I heard voices: I glanced over the fence — and was

petrified A strange spectacle presented

itself to me.

A few paces distant from me, on a grass-plot between green raspberry-bushes, stood a tall, graceful young girl, in a striped, pink frock and with a white kerchief on her head; around her pressed four young men, and she was tapping them in turn on the brow with those small grey flowers, the name of which I do not know, but which are familiar to children; these little flowers form tiny sacs, and burst with a pop when they are struck against anything hard. The young men offered their foreheads to her so willingly, and in the girl's movements (I saw her form in profile) there was something so bewitching, caressing, mocking, and charming, that I almost cried aloud in wonder and pleasure ; and I believe I would have given everything in the world if those lovely little fingers had only consented to tap me on the brow. My gun slid down on the grass, I forgot everything, I devoured with my eyes that slender waist, and the neck and the beautiful arms, and the slightly ruffled fair hair, the intelligent eyi^ and those lashes, and the delicate cheek beneath them. . . .

"Young man, hey there, young man!" — suddenly spoke up a voice near me: — " Is it permissible to stare like that at strange young ladies? "

I trembled all over, I was stupefied Beside me, on the other side of the fence, stood a man with closely-clipped black hair, gazing ironically at me. At that same moment, the young girl turned toward me. ... I beheld huge grey eyes in a mobile, animated face— and this whole face suddenly began to quiver, and to laugh, and the white teeth gleamed from it, the brows elevated themselves in an amusing way. ... I flushed, picked up my gun from the ground, and, pursued by ringing but not malicious laughter, I ran to my own room, flung myself on the bed, and covered my face with my hands. My heart was fairly leaping within me; I felt very much ashamed and very merry: I experienced an unprecedented emotion.

After I had rested awhile, I brushed my hair, made myself neat and went down-stairs to tea. The image of the young girl floated in front of me ; my heart had ceased to leap, but ached in an agreeable sort of way.

" What ails thee? " — my father suddenly asked me: — " hast thou killed a crow? "

I was on the point of telling him all, but refrained and only smiled to myself. ^Is I was preparing for bed, I whirled round thrice on one foot, I know not why, pomaded my hair, got into bed and slept all night like a dead man. Toward morning I awoke for a moment, raised my head,, cast a glance of rapture around me — and fell asleep again.

Ill

" How am I to get acquainted with them? " was my first thought, as soon as I awoke in the morning. I went out into the garden before tea, but did not approach too close to the fence, and saw no one. After tea I w^alked several times up and down the street in front of the villa, and cast a distant glance at the windows. ... I thought I descried her face behind the curtains, and retreated with all possible despatch. " But I must get acquainted," — I thought, as I walked with irregular strides up and down the sandy stretch which extends in front of the Neskutchny Park . . . . " but how? that is the question." I recalled the most trifling incidents of the meeting on the previous evening; for some reason, her manner of laughing at me presented itself to me with particular clearness. . . . But while I was

■ fretting thus and constructing various plans, Fate was already providing for me.

During my absence, ihy mother had received a letter from her new neighbour on grey paper sealed with brown wax, such as is used only on postal notices, and on the corks of cheap wine. In this letter, written in illiterate language, and

, with a slovenly chirography, the Princess requested my mother to grant her her protection: my mother, according to the Princess's words, лѵаз well acquainted with the prominent people on whom the fortune of herself and her children depended, as she had some extremely important law-suits: "I apeal tyou," — she wrote, — "as a knoble woman to a knoble woman, and moarover, it is agriable to me to makeus of this oportunity." In conclusion, she asked permission of my mother to call upon her. I found my mother in an unpleasant frame of mind: my father was not at home, and she had no one with whom to take counsel. It was impossible not to reply to a " knoble woman," and to a Princess into the bargain; but how to reply perplexed my mother.

It seemed to her ill-judged to write a note in French, and my mother was not strong in Rus^ sian orthography herself — and was aware of the fact— and did not wish to compromise herself. She was delighted at my arrival, and immediately ordered me to go to the Princess and explain to her verbally that my mother was always ready, to the extent of her abiUty, to be of service to Her Radiance,* and begged that she would call upon her about one o'clock.

This unexpectedly swift fulfilment of my secret wishes both delighted and frightened me ; but I did not betray the emotion which held possession of me, and preliminarily betook myself to my room for the purpose of donning a new neckcloth and coat ; at home I went about in a round-jacket and turn-over collars, although I detested them greatly.

IV

In the cramped and dirty anteroom of the wing, which I entered with an involuntary trembling of my whole body, I was received by a grey-haired old serving-man with a face the hue of dark cop- r per, pig-lik&r-surly little eyes, and such deep лугіп- 1 kles onJiis-Jor^iead-as-JL^hadnever seen before in niy life. He was carrying опГ"а platter the

I with his foot the door which led into the adjoining

room, he said abruptly:—" What do you want? "

" Is Princess Zasyekin at home? "—I inquired.

"Vonifaty!"— screamed a quavering female voice on the other side of the door.

The servant silently turned his back on me, thereby displaying the badly-worn rear of his livery with its solitary, rusted, armouried button, and went away, leaving the platter on the floor.

" Hast thou been to the police-station? "—went on that same feminine voice. The servant muttered something in reply.—" Hey? .... Some one has come? "—was the next thing audible. . . . . " The yoimg gentleman from next door? —Well, ask him in."

" Please come into the drawing-room, sir,"— said the servant, making his appearance again before me, and picking up the platter from the floor. I adjusted my attire and entered the " drawing-room."

I found myself in a tiny and not altogether

clean room, with shabby furniture which seemed

to have been hastily set in place. At the window,

t in an easy-chair with a broken arm, sat a woman

I of fifty, with uncovered hair * and plain-featured,

clad in an old green gown, and with a variegated

I The custom still prevails in Russia, to a great extent, for all elderly women to wear caps. In the peasant class it is considered as extremely indecorous to go " simple-haired," as the expression runs. — Tbanslatcb.

worsted kerchief round her neck. Her small black eyes fairly bored into me.

I went up to her and made my bow.

" I have the honour of speaking to Princess Zasyekin? "

" I am Princess Zasyekin: and you are the son ofMr. B-?"

" Yes, madam. I have come to you with a message from my mother."

" Pray be seated. Vonif aty ! where are my keys? Hast thou seen them? "

I communicated to Madame Zasyekin my mother's answer to her note. She listened to me, tapping the window-pane with her thick, red fingers, and when I had finished she riveted her eyes on me once more.

" Very good; I shall certainly go," — said she at last. — " But how young you are still! How old are you, allow me to ask? "

" Sixteen," — I replied with involuntary hesitation.

The Princess pulled out of her pocket some dirty, written documents, raised them up to her very nose and began to sort them over.

" 'T is a good age," — she suddenly articulated, turning and fidgeting in her chair. — " And please do not stand on ceremony. We are plain folks."

" Too plain," — I thought, with involuntary disgust taking in with a glance the whole of her homely figure.

At that moment, the other door of the drawing-room was swiftly thrown wide open, and on the threshold appeared the young girl whom I had seen in the garden the evening before. She raised her hand and a smile flitted across her face.

" And here is my daughter,"— said the Princess, pointing at her with her elbow.—" Zinotchka, the son of our neighbour, Mr. B— . What is your name, permit me to inquire? "

" Vladimir,"— I replied, rising and lisping with agitation.

" And your patronymic? "

" Petrovitch."

" Yes ! I once had an acquaintance, a chief of police, whose name was Vladimir Petrovitch also. Vonifaty! don't hunt for the keys; the keys are in my pocket."

The young girl continued to gaze at me with the same smile as before, slightly puckering up her eyes and bending her head a little on one side.

" I have already seen M'sieu Voldemar," — she began. (The silvery tone of her voice coursed through me like a sweet chill.) — " Will you permit me to call you so? "

" Pray do, madam," — I lisped.

"Where was that?" — asked the Princess.

The young Princess did not answer her mother.

" Are you busy now? " — she said, without taking her eyes off me.

" Not in the least, madam." 16

" Then will you help me to wind some wool? Come hither, to me."

She nodded her head at me and left the drawing-room. I followed her.

In the room which we entered the furniture was a little better and was arranged with great taste. —But at that moment I was almost хшаЫе to notice anything ; I moved as though in a dream and felt a sort of intense sensation of well-being verging on stupidity throughout my frame.

The young Princess sat down, produced a knot of red wool, and pointing me to a chair opposite her, she carefully unbound the skein and placed it on my hands. She did all this in silence, with a sort of diverting deliberation, and with the same brilliant and crafty smile on her slightly parted lips. She began to wind the wool upon a card doubled together, and suddenly illumined me with such a clear, swift glance, that I involuntarily dropped my eyes. When her eyes, which were generally half closed, opened to their full extent,* her face underwent a complete change; it was as though light had inundated it.

" What did you think of me yesterday, M'sieu Voldemar? " — she asked, after a brief pause. — " You certainly must have condemned me? "

" I . . . . Princess .... I thought nothing .... how can I "I replied, in confusion.

" Listen," — she returned. — " You do not know 17 me yet; I want people always to speak the truth to me. You are sixteen, I heard, and I am twenty-one; you see that I am a great deal older than you, and therefore you must always speak the truth to me . . . and obey me,"— she added. — " Look at me; why don't you look at me? "

I became still more confused; but I raised my eyes to hers, nevertheless. She smiled, only not in her former manner, but with a different, an approving smile. — " Look at me," — she said, caressingly lowering her voice: — " I don't like that. . . . Your face pleases me ; I foresee that we shall be friends. And do you like me? "—she added

slyly.

" Princess . ..." I was beginning. . . .

" In the first place, call me Zinaida Alexandrovna; and in the second place,— what sort of a habit is it for children "— (she corrected herself) — " for young men — not to say straight out what they feel? You do like me, don't you? "

Although it was very pleasant to me to have her talk so frankly to me, still I was somewhat nettled. I wanted to show her that she was not dealing with a small boy, and, assuming as easy and serious a mien as I could, I said:— " Of course I like you very much, Zinaida Alexandrovna; I have no desire to conceal the fact."

She shook her head, pausing at intervals.— " Have you a governor? "—she suddenly inquired.

" No, I have not had a governor this long time past."

I lied: a month had not yet elapsed since I had parted with my Frenchman.

" Oh, yes, I see: you are quite grown up."

She slapped me lightly on the fingers. — " Hold your hands straight!" — And she busied herself diligently with winding her ball.

I took advantage of the fact that she did not raise her eyes, and set to scrutinising her, first by stealth, then more and more boldly. Her face seemed to me even more charming than on the day before: everything about it was so delicate, intelligent and lovely. She was sitting with her back to the window, which was hung with a white shade ; a ray of sunlight making its way through that shade inundated with a flood of light her fluffy golden hair, her innocent neck, sloping shoulders, and calm, tender bosom. — I gazed at her — and how near and dear she became to me! It seemed to me both that I had known her for a long time and that I had known nothing and had not lived before she came. . . . She wore a rather dark, already shabby gown, with an apron ; I believe I would willingly have caressed every fold of that gown and of that apron. The tips of her shoes peeped out from under her gown; I would have bowed down to those little boots. . . " And here I sit, in front of her,"— I thought.— " I have become acquainted with her .... what

FIRST ЬОѴЕ

happiness, my God! " I came near bouncing out of my chair with rapture, but I merely dangled my feet to and fro a little, like a child who is enjoying dainties.

I felt as much at my ease as a fish does in water, and I would have liked never to leave that room again as long as I lived.

Her eyelids slowly rose, and again her brilliant eyes beamed caressingly before me, and again she laughed.

"How you stare at me!" — she said slowly, shaking her finger at me.

I flushed scarlet " She understands all,

she sees all,"— flashed through my head. " And how could she fail to see and understand all? "

Suddenly there was a clattering in the next room, and a sword clanked.

" Zina! " — screamed the old Princess from the drawing-room. — " Byelovzoroff has brought thee a kitten."

"A kitten!" — cried Zinaida, and springing headlong from her chair, she flung the ball on my knees and ran out.

I also rose, and, laying the skein of wool on the window-sill, went into the drawing-room, and stopped short in amazement. In the centre of the room lay a kitten with outstretched paws ; Zinaida Avas kneeling in front of it, and carefully raising its snout. By the side of the young Princess, taking up nearly the entire wall-space between the windows, was visible a fair-complexioned, curlybaired young man, a hussar, with a rosy face and protruding eyes.

"How ridiculous!" — Zinaida kept repeating: — " and its eyes are not grey, but green, and what big ears it has! Thank you, Viktor Egoritch! you are very kind."

The hussar, in whom I recognised one of the young men whom I had seen on the preceding evening, smiled and bowed, clicking his spurs and clanking the links of his sword as he did so.

" You were pleased to say yesterday that you wished to possess a striped kitten with large ears .... so I have got it, madam. Your word is my law." — And again he bowed.

The kitten mewed faintly, and began to sniff at the floor.

"He is hungry!" — cried Zinaida. — " Vonifaty! Sonya! bring some milk."

The chambermaid, in an old yellow gown and with a faded kerchief on her head, entered with a saucer of milk in her hand, and placed it in front of the kitten. The kitten quivered, blinked, and began to lap.

" What a rosy tongue it has," — remarked Zinaida, bending her head down almost to the floor, and looking sideways at it, under its very nose.

The kitten drank its fill, and began to purr, affectedly contracting and relaxing its paws. Zinaida rose to her feet, and turning to the maid, said indiiferently:— " Take it away."

" Your hand— in return for the kitten,"— said the hussar, displaying his teeth, and bending over the whole of his huge body, tightly confined in a new uniform.

" Both hands,"— repKed Zinaida, offering him her hands. While he was kissing them, she gazed at me over his shoulder.

I stood motionless on one spot, and did not know whether to laugh or to say something, or to hold my peace. Suddenly, through the open door of the anteroom, the figure of our footman, Feodor, caught my eye. He was making signs to me. I mechanically went out to him.

" What dost thou want? "—I asked.

" Your mamma has sent for you," — he said in a whisper. — " She is angry because you do not return with an answer."

" Why, have I been here long? "

" More than an hour."

"More than an hour!"— I repeated involuntarily, and returning to the drawing-room, I began to bow and scrape my foot.

" Where are you going? "—the young Princess asked me, with a glance at the hussar.

" I must go home, madam. So I am to say,"— I added, addressing the old woman,—" that you will call upon us at two o'clock."

" Say that, my dear fellow."

The old Princess hurriedly drew out her snuffbox, and took a pinch so noisily that I fairly jumped.—" Say that,"— she repeated, tearfully blinking and grunting.

I bowed once more, turned and left the room with the same sensation of awkwardness in my back which a very young man experiences when he knows that people are staring after him.

" Look here, M'sieu Voldemar, you must drop in to see us," — called Zinaida, and again burst out laughing.

" What makes her laugh all the time? " I thought, as I wended my way home accompanied by Feodor, who said nothing to me, but moved along disapprovingly behind me. My mother reproved me, and inquired, with surprise, " Wbat could I have been doing so long at the Princess's? " I made her no answer, and went off to my own room. I had suddenly grown very mel- 1 ancholy. ... I tried not to weep. ... I was | jealous of the hussar.

The Princess, according to her promise, called on my mother, and did not please her. I was not present at their meeting, but at table my mother narrated to my father that that Princess Zasyekin seemed to her a femme tres vulgaire; that she had bored her immensely with her requests that she would intervene on her behalf with Prince Sergyei; that she was always having such law-suits and affairs,— (Ze vilaines affaires d' argent, —audi that she must be a great rogue. But my mother added that she had invited her with her daughter to dine on the following day (on hearing the words " with her daughter," I dropped my nose into my plate), — because, notwithstanding, she was a neighbour, and with a name. Thereupon my father informed my mother that he now recalled who the lady was : that in his youth he had known the late Prince Zasyekin, a capitally-educated but flighty and captious man; that in society he was called " le Parisien" because of his long residence in Paris; that he had been very wealthy, but had gambled away all his property —and, no one knew why, though probably it had been for the sake of the money, — " although he might have made a better choice," — added my father, with a cold smile,— he had married the daughter of some clerk in a chancellery, and after his marriage had gone into speculation, and ruined himself definitively.

" 'T is a wonder she did not try to borrow money,"— remarked my mother.

" She is very likely to do it,"— said my father, calmly.—" Does she speak French? "

" Very badly."

" M-m-m. However, that makes no difference. 24

I think thou saidst that thou hadst invited her daughter; some one assured me that she is a very charming and well-educated girl."

"Ah! Then she does not take after her mother."

" Nor after her father," — returned my father. — " He was also well educated, but stupid."

My mother sighed, and became thoughtful. My father relapsed into silence. I felt very awkward during the course of that conversation.

After dinner I betook myself to the garden, but without my gun. I had pledged my word to myself that I would not go near the " Zasyekin garden " ; but an irresistible force drew me thither, and not in vain. I had no sooner approached the fence than I caught sight of Zinaida. This time she was alone. She was holding a small book in her hands and strolling slowly along the path. She did not notice me. I came near letting her shp past; but suddenly caught myself up and coughed.

She turned round but did not pause, put aside with one hand the broad blue ribbon of her round straw hat, looked at me, smiled quietly, and again riveted her eyes on her book.

I pulled off my cap, and after fidgeting about a while on one spot, I went away with a heavy heart. "Que suis-je pour elle?" — I thought (God knows why) in French.

Familiar footsteps resounded behind me; I glanced round and beheld my father advancing toward me with swift, rapid strides.

" Is that the young Princess? "—he asked me.

" Yes."

" Dost thou know her? "

" I saw her this morning at the Princess her mother's."

My father halted and, wheeling abruptly round on his heels, retraced his steps. As he came on a level with Zinaida he bowed courteously to her. She bowed to him in return, not without some surprise on her face, and lowered her book. I saw that she followed him with her eyes. My father always dressed very elegantly, originally and simply; but his figure had never seemed to me more graceful, never had his grey hat sat more handsomely on his curls, which were barely beginning to grow thin.

I was on the point of directing my course toward Zinaida, but she did not even look at me, but raised her book once more and walked awav.