Sketches From a Hunter's Album Read online

  Yet no one could compare with Yermolay in skill at catching fish in the springtime flood-water or in grabbing crayfish with his bare hands, in scenting out game, luring quail, training hawks, capturing nightingales with ‘woodsprite pipe’ song or ‘cuckoo’s fly-by’.* Of one thing he was incapable: training dogs. He lacked the patience for it.

  He also had a wife. He would visit her once a week. She lived in a scrappy, partly collapsed little hut, managed somehow or other, never knew from one day to the next whether she would have enough to eat and, in general, endured a bitter fate. Yermolay, that carefree and good-natured fellow, treated her roughly and coarsely, assumed a threatening and severe air in his own home – and his poor wife had no idea of how to indulge him, shuddered at his glance, bought drink for him with her last copeck and dutifully covered him with her own sheepskin coat when he, collapsing majestically on the stove, fell into a Herculean sleep. I myself had occasion more than once to notice in him involuntary signs of a certain morose ferocity. I disliked the expression on his face when he used to kill a winged bird by biting into it. But Yermolay never remained at home longer than a day: and once outside his home territory he again turned into ‘Yermolka’, as he was known by nickname for a good sixty odd miles around and as he used to call himself on occasion. The meanest house-serf felt himself superior to this tramp – and perhaps precisely for this reason always treated him in a friendly fashion; while peasants at first took pleasure in driving him away and trapping him like a hare in the field, but later they let him go with a blessing and, once they were acquainted with this eccentric fellow, kept their hands off him, even giving him bread and striking up a conversation with him… This was the fellow I chose as my hunting companion, and it was with him that I set off for ‘cover’ in a large birch wood on the bank of the Ista.

  Many Russian rivers, after the pattern of the Volga, have one hilly bank and the other of meadowland; the Ista also. This small river winds in an exceedingly capricious fashion, crawling like a snake, never flowing straight for five hundred yards at a time, and in certain places, from the top of a steep hill, one can see six or seven miles of dams, ponds, watermills and kitchen gardens surrounded by willows and flocks of geese. There is a multitude of fish in the Ista, especially bullyheads (in hot weather peasants lift them out by hand from beneath the overhanging bushes). Little sandpipers whistle and flit to and fro along the stony banks which are dotted with outlets for cold, sparkling spring water; wild ducks swim out into the centre of ponds and look guardedly about them; herons stand up stiffly in the shade, in the inlets and below the river’s steep sides.

  We stood in cover for about an hour, shot a couple of brace of woodcock and, wishing to try our luck again before sunrise (one can go out for cover in the morning as well), decided to spend the night at the nearest mill. We made our way out of the wood and went down the hill. The river was rolling along, its surface dark-blue waves; the air thickened under the pressure of the night-time moisture. We knocked at the mill gates. Dogs began to yelp in the yard.

  ‘Who’s there?’ called a husky and sleepy voice.

  ‘Hunters. Let us in for the night.’

  There was no answer.

  ‘We’ll pay.’

  ‘I’ll go and tell the master… Aw, damn you dogs! Nothing awful’s happenin’ to you!’

  We heard the workman enter the hut; soon he returned to the gates.

  ‘No, the master says, he won’t give orders to let you in.’

  ‘Why won’t he?’

  ‘He’s frightened. You’re hunters – soon as you’re in here you’ll likely set fire to the mill. Just look at them firing-pieces you got there!’

  ‘What nonsense!’

  ‘The year afore last this mill of ours burned down. Cattle-dealers spent the night here and some way or another, you know, they set fire to it.’

  ‘Anyway, friend, we’re not spending the night outside!’

  ‘Spend it anyway you know…’ He went off with a clattering of boots.

  Yermolay dispatched after him a variety of unpleasant expressions. ‘Let’s go into the village,’ he said, finally, with a sigh. But it was more than a mile to the village.

  ‘We’ll spend the night here,’ I said. ‘It’s warm outside, and the miller’ll let us have some straw if we pay him.’

  Yermolay tacitly agreed. We began knocking on the gates again.

  ‘What d’you need now?’ the workman’s voice called again. ‘I’ve told you – you can’t come in.’

  We explained to him what we wanted. He went off to consult his master and came back with him. The wicket-gate creaked. The miller appeared, a tall man with a plump face, bull-necked, and large and round of stomach. He agreed to my suggestion.

  A hundred paces from the mill stood a structure with a roof, but open on all four sides. Straw and hay were brought out to us there; the workman set up a samovar on the grass beside the river and, squatting on his haunches, began blowing busily up the samovar’s chimney. The charcoal flared up and brightly illumined his youthful face. The miller ran off to waken his wife and eventually proposed that I should spend the night in the hut; but I preferred to remain out in the open air. The miller’s wife brought us some milk, eggs, potatoes and bread. Soon the samovar was bubbling and we set about having some tea. It was windless and mists were rising from the river; corncrakes were crying in the vicinity; from the direction of the mill-wheels came such faint noises as the drip-drip of water from the paddles and the seepage of water through the cross-beams of the dam. We built a small fire. While Yermolay baked potatoes in the ashes, I managed to doze off.

  A light-voiced, suppressed whispering awoke me. I raised my head: before the fire, on an upturned tub, the miller’s wife was sitting and conversing with my hunting companion. Earlier I had recognized, by her dress, movements and way of speaking, that she was a former house-serf – not from among the peasantry or the bourgeoisie; but it was only now that I could take a good look at her features. She appeared to be about thirty; her thin, pale face still contained traces of a remarkable beauty; I was particularly taken by her eyes, so large and melancholy. She leaned her elbows on her knees and placed her face in her hands. Yermolay sat with his back to me and was engaged in laying sticks on the fire.

  ‘There’s sickness again among the cattle in Zheltukhina,’ the miller’s wife was saying. ‘Both of father Ivan’s cows have died… Lord have mercy on us!’

  ‘And what about your pigs?’ asked Yermolay after a short silence.

  ‘They’re alive.’

  ‘You ought to give me a little porker, you ought.’

  The miller’s wife said nothing and after a while gave a sigh.

  ‘Who are you with?’ she asked.

  ‘With the squire – the Kostomarov squire.’

  Yermolay threw a few fir fronds on the fire; at once they broke into a universal crackling and thick white smoke poured straight into his face.

  ‘Why didn’t your husband let us into the hut?’

  ‘He was frightened.’

  ‘There’s a fat old pot-belly for you… Arina Timofeyevna, be a dear and bring me a wee glass of some of the good stuff!’

  The miller’s wife rose and disappeared into the gloom. Yermolay began singing softly:

  A-walking to my sweetheart

  Wore the shoes off of my feet…

  Arina returned with a small carafe and a glass. Yermolay straightened up, crossed himself and gulped down the drink at one go. ‘That’s lovely!’ he added.

  The miller’s wife again seated herself on the tub.

  ‘So, Arina Timofeyevna, tell me, are you still feeling poorly?’

  ‘I’m still poorly.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The coughing at night hurts me so.’

  ‘It seems the master’s gone to sleep,’ said Yermolay after a brief silence. ‘Don’t you go to no doctor, Arina, or it’ll get worse.’

  ‘I won’t be going in any case.’

  ‘You
come and be my guest.’

  Arina lowered her head.

  ‘I’ll drive my own – my wife, that’s to say – I’ll drive her away for that occasion,’ Yermolay continued. ‘Sure an’ all I will!’

  ‘You’d do better to wake up your master, Yermolay Petrovich. See, the potatoes are done.’

  ‘Let him go on snoozing,’ my faithful servant remarked with indifference. ‘He’s run about so much it’s right he should sleep.’

  I turned over in the hay. Yermolay rose and approached me.

  ‘Come and eat, sir – the potatoes are ready.’

  I emerged from beneath my roofed structure and the miller’s wife got up from her place on the tub, wishing to leave us. I started talking to her.

  ‘Have you been at this mill long?’

  ‘Two years come Whitsun.’

  ‘And where is your husband from?’

  Arina did not catch the drift of my question.

  ‘Whereabouts is your husband from?’ Yermolay repeated, raising his voice.

  ‘From Belev. He’s a townsman from Belev.’

  ‘And you’re also from Belev?’

  ‘No, I’m a serf… I was one, that is.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Mr Zverkov’s. Now I’m free.’

  ‘What Zverkov?’

  ‘Alexander Silych.’

  ‘Were you by any chance his wife’s chambermaid?’

  ‘How d’you know that? Yes, I was.’

  I looked now with renewed curiosity and sympathy at Arina.

  ‘I know your master,’ I continued.

  ‘You do?’ she answered softly, and lowered her eyes.

  It is fitting that I should tell the reader why I looked at Arina with such sympathy. During my period of residence in St Petersburg I happened to become acquainted with Mr Zverkov. He occupied a fairly important position and passed as a capable and well-informed man. He had a wife, plump, emotional, given to floods of tears and bad temper – a vulgar and burdensome creature; there was also a runt of a son, a real little milord, spoiled and witless. Mr Zverkov’s own appearance did little in his favour: out of a broad, almost square face, mousey little eyes peered cunningly and his nose protruded, large and sharp, with wide-open nostrils; grey close-cropped hair rose in bristles above his wrinkled forehead and his thin lips were ceaselessly quivering and shaping themselves into sickly smiles. Mr Zverkov’s habitual stance was with his little legs set wide apart and his fat little hands thrust in his pockets. On one occasion it somehow came about that I shared a carriage with him on a trip out of town. We struck up a conversation. As a man of experience and business acumen, Mr Zverkov began to instruct me concerning ‘the path of truth’.

  ‘Permit me to remark to you,’ he squeaked eventually, ‘that all of you, you young people, judge and explain every single matter in a random fashion; you know little about your own country; Russia, my good sirs, is a closed book to you, that’s what! All you read are German books. For example, you’ve just been saying this and that to me on this question of – well, that’s to say, on this question of house-serfs… Fine, I don’t dispute it, that’s all very fine; but you don’t know them, you don’t know what sort of people they are.’

  Mr Zverkov loudly blew his nose and took a pinch of snuff.

  ‘Permit me to tell, for example, one little tiny anecdote, which could be of interest to you.’ Mr Zverkov cleared his throat with a cough. ‘You certainly know what kind of a wife I have; it would seem hard to find anyone kinder than her, you will yourself agree. Her chambermaids don’t just have food and lodging, but a veritable paradise on earth is created before their very eyes… But my wife has laid down a rule for herself: that she will not employ married chambermaids. That sort of thing just will not do. Children come along and so on – well, a chambermaid in that case can’t look after her mistress as she should, can’t see to all her habits: she’s not up to it, she’s got something else on her mind. You must judge such things according to human nature.

  ‘Well, sir, one day we were driving through our village, it’d be about – how can I say exactly? – about fifteen years ago. We saw that the elder had a little girl, a daughter, extremely pretty; there was even something, you know, deferential in her manner. My wife says to me: “Coco…” You understand me, that’s what she – er – calls me “… we’ll take this little girl to St Petersburg; I like her, Coco…” “Take her with pleasure,” I say. The elder, naturally, falls at our feet; such happiness, you understand, has been too much for him to expect… Well, of course, the girl burst into tears like an idiot. It really is awful for them to start with – I mean, leaving the house where they were born; but there’s nothing to be surprised at in that. Soon, however, she had grown used to us. To start with she was put in the maids’ room, where they taught her what to do, of course. And what d’you think? The girl made astonishing progress; my wife simply fawned on her, and finally, passing over others, promoted her to be one of her own chambermaids. Take note of that! And one has to do her justice: my wife never had such a chambermaid, absolutely never had one like her: helpful, modest, obedient – simply everything one could ask for. As a result, I must admit, my wife even took to spoiling her a bit too much: dressed her superbly, gave her the same food as she had, gave her tea to drink – well, you just can’t imagine how it was!

  ‘So she spent about ten years in my wife’s service. Suddenly, one fine morning, just think of it, Arina – Arina was her name – came unannounced into my study and flopped down at my feet. I will tell you frankly that I can’t abide that sort of thing. A man should never forget his dignity, isn’t that true? “What’s it you want?” “Good master, Alexander Silych, I beg your indulgence.” “In what?” “Allow me to get married.” I confess to you I was astonished. “Don’t you know, you silly girl, that the mistress hasn’t got another chambermaid?” “I’ll go on serving the mistress as I have done.” “Nonsense! Nonsense! the mistress does not employ married chambermaids.” “Malanya can take my place.” “I beg you to keep your ideas to yourself.” “As you wish…”

  ‘I confess I was simply stunned. I will let you know that I’m the sort of man who finds nothing so insulting – I dare say even strongly insulting – as ingratitude. There’s no need for me to tell you – you already know what my wife is: an angel in the very flesh, inexplicably good-natured. The blackest scoundrel, it seems, would take pity on her. I sent Arina away. I thought she’d probably come to her senses; I’m not one, you know, who likes to believe in man’s black ingratitude and evil nature. Then what d’you think? Six months later she again honours me with a visit and makes the very same request. This time, I admit, I drove her away in real earnest and gave her due warning and promised to tell my wife. I was flabbergasted… But imagine my astonishment when a short while later my wife came to me in tears and in such an excited state that I was even alarmed for her. “What on earth’s happened?” “It’s Arina…” You’ll appreciate that I’m ashamed to say it out loud. “It simply can’t be! Who was it?” “The lackey Petrushka.”

  ‘I exploded. I’m that sort of man – I just don’t like half-measures! Petrushka wasn’t to blame. He could be punished, but he wasn’t to blame, in my opinion. Arina… well, what, well, I mean, what need to say anything more? It goes without saying that I at once ordered her hair to be cut off, had her dressed in her shabbiest clothes and packed off to the country. My wife was deprived of an excellent chambermaid, but I had no choice: one just cannot tolerate bad behaviour in one’s own house. Better that a rotten limb should be cut off at once… Well, now you judge for yourself – well, I mean, you know my wife, she’s, she’s, she’s – she’s an angel, when all’s said and done! After all, she was attached to Arina – and Arina knew that and yet behaved shamelessly… Eh? No, say what you like – eh? There’s no point in discussing it! In any case, I had no choice. The ingratitude of this girl annoyed and hurt me personally – yes, me, myself – for a long time. I don’t care what you say, but you’ll no
t find any heart, any feeling, in these people! No matter how much you feed a wolf, it’s still got its heart set on the forest… Science to the fore! But I simply wanted to demonstrate to you…’

  And Mr Zverkov, without finishing, turned his head away and buried himself more snugly in his coat, manfully suppressing an unwanted agitation.

  The reader no doubt understands now why I looked at Arina with sympathy.

  ‘Have you been married long to the miller?’ I asked her at last.

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘Do you mean that your master actually allowed you?’

  ‘Someone bought me off.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Savely Alekseyevich.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘My husband.’ (Yermolay smiled to himself.)

  ‘But did my master talk to you about me?’ Arina added after a short pause.

  I had no idea how to answer the question.

  ‘Arina!’ the miller shouted from a distance. She rose and walked away.

  ‘Is her husband a good man?’ I asked Yermolay.

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Do they have any children?’

  ‘There was one, but it died.’

  ‘The miller must’ve liked her, didn’t he? Did he give a lot of money to buy her off?’

  ‘I don’t know. She knows how to read and write. In their business that’s worth… that’s a good thing. Reckon he must’ve liked her.’

  ‘Have you known her long?’

  ‘A good while. Formerly I used to go to her master’s. Their estate’s round about these parts.’

  ‘And did you know the lackey Petrushka?’

  ‘Pyotr Vasilyevich? Sure I did.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Went off to be a soldier.’

  We fell silent.

  ‘It seems she’s not well, is that so?’ I asked Yermolay finally.

  ‘Some health she has!… Tomorrow, you’ll see, they’ll be flying well from cover. It’d be a good idea for you to get some sleep now.’